At 75, Lennon Shares Something in Common With Obama
“Strawberry Fields” Become Killing Fields
John Lennon wrote about “Strawberry Fields” as an idyllic childhood place where one could be taken to find peace. It was a real children’s home in Liverpool, later torn down.
Over the past number of years, President Obama spoke platitudes and took ill-advised actions hoping he could take us to a place of peace in the Middle East. Ignoring history and reality, his decisions have now brought us to killing fields once again.
The Wall Street Journal described Obama’s Middle East Muslim mess this way on Oct. 10, “A fighting chance for a better future in the Middle East? Make that a better chance for a fighting future. It is clear that the president’s strategy is failing disastrously.
“Since 2010, total fatalities from armed conflict in the world have increased by a factor of close to four. … Total fatalities due to terrorism have risen nearly six fold. … Nearly all this violence is concentrated in a swath of territory stretching from North Africa to the Middle East to Afghanistan and Pakistan and there is every reason to expect the violence to escalate…”
TIME magazine recently reported in an article titled “The U.S. War Against ISIS Is Going Nowhere”: “‘The American effort has failed in form and function. It will need to be completely reworked or dropped as a failure,’ stated a recently retired United States four-star general. Anthony Zinni, retired Marine General and head of the Central Command (1997–2000) stated emphatically, ‘It’s a mess!'”
Sunday on 60 Minutes, Steve Kroft confronted President Obama: “What we’re doing in Syria is not working … we’re wasting half a billion dollars to equip 5000 fighters in Syria and in their battle most deserted or died with four or five left! It is an embarrassment!” Mr. Obama finally had to admit, “It did not work,” all the while talking about some elusive “community of nations” defeating ISIS.
And all the above while U.S. intelligence analysts at CENTCOM Headquarters admitted U.S. military supervisors have skewed reports to present favorable results. Sounds similar to the glowing news we get concerning our booming economic recovery while 53 million remain on food stamps, over 90 million are out of work and our national debt is now $19 trillion!
Ignore the current refugee crisis as millions flee these Middle East countries? Turn aside from the barbaric slaughter of Christians by radical Islamists throughout the region? Don’t attach too much significance to the wholesale destruction of historic Christian sites, churches and irreplaceable, sacred relics?
John Lennon loved to sit with his wife, Yoko Ono, sometimes unclothed, singing anthems of Utopian foolishness, “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” It sounds sentimental, but it’s not rooted in reality. The similarities with our president’s approach are frightening.
Here’s what it means to live in the real world. A new book titled Inside I.S.—10 Days in the Islamic State unfolds how a respected German reporter secretly embedded himself for 10 days within the Islamic terrorists. He stated, “They are preparing a nuclear tsunami that will be the largest religious cleansing in history.”
“They plan to kill hundreds of millions. “They now control land greater in size than the United Kingdom. … Every day hundreds of willing fighters from all over the world come. They are the most brutal and most dangerous enemy I have ever seen in my life.”
When our president spoke at the United Nations and told world leaders that violent extremism wasn’t limited to any one faith, British Prime Minister David Cameron had the courage to publicly redress him, “Barack you are quite right, that every religion has its extremists, but we have to be frank that the biggest problem we have today is the Islamist extremist violence that has given ISIL to us.”
John Lennon once wrote a song titled “Beautiful Boy” after the birth of his son, Sean. It was featured in the film, Mr. Holland’s Opus. The line, “Every day and in every way I am getting better and better” is the exact opposite of what’s happening in the Middle East powder keg today.
Here’s the deal: England gave us the Beatles John and his albums like Double Fantasy. It also gave us Winston Churchill and wise leaders like Mr. Cameron. Let us pray for our president in his final year to come out of his fantasy land and into reality land before it’s too late.
