According to Neocon Michael Ledeen, the U.S. had it all prior to the Obama years:
American hegemony wasn’t limited to military power, but encompassed the most basic components of the modern world, from Internet and its attendant gadgets and technologies (Microsoft, Apple, Google…) to movies, scholarship and literature. America was omnipresent and omnipotent.
Governments always fancy themselves as being “omnipresent” and “omnipotent”. Ledeen is obviously part of the gang who has had one-too-many sips of the kool-aid.
Ledeen is one of the stubborn ones too. He says everything was going great against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They were on the run:
And then, poof! We opted out.
Fascinating! Did someone alert Congress? The recently passed $600+ billion budget suggests otherwise. If $600 billion equals “opting out”, what would an “opting-in” budget cost?
Those are just numbers though. In this case, the numbers must lie:
The world is painfully coming to grips with something that no one could begin to imagine before 2009: a world in which America’s leaders are opposed to the America of the past, and opposed to traditional American values. Leaders who think America has been a force for evil, and consequently must be restrained, weakened, and disarmed if possible.
Wow….talk about going over the edge for no reason at all.
Let’s recap here, and call a spade a spade. Remember Libya? That was Obama. Drone deaths to this day? Obama too.
Obama wanted to invade Syria, but was shut down; first by the British parliament, and then by the American people. The US is still very much involved in Afghanistan, and does not want to leave despite its threats to do so,. And the US is not only staying in Iraq, but also now sending in weapons again.
US bases and troops are also still sprawled across the Earth, making sure that everyone toes the line (and keeps using dollars). Yet, if one were to believe Ledeen, everyone is packing up and going home.
The one area where Obama is due some credit is in talking with Iran. Perhaps the public blowback on war with Syria helped to push him to make that decision. Who knows? But one thing we do know is that talking to Iran is like kryptonite to the neocons. Iran is the grand prize in their conquests.
We (and the rest of the world) would be lucky if Ledeen were speaking the truth. It’s well passed the time to “opt-out” of being the world’s policeman. However, the military-industrial complex is much bigger than just Obama. It existed before his Administration, and it will exist after.
The war machine is still very active and entrenched in everyone else’s business. That means there is still much work to be done for the cause of peace.
