Big Dogs House

The Troops Are A Good Photo Op For Obama

Nov 19, 2009 Political

While Obama dithers on making a troop decision he has taken the time to visit some of them at various bases. One was in Alaska and another in South Korea. Obama told the troops that they made a pretty good photo op.

This is what the Resident thinks of the troops, they are a good photo op. While he is playing games there are men and women in harm’s way who need more support. The request for that support has been on his desk since August but Obama has failed to take a decision on sending the help their commander says they need. Aides say it is unlikely a decision will be taken before Thanksgiving.

While the rest of the nation gives thanks our troops will be praying that they get help sometime within Obama’s first term.

Let’s see. Stimulus, we have to do it NOW. Health care takeover, we have to do it NOW, Cap and Trade, well he wanted it NOW but has to wait until after the next election. Everything is NOW, NOW, NOW with this guy except when it comes to sending help to the troops. That can wait until Obama is good and ready.

How many times have we heard about people dying in the streets because health care is screwed up? This is a blatant lie but it plays on emotions. The only people I have seen die in the streets were involved in accidents or victims of violence.

Health care is a matter of life or death, or so we are led to believe but sending help to our troops is not such a matter of life or death, except to those on the battlefield.

My liberal friends tell me (and I read liberal commenters at other sites) that they like the idea that Obama is taking his time and carefully weighing options with regard to the troops. It shows how deliberative he is.

But the same people are pushing for health care reform right NOW and want no delays. Our troops are getting shot at and some are dying on the battlefield while Obama deliberates. On the other hand Obama is balls to the wall for health care reform. He wants that by the end of the year but when he gets to helping the troops is anyone’s guess.

This is nothing more than dereliction of duty. Just like a Democrat to abandon our troops.

During the campaign Obama said he would have to earn the trust of the troops. I said then that he did not have the experience to be Commander in Chief and he is showing that each and every day.

As for earning trust. Good luck with that.

At least they provide his ego with a good photo op.

Tags: afghanistan, dithering, Obama, photo op, troops, war

Obama In No Rush To Support The Troops

Oct 20, 2009 Military, Political

Barack Obama made it clear that the war in Afghanistan was a war of necessity and that the war in Iraq was a war of choice. He said, time and again, that he would fight the war in Afghanistan and that it was necessary. Obama’s hand picked commander has submitted a request for the support he needs to fight and that request includes more troops. All of the sudden the war of necessity is not so much so. The request was sent to the White House nearly 80 days ago and no decision has been taken.

Obama is pondering what to do and has stated that he wants to see how the recent Afghan election pans out with either a run-off or co-governance before he decides on sending troops. He is deliberating and giving it thoughtful consideration. At least that is what the White House wants us to believe.

The only thing that Obama has taken his time on since taking office is selecting a family pet. It took him six months to select a dog. He gave it careful consideration.

The stimulus had to be passed immediately, the health care take over must be done now (even though the only thing that will take effect before 2013 is the taxing part of it), the cap and trade bill must be done now as, it would seem, must every other item on the Obama hit list. He wants all the things done by the end of the year and this is an extension of earlier deadlines. The simulus was rocketed through Congress because Obama said now and the Democrats did it now. Then it sat on his desk for four days while he went on a date with his wife.

He is pushing for his agenda items to get through at the speed of light but he is stifled by some Democrats who are worried about their jobs.

The support of the troops in Afghanistan is quite another thing though. Obama received the request nearly 80 days ago and has been stonewalling his commander and the troops. Secretary Gates says we need to act now and not later but Obama is quite busy wetting his finger and sticking it out the window to see which way the wind is blowing. His assertions about the war of necessity and his repeated assertions that this was a war we needed to win have hamstrung him because he would dearly like to appease (he did win a Nobel for that quality) his base and withdraw in defeat. That is what Democrats do.

But he does not want to be seen as a person who trumpeted the war in Afghanistan and vowed to support the troops only to let them down. He does not care about letting them down, he just does not want it to appear that way. So instead of being the Commander in Chief (a job he has no experience to do) he is waffling and stonewalling. He is looking for any reason not to honor the request of General Stanley McChrystal, the man he hand picked to run the war. Obama would love nothing more than to find some reason, any reason, to dishonor our troops so he can appease his leftist loser base.

Obama would not look so bad if he had taken the same stance on Afghanistan that he took on Iraq but he went the other way. He told us it was the war of necessity.

What he needs to do is act like a man instead of the weaselly, limp wristed, metrosexual that he truly is. He needs to man up and honor his commitment to the troops and to the war. He needs to stick to his word and win the war of necessity not only because supporting the troops is the right thing to do but because he told us he would. He needs, for once, to keep his word.

But then again, all Obama promises come with an expiration date.

I loved my 24 years of service to this country but I would not serve in the military under this so called man. He is fortunate that he is wrecking the economy because that has driven enlistments up. People join the military when times are tough because it is a job and it pays. If he had not wrecked the economy and caused such high unemployment then the services would have trouble recruiting.

Who would want to serve under this wishy-washy man? I can’t imagine any of our service members staying in with this guy abandoning them. And it is a certainty that the liberals who support him will not join to protect this country (they will wait for Obama bucks to make ends meet). They live under the blanket of protection provided by better people than they and they like it that way. If Obama does not act like a leader and do it soon then he is going to harm the military worse than Jimmy Carter did.

It might take decades to get the nation’s military strong again.

Obama, man up and take a decision. Do the right thing and support the men and women who were sent to war by the US government. You (the government) sent them there, now support them.

Also:
al-Reuters

UPDATE: What has Obama done since the request for troops was submitted.

Tags: afghanistan, loser, Obama, support, troops, war

The Impotence Of Words

Oct 4, 2009 Political

There will be a war- just how big, or how severe, is still to be determined, but all the key players are lining up, all while our Resident thinks the sound of his mellifluous voice will sooth the savage nuclear holocaust. He is a legend in his own mind- unfortunately, he impresses no one else, especially the ones he has needed to impress. It is to the point now where even internet pundits and newspapers are opining about the impotence of our Resident.

Will all the pundits who relied on the discredited 2007 NIE on Iran now admit that they were wrong? That they bought into and kept citing, without any serious questioning, the now clearly politically skewed analysis in the so-called National Intelligence Estimate of that year? You remember: the considered consensus wisdom of the entire U.S. intelligence community, which misled the world into believing there was nothing to worry about Iran’s nuclear program, that it had virtually ceased. When, in fact, out of the three components of a nuclear weapons program, at most one might have been suspended, if that.

Will the congressional intelligence committees demand to know how such a deliberately misleading report was being leaked and fed to the public by half-baked pundits even after (we now learn) some part of the “intelligence community” knew — before the the NIE was issued — about the secret nuclear fuel facility we’re now reading about?

What took them so long? Or if there were reasons to keep silent about it, why issue a report that deliberately misled the world into the opposite conclusion? The NIE now appears to be a deliberate LIE — deliberate disinformation, disingenuously written by its authors, who should be hauled before the committees and asked how they could have made such fools of the “intelligence community” and those who took their report seriously.

pajamasmedia.com

First, the lie- the report, as Ron correctly says, gave the Iranians about two years free rein on constructing the essential components necessary to make a bomb. This report also puts Israel in a corner- and if our Resident thinks he can control, or even should control Israel, he is vastly wrong, but perhaps he has wanted this all along- certainly he has almost willfully made every diplomatic miscue he possibly could.

The Obama administration’s positive tone following its first diplomatic encounter with Iran covers a deep and growing gloom in Washington and European capitals. Seven hours of palaver in Geneva haven’t altered an emerging conclusion: None of the steps the West is considering to stop the Iranian nuclear program is likely to work.

