A few months ago, with his usual hyperbole Donald Trump boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and his supporters would still vote for him. Sadly, I think he’s probably right. What’s becoming more apparent every day however is that Hillary Clinton could probably make the same boast with equal accuracy.
Why do I say that? Well, the first point is that Clinton is the nominee at all. Given the disaster Libya has become, given the events of Benghazi in 2012 and her proven lies about it, given the fact that ISIS is a direct result of the Obama Administration’s exit from Iraq – during her tenure – one has to wonder how she even made it past the first set of primaries. How is it that there was no other candidate who could come even close to beating her? While the cards were in fact stacked in her favor, while Bernie Sanders appealed to a small segment of the Democrat party, elsewhere there was never any real clamor for another candidate. Ask yourself, if Benghazi had been a GOP operation, would the Secretary of State overseeing it have been the GOP nominee four years later? Can you imagine the withering attacks he or she would have endured from the press? No chance they would have survived past March. Can you imagine the grilling a GOP Sec of State would take if he told the parents of one of the dead a lie just moments before telling her family the truth, then turned around and lied to the nation? Of course… but Clinton had to face none of that.
Next, her email problems have been in the air for years. It’s obvious to anyone other than the willingly blind that she set up that server for the specific purpose of hiding her correspondence from the prying eyes of Congress and pesky reporters with the FOI requests. And as has now been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, she lied to Congress and the American people and maybe even the FBI about her handling of Top Secret information. How is it possible that supporters feel that someone who has such little regard for American secrets should be in charge of the entire American intelligence apparatus? The security apparatus? The justice apparatus? Can you imagine the press coverage if a Republican was responsible for a breach that may have caused the death of an Iranian scientist helping the United States? With Clinton, little more than crickets.
How about the Russian Reset? Clinton famously kicked off the Russian Reset which was supposed to begin a new cooperative friendship between the US and Russia. Since then Russia has been anything but friendly. They’ve hacked American government computers, used gas as a weapon to intimidate Europe, they’ve threatened the Baltics and they’ve been harassing American diplomats across Europe. And don’t forget, a year after she left office our new Russian friends invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, That certainly seems like she built a strong foundation of friendship.
And finally then there’s the Clinton Foundation, that billion dollar vehicle largely funded by groups – read Wall Street banks and Middle Eastern governments – who are ostensibly anathema to her basic “principles” of support for the middle class and poor against the rich and support for gay rights. The fact that the foundation seems to be little more than a vehicle for enriching the Clintons, and is now under investigation by the FBI, New York, Washington and Little Rock seems to bother no one on the left.
Getting back to the shooting of someone on 5th Avenue. Hillary Clinton is not Donald Trump. While they both may be lying, manipulative Democrats, that’s not the point. He sits at the head of a cult of personality that animates thousands of people to show up for his rallies. She is at the head of a borg where the hundreds of people who attend her rallies look as if they are punching the clock and can’t wait for the end of day whistle. If he were to die the air in the Trump movement would dissipate quickly and the GOP would find itself struggling to find a replacement who could carry the party to victory. If, on the other hand, Hillary Clinton were to die the Democrats would simply push her corpse to the side, take down the generic Clinton logo and put in her place the next functionary and things would move forward as if nothing had happened.
And that’s the point. Hillary Clinton is not inspiring anyone. She is taking her turn. She is the opposition of anything that is proffered by the GOP, regardless of who they trot out. (You may think their demonizing is Trump specific… It’s not. Remember what they did to Mitt Romney.) Like the mind numbed audience in Apple’s debut commercial in 1984… or the zombies in book itself, Democrats step in and vote for whoever is on the ticket, regardless of who that person is. And in this case of it’s Hillary Clinton. It’ doesn’t really matter what she’s done, what she’s “accomplished’ or what she stands for – if anything – the only thing that matters is that she’s not the Republican. If there was video of Clinton shooting the guy on 5th Avenue could she really still get elected and would the robot Democrats vote for her anyway? If the guy was wearing a Trump shirt I’m pretty sure they would. One has to wonder what the playing field would look like if the GOP had nominated a real conservative to oppose the borg...
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2016
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
The Speech Barack Obama Should Have Given Last Sunday... But Didn't
My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you on the eve of the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the event that launched the United States into a war against fascists who sought to eliminate freedom and our way of life. That war was long and hard and uncertain… but we prevailed and today the United States is the greatest nation on earth.
Seventy four years later our nation is facing another fascist enemy, radical Islam. The events of San Bernardino last Wednesday, the events in Paris last month make it very clear that we are indeed at war. We may not be at war with Islam, but we are very much at war with radical Islam. In fact, the reality of this situation is that the vast majority of victims of radical Islam are actually fellow Muslims. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia to Libya and beyond, by far the largest number of deaths has been among other Muslims. Unfortunately we cannot solve the schism that exists within Islam, that battle is not ours. If Muslim nations seek peace and prosperity for their citizens they will have to face the threats within.
What we can and will do however is utilize all of our resources to eviscerate radical Islam everywhere it may pose a threat to the United States, our allies or our interests. We will use every resource at our disposal to root out terror cells and capture or kill those who wish to do us ill.
On the domestic front we will not allow these radicals to use our freedoms against us. We will not allow a fifth column to grow and metastasize inside our body politic. I am, as of today suspending the acceptance of Syrian refugees until we have a more effective screening process. We will send resources to Turkey and Jordan and other nations to help support them, but we will not be accepting any more refugees for the immediate future. In addition, beginning tonight, persons seeking to travel to the United States who have traveled to any one of 30 different Muslim nations within the last 4 years will be subjected to extra scrutiny prior to being allowed to enter the country. This will no doubt be an inconvenience to many travelers, but it is a step we must take.
At home we are going to root out the radicals in our midst. We are not only going to be looking for terrorists, but we are going to begin a concerted effort to find the people who enable them with financing and other forms of support. In that vein I have directed the Justice Department to harness all applicable RICO statutes to find and take down whatever radical Islamist cells may be operating in the United States. That RICO order also applies to organizations that fund, harbor or otherwise support such cells. Those organizations may have foreign elements to them and if that is the case the CIA will be called in to coordinate in taking action. They may also be using mosques and charity organizations in an attempt to obscure their activities. Those attempts will not be successful. Americans and others in our country enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but they do not enjoy the freedom to plan and support those who wish to harm this country and kill the innocent. Indeed, I think it was Justice Jackson who said "The Constitution is not a suicide pact". I have directed Homeland Security make this initiative their number one priority.
On the international front, we will immediately begin bombing ISIS locations across Syria and Iraq and wherever else we find them, particularly those related to oil production. I am today having my Joint Chiefs of Staff alter the Rules of Engagement under which our military can and will operate. Currently the driving force of our ROE has been to ensure no or minimum civilian casualties. That is a luxury we no longer have. No longer will we allow terrorists to set up shop in hospitals and mosques and schools and target our aircraft with impunity. Our troops will begin targeting fighters wherever they are, which may regrettably result in greater civilian casualties.
In addition, we will begin fully supporting and arming Kurdish forces in Iraq as they seek to take back territory from ISIS.
I have also directed the Joint Chiefs to present me with a plan for putting up to 10,000 US troops in Iraq with the objective of training and supporting genuine anti ISIS forces fighting in both Iraq and Syria. Within that number will be special forces who have a list of the top 25 ISIS leaders and enablers. Their objective is to find and eliminate every person on that list. And let me be clear… not all of those enablers are fighters, nor are they all men... and some of them may be hiding far from the battlefield. None of those things will protect them. When that list is done we will compile a new top 25 list of the next most valuable targets. In addition, we will be imposing no fly zones and no travel zones in various areas of both Syria and Iraq in order to stop fighters from targeting areas that have been freed from the grip of ISIS and stop shipments of oil that the group is using to fund its operations.
There are of course additional measures being considered that I will not go into.
Let me wrap up by saying this: From September 11 to the bombings of London, Madrid, Paris and countless attacks in between, it is now clear that we are very much at war with a strain of fascist, radical Islam and they seek nothing less than the destruction of our way of life, our freedoms, our liberty and our prosperity. Just as the United States did not let fascists prevail 70 years ago, we will not let these new fascists win today. We will not let them manipulate our freedoms to attack us at home and we will not let them hide behind religion and civilians elsewhere. As of today we are no longer fighting a defensive battle. We are at war with the cancer of fascist radical Islam, and we will be taking the battle to them, whether they are hiding here at home or killing innocent Christians, Jews or Muslims on the sands of Syria or Iraq. We may have made some missteps in the past, and we will undoubtedly make some in the future, but let me be clear… this is a war we will not lose. The United States and the world of freedom we helped shape will not acquiesce to those who hate what we and our forefathers have fought so hard for and worked so hard to build.
Thank you and good night, and God bless America.
Seventy four years later our nation is facing another fascist enemy, radical Islam. The events of San Bernardino last Wednesday, the events in Paris last month make it very clear that we are indeed at war. We may not be at war with Islam, but we are very much at war with radical Islam. In fact, the reality of this situation is that the vast majority of victims of radical Islam are actually fellow Muslims. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia to Libya and beyond, by far the largest number of deaths has been among other Muslims. Unfortunately we cannot solve the schism that exists within Islam, that battle is not ours. If Muslim nations seek peace and prosperity for their citizens they will have to face the threats within.
What we can and will do however is utilize all of our resources to eviscerate radical Islam everywhere it may pose a threat to the United States, our allies or our interests. We will use every resource at our disposal to root out terror cells and capture or kill those who wish to do us ill.
At home we are going to root out the radicals in our midst. We are not only going to be looking for terrorists, but we are going to begin a concerted effort to find the people who enable them with financing and other forms of support. In that vein I have directed the Justice Department to harness all applicable RICO statutes to find and take down whatever radical Islamist cells may be operating in the United States. That RICO order also applies to organizations that fund, harbor or otherwise support such cells. Those organizations may have foreign elements to them and if that is the case the CIA will be called in to coordinate in taking action. They may also be using mosques and charity organizations in an attempt to obscure their activities. Those attempts will not be successful. Americans and others in our country enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but they do not enjoy the freedom to plan and support those who wish to harm this country and kill the innocent. Indeed, I think it was Justice Jackson who said "The Constitution is not a suicide pact". I have directed Homeland Security make this initiative their number one priority.
