August 9, 2014

"The situation near Erbil was becoming more dire than anyone expected. We didn’t want another Benghazi."

That's a quote from someone the NYT identifies as "a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the White House’s internal deliberations."

The U.S. has a consulate in Erbil, so the similarity to Benghazi, if it were overrun would have been stark.

The linked article — titled "Fear of ‘Another Benghazi’ Drove White House to Airstrikes in Iraq" — has an interesting 11th paragraph, which seems to be a gathering spot for details that make Obama sound disengaged (but busy):
With nearly 50 African leaders converging on Washington, the president was fully occupied with a week of diplomacy and salesmanship on behalf of American companies — not to mention a White House dinner featuring entertainment by Lionel Richie. On Saturday, he and his wife, Michelle, were to leave town for two weeks of vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.
The Washington Post provides additional details. Even as the Yazidi were trapped and dying of thirst on a mountain in Iraq, the White House was serving "aged American beef spiced with chermoula, sip trendy Virginia wine (religion permitting)." And Lionel Richie's "All Night Long" seems to speak in an African language — "jambo jumbo... Oh jambali/Tom bo li de say de moi ya" — but it's just gibberish, "a wonderful joke," according to Richie, who contends that even in "made-up language... I am actually saying something, because even to this day, we’ll play India, and someone will tell me, 'Yes, you’ve touched on certain words in [our language].' As long as I am not cursing you out, I am going in the right direction."

Good enough for pop song lyrics, but I want more straight talk — more focus — from Obama on Iraq, where there are no wonderful jokes.

104 comments:

Sebastian said...

More "straight talk"? From Barry?

Just like you wanted (and expected) him to be "pragmatic" back in 08?

traditionalguy said...

The USA under Muslim Pretender Obama is curled up in a fetal position now, except when we are threatening our only militarily strong allies anywhere close to the middle-east Caliphate State, Russia and Israel, with sanctions for being hard on peace loving Muslims.

PB said...

Huh? They were afraid someone was going to come in and make an internet video and get ISIS all riled up?

garage mahal said...

0Bummer is a cold, calculating tyrant at home, and such a weak pussy on foreign policy! ARRRRGH.

PB said...

The NY Times and the administration really need to start paying attention to what is happening out there in the real world. It ain't pretty.

lemondog said...

If factual, this is beyond sick...

Leader: ISIS is ‘Systematically Beheading Children' in 'Christian Genocide'

Hagar said...

Was that "another Benghazi" or "another Saigon"?

Birkel said...

"...more dire than anyone expected." -- anonymous administration official

Somebody should teach that anonymous administration official the difference between the word "anyone" and the phrase "anyone who works in the White House, presently". Those things mean different things.

Pauline Kael is on Line 1 for the anonymous administration official.

LYNNDH said...

The WH is occupied by Zombies - all brain dead.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

How could they be surprised by what was happening? Where have they been?

Why was nothing done before Mosul fell? A small amount of force then would have prevented all of this.

Inaction kills people, too.

Michael K said...

"0Bummer is a cold, calculating tyrant at home, and such a weak pussy on foreign policy! ARRRRGH."

He is cold only when Republicans or libertarians are around. With Socialists or African tyrants, he is warm and bubbly. And, of course with Hollywood or Wall Street types.

PB said...

ISIS is seeking to out-do the Khmer Rouge.

Birkel said...

"garage mahal":

President Obama continues to pretend that simply desiring a result will actually increase the odds of that result. For an example from domestic affairs, President Obama wished that he could expand insurance coverage to millions of people (some of whom did not want the coverage forced on them by Leviathan) while simultaneously decreasing prices for medical services. The Laws of Economics do not allow both things to be simultaneously true, all else equal. And President Obama promised all else would be equal (keep your doctor, etc.) to no avail.

One example from international affairs is happening in Iraq. President Obama wanted to remove all U.S. forces from the Iraqi theater and simultaneously wanted peace in Iraq. Again, these two things proved a president's desire of a state of affairs in the world could not make it so.

