Obama Might Even Be a Rock Star
I'm unusual, not so typical,Way too smart to be waiting around.
Tai Chi practices, snowboard champion,
I can fix the flat on your car.
I might even be a rock star.
- Miley Cyrus, "ROCK STAR"
The way the press is drooling behind Obama on his overseas 'tour' you'd think a Beatles reunion - complete with bringing George Harrison & John Lennon back from the dead, was afoot.
This carefully planned rock star turn to portray Obama in a Presidential light is transparent to me -- unfortunately, the Obamanites are swallowing it whole.
What can we do to wake up America that this guy is not qualified? That's he's cherry-picking his information. That his minions are not being honest. Someone figure out what can be done... and FAST... to leave him in Denver next month.
OBAMA'S OVERSEAS EDUCATION By RALPH PETERS
FROM the late 18th through the 19th century, young men of means went on a "grand tour" abroad to finish their educations. Some returned with fond memories, others with artifacts pried from temple walls - and the remainder with syphilis.
Sen. Barack Obama's grand tour offers fewer opportunities for mischief and misfortune, but we all must hope that he learned from his travels and wasn't just checking the blocks.
Set aside your political preferences (I'll be voting for Sen. John McCain): Whoever wins, all sensible Americans want our next president to perform well. So let's consider the pros and cons of Obama's wheels-down-wheels-up visits to Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe.
First positive: He went. Foreign policy never interested Obama until it offered a political opportunity with Iraq, nor has he ever shown much interest in our military. But magic can happen when you touch down on foreign soil and rub shoulders, however briefly, with our troops.
And Obama's no dummy. Behind closed doors, he'll have listened carefully to our generals on the ground. He won't change positions publicly before November - but he wants to be a successful president.
If elected, he won't let himself be branded as the man who lost Iraq after it had been won. He'd give a speech in February or March to the effect that the reality we face has changed, and we must change with reality.
Obama would no more shut down our military operations in Iraq than would McCain. The Americans that an Obama administration would disappoint are those on the hard left.
So, while I wish the senator had spent some time down with our combat troops (long enough to sniff the reality of those field latrines in the summer heat), the fact that he went at all is a positive step.
On the negative side, this has been the most carefully staged campaign trip in US electoral history. The media, who've slavishly adored Obama, are about as welcome as rattlesnakes on the back porch this time around. (Reporters who failed to ask tough questions when they had the chance won't get another shot before Election Day.)
Will Obama don body armor and a helmet for a streets-of-Baghdad photo op? It looks like his handlers have already nixed that as too risky - their iron law for the trip is "no Dukakis-in-a-tank moment."
As for the briefings the senator and his entourage received . . . well, Gen. David Petraeus is far too honorable to leak his take on the encounter, but it would've been interesting to watch Obama's body language as he listened.
Bottom line on that leg of the trip? Obama saw, if only from the air, how wild and rough Afghanistan is. So he'll tone down his talk about sending ground troops across Pakistan's border. And even if his Iraq visit kept him inside a security bubble (safe from terrorists and the media), he still felt the summer heat and got some sense of how things are going. That's all good news.
But the European leg may prove more difficult to stage-manage. The continent's journalists are furious that Obama's staff treats them with less consideration than President Bush's has.
And his advance team already made one whopping gaffe in Berlin. Dissuaded from having him speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate, Obama's staff picked a nearby alternate site: the Victory Column. Oops: The victories that commemorates are Prussia's successful invasions of Denmark, Austria and France. It's no symbol of European unity - and the French and Brits were already miffed that Obama gave precedence to the Germans on this trip.
Worse, the monument was a favorite of Hitler's - incorporated into his plans to rebuild Berlin according to the vision of Nazi architect Albert Speer. Hitler ordered the column moved to its present location.
Somebody didn't do his or her homework.
What's worrisome here is the mixture of naivete and cynicism. Obama's staffers reportedly have been giving orders in Berlin as if they'd just won the war, pressuring the Social Democratic Party (the sister party of our Democrats) to turn out as large a crowd as possible for the senator's speech.
The senator will get his crowd. But he's also going to get a level of scrutiny he's avoided until now. And he just may find that Europe has interests as parochial as those of Southside Chicago.
Obama has shown us, at last, that he's willing to sit down with our generals in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question now is whether he's willing to learn.
SOURCE
Comments
There are, of course, two sides to every argument; and this argument is no exception. On the one hand, some insist that American forces are needed in order to maintain political stability and to prevent such a government from rising to power. On the other hand, there are those who believe that a deliberate attack against Pakistan’s state sovereignty will only further enrage its radical population, and serve to radicalize its moderates. I offer the following in support of this latter argument:
Pakistan has approximately 160 million people; better than half of the population of the entire Arab world. Pakistan also has some of the deepest underlying ethnic fissures in the region, which could lead to long-term disintegration of the state if exacerbated. Even with an impressive growth in GDP (second only to China in all of Asia), it could be decades before wide-spread poverty is alleviated and a stable middle class is established in Pakistan.
