No, America doesn’t have one.
Sure are a lot of Christophobes out there.
Category Archives: War Commentary
Obama And Syria
No, calling people names from overseas won’t distract from what a huge mess (with Hillary’s help) you’ve created.
Ron Fournier (a slow learner) has thrown in the towel on him:
Klain didn’t say this but I will: On ISIS, Obama breaks every rule. He minimizes the threat and dismisses our fears, which raises doubts about his candor and capability. An overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of ISIS, a new poll shows, and 81 percent think ISIS will strike the United States.
In July 2013, six months into his second term, I wrote a column that questioned whether Obama would fulfill his enormous potential, whether he even cared anymore about his promises to change Washington, whether he could write the modern rules of the presidency and build a new bully pulpit. I asked, “What if Obama can’t lead?”
I now have my answer.
The answer was pretty visible eight years ago, really, to those less blinded by the supposed charisma, and the fantasy “potential.”
And it’s obvious from his demeanor whom Obama considers the enemy. It’s not in the Middle East.
[Update a while later]
First link was wrong but fixed now. Sorry!
Brussels
The present of “the city of white sepulchres” present is the future of the West, if we continue to allow it:
Brussels’ failures are emblematic of Europe’s failings. The city that hopes to govern a post-national Europe has been made impotent by the petty jealousies and nasty rivalries of two ethnic groups barely large enough to qualify as tribes in much of the world. Brussels is in some ways a satire of the European project: committed to transnational goals, hobbled by unresolved ethnic spats. A city dedicated to universal secular human values is now threatened by fanatical death cults that have grown up in its miserable, insecure slums.
The West as a whole these days is cursed by moral grandiosity and failing performance. Our self-esteem has seldom been more robust, or our performance more pitiable. We busy ourselves with what we think is the last unfinished work of implementing universal egalitarianism, by for example tending to high school students who identify with a gender other than that into which they were born, ensuring that they can use the restrooms toward which their aspirations lead them. We see ourselves as courageous warriors even as the foundations of our world are beginning to crack. We claim that tolerance and diversity are the touchstones of our civilization, and have raised a generation of weaklings who cannot bear to be exposed to unorthodox ideas or to the bustle and collisions that life in a diverse society inevitably brings. To cite another of Jesus’ condemnations of hypocrisy, we ‘tithe mint and dill and cumin, and neglect the weightier matters of the law.’ That is, we busy ourselves obsessively over small bore issues, and ignore the graver challenges that face us on every side.
Because reality is too harsh.
[Afternoon update]
Related: When will our “leaders” own up to the fact that the EU is a giant scam?
I think that ISIS has fatally exposed it.
The Jews Of Nazi Germany
The latest leftist trope is that the public reaction to them at the time was the same as it is for the “harmless” Syrian refugees now. The only problem with that is that (unexpectedly!) the comparison doesn’t hold up.
ISIS Wants An Apocalypse
So why not give them one?
Need I explain further? Send enough US led troops to liberate Dabiq, then hold it against what should be the inevitable ISIS counterattacks. Hey, they want to die there and we want to kill them, so this is what we call a win-win. A battle over limited real estate will surely be easier to manage than Obama’s hypothetical liberation of all of ISIS-occupied Syria and Iraq.
And if this does not draw them into the long-awaited apocalypse, well, we were planning (last summer, at least) to sweep that zone and make it a haven anyway. Where is the downside? Rhetorical question, I know Obama will find one.
In light of all the discussion on Twitter about “what ISIS wants” and that we’re giving it to them by attacking them, this is quite amusing:
It’s like a bad Monty Python sketch:
“We did this because our holy texts exhort us to to do it.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Wait, what? Yes we did…”
“No, this has nothing to do with religion. You guys are just using religion as a front for social and geopolitical reasons.”
“WHAT!? Did you even read our official statement? We give explicit Quranic justification. This is jihad, a holy crusade against pagans, blasphemers, and disbelievers.”
“No, this is definitely not a Muslim thing. You guys are not true Muslims, and you defame a great religion by saying so.”
“Huh!? Who are you to tell us we’re not true Muslims!? Islam is literally at the core of everything we do, and we have implemented the truest most literal and honest interpretation of its founding texts. It is our very reason for being.”
“Nope. We created you. We installed a social and economic system that alienates and disenfranchises you, and that’s why you did this. We’re sorry.”
“What? Why are you apologizing? We just slaughtered you mercilessly in the streets. We targeted unwitting civilians – disenfranchisement doesn’t even enter into it!”
“Listen, it’s our fault. We don’t blame you for feeling unwelcome and lashing out.”
“Seriously, stop taking credit for this! We worked really hard to pull this off, and we’re not going to let you take it away from us.”
“No, we nourished your extremism. We accept full blame.”
“OMG, how many people do we have to kill around here to finally get our message across?”
