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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • The zombie robot ninja strategy continues

    The Washington Post reports that the Obama Administration has a long term view of their use of drones and their “kill list” – long term in that they plan to continue it for about ten years.

    Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.

    “We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said. “It’s a necessary part of what we do. .?.?. We’re not going to wind up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying, ‘We love America.’ ”

    That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism. Targeting lists that were regarded as finite emergency measures after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are now fixtures of the national security apparatus. The rosters expand and contract with the pace of drone strikes but never go to zero.

    So, they have to admit that targeting terrorists and killing them from thousands of miles away from the potential targets isn’t really working. But like with everything else related to liberalism, that’s no need to forecast an end to it. This administration wasn’t willing to commit the number of troops that the CIA and the generals called for in 2009 and they thought Joe Bite-Me Biden was their strategic genius, so now the Nobel Peace Prize president is looking at a war with no end in sight and a trail of lawyers that extends from here to Pakistan.

  • Obama’s apology tour

    The other night during the debate, Romney accused Obama of going on a world apology tour and the President objected to the characterization. He said he never once said the words that could be construed as an apology. Of course, the Obama-supporting media has jumped in the fray, agreeing with the president that he never said the words out looud, so it wasn’t an apology tour, per se.

    Well, Fox News has assembled some quotes from The Heritage Foundation’s “Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies” list;

    – At a Summit of the Americas, Obama regretted how “at times we sought to dictate our terms.” In an op-ed about policy toward the America’s, Obama declared: “Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors.”

    – Speaking to the Turkish parliament, Obama rationalized: “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history.”

    – Addressing CIA employees about an administration report which castigated the use of enhanced interrogation techniques against terrorist suspects, the President urged: “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes.”

    – In a speech, Obama denounced the techniques used in the war on terror: “Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us – Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists, and citizens – fell silent.”

    – In that same address at the National Archives, he went into full apology mode over Guantanamo: “There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against Al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law.”

    You should read the whole thing at the Heritage Foundation’s link, though.

    So, although those lips on his face never form the words for an apology, he still sounds like he’s mighty sorry that he has to represent this country. Luckily, there’s a cure for that.

  • UN/Iran warn against your Romney vote

    Yep, the folks at the UN and in Iran have decided that you shouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney. According to Breitbart, the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights says a vote for Romney is a vote for torture and that will only turn the world (and terrorists) against us – because, you know, everyone treats us so well now;

    “The re-introduction of torture under a Romney administration would significantly increase the threat levels to (Americans) at home and abroad,” Emmerson said.

    “Such a policy, if adopted, would expose the American people to risks the Obama administration is not currently exposing them to.”

    Yeah, thanks for your concern, but it seems to me, what with four Americans recently murdered in Benghazi, that we’re not all that safe from the evil in the world the way things are now, Ben.

    Iranian state-run Press TV is spreading the word throughout the world that the GOP is poised to steal the elections “like the successful ones of 2000 and 2004”. Apparently, the Iranian government likes the fact that they have nothing to fear from the Obama Administration and a Romney Administration scares the beejeesus out of them;

    Riots also may break out after Romney is declared the winner, the media outlet continued.

    Press TV quoted its “Truth Jihad Radio” guest John Hankey as saying, “African-Americans, unlike white liberals, are not a ‘bunch of pussies.’ Kill white liberal heroes JFK and RFK, or steal the presidency from white liberals Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, or John Kerry, and the white liberals are too terrified to even whimper. Kill a black hero like Martin Luther King, or even just beat up an ordinary black guy like Rodney King, and African-Americans might just get angry enough to protest in a fashion that cannot be ignored.

    In your dreams, Mahmoud.

    By the way, I’m headed for Bethesda today, so I’ll be off the net most of the day, but I fully intend to live blog the last debate tonight, since you folks live blog it yourselves when I’m not here. So, even if you don’t hear from me today, be here for the debate at 9pm.

  • Fox News; Death and Deceit in Benghazi

    Here’s the whole 41 minute report by Bret Baier in case you missed it the other night. It’s supposed to be rebroadcast tonight, they say. Of course, the people who need to watch this won’t for superficial reasons.

  • Balancing the budget on the backs of veterans

    The president told the American Legion Convention in 2011 that he wouldn’t balance the federal budget on the backs of veterans, yet, here’s the Department of Defense shutting down Tricare Prime in the western states which gets replaced with Tricare Standard.

    As of April 1, as many as 30,000 Prime beneficiaries — retirees, Active Guard and Reserve troops, and family members — in Iowa; Minnesota; Oregon; Reno, Nev.; and Springfield, Mo., will have to switch to Tricare Standard, a traditional fee-for-service health plan, according to a source with knowledge of the reorganization.
    […]
    Under the changes that will start April 1, as many as 170,000 Prime enrollees across all three regions eventually may have to drive longer distances to see a Prime provider or switch to Tricare Standard, which has no enrollment fees but carries greater out-of-pocket costs:

    The point I’ve made in the past is that Obamacare was supposed to reduce healthcare costs for Americans, yet, the single opportunity that the government has to control healthcare costs, they jack up costs to retired American veterans. That’s probably because we earned the benefit of healthcare instead of standing with our hands out.

