Be Afraid

Marc Cooper over at the HuffPo says that Hillary's new campaign message is "Be Afraid".

Of course, she wants us to be afraid of the the big frightening world out there, so that she can be our savior. Or as Instapundit put it, "Mama's gonna make everything all right".

So, since the world is big a scary, with lots of mean people, you would suppose that the get-tough Hillary would confront them head-on, right? Lets see....

"When that person gets into the Oval Office," she [Hillary] said, referring to the next president, "there will be a stack of problems already waiting: a war, another war to resolve..."

Resolve? Resolve?? How about 'win'?

I guess this should be of no surprise. when was the last time you heard a Democrat state that they wanted to win this war? I mean even if your goal is to get out of the war, at least say "Let's win this thing and go home!"

Again it is no surprise that Hillary's official campaign website states:

"And to keep our country safe, we need to start engaging our enemies again. During the Cold War, with missiles pointed at us, we never stopped talking to the Soviet Union. That didn't mean we agreed with them or approved of them. But it did mean we came to understand them -- and that was crucial to confronting the threats they posed."

To wit my first question is, "OK ma'am, which weapon should we engage them with? M-4?, JDAM?, GAU-8 perhaps?"



But seriously....yes we did negotiate with the Soviets, because we knew them to be fairly rational actors. But if one comes to "understand", as Hillary suggests, our current enemies (DPRK, Iran, Al Qaeda) you will find them a mostly irrational bunch. And one can not reliably "engage" an irrational actor, at least if the goal is to "resolve" a problem. The irrational actor will either laugh at you for being a fool, or deceive you to their own ends.

So, yes Hillary, engagement is the key, but sometimes engagement comes in the form of rough men ready to do violence, rather than delicate diplomatic discussions.

UPDATE:  Perhaps we should send Hillary a copy of the new FM 3-0 (Doctrine for Dummies), or its new video compendium available at Blackfive.