Description: Discussion #7 - Military
Candidate: Sen. Obama
Question: What is the your doctrine for use of force that the United States would send when we don't have national security issues at stake? ]
BROKAW: Senator Obama, let me ask you if -- let's see if we can establish tonight the Obama doctrine and the McCain doctrine for the use of United States combat forces in situations where there's a humanitarian crisis, but it does not affect our national security.
Take the Congo, where 4.5 million people have died since 1998, or take Rwanda in the earlier dreadful days, or Somalia.
What is the Obama doctrine for use of force that the United States would send when we don't have national security issues at stake?
OBAMA: Well, we may not always have national security issues at stake, but we have moral issues at stake.
If we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in?
If we could've stopped Rwanda, surely, if we had the ability, that would be something that we would have to strongly consider and act.
So when genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.
OBAMA: And so I do believe that we have to consider it as part of our interests, our national interests, in intervening where possible.
But understand that there's a lot of cruelty around the world. We're not going to be able to be everywhere all the time. That's why it's so important for us to be able to work in concert with our allies.
Let's take the example of Darfur just for a moment. Right now there's a peacekeeping force that has been set up and we have African Union troops in Darfur to stop a genocide that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
We could be providing logistical support, setting up a no-fly zone at relatively little cost to us, but we can only do it if we can help mobilize the international community and lead. And that's what I intend to do when I'm president.
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