Category Archives: Foreign Policy

NoBamas Bearing Gifts, Please

Barack Obama, Britain, Etiquette, Foreign Policy

Despite animated discussion on the cable networks about the guest list for the British Royal wedding, I noticed that both anchors on FoxNews and MSNBC avoided mentioning the absence of the Obamas. I would have thought that Fox might gloat, but no. Could this be so because the official Left and the Right equate national greatness with the degree to which our political officials are courted across the world? To both official factions, our national honor is wrapped up in our political elites, and not in the common American. Perhaps FoxNews and MSNBC were equally embarrassed? Granted, to substitue for the Obamas’ absence, there are many other odious characters on the list. Still, Margaret Thatcher has been invited, but not Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the last two god-awful, Labor-government prime ministers.

The official line is good for a laugh: “[O]nly crowned heads of states and and political leaders from the 54-member Commonwealth of nations [are] traditionally invited to royal weddings.”

Maybe the young couple is afraid of the “Gangsta Gifts” Michelle Obama might have brought along?

From the grandeur of her White House Crib, the FLOTUS is famous for giving Prime Minister Brown a box of 25 DVDs including “ET,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Star Wars,” “a cheap gift which spoke to the giver’s impoverishment. The DVDs were also region-encoded for North America and could not be played in Britain. Brown gave Obama ‘a pen holder carved from the timber of an anti-slave ship.'”

“Before the DVD and gift-shop gaffes, there was the weightier matter of the bust of Winston Churchill. ‘The valuable bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein had been loaned by the British government to George W. Bush,’ wrote syndicated columnist Diana West. ‘One of President Obama’s first acts as president was to consign that symbol to a box and send it packing.'”

Most recently, as Daniel Hannan noted, Obama “used the Louisiana oil spill to attack an imaginary company called ‘British Petroleum’ (it has been BP for the past decade, ever since the merger with Amoco gave it as many American as British shareholders). … He managed, on his visit to West Africa, to refer to the struggle for independence, but not to the Royal Navy’s campaign against slavery.”

Whether you like Churchill or not is immaterial. The return of the Churchill bronze confirmed the suspicion that Obama was anti-Occident. The habit of giving inappropriate, thoughtless presents—despite the fact that he and his family were deluged with wild effusions of love and lavish gifts—this showed Obama to be, well, a bit of a pig.

Maybe Prince William and Kate Middleton think that inviting the rude American duo to their wedding is infra dig.

[Oh, I learned something new from all this: Tonga is a monarchy.]

Future Easters In Jerusalem? Don’t Bet On It

Foreign Policy, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Judaism & Jews, Nationhood

If Christians value celebrating the Easter Holy Week in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City—and it is majestic, believe me—they ought to pay more attention to the plans the Middle East Quartet is hatching for Israel. The United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia may push Israel to “withdraw to the [indefensible] armistice lines drawn up between the Jewish state and Jordan in 1949.” For the time being, the US has postponed a Quartet meeting, probably because Obama is already in bad odor with American on so many other issues.

Last Friday, Glenn Beck infuriated FoxNews’s Saudi shareholders by taking a symbolic, if unequivocal, stand for the Jew among the nations (yeah, yeah, I oppose foreign aid); for the civilized society (instead of the adjacent savage society). For “in Israel—foibles and frailties notwithstanding—the West has reclaimed a small spot of sanity in a sea of savagery, where enlightened western law prevails, and where Christians and Jews and their holy places are safe. (Muslims are always secure in western societies, Arab-Israelis too.).

When Jews commenced what must be the most remarkable modern-day national revival, Israel was a wasteland. Palestinians had done precious little for the land they purport to so love. As Ludwig von Mises (a utilitarian classical liberal), observed: For centuries the Near East has been a cultural backwater. “The Mohammedans”—to quote the delightfully archaic Mises—have for hundreds of years failed to produce so much as a “book of significance,” much less any scientific or other advancement.

Is there any wonder? The catalysts for creativity and prosperity are the ideas of individual freedom and freedom from the state. As Mises noted, these ideas are inimical to the cultures of the Near East, and the Islamic world in particular. Yet the “civilized” world is working diligently to shrink the civilized sphere that is Israel and expand the barbaric Palestinian Authority. (Question: What does unoccupied Palestinian land look like? Answer: Like Gaza.)

I must say that the rabbi Glenn entertained for his hour long “In Defense of Israel” show instantiated everything that is wrong with the American rabbinate, in particular, and American Jews, in general. Let me explain.

A woman in Beck’s audience asked the perspicacious question about the divide between American and Israeli Jews. Israelis and diaspora Jews: never the twain shall meet. But Rabbi Joseph Potasnik (a real “tembel”) gave her some tribal reply. Where does Glenn find these people? The rabbi was as ghettoized as any representative of CAIR.. Contrast that with the concision with which Dore Gold (a former Israeli ambassador) made his points.