On the international front, we will immediately begin bombing ISIS locations across Syria and Iraq and wherever else we find them, particularly those related to oil production. I am today having my Joint Chiefs of Staff alter the Rules of Engagement under which our military can and will operate. Currently the driving force of our ROE has been to ensure no or minimum civilian casualties. That is a luxury we no longer have. No longer will we allow terrorists to set up shop in hospitals and mosques and schools and target our aircraft with impunity. Our troops will begin targeting fighters wherever they are, which may regrettably result in greater civilian casualties.
In addition, we will begin fully supporting and arming Kurdish forces in Iraq as they seek to take back territory from ISIS.
I have also directed the Joint Chiefs to present me with a plan for putting up to 10,000 US troops in Iraq with the objective of training and supporting genuine anti ISIS forces fighting in both Iraq and Syria. Within that number will be special forces who have a list of the top 25 ISIS leaders and enablers. Their objective is to find and eliminate every person on that list. And let me be clear… not all of those enablers are fighters, nor are they all men... and some of them may be hiding far from the battlefield. None of those things will protect them. When that list is done we will compile a new top 25 list of the next most valuable targets. In addition, we will be imposing no fly zones and no travel zones in various areas of both Syria and Iraq in order to stop fighters from targeting areas that have been freed from the grip of ISIS and stop shipments of oil that the group is using to fund its operations.
There are of course additional measures being considered that I will not go into.
Let me wrap up by saying this: From September 11 to the bombings of London, Madrid, Paris and countless attacks in between, it is now clear that we are very much at war with a strain of fascist, radical Islam and they seek nothing less than the destruction of our way of life, our freedoms, our liberty and our prosperity. Just as the United States did not let fascists prevail 70 years ago, we will not let these new fascists win today. We will not let them manipulate our freedoms to attack us at home and we will not let them hide behind religion and civilians elsewhere. As of today we are no longer fighting a defensive battle. We are at war with the cancer of fascist radical Islam, and we will be taking the battle to them, whether they are hiding here at home or killing innocent Christians, Jews or Muslims on the sands of Syria or Iraq. We may have made some missteps in the past, and we will undoubtedly make some in the future, but let me be clear… this is a war we will not lose. The United States and the world of freedom we helped shape will not acquiesce to those who hate what we and our forefathers have fought so hard for and worked so hard to build.
Thank you and good night, and God bless America.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Fool or a Villain? Obama and America's Standing in the World...
I find myself vacillating between thinking Barack Obama is utterly incompetent, or he’s an evil genius who has a nefarious anti American plan in mind. While my heart wants to tell me that the person who’s been twice elected President of the United States is a good man with good intentions who’s simply in over his head, my head tells me something else.
When it comes to the domestic economy, Barack Obama is nothing short of a complete disaster. In virtually every situation he has chosen the path that is bad for freedom, bad for entrepreneurs, and bad for businesses… basically bad for pretty much the entire country except for maybe union members and government redistribution recipients. The disaster he has wrought in the economy is obvious to anyone who’s not living off the government.
What’s a little less clear to anyone but the most engaged political observer is the fact that as bad as he’s been on the economy, it’s possible he’s been even worse on foreign policy. In 2008 candidate Obama promised to “Restore America's standing in the world.” Like with the economy, his steps here too seem more like calculated steps in a plan rather than simple missteps. If they were simply missteps one would expect him to get things right 50% of the time. He’s not even close. Indeed, his failed plan to “Restore America’s standing” can be seen in the willingness of enemies and adversaries to attack the US or take provocative actions, all with little concern for consequences from a United States led by Barack Obama.
Our “Reset” partner Russia feels no qualms in threatening NATO allies for policies it dislikes, invaded Ukraine then annexed Crimea and continues to be provocative on and across our borders, all while helping Iran pursue its nuclear ambitions.
Today China has not only hacked into our government computers and stolen personal information on every government employee of the last twenty years, but they are actively building bases on disputed territory in order to expand their area of sovereignty at the expense of its neighbors.
In 2012, thriving on the chaos enabled by Barack Obama’s feckless leadership, Islamists captured and killed four Americans in Benghazi, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Early on in his administration Barack Obama gave a sop to Vladimir Putin and blindsided much of Western Europe when he abandoned plans for the installation of a missile defense system in Poland.
He has decimated the US military, shrinking the Army by almost a quarter, dropping the Navy to a size not seen since Carter, and leaving the United States militarily incapable of fighting two wars at once, a basic element of American defense policy for half a century.
In Egypt Obama embraced the Muslim Brotherhood as it came to power and then proceeded to give the cold shoulder to General Sisi, the leader who ousted the Islamists and who is now Egypt’s president.
In Iraq, after the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars and shed the blood of thousands of American soldiers and marines, the country is on the verge of collapse. The virtual collapse of Iraqi state, which led to the rise of ISIS, is a consequence of Barack Obama’s unwillingness to bring about a Status of Forces Agreement that would maintain an American presence capable of reassuring the Iraqis that the hard fought gains would be sustainable. Today ISIS not only controls much of Iraq and Syria, but they have affiliates and adherents who are carrying out terrorist acts around the world, including here in the United States.
In what might be the most disturbing foreign policy error of Obama’s parade of errors, he has worked out a deal with Iran which does virtually nothing to stop the Iranians from getting both nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The Iranians think so little of Barack Obama and the nation he leads that they don’t even bother to make promises that they intend to break as the Soviets used to do. Not only that, Iranian leaders go on domestic television regularly and threaten the United States amid cries of “Death to America” all while knowing that Barack Obama will give them whatever it is they want.
And there’s much more of course, from his support of the leftist thugs in Honduras in 2009, to his embrace of the Communist Castro brothers, to his exchanging five Islamist terrorists for an American deserter, to his paper tiger threats in relation to red lines in Syria… and the list goes on.
One can only wonder, if an American president wanted to do everything possible to diminish the United States on the world stage without explicitly looking like that was what he was doing, what more might he do make things worse than Barack Obama has? Today not only are the two other superpowers in the world far more belligerent than they were when Barack Obama took office, a new terrorist organization is wreaking havoc in the heart of the middle east and a nation that constantly cries “Death to America”, threatens to annihilate Israel and funded many of the weapons that killed American soldiers in Iraq is now billions of dollars richer and on its way to obtaining a nuclear weapon. While it is theoretically possible to have taken more actions that would harm American interests and diminish the United States on the world stage, such as fighting harder to keep the Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt or quitting NATO, it’s hard to imagine any president doing more to intentionally undermine American interests than what Barack Obama has done.
Sadly, at the end of the day I don’t think Barack Obama is just a dolt who makes consistently bad choices. I think he has a plan and he’s executing it… and that plan is to leave in his wake a greatly diminished America that has far less influence in the world than it did when he took office. For those of us who feel like the United States is the greatest force for good in the history of the world – albeit an imperfect one – to know that its enervation came at the hands of the man elected to lead it makes the shrinking that much more tragic.
When it comes to the domestic economy, Barack Obama is nothing short of a complete disaster. In virtually every situation he has chosen the path that is bad for freedom, bad for entrepreneurs, and bad for businesses… basically bad for pretty much the entire country except for maybe union members and government redistribution recipients. The disaster he has wrought in the economy is obvious to anyone who’s not living off the government.
What’s a little less clear to anyone but the most engaged political observer is the fact that as bad as he’s been on the economy, it’s possible he’s been even worse on foreign policy. In 2008 candidate Obama promised to “Restore America's standing in the world.” Like with the economy, his steps here too seem more like calculated steps in a plan rather than simple missteps. If they were simply missteps one would expect him to get things right 50% of the time. He’s not even close. Indeed, his failed plan to “Restore America’s standing” can be seen in the willingness of enemies and adversaries to attack the US or take provocative actions, all with little concern for consequences from a United States led by Barack Obama.
Our “Reset” partner Russia feels no qualms in threatening NATO allies for policies it dislikes, invaded Ukraine then annexed Crimea and continues to be provocative on and across our borders, all while helping Iran pursue its nuclear ambitions.
Today China has not only hacked into our government computers and stolen personal information on every government employee of the last twenty years, but they are actively building bases on disputed territory in order to expand their area of sovereignty at the expense of its neighbors.
In 2012, thriving on the chaos enabled by Barack Obama’s feckless leadership, Islamists captured and killed four Americans in Benghazi, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Early on in his administration Barack Obama gave a sop to Vladimir Putin and blindsided much of Western Europe when he abandoned plans for the installation of a missile defense system in Poland.
He has decimated the US military, shrinking the Army by almost a quarter, dropping the Navy to a size not seen since Carter, and leaving the United States militarily incapable of fighting two wars at once, a basic element of American defense policy for half a century.
In Egypt Obama embraced the Muslim Brotherhood as it came to power and then proceeded to give the cold shoulder to General Sisi, the leader who ousted the Islamists and who is now Egypt’s president.
In what might be the most disturbing foreign policy error of Obama’s parade of errors, he has worked out a deal with Iran which does virtually nothing to stop the Iranians from getting both nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The Iranians think so little of Barack Obama and the nation he leads that they don’t even bother to make promises that they intend to break as the Soviets used to do. Not only that, Iranian leaders go on domestic television regularly and threaten the United States amid cries of “Death to America” all while knowing that Barack Obama will give them whatever it is they want.
And there’s much more of course, from his support of the leftist thugs in Honduras in 2009, to his embrace of the Communist Castro brothers, to his exchanging five Islamist terrorists for an American deserter, to his paper tiger threats in relation to red lines in Syria… and the list goes on.
