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Obama's 'Smart Power' Play
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As he heads to Southeast Asia, the president has a chance to re-engage with the region’s Muslims, strike a blow against radical Islam—and separate himself from Bush.
President Obama is on his way today to the only part of the world where vast numbers of Muslims actually want Americans to join them in the struggle against the forces behind terrorism.
Unlike their co-religionists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, the quarter-billion Muslims of Southeast Asia—as many as in the entire Middle East—are appealing for Americans to work alongside them to drain the swamps of poverty and ignorance that give rise to the soldiers of jihad. Their only qualification is that these Americans come in sandals and sneakers, not combat boots.
This is what they say when you meet them: Help us with education—science and mathematics—with agriculture, sanitation, roads, and drinking water, in developing small businesses and manufacturing. In short, they want us to help them develop and to improve their fledgling attempts at building democracies. This is the very definition of “Smart Power,” the policy approach to which Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have given voice since the Bush administration swaggered out of town.
For the United States to recapture the admiration and respect it has lost among the people of the ummah—the global Islamic community—the place to begin anew is Southeast Asia, a region feeling the stresses of rising Islamic fundamentalism but increasingly democratic and generally at peace.
On Sunday, Obama is to meet privately in Singapore with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, home to 220 million Muslims—the largest Islamic population in the world. Indonesia’s strident fundamentalists, some 4 million strong, are challenging the government to promote Sharia, or Islamic religious law.
Obama will meet as well with the leaders of the Philippines, where well over 120,000 Muslims and Christians have slaughtered each other since 1970; of Thailand, where more than 3,500 Muslims and Buddhists have killed each other in the last four years; and of Malaysia, whose Chinese and Indian minorities are increasingly fearful as Islamic fundamentalists there, too, seek the supremacy of Sharia.
Obama’s host in ethnic Chinese-dominated Singapore—the region’s greatest economic success story—President Lee Hsien Loong, told me recently of his fixation with “sitting on a global fault line” between Indonesia and Malaysia and his worries about the emerging religious fundamentalism among the city-state’s own Malay-Muslim minority. In recent extended travel throughout the region, I found new signs of fundamentalism everywhere.
Nearly 40 years ago, Obama lived as a child in Jakarta with his American mother and his Indonesian stepfather. Back then, at the height of the Vietnam War, the Muslims of Southeast Asia were renowned for their moderation. Women may have covered their hair with a light scarf, but almost none veiled their faces or hid themselves beneath the burqa. It was the rare man who grew a beard, and many drank and dined with non-Muslim friends.
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• Big Fat Story: The Toughest Issues Facing Obama in AsiaAll that and more is shifting as Obama makes his first official trip to the region as president of the United States—an achievement by a man of color with a recognizably Muslim middle name that thrills Southeast Asians. Moderation is suspect, as growing numbers of Muslims turn to the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam, to reaffirm their identity. It’s a trend that is worrisome to the majority, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Their leaders, who are reluctant to confront the forces of fundamentalism for fear of stirring a hornet’s nest of the poorest and least educated, undoubtedly will press Obama to re-engage with a part of the world the United States has largely ignored since its defeat in Vietnam. The president would be wise to see the good sense in this. Americans should have learned by now that killing Muslims will not result in victory but will serve only to embitter even more Muslims. The alternative is to help them.
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This is excellent and an accurate characterization of the Vietnam war. Being of draft age with a student deferment I read extensively about Vietnam, it's history and us involvement. My uncle was in the US House of Representatives at the time and remember discussing the conservative reaction after the fall of Hanoi...their intense shame at "cutting and running" rather than staying and killing every last one of them...even at a point where that would have meant killing nearly all of them.
That reaction says something about the conservative psyche and tells a lot about what we might expect when a leader is seen as a peacemaker. The talking point will be that he dishonors the troops.
This will only prove that satirical takeoff on that magnetic yellow ribbon labeled "support our troops" which is a mobius strip labeled "support our troops by sending more troops."
There are untested alternatives to "killing them all" and it will take some intelligence and popular support for it to gain traction.
ppatt54: I would suspect that you're a lying sonofabitch with your student deferment and "book" eduction of Viet Nam. I spent three years of my life in that damn jungle. First I would suggest you read your post carefully. Once, and if, you discover where you screwed up, thank God and a veteran for your freedom to write such drivel.
crypto: Unfortunately, your three years in the Vietnam war were a waste. Not your fault - I'm sure you did your best under nightmare circumstances. It was those damn politicians (and top-level generals), egged on by the neocons of that era, that threw you guys into the meat grinder.
