Melanie Phillips on the moral authority and wild success of Obama and Cameron

Melanie Phillips: The moral authority of David Cameron

The UK Prime Minister David Cameron this week told a state dinner thrown by the President of the United States in his honour that Barack Obama had

‘pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the entire free world’.

Is that so? Let’s see now. President Obama has:

• Neutered American power abroad and extended the reach of the state at home

• Appeased Iran while dumping on its designated target of annihilation, Israel

• Appeased the Palestinians while dumping on the state they vow to destroy, Israel

• Given Iran time to bring its genocide nuclear bomb to fruition

• Helped consolidate in power the repressive and murderous Iranian regime by ignoring the plight of its political dissidents, women, gays and other victims of Iranian state terror

• Allowed Iran to become the regional hegemon, thus in turn pushing moderate Arab states into its arms

• Empowered the fanatical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Arab world

• Helped bring to power a regime in Egypt which is oppressive to its own people and hostile to Israel and the west

• Helped bring to power a regime in Libya which is oppressive to its own people and hostile to Israel and the west

• Stood by and done nothing while President Assad butchers untold thousands of Syrian citizens

• Surrendered in Afghanistan

• Abandoned Iraq to the enemies of the west

• Downplayed Islamist aggression at home, eg by declaring the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, where an Islamist terrorist killed 13 American soldiers and wounded 29 more, ‘work place violence’ not a terrorist attack

• Taken the side of Argentinian aggression against Britain over the Falkland Islands (at least until this week when he agreed to return to a neutral position)

• Sought to deny freedom of religious conscience at home by forcing Catholics to sign up to abortion and contraception services (and his backtracking compromise was scarcely any better)

• Attacked free enterprise, as in his blockage of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, while ruinously increasing American debt through public spending designed to increase state power over people’s lives.

And more.

When David Cameron tells us that Barack Obama has

‘pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the entire free world’,

what does that tell us about the moral authority of David Cameron?

FP: I’ve been early on record that Cameron’s intellectual faculties leave a lot to be desired and by hosting him the way he did Obama showed that he realizes that. But I guess he admires Obama’s following in Britain’s steps. Here’s Bill Katz (HOW PATHETIC):

This story is a warning to us.  If we don't correct things, this will be our country in 20 years.  Read carefully.  From London's Daily Mail:

The Navy is as much use as 'a Swiss Navy' and would not be able to recapture the Falkland Islands if Argentina invaded, claims a veteran military chief.

The broadside came from Sandy Woodward, commander of the task force sent to reclaim the islands in the south Atlantic 30 years ago next month.

He said the Navy was in a 'dire' state following defence cuts which has left the service without an aircraft carrier before 2020.

Think of it.  The glorious Royal Navy no longer has an aircraft carrier.

He told the Sunday Telegraph: 'We could not retake the Falklands. If we had been in this state in 1982 the Falklands would be the Malvinas.'

Rear-Admiral Sir John Forster Woodward - who is known as Sandy - compared the British Navy to the Swiss Navy - the country does not have one - and said the role of a navy was to be able to go a long way from home.

He said: 'The best we can do for an expeditionary force is a day trip to France'.

It is not the first time a senior member of the military has attacked defence cuts and raised concerns about the Falklands.

Former First Sea Lord West has called for foreign aid cash to be diverted to defence after also warning Britain could not win a new Falklands War.

This is what happens when a country becomes a welfare state.  This is what happens when the political left becomes the dominant culture, in politics, in journalism, in universities.  It can happen here.

Even victories by conservatives might not stop the erosion in our own country.  We sometimes don't understand the utter relentlessness by the left, its missionary fervor, and how it shapes the news we receive and the education our kids get.

We are now cutting defense.  We can probably absorb some of the cuts proposed thus far.  But even Leon Panetta has warned of further cuts.  Additional cuts can leave us with the hollow force we allowed to develop after the Vietnam War.

Indeed, we really didn't learn the full lessons of World War II until the North Koreans invaded South Korea five years after Japan and Germany surrendered.  We fought the opening months of the Korean War with pathetically underprepared ground groups, a Navy with poor sealift capacity, and an Air Force with marginally obsolete planes. 

We went through periods of "force reductions" four times in the 20th century.  Each one ended in disaster.  But that's not the history the chic faculties of our leading universities want young people to hear. 

Meanwhile, we can sing "There'll Always be an England," and wonder if it will be so.

Consider this: a purported conservative who is keen on dismantling the welfare state praise the moral authority of a socialist who is bent on building it.