I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the panel today. I wished I could promise you an eloquent statement to convert all of you to non-interventionist foreign policy, a policy where we’re not nation building but I don’t think I promise you that.
I wish I could come up with profound questions or the panel to point out the inconsistencies not of the current foreign policy but the foreign policy gonig on for quite a few decades, but all I can think about are terms that come to mind that I’ve learned all the way back in the 1960s when I was serving as a, a Military Officer, an Air Force Officer for five years.
And I come up with thoughts, quagmire, perpetual war for perpetual peace. War is the health of the State. War is a racket. Truth is the first casualty of war, and I think there’s some profoundness to that I had to plagiarize those are not my thoughts.
But today we’re in a mess and we’re trying to figure out how to do it. We’ve had a war going on eight years and I think it has to do with the way we get into the wars and try to justify why we’re there later on. One thing that almost all debates of preempted by is don’t come of as an extremist. Can we have a military victory, 500,000 troops go in and iwn like we used to? No. That’s off base. But you want to just come home? No. That’s not allowed.
We have to have this balancing act which guarantees the politicizing of the war. This is why we end up with court-martials and arts that are justified. We end up with military tribunals and secret prisons, because we’re not precise at what our goals are and why we’re involved, and I think that is the biggest problem that we have, and what we need to do, I think, is try to be more precise about why we go into war.
Now, the question I have for the panel and I hope each and every one of you can answer this question, is I would like to know whether you – whether or not you endorse the Bush Doctrine?
Ironically, last night the speech was given, which truly was eloquent, but it was given in the same place that the former president gave a speech, in 2002, and emphasized a profound, dramatic change in our attitude towards the world. And it’s recognized now as the Bush Doctrine. I think it’s something maybe one of the most important events in our history when it comes down to foreign policy.
So each and every one of you, do you endorse the Bush Doctrine of preventative war or do you reject it?
