PRESIDENT OBAMA, SYRIA, AND THE LIMITS OF BS

Powerline ^ | 9/12/2013 | Paul Mirengoff

[markomalley]

President Obama’s speech regarding Syria on Tuesday is best viewed as an attempt at political damage control. Obama hoped to stem the growing (and correct) public perception that he blundered badly at one or more stage of this crisis. His target audience was the only cohort to which he might provide reassurance — those who haven’t been paying close attention.

I thought that Obama had pulled off this limited feat, and that, absent a U.S. attack on Syria or the further use of chemical weapons by Assad, Obama would not suffer much additional political damage because of this matter.

Last night on Fox News, however, I happened to see the reaction of a Frank Luntz focus group to Obama’s speech. The comments of the participants showed widespread dissatisfaction with both the speech and Obama’s underlying behavior. The dissatisfaction crossed party lines.

Two caveats may be in order. First, it seemed that the focus group discussed the Syrian situation before viewing Obama’s speech. By doing so, its members became a relatively high-information audience. Thus, their reactions to the speech was not necessarily the reactions of Obama’s target audience — those who haven’t been paying close attention.

Second, a group dynamic seems to have been at work in Luntz’s group. The reaction of Democrats during the speech — as reflected in the moving line on a graph that’s based on the use of dials in real time — was more positive than their post-hoc commentary. Most viewers at home presumably were not subject to a strong group dynamic immediately following the speech.

But a group dynamic may be at work nonetheless. Late night comedians — David Letterman included — are ridiculing Obama over Syria. I imagine they will want to move on in a day or two, but the impression they have left may well persist.

Moreover, the saga is not yet finished. Obama now will negotiate in some fashion with Putin and Assad. The negotiations will produce neither good optics nor good options. In essence Obama either will have to accept a patently phony, easily ridiculed deal or be thrown back into the same seemingly no-win situation (from a political standpoint) that prompted him to grasp at the straw of negotiations.

The media, I assume, will not harp on Syria, but neither will they avert their eyes completely. And the late night comedians will continue to enjoy a target rich environment when it comes to Syria.

Is the Obama presidency “collapsing” — “dissolve[ing] before our eyes” — as Pete Wehner argues? I’m not prepared to say that.

But Obama’s credibility seems to be eroding, at last, in the public’s mind. And may finally be starting to look small, and even a bit ridiculous, to many who have never viewed him that way.

[Fred Nerks]

Are we expected to also believe that Lybia was a blunder? He was cunning enough to get NATO to do his dirty work and destroy that country. It will never get back to what it was. They destroyed the greatest infrastructure project since the pyramids, the Great Underground River.

Obama, thy name is infamy!

It was Muammar Gaddafi’s dream to provide fresh water for all Libyans and to make Libya self-sufficient in food production. In 1953, the search for new oilfields in the deserts of southern Libya led to the discovery not just of significant oil reserves, but also of vast quantities of fresh water trapped in the underlying strata. The four ancient water aquifers that were discovered, each had estimated capacities ranging between 4,800 and 20,000 cubic kilometers. Most of this water was collected between 38,000 and 14,000 years ago, though some pockets are believed to be only 7,000 years old.

I read that NATO also destroyed the pipe production facilities, on the pretext they were being used for armaments storage.

[Fred Nerks]

P.S. Ghaddafi also offered Egypt assistance with the same technolgy. There was an opportunity for Egypt to also tap into its underground water resources and become food-independent.

[Fred Nerks]

First water arrival September 1989: to Ajdabiya reservoir. 28 September 1989: to Grand Omar Muktar reservoir. 4 September 1991: to Ghardabiya reservoir. 28 August 1996: to Tripoli. 28 September 2007: to Gharyan.

At the present time the official website of the Great ManMade River (www.gmmra.org) is hacked.

SOURCE

On 22 July during the 2011 Libyan civil war, one of the two plants making pipes for the project, the Brega Plant, was hit by a NATO air strike.[9] At a press conference on 26 July, NATO explained that rockets had been fired from within the plant area, and that military material, including multiple rocket launchers, was stored there according to intelligence findings, presenting a photo showing at BM-21 MRL as an example.[10]