This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Obama: Bush’s fault that he withdrew troops from Iraq

    I remember when Joe Biden told us that only thing we needed to think about in the voting booth in 2012 was that the Iraq War had ended and that bin Laden is dead. Now, apparently, according to the Washington Times, it’s Bush’s fault that Obama was forced to withdraw US troops from Iraq;

    At the White House on Saturday morning — less than 48 hours after authorizing airstrikes against Islamist militants and humanitarian air drops to save the lives of trapped Iraqi civilians — President Obama blamed his predecessor, George W. Bush, for the absence of American troops in Iraq and rejected the assertion that he could have left a small peacekeeping force in the war-torn nation.

    Back in August of 2010 VoteVets was boasting about how Obama was going to withdraw the troops, so you know it’s true. We had a big fight over it and they ended up firing one of their staff at their blog. All because they wanted all of the credit for the withdrawal to go to Obama. Now, Obama is telling us that he had nothing to do with the final withdrawal – you know, as if the internet never existed.

    “What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision. Under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to a sovereign, democratically elected Iraqi government,” Mr. Obama told reporters just before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.

    So, thanks to Bush, the Obama Administration is just on autopilot, I suppose. Actually, that would explain a lot – especially why they hired John Kerry as the Secretary of State. Who needs a competent diplomat when the previous administration wrote the policies?

  • Clinton criticizes Obama foreign policy

    Clinton criticizes Obama foreign policy

    hillary

    For some reason, everyone seems to be surprised that Hillary Clinton has criticized the President for his lack of a foreign policy. Well, I’m not. She’s running for president in 2016, why wouldn’t she distance herself from what is clearly the biggest Charlie Foxtrot since Jimmy Carter? From the Atlantic;

    Of course, Clinton had many kind words for the “incredibly intelligent” and “thoughtful” Obama, and she expressed sympathy and understanding for the devilishly complicated challenges he faces. But she also suggested that she finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious, and she made the case that America needs a leader who believes that the country, despite its various missteps, is an indispensable force for good. At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid shit” (an expression often rendered as “Don’t do stupid stuff” in less-than-private encounters).

    This is what Clinton said about Obama’s slogan: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

    She softened the blow by noting that Obama was “trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy,” but she repeatedly suggested that the U.S. sometimes appears to be withdrawing from the world stage.

    Sometimes, doing nothing is being stupid, too. Withdrawing from the world stage is fine, but someone has to be there to fill the void – that’s why Putin is stepping up in Europe and the Chinese are filling the void in the Pacific.

    But, back to Clinton – everyone can see what a failure is this administration, so they’ll be an easy act to follow and Clinton hopes that she can appear to be a better choice than the Obama folks. But the failures of this administration are ideological in nature – it’s not a failure of the man. The whole liberal worldview is corrupt to it’s core.

    Remember when the liberals told us that when the US pulled out of Iraq, it’d be a peaceful wonderland of playgrounds and commerce? That the only reason there was death and destruction was because American troops were there. We were encouraging terrorism by being in that country. Well, that turns out to be much less accurate than anyone could imagine – well, except for the people who don’t walk around in rose-colored glasses.

    How would things be different under Clinton? It wouldn’t – the liberal view of the world with the US at the root everything evil that happens would survive the election and drive our foreign policy. Remember that it was the Clinton State Department in conjunction with the Office of the Vice President that failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement with Iraq which led to our early withdrawal there.

    By the way, according to Politico, Clinton isn’t the only one distancing herself from the President;

    Faced with a treacherous political environment, many Democrats are trotting out campaign ads that call for balanced budgets, tax cuts and other more traditionally GOP positions. Some of them are running in congressional districts that just two years ago broke sharply for President Barack Obama.

  • What? No arbitrary withdrawal date from Iraq is set?

    What? No arbitrary withdrawal date from Iraq is set?

    Barack Obama

    I remember that Charlie Rangel, when Operation Just Cause was hours old, was asking for a definite date to cease operations in Panama. Before we even deployed to the Middle East for Desert Storm, Congress wanted a date certain for withdrawal. Of course, for most of the Iraq War, the Left was pestering President Bush for an end date for operations there. But now, for some reason, it’s not important for this, the third war in Iraq;

    President Barack Obama on Saturday refused to give a time limit on America’s renewed military involvement in Iraq, saying he doesn’t think “we are going to solve this problem in weeks” as the country struggles to form a new government.

    “I think this is going to take some time,” he said at the White House before departing for a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast.

