Category: foreign politics

WE AMERICANS HAVE BEEN SO NAIVE

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Authored by William Robert Barber

From about the turn of the 1900’s we Americans have taken upon ourselves to expend our blood and treasury in Cuba, Nicaragua, the Philippines, China, the Mexican border skirmishes, France, and Belgium. Now, fast-forward another twenty years and into the present to include Germany, Italy, North Africa, Korea, the Pacific islands, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other distant lands that five minutes of research could verify. Thousands upon thousands of Americans have died directly from battle wounds and thousands more from disease, shock, sorrow, and starvation as a consequence of their engagement.

I do believe that the two World Wars not only killed, murdered, and maimed millions of humans. But in fact, the devastation inflicted upon humankind by their fellow humans was/is to a large part caused by the naive, imprudent foreign policy, exercised by this nation’s leadership. The list of such naïve and imprudent policies initiated by former American presidents consists of certainly more than the two noted below.

However, Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt are perfect leadership models of this nation’s credulously unwise policies.

Wilson was an international idealist. A liberal progressive leader, serving as president before and during World War One. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a liberal progressive who grew to favor an oligarchic-socialist form of governing, he too was also president prior to and during the last World War.

Both leaders utilized the reason of present danger and economic emergency to dramatically enlarge the qualitative size of government power. Interestingly, in proportion to the enhancement of government in general, specifically, so grew the power of the executive branch. Irrespective of the growth of their domestic and international power, both of these leaders, Wilson as one of the victors of The Great War allowed the United States to be bullied and ostracized by his wartime allies. The other, with the atom bomb exclusively within his arsenal, the largest American Army ever station and at the ready in Europe, withstanding, Roosevelt does not protect the Europeans from Stalin. As if stymied, unable to comprehend the obvious and connect the dots. Ignoring the advice of Churchill, to the detriment of a democratic Europe, Roosevelt’s naive policies worked in favor of Soviet dominance; when challenged by a totalitarian regime, this American president faltered and failed to secure the peace. Roosevelt’s inaction serviced the Soviet Union as if the west was a Stalinist ally. In the grand game between a totalitarian dictatorship and a democratically elected republic, the good guys suffered an ignominious defeat. Roosevelt, the leader of the free world, ceded his Queen for fear of the opposition’s many pawns.

The Traité de Paix de Versailles and the Potsdamer Konferenz set the stage for future wars by creating (or allowing to be created) issues, concerns, and situations that preempted the next violent engagement. Versailles created draconian reparations upon Germany’s citizens; Potsdam ceded Eastern Europe to Stalin’s Russia. And if that was not enough, idiocy western leadership agreed on a divided Korea.

In 1912 Woodrow Wilson was elected president. In 1913, progressive income tax was legislated with the Revenue Act. This one law in short order would empower the federal government beyond the scope of the founder’s intent; this law debilitated state’s rights from its origin; this one law moved America from a republic to a government of and by federal mandate. This law was preceded and post-ceded by the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act. This progressive president, with the enabling of a Democratic congress, was the original “change you can believe in”… Woodrow Wilson was the presidential precursor to Barrack Obama.

He narrowly won the reelection in 1916 with the promise of keeping America out of “that fracas” in Europe. Of course that lasted until Germany sank the ‘Lusitania’, and by 1917 American soldiers and marines were in France. Wilson proceeded to form the War Industries Board, promoted labor unions, took over railroads, and enacted the Lever Act. This Lever fellow was an elected representative, of course a Democrat, who, at the prodding of President Wilson, decided it would be a very good idea to control food and fuel — hence the Lever Act. Sounds familiar? This legislation empowered a “Food Administrator” to oversee the working of this new government agency. The act also banned the use of “distilled spirits” from any produce that was used for food — the agency even tried to set the price of wheat. I trust one can visualize the resemblance between the Wilson administration and Obama’s.

Right after the First World War, President Wilson’s vision to guarantee the prophesy of “war to end all wars,” was to engage the United States in a global community of nations, an entity named The League of Nations. Although congress rejected the membership, President Wilson won a Nobel Peace Prize for his outline of “Fourteen Points”, a formula to entice Germany’s surrender while blueprinting a world order after the war. Wilson, as with Obama, visualized the world as they wished it to be; they both fail(ed) to see the world for what it truly is.

Not unlike President Obama, President Wilson’s experience was either public service or academia; he lacked the understanding of a world wherein persuasion was not a matter of finding a podium to exercise his rhetorical sensibilities. He just could not grasp that persuasion in the world of nation states is a matter of martial power. Either the direct use of such power or the indirect threat of power; this was the world of England, France, and Italy, his allied partners. In the finality, Wilson’s foreign policy concepts died an ignominious death; retributions ruled the Treaty of Versailles and while still looking for the cheese, the spring on the mousetrap was set; the next war would be even more brutal than the last.

