Obama Selfies while Middle East Burns

[CitizenBBN]

or: am I the only one who is laughing?

Obama is doing photo ops with a selfie-stick and a camera while Americans and our allies are being murdered by ISIS with impunity. They refuse to even acknowledge any of these attacks are terrorism (calling the attacks in Denmark random violence), even denying that Christians were singled out in Libya.

It's true ISIS is murdering people of all faiths, no doubt about that, but their level of denial about what is going on has officially become funny IMO. High comedy.

Now the State Department spokesperson, who looks like she's a college sophomore and just about as worldly and wise, suggests we can't "kill our way" out of this, and need to attack the "root causes", by working to make sure those people have access to jobs.

Now, before you fall over laughing, there is a fair point in that comment. there is no doubt that economic despair is a root cause of radical movements, it certainly was in the 1920s and 30s, and it is no doubt a major factor in the current radical Islamist movement.

BUT, there is a point at which that horse is out of the barn. Had we been able to rebuild the German economy BEFORE the communists and Nazis became the two main parties then yes that may have worked, but at the point at which the Nazis are marching into Poland it's too late for a job fair.

Secondly, it's not clear how you build a vibrant economy in Libya, a nation that has descended into tribal warfare, in a few months and head off the ISIS buildup. In fact it's totally clear: you can't. It's a nonsensical Leftist ivory tower pipe dream that only makes sense if you propose it in a classroom or at a cocktail party, then go home and think about how enlightened and insightful you have been.

So that solution is, as they say, a day late and a dollar short. total nonsense at this point.

You have to laugh. ISIS marches 20 people down to the beach and beheads them, today burns 45 more in a town FIVE MILES from a Marine outpost in Iraq, the President of Egypt and King of Jordan have publicly BEGGED the US to take the lead in fighting this filth, and our response is to talk about jobs in places that are essentially subsistence economies at this point.

Forget air strikes. We need to be dropping DVDs on how to learn welding apparently.

Come on, it's funny. Could Nero really have been any more outrageous as Emperor, any more inept, than King Obama the First? I wasn't there, but I bet the similarities would be striking.

[bigsky]

From "Speak softly and
carry a big stick" to "speak with a TelePrompTer and use a selfie stick"

[jazyd]

Obama is an asshole with no balls, no backbone and is essentially protecting his Muslim buddies.

[Darrell KSR]

From "Speak softly and
carry a big stick" to "speak with a TelePrompTer and use a selfie stick"

Great line. Wish you didn't have to use it.

[JasonNorin]

With the way ISIS act, it is not poverty that drove them to do such brutal acts. No one even knows or understand what they are fighting for but it is certainly not about unemployment or poverty. Just watching how they slaughter people makes m wanna hurl. I just hope proper actions will be taken before these criminals spread further..

[suncat05]

Hmmmmmm..........such tough choices........create jobs for ISIS, or.........KILL THEM ALL!

I find it highly ironic that Ms. Harf doesn't even have a clue about her boss being the worst job creator in the history of American politics. Keep drinking that kool-aid, babe. Please........allow me to put some of these hemlock drops in there for you, to sweeten that lie up!
It just amazes me as to how ignorant & totally uncaring this bunch in the White House really, truly is!

[CitizenBBN]

Harf doubled down today and explained that her answer was just "too nuanced" for some to understand.

In other words, if you don't get it and accept it, you're just stupid. Classic Leftism.

Uh no, I get it. I get that poverty is the recruiting ground for the followers of such movements. BUT what she doesn't understand are the following key things that undermine her "strategy":

1) the long term economic situation in the middle east and elsewhere is on a timetable that is simply too far out to be relevant to the question of what do do about ISIS. We have to address their atrocities now, today, and economics won't be part of that answer.

2) there isn't a lot we can do to address the economic situation. We're talking about parts of the world that are in many cases still tribal, agrarian societies. they have no "economy" in the sense we think of it. There are things we can do to help, but most are not economic.

3) Long term we can work to stabilize governments, etc. but the Obama notion of this is as unrealistic as Bush II's. Neither was able to create the needed dedication to the rule of law and the Rights of Man to establish western style democratic governments. Won't happen.

