Posted on 08/31/2014 4:01:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Thursday, President Obama told the world he didn’t yet have a strategy for dealing with the Islamic Front in Syria. Although it’s never good to let an army who beheads your citizens and is hell-bent on your destruction know you don’t know how to deal with them – yet, or otherwise – Josh Earnest, the president’s press secretary “clarified” his comments the next day. We do have a plan, it turns out. And the plan is awful.
Before we dive into the new statements, let’s take a look back at some older ones.
Back in January, when talking about terrorism, President Obama told the New Yorker magazine, “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”
The terrorist group making the biggest waves at the time was ISIS. Was the president referring to ISIS as part of a “jayvee team?” It went relatively unnoticed by the mainstream media then. But in the eight months since, ISIS has become the little jayvee team that could. It has taken over a landmass the size of Indiana – and growing. It has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and amassed a fortune to fund its continued terror campaign.
But our posture toward this outfit has not changed.
When ISIS beheaded American journalists James Foley and posted the video on the Internet, the media remembered the quote and asked about it. Earnest went on to claim the president wasn’t talking about ISIS, just other groups, and that the White House always has taken the ISIS threat seriously.
That claim, on its face, would be insignificant, perhaps even believable, were it not for the president’s statement Thursday. If, as the White House now insists, it always has taken the threat seriously, how can it have no strategy for dealing with ISIS in Syria, or anywhere, 8 months later?
Perhaps the political advisors in the White House have yet to calculate how to use this threat to influence the November elections or to at the very least blame Congress for it. But we already know the president has a phone – right next to his pen – and that the Pentagon has phones, too. If he has taken the threat of ISIS seriously for eight months, why has he not used his phone to call the Pentagon and ask the military to formulate some possible strategies for any number of scenarios?
It’s clear the White House has not been interested in the threat posed by ISIS, either abroad or here in the homeland, or else we wouldn’t still be without a plan.
Which brings us to the “clarification” on Friday.
Josh Earnest, appearing on Morning Joe, said, “We don't have plans in place right now for what we want to do and what we could do militarily in Syria. But when it comes to confronting ISIL, the president has made very clear we do have a comprehensive strategy for confronting that threat that is posed by ISIL. That begins with supporting Iraq’s political leaders as they form the kind of inclusive government that can unite the country to confront the threat that their country faces right now.”
First, there they go again using ISIL—Islamic State in the Levant—as opposed to ISIS, the Islamic State in Syria. This is to sow confusion and distract from the administration’s record in dealing with this crisis.
Second, so our strategy is dependent upon Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurds coming together, putting aside centuries of hatred, forming a drum circle and singing “Kumbaya”? Hmmm … why didn’t we think of that before? Wait, we did.
Earnest wasn’t done. “It includes beefing up our support to Iraqi and Kurdish security forces in the form of training and equipment to help them take the fight to ISIL on the ground in their country.” This makes sense, but it would have made more sense before ISIS was the fully armed, disciplined and funded outfit it is now.
Earnest then added that the president has dispatched Secretary of State John Kerry to the area to “engage” with the region’s leaders but wasn’t clear on the goal of that engagement beyond engagement for its own sake.
Plus, he threw in that we’re bombing them in Iraq at least, so there’s that.
See, we do have a strategy. It’s a muddled, rudderless, leaderless strategy with no clear directives or goals. But really, is that such a surprise?
You assume that the people have the same values as you. A significant portion of the populace (probably a majority of the elite) have no such reasoning. They truly believe that the imbalance of power the US once held was a greater threat than communism. Such ideas are unquestioned in academia, and have even infected STEM.
I am amazed at the number of defense workers who are completely ignorant of history and are completely amoral in outlook.
That begins with supporting Iraq’s political leaders as they form the kind of inclusive government that can unite the country to confront the threat that their country faces right now....
In contrast, my plan starts with flying unicorns dropping skittles as they fly over head. Then, we.......
My plan has a better chance to launch
Teresahhh, were is my magic hat???
Have you ever heard Lewis Black’s comedy act ?
He goes over the ‘duck and cover’ routines he learned as a child.
Like how we believed the best place to hide from a nuclear freaking fireball was under a ‘wood’ desk (or kindling as he calls it).
"Politics is the art of delaying any decisions until the issue is no longer relevant."
I would like to see Blagojevich testify freely and un- inhibited.
We need to waterboard Tony Rezko
“Many folks now realize (it took 6 years???) that he is worse than anybody could have predicted.”
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I know it ain’t cool to brag but he is no worse than I predicted from day one. I know some others who had him pegged also. Most of us were just hoping against hope to be proven wrong. It is bad to be wrong when you want to be right but it is much worse to be right when you want to be wrong.
“Those who ascribe to his “incompetence” simply miss the core truth that explains all of his treasonous acts.”
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Totally right without possibility of contradiction! It amazes me that some still believe the whole problem is incompetence. If he were TRYING to be a good president he would no doubt display total incompetence at it but since he is trying to be anything BUT a good president, incompetence does not enter the equation.
He didn’t ACTUALLY win a second term.
The stupid Americans who voted in ‘06 and ‘08 to throw out the GOP to turn things over to the Democrats are equivalent in their brilliance to someone who kills a single Copperhead snake in the yard and then pays someone to haul in a truckload of Diamondback rattlers, Cottonmouths, King Cobras and Gaboon vipers.
“I am amazed at the number of defense workers who are completely ignorant of history...”
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Then you should be astounded at the number of university graduates with history majors who are completely ignorant of history. I have spoken to a couple and they are equivalent to a math major who cannot tell you what ten percent of one hundred is without a calculator and a textbook. No chance at all that they could pass an eighth grade history final from fifty years ago.
No need to put wood in quotes, in those days they were made of real wood except for a metal frame.
I remember elementary school in the early 50’s. Atom bomb drills where we hid under our desks. Seems funny now.
After returning to the course to plat that day's round, he exclaimed how difficult it was foregoing any Mulligan's during the round. He was quoted as saying “It was brutal, I almost quit. But, I had to do something significant to show some respect for Foley’s sacrifice.”
I would not be surprised at those with degrees being ignorant, it is really those in positions that are supposed to be defending our country. How can you defend that which you don’t understand?
Schools abandoned teaching for propaganda long before I was born, so I could scarce expect anything from their students.
Absolutely. The endless drumbeat of negative news stories aimed at the uninformed voters always makes an impact. Also too, republicans don’t know how to use the power once they get it. There’s a simple solution to the nonsense coming from the media. If and when the republicans gain the congress and the White House, they need to appoint someone to the FCC who will bring the hammer down. Tell the media outlets that they will place a banner on the screen of every news cast that states THIS IS NOT THE NEWS. THIS IS A PAID POLITICAL AD FOR THE DNC. Of course they will go to the courts, but then the FCC will ignore any court order, just like they ignore court orders that favor our side. Then comes crunch time when the building is closed, and sold to the highest bidder. You would only have to do this one time before they realized that you meant business. This sounds far fetched, but look at what the Clintons did at Waco, TX in 1993. They surrounded a building with 80 plus people inside, then burned it to the ground, killing all inside, women and children included. Closing a news station is nothing compared to what they do.
The Department of Education would have made Stalin and Adolph proud. What a sham. Keeping America’s youth ignorant of history may be the democrats greatest achievement in their quest for power.
I also believe if we got several muscular construction workers to manhandle Mayor Rahm, the little pipsqueak would sing like a bluebird while he was plié-ing his *** off.
“Confused” is an understatement-—the combined intelligence of Powers, Rice, Harf and Psaki wouldn’t even fill a teacup.
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