Not just President Coward, but President Coward with his REAL strategy: let’s call him by his REAL name, President Coward Cloward-Piven.
That’s Obama now, and probably always was — only now he’s out of the closet and into the golf cart, right back to his college days. Obama doesn’t appear to care, nor can one suppose there is fear under that carapace of sneering indifference. Perhaps his indifference lies in knowing that the secrets he holds are ones that would surely bring others down with him.
Does that sound paranoid? This administration has led me along paths of paranoia I hadn’t realized existed. Nor am I alone in this sad journey.
A comment dated yesterday, appended to that YouTube video of Mr. Whittle’s, said what I have been known to mutter on my bad days:
Bill needs to read a little more. All empires eventually collapse, generally after about one hundred to one hundred and fifty years, although some fail long before. The US ‘empire’ is almost one hundred years old and is approaching its end, as its craven and impotent political class shows. Don’t be frightened, there is life after empire, you just have to get used to playing second fiddle to a much more powerful competitor. Get used to it quickly and learn enough Chinese to apologise profusely when they threaten you with military retaliation because your government doesn’t follow their agenda.
No and no. To begin with, lots of empires lasted longer than he claims is their usual life-span. Also we were never an Empire On Purpose. George Washington warned us as he left office to keep out of foreign entanglements. But the well-traveled sophisticates Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson thought we should try foreign markets for the sake of our domestic economy. Unfortunately, foreign markets meant finding personnel to maintain a presence wherever we wanted to build commercial ties. A coming continent of untold resources and a citizenry free to innovate cried out for trade.
Our attempts at “empire” failed eventually, after egregious missteps by both former empires and by our own distracted, ever-incoherent “foreign” policy. Despite the cries of Manifest Destiny we suck at foreign policy, even as we keep trying, resembling ever more closely the cartoonish bumblers in old vaudeville routines. There is nothing graceful about our missteps and even less so our attempted cover-ups of mistakes.
You could compare our efforts to the ways China keeps trying to grow a market economy — ineptly and half-heartedly. China’s intellectual understanding has evolved enough to grasp that a demand economy works better in the long run than a command economy. However, the weight of history and habit — not to mention a conserving culture handed down from the old emperors — means that letting go and building transparency into the system will require trusting the Chinese people. That may be an innovation too far.
By the way, there’s another thing about China’s supposed menace: that large country is imploding on so many levels the idea of a Chinese empire will remain merely that: an idea. China is both too ancient and too young to attempt it yet. And Australia has to be more concerned about that than we do — Australia and India and the Philippines.
We may be coming to an interregnum period of No Empires. Will it be a vacuum? Will Russia rush to fill it? Or will Putin be satisfied with the security of locking in his own near-abroad and insuring a dependable energy supply which he can use for domestic purposes and to intimidate those who need those resources? Putin is mortal; Russia needs a post-Putin plan, too.
One sign of our ineptitude in foreign policy is our inability to teach it well. Our Georgetown graduates are looking to get ahead and get into sinecures provided by friends and relatives with enough clout to open the doors to a diplomatic career. Not merit but who you know — those are the “career” folk who move up the ranks to work hand-in-glove with the upper echelons of the finance sector. That is how we rigged the oligarchy which rules us now, to the point that elections truly don’t matter and we happily “vote” for the earnest empty suits they put up for our consideration. Meanwhile, politicians bide their time in a cloak of insider incumbency, waiting to take on a role in the permanent government bureaucracy when their attempts at gaining the office of president fail.
[I fear that some enterprising soul will invent “Empire in a Box” for would-be dictators. The directions will read a lot like the Chinglish explanations that come with products made in China which are designed to be assembled at home — i.e., furiously frustrating and unclear and the resulting equipment eventually dangerous and/or unworkable.]
No, America is in a melt-down for a myriad of reasons but not simply because our Imperial turn is up.
President Hope and Change changed his tune, singing instead about Blame, about Despair and Stuck-on-Stupid and a whole new boatload of corruption. Most of all he has invaded his own country with illegals who are taking on jobs while almost ten million people are out of work, including a sadly higher percentage of blacks than any other group — and I mean those young black men who followed the rules, stayed in school, and emerged with a heavy load of debt to find the marketplace empty.
