Foreign policy outlook for the near future

Will Hillary Clinton go down with Obama’s foreign policy ship?  "Whatever foreign policy credibility President Obama had left has crumbled in the wake of the backlash over the release of five Taliban terrorists, the decision by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to form a unity government and the newly candid criticism over his disastrous non-policy in Syria.

"The president’s approval ratings on foreign policy are at all-time lows according to CNN/ORC (40 percent) and The Post/ABC News (41 percent) polls." ...

Gitmo Fail   "Obama promised to close Guantánamo. Why is he releasing dangerous detainees and ignoring the rest?"

 

Why Are We Releasing Terrorists Who Kill Girls Because They Go To School?   "Democrats have been promoting the idea that they stand firmly against a “War on Women.” So how come President Obama just released some of that war’s worst aggressors?"

...

"But it seems some people have forgotten the long catalog of the Taliban’s crimes. Politico‘s Blake Hounshell was generally regarded as winning the stiff competition for the stupidest tweet defending the administration’s prisoner swap, when he asked:

 

Blake Hounshell        ✔ @blakehounshell Follow

What's the argument that these five Taliban guys are so dangerous? Are they ninjas? Do they have superpowers? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/02/how-obama-convinced-his-spies-to-support-the-taliban-prisoner-release.html …

...

"The best commentary on the moral status of the Taliban is from a Pakistani girl who escaped from her psychopathic father and brother, who were in the business of training suicide bombers. She told an interviewer: “The Taliban slaughter other people’s children. They turn women into widows. They should be made to suffer, too. I want these Taliban to be burned alive.”

"So no, these guys are not just ordinary, rank-and-file POWs. They’re the worst of the worst, and the only argument against keeping them at Guantanamo is that it’s too good for them." ...

Who's Racist?

Dennis Prager  "No day passes without a Democratic politician, a left-wing commentator, or, if I may be excused a redundancy, a left-wing academic labeling Republicans and conservatives racist.

"Given the power of repetition, one consequence is that many Americans, especially young ones, believe that one side of the political spectrum -- the right -- is racist.

"Having been involved with conservatives for about 30 years, I have long known that this isn't true. In fact, the charge of conservative racism is so easily refuted that it is difficult to imagine anyone without a vested interest in libeling conservatives believing it. How, for example, does one explain that the most conservative Republicans were the ones who most supported Herman Cain, the one black running for the Republican presidential nomination n 2012?

"Left-wing commentators offer this response: Conservative support of Cain was essentially a ruse to fool people into believing that conservatives are not the racists we liberals know them to be.
...
"But while I've never associated conservatives with racism, I also never used to associate liberals with racism. But I was naive in this matter. While there are liberals and leftists who are not racist, I have come to understand that many are -- considerably more than conservatives.

"Here are some proofs:"  Read more:
 

Count Mad Magazine as the first pop culture institution to target President Barack Obama’s Taliban prisoner swap.

 

Top Right News  "It’s hard to imagine any other humorist in any other medium hitting back quite so hard in the days to come.

"The magazine posted a fake movie advertisement for Trading Private Bergdahl, a takeoff on the Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan." ...
Via Josh Bernstein at Guardian Eagles

If Bergdahl turns out to have been a hero, we'll have a lot of crow to eat.
 

"Death by queueing": Single payer is Root Cause of VA Deaths

Deane Waldman  "The problem with the VA system is the system, a single-payer model. Newspaper headlines shrieked outrage over unconscionable wait times to see a doctor; inadequate operating rooms; and needed medicines not available. This should come as no surprise. That is the way single-payer systems work. That is the norm, not the exception.

"Look to our north for proof, to the single payer system in Canada. Fifteen years ago, a Canadian surgeon named Dr. Ciaran McNamee sued the Alberta Provincial government claiming that patients were dying needlessly, while waiting for authorized (but not funded) care. He had good hard medical data to back up his claim, showing that there were not enough operating rooms, too few nurses or doctors, and insufficient medicines, all due to a government budget allocation process. The phrase applied to these patients, equally appropriate for our veterans, was death-by-queueing."

Deane Waldman MD MBA -- “Dr. Deane”-- is author of The Cancer In Healthcare; Host of The Hidden Enemy Newsletter-&-Forum; member of the Board of Directors of the NM Health Insurance Exchange; Adjunct Scholar for the Rio Grande Foundation; and Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science

My Two Favorite Questions for Global Warmists

"Global warmism remains the most colossal hoax ever perpetrated."

Paul Jacobson     Now it’s time for my Favorite Global Warmism Question #1:

• Did you know that there’s no such thing as a greenhouse gas?

