Memorial Day Weekend: The President Who Still Remembers

veteranflagand wheelchairWhen I decided to write about the subject of this blog, on this Memorial Day Weekend, I knew that I would catch a lot of flack.

Former United States President George Walker Bush remains a polarizing figure.

The Bush Derangement Syndrome from the Liberal Side of the Political Aisle is a given. They, following the lead of their president, are still desperately attempting to blame Obama’s failures, in both his Domestic and Foreign Policies, on BOOOSH!, 6 1/2 years into the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

On my side of the aisle, the consensus among Conservatives is that he spent too much.

However, that are three things that Conservatives, and all those with any common sense whatsoever, agree upon:

1. Former President George W. Bush loves our country.

2. Former President George W. Bush loves and honors America’s Brightest and Best, our Fighting Men and Women of our Armed Forces.

3. Thank God, George W. Bush was the President of the United States of America on September 11, 2001…and not Barack Hussein Obama. (mm mmm mmmm)

But, I digress…

bush-soldierThe following is an excerpt from Fox News anchor and political analyst Dana Perino’s new book, “And the Good News Is… Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side”…

The president was scheduled to see 25 patients at Walter Reed. Many of them had traumatic brain injuries and were in very serious, sometimes critical, condition. Despite getting the best treatment available in the world, we knew that some would not survive.

We started in the intensive care unit. The chief of naval operations (CNO) briefed the president on our way into the hospital about the first patient we’d see. He was a young Marine who had been injured when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. After his rescue, he was flown to Landstuhl U.S. Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. At his bedside were his parents, wife, and five-year-old son.

“What’s his prognosis?” the president asked.

“Well, we don’t know sir, because he’s not opened his eyes since he arrived, so we haven’t been able to communicate with him. But no matter what, Mr. President, he has a long road ahead of him,” said the CNO.

We had to wear masks because of the risk of infection to the patient. I watched carefully to see how the family would react to President Bush, and I was worried that they might be mad at him and blame him for their loved one’s situation. But I was wrong.

The family was so excited the president had come. They gave him big hugs and thanked him over and over. Then they wanted to get a photo. So he gathered them all in front of Eric Draper, the White House photographer.

President Bush asked, “Is everybody smiling?” But they all had ICU masks on. A light chuckle ran through the room as everyone got the joke.

The Marine was intubated. The president talked quietly with the family at the foot of the patient’s bed. I looked up at the ceiling so that I could hold back tears.

After he visited with them for a bit, the president turned to the military aide and said, “Okay, let’s do the presentation.” The wounded warrior was being awarded the Purple Heart, given to troops that suffer wounds in combat.

Everyone stood silently while the military aide in a low and steady voice presented the award. At the end of it, the Marine’s young child tugged on the president’s jacket and asked, “What’s a Purple Heart?”

The president got down on one knee and pulled the little boy closer to him. He said, “It’s an award for your dad, because he is very brave and courageous, and because he loves his country so much. And I hope you know how much he loves you and your mom, too.”

As they hugged, there was a commotion from the medical staff as they moved toward the bed.

The Marine had just opened his eyes. I could see him from where I stood.

The CNO held the medical team back and said, “Hold on, guys. I think he wants the president.”

The president jumped up and rushed over to the side of the bed. He cupped the Marine’s face in his hands. They locked eyes, and after a couple of moments the president, without breaking eye contact, said to the military aide, “Read it again.”

So we stood silently as the military aide presented the Marine with the award for a second time. The president had tears dripping from his eyes onto the Marine’s face. As the presentation ended, the president rested his forehead on the wounded warrior’s for a moment.

Now everyone was crying, and for so many reasons: the sacrifice; the pain and suffering; the love of country; the belief in the mission; and the witnessing of a relationship between a soldier and his Commander in Chief that the rest of us could never fully grasp. (In writing this book, I contacted several military aides who helped me track down the name of the Marine. I hoped for news that he had survived. He did not. He died during surgery six days after the president’s visit. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery and is survived by his wife and their three children.

I remember my ex-brother-in-law, Dave. My late step-sister met him at the USO in Memphis during the Vietnam War. David was a Polish Catholic from outside of Detroit, a Navy guy who received his training in the computers of the day, while in service to our country. When he got out, they got married and moved to Dearborn (now Dearbornistan), Michigan, where he got a job with Burroughs. I remember Dave, because he was always good to me, even though I was just a runt kid, 15 years younger than him. I remember him cleaning his service rifle, sitting on the living room floor of our house, and, making sure it was empty, allowing me to to hold it. At the time,I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever done.

I also remember John. John was a friend of my sister’s, who stayed with us, because of problems at home. As I have related before, my folks were the ones whom all my sister’s friends would talk to when they had trouble at home. John was great guy, as well, who wound up enlisting and serving in that “crazy Asian War”, as Kenny Rogers and Mel Tillis once referred to it in song.

I have related before about my own Daddy and my Uncles, and their service in World War II. I have also had friends that served over the years, and one who is still serving in the Air National Guard.

All of these men were/are Patriots. They enlisted out of duty to God and Country.

Our Brightest and Best, who wear the uniform today, are no less dedicated. They deserve to be treated with respect, not as pawns in a game of political expediency, whose rules including social experimentation, political correctness, and blatant disrespect by the Commander-in-Chief…

Instead ,as his fellow Democratic Presidents before him, Barack Hussein Obama uses our Best and Brightest as political tools, following the tradition of previous Liberal occupiers of the White House, such as the Clintons, who used them as banquet staff at White House Events, having Marines in dress blues carry trays of munchies.

Our sons and daughters in uniform, both our heroic veterans and those serving and protecting our country today, both deserve and command our respect.

They are not just “Ancillary Staff”, as seems to be the prevailing opinion in the Administration.

The greatest American President in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan, once said,

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

Reagan was a realist. He realized that, as President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt once advised, the best way to keep America safe, is to “Speak softly and carry a big stick”.

Unfortunately for us, we are presently suffering through a president who speaks like a wuss and carries a feather pillow, a Mexican Flag, and a prayer rug.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

A Matter of Respect: OUR Flag, OUR Veterans, OUR Country

 

 

 

veteranflagand wheelchairI worry about the future of our country…

Fox News reports the following story…

GAINESVILLE, Fla. –  The University of Florida suspended one of its fraternities on Friday after allegations that its members hurled drunken insults and spat at a group of disabled military veterans at a Panama City Beach resort.

The school said on Friday that it is charging the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity with obscene behavior, public intoxication, theft, causing physical or other harm, and damage to property.

he suspension came after the fraternity had already suspended operations itself and expelled three of its members after finding they had behaved inappropriately.

“I am personally offended and disappointed by the behavior that has been described to me,” Dave Kratzer, the school’s student affairs vice president and retired U.S. Army major general, said in a statement.