4) Most important, as radical movements go, they usually are at least led not by poverty but usually by middle and upper class people using economic crisis as leverage. Bid Laden and many if not most of the rest of these leaders are from well off families. There's no stopping those people with good jobs, they HAD good job prospects, left them to lead a revolution and kill infidels.

5) This ISIS movement is less based in the crisis of poverty than any other I have studied. They are recruiting middle class teens (read dumbass spoiled fools) via twitter and youtube to go with the disenfranchised in these other nations.

6) thus, in the end, this is in fact largely not based on poverty, but is based on religion. Obama mentions the crusades. Well the poverty of Medieval Europe no doubt helped keep the Church and the feudal system in power, and many joined their armies out of poverty, but the Crusades and the Inquisition were not driven fundamentally by poverty. They were driven by powerful people using religion to expand and concentrate power, and many of them in fact believed that such power was for the greater glory of their religion.

the radical Islamist movement is in that way like the Crusades and Inquisition, and in a broad way the improvement of the economy did undermine the concentration of power, but it took CENTURIES for that to happen.

It's not a strategy to defeat ISIS to wait until the middle east develops a respect for the rule of law and market economics. If that's their plan A, they need a Plan B.


But since Ms. Harf seems nice enough, I'll help her out. I'll give her the plan:

1) We do NOT need to occupy these nations for decades directly. We just need to do what we did in the 1950s to head this off the last time: install regimes that will for their own power and preservation do the job of repressing these radicals for us.

Now that requires we probably do go there at first, but instead of the neo-con or the Leftist visions of setting up western governments with rights and constitutions,we install authoritarian governments that are friendly to us as long as we supply them the weapons their military needs to keep themselves in power.

In Iraq we cut a deal with the Ba'athists, hand them the keys. The only exception is the Kurds get autonomy, and we arm them heavily to make sure it stays that way.

In Egypt: back the military government as we have done since the late 1970s. Nassar, Sadat, etc. The Egyptian military is not overly oppressive, and is generally secular. They will protect the Coptic Christian and other minority populations and will not tolerate radical Islam. Up until Obama we have had good relations with the Egyptian regime, and they have done a good job keeping Egypt stable.

Libya: go to the Egyptian government, let them pick the regime they want as a neighbor, someone who has close ties to them, then prop them up and let them take over. Arm them, send in the CIA, whatever, but get that country under a regime that can fend off ISIS.

It's a simple enough pattern. We and the Brits installed the Saudi and other regimes in the 1940s and 50s, and to be blunt that seems to be all that that region is ready for at this time. It sounds very condescending, but in the end governments like that of the US can only function if the people fundamentally believe in the rule of law. Most in that part of the world do not, so it wont' work.

So install these regimes, do what we can to mitigate their more over the top behavior, but let them have the free reign they need to deal with radical Islam and I guarantee we can get it under control.

Now THAT is a plan that can address this problem AND address both short and long term needs. Of course within those governments we can work on economic development and prosperity, that's a good idea, but it's something we have to do within the confines of ending the ISIS/radical Islamist threat through force in the near term, and establishing governments than can effectively rule over these regions.

the neo-cons were dreaming, the Obama Leftists are so far gone they can't see dreaming in the rear view mirror.

Real Politik is the way to go with this issue. Build a bulwark of allies in the region who will help us defeat this foe, regardless of their stance on elections and a free press, keep them loyal to us through military aid and economic ties, and hope they can stay in power
We'll have losses and setbacks. The Shah in Iran, it happens. it is still the most stable approach available, and hopefully we can do a better job of tempering some of these governments to keep that kind of situation from not arising often. Still even in Iran it worked for 40 years.

There's a flood coming, the damn is cracking, the river is rising, and they want to talk about long term weather and rain patterns. that may be something to discuss, but right now we need to get to higher ground.

Or is that too nuanced for the Obama ivory tower folk to follow?

[dan_bgblue]

The President today said that "the world needs to address the grievances the terrorists exploit" (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/18/obama-says-world-should-address-grievances-that-terrorists-exploit-defends-jobs/?intcmp=latestnews).

[CitizenBBN]

The President today said that "the world needs to address the grievances the terrorists exploit" (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/18/obama-says-world-should-address-grievances-that-terrorists-exploit-defends-jobs/?intcmp=latestnews).

