It's About America, Obama

National Review: The Ill. Senator Naively Thinks These Are Necessarily Shared And Natural Human Practices

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Victor Davis Hanson.

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What disturbed me about Barack Obama's Berlin speech were some reoccurring utopian assumptions about cause and effect - namely, that bad things happen almost as if by accident, and are to be addressed by faceless, universal forces of good will.

Unlike Obama, I would not speak to anyone as “a fellow citizen of the world,” but only as an ordinary American who wishes to do his best for the world, but with a much-appreciated American identity, and rather less with a commonality indistinguishable from those poor souls trapped in the Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, or Iran. Take away all particular national identity and we are empty shells mouthing mere platitudes, who believe in little and commit to even less. In this regard, postmodern, post-national Europe is not quite the ideal, but a warning of how good intentions can run amuck. Ask the dead of Srebrenica, or the ostracized Danish cartoonists, or the archbishop of Canterbury with his supposed concern for transcendent universal human rights.

With all due respect, I also don't believe the world did anything to save Berlin, just as it did nothing to save the Rwandans or the Iraqis under Saddam - or will do anything for those of Darfur; it was only the U.S. Air Force that risked war to feed the helpless of Berlin as it saved the Muslims of the Balkans. And I don't think we have much to do in America with creating a world in which “famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.” Bad, often evil, autocratic governments abroad cause hunger, often despite rich natural landscapes; and nature, in tragic fashion, not “the carbon we send into atmosphere,” causes “terrible storms,” just as it has and will for millennia.

Perhaps conflict-resolution theory posits there are no villains, only misunderstandings; but I think military history suggests that culpability exists - and is not merely hopelessly relative or just in the eye of the beholder. So despite Obama’s soaring moral rhetoric, I am troubled by his historical revisionism that, “The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love.”

I would beg to differ again, and suggest instead that a mass-murdering Soviet tyranny came close to destroying the European continent (as it had, in fact, wiped out millions of its own people) and much beyond as well - and was checked only by an often lone and caricatured US superpower and its nuclear deterrence. When the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no danger to the world from American nuclear weapons “destroying all we have built” - while the inverse would not have been true, had nuclear and totalitarian communism prevailed. We sleep too lightly tonight not because democratic Israel has obtained nuclear weapons, but because a frightening Iran just might.

When Obama shouts,

Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?

it is the world, not the U.S., that needs to listen most. In this regard I would have preferred Sen. Obama of mixed ancestry to have begun with “In the recent tradition of African-American Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice,” rather than the less factual, “I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city.”

I want also to shout back that the United States does stand for the rule of law, as even the killers of Guantanamo realize with their present redress of grievances, access to complex jurisprudence, and humane treatment - all in a measure beyond what such terrorists would receive anywhere else. It is the United States that takes in more immigrants than does any country in the world, and thus is the prime destination of those who flee the miseries of this often wretched globe.

American immigration policies are humane, not only in easy comparison to the savagery shown the “other” in Africa or the Middle East, but fair and compassionate in comparison to what we see presently accorded aliens in Mexico, France, and, yes, Germany. Again, in all this fuzziness - this sermonizing in condescending fashion reminiscent at times of the Pennsylvania remonstration - there is the whiff of American culpability, but certainly not much of a nod to American exceptionalism. Politicians characteristically say to applauding audiences abroad what they wish to hear. True statesmen often do not.

In terms of foreign affairs, I think Americans will finally come to vote for a candidate, who with goodwill, a lot of humility, and a little grace, can persuade the world that universal moral progress, freedom, and material prosperity best advance under the aegis of free markets, constitutional government, and individual freedom, rather than for someone who seems to think, in naïve fashion, that these are necessarily shared and natural human practices, or are presently in force outside the West - or will arise due to dialogue or international good intentions.

[veteran188]

the NRO should be put out of business

just another propaganda rag

[standlee5]

Wow. Great article. How''d I miss it.

