AntiWar.Com
by Kelley B. Vlahos
07/14/09
President Barack Obama’s trip to Africa did not include Somalia, but the president needn’t go there to see that U.S. policy in Somalia has been an utter disaster. In fact, it would have been impossible for him to get anywhere near Mogadishu, because there is no real government to speak of, not to mention clean water, safe shelter, or even enough hopeful locals to greet him on the tarmac. The capital city is worse than a ghost town, it is chaos, a space defined by relentless violence and a symbol of every failed attempt to fix it. From the safe distance of Ghana, Obama was able to reiterate the next in a string of ill-conceived attempts to help Somalia...
http://tinyurl.com/n8pe38
Should Americans be humble?
Tibor's Space
by Tibor R. Machan
07/13/09
After president Obama traveled abroad recently it became clear that he wanted to present himself and, indirectly, America as a nation, differently from how he believed President George W. Bush did this. In particular, Mr. Bush was generally seen by his critics as more of an ‘ugly American,’ following the character of the novel by that name, written half a century ago by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer (who exemplified the sort of American who tended to be insensitive to the rest of the world’s population, their customs and languages, etc.). Mr. Obama seems to want to change this by appearing to be less arrogant, swagger less than Mr. Bush. Instead Mr. Obama wants to be friends with virtually everyone, even those who have no interest it being friends with America and Americans, including him...
http://tibikem.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B2FD693F4B9A5746!994.entry
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Somalia
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Kelley+B.+Vlahos
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tibor+R.+Machan