One can only wonder, if an American president wanted to do everything possible to diminish the United States on the world stage without explicitly looking like that was what he was doing, what more might he do make things worse than Barack Obama has? Today not only are the two other superpowers in the world far more belligerent than they were when Barack Obama took office, a new terrorist organization is wreaking havoc in the heart of the middle east and a nation that constantly cries “Death to America”, threatens to annihilate Israel and funded many of the weapons that killed American soldiers in Iraq is now billions of dollars richer and on its way to obtaining a nuclear weapon. While it is theoretically possible to have taken more actions that would harm American interests and diminish the United States on the world stage, such as fighting harder to keep the Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt or quitting NATO, it’s hard to imagine any president doing more to intentionally undermine American interests than what Barack Obama has done.
Sadly, at the end of the day I don’t think Barack Obama is just a dolt who makes consistently bad choices. I think he has a plan and he’s executing it… and that plan is to leave in his wake a greatly diminished America that has far less influence in the world than it did when he took office. For those of us who feel like the United States is the greatest force for good in the history of the world – albeit an imperfect one – to know that its enervation came at the hands of the man elected to lead it makes the shrinking that much more tragic.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
The Vietnamization of Iraq - The Narcissistic Legacy of Barack Obama
A president’s job is tough. And that goes for any president. Aside from being in charge of an organization that employs millions of people and is responsible for the expenditure of trillions of dollars, he is the Commander in Chief. And it is in that area that no doubt weighs most heavily on presidential shoulders. The decision to send young men into battle where you know for an absolute certainty that some will not return must be an extraordinarily difficult decision to make, even when, as in say the D-day landings or Afghanistan, the clarity of the line between good and evil is as stark as between black and white.
For better or worse, that is one of the roles that a president signs up for when he takes the oath of office. Thankfully, other than for a remarkably small number of years in American history, the need for presidents to regularly make those kinds of decisions have been rare. Abraham Lincoln didn’t have that luxury. Neither Wilson nor FDR had it. Nor did Truman, LBJ, Nixon or George W. Bush. And Barack Obama hasn’t had that luxury either.
Adding to the complication of being a war president is the fact that for those not on the battlefields, life often goes on as normal. Aside from the Civil War and WWII, America has rarely been involved in a war where virtually everything in the country was on a war footing where everything is managed for the specific purpose of supporting the war effort. And as life goes on for most of the population, so too does politics, although any war effort is part of that equation.
One of the assets a president has at his disposal is a professional military. As such, presidents usually leave tactical decisions to the military while they can focus on the strategic decisions. In other words, a president decides which wars need to be fought, and the military generally figures out how to accomplish the given task. The lines are never stark between tactics and strategy however as LBJ often wanted to pick the targets to be bombed in North Vietnam and George W. Bush decided to launch “The Surge” in Iraq.
Governing and politics are theoretically different things, but in practice they too blur significantly. From political appointees to which cases to prosecute to deciding what’s a granted Constitutional power and what’s not, there is no clear line of demarcation between politics and governing. When the decision impacts how high farm subsidies will be or what the tax rate will be or how much cable companies can charge, those blurred lines are often tawdry and reprehensible, but they rarely result in the loss of human life.
The president’s responsibility as Commander in Chief is another story altogether. By its very nature that responsibility demands a higher level of attention by a president, and while politics will never be far from his mind, as Commander in Chief his duty is to think strategically in situations where the lives of civilians – both American and foreign – are at risk and the tactics necessary to enforce his strategic decisions may cost the lives American soldiers.
Which brings us to Barack Obama and Iraq. He was against the Iraq war from the beginning, as a state senator at the time saying: “I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.” Later as a senator Obama opposed the surge in 2007 and in 2008 voted to pull out American troops within 120 days. Ending the war in Iraq and bringing American troops home was cornerstone of candidate Obama’s platform in 2008. And as president he was adamant in his intention to keep that promise.
In reality however, the ground had been laid for the end of the war before Obama took office. George Bush signed the Status of Forces Agreement in November of 2008 that called for pulling all American combat forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011. What the SOFA did not cover however was the support that the United States would provide Iraq beyond 2011. Robert Gates, (George Bush’s Secretary of Defense in 2008 and Obama’s until July, 2011) told Charlie Rose that although their mission would change, he expected “perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops” to be left in Iraq after 2011.
And what were those troops supposed to be doing? Providing the Iraqi military with support and training and emboldening the Iraqi people to continue their march towards democracy with the knowledge that they were not going to be left hanging out to dry by the United States. (Democracy rarely come quickly or easily. The United States spent seven years under the disastrous Articles of Confederation before we got it right with the Constitution, and that's without being surrounded by neighbors who provided tens of thousands of terrorist agitators with weapons, training and safe harbor.)
But Barack Obama would have none of it. With an eye on the 2012 election he was determined to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the war. But what’s more, President Obama went farther than even candidate Obama did. Candidate Obama promised: "After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces." President Obama didn’t even do that. Indeed, he actually left the Iraqi people hanging out to dry, with dry being the operative word in a country that can only be described as a tinderbox surrounded by firebugs.
Rather than leave the 30,000-40,000 troops that Bob Gates and the rest of the military establishment suggested was necessary to give peace a chance, Barack Obama decided to leave only what was necessary to secure the American embassy. Had Barack Obama heeded the advice of the military professionals the Iraqi people very well may have been able to keep the sparks of sectarian violence and the duplicitousness, incompetence and partisanship of the Maliki government from becoming a raging inferno of death. But alas, unfortunately for the people of Iraq – and those in Syria and Lebanon and perhaps many more places – Barack Obama had better things to do than ensure that the blood and treasure America spent in Iraq over 7 years was not in vain. No, he had a election to win.
And the Vietnamization of Iraq was very much predictable. Today Iraq is a bloody mess, literally, and Barack Obama is finding himself forced to use the American military to try and keep what can only be described as a raging inferno from transforming into a cataclysm that engulfs every nation within a thousand miles and eventually reaches American shores.
Such is the character of a liberal, when reality clashes with grandiose theory, go with the theory as it’s usually someone else who’s left to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, his pursuit of political expediency vs. real leadership just might be the thing that torpedoes his cherished legacy of greatness. However unlikely it is to diminish him in the eyes of his worshipers, the rest of the country will see this episode for what it is, Barack Obama unleashed, in all of his unvarnished, narcissistic glory, bloodshed and consequences be damned, there’s an election to be won.
For better or worse, that is one of the roles that a president signs up for when he takes the oath of office. Thankfully, other than for a remarkably small number of years in American history, the need for presidents to regularly make those kinds of decisions have been rare. Abraham Lincoln didn’t have that luxury. Neither Wilson nor FDR had it. Nor did Truman, LBJ, Nixon or George W. Bush. And Barack Obama hasn’t had that luxury either.
Adding to the complication of being a war president is the fact that for those not on the battlefields, life often goes on as normal. Aside from the Civil War and WWII, America has rarely been involved in a war where virtually everything in the country was on a war footing where everything is managed for the specific purpose of supporting the war effort. And as life goes on for most of the population, so too does politics, although any war effort is part of that equation.
One of the assets a president has at his disposal is a professional military. As such, presidents usually leave tactical decisions to the military while they can focus on the strategic decisions. In other words, a president decides which wars need to be fought, and the military generally figures out how to accomplish the given task. The lines are never stark between tactics and strategy however as LBJ often wanted to pick the targets to be bombed in North Vietnam and George W. Bush decided to launch “The Surge” in Iraq.
The president’s responsibility as Commander in Chief is another story altogether. By its very nature that responsibility demands a higher level of attention by a president, and while politics will never be far from his mind, as Commander in Chief his duty is to think strategically in situations where the lives of civilians – both American and foreign – are at risk and the tactics necessary to enforce his strategic decisions may cost the lives American soldiers.
Which brings us to Barack Obama and Iraq. He was against the Iraq war from the beginning, as a state senator at the time saying: “I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.” Later as a senator Obama opposed the surge in 2007 and in 2008 voted to pull out American troops within 120 days. Ending the war in Iraq and bringing American troops home was cornerstone of candidate Obama’s platform in 2008. And as president he was adamant in his intention to keep that promise.
In reality however, the ground had been laid for the end of the war before Obama took office. George Bush signed the Status of Forces Agreement in November of 2008 that called for pulling all American combat forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011. What the SOFA did not cover however was the support that the United States would provide Iraq beyond 2011. Robert Gates, (George Bush’s Secretary of Defense in 2008 and Obama’s until July, 2011) told Charlie Rose that although their mission would change, he expected “perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops” to be left in Iraq after 2011.
And what were those troops supposed to be doing? Providing the Iraqi military with support and training and emboldening the Iraqi people to continue their march towards democracy with the knowledge that they were not going to be left hanging out to dry by the United States. (Democracy rarely come quickly or easily. The United States spent seven years under the disastrous Articles of Confederation before we got it right with the Constitution, and that's without being surrounded by neighbors who provided tens of thousands of terrorist agitators with weapons, training and safe harbor.)
But Barack Obama would have none of it. With an eye on the 2012 election he was determined to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the war. But what’s more, President Obama went farther than even candidate Obama did. Candidate Obama promised: "After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces." President Obama didn’t even do that. Indeed, he actually left the Iraqi people hanging out to dry, with dry being the operative word in a country that can only be described as a tinderbox surrounded by firebugs.
Rather than leave the 30,000-40,000 troops that Bob Gates and the rest of the military establishment suggested was necessary to give peace a chance, Barack Obama decided to leave only what was necessary to secure the American embassy. Had Barack Obama heeded the advice of the military professionals the Iraqi people very well may have been able to keep the sparks of sectarian violence and the duplicitousness, incompetence and partisanship of the Maliki government from becoming a raging inferno of death. But alas, unfortunately for the people of Iraq – and those in Syria and Lebanon and perhaps many more places – Barack Obama had better things to do than ensure that the blood and treasure America spent in Iraq over 7 years was not in vain. No, he had a election to win.
