Leadership
The New Nazis and a Lone Prophetic Voice
On September 29, 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the the United Nations General Assembly. His remarks reminded me of Winston Churchill in 1939–a lone prophetic voice of moral clarity in a sea of drivel.
He warned that a new group of “Nazis” threaten the entire world. He deplored the UN’s duplicity of speaking against ISIS while supporting Hamas and caving in to nuclear-bound Iran. His words were sobering yet carried a ring of truth.
I wish he’d gone further. We need to dismantle the corrupt and inept United Nations and call for a new global alignment to take its place.
Let’s call it Free Nations--whose members must be committed to truth, justice, and liberty.
That, and the return of Jesus Christ, are our only hopes of winning World War III.
Listen to the prophet’s words.
This speech is worth reading in its entirety. I have edited it slightly, and have placed some captions and highlights to clarify his main points.
If the reality of Israeli nationhood, the inspiration of its leader, and the truths he shares don’t convince you of God’s reality, then nothing ever will.
May we hear the voice of the prophet and rise to defeat evil in our day.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Ladies and Gentleman,
The people of Israel pray for peace. But our hopes and the world’s hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march.
Militant Islam
It’s not militants. It’s not Islam. It’s militant Islam. Typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds – no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it’s rapidly spreading in every part of the world. You know the famous American saying: “All politics is local”? For the militant Islamists, “All politics is global.” Because their ultimate goal is to dominate the world.
Now, that threat might seem exaggerated to some, since it starts out small, like a cancer that attacks a particular part of the body. But left unchecked, the cancer grows, metastasizing over wider and wider areas. To protect the peace and security of the world, we must remove this cancer before it’s too late.
Last week, many of the countries represented here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries, the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.
ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control.
Listen to ISIS’s self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This is what he said two months ago: “A day will soon come when the Muslim will walk everywhere as a master… The Muslims will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism… and destroy the idol of democracy.” Now listen to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas. He proclaims a similar vision of the future: “We say this to the West… By Allah you will be defeated. Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.”
As Hamas’s charter makes clear, Hamas’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel. But Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That’s why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that’s why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior.
ISIS and Hamas the Same
So when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.
And what they share in common, all militant Islamists share in common: • Boko Haram in Nigeria; • Ash-Shabab in Somalia; • Hezbollah in Lebanon; • An-Nusrah in Syria; • The Mahdi Army in Iraq; • And the Al-Qaeda branches in Yemen, Libya, the Philippines, India and elsewhere.
Some are radical Sunnis, some are radical Shi’ites. Some want to restore a pre-medieval caliphate from the 7th century. Others want to trigger the apocalyptic return of an imam from the 9th century. They operate in different lands, they target different victims and they even kill each other in their quest for supremacy. But they all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance – Where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims.
Militant Islam’s ambition to dominate the world seems mad. But so too did the global ambitions of another fanatic ideology that swept to power eight decades ago.
The New Nazis
The Nazis believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith. They just disagree about who among them will be the master… of the master faith. That’s what they truly disagree about. Therefore, the question before us is whether militant Islam will have the power to realize its unbridled ambitions.
There is one place where that could soon happen: The Islamic State of Iran. For 35 years, Iran has relentlessly pursued the global mission which was set forth by its founding ruler, Ayatollah Khomeini, in these words: “We will export our revolution to the entire world.”
Listen to its current commander, General Muhammad Ali Ja’afari. And he clearly stated this goal. He said: “Our Imam did not limit the Islamic Revolution to this country… Our duty is to prepare the way for an Islamic world government…” Iran’s President Rouhani stood here last week, and shed crocodile tears over what he called “the globalization of terrorism.”
Maybe he should spare us those phony tears and have a word instead with the commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He could ask them to call off Iran’s global terror campaign, which has included attacks in two dozen countries on five continents since 2011 alone. To say that Iran doesn’t practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees.
This bemoaning of the Iranian president of the spread of terrorism has got to be one of history’s greatest displays of double-talk.
