Today’s dose of moonbeam ventilation from the Oval Office comes following a ‘sham’ briefing from the Pentagon on ISIS strategy. Since it is impossible to make it up, here is what the world was told, “ideologies are not defeated with guns but better ideas and more attracting and more compelling vision.” So what do these words really proffer from what is currently the world’s most powerful socialist nest?
Denial is a wonderful idyll to live in, except when you’re facing a vicious monstrosity in the form of an Islamic terrorist movement like ISIS. Does Obama really believe that creating jobs for potential ISIS recruits will end its progress? Evidently. He does not know how to create a job other than using taxpayer money to bloat government bureaucracy in good socialist or even communist fashion. Does he really believe that “better ideas” will have any affect on a broad based consciousness rooted in ardent religious beliefs? Will it affect it enough that it will decide to lay down arms, stop beheading, stop slaughtering children, stop mutilating and raping, or stop destroying? Surely in Obama’s personal historical library there must exist some examples that words and vision have affected such demanded terrorists. No? No point asking if this might have worked with any of the known terrorist across the annals of history that we are familiar with. It didn’t, but just maybe there are some we are not aware of.
That was not the only gem to shine in the sunlight today as we were also treated to the claim that this would be a “long-term campaign” that will involve a “generational struggle.” That’s called, “I don’t want to do this because I don’t want to wear it since it would stain my suit for years to come. I’m giving this can a serious kick so far down the road that it disappears in a NYT or CNN burrowed rabbit hole. Your grandchildren can worry about it.”
Obama apparently watches the news as we do and learns things, repeating that they (he called them ISIL) have presence in Libya, etc. No kidding? What we care about is what you have decided to do about these monsters who slaughter people with glee. If you want to do nothing, say so, but hiding behind “words” and “visions” advances little in the confidence of the Nation or its allies. It, however, sure invigorates the enemy once it has recovered from laughter.
So he left us this piece of hazy wisdom, “We’re going to have to pick up our game.” Really? That’s the strategy? A sport metaphor? Was that the Commander In Chief’s directive to the Pentagon Generals? . . . “Pick up your game.”
No point asking the military brass or ground troops what that means.
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
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Wow!
Maybe Obama really is a Christian!
Back during Jesus’ day, then later before Rome converted en masse, Christians knew they might die for their beliefs at any time.
They knew that it was better to die in the arena by wild animals than it was to compromise their belief that they must not bow down to idols.
The Roman emperor demanded a symbolic act of obedience to him of throwing a pinch of incense in the basin in front of his bust.
Christians died in great numbers rather than do such a thing.
Today, Christians are dying in great numbers, too.
They are refusing to convert to Islam….which merely involves repeating a simple sentence out loud.
Every one of these martyred Christians has won.
Even though he and she is dead.
Obama expects this is a winning course for all peoples.
Just stick to your guns, philosophically speaking.
He will not back up your views with guns.
But, in the long run, you will win.
I am betting he will be safely ensconced somewhere that ISIS can never get him.
Baghdad forced Bush to sign a SOFA to remove troops. We have spent 30 billion plus training a Iraqi Army that will not fight ISIS I have had it with Iraq Raider if YOU want to go and fight ISIS then head on over. But if you want more American military to die for the mess that we made in Iraq NOPE no wanta do.Iraq is going to have to fix itself.
The context of the comment, should anyone care: “This challenge of countering violent extremism is not simply a military effort,” the president said. “Ideologies are not defeated with guns but better ideas and more attracting and more compelling vision.”
Nice ”balancing act” on Obama’s part.
ISIS, actuarially speaking anyway, is no more likely to kill you than, say, a bus.
But I can fight a bus hitting me by defensive driving,
I rely on Obama (for the next few months anyway) to fight off ISIS in my behalf.
His telling ISIS the Bank of America is open for them to take hostages and get cash did NOT help.
@Greg:
Please. Had the Allies followed such stupid, childish wishful thinking in opposing Nazism, we would all be speaking German now. We defeated the Taliban and Saddam in 3 weeks each, not with ideological platitudes over social media, but with guns, tanks, and air power. It was all thrown away on the altar of political correctness.
