Search This Blog

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Let's Renew Ties with Allies

At the moment, president Obama and secretary Kerry are trying to put together a meaningful coalition to confront ISIS.  So far, the effort has been a failure.  Oh, the White House released a list of over 30 countries that supposedly are on board as members of the coalition, but once one looks at what those countries are prepared to do, one sees that this is more a public relations stunt than an actual coalition.  None of them are sending troops.  The important ones who could help in other ways, are not doing so.  For example, Turkey has the perfect location from which to launch airstrikes against ISIS.  The Turkish government has said that no such flights may take place.  Saudi Arabia has a large air force that could join the US effort in the air.  It has not offered any assistance besides letting some of the Syrian rebels train in that country.  Countries like the UK and other NATO allies are giving lip service to the effort only.  I guess the best way to put it is that America's allies are neither leading nor following from behind (or in front for that matter).

Much of this inability to get our allies involved in the fight is the result of five years of poor policies by Obama and secretary Clinton.  It began in Europe when under the Obama/Clinton "reset" with Russia, America forgave Putin and Russia for invading and swallowing a big chunk of Georgia.  At that time, in order to curry favor with Putin, the USA pulled out its missile defense systems from Poland and Slovakia, thereby leaving those countries feeling exposed and disrespected.  Obama also kept taking actions that showed disdain for the British, our closest ally after Canada of the last 75 years.  For example, when Argentina threatened the Falkland Islands, Obama announced American neutrality even though the residents of the Falklands have voted by over 90% to stay British and the islands have been ruled by the UK for about 200 years.  The countries of the Middle East also watched as Obama undermined our ally in Egypt in favor of the Moslem Brotherhood, an organization that spawned terrorist groups like Hamas. 

I wonder why it is that Obama and Clinton saw no need to support our allies or to oppose our enemies.  I believe it is the result of their actually believing the left's ideology that most world problems are the fault of America and its allies.  They were helping the poor victims of America like Putin's Russia and the terrorists at the Moslem Brotherhood. 

It is time for the USA to refocus its efforts towards supporting our allies and regaining their trust.  It may be that Obama will prove unable to do this task.  After all, he has proven untrustworthy so many times already that these countries may not ever believe what he has to say.  We need to stop talking about friendship and trust and instead to begin demonstrating friendship and trust through our actions. 




 

No comments: