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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • CIA prevents use of upgraded underwear bomb

    The CIA stopped a potential underwear bomber from boarding a flight while he was still in Yemen. According to the Associated Press, the detonation device was supposed to be more reliable than the one which toasted the nuts of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab over Detroit on Christman 2009;

    The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

    The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought his plane tickets when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It’s not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.

    Although they kept it quiet for a week, the AP released the story a day before the Obama Administration had asked them to release it because AP wanted to get ahead of the planned release tomorrow.

    The attack was supposed to coincide with the anniversary of the death of bin Laden.

    Thanks to Sporkmaster for the link.

  • Washington Times: Defense budget casualties light on civilian side

    The Washington Times reports that after an increase of about 61,000 DoD civilians during the Obama Administration, only about 1% are facing cuts in an age of slashing the number trigger-pullers and their armaments.

    Some defense analysts say this was not supposed to happen.

    In the summer of 2010, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a series of cost-saving initiatives that included keeping civilian employees to that year’s number of 778,000. The services started issuing press releases on the number of civilian jobs they had erased.

    Two years later, civilian employment has risen by 23,000 personnel.

    “While the fighting force is coming down, the overhead continues to grow,” [Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps Reserve major general ] said. “It was an adverse ratio to start with, and it’s getting worse. You want to put your money in the tip of the spear, not in the rear with the gear.”

    So, I guess the only thing the Defense Department is tasked with defending is the unemployment rate. In the article, the Defense Department defends the increases because they’re improving acquisition and health care with civilians, they call it “InSource” – converting contractor jobs to civilian employees. But if there’s nothing to acquire and they’re slashing healthcare for veterans, why the increases in manpower to service those areas?

    Looked at another way, the Pentagon’s 801,000 civilians exceed the combined size of the active-duty Navy and Air Force.

    Congressional Republicans are proposing that the civilian workforce at DoD be cut by 10%, still a smaller cut than total force will suffer, but a much more realistic reduction. But, Leon Pannetta who makes $32,000 trips to his California home every weekend at the taxpayers’ expense is fighting to keep the civvies on the payroll;

    The issue came to a head as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta appeared, with Mr. Hale, before the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense.

    “Frankly, I don’t think you should de-trigger sequester on the backs of our civilian workforce,” Mr. Panetta testified. “I mean, I realize that savings could be achieved there, but the civilian workforce does perform a very important role for us in terms of support.”

    But, it’s fine to balance the budget on the backs of the veterans and on the back of our national security. Yeah, Panetta was a brilliant choice for the guy we need in charge of defending our country. I’m sure that the unions love him.

  • David Maraniss: Obama’s military connection

    Washington Post’s David Maraniss reaches out and gives the Obama campaign a happy ending today in what can only be considered a real piece of crap entitled “Obama’s military connection“. Maraniss tells us that Obama was born to be commander-in-chief of the military because he knew people who knew people who had been in the military. And because he “chaffed” against the anti-war generation of the sixties.

    The photo for the article is one of Obama having a conversation with General McCrystal, the man Obama was destined to fire when it was discovered publicly that McChrystal’s staff didn’t respect the president who wouldn’t grant the commander’s requests and recommendations for fighting the war in Afghanistan. So, yeah, Maraniss’ contention is falsified before you even begin reading.

    The article begins by recounting the day in 2002 when Obama first became the darling of the anti-Bush party when he spoke out about “the rush to war with Iraq” – the fact that the speech was given more than five months before the first combat soldiers entered Iraq makes one wonder why the “rush” took so long.

    But anyway, Maraniss tells us that Obama couldn’t relate to the creaky anti-war songs that were playing before his speech. Somehow, that’s proof that Obama has a connection to the military. But, that’s not all;

    The cultural geography of those formative years also shaped his perspective. Obama was in Honolulu then, surrounded by military installations. Hickam Air Force Base, Schofield Barracks, Fort Shafter, Pearl Harbor Naval Station and Hawaii Marine Corps Base were all part of his adolescent environment. He grew up comfortable with the military culture, not alienated from it. Some friends came from military families. One of his buddies dated an admiral’s daughter, and they would borrow the old man’s car to tool around the island.

