Thursday, December 17, 2015

Unserious

President Obama has assured us that his intent as Commander-in-Chief is to degrade and destroy ISIS, but the American people might be forgiven for thinking that he's not really serious about this. In fact, to think he's not serious is to put the most charitable construction on the president's execution of his stated policy. The alternative explanation is that he's grossly incompetent. Here's why:
  1. The most effective anti-ISIS fighting force currently in theater are the Kurds, but to defeat ISIS the Kurds need more sophisticated weaponry which the Obama administration has refused to give them.
  2. The Obama administration agreed to essentially give 1.5 billion dollars to Iran which they are free to use to finance terror around the world, construct ICBMs, and eventually nuclear weapons. In exchange for this we got nothing. Not even the four Americans being held prisoner in Iranian jails.
  3. When the Russians decided to retaliate for ISIS' blowing up their airliner over Sinai they found hundreds of oil tankers to bomb. After over a year of our bombing ISIS targets why were these trucks, vehicles that are crucial to ISIS' ability to sell oil on the black market, still available as targets?
  4. When the French decided to retaliate for the Paris attacks they found training facilities and Command centers still available as targets. How could that be after we'd dropped so much ordnance on ISIS?
  5. Facilities used by ISIS to propagandize the Muslim world and recruit fresh jihadi warriors have also been left untouched by our aircraft.
  6. Now we're discovering that four years ago a DHS memo was circulated which suggested it might be useful to review the social media postings of those applying for visas to the U.S., but the Obama administration rejected the proposal. Had Tashfeen Malik been subjected to this sort of scrutiny she may not have ever been allowed into this country where she and her husband murdered a dozen of his co-workers:
Perhaps an alternative explanation for this administration's desultory approach to the threats which confront us is that Mr. Obama and his advisors are so deeply marinated in left-wing ideology that they're simply blind to the possibility that conservatives have been right all along about the severity of the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists. This may be so, but it's indistinguishable from the possibility offered above that the demands placed on the occupant of the Oval Office are way over Mr. Obama's head.