The best case scenario is that President Obama is hopelessly naive. Let's hope he gets lucky enough to have a Republican Senate next year.

Anonymous said...

How could anyone have known that Iraq would fall apart after we left?

How could anyone have known that premiums would go up under Obamacare?

How could anyone have known that cash for clunkers would have had a negative economic effect?

I bet we can play this game for quite a long time. But as Glenn Reynolds likes to quote Robert Heinlein,

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”

This is one unlucky Administration.


How could they have known?

exhelodrvr1 said...

This was obvious in 2007

Original Mike said...

Why, in God's name, are we not arming the Kurds? They even have an airbase available for our use.

Jason said...

The problem is they are allowing our enemies to force us to react to them in fear of another Benghazi when we should be forcing them to be reacting to us in fear of another Linebacker II.

This Administration has an OODA loop like the orbit of Pluto.

The Drill SGT said...

Helping the Yazidi is a Mitzvah, better late than ever. Too bad the WH could not have intervened weeks ago when 5 times the number of Christians were run out of Mosul, where they had lived for 1900 years...

As for the impacts of 10 air strikes? Useless except in the US press. It will take C-17's with pallets of ammo and A4 rockets along with A-10s and SF teams to stop ISIL.

richard mcenroe said...

When it comes to gibberish Obama's a connoisseur.

Jason said...

Mosul fell two months ago. We should have had a prepackaged option already staffed up and waiting to provide both military and humanitarian assistance to Kurdish groups and Yazidis in the region, and a massive strike force ready to launch to put the fear of Allah back into ISIS.

We started the campaign with a pinprick. Two sorties. We should have taken the tactical surprise with a hundred sorties, not two. The case of the slows just put ISIS on notice and gave them an opportunity to disperse.

No doubt the staffers at CENTCOM and the Pentagon were all focused on integrating the gays and lesbians and monitoring mandatory briefings and promoting Army officers to flag rank without a single deployment under their belt to do the staff work required to give the President some workable options when the need arose.

The rot infesting the top ranks of the military has consequences.

CWJ said...

"...more dire than anyone expected."

Whether it's unemployment, international events, or anything in between, this administration has never "expected" anything. They are surprised by everything.

Part of growing up is learning to take charge of events as best you can and not depend upon your parents to control your world for you. We are governed by children.

garage mahal said...

Perhaps we can get Iraq stabilized to a period before we invaded- when Saddam Hussein was still in control- and protected the Yazidis without the help from three countries.

Miss me yet?

Anonymous said...

"I want more straight talk — more focus — from Obama on Iraq, where there are no wonderful jokes."

Really? And the reason why you think President Obama is even capable of providing that is?

Has he ever, during his entire presidency, ever provided straight talk and competent action on ANYTHING?

Michael K said...

" It will take C-17's with pallets of ammo and A4 rockets along with A-10s and SF teams to stop ISIL."

You must remember that this is not about "stopping" anyone. It is about optics, which this administration knows well. From HuffPo.

By the time 90-minute meeting ended, it was clear Obama planned to order humanitarian aid to be airdropped to the Yazidis, a religious minority being targeted by the Islamic State militant group. But advisers were still unsure whether Obama would go one step further: airstrikes in Iraq, just three years after the U.S. pulled out from a war that Obama never liked.

It is likely that the media will lose interest once they show a few air strikes. Remember Clinton in Kosovo ?

Drago said...

Its always interesting getting the rural high schoolers view of events from garage.

Jason said...

Garage Mahal:

You are truly a stupid, stupid man.

You think Saddam Hussein "protected" the Yazidis, you ignorant little cuss? Let's ask them.

Throughout the Middle East it was no secret that Saddam Hussein’s goal was systematic cultural genocide of the Yezidis. Under his savage regime the Yezidis were uprooted from their villages, their farmland taken, and they were denied both jobs and medical care. Approximately 250 Yezidi villages near Mosul in the Sinjar Mountains were destroyed, and the river Dejela, which supplies the Yezidi communities with drinking water, was contaminated with poisons.

http://www.yeziditruth.org/yezidi_genocide

Seriously, Garage... have you no sense of f***ing shame?

