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| Sat, 10-25-2008 - 10:28pm |
Is America really going to do this? by Melanie Phillips
Friday, 24th October 2008
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2545716/is-america-really-going-to-do-this.thtml
The impact of the financial crisis on the American presidential election has somewhat obscured the most important reason why the prospect of an Obama presidency is giving so many people nightmares. This is the fear that, if he wins, US defences will be emasculated at a time of unprecedented international peril and the enemies of America and the free world will seize their opportunity to destroy the west.
Personally, I don’t give any credence to the ‘support’ for one candidate over the other that has been expressed by the enemies of civilisation (Iran and Hamas ‘support’ Obama, while an al Qaeda blogger ‘supports’ McCain). Their agenda is simply to sow confusion and promote American recriminations and disarray. Nor do I set much store by many of the remarks made by either candidate during the latter stages of this election campaign, since under this kind of pressure both will now say pretty much anything to win it. The New York Times has run a useful analysis of the candidates’ foreign policy campaign statements which shows how Obama has carefully tacked to the ‘hard power’ agenda while McCain has in turn nodded towards ‘soft power’.
No, the only way to assess their position is to look at each man in the round, at what his general attitude is towards war and self-defence, aggression and appeasement, the values of the west and those of its enemies and – perhaps most crucially of all – the nature of the advisers and associates to whom he is listening. As I have said before, I do not trust McCain; I think his judgment is erratic and impetuous, and sometimes wrong. But on the big picture, he gets it. He will defend America and the free world whereas Obama will undermine them and aid their enemies.
Here’s why. McCain believes in protecting and defending America as it is. Obama tells the world he is ashamed of America and wants to change it into something else. McCain stands for American exceptionalism, the belief that American values are superior to tyrannies. Obama stands for the expiation of America’s original sin in oppressing black people, the third world and the poor.
Obama thinks world conflicts are basically the west’s fault, and so it must right the injustices it has inflicted. That’s why he believes in ‘soft power’ — diplomacy, aid, rectifying ‘grievances’ (thus legitimising them, encouraging terror and promoting injustice) and resolving conflict by talking. As a result, he will take an axe to America’s defences at the very time when they need to be built up. He has said he will ‘cut investments in unproven missile defense systems’; he will ‘not weaponize space’; he will ‘slow our development of future combat systems’; and he will also ‘not develop nuclear weapons,’ pledging to seek ‘deep cuts’ in America’s arsenal, thus unilaterally disabling its nuclear deterrent as Russia and China engage in massive military buildups.
McCain understands that an Islamic war of conquest is being waged on a number of diverse fronts which all have to be seen in relation to each other. For Obama, however, the real source of evil in the world is America. The evil represented by Iran and the Islamic jihadists is apparently all America’s fault. ‘A lot of evil’s been perpetuated based on the claim that we were fighting evil,’ he said. Last May, he dismissed Iran as a tiny place which posed no threat to the US -- before reversing himself the very next day when he said Iran was a great threat which had to be defeated. He has also said that Hezbollah and Hamas have ‘legitimate grievances’. Really? And what might they be? Their grievances are a) the existence of Israel b) its support by America c) the absence of salafist Islam in the world. Does Obama think these ‘grievances’ are legitimate?
To solve world conflict, Obama places his faith in the UN club of terror and tyranny, which is currently fuelling the murderous global demonisation of Israel for having the temerity to defend itself and is even now preparing for a rerun of its own anti-Jew hate-fest of Durban 2, which preceded 9/11 by a matter of days.
McCain understands that Israel is the victim rather than the victimiser in the Middle East, that it is surrounded by genocidal enemies whose undiminished intention is to destroy it as a Jewish state, and that is both the first line of defence against the Islamist attack on the free world and its most immediate and important target.
Obama dismisses the threat from Islamism, shows zero grasp of the strategic threat to the region and the world from the encirclement of Israel by Iran, displays a similar failure to grasp the strategic importance of Iraq, thinks Israel is instead the source of Arab and Muslim aggression against the west, believes that a Palestinian state would promote world peace and considers that Israel – particularly through the ‘settlements’ – is the principal obstacle to that happy outcome. Accordingly, Obama has said he wants Israel to return to its 1967 borders – actually the strategically indefensible 1948 cease-fire line, known accordingly as the ‘Auschwitz borders’.