    And I’m not convinced that a Romney/Ryan presidency would reverse the Obama Administration’s actions against veterans, because I can’t get an answer from the campaign.

    Thanks to all of you who sent us the link over the last few days,

  • Concerned Veterans for America; Benghazi Jay

    Pete Hegseth of Concerned Veterans for America sends us their latest video, “Benghazi Jay”;

  • Where are veterans’ issues?

    OK, I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours listening to the media tell me what was important about the debate last night. No one has mentioned that veterans and national security have been noticeably absent from all of the debates so far this year. In a link sent to us by Chief Tango, the Daily Beast notices it, too.

    Here’s why: 68 percent of Americans think the war in Afghanistan is going somewhat or very badly, and the same percentage thinks we should withdraw entirely or start drawing down troops now. Compound that with less than 1 percent of Americans serving in the active-duty military, so much of the nation feels no real stake in or connection to the war effort. That disconnect and distance helps explain how, at this time of collapsing support for the government, the press, and other institutions, three of four Americans say they’ve maintained their confidence in the military.

    The only thing we’ve heard from this administration in regards to Afghanistan was in the vice-presidential debate from Joe Biden as he gave the Taliban his personal guarantee that no matter how well, or poorly, the war is going in Afghanistan, we’re out of there by 2014.

    I did notice that last night President Obama asked the governor “How are you different from George Bush?” I think Romney missed an opportunity by not asking Obama the same question, since most of what Obama has done that could be put in the “successful” column was hold over policy from the Bush Administration – things like the hunt for bin Laden, keeping Guantanamo open, the military tribunals, and re-certifying the PATRIOT Act. The things Obama did that were to change Bush policies were failures and Obama could have listed them for Romney’s next campaign commercial.

    Obama is most vulnerable on national security and the way he’s fought the Afghanistan War. Yeah, you can continue to beat Obama over the head with the Benghazi consulate thing, but it’s really just a symptom of how disingenuous this administration have been with Americans on national security.

    The word I’m getting from folks in Afghanistan is that if this administration was forthcoming on how many attempted blue on green attacks there have been this year, Americans would be outraged. The attacks that have been reported resulted in deaths, but I’m told they’re only the tip of the iceberg compared to the number that resulted in wounds or were thwarted. By hiding these attempts from the public, the administration was able to call them “negligible” for the first eight months of this year. But the sheer volume of the attempts would have alerted us to the problem before it became a problem.

    This administration has consistently been unable to call terrorist attacks terrorist attacks. From the jihadist who murdered a soldier at a recruiting station in Little Rock to Nidal Hasan’s attack on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Even the underwear bomber. This administration couldn’t admit that we were under attack in our own country by terrorists. So why is everyone so surprised that they couldn’t admit the truth about Benghazi?

    And the green-on-blue attacks are a direct result of the Obama Administration’s failures in Afghanistan. They half-assed “surged” in 2009 contrary to the needs the commanders said they needed. The CIA and the generals correctly predicted that fully staffing the surge would not have a long term impact in Afghanistan and we’re seeing that prediction come to fruition now.

    And while we’re complaining about Romney, I haven’t heard a word from that campaign in regards to Obama’s promise to the 2011 American Legion Convention that he wouldn’t balance the budget on the backs of veterans while his Secretary of Defense was planning to do exactly that. Despite the fact that Congress told the DoD that they wouldn’t hike Tricare fees, DoD has hiked Tricare fees just in case.

    This president is more vulnerable on veterans’ and national security issues than anything else, including the Obamacare bill and economy because it doesn’t take charts, graphs and wonkish blather to explain how poorly they’ve performed in regards to the issues. So why is the Romney campaign so averse to the discussion?

  • October surprise?

    Country Singer sends us a link to Ace Of Spades in which Ace speculates about an “October Surprise” in time for the election.

    Obama really wants you to know he’s prepared — nay, eager — to make another Gutsy Call (TM).

    The White House has put special operations strike forces on standby and moved drones into the skies above Africa, ready to strike militant targets from Libya to Mali — if investigators can find the Al Qaeda-linked group responsible for the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya. …

    Yeah, I don’t think that they need to have connections to the September 11th attack, they only need to be scruffy-looking Libyans. I find it disconcerting that the Obama Administration, while denying that they’re releasing classified information, release more of what should be classified information as long as it looks like their guy is guy is engaged in national security operations.

    Details on the administration’s position and on its search for a possible target were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the high-level debates publicly.

    Yeah, but that’s OK at this Justice Department, I suppose. Weren’t we told recently that they were tracking down previous leaks? Did they hire OJ Simpson to find the leakers while he’s looking for Nichole’s killer?

    “They are aiming for a small pop, a flash in the pan, so as to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re doing something about it,’” said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rudy Attalah, the former Africa counterterrorism director for the Department of Defense under President George W. Bush.

    Attalah noted that in 1998, after the embassy bombing in Nairobi, the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles to take out a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that may have been producing chemical weapons for Al Qaeda.

    Yeah, well, this decade’s weapon of choice is drones, cruise missiles are so passe, so 1990s.