Thinkin’bout Stuff

I’m sorry, I have nothing I can add here.  Please, please watch this video and send to everyone you know.  This video, especially the ending, moved me to tears:

From ABCNews:

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

You may recall how JFK was tested.  If not, read more here.  Think Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crises and the Berlin Wall. 

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

So.. even though it will appear Obama is making all the wrong moves, we need you to trust us we are doing the right thing and stand by us no matter how bad it looks.  Wow.

Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.

“Gird your loins,” Biden told the crowd. “We’re gonna win with your help, God willing, we’re gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It’s like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than - think about it, literally, think about it - this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy.”

Of course… we need to transform our economy. We need to be patriotic and fair.  We need to share spread the wealth around.  Our only hope is to move away from the evils of capitalism and move towards socialism.

The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped to meet the challenges head on.

How much money have they pulled in so far? More than $600m? And they still want more? Guess it’s patriotic to give so that they can spend… foreshadowing.  Good thing Obama broke that promise to accept public financing, how can you buy an election without proper funding.

“I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I’m not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it,” the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. “This guy has it. But he’s gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, ‘Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?’ We’re gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I’m asking you now, I’m asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you’re going to have to reinforce us.”

He’s already lowering expectations and predicting Obama will tank in the polls.

“There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision’,” Biden continued. “Because if you think the decision is sound when they’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular, they’re probably not sound.”

OK, got that?  If the decisions are sound, they won’t be popular.  And if they are popular, probably bad decisions.  By that yardstick, Bush’s decisions were all the right decisions.

Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden “alive and well” and Pakistan “bristling with nuclear weapons.”

“You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region,” Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. “The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it’s real.”

“We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes,” he cautioned. “It’s so much more important than that. It’s so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it.”

Well, now I fell better. Joe Biden, who was wrong about the surge, wrong about splitting Iraq into three separate countries against their will, wrong about the first Iraq war, wrong about nuclear disarmament…. that Joe Biden believes that Obama gets it.  Great.

After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.

“I probably shouldn’t have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here,” he joked.

Yes, yes.. we mustn’t speak in front of the children.

So, to summarize, there will definitely be a crises shortly after Obama takes office, and if it appears that he is making all the wrong decisions, then you can rest assured that he is making all the right decisions; however, if for some reason his decisions are popular and it appears he is making the right decisions, then we need to worry because if he is making the right decisions, then he will actually be making the wrong decisions, so let’s all hope and pray Obama makes all the wrong decisions so that we will know he is actually making decisions that, while not popular, are the right decisions… and that’s when he will need his supporters to stand by him and to all chant in unison

      ”Obama is Right, Obama is Right, there’s no reason to fight, come into the light, Obama is Right”. 

Perhaps we will all break into song spontaneously:

   Obama, Hey ‘bama, Bama-sana-ho, sana hey sana O-bama.  Hey BO, BO, fights for us we know,
    Bama hey, Bama O-superstar…

Should be interesting times folks.

This is exactly the type of behavior that, if we are not careful, might help to bring this country back together. 

The hate on the far left and right has acted like a pair of giant polar magnets ripping us apart for more than a decade.  After 9/11, most believed the attack from without would help to heal the self-inflicted wounds from within. 

Sadly left-wing loons, led by the likes of MoveOn, picked at the freshly healed scars, diving in like a persistent staph infection to deepen the wound and leave an everlasting festering sore upon our great nation in a desperate attempt to remold the basic foundation of our society to suite their warped view of the world.

Enter Lanny Davis, not someone who typically comes to mind when I am thinking “reconciliation”.  In an opinion piece published July 21 in The Washington Times, he says:

I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I was 100 percent right that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake.

I had been strongly opposed to the U.S. intervention from the start. I felt this way even though I believed (as did most everyone, including the intelligence community) that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and even though I thought that he was a murderous, genocidal thug and the world would be better off - and the U.S. safer - with him dead.

However, I reasoned, the WMD inspectors were back in, and we had Saddam surrounded - thanks to George Bush, by the way, for which we Democrats did not give him sufficient credit at the time.

<snip>

But … then came my first moment of doubt.

I saw on TV in early 2005, in their first preliminary democratic elections, long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote under the hot desert sun with bombs and shrapnel exploding around them. Waiting to vote!

And then there was that indelible image - an older woman shrouded in a carpetlike cape, smiling gleefully and holding her purple finger in the air for the TV cameras, purple with ink showing that she had voted.

