The Obama Doctrine is beginning to crystallize in his first 100 days. The fact that both ultra-liberals and conservatives are criticizing him in the fashion they are should give one confidence in the manner in which President Obama is carrying out his foreign policy.

Those on the far left expected Obama to fold up the American military endeavor in Iraq once he became the leader of the free world like one would address and seal an envelope. Obama is a pragmatist and the notion of leaving the fledgling state to their own devices would simply be reckless. In Afghanistan, Obama always stated his focus would be to go after those responsible for 9/11 and his policy in Central Asia has lived up to his promise. Drones continue to strike key figures among those who would do our soldiers harm; most of them hitting targets within the lawless region of Pakistan. President Obama has also increased the forces in Afghanistan.

Obama also doesn’t appear to be the feckless Commander in Chief the right makes him out to be. There is so much banter on the right wing airwaves about Obama disparaging the good ole USA in his recent speeches as if the statements were said in isolation. Each time Obama discussed an American shortcoming he also addressed where the other party has fallen short. So much has been said on the right about President Obama’s dealings with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Chavez is a whack job. If you haven’t had a chance to watch the Frontline episode about Chavez you can view it HERE. It is a great insight into the nature of the tin-pot leader. Chavez was mugging for his country’s cameras when he presented Obama with a book in Spanish entitled, “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent”. It was  undiplomatic grandstanding on Chavez’s part. When reporters asked President Obama after the Summit of the Americas was over about his friendly interaction with Chavez and the fact the Venezuelan president handed him a book which highlighted European and US malfeasance in the region, Obama replied:

“Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.”

To understand the impact Obama’s new expression of tolerance had on the meeting, don’t go to the Carl Roves, Dick Cheneys and Rush Limbaughs of the world. Go to Latin America. How did Obama resonate with the countries with whom he interacted? In Brazil, their President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, praised Obama and called on the countries of Latin America to be more self reliant and end the habit of needing someone to rescue them. 

At times our policies in the region have been atrocious. It seems sometimes as if the flag waving, always love America crowd so prevalent on the right simply refuses to accept history as it was. Have any of these folks studied how the US gained access to Panama through backing an unlawful revolution against the Columbians? Do they have any knowledge of the CIA led overthrow of the democratically elected government in Guatemala which in turn led to a campaign of ethnic cleansing in that nation? How about the US involvement with dictators in South America? One so easily forgets the US annexation of one half of Mexico in the 1840s. Why is it so hard for these people to understand the Monroe Doctrine has led to a blank check for the US to carry out an agenda in the region that has left many Latinos thinking not so kind thoughts of the US? Does anyone think that a kind appearance and handshakes will do harm to American interests in the Latin America? Americans should be proud of the fact we have such a well-spoken man in the White House who is carrying out the office with such good will.

President Obama is also shrewd. After allowing travel by Cuban-Americans to their familial homeland and allowing the sending of remittances there as well, Obama then told the Cuban leadership the ball is now in their court. It is time for you to take a step forward; to free political prisoners and move toward more civil rights. This led the Cuban President Raul Castro to state:

“We’ve told the North American government, in private and in public, that we are prepared, wherever they want, to discuss everything — human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners — everything, everything, everything that they want to discuss.”

Of course these are just words but if Cuba wants the US to move forward with improved relations it is their turn to act.

For the past eight years the only tool they used in their toolbox was a hammer. It is so refreshing to see the new administration utilize their full complement of tools.

Recently there was an uproar among Christian conservatives over Obama’s statement stressing the point that the United States is not a Christian nation.

The argument that is created by the statement is in itself antithetical to American governance. Should a Jew living in the United States be obliged to think he lives in a Christian nation? What makes the United States a Christian nation?

Looking back on the history of this nation, one cannot overlook the Puritans. Better known as the Pilgrims they came here searching to not only find a place where they can escape religious persecution but also a place where their strict form of Christianity would not be challenged. Their oppressive form of worship was so offensive to non-Puritans, many fled the Plymouth colony and established splinter colonies. In the pre-Revolutionary days there were but three religions that held any sway: Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism and a smattering of Jews. (Islam was found only in a few groups of slaves brought over from Africa in bondage).

