Wednesday, November 18, 2009

An Idea: Where To Send Our Troops Instead of Afghanistan

UPDATE: Coming home! No imminent decision on Afghanistan before Thanksgiving.

NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY THIS. Even as President Obama grapples with whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and assures us he's getting closer and closer to a decision, I have another proposal to offer:

Send in U.S. troops to invade China, capture and bring home our president before he can do any more damage on his now famous excessive deference tour. Surely he can be intercepted on land somewhere between the Great Wall gift shop (first try the CD department featuring digital biographies of the 20th Century's World's Greatest Tyrants) and the Peninsula Hotel having tea while Michelle refurbishes her silk shantung wardrobe in Hong Kong. If that doesn't work, some of our Drones can spot him from several miles above the mainland. He's the one in perpetual bowing and scraping mode, so he shouldn't be too hard to find, even in the dark of night.

There's more to this story. Nobody says it more elegantly than Richard Wolffe at The Daily Beast:

He bowed to Japan. He treaded lightly with China. And then Israel thumbed its nose at Obama’s calls to freeze settlements.

To the president’s critics, this week’s White House trip to Asia has largely failed because of excessive deference. Obama bowed to the Japanese emperor, and he metaphorically genuflected to the Chinese leadership by refusing to confront them publicly about human rights.

Yet the president’s biggest foreign-policy setback of the week—by several orders of magnitude—came on the other side of Asia. And its negative impact was worsened by an administration policy that started with public confrontation, not compromise.

To sum this trip up, President Obama is far too obsequious with our enemies with whom he and we have human rights issues, too offensive with our allies. And for that I think he needs a troop intervention that will bring him home for a while, before he can do any further damage through deference.

Please don't misunderstand. There's nothing wrong, and lots to gain, from humility, admission of mistakes and a sense of humor on the world stage, or anywhere for that matter; however when deprecation and shaming of our country and its bedrock principles are our president's primary MO, then I draw the line and think our citizens should also. This is not about left verses right. It's about upholding the Constitution and representing the interests of freedom and human rights both here and abroad. President Obama is doing neither, in my opinion.

Until he does, for the next few years, forget the phrase Bring Our Troops Home! instead memorize this new one: Send in the troops! Bring Our President Home!

Let's hope he learns at least how to treat world leaders as equals rather than subordinates or higher-ups. If this excessive deference doesn't stop, one day Obama may be curtsying to Osama. While he's learning, it might behoove him to practice saluting our flag (the American one, that is) when it passes by. God bless America and our president too.

6 comments:

Seawashed said...

This post gets my thumbs up!

TN Tessie said...

Here's another thumbs up -- well said!

mRed said...

Aw, come on guys. He wasn't kowtowing, he was looking for loose change so he could stop for a sushi burger on the way back to the Tokyo Motel 6.

As for China, well he musta missed that sermon, er, class. He HAD reasons.

Webutante said...

You bad, mRed...so, so bad.

Jason said...

You know what I find strange, and I don't think anyone has mentioned it?

Obama was born in the shadows of Pearl Harbor. He is now a head of state. He goes to Japan and bows, reverentially, to the son of Emperor Hirohito.

Look, it's 2009, and Japan is one of our better allies. They function quite well under that constitution that General MacArthur wrote for them, but really isn't it even MORE inappropriate for a President from Hawaii to bow to Hirohito's son?

Webutante said...

Thank you for making this salient point, Jason.