The situation occurred while the fraternity and veterans with the Warrior Beach Retreat were at the Laketown Wharf Resort last weekend. The veterans were there for an annual retreat meant to honor their service, and the fraternity had a social function.

Linda Cope, founder of the warrior group, says the frat members were urinating on flags and verbally abusive.

“They were urinating off of balconies, vomiting off of balconies. They could see the men and women below were there with the retreat. They had on hats and shirts with logos,” Cope said.

Members of Zeta Beta Tau from the University of Florida and Emory University in Georgia were attending their spring formals at the resort. Emory officials have said they are investigating, but so far there’s no evidence to implicate their students.

About 60 veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan were also attending a retreat that has been held twice a year for the past six years at the resort. Cope started the event in honor of her son Joshua, who lost both legs in Baghdad in 2006 when a roadside bomb exploded under his Humvee.

After the incident, Cope sent a letter to University of Florida President Ken Fuchs and described students spitting on veterans, throwing beer bottles over a balcony and ripping flags off their cars.

Local police did respond, but no criminal charges were filed.

The fraternity said it expelled three of its members Friday, and that it had hired an independent investigator.

And, in a related story

Protesters at a south Georgia college waved American flags Friday in support of a military veteran issued a criminal trespass warning in a flag flap last week.

Valdosta State University found itself mired in controversy when Air Force veteran Michelle Manhart took an American flag away from a group of student protesters trampling on it. The university fueled the furor when it sided with the students, saying they had a constitutional right to trample the flag in a protest over racism.

Manhart was among the participants in the 90-minute afternoon rally, which took place after Valdosta canceled classes.

The possibility of large numbers of people rallying on the outskirts of campus prompted the university to give students and staff the day off.

“That level of traffic and that many people will disrupt a lot of things in the city,” university spokesman Andy Clark said. “We’re, from an overall safety perspective, looking to close the campus down today so they can have a peaceful rally.”

Manhart said she took action to prevent the flag from being desecrated. Her confrontation with the students was caught on video and went viral.

The trespass warning against her bans her from all university activities, including graduation and football games. She is not a student.

Manhart, who once posed for Playboy, told Fox & Friends before the rally that she hopes the school lets her back on campus.

“I hope they lift the ban because I do support the college,” she said. “I always have and I will continue to support the college. And I hope that once things calm down maybe they’ll reconsider and lift that ban off of me.”

She said the students were wrong.

“To me it’s just a complete disrespect, to not only the men and women that are out there fighting for it but their freedom as a whole,” she said. “In my opinion they don’t have any respect for what they’ve been given and I just don’t think that’s right.”

Organizers of the “Flags Over Valdosta” rally said they expected as many as 4,000 people.

I have written a lot, over the last 5 years, about the Culture War going on in our country.

These two stories involve young “millennials”, and their Liberal enablers, showing disrespect for those who have fought for their American Freedom and the symbol of our country, the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.

These young people did not, all of the sudden, wake up one day, deciding to act like a bunch of horses’ arses.

There were convinced that it was, somehow, acceptable behavior to act in a disrespectful manner toward our veterans and our flag, components of a nation, which has supplied them with a cushy life.

These ungrateful little whelps, shielded from the vicissitudes of life by doting parents and the Nanny State Federal Government of Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), seemingly have no cotton-pickin’ clue as to the hardships which previous generations of Americans, including American Veterans suffered, so that they can spit on them and trample our flag, while recording their own stupidity on their IPhones.

The kids aren’t completely to blame.

Absent and indulgent parents have a lot to do with their disrespectful behavior.

Yesterday afternoon, I posted, on Facebook, a story from Former White House Spokesperson Dana Perino’s new book, in which President George W. Bush went to Walter Reed to reward a medal to a war hero, who was in a comatose condition. The young man opened his eyes, prompting the President to ask that the orders bestowing the medal on the young men, be read again, as he cradled the soldier’s head in his hands. The young man passed away 6 days later.

Most of those on Facebook reacted appropriately to that touching story.

However, there were some posters on one political page, who savaged the story, calling our Former President everything but a Child of God, completely oblivious, and not caring that they were, to all of the wonderful things he has done since he left office for our Brightest and Best.

I guess my point in writing today’s blog is…

If children are not taught respect for the things that matter, God and Country, they will not have any respect for anything, or anybody, else.

I want to leave you today with a question:

When did respect and patriotism become political?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

Majority Of Americans Feel We’re Heading In The Wrong Direction

ObamaTransparentBranco852014Here we are, a couple of weeks away from the 2014 Mid-Term Elections, in which voters will go to the polls to decide the future direction of our country.

The outcome of the Mid-Terms will most assuredly depend on how Americans feel about the present course which Obama’s Ship of State has us traveling on as a nation.

Breitbart.com reports that

A devastating new Politico poll reveals voters believe America has spun off its axis and is “out of control.” 

“An overwhelming majority of voters in the most competitive 2014 elections say it feels as if events in the United States are ‘out of control’ and expressed mounting alarm about terrorism, anxiety about Ebola and harsh skepticism of both political parties only three weeks before the Nov. 4 midterms,” reports Politico.

The poll, which surveyed states and districts in the most competitive congressional races, found that 64% of Americans believe “things in the U.S. feel like they are out of control right now.” 

Specifically, the poll found that 84% of voters believe the Islamic State (ISIS) represents a “serious” threat to America. Just 12% said ISIS terrorists do not pose a serious threat.

On the issue of Obamacare, the poll found that 57% of Americans believe their health care costs will increase, and just 7% believe that Obamacare will do as President Barack Obama claimed and reduce personal costs. 

Politico’s poll also found Obama slightly trailing former President George W. Bush on managerial effectiveness. When asked “Which President do you believe was more effective at managing the basic functions of the federal government?” 38% said George W. Bush, 35% said Obama, and 26% answered “both about the same.”

The Politico poll sample contained 36% Democrats, 36% Republicans, and 28% Independents.

Voters head to the polls in 15 days.

So, how are individual average Americans feeling about the present problems plaguing our nation?

According to wsj.com,

The only time the public has felt worse was in October 2008, during the first, deep spasms of the recession. Then, 78% said the nation was on the wrong track, and only 12% felt good about the country’s direction. The last time “right direction” beat out “wrong track” was in January 2004 — and the last election cycle where that was the case was 2002.

Why are people so gloomy? Well, it might just be everything,” says pollster Micah Roberts, sounding a bit like Eeyore himself. Mr. Roberts is vice president of Public Opinion Strategies, which along with Hart Research Associates conducted the poll. “We haven’t had a plurality saying ‘right track’ in over ten years so that’s pretty amazing. After 10 years it’s just part of the collective consciousness of Americans,” to think the nation’s gone off the rails, he added.

