Speeches neither win nor end wars.
President Barack Obama at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC. Sept. 2012.
Listen To You Tell Me Texas Friday 9/26/14
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President Obama won the presidency in 2008 in very large measure as a result of promising to end war. His 2008 come-from-behind primary victory against a once inevitable Hillary Clinton was almost totally because her Senate vote in favor of the Iraq war haunted her.
By the time of his re-election in 2012, and against the advice of nearly every senior military advisor, President Obama had withdrawn all U.S. forces from Iraq – a fact that he trumpeted throughout the campaign.
At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, speaker after speaker echoed the line, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” The crowd ate it up.
“All wars must end” said the president in a May 2013 speech.
The problem that the president now faces is that no one told the enemy. It started just weeks before the 2012 election, on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens was killed in a terror attack along with three other U.S. personnel at Benghazi, Libya.
Since then, the world has become increasingly dangerous. as evidenced by the recent brutal beheadings of two Americans.
The president is learning that giving a speech saying that war is receding doesn’t actually end wars. Wars end when someone wins and someone loses. The forces of radical Islam seem unfazed by Obama’s declarations of their defeat and thus they remain at war with the West in general and that great symbol of the West – the United States – in particular.
You know your “tide of war is receding” narrative is falling apart when even the pope contradicts you. In a little-noticed conversation with reporters last month, Pope Francis said,
“[we] are now in World War III…today we are in a world at war everywhere.”
To borrow from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president’s chickens are coming home to roost. His retreat from America’s historic role as peacekeeper to the world, his disavowal of American exceptionalism, his bowing to Saudi autocrats, his serial rejection of the advice of his own military leaders and his decision to totally abandon Iraq — have all served to embolden an enemy that remains in its own mind resolutely at war.
The president finds himself haunted by the words of retired Marine General James Mattis who said:
“No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it’s over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.”
With respect to the war against terror, until we win or until we lose, the war will go on. Peddling a fantasy that the tide of war is receding can win an election. But unless the tide really does recede, the battle will eventually have to be joined.
And until Islamic terrorism – in all of its incarnations – decides to give up, this new type of war will bedevil this administration and administrations to come.
With respect to winning this war, as the president is discovering, speeches will not suffice.
The fault lies squarely with the majority of Americans who reelected this man. They have no one to blame but themselves especially after the preview of coming attractions, better known as Benghazi.
This nation willingly deceived itself into somehow thinking it could simply walk away from the war on terror. Instead the people and the media allowed this administration to pull troops out of Iraq without insuring it’s security and to fight in Afghanistan with substandard troop levels. They forgot this enemy is patient and cunning, just waiting to fill the vacuum that Obama provided. And now our military is going to have to bleed and die for real estate they once already held.
Very well said my friend. I have forwarded this editorial to my Conservative friends all over the country. Keep up the good work.
There is a favorite saying of mine that I fail to know just who it was that said it first, but it goes like this: Whatever is done in darkness will soon come to light. I believe this has been the case in the complete failure of obama.
For the record, I have never beileved that obama was ever eligible to be president in the first place and have doubts as to his “winning” either the 2008 or the 2012 elections. The world has become an unsafe place, even more so than before obama came on the scene. The question is, what is going to be done about it? We all know what it will take to make this happen…are we prepared for it?
Linda. The answer to your question is “nothing”.
Obama has paid zero price for any of his shortcomings.
In fact, he thinks these are not shrt comings, but assets.
He is, after all, a Community Organizer.
Did anyone ever Google that?
It says that Community Organizers are meant to cause problems for the Community.( Not SOLVE problems)
Obama can not….never could…do what we are asking.
Did anyone ever read Alynski? Obama follows this to the letter.
It says that the way to keep from getting “blamed ” for anything is to keep an unmanageable flow of problems….even made up…so that no one has time to blame YOU.
I hear Obama was the only President Never vetted…. Just me, but I think given all the “Chicago style’ politics Obama is so good at that even the resignation of the atty.gen. is aware of other things that have NOT come to light; so he is resigning to take advantage of Obama’s ability to give ‘pardons’ on the way out.
Believe me there is a lot more to come out because these people never meant to be care takers of the USA. ??
I did & they are all alike!!
Did you ever know Community Organizers
Boy, are we all naïve!!