America and Her Allies: A Parable for Our Times
For several years, my family and I used to summer in the mountain hamlet of the small Greek island of Alonissos, where we had rented a house near the single village restaurant, run by a plump, bustling woman who went by the nickname of Kyratsoula. We and a couple of friends were generally her only customers until the brief tourist season arrived, when all nine outdoor tables would be occupied by a gaggle of passers-through. One memorable evening at the height of the season, a flustered Kyratsoula knocked on our door, explained she was behind schedule, and asked to borrow a potato peeler which she could use to prepare the supper fries rather than the standard, dull, slow-working knife. As we were about to leave for the restaurant ourselves, we brought the coveted implement with us, took our usual table, and ordered several plates of fries to accompany the meal, expecting to be served quickly since it was still early and we were the only ones there.
But within the next ten or fifteen minutes, the terrace had filled up, and one table after another was gradually festooned with heaping plates of French fries. An hour elapsed and still our meal had not appeared. More time passed, and both our kids were by now asleep on the banquette. We were in fact the last table to be served. Since we were long residents on the island, had known Kyratsoula for two or three years, were her steadiest clients, and had also provided the potato peeler—that is, since we were friends—we could be safely ignored and treated like interlopers, our hunger subordinated to the appetites of strangers who would be gone tomorrow. After all, according to this way of thinking, what are friends for but to be scanted, exploited or abused?
Mutatis mutandis, this just about sums up the nature of American foreign policy on the world stage today. A Kyratsoulan America under the stewardship of Barack Obama practices outreach to non-client nations while, in the words of Richard Fernandez, “slapping around” friends and allies — Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras, Columbia and, most emphatically, Israel.
It’s my opinion that the USA can depend on only four countries in the whole wide world. Four countries that will “do the right thing”. Mr Obama is rapidly discarding that advantage.
If by “rapidly discarding”, you mean, to put it less diplomatically, taking the advantage, defecating on it, filming it on his mobile phone, and uploading it to youtube for the entire world to see, then you are correct.
All I heard for 8 years of Bush, most of which were spent in Europe, was how we had lost so much influence throughout the world. We have time for Pakistan, but not for India. We can visit Saudi Arabia and even bring Rahm Emanuel even though technically it is against the law for Jews to visit that stone-age mad-maxesque barbarian wasteland made lush with petro-dollars, but send Biden to Israel. Gordon Brown offers us a unique one of a kind gift, and we send him a DVD set. I get DVD sets for people that I don’t really know and have no real desire to connect with because they are rectangular and easy to wrap. This was after Brown offered Obama a “pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office’s desk)” according to NY Daily News.
I wonder if one of the movies in the box set was “He’s just not that into you.”
Of course, even if that were one of the movies, Brown would have been unable to view it because North American DVDs don’t work in Britain (and vice versa). Obama seems to have a way of adding insult to insult.
E.g., When Obama deigned to grace Canada with His presence, he stayed only a few hours. While here, He said He was happy to be in “Iow. . .”, whoops, “Ottawa”. Our statesmanlike PM, Stephen Harper, spoke, from notes, in a dignified manner in both English and French, while Obama looked like a bobble head, as his neck swivelled back and forth, from one teleprompter to the next. I guess He won’t be back anytime soon. That’s soon enough for me!
One would have expected rainbows and unicorns to accompany Obama’s “Northern Ascension” as it is called by devout followers. What amazed me most in this sad, sordid tale was that Clinton decided to stick her nose into aspects of Canadian national politics where it clearly didn’t belong. And then turn around and beg for more help in Afghanistan. It looks like they have the political savoir faire of high schoolers playing model UN 30 minutes after the pot brownies make the rounds.
And those 4 countries are Israel, Poland, Canada and Australia. Your UK is too far on the road to becoming a Socialist Londonistan.
Mr. Solway:
The only possible upside to Obama’s policies is that he is trying to back us down from an undefendable, overcommitted position in the world. We cannot fight every fight and solve everyone’s problem. Ron Paul is wrong about many things, but right about that.
Sole superpower is a dangerous position to occupy if no one has your back.
My guess is that Obama is preparing for a job as head of the UN and prefers a weaker, broke US to manage.
Not to quibble, but we also summered in Alonnisos for many years and you have adopted the German spelling of the name. Tch Tch.
I enjoyed your parable but I believe Obama is one of those Pharisees in Jesus’s time, who couldn’t understand a simple parable if it hit him in the face. I don’t think a freight train of a parable would do the jobe either.
