Mr. President,  “Je suis Charlie,” but who are you?   The whole world is asking the same question?   Yesterday more than a million people were in Paris alone – more than at any time in France´s history.  Yet you were MIA. We are simply aghast at your absence! 

 

 

 Unforgettable  and electrifying was the sight of  all the leaders of Europe and our friends in the Middle East, linking arms and marching in lockstep.  But where was the leader of the free world who should have occupied the center -- the very cornerstone of that alliance?   A strategic mistake!.   Can you imagine JFK or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton or any American president missing  the opportunity to unite the Western world against Islamist terrorism?

 

 

How could you have snubbed our oldest, ideological ally, since the American revolution ? Without Lafayette, Washington would have been hanged with the other Founding Fathers.  Recall that Charles de Gaulle was a key JFK supporter during the Cuban Missile Crisis and came to his funeral when he died.   President Chirac was the first one to visit the U.S. after our  own 9/11.  This is the ally that that provides not just jets for bombing the Islamists, but also boots on the ground, as we saw in Mali.  Now, as during the Nazi occupation, French Jews fear for their lives.  Army tanks are presently guarding them  – and you chose not to come!

 

 

 Just think, Mr. President, even Putin sent his Minister of Foreign Affairs.  You could have thereafter  presided over a meeting between  Ukrainian President Poroshenko and Foreign Minister Lavrov to engage in much needed dialogue.  And let us not forget it was Putin who was the first to express condolences to Bush after 9/11.  was it really more important for Secretary of State Kerry to be in India discussing global warming?    You could have assisted a  renewed attempt at rapprochement between Israel and Palestine.  You might have met with our staunch Middle East allies, the King of Jordan and representative of  Turkey and reached out to the many Muslims marching with the crowd.  Ýou could have  pressed for the invitation of Egypt’s President Assisi, who has gotten rid of the Muslim Brotherhood and is calling for” a revolution in Islam.”   

 

 

 While you were watching football during the march, Boko Haram, encouraged by the success of ISIS and  the copycat massacres in Paris and Peshawar,  killed two thousand people.  Didn´t you say you would rescue the kidnapped Nigerian girls?.  Wasn´t it worth your time to discuss with world leaders  the making of the global threat of  four new caliphates rising in  Nigeria, South Yemen, Chechnya and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border?  Did you forget the 146 murdered Muslim school children of the Pakistani military – our allies?

 

 

Mr. President, we are glad Josh Ernest finally admitted that you made a mistake,  We did not  buy the blather about your great “security requirements.”  You are not the only leader who required it.  You should have put your  country’s  security before your own.

 

 

Our situation is growing increasingly serious and it doesn´t help that in recent months an array of senators, congress people, analysts, and above all military men and those from the  intelligence community have come out to publicly complain about your ignoring their  professional advice.   Yet you continue to ignore  your advisers.  Meanwhile, you threaten to veto the Keystone Pipeline, just passed by  63 Senate votes.   To you, the Islamists are not the threat.  In spite of all, the  enemy is the Republicans.

  

 

Setting aside the constant string of scandals that have plagued this administration,  we do need to know, Mr.  president, why you have done virtually everything in your power to keep the American public  from the knowledge that the enemy has been growing on your watch.    T hen, even when ISIS surfaced, you told us  it was a “junior varsity team.”  Recall your boast that you  “decimated Al Qaeda” when in fact it was  sprouting  everywhere.  And why do you still persistently avoid the words  “Islamist terrorism?”  Can you imagine FDR denying that the threat to the world was Nazi fascism?

 

 

In the wake of Paris most mortems and a cyber-attack on our Central Command, we hope you reverse your orders on sequestration of the defense budget, already cut to levels dangerously low.  We also hope you will stop releasing terrorists from GITMO and reverse your plan to close it.

  

 

Has it also occurred to you that actions like these, combined with your absence in Paris may have given the enemy a very bad signal.  They may now believe  you are a paper tiger – which of course would only encourage their future attacks.  Remember the wisdom of Henry Kissinger´s mentor, Fritz Kraemer.  America´s provocative weakness is the most dangerous phenomena to world peace.