Having left us in a mire of despondency, Obama retired to the golf course. He barely pretends to “work” at his own job. One of our tasks is figure out if all this mess would’ve happened irrespective of his lawless reign, or, on the other hand, if, despite him, it could have been avoided because America is bigger than a two-bit golf-obsessed Hamlet who ignores the Constitution, and has always ignored it. That document gives us directions for handling crises like those Obama has created, but we lack the will to do so. I, for one, want my black neighbors to see him finish out his term, however badly he does it, just so they won’t despair completely over the state of this nation.
Clare Lopez thinks Obama has gone over to the other side, an opinion many have held since before his first election:
…America has switched sides in the war on terror under President Obama. Clare Lopez was willing to say what a few members of Congress have said in private, but declined to say on-the-record.*
Ms. Lopez’ credentials?
Clare M. Lopez is the Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy and Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the Canadian Meighen Institute and formerly with The Clarion Project . Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Also Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.
The Examiner based its report largely on Lopez’ recent interview with World Net Daily:
Lopez said the global war on terror had been an effort to “stay free of Shariah,” or repressive Islamic law, until the Obama administration began siding with such jihadist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Lopez believes that the Muslim Brotherhood has thoroughly infiltrated the Obama administration and other branches of the federal government. One of the most outrageous of those appointments is Mohamed Elibiary, a senior member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, Elibiary supports brokering a U.S. partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group. Two months ago, a firestorm erupted online after Elibiary tweeted that a “Caliphate” is inevitable and compared it to the European Union.
Ms. Lopez also believes Obama had essentially the same goals in the Mideast as the late Osama bin Laden: “to remove American power and influence, including military forces, from Islamic lands.” The former CIA operative’s perspective affects her prescription for what the U.S. should do about the terror army ISIS, as she called for caution and restraint.
[…]
Lopez felt it was impossible to understand why the president and some of his top appointees, such as CIA Director John Brennan, who is believed to be a Muslim convert, “consistently seem to apologize for Islam, even in the face of such atrocities as the Foley beheading,” adding, they “take pains to assure the world they don’t think IS, (or the Islamic State, also called ISIS) or whichever perpetrator it was, has anything to do with Islam. How can they possibly believe that genuinely when everything these jihadis do tracks directly to the literal text of Quran, hadiths and Shariah?”
“In any case, and for whatever motivations, there is no doubt this administration switched sides in what used to be called the Global War on Terror,” she said. [My emphasis]
* In my opinion, Ms. Lopez can walk in where angels fear to go because she has been kicked into the Land of Nothing Left to Lose. If you will recall, as a Fellow for Gatestone Institute, she wrote an essay — one whose subject I’ve forgotten now. En passant, she praised Diana West’s book, the by-now infamous American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character
When that group of essays arrived in our inbox, I scanned each and was so pleasantly surprised to see Diana’s book mentioned favorably that I immediately opened up a “compose” window to send her some good news for a change. But by then — mid-morning — Lopez essay and her URL had vanished. I searched the site, but Clare Lopez’ existence there on Gatestone was beginning to blur; the air-brushers were busy at work. But… but… I had that piece sitting right there in our inbox! How could this be?? I checked the time of arrival of G.I.’s mass email which included all of the day’s essays. It had come in about 5:00 a.m. So within five hours or so of publication Lopez’ report was already history. Were we in a Stalinesque time warp? My main reaction was to feel freaked — places I trusted were causing the foundations to quiver. Fortunately, other, wiser heads had screen-capped the evidence; thus we know that essay did exist at one point even though it had an amazingly brief life.
Clare Lopez’ existence on Gatestone was air-brushed out of its pages. Gatestone appeared to be not an “Institute” but a screen behind which the little men/women who doled out the money also had a hold on the puppet strings of its editors and writers.
Similar experiences were to be repeated through a long dreary time. Over the coming weeks and months we were to see craven repetitions in other venues as the clay feet of purported “conservatives-with-gravitas” melted in the rain, leaving them unable to move or speak out against a monumental injustice. Writers and politicians for whom I had formerly felt some philosophical allegiance were exposed — as much by their silence as their bombast against Diana West’s book. Just one little book, weighted down with its nine hundred sources for the back-up of its contentions. A book many of its detractors freely admitted they hadn’t read.
