If you listen to what Barack Obama actually says on the campaign trail, you could make several mistakes. You might think America has been off the planet for the past few years. You might think terrorists whose strategy is to kill civilians with the express purpose of terrorizing other civilians deserve not only Geneva Convention rights, but full habeas corpus rights in civilian US courts. You might think the US hasn’t been battling AIDS in Africa and trying to stave off genocide in trouble spots. You might, in short, think that America isn’t leading.
America is leading. The problem is, the rest of the world doesn’t want to follow. The Europeans no longer have credible militaries that are capable of holding up their end of our alliances with them, and the people and politicians of the continent would rather fight for their 35 hour work weeks than their defend basic freedoms. The Russians and China have their own agendas, and they don’t coincide with ours. We do have strong allies like India and Japan, but neither is very capable of acting beyond their own shores. The world’s core countries are fractious at a time when a little unity against the Islamist threat would go a long way. That’s not something that came in with the Bush administration. It’s been a fact of life for quite a while now. Obama is evidently entirely unaware of that, though, and that doesn’t speak well of his ability to handle reality.
So, Republicans, whoever our nominee is, be careful this fall: It could be worse.
OBAMA: I want to go before the world’s community and say “America’s back.”
Where has America been, Senator? Are you saying that America isn’t America when we vote Republican?
OBAMA: We are ready to lead. We will lead, yes, on terrorism. We will lead on locking down loose nuclear weapons. But we will also lead in bringing an end to the genocide in Darfur.
By bugging out too soon, handing al Qaeda a victory and triggering a genocide in Iraq, Senator?
OBAMA: We will also lead…we will also lead on climate change. We will also lead poor countries deal with the devastation of HIV/AIDS. We will close Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus.
To terrorists who aren’t US citizens and have violated the laws of war, Senator? They’re war criminals and mass murderers. Why do they deserve the same rights a US citizen has when accused of a crime? Once Gitmo is closed, where will you put them?
OBAMA: We will lead on human rights, and civil rights.
We already do, Senator. We already do. And in that war that you oppose and would intentionally lose, Senator, we have attempted to spread human rights into a country where they have been suppressed for generations.
And don’t even get me started on the inanity of seeing Ted Kennedy sitting behing one of Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” signs. That’s just a bad joke.
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