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Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Jamie M. Fly
Friday, December 30, 2011 - 10:03 AM
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In his 2009 Inaugural Address, President Obama laid down a marker to those who would threaten the United States:
"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken -- you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
In 2011, he fulfilled this promise by ordering a daring raid on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, resulting in the death of the architect of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Given that the greatest responsibility of any commander in chief is keeping the American people safe, this action, combined with the president's continuance and expansion of many of the counterterrorism policies initiated by the Bush administration, were the president's greatest accomplishments in 2011.
However, lurking beneath these successes are the President's greatest failures of 2011.
The president's counterterrorism accomplishments over the last three years have been supported by his policies toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His willingness in 2009 to extend his campaign timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and his initial stewardship of the gains achieved by President Bush's 2007 surge of forces created the opportunity for a significant victory in the war on terror. As the events of the last two weeks indicate, that outcome, unfortunately, is no longer certain given the administration's inability or unwillingness to negotiate a U.S. military presence in that country after the end of this year.
Similarly, in Afghanistan, the president initially appeared intent on achieving a military victory against the extremists that threaten Afghanistan's stability. His 2009 surge of forces has produced significant gains, especially in the south. But the president now seems more focused on winning reelection than winning the war. The surge forces will be out of the country by October of next year and the press is rife with reports of secret reconciliation talks with the Taliban that could undermine the Afghan government and reverse the gains made by the Afghan people since the brutal days of Taliban rule.
Compounding these two failures in 2011 was the president's inability to leverage the momentous developments of the Arab Spring. As people seeking their freedom took to the streets in country after country, President Obama stood by, letting others, many of whom do not share America's interests, take the lead. Fundamental change in the sclerotic Arab world has the potential to reverse the trends that led to the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the extremism that continues to threaten our way of life. Unfortunately, the leader of the free world refused to lead.
Great leaders shape the strategic landscape rather than allow themselves and their countries to be buffeted around by world events. President Obama deserves credit in 2011 for policies that led to the deaths of many who plotted to kill Americans, but because of his unwillingness to consolidate gains in Iraq and Afghanistan and embrace the revolutions of the Arab Spring, 2011 will likely be remembered as a year of missed opportunities rather than strategic successes.
No matter what anyone may say, the President has sent a clear message to those intent on practicing terrorism against the West. These proponents of terror once took comfort in their ability to effectively veil their leaders from the prying eyes of those who seek peace. Now, with the Presidents successes in unveiling many of these leaders it is clear that the West has taken an active role in creating technology and methods which will not enable terrorists to hide from the view of those wanting to finally acquire world peace. In addition, the President took risks in capturing some of these tyrants. His risky actions clearly reveal his sincere desire to see the West obtain justice for the cowardly attacks performed within the West. Procera AVH
The President of the US is not the "leader of the free world"
This isn't 1960 anymore and the president of the US leads the United States, for sure an important part of the free world. But he is not our "leader" in Europe nor is he the leader of Canada.
Recall that liberty, representative democracy, rule of law and personal rights were all invented in Europe and Britain, and that America is merely a fairly successful spin-off of the best parts of European culture and thought as well as a "spare copy" that has been needed a few times when Europe experienced one of its cyclical psychoses, and of course depended critically on military help from France and the Netherlands to win its independence (a dept to France it did repay not once but twice to kudos to that).
Was that offensive to American patriots? If so, it had its intended effect. "Leader of the free world" is similarly offensive but in the other direction. Partly because it's outdated. So it would be nice if Americans could simply refer to their president as *their* leader. Cheers (and Happy New Year!!)
as a canadian, I can say honestly that europe is LUCKY
lucky that america saved your sorry euro butts. NOT ONLY saved you, but then provided for your security for the last 70 yrs! you are an ungrateful prick.
america is the best spinoff from what was a rotting core...europe is a putrified rotting mess....has been for centuries. only your misplaced egos tell you otherwise.
Exactly, the American president is leader of precisely one country - it's only when countries start trying to project power that we have problems and bring ourselves closer to conflicts.