And how sad it was that Gates of Vienna, by default, became the source for those searching out the truth that Diana West sought to bring forth in her research and writing. Over and over the Baron had to beat back the falsehoods, the half-truths, and the sheer malice mounted against Diana West — and secondarily — her book. The mystery of this brutally personal Stalinesque cordon sanitaire was partly unveiled by common sense. It could only have been erected by those with some investment in maintaining the conservative “narrative” regarding Roosevelt and the hand-delivered consensus about post-war American political ‘truths’, which included the demonization of people and groups who fought against the consensus.
Thus, in speaking her mind about Obama’s turn to the dark side, was Ms. Lopez motivated at all by the limning experience in standing up for Diana West’s obligation to state the truth as she saw it? Was it a matter for Ms. Lopez of the freedom of having little left to lose? I suspect such may be the case. She is an experienced and knowledgeable expert. I think you will see more of her long-term swimming against the corrupt consensus as situations change. She has perhaps seen the moral corrosion of silence.
For me, things have changed fundamentally. Lt. Col. Allen West’s silence as a deep disappointment. He knew Diana and called her “friend”… but he said nothing; I find myself less interested in what he has to say now. Andrew McCarthy? He had been Diana West’s authorial colleague, collaborating on a book with her. There are many others — people not directly involved, who side-stepped because it was easier to do nothing.
Karma is a hard task master. Many will feel the burden eventually. Many people have already expressed their displeasure by simply withdrawing their attention. Mr. McCarthy would have sold more of his books if he’d had the cojones to stand by his friend. But maybe traveling in the orbits of the rich and famous was more compelling than evanescent book sales?
Meanwhile, for situations that don’t change and the example of Americans who were privy to what happened and are unwilling to let the lies stand, we have the story of Benghazi, a prime example of the fog of war. Dismissive condescension — e.g., “It was so long ago” — simply crashes to the ground under the weight of a determined reality. In the latest effort to get the truth out, Fox News is running a weekend of reports based on a book to be released next week. Last night’s report is over, but there are broadcasts planned for tonight and Sunday:
Fox News Reporting: 13 Hours in Benghazi
Broadcast Times:
Friday, Sept. 5 at 10 p.m. ET
Saturday, Sept. 6 at [both] 5 p.m. & 9 p.m. ET
Sunday, Sept. 7 at [both] 8 p.m. & 11 p.m. ETIt has been nearly two years since the fatal attack in Libya. Now, hear for the first time from the men who fought that battle.
That is a total of five broadcast times. I plan to watch at least one replay provided our connectivity allows for it.
The book on which this report is based can be pre-ordered here: 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi
That page on Fox includes an interview with Brett Baier, done by Bill O’Reilly — truly one of the latter’s rudest and most hostile displays to date. Bill O’Reilly appears to have gotten worse with age. Brett Baier is a colleague and as such does not deserve to be interrupted or to be treated with sullen rudeness.
Is O’Reilly’s bullying demeanor the new normal for “pundits”? Or did his bosses tell him he had no choice, that this was a “have-to” so he attempted to scuttle their command with a passive-aggressive attack on his colleague? Does O’Reilly believe he has any ‘colleagues’ or is he above such petty considerations? Or perhaps… did Mr. O’Reilly perhaps overdose on that wretched English fellow whose obsession with America’s guns seemed every bit as soul-consuming as Obama’s love affair with golf?
Can we send all US colonels for a course in geopolics with Dymphna and Baron at Schloss Bodissey instead of their current mandatory indoctrination with Madeleine Albright and Fareed Zakharia at the Council of Foreign Relations?
Heh. Do you remember when Madame Secretary of State was visiting a foreign embassy and was mistaken for a maid??
Couldn’t resist – just looked it up:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.society.conservatism/5re2vy9j860
Evidently it was at a hotel and the culprits were Albanians. When Madame spewed invective, evidently the translators were at a loss as to how to translate it.
So she’d be right at home here, considering I used to be a housecleaner myself. We could trade war stories.
The energy/fossil fuel ‘wars’ of the last few years has forced me to relearn my geography, and in more detail. I know, let’s send those two for a tutorial from Sir Gregory Copley. His current book is on our sidebar, but the one that came out in early 2012 is totally available online, for free:
Energy Security 2.0 PDF Edition
I recommend downloading and printing the book…don’t think it’s available anymore.