The most negative responses came when people were asked, “Tell me, what are the one or two reasons you feel things in the nation are (headed in the right direction/off on the wrong track)?”

A politically independent millennial from California had quite a few more than that on her list:  “Disease, economy. Like Ebola and economy as in people can’t really find jobs. I guess turmoil, like I can’t explain it. Senseless slayings, like in St. Louis downtown there’s like cops shooting people for no reason, public fighting, public riots, people fighting outside of Congress offices, and there’s still a sense of racism. I guess human trafficking. I noticed there was like weird public fires in San Diego. That’s all I can think of right now.”

As if that weren’t enough.

Even those who said they thought the nation was on the right track seemed to doom the future with faint praise.

Take this response from a Democrat, a middle-aged white woman living in the swing state of Pennsylvania: “People are not buying enough. I work for a company Neiman Marcus and we sell to the richie rich. Jobs are an issue. There are none to be had in this area. I believe free trade killed us. I believe it’s done that. I don’t know, there are things that are going in the right direction. This was not done by one President, meaning the damage. As far as I’m concerned, jobs are the most important. The healthcare, a lot of companies aren’t hiring because they have to pay the health insurance. The minimum wage is disgusting. People are not making a living on minimum wage. Anything under ten dollars an hour is not a wage. I believe the minimum wage should be raised.”

Or this, from an African-American Republican female, aged 55-plus, living in New York: “For one thing, we haven’t got wars going on, or fighting.” Or, from a young Republican man in California: “I definitely think the economy is picking up a little. I just left a bank job. So I’m aware of more of that than the Obama administration…That’s it.”

If things seem that bad among people who are happy with where the U.S. is headed, what about the rest?

Here’s a Democrat, a white, retirement-age woman from Iowa who said the nation is on the wrong track:  “The wars, the bombings, the terrorism and that, this Ebola thing, that’s not good. Social Security, is that enough. I guess I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Many among the 1,000 voters surveyed named Ebola as a concern. The poll was conducted during the second week in October–just after Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with Ebola, died Oct. 8, and a nurse who cared for him was diagnosed.

An astounding 98% had seen, read or heard something about the disease, and 70% had seen, read or heard “a lot” about it. Compare that with the General Motors recall of cars linked to at least 54 accidents and a dozen U.S. deaths: 75% of people surveyed by CNBC in June knew something about it, and 32% knew a lot.
Only slightly more than half of Americans, 56%, think the U.S. is prepared to handle an Ebola outbreak, according to the WSJ poll.

A disturbing 42% feel the nation isn’t prepared enough, or not at all. This Virginia woman is likely one of them: “The economy sucks, jobs suck, health-care sucks,” said the 30-something Democrat.

However, the absolute, chart-topping bogeyman for Americans was again Congress. Indeed, the poll’s overall negativity “is about Washington, about an economy that seems stuck and not improving –and of course Ebola, ISIS, endless wars,” Mr. Roberts said.

“Collectively, this is all a weight on the shoulders of the average American.”

Average Americans, those good-hearted people, living in America’s Heartland, know that something is wrong with our country, the country which the overwhelming majority of us were raised to pledge our allegiance to, and to thank God for the blessing of an American Birth.

During the almost 7 years of the Obama Presidency, those who were raised differently from the rest of us, have been in charged of steering this Ship of State…and, they have us headed straight toward the shoals of destruction.

The overwhelming majority of Americans have been raised by their parents and extended family to know the difference between right and wrong.

The Still Small Voice, which resides in each and every one of us, is positively shouting that our nation is headed in the wrong direction, being led that way by people who do not believe in American Exceptionalism, the unbridled potential of the individual, and individual responsibility.

During this Administration, they have experimented with introducing an amoral, self-indulgent, nanny-state, socialist-syle government, here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, a country which was founded on the principles of Liberty, Inalienable Rights, and Individual Accomplishment.

As the walking-out by the crowd at Obama’s campaign rally speech this weekend and the above articles solidly demonstrate, Americans have had enough of empty rhetoric and unfulfilled promises.

The Mid-Term Election promises to be a Political Tsunami of epic proportions.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Record Number of Americans Prepared to Vote “NO” on Obama in Mid-Terms

ObamaTransparentBranco852014Will your vote for a candidate be made in order to send a message that you SUPPORT [Barack Obama], be made in order to send a message that you OPPOSE [Barack Obama], or will you NOT be sending a message about [Barack Obama] with your vote?

Gallup.com recently asked that question of 1,095 registered voters in 50 states.

Gallup first asked this question in 1998, the year Republicans were moving toward impeaching President Bill Clinton for lying about his affair with a White House intern. That year, when Clinton’s approval rating was 63%, more voters said their choice of candidate in the fall election would be made to show support rather than opposition to Clinton. Democrats had a strong showing in that fall’s elections, gaining seats in the House of Representatives, bucking the historical pattern by which the president’s party loses seats in Congress in midterm elections.

In the next midterm election, voters by an even larger margin said their vote would be made to support rather than oppose President George W. Bush, who had a 66% approval rating at the time of the elections. These attitudes were consistent with the eventual outcome, as Republicans increased their majority in the House and gained majority control of the Senate.

The presidents in the next two midterm elections were not popular, including Bush’s second midterm election in 2006 (38%) when Democrats won control of the House and Senate and Obama’s first midterm in 2010 (44%) when Republicans won back control of the House. Reinforcing that the 2014 midterms look more like 2006 and 2010 than 1998 or 2002, Obama’s approval ratings have been in the low 40% range, including 42% in the most recent Gallup Daily tracking three-day rolling average.

As America’s Mid-Term Elections draw closer, the tone-deaf members of the Democratic Party are poised for the biggest political defeat in our nation’s history. They are saddled with an un-American President who is more intent on accomplishing the tenets of his Far Left, Marxist Ideology, than he is in dealing with the economic crisis and enemies, foreign and domestic, that besiege us. Their members are besotted by greed, power, and an overblown sense of self-entitlement, blindly following the wishes of their president and his Far Left base, instead of following the wishes of the majority of Americans.

However, some of them have begun to distance themselves from their fallen messiah.

The Boston Globe reports that

Alison Lundergan Grimes has campaigned with former president Bill Clinton and Senator Elizabeth Warren by her side. But the Democratic candidate for US Senate has not appeared with the leader of her own party, President Obama.

Instead, it almost seems as if Grimes is running against the president. She has run a recent television ad declaring “I’m not Barack Obama” as she shoots clay pigeons from the sky. Calling him out by name, she tells voters in her conservative state that “I disagree with him on guns, coal, and the EPA.”

Obama, whose celebrity once filled large arenas, has not appeared with a single House or Senate candidate at a campaign rally this year, according to a database maintained by CBS News.

