Obama, lines, and the international community
Obama passes the buck again, this time to the world:
“My credibility is not on the line — the international community’s credibility is on the line,” President Barack Obama said Wednesday in Sweden…
President Barack Obama said Wednesday the “red line” he previously spoke of regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria wasn’t his own, but the world’s. “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98%” of the world’s population “passed a treaty forbidding (chemical weapons) use, even when countries are engaged in war,” Obama said in Sweden.
We can go back to that recurrent question: does Obama actually believe this is the case, or is he just saying it for face-saving effect? I believe the answer is: both of the above. As I wrote yesterday, one of Obama’s guiding principles is internationalism. His understanding of the international community, however, seems to have stopped at the level he achieved as a Columbia undergraduate.
The international community doesn’t really care about its treaty or its credibility. Or rather, it “cares”—words will be spoken, but words are not acts. The international community is composed of nations, and only sometimes do a bunch of those nations of the international community come together on something and act. To Obama, considering the self-interest of the US is a foreign notion, but foreign nations do consider their own self-interest first and foremost, and it’s not at all clear that he gets that concept.
[NOTE: There is so much news on the Syrian decision that I’ll just refer you to memeorandum, which has links to many articles and posts on the subject (go here and start scrolling down) This is of interest as well, as is this.]
Kinda creepy, right? First Obama usurps our sovereignty, stealing it away in effect, and then he hands what he’s stolen off the the world? Some kinda gall, that is right there.
Sufficient gall in an enormous wrongdoing, I think, that if it were properly understood would easily warrant his removal from office. But alas, who understands? Do we?
If Obama is so knowledgeable about international law, surely he knows that sending missiles into a sovereign nation is an act of war. Does he wish to go to war with Syria? Does he intend to win?
Every time BHO says something like this, I expect it to be the “ONE” gaffe that finally gets to the public and starts them thinking. The comments I’ve read on other sites since Drudge posted this earlier indicates that maybe this time it is starting to sink in how this man will not take responsibility for anything.
But given past history, it will be interesting to see how the MSM works themselves into pretzels defending him over this statement. If they are successful, then this gaffe will also pass into the low information voter’s black hole of memory.
A skillful liar, on some level, actually believes his own bullshit.
But you’re right in pointing out he also has a sophomoric view of international affairs — the kind of views that college kids often have – The rest of the world are all grown ups who hate war and injustice, and care about the poor and the suffering. If we just let the rest of the world know how much we respect them and want to work for the common good of the earth, instead of plundering its resources, the world would be a wonderful, peaceful, nice place and everyone would love us, it’s really simple, etc etc.
I think it used to be called “immature”, but maybe a case of “intellectually arrested development” is appropriate for a man of his stature.
When I continued to say that people hadn’t seen anything from the Leftist alliance or Obama yet, after numerous other problems people mentioned, I wasn’t thinking of circumstances like this.
However, this can easily balloon into several Ft. Hoods and Libyan embassy type problems. And not necessarily only for Americans overseas or on military bases either.
To sum it up, no matter how many Americans die overseas, people at home won’t be affected. Until they are, like 9/11. Enough of WACOs and even American slave voters will wake up and rebel. It’s not like slaves have never rebelled and killed their owners.
Well he had to blame someone. He’s gotten all the mileage out of blaming Bush he can — blaming the whole world covers a lot of territory, and puts everyone on the defensive. Yes, he is a CLEVER man, and a very mature, adult person I might add. Our smartest president, Evah!
Obama’s blaming everyone but himself reminds me of an old joke. A patient points to different parts of his body saying it hurts everywhere. The doctor says ‘you have a broken finger.’
If the international community is represented by the UN, then said i.c. does not care. The UN will do nothing.
Thi9s is getting deep in the 1984 doublespeak.
If you’ve got a red line, you didn’t build that. Someone else built that.
Mr Frank,
Obama is a leftist, thus sending missiles into a sovereign nation is only an act of war if he wants it to be.
Drudge has some stories up that indicate that congressional democrats are trying to rally support for Obama to give him permission to attack Assad. If republicans are smart and I realize there’s little evidence of that, they’ll vote ‘present’ and let democrats take the consequences of their folly. No surprise however, if they vote with the democrats.
physicsguy said:
Every time BHO says something like this, I expect it to be the “ONE” gaffe that finally gets to the public and starts them thinking.
