Parsing 101: say what you think people want to hear, but make sure you counter all those things with careful parsing. Let’s dissect President Obama’s weekly address, the talking out of both sides of your mouth technique.
“We have Americans serving across Iraq, including our embassy in Baghdad, and we’ll do whatever is needed to protect our people.
“But when there’s a situation like the one on this mountain—when countless innocent people are facing a massacre, and when we have the ability to help prevent it—the United States can’t just look away. That’s not who we are. We’re Americans. We act. We lead. And that’s what we’re going to do on that mountain. As one American who wrote to me yesterday said, “it is the right thing to do.””
then he follows these with:
“As Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq. American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no American military solution to the larger crisis there.”
So, in paragraph 5, he completely makes a mockery of his statements that: “we’ll do whatever is needed to protect our people.”
He rambles on a bit more about our broader strategy in Iraq, but alas, there is no broader strategy , only a repeat of his “zero footprint” strategy that led to weapons being funneled to ” Syrian freedom fighters”, who turned out to be Islamist zealots (aka the ISIS/ISIL he’s now bombing) – just don’t fly low, because they probably have the manpads you allowed to flow from your previous Libyan/Syrian debacles (funneling weapons). In light, of this leader-from-behind’s track record, one can only believe that his assurances that “we’ll do whatever is needed to protect our people” ring a bit hollow.
They say actions speak louder than words, so he followed this speech to let our enemies know he means business, really he does, by going on vacation for two weeks.
In recent days, Jake Tapper asked WH Deputy National Security Advisor, Tony Blinken, about the President’s total misunderstanding of the threat ISIS poses, when earlier this year when he compared ISIS to a JV basketball team. More parsing and spinning, with Blinken blabbering on about how ISIS doesn’t pose a threat to us, here in America.
This is the President who orchestrated this border crisis, where illegals and our enemies stampede across our southern border and this President doesn’t even want the border agents to stop them. Yes, this President’s assurances that he will protect you here at home are about as truthful as the ones he uttered about protecting Americans serving in Iraq. His DHS is more concerned about the threat from law-abiding, conservative Americans than they are about Al Qaeda, ISIS, criminal gangs /thugs from Central America, or any other foreign enemies. And once the strawmen defenses go up in flames, never fear, because with this administration, at the end of the day, everything is still GWB’s fault.
PS: JK fact-checked the Zero Footprint piece from The Last Refuge blog yesterday and he offers this additional bit of information:
Pretty exhaustive LB (name changed, because I prefer LB here). And, in the wider scope of things I won’t be making any wide disagreements.
But. And “I think” it was in part three – I’m going on memory so – about where that pic of McCain standing next to the known ISIL kidnapper/terrorist there was a paragraph/sentence the gist of was this:
“Nobody could have possibly foreseen how fucked up this Libyan adventure would become.”
_______________If it’s convenient for you, read from page 7 through page eleven. If pressed for time, just read the final sentence on page eleven.
http://tarpley.net/docs/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf
Now – abit of background first – twenty-three Libyans were taken off the field in the vicinity of Kirkuk (Iraq 04) and transferred to Gitmo where they remained in US custody until Condi Rice and Buddy Muammar had their lovefest in 2006. Perhaps by pure dumb luck, McCain and Senator Graham visited Tripoli a week later then, when they got back to DC they proceeded with the genius idea to “as a gesture of goodwill” convince GW to release the Libyan detainees into Sa’id Gaddafy’s tender care.
The first five or so paragraphs should be sufficient.
https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/lifg-revisions-posing-critical-challenge-to-al-qaida
libertybelle diaries 