Skip to comments.
Obama Leaks His Own War
FrontPage Magazine ^
| August 29, 2013
| Daniel Greenfield
Posted on 08/29/2013 7:38:50 AM PDT by SJackson
As the first drops of a cool afternoon rain begin to fall from the sky, the administration that has been described as the most ruthlessly zealous in pursuit of whistleblowers is showering down its own rain of leaks about the upcoming attack on Syria.
Stand outside the New York Times building with a bucket in one hand and a thick wad of wood pulp in the other, and you may even be able to figure out whether were going to war or, as one official told the Los Angeles Times, the air strikes will be just muscular enough not to get mocked
but not sinewy enough to really upset Tehran and Moscow.
Anything from Clintons air strikes on Iraq to Obamas regime assault on Libya may be on the table, but we seem to be headed into featherweight territory, with Obama telling PBS that the attacks would be a shot across the bow.
The New York Times, the usual leakhole of Obama Inc, quoted officials describing a limited one or two day campaign that would degrade Assads ability to launch chemical weapons, without forcing him out of power. That might be true, but then again no less a figure than Barack H. Obama had promised that the Libyan intervention would last days, not weeks. It lasted months, not weeks, let alone days.
Less than 50 sites are reportedly being targeted; a few command centers and chemical warfare units. That makes it a somewhat larger scale version of the attacks that Israel has already carried out in Syria.
The New York Times story doesnt just lay out a broad guideline, but a detailed list of targets. Some of those targets are harder to move than others, but if the list is accurate, then the attack plan has already been leaked before it began and the strategic damage is sizable.
Senator McCain, who had been urging a harder intervention, said, All of these leaks, when the strikes are going to take place, whats going to be used, if I were Bashar Assad, I think I would declare tomorrow a snow day and keep everybody from work.
Why leak a limited strike to the public? It may be to reassure Iran and Russia that Obama isnt really serious about picking a fight with them; hes just trying to avoid being mocked by the mean lads in the locker rooms of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Or it may be to dissuade the American people from treating yet another unilateral and undeclared war seriously by calling it the W word.
Considering all the Clinton people at the helm, Libya may have been Obamas Yugoslavia, but Syria could be his Iraq. A few cruise missiles, a few targets that wont be there by the time the missiles are launched and then everyone goes out for drinks at Lounge 201 with a few Media Matters staffers.
Or the leaks may be there to misdirect the Syrian military into protecting the wrong assets in a bombing campaign that will be waged against the same broad scope of military targets as in Libya. But McCains criticisms suggest that if the leaks are an act of misdirection, no one let him in on the game plan.
In an administration that lies reflexively about everything while maintaining an incestuous relationship with the media, its hard to know whether were hearing deliberately planted lies or truths that leaked inappropriately.
This state of confusion exists because instead of being told directly by the man they elected to represent their interests in the foreign affairs of the nation what he intends, the people have to sift through media leaks to learn whether they are about to be involved in a war or a slap fight. And there are now signals that unlike Libya, Obama will not even bother to address the nation. Apparently telling the people of the country why you began military operations on their behalf is passé in our blindingly modern digital age.
The American people, who in poll after poll oppose a war, are being told that the attacks are happening. And once the important people are done deciding what the attacks will look like, they may get around to informing them just how much of their money and lives will be spent winning Syria for the armies of the Muslim Brotherhood who have proven as inept at taking over that country as they have at taking over Egypt.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said yesterday that while Obama wants Assad out and is arming Syrian Sunni rebels who want Assad out, the attacks will not be about regime change.
Beginning a war with an obvious lie is never a good start. And a country with a media unwilling to call out the chief propagandist of its own government for telling it, tells us that in this conflict truth is already the first casualty.
Obama has done everything to help the Sunni rebels overthrow Assad short of actually attacking Syria. Now that he actually will be attacking Syria, the claim that the attacks are not meant to weaken Assad and help the rebels win is not credible. And indeed, a Free Syrian Army official has already said that the FSA is coordinating target lists with the United States.
If the goal were to stop mass murder, there are a lot of other places that Navy warships could go; like Sudan. This conflict has always been about achieving political goals, not humanitarian ones. The goal in Syria is not to end the violence or Obama wouldnt be supplying weapons and dropping bombs.
Libya also wasnt about regime change. At least not until we bombed Gaddafis convoy using a UN no fly zone as a pretext for attacking a bunch of ground vehicles. Assads equipment is a lot more lethal and up to date. It wont pose too much of a challenge for NATO air power, but Syria will be Obamas war. Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, anything that happens in it cannot be blamed on Bush. Not even by the media.
