Hi everybody. Welcome to the Firewall; I’m Bill Whittle.
You know, there comes a point where – no matter how you try to offer the benefit of the doubt – evidence builds up to such a degree that you can no longer deny that the evidence is trying to tell you something. And halfway through his first term, the foreign policy decisions made by Barack Obama and his administration are so appalling, and so destructive in the long term; they no longer can be credited to inexperience or even incompetence. They are so consistent that they must be due to ideology.
Some of you are old enough to remember life during the cold war. Well, the final stroke that shattered the Soviet Union came from a steelworkers union in the Polish town of Gdansk – called Solidarity – the raw personal courage of its leader, Lech Walesa, and the immediate and unequivocal moral support given by two champions of human decency and freedom: Polish Pope John Paul II, and United States President Ronald Reagan.
Poland became the first and the greatest of former adversaries turned into ardent pro-west, pro-democracy countries, but after decades of research and billions of dollars – and not long after the Russian invasion of former soviet satellite Georgia — President Obama cancelled a working missile defense that was to have been based in Poland. He did it to appease the country which divided Poland with the Nazis in 1939 — Russia. And he did it on the 70th anniversary – to the day – of the German invasion. That is a mortal insult to a brave people and stalwart ally.
In Honduras, another American ally in sea of socialism and dictators, the ruling Honduran President tried extra-constitutional measures to extend his term, a move rejected by the Honduran courts and the Honduran people. But the Obama administration ignored this, and essentially said they would not do business again with Honduras unless the proto-dictator was re-seated.
Israel – the only western country in the most volatile region of the world. First, Vice President Biden starts an international incident by exploding over the fact that a developer in Jerusalem – Israel’s capitol city – simply wanted to build more units on existing property. Obama and his administration turned it into a crisis about “expanding settlements.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, being officially received at the White House, was not allowed to enter through the Front Door but rather through the rear, like a house servant. The President of the United States dictated his conditions to one of our closest allies, and when the Israeli Prime Minsiter began to discuss these ultimatums President Obama told him to work it out with his low-level advisors as he was off to have dinner with Mrs. Obama. That is ASTONISHING in the degree of studied, intentional diplomatic insult and humiliation. That is not an accident, or inexperience, or even incompetence. Wars have been fought over less than this.
And on, now, to Britain. We talk about a “special relationship” between Britain and America. We have had a special relationship since World War I, where American soldiers in their thousands went to their death to help their British Allies; where American and British troops bloodied the beaches of Normandy, where untold thousands of British soldiers fought and died under American command and vice versa, where Churchill and Roosevelt and later Truman had to balance their shared values to defeat not only Hitler, but also Japan, and their erstwhile ally in Josef Stalin and the aggressive communist monolith he would go on to lead.
The British gift to the first African-American American President was magnificent pen holder made from the timbers HMS Gannet, a Victorian-era anti-slavery ship. In exchange for this exquisitely sensitive and thoughtful token, President Obama gave the British Prime Minister a 25 disk DVD collection of Hollywood movies – unwatchable in the UK due to format differences. Queen Victoria gave to all American Presidents a magnificent desk made from the HMS Resolute – and the Narcissist in Chief provided Her Majesty, the Queen, with a $150 piece of consumer electronics – an iPod — made immortal and priceless, of course, by the inclusion of various speeches given by Barack Obama for the Queen to reflect upon and drawn wisdom from. Oh, and Queen Elizabeth already owned an iPod. Barack Obama did not previously own a Resolute desk.
At a session of the UN in New York, the British Prime minister pursued the President of the United States on a matter of pressing urgency, and the President hustled from room to room like a rock star avoiding an autograph request.
A spokesman for Obama’s State Department told a collection of British diplomats, quote: “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.” We didn’t get the example of the Magna Carta from Ecuador, respect the Rule of Law from Uzbekistan… we didn’t get the idea of the Presumption of Innocence from Thailand or any of the other bedrock institutions and values that built America from Luxembourg or Chad or Portugal or Korea. We got them from Great Britain.