The 58,000 American soldiers who died in Vietnam were lost just as uselessly as the 4,000 soldiers who have died so far in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I just don't understand why we are wasting the lives of these men and women in uniform.
Alan, Democrats took us into Vietnam.
As a conservative I think going to war means WINNING the war. Liberals like giving out ribbons for 5th place, but conservatives like WINNING. There are no moral victories. Having said this, I wish Obama would do one or the other. Either bring them all home and say the hell with it or send all the troops McChrystal is asking for. QUIT WAFFLING. and don't give me this b.s. about "giving careful consideration blah blah blah" we all know you don't spend much time thinking Obama.
I guess you have forgotten, clearthinker, that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent our first "military advisers" into South Vietnam.
Counter-insurgency experts say we need one soldier for every ten civilians to win a guerrilla war like we face in Afghanistan. If this is true, we need to put 2.8 million American soldiers there, not just the 110,000 that McChrystal wants.
So if you want to win this war, reinstate the draft, double our taxes, and send those soldiers over there.
Personally, I say bring our soldiers home.
Reply to Alan: The "neocons of the era" were John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, Robert McNamara.
You don't know what would have happened had the Vietnam war not been fought. In that war, as in Iraq, hatred at home undermined the militarywho put their lives on the line for a bunch of spoiled brats who stayed safely at home, smoked dope, organized hate marches and whined. They are still whining.
No American soldier died uselessly. Ask a South Vietnamese who was lucky enough to end up in the United States. Apologize.
isabella: Historical revisionism at work here? The whole world would have been better off if we had not gone into Vietnam. The Vietnam war was a waste. It did not accomplish a single goal that we set out to do. The 58,000 American soldiers killed in Vietnam did die in vain - not that it was their fault, or that they didn't do their best to win the war. At least half of those deaths were due to politics, as Democrats were afraid to end the war because they would then lose the next presidential election.
As for the "neocons of the era" being the Kennedys and McNamara, they were spurred on in large part by the claims of Republicans / conservatives that Democrats were "soft on communism". Sounds a lot like recent claims about Obama, doesn't it?
By the way, those "spoiled brats who stayed safely at home, smoked dope, organized hate marches and whined" included George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and most of the neocons in the Bush administration who were so instrumental in getting us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Alan D2:
Robert Kennedy was the Joe McCarthy of his time, a fanatical anti-Communist and probably a little bit unbalanced. You are the revisionist.
You might have been an anti-war marcher who abused returning vets, but Bush and Cheney were neither marchers, nor whiners and I will bet they didn't abuse vets.
Hanoi???? Saigon, dummy!
A merchant seaman, I was there in '68. The night before the tet uprising i waas in an opium den, in Saigon, smoking the opium pipe with some North Vietnamese regulars. General Westmoreland should have asked me about all the strangers in town.
michaelslevinson.com
Surely grievance-mongering in Chicago's more "diverse" neighborhoods is good training for international diplomacy.
Welll, the 150 days in the Senate shouldn't be minimized either...
We elected the Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers and we're expecting...what?
HA HA HA>..... I love it!!!! The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers....
The silver-spoon chicken hawk frat boy approach was much more effective, right maladapted?
Let's put this another way.
Muslims should have learned by now that killing Americans will not result in victory but will serve only to embitter more Americans.
There! That's better.
You may like it better, downunder, but for me, the truth is this:
Americans should have learned by now that killing Muslims will not result in victory but will serve only to embitter more Muslims.
Regardless of which point of view is correct, it is pretty clear to me that these wars are not doing either side much good.
You may be right but the Muslims extremist wont give up killing anyone who is not a Muslim, thats the goal. So you can go to war, not go to war, its not going to make a difference to them.
As long as you are not a Muslim they will attack!
So whats your solution?
So we should pay the dhimmi and welcome the Sharia while they go on killing us until we convert.
In your dreams AlanD2.
Why are you putting words in my mouth, isabella?
You would rather we continue our wars until all Muslims in the world are dead?
Are you willing to accept wars lasting hundreds of years with hundreds of thousands of dead American soldiers?
Because that's what it would take to make you "safe".
I am not sure we can win any war against "Muslims" who love death more than we love life.
If it was impossible to know the enemy in Vietnam, it is more so in Islamic countries, America and other western countries where terrorists live among us,hiding in plain sight among other Muslims in more or less closed communities.