Sentiments like the following, I fear, work against that happening — from Robert De Niro:
The guy is really shameless, isn’t he?
From Fox:
“….McCain ultimately won tougher language clarifying that U.S. policy would be aimed at changing the momentum on the ground… ”
Changing the momentum on the ground sounds like getting involved in a civil war.
He’s sending his own speeches back down to Winston Smith for a rewrite/ delete.
Next, he’ll be blaming the teleprompter. It’s an innocent scroll…
Those off-the-cuff remarks are real killers.
0bombino, Kerry and Hegel — the three stooges — are making purely EMOTIONAL calls to reaction.
We’re witnessing a filthy war — in which NONE of the players abides by the Geneva conventions.
Al Nusra/ AQ has long ago embraced atrocity warfare — and now is squealing like a stuck pig.
The only wickedness on display that is evident is the wide spread usage of thermobaric warheads by the SAA.
These weapons explain every bit of agitprop that I’ve been able to witness.
For the rest, all I’m hearing are the emotional opinions of the technically ignorant MSM in a case of he said, he said; with both parties known to be fulsome liars.
Sarin survivors — from the edge of the impacted area — where are they?
They should be numerous, have no burns, no busted eardrums, and no evidence of ethylene oxide toxin.
In the modern day, Sarin is normally NEVER delivered by rocket. It comes by way of jet bomber or artillery shell; the latter being binary.
Because of the extreme danger to launch personnel, straight Sarin war-loads are out of favor — and have been so for thirty-years.
Yet the impact evidence shows Soviet era timers known to be used in thermobaric rockets.
It doesn’t add up.
=========
NATO always maintained that it was morally just to RESPOND to chemical warfare in kind.
In which case, how can we fault Assad since the Islamist fanatics have been using chemical warfare for quite some time?
There has never been a differentiation between nerve toxins and other chemical nasties under the Geneva conventions in that they are all prohibited. Known agents are called out by name — but the legalese covers the waterfront.
AQ has been caught using Chlorine and Sarin already!
The word, Community, is one which Leftists have embraced, nay seized. The black community, the gay community, the international community, blah blah blah.
They like Community because it implies cohesion of its elements, ideally marching in lockstep. though sometimes Community is in disarray.
A Community becomes an It. The It has feelings, concerns, doubts etc. The It can mobilize, act, fight. Community has been anthropomorphised, kinda like Gulliver being made of a zillion Lilliputians.
Do Al Sharpton and Thomas Sowell belong to the same Community? I don’t think so either.
Beware the Left’s seizure of words and reshaping of meanings. When I read, hear or see Community in political context, I know I venture deeply into BS if I continue.
“It doesn’t add up.”
This has been staged. 2+2 now = 57 states and or a variety of ketchup.
Geoffrey Britain, 5:03 pm — “If republicans are smart and I realize there’s little evidence of that, they’ll vote ‘present’ and let democrats take the consequences of their folly.”
BZZZZT. Error in premise. Error in premise. Error in premise.
Click “Retry”.
“one of Obama’s guiding principles is internationalism”
would you say “proletarian internationalism”?
its important to get it right.
Internationalism alone is:
1. The condition or quality of being international in character, principles, concern, or attitude.
2. A policy or practice of cooperation among nations, especially in politics and economic matters
He has been neither 1 nor 2 if measured
be like watching the sisters try on Cinderellas glass slipper
though he is comfortable using bourgeois nationalism too.
These people are all words and from them ideas – and not experience, except through words. and their choices of who to listen to formed their basis for the mish mosh that we all have that makes our realities.
you cant get a feel for that without reading what they have read, because, what they have read has its own view of reality, and one convenient to its whole construct.
yogi berra said it best
and i quoted him before
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Yogi Berra
when they take the stand and talk competently about how they would do it differently and it would come out wonderful land and all that, and that the other side is just doing all these wrong things.
that’s their theory of how the world works
Since the irrational has demonized the more rational positions, there is no place to go except find out how theory works in practice.
