I am officially a member of the enemy camp

“I didn’t see a lot of warmth in that crowd out there. The president chose to address tonight and I thought it was interesting. He went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case. I mean, that’s where Paul Wolfowitz used to write speeches for, back in the old Bush days. That’s where he went to rabble rouse the “we’re going to democratize the world” campaign back in ‘02. So, I thought it was a strange venue.”    - MSNBC “Hardball host Chris Matthews

So I am officially a member of the enemy camp I suppose.  Whatever backtracking Mathews may do, it still reveals a lot about him and what the liberals like him think of the military institutions and our mostly conservative views.  I do remember Paul Wolfowitz at my graduation.  After he gave his speech, he stood at the back of the stage and shook every single cadets’ hand.  Something not always done by others.  Maybe we are the enemy camp though.  Cadets did blindfold the Statue of George Washington when Clinton was inaugurated (so the story goes).  That, of course, had more to do with our Commander in Chief getting by with his fumbled definition of the word “is” for an offense we would have been deemed unworthy to wear the uniform for (had we committed the same act and by the way, lied about it).  Mathews was right about the lack of warmth from the crowd though.  That comes with respect.  Respect that Obama has not yet earned.  I saw an interesting video the other day of Bush’s last visit to West Point.  For those who saw the Obama speech, there is quite a difference.

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Here is the link if the embed is not working for you.  The whole speech is there, but I mainly just wanted to illustrate his reception by the cadets.

Then there is Obama’s speech itself.  My most accounts it was not well delivered.  Probably because Obama did not want to give it.  The best description I read was that it was delivered like a kid cleaning the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner.  He doesn’t really want to, but he has to.  I was asked to write down what I often do in my head so here is a simple breakdown of what I heard, but it is painful because as with most of Obama’s speeches, there is plenty of deflection of blame and fence riding.

First, here is the transcript of the speech in its entirety

Here we go.

“As we know, these men belonged to Al Qaeda, a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents.”

Obama started out by reminding us why we are in Afghanistan in the first place, which is a good thing because I believe that many have forgotten.  It was interesting though to see this sentence in there.  Obama is seen by most people educated on Islam as a PC apologetic.  That basically means he does not understand Islam and instead just regurgitates PC myths being fed to him.  Extremists have not distorted and defiled Islam.   They are following it to the letter.  Moderate Muslims are simply ignoring the violent instructions from Mohammed, Allah’s self proclaimed prophet.  In fact, they would probably be offended by Obama’s assertion.  Obama also calls Islam one of the world’s greatest religions.  Myself and many others have shown evidence to the contrary, but he continues to mislead an unknowing American public with these historically inaccurate statements.  It is something that could have and should have been left out of the speech.  It was a statement for his far left support.

I did not quote the next few paragraphs, but I wanted to point out something in them.  Obama took several cheap shots at the previous administration (yes, he still does this) describing all failures as being in the past and inherited.  He then took credit for what he called recent successes.  This is typical of Obama.  Deflect the blame.  Let us not forget that while he was bashing Bush as a junior Senator, he neglected to attend 2 meetings on the strategy of Afghanistan held by the subcommittee he chaired.   This is one of the many reasons Obama does not have the respect and thus did not receive the warm greeting from a mostly well educated audience.

“Now, let me be clear: There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war during this review period.”

In this statement he next took on critics who have pointed out that he took a very long time to make a decision that was technically already made.    He tries to justify the political games he was playing while General McCrystal patiently waited for a decision.  I discussed some of these games in a previous post.  Yes, I am sure that no option had troops in country by the year’s end, but Obama is oblivious to the fact that because he has waited so long, it has delayed the military from making official preparations for these troop movements as we cannot act without our Commander’s approval.   His lack of action has put us behind.   There is no real excuse for the amount of time he has taken.  This is not a new problem.  It is a problem that Obama was very vocal about.  And he was not alone.  The Pentagon was also critical of our Afghanistan strategy and had been working on the issue for 2 years.  Obama had the benefit of this research before he took office. I believe that the real reason for the delay was Obama trying to find a politically acceptable solution.  And that is unacceptable.

“And as commander-in-chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.”

Here is Obama’s decision.  He is going to send in 30,000 additional soldiers to Afghanistan.   Keep in mind that General McCrystal asked for 60,000 to 80,000 troops.  This was his high success / low risk of failure option for the administration to ensure mission success.  The high risk of failure option was 20,000 troops and the medium risk option was 40,000 so Obama basically picked a number in between the medium and high risk of failure.  I will not hammer Obama for the number that he chose because I understand the limitations on the number of troops that can be deployed.   To be honest though, I am not sure this was part of his thinking.  He is a politician, through and through, and any higher number would go too far with his ultra liberal base.   If anything this speech was a giant balancing act.  But considering the amount of time he took to make the decision, I am extremely surprised that Obama did not already secure more troops from our NATO partners to help meet McCrystal’s request.  To ensure mission success.  He supposedly has these great diplomatic skills that were absent from George Bush’s repertoire.  I guess the keyword is supposedly.