Perhaps nowhere has the Obama-at-a-distance policy been on display as starkly as in Kentucky, where Grimes is trying to unseat the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.

On Thursday night, McConnell seemed ebullient as he appeared at a news conference with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the failed Republican 2012 candidate who has appeared with GOP candidates across the country, and tried to make the campaign a referendum on Obama.

“This race here in Kentucky and the races across the country are about Barack Obama’s agenda,” McConnell said at a Lexington horse farm.

Behind closed doors, Obama has been a key fund-raiser for his party, holding at least 10 private events for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year alone, as well as events for individual candidates and party committees, including a closed Illinois fund-raiser Thursday.

But on the campaign stage, Obama seems persona non grata. It is not unusual for candidates to try to distance themselves from an unpopular president or make him the issue. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton attended just a handful of public campaign events at this stage in their presidencies, with Bush ramping things up in the final weeks of his sixth year in office.

But the lengths to which Democratic candidates are going this year to avoid association with Obama has become one of the most striking themes of the 2014 elections. Grimes’s ad may be the bluntest presidential rejection, but she is hardly alone.

Democrats in key House races from Texas to Florida, and in close Senate races in Louisiana, Alaska, Arkansas, and West Virginia, have taken aim at the president, his policies, or both in ads.

Representative Pete Gallego, a Texas Democrat, ran an ad criticizing the GOP for the shutdown in which he also bragged that “I told the president ‘no’ to special treatment for Congress when he tried to exempt them from Obamacare.”

Romney narrowly carried Gallego’s district, a large swath of West Texas in which voters have turned out the incumbent three of the past four elections.

“Obama’s very unpopular. I don’t need a poll to tell me that,” Gallego said in an interview, adding that voters are disgusted with leaders of both political parties, and carried similar ill will toward Bush at the end of his tenure.

The most recent national Gallup Poll found only 42 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s performance. But it’s far lower in many of the states where Democrats and Republicans are fighting the hardest for control of the Senate. In Kentucky, just 31 percent of voters approve of Obama’s job performance, according to a September NBC News/Marist poll.

Consider the topics Democrats have to try to defend their president about:

  • The “not-a-war with ISIS” including his unabashed comment that, “We are not at war with Islam.”
  • The economy, featuring the indefensible fact that over 92,600,000 Americans have dropped out of our workforce.
  • The out-of-control Department of Education, featuring Common Core, and plans to teach sex education to pre-schoolers.
  • The VA Hospital Scandal, in which our Brightest and Best were given worse treatment than indigent Americans.
  • Obama’s use of the judiciary to overthrow the States’ anti-Gay Marriage votes.
  • His over-the-top reliance on class warfare and race-baiting divisive rhetoric.
  • His support and subsequent camouflage of the Mexican Munchkin Migration.
  • His promise to sign an Executive Order for Amnesty for illegal immigrants living in our Sovereign Nation.
  • His insistence that Ebola will never reach our shores.
  • And, finally, Obamacare.

Average Americans, living out here in the Heartland have had enough of Obama’s political shenanigans.

We’re ready to deliver some payback.

And, payback is a, well, you know…

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama, ISIS, and the Consequences of Trying to “Community Organize” the “Muslim World”

AFBrancoObamaElevator9142014Together with our partners, America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime.  But the only lasting solution to Syria’s civil war is political — an inclusive political transition that responds to the legitimate aspirations of all Syrian citizens, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of creed.

Cynics may argue that such an outcome can never come to pass.  But there is no other way for this madness to end — whether one year from now or ten.  And it points to the fact that it’s time for a broader negotiation in the region in which major powers address their differences directly, honestly, and peacefully across the table from one another, rather than through gun-wielding proxies.  I can promise you America will remain engaged in the region, – President Barack Hussein Obama, UN General Assembly, 9/24/2014

I  have noticed, that as we get older, we tend to handle everything that occurs in our lives, through “learned behavior”, as a result of our past last experiences.

President Obama is no exception to that rule.

From 1985 – 1988, Obama was a Community Organizer in Chicago.  What does a Community Organizer do?  I’m glad you asked.

Per Byron York in an article found at nationalreview.com:

Community organizing is most identified with the left-wing Chicago activist Saul Alinsky (1909-72), who pretty much defined the profession. In his classic book, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky wrote that a successful organizer should be “an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions.” Once such hostilities were “whipped up to a fighting pitch,” Alinsky continued, the organizer steered his group toward confrontation, in the form of picketing, demonstrating, and general hell-raising.

Obama was hired by Jerry Kellman, a New Yorker who had gotten into organizing in the 1960s.  Kellman was trying to help laid-off factory workers on the far South Side of Chicago, in a nearly 100% black community.   He led a group, the Calumet Community Religious Conference, that had been created by several local Catholic churches in the industrial community.   Kellman was advised to hire a black organizer for a new spinoff from CCRC.  They called it the Developing Communities Project, designed to focus solely on the Chicago part of the area.

One of Obama’s projects while he was there, was to try to build an alliance of white and black churches and enlist them in the cause of social justice.  Obama had a problem, though.   He didn’t go to church himself.   And that, brothers and sisters, is how Obama, drawn to the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (and a political opportunity), joined Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street.

If you ask Obama’s fellow Community Organizers what his most significant accomplishments were, they’ll say two things: the expansion of a city summer-job program for South Side teenagers and the removal of asbestos from one of the area’s oldest housing projects.   Those  were his biggest victories.

As Obama’s star rose in the Political Sky and in the dark and murky Backrooms of Chicago Politics, he used his learned behavior of Community Organizing to form his signature pattern of Political Leadership.

At every rung of the political career ladder upon which he climbed, one of his first acts was to “seek a consensus” and, as we say in the Business World, a “shared vision”.

Running for office as an Illinois Senator and, later, an US Senator, Obama relied on his community of supporters, which he had formed a consensus and had convinced that they shared a vision of their downtrodden present and a future rife with “Hope and Change”. It was this learned behavior of Community Organizing, which included a Call to Action, composed of  “taking down The Man” and “sharing the wealth” through “Hope and Change” (along with the backing of wealthy Far Left Liberals, such as George Soros and unidentified campaign funds from the Middle East), which propelled the “clean and articulate”(Joe Biden’s words, not mine) Barack Hussein Obama to be the Democrat Nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America, eventually winning the Election, and becoming the “Leader of the Free World.

The fact is, Obama believes that everything can be handled through “Community Organizing”.

If you remember, Obama was the first American Presidential Candidate to campaign for our Presidency, outside of our nation. All of the Main Stream Media fawned over his European campaigning as a brilliant move, while Americans were bumfuzzled at the media spectacle, trying to figure out why he would give campaign speeches to people who could not even vote for him.

