The Uncertain Trumpeters

Johnny Waffles rallies our allies to, well, something or other:

Kerry: ISIS not a 'war'

Kerry said the administration's plan to combat ISIS includes "many different things that one doesn't think of normally in context of war" during an interview with CNN.

"What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counterterrorism operation," Kerry said. "It's going to go on for some period of time. If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it's a major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts."

In a separate interview with CBS News, Kerry also rejected the word "war" to describe the U.S. effort and encouraged the public not to "get into war fever" over the conflict.

"We're engaged in a major counterterrorism operation, and it's going to be a long-term counterterrorism operation. I think war is the wrong terminology and analogy but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity," Kerry told the network.

"I don't think people need to get into war fever on this. I think they have to view it as a heightened level of counterterrorist activity ... but it's not dissimilar similar to what we've been doing the last few years with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and in Yemen and elsewhere," he added.

"Not dissimilar" to ther drone wars in Yemen and Somalia - even the Times choked on that; from Peter Baker:

In his speech, Mr. Obama tried to equate the emerging strategy to the way he has pursued terrorist cells in Yemen and Somalia. Aides said that by working with local forces on the ground and targeting leaders from the air, the United States had been able to damage extremist groups without occupying territory or engaging in costly nation building, although some former officials like Mr. Pavel noted that terrorist groups remained in both countries.

But what Mr. Obama has in mind for Iraq and Syria goes beyond that approach. By some counts, the United States under Mr. Obama has conducted a dozen or so lethal strikes in Somalia in recent years and about 100 in Yemen. Even at the height of the drone war in Pakistan, Americans conducted fewer than 120 strikes in a single year, 2010, and were down to seven so far this year, according to the Long War Journal.

By contrast, the air campaign against ISIS that Mr. Obama ordered in Iraq has involved 154 strikes in the course of a month — far fewer than necessary in the view of some hawks, but far more than the occasional attacks on satellite terror groups in Africa and Arabia. And that was before Mr. Obama officially expanded the mission to destroying ISIS and effectively erased the border with Syria to send warplanes there as well.

Whatever. Next, maybe Kerry will rally allies for our non-war by promising that any action will be "unbelievably small". Yeah, that'll show our commitment!

The Times noted that our Arab allies seem a bit tentative. No kidding - Obama and Kerry were wrong about the surge in '07, wrong about the Iraqi troop withdrawals in '11, wrong to walk away from post-Qadaffi Libya in '11, wrong not to arm the moderate Syrian rebels in '11, wrong to draw a faux red line in 2013, and now no one will get behind him? The headless chickens have come home to roost.

WELL, YES: "How do you ask a man to be the first man to die for a mistake?" - Kerry, any day now.

Comments

[Ignatz]

BTW Soylent, I wanted to agree with your free Kurdistan idea from a day or two ago.

There aren't any good solutions and even fewer reasonable people to deal with in the area but the Kurds, even with their many imperfections, stand out as different.
And in an even messier and much larger way Iran and the Persian people do too. To me it always should have been the main target and the only nation sized target with any hope of stability and a pro west, even slightly liberal government afterward, if we had helped them throw off the yoke of the ayatollahs.
Instead Barry stood by as the moment of truth came and went in Iran as a truly citizen based uprising was forming and instead he foments the MB in Egypt and the whack jobs in Libya and lets Iraq disintegrate. What a stain on our country we ever inflicted this cynical, heartless jackanape on the entire world.

[Beasts of England]

Great tip, OL - thanks!

[Captain Hate]

Yeah I agree that working for a decade or so gives you a lot of real world perspective that students going right from undergrad to grad lack. The one value I got out of group projects was that it fine tuned the ability to figure out quickly who you could count on to pull their weight and who would be loads.

[Ignatz]

--Not exactly. The Left pitches fits over wars that are being waged by Republicans.--

They pitched plenty of fits when LBJ was killing commies.

They don't like wars in which there is a serious chance an enemy of their enemy, the US as it is presently constituted, might be defeated.

