The absolute arrogance of this White House is astounding:
The White House on Monday shrugged off Syrian President Bashar Assad’s thinly veiled threat of retaliation if the United States goes ahead with military strikes against his country.
Assad told CBS news that there will be “repercussions” for any American attack, ominously warning “you should expect everything.”
Asked about those comments, Deputy U.S. National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told Yahoo News “it’s not in his interest to escalate with the United States, because that only invites greater risk to him.”
But what about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing? Agents of Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi were convicted of that attack, which came not quite three years after American warplanes struck Tripoli. And Syria has been a regular on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1979. Is that a concern?
“We’re prepared for every contingency,” Rhodes replied, before repeating: “It’s not in his interest to escalate. That would only invite greater risk for him.”
I seem to remember when President Bush was in the White House, that he too had the same sort of arrogance; as if to say, “we’re going to do what we damned well please and we don’t give a flying flip what anyone thinks about it.” The sick part is, that Obama White House is doing the same very thing. This is not what the Democratic Party voted in, this is not what all those Obama supporters voted for; they voted for change and this President is playing the “Business as usual” game.
I can tell you this; if Obama does go ahead with a strike, and it explodes into an all out war, that it will be the end of the Democratic Party for a very long time. This sort of using the Military as a pawn in a chess game, does not sit well with the American people at all. Especially seeing that we just came out of eight long years of war in Iraq. Especially when you have members of the MIlitary suffering from the after effects of war. It is insane to do what Obama is doing; especially seeing that this rebels have the backing of Al-Qaeda.
I believe that President Obama is making a terrible mistake and that the Al-Qaeda terrorists have laid for him a trap and he is walking right into it. The problem is that he is taking America itself, over half of which do not support this horrific action, right into the trap as well.
This is an interesting article on the President, and is basically what I already knew about him….
Quote:
As for Barack Obama he was the stranger with the vaguest and nebulas agendas ever. He offered Hope and Change. He also said he would fundamentally change America. Since Obama was Black and viewed as a Liberal they wanted to and still do believe Obama was somehow one of them. Obama has his own ideas and they are a lot of things but traditionally Liberal is just not one of them.
The only thing I will add to the above is this; Barack Obama is not of Clinton stripe or even Truman or Roosevelt stripe. Obama is what is known as a neo-leftist. The only difference between a neoconservative and a neo-liberal is their differences on the opinion of scope and role of Government. Both are foreign policy hawks and both are okay with big Government, as long as they control it.
Obama and his people are neo-progressives. They are also, like the Clintons, internationalist Democrats and Wilsonian foreign policy devotees as well as devotees of the frankfurt school as well.
This is one of the problems with an attack on Syria that I mentioned yesterday. When the U.S. was declaring its intention to arm the Syrian opposition, it seemed that this could derail any attempt to reduce tensions with Iran. A direct attack on Syria would make it virtually impossible for Rouhani to pursue a more conciliatory course, which in turn makes conflict with Iran more likely in the coming years. Iran might not respond militarily to an attack on its ally, but if hard-liners in Tehran are as blinkered as our own “credibility”-obsessed politicians they very well might feel that they have to respond or risk being perceived as weak. Whether Iran retaliates or not, Rouhani will be in no position to offer concessions, and Iran hawks here will use this to justify their own demands for even more sanctions and more aggressive measures against Iran’s nuclear program.
One of the more curious things about arguments for intervention in Syria is that most of them have focused on Iran’s support for Assad as a reason to enter the war, but they never consider the possibility that Iran could strike against U.S. interests or clients in response. Most Syria hawks think that using force against Assad will prove to Tehran that the U.S. is serious when it makes threats against other governments, but they assume that hard-liners in Tehran will react to an attack on their ally by becoming more accommodating, which is the exact opposite of what they themselves would do if a U.S. ally were attacked. Most Syria hawks have tried selling war in Syria as a way to avoid war with Iran, but with each step towards direct military intervention in Syria war between the U.S. and Iran is becoming more likely.
The only thing I have to add to the above is this here; once the genie is out of the bottle, it is out and there is no putting back in the bottle at all. If the United States and Great Britain attack Syria, then the wheels for there being a World War III will be put into motion in short order; and Israel and Russia will be involved, as well as Iran. Biblical prophecy will begin to be fulfilled in short order.
This why I believe Obama really needs to think this through in a big way; and really ask himself, “Do I really want to be the President that puts the United States in this sort of place?” Also too, Patrick J. Buchanan is absolutely right, there needs to be a debate and Congress, not the President; should be the ones to decide if we should go into another protracted Military conflict.
Because frankly, there are no short wars at all. Period, End of story. Anyone who believe that this would be short battle ought to remember Iraq and how we thought that little foreign policy blunder was going to be a short war.
