Tag: Obama’s foreign policy

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Ignoring Obama’s failed terrorism approach

SPECIAL NOTE:  The Jidhadist attacks on Paris, which came just as this article was being prepared, have caused over 100 deaths, according to preliminary reports. On-site observations from the Middle East  indicate that there was “jubilation” in certain quarters upon  receiving news of the devastating loss of life.  

For far too long, many have alleged that withdrawing from Iraq, as President Obama did early in his term, would reduce tensions with the Islamic World.  Similarly, it was maintained that starting to wind down activities in Afghanistan would do the same, ditto for reducing our relations with Israel.  Obviously, that policy has been repeatedly proven wrong. 

Islamic extremists do not hate the United States for what it DOES; they hate America for what is IS.  The concepts of personal freedom, religious tolerance, and equal rights for women are unacceptable to their dark age mentality. 

 

The aberrant foreign policy developed by the President and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton entails the two most devastating mistakes in U.S. international relations: the so-called “Reset” with Russia and the refusal to acknowledge the growing threat of Islamic extremism.

Clear examples of a policy based on self-delusion abound.  In a state of the Union address, Mr. Obama stated that “The shadow of the threat of terrorism has passed.” In an interview with VOX, he claimed that the level of alarm over terrorism is excessive. He described a shooting at a U.S. military base by an Islamic extremist as “workplace violence.”

Both the White House and Secretary Clinton knowingly deceived the public about the cause of the attack on Benghazi, claiming that it was the result of a video—knowing all the time that this was untrue. The failure to hold either to account for that lie, and to refuse to probe into the circumstances that led to the attack in the first place, constitutes a searing indictment of the partisanship of the American media.

These problems range from neck and purchase cialis here back pain that actually works too – non-surgical spinal decompression. This is used to maintain or achieve full erection when you need. viagra price canada is a prescription pill but still it enjoys credibility of the US citizens are uninsured and when it comes to spending on medicines it becomes a bite in to their pockets. It is something which haunts them throughout their entire sex life if it is not treated. buy generic levitra If you are taking the medicines for chest pain or the medicines for the prostrate problems, it is being advised not to take the pill three purchase generic viagra or four times before it works for a majority of the people who try it — about half stem further loss of hair, while the other half received a placebo once a day for 3 to 4 months offers the. The rise of ISIS and the growing strength of extremists can be directly attributed to the President’s stunningly misguided actions. Whether or not one supported the war to eliminate Saddam Hussein, the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq created a vacuum that allowed ISIS to rise to power. His announcement of a departure date from Afghanistan caused the Taliban to regain tremendous influence, as did the President’s warped decision to negotiate with them.  Apparently, the Taliban’s brutal treatment of Afghanistan’s population, its relentless assaults on women, and its participation in the 9/11 attack on America didn’t disqualify them from being a negotiating partner of the Obama Administration. Wiser heads have now at least prevailed upon the White House to keep some U.S. forces in Afghanistan longer, in an effort to not repeat his horrible mistake in Iraq.

The President’s supporters both in politics and in the media apparently have concluded that there are only two options:  a return to massive boots on the ground or essentially ignoring, and sometimes even supporting, the depravity and threat of Islamic extremists.

Indeed, Mr. Obama’s endorsement of the Arab Spring movements, which were thinly veiled guises for extremists to topple existing Middle East regimes, was a tilt towards the worst elements in the Moslem world. It is appropriate to ask why the President endorsed the replacement of Egypt’s pro-western, pro-peace regime with one that was exactly the opposite.  Why did he oppose the “Green Revolution” in Iran, the only Arab Spring movement not to gain his favor, that sought to replace the anti-west, anti-peace hard line regime with one that was more reasonable? And above all, why did he actively involve the U.S.—despite his allergy to military involvement—in the deposing of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, which was fighting al Qaeda and the Moslem Brotherhood, and which led to the rise of influence by those forces in that nation?

The President’s action—or inaction—regarding ISIS is telling. He has authorized just enough airstrikes to allow the evening news some film of U.S. planes doing something, but not enough to in any way hinder ISIS activities.  It’s all about internal U.S. politics, and not about actually confronting terrorism. Similarly, the Administration’s recent placement of 50, yes, 50, special forces personnel on the ground is just another exercise in public relations.

