Well you couldn’t ask for more political entertainment than
we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks.
And to think it’s an off year for elections.
Normally, you don’t get these kinds of yuks outside of
primary season. You know, when the loons
on the left and right come out to play.
The lefties promise to take from the rich to give everything
to everybody who isn’t rich, except those things they’ve decided aren’t good
for you. The righties promise to
preserve your right to things the left has decided aren’t good for you, and to
stop the left from taking stuff from you to give to others.
That’s pretty much the essence of Democrat and Republican positions.
From there it gets more entertaining.
The lefties accuse the right of being bigoted, misogynist,
neo-Nazi, science-denying, religious fanatics – and all-around party poopers –
who want to keep blacks in chains, keep women barefoot and pregnant, deport all
illegal immigrants, and turn back the clock to the 1950’s.
The righties accuse the left of being amoral godless Commies
intent on shredding the Constitution and Bill of Rights, while using NPR and public
schools as propaganda vehicles for promoting promiscuity, the breakup of the
traditional family, and the destruction of the American work ethic and value
system.
Wow. Some fun,
eh?
And Americans wonder why we can’t just get along. Go figure.
Anyway, that’s what we have to look forward to.
But looking back to the past couple of weeks is fun, too.
Would we or wouldn’t we attack Syria? Nobody knew – especially Obama. That is, until a chance off-the-cuff comment
by Kerry got picked up by the Russians who turned it into a proposal.
Before that, Obama – who said earlier that Assad using
chemical weapons would cross a red line, and then denied he ever set a red line
– waffled between hitting Assad hard, hitting Assad maybe not so hard, and
maybe not hitting Assad at all. Maybe
just talking to Assad in a strong voice with some finger wagging. Maybe
just making a mean face at him. Who
knows?
Obama didn’t; he seemed to be waiting for something else to
happen. But public opinion remained opposed
to getting involved in Syria at all. His
minions were having no luck changing public opinion on the matter. Then the Brits turned down his request for
their support.
You know as an American President you’re really screwed when
the Brits turn you down.
So who was left? Military
heavyweights like Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Lichtenstein? And it
wasn’t certain any of them would be willing to send their one and only soldier
into harm’s way on our behalf. France said they might come along, but who can
depend on the French?
Along this convoluted path Obama did the unthinkable: He
asked for Congressional approval. And
that’s when the real fun began.
His supporters in and out of Congress had been pushing for
unilateral action by Obama; they wanted him to hit Assad hard. (Now these were the same people who went
absolutely bat-shit crazy when GWB launched the attacks on Iraq with
Congressional approval.)
They were royally pissed when Obama did what GWB did. Huh?
That led to magic moments where Obama’s biggest fans were
attacking him for not using his Presidential authority to drop Tomahawk
missiles on people we only thought
had used chemical weapons. (Even now,
nobody knows for sure who used the chemical weapons.)
So as not to let Democrats corner the market on hypocrisy,
Republicans who normally support the use of military force by any President to
punish bad guys around the world suddenly became pacifists. An odd
coalition of Tea Party Republicans and far-left Democrats started to coalesce
in opposition to doing anything on Syria.
McCain – continuing his charge headfirst toward permanent
irrelevancy – wanted to bomb the crap out of Assad so there would be regime
change in Syria. He spoke of the Syrian
opposition as the good guys, moderates, because, well … he’d met with
them. He dismissed reports that Al Qaeda
and jihadists were heavily involved in the Syrian opposition.
I guess old John was asleep when we armed and trained the
mujahidin in Afghanistan to fight the Russians, only to end up fighting the now
well-trained and well-armed mujahidin ourselves after the Russians left. Or maybe he dozed off when the rebels we
supported during the “Arab Spring” turned out to be oddly similar to the
jihadists who wanted to kill all Americans.
Anyway, Congress was a complete cluster, as always.
When it looked like Congress was going to defeat his request
for authorization, Obama dispatched Kerry – like Colin Powell for GWB – to make
the case before Congress that Assad had chemical weapons, and that Assad had
used them on his own people.
Kerry gave perhaps the speech of his life.
All along the Russians said Assad had no chemical
weapons. Assad said he had no chemical
weapons. Then Kerry made his offhand
remark that one way to avoid being
attacked would be for Assad to give up his chemical weapons to a third party –
but Assad would never do that.
The Russians pounced on the idea. All of a sudden Assad found the chemical
weapons he didn’t have and agreed to turn those weapons he didn’t have over a
neutral third party.
Obama first discounted the idea. Kerry discounted the idea – even though it was
his.
But then, the light went on for Obama. He pulled back his request for Congressional
approval, tossing Nancy, Harry and of course Kerry under the bus, while he
awaited more details from the Russians.
The Russians, for God’s sake.
Obama’s relying on the Russians to pull his bacon out of the
fire. That’s rich.
Meanwhile, Obama goes on TV and in a rambling, incoherent
monologue confirms for the nation and the world that he’s a complete
buffoon. He’s way over his head and
totally baffled about what he should do, so he plays the “baffle them with
bullshit” gambit
Putin’s laughing his ass off and openly mocks Obama. Which is justified.
So here’s the net/net.
Assad gets 6 months to turn over the chemical weapons he doesn’t
have. This also means that he stays in
power, and although the media doesn’t want to cover this, he’s winning against
the insurgents. The insurgents are pissed
at us because they hoped we’d come in on their side in a big way; instead, the
CIA is supplying them with small arms – rifles, pistols and ammo by some
reports – which aren’t that effective against Assad’s tanks and helicopter
gunships.
Assad wins. Russia wins. U.S. prestige and believability
takes yet another hit.
Obama will no doubt declare victory. His toadies are already out there supporting
his new mantra that Assad was so scared of Obama that he caved on his chemical
weapons.
Except that securing Assad’s chemical weapons wasn’t how
this started. It wasn’t even a primary
goal. Obama wanted to show what a tough
guy he was by punishing Assad with a strong military strike.
Obviously that’s not going to happen. Obama will claim the moral high ground,
nonetheless, and pretend that this was his plan all along. And look how well it worked. We didn’t cause any loss of life and we got
exactly what we wanted.
Really?
Given that the media will push this nonsense nonstop, a lot
of Americans may forget that Obama caved early on when it looked like public opinion
was against intervention. Everything
after that was simply waffling, hoping something else came up to give him a
clue what to do.
That’s called decision by indecision. That’s not how a leader leads.
In the meantime, we’ve given the world a lot to laugh about.
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