Posted on 09/17/2014 4:47:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Resident Obama's decision to commit American forces to contain and defeat the Ebola virus before it breaks out to devastate an entire continent and perhaps others is a good and necessary decision and conservatives and Republicans ought to support it. Clearly experts have weighed in and warned him of the risks, and he has no preconceived notions about what he should and shouldn't do about this new and rapidly expanding threat. If anything, George W. Bush's enduring legacy of aid to Africa might be an additional motivation to President Obama, a source of envy and a spur to action. Whatever the reason, it is a good decision, and Congress should provide the funds used in effort from the Department of Defense via a supplemental appropriation that also addresses the additional costs being incurred in the slow ramp up to contain IS. If the Speaker and Majority Leader McCarthy were on their game, they'd have a supplemental appropriation bill heading to the Senate today, one that focuses on correcting the terrible cuts to the Petnagon brought about by the last few years of political stalemate.
Now I am obliged to again push The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright on you and to ask you to push it to your still-in-the-dark-about-Islamist-ideology friends. Recall that Wright is a man of the left, the New Yorker's national correspondent, and that The Looming Tower won the Pulitzer. This book details the return of the takfiris to modern Islamist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, in the second half of the 20th century right through the attack on America on 9/11. It is a genealogy of al Qaeda --and thus partially of IS-- and though it does not chart the further spread of this strain of Islamist virus to Somalia, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt and now western Iraq and Syria in the past 13 years, the nature of the ideology now raging through Iraq and Syria is fully explicated and made impossible-to-misunderstand, which is exactly why President Obama and his inner circle need so desperately to read it.
When President Obama declared last week that "ISIL is not Islamic," the reactions were fast and furious by people with even passing knowledge of the Islamist ideology. Imagine President Obama saying "Genus Ebolavirus is different from other strains in the the Filoviridae family of viruses, and is in fact not an acute viral illness." The world would be stunned and then would set to wondering who exactly was handing the president his copy and whether he had any serious advisors around him at all.
The same sort of reaction is due the president's declaration that "ISIL is not Islamic," and the same sort of wonder and worry rightly followed the president's clueless announcement just as it would a risible statement on the nature of Ebola. Many have remarked that George W. Bush went to great lengths to declare that "We are not at war with Islam" over and over, and W was right to do so because we are not, and President Obama would be right to do so as well. But that declaration is a very different thing from denying the reality of the takfiri strain of Islam, its numbers and its potential for viral growth --a growth we see all too clearly in Iraq and Syria and indeed around the globe.
If the present doesn't understand what IS is, how in the world can he hope to contain much less destroy it?
In yesterday's interview with me --audio and transcript here-- Charles Krauthammer bluntly declared that the president " is clearly a narcissist" who "sees himself in very world historical terms, which means A) because he’s an amateur, he doesn’t know very much, and B) because he’s a narcissist, he doesn’t listen."
Krauthammer added "he talks like the emperor, Napoleon," and that "[t]here’s not anyone of independent stature around him," that he is "is impervious to outside advice."
"The man lives in a cocoon surrounded by sycophants," concluded Krauthammer, whose book "Things That Matter" just passed the million books sold mark, and who is clearly among the most influential voices in America right now, and not just on the right though the president no doubt would like to dismiss him as such.
Someone broke through the cocoon on the issue of Ebola. Somehow the president figured out that America's response had to be instantaneous and adequate to the task of containing the virus. He didn't count the cost and he didn't worry about how his actions would be judged by history. He acted.
Now he needs to do the same thing vis-a-vis IS, and people across the political spectrum are pushing him to do so. Last week, retired Army General and CIA Director David Petraeus and retired CentCom Commander and Marine General James Mattis --perhaps the two greatest war fighters of the past decade-- both urged the president to do more faster. Even President Bush who has strictly observed a "no criticism of my successor" policy hinted in a Q-and-A at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland that a vacuum had developed that we needed to remedy quickly, as close as he could come to pushing the president to focus and focus immediately on the viral threat of takfiri radicalism within Islam.
Instead of coherence and action we get another spectacle of incompetence, with State Department "spokesperson" Marie Harf declaring Monday that 'We are not going to cooperate' with Iran on IS, even as Secretary of State Kerry declared exactly the opposite on another continent.
This is just chaos, a breakdown in the response of the American government to the deadliest threat in the world right now, and that threat isn't Ebola, it is IS.
The only message the president is likely to hear on IS is the sound of a political earthquake on November 4, the crashing in on him of political reality via a massive turn-out of Senate and House Democrats. The election arrives at exactly the moment needs it to deliver a huge rebuke to the isolated, "self-involved," cocooning president. A message that says: You wanted the job, so do it.
