The surest way to escalate our current war/struggle/police action with those-who-must-not-be-named, aka Sharia Islam, is to pretend we are not fighting it while making every effort to abandon the battle field(s). The recent revelations of Barack Obama's fecklessness as Commander in Chief do not surprise but should appall:
Why is Obama sending troops to Afghanistan?
From the beginning, the call to arms was highly uncertain. On Dec. 1, 2009, commander in chief Barack Obama orders 30,000 more Americans into battle in Afghanistan. But in the very next sentence, he announces that an American withdrawal will begin after 18 months.
Astonishing. A surge of troops -- overall, Obama has tripled our Afghan force -- with a declaration not of war but of ambivalence. Nine months later, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway admitted that this decision was "probably giving our enemy sustenance." This wasn't conjecture, he insisted, but the stuff of intercepted communications testifying to the enemies' relief that they simply had to wait out the Americans.
What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal?
...
Sen. Kerry, now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, asked many years ago: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Perhaps Kerry should ask that of Obama.
"He is out of Afghanistan psychologically," says Woodward of Obama. Well, he may be out, but the soldiers he ordered to Afghanistan are in.
Some will not come home.
Armed Liberal is more pointed:
Well, You F***ed Up...You Trusted Him'
If that doesn't offend you, you're not paying attention. Forget my outrage as the father of a soldier whose life Obama was prepared to waste in support of a cause he and his team have no faith in - I'm outraged as a taxpayer, as a citizen, as someone who relies on my government to defend me and mine and to advance the causes of our nation.
No wonder Obama is uncomfortable around military families. Not only does he think they were fools for enlisting but greater fools to march forward into hazard in the service of a plan he doesn't believe in.
Even if one grants Obama the benefit of the doubt, that he truly believes that fighting a sub-rosa clandestine drone war against unnameable militants is the best way to minimize the risks of "man-caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations", it is becoming increasingly obvious that this is not working:
New Poll: Pakistanis Hate the Drones, Back Suicide Attacks on U.S. Troops
The CIA can kill militants all day long. If the drone war in Pakistan drives the local people into al Qaeda’s arms, it’ll be failure. A new poll of the Pakistani tribal areas, released this morning, suggests that could easily wind up happening. Chalk one up for drone skeptics like counterinsurgent emeritus David Kilcullen and ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden.
Not only is the recruiting pool increasing, but the safe havens in Pakistan, an ambivalent ally at best, are producing what once was referred to as "blowback":
Eight Germans and four Britons are now reported to be part of a terror operation linked to drone strikes in Pakistan. One of the Britons was killed in the attacks, according to the Associated Press. The Europeans had been making calls back to Europe and plotting “Mumbai-style” attacks from Pakistan. The AP said it underlined the role the Southwest Asian country plays in international terrorism and specifically to attacks scheduled for Europe and perhaps for the US.
This came as NATO helicopters crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan “in self defense” and killed a large number of militants in three incidents. The Christian Science Monitor says the attacks demonstrate the new policy of “hot pursuit”, a term which suggests the attackers in Afghanistan were fleeing across the border into Pakistan and that this had been going on for some time. Three Pakistani soldiers were killed by the helicopters.
George Bush made many mistakes in his prosecution of the War(s) against Terrorists (including being unable to name the enemy appropriately) but he did a decent job of keeping the battlefield localized. Under the "leadership" of Barack Obama, whose primary goal apparently has been to exit from the battlefield, the War is spreading. In his defense, it is likely that our attempts to fight a limited war (in both the kinetic and informational sense) would have led to this outcome in any event, but the spread of the War into Pakistan may some day come to be seen as the point at which escalation truly began. If the War within Islam to adapt to the modern world is successfully externalized by the radicals, we will truly be faced with a multi-faceted Clash of Civilizations, something George W. Bush always hoped to avoid and which Barack Obama has simply ignored.
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