American version of it or not. I simply do not trust it and this here is why. This comes via Memri TV:
Some of you might say, “But, aren’t you a Buchananite type?” Yes, indeed I am. Which simply means that I am not a fan of Wilsonian Foreign Policy and that’s all it means. If Al-Jazeera TV is putting this sort of garbage on it’s Arab speaking network, it has zero business being in the United States of America. This is nothing more than Anti-Jewish propaganda and it furthers the blood libels that the terrorists thrive on and use to commit acts of carnage.
If our President were actually worth a tinkers damn, he would tell Al-Jazeera TV, “You either do something about that, or you can pack your little network up and go back to mecca, where you truly belong.” But, because we have a President who kowtows down to Arabs and their religion, instead of defending Jewish Americans, you have this network Al-Jazeera TV here to brainwash Americans into believe that 9/11 was somehow justified.
…and that, my friends, is a great American tragedy.
This comes via Ed Morrissey, who posted in the HotAir.com’s echo chamber “Green Room.”:
Now, allow me to say a few things as an independent political blogger and voter. This video above is so true. The right, of course, knows it; as they made it. However, the left knows it too and it is killing them. Of course, there will be the Obama loyalists who will defend him until the very last day. However, the grassroots left, they know that they were lied to, taken advantage of and basically screwed over by the party establishment.
Now, I have been hearing figures on the left saying that the Democrats will get behind Hillary. I have one thing to say about that little mistake: Good luck with that one! Hillary is basically damaged goods. The Benghazi scandal, regardless of how much of it is Republican and Conservative propaganda and how much of it is true; Hillary’s name is on it and whomever runs against her will use that to their advantage — both in the general election and in the Democratic Party primary. That’s right folks, if a Democrat wants to slay Hillary’s machine, all they need to do is play the clip of her saying, “What does it matter?” over and over and over — she will lose and I mean lose big.
The ironic part is, that the Democrats have no one to blame, and I mean, no one — except themselves. The Democrats chose skin color and affirmative action over true political experience. The Democrats because of their wish to control and expand the size of Government; elected twice, one of the members of the corrupt Chicago political machine — which is about as, or even more corrupt than the Texas political machine, of which President George W. Bush ex parte.
Let this be a lesson to all Americans; left, right and center — that the solution to corrupt, big government statism is not more corruption and big government statism. The lesson is also this; never choose personality or skin color over experience and never choose a candidate that represents that same very things that the last President represented, but with a different party label. Anyone that believes that there is any difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties anyone, is a fool. Both are corrupt, both are for big Government and both are controlled by lobbyists.
The question is this; can we change this? At one point, I believed we could. But, as of late, I am quite skeptical. I believe America has been lulled back to sleep and the downfall is coming. I dread the day; but all we can do, those of us who are awake, is pray for the best and prepare for the worst.
Prepare yourselves — Physically, Spiritually and mentally. Because, it is coming.
The Video is here. I was going to post it here, but it is an auto start embed and those drive people crazy! So, go to the link to view it!
The Story:
A Boston Marathon bombing victim hospitalized for weeks after the blasts lashed out at the mother of the accused bombers, calling Zubeidat Tsarnaeva “vile” for her jihad-laced rants and denials.
Michelle L’Heureux, a 38-year-old John Hancock consultant, told the Herald yesterday it’s time to stop being “politically correct” and speak out — making her one of the first victims to stand up to the terror-talking Chechen family.
“I feel a little bit of hatred towards her. I think she is a vile person,” L’Heureux said of the mom. “If you don’t like our country, get out. It’s as simple as that.”
L’Heureux lost most of her left knee in the blasts, and 30 percent of her hearing in her left ear. Her left arm is riddled with shrapnel scars, and there’s a piece of metal still inside her leg. She was 8 feet away from the first blast on Boylston Street. She came to the city to see her boyfriend cross the finish lin
If only more liberal Democrats felt this way, maybe we would have actually won the war on terror. Instead, because of the Democrat’s almost allergic reaction to war and because of the bungled methods of the Bush Administration — we lost it and badly. Oh, and BTW, I have seen where people have blamed this guy here for the loss of the Afghan war. Sorry, but that is bunch of flipping malarkey and I think the person that wrote that knows it; he is just looking to deflect the fact that Bush’s mishandling of the war in Afghanistan and the overselling of the war in Iraq.
Plus too, I believe we pulled out too early of Iraq and Afghanistan; we could have done it better, but we needed more time. But, when you have a war weary nation, what can you do?
You know, I have been skeptical of much of the right’s witch hunt of Obama. But, this one here has me feeling that before all of this is over with; Obama will end up impeached.
It would be the ultimate payback for the failure to impeach Clinton and it would set the Democratic Party back for years. Not to mention the possible riots. However the only persons to blame would be the Obama administration themselves. They did just what the Bush Administration did; they became drunk with power. They overreached and they are now reaping the whirlwind.
It’s typical DC stuff, but it shows that Obama didn’t change anything at all, if anything, he capitalized on the status quo.
Okay here is the little small problem with trusting Dick Cheney and his boss George W. Bush, they lied, as in like 935 times in a row, during their Presidency and Vice Presidency.
