Obama’s Secret Stick
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Bush Doctrine expressly authorized preemptive military action against America’s enemies and potential enemies, and President Bush was relentlessly pilloried by Democrats for his public stand. But now it turns out President Obama may talk sweetly but he’s using a bigger and more controversial preemptive secret stick:
“Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials.”
The moral is President Obama gets to have his cake and eat it, too … at least until someone decides to call his bluff.
— DRJ
Anyone who has read “Imperial Grunts” knows that a lot of this has been going on since the 1960s. Obama may have increased the pace, or he may not have as the work has always been secret and it would be just like this administration and its enablers to put out a story like this to make him sound tough.
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Mike K (82f374) — 6/5/2010 @ 3:01 amI think it was Glenn Reynolds back in around ’03 who said that the Democrats won’t own the war until they have the White House and are responsible for fighting it. It’s typical of gutless a Dem Party that they promote Mr. “ImaAllAboutPeace” to the big chair and then let him run amok killing the bad guys using Special Forces.
As long as the bad guys get killed, I’m happy, but this reminds me too much of the president from Clear and Present Danger (the novel, not the Reaganesque chode from the movie) who similarly sent troops into danger; I just hope that Obama doesn’t leave anyone to twist in the wind if it gets embarrassing for him.
Pious Agnostic (b2c3ab) — 6/5/2010 @ 6:14 amI thought one of Pres. Bush’s goals was to capture the enemy (especially the seniors)in order to extract information.
J (2946f2) — 6/5/2010 @ 6:56 amI recently heard an ex-military type state that obama’s shoot-em-up posture is costing us a lot of intel.
No, see if we captured enemy agents, we might have to hold them somewhere and that is, according to their side, an international crime of the first order.
Much more conveient to simply blow them away, no?
Techie (43d092) — 6/5/2010 @ 7:16 amTell that to the SEALS brought up on charges for “manhandling” a terrorist captive. Obama wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to use plausible deniability to cover his rear end if things got dicey. Weasel thy name is Obama.
in_awe (44fed5) — 6/5/2010 @ 8:59 amObama’s definitive life activity was his role as a ‘community organizer’. Media-conscious, Alinsky-mentored, ends-justify-the-means class warfare, including invading of city councils by violent mobs when the media coverage was useful for intimidating others, but also skilled at under-the-radar skulduggery which his media allies would gamely ignore. His use of Special Ops forces is remarkably similar – it too stays under the MSM radar, and delivers violence as well as discovers information by stealth rather than openly. His legislative career choices as a public anti-military activist reaped votes in brigade strength, but his willingness to to wreak surprise havoc by anonymous remote control dovetails nicely with working the class-warfare streets of Chicago.
Insufficiently Sensitive (8906ed) — 6/5/2010 @ 9:43 am“The Bush Doctrine expressly authorized preemptive military action against America’s enemies and potential enemies, and President Bush was relentlessly pilloried by Democrats for his public stand.”
LOL. The guys that brought you WWI, Korea, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs and the bombing of Serbia citicize Bush for saying we’ll strike first, if it looks like someone’s going to hit us?
Too funny.
Of course, what’s really funny is is that Bush didn’t actually INITIATE military action against ANYONE, preemptive or otherwise. More than you can say for the mighty Dems. They’ve put us into wars against people who had no intention of attacking us many times.
Dave Surls (e456f9) — 6/5/2010 @ 10:25 amDan Schorr explained it all this morning on NPR. The host asked him how come the media was so silent on the fact that Obama now does what he and other Dems pilloried Bush for, and does it even more. After a bit of mumbling, Dan stated “It’s different when you’re in the White House”.
I think he actually meant to say “It’s different when we’re in the White House”.
sherlock (62f2cf) — 6/5/2010 @ 10:32 amYep. If we captured them we’d have to give them lawyers and trials and such. So we’re just killing them instead. But I’m sure we’re doing so very humanely!
Some of us predicted this result years ago when the mindless lefties started demanding we apply domestic law enforcement restraint standards to battlefield captures and in-field electronic interecepts.
Tully (4dce1a) — 6/5/2010 @ 10:34 amCan’t wait for the newest iteration of “Air America” (and you know they’ll just have to be a movie in it somewhere)!
AD - RtR/OS! (9971c4) — 6/5/2010 @ 10:59 amFrom AP:
There must be more than one oxymoron in there
Neo (7830e6) — 6/5/2010 @ 11:50 amThis is easily understood. Obama cares not a whit about terrorists or terrorism, or foreign policy more generally, except insofar as it has the potential to affect his own grasp on power.
Thus, he campaigned as the 180-degree opposite of George W. Bush on all such matters. Now that he’s in power, though, retaining power depends on not being embarrassed by another 9/11-type event that would sweep him and his party from office. So, very quietly, he tries to continue policies of the Bush-43 administration that were indeed effective in waging the war, hoping that they will continue to work at least well enough to prevent a “backlash event.”
However, because he lacks real commitment to — indeed, real understanding of — the values that underlie those policies, he’s unlikely to exercise the policies consistently or effectively.
Because his White House is (like Clinton’s was) perpetually in campaign mode, Obama’s instincts to pander, for short-term gains, to the left-wing idiots who make up his base still often override the caution that’s necessary to avoid the frequent screw-ups that could (and I believe will) drive him from power in 2012.
So instead of the single-minded commitment of George W. Bush to fight and destroy the terrorists, we get this lurching, uncoordinated, inconsistent, and schizophrenic effort. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad, and I’m reasonably sure that this internal madness will eventually destroy Barack Obama.
It’s what Barack Obama will do to America in the meantime that I fear.
Beldar (75c3bc) — 6/5/2010 @ 12:03 pmObama, one senior military official said, has allowed “things that the previous administration did not.”
Neo (7830e6) — 6/5/2010 @ 12:04 pm… which leads us to …
Me too, but not likely — the President despises our military:
* Refused to see American wounded in Germany when he learned that cameras would not be allowed (played basketball instead) happend on July 24, 2008
* “We’ve to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.” — AP (although they no longer post it. Said on August 13, 2007.
* Floated an idea to charge US troops for their medical care, even if wounded in combat. March 17, 2009.
* Downgraded request for 60,000 troops to 30,000 for Afghanistan. October 9, 2009.
He has apologized for none of this. He will not hesitate to prosecute, abandoned, or shame the US military and all its personnel, if in his slightest interest to do so.
Oh, in light of the above, this takes more significance:
* He cannot even lay a Wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day — a Sacred Place at a Special Time for every Soldier who has not returned home — not that important to him, family vacation takes priority. May 31, 2010.
Will he leave them twisting in the wind (?) — in a heartbeat, for any reason, trivial or otherwise.
Pons Asinorum (0ae484) — 6/5/2010 @ 12:09 pm“Speak loudly and carry a quiet stick”?
htom (412a17) — 6/5/2010 @ 12:16 pmtesting
Dmac (3d61d9) — 6/5/2010 @ 12:52 pmDo you think Obama has Matt Damon or Sylvester Stallone advising him on these covert ops? With all their combined experience, they could probably come up with some useful ideas. Heck, Rambo III was about Afghanistan.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/5/2010 @ 2:36 pm