Mr. Obama’s bizarre Guantanamo Bay policy is illustrative. Why has he released a number of inmates, some of whom have returned to their terrorist activities? Why, despite the success of Guantanamo Bay as a prison facility far from U.S. soil where attacks could jeopardize American civilians, has he made the closing of that facility such a priority that he threatened to veto the entire 2016 defense budget unless Congress went along with his plans?

One of the terrible results of the President’s Mideast policies has been the dramatic growth of Iranian and Russian influence and outright power in the region. If U.S. forces had not been prematurely withdrawn from Iraq, this would not have occurred. Even after that mistake was made and ISIS did rise as a result, an earlier and far more extensive use of U.S. airpower along with a limited and judicious use of ground forces against ISIS could have prevented the current disaster from occurring.

Presidents make mistakes, sometimes with the best of intentions.  But once it is clear that a mistake has been made, a correction must be made.  Despite the utter failure of his foreign policies, Mr. Obama stubbornly refuses to change course, and his supporters continue to make excuses for him. He has not been held accountable by a clearly biased media desperate to gloss over his terrible failings. Placing partisanship over the good of the nation, and in the case of Islamic extremism, the good of all humanity, is a poor choice.

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The Obama Administration’s disturbing negligence in foreign affairs

A disturbing attitude from America’s Commander-in-Chief and his appointees was in full view during the past week.

On Capitol Hill, former Secretary of State Clinton testified that she didn’t see and wasn’t informed of numerous, desperate pleas for additional security at the Benghazi facility. It’s a lose-lose situation for her; either she was negligent in her oversight responsibilities, or her judgment was so poor in the matter that it led to a disastrous result.

There was little or no discussion of why the Administration helped topple former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who had moved to the same side as the U.S. in fighting al Qaeda and the Moslem Brotherhood. This pointless and counterproductive move gave rise to the conditions which resulted in the chaos that gave rise to the Benghazi attack, just as the President’s reckless and premature withdrawal of troops from Iraq gave rise to the conditions that allowed ISIS to come to power which, in turn, resulted in Iran’s huge growth of influence in the Middle East as the only force on the ground willing to take them on.

At the White House, Mr. Obama threatened to veto what is, essentially, his own defense spending bill in an effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, where terrorists are housed in a setting where no American civilians can be harmed. He also seeks to use his veto threat as a way of forcing Congress to comply with his effort to shift funds from the defense budget, which is substantially smaller than when he took office, (and accounting for only 18% of the federal budget and a significantly lower share of GDP than it has for decades) to entitlements (although not social security) which have expanded greatly, without any success in reducing poverty.  Speaking of things Cuban, the President has also failed to explain why, one month after Havana agreed to allow the Russian Navy to return to its cold war base on the island nation, he, strangely, rewarded this threatening action by restoring relations with Castro’s government.

The President, it has been noted, has failed in the past to regularly attend his own staff’s national security briefings. He appears uninterested at a time when troubling events, some of which are the results of his own inattention, are placing the world in greater danger than at any time since the conclusion of the Second World War.

Throughout the tenure of the current White House and throughout the stewardship of both Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, there has been an almost childlike attitude towards international affairs. The President and his appointed Secretaries of State seem to believe that if they simply pretend a threat doesn’t exist, it will go away. Those who disagree with this reality have only one alternative explanation: the President believes that it is America that is causing the world’s problems, a conviction that is contrary to the facts. In this line of thinking, it better to let others—Russia, Iran, etc., take the lead. If this is, indeed, his belief, he has not had the honesty or the courage to share this view with his constituency.
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Mr. Obama is determined to pursue his expensive (and so far, unproductive) domestic agenda at all costs. But presidents do not have the luxury of simply ignoring 50% of their responsibility.  They can neither focus on domestic affairs to the exclusion of foreign affairs, nor vice-versa. They do not have the moral or Constitutional right to completely reverse course on key areas of policy and practice, in this case national defense and foreign affairs, without a candid disclosure of intention to Congress and the people.

Since the current administration came to power, and as a specific result of White House actions, the already weakened American military has shriveled to a dangerously low level, unprecedented since before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Additionally, relations with allies have deteriorated to an extraordinary degree. The United Kingdom, Poland, Philippines, and Israel are all prime examples.  There is staggering loss of trust in the dependability of Washington as a partner for safety and peace.