The link to Copley’s book doesn’t seem to work, Dymphna.
I fixed it.
Try this shortened version:
http://is.gd/cyAm8x
The full title is “Energy Security 2.0: How Energy Is Central to the Changing Global Balance in the New Age of Geography”. Takes a while to download, and be sure to have a globe or atlas handy. A book that will stay with you long after you put down the last page.
It was fascinating to see how far behind the curve I was on the geopolitical tensions at work in the world, including the massive movements of impoverished, ignorant populations – ignorant in the sense they don’t have the skills to thrive in an urban environment. I’ll have to look at it again, since I found his information on China compelling but can’t remember what he said about Russia.
Here’s their website: http://www.strategicstudies.org/
On that first page, you’ll find an unlinked title:
ISSA Report on “The New Battlefield” Attracts Interest: An End to Asymmetric Warfare
Within that report are three linked essays about why “Asymmetric” Warfare has jumped the shark. Again, I’m behind the curve as I hadn’t realized the ROE have changed. I wonder if our military knows that? Since we’re in reactive rather than initiative mode, it’s something on which we’d better get up to speed, and quickly. Nothing more lethal than fighting the last war, which the West has tended to do for generations.
Then of course you could look at our sidebar and click on his “UnCivilization”. He – among others – will explain to you the whys and wherefores of the coming demographic implosion.
Thanks both. This could take a while…
Another message to BHO from the son of an imam: (via BNI)
A Message to President Obama from a former Muslim
“Brother Rachid addresses President Obama about ISIL and Islam; he explains to him how ISIL is imitating the prophet Muhammad in every detail they do. ISIL represents Islam.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxzOVSMUrGM#t=34
Ummm…First of all you’re OT. This post is about America’s view of the Coward…
Second, please check our posts before putting in a link to a video we have already posted. As in *yesterday*.
https://gatesofvienna.net/2014/09/brother-rashid-gives-president-obama-a-lesson-in-the-real-islam/
Third, if you read Gates of Vienna more closely, you wouldn’t EVER mention BNI here. I have no idea who that blogger is, but I do know they participated in an ugly smear against our website’s integrity, essentially calling the Baron a liar.
Now the Baron is a “let-bygones-be-bygones” kind of guy, so he’s willing to let that muck roll off his back.
I am NOT. When someone permits their name to be used in an ugly, fallacious attack on the Baron’s honesty/integrity and then ignores my request to remove that attack, their blog will get no respect here. Where my husband (or my children, for that matter) are concerned, there is no statutory limit to my wrath.
The world is full of lies. When people claim to be members of the Counterjihad and then behave in such a manner, they get called on it. particularly when it has the potential to affect our reputation.
Having complex PTSD, I long ago learned not to visit that site to avoid being triggered. BNI has way too much jihad porn, which plays right into the hands of those animals it purports to expose.
Now you know: not here.
I do regularly read your blog but obviously missed the video I linked to as well as the situation between you and BNI. Obviously, I would not have done so had I known – nevertheless – I apologize for any distress my post caused you and the Baron.
Thanks for your reasonable reply to my angry remark.
The Baron is no longer bothered, but the comment rekindled my Irish sense of injustice. Not only was it not true, but it slandered the Baron’s character. I went back to google it, and in second spot was a bystander’s opinion on the whole mess:
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2011/07/someone-is-lying-either-pam-geller.html
The contentiousness concerned Tommy Robinson being attacked. He’s another one, like the Baron, that I’d defend. A man who deserved a medal for courage got a jail sentence instead – where the Muslim inmates were given the chance to beat him up and to spit on him – the latter quite regularly. As I’ve seen our British commenters say, their country has become hell. And the politicians did it for votes. Which is what is happening in this country with “amnesty”. The Brits never even got the chance to argue about it but Americans are doing so, quite vociferously.
What makes the U.S. situation even creepier is the fact that many of these children will be in the hands of sex traffickers before long. And then in a few years when they’re too “old” to be considered chicken meat anymore, they’ll be dumped on city streets, feral and damaged.
