Monday, March 24, 2014

Moe, Larry & Curly!

Bill Neinast


IN PERSPECTIVE

Moe, Larry, and Curly are familiar names to senior citizens.  They were the Three Stooges of slapstick comedy fame on the vaudeville stage and in film during the first part of the last century.

Today, when Barack, Joe, and John are mentioned, the Three Stooges come to mind.  This modern day, real life version, however, is much too real to be laughed off

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and John Kerry are the foreign affairs team of the U.S.  Although they are the laughing stock of the world, particularly of Russia and Iran, the consequences of their actions and utterances are too serious to be regarded as vaudeville.

The best description of this country’s current foreign relations is that it is abysmal.  No one in the triumvirate exhibits any awareness of geography, history, or geopolitics.  

 Unfortunately, this view of the world as you wish it were rather than the real world is prevalent among the lackeys and stooges in the ranks of media commentators.  They are the ones who harrumphed or shook their heads in disbelief when Mitt Romney stated during a debate with Obama that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe.”

Romney recently restated that belief.  On March 17, he wrote in The Wall Street Journal:

“Able leaders anticipate events, prepare for them, and act in time to shape them. My career in business and politics has exposed me to scores of people in leadership positions, only a few of whom actually have these qualities. Some simply cannot envision the future and are thus unpleasantly surprised when it arrives. Some simply hope for the best. Others succumb to analysis paralysis, weighing trends and forecasts and choices beyond the time of opportunity.

“President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton traveled the world in pursuit of their promise to reset relations and to build friendships across the globe. Their failure has been painfully evident: It is hard to name even a single country that has more respect and admiration for America today than when President Obama took office, and now Russia is in Ukraine. Part of their failure, I submit, is due to their failure to act when action was possible, and needed.”

The current debacle of Russia expanding its borders, Iran moving full speed ahead on developing nuclear weapons, Syria maintaining its stockpile of chemical weapons (which are Saddam Hussein’s cache that some claim he never had), Iraq and Afghanistan refusing to allow American service personnel to remain in country under U.S. jurisdiction, is the sole responsibility of Barack, Joe, John, and, as noted by Romney, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton..

That may be an unfair criticism of Joe, John, and Hillary.  The basic cause is Barack.  He naively believes that the sheer force of his intellect and suave personality will cow any world leader into adoring agreement or submission.  His words, in his opinion, are more powerful than any weapons made by man.  In reality, however, as Romney noted, “We give.  Russia Gets.”

The way the rest of the world now views us, the former leaders of the free world, proves Barracks’s belief in his invincibility is as erroneous as his repeated promise that, “You can keep the insurance and doctors you have if you like them.”

If he had the understanding of world affairs of Mitt Romney and knew American history, he could have taken a page from President John F. Kennedy’s history and gotten serious attention from Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.

 JFK told tSoviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev to keep his missiles out of Cuba.  To make sure the Soviets knew that we meant business, JFK quarantined Cuba with the U.S. Navy and began moving combat troops into Florida.  Very quickly, the Soviet ships carrying missiles to Cuba reversed course and the missile sites being built were abandoned.

Obama could have replicated that strategy in Ukraine. A replay of meaning what you say, would have been to quickly arrange for joint military maneuvers with the Ukrainian military.  Several U.S. Army and Marine battalions could have been airlifted to the Ukrainian military bases in Crimea.  The troops would have raised American flags to fly beside the Ukrainian flags in their new encampments.

As those flags were unfurled, the applause and nods of approval from the heads of various NATO nations might have gotten Putin’s attention as quickly as the JFK’s troop movements gave Khrushchev second thoughts.

Instead of acting JFK tough, however, Obama talked softly to the bully.  He said, “We are going to impose economic and travel sanctions like we are so effectively doing in Iran.”  The Russians’ reaction, when they got through laughing, was to impose similar sanctions on Americans like Speaker of the House John Boehner and other congressional personnel.

So here’s the perspective.

Comparing President Obama to one of The Three Stooges was not the best comparison to make.  A much better comparison might be to call him “Neville” after a former Prime Minister of Great Britain.

An appreciation of this comparison requires a review of the history of the Sudetenland, a German speaking province of France in the 1930s.  That history reads like a screen play for the Ukraine of 2014.   

When reading the chapter on British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meeting Hitler in Munich in1938 and agreeing not to oppose Hitler’s absorption of the Sudetenland into Germany, visions of Ukraine dance over the pages.

On 30 September 1938, Chamberlain returned to London with the Munich Agreement in hand and announced that he was, “bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.”  Instead of peace, however, the world exploded into WWII.