The Center for Public Integrity was founded in 1989 by Charles Lewis. We are one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations. Our mission: To enhance democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism.
Anyhow, here is why I don’t trust Neocons, nor do I trust Democratic Party liberals or Neo-leftists:
President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).
The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.
Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:
On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney’s assertions went well beyond his agency’s assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, “Our reaction was, ‘Where is he getting this stuff from?’ “
In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.” A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn’t been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn’t requested it.
In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: “Sure.” In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What’s more, an earlier DIA assessment said that “the nature of the regime’s relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear.”
On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.” But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team’s final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement “probably is a hoax.”
On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.” As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named “Curveball,” whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had “decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government].”
The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.
It was during those critical weeks in early 2003 that the president delivered his State of the Union address and Powell delivered his memorable U.N. presentation.
In addition to their patently false pronouncements, Bush and these seven top officials also made hundreds of other statements in the two years after 9/11 in which they implied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or links to Al Qaeda. Other administration higher-ups, joined by Pentagon officials and Republican leaders in Congress, also routinely sounded false war alarms in the Washington echo chamber.
The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, “independent” validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq.
The “ground truth” of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: “It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”
Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual “ground truth” regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who’s Who of domestic agencies.
On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials, have publicly — and in some cases vociferously — accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence. In the end, these critics say, it was the calculated drumbeat of false information and public pronouncements that ultimately misled the American people and this nation’s allies on their way to war.
Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government’s pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.
Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.
Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?
A video:
The real sick and sad part is this; the same people that are having a hissy fit on the right about this program existing under Obama, are the same ones who were perfectly fine with it existing under Bush. In other words, they trusted the program under Bush. like idiots. My question to that crowd is this; why do you not trust Obama? Because he is black or because he is a Democratic Party liberal?
Anyone and I mean anyone, who puts their trust in this Government of ours, based upon partisanship is nothing more than a darned fool in my opinion. Both of these political parties are two sides of the same coin and that is corruption and big Government socialism. Both parties promote it, both parties contribute to it. Government hand outs are Government hand outs; whether it be in the forum of welfare or Government subsidies. It is big Government statist and it flies in the face of our Constitution and in the face of what this great Nation was founded upon.
Also too, unlike the anti-american idiots at WSJ; no, I do not support this one iota. I agree with Michelle Malkin, it is overreach of the highest order and yes, it is dangerous as hell.
I will say this, as someone who is not much of a Democratic Party supporter anymore; my friends, we might just be witnessing what might just be the end or at least the long-term waylaying of the Democratic Party for a long time to come. I can tell you now, that many Americans who voted for President Obama are feeling like suckers who were sold a bag of lemons. Because from what I have seen, Democrats are absolutely furious about this little revelation.
AllahPundit writes about this moron, and man is he ever right about this guy.
Take it away AP:
Matthews has made this point many times before, usually with references to Horatio Alger, but it feels extra special after a long week of President Perfect completely betraying the Hopenchange ethos of his first presidential campaign. It’s not the cheap racial demagoguery that gets me here; that’s par for the course both for him and his network, where you’ll find far dumber examples of it than this. What gets me is that a guy who’s spent his adult life in politics reacts to the dynamics of ideological differences and partisanship like a college student would. Righties dislike O because he’s a statist liberal, and sometimes an aggressive one; if Hillary wins, she’ll be hated for the same reason. Obama’s personal behavior is better than lots of pols’, but plenty of politicians who are more or less decent people in their personal conduct are roundly hated by the other team. Paul Ryan’s a nice guy with a lovely family whom the lefty commentariat loathes because they think he wants to kill grandma. Marco Rubio also seems like a decent person with a nice family; he’ll be the second coming of Hitler in 2016 to the left if he’s the nominee, his shilling for immigration reform notwithstanding. Many people who know Mitt Romney will tell you he’s a warm, generous guy in person; he’s lived cleanly too, apart from his unforgivable crime of making lots and lots of money in business. (Note Matthews’s reference to “money-grubbing” in the clip. For shame, Mitt.) All of them already are or will be regarded by liberals as monsters, not because they have any deep objection to them as people but because they’re roadblocks on the path to the society liberals want America to be. That’s politics. When you know the way to paradise, everyone in your way is the devil. And every single person reading this grasps that already. So how is it the guy who doesn’t, who shrieks like a five-year-old over political animosities, has his own TV show?
Very well put. Also too, and please know this okay? The only reason I am linking to HotAir.com on this is for following reasons:
Because I happened to see the videos there and I happened to have liked what AllahPundit said.
It is considered in blogging to be unethical to not cite sources of where you get your videos from. Yes, I know, people have used stuff here and no bothered to cite me as the source. It happens. But, I happen to believe in ethics and integrity. Because of this I cite my sources, all the time. I could care less about the hits or lack of; although, I will confess that the trackback links are nice. But, I really do not get a good deal of traffic from HotAir.com. So, the accusations of my link whoring are baseless.
