Obama on International Relations

One of the reasons I am supporting Obama is his stance on how we will bring other countries to the table, versus Bush's wars and the coalition of the willing. Obama quotes President Kennedy, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

There are so many situations currently where that attitude would get us further, then declaring war and invading a country. While we are making headway with North Korea, I am still very nervous that things may flare up again (for those who are reading that are not aware, I lived in South Korea for three and a half years and am married to a Korean). I also think there needs to be progress made in terms of human rights violations within North Korea, as they are notorious for how poorly they treat their citizens.

At the same time, we as a nation need to start leading by example. Since the war on terrorism has begun, our military has been marred by the Abu Ghraib scandal as well as secret prisons overseas where torture has been conducted. The sad thing is that it isn't the first nor the last time the US has been involved in torture. Our country has a long history of torture and abuse.

While other presidential candidates and their supporters like to point out Obama's lack of experience (which is a weak argument in itself), he makes up for it in the fact that he surrounds himself with people who have the knowledge in the areas he lacks it. Obama has been a community organizer, a professor of constitutional law, Illinois state senator and US Senator.

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