Obama: A Better Wartime President?, page 2

Don't know why, but ever since he took office Obama reminds me of Chamberlain, the British PM that tried everything to avoid war... he also got in on a landslide of public opinion.. if anything his views (like Obama in my opinion) reflect the confused will of the people at the time, not prepared to pay the price for war but also not prepared to pay the price for peace..

That confused will (in my opinion) helped open the door to WW2.. So is it really a good war time president you are after, or the political giants who manages to avert war?

I can't help think (and this is NOT just aimed at Obama) that those who inhabit our political classes at the moment tend to be political mice instead of the political giants we really need to deal with the economy and looming war..

If you look at how the press, and people reacted to Chamberlain you'll find that he too was accused of being a supporter of the enemy in the same way Obama is now..

But I prefer Orwells explanation in his essay, England, Your England, pointing out that Chamberlain (and in my opinion Obama) simply reflected the confused will of the people..

In spite of the campaigns of a few thousand left-wingers, it is fairly certain that the bulk of the English people were behind Chamberlain's foreign policy. More, it is fairly certain that the same struggle was going on in Chamberlain's mind as in the minds of ordinary people. His opponents professed to see in him a dark and wily schemer, plotting to sell England to Hitler, but it is far likelier that he was merely a stupid old man doing his best according to his very dim lights.

It is difficult otherwise to explain the contradictions of his policy, his failure to grasp any of the courses that were open to him. Like the mass of the people, he did not want to pay the price either of peace or of war. And public opinion was behind him all the while, in policies that were completely incompatible with one another. It was behind him when he went to Munich, when he tried to come to an understanding with Russia, when he gave the guarantee to Poland, when he honoured it, and when he prosecuted the war half-heartedly.

Only when the results of his policy became apparent did it turn against him; which is to say that it turned against its own lethargy of the past seven years. Thereupon the people picked a leader nearer to their mood, Churchill, who was at any rate able to grasp that wars are not won without fighting. Later, perhaps, they will pick another leader who can grasp that only Socialist nations can fight effectively.
orwell.ru...

So what do you really want? a political giant who can avert war? or political giant who can lead a nation through war?

To be honest, looking around me at the political classes I can not see anyone who matches either description.. and I think it will be that will be the reason the dogs of war are again let lose.

just my poorly spelled tuppence worth of thoughts

edit on 21/11/12 by thoughtsfull because: (no reason given)