Krauthammer: Bombing for show? Or for effect? The shame of the US efforts

Charles Krauthammer

 

"During the 1944 Warsaw uprising, Stalin ordered the advancing Red Army to stop at the outskirts of the city while the Nazis, for 63 days, annihilated the non-Communist Polish partisans. Only then did Stalin take Warsaw.

"No one can match Stalin for merciless cynicism, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is offering a determined echo by ordering Turkish tanks massed on the Syrian border, within sight of the besieged Syrian town of Kobane, to sit and do nothing. " ...

... "As designed, the outer limit of its objective is to roll back the Islamic State in Iraq and contain it in Syria. It is doing neither. Despite State Department happy talk about advances in Iraq, our side is suffering serious reverses near Baghdad and throughout Anbar province, which is reportedly near collapse. Baghdad itself is ripe for infiltration for a Tet-like offensive aimed at demoralizing both Iraq and the United States.

"As for Syria, what is Obama doing? First, he gives the enemy 12 days of warning about impending air attacks. We end up hitting empty buildings and evacuated training camps."

Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Kobani: monuments to America's shame

... " The viciousness of ISIS against women, children, and “apostate” Muslims will make Yemen’s troubles look simple, but Yemen was the canary in the coal mine. Now the real disaster is underway, and the U.S. remains out of touch with its origins and its path.  Kobani and what it represents appear doomed – to America’s shame."

ISIL gains raise doubts on Obama war strategy, say officials. Kobani: America's shame

 

Press TV    "American officials admit that the US-led airstrikes are not stopping ISIL advances in Iraq and Syria, raising doubts on the efficacy of President Barack Obama’s long-contemplated strategy for confronting the terror organization. (Emphasis in the original)

"Despite some of the most intense air raids so far, defense officials say that the embattled Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria could fall to ISIL militants.

"The US has used bombers, fighter jets and drones to carry out at least 37 airstrikes in and around Kobani in recent days. ISIL militants, however, have managed to take control of a third of the strategically important town." ...   Full article.

 Kobani and what it represents appear doomed – to America’s shame.
... "The viciousness of ISIS against women, children, and “apostate” Muslims will make Yemen’s troubles look simple, but Yemen was the canary in the coal mine. Now the real disaster is underway, and the U.S. remains out of touch with its origins and its path.  Kobani and what it represents appear doomed – to America’s shame."

Which is the JV commander?

The JV Team Takes on ISIL   “ 'We don’t have a strategy yet,” the commander in chief told us in August regarding countermeasures against ISIL. That was despite months of warnings about the rise of this terrorist threat in the Middle East. No wonder Barack Obama blamed faulty intelligence for his own unpreparedness." ...
...
" Kirby implicitly acknowledged the foolish limits placed upon the U.S. military by the president. This became an American military operation once we launched airstrikes, and any gains ISIL makes are now against the U.S. That makes recruitment easier, among other bad consequences. It’s astounding that the Pentagon is having to concede territory to ISIL because Obama is so uncommitted to victory that he’s unwilling to even name the operation, much less make it a successful one."

Islamic State’s Female Sharia Enforcers Lashing Women For Showing Their Eyes

This should show the shallowness of the Democrat's silly "war on women" slogan

 

From Business Standard:  A former Islamic State (IS) fighter, who joined the terror group’s women’s brigade, has reportedly revealed that women were not allowed to show their eyes and were lashed for not adhering to the rules outlined by the terror group. 

The 25-year-old fighter, who called herself Khadija, said that the group was responsible for patrolling the streets of Raqqa and ensuring that women abided by the codes of conduct laid down by the IS that banned form-fitting or beaded abayas, reported the CNN. 

The squad is called Khansa’s brigade and comprises about 25 to 30 women led by commander Umm Hamza, she said. Khadija said that the brutalities unleashed by the group prompted her to leave the group.

 

From Rolling Stone: In Defense of Obama

"The Nobel Prize-winning economist, once one of the president’s most notable critics, on why Obama is a historic success." To sum this column up, it's all the Republican's fault.

Paul Krugman
Paragraph 1:  The introduction to Krugman's own thoughts on Obama.

Paragraph 2: ..."Republican greed, the GOP's unwillingness to make even token concessions."

Paragraph 3: ..."Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction" ...

Paragraph 4: ..." the onslaught from the right, which has never stopped portraying him as an Islamic atheist Marxist Kenyan."

