Obama vs CIA, Who Is Telling The Truth?

President Obama blamed America’s intelligence agencies for failing to properly assess the dangers of a rising ISIS. In leaked reports, the CIA has released information suggesting that Obama was warned about ISIS increasing in strength as early as before the 2012 election. Other information leaked in the past few days suggest the President doesn’t bother attending more than half of his intelligence briefings. The public is stuck deciding who is telling the truth here because someone must be lying. Either the President was warned and made the decision not to confront ISIS while they were still weak or our intelligence services have failed to obtain the sort of intelligence necessary for the President to make a decision.

If the CIA is wrong, if they failed to properly assess the growing strength of ISIS this is a major problem. The CIA was already wrong on Iraq’s WMD’s a decade ago. It was their warnings, as well as warnings from Britain’s MI6, that led to the Iraq War. Iraq didn’t have WMD’s in mass quantities and if the CIA is wrong here they once again failed to figure out what is actually happening on the ground. It begs the question what the point of having an intelligence service is when they’re either outright wrong or fail to figure out what’s actually going on. If the CIA didn’t figure out what was going on with ISIS, it begs the question why Obama is listening to them now. After all, he’s relying on CIA reports about ISIS positions in Syria in order to bomb them. Why are we dropping bombs if the CIA can’t be trusted to figure anything out?

On the other hand it’s entirely possible that Obama is lying about the CIA not figuring things out about ISIS. In this case, it’s likely he ignored the problem in favor of focusing on more domestic matters. If the CIA warned him before the 2012 election about ISIS, it makes one wonder why in 2013 the President was willing to support ISIS interests by attacking Assad in Syria. After all, ISIS wants to get rid of Assad. Does the President not trust reports he receives from the CIA? If so, why not? If he has a history of not trusting the CIA’s reports, why is he relying on them now to bomb ISIS targets in Syria? Why has he trusted CIA reports to bomb al Qaeda targets via drone for the last six years? If the President didn’t believe the CIA reports, he’s covering his tracks now. On the other hand, if the CIA wasn’t on top of ISIS they’re completely incompetent. Even the media had reports about ISIS long before the beheadings made it popular to support action against them.

Obama throwing the CIA under the bus has left us with a lot of questions and not many answers. If Obama truly wasn’t informed about ISIS, if the CIA really had no idea this group was becoming a threat then we’ve got a big problem on our hands. Why are we sending bombs into Syria based in CIA intelligence that shouldn’t be trusted? How can we trust the CIA to know what’s going on in the world’s danger zones when they can’t get this one right? On the other hand, if the CIA did warn Obama then we’re looking at another two years with a President who doesn’t pay attention to his daily intelligence briefings. It makes you wonder how much thought he’s put in to our nation’s attacks on ISIS. Is he bombing ISIS because it’s politically expedient to do so or is he doing it because he really believes in the cause? If it’s the former, the bombings will cease after the election.

At this point it isn’t clear which side is telling the truth. Obama clearly threw his intelligence services under the bus when he accused them of dropping the ball on ISIS. The intelligence community responded as one would expect them to do, they leaked negative stories about Obama concerning intelligence briefings. It isn’t clear who is telling the truth, perhaps neither deserve the benefit of the doubt. What we can do is note that Obama’s position concerning Syria has been inconsistent over the last two years. He drew a red line against Assad and in August and September of 2013 he threatened to bomb Syria, thus helping the ISIS rebels cause. Did the President not consider the danger of ISIS in 2013 because he wasn’t paying attention or because he wasn’t warned? Did the CIA warn him about ISIS at the time. Why the sudden shift against ISIS and thus in favor of Assad in September 2014? We seem to be switching sides on a moments notice. Is this all Obama or is it the result of poor intelligence? It just isn’t clear right now.

In ISIS Speech President Seeks To Define What Religions May Believe

President Obama sounded like President Bush in his speech last night, ordering military strikes against ISIS. Not surprisingly the left gushed over the speech, declaring it “nuanced.” Pointless or a day late and a dollar short are more accurate descriptions. ISIS has been a growing threat for months, having been dismissed by Obama as the “JV” team. A handful of airstrikes and 475 “boots on the ground” aren’t going to deter a group like ISIS. The Nobel Peace Prize President is leading us into war. Is anyone confident it will turn out well?

