Spinning the Boston Bombing

The Washington Post wants us to believe that we are incapable of coming to grips with the Boston bombers because they “don’t neatly fit into pre-existing boxes”. Since they are not dark skinned, our limited brains cannot connect any dots. Race being an obsession of the left, it is the yardstick all are expected to use – for everything.

Also, the fact that the bombing brothers had Muslim affiliations is to be overlooked. Had the brothers been Christians, their religion would certainly have been fair game, but we are to make nothing of their association with a “religion of peace”. As an Atlantic headline chastised all: “The Boston Bombers Were Muslims. So?”

Had the brothers been the first or only Muslims to use terror and random murder for their “cause”, one might agree with the Atlantic. However, only blind, foolish adherence to an agenda allows someone to embrace pretense rather than the reality that another terrorist attack has been perpetrated by Muslims; not Buddhists, Christians, Jews or Scientologists.

The far left’s severe disappointment that the bombing brothers are not white, right-wing, anti-Obama fanatics is being compensated with accusations that “we” are the ones somehow in the wrong. Let down again by their failing idealism, they are spinning as fast as they can to validate an agenda dependent upon denial.

Chris Matthews, a hard core liberal, jumped the gun wondering if Tax Day was a motivation while planting the idea (wish?) that domestic terrorists always come from the right. Once it became known the bombers were Muslims, he spun around and wondered why it was necessary to find out the reason they did it. He not only wants to deny the truth, he wants to bury it to keep his dream alive.

The Obama administration has presented a false sense of security for political gain. Obama’s drone war in a far-away land allows him to pretend he has defeated terrorism. Terrorist threats on US soil are a political liability that shatter the illusion and interfere with his “transformation of America”.

The spin starts at the top.

David J. Hentosh

40 Years After Vietnam

The last US combat troops left Vietnam forty years ago on March 29, 1973. This was a result of a so-called “peace agreement” signed in Paris, but no peace occurred in South Vietnam. In fact, the ensuing year after the agreement was more deadly in South Vietnam than any year of the war.  That’s because the US wanted out of Vietnam, cared little about consequences, and declared “peace with honor” by signing an agreement everyone knew would not be honored by North Vietnam.

The US abandoned South Vietnam; much like it is abandoning Iraq and, eventually, will abandon Afghanistan (the “good” war). That is the lesson we learned from the Vietnam War. Declaring a politically incorrect war to be over is as good as a victory if it can be “sold” to the public as a win. That has now been expanded to simply declaring the economy to be fine, declaring the deficit to be no problem, declaring contraception to be a right, or declaring that the rich pay no taxes. Ideology trumps all.

One’s opinion of the Vietnam War is irrelevant to the issue of abandonment. A commitment was made to South Vietnam as part of the “peace agreement” to provide assistance if North Vietnam continued aggression, but a Democrat-controlled Congress refused that assistance when it quickly became needed. The US blatantly reneged on its commitment, abandoning South Vietnam to a total collapse and slaughter – because of ideology.

With war comes a responsibility, regardless of the reasons for the war. One should enter into war with clear goals and to win, or don’t enter into it at all. Allowing changing social mores, public opinion, or ideology to override responsibility or dictate rules of engagement is wrong. A “humane” war is an oxymoron and a losing strategy. War is hell, and hell should be entered only with good reason and traversed through as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Forty years after Vietnam, we have still not learned. Our enemies, on the other hand, learned well: Stick it out long enough and the US will tire and retreat. Where is the honor in that?

David J. Hentosh

Obama’s Dangerous Campaigning

Obama’s prime occupation for the past year has been campaigning for re-election. Refusing to ask hard questions, the biased media has been a willing partner in Obama’s attempt to hide his failures in order to get re-elected. Rather than investigate the administration’s glaring missteps and blunders, the media has focused on finding fault with Romney while echoing administration spin. This obsession with re-election has become a danger to the country.

Afghanistan, Obama’s “right” war, is failing and the American death toll is approaching 2000 at a current rate of approximately one per day. That’s slightly less than half the toll from 8 years of the Iraq war, and neither Obama nor the press mentions it. This is a far cry from the nightly reports of war deaths during the Bush administration. Afghanistan, for Obama’s sake, has become a silent, hidden war – and it is failing.

