INEFFECTUAL, invisible, unable to honour pledges and now blamed for letting Gaddafi off the hook. Why Obama’s gone from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Er, maybe we shouldn’t’...
Let us cast our minds back to those remarkable days in November 2008 when the son of a Kenyan goatherd was elected to the White House. It was a bright new dawn – even brighter than the coming of the Kennedys and their new Camelot. JFK may be considered as being from an ethnic and religious minority – Irish and Catholic – but he was still very rich and very white. Barack Obama, by contrast, was a true breakthrough president. The world would change because obviously America had changed.
Obama’s campaign slogan was mesmerisingly simple and brimming with self-belief: “Yes we can.” His presidency, however, is turning out to be more about “no we won’t.” Even more worryingly, it seems to be very much about: “Maybe we can… do what, exactly?“ The world feels like a dangerous place when leaders are seen to lack certitude but the only thing President Obama seems decisive about is his indecision. What should the US do about Libya? What should the US do about the Middle East in general? What about the country’s crippling debts? What is the US going to do about Afghanistan, about Iran?
What is President Obama doing about anything? The most alarming answer – your guess is as good as mine – is also, frankly, the most accurate one. What the President is not doing is being clear, resolute and pro-active, which is surely a big part of his job description. This is what he has to say about the popular uprising in Libya: “Gaddafi must go.” At least, that was his position on March 3.
Since then, other countries – most notably Britain and France – have been calling for some kind of intervention. Even the Arab League, a notoriously conservative organisation, has declared support for sanctions. But from the White House has come only the blah-blah of bland statements filled with meaningless expressions and vague phrases. Of decisive action and leadership – even of clearlydefined opinion – there is precious little sign.
What is the Obama administration’s position on the protests in the Gulf island state of Bahrain, which the authorities there are savagely suppressing with the help of troops shipped in from Saudi Arabia? What is the White House view on the alarming prospect of the unrest spreading to Saudi Arabia itself? Who knows? Certainly not the American people, nor the leaders of nations which would consider themselves allies of America.
The President has not really shared his views, which leads us to conclude that he either doesn’t know or chooses, for reasons best known to himself, not to say. The result is that a very real opportunity to remove an unpredictable despot from power may well have been lost. Who knows when or if such an opportunity will come along again?
Every day for almost the last two months our television screens, radio broadcasts and the pages of our newspapers have been filled with the pictures, sounds and words of the most tumultuous events any of us can remember in the Arab world. The outcome of these events, once the dust has settled, could literally change the world. Yet Obama seems content to sit this one out. He has barely engaged in the debate. Such ostrich-like behaviour is not untypical of the 49-year-old President who burst through America’s colour barrier to become the first African-American to occupy the White House.
Two days after taking office in January 2009, he pledged to close down the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, which has become notorious for holding detainees for years without trial. Obama promised to lose the prison within 12 months and to abolish the practice of military trials of terrorism suspects. It was an important promise. America’s reputation had been severely tarnished by revelations about the conditions at Guantanamo, by reports of waterboarding and extraordinary rendition (transporting prisoners to a third country for torture) and by the appalling treatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Closing Guantanamo was a redemptive gesture. Two years on, not only is the prison still in use but its future is as assured as ever. Ten days ago, the President signed an executive order reinstating the military commissions at the island prison. Human rights organisations were outraged. “With the stroke of a pen, President Obama extinguished any lingering hope that his administration would return the United States to the rule of law,” said Amnesty International while Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, declared the President’s action to be “unlawful, unwise and un-American.”
White House spokesmen insisted the President was still committed to closing Guantanamo, which currently has 172 detainees in custody. It was Congress, they said, that had refused to sanction the transfer of the prisoners to the US mainland for trial, leaving no option but to keep the prison open in Cuba. Very little has been achieved in the quest to secure peace in the Middle East. Under Obama, US foreign policy is founded on extreme caution. At first this cool-headedness was a welcome change from the naked aggression of George W Bush and his henchmen Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
It is also true that the President is constantly stymied by a hostile, Republican-ruled Congress. But Obama’s apparent reluctance to engage with momentous events is starting to look like more than aloofness. Some tempering of America’s role as the world’s No1 busybody may be no bad thing but under Obama the US appears to be heading towards isolationism. He is hardly doing much better at home. Economically, the US is in big trouble but the national debt is not shrinking.
Ditto the country’s ecological health; the American love affair with the car and oil remains undiminished despite any alleged commitment. But the White House appears to shy away from any tough action. The energy with which Obama entered the White House seems to have all gone in the push to bring in health care reform, which many Americans didn’t want (or still don’t realise they want).
All of which means that it is starting to look as if Obama and the Democratic Party have but one aim in mind for the rest of this presidential term: to get elected for a second. That means not doing anything that might upset any number of special interest or niche groups, which in effect means not doing very much at all. So, not too many harsh but necessary measures to tackle the financial deficit; no clear direction on where America goes with Afghanistan, even though the war there is going nowhere except from bad to worse.
