IMovedOn.org

In the last part of my message to you,  [click here] I congratulated you on an excellent campaign and expressed many of my concerns and disappointments in what has transpired.   I expressed mostly a disappointment in the "press"…the profession of journalism but mostly I was disappointed with the 62 million Americans who voted for Obama – those who heard his wonderful words while blindly ignoring the choices he made in his past.

Yes, I’m disappointed with you – the Obama supporter, not because you wanted "change"…but because you seemed totally unconcerned with the character of the person who you were entrusting to deliver that "change".

One of my readers (and cousin of mine…an ardent Obama supporter) pointed out that Obama is just as inexperienced as Lincoln was when he was elected president and he was careful to point out that there was no "therefore" implied by his comment.  While I can agree with him that lack of experience is no prescription for success as President, I must observe that lack of experience coupled with breathtaking deficits of moral judgement do bode ill for success as President.  While President Lincoln was definately inexperienced when he became President, there is every evidence that he had a spotless character.

It is my most fervent prayer that Obama’s choices in his past have no bearing on how he will act in the future and if indeed there is a "different Obama" that somehow I was unable to see, I will be honored and happy to acknowledge his good deeds in the future once I see how Obama chooses to act as President of the United States.

Since this is a letter to those who voted for Obama, I’d like to point out a few things that seem obvious.  First off, while the bulk of you were voting "against Bush" – you must also realize that the vast bulk of those who voted for McCain were in fact voting "against Obama".  I say this because Bush won’t be running in 2012 (he wasn’t in ’08…but not in a lot of people’s minds) ….but Obama most likely will be running – he will have to increase his appeal well beyond today’s level to win.

While Obama ran on the "get out of Iraq" platform, he has inherited a "victory in Iraq" and he will need to insure that it stays that way – while the war in Iraq may have been unpopular, America paid for it in blood and treasure and we Americans would absolutely hate to see that investment botched.    Obama ran energized by a lot of people who lived through the 60′s Vietnam-war protest era. While that may have been a great tactical move to get himself elected, he and his supporters need to notice a key difference between then and now:  in the Vietnam-war protest era you had throngs of veterans coming back home to energize the anti-war movement (John Kerry amongst them) – today you have the vast bulk of veterans supporting our efforts in Iraq – they know that it’s in America’s interest…it’s in the interest of the civilized world  that Iraq be left as a democracy – tolerant of the "the other"…whether they be Shite, Sunni, Kurd, Jew or Christian.  Our mission there is critical if we are to avoid a wider global war that would, more than likely, kill millions [see here] .

Obama will get an education over the next 4 years, an education paid for by our children’s blood and our nation’s treasure – it is my sincere hope that he is a very, very quick study.  He will soon understand that "peace" is not the absence of "war" – that peace is brought about by people respecting each other’s existence and each other’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

America will come to learn that "war" is what happens when all other avenues for arriving at "peace" have been blocked.  America will ultimately come to learn that the ultimate and unresolvable "block" to peace is when a "people" engages in or supports terrorism.  Terrorism is the ultimate and final statement that the terror victims – not only the ones killed – but the entire people that are being terrorized do not have the right "to exist".

George Bernard Shaw observed that " We learn from history that we learn nothing from history" – we are seeing this observation vindicated yet again.   What Obama will ultimately learn and America will have to re-learn is that when dealing with megalomaniacs – with people who want to "take over the world" and create a worldwide "order" – that it is much, much, much cheaper in blood and treasure to stop these people early rather than later.  As much as President Bush does not seem to have a firm grasp of the English language – he spoke the truth clearly when he said "..as if some ingenious argument would persuade them that they had been wrong all along…we’ve heard this foolishness long ago…the false comfort of appeasement which has been repeatedly discredited by history" .

I was brought up, and I’ve tried to bring my kids up with the idea that it is not bad to make a mistake – but… to make the same mistake twice is really, really bad.  It would be truly a sad, sad commentary if my children or grandchildren have to look back on my generation and ask "why didn’t you study history?"… why did you make the same mistake again?  World War 1 killed 1.2% of the world’s population.  World War 2 killed 2.8% of the world’s population.  To understand the value of avoiding a World War 3 – we have to understand that 2-3% of the world’s population today represents almost 1/5th of a billion souls.

If, and I really mean "if", the war on terror – bringing Iraq into the 20th century…allowing it to create a stable and tolerant society… if the "war on terror" succeeds – and that victory motivates other peoples to demand the same freedom from tyranny that the Iraqis have created – then we will most definitely will have avoided making the same mistake twice.  Yes, we will have sacrificed much blood and treasure – but nothing like the sacrifice that would be extracted if we fail now.

So, my dear Obama supporter – I really, really, really want Obama to succeed as President – to succeed at leaving the world a better place than when he took office.  Unfortunately, my perspective now is that President Obama is appearing to not be an Abraham Lincoln, but a Neville Chamberlain.  All his eloquent words, all his lofty rhetoric and visions of "change" will simply not be achieved if the man doesn’t have the moral spine required.

I hate to be so gloomy…so pedestrian…so practical….but as it looks now, I just hope that in 2010 we can make him think twice before he puts his hands into our children’s wallets.

– Robert Light