Now, Some still argue that Iran’s global terror campaign, its subversion of countries throughout the Middle East and well beyond the Middle East, some argue that this is the work of the extremists. They say things are changing. They point to last year’s elections in Iran. They claim that Iran’s smooth talking President and Foreign Minister, they’ve changed not only the tone of Iran’s foreign policy but also its substance. They believe Rouhani and Zarif genuinely want to reconcile with the West, that they’ve abandoned the global mission of the Islamic Revolution.
Really? So let’s look at what Foreign Minister Zarif wrote in his book just a few years ago: “We have a fundamental problem with the West, and especially with America. This is because we are heirs to a global mission, which is tied to our raison d’etre… A global mission which is tied to our very reason of being.”
Nuclear Iran
So don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive. It’s designed for one purpose, and for one purpose only: To lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb. The Islamic Republic is now trying to bamboozle its way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces, and leave it with the capacity of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium. This would effectively cement Iran’s place as a threshold military nuclear power. In the future, at a time of its choosing, Iran, the world’s most dangerous state in the world’s most dangerous region, would obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons.
Allowing that to happen would pose the gravest threat to us all. It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pick-up trucks, armed with Kalashnikov rifles. It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic State, ISIS, would be if it possessed chemical weapons. Now imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic state of Iran would be if it possessed nuclear weapons. Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn’t.
Then you mustn’t let the Islamic State of Iran do those things either.
Because here’s what will happen: Once Iran produces atomic bombs, all the charm and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. They’ll just vanish. It’s then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world. There is only one responsible course of action to address this threat: Iran’s nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled. Make no mistake – ISIS must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
To defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
The fight against militant Islam is indivisible. When militant Islam succeeds anywhere, it’s emboldened everywhere. When it suffers a blow in one place, it’s set back in every place. That’s why Israel’s fight against Hamas is not just our fight. It’s your fight. Israel is fighting a fanaticism today that your countries may be forced to fight tomorrow.
The Truth About the Recent Israeli-Palestinian War
For 50 days this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of them supplied by Iran. I want you to think about what your countries would do if thousands of rockets were fired at your cities. Imagine millions of your citizens having seconds at most to scramble to bomb shelters, day after day. You wouldn’t let terrorists fire rockets at your cities with impunity.
Nor would you let terrorists dig dozens of terror tunnels under your borders to infiltrate your towns in order to murder and kidnap your citizens. Israel justly defended itself against both rocket attacks and terror tunnels. Yet Israel also faced another challenge. We faced a propaganda war. Because, in an attempt to win the world’s sympathy, Hamas cynically used Palestinian civilians as human shields. It used schools, not just schools – UN schools, private homes, mosques, even hospitals to store and fire rockets at Israel.
As Israel surgically struck at the rocket launchers and at the tunnels, Palestinian civilians were tragically but unintentionally killed. There are heartrending images that resulted, and these fueled libelous charges that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians.
We were not. We deeply regret every single civilian casualty. And the truth is this: Israel was doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestinian civilian casualties. Israel dropped flyers, made phone calls, sent text messages, broadcast warnings in Arabic on Palestinian television, always to enable Palestinian civilians to evacuate targeted areas.
No other country and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoid casualties among the civilian population of their enemies. This concern for Palestinian life was all the more remarkable, given that Israeli civilians were being bombarded by rockets day after day, night after night. As their families were being rocketed by Hamas, Israel’s citizen army – the brave soldiers of the IDF, our young boys and girls – they upheld the highest moral values of any army in the world. Israel’s soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration. Admiration from decent people everywhere.
Now here’s what Hamas did: Hamas embedded its missile batteries in residential areas and told Palestinians to ignore Israel’s warnings to leave. And just in case people didn’t get the message, they executed Palestinian civilians in Gaza who dared to protest.
No less reprehensible, Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children live and play.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a war crime. As Israeli children huddled in bomb shelters and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system knocked Hamas rockets out of the sky, the profound moral difference between Israel and Hamas couldn’t have been clearer: Israel was using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles.
By investigating Israel rather than Hamas for war crimes, the UN Human Rights Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent. In fact, what it’s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians – that a double war crime – Hamas is given a pass.
The Human Rights Council is thus sending a clear message to terrorists everywhere: Use civilians as human shields. Use them again and again and again. You know why? Because sadly, it works.
