Israel Matzav

Palin: 'Fight to win with overwhelming force with the objective to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible'

Sarah Palin has dumped her foreign policy advisers from the McCain days and has enunciated a doctrine of use of force that is music to my ears: "Fight to win with overwhelming force with the objective to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible."

On Sunday, Sarah Palin was the Keynote Speaker in Denver at an event to honour America’s military families. Here’s a transcript of the Palin Doctrine which she articulated there.

A lesson here then for effective use of force, as opposed to sending our troops on missions that are ill-defined. And it can be argued that our involvement elsewhere, say, in Libya, is an example of a lack of clarity.

See, these are deadly serious questions that we must ask ourselves when we contemplate sending Americans into harm’s way. Our men and women in uniform deserve a clear understanding of U.S. positions on such a crucial decision.

I believe our criteria before we send our young men and women, America’s finest, into harm’s way, I believe that our criteria should be spelled out clearly when it comes to the use of our military force. I can tell you what I believe that criteria should be. I can tell you what it should be in five points:

First, we should only commit our forces when clear and vital American interests are at stake, period.

Second, if we have to fight, we fight to win. To do that we use overwhelming force. We only send our troops into war with the objective to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. We do not send our military and stretch out the mission with an open-ended and ill-defined mission. Nation-building, a nice idea in theory, but it’s not the main purpose of our armed forces. We use our military to win wars.

And third, we must have clearly defined goals and objectives before sending our troops into harm’s way. If you can’t explain the mission to the American people clearly, concisely, then our sons and daughters should not be sent to battle. Period.

Fourth, American soldiers must never be put under foreign command. We will fight side by side by our allies, but American soldiers must remain under the care and command of the American officers.

And fifth, sending our armed forces should be the last resort. We don’t go looking for dragons to slay. However, we will encourage the forces of freedom around the world who are sincerely fighting for the empowerment of the individual.

Read it all.

Labels: Sarah Palin, use of force

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:50 AM