Wimpy hashtags and insanely limited airstrikes have not stopped the evil of ISIS or Boko Haram.
@Pete: #4
Ergo, . . . . a “generational struggle.”
If he didn’t want to be Commander In Chief, why did he take this job in the first place? Moonbeams alight.
Oh snap! If only we knew that during WWII and we could have defeated the Nazis with “better ideas.”
I’ve heard this idiot say stupid things before but this is truly amazing.
Nuclear weapons defeat ideologies. Bombs defeat ideologies. It was proven in 1945.
@drjohn: #6
That was my immediate reaction and it was impossible to let it pass.
There is no ‘context,’ no rationale, no right mind, no world, where such inane statements make any sense, other than in the fantasies of Obama’s mind.
On the other hand, I suspect that he doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, and never does. He has wanted to change America all his life.
He and Jarrett are getting it done.
@James Raider:
As expected by a bunch losers like you.
Holy crap. So many people using the Nazi ideology to prove guns work. Guess what? Anti-antisemitism remained after the Nazi regime left. Nazi sympathizers were still there. WW2 removed who was in charge. Anti-antisemitism didn’t magically go away. The Nazi party was POLITICALLY destroyed but their sympathizers remained. So why are there almost no nazis left? Because the ideology was confronted by an opposing one and the proponents of nazism decided to change ideologies when a better alternative was there.
He’s saying ISIS and the problem it represents can’t be defeated through force ALONE. It’ll take more than military action to ‘win’ the War on Terror.
@Questionman:
ISIS is growing and they’re beating Obama at every turn and in every way. Obama continues to search for “better ideas” at golf courses. He is running out the clock and is interested more in defeating the US than anyone else.
There are too many of them to hire as IRS agents.
Gosh, Bush (so much less smarter than the brilliant Obama) identified from the git-go that this would be a long struggle.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/10/bush-speech-clarifies-the-war-against-terrorism
He was, of course, criticized for “endless war”. Obama all but guarantees it. Oh, should you actually bother to read the article, you will see that Bush lays out a strategy with goals. Obama should get him some of them there goals things.
McCain, in a rah-rah speech, said we will fight in Iraq for a hundred years, if necessary.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9207.html
Naturally, the left wing media and the rest of the left attacked McCain for a rhetorical remark, indicating a determination to fight where ever with whatever for as long as it takes. When the United States elected the idiot Obama, it was clear to our enemies that we would not have the resolve to meet and defeat threats to our national security. When Obama let Putin make a joke of him, it was clear. When Obama backed away from his “red line”, there was no possible doubt. The only consistency about Obama is his consistent projection of weakness and stupidity.
Now, due to dropping ideas on ISIS instead of bombs and arming Kurds with talking points instead of weapons, a long, drawn out conflict, where hundreds die every week makes every bit of sense.
Once again, the left proves that it has no guiding principles, only politically weaponized statements.
@Questionman: So, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were never defeated? Where are they, then? Prove who is the loser and show us the location of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? Throw in the address of the USSR while you are at it. IF Obama is saying force ALONE won’t defeat ISIS, what is he proposing to use in concert with force and WHEN will he begin employing some force? Just as the post says, Obama does not want to get his hands dirty trying to clean up the mess HE made (HE and no one else…. HIM) in Iraq and wants the luxury of just handing it off to someone else.
@Questionman:
You reveal a pathetic ignorance of history.
Antisemitism existed long before Nazism. It wasn’t pro-semitism that drove the Allies to crushing the Nazis. It wasn’t stern letters from Churchill and FDR to Hitler that led to the defeat of the Swastika.
The ideology of ISIS has been around since the 7th century. Idiotic bloviations and dopey selfie-hashtags from our leftist president and his wife are worthless when confronting the evil of ISIS. The whole ideology schtick Obama is pushing sure seems to be convincing the Iranians to stop working on nukes, doesn’t it? Oh, wait….
