Normally, I would not have reacted to this kind of article,
but something happened that created a coincidence I could not ignore. On the
day that an American policeman was caught on camera shooting an unarmed middle
aged man in the back eight times, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal
published an article decrying the Obama administration for not adopting a
coercive approach in its dealings with the world.
In other words, Henninger wants America
to resume declaring itself policeman of the world, and to behave on the world
stage the way that trigger-happy policemen behave on the streets of America . He
explains all that in the article he wrote under the title: “The Incredible
Obama Doctrine” and the subtitle: “Speak softly and claim to carry a big stick,
which you have no intention of ever using,” published on April 9, 2015 in the
Journal.
The image of the policeman with extended arms pulling on the
trigger was the sort that became a metaphor during the decade of the 1960s. The
gun came to represent the erect penis, and the posture of the policeman came to
represent the earth-shaking sexual performance of a would-be he-man.
Those years were also the time that America was taking a beating in Vietnam , and
the debate was raging as to whether or not the country should continue to view
itself as the policeman of the world. Some debaters began to see that the
swaggering American policeman – living on bases in every continent and on navy
ships in every ocean – was a kind of anachronism whose usefulness had ended
with the end of the Second World War. Other debaters thought that more than
ever, America
had the duty to enforce law-and-order in the world to keep things from getting
out of hand.
After the assassination of a number of prominent figures,
some debaters began to speak of the need to institute a regime of gun control
while others made the connection between the mentality of the men who became
infatuated with the gun and their psychological state. They painted these men
as insecure individuals who carried the gun because it substituted for their
physical deficiency, their sexual inadequacy or both.
In time, that view evolved a step further to encompass the
people who advocated that America
project its military prowess everywhere in the world, and force the nations to
get in line behind its policies. Such people were said to be of the kind that
craved being a somebody but lacked the ability to be one. Seeing mighty men and
women all around them running large institutions and powerful corporations,
they envied them but could not be like them because they lacked the wherewithal
to make it up there. However, knowing that they could influence the mighty
because everyone in a democracy had a voice that was heard, the powerless
devised a way to derive personal satisfaction from the might of others.
Given that foreign policy is usually an area in which the
powerless can have the most influence on the powerful, these people developed
arguments in all the realms that pertain to foreign policy. They made the
arguments harsher sounding and more complicated with the passage of time, and
they kept hounding the mighty with them. In effect, they managed to turn the
mighty executives in both business and government into their alter egos and
their surrogates. They were the mighty that moved the world in directions
dictated to them by the meek. And this is how the meek inherited the executive
suite before they could inherit the Earth.
Daniel Henninger is one of those who wish he had the power
of the presidency to run the world as he sees fit. But knowing that he will
never make it up there into the oval office, he nourishes his dream by lashing
out at the existing president. He does that in the hope that his nagging will
force the administration to move all matters of foreign policy in the direction
that he chooses for them.
In his view, America
must adopt a method that can only be coercive because everyone out there is so
evil, they must be forced to line-up behind America
for fear of being punished by the full force of America 's military might.