    Obama warned Americans that the new campaign to bring security in Iraq requires military and political changes and “is going to be a long-term project.”

    That’s the same thing Bush said, but there was an outcry from the media talking heads about how Bush was out of his depth and inexperienced in the working of these things when he said that the global war on terror would be a long and arduous task. But, the silence in this case is deafening.

    The Wall Street Journal reports that Democrats in Congress are generally supportive of the President.

    Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D., Md.) said that the threat of the Islamic State was serious and urged the U.S. to assemble a group of allies to respond. “In the end, it’s going to take more than air, so we have to get a coalition together,” Mr. Ruppersberger said.

    Yeah, good luck with that, I’m sure our allies are beating down the door to join a coalition after the way either they abandoned us or we abandoned them over the last 40 years.

  • DoD’s “duh moment”

    DoD’s “duh moment”

    The Washington Times reports that a panel which the Defense Department commissioned to evaluate the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) told them what we’ve been saying for years; they’re cutting too much too quickly to keep the nation safe from the number of threats that are popping up.

    It also said the shrinking U.S. armed forces, which are being downsized to fit that strategy and budget cuts, is a “serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States.” The forces’ numbers spelled out in Mr. Obama’s QDR are “inadequate given the future strategic and operational environment.”

    […]

    The panel’s report said the past several years of budget cuts and mandated reduction in personnel and weapons have stirred deep unease among allies who would count on the U.S. in a crisis.

    […]

    It calls the defense cuts “dangerous” as “global threats and challenges are rising.” The experts point to China’s and Russia’s new territorial claims, nuclear proliferation by Iran and North Korea and al Qaeda’s rapid rise in Iraq.

    The panel knocks Mr. Obama’s QDR for reducing the military’s global mission from being able to defeat two enemies nearly simultaneously to defeating one and denying the objectives of a second. The report calls on Mr. Obama to expand this overriding mission statement.

    I could have saved them the money for a panel and I’m sure that many of you could, too. The problem is that this administration will ignore this report. They’ve already decided what the future looks like and it’s all been factored in to their vision for our national security. Now if only the rest of the world will cooperate.

    The reason that we got what we wanted and the world was relatively peaceful was because we were feared as a military power, but everyone wants to be respected these days, unfortunately respect comes in second place to fear.

  • Illegal people want representation in White House

    According to the Washington Times, illegal immigrants are marching at the White House to demand representation in the meetings there to discuss fixing the crisis along the border.

    “We are among the millions of people who will either benefit or be harmed by the decisions the President makes, and we are here to represent ourselves in any future negotiations,” said Rosi Carrasco, one of organizers, in a statement announcing the action.

    Billing themselves “undocumented immigrant leaders,” the organizers said they will erect a picket line to symbolize their demand.

    The groups are fighting to keep momentum in the immigration debate, which has seemingly turned against them in recent weeks as Mr. Obama tries to deal with the surge of illegal immigrant children and families across the border.

    I suppose that ICE can just scoop them all up in paddy wagons and move the protesters to processing centers. They can call themselves anything they want using a mix of convoluted terms, they’re still here in this country contrary to the laws of this country – they’re illegal immigrants.

    Besides, it seems that all of President Obama’s blood relatives living in this country were here illegally at some time and none have been sent home, so I guess illegal immigrants already have an advocate in those meetings.

    Fox News reports that some of the little dears protested at the White House yesterday without much fear of repercussion;

    “Unless the individuals meet ICE’s enforcement priorities, it’s unlikely that the agency would get involved in the case,” the official told FoxNews.com.

    Under a policy that’s been in effect for several years, ICE focuses deportation mostly on serious criminals and – in some cases — those caught in the act of crossing the border. The agency prioritizes deportation for felons, repeat offenders, gang members and others with a serious criminal record. But the agency largely gives a pass to other undocumented residents.

    This is why illegal immigrant activists can protest outside the White House without worrying too much about ICE.

    Like I said, they already have representation in those meetings.

  • We are not the world’s policeman, but…

    In the Washington Post today, Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt writes “Obama’s foreign policy reveals the effects of disengagement“. Hiatt lists the scant foreign policy of this administration. While the world begged for leadership, the president, instead focused on transforming domestic policies to suit his own politics. The results of that disengagement from the world, according to Hiatt;

    Obama’s determination to gear down in Europe and the Middle East, regardless of circumstances, guaranteed that the United States would not respond strategically to new opportunities (the Arab Spring) or dangers (Putin’s determination to redraw the map of Europe).