The economy, a definite smear on the Obama administration, continues to be spun as “recovering” in spite of all data and statistics, and voters are being told Obama has saved us from disaster. One need only look around to see the fallacy in this, yet, the spin continues in the hope of repetition becoming fact in voters’ minds.

Perhaps the most dangerous failure of Obama has been on the international front. Iran sneers at Obama and is on the verge of having nuclear weapons. Recent embassy attacks and deaths have been determined to have been planned terrorist actions and the administration is still immersed in blaming them on a video clip. The cover-up is part of a re-election campaign considering danger to the country as irrelevant.

We have had an absentee president for the past year and it is taking a toll. There is no national budget, immigration reform has been ignored, the Middle East is exploding, the economy is failing, class warfare is raging, the race card is alive and well, “green” policies hamper economic recovery, the deficit is increasing, and the media has lost all credibility

Obama’s solution is fund-raising, appearances on “The View” and “David Letterman”, ignoring national leaders, cover-ups, Romney bashing, and empty rhetoric. Four more months of this kind of irresponsible neglect is frightening. Four more years would be disastrous.

David J. Hentosh

Obama’s Foreign Policy Farce Exposed

Reminiscent of a Baghdad Bob performance, White House press secretary Jay Carney told the press on Friday that the violence occurring around the world at US embassies is “…in response not to United States policy, and not to, obviously, the administration or the American people, but it is in response to a video”.

This, of course, has to be the White House position because Obama told us he was “uniquely qualified” to bring stability to America’s relationships in the Muslim world. Many voters were fooled into believing that his charisma, alone, was enough to calm down Muslim fanatics and that his foreign policy of “throw away the stick and speak softly” was the answer. Worse than that, Obama fooled himself into believing it.

After one term of Obama’s foreign policy, the US has not only lost respect around the world, it has lost influence, credibility, and allies. In the Middle East, fear of US reprisal is no longer a concern for violence-prone fanatics who respect nothing but strength. Obama’s willingness to throw Israel, once a strong ally, under the bus is welcomed by most Middle East Arabs, but it is also a sign of weakness. That weakness is blood in the water for terrorist sharks, as is appeasement.

Iran has certainly taken advantage of Obama’s weakness and is fast approaching a viable nuclear weapon. Having arrogantly announced his intent of wiping Israel off the map, Armajinedad openly sneers at Obama and the UN, knowing there is nothing to fear from continuing his efforts. Without the “stick” of the US, the UN is even more useless than it has been. Israel, abandoned by Obama’s foreign policy, fully understands the danger and is on the verge of a military attack which will explode the Middle East.

Obama’s foreign policy farce is now being exposed, as were his other failed policies. He has nothing but to campaign on contraceptives, taxing rich people, abortion rights, gay marriage, and issues that prey on emotions. It would be very dangerous for voters to be fooled again.

David J. Hentosh

Liberal Wars

During the Vietnam War era, liberals were aggressively vocal about their distaste for the military and made it very clear they were against almost all wars, regardless of cause. “Make love, not war” was the inane, bumper-sticker philosophy of the anti-war movement, its sheer simplicity indicative of the shallow understanding of many protesters.

Having a propensity for exaggeration, liberals took idealism and frustration to the disgusting level of blaming our troops and began denigrating them as scapegoats. This was not acceptable to the vast majority and the liberal cause lost much respect and suffered badly as a result, particularly at the voting booth.

The lesson learned showed up during John Kerry’s campaign for president in 2004 when his status as a Vietnam War vet was proudly touted by liberals as a major qualification for the presidency. It was a strange liberal turnaround – and it was a sham. It was a blatant and transparent political attempt by liberals to ingratiate themselves with the majority. It ended up backfiring on Kerry.

Flash forward to today and we find the turnaround complete with liberals fully embracing the idea of “war” as a political tool and tactic. Protests that started against “Bush’s War” in Iraq quickly turned into enthusiastic support for “Obama’s War” in Afghanistan. Bush’s “surge” in Iraq, hated by liberals and predicted to fail, became Obama’s surge when it succeeded and was held up as an example of Obama’s superior competency in warfare.

