Jimmy Carter's Spiritual Son
I don't know what else to call Senator Barack Obama as his foreign policy vision continues to squeeze out into the light of campaign day.
Well, that's not quite true; there are two escalatingly more visceral synonyms I could use, but as I'm not African-American, I'm disqualified from using them.
Let's tally it up, shall we? Obama has publicly proclaimed....
1) his intention to summarily and immediately abandon Iraq to Iran and al Qaeda, the first time, according to noted historian and NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson, that an entire American army has ever been voluntarily withdrawn from a field of battle on which it has not been defeated;
2) his intention to bow down and kiss the asses of our worst enemies directly, personally, "unilaterally," and without precondition;
3) and now, in a speech given just this morning, his intention to attack Pakistan if outgoing President Pervez Musharraf does not immediately "evict" al Qaeda and Talibanites from its territory:
Lest there be any doubt about the punitive nature of Obama's proto-threat, the Admiral directs us to Obama's own campaign website:
Is this guy frakking nuts? This goes way, way beyond Obama's meager political resume, his increasingly notorious penchant for flaming gaffes, and the very arrogant effrontry of the callow youth who only a few years ago was a nobody local Clintonoid vote-hustler in Chicago thinking he is qualified to, and entitled to become, the President of the United F'ing States. One does not have to be a sitting U.S. senator of any tenure who ran for that office functionally unopposed or have been elected nine times running to grasp the madness of such a scheme - to say nothing of the irony.
Let us, again, count the ways:
1) I was going to save this one for last, but I just can't wait that long: PAKISTAN IS AN ALLY, NOT AN ENEMY!!! Good God Almighty, Obama wants to sit across the table from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - AN ENEMY!!! - and give away Iraq plus putting Israel, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf states, etc. on consignment, but he gives both middle fingers to Pervez Musharraf - A FRIEND!!! (or as much of one as we're going to find in that part of the world) - and all but promises to convert him, and his country, into an enemy. Which, I guess, means that only then will President Obama be willing to give diplomacy a chance.
If this sounds an awful lot like a louder, bang-bangier version of the way Jimmy Carter turned a vital strategic friend (the Shah of Iran) into an enemy (by throwing him under the Ayahtollahs' bus), go to the head of the class and collect your good noodle gold star.
2) Does attacking Pakistan not qualify as the ultimate "elective, unnecessary war"?
3) Does attacking Pakistan not ensure that the Islamists will overthrow Musharraf (if he's still in power) or Benizir Bhutto if she returns to the old premiership? I thought we wanted to keep nuclear weapons OUT of the hands of al Qaeda.
4) Would not a successor (and bloodthirsty) Islamist regime be very likely to use those nuclear weapons against our invading forces and naval assets in the Arabian Sea?
5) From where would we launch this invasion? To take Obama at his word, it would be coming from Afghanistan. Which, in terms of topography, would be the military equivalent of going to a proctologist to have one's wisdom teeth removed. Northwest Pakistan is dauntingly mountainous, which is a big reason why a retreating al Qaeda and Taliban holed up there in the first place. It is the antithesis of the flat, open tank country that greeted us in southern Iraq. That ground is to be found in the south of Pakistan, the only part of the country where a serious invasion could possibly be carried out.
However, even if the operation went smooth as crap through a goose, we'd still roll up against those same mountains, and find ourselves in the exact same position that Musharraf has been in for the past six years - trying to root out an entrenched enemy on terrain ideally suited to defense.
6) How many troops do we have in Afghanistan? Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten to fifteen thousand, right? Think there might be a reason for that? (See #5)
7) If the 160,000 or so troops Generalissimo Obama is going to use for this military misadventure are coming from Iraq, wouldn't that be a rather large logistical undertaking? Are there the facilities in Afghanistan to handle that big an influx of U.S. troops? Given that our forces in Afghanistan are resupplied via overflights of Pakistan, what exactly would happen to the lines of communication of the troops we have there now, much less all the ones "redeployed" from Iraq? And wouldn't such a "redeployment" be harder to conceal than Rosie O'Donnell in a thong? Couldn't that end up toppling Musharraf and/or Bhutto all by itself before "Operation Appalling Idiocy" could get off the drawing board?
8) Forget serious analysis, because this isn't a serious proposal. It's complete BS. Nobody with three brain cells to rub together will ever believe that a president who wants to quit Iraq in ignominous, self-inflicted defeat is going to turn around and storm a nuclear-armed country of 160 million people and a maximum armed force of some thirty-nine million soldiers. Unless Obama is planning to go nuclear first. Hell, since this is a piece of empty "See, I do too have a big penis!!!" posturing meant as PR Viagra after his "World Prostration Tour 2009" f-up, he should have included nuclear sabre-rattling in the speech. I'd wager he'd believe it might even attract him some "red state" votes.
There's only one genuinely serious question to ask of the Barack Obama presidential candidacy after this "strikingly bold" pile of rhetorical dog feces: Is he trying to bungle himself out of the #2 spot on Hillary!'s ticket? 'cause he's certainly yammering himself in that direction.
Well, that's not quite true; there are two escalatingly more visceral synonyms I could use, but as I'm not African-American, I'm disqualified from using them.
Let's tally it up, shall we? Obama has publicly proclaimed....
1) his intention to summarily and immediately abandon Iraq to Iran and al Qaeda, the first time, according to noted historian and NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson, that an entire American army has ever been voluntarily withdrawn from a field of battle on which it has not been defeated;
2) his intention to bow down and kiss the asses of our worst enemies directly, personally, "unilaterally," and without precondition;
3) and now, in a speech given just this morning, his intention to attack Pakistan if outgoing President Pervez Musharraf does not immediately "evict" al Qaeda and Talibanites from its territory:
In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism scheduled for this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama will call not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan - with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama will say, according to speech excerpts provided to ABC News by his campaign, "but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." ...
Lest there be any doubt about the punitive nature of Obama's proto-threat, the Admiral directs us to Obama's own campaign website:
The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.
Is this guy frakking nuts? This goes way, way beyond Obama's meager political resume, his increasingly notorious penchant for flaming gaffes, and the very arrogant effrontry of the callow youth who only a few years ago was a nobody local Clintonoid vote-hustler in Chicago thinking he is qualified to, and entitled to become, the President of the United F'ing States. One does not have to be a sitting U.S. senator of any tenure who ran for that office functionally unopposed or have been elected nine times running to grasp the madness of such a scheme - to say nothing of the irony.
Let us, again, count the ways:
1) I was going to save this one for last, but I just can't wait that long: PAKISTAN IS AN ALLY, NOT AN ENEMY!!! Good God Almighty, Obama wants to sit across the table from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - AN ENEMY!!! - and give away Iraq plus putting Israel, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf states, etc. on consignment, but he gives both middle fingers to Pervez Musharraf - A FRIEND!!! (or as much of one as we're going to find in that part of the world) - and all but promises to convert him, and his country, into an enemy. Which, I guess, means that only then will President Obama be willing to give diplomacy a chance.
If this sounds an awful lot like a louder, bang-bangier version of the way Jimmy Carter turned a vital strategic friend (the Shah of Iran) into an enemy (by throwing him under the Ayahtollahs' bus), go to the head of the class and collect your good noodle gold star.
2) Does attacking Pakistan not qualify as the ultimate "elective, unnecessary war"?
3) Does attacking Pakistan not ensure that the Islamists will overthrow Musharraf (if he's still in power) or Benizir Bhutto if she returns to the old premiership? I thought we wanted to keep nuclear weapons OUT of the hands of al Qaeda.
4) Would not a successor (and bloodthirsty) Islamist regime be very likely to use those nuclear weapons against our invading forces and naval assets in the Arabian Sea?
5) From where would we launch this invasion? To take Obama at his word, it would be coming from Afghanistan. Which, in terms of topography, would be the military equivalent of going to a proctologist to have one's wisdom teeth removed. Northwest Pakistan is dauntingly mountainous, which is a big reason why a retreating al Qaeda and Taliban holed up there in the first place. It is the antithesis of the flat, open tank country that greeted us in southern Iraq. That ground is to be found in the south of Pakistan, the only part of the country where a serious invasion could possibly be carried out.
However, even if the operation went smooth as crap through a goose, we'd still roll up against those same mountains, and find ourselves in the exact same position that Musharraf has been in for the past six years - trying to root out an entrenched enemy on terrain ideally suited to defense.
6) How many troops do we have in Afghanistan? Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten to fifteen thousand, right? Think there might be a reason for that? (See #5)
7) If the 160,000 or so troops Generalissimo Obama is going to use for this military misadventure are coming from Iraq, wouldn't that be a rather large logistical undertaking? Are there the facilities in Afghanistan to handle that big an influx of U.S. troops? Given that our forces in Afghanistan are resupplied via overflights of Pakistan, what exactly would happen to the lines of communication of the troops we have there now, much less all the ones "redeployed" from Iraq? And wouldn't such a "redeployment" be harder to conceal than Rosie O'Donnell in a thong? Couldn't that end up toppling Musharraf and/or Bhutto all by itself before "Operation Appalling Idiocy" could get off the drawing board?
8) Forget serious analysis, because this isn't a serious proposal. It's complete BS. Nobody with three brain cells to rub together will ever believe that a president who wants to quit Iraq in ignominous, self-inflicted defeat is going to turn around and storm a nuclear-armed country of 160 million people and a maximum armed force of some thirty-nine million soldiers. Unless Obama is planning to go nuclear first. Hell, since this is a piece of empty "See, I do too have a big penis!!!" posturing meant as PR Viagra after his "World Prostration Tour 2009" f-up, he should have included nuclear sabre-rattling in the speech. I'd wager he'd believe it might even attract him some "red state" votes.
There's only one genuinely serious question to ask of the Barack Obama presidential candidacy after this "strikingly bold" pile of rhetorical dog feces: Is he trying to bungle himself out of the #2 spot on Hillary!'s ticket? 'cause he's certainly yammering himself in that direction.
posted by JASmius at 5:55 PM
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