Nikki Haley on Red Lines

President Trump on the Syria Strikes

Ann Coulter on President Trump and the Syria Strike

Lefty Pundit Launches Verbal Crude Missile at CNN's Fareed Zakaria After Syria Strike

In seeking to shape the battlefield of public opinion after the Trump Administration's limited Tomahawk attack against a Syrian government airbase which delivered a chemical attack against civilians, lefty pundit Jeremy Scahill let loose some verbal crude missiles of his own.

While one can understand chaffing against the poetic plaudits by MSNBC's Brian Williams quoting Leonard Cohen, the all out attack on CNN's Fareed Zakaria was striking with both its vulgarity and ferocity. 

Telling Cultural Citations In Coverage of the Syria Strikes

While covering the American Tomahawk air strikes on Syrian air bases, MSNBC's Brian Williams made a telling cultural citation.  Williams fused his reportage with a literary allusion from recently deceased poet/songwriter Leonard Cohen. 

Williams keyed off of the fragment "I am guided by the beauty of our weapons."  But the lyric was lifted from the 1988 song "First We Take Manhattan", which was a sui generis take on terrorism.




Leonard Cohen said of the song "First We Take Manhattan":

I think it means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song. I think it's a response to terrorism. There's something about terrorism that I've always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane – I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I'll give you a paraphrase of it. It was 'well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there', he says. 'But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking.

Notwithstanding the uncomfortable admiration for the beauty of weapons of violence being used, it hardly seems apropos other than to appeal to those living "in the city".  In addition, it is dubious that knowing the full context of the quote that Leonard Cohen would play well in Peoria. Which would explain the twitter-storm over William's bon mot.

Maybe the disgraced ex NBC anchor could sound more convincing selling Conflate-Gate material.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Syrian Strike

Sen. Schumer Berates President Trump as Diplomatic 98 Lb. Weakling

Senator Schumer's contemptuous snap  seemed  well positioned for President Trump's meeting with President Xi at Mar-a-Lago.  

However, after the Tomahawk missile attack in Syria in response to the gassing of civilians, the Senate Democrat Minority Leaders Charles Atlas insult seems pretty weak.

Donald Trump on the Nuclear Triad

The Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas hosted by CNN and Salem Media was focused on Commander-in-Chief questions.  Thus foreign policy, national security and military issues were going to be in the forefront of the 5th debate in the 2016 GOP primary cycle.

To dig deeper on candidates' knowledge and national security prioritization, Hugh Hewitt asked Donald Trump a question about the nuclear triad, which has been the centerpiece of American national security strategy since the 1960s. 

Donald Trump's answer during the Las Vegas Debate was quite revealing.



First the brash billionaire engaged in some self-aggrandizement about his prescience about the 2003 Iraq War. But afterwards, there is some bluster which bluffs about how America has to be careful about not being drawn into war in Syria.  Then Trump pivoted to mocking the Obama Administration's obsession with climate change and global warming instead of nuclear proliferation, which Trump deemed was the nation's top priority.

Hewitt redirected his question to Trump asking about which leg of the Triad should be prioritized.  Trump claimed that the devastating power of nuclear is very important to him.

Trump loves to mock politicians for being stupid but res ipsa loquitur.  When Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) picked up the line of questioning, he managed to school the audience on the nuclear triad without explicitly embarrassing Mr. Trump.

Trump supporters have been trained to attack reporters who embarrass their Dear Leader. They also will claim that it was a gotcha' question which wonks may know the details but is not necessary for a Chief Executive like Mr. Trump to be well versed.

Hewitt's question was not on specifics like how many Ohio class nuclear submarines need to be built or what make of aircraft will replace the superannuated B-52s. This was at its base an opportunity for a Presidential candidate with no national security experience to show well informed decision making skills.  In a more specific sense, at a time when sequestration has decimated Pentagon procurement and there are not unlimited funds, it illuminates how a Commander-in-Chief Trump would choose to lead our nation.

This is not the first time in which Hewitt has exposed areas of ignorance in Donald Trump's foreign policy knowledge.  During a radio phone interview in September 2015, Hewitt asked Trump about the Quds forces (special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards) and  Trump rambled on about how the Kurds were poorly treated by US. 

When Hewitt asked Trump about players on the Islamic terrorist roster without a scorecard, Trump decried the gotcha question. Trump insists that he would find absolutely great people to handle it.  Then Trump circled back to the Kurd subject on which he seemed well briefed.  Trump closed with his bluster: "In that case, first day in office, or before then, right at the day after the election, I’ll know more about it than you will ever know. That I can tell you."  

