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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Intervention in Syria may trigger terror attacks

    The Washington Times, filling in for the hand-wringing liberal media in this particular discussion, posits that US and western intervention in Syria, whatever that might be, could trigger more terrorist attacks throughout the region and the West. Now, I think that’s probably the least worrisome result of an attack on the Syrian government, but certainly one that I’ve seen left out of the traditionally liberal media. I mean it was a daily concern in the run up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but, since this administration is plunging head-long into the Syrian morass, I’ve not read about it anywhere else.

    Tensions between the West and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program have fueled the protracted and secretive war — a tit-for-tat exchange marked most often by operations and attacks carried out from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and Asia by Hezbollah and Israel’s lead intelligence agency, the Mossad.

    “These are groups that have long memories,” Matthew Levitt, who heads the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Monday.

    “I think that the type of asymmetric activities that we’ve been seeing already in the context of the shadow war over Iran’s nuclear program would continue with [an American military strike in Syria] serving as yet another factor motivating Hezbollah.”

    Iran’s government, which most in the U.S. intelligence community think exerts heavy influence over the activities of Hezbollah, sought Monday to downplay the likelihood of a U.S. strike. But some officials in Tehran said that if a strike occurs, Israel would be targeted in response.

    But, see, that’s the result of fighting a half-assed war against terror. Terrorists must be terrorized into submission the same way that they terrorize civilians and governments, and obviously, that hasn’t happened in the last twelve years. Since we have been so head strong about proving to the world that we’re “better than they are”, no one is scared of our military – they’re scared of our bombs and bullets and the troops, but they’re not scared of our commitment to waging total war towards total victory.

    We rushed for the exits in Iraq and we’re rushing for the exits in Afghanistan, even though our troops are still engaged with the enemy and taking casualties. I wonder why Iran doesn’t think anyone will use force in Syria against Assad? It could be because no one has summoned the testicular fortitude to bring Iran to heel in regards to their nuclear program.

    If anyone in Syria took our “red line” threat seriously, the more recent attacks wouldn’t have occurred. Remember when Qaddafi surrendered his weapons of mass destruction in the weeks following the invasion of Iraq because he thought that he was next. It’s not power that brings these people in line, it’s the credible threat of the use of power. We have no more credibility in that regard. The same way our credibility had eroded through the nineties and caused Hussein to think that we wouldn’t invade Iraq again. Maybe instead of using force on Syria, we should instead target Tehran, the real enemy all along. Like I’ve said before, in 2003, when Baghdad fell, we should have made a hard right turn and taken on Iran which would have solved a lot of problems in the following years of war against terror.

  • John Kerry; chemical attack by Assad regime “undeniable”

    According to Fox News, our new secretary of state, John Kerry declared to the media today that the evidence of a chemical attack in Syria is “undeniable” and some rather nebulous words about “real” and “compelling” whatever the Hell that means;

    The secretary of State addressed the allegations from State Department headquarters. He pointed a finger squarely at the Assad regime, sharply questioning any suggestion that the weapons could have been deployed by the opposition, or that the attack could have been staged. He called the strike a “moral obscenity” and accused the Syrian government of trying to destroy the evidence.

    Shortly afterward, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney echoed the remarks, saying the evidence of an attack is “undeniable” and there’s “very little doubt” that the Assad government was behind it. Carney said it is now “profoundly” in the interest of the U.S. and international community to respond.

    I’m just saying that this “real and compelling” doesn’t answer any of my questions and it feels like we’re being told we’re going to war instead of being convinced that we need to go to war. While I agree that the use of chemical weapons is egregious and should be responded to by the community of civilized nations, I’m not sure that anything we do militarily would be effective in that regard. The two sides are pointing fingers at each other as the perpetrators, and the rebels would have the most to gain by a Western intervention at this point. Snipers shot at the UN weapons team today, that doesn’t sound like something the government would do.

    I think we’re being set up and the incompetent boobs who have been rushing for the exits in Afghanistan for the last four years are now running for the entrance in Syria. Like I said earlier today, it all feels like the Johnson Administration’s Gulf of Tonkin Incident as an excuse to put combat troops into Vietnam.

