Obama and ISIS – the Comeuppance of an Arrogant Idealist

No American can take satisfaction in knowing that our President has been knocked down by reality.  One might even suggest that world events have blindsided him, except the failure to see was willful.
 

Barack Obama, from his American mea culpa speech in Cairo to the cancellation of anti-missile projects in Eastern Europe and the re-set of relations with Russia, has chosen to live in a world of his own making.

It was as if history didn’t matter.  National interests and ambitions were irrelevant to the conduct of the world’s nations and peoples.  Bad things happened in the world, the president evidently believed, due to misunderstandings and an assertive America seeking to force its will on others.  The resentments and animosity it generated were to be expected.
 

And so, Obama would make things right.  And why not?  Even the Nobel Prize committee had been persuaded by the President’s call for hope and change and based the award upon his promise alone.
 

Idealism can be so appealing.  All can be so well.  Would that the real world conformed.

One can’t help thinking of Woodrow Wilson and his plea for a League of Nations in 1919.  He fervently felt that providing a forum for the world’s actors would allow disputes and misunderstandings to be resolved peacefully, given his implicit belief that people and nations mainly just want to get along.

Wrong.
 

Some wish to dominate, to rule, to conquer.  Or, in the case of ISIS, to convert or kill.

Reality has certainly long been an unwelcome interloper in the Obama household.  Now that the intruder has upended the place settings, the host has no choice but to call out the rude behavior. 

The arrogance has been exposed as unwarranted and the idealism as foolish.  America laments… why did it take so long?

Our Reluctant Warrior President

We sometimes forget that the primary focus of the President of the United States should not be domestic laws or policies.  Rather, it is to lead the U.S. military.

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, in enumerating the powers of the chief executive, begins, not coincidentally, with the clause “The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy.”

Law-making, on the other hand, is reserved exclusively to Congress.  Article I, Section 1.

The paramount responsibility of the President, it would therefore seem clear, is to defend our country – to keep us safe – by all means necessary.

Alas, Barack Obama has problems bearing that burden and fulfilling that responsibility.

 

His conduct suggests that he’s more concerned with keeping foolish campaign pledges than adjusting to reality.

He set a deadline for withdrawing from Iraq and kept it – over the objections of those who, in retrospect, plainly knew better.

He has promised to do the same in Afghanistan and has generated similar worries. 

He pledged that American ground forces would not return to the Middle East, and “no boots on the ground” remains the President’s mantra.

There’s certainly much merit to keeping one’s word given on the campaign trail.  But how about pledges about  American responses to challenges from our foes?  They would seem far more vital to keep.  America’s word should not be doubted by our enemies or our friends.  They need to know we mean what we say.

How about red lines in Syria?  Or serious consequences for Russian encroachment on Ukraine?

Campaign promises, if sincere, are statements of intentions.  Experience shows, however, that reality can – and should – upend them if they are not founded in the world as it is, regardless of what’s one’s wishes may be.

Incredibly, President Obama has turned this common sense approach on its head.  Wishes have trumped reality.  Why is it so important to him to parse the truth so that he can deny doing what events are forcing him to do?  Is he an example of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”?

Is he so dependent on the emotional support of his left-wing, anti-war constituency that he does not want to dampen it by telling the whole truth?  (He certainly no longer needs their electoral support). 

The beheadings have forced his hand.  He feels compelled to do something – but as little as he must.

 

Our national interest compels that we defeat ISIS, he thunders… but without U.S. ground troops.  And if our Middle Eastern allies decline to provide necessary ground troops as they have so far refused to do?  What then?  Will he cling to his “no boots” promise?  Or will he do what others know must be done?

The great fear is that the President’s past performance has already provided the answer.

A Pre-Occupation with Benghazi

The House of Representatives has recently formed a select committee to investigate the “before-during-after” of the September 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador.

Why?

GOP leaders believe that such an investigation is necessary to unearth the truth that the Administration very much wants to keep buried.

But isn’t the truth already known?

 

Of course President Obama’s team – in the midst of the election campaign – sought to present the attack as unrelated to the war on terror (which, the Administration claimed, for obvious political purposes, had already been won).

Susan Rice, knowingly or otherwise, was trotted out to parrot the false Obama line. 

Facts and experience both made clear that the Administration’s narrative was generated by political considerations.  Certainly, shading the truth – even outright lying (e.g. “you can keep your doctor”)  - was and is a well known White House practice.

No doubt the committee will produce additional evidence showing deceit.  But to what effect?  It’s hard to believe that the case hasn’t already been made.

