Obama Advisor: Luke Skywalker, Winnie the Pooh are Key to Foreign Policy

Richard Danzig was the Secretary of the Navy under President Clinton. He is a top foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama, and could well be tapped to serve National Security Advisor in an Obama administration. Mr. Danzig is a man who could have a strong influence on the course America charts into the 21st century. And why? Because he is a man well informed. He has done his homework and has identified the key philosophies and strategies to best guide the nation. As Mr. Danzig recently stated in his remarks before the Center for a New American Security,

"Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security."

Thats right, Winnie THE Pooh. The classic children's tale of a boy's talking teddy bear. Danzig then went on to read a passage from Winnie the Pooh to an auditorium of foreign policy experts.

Seriously.

The paragraph he read detailed Winnie the Pooh "coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”

One can only hope he was making a point about the need to step back and reexamine failed strategies and not literally lecturing on optimal stair navigation technique for ensuring minimal head bumpage.

Unfortunately due to time constraints Mr. Danzig was unable to read selections from "The Cat in the Hat", sing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and play Peek-a-boo to further illustrate his point.

Danzig went on to explain the psychology of terrorists and the lessons he learned in interviewing some of the imprisoned Aum Shinrikyo terrorists who released sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway in 1995. As one terrorist told him: "We have been raised on a theory of superheroes. We all want to be like Luke Skywalker."

Luke Skywalker, was of course the protagonist of the 1970's science fiction trilogy Star Wars who used a light sword and the ability to move things with his mind (which he learned from a tiny green muppet) to defeat a dude in a black helmet and a cape who SPOILER ALERT: turned out to be his father.

As Mr. Danzig pointed out, “The parallels with al Qaeda are obvious.”

Obvious indeed, for instance, much like Luke Skywalker, Osama Bin Laden was raised in the desert. He spent his youth helping his Uncle Owen around the moisture farm, buying droids, bullseyeing womp rats in his T-16 speeder, and dreaming of going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.

But wait, if Luke Skywalker is al Qaeda, who are we? The Empire?

So if I understand Mr. Danzig's metaphors correctly, he's saying that we as a country are, what? Darth Vader being dragged down the stairs, hitting our head on every step on the way down?

At least we have a helmet.

Need I remind you that this man stands a pretty good chance of shaping America's foreign policy over the next few years?

May the force be with us.