Who wrote this?
check the author, both at the top and at the end of the post. Do you plan to turn her in?
I have followed the Benghazi situation rather closely since its inception and no where have I read or heard said that the POTUS ordered the stand down.
Just this weekend FOX news ran an hour long special during which they interviewed three CIA security contractors that were in the CIA annex at the time of the attack who disobeyed orders and responded to the situation along with 4 others; two of whom died. They claim the CIA Chief of Station, “Bob”, ordered them to stand down.
The Congress needs to find out from “Bob” who ordered him to order them to stand down.
If you have been following this closely you know that the gov’t secreted the Libyan personnel away and made them sign non disclosure statements. It is told that in some cases they were given new identities (I’m not sure that is the case.) In any event it is still unclear who the most senior person was that ordered the stand down and refused to authorize air support other than a video drone which the men on the ground claim they requested repeatedly. BTW, these are the first three guys that were actually on the ground in Benghazi to speak out. It should come as no surprise that they are no longer contractors for CIA, having retired.
I would like Mr. Whittle to state his source for his claim that POTUS ordered the stand down. When you think about it, if that were known then it would make front page news.
I’m sorry to say that I don’t believe Mr. Whittle.
Well, Babs, Whittle has a well-established reputation for personal integrity. I have watched his various programs (and there are many) over the past ten years – since his beginnings in Eject, etc., so like many others, I feel instinctively that he is a man of honor, possessing a real vision of what this country could become. His calm determination to return us from the hell into which we have fallen rings true.
Whittle uses both his gifts for innovation ans his ability to communicate to help bring that about. He could be making a lot more money focusing on the private sector, especially in aviation, but he’s chosen this path instead.
At the same time, your point is valid. The over-riding question has been WHO ordered that stand down; that hot potato has been passed around at the top levels even since before Hillary, in a rageful snit at members of Congress, yelled that the final responsibility didn’t matter since it “was so long ago”. That tantrum, along with other famous Hilliaryisms like “vast right wing conspiracy” will live on past her time on the stage.
At the very beginning of this mess, while the consulate was under attack that fog of war seemed to leave everyone in the vicinity without any moorings. I was shocked to see the footage of the ‘ambassador’ being dragged through the streets. Dead? Alive? it wasn’t clear; his eyes were glazed and if he wasn’t dead at the time he was certainly in deep shock.
IMHO, Obama shoved the decision off on Hillary as his SecState. He didn’t seem to ever have grasped the seriousness of the situation. He left it to her and went to bed. OTOH, as shoes continued dropping, Obama pulled a purge at CentCom three months later.
http://thelastgreatstand.com/lgs/2013/12/15/report-general-mattis-forced-out-of-centcom-for-questioning-obama/
Or see this, for a fuller list of the purges:
https://www.facebook.com/terry.edgar.58/posts/519126018219925
I haven’t seen as full an accounting of the whole of *everyone* thrown under the campaign bus as this one has:
https://www.facebook.com/terry.edgar.58/posts/519126018219925
They all happened after September 2012 and went on and on, all the way down thru the ranks to a Lt Commander, the xo of a submarine in Mayport. Even reserves were axed.
Fox News ran that program you mention fully FIVE times this weekend. Gretchen S- can’t spell her last name – was approached by the WH to pressure Scott Baier and the men talking about their book AND Fox News Corp to cut the program entirely. Fat chance considering the brutal rudeness, dirty tricks and disrespect Fox has endured from this administration. Not to mention our dead personnel.
Congress’ “investigation” is not going to go ANYWHERE until after the election. The retention of some representatives’ seats may hinge on their solemn word to move on this shameful, disgusting incident. Which is why I’d hoped they’d delay this book by a few weeks so the impact wouldn’t attenuate.
I haven’t followed closely the passing back and forth of the hot potato of blame for this mess. I am aware of some of the background, that the ambassador (maybe CIA or in hand with CIA) was at the safe house to supervise the return and pick-up of all those weapons we scattered to the ‘rebels’ in Libya tasked with the takedown of Gaddafi. Once collected, they were to be passed on to the ‘rebels’ in Syria for the next takedown, and so on, like – shall we say – falling dominoes in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant.
*Why no one considered the anniversary of 9/11 as possibly problematic is a mystery.
