In the midst of the economic crisis faced by the Obama Administration, foreign policy is, unfortunately, rearing its ugly head.
President Obama has decided to increase the commitment to the war in Afghanistan even beyond his earlier decision to introduce more troops into that forsaken country. He has made it clear that he is out to destroy the Taliban forces that are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, something that seems impossible of accomplishment despite every good intention. The fear is that Afghanistan might become Obama’s Vietnam as it was a major cause of the downfall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Additionally, North Korea is again, under Kim Jong Il, becoming belligerent, threatening to fire a missile that could, it is believed, be a threat to Alaska and the West Coast of the United States someday.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned the North Koreans against testing this missile, but it seems to be about to happen in the near future.
Finally, our neighbor to the south, Mexico, which shares a 2,000 mile boundary with the United States, is in crisis times as the drug cartels seem to be more powerful than the central or state governments of Mexico. Larger numbers of Mexican troops are in the major cities where the drug cartels are operating, but the drug overlords seem to control the situation and have proceeded to promote brutal torture and murder of citizens of Mexico plus police and army personnel. The danger of the drug cartel violence spilling over the border into such areas as San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso, is growing daily, and the US government is reinforcing the borders with National Guardsmen and regular Army troops. The problem of illegal immigration, long a reality on the Mexican border, is now complicated by this growing crisis over the obsessive American consumer demand for cocaine and other hard drugs, which promotes the drug cartel’s aggressiveness and no holds barred cruelty and large scale murder with no limits yet established.
So in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in 70 years, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Janet Napolitano and other administration leaders must come up with a strategy to deal with these emerging problems. There are, unfortunately, no easy answers to any of these issues. 🙁