Then, after he became President, one  of the first things Obama did was to go on a World Apology Tour,culminating with an “Address to the Muslim World at the University of Cairo, in which he lauded the contributions of Muslims to world civilization and to the history of the united States of America, even though the population of Muslims in America, was only around 1% at the time.

Yeah…our Revolutionary War Hero and First President of the United States of America, Mohammed Washington…that’s the ticket!

Since then, Obama has continued to “reach out” to the Muslim World in an attempt to “community Organize” them, even to the detriment of the country and its citizenry, which he is supposed to be protecting.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens remains unavailable for comment.

In his zeal to appease his American voting base, and hose whom he has worked so hard to “organize”, Obama pulled our troops out of the unstable, Radical Muslim nation of Iraq, in a “premature evacuation”.

Proudly announcing that “al Qaeda was on the run”, Scooter (my pet name for Obama) turned his attention to giving campaign speeches and rallying his Liberal Base, even though he was a President presiding over a tanking economy, with 92 million Americans already gone from our workforce.

Then, it happened.

ISIS/ISIL, a Radical Muslim Terrorist Organization, with over 32 thousand adherents, invaded Iraq, killing innocent Muslims and Christians, and threatening to flood Baghdad, by blowing up an essential dam on the Euphrates River.

Obama sprang into “Community Organizing” mode once again. He sent “military advisors” to Iraq, and sent Secretary of State John “I served in Vietnam” Kerry on a European and Middle Tour to trying to get a consensus to support our actions, and to try to form a coalition to assist in the “prosecution of ISIS/ISIL, in order for Obama to keep his promise to his Far Left Supporters that there would be “no boot son the ground” in Iraq.

Think of it as General Custer sending the Scouts first into Little Big Horn, while he sat on his horse, watching from a hill.

Yeah. The Europeans wanted no part of it, either.

However, some of the Middle Eastern Nations decided that they would join in, for their own self-protecting, mercenary reasons (Remember the Hessians in the Revolutionary War?).

Turkey, one of the largest nations in Obama’s coalition of “frenemies”, has not launched a single plane.

President Barack Hussein Obama’s International “Street Cred” has been tarnished beyond repair after the abysmal consequences, as regards the stability of the Middle East,of  his failed Foreign Policy of “Smart Power!”

The terrifying results of Obama’s attempt at “Community Organizing” the Muslim World including the lost of life of both innocent civilians and of America’s Brightest and best, which has dwarfed the war casualties which occurred under his predecessor, President George W. Bush, no have begun to arrived at our own shores, with Korans and prayer rugs being found at our open Southern Border and honor killings and attacks by Radical Muslims, labelled as “work place violence” by the Obama Administration.

It is time for Obama to stop being the world’s  “Community Organizer” and to perform his duties as the President of the United States.

Before it is too late.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama’s Coffee Cup Salute: Semper Latte, Praesidens Inflatus

Obamacoffeecupsalute9232014Just when you think that President Barack Hussein Obama cannot get any more pompous…and clueless…he surprises you.
The Washington Times reports that
President Obama returned a formal military salute by saluting with a coffee cup he had in his hand as he stepped off his U.S. Marine Corps helicopter in New York on Sunday.A video of the gesture that some are calling the “latte salute” was uploaded to the White House Instagram account.
 
“President Obama just landed in New York for #UNGA2014,” the caption reads.The salute is “the most important of all military courtesies,” says a manual, titled “Customs and Courtesies,” for Marine Corps officer candidates, The Daily Caller reported.

“In general, do not salute when… carrying articles with both hands or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impractical,” the manual says.

Mr. Obama did not appear to be carrying anything else in his hands when he made the unusual salute.
 
Reaction on social media was swift.

“Dear POTUS. Place cup in left hand and salute with the right. Please. You are embarrassing us,” one commenter said on the White House’s Instagram account.

Compare and Contrast…

bushwithtroopsFrom The Washington Times, 12/22/2008

For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.

Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.

On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip – with reporters in tow – to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving.

But the size and scope of Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s private endeavors to meet with wounded soliders and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.

“People say, ‘Why would you do that?’” the president said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Times on Friday. “And the answer is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in chief, as well. It is my duty to be – to try to comfort as best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish.”

Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching – balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin – that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.

“I lean on the Almighty and Laura,” Mr. Bush said in the interview. “She has been very reassuring, very calming.”

Mr. Bush also has met privately with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, according to White House spokesman Carlton Carroll. Many of those meetings were outside the presence of the news media at the White House or at private sessions during official travel stops, officials said.

In contrast, this administration seems to view America’s Fighting Men and Women as nothing more that lab rats to be apologized for and jacked around with.

Former United States Representative, Lt. Col. Allen B. West, posted the following observation yesterday:

If there was ever any doubt how this Commander in Chief really feels in his heart about our men and women in uniform, this should seal the deal. We have warriors engaged in harm’s way, and he does THIS? The latte salute. And he has the nerve to publish it on his Instagram account. Disgraceful.

Back in March of 2011, I reported the following…

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was taken after President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) and his Coalition of the Unwilling began bombing Libya, a mere 17 percent of Americans view our man Scooter as a strong and decisive military leader.   Almost half of those that responded think that Obama is a cautious and consultative commander-in-chief and more than a third label him as indecisive in military matters.

Gee, DiNozzo, ya think?

I remember my ex-brother-in-law, Dave. My late step-sister met him at the USO in Memphis during the Vietnam War. David was a Polish Catholic from outside of Detroit, a Navy guy who received his training in the computers of the day, while in service to our country. When he got out, they got married and moved to Dearborn (now Dearbornistan), Michigan, where he got a job with Burroughs. I remember Dave, because he was always good to me, even though I was just a runt kid, 15 years younger than him. I remember him cleaning his service rifle, sitting on the living room floor of our house, and, making sure it was empty, allowing me to to hold it. At the time,I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever done.

I also remember John. John was a friend of my sister’s, who stayed with us, because of problems at home. As I have related before, my folks were the ones whom all my sister’s friends would talk to when they had trouble at home. John was great guy, as well, who wound up enlisting and serving in that “crazy Asian War”, as Kenny Rogers and Mel Tillis once referred to it in song.

I have related before about my own Daddy and my Uncles, and their service in World War II. I have also had friends that served over the years, and one who is still serving in the Air National Guard.

All of these men were/are Patriots. They enlisted out of duty to God and Country.

Our Brightest and Best, who wear the uniform today, are no less dedicated. They deserve to be treated with respect, not as pawns in a game of political expediency, whose rules including social experimentation, political correctness, and blatant disrespect by the Commander-in-Chief..