By granting international legitimacy to the use of human shields, the UN’s Human Rights Council has thus become a Terrorist Rights Council, and it will have repercussions. It probably already has, about the use of civilians as human shields.
It’s not just our interest. It’s not just our values that are under attack. It’s your interests and your values.
The New Tyrannies
We live in a world steeped in tyranny and terror, where gays are hanged from cranes in Tehran, political prisoners are executed in Gaza, young girls are abducted en masse in Nigeria and hundreds of thousands are butchered in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Yet nearly half, nearly half of the UN Human Rights Council’s resolutions focusing on a single country have been directed against Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East – Israel. where issues are openly debated in a boisterous parliament, where human rights are protected by independent courts and where women, gays and minorities live in a genuinely free society.
The Human Rights… (that’s an oxymoron, the UN Human Rights Council, but I’ll use it just the same), the Council’s biased treatment of Israel is only one manifestation of the return of the world’s oldest prejudices. We hear mobs today in Europe call for the gassing of Jews. We hear some national leaders compare Israel to the Nazis. This is not a function of Israel’s policies. It’s a function of diseased minds. And that disease has a name. It’s called anti-Semitism.
It is now spreading in polite society, where it masquerades as legitimate criticism of Israel. For centuries the Jewish people have been demonized with blood libels and charges of deicide. Today, the Jewish state is demonized with the apartheid libel and charges of genocide. Genocide? In what moral universe does genocide include warning the enemy’s civilian population to get out of harm’s way? Or ensuring that they receive tons, tons of humanitarian aid each day, even as thousands of rockets are being fired at us?
In the past, outrageous lies against the Jews were the precursors to the wholesale slaughter of our people.
But no more.
Today we, the Jewish people, have the power to defend ourselves. We will defend ourselves against our enemies on the battlefield. We will expose their lies against us in the court of public opinion. Israel will continue to stand proud and unbowed.
Despite the enormous challenges facing Israel, I believe we have an historic opportunity.
An Opportunity to Unite Against Evil
After decades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers: principally this means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground in the Sunni world.
Our challenge is to transform these common interests to create a productive partnership. One that would build a more secure, peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
Together we can strengthen regional security. We can advance projects in water, agriculture, in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.
I believe the partnership between us can also help facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab World. But these days I think it may work the other way around: Namely that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
And therefore, to achieve that peace, we must look not only to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but also to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere. I believe peace can be realized with the active involvement of Arab countries, those that are willing to provide political, material and other indispensable support. I’m ready to make a historic compromise, not because Israel is occupying a foreign land. The people of Israel are not occupiers in the Land of Israel. History, archeology and common sense all make clear that we have had a singular attachment to this land for over 3,000 years.
The Middle East is in chaos. States are disintegrating. Militant Islamists are filling the void.
Israel cannot have territories from which it withdraws taken over by Islamic militants yet again, as happened in Gaza and Lebanon. That would place the likes of ISIS within mortar range – a few miles – of 80% of our population.
Land for Peace, or Suicide?
Think about that. The distance between the 1967 lines and the suburbs of Tel Aviv is like the distance between the UN building here and Times Square. Israel’s a tiny country. That’s why in any peace agreement, which will obviously necessitate a territorial compromise, I will always insist that Israel be able to defend itself by itself against any threat. Yet despite all that has happened, some still don’t take Israel’s security concerns seriously. But I do, and I always will. Because, as Prime Minister of Israel, I am entrusted with the awesome responsibility of ensuring the future of the Jewish people and the future of the Jewish state.
And no matter what pressure is brought to bear, I will never waver in fulfilling that responsibility.
I believe that with a fresh approach from our neighbors, we can advance peace despite the difficulties we face.
In Israel, we have a record of making the impossible possible. We’ve made a desolate land flourish. And with very few natural resources, we have used the fertile minds of our people to turn Israel into a global center of technology and innovation.
Peace, of course, would enable Israel to realize its full potential and to bring a promising future not only for our people, not only for the Palestinian people, but for many, many others in our region.