NONE OF THIS compares to the recent announcement that – in stark contrast to the help given Margaret Thatcher by Ronald Reagan in Britain’s 1982 defense of the Falkland Islands – America would remain “neutral” should Argentina try to give the invasion another go… Or, the fact that President of the United States of America gave to the Russians – over strenuous, almost incredulous British protests – the actual serial numbers of the US Trident missiles sold to Great Britain. KGB spies were presumably prepared to die to get this information, but Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, handed these secrets to the Russians over the protests of our closest ally so that he could get a Start Treaty with Russia to help his sagging poll numbers at home.
That is how he treats our Allies. How does he treat our enemies?
He shakes hands and smiles with brutal Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chaves. He sides with Venezuela and Cuba – another brutal dictatorship – against our allies Columbia and Honduras. He campaigned on having no-conditions, high-level meetings with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the rabid, barking-mad dictator of a country – Iran — that is responsible for virtually all of the ongoing acts of terror leveled against the US since they war on America in 1979 and grows day by day closer to deploying and using an atomic bomb. In Afghanistan he has made it clear to the Taliban that they will not be crushed as the Iraqi insurgents were under George Bush’s surge, but will rather simply have to hold out until some arbitrary date for our publically scheduled retreat in shame and defeat.
He bows to Saudi Princes, praises the Mullahs against the protestors giving their lives for freedom in the Streets of Tehran as they were shot dead trying to topple our mortal enemy, and instead of using the influence of his office to pressure Mubarak on freedom from day one, he instead mangles the situation in such a way that no Ally we have in the world has the slightest confidence in us whatsoever.
And finally, the boy who was raised in Indonesia can revisit the land of his childhood, where Israelis are not allowed to set foot in country, where in some provinces sharia courts allow stoning to death for adultery, where 100 lashes with a whip is meted out for the crime of homosexuality, female circumcision is practiced openly, where so-called “honor mutilations” go unpunished if not celebrated and where political and religious repression exist that would boggle the American mind, and say, with his megawatt smile, that Indonesia and America are bound together by “shared values.”
America does not share Indonesia’s values, Mr. President – America’s, and Britain’s, and Canada’s, and Australia’s, and Israel’s core values are antithetical to what Indonesia practices with impunity every single day. Iran, and Venezuela, and Cuba, and Russia, and China, and all the other enemies of freedom you get so cozy with do NOT share America’s core values either, and the tide of evidence lifts me – almost daily — to the disgraceful conclusion that while they do not share America’s core values… perhaps they share some of yours.
If you want to keep these messages coming, go to Declaration Entertainment dot com and become a Citizen Producer. And we’ll see you next time on the Firewall.
{ 10 comments }
I think I’ll reproduce what I posted to Facebook:
**I want to sound like one of the characters (Al Swearengen) from Deadwood! I don’t think the profanity laced discourse is up to the task of describing just how angry this video makes me. Bill Whittle, yet again, manages to put together what my communications teacher described as a C-Cubed presentation: Clear, concise, and cogent. Wanna nut up? Here’s the video that’s up to the task…
It used to piss me off when a certain kind of liberal/progressive screamed at me, “He’s not MY president.” Referring, of course, to GW. I never said anything remotely similar about Clinton, despite my strong dislike of the man. This studied indifference to the American people, the utter disregard and disrespect Obama has shown our allies pisses me off to the point of changing my mind. Shared values indeed.**
Great job Bill – tho I need a better method for keeping my blood pressure under control, some of your videos just aren’t doing the trick!
Cheers,
Steven
Cheers to Steven for saying everything I want to say, in a slightly different way, perhaps!
Bill, we’ve got to get you up on the big screen, man. I’m sharing, talking, sharing again everything you make. You’ve got the passion and the gift, and together it’s absolute fire. If you were a preacher I’d say you just preached fire down from heaven, so whatever the secular version is of “preaching fire down from heaven,” you just did it.