... "Hey, I admit it: Question #1 is something of a semantic teaser. But now it’s time for Favorite Global Warmism Question #2, and this one is really serious:

• How much actual CO2 is there in the atmosphere?

 

 

 

 

... " This means that anthropogenic CO2 emissions must be examined in full context with numerous other climate variables such as solar activity, volcanism, magnetic field shifts, etc. An inquiry like this is certain to be dauntingly, perhaps overwhelmingly, complex if conducted like authentic, inductive science. Global warmism advocates have shamelessly evaded this monumental evidence burden -- and the burden is entirely on them -- by resorting to garbage-in-garbage-out computer models, even outright data fraud and deceitfulness."

Team Hillary distancing themselves from Bergdahl swap?

Hot Air  "The first hint that Hillary Clinton didn’t want to tie herself to the spike-the-football strategy from the White House strategy for the Bowe Bergdahl swap could be described as a dog that didn’t bark. The former Secretary of State held her tongue for two days, and then only tepidly defended the deal in which Barack Obama traded five of the most dangerous men in Gitmo for the captive US soldier:
...
"Forget the bandwagon analogy, and think of sinking ships instead. Within less than a day after that statement, “former officials” in the State Department were busy talking with The Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin to explain that Hillary Clinton would have driven a much harder bargain than Obama, and even then may not have done the swap anyway:" ...

Harry's just wild about it all: Harry Reid: 'Glad' to Get 5 Taliban Out of Gitmo and Into Qatar:

Let's release more yet! " 'Guantanamo has been there far too long, and I think that we should get them out of there as quickly as we can," he said of the remaining 150 prisoners still classified as "enemy combatants" and held without charges."
 

Newsday

Krauthammer: I Find It Odd That Congress Didn’t Complain About Obama Changing Health Care Law 38 Times But Is Complaining About Bergdahl Exchange

Downtrend  “ 'The spirit of the law was to prevent Obama from emptying Guantanamo, unilaterally,” Krauthammer said, when speaking about the law that requires the President to give a 30 day notice to Congress before releasing prisoners from Gitmo. “This is somewhat different, and I’m surprised he didn’t make this case… The case that I would make is that this wasn’t an emptying of Guantanamo, this was a prisoner exchange.”

"[Krauthammer] went on to chastise members of Congress for criticizing the President for performing the exchange without Congressional notification when they didn’t criticize him for other, more obvious, examples of executive abuse."
 

See the return of Bowe Bergdahl

 

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

Taliban release video showing handover of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

 

... "A Black Hawk helicopter then lands and two Taliban fighters, one carrying a white flag, lead Bergdahl half way. He is greeted and taken by three Western-looking men in civilian clothing to the helicopter, where soldiers in Army uniforms are waiting." Video

Prisoner swap blows up on White House   "Feinstein said leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence panels were almost unanimously against a prisoner trade when it came up in 2011."

This liberal says The Bowe Bergdahl Story Is Right-Wing Crack   "First, if a Republican president had swapped five Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, all the people howling today would be spinning it positively. And second, while there are legitimate questions here—yes, I wrote that it was “fair to ask whether the price” of Bergdahl’s freedom was “too high”—what we’re about to get is another relentlessly politicized series of investigations that will be aimed not at determining the truth but at trying to turn possible errors of judgment by the White House into high crimes and misdemeanors. That’s the game here. Anyone who denies it is being naively or intentionally delusional."

The substance of his complaint here is that while conservatives have a legitimate case, he hates that they will make an issue of it. 

 

From Hope n' Change:

"Meanwhile, Susan "I'll Say Anything" Rice has made the rounds of news shows claiming that Sgt. Bergdahl served "with honor and distinction" which doesn't seem to quite square with the impression given by every other soldier who served with him. Then again, perhaps Ms. Rice has simply been misinformed by a Youtube video."

Newsday

Veterans see red as Jane Fonda tapped to speak to UCLA grads

Commencement season is a funny thing. For example, Condoleezza Rice was unwelcome at Rutgers University, despite a stint as secretary of state and concert pianist, among other things. But it’s all about who is speaking to which audience. Jane Fonda, whose accomplishments include standing in front of cameras, will speak to the graduating class of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Never mind the time she traitorously stepped in between a Vietcong anti-aircraft gun and a camera, which earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane” and universal distain from Vietnam Veterans for supporting the enemy. It will be interesting to see if Hanoi Jane, who reportedly converted to Christianity and apologized for the Vietnam incident, will say anything of substance. But it may be lost on the sophomoric graduates looking to be the next generation of Hollywood.    The Patriot Post

This Rutgers alumnus declares that Rice not worthy of guest-speaker role

Fox News   ... "But the propaganda photo that resulted from that trip is forever etched in the memories of Vietnam veterans."