Moron.

Anonymous said...

Original Mike said...

Why, in God's name, are we not arming the Kurds? They even have an airbase available for our use.


Because Barack Obama believes in gun control.

damikesc said...

0Bummer is a cold, calculating tyrant at home, and such a weak pussy on foreign policy! ARRRRGH.

The only enemies he knows are Americans. He doesn't view OUR enemies as enemies...only HIS enemies.

Perhaps we can get Iraq stabilized to a period before we invaded- when Saddam Hussein was still in control- and protected the Yazidis without the help from three countries.

Didn't he POISON them?

richard mcenroe said...

No, no, Saddam gassed the Kurds and the Swamp Arabs. The Yezidi were WAY down his to-do list...

somefeller said...

Executive action by Obama is liberal fascism. And so is his inaction. And he better not open the borders to let in refugees!

The Drill SGT said...

gregq said...
Original Mike said...

Why, in God's name, are we not arming the Kurds? They even have an airbase available for our use.


Because our friends the Iranian Mullahs hate the Kurds

richard mcenroe said...

Good enough for pop song lyrics...where IS Buffy St.Marie when we need her anyway?

George M. Spencer said...

""When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true." ---Truman, Aug. 11, 1945

Here is billboard at a Pacific island airbase that Adm. Halsey ordered erected saying, "Kill Japs. Kill Japs. Kill more Japs...kill the yellow bastards." And he also said, ""We are drowning and burning them all over the Pacific, and it is just as much pleasure to burn them as to drown them."

One doubts that Obama on the Vineyard feels such animal fury.

30 Months to Go.

FleetUSA said...

BH0 is a wuss

n.n said...

Even more than loathing another Benghazi massacre, they don't want Iraq to become another arms depot. It was bad in Mexico. It was worse in Libya. They lost control in Syria.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

The Turks aren't crazy about the idea of heavily armed Kurds, either. Once the Kurds dealt with ISIL I bet a whole lot of any weapons supplied would find their way over the Turkish border.

C R Krieger said...

One consequence of this action might be to finally shred the War Powers Act. While I am glad the President acted and acted with some alacrity, he is demolishing the ancient powers of the US Congress. While I doubt Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ever reflects on this (and doubt Ms Pelosi does either), the Democrats are inoculating the President from Impeachment by crying impeachment. This is, overall, not a good thing.

As for not letting the refugees in, where else are they going to go? Argentina? Venezuela? Cuba? Canada? (Maybe). The Yazidi deserve it more than the folks from CENTAM.

Regards -- Cliff

traditionalguy said...

The Kurds have the prize which is oil fields. To keep those oil fields the Shia ruling in Iraq expect to let the Kurds who lack good American weapons to be exterminated for them by ISIL that has tons of good American weapons. Then they expect for Iran to come in and push out ISIL, all for the oil prize.

Obama and his Consiglieri Jarrett approve of any strategy 100% that favors Iran's interest.

Seeing Red said...

Ahhh for the days of not shooting missiles to hit camels in butts.

It's a mess.

What difference, at this point, does it make?

Seeing Red said...

iSIS is also operating slave markets? I'm sure Meesh will start hashtagging soon.

Jason said...

I can feel garage, frantically calling the DNC office for a new talking point.

"I tried the thing you faxed me about Saddam protecting the Yazidis and it didn't work! It turned out he liquidated their villages and poisoned their water supply. What now, boss?"

LULZ.

Hey, Garage! I'm calling you out, libtard. Either rat out the agency that fed you the talking point, or take it on yourself and retract.

Michael said...

Garage

It is understood that a poorly educated kid from the sticks would become a liberal upon relocating to Madison, Wisc. How else to get laid? How else to fit in with the undergraduate girls and then later the graduate students? Perfectly normal. But please understand that you are getting your ideas from children, from students. Handy to have the talking points at the ready when you are trying to get laid, but you really can't lay that same bullshit on most of the people who comment here. People with advanced degrees and real world experience who are not perpetually hanging with students, current and permanent.

