re: "Damn, Ogabe Must Be in Need of a Distraction"

Emperor Misha I at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") posted with his characteristic frankness and clarity.

Money quote(s):

"Joe on the Taliban:

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical.

The sound you hear is from thousands of U.S. troops shouting from Afghanistan: “Then who in the holy FUCK are those haji bastards shooting at us, you drooling, dimwitted dickheaded shitbird?”

We don’t know about the rest of you fine citizens (actually we do), but in our book assholes trying to kill U.S. troops are the very textbook definition of “enemies”"

Perhaps this will refresh the memory. I'm fairly certain the VP was in the room, if not as VP, when this speech was given.

"(Y)et another pretzel of illogic:

If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.

Enough of a “problem” to qualify as an enemy and threat to our interests which, if we remember correctly, count among them “not having the fundamentalist swine who harbored bin Laden while he plotted to murder 3,000 of our countrymen and refused to hand him over afterwards become the government of Afghanistan again?”

Because, and once again correct us if we’re wrong, that is their declared goal and exactly what they’ve been trying to do every fucking last day since we kicked them out of government.

So let’s see if we get this straight: The Taliban are not our enemy unless they continue to do what they’ve been doing for the last ten years and show no signs of stopping to do ever, but right now, while they’re doing just that, they’re not the enemy?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

12/21

re: "Bolton: Biden's Statement that Taliban Not Our Enemy Was No Gaffe"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs (" Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. ") agreed with Amb. Bolton's characterization.

Money quote(s):

"The Taliban does not share Western values, goals, objectives. The Taliban's playbook is the qur'an and its stated aims.

The whole idea of a moderate Taliban or a moderate Islam is false"

Reasonable people can disagree whether or not there can be a moderate Islam.

(CAA believes in it on alternating days, himself.)

"Never mind their role in 9/11. Never mind their hosting al-Qaeda camps and working with al-Qaeda.

It amounts to surrender, to prostration before the jihadist enemy.

Now, we know old Joe is none too bright, but here Bolton explains: this was no gaffe."

And here's why:

"Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Tuesday that Joe Biden’s statement that the Taliban is not America's enemy in Afghanistan was not a gaffe, but instead the vice president was “articulating what the White House strategy is.” Biden made his remarks in a recent Newsweek interview, but the Obama administration is saying they were taken out of context

“I don’t think this is a gaffe by Joe Biden — I think he is articulating what the White House strategy is — I think they know exactly what they are trying to do,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “They are trying to redefine the terrorist threat to be a limited group of al-Qaida people along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“They are going to redefine Taliban away from that — they are going to ignore Taliban in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Qaida in Iraq, and al-Qaida in North Africa,” Bolton said. “And they’re going to say it’s just that one little thing: We’ve killed Osama bin Laden — the war on terror is over.”"

Based upon my own sporadic observations regarding Vice Pres. Biden's tendency to "gaffe," I wouldn't urgently disagree with Amb. Bolton's assessment.

VP Biden sometimes says things that suggest he's regurgitating, in his own words, the substance of things about which he's been briefed. Specifically, I'm thinking about his remarks a few years ago about the H1N1 flu virus and air travel.

He seems to speak uncomfortable truths, as he understands them and based upon some frank and factual briefings (i.e., not for public distribution), and wholly without regard for the political, economic, or diplomatic fallout. Indeed, he says them without any apparent consciousness that there could be, even should be, such repercussions.

"Bolton said the Taliban treats anyone who does not agree with them horribly."

Word.

""It reminds me of Vietnam. Remember Sen. George Aiken, the Republican of Vermont? It was clear to him that we didn’t have the stamina to go on and actually win,” Bolton said. “So the George Aiken strategy: We’ll declare victory and get out — that is what the administration is going to do in the war on terror. Having redefined who the terrorists are and having said the Taliban is not our enemy, they’re going to say we have won and the war is over.""

And, if we'd put some of our HVT Taliban officials on the other side of a conference table, gotten them to publicly disavow Al Qaeda and UBL, and made it clear that if we ever had to come back to Afghanistan it would not be with gentle words and reconstruction budgets....

....all of that before we'd spent a decade nation-building and taking casualties, then this would have been a reasonable, if limited, outcome for our intervention there.

"The jihad against the U.S. will continue all over the world, not just in Afghanistan."

12/21

re: "Is Obama doubling down on a risky gamble in Iraq?"

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government ("Notes from the Loyal Opposition") had questions about that murky interface between military and national strategy, where political leaders do their decision-making.

Money quote(s):

"According to several unnamed sources, military commanders are "livid" with President Obama's decision to authorize a plan that is resourced at a fraction of the level that the military considered to be the minimum -- and even that minimum would only work "in extremis." Obama's approach appears to involve several multiples of risk beyond what the military consider prudent. Reportedly, even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued for a level of resources above what Obama appears to have authorized.

Reasonable people can disagree whether it makes national security sense for Obama to adopt such a risky path. For my part, I wish he had invested more effort in the Iraq file, especially working more closely with Prime Minister Maliki to push the process towards an outcome that is more favorable to American (and, I would argue, Iraqi national) interests.

The part that mystifies me is why his team thinks it makes political sense to have taken this course. His administration has already pocketed as much political benefit as there is to be wrung from Bush's surge -- and the media has generously refrained from pointing out that whatever positive developments came in Iraq came because of policies Obama and Biden tried strenuously to thwart in 2007. Given that the administration has already claimed Iraq as a great achievement, why take so risky a course now, one that could result in a great unraveling during the presidential campaign?"

