Obama Really IS
An old proverb says "If you live long enough, you will see history repeat itself."
And right now, history is repeating itself before our eyes.
In 1977 Jimmy Carter decided to withdraw support from the Shah of Iran, convinced if he let the radical Islamic militants in that country depose the Shah, whoever replaced him would be 'better'.
We had the comical farce for several months of Carter trying to sell the Ayatollah Ruohallah Khomeini as a nice religious leader, a really great guy who would do much better than the Shah.
What we ended up with was a hostage crisis that lasted over a year and 30+ years of Iran fomenting radicalism and terror wherever it can.
So.........yeah. GOOD CALL THERE, JIMMY.
Y'all are welcome!
Starting in 2010 with the unrest in Egypt, Libya and now Syria, people strongly questioned the Obama strategy of withdrawing support - or even directly helping to topple - Middle East strong men under the confidently optimistic idea that whoever replaced them would be 'better'.
First thing new Egyptian President Morsi did on winning his election was call for the United States to immediately free The Blind Sheikh convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hey, good start there. Couple more months when he's really feeling optimistic maybe Morsi will add Khalid Sheikh Muhammad to the list of terrorists the US should hand over.
So now the Muslim Brotherhood is running Egypt, and Al Qaeda and other violent Islamic groups have designs on Libya. Fantastic.
Obama was supposed to have put all these fires out with that awesome Cairo speech in 2009 where he hit the 'reset' button with the Islamic world. As has become evident the past few days, he might have overestimated his effectiveness at changing the Islamic world's unrelenting hatred of the United States.
After missing a chance to back a real democratic Green Revolution in Iran in 2009, Obama stupidly decided to topple two Middle Eastern leaders with no real intention of ensuring who replaced them. The Muslim Brotherhood isn't exactly a democratic organization. A study of it's history would tell you this. We have a patched-together weak democratic government of a sorts in Libya, but that's why Al Queda and other violent groups are moving in now - they sense a chance to establish a new base for jihad.
If the idea was to promote democracy in the region, two key points that are necessary would be:
1. Making sure new dictators worse than the guy you just helped get rid of don't win the 1st - and only real - election held and
2. guaranteeing the security of the new government until it can stand on it's own.
In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood easily won the 1st election held. Having established themselves, these radicals will never hand over power to those not as fervent in the faith as they are. Which, in their minds, is nobody.
We didn't even provide enough security in Libya for our diplomatic personnel.
What chance does the new Libyan government have?
In Libya, we didn't even provide security for our diplomatic personnel on the ground there, so one has to wonder how much the new weak Libyan government can depend on the US providing it's security as radical groups seek to topple and replace it.
While Carter could make the excuse he had no idea what a growing threat radical Islam would turn out to be for the next 35 years when he helped set up the worlds first Islamic jihad Republic, Obama has no such excuse.
After the rise of violent radical Islamism there is no possible justification for passively allowing other countries to fall under the sway of such radicals. 2-3 more Irans fomenting terror and jihad across the globe for the next couple of decades could end up being Obama's big legacy. Carter has spent 35+ years vigorously running from his legacy of a radicalized Iran. Obama very well could end up doing the same from Egypt and - if we fail in Libya - there also.
And all the while this current crisis is going on, Obama's playing will-I-or-won't-I-make-time-to-see-Netanyahu? Pathetic. We're likely to be in a shooting war soon on Israel's side in the next year if they have to strike Iran over it's nuclear weapon's program and this clueless dick is playing to his anti-Israel base in a crisis build-up because getting re-elected is his #1 priority.
Which is why with reports of other embassies coming under attack, Obama decided to jet off to Vegas for his regularly scheduled fundraiser. The optics of that were beyond horrible. Who is advising this President?