There has never been a chance of that occurring under Barry, with or without ground troops, but they are perfectly content for all sorts of people to die pointlessly if we lob bombs ineffectually here and there.

The left does have a strategy; we lose.
And looking tough while losing is the best of all possible worlds to them.

[Captain Hate]

Jane, regarding that article you linked I've never believed the nuclear freeze people are concerned about what's best for the country.

[Soylent Red]

Instead Barry stood by as the moment of truth came and went in Iran as a truly citizen based uprising was forming and instead he foments the MB in Egypt and the whack jobs in Libya and lets Iraq disintegrate. What a stain on our country we ever inflicted this cynical, heartless jackanape on the entire world.

When Barry thinks of any given country, he thinks of it as whoever is in power, not as its people. I think it is a peculiar manifestation of his political upbringing, first by Marxists, then by machine Democrats. He taught classes based on Marxist power theory. Political power is only validated by being in control.

Thus, he was and is intellectually incapable of seeing Iran as a potential testbed for democratic transition, or Kurdistan as a separate entity from Iraq. Iranian liberals and Kurdish democrats don't factor because they aren't the established power structure.

This demonstrates another truism: radicals are usually pretty pro-establishment. Just not YOUR establishment.

[Danube on iPad]

"Do you believe numerous bureaucrats are currently lying about other issues to protect the President and his administration?"

I do not believe they are committing felonies on his behalf.

It is difficult to see how the bureaucrats who forged the short form figured to benefit, since that forgery was produced before he was elected.

And look where it got Loretta Fuddy.

[Pagar a bacon, ham and sausage supporter]

"Concerned about what is best for the country"

Here's one who claims she is!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/09/12/pelosi_civilization_as_we_know_it_would_be_in_jeopardy_if_republicans_win_the_senate.html

You can't make this stuff up!

[Soylent Red]

They pitched plenty of fits when LBJ was killing commies.

The anti-war Left of the sixties is a whole different creature than the current anti-war Left. The SDS-types were pissed off that LBJ was killing commies because THEY were commies. The peace movement was just a convenient rhetorical vehicle to agitate against us standing in the way of Communist expansion.

[Danube on iPad]

Anonamom; went to sleep early, woke up in the middle of the nigh, checked the ol' iPad.

[Beasts of England]

The Russians don't want a nuclear war. On the list of things to worry about in life, that shouldn't be in anyone's Top 100. I could expand on my statements, ad nauseum, but I'd rather save my pixel ration for college football. Or nekkid sushi babes. ;)

[Jeff Dobbs]

Cecil:
One thing that struck me (and I haven't seen much discussion about) is the convenient cowardice of our air campaign-only approach to ISIL.

This guy thinks President Obama is nutz:

"We've got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."
--stuff candidate Obama said, 2008

[Jeff Dobbs]

Beasts:
Or nekkid sushi babes. ;)

...who like to be spanked.

[henry]

Hit, plan your vacation to Castle Anthrax yet?

[Ignatz]

--I do not believe they are committing felonies on his behalf.
It is difficult to see how the bureaucrats who forged the short form figured to benefit, since that forgery was produced before he was elected.--

The question was do you believe they are lying about other issues, not committing felonies about the birth certificate issue.

Regardless, I absolutely believe Lois Lerner and the IRS committed felonies on his behalf and I have little doubt crimes were committed in Fast and Furious, both in its execution and its coverup to further his agenda.
I firmly believe they have violated any number of other statutes and regulations involving illegal email accounts, stalled and blocked FOIA requests and on and on.

Encouraging a pointless quest for a manufactured scandal and the pointless backlash it produces to divert attention and discredit whistleblowers of real scandals is one of the older tricks in the book.

[Cecil Turner]

. . . what are we going to do if they bring down a plane and capture a pilot?

Watch him die, probably. And treating their captives (read Gitmo detainees) better than the law of war dictates makes that more likely, not less.

It also essentially ensures we will not win.

Yep. Makes the air war less efficient, and also fails in the moral dimension. You can kill 'em from the air, but you can't beat em.

