A Sophisticated Vision

TW: The viewpoints outlined below represent, amongst other reasons, why I voted for BHO. He demonstrates the right vision and with some cooperation and luck will hopefully be able to execute the vision. He understands the pacifists in his own party focus too much on the costs of war to the detriment of providing any security, while the jingoistic paranoids in the other party focus too much on the risks to our security resulting in grasping for an impossible level of security and dimishment of liberty. National security is a chess game requiring balance, skill and will.

From POTUS December 10, 2009 Oslo, Norway:
"We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower."
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/12/10/a-noble-lecture/