But the old template for peace must be updated. It must take into account new realities and new roles and responsibilities for our Arab neighbors. There is a new Middle East. It presents new dangers, but also new opportunities. Israel is prepared to work with Arab partners and the international community to confront those dangers and to seize those opportunities. Together we must recognize the global threat of militant Islam, the primacy of dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and the indispensable role of Arab states in advancing peace with the Palestinians.
All this may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but it’s the truth. And the truth must always be spoken, especially here, in the United Nations.
The Biblical Prophetic Word
Isaiah, our great prophet of peace, taught us nearly 3,000 years ago in Jerusalem to speak truth to power.
“For the sake of Zion, I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem, I will not be still. Until her justice shines bright, And her salvation glows like a flaming torch.”
Let’s light a torch of truth and justice to safeguard our common future.”
Forty Years Ago in August: Time for Another POTUS to Resign?
I was in England on August 8, 1974 when Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign while in office. It was a stunning demise for a formidable politician who served as vice president, lost the 1960 presidential race to JFK, then rose from the ashes to be elected POTUS in 1968 and re-elected in 1972.
The bottom fell out when he was caught at the helm of a minor political break-in that became known as Watergate–and then lied about it. Years of malaise, including the inept presidency of Jimmy Carter, followed in his wake.
I’ve been thinking for six long years about the failing presidency of Barack Obama. As jihadists be-head an American journalist, Russia subtly invades Ukraine, racial riots explode in Missouri, the US economy subsists on life support, and the national debt nears 18 trillion dollars–while President Obama vacations and plays golf–I’m wondering if another US president should resign for the good of the nation.
Two prominent women–one a secular progressive and the other a conservative–beat me to the punch this week.
Here are their sobering words for all of us to consider.
I rarely read Maureen Dowd because she is a fixture of the secular progressive left and almost always on the wrong side of issues. But she is a noted columnist for the New York Times who recently chose to part company with her once beloved president.
Her blistering attack on President Obama’s leadership is called “The Golf Address” published in the NY Times on October 23. It is brilliant in its allegory, yet tragic in its comparison of Abraham Lincoln’s courageous leadership 150 years ago and the current occupant of the White House.
The most famous speech in American history was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered during the perilous days of the Civil War. It contains only 272 eloquent words spoken with noble character, passion and burden.
It would be worth your while to take less than one minute and read it here.
Dowd compares Lincoln’s sobering masterpiece to the actions of Barack Obama, who, after lamenting the hideous death of journalist Jim Foley, took all of ten minutes to return to his vacation and get back to the golf course. Minutes later he was photographed smiling and fist-pumping a golfing buddy.
This is not just bad optics. It is a failure of presidential leadership of historic proportions.
Ms. Dowd agrees.
“The Golf Address” – by Barack Obama
As seen through the eyes of Maureen Dowd
“FORE! Score? And seven trillion rounds ago, our forecaddies brought forth on this continent a new playground, conceived by Robert Trent Jones, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal when it comes to spending as much time on the links as possible — even when it seems totally inappropriate, like moments after making a solemn statement condemning the grisly murder of a 40-year-old American journalist beheaded by ISIL.”
“I know reporters didn’t get a chance to ask questions, but I had to bounce. I had a 1 p.m. tee time at Vineyard Golf Club with Alonzo Mourning and a part-owner of the Boston Celtics. Hillary and I agreed when we partied with Vernon Jordan up here, hanging out with celebrities and rich folks is fun.”
“Now we are engaged in a great civil divide in Ferguson, which does not even have a golf course, and that’s why I had a “logistical” issue with going there. We are testing whether that community, or any community so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure when the nation’s leader wants nothing more than to sink a birdie putt.”
“We are met on a great field of that battle, not Augusta, not Pebble Beach, not Bethpage Black, not Burning Tree, but Farm Neck Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard, which we can’t get enough of — me, Alonzo, Ray Allen and Marvin Nicholson, my trip director and favorite golfing partner who has played 134 rounds and counting with me.”
“We have to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for my presidency, if I keep swinging from behind.”
“Yet it is altogether fitting and proper that I should get to play as much golf as I want, despite all the lame jokes about how golf is turning into ‘a real handicap’ for my presidency and how I have to ‘stay the course’ with ISIL. I’ve heard all the carping that I should be in the Situation Room droning and plinking the bad folks.”