How different this administration’s perverse attitude in foreign policy is from its attitude domestically. Obama knows he can’t afford to lose African American and radical left support and caters to it shamelessly.
The explanation is quite simple, but one dares not speak it for fear of disapprobation.
That explanation is that Obama and his clique’ define “friends” as “people who think like us”- “us” meaning themselves exclusively, not Americans. And they adhere to the “mystical” beliefs that have permeated “progressive thought” since the end of World War Two, when it came down with a bad attack of cowardice in the face of what Alvin Toffler called “future shock” which it has never outgrown. (The A-bomb may have triggered the reaction, but it wasn’t the only thing which sustained it.)
They have taken refuge in emotion-based “thinking”, in which anything that has come out of Western civilization since the Battle of Plataea is considered “unclean”, and only the pristine “purity” of thought based on Eastern concepts, based on “feelings” and the belief in “philosopher kings” who may attain divinity by dint of the sheer exercise of power, can “save the world”. (Or in other words, “Wishing makes it so” and “If I am in charge, therefore I am G-d.”)
This means that given the choice between supporting a Western-oriented democracy, which indulges in such “sins” as linear thinking, or a country which adheres to the “superior” mystical worldview of the East, they’ll pick the latter every time.
Their animosity toward Poland comes from the fact that they see Russia as a wondrous fantasyland which under Putin is “returning to its roots”- of irrational, unpredictable, strong man rule. While they do have a love affair with socialism in all its aspects, this pales beside their fascination with anyone who acts like a “god king” of the Ivan Strohzny type.(“Ivan The Awe-Inspiring”, better known to pre-P.C. history students as Ivan the Terrible.)The Poles, in their minds, “just don’t get it”.
Their attitude toward Israel is, quite simply, thinly-veiled hatred. They see it as an outpost of the “evil” West in the “pristine” East, and they want that outpost to disappear. Again, they find the “strong man rule” of Islamic countries attractive, plus the culture is an openly mystical and frankly irrational one- which caters to their love of unreality and their distaste for facts.
This pattern occurs repeatedly in the Obama administration’s policies, both foreign and domestic. When the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, calls for bike paths everywhere, even in northern climes, as a “superior” alternative to maintaining existing roads, you can be sure you’re dealing with a mystic. To put it bluntly, we are dealing with people who have a fantasy-based worldview which trumps reality every day of the week. And they will never give it up.
Our choice is to leave them in power, and watch them turn out the lights of civilization. Or turn them out of office and send them back to their faculty lounges, coffee shops, and modernist poetry jams, where they belong.
Running a civilization is a serious business. Too serious to be left to fundamentally non-serious people.
clear ether
eon
IF I were in charge of Israeli export of its sought after hi-tech, agricultural, medical arena, I would do some slapping of my own. In fact, I would slap on so many ‘extra’ tariffs to the Obama adminstration that their heads would spin like tops.
To be sure, such an action would only work IF Israel were the mainstay of their shopping sprees.Nevertheless, I would use any and all pressure to make Washington pay in spades, a price they can ill afford under Obama’s fiscal malfeasance.
I assume, that once other nations got wind of Israel’s new found cajones, that they too would learn their lessons well. Again, it only works in areas where we corner the market- AND our marketplace is growing!
It’s a self-defeating strategy you recommend, anyway, America is not our enemy, Obama & his leftoid morons are the enemy, not just for us but for America. I would agree however, that we need to be far more independant of the U.S. – one step would be to put an end to the military aid (which obligates us to buy American made arms) with which every US administration has used to blackmail us into political obedience. We don’t need the aid. This would have many consequences & while we would still have to buy American made arms, we could gradually find other sources as well as produce much of it ourselves – and this would open up many export markets, often in direct competition with American companies.
In the meantime, it looks like we’re heading towards a major regional war very soon, maybe we should call it Obama’s War since it will be a consequence of his inept, short-sighted, & amateur foreign policy.
I believe that Obama & his team of dhimmwits might actually want the upcoming conflict to be a stalemate, hoping that we will sustain much damage & thus be even more dependant on the US, that we can then be forced into giving in to all demands in creating their beloved Palestinian state, regardless of the consequences to us. They will blackmail us by holding up deliveries of military equipment & arms to force us to make concessions. These people are idiots, I think they have no understanding of the scale of the upcoming conflict.
