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Old 04-11-2009, 04:28 AM   #4
scottw
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Let's leave vague complaints out. I'm curious for concrete examples of him being childish and naive.[/QUOTE]

First...feeling the need to point out in a speech "I am not naive" as he did is a good sign that you are indeed aware that you a percieved as such and probably are...

This one from British author and broadcaster Gerald Warren who refers to our lightwalking president in typical British understatement as "President Pantywaist:"

President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you'd notice.

Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets - suddenly it is flag-day in Aberdeen. Okay, put the G20 down to inexperience, beginner's nerves, what you will.
On to Nato and the next big objective: to persuade the same European evasion experts that America, Britain and Canada should no longer bear the brunt of the Afghan struggle virtually unassisted. The Old World sucked through its teeth, said that was asking a lot - but, seeing it was Barack, to whom they could refuse nothing, they would graciously accede to his wishes.

So The One retired triumphant, having secured a massive contribution of 5,000 extra troops - all of them non-combatant, of course - which must really have put the wind up the Taliban, at the prospect of 5,000 more infidel cooks and bottle-washers swarming into the less hazardous regions of Afghanistan.

A guy like Obama could not survive the British press or "Question Time" in the Commons where any MP can ask the PM anything he wants. Our teleprompterless president would freeze like a side of beef in a Kansas City meat locker.

Krauthammer:
"Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response."


A more fatuous presidential call to arms is hard to conceive. What "strong international response" did Obama muster to North Korea's brazen defiance of a Chapter 7 -- "binding," as it were -- U.N. resolution prohibiting such a launch?


The obligatory emergency Security Council session produced nothing. No sanctions. No resolution. Not even a statement. China and Russia professed to find no violation whatsoever. They would not even permit a U.N. statement that dared express "concern," let alone condemnation.

So much for "violations must be punished." But Obama's naivete went beyond that. His reliance on the UN for any kind of a strong international response makes him out to be a fool as well.

After all, it was Obama, not some envious anti-American leader, who noted with satisfaction that a new financial order is being created today by 20 countries, rather than by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy." And then added: "But that's not the world we live in, and it shouldn't be the world that we live in."



It is passing strange for a world leader to celebrate his own country's decline. A few more such overseas tours, and Obama will have a lot more decline to celebrate

Sarkozy Engages Pirates - Obama Ducks Questions?
Tom Suhadolnik
While four pirates armed with AK47s bobbing in a lifeboat hold a US Navy destroyer at bay, a French commando team storms a sailboat held by pirates and rescues French citizens. The world truly has gone mad.


According to the BBC, President Sarkozy's office released a statement saying a French sailboat, seized Saturday off the coast of Somalia, was the target of a French commando raid Thursday. The French sail boat had four adults and one child on board. According to the release, two pirates and a hostage were killed in the operation and three others taken prisoner. This is the third time in recent memory French commandos have been used to free hostages held by pirates in the region.


Meanwhile in the USA, when asked about an American being held hostage by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, President Obama refused to answer any questions. Various reports say Obama has delegated the handling of this incident to high level administration officials and military commanders.


Unlike the pirates killed by French commandos, the pirates holding the American seem emboldened. There have been various reports today that allies of the pirates holding the American have requested and receiving backup from other pirates. Several large vessels seized with the last few weeks are heading to the site of a standoff.


The Times of India may have the most succinct description of the standoff between the US Navy and the pirates and its implications.


The Indian Ocean standoff between an $800 million United States Navy destroyer and four pirates bobbing in a lifeboat showed the limits of the world's most power military as it faces a booming pirate economy in a treacherous patch of international waters.
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