Mass SNAFU

Mark Steyn: Some thoughts on Afghanistan

Some quotes from Mark Steyn's latest piece on Afghanistan and our unengaged president:

"Stanley McChrystal is a liberal who voted for Obama and banned Fox News from his HQ TV. Which may at least partly explain how he became the first U.S. general to be lost in combat while giving an interview to Rolling Stone: They’ll be studying that one in war colleges around the world for decades."

"To return to [Washington Post's, Richard] Cohen’s question: “Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?” Well, he’s a guy who was wafted ever upward from the Harvard Law Review to state legislator to United States senator without ever lingering long enough to accomplish anything. “Who is this guy?” Well, when a guy becomes a credible presidential candidate by his mid-forties with no accomplishments other than a couple of memoirs, he evidently has an extraordinary talent for self-promotion, if nothing else. “What are his core beliefs?” It would seem likely that his core belief is in himself. It’s the “nothing else” that the likes of Cohen are belatedly noticing."

"Hey, never mind: Moveon.org have quietly disappeared their celebrated “General Betray Us” ad from their website. Cindy Sheehan, the supposed conscience of the nation when she was railing against Bush from the front pages, is an irrelevant kook unworthy of coverage when she protests Obama. Why, a cynic might almost think the “anti-war” movement was really an anti-Bush movement, and that they really don’t care about dead foreigners after all."

Moderate Taliban execute 7 year old

 

Remember when Captain Kickass wanted to reach out to “moderate” Taliban in an effort to improve the military operation in Afghanistan?  Yeah, we were going to reason with them because, as we all know, Islamic extremists who want to kill Americans are pretty easy to reason with. 

Well, unless your a 7 year old and they think you’re an infidel spy.  Because then there is no reasoning.

From The Times of India via Gateway Pundit:

Suspected Taliban militants executed a seven-year-old boy in southern Afghanistan after accusing him of spying for the government, a provincial official said Wednesday.

The child was captured by the militants in Sangin district of southern province of Helmand Tuesday, Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said.

“The militants killed the seven-year-old boy in Heratiyan village of the district, on charges of espionage for Afghan government,” Ahmadi said, citing information provided to police by relatives.

Isn’t it strange that Captain Kickass would be open to dialogue with animals that commit heinous acts like this but will not reach out to the CEO of BP in an effort to improve that situation?

VP Joe Biden delivered today at Arlington

I must say, Crazy Uncle Joe filled in nicely today at the wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  

While the VP was giving his speech, President Obama – who skipped the Arlington ceremony to keep a promise of returning home to Chicago every six weeks, or something – was rained out at his Memorial Day speech in his hometown.  Somehow that is very fitting.  

Anyway, via Mediaite, here's that Crazy Uncle of ours:

As I watched Biden’s speech I couldn’t help but picturing Obama speaking the same words – and picturing myself not believing a word of what he was saying.  Biden in contrast, comes across as a relatively simple man (and I mean that in a good way) and not a product of a liberal academia that promotes such disdain against our military.  

As misguided as his views may be and regardless of how dumb he may come across, Joe Biden has a down to Earth feel about him and you genuinely feel the VP respects our troops.  I thought what he said today - regardless of who actually wrote it - was from the heart.

Interestingly enough, I haven’t felt that from a liberal politician since I saw this video.

So, nice job Crazy Uncle Joe.  You done did good today and made America proud!

Record low!

A new low in the passion index:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-five percent (45%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22. That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for this president (see trends).

An interesting subset of the poll is the breakdown in support by gender:

Among men, 20% Strongly Approve and 50% Strongly Disapprove. Among women, those numbers are 27% and 40%.

That's some serious dissatisfaction by men with half strongly disapproving.  That does not bode well for The One. Not to mention, that this oil spill – and the lack of a federal response – is going to hurt as we move forward.  If this thing isn’t plugged soon, Obama may surpass Bush’s poll numbers at the end of his 2nd term, and that is not what Team Obama had in mind two months ago.

Blumenthal: After consulting with my strategists and looking at the polls, I am now really, really sorry

Nothing quite says “sorry” like an apology days after a stern denial.  After the initial strategy of deny and deceive failed miserably via polling data that showed a very unimpressed public, Connecticut Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal has decided that he is actually very sorry for fabricating his service record in Vietnam:

A week after initially expressing "regret" for exaggerations about his Vietnam service, Connecticut state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) issued another apology for his past statements.

"I have made mistakes and I am sorry," Blumenthal said in a statement released Sunday night to the Hartford Courant. "I truly regret offending anyone,'' Blumenthal said. "I will always champion the cause of Connecticut's and our nation's veterans."