    When ordinary citizens in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere in the Arab world unexpectedly began agitating for democracy, the West might have responded as it did after World War II (with the Marshall Plan) or the fall of the Berlin Wall (with a commitment to a Europe whole and free). If the United States had taken the lead, Europe and America together could have offered trade, investment, exchange and cultural opportunities to help bring the region into the modern, democratic world.

    But for Obama the tumult in Egypt and elsewhere was a distraction, not a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The West responded timidly and inconsistently, and the moment was lost.

    For Russia, Obama offered Putin a “reset” strategy of improved relations. But when it became clear that Putin wasn’t interested — that he wanted to re-create a Russian empire while blocking the achievement of a Europe whole and free — the West again had no strategic response. Obama could have bolstered a unified Europe with military, diplomatic and trade measures. Instead, as Putin wrecked democracy in Russia, annexed Crimea and fomented war in Ukraine, Obama and his European counterparts were reactive and divided.

    In Iraq and Syria, Obama’s predictions proved wrong. Without the 15,000 or so troops that U.S. generals hoped to station in Iraq for training and counterterrorism, the United States had no leverage as Iraq’s armed forces devolved into sectarian militias. When challenged by al-Qaeda, the army and the state itself quickly shattered.

    Without Western backing, the moderate rebels in Syria are in retreat. Assad did not fall, and extremists — with a far more capable arsenal than the moderates have — established a state that Eric Holder finds “more frightening than anything I think I’ve seen as attorney general.”

    Libya’s government, until recently spurned in its requests for help, gradually lost control. The country is now so dangerous that on Saturday the United States had to evacuate its embassy.

    I’ll concede that we have no money left to be the world’s policeman, but, if your own hometown’s policemen all quit one day before there was a period to adjust to the new scenario, your hometown would look much like the world today.

    Leadership and the lack of leadership are the subject of many op/ed pieces these days. The US could be a leader in the world without spending a lot of money on defense, unfortunately, we have a leaderless country in a leaderless world. Our own Secretary of State is a national punchline, soon to be an international punchline. Even Hillary Clinton took an opportunity this weekend to criticize the Obama Administration for being rudderless in regards to foreign policy, according to the Washington Times;

    She then seemed to take another jab at Mr. Obama’s White House, saying that America spends a “lot of money and a lot of time and effort” to exert influence around the world.

    But “I think we would be able to succeed more effectively if we were clearer about who we are and what we stand for and the values that we hold,” she added during the CNN interview.

    We continue to pour money into foreign governments trying to influence them, but that’s not working. numbers are flying around today about the amount of money that the world poured into Gaza would have rebuilt the entire infrastructure of that state, but Hamas used it to buy missiles and build tunnels into Israel instead.

    Leadership is harder, and therefore not the chosen path for this administration. leadership on the border would have been nice, but the solution from this administration was more spending instead – and it was the same lack of leadership that caused that crisis in the first place.

    I like to toot my own horn, so I’ll mention that I predicted this chapter of our history unfolding before us back in May, 2007 when I warned about electing someone from Congress instead of someone with actual leadership experience.

    By the way, when someone in the Washington Post decides to criticize a Democrat President, the White House needs to take a look at the way they’re doing the people’s business.

  • Kalashnikovs selling quickly

    Kalashnikovs selling quickly

    ak-471

    According to Fox News, folks are scooping up the existing stocks of Kalashnikov brand products since the President added the Russian company to the Office of Foreign Funds Control’s Specially Designated Nationals List last week;

    Craig Ball, director of operations at Impact Guns, said the stores have seen increased interest from buyers looking for AK-47s over the last few days. Gun stores typically don’t keep many AKs in the pipeline, he added.

    “Then something like this happens, and the supply dries up,” Ball explained.

    Looking at Gun Broker’s auction website, there are still quite a few available there, along with some Saiga shotguns made by the Kalashnikov folks. I’m guessing that folks who had planned on buying the guns are just pushing up their timeline for the purchases. Prices are pretty steep, but they haven’t reached “panic” pricing yet.

    Atlantic Firearms has this proviso on their website;

    Please Note: Due to the recent Import Ban on Russian Based AK firearms we are experiencing heavy order volumes . Please expect it to take approx 4 – 7 business days for any order to ship out , CA Orders may be slightly longer. We are working hard to ship orders out as quickly as possible . Thank You

    But one thing is for sure – this administration has done more for gun traders than any other administration.