Perhaps the highlight of Obama’s absurd speech was his declaration that ISIS isn’t Islamic. I have always enjoyed when people who don’t believe in a particular religion declare what is and isn’t acceptable belief in that religion. Christians hear this all the time from atheists and others who want to limit the extent of Christian teaching, usually when it comes to topics such as abortion, homosexual acts or sex generally. In typical liberal fashion, Obama is going to tell Muslims what is and isn’t acceptable for them to believe. The arrogance is incredible.

Obama didn’t just stop there, he went further. He declared that “no religion condones the killing of innocents.” Who is Obama to declare this so? Since when did the President of the United States, be it Obama or anyone else, have the authority to declare what religions are and aren’t allowed to believe? The fact is that Islam has a 1400 year history of conversion by conquest and murder. There are other religions that have killed people in the name of their god. The Aztec’s and others engaged in human sacrifices. Are these not religions because Obama said so? He’s not even following a Christian line of thought, which would argue they’re false religions. He’s simply declaring it so because he’s Obama and apparently that gives him the authority to declare what is and isn’t a religion.

In doing this Obama shows us two things. First, he shows us the supreme arrogance of his vision of the state. As head of state, he believes he has the right and authority to declare what is and isn’t a religion and what is and isn’t acceptable doctrine. This is long standing with Obama, we saw the same thinking with his contraception mandate. Second, we see his profound ignorance of the history of Islam, which has never been a religion of peace. This is a religion that believes in conversion by the sword. It has a long history of killing people who convert to a different faith or who refuse to convert to Islam. To pretend like what ISIS is doing has no basis in the Koran or no precedent in Muslim history displays an incredible ignorance.

The problem of course is that Obama isn’t the first President to display an ignorance of Islam. His predecessor is credited for coining the term “religion of peace,” which is something Islam has never been. For all the attacks Obama has made on Bush over the years, this war is entirely on his shoulders. He’s the one who insisted on leaving Iraq and now he’s heading back after, predictably, terrorists overpowered the weak state Obama left behind. If Bush was foolish and arrogant in entering Iraq in the first place, Obama is even more so now. He has a recent history to look back on. Unfortunately, he enters this war making declarations about ISIS and Islam that simply aren’t true. He’s seeking to define the war and define the people fighting the war in a manner that is both arrogant and inaccurate. Practically the entire American public has spent their lifetime watching Muslims create world problems in the name of Allah. Does anyone buy the President’s attempt to declare what Muslims believe?

Why Would Middle East Allow Untrustworthy Obama To Organize Them?

It’s no secret that Obama’s foreign policy has been a disaster. ISIS taking over a substantial portion of Iraq is just the latest problem. These guys are busy beheading journalists while the President goes golfing. His grand response to their surge in Iraq is to send 350 troops to the country. Because of course 350 American troops can stop ISIS from taking over the whole country. Oh yeah, Obama also directed a handful of bombs in ISIS’ general direction a few weeks ago. Everyone understands Obama didn’t support the war in Iraq. However, it’s hard to make the argument that the country and world is safer today with us substantially out of Iraq than it was before. We ought to be able to consider Obama’s retreat from Iraq independently of Bush’s decision to invade.

Obama recently said we can make ISIS a “manageable problem” if we “organize the middle east.” The President must be harkening back to his days as a community organizer (has anyone ever figured out what communities Obama actually organized?). There’s a major problem with Obama’s thought process though. It would be great if the United States, under Obama, could diplomatically lead the middle east into actively opposing groups like ISIS. The problem of course is that Obama has done nothing but burn bridges in the middle east. How can Obama “organize the middle east” when no one trusts him and by extension the United States?

Egypt under Hosni Mubarak was an ally of the United States since the 70’s. President Obama threw Mubarak under the bus by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s Arab Spring takeover. Two years later, he supported the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why would anyone in Egypt believe Obama’s offer of friendship at this point? The same thing happened in Libya. While Gaddafi was always a marginal ally, to be kept at arms length, he was nevertheless an ally of the United States. He had provided our country with vital information about al Qaeda after 9-11 (likely because he was terrified Bush would invade). Obama promptly threw Gaddafi under the bus and today Libya is a mess of a nation with all sorts of factions fighting for power.