It's about politics and power. There is nary a thought about body counts unless it can be used as a political lever.

My thought as well. And it has a dramatic effect on the enemy's will to fight: if we'd had the same coverage during OIF, it'd have emasculated the insurgency, sped up the Anbar awakening by a couple years, and cut our casualties in half.

[Beasts of England]

That goes without saying, hit! ;)

[Jeff Dobbs]

henry:
Hit, plan your vacation to Castle Anthrax yet?

Now, henry, I'm a married man and mrs hit and run is the only nekkid sushi babe I have ever or would ever spank.

I think you meant Beasts.

[Ignatz]

Have to disagree Soylent.

The left has many permutations but the overall project never changes; destroy and replace Western civilization with the collectivist utopia.

John Kerry is one of the commies who was pissed off at LBJ and is now SOS.
Barry hisseff joined the New Party and learned at the knee of Frank Marshall Davis and one of the New Left's proud rhetoricians (and bombmakers) Billy Ayres.

The totalitarian temptation is just under the skin of every leftist regardless of what spots or stripes their skin happens to be sporting on any given day.

[Jeff Dobbs]

Alabama.

Man hides in Saban's bathroom to propose to girlfriend

"It was a very well-kept bathroom, as we would expect from such a perfect coach."

What I want to know? Was the toilet paper in Saban's bathroom hung going over or under?

How does the Tide toilet paper Roll?!?!1?!!?

[Beasts of England]

JEF moniker seen elsewhere on the webz: The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers. lol

[Pagar a bacon, ham and sausage supporter]

Another Republican who is reported to be thinking of running for president
Takes himself out of the running,IMO.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/09/13/chris-christie-new-jerseys-war-women-second-amendment/

You really have to hate women IMO to deny them the right to defend themselves and to punish them if they try.

[Stephanie riding a streetcar named Desire]

That article makes it sound like Saban is the girlfriend that the dude in the closet is proposing to. Which would make him really coming out of the closet, no?

[Stephanie riding a streetcar named Desire]

That headline...

Need. more. coke.

[Danube on iPad]

"The question was do you believe they are lying about other issues, not committing felonies about the birth certificate issue."

I believe Lois Lerner lied to congress (a felony) when she said she had done nothing wrong. I believe she lied on her own behalf, and that she did the things she was lying about because she is a highly partisan Democrat.

If bureaucrats forged a birth certificate (or a short form) they were committing very serious felonies. I do not believe that they did so, and the evidence that they did is ridiculous.

[Stephanie riding a streetcar named Desire]

New thread

[Threadkiller]

Whk said the bureaucrats created the forgery?

[Threadkiller]

Who...

[Beasts of England]

Saban's office is a little bit nicer than Bryant's! Hope the kid didn't pilfer any of Nick's Little Debbie's! That would be trouble...

[Danube on iPad]

"Whk said the bureaucrats created the forgery?"

Bureaucrats are on record as attesting to its authenticity. If they were lying, that's misprision of a felony--itself a felony. And of course whoever forged the short form--also attested to by bureaucrats--undertook the risk that their felony would be discovered by a president Hillary or McCain.

[cathyf]

I use a Mac and Safari. There is no right click that I know of . Do you?

control-click is the mac version of right click, and has been for about the last 15 years and 10 versions of the OS. On a device with gestures (laptop trackpad, magic mouse, magic trackpad), it's clicking with two fingers -- the fingers have to be more horizontal than vertical, because 2-finger vertical is a different gesture.

As opposed to the horrid windoze laptops where you have to twist your right hand into a painful knot to reach the left mouse button to click it. I can work for about 5 minutes on one of those before I have to go plug in a mouse.

[Threadkiller]

How many beurocrats attested the the authenticity of the document seen on the Whitehouse website?

[Jane]

Jane, where did you go where calc was a requirement?

Northeastern

Yeah I agree that working for a decade or so gives you a lot of real world perspective that students going right from undergrad to grad lack.