Wilson, Roosevelt, and Obama all attended Harvard; none of them ever ran a private enterprise. Interestingly, they all shared the oneness of socialistic economic principles, large governments, and the belief that they could, by the power of their intellect or the coercive power of government, bend spoons in midair. And if they failed at that — surely they could bend any person or institution to their will.

Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1932 and passed away April 1945, in office. When he died away, thousand wept. He had been president longer than anyone. Indeed, so long that after his death congress passed an amendment to the constitution prohibiting a president’s term of office past two terms.

This is the man that took the nation off of the gold standard, favored deficit financing, unprecedented concessions to labor, created Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, and most outstanding, after his reign government could legally regulate the economy. We have all heard of his attempt to stack the Supreme Court and the invalidation of a few of his government’s programs.

Roosevelt is credited by many as saving the American people from the ravages of The Great Depression; of course there are those who feel FDR’s economic policies enabled the depression instead of abating its effect. But all will agree that he was a strong wartime leader. Of course this is also the president that detained Japanese Americans in internment camps for the duration of the war, deprived them of their property, liberty, and citizenry rights. This president was a liberal-progressive with strong socialist-like inclinations; he reminds me of President Obama’s political, economic, and social preferences.

I do believe that because this nation’s leadership decided to judge worldly events through the distortion of a liberal progressive’s naïve predeterminations, the continuum of violent conflict was and is a constant liability. Note that when this nation was confronted by a declaration of emergency, whether it is formed by domestic or foreign influence, government is enlarged and power-enriched to the few. Fear has been the wherewithal of liberal progressives to gain power and extend their ideological agenda.

In every instance of rule by an emergency agenda, personal liberty and individual freedom is being abated.

When will we Americans ever understand that weakness begets aggression? That peace is not a reasonable foreign policy goal? That the preservation of the ‘American Exception’ is in fact an intrinsic necessity, a value of worldwide priority? America cannot continue to win the war and lose the peace. The bona-fide relationship between the world’s nation states is founded on self-interest and without physical reality, omnipotent American power, Russia and China will fill the vacuum. The cost for liberty and freedom is always materialized into blood and gold; the fare is prohibitive. Leadership must reconcile the difference between the worlds as we wish it to be and as it truly is. This is no place for idealistic fantasies…

OBAMA’S DISTORTION OF THE TRUTH

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Authored by William Robert Barber

The United States Government of Obama requires every American to prove that they have purchased health insurance; but to ask an immigrant, in compliance with federal law, for documented proof of legality is racist. This hypocrisy, this emblematic descriptive of contrariness, is beyond understanding.

The President of the United States is suggesting, implying, describing, and calling the newly passed Arizona ‘immigration law’ a disuniting of American’s commonality. I do not believe that speaking out against the Arizona Law is Obama’s real intent; in fact, I believe he is calling out his constituency to engage and save him and his political party from the forthcoming electoral debacle. This consummate politician is campaigning at all times.

Liberal progressives and their media bedfellows charge that the Arizona law results in blatant racial profiling and as such equates into an unavoidable and despicable sum of draconian discrimination against people of Spanish surnames. In keeping with that thought, the progressives also believe that implementation of the law requires the policing of all people of Mexican decent and that such marshalling of forces run counter to the base instincts of humanism and the American way of life.

Now, noting that all of these emotionally charged declaratives have no basis of truism; that there is heretofore no evidence to support their accusations… but such does not abate the Liberal Progressives from propagating their lies.

In the interest of creating the façade of rightfulness, pundits of the left state quite affirmatively that the Arizona Law is unconstitutional; of course, no such degree has been adjudicated. Often I forget that these Democrats are harbingers, soothsayers — as well as politicians.

To Obama and his minions the labeling of racist is an obligatory charge toward any person or entity that refuses to drink the Obama additive. However, I do recall these guys and gals being flexible, creative, and genuinely disingenuous. Therefore, when the charge by the lefties is a catchall descriptive void of specifics, (obviously because there is no evidence) then the accusers go to Plan B, declaring that the people of Arizona lack humanistic values.

Of course there is always the shortcut facilitated by the socialist, Marxist, Liberal progressive sagacity of deductive sensibility: Wherein they, (those that know all things material and relevant) the ‘Followers of Obama’, simply state that the Arizona Law is counter to the American way of life. Satisfied with that explanation, the followers move on to Tea Partiers.

Each one of the elected and appointed pledged to uphold the federal constitution and the laws of this land. When varied jurisdictions, cities, states, feds, and the employees therein pick and choose which laws to enforce and which laws to disregard, the nation is at risk of legalist mayhem and civil chaos. The result is a discombobulating of intrinsic American principles. Now marry such with an unsustainable federal debt, a ridiculously ambiguous canard representing itself as the federal tax code, a bloated federal, state, and city bureaucracy, a mounting shortfall of pension funds, two wars, half of the working citizens paying no federal individual income tax, global competition for trade and power, and a socialist in the White House, this nation of ours is in dire need for an electoral revolution.