Assad in Syria has never been an ally. Nevertheless, for reasons known only to the Obama, the President drew a red line concerning Assad’s use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war. Obama promptly retreated from the red line, allowing the Russians to draw up a sham agreement between Assad and the world. Keep in mind, al Qaeda was at the forefront of the civil war in Syria. Our long time enemy was suddenly fighting for our cause. You could say the same in Libya, where al Qaeda has gained substantial power since the United States supported Gaddafi’s overthrow.

If you’re a middle eastern Muslim who is terrified of radical groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, why would you trust the United States under Barack Obama? The President has shown himself untrustworthy. He abandons long time allies in the middle east to support radical groups hungry for power. Once those radical groups get into power, he dispenses with them as quickly as he supported them. Now he wants to organize the middle east against ISIS. Based on the President’s track record, a year from now he might support ISIS. So why would anyone in the middle east want to be organized by the likes of President Obama?

If President Obama’s long term foreign policy objective is to reduce American influence and power in the world he has been wildly successful. Nothing reduces a nation’s influence and power more than being an untrustworthy partner. With the US untrustworthy and unwilling to lead the world, a power vacuum has been created. Western Europe doesn’t have the power or the will to step in to fill it. Russia and China have both. American decline will be settled and clear once Russia and/or China becomes the next dominate power in the world. Obama is accelerating that terrifying predicament by making the United States an untrustworthy ally that no one will want to be organized by.

In Ukraine, Obama Better Off Remaining Silent

Two countries are on the brink of revolution. In Venezuela people are revolting against socialist rule. The government has imprisoned the main opposition leader. Inflation is sky high and a toilet paper shortage has not been alleviated despite nationalization of a toilet paper factory. Obama has remained largely silent. Meanwhile in Ukraine a truce between protesters and the government has been broken resulting in at least 20 deaths. Ukrainian protesters want to ally themselves more with Europe and the west than with Putin and Russia. Obama’s response? Another red line warning of “consequences.” I’m sure the Ukrainian government is shaking in their boots over old man Obama’s threat to send them out to get a switch.

After Obama’s Syrian debacle last year, one wonders why the President bothers to threaten “consequences” when he knows there won’t be any. With Syria he set a red line, threatened to bomb the country in days before backing off and threatening to bomb the country in weeks after Congressional approval, then failed to bother to gain Congressional approval all before allowing Putin to cut a deal with Syria. Syria of course has failed to comply with the deal, only 11% of their alleged chemical weapons have been turned over or destroyed.

With a record like Obama’s, you can bet the Ukrainian government isn’t particularly concerned about his threat of consequences. Which begs the question why Obama’s even bothering to respond. If he isn’t going to do anything to help the pro-western rebels, then why bother commenting on the situation at all? The fact is, even if the west imposed “consequences” on Ukraine, everyone knows Putin will more than make up for it so long as the government maintains close ties with Russia. Unless Obama plans on doing anything substantial to help the rebels, which our President doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to do, he might as well just stifle himself on the matter and leave the Ukrainian government to the Russians.

This plan is essentially what Obama is doing in Venezuela. Obama quietly supported the regime of Hugo Chavez and now supports his socialist successor. That the country is an economic mess of inflation and shortages. It isn’t just toilet paper that’s in mass shortage, food, clothing and medicine are as well. The socialists have nationalized any number of businesses and run them into the ground. People have gotten poorer under the socialist regime yet continue to give the socialists power due their successful playing on the fears of foreign boogeymen and comically absurd characterizations of capitalists.

Obama could actually have influence in South America. Yet he’s been largely silent on Venezuela’s imprisonment of opposition leaders. Perhaps he’s a touch envious. What doesn’t make sense about Obama’s foreign policy is that he has little to say about Venezuela, a country in our own hemisphere, but he’s willing to make threats against a country that has a vast Russian border. Our President has already been humiliated by Putin once, does he really want a second go at it? Obama’s odds were much better in Syria than they are in Ukraine. If Obama truly wants to reset American foreign policy, he’ll take a step back from Ukraine and treat it more like Venezuela. A real change in American foreign policy would result in our President not commenting on the internal power struggles of foreign countries.