I think you have to start by killing the idiots.
[Update a few minutes later]
If you like your Islam, you can keep your Islam:
[Obama’s] not a Muslim himself. He claims to be a Christian (in the Reverend Wright tradition) and is actually a post-modern agnostic who almost never goes to church, except for political purposes. But he is a Muslim by emotion, by childhood attachment to his days in an Indonesian madrassa when his father, and later his mother, abandoned him. The morning cry of the muezzin, he has told us, is the most moving sound on Earth to him. It undoubtedly reassured him.
Unfortunately, what soothed Barack as a youth turns out to be a death scream of Seventh Century tribalism for the rest of us. He can’t countenance that, so he has to disconnect the carnage of ISIS, etc. from the ideology that drives it. It can’t be that the Islamic State is Islamic. That would mean there is something wrong with him. But it is. Indeed it is an orthodox form of Islam with roots going back to the Medina Koran.
Most Muslims know this (and Obama undoubtedly knows it too on some level); so when these Muslims hear the president deny that ISIS is Islamic, they know he is lying and dismiss what he is saying. He isn’t fooling anybody except his liberal/progressive clientele at home. It’s a form of taqiyya for local consumption — permissible lying in defense of the faith — one he doesn’t actually believe, but identifies with.
As I’ve often said, Obama can’t be a Muslim (or a Christian) because that requires believing in something higher than yourself.
France’s “Merciless” Response To ISIS
Michael Totten writes that it’s anything but.
Mocking Concerns Over Syrian Refugees
When Kevin Drum says it makes leftists look out of touch with normal Americans, you should listen.
Given its history of incompetence and ideology, concerns about this administration properly vetting refugees are totally legitimate.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) November 17, 2015
In The Wake Of Paris
Look for these nine aftershocks.
Listening to Obama right now is nauseating. I love how he continues to babble and repeat the same nonsense in response to incredulous questions from the press as though they’re the idiots.
“ISIS isn’t a state, they’re killers.”
I know it’s hard for such a dyed–in-the-wool statist as Obama to imagine, but it’s entirely possible for an entity to be both a state and “killer.” Just ask Hitler. Or Stalin. Or Mao. Or Pol Pot. In fact, historically, the most efficient human abattoirs have been states.
Seriously, what is it that makes ISIS not a state? It controls territory, it has a government, it has resources, it has an army. All it lacks is UN recognition and only fools think that’s of any consequence. It wants to be treated like a state, fine. If Westphalia still means anything, declare war on it in response to these ongoing acts of war, and don’t stop until it unconditionally surrenders.
Paris
My immediate hot take:
In general, it’s wise to say “We don’t know who did this or why and we shouldn’t speculate until we get all the facts.” In this case we know exactly who did it, and why. The French won’t be talking nonsense about “violent extremism.”
The (obviously) racist French have closed the borders. They are going to (GASP!) profile, to determine who can leave the country. For example, white (and probably many black) Americans will be allowed to leave. Adult male Algerians and Moroccans (and Syrians, to the degree that they’ve been invading recently) not so much.
This was an act of war, and I expect France to treat it as such. Unfortunately, with the apparent collapse of Westphalia, it won’t be obvious who to punish for it, but if ISIS takes “credit” for it, expect them to get a pounding in Syria and Iraq, Russians or no. And unlike us or Israel, the French know they will be immune from charges of “war crimes.”[Update a few minutes later]
#ProTip The French declaration of a state of emergency effectively suspends civil liberties.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Call me nuts, but I’m guessing that France, and Europe in general, is going to be tightening its Syrian-refugee policy as a result of this.
[Saturday-morning update]
Great timing, Barack: “We have contained [ISIS].” An asshat extraordinaire.
Also, oopsie, more bad timing: Al Gore in Paris this weekend for a summit on the “greatest challenge facing us,” too much plant food in the atmosphere.
Roger Simon: Why Paris happened. Yes, there don’t appear to be any world leaders today, least of all Barack Obama.
Mark Steyn: “The barbarians are inside, and there are no gates.”
And from Richard Fernandez: A Europe with no borders has taken a body blow:
It’s significant that the attacks occurred during a period of heightened alert associated with big soccer matches. French president Hollande himself was watching a game when he had to be unceremoniously shuttled to the safety of a government building. That suggests that French security forces and intelligence were genuinely surprised by the attack and therefore there exist terror networks they don’t know about capable of large-scale operations. Scotland Yard and MI5 must realize this and will inevitably be burning the midnight oil tonight.
DHS should be doing the same thing.
[Afternoon update]
Claire Berlinski checks in from Paris.
Stoned In Sweden
No, not pot. With real stones, in a no-go zone (which, remember, don’t exist, in Sweden, UK or anywhere).
I think if this Syrian invasion of Europe continues, the Muslims are going to discover the limits of European tolerance.