Outsourcing or Multilateralism

Here's a cogent bit of logic:

Senator John Kerry has recently opined, "Why hasn't Osama Bin Laden been captured or killed, and how will he be destroyed before he next appears on tape to spread his disgusting message?"

Then the senator argued that bin Laden lives "because Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon didn't use American troops to do the job and instead outsourced the job of killing the world's #1 terrorist to Afghan warlords, this cold blooded killer got away."

About the same time, Senator Clinton intoned of Iran, "I believe we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations. I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines."

This liberal saber rattling is born of an understandable desire to restore their lost credibility on national security, but they have failed to notice two problems with their newfound approach.

First, if the United States did seek to engage mostly indigenous Afghan troops or Pakistani soldiers, or if we did allow Britain, France, and Germany to run negotiations with Iran, then such "outsourcing" might be better described as "multilateralism."

Part of his analysis points to the problem that the Democrats continue to fail at; they are willing to call an issue a problem, but then refuse to provide an alternative action plan. This tactic is nearly systemic in that party. I can understand pointing to a problem, but if you have no alternative, you are providing nothing of value to the solution.

Hanson gives a bit of analysis on the available alternatives, and they aren't pretty in either case.