The Obligatory 2013 Year In Review

This has been a no good rotten year if you’re the President. For Republicans it’s only been slightly better. Obama came into the year riding high off his 2012 re-election. He has successfully raised taxes on 3/4 of the country and immigration reform was in slight. Obamacare promised to be the highlight of the year, with its roll out scheduled for October. All of the political positives surrounding the President were squandered by bad decisions, scandal and utter incompetence. He ends the year with poll numbers approaching Bush’s 2005 numbers, no plausible political agenda and Obamacare falling apart all around him.

Obama’s first mistake was focusing on gun control after the Sandy Hook shooting last December. He entered his second term promising gun control, which he couldn’t deliver. In focusing on gun control, the President squandered his opportunity to pass his version of immigration reform. Moderate Republicans and those Republicans hung over from 2012 were on board until the President shifted focus to gun control. By shifting focus, the President allowed conservatives to lobby Congress while hung over Republicans came out of their stupor. Obama’s gun control push was ill advised. He never had a chance to pass any meaningful legislation. Not simply because Republicans would have blocked it, red state Democrats weren’t on board either.

Having squandered immigration reform and gun control, the middle of the year was dominated by scandal. The IRS targeted conservative groups by refusing to grant them tax exempt status. The scandal went all the way to the top of the IRS and dominated a solid month of news coverage. The Justice Department subpoenas of journalists scandal happened around the same time, confounding even Obama’s supporters in the media. The last six months have been dominated by various reports about the NSA tracking cell phone numbers, subpoenaing vast amounts of data from cell companies, email tracking and the like. Obama has spent most of the time acting shocked to discover any of these scandals were happening, which is hard to believe coming from a man who has been President for five years.

President Obama drew a red line against Syria’s dictator Assad. If he used chemical weapons, Assad would be crossing the red line. Then Syria used chemical weapons and Obama backed off the red line statement before denying he said it and finally shipping the problem to Russia. Obama spent a month looking utterly incompetent on the world stage as he threatened to bomb Syrian chemical weapons sites at stated times several weeks out before finally giving up. Meanwhile the rest of his foreign policy has been proven a disaster as the Obama supported Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown in Egypt. China is creating no-fly zones while challenging our Navy ships. Obama’s deal with Iran is a fraud, with Iran never actually agreeing to anything in writing.

The President had a chance to turn things around when the Republicans foolishly shutdown the government in an attempt to suspend Obamacare for a year. The President steadfastly refused to move an inch. He got what he wanted from Congress, the high point of the year for Obama. Unfortunately while all this was going on the exchange website didn’t work. When it did work, premium prices were sky high, so were deductibles. Most people discovered their health insurance rates were much higher under Obamacare than before, with less desirable coverage, smaller doctor networks and extremely high deductibles. The website still doesn’t work completely and millions have had their insurance canceled. If the shutdown victory was Obama’s high point, his low point came only a couple weeks later.

We’ll enter next year with a President who is fast approaching lame duck status. We have a health insurance system in utter chaos. The Republicans have a shot to win big in next years election but they have to offer a serious Obamacare alternative first. As more people become subject to Obamacare, as more people lose their insurance thanks to Obama’s law, the country is going to look for alternatives. The alternative has to come from Republicans and it has to be focused on the free market and individual choices. The Republicans aren’t ending this year much better than Obama but in the very least they don’t have the Obamacare anvil attached to them.

Obama Courting Disaster In Iran

The Obama administration appears to have secretly removed sanctions against Iran several months ago. In Geneva negotiations appear to be going very well for Iran. In exchange for stopping their nuclear program for a few months, the west appears ready to cave completely on sanctions. While Obama and the rest of the west is caving to Iran, that country’s state run television network is running shows about bombing Israel. Are these really the sort of people we want to negotiate with in good faith? It’s doubtful that anyone outside of the Obama administration and perhaps wishful thinkers in other western governments believe a word Iran says.

It isn’t just Iran that can’t be trusted. Obama can’t be trusted in this case either. It isn’t just that Obama lied to us about Obamacare, though if he lied to us about keeping our own policy then there’s no reason to believe him about anything else. The problem for Obama is that his track record in the middle east is a disaster zone. Everything he’s touched in the Muslim world has turned into a complete and total disaster for him and our allies.