Did the poverty and depression in Germany help to recruit the Brown Shirts? Yes.

Once Hitler had the SA in place and he had become a political force, no amount of economic aid from the US was going to dissolve them. Joining the SA and later Hitler Youth became more than an economic reaction, it was patriotism and identity and played on th need of young men to have a greater purpose and meaning.

Had the US been able to bring Europe out of the depression before the radicalization of German politics between the Nazis and Communists maybe it works, but that was a narrow window, and one that is long past here as well.

They just dont' get it b/c in their world everything would be fine as long as the US stops being imperialistic, but everywhere we've pulled back and stopped our "imperialism" things have gone to Hades in a hand basket. Their only out is that it's poverty and so we need more wealth redistribution on a global scale to solve things.

Economics are tied to this movement, but they are no longer it's driving force and it is no longer possible to curb it with economics. They just dont' play a large enough role for it to be useful in our response.

FWIW, more democracy won't work either. If these people were joining ISIS b/c of their thirst for liberty they woudln't be turning around and oppressing people in ways that would make Saddam look benevolent. They have no interest in the things we want them to want, and they can't accept it.

[bigsky]

Why couldn't you, or wouldn't you, kill people who are "terrorists"? That's my first question.

As for not being nuanced, well, why would you use nuance when dealing with terrorists who behead and burn people?

They're terrorists so let's give them a college education? Oh you burned someone in a cage? How about a job?

The nonsense spewed off the nonsense cards; combine any three to sound smart, "partners" "wholistic approach" "male dominance" "privilege" blah blah blah I hear it every day from the office of this and the office of that and the assistant VP of Ad Nauseum

[dan_bgblue]

They have no interest in the things we want them to want, and they can't accept it.

Yup

[jazyd]

We are dealing with nothing more than animals, they bring in around $2 million a day in oil sales.
We need to bomb the oil fields and destroy their income. Then put bombers, missiles, and drones in the air and hit every spot they occupy. Pound them daily from us, Jordan, France, England, Egypt. Israel. Destroy them

[badrose]

We are dealing with nothing more than animals, they bring in around $2 million a day in oil sales.
We need to bomb the oil fields and destroy their income. Then put bombers, missiles, and drones in the air and hit every spot they occupy. Pound them daily from us, Jordan, France, England, Egypt. Israel. Destroy them

This.

[suncat05]

This might be a different branch of Al Qaeda, or a completely different bunch, and I don't much care one way or the other. Their alleged religious ideology is just an excuse to murder, rape, pillage and force their ideology on those who do not want it. And any way you care to slice this, these are still the same people who brought war to America on 9-11-2001. And they get all of their basic support from the Ayatollahs in IRAN. Now, I am pretty sure that there are many, many hundreds of thousands of good Iranians who want no more than what we want: to be left alone to be able to take care of their families and to live their lives as they choose to live.
We need to seek out the Iranians who want to be rid of these Muslim terrorist Ayatollahs and partner with them to get a government that is more friendly to us and the rest of the West as CBBN suggested.
Anybody and everybody that is affiliated with ISIS or Al Qaeda or whatever Muslim terrorist 'flavor-of-the-month' just needs to be killed or captured and imprisoned for the rest of their worthless miserable lives.
Of course, we have our own brand of internal problems here ourselves, some of which we truthfully need to deal with very harshly as well.
We're coming to some very ugly & bad times here soon because some people think they know what is best for everyone that isn't them. I reject that, and will continue to reject that by whatever means is necessary.

[dan_bgblue]

Uruguay to ex-Guantanamo detainees: Get a job! Though country still issues them passports (http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/02/19/uruguay-to-ex-guantanamo-detainees-get-job-though-country-still-issues-them/)

[KeithKSR]

From "Speak softly and
carry a big stick" to "speak with a TelePrompTer and use a selfie stick"

Is that a Bigsky original?

[bigsky]

Is that a Bigsky original? You can find similar on Twitter., although I have not seen it with the TelePrompTer reference.