By the way, did you read the article by Caroline Glick in the JPost this evening? About time someone came right out openly calling for a preemptive military strike on Iran. Let’s hope Netanyahu reads the JPost & takes it to heart.
Shabbat Shalom.
Given the utter intent of Obama et al of sacrificing Israel on the alter of his own godhood (along with most of us) I am reminded suddenly of a TV character from my favorite series of all time – Babylon 5.
The character was the Centauri Emperor Cartagia who in his delusion of godhood planned to celebrate his ascension on the funeral pyres of his about-to-be obliterated home world.
His own people were forced overcome their fears of his wrath if they failed to remove him (permanently) in order to save themselves from annihilation.
I am not Mossad. I do not know what goes on in their minds or the minds of the Israeli leadership.
That being said, I’d know one decision that would be my absolute promise before the real God – the very second I had proof Iran had succeeded in developing the bomb I wouldn’t wait for Barry to pronounce my death sentence. I’d nuke Iran into a wasteland.
Insanity can only exist comfortably in an asylum. Take your average faculty lounge for example. Academics are free to spout all manner of foolishness because there are no consequences for being a blithering idiot. Reality can be ignored because it never intrudes on a coddled and secure life.
Average Americans cannot afford the luxury of living the elite fantasy. Life demands from us a long list of responsibilities so that we can be secure in our daily lives. The common man understands the necessity of paying his bills on time, educating his kids, building community, and defending the nation. Reason and logic are necessary for survival.
Trying to analyze Obama’s policy initiatives is a waste of time. He’s nuts. His policies reflect his lunatic assumptions. We voted a madman into office, and now were stuck with him. The proof is in the MSM (merely a different ward within a very large asylum) response to a (small ‘r’) republican counter-revolution. We are to them everything except rational citizens looking out for the best interests of our republic. They don’t know or understand us because they don’t live in our world. If their spokesmen sound increasingly deranged, it’s because they are shouting from the windows of the asylum.
The real life/fantasia divide perfectly describes the differences between America and the EU on the world stage. While the 60′s ushered in a generation of baby boomers who were ready to throw off the shackles that bound their parents on both sides of the Atlantic, there was a distinct difference after the patchouli started to stink up the rec room and the acid wore off; America had responsibilities. As a result, many of those same turn on, tune in, and drop out devotees eventually got jobs, had kids, and voted for Reagan. The last remaining refuseniks, like a hangover from an age that eventually became a satire of itself, got jobs in academia and media where such empty vacuous LSD-induced, radical-chic verbal graffiti could still pass for intellectual thought. While Americans were busy with international responsibilities that required a certain amount of maturity, large portions of Europe and our own little clique, sat in the back shooting spit wads at the overhead projector. These people never grew up and are overwhelmingly bereft of ideas, leaving them largely helpless when they need to actually do something instead of complain. While Americans have to think about shifting political arrangements, the only two ideas mentioned by German political parties of late has been the Left party’s push against nuclear power and the Green Party’s “New Man” campaign to kill off the macho man in Germany. When a “grow-up crisis” in the form of Greece came along, Europe dithered until it was too late. No wonder the all like Obama so much here. He is one of them.
This article and this post describe what our public education systems have become: propaganda and appeasement machines run by brain dead adult toddlers. E.g., Take a nearby board of education’s behaviour code. (BTW, such codes are virtually never enforced these days. Read on.) “We don’t focus on consequences for unacceptable behaviour, but instead, we focus on guidelines [?] for appropriate behaviour.” (Those guidelines! They really have an impact on the entitled, bully brats who now fill our schools.)
I guess the appeaseniks don’t know the sage advice of Sun Tzu: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Every successful teacher knows that and uses no-nonsense consequences to keep the mob in line. (Meanwhile, administration practises hug-a-thug and, if one of that crew should complain, it’s the harassed, bullied, and abused teacher who’s disciplined. It’s crazy!)
I truly despair at times. I’ve seen the moral inversion in public schools coming for the past two decades: when I realized that the same astonishingly dirty, counter productive, and dangerous game was now being played out, at the highest levels, on the world stage, I was aghast. The inmates are truly running the asylum.
An article I once read asked, “Who are the most dangerous people on the planet?” The conclusion: toddlers. Yup, I thought. Luckily, the article went on to say, we’re protected from toddlers by the fact that their super-size egos and temper tantrums are accompanied by their very small size and their lack of access to Uzis. Obama, the Toddler in Chief, is the fruition of our world gone mad.