Just take a look at all of Obama’s middle east accomplishments. He supported the Muslim Brotherhood’s revolution in Egypt only to watch them kill Coptic Christians and ultimately get overthrown themselves due to extremism and incompetence. In Libya Obama aided the overthrow of Gaddafi and it resulted in the US supporting al Qaeda which resulted in four Americans dying at the Consulate in Benghazi. More soldiers have died in Afghanistan under Obama than under Bush as that nation has become an ungovernable mess. Just a few months ago Obama drew a red line against Syria, threatened to commence bombing immediately and then completely caved before buying into a Russian chemical weapons inspection program that is likely not being adhered to in the slightest.

With this track record we’re supposed to believe the Obama administration is going to make headway with Iran. No doubt Obama needs the headline right now but the devil is in the details. From what we know so far, we’re looking at nothing more than a six month delay in an Iranian nuclear weapon in exchange for removal of all or most sanctions. While that sounds nice, it isn’t a dismantling of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran isn’t giving up much of anything. In fact, odds are they won’t even be giving up their quest for a nuclear weapon. Does anyone believe the Iranians will actually stop work on a nuclear weapon for six days much less six months?

Considering how everything in the middle east Obama has touched has turned into a disaster, we can count down the days before Iran attacks Israel, Iraq or some other country. We can count down the days before Iran’s first nuclear weapon test. In six months, all the lofty talk of peace from Obama will blow up in his face. It has every other time he’s played around with middle eastern Muslims. Surely no one believes this time will be any different.

Islam Is Of Satan

The world was rocked by two massive attacks that make the Navy Yard shooting last week look incredibly small. In Kenya upwards of 70 people were killed in a shopping mall. A gang of Muslims, apparently connected to al Qaeda, entered the mall and took hostages. They released all Muslims but murdered all of the Christians. Three of the killers may have been Americans while one American diplomat’s wife was murdered by the terrorists. In Pakistan Muslim terrorists bombed a historic Christian church killing at least 78 people. You can add these attacks to the scores of Coptic Christian churches attacked by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the historic churches in Syria attacked by al Qaeda and other Muslim rebels.

At what point does post-modern American acknowledge that Islam isn’t a religion of peace? We have been pretending for the better part of a decade that Islam is peaceful and that it’s just been hijacked by evil political operatives who “pervert” the teachings of Mohammed. Reality is the polar opposite. Mohammed taught pillage and conquest as part of his religious doctrine. Shortly after his death, Islam spread throughout the middle east and northern Africa. It did not spread like the Christian faith, which traveled by word of mouth in its first century. Instead, it traveled by the sword. Islam has always been a religion of evil and murder, no matter what pluralists in the United States may claim.

Fast forward to today and if we look throughout the middle east and Africa nearly every conflict involves Islam. Whether it’s radicals like the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt or al Qaeda causing problems in Libya and Syria, Islam is the culprit. In Sudan and other African countries the battle is being waged between Muslims who are murdering Christians and creating war. Bombings in this region, as well as most bombings in Europe and the United States are at the hands of Muslims. The Boston Bombers, at least the oldest one, was trained by Muslim Jihadists.

Our biggest problem here in post-modern, post-Christian America is that we refuse to see this as a spiritual battle. We want to pretend this is a political battle. Go to a college campus and the leftists will tell you the Muslims are the reincarnation of the Marxist proletariat seeking to overthrow their capitalist oppressors. This isn’t what’s happening at all. Islam is of Satan. It is the polar opposite of the Christian faith in every regard. The west fails to see this because we have collectively abandoned our historic Christian faith in favor of godless secularism. It’s no wonder we don’t understand Islam, we don’t understand their evil, wicked motivations. We’ve blinded ourselves to what Satan’s ends are.

Because we’ve blinded ourselves to the truth about Islam, we’ll continue to act shocked when Muslims follow their Koran. If we’re paying attention to world events, we’ll react in horror over the two major attacks over the weekend. When the attacks come to our country, we’ll spend weeks, months or years obsessing over when and how it happened without ever really asking why. Meanwhile Christians throughout the middle east and Africa could tell you all about life under Islam. They could tell you about the attacks and threats of attacks. They could tell you about burned churches and attacked pastors. They could tell you the truth about Islam. Sadly, America is blind to the spiritual reality at play because we have separated ourselves from Jesus Christ.