We need to throw away these old ideas of "free world" as though there's still some big bad countries out there waiting to kill us and start pulling together as a species which is what we have been put here for.
There's an African saying that even the wisest man cannot lick the back of his own neck. Jamie M Fly wouldn't get it, and this shallow, spiteful piece makes clear there are lots more things she doesn't get as well.
The piece starts with the claim that the president promised to lead the world, and Fly buttresses this with an Obama quotation that doesn't make that claim at all.
Intellectual and honesty levels do not rise later. This seems to be because, deep down, Ms Fly believes that any president who wants to do anything at all, can certainly succeed at it if he's a GOOD president. (This probably doesn't include winning Microsoft Solitaire every time; but it might.) When the government of Iraq makes it perfectly clear over years that it wants US combat troops out of there, a GOOD president would ignore it*. And so on. Drill down into this thinking, and pretty soon you detect the Fly idea that Americans are the only human beings.
If the US is farther from leadership in 2011 than in 2008 -- and in many ways, it wasn't a world leader then -- it's because the world now sees from both Iraq and Afghanistan that the US military cannot achieve what some of the more blowhard national leaders believe it can**; and the world also sees that the most effective anti-US terrorists operating today are employed by taxpayers in Congress.
_____________________
* GOOD president Bush II in 2002 was faced with the idea that the Iraqis didn't want US combat troops in their nation and plugged on superbly to bring grievous harm and sorrow to tens of thousands of American families, kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, burn up somewhere around a trillion dollars, and wind up with an Iraqi government that likes us no more than did the late Saddam Hussein's. Ex-president Bush knows himself that if he resumes his earlier international travels, in many nations he'll find locals hoping to arrest him and bring him before the International Criminal Court for his war policies. The rest of the world's loss, Texas's gain.
** Never found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
One thing I can't stand, are people who need to suck up to, or worship someone or something they are not. It seems particularly prevalent among Canadians towards the US.
I am not ungrateful for American help towards Europe but that doesn't mean I am willing to be "led" by someone in an office I can neither aspire to nor vote for or against. This is called being a "free man." You would evidently be easy to subjugate and colonize, unlike me. Others have mentioned the Russian contribution to the destruction of Nazism so I will not here go into the discussion of how all three allies were, in complimentary ways, indispensable to the destruction of Hitler. The discussion of how America benefitted from European thought was evidently lost on you which is fine w me b/c you don't sound like someone worth investing in.
Based on your unmanly attitude you are America's fan. I want to be its friend. It is interesting that a good fan cannot be a useful friend nor is it good to have a friend that is also a worshipping fan, because real friendship precludes abject submission and ideolization.
One thing I can't stand, are people who need to suck up to, or worship someone or something they are not. It seems particularly prevalent among Canadians towards the US.
I am not ungrateful for American help towards Europe but that doesn't mean I am willing to be "led" by someone in an office I can neither aspire to nor vote for or against. This is called being a "free man." You would evidently be easy to subjugate and colonize, unlike me. Others have mentioned the Russian contribution to the destruction of Nazism so I will not here go into the discussion of how all three allies were, in complimentary ways, indispensable to the destruction of Hitler. The discussion of how America benefitted from European thought was evidently lost on you which is fine w me b/c you don't sound like someone worth investing in.
Based on your unmanly attitude you are America's fan. I want to be its friend. It is interesting that a good fan cannot be a useful friend nor is it good to have a friend that is also a worshipping fan, because real friendship precludes abject submission and ideolization.
You don't seem to understand that European countries have no useful militaries to speak of anymore, nor do they have any political capital in the international diplomacy because they have no credible means of enforcing agreements. So you're right, Europe is NOT an 'ally' of the United States. But nor do they act like or provide any actual benefit as America's 'friend.' Rather they have become a vassal of the United States, a bloated corpse which seeks to project power that it knows full well doesn't exist.