Hillary Clinton trying to comically sell the idea that Libyan's parading the body of our dead ambassador for the cameras were actually 'bravely' trying to rush him to the hospital will be lampooned for years. Desperate to avoid a rehash of Mogadishu, in which bodies of American servicemen were paraded through the streets, Hillary descended into comedy trying to spin it.
Serious questions need to be asked as to why the diplomatic personnel at that consulate had no protection, why security was not increased on 9-11, and if there was indeed intelligence of a coming attack that was ignored.
The media has had 3 days to ask such questions and thus far has refused to do so, instead focusing on Mitt Romney like he's the real problem or something.
This election can't come soon enough.
UPDATE:
The White House has now gone beyond farce. Jay Carney insisted today that a single video posted on YouTube has caused all the rioting and protesting we've seen this past week in over 20 different countries. Like Obama had all the fires put out, worked his magic with that Cairo speech in 2009, and everything in the Middle East was just hunky-dory................and then some prick posted a YouTube video and ruined everything.
Watch Jay Carney trying to sell this to the White House press corp:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/carney-global-protests-directed-at-offensive-video-not-u-s-policy-or-the-obama-administration/
Byron York has a column at The Washington Examiner on this desperate attempt by the White House to avoid admitting it's Middle East polices are now in shambles;
They are not victims of circumstances beyond their control here. They failed to anticipate anything happening on 9-11, didn't ensure the security of our embassy in Cairo or of the consulate in Benghazi, got caught flat-footed, and now it's blown up into a huge crisis. Obama & Co. spent 3 1/2 years creating a power vacuum in the Middle East. This was supposed to be the 'smart' thing to do, hitting that 'reset' button by drastically limiting American power in the region.
Obama's simplistic view that Islamic hatred of the West starts and ends with Gitmo, EIT's and Israel led him to think by ending EIT's, promising to close Gitmo and keeping Israel at arms length he was 'fixing' the things at the root of Islamic animosity to the United States.
From the way he's reacted to events this week, it's clear he hasn't learned a goddamn thing.
UPDATE II: The day after the State Department informs the media it's done talking about the attack just 4 days before on it's undefended consulate in Benghazi in which 4 Americans were killed, CNN breaks the news that Libyan officials had issued warnings to the US that the security situation was deteriorating 3 days before Ambassador Stevens and his coworkers were literally dragged to their deaths.
A Libyan man explains that the bloodstains on the column are from one the American staff members who grabbed the edge of the column while he was being dragged to his death, after an attack that killed four Americans on September 11th.
First, the State Departments demand to the media that they might as well stop asking why the security at the consulate was so, you know, non-existent, because they weren't going to answer any more questions about the attack at all:
The State Department told reporters Friday afternoon that it won’t answer any more questions about the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans until the investigation into the incident is complete.
“I’m going to frustrate all of you, infinitely, by telling you that now that we have an open FBI investigation on the death of these four Americans, we are not going to be in a position to talk at all about what the U.S. government may or may not be learning about how any of this this happened — not who they were, not how it happened, not what happened to Ambassador Stevens, not any of it — until the Justice Department is ready to talk about the investigation that’s its got,” State Department spokeswoman Victorian Nuland told reporters late Friday afternoon.
“So I’m going to send to the FBI for those kinds of questions and they’re probably not going to talk to you about it,” she said.
As Ed Morrisey at Hot Air puts it:
They won’t answer any questions at all while the investigation continues? That seems awfully convenient, especially since State had the responsibility for securing that mission in Benghazi in the first place — and on the anniversary of 9/11, a time when one might expect some kind of attack attempt.
At the time Ed put that post up, CNN had yet to report this:
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
The State Dept. can come out and say they are done talking about this incident, but doesn't take any of the heat off of them. 4 Americans are dead, and if even basic security measures taken at most American embassies & consulates had been followed here, they wouldn't be. Someone has got to be held accountable.
Also, nobody sums up the bizarre stupidity & tragedy of this week quite like David Burge, aka @iowahawkblog. If you're not following him on twitter, you really should be.
