I read stuff like this http://t.co/744MiVhjgB and I just think: "Jesus Christ, this guy coulda been the POTUS!" over and over again.
— billmon (@billmon1) May 14, 2014
Eric Posner, on “John McCain, Schmittian* Humanitarian“:
It’s a new category in political philosophy. His proposal for rescuing the Nigerian girls, from the Kansas City Star (with my annotations):
‘If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without the permission of the host country,’ McCain said Tuesday. Referring to Nigeria’s president, McCain added: ‘I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.’ [!!]
… McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, said the United Nations’ charter gives the United States, the authority to mount a military rescue of the girls. [Actually, no.]…
And Obama shouldn’t worry about what the Senate and the House of Representatives would say if he exercised his authority as commander-in-chief and sent American troops into Nigeria.
‘If we rescued these young girls, an appetite for that?’ McCain said ‘It’d be at the high point of the president’s popularity.’ [Carl Schmitt would be proud.]
For the record, I denounce and repudiate kidnapping of teenage girls, and Boko Haram in general. And I’m very very glad that international opinion has shifted to the point where the Nigerian government has decided that permitting outsiders to assist in the search for those kidnappers is the better option. I’m also very glad that President Obama is a much smarter man and wiser politican than John McCain, because having a President whose first response to every foreign crisis is not BOMB BOMB BOMB makes me genuinely proud!
ETA: From the original Kansas City Star article:
Thus far, the Obama administration has sent a team to Nigeria that includes FBI officials with hostage negotiation skills, five State Department officials, including a team leader, two strategic communications experts, a civiliam security expert and a regional medical support officer. There are also 10 Defense Department planners and advisers who were already in Nigeria and have been instructed to provide support to the kidnapping response, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
Open Thread: One More Reason to Be Grateful for President ObamaPost + Comments (98)