In Europe, he chastised America for what he called our “arrogance.” In the Caribbean, he gave the dictator of Venezuela a warm smile and a handshake, and called him “amigo.” Before the Saudi king, he bowed low and long.

And just the other day, in a cynical nod to Turkish generals, the American president who campaigned for human rights quietly avoided the word “genocide” in a resolution marking the anniversary of the 1915 Ottoman Turkish slaughter of more than a million Armenian Orthodox Christians.

A few years after that slaughter, as he prepared to engage in his own genocide of the Jews, Adolf Hitler was credited with saying: “Who remembers the Armenians?” The United States may remember, but our president can’t call it genocide.

Ah, yes, his trip to Turkey. Our guide in Turkey mentioned Obama’s two days spent there in Istanbul. He lifted up his hands, and his eyes to the heavens, and said, “yes, people here think he is the new savior.” There was a tinge of irony in his voice, thankfully. I was glad he appeared not to have been sucked in by Obama’s rhetoric. And all I could think was, “He has benefited from a GREAT marketing campaign, that man.” I might add, there were VERY few responses to the guide’s having said this, but in particular, there were no enthusiastic affirmations. Perhaps after Obama’s unwillingness to call genocide what is is, there may be fewer Turks who see him as The Messiah.

Kass continues:

Still, President Barack Obama offers himself up to an adoring world — and the enraptured, Hopium-smoking American media that helped elect him — as a leader more flexible than his hopelessly rigid predecessor, George W. Bush.

And he’s proved it, charming nations and their leaders, remaining in campaign mode, where he’s most comfortable.

While in Egypt, at the Citadel and its two mosques, we were all on the bus getting ready to leave. One of the constant souvenir hawks kept talking to people on the bus, and said, “I love Barack Obama! He will change the world! I hate George Bush and Tony Blair!” Well, I couldn’t disagree with his last assessment, but one of the other women on the bus, when he said Obama would “change the world, ” muttered, “We’ll see.” Again, not an enthusiastic response from the people on the bus (different group, for the most part, too, by the way). But it is clear that the MSM, Plouffe, and Axelrod meme that Obama really is a change agent, in contradiction to his entire political history thus far, and his underhanded way of even getting into politics in the first place (getting everyone thrown off the ballot), has taken root abroad. People believe what they want to believe, facts notwithstanding. It’s one thing for people in other countries to buy this stuff – they can’t vote here. Quite another that people here bought it. But I digress.

Back to the USA and John Kass:

But last week, he bowed to his base in the hard political left by reversing himself, opening the door for the prosecution of Bush Justice Department officials who helped develop harsh interrogation policies for suspected terrorists.

Some call it torture and legitimately oppose it. Others say harsh interrogation — such as waterboarding — was necessary after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But what Obama accomplished by opening the possibility of political witch hunts was to offer up one of his own eyes to his political supporters. He needs both eyes to see a dangerous world.

The week began when Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos to reiterate Obama’s pledge not to prosecute.

“He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided,” said Emanuel, no fool. “They shouldn’t be prosecuted. … It’s time for reflection. It’s not a time to use our energy in looking back in any sense of anger and retribution.”

Two days later, Obama abruptly changed course to please his anti-war base that demands a few severed political heads.

“With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say, that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general,” he said. “I think there are a host of very complicated issues involved there.”

His critics used phrases such as “chilling effect” on intelligence gathering, but I call it the pucker factor. In all bureaucracies, it rolls down hill.

Of course, Obama caved. Anyone who thought he would do otherwise was sadly mistaken.

As for his releasing of the Torture memos, a number of my fellow writers at No Quarter have taken this on, including none other than Larry Johnson, American Girl In Italy, and SusanUnPC, to name a few. No need for me to get into that with such stellar writers already dealing with it, except to say – once again, Obama did not consider the implications and/or ramifications of doing so, including, as SusanUnPC pointed out, the impact on some of his more sychophantic supporters like Nancy Pelosi. (If you haven’t had a chance to read those, and others, I highly recommend that you do.)

Kass continues on the torture theme:

Reporters are kind of like intelligence gatherers. We don’t waterboard politicians, but we’re under pressure to get good information. So, let me tell you a story.

In 1985, I was a kid in the news business, and our gossip columnist, Mike Sneed — now at the Sun-Times — got the story of the year: “Reform” Mayor Harold Washington had been secretly taped pressuring a fellow to get out of the 3rd Ward aldermanic race. It sounded like raw politics. It didn’t sound anything like reform. And Washington was enraged.

Jim Squires, then our editor, decided to publish transcripts but tell readers the tapes were leaked by Washington’s white ethnic political opponents who wanted to embarrass him. Fair enough.

Then he ordered me and another young reporter to find Sneed’s source and walk back the cat. I didn’t want to do it, but he was the boss and Sneed understood, and after a few days, he dropped his harebrained scheme.

Yet for a long time afterward, sources worried they might be outed. Reporters were concerned their bosses might investigate their sources. And in the gathering of political intelligence, when sources start puckering up, they’re not going to kiss you. You get scooped.

And some editors shriek, “How did you get scooped?!” even when they knew that the boss made a decision that sent spasms through everything. More spasms ensue. The pucker factor multiplies exponentially.

Now THAT is a quote for the ages, isn’t it? “The pucker factor multiplies exponentially.”

Kass makes his point:

Obama isn’t an editor. He’s the president of a nation targeted by terrorists and constantly probed for weakness, even by our allies.

His intelligence gatherers — and others who give them the tools and the go-ahead — can’t spend their time wondering if he has their backs.

His statements surely sent spasms through bureaucracies that are vital to his own success and America’s safety. All because he wanted to campaign, rather than lead.

Our president has a fine ear for language and nuance. Yet sometimes he shapes his principles to fit the moment, something anyone who watches Chicago politics understood years ago(Emphasis mine.). The Democratic machine candidates he eagerly endorsed for re-election — from Boss Daley II to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger to disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich — are testament to Obama’s flexibility.

But he must stop campaigning someday, and start thinking like a chief executive. And he’ll need both eyes to see where he’s got to go. (
jskass@tribune.com)

I could not have said it better myself. Except to say that it isn’t just the intelligence gatherers who have to wonder if he has their backs, but ALL Americans. When the President of the United States goes abroad and insults the very people he was elected to serve, it does raise the question if he indeed does. Personally, I never suffered the illusion that he gave a damn about the American people – he seems to care about one person and person only: himself. Still, his position alone as POTUS would certainly IMPLY he has a duty to not trash us in other countries while apparently campaigning for Master of the Universe. Just sayin’.

And, while I know others are writing about this, a president who cares, really cares about the people whom he was elected to serve does NOT, DOES NOT, have a PHOTO OP of a 747 being chased by an F-16 Fighter Jet flying over lower Manhattan and New Jersey. The bubble surrounding this man and his inner circle is mighty thick, and mighty clueless. (If you have not yet heard about this incredibly insensitive, assholic move by the White House, click HERE and HERE for just two articles on this.)

If Obama is truly capable of leading, rather than just campaigning, and having his ego stroked, it is time, PAST time, for him to hop to it. And enough with the press conferences already, too. And the vacations (I’ve lost count, but it has been at least three in the first One Hundred Days. Feel free to enumerate them if you know of more!). And playing games while real issues are arising (golf, basketball, whatever). That is all to say, President Obama, get to work already.

Despite a campaign promise that he would boldly use the word “genocide” as president when describing the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the early part of the last century, President Obama deliberately avoided use of that word in his statement today on Armenian Remembrance Day.

“We’re profoundly disappointed,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told ABC News. “All the more so because his statements on this in his record before he became president nailed it in terms the facts, the practical side and the moral dimension. He repeatedly talked about this during the campaign, and he was really harsh on President Bush, he said it was inexcusable that Bush refused to acknowledge that this was genocide.”

Hamparian says President Obama “finds himself doing exactly the thing he so sharply criticized the Bush administration for, which is being euphemistic and evasive. It’s a bitter thing for Armenian-Americans who really believed him and really worked hard.”

In a July 28, 2006, letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President Obama protested her decision to recall U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John for using the G-word.

“That the invocation of a historical fact by a State Department employee could constitute an act of insubordination is deeply troubling,” then-Sen. Obama wrote. “When State Department instructions are such that an ambassador must engage in strained reasoning — or even an outright falsehood — that defies of common sense interpretation of events in order to follow orders, then it is time to revisit the State Department’s policy guidance on that issue.”

Obama told Secretary Rice that the “occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 is not an ‘allegation,’ a ‘personal opinion,’ or a ‘point of view.’ Supported by an overwhelmingly amount of historical evidence, it is a widely documented fact.”