American Jews are left-liberals, for the most, when it comes to the concerns of their fellow Americans, but rightist on matters Israel. In other words, hypocrites. They advocate a multicultural, immigration free-for-all, pluralist pottage for America. But when it comes to Israel, that’s another matter entirely.

As most left-liberal Jews who support Israel see it, Israel has the right to retain its creedal and cultural distinctiveness and its Jewish majority, but not so America. Israel should control immigration and guards its borders, but not the US. Ask this kind of Jew if he supports a “Right of Return” for every self-styled Palestinian refugee, and he’ll say, “Never. Are you insane? That’s a euphemism for Israel’s demise.”

The very thing he opposes for Israel, the left-liberal Jew champions for America: a global right of return to the US for the citizens of the world. When it comes to “returning” to America (but not Israel), humankind has a positive, manufactured right to venture wherever, whenever.

UPDATE II: Lawless In Libya (‘Allahu Akbar’)

Barack Obama, Bush, Constitution, Foreign Policy, Just War, Media

As Dr. Johnson said, “There is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.” Indeed, louse or flea — Obama is as much of a pest as was Bush. Still, in centralizing power in the executive branch, Obama may have surpassed Bush the younger. Here’s the latest in the annals of the Imperial Presidency (via BBC):

US President Barack Obama has secretly authorised covert assistance to rebels seeking to overthrow Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, US media reports say.
He recently signed a document known as a “finding”, allowing support to the rebel groups, Reuters news agency and ABC News said.
Such “findings” are a common way for the president to authorise covert operations by the CIA.
The CIA and White House have both declined to comment on the reports. … The New York Times, citing American officials, said on Wednesday that the CIA has had operatives on the ground in Libya for several weeks. They are said to be gathering intelligence for air strikes and making contact with the forces fighting Col Gaddafi.

With the “rebels” in retreat, BHO will have to double his efforts in the Libyan theatre to avoid looking like he’s losing. Libya is about legacy more than Iraq and Afghanistan, wars Bush began.

Perhaps you’ve noticed this, but no sooner does the question of limits on presidential power intrude into the debate than the pundits and pols, who exist in symbiosis, start yammering about the top dog’s obligation to demonstrate “leadership.” “The American people,” say media elites, “want a strong leader.”

If they do, then they’re dumb. “Leadership” is presidential overreach euphemized.

Kneecap this president. Politically, that is.

UPDATE: I closed a blog post that “Cindy” responded to. So here below is her missive. As you can see, Cindy equates my feelings toward the American state with my feelings toward America the country. I would hope that the US is more than its pols, pundits, and foreign policy:

Cindy
2011/03/30 at 5:40 pm:

“Were you alive when Pan AM 103 exploded over the skies of Lockerbie Scotland? If you hate America, why are you living here? Leave! Go! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on on the way out.”

UPDATE II (March 31): Watching the “rebels” on PBS, it’s hard to ignore the blood-curdling harangues of “Allahu Akbar” emitted by our buddies, bless them. Secular democracy rising.

Natural Law Vs. The War Powers Resolution

Constitution, Foreign Policy, Just War, libertarianism, Natural Law, Neoconservatism, War

Modern statutes like the War Powers Resolution, the Iraq Resolution, and the Use of Force Act do not displace the constitutional text and the framers’ intent. But even if the Constitution approved of Barack Obama’s subterfuge in the matter of war powers—the natural law does not. Because it is rational and rooted in the very nature of man, natural justice is immutably true; it is the ultimate guide to what is right or wrong. And it certainly informs the work of historian Tom Woods and the mission of the King Dude (aka Mike Church).

Woods and Church (against the Imperial Presidency) are sparring with talker Mark Levin (in support of it). Woods has repeatedly deferred to the work of Louis Fisher, senior specialist in separation of powers at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, whose work I too galvanized during the Bush era war-powers abuse, in “UNNATURAL LAWLESSNESS” (here).

Tom Woods, The King Dude, and Fisher follow the framers and are thus formidable forces for liberty. To the debate between Messrs. Woods and Levin, I would add—and emphasize—only this point:

To the extent that the Constitution comports with natural law, to that extent it is good. To the extent that it does not jibe with natural justice, to that extent the Constitution is flawed. Even if the Constitution could be shown to support the many naturally illicit military forays conducted by successive American governments—it does not mean that these wars are/were just; only that they are/were legal. Contra classical natural law theory, legal positivism equates justice with the law of the state. However, while it may no longer guide most Americans, natural law must never cease to inform libertarians.