Putin Mocks Obama, United States In NY Times Op-Ed

Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote a scathing op-ed in the New York Times essentially mocking President Obama. It was the ultimate touchdown dance, Terrell Owens and Chad Johnson are no doubt insanely jealous. Putin completely hoodwinked Obama and wrestled control of the middle east from the United States all in a matter of days. The United States is no longer the superpower capable of enforcing our will in the region, Russia is. Putin cloaks it all under the mystical charms of the United Nations. In reality the UN played no role here. Putin is now the undisputed diplomatic leader in the middle east. He keeps peace while Obama threatens war.

Obama can’t prove Assad used chemical weapons and the UN has said that the case against Assad is circumstantial. Obama wants to fight a war over circumstantial evidence and can’t even get our century old British allies to join him. Unlike Bush, Obama was prepared to attack Syria alone. In his op-ed Putin took advantage of those absurd optics. The anti-war President who accused Bush of being a go at it alone cowboy even though he had 40+ nations joining him is now the lone warrior against Syria. Putin must be laughing hysterically from the Kremlin.

Putin spiked the ball with his final paragraph:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Obama has had a difficult, if not impossible time dealing with the concept of American exceptionalism. Early on in his first administration he couldn’t see the difference between American exceptionalism and Greeks believing in Greek exceptionalism. Obama and others on the far left don’t view America as exceptional, they view our nation as a place of great evil, racism, imperialism and injustice. They reject the events that made our national exceptional, namely the founding of our nations Constitution.

Obama clearly inserted language about exceptionalism to win Republicans over on his bombing proposal. It came off as forced and utterly disingenuous. Putin ran with it twisting the knife on Obama because the Russian President knows Obama didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. Not only is he twisting the knife on Obama, he’s mocking our entire nation. Obama likely doesn’t care about Putin’s opposition to American exceptionalism, in fact he likely agrees with Putin’s position. What will be telling about Obama is that he’ll say nothing in defense of our nation, which is under verbal attack from Russia’s President, a former KGB agent.

For the next three years we’re stuck with Obama and his utter incompetence. We’ll likely watch him get snookered again by the likes of Putin who will spike the ball again no doubt. We’ll watch Obama’s support of the Arab Spring and Muslim Brotherhood create more instability in the Middle East. Mitt Romney was mocked for his criticism of Obama’s foreign policy. It turns out Romney was right. As a nation we’re stuck with a President who is making our nation weaker both internationally and domestically. He’s ceding power to Russia, a nation that is arming the likes of Syria and Iran. His middle east policy has created chaos. He’s abandoned allies and embraced instability. We have President that chokes out a line about American exceptionalism and it’s thrown right back in his face by the likes of Vladimir Putin. Our nation made it’s choice, we’re stuck with it for three more years.

 

Obama’s Odd Syrian War Speech

Obama’s speech on Syria was, simply put, odd. He made his argument for war in Syria, then argued for a pause. It was just plain odd. It displayed the sort of American weakness we’ve come to expect from Obama. The speech wasn’t given with the full force of a speech from the Oval Office. Instead, Obama appeared in the East Room. That matters. At the beginning of his speech he insisted that Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack, by the end he was arguing that the UN needed time to issue a report. If Obama knows Assad committed these atrocities and that fact “cannot be denied” why should we wait around for a UN report? Odd indeed.

Obama insisted that he wouldn’t put “boots on the ground” in Syria. He also insisted that any action in Syria wouldn’t be prolonged or open ended but would rather be targeted. Obama, not surprisingly, didn’t use John Kerry’s term “unbelievably small.” All of this before setting up a strawman to tear down with the line “the United States Military doesn’t do pinpricks.” What does he think such a small action in Syria would be? He isn’t going to take Assad out, he’s told Syria he won’t actually send troops and he’s declared that our action won’t be prolonged or open ended. Obama’s proposed action is in fact “unbelievably small.” Obama’s tear down of the term “pinprick” is, shall we say, odd.

It got odder still because ultimately Obama told Congress to suspend any vote on authorizing the military strikes that he was previously in this speech calling for. Why? Because of the threat of US Military action, Assad appears willing to give up his chemical weapons and/or allow for international inspections. Or in the world of reality, Putin snookered Obama. Obama paid lip service to Russia proposing international inspections and the like but to take credit for what clearly had nothing to do with United States threats was both odd and amusing. Obama conveniently left out that his Secretary of State made an offhand remark about Assad giving up his weapons in a week that Putin ran with and ultimately took control of the region with. But of course, it was because of Obama’s military threats that Assad caved. Odd.