In this turnaround, liberals have embraced exaggeration again, labeling controversial political issues as a “war” in the hope of gaining sympathy from the majority. Thus we find the so-called “war against women”, the “war against choice”, the “war against the poor”, the “race war”, the “culture war”, and the “war against minorities”. All have become accepted, standard talking points in the liberal media. (Yes, conservatives are also guilty with the “war against Christians”, the “war against the unborn”, etc, – but conservatives never embraced hatred towards the military or considered all wars to be evil, therefore, the lack of irony or hypocrisy is an exemption here.)

Rather than calm things down, Obama has fueled this war effort with aggressive rhetoric that pits the middle class and the poor against the rich. He has sparked a real “class warfare” that could have dire consequences. It is deliberate, it is political, it is manipulative, it is deceitful, it is fracturing, and it is disgraceful.

David J. Hentosh

Obama’s Gas Prices

Obama is now scrambling to find someone to blame for the high gas prices that are currently settling in for the coming summer. However, those prices were just one of the energy goals he proudly set when elected. His weak stance on Iran, combined with an idealistic push for a “green” everything, set the stage for rising gas prices that are coming at a time when the economy is strained.

From Victor Davis Hanson at NRO

Suddenly the administration seems to think that high energy prices are bad and, in fact, that it has done a lot to lower them…the fact that gas prices have doubled since January 2009 suggests that whatever the current Obama policy is, it has not worked…

Our departure from Iraq has had nothing to do with calming oil prices…Here at home we have increased oil production despite, not because, of Obama’s policies…(the administration) has discouraged new efforts in the Gulf, off-shore, in Alaska, and in the west — and was quite proud that it had…blocking the Keystone pipeline hardly encourages Middle East producers to make up the slack…

…why is there an administration worry about soon-to-be $5 gas, given that such European levels are necessary to make Solyndra- and Volt-like projects economically viable? When soon-to-be energy secretary Steven Chu declared…that “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” and when a soon-to-be President Obama warned that under his agenda cutbacks on domestic coal production would mean “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” the message was clear…higher energy prices, less consumption, less global warming, more subsidized wind and solar, high-speed rail, and “millions of green jobs…So what’s the problem?

Read the rest here:  Victor Davis Hanson

DJH

Dangerous Defense Cuts

Obama’s approach to diplomacy and foreign policy combined with his distaste for the military has increased international tensions and put the US on a coarse that threatens the security of our country. If continued, it will also threaten the security of the entire free world.

One of the consequences of Obama’s weak diplomacy is Iran’s threat to close the straight of Hormuz. It is a very aggressive move that shows Iran sees little danger of any military response from the US. This is confirmed by the recent cancelling of a planned joint US/Israel military exercise for fear of aggravating tensions with Iran. This is a win for Iran.

Sword rattling is producing results for Iran because of Obama’s reluctance to be more forceful and it has allowed Iran to continue its quest for nuclear weapons. That quest may be, as former U.S. ambassador John Bolton recently said, closer to fruition than many want to believe. Iran’s imminent nuclear capability may force Israel to take unilateral action for its survival, causing the Middle East to explode.

Iraq’s former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said that Obama’s claim that Iraq is now a stable and democratic country is wrong. He says Al Qaeda is now fully operational in Iraq. Obama’s desire to fulfill a campaign promise resulted in a premature “declaration” of the war being over (mission accomplished?) and Iraq is now up for grabs by Al Qaeda and Iran.

Defense cuts proposed by the Obama administration could result in the US being unable to meet future threats. Obama’s attempt to cut costs by relying more heavily on technology ignores the success that ‘boots on the ground’ produced in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our loss of a military base in Iraq also means an increased reliance on aircraft carriers to meet threats in the region and they, too, may end up on Obama’s chopping block.

Our government’s prime responsibility is defense. Obama does not seem to agree and a continuation of his policies will push defense lower and lower on his priority list. In a world growing more dangerous and with more countries relying on US military capability, it is irresponsible to treat our military capability as a liability rather than an asset.

David J. Hentosh

Negotiating With Terrorists

Refusal to negotiate with terrorists has been a stern US policy for quite some time but the Obama administration has been quietly replacing it with a softer approach that has yet to deliver positive results. This softer approach failed with Iran, producing only more arrogance and aggressiveness, but the Obama administration seems intent on using it with the Taliban.