    And Kerry is talking in Joe Biden words, like he understands something that he really doesn’t. I think they’re just doing the opposite of what they did in Libya hoping that works.

  • UK & US navies poised to strike Syria?

    The UK’s Telegraph reports that the Navies of the United States and the United Kingdom may be ready to launch first strikes against Bashir Assad’s government in Syria as early as this week;

    Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.

    As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”.

    CNN reports that members of Congress are expecting a first strike this week, too.

    “I think we will respond in a surgical way and I hope the president, as soon as we get back to Washington, will ask for authorization from Congress to do something in a very surgical and proportional way. Something that gets their attention, that causes them to understand that we are not going to put up with that kind of activity,” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

    But Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs panel, said President Barack Obama may not need to wait for congressional authorization.

    I’m still wondering what the national security interests are in this strike. The media doesn’t seem to be interested in asking. And what with Iran presenting a real threat with it’s nuclear program that has continued unabated for years, but suddenly Syria is the problem that needs to be dealt with right now. I get a “Tonkin Gulf Incident” feeling about this.

  • It’s looking like chemical weapons were used in Syria

    The Associated Press says that a “senior administration official” claims that there is “little doubt” that Syria used chemical weapons against the rebels there the other day;

    The official says Sunday that the U.S. intelligence community based its assessment given to the White House on “the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, and witness accounts.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

    The official says the White House believes the Syrian government is barring a U.N. investigative team immediate access to the site of a reported Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs in order to give the evidence of the attack time to degrade.

    Yeah, well, Assad, keeping inspectors away from places didn’t work too well for Saddam Hussein, so good luck with that strategy.

    Another AP article says that the Obama Administration hasn’t decided how they’re going to react to the incident;

    “There are risks and consequences for any option that would be used or not used – for action or inaction,” he told reporters. “You have to come to the central point of what would be the objective if you are to pursue an action or not pursue an action. So all those assessments are being made.”

    He said the administration is weighing many factors. These include an intelligence assessment of what some say appears to have been a chemical attack on civilians, as well as what he called legal issues and the matter of international support for any military response.

    It sounds like a Joe Bite Me answer. The “risks and consequences” to this administration, of course, don’t compare with the “risks and consequences” any military force faces in the region if they’re deployed and at this juncture in the problem, I don’t see any other option. Still, no one is asking this administration why we should get involved at all since it’s just a despot killing prospective terrorists. Neither is anyone asking where the chemical weapons could have come from in the first place.

  • Pentagon moving forces closer to Syria

    Andy sends us a link to the Associated Press in which Defense Secretary Hagel tells reporters that the Obama Administration is moving some naval forces closer to Syria;

    Hagel declined to describe any specific movements of U.S. forces. He said Obama asked that the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria and that some of those options “requires positioning our forces.”

    U.S. Navy ships are capable of a variety of military action, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government.

    “The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options — whatever options the president might choose,” Hagel said.

    So, I’m wondering what the national security interests are in Syria that would justify the use of US military force there? Why the rush to war? What’s our exit strategy? Those are the same questions that were asked of George W Bush and his father when they went to war, so how come no one is asking these questions of this administration?

  • Stupid Left on Chris Lane murder

    Chris Lane was killed in Oklahoma this week by three youths, ostensibly because they were bored, according to one of the perpetrators. So while most Americans are wondering why this isn’t being made a national issue like the Trayvon Martin death, the left is scurrying to make it about their agenda instead. Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon, tries to tell us that the two deaths were different because the police didn’t arrest George Zimmerman immediately after Martin’s death. Well, they did bring him in for questioning immediately following the incident, but they obviously didn’t have a case – proven by the outcome of his trial – so why would they have arrested him just because public opinion had determined he was guilty?

    So, the other day, at the daily White House press conference, one of the reporters asked if there was a statement from the President regarding Chris Lane. The spokesdingus, Josh Earnest, said that he wasn’t familiar with the case. When made familiar with the case he said that the president didn’t want to get in the way of the legal process, you know like the president didn’t want to get in the way of the legal process against George Zimmerman.