Perhaps we should expect the same sort of after election omniscience on the nuclear triad too?

The November 13th Paris atrocities and the San Bernadino Shooting has made the 2016 Presidential Election to be a National Security election. Voters will need to discern whether they want a Commander-in-Chief who is a foreign policy tabla rasa but who presumes to become pansophical as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Donald Trump on Hillary Clinton

Thomas Sowell on Obama Oval Office Address

Gov. Rick Scott Chary About Obama Administration Vetting of Syrian Refugees

On Overseas Attacks and Exigent Immigration

Reacting to the coordinated November 13th ISIS attacks in Paris, Republicans have expressed a recalcitrance to take Syrian refugees without vigorous vetting.  Even after an hour and a half conference call  with the White House 27 Republican governors and one Democrat Governor still oppose Syrian Refugee resettlement in their states.

During an interview with Salem Radio's Hugh Hewitt, 2016 Republican Presidential hopeful Governor  Chris Christie (R-NJ) rejected a hypothetical of allowing for immigration of orphan children Syrian refugees into America.

While President Obama was overseas to attend the G20 Summit in Turkey, President Barack Obama mocked Republicans for not being open to the Syrian Refugee immigration.





It is curious how Republicans have been criticized for offering even the most benign criticism against the President while he is on foreign soil, but Mr. Obama exhibits no compunctions against insulting his enemy-- Republicans.

To this end, Senator Ted Cruz issued a throw down to the lame duck Chief Executive.

It would be fascinating to see a debate between a politician who was acclaimed as being an incredible orator (especially when reading from the TOTUS- Telepromper of the United States) against a master debater at Harvard.

The Syrian Migration Crisis Considered as the Heurmaneutic of Disruption

Is the alluvia of people coming to Europe from Syria fleeing a war-torn Levant, those persecuted for their Christian faith,  economic migrants as Pope Francis suggests, grifters seeking generous Western social service benefits or doing soft jihad via immigration?

Scripture implores believers to be compassionate and merciful towards immigrants.  However, those migrating are expected to obey the laws of the government.  

Munich which has recently experienced a flood of Muslim immigrants as part of the Syrian Migrant wave.  As their two century long tradition of Oktoberfest begins, Islamic agitators are advocating that the fortnight of beer and gemultlikeit as is is haram.  No wonder the Hungarian Prime Minister spoke so soundly against kulturekampf

As the population bomb from this Muslim migrant overwhelming the system explodes, expect religious liberty for Christians to disappear for Christians in Europe in exchange for dhimmitude.

Charles Krauthammer on Putting the Hammer Down

Yet even at President Barack Obama's 2014 speech before the United Nations General Assembly, the UWS Commander-in-Chief continues to harbor the dangerous illusion that we can choose our wars.  And based upon  Mr. Obama's announced approach of not committing American combat forces on the ground in the conflict theater, we should not have great expectations of "remission."

h/t: Gary Varvel

Dangerous Illusions on Warfare

President Obama took pride that he unilaterally led US troops out of Iraq in 2011 (without achieving a Status of Forces agreement) and promises to do the same in Afghanistan by 2016.  Casual political observers may now conclude that President Barack Obama has dispensed with the dangerous illusion about optional wars after the aerial bombing  of ISIS and Khorasan Group targets in  Syria. US CentCom claims that the Khorasan Group was in the final stages of an imminent attact on US targets, potentially even in the U.S. Homeland.

However, in the run up to the still unnamed mission from the nascent anti-ISIS coalition, President Obama insisted on being clear about not having American boots on the ground.   

Congress voted for funding to train Syrian rebels, but that training is said to take a year to accomplish.  Now that American airpower decimated ISIS and Khorason targets near Aleppo and Raqqa, Syria, an ISIS pull out would leave a power vacuum.  Without American boots on the ground, who re-establishes order?  Prior to the bombing, former Marine Corps Commandant (Ret.) General James Conway suggested that Mr. Obama's apparent strategy against ISIS did not have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

Mr. Obama may still harbor the illusion about cafeteria conflicts, but General Douglas MacArthur's warning that: "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it" rings true today.  