Blumenthal's second bite at the apology apple seems to be an acknowledgment that his press conference last Tuesday did not -- as many Democrats insisted it had -- put the issue of his service, which was first raised in a New York Times story, to rest.

What a scumbag.  You can donate to his opponent's campaign here.

The Obama amateur hour continues unabashed to the consequences of their stupidity

 

Hmmm.  What else can we do to to weaken America’s exceptional status in the world?  Oh I know, let’s release our top-secret missile test and satellite launch data to the entire world.  I mean I’m sure everyone else will do the same with their military secrets, right?

Umm. No. Via Fox Nation:

President Obama has decided to pre-announce to the world once-secret American ballistic missile tests and satellite launches.

The Democratic administration's goal is to show a friendlier face to other countries and to coax Russia to do the same.

It's part of a confidence-boosting initiative launched, so to speak, last fall when Obama suddenly abandoned the U.S. missile-defense system in Eastern Europe that had exercised the Russians, though it was aimed at potential future missiles from Iran.

Obama hoped such a unilateral U.S. forfeiture would encourage Russia to put pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear weapons development. So far no good on that.

This just goes to show the complete disconnect from the radical left and real world scenarios.  To weaken our standing in the world for some naive utopian attempt to bring peace through weakness is just completely insane – and dangerous.

It’s moves like this that bring to mind one of my favorite quotes:

"Let's just stipulate that Obama is the greatest Democratic failure on the national stage since Carter. He will go down in history as a placeholder between the Bush 9/11 years and the transformative economic and foreign policies of the 45th president, a Republican." - Gabriel Malor via Ace of Spades

The Obama disconnect resurfaces while commenting on the beheading of Daniel Pearl

In the video below, President Obama tells reporters that the death of NY Times reporter Daniel Pearl - at the hands of terrorists -  “captured the world’s imagination.”  Memo to The One – a release of a new iPhone captures the world’s imagination, not beheadings by Islamic radicals:

I watched that video and the last thing it did was “capture” my imagination.  I was horrified at the brutality and literally sickened by it.  If I “imagined” anything it was how the U.S. would “capture” those animals and execute them in a similar fashion. 

Thankfully, they were captured but unfortunately have been living for far too long is U.S. custody and have been granted all the comforts of home as they await civilian trials for an unspeakable war crime.

As always, there was no mention of terrorist, jihad or Islamic radicals from Obama just some comments on his birdie on the 15th yesterday.  With recent history in mind, the only other thing missing from Obama was some sort of apology to Muslims. 

US troops remake themselves some Lady Gaga

A group of US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan did a remake of Lady Gaga's hit song "telephone" - in their spare time, haters - and that sh*t has gone viral:

God Bless the United States of America!

Know thy enemy...

 

…and know they’re nuts:

A senior Iranian cleric has claimed that dolled-up women incite extramarital sex, causing more earthquakes in Iran, a country that straddles several fault lines, newspapers reported on Saturday.

"Many women who dress inappropriately ... cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes," Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi told worshippers at Tehran Friday prayer.

What could possibly go wrong with Iranian leaders focused on religious extremism – who by the way, think extramarital sex causes natural disasters – acquiring nuclear weapons?  At least we have a strategy for that when it happens. 

Oh right, we don’t have a strategy for that.  According to a memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates leaked to the NY Times, it seems The One was convinced his Hopenchange schtick – combined with his exceptional teleprompter skills, charm, and Happy Ramadan YouTube vids – could make the nutty Iranians reverse course and cease their quest to develop nuclear weapons:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document. […]

Mr. Gates has taken a crucial role in formulating the administration’s strategy, and he has been known over his career to issue stark warnings against the possibility of strategic surprise.

Some officials said his memo should be viewed in that light: as a warning to a relatively new president that the United States was not adequately prepared.

He wrote the memo after Iran had let pass a 2009 deadline set by Mr. Obama to respond to his offers of diplomatic engagement. […]

Mr. Gates’s memo appears to reflect concerns in the Pentagon and the military that the White House did not have a well prepared series of alternatives in place in case all the diplomatic steps finally failed.

So diplomacy – with people who think hot chicks cause earthquakes – isn’t working and we never had a Plan B?  Think Hillary would have had a Plan B?  How about McCain?  How about your city council?  Board of selectmen?  PTA?  Neighborhood beautification committee? Yeah, they all would have had a Plan B.

Chalk this one up to inexperience, narcissism, and a complete f*cking ignorance to what foreign policy is all about.

We are truly in the best of hands.

“Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.” - US President Barack Obama

Think that statement sheds some light onto the thinking of our president?  He really said it.  Here's the proof: