VDH:
Here is a sampling of some recent news abroad:
A Russian guard attacked a U.S. diplomatic official at the door to the American Embassy in Moscow, even as NATO leaders met to galvanize against the next act of Russian aggression.
The Islamic State continued its global terrorist rampage with horrific attacks in Baghdad and Istanbul.
Iran rebuffed United Nations warnings and defiantly boasted that it will continue testing ballistic missiles. German intelligence believes that Iran, empowered by the release of $100 billion in impounded cash, is violating its recent American-led nonproliferation deal in an effort to import nuclear bomb-making technology.
North Korea conducted a test (unsuccessful, apparently) of a submarine-based guided missile.
There are various ways of interpreting these ominous events.
They could represent just more empty chest-thumping by our enemies.
Or, because this is an election year in the U.S., enemies are posturing in order to advance their agendas, as they often do in times of uncertainty about who will be the next president.
Or, Obama is perceived as an exceptionally lame lame-duck president who is hoping to wind down his tenure in passivity, without a major incident abroad that might imperil his presidential legacy.
Or, after the explosive rise of ISIS, the disaster in Benghazi, the failed reset with Russia, the unchecked Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, the concessions in the Iran deal, the veritable implosion of the Middle East, and the president’s counterproductive sermonizing about Brexit, enemies sense that the U.S. is directionless. These enemies may be unsure whether America still wishes to — or even can — exercise its traditional leadership of the free world and remain the custodian of the post-war international order.
But perhaps there is yet another catalyst prompting such events.
The United States appears to be entering another era of dangerous internal instability similar to the one it endured in the 1960s-1970s.
After the attacks by radical Islamists in San Bernardino and Orlando, Americans did not rally together as they had after 9/11. Instead, almost immediately, the country was torn further apart. About half the nation saw the terrorist killings as a reason for stricter gun control rather than a reason to fear the continuing spread of radical Islamic terrorism. The other half worried that political correctness and the president’s refusal to even mention radical Islamic terrorism are eroding the ability to deter it.
America’s enemies draw their own conclusions.
After the Orlando attack, al-Qaeda urged lone-wolf terrorists in the U.S. to focus exclusively on white targets. The organization’s leaders apparently worry that if terrorists again hit minority communities, it will prompt a bickering America to blame itself rather than give full credit to the attackers.
Never again elected a black liberal leftists demacrat to any high office they stink these demacrats
France gets hit again at least 60 dead at an independence day celebration.
not a word from liam nesson so far
Of course they don’t. They see obama as what he is, a radical muslim sympathizer. I wouldn’t be surprised if history finds he is a sleeper.
Maybe the predictably irrational way some people react is the real vulnerability. That’s the one that can be easily exploited to provoke self-defeating behavior.
@Greg:
Yeah, the more we actually acknowledge what the real threat is and protect ourselves against it, the more vulnerable we are. Sure. I get it now.
wake up, school are next in America
@Bill, #6:
I’m afraid a lot of people don’t get it. We don’t win anything by letting an enemy punch our buttons. That’s how great powers are defeated by weak opponents. It’s the whole theory behind waging successful asymmetrical warfare.
A perfect, totally relevant case in point is 9/11. The total cost to mount the attack against us is estimated to have been around $500,000. The self-inflicted economic damages to the United States resulting from our military responses will ultimately run $4-6 trillion, and absolutely nothing to our long-term geopolitical advantage was achieved.
We’re now getting repeated invitations from al Qaeda and ISIS to engage in another large-scale ground war in the Middle East. Obama has declined, taking a more measured military approach calculated to gradually wear them down and wear them out. But we’ve got an election coming, and people who seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the invasion of Iraq, who believe we can head back over there and somehow WIN! by using overwhelming, unrestrained force—past experience and the machinations of Vladimir Putin notwithstanding. Meanwhile, should we become sucked into a another full-scale Middle East war, there are North Korea and China to worry about.
This is a set up where punching the right buttons could lay the United States low if ever there was one. We’re walking through a geopolitical minefield. It’s no time or place for bravado or impulsive moves. It’s time to understand the evil calculations behind the provocations. We need to play our own game, not their game.
@Greg:
Great powers are defeated by weak opponents when the great powers put weak leaders that do not have the national security of the great power at heart.
Apparently, our hope is that our enemies will laugh so hard at our leadership’s attempts to use their attacks on us for their own political agenda that they fall over and roll off a cliff.
We attacked terror at its core and all but wiped it out where it lived. Al Qaeda was pushed out of Afghanistan and defeated in Iraq. All we had to do remain in place, maintain security while a fledgling government can establish itself and take control. But, no. Obama and the left need headlines and glory to mask their domestic failures, so we leave the field of battle and abandoned a hard won victory, which was the opening needed by ISIS to spread, grow and become a power.
