I’m Baffled. What’s He Up To?
I don’t think bloggers are supposed to confess bafflement, but I’m gonna do it: I’m baffled. I don’t get it. Every time I think I’ve got a grip on this administration, they do something I just can’t deconstruct. Sure, Obama is a lefty with the knowledge of a typical liberal arts undergrad (not so much). I get that. And he’s now sealed into a very small compartment in which the handful of people he talks to tell him happy things like “all your decisions were the right ones.” No surprise there. But look at the odd — maybe even weird — stories that have floated out of the White House of late.
The Uganda Adventure
He’s sending special operators to Uganda to fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army, which is itself a bizarre movement that combines shamanism, Christianity, animism and various other African cultish themes, and that slaughters people, most certainly including little children, in a war against the peoples of Uganda, Kenya, and the charmingly misnamed Democratic Republic of Congo.
Fine. I can understand that. But here’s the source of my bafflement: this operation was approved and even funded by Congress TWO YEARS AGO. Yes, in 2009. Except that nothing happened. Until now. I suppose there might be some “intelligence reporting” that suddenly got the attention of Petraeus, Panetta, Hillary, and Obama. East Africa is the wild east, with lots of Islamist terrorists running amok. Like in Somalia, the Iranians are very busy in the wild east, as I’ve said before. But nobody seemed to care. Until now. Why? Beats me.
Or maybe there’s some corrupt scheme involved. One of these days I’ll ask Angleton’s ghost if he has heard anything interesting. But since this little story trickled into the news feed late Friday, and since there hasn’t been much in the way of “investigative reporting,” I’m scratching around the margins of my baldness, wondering what is going on. What took them two years to get to this? And why don’t we hear much of anything about it?
The Assassination Plot
It’s not so much the plot itself that baffles me; that’s just what Iran does, ask the Canadians, for example, who found that a poor immigrant was actually in cahoots with the regime back home, and was planning to carry out an assassination. I’m talking about the reaction. Just to keep things simple, have a look at two stories from al-Reuters. The first one says that several government officials — that is, members of the Obama administration — have their doubts about the story. And the second one says that leading members of Congress — including Republican critics — totally believe it and are worried that we’re going to war with Iran.
It looks a bit backwards, or upside-down to me. Administration officials are supposed to back their leader, and the crowd on Capitol Hill is supposed to act “independently.” Not here. What’s going on?
I don’t think Obama is intellectually or mentally prepared to take action against any one, let alone the Iranian regime. He is a weak man inside and out.
Weak – Yes; man – No!
Oscambo is a moslem, a communist, and a megalomaniac antisocial personality. If he is defeated in 2012,(and he may not be!), he will declare martial law and attempt to establish his dictatorship, ie, grand caliphate. It seems likely, though, that he will succeed in destroying our economy, and the value of our dollar, prior to that time. With the issuance of a new currency, in whatever form, we will find ourselves both de facto and de jure to be slaves of the international moneylenders- by whatever name. Chaos will reign. Cruel, repressive governmental measures will be instituted to control a starving populace. Genocide will be the order of the day. Billions will perish.
Unless, of course, the Boehner/McConnells and their ilk grow some testicles and take appropriate action; both legal and moral. But, they have been emasculated and will not act. So, if offered your choice of gulags- which shall it be?
RE: Barry’s Excellent Adventure in Uganda, or It’s Friday, Where the Hell Are We Going This Week?
Here’s a comment I posted over at the PJ Tatler this last Sunday for an item about the Uganda excursion by Bryan Preston. Just a theory, but it does answer the question, Why now? And it is of a piece with what I think are the real reasons for the Libya excursion….. What do you think?
…………………………………………….
You’re quite right, of course, Bryan: the Uganda move is a Barack Obama Friday Special. We’ve had more than enough examples, by now, of his addiction to the dark arts of misdirection to recognize one of his maneuvers when it slides down the pike. So, what’s really up?
Obama & Company say that our 100 military advisers are going to Uganda to help, advise and train government forces in the effort to go after Lord’s Resistance Army leader, Joseph Kony and his pals. These are some evil people, no question. And they richly deserve to encounter a large chunk of their black karma come back to get them. But why now? This struggle has gone on for 25 years, and has displaced millions of people, and so, all of a sudden, with virtually no explanation, The One is sending just 100 U.S. military advisers to clear up the little problem. Right. And Occupy Wall Street is a spontaneous, grassroots expression of citizen concern, just like the Tea Party…..
