The VA problem has existed throughout Obama's tenure but he has not been aware of it or has chosen to ignore it. Either way, he's a loser, disconnected from reality. His speech at West Point on 28 May gives further proof of this disconnect, especially globally.
Obama said, “Here’s my bottom line: America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.” He was 180-degrees wrong. If the U.S. doesn't lead, any number of other powers would step in as fast as possible to “lead on the world stage,” with both Russia and China just waiting for that chance. Even tiny North Korea has a troop-strength of nearly 1.2 million and China's active military is 53% greater than that of the U.S., numbering 2,285,000 troops.
Obama said, “First, let me repeat a principle I put forward at the outset of my presidency: The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it: when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger.” One of the weakest nations in the world militarily in 2011 (76,000 troops) was Libya, which posed a threat to no other nation, especially the mighty U.S., whose military establishment was 1,874% greater than Libya's in troop-strength.
Yet, Obama chose to attack Libya, the reason given that its Muslim President Qaddafi was mistreating Muslim Libyan rebels, just like Muslim strongmen Mubarak, Selah and Assad were mistreating Muslim rebels in Egypt, Yemen and Syria, respectively, countries Obama has not attacked. The duplicity is obvious but the ruling fact is that Libya was thought by Obama to be an easy target (days, not weeks), only to spend seven months killing innocent Libyans until Qaddafi was assassinated. This put him in a class with Serbian killer Milosevic, indicted and tried in the Hague for war crimes.
Obama said, “International opinion matters, but America should never ask permission to protect our people, our homeland or our way of life.” The disingenuousness of this statement was apparent in the Libyan fiasco. Obama completely bypassed Congress, violating both the Constitution and the War Powers Act, and sent three apparatchiks (Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power) to the Security Council to ASK PERMISSION to attack Libya and drag NATO into the debacle.
Obama told the cadets, “On the other hand, when issues of global concern do not pose a direct threat to the United States, when such issues are at stake, when crises arise that stir our conscience or push the world in a more dangerous direction but do not directly threaten us, then the threshold for military action must be higher.” The speechwriter must have remembered Libya and thrown in this gem, a way of saying Qaddafi crossed a red line, a term he has surely regretted ever since he used it in the Syria matter, when red-lines meant nothing when they were crossed.
So...should one assume that Obama is even now determining which nations to attack account their citizens being mistreated? Starvation is a problem in North Korea (one of every 20 citizens in the military, the ones who eat), for instance. South Sudan, a new nation, is a killing field. And what about Syria after three years of killing? Bashir Assad's father, Hafez, is said to have dispatched 10- to 40-thousand Syrians in about five years. Bashir is said to have dispatched up to 160,000 in three years, though that seems an unrealistic figure. Pick out most any African nation for consideration, as the warring tribes make a national profession of killing each other.
Obama slipped up on a truth, however, in his speech when he said, “Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.” In view of the other statements, this truth indicates that Obama actually has no position on most things globally, but the cadets could hope that he doesn't go witch-hunting throughout the world with a view toward throwing American GIs into conflicts—civil wars—in which they have no business.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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