1. We will not be going to war in Iraq again because the Iraq war is over and the troops have come home. Obama is the president who ends wars.
2. The over 1000 US servicemen/women boots on the ground already in Iraq are not combat boots. If you believe they are-- then your mother wears them. Non-combat boots are different boots.
3. Bush got us into this mess. Never forget, always remember.
4. "ISIL" will be contained and destroyed, but the Gates of Hell are a long way from here. It could take years and cost millions (no wait, that was from Animal House). No, ISIL will be destroyed over time by the massive Kurdish forces and the Free Syrian Army we haven't armed yet (maybe because they sold Sotloff to ISIS). The United States will provide limited air support designed not to significantly risk any lives except collateral lives, which are expendable. We will never stop until we destroy this force of disaffected dead-enders who bitterly cling to their God and guns and xenophobia. Wait, that's the Tea Party.
5. The world, at last count nine countries, is with us. Compare that to the cowboy Bush, who unilaterally attacked Iraq on his own, with a few, maybe, 35 countries, but countries like Poland. Haha, Poland!
6. Tomorrow is 9/11. AQ Core has already been decimated and bin Laden is dead. We must nation-build at home, free illegal aliens, and build more highways, as soon as the real terrorists in Congress see the light. Maybe they can take an object lesson from our new non-war strategy against ISIS. God bless 'merica.
In support of this major speech the president met with a bi-partisan set of luminaries, sometimes called "40 pound brains" in DC. One of those was disgraced former National Security Advisor Sandy "Socks" Berger, who famously pilfered and destroyed archive documents in supporting the Clintons during the 9/11 investigation.
He also still believes the hit on Al-Shifa pharma plant in Khartoum in 1998 was based on good intelligence, this despite the intelligence being that Iraq was helping Bin Laden cook up VX nerve gas. It's almost as strange as Obama hiring James Clapper, the same guy who said Iraq sent their WMDs to Syria.
So what does Berger know and why was he willing to give up his law license to protect it?
What information was worth risking his reputation, his career, and his freedom to keep hidden? And who was he risking that for? Recently, the Board of the DC Bar, which had granted Berger his license, began asking those questions.
There was only one way to stop that investigation, to keep from answering questions about what he did and why he did it, to keep the Bar from questioning his colleagues in the Clinton Administration about what had been in the documents Berger destroyed. Berger took that step, surrendering his license, and stopping the investigation.Maybe more interesting is why the GOP never made Berger a massive target of ridicule and investigation. Was Berger's act similar to Bush's (and Obama's) classification of 28 pages of a congressional report on the 9/11 attacks regarding foreign involvement in terrorism, thought to be Saudi influence (you can glean a lot about this from the Memos for Record released by the 9/11 Commission, especially a guy named al-Bayoumi). Or just skanky politics? There was a lot of butt covering after the attack to protect reputations, careers and nest eggs so it's possible Berger was just trying to cover up something like this.
But was that alone significant enough to risk getting caught in a felony act and later surrendering his legal career? Seems hardly. Whatever the case, he was advising the president last night, which was completely un-newsworthy to the mainstreamers, who found this advisor on the other side of town much more appalling.
STRATEGY 9/10/14
Let's be clear. Seriously. Obama hasn't been a total slacker on terrorism, overall. He's tried to hide the battle here and there (Major Hasan, Abdulhakim in Little Rock, a few others) but he has taken out a few top dogs. Other than bin Laden, he's taken out al-Liby, Awlaki, the leader of al-Shabaab, and various lower level AQ terrorists on the wanted list. Zawahiri is still at large, but doesn't seem very effective. So as to what he calls 'core' AQ, he's done well. Kept up with Bush's pace, shall we say.
Where he drops the ball is connecting dots. AQ Core doesn't matter anymore. The organization branched out years ago, knowing it would be harder to whack all the moles. ISIS is simply a manifestation of the cause on steroids. The reason he's dropped the ball on them is because he's so hung-up on Bush's 'dumb' war in Iraq--and all the political capital for the Democrats in continuing that paradigm--that he cannot see terrorists sharing the AQ ideology in Iraq the same as he sees them elsewhere. So he pretends they are "JV" because he thinks "core" AQ is the only threat due to 9/11. But 9/11 was a cheap operation done with a handful of jihadis out of Afghanistan. They must all be confronted, no matter where they are.
So that's what he needs to say. He needs to remind everyone the battle is not against 'core' or 'ISIL' or various factions, it's against the radical Islamist ideology that relies on religious supremacy at the point of a scimitar. No matter what dumbass name they call themselves. He's correct they cannot be entirely eliminated, but if he wants to reach the people he's got to explain the enemy and why it's important to keep fighting back. Such a thing requires the courage of calling a spade a spade.
HERE IT IS.. 9/10/14
This is what the White House is tweeting right now....
In other words, "you are either with us, or with the terrorists". How bizarre, coming from the guy who called Iraq a dumb war, the worst foreign policy mistake ever, was against the surge, then heralded his removal of all the troops while people said it might be the greatest success of his presidency, a withdrawal that led to ISIS. All so he could get in front of cameras and say we are going to destroy these terrorists and announcing his bold new doctrine, despite having ignored the terrorists in Iraq and Syria for over 3 years.
And this coming after an emotionless speech whereupon he declared the "Islamic State" was "not Islamic" (Bush once said AQ had "hijacked" Islam) and that America is safer as he's removed all the troops from Iraq while announcing 450 more are heading over there (making almost 1500 now).
It's as if we're living the script of a bad movie.
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