Thats why Obama is afraid of Syria. This will be one war whose consequences he cannot escape. It will be fully his war. And he will have to own it.
War in Syria is wildly unpopular with Americans, who may give Obama a pass on a casualty free conflict, but if Americans begin dying, then the political casualties will include his controversial domestic agenda.
Obama may want to help the Muslim Brotherhood take Syria, but sacrificing his domestic agenda for their foreign agenda may not be a price that he is willing to pay.
And that is why he may stick to firing a barely muscular shot across Assads bow.
TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: chemicalweaponattack; greenfield; syriachemicalweapons
1
posted on
08/29/2013 7:38:50 AM PDT
by
SJackson
Comment #2 Removed by Moderator
To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume
If youd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
3
posted on
08/29/2013 7:45:09 AM PDT
by
SJackson
( The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. BF)
To: SJackson
...and when he has to make a tough decision, he just leaks.
4
posted on
08/29/2013 7:50:49 AM PDT
by
gov_bean_ counter
(Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools)
To: SJackson
obama, the leaker of all leakers. Thank Goodness, obama’s true intent is becoming know to the masses!
5
posted on
08/29/2013 7:54:23 AM PDT
by
no-to-illegals
(Scrutinize our government and Secure the Blessing of Freedom and Justice)
6
posted on
08/29/2013 7:54:50 AM PDT
by
no-to-illegals
(Scrutinize our government and Secure the Blessing of Freedom and Justice)
To: SJackson
ul>
Toxic Catch: SYRIA REBELS' CHEMICAL LAB Uncovered Near Damascus, ( 4:51 )
Published on Jul 14, 2013
Syrian state TV says the military has found a chemical laboratory
which produces poisonous materials in the town of Jobar on the outskirts of Damascus.
Sources claim the REBELS were planning to stuff shells with the chemicals and use them to attack the capital.
RT's Middle East correspondent Paula Slier reports.
7
posted on
08/29/2013 7:57:55 AM PDT
by
Yosemitest
(It's Simple ! Fight, ... or Die !)
To: baddog 219
Check
this out:
... the media ... no longer ... report on the antics of a former community organizerwho was busy sketching out plans for an illegal warthat he had been on record as opposing.
SHAMELESSNESS is the quality that Barack Obama's antics ... and Miley Cyrus' antics ... have in common.
Not merely a shamelessness ... but shamelessness as their fundamental attribute.
A shamelessness ... of not being bound by anything at all.
... Obama was once anti-war.
In 2007, he told voters that the president does not have the authority under the Constitution to unilaterally go to war unlessthere is an urgent threat to the United States.
Now he's planning a SECOND war in which the ONLY urgent threatis to the military prospects of HIS ISLAMIST ALLIES FOR TAKING OVER ANOTHER COUNTRY.
Obama's shamelessness isn't incidental to his actions;... he is celebrating HIS LIBERATION FROM ANY STANDARD OR VALUE, triumphing over them THROUGH ATTITUDE ALONE.
And in a world WITHOUT MORALS OR VALUES, the only thing that counts is POWER AND THE WILL to use it.
... the tawdry spectacles expose the elemental thing that is left behind WHEN ALL VIRTUES AND VALUES FADE AWAY.
Without these things, the human animal becomes just that,A REPUGNANT AND IRREDEEMABLE spectaclethat attracts the like-minded and REPELS EVERYONE ELSE.
Without these virtues, why shouldn't Obama BREAK HIS WORD and get his war on?
... it's only a dilemma IF you have morals.
If you don't, thenit's NO LONGER A MATTER ofwhat the right thing to do is,BUT WHETHER YOU CAN DO IT.
Or as Aleister Crowley put it,..."DO WHAT THOU WILT shall be THE WHOLE of the Law".
That is the cheerful maxim ... for the drama of reality television.
Its real entertainment product is PEOPLE DOING WHAT THEY WILT and becoming famous for it.
... everything that MTV stands for;tacky, desperate for attention and in the real world, pregnant at 16. ... cheerful amorality,maintained by invisibly huge amounts of money,that tells viewers that THAT THEIR OWN AMORSLITY WILL ...NOT HAVE CONSEQUENCES.
Bill Clinton was our first MTV president.
Barack Obama is our second.
The decline in MTV neatly matches the descent from Clinton to Obama,but what unites them is THAT CHEERFUL AMORALITY that can TRIUMPH OVER ANY CRIME.