Oh, and one more thing, the immigration problem in the United States is being caused by Mexicans. These people for the most part speak Spanish, have black hair, brown skin, and will do anything to leave Mexico. They are also hard working, decent, and honest; nevertheless, they are here illegally and need to comply with US Law. Complicit with the non compliant Mexican immigrant is our gutless Congressperson who does not have the intestinal fortitude to respond to a national emergency.

PS: The terrorist who are hell bent on killing us Americans are Islamic by religion and Muslim by culture; they need to be preemptively eliminated as a material threat to our citizens.

ISSUES & CONCERNS

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Authored by William Robert Barber

Recently, as if writing the plot and circumstance of a Greek tragedy, the Obama syndicate of dreamers consorted with a number of Middle Eastern voices within, as well as outside of the Clinton state department. The idea was to cause an incident to rile the Israelis and appease the Muslims. The administration picked the construction of apartment buildings in East Jerusalem as the item of contentiousness. Well, the Israelis were indeed riled up but the Muslims remained non appreciative; Obama and Clinton managed to alienate our only allies in the region without advancing the cause of peacefulness one iota.

Not only does this Obama-Clinton policy offensive against the Jewish state not appease the Muslims — this policy of silliness emboldens Israel’s enemies. This foreign policy snafu infuriated members of congress; it irritated pro-Israeli advocates while wasting valuable time and energy for all parties involved. Contrary to the Obama-Clinton policy of enacting fair mindedness, Hezbollah interprets the idea of even-handedness as weakness; this particular American intuitive simply validated the aggressive foreign policies of Syria and Iran.

The issue of paramount concern of this almost ageless conflict is that the Palestinians of Hamas or Arafat persuasion (as does Israel) claim Jerusalem as their capital. The Palestinians are not concerned with Jewish settlements in Jerusalem; they are concerned with Jews in Jerusalem. So settlements or no settlements, the radical elements of Hamas or Arafat persuasion will never accept the sovereignty of Israel, much less settlements in East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements are inconsequential to the issue of concern.

“The SEC vs. Goldman the Abacus 2007-ACI”

Now, this is crazy. The participants are John Paulson, a hedge fund investor, security firm ACA Capital Ltd., and Deutsche Industriebank AG, a German bank, otherwise known as IKB. Notice, all are sophisticated investor institutions who, at their own discretion, willingly and willfully decided to create a “synthetic” (meaning no actual tangibles were involved; the CDO was designed as a future value of certain mortgages) collateralized debt obligation (CDO).

The issue as the SEC declares it: Goldman had an obligation to disclose to the Paulson counter parties, who were betting long, that their counter party, who was betting short, was indeed John Paulson, a hedge fund investor. The agency also alleges that Goldman deceived ACA Management (a unit of ACA Capital ltd.) into believing that Paulson was actually betting/investing in an “equity” tranche on ACA’s side of the deal. Interestingly, however within the terms and conditions of the offering document, it clearly states that an equity tranche was not offered by Goldman. So, either no-one read the offering document, or the proper disclosure was read and, as indicated by their signature, affirmed.

Imagine that the SEC charges that Goldman was responsible for ACA’s “misimpression” that Paulson wanted to invest in the deal. To add injury to insult, the SEC piles on the allegation that ACA executives were not aware that Paulson intended to make bets against the portfolio. So — Goldman is responsible to do all the thinking for ACA??

What scares me regarding this lawsuit is its precedence. Normally, the SEC tries to settle before suing. In the great majority of such enforcement, the vote on the board is unanimous… in this case, it was divided along party lines. So the overriding assertion is that the agency’s motive is nothing less than more power. Therefore, by pressing this lawsuit at this particular time, the SEC helps the Democrats pass the Dodd Bill, regulators gain more funding and more people; indeed, more of everything, except the surety of more diligence and competence.

Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers around $400 billion; in 2005 Obama and Dodd voted against proposed tough regulatory legislation for the double F’s. These government-sponsored Enterprises — which had been acquiring increasing numbers of subprime and Alt-A loans for many years in order to meet their HUD — imposed affordable housing requirements and accelerated the purchases that led to their 2008 insolvency. Amazingly, Obama, as a Senator, was the third largest recipient of campaign contributions from the double F’s only behind Senators Dodd and Kerry.

Now, all three of these hypocrites are damning private enterprise as immoral; no wonder the American people trust neither the government nor their politicians.

Well, as often said and always, the result is that we do get the government we deserve…

OBAMA THE ENABLER

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Authored by William Robert Barber

The continuances by politicians, news print, media, pundits, and entertainers posing as journalist, of dancing around the deductively obvious instead of objectively stating the transpiration of a particular event is intellectually stifling. Recently, we experienced a terrorist-crazy load up with explosives, board a US bound plane with the absolutely clear intent of killing everyone on that plane and as many people on the ground in Detroit as possible. This was a premeditated attack by Al-Qaeda; an act of war perpetrated by this nation’s sworn enemy; instead of shipping this crazy to detention in Guantanamo he was issued an attorney, read his rights, and jailed pending a court hearing to determine whether or not he will be detained. This methodology of legal-disposition is bird-brain stupid. This terrorist attacked US citizens, their property, and their institutions — and we treat him as though he robbed a bank.