“I know some people think I should go to Ferguson. Don’t they understand that I’ve delegated the Martin Luther King Jr. thing to Eric Holder? Plus, Valerie Jarrett and Al Sharpton have it under control.”
“I know it doesn’t look good to have pictures of me grinning in a golf cart juxtaposed with ones of James Foley’s parents crying, and a distraught David Cameron rushing back from his vacation after only one day, and the Pentagon news conference with Chuck Hagel and General Dempsey on the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Syria.”
“We’re stuck in the rough, going to war all over again in Iraq and maybe striking Syria, too. Every time Chuck says ISIL is ‘beyond anything we’ve ever seen,’ I sprout seven more gray hairs. But my cool golf caps cover them. If only I could just play through the rest of my presidency.”
“ISIL brutally killing hostages because we won’t pay ransoms, rumbles of coups with our puppets in Iraq and Afghanistan, the racial caldron in Ferguson, the Ebola outbreak, the Putin freakout — there’s enough awful stuff going on to give anyone the yips.”
“So how can you blame me for wanting to unwind on the course or for five hours at dinner with my former assistant chef? He’s a great organic cook, and he’s got a gluten-free backyard putting green.”
“But, in a larger sense, we can dedicate, we can consecrate, we can hallow this ground where I can get away from my wife, my mother-in-law, Uncle Joe, Congress and all the other hazards in my life.”
“The brave foursomes, living and dead, who struggled here in the sand, in the trees, in the water, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or subtract a few strokes to improve our score. Bill Clinton was Mr. Mulligan, and he is twice at popular as I am.”
“The world will little note, nor long remember, what we shot here, or why I haven’t invited a bunch of tiresome congressmen to tee it up. I’m trying to relax, guys. So I’d much rather stay in the bunker with my usual bros. Why don’t you play 18 with Mitch McConnell? And John Boehner is a lot better than me, so I don’t want to play with him.”
“It is for us, the duffers, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who played here have thus far so nobly advanced to get young folks to stop spurning a game they find slow and boring.”
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us of getting rid of our slice on the public’s dime — that from this honored green we take increased devotion to that cause for which Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy gave their last full measure of devotion — and divots.”
“We here highly resolve that these golfing greats shall not have competed in vain, especially poor Tiger, and that this nation, under par, shall have a new birth of freedom to play the game that I have become unnaturally obsessed with, and that golf of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
“So help me Golf.”
Then there is conservative former judge and current Fox host Jeanine Pirro who worked as a district attorney for 30 years in New York. She is possibly the most fearless commentator on television. Here’s what she said on “Justice” barely one day after the Maureen Dowd massacre.
Please watch her “Opening Remarks” here.
I’ve got nothing personally against President Obama. On the positive side he’s charismatic, a good speaker, a powerful fund-raiser, a family man and probably an excellent community organizer.
But he’s not up to the task or image of president of the United States. Why? Because his worldview doesn’t fit reality, he’s an ideologue who seems incapable of change, he appears detached and distracted by golf, fund-raising and his celebrity status, he lacks real leadership skills and competency–and all-in-all, he’s out of his league.
This August he could do the wisest and most humble act of his life and step down as president–for his own good and that of the nation. At least Joe Biden is older and has some experience in foreign policy. He could be a caretaker until 2016–maybe even a decent one like Harry Truman.
Then we need to elect a president with faith, courage, executive experience and leadership skills like Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.
And never vote for a “jayvee” for POTUS ever again.
How the West Was Lost by a Selfie President
I’ve been thinking lately about the gasping Obama presidency–last week rocked by the Veterans Administration scandal, and this week by the Bowe Bergdahl affair where the Administration traded an army deserter for the Taliban Dream Team.
This latest debacle comes after:
- The NSA scandal–collecting the data of American citizens and tapping the lines of world leaders
- The IRS scandal–using the most hated government branch to silence conservative organizations
- The AP scandal–the Justice Department tapping reporters phone records
- The Ben Ghazi scandal–where Americans died, Susan Rice lied, and no rescue took place, and
- Fast Furious–where we supplied thousands of guns to crooks and a border agent was killed.
What in the world is going on?
Here’s an insightful article on how the West was lost by a selfie president.