Paragraph 5: ..."There's a different story on the left, where you now find a significant number of critics decrying Obama as, to quote Cornel West, someone who ''posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.'' They're outraged that Wall Street hasn't been punished, that income inequality remains so high, that ''neoliberal'' economic policies are still in place. All of this seems to rest on the belief that if only Obama had put his eloquence behind a radical economic agenda, he could somehow have gotten that agenda past all the political barriers that have con- strained even his much more modest efforts. It's hard to take such claims seriously."  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/in-defense-of-obama-

Paragraph 6: "Finally, there's the constant belittling of Obama from mainstream pundits and talking heads." ... 
Paragraph 7: "But this bashing is misguided even in its own terms – and in any case, it's focused on the wrong thing."

 Paragraph 8: " ...(in which Republicans never, ever have a good word for a Democratic president, and vice versa),"...

"And so on, as the above is just the tip of the Krugman iceberg, which includes thoughts such as:

" ... John Roberts...nonetheless opened a loophole that has allowed Republican-controlled states to deny coverage to millions of Americans."
...

"Of course, this success story makes nonsense of right-wing predictions of catastrophe."

Chris Matthews Says Obama Should Stop ‘Pandering’ to ‘Ethnic Groups’ [VIDEO]

Matthews commits random act of journalistic commentary.

Daily Caller   "If there are two things MSNBC host Chris Matthews is known for, they’re his love for President Barack Obama and his knack for assuming that everyone who disagrees with him is a racist. It’s a bit shocking, therefore, to hear him tell Obama to lay off the racial politics not once, but twice."
...
"Matthews made a similar point when Mitchell asked whether or not Obama could rescue the final two years of his presidency. “The fact is, this president has the opportunity to put it together,” he said. “But he needs to stop playing politics, stop running for office, stop playing the ethnic groups, and say, ‘Look, I’ve only got two years left. I have to get something done.' ’”

Ben Affleck: Portrait of Islam’s Clueless Apologists

Raymond Ibrahim    "The value of actor Ben Affleck’s recent outbursts in defense of Islam on HBO’s Real Time is that here, in one 10-minute segment, we have all the leftist/liberal bromides used whenever Islam is criticized.

 

"In what follows, Affleck’s main arguments are presented and then discredited.
...
"What such apologists fail to recognize is that the clash of civilizations is already upon us; and it is not a product of Western “bigotry” but Islamic teaching.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, here it is.

"The reason apologists can get away (for now) with their reasoning is because the U.S. is ostensibly immune from Islam — so they can spin and pass off feel-good fables about Islam all they want."

What's happening to Obama's allies?

 

From the AP: Obama allies getting harder to find these days   ... "The disenchantment with Obama is in part a reflection of inevitable fatigue with a president entering his final years in office. But some Democrats say it is also a consequence of the president's insular approach to governing and his preference for relying on a small cadre of White House advisers, leaving him with few loyal allies on Capitol Hill or elsewhere." ...
...
"But Panetta's most scathing critique is reserved for Obama's leadership style. Writing about Obama's inability to stop deep budget cuts at the Pentagon, Panetta said the episode reflected the president's "most conspicuous weakness, a frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause.'"   Julie Pace,  AP White House Correspondent

Not only does Obama not engage his opposition, he has spent the last six years taunting and demagoguing them.

Et Tu, Jimmy?   "When Jimmy Carter starts criticizing your foreign policy as weak and indecisive, you are getting to the bottom of the barrel. Jimmy unloaded on Barack Obama yesterday:

Former President Jimmy Carter is criticizing President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, saying he has shifting policies and waited too long to take action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

 

Why Bill O'Reilly's Interview with Leon Panetta was So Devastating to President Obama    "Tuesday night Leon Panetta´s book tour brought him to the O´Reilly Factor. O´Reilly conducted what turned out to be a masterful interview, the results of which were nothing short of devastating for President Obama. (Snip)Things were different on Fox News where Bill O´Reilly came at Panetta from a very different perspective. Instead of accusing Panetta of saying too much, O´Reilly challenged him to say even more and say it more plainly. And that led to a series of exchanges in which Panetta felt forced to defend the President even as he continued to say that he´d made some significant mistakes."  Via  Lucianne
 

 

On a college campus yet! Obama Booed During PSA at Michigan State Football Game   "Jeers reportedly started in student section. "