Truly bad actors on the international stage seem to have been given carte blanche to engage in the type of actions that has typified aggressors throughout history.   Russia clearly seeks to regain the full international power of the Soviet Union, with a new military that is far more efficient and modern.  China, having benefited from its acquisition of American technology (President Clinton’s allowance of a sale of a Cray supercomputer in the 1990’s, as well as cyber-theft) moves confidentially and illegally to exert control over the Eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans. North Korea and Iran move forward with advanced missile and nuclear technology. Terrorist forces, not just in the Middle East but also in Latin America, Africa and Afghanistan have attained unprecedented levels of power and influence.

As all this occurs, the President focuses on boutique ideological issues such as the closing of Guantanamo Bay and continuing his give-away programs to his core constituency.

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Obama’s Russian policy ignores history & reality

The White House continues to act surprised at Russia’s aggressiveness in Europe and the Middle East, and its alliances with China and Iran. It’s time the President and his advisors took time to read a history book or two, and not the ones written by the aging 60’s radicals that have so heavily influenced his thinking and his career.

In the absurd, moral equivalence view of the progressive left, Washington and Moscow emerged from World War 2 as competitors, the two toughest kids on the block, both only interested in domination.  Therefore, the Obama Administration’s policies which allowed the Kremlin to become the superior nuclear power, that gave in to its demands to withdraw U.S. anti-missile devices from Poland, to remove most American tanks from Europe, to slash defense spending and to virtually ignore Russia’s massive arms buildup have all been, according to this perspective, justified as a “risk for peace,” signaling Moscow that Washington wasn’t interested in furthering competition. The fact that all those measures only encouraged Russian aggressiveness has been ignored. Even its return to military bases in Latin America has been overlooked.

The progressive’s historical memory is, of course, completely wrong.  While the U.S. rebuilt both its allies and its former enemies, the Kremlin essentially capitalized on the conflict by forging an empire in Eastern Europe, as it continued on a wartime footing in the hopes of still further expansion.

Russia’s expansionist, militant perspective didn’t begin in 1945. Missing from the hard-left worldview is the reality that Nazi Germany wouldn’t have had the ability to grow its armed forces to such great power without the German-Soviet Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.  Equally ignored is the unpleasant reality that the two nations began the conflict as allies, sharing in the division of Poland between them. The agreement also contained a provision outlining the dual annexation of Eastern Europe, which foreshadowed Moscow’s actions following the war.

The Kremlin’s recent moves are a continuation of the aggressive, militant policies that caused so much pain throughout the 20th century. (The transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation hasn’t changed the nation’s underlying policies.) Its recent invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, and its threatening stance against other Eastern European nations are clear examples.

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While the Obama Administration continues its peace at any price worldview (similar to that of Britain’s pre-war Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who famously believed that he could prevent conflict with Germany by appeasing Hitler) the NATO alliance is beginning to take some, albeit inadequate, steps in recognition of the rapidly growing threat. Its’ plan provides for enhanced readiness, and sets up two more NATO Force Integration Units (NFIUs) or small headquarters in Hungary and Slovakia. Six other NFIUs were activated in September in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. The United Kingdom will rotate more troops into the Baltics and Poland for training and exercises.

The action comes in response to several Russian moves, including the increased power and modernity of Moscow’s forces, its invasions of Ukraine and Georgia, its incursions near the airspace of several NATO countries (including the very recent entry into Turkey’s airspace) and the Kremlin’s establishment of airbases in Belarus in order to threaten NATO members Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. The violation of arms accords relating to intermediate range nuclear weapons, and Russia’s ten to one lead in the possession of those devices, has produced significant concern as well.

While NATO’s actions are appropriate, the fact remains that the military budgets of its members remain far below adequate to truly challenge Moscow’s threatening stance. While this has been a long-standing pattern for NATO’s European members, the recent decline of America’s defense spending has dramatically enhanced the problem.

The Obama Administration’s faulty historical memory, a product of the Presidents’ progressive roots, is disturbing enough. When combined with its absolute refusal to change its foreign policy course and national security strategy in the face of consistent, repeated and major failures, the concern becomes extreme.