    Which leads to the least-appreciated aspect of Obama’s connection to the military — race. That buddy was known as a hapa, the Hawaiian term for someone of mixed heritage; like Obama, he had one black parent. Oahu was a diverse and colorful place, a mix of cultures and languages, but fewer than 1 percent of its residents were black, and almost all of those were connected to the military.

    Yeah, by knowing a guy who dated an admiral’s daughter and drove the admiral’s car, well, that’s more proof. And because he grew up around military bases and most of the black people in his neighborhood were in the military. That’s an indisputable connection to the military. It’s almost as if he’d been through basic training and served for years, isn’t it?

    And, oh, don’t forget that his grandfather had been in World War II – so some of his genetic material had been in World War II, as well. Maybe he deserves some WWII service medals.

    Look into the faces of the soldiers who greeted Obama in Afghanistan this month, black and Latino and white, and you can almost feel the visceral connection with a president who has a diverse background.

    Certainly, just by looking like some of the soldiers makes you one of them. Yeah, those are the only points Maraniss made in the whole piece, if you don’t believe me, read it for yourself. I was at least hoping that Maraniss would reveal that Obama had taken some seminars in the relationship between War and Politics, or some other mental masturbation on that level, but Maraniss’ point couldn’t be that sharp – it’s always about race and shit that doesn’t matter.

    Maraniss is f’n idiot, and so is everyone at the Washington Post who thought it was a good idea to put that POS into the cached memory of the internet.

  • A City of Light

    Tonight my wife and I are in the City of Lights: not Paris, but Odessa, Texas, the West Texas oil town made famous by the book and similarly-named movie, Friday Night Lights, about its powerhouse, Permian High School championship football teams. What we are seeing everywhere we go is truly amazing, for this is indeed a boom town in every good sense of the word. Want a hotel room? Be prepared to pay in excess of $200 a night for nothing exceptional. The rooms are filled with energy industry workers willing to pay top dollar because they’re earning top dollar. Likewise, be prepared to wait for a table in the packed restaurants and don’t even think about tipping ten percent. Caution is advised when driving because the roadways are filled with the biggest, most powerful (and most expensive) pickup trucks the American auto industry can produce, all going somewhere with a great deal of purpose, business, money-making purpose.

    If Barack Obama and his advisors want to see how to create jobs, they should get themselves to Odessa, forthwith. Instead of condemning the fossil fuels industry, they should take a day and learn firsthand what a pulsing economic engine can be generated by the almost limitless spin-off businesses and jobs that a producing energy industry creates. They should bring Tim Geithner with his pocket calculator to give them some idea of the tax revenues being generated by this economic behemoth. They should meet with local oil industry executives to gain some perspective on how this has all come to be then they should spend some time with local political leadership and small business leaders to gain some insights into how this all translates into a rising tide for every economic boat in the Permian Basin.

    Immediately upon leaving West Texas, the same team should fly to California and sit down with key folks in the solar energy and wind energy fields. They should meet with the political leadership in the communities where these entities are located and determine the financial impact these industries are having on their local economies.

    Then they should fly back to Washington and compare the economic realities in West Texas with those in their beloved green industry communities. It might, just might, help them see how ass-backwards their approach to restoring America to economic prosperity really is. The simple truth is this: if Democrats want America to become the economic powerhouse it has been traditionally, then all they need to do is get the hell out of the way and let American energy and ingenuity lead the way. All Obama and his administration have to do is nothing, nada, zilch.

    Something Democrats are damned good at…

    By the way, I just realized something: I haven’t seen a single Chevy Volt since we hit town.

  • The President’s “surprise visit” to Bagram

    Yeah, who was really surprised that Obama appeared mysteriously in Afghanistan on the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden? Ya know, after the administration had denied that he would go there as part of his year long victory lap. But he did and even the White House is calling it a “surprise trip” like it’s a treat or something.