Withstanding, the Obama administration’s failure to stop this terrorist from boarding the plane in the first cause and experiencing the ignominy of listening to Secretary of Home Land Security on Sunday last tell the national television audience that everything went according to plan, that the system worked, he was a lone wolf, and other etcetera nonsense. The president added coal to the fire by doing the very best he could to not call this terrorist incident a terrorist incident.

The ever so naive Obama is befuddled. After all, he has addressed the reasonableness of extending his hand of peace and tolerance with his speech in Cairo. He has added the rational mixture of “let’s all work together for the common good” and has apologized (repeatedly) for US unilateral aggressiveness; he even eliminated the use of the phrase ‘War on Terror.” And most importantly, as a good faith gesture, he is closing Guantanamo because the prison is an anathema to terrorist, might be terrorist, almost terrorist, Muslims world-wide, and of course without a doubt of hesitation by Obama, such a closing will significantly hamper Al-Qaeda recruiting.

However, this is not the only instance of dancing around the deductively obvious. Congress is addressing the passing of healthcare legislation. Noting that few have actually read the aforesaid, and most who have not read the pending legislation admit that if they read it they would not understand its content. Whatever happened to the concept of prudent oversight and willfully deliberate due diligence? We Americans are allowing the political majority to ramrod critical legislation as if the issue was transparent, commonly decipherable, and opaque. The majority agrees, it is not perfect. Indeed, interestingly, many of the senators that voted for the legislation did so only after insuring their state was except from its pending pecuniary obligations. Blatant payoffs and self-serving earmarks are the sugar Reid utilized to insure the 60-vote requirement. If a private company acted in this manner, the attorney-general would indict for violations, criminal and civil.

In order for the Obama liberal progressive to fashion the nation to accept the transition to socialism, under the guise of ‘for the common good,’ they must stymie all democratic procedures by means within their power, extralegal or by ad-hoc actions. Their goal is to supplement the principle of laws and general rational precepts with an ever enhancing amplitude of governing bureaucracy; the more complex the regulatory compliance, the easier for the socialist to control the process of decision making. The goal of Obama is to take vast powers and legislate under a platform of ordinances and decrees.

The Obama administration coupled with the congressional majority is the single greatest threat to America’s traditional understanding and practice of liberty and freedom.

PAX AMERICANA, Part II

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Authored by William Robert Barber

Since the battle of Kadish, a military offensive, provoked ostensibly by Pharaoh Ramses’ concern for Hittite aggression, humankind has considered violent conflict as a viable method of achieving objectives. Ramses was certainly not the first to initiate strategic violence to further a goal. To be sure, one could trace the telltale sign of what was to come thousands of years before there was an Egypt. Neanderthals pictured on cave walls the utility of manmade weapons and tactics for hunting wild animals. While a new species evolved out of Africa, the Homo Sapiens effectively applied the very same utility that the Neanderthals did to hunting animals, to hunting their fellow humans. For these innovative, highly intelligent beings, the conveyance from hunting animals to hunting men was seamless.

From the beginning of recorded history till today, the reason to kill, maim, or enslave a fellow human is specious at best; at worst, the basis is arbitrary, deliberate and discretionary. The causation for humankind’s propensity for conflict bandies between the false premises of want and need. Without cutting and pasting thousands of years of historical documentation to prove my point, pride, glory, silliness, foolishness, evil intent, naiveté, love, hate, incorrect predilections, predisposed-presumptions and assumptions… Actually, the listing of why man willfully slay their fellow man is endless.

Humankind has the sense for reason and rationality and is fully capable of facilitating the nexus of deduction — logic and pragmatic sensibility. We have been taught to understand that all of these descriptive definitions enclosed within the previous sentence aggregate to form the differing between the super intelligent man and solely instinctive beast. But interestingly, this descriptive is profoundly contrasted by man’s constancy for violent conflict. This manmade irrational insistence for violent aggression has, for invader and defender, provocateur and responder, across all cultural divides, managed to create a scenario whereby the use of arms to achieve an objective, no matter the cost to life and property, has been validated as effective.

Order is the antidote for chaos. Chaos is never good; indeed, chaos maybe an indicator of evil. Order requires a dominance of force; however, the permanency or enduring spirit of order also requires a consensus of acceptance by the majority of the people. In other words, chaos increases in proportion to the abatement of order and inversely so; nevertheless, without positive overwhelming consensus, order cannot subdue chaos.

I therefore conclude that dominance by force of arms is the definitive surety for the continuance of peacefulness — and only America has the military wherewithal to offer such a dominance of force.

