Jimmy Carter redux is a particularly apt expression here. Whether these themes Obama is forwarding are a reflection of a deeply seated naivete or a more conscious and willful reflection of ideological interests, despite a conscious awareness of balance of powers realities around the globe, is difficult to say. I tend to suspect it's some grey-area, combination of the two, rather than a full-bore naivete. Otoh, it's truly difficult to say since the answer to that question is not at all apparent.

Look at the tell-tale and more blatantly threatening situations around the globe, variously, in places like Lebanon, Sudan, Israel, Waziristan and Pakistan at large, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, prominent and increasingly insular enclaves depicted in the Londonistans around the globe, Venezuela, southern Thailand and the Philippines still, etc. It's in that global environment that Obama is making such promises and still riding the BDS wave of profoundly confused political perceptions and naivete. So again, Jimmy Carter redux or Jimmy Carter II, is all too apt.

(And do we really have any ICBMs on a "hair trigger" alert? This seems utterly implausible, at least so if anyone has ever fired something like a 44 magnum that truly has a hair trigger mechanism. It's sobering, even for those who are accustomed to handling weapons.)

I also wonder how long these youTube links will remain up since they are particularly revealing. The low populism that has now become deeply entrenched in Democratic polities, via the MoveOn and KOS crowd and similar groups, will be especially prominent this election cycle in youTube and wiki type sites, both within the formal infrastructures (i.e. ownership, mgmt. and employees) of those sites and, of course, outside of those more formal infrastructures, among the hoi polloi. I don't think they've become thoroughly or absolutely coopted in a Pravda-like manner, but very often they do show signs of leaning in that direction.

"Third, I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal."

Comments like this make me nuts. How exactly would you enforce this ban, Sen. Obama? If a small country, which we might call Insanistan, starts enriching uranium -- and they deny it or refuse to stop it -- what will you do next?

More to the point, how do you deter a country from developing the very state-of-the-art weapons that you have pledged not to use?

"If you don't stop enriching uranium, we will invade you with hundreds of thousands of American troops for you to take potshots at. Or we might target you with one of our old and carefully-maintained weapons... if they still work."

Once there was great fear of an all-out nuclear exchange between the world's most powerful superpowers; America's development of ever-more-powerful weapons fed that fear. But, as we later learned, that itself was a crucial factor in outspending the Soviet Union to oblivion.

Now American nuclear weapons serve largely as a deterrent, and an extremely cheap one at that. Nobody expects the United States to use its nuclear weapons frivolously; but nobody forgets that the United States invented them, and has them in quantity. This can make it unnecessary to go to war in the first place.

Perhaps Sen. Obama simply prefers an old-style massive infantry invasion. Or perhaps he doesn't understand the concept of deterrent, a.k.a. threatening force that you hope you never have to use.

Don't forget to vote in November!

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Scarily enough--and I say this as a person who loathes President Peanut Farmer ("PPF") with every fiber of his being--Barack Obama may be even MORE naive than PPF.

BHG