The Palin Doctrine - One Step Closer To Running

It went largely unnoticed in the furor surrounding the killing of Osama bin-Laden, but Governor Sarah Palin made an important policy speech in Denver, Colorado and made a change in her team to reflect it.

She was at Colorado Christian University, the headline speaker at a benefit for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a nonprofit group that provides grief counseling and other support services to the families of fallen American troops.

"Their courage and their determination brought us justice," Palin said of those who hunted Osama bin-Laden for nearly 10 years. "They know that freedom isn't free. It's a God-given right and worth fighting for."

The meat of the speech reveals that she's been doing some serious thinking on foreign policy issues and how American troops are used:

See, these are deadly serious questions that we must ask ourselves when we contemplate sending Americans into harm’s way. Our men and women in uniform deserve a clear understanding of U.S. positions on such a crucial decision.

I believe our criteria before we send our young men and women, America’s finest, into harm’s way, I believe that our criteria should be spelled out clearly when it comes to the use of our military force. I can tell you what I believe that criteria should be. I can tell you what it should be in five points:

First, we should only commit our forces when clear and vital American interests are at stake.

Second, if we have to fight, we fight to win. To do that we use overwhelming force. We only send our troops into war with the objective to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. We do not send our military and stretch out the mission with an open-ended and ill-defined mission. Nation-building, a nice idea in theory, but it’s not the main purpose of our armed forces. We use our military to win wars.

And third,we must have clearly defined goals and objectives before sending our troops into harm’s way. If you can’t explain the mission to the American people clearly, concisely, then our sons and daughters should not be sent to battle. Period.

Fourth, American soldiers must never be put under foreign command. We will fight side by side by our allies, but American soldiers must remain under the care and command of the American officers.

And fifth, sending our armed forces should be the last resort. We don’t go looking for dragons to slay. However, we will encourage the forces of freedom around the world who are sincerely fighting for the empowerment of the individual.

When it makes sense, when it’s appropriate, we’ll provide them with support and help them win their own freedom. We’re not indifferent to the cause of human rights or the desire for freedom. We’re always on the side of both. But we can’t fight every war. We can’t undo every injustice around the world.

But with strength, and clarity in those five points, we’ll make for a safer, more prosperous, more peaceful world. Because as the U.S. leads by example, as we support freedom across the globe, we’re gonna prove that free and healthy countries, they don't wage war on other free and healthy countries.

The stronger we are, the stronger and more peaceful the world will be under our example.

In other words, Governor Palin is putting people on notice that she is no neocon, but a Reagan conservative who believes in peace through strength.

That was underlined by another move she made, cutting ties with longtime neocon advisers Randy Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb of Orion Strategies who are no longer working with her PAC.

Her new foreign policy adviser? None other than Hoover Fellow and Big Peace editor Michael Schweizer, who aside from being scary smart has views on nation building and war and peace that correspond a lot with Governor Palin's Denver speech.

Aside from being a killer pairing of talent, this once again shows me that Governor Palin is getting very close to making a decision to run for the White House.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!