By now everyone should know that anything Obama says today is void tomorrow.
Despite the fact that far too late Obama is doing the right thing in Iraq, this is a good time to crank up the Wayback Machine and revisit the monster known as Hubris Obamus.
2007: Preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
First, though, let’s acknowledge that Obama did keep his word about one thing. 1500 civilians were recently slaughtered by ISIS. Obama didn’t even blink. To his credit, he told us that genocide wasn’t enough for him to act.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.
2011: ‘We’re Leaving Behind a Sovereign, Stable and Self-Reliant Iraq’
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKSb2ukQxvY[/youtube]
It was a “moment of success,” he said.
Ironically, he said it at Fort Bragg
June 2014: Obama Rules Out Airstrikes in Iraq for Now
Mr. Obama ultimately may decide not to order air attacks, senior U.S. officials said, bucking what for days appeared to be the leading U.S. option to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, the terror group that has seized a large swath of Iraq’s north and west. U.S. strikes are still actively under discussion, but the officials cautioned Tuesday that they don’t expect Mr. Obama to put military action back on the table quickly, and said he may announce steps in a broader U.S. response over time.
August 2014 White House: “There Are No Military Solutions In Iraq… Only Political”…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9iNY2L_Ha4[/youtube]
George Bush 2005: Bush: Leaving Iraq Too Soon Would Endanger America
Leaving Iraq before the mission there is finished will make America less, not more, secure and will send a dangerous message that will ring around the world, President Bush said today here at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
Speaking the day before Iraq’s national elections, Bush disputed critics who claim the United States would be safer and Iraq less violent if the United States withdrew its forces there.“This view presumes that if we were not in Iraq, the terrorists would be leaving us alone,” Bush said.
2014: Hayden: Obama Pulled Out of Iraq Too Soon
The White House’s decision to complete the final withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq in 2011 set the stage for the current unrest, according to Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of both the National Security Agency and the CIA.
…..
“President Bush used to huddle with [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] about every two weeks in a video conference, doing a lot of coaching and mentoring,” Hayden said. “That stopped when President Obama came in. He didn’t want to do that.”
In 2008, President George W. Bush and and Iraqi government signed the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, setting a start and end date for the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Without ground troops, the United States’ ability to gather intelligence became severely handicapped, Hayden said.
“When you don’t have a footprint throughout the country, remember, it’s not just the military that left, we dramatically cut back our diplomatic presence as well, deciding because of security reasons that we would not have consulates in a variety of Iraqi cities,” Hayden said. “So we just have fewer platforms from which to observe what’s going on in Iraq.”
2014: Obama caught flat footed by ISIS
United States intelligence agencies were caught by surprise when fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) seized two major Iraqi cities this week and sent Iraqi defense forces fleeing, current and former U.S. officials said Thursday. With U.S. troops long gone from the country, Washington didn’t have the spies on the ground or the surveillance gear in the skies necessary to predict when and where the jihadist group would strike.
The speed and ease with which well-armed and highly trained ISIS fighters took over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and Tikrit, the birthplace of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, have raised significant doubts about the ability of American intelligence agencies to know when ISIS might strike next, a troubling sign as the Islamist group advances steadily closer to Baghdad. And it harkened back to another recent intelligence miscue, in February, when U.S. spy agencies failed to predict the Russian invasion of Crimea. Both events are likely to raise questions about whether the tens of billions of dollars spent every year on monitoring the world’s hot spots is paying off — and what else the spies might be missing.
2014: GOP: We warned you
The group beat back government forces in Mosul and Tikrit and was within 60 miles of Baghdad late Thursday.
“It was something that we warned the president about over a three-year period,” Inhofe said, referencing letters Republicans sent to Obama in 2009, 2010, and last year. “Now, it’s worse than it was before. It’s very depressing.
“One of the most dangerous battlegrounds during the Iraq war was Fallujah,” Inhofe said. “To lose that, after they spent their blood to gain it — this is an America that I have never known before.”
…And House Speaker John Boehner charged that Obama was caught “taking a nap” on Iraq despite the Republican warnings, particularly in the last year.
“It’s not like we haven’t seen this problem coming for over a year,” Boehner said. “And it’s not like we haven’t seen, over the last five or six months, these terrorists moving in and taking control of western Iraq.
“Now, they’ve taken control of Mosul. They’re 100 miles from Baghdad. And what’s the president doing? Taking a nap.”
2014: Obama says ISIS is the “jayvee team”
Many of us felt Obama would take a bad situation and make it worse. He as done just that.
Lead image courtesy Weasel Zippers
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.