The U.S. is Wanting With Respect to Manliness

Ran across a list of some of the journalistic fails of 2014, and this one particularly tickled me:


-Fear and Manliness Foreign Policy Award: David Brooks, Cokie Roberts

During a discussion of the Gaza War, ABC pundit Cokie Roberts (7/13/14) argued that the problem with US foreign policy was that no one fears the United States.

You know, we just haven't made a strong enough presence in that region to have people be afraid of this country. And so I think there's a sense that, you know, they can get away with anything they want to get away with.

So the problem with the Iraq invasion, which killed roughly half a million people, along with a 13-year occupation of Afghanistan, the destruction of the Libyan government and drone strikes that have killed thousands in Pakistan and elsewhere--is that they don't instill enough fear.

Roberts wasn't the only one to have this insight; New York Timescolumnist David Brooks explained (Meet the Press, 4/20/14):

Let's face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have--I'll say it crudely--a manhood problem in the Middle East: Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad, somebody like Putin?

 Let me pull out the main takeaway and repeat it here:

So the problem with the Iraq invasion, which killed roughly half a million people, along with a 13-year occupation of Afghanistan, the destruction of the Libyan government and drone strikes that have killed thousands in Pakistan and elsewhere--is that they don't instill enough fear.

But don't worry.  Changing the name of the Afghanistan War from Operation Enduring Freedom,  to Operation Freedom's Sentinel will totally change the wuss factor.  I mean it.