[suncat05]

Gitmo is one of the most notorious prisons in the world? Are you kidding me? Like those goat bumping p'sos were mistreated and abused? If they'd had been in a Russian gulag, yeah. If they'd have been in a Vietnamese or Chinese prison, yeah. They were basically treated like guests of the country, 3 meals a day(and no pork or pork by-products), comfortable beds to sleep on, prayer rugs and Qurans provided, regular exercise, FREE LEGAL SERVICES(which, IMHO they were not entitled to because they're not American citizens but are enemy combatants), but they're going to complain about how badly they were treated?

I just cannot even express how ticked off I am to hear this nonsense.

[cattails]

Why couldn't you, or wouldn't you, kill people who are "terrorists"? That's my first question.

As for not being nuanced, well, why would you use nuance when dealing with terrorists who behead and burn people?

They're terrorists so let's give them a college education? Oh you burned someone in a cage? How about a job?

The nonsense spewed off the nonsense cards; combine any three to sound smart, "partners" "wholistic approach" "male dominance" "privilege" blah blah blah I hear it every day from the office of this and the office of that and the assistant VP of Ad Nauseum


And we had soldiers piss on dead insurgents and they got in trouble, what a joke!! That is nothing compared to what really goes on in a real war. People need to wake up.

[cattails]

Gitmo is one of the most notorious prisons in the world? Are you kidding me? Like those goat bumping p'sos were mistreated and abused? If they'd had been in a Russian gulag, yeah. If they'd have been in a Vietnamese or Chinese prison, yeah. They were basically treated like guests of the country, 3 meals a day(and no pork or pork by-products), comfortable beds to sleep on, prayer rugs and Qurans provided, regular exercise, FREE LEGAL SERVICES(which, IMHO they were not entitled to because they're not American citizens but are enemy combatants), but they're going to complain about how badly they were treated?

I just cannot even express how ticked off I am to hear this nonsense.

All is fair in love and war, they need to ship these do gooders to the front line and let them live a few days of it.

[ShoesSwayedBlue]

Let me preface my feelings on this and tell a story.

Years ago, while discussing the Civil War with one of my boys and his girlfriend, I said that who you would have fought for depended almost entirely on where you lived and ideology or morality be damned. Of course, being young and idealistic they both said that there was no way that they would have fought for the South, as they knew that slavery was wrong and that they couldn't understand how so many Southerners were so blind or evil as to not see the truth of that.

So I said okay, let's say you, to the girlfriend, who has five older brothers, and you , to the oldest boy, who has five younger brothers, do not accept the teachings of everyone around you. You know they're wrong. And of course you're morally right. Slavery was obviously wrong. But your ten brothers, like the vast, vast majority of the other men in your community, do in fact accept what they've been told all their lives by their elders, or run with the pack, like almost all people do. They are going to fight for the South. They may know deep down that slavery is wrong, but they're going to fight along side their brothers, their fathers, their sons, their cousins, their lifelong friends.

Are you then going to turn away from your entire world, your culture, your home, and fire on your own kin? If you see the older brother who piggybacked you through the snow to keep you warm are you going to aim your musket or rifle for his heart and kill him the same as the other 'evildoers'? When you're charging and see the little brother whose diaper you used to change and who you taught how to ride a bike will you bayonet him?

And that's the problem we have over there. Most of the people there, regardless of education, social class or economic status, are stuck in an Old Testament world. They happen to be Muslim, but they could be Hindu or Christian just as easily. Their problem is that the Western view of individual rights is as alien to them as their view of women as cattle and their religion being the only one that can be tolerated is to us. And even the 'enlightened' ones, who don't really feel that way, are their sons, daughters, etc.

So we are simply not gong to win their hearts and minds. And Democracy in a country full of people who simply cannot grasp that everyone doesn't have to believe or act the same as everyone else is a really stupid idea.

A 150 years ago, in a Democracy, people in this country could legally own people of another race. A 100 years ago, those who have a uterus could not vote. 50 years ago, those who could be drafted to war could not legally vote against those who sent them.

A Democracy is controlled, in a country full of people who are willing to commit to vote, by the sentiment of the people at any given time. So in a country full of hate and rigid idealism, the people could easily vote to outlaw any religion they wanted to simply by amending their constitution, legally, and could also legally vote for death as the punishment for violating that law. Or legally vote that a woman could be stoned in the street for talking to any male non relative, etc. I mean, France is a Democracy, and they're not exactly our BFFs.