Gary Rosen said...

Re lemondog's link:

#cantblameitonjews*yawn*

CharlesVegas said...

My neighbor's cousin is working on an oil rig in northern Iraq.

She got a text from him last night that IS is approaching and he and his co-workers are fleeing on foot through the desert to the Turkish border 20 miles away.

jacksonjay said...

Well, as we know, he only knows what he hears in the media. So, we can assume a degree of disengagement, huh? Clearly, ESPN's PTI is not reportin on ISIS.

I must add that some of you commenters should "stop hatin all the time, ... stop bein mad all the time!"

tim maguire said...

garage mahal said...0Bummer is a cold, calculating tyrant at home, and such a weak pussy on foreign policy! ARRRRGH.

Yes, he has it perfectly backwards. Or does if we assume he wants to do right by the United States and its allies. But different assumptions lead to different conclusions.

David said...

I have a growing sense that he just does not want to deal with it. And the press must have this sense too. Otherwise the contrast between the parched and dying refugees and the lush entertaining at the White House would have been resisted. They do not like to make him look bad, but it seems unavoidable.

Today I watched a clip of Obama (with Marine One behind him on the White House lawn) answering questions about ISIS and Iraq. He was polite and lucid, and quite frank that both their intelligence about ISIS and their estimates of the Iraq army had been faulty. But the scene also gave him the chance to give a pep talk, to discuss the importance of our support to Iraq. He did neither. He wanted the interview over with. He may want his presidency over with.

I had wondered where he was going on the copter. Apparently to Martha's Vinyard for his vacation. That's ok with me. Presidents deserve vacations, and I don't think the criticism of his has been any more fair that the criticism of Bush was on this subject. He can deal with this from there as well as from the White House. But no better, which is the problem.

There is such a huge moat around presidents now. It must feel strange to be in there. And then it does not feel strange any more, and that is very bad. What must be going on in his head? Another Benghazi? How about another genocide? How good is his intelligence information now? How ready is he to act on it?



pm317 said...

The real war on women is going on in Iraq and the Obama crowd does not know how to deal with it. Pathetic lefties.

The Drill SGT said...

“Before we're done with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell!”

- W F Halsey

Skeptical Voter said...

Strange that Lionel Richie might claim that, even in a "made up language" he's actually saying something.

Heck fire, we have a made up President who actually does say something. It's just that none of it is touch with reality.

somefeller said...

People with advanced degrees and real world experience who are not perpetually hanging with students, current and permanent.

People with advanced degrees and real world experience don't tend to become mouthbreather anti-Obama types. They tend to vote Democratic or are (horrors!) socially liberal moderate Republicans. You don't find many Ivy Leaguers at Tea Party rallies. And didn't you get the memo from Sarah Palin that people who cite the value of advanced degrees are eeleetist?

Insufficiently Sensitive said...

Leaving on vacation at this time of crisis is a fatal indicator of Obama's disdain for US security and foreign affairs.

The Godfather said...

The official Obama Administration position is that what we're doing right now is a one-time humanitarian action to save those poor people (or "folks") on the mountain top. It doesn't mean that the US will get seriously involved in stopping ISIS. But ISIS is as anti-humanitarian (maybe I should have stopped typing at anti-human) as you can get. If the press focuses on northern Iraq for awhile, if the stories about genocide, rape, slavery, etc. continue to leak into the US public consciousness, Obama may find that he is forced to arm the Kurds, expand the air war, etc., at least to the point of stopping ISIS. Otherwise, he will know that his place in history will forever be blemished.

Birkel said...

Somefeller:

I am rather sure you know less about Ivy Leaguers than you intimate. In fact, your sense of smugness is based on turtles. Turtles all the way down.

As facts intrude upon your worldview, and on the worldview of President Obama, I fear you both will experience some dissociation. But the world exists beyond your control. It will be uncomfortable to see your assumptions are wrong but it's the only way to your growth as a person. Do not resist.

You cannot long keep reality at bay.

Lydia said...

