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Authors: Matt Margolis,Mark Noonan

Tags: #Nonfiction

150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History (8 page)

BOOK: 150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History
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When the United States mutes its support for human rights and gives legitimacy to tyrants by treating them as rational, civilized members of the world community, then freedom fighters get discouraged – and tyrants become more apt to be brutal, as they become convinced that the United States won’t stop them.

69.
Hidden Drone Attack

On November 1, 2012, the Iranian air force attacked an un-manned U.S. drone aircraft in international airspace. News of Iran’s deliberate act of war was not released to the American people until November 8th, two days
after
the presidential election.
221
It was dubiously explained by the Pentagon that they couldn’t tell us about the attack until after the election because of security concerns.

The Pentagon obviously denied political motivation for keeping the incident secret. However, key Republican leaders, who would normally be briefed about such an incident were not informed about it. Nor was Mitt Romney, who had been receiving intelligence briefings at the time.
222

Obviously, it was better for Obama not to have to explain why the Iranians felt they could get away with an act of war against the United States, and for the Commander-in-Chief to let that act go unanswered was a demonstration of weakness. This could indicate a greater willingness, of course, for Obama to be “flexible” with Iran in his second term just as he promised Medvedev he would be more “flexible.”

70.
Cutting Military Benefits

Aside from cutting our country’s defense budget, Barack Obama has proposed cuts that would cause higher premiums for Tricare, the health care program for
active and retired military and their families
. The White House estimated that the higher fees would generate $6.7 billion in revenues over a decade.
223
Premiums would increase by as much as 345 percent after five years. Pentagon officials are concerned that this change would hurt military recruitment, as health benefits are a key incentive to joining America’s military.
224

Interestingly enough, Obama’s cuts don’t affect unionized civilian defense contractors benefits.
225

One of the more popular provisions of Obamacare is one that lets young adults stay on their parents’ coverage until the age of 26. However, this provision does
not
apply to military families under the military health care plan. For military families to extend their coverage to dependents under 26, it will cost them an extra $200 a month premium, while private plans have no such fee. By August of 2012, only 9 percent of eligible young-adult dependents of service members that were eligible for the Tricare extension had signed up.
226

71.
Condoning The Use of Child Soldiers

In 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which imposed sanctions on countries whose governments used child soldiers. Despite the law, several countries using child soldiers have
continued
receiving military assistance under Obama.

The law, which went into effect in 2010, gives the president the power to waive the penalties as he sees fit. While this seems like a simple human rights issue with no gray area, Obama considered these waivers in “the national interest.”
227
The Obama Administration claimed that the law would have penalized countries that were crucial to the fight against al Qaeda. So, several countries in northern and central Africa have continued using child soldiers, with the effective blessing of Barack Obama.

And what did Obama get out of condoning the use of child soldiers in those countries? If citing the fight against al Qaeda as justification, then apparently these waivers were all for naught. Al Qaeda’s influence in the region has increased on his watch.

72.
Cutting Weapons Programs

In order to ensure that our service members go in to battle with the very best weapons and equipment possible, we must spend money to develop, build and deploy new weapons and equipment. Because we didn’t do this during the years prior to World War II, when we went in to the war we had torpedoes that wouldn’t explode, aircraft that were sitting ducks, and ammunition that was corroded and useless. We paid in blood for that lack of foresight. Because of this, each post-World War II President has ensured that the budget for new weapons and equipment met the needs of the moment. But Obama is taking a different approach. He wants to cut defense because he needs the money elsewhere, but he also doesn’t want to reduce the number of personnel in the military and civilian defense establishment (at least he didn’t during the 2012 campaign as that would have swollen the ranks of the unemployed). So, Obama chose to make the bulk of his defense cuts in development and procurement. All told, 40 percent of Obama’s defense cuts come from this area which means we’ll spend $110 billion less than needed between now and 2017.
228

73.
Nominating Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court

One would exepect the Commander-in-Chief, to be supportive of the military in all respects. So, it was rather troubling that Barack Obama nominated someone anti-military to the highest court in the land. While dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan banned military recruiters from campus in protest over the military’s “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy. Kagan was nominated to replace the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, a military veteran. Many veterans were outraged at the nomination.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness called the nomination “unfortunate,” referring to Kagan as “a nominee whose only significant record indicates deliberate hostility and opposition to laws protecting the culture and best interests of the American military.”
229

9/11 Family members were also outraged over the nomination of Kagan for her role, as Obama’s Solicitor General, in protecting the Saudi royal family from lawsuits for their alleged role in funding the terrorist attacks.