Not talks. Not sanctions, even of the “crippling” variety the Obama administration has spoken of. Not military strikes. And probably not support for regime change through the still-vibrant opposition.

For obvious reasons, senior officials won’t state this broad conclusion out loud. But it’s not hard to find pessimistic public statements about three of the four options. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the prospects for diplomacy “very doubtful.” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said military action will do no more than “buy time.” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, echoing private statements I’ve heard from the Obama administration, told me last week that a strategy of backing the Iranian opposition “would take too long” and might well produce a government with the same nuclear policy.

washingtonpost.com

It is rapidly becoming obvious to almost everyone except, apparently the Resident, that the time for action is rapidly approaching- and what form it takes, or who is who’s allies, well, that part is truly murky, and the most dangerous aspect of the whole scenario, because of America’s “diminishment” on the world stage, due in large part to the Resident’s Perpetual Apology Tour, and the rise of Russia, China, and India as emerging powers. Especially Russia.

American officials said concern about Russian experts acting without official approval, had been raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a report more than a year ago.

“There has been Russian help. It is not the government, it is individuals, at least one helping Iran on weaponisation activities and it is worrisome,” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

However, Israeli officials insist that any Russian scientists working in Iran could do so only with official approval.

Robert Einhorn, the special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is understood to believe that Russian companies have also supplied material that has been used by Iran in the production of ballistic missiles.

The disclosures came as Iran agreed at talks in Geneva to submit to IAEA inspections of its newly disclosed enrichment plant, which is being built under a mountain on a military base at Qom. Iran revealed the plant to the IAEA to pre-empt being caught out by an imminent announcement from western governments, which had discovered its existence.

The West says the plant is tailor-made for a secret weapons programme and proves Iran’s claim that its nuclear programme is intended only for peaceful purposes is a lie. The plant is designed to hold 3,000 centrifuges — enough to produce the material needed for one bomb a year.

Iran’s conduct over the next few weeks will determine whether the West continues its new dialogue or is compelled to increase pressure with tougher United Nations and other sanctions.

timesonline.co.uk

Sanctions? I think the time for that may be well past. Just as you can really only help those who are willing to help themselves, you can only punish those who fear the punishment- nothing else works, and I am afraid the Resident doesn’t know that, and there is no one telling him this reality. Just as he knows nothing about the military, and thus is disengaged about Afghanistan, he thinks, even after his ignominious defeats at all of his meetings, including the Olympics plea, tha the power of his personality will still win the day.

I have bad news for him- his ego is not a weapon- nor is it particularly impressive, as you actually have to be able to back it up on the world stage, and so far, he has bupkus. The rest of the world laughs at him, and apparently it is obvious to everyone but him.

I wish he could do something about this situation, I truly do- the alternative will be very deadly to the whole world, but I am afraid he is not up to the task, as I have thought all along.

Our Resident likes to quote Lincoln, but the President he should look to now might be Teddy Roosevelt-

“Talk softly- but carry a big stick.”

Tags: appeasement, Iran, nukes, Obama, war

Obama’s Right War Not Right Anymore

Sep 25, 2009 Political

Campaign promises are easier to make than they are to keep and no sane person expects much from a politician once he wins office. Those promises become so yesterday as the politician works to keep the office he has obtained. During the next election cycle there are more promises, more people who believe them and then disappointment as the cycle starts over.

During the campaign last year, then candidate Obama, said that George Bush and John McCain became too focused on Iraq, a war he contends was wrong, and took their eye off Afghanistan. Obama told us that Afghanistan was the right war, that the bad guys must be defeated and that he would put less focus on Iraq and move the required number of troops to Afghanistan to win a war he claimed we had to win.

Democrat Barack Obama said Monday that as president he would send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan, where U.S. soldiers face rising violence and endured their deadliest attack in three years on Sunday.