*Why they thought our guys would stand by while an installation was being attacked shows the disconnect between this admin and the military.
*Why they ham-handedly set up that film producer in a sting operation so as to have him as a scapegoat – i.e., as the source of all evil eruptions, is beyond anyone’s understanding…
BHO & Co have snafued so many things so repeatedly that his administration will be a source of revelatory books for the next generation. Publishers must be greedily kneading their hands in anticipation of the coming gold rush.
But as to your question re the source for Whittle’s belief that BHO ordered the stand-down, I’m sure that claim has been repeated ad nauseam; people who have made that claim, were they to stand in line, would snake around a city block. For sure, I heard it being batted about early on, right after the Sunday afternoon talk shows when that poor flunky, Rice, made the rounds repeating what she was ordered to say…
I watched the Whittle video twice and I don’t remember any sense of surprise. Maybe the right has its own Narrative about what BHO knew and when he knew it (in real time, before he went to bed to rest up for his next round of money raising), and answered their own questions about whether he’d really leave the decision in Hillary hands.
From a Reuters’ report about 6 months later (with my emphasis:
Even after Congress finishes its hearings (maybe before BHO leaves office?) we may still never know. Some people believe he cynically plans to run out the clock on this particular dereliction. Here’s an early-on report, two weeks or so after that disaster.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/01/benghazi-stand-down-denials-dont-stand-up-to-reason/
I’m sorry to say, Babs, that I DO believe Mr. Whittle. He has reason and our long experience of BHO to back up the claim.
I agreed with everything you said until you got to the point “He has reason and our long experience of BHO to back up the claim.”
Hey, I can’t stand BHO but “reason” and “experience” do not a grave accusation like this make.
Mr. Whittle might have every reason to believe that a money grubbing narcissist like BHO might give a stand down order however, to my knowledge this has never been proven to be the case in any way. NO ONE that has the opportunity to know has ever said that.
That is why I ask Mr. Whittle to source his claim.
Did I miss something in the reporting that might lead one to this conclusion? I don’t think so.
I think the much more “reasonable” explanation is that those under him just didn’t know what to do because the CIC had gone to bed (or whatever) and the Sec. State was out of her depth.
I think it is much more reasonable to think that the military political animals under him were afraid to do anything because they might get in trouble. Is Mr. Obama complicit in this atmosphere, you bet! Did he actually give a stand down order… Source it.
I have seen scores of Mr. Whittle’s videos and I have tremendous respect for him. I understand that he is very angry over the entire affair, as am I. But, I don’t think it is in anyone’s best interest to throw out a damning statement like this one without being able to source it other than “reason” and “experience.”
I have seen cell phone footage of just ten or so seconds of our Ambassador being dragged through the streets dead. The happy talk put out by State that the “good people” who just happened to be there bundled him up carefully and took him to the hospital for care is BS. He was stone cold dead and what they were actually doing was taking him to the morgue so that the US could recover his body and see what a bloody mess the savages could do.
Can you imagine what one A-10 Warthog could have done to these savages? With the guys on the roof of the consulate with infrared goggles on lazing targets… It would have been a turkey shoot. Just one Warthog, sigh…
I have a personal connection to this event as my oldest son was a Lt. on the USS Barry for 18 months. He rotated off the ship on the day they set out from Norfolk for a tour in the Med. BHO decided to bust up Libya and the Barry was tasked with being the closest to shore US ship. These were friends and colleagues that my son had served with that were put in extreme danger. They blew off everything they had on board and went back to either Spain or Italy to get more, went back and sent all that stuff flying.
I never understood why Mr. Obama wanted to destroy a fairly stable, nuclear free country and send so much destruction its way. The only person that made any sense at all was the Diplomad who claimed that Qaddafi was squeezing the Europeans on energy contracts and American involvement was “pay back” for their participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. That makes as much sense as any other explanation. Of course the explanation by BHO that he was preventing a genocide was bollocks. If that was the case in Libya then why has he allowed the genocide in Syria and Iraq? Sorry, I don’t buy it.
So now Libya is a failed state with armed tribes running all over the place and spreading their blood lust to Mali. What a total mess this administration has made out of the Middle East and Northern Africa.
b
I also read and enjoy the Diplomad.
http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/
He is so very disturbed about BHO’s cavalier treatment of foreign service personnel that he writes less about it, iirc.