Such is the character of a liberal, when reality clashes with grandiose theory, go with the theory as it’s usually someone else who’s left to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, his pursuit of political expediency vs. real leadership just might be the thing that torpedoes his cherished legacy of greatness. However unlikely it is to diminish him in the eyes of his worshipers, the rest of the country will see this episode for what it is, Barack Obama unleashed, in all of his unvarnished, narcissistic glory, bloodshed and consequences be damned, there’s an election to be won.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
The Cult of Barack Obama - Eight Questions to Help Identify Members
I’ve never quite gotten the cult of Che Guevara. Colleges across the country are crisscrossed with students wearing Che tee shirts and dorm rooms are decorated with Che posters. Sometimes if you ask the student wearing a Che shirt about him you’ll get a leftist screed worthy of Matt Damon’s bar scene in Good Will Hunting. They’ll talk about his “affinity for the poor”, that he was a doctor, and the fact that he fought against the American Imperialists and “Capitalist octopuses” who were abusing and exploiting the population of South America. Most of the time however they will simply say nonsensical things like “he fought for the oppressed” or he was a “man of the people”.
What you’ll rarely hear them tell you about, though, is Che the Communist, Che the murderer, Che the narcisist, or Che the sadist. You won’t hear them tell you about the thousands of innocent Cubans who were killed arbitrarily at Che’s direction, or by Che’s own hand. They won’t tell you about the economic morass his revolution brought to Cuba. They won’t tell you about the chaos he left in his wake.
Most people wearing Che shirts or sleeping under Che posters know nothing about Che Guevara but they know that he was larger than life and somehow being associated with him makes them cool.
Such is the nature of a cult. Cherry picking facts and ignoring those that damage the image of their idol. In the case of the cult of Che, it’s a pretty innocuous cult. Other than facilitating a hookup that one might regret in the morning or inciting a fisticuff on the student union, there’s not much of an impact on the wider world.
If only we could say the same about the cult of Barack Obama. His cult shares many of the characteristics of the Che cult: The posters. The tee shirts. The celebrity. Mostly though, the cult of Barack Obama shares the characteristic of its adherents knowing practically nothing about their deity. Ask Obama supporters why they like Obama and you’ll get things like “He is for the people” “He supports women’s rights”, “He fixed the healthcare system” or maybe “He got Bin Laden”. All of those points, like most about Obama, are either meaningless or simply wrong.
Being for the people or supporting women’s rights may make for a good sound bite, but they mean nothing in the debate over public policy. Does lowering taxes so that all citizens can take more of their money home count as being for the people? Does promoting a woman’s right to protect herself with a weapon count as supporting women’s rights? And as for Obama getting Bin Laden, a Facebook post recently summed that up nicely: Crediting Obama with killing Bin Laden is like crediting Nixon with landing on the moon.
And even those things they get right on the surface, they get wrong. They will say that unemployment is lower under Barack Obama, which it is, 6.2% today vs. 7.6%. That is true on the surface, but only because 11 million Americans have given up looking for work since Obama became president. Those people are not counted in the unemployment rate. Had they been counted the unemployment rate would be over 10% rather than 6.2%. They say he implemented Obamacare. This too is true on its face, but it’s a fundamental lie. Obamacare as it was signed into law has never been implemented. Obama has unlawfully given subsidies to tens of millions of people in conflict with the explicit language of the law. He has unconstitutionally given waivers and delays to tens of thousands of employers employing tens of millions of people so that the pain the law imposes won’t be felt until it’s politically expedient… for him. So, in reality, Obamacare as written has not been implemented, but Americans are nonetheless saddled with a dysfunctional system that has cost jobs and caused many people to lose their doctors, face higher costs and in some cases lose their insurance altogether.
And the list goes on… The disconnect between reality and the fantasyland members of the cult live in is stark. But how do you know if a friend or loved one is a member of the Cult of Barack Obama? Well, like a mirror used to uncover a vampire, here are eight questions that might help you find out. (And remember, all of this is after Obama borrowed $5 trillion and the FED pumped almost $4 trillion into the economy.)
Unfortunately, while today Che’s cult is largely harmless, Barack’s has wrought a disaster on the American people and the world beyond. Like the objects in the mirror that are larger than they appear, we can only hope that the cult of Obama fizzles soon after he leaves office as the magnitude of his ineptness and his failures becomes clear.
Most people wearing Che shirts or sleeping under Che posters know nothing about Che Guevara but they know that he was larger than life and somehow being associated with him makes them cool.
Such is the nature of a cult. Cherry picking facts and ignoring those that damage the image of their idol. In the case of the cult of Che, it’s a pretty innocuous cult. Other than facilitating a hookup that one might regret in the morning or inciting a fisticuff on the student union, there’s not much of an impact on the wider world.
If only we could say the same about the cult of Barack Obama. His cult shares many of the characteristics of the Che cult: The posters. The tee shirts. The celebrity. Mostly though, the cult of Barack Obama shares the characteristic of its adherents knowing practically nothing about their deity. Ask Obama supporters why they like Obama and you’ll get things like “He is for the people” “He supports women’s rights”, “He fixed the healthcare system” or maybe “He got Bin Laden”. All of those points, like most about Obama, are either meaningless or simply wrong.
Being for the people or supporting women’s rights may make for a good sound bite, but they mean nothing in the debate over public policy. Does lowering taxes so that all citizens can take more of their money home count as being for the people? Does promoting a woman’s right to protect herself with a weapon count as supporting women’s rights? And as for Obama getting Bin Laden, a Facebook post recently summed that up nicely: Crediting Obama with killing Bin Laden is like crediting Nixon with landing on the moon.
And even those things they get right on the surface, they get wrong. They will say that unemployment is lower under Barack Obama, which it is, 6.2% today vs. 7.6%. That is true on the surface, but only because 11 million Americans have given up looking for work since Obama became president. Those people are not counted in the unemployment rate. Had they been counted the unemployment rate would be over 10% rather than 6.2%. They say he implemented Obamacare. This too is true on its face, but it’s a fundamental lie. Obamacare as it was signed into law has never been implemented. Obama has unlawfully given subsidies to tens of millions of people in conflict with the explicit language of the law. He has unconstitutionally given waivers and delays to tens of thousands of employers employing tens of millions of people so that the pain the law imposes won’t be felt until it’s politically expedient… for him. So, in reality, Obamacare as written has not been implemented, but Americans are nonetheless saddled with a dysfunctional system that has cost jobs and caused many people to lose their doctors, face higher costs and in some cases lose their insurance altogether.
1) Is American household income higher today than it was when Barack Obama took office? No. Lower, by $2,500.If, after going through these questions and answers your friend still supports Barack Obama, they are likely part of the cult. Just to be sure however, ask them why they still support him. If they give you logical, cogent reasons for doing so then maybe they’re just confused and there may be some hope for recovery after all. For the rest it might be time Google "intervention".
2) Are more Americans working today than there were when Barack Obama took office? Nominally yes. 146 million vs. 142 million, but as the population has grown by 13 million, a lower percentage of the population is actually working, 45.6% vs. 46.3%
3) Are there fewer Americans living in poverty today than there were when Barack Obama took office? No. More are. 44 million in 2009 – 14.3% of the population vs. 48 million today, 15% of the population.
4) Are there more or fewer Americans on food stamps today than there were when Barack Obama took office? More. 47 million vs. 34 million.
5) Has the percentage of Americans with health insurance increased since Obamacare passed? No. 83.4% vs. 84.0%.
6) How does Barack Obama’s progressive recovery compare to Ronald Reagan’s free market recovery? Not well: 5.8% total growth over his first 5 years vs. 17.7% for Reagan’s.
7) Is Iraq better off or worse off today than it was when Barack Obama took office? Far worse.
8) Is the world a more stable or friendly place today than it was when Barack Obama took office? Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Venezuela, Honduras… Not so much.
Unfortunately, while today Che’s cult is largely harmless, Barack’s has wrought a disaster on the American people and the world beyond. Like the objects in the mirror that are larger than they appear, we can only hope that the cult of Obama fizzles soon after he leaves office as the magnitude of his ineptness and his failures becomes clear.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Quelle Surprise! Five years of Barack Obama undermining American influence in the world...
The American military is the most powerful in the world. Indeed, we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. As one might expect, that amount of military spending translates into a lot of influence around the world, far beyond the bases in Germany or the battlefields of Afghanistan. From leading NATO to acting as the last – and in reality the first – line of defense of nations such as Japan, South Korea, Kuwait and many others, the United States exercises more global power than any nation in history, even during times of peace.
What is unique about the United States however is the fact that as powerful as its military might is, that’s never been the sole source of American influence and indeed during most of the last century, the military was not even the most powerful element of that influence. Since the end of World War II, the two biggest drivers of American influence in the world have been economics and ideals.
The march of free markets around the world over the last 50 years has been largely been led by the United States. From a shining showcase of the prosperity free markets can achieve to the spread of specialization, the importation of products and the outsourcing of services, the economic power of the United States has inspired and lifted billions of people around the world out of poverty over the last half century.
At the same time, the ideals of American freedom and democracy have inspired the world for more than two centuries. From the American Revolution inspiring the French to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor inspiring a papier-mâché version in Tiananmen Square to the rainbow of revolutions over the last twenty years, American ideals, despite their sometimes failed execution both at home and abroad, have inspired (and influenced) patriots and freedom loving people around the world for decades on end.
American prosperity, when combined with the ideals of freedom and democracy have done more to lift the spirits and life spans of more people across the planet than any military of any size could ever hope to accomplish. The military certainly helps spread those ideals however, whether it be helping rescue the world from two World Wars or American ships and planes delivering billions of dollars of water and foodstuffs to disaster zones or famine ravaged nations.
At the end of the day American influence is largely the source of three things: The prosperity created by free markets, the ideals of freedom and democracy, and military strength. Sometimes those drivers work together while at other times they work independently of one another. They manifest themselves in small ways such as providing disaster relief to Haiti, the Philippines or countless places in between and big ways such as political and or military support for allies or a burgeoning democracy. At the same time that influence has created a tapestry of relationships around the world from strong allies to bitter enemies. In an almost perfect example the old adage you get what you give, to the degree that America succeeds in cultivating allies and friends in the world, the more prosperity we enjoy and the fewer times our military is called upon to engage in actual shooting.