The suits were filed by thousands of family members and others affected by the Sept. 11 attacks. In court papers, they provided evidence that members of the Saudi royal family had channeled millions to al Qaeda prior to the bombings, often in contravention of direct guidance from the United States.

But Kagan, acting as President Obama’s Solicitor General, argued that the case should not be heard even if evidence proved that the Saudis helped underwrite al Qaeda, because it would interfere with US foreign policy with the oil-rich nation.
230

Between her lack of support for the military, and for the families of the 9/11 terror attacks, it is baffling that Kagan could have survived the screening process of potential Supreme Court candidates, let alone be nominated.

74.
Islamic Radicals at the White House

According to the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Bama, “it is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
231
That is pretty clear and straight forward. Boiled down, it means that if you are non-Muslim, then the Muslim Brotherhood is your enemy. If any group should be watched and opposed by the United States – the champion of pluralist government and freedom of conscience in the world – then the Muslim Brotherhood is it. And, for the longest time, that is exactly how the United States treated the Muslim Brotherhood: as an enemy in practice. Until Obama became President.

In April of 2012, it was revealed that White House officials had met with members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The White House justified the meeting, saying that the Muslim Brotherhood would play a “prominent role” in Egyptian affairs going forward.
232
Indeed, they would. After all, the White House had played a key role in ousting the Mubarak regime, which had kept a lid on the Muslim Brotherhood.

But that’s not all. According to an investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.”

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors’ names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:


Been designated by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist trials; Extolled Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizballah;


Obstructed terrorist investigations by instructing their followers not to cooperate with law enforcement;


Promoted the incendiary conspiratorial allegation that the United States is engaged in a “war against Islam”— a leading tool in recruiting Muslims to carry out acts of terror;


Repeatedly claimed that many of the Islamic terrorists convicted since 9-11 were framed by the U.S government as part of an anti-Muslim profiling campaign.

Individuals from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) visited the White House at least 20 times starting in 2009. In 2008, CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist money laundering case in U.S. history – the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in which five HLF officials were convicted of funneling money to Hamas.
233

These are hardly the types of people that should be given access to the White House, meeting with top administration officials, and potentially influencing the administration’s foreign policy.

75.
The First Anti-Israel President

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, each President has reinforced the United States’ commitment to the safety and liberty of the Israeli people.

But, under Obama, the United States has taken a different direction in its policy towards Israel. With Obama in the White House America has aligned itself more with Israel’s enemies. In 2009, during a meeting with Jewish leaders, Obama acknowledged that his administration’s policies would put “daylight” between America and Israel.
234
And he’s certainly done a good job in doing that. Obama’s anti-Israel record practically speaks for itself. Here are a few examples:


He called on Israel to return to the “1967 borders,” which Israel considers indefensible.
235


He called on Israel to stop all Jews from moving in to the West Bank; no call on Muslims to stop moving in to the West Bank, just a demand that Jews stop moving there.
236


He legitimized the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has called Israel the world’s worst human rights violator, while ignoring such violations of other countries.
237


He refused to accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
238


He let Iran know that if Israel defends herself and strikes at Iran’s nuclear facilities, then Israel is on her own and we had nothing to do with it.
239


He snubbed and insulted the Prime Minister of Israel when he was visiting the United States.
240


He tried to interfere in the Israeli elections to secure the defeat of Prime Minister Netanyahu, whom Obama earlier had snubbed and insulted.
241


He met with representatives of the Hamas terrorist group, which is responsible for launching missiles into Israel.
242


He nominated anti-Israel Chuck Hagel as his Secretary of Defense for his second term.


He never visited Israel during his first term, despite visiting several of its Middle East neighbors.
243


He excluded Israel from his Global Counter-Terrorism Forum. However, eleven Muslim countries were invited to join.
244

American Jews have traditionally supported Democrats, and despite Obama’s undeniably anti-Israel record, he has maintained that support. The late Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City and lifelong Democrat, supported Obama’s reelection despite acknowledging that he knew in his second term Obama “would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel.”
245

76.
Not Knowing Who Our Allies Are

Even if we were to excuse Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience at the beginning of his term, one would think that by the end of his first term, he’d have learned a few of the basics. It certainly seems obvious that the President of the United States would know who our allies are. But in September of 2012, Obama made an embarrassing gaffe of potentially enormous consequence when he said of Egypt, “
I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we do not consider them an enemy
.” White House aides and the State Department had to scramble to correct the record that Egypt is, in fact, a major non-NATO ally, and has been since 1989.
246

BOOK: 150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History
12.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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