Recent polls, for instance, show that over 60% of the public doesn’t believe President Obama on Benghazi. 

Yes, the GOP can keep the focus on the fact that the Obama Administration did what it could, truth be damned, to win re-election.  Ok.  Does that really help Republicans this year?  No.  Current concerns such as Obamacare and the Veterans Administration debacle will attract more voter interest that rehashing a tragedy nearly two years old.  

Humans Remain Social Beings

About fifteen years ago, prompted by the publication of Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone book, social scientists were pontificating about the increasing social isolation of Americans.

Putnam cited a variety of studies on the decline of community organizations and activities.  As captured in his book’s catchy title, people were dropping out of the weekly leagues, for instance, that had been a staple of small town group gatherings.  Now, people are bowling, and doing other things, alone.

 

There can be no question that, if anything, the trend has intensified in the past decade and a half.

Electronic devices for entertainment and communication are obviously everywhere.  Their use, of course, doesn’t extend the hours of the day so there’s less time for in-person contact.

To be sure, people still have contact with others but the form is changing.  In-person to voice to text.

But I suggest that virtual contact is not the same.  Humans desire – need – direct, supportive, emotional involvement.

Traditionally, families have met that need.  However, disintegration of families in recent decades is a well-documented fact.  Are victims of family dissolutions or ill formations more likely to be among those seeking virtual relationships?

 

Is the popularity of “bowling alone” activity a response to the void or a cause of it, or both?

What is undeniable is that people strive to find emotionally fulfilling contact and fellow humans needn’t be the only source.

It can’t be merely coincidental that since 1970 (on the eve of the broad computer age) American pet ownership has grown from one third to over fifty percent today.

Can a society long survive if its members find more comfort and solace among the inhabitants of the animal world than with fellow humans? 

 

Particularly alarming is another observation.  It appears that the growth in pet ownership is not confined to the U.S.  It has occurred also in Europe and may be related to the broad decline in the birth rate there.  Is a dog’s unconditional affection a desirable alternative to the demands of raising children?  Isn’t the need to produce the next generation supposed to be an undeniable demand of human nature? 

Why Does It Matter If The Shooter Is White Or Black?

The fact that the person who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was white matters plenty to many.

But why?

It’s not simply that it was a white cop.  Don’t forget that similar rage echoed through black communities (fortunately without the violence) when Treyvon Martin – a young black man – was killed by an Hispanic volunteer neighborhood watchman.

And it’s not due to hypocritical, selective concern by African-Americans, upset only by the death of young black men killed by non-blacks.

Of course, it’s true that the horrendous murder rate (think Chicago, for instance) of young blacks by others of the same race results in far more deaths than killings by non-blacks.

No, there’s something else.  The reason seems to be the perception that when a non-black person kills a black person he did so because of the different skin color.  How else can one explain the reaction to this disparity?  One can lament the death of anyone but regard the killing of a black person by a white person as special because of the racial factor.  The attack is perceived to be an attack on one’s race.  Murders within one racial group aren’t taken personally.

What a shame.  This is 2014 in Missouri, not 1963 in Alabama.  This is not Memphis in 1968 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot down.

What is the basis for thinking that a twenty-eight year old white police officer would shoot a large eighteen year old black man because of his color?

That is not to say it couldn’t happen.  Cops aren’t perfect and bad ones certainly exist.  But a possibility hardly supports the bias that he was one.

Yet the protesters and their media abettors apparently believe so.  And don’t underestimate the influence of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in fomenting that view.

Maybe the word “shame” isn’t strong enough.  To think that so many people – fellow Americans – view whites that way is disheartening. It’s as if a large segment of our population refuses to recognize how much American has changed in the past fifty years.  That is not a good omen for a cohesive society and nation.  What can be done?

 

Start with understanding why such black racism exists.  The Sharptons and Jacksons of our land certainly have their reasons for fueling and sustaining it.  I suspect, however, that the far more important factor is the welfare state and a sense of entitlement which plagues so many black Americans by robbing them of pride in themselves and hope in the future. 

The Great Society has generated a class of people, both black and white, who do not understand the reasons why they seem confined to lives of poverty.  They’ve been conditioned by liberal policies to believe that society owes them something.  They expect a “hand-out” not a “hand-up”.  And so, without initiative, they wallow on the fringes of society.

Blacks, in particular, have been instructed by liberals and the Sharpton types that they are victims.  They, therefore, have no responsibility for their undesirable situations.

 

And who are the victimizers?  Whites, of course.  The white cop who killed Michael Brown was simply one of them.