COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

The New York Times reports:

President Obama told Congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially reduce American forces in Afghanistan or shift the mission to just hunting terrorists there, but he indicated that he remained undecided about the major troop buildup proposed by his commanding general.

The truth, however, is that Obama is undecided about the major troop buildup he himself proposed during the campaign.

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 hasn't articulated a contrary position since that time. McChrystal came out in support of the only guidance Obama has publicly given so far. Truth be told, it was Biden, not McChrystal, who 'put his cock on the anvil' arguing a position contrary to the President. It was Biden, not McChrystal, who was "off the reservation," with his proposal.

Biden should keep his council private and use the chain of command. If Biden really has a problem with the Commander-in-chief, he should resign now, and then he can go as public as he likes.

Democrats, of course, philosophically hold the same position -- and blame McChrystal.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Afghanistan, Army, Biden, foreign policy, McChrystal, Obama, Politics, soldiers' issues, War on Terror, Warfighting

...then who will answer the call?

It's official. The U.S. is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" or in a "global war."

President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism.

The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda."

I guess his pal Bill Ayers put him up to this.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: foreign policy, language, Obama, The Left, War on Terror

...And like shit through a goose, the irony is totally lost on our spender-in-chief and his dimwit team of speechwiters.

Labels: Africa, business, Economics, finance, foreign policy, Obama, taxes

The increasingly unhinged Matt Yglesias is at it again, this time leveling his sights on those evil Jew neocons, spreading their wicked ideologies like a cancer on the body politic.

It’s actually true that neocon bashing is a bit on the tiresome side. That said, I think it really has to be understood as a vital social necessity. Adherents of a deranged and sociopoathic “neocon” conception of America’s role in the world continue to be tremendously influential in our society. They have columns at The Washington Post and dominate the foreign policy coverage on Fox News. They have The Weekly Standard and Commentary and a healthy slice of The New Republic. And most important, as best as anyone can tell their ideas remain utterly dominant in the Republican Party.

The JOOOOOS! The JOOOOOOOOS are infesting our media!

Seriously, Matt. Sociopathic?? I'm not sure just how many layers of arrogance and idiocy to peel back, here. But let's start by saying that both the terms neoconservative and sociopathic have meanings. And Matt clearly has a twisted, lazy-man libtard idea of both of those definitions.

There is simply no way on earth that neoconservatism can be expressed or labeled sociopathological. None.

Look:

From Dictionary.com:

–noun Psychiatry.
a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

Neoconservative:

–noun
moderate political conservatism espoused or advocated by former liberals or socialist

s.

Ok, I guess there may be some pathology imported from libtards and socialists. But that's an unsatisfying definition. In order to be a meaningful geopolitical model, neoconservatism must have a definition beyond that of describing the former persuasions of its adherents. I submit this definition from Wikipedia:

Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States of America, and which supports using American economic and military power to bring liberalism, democracy, and human rights to other countries.

Close enough to be useful. And clearly, as far as batshit-whacked libtards are concerned, there is nothing more clearly sociopathological, nothing that bespeaks the lack of a moral compass or sense of social responsibility, then the belief that the US should spread liberalism, democracy, and respect for human rights to the rest of the world. JFK was clearly, as far as Yglesias must be concerned, a sociopath.

Yglesias lets the mask slip: Sure, you can make a case that neoconservatism is misguided, that it doesn't work in practice, that those swarthy brown little sub-human ragheads overseas are not ready for democracy and they will only devolve into a howling mob of Israel-hating, genocidal whackjobs. I don't believe any of those things are necessarily true, but one could build and argue a respectful and rational case for them.

But the ONLY way anyone could seriously assert that neoconservatism is pathological is if they actually hated Western values.

Yglesias has already demonstrated himself so full of shit he can't draw a distinction between the Bush White House and the inhuman, brutal, murderous thugocracy in power in North Korea.


Splash, out

Jason

EDIT: I should note that I do think there have been true sociopaths in public life. William Ayers would be one example. Marion Barry.

Unlike Yglesias, I know what words mean, I don't throw words around lightly, and I don't use specific diagnoses as a political club without understanding the term.

Back in my reporting days, there would be no way I could get away with that garbage. Because I had real editors who cared about the truth. (That's you, Adam, Maggie, and John!). I don't know who the adult supervision is at The Atlantic, but I'd get pretty tired of lazy-assed hatchet men like Sullivan and Yglesias screwing up my brand pretty fast.

This guy needs an editor.

Labels: bloggers, foreign policy, The media, Yglesias

John F. Kennedy: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge—and more."

Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Barack Obama:"“It’s not productive, given the history of the US-Iranian relationship, to be seen as meddling,”

Labels: foreign policy, Iran, Obama, Politics, War on Terror

Here's John Bolton on the subject:

Conservative foreign and national-security policies do not need remaking, rebranding or remessaging. They need not be escorted by prefixes or adjectives, nor do they need "moderating."

