Foreign Policy

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Whatever Obama does, it will be wrong

If Obama tries to solve the Ukraine situation with diplomacy: He’s weak and ineffectual.

If Obama takes military action: He’s rash and careless with our troops’ lives.

Remember, if you are a Republican, the bottom line is this: No matter what Obama does, it’s always the wrong thing.Obama-Putin

This “Obama is always wrong” attitude must really hurt them, because in their hearts they can’t really believe it, can they?  I recall when bin Laden was killed, and you could see it in their faces.  They wanted so much to cheer and celebrate like the rest of us, but they had to find some fault with Obama.  It was just impossible for them to give him credit.  Then they had to deal with Gaddafi.  Had George W. Bush gotten rid of him, the praises would never end.  But Obama doing it?  It’s terrible.

They are now blaming Obama for the Ukraine/Russia situation because, of course, the world reacts to the United States and never does anything on its own.   In all seriousness, the situation in the Ukraine has nothing to do with Obama.  This protest would have happened no matter who was President, and Putin would have taken action no matter what.  You know that’s true.

But some conservatives are pointing to Sarah Palin and giving her credit (I am not making this up) for predicting that Putin would attack the Ukraine if Obama was President.  Why Putin waited six years until Ukraine rebelled against him with no encouragement or backing from Obama, she hasn’t explained yet.  (Palin also predicted that Obama would invade Pakistan, too.)

The Ukraine uprising is a good thing.  It is a move towards modernization and away from the repressive Russian government.  We should be encouraging this completely.

Ironically, many of the conservatives who are criticizing Putin had just months ago praised him and called him “The Leader of the Free World” for his cracking down on gays.  Seriously, because when you think of “free world” you immediately think of throwing people in jail because you’re a bigot.

So let’s revisit this post in a bit and see if I am correct.  No matter what decision Obama makes, the right will criticize it.  And I predict this as well:  Someone on the right will have said beforehand what they would do in his place — and then when Obama does that, they will back down and claim that it is a bad idea.  Wait and see.

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Benghazi “facts” not true says CBS

In a scene foreshadowed on Sorkin’s “Newsroom”, CBS has admitted that the source they used for their Benghazi report was bad, and apologized for reporting false information.

http://youtu.be/UZu8UUh55lA

Well, this should stop all those critics who used the report to claim that there was a scandal here.

Ha ha! Just kidding. We all know that facts don’t mean anything to Obama critics.

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The NSA is More Powerful Than the President Apparently

I don’t know what is worse: A President who spies on his allies, or a President who doesn’t know we’re spying on our allies.

Apparently, Obama was not aware until just recently that the NSA spied on foreign leaders who were our allies.

Members of Congress who are on Foreign Relations committees who normally have access to this kind of information also were unaware.

Shouldn’t the Commander-in-Chief know these things? Will we see some heads roll over at the NSA? Should we have agencies that are unanswerable to anyone?

We must again thank Edward Snowden. Had it not been for his unearthing of these secrets, we would never know. Sometimes whistleblowers are indeed the good guys. Obama needs to stop going after Snowden and instead go after General Alexander, head of the NSA.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Where we are now because of 9/11

I had this idea in my head to discuss how we’ve changed since 9/11, but David Wong over at Cracked said it much better than I could (and with plenty of links to back up his points) so I advise everyone to read this. It’s well written, funny, informative, and you owe it to yourself to check it out.

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Putin, on the ritz

Hey, remember when one thing you could always count on the right wing for was its hatred of Russia?

Not any more. They just love Putin — he’s the new right wing hero.

After all, he believes in cracking down on crime, of stamping out those gays, and for forcing a state-sponsored religion upon his citizens.

I’m actually happy that they are admitting this. After all, we on the left have constantly pointed out that the things the right loves are shared by the Taliban and other haters of freedom. No abortions, no gay rights, no equal pay for women, no freedom of religion, no right not to be randomly searched — you get all that and more in Iraq and increasingly in Russia, too. The tea party crazies who proclaim “Don’t tread on me” are perfectly willing to tread on everyone else.

Now Matt Drudge has even gone so far as to proclaim Putin “The Leader of the Free World”. I am not making this up.

