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Warrior in Chief
By peter l. bergen
Published: April 28, 2012
THE president who won the
Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after his inauguration has turned out
to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades.
Liberals helped to elect
Barack Obama in part because of his opposition to the Iraq war, and
probably don’t celebrate all of the president’s many military accomplishments.
But they are sizable.
Mr.
Obama decimated Al Qaeda’s leadership. He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He
ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan,
waged effective covert wars in Yemen
and Somalia and authorized a
threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He
became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States
citizen, Anwar
al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role
in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. And, of
course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin
Laden.
Ironically,
the president used the Nobel Peace
Prize acceptance speech as an occasion to articulate his philosophy
of war. He made it very clear that his opposition to the Iraq war didn’t
mean that he embraced pacifism — not at all.
“I face
the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the
American people,” the president told the Nobel committee — and the world. “For
make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not
have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to
lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to
cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man, and the
limits of reason.”
^^^
Mr. Obama’s readiness to use
force — and his military record — have won him little support from the right.
Despite countervailing evidence, most conservatives view the president as some
kind of peacenik. From both the right and left, there has been a continuing,
dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama’s record and the public
perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use
force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is.
Mr.
Obama had firsthand experience of military efficacy and precision early in his
presidency. Three months after his inauguration, Somali pirates held Richard
Phillips, the American captain of the Maersk Alabama, hostage in the Indian Ocean. Authorized to use deadly force if Captain
Phillips’s life was in danger, Navy SEALs parachuted to a nearby warship, and
three sharpshooters, firing at night from a distance of 100 feet, killed the
pirates without harming Captain Phillips.
Read full article here:
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