Good cannot defeat evil by throwing flowers, holding hands and singing ‘kumbayah’, especially not when evil is shooting, raping, pillaging, crucifying, burning, drowning and blowing up whoever isn’t part of their membership. You cannot argue with a rabid dog, or a snarling tiger. As hard as it is for leftists to admit, sometimes Good must use force to destroy evil. What Obama is propagandizing now is nothing but cowardice masquerading as virtue.
Obama also plans to VETO the funding of our Department of Defense.
His ”rationale” (if that can even apply to him, is that he wants all his government employees to get as big a budget increase as DOD was going to get!
He is bargaining that, to get more money for a fight against ISIS, our Congress will loosen its purse strings in all areas of wasteful government.
I think he loses this, this time.
Gee ISIS will be defeated by better ideas. Wow, who knew. Wonder what “better ideas” Obama has in mind.
Maybe he could just send over Ron Popeil.
@drjohn: #11
He’s helping them all he can. He broadcasts his lack of a plan, which lets ISIS know exactly how to respond.
As far as they’re concerned, they have an open road to slaughter at will.
This is what comes from having elected an individual void of any accomplishment of any kind. Even if someone gave him a lesson on ‘Negotiating’, his ego would continue to on course.
@Pete: #14
Good one, Pete. It’s amazing what self-righteousness can achieve when its sycophants willingly accept deception without any pushback whatsoever.
There’s no dearth of self-hatred and denial, and the Jarrett teleprompters are fully loaded and plugged in, leading the stampede over the cliff.
@Mully: #16
And just think, . . . this is what he came away with following his rare entry into the Pentagon.
@Pete, #5:
That was every bit as true in the case of Nazi Germany as it is in the case of ISIS. The victory over Hitler’s Germany wasn’t won until the ideology that had seized control of the German mind was discredited, disempowered, and driven back into the shadows. A generation that had grown up in Hitler’s Germany had to learn an entirely different way of viewing themselves, their nation, and their government. Without that, you haven’t won a war. You have only created an intermission.
ISIS can be worn down, its leaders killed, its armies killed or dispersed, its weapons captured or destroyed, but unless the malignant ideology manifesting as ISIS is discredited and replaced, the same threat will soon reappear somewhere else. I think we all know this.
The only reason this particular discussion is happening is because one sentence Obama spoke has been deliberately separated from the sentence immediately preceding it. The meaning lies in both sentences taken together. The truth of what Obama actually said cannot be argued with. Failure to grasp that truth in today’s world is extraordinarily dangerous.
@Greg: Obama claims he wants to Degrade and destroy. ISIS, but…..
How?
The U.S.-led airstrikes over Iraq during the first Gulf War averaged 953 strike sorties per day, according to the Air Force.
The Kosovo campaign averaged 135 strikes per day.
In 2003, the famous “shock and awe” campaign over Iraq saw 800 strikes per day.
And Obama?
3 strikes per day!
On the Forth of July Obama hit ISIS 15 times and had the temerity to brag about it.
Apparently he intends to write strongly-worded letters until they give up.
Or do some other type of magic.
Then, when he leaves office, it becomes someone else’s problem.
ISIS is a very different military problem. Unlike Iraq, ISIS is not a nation having military, industrial, and transportation infrastructures in fixed locations on a map. It’s difficult even to sort out ISIS forces from the populations they’re terrorizing and moving among. Successful operations in such a war look different.
So does the way you conduct battle.
Whoever follows Obama will have the same difficulties. No one has clearly outlined what a successful alternative approach would involve. There’s a reason they haven’t done so. They haven’t got one.
During the Cold War the left in this country felt Communism was a viable form of government and that its threat was vastly overstated. It could be said they were sympathetic to its cause. This is simply a more modern version of that warped view magnified by someone who doesn’t want to take any responsibility for his failed approach in dealing with ISIS and AQ.
@another vet: I disagree with your statement. This “leftie” went to the jungles of V.N to fight Communism–Sent by a Dem. Prez.
Actually it was Nixon and Kissinger that seemed to accept a flawed peace and wouldn’t bomb Hanoi.
I will pose here the same question after Hitler learned that the Pope opposed him. Hitler asked how many troops does the Pope have?
I ask, how many troops do these new ideas have?
