Since announcing that all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of this year, Barrack Obama has, for all intents and purposes, ended that war – or at least, America’s involvement in it. While this should be a cause for celebration among all Americans, it seems that the Republicans simply cannot find it within themselves to give him credit. Instead, they are calling him foolish, saying that this is a premature action to take.
Since the end of the Cold War, Republicans have not been happy unless this nation is at war somewhere in the world. While we are still involved in Afghanistan, this apparently isn’t enough to satisfy them – perhaps because Obama is in the process of trying to reduce our involvement there, as well.
It seems that the Republicans are going to be left floundering during this election campaign, because really, all they have left to say about Obama’s foreign policy record is that they think the war in Iraq should last longer. Well, with the single exception of Ron Paul, who isn’t, as far as I can tell, in much danger of actually gaining the Republican nomination.
Let’s think about it for a moment. Since taking office, Obama has authorized the killing of a band of Somali pirates, Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and played an instrumental role in taking out Qadaffi. To paraphrase Bill Maher, this is one badass president when it comes to fighting terrorists.
It would seem, at least to me, that the war on terror is effectively over, and that we’ve won. What’s left is pretty disorganized.
Remember how the right attacked Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience during the last presidential election campaign? I think he’s pretty much proven them wrong. So wrong, in fact, that at least one of them, Mitt Romney, has been reduced to uttering complete fabrications. Romney has stated that if elected, he will reverse “Obama’s massive defensive cuts.”
Excuse me?
Under Obama, defense spending has increased, not decreased. His first year in office, the defense budget was $594 billion. Last year, the defense budget was $666 billion. And next year, he wants to increase it further, to over $700 billion. I disagree with that idea, but that’s not the point. The point is that it seems the Republicans feel they can simply lie and get away with it.
They think we’re stupid. And Mitt Romney is a bald-faced liar. If Obama’s foreign policy record says anything, it says that he’s been very, very effective as the commander-in-chief.
And speaking of being weak in the area of foreign policy, the only thing Romney has had to offer regarding Afghanistan is to form a committee to study what we should do. How very decisive of him.
Obama has been so effective, at least in part, in our ongoing military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan for one reason: He does not have to ask for Republican permission to act. There can be no obstructionism on this front, and so, he is able to accomplish the goals that he sets to bring about an end to our country being at war.
Can you imagine what he may have been able to accomplish domestically if he didn’t have to face the kind of obstructionism that Republicans have set up? We might well have a single-payer health care system, or at least a public option. We might well be on our way to a faster economic recovery.
And not one Republican has stepped forward to give this president credit for any of the things that he’s been able to do. Again borrowing from Bill Maher, it’s as though there’s some sort of hidden Republican clitoris, and they won’t let him find it. Every time he tries, they say, “No, that’s not it.” A crude analogy, perhaps, but pretty damned accurate, in my opinion. They simply can’t bring themselves to give him credit for anything that he does right.
And they have the nerve to attack his foreign policy decisions. I only have one question:
A committee? Really, Mitt?