The Obama government can’t even give clear direction on whether the American people are in danger of exposure to nuclear fallout from Japan following the devastating earthquake and tsunami. The US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin advised San Francisco residents to stock up on radiation antidotes, prompting a run on potassium iodide pills, while the President said experts had assured him that any harmful radiation would have receded long before reaching the Western shores of the US.
Yes we can was a noble and powerful mantra which secured for Barack Obama the leadership of the free world. Those than can, do. It is time he started doing.
There is large US opposition to military intervention in Libya. Recent polls show Americans overwhelmingly do not support military intervention.
~ A CNN/Opinion Research poll finds 74% believe the United States should "leave it to others" to resolve the situation in Libya.
~ A Pew Research survey finds 65% think the United States doesn't have the responsibility to do something about the fighting in Libya.
~ A Fox News poll finds 65% oppose the U.S. military getting involved.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I don't want us in Libya either...Let France or the Italians, who get 30% of their oil from Libya, handle it.
What I see from Obama is hesitation on a lot of issues, unless it comes to spinning up the money presses and flooding the market with more dollars. He should be thankful the dollar is still the world currency (for how much longer, who knows) and the Chinese still want to buy our debt, otherwise we would be in much deeper sh!t than we are now.
"Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock out the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like it is victorious." - Author Unknown
There is no strategic interest in Libya, we already have military bases in the region in Iraq and Afghanistan. I agree with the polls, let'em kill each other in that useless pile of dirt.
I don't want us in Libya either...Let France or the Italians, who get 30% of their oil from Libya, handle it.
What I see from Obama is hesitation on a lot of issues, unless it comes to spinning up the money presses and flooding the market with more dollars. He should be thankful the dollar is still the world currency (for how much longer, who knows) and the Chinese still want to buy our debt, otherwise we would be in much deeper sh!t than we are now.
Spot on, we have bigger problems here at home than to be worried about being the worlds police. Like you said the dollar could tank if we keep pumping money like we are now. Countries like Germany and China are already making plans to start trading commodities in a basket of currencies instead of just the dollar. We have the Federal Reserve printing more money and acting on QE2, who the hell knows what backdoor deals they're doing.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
There is large US opposition to military intervention in Libya. Recent polls show Americans overwhelmingly do not support military intervention.
~ A CNN/Opinion Research poll finds 74% believe the United States should "leave it to others" to resolve the situation in Libya.
~ A Pew Research survey finds 65% think the United States doesn't have the responsibility to do something about the fighting in Libya.
~ A Fox News poll finds 65% oppose the U.S. military getting involved.
Quoted Text
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will deploy additional amphibious ships to the Mediterranean, the military said on Friday, as part of the Obama administration's plans for responding to ongoing violence in Libya.
The USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group will deploy on March 23 "ahead of its original schedule in order to relieve units from the USS Kearsarge (Amphibious Ready Group) currently positioned in the Mediterranean Sea," it said in a statement.
The arriving group includes the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, based in Virginia, and other ships.
So, by your own polls, Obummer is going against the will of the people?
If you read the article that you posted it says the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group will deploy "ahead of its original schedule". It was going anyway, now it's just going early to relieve the USS Kearsarge as planned.
It always pays to be prepared with troops in the area of any crisis. If the situation changes, the troops will be there.
Sounds like the actions of a wise leader!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
If you read the article that you posted it says the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group will deploy "ahead of its original schedule". It was going anyway, now it's just going early to relieve the USS Kearsarge as planned.
It always pays to be prepared with troops in the area of any crisis. If the situation changes, the troops will be there.
Sounds like the actions of a wise leader!
These are usually decisions by the Pentagon, signed off by the prez... Of course pubs will blame him and dems will be cheer him, unless something goes wrong, then the Dems will blame someone else...vice versa in a pub admin.
I will tell you one thing, it looks like 'ole Hillary's about had enough. She's already stated she won't be part of a second admin and it wouldn't surprise me if she leaves sooner. I'm not a Hillary fan , but she would have been a better leader as a Prez than Obama. I don't agree with much of his policies, but I expected a pragmatic leader and he is a dud.
"Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock out the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like it is victorious." - Author Unknown
let them work it out.....it's their fight their soul.....OF COURSE IT'S MESSY.....so was ours....we are still the same humans as we always have been.....it aint Mamby-Pamby land......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Obama is using a show of force with out committing any US troops unless it becomes appropriate. Of course his political decisions are in concert with the best advice of the military, as any president (well any president except GWB) would do.
(See GWB ignores General Shinseki's advice who said that about 100,000 American troops may be needed in the post-Saddam phase, along with tens of thousands of additional allied forces. Bush fired Shinseki... Shinseki was right, Bush was wrong.)
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
war is just the polar opposite of social services.....they are both the devil in disguise yet in some form still need to exist....the problem is when the masses are managed and manipulated by them....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
If you read the article that you posted it says the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group will deploy "ahead of its original schedule". It was going anyway, now it's just going early to relieve the USS Kearsarge as planned.
It always pays to be prepared with troops in the area of any crisis. If the situation changes, the troops will be there.
Sounds like the actions of a wise leader!
The only "wise one" was the one that first deployed, not the "follower"
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