I went to law school after being a claims adjuster, a risk manager and having a company that helped PI lawyers price cases. For the first semester I glided, primarily because I spoke legalese.

After that I was good at what I was good at - trial practice, negotiation and that sort of thing - but my scholarship was a joke compared to the kids right out of college.

[Danube on iPad]

What was on the WH website was not a document, it was an image of a document which was displayed to the press (and photographed), the authenticity of which was attested to by many bureaucrats. Photocopies of that document were distributed to the press, along with copies of the authenticating documents.

[Jeff Dobbs]

What every school district needs.

VICE News ✔ @vicenews
San Diego’s school district has acquired a 14-ton mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle: http://bit.ly/1qtvpKv

[Threadkiller]

I guess that means no bureaucrats attested to the authenticity of the image.

How many bureaucrats attested to the authenticity of the document that was displayed to the press and photographed?

[Danube on iPad]

"I guess that means no bureaucrats attested to the authenticity of the image."

I believe a number of them have stated that it is an image of the certificate. I don't know exactly what constitutes authentication of an image, but I'm confident that that would suffice.

You can find the names of the bureaucrats who authenticated the certificate in the authenticating documents provided to the press on April 27, 2011 (among other places).

The elephant in the room is the certificate itself: there was absolutely no reason to construct a forged image when an image could simply have been taken of that certificate. No one would do such a thing. You know that very well, and have no response other than to say "well, even if they didn't need to do it, they did." Sure. People commit totally unnecessary felonies all the time.

[Threadkiller]

I appreciate the elephant and all that he has done, but I am curious how many bureaucrats were involved in the authentication.

You suggested the impossible nature of so many bureaucrats willing to commit a felony. Can you name them?

[Danube on iPad]

"Can you name them?"

Their names are contained in the documents I have described. You can easily retrieve them. You have seen them before.

Why did they forge the image instead of just making an image of the document? You cannot and will not say, but you know very well that no one would ever do such a thing.

[Threadkiller]

I have said and I will repeat it for you.

The image, IMO, was created before it was printed. The printed copies, that did not include any info on the backside, came afterwards.

The only witness to the raised seal was Savannah Guthrie who could not have committed a felony in authentication because she isn't a document expert, nor is she an authority with the Dept of Health in Hawaii.

I guess you now realize that there wasn't a vast amount of bureaucrats involved.

[Danube on iPad]

"I guess you now realize that there wasn't a vast amount of bureaucrats involved."

False. Look at the documentation

Guthrie was by no means the only witness to the raised seal (which by itself makes the document self-authenticating). A room full of reporters saw it.

Neither you nor anyone else has ever explained how an image such as the pdf could have been transformed into the high-resolution hard copy with the raised seal. In any event, if that had been the procedure, the felons would then have destroyed the forged pdf, and transmitted to the world an image of the clean hard copy.

[Threadkiller]

Nick Chase explained it on the pages of American Thinker.

As far as the witnesses to the seal, did you forget the transcript of the press gaggle?

[Danube on iPad]

I am finished with this thread.

I will keep my eyes focused, laser-like, on the forged copyright case in New York. Iit promises to be another universe-shattering bombshell.

[Threadkiller]

I like your confidence in the "felons." Would they be members of the same team that claimed Lerner's emails vanished? Possibly they are on board with the administration official that called Issa's office, thinking it was Cummins' office, and opened a dialog on how to obfuscate the IRS investigation?

It strikes me as amusing that all the malicious efforts of this administration get dismissed as the actions of a pile of stupid people parading around their hapless putz, but when it comes to a document f' up that coud just as easily be claimed to be the work of idiots we are to believe they are too smart to have not done it a certain way.

[Threadkiller]

You picked a good time to bail.

[Threadkiller]

Nick Chase doesn't count as "anyone else?"

Why won't you name the bureaucrats?

When you asked who supported my allegiance theory, I named them so you could proceed with your case against them. Please extend the same courtesy to me.

[Threadkiller]

Disregard.

I thought you made another comment.

I blame TypePad and my "back" button.