It’s not me with an arrow through me gut, no sir.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/04/Cat-found-in-NY-with-arrow-shot-through-abdomen
The GOP ought to push Obama on the ‘what-if’ the proposed action proves to be instrumental in Syrian regime change. Cite Obama’s Libyan intervention as precedent. This is a comment I left at another blog. Check out the links.
I saw Anderson Cooper tonight with Gingrich, David Gergen, Faree Zakaria, and Charles Blow. All seemed to agree that Obama had screwed up. If that crew can agree on anything, Obama has indeed united the country.
I consider myself a patriotic American and have always had boundless respect and admiration for the Founding Fathers. But at this point I’m afraid they made a terrible mistake when they did not specifically enumerate “being a gutless dishonest weasel” as an impeachable offense.
Eric is wonderfully temperate in his comments, especially: “Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear President Obama is willing to manage the post-war in Syria.”
Made me smile, cynically.
Watching Obama flounder has been like watching the neighborhood teenage bully lose his confidence when the move up to the larger world imposes.
This is far more sinister, if true. And it has the ring of truth about it.
On Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh had this to say:
Think about it.
Also remember, any of you who have studied history — there is No Limit to what wicked men will do in the pursuit of power. NONE.
Here’s more on that theory and Bodansky’s evidence: it’s absolutely shocking.
Read more here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/lssw9oa
I’ve always been amazed at all the crap that people say about, and how they always bring up “the international community,” and how they seem to be able to have the pulse of, to know, at any particular minute, just exactly what that supposed “community” thinks and wants.
Well, if there is such an entity as the “international community”—with its own outlook, ideas, needs, and wants—I would think that the UN would come closest to representing it.
Have you looked at the UN lately?
Admittedly, at its founding, the UN, successor to the failed League of Nations, embodied some noble Western democratic ideals.
But, over the decades since, it has devolved into a madhouse, a racket, a mindless, ultra bureaucratic*, incompetent, meddling, extremely expensive, and sometimes outright evil juggernaut (see UN “peacekeeping”)–roughly half of whose annual expenses the U.S. pays for*–and home to mostly a rag-tag collection of mad men, kleptocrats, assorted tin-horn dictators, international welfare queens, all served by a bureaucracy composed of extremely highly paid functionaries; a UN increasingly dominated by Muslim countries who basically hate the West and all it stands for.
In short, the UN has evolved into a machine run by unelected bureaucrats designed to drain our treasury dry, to thwart us at every turn, to entangle us in endless red tape and, if it can, to dictate to us and to rule us and the entire world besides.
If that is what actually counts as the vaunted “international community,” I want nothing to do with it, nor give it any credence at all.
* Anyone know that some of the money from our annual contribution is used to pay for the schooling of Muslim children in various refugee camps in the Middle East, and that a recent study found that most of the “teachers” that we are paying for had ties to various Islamic terrorist groups.
Hmm. I wonder just what it is that they are teaching to these children?
Caught a little of O’Reilly last night and was impressed with how naé¯ve he was about Syria.
Language, as we know (and the Left knows very well, too), is very important, and O’Reilly kept talking about how we needed to support the “rebels”; such a rather innocuous umbrella term making our aid to such presumably heroic “rebels” more palatable.
However, in this case the “rebels” just happen to be a coalition in which Muslim terrorist groups led by AL-Qaeda play what is perhaps a predominant and controlling part. Thus, even a slightly more detailed analysis presents a much more unsavory picture than just calling the opponents of Assad–who is backed, I might add, by other terrorist groups–Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force–merely “rebels.” This, of course, the same type of deliberate misdirection that frequently calls terrorists “insurgents,” or rioting Muslims in Europe just “youths.”
Neo: “The international community is composed of nations, and only sometimes do a bunch of those nations of the international community come together on something and act. To Obama, considering the self-interest of the US is a foreign notion, but foreign nations do consider their own self-interest first and foremost, and it’s not at all clear that he gets that concept.”
True. When I served in Korea, an interesting conversation could be had with the KATUSAs (the Korean soldiers who were fully integrated into American units) about the US motivation in Korea.