You’ve become a tool. Mine, of course. I’m using you to remind and educate people so that we don’t do a GOP wimp-out come election time. I don’t want to see an “Oh, he’s not so bad, he’s just incmpetent, he didn’t really mean it, let’s give him another chance….” NO NO NO.
I have now taken a deep breath and am headed back to work, and study. God bless you, Bill, you’re doing the Lord’s work here. IMHO.
Bill,
Do you ever take a swing and miss? Every time you you push “print”, you knock it out of the park. Once again, that UF education comes through. Thanks, and keep it up.
ATB, raz
The most frightening thing is this: approximately 45% of Americans would vote for him in 2012. Another frightening thing ? Perhaps 20% of those people find Obama to be too moderate. Perhaps the USA needs a generation of collectivist hell to educate them, and innoculate them from Alinsky-ism for a century.
From here in Australia it seems to me that Obama might be well-pleased if, during his one term, he manages to drag down the US internationally, distort & corrupt the American dream internally, strengthen the enemies of freedom throughout the world and create a state of distrust and weakness between nations formerly allied in defence of civilization.
“your comment is awaiting moderation”
hahahaha.
bill, you do not have the cojones to let that post get approved.
There are a number of issues I would like you to address.
1. The people of Poland and indeed those of the European Union as a whole are against the United States having missile bases on our soil. This was not a politically snub. You should remind your viewers that the ‘missile shield’ simply launches cruise missiles to bring nuclear weapons heading towards the United States crashing down on polish soil thus putting the people of poland at risk for decisions in which they had no part. The program’s intention is to pay Poland to take the risk of nuclear devastation.
2. The people of the United Kingdom are in an absolute majority more left wing even than the democrats. All the main political parties are very supportive of the National Health Scheme, social assistance etc. and even the conservative party are more socialist than your Democrats. It is the opinion of almost every European, that to have privatized health care which leaves the poor to suffer is nothing short of barbaric and uncivilized.
3. On a lighter note the people of Great Britain took no real offence to Obama’s gifts and all polls of the European Unions citizens indicate a far greater support for the Democrats than Republicans. Obama over here in Europe is a very popular figure and is genuinely a move in the right direction towards peace amongst nations.
4. The claim that Obama didn’t do enough in Egypt is absurd considering Republican Administrations have aided these Dictatorial regimes in the middle east time and time again; because their stability is good for America’s oil interests. It is also noteworthy that America is, thanks to eight years of Republican rule, looked upon by the world as tyrants (this view is thankfully changing back to the view that they are a force for good, but this can be credited only to the Obama administration). This leaves the government in a precarious position because to publicly support dissenters in a corrupt regime could easily make the more unpopular. No-one in the middle east wants to be seen as a puppet of America and so Obama and the U.S. is on balance correct to keep a safe distance publicly from the protesters. Hopefully they are supporting them more behind the schenes but about this we can only speculate.
5. Dialogue with all governments no matter how extreme is the only way forward towards a more peaceful and economicly intertwined world.
6. Trying to paint yourselves as socially progressive by taking a moral highground on indonesian values is ridiculous since Republicans are far more regressive on issues such as homosexuality which you mention.
7. The situation in Israel is that new settlements are still being built on Palestinian soil, it is at this stage an undisputed fact. A single-sided view of events in Israel is very dangerous, many Israelis indeed many of my Israeli friends, acknowledge that the failure of the Israeli government to keep its extremist citizens in check is pushing both sides to extremes. Just because a country is your ally does not mean you should grant it a carte blanche to do as it pleases. All countrys and all people are capable of wrongdoing, either by action or inaction, it is the role of a friend to support you but also to tell you when you’re out of line.
Apologies for the typos, political snub, National Health Service, as a tyrant, etc
Thank you, Bill Whittle. This is an excellent summary, which could have been extended even further if time had allowed (I’m thinking of Obama’s feet on the Resolute desk, while on the phone to Netanyahu, and sending the Dalai Lama out the back door past the garbage bags).