All of that may be changing because of Barack Obama. For five years while he was busy inflicting his fascist, redistributitive economic policies on the citizens of the United States, he has been diminishing American influence abroad at the same time. Time and again Obama has come down on the side of leftists and American enemies. The Iran “deal” is only the latest in a very long line.
In 2009 Obama sided with leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as he sought to defy the Honduran Constitution and run for reelection. Eventually Zelaya was forced into exile and as a result of his continued agitation for violence in the streets, Honduras has become one of the most dangerous nations in the world.
That same year Obama bowed to Vladimir Putin and threw American allies under the bus as he abandoned plans for a missile defense shield in Poland. 2009 also brought Iran’s Green Movement. When Iranian students took to the streets seeking to overthrow the avowed American enemy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama ignored pleas for a public display of support, moral or otherwise. In contrast, when protesters – including the Muslim Brotherhood – called for the ouster of one of America’s strongest allies in the region, Hosni Mubarak, Obama quickly called for Mubarak to resign. Not surprisingly, less than two years later Egypt was in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2011 President Obama helped unleash Hell when he sent American air forces to support the overthrow of an admittedly not nice guy, Muammar Gaddafi. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the chaos that was unleashed has turned Libya into an ungovernable mess where local private militias (some of whom are Al Qaeda) are far more powerful than the government itself. Indeed, according to the Cato Institute “Human rights conditions in post-intervention Libya... are considerably worse than in the decade preceding the war.” It was in the middle of this this ungovernable mess that an American Ambassador and three others were killed by Al Qaeda in 2012. 2011 was also the year he pulled the United States out of Iraq in the worst possible way, leaving the United States with virtually no influence in a country American troops had fighting and dying in for a decade.
Finally we find our feckless president in 2013 leading his march to diminish American power in the world. His first step was to undercut longtime ally Britain in their renewed dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, unlike Ronald Reagan, who was a staunch supporter of the Brits during the Falkland War in 1982. His next step was to let Bashir Assad outwit him while simultaneously turning Vladimir Putin into a credible world leader. Obama accomplished this dual disaster as he blinked at actually doing anything about a chemical weapons red line he had offhandedly warned Assad not to cross. Next he betrayed staunch American allies Israel and Saudi Arabia when he proffered a nuclear agreement with Iran that John Bolton calls “Abject surrender by the United States”. Finally just last week, he essentially acquiesced to a Chinese power grab – and simultaneously undermined allies Japan and South Korea – as the US advised American airlines to comply with China’s demands for notification when they planned to fly over water and islands claimed by all three.
For five years we have seen that whatever the situation, Barack Obama consistently chooses decisions that will weaken American power and influence in the world. The history of an American superpower is not one that is without blemishes, but it has clearly been a force for good in the world. Can you imagine a 2013 where the dominant power for the previous century had been the Soviets or the Red Chinese or some incarnation of Al Qaeda? That ability to influence events and nations requires far more than just a powerful military. It requires a leader who recognizes that American influence has been a significant catalyst for the improvement of the condition of man around the world, and one who is willing to use that fact as his North Star when carrying out foreign policy. Barack Obama has consistently done just the opposite. From supporting leftists in Central America to betraying allies on practically every continent to fueling the replacement of imperfect dictators with whom we could work with Anti-American Islamists or even chaos, for five years he has chosen the path that leads to diminished American influence.
We’ve known from before the election that Barack Obama is no fan of the American Constitution or free markets. From his willingness to diminish America on the world stage at every turn it appears that it’s not just American institutions that Obama despises, but rather the idea of a strong America itself.
What is unique about the United States however is the fact that as powerful as its military might is, that’s never been the sole source of American influence and indeed during most of the last century, the military was not even the most powerful element of that influence. Since the end of World War II, the two biggest drivers of American influence in the world have been economics and ideals.
The march of free markets around the world over the last 50 years has been largely been led by the United States. From a shining showcase of the prosperity free markets can achieve to the spread of specialization, the importation of products and the outsourcing of services, the economic power of the United States has inspired and lifted billions of people around the world out of poverty over the last half century.
At the same time, the ideals of American freedom and democracy have inspired the world for more than two centuries. From the American Revolution inspiring the French to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor inspiring a papier-mâché version in Tiananmen Square to the rainbow of revolutions over the last twenty years, American ideals, despite their sometimes failed execution both at home and abroad, have inspired (and influenced) patriots and freedom loving people around the world for decades on end.
American prosperity, when combined with the ideals of freedom and democracy have done more to lift the spirits and life spans of more people across the planet than any military of any size could ever hope to accomplish. The military certainly helps spread those ideals however, whether it be helping rescue the world from two World Wars or American ships and planes delivering billions of dollars of water and foodstuffs to disaster zones or famine ravaged nations.
At the end of the day American influence is largely the source of three things: The prosperity created by free markets, the ideals of freedom and democracy, and military strength. Sometimes those drivers work together while at other times they work independently of one another. They manifest themselves in small ways such as providing disaster relief to Haiti, the Philippines or countless places in between and big ways such as political and or military support for allies or a burgeoning democracy. At the same time that influence has created a tapestry of relationships around the world from strong allies to bitter enemies. In an almost perfect example the old adage you get what you give, to the degree that America succeeds in cultivating allies and friends in the world, the more prosperity we enjoy and the fewer times our military is called upon to engage in actual shooting.
In 2009 Obama sided with leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as he sought to defy the Honduran Constitution and run for reelection. Eventually Zelaya was forced into exile and as a result of his continued agitation for violence in the streets, Honduras has become one of the most dangerous nations in the world.
That same year Obama bowed to Vladimir Putin and threw American allies under the bus as he abandoned plans for a missile defense shield in Poland. 2009 also brought Iran’s Green Movement. When Iranian students took to the streets seeking to overthrow the avowed American enemy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama ignored pleas for a public display of support, moral or otherwise. In contrast, when protesters – including the Muslim Brotherhood – called for the ouster of one of America’s strongest allies in the region, Hosni Mubarak, Obama quickly called for Mubarak to resign. Not surprisingly, less than two years later Egypt was in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2011 President Obama helped unleash Hell when he sent American air forces to support the overthrow of an admittedly not nice guy, Muammar Gaddafi. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the chaos that was unleashed has turned Libya into an ungovernable mess where local private militias (some of whom are Al Qaeda) are far more powerful than the government itself. Indeed, according to the Cato Institute “Human rights conditions in post-intervention Libya... are considerably worse than in the decade preceding the war.” It was in the middle of this this ungovernable mess that an American Ambassador and three others were killed by Al Qaeda in 2012. 2011 was also the year he pulled the United States out of Iraq in the worst possible way, leaving the United States with virtually no influence in a country American troops had fighting and dying in for a decade.
For five years we have seen that whatever the situation, Barack Obama consistently chooses decisions that will weaken American power and influence in the world. The history of an American superpower is not one that is without blemishes, but it has clearly been a force for good in the world. Can you imagine a 2013 where the dominant power for the previous century had been the Soviets or the Red Chinese or some incarnation of Al Qaeda? That ability to influence events and nations requires far more than just a powerful military. It requires a leader who recognizes that American influence has been a significant catalyst for the improvement of the condition of man around the world, and one who is willing to use that fact as his North Star when carrying out foreign policy. Barack Obama has consistently done just the opposite. From supporting leftists in Central America to betraying allies on practically every continent to fueling the replacement of imperfect dictators with whom we could work with Anti-American Islamists or even chaos, for five years he has chosen the path that leads to diminished American influence.
We’ve known from before the election that Barack Obama is no fan of the American Constitution or free markets. From his willingness to diminish America on the world stage at every turn it appears that it’s not just American institutions that Obama despises, but rather the idea of a strong America itself.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Some unsolicited advice to Barack Obama on Syria
What happens when a majority of voters elect an unqualified hack as the head of state? Lots of bad choices and lots of bad outcomes. After watching Barack Obama make mistakes on the world stage for five years you might have thought he was beginning to figure out what he was doing. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. He’s as clueless as ever…
First he suggests (correctly) that as Commander in Chief he doesn’t need Congress’s permission in order to act militarily in Syria. Then he proceeds to ask Congress for authorization to do just that, with the absurd suggestion that somehow the rest of the world will look differently on the missiles raining down on Syria if there is political unity along Pennsylvania Avenue. Does Barack Obama even understand what the role of the Commander in Chief even is?
So he’s a little confused about what his actual role in running the military is… not particularly surprising given that before being elected to the most powerful position on the planet the only thing he ever ran was a community organization and some law school classes. At least he’s sure why he’s decided a military attack is necessary… because he drew a red line in the sand and wanted to be very clear to the Assad regime that if “we start seeing a bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized, that would change my calculations, significantly…” That is a pretty clear statement. Or maybe not. Somehow that clear statement has morphed into “I didn’t draw a line in the sand…” Perhaps President Obama should ask his friend Al Gore about the thing called the Internet where he can look up what he actually said.
Whatever the message Barack Obama was hoping to send to Assad and the rest of the world, I’m pretty sure it’s not the one of fecklessness and ineptitude they're getting. In addition to misunderstanding both his role in leading the military and forgetting who drew a line in the sand, he’s lost any element of surprise by telling Assad what to expect and not to worry because nothing is going to happen before Congress finishes their deliberations. And he also let Assad know that regime change is not the goal.
