Leadership You Can Trust (To Be Indecisive)

Whatever way you slice or dice it, Barack Obama’s leadership, or lack thereof, of the Libyan Crisis is unbecoming for the character of the president.   It seems that at every turn, Obama’s cabinet members are making contradictory statements about his preparedness with issues like the Libyian Crisis.  

His leadership with justifying his actions is simply nonexistant.  It is expected that a president doesn’t seek congressional approval for an American response to a situation like in Libya, but it is unacceptable that Obama does not offer a timely explanation to the American people justifying his actions.  There is a scheduled address from the president, but nine days after a military intervention is simply too long.

The lack of leadership shows very strongly in the United States failing to address the murder of six Libyan civilians after a United States F-15 crashed following malfunction.  In the situation, the pilots ejected from the jet before it crashed and a chopper went to retrieve the pilots.  There was a crowd of civilians that went to make sure that everything was alright with the pilots and the chopper opened fire on them.  This is standard procedure to ensure the protection of our military and defend our military but Barack Obama has failed to address the situation.  Ignoring the situation only hurts American soldiers in the long run because it fuels hostility and acts as an easy prop to rally soldiers against American involvement.

Canada took command of the NATO operation while the United States continued to be the military work mule in engaging Gaddafi’s forces.  The rest of NATO is simply enforcing the no fly zone while the the US is doing all the heavy lifting.  It is nothing but a lack of leadership that the president is allowing another nation to take control of the operation when the US has the most at stake.  

The domestic issue facing our nation that lacks leadership from the White House is the oil issue.  Such a commodity hovering around $105 is certainly heavily influenced by the events in the Middle East but the president should be addressing the issue.  During Bush’s tenure as president and oil prices reached all time highs, the public outcry was great.  George Bush addressed rising gas prices constantly during this time.  Barack Obama is not taking any action to help alleviate the rising costs of oil or to ensure some sort of security for its future value.

By and large, Barack Obama’s lack of leadership for the American people is not helping the United States.  This lack of vocalizing the nation’s plans is making America weaker on the international stage and hurting the country as a whole.