Obama’s remarks last night on Syria, summarized: “Chemical weapons are bad. So I’m going to attack Syria, but maybe not. And I trust Putin, except maybe I don’t. So perhaps let’s have a diplomatic solution instead. And suddenly I believe in American exceptionalism—that is, regarding military attacks limited to targeted strikes.”
The speech contained an interesting section with telling and contrasting appeals to left and right that blogger Ace of Spades characterizes thusly:
…Obama chose to drop this little insult:
And so to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might with a failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.
To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.
Note that Obama’s “friends on the left” believe in freedom and dignity in all people. People on the right don’t, apparently…
Even when he’s supposedly “reaching out to us,” this Master Diplomat and Coolly Brilliant Poet-Warrior steadfastly refuses to pay the right the slightest degree of respect.
Obama could hardly have been more clear about his concept of the interests of people on the right and left, and his political calculations on how to reach out to each side. I cannot recall a president in my lifetime, right or left, who was so gratuitously and continually insulting to the opposition. It is especially ironic that Obama is given credit by the MSM for reaching out to that same opposition as he simultaneously trashes them.
But come to think of it, although Obama’s contempt for the right is obvious, he also expresses a certain amount of contempt for the left. It’s just a somewhat more covertly-expressed contempt. Each are simplistic appeals: let’s have those big guns for the bitter clingers of the right, and the little suffering children for the bleeding hearts of the left; the cold warlike aggressors versus the warm touchy-feelers.
Meanwhile the great thinker, Obama, plots his brilliant course in Syria, playing four-dimensional chess with Putin.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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“And so to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might with a failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.”
I suppose our cause in Benghazi wasn’t plainly just enough.
I don’t care how Obama does it, as long as he draws down for a showdown in Syria!
We’ve seen the “WMD theme” played before. It took out Saddam. And, it took out Gaddafi. And, has been nothing but headaches to America’s military.
Plus, you haven’t heard a word of truth about Benghazi. But the American ambassador sure did get the locals riled up. And, besides torture, it seems the Americans were involved with transporting munitions out of Libya, bound for Syria. No wonder the Russians have put their ships, now, in Syrian waters. Days of transporting “stuff” for the saudi rebels are gone!
How come we never hear about the saudi radicals? Sunni religious lunatics. Can come from any mosque headed by sunni muslims, anywhere. Including Denmark.
It seems we’ve created quite a playing field.
And, who says the saud’s didn’t supply the Sarin gas that got set off in a rebel held area of Syria? You know that’s where we’ve been playing ball with the saud’s. And, they want the UN to carve out a piece of Syria … to “host” the radical religious nuts. While Syria, under the Assad regime has managed to be SECULAR. No one religious group in charge.
At least with the Russians in there, the radical Iranian Shi’a are held at bay. Need we ask for more?
Our military is very poorly run.
While, yes, loads of tax money goes into building this complex BIG. But not necessarily strong. There’s competition out there, these days, from the Russians and the Chinese.
As to the journalists who think they can pull another “WMD” story out of their behinds, good luck to them on getting anywhere.
While, today, 9/11, is just another day for the saud’s to keep trying to pull their usual tricks. They sure don’t want their own radicals blowing up in saudi arabia, do they?
Until we get to the truth, Obama’s about as good as it gets.
WTFreek?
I gave up several months ago.
That “medical” marijuana is some strong stuff, eh?
I’m sure more than those on the Right are sick of Obama’s disingenuousness. The biggest lie from last night? Rhetoric aside, he hasn’t any “friends in D.C.”, not on the Left, nor on the Right. Despite how he and his allies in the Press spin it, Obama’s ex-presidency will be the smallest and least profound in the modern era.
Obaama is a pandering demagogue in love with his own voice. The man makes me ill listening to him.
I would revel in his self-induced humiliation in front of the world, if he hadn’t dragged this country down with him.
I see that doddering feeble-minded old man, McRhino, who I USED to respect, is actually suggesting that we should bomb Syria ‘because not bombing them would make Obama look foolish and weak’.
His little sycophant butt-buddy Amnesty Graham is firmly nuzzled up between his back pockets as usual.
Now Putin blatantly and publicly owns him, and therefor us.
Nice going O !
It’s going to take GENERATIONS to repair the damage this asshole has done to this country ! Both domestically and internationaly.
N-Neocon..Best post of the day, Lass. Amen. AMEN. A*M*E*N!!
pjm…”..Graham is nuzzled up against his back pockets as usual.” Gawd, I LOVE plain talk!!
‘Between’, not just ‘against’.
It clarifies the mental image 🙂
McCain and Graham have both been trying to drag a coherent policy out of this fool, and if you had actual contact with what they’ve been saying, you’d very likely agree with them. The mischaracterization of their positions is to the advantage of the lefties. There is a name for Repubs and Independents who play that game, and it is losers.
