There was once a time when the United States of America led the world not only economically, but in the pursuit of freedom and justice, as well. Despite criticism from one country or another or from liberals within, we injected ourselves into situations where our might was needed to defend the freedom of victims of conquering dictatorships (nazis, communists…), not only or always militarily, but we were there playing some decisive role.

Of course, that kind of thing requires leadership, and for a country to lead, its leaders must be able to lead.

That said, enter Saddam Barack Hussein (Obama), a leader who doesn’t lead or, if what he does is said to be leading, then it is from the Lemming school of leadership.

Yes, FORWARD!…off a cliff.

From Oliver North, his column appearing in Guns and Patriots

The once highly touted Arab Spring has become the Arab Summer — scorching hot, unbearably dry and very brutal and bloody. Last weekend, as Americans prepared to celebrate Memorial Day and commemorated the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, Bashar Assad unleashed tanks, artillery and his Quds force-trained shabiha militia to kill more than 100 Syrian civilians — most of them women and children. Though the atrocities and carnage in Syria continue, little but bluff and bluster is produced by the United Nations and the Obama administration.

Ah, yes, the infamous “bluff and bluster”, Obama hallmarks and as for the U.N., well, we all know about the U.N.

In the aftermath of the May 25 massacre, 11 nations — the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Turkey — expelled Syrian diplomats from their capitals. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — on a visit to Turkey, Syria’s neighbor and former ally — told the Alliance of Civilizations in Istanbul, “The U.N. did not deploy in Syria just to bear witness to the slaughter of innocents. … We are not there to play the role of passive observer to unspeakable atrocities.”

But that’s exactly what the 300 U.N. “observers” in Syria have become in the six weeks since they were deployed in support of Kofi Annan’s so-called Syrian peace plan. Worse, the vicious Assad regime and its principal backers in Russia and Iran know that this is all hollow rhetoric. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — vying for the title of “The Most Traveled U.S. Secretary of State in History” — ought to know it, too.

This is all a little too much, watching as our “fearless leader” and the rest of the world’s “powers that be” do nothing but make noise while events and the opportunity to shape them in a nondestructive way pass them by; Those powers that be, that is, who aren’t actually looking to profit politically or economically from the gradual demise of the United States and the west, or from lending their tacit support to leaders like Assad when they commit the kinds of atrocities with which any civilized man or woman should take umbrage.

Of course, Osama Obama takes great pride in having been “the only senator to vote against the Iraq war from the beginning”; If he didn’t give a good gahoot about the inhumanities the Husseins were inflicting on their people, why should he care about the massacres the Syrian government is perpetrating on its own civilians.

Worse yet, while Assad is hanging onto control (ownership) of Syria, other Arab nations that have managed to succeed in dumping their leaders, like Egypt, are now looking at very good odds that their new leaders will be Muslims of the militant variety who would think nothing of using their countries as staging areas for terrorist acts against the west and westerners abroad, especially Americans.

Yes, Assad would fit right in with that bunch, as he does with Iran.

No, “O”, don’t do anything concrete, just stand there watching while the Arab world, wherein lies the potential for the exportation of a whole lot of future misery for the United States and some of our allies, reshapes itself into our worst nightmare.

But back to Hillary (ous) diplomacy:

In Copenhagen, on “a weeklong diplomatic trip to Europe’s capitals,” she said the Obama administration is “committed to preventing a civil war in Syria” and baldly claimed that she is “pushing” the government in Moscow to help: “I have been telling them their policy is going to help contribute to a civil war.” That kind of talk is unlikely to produce a favorable outcome in Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, no matter how many times President Barack Obama pushes the “reset button.”

After 15 months of butchery — and 13,000 dead civilians (the U.N. says it’s 10,000) — it ought to be clear to all that the U.N. can’t “prevent” a civil war in Syria; it already has started. Toothless sanctions, such as last week’s decision by the Obama administration to bar the Syria International Islamic Bank from doing business in the U.S., won’t stop the fighting. And no one, particularly the 22.5 million people living in Syria under the sanguinary Assad regime, should expect any help from Russia or Iran.

Moscow will do all in its power short of war to keep its Mediterranean naval installation at Tartus, Syria, in “friendly” hands. Tehran, striving for regional hegemony while it builds nuclear weapons, must have an ally in Damascus to keep open its supply lines for arms and materiel to Hezbollah — Iran’s proxy for what it repeatedly describes as a coming “fire that will destroy the Zionist regime.”

When asked about a U.N. resolution for military action — like the support given rebels in their effort to oust Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi — Clinton said, “Every day that goes by makes the argument for it stronger.” She knows better. The Russians and the Chinese would veto such action in the U.N. Security Council before it could be written.

What a joke we have in the current administration!

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By the way, His Majesty was here in New York yesterday, presumably to panhandle more campaign money (”Change…change…change”, as he used to say).

What a mess, trafficwise and what an expense to new York taxpayers for all that police deployment.

He was staying at the waldorf, of course, which was shielded by an unbroken line of Sanitation dump trucks. It would have been more fitting had they simply deployed garbage trucks!