In short, Obama insists that Assad used chemical weapons but we really need to give the UN time to issue a report. The United States should go to war in Syria, it will be small and limited but no pinprick. Oh by the way, the Russians negotiated a deal with the Syrians wherein Assad will give up his chemical weapons and allow inspections so we really don’t need that small, limited but definitely no pinprick military action. Who wants to bet by the end of the week Obama will try to “pivot” to immigration reform or jobs? Anything, everything to avoid continuing a discussion about Syria.

Last night Obama gave what had to have been the oddest, most disjointed Presidential speech in American history. It made absolutely no sense and it displayed for us the complete and utter incompetence this man has in international affairs. It was a speech that should have been give two weeks ago, long before the public had decided Syria wasn’t a place we wanted to fight a war. From a purely political perspective, the timing was a missed opportunity. To give it after having been snookered by Putin was perhaps the oddest thing of all. It’s as though Obama’s speechwriters added the latest diplomacy breakthrough at the last moment without removing the discussion of war. Why argue for war when a diplomatic peace appears to have been won? Odd, very odd.

UPDATE: I just found out that last night Charles Krauthammer called Obama’s speech the “oddest Presidential speech ever.” I assure my readers that I didn’t lift the “odd” line off of Krauthammer, Yours truly tends not to watch commentary after major speeches. I don’t need talking heads to tell me what I just watched.

Why Did Obama Choose War Over Diplomacy?

It’s curious that the man who ran as the anti-war President immediately turns to war when he doesn’t like what Syria is doing. You would think that the first instinct for an anti-war President would be to look for a diplomatic solution to Assad’s alleged chemical weapons usage. Both Bush’s and Clinton took that approach with Saddam to the point where he failed to abide by 17 UN proposals before Bush 43 finally had enough. Why is it that Obama turns to war before diplomacy? While Obama is beating war drums in Washington, Putin is offering a diplomatic solution to Syria’s chemical weapons problem. (breaking: Syria accepted Putin’s proposal)

Obama seems to like Putin’s idea and has suddenly veered toward seeking diplomatic solutions. Why didn’t Obama propose something like this in the first place? He would have had a fairly easy time putting together a coalition of nations willing to pressure Syria diplomatically. The President could have used economic pressure, he could have used the UN to try to pressure Syria. He might have even been able to get Putin on board as well as the Chinese. Instead, Obama is leading from behind. He’s following Putin rather than leading America. This only after he clearly couldn’t lead us into war.

It may very well be that Putin’s proposal is a big rouse. That doesn’t change Obama’s actions over the last few weeks. Obama was the one demanding war against Syria, no matter how “unbelievably small” John Kerry said it would be. It is Obama who never suggested or offered a diplomatic solution. It was Obama who latched onto Putin’s proposal only after it became clear he couldn’t convince the country to go to war. According to Pew, the number opposed to war in Syria increased 15% last week. The only positive that has come out of any of this is that we’ve gotten to see just how “principled” the anti-war Hollywood left really is.

We haven’t had a President this weak since Jimmy Carter. The question with Obama is whether he’s a naturally weak leader or if his leftist vision requires a weak United States and thus his leading from behind. It may be a little bit of both. Obama clearly believes that a weaker America is good for the world. He doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, he doesn’t believe in the founding principles of our nation. However, his base is anti-war. He ran as an anti-war candidate. For him to immediately jump to war, at the potential expense of his own party in next years elections to say nothing of his own political power, suggests he’s changed. Maybe he thought he could set up Republicans and then blame them when Assad used chemical weapons again. Did he think the public would appreciate him politicizing war?

Obama came into office declaring he was going to fundamentally transform America. In some ways the office fundamentally transformed Obama. The Nobel Peace Prize winner no longer looks for a peaceful, diplomatic solution to international problems. Instead, his gut instinct has become war. When pushed, then he retreats to his normal position leading the country from behind, whether it’s the French in Libya or now the Russians in Syria. At the end of the day, how come no one is asking why Obama didn’t push for the same sort of diplomatic solution Putin proposed? Why didn’t the President propose a diplomatic solution that would have more teeth or be more favorable to the United States? Why did he choose war over diplomacy?