It is true, Christianity was an influential element of the history of this country. But those who drew up the foundations of this nation were not using the Bible as a blueprint for law. In fact, the founding architects of the United States were using principles that were running perpendicular to religious concepts. The Enlightenment was in full bloom when America declared Her independence (1776) and when the Constitution was written (1787). Thomas Jefferson, an avowed Deist penned the Declaration of Independence and James Madison, the chief mind behind the Constitution spoke about religion:

Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. [James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]

Does that mean there were others influential to the establishment of this great nation that were devout men of the Christian faith? Surely. But to say this nation is a Christian nation simply because the primary religion historically has been Christianity misses the mark. If you believe America is a Christian nation do you also believe it is a White nation? After all, the founders were all White. Most Americans, conservative and liberal, would be uncomfortable with this question. To a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist the statement America is a Christian nation has exactly the same sting. Identifying the US with a religion  runs contrary to the tenants that makes this nation so great. To do otherwise foments exclusiveness.  Therefore, President Obama was correct. America is not a Christian nation. It doesn’t belong to Christians, it belongs to the citizens and we will be a better nation the sooner we all see it is a such.

Ninety years ago today the guns fell silent in Europe. On this day The Great War came to a close after all sides in Western Europe unleashed their remaining artillery stockpiles prior to the time the armistice was to take effect at 11:00 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. WW I was a senseless war, fought mainly for pride and nationalism and led to the deaths of nine million people. The war was waged in the open fields of Russia, the mountains of Italy, the craggy terrain of Turkey and most conspicuous, the trenches of Western Europe. The “silent episode” of that war occurred in Turkey where Armenian Christians were rounded up and executed by Muslim Turks often referred to as the Armenian Genocide. Adolph Hitler, who had waged war for four years in the trenches on the Western Front would later, as dictator, reference the extermination of the Jews with the events of Turkey on his mind. “Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”

The impact of WW I is greatly underestimated since there would be no Second World War without the first. There would be no shaping the warrior mind of Adolph Hitler without it nor the conditions that would ultimately lead to a new generation to wage a more brutal war to settle old scores from the first. There would be no Holocaust which would see a race of people nearly wiped out. Without this string of events there would have been no reason for western guilt that led to the creation of the state of Israel as a haven for persecuted Jews. A haven that is seen by all the other occupants of the region as simply a new form of western colonization; one further complicated by religious hostility on both sides.

Without one war and thus the other there would have been no wartime nuclear program nor a Cold War, at least in the form it took after WW II, thus no Korean War nor Vietnam War and certainly no communist revolution in Cuba.

The lesson we should learn is a war of choice never ends in the way its executors envision…never, and WW I was no exception. Wars have a way of taking on a life of their own.

But on this day, Veteran’s Day we salute those who have kept this nation safe.  From the ill clad Patriots who forged this nation with their blood at Brandywine Creek and Saratoga to the naval gunners who blasted through British warships who had sealed off America’s harbors during the War of 1812. From Zachary Taylor’s boys firing with deadly accuracy their artillery pieces at the hard fought battle of Monterey to Joshua Chamberlain’s master stroke initiated by the 20th Maine at Little Round Top before the small town of Gettysburg. From the gallant doughboys who battled the Jerrys ferociously  in  the Argonne Forest with sure determination in 1918 to the green Marines who waged war against a determined foe in the jungles of Guadalcanal or the determined paratroopers who held their ground around the frozen town of Bastogne despite being cut off in the Christmas of 1944.   From the warriors of the 7th Infantry who held off a massive Chinese army at the Chosin Resevoir in Korea to the dogged determination of the Marines along the Perfume River town of Hue to extract the NVA from the ancient Vietnamese city. From those who routed Saddam’s army in the Gulf in 1990 to the special units who took on an entire city in the dilapidated hovel that is Mogadishu in Somalia in 1992. From those who fought house to house in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah with a fanatical enemy determined to die to those who walk point in the Korangal River Valley in Afghanistan. To all those who have fought and died to keep our nation prosperous, on this day and every day we honor their sacrifice and hope that the leaders who make the decisions to raise the sword will show as much wisdom as these boys have shown valor.

Tonight Barack Obama spoke in front of a throng of supporters in Manassas, Virginia. There is significant symbolism to both the occasion and the location. Manassas was the site of the first land battle fought during the War Between the States; the most violent conflict in American history and the event that began the long process of creating a society that would better perfect the founding documents; the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. The fact that Barack Obama had gathered the night before the election in Virginia speaks volumes about this election. The last time Virginia voted for a Democratic nominee for president was in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson of Texas who would go on to sign the Civil Rights Act that ensured the fracturing of the Democratic Party. Neither Jimmy Carter in 1976 nor Bill Clinton were able to carry the state despite their geographic affiliation. In 2008 a Black man is on the precipice of of taking a state that is the home of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave holders and was the location of the capital of the Confederate States of America in Richmond. To look at that huge crowd that had gathered to hear the northern politician speak and understand the historical significance of time and space should make you proud to be an American no matter your party affiliation.

