http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/06/16/obama_owns_what_s_happening_in_iraqObama Owns What's Happening in Iraq
June 16, 2014
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RUSH: Military Times: "Security at the US embassy in Baghdad was bolstered and some staff members were being moved out of Iraq's capital city as it was threatened by the advance of an Al-Qaeda inspired insurgency..." Would you believe there's even hashtag? This group's called ISIS, and there's a hashtag: #StopISISnow.
That was the one thing Obama didn't try last week was the hashtag, in his speech on Friday before leaving to play golf. Man, I'll tell you. What a weekend this guy had with his anti-global warming commencement address and going to play golf in Palm Springs while all this is going on. A lot of people are fit to be tied. Folks, I'm gonna tell you.
It's very hard for me to sit here, but I'm checking the e-mail during the break. There are so many people outraged over what's going on in Iraq. Understandably, but, you know, there's a part of me that says, "Look, what did you think was going to happen with people like this in charge of it? This has been..." I don't know. I don't know how to say this anymore. This has been my point ever since January of 2009.
I am saddened and outraged and angry about all of this that's happening. But I am not surprised by any of it. Okay, so about a hundred Marines and soldiers sent to Baghdad to help with embassy security. All you need to know is that we might end up having to rely on Iran to deal with this ISIS/Al-Qaeda insurgency in Iraq. I don't care what anybody tried to do...
The Regime and some in the media are gonna continue to try to blame this on Bush, but this is owned by Obama. He's the one who got out of there. By the way, there's a misconception going around. It's been going around since Friday. The misconception is that we got out of there in 2011 and the Iraqis demanded that we sign an exit letter claiming to get everybody out and that they weren't gonna be coming back.
That is not true.
Maliki asked us to maintain a force in Iraq from 2011 on. Not a combat force, not a force that's engaged, but one that would be at the ready should something happen. This is the result of Obama's foreign policy. What's happening in Iraq today is not because George Bush went in there. It's not because we didn't find weapons of mass destruction or any of that. That's ancient history.
What's happening in Iraq today is owned exclusively by the Obama administration, whether the media wants to say this or not. I don't know. The whole thing, all of this to me is so frustrating. Here's the AP: "The Islamic militants who overran cities and towns in Iraq last week posted graphic photos that appeared to show their gunmen massacring scores of captured Iraqi soldiers, while the prime minister vowed Sunday to 'liberate every inch' of captured territory.
"The pictures on a militant website appear to show masked fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, loading the captives onto flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The final images show the bodies of the captives soaked in blood after being shot at several locations."
AP is really soft-pedaling this.
The photos are horrifying, and they're all too authentic. If not for the Long War Journal posting the photos, the media would have loved to ignore them entirely. Speaking of which, where is the New York Times? Why aren't these photos on its front page above the fold? Apparently these photos of Iraqi soldiers being executed in trenches by the hundreds, they're not as horrible to the news media as the Abu Ghraib pictures.
The Abu Ghraib prisoner with a pair of women's panties on his head? Now, that was an outrage! That was unacceptable. That picture had to be seen and all of the Abu Ghraib pictures had to be seen, must be seen! The New York Times and the rest of the Drive-Bys couldn't wait to publish them. These?
Eh, they're not interested in any way, shape, manner or form. Which is proof positive that they fully understand in the media that Obama owns this, that this is his foreign policy that is resulting in what's happening in Iraq. I mean, hell, the guy has promised a date certain to be out of Afghanistan. He rang the bells and proclaimed victory and success when we got out of Iraq.
He signals when we are going to be at our weakest. I still maintain, by the way, as I said last week, that Iraq falling fits right into the Obama playbook. They do not think the media is gonna hold them accountable, and why would they? They're very confident, very comfortable that the media is gonna continue to blame all of this on George W. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld.
That's the point. If they can engineer that, the worst news possible out of Iraq is good news for them. Don't forget who we're dealing with here. We're dealing here with people who revel in military failure. We're dealing with people here who have a big chip on their shoulder where this country is concerned. You can hear it in Obama's remarks over the weekend.
He went to an Indian reservation and once again apologized, told the people there what a rotten place this country is. Not in so many ways, but the implication was clear. So they calculate a political benefit with Iraq falling apart. They may even calculate political benefit with Iran having to move in and so-called stabilize it.
