All Enemies Foreign and Domestic ............

Much of this blog to date has concerned itself with money. Perhaps I can be excused for concentrating so much on it because the crisis is so deep and the proposed cures are so massive and seemingly so ineffectual. But while money supposedly makes the world go around what about the second part of that truism, namely the World?

Remember during the campaign, the foreign policy of President Bush was trashed unmercifully. The world hates us we were told. Obama will change all that we were promised. The problem of Iran’s drive towards nuclear weapons capability will be solved by direct man-to-man diplomacy by Obama. Gone will be the days of missile strikes into Pakistan and Afghanistan with the attendant loss of innocent lives. Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay will be closed and its inmates would be transferred either back to their own native lands or to the federal justice system here in the U.S. Obama committed also to close down the email, internet and phone surveillance capabilities introduced after 911. And on and on ……….

In short, America’s status in the world would be rejuvenated just because of Obama and his charisma and policies. Right?

Well the truth is somewhat different. Surveillance stays and will even be expanded. The missile strikes into Pakistan and Afghanistan have been stepped up. However, one thing is different which is that "innocent" collateral damage is not mentioned by the drive-by media. Purely an oversight I'm sure.

The governments of the countries representing the inmates of Camp Delta have either refused to take back their errant citizens or they have “released them into the wild” only to find that these same poor "innocents" have gone straight back to terrorism. And please don’t cite the Geneva Convention at me, as it specifically precludes all but uniformed combatants. So all that didn’t turn out too well, did it? But, Obama supporters are always eager to find any spark of hope on which to pin their increasingly tenuous beliefs and so let’s look at the world of diplomacy for surely charisma, personality and oratory must prevail in this realm.

Well, not exactly. First there was the “hoo-hah” surrounding the bust of Winston Churchill presented to the American people by the British after 911. Obama took one look at it and sent it back. Now isn’t that gracious? Then this week, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was in town and even “The Huffington Post”, that bastion of left-wing politics, led with headline “Gordon Brown faces humiliation after the Obama snub”. So OK, Obama doesn’t like Brits, what else happened this week?

Despite the fact that Obama committed to “transparent government”, I am not nearly naïve enough to take that at face value and fully recognize that an effective foreign policy must necessarily include less obvious procedures. Let’s look at one such.

A few weeks ago, a secret letter was sent by Obama to Putin and Medvedev of Russia offering to strip the NATO missile defense shield from Poland if Russia would lean on Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. Unfortunately for Obama, the Russians saw no need to keep it a secret but also refused to cooperate. Oh, they’d be very happy to see the missile defense system gone from their border but they have no intention of doing anything about Iran. And the reasons are twofold and decidedly predictable if you know what you are doing. First, anything that makes life difficult for the U.S. is a plus for Russia and secondly, Iran’s nuclear program relies very heavily on outside help from other governments including Russia of course.

In a way therefore, we’ve almost come full circle. We started out this post talking about money and we end with it as well. Who said money isn’t everything? And add sublime naiveties and the picture is bleak indeed.