Q: Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq? And does it give you pause as the U.S. — is it doing the same thing in Afghanistan?

Obama: Hey, it’s not as if this was my decision!


Now let me on that helicopter -- it’s off to the Vineyard!

sdharms said...

he gets his news on domestic and foreign events from the newspapers; events are always "unexpected' and "unprecedented". Good Grief. "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

khesanh0802 said...

It is hard to understand the tactics being used here. Are we sending unarmed C-47's to drop care packages? If so, how long before one is shot down or at least shot up? Why the limited air strikes? If we want to take the pressure off the Kurds then do it with some seriousness. The Turks are more concerned now with the possibility of having to deal with the ISIL crazies than with the Kurds with whom they have been creating closer financial ties. We gain nothing by keeping the Kurds and the Turks on edge.

I said this* yesterday hoping that I was just being impatient and that we were really going to treat ISIL's advance first and foremost as a military problem. Either the president is getting really poor advice from the Joint Chiefs or he is, in fact, a "wuss". I am pretty sure it probably is the latter and the fact that he is surrounded by "wusses". I am a firm believer that once you have decided to take military action, the most effective- and ultimately least costly - strategy is to do as Admiral Halsey said "Hit hard, hit fast, hit often"

*"If Obama really wanted to send an effective message he would have used the whole of the capacity of the carrier Bush, bombed and strafed every bad guy within a " free fire zone" until they turned around and headed for home or couldn't move at all. That kind of message would reverberate and would have the benefit of reducing ISIS war making capacity significantly. That military commitment would also signal that we were willing to buy time to work out a restructuring of the Iraqi government, which seems to be our goal."

Michael said...

somefeller

You see, you too are trapped in thinking in stereotypes, of lumping those outside your academy as being stupid and uneducated and, well, conservative. But you would be very wrong. While it is true that many with advanced degrees are democrat voters, and all with advanced degrees in the humanities that work in the academy vote democrat. But for those who took their humanities degrees into the real world to use as intended it is a different story. You would not know those people.

somefeller said...

Birkel: I'm rather sure you know less about, well, everything, than you intimate. But thanks for playing.

And Michael, the quintessential humanities grads in "the real world" are lawyers, which aren't a big Tea Party demographic. And as per scientists...

Seeing Red said...

Ooh like Obama, Hillary & Bill? They did/are doing a great job in the real world, don't ya think?

Seeing Red said...

Especially the Constitutional lawyer. Wink wink

Birkel said...

somefeller:
It's terribly funny that you should deign to tell me about the Ivy League. Do, please, continue.

Michael:
I'm sorry you've bought into the propaganda somefeller and his fellow travelers have sold. The pseudo-intellectuals who marvel at their ability to argue pointless things with each other in articles nobody reads are not to be believed.

mtrobertsattorney said...

Why all this concern over ISIS?

ISIS is just "a JV team wearing Laker uniforms". How do I know this is so? My president told me so.

pm317 said...

Oh My.. WAPO editorial board going after Obama.

Birkel said...

pm317:
The WaPo editorial board is trying to salvage some of their long-lost credibility. It is important for Democrats that they are able to criticize the lame duck president going into a second term's midterm election and the WaPo is doing battle space prep for vulnerable Democrats.

It's not real.

CWJ said...

David@3:47,

Two points.

I would suggest that it is not that intelligence has been faulty so much as this POTUS has simply not wanted to be bothered to deal with it. Repeatedly claiming it is faulty after the fact is very convenient.

As to his vacations, I would note that I cannot recall any national or international event that has been important enough to interupt his vacation, much less fund raising, schedule. I also note that the last three R presidents all had homes to go to when taking vacation. But that didn't stop the media's carping. By comparison, the last two D presidents look positively homeless and more like they're in it to work the expense account on the public's dime. Time for the MSM to take notice of both these observations. Will they?

The Drill SGT said...

khesanh0802 said...
It is hard to understand the tactics being used here. Are we sending unarmed C-47's to drop care packages?


I expect it's C-130's at 10,000 ft (above ManPad range) using GPS guided steerable chutes. However, they are both expensive and not infinite. In A-stan, we recycle them.