From the once-valid, now useless, EXEMPT-Senate-destroyed Constitution:
Article III, Section 3, Paragraph 1, of the Constitution of the United States:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them,
or, in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
The "aid and comfort" prong of treason has been interpreted
by SCOTUS as requiring proof of four elements:
1. an intent to betray the United States (which can be inferred from);
2. an overt act;
3. witnessed by two people; and
4. that provides aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States.
Actually it fits his SELF image (of himself). Not sarcastically said, he truly is a “community organizer”...fully liberal and caring for mankind emotionally. This is how he sees himself. If he was a community organizer in Chicago and there was something like this happening, he’d be reacting the same way. It also fits his “save the world” narcissist bearing. Add to it is about Africa...he is being naturally protective of where he came from. This all fits who he is and only looks strange if you observe him through some other medium.
“It also fits his “save the world” narcissist bearing”
Of course, it will be someone elses fault if his “plan” fails. It’s never this jerks’ fault.
Republican have refused to do anything about the illegal alien Muslim terrorist the Saudis and the Communist-Islamist party put in the White House. So we need more Republicans in office.
You are forgetting that the Republicans only have the House, while the Rats have both the Senate and the White House
Is there not one (1) American in the US Congress?
Since when did disease containment become a mission of the US military? Whenever our military is used for purposes not originally intended, with few exceptions, disaster ensues.
Exactly
There is also this article on the same topic
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/09/whom_is_president_obama_really_listening_to.html
it contains this real and disturbing comment from Charles Krauthammer:
“The man lives in a cocoon surrounded by sycophants. There’s not anyone of independent stature around him. There was in the first term, because he needed them to prop him up. But now that he entered a second term, he’s the master of the universe, so there’s nobody around him. He is impervious to outside advice, real advice that he takes.”
Go to the link and read Krauthammer’s full comment.
“Since when did disease containment become a mission of the US military?”
“Someone broke through the cocoon on the issue of Ebola.”
It could be that Obama realized (or, more probably, ValJar realized) that the spread of Ebola might inhibit the spread of ISIS/ISIL/IS/radical islam.
Obama doesn’t want anything to stand in the way of the spread of Islam. Thus, his quick response to Ebola...and his lackadaisical response to ISIS.
And, if the USA loses a few soldiers and healthcare workers along the way...all the better.
Charles Krauthammer is correct. 0bama is so arrogant he thinks he does not need any advise and that he alone knows better
The Republican Party does NOTHING in the way of EDUCATING the public. The Democrats put tens of millions of dollars into “educating” potential voters, wooing potential voters, etc. Not to mention the government schools, which are Marxist-Progressive indoctrination centers—and were DESIGNED to be so from the beginning, 150 years ago.
The Republicans run political campaigns in an attempt to get elected, a few months before each election. (When they aren’t calling Democrats “a nice guy.”)
In the early 1970s, the Republican National Committee signed a consent decree by which they are bound NEVER to bring up vote fraud. That’s why the Democrats steal elections with impunity.
The Republican Party must be destroyed and replaced.
No third party! The Republican Party must be destroyed and replaced.
The bargains were made back in the 1930's and '40's. The Republicans pretend to oppose, until their major contributors are well protected from any negative consequences of legislation. In addition, they are guaranteed safe seats, generous shares of any pork going through the grinder, and if a Republican becomes President, a judgeship or two. The GOP figured out the demographics of the default party scene early on, and like GHWB in '92, just sort of threw in the towel.
Of course, the Republicans are completely cut out of the loop of governance, with the default affiliation of government workers in every agency with the Democrat Party that appointed them. OK with the GOP. Government is tiresome and cuts into deal-making. Why complain about an issue like "fraud," when one is making money? The DC offices of many of your GOP favorites are staffed by Democrat operatives, which ought to provide a clue of sorts.
Yeah, he should send in the CDC.
And, what would you replace it with?
Obama believes that the Republicans in Congress are opposing him in a way no other democrat has ever faced, or so the latest DNC campaign letter has it.
So, the RNC must be doing something right even if is not laying down and letting Obama have his complete way with them.
Who would you replace the RNC with?
Thanks for the ping. I went to the link and read Charles Krauthammer’s full comment. I agree with him.
Destroying the Pro-Forma Opposition, (PFO) which is a more accurate moniker for the GOP, than "Republican," would NOT be a good thing. Furthermore, like the government of Saudi Arabia, whatever followed might be worse. For example, serious third party attempts might automatically result in a century of Democrat Rule before Civil War II. So, no one does anything. Keep the party going. Make money.
The GOP Thinkers, of course know this, and it is all that keeps them in their seats with a good share of the swag .... and all they have to do is fake it.
However, in the last week he has made a very well stage-managed bit of a comeback. At least they got him a suit that fits .... except from behind! The meds are titrated better, so he looks more engaged ... unless you look very closely.
They are, on the whole, rather successfully "wagging the dog."
Someone broke through the cocoon on the issue of Ebola.Did they?
Or are the troops being sent over to provide cannon fodder for the African Islamists?
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