Rethinking Obama (reposted here from Cafe Magazine October 26, 2009)

I'm nearing the conclusion, as much "benefit of the doubt" I have tried to give President Obama, that we are not dealing with any of all those reasons to explain Obama one can find in conspiracy theories of the left or the right. I'm beginning to think it is all more banal and simple than all that.

I think we have in Obama the perfect and final product of the 1960's. If some kind of liberal/left Dr. Frankenstein had decided to create the perfect president for the future he would have produced Obama.

First, he would have given him Obama's psychological profile (see "Wounded Egos on the World Stage"), then he would have added all the 60's elements starting with heavy doses of pop-psychology, "I'm Okay, You're Okay" hypersensitivity, then a good quantity of "Dr. Spock's" prescription for an undeserved and aggrandized sense of self-importance and self-esteem.

He would then deconstruct any and all inherited positive views of America and reprogram his brain to see America as the reason for all the world's misery and corruption. By way of a "Clockwork Orange" type of conditioning he would proceed to ingrain in him an automatic and guttural distaste for anything military. He would fill him with a populist center-left rhetoric capable of fooling even the most educated.

And finally, imprint in him the notion that the rest of the world is really a multicultural mélange of the United Colors of Benetton waiting for the luminescence of a world Messiah as they sing "We are the world" and not for a way to advance their own interests.

In the meantime, we will either laugh or cry as we watch "the creature" running around like the emperor who has no clothes; while decisions that need to be taken are not, but appear to be.

Bush was smart. And that's the difference I make between smart and intelligent. They are not mutually exclusive but sometimes you could be only one. I think Bush was both. But Bush was not an "intellectual". Liberals and academicians especially, confuse intelligence with "intellectualism". That is why Obama has been and will continue to sit around surrounded with "pointy heads", pondering, contemplating what needs to be done.

Smart has to do more with "street smarts", business acumen, etc. A smart and intelligent person knows what needs to be done and does it. The "intellectual" is mostly abstract and see things in the abstract, he is afraid of being wrong so he will ponder for ever, without taking sides or a decision. The smart and intelligent one goes to Harvard for an MBA (Bush); the "intellectual" goes to Harvard and academia, community organizing (Obama).

When Mao said "Power is born from the barrel of a gun", it made sense. The problem is that liberals confuse "Power" with "Authority". A rapist with a gun has "power" over its victim but no authority. Today's Liberals do not believe in essential democratic values. They have de-constructed everything down to "power". Our Founding Fathers believed in power but that power resides in authority, that is "authorship", and that the authors of that power are “the people”, not the government as a separate, autonomous entity. Communists, liberals, etc., only believe in power. They reject authority. Authority requires legitimacy. Power requires only force.

Bush understood the logistic problems of having troops mobilized and waiting in the dessert for an attack on Iraq. On the way to the invasion of Iraq liberals did not understand those realities. Obama doesn't know these things either. He doesn't understand what it takes to mobilize an army and have it at peak preparation. He must think that it is just like getting on Air Force One to go to Europe to lobby for the Olympics and be back in two days.

Bush made a strategy based decision. At the height of the war against al-Qaeda his put-together coalition attacked, squashed and left Afghanistan, and then picked a better fighting ground that favored American doctrine of “re-shaping the Middle East” by moving to Iraq. Both actions were approved by the Democrats.

But let’s not forget that to win the election the Democrats had to diminish the public's view of the security brought us by Bush's bold action. Hence the Democrats mantras: "Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan” and the ever popular, "Iraq is a war of choice" and “Afghanistan is a war of necessity.”

Well, now they are forced to focus on Afghanistan. Now winning depends on success in a place where nobody has ever won...long term, yet. Now we have to fight in a place that is a defensive force multiplier and probably do things that this group will not have the stomach for, bringing the full force of military occupation into play.

So yes, Iraq was a war of choice. What war isn’t? Successful commanders always force the fight on ground that favors them. Iraq was most favorable to establish a buffer zone between Iran and other interested parties against U.S. interest in the region.

President elect Obama and his team were briefed in full detail on the review and recommendations for Afghanistan in the fall of 2008. They accepted the evaluation and took it as their own. In March, President Obama announced the implementation of a strategy that was based on that review. He appointed Gen. McChrystal. Now “the war of necessity” is being treated as a “war of choice” due to the basic stability of Iraq, “the war of choice”.