[citadelma]

If McBlame''s platform consisted of something more than inappropriate attacks on Senator Obama, he just might have something to offer the GOP faithful come November than his current diatribe of senile platitudes. While it''s unlikely to change the outcome, at least he might not be perceived as going down in flames...yet again.

[veteran188]

The conservatice agenda is immoral,

defeat the backward looking and ignorant republicon

agenda, we don''t need four more of MCSAME

[bluestardad]

YOU CAN SEE THE RIGHT WING KOOL AID DRINKING NEOCONS DISLIKE OBAMA!

EVERYONE OF THE AIPAC MEMBERS AND THE SEND OTHER PEOPLES CHILDREN TO DEFEND ISRAEL AN THE OIL COMPANIES FOR THE NEXT HUNDRED YEAR CROWD ARE USING EVERYTHING IN THEIR ARSENAL TO DISCREDIT OBAMA.

THEY CANT BUY HIM!

THEY CANT BLACKMAIL HIM!

THEY WANTED TO TAKE HIM OUT ON THIS TRIP!

THEY KNOW HE IS GETTING AMERICA OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST WHERE AMERICA HAS BEEN BOGGED DOWN FOR THE PAST 65 YEARS!

IF THAT ANGERS THE RIGHT WING CHRISTIAN NUT JOBS AND THEIR BRAIN WASHED NEOCONS OR THE DUEL PASSPORT HOLDING AMERICAN ISRAELIS LIKE JOE LIEBERMAN THEN SO BE IT!

IT IS TIME AMERICA DID WHAT WAS IN ITS OWN BEST INTEREST!

THERE IS NOTHING IN THE MIDDLE EAST THAT AMERICA NEEDS!

THERE IS NOTHING IN THE MIDDLE EAST THAT IS A THREAT TO AMERICA!

THE ONLY REASON MIDDLE EAST ARTICLES ARE KEPT IN THE AMERICAN MEDIA IS BECAUSE AIPAC MEMBERS RUN THE AMERICAN MEDIA AND FILM INDUSTRY!

AMERICA STAND UP OR SHUT UP!

TAKE BACK YOUR COUNTRY!

[eroosevelt08]

This author thinks "they" ought to do something. We ARE they.

[eroosevelt08]

Americans ARE citizens of the world. Why limit us to our borders?

[citadelma]

Not Earth shatteringly profound but the fellow who wrote this piece is a shameless, ''azz''. The conclusions presented are totally flawed, based on an hysterical bias towards his view of the inevitability of America, it''s correctness and unsullied preeminence. Has the writer a clue as to how close these opinions parallel the rhetoric and nationalistic dogma of WWII Germany? God Bless her, but the USA remains a furious work in progress. There are many long journeys ahead before this nation reaches the kind of Nirvana he appears to think has already been achieved. Truthfully, the litany of our cultural and social transgressions, our tragic mistakes..all our well documented sins (and sadly not just those committed by the present administration!) in any time frame since our inception go beyond calculation. To entertain any other notion is frankly stupid. Obama hardly aired any secret dirty laundry. Does anyone honestly believe the world hasn''t a clue about our dismal human rights record, for example? If anything, his appraisal was a very charitable assessment of our past and present history, some of which we should be justifiably proud of, but also some coming under the heading of definitely not! There are no lily white skirts surrounding any of the so called civilized societies that occupy this planet, ours very much included. Perhaps it''s time to climb down from your ''holier than thou'' horse my friend..before you get any dizzier..or stupider.

[ioweign]

Victor Davis Hanson writes: "Unlike Obama, I would not speak to anyone as %u201Ca fellow citizen of the world,..."

yep that is why you are a hack writer for a laughably out of touch online rag, and Sen. Obama is an incredibly popular man who likely will be President of the USA.

Posted by andor3 at 02:57 AM : Jul 26, 2008

And now Victor, praise Bush for invading Iraq...

