One Hundred Years from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama
on Monday, October 6, 2014
From the Bully Pulpit of Teddy Roosevelt
to the World’s Biggest Bully… Barack Obama
From Roosevelt’s Wise Foreign Policy of “Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick”
to Obama’s Penchant for Beating other Countries over the head with it!
By Scott Rohter
Has America become the world’s biggest bully? Do we think we can just keep bombing other countries into becoming democracies like we are? It seems like that is what we are trying to do in the Middle East. We bombed Iraq. We bombed Afghanistan. Then we bombed Libya. Now we are bombing Syria. Ever since 911…. for well over a decade now America has been hard at work dropping bombs all over the Middle East trying to bring these backward cultures into the 21st Century. It hasn’t worked. It doesn’t work, and it wont work. It didn’t convert Libya into becoming a democracy. It didn’t convert Iraq into becoming a democracy. Hopefully it will work out better in Afghanistan, but I wouldn’t hold your breath if I was you. Now “Warshington” has commenced to bombing Syria and Iraq all over again in order to rid the nation of ISIS, but we unwittingly created ISIS by deposing Saddam Hussein. It just took the Sunnis this long to figure out how they were going to take their country back. It just keeps getting worse and worse. Apparently we have more bombs than we have brains. Now the United States Air Force is delivering a new blow for democracy in Syria from the bomb bay doors of our seemingly endless arsenal of democracy. I wonder if this the same “arsenal of democracy” that Franklin Roosevelt was talking about when he pledged our support to help defeat the Nazis in World War II? Somehow it just doesn’t seem like a wise foreign policy. We are not convincing many Muslims in the Middle East to give up their backward ways and embrace the democracy that is bombing them. We are teaching them to hate our democratic ways.
Theodore Roosevelt was America’s 26th President. He was the Commander in Chief between 1901 and 1909 just prior to World War I. He is considered by many historians to be one of our greatest Presidents. His face is immortalized in stone on Mt. Rushmore alongside facades of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. So then it should come as no surprise that Teddy Roosevelt’s wise foreign policy of “walk softly and carry a big stick” was our nation’s diplomatic policy e for many years. That is how America had always interacted with other nations of the world during the 20th century. This has meant that the United States maintains a significant military presence around the world which serves as a deterrent against aggression by other nations. Our armed forces have always helped maintain the peace in the world while facilitating the resolution of international problems in a manner that is consistent with our values and our own best interests.
In 2008 Barack Obama became America’s first Black President. This was an historic opportunity to show the world what Americans of African ancestry could accomplish. Instead of being cautious and respectful, Barack Obama has thrown all the conventional wisdom out the window. He has replaced Teddy Roosevelt’s careful respect for international norms of law and order, national sovereignty and territorial integrity with a reckless abandon and disrespect for the rights of other countries, a disregard for their borders and their national sovereignty which has often led to a diplomatic disaster. His numerous intrusions into other country’s purely domestic affairs cannot be described as walking softly at all. It is more like he is running roughshod over them. Instead of just carrying a big stick around like Teddy Roosevelt suggested, Barack Obama is using a powerful weapon to beat other countries over the head. He is using the Unites States Air Force to drop bombs on them.
In Libya Barack Obama used the Air Force to attack and remove the dictator Muammar Khadafy from power. In Egypt President Obama forced Hosni Mubarak to step down and relinquish control of the government to a known terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. In Ukraine our State Department supported the street demonstrations that led to the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovich and the eventual referendum in Crimea which led to its annexation by Russia. The overthrow of the legitimate President of Ukraine has also led to revolts in Donetsk and Slovansk. In Iraq Barack Obama demanded that Prime Minister Nuri al Malaki resign even though he was elected by a large majority of Iraqis. Now President Obama wants to overthrow the government of Bashar al Assad in Syria. Just who in the hell does Barack Obama actually think he is or we are? We are not the policemen of the world. We are not the final authority on what goes on in every country. Instead of allowing Barack Obama to remove any more leaders of other countries maybe we should just remove him from office. Maybe we can’t bring back Teddy Roosevelt but we can sure get rid of Barack Obama.