Last week, my wife and and I watched a moving six-hour History Channel series on The Great Wars that featured portraits of the key leaders of the 20th century. The heroes from WWI and WWII—Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Patton and Douglas MacArthur–all learned from their mistakes during WWI and courageously led the Western powers to victory over Nazism and Imperial Japan.
The villains of the Great Wars, including Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and Hideki Tojo, were molded by the horrors of the first world war but applied their lessons toward destruction–not the blessings of liberty and peace.
Thankfully, the world was saved by wise, courageous Western leaders.
(It’s interesting to note that Roosevelt never lived to see the end of WWII, but that he, Mussolini and Hitler all died within one month of each other and Churchill was voted out of office two months later.)
Now we find ourselves in a possibly more dangerous world where Russia is flexing its muscles, Iran is nearing a nuclear bomb, and communist China is the rising power in the Pacific–while our current Western leaders are taking selfies.
The following article appeared after Nelson Mandela’s December 15, 2013 funeral in South Africa. You will remember the famous selfie picture of Barack Obama, David Cameron and the female Danish Prime Minister.
How times have changed since the era of Roosevelt and Churchill! And how desperately we need to pray for and elect courageous leaders who are not enamored by narcissism and corrupted by scandals.
How the West Was Lost By a Selfie President
Michael Goodwin – NY Post columnist
My bookshelves sag with encyclopedic volumes arguing that America and the West are in decline. But proving that a picture is worth a thousand books, the “selfie” seen ’round the world ends the argument.
It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom.
President Obama’s flirting with Denmark’s prime minister would be shameful on any occasion. That it happened at the memorial for Nelson Mandela only adds to the embarrassment.
But the “selfie” episode also symbolizes the greater global calamity of Western decline. With British prime minister David Cameron playing the role of Obama’s giggling wingman, the “look at me” moment confirms we have unserious leaders in a dangerously serious time.
Iran marches toward nuclear weapons and already there is talk in military circles that a nuclear-armed Iran could mean mushroom clouds in the Mideast within five years.
China is flexing its muscles throughout Asia, its ships brazenly confronting ours on the high seas. Russia is expanding its writ in the Arab lands and in Eastern Europe while making casual threats about bombing America. Syria’s Assad uses chemical weapons and Obama and Cameron rattle little sabers before meekly agreeing to become his partner.
The sign-language interpreter wasn’t the only fake at the Mandela funeral. Obama and Cameron were posing as world leaders.
They will never be confused with FDR and Churchill. The fratboys stand in stark contrast to the days when the “special relationship” meant two great leaders uniting two great countries in the fight for freedom. Those leaders understood the consequences if evil prevailed and were committed to victory.
Churchill coined the term “special relationship” during World War II and used it again in his “Iron Curtain Speech” in 1946 that marked the unofficial start of the Cold War. Fearful the West would disarm again, as it did after World War I, he wanted to combat communism by maintaining the “special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.”
To him it meant our “kindred systems of society” must grow ever closer to provide mutual security and a framework for global peace. That special bond later cemented the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher partnership that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Try to imagine any of those four embarrassing their nations by acting like indulgent teenagers while civilization hung in the balance. You can’t because they wouldn’t.
Hitler’s greatest mistake was being born too soon. If he were on the march now, would there be will in Washington and London to stop him? Would there be an arsenal of democracy to save mankind from darkness?
In fact, while Obama and Cameron were yukking it up in South Africa, the White House was denouncing bipartisan efforts in Congress to pass more sanctions against Iran. Doing so, it said, would scuttle the feeble interim deal Obama and Cameron accepted. Incredibly, administration arguments echoed Iran’s position.
Try to imagine FDR and Churchill siding with Hitler against their national legislatures. You can’t because they were the antitheses of the appeasers of their times.
World War II proved that the international order collapses when there is no one to support and enforce it. Obama himself has said that, but apparently believes talk is sufficient.
Cameron also talks a good game, but hollowed out the British military to where it is no longer capable of sustained missions.
Words don’t matter to tyrants and genocidal maniacs. They push until they are convinced there will be consequences if they go further.
Our weakness invites their aggression and makes war more likely, not less. That is the perilous state of the world, as the clown kings of the West party on.