The proposed force increase – about 7,000 troops – is part of Obama’s plan to pull combat troops out of Iraq and focus on the growing threat from a resurgent al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

“As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan,” Obama said in an op-ed published Monday in The New York Times, a day before he plans a speech here on his vision for Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there,” Obama said.

Obama argued the emphasis on Iraq placed by the Bush administration – and supported by Republican presidential candidate John McCain – stands in the way, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds CBS

This year Obama made it clear that he was still focused on Afghanistan and that winning there “[That] is a cause that could not be more just.

That was then and this is now and now contains a 180 degree turnabout from Mr. Obama. The guy who said that he had to earn the trust of the military and would listen to the commanders on the ground has turned a deaf ear to those very commanders now that he has “focused” on Afghanistan.

General Stanley Mcchrystal has stated that he needs about 30-40 thousand more troops and that the war could be lost in the next year if he does not get more manpower. This is in his assessment report that has been delayed (but leaked) and it is quite clear, the commander on the ground needs more boots on the ground.

The campaign Obama made it clear he would put resources in Afghanistan and he continued with that theme after his coronation. He shifted some troops and his half baked plan was put into action but it is not working. His commanders are asking for more troops and Obama is stonewalling them. It is reported that his peeps have asked that the Generals scrub the report because Obama is reluctant to send any more troops to Afghanistan.

The man who vowed to do what it takes to win, who said Bush took his eye off the ball, who said that he would listen to the commanders, who said that winning was a cause that could not be more just and that has to be our BIGGEST national security issue, is turning his back on the troops and waffling on honoring his commitment to listen to the commanders and to provide resources to win.

No one expects a Democrat to have the will to fight because it is not in their blood. The only thing they will fight to the death for is their office and abortion. The country, not so much. The left has always thrown our military under the bus and Obama is no different. He wants one world order with a global community rather than keeping the separate and distinct identity that has made America the greatest nation on Earth.

But when that Democrat is the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces he must, regardless of his personal feelings, do everything to support those troops. The politicians put the men and women who serve this country in harm’s way and it is their duty and they are obligated to give them everything they need to succeed. Failure should never be an option and neither should vacillating with resourcing the troops. The lack of forces could result in more deaths of US service personnel.

He talked like a Hawk but flies like a Dove, Obama lied. Let’s hope our troops don’t have to die because of it.

The only exit strategy is WINNING.

Resource the troops now.

Tags: afghanistan, campaign, lies, Obama, osama, respurces, war

You Say ChickenHawk, I Say Obama

Sep 23, 2009 Political

Well, it is coming apart for our Resident- he picked the wrong war- he thought (and still, to this day cannot say the words) that the surge in Iraq couldn’t work, probably because George Bush advocated for it.Now that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is going south, he wants out. 

Actually, he was never in it, as other Democrats now are beginning to admit. This was just a campaign ploy to try and show that he had some testosterone somewhere in him, when in actuality the opposite is true. Democrats do not like to fight- they have never met a war they couldn’t lose, or a confrontation they could master. 

President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.

The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to evaluate Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said.

The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Mr. Obama’s new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces General McChrystal wants.

nytimes.com

War is a messy thing in the best of circumstances, and Afghanistan is not that at all. Afghanistan is, as the Russians found out, a very complicated situation. Russia was attempting to conquer the country- we are just trying to unify the country under one leader with a quasi- democratic form of government. Still, the resemblance to attempting to herd cats is still a valid analogy for this tribal country, where there has never been any central leadership to speak of.

So we can agree that the task is hard, but the Resident is more concerned with politics and perception than with real results, and his advocacy for this war was always rooted in relativism- the “perception” of being for this conflict was always more important than the reality of succeeding in this endeavor, despite the blood of our soldiers being spilled for this effort.

