Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Now Is Not A Good Time, Bibi

America, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen a most inopportune time to demand face time with Barack Obama. A smart man, Bibi knows exactly that he can help make Obama look bad, and with this maneuver, make Romney’s insane foreign policy bellicosity look good.

I would even venture that Netanyahu has pulled a self-serving political maneuver by inserting himself into the middle of a rancorous American election season.

Via RT:

Reuters report that Netanyahu’s office had requested a meeting with the American commander-in-chief, but that staffers for the president don’t seem interested in entertaining the idea. “[T]he White House has got back to us and said it appears a meeting is not possible. It said that the president’s schedule will not permit that,” an Israeli official tells Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Now more than ever I fear that Mitt Romney, were he to be elected, would go to war with Iran, simply to fulfill a campaign promise: friendship with Israel no matter the costs to war-weary Americans.

I understand that readers who frequent this space crave partisanship. They’ll have to go elsewhere. I detest Obama and what he stands for. But that doesn’t mean I will not call it as I see it on those rare occasions when the president is right. Obama is on the campaign trail (fooling the American people for the second time around). Israel is a wedge issue in this election. Now is not a good time, Bibi.

Moreover, and as I put it in “The Titan is Tired”:

The titan is tired. We Americans have our own tyrants to tackle. We no longer want to defend to the death borders not our own—be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Israel, wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.

Romney: So Nice, So Wrong

Business, China, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Iran, Neoconservatism, Republicans, Trade

MSNBC was my first port of call, right after Mitt Romney completed his address to the 2012 Republican Convention. Romney’s sworn enemies would be the best gauges as to how well the speech resonated.

The cobra head at MSNBC—Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz—all were remarkably mild in their reactions. Other than the hissing Chris Matthews, these people were partial to the man and his message.

O’Donnell: ‘It was an effective presentation’
Chuck Todd: ‘optimistic nostalgia’
Ed Schultz: a ‘pitch to women’
HuffPo: “Solid.” “Competent.” “Workmanlike.”
Chris Matthews, aka The Snake, was the only one to rightly condemn Romney’s “jingoistic language about war,” as “bad for the country.”

AND FOR THE WORLD!

Tomorrow these pundits will have returned to their default position. But, for now, they seemed to have finally seen that, while Romney’s political positions are horrid, he’s a lovely man. As incongruous as this may seem, it is nevertheless true.

I’ve seen enough of life to know a lovely man when I see one. Ann Romney, herself a delightful lady, is a lucky woman. Romney is a great provider, fabulously devoted to family and church, consistently generous and charitable to all those around him, and brilliant in all endeavors, academic and other.

Unlike those of Obama, Romney’s university transcripts will stand scrutiny.

Sadly, Romney is wrong on almost all issues of policy.

WRONG on China.
WRONG on Foreign policy.
WRONG on Iran.
WRONG on Russia.

So wrong about so much, yet such a lovely man. (And I did cheer, “Bain, Baby,” when he talked up free enterprise.)

“Repeal-and-replace statism” is what the Ryan-Romney ticket is about.

Just In From Mainstream: Barack Is As Thick As A Brick

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Debt, Economy, Foreign Policy, Media, Neoconservatism

Here’s an excerpt from the current column, “Just In From Mainstream: Barack Is As Thick As A Brick,” now on WND:

“… Nevertheless, Niall Ferguson has performed a small service, in so far as he has offered the first comprehensive, utterly damning case against Barack Hussein Obama, from establishment intelligentsia’s perspective.

Easily his greatest feat, however, is to have admitted that Barack Obama doesn’t comprehend the issues about which he is expected to decide; to intimate that the president is a product of—how shall we put it?—political grooming.

“You can’t just march in and make that argument and then have him [Obama] make a decision,” [Lawrence] Summers told [Peter] Orszag, “because he doesn’t know what he’s deciding.”

About the president’s comprehension skills, the one Harvard professor seconds the assessment of the other, quoted above. Writes Ferguson: “I have heard similar things said off the record by key participants in the president’s interminable ‘seminar’ on Afghanistan policy.”

Now, that is remarkable.