The subtext here is the assumption that elected political leaders (or at least this elected political leader) make their big decisions based upon their personal calculus of electoral politics; rather than, say, the national good.

"The cost savings of denying the military the resources they say they need is trivial compared to the stakes. For that matter, the amount of time and effort it would have taken Obama to invest in Iraq policy so as to achieve greater progress with Maliki was probably trivial, too. Yet it seems that when it comes to Iraq, Obama is determined to do whatever is less than the minimum. "

Bug? Or feature?

9/7

re: "More on Biden and His Fat Mouth"

Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications ("Harangues that Just Make Sense") is unimpressed by dangerous buffoonery in high office.

Money quote(s):

"The other day I noted how Joe Biden had run his mouth about who killed bin Laden, putting SEAL Team 6 at risk. I said: “there is no way to know whether this was an orchestrated ambush targeting Team 6. But it is an important reminder why it’s not just comedy relief to have cynical glory-seekers and complete buffoons at the highest levels of government.”

Well, the possibility of an orchestrated ambush looks much more likely — as an Afghan official tells the press that’s exactly what happened"

Among professionals, the heart of what makes intelligence information classifiable (i.e., secret, top secret, or confidential) is whether it discloses sources and methods. On the military side, this means not disclosing or publicizing information which reveals to the enemy that which the enemy can use against you. Operational details, procedures, capabilities; if it's public, it gets play. Somewhere. And if it's public somewhere, it's public everywhere. The information superhighway has off-ramps into some very bad neighborhoods, after all.

"In other words, a Taliban no doubt incensed at bin Laden’s death set up an ambush designed to target exactly the sort of forces that would respond to a report of high value targets.

Did the families fear this? You betcha."

Military families have, as they say, "skin in the game." They have an acute appreciation of their loved one's vulnerabilities to this sort of exploitation operation.

"When morons like Biden run their mouths, they put good men at risk. When the Obama administration decided to release all the information about who killed bin Laden, they put good men at risk."

This is why I hate working with amateurs.

(8/6)

re: "Biden calls Republicans terrorists"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") is all out of love for the vice president.

Money quote(s):

"I realize that politicians sometimes wrestle with difficult issues and tempers can flare, but the number of times that Democrats have compared the opposition to terrorists during these debt discussions is disgraceful. It is low and shameful, and I wish I could say I expect better. But I don't, even from the second highest office holder in the land, a man elevated far above his abilities."

&

"As for the rest of the Dems who think that fiscal responsibility equates to slaughtering innocents, well prepare yourselves for the chopping block come next November. The American people are sick of a bunch of jackasses who think that they have first claim on the fruits of our labor. Wrong answer. We the people do not owe Washington our earnings with whatever they feel they don't need grudgingly returned to the productive class. Looters and moochers have overstepped their bounds. Time to set them straight and shut the redistribution of wealth machines down."

re: "Glad the adults are in charge- National Security FAIL!"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") is none too pleased and doesn't mince words about it.

Money quote(s):

"So far as regards the Egyptian revolution, our President has voted present, our Vice President denied that a dictator of 30 years was a dictator of 30 years, our Secretary of State stated two completely contradictory positions in the course of 4 days, our Director of National Intelligence wasn't even joking when he called the MUSLIM Brotherhood a secular group that has eschewed violence, and now the Director of the CIA testifies to Congress (incorrectly) based on the information his agency gleaned by watching f***ing CNN!

Boy I'm tickled pink that we have this impressive group of professionals to reestablish America's position in the world. The most significant event in the Middle East in decades and we have a clown car full of pint-sized personalities running around saying things so dumb that Saturday Night Live has fired its writers and now will just run clips from C-Span. What a great idea to hire a completely unexperienced, perpetual grad student as President & Commander in Chief. His amazing blend of bong hit diplomacy & a failed cult of personality have made him almost transparent on the international stage."

&

"(N)ow Europe and the Anglosphere seem to be waking up and smelling the tea and croissants as well. Australia, England, Canada, Germany & France have all noted the bleedingly, freaking obvious, that multi-culturalism creates multiple cultures and that some of those cultures are reprehensibly barbaric.

A Bush admin aide caught a lot of crap about saying that they created their own reality. What he was talking about was getting inside our enemies decision loop and not allowing them to dictate the situation. If you move swiftly enough you can create a reality your enemies couldn't plan for. That requires the courage of your convictions (or convictions period) and the stones to act. It is all well and good to call inaction pragmatism, or Realpolitik and there are times when caution is obviously the proper course."

re: "Dumbest thing said yet about Muslim Brotherhood"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") doesn't mince words.

Money quote(s):

"That is so incandescently stupid that he and everyone who vetted or helped prepare his remarks should be fired, preferably out of cannons and not the circus kind. How the Hell are we supposed to make any coherent policy when our DNI is so monumnetally ill-informed that he makes Biden look wise. Every single statement he has made about the Mo Bros is not just wrong, but completely ass-backwards. I weep for our complete lack of anything even vaguely resembling a competent intelligence apparatus."

(I would invite the reader to read something I wrote about this here.)

When discussing Egypt's MB, what it is, what it does, remember this:

"(T)he MB (like Hamas, like Hezbollah) uses the disfunction or disinterest of the legal government and authorities wherever they are to buy legitimacy by providing social services. In other words, they go secular and they do so in a very deliberate, very public way. It's not fake, the medical or social safety net they erect is quite real, and in an environment (such as Egypt) where the overtly political and violent aims of the MB are quite ruthlessly quashed, this sort of thing is much less likely to get one a date with the security ministries interrogators."