As you prepare to go to the polls I make one final appeal to assuage your vote; one final attempt to influence you to vote for Obama during this election.

1. Of the two candidates who is the smartest man to extract us from the problems that face this nation?
2. Barack Obama is loyal to both his wife and his two children. Those who rightly found Bill Clinton’s dalliances objectionable should look long and hard at the marital history of the two candidates.
3. The foreign policy problems that face this nation cannot be solved unilaterally. With the world holding its breath in anticipation of a Barack Obama victory, we may be able to hit the reset button on the affection and support this nation experienced following 9-11. Barack Obama will have unprecedented international support to begin his presidency; something that will be greatly needed in the wake of economic woes and ballooning national debt.
4. Barack Obama’s middle name has been a negative during this campaign but it may be an ace in the hole when dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Since Clinton and his foreign policy team were inches away from drafting a peace deal in the twilight of his administration, perhaps a renewed vigor from an Obama administration can do what no president has been able to do in the region.
5. Barack Obama’s favorite book is Team of Rivals, a book about Abraham Lincoln and the people who Lincoln surrounded himself with that would go on to help him win the Civil War, people who had once run against him for the presidency. Obama has promised to create a bi-partisan cabinet. I hold him at his word.
6. Barack Obama has never openly courted the Black vote. He has run an inclusive campaign but anyone who has been paying attention knows the weight African Americans are putting on this election. It is said the Black electorate tomorrow will be off the charts. Obama’s calls for Blacks to take responsibility in their lives and the mere role model he represents will at the very least force the community to take a long hard look at themselves.
7. Finally, the fact this nation elected a minority as President will send a signal to the world like no other that the America they always loved and admired once again is the beacon of freedom and liberty and not torture and war. Obama will be a symbol of that like no other man we could have elected.

Whatever your preference please get out and vote tomorrow. It is the greatest symbol of love and acknowledgement you can give for the sacrifice of those who have given their all for this great nation and for what it represents.

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I would like all my readers to post who they think will win tomorrow and what the electoral college tally will be. You can go to the following website to play around with the electoral college map:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/

It should be no surprise that  I predict an Obama victory. My guess is Obama 332, McCain 206. Of the battleground states I think Obama will win Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Nevada. McCain will take Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri.

Let’s hear what you have to say.

History is circuitous. Go back a hundred and ten years and you will find some eerie correlations with modern events.  Most who know their history will tell you the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor was the cause of the Spanish-American War. To a large extend it was the cause. But ask what caused the ship to explode and the the story gets muddier. The press certainly played a role in stoking the flames of war. William Randolph Hearst is believed to have wired the artist Frederick Remington in Cuba with the line, “You supply the pictures and I’ll supply the war.” Stories of Spanish atrocities there were popular in the “yellow press” of the day. The Cuban revolutionaries were seen in America as later day patriots.

When the US military used the destruction of the USS Maine as a causus belli against Spain, our cause seemed to be just. Not only were we shaking off the remnants of European tyranny in the Western Hemisphere but we were freeing an oppressed people a few short miles from our shore. Cuba Libre! The Spanish were easily routed from the last vestiges of their empire and their colonies became American spoils. The global political climate, however, did not involve altruism for altruism’s sake. Manifest destiny seemed to no longer be bound by the limits of seas and oceans. The Cubans (along with the Filipinos) soon realized that one colonizer had been replaced by another. Though tucked neatly in the Cuban Constitution like a thorn on a rose bush, the Platte Amendment set the stage for a long US commitment in Cuba, one in which the Cubans played a secondary role in ruling their own nation. The results of such heavy handedness are still being felt. A Fidel Castro would never had risen in an independent and democratic Cuba.