As I have previously stated, without popular acceptance, forcing peacefulness upon those that behave in a violent warlike manner will be more difficult then less. Consequently, America’s first step should be to forewarn and plainly declare its intention. The second step should be to invoice countries where US forces are based or patrol for the services of enforcing peacefulness.  Or in place of billing countries, the invoice should be directed to commercial entities not domiciled in the United States. The strategy of enforcing peacefulness is to have a greater portion of the cost of enforcement paid by those countries and or commercial entities that benefit from the enforcement services preformed. This invoice will be similar to an insurance policy’s premium for liability coverage. An example of such invoicing by US forces would be the warships protecting the flow of Middle Eastern oil leaving the Persian Gulf for deposit in foreign ports.

America needs to assume global responsibility for peaceful dispose; every nation on earth will benefit and certainly the poor, wretched, disenfranchised, and persecuted. For instance, pirates will be destroyed from within and without; warlords forced to rule with respect for human welfare or else face the wrath of US arms. The People’s Republic of North Korea must be deposed from any authority and operational function; this state is nothing less than rough criminal nation.

Any and all allies of America will directly aid assist, manage a region or target at their cost, or pay an annual fee for the compelling of peacefulness on those who need to be compelled.

Obviously, more than a simple few think me a bit touched for even contemplating such a strategy. To them I say that for the greater part of modern American history, America adhered to a piece meal, head in the sand, let them do it to us first, policy of denial; American politicians closed their eyes to the world and its reality. Didn’t the first half of the 20th century kill millions of people? Did we not fight two world wars? Was not the First World War the war to end all wars? On a global basis there have been a number of conflicts, wars, and lethal violence; clearly, the cost to peacefulness has been extreme. America must finally visualize the world as it is — not as it wishes it was — and act.

PAX AMERICANA

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Authored by William Robert Barber

America is the world’s guarantor; the only super power in the world with the means to indemnify against any hostile action anywhere on the globe. American forces are dispersed on every continent, in every seaway our ships and submarines are present. Many nations depend on the presence of US forces as the additional surety that their much needed resources will reach their ports; world-wide commerce, to some material effect, would be jeopardized if not for the force of US arms.

The effectiveness of US arms is not only important for commerce. For example, how much of a deterrent would NATO be to aggressor forces without America? Would the UN even bother to meet without American participation? Would the world be safer without America’s lead in its military alliances? Since 1945, the world is safer not because of America’s force of persuasion; but, because of its force of arms. Obviously, a show of force is never enough; it must be coupled with a willingness to commit such forces to combat.

The American military insures that oil arrives in Japan, Korea, China, and on to its shores. New York and Miami represent the international business city of choice for Europe and all countries south as Texas; Los Angeles is the gateway to the Pacific and Asia. America is the largest consumer nation that has ever existed; it also has the most lethal sophisticated, combat experienced armed forces in the world. Only America’s martial forces are distributed all over the globe; unlike any other nation in the world, America is ideally suited to enforce peacefulness.

Since history has been recorded, warfare has existed. Violence is the addition of humankind. For reasons unreasonable, even irrational, there are nation states that are hell bent on creating chaos to merely service their wanting. Nation states are prompted into the compliance of peacefulness not by some internationally accepted moral obligatory but by the use of power. Power is used to compel.  The power to compel must provoke the counter party into compliance; anything short of abrupt and immediate compliance is simply diplomatic gimmickry.  There are alternatives to military intervention that may compel a belligerent nation to peacefulness; nevertheless, tradition has proven, without the unilateral willingness to use military intervention, other forms of persuasion are no more than an ineffective ruse.

North Korea survived the Korean Conflict because America lacked the will to complete the task. Today Korea has nuclear weapons. Iran is positioning itself to evangelize the Middle East with its branding of Shiite hegemony. Soon, Iran will have the nuclear capacity to deliver an atom bomb. Syria is eager to control Lebanon.  All did, do now, and will continue to support America’s enemies; such support certainly includes Israel’s nemesis Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian militant factions. Iran has reached over as far away as Venezuela so to embarrass the United States. At its pleasure, Iran by military and political means, strives to destabilize Iraq.

Selling to the same consumers, China is in competition with India over labor pricing and manufacturing. India fears Pakistan and their ambitions in the Kashmir. Pakistan is fighting a war to keep the Taliban at arm’s length. Pakistan is a nuclear armed nation that has no respectful regard for US interest; factually, the country is politically unstable and its people are ambivalent to American aid and assistance.

Russia is managed with an iron hand by Putin and company. The ideal for Mother Russia is to control their historical sector of influence. Their interest is not restricted to former members’ countries of the Soviet Union but the ultimate prize of prizes is to manipulate the European Union; this manipulation, in their mind, is achievable through the controlled distribution of natural gas and oil.