Baseball Crowd Shouts 'USA! USA!' at Ferguson Protestors

M. Catharine Evans  "Days after liberal-minded symphony attendees sat quietly while direct action protesters disrupted their evening out, red-blooded Americans attending a baseball game in St. Louis went toe to toe with Michael Brown’s defenders."
...
"A few weeks ago, the stadium was the scene of a foiled demonstration.  Organizers Sarah Griesbach and Elizabeth Vega, two middle-aged white women who wore Cardinals jerseys, unfurled a protest banner and were instantly met with shouts from sports fans.  The same women were also behind the October 4 St. Louis Symphony demonstration.  After the failed ballgame protest, the duo from an upscale neighborhood decided that a symphony hall would be a better location."
...
"Apparently, according to tweets, the protesters faced off with Cardinals fans outside the exit and re-entry gate for smokers.  Not a great idea. 

"In the Stadium video, a Michael Brown activist can be seen holding the American flag upside-down.  The defiant act did not go over too well.  In contrast to the symphony attendees, the baseball crowd shouted the demonstrators down.  Loud chants of "USA!  USA!” drowned out what sounds like 'f*** you' coming from the Brown mob."  Full article.

GOP'S BIG IDEA: LET'S NOT HAVE A WAVE ELECTION

Ann Coulter  "On Monday, The Washington Times reported on the Homeland Security Inspector General's finding that detention facilities for illegal border-crossers are teeming with diseases because the guests don't know how to take medicine or use toilets. By Tuesday, there were more than 1,000 comments.

"That's a lot of comments. Articles on ISIS usually get between five and 100 comments.
...
"When it comes to what Americans are angry enough about to post more than a thousand comments, there's only one issue. It's immigration.

"But the Republican leadership won't touch it. Their consultants have kids who are going to need college tuition, and the donor class wants cheap labor."...

Making Harding Look Good; The Obama administration has tarnished nearly every major federal agency.

Victor Davis Hanson

 

... "The lasting legacy of Obama will be that he has largely discredited the idea of big government, of which he was so passionate an advocate. Almost every major agency of the federal government, many of them with a hallowed tradition of bipartisan competence, have now been rendered either dysfunctional or politicized — or both — largely because of politically driven appointments of unqualified people, or ideological agendas that were incompatible with the agency’s mission.

 

"The list of scandals is quite staggering. In aggregate, it makes Harding’s Teapot Dome mess seem minor in comparison." ...   Full article.

 

Bill Maher vs. Ben Affleck On Islam: "Mafia That Will F**king Kill You If You Say The Wrong Thing"

Bill Maher and Ben Affleck engaged in a heated debate over radical Islam and Islamophobia on Friday's broadcast of Real Time on HBO.   "Bill Maher and Ben Affleck engaged in a heated debate over radical Islam and Islamophobia on Friday's broadcast of Real Time on HBO.

"Aided by author Sam Harris, Maher contended radical Islamists are essentially a "mafia" that will kill you if you say or draw the wrong thing. Affleck argued that condemning a whole religion based on jihadists that make up a small fraction of Islam isn't fair.

"New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who was also on the panel, said the criticism of Islam has "a tinge of how white racists talk about African-American and define blacks."

"On last week's broadcast of Real Time, Maher went after Islam and argued "if we're giving no quarter to intolerance, shouldn't we be starting the mutilators and the honor killers?' "

CNS News: Bill Maher vs. Chris Hayes
... "Maher has drawn new attention for singling out Islam as the worst of all them all. He almost sounded pro-Christian (by comparison) in a surprisingly contentious PBS interview with Charlie Rose wherein he slammed militant Islam.

"Then he fought with Ben Affleck on his HBO show on Oct. 3. Suddenly the liberal media discovered Maher's argument ... and rushed to side with Affleck.

"Affleck thought attacking Islam was "gross and racist." He yelled at Maher about "more than a billion people who aren't fanatical, who don't punish women, who just wanna go to school, and eat sandwiches, pray five times a day, and don't do any of the things you saying of all Muslims! It's stereotyping!' "...

MSNBC was loaded with praise. Chris Matthews declared, "I'm with Affleck because knocking someone's religion is the way to start or escalate a fight. It's no way to cool one." Krystal Ball said "I have such a liberal crush now on Ben Affleck. I thought he was so amazing throughout that show, and so strong there."

 Slave Markets Sell Christian and Yezidi Women for $10 to Attract Islamic State Recruits

Nigeria: Devout Muslims of Boko Haram Torch 185 Churches -