How many boots can these visions put on the ground?
The only vision I see is that Obama will be gone in January 2017 and it will be someone else’s problem at that time.
Meanwhile ISIS will continue its barbarity.
Obama has decided to do nothing, since he is certain that his legacy will endure.
@mathman, #25:
He’s not “doing nothing.” Air strikes against ISIS ground forces, Special Forces activity, and the targeting of ISIS leadership have been continuous for nearly a year now. What Obama hasn’t done is get us deeply involved in a third major ground war in the region with no clear idea of how stability could be achieved at the end of it. Repeating that sort of monumental screw up would probably require republican leadership. Democrats tend to learn from past errors.
@Greg: He’s doing nothing. NOTHING.
@rich wheeler: Uh… Nixon bombed the HELL out of Hanoi.
@rich wheeler: So all of those protesters were not lefties? FDR’s kids who actively tried to undermine Truman’s get tough approach with Stalin were not lefties? All of those who opposed Reagan’s arms build up to bring down the USSR were not lefties? FDR, who referred to Stalin as ‘Uncle Joe’, was not a lefty?
I always thought of you as a liberal as opposed to a lefty. But if you want to throw in with that sad bunch, that’s your choice.
We can all remember how well hash-tagging worked in getting the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram back home safely.
@Bill, #27:
Maybe you should find a news source that actually reports the news.
@Greg: Like what, Greg? Those that say Obama sitting around with his thumb up his Hillary is how to defeat ISIS? It’s great that we killed an ISIS guy with a bomb. Yippee. Only 99,999 to go, right?
Maybe we need a red line. Or, threaten to institute Obamacare on them. ANYTHING would be superior to his current effort, if it can even be termed such.
It is true Obama hinted that more than just ideas would be needed to defeat ISIS.
He wanted his ”coalition” to do the work on the ground.
So, he sent over to Syria around 600 military training specialists.
And, after a few months what have we got?
His first graduating class of Syria’s trained.
We need to fight over 100,000 ISIS fighters.
Obama’s new fighters (who there’s no guarantee won’t run away, too, like the old ones) number 60.
Whoop-dee-do!!!
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/07/07/the-dirty-five-dozen-obama-aware-of-paltry-syrian-training-stats-when-declaring-progress/
Which side will those 60 men join with their American weapons?
Assad?
Or ISIS?
@Bill: #31
LOL, . . . evidently you missed the revisionist history being spouted that Hitler and the Germans were beaten and were pushed back from all nations they’d invaded with the force of better ideas and pretty visions.
My Dad, who fought the Germans in both the Italian campaign and then the French campaign from St.Tropez to Paris, and was one of only two men to return home alive of the hundreds he went to war with, . . . . might have had some thoughts on the ‘pretty visions’ and their impact on vile dictators.
We just can’t fix stupid, Bill.
@Greg:
Really? So Jefferson should have sent over diplomats instead of the US military to convince the forebears of ISIS to stop their piracy against US merchant ships?
And the complete destruction of the Nazis through military force wasn’t the primary reason their Aryan Superiority ideology was wiped away?
So the real reason ISIS hasn’t been defeated has nothing to do with the paltry military effort to annihilate them, but because we haven’t been successful with hashtag diplomacy against a barbaric 7th century philosophy?
Could it possibly be that the limp-wristed policies of Obama demonstrate such disgusting weakness in the face of brutal aggression that our opponents are convinced of their ideological superiority? Why should they think otherwise when they are winning, and Obama telegraphs his unwillingness to defeat them?
@rich wheeler:
lol, What were Operation Linebacker ll, the “Christmas bombing,” or the “Christmas Raids known for?
My ex was in at that time. His last overseas mission what the raid on Son Tay in 1970, ten miles outside of Hanoi. Nixon and Kissinger did more regarding Hanoi than you seem to know. I remember those times.
@Bill:
The left spouted the same crap when “Obama killed Osama”. It was supposed to have been the end of GWOT. It’s a video game to the left. Look at where AQ is at now. All over the ME and Africa. And ISIS has been even more successful.