Dunno if I’m on the right track, but here’s one possible explanation of what’s really going on with this move, and one that also answers the question, why now?.
This is Obama’s Second War for Oil – or more accurately, for the Oil Companies. First Libya (for Total, ENI, Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, and a host of other European oil companies with large and crucial fields throughout Libya), now Uganda where the country’s Parliament, on 14 October, amid charges of extensive government corruption and bribery involving foreign oil companies, voted to suspend all new oil deals between Uganda and foreign oil companies, and to undertake an investigation. So far, four government ministers have resigned and President Yoweri Museveni was forced to speak to the situation in a national address. Things look shaky for the regime. Some of the foreign oil companies involved in the suspension are: ENI (Italy), and Tullow Oil (Ireland) whose $2.9 billion deal with China’s CNOOC and France’s Total is left up in the air by the Parliamentary suspension. Sound familiar? In light of this little drama that’s unfolding right now, our military would be there to advise and protect President Museveni and his government and keep him in power. And by protecting him, we protect the interests of the foreign oil companies. To say nothing of doing our pals, the Chinese, a solid. And who knows, maybe in their spare time our guys could send Mr. Kony and his gang on to their just rewards.
Just a possibility…..
Yes. Soros has significant oil interests in Uganda.
Chevalier: you got a link for us on Soros’ oil interests in Uganda. That would be most helpful.
I have a link. Definitely a strong Soros connection here. He is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, the same group (owned and financed by Soros)who wrote the Responsibility to Protect military doctrine that Obama used to get us into the Libyan war. Here is a link to an excellent story by World News Daily:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=356321
tks.
Are you out of your mind? All I hear is “…the U.S. is only there for the OIL…the U.S. is after the OIL”…it’s all about OIL!
CANADA is the largest exporter of oil to the U.S. in the world. 1,938,000 barrels per day to be exact (that’s PER DAY). Mexico is number two. See here:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/100726/top-7-us-oil-importers
If you need more oil, all you have to do is ask us to ramp up production a bit. But please don’t give me the B.S. that “the U.S. is in the middle east for the OIL…the U.S. is there for the freedom of the people in the M.E. period.
Sorry for the rant.
Gord.
You’re mischaracterizing this; the US isn’t in Africa for oil for the US, we can even drill our own. We’re in Africa for oil for the people who own Comrade Obama.
Gord- respectfully, while I agree it’s not all about oil, I do think that there can often be justification to the phrase ‘follow the money’. Nato allies have oil flow threatened in Libya, during a severe downturn with economic and social unrest throughout most of social-democratic europe. Threatened oil supplies mean higher costs of everything (and that’s not hyperbole). Hence, Nato decides which side to throw in on the try to stabilize things and keep their highly vulnerable and fragile economies from hitting the rocks (remember, they are rioting in Greece, have large and restive immigrant populations in France and Germany, Spain on the brink…).
The same (apparently- although I don’t know enough about it yet) might be said for Uganda- it’s not our oil supply at all, but our european *cough* allies’ supply. If we had a half competent commander in chief, or at least one who got out of his generals’ way, I’d be cautiously for it- the double win of humanitarian work plus preventing the further destabilization of globally important economies.
I have the icky feeling of it being trades for favors. We shoot some plausible bad-guys who weren’t shot at under GW, and it gets political points for our president going to war for the ‘right’ reasons since we don’t get much oil from either of those countries. Plus, you now have “and look how he made those tough decisions to help people, even putting our soldiers in harm’s way, after a long and thoughtful process- unlike GW!”- be looking for that meme to come on strong soon- and also money for political battle chests (“grass roots pacs” of course), whether Soros influenced or not. It’s a political ad in the making. And yes, I’m cynical enough to believe that this might be the only real reason- ‘look at all these evil men toppled under my rule (just don’t look behind the curtain)’.
If we were concerned about humanitarian missions, we’d be in the Sudan, come hell or high water (likely both, that place is a mess), or helping to oust Mugabe and to get someone with some sense about economics and agriculture in power there. Or the Ivory Coast, or any other of probably several hot spots of war and despotism.
Since we seem to only go where European oil interests, and therefore economic and socio-political interests are…well…
Look. This has been a plan in action since Gore first started talking about his “inconvenient truth”.