[dashortround]

I want a President that the world doesn''t totally hate, the way it hates George Dubya Bush.

They don''t seem to hate McCain quite as badly - they just don''t seem to care about him at all, really. He''s just such a convictionless flip-flopper.

It''s going to take the election of a man that the world respects for America to regain the respect of the world.

[messiahx4eve]

I constantly AMAZES me how many times people keep confusing COMMUNISM with FACISM/AUTOCRATIC governments. The Soviet Empire and China are NOT or never have been truly communist; they have been either Autocratic or Facist in nature. These are the real reasons that the Berlin Wall really fell. These governments are burning themselves out, running out of power & failing miserably. Eventually, China will fall as will the United States, we will probably see this dynastic cycle in our life time thanks to the present administration and psedo-capitalism we now embrace. Even with the writing on the wall, many of us pretend we can''t read to not face the truth. To deny the truth is as bad as telling and believing in a lie.

[max0010]

The Berlin Wall did not come down because %u201Cthe world stood as one%u201D to quote Obama. The wall fell because of a decades-long, struggle against one of the greatest dictatorial and oppressive ideologies---communism. It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and America. The Berlin Wall was built because of the cold-hearted opposition of communism toward freedom, not because there was a lack of communication. In today%u2019s world there are countries that have true and factual differences in values, morals and religious principals. It is these values like communism that have cause human conflict and suffering, not a failure to communicate.

[dillypickles]

The one thing that keeps nagging away on me is the fact that Obama has this HUGE need to prove himself as if he were the second coming. That part worries me just a little bit. Why does everyone have to think that he is the greatest? Beware of putting someone on too high a pedestal because they may disappoint. He is human, he is not God.

[frankson2]

Oh beautiful for spacious skies yata yata yata

[ubrew12]

andylance1 said: "Obama and the Democrats favor algore''s anti-oil ideology over competitiveness and common sense. "
Arctic oil would feed the world for three years. Then, you''d be out hunting for your next fix. Obama and Gore want to end your addiction, so of course you hate them. ''Common sense'' is pretty bizarre from a junkie.

[andylance1]

Champagne Wishes and Artic Dreams

It is estimated the Arctic has one-sixth of the world%u2019s undiscovered oil.

Russia is competing with Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States to get Artic oil.

Medvedev wants Gazprom Oil to be the world''s biggest company by 2017, and Putin expects oil output to rise by almost 14 per cent by 2015, and has committed his government to cutting taxes for oil firms and introducing incentives for exploration.

Obama and the Democrats favor algore''s anti-oil ideology over competitiveness and common sense. Wave that white flag and surrender now.

[hypnotoad72]

The one world government idea - it''s bad if a Republican talks of it (or the debunked ''North America Union''), but when a Dem starts chirping it''s ooooh, so great and wonderful!!!!!!!!

As for hopelessness, it''s in the thoughts of the mind of the beholder, but that doesn''t mean external factors can''t modify internal thoughts.

[veteran188]

what a crock!

another Con hit piece, more republicon noise,

time for an honest government and how about an honest media for a change.

enough of the lying propaganda

[crewmember1]

Lightweight article reaching for criticism - one of those cases where someone is convinced McCain is the right choice, but now needs to summon up the reasons why. Clearly, McCain has had years of service to our country, and I respect that; quite simply it doesn''t appear to be his time; McCain is up against the Peter Principal which I think he has knocked on that door in his plight for the oval office. McCain does best where he is and that is all right. The Republicans really are trying to sell decency and McCain is a good card to play, but America now knows that 8 years is enough time to sink the US, and things can get worse,and can''t afford to back the RNC on this horse.

[andor3]

Victor Davis Hanson writes: "Unlike Obama, I would not speak to anyone as %u201Ca fellow citizen of the world,..."

yep that is why you are a hack writer for a laughably out of touch online rag, and Sen. Obama is an incredibly popular man who likely will be President of the USA.