News that Talilban “insurgents” (terrorists?) may agree to open a representative office in Qatar is being welcomed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration. While negotiations and talks with any enemy in attempts to stop violence make sense, bribing them to talk doesn’t. It is hard to see Obama’s latest gambit as anything more than hopeful bribery.

Talks are underway to release five Taliban prisoners from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in return for the proposed Taliban “headquarters” in Qatar. The hope is that the Taliban will cut ties with al-Qaida, accept the elected civilian government of Afghanistan, and bargain in good faith. The five released prisoners will most probably be allowed to return to fighting the US on the Afghan battlefield.

Fortunately, the US maintains that it will not back off its Afghan military campaign while it “negotiates”, but that can easily fall by the wayside. It is not hard to imagine a “declaration” of an end to the Afghan war resulting from promises made by ruthless terrorists, especially when the US has five released terrorists invested in the process. The political incentive of placating a far-left base in time for November elections could sweeten the pot.

Iran praised and welcomed Obama’s policy of diplomacy which was used as a stalling tactic that allowed continuance of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It would be naïve and foolish to think the Taliban are above such tactics. Once it becomes recognized that the US is willing to negotiate and pay ransom, there will be other demands from other “organizations”. This could set a precedent that can get very ugly, very fast.

David J. Hentosh

So, Where’s the Oil?

As Iraq takes control of the US military’s last base in the country, the question no one is asking begs an answer: Where’s all the oil? The liberal media hammered away at the idea that the war in Iraq was all about oil and Obama (accompanied by cheerleader Biden) has been taking credit for success in Iraq. Therefore, it should follow that we are successfully leaving Iraq laden with millions of barrels of oil.

US defense secretary, Leon Panetta, told departing troops at Baghdad International Airport: “After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real”. In a speech to returning troops in North Carolina, President Obama said:  “Everything that American troops have done in Iraq…has led us to this moment of success”. In these, dare we say, “Mission accomplished” speeches, there is no mention of oil.

How can a war for oil be labeled a success when we are leaving with no oil? The military is leaving behind equipment in Iraq valued at approximately $580 million in an effort to save $1 billion in shipping costs, but not one dollar in shipping costs is being used for oil. There are no tankers lined up to bring home the spoils from our “war for oil”.

Renewed bombing attacks at Iraq’s Rumaila oilfield have halved output but the US military is leaving those oilfields for Iraq to protect. Aren’t they our oilfields now? Doesn’t “success” in Iraq mean we won the “war for oil” and we should protect it?

This raises the possibility that the media and the far left may have been wrong. If not, President Obama must then be lying about our “success” in Iraq. We can expect the persistent demand from the left of “No blood for oil” to now turn into an indignant complaint of “No oil for blood” – or an apology is in order.

Waiting…waiting…waiting…waiting…

David J. Hentosh

‘Victory’ a Dirty Word

In a recent interview, Vice President Biden verbally strutted like a peacock in a victory dance over the removal of troops from Iraq, emphasizing that the administration is “…not claiming victory”, making his victory dance look pretty foolish. This is the same Joe Biden who adamantly predicted that the surge in Iraq would not work. The surge, of course, was a Bush strategy that paved the way for what Biden is now claiming ownership of but, wink-wink, not claiming a victory.

As he does every time he speaks longer than 20 seconds, Biden let his mouth get the best of him and further informed us there is no validity to “…the idea that there is sufficient capacity to bring down this government (Iraq), to fundamentally alter this democratic process that is under way.” Forget for a moment how much like ‘victory’ that sounds and contemplate the hubris involved. Of course he immediately warned, again, that “We’re not claiming victory”, just in case he was misunderstood.

The very idea of “victory” is distasteful to this politically correct administration (and the far left), so Biden needs to be concerned about it. President Obama, back in 2009, told us that he is “…always worried about using the word ‘victory’…” so it should be no surprise that this administration’s policies for Iraq and Afghanistan were never geared for winning or a ‘victory’. Those policies were always geared for nothing more than Obama’s personal political gain. Biden, being an excellent sycophant, understands this perfectly.

David J. Hentosh