“…The prospect of Iraq’s disintegration is already being spun by the Administration and its media friends as the fault of George W. Bush and Mr. Maliki. So it’s worth understanding how we got here.
Iraq was largely at peace when Mr. Obama came to office in 2009. Reporters who had known Baghdad during the worst days of the insurgency in 2006 marveled at how peaceful the city had become thanks to the U.S. military surge and counterinsurgency. In 2012 Anthony Blinken, then Mr. Biden’s top security adviser, boasted that, “What’s beyond debate” is that “Iraq today is less violent, more democratic, and more prosperous. And the United States is more deeply engaged there than at any time in recent history.”
Mr. Obama employed the same breezy confidence in a speech last year at the National Defense University, saying that “the core of al Qaeda” was on a “path to defeat,” and that the “future of terrorism” came from “less capable” terrorist groups that mainly threatened “diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad.” Mr. Obama concluded his remarks by calling on Congress to repeal its 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force against al Qaeda.
If the war on terror was over, ISIS didn’t get the message. The group, known as Tawhid al-Jihad when it was led a decade ago by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was all but defeated by 2009 but revived as U.S. troops withdrew and especially after the uprising in Syria spiraled into chaos. It now controls territory from the outskirts of Aleppo in northwestern Syria to Fallujah in central Iraq.
The possibility that a long civil war in Syria would become an incubator for terrorism and destabilize the region was predictable, and we predicted it. “Now the jihadists have descended by the thousands on Syria,” we noted last May. “They are also moving men and weapons to and from Iraq, which is increasingly sinking back into Sunni-Shiite civil war. . . . If Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki feels threatened by al Qaeda and a Sunni rebellion, he will increasingly look to Iran to help him stay in power.”
We don’t quote ourselves to boast of prescience but to wonder why the Administration did nothing to avert the clearly looming disaster…“
You know, like every other clearly looming disaster they’ve ignored…and then blamed on Bush!So how, inquiring minds want to know, does the most disastrous foreign policy team on the planet react in the face of this latest crisis of its creation? Lurch tells the Iraqis to “come together”, and The Dear Misleader’s heading for the Left Coast for some golf and fundraising.And now, very likely, Iraq!Speaking of disasters, courtesy of Bill Meisen and Breitbart.com, an Administration antithetically opposed to the rule of law continues its refusal to protect the homeland:
“…”The law requires that we act in the best interest in the child,” Johnson said. “When we turn over a child to HHS, HHS acts in the best interest of the child which very often means reuniting that child with the parent in the United States. That’s what the law requires. ” In the face of such a statement, it is unclear how immigration laws will be enforced moving forward…“
Unless of course the Liberal powers-that-be have a different agenda which requires sacrificing anyone or anything in the name of political expedience, in which case it’s……hasta la vista, baby!Think about it: rather than protect American citizens and sovereignty, the Department of Homeland Security is opting to “act in the best interest” of children who entered the country illegally and aren’t even citizens. Where, pray tell, is THAT concept enshrined in the Constitution?!? In all seriousness, only an idiot……would advocate trusting these clowns to enforce new immigration laws when they totally ignore those already on the books! Since we’re on the subject of idiots, back at the ranch, the Washington Examiner‘s offers further confirmation the only target The Gang Who Still Can’t Shoot Straight can hit is their own foot:
“…Several groups placed McCarthy’s voting record well to the left of Cantor’s for 2013. TheAmerican Conservative Union rated McCarthy at 72 percent compared with 84 percent for Cantor;Heritage Action ratings place Cantor at 53 percent and McCarthy at 42 percent; and Club for Growth had Cantor at 68 percent and McCarthy at 53 percent. Moving away from conservative groups, the National Journal rated Cantor the 80th most conservative member of the House while McCarthy was 170th.
McCarthy voted for a Hurricane Sandy relief bill that included spending that was unrelated to providing emergency aid, fought for the farm and food stamp bill, fought reforms to the federalsugar program, and backed an extension of the corporate welfare agency known as the Export-Import Bank.
In January, he also supported a path to legal status for immigrants who entered this country illegally.
As Red State’s Erick Erickson pointed out, McCarthy even participated in a retreat for liberal Republicans at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla.The event was hosted by the RepublicanMain Street Partnership, which is a group run by representative-turned-lobbyist Steve LaTourette aimed at defeating conservatives. The organization includes big labor unions among its donors.
…It would be bizarre if instead of going in a new direction after this stunning defeat, House Republicans just rallied around Cantor’s own pick. It’s especially demoralizing to conservatives whose energy the GOP will need this November.”
Bizarre, yes; but certainly no surprise for a party who refuses to recognize its single largest voting bloc.And if there were ever a legitimate reason to retire a sitting GOP Senator, Mississippi’s Thad Cochran provides it:
For more on the subject of blockheads, we turn to Townhall.com, where Victor Davis Hanson reveals yet another lie from an Administration intrinsically incapable of telling the truth:
“Amidst the swap conundrum, the president has defended the trade by referencing history and the American experience in past wars. But here, too, what the president states is not always accurate.