 
“ 'We are truly honored to have Jane Fonda speak at this year’s commencement ceremony,” said Teri Schwartz, dean of UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “Jane is a visionary and a remarkable artist who has spent her life telling deeply powerful stories that have moved and inspired audiences worldwide to action for the greater good and to a greater understanding of our common humanity through her films, philanthropic efforts and personal journeys.' ”

Why Team Obama Was Blindsided by the Bergdahl Backlash; The anti-military president and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class.

National Review Online

 

"Congratulations, Mr. President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our military.

"I have never witnessed such outrage from our troops."

"Exhibit A: Ms. Rice. In one of the most tone-deaf statements in White House history (we’re making a lot of history here), the national-security advisor, on a Sunday talk show, described Bergdahl as having served “with honor and distinction.” Those serving in uniform and those of us who served previously were already stirred up, but that jaw-dropper drove us into jihad mode. But pity Ms. Rice. Like the president she serves, she’s a victim of her class. Nobody in the inner circle of Team Obama has served in uniform. It shows.
...
... "In the best Manchurian Candidate manner, she said what she had been programmed to say by her political culture, then she was blindsided by the firestorm she ignited by scratching two flinty words
together. At least she didn’t blame Bergdahl’s desertion on a video."  Full article here.

supportbowe.org

A little Obamafreude on the Bergdahl Debacle

wnd.com

A little Obamafreude on the Bergdahl Debacle  "I did the right thing and called for decorum and an investigation before we hang young Mr. Bergdahl. But I can no longer contain the enjoyment I am getting watching the sh*tstorm envelop the Obama team. Not only are these folks the world's worst negotiators (if you don't know who the sucker is at the table...well), but how could they not have at least anticipated that trading terrorists for traitors might ruffle a few feathers."
...
"This cunning plan to wag the dog combined with a stalking horse for emptying Gitmo by declaring the war "ended" crashed and burned into a self-inflicted, own goal."

A Matter of Honor: Why So Many Soldiers Are Angry at the Bergdahl Deal
"And of course, the predictable happened. The military initiated a massive search, and men died. American heroes died. Have their parents had a presidential photo-op like Sergeant Bergdahl’s parents enjoyed? In the moral calculus have we even considered or mentioned the Americans who may have died in the combat operations that led to the capture of the Taliban leadership?"
...
"Let’s state this as plainly as possible: While we may attempt to end our combat operations against the Taliban, the Taliban have made no claim of ending their hostilities against us. We will be under zero obligation to hand over soldiers to an entity in an ongoing belligerent status against the United States."

After Bergdahl disappeared, “IEDs started going off directly under the trucks. They were getting perfect hits every time.”   ..."Within days of his disappearance, says [Bergdahl's team leader] Buetow, teams monitoring radio chatter and cell phone communications intercepted an alarming message: The American is in Yahya Khel (a village two miles away). He’s looking for someone who speaks English so he can talk to the Taliban.

...

"It was “very suspicious,” says Buetow, noting that Bergdahl knew sensitive information about the movement of U.S. trucks, the weaponry on those trucks, and how soldiers would react to attacks.

CNN's Jake Tapper has this.  Video link interview with Bergdahl's team leader.

 

....
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, defending against critics of the prisoner swap, said Bergdahl's "safety and health were both in jeopardy" at the time of his rescue.   ..."Hagel, visiting troops in Afghanistan, was met with silence when he told a group of them in a Bagram Air Field hangar: "This is a happy day. We got one of our own back." It was unclear whether the absence of cheers and applause came from a reluctance to display emotion in front of the Pentagon chief or from any doubts among the troops about Bergdahl."

This writer thinks your reaction is simply a matter of what you think of Mr. Obama  

... "FIRST IMPRESSION: Talk about a tough call: If the Afghans act against the United States or its allies, Obama will have blood on his hands. This is where your opinion about Obama probably tracks closely with your opinion on the deal.

"If you trust the president—if you buy his assurances about the U.S. capacity to monitor the terrorists and his resolve to take swift action—you're likely to give him the benefit of the doubt on the swap. In your mind's eye, you see a drone emblazoned with the names of five nasty Afghans.

"If you don't trust much of what Obama says or does, you're likely to hate this deal because it depends so heavily on the president's judgment." 

The Godzilla of Incompetence