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Noah Rothman posts on the president’s “contemptibly casual war on ISIS.”
It was the gaffe so good, he made it twice. Apparently, the president does not see his shamelessly lackadaisical approach to conducting the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as a failure of which his administration should be ashamed. After conceding that he didn’t have a comprehensive ISIS strategy, much less one that would result in unambiguous victory, last August, President Barack Obama reiterated that admission on Monday.
The president’s admission in August, exactly 20 days after the start of renewed airstrikes in Iraq targeting ISIS, that “we don’t have a strategy yet” was met with shocked gasps and myriad disapproving opinion pieces. Many saw the fact that the commander-in-chief did not have a clear and executable strategy for victory even after sending American forces into combat as the height of irresponsibility. Today, exactly 10 months after the beginning of new coalition combat operations over Iraq, the president said that he still has no clear vision for victory in the war against ISIS.
“We don’t yet have a complete strategy,” Obama said at a press conference at the G-7 gathering in Germany, “because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis as well about how recruitment takes place, how that training takes place. And so the details of that are not yet worked out.”
It was deplorable that an American commander of the armed forces did not have a plan for victory after the fall of a major Iraqi city to a terrorist organization, but it is simply reprehensible for the president to continue to cling to a failing war plan even amid cascading losses. …
Perhaps the administration’s problems come from what Noemie Emery calls his lousy temperament.
… At home and abroad, Obama makes mistakes over and over, with the same result, and takes nothing from them. He disses his friends, placates aggressors and seems surprised that aggressors advance and whole regions catch fire.
He refuses to bargain with Congress, insults opponents, imposes unpopular policies by fiat and seems surprised when his measures result in court challenges, when polarization increases, opposition solidifies, divisions harden and gridlock prevails. Deal-making is the essence of politics, but Obama finds it demeaning, so he resorts to brute force when he has the means to (as in the still-festering matter of healthcare). Alternatively, as with immigration, Obama resorts to executive actions that stir angry resistance and are frequently halted by courts.
This has gone on since 2009, but Dana Milbank noticed only when Obama began slighting Democrats, whereupon he began taking offense. “Rather than accept that they have a legitimate beef, he shows public contempt for them,” the Washington Post columnist complains, writing that Obama dissed fellow Democrats to friendly reporters as being short-sighted and dense. (Of course, he’s done that for years to Republicans, but they seem not to matter.) If Franklin Roosevelt was described as having a commonplace intellect but a brilliantly tempered political character, Obama seems to be his ultimate opposite: A man with an intellect that delights the elite but a temperament that is counterproductive in matters of government. This combination seems to work much less well. …
Editors of the NY Post write on the president’s fictions of the day.
It’s plainly liberating for President Obama to simply deny reality and declare everything just peachy, as he did again Monday at the G7 summit in Germany. Sadly, reality’s not cooperating.
One of his fictions du jour: All’s well with ObamaCare. No joke. …
… Yet the biggest news is that Obama actually told the truth at one point Monday: “We don’t yet have a complete strategy” for training Iraqi forces to fight against ISIS.
Nine months and there’s still no strategy even just to train Iraqis?
By the time Team Obama comes up with one, there may no Iraqis left to train — given ISIS’s success in carving up Iraq and slaughtering anyone in its path.
It’s depressingly easy to see why Obama prefers fiction to reality.
More on President Delusional from Editors of Investor’s Business Daily.
President Obama was in Germany the last few days, but too many of his recent remarks sound like he’s been in high orbit — around another planet.
America has never been held in greater esteem than under Obama’s leadership. Counterterrorism worked well in Yemen until the emergency evacuation of embassy and Special Ops forces — and the loss of millions in arms.
The president’s half-hearted “war” on the Islamic State is also a “success.” As is ObamaCare, never been working better. Just as he promised.
Jobs are finally humming along with unemployment numbers down (because so many gave up looking). The economy actually shriveled in the first quarter, but that’s because of some unexpected phenomenon called winter.
The Mexican border is secure now because the president says so. Since Bill Clinton was already named the first black president, the actual first black president claims he’s given such staunch support to Israel that he’s in reality the first Jewish president. …
Kristin Roberts in National Journal says ISIS is not just Iraq’s problem it is also ours.
