PrintMay 25, 2009
Obama's Season of Fear
The US Naval Academy graduation ceremony was the latest stage for another of President Obama's endless political campaign speeches; a speech predictably full of self aggrandizing anecdotes, written in the high minded style of a naïve and idealistic undergraduate, so full of emotive rhetoric and so lacking substance that on close examination, it becomes a caricature of the post-adolescent idealist, which is no surprise when one looks at the tender age of his speech writer.
"Because when America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops. So as Americans, we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals. We can and we must and we will protect both."
So our new orator-in-chief told the newly minted naval officers. With the acrobatic doublespeak of political opportunism he hoped to win over the same men and women who will inevitably pay the price for his policies with their blood and toil in the years to come.
Obama was referring to water boarding and the Guantanamo Bay detention center; as he did a day earlier at the national archives where he falsely conflated a rare and seldom used interrogation technique with the incarceration of active terrorist combatants. The left has been so successful in misinforming the public on the issue, water boarding is now defined as torture around campus and in the elite press, akin to nail-pulling, electrocution and evisceration, and apparently Guantanamo is filled with innocent farmers who suffer it daily.
The rest of America is not so sure. If it saved lives, your average American is not particularly concerned with the temporary fear and discomfort of a terrorist; we still think defending ourselves justifies some harsh treatment. As for closing Guantanamo, the proposal to bring these foreign enemies to the homeland so they can enjoy the same rights of US citizens is not a popular move outside of the fever swamps of the radical left. Even Harry Reid, for all his lock step partisanship, understands that.
What "energizes" our enemies is far simpler than the President and his administration have yet learned. Genocidal Jihadists and brutal communist dictators do not plan anti-American plots because America has "lost its moral high-ground" and they do not call their terrorist foot soldiers to violence so they can "Force the American imperialists to live up to their values." Their motivating energy has too little nuance to stay on the post-modern post-American radar of the Obama Administration.
Our enemies are not complex; they simply want our power, our affluence, our influence and even our land. It is the same greed and envy that has energized every conqueror, despot, thief, and highway man from the beginning of time. No amount of theatrical rhetoric and open handed gesturing will change that, and the Kim Jong Ils and Ahmedinejhads of the world don't give a damn about America making good on the supposed transgressions of the past, their desires are more fundamental. Hezbollah and Hamas do not want peace, Al Qaeda does not seek a homeland, they desire genocide and conquest, and by their own testimony, the deaths of all not like them. They cannot be enlightened, only defended against or defeated utterly. It is an eternal conflict that Obama will not change and cannot hope to avoid.
As it is in nature, broadcasting weakness invites predators and scavengers, and even a lion, when wounded, can be brought down by hyenas and jackals. That is a stark reality lost on our silly socialist elites. In the minds of our enemies, however, it is a clear truth and a real possibility and they work hard to make it so. Our President, a man bred into the socialist fantasies of academia and entitlement, mistakes the adulation of the left for a confirmation of his own genius, believing no doubt, that the billions of Soros dollars and the multitude of ACORN voter manipulations that helped him to victory are inconsequential, that it was his charisma and vision alone that brought him to the presidency.
Obama's speech at the National Archives revealed an astounding arrogance and disturbing disregard for the truth. If he truly believes, as he claims in the quote below, that the rancor, vitriol and hatred directed at the Bush administration qualifies as "silence" he truly lives in an echo chamber.
"Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that - too often - our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us - Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists and citizens - fell silent."
What exactly were those principles that we set aside in the "season of fear?" He does not say. Mr. Obama is slowly realizing that the real world is not so impressed or overly concerned with what he has to say, so he turns up the histrionics. His sycophants justify his incoherent statements with remarkable elasticity, but their excuses wear thin. The number of glossy magazine covers that feature Obama will not make him a good president, and the hagiographies in the New York Times or Newsweek will not prevent the disaster that is rapidly becoming this administration. He blathers on and we shake our heads, where has he been for the last eight years?
"I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What's more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts - they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all."
No one claimed water boarding was the "most effective means of interrogation" as Obama asserts. They were effective in only a very few select cases, and contrary to what he would have you believe, they worked. He claims "brutal methods" like water boarding "undermine the rule of law" yet he can give no example, no chapter and verse, no actual "law" that was broken. Just like the "values" and "principles" he tells us we have betrayed; we are given no example, no illustration, no actual fact to weigh the accuracy of his words. It is performance art, an actor's skill, an orator's turn of phrase that makes Obama's speeches such entertainment for readers of the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos.
Obama could care less about how a few murdering fanatics are treated, the issue is a political tool, a manufactured crisis of conscience to hammer the collective psyche of the nation with the endless "Bush bad, Obama good" message, to shore up support that has been steadily evaporating as the Manchurian President is unmasked. Obama's words were crafted for the political moment, for a temporary end using all the illogical boilerplate the radical left has shouted into the nation's ears for years. There is no wisdom and no insight to be found there. It is clear Obama does not understand what we face, and in these perilous times he has no special vision outside of the socialist ideology that he deceives the American people into accepting. Obama's "values" are not the values of the American heartland. His "principles" are content with an America diminished and demeaned, his "predispositions" are to let us fail.
The horrors of 9-11 occurred, not because of our mistreatment of Muslims, we had recently rescued a whole population of beleaguered Muslims in Bosnia. Evil exists despite what we do, be it good or bad. His criticism of our defenders divides and undermines us and muddles the reality of a war that should be crystal clear. Every lie and exaggeration Obama uses sends a message to our enemies, a message of weakness and ignorance and stupidity and they are delighted. Those enemies are watching and waiting and will take advantage of any breach in our walls. Americans will die when that happens; it is only a matter of time. Peace only comes through strength and vigilance and courage, attributes now in short supply in the White House. High ideals do and should guide us, the highest of which is the protection of the nation that is the last best hope for humankind.
