August 2, 2012 -- this was elicited by an FB friend this morning. The topic was Syria and the theme Obama's empowering the Muslim Brotherhood: *** Obama has been heavily demonized, Usman Ali, and possibly to his advantage. The short- to mid-range story isn't looking good, but the structure for the long term may be improving for these reasons: 1) the "Arab Spring" has cleared out several relics of the Cold War and earlier periods -- at least, the old dictators are gone, and at least one more is on his way out; 2) by letting the Brothers through, the same may be finding themselves in an insistent open information environment unlike anything any 7th Century personality could have imagined -- essentially, the ranks of the most devoted or most delusional and cruel have been ordered into the global spotlight. In the same way that Hamas has actually to manage a government, cooperate with Israel for basic services and economic development, the Brothers may be finding themselves in a world not only larger than themselves but one that dislikes them. I may be a lone nutcase on this; I may have just been turned off by shrillness in the conservative ranks; but I have stepped apart from the Tea Party herd to suggest that Obama's Administration has been among the most opaque in American history and indeed most deceptive, and that on behalf of American ideals and, in the middle east, Israeli interests. Evidence: 1. Continued high IDF-DOD cooperation and particularly notable integration in the F-35 program, which is costing and earning Israelis a lot of money (I'd hate to be a defense industry oriented accountant) while favoring Israeli initiative in the most critical combat components. 2. Probable cooperation in the cyber-war field with Iran starting to understand that it may not be able to trust its control of its own computers, which is what it deserves for adopting Hitler's attitude and pursuing the same lethal and lunatic course. 3. Global CIA-DOD-Foreign Partnerships in the "War on Terror" that target leadership and thump back "Islamist" gains, most notably today in Somalia, but wherever the Islamic Small Wars are hosted, Obama and Co. are in there. As one cannot kill fleas with a hammer, neither may we expect to settle the range of beliefs or impulses expressed in acts of terror or malicious insurgencies, but with armies to keep the fires small ("low-intensity") and detectives and poets working on both the mechanics and emotional elements involved, we may turn this most repugnant page in global history, but even if and as we do, it will turn slowly. Let us hang Obama with his own rope, for here is his inaugural address: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html?_r=1 Pick at it line by line. Apart from the usual political (call it "Chicago") muck, I think Obama's chief sins have had to do with idealism, naivete, and youth. Well, Obama's a much, much older man today and altogether better schooled. *** Should my voice surface somewhere, I would urge the public, globally, to see the world more comprehensively, to develop a greater appreciation for cultural variants and variance in mind while working also to shear away what has been cowardly, cruel, intemperate, and venal in each cultural set, and to attach that process to a Great Conversation about humanity, psychology, social constructs, values, and the better potentials of our nature.