How hard would it have been for Obama to hand off his coffee to one of those accompanying him to hold for him, getting it back after he gave a proper salute to those Marines?
It would have taken only a moment to show respect for those who willingly lay down their lives under his command.
It was Obama’s choice not to respect them.
And, it was a very revealing choice, indeed.
Until He Comes,
KJ

Obama Struggles to Find a Strategy With Which to “Defeat and Debase” a “Junior Varsity”

AFBrancoThe-Sword-9122014In an interview conducted by New Yorker Editor David Remick, back in January of this year, the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, said the following about a Muslim Terrorist Group, which he would later refer to as ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), and everyone else (except for the UN and some of Obama’s Minions in the Main Streat Media) would call ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham):

The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

As the Terrorist Organization grew in power and aggression, invading Iraq, Obama was pressed to recognize the threat, and proceeded to drop bombs on the Muslim Barbarians and spy on their activities using unmanned drones,resulting in retaliation, involving the beheading of two American Journalists, while they captured a strategic dam on the Euphrates River, threatening to blow it up and flood the region around Baghdad, killing tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Unfortunately, on August 29th, our skittish Commander-in-Chief reluctantly admitted that he did not have a clue as to what he was doing.

Fox News.com reported at the time, that,

President Obama is facing intense criticism for admitting Thursday “we don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with Islamic State militants in Syria, despite warnings from top military advisers and others that the group must be confronted on that side of the border. 

The president made the comment during a briefing with reporters in which he overtly played down the prospect of any imminent military action in Syria. He tried to temper speculation that he was about to roll out a “full scale” strategy, one that might expand the current, limited airstrike campaign in northern Iraq. 

“I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. We don’t have a strategy yet,” Obama said. 

As the White House later clarified, he was talking specifically about a military strategy for Syria. But Republican critics pointed out that the ISIS presence in Syria has been festering for a long time, and is only growing in strength. 

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the toughest critics in Congress of the administration’s Middle East policies, tweeted the president’s quote with a reminder: “#ISIS is largest, richest terrorist group in history & 192,000 dead in #Syria.” 

Karl Rove, Fox News analyst and former George W. Bush administration adviser, said he was “appalled” by the president’s comment. 

“He was warned about the role that ISIS was playing inside Syria, and he has had all that time to develop a strategy about what to do about ISIS in Syria and he still doesn’t,” Rove told Fox News. 

Finally, with public outcry and concern turned up to “11”, like Spinal Tap’s Guitar Amp (look them up, children), and his popularity at 38% and dropping, Obama suddenly came up with a strategy, which he would present to a worried nation last Tuesday evening.

Here are some excerpts from whitehouse.gov…

…In a region that has known so much bloodshed, these terrorists are unique in their brutality.  They execute captured prisoners.  They kill children.  They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage.  They threatened a religious minority with genocide.  And in acts of barbarism, they took the lives of two American journalists — Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.

So ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East — including American citizens, personnel and facilities.  If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States.  While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies.  Our Intelligence Community believes that thousands of foreigners -– including Europeans and some Americans –- have joined them in Syria and Iraq.  Trained and battle-hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.

…Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.

The, he got vaguely specific:

1. A systematic campaign of airstrikes against ISIL

Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense.  Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are.  That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.  This is a core principle of my presidency:  If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven. 

2. Increased support to forces fighting ISIL on the ground

In June, I deployed several hundred American servicemembers to Iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi security forces.  Now that those teams have completed their work –- and Iraq has formed a government –- we will send an additional 475 servicemembers to Iraq.  As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission –- we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.  But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.  We’ll also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL’s control.

Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition.  Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.  In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people — a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost.  Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all. 

3. Drawing on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks

Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into and out of the Middle East.  And in two weeks, I will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to further mobilize the international community around this effort.

4. Providing humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians displaced by ISIL

This includes Sunni and Shia Muslims who are at grave risk, as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities.  We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands. 

“This is our strategy,” the President said, adding that the United States has a “broad coalition of partners” joining us in this effort…

When ISIS started their invasions of Iraq, Liberals, in defense of Obama, blamed “Booosh!”, as he had originally set a timeline for our country’s military withdrawal from Iraq, which, for the sake of his own political advantage, Obama followed.

What all the apologists neglected to pay attention to, was the fact that President George W. Bush also warned what would happened if the next president suffered from “premature evacuation”.

Foxnews.com has the story…

A prophetic warning from then-President George W. Bush before he left office about what would happen if the U.S. withdrew troops from Iraq too soon is getting new attention in light of the Islamic State’s gains, as each of his predictions appears to be coming true.

Bush, as discussed on “The Kelly File,” made the remarks in the White House briefing room on July 12, 2007, as he argued against those who sought an immediate troop withdrawal.  

“To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States,” Bush cautioned.

He then ticked off a string of predictions about what would happen if the U.S. left too early.

“It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda.

“It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale.

“It would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan.  

“It would mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.”

Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen says all these predictions have come true.

“Every single thing that President Bush said there in that statement is happening today,” he told Fox News.

To Bush’s first warning, the Islamic State terror group is effectively the successor to Al Qaeda in Iraq – and they’ve overrun several major cities in Iraq’s north while claiming broad swaths of territory in Syria. Further, the group has been behind mass killings of Iraqi civilians as well as the recent execution by beheading of two American journalists.

The Obama administration has warned that the group’s violence threatens to approach genocide levels.

Though President Obama says combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, American troops are nevertheless returning in some capacity. The president on Wednesday announced an expanded airstrike campaign against the group in Iraq and Syria, and is sending hundreds more U.S. military personnel into Iraq.

Some lawmakers and analysts say this could have been avoided if the Obama administration had left a residual force in Iraq, or at least had responded sooner to ISIS’ gains in northern Iraq over the past year.

Bush, before he left office, signed an agreement setting the stage for U.S. troops to withdraw by December 2011.

Obama, though, was urged by military advisers to keep thousands of service members after that deadline to help the shaky Iraqi government. But when Washington and Baghdad were unable to reach a renewed agreement governing the presence of U.S. forces in the country, the Obama administration withdrew virtually all troops at the end of 2011.

“We needed to leave a stabilizing force behind, and we didn’t.  And of course, we know the rest is history,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Fox News.

It is “funny” how Liberals’ pomposity always comes back to bite them in the hindquarters, isn’t it?

But, I digress…

According to reports issues yesterday, ISIS Forces are increasing daily, now numbering over 31,000 Radical Muslims.

It is time for bold, decisive moves. Pussy-footing around with a “limited engagement”, which the administration is refusing to call a “war”, will lead us straight into another Vietnam.

And that, is something that this nation does not need to go through again.

Until He comes,

KJ

Obama: “Stop Just Hatin’ All The Time” (A KJ Op Ed…”Oh, Stewardess! I Speak Jive.”)

