While Barack Obama was having cocktails in Cuba and toasting the communist relics from a bygone era, Islamic terrorists once again attacked in Europe, this time in Brussels, Belgium.
The full extent of the carnage in Brussels has yet to be determined, but the level of fear and terror generated by Islamic terror has again brought home to Europeans that their problems are in large part self-inflicted. Self-inflicted by allowing practically unfettered immigration for decades now into Europe from Muslim countries, and by not supporting their assimilation into western society, but instead creating enclaves where their anti-western sentiments can fester.
And while the colors of the Belgium flag have rapidly appeared across Facebook pages and illuminate the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the terrorists who pulled off this attack are enthusiastically patting themselves on each other’s backs while they plan more and more atrocities against the West.
During his speech from Havana on the day of the attacks in Brussels, Barack Obama devoted all of 51 seconds of his speech telling the people of Belgium that “America stands in solidarity." This is certain to console the people of Belgium and the rest of Europe, and to send a shiver down the spines of the Islamic terrorists who helped commit these attacks. I can see them shaking in their boots right now worried about what Barack Obama has in store for them.
While I certainly disagree with the administration not cutting short its foreign trip to communist Cuba – a trip that should never have been made in the first place -- I also think a much stronger statement should have been offered by the president in response to what happened in Brussels.
Perhaps the president could have canceled his order for a hot dog and a beer at the Cuban baseball game, and at the least chastised the terrorist for the ecological impact that exploding their bombs causes to the environment. But that would have interfered with Obama’s opportunity to give a speech where he compared the sins of Cuba with his own perception of the sins of the United States of America.
It seems pretty obvious that Obama and his senior staff are either completely tone deaf, or that the choices they make in situations like this are purposeful and calculated to send a specific message. The message is that the United States of America doesn’t really give a damn about Europe’s problems anymore.
When Paris was attacked, the president issued the standard statement of solidarity, and then sent a has-been from the 1960’s over to sing the French a lullaby. All while Secretary of State John Kerry stood nearby gently tapping his foot while lightly clapping his hands, and smiling in approval at the strength of the U.S. response.
Of course, as anyone with a few functioning brain cells knows, the correct response would have been for Obama to quickly finish his visit that should never have occurred, and return to Washington to plan an appropriate response.
Calling all of his senior national security staff to the White House to meet and discuss a more robust American response to what has become an existential threat not only to Europe, but to the United States as well. Then again, this is the Obama Administration, which is not noted for intelligent decisions when it comes to pretty much anything.
As our European allies scratch their heads in wonderment at the lack of American world leadership, and as they count the days down until Obama is gone from the international scene and returns to his Chicago rabble-rousing roots once again, they are faced with what to do in response to the Brussels attacks without American leadership.
A true American leader would take advantage of the anger and unity created by these attacks and lead NATO in a response directed at the seat of ISIS power in Syria. Assembling a coalition of NATO and allied Arab nations to participate in a concerted effort would rid the world once and for all of the ISIS scourge. Attacks from the land, sea and air could destroy the terrorist organization rather quickly, while not requiring any long term commitment.
But American leadership on the international scene hasn’t been evident over the last seven-plus years. It’s been sorely lacking both on the diplomatic front as well as militarily. Old alliances have withered while engagement with enemies like the Islamic Republic of Iran and now Cuba have taken precedence.
And unfortunately, the most likely explanation as to why Barack Obama devoted only 51 seconds to the terrorist attacks in Belgium today during his speech in Cuba, is that he’s likely more in tune with his communist Cuban hosts than he is with our European NATO allies.