[Daily Caller] Joseph Miller is the pen name for a ranking Department of Defense official with a background in U.S. special operations and combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has worked in strategic planning.
After weeks of back and forth, on Wednesday night President Barack Obama outlined his strategy for "degrading" and "destroying" the Islamic State, and on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, Americans were able to finally wake up in a country that had a strategy for the most recent Islamist threat.
The problem is that the strategy -- to provide logistical support for Iraqi forces, limited air strikes, and a strong Free Syrian Army -- is a foolish strategy that is unlikely to succeed. Motion should not be confused with progress. Victory over radical Islam has never been the regime's the goal.
#1
Too little, too late. Plus no one trusts Obama, either here or abroad. He exceeded his level of competence long ago if he ever had any competence. Maybe he should have been tried as an Ambassador to Liberia or Sierra Leone before being thrown into the presidency.
#2
Free Syrian Army is a mirage. Its an illusion that State desperately believes in, lest they realize there is no effective command structure in the region, and that few, if any, of the "players" in Syria would ever be considered "good" when viewed on their own merits.
Again, Obama believes everything the State Dept tells him and ignores anything the military tells him, due to his inherent anti-military leftist bias.
Secondarily - you cannot defeat an insurgency from the air. It requires ground forces. It requires killing lots and lots of bad guys. It involves making the terrorist supporting communities howl while keeping the anti-terr folks safe - and most of all it demands a long term commitment in order to be effective.
The military is capable of this - but the political leadership is not. Bush had the heart for the long war, but not the competence to lead the country into supporting the necessity of it.
Obama has neither, and additionally lacks the basic competence and capabilities needed to lead anything more than a domestic political campaign.
#4
Secondarily - you cannot defeat an insurgency from the air. It requires ground forces. It requires killing lots and lots of bad guys
You also need good intel. You need people on the ground who can develop a network of informants and cultivate contacts. Who can be bought, who can be split off, who can 'accidentally' not have his forces where they're supposed to be, etc.
Unfortunately that's a skill that's atrophied. Also not a career enhancer - and that's what counts, right?
#6
Pappy, that's the result of career managerial (peacetime oriented) rather than operational (war oriented) people running things at the three letter agencies.
#7
The leadership of the government can't agree on what it is we are doing with re/ISIS? Whether it's not a war or a war. It's difficult to mobilize a government and a nation behind a vague, nebulous concept.
#8
The insufferable James Carville opinined last night on O'Reilly that "we have been at war for the past thirteen years and would likely be at war for another thirteen years."
#9
Can't decide whether it would be a good or bad thing for country if the coalition failed to come together. Have to ponder that one. Leadership in the coalition countries don't trust Obama. He's been apathetic towards them or burned them too often. Incidents like Benghazi don't help the perception either--he didn't have the back of Americans.
h/t Instapundit
a top diplomat from one of America's most dependable Middle Eastern allies said to me in July of this year, "but you no longer know how to act like one."
He was reflecting on America's position in the world almost halfway into President Barack Obama's second term. Fresh in his mind was the extraordinary string of errors (schizophrenic Egypt policy, bipolar Syria policy), missteps (zero Libya post-intervention strategy, alienation of allies in the Middle East and elsewhere), scandals (spying on Americans, spying on friends), halfway measures (pinprick sanctions against Russia, lecture series to Central Americans on the border crisis), unfulfilled promises (Cairo speech, pivot to Asia), and outright policy failures (the double-down then get-out approach in Afghanistan, the shortsighted Iraq exit strategy).
Mr. Rothkopf writes,
"The problem is that in seeking to sidestep the pitfalls that plagued Bush, Obama has inadvertently created his own."
This is how you know Mr. Rothkopf is a true believer: Obama's problems were "inadvertent". I guess "unexpectedly" was already taken.
Mr. Rothkopf also writes,
"And, to be sure, Obama inherited many of his greatest challenges, some of the biggest beyond his control."
So it was always Bush's fault, but today it is beyond Obama's control...
When a Saudi or Egyptian diplomat says something like this, it is bound to leave a mark on someone.
The empty suit doesn't care. Kerry is lurching around chasing shadows with the Paleos, he is eviscerating the military, and he has our economy in a nosedive. Not a bad days work for a foreign agent with a deep cover identity.
Anyone ever wonder why the lefties jammed him down our throats? And continue to run cover for his complete incompetence?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
09/12/2014 10:27 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The existing problems were obvious and he still wanted the job.
He is simply not the caliber of person needed to lead a country. He makes Carter look stoic by comparison.
I will be glad to see him leave the White House and only hope we will be offered better choices next time.
#5
In one meeting, ["National Security Advisor" LOL Susan] Rice pressed the German delegation relentlessly for leadership within the European Union. The Germans sought more time and consultation with other EU member states, frustrating Rice to the point that she lost her cool and reportedly launched into a profanity-filled lecture that featured a rare diplomatic appearance of the word "motherfucker." Germany's national security advisor, Christoph Heusgen, was so angered that he told an American confidante it was the worst meeting of his professional life.
h/t Sarah Hoyt
1. If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally, you live in a country run by idiots.
2. If you have to get your parents' permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion, you live in a country run by idiots.
3. If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor or check out a library book, but not to vote on who runs the government, you live in a country run by idiots.
4. If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives 20 F-16 fighter jets to the crazy leaders in Egypt, you live in a country run by idiots.
5. If, in the largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat, you live in a country run by idiots.
6. If an 80-year-old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched, you live in a country run by idiots.
7. If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more, you live in a country run by idiots.
8. If a seven year old boy can be thrown out of grade school for saying his teacher's "cute," but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable, you live in a country run by idiots.
9. If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing and free cell phones, you live in a country run by idiots.
10. If the government's plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize NOT working, with 99 weeks of unemployment checks and no requirement to prove they applied but can't find work, you live in a country run by idiots.
11. If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more "safe" according to the government, you live in a country run by idiots.
12. If you pick a retired Marine General [who you have cleared in an investigation centered on 'conduct unbecoming'] to lead a counterinsurgency effort, you know you live in a country run by idiots.
#3
13. If the NSA vacuums up every scrap of info on US citizens, but the government can't keep track of illegal aliens in the country because that would violate their right to privacy, then you live in a country run by idiots (who sere elected by idiots).
#4
If you cannot call Muslim terrorists 'Islamists' but have no problem calling tea party members 'racists' with no evidence then you know you live in a country run by an idiot.
#5
If, as a country, you elect a community organizer who has never had to meet a payroll, and has zero experience managing people or a company, or even a group; to the highest position in government - solely because of the color of his skin, you live in a country run by idiots.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
