This Is How Wars Begin: Obama's Three-fer This Week

Colonel James Corum is an experienced military scholar, a credible voice, now working in a sensitive corner of the world.  
James Corum is Dean of the Baltic Defence College in Estonia. He has taught at American and British staff colleges and is the author of seven books on military history and counter-insurgency. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve (rtd) and has 28 years' experience as an army officer.

He's not a pudgy middle-aged white guy in his mother's basement, living in his 'Don't Tread On Me' tee-shirt and adding to his gun collection.

(OS feels compelled to say these things, because anytime anyone anywhere raises his hand and says 'Scuze me! I think Mr. Obama has got it wrong', someone else feels obligated to rant that the objector is some sort of ignorant non-entity. They exist, to be certain, but OS tries to avoid them at all times. There are enough sober voices in objection for a lifetime already.)

So back to Colonel Corum: He points out, calmly, in today's Telegraph that Our Beloved Leader has managed to publicly insult not one, not two, but three loyal allies of the United States, each in its own strategic corner of the world. 

• Instead of attending the state funeral in Poland, to help console a grieving nation, he took the afternoon off to play golf. (The airport in Cracow was open, by the way.) 
• He chased off the Israelis, who chose wisely not to attend the non-proliferation conference, where they knew they would be subjected to anti-Israeli rants by Islamic dictatorships, and-- 
• his government characterized the constitutionally appropriate removal of a Chavez-in-training by the Honduran Congress as a coup-de-etat.

Sweeeet!  Three in one week!

Now, does anyone think that political leaders (outside of nutters like Hitler) wake up in the morning, have their first cup of coffee, look out the window at the flower beds and singing birds, and say: 'I'm gonna start me a war today! Let's get a few hundred thousand people ushered into eternity this year.'

No, these things get blundered into, blind-side and backwards, often because arrogant twits refuse to remember who their friends are, the difference between simple right and wrong, and that totalitarian regimes inevitably blow up and take lots of people with them. They aren't the friends of freedom, 'cuz they're dictatorships!

 
So, the Colonel, an historian, concludes by sharing a bit of irrefutable history with us.

[begin quote, OS providing the bold emphases]

Alienating three close allies in one week is quite a trick, even for a president as inept in foreign policy as Barack Obama. However, it fits a pattern. President Obama has never shown any understanding for the basic rules of foreign policy which include cultivating allies, avoiding unnecessary friction, and doing one’s homework. These things happen because Obama is fundamentally uninterested in foreign policy. It is part of a pattern that began when Obama was elected to the Senate. In 2007 his party made him the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Europe so Obama could claim foreign policy experience for his presidential run in 2008. Yet even though Obama’s committee had oversight of such vital issues as the U.S. relationship to NATO and the EU, Obama never held Senate hearings and his committee contributed no reports or played any role in setting policy. Few senate committee chairs have ever shown less interest in the work. 

In his career in the Senate and as president, Obama enjoyed his foreign trips when it is all about him – such as receiving the Nobel Prize or basking in the adulation of the Euromasses. But rarely has a president had so much foreign travel with so little substance to show for it. So far, Obama shows no talent for learning on the job – so America’s friends should brace for more weeks like this one.

[end quote]

If you read this from overseas, OS will repeat himself: So many of us did not vote for this person, and so many who did deeply regret it. He's at the helm, but he does not speak for us! Especially to our cousins in the UK, of all stripes--we stand with you, even if he abuses your loyal friendship.

If you read this from the US, please--find a favorite candidate or three to support for Congress, Senate, governorships, and state legislatures who will stand up to these people. Don't just rant, and don't even consider spilling anyone's blood or blowing anything up.

Donate.

Get to work.

Vote, and make sure you take your family and friends with you.

It's about war, peace, and survival, that's all.