Until Europe is able to accomplish goals as simple as disabling the Libyan army without American help they will always be a vassal of the United States. Having to cite the 18th and 19th centuries is emblematic of why Europe, in its present state, is useless as an ally and ungrateful as a friend. America is NOT the 'leader of the free world,' you are correct. The stagnation and marginalization of Europe has meant that America IS 'the free world' in the context of international relations. THAT is why you are an ungrateful prick.
I'm "ungrateful" because I refuse to be "led" by a man I can neither vote for nor aspire to succeed? You and the Canadian AIPAC bullhorn are two submissive little wimps. I can't respect people that need to follow the current big power. Your sense of freedom and your understanding of democracy are both a mile wide and an inch deep. And about European military capabilities....long, long story. Suffice to say that France and Britain could still blow up half the world between them so at least Europe is literally unconqurable for anyone who treasures living. But that's not how Europe enforces its agreements. Can you say "access to the world's largest market?" Probably not.
..why don't we wait for America to actually control Afghanistan (and Iraq where it's leaving, not exactly in triumph) before we start admiring American military prowess. Criticizing Europe for not winning wars....the pot calling the kettle black. America isn't exactly winning its wars either (to my great displeasure btw, b/c I do support America there, but if someone spits me in face...)
Reads like more neocon talking points. Frankly, the push for interventionism in foreign policy is simply a security blanket for those who are terrified the US will stop giving carte blanche to Israel...
obama messed up so much more not in this article
thin article...very poor in substance.
obama's pathetic "reset button" with russia? failure.
obama's mid east peace process handling? failure.
obama's winning over china for iran sanctions? failure
obama removing missiles shield from czechs and poland? failure.
obama's outreach to iran? failure.
obama's handling of syria? failure
obama leading from behind on libya? mostly a failure.
obama neglecting the whole southern hemisphere? failure.
obama's treatment of allies including israel? failure.
obama's silence in the face of turkish slide into islamicism? failure.
more ancient jewish history...shhh, dont tell abu mazen
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=251657
Wow seriously. We need to spend MORE money on the military? Are you stupid? Have you not seen the problem was that we used the military option TOO much and focused on "national security" to the point of neglecting everything else. You've neglected your own country while worrying about everyone else's. FOCUS on domestic issues first. We've spent all our blood, treasure and lives fighting foreign "threats" that are real or apparent when really we should be focusing on how to make the lives of each American great.
Spending all the money on weapons is a bad economic policy...once you make it, you cannot sell it to any country (only "allies" and even then not everything is permissible). Plus you're selling products that are destructive in nature. Why not just take that money, invest in our country and make actual worthwhile things?
Okay, so this blog is called shadow govt and the author goes on with trite phrases like <<>
Well thanx Jamie Fly, you are overselling yourself and taking yourself seriously like so many of the US elite including BO Bushco and Clintco. Does pandering openly and regularly to govt propaganda organs allow one authorship with prime audience at FP.
trite phrase taken out is inserted again
resulting in the death of the architect of the terrorist attacks of 9/11
please refrain, this is just propaganda, often repeated wo effect
Oh jeez there are still troofers out there!
I thought your type all went away years ago. Maybe that was just wishful thinking. I guess it takes a long time for a retarded idea to die off.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-06-04/
http://www.debunking911.com/
he should relinguish his Nobel Peace Prize
Did someone ask him to relinquish is Nobel Peace Prize yet?
Unlike Bush, Obama respects reality
Ms. Fly wants Obama to ignore international realities when she accuses Obama of not continuing US troop presence in Iraq.
Once Bush negotiated an agreement with Iraqi government to pull US troops out of Iraq, it would be very difficult for Obama to continue US troop presence there without Iraqi government’s approval.
Ms. Fly totally ignores who is fueling continuing Afghan insurgency and who is responsible for this unending Afghan war when she accuses Obama for reversing the gains made by 2009 surge.
