A simple response to the "Global Test" rhetoric.

[aden_nak]

Kerry is receiving a fair amount of flak about his concept of the Global Test for the use of American military force. The right wing spin is that John Kerry would let other nations decide when America is allowed to protect itself. That's not what he said at all, and there's a very simple way to respond to that sort of thing.

If American is justified in using military force to defend itself, it will always pass the Global Test.

Think about it. If we have reached the point of sending out armed forces into combat, we should be able to clearly demonstrate why that needs to be done. We should have a concrete threat we are responding to. We should have actual EVIDENCE of wrong-doing. We should be able to plausibly argue that a diplomatic solution is either not viable or has already failed.

Those should be the conditions for putting our troops in harms way. If we cannot do those basic things, if we cannot prove that America is actually in danger, then why ARE we taking military action? The current administration failed to do any of those things. And now here we are, two years later, wallowing in the aftermath of an unjustified war whose cost in both dollars and blood seems without limit.