Henry Lamb
Obama's bootlicking backfires
By Henry Lamb
Did anyone squirm or feel embarrassed when President Obama allowed Dictator Chavez to give him a book about the evils of the United States? The initial diplomatic handshake could be overlooked, but it was definitely embarrassing to watch Obama accepting, with a smile, a gift from this guy who had previously called him an "ignoramus", and had called another U.S. President "el Diablo" at the United Nations.
This blunder, on the heels of his European fiasco where he apologized for the United States' policies before he took office, raises serious questions about his vision and understanding of what America is all about. Some critics attribute this ineptitude to naivety, but when viewed in the context of such additional actions as deliberately overriding his CIA advisors and releasing memos about interrogation methods, Obama's agenda has to be seriously questioned.
The Obama news consortium justifies these missteps as necessary to the "restart" process through which Obama will re-establish the United States as a respected partner in the international community. This is, after all, what he promised during the campaign, when he said he would engage in direct discussions with Iran without preconditions.
The idiocy of this policy was revealed when Obama's bootlicking backfired in Geneva during the U.N. Conference on Racism. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, must not have been impressed by Obama's apologies and promises. This Iranian President didn't turn down the volume one bit on his vicious, racist attacks on Israel or the United States. Incidentally, he didn't slow his quest to process uranium either. In fact, despite Obama's promises and groveling, Ahmadinejad spit in Obama's face, earlier this month, by announcing Iran's first nuclear Fuel Manufacturing Plant.
Obama continues to look more and more like a Neville Chamberlain in his foreign policy attitude. This posture produced nothing recently when he asked NATO partners to send more troops to Afghanistan. They yawned, promised a few "support" personnel, but flatly refused to provide fighting forces to do the heavy lifting.
This NATO posture also allows captured pirates to be set free. Critics of this "turn 'em loose" policy say that when pirates are caught red-handed attacking a vessel in international waters, that the thing to do is to "shoot the bastards and feed the sharks." It wouldn't take long to solve the piracy problems off the coast of Africa were this policy adopted. But it is not the politically correct way to handle the situation. The one captured pirate who escaped the more effective method of pirate-disposal, has been brought to the United States, given three squares a day, a defense attorney, and all the rights provided to law-abiding Americans. This policy will surely deter piracy almost as effectively as the NATO policy.
Whatever Obama's vision of America is, it is certainly different from the vision we've strived to achieve over the last two centuries. Until now, America has been the place where individual freedom encourages people to accomplish the impossible, to produce prosperity, to defend the helpless, and to help the needy. America's might was developed to defend freedom and has been used only to liberate people from abuse by dictatorial governments.
This practice and posture needs no apology — to anyone!
Obama's vision appears to be integration of the United States into the community of nations under the rule of global governance administered by the United Nations. His willingness to readily accept the G20's call for a global Financial Stability Board and his eagerness to embrace the United Nation's global warming remedy — whatever it may turn out to be — and his continuing apologies for America's failure to do these things in the past — are all evidence of an Obama vision of America that is not American.
America is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we do not need an "international community" to tell us how to perfect it. A free people, in pursuit of individual happiness, served by a government whose first responsibility is to protect the rights endowed by the Creator to all its citizens constitute a self-correcting society.
A society shackled by a domineering government that seeks to manage the affairs of individuals and markets is not self correcting. It is self-condemning and its only hope of survival is the goodwill of its international neighbors.
This nation has been successful, and can be again, following the same formula that brings success to individuals: righteousness, individual responsibility, self-sufficiency, charity, curiosity, and industry. A nation full of people following this formula must succeed.
A nation whose individuals are denigrated for their belief in God; whose government discourages individual responsibility by progressive taxation and government handouts; who prefer the proceeds of another's wealth, rather than working to achieve self-sufficiency; who confuse lust with love; and who are as lazy intellectually as they are physically; cannot succeed.
© Henry Lamb
April 26, 2009
Did anyone squirm or feel embarrassed when President Obama allowed Dictator Chavez to give him a book about the evils of the United States? The initial diplomatic handshake could be overlooked, but it was definitely embarrassing to watch Obama accepting, with a smile, a gift from this guy who had previously called him an "ignoramus", and had called another U.S. President "el Diablo" at the United Nations.
This blunder, on the heels of his European fiasco where he apologized for the United States' policies before he took office, raises serious questions about his vision and understanding of what America is all about. Some critics attribute this ineptitude to naivety, but when viewed in the context of such additional actions as deliberately overriding his CIA advisors and releasing memos about interrogation methods, Obama's agenda has to be seriously questioned.
The Obama news consortium justifies these missteps as necessary to the "restart" process through which Obama will re-establish the United States as a respected partner in the international community. This is, after all, what he promised during the campaign, when he said he would engage in direct discussions with Iran without preconditions.
The idiocy of this policy was revealed when Obama's bootlicking backfired in Geneva during the U.N. Conference on Racism. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, must not have been impressed by Obama's apologies and promises. This Iranian President didn't turn down the volume one bit on his vicious, racist attacks on Israel or the United States. Incidentally, he didn't slow his quest to process uranium either. In fact, despite Obama's promises and groveling, Ahmadinejad spit in Obama's face, earlier this month, by announcing Iran's first nuclear Fuel Manufacturing Plant.
Obama continues to look more and more like a Neville Chamberlain in his foreign policy attitude. This posture produced nothing recently when he asked NATO partners to send more troops to Afghanistan. They yawned, promised a few "support" personnel, but flatly refused to provide fighting forces to do the heavy lifting.
This NATO posture also allows captured pirates to be set free. Critics of this "turn 'em loose" policy say that when pirates are caught red-handed attacking a vessel in international waters, that the thing to do is to "shoot the bastards and feed the sharks." It wouldn't take long to solve the piracy problems off the coast of Africa were this policy adopted. But it is not the politically correct way to handle the situation. The one captured pirate who escaped the more effective method of pirate-disposal, has been brought to the United States, given three squares a day, a defense attorney, and all the rights provided to law-abiding Americans. This policy will surely deter piracy almost as effectively as the NATO policy.
Whatever Obama's vision of America is, it is certainly different from the vision we've strived to achieve over the last two centuries. Until now, America has been the place where individual freedom encourages people to accomplish the impossible, to produce prosperity, to defend the helpless, and to help the needy. America's might was developed to defend freedom and has been used only to liberate people from abuse by dictatorial governments.
This practice and posture needs no apology — to anyone!
Obama's vision appears to be integration of the United States into the community of nations under the rule of global governance administered by the United Nations. His willingness to readily accept the G20's call for a global Financial Stability Board and his eagerness to embrace the United Nation's global warming remedy — whatever it may turn out to be — and his continuing apologies for America's failure to do these things in the past — are all evidence of an Obama vision of America that is not American.
America is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we do not need an "international community" to tell us how to perfect it. A free people, in pursuit of individual happiness, served by a government whose first responsibility is to protect the rights endowed by the Creator to all its citizens constitute a self-correcting society.
A society shackled by a domineering government that seeks to manage the affairs of individuals and markets is not self correcting. It is self-condemning and its only hope of survival is the goodwill of its international neighbors.
This nation has been successful, and can be again, following the same formula that brings success to individuals: righteousness, individual responsibility, self-sufficiency, charity, curiosity, and industry. A nation full of people following this formula must succeed.
A nation whose individuals are denigrated for their belief in God; whose government discourages individual responsibility by progressive taxation and government handouts; who prefer the proceeds of another's wealth, rather than working to achieve self-sufficiency; who confuse lust with love; and who are as lazy intellectually as they are physically; cannot succeed.
© Henry Lamb
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