Obama would thus speak to Iran’s genocidal mullahs without preconditions on his side (the same mullahs have now laid down their own preconditions for America: pull all US troops out of the Middle East, and abandon support for ‘Zionist’ Israel) but has said he would have problems dealing with an Israeli government headed by a member of Israel’s Likud Party. In similar vein, it is notable that Obama opposed the congressional resolution labelling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, which passed the Senate by a wide margin with support from both parties. And had he had his way, there would have been no ‘surge’ in Iraq and America would instead have run up the white flag, with the incalculable bloodbath and strengthening of the jihad that would have followed.
Obama assumes that Islamic terrorism is driven by despair, poverty, inflammatory US policy and the American presence on Muslim soil in the Persian Gulf. Thus he adopts the agenda of the Islamists themselves. This is not surprising since many of his connections suggest that that the man who may be elected President of a country upon which the Islamists have declared war is himself firmly in the Islamists’ camp. Daniel Pipes lists Obama’s extensive connections to Islamists in general and the Nation of Islam in particular, and concludes with this astounding observation:
Obama's multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives mean he would fail the standard security clearance process for Federal employees. Islamic aggression represents America’s strategic enemy; Obama’s many insalubrious connections raise grave doubts about his fitness to serve as America's commander-in-chief.
The hatred that these Islamist connections entertain towards Israel is reflected amongst Obama’s own advisers. With one notable exception in Dennis Ross, whose late arrival in Camp Obama suggests a cosmetic exercise designed to allay alarm among Israel supporters, his advisers are overwhelmingly not only hostile to Israel but perpetrate the loathesome canard that Jews have too much power over American policy.
The former Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, for example, not only denounced Israel’s war against Hezbollah thus:
I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect– maybe not in intent – the killing of hostages
but also supports Mearsheimer and Walt’s notorious smear that the Jews have subverted America’s foreign policy in the interests of Israel. Merrill McPeak, vice chairman of Obama’s campaign and his chief military adviser, has similarly blamed problems in the Middle East on the influence of people who live in New York City and Miami (guess who) whom no ‘politician wants to run against’ and who he says exercise undue influence on America’s foreign affairs. Most revolting of all is Samantha Power, a very close adviser whom Obama fired for calling Hillary a ‘monster’ but who says she still expects to be in Obama’s administration. Not only has Power has advocated the ending of all aid to Israel and redirecting it to the Palestinians, but she has spoken about the need to land a ‘mammoth force’ of US troops in Israel to protect the Palestinians from Israeli attempts at genocide (sic) -- and has complained that criticism of Barack Obama all too often came down to what was ‘good for the Jews’.
There are, alas, many in the west for whom all this is music to their ears. Whether through wickedness, ideology, stupidity or derangement, they firmly believe that the ultimate source of conflict in the world derives at root from America and Israel, whose societies, culture and values they want to see emasculated or destroyed altogether. They are drooling at the prospect that an Obama presidency will bring that about. The rest of us can’t sleep at night.

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Wrong. Obama admits we have weaknesses and he'll work to get rid of them.
For McCain the real source of evil in the world is any country (other than the U.S., of course) that wants Iraq's oil, any country (other than the U.S., of course) that wants nuclear weapons and any individual (other than himself, of course--his multi-mil wife takes care of him) who earns less than $1 million/yr. You're right! In McCain's eyes there is NOTHING wrong with our great United States of America.
You can't solve a problem if you don't recognize you have one. And that is why McCain is trailing Obama in the polls.
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http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/october/meet_the_new_health_.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQTBYQlQ7yM
"You can't solve a problem if you don't recognize you have one. And that is why McCain is trailing Obama in the polls."
Absolutely! Also you have to consider that how a campaign is run is an indication of how the candidate would conduct business as president. IMHO McCain's inept campaign should be an eyeopener for us all.
You can't solve a problem if you don't recognize you have one. And that is why McCain is trailing Obama in the polls.