Although Mr. Obama has said that a stable Afghanistan is central to the security of the United States, some advisers said he was also wary of becoming trapped in an overseas quagmire. Some Pentagon officials say they worry that he is having what they called “buyer’s remorse” after ordering an extra 21,000 troops there within weeks of taking office before even settling on a strategy.

Mr. Obama met in the Situation Room with his top advisers on Sept. 13 to begin chewing over the problem, said officials involved in the debate. Among those on hand were Mr. Biden; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton;James L. Jones, the national security adviser; and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They reached no consensus, so three or four more such meetings are being scheduled. “There are a lot of competing views,” said one official who, like others in this article, requested anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.

Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics.

nytimes.com

Oh yeah, there’s a good idea Joe-  Why, for the life of me someone doesn’t just sew Biden’s lips shut I will never know- he should be duct taped to within an inch of his life and put in Cheney’s “undisclosed” location.  Even Hillary can’t accept this scenario- it runs counter to reality, and as much as I might dislike her personally, she has a better grasp on reality than either the Resident or “Say it aint so” Joe.

Mrs. Clinton, who opposed Mr. Biden in March, appeared to refer to this debate in an interview on Monday night on PBS. “Some people say, ‘Well, Al Qaeda’s no longer in Afghanistan,’ ” she said. “If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast Al Qaeda would be back in Afghanistan.”

nytimes.com

But sources in the administration and elsewhere finally admit that the support for the ” Good War”- the war in Afghanistan, was only a ploy to try and demonstrate Nobama’s manhood- and that it can now begin to be “disengaged” from, in a delicate and discreet way.

Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy. 

There have been many campaign promises “adjusted” since the election. There is no reason that the administration should feel any more bound to what they said about this than all the other committments [sic] it has blithely turned aside in the interest of “pragmatism.”

the liberal blog Hullabaloo

Yep- that’s a liberal for you- everything is relative, there is no black and white, just shades of gray, and as we have seen from the missile withdrawal from Eastern Europe, treaties are apparently just pieces of paper, and our word, our honor, means nothing to these cowards. And that is what they are, top to bottom, front to back.

And the words of this Resident, that sounded so “lofty” and principled, and, well- serious- well, you can wad them up and try for a free throw to the trash, because that is, apparently, all they are worth.

“Al Qaeda and its allies — the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks — are in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan.  And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban — or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”—— Barak Obama

Yes- that was, and is true- but this Resident is interested in easy results, and doesn’t want to chance being bogged down in a long war- we have a Resident with ADD, and he really can’t concentrate on something for an extended period. This is probably the reason for the teleprompters.

Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sent Mr. Obama a six-page letter arguing the case for more troops for General McChrystal. “There is no strategy short of a properly resourced counterinsurgency campaign that is likely to provide lasting security,” he wrote.

Mr. Obama now has to reconcile past statements and policy with his current situation.

“The problem for President Obama is he has made the case in the past that we took our eye off the ball and we should have stayed in Afghanistan,” said former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. But now that he is in charge of the war, Mr. Cohen said, Mr. Obama is discovering “he doesn’t have much in the way of options” and time is of the essence.

nytimes.com

The biggest problem for the Resident is that he just does not trust or believe the Generals in charge of this war- which is contrary to common sense, because I can think of no one in this administration that has less experience than our “Commander in Chief” (in name only)- thus, he should, if he was smart, be listening hard to the officers in the field. But he doesn’t. And that is a problem very deeply rooted in the Democratic Leftist psyche.

If someone in the WH doesn’t tell the Resident to shut up and listen, this war will drag on for years, or he will jerk us out of Afghanistan, and he will be the single reason we lost the war here. Al Qaida will have their safe haven back, and the the only way we could respond in the future would be with nukes, because by that time, Al Qaida will have toppled Pakistan as well.

Because Pakistan will have seen how we treated Poland and the Czech Republic, and they will know that Nobama is no friend to have or trust. They will be on their own.

And so will we.

Tags: afghanistan, coward in chief, hypocrisy, lies, war