Africa, is seeing many of it’s indigenous people’s removed off their lands. Backed by Bill Gates, IMF, Clinton and Gore, their affiliation with Monsanto, etc., the land is being farmed with gm crops. This in turn creates carbon credits that can be sold to foreign countries, or to offset special interests and their international corporate ties in order to avoid paying the very same carbon tax they plan on cheating everyone else with.
That is why Gaddafi had to go. I cannot believe intelligent people still refer to Gaddafi as a dictator or president. Read the Green Book. 32 pages and brilliantly simple. Gaddafi was perhaps the biggest hope for Africans. He paid credit to black Africans and in a speech reminded Libyans that it was the Muslim peoples who migrated to Libya. Therefore he felt a brotherly love for black Africans. This was another reason why he became more and more isolated by the Middle Eastern powers as it is well known that Islamic extremists are more racists than any redneck from the south.
Gaddafi began calling for the murderous foreign occupists to leave Africa. He was calling for the United States of Africa. Africa for Africans. Not if the west has it’s way. We are all subjects of the royal family, so they see it.
The mess in this country and the world over will be solved by one means, 2nd amendment. Every inhabitant of this world should have a gun. Take out these tyrannical devils. Two kinds of people in the world. Cains’ and Ables’.
I don’t know much about Uganda and the Lord’s Army. But I do know that the Iranian regime has been trying hard to gain influence in the Horn and has used Uganda as a staging point for all things military. Maybe some research needs to be done into the relationship between the Lord’s Army and those trying to expand Islamic fundamentalism in the area. If it so happens that they are impeding the efforts of Iran in Uganda then Obama would introduce force to stifle them since he does not seem to want Iran’s power to erode.
On your other point I think the wag the dog scenario may be correct yet not in the context of Eric Holder. He is small fry. Obama may not wish to act on Iran immediately so two competing arguments are leaked from within the administration to give him reason to err on the side of patience in the eyes of the public. These two camps will ostensibly continue debating until the first quarter of next year with occasional leaks to the press. At that point his operatives will take a look at the polls and judge if he could be re-elected on his merits if, say for example, the economy has improved or the Republican candidates have totally destroyed each other, as they almost did last night. If that should be the case then the news will come out that the dovish side of the internal debate has won the day and there will be no need to retaliate against Iran. On the other hand if Obama’s number are still in the tank and his desire for a second term an impossibility, then we will hear that the hawks’ arguments have won the day and casus belli will be declared.
Anyway, this blogspot would certainly be somewhat bland if a taste of Iranian conspiratorial thinking was not occasionally introduced. I have also had a few swigs of ice cold vodka chased with yoghurt and cucumber salad.
“FYI, the big shots in Langley think that DEA is composed of rednecks who don’t know anything about much of anything”.
The bigshots in Langley should hire the DEA to consult in how to run undercover operations. Langley might even learn how to conduct backstopping more sophisticated than a post office box in Dunn Loring, VA (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062400484_2.html).
Dr. Ledeen, it is very kind of you to admit bafflement, because it makes me feel better. If I can offer my five cents, I propose that the foiled assassination plot may have been better kept under wraps. Regardless of how difficult it can be to keep things quiet, the FBI usually manages to do it. If it did not, a whole literary genre would quickly be driven out of business, simply because some kinds of reality can easily surpass fiction. I cannot understand why this kind of thing should be allowed to float freely over the airwaves. What happens to intelligence value? Why throw it away?
I wonder if it is related to another occasion for bafflement: When the WOT got under way, we used to go to great lengths to capture high ranking operators of the caliber of Khalid Sheik Mohammed or Bin Alshib, to great benefit. Capturing them is far more difficult, dangerous and otherwise costly than sending them to oblivion with drones, thereby sacrificing the intelligence value on a capture could have preserved. If, God forbids, you are not willing to carry the political cost of captivity and intelligence gathering, enhanced and otherwise, the drones can be a cheap and irresponsible expedient.
Should the Nobel committee dispense a Bafflement Prize, as an appropriate sanction for exceptionally inscrutable behavior?
I love that idea: Nobel for Bafflement. Can I nominate myself?
Sorry for not seconding your motion, Dr. Ledeen. You make way too much sense to deserve this prize. I was thinking about giving it to the guy who preemptively received a Nobel Peace prize, without anyone being able to convincingly explain why, hence my hope for a bafflement prize bestowed retroactively, in cancellation for the original one, whose presumed justification baffled so many of us.