ObamahatingBranco812014It’s just your jive talkin’ you’re telling me lies, yeah
Jive talkin’ you wear a disguise
Jive talkin’ so misunderstood, yeah
Jive talkin’ you’re really no good – The Bee Gees, 1975

This past Thursday, at a Town Hall Meetin  filled to the brim with handpicked audience members, the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, in the face of his domestic and foreign policies failing and his presidential approval polls sinking more rapidly than the Titanic, decided to forgo the lofty rhetoric, which he usually delivers with the help of his trusty teleprompter, and revert back to the language of the streets. The language that he used during his job as a community organizer.

According to the Leader of the Free World, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, and the Most Powerful Man in the World, the reason that he is a colossal failure in this job is because everybody is hatin’ on him.

Say what?

Fo’ real.

It reminds me of one of my favorite movie scenes of all time…

Randy: Can I get you something?

Second Jive Dude: ‘S’mofo butter layin’ me to da’ BONE! Jackin’ me up… tight me!

Randy: I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

First Jive Dude: Cutty say ‘e can’t HANG!

Jive Lady (Barbara Billingsley aka “Mrs. June Cleaver”): Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.

Randy: Oh, good.

Jive Lady: He said that he’s in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.

Randy: All right. Would you tell him to just relax and I’ll be back as soon as I can with some medicine?

Jive Lady: [to the Second Jive Dude] Jus’ hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da rebound on da med side.

Second Jive Dude: What it is, big mama? My mama no raise no dummies. I dug her rap!

Jive Lady: Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don’ want no help, chump don’t GET da help!

First Jive Dude: Say ‘e can’t hang, say seven up!

Jive Lady: Jive-a@@ dude don’t got no brains anyhow! Sh****t.

Airplane, 1980

The President of the United States of America complained to his sycophants in attendance at the Town Hall Meeting that everybody was hatin’ on him.

Kinda reminds you of the old Coasters’ song, “Charlie Brown”, huh?

Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?

Poor little baby. Does it hurt and have a temperature?

Evidently, the present President of the United States of America has forgotten exactly how his predecessor, George W Bush, was treated by the opposition party and by the Main Stream Media, who have covered for Obama throughout his Presidency

Obama has been pampered and protected by the Main Stream Media for these past five and one-half years.  Not only that, he has had the Puppet Master, Billionaire George Soros, protecting him and running interference for him, as well as promoting his Adminustration’s propaganda on all of the Liberal Websites, such as mediamatters.org, which he funds.

Bush was vilified from the moment he took office, until he left. The only time that the Main Stream Media gave George W Bush any sort of break was on that horrible day of September 11th 2001, when 3,000 Americans were murdered by cowardly Muslim Terrorists. That cease-fire lasted around 24 hours.

During Bush’s presidency, there were pictures portraying him as a chimpanzee. Not only that, Comedy Central aired an animated series making fun of a sitting President, titled “Little Bush”.

What do you think the odds are of them running a series titled “Little Obama”?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

In fact, in my lifetime, since 1958, Obama is probably the least picked-on president we have ever had.

Even before he was elected President, after he gave the Keynote Speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was lauded and praised as the next big thing, a wunderkind who could do no wrong.

Then, after Obama won the nomination as the Democrats’ Presidential Candidate, the idol worship progressed from praises to idolatry. The Main Stream Media placed Obama on a pedestal as high as Mount Olympus, bestowing godlike properties upon him, a position which they hold him in to this day.

Hatin’? Are you kiddin’ me?

President Obama has hate confused with opposition.

While those who of us who oppose him,  professional politicians political pundits and average Americans like you and me, do not like his policies and are vocally upset with his leadership or lack thereof, 99.9% of us do not wish him any bodily harm.

If he was to pull a “180” and actually start to act like an American President,  much of the opposition, which he calls “hate”, would go away.

Of course, there’s about as much chance of that happening,  as there is of America – hating Russell Brand actually being funny one day.

Mr. President. you can’t expect average Americans to sit still and take it, when it is obvious that you want to “radically change” this nation into a Socialist Country, governed by a huge central government which controls every part of our daily lives, to the point where everyone is the same and American exceptionalism is neither encouraged nor rewarded.

If opposition to governmental tyranny is “hatin'”, then I’m a “Hater”… and so were our Founding Fathers.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Will Iraq Be Obama’s “Vietnam”?

ObamaIraq2“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” – George Santayana

January 1961 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledges support for “wars of national liberation” throughout the world. His statement greatly encourages Communists in North Vietnam to escalate their armed struggle to unify Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh.

January 20, 1961– John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th U.S. President and declares “…we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and the success of liberty.” Privately, outgoing President Eisenhower tells him “I think you’re going to have to send troops…” to Southeast Asia.

The youthful Kennedy administration is inexperienced in matters regarding Southeast Asia. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, 44-year-old Robert McNamara, along with civilian planners recruited from the academic community, will play a crucial role in deciding White House strategy for Vietnam over the next several years. Under their leadership, the United States will wage a limited war to force a political settlement.
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However, the U.S. will be opposed by an enemy dedicated to total military victory “…whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle…until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified,” as stated by Ho Chi Minh.

May 1961 – Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visits President Diem in South Vietnam and hails the embattled leader as the ‘Winston Churchill of Asia.’

May 1961 – President Kennedy sends 400 American Green Beret ‘Special Advisors’ to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers in methods of ‘counter-insurgency’ in the fight against Viet Cong guerrillas.

The role of the Green Berets soon expands to include the establishment of Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) made up of fierce mountain men known as the Montagnards. These groups establish a series of fortified camps strung out along the mountains to thwart infiltration by North Vietnamese.

Total number of U.S. soldiers deployed to Vietnam: 536,100: Total number of U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War : 58,220.

June 19, 2014, 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., White House Briefing Room, courtesy, whitehouse.gov.

Good afternoon, everybody. I just met with my national security team to discuss the situation in Iraq. We’ve been meeting regularly to review the situation since ISIL, a terrorist organization that operates in Iraq and Syria, made advances inside of Iraq. As I said last week, ISIL poses a threat to the Iraqi people, to the region, and to U.S. interests. So today I wanted to provide you an update on how we’re responding to the situation.

First, we are working to secure our embassy and personnel operating inside of Iraq. As President, I have no greater priority than the safety of our men and women serving overseas. So I’ve taken some steps to relocate some of our embassy personnel, and we’ve sent reinforcements to better secure our facilities.

Second, at my direction, we have significantly increased our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets so that we’ve got a better picture of what’s taking place inside of Iraq. And this will give us a greater understanding of what ISIL is doing, where it’s located, and how we might support efforts to counter this threat.

