I keep wondering what it must have been like to be a young student at West Point listening to their Commander in Chief’s platitudes and ignorance wash over them. West Point is where our nation’s future leaders in war receive an education in how to protect the nation by crushing our enemies, if Presidents and Congress will let them.
Unfortunately for them, this President seems to think that climate change is the nation’s biggest enemy and that a loose coalition of Islamic fanatics is the other. There was no talk of an increasingly aggressive China, a Russia that seized Crimea and would like a chunk of the Ukraine, or an Iran that got out from under some strong financial sanctions and will continue to build its own nuclear weapons no matter what Obama and other negotiators may want.
Meanwhile, the Egyptians have decided they would prefer a military dictator again as their president instead of a leader from the Muslim Brotherhood. Such choices are endemic to the Middle East. Real democracy is rare there. In Syria its dictator, Bashar al Assad, is still in power when, it could be argued, a few hours spent bombing his air force and other military facilities might have cost him his job and saved over 160,000 lives. So now Obama is reluctantly arming his opposition, some of whom could end up being as oppressive as al Assad.
The highlight of Obama’s speech was his announcement that the U.S. would be out of Afghanistan by 2016 except for a small force to train its military. Here’s what I had to say about Afghanistan in November 2009, a few months into Obama’s first term:
“If you look back, you discover that the former Soviet Union had 100,000 troops there and spent ten years in Afghanistan…one day in 1989 they just packed up and went home to Russia. Shortly thereafter the Berlin Wall fell, followed by the entire Soviet government in 1991.” And Afghanistan was deemed by Obama to be a “war of necessity.” Americans in 2009 would have been happy to depart, having been there for eight years with nothing to show for it.
.
I always wondered why we went into Afghanistan when even the Ruskies had a decade full of problems whipping their smelly asses. I guess sneaky deals didn’t work back then either.
This is Obama’s reality.
This crap gave me goosebumps. Just listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYZKnvlSdGU
Existential crises are much more preferable to real ones. The goalposts are subjective and often mobile.
Nice write Cardigan, but I beg to differ on having 160,000 lives saved. If Assad goes down, the slaughter will be greater, just different folks. He has no choice, Alawites being in the Moslem minority in Syria.
Of course, they all enjoy killing and humiliating Christians. If there were Buddhists or Hindus there, the same fate would befall them.
That being said, the President’s speech was pathetic, unworthy of the venue, and the cadets let him know it. I noticed the upper classmen only clapping, and only lightly.
So the nation in 2009 wanted to pack up and leave Afganistan because we’ve been there 8 years with nothing to show for it.
Hopefully many dems will pack up and leave the dem party. After all, they have 6 years of the messiah Barry 0 and have nothing to show for it.
Perhaps 0bama will pack up and leave the white house. After all, he’s been there 6 years and has nothing to show for it.