Let me first say that I am a huge fan of Barack Obama. His candidacy is a dream come true for me, for a number of reasons. However, I am still a but uneasy regarding many of Obama's policy proposals and the manner in which he has been "running to the center".
In regard to these concerns, I have been comforted by Obama's background in a way that I sense many others on Daily Kos and all over the country have been. We hear a lot of the "centrist" rhetoric but are convinced that with his black, multiracial, and international background, Obama is actually much further to the left than his rhetoric would have one believe.
Such reasoning has figured in most prominently with respect to foreign policy.
Obama talks just like any other nation-building neo-con type with a somewhat black/white, good/evil view of the rest of the world. But I, many people on Daily Kos, many Americans, and (it seems) most of the rest of the world still feel Obama will be different. After all, a black man who has no doubt encountered racism his entire life, who has been raised in part overseas, had parents of different races and nationalities, and is of Islamic ancestry MUST be different. We sense that in his core, he is able to understand and appreciate the humanity of non-Americans in a way that run-of-the-mill American politicians just can't. We sense that he believes more firmly than other politicians in a reasonable, respectful approach towards dealing with the rest of the world and will not resort to childish vilification of entire groups of people. That's why the international community is so excited about Obama's possible election. It appears that it will be an end to the cowboy diplomacy, ignorance, and disrespect of the Bush years.
I don't particularly like the idea that Obama is campaigning on to basically tweak the "War on Terror" and refocus it from Iraq to Afghanistan. It's far from an anti-war position, and seems like more of the same. We know why Obama has to be in favor of "some war" (as Bill Maher recently pointed out). Otherwise, he'd be a "pussy" who can't defend the country. However, the mystery remains: is Obama secretly a real anti-war candidate or more of the same?
I think that the US approach in handling the "War on Terror" is fundamentally flawed. It basically ignores the reasons why we were attacked in the first place. Let's be clear: I'm not trying to defend the cowardly, horrible attacks. Bin Laden and the terrorists are obviously sick people who should be captured and tried. However, they didn't attack us because of our "freedom" or culture or anything like that. They attacked us because of our "policemen of the world" role.
It takes a certain level of maturity, which we have never had, to try to consider the situation from an outside perspective. Any concern for the number of Iraqi casualties since 2003 would be labeled "un-American". For some reason, other nations should never be able to feel the same way we do when their civilians are killed by a foreign power. Any call for a more balanced approach to the Israel-Palestine issue would be distorted as being "anti-Semitic". I think Ron Paul hit the nail on the head with his assessment of the flaws in the way which we deal with other countries:
"Try to visualize if a country, say China, came that great distance across the ocean and they say 'we want you to live like us, we want you to have our economic system, we want bases on your land, we want to protect our oil'. Even if we do that with good intentions, even if the Chinese did that with good intentions, we would all be together and we would be furious."
I think Obama will have an overall more respectful, diplomatic way of dealing with other nations. But I still fear that he, and most of the nation, will continue to ignore the root causes of our terrorist problem. I still worry that we will be pouring billions of dollars every month into foreign wars. I have never expected Obama to come out and state in the open what I believe is the root of the problem. That would be political suicide. But I have hoped that his actions as president would move us significantly away from the path we have been taking in foreign policy.