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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • US-Afghan agreement; US has open-ended committment

    Pinto Nag sends us a link to NBC News which reports that the US and Afghanistan have reached an agreement for continued US presence in the country “for many years” while we continue to shell out for Afghan forces’ payroll;

    Taken as a whole, the document describes a basic US-Afghan exchange. Afghanistan would allow Washington to operate military bases to train Afghan forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda after the current mission ends in 2014. For that foothold in this volatile mountain region wedged between Pakistan and Iran, the United States would agree to sustain and equip Afghanistan’s large security force, which the government in Kabul currently cannot afford. The deal, according to the text, would take effect on January 1, 2015 and “shall remain in force until the end of 2024 and beyond.” It could be terminated by either Washington or Kabul with two years advance written notice.

    There is however what US officials believe is a contradiction in the July draft, which would effectively ask American troops to provide training and confront al-Qaeda from the confines of bases. While it says operations against al-Qaeda may be necessary, it also says US troops will not be allowed to make arrests or enter Afghan homes.

    “No detention or arrest shall be carried out by the United States forces. The United States forces shall not search any homes or other real estate properties,” it says.

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the media and the opposition party wouldn’t have allowed the Bush Administration to forge a document that would cost billions with no end in sight without raising a loud and constant stink. Remember during the 2008 campaign, the press and Democrats were screaming because they thought that John McCain wanted to stay in Iraq “forever”? So where are those voices now?

    ADDED: I don’t know what to make of this, sent to us by “Ohio”; Fox News reports that the New York Times says that part of the security deal is a letter from our President to the Afghan people “Acknowledging mistakes” during our war against terror.

    The New York Times, citing a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, reported that Secretary of State John Kerry proposed the letter in a conversation with Karzai.

    Karzai asked that Obama sign it, and Kerry reportedly agreed. The letter apparently helped them reach a tentative deal authorizing U.S. raids on Afghan homes in certain circumstances, which had been an area of disagreement.

    White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, at Tuesday’s daily press briefing in Washington, would not confirm or deny the letter when asked by Fox News.

    Proposed by Kerry – this is not my shocked face.

  • Still coming for your healthcare

    A few days ago, we saw how the Obama Administration planned to hike your out-of-pocket Tricare costs so that you’d be forced into the Obamacare program, or whatever they’re calling it today. Military.com, in a link sent to us by Chief Tango, reports how they plan on doing just that;

    The Pentagon proposed an annual enrollment fee based on a percentage of retired pay for Medicare-eligible retirees in the Tricare For Life Program. Working age retirees in the Tricare Standard and Tricare Extra programs also would face new annual enrollment fees phased in over five years.

    The White House also proposed an increase to the current enrollment fee for working age retirees in the Tricare Prime program phased in over the next four years.

    As for co-pays, the White House has proposed increasing Tricare Prime co-pays for retirees and their beneficiaries by $4 for medical visits not related to mental health.

    Congress was successful earlier this year in resisting hikes to your Tricare costs, but the fate of the plans of this administration rests on the election in November. Can you imagine the outcry that would arise over hikes to out-of-pocket costs to Medicaid or Medicare? While this administration makes noise about lowering Americans’ healthcare costs, they raising veterans’.

    It’s time for the VSOs to do a march-in to the Oval Office again.

  • White House vs. Kerry on Egypt

    The Daily Beast reports a difference of opinion on what US policy towards Egypt should be, and I never thought that I’d form these words, but I have to go with John Kerry on this one;

    The tension between the national security adviser and the secretary of state spilled over into public view in the past week, when Rice laid out her critical appraisal of the Egyptian government, which contradicted Kerry’s assessment that Egypt was “on the path to democracy.” The now public rift has been simmering behind the scenes for months and illustrates the strikingly divergent Egypt policies the White House and the State Department are pursuing.

    The turf battles and internal confusion are hampering the administration’s approach to Egypt, say lawmakers, experts, and officials inside both governments.

    “John Kerry doesn’t agree with Susan Rice on big portions of our Egypt policy, and he made a deliberate and conscious decision not to mention Morsi in his Cairo meetings,” an administration official told The Daily Beast. “Susan Rice wasn’t happy about it.”

    Ya know, I’m not a believer in that whole “Obama is a Muslim” thing that goes around, but when his administration tried to protect the Muslim Brotherhood/Morsi government during the coup, then decided to not supply the new government with military aid after they were adamant about giving the Morsi administration that same aid, and they’re trying to ease sanctions against Iran, though Iran has done nothing to earn that easing and their continued support for Al-Qeada-linked Syrian rebels, well, they’re not doing themselves any favors or dispelling the appearances that they’re creating. Now they’ve made me agree with John Kerry. Jerks.

  • SEALs; treated poorly by Obama Administration

    We all know how the SEALs helped to get Obama reelected since it was the elite Navy organization that enabled him to use their accomplishments for half of his campaign slogan – the part about “bin Laden is dead”. However, some members of that group aren’t pleased about the way they’ve been treated by their political masters, according to Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough;

    A book by Billy Vaughn, father of a SEAL killed in the Aug. 6, 2011, shootdown of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan, blames the administration for leaking too much information about his son’s unit.

    Another book by two former SEALs tells the “shameful ordeal” they endured based on allegations of prisoner abuse by one unreliable sailor and one determined terrorist. Instead of issuing gratitude for nabbing the “butcher of Fallujah” in Iraq in 2009, U.S. Central Command court-martialed the SEALs on felony charges.

