Tag Archives: foreign policy

A Token Force, more Dithering

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Now the Obama administration is “weighing” sending 100 (count ’em) Special Forces soldiers to…some place…in Iraq. With their hands tied behind their backs.

The troops would fall under the authority of the US ambassador in Baghdad and would not be authorized to engage in combat, another US official said. Their mission would be “non-operational training” of both regular and counterterrorism units, which the military has in the past interpreted to mean training on military bases[.]

So, no support, no qualified leadership at the top, and they’ll likely be on bases that the Iraqi “army” abandons at the first sniff of gun smoke.

This is not an optimal use of our SF.

Iraqi Drama Catches US Off Guard

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That’s the headline of a Wall Street Journal article, and I stole it. It’s here, too, because the headline says it all.

The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged.

And

US military leaders said they had thought that Iraqi security forces’ efforts would be enough to slow ISIS’s advance. But those assumptions were proven wrong when Iraqi troops largely abandoned their posts.

Yet it’s not just about establishing ISIS in Sunni Iraq. Having moved to within a few 10s of miles of Baghdad, ISIS has announced its intent to move on and seize Shia Karbala and Najaf, hosts of two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims, for the humiliation of the Shia in Iraq. And for the added fertile agricultural territory.

Why was the US caught off guard by this Iraqi collapse in the wake of the collapse going on in next-door Syria? Because no one in this administration has any clue at all concerning what’s going on—and why—outside the little choir of “advisors” President Barack Obama maintains in his coterie.

YGTBSM

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Yet another installment.

At the D-Day ceremonies last Friday, on the beaches of Normandy, our President Barack Obama did this. That’s right,

President Obama was caught on camera chewing gum during the D-Day ceremonies in France as Queen Elizabeth II was welcomed….

His chaw seems to have been extended through the playing of the Marseillaise, the French National Anthem, too.

This is such an easy thing not to do. It’s got to be deliberately disrespectful, to his host, to the fallen, to the occasion, to all of us.

Keep it in mind this fall, and in the fall of 2016, when his acolyte will be the Democratic candidate.

Bergdahl and Deal Making

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Power Line‘s Paul Mirengoff made a number of points about the Obama “exchange;” I’ll add just a couple.

…President Obama was motivated less by a desire to bring back this particular prisoner than by a desire to make a deal—almost any deal—with the Taliban. Obama himself tipped his hand when, in announcing the deal, he said it could “open the door for broader discussions [with the Taliban] about the future of [Afghanistan] by building confidence.”

Mirengoff added

But who doubted that deals can be made with the Taliban? A deal can be made with anyone if it is one-sided enough.

Indeed. And after initially (or so Obama’s minions claim) holding out for a grand bargain,

A senior administration official said “we didn’t achieve as much as we would have liked, but neither [did we achieve] nothing.” Instead, “we have created precedent and a basis that might well provide an opening in the future,” he asserted.

Well, no, you didn’t. A precedent in this venue requires that both parties to agree that it is one or that one party has the power to enforce its terms in later efforts. This isn’t an American superior court where precedence has force regardless of agreement (you’d think a Constitutional scholar like our President would understand that). On the other hand, the Taliban did set a very critical precedent. They’ve demonstrated that they have the power to enforce their precedential terms onto this administration at will.

And this: only a partisan hack could think trading five four-star generals for a single sergeant is a good deal. Or a community organizer out of his depth.

Who’s More Valuable?

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A soldier of questionable motive, but who acted deliberately and wound up in enemy hands, or a soldier of clear motive, but who made a traffic error and wound up in an “ally’s” jail?

Obama announced Saturday in a dramatic Rose Garden news conference that five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay would be exchanged for [Army Sgt Bowe] Bergdahl, a 28-year-old infantryman held captive for five years by the terrorist group. The swap angered many in the military and on Capitol Hill, because it went against long-standing policy of not bargaining with terrorists.

On the other hand, we get

Although [Marine Sgt Andrew] Tahmooressi is not a prisoner of war, he served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his mother, Jill Tahmooressi. Friends who have visited him in [the Mexican] prison say he has been tortured and threatened with rape and death, and they question whether the administration is doing enough to help him.

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R, CA) observed

[A]s far the Administration went for Bergdahl, Andrew Tahmooressi is still stuck in a Mexican jail for making a wrong turn, and the only thing grabbing the president’s attention so far is an online petition that forces him to respond.

If he responds to the petition at all. In the meantime, neither our Secretary of State and ex-motor boat skipper, John Kerry, nor our President and ex-community organizer, Barack Obama, have troubled themselves to pick up a phone and make a call to Mexico.

It’s pretty clear where this administration’s values lie. Keep it in mind this fall.