The seeds of the ‘current Afghan tragedy’ were sowed in Washington when Bush administration decided to allow Musharraf to spirit away by airlift hundreds, if not thousands, of Taliban operatives cornered by the advancing Northern Alliance in Kunduz in November, 2001. Pakistan relocated those Taliban cadres including Mullah Mohammed Omar in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan (now relocated to Karachi by Pakistani ISI to protect them from possible US drone attacks) and Haqqani network (HQN) in North Waziristan from where Mullah Omar’s QST and Haqqani’s HQN have been planning raids in Afghanistan ever since.
It is this deliberate policy of Bush administration to ignore Pakistani State’s terrorist connections that has saddled Obama with an endless Afghan war. Obama has belatedly recognized that the root of this Afghan war is in America’s so-called ally Pakistan.
But after ten long years of war, America has neither the wish nor the resources to take on Pakistani military.
So Obama administration will reach a facade of Vietnam-style peace deal as dictated by Pakistan with the Afghan Taliban leaders chosen by Pakistan . US will begin its drawdown and finally exit the theater of a war it is desperate not to be seen as having lost, not so much to the Taliban and Al Qaeda as to the wily Generals of Rawalpindi who have proved to be smarter than the Americans.
That facade of peace will crumble within few years after the departure of US troops and Pakistan will bring Afghanistan under its suzerainty with reimposition of Taliban rule just as it did in 1996 while tired and financially broke Uncle Sam will helplessly look the other way.
Seriously, you want America to "lead" the Arab Spring? A lot of people in that part of the world either don't appreciate, are highly suspicious, or are outright hostile to outsiders getting involved in their affairs. Unless they violate some fundamental tenets of democracy or peaceful co-existence with other nations we should take a hands-off approach, which is what Obama has done.
As for Afghanistan, the whole point of a surge is that it's temporary, is it not? If there's some consensus among experts that a permanent garrison increase in Afghanistan will kill the insurgency and that political will is the only thing that's lacking, well that's news to me.
"the administration's inability or unwillingness to negotiate a U.S. military presence in... [Iraq]"
That's Mr. Fly's laughably contorted way to say it. The truth is that the democratically elected government of Iraq has demanded that the US military be withdrawn, and Mr. Fly wants the US to remain a foreign occupying power.
As no authorization has been provided for the US to be present in Iraq, nor by the people or the government, the occupation remains illegal. People seem to forget that. In the political discourse the Iraqi war has been reduced to a political weapon, which perfectly shows how oblivious/ignorant/unconcerned US citizens are to being an aggressive foreign occupying power.
Obama did a fair job. Yes, he floundered like other presidents, but he did a good job portraying a fresh new face to the old guard, our friends the bankers.
Overall, I'd say Obama was the best guy for the financial crisis, the collapse of many industries, the ongoing attempts to push puppet democracy on newly recruited countries. The world bank and IMF are doing a good job roping in unorganized countries, putting the multinationals in charge of the important stuff.
I'd be glad to have Obama run another four years, since he can read his scripts well, appears to be strong, and does not show his cards easily. If he's caught a cold in the last year, it's nothing a neti pot can't fix quickly. And getting over a cold doesn't usually take all that long.
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Opportunity knocks but once
the American president is leader of precisely one country - it's only when countries start trying to project power that we have problems and bring ourselves closer to conflicts......Happy new year!!!
massagista
avioes venda
The surge forces will be out of the country by October of next year and the press is rife with reports of secret reconciliation talks with the Taliban that could undermine the Afghan government and reverse the gains made by the Afghan people since the brutal days of Taliban rule. floor steamer reviews
US will begin its drawdown and finally exit the theater of a war it is desperate not to be seen as having lost, not so much to the Taliban and Al Qaeda as to the wily Generals of Rawalpindi who have proved to be smarter than the Americans. That facade of peace will crumble within few years after the departure of US troops and Pakistan will bring homeappliances Afghanistan under its suzerainty with reimposition of Taliban rule just as it did in 1996 while tired and financially broke Uncle Sam will helplessly look the other way.
Shadow Government is a blog about U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration, written by experienced policy makers from the loyal opposition and curated by Peter D. Feaver and William Inboden.
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