Because Korea has a draft and the KATUSAs were (supposed to be and mostly were) English-proficient, they were by and large smart, well educated, and sometimes surprisingly affluent, such as the sons of senior diplomats and CEOs in my unit who had unadulterated public-school British and northern Californian accents. Almost all of them attended the top universities in Korea. Some of them had American, including Ivy League, degrees. In other words, think of the eclectic make-up of our WW2 military, where a private from Harvard was uncommon but not strange, and you get an idea of the ROK military, except the Korean version of an Ivy League pedigree was common among the KATUSAs.
Anyway, my point for that set-up is that these smart, educated, often worldly young Korean soldiers, versed on the US role in modern Korean history, who grew up with the US military in their country, and recipients of whatever briefings are given to them about living and working with US soldiers, still had a hard time wrapping their heads around why we were there from the US pov. They understood why we were there from the pov of ROK interests, but didn’t understand what was in it for us. They simply did not have the global perspective of US soldiers who assumed we could be called on to serve literally anywhere in the world. For us, the underlying principle of serving in Korea was the same as (at the time) serving in Kosovo or Iraq.
I came away convinced that half of the root cause for the conspiracy theories in Korea about the US role there is their inability to understand the US global perspective. The other half is Leftist and nK propagandists.
It was a lesson to me that in the international community, we’re the ones who crisscross the 7 seas with a primary international outlook. The rest of our ‘friends’ and ‘partners’, excepting the UK-led Anglosphere, look out primarily for their own interests and cooperate on international missions as far as it coincides with their own interests.
Whatever international community is real, it has been a function of an American hegemon-led order. Of course, there are ambitious orders in the world that would like to displace US hegemony, such as those centered on Russia, China, or the Islamic terrorists.
There is (was?) a traditional mechanism for “those nations of the international community [to] come together on something and act”: Leadership.
Specifically, American leadership. From the front.
For example, President Clinton announcing Op Desert Fox, Dec 1998:
Any functional social unit – the ‘free world’ version of the international community qualifies – requires order with enforced norms and values. Order can be in different forms; even dogmatic libertarians accept that a version of social order is necessary. When any social unit lacks leadership that can enforce order and organize collective action, then it becomes anomic. An anomic social unit becomes chaotic and dysfunctional. It internally estranges, balkanizes, and atomizes. It breaks down and collapses.
As much as anything else, that’s the phenomenon we are seeing with this Syria episode. A hegemonic order of independent nations that has always relied on American leadership for solidarity has been infected by poor American leadership.
Setting aside the merits of Obama’s proposal, the struggle of the US to enforce norms and values and organize collective action in the international community is very worrying.
I’ve been saying for five years, the “Obama, fool or knave?” question is a false dichotomy. He is both. Those of us who used to believe the ‘Liberal’ and Leftist crap, in college and for some years thereafter, do we really believe that we were smarter back then? Of course we don’t, so, check the box for fool. Do Leftists have any detectable scruples? Are you kidding? So, check the box for knave. There may be, probably are, bigger knaves who pull his strings, but he is most definitely both. Nothing in this whole sordid mess contradicts either answer.
Rebellion as a right and an unfocused good effected by the young perhaps started in Hollywood waay back in 1955, with “Rebel Without a Cause”, deifying James Dean who, IIRC, killed himself in his Porsche that same year at age 24 by rebelling against traffic laws and road conditions.
Fortunately, at age 13 then, I never saw it; mighta been sucked in.
Interestingly, Dean grew up kinda like today’s rappers and black thugs, raised by non-parent relatives, moved to NYC after grade school to pursue acting, hit the big time.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
As distressing as it all is, including that the “fruits” of the Republican Party are supporting Obama who is supporting terrorists intent on institutionalizing Sharia in the Maghrib and the Middle East, it’s good to see the beginning of deception’s ultimate end. In this case, there’s a strong possibility that deception is coupled with perfidy and treason. The chemical “attack” bears too close a resemblence to the Kosovo war. My bet is on the claim that the “attack” was planned by the White House in order to bring the MB to power in Syria.