When “You Can’t Fix Stupid” was published (April 15, 2011), legions of WND readers wrote in to patiently and laboriously explain to me that Barack Obama was not “stupid,” only evil. An evil genius, if you like.

If indirectly, Ferguson disproves that misconception.

Yet I have to wonder who here is the real schmo—the man who was led to believe throughout his “career” trajectory that he was up to the task, or the sycophants and enablers, equally represented among The American People, and among those who’ve pirated the ghost-ship of state. All have helped enforce Barack Obama’s delusions of grandeur. …”

The complete column, “Just In From Mainstream: Barack Is As Thick As A Brick,” is now on WND.

Also available from WND or from Amazon is the prophetic “Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid.”

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive libertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATED: Hit The Road, Schmo* (Some Ferguson Facts)

Barack Obama, Economy, Elections, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Media, Neoconservatism

“A member of this global, glamorous elite; people who are at home in London and New York” is how Byron York wryly (and aptly) described economist Niall Ferguson (6 minutes into this clip). Ferguson has penned a Newsweek article, “Hit The Road, Barack: Why We Need a New President,“ which has infuriated the Obama-Head media. The Washington Examiner’s York set the scene for Ferguson’s defiance: “It is very fashionable among [this global elite] to support President Obama.”

From the perspective of the libertarian, Professor Ferguson’s piece is unremarkable (although, as I have said before in covering him, Ferguson’s knowledge is formidable).

On foreign policy, Ferguson accuses Obama of not being enough of a statist, which this neoconservative equates with statesmanship.

However, for a member of establishment intelligentsia to openly admit that Barack Obama doesn’t understand the issues about which he is supposed to decide; to intimate that he is the affirmative action appointee: Now, that is remarkable.

“You can’t just march in and make that argument and then have him make a decision,” Summers told Orszag, “because he doesn’t know what he’s deciding.” (I have heard similar things said off the record by key participants in the president’s interminable “seminar” on Afghanistan policy.)

Except, I have to wonder who’s the real Schmo? The man who was led to believe that he was up to the task throughout his “career” trajectory, or the enablers and sycophants who enforced Barack Obama’s self-delusions.

I recall that when, in April 15, 2011, I wrote ‘You Can’t Fix Stupid,’ readers patiently explained to me that BHO was not stupid, only evil. (Even IQ ace Steve Sailer might have been gulled.) No. I’ve always maintained that Obama was cunning, but not clever.

But there is much more to the article. Read it.

(*Schmo: From Yiddish, dull, stupid, fool.)

UPDATE: Non-writers, or armchair scribblers, will be cavalier about the comprehensiveness of the Ferguson piece. I am not, for obvious reasons. I disagree with Ferguson on many issues—for example, he cites “official” unemployment figures, rather than real joblessness, which not even the U6 statistic covers.

In addition, his notion of GDP is in all likelihood off too; official GDP numbers are a gambit.

And, as far as the Killer Drone’s actions abroad go, Ferguson objects not so much to the stealth killing of innocents, but to the loss of “crucial intelligence” assets caused by BHO’s “assassination program.”

As for Ferguson’s China fear mongering; that was addressed in an earlier critique: “Chinese mercantilism is not free trade, but is it not better than American militarism?” You bet it is.

On and on.

I understand that all Ferguson’s condemners believe they could have bested the Prof. Still, Ferguson has done a serious service in so far as he has offered the first damning case against BHO from the perspective of mainstream.

Interesting excerpts:

…the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.
…In his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first he presented—the president envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8 percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3 percent this year. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.
…Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.
…By the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), [government debt] will reach 70 percent of GDP. These figures significantly understate the debt problem, however. The ratio that matters is debt to revenue. That number has leapt upward from 165 percent in 2008 to 262 percent this year, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. Among developed economies, only Ireland and Spain have seen a bigger deterioration. Under this president’s policies, the debt is on course to approach 200 percent of GDP in 2037—a mountain of debt that is bound to reduce growth even further.
…Yet the public mistakes his administration’s astonishingly uninhibited use of political assassination for a coherent strategy. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, the civilian proportion of drone casualties was 16 percent last year. Ask yourself how the liberal media would have behaved if George W. Bush had used drones this way. Yet somehow it is only ever Republican secretaries of state who are accused of committing “war crimes.”