http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2014/09/03/obama-settles-isis-strategy-incoherence/Obama Settles On ISIS Strategy: Incoherence
by Keith Koffler on September 3, 2014, 11:11 am
Someone, please, make it stop.
It’s as if my neighbor became president somehow, and I saw him getting the newspaper – not that anyone gets the newspaper anymore – and I said, Hey, I heard you got a new job, what are doing now? and he said, OMG, I’m the effin President of the United States. It’s so cool!
Barack Obama is the Commander in Chief. He is currently sending men and women into war against ISIS. And he has no idea what he wants to do. He has no idea that he’s even in a war.
Let’s have a look at Obama’s pathetic utterances today in Estonia, starting with this:
We will not be intimidated!
Uhh, we’re the United States. They are a puny group of savages. Dangerous savages, who present a serious threat, but savages. It goes without saying that we will not be intimidated.
Now, let’s get to the meaty stuff, an exchange today between Obama and Ann Comptom of ABC News. Asked about ISIS, the president first threw in a little Blame-Bush stuff:
Because of what’s happened in the vacuum of Syria, as well as the battle-hardened elements of ISIS that grew out of al Qaeda in Iraq during the course of the Iraq war, it’s going to take time for us to be able to roll them back.
Forgive him. It’s a habit, like his Nicorette. He can’t help himself.
And now, the attempt to erase bad memories of his proclamation last week that he’s still thinkin’ on that ISIS strategy thing:
So the bottom line is this: Our objective is clear, and that is to degrade and destroy ISIL so that it’s no longer a threat not just to Iraq but also the region and to the United States. In order for us to accomplish that, the first phase has been to make sure that we’ve got an Iraqi government that’s in place and that we are blunting the momentum that ISIL was carrying out. And the airstrikes have done that.
Degrade and destroy. WELL WHICH IS IT??? These are not the same thing. Did Churchill ever say, We shall degrade them on the beaches? Did Reagan ever say, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down part of this wall!
You can see, and our enemies can surely perceive, that Obama’s heart isn’t in this. He has to equivocate by throwing in some garbage about “degrading” the enemy. It’s the same kind of language he used about our fight against the Taliban, who are still very much in business.
Compton picked right up on the problem:
COMPTON: Did you just say that the strategy is to destroy ISIS, or to simply contain them or push them back?
OBAMA: What we can do is to make sure that the kind of systemic and broad-based aggression that we’ve seen out of ISIL that terrorizes primarily Muslims, Shia, Sunni — terrorizes Kurds, terrorizes not just Iraqis, but people throughout the region, that that is degraded to the point where it is no longer the kind of factor that we’ve seen it being over the last several months . . .
We know that if we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem.
Shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence? Reduce its effectiveness? MAKE IT A MANAGEABLE PROBLEM?
When Napoleon was luxuriating in Moscow, did the Tsar vow to make him a manageable problem? No, he sent him staggering back to France with the remnants of his starving, dirty, freezing, decimated troops, never to return.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl picked up on this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcnnbXJ4DJUOh, and by the way, there’s still no ISIS-in-Syria strategy:
And last week when this question was asked, I was specifically referring to the possibility of the military strategy inside of Syria that might require congressional approval.
It is very important from my perspective that when we send our pilots in to do a job, that we know that this is a mission that’s going to work, that we’re very clear on what our objectives are, what our targets are; we’ve made the case to Congress and we’ve made the case to the American people; and we’ve got allies behind us so that it’s not just a one-off, but it’s something that over time is going to be effective.
That is, we’re not yet “very clear on what our objectives are.”
This is not leadership. This is especially not military leadership. This is some guy being president leadership. Some guy who keeps talking, but hasn’t stopped to do the discipline of thinking.
Unfortunately, this guy, and his undisciplined, hesitant, and ultimately fearful mind, is responsible for our lives, those of our children, and the future of our country.
They wouldn’t believe this at the White House, but I’d much rather be reporting to you that Obama had settled on a strategy for defeating our enemy, ISIS, and was prosecuting it with relentless, cruel determination. That he had suddenly transformed himself into a great man. But that would be like asking my neighbor to lead the country.