We ruined Libya and much of MENA for the sake of the Muslim Brotherhood. A huge FAIL. They are so inept they couldn’t even keep Egypt. For which I am grateful.
Libya is a mess. People are beginning to starve and civil war had begun last time I checked. Now he’s doing the same thing to us with the massive invasion of “children” – who will be trafficked for sex in short order. Never has our country been so close to melt down.
BHO is rudderless. I expect to see him continue to fade until 2016 arrives and he can take up permanent residence on a golf course. He’s an embarrassment. I don’t even hate him – just want him to go away.
Thanks for your clarifications…too fatigued to respond more fully. I did indeed think of your son’s service back in 2012 and hoped he was out of harm’s way.
BTW, Gretchen S- can’t spell her last name= Gretta Van Susterin – was approached by the WH to pressure Scott Baier= Bret Baier. And actually Gretta was asked to pressure Katherine Herridge the Pentagon reporter for FOX to stop reporting on this.
An interesting thing about Katherine Herridge; her son was born without functioning kidneys. She donated one of her own to save his life.
Bret Baier’s son was born with a heart ailment. He endured several surgeries to save his life. Bret and his wife donated one million dollars to the hospital for pediatric heart research. He recently wrote a book about it.
Now he’s doing the same thing to us with the massive invasion of “children” – who will be trafficked for sex in short order. Never has our country been so close to melt down.
I don’t know enough about sex trafficking to make a comment on that. What I do know is that a flood of non-English speaking persons into a school district will significantly disrupt the education of everyone else in the district. In addition, the native English tax paying families of the district will be asked to pay for the privilege of hosting these children to the detriment of funding for their own children.
Why else is the Obama administration refusing to release the location of all these children? Because they don’t want a coordinated riot on their hands! Let every district discover for themselves that they have been invaded by “special needs” children that they will now have to pay for… It’s much easier to dilute the rage that way.
BTW, I read several months ago that various charities in So’Cal were advertising for host families. They were advertising $6,200 per month for housing a child. I actually fantasized about $72,000/year TAX FREE! I would go after that kid tooth and nail. I would work full time on the kid to bring his English skills up to par and integrate him/her into our society. I would volunteer twice a week in the classroom to help out. I have two sons that speak fluent Spanish. I would set up a call schedule with them to speak to the child. $72,000 tax free/yr? Please tell me what other occupation pays that much?
>”What I do know is that a flood of non-English speaking persons into a school district will significantly disrupt the education of everyone else in the district.”
and:
>”I would work full time on the kid to bring his English skills up to par… I have two sons that speak fluent Spanish.”
Please be advised that many of these unaccompanied “minors”, some of whom are reported to be in their 30s, do not speak Spanish either, but rather various Central American tribal languages.
The nations of Latin America vary wildly from one to the next in terms of their respective ratios of persons primarily of European descent to persons primarily of native descent.
Guatemala is one where the native component is particularly strong, like the adjacent portions of southern Mexico. Northern Mexico, which we estadounidenses on this side of the river have more familiarity with, is, by way of contrast, more nearly in the middle of the spectrum.
I believe that Honduras is closer to Guatemala in this respect. I’m not sure about El Salvador. But these three nations are reported to be the biggest sources of the current inflow.
There are reports from Massachusetts that some of the minors registering as students in the local public (of course!) middle and high schools appear to be older than some of their respective homeroom teachers. But according to their DHS paperwork, which lists the date of birth they provided to the processing officers, they are the proper age for the grade that they are in.
Federal regulations prohibit principals or teachers from asking the students’ age. Such questioning could, of course, violate the students’ rights, and lead to discrimination, even if not conducted off the grid under conditions of waterboarding.
The mayor of one town in Massachusetts was complaining that her schools had received an influx of new students from one particular province in Guatemala, none of whom spoke Spanish. Since no teachers fluent in their native language could be obtained in the New England job market, especially on short notice, this is making it rather challenging for her to obey the federal bilingual education regulations.
Jeff Kuhner’s weekday morning radio show on WRKO in Boston is a great source on the invasion’s current impact on Massachusetts. Daily highlights are available on the iTunes Store.