Posted on 04/29/2014 6:00:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
You know things are bad when you can't wait for the return of a TV character to demonstrate what resolve and leadership really look like. Yes, after a four-year hiatus, the show "24," featuring Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland), returns May 5 to the Fox network.
Bauer displays many of the traits once found in, or at least expected of, American presidents and top military leaders. He doesn't waffle or wiggle; neither does he negotiate. He wins. If you think I am about to draw a contrast between Bauer and the current president of the United States you are right.
The headlines are depressing: "Obama Suffers Setbacks in Japan and the Mideast" (New York Times); "Pentagon: (Defense Secretary Chuck) Hagel's Russian Counterpart won't return his calls" (Fox News); and these two from the May issue of Commentary Magazine: "China Rises As America Weakens"; "He's Made It Worse: Obama's Middle East."
Obama is detached, uninterested and inexperienced in foreign affairs and the world has taken notice. Putin calculated he could get away with meddling in Ukraine because he perceived weakness in the president of the United States. And, in fact, the first wave of U.S. and European sanctions against Russia proved him right. They were nothing short of laughable. Does the West really think it can fell a Russian bear with a water pistol?
The only thing I learned in a physics class before flunking it was that nature abhors a vacuum and will fill it if given the opportunity. The same is true in foreign policy. That's what "Peace Through Strength" in the Reagan era was about. There was a reason the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of American hostages on Inauguration Day 1981. He seemed to believe Reagan might attack if Iran kept Americans as prisoners.
While Obama plays numerous rounds of golf and the military fiddles with issues like women in combat and whether taxpayers should pay for convicted intelligence leaker Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning's gender transition, Putin acts. The Middle East is in flames -- diplomatically and literally -- because this administration has no discernible foreign policy other than criticizing Israel.
As the world changes and new challenges arise, American foreign policy must adapt. Past failures should be scrapped. Past successes should be remembered and replicated.
The first and most important step must be for the United States to declare who we are as a country and to define our purpose in the world. Presidents are supposed to do this. Somewhere between isolationism and interventionism is a U.S. policy waiting to be discovered.
"Freedom" may mean one thing to us, but it means something quite different in other parts of the world. In Russia, which has a long history of autocratic leaders who have traded freedom for a minimal standard of living, American-style freedom is not universally embraced. In many Muslim lands, freedom means Sharia law. Applying American principles to that world has caused frustration, even failure.
If the president fails to articulate who we are to fellow Americans and the world -- and there is little evidence he knows how, or even wants to -- the United States will lose its leadership role. The hostile forces willing to take its place -- China, Russia and radical Islam -- will bring with them consequences we will not like and threats to our national security we may not be able to repel.
Perhaps Jack Bauer can again inspire as he did when "24" premiered in November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks on America. Sometimes fiction is stranger than truth.
Of course it exists. He cribbed it from Change the Gardener.
Obama doesn’t need foreign policy to destroy his enemy.
I understand what the author is getting at; however he missed the bus. This administration has declared who (part of us) "we" are; a filthy society with no morals and no will to defend American Exceptional-ism. America will no longer bring your country freedom, the doctrine of DC is to tear down other governments and replace with tyrants. We wink at communists while delivering limp wrist sanctions. We prosecute those charged in defending our borders for doing their jobs. We cater (and often times embrace) to illegals in our country and provide more to them than the average citizen receives. 47% of the homeland can no longer survive with out suckling mama-government's teet.
There was a declaration in 2009; those in DC are the ones "they" have been waiting for and "they" are out to destroy America. That is the message resonating around the world right now.
Right on. His domestic policy is his foreign policy, DEFEAT AMERICA!
Its “promote Islam and the Muslim brotherhood”
Isn't that obvious by now?
Barry’s regime will do exactly as the masters of the CFR, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergs tell them to do. These same masters have generated and financed every major war since our Civil War, at least. They are running the planet without even being exposed for the demonic bastards they are.
CFR, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergs
You can’t mention those organizations - they aren’t real - just clubs wealthy influential people join for status but they don’t really affect any policy or have any influence. What, do you wanna make conservatives look like foolish conspiracy nuts? - shame on you. Go back to sleep and come back when you’ve gotten serious and then you’ll be fit for rationally partaking in a discussion; as it is you’ve just gone outside of the allowed parameters of thought and analysis. Medved and Limbaugh - “10 point kook test” inform us as the gatekeepers of conservative thought this is so.
Obama is detached, uninterested and inexperienced.
Dumb dangerous with vast amounts of hate can come of no good for anyone or thing.
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