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How Conservative Is A Free Ride?
Posted on 05/31/2014 1:21:21 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
The US leader President Barack Obama tried again this week to hit the reset button on his reputation as America’s guardian of national security.
While the issue plagues his poll ratings and his many speeches crowd out other more fruitful areas for a Democratic president, there he was again on Wednesday at West Point, outlining his foreign policy strategy.
The reception for the speech was dire.
The Washington Post declared that he had “marshaled a virtual corps of straw men,” in making an argument for an “Obama doctrine” that was at odds with every US president since the Second World War.
Aside from the very serious real-world consequences, Obama’s foreign policy failure also has serious political consequences.
During the heady days of 2008, and beyond, when the “hope and change” mantra was still popular, it looked like Obama might just be able to reorder the entire American political calculus.
After decades of Democrats reinforcing the negative stereotype that they were weak on national security and foreign policy, it seemed as if he was on the cusp of exorcising those demons to rebrand his party as the serious and competent custodians of the nation’s safety.
By ordering lethal force to end the Somali pirate standoff in 2009 to free Captain Richard Phillips and by ordering the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, Obama’s first term featured some big moments as well as his signature big speeches.
It seemed for a time his vision for using Special Forces and drones to make surgical strikes (as opposed to threats of boots on the ground) was a workable alternative for a war-weary nation that wanted to exert influence without getting its hands dirty.
But while Obama was racking up symbolic victories amongst pirates and terrorists, the geopolitical situation was deteriorating, and authoritarian regimes were watching. The most egregious misstep was Obama’s drawing -- and then ignoring -- a red line on chemical weapons in Syria. At worst, it invited provocation.
At best it made him look impotent. When one considers that Secretary of State John Kerry had just compared the Bashar al-Assad’s regime to Nazi Germany and its use of chemicals to the Holocaust. In that context it was hard to interpret this struggle as anything less than a moral crusade that could not be brushed aside.
When the president did just that the media hardly noticed.
It was a similar tale when the American consulate in Benghazi was stormed, leaving four, including the ambassador Chris Stevens dead. However the media largely bought the line it was a spontaneous attack brought on by a controversial YouTube video - certainly not a pre-planned terror attack (after all, Al-Qaeda was on the run).
During that same election season, Obama mocked Mitt Romney’s declaration that Russia was a geopolitical foe, suggesting that Romney was somehow stuck in the 1980s.
But when Russia invaded Ukraine this spring -- occupying, and ultimately annexing Crimea -- it seemed that Obama’s attempts to reorder the American electorate, making foreign policy and national security “Democratic issues” again, had finally hit an iceberg.
In May, it was revealed that as many as 40 military veterans may have died waiting for care from the Department of Veterans Affairs -- and that the Phoenix VA had created fake wait lists to hide the delays. An audit report revealed that as many as 1,700 were never even scheduled a doctor’s appointment or put on a wait list. The firing of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki was inevitable.
Over the Memorial Day holiday, Obama scheduled a surprise visit to Afghanistan (where he will eventually fulfill his 2008 campaign promise of ending the war.) It should have been a positive story, but a pall was cast when it was revealed that the White House had accidentally outed the CIA chief living in Afghanistan. And thus, an otherwise positive trip turned into a mockery.
Ultimately, Obama’s problem is that he lacks a coherent foreign policy. He is overly fond of theorising, but the hard worldly realities defy his attempts to resolve the messy issues on his desk.
And his foreign policy doctrine is unprecedented in modern America, somewhat arbitrary, ill-conceived, and utterly lacking in moral clarity. More and more, it appears he has reverse engineered a foreign policy, based primarily on doing the opposite of George W. Bush did, as opposed to overtly crafting a wise and coherent foreign policy strategy going forward.
Unfortunately for him, he now faces very serious challenges having to do with his fundamentally having no plan and a never-ending cascade of embarrassments and scandals.
Matt K. Lewis is a senior contributor at The Daily Caller website in Washington, DC
No, that is only a popular fiction.
The on-scene SEAL commander got fed up and ordered it himself. It was only because they were SUCCESSFUL that GayMuzzy piled on with the fiction that HE was owed credit, per his well-known penchant for collecting credit for the good works of others.
And later Obama paid back the SEALS by putting two of them on trial for punching out a terrorist.
Great summary! Way to go Daily Caller!
And , as usual, failed miserably just like he has done with everything else he has been involved in. PUTZ!!
The guy told a crowd in Germany that he considers himself a “citizen of the world” — and this was before he was elected the first time.
Anyone who heard that should have known that he had every intention of using his position as President to make America’s interests subservient to the interests of every other nation on the planet.
“By ordering lethal force to end the Somali pirate standoff in 2009 to free Captain Richard Phillips and by ordering the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, Obama’s first term featured some big moments as well as his signature big speeches.”
Wow! In comparison with Obama, other Democrats look really weak. You know FDR with D Day and Truman and Hiroshima. What wusses.
Bath house Barry...failure is the new success.
A retired 3 star, now beltway US Army advocate, told me yesterday that the currently is NO risk based comprehensive national security strategy. Period.
Ha...his whole national security policy predicated on a handful of bullets....
Contrast with Thatcher's Belgrano moment.
After almost 31 years of service, the Belgrano was sunk during the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de Malvinas or Guerra del Atlántico Sur) by the Royal Navy submarine Conqueror with the loss of 323 lives. Losses from the Belgrano totalled just over half of Argentine deaths in the war.
She is the only ship ever to have been sunk during military operations by a nuclear-powered submarine[1] and the second sunk in action by any type of submarine since World War II,
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Obama's West Point speech signals his presidency has entered a crisis of confidence, marking an abysmal failed presidency.
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KEEP IN MIND The WH criminals have plans..... WRT Federal action, including the use of federal military force, authorized during times of "civil unrest." Only question is: how are "tolerant and compassionate" Dummycrat weenies planning on creating "unrest" so that the Chicago criminals in the WH can subdue us?
Fact is.....HE is the civilian the military needs to protect us from. After that chilly reception the narcissistic POS got at West Point, there's no question about who they'll take their orders from. Clearly, most of the military think he’s a POS; they won't take orders to go against civilians.
The POS prez is decidedly stupid---he thinks a bunch of Chicago criminals can outgun the highly-armed and sophisticated American public.
The Chi/criminals better read the Constitution----the military can commandeer the WH, the Oval Office, and its occupants in a nanosecond.
More egregiously, the Obamatons have been tinkering w/ the composition of the military to reinforce their left-wing agenda; enlistees include homos/transgenders, and other perverts, fem/lib weirdos/lesbians, illegal aliens (probably felons). These people owe their lives to the clown and will kill Americans citizens with glee.
Hardly the types the establishment military needs to wage war.
The military-hating Obama's tinkering is not designed to garner applause from the military establishment.
We just can’t comprehend his greatness, we mere mortals.
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