    The two authors and a third SEAL were acquitted by military juries when the prosecution’s case fall apart.

    One of those former SEALs, Matthew McCabe, said in an interview that the ordeal encouraged him to leave the Navy last year rather than try out for Team 6 as he had planned.

    The article goes on to mention that another SEAL is under the gun for publishing a book without getting authorization from the Pentagon about the bin Laden raid, but that the administration shared classified details with the makers of a movie about the raid, leading some folks to believe that the Obama Administration values more their relationship with Hollywood than their relationship with their warriors.

    The article discusses the shoot down of the conventional helicopter and the court martial of three SEALs for the unfounded accusation of abuse of a detainee which we’ve discussed at length here. Scarborough goes on for three pages, so you should click over and read the whole thing rather than me C&Ping the whole thing. I’d add that the treatment of the “urination incident” Marines by the Pentagon should be thrown into the whole discussion.

    But the take away is that the current administration is unappreciative of the job the troops are doing for the politicos’ reputations.

  • Hagel: Defense cuts hurt readiness

    Andy sends us a link to an article from AFP which reports that Chuck “Sherlock” Hagel has noticed that sequestration is affecting readiness of the Defense Department. No shit.

    The cuts, which amount to nearly $1 trillion for the Department of Defense (DoD) over a decade, were “too steep, too deep and too abrupt,” Hagel told a defense conference in California.

    “This is an irresponsible way to govern, and it forces the department into a very bad set of choices,” he said

    Automatic cuts of $52 billion set to take place in fiscal 2014 represent 10 percent of the Pentagon budget.

    The Navy’s global presence is already down 10 percent since sequestration began in March, while the Army has canceled training rotations for 15 percent of its forces and the Air Force 25 percent of its training events.

    “The effects will be felt for a long period of time to come. By continuing to cancel training for non-deploying personnel, we will create a backlog of training requirements that could take years to recover from,” Hagel said.

    Yeah, well, the idea for sequestration came out of the White House. Besides, during the election campaign, at one of his debates with Mitt Romney, the President assured us that sequestration wasn’t going to happen. In fact, the Department of Defense never had a plan to implement the cuts, because they didn’t think it would happen. I fault Congress for not having the cojones to come up with budget cuts so that sequestration wouldn’t happen, but this administration was equally nutless for not thinking the implementation through thoroughly.

  • If He’s Lost Bowie State…

    You probably can’t find a better example of bedrock Obama support than on the campuses of America’s traditionally black colleges.

    But now, with the introduction of Obamacare, the students at Bowie State University find themselves without health insurance after school administrators were forced to cancel their extremely affordable health care insurance to be in compliance with Obamacare regulations.

    Watch this video and tell me that there aren’t some hairline cracks developing in that black bedrock of belief in Obama’s infallibility. And this is happening in the heart of America’s wealthiest black-majority enclave, Prince George’s County, Maryland.

    Let’s see how long it takes the White House to slap a bring-em-back Band-Aid on this boo-boo.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Kerry urges patience with Iran

    After learning the other day that the Obama Administration has unilaterally decided to relax sanctions on Iran, the French-looking Secretary of State, John Kerry went to Congress yesterday to ask Congress to be patient before instituting more sanctions against Iran, according to the Stars & Stripes;

    Kerry reminded reporters that as a senator, he joined his then-colleagues in putting the sanctions against Iran in place. But he urged patience for them to work before Congress meddles and decides to increase them, therefore harming a U.S.-led coalition and the talks themselves.

    “We put them in place in order to be able to put us in the strongest position possible to be able to negotiate. We now are negotiating. And the risk is that if Congress were to unilaterally move to raise sanctions, it could break faith with those negotiations and actually stop them and break them apart,” said Kerry, who was testifying before a closed-door committee hearing.

    How patient are we supposed be? We’ve been puttering around with Iran and their impending nuclear program for more than a decade. These sanctions were supposed to work when we began imposing them during the Bush Administration and Iran hasn’t slowed their march toward nuclear weapons a bit. And, really, can we trust that they’ll abide by any agreement they might reach with Kerry? They’ve been finding ways around sanctions and selling oil on the world market to finance their nuclear weapons development – so why would we believe them now?

  • Kerry says Obama is ready to use force in Iran

    I know, it’s pretty funny, isn’t it? This is from the Washington Times;

    In an NBC interview that took place after talks in Geneva broke down early Sunday, Mr. Kerry said criticism from some that the administration is unwilling to leverage American power in the Iranian talks and in the region is unfounded.

    “The president has been willing and made it clear that he is prepared to use force with respect to Iran’s weapon, and he has deployed the forces and the weapons necessary to achieve that goal if it has to be achieved,” he said. “We can’t let mythology and politics start to cloud reality.”

    It might be believable if the Daily Beat hadn’t reported earlier this week that this Administration has been loosening sanctions against Iran for the past five years;

    A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.

    On Wednesday Obama said in an interview with NBC News the negotiations in Geneva “are not about easing sanctions.” “The negotiations taking place are about how Iran begins to meet its international obligations and provide assurances not just to us but to the entire world,” the president said.

    So, these weakened sanctions have allowed Iran to make illicit profits on the oil they sell on the world market, making the sanctions that were supposed to influence Iran to stop making nuclear weapons ineffectual. I’m sure John Kerry threatening force on behalf of Obama has the mullahs quaking in their sandals.