During the first half of March, while the American people were stunned by the earthquake and tsunami devastating Japan, simmering with outrage over four dollar gasoline and scratching their heads with curiosity as their Commander in Chief launched an all-out Blitzkrieg against Libya, a minor, third-world North-African dictatorship that posed no plausible threat to American interests, the White House prestidigitator slipped in one of those changes that he spoke so much about during his campaign, but never really described. This change had to do with the United States policy regarding the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. You remember Iran? The Middle Eastern hotbed of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism that has been financing, training and arming the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents, the financial big-daddy Warbucks of Hezbollah and Hamas, the country that calls the U.S. the “Great Satan”, and the mad-dog terrorist supporting nation that is right on the edge of being able to mass produce sophisticated nuclear weapons.
In 2006 the United States was the prime mover behind U.N. resolution 1737 and the imposition of sanctions against Iran because of their efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the threat they would certainly pose to the world if they were successful. The United States moved guided missile cruisers into strategic positions off the coast of Iran, the U.S. military began staging war games in the area, and our government did everything possible to cut Iran off from the outside world. The entire basis for the US effort to build a European nuclear shield of strategically placed interceptor missile ground stations was predicated on the development of a system of defenses that would “protect Europe from a potential Iranian nuclear threat.” Another nation waving nuclear weapons around was bad enough, but the thought of nuclear weapons in the hands of a theocratic nation of fanatical Muslim extremists that has been openly hostile to the United States and has threatened one of our allies with certain extinction was beyond the pale of acceptability and no greater threat to U.S. national security could be imagined.
When the Israeli military was prepared to take decisive action and could have more easily taken care of the problem the United States stepped in with heavy diplomatic pressure and stopped them. As our long-term ally, the nation of Israel accepted our assurance that the Iranian nuclear threat would be taken care of. We appreciated their unflinching loyalty to the U.S. and expressed our cognizance of the fact that their nation was a small island in a sea of Islamic hatred and hostility, completely surrounded by sworn enemies dedicated to their annihilation. We made promises and those promises were accepted. However, while much of the world and the majority of the American people were completely distracted by earthquakes, tidal waves, death and destruction, the sudden massive increase in the price of gasoline and U.S. President’s seemingly bizarre decision to initiate a third military conflict by attacking a sovereign nation that had not attacked them, and one in which the United States had no vested interest, Washington confirmed Israel’s growing suspicion. The United States, under the direction of Barack Obama, not only pushed the sanctions against Iran to the back burner of the national security stove, he expressed the fact that the U.S. had no intention of interfering militarily with Iran’s continued effort to develop nuclear weapons. As an added affront to the nation that trusted us to keep our word, the Obama administration refuted the claim made in the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran closed down its nuclear weapons program in 2003, admitting instead that credible intelligence existed to indicate that the Iranian’s never stopped their military nuclear research program and may have actually increased their efforts. This disclosure made the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate look like nothing more than a pretext to stop the Israelis from taking military action while giving the Iranians more than four years of time to both increase their military defenses and harden their nuclear research facilities.
The fact that the United States has given up in their attempt to keep nuclear weapons out of the Iranian weapons stockpile is not back page material for any newspaper. The policy change has staggering diplomatic and national security implications for the United States and its western allies, and it is a very good indication the United States has essentially turned its back on the nation of Israel. In fact, we not only turned our back on Israel, we intentionally stopped them from acting against the threat until it was too late for them to easily eradicate the problem, and we may have signed their death warrant in the process. Since the American news media is not addressing this quixotic change in U.S. foreign policy, and the Obama Administration seems content to stay behind the smoke and mirrors while the American public remains largely ignorant regarding what their government does, who they are doing with, or to whom it is being done, sensationalism remains the fare of choice while the teeth of Liberty’s gears are grinding down, snapping off, and the American people keep motoring along oblivious to the monumental catastrophe churning away under their collective hood.
The United States of America didn’t become known as the greatest nation on Earth simply because it was big, sprawling and offered lots of territory on which people could spread out and live. There are bigger countries on the planet today and many that were far bigger than the U.S. have long ago failed and disappeared into the history books. The things that have made the United States of America attractive were the qualities it developed as it grew and matured. The deeply embedded sense of fairness, an appreciation for honesty and truthfulness, a deep and abiding sense of integrity, a true understanding of respect and unwavering loyalty to the nation and to all of its people are the qualities that have held this nation together, and they are the same qualities that once made the U.S. the envy of the world. These qualities are not simple affections picked from the catalog of available characteristics, they are in fact, the essence of the American spirit, and one by one, each added atop the other, they are the sum total of all that we are as a nation and as a people. The reduction of one diminishes all of them as certainly as removing one gear from the transmission of a car would diminish how it operates. If you pull enough gears out of the transmission, or simply knock off every other tooth on a few of them, eventually that thing with the four rubber wheels will be rendered useless for transportation, and essentially, it will no longer be a car but a fancy aquarium with a couple of couches mounted in it. You can still call it a car but it will just sit there, doing nothing. You can start the engine but it won’t take you anywhere, and it will serve no useful purpose. Can the United States reduce honesty or loyalty from its list of qualities without diminishing the sum total of what we are? Can we eliminate respect and a sense of fairness and still be considered the greatest nation on the planet. How many of our friends can we turn our backs on, how many allies can we abuse with our secret agreements and shoddy manipulations before it becomes apparent that the United States is a fair weather friend that can no longer be trusted? Admittedly, business is business, and we can’t let Pollyannaish notions of what is right and wrong dictate which path we will follow to the future, but all actions have consequences. Yes, we may still have our oversized houses, our automobiles, our IPods and our Facebook friends, at least for a time, but will it be the same? Will we able to con ourselves into thinking that it is the same as it always was? Will we be able to keep up the con when our former friends are being slaughtered as a result of our actions? At what point will we, as individuals, have to face the realization that our nation is no longer The United States of America, the greatest nation on the planet, the home of the brave and the land of the free? At what point will we, as individuals, have to face the realization that the dream of our forefathers is dead, our government has been overthrown by corrupt political elitists, our beloved liberty has been reduced to crumbs swept from the table of gluttonous masters, and the word “freedom” means nothing in our vocabulary. Are these the changes that Americans sought when they went to the ballot box in 2008?
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