Posted on 09/30/2009 6:14:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
"When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights," Barack Obama thundered as he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Denver last year. "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell. But he won't even go to the cave where he lives."
It was a shabby bit of rhetoric, even for a campaign. Insinuating that McCain, of all people, didn't have the intestinal fortitude to take the fight to bin Laden was not only absurd on its face, it smacked of overcompensation coming from the former community organizer whose greatest foreign policy passion prior to his presidential bid had been nuclear disarmament.
But the line did what it needed to do: communicate that Obama had the sort of true grit required to fight the good, i.e. popular, war in Afghanistan. That war may or may not be good anymore, but it is most certainly not popular. And so what was for Obama a "war of necessity" has become a de facto war of choice. At least that's the sense one gets as the president is suddenly searching for a politically palatable strategy other than the one he announced months ago.
Now, I think it would amount to both breathtaking cynicism and, far worse, bad policy for Obama to abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban and al-Qaida. That goes for the "Biden plan," which would amount to little better than a public relations effort whereby we would score regular symbolic victories while steadily losing the war.
But if it's sincere, I welcome Obama's willingness to rethink his position on an issue in which he invested so much political capital and machismo.
Obama came into office swearing he was a pragmatist who would support any approach that worked. He liked to invoke Franklin Roosevelt as his lodestar, for Roosevelt championed "bold, persistent experimentation." Discussing the economy, Obama told "60 Minutes": "What you see in FDR that I hope my team can emulate is not always getting it right but projecting a sense of confidence and a willingness to try things and experiment in order to get people working again."
That spirit has been woefully lacking in Obama's presidency so far. During the campaign, Obama's top domestic priorities were reform of health care, education and energy. When an economic crisis that is -- according to Obama, at least -- second only to the Depression exploded in front of him, Obama the alleged pragmatist concluded that, mirabile dictu, his year-old agenda was the perfect solution.
Obama insisted that as president of both "red" and "blue" America, he was open to ideas from both sides of the aisle. But his stimulus bill was as partisan and one-sided as Democrats claimed George W. Bush's tax cuts were. At least Bush's tax cuts actually cut taxes. It remains to be seen whether Obama's stimulus stimulated anything at all.
After ending the war in Iraq and taking the fight to bin Laden's cave, direct engagement with the Iranian regime was candidate Obama's greatest foreign policy priority. Partly this stemmed from the fact that he accidentally suggested in a debate that he would meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Rather than admit he was wrong, Obama stuck to his idee fixe throughout the campaign.
Since being elected, it seems that his off-the-cuff slipup wasn't that off the cuff. Despite an ever-increasing number of lies, subterfuges and outrages on the part of the Iranians, the Obama administration has seemed convinced that they can be talked into compliance with the so-called international community.
But the optimist can look at Obama's newfound open-mindedness on Afghanistan and his potential orchestration of international sanctions against Iran as proof that reality is prying him from his ideological cocoon.
Alas, there's another way of reading recent events. Critics always claimed that Obama was a very left-wing fellow who was never the centrist he claimed to be. The pessimist might suspect that Obama's newfound pragmatism only manifests itself when it permits him to abandon the centrist positions that may have helped him get elected but are of no use to him politically anymore. What seemed like principled centrism in 2008 might simply be exposed as left-wing expediency in 2009.
Here's hoping the optimists are right.
Goldberg is an idiot.
Huh? Put up, don’t call names
Explained simply:
‘Bamma sees foreign policy as a distraction from his goal of converting America to a fascist state.
The "chess-pieces fallacy" comes into play when social experimenters think they can arrange different human beings around just like a hand arranges different pieces on a chess board. Of course, the fallacy here is that, as Sowell writes, "human beings have their own individual preferences, plans, values and wills, all of which can conflict with and even thwart the goals of social experimenters."
My, what a thoughtful and informative post. You have greatly advanced my knowledge and insight. Do you have any other penetrating thoughts you care to share with us?
Neither is mine
It’s really common among libs, actually, it’s the basis of their ideology.
Certain elite individuals are so superior to everyone, morally, intellectually, etc,
that they not only have the ability, but the right, and (most importantly) the DUTY,
to substitute their superior decisions and goals for the decisions and goals of the individual.
Read Sowell’s “Conflict of Visions” and “Vision of the Anointed” for more details.
There’s also a religious/worldview aspect to it.
Collectivists are elitists because they don’t believe in the fallen nature of man. If someone says “I believe that everyone is basically good”, you have someone with a worldview that will logically lead to elitism and collectivism.
Notice he has not answered my request to explain his accusation
“What seemed like principled centrism in 2008 might simply be exposed as left-wing expediency in 2009. “
Not “might” What IS!
I am with you...
I think FR should have a filter that prevents any post that consists of:
“[name] is a[n] [bad name]”
Not just a fascist state but also a 4th world country
It is possible to perceive the passions of the Left as frenzies of masochism. What could be more idiotic and masochistic than to oppose missile defense? This opposition cannot be understood unless one dispenses with its rhetoric and rationales and realizes that these folks at their emotional core do not want their country defended.The lunacy of the "global warming" hoax cannot be comprehended other than that its masochistic advocates do not want their civilization to prosper. The culture-destroying immigration policies that Pat Buchanan warns are causing "The Death of the West" were put in place by those who do not want their culture to survive.
No, he's not. But having read Hanson and Krauthammer discussing the same topic, I would say that Goldberg comes across as very, very shallow.
Ya know, those “idiots” Bush and Rumsfeld; turned over military control of Afghanistan to NATO in October of 2006. This “foolish” policy was an effort to make the success of Afghanistan an international effort.
Of course that wasn’t good enough for the Dems. They insisted for the next 2 years that we should be aggressive and taking the lead in Afghanistan. Then Obama got elected and announced his “definitive” policy on Iraq - which has been borderline catostrophic.
This should be Obama’s finest moment. He should use his personal power of persuasion to enlist the help of his beloved “international community” or at least the other NATO members to make Afghanistan a glimmering jewel of Obama’s brilliant international leadership.
Oh yeah, I forgot. He just back stabbed two NATO members on missile defense and they’re hauling butt out of Afghanistan. But that couldn’t influence the rest of NATO - right ?
Can you blame them? I can not.
This allegorical crap of contrasting optimists versus pessimists is nonsense. We know what drives and motivates Obama and his agenda. Goldberg is an idiot.
See my post #19. I thought it was pretty obvious about Goldberg’s alleged “insight” into Obama. I guess not.
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