Sound familiar?  So is it Barack, Mo, or Neville?

Monday, March 17, 2014

Freedom is Not Free, A soldiers pledge!

As the son of a WWII Marine, the father of a Navy fighter pilot currently serving this great nation, and the employer of many veterans I ask that you pass this on to all who care and all who should care.  Because Freedom is Not Free and we are privileged to live in the greatest country on earth!

May God continue to bless the United States of America.

Marc

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Red Lines, not really effective unless you are willing to enforce the Terms


IN PERSPECTIVE
 by Bill Neinast

Blame President Obama if you have problems reading this column.  My computer  keyboard is shaking so much that it is difficult to keep my fingers in position.

You must have noticed it too.  The earth is shaking hard enough to jiggle every thing on it.  The President is the cause.

He has drawn another red line in the sand against Iran and warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that there will be consequences if he interferes in Ukraine.

The new threats from this man, just like the earlier ones from him, have the leaders of every nation in the world shaking in their boots.  The shivers are so hard that the whole earth is quivering.  That is the shaking you are feeling in your chairs.

Wait a minute, however.  There is really another cause for that shaking.  That is the rumble of the Russian tanks and other heavy military equipment rolling into Crimea.  Putin must not have heard Obama say there “would be costs” if he moved into Ukraine.

Those vehicles are all waving Russian flags.  Actually, those are not the national flags of Russia.  They are new caricature flags of Putin thumbing his nose at Obama.

This would be laughable if it were not so serious.  This is not a civil war or civil uprising like those in Egypt, Syria, Turkey and other countries in that area.  This is a threat of international war--one country invading another.

In response, Obama is showing his typical ineptness in foreign affairs.  There is, of course, no option for a direct military intervention by the U.S.  An experienced manager of international affairs or even one with a modicum of knowledge of history would react to this situation with something other than warnings of “cost.”

Instead of a 90 minute telephone conversation between Obama and Putin there should have been a highly publicized conversation between Obama and Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.  In this conversation, Obama could have committed the U.S. to strong and continuing support of the new democratic regime in Ukraine.

As proof of that support, a page from WWII history books could have been resurrected.  Obama could have suggested a renewal of the Lend-Lease Program under which the U.S. provided much needed military materiel to Russia and other allies in the war with Germany.  Now, of course, the support would go to Ukraine.

Obama could have made a show of promising Yatsenyuk things like some of our super effective fighter planes, drones, etc.  If there were no Ukrainian pilots capable of handling those modern fighters, a modern day Claire Chennault probably could be found to organize a replica of the Flying Tigers that helped the Chinese battle the Japanese air force before the U.S. entered WWII.

He could have added that he was also ordering the largest U.S. Navy fleet that could navigate the narrow, treacherous Bosporus or Istanbul Straits into the Black Sea.  This fleet was not to threaten direct military action, but would be the symbolic “big stick” of Theodore Roosevelt.  It would also be available for logistical support for the Lend-Lease materiel, hospital and medical assistance, safe haven under the U.S. flag for Ukrainian officials, etc.

Finally, instead of saying that the U.S. was suspending "upcoming participation in preparatory meetings" for the G8 summit scheduled for June in Sochi, Russia, Obama should have said that the U.S. would not participate in the June meeting if Putin invaded Ukraine.  He should have noted that, instead of such a meeting, he would be meeting with our NATO and EURO allies to plan financial aid to replace the Ukrainian treasury looted by Putin’s friend Viktor F. Yanukovych, Ukraine’s humiliated fugitive president now in Russia.

These actions probably would not have any more effect on Putin than Obama’s 90 minute plea with him or the threat of “costs.”  It would, however, have shown a president with the back bone of his predecessors.

Several years ago, pundits and comics humiliated and made fun of President George W. Bush as the Decider.  This was based on Bush’s own statement that he was the Decider, meaning he was the one who made the decisions in the White House.

When will those pundits and comics begin doing the same with Obama by calling him what he is, the Ditherer.  The only decisions he is known to make with speed and finality are the locations and times of his next golf games and which sycophants are to stand behind him while he makes a televised campaign appearance.

His relations with Putin since “hitting the reset button” on Russian relations shortly after taking office and agreeing not to place defense missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic are aptly described by Michigan’s Congressman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  He says, “Putin is playing chess; Obama is laying marbles.” 

So here’s the perspective.

President Obama’s foreign policy was summarized in a cartoon last week.  The drawing by Gorrell at 1014 Creators.com is entitled “Major Foreign Policy Triumphs of the Obama Administration.”  It is simply a blank sheet of paper.