Ye Gods, it’s 1979 all over again!

I can’t believe the spineless, pathetically inadequate response by this Administration to the murder of our Ambassador to Libya and three other personnel yesterday, and the invasion of our Embassy compound in Egypt.  Talk won’t cut it.  Action requires reaction – otherwise the entire Islamic world will assume that the ‘good old days’ of 1979 are back again.  Even our so-called ‘ally’ in Afghanistan, Mohammed Karzai, is making hay out of the crisis.

As the Telegraph points out:

Ever since Mr Obama entered the White House he has tried to position himself as a politician who has no interest in getting involved in overseas conflicts. Having withdrawn American forces from Iraq and ordered the withdrawal of US combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, he has tried to appease his Democrat supporters by making sure that he steered well clear of involvement in any of the world’s other trouble spots.

On crucial security issues such as Iran, Libya and Syria he has deliberately taken a back seat, rather than providing the strong and effective leadership the world has come to expect from a major superpower. As a result a dangerous power vacuum has been created with those, such as the group responsible for the well-planned attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, believing they can act with impunity.

. . .

Mr Obama likes to portray himself as a cool, hip and media-friendly president. But the job demands much more than that, and unless he is careful Mr Obama will end up being viewed like his Democratic predecessor President Jimmy Carter, another well-meaning do-gooder, who was eventually exposed as weak and ineffectual, and paid for it by being unceremoniously dumped out of office by the great American public.

There’s more at the link.

What worries me is that President Obama may decide that he has to do something for the sake of his re-election campaign, but will choose the flashiest, most media-friendly act he can, irrespective of whether or not it’s an effective or appropriate response.  He may get our troops killed or injured purely out of self-interest, rather than in the national interest.  He’s narcissistic enough for that to be a real danger . . . and if he does, impeachment needs to follow.

Peter