Suddenly, after Obama’s Oslo speech, warfare seems to have become more respectable. While campaigning for the presidency, this man consistently criticized Bush’s position on the war on terror. He now appears to have had a major epiphany with his discovery of the “just war” theory.
The person who once declared himself to be a peacemaker now advises the world that, “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” and, “There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
He was supposed to be different, but no: Forget Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. because, “As a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.”
Those quotes from Barack Obama’s Oslo address are high rhetoric from a man who was supposed to “draw down troops.” Look: Nothing has changed in the war on terror from the time that Barack Obama began campaigning for the presidency to the time that he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize. Except, that is, his reversal of campaign promises concerning the war on terror.
In the Oslo speech some of which was “fine-tuned” by Jon Favreau, a 27 year-old speechwriter who graduated from Holy Cross College, a Jesuit institution, the President was ill advised when he stated, “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."
Nonsense! With the use of that last phrase, the President could not be more wrong. It is not the limits of reason which necessitate the use of force. On the contrary, it is the failure to reason.
If our President is going to use “just war” theory as his basis for engaging in major military conflicts, then he needs to read Augustine and Aquinas, the men who wrote the book on it. Neither would it hurt for him to bone up on the full text of Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address on the use of reason, the one that world media completely distorted and which discombobulated such a large segment of Islamic intellectuals.
Marine recruiting ads emphasize the need for “a few good men.” Perhaps Obama could also use a few good Jesuits.
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