I agree.
Oh my. How to answer? Too many people of the U.S. have played "nudge, nudge, wink-wink" when Dumbya sent men and women of our armed forces to invade a sovereign country which had not attacked us. Nor had it proved any more of a threat than MANY other nations (remember that "axis of evil" dreck?).
But what about the lovers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc. of those in our all-volunteer armed forces? What of OUR sleep? What of their sleep--those 4,000+ who will never wake up? WHAT OF THEM?!
Sleep well, under Dumbya? I think not, unless you're talking about eternal rest!
edited to correct misspellings and insert a clarifying prepositional phrase.Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Facts stifle the will, hobble conviction.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
More thoughts from across the pond:
Obama's American revolution
The next US president needs to adopt a more humanistic approach to bring the world on-side and Barack Obama is the ideal candidate
For eight years, George Bush has managed to reinforce all the prejudices and negative stereotypes the world has of the US. He has antagonised the world more than any other American president before him, seriously damaging America's "soft" power by inefficient and excessive use of its "hard" power.
Reconciling the United States with itself and the world should thus be the twin priorities for America's next president. If there is one candidate who can accomplish this, who can contribute, in a split second, to restoring America's international reputation, it is Barack Obama.
Exceptional periods sometimes create exceptional leaders. Without the French revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte would have remained a gifted and frustrated junior military officer. Likewise, the current period in America and its relations with the world have been truly exceptional, requiring a leader who can fundamentally challenge a global majority's view that America has become arrogant, impotent and selfish.
Of course, diehard anti-Americans will never be persuaded, but they remain a minority, with the possible exception of the Muslim world. The silent majority is ready to be convinced that there is life after Bush.
Why is Obama so different from the other presidential candidates, and why could he make such a large difference internationally? After all, in foreign policy matters, the next president's room for manoeuvre will be very small. He (or she) will have to stay in Iraq, engage in the Israel-Palestine conflict on the side of Israel, confront a tougher Russia, deal with an ever more ambitious China, and face the challenge of global warming.
If Obama can make a difference, it is not because of his policy choices, but because of what he is. The very moment he appears on the world's television screens, victorious and smiling, America's image and soft power would experience something like a Copernican revolution.
Think of the impression his election would make, not only in Africa but in Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe. With its rise to global supremacy, America had become the incarnation of the west, and the west was seen as white. Power in America shifted first from the east coast to the west coast, and then to the south. But if a shift across America's racial divide is not truly revolutionary, then what is?
Of course, to reduce Obama to the colour of his skin is a grave oversimplification, even if he has been keen to emphasise his "black roots". In fact, African-Americans do not fully support him. With his white mother and his African father, he does not fit any African-American precedent.
But that is another reason why Obama is exceptional: the complexity of his identity makes him truly universal, a global candidate for a global age. By virtue of his unique personal history, he can bridge Africa, America, even Asia - where he studied as a young boy in a Muslim school - thereby reviving the universal image and message of America.
But, above all, what makes Obama unique, given what the US has been through during the Bush years, is the nature of the message he embodies, which is best summed up in the title of his book, The Audacity of Hope. If America can move from a culture of fear to one of hope - and again incarnate hope for the world - it will require a leader who embodies the American dream: modern and armed with a humanistic religious message, in contrast to the anxious irrationalism of the Christian conservative movement that fuelled Bush's political base.
Regardless of whether Obama can deliver on his promises, America will not regain the stature it had between 1941 and 2000. With or without Obama, the "American century" will not be repeated. But Obama can learn from the early mistakes made by Jimmy Carter in the mid-1970s. Neo-isolationism is not an option, but restraint - based on confidence and wisdom - is.
The world needs a more modest and confident America. For a European who has been deeply troubled and saddened by America's evolution in the last decade, Obama, of all the declared presidential candidates, seems to come closest to the embodiment of such an America.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/24/barackobamasamericanrevolut
Sopal
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But what about the lovers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc. of those in our all-volunteer armed forces? What of OUR sleep?
You've never shown any such consideration/compassion of same mentioned (mfsb etc.)
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