Posted by
Camarco on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 6:17:36 PM
Throughout American history the United States has been feared, envied, respected, admired, or condemned by many other countries, and for fairly obvious reasons. But now, for perhaps the first time in all of American history, our President and his cabinet members and officials are eliciting an altogether different sort of response on the world stage: laughter, scorn, and ridicule! A few days ago the Treasury Secretary of the United States, addressing a large group of economics students in China, attempted to assure the students that Chinese investments and assets in the United States remained safe and 'secure'. The Chinese (appropriately, some would say!) responded with laughter and derision! Shortly after that, in a speech given overseas, President Obama assured the world that the country of Iran has "legitimate energy concerns" which might, he seemed to imply, somehow justify that nation's allegedly 'peaceful' pursuit of nuclear 'power'. Since every educated person in the world is well aware of the fact that the nation of Iran is practically floating on a sea of oil and natural gas, that comment must have given a lot of people around the world (including the Iranian leaders themselves) a pretty good chuckle! And now some accomodating agency of our federal government, no doubt with our president's approval, decided to prepare a detailed list of our own nuclear facilities and stockpiles and present it to the IAEA, which instead ("oops!") somehow ended up being posted on the Internet instead! (Very amusing for some people, wouldn't you say?). And what was our government's rationale for doing this, you ask? Get this: they say it was an attempt to 'lead by example', and to 'encourage' rogue states like Iran and North Korea to do the same! (Yes, that makes perfect sense. Of course we should reveal our secrets and vulnerabilities to the world! That way the lunatic fanatics running countries like Iran and North Korea will see our fine, upstanding example and be so impressed that they will want to voluntarily emulate our behavior!). ...The Iranian and North Korean leaders (not to mention the Russians and Chinese) must be getting a real belly laugh over U.S. actions of this sort! ...I could be wrong, Mr. President, but I was under the impression that we were supposed to be trying to deter America's enemies (and potential enemies), rather than trying to keep them amused? ...Was I wrong?