Birkel said...
pm317:
The WaPo editorial board is trying to salvage some of their long-lost credibility.


The WaPo Editorial staff regularly calls out democrat administrations (unlike the NYT). Their standard style is the "express disappointment with a policy decision..."

Anonymous said...

What Admiral Halsey actually meant was "Kill more Japanese knotweed." But he was afraid of what the sociologists might say.

Jason said...

GARAAAAAAAAAGE!!!! Rat out your talking point source or retract, you pathetic quisling!

Michael K said...

"People with advanced degrees and real world experience don't tend to become mouthbreather anti-Obama types. They tend to vote Democratic or are (horrors!) socially liberal moderate Republicans."

Nice example of the lefty "I'm smarter than you are" attitude.

"socially liberal moderate Republicans." Are also called libertarians. The ones I know, and I include my self, are not moderate about idiotic economic ideas. The lefties I know are almost solely concerned with social matters like gay marriage and LGBT. A lot of them are probably computer science types who play nerfball at break time between allnighters.

Not the most well read group in the world. I would take someone who meets a payroll as a better judge of economics.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, this is actually a step in the right direction. It means that this administration has some, limited, capacity to learn from their mistakes.

CWJ said...

Question for everyone else. Have either the President or First Lady been back to spend time in their "home" in Hyde Park since 2008? I used to live there and its not a bad place to be if you actually cared about and enjoyed Chicago.

garage mahal said...

It is understood that a poorly educated kid from the sticks would become a liberal upon relocating to Madison, Wisc

It's called living the dream hey.

Seeing Red said...

Hmmm JV team wearing Lakers uniforms and illegals wearing Marine uniforms. I wonder when they'll start wearing police uniforms?

jr565 said...

At one point Obama poo poohed the rise of ISIS and suggested they were a rag tag bunch of renegade types who couldn't take over a country. So he let them get a pass and strengthen.
See how much harder it is to daal with a crisis after it's gone fubar?
And he's stll taking half measures. Note, ISIS is actually a smaller problem. But because he isn't commiting to destroying them he's letting them get a mile when they shouldn't even take an inch.
Commit to drone strikes and heavy duty air support. And arm the Kurds for crying out loud. ISIS could be made short work of, but this president is gun shy.

jr565 said...

If we had kept a residual force there ISIS wouldn't have invaded int eh first place. And if we had a residual force inserted we could make short work of ISIS. They are only predominate because they are being met with forces that can't handle ISIS's army. The kurds for example are running into issues with dealing with ISIS"s armor. They are equipped to dealing with less well armed types. However, we are MORE than equipped to deal with them.
If we didn't even send in troops but unleasedh hell via the air we would beat back ISIS relatively easily.
And isn't that a lesson that ISIS should learn by now?

furious_a said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Birkel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
furious_a said...

If only Obama loathed Salafist psychopaths as much as he does people who don't vote for him.

He'll weaponize the IRS against average American citizens but he'll let the 19th Century Men bitch slap him like Ray Rice.

It's all so pathetic and depressing to watch.

Drago said...

Seeing Red: "iSIS is also operating slave markets? I'm sure Meesh will start hashtagging soon."

If they are (Hint: they are), they are bound to receive the rhetorical and propaganda support from the standard left wing quarters such as Field Marshall garage of the 000 Wisconsin "fightin' nuthin's".

Drago said...

It's not hard to understand the lefties spinning on this.

obama assured us everything was A-OK with his "strategy" (uh, it was not a strategy) to pull out all troops from Iraq. Remember when he claimed credit for this great "success"?

The real problem for the Hamas supporters like garage/Freder/somefeller et al is that real genocide is taking place right on the heels of the left-wing BS regarding Israel.

Can't have that kind of an uncomfortable "truth" being bandied about.

Birkel said...

furious_a:
It's all so pathetic and depressing to watch."

Me:
You misspelled "It's all completely predictable."

Drago said...

Somefeller: "People with advanced degrees and real world experience don't tend to become mouthbreather anti-Obama types."

A surprising number of them do, however, defend philosophies that result in the mass murder of 10's of millions as well as far too many for comfort comments like this:

http://www.businessinsider.in/defense/College-Professor-Claims-Anti-Semitism-Doesnt-Exist-In-The-Middle-East/articleshow/39780438.cms

So there you go.

No anti-semitism in the Middle east.

Why?

Cuz a lefty with advanced degrees says so.

And, according to the somefellers of the world, we are obligated to place great weight upon what they say.

I guess now would be a bad time to revisit leftist/academic support of Fidel whilst his administration was carrying out lobotomies on gays.

Yep.

That would be "inconvenient" indeed.

jr565 said...

For the Garage's who wanted a replay of Sadaam Hussein. We had actually created a govt that COULD have controlled Iraq and beaten off ISIS. BUT it required us to be there longer. Such a govt would have been far preferable than Sadaam's which required us to contain them indefinitely.
We need to commit to victory and then sustaining that victory. Otherwise we'll be facing ISIS/Al Qaeda that is stronger as we ignore them. Or regimes that don't comply with things like disarmament and with us having no means of getting them to commit.
Syria can gas people, Iran can get nukes. How much leeway does the left want to give these people?
And yet will scream bloody murder when Israel, when dealing with the same group of thugs, responds to force with force.

khesanh0802 said...

@ The Drill SGT

Have you had any experience with GPS guided 'chutes? Sounds like a fairy tale to me, but I am willing to be persuaded. The only resupply I would have any real faith in would actually be placed on the ground by a chopper - and I don't see that happening. But what the hell, I still believe that the infantry plays the crucial role in battle!

If it is the Air Force I can imagine that they are at 10,000 feet: they call that close air support!

30yearProf said...

49 of the "50 African Leaders" that Obama is meeting with are dictators only slightly better that AQ.

We need a President who supports US allies like the Kurds in Iran and the 5000 interpreters we are abandoning in Afghanistan. The Kurds don't want US troops they want guns and ammo. They are willing to fight for their freedom even if it interrupts Obama's golf game with the Dictators.

virgil xenophon said...

@The Drill Sgt/

I forgot to mention about the reason we won't be using A-10s in our discussion on the previous post on this subj is the fact that the JCS, having proclaimed the A-10 as being now "unworthy" in our new budgetary world, cannot stand the thought of the embarrassment they would suffer if they had to concede that they now--so soon after their consignment of the A-10 to the "ash-heap of history"--had to swallow their pride, and thru gritted teeth, request they be re-activated/deployed to pull their irons out of the fire. They'd sooner see 40,000 innocents perish before they would accede to that ultimate ignominy. Remember, they have their pride..

Moose said...

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/214721-feinstein-it-takes-an-army-to-defeat-an-army

virgil xenophon said...

While I'm here tonight, I'll just note (as have others here) that this is the President that is "surprisedI about EVERYTHING--IRS scandals, "Fast & Furious" DOJ/FBI gunrunning, Benghazi--you name it. And now ISIS. And his stock answer is that "I first read about it in the newspapers." That's the phrase they should put on his tomb-stone. "My Death? I first..."

Unknown said...

---all with advanced degrees in the humanities that work in the academy vote democrat---

all with fatuous, meaningless degrees in the humanities that serve at Starbucks vote Democrat- --

FIFY

traditionalguy said...

Three months ago the new baddest guys were named the Islamic State In the Levant, or ISIL.

Now everyone is renaming them the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Why? The Levant is collectively the entire lands along and inside the Mediterranean from Egypt to Turkey. The Levant is what they are claiming as theirs, not just Iraq and Syria.

Anyway, the name Isis is already taken by the major Egyptian goddess.

Unknown said...

ISIS seizing slaves - Where's Crack?

Zach said...

We're going to get another Obama special, aren't we?

Instead of identifying the national interest and doing the most we can to achieve that, we will identify the worst possible scenario, and do the minimum we can to avoid that.

So we'll do just enough to make it a conspicuous national failure, but not enough to actually change the outcome.

Cedarford said...

Lets see.....8 months ago, that senile neocon McCain was posing with ISIL and trying to get them money and weapons...because Assad was down with Hezbollah and Israel wanted Assad to fall thus hurting Hezbollah and Iran.
Accompanied with the usual stupid Bush/Neocon rhetoric about "nothing is worse than a leader that kills his own people":.

That I guess includes trying to kill deranged fundie Islamoid headchoppers trying to take over Syria and wipe out Druze, Christian, Shiite..

(And Bush and McCain both appear to have skipped the classes where Cromwell, Abe Lincoln, bloody revolutions/counter-revolutions and civil strife in other lands was discussed.)

Bush has wisely retired to dog painting.

And now McCain is sputtering because his noble headchopping ISIL Freedom Lovers crossed borders and are now ISIS and McCain is of course advocating all out war to stop them and save "my dear friend Nouri".

Being John McCain means you never make a Big Mistake in foreign policy. You just create new situations calling for more glorious wars!

Birkel said...

So Cedarford, can I put you down as a supporter of Hez b'Allah?

That's the Army of Allah for the uninitiated.

Gary Rosen said...

"Cedarford, can I put you down as a supporter of Hez b'Allah?"


He's been slurping on them for years, in between whitewashing ass-raping child molesters like Polanski and Sandusky. Says it all about C-fudd that Polanski is the only Jew he's ever had a good word for.

Anonymous said...

"ISIS seizing slaves - Where's Crack?"


I believe Crack is on record as pro-arab(muslim) It's only the whites he hates and considers slavers.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...


Why would WH fear what would be just another in a list of phony scandals?

George M. Spencer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
George M. Spencer said...

In talking about the Mideast with Tom Friedman, Obama said...

“Increasingly politicians are rewarded for taking the most extreme maximalist positions,” he said, “and sooner or later, that catches up with you.”

“Our politics are dysfunctional...Societies don’t work if political factions take maximalist positions. And the more diverse the country is, the less it can afford to take maximalist positions.”

In reality, he's actually talking about his own extreme domestic positions (i.e. Obamacare) and explaining to himself why he has failed...without realizing it!

jr565 said...

Cedarford wrote:
And now McCain is sputtering because his noble headchopping ISIL Freedom Lovers crossed borders and are now ISIS and McCain is of course advocating all out war to stop them and save "my dear friend Nouri".

Being John McCain means you never make a Big Mistake in foreign policy. You just create new situations calling for more glorious wars!

ISil was one of many groups fighting in Syria. And many are also opposed to ISIL. There is little evidence that he was sitting with ISIS as opposed to the Syrian Liberation Army.
Even if true though, in war you often have shifting loyalties. No one is suggesting ISIS is a group that is anything other than what it is. And you don't upher Mccain saying we should spare them.

jr565 said...

Mtrobertattorneywrote:
Why all this concern over ISIS?

ISIS is just "a JV team wearing Laker uniforms". How do I know this is so? My president told me so.

he was wrong to misjudge them. And now he's wrong to not judge them harshly enough. They are no JV wearing team! but neither are they the equivalent of our military. But if they want to play ball in the big leagues they need to be taught a lesson that if they try they will lose big.

gk1 said...

SO sad the only time this administration puts it in gear is when it will "look bad". No consideration whether its the right thing to do, or if it fits into a wider strategy. Its all about optics with this crowd.

Hyphenated American said...

"People with advanced degrees and real world experience don't tend to become mouthbreather anti-Obama types. They tend to vote Democratic or are (horrors!) socially liberal moderate Republicans."

Actually, in 2012, people who earned less than $30k voted for Obama, while those who earned more voted for Romney.

In reality, it's true that people with "advanced degrees" in Womyn Studies and Afro-Amerikkkan Studies and "real-world" experience working as government buerucracy or liberal arts colleges vote for the DNC.

P.S. I am always surprised that the party of handouts, cradle-to-grave Nanny state taking care of little scared liberals believes that it is the party of independent adults. Why do the real adults let them do that is beyond me.