Yes, our enemies view this as weakness, as well as stupidity. Now, all that will have to be won again and the strength, power and dependability of the United States restored around the world. However, I wonder how much trust will be restored with our allies and respect by our enemies if they now know that every 4 years, another idiot like Obama could come along and allow for the spread of another ISIS.
For instance, Hillary last night said we need more cooperation among our allies to share intelligence. After Obama share England’s nuclear strengths with Russia to curry favor with them, how would any ally trust their intelligence they gathered with someone who would likely put it on an unsecured email server and share it with our enemies? Does that project strength and wisdom?
We KNOW that in tough economic times that liberals are the absolute worst choice for American leadership. Now we know, beyond any possible doubt, that liberals are the worst choice for leadership in wartime.
@Bill: Bill, don’t argue with Greg. He is so seeped in the propaganda, he can never have an original thought even if he had the capabilities. Greg also has little knowledge of actually history. His historical facts are those made up in his head or provided by the left.
@Bill, #9:
So, you figure we need to put another large U.S. military ground force in the Middle East, confront all enemies directly until they are neutralized, and then remain until a permanently stable condition can be maintained once we leave?
This will all happen with Donald Trump in command? Vladamir Putin will probably be so impressed that he will not complicate things in Syria and will break his ties with Iran. He’ll probably abandon any ambitions he might have for Russian re-expansion into Eastern Europe. China will curtail it’s activities in the South China Sea, and North Korea’s leaders will regain their sanity, once they realize we’re fully occupied elsewhere.
People need to think in terms of specific details. If they want to abandon one approach, they need to think carefully about exactly what’s going to take it’s place, and what all that will entail. Otherwise, they’re engaging in a game of Russian roulette. Specific decisions have consequences.
@Randy, #10:
I’m not hearing any specifics from Trump or Trump supporters. All I’m hearing are slogans, repeating propaganda memes, and displays of attitude. All evidence suggests that you haven’t got the vaguest clue what you might actually be voting for, nor have you really thought through what you’re voting against. You’re voting for a fantasy, in response to a propaganda-induced delusion.
@Greg:
Why is it you have such problems reading ideas and digesting them? Is that what I said?
We WILL have to go back (Obama is, in fact, sending us back as we speak; 500 more of the 82 Airborne will be revisiting Iraq) and we WILL have to fight ISIS. However, the overriding point is that had we remained with 10-20,000 troops, they would not be fighting ISIS because ISIS would never have arisen. Occupation and security is far cheaper, in treasure and blood, than leaving, allowing a small terror force to grow 100-fold, then go back and help wipe it out so we don’t continue to suffer terror attacks at home.
Did anyone ever show the community organizer respect? Did Iran accept his outstretched hand? How about after he had the Muslim Brotherhood installed in Egypt; did they show him respect? Qaddafi stopped being afraid of the US when Bush left and showed Obama no respect as well. I think Trump would be able to earn respect; after Obama, it will have to be restored. I only hope Trump is capable enough to clean up the mess Obama and Hillary have left.
Bush left Obama a stable situation. Obama and Hillary completely wrecked it and wrecked the credibility and respect of the US to boot. Add to that the racial conflict, horrible economy and instability Obama has created domestically and Trump has a LOT of work to do.
How specific do you want a candidate to be before they can find out our capabilities and get intelligence briefings? What has been Hillary’s specificity? I’ve heard nothing from her but that we should be more understanding and provide them jobs. You didn’t mind a steady diet of slogans when Obama was running; turns out there even the slogans were lies. Obama was pretty specific about closing GITMO on day one and pulling out of Iraq in 16 months; turns out, like most things, he didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. But being caught in gigantic lies never seems to bother Obama much.
@Randy:
No way, there is no way Greg can create fiction in his head. He would need a brain transplant first. It requires at least three brain cells, Greg is operating on one.
What is there to read and digest? Donald Trump hasn’t proposed anything to read and digest.
And Hillary Clinton hasn’t proposing any drastic changes from the approach the Obama administration has been taking for the past 2 years. Operation Inherent Resolve, remember? It has involved a lot of specific details and has produced a lot of specific results. The fact that the republican right pays absolutely no attention to any of this doesn’t mean it hasn’t been happening.
@Greg:
Now that’s funny. not hearing specifics? such as saying who our enemy is as in Radical Islam, or ISIS. How many times have you heard those terms out of Obozo’s mouth? He can’t even name the enemy, you can’t defeat what you don’t know exists.
@Greg: First, there would be no reason for operations had Obama not felt he knew more than expert advisers and, against all recommendations, pulled all US forces out of Iraq. All for some campaign help.
Then along came ISIS.
He also allowed ISIS to cash in on captured refineries, financing their war and atrocities. He wouldn’t put them out of commission because of global warming concerns. He has only increased efforts against ISIS recently to serve the Democrat’s political needs. Just as Hillary and Obama played politics with the successful surge in Iraq, so they play politics with national and world security in Iraq, Syria and Libya.