Obama insisted that, “We have a rule, a principle, that when somebody wears our country’s uniform and they’re in a war theater and they’re captured … we’re going to do everything we can to bring ’em home…. And regardless of whatever circumstances there are, it is our obligation to bring them home.”
Yet the United States has not routinely sought to bring captives home, “regardless of whatever circumstances there are.”During the Korean War, and for decades afterwards while on patrol in Korea, some American soldiers simply walked across the DMZ and turned themselves over to the North Koreans. Both in war and peace, the United States often did little to bring them back, even when the deserters had second thoughts and wanted to return…“
Which brings us, appropriately enough given The Great Divider’s dependence upon racial animosity, to today’s installment of Tales From the Darkside, and this question from Patricia Dickson writing at The American Spectator:
“Growing up in the South, the narrative surrounding slavery I heard was that the Africans were walking around free in their own country, minding their own business when white men came over in ships. The white men attacked, chained, kidnapped and forced the Africans aboard ships. This storyline was repeated both at school and in the black churches. However, the chain of events never quite added up with me. I remember the first time I raised a question about this narrative to my sixth grade teacher. I asked her how was it that these white men could invade a foreign country and overpower the natives of that country. She did not have an answer. I asked my father that same question and he referenced the movie Roots (which I later learned was plagiarized and fabricated).
Years later while in the military, I overheard my First Sergeant (a white male) telling other male soldiers that he was tired of black Americans using slavery as a means to demand some kind of reparations. I then heard him say, “Their own people sold them into slavery”. That was the first time that I had ever heard anything about Africans selling other Africans into slavery. I could barely wait for the workday to end so that I could go home and research this topic on the internet (the internet was in its infancy stage). When I got home, I quickly turned on my refurbished desktop computer and typed “Africans selling Africans into slavery” and the Transatlantic Slave Trade appeared. That is when I learned the factual history of how slaves arrived in America.
I was so excited about learning the true history of slavery in America that I foolishly thought my longtime friends would be just as excited. It just so happens that my friends would rather hold on to the myth that the evil white men went to Africa and kidnapped the natives and forced them into the slave ships. Actually, my friends became enraged at me for educating them.
Liberals and race baiters are still blaming slavery for just about everything that ails black Americans. It does not matter that slavery ended almost one hundred and fifty years ago.It also does not matter that no one alive today participated in any form of slavery (slave owner or slave). If anyone challenges the narrative that white men are solely to blame for slavery in America by stating that African slave traders were complicit, yet another narrative surfaces…”
In a related item of fabricated Progressive fact, as The Blaze notes…
Yes, almost half of them weren’t actually “school” shootings; what a shock!
Everytown for Gun safety, an anti-gun group formed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and prominent gun control advocate Shannon Watts, released new data (That’s “data”, spelled “F-A-L-S-I-F-I-E-D”) on Tuesday suggesting that there have been an average of 1.37 school shootings every single week in the U.S. since the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. The anti-gun organization cites a total of 74 school shootings since Dec. 14, 2012. However, several of the shootings have come under scrutiny as some of them appear to have occurred off-campus and at least one may have been an instance of self-defense.
Journalist Charles C. Johnson dug deeper into Everytown’s data on Tuesday and published his findings on Twitter. He also criticized the fact that the group classified violent disputes and gang-related violence as “school shootings.” “It’s not a school shooting when someone goes and shoots a specific person on campus. It’s a shooting that happens to take place at school,” he wrote.
And in today’s Environmental Moment, The Weekly Standard‘s Steve Hayward reports on the…
The climate change crusaders, who have been at it for a quarter-century, appear to be going clinically mad. Start with the rhetorical monotony and worship of authority (“97 percent of all scientists agree!”), add the Salem witch trial-style intimidation and persecution of dissenters, and the categorical demand that debate about science or policy is over because the matter is settled, and you have the profile of a cult-like sectarianism that has descended into paranoia and reflexive bullying. Never mind the scattered and not fully suppressed findings of climate scientists that the narrative of catastrophic global warming is overstated, like nearly every previous predicted environmental apocalypse. It matters not.The recent crescendo of scary government climate reports and dutiful media alarm has paved the way for the Obama administration to throw its weight around in ways that would make Woodrow Wilson blush.
“…Emails from North’s account show that he “appeared to have played a key role in the EPA’s decision to pursue a veto,” Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told FoxNews.com.
But the committee is having a tough time finding North. His lawyers apparently know where he is, but Congress does not. Carroll said North’s disappearing act is “highly unusual.”…“
Maybe for a member of any other Administration in American history, but rather de rigueur behavior for The Obamao’s merry band of lawbreakers.On the Lighter Side…Finally, in the Sports Section, Marc Thiessen tells us why…
“In the Washington Post this morning, sports columnist Sally Jenkins complains about the lack of popular outrage over America’s elimination in the World Cup: “Why is it that Americans expect to win in every sport we compete in except for soccer? How is it that a nation so obsessed with games seems abnormally lacking in ambition when it comes to the most popular one on the globe?”Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, New York, is shutting its doors. According to the Journal, the place never had more than 17,000 visitors a year, and “the hall’s passing seems to have gone almost unnoticed. The local newspaper barely covered its demise.”
The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport…”
That…and its about as exciting as watching paint dry. Oh…and the French can play it!
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