Conservative foreign policy is unabashedly pro-American, unashamed of American exceptionalism, unwilling to bend its knee to international organizations, and unapologetic about the need for the fullest range of dominant military capabilities. Its diplomacy is neither unilateralist nor multilateralist, but chooses its strategies, tactics, means and methods based on a hard-headed assessment of U.S. national interests, not on theologies about process. Most especially, conservatives understand that allies are different from adversaries, and that each should be treated accordingly.

Though I speak with a big stick, with the tongues of neocons and classical liberals, and have not strength, I sound as a hand-wringing loon or a screeching hippie. And though I have the gift of gab, and understand women, and ragheads, and though I have all faith in the power of words and soft rhetoric, so that I could move mountains, and have not strength, it avails me nothing. And though we transfer aid to the poor, and food to the starving, and though we give our soldiers' lives to be sacrificed for the liberty of others, and have nonot strength, it avails us nothing.

Strength suffers long, and is mostly kind. It envies not, and vaunts not itself, which is what that whole Teddy Roosevelt thing was about. It is not puffed up. It does not behave unseemly, but does keep an accounting of wrongs. It seeks not its own, but aquires targets. It rejoiceth not in iniquity, but shit happens. It can kill all things, break all things, destroy all things, blast all things.

Strength never fails. But where there are diplomats, they may fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease, and where there shall be weakies, they shall vanish away in a pink mist. There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. But when that which is strong shall come, that which is weak will vanish away.

When I was a libtard, I understood as a libtard. But now I am a man, and it is time to put away liberal things. '

For we saw through the optics, darkly. But now we are within small-arms range. And now abide peace, hope and strength, these three. But the greatest of these is strength.

I think I fudged the ending a little.

Labels: Bolton, foreign policy, State Department, War on Terror

That's right. The Obama administration, so exquisitely sensitive to the risk that a visit to the graves of our honored dead in Normandy might potentially offend the Germans, appoints rejection-waiting-to-happen Caroline Kennedy, an apostate Catholic who has publicly rejected Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life, as ambassador to the Vatican.

The Vatican, of course, tells Obama to pound sand.

Smart. Nuanced.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Catholicism, Democrats, foreign policy, Obama, State Department, stupid

Drop Dead.

White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President.

French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery discussing how the two presidents might follow the same route. But even before their trip, the White House had decided that Mr Obama would not travel there this week.

"It wasn't going to happen," said an American official in Washington. "We went through the motions to placate President Sarkozy but giving special treatment to France was not on our agenda.

Good idea. Slap Sarkozy across the face in order to justify slighting our honored dead. Yeah. That will make Merkle trust us more.

I'm with http://www.cassyfiano.com/2009/04/obama-visit-normandy-naaaah

Apparently, our genius president doesn’t understand that visiting Normandy has nothing whatsoever to do with giving special treatment to France. It’s about honoring the sacrifices of American heroes who died on that beach, who sacrificed their lives to stop the onslaught of evil.

Labels: foreign policy, Obama, soldiers' issues, stupid, veterans, WWII

Or your lying eyes!!!!??

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Video at the Ace link.

If I were the reporter, I'd out that rat. No source who lied to me had his anonymity guaranteed. Any reporter who does that is asking to be a tool.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: foreign policy, Obama, stupid

The indespensable Abu Muqawamba has liveblogged the highlights.

Labels: budget, DoD, foreign policy, Politics

Our President, answering an Austrian reporter's question:

"I don't know what the term is in Austrian."

But what's even funnier? The press's adoring coverage of the gaffe:

Headline:

Obama Again Invokes Personal Diplomacy to Avert NATO Stalemate

Lede: President Barack Obama waded into a diplomatic stalemate for the second time on his European trip and once again succeeded in bringing his more senior peers into harmony.

It's like reading a Nork press release describing the Dear Leader's daily bowel movement.

And what was the price extracted from the west? A groveling apology to the Muslim world for printing some cartoons.

Smart. Tough. I don't know what the word is in Luxembese.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: foreign policy, Obama, Obama Glurge, The media

Let's sell out the Poles, and humiliate the British. Then we'll reach out to "moderate Taliban," whoever the f*ck they are.

Great plan!

Labels: Afghanistan, foreign policy, Obama, stupid, War on Terror

Slam drunk.

Labels: Bush, foreign policy, Intelligence, Judaism, Politics

Compare and contrast this paragraph

Barack Obama's White House campaign angrily denied Monday a report that he had secretly urged the Iraqis to postpone a deal to withdraw US troops until after November's election.

...with this paragraph from later in the same story:

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

So it is true.

Obama was freelancing, engaging in his own personal foreign policy without co-ordinatng with the executive branch. Indeed, according to his own spokesperson, he was engaging a foreign government in actively trying to subvert and sabotage the foreign policy of the United States.

If this is true, then in my view, it is potentially grounds for impeachment.

It proves, also, that Obama does not have the maturity to be President of the United States. He certainly does not respect the constitutional role of the executive in formulating and carrying out foreign policy.

Legislators should not be visiting foreign governments and actively trying to weaken the hand of United States negotiators. Period. Obama wouldn't stand for it if he were president, either.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: foreign policy, International relations, Iraq, law, Obama