America acting to stop the brutality and belligerence of terrorist armies like ISIS and the Khorason Group which threaten US is a tardy step in the right direction.  However, not having a clearly defined plan of action other than ruling out boots on the ground may keep the chimera alive for the Commander-in-Chief.

h/t: Bob Englehart 

Rand Paul on Arming Syrian Rebels

Kerry On My Wayward Son

McCain Spares the Rod and Spoils the Staff With O’Bagy Hire

[L] Elizabeth O'Bagy [R] Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

Ordinarily in political circles the  hiring a Legislative Assistant in the Senate does not make headlines.  But Senator McCain’s (R-AZ) retention of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s services as a L.A. in his Washington office manages to achieve that dubious distinction.  Foreign Policy "The Cable" website reports through its website that the Senior Senator has hired the 26 year old foreign policy researcher three weeks after she was released from the Institute for the Study of War, a neoconservative think tank.

O’Bagy wrote an op/ed titled “On the Front Lines of Syria’s Civil War” for the Wall Street Journal, which downplayed the reach of Jabhut al Nursa (an Al Qaeda affiliate) fighters  in the Syrian Free Army, and suggested that such  jihadists were concentrating in a couple of northern, rebel held areas of Syria.  Esssentially, O'Bagy was allaying fears that U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict would, in the words of former Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH 10th), be acting as Al Qaeda's air force.

In the rush to get Congressional blessing for President Obama’s aborted red line attack threat against  Bashar Assad’s government forces in Syria for chemical weapons use, O’Bagy’s analysis was spotlighted.  Both Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Senator John McCain referenced and relied upon O’Bagy’s opinion.

Yet within a week of having her research promoted by Obama’s Secretary of State and the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, O’Bagy was unceremoniously severed from her stint as the ‘Syria Analyst” at the Institute for the Study of War.  Officially, O’Bagy was fired because she falsely had purported to have a combined masters/Ph.D. from Georgetown University, when she had not even defended her thesis.  But O’Bagy’s prominence on the political stage also revealed that O’Bagy served as the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which was neither  disclosed in the WSJ op/ed nor mentioned by Kerry or McCain when confirming their bent for war in the Levant.

The mission of the Syrian Emergency Task Force has been characterized by critics as pushing weapons and other military support to the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist brigades in Syria.  The Syria Emergency task force derives its funding from a State Deparment funded Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.

O’Bagy for her part claims that she was a contractor for the Syrian Emergency Task Force and not an employee.  Of course, that is a distinction without a difference when it comes to conflicts of interest in setting American foreign policy.  When asked about a conflict of interest, O’Bagy told the Daily Caller “I work for the Syrian people.”

 O’Bagy claims that she did not help the Syrian Emergency Task Force lobby. Yet O’Bagy admits to facilitating a meeting between Syrian rebel commanders  and Senator McCain in May. McCain maintains that he met with patriotic rebels and no terrorists.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) meeting with Syrian rebel commanders, May 2013

When questioned about hiring O'Bagy, Senator McCain endorsed the new L.A. by saying: "Elizabeth is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and analysis in multiple briefings over the last year. "I look forward to her joining my office."  So the conflict of interest by O'Bagy working for the Syrian people was no problem for the maverick Senator.

This is a serious lapse of judgment by Senator McCain.  As the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, McCain's viewpoints are influential in facilitating American Foreign Policy.  The senior Senator from Arizona should be receiving clear guidance, not having his opinions skewed by an aide who has declared herself allied with Syria, and has ties to groups that are aligned against broader United States interests.  By sparing the rod, McCain has spoiled his staff.

h/t: The Cable

Syria Change?

President Obama's fleeting, feckless, pussillanimous, and incoherent policy "pivots" has garnered lots of comedic critiques.  Consider the mocking opinion piece by  Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin published by the New York Times on September 11th 2013.  

Then there is the jesting lucubrations of the late night comedians

Is it any wonder that the Obama Syrian foreign policy is considered a joke?

h/t: Bob Gorrell

Kickstarting World War III?

Strange days are these.  Russian Federation President (and former KGB Officer) Vladimir Putin chimerically sounds like a reasonable diplomat regarding the Syrian crisis. The United States government is contemplating intervention in the Levant to support al Qaeda elements who is at war with America in Benghazi, Boston and Ground Zero on 9/11.  President Obama's White House address to the American people on Syria manages to simultaneously co-opt the Bush doctrine while criticizing his predecessor.

Would it be that far fetched to believe a Kickstart Campaign to start World War III?  Second City satirizes our Nobel Peace Prize winning President.

Hometown comics really know how to push this POTUS's buttons. All save the reset button,  Unfortunately, the gimmick Reset button which former Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented to her Russian counterpart in 2009 was mistranslated and read "Overload". Symbolic or synchronicity for the second term?