What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The longer obama is in office, the more he brings to mind Jimmy Carter. For example, under Carter we were plagued with high unemployment, a mounting deficit, and stagflation. Under obama we've endured high unemployment, a mounting deficit, and his 'shovel ready' stimulus and jobless semi- recovery. But where the comparison really gains traction is in the realm of foreign policy.

The parallels between Obama and the early Carter are plain. Like Obama, Carter came into office convinced the United States and its “arrogance of power” was the problem in the world, not the solution.

Like Obama, Carter believed that an America that reduced its military, cut back on its commitments abroad and abandoned what Carter called our Cold War “inordinate fear of Communism” would make new friends and heal past wounds.

And just as Obama tried to “reset” relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Carter unleashed a furious charm offensive on the Soviet Union, even embracing and kissing Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in public, and pushed the Senate to ratify a landmark nuke treaty, SALT II.

Instead of seeing American retreat under Carter as restraint, however, friends and foes alike saw it as weakness; instead of making new friends, his policy only empowered the world’s thugs.

One was the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose student followers took the US embassy in Tehran hostage on Nov. 4, 1979. Another were the Soviets, who invaded Afghanistan the day after Christmas the same year.

Sound familiar?

But there is a difference. Jimmy Carter learned from his mistakes. obama shows no sign of doing the same.

Carter realized he’d been wrong: The world really is a dangerous place, especially when America decides to sit on the sidelines.

His response took three dramatic steps that set the stage for an American comeback in the 1980s — so much so that Reaganites would try to claim credit for them.

The first was pledging that US defense spending would rise by 4.6 percent per year, every year for five years, starting in 1980. This shocked and infuriated his fellow Democrats — and greased the wheels for President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup. (In the event, Reagan wound up increasing defense outlays less than Carter had planned.)

The second step came in the 1980 State of the Union Address, with announcement of the Carter Doctrine: The United States would use military force if necessary to defend our interests in the Persian Gulf.

To back this up, the president authorized the creation of the first Rapid Deployment Force — the ancestor of US Central Command or CENTCOM, the wheelhouse from which the United States would direct Desert Storm in 1991 and the fall of Saddam Hussein a decade later, and which keeps the Straits of Hormuz, vital to global energy markets, safe and open today.

The last step was authorizing the first covert military aid to Afghan guerrillas fighting their Soviet occupiers. That marked the start of the Soviet quagmire in Afghanistan — a major landmark in the ultimate undoing of the Soviet Union.

No one seriously thinks that obama will do anything remotely like those three steps. Increase defense spending? Hell, barry's latest budget slashes the military to pre-WWII levels. An updated version of the Carter Doctrine? Just the phrase "the obama Doctrine" would cause our enemies to fall over laughing. Covert aid to Ukraine (or elsewhere) guerillas? Never gonna happen.

And now obama is poised to duplicate one more of Carter's less-than-stellar acts. In 1977 Jimmy Carter signed away the Panama Canal to Panama.

As we look back from this 100th year anniversary of the Panama Canal, it’s clear that America was synonymous with greatness back then. The country was forging ahead with bold ideas carried to fruition by bold leaders.

Men like Teddy Roosevelt, who innately understood what was in America’s strategic interests and pursued those initiatives with a gusto that made success a foregone conclusion. Failure wasn’t in the lexicon.

But how things have changed. That nation somehow morphed into a timid, risk-averse politically correct shell of its former glory that too often tries to be all things to all people, so long as those people aren’t its own citizens.

And there is no better example than the giveaway of the Panama Canal.

The canal’s history seems to far-fetched to be true:

• Thousands die trying to connect the oceans. Project declared impossible.
• America defies the odds, constructing canal ahead of schedule and under budget.
• America eradicates yellow fever and discovers the cause of, and thus controls, the ultimate killer: malaria.
• America operates canal not for profit but to facilitate international commerce.
• America, in 1999, freely gives the canal to Panama in exchange for nothing, netting a zero return on investment.
• American ships now pay massively increased fees (passed on to consumers) while Panama laughs all the way to the bank.
• America continues to guarantee Panama’s security in perpetuity.

If this story weren’t so tragic, it would be comic, because giving away the canal made America’s strategic vision a complete joke.

The list of giveaways in President Jimmy Carter’s 1997 treaty is substantial: the canal, Gatun Lakes dam, hydroelectric plant, isthmus-wide railroad, and the 10-mile wide Panama Canal Zone. Even Titan, one of America’s largest cranes (war booty from Hitler’s Germany) was given to the Panamanians in 1999 after 50 years of operation in California. All invalidate the blood, sweat and yes, deaths, of the Americans who worked so proudly on the canal.

Perhaps most startling, no consideration was given to America, despite it being the largest user, by far, of the canal. Virtually all the new equipment, from the “mule” trains that guide the ships to the massive steel doors going into the enlarged locks under construction, is made everywhere but America.

America is not part of the consortium building the new locks, nor does America manage the ports on either side of the canal. Instead, that honor goes to China. Naturally.

Not only does Panama rake in $2 billion annually from its fees, but it doesn’t spend a penny on an army, because thanks to Uncle Sam, it doesn’t have one. So if Nicaragua becomes belligerent, American men and women will fight and die solely for Panama. Help me out on that one.

So what is obama planning to give away that could possibly rival Carter?

The Internet.

The U.S. Commerce Department announced late Friday it would relinquish control of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) — the organization charged with managing domain names, assigning Internet protocol addresses and other crucial Web functions — after its current contract expires next year.

The U.S. government’s plan to give away authority over the Internet’s core architecture to the “global Internet community” could endanger the security of both the Internet and the U.S. — and open the door to a global tax on Web use.

“U.S. management of the internet has been exemplary and there is no reason to give this away — especially in return for nothing,” former Bush administration State Department senior advisor Christian Whiton told The Daily Caller. “This is the Obama equivalent of Carter’s decision to give away the Panama Canal — only with possibly much worse consequences.”

“While the Obama administration says it is merely removing federal oversight of a non-profit, we should assume ICANN would end up as part of the United Nations,” Whiton said. “If the U.N. gains control of what amounts to the directory and traffic signals of the Internet, it can impose whatever taxes it likes.  It likely would start with a tax on registering domains and expand from there.”

The greater danger posed by the giveaway lies with the security of the Internet itself. While the U.S. has never used ICANN in a war or crisis situation, the potential exists for it to obstruct Internet commerce or deter foreign cyber attacks – powerful tools in the globalized information age.

“Under invariably incompetent U.N. control, it could mean a hostile foreign power disabling the Internet for us,” Whiton said.

The Internet grew out of the U.S. designed-and-developed ARPAnet. It is now an indispensable part of our lives, as well as a matter of national security.

And obama wants to give it away to an international conglomeration of imbeciles and bureaucrats, most of whom envy, despise, and hate us.

What could possibly go wrong...?