In recent weeks we have seen similar vestiges of century old polices reemerge. The Iraqi President Nuri Al-Maliki is currently negotiating a new security policy with the US over America’s long term commitment in Iraq. The current policy, as outlined within the UN, expires at the end of this year and the Iraqis are balking at the idea of an extended US presence in Iraq in its current form. One of the key sticking points is the number of bases that would be allowed to field US troops. Malaki wishes to scale down that number. Another issue is the extra-legality of US and mercenary forces in Iraq. Currently the members of the American military and their support forces are not bound by Iraqi legal jurisdictions. The Iraqis want to see a change in this policy. At odds, also, is the number of US combat troops that will be allowed to remain in Iraq and the free will of their commanders to initiate combat operations without consent of the Iraqi authorities.

On one hand these negotiations are good things. It shows the Iraqis are beginning to exert their political will. On the other hand, the fact the Bush Administration is butting heads with them over these issues leads one to wonder what intentions does the US have for Iraq and what was the real reason why we invaded. There used to be the mantra, “When they stand up, we will stand down.” If the Iraqis are calling for the draw down of US bases and forces, isn’t that what we have hoped for all along? The birth of the new Iraq was so tumultuous. Let’s not botch the end game as well and leave the nation bitter like Cuba in the wake of the Spanish-American War. A strong political will by the Maliki government is a gift and it is time the Bush Administration accepts it.

Death to America! It is the chant that is synonymous with Iran. With Saddam toppled and the North Koreans actively discussing stepping down from their nuclear program the final member of the "Axis of Evil" remains Iran. Their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for the destruction of Israel. This in turn has led to statements out of Tel Aviv that caused a jolt to the markets on Friday. Recently a movie entitled Charlie Wilson’s War told the story of a Congressman who pulled for the arming of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. The lessons from this movie tell only half the story.

Lost in all the debate about what to do about Iran is a forgotten component to the history of the region. For this we must go back over half a century. Up through WW II Iran had been controlled by England. Their vast oil assets were managed by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (despite its name the company paid only a small pittance to the ruling elite of Iran and kept the huge profits in British hands). When Aramco (the Arab American Oil Company) was formed in Saudi Arabia the profits were shared 50-50. Following WW II the Iranian leadership and the multitude of Iranians wished for a similar deal with AIOC. When they were rebuffed by the British a new Iranian leader stepped forward. Mohammed Mossadeq was elected by the Iranian Parliament. Mossedeq was the leader of the Iranian National Front, a liberal, nationalist, social democratic organization that wished to bring democracy to Iran and strengthen itself by nationalizing its oil reserves.  Soon after being elected Prime Minister in 1951 Mossedeq and the Iranian Parliament passed the Oil Nationalization Act. The British protested vehemently, first to the UN and the World Court and then proceeded to pull their technicians out, leaving Iran with lots of oil but no specialists to extract and refine it. After much debate within Britain, they decided to initiate a coup d’etat but the Iranians caught wind of it and expelled all the English diplomatic corps which stopped the coup before it could begin. 1951 turned into 1952 and this was an election year in the US. The Truman administration refused to act alongside Britain. But the new Eisenhower administration was different. The Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles.  Dulles had been a lawyer for large multi-national corporations prior to joining the incoming administration and he was sympathetic to the British and the AIOC’s cause. Though democratic, the Mossadeq government with their oil nationalization program smelled of communism. Dulles (aided by his brother Allen) took on the cause of overthrowing the Iranian government. Code named Ajax, Dulles chose the great grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt to initiate the coup. Hatched in the basement of the US embassy in Tehran, the overthrow of a democratic Iran succeeded and the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza was installed as the new dictatorship. The Shah of Iran ruled harshly until 1979 when the Islamic Revolution swept through the country led by the aging Ayatollah Khomeini. Among the acts initiated by the supporters of the fanatical religious leader; the takeover of the US embassy. Why? Because these new leaders believed the US would again try to oust the fledgling government from the basement of the embassy just as they did in 1953. The ramifications of Operation Ajax are profound. As the radical government of Iran takes hold in the months following the revolution, Saddam Hussein seizes the opportunity to invade Iran as he views incorrectly a weak oil rich neighbor. The Soviet Union, fearing a spread of radical Islam through their southern republics invaded Afghanistan to begin its halt there before it could infect its own possessions. The decade long war weakened the Soviet Union but in the process the US armed the mujahadeen, the very same militants which would become Al-Qaida and the Taliban. And now we are faced with a government in Iran that is politically hostile to the US and eyes a nuclear program. What would the climate be in the Middle East if we had just kept our grubby little hands to ourselves. Sometimes you must be weary of the unintended consequences. This seems to be a lesson that Americans have a tough time learning.