These are men whose CREED IS "Do what thou wilt"
and like so much of our political and entertainment elites,They have been GETTING THEIR WILT ON.
Obama has decided to get his war on. Again.
Though REALLY, France and then the UK DECIDED THAT AMERICA SHOULD get its war on.
And to be STRICKLY ACCURATE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar DECIDED AGAIN that their FINANCIAL PUPPETS in the UK and France,licking their lips at a taste of their oil-fed sovereign wealth funds,
SHOULD get their war oneven while CUTTING their militaries to be the bone.
Formerly ANTI-WAR France is on its THIRD war in three years.
This will be the SECOND war for its newly elected Socialist government in JUST THIS year.
That's impressive for a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeyswho were supposed to be our role modelsin navigating the subtlety of international diplomacy.
But France has always been renowned for its cheerfully AMORAL politics.
Role models don't hold up too well under fire.
Just ask ... any of the anti-war activists who thought that Obama would be different.
THE MAN WHOSE ONLY CALLING CARD WAS THE PEACE SIGN, is about to launch his SECOND war.And if bombing Syria goes well, THERE'S ALWAYS EGYPT.
And if the TUNISIAN PROTESTERS follow their lead and DARE TO BOOT their Islamist masters,THEY might get a few cruise missiles headed their way in Operation Caliphate.
Obama's premature gift of a Nobel Peace Prize has become one of the MORE ABSURD footnotes in his career.
... he seems to be doing his best to leave behind his old anti-war reputation.
Now he can hardly wait for the UN inspectors to finish their job in Syriabefore squatting at a table and nodding CLUELESSLYWHILE BEING TOLD WHERE the bombs will fall first.
If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, as La Rochefoucauld said,our elites have decided to dispense with the tribute.
Not only will there be NO MORE VIRTUE,but the dealers in vice will NOT EVEN BOTHER WITH THE HYPOCRISY.
If the balance of our society has been TILTED FORCIBLY from virtue to vice, as most recent developments suggest,then the ... hope and changers no longer feel that they need to bother EVEN MAINTAINING THE APPEARANCE OF VIRTUE.
Last time around, Obama had already begun the Libyan War BEFORE he told the American people.
This time, the Syrian War could begin at any time,but will possibly be PRECEDED by the release of a report.Or maybe the report will come out later,as the man WHO SHOULD BE president IS ACTING LIKE AN EMPEROR,and the emperor is naked ....
Alinsky's fourth rule is MAKING THE ENEMY LIVE UP TO HIS OWN CODES.BUT WHAT IF THE ENEMY HAS NO RULES, ONLY WILL. WHAT IF THE ENEMY HAS NO VALUES AND EXIST ONLY TO BE SEEN.
That is the unreal space occupied by a former community organizer from Chicago ...Where there are NO VALUES, there can be NO HYPOCRISY.
All that is left is THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL.
The VMAs are a calculated spectacle in the same way that Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will wasand in the same way that the latest Obama speechpledging to act unilaterally on his latest plan if Congress does nothing.Their theme is the triumph of THE WILL OVER MORALS,the power of the individual TO DOMINATE CROWDS through no special virtue EXCEPT DETERMINATION.
It is A FASCISM OF THE SPIRIT that glorifies THE DISSOLUTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL in A SECULAR RELIGION of power and privilege.
Miley Cyrus did what she did BECAUSE SHE COULD.The goal was the most priceless commodity of modern culture; ATTENTION.In a crowded digital world, the only thing that matters is BEING SEEN.
Obama's triumph is BEING NOTICED.It is THE SECRET of his success.
In a crowded digital world, THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL is not physical or intellectual, let alone spiritual,but that quality of COMPELLING OTHERS to become aware of YOUR existenceand TO INCORPORATE YOUR existence INTO THEIR reality.
... Obama will go to war BECAUSE HE CAN.It isn't even his idea and it isn't a good idea, but THAT DOESN'T MATTER.
... If you're an anti-war liberal who makes it into the White House,you have to SHOW EVERYONE that you've grown up by getting out there and GETTING YOUR WAR ON.
It's what the audience expects.
For months now, the Washington Post and the New York Times have been URGING Obama to go to war.
France and the UK have been BEATING WAR DRUMS even longer.
Qatar and Turkey have been CRYING FOR WAR BEFORE the last one wrapped up.
Eventually the NAKED emperor HAD TO go out there and give his international fans what THEY wanted.
Obama was TENTATIVE when it came to his first war,but he's an old pro at it now.
He knows that NO ONE WHO MATTERS WILL JUDGE HIM FOR ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS.It's all in funand it distracts the unemployed people eating soup out of a can from wonderingIF THEY'RE GOING TO BE EVICTED TOMRROW OR TODAY.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has grown up.He knows that THE PUBLIC DOESN'T MATTER.He knows that CONGRESS DOESN'T MATTER.He knows that THERE IS NOTHING BETWEEN HIS WILL and the might and FORTUNES of a nation.And HE'S DOING WHAT HE WILL WITH THEM.
He might bomb Syria for a few days, as he's claiming and as he FALSELY claimed of Libya, or a few weeks or a few months.
The military has been CUT TO THE BONE and RETASKED to celebrating gay weddings and green energy,but there are enough bombs LEFT OVER to make for some spectacular fireworksas the Al Nusra Front and their Free Syrian Army allies make it to DamascusTO SLAUGHTER THE LAST CHRISTIANS THERE.
Every show needs a good closing numberand THE BURNING OF THE LAST CHURCHES in Syria while the bombs burst overhead will be the performance of a lifetime.
Maybe Obama will even get Miley to sing.
There will be criticism, but as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of Benghazi,"What difference does it make anyway?"
What difference does ANYTHING MAKE in THE ABSENCE OF MORALS.
Without them, THERE IS ONLY POWER AND THE WILL TO USE IT,whether it is the power to bomb a nation or take your clothes off.
The only way to PROVE WILL is through ACTION.
The ability TO DO A THING implies A NEED to do it.If a thing CAN be done, it MUST be done.
And so WILL DISPROVES ITSELFas the ability to do a thing FORCES YOU to actually go ahead and do itTO PROVE YOUR WILL, WITHOUT REGARD TO WETHER YOU WANT to do it OR NOT.
Our society SLEEPWALKS towards these inevitabilities of power WITHOUT EVER ASKING WHO IT WAS THAT DECIDED on their inevitability.
Transformed FROM a society of virtue INTO VICE, we wonder WHY we are slipping INTO TYRANNY AND CORRUPTION of every sort.
RESTRAINT IS A VIRTUE.
With ONLY the VICE of power, the ADDICTION of will, there is NOTHING between us and THOISE WHO WOULD DESTROY USbut the NAKEDNESS of THEIR power.
And the moment that THEY CAN DEPRIVE US OF OUR RIGHTS AND DESTROY US, THEY WILL.
Tomorrow, Obama MAY fight Syria.
But the rest of the time,
8
posted on
08/29/2013 7:58:32 AM PDT
by
Yosemitest
(It's Simple ! Fight, ... or Die !)
To: Yosemitest
Well Done Yosemitest ... Well Done!
9
posted on
08/29/2013 8:01:19 AM PDT
by
no-to-illegals
(Scrutinize our government and Secure the Blessing of Freedom and Justice)
To: SJackson
This is the social media administration. Let all your friends know where the parties at tonight.
To: SJackson
I understand that Assad is no choir boy, but killing Syrians is serious business. I know that war is imposing your political will on an enemy by force, but how is Syria our enemy? And are they such a bad enemy that we must bomb them? It’s one thing to stand at a golf course and talk s**t about how the Syrians are screwing things up, but it’s quite another to see the blown-off heads and dismembered bodies of Syrians who were dreaming about their kid’s future 24 hours ago. If you are going to kill, then kill for a purpose and do it big enough that you don’t have to keep killing. There is nothing crueler than killing just for the heck of it. We have become way too complacent about killing people. Those Syrian mothers and fathers and wives and children will wind up hating us for decades. If we have to kill them, then that dumbass President better explain why we have to kill them. And so far, I haven’t heard anything that justifies our taking a bunch of lives and leaving us with generations of enemies.
11
posted on
08/29/2013 8:04:29 AM PDT
by
blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")
To: SJackson
He was right about one thing:
He IS the very thing his ‘son’ Trayvon would be as President. Nothing more than an incompetant thug wannabe, who knows NOTHING about the job they have, except how to abuse it and rape it for their personal gain.
We have a teenage thug wannabe ‘leading’ this country.
Only Three Days Until
September.
Please donate today.
13
posted on
08/29/2013 8:11:23 AM PDT
by
RedMDer
(http://www.dontfundobamacare.com/)
To: SJackson
As none of Obama’s domestic agenda is working, just like his foreign agenda which isn’t working, he needs a war. He needs a war not just as a distraction but also to try to boost the economy and his support.
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson