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Alienate Friends But Don’t Convince Your Enemies

Obama’s More Obvious Foreign Policy Failures

Following his inauguration, Obama was fast out of the traps and began alienating U.S. allies almost immediately!

He started with America’s closest and strongest ally first by ordering a bust of Winston Churchill returned to the U.K. because the Brits supposedly tortured his grandfather in Africa in the 50s. In case the Brits didn’t get the message he compared the British Empire to South Africa’s apartheid regime and also to the former Soviet Union.

He then attempted to bully Israel and achieved nothing accept driving a wedge between the U.S. and its second closest ally.

Seemingly undeterred he moved on to the Russians and carefully prepared the way by stabbing two other allies in the back, namely the Czech Republic and Poland who had agreed to having U.S. missiles in their countries.

He did however manage to make Putin and Medvedev laugh all the way to the bank by suggesting that they clamp down on corruption, and didn’t even get a thank you for canceling the missile deployment on their borders, and it seems likely that he got snubbed by members of the Duma.

It’s claimed on some websites that the footage was doctored, but the explanation given as to how it was done only half explains it.

Obama then strove to win Muslim admiration, and not only failed but embarrassed the majority of Americans by literally bowing and scraping.

Obama then offered Iran serious negotiations and carrots but they had little time for him since they were too busy torturing, raping and killing demonstrators, and building new underground nuclear facilities. Obama’s reaction to the atrocities was to voice his appreciation for the “robust debate” that was taking place.

And last but not least, the Chinese smothered domestic coverage of a presidential visit but did give the world the spectacle of the American commander in chief getting a talking-to about fiscal responsibility from a Communist chieftain. The Chinese then sent a delegation to the U.S. and much to the surprise of those meeting them, the Chinese wanted to know who was going to finance Obama’s intended Health Bill.

Not So Wonderful Copenhagen

Two additional humiliations then occurred in Copenhagen, the first when the Olympic Committee delivered the bad news that the president’s effort to play hometown booster had failed utterly, before he even landed back in the U.S. and the second when the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians gave him very short shrift during the supposed Global Warming talks.

Afghanistan – To Do Or Not To Do

The decision to reinforce U.S. military in Afghanistan came after an excruciating and almost year long hesitation and dithering that undermined the confidence of our fighting men and allies, and stating that the U.S. would start pulling out after 18 months pleased the Taliban no end and seriously weakened any resolve that anti-Taliban tribes might have had.

France’s President, Nicolas Sarkozy perhaps asked the most worrying question, “Est-il faible?” (Is he weak?) and if the answer appears “Yes”, a year from now then the U.S. and the free world will be in deep trouble.

Have There Been Foreign Policy Successes?

I have simply described some of Obama’s obvious foreign policy failures, but he may have had successes too, and if I have overlooked them then please post a comment and they will be published.

And the same goes for any failures that I may have overlooked.

Obama Is Out Of His Depth And Drowning

It’s becoming clearer every day that more and more Americans believe that the Obama administration is trying to do too much too fast, and that much of what the administration wants to do, is not want the majority wants it to do.

American’s attitudes and behavior have changed significantly over the last two years, and the consumer culture of buy more now and pay for it later, which historically drove the U.S. economy is fast being replaced by one of pay off debts and save more.

A Rasmussen poll dated September 21, shows that;

a) 39% believe that cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term should be Obama’s number one priority.

b) 27% rate health care reform as the most important issue.

c) 15% put their emphasis on development of new sources of energy.

d) 14% believe that ensuring that every child has access to a complete and competitive education should get the most attention.

The Administration apparently has little interest in giving the majority of Americans what they want, which is what democracy is all about, and is determined to ram its mostly extremist left wing policies down a more and more unwilling America’s throat.

What Don’t The Majority Of Americans Agree With?

1) The Stimulus Package.

2) Health Care

3) Cap On Trade

4) Cash For Clunkers

5) Afghanistan

6) Iran

7) The Betrayal Of Poland And The Czech Republic.

N.B. #6 will most likely start and arms race, and we might even see Japan developing nuclear weapons within a few months. If allies can no longer depend on the U.S. then they’d better start protecting themselves and who can argue with that?!

Not bad for a new kid on the block, and his latest move which was to add a 35% tariff on tires from China has not only upset the Chinese, which America depends on right now, but will most likely trigger a global trade war, and all to please a union.

Is Obama Out Of His Depth?

You can almost hear the glug, glug, glugs!

So Back To The Deficit – And The Administration’s Solution

The U.S. deficit quadrupled from $459 billion in 2008 to $1.85 trillion in 2009 and it has gone from 3.2% of gross domestic product to 13.1%. which is twice the post-World War II record of 6% in 1983 under President Reagan.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficit will run for a decade and will exceed $1.2 trillion in 2019.

If they’re right, and it will probably be worse, by 2019, the United States will have almost doubled its national debt which will be over $17 trillion.

And it might be better not to even look at what happens after 2019, because 2019 is when the peak wave of baby boomers move into their retirement years, and when costs will soar for the major entitlements, namely Social Security and Medicare.

If Obama and his Czars don’t understand the implications of the above, then maybe they should read what the, Government Accountability Office estimates, "That by 2040, interest payments will absorb 30% of all revenues, and entitlements will consume the rest, leaving nothing for defense, education or veterans’ pensions"!

The Obama administration’s seemingly crazy answer to the problem, is to spend much  more money that it doesn’t have in the hope that the Chinese, Japanese and others will continue to bail it out, which of course they won’t.

A recent Chinese delegation to the U.S. surprised Congressman who thought that the Chinese had come to talk about trade, which was not the reason.

They asked about Health Reform, and when asked, "What do you want to know about it?’, the reply was, "Who’s going to pay for it?", which caused a shockwave, because the Chinese had never questioned internal U.S. policies before.

Seems like China isn’t ready to fund Obama’s health care to the tune of $1 trillion plus, on top of the $2 trillion that they’re already owed, and who can blame them.

The bottom line is, that most of Main Street believes than the U.S. government must do what it is doing, reduce its debts and tighten its belt, and if the Administration doesn’t listen then it will be taught a strong and growing lesson next year.

Americans have recently learned that too much mortgage debt on their homes, and too much credit card debt means that you end up getting buried, or drowned, and it now seems that politicians must play catch-up and understand it too!

If they don’t then the U.S. is looking at,

1) Skyrocketing interest rates.

2) A crash in the value of the dollar.

3) A dramatic erosion of America’s financial standing.

4) Even higher deficits.

5) Higher taxes.

Only 35% of Americans now say that the U.S. is heading in the right direction, 59% say they are angrier now than under Bush, and 67% say that they could do a better job on the economy than Congress.

And given the facts, one would have to agree with them!

Updated – 09/23/09 6:53 AM EDT

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asked respondents, "Would you prefer to see next year’s elections result in a Congress controlled by Democrats or a Congress controlled by Republicans?".

The result?

48% said they would prefer Democrats in control, and 45% said Republicans, and that three-point Democratic lead is down from seven points lead in July and nine points from April.

In June 2008, the Democrats held a massive 19-point lead held over Republicans, so in less than a year and a half, the Democratic margin has fallen from 19 points to 3!