We have heard a lot in the last few days about the “Bush Doctrine” and whether or not Governor Sarah Palin really understands what it is.
My question is do any of us really understand what this is and was it a fair question to throw to Palin? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Yes, that was a totally fair question. Any student of history or politics *should* know what the Bush Doctrine (or more accurately, the Bush Corollary) is, along with other important presidential doctrines–i.e., the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary.
For reference, the Monroe Doctrine stated that, should any European nation attempt to interfere with the independence of any North or South American nation, then the US will step in to help that nation become independent. Likewise, Teddy Roosevelt stated that the US would step in to stabilize the economy of American nations should they not be able to repay their debt. Franklin Roosevelt essentially overturned this with the Good Neighbor Policy, which took the opposite end of aggression, allowing dictators to come to power in Cuba and other countries.
From these two doctrines, the Bush Doctrine naturally follows. Instead of just stepping in to protect other countries, Bush believes that we have the right to invade any country that may or may not have the potential to someday invade our own country.
Now on to my own opinion. The problem with this is not pre-emptive protection of our own nation. Rather, the problem is that sometimes our intelligence of who’s actually a threat can be misleading. This is especially true in cases where we obtain information via torture. Did you know that the CIA has caught Osama bin Laden 5 or 10 times? No, not the real one. But that’s what the person they had in custody claimed after being deprived of food and water or after being waterboarded enough. Torture will make a torturee say anything that the torturers want to hear. Instead, we need to rely on REAL information, hard tangible facts, and *possibly* information gained through the use of incentive/disincentive interrogation (aka “good cop/bad cop” — e.g., “do you know anything about X? Great, thanks, here’s a Koran for you. Anything else? Wonderful, you can attend services at the nearest mosque next week. What about Y? Oh, don’t want to talk about that? Fine, you just lost your prayer mat.” See how much better that works?)
Definitely see your point, thanks for the comment!
I think it’s fair - she should know. I think it’s awesome that she demonstrated how Gibson didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is. He was referring to an older iteration of the Doctrine - one that has been superseded since around late 2003. Good to see you blogging again.