Friday, April 27, 2012

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

Frankly I don't see the President as a great military tactician. I don't see him as a grand strategist either. He's a lot more Machiavelli than Sun-Tzu or Von Clauswitz. The closest he's come to the military is a neato leather jacket with his name on it when he rides around in the big jet. But, as Harry Truman so eloquently advised us, "the buck stops in or around my office if my press secretary can't deflect it or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has the weekend off."

But this is a bit over the top:

Bamster Acted Where Mittens Wouldn't

That is a bit disingenuous to say the least. Can Obama take credit for authorizing the DevGru raid that got Osama? Sure! That level of action is going to have presidential awareness and approval.

Was Romney right in his comments in '07?
"It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."
Yes again. The focus on a single individual was never reasonable except in the minds of the media. Wars, whether international conflicts or clashes of civilizations are not dependent upon a single person. Bin Laden was symbolic, but not pivotal. The post 9/11 reaction of the Bush administration in Afghanistan drove Bin Laden to ground and the following campaign slowly emasculated the al-Qaeda network. Killing Osama Bin Laden would have certainly been satisfying at any point, but focusing of our resources on simply finding the individual would not have been productive.

That does not equate with making a decision when intelligence offers a high probability of  locating the target. With Bin Laden located even Jimmy Carter would have found testicular residuals to approve the raid.

If we want to talk about decisive military action maybe we should be looking at "leading from behind" in Libya. Or possibly the waffling as thousands die in Syria. Could we take a glance at policy in Iran as Israel twirls slowly in the wind? Should we point at keeping a leash on the 25-year-old kid with a nuclear toy in North Korea?

Veep Biden told us yesterday that the Bamster's got a big stick. Apparently Joe forgot the other part of Teddy Roosevelt's advice, "speak softly." It's the application of the stick, not the blustering about it, Joe.

2 comments:

hitman said...

Those people really do think we're stupid and have extremely short memories. Of all the talking heads they could get, they use Bill Clinton. Too bad he forgot to mention that he didn't have Bin Laden killed when he had the chance because the Monica Lewinski scandal was going on and he was afraid of more bad press in case something went wrong with killing Bin laden. WOW!

an Donalbane said...

even Jimmy Carter would have found testicular...


Jimmy Carter?
The Jimmy Carter?
Mr. Peanut?
Brother of Billy?
The same Jimmy Carter who couldn't kill a rabbit?