Even the progressive Wikipedia admits there was no genocide:
Despite initial western claims of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians killed or missing, subsequent investigations have recovered the remains of several thousand victims,[76] and in 2001 a United Nations court found that although there had been a “a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments”, Serb troops had not committed genocide in the region, because the intent was to remove rather than eradicate the Albanian population.[77]
And not once are the words “Muslim” or “Islam” referenced in the Wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War
Obama’s knuckleheaded “National Security Team” —Intelligence Chief Clapper who, it might be remembered, famously testified to Congress that “the Muslim Brotherhood was…a loosely organized group… with no particular religious agenda…and was mainly a social welfare organization, “ and after testifying, and lying in doing so, that the NSA did not do wholesale spying on Americans, apologized for his lies by saying that he gave Congress “the least untruthful answer,” there is apparently clueless and bewildered OJT Secretary of Defense “Chuck” Hagel and, at State, superbly turned out Yachtmeister John Kerry, probably best known for tossing (borrowed, it turns out, and not his) medals back at members of Congress during a hearing on the Vietnam War, for saying that U.S. soldiers there were behaving like Genghis Khan’s implacable hordes, destroying, slaughtering and torturing all in sight , and for saying of the Vietnam War, “who wants to be the first person to die for a wrong idea?” This is Obama’s crack Dumb and Dumber National Security Team, all doing their best to drop us in a whole bunch of shit.
In all this blather about Syria just exactly how are we going to “restrain” Assad from using chemical weapons, “teach him a lesson,” or “remove him from power”?
Apparently Syria has quite a large supply of WMDs (gee, I wonder how many of those items are stamped “made in Iraq,” or “property of Saddam Hussain?)
Somehow, I don’t think that just dropping a few bombs or lobbing a few missiles at Syrian targets is going to do the trick.
Suppose we decapitate the Assad regime. Who/what group is most likely going to take his place? Has anybody in this dismal and confused crew even thought that far ahead, or been willing to hazard a guess as to who that might be and, more importantly, share that with us? Moreover, what kind of example/precedent might such a decapitation strike set, and how would such a decapitation effect the wider situation in the Middle East? Anybody talking about or want to talk about that?
Suppose we bomb and destroy some of Assad’s stocks of WMD, what of the literal fallout’s effect on the surrounding populace and environment?
A formerly classified DOD study making the rounds this week estimated that it would take 75,000 U.S. troops on the ground just to secure all Syria’s WMD. Are we prepared to commit such numbers of troops, or any troops at all, for that matter?
Any way you look at it this, it is just a huge clusterf..k and a disaster just waiting to happen that we should run away from, and sooner rather than later.
Correction. Apparently Kerry tossed his (still borrowed) medals onto the steps of the U.S. Capitol during an anti-Vietnam War protest.
In the debate about Syria, there is all sorts of talk from the administration and others about how the “rebels” in Syria are mostly “moderates,” just a night or two ago, for instance, O’Reilly was characterizing them as such in the course of dismissing the fears of some that these “rebels” were actually Muslim terrorists and Jihadists.
So, just where did the idea that the “rebels” in Syria were moderates come from? Check out this short item on Pajamas Media (http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/09/05/why-do-john-kerry-and-john-mccain-believe-that-syrias-rebels-are-mostly-moderate/) about how we are being played by Muslims and their friends and agents like a cheap Chinese violin, and how a little bit of Takiyya and Kitman go a long, long way.
Oh. My. God!
I need to watch the TV news more. Usually, I only watch the TV news to catch the local weather, not much else. But, late last night I happened to catch a clip of Obama saying this nonsense about the red line being drawn by others, not him.
Oh. My. God! Listening to him, and with the con-man smirk on his face, I realized that is exactly what he is: a conman who knows that he is a conman and realizes that others also know he is a conman; but, is still hoping that enough folks haven’t caught on yet.
Conman Obama – that’s what history will record him as being.
Russia sends warship with ‘special cargo’ to Syria
A Russian warship carrying “special cargo” will be dispatched toward Syria, a navy source said on Friday, as the Kremlin beefs up its presence in the region ahead of possible US strikes against the Damascus regime.
The large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov will on Friday leave the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol for the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, from where it will head to Syria’s coast, the Interfax news agency quoted a source from the Saint Petersburg-based central naval command as saying.
“The ship will make call in Novorossiisk, where it will take on board special cargo and set off for the designated area of its combat duty in the eastern Mediterranean,” the source said.
The source did not specify the nature of the cargo.
Well, I think he’s right when he says his credibility is not on the line. It’s way past the line by 4-5 miles.
Only true believers trust him.