Furthermore, the absence of a deeply embedded democratic system in Pakistan presents perhaps the greatest danger to stability. In this country, upon which the facade of democracy has been thrust by outside forces and the current regime came to power by coup, the army fulfills the role of “referee within the political boxing ring.” However, this referee demonstrates a “strong personal interest in the outcome of many of the fights and a strong tendency to make up the rules as he goes along.” The Pakistani army “also has a long record of either joining in the fight on one side or the other, or clubbing both boxers to the ground and taking the prize himself” (Lieven, 2006:43).
Pakistan’s army is also unusually large. Thathiah Ravi (2006:119, 121) observes that the army has “outgrown its watchdog role to become the master of this nation state.” Ravi attributes America’s less than dependable alliance with Pakistan to the nature of its army. “Occasionally, it perceives the Pakistan Army as an inescapable ally and at other times as a threat to regional peace and [a] non-proliferation regime.” According to Ravi, India and Afghanistan blame the conflict in Kashmir and the Durand line on the Pakistan Army, accusing it of “inciting, abetting and encouraging terrorism from its soil.” Ravi also blames the “flagrant violations in nuclear proliferation by Pakistan, both as an originator and as a conduit for China and North Korea” on the Pakistan Army, because of its support for terrorists.
The point to be made is that the stability of Pakistan depends upon maintaining the delicate balance of power both within the state of Pakistan, and in the broader region. Pakistan is not an island, it has alliances and enemies. Moving American troops into Pakistan will no doubt not only serve to radicalize its population and fuel the popular call for Jihad, it could also spark a proxy war with China that could have long-lasting economic repercussions. Focusing on the more immediate impact American troops would have on the Pakistani population; let’s consider a few past encounters:
On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid.
On October 30, 2006, the Pakistani military, under pressure from the US, attacked a madrassah in the Northwest Frontier province in Pakistan. Immediately following the attack, local residents, convinced that the US military was behind the attack, burned American flags and effigies of President Bush, and shouted “Death to America!” Outraged over an attack on school children, the local residents viewed the attack as an assault against Islam.
On November 7, 2006, a suicide bomber retaliated. Further outrage ensued when President Bush extended his condolences to the families of the victims of the suicide attack, and President Musharraf did the same, adding that terrorism will be eliminated “with an iron hand.” The point to be driven home is that the attack on the madrassah was kept as quiet as possible, while the suicide bombing was publicized as a tragedy, and one more reason to maintain the war on terror.
Last year trouble escalated when the Pakistani government laid siege to the Red Mosque and more than 100 people were killed. “Even before his soldiers had overrun the Lal Masjid ... the retaliations began.” Suicide attacks originating from both Afghan Taliban and Pakistani tribal militants targeted military convoys and a police recruiting center. Guerrilla attacks that demonstrated a shocking degree of organization and speed-not to mention strategic cunning revealed that they were orchestrated by none other than al-Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri; a fact confirmed by Pakistani and Taliban officials. One such attack occurred on July 15, 2007, when a suicide bomber killed 24 Pakistani troops and injured some 30 others in the village of Daznaray (20 miles to the north of Miran Shah, in North Waziristan). Musharraf ordered thousands of troops into the region to attempt to restore order. But radical groups swore to retaliate against the government for its siege of the mosque and its cooperation with the United States.
A July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concludes that “al Qaeda is resurgent in Pakistan- and more centrally organized than it has been at any time since 9/11.” The NIE reports that al-Qaeda now enjoys sanctuary in Bajaur and North Waziristan, from which they operate “a complex command, control, training and recruitment base” with an “intact hierarchy of top leadership and operational lieutenants.”
In September 2006 Musharraf signed a peace deal with Pashtun tribal elders in North Waziristan. The deal gave pro-Taliban militants full control of security in the area. Al Qaeda provides funding, training and ideological inspiration, while Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Tribal leaders supply the manpower. These forces are so strong that last year Musharraf sent well over 100,000 trained Pakistani soldiers against them, but they were not able to prevail against them.
The question remains, what does America do when Pakistan no longer has a Musharraf to bridge the gap? While Musharraf claims that President Bush has assured him of Pakistan’s sovereignty, Senator Obama obviously has no intention of honoring such an assurance. As it is, the Pakistanis do just enough to avoid jeopardizing U.S. support. Musharraf, who is caught between Pakistan’s dependence on American aid and loyalty to the Pakistani people, denies being George Bush’s hand-puppet. Musharraf insists that he is “200 percent certain” that the United States will not unilaterally decide to attack terrorists on Pakistani soil. What happens when we begin to do just that?