  • Malice, Incompetence, or Malcompetence?

    Every time American Thinker posts am article condemning the incompetence of the Obama administration (as one of mine did recently), the comments sections are rife with contempt for the authors for ascribing to incompetence what to those readers is a truly Machiavellian, leftist scheme to undermine the greatness of America. And every time some reader labels me politically correct (a quite laughable charge as anyone who knows this knuckle-dragger can attest) or politically naïve, I’m reminded of the adage, “Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by ineptitude.”

    I’d always heard that was a Napoleon quote but curiosity drove me to a Google search where I learned that the adage actually bears several names, the most recent being Hanlon’s Razor (possibly better known as “Heinlein’s Razar”), an obvious play on Occam’s Razor. It is also known as Finagle’s Law of Negative Dynamics or Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law. Older versions of the same theme go back as far as Goethe’s, “…misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At all events the two latter are at less frequent occurrence.” Arthur C. Clarke authored the closely related Grey’s Law: “Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.” And yes, apparently Napoleon did make this same observation regarding human behavior. But my favorite is from Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, a witty Brit named Bernard Ingham, who phrased it “Cock-up before conspiracy.”

    Getting back to the particular incompetent in question, Barack Obama, my own thinking is that many of the cock-ups during his tenure are in fact the products of a ruthless, hard-left, political intent to “fundamentally change America” while rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. However, these plotstoo frequently turn out to be far less effective than they were intended because of the ineptitude of Obama and his minions in carrying them out. Their programs may well be hatched with a devious Cloward-Piven strategy and goal in mind, but their inability to effectively implement their schemes results in continuing Keystone Kops cock-ups.

    Do those of you who attribute all of the Obama scandals solely to malice, honestly believe Obama and Holder wanted Fast and Furious to blow up in their faces? Did Barry and Hilly really want to appear as clueless and unresponsive in Benghazi as subsequent revelations have made them out to be? Or how about the IRS cock-up; don’t you really suppose that they would rather that their heavy hand had not been caught in that cookie jar of corruption? Recall how desperately they tried to keep it contained to Cincinnati. Or how about this VA mess which most certainly does appear to have a Cloward-Piven result, even if unintended? And of course, the most colossal of the cock-ups has to be ObamaCare, which has to be the biggest administrative bungle in the history of bungling. Remember that the Democrats used every trick in their bag to get that bill enacted. And you believe they did that just so they could look like incompetent fools when it rolled out as it did? Was the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision a product of world-class scheming? Because of that particular, ongoing cock-up, the Democrats may very well lose the Senate this November. It’s difficult to believe that losing control of the Senate and thus imperiling the remainder of the Obama presidency was the planned goal behind the catastrophic rollout of Obamacare.

    I do happen to agree that the current mess on the border is an Obama-caused disaster, one with a true Cloward-Piven motive driving it. But once again, their clumsy and imperious implementation is angering far more Americans than it is rallying to the cause of immigration reform. Look who’s coming out of that nasty cock-up looking presidential: Texas Governor, Rick Perry, not that pool-playing fool in the White House.

    Ditto the entire foreign policy scene. Remember sly Barry promising the Russians he’d have more flexibility following his re-election? First he had to live through the embarrassment of being caught on an open mike and cameras selling out his country, but now he has to live with Reset and Red Line jokes and the almost daily embarrassing examples of Vladimir Putin schooling him in the finer points of world strategy before a watching world. Barry’s out on the course practicing his putt while Putin’s putting Russian bases back in Cuba, which constitutes about the biggest diplomatic middle finger one can imagine. Remember that it was Khrushchev’s contempt for the callow John Kennedy that emboldened the Russian leader to begin erecting the Berlin Wall and to position IRBM’s in Cuba back in the 60s. Perhaps you could argue malice is behind this foreign policy bungling but do you really believe Obama wants to be not just the first black president but also the first president ever to be impeached and removed from office?

    Do not discount that possibility, for at the rate Obama is alienating Americans, even more and more Democrats, the required two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict on an impeachment charge from the House could be a possibility if the Republicans take the Senate and Obama continues to lose Democrat support as he’s doing now. Too many Democrats may be leftist loons but many working-class Democrats are patriots who do not want to see their country lose its place as a world leader, politically, economically, or militarily. Even some Democrat political leaders will reach a point where they will not sit idly by while their party leader destroys their nation through his incompetence… or malice.

    Maybe we should call it malcompetence: incompetence magnified by malevolent intent.

    Crossposted at American Thinker