NYT op-ed: Why the Muslim World Can’t Hear Obama

This op-ed piece is perhaps the closest any mainstream media outlet will come to echoing my sentiments on America's new president - Barack Obama.

Several months before he even won the election, his rhetoric on Israel (Jerusalem will be the undivided capitol of Israel, he said to an AIPAC audience) and his silence on Gaza (only one President at a time, he said) disappointed me. For someone who has made the english language beautiful again, these statements - and absence of them - makes little sense to me.

I am cautiously optimistic. I will give him the benefit of the doubt, because he was Illinois's "junior senator". He does not have all the requisite foreign policy experience one might need in his position. But he has the resources at hand to help solve these problems. I will give him time. Many more will, as well. But for how long? The world can't wait. Actions speak louder than words.

Barack Obama is scaring me

Many of my friends would never forgive me if I told them I am starting to strongly dislike the democratic candidates for president, but what am I to do? They are turning a new leaf - every week!

I am especially concerned for Barack Obama. This man has set records for campaign fundraising and has become a beacon of hope for millions all over the country, and world. Yet for me, he has become nothing but a puppet in the hands of some newly-appointed neocon staffers or donors. I saw Hillary Clinton as a sellout to interest groups who helped her become the political titan she is today, and I look at Obama with the same disdain - and pity. How tragic to see such a shiny and rising star, already set the stage for his political fall.

His recent stance on Pakistan and its handling of internal and external terrorism is the cause of this rant and change in personal views. One would think that after you make controversial statements about foreign policy goals, you might want to make a critical re-assessment. After all, you're running for president - it's no joke! But Obama goes ahead and plays with semantics. One of my previous blog postings drew another blogger's ire after he completely misconstrued my critique, so I will state explicitly here that whatever I am stating here is a critique on the language Obama has used in the article.

Take, for example, the way many people thought that in his initial comments from a few days ago, he was referring to an invasion of Pakistan if Pakistan didnt crackdown on terrorists or extremists, when in fact, he was really advocating military action in Pakistan - not necessarily invasion. Fine. He's entitled to his thoughts.

Then he publishes this piece, days later, coming clean about what he actually meant: military action in the country. I've copied a salient para from the article below, to give a brief idea of his thoughts:

I have never called for an invasion of Pakistan. You don’t need thousands of American troops to take out a meeting of high-level terrorists. Any student of the American military knows that we have many options to target terrorists with limited force, many of which involve no American boots on the ground. To suggest that targeting terrorists in Pakistan would be tantamount to an invasion is to misunderstand the capabilities of the U.S. military or to misrepresent my position.

Now, he goes into decent detail outlining some methodology, so clearly, he is serious about these actions. This is no joke for him. Which compels me to ask: if he can use military force in one country to root out terror, what makes us safe to think he wont use it in other countries? Perhaps pre-emptively? If one notices the language he uses, he has not once mentioned diplomatic dialogue as a first step in rooting out this evil he has constructed quite simply for us.

This is a whole other discussion, because frankly, Americans should be much more worried about public school shootings and sexual abuse as potential creators of violent citizenry as opposed to "Islamic terrorism" (a very misleading term). If America still valued and held in high esteem what is at its core, we would never need to worry about our security. But today, it is our insecurity that forces us to amass weapons of mass destruction as we single-handedly spearhead an arms race as millions more all over the world vie for peace and security.

Obama's prospects may be good politically, but his statements and bearings have faltered - for the worse. I am fearful of a not-so-pleasant future with all these loonies in the race. Is it too much to ask for a balanced, well-rounded candidate that is on top of the game and doesnt worry about ratings?

Alas, my greed gets the best of me.