Mark Steyn: The Coalition of the Unwilling

Steyn Online ^ | 09/13/2014 | Mark Steyn

[SeekAndFind]

I was overseas when Obama gave his momentous Isis address, but figured I could pretty much guess how things would go. Despite being the greatest orator of the last thousand years, he's a complete bust at selling anything but himself, as comprehensively demonstrated in his first couple of years: see his rhetorical efforts on behalf of ObamaCare, or Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley, or Chicago's Olympics bid. When it comes to war, he suffers from an additional burden: before he can persuade anybody else, he first has to persuade himself. And he can't do it. So he gave the usual listless performance of a surly actor who resents the part he's been given. It's not just the accumulation of equivocations and qualifications - the "Islamic State" is not Islamic, our war with them is not a war, there'll be no boots on the ground except the exotic footwear of a vast unspecified coalition - but something more basic: What he mainly communicates is that he doesn't mean it.

That's what the jihadist militias now in control of Tripoli understood about his "leading from behind". That's what Putin grasped about Obama's "red line" in Syria. And that's what any Isis member who took time out of his beheading schedule to watch the President on CNN International will have taken away from this week's speech.

As for the "coalition", they seem to intuit that, with a leader leading from this far behind, you want to stand even further back. From mellifluously named Jacaranda FM:

Turkey refuses to allow a US-led coalition to attack jihadists in neighbouring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday.

So much for the only Nato member to border Isis.

[spokeshave]

Yeah....and I see a lot of SEIU purple

[wjcsux]

And so a day in which Islamic imperialists killed thousands of Americans by flying planes into skyscrapers has somehow devolved into a day for raising awareness of the need for better play facilities for children. Did he also visit Habitat for Humanity and help hang a new window treatment? Did he plant a tree?
Classic Stein.

[NonValueAdded]

Neither the President nor the First Lady nor anyone else in the 40-car motorcade appears to have thought it odd that, on the day the Twin Towers went Ka-BOOM!, America's Commander-in-Chief should be helping put children's toys in backpacks marked Ka-BOOM!

Ahhhhhhhh, the optics! the optics!!!

[garjog]

The only way to destroy them is a massive Bush style invasion to hold ground.

We already spent a trillion dollars trying that.

Obama is directly responsible for the rise of ISSI since he failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement.

Obama inept leadership is the cause of WWII that now begins.

[garjog]

"Does anyone really believe the kaboom thing was an accident?"

Obama and Michelle meeting with event planner.

AIDE: "You and Mrs. Obama have several options to mark the National Day of Service. You could visit soldiers at Walter Reed. You could serve soup at the Washington drug rehab center. Or you could help assemble charity backpacks at the KABOOM! center."

OBAMA: "Let's go with KABOOM! The optics will be hilarious. What do you think, hon?"

[MasterGunner01]

What ally in their right mind would want to have Obama and his band of incompetents handling strategy to combat Islamic State (and various other Muslim jihadists)? Obama cannot even articulate a policy, let alone follow a coherent one. Barry inspires no allies, but our enemies love him.

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.

Thanks for the ping Slings and Arrows.

[Slings and Arrows]

Grey’s Law: “Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.”
—Ref: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HanlonsRazor

[4rcane]

we’re not at war with a not-islamic non-state entity

[minnesota_bound]

Mark Steyn: There is a disinclination to believe his promises, said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

“We have reached a low point of trust in this administration,” he said. “We think in a time of crisis Mr. Obama will walk away from everyone if it means saving his own skin.”

---

They know him well!

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk

[Rummyfan]

For the modern progressive, the entire planet is fringe-of-the-map. Real politics is about free contraceptives for thirtysomething college students, and transgender bathrooms for grade-schoolers. "Foreign policy" is something old bitter white men do.

[Ann Archy]

Amen.....WHy would God continue to help us when we have Killed 56 MILLION BABIES???? And now the GAY EVERYTHING Thing!!! We are DOOMED unless we turn back to God.

[Gritty]

Nixon’s apocalyptic vision of America becoming a “pitiful, helpless giant” has come to fruition under 0bama.

[Jim Noble]

when President Bush was able to assemble a coalition of 40 nations

BFD. Yet another manifestation of Bush weakness.

You don't become strong because you beg people to join you.

People beg to join you because you are strong.

Bush wasted almost a year (once he decided to leave the main enemy alone) screwing around with the UN and with our "allies", while failing to arrange passage through Turkey for the Fourth Armored division.

Bush's "coalition" was a fraud from the beginning - the "40 nations" were of no military help (except of course the UK) while the whole political side of the enterprise reeked of weakness.

The day after those towers fell the United States had every right to form an expeditionary force to conquer Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to root out Wahabism/Deobandism once and for all. If the American flag flew over Islamabad and Riyadh by the Fall of 2004, there would be no "Obama" and there would be no ISIS.

Oderint dum metuant. Let them hate, as long as they fear.

It worked in 1941, for the SS and for Japan, every bit as much as it worked in 1941 BC. It's working right now for ISIS.

And the reason the Red Army beat Germany, and we beat Japan, is because we brought them catastrophic damage and filled them with fear.

It makes me laugh when people talk about ISIS's methods as "the worst in history", or some such nonsense. They don't hold a candle to the Japs at Nanking, Hong Kong, or Singapore, and they certainly don't stack up against the Einsatzgruppen filling every ditch in the Ukraine with slaughtered women and babies.

And when what went around, came around? How many German farmers were slaughtered in 1944-45? How many women were raped and mutilated? How many children died as the Red Army rolled West?

And although our technology spared most of our ground forces from inflicting similar atrocities on Japanese civilians, we sure made up for it with two buckets of sunshine from 40 000 feet.

THE BAD GUYS ARE WINNING THIS WAR. They're winning because they unleash hell as they roll forward. That's what war IS.

We're losing because we don't. We don't, even with a "coalition of 40 nations".

/Rant

[Jim Noble]

a massive Bush style invasion to hold ground

Don't be ridiculous.

The only thing "massive" about the Bush Administration's response to the Saudi-Pakistan attack on 9/11 was it's utter strategic and tactical incompetence.

The failure to identify the enemy, the choice of a sideshow battlefield, the adoption of Vietnam war tactics and metrics, the failure to kill and destroy until the survivors begged for mercy, the failure to install an American administration over former Wahabi/Deobandist territory - all these gross derelictions have given rise to a much more complex strategic environment, including the ascension of ISIS and "Obama".

"Bush-style" = defeat.

[headsonpikes]

Bumpbumpbumpbump!

[Flag_This]

"...while failing to arrange passage through Turkey for the Fourth Armored division."

Small point, but it was the Fourth Infantry division. Shout out to the Ivy Division, 1/8 Inf. and 4/40 Armor.

[Jim Noble]

Thanks for the correction.