“After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

Literally the next sentence in his speech.   This statement is simply irresponsible.  You cannot give your enemy a timeline.  You do not need to be a military man to understand this concept.  You just need some common sense.  Even if Obama’s administration has this timeline as a goal, there is absolutely no reason to announce it to the world.  No reason except political.  You will see later his flawed logic for this announcement.

“I do not make this decision lightly. I opposed the war in Iraq precisely because I believe that we must exercise restraint in the use of military force and always consider the long-term consequences of our actions.  We have been at war now for eight years, at enormous cost in lives and resources. Years of debate over Iraq and terrorism have left our unity on national security issues in tatters and created a highly polarized and partisan backdrop for this effort. And having just experienced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people are understandably focused on rebuilding our economy and putting people to work here at home.”

Earlier in the speech he talked about not going into the Iraq debate tonight, but it seems he just could not help himself.  He had to take another shot at the Bush Administration.  He mentions that the “debate over Iraq and terrorism have left our unity on national security issues in tatters and created a highly polarized and partisan backdrop” as if he and his liberal cohorts had nothing to do with it.  Not only is this an example of deflecting blame, but also an example of his arrogance.

After this little diversion in the blame game, Obama described the mission and strategy in Afghanistan.  It is important for people to understand that this is nothing new.  Nothing Obama and his staff have come up with on their own.  It has always been the mission and strategy.  It was used in Iraq; specifically the first part of the strategy is basically a carbon copy of the Iraq surge strategy that Obama badmouthed and said would not work for several months (And then lied about).  I guess it depends on who says it.

“In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. And those days are over.”

Listed this line to show another shot at the past administration.

Finally, there are those who oppose identifying a timeframe for our transition to Afghan responsibility. Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort, one that would commit us to a nation-building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost and what we need to achieve to secure our interests.  Furthermore, the absence of a timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.

Here is Obama’s defense of giving a timeline for removal of troops.  He does so by mis-representing the opposing viewpoint.  Not giving a timeline does not mean it is an open ended escalation of war and it certainly does not mean a decade long nation building project.  This is just more use of fear tactics by Obama.  (Remember the “we may never recover” argument for the failed stimulus) If you are a true leader, you can inspire this urgency without demoralizing your troops or aiding the enemy’s.  You can set internal goals and benchmarks to measure success.  You cannot define success by time on the ground.  It makes no sense except politically.  Funny how he will be running for re-election about that time.  So what’s really important to him?  I wonder.

And we have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim world, one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict and that promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity.

This is an interesting statement.  Obama seems to imply here the liberal perception that America is at fault for our current relationship with Muslims.  This is easier to see when you look at Obama’s past statements.  Obama often blamed Bush for our current poor relations with Muslim countries.  During the campaign, one of his top advisors (Gen McPeak) even blamed Bush for our poor relations with Iran.  That selective history thing again.  This concept is also something taught by Rev Wright in the church he attended for 20 years.  This view was further pushed by Obama on his apologetic world tour.  To me it also shows a lack of understanding of our enemy.  He refuses to believe that Islam is the root cause of those who want to kill us.  And he doesn’t understand the violence that Islam teaches.  Not knowing these two things is very dangerous because you cannot break ‘a cycle of violence’ that is based upon these things.  On that topic, if I could ask Obama a question about this I would probably ask when he believes this cycle began.  I bet his answer is closer to 1095 AD than 628 AD.  Or perhaps he would not even go that far back.

“that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights and tend for the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples.”

He has failed twice on this point in his short tenure as President.  He did not stand up for Democracy and freedom in Honduras when given the opportunity.  In Iran, he refused to speak out against the Iranian government’s oppression of its people until after Congress did so.

This vast and diverse citizenry will not always agree on every issue, nor should we. But I also know that we as a country cannot sustain our leadership nor navigate the momentous challenges of our time if we allow ourselves to be split asunder by the same rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse.

Even at the end of the speech he continues to take shots at the Bush administration.  He blames Bush for the Washington atmosphere of cynicism and partisanship.  He continues to champion his vision of ‘change’ while promoting the opposite with his actions.  Never before has a President been so persistent in blaming others for his own problems.  It is the definition of the pot calling the kettle black.  Obama has brought even more partisanship to Washington.  He has publicly ridiculed those who believe differently than him.  He has organized public attacks on his political enemies.  He has publicly attacked news agencies critical of his policies. And probably more important, he has lied to the American people to push his agenda. These are not leadership qualities.

So overall, I took much of the same from Obama’s speech on Afghanistan.  I applaud his decision to finally make a decision on additional troops, and although I have concerns, I hope that it is enough to ensure mission success.  How the announcement was delivered is another story.  His continued attacks on the Iraq war do nothing but demoralize the troops that are currently fighting there.  His continued efforts to deflect all blame to a past administration are becoming increasingly tiresome and are not representative of a true leader.  Obama had the opportunity to unite the country around a cause and inspire our troops and he chose not to.