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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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This time, how about a debate of substance?
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Race
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Nov 05, 2011 03:10pm |
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| Category | Commentary |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
| News Date | Friday, November 4, 2011 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By George F. Will, Published: November 4
The Republican presidential candidates, their sinews stiffened and their blood summoned up, may rightly dread Wednesday’s version of what are inexplicably called debates. The candidates have some explaining to do, particularly regarding two subjects that deserve more searching examination than is possible in 60-second bursts on a stage cluttered with eight contestants. But perhaps certain candidates can be compelled to expand upon, and improve upon, what they have been saying about foreign policy and about the role of the judiciary in American democracy.
Most of the candidates have disparaged Barack Obama’s decision that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq this year. (Ron Paul considers the withdrawal of U.S. assets insufficiently thorough; but, then, he might favor U.S. withdrawal from territories of the constitutionally dubious Louisiana Purchase.) What is the candidates’ objection to Obama implementing the status-of-forces agreement that his predecessor signed in 2008?
The candidates should answer three questions: How many troops would they leave in Iraq? For how long? And for what purpose? If eight years, 4,485 lives and $800 billion are not enough, how many more of each are they prepared to invest there? And spare us the conventional dodge about “listening to” the “commanders in the field.” Each candidate is aspiring to be commander in chief in a nation in which civilians set policy for officers to execute.
Since most of the candidates seem eager to continue the U.S. presence in Iraq, what other presences do they consider sacrosanct? Twenty-two years after the Berlin Wall crumbled, the United States has 80,000 troops stationed in Europe, 54,000 of them in Germany, a prosperous and remarkably stable country with equally pacific neighbors. |
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