Oh Bother

I wonder if there has been a time in modern history where the President of the United States mattered less than he does right now. For whatever reason, Barack Obama has decided to take a pass on all issues, foreign and domestic. The thing in Egypt? Meh. Libya? Nada. Japan? Time to golf! Crushing debt at home? Crickets.

Don't get me wrong, I think the only thing worse than a disengaged Obama is an engaged one but it's truly an odd situation in the world now. I certainly hope we all realize that the Germans have dug in as pacifists and that the French President is agitating for military action in Libya. Hell, Sarkozy seems to have even talked the Brits into action.

Sadly, his efforts seem to have fallen on deaf ears, proving once again that intergovernmental organizations are complete frauds. France can't get any traction on a no-fly zone because the European Union wants no part of it. NATO has pretended that it has no idea what's going on and given how things are going in Afghanistan, maybe that's for the best. The United Nations has continued it's unblemished record of allowing dictators to slaughter their own people so long as they keep it in-house.

I've started to hear rumblings as to why this is the situation. Why nobody wants to help the Libyan rebels oust a monstrous dictator. These people fundamentally misunderstand the mission of these groups. Most people think that these groups were created and designed to prevent the kinds of genocide and atrocities seen in WWI & WWII. The exact opposite is true. These groups were created so that all nations could give each other a collective pass for not doing anything.

We know this is true because every time something awful starts happening, all of these groups get bogged down in terminology or bureaucracy. Either finding convenient legal reasons that tie their hands or waiting so long to do anything that it no longer matters. If they really cared, they would have rapid response teams ready to go at all times, instead they find any excuse to sit it out until somebody needs to count the bodies.

Barack Obama is the perfect President to work with these groups. Most leaders have to answer questions as to why they are ignoring the world aflame. Obama somehow just does nothing and the nobody gives him any grief over it. It's truly amazing how much of a world afterthought he has become. It'd be even funnier if that didn't mean the toughest leader in the Western World was a french guy.