Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

Syria is a tough sell, not only to US taxpayers, but also the world. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough argued today on CNN that Syria isn’t Afghanistan or Iraq;

“This is not Iraq or Afghanistan. This is not Libya,” he told CNN’s chief political correspondent, Candy Crowley. “This is not an extended air campaign. This is something that’s targeted, limited and effective, so as to underscore that (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) should not think that he could get away with this again.”

His comments echoed sentiments from President Barack Obama’s weekly address on Saturday, in which the president pledged U.S. action would not amount to “an open-ended intervention.”

Well, yeah, it’s not Iraq or Afghanistan – George W Bush had more than 50 members in his international coalition, almost a third of the countries in the world. Today, Secretary of State, John Kerry bragged that the coalition for the Syria adventure had just reached “double digits”. So, ten is good, right?

When both presidents Bush assembled their coalitions, they didn’t have the Chinese and Russian Navies sailing into the waters around the area to protect their ally, but there those navies are for this one.

For his war with Saddam Hussein, George W Bush spent over a year preparing for it. He waited patiently for UN inspectors to do their jobs as best they could and positioned troops and their support around Iraq. This president drew a “red line” and promptly forgot about it a year ago, despite their own admissions that they had evidence that the “red line” had been crossed several times in the last year.

Both presidents Bush laid out their case for war to the American public. The Associated Press noticed that the American public is withholding their support because no one is showing us any sort of evidence;

The Obama administration, searching for support from a divided Congress and skeptical world leaders, says its own assessment is based mainly on satellite and signals intelligence, including intercepted communications and satellite images indicating that in the three days prior to the attack that the regime was preparing to use poisonous gas.

But multiple requests to view that satellite imagery have been denied, though the administration produced copious amounts of satellite imagery earlier in the war to show the results of the Syrian regime’s military onslaught. When asked Friday whether such imagery would be made available showing the Aug. 21 incident, a spokesman referred The Associated Press to a map produced by the White House last week that shows what officials say are the unconfirmed areas that were attacked.

The Obama administration maintains it intercepted communications from a senior Syrian official on the use of chemical weapons, but requests to see that transcript have been denied. So has a request by the AP to see a transcript of communications allegedly ordering Syrian military personnel to prepare for a chemical weapons attack by readying gas masks.

Presidents Bush allowed Congress to take their sweet time until they finally approved military action in the various conflicts, but the Star & Stripes noticed that the Obama Administration is rushing Congress to come a conclusion on the President’s time schedule instead of their own.

The Obama administration has conducted a variety of briefings and conference calls during the congressional recess to try to convince lawmakers of the chemical attack and win support for a military strike authorization, even though Obama has asserted that he has the authority even without approval from Capitol Hill. While a congressional vote is far from certain, his position has been strengthened in recent days by statements of support from some of Congress’ prominent Republicans — Sen. John McCain of Arizona, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, among others.

But many observers say much more still needs to be done to make a convincing case for action.

I guess there’s a big difference between saying there’s a red line and actually drawing one. So, this really isn’t like Iraq and Afghanistan, at all. It’s more like a “Charlie Foxtrot” playing out right before our eyes.

Tman and Andy sent us a link to an AFP article in regards to the administration’s plan to schedule an attack on Syrian government forces with Assad’s social secretary, I’m assuming;

The strikes against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in retaliation for what the US says is the regime’s use of chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb, could last longer than a day, officials have said.

The Los Angeles Times had reported Sunday the Pentagon was readying more intense and longer attacks on Syria than originally planned, set to last three days.

War planners now aim to unleash a heavy barrage of missile strikes to be followed swiftly by additional attacks on targets that may have been missed or remain standing after the initial launch, the Times cited officials as saying.

I hope Assad can find room for our attack in his busy schedule. But, not to worry, the Obama Administration doesn’t plan on actually accomplishing anything of military value, according to the article;

Amid doubts a limited US offensive would sufficiently hamper Assad’s military capabilities, one officer told the newspaper the planned operation would amount to a “show of force” over several days that would not fundamentally change the situation on the ground.

The planned US strike “will not strategically impact the current situation in the war, which the Syrians have well in hand, though fighting could go on for another two years,” another US officer said.

Whew! Well, that’s a relief. I mean, that will make a pointless show of force much more palatable for public consumption. I’m sure that Clauswitz is giggling loudly from his grave.

If you can believe it, the sycophantic, lickspittle New York Times has actually published a video that could be quite harmful to Obama’s efforts to garner support for a strike on Syria. This video shows a group of Obama’s freedom-fighters committing what any prosecutor in the world would charge as murder in the first degree and what would be tried by any world court as a war crime. In the video, a Syrian rebel commander stands before a group of kneeling prisoners with faces in the dirt and delivers a revolutionary diatribe before turning and shooting the nearest prisoner in the head. His shot triggers the rest of the waiting killers, who, standing behind the victims, open fire and complete the killing. The bodies are then shown being thrown into a hole in the ground, which will serve as their mass grave.

The immediate question that comes to mind is, “If these are our allies, how much more viciously despicable could their enemies possibly be?” The second question has to be, “If they’re capable of this, are they not equally capable of gassing a few thousand of their own provincials to garner world support for their cause?” You just can’t help but wonder about that, now can you?

There is a remote chance those unfortunate dead may well serve to bring justice in the future to the murderous fanatics who took their lives. First of all is the condemning video showing the killers face-on, and second is the grave, with the plentiful forensic evidence it could yield. When the winds of war blow no more in Syria, perhaps some global prosecutorial force will bring these killers into the halls of justice.