You have to look for the silver lining. Obama & Kerry aren’t fooling anybody with their claim they ‘called’ the Syrian six-rail bank shot into the side pocket. Obama is now neutered in foreign policy, a good thing given his horrible record. This also means he is all but totally neutered on domestic policy.
The silver lining is that Obama is officially and fully a lame duck president. He’s done. His own party won’t even back him up.
“The silver lining is that Obama is officially and fully a lame duck president. He’s done. His own party won’t even back him up.”
On the down side of that, he’s still President for 2 & 1/2 more years, and he purely doesn’t give a shit what rules he breaks, what parts of the C and the BOR he ignores, or any other damn thing that gets in his way.
Scary times are coming.
Three years and 4 months left to go, as hard as that is to believe.
Thank you, Debbie Downer.
There are limits to what his own party will let him do. Like all politicians, they are selfish. It is concern for their reelections that caused enough Dems to abandon Obama on upcoming Senate and House votes on the Syrian resolution that he was permanently damaged by it. They don’t so that lightly.
Obama is hurting his party. His loudmouth base down at Starbucks might still support him, but *congressional* Dems are already moving away from him, fearful of the 2014 election cycle. He is down to one tooth.
Politicians are not a brave lot. They will not follow the leader of their party, Dem or GOP, to their political deaths. Obama will get nothing done legislatively, and if he gets too nuts with the E/Os, his own party will stop the most damaging of it, while impeachment is potentially doable not that we’ve seen the Dem Senate fail to back Obama on Syria.
“while impeachment is potentially doable >> NOW << that we’ve seen the Dem Senate fail to back Obama on Syria."
Obama & Biden must be some kind of super geniuses! They make plans that are so smart and clever that they don’t even know themselves what they’ve done, till after they’ve done it.
How lucky we are, to have them ruining this country.
Well, I watched Obama’s speech. That’s 20 minutes of my life I can’t get back. He said a lot of stuff, then contradicted that stuff, then talked about something else. My guess is that the speech was put together by splicing several drafts that were trying to keep up with unfolding events.
Putin has said that the UNSC won’t vote until they get a firm promise from Obama to forswear any strikes, and considering the box Obama is in, I don’t see how he can avoid it, though I’m sure he’ll couch any such statement in gobbledygook and diplomatic language. Obama claims he reserves the right to strike if the UN route proves unworkable, but doesn’t seem to realize that he can’t order a strike simply because he refused to promise not to strike, which is what that situation boils down to.
So the UN route is a given, and however they phrase it, someone has to put boots on the ground to secure the CW sites, and Obama, Kerry, and McCain have sworn to the American people that they will not put US boots on the ground. So the boots will be primarily Russian. Iran might offer some, but nobody on the UNSC is really wanting their help these days. So Russia is on the ground and Americans aren’t.
Obama also made a point of saying he reserves the right to strike at a future date if Syria doesn’t comply fully with whatever the UN decides, or if they fail to meet the requirements set by the US for control or destruction of their chemical weapons. That sounds reassuring, except that it shows Obama is a fool who hasn’t thought about what happens next.
Russia, and perhaps China and some token Western forces are going to go into Syria, whose CW sites are scattered, hidden, and defended. The locations of all their munitions are simply the places where they’ve decided to put munitions. Where ever they’ve put munitions will become a location with Russian boots on the ground. Those Russian boots are human shields, under the auspices of the United Nations. We can’t strike those, ever.
To take charge of any chemical weapon site, the Russians would have to augment (working with) the Syrian forces previously in charge of guarding such weapons, or supplant them. The Russians, UN, and Obama would of course argue that it would be best if the UN forces went ahead and supplanted the Syrian forces. This is good because it will free up a lot of Syrian forces for front line assaults, easing their manpower problems.
That leaves Russians and perhaps some other UN forces exposed to potential rebel or terrorist attacks, so they’ll have to dig in. Given the grave danger of having CW munitions falling into Al Qaeda hands, they might even have to call in lots of air support to carry out their vital UN mission of guarding the stockpiles. And of course the stockpiles are located where ever Syrian needs a stockpile located, or Russian troops located, or just a good series of air strikes. The Russians could even move the CW around to “more secure” locations as needed to meet tactical challenges presented by the rebels. Keep in mind, the munitions are where ever the Russians or Syrians say they are, and they’re highly mobile so a quick trip in the trunk of a car can make such weapons appear anywhere, even if the US sends in some non-boot wearing inspectors to verify that nobody is lying.
At some point Obama might actually wise up enough and demand the removal of the Russian troops, but of course they can’t be removed because their guarding the critically important chemical weapons stockpiles, so that Assad can’t use them, and of course Assad can’t guard them himself because all his guards got sent to the front lines when the UN demanded that Assad relieve them of guard duty. We wouldn’t want to risk having the weapons fall into Al Qaeda’s hands, certainly. Besides, Obama can’t order Russian troops to do anything.