So Oregon holds a warm place in my heart as everyone knows and today the Beaver State is spotlighted in the primary process. This weekend Obama held a huge rally in Portland where over 70,000 people were in attendance. This was the largest gathering to date and what makes this even more unusual is Oregon is predominately White. In fact African Americans weren’t even allowed residency status until the 1920s. Known as the Exclusion Law, Oregon chose to be free of the slavery issue altogether in the mid-19th century by simply keeping Blacks out of the sate. To see the Northwest’s rather contentious race history click HERE.  This shows how much Oregon has changed, especially west of the Cascades. The Democratic race that never seems to end rambles on.

The credit for the following belongs greatly to my old man.

As Bush spoke in front of the Knesset this week he invoked the preface to WW II. I have thought a lot the past few days about the idiotic comments of perhaps America’s most idiotic president and would like to set the record straight for a man who most likely doesn’t read a lot of history.

When Chamberlain met with Hitler in 1938, Britain was trying desperately not to be plunged into another war; a war they were in no way prepared for nor had the stomach to initiate. WW I was still fresh on their minds and the bad taste the Great War left in their mouths made them less powerful. As the Prime Minister of Britain met with the Chancellor of Germany it was from a position of weakness. The British military (navy excluded) had been downsized in the decades following 1918 and the army they did have was spread all over their empire. By 1938 the Germans had long since defied the Versailles Treaty and were on a war economy. These two powers were going in separate directions. Germany was meeting from a position of strength and Britain was meeting from a position of weakness.

If Obama or McCain sits down with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Hamas or any other two bit dictator they will not be Chamberlain. The US spends well over $400 billion a year on its military. In 2005 the US military budget was nearly as much as the rest of the world COMBINED and eight times larger than China’s defense spending. This just shows you how much of an idiot Bush is for making that same old sad WW II analogy of appeasement. To make matters worse, this same President proceeds to Saudi Arabia, a country who requires our military technology to keep their people in line, and begs them if they could do us a favor and up the oil production. Our allies in the Gulf merely brush the President of the free world aside like a bum on the curb with a tin cup. Most conservatives would tell the bum to go get a job. Well I’m telling the bum to get working on an energy policy where we don’t have to be beholden to any dictator. Who is the true appeaser?

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My new bumper sticker for the week:

Purge your Sins, Conservatives. Vote Obama

I read lots of history and political science books. In fact, I haven’t read a book of fiction in about 10 years. I seldom read books written by politicians or agenda driven hacks such as Limbaugh, Carville or O’Reilly. My dad bought me Obama’s last book, The Audacity of Hope, and I read it. I figured if I am going to vote for the guy I would like to know how the guy thinks. It is a great book not just because I agree with him on most issues but because the book is written with a calm practicality. This is why I tell people who are negatively affected by Obama’s preacher to read Obama’s book or listen to the temperament with which he speaks.

Recently I learned Barack Obama’s favorite book is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, a book about Abraham Lincoln and those who first ran against him in the Republican Party and then were brought in to assist Lincoln in America’s greatest challenge during the 19th Century. I wanted to know why Obama chose this book to lead his list. Though I am early into the book I quickly realized why the Illinois senator coveted this book beyond the fact Lincoln was a senator from the same state. Goodwin writes as she refers to Abraham Lincoln in his primary run in 1860:

…in an age when speech-making prowess was central to political success, when the spoken word filled the air “from sun-up til sundown”, “Lincoln’s stirring oratory had earned the admiration of a far flung-audience who had either heard him speak or read his speeches in the paper.

Goodwin later continues:

…Lincoln clearly understood that he was “new in the field,” that outside of Illinois he was not “the first choice of a very great many.” His political experience on the national level consisted of two failed Senate races and a single term in Congress that had come to an end nearly a dozen years earlier. By contrast, the three other contenders for the nomination were household names in Republican circles.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Team of Rivals and enjoy reading detailed history, do so. The depth at which Goodwin paints Lincoln and those who would fill out his cabinet is astonishing. Whether Obama has a fraction of the ability of Lincoln is to be seen, but the fact that he is reading his history and learning from the greats should give comfort to many. 

I leave you with an excerpt from a campaign rally in the capital of Oregon yesterday. Listen to the manner and dignity with which Obama answers the woman’s question. With how big a brush would you like to paint Obama’s relationship with his pastor when you hear this?