Then there is the Secretary of State’s constant pronouncements about the makeup of the rebels, who any bombing would ostensibly benefit: “I just don't agree that a majority are al-Qaeda and the bad guys…” he told a House Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, one of the key advisors to the administration on the issue of the rebels has been Elizabeth O’Bagy, who, it turns out, is a paid propagandist for the rebels themselves. So it appears that the main source – or at least a significant source – for the President’s contention that the rebels are good guys is someone who’s paid to tell the world… that the rebels are good guys. No problem there. Interestingly in a moment of morbidly vaudevillian juxtaposition, in the very week the Secretary of State is trying to convince Congress of the benign nature of the rebels, a video surfaced of those very rebels cold bloodedly executing captured Syrian soldiers as they lay kneeling on the ground.
All of this showcases a President who is simply not up to the task of successfully leading the nation during a crisis on the international stage. It might be one thing if this was fresh ink on a newly minted presidential canvas, but it’s not. From Iran to Iraq to Libya to Egypt we have seen this president in the starring role in a series of movies that went very badly very quickly. Taken together all of this suggests that whatever Barack Obama chooses to do in reference to Syria, things will turn out badly for the country.
Sending some cruise missiles seems to be the solution of the day. Of course bombing Syria could have a vast array of unintended consequences. It may provoke Syria and or Iran to attack Israel. Russia has already said it will support Syria if it’s attacked and it appears that China is sending ships to the region. An attack might destabilize Syria in such a way that the rebels take over and we see another failed state like Libya or the ascent of an al-Qaeda affiliated power like in Egypt. An attack might cause Assad to use even more chemical weapons just to demonstrate that he cannot be intimidated. Worst of all, the possibility exists that somehow the US is sucked into a situation where it does indeed require American boots on the ground, this time without any real understanding of what victory is, what it would look like or how to achieve it. We can't forget the outcome the President is hoping for, that Assad will realize that crossing Barack Obama is a dangerous game and he then decides to stop killing innocents in his own country - at least with chemical weapons.
Then there is the option of doing nothing. If you listen to the President and his supporters, taking no action might result in Assad using chemical weapons again – assuming it was he who used them in the first place – and will embolden not only Assad, but Iran, North Korea and many other not-so-nice regimes around the world to do whatever they want with impunity.
Of course doing nothing is not the opposite of bombing. Doing nothing is one option, but so is crafting sanctions and seeking worldwide condemnation. Sanctions rarely work of course, but perhaps by convincingly laying out his proof Barack Obama can use his oft touted charm to win over the whole world on the side of effective sanctions. One wonders if Russia and Iran will be susceptible to such a charm offensive? Another option would be to equip Assad's enemies to overthrow him, assuming any can be found who are actually pro-American, or at least not anti-American.
At the end of the day Barack Obama's poor performance over the last five years has left the country with few good options. Given the pickle he’s created, I’d like to give President Obama some unsolicited advice.
There are some important if’s in that paragraph, but uncertainty and bad choices are what you get when a nation chooses to elect such an unqualified man as its head of state. Let's hope he doesn't fumble us into WW III.
So he’s a little confused about what his actual role in running the military is… not particularly surprising given that before being elected to the most powerful position on the planet the only thing he ever ran was a community organization and some law school classes. At least he’s sure why he’s decided a military attack is necessary… because he drew a red line in the sand and wanted to be very clear to the Assad regime that if “we start seeing a bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized, that would change my calculations, significantly…” That is a pretty clear statement. Or maybe not. Somehow that clear statement has morphed into “I didn’t draw a line in the sand…” Perhaps President Obama should ask his friend Al Gore about the thing called the Internet where he can look up what he actually said.
Whatever the message Barack Obama was hoping to send to Assad and the rest of the world, I’m pretty sure it’s not the one of fecklessness and ineptitude they're getting. In addition to misunderstanding both his role in leading the military and forgetting who drew a line in the sand, he’s lost any element of surprise by telling Assad what to expect and not to worry because nothing is going to happen before Congress finishes their deliberations. And he also let Assad know that regime change is not the goal.
Then there is the Secretary of State’s constant pronouncements about the makeup of the rebels, who any bombing would ostensibly benefit: “I just don't agree that a majority are al-Qaeda and the bad guys…” he told a House Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, one of the key advisors to the administration on the issue of the rebels has been Elizabeth O’Bagy, who, it turns out, is a paid propagandist for the rebels themselves. So it appears that the main source – or at least a significant source – for the President’s contention that the rebels are good guys is someone who’s paid to tell the world… that the rebels are good guys. No problem there. Interestingly in a moment of morbidly vaudevillian juxtaposition, in the very week the Secretary of State is trying to convince Congress of the benign nature of the rebels, a video surfaced of those very rebels cold bloodedly executing captured Syrian soldiers as they lay kneeling on the ground.
All of this showcases a President who is simply not up to the task of successfully leading the nation during a crisis on the international stage. It might be one thing if this was fresh ink on a newly minted presidential canvas, but it’s not. From Iran to Iraq to Libya to Egypt we have seen this president in the starring role in a series of movies that went very badly very quickly. Taken together all of this suggests that whatever Barack Obama chooses to do in reference to Syria, things will turn out badly for the country.
Sending some cruise missiles seems to be the solution of the day. Of course bombing Syria could have a vast array of unintended consequences. It may provoke Syria and or Iran to attack Israel. Russia has already said it will support Syria if it’s attacked and it appears that China is sending ships to the region. An attack might destabilize Syria in such a way that the rebels take over and we see another failed state like Libya or the ascent of an al-Qaeda affiliated power like in Egypt. An attack might cause Assad to use even more chemical weapons just to demonstrate that he cannot be intimidated. Worst of all, the possibility exists that somehow the US is sucked into a situation where it does indeed require American boots on the ground, this time without any real understanding of what victory is, what it would look like or how to achieve it. We can't forget the outcome the President is hoping for, that Assad will realize that crossing Barack Obama is a dangerous game and he then decides to stop killing innocents in his own country - at least with chemical weapons.
Then there is the option of doing nothing. If you listen to the President and his supporters, taking no action might result in Assad using chemical weapons again – assuming it was he who used them in the first place – and will embolden not only Assad, but Iran, North Korea and many other not-so-nice regimes around the world to do whatever they want with impunity.
At the end of the day Barack Obama's poor performance over the last five years has left the country with few good options. Given the pickle he’s created, I’d like to give President Obama some unsolicited advice.
Finding an alternative to bombing is likely your best option, and if the case for sanctions is made forcefully and effectively, it might actually work. If nothing else it might get some allies on our side and create something similar to the "coalition of the willing" George Bush assembled. If, however, you are sufficiently confident that Assad is a threat to the country and her allies that military action is necessary, your message on Tuesday night – rather than being a argument for why Syria should be bombed – should instead provide background on a strike that is taking place at that very moment.If he is seeking to send a message, seeking to show actual leadership and has decided to bomb Syria regardless of what Congress does, he should strike quickly and with overwhelming force rather than wait until Congress says it's OK and then inflict some limited pinprick of an operation. If the goal is to show the world the negative consequences of using banned weapons then the resulting pain had better be pretty harsh, otherwise the world will recognize the US as the paper tiger it has become under the ill-equipped president the American voters have inflicted on the world.
There are some important if’s in that paragraph, but uncertainty and bad choices are what you get when a nation chooses to elect such an unqualified man as its head of state. Let's hope he doesn't fumble us into WW III.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Iraq will be Barack Obama’s Vietnam
Iraq will become Barack Obama’s Vietnam. Not in the boogieman sense that the left has been using the Vietnam War for the last 40 years where every American use of force is the “next Vietnam” but rather in its aftermath.
The Vietnam War ostensibly ended in ended in early 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. The agreement was based upon an agreement by all sides to stop hostile activities and for American troops to depart. The Americans would continue to supply the South Vietnamese military. In addition, the SVN leadership was explicitly assured that were the North Vietnamese to resume hostilities the United States would begin bombing Hanoi and other targets in the North.
Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, the promises of arms and support were mirages. In 1974 Congress cut military aid to Vietnam from $2.3 billion to $1 billion and then in 1975 to $300 million. Thanks to the Democrat’s Case-Church Amendment, when the North had resupplied and resumed hostilities, the promised US bombing never came. In April 1975 Saigon fell and the South surrendered.
Then came the nightmare. Upwards of a million South Vietnamese found themselves in prisons, “re-education camps” or other tropical outposts where they were treated to starvation, torture and murder. Hundreds of thousands more braved the oceans in order to escape, a quarter of them never reaching shore. The effects of this nightmare reached into Cambodia and Laos as well.
And now there is Iraq.
The war in Iraq was obviously far different from the one in Vietnam. Unfortunately however, the aftermath may be similarly unpleasant.
While Iran will not invade Iraq anytime soon, the country could still become a vassal of the ayatollahs. If Iraq escapes that fate it may well collapse into a civil war that eventually draws not only the involvement of the Iranians, but of the Saudis, the Turks and other neighbors as well. Oh, and, yes, perhaps eventually the Americans again.
However one feels about the war in Iraq in the first place, the manner of the exit ensures one thing, that the American blood and treasure spent toppling Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a viable democracy in the Middle East will likely be for naught.
Not that Saddam Hussein will be coming back anytime soon, he won’t… but the country he once ruled will likely become a basket case or a failed state.
The writing on the wall has been there for years. Candidate Obama had been a critic of the Surge and President Obama’s only priority in Iraq seemed to be leaving.
Iran was paying close attention. Although they had been heavily arming insurgents and Shia militants during the dark days of 2005-2007, by 2009 their efforts had largely been defeated with the establishment of a fledgling but credible Iraqi government infrastructure.
However, the national elections of 2010 opened the door to Iran once again. Barack Obama was inexplicably a proponent of a laissez faire policy in reference to the dysfunction in the formation of the Iraqi government following the 2010 elections. To anyone looking (and there were many) it was clear that the United States was disengaged and focused on wrapping up the operation.
Such chaos invites the efforts of a strong horse. Iran was willing to play. With an ambiguous constitution and a Chief Justice carrying Prime Minister Maliki’s water, the Iranians became the power brokers behind the new government, forcing Mr. Maliki into a coalition that included the Sadrists, erstwhile insurgents led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This was only possible because of the vacuum left by the Obama administration. Had the Iraqis been confident that the United States would be standing with them until they could stand on their own, there would have been no vacuum for the Iranians to fill.