Now, there's a Wall Street Journal piece: "Iraq Militants Claim Soldier Massacre, US-Iran Talks Near." Now, the bulk of this story in the Wall Street Journal is devoted to discussing the photos that ISIS posted online showing how they summarily executed over 1700 Iraqi soldiers. But the news that the Regime is going to discuss working with Iran in Iraq? That, to me, is almost as appalling as the pictures.
They practically mention this in passing as if it's the most natural thing in the world that we would be working with Iran to stabilize Iraq. If we're gonna work with Iran to stabilize Iraq, we may as well be sending engraved invitations to Iran to take over Iraq, which has been one of Iran's goals for decades.
"The radical Sunni militia that has plunged Iraq into chaos bragged on Sunday that it had executed hundreds of Shiite Iraqi soldiers, even as the Obama administration said it is preparing to open direct talks with Iran on how the two longtime foes can counter the insurgents. " Are you kidding me? We are gonna be working with the mullahs of Iran in order to find ways we can counter Al-Qaeda insurgents in Iraq?
Lord help us!
I don't know what to say. But I am gonna tell you, I'm gonna repeat again: Obama owns this. It is his direct failure. What's happening in Iraq is a straight-on failure of Obama to keep any kind of an American presence there, military presence. Now there are gonna be plenty of people saying, "Well, wait a minute, Rush. Obama couldn't keep military troops everywhere!
"The Iraqi government kicked us out and we wanted to get out of there in the first place." Look, doing something like that is a commitment of whatever it takes, otherwise it was pointless. I'm sure you've seen stories from some of the soldiers, Special Ops people, who tell us that their guts are being wrenched out watching this happen. They're asking themselves, "What in the world did we sacrifice all of that for?"
We're the only nation that can stop this kind of stuff, if we've got a leadership willing to do it and committed to do it, and apparently that's up for grabs.
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RUSH: We're starting in San Francisco on the phones. This is Mark. Thank you for waiting and welcome to the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, sir. It's an honor and a privilege. I am just outraged with the Iranian -- the concept of negotiating with Iran in Iraq. I mean, let's remember that those IEDs targeted at our soldiers came from Iran.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: We're gonna negotiate with Iran for the sake of Iraq? Our president's insane. I don't get it. Did he just come in? Help me here, Rush. I'm really starting to get frustrated.
RUSH: Join the club. I mean, your reaction's identical to mine. The way I heard it was not actually negotiate with Iraq. We're gonna ask Iran to go in there and try to calm things down, 'cause they're close by. We're not there. And you're exactly right. The IEDs that maimed tens of thousands of American troops were manufactured in Iran, sent to Iraq by Iran. Now, it's a total head scratcher and trying to make sense of it is one of the most frustrating things that you can engage in. And I guarantee you if you watch the Drive-Bys today, don't do it or you will hear how it makes sense. You'll hear them lay out how it's really a very smart thing to do here. Bring Iran into the fold, form an allied relationship with them.
originalWe've got big problems with Al-Qaeda and one of the greatest things in the world would be to align ourselves with the Iranians and our common enemy, Al-Qaeda, and who knows the beauty that could result. This is how it's gonna be treated in the Drive-Bys. The fact of the matter is the situation is dire, and I'll tell you what makes it dire. Right now everybody's focusing on kids crossing the US border in great numbers. But if kids are crossing in great numbers, so are a lot of adults. And given the motivation of this Al-Qaeda-related group, go into Iraq, try to exact revenge and recapture or capture in the first place, the country, don't think these people are not gonna come here.
Our border situation, with all of this talk of immigration reform and amnesty and no serious talk about border security, we face the possibility of untold numbers of militant Islamists pouring over the US border. They may even be holding European passports. Who knows. The next couple of years are gonna be really crucial where this is concerned. The open border situation has always been about much more than just illegal immigrants. Everybody gets focused on that, but if the border's wide open anybody can get in, anybody can make a push for it.
And if we're being flooded now in Border Patrol, Issa and everybody else happen to be focused on what do we do with the kids. We find military bases for them and libraries in Arizona, but people are also coming across who are not kids, maybe escaping attention. The border patrol is saying we can't handle what's happening now, leading a lot of people to think it's purposeful. And I have no doubt that it is.
Al-Qaeda's on the March, and see, this is something Obama can't allow in public perception because he ran for reelection in 2012 on the basis that he had vanquished them by virtue of getting bin Laden and other things. And so now for Al-Qaeda to be back, even a related Al-Qaeda group, they've gotta find a way to tamp that down. 'Cause, remember, it's all image and PR. It's not reality. It's whatever they can bend, shape, flake, and form, make you believe what's really happening. Potentially really dire consequences.
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