....As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama's past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. "If a J.V. team puts on Lakers' uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant" (January 2014). "[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated" (August 2013). "So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding" (September 2011).
Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is "ending" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America's enemies are not "decimated." They are emboldened and on the march.
The fall of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul and Tel Afar, and the establishment of terrorist safe havens across a large swath of the Arab world, present a strategic threat to the security of the United States. Mr. Obama's actions—before and after ISIS's recent advances in Iraq—have the effect of increasing that threat.
On a trip to the Middle East this spring, we heard a constant refrain in capitals from the Persian Gulf to Israel, "Can you please explain what your president is doing?" "Why is he walking away?" "Why is he so blithely sacrificing the hard fought gains you secured in Iraq?" "Why is he abandoning your friends?" "Why is he doing deals with your enemies?"
In one Arab capital, a senior official pulled out a map of Syria and Iraq. Drawing an arc with his finger from Raqqa province in northern Syria to Anbar province in western Iraq, he said, "They will control this territory. Al Qaeda is building safe havens and training camps here. Don't the Americans care?"
Our president doesn't seem to. Iraq is at risk of falling to a radical Islamic terror group and Mr. Obama is talking climate change. Terrorists take control of more territory and resources than ever before in history, and he goes golfing. He seems blithely unaware, or indifferent to the fact, that a resurgent al Qaeda presents a clear and present danger to the United States of America......
I liked the below in response to the warmongers' op-ed:
Paul Waldman writing at WashingtonPost:
....Today, on the Senate floor, Harry Reid said: “Being on the wrong side of Dick Cheney is being on the right side of history.”
Reid was responding to Cheney’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with his daughter Liz attacking the Obama administration’s policies in the Middle East and elsewhere, a piece that has already generated much discussion. The Cheneys have also formed an organization, the Alliance for a Strong America, to advocate Cheneyite policies (you can tell it’ll be strong and resolute, because in the announcement video, Dick is wearing a cowboy hat).
The Cheneys’ op ed and new organization capture a key facet of conservatives’ approach to the foreign policies of the Obama era: They ply their ideas from a strange place where history started in January 2009.
The Cheneys offer no discussion of the disastrous decision to invade Iraq in the first place (though they still surely believe the war was a great idea, they apparently realize most Americans don’t agree). But anything that happened afterward can only be Obama’s fault. They write, “Mr. Obama had only to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.”
Yes, he “had only” to do that, and everything would have turned out fine. But who was it who signed the agreement mandating the removal of all American forces from Iraq by the end of 2011? It was George W. Bush. When the time arrived, the Maliki government was determined to get all American troops out, and refused to negotiate a new agreement without putting American troops at the mercy of the Iraqi justice system — something no American president would ever have accepted.........
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