The only country on earth that can effectively counter these threats to peacefulness is America.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE

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Authored by William Robert Barber

Geithner, Holder, Clinton, and the man in the White House have bridged the distance from election promises to ongoing policies.  For these servants of the people, Obama policy is no longer the simple consideration of a campaign promise.  Time on the job has eclipsed these wannabe elected politicians into the measurable.  The liberal-progressives won the election; as a consequence, they have enacted a number of distinctively marked ‘result of Obama’ principles of action.  They have been in office the better part of a year — the time has come to consider their effects and results.

On foreign policy, better described as the Obama-Clinton diplomacy of hopefulness, the great persuader and his trusty Secretary of State are deeply committed to a foreign policy of national humility.  By incorporating the craftiness of first publicly apologizing for the Bush era specifically, but also for America’s unilateral behavior in general, this Obama-Clinton approach to interfacing with the international community is followed up with attentive listening and deep solemn contemplating.

How is this strategy working for the administration?

China will not devalue its currency or meaningfully participate in denying Iran the utility of its resources.   The former Red Menace will not discourage North Korean hostilities in favor of US policy.  Instead, President Hu Jintao warns Mr. Obama of the obvious:  Rising deficit, the negative effect of a devalued dollar, while complaining of a 20% decrease in his country’s export.

As Russia is pursuing its interest, which includes contracting with Iran so to harness and control the natural gas market for export to Western Europe, Obama is sidelining Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia, the former colonies of the Mother Russia.  Russia understands the Obama weakness, knowing he will never apply unrestrained American power.  As evidence, this American president — while in a time of war — stated that he is not interested in victory.

North Korea is a wild card.  At the very worst, North Korea could, for reasons unreasonable, fire that nuclear armed missile.  The only nation with the military might to deter such an act is the United States; but they too, understand that Obama will hesitate.  North Korea is a gangster nation.

The far left of the liberal progressive Democratic Party is weary of tolerating a continuance of the Afghanistan war and rue the ploy of the good war in order to defeat Bush’s Iraq war.  They want the force of arms harnessed and the expending of treasure to cease.  After all, they have other places to spend those billions of dollars.

Inclusive of the rudiments of his foreign policy, Obama seems to conceptualize that the solution to America’s international concerns resides in reorganizing the country’s domestic issues.  If his administration could just, by what ever means, spread the wealth, socialize the economy, enable green energy, revive unions, legalize the illegal immigrants, and nationalize healthcare, all the nations of the world would offer their friendship and cooperation.   I do believe that after the dust of this liberal-progressive socialist administration settles, when blaming Bush will no longer suffice, when the Republicans, Tea Baggers, independent voters, and capitalistic profiteers have had enough of the Democrats libelous innuendos, I do believe one will discover — because the media elite will never concede such a factual — that the Obama-Clinton foreign policy is indefinable because it is functionally indiscernible.

Though one may try, the reality is that one cannot understand the material thesis or the logic of the Obama Doctrine.  Where is the logic?  What is the motivational goal of those policy makers?  Do the creators of Obama-Clinton foreign policy have an end game?  Or is it that the end game is so sophisticated, so enriched by cerebral magnification that the only answer for the unwashed non-Harvard schooled is to have the faith of Saint Paul and simply believe in President Obama?

When will American patience end? How much longer are we going to accept, even begrudgingly, this administration’s constancy of real world naiveté?  Obama’s foreign policy is nothing less than a proliferating variety of runic distortions and needlessly opaque affirmations that lack any basis of practical relevance.

The president and his ideologues live in a world apart, an alternate state of wish-it-was-so.  This Obama belief-theme, coupled with Fabian Society objectives, is regretfully not an academic exercise in possibilities.  This is a policy, vigorously applied and wantonly designed to effectively abate US power and prestige; it will result in this nation’s eventual loss of sovereignty.  The Obama-Clinton duo does not live in the empirical factual.  Indeed, they prefer the mystical sublime of the mythological; their ideal is a synthesis of reality.  Mr. O. and Mrs. C. have created a play-pretend of a world; a place where nation states can debate, a place of neverland where the merits of humanism, kindness, love,  and mutual respect override all instincts to the contrary.  A place like the United Nations befits their ideal.  Of course the United Nations is not such a place — but these two would never permit facts to reset their ideological absolutes.

If foreign policy issues should not be enough of a cause for the Obama administration: Unemployment is soaring, the Obama solution is to have a summit.  This is madness.  Well, actually madness is allowing terrorists, the very same fellows that masterminded the killing of thousands of Americans, the very same constitutional rights as those of the people they killed.  That sort of madness, perpetrated by a clueless politician masquerading as this nation’s chief law enforcement officer, does directly endanger the citizens of New York City and the nation.  And then there is Geithner…

AMERICA’S POLICY OF DENIAL AND HALF-MEASURES

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Authored by William Robert Barber

I am 65 years of age; old enough to have fought in the Vietnam War. If I was 85 years old, I could have fought in WWI; if 76, I could have participated in the Korean Conflict. If 99 years of age, WWI and if just a little older, the Spanish-American War. Sadly, the children of those that fought in Vietnam are now killing, dying, maiming, and being maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since its inception, America has engaged in a number of benchmark hostilities; these events coupled set the standard of this nation’s history. Withstanding America’s long and consistent narrative of warlike behavior, it would be wrongheaded to suggest that successive administrations, from different political affiliations that extend as far back as the Spanish-American War, was all war-mongering Philistines, indifferent to utilizing peaceful means to settle conflicting interest.

