Obama's Astonishing Ignorance of American History
The following courtesy of Jack Kelly on Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obama_needs_to_study_history_b.html
In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."
To begin with, the statement is factually-incorrect at the most basic level. Neither Roosevelt nor Truman talked to America's enemies. They both refused to negotiate with the Axis, pursuing a strategy of total conflict. The war ended, not at conference tables, but in the smoking ruins of Aachen, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese surrender was even signed aboard a battleship anchored in Tokyo Harbor, to drive home the point to that they had completely lost the war.
Roosevelt, of course, died before the Soviets became our enemies. When he talked to Stalin he was conferring with an ally, not an enemy. Likewise, Truman only talked to Stalin when Stalin was friendly. During the Greek and Berlin crises, and the Korean War, Truman instead pursued American interests through the use of force.
Kennedy, alone of the three Obama named, actually had a summit meeting with the Soviets. The results were not encouraging. After the Berlin Summit, Krushchev decided that Kennedy was weak, and would tolerate his deployment of IRBM's to Cuba. Indeed, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which nearly ended with a medium-sized nuclear war, was the result of the Berlin Summit.
Kennedy did, of course, communicate with Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only, however, after he had established American strength by blockading the island and mobilizing the US Armed Forces.
The scary thing about this is that Obama majored in political science, with a focus on international relations, at an Ivy League school. I went to a bargain-basement college and have only a BA in History, yet I've known all the history I discussed in this post since I was a teenager.
Yet another way in which Obama is not qualified to be President.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obama_needs_to_study_history_b.html
In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."
To begin with, the statement is factually-incorrect at the most basic level. Neither Roosevelt nor Truman talked to America's enemies. They both refused to negotiate with the Axis, pursuing a strategy of total conflict. The war ended, not at conference tables, but in the smoking ruins of Aachen, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese surrender was even signed aboard a battleship anchored in Tokyo Harbor, to drive home the point to that they had completely lost the war.
Roosevelt, of course, died before the Soviets became our enemies. When he talked to Stalin he was conferring with an ally, not an enemy. Likewise, Truman only talked to Stalin when Stalin was friendly. During the Greek and Berlin crises, and the Korean War, Truman instead pursued American interests through the use of force.
Kennedy, alone of the three Obama named, actually had a summit meeting with the Soviets. The results were not encouraging. After the Berlin Summit, Krushchev decided that Kennedy was weak, and would tolerate his deployment of IRBM's to Cuba. Indeed, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which nearly ended with a medium-sized nuclear war, was the result of the Berlin Summit.
Kennedy did, of course, communicate with Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only, however, after he had established American strength by blockading the island and mobilizing the US Armed Forces.
The scary thing about this is that Obama majored in political science, with a focus on international relations, at an Ivy League school. I went to a bargain-basement college and have only a BA in History, yet I've known all the history I discussed in this post since I was a teenager.
Yet another way in which Obama is not qualified to be President.