    What prompted me to write this, was a few minutes of a discussion on Fox news this morning when some ditz blamed the Republican-led Congress for the Lane murder. She said that schools are cutting back their extra-curricular programs because of federal budget cuts and that’s why unsupervised youths are out thrill-killing foreign students. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it. It’s been only a few months since any cutbacks have happened, and I’m sure this problem with these kids started only recently. And, oh, by the way, school is out for the summer, so how could more school activities have prevented this senseless murder?

    Of course, the ditz also mentioned gun control, but it was already illegal for those three teens to own a gun and that didn’t seem to stop them. yeah, she wanted to ban all guns, and commandeer this issue as an excuse. Gun laws don’t work. Period.

    But, see the Left doesn’t want to admit that they’ve created the mess that inspired this particular murder. One of the perpetrators in the Lane murder has Tweeted that he has beaten 5 white people since Zimmerman was determined to be innocent by a jury. Because the jury didn’t reach the same conclusion as the animals who are prowling our streets in search of a thrill. If the Left actually admitted to what the problem is here, they’d have to admit that everything they’ve pushed in recent years in order to remain relevant has led to this murder.

  • Gina Gray; Arlington whistleblower’s ordeal

    gina-gray-photo-02

    Dana Milbank in the Washington Post tells the story of Gina Gray, an actual whistleblower, as opposed to the pretend whistleblowers we’ve read about in the media lately. Gray was a fairly new employee at the Deparment of Defense who tried to tell her superiors about the mismanagement at Arlington National Cemetery and she was fired for her trouble;

    Gray’s ordeal began in April 2008 after I covered the Arlington funeral of an officer killed in the Iraq war. While there, I observed a dispute between Gray and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham, the man later at the center of the Arlington scandals. Higginbotham was trying to prevent reporters from observing the burial, in violation of the family’s wishes and Arlington’s regulations — and Gray, though new on the job, told him he was wrong.

    Gray registered her objections internally — but loudly. She refused to sign off on a report to the Army secretary’s office that was a whitewash of the way burials were handled at Arlington because, she said, her higher-ups were violating Defense Department regulations. She began to learn of other misdeeds by Arlington management and attempted to let military officials know; in June 2008, according to one of Gray’s legal filings, she told the commanding general of the Military District of Washington about “major problems” at the cemetery, involving fraud, mismanagement and broken regulations.

    Two days later, she was fired.

    DoD’s inspector general has recommended that Gray be compensated for her wrongful termination as a whistleblower, but Milbanks writes that he got a statement from the Army Secretary’s office stating that they won’t pay her because she was on a probationary status when she was terminated. Gray’s whistleblowing resulted in a housecleaning among the upper echelon of the the staff at Arlington for their gross mismanagement, most of them were allowed to retire, but Gray was fired outright for exposing them. She remains unemployed and had to drop her lawsuit against the DoD because she ran out of money.

  • Bright Star cancelled

    The Washington Times reports that the Obama Administration has cancelled our joint training exercise with the Egyptian Army for this year, based on the current situation there;

    “While we want to sustain our relationship with Egypt, our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual,” the president said.

    Mr. Obama insisted that the U.S. is not taking sides in the dispute but that the violent clashes cannot go without an American response.

    The interim Egyptian government later rebuffed Mr. Obama, warning that his statement, “while it’s not based on facts … can empower the violent militant groups and encourage them in their destabilizing discourse.”

    Canceling the military exercises will be seen as a blow to a military that values its close relationship with U.S. forces and gets an annual subsidy of more than $1 billion from Washington. Mr. Obama also said he has asked his advisers to look at other avenues of action.

    I can’t imagine this administration taking the same course of action if the Morsi government was still in power there, so yeah, he is taking sides, and dragging us along with him. I mean it’s great that our troops aren’t going to be exposed to the current danger in Egypt, but the President isn’t telling us the whole truth. Not that it’s new or anything.