The Obama Iteration

Following up on the previous post, I thought Janet Levy's article at American Thinker is a must-read. Here are some excerpts:

The emotionally charged toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdos Square on April 9, 2003 was an ephemeral moment of unity for Americans applauding the defeat of a tyrannical regime and an enemy of the free world. The rapid victory over Saddam by U.S. forces reinforced, for Americans and the world, America's military supremacy as a force for good against evil. At that time, our nation appeared to uphold Woodrow Wilson's pre-World War I proclamation to "make the world safe for democracy."

Fast-forward to April 6, 2010, when Barack Obama informed the world that the United States would no longer function as a global superpower buttressed by nuclear weapons as a deterrence to war. With one unanticipated public statement from the putative leader of the free world, the security held by the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction vanished from the American arsenal, and confidence in America's ability to defend its citizens vaporized. Obama's proclamation of unilateral nuclear disarmament nullified America's willingness and ability to defend itself and its allies at a critical juncture in history when worldwide nuclear proliferation abounds.

Americans are fully aware of the peril inherent in Obama's commitment "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." With nuclear-armed rogue nations like North Korea starving and enslaving their own populations and Muslim countries encouraging and celebrating the martyrdom of their children, the implementation of a non-preemptive, nuclear-disarmed American security policy is pure folly.

...

The first step in any national security strategy is to clearly identify the enemy, study its ideology and tactics, and develop an appropriate strategy to target and destroy it. Basic military policy and common sense dictate that victory can be achieved only by first knowing your enemy. ...

Today, Americans are not told that we are waging war against Islamic jihadists who want to destroy us, establish an Islamic government, and replace our Constitution with shari'ah law. Instead, we are told that we are fighting a war against "terrorism." Rather than focus on an enemy with a specific identity or characteristics, we are waging war against a strategy. The media reinforces this delusion with nebulous terminology that confuses and distracts us from a very real threat.

Actions taken by our leaders reinforce the delusion.

Barack Obama is far from alone in this. Even George W. Bush, who was clearly willing and able to fight the terrorism embedded in Islam, almost always refused to equate the two. It's a systematic failure of our entire culture of Washington leadership, and it's been that way for decades. Barack Obama is merely the most recent iteration of that failure:

When Obama took office, his administration further obscured the problem and intensified the confusion about the enemy. No longer was the United States fighting a "Global War on Terror," but the very word "terrorism" was replaced with the absurd term "man-caused disaster." Words such as "jihad," "caliphate," "mujahedeen," and "Islamist" were banished from the official vernacular. Last week, the Obama administration announced that words such as "Islamic extremism" would be removed from the U.S. national security strategy documentation in consideration of the feelings of Muslim nations.

Unfortunately, the Obama Iteration is one of the most egregiously hazardous to America, both through its willing dismantling of America's security apparatus, as well as through constantly poking our allies in the proverbial eye. From Great Britain to France to Israel to Colombia, Obama has insulted, slighted, ignored, or offended pretty much everyone we call an ally, while reaching out to the likes of North Korea, Iran, Russia, and Syria. Last I checked, they all have nothing but death wishes for America and American superiority.

Levy ends with a stark warning:

We have come so far afield of the Reagan doctrine of "peace through strength" that our country is almost unrecognizable. The world has because less safe because of our failure to name the enemy and effectively prosecute a war against them, internationally and inside our own borders. We have downgraded our nuclear capabilities and our ability to respond to attacks and assist our allies. As American power recedes, the vacuum is filled by rogue totalitarian states that have no compunction about using weapons of mass destruction and mass genocide. The Pax Americana, a world peace enforced by American military power and the willingness to use it, may be precipitously coming to an end.

As long as liberals like Barack Obama are running the show, I don't think anyone can reasonably argue otherwise.

That's why it is so absolutely critical -- if we are to return to a place of security, prosperity, and global leadership -- that we dump every single one of them this November. Only by cleaning out the infection can the wound heal. Let's just hope the disinfectant of the next election will be enough to prevent the spread of the infection, and that those who take over will be courageous enough to boldly return America to the last bastion of freedom in the world, a beacon burning brightly on the hill. We should accept nothing less, and future generations of America deserve nothing less.

There's my two cents.