Posted by
Bill Crawford on Sunday, June 20, 2010 9:01:29 PM
Barrack Obama truly is a funny duck. If you go by the things that come out of the mouths of this president and his appointees, we have practically closed the embassy in Isreal and brought the diplomatic staff home.
The military posture in the Red Sea area seems to state otherwise, though. We have not only not backed down from the carrier group support posture held for decades there, but we seem to be presently moving to something more aggressive to both Hamas and Iran.
My best guess is that Obama seems to think that he can do some sort of schizophrenic dance between his words and actions, and they don't have to correlate in any rational way. As the Commander In Chief of the military that is providing the bulk of the stability in the world, this is borderline insanity. America is not an entity that has the luxury of being a mystery to both friends and foes. Having to wonder where we are coming from, given our size and power, is inherently destabilizing.
Many people lamented Obama's inexperience in entering the White House. I took that with a grain of salt, as history is filled with relatively inexperienced people who stepped up to the occasion. In this case, though, it is becoming a two step between tragedy and farce.
Barrack has lived for years with the power of his open mouth. I can only hope he grows out of this and learns the lessons of the projection of force that any American President should already have when entering office. The track record there is not good. Truman never did. Neither did Carter. Clinton was smart enough not to override those around him who had more depth on the subject than he did.
I am sorry to say that this may be the best we can hope for here.