It is unclear where Barack Obama was born, but one thing is certain: in his heart he is not an American. He neither understands nor loves the values which built this exceptional country and vanguard of freedom. Every indication (by the conduct you list so well) is that he despises these values and the prominence of the very nation which has honored him with its highest office.
That in itself is distressing; that our elected leader actually seeks to diminish us. More distressing is the fact that as much as 20% or more of our countrymen support him in that effort.
Pray for America and her leaders.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
“6. Trying to paint yourselves as socially progressive by taking a moral highground on indonesian values is ridiculous since Republicans are far more regressive on issues such as homosexuality which you mention.”
I thought I’d copy/paste that one, because it’s a real gem. Yes, I often get together on a Saturday night with my Republican friends and try to come up with new and creative ways of torturing the homosexuality out people. I mean, REALLY?! Do you honestly believe in your soul that Americans, let alone Republicans, are more regressive against homosexuals than Indonesia?
Please, Brian Mc, put the Kool-Aid down, then go outside and breathe some fresh air. The dream world you seek requires a level of neutrality, by the entirety of the planet, that is simply impossible to obtain. It also requires a planet void of such things as beliefs, or faith, or emotion, or individuality, or pride, or fortitude, which are the building blocks of principle and leadership. Until that “let’s all get along” magic wand is created, you have to be able to draw a line in the sand, stick by your like-minded friends, and hold that line. History is crystal clear, it isn’t always pretty, and sometimes people have to fight and die to keep it, but freedom is always worth it (and it always wins when nurtured).
Tim V thats was a blatant misinterpretation, I wasn’t arguing that Republicans are more socially regressive than certain areas of Indonesia but rather that Republicans are more socially regressive than Democrats, therefore, to take a moral high-ground over the Democrats when you have the track-record and current policies of the more regressive party in your own country is absurd. [It should be pointed out, by the way, that Indonesia is a Republic with a Presidential system of democracy, sound familiar?]
By claiming these arguments live in some beauty-pageant world of fairies and peace on earth I assume you were trying to raise the question of whether dialogue or isolation works better in trying to facilitate change in nations. Well, by your logic, isolating China, Indonesia and the whole of South America would make them more likely to become allies of the west… This is quite frankly untrue. To snub a country politically, as was alluded to in many parts of the video (though the examples given were hugely overstated), is a bad thing; it creates resentment amongst the people of the snubbed country towards the country guilty of the offence. Further from that, it is easily leveraged by those in power to keep western ideals out; the “Western Conspiracy against our people” type arguments run rampant.
The reason democracy has triumphed over the years and continues to spread, is because it is the, best, most just, and equitable system of government. Because it is apparent for all to see that it is superior to other forms of governance, the more people are exposed to its benefits the more likely they are to want it for themselves. I suppose the argument can put simply through a truism; if you had never heard of cola, you would never crave a coke. Advertising works in much the same way; the more you are exposed to something and can see its benefits, the more likely you are to strive for it. If you have an advertisement playing constantly selling you all the benefits of something, you’re going to want to try it out. The more people in oppressed countries see the great benefits of transparent democratic rule, the more they are going to want it for themselves. Dialogue allows people in these country’s to look to democratic nations and see how great they are with less prejudiced eyes. Dialogue and interaction with other countries is the only way forward and this idea of drawing a line in the sand is insane; you don’t need to sacrifice your own morality to talk to someone with different views. By talking to a murderer you don’t become a worse person in the same way that talking to a corrupt government does not illegitimate your own. Yes, “beliefs, or faith, or emotion, or individuality, or pride, or fortitude” are all values, but they are not always used well. Dialogue is the key to preventing these values from crossing into stubbornness and intolerance. History is clear Tim V, isolationism does not work. Contrast the isolationist approach taken to Russia which lead to a standoff of over 40 year, with the open dialogue we have with China that has allowed Western companies trade with ease and has a rising middle class in China pushing it from Communism to Capitalism at a fantastic rate.
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }