May 11, 2024

"The American people expect their presidents to have the guts to make hard national security decisions, and to put our safety, interests, principles, and alliances above politics."

"That’s exactly what Joe Biden is doing. He is standing with Israel as they fight the Hamas terrorists who committed the hideous Oct. 7 attacks, and is making clear that how Israel defends itself matters because we do not want to see any more civilians killed."

Said White House spokesman Andrew Bates, quoted in "Biden’s isolation grows as Gaza report both criticizes and clears Israel/Like much of the president’s, at times, halting approach toward the war, the report released to Congress on Friday drew criticism from across the political spectrum" (WaPo)(free access link).

Biden is making the "hard decision" to please no one while purporting to please everyone. 

49 comments:

Temujin said...

The 'hard' decisions involve being smart, and being a leader. Easing sanctions on Iran and releasing billions to them when he and his team first came into office literally paid for October 7. The rest is the result of his decision making. Or...his team's decision making. Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, etc.

Iran was sinking under Trump's tight sanctions. All of this would be moot had Biden not breathed life into them again. And now? Who wants to depend on the United States for anything any longer?

iowan2 said...

Biden is sacrificing the lives and freedoms of Jews, in a selfish parry to retain Muslim votes in Michigan and Minnesota. Not Surpising Muslims work tirelessly for the elimination of Jews from the planet. Allowing Israel do defend herself, has the Muslims in a murderous rage.

Tarrou said...

Great phrasing.

"We don't want to see."

We don't want to see what it costs to destroy a terrorist organization supported by and embedded in a civilian population.


Quick question, when Biden was going to bomb all the pro-gun people with F-15s, was he expecting no civilian casualties?

wendybar said...

Bahahahhahahhaha... what a bunch of bullshit being spewed by the most divisive, hateful group of assholes since Hussein Obama announced he was fundamentally transforming America into this shithole. Trump is the ONLY one with balls and the left is running scared and partnering with terrorists.

Christopher B said...

I don't care what bovine scatology the Biden administration put in some fancy document package for Congress.

The day before there was a pause on smart bomb kits destined for Israel (because it's so humane for Israel to be using dumb iron bombs on Gaza), the Biden administration green-light arms sales to Qatar and Lebanon over Congressional prohibitions.

Trying to straddle a fence is just going to barb wire where the sun don't shine.

Aggie said...

Biden is busy helping Israel by pandering to whatever audience is in front of him, depending on how well his handlers have briefed him. The Biden Administration is helping Israel as only a good ally can, by withholding promised munitions when it's convenient to the pandering efforts with Muslims.

In other words, Biden is helping Israel just like the Biden Administration uses censorship control of the news and social media to help inform voters.

rhhardin said...

He makes hard decisions about other things too, starting with the oil pipeline on the first day. Just normal leftist stuff.

Iman said...

A weak attempt at damage control. Don’t piss down the backs of Americans and insist that it’s raining, backstabbers.

jae said...

It isn't about leadership. It us about Michigan.

Leland said...

The Biden Administration just granted waivers on arms sanctions to several Arab countries including Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, and Qatar allowing US weapons to be sold to those nations just days prior to placing arms sanctions on Israel. When are our alliances with Libya and Yemen?

gilbar said...

we do not want to see any more civilians killed."

there is ONLY One Way to see that there aren't ANY more civilians killed..
and THAT is to cease fighting completely and forever.

we KNOW That isn't going to happen; the most to expect is that there aren't ANY more Hamas civilians killed..
And the way to do that, is for hamas to:
Listen to the Rock and the Tree..
From the River to The Sea..
Palestine must be Jew Free


how many civilian deaths were there in
Our Afghan war?
Our Iraq war?
Our Gulf war?
Our Vietnam war?
Our Korean war?
Our Numerous wars with and against Britain ?

Finally.. How many civilians died on Oct 7th?

Political Junkie said...

Thank goodness we had men like FDR and Truman who knew in the long run the "most peaceful" long term solution was in the short run killing even civilians if it meant the monsters were defeated.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Mr. Bates’ nose grew approximately four inches while reading this statement. Is that included in the article?

Kevin said...

In other news, Biden is making the hard decision to secure the border while letting millions of illegals through.

Wince said...

Lying:Joe Biden::Crack:Hunter Biden

Achilles said...

Trump made good decisions. The world was at peace.

Biden makes bad decisions. The world is at war.

Breezy said...

Biden et al need to pressure Hamas, not Israel, FPS. Hamas is responsible for all of the carnage. Biden’s barking up the wrong tree.

hawkeyedjb said...

"...we do not want to see any more civilians killed."

In Ukraine?

Gusty Winds said...

Biden isn't making any decisions. Others make his decisions. This has been going on since he was installed.

Narayanan said...

to please no one = to piss off every one = who ya gonna call?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Biden's anti-Israel handlers want it both ways.

They want the anti-Semite vote - and the reliable Jewish vote.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Air brushing over Oct 7th - is standard operating procedure for the hive left.
At least the lairs and hacks mentioned Oct 7th here.
The left's internal polling must be interesting.

JAORE said...

The only "hard decision" Joe is capable of making involves flavors of ice cream.

Dude1394 said...

Our official government has become a joke. Orwellian vomit spouted.

Sebastian said...

"He is standing with Israel as they fight the Hamas terrorists who committed the hideous Oct. 7 attacks, and is making clear that how Israel defends itself matters because we do not want to see any more civilians killed."

He is standing with Israel by not standing with Israel.

"Biden is making the "hard decision" to please no one while purporting to please everyone."

Actually, he is trying hard to please Dearborn and Tehran. Of course, neither will be satisfied until Israel is wiped out.

Narr said...

"They want the anti-Semite vote - and the reliable Jewish vote."

The amazing thing is that they are likely to get both.

mezzrow said...

Riding the "cycle of violence" to victory.

That's the plan, and they're sticking to it.

tommyesq said...

We need a president that both makes hard decisions and gets those hard decisions right.

Instead we get a senile old man who straddles the fence, leaving both sides worse off, and a bunch of hacks and flacks who then tell us the "Administration's" real position later, which very often is not what Biden stuttered.

Yancey Ward said...

I wrote it months ago now- Israel had two possible and feasible paths to follow as retribution for October 7th:

(1) Seal Gaza off completely, and I mean completely, from any land routes into Israel, mine the border up to a depth of 500 meters; shoot down anything, and I mean anything, that flies over the walls; sink anything that floats out from Gaza's coast into Israel's coast; cut all power and water flowing into Gaza; let the world take care of Palestinians; and any rocket launch areas from Gaza gets leveled with a bombing run carried out every single time.

(2) Raze Gaza to the ground and drive the entire population either into the sea or into Egypt; empty it completely of Palestinians and move Israelis into the area. Yes, an ethnic cleansing.

Israel, under pressure, chose the modern method of warfare where you fight but you don't win or destroy you enemy. October 7th will now be repeated every decade until the Israelis decide to do either option 1 or 2. These are two peoples who literally cannot make peace with each other- it is kill or be killed.

Yancey Ward said...

And nothing Joe Shit For His Brains Biden is politically courageous- just constantly changing policies due to political necessities isn't brave at all- it is craven.

Mary Beth said...

Finally.. How many civilians died on Oct 7th?

According to some tweets I saw, very few. They claimed that a large number of the people killed were Israeli military. I guess, technically, with mandatory service, most adults are military or former military. Of course the same tweets were also claiming that the deaths were caused by Israeli military killing their own people and that everything else was made up.

I was stunned that people appeared to believe this in spite of Hamas live streaming the murders and torture.

Skeptical Voter said...

The hardest decision that Biden can handle in even a semi-intelligent fashion is whether he has one or two scoops of ice cream on the cone. Trump never had a problem--he was a two scoop guy all the way.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Eric Erickson made a salient point yesterday. If Israel doesn't get the more accurate US munitions, needed to conduct, to hunt down people who are hiding amongst civilians, they may be forced to use the less sophisticated, more indiscriminate dumb bombs in their stockpile, killing and maiming more Palestinian innocent in the process.

BTW Biden is holding up weapons that was approved by congress. In other words, Biden is doing something the democrat congress alleged against Trump, when Trump was in office, and impeached him over.

AlbertAnonymous said...

I think he’s implementing the Obama doctrine of “Leading from behind”

This statement is some really weak sauce.

AlbertAnonymous said...

“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia, Winston…”

Leland said...

We know during Biden's cowardly withdrawal from Afghanistan, his administration needed a news story that sounded good. So they ordered a drive strike on a car with 4 people in it and claimed they stopped a terrorist attack. In reality, they killed a family of four.
Oh, and now the Biden Administration is arguing to allow former Presidents to be tried for crimes they committed in office.

gilbar said...

i see that the war in the Ukraine is going Even Worse than usual; and that we are RUSHING precision munitions over to them..
I ASSUME that THESE are the precision munitions that congress paid to be sent to Israel?
I ASSUME that This, is THE REASON WHY these precision munitions Aren't going to Israel?

Now that war in the Ukraine has used up ALL the precision munitions in ALL of NATO.. What happens Next?

hombre said...

Biden is pandering to the Hamas wing of the party. Just because he is not doing it very effectively doesn't make it less sleazy.

With only aberrational exceptions, the Israeli military is the most humane fighting force in the world. Every distraction from the destruction of Hamas caused by Biden's political cowardice is a boon to Hamas.

Interested Bystander said...

I assume this was written by someone who favored banning speech about COVID that didn’t agree with the government narrative. They likely were in favor of blocking access to Ivermectin. Probably thought the entire media shutting down any talk of Huter’s laptop a months before an election was a great idea. Yeah, not interested in reading it. New York Times isn’t a newspaper. It’s Pravda US style.

JK Brown said...

Over at Powerline, this was in a post on the matter


John Spencer, the West Point modern urban warfare expert:

In their criticism, Israel’s opponents are erasing a remarkable, historic new standard Israel has set. In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the U.S. military, I’ve never known an army to take such measures [as the IDF has] to attend to the enemy’s civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The international community, and increasingly the United States, barely acknowledges these measures while repeatedly excoriating the IDF for not doing enough to protect civilians—even as it confronts a ruthless terror organization holding its citizens hostage. Instead, the U.S. and its allies should be studying how they can apply the IDF’s tactics for protecting civilians, despite the fact that these militaries would almost certainly be extremely reluctant to employ these techniques because of how it would disadvantage them in any fight with an urban terrorist army like Hamas.


All the purported experts are judging on the basis of heavy handed action of NATO and US militaries while Israel is using advanced techniques. A post war assessment is likely to find that more of the Palestinian dead were Hamas combatants than is the normal proportion for urban warfare.

MikeD said...

Hamas has suffered enough, according to WH spokesweasel Kirby: The White House indicates that it has taken the far-reaching step of threatening to withhold aid from Israel at this stage in the war because it feels that Hamas has been significantly depleted.

RCOCEAN II said...

Its amazing how American Pols act like we're Israel's colony. "We stand by Israel (no matter what they do)". Them thar jews are the chosen people, and Im jes mighty glad God put me on earth to do the bidding of some athiest jew 5000 miles away. Some pray to Jesus, I pray for Is-rye-ale.

Biden is just playing politics. He's taken more AIPAC money in total then any US POTUS. He needs to signal to Arabs in Michagan that's he's not Genocide Joe. Just one more DC Kubuki dance.

RCOCEAN II said...

Its amazing how American Pols act like we're Israel's colony. "We stand by Israel (no matter what they do)". Them thar jews are the chosen people, and Im jes mighty glad God put me on earth to do the bidding of some athiest jew 5000 miles away. Some pray to Jesus, I pray for Is-rye-ale.

Biden is just playing politics. He's taken more AIPAC money in total then any US POTUS. He needs to signal to Arabs in Michagan that's he's not Genocide Joe. Just one more DC Kubuki dance.

Michael K said...

First, there is no way Biden is making these decisions.

He has Iranian spies doing that, like Robert Malley.

"Republican lawmakers revealed "troubling allegations" against President Biden’s embattled special envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, who is said to have stored classified material on a personal email account and cellphone that were later accessed by a "hostile cyber actor."

Bunkypotatohead said...

How about he just stays the hell out of it.


Stop it, stop it now, Joe

The Godfather said...

Do you remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The US dropped atom bombs that killed mostly civilians in those two Japanese cities. We did so to END THE WAR, and it worked. It was only the threat that there would be more A-bombings killing more and more Japanese that led the Emporer to direct the Government to surrender.

Mason G said...

"Allowing Israel do defend herself, has the Muslims in a murderous rage."

Is there anything that doesn't?

Narayanan said...

Will his decisions result in more or fewer refugees from Gaza?

leaving me wondering what are they refugeing from?

Leora said...


From X via instapundit
"Open Source Intel
@Osint613
JUST IN

WASHINGTON POST: The Biden administration is reportedly offering Israel sensitive intelligence to assist the IDF in targeting Hxmas leaders and locating the terrorist organization's hidden tunnels. This offer is made in exchange for Israel refraining from launching a full-scale operation.

What did i just read?"

It makes me want to weep at the evil of the apparatchiks running our foreign policy.