As things stand today, Iraq sits on a precipice of disaster. Within the last three months terrorist attacks have increased, sectarian infighting has escalated and two of the country’s eighteen provinces have sought semi-autonomous status, seeking to enjoy the autonomy the Kurds enjoy. Other provinces will surely follow. For a country with a weak central government and deep divisions amongst its population, such a centrifugal force is not exactly helpful. This will be particularly problematic as the national government seeks to collect and distribute oil revenues, bolster the power grid and perform other traditional tasks. Apart from the growing separatism at the local level, the federal government is a patchwork of alliances, most of which are held together by Iranian influence. That influence comes in various forms, from their covert (but hardly secret) support of terror groups Khataib Hizballah and Asaib Ahl al-Haqq, who are not only responsible for killing US troops but for targeted assassination across the country, to their overt economic, diplomatic and religious ties. As if to put a cherry bomb on the top of this powder keg, the day after the last American troops left the country, the Shiite-led government issued a warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's highest ranking Sunni official, on terrorism charges.
Of course it did not have to be this way. American Military planners had long sought to leave a force of between 20,000 to 30,000 troops to provide continued security, run counterinsurgency operations and to focus on training of the Iraqi military. Most analysts believed that number was the minimum number necessary to maintain many of the hard fought gains won over the last four years.
While 20,000 troops may sound rather small in terms of maintaining gains achieved in a country of 30 million people, the message they would have sent to the Iraqis, and equally importantly, to the Iranians, would have been crystal clear: The United States will not allow a democratically fragile Iraq to become an battleground of the Middle East or an Iranian puppet.
That however was never Barack Obama’s message. His campaign would later reveal his message: “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept”
For some perspective, one might observe that leaving sizable troop levels in a theater for a period of time after a conflict in order to maintain hard fought gains is nothing new. A quarter century after the end of WWII there were 260,000 American troops in Germany and today, sixty years after the Korean War there are 30,000 US troops in South Korea. Obviously the Korean peninsula and Western Europe are different than Mesopotamia, but the notion remains that leaving troops to midwife a long term positive outcome is far from foreign. At least to most people not named Barack Obama.
Instead, the message the Iraqis and their neighbors received from the United States was one of detachment driven by a President with little interest in anything other than ending “Bush’s War”. Whereas Bush talked with Prime Minister Maliki on a weekly basis, President Obama spoke with him rarely and not at all between February 13 and October 21 of this year, critical days in the period leading up to the end of the American presence in Iraq.
After months of doing nothing the administration finally proposed in August of this year to leave 3,000-5,000 troops, far below what most believed was necessary to secure the peace. Those numbers, far too small to fulfill its mission did prove helpful to the administration however: it provided a fig leaf behind which it could hide its retreat. This fig leaf came in the form of a lack of immunity for American troops on Iraqi soil. While Mr. Maliki and other members of the government may have been willing to go to the mattresses to secure such immunity for a substantial force that demonstrated a serious American commitment to Iraq, they were not willing to do so for a token force that would provide little support or security. Even that fig leaf was too small to provide true cover because the administration could have easily put any forces in Iraq on the diplomatic rolls, which would have provided such immunity.
At the end of the day, Iraq will be Barack Obama’s Vietnam in the sense that not only will most of the hard fought gains be lost, but there will be thousands who will pay the price for his choice, starting with the innocents who will be caught in the sectarian crossfire. They will not be the only ones however. So too will a price be paid by neighbors who fear an emboldened Iran as well as freedom advocates across the region who might have sought replicate Iraq’s success and build secular, democratic governments. And then there is the world’s confidence in the United States as a long term ally in the fight for regional stability and a bulwark against Iranian intervention.
Of course all of this comes on the heels of another futile round of sanctions seeking to keep the Iranians from developing or delivering a nuclear weapon. Barack Obama has certainly conveyed a message of strength and stability to the region. “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept” Indeed.
The Vietnam War ostensibly ended in ended in early 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. The agreement was based upon an agreement by all sides to stop hostile activities and for American troops to depart. The Americans would continue to supply the South Vietnamese military. In addition, the SVN leadership was explicitly assured that were the North Vietnamese to resume hostilities the United States would begin bombing Hanoi and other targets in the North.
Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, the promises of arms and support were mirages. In 1974 Congress cut military aid to Vietnam from $2.3 billion to $1 billion and then in 1975 to $300 million. Thanks to the Democrat’s Case-Church Amendment, when the North had resupplied and resumed hostilities, the promised US bombing never came. In April 1975 Saigon fell and the South surrendered.
Then came the nightmare. Upwards of a million South Vietnamese found themselves in prisons, “re-education camps” or other tropical outposts where they were treated to starvation, torture and murder. Hundreds of thousands more braved the oceans in order to escape, a quarter of them never reaching shore. The effects of this nightmare reached into Cambodia and Laos as well.
And now there is Iraq.
The war in Iraq was obviously far different from the one in Vietnam. Unfortunately however, the aftermath may be similarly unpleasant.
While Iran will not invade Iraq anytime soon, the country could still become a vassal of the ayatollahs. If Iraq escapes that fate it may well collapse into a civil war that eventually draws not only the involvement of the Iranians, but of the Saudis, the Turks and other neighbors as well. Oh, and, yes, perhaps eventually the Americans again.However one feels about the war in Iraq in the first place, the manner of the exit ensures one thing, that the American blood and treasure spent toppling Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a viable democracy in the Middle East will likely be for naught.
Not that Saddam Hussein will be coming back anytime soon, he won’t… but the country he once ruled will likely become a basket case or a failed state.
The writing on the wall has been there for years. Candidate Obama had been a critic of the Surge and President Obama’s only priority in Iraq seemed to be leaving.
Iran was paying close attention. Although they had been heavily arming insurgents and Shia militants during the dark days of 2005-2007, by 2009 their efforts had largely been defeated with the establishment of a fledgling but credible Iraqi government infrastructure.
However, the national elections of 2010 opened the door to Iran once again. Barack Obama was inexplicably a proponent of a laissez faire policy in reference to the dysfunction in the formation of the Iraqi government following the 2010 elections. To anyone looking (and there were many) it was clear that the United States was disengaged and focused on wrapping up the operation.
Such chaos invites the efforts of a strong horse. Iran was willing to play. With an ambiguous constitution and a Chief Justice carrying Prime Minister Maliki’s water, the Iranians became the power brokers behind the new government, forcing Mr. Maliki into a coalition that included the Sadrists, erstwhile insurgents led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This was only possible because of the vacuum left by the Obama administration. Had the Iraqis been confident that the United States would be standing with them until they could stand on their own, there would have been no vacuum for the Iranians to fill.
As things stand today, Iraq sits on a precipice of disaster. Within the last three months terrorist attacks have increased, sectarian infighting has escalated and two of the country’s eighteen provinces have sought semi-autonomous status, seeking to enjoy the autonomy the Kurds enjoy. Other provinces will surely follow. For a country with a weak central government and deep divisions amongst its population, such a centrifugal force is not exactly helpful. This will be particularly problematic as the national government seeks to collect and distribute oil revenues, bolster the power grid and perform other traditional tasks. Apart from the growing separatism at the local level, the federal government is a patchwork of alliances, most of which are held together by Iranian influence. That influence comes in various forms, from their covert (but hardly secret) support of terror groups Khataib Hizballah and Asaib Ahl al-Haqq, who are not only responsible for killing US troops but for targeted assassination across the country, to their overt economic, diplomatic and religious ties. As if to put a cherry bomb on the top of this powder keg, the day after the last American troops left the country, the Shiite-led government issued a warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's highest ranking Sunni official, on terrorism charges.
Of course it did not have to be this way. American Military planners had long sought to leave a force of between 20,000 to 30,000 troops to provide continued security, run counterinsurgency operations and to focus on training of the Iraqi military. Most analysts believed that number was the minimum number necessary to maintain many of the hard fought gains won over the last four years.
While 20,000 troops may sound rather small in terms of maintaining gains achieved in a country of 30 million people, the message they would have sent to the Iraqis, and equally importantly, to the Iranians, would have been crystal clear: The United States will not allow a democratically fragile Iraq to become an battleground of the Middle East or an Iranian puppet.
That however was never Barack Obama’s message. His campaign would later reveal his message: “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept”
For some perspective, one might observe that leaving sizable troop levels in a theater for a period of time after a conflict in order to maintain hard fought gains is nothing new. A quarter century after the end of WWII there were 260,000 American troops in Germany and today, sixty years after the Korean War there are 30,000 US troops in South Korea. Obviously the Korean peninsula and Western Europe are different than Mesopotamia, but the notion remains that leaving troops to midwife a long term positive outcome is far from foreign. At least to most people not named Barack Obama.
Instead, the message the Iraqis and their neighbors received from the United States was one of detachment driven by a President with little interest in anything other than ending “Bush’s War”. Whereas Bush talked with Prime Minister Maliki on a weekly basis, President Obama spoke with him rarely and not at all between February 13 and October 21 of this year, critical days in the period leading up to the end of the American presence in Iraq.
After months of doing nothing the administration finally proposed in August of this year to leave 3,000-5,000 troops, far below what most believed was necessary to secure the peace. Those numbers, far too small to fulfill its mission did prove helpful to the administration however: it provided a fig leaf behind which it could hide its retreat. This fig leaf came in the form of a lack of immunity for American troops on Iraqi soil. While Mr. Maliki and other members of the government may have been willing to go to the mattresses to secure such immunity for a substantial force that demonstrated a serious American commitment to Iraq, they were not willing to do so for a token force that would provide little support or security. Even that fig leaf was too small to provide true cover because the administration could have easily put any forces in Iraq on the diplomatic rolls, which would have provided such immunity.
