Monday, August 19, 2013

OBAMA HAS TURNED THE U.S. INTO A TOOTHLESS TIGER

The richest and most powerful nation in the world cannot keep the Egyptian military from slaughtering its own people or keep Russia and China from supporting Iran’s nuclear ambitions and supplying arms to Syrian dictator Assad’s military

America is the world’s richest country with the world’s most powerful military, but we have become a toothless tiger. What had once been a strong foreign policy started to fall apart in February 2011 when the Obama administration supported the ouster of our long-time ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Obama’s Egyptian foreign policy has turned out to be a colossal failure. We supported the mobs that took to the streets demanding Mubarak’s ouster. In return for our support the Egyptian military held an election that was won by the radical Muslim Brotherhood. When the mobs took to the streets again, newly elected President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in a military coup. (The Obama administration refuses to call it a coup because, by law, a coup would require us to cut off our military aid to the Egyptian government.)

When a mob of thousands of Morsi’s supporters camped out in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria while demanding his return to office, the military threatened to use force to break up the protests. Obama then dispatched Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain to meet with General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian de facto dictator, in order to persuade him not to use force against Morsi’s supporters.

Sen. McCain complains that at the same time, Secretary of State John Kerry undercut their mission by declaring that the Egyptian military was "restoring democracy." An angry McCain says that Kerry's declaration legitimized the military government in their own eyes and gave them a green light to use deadly force against Morsi’s supporters.

Despite our annual $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt, Gen. al-Sisi ignored our pleas and ordered his troops to clear out the protesters. Thus far, 900 Egyptians have been killed and thousands have been wounded, with more bloodshed expected.

Not only has our foreign policy with Egypt been a dismal failure, but now Egyptians on all sides of the conflict blame and hate America. And that’s not all. Now Egypt’s Christians and their churches are being attacked in ever increasing numbers.

Now let’s look at our Syrian foreign policy. The Obama administration drew a red line with respect to the Syrian civil war which thus far has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Syrians and forced 1.7 million Syrians to seek shelter in Jordan and Turkey. And the civil war has been spilling over into Lebanon and Jordan, thereby threatening the stability of the whole region.

Obama declared that if Assad used chemical weapons against his people, he would be crossing a red line that would not be tolerated by the United States. When the U.N. found proof that some chemical weapons had been used, our response was tepid. Obama said he would supply the rebels with small arms and ammunition, but because the rebels are fighting among themselves and many are affiliated with al-Qaeda, few if any of the promised materials have been delivered.

Despite all our efforts to dissuade them from supplying Assad’s forces with heavy weaponry, Russia and China continue to send tanks, helicopters and ballistic missiles to the Syrian dictator. And when Obama phoned Vladimir Putin to ask that Russia extradite NSA leaker Edward Snowden to the U.S., the Russian president practically told him to take a flying fuck by granting Snowden asylum.

It all started with the February 2011 ouster of Mubarak. By now, our foreign policy is in utter shambles. We are now indeed a toothless tiger. Oops, I am wrong. Ignoring repeated vows by the Palestinian leadership that their ultimate goal is to destroy the Jewish state, we did succeed in forcing tiny Israel to restart ‘peace’ talks with the Palestinians even though 80 percent of Israeli Jews believe peace is impossible.

1 comment:

bob walsh said...

I believe we have the ABILITY, just not the political will, to do so.