… According to Obama, arresting ISIS is an Iraqi responsibility.
This is dishonest. That he takes this position, however, is understandable. The man ushered into office in part on a promise to get America out of Iraq (and Afghanistan) does not want to be the man who did that only to watch that state fail and then go back in. …
… The United States—under Barack Obama or the next president—can choose to sit this out, to let Sunni fight Shia and then Wahhabi fight Sunni until some resolution is found. The risk associated with this option is that what remains standing could be the slave-holding, woman-raping, Christian- and Jew-killing territory known as the Islamic State, which will not pause to relish victory but instead set sights on Europe and the United States
Or the United States—under Barack Obama or the next president—can choose to engage aggressively, hoping that a greater assault than what’s being accomplished by U.S. airpower and on-the-ground training will stop ISIS from destroying the governments in the region that still take Washington’s calls. The cost of this choice is great: money and, more importantly, blood. …
… No matter the answer, that’s a more honest question to consider than whether the Iraqi army is trained well enough.
Michael Oren, historian, and for four years Israeli ambassador to the US, has written a book about the administration’s treatment of Israel during his tenure. John Podhoretz reviews.
… It’s not that there’s lots of breaking news in “Ally” that will startle people. Rather, it makes news on almost every page with its incredibly detailed account of the root hostility of the Obama administration toward the Jewish state.
What makes the details especially credible is that Oren is no flame-breathing Israeli right-winger but very much (and at times distressingly) an Establishment creature and one, moreover, who makes it clear he drank the Obama hope-and-change Kool-Aid in 2008. (Indeed, he now serves in Israel’s Knesset not as a member of Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud but of the new centrist Kulanu party.)
On major matters, the administration seemed to hold Israel accountable for problems it had nothing to do with.
Example: The Palestinian Authority made moves toward seeking a declaration of statehood at the United Nations in 2011, which would’ve triggered a law shutting down their US mission and suspending all aid to the PA and to UN agencies that recognized Palestine.
In response, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides called Oren into his fancy Foggy Bottom office and screamed at him: “You don’t want the f - - - ing UN to collapse because of your f - - - - ing conflict with the Palestinians, and you don’t want the f - - - king Palestinian Authority to fall apart either.”
To which Oren replied that Israel didn’t want the United Nations to collapse “but there are plenty of Tea Party types who would, and no shortage of Congress members who are wondering why they have to keep paying Palestinians who spit in the president’s eye.” …
Inquistitr.com runs the story of how the Red Cross raised half a billion dollars for Haiti disaster relief and built six homes. Sounds like heading up that organization will be a perfect fit for The Real Good Talker when he is done with creating havoc in our country and the world.
After the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, the American Red Cross has raised almost half a billion dollars in disaster relief to help the Caribbean country recover.
Since then, the charity organization publicly celebrated their efforts and claimed to have provided homes for more than 130,000 people in Haiti.
But a new report by ProPublica and NPR says otherwise.
The report brought to light not only the disarray behind the scenes of the organization — with emails from concerned top officers and accounts of frustration and disappointments from broken promises and squandered donations — but also the fact that only a total of six permanent houses were built with the money raised.
Red Cross had also launched a multi-million dollar project called LAMIKA, which was started in 2011 with the focus of building hundreds of permanent homes for Haitians in the poor Port-au-Prince area of Campeche.
However, today, not even one home has been built in the dismal neighborhood. Many residents continue to live in metal sheet shacks with no drinking water, electricity, or basic sanitation. …
To make up for missing a day and running too many items on President Trainwreck, we close with a double dose of Late Night Humor from Andy Malcolm.
Meyers: Hillary Clinton’s Super PAC has reportedly been struggling to raise money. It’s gotten so bad, they may have to start reaching out to Americans.
Fallon: The rapper 50 Cent said that he is going to be supporting Hillary Clinton for president. Hillary would be excited, but she doesn’t even get out of bed for less than a million cents.
Meyers: Vladimir Putin reportedly scored eight goals during a hockey game in Sochi recently. And the goalie only had one save: His own life.
Fallon: Obama has encouraged the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to be mindful of being a role model. Then Obama stubbed out his cigarette and went golfing at noon on a weekday.