Rod Dreher, who blogs for The American Conservative, cheers Putin’s pro-Christian government, unlike our terrible country that has a Constitution that prevents such things. How dare we live up to the Founder’s explicit desires?

And Pat Buchanan is thrilled that Russia is fighting against the “homosexual agenda” and I assume he cheers when he sees gays getting beaten up in public places in Moscow. Why can’t America be more like that?, he wonders. (As I’ve said before, you should not be too harsh on Pat Buchanan. After all, his parents died in the holocaust. They fell off a guard tower.)

These right wing Putin-lovers, by the way, are the same people who yell that Democrats are “traitors” for suggesting that maybe we should have a national health care policy or work with the UN to solve problems around the world.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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The President who cried wolf?

Secretary of State John Kerry has presented evidence that chemical weapons were used in Syria, thus justifying our action.

All over the globe, people are saying, “Wait, haven’t we heard this before?”

When Colin Powell, on behalf of George W. Bush, assured us that Sadaam had weapons of mass destruction, most of the world said, “Well, he’s the President of the United States. He wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

So now there is a lot of skepticism among our allies, which we deserve. (Thank you, GWB — the incompetence, dishonesty, and the damage caused by your Presidency continue to haunt us.)

There are some major differences between the two situations, though:

First, we have UN inspectors with evidence that chemical weapons were used, along with actual victims.

Second, and more importantly, we have a President who does not want to go to war. Bush and Cheney were looking for an excuse to go after Sadaam for a variety of reasons (“He wanted to kill my Dad,” “Halliburton will make a ton of money”, and so on).

Obama clearly does not want to get himself into another Iraq, especially in Syria where there are no good guys. He warned Assad not to use chemical weapons in the hopes of preventing such a disaster, but that didn’t work and now he’s painted himself into a corner where he has to react. He has stated more than once that this will be a drone-style attack without any “boots on the ground,” but to what end? Will this really accomplish anything?

A few days ago, I criticized Obama for acting without congressional approval. He’s a Constitutional scholar — he used to teach Constitutional Law at the Law School level — and whaddya know? He turned around yesterday and asked Congress for approval.

This was not only the right decision legally, but also politically. Congress is now stuck in the situation where Obama can deflect whatever blame comes his way. “Hey, you guys voted the way you did, and I followed your instructions,” he can reply if things go bad either way. Smart.

But maybe Congress and the world would have a more uniform view had George W. Bush not lied about Iraq. To quote GWB, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

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The Constitution and War

When the Constitution was written, war was a lot simpler — for one thing, it took a long time. You had to move armies and ships and supplies and well, this just wasn’t done overnight.

So the Founding Fathers, wary of letting the President have too much power as Commander-in-Chief, wrote Article I, Section 8, which gave Congress the power to “declare war.”Stock Photo of the Consitution of the United States and Feather Quill

They haven’t done that since World War II.

So now Obama is about to take actions against Syria that, by any standard, is an act of “war”. But we’ve allowed our Presidents to do this so many times that no one is seriously suggesting that this is unConstitutional any more. (Well, except for the Obama haters, most of whom had absolutely no problem with GW Bush doing the same thing, so we can ignore them.)

But it’s still not that simple. The Constitution does not define what a “war” is or what the process is for Congress to declare it, nor does it prevent the President as Commander-in-Chief from ordering troops anywhere he wants and so on.

During Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Act which severely limited the President’s power to keep troops somewhere without congressional approval. It has not been enforced since then.

On the other hand, Congress did approve Presidential actions in Iraq and Afghanistan even though they never officially called it a “war.”

Then there’s the question of treaties. If this is done with UN approval, maybe foreign treaties take precedence over the Constitution, like when we went into Libya. (Well, with drones.)

So as our President becomes more and more imperial during wartime, we seem to be sitting back and going along for the ride.

This is especially disturbing right now with Syria, because a vast majority of Americans want us to stay away from that terrible place (How often do you get 75% of Americans to agree on anything?).

I’d say this is a perfect time for Congress to step in and say “no” to the President, but sadly the vast majority of Congress is in agreement with him.

Editorial cartoon of the day