Get on it … or get out!

I have been a staunch supporter of George W. Bush’s defense policies since he ordered our troupes into Afghanistan in October 2001. This means I also backed his decision to invade Iraq and to stick it out there through some very rough times. The Islamofacist ended up choosing Iraq as their “last stand” and Bush was right in sticking with the mission.

What I understood was that if we didn’t take the fight to our enemy, al-Qaeda and other radical Islamofacist groups, they would bring the fight to us, al-la 9/11. We had to bring order to those stateless regions that our enemies used as bases for training, such as Afghanistan and Somalia; areas where these crazies could control the local population and recruit other young crazies to go out and do jihad.

Several recent events have started to cause me to change my position on this now so-called War on Terror. I suppose I began to take another look following the terrorist attack at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, which I wrote about here.  The idea that the leaders in our military would allow someone with such seemingly radical beliefs, but more-so … actions, was rather a wake call to me. I had no idea that our military had changed so drastically in terms of its political correctness since my time in the Navy in the mid-1960′s. Mind you, bureaucracies protecting well-connected individuals within their ranks is older than Homer and the ancient Greek civilization.

What has been happening to our military is really nothing more than has been happening to our culture. We are becoming not only soft, our society is being feminized … emasculated. We have elected leaders that push this “kinder, gentler” crap not only on our institutions and society at large, but also on our military. From that, someone like Major Hasan is allowed to work within our most trusted institution at will.

The next event that continued to eat away at my belief that what we were going off kilter was when the AG, Eric Holder announced the government was going to bring Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the brains behind many terrorist attacks, including the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with four of his fellow jihadist to New York and put them on trial in Federal Court. As I said in my post on this,

There can be only one of three outcomes of such a show trial:

• The trial will end in acquittals for one or more of the terrorists, which will make the outcome of the first Rodney King trial look like a birthday party,
• The trial will end in a life sentence for the terrorists … the same outcome had they continued being held in Gitmo, or
• The terrorists will be sentenced to death, giving them the world stage on which to declare their martyrdom, enticing thousands of wanta-be jihadists to take up the cause for Allah.

There is no way of turning this around, with the possible exception of terrorists pulling off a successful attack on our shores before the trial opens. Oh wait … that already happened!

What ever the outcome at the conclusion of such a show trial … we lose.

A couple of weeks ago the news broke that three Navy SEALs were facing a courts-martial for splitting the lip of Ahmed Hashim Abed, thought to be behind the slayings and mutilation of four U.S. security contractors in Falluja, Iraq. They are facing charges based solely on the word of Abed. This is in the same context of the courts-martial of six US Marines in the infamous Haditha case, where they were accused of massacring Iraqi civilians, only in this case the accuser was a combatant. Both events were driven by politicians more interested in political correctness than in defeating those who wish our society dead.

Last Tuesday evening, Obama gave is lackluster speech on his plans for the future of our military presence in Afghanistan. While I was pleased he was going to at least somewhat meet General Stanley McChrystal’s request of another 40,000 to 60,000 troupes, his putting a timetable on our continued presence there without regard to results was stupid. When a Presidential candidate, he espoused the same “strategy” for Iraq. This whole notion of an “exit strategy” being anything other than victory is ludicrous. You don’t put the lives of those willing to put themselves into harms way at risk without being willing to do whatever it takes to win.

His delivery at West Point was not something that inspired the cadets in attendance. What must they have thought, they themselves actually going into harms way in the next one to four years? “Hmmm … this guy isn’t interested in what happens way over there in Afghanistan … do I really want to stick my neck out for someone who worries more about how much the war costs than he does about winning?” Obama is trying to find a way of getting out without being accused of losing the war. His real interests lie in defeating Americanism, not the Taliban,  al-Qaeda or Jihadism.

Lastly, on Thursday I read an article by Andy McCarthy where he laments the fact that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Louay Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). Read Andy’s article, but I suspect it will anger you just as it did me. More political correctness to be sure, but this has taken PC to a new height.

It has become blandly obvious that neither our political leaders nor our military leaders are serious about winning in Afghanistan, and possible anywhere else either. That said, why are we putting our best and brightest at risk or even in a position where they could be accused of a “crime” and potentially spend time in prison for doing what we sent them out to do in the first place? I now say start pulling them out and bring them all home. After all, we have already become what Osama Bin Laden accused us of being … the weak horse.

I’m afraid that the only thing that will bring back the resolve we had in the Autumn of 2001 is for us to suffer another major attack. However, if such an attack doesn’t happen, we will most likely end up being defeated the way Briton and France are being defeated today … by a fifth column of liberals and jihadist slowly taking away our freedoms, one Amendment at a time.

Beyond the Message

The day following Obama’s victory speech after his win in the Iowa Caucasus, I read the transcript. The speech was among the 10 best delivered speeches I’d ever heard, but I wanted to understand precisely what he said. I was flabbergasted! It was the emptiest speech I have ever encountered.

I had no illusion that I would ever support Obama’s run for the presidency, but I thought it important I listen to the man, and following Iowa I listened to maybe two or three more speeches in full. After that I couldn’t take it any more. I came to the conclusion he was an empty suit, full of platitudes and a lot of talk without saying a thing. Later I found it more and more difficult to withstand an entire speech … until tonight.

I do not believe the politicos in Washington have taken our presence in Afghanistan seriously for several years and our service men have taken a beating as a result, both physically and emotionally. So I wanted to watch Obama tonight and see what had taken him so long to decide.

I suppose you could accurately say my expectations were not very high and I wasn’t disappointed.  Of the pundits I’ve read over the last couple of hours, Victor Davis Hansen best captures my read on what was said:

That was such a strange speech. Deploring partisanship while serially trashing Bush at each new talking point. Sending more troops, but talking more about when they will come home rather than what they will do to the enemy. There was nothing much new in the speech, yet apparently it took the president months to decide whether even to give it.

Ostensibly the talk was to be on Afghanistan; instead, the second half mostly consisted of the usual hope-and-change platitudes.

Still, the president, to his credit, is trying to give the best picture of the Afghanistan war. Obama started well in his review of why George Bush removed the Taliban. But that disinterested narrative lasted about two minutes. Then came the typical Obama talking points that characterize his reset-button foreign policy and don’t offer a high degree of confidence that our commander in chief wants to defeat the enemy or believes that he can win the war:

Be sure and read his entire take. It captures classic Obama.

Back to Obama and his actual delivery … I actually watched the entire speech, and I really mean watched. I saw something I had not noticed before, even understanding he relies heavily on Teleprompter. He began the speech looking toward the audience on his left and from that point forward, his head moved from the left to the right and back, never looking at the audience directly in front of him … just left to right and back to left.

He was reading! Reading his teleprompter! Left … to right… and back. READING!!!!

It is no wonder his speeches are so “intellectual,” delivered in “such measured tones,” “thoughtful.” “measured,” and so-forth. His doesn’t deliver passionate, heartfelt speeches because … he’s reading the words, not feeling a message!

I’m going to force myself to watch his next speech and I expect that the moment he stops shifting back and forth, left to right and back, and starts looking directly into the camera (not at the audience directly in front of him), the speech is about to come to an end and he has reached the only part of the speech he’s memorized, as he did tonight.

Lastly … I felt his discussion of how he has personally “seen first hand the terrible wages of war,” “traveled to Dover,” “visited soldiers at Walter Reid,” was about the most self-serving statements a so-called Commander-in-Chief has ever uttered!  PLEASE!!!

An empty suit! What a phony.