July 25, 2008

Obama's European Love Parade

By Soeren Kern
More than 200,000 Germans turned out in Berlin on July 24 to hear a carefully stage-managed Barack Obama tell them exactly what they wanted to hear: If he becomes US president, America will become a whole lot more like Europe.

Amid roaring applause, Obama told the assembled masses that he shares Europe's utopian globalist worldview. The junior senator from Illinois promised to beat American swords into European plowshares, and American spears into European pruning hooks. Obama declared that the world should be rid of nuclear weapons, the war in Iraq should end, and that the world should join together to confront global warming, reject torture and welcome immigrants. Under Obama, nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Obama was also careful to indulge German narcissistic anti-Americanism by criticizing the United States on foreign soil: "I know my country has not perfected itself," he said. "We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." Germans are loving it.

And especially the German news media, which has taken upon itself the task of elevating Obama into a cult-like figure. The leftwing magazine Der Spiegel says Obama would make a good "President of the World." The mass circulation tabloid Bild calls Obama a "political pop star."

Obama's Berlin speech followed weeks of controversy surrounding the appropriate venue. German Chancellor Angela Merkel successfully prevented Obama from using the symbolic Brandenburg Gate for "electioneering" purposes. Her thinking is that only sitting presidents should be afforded that honor; anything else would be presumptuous rather than presidential. 

As a result, Obama ended up delivering his address at the Prussian-era Siegessäule (Victory Column), a militaristic monument that celebrates the founding of the German Empire in 1871, as well as the concomitant conquest of other American allies in Europe.

Are there any historians among Obama's 300-plus foreign policy advisors? The Siegessäule was moved to its current location by Adolf Hitler in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital "Germania." Hitler saw the column as a symbol of German superiority.

Or did Obama deliberately choose the Siegessäule venue because in recent years it has served as ground zero for the Love Parade, an annual dance festival/political demonstration for love, peace and international understanding?

Is Obama a "Blame America First Democrat"?

Obama's image advisors hope his trip to Germany will bolster his foreign policy and national security credentials with American voters. After all, Obama has rarely traveled to Europe and he has convened no policy hearings since becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs.

But what are Obama's views on Europe? Given his lack of foreign experience, Obama's views on Europe may be easier to discern by examining what some of his foreign policy advisors are saying about Europe.

Take, for example, Denis McDonough, Obama's chief foreign policy advisor and a former legislative aide to former Senator Tom Daschle (D-ND). He believes the new mission for the transatlantic alliance should be the pursuit of low-carbon energy alternatives. Like Europeans, he also wants US foreign policy to be more Iran-friendly.

Then take Philip Gordon. A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Gordon is an (unpaid) advisor to Obama on European affairs. Like much of the American foreign policy establishment, Gordon believes that further European integration, which implies the counter-balancing of American power, is in the US national interest. Gordon also believes that the creation of a European army, one which may undermine NATO, is good for America.

No big surprise, then, that Obama says he supports "Europe's strategy of enlargement, which has been history's most successful democratization strategy and has brought peace, stability and prosperity to millions."

As any honest observer of contemporary European politics will acknowledge, the European Union is not a democratic project, as the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty proves. Moreover, the United States, not Europe, is responsible for the peace, stability and prosperity that millions of Europeans have taken for granted since the end of World War II.

More perplexing is Obama's outdated notion that further European enlargement is somehow in the US national interest. Although the European Union started out in the 1950s as a benign economic bloc, in recent decades it has morphed into a complex political project that seeks to turn Europe into a global superpower that can counterbalance the United States on the world stage.

The biggest barrier to European superpowerdom, however, is its lack of a credible military capability. As a result, Europeans are working assiduously to balance the geopolitical scale with the United States by establishing a system of international law that de-legitimizes the use of military "hard power." The European objective is to make it increasingly difficult for the United States to use its military might to resolve international problems. It is the Lilliputians tying down Gulliver.

The problem for the United States is that Obama says he supports the European project. This implies that he either does not fully understand the ramifications for the United States of further European enlargement, or that as a "global citizen" Obama wants to replace American exceptionalism with a post-modern globalist agenda of saving the planet from, well, America.

This, in any case, was the thrust of Obama's pandering of German public opinion in Berlin. Indeed, the very fact that Europeans are so captivated by Obama should be a warning to Americans: Beware.

Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group

Comments

"President of the world?"

That alone should strike fear into the hearts of freedom lovers everywhere...

The longer I watch and listen to Obama, the more I become convinced that apart from knowing little, he understands even less. I used to call him the Obamessiah. That has changed in recent days to the Obamoron.

