Enduring Infamy ?

(Enduring Infamy ?)

"Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen forty-one, a date which will live in Infamy. . ."

That was the speech that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was delivering to a Joint Session of Congress in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As one might recall, a task force comprised of six Japanese aircraft carriers and numerous other fleet units were able to sail within striking distance of O'ahu and in two waves, that decimated the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Pearl Harbor reflected a lack of imagination, a malady that is still infective today. Ask the Israeli Defense Force if they could have used fore-warning before the Hamas' pre-emption ? Or, with the open southern border, how many potential terrorists might have penetrated into the interior ? And if there's a mass casualty event of some kind and it is traced to an illegal entry ?

The world is seldom prepared for the onset of events like Pearl Harbor which had caused such a paradigm shift. Another such transition could be underway now as the failures of the Biden Administration, in regards to Israel, the border, and indeed Iran. In no theater has policy been conducive to American interest because the Administration has yet to define success or define the President's actual preference. He wants the open border, he is ambivalent towards Israel and is scared of Iran.

Biden almost seems resentful that he might need to show support for the Jewish State, that is doing nothing more than defending itself against an implacable enemy. Biden is thinking his job is hard enough and has little confidence when Israel makes his life more difficult. In other words, the President can't handle it. The President cannot handle Iran and his tepid response to Iran's provocations. The Islamic Republic has proxies throughout the region, bringing American troops under fire.

Current events might not rise to a level of a Pearl Harbor but still require the response of the President. In other words, Biden has no choice but to act as the Commander in Chief and begin to employ countermeasures. That is what Biden should do but he won't for the varying reasons described. 

The world was in a state of flux in December, 1941, before Pearl Harbor. The world is just as confused today and Biden does not seem adequate for his responsibility. He is certainly no FDR who knew the precise course he had to take:

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the un-provoked and dastardly attack by the Japanese on December Seventh, a State of War has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."