Instead, I think the world is, has been, and more than likely will always be, a hostile environment. I also believe that peace as commonly defined is a delusion. Factually, peace has not ever existed and does not now exist. To push the denial just a bit further, I do believe that peace, as popularly defined, is unattainable. If one agrees with these hypotheses, then it follows that a foreign policy designed to establish or attain peace is an illusionary goal, unworthy of effort.

Our current policy is immersed in issues of lethal proportion. I deduce that there has never been a more dangerous time for America. Religious zealots of Muslim origin have submitted to a doctrine of holy war against the West and specifically against the Anglo Christian peoples of the world. It is their intent to destroy the Judeo-Christian alliance by either converting or killing them.

This nation has many enemies which would include North Korea, Iran, Syria, and their martial compatriots. These are the very same provocateurs of terrorism that pledge destruction while complimenting such pledges with exemplifying horrific behavior. To negotiate with those that espouses destruction as a means to their end is not only a waste of effort but takes the nation off focus. Just because our state department creates an unsubstantiated assumption that such negotiations are in the interest of peacefulness, does not mean that in real terms such actions will transmute a negative into a positive. Such head-in-the-sand approach to reality is only an acknowledgement of wishful diplomacy which will never substitute artful statecraft.

Our present action and counter-action will not settle our disagreements; at best our efforts only prolong the inevitable. At worst, putting off the inevitable (war) only strengthens the counter parties’ military might and enforces the counter parties’ belief that as part of their diplomatic efforts, America will not utilize military might to achieve a goal. Clearly, the Obama administration will not go to war to preserve or protect America’s interest. As a consequence, any and all efforts are not sufficient of a deterrent to counter North Korea, Iran, or Syria’s intent on executing war-like measures detrimental to this nation’s interest.

The Obama administration did not set a precedent; even Bush would not commit American might as it should have been deployed. America somehow has taken on the presumption that the exercise of power is inherently a limited act. How absolutely absurd; but is that not our policy?

At a minimum, at least since the ending portion of WWII, our administrations, in unison with congress, have tasked our armed forces with missions that they deem necessary while hampering our forces’ ability to wage war.

For example, Eisenhower’s decision to allow the Russians to take Berlin; Roosevelt and Truman’s ineptness at understanding Russian intentions while dealing directly with a brutal dictator — the very same person that signed a treaty with Hitler and participated in the invasion of Poland; Stalin was a rat and still, these two presidents looked away from the obvious. Imagine, America had the strongest navy and army in the world, logistically in place, with the atomic bomb — and within five years after the end of WWII, freedom-loving peoples still lost China to Mao and Eastern Europe to Stalin.

We committed our forces to Korea to stop and impede an invasion from the north. Right there, at that very moment, this nation’s leaders should have known we were in trouble. Stop and impede is not wiping out the root of North Korean aggressiveness. It is instead the equivalent of pushing the bully back rather than smashing him in the nose, gouging out his eyes, and breaking both his arms. Today, because of our faint-hearted unwillingness to destroy North Korean command, control, and political hierarchy, North Korea is a rouge totalitarian nation armed with nuclear weapons.

Eisenhower enabled the CIA to recruit, train, and arm Cuban dissidents; he promised air support for their invasion. Kennedy permitted the invasion to go forward but reneged on air support… the invasion failed. This demonstration of weakness and timidity, this blatant disregard for those lives within the invasion force, bolstered Castro’s image and prestige. Domestically and throughout the world, Castro confirmed that America can be managed and manipulated; it also verified that American resolve is limited. Khrushchev and his politburo were watching.

President Kennedy is credited with ending the Cuban missile threat — which only existed because we did not invade Cuba!

Laos and Vietnam are other examples of America’s inability to commit to a foreign policy task; at the time, we actually believed that a show of force was enough. How very silly of us. Such harebrained behavior all stems from a canon of foolish naïveté; this American doctrine of naïveté established precedence that is very hard to overcome. After all, our presidents want to be re-elected or revered; elected representatives want the wind at their back; the entire objective is retention of power, therefore the concern is safeguarding political interest. Hence, a guiding rule of the elected applied: Controversy in any form should be avoided.

From a strategic, even tactical prospective, in order to disable the North Vietnamese from invading the South Vietnamese, the United States should have invaded the North. That should have been the minimum requirement for engagement; if congress disapproved of such an invasion then it would be clear that America could not support the South Vietnamese people. But once again the policy half-measure won the argument and 58,000 or so Americans, not to mention many thousands more of Vietnamese, lost their lives because of the bewildering incompetence of the administration(s) and congress(es).