Smiling! In the middle of war! At U.S. troops standing nearby!

Wow, I thought. Is it possible I was wrong?

Is it possible, I wondered, that Iraqis truly did want democracy and freedom and the right to vote and government of the people, just as we Americans do? And were willing to fight for it, with our help?

Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Even a great thing?

Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states?

<snip>

And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the antiwar left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong.

The surge did, in fact, lead to a reduction of violence, confirmed by media on the ground as well as our military leaders.

It did allow the Shi’ite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the last several months to show leadership by joining, if not leading, the military effort to clean out of Basra the masked Mahdi Army controlled by the anti-U.S. Shi’ite extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and from the Sadr City section of Baghdad he claimed to control.

This willingness by the Shi’ite-dominated al-Maliki government to move against the Sadr Shi’ite extremists won crucial credibility for the government among many Sunni leaders and Sunnis on the streets, who joined together with Shi’ites to turn against the al Qaeda in Iraq and other Taliban-like extremists.

These are facts, not arguments.

<snip>

I just know I can’t get out of my mind that lady with the purple finger held up, smiling into the camera. If getting in was a mistake, then getting out - how and when - is not so simple as long as there is hope that she can someday live in a democratic Iraq that can help America in the war against terrorism.

I clipped the paragraphs I found most compelling, but encourage you to read the whole article by visiting the link above.  I do not agree with some of what Mr. Davis says in this article, but I do appreciate the character he displays by admitting he was wrong… something we can all learn from.

There is no shame in making a mistake or being wrong; the shame comes from not admitting it in the face of overwhelming evidence.

What a load of malarky:

AP: Obama had been planning to go to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany before a flight to Paris. Gibbs said the stop was cancelled because Obama decided “it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.”

Inappropriate? In what way?

Because it would come out of his own pocket (figuratively speaking) and not be payed for by US taxpayers perhaps.

Perhaps visiting wounded heroes was too risky a photo op.

How could a man who wants to be Commander in Chief, who already acts like he is the president when it furthers his agenda, refuse an opportunity to visit wounded troops?

Shame on him. 

And don’t tell me he was trying to avoid more criticism for his arrogant behavior… even if anyone was foolish enough to criticize ANYONE for visiting our troops, this would have been a good time for Obama to ignore opinions (and guidance) of others and do the right thing!

I have no way to validate the letter Blackfive posted from a “GI in Afghanistan”, but it does appear to fit the MO of the Obama campaign so I tend to believe that it is likely credible. A quick excerpt, read the rest here:

As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off and didn’t say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service.

Hop over to Blackfive to check out the rest and decide for yourself.

BTW… added Blackfive to the Frequent Reads list…

Tried something a bit new (for me at least)… comments embedded in a video.

Some additional thoughts since it is hard to squeeze everything into that little window in the video.

Sure seems like, contrary to Obama’s insistence that he will factor in the counsel of General Petraeus, he has already made up his mind that the troops will be pulled out of Iraq. 

Obama also seems to think that, as president, he would have the power to move money that has been allocated to our efforts in Iraq to wherever he wants to move it. 

In fact, he appears to believe he can spend some of the money twice:

• Once in Afghanistan as we shift the focus to where he believes our real strategic interests lie (is it just me or do liberals only think we have strategic interests in areas that do not provide us any strategic value)
• Then again, as he points out in this video, that money would be used domestically to improve our economy

At about 1:45 of the video, although Obama has repeatedly said he will not get into hypotheticals in response to queries about his opposition to the “surge”, Obama discusses a hypothetical disagreement with General Petraeus where he essentially says that Petraeus will not have the freedom to make decisions on the utilization of funds designated to the rebuilding effort in Iraq… Obama will reserve the right to take those funds back and use them elsewhere.  I wonder if the Dem controlled Congress would even object to this power grab? Why bother even having appropriations bills.. just have one big slush fund and let Obama, with all his experience as an executive, decide how to spend our money.

Speaking of the surge… Obama can not even admit the obvious… he was wrong:

Again… searching for words, stumbling over the answer, resorting to cliches (hindsight is 20/20) … but not admitting he was wrong.  If the country had followed his advice:

• America would have essentially surrendered
• The situation in Afghanistan would be worse because our enemy would believe, rightfully so, that America will run from a bloody nose, just like in Somalia
• Our strategic foothold on the border of Iran would have vanished (and still might if Obama is elected)

Speaking of Somalia, reading some old articles, I got a sense of Deja Vu:

WSJ 2002 - President Bush the Elder sent U.S. forces into Somalia in December 1992 to aid the United Nations in relieving a massive famine. In May of 1993, four months into his term, President Clinton declared that mission accomplished and pulled out most of the U.S. force. In a speech on the South Lawn to associate himself with the effort, he extolled the decision to intervene: “If all of you who served had not gone, it is absolutely certain that tens of thousands would have died by now.” It was a “successful mission,” he said, and “proved yet again that American leadership can help to mobilize international action.”