But Mr. Obama’s statement today does not use the word. He calls the genocide “one of the great atrocities of the 20th century” and mentions the “1.5 million Armenians who were subsequently massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.” He uses the Armenian term for “The Great Atrocity” — The Meds Yeghern -– and he calls for “a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts.”

But he does not use the word.

“He made it so clear throughout the campaign that that word mattered,” the ANCA’s Hamparian says.

That is indisputable. Mr. Obama said that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”

[...]

Read all of “Despite Campaign Pledge, President Obama Refuses to Use Word ‘Genocide’ When Describing Slaughter of Armenians.”

Thank god for Jake Tapper and crew.

BELOW, MORE HILLARY on Obama’s friendliness towards Hugo Chavez, the case of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, Turkey and Armenia, and Indonesia and the U.S. — even our policy on “hurricane hunters”!

“Clinton: Imperative to Stop Iran on Nukes”
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is an imperative for the United States, which is taking a more active role in pursuing that goal. (April 22)”

“Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) raises three issues to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a House Foreign Affairs Committee – missing constituent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007; the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia; and the importance of fostering a strong relationship between the United States and Indonesia.”

“Congressman Mike Pence questioned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the recent summit in Latin America where President Obama was photographed shaking hands and warmly greeting Hugo Chavez. This exchange took place during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.”

“Congressman Ron Klein discusses the international issue of hurricane hunters with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”

Demonstrators shout anti-U.S President Barack Obama slogans during a protest in Istanbul April 7, 2009. Obama is on the last leg of his debut trip on the world stage as president. He is trying to rebuild ties with Muslims after anger at the invasion of Iraq and war in Afghanistan, made more urgent by a strengthening al Qaeda and Taliban insurgency.Picture taken with a fish-eye lens. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski (TURKEY CONFLICT POLITICS)

Second image: “Many invited Obama to head back home. He had planned to do just that on Tuesday — but then made a surprise stop in Iraq to visit US troops on Tuesday.”

Protestors hold a banner against US President Barack Obama's visit during a demonstration in Istanbul on April 6, 2009. Obama, seeking to boost ties with a key Muslim ally, firmly backed Turkey's bid to join the EU and tread carefully on Armenia's decades-old claims of genocide. AFP PHOTO / MUSTAFA OZER

Third image: “Turkish demonstrators walking on a photo of Barack Obama in Istanbul.”

Turkish demonstrators walk on a picture of US President Barack Obama during a protest in Istanbul on April 7, 2009. Obama earlier met with university students for a discussion, before wrapping up his two-day trip to Turkey with a visit to the 16th-century Sultanahmet Mosque in the ancient heart of Istanbul, following strong messages of US reconciliation with the Islamic world on his maiden trip to a mainly Muslim country. AFP PHOTO / DIMITAR DILKOFF

“Moving forward toward Turkish membership in the EU would be an important signal of your (EU) commitment to this agenda and ensure that we continue to anchor Turkey firmly in Europe,” he told EU leaders.

Obama’s remarks didn’t sit too well with his new BFF, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said in an interview “it is up to member-states of the European Union to decide” on whether Turkey should be allowed to join. Sarkozy is opposed to to membership for Turkey.

“I still am and I think I can say that the immense majority of member states shares the position of France,” he said. “Turkey is a very great country, an ally of Europe, an ally of the United States. It will stay a privileged partner. My position hasn’t changed and it won’t change,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is also leery about admitting a country that would replace Germany as the EU’s biggest member, said EU members were still “wrestling” over whether Ankara should be welcomed as a full member state or have some sort of “privileged partnership” – a German proposal Turkey has flatly rejected in the past.

The Clinton and Bush administrations supported Turkey’s bid for membership, calling it a crucial bridge between the West and Islam. But, this seems a lot easier to support, when you don’t live so nearby, and it doesn’t affect your borders.

Opposition to Turkey joining the EU range from their “human rights record, including their long campaign against Kurdish separatists, fears of being flooded with Turkish immigrants, and an unresolved dispute over Turkish backed Northern Cyprus.”

“For many Europeans, the cultural and religious differences between Turkey and traditionally Christian Europe are a key worry. While constitutionally a secular state, Turkey’s population is 99 percent Muslim.”

Allowing Turkey to join the EU opens all the European borders to Turkey, and there would no longer be any controls over who comes and goes. And this bothers a lot of Europeans.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he backed Obama’s support for EU membership for Turkey, telling reporters he was confident that current obstacles holding back Ankara’s talks with Brussels could be solved.

