I for one am still willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt–even on Afghanistan, even on health care–until these issues play themselves out–at least until the end of his first term. The successes may not have happened yet, but neither have the disasters–in spite of Pauli’s and others’ overblown rhetoric.

Now, those Bush disasters–they have indeed happened and some are still ongoing. History, as it turns out, is “the decider” par excellence.

No, human nature is flawed, but that does not mean war is a “fundamental aspect of human nature.” And even though human nature is flawed, there can be progress and an eventual end to war even without perfecting human nature.

Sam,

Could you support that by quoting from the speech? Obama spoke of progress over the years in dealing with warfare. He said, “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” That is quite different from saying, “There will always be war.” He further said, “I have spoken to the questions that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me turn now to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.” He is looking for further progress, not denying it can be made.

This does not sound to me like someone who is justifying “perpetual war”:

Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The nonviolence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their faith in human progress — must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

He is expressly denying that flawed human nature means there can never be peace. He is affirming a faith in human progress. I just don’t see any justification for calling someone who says we will not see an end to war in our lifetimes a “war lord” who is justifying “perpetual war.”

I disagree. Obama’s carefully crafted speech makes a very clear point: War is a fundamental aspect of human nature (a la Hobbes) and, from there, we can only expect it to continue as “natural.”

I still think you are misreading the President. I don’t think the President says that war must always be the response to evil in the world or always be the response to terrorism.

I think even President Bush hoped war would be infrequent or never. You quoted President Obama calling us to strive for peace, so I think he does too.

I don’t see much in the President’s address that indicated regular usage, though regular is a subjective term. Maybe you could elaborate as to where you see this.

We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.

I don’t think it’s currently possible, practically speaking, to meet all the conditions of a just war, but then, I don’t imagine we’ll stop fighting wars anytime soon. I’d be somewhat content if the U.S. adopted a policy in which war was rarely if ever used, rather than routinely justified and fought. War should be outlawed by international consent, in my view, but that’s never going to happen if we keep making excuses for it.

Kurt,

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see that President Obama shares your hope that the instruments of war should be infrequently or never used. He says such instruments are regularly necessary for peace.

They mostly do sit idle. Even now with the situation in Iraq and Afghanstan most of our instruments of war are idle.
Obama defends the instruments of war on defensive and humanitarian grounds and as a necessary response to evil in the world.

I too, because of the existance of evil in the world, support our possession of instruments of war rather than unilateral disarment. I hope our use of them is as infrequent as possible. In fact, I would hope they would never be used, though I think that is unlikely.