Bellicosity Is Neither Patriotic Nor Effective

TW: Backseat driving is not unusual from political opponents. But Republicans almost never pass up the chance to impugn the intelligence, integrity and patriotism of progressives relative to national security. The audacity of arrogance personified by Gingrich and Hanson below is the sort that drives me crazy. Why anyone, whose knee jerk response is to shoot and ask questions later at any and all perceived affronts to the U.S., feels they credibility befuddles me. Obama has taken guff for not waltzing through Europe as some form of emperor afraid to acknowledge any complicity on the part of the U.S. in the world's problems. Don't conservative understand the concepts of:
1) walking softly and carrying a big stick (as opposed to the too much hat and not enough cattle approach of a W. Bush)
2) aiming before firing (unlike our due diligence prior to the Iraq War)
3) those who can acknowledge their own faults strengthen their own credibility

We are the greatest nation in the world, the largest economy by a factor of at least two, the largest military by a factor of three. When you have the power, why flaunt it like an adolescent jock? Think scalpels instead of dull sabers. We can keep bludgeoning our way to fiscal and moral national suicide or we can exhibit some maturity.

Too often bellicosity has been confused for patriotism. We elected Obama to get away from the frat house approach of his predecessor and cronies. Patriotism takes many forms. Here is to hoping intelligence, integrity and judgment can become more respected than bellicosity and testosterone.

From Economist:
"FORTY-EIGHT hours ago, the pressure was building on Barack Obama to do something about the pirate hostage stand-off near the coast of Somalia. The attitude was best summed up by Newt Gingrich, the bellicose former speaker of the House and new media obsessive, who tweeted that "the right solution is for [Navy S]eals to go in during the night and stop the pirates while saving the hostage." Later: "The navy has plenty of resolve. It is the White House that is confused." Later: "As a historian I know that weakness encourages predators and aggressors and strength convinces them to quit."

Well, the crisis is over, with the endgame playing out just as Mr Gingrich would've liked. Captain Richard Phillips is now a free man; three pirates are dead by way of three Navy Seal bullets. What was becoming a political problem for the president is a 24-hour story about a minor military victory. In brute political terms, this is exactly what Republicans didn't need: while they'll never admit it now, they wondered if this would become an example of Mr Obama's weakness, like Jimmy Carter's botched Iranian hostage rescue in Operation Eagle Claw. Instead, Mr Phillips becomes a hero and Mr Obama gets a sudden injection of political goodwill, days before Republicans take to the streets to protest his spending plans."

From Victor Hanson at National Review:
"1) Piracy may or may not be a matter of American national security, but the American people will not for long stand the notion that a captive brave American ship captain risks his life to escape, while formidable American naval power either cannot or will not punish the miscreants;
2) Pompey's victories over the Cilician pirates, the Venetian clean-up of the Mediterranean sea-lanes, and the British success in stopping Caribarrean piracy were all predicated on going ashore, destroying the docks, headquarters, and homes of the pirates. To end Somali piracy, disproportionate measures against the shore should be taken—for every one pirate assault, a lethal air assault should immediately follow.[TW: BOMB, BOMB, BOMB...Bomb them all too hell!!! Victor et al. would have started WWIII in 1962 in Cuba without a doubt, but then they would have started on ten other occasions as well probably]
3) In academic circles the last two decades, pirates have been romanticized in a variety of contexts—as in pirates being contrarian individualists, admirable anarchists, Marxist redistributionists, sexually ambiguous, cross-dressing, transgendered libertines, and Lotus-eater-like sensualists, rather than as murderous criminals. Who knows, maybe such esoteric theorizing has filtered down to the U.S. State Department.[TW: what does Johnny Depp have to do with this...]
4) The Obamists better be careful in their serial apologetics, "Bush did it" throat-clearing, and caving to European, Russia, Turkish, etc. agendas. Slowly, but clearly we are establishing a new atmosphere in which the old unpredictability, military preparedness, and deterrence will be lost, replaced by a touchy-feely sort of seminar discussion, laced with atonement, reaction. And then the two-bit pirates who boast "We are not afraid of the Americans" will be the least of our problems."