    So, of course, he had to take the opportunity to make a campaign speech while he was there. I happened to have a plate of pork chops at the time which needed my full attention so I had to read the text this morning.

    I was surprised when I checked what my friends on Facebook were saying last night to discover that people learned for the first time that we were negotiating with the Taliban. Here at TAH we’ve been talking about it since November 2009. And we didn’t believe Eikenberry’s propaganda chief, Caitlan Hayden when she tried to deny that there were negotiations with Taliban.

    But, of course, the highlights of Obama’s speech were about his main strategy – withdrawal;

    Last year, we removed 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Another 23,000 will leave by the end of the summer. After that, reductions will continue at a steady pace, with more and more of our troops coming home. And as our coalition agreed, by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country.

    Second, we are training Afghan security forces to get the job done. Those forces have surged, and will peak at 352,000 this year. The Afghans will sustain that level for three years, and then reduce the size of their military. And in Chicago, we will endorse a proposal to support a strong and sustainable long-term Afghan force.

    The reason he mentioned Chicago (someone emailed me last night to ask why he mentioned Chicago) is because he’s headed to a summit in chicago this week to beg our allies for money to fund our efforts in Afghanistan – a truly worthless endeavor. The Euro-weenies are accustomed to the US shouldering the military and monetary burdens of the world’s problems. I’m pretty sure they expect that to continue.

    Now I found this statement truly stupid;

    Our goal is not to build a country in America’s image, or to eradicate every vestige of the Taliban. These objectives would require many more years, many more dollars, and most importantly, many more American lives. Our goal is to destroy al Qaeda, and we are on a path to do exactly that. Afghans want to assert their sovereignty and build a lasting peace. That requires a clear timeline to wind down the war.

    It seems to me that the Taliban is more of a threat to Afghanistan’s sovereignty than al Qaeda. The incident I wrote about yesterday, when Taliban fighters interrupted by gunfire a meeting with village leaders and they murdered three Afghan children. It’s Taliban insurgents who are throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls, shooting up classrooms, blowing up market places – not al Qaeda. So it seems like wishful thinking that there’s a place in the future of Afghanistan for radical Talibs.

    Our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and civilians in Afghanistan have done their duty. Now we must summon that same sense of common purpose. We must give our veterans and military families the support they deserve, and the opportunities they have earned. And we must redouble our efforts to build a nation worthy of their sacrifice.

    Yeah, sorry, but it rings a little hollow while returning veterans face increased healthcare costs and a derelict Department of Veterans’ Affairs which can’t keep it’s promises to veterans and finds it difficult to accomplish the easiest tasks…like pay education benefits when the students need them.

    But, hey, they were sure some pretty words.

  • Wielding the Big Stick

    The man who made history with his priapic presidency is now on the air letting everyone know that when it comes to cojónes, Obama’s are bigger than his. Yep, the Arkansas State Stud is out there blowing and going about what a hoss Barry is for hiding in a corner of the situation room in his golf jacket while the real men and women in the room monitored the mission to eliminate Osama bin Laden. Of course, by comparison to Bill Clinton’s hiding in the Oval Office closet when Osama was an easy target in Africa, I suppose that Obama’s reluctant and tentative approval of the operation does seem heroic to not-so-ballsy Bill. You see, wartime heroics is always a matter of degree with Democrats. May I submit as evidence their all-time, number-one Vietnam hero, Jean Fraud Kerry? At the current rate of decline in their standards of heroism, Neville Chamberlain should soon be eligible for some sort of posthumous Democrat honor.

    The problem I have is that I don’t get what, why and how the Democrats never seem to get it when it comes to heroes, especially war and combat heroes. They advance an easily proved phony hero to the top of their ticket back in 2004 and to this very day claim that he was stabbed in the back by a bunch of Swiftboaters. Except that a close examination of the war records of those Swiftboaters shows that they were honorable warriors who served their full combat tours with no other objective than to serve their country as their government directed them to do. But, on the other hand, in Jean F. Kerry we have solid evidence of a self-serving young man with rabid political ambitions seeking every possible way to rapidly acquire the necessary medals to ensure a truncated tour of duty. Yeah, that’s the classic example of who the Democrats will embrace and elevate as a war hero.