So Obama has opened the door to a massive Russian reinforcement of Syrian positions, acting as a reserve Syrian force in the conflict, and done it in such a way that the world will celebrate Russian involvement instead of condemning it. Genius.
He can’t turn around and note that the plan was a sham taking advantage of Kerry’s gaffe, because now Kerry is out there proclaiming that it was his brilliant idea, following up on some brilliant discussions that Obama brought up with Putin over the preceding months, along with a side conversation at the G-20 summit.
They have been so badly outmaneuvered, out thought, and out right played that it’s almost a work of art. The rebels really thought that Obama was going to be sending missiles to blow up their enemies any minute now. And that’s actually what Obama intended, too. Instead he’s sending Assad a bunch of Russian reinforcements who will double as human shields and guarantee that the US can’t do a single thing in Syria except stand by and watch Obama’s jihadists lose.
WIth Obama’s fecklessness and emotional reactions, and Kerry’s unswerving stupidity, Putin couldn’t have possibly gotten Russian forces into Syria without a massive international outcry and huge risks of initiating a major confrontation. Now Putin can send them in with Obama’s stamp of approval. Two more moves and Putin can probably con Obama into paying their hotel bills and travel expenses.
“And so to my friends on the right…on the left”
Obama has no friends; people are just toys to play with in the game of politics.
“Obama has no friends.”
Actually, he’s quite the loner. (Nixon was a loner, as well.) But most politicians aren’t.
Did Obama win his second term? Yes. He did. He won it even though he wasn’t the Messiah. (In 2008 he ran as the Messiah.) Still, 2012 wasn’t a walk in the park for Romney.
And, it’s possible ‘name calling’ comes with a price? What sort of price? Oh, perhaps, The Boy Who Cried Wolf?
Jimmy Carter didn’t get a second term. Obama has one.
Have the American people learned that they’re less enamored of the Mideast?
You know, after our troops came back from WW1 most Americans expressed a very strong desire for isolationism. We’ve had lots of military adventures since then, but things haven’t changed all that much.
(Obama wants to eat lunch alone. Most politicians eat with other people. That’s how this oddity got reported. And, yes. Nixon also liked eating by himself with no one else around.)
Further evidence of Barry’s lame-duckness (and general lameness) is that he’s now effectively made Putin our new crypto-President re foreign policy.
The NY Times has an opt-ed piece from Putin, telling us what he — and the US — should and should not — actually, will and will not — do re Syria. America: welcome your new master.
Congrats, Barry: you are the Chamberlain — no, actually, the Quisling — of our time.
This whole thing reminds me of a gangster movie, where some ordinary city guy, small business or blue collar working guy has a problem with small time hoods, bothering his daughter, ripping off his store, whatever. After a couple of threats on his part he sees he can’t handle it, so he goes to the mob boss, kisses his ring, and gets the problem taken care of. Trouble is, now he owes that boss and always will, and everyone knows who is in charge in that neighborhood. I’ll have to watch The Godfather again, think about who’s Putin, who’s Obama? What position has the president put our country in?
Exactly what did Putin win? He’s not loved at home.
It reminds me of the old time stars who kept scrapbooks. They’d cut out all the reviews that mentioned their names. Means nothing to nobody, anymore.
Americans don’t want our military involved in crap holes like Irak. And, Afghanistan. There’s no benefit seen in killing Gaddafi. As a matter of fact, if you use Libya as your example, things were better there under Gaddafi than they are now.
Political fights aren’t supposed to last after an election. It used to be simple. People got together after a president was chosen.
Even Reagan, who WON because he had won over blue-collar democrats, knew the value of being liked by the American people. The press? They hated Reagan with a passion. Every day another ugly article would appear. Thousands of words. While Deaver, at the White House, would get Reagan to do a sound byte. It went to the media. And, that’s what people remember seeing.
All the negative stuff? So much toilet paper.
One subject that may be of deep concern for a long time, ahead, are the secret courts. Set up following 9/11. With secret judges. Secret requests. And, gag orders. At Reddit, today, it seems Lavabit, forced to close shop because the government came along and asked for secret documents … has filed the appeal that’s up at the 4th Circuit.
For how long will lawyers tolerate what has happened to our Constitution? Maybe, the Right wants to hide because this started on their watch. With wars in Irak and Afghanistan that turned into failures …
And, you think you have a “Godfather” case against Obama?
Good one!
The idea of Obama “playing 4 dimensional chess” is a real hoot. The guy couldn’t play checkers without the Affirmative Action spot of three men.
When I want straw men I pull out my boxes of porch decorations or Halloween through Thanksgiving.
Obama, the Black Swan of Presidents (or just bad luck on our part), reeks the uncertain into every corner of our lives.
Does Obama know what “reconcile” means? Is “I ask you to” supposed to mean “I challenge you to, but you really can’t”?
It’s hard to know, but it isn’t the first time he has sounded confused.