Tuesday, March 5, 2013

BloggeRhythms 3/5/2013

Found an article on Drudge just now by Peter Foster, of the The Telegraph’s Washington office that set me to thinking.
 
The column concerns, Vali Nasr, a university professor who in 2009 worked second to Richard Holbrooke, “special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan” for the incumbent.
 
In his new book, The Dispensable Nation: America Foreign policy in Retreat, Mr. Nasr writes of ”profound disillusion” with a “Berlin Wall of domestic-focused advisers erected to protect Mr. Obama.”
 
Nasr apparently describes the incumbent as a “dithering" president whose controlling tendencies and extreme risk-averse attitude to foreign policy has damaged US interests in the Middle East. He also claims there are “damaging divisions between the White House and the State Department,” while Mr. Foster adds that “diplomats around the world wait to see if John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, can persuade Mr. Obama to greater engagement on Syria, Egypt and the wider Middle East.”
 
Now, while I ‘m no expert on foreign policy in any way, shape, or form by any measure, I do read a lot and absorb considerable information which seems to me to be consistent with Mr. Nasr’s opinion. And it also appears to me that many proven experts concur that our Middle-east withdrawals leave a void that soon will be filled by the return of hostile forces we’ve worked hard to dispel while spending considerable sums to maintain a fragile peace that now will be at risk when we're gone.
 
However, I don’t think there are any complex issues regarding presidential plans, strategies or positions taken overseas. I also don’t believe there's any way that any kind of sophisticated foreign policy can be formulated, implemented or enforced at all, simply because the guy at the top hasn’t a shred of ability, knowledge or grasp of the situations because there’s not a thing in his experience to draw on. 
 
So, to me the simple question is: How in the world can a guy who’s only preparation for the job he holds was street-level politicking in Chicago and delivering endless speeches likely written buy someone else, suddenly become an expert in foreign affairs, international warfare and decision making regarding what’s needed to maintain peace between hostile populations and nations fighting battles begun thousands of years ago?
 
The simple answer is: He can’t. Period.
 
Consequently, the issues at hand here can be added to all the others that are suffering from the same causation which boils down to having someone at the helm of the most complex nation on earth who’s totally unprepared and unskilled for the job he holds and hasn’t even tried to improve or learn at all.
 
That’s it for today folks.
 
Adios

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