But back in Somalia, with no U.S. deterrent, Somalia’s warlords began fighting again. After a series of bloody attacks on U.N. peacekeepers, Mr. Clinton launched a new mission: In August 1993, he sent in a force of Rangers and Special Forces units to capture the brutal warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid and restore order.

That force asked for heavy armor–in the form of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles–as well as the AC-130 gunship, but the Clinton Administration denied those requests. On October 3 on a mission to pick up Aidid, two Black Hawks were unexpectedly shot down; in the ensuing urban gun battle, 18 American soldiers were killed and another 73 injured.

Sounds familiar.  Obama wants to pull out of Iraq with the option to go back in if violence erupts.  (Didn’t he want to pull out before because there WAS violence in Iraq?)  But right now we have a solid presence; if we pull out and then have to rush back in, we will be at a tactical and operational disadvantage and American troops will die.  And for what?  So that Obama can keep his promise to the loons on the left?

Many are starting to think an Obama presidency is a foregone conclusion, including the candidate himself apparently:

From Politico via Yahoo - A dozen top foreign policy advisers are either traveling with Obama or doing ground work ahead of his arrival in each country. This group is supplemented by his usual contingent of almost a dozen traveling aides, including chief campaign strategist David Axelrod and communications director Robert Gibbs, and too many advance staff to count.

Even as his closest aides insist that the trip is a fact-finding and relationship building mission, Obama’s every step is being intricately managed to maximize political advantage.

From the saturated media coverage to the one-on-one meetings with heads of state, the trip already had a White House feel. The scope of the traveling staff simply adds to an aura of a president-in-waiting. On Tuesday, aides attempted to invoke White House rules and traditions by requiring reporters to withhold the names of senior advisers who brief the press. But they were reminded twice by reporters that they were not in the White House and Obama was not president.

If his lack of experience, apparent ignorance that requires him to travel with dozens of advisers so he can appear to know what he is talking about, refusal to let facts get in the way of his view of the world (eg: refusal to reverse his view of the surge, refusal to view our presence in Iraq as a strategic advantage, willingness to raise capital gains taxes in the interest of “fairness” even though he acknowledges the economy would be damaged)… if all these things are not enough to convince you this man should not be president, maybe you should consider the fact that he is (again) being selected, not elected, with the help of the far-left elements of the media… and he is believing his own press.  

Oh sure.. we’ll have an election.  But the constant drone of the media is painting the picture we are all supposed to see when we pull the lever to vote: Obama is presidential, McCain is irrelevant.  Strange when you consider the comparison of accomplishments of these two men.

This is bordering on scary. 

If Obama is elected president, he will have accomplished more in this election than in his entire post-academic life prior to today… he will have attained the highest office in America without having accomplished anything of note, without having a core set of beliefs he feels comfortable sharing with the American people, after having reneged on campaign promises before even taking office, and with the sense that he has a blank check to rule as he deems fit.. almost to the level of a dictator… and that scares the hell out of me.

Using Senator Obama’s website, thought we could take a look at some of his accomplishments that have prepared him for the presidency and at some of his plans and solutions to give us hope and change.

Direct from Obama’s website (with some thoughts as we journey down this path):

Bringing Our Troops Home
Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

Is that really a good idea?  Do we want to leave a handful of troops in Iraq?  One of the reasons Obama wants to pull our troops out is to get them out of harm’s way; wouldn’t this leave the remaining troops extremely vulnerable to attack?  What does he mean when he says he will keep troops in Iraq if al Qaeda builds a base in Iraq?  If we leave and they build a base, are we going right back?  What if, being the tricky terrorists they are, al Qaeda doesn’t bother to build a “base” and just takes control of a major city, do we go back in then?  How many troops is sufficient to protect our embassy and diplomats?

Assuming this is actually a good idea, to remove troops on an accelerated, non-condition based timetable, can it be done?  What do the military folks have to say on the subject (h/t to Freedom’s Lighthouse):

Hmmm.. doesn’t sound like a promise Obama will be able to keep.  Too bad he didn’t actually research the topic before reading the script in front of an audience.

