Lost face; lost confidence

By Jim Killebrew

[January 13, 2015]  Let's say you get invited to a wedding. Not just any wedding, if there is such a thing, but the wedding of your life-long friend's child. Your oldest, dearest friend has stuck with you through the years through thick and thin, and now your friend's son is getting married and they really want you to be present at their wedding.

It might be a bit inconvenient to attend the wedding, because your friend lives a long way from you. But you have the means to find the best transportation available so that really doesn't matter. On the day of the wedding according to your schedule, you really don't have anything that preempts you from attending the wedding. Your friend informs you that all of your friends will be attending the wedding and it would be a great honor for you to attend to stand for your friend, stand for your friend's son, stand for the marriage and honor the bride.

For some reason you decide you are not going to honor your invitation. You decide you are not going to go to the wedding. Even though you may know it would likely be offensive to your life-long friend, you decide to stay home. Without a doubt, you realize if you snub your friend it is going to be a major mistake. To make matters worse, you decide to not let anyone in your immediate family attend the wedding either. You have close family available to go, but you press them into snubbing your friend as well. For all outward appearances you are consciously disregarding your friend's feelings, disappointing your friend's son, and completely snubbing your friend's son's new bride.

To make matters worse you decide to send someone to the city where the wedding is to take place, ensure that everyone knows you might have a representative there, but you make sure the representative you sent to the city does not, after all, attend the wedding. That person simply stays in his hotel room, but makes sure everyone knows he did not attend the wedding even though he could have.

Is there anyone in their right mind who would fail to see that you have completely disregarded your friendship with your friend? Would there be anyone who believes your behavior was in such poor taste because you completely snubbed your friend, your friend's son, and his bride? Of course, everyone would immediately know you have committed a serious breach of social protocol.

Okay, let's turn the page now and consider the President's decision to distance himself from the French President at the recent show of solidarity seen by the world after radicalized Islamic terrorists carried out an attack in Paris that resulted twelve people dead. In the resulting massive show of solidarity more than 1.5 million strong, with forty (40) world leaders marching with the French President, neither the President of the United States, nor the Vice President, nor any other high-ranking diplomat stood alongside the French President and forty other world leaders taking a stand against Islamic extremism. Beyond that, the Attorney General, Eric Holder, was actually in Paris at the time of the march, but did not attempt to stand with the French President in a stand against the radicalized Islamic terrorists.

Does the President of the United States know the French people stood by America during the Revolutionary War, coming to the rescue when General Washington was perilously close to losing the war? Does the POTUS not realize that the French people have been close allies and friends from the beginning of the American founding? Is the President of the United States so removed from reality that he does not realize the message of snobbery and snubbing he projects when he treats our finest allies in such a manner? Are the President's closest advisers so tone-deaf they cannot hear the disrespect calling out from around the world from leaders who have been allies of America for centuries and decades?

Perhaps the most disturbing is the question: Does the President of the United States not understand that his actions project a sign of approval to the very enemies of the United States he refers to as ISIL...that is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant? Does he not understand that his actions will embolden ISIS or ISIL to encourage them to mount many more terrorist attacks across the world? Does he not realize the leaders of the Western World have lost faith and trust in the will of the United States to participate in the fight against the radicalized Islamic terrorists because of the continued actions of the President of the United States?

[By JIM KILLEBREW]