    Now they’re at it again, trying to take a callow community organizer from Chicago’s south side, whose closest brush with a uniform may have been dropping a quarter into the Salvation Army bucket at Christmas, and make him into a nominee for the Medal of Honor. The courage! The incomparable, steely courage that it took to squat there in the situation room and watch his order being carried out! My God, has an American Commander-in-Chief ever displayed the sheer daring, and dare I say it, guts, that it took to come in from the putting green long enough for the photo op? What the hell, he got a Nobel prize for peace for doing nothing to forward peace, so you Democrats might as well start a movement to get him awarded a Medal of Honor for doing nothing honorable. You’ve managed to debase everything else in American life, why not her most venerated award for valor in combat?

    By the way, Willy, if you check with Joe Biden, I’ll bet he’ll tell you that not only are Barry’s cojónes bigger than yours, so’s his stick.

    Heads up, Hillary…

    Crossposted at American Thinker.

  • TAH sharing column inches with John Bolton

    Yeah, my head is swelling when I share space in a column with John Bolton. I did a brief interview with Hope Hodge of Human Events. She’s their defense and national security reporter. Her column today is entitled “On anniversary of bin Laden’s death, outlook still dire for War on Terror“;

    Bolton said. “[Osama’s] death doesn’t materially change the equation, I don’t think.”

    Hope asked me if I thought that making a big deal about the anniversary had any positive effect on the troops;

    And a veteran who maintains the popular military blog This Ain’t Hell compared Obama’s grandstanding on the anniversary of the raid to President George W. Bush hanging out a “Mission Accomplished” banner in 2003: unwarranted and without real significance.

    “Of course, I’m glad (bin Laden is) dead and I wish he’d been killed sooner. Other than that, I really don’t see the value of bringing it up in an election year,” Jonn Lilyea said. “I think the initial death of bin Laden was a morale booster, but I don’t think these anniversaries serve any purpose, not for troop morale.”

    Yeah, I know the “Mission Accomplished” banner was for the sailors on a ship that was returning from a successful mission, but my point was that the Democrats made a big deal about President Bush strutting around the deck of that carrier under the banner, but they don’t see any problem with Obama strutting around taking credit for the Obama Osama ventilation project.

  • AP: ISAF under-reports green-on-blue incidents

    According to a Stars & Stripes/Associated Press article, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is not reporting all of the attacks made on coalition forces by Afghan nationals in uniform;

    In recent weeks an Afghan soldier opened fire on a group of American soldiers but missed the group entirely. The Americans quickly shot him to death. Not a word about this was reported by the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, as the coalition is formally known. It was disclosed to the AP by a U.S. official who was granted anonymity in order to give a fuller picture of the “insider” problem.

    ISAF also said nothing about last week’s attack in which two Afghan policemen in Kandahar province fired on U.S. soldiers, wounding two. Reporters learned of it from Afghan officials and from U.S. officials in Washington. The two Afghan policemen were shot to death by the Americans present.

    Just last Wednesday, an attack that killed a U.S. Army special forces soldier, Staff Sgt. Andrew T. Brittonmihalo, 25, of Simi Valley, Calif., also wounded three other American soldiers. The death was reported by ISAF as an insider attack, but it made no mention of the wounded – or that an Afghan civilian also was killed.

    The usurper at the blog formerly known as Blackfive asked the question yesterday about how many green-on-blue-related deaths have there been this year. Apparently there won’t be a concrete answer forthcoming from this administration because they want it to look like there will be no hindrances to our timetable withdrawal.

    We can estimate that there have a couple of dozen just in the first four months of this year – but don’t worry…the Afghan investigators have declared that there is no plot underlying the score of deaths. And US forces are now allowed to turn their desks to face their doors. I feel better, don’t you?