At the end of the day, Iraq will be Barack Obama’s Vietnam in the sense that not only will most of the hard fought gains be lost, but there will be thousands who will pay the price for his choice, starting with the innocents who will be caught in the sectarian crossfire. They will not be the only ones however. So too will a price be paid by neighbors who fear an emboldened Iran as well as freedom advocates across the region who might have sought replicate Iraq’s success and build secular, democratic governments. And then there is the world’s confidence in the United States as a long term ally in the fight for regional stability and a bulwark against Iranian intervention.
Of course all of this comes on the heels of another futile round of sanctions seeking to keep the Iranians from developing or delivering a nuclear weapon. Barack Obama has certainly conveyed a message of strength and stability to the region. “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept” Indeed.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Cold War lessons never learned by Golfer in Chief Obama
In a nod to President Obama’s attempted pivot on Tuesday from Iraq to jobs, on this Labor Day I’d like to pivot from jobs to national defense.
I’m a child of the Cold War. Born in the 1965, I spent 12 of my first 24 years living outside the United States. My family spent five years in Naples, Italy, where both parents worked on a NATO base. We spent another five years living on the thorn in Fidel Castro’s side known as Guantanamo Bay. After school I spent two years in the Army stationed in what was at the time called West Germany. The Cold War just was. The Iron Curtain was the line of demarcation between freedom and oppression.
The Cold War was called the Cold War because it was, well… cold. Not in the anti-global warming sense, but cold as opposed to hot, where bullets fly and lifeless bodies lay strewn on across the battlefields that make up the front lines. As uncomfortable as friction zones like Korea and Vietnam were, they were a far cry from the 16 million killed in World War I and 60 million in WWII. The Cold War stayed cold because everyone knew there were severe consequences for turning it hot. Those sentiments held for both conventional war – with over a quarter of a million American troops stationed in Germany alone, and unconventional – with the well understood doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. As distressing as the visions that inspired “duck and cover” were, they were far better than the actual loss of millions of lives.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a President Obama who spent 20 years in Jeremiah Wright’s church and somehow never picked up that the pastor was an America hating racist, similarly spent his life under the umbrella of security provided by a stalwart American foreign policy yet never understood its most basic lessons. This lack of understanding is clearly demonstrated by his oft stated determination to pull American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan according to an arbitrary calendar on his desk.
The fact that the world has existed in relative peace, absent a significant hot war with major players directly confronting one another for 65 years is a monument to the lessons learned between 1918 and 1939. After WWI Woodrow Wilson put his faith in his Fourteen Points and the League of Nations to maintain the peace and America returned to isolation. Hitler’s 1938 designs on the Sudetenland and Chamberlain’s “Peace for Our Time” demonstrated Wilson’s folly.
Seeking to avoid Wilson’s mistakes, Truman initially left hundreds of thousands of troops in Japan and Germany to keep the vanquished from somehow reassembling their war machines and starting WWIII. Soon it became clear however that the primary threat did not come from vanquished enemies but from our erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. The result was that the American presence in both countries morphed from an occupying force to one of mutual defense. Ostensibly that defense protected those countries from an invasion. What it did somewhat more subtly was just important; it acted as a midwife to their nascent democracies.
By making it clear whenever necessary that the United States was willing to go to the mattresses to protect its interests and its friends, we were able to avoid the horrors of the first half of the 20th century. Simultaneously, by providing the people of Germany and Japan with the stability to develop their democratic institutions the United States was able to midwife two former enemies into two of the most robust and dynamic economies (and trading partners) in the world. In the end everyone won.
The success of this model did not always play out on the same timetable: In the Philippines and South Korea democracy took much longer to develop. Nor were the lessons always heeded: We abandoned Vietnam (and later the South Vietnamese government when Congress balked at support), let Afghanistan become a vacuum after the Soviets departed, and left an armed Saddam in power after the first Gulf War.
The lessons of the Cold War success are lost on President Obama. By continuously signaling his plan to pull American troops out according to his arbitrary deadline he is killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, he is telling the people of Afghanistan and Iraq that they had better get this democracy thing right – now – because soon they are going to be on their own. This is a monumental error. Democracy is a difficult form of government even in the best of circumstances and only more so with a violent enemy within who has no compunction about slaughtering innocent civilians by the thousands. Four years after the end of the Revolutionary War the United States had a true government in name only. The Constitution was written and ratified in 1787 and it was the child of accomplished patriots such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin George Mason, John Hancock, John Adams and of course George Washington. Without them who knows what might have become of those 13 states. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has such men of skill and stature.
At the same time he is warning the Iraqis and Afghanistanis that they had better get things right, President Obama is signaling to the Taliban and insurgents across the middle east that if they lay low and bide their time they will soon have a clear field for launching their assaults on these precarious democracies. Like a burglar who waits for the security guard to make his nightly rounds before stealing a coveted masterpiece, the terrorists who seek to take over Iraq and Afghanistan understand their chances of success are far greater if the Americans are gone. As such, given
President Obama’s promised timelines, they know they can simply husband their resources to strike when the Americans are gone. From any terrorist’s perspective, that is a far different playing field than one where they knew the Americans were focused on victory rather than the calendar.
At the risk of interrupting a Labor Day golf vacation I might suggest President Obama also start doing a little Cold War research to find out what it takes to be victorious in wars not fought within ivory towers. A good place might William Manchester’s American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 – 1964. Not only did McArthur say “In war there is no substitute for Victory” but he was also the man who set the foundations for a non aggressive, economically successful and democratically stable Japan. It even comes in a paperback, just the right size for a golf bag pocket...
I’m a child of the Cold War. Born in the 1965, I spent 12 of my first 24 years living outside the United States. My family spent five years in Naples, Italy, where both parents worked on a NATO base. We spent another five years living on the thorn in Fidel Castro’s side known as Guantanamo Bay. After school I spent two years in the Army stationed in what was at the time called West Germany. The Cold War just was. The Iron Curtain was the line of demarcation between freedom and oppression.
The Cold War was called the Cold War because it was, well… cold. Not in the anti-global warming sense, but cold as opposed to hot, where bullets fly and lifeless bodies lay strewn on across the battlefields that make up the front lines. As uncomfortable as friction zones like Korea and Vietnam were, they were a far cry from the 16 million killed in World War I and 60 million in WWII. The Cold War stayed cold because everyone knew there were severe consequences for turning it hot. Those sentiments held for both conventional war – with over a quarter of a million American troops stationed in Germany alone, and unconventional – with the well understood doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. As distressing as the visions that inspired “duck and cover” were, they were far better than the actual loss of millions of lives.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a President Obama who spent 20 years in Jeremiah Wright’s church and somehow never picked up that the pastor was an America hating racist, similarly spent his life under the umbrella of security provided by a stalwart American foreign policy yet never understood its most basic lessons. This lack of understanding is clearly demonstrated by his oft stated determination to pull American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan according to an arbitrary calendar on his desk.
The fact that the world has existed in relative peace, absent a significant hot war with major players directly confronting one another for 65 years is a monument to the lessons learned between 1918 and 1939. After WWI Woodrow Wilson put his faith in his Fourteen Points and the League of Nations to maintain the peace and America returned to isolation. Hitler’s 1938 designs on the Sudetenland and Chamberlain’s “Peace for Our Time” demonstrated Wilson’s folly. Seeking to avoid Wilson’s mistakes, Truman initially left hundreds of thousands of troops in Japan and Germany to keep the vanquished from somehow reassembling their war machines and starting WWIII. Soon it became clear however that the primary threat did not come from vanquished enemies but from our erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. The result was that the American presence in both countries morphed from an occupying force to one of mutual defense. Ostensibly that defense protected those countries from an invasion. What it did somewhat more subtly was just important; it acted as a midwife to their nascent democracies.
By making it clear whenever necessary that the United States was willing to go to the mattresses to protect its interests and its friends, we were able to avoid the horrors of the first half of the 20th century. Simultaneously, by providing the people of Germany and Japan with the stability to develop their democratic institutions the United States was able to midwife two former enemies into two of the most robust and dynamic economies (and trading partners) in the world. In the end everyone won.
The success of this model did not always play out on the same timetable: In the Philippines and South Korea democracy took much longer to develop. Nor were the lessons always heeded: We abandoned Vietnam (and later the South Vietnamese government when Congress balked at support), let Afghanistan become a vacuum after the Soviets departed, and left an armed Saddam in power after the first Gulf War.
The lessons of the Cold War success are lost on President Obama. By continuously signaling his plan to pull American troops out according to his arbitrary deadline he is killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, he is telling the people of Afghanistan and Iraq that they had better get this democracy thing right – now – because soon they are going to be on their own. This is a monumental error. Democracy is a difficult form of government even in the best of circumstances and only more so with a violent enemy within who has no compunction about slaughtering innocent civilians by the thousands. Four years after the end of the Revolutionary War the United States had a true government in name only. The Constitution was written and ratified in 1787 and it was the child of accomplished patriots such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin George Mason, John Hancock, John Adams and of course George Washington. Without them who knows what might have become of those 13 states. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has such men of skill and stature.
At the same time he is warning the Iraqis and Afghanistanis that they had better get things right, President Obama is signaling to the Taliban and insurgents across the middle east that if they lay low and bide their time they will soon have a clear field for launching their assaults on these precarious democracies. Like a burglar who waits for the security guard to make his nightly rounds before stealing a coveted masterpiece, the terrorists who seek to take over Iraq and Afghanistan understand their chances of success are far greater if the Americans are gone. As such, given
President Obama’s promised timelines, they know they can simply husband their resources to strike when the Americans are gone. From any terrorist’s perspective, that is a far different playing field than one where they knew the Americans were focused on victory rather than the calendar. At the risk of interrupting a Labor Day golf vacation I might suggest President Obama also start doing a little Cold War research to find out what it takes to be victorious in wars not fought within ivory towers. A good place might William Manchester’s American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 – 1964. Not only did McArthur say “In war there is no substitute for Victory” but he was also the man who set the foundations for a non aggressive, economically successful and democratically stable Japan. It even comes in a paperback, just the right size for a golf bag pocket...
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