The real threat to this country and the world is when those polar ice caps melt in the next couple of decades and drown all of us.
@Bill, #31:
As noted, I’m not hearing any detailed suggestions about alternative approaches to ISIS from the republican side. They’re not even providing a vague outline. The republican controlled House is too chicken-shit to authorize Obama’s requested use of force. Or to formally decline to do so, either. They’re not up to coming to terms with ISIS. They won’t even take the political risk of allowing an open floor debate on the topic. Obama is the only one who is actually doing something, and not only with respect to ISIS. Congress isn’t effectively dealing with anything. Giving republicans a majority in the Senate has only make the Congressional dysfunction worse.
House kills measure to force debate on military force against ISIS
@Pete, #34:
You’re still refusing to acknowledge that Obama’s statement consisted of two sentences. You’re also totally ignoring the fact that the U.S. military is waging warfare against ISIS on a daily basis, and has been continuously doing so for the past year. There are nearly 3,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at present, despite the refusal of Congress to deal with or even debate the situation. You do realize that, I assume.
If it was poisoning then some brave person in Mosul is fighting more valiantly and successfully than Obama.
In one day he killed 45 ISIS fighters.
Obama is bragging from the rooftops when he maybe kills one ISIS fighter while taking out oil facilities that might LATER be useful in a post-ISIS world. Obama: “Our airstrikes will continue to target the oil and gas facilities that fund so much of their operations.”
The drone strike that eliminated Tariq al-Harzi five days ago was no small deal. The raid that killed Abu Sayyaf two months earlier was no small deal. Can anyone guess who gave the orders? That would be the guy who “is doing nothing.”
@another vet: LIBS–,LEFTIES To me it’s just semantics Today I am a social lib. and an economic moderate. I always test out as a Libertarian.
My apologies Nixon did bomb Hanoi.
fYI James Roosevelt was a decorated Marine Officer awarded the Navy Cross in ww2
@Greg: Hmmm… NO Republicans recommended or agreed with pulling ALL the US troops out or Iraq, a selfish action which gave ISIS the open door to rampage across Iraq. So, first, there’s that.
Every Republican speaking on the matter demands MORE air attacks and more SF to direct the attacks. Just like with pulling all the troops out, Obama likes the isolated JDAM because it has a camera on it and he can play to the fools in his cheering section. However, more ISIS killers die from tripping over their victims than Obama is killing.
Obama’s AUMF contained restrictions from employing troops on the ground (though he keeps sneaking them in), so like so many other important issues, there is no progress to be gained in discussing adult topics with THAT idiot. All he cares about is preserving an artificial “legacy” and it endangers the nation.
@rich wheeler: Check out Elliot Roosevelt and his book, As He Saw It . Go back and look at which side opposed Truman’s stance against Stalin. It damn sure wasn’t the right.
Hmmm… defeat them with ideas…. I wonder where Obama got that idea?
I just read the post on “Political Correctness” and noticed the inset of Stalin, quoted as saying, “Ideas are more powerful than guns.”
Great minds think alike, I suppose.
ISIS has been laughing at weak Obama.
First they used his own ”LoveWins” hashtag when they threw four more homosexuals off a roof.
Now they learned Obama has trained a total of only 60 fighters in Syria, in over a year.
ISIS laughs because they add more than 60 new fighters to their own army every day!
Obama’s Syrian fighters have surrendered to ISIS, handing over American weapons.
ISIS fighters are known for their willingness to fight until they either win or die.
Obama just announced he’s letting most of our military’s command leadership go in his 40,000 man purge, ISIS will soon have more commanders at all levels than we will. Kill one and another takes his place….all battle-hardened and Sharia-strong.
@Nanny G: The entire world laughs at Obama. It is embarrassing…. and dangerous.
@Greg:
The characterization of a max of 10-15 air sorties a day, and the 3000 troops (basically a single brigade) who are being housed on the same base as one of our enemies, Iran, as anything more than a military fart in the wind is ridiculous. We had roughly 100,000+ troops there at our peak, hamstrung by stupid ROE, and you want us to believe that 3000 are going to do anything with a pro-muslim president?