Now consider for a moment, if that should happen, that to the left, workers are the ground troops of the proletarian revolution. With that in mind, one can’t help but wonder, if a trial of these rebel killers should come to pass, whether the lefty lawyers of the Obama Justice Department will insist to the jurisdictional court that this slaughter is nothing more than another case of workplace violence. Then of course, there is our own Genghis Jean Kerry, who is famously opposed to such barbarous battlefield behavior. It will be beyond interesting to see how Jean Fraud tap-dances around the issue of the United States providing airstrikes and missile attacks to support allies such as these.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to accept about these politically correct fools who rule us is that they are completely tone-deaf and blind as to just how incredibly absurd they make themselves look to us and the rest of the world — the real world. Unfortunately, the world looks at us and says, “Hey, fools, you elected this incompetent jerk!”

Twice…

Crossposted at American Thinker

ROS sends us a link to a Washington Times article about some members of Congress who plan to introduce legislation to change the classification of the terrorist acts of convicted murderer Nidal Hasan from “workplace violence”;

The bill’s co-authors, Texas Republicans Reps. John R. Carter and Roger Williams, said that they plan to introduce the “Honoring the Fort Hood Heroes Act” as soon as Congress returns to Washington next week. They announced the bill in Texas on Monday with Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who is introducing a companion bill in the Senate.

And they’ve already won support from outside their home state, with Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, saying Tuesday he’ll sign onto the bill.

“This was a terrorist attack, this was not workplace violence. To call it workplace violence is a form of political correctness gone awry,” Mr. Wolf said.

So, it seems that Syria is becoming a tar baby here at home in the US for some politicians. John McCain heard from his constituents in Arizona last night who are pretty upset that he’s so hawkish on military action in Syria. Wrote CNN;

McCain has long advocated a more muscular American approach toward Syria, calling for a plan to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power. But on Thursday many people who showed up to a town hall in Phoenix said that getting more involved in the civil war would lead to unintended consequences.

“We didn’t send you to make war for us. We sent you to stop the war,” one man said to applause.

The real enemy that six presidents have refused to deal with, Iran, has become a wild card in the discussion since they will more than likely target US embassies and our presence in countless countries around the world. The Wall Street Journal reports that some threats have already been uncovered;

The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria, officials said, amid an expanding array of reprisal threats across the region.

Military officials have been trying to predict the range of possible responses from Syria, Iran and their allies. U.S. officials said they are on alert for Iran’s fleet of small, fast boats in the Persian Gulf, where American warships are positioned. U.S. officials also fear Hezbollah could attack the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

Russia has moved war ships in to the Mediterranean according to AFP;

The SSV-201 intelligence ship Priazovye, accompanied by the two landing ships Minsk and Novocherkassk passed through the Bosphorus known as the Istanbul strait that separates Asia from Europe, an AFP photographer reported.

The Priazovye on Sunday started its voyage from its home port of Sevastopol in Ukraine “to the appointed region of military service in the eastern Mediterranean”, a military official told the Interfax news agency.

Russia, a key ally of Damascus, has kept a constant presence of around four warships in the eastern Mediterranean in the Syrian crisis, rotating them every few months.

It also has a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus whose origins date back to Moscow’s close relationship with Damascus under the Soviet Union.

Unconfirmed sources report that China is moving ships into the Mediterranean as well.

According to the Russian news outlet Telegrafist.org, the People’s Liberation Army dispatched the Jinggangshan amphibious dock landing ship and the vessel was seen passing through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal, the waterway in Egypt that leads to the Mediterranean Sea and waters off the coast of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

According to the report, the ship has not been sent to engage in any aggressive actions but is merely there to “observe” the actions of Russian and US warships. However, the Jinggangshan is equipped for combat and was utilized as part of a “show of force” in maneuvers aimed at defending the South China Sea earlier this year.

Putin and Obama met yesterday – their meeting lasted 15 seconds. Hardly seems enough time to resolve the myriad issues that face the two figureheads of their countries. From the Associated Press;

With tensions mounting over issues including Syria, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, and human rights, Obama and Putin did not plan to hold a formal bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 gathering. A formal greeting outside St. Petersburg’s Constantine Palace was their only planned one-on-one public appearance.

Parsing the body language between Obama and Putin has become something of a geopolitical parlor game every time the two leaders meet. But there wasn’t much to work with this time: Their exchange lasted 15 seconds.

On the cost of the war, Joe Bite Me hinted yesterday that US military action would be funded by the Gulf States, which is a nice thought, except that it sort of makes our troops the mercenaries of the rich Arabs who get to outsource their war fighting. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the wording of the Senate resolution for Syria, although it forbids the use of US “boots on the ground”, it really doesn’t;

“It might appear to a casual reader to be some significant prohibitions – preventing combat forces,” says retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan. “We define ‘combat’ in lots of different ways.”

Without being “combat” forces, US troops could still be brought in for peacekeeping, search and rescue, and to secure chemical weapons plants should the need arise, adds Mr. Barno, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington.

“Despite the fact that the ban on combat troops looks pretty severe and restrictive,” he adds, “it’s not.”

Still, no one has articulated why we need to involve ourselves in a civil war beyond the appearance of chemical weapons in the conflict. No one has told me why it’s a national security issue that requires American lives to be at risk and no one has provided any real proof that it was Assad’s forces who used chemical weapons against the Syrian rebels and not the al Qaeda manipulators who used the weapons on their own people to make it appear as if Assad had used the weapons. The Obama Administration has dismissed the importance of the findings of the UN inspection team before they’ve even concluded sifting through the research they collected on the ground in Syria.

So why the rush to war?