Kyrie eleison.
Excellent commentary. I read something recently about toddlers as well. One thing I found particularly interesting that you mentioned are their egos. Toddlers do not have a sense of other people’s rights of possession. They view everything as their own, and that is why they throw tantrums when someone keeps something away from them. It is all very logical; they think they own the world in which they live, so withholding a toy seems extremely unfair to them. Apparently, a substantial portion of the population never grew out of this view. They look on the fruits of someone else’s labour and decide that they want a piece of the pie that they didn’t help bake. When they are deprived of something that they rightfully see as theirs, entitlement tantrums ensue. In the case of Greece, those entitlement tantrums are on the verge of destroying the country and have already proven that they can be deadly. Even though I am not that old (33 to be exact), this is not the mentality that I was raised with. Good grades were the result of hard work. Unfortunately, the entitlement culture is nourished and allowed to flourish in our public schools. The result is that we continue to produce under-performing entitlement automatons who don’t believe in the connection between effort and ability on one hand with success on the other.
The outcome is clear; we are buying ineptitude of limitless depths on credit.
Jacob, thankfully, you’ve obviously escaped the brainwashing of the public school system: maybe you didn’t even go to one. (But even the private schools are falling for the entitlement gig.)
Your analysis is spot on. We need far more people like you in positions of authority. However, people with integrity and common sense usually steer clear of the progressive juggernauts, such as our education systems, because principled people will be (mixing my metaphors) drowned in and shouted down by the insufferable political correctness and conformity, the only qualities that seem to be rewarded. Any administrator who doesn’t want, figuratively, to be sent to Siberia, learns pretty soon to toe the party line—and the vicious circle of our bureaucratic gulags continues.
But, Jacob, you’ve made my day: that such a young person—compared to this old war horse—has escaped the PC trap is very good news, indeed!
Jacob, thankfully, you’ve obviously escaped the brainwashing of the public school system: maybe you didn’t even go to one. (But even the private schools are falling for the entitlement gig.)
Your analysis is spot on. We need far more people like you in positions of authority. However, people with integrity and common sense usually steer clear of the progressive juggernauts, such as our education systems, because principled people will be (mixing my metaphors) drowned in and shouted down by the insufferable political correctness and conformity, the only qualities that seem to be rewarded. Any administrator who doesn’t want, figuratively, to be sent to Siberia, learns pretty soon to toe the party line—and the vicious circle of our bureaucratic gulags continues.
But, Jacob, you’ve made my day: that such a young person—compared to this old war horse—has escaped the PC trap is very good news, indeed!
Long Story short:
Statist Liberals like Obama acts as though there will be no tomorrow for the West
because they believe that, one way or the other, there will not be;
Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge.
“Statist Liberals like Obama acts as though there will be no tomorrow for the West because they believe that, one way or the other, there will not be;”
If he lets Iran get the bomb, there won’t be a tomorrow, since Iran’s nuking of Israel will unleash a massive retaliation that will rapidly escalate into a worldwide nuclear war.
After all, when the Israeli nuke lands on Moscow (Iran’s prime supporter for the nuke program), against whom will Putin retaliate? He’ll retaliate against the USA, since Israel will have been destroyed.
Vladimir Putin is probably the only outsider who knows just how good US
Missile Defense Systems are, because we gave him the data, as a warning.
The Israelis call it the Samson Strike for a reason; they intend to take
their enemies with them; The Arabs for sure, maybe the EU capitals, and
perhaps Russia, if they can reach it, and have any weapons left.
Israel is indestructible. The Sovereign Lord promises as much. That said, I agree with your premise. The Samson Option calls for nuking Moscow, and the retaliation against Israel will be conventional cavalry, not nuclear. The nuclear weapons will be saved for use against the US. Russia will lose attempting a ground invasion of Israel- in fact, calling it a loss will be an understatement; it will be Russia’s greatest military defeat ever, such that Russia will cease to be a superpower as a result. Many Muslims will perish alongside the Russians, and Islam will suffer a devastating blow.
I, too, fear Iran’s getting and using of a nuke.
Obama is preparing the world for a desperate pre-emptive attack by Israel, not only un-aided by the US, but “officially forbidden”.
What’s Israel gonna do if a wimpy Hiroshimi type nuke hits near Tel Aviv?
Will the survivors really try to hit Moscow — isn’t it already too late?
Ok, yes against Tehran, and Mecca and Media and Damascus … but how does that save the lives in Tel Aviv?
Tel Aviv getting nuked by crazy Iran in the next 5 years … now a 20% likelihood. But sometimes I think only 5%. Sometimes 50%. There is no “real” probability, it’s just a guess by any and everyone.
The Jew-haters don’t believe it will ever happen — so any pre-emptive action by Israel or the US before it happens is a priori not legitimate.
And Obama is helping to make it more likely for Iran to get and use a nuke, and less legitimate for Israel to defend itself.
It’s so terrifying I don’t allow myself to think about. Maybe the Israelis should surrender? evacuate now, before the killing?
Maybe they should conquer and occupy the other half of Palestine, including Gaza, and do a better job of nation-building than their terrible non-nation building occupation of Lebanon?
No good answers.
Has everyone forgotten about MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction? A nuke on Tel Aviv will produce nukes on Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh, Mecca and so on. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that there are no suicide Imans? Nuclear weapons keep us ordinary folk safe – the Obamas of this world are going to be extra careful because they know that they and theirs are on the front line.
The concept of MAD will not work on Mullahs, will not work on Hezbollah, will not work on Hamas and the rest of the Palinazis.
These are Nazis who are even more Nazis than the Nazis of Hitler; these Islamonazis care about killing Jews regardless of how many millions of Muslims (including themselves) die in the process.
The Palis are a society gone mad. They live solely to exterminate Jews and for nothing else. And there are a billion+ Muslims who probably think the same way.
Even the average European becomes a frothing nutcase when it comes to Jews, and loses all sense of self-preservation.
“Even the average European becomes a frothing nutcase when it comes to Jews, and loses all sense of self-preservation.” This is a 100% completely accurate statement. More importantly, I would point out that it has nothing to do with what Jews do; it is with what we are. The same goes for Israel. There will be no change in Israeli policy that will pacify the Arab populations or Europeans. I found this out very quickly. I am a Jew, but I was never brought up with the religion. Even though I had never been to a synagogue in my life, Europeans immediately zoomed in on this one aspect of my character and I found out quite quickly that this was the only thing that mattered to many of them.
So, if Obama continues to throw Israel under the bus, it will not change the region at all.
To lookout: I’m glad to hear that. I did go to public school, though most of the early years I came in contact with teachers who were at the end of retirement and didn’t really subscribe to the entitlement hysteria. My mother is finishing up her last two weeks as a public school teacher and she never signed up for indoctrination either; she preferred teaching mathematics and holding them accountable for their progress. (Not surprisingly, this old fashioned method doesn’t teach victimhood, but it does teach mathematics.)
What really developed my views on entitlement status is the 9+ years I’ve spent living in Europe. (2 years in France, 3 in England, approaching 4 in Germany, and quite a bit of time spent in Spain and Portugal.) The most educative years have been the last few in Germany where I started my own business. Going back to the point of the article, I noticed that Europe’s generous social benefits did not seem to do anything at all constructive for the beneficiaries. The long term professionally unemployed not only soak up funds that dampen economic progress, it also breeds considerable resentment and dependency on state handouts to survive. Most of the “safety” net here more closely resembles a fishing net, to steal a phrase from Col. Alan West. People who are state dependent are officially called “clients” and no matter how much they take, they always seem to want more. Take for example the recent EU move to declare the right to a holiday a human right, so that in effect, while I am working double time growing my business, putting in long nights and weekends to come up with new marketing campaigns or working on developing more materials for the services I provide, my tax money will go to someone who has been out of a job for several years so that they can take a taxpayer funded holiday to Spain or Italy. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this line of reasoning leads. The system has effectively decided that my money could best serve society by providing entitlements to others. Ironically, much of this money is taken out in the form of “solidarity supplements.” These entitlement programs are debilitating and addictive. I am loath to see America go down the same road where the state is seen merely as a means of transferring wealth.
I altogether hear you, Jacob. I recently had an irate parent chastise me for disciplining some entitled, badly behaved school children: “They’re only eleven years old,” he railed. If he’d been in a frame of mind to listen, I’d have said, “And if they don’t learn accountability now, how do you expect they’ll behave when they’re 20, 30 . . .?
What you describe is the end game of the synthetic, therapeutic, Alice in Wonderland dispensation in which we now have the misfortune to live. The parent I mention, Obama, and far too many are duplicitous and cowardly sell-outs. To know there are some dynamic young people, like you, who are pushing back is heartening. G_dspeed!