The day President Obama believes relevant history began. Rather like the French revolutionaries who decreed that the establishment of their Republic be dated Year I of the French Republic. August 4, 1961 was the day on which Barack Hussein Obama arrived on this earth in Honolulu, Hawaii. Anything occurring before the world received this blessing is irrelevant, the President told the gathering of heads of state at The Summit of the Americas. Not directly, but in effect. “The Cold War has been over for a very long time. And I am not interested in having battles that frankly started before I was born.” So because these battles pre-dated, he has no interest in either the Great War or WWII, much less the Civil War and the war that established this nation he is so determined to “transform.”
In any event, we are in the here and now, approaching the end of 53 AO. Relations with Cuba are to be normalized to provide “more opportunities and resources for the Cuban people.” Obama has the Castro Brothers’ word for that, although architects have not yet filed plans to convert the islands’ prisons into hotels for visiting America tourists, whose cash will enable the Cuban government to open the Internet to all, allow free travel from Cuba, and otherwise retire the guardians of the omnipresent state.
Vladimir Putin was not invited to the Summit of the Americas despite his country’s expanding interests in the region — hardly the “near abroad” he covets, allegedly only to ensure Russia’ security. Putin has always believed that the Cold War was merely on hold between the death of Stalin and his own rise to power, and that the era BO contained battles in which he, at least, is interested in re-fighting. A view shared by literate Americans of all stripes in our own War of Independence, Civil War, the World Wars, even though of no interest to our current president. And by NATO commanders who increasingly liken current provocations to those practiced by Russia in the Cold War, which having started before the President was born, are of no interest to him. And, by extension, of no interest to “my cabinet”, “my State Department”, “my national security team”, or other institutions like the cabinet, the State Department, and the national security team that have been, well, privatized in a funny kind of way.