Press Iraq’s Leaders to Reconcile
The best way to press Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future is to make it clear that we are leaving. As we remove our troops, Obamawill engage representatives from all levels of Iraqi society - in and out of government - to seek a new accord on Iraq’s Constitution and governance. The United Nations will play a central role in this convention, which should not adjourn until a new national accord is reached addressing tough questions like federalism and oil revenue-sharing.

So we, the United States, whose congress can not agree on anything, with the help of the United Nations, who can’t agree on anything, will play a central role in forcing Iraqis to agree on everything.  Is this before or after our troops leave? If they don’t agree do we leave faster, slower or stay until they agree? How does this work? Are they not a soveriegn nation now? Are they not a fledgling democracy? Is Obama suggesting that Iraq must do his bidding?

Regional Diplomacy
Obama will launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East. This effort will include all of Iraq’s neighbors - including Iran and Syria. This compact will aim to secure Iraq’s borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq’s sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq’s reconstruction.

Ya, just what we need, Syria and Iran having input into Iraq’s reconstruction.  What does he plan to give Syria and Iran to stop them from “meddling inside Iraq”?  

Humanitarian Initiative
Obamabelieves that America has a moral and security responsibility to confront Iraq’s humanitarian crisis - two million Iraqis are refugees; two million more are displaced inside their own country. Obamawill form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find a safe-haven.

Where does he get these numbers from? 4 million displaced/refugee Iraqi’s? What does displaced mean? They are not living where they were living 5 years ago?  On the one hand Obama complains we are spending too much on Iraq, on the other he wants to hand AT LEAST $2 billion to neighboring countries to take care of Iraqi refugees, and on the other hand (three hands? no wonder all our pockets get emptied so quickly when Dems are in office), he wants neighboring countries to have a say in Iraq’s reconstruction… does he expect the neighboring companies to chip in a few bucks?  Or will we be picking up the whole tab and give them an additional $2 billion PLUS bonus to cover the cost of all those Iraqi refugees.  Oh, and some of the money goes to ensuring Iraqis inside their own country can find safe haven… ummm.. how do we do that if all our troops are leaving?

Barack Obama’s Record
Barack Obama opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. In 2002, as the conventional thinking in Washington lined up for war, Obama had the judgment and courage to speak out against the war. He said the war would lead to “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences.” In January 2007, Obama introduced legislation to responsibly end the war in Iraq, with a phased withdrawal of troops engaged in combat operations.

Ah yes, his record… those accomplishments that prepared him to be president.  Starting with his “courage” to speak out against the war while a member of the Illinois state senate…  oooo… how very, very brave.   In a country where free speech is protected by our Constitution?  To speak out while a state senator and say he thinks the war is a bad idea?  Risky stuff.   Oh… he forgot to mention he said the surge, driven by John McCain, was a tragic mistake.  From his 1/5/07 podcast:

“I have to say that it is a chilling prospect, the notion that we would send tens of thousands of additional American young men and women to compound the tragic mistake that has already been made over the last four years.

“… In the face of this quagmire, the notion that we would put tens of thousands more young Americans in harm’s way without changing our fundamental strategy, a strategy that’s failed by almost every imaginable count , makes absolutely no sense. In escalating the war with a so-called surge of troops, the president would be overriding the express concerns of Generals on the ground, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and the American people.”

Obama was wrong on every point then, and he is still wrong now.  But let’s assume the “record” documented on his website is a positive one…  what record? What did he do? Speak out against the war? That’s what he accomplished? Not exactly the type of experience we should be looking for to prep someone to be our next president.

The only other listing on the Iraq section of the website under the heading of “Barack Obama’s Record”:

Obama has a plan to immediately begin withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year. He would call for a new constitutionalconvention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, which would not adjourn until Iraq’s leaders reach a new accord on reconciliation. He would use presidential leadership to surge our diplomacy with all of the nations of the region on behalf of a new regional security compact. And he would take immediate steps to confront the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Iraq.

So this is listed as both a plan AND an accomplishment.  Kinda like padding a term paper by repeating paragraphs.  Sorry, -10 points, this is not an accomplishment; it barely qualifies as a plan and, as discussed earlier, is not even a viable plan.

So there you have it, our look at Obama’s accomplishments and plans in the area of Iraq policy.  His plans are not well thought out and his accomplishments amount to saying he opposed the war when he was a state senator.  Impressive indeed.