and America
First, Harry Reid the erstwhile Senate majority leader told American’s, “This War Is Lost”, prior to the surge in Iraq.
Now, in the midst of a federal government shutdown, Mr. Reid is telling America what is can do with itself once again.
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Harry Reid and the Democrat leadership inside the US Senate are declining to simply accept a moderate understanding to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year 2011. Time is limited. What exactly is Senator Reid quarreling about? Merely $51 billion in extra budget reductions, which comes down to several days of federal government deficit spending.
However, Reid’s stonewalling isn’t only pertaining to dollars and cents, or preserving government funding for his Cowboy Poetry Festival in Nevada. Reid and Democrats in Congress are establishing the foundation for a partial federal government shutdown to enable them to place the blame on the Tea Party and Republicans in Congress so they may gain politically. Democrats are merely placing electoral politics above the business of America.
The way it appears currently, Congress has until April 8th to attain a deal for a long-term budget through the conclusion of fiscal year ending 2011, complete an additional short-term stop-gap budget, or deal with a partial federal government shutdown. It may seem alarming that our representatives would cut it so close. Nevertheless to comprehend the way we got to this point, it is critical to understand exactly where we’ve already been.
During May 2010, then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) declared that, the very first time since 1974, the House wouldn’t complete a budget resolution. Never in contemporary history had a Congress disregarded this fundamental required obligation. Instead of halting big government spending, Congressional liberals decided to use up borrowed cash as they saw fit with no end in view. However with the rise from the Tea Party movement as well as the November 2010 elections, American men and women voiced their opposition to the big spending ways of liberals in Congress. These people required Congress to get control of the budget.
So you ask, what are Senate Democrats up to? You don’t need a tarot card reader, hire a soothsayer or consult a chrystal ball. This Tuesday, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) provided American’s a close up view of his party’s modus operandi. The Washington Examiner reports that on a conference call where Schumer, without realizing reporters were already listening, instructed his fellow Democratic senators to tell the reporters that the GOP is refusing to negotiate.
According to the Examiner, Schumer:
“told the group to make sure they label the GOP spending cuts as ‘extreme.’” That is what “the caucus instructed [Schumer] to do last week.”
I don’t believe anyone else in the MSM reported this canard. Imagine that!
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) explained the facts:
“We need to see [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-Nev.] and [Sen.] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] get serious,” he said. “We need to see the president get involved.”
“Chuck Schumer did us a favor; he exposed their tactic,” Cantor said. “He’s basically instructing his members to deem any spending cut unreasonable — any spending cut. So clearly they are not serious.”
Even Howard Dean former head of the DNC (remember him?) chimed in:
“If I was head of DNC, I would be quietly rooting for it…I know who’s going to get blamed – we’ve been down this road before.”
“From a partisan point of view, I think it would be the best thing in the world to have a shutdown.”
Harry Reid’s inaction, Chuck Schumer’s political gamesmanship and Howard Dean’s frank honesty enlightens us all. This is simply not pertaining to getting America on a sensible financial course, it comes down to placing Democrats on a desired political strategy. However it will not work, the silent majority is awake and paying attention. Indeed!
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There exists a lot less than you would think to Barack Obama’s assertions Monday evening that NATO is taking over from the United States in Libya understanding that US actions are restricted to protecting people under assault by Muammar Gadaffi’s military forces.
By shifting command and control to NATO, the US is turning the reins over to an organization dominated by the US, equally militarily and politically.
Rapid advance of rebels in recent days strongly indicates they aren’t simply profiting from military aid in a defensive crouch, but alternatively utilizing the multi-national forces coordinated to move forward an offensive.
Here is a look at some of Obama’s assertions in his address to the nation Monday evening, and how they compare with the facts as analyzed from the Associated Press, believe it or not:
OBAMA: “Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and no-fly zone. … Going forward, the lead in enforcing the no-fly zone and protecting civilians on the ground will transition to our allies and partners, and I am fully confident that our coalition will keep the pressure on Gadhafi’s remaining forces. In that effort, the United States will play a supporting role.”
THE FACTS: As by far the pre-eminent player in NATO, and a nation historically reluctant to put its forces under operational foreign command, the United States will not be taking a back seat in the campaign even as its profile diminishes for public consumption.
NATO partners are bringing more into the fight. But the same “unique capabilities” that made the U.S. the inevitable leader out of the gate will continue to be in demand. They include a range of attack aircraft, refueling tankers that can keep aircraft airborne for lengthy periods, surveillance aircraft that can detect when Libyans even try to get a plane airborne, and, as Obama said, planes loaded with electronic gear that can gather intelligence or jam enemy communications and radars.
The United States supplies 22 percent of NATO’s budget, almost as much as the next largest contributors – Britain and France – combined. A Canadian three-star general was selected to be in charge of all NATO operations in Libya. His boss, the commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, is an American admiral, and the admiral’s boss is the supreme allied commander Europe, a post always held by an American.
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OBAMA: “Our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives.”
THE FACTS: Even as the U.S. steps back as the nominal leader, reduces some assets and fires a declining number of cruise missiles, the scope of the mission appears to be expanding and the end game remains unclear.
Despite insistences that the operation is only to protect civilians, the airstrikes now are undeniably helping the rebels to advance. U.S. officials acknowledge that the effect of air attacks on Gadhafi’s forces – and on the supply and communications links that support them – is useful if not crucial to the rebels. “Clearly they’re achieving a benefit from the actions that we’re taking,” Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, staff director for the Joint Chiefs, said Monday.
