Obama and Genocide

Today Barack Obama said, "the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

"Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven't done," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Or you could look at it this way Senator: If preventing genocide is not a good enough reason to keep US forces in a foreign country, then we should not have invaded Germany. Or do you mean to say that the Jewish population has more value than the Kurds or Sunnis or Shiites?

To argue that the absence of troops in the Congo extends to removing troops from Iraq is a negative argument. The fact that we have failed to do right by the Congo does not justify doing wrong to potential genocide victims in Iraq.

Is the Senator suggesting that the US should never become involved in any foreign situation again? That is the kind of self-centered, neo-isolationism that runs exactly counter to all the US has come to stand for. We are supposed to be a caring nation. Just because we have failed the people in the Congo, does not mean we should not or cannot care about Iraq's people.

We have come to expect double-talk from our politicians. But Senator, at least you could try to be consistent.