Third, the United States will continue to increase our support to Iraqi security forces. We’re prepared to create joint operation centers in Baghdad and northern Iraq to share intelligence and coordinate planning to confront the terrorist threat of ISIL. Through our new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund, we’re prepared to work with Congress to provide additional equipment. We have had advisors in Iraq through our embassy, and we’re prepared to send a small number of additional American military advisors — up to 300 — to assess how we can best train, advise, and support Iraqi security forces going forward.

American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq, but we will help Iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the Iraqi people, the region, and American interests as well.

Fourth, in recent days, we’ve positioned additional U.S. military assets in the region. Because of our increased intelligence resources, we’re developing more information about potential targets associated with ISIL. And going forward, we will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action, if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it. If we do, I will consult closely with Congress and leaders in Iraq and in the region.

I want to emphasize, though, that the best and most effective response to a threat like ISIL will ultimately involve partnerships where local forces, like Iraqis, take the lead.

Deja vu…all over again.

Have you ever said or done something that embarrasses you to this very day, if you are unfortunate enough to think about it?

Given Obama’s narcissism, I doubt anything that he has ever said or done bothers him at all.  But, this should…

whitehouse.gov, 10/21/2011

Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq — tens of thousands of them — will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier[s] will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.

I remember when Obama was announcing that we had left Iraq. If he had been wearing a vest, the buttons would have been popping off, as he spoke. Sho’ ’nuff, “The Lightbringer” had fulfilled his promise to his fellow travelers and withdrawn all American Forces out of Iraq, leaving only the bureaucrats in the American Embassy there, to babysit a fundamentalist Islamic country, made up of Sunnis and Shiites, who had been warring among themselves for centuries, and, were now, trying to figure out how to make things work in a brand spanking new form of government, which they had never tried before: a democracy.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Obama got us out alright, blindly following a proposed schedule which President Bush had created years before, not taking into account the actual situation “on the ground”,  “in country”.

As we found out in Vietnam, wars are best prosecuted in the Theater of War by our Military Leaders, NOT IN WASHINGTON, D.C. BY CLUELESS POLITICIANS.

Liberals like the President, trumpet their horns as “the smartest people in the room” over and over again, only to find out, the hard way, that they overestimated their own intelligence.

Remember “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?”

If this escalates into another Vietnam, we will pay for his vanity with American lives…and that cost will be way too high.

“The best laid plans of mice and men oft-times go awry.”

Especially premature evacuations.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

“Darth” Cheney Discusses “President Pantywaist’s” “Premature Evacuation” Problem

ObamaIraq 61714

Before we hear from the man who causes Liberals to shriek in anger and have to change their shorts, all at the same time, let’s find out how we wound up with the present situation in Iraq.

Take it away, Mr. President…

I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. – President Barack Hussein Obama, “A New Beginning”, (A Speech to the Muslim World), The University of Cairo, 6/4/09

So today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over. – President Barack Hussein Obama, 10/21/11

Yesterday, I convened a meeting with my National Security Council to discuss the situation there, and this morning I received an update from my team. Over the last several days, we’ve seen significant gains made by ISIL, a terrorist organization that operates in both Iraq and in Syria. In the face of a terrorist offensive, Iraqi security forces have proven unable to defend a number of cities, which has allowed the terrorists to overrun a part of Iraq’s territory. And this poses a danger to Iraq and its people. And given the nature of these terrorists, it could pose a threat eventually to American interests as well. President Barack Hussein Obama, South Lawn of the White House, 6/13/14

June 16, 2014

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Starting on June 15, 2014, up to approximately 275 U.S. Armed Forces personnel are deploying to Iraq to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. This force is deploying for the purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and property, if necessary, and is equipped for combat. This force will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed.

This action has been directed consistent with my responsibility to protect U.S. citizens both at home and abroad, and in furtherance of U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.

I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148). I appreciate the support of the Congress in these actions.

Sincerely,

BARACK OBAMA

The following excerpt is from an article published yesterday, 6/17/14, in the Wall Street Journal, written By Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz.

Dick Cheney was U.S. vice president from 2001-09. Ms. Cheney was the deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs from 2002-04 and 2005-06.

As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama’s past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. “If a J.V. team puts on Lakers’ uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant” (January 2014). “[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated” (August 2013). “So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding” (September 2011).

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is “ending” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America’s enemies are not “decimated.” They are emboldened and on the march.

The fall of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul and Tel Afar, and the establishment of terrorist safe havens across a large swath of the Arab world, present a strategic threat to the security of the United States. Mr. Obama’s actions—before and after ISIS’s recent advances in Iraq—have the effect of increasing that threat.

…The tragedy unfolding in Iraq today is only part of the story. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent across the globe. According to a recent Rand study, between 2010 and 2013, there was a 58% increase in the number of Salafi-jihadist terror groups around the world. During that same period, the number of terrorists doubled.

In the face of this threat, Mr. Obama is busy ushering America’s adversaries into positions of power in the Middle East. First it was the Russians in Syria. Now, in a move that defies credulity, he toys with the idea of ushering Iran into Iraq. Only a fool would believe American policy in Iraq should be ceded to Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.

This president is willfully blind to the impact of his policies. Despite the threat to America unfolding across the Middle East, aided by his abandonment of Iraq, he has announced he intends to follow the same policy in Afghanistan.

Despite clear evidence of the dire need for American leadership around the world, the desperation of our allies and the glee of our enemies, President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch. Indeed, the speed of the terrorists’ takeover of territory in Iraq has been matched only by the speed of American decline on his watch.

…It is time the president and his allies faced some hard truths: America remains at war, and withdrawing troops from the field of battle while our enemies stay in the fight does not “end” wars. Weakness and retreat are provocative. U.S. withdrawal from the world is disastrous and puts our own security at risk.

Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent and they present a security threat not seen since the Cold War. Defeating them will require a strategy—not a fantasy. It will require sustained difficult military, intelligence and diplomatic efforts—not empty misleading rhetoric. It will require rebuilding America’s military capacity—reversing the Obama policies that have weakened our armed forces and reduced our ability to influence events around the world.

American freedom will not be secured by empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies, or apologizing for our great nation—all hallmarks to date of the Obama doctrine. Our security, and the security of our friends around the world, can only be guaranteed with a fundamental reversal of the policies of the past six years.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan said, “If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.” President Obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom.

On June 17, 1982, President Ronald Wilson Reagan spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Special Session Devoted to Disarmament. His closing paragraph reaches to us today, across the decades…

Agreements on arms control and disarmament can be useful in reinforcing peace; but they’re not magic. We should not confuse the signing of agreements with the solving of problems. Simply collecting agreements will not bring peace. Agreements genuinely reinforce peace only when they are kept. Otherwise we’re building a paper castle that will be blown away by the winds of war.

In Obama’s case, it was a mosque built on the shifting sands of Iraq.

Until He Comes,

KJ