Vapid Words [Reader Post]

In honesty to you whom are reading, I do not like looking at this man, watching this man nor listening to this man but reading his 3,400 word speech on Libya may be critical to the future of our dear country. I started seeking to measure the context as being either vapid or inspirational, what I found were that the words were very flat. This opinion began where I saw the President wrapped in a background wall of flags being used as props as if the previously used Styrofoam columns were sent into storage so that a new stage manager could bring on a different backdrop turning the location into a pulpit for preaching not a place for an intimate chat among friends. This President likes to speak from pre-prepared settings remaining shy from fielding rhetorical questions or answers. Given the opportunity to question authority, I would have asked, “Mister President, in lieu of your most popular and most loyal ‘No War For Oil’ political electoral base how is it now that you can explain to the American People the vast lease and drill concessions within Libya given to Exxon/Mobil, Total SA, BP/Royal Dutch plus several other oil exploitation corporations from Norway, Italy, Russia among others and our role protecting those assets with American blood and treasure?”; albeit, this president does not have a parliamentary dispatch box and never responds to even the simplest of inquiries.

Hearing the word “dither” came to his attention from several political image consultant sources and fearful of being titled again “Big Ears” or “Pantywaist” this President chose Monday, March 28, 2011 at 7:30 to show the world that that he is a decisive leader that can order killing and mayhem. In deference to our Dear Leader with the rapid information age there exists every hour a tsunami of news and to compare current decision dilemma to previous chief executives would not be fair; but, nevertheless, there are standard protocols which need to be followed when carrying the responsibility for military power; for instance, the notion of “vital interests”. Last night he said, “We are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.”, so it must be our realm to make the world safe for collective “interests and values”. One of those values with interest is “Live and let live!” although that selfish interest may seem callous to a citizen of the world does subscribing higher powers to the United Nations and the conceptualization of R2P (Responsibility 2 Protect) makes that turn either more or less inspirational or vapid? I choose to let those reading decide.

I remain prejudiced, but there remains an image of some latter-day Napoleon with tin soldiers on a flat map of the region. Rightfully, the President praises our military; but, “stopping the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan, and going after al Qaeda all across the globe.”, this becomes an open fist – closed fist dichotomy which challenges the nation if this is now the right time taking on such additional extreme risks. I am resentful for the game of charades passing this “kinetic military action” (such verbal nonsense) off to N.A.T.O. as a puppet show with smoke and mirrors. Mister President, investing young American lives wearing designations of the United States of America Armed Forces is war so use the word as universally understood and stop playing with semantics and deception that place you words, like those used last night, on the platform of lies. You tell your non Harvard Law School and Ivy League educated minions that the U.S. will take a “supporting role” passing responsibility on to N.A.T.O. This reasoning confuses many of those whose schools told us that that the United States is N.A.T.O.; perhaps at your posh Honolulu prep school you were told different but for us this is what we know to be true. If your meaning is that Europe take on the major efforts for the Libya mission then speak to your captive audience in the clear without dancing around on the head of a pin.

The price of gasoline is rocketing through the roof. You have put up so many gag orders and constraints investigating the enigma of your background that I cannot substantiate that you ever had a driver’s license or owned an automobile filling up the tank. In your lifetime there have been, during Carter, two mile long lines to purchase rationed five gallons of gasoline and also times when this teenager could fill-up the GTO for under ten bucks; now, consumers are leaving their self-service filling stations eighty to one-hundred dollars poorer because of your idiotic energy policies. Scooting around the planet in government owned SUV’s and limousines puts you “out of touch” with the economic pinch that is happening to the major majority of Americans; yet, you, impervious to any and all reactions, add, with more flowerily words, more chaos into the crude oil, natural gas, and gasoline markets. Your presidency promised to “lower the sea levels” but what has done is raise all prices on energy.

Nothing ever comes clear from you, you just don’t know the means to be plain and square; you know this guy, you shook his hand and perhaps kissed his cheek; but, nevertheless, “Qaddafi declared he would ‘show no mercy’ to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, “we have seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day”. Such a wasted education, instead of Columbia University international relations courses or Harvard Law you could have learned about this tyrant and several others just like him at Molly’s Diner on Main but Molly’s community of freedom people does not need to be organized and many of them voted for you once; but, those common citizens, they do not need to analyze foreign tyrants when they can feel domestic tyranny right here at home.

Most Presidents stayed home to do their jobs; yet, with you, “nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973.” which occurred, at the same time, when you were in Rio Brazil for another one of your many vacations. It is insipid that, as the world is busting out all over, you are away on another junket. There is a frequent refrain that Qaddafi, just like Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright, is the latest to be befriended at first only then later to be dropped and thrown under the proverbial bus which indicates, to me, mentorship by some invisible someone else giving you commands. Relationships are not built by tossing “friends” around like broken toys; but, with you, having any defined humanistic quality seems to be part of your mojo mystery. There is more of your/them versus those demagoguery, “some question why America should intervene at all – even in limited ways – in this distant land. They argue that there are many places in the world where innocent civilians face brutal violence at the hands of their government, and America should not be expected to police the world” because you just can’t take criticism. So many tyrants – so little time!

Throwing money and precious resources at problems does not solve problems, “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” Mister President, given more abundant times, such altruistic sentimentalities would be sensible but you have already spent all the sugar in the sugar bowl and not a grain of salt remains in the salt shaker. There is a difference between the Platte and the Mississippi rivers, one runs deep and flows swift while the other is shallow and stagnant. Your rash decisions are toying with the laws of nature and the consequences can be devastating. You are betting that Qaddafi will fall and you will be seen as a hero which is playing Big Casino with young American lives. A strong president would look and measure the stakes involved comparing the Exxon/Mobil assets to those of Europe so that one American stake is to be matched by five or more Europe stakes in the strategic game and then, as Commander in Chief, be ready to accept full responsibility for each life lost and asset ruined due to this venture. Nowhere in the cusp of your words do you come forth and take full title for making that level of decision. The set-up is there and everyone can see it, you are preparing another stage to blame the other guy feigning ever to be a target yourself.

This gambit is all about your electability in 2012, “I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests”; all this, while producing political planning and subterfuge using bombs and soldiers’ lives for the “aspirations of the Libyan people” but let me remind you of an economic theorem never to be disputed; that is, war produces inflation and inflation does not make for inspiration.

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