I must say, I agree with Sarkozy. I don’t feel the US should be involved, or pressuring the EU on who to accept. They are not the ones who have to deal with the end results. To me, it would be the equivalant of Europe telling the US to open up the border with Mexico.

Although he rode in on his unity pony, with his campaign speech loaded on the teleprompter (including the yes we can bit), it seems Obama will have his work cut out for him. There are still many who oppose the US, and their involvement around the world. Protestors in Turkey took to the streets protesting Obama’s visit.

See also: Another NoQuarter story about the protests.

[T]he streets were littered with anti-NATO and anti-Obama fliers. “Leave NATO — get rid of the gladiators,” one flier said, demanding that Turkey abandon the alliance. (WaPo)

“[The protestors] say his visit will bring more turmoil to the Middle East, and that he’s armed with demands that could divide Turkey,” writes Al Jazeera.

The reporter warns that Obama had better demonstrate that his talk will lead to something. We all know that that won’t happen and, insofar as Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, he’s basically Bush II. He turned down the constructive nation-building ideas proposed by General David Petraeus, SecState Hillary Clinton and Envoy Richard Holbrooke in favor of a narrow, military-only strategy in Afghanistan with insufficient troop numbers, which — as John Batchelor’s panel (including Larry Johnson) pointed out tonight — will just add a few more soldiers in a largely wasted effort due to the incoherent and confusingly managed hodgepodge of multinational forces and teams. NOW for the video:

[To click on the countries in the BBC map, go here.]

Following up on Larry’s post two weeks ago about how Sibel Edmonds is finally getting her story out, the Times of London reports today that:

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets. 

The London Times further reports that an anonymous letter names a high-level US government official who allegedly warned a Turkish member of the nuclear network not to deal with Brewster Jennings.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The Brad Blog has more….

For Robert Novak disclosing national security secrets has become a part-time second job. Today’s is a doozy.

Turkey has a well-trained, well-equipped army of 250,000 near the [Iraqi] border, facing some 4,000 PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] fighters hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq. But significant cross-border operations surely would bring to the PKK’s side the military forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the best U.S. ally in Iraq. What is Washington to do in the dilemma of two friends battling each other on an unwanted new front in Iraq?

The surprising answer was given in secret briefings on Capitol Hill last week by Eric S. Edelman, a former aide to Vice President Cheney who is now undersecretary of defense for policy. Edelman, a Foreign Service officer who once was U.S. ambassador to Turkey, revealed to lawmakers plans for a covert operation of U.S. Special Forces to help the Turks neutralize the PKK. They would behead the guerrilla organization by helping Turkey get rid of PKK leaders that they have targeted for years.

Edelman’s listeners were stunned. Wasn’t this risky? He responded that he was sure of success, adding that the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied.

So, why is Novak going public with this information from a secret briefing? It’s because key congressional Republicans think Bush is unhinged.

The Bush administration is trying to prevent another front from opening in Iraq, which would have disastrous consequences. But this gamble risks major exposure and failure.

The Turkish initiative reflects the temperament and personality of George W. Bush. Even faithful congressional supporters of his Iraq policy have been stunned by the president’s upbeat mood, which makes him appear oblivious to the loss of his political base. Despite the failing effort to impose a military solution in Iraq, he is willing to try imposing arms — though clandestinely — on Turkey’s ancient problems with its Kurdish minority, who comprise one-fifth of the country’s population.

In other words, certain GOP members think the President is crazy. Who leaked this highly sensitive information to Novak? Let’s take a guess.

The plan shows that hard experience has not dissuaded President Bush from attempting difficult ventures employing the use of force. On the contrary, two of the most intrepid supporters of the Iraq intervention — John McCain and Lindsey Graham– were surprised by Bush during a recent meeting with him. When they shared their impressions with colleagues, they commented on how unconcerned the president seemed. That may explain his willingness to embark on such a questionable venture against the Kurds.

The fact that Novak decided to do this story is pretty telling about how far Bush’s star has fallen. I guess Novak enjoyed being the subject of a leak investigation for over four years. He’s probably about to get another visit from the FBI.

Meanwhile, the actual underlying policy is hard to critique. Certainly, whatever prevents a Turkish invasion, or a total rupture of U.S./Turkish relations, is worth considering. But, knowing Bush’s track record, why would anyone trust him to ‘embark on such a questionable venture against the Kurds’?