Obama Has Good Cards

Between the fall of communism and the beginning of terrorism, the lack of enemies in Washington brought in an unfathomable loneliness crisis of identity and imperialism.

Bill Clinton came, invented the “humanitarian bombing” in Kosovo, and real economic growth to a virtual economy by allowing civilian use of the Internet and creating the so-called “cyber bubble.”

With George W. Bush that bubble exploded, so he promoted the “housing bubble” and the 9/11 emergence of terrorism as an enemy.

Bush governed on two false premises: he looked for the nonexistent weapons of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Around 110,000 Iraqis, 50,000 Afghanis and 6,000 Americans were killed, and serious social problems are now associated with veterans. Hundreds of thousands were left injured and millions were displaced from their homes, villages and countries. We spent $1.3 trillion and we didn’t find the weapons of Hussein or bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama came to office to find a burst housing bubble, a collapsed Wall Street, and a broken country with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan spending money we didn’t have. Obama began to fix the economy, began troop withdrawal from Iraq, but tripled the number Afghanistan. Starting with 30,000 troops, Obama sent another 70,000 and said that in 14 months (before elections) we would withdraw 33,000, promising “full retirement” by 2014, still leaving the 30,000 he started with.

Obama will “change the mission.” He will stop “pointing” to the Taliban to “point” to Pakistan, while controlling mineral rich deposits recently discovered in Afghanistan. Obama admits that we’ve had a “difficult decade,” that the country is tired of wars and promises to rebuild the nation, promoting a new “technological bubble” like Clinton. Pakistan is a good enemy: there exists Islamist fundamentalists, anti-American and nuclear-armed, angry that we executed bin Laden, their guest of honor. Obama has very good cards, but he is lacking the guaranteed security that could ensure his reelection.