Soon, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver and America is immersed in the utility of the same head-in-the-sand foreign policy; a policy of half-measure and denial. This administration (not unlike the many that preceded Teddy Roosevelt) will not accept the reality of world affairs and as a consequence, there are two distinctive operating dimensions. One is the department-agencies of state and the other real-time reality. Neither seems impaired by the existence of the other.

However, unlike the foreign policy challenges of yesterday, this time the threat has the biological, radiological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to choose from. This particular threat has demonstrated its resolve by killing thousands of innocents (regardless of their sameness of religion); what they want, no sane person or state can give them. There is nothing to negotiate over, no other options are open to the West, except deterrence by any and all means.

But instead of addressing the issue unilaterally and head-on, the Obama administration is contemplating self-invented options where no option exists. Obama will inevitably break with half-measure and just execute a full measure of denial.

Iran will soon have a nuclear weapon; neither Israel nor the United States will act to eliminate this threat to Middle East stability. There will be no embargo or blockade, the UN will accept an Iranian declaration that these weapons are for defensive measures only; Obama and Clinton will submit to the UN acceptance.

Iranian prestige will rise, particularly amongst the hard-line fringe of Islamic militarism. Syria notes the weakness and re-establishes final control of Lebanon. The political-terrorist tactics of Hezbollah and Hamas will be validated; by any and all means the radical elements of Islam will dominate over the moderate. The stage will be set for WWIII…

OBAMA’S PROMISES OF CHANGE

InTheInterestOfSensibilityLeave a comment

Authored by William Robert Barber

In the final of the final, after all the campaign hoopla about “change we can believe in”, it is now apparent that the electorate’s vote for Obama’s version of “change” has resulted in a federal deficit three times greater than the previous. Despite the Obama economic team’s forecast of no more than 8%, unemployment is now nearly 10%. Unequivocally, we who have not drunk the Obama elixir understand that his economic advisors were incorrect in their math, mistaken as to the effect of the Obama stimulus, and downright erroneous as to its forecasted result.

I ask: Does the result of Obama’s last nine months in management instill confidence? What about the specifics of his economic emphasis and directives? Does the guarantee of universal health coverage via a single payer system evoke more fear than comfort?

We now know that the candidate Obama feinted (during the campaign) a center-left political standard; wherein, once sworn in, President Obama has been identified as a politician imbued with Marxian ideals. An example of his socialistic intentions is found within the top of his domestic agenda — Healthcare reform; when the legislative proposal includes government control of 16 to 20 percent of the national economy, the government has imposed National Socialism.

By his own volition, the president has appointed a number of “workers of the state”, dubbed “czars” by the media. These are people whose primary obligation is to aid, assist, and promote the president’s general policies. Of course once one scrutinizes the background and political ideals of some of these appointees, a prudent person might have cause to be concerned. The concern hedges around the number of czars (32), as well as the background of the actual person appointed; thankfully, not all but a few of these appointees have very strong Marxist influences. Is this not a reflection on the president’s political leaning and inclinations? Why is the president attacking Fox News?

I do remember the Obama pledge of transparency coupled with CSPAN access; during another one of his many campaign speeches he includes as a tangible example, a promise to post pending legislation on the Internet 3 days before the vote is taken. That promise, along with the promise that his administration would not hire lobbyist — well that promise of the president has gone into the waste basket along with transparency; now, we of the electorate understand the meaning of Obama’s promise for change one can believe in.

Just recently the president (March of this year), with clear definitive language, declared Afghanistan a war this nation cannot afford to lose. With pomp and vigor he declared a new military leader as the right general to implement the winning strategy of counter insurgency. In short order the general studied the terrain and situation and presented his plan with requirements. One of these requirements was a substantial increase in troop strengt — which did not go over well with the liberals and the left of Obama’s political base. You see, everyone on the left of center understood that declaring the Afghanistan war, the real war on terror, was a ruse to inflict as much political damage to Bush’s war in Iraq. The political left does not want to defend American interest in far flung destinations; they want the UN to deal with such matters.

Russia must be rolling over with laughter as to this president’s and Sectary Clinton’s foreign policy; Putin is on top of his game all the while humiliating the United States at every turn. The Putin game is about European Domination via an energy monopoly. After all, between Russia and Iran they control, in the region, the majority of natural gas resources; no need to play nice with the United States, with Obama and Clinton; Russia is well represented.

President Obama recently suggested that he needs time. Time for the stimulus to take effect, time to pass his socialist economically costly legislation, time to clean up the mess Bush left behind, and time to right the wrong the rich capitalist levied on the middle and poor class of Americans. Well, this nation has no time to implement economic policies that counter sensibility, nor the time to inflate the deficit beyond the means of prudent management.

We Americans handed Obama an electoral victory and expect more and better than his present effort.