So IMO the US needs to either stay completely out of their business while protecting Israel, or if we do wage war, then we need to wage WAR, not a police action or a 'limited engagement'. They're not going to love us or understand us and they don't fear us nearly enough. They actually believe that they can win. Because we've been so concerned with 'collateral damage' that we've handcuffed ourselves into making it a door to door fight.

Round them up and funnel them into internment camps and not allow anything more dangerous than a steak knife into their appointed area and kill the $%$#% out of anything that doesn't want to go where they're told to go. Any unauthorized thing that gets to within a mile of a camp dies. If they shoot from a building, don't send in a fire team or a squad of our best and brightest, who have already been at war for a decade. Level the block with an FAE. There's no glory in being killed a thousand to one. They're no more zealous than the Nazis or Japanese were. The difference is that we keep waging war like it's supposed to be a damned seventeenth century duel instead of the mismatch it is and should be.

Hussein was a crazy, sadistic SOB. So was Stalin. But a quote by Stalin sums up the way to wage war IMO : "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic".

Just my rant.

[suncat05]

Your interpretation of the solution is a lot more eloquent than mine. I have said from Day One..........Kill them ALL! Kill them and keep killing them until their will to fight is broken, or until they're all dead. It's that simple. It really is. And we should start in Persia. That is where the braintrust of the entire problem is.

The Israelis see it this way. Why can't we? It all boils down to it being a simple problem with a simple solution.

[suncat05]

Of course, to be 100% legally and morally correct about this, Congress should get off its dead a$$ and declare war on these cockroaches as it should have been done to start with. I still to this day do not understand WHY President Bush did not ask for a formal Declaration of War. We knew who did it within hours of the event, so what's the problem?
And why would they want to circumvent the legal & correct way to deal with the problem? Money? Either way there will be plenty of money to be made. Just declare war on them and take the fight to them in their homes, and away from ours.

[CitizenBBN]

Interesting analogy with the civil war. I like it.

The thing many people can't do is remove themselves from their frame of reference completely enough to put themselves in a whole other culture. In the Civil War for example, the truth is that it wouldn't have occurred to them to be as offended as they were, even if they were anti-slavery.

Even among the most 'extreme' anti-slavery leaders almost none would have been OK with something like interracial marriage, or even really accept that minorities were "equal". Deserving of basic liberties maybe, but their personal equal? Very few were there, very few. The ethics of the anti-slavery debate were very different at that time than how we see them today.

See your reference to women not being able to vote, and you should see the laws on their property rights at that time. Their laws on all kinds of things that we'd never accept today.

Just a whole different morality. No, no one raised in that world from birth would think like someone does today. They may see injustices in their world no doubt, from slavery to suffrage to everything in between, but it still wouldn't be framed in today's terms and expectations.

Same in other parts fo the world. Corruption is accepted as a given, a totally acceptable perk of getting a government job. The idea that women are truly equal is non-existent in many parts of the world, and the idea that we are all born with inalienable rights that cannot be subjugated to the group will is REALLY nonexistent in much of the world.

That's why America is the Great Experiment. We were the first to embrace that crazy notion and outside of the western world that has largely adopted that notion it's still not a truism for most people.

In fairness there are other philosophical systems out there. IN those systems the individual is subservient to the state and those are all legitimate systems. I disagree with them, but in other parts of the world our notion of individuals being ahead of the group is seen as selfish and irresponsible, and a pipe dream.

We're trying to convince people who are in many cases still tribally based to accept 21st century notions of individual rights. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. we want to advance our view of the rights of man, but we'll have to start where they are now, and not jump a few centuries.

FWIW not all of that region is like that at all. It's a mix. Some areas are more western, some more tribal, some in the middle. there are nations like Egypt that are definitely not Western but are far from tribal, but out in the Libyan outback or rural Iraq it's very tribal.

In essense, when in Rome do as the Romans, or at least speak Latin.

[Doc]

I once accidentally sent a selfie to my daughter that was meant for my wife. Man, was I embarrassed!