We fought Nazis and Italian and Japanese Fascists with no holds barred and won. We are trying to fight Islamo-fascists in handcuffs and a gag, thanks to the traitors at home who would rather destroy America than risk offending innocent people who have been encouraged to think their sensitivity is more important than the nation's safety.
We can't win unless people are free to report suspicious activity to authorities who will act, but high ranking military officers were too intimidated to stop Hasan and General Casey thinks diversity is more important than preventing further attacks on his unarmed soldiers.
Afghanistan can't provide a half-way decent leader. We have to stop sacrificing the best of our youth to help people who won't help themselves and use the funds saved to prevent further attacks on America.
And if Obama thinks giving money to Indonesia will stop Islamic terrorism, I've got a bridge he might want to buy. While he's there he should take a vist to Bali and ask the Hindus there how they feel about it.
He can give all the speeches he wants but we're at war with a group of people who will never negotiate willingly.Militant Islam has declared war on the west and unfortunately it's either us or them.We have to take the fight to them wherever they are or risk having their disease infect our own country like we saw at Fort Hood.We need to stay in Afgh. so we can bomb Pakistan and Iran when they get crazy and we need to crush Al Qaeda in Indonesia.Any country that we have to go into should pay the taxpayers back with their natural resources.Did we win World War ll by giving speeches or did we win by bombing every town,every railway,firebombing entire cities,dropping nuclear bombs and mercilessly slaughtering our way across Europe and Asia?Our way of life isn't perfect, but it's the finest country to ever exist on this planet and the time has come to defend it.All the Dems. do is figure out ways to take from the country and never seem to find the ability to defend our way of life,always ashamed ,never proud.
The sixties generation has dropped the ball in every way and our country will be lucky to survive it.
We liberate countries from tyranny.We're not oppressive,we're freaking hero's and it's time for Obama to stop flying around the world apologizing to third rate countries for how evil the U.S.A. is.
Just remember,without the U.S.A. Europe would be ruled by the Third Reich,Asia would be dominated by the murderuos Japanese, and the world would have never known the sweet voice of Dean Martin.
gameon: It was talk like this ("it's either us or them") that wasted the lives of 58,000 American soldiers in Vietnam.
That war was useless, and so are the two unwinnable wars we are now fighting.
We could withdraw all of our military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan without much risk of long-term consequences to America. Continuing these wars just inspires more Iraqis and Afghans to enter the fight against us.
You may like to think of us as liberators in these wars, but to most of the inhabitants, we are invaders.
My response to both of you men who seem to have more experience than me in this matter, I am an outsider and i think I am younger by the sounds of both of your stories.
You BOTH have valid Points. I dont know if anyone is more valid, but you both make perfect sense.
One good thing about that is you are in a country that you have the right to disagree and both be right. Thats a great thing.
Well al,ask the victims of 9/11 if we can pull out of Afghanistan without consequences for America.As for Vietnam,it showed we wouldn't allow communism to spread unchecked.If your a fan of communism,which I assume you are ,then of course you view that as useless but I do not.
Stopping murderous regimes is not an easy or fun thing,but it has to be done.Just because you and gill have decided the best option is to bury your head in the sand doesn't mean that the rest of us have to.
Gil as an "historian" i'm sure is aware of the anti-war protests that took place prior to Pearl Harbor because people were assuming that we would join the war.Signs like "Hitlers not America's problem" and the like.The anti-war protestors vaporized after Pearl Harbor.America realized that problems over seas could easily effect us at home.We should have stopped Hitler at Munich but the country lacked the foresight and will power to act in our own interests.Radical Islam is our modern day Hitler.
What will it take for you to realize radical Islam is a threat?A nuclear explosion in a major city?They say they want to do it,why do you not believe them?What about hijacked airplanes being flown into buildings or
suicidal gunman killing people at military bases or infidels getting beheaded on the internet would those things convince you?Apparently not because they're already happening.
It might make you feel morally superior to say all wars are useless ,but sometimes we just don't have a choice.If you can't reason with evil men,then you have to destroy them.
gameon: If Bush and Cheney had been paying attention, or cared, 9/11 most likely would never have happened. Intelligence and good police work are the best (and often the only) way to prevent terrorist attacks.
Vietnam showed we couldn't win a guerrilla war in southeast Asia. It didn't do a thing to stop the spread of communism, which turned out to be a figment of conservative imagination anyway.
What's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan confirms that we can't win these types of wars. Too bad we didn't learn from Russia's mistakes in Afghanistan.
Terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon and smuggling it into America is so unlikely that you might as well forget about it. Why not worry about our sun going nova too? The long-term effects of global warming are much more likely to affect us, but many conservatives deny AGW even exists.
gameon, bad things are going to continue to happen in America no matter what we do. The real question is whether our fear of these things will change us so much that we are no longer Americans. I think you are headed in this direction.
I don't have time to educate you about communism and our strategy to defeat it,but we were winning Vietnam,Tet was a failure, and pulling out of Vietnam gave rise to the Khmer Rouge and the deaths of millions of Cambodians.We could have stopped that,but more accurately you and your type could have stopped that genocide but your reluctance to fight for what is right resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent Cambodians and Vietnamese citizens at the hands of communist rulers.I'm sure they would disagree with your "figment of your imagination" line.Your taking the "high road" approach to everything makes you feel good,but you have the deaths of millions on your conscience.
Global warming?You guys call it "climate change " now that the earth is actually cooling down.You put up flawed science then get mad when nobody buys it.It's far from a proven fact,it's a fearmongering tactic that the left is using to regulate businesses and gain political power.
Terrorists getting a dirty bomb is very likely and Iran getting Nukes is just a matter of time.They both say they'll use them when they get them.And like always you'll pretend nothings wrong,and like always people like me will do what needs to be done to protect this country.How nice it must be to sit on the side lines and let others do the dirty work for you.
On a side note, at what point was it appropriate to stop Hitler and the Japanese?Were they figments of the Rights imagination also?
Stop it. If Bill Clinton had taken delivery of Bin Laden when the opportunity arose, 9/11 would not have happened.
As a very politically-aware moderate, an historian, and someone with an IQ over 11, I feel qualified to say this: You're an idiot.
Typical liberal response.
Judged by your post I suspect you measured your own IQ, but never mind, politically aware, moderate and AN HISTORIAN. You really are impressive, even if your IQ is very low.
Message to liberals - these people hate us with every ounce of their bodies. Fancy speeches will not change that.
Neither will waging war on them, neverlate.
War seemed to convince the Germans and Japanese to change their ways.
Really, gameon?
The last Japanese soldier to surrender was Captain Fumio Nakahira who held out until April, 1980, before being discovered at Mt. Halcon on Mindoro Island in the Philippines.
Apparently war didn't convince him to change his way.
One guy?He was a dumbass who thoght the war was still going.This is stupid.
Sort of like your posts, gameon.
wow ,very impressive al.
Sodomy and bestiality are common in an Afghan culture where women are kept under lock and key. Only the wealthy can afford to have normal sex. Roadside bombs have killed millions of camels. Young boys are no longer safe in a nation of sex starved farm workers. Protecting the camel is a necessity in a nation where calm once prevailed.
Hmmmmm, "Obama's chance to separate himself from Bush? Both Bush and Obama dance to the same puppeteer. Obama has expanded upon many of the Bush tyranny programs. Obama will now stop on a dime and do a 180 degree turn? This is the stuff fiction is made from.
To the one who seems to hate Muslim and Arabs, please go see the movie 2012 it should be down your alley.
One of his first acts in Asia was a groveling kow tow to the Emperor of Japan, son of Hirohito.
This in the wake of his bow to the King of Saudia Arabia.
It is unseemly beyond words for an America president to bow to any king or emperor. Let alone the waist-deep, subservient one he gave in Japan.
Entirely outside our traditions.
This is why many have felt there is something alien about Barack Obama. He clearly does not understand in his bones what it means to be an American.
I am disgusted by these pathetic displays before royalty.
So being an American means being rude and disrepectful? Grow up ChanRobt, the frat boy days are long gone, thank god.
"Obama's chance to separate himself from Bush" - mission accomplished when he completed his first unscripted sentence and proved that he was literate and conversant on the issues of the day.
ChanRobt: I think the truth is that you do not understand what it is to be American.
It sounds to me as if you want us to be Nazi German at the peak of its power, or some other dictatorship that wants to run the rest of the world.
Alan D2. How dare you? Apologize.
isabella: For what? Telling the truth?
It's also unseemly for an American president to wear the jacket of a man who was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. The formal day dress of an American president is a business suit, not a Mao jacket.
Obama does not seem to have a self. He needs to ingratiate himself with every (male) foreign leader to the point of forgetting his own identity.
ChanRobt I could not agree with you more. Obama wants to be all things to all people, even if it means that he has to trash and apoogize for the U.S.
His first unscripted sentence. You mean yesterday when he tried to explain the decision to try KSM in New York? Sad.
Thank you.
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