Obama's "War" Speech

I held to my long-standing practice of not listening to Obama's speeches. As noted before, I can't stand his delivery composed of equal measures of condescension, ignorance, falsehoods, and just plain ol' way off the mark. I read the texts later and, thus, avoid getting distracted by the presentation.

OK, I read the text of his latest speech presenting his latest strategy for defeating ISIS or ISIL or IS or Daesh or whatever you want to call it.

My reaction: That's it? That's a strategy?

Let's start with this remarkable statement,

I just had a chance to meet with my National Security Council as part of our regular effort to review and constantly strengthen our efforts. . .

I see.

He "just had a chance" to get together with the NSC.

That sort of sums up the urgency with which our President takes the job of defending the nation from the violent thugs of ISIS, ISIL, whatever.  He just had a chance . . . last week, of course, he was all excited about his Great Climate Change Deal in Paris, and hoping against hope that this would make us all forget about the Muslim crazies out there .  .  . and forget about his other Great Deal, the one with the Muslim crazies in Iran . . .

From there the whole thing goes downhill.

There is nothing new, nothing tangible in his "strategy." The speech is just a stale recycling of all the other nonsense he's said about this topic since the start. There is no passion, no conviction; just a word salad. The address certainly contains no accepting of blame by the misadministration for the disaster we now face all over the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. It was the Obama/Clinton mishandling of the withdrawal from Iraq; it's disastrous policies in Egypt, Libya, and Syria; and its insistence on political correctness when dealing with threats that have put us into this position. He can blather on about destroying this cache, killing this guy or that one over there, and containing the "terrorist group ISIL." The fact remains the killers can strike us anywhere in the world. They can kill us not only all over the Middle East, Afghanistan, and throughout Africa, but in Paris, Boston, London, New York, Sydney, Ottawa, Brussels, Copenhagen, Mumbai, Ft. Hood, Merced, and even in obscure San Bernardino.

They are not contained, Mr. President, and you have no clue about what to do, or are just lying about wanting to defeat these murderers.

Why? Because there's one word that appears nowhere in the speech.That word is ISLAM.

The issue is not ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, IS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Jamyat Islamia, or the Taliban. There is nothing complex or difficult in identifying the problem: Islam and how it's taught and practiced in the modern world.

As I wrote (October 23, 2014) after the killings in Canada,

As this humble blog has noted re the horrid Lee Rigby beheading in England (here and here), the Kenya Westgate mall massacre (here and here), the Boston Marathon bombings (here and here) the shootings at Ft. Hood, the DC Beltway Sniper (What was his name? Oh, yes, John Allen Mohammed), the Oklahoma beheading and so many more incidents in the US and elsewhere, media, "experts," and officials prove so reluctant to place the blame where it belongs that it is almost comical, well, comical in a horrible sort of perverse manner. 

We have the inevitable statements about there not existing a "link" between the particular incident under discussion and international--code for Muslim--terrorists. We have the desperate search for a culprit who is not Muslim: e.g., in the Ottawa shooting we had initial press reports of a Native American gunman. The press gleefully jumps on the fact that many of these crimes were by people born in the countries where they carried out their crimes: e.g., lots of coverage of the Ottawa shooter being Canadian-born. 

When some gutsy Western country, such as Australia, pre-empts the killers and breaks up their plot--one strikingly similar to what happened in Canada--well, the "experts" immediately "raise questions" about the ability of ISIS, or Al Qaeda, or some other group to carry out such long-range activities. 

Increasingly I am coming to the conclusion that "expert" is just another word for "naive fool." <...>

Whether these killers were born in England, Canada, Australia, Russia, the USA, or elsewhere, they all had one thing in common. Guess. Can you? Try. Yes, they were all "radicalized" to use the oh-so delicate PC phrase in vogue among the progressive bien pensant. In other words these thugs were Muslim, many of them social losers and recent converts to that totalitarian creed. 

There is no need for an ISIS indoctrination, logistics line, training, or other support. The Quran and the local mosque provide all that is needed.

 Islam is the word missing from your "strategy," Mr. President.