Be careful insulting the United States - things change with time!

I do not think Putin has any grand scheme to confront America. I believe Putin’s policies have been aimed at boosting his personal image at home and Russia’s international standing abroad to deflect attention from the country’s grave and growing economic woes. In my humble opinion there is no ‘Cold War’ with the United States looming in the back of Putin’s mind. Third World leaders that think they can get even or insult the United States by playing up to Russia/Putin or even China are going to find themselves in a quandary.

Russian President Putin has criticized western nations for straying from their Christian roots. Putin’s statement, made during his state of the nation address this past December, contends that America has become a “Godless” nation.  What Putin actually said was: “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values.  Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan.  This is the path to degradation.”  This is quite a statement coming from a former KGB officer who faithfully served a nation that executed more than 200,000 clergy in the years between 1917 and 1937. But, what if he really believes what he is said to be true? My mother always told me even a broken clock is right two times a day. Many of Putin’s policies are more in line with Christian conservatives than with the liberal Democrat Party ideology or our adopted political correctness.

When Putin claims that religious conservatism represents the only way to prevent the world from slipping into “chaotic darkness” he is echoing the messages of thousands of pastors in American churches every Sunday morning, pastors who are concerned about our country doing precisely what Putin said it is doing: slipping into “chaotic darkness.”

Christians in the United States should ask themselves have liberals conspired with left wing academics to rewrite American history so that the Christian principals upon which the United States of America was founded have been expunged from the record and replaced by anti-Christian, anti-American tripe that focuses solely on our nation’s warts and blemishes?  American students today spend 12 years learning why they should be embarrassed by and ashamed of our country?

Christians in the United States should ask themselves have liberals become more tolerant of every religion in America except Christianity?  Is it not true that government and media tend to give Islam, Hinduism, moral relativism, and other religions a pass while they would like Christianity not to be mentioned and some would prefer it not to be tolerated?

Christians in the United States should ask themselves have we allowed liberals to conspire to transform public education in America into 12 years of left wing indoctrination that belittles and scorns Christians as Puritanical bigots while praising secular humanism?

Liberals have been successful in bringing about exactly what President Putin said has happened in the United States.  I don’t like the messenger, but I must admit the message is accurate.

I stated earlier that  Third World Leaders that find it amusing to bash the United States may find themselves in a quandary is a direct reference to this remark made by President Duterte, “"America has lost now. I've realigned myself in your ideological flow," he told business leaders in Beijing on Thursday. "And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It's the only way." China, Russia and the United States do not want to be at odds with each other when it might lead to war. I believe President Duterte will find himself and the Philippines standing alone against the world. These three major powers China, Russia and the United States know there is nothing for any of them to gain if they go to war against one another. It would be suicide.

The outlook in the Philippines is murky; lots of Filipino officials are as appalled by their president’s remarks as anybody. But what isn’t murky at all is that President Obama’s faltering foreign policy has taken another serious hit. It is hard to think of another American president whose foreign policy initiatives failed as badly or as widely as Obama’s. The reconciliation with the Sunni world? The reset with Russia? Stabilizing the Middle East by tilting toward Iran? The Libya invasion? The Syria abstention? The ‘pivot to Asia’ was supposed to be the centerpiece of Obama’s global strategy; instead the waning months of the Obama administration have seen an important U.S. ally pivot toward China in the most public and humiliating way possible.

Obama’s efforts to balance a commitment to human rights and the niceties of American liberal ideology have made the world less safe for both human rights and for American security. As Russia, China, and Iran gain ground, foreign leaders feel less and less need to pay attention to American sermons about human rights and the rule of law.

Death squads and extra-judicial executions on a large scale: the Americans will lecture you but China will say nothing and still be your friend. The Russians will not only supply you the weapons they will help you bomb weaker nations if it will advance Russia. They will even help you bomb your own people if they disagree with the leader as they did in Syria.  Obama’s foreign policy is making the world safer for people who despise and trample on the very values that the United States once stood for. His lack of strategic insight and his inability to grasp the dynamics of world power politics have opened the door to a new generation of authoritarian figures in alliance with hostile powers.

Now in the final days of Obama’s presidency, Russia, Iran, and China are all stepping up their game. Putin has been humiliating and outfoxing Obama at one end of Eurasia; Iran has gone from routing Obama at the bargaining table to enabling its proxies in Yemen to fire on American ships. Xi now has a triumph of his own, with one of America’s oldest Asian allies insulting Obama at official events. Clearly, America’s opponents (and some of our allies) have reached the conclusion that this particular American administration is unable or unwilling to respond forcefully to provocations. But, Obama’s Administration is coming to an end and if not the next President soon a President will take office that will not allow the United States to be pushed around and that is when many Third World Countries will find themselves in a quandary.

I am a staunch Republican, I do not like Hillary Clinton regardless of the party she belongs to, but I sincerely believe Secretary Clinton is well aware of just how damaging the Filipino defection is in Asia; she helped develop the Obama administration’s Asia strategy and she knows that China’s challenge has just grown much more dangerous. She knows what a wreck the Middle East has become, and she is well aware that Obama will hand her a region that is in much worse shape than it was when Obama took office. She knows how Putin made a patsy and a laughingstock of Obama around the world, and she knows that Obama’s efforts to stabilize the Middle East by conciliating Iran have had just the opposite effect. She knows that even as Donald Trump’s poorly led, poorly conceived electoral campaign weakens, America’s enemies abroad are using every day of Obama’s tenure in office to weaken the foundations of America’s power around the world.

Should Secretary Clinton make it to the White House, her first and biggest job will be to stop and then reverse the deterioration in America’s global position that her predecessor permitted. She will have to convince both friends and foes that the President of the United States is no longer a punching bag, and that the United States of America is back on the stage. She will need, and she will deserve, the support of patriotic Americans in both political parties as she undertakes this necessary mission. President Obama’s mismanagement of foreign affairs is creating a genuine international emergency; the White House and Congress will have to work together to restore American prestige and stop the slide toward chaos and war.

The goal of all American’s now must be restore America’s prestige after eight embarrassing years!