Barack Obama's Incredible Vacation Wars
By Daniel Greenfield
SultanKnish.Blogspot.com
Obama has a way of starting wars
while on vacation.
During the Libyan War, Obama
declared from Martha’s Vineyard that, "Tonight, the
momentum against the Gaddafi regime has reached a
tipping point."
Then he went to play golf and accompanied Valerie
Jarrett on a visit to the home of the CEO of
Comcast.
It was August and the Libyan War had been going on
for months. NATO planes were conducting hundreds of
sorties. But their commander was on vacation.
That was only fitting since Obama had begun the
Libyan War while hanging out in sunnier climes.
His ponderous announcement, “Today I authorized the
Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited
military action in Libya” may have had an American
flag in the background as stage dressing, but it was
actually delivered from a Brazilian convention
center.
Obama’s war announcement was made on the first day
of his Latin American trip as if he had either made
the decision to bomb Libya at the very last minute
or he didn’t care enough to postpone a foreign trip
for a day to be able to make the announcement from
the White House.
The Egyptian military seemed to have picked up on
Obama’s priorities when it decided crack down on his
Muslim Brotherhood allies while the great man was
vacationing in August at Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama had headed off on his vacation even though
Egypt was burning. As the New York Times put it,
“Mr. Obama was briefed on the situation by his
national security adviser, Susan E. Rice. But he
appeared determined not to allow events in Egypt to
interrupt a day that, besides golf, included
cocktails at the home of a major political donor,
Brian Roberts.”
Brian Roberts is the aforementioned CEO of Comcast.
By the time Obama could tear himself away from golf
and his Comcast sugar daddy, hundreds were dead and
it was all over but the shouting.
This August, Obama at least had the good grace to
announce belated air strikes against ISIS from
Washington D.C. before flying off to Martha’s
Vineyard for yet another vacation.
Vacations have become the framework for Obama’s
wars. As soon as he goes to war, he gets as far away
from the White House as he can and heads in the
direction of the biggest beach he can find.
These vacation wars only add to
the sense of unseriousness surrounding his military
efforts. Obama’s wars begin with an announcement
that he is “weighing” or “considering” his options.
This is a process that can, as in the case of Syria,
continue indefinitely.
It’s entirely possible that while vacationing at
Martha’s Vineyard in August 2015, Obama will
suddenly put down his slice of blueberry cake at the
Beach Plum Restaurant and startle the CEO of Comcast
along with other patrons by announcing that we begin
bombing Damascus in 5 minutes.
Congress and the public are left out of the loop in
these weighty deliberations which seem to consist of
Obama holing up with Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett and
a bunch of Washington Post and New York Times
editorials to decide whom he should bomb and whether
he should bomb anyone at all.
Meanwhile his targets have had months and sometimes
years to prepare for being bombed.
George W. Bush was accused of being an irresponsible
cowboy, but it’s Obama who seems to go to war on a
whim.
Obama was talked into bombing Libya by Hillary
Clinton, but she couldn’t talk him into bombing
Syria. He dithered endlessly over Afghanistan,
sending mixed signals and replacing generals. In
Iraq, he proved every bit as indecisive when it came
to extending the presence of US forces. Each time he
committed to a war, it was only after prolonged
dithering and for unserious reasons.
Why did Obama finally decide to begin bombing ISIS?
The New York Times quoted a senior administration
official as saying that he was worried about the
political impact of another Benghazi.
That’s not leadership, but it’s also nothing new
from a politician who came up with ObamaCare out of
a last minute need to have something to show off for
progressives. Whether it’s gay marriage or illegal
alien amnesty, Obama has a track record of suddenly
committing to a culture war after years of pressure
out of fear that if he doesn’t do something,
everyone will realize that he has no idea what he’s
doing.
His wars follow the same pattern.
Obama rarely goes to war on his own initiative.
Instead after he gets hit with enough criticism from
the Washington Post and the New York Times, he
finally signs off on air strikes against someone.
Once the air strikes begin, the enemy discovers that
Obama likes the idea of minimal force. Kerry
promised that the air strikes on Syria would be
“unbelievably small” in response to Assad’s
violation of Obama’s WMD red line. But if your air
strikes are going to be unbelievably small, why even
bother?
Bill Clinton also had a penchant for useless
unbelievably small strikes that accomplished
nothing. These strikes didn’t stop Osama bin Laden,
Saddam Hussein or Al Qaeda because Bill Clinton, as
he admitted on the day before the September 11
attacks, was too worried about collateral damage.
The collateral damage from Clinton’s failure to take
out Osama bin Laden however ended up being thousands
of American lives and countless numbers of Afghans.
Now Obama is launching his unbelievably small
strikes against ISIS’ borrowed armor while
neglecting targeted strikes against its leaders. The
Pentagon has already admitted that the air strikes
will not have a significant impact on ISIS, possibly
preventing it from advancing further, but without
rolling it back.
In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, Obama gave
the impression that he wanted to keep his distance
from any war even while risking American lives.
Going away right before a war is one of his ways of
avoiding any association with the conflict.
Obama will show up for the victory dance when the
war is over, but if things change then he just as
quickly disavows his part in the war.
Or even in the ending of a war.
After building his 2008 campaign
around pulling out of Iraq and his 2012 campaign
around patting himself on the back for eventually
doing it, Obama has now shifted over to blaming Bush
for his own withdrawal from Iraq. If Obama can’t
even take credit for his signature anti-war policy
once it becomes even a little bit controversial,
it’s obvious that he will do anything to avoid being
held accountable for the pursuit of an actual war.
That is the mindset from which “unbelievably small”
air strikes and vacation wars come from.
Obama’s failure to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda in
Iraq after the withdrawal allowed ISIS to regroup
and emerge at the head of a Sunni coalition. Obama
claimed that Al Qaeda in Iraq, despite having killed
countless American soldiers over the years, was just
a JV team. And so he left ISIS free to operate until
it was actually a day away from committing genocide.
Then the air strikes and the vacation began.
If ISIS is beaten, then Obama will cheerfully come
back from vacation to take credit for it. His
perpetual campaign will issue commemorate mugs and
shirts. If ISIS isn’t beaten, it will turn out that
Bush snuck into the White House and ordered air
strikes on ISIS while Obama was golfing at Martha’s
Vineyard.