If Mr. Obama's world tour does not backfire on him, I have sadly overestimated the collective intelligence and wisdom of the American electorate.

Helen

Obama is a highly intelegent,well trained, purpose driven Marxist. Make no mistake he and his supporters know exactly what they are saying and what they want to do. Destroy America as we know it and rebuild it into a kinder gentler, shall we say a compassionate United Soviet Socialist States of America. He has the talent of communicating Marxist ideas so they are palatable to the "open minded" american. He just wants everybody to share (redistribute the wealth) in the proceeds of hard work, ect, ect. We can pray that 51% of those who vote will see through the slight of hand.

It is like in a chess play - you count your adversary's possible move and try not to make ones to play his hand. If European Union becomes a superpower with no army and US under Obama undercut its military while pursuing low-carbon agenda then the West heads for a major collision with Russia and OPEC countries. Being opportunists Russians may decide to grab back Eastern Europe plus the Western part (with G_ds; help so to speak). What will be Obamas' next move - to start the next World War or to surrender? Do not be deceived by notion that Russians are so weak that they cannot conquer even Chechens. They cannot conquer Chechens because Chechens are ready to fight till the better end and the West are not. So, please think it over before going to the voting booth in November.

I liked the part in his speech about "This is the moment when we vanquish terrorism", or some blathering verbosity to that effect. So . . . what have we Americans been doing the last 7 years? Sucking our thumbs along with the Euroweenies?

And what, praytell, is "Improbable Hope" supposed to mean? Hell, I still haven't figured out what "Audacity of Hope" is all about. I'm really fed up with even "conservative" commentators giving this douchebag undeserved credit for being "eloquent." Eloquent my ass -- the guy is a semantic gymnast who sounds like he has Roget's Thesaurus scrolling down on the teleprompter. Pardon my "racism," but since when does doing an imitation of Algonquin J. Calhoun with better diction and elocution count as actual eloquence?

Who was the last democrat presidential candidate favored and jubilated by the Europeans? And did he win or lose?

So I say, bring those Euros on, the louder they are the better.

Quoted from BernieO "As for the presidency as psychodrama, TB Schreiber, above, says we have already had eight years of that, but he is referring to Clinton when an even better example is our current commander-in-chief. Anyone who has looked into Bush's background knows that he has a lot of the same problems as Obama - identity problems, father issues, hubris. The racial issue for Barack adds a dimension but both men have serious daddy problems. It is well known that Bush was the black sheep in his family and has always had problems getting approval from his father. (When he was first elected as governor his parents were too upset about Jeb losing in Florida to be happy for him. They were positing Jeb to be president.)
Bush clearly set out to show daddy how to do things the right way when he went after Saddam. I, for one, do not want a man who is using the presidency to give himself an identity, whether the man is a Democrat or Republican."

Actually that really isn't true about approval from his father. When Bush ran for Governor of Texas I just happened to be living in Brownsville Texas and worked for a man who was extremely active in politics. He had contributed large sums to George Bush Senior's campaign, and was active in Campaigning for W, not just contributing but into actually getting him elected. Now this area of the US is different than most areas, and this was a family ran business, and he had no qualms about integrating campaign business with the rest of the business. So when we answered the phone at times it was businnes and at times it was campaign business so we were all involved. We were also involved in all the campaing functions happening in this part of S Texas to get him elected, and we were invited to them. There was talk WHILE HE WAS CAMPAINING FOR GOVERNOR that if he won he would run for president, and talk that he would most likely be president. He was being groomed for presidency even as he was running for govenor. And I never got the impression it was to prove anything to daddy, there were lots of pictures around of this old boss posing with Bush senior, and I want to say there was correspondence from him, that was a really long time ago, so I don't think it was a renegade black sheep thing at all. Maybe in the college days, but not at that time. So it is hard for me to believe that it was actually Jeb who was being groomed for president and everyone was so upset when Jeb lost and George won when all and I mean ALL the talk I heard was of W being president before he was even elected govenor. It might have been one of them would go on, I would buy that, but not that one was favored over the other. And then when he WAS elected, the talk immediately turned to being president, at least in my office, and that was the day he won. He visited a few times campaigning, I had no idea I was witnessing a man who would one day be president. I think you fell for some Deomocrat need to paint the picture you describe, gossip essentially, but I really don't believe it's accurate. That sure isn't what I saw, i saw no mourning that W was elected and jeb wasn't. Interestingly enough I didn't think much of him at the time, I was a democrat back then.

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