The Pentagon has been turning to air power of a kind more useful than high-flying bombers in engaging Libyan ground forces. So far these have included low-flying Air Force AC-130 and A-10 attack aircraft, and the Pentagon is considering adding armed drones and helicopters.
Obama said “we continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people,” but spoke of achieving that through diplomacy and political pressure, not force of U.S. arms.
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OBAMA: Seeking to justify military intervention, the president said the U.S. has “an important strategic interest in preventing Gadhafi from overrunning those who oppose him. A massacre would have driven thousands of additional refugees across Libya’s borders, putting enormous strains on the peaceful – yet fragile – transitions in Egypt and Tunisia.” He added: “I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.”
THE FACTS: Obama did not wait to make that case to Congress, despite his past statements that presidents should get congressional authorization before taking the country to war, absent a threat to the nation that cannot wait.
“The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” he told The Boston Globe in 2007 in his presidential campaign. “History has shown us time and again … that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch.”
Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, said Sunday that the crisis in Libya “was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest.”
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OBAMA: “And tonight, I can report that we have stopped Gadhafi’s deadly advance.”
THE FACTS: The weeklong international barrage has disabled Libya’s air defenses, communications networks and supply chains. But Gadhafi’s ground forces remain a potent threat to the rebels and civilians, according to U.S. military officials.
Army Gen. Carter Ham, the top American officer overseeing the mission, told The New York Times on Monday that “the regime still overmatches opposition forces militarily. The regime possesses the capability to roll them back very quickly. Coalition air power is the major reason that has not happened.”
Only small numbers of Gadhafi’s troops have defected to the opposition, Ham said.
At the Pentagon, Vice Adm. William Gortney, staff director for the Joint Chiefs, said the rebels are not well organized. “It is not a very robust organization,” he said. “So any gain that they make is tenuous based on that.”
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OBAMA: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
THE FACTS: Mass violence against civilians has also been escalating elsewhere, without any U.S. military intervention anticipated.
More than 1 million people have fled the Ivory Coast, where the U.N. says forces loyal to the incumbent leader, Laurent Gbagbo, have used heavy weapons against the population and more than 460 killings have been confirmed of supporters of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara.
The Obama administration says Gbagbo and Gadhafi have both lost their legitimacy to rule. But only one is under attack from the U.S.
Presidents typically pick their fights according to the crisis and circumstances at hand, not any consistent doctrine about when to use force in one place and not another. They have been criticized for doing so – by Obama himself.
In his pre-presidential book “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama said the U.S. will lack international legitimacy if it intervenes militarily “without a well-articulated strategy that the public supports and the world understands.”
He questioned: “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?”
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So Obama went after Bill Clinton concerning Bosnia and George W. Bush on Iraq. This wasn’t a foreign policy speech nor was it a speech on defense of national security.
This was a political speech preparing for the 2012 election. A test for the tele-prompter and ensuring that Obama’s pants are still on fire. Indeed!
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Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi has killed, killed and killed over the years and not just in Libya. He’s has ordered the downing of civilian passenger aircraft, he is responsible for he death of American Marines, he has ordered the mass slaughter of his own people including innocent women, children and men in the streets of Libya.
If anyone in the United States was guilty of the crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi was the death penalty and subsequent execution not be far away?
We have the coward Bararck Obama dithering away about Libya and now the White House is giving him credit for the uprising in Libya. White House aide Samantha Power, a former news reporter turned anti-genocide advocate, said Obama’s two-year campaign to promote human rights helped trigger the uprising in Libya against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s rule.
“The president has argued our interests and our values cannot be separated,” Ms. Power said, speaking to a friendly crowd of about 130 people. “These values have caused the people of Libya to risk their lives on the street.”
Ms. Powers is kidding right? Obama did absolutely nothing for Libya and it took France and Great Britain with the approval of the United Nations to get Obama to move. This isn’t leadership or a victory for human rights.
Now we have Italy leading efforts to offer Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya, with Italy saying it was trying to organize an African haven for him, and the US signaling it would not try to stop the dictator from fleeing.
“Gaddafi must understand that it would be an act of courage to say: ‘I understand that I have to go’,” said the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini. “We hope that the African Union can find a valid proposal.”
In 1981 Gaddafi talked about assassinating new American president Ronald Reagan. On 14 April 1986, the United States carried out Operation El Dorado Canyon against Gaddafi, bombing air defenses, three army bases, and two airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi. The “surgical strikes” failed to kill Gaddafi but he lost a few dozen military officers. Gaddafi then spread propaganda about how it had killed his “adopted daughter” and how victims had been all civilians.
The campaign was successful as large portions of the Western press reported the regime’s stories as facts. Imagine that!
President Reagan missed killing Gaddafi, reportedly by 3-seconds, with a Tomahawk missile. Since then leaders from Western countries tried to appease Gaddafi but he is a mass murderer so why is Italy and Western allies trying to find a safe haven for him? Why aren’t we removing him from power and carrying out a death sentence for one of the world’s worst tyrants? Why a negotiation, why not an ultimatum? Surrender or die!
A senior American official signaled that a solution in which Gaddafi flees to a country beyond the reach of the international criminal court (ICC), which is investigating war crimes charges against him, would be acceptable to Washington, pointing out that Barack Obama had repeatedly called on Gaddafi to leave.
Obama has not consulted Congress, has generally failed to communicate his mission, and has demonstrated a willingness to bow to the will of the “international community,” rather than act in the best interests of the United States.
Removing Gaddafi from power and bringing him to justice is what is required. Unfortunately, the United States lacks leadership from the military’s civilian component in the White House who is taking marching orders from the feckless international community.
Gaddafi should be dead, however, leadership in the Oval Office is DOA, indeed!
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