When was the last time an Idiot made sense????
Why US military in Uganda? Soros’ fingerprints are all over it.
If this article is properly vetted….bingo…no other answer needed.
The names are all very familiar.
George Soros, Samantha Power, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the whole leftist cabal.
There is a small c communist/socialist bent to everything this administration does. When there is a lack of transparency..when we get baffled…don’t scratch your head.
Scratch the surface and you will find someone from the virulent strain of “tear down the system” leftists underneath.
Read this article that 1389AD linked. And thank you, 1389AD for doing so.
It explains the who, the what, the why, the when. This has NOTHING to do with America’s interests. Then again, much of what this administration does and has done…has anything to do with advancing America’s interests. In fact, quite the opposite.
I wonder what Mr. Soros’ interests in the Balkans may have been.
He was rather busy wreaking havoc on the British pound, Russian ruble, and Thai baht, while Mr. Clinton was sending campaign managers to the EU, selling out to China, and quietly taking over the Democrat Party with his New Party cadres (which led us directly to the DSA takeover by the Obama/Pelosi/Reid cabal.)
That Mad Albright is a Croatian bigot didn’t hinder the assisted KLA takeover of Serbia/Kosovo, (or the Saud seizure of Bosnia,) either.
It did help the newly freed Warsaw Pact fall into a 20 year depression, at least. Talked to a Pole yesterday.
Thanks for the link.
This one is even better.
http://1389blog.com/2011/10/19/simon-deng-the-united-nations-accessory-to-slavery-and-other-crimes/
Mr. Ledeen,
What matters is that Obama is the most important man in the whole wide world.
It doesn’t matter whether you (or anyone else) can figure out what he is doing or what you think.
As for what really happened with the Uganda Adventure and the Assassination Plot the odds are that Michelle told Obama that she didn’t have time to play his stupid games – buzz off, go organize a demonstration or start a war somewhere.
In other words, Obama works in mysterious ways?
Rationality will never predict irrational behavior. It can’t happen by definition. Your premise is rational and therefore, irrelevant. I tell my clients we have to think of this guy in context, not in a logical sense. He is nothing if not the master at misdirection. Whatever he touts, look at the OTHER hand. He is never about the “thing” he is touting. It reminds me of the movie, “the Illusionist”.
Secondly he has two distinct motivating ideologies: Union support (again, misdirection; real goal: money laundering to fund his continual campaign) and all things Muslim. Everything he does can be seen through those two prisms. His numbers sagging? no problem, let’s send 100 guys to Africa. Deep down, he is sending them into harm’s way in the same manner as what happened in “Blackhawk Down”: not enough troops to REALLY do what he’s saying they are going to do. Other possibility, Soros has hidden agendas beyond anyone’s awareness. He is always lurking in the background. But that would be the money motive.
Anyway, no matter what he says, that’s not the real topic. He is used to dealing with angry street people as an Alinsky organizer. It worked with them. He’s not used to being “found out” and doubles down when caught. Nothing rational, only irrational and reactive.
I’m with Occam on this one.
It is especially baffling because you have no trust in this administration, and everything it does is suspect. Your description of the Lord’s Resistance Army is the description I’ve heard, but I also heard they pray facing Mecca and receive funding from the Muslims Arabs in the north.
It’s really no tthat baffling. This guy and his policies were supposed to be loved and adored. When he was elected and got his Obamacare bill passed, the love was supposed to be universal. The peple were supposed to rise up in glorious revolution and throw off the shackles of the bourgeois proletariat… or something, I admit, I’m not up on my “Marxist Revolutionary Slogans.”
This guy is truly amazed it didn’t happen. 2010 stunned him. Imagine a devout, evangelist Christian finding hard evidence that God doesn’t exist. It’s a spiritual, existential blow. Now he’s flailing. He had no plan other than “people will love me, how can they not love free stuff?” Since he believes all of the worst things he has heard about the American government and the American people, he throws out clumsy wag-the-dog scenarios (Americans will rally around a president during war– it worked for that idiot Bush, didn’t it?!?!?), “jobs” bills he hasn’t actually written (more free stuff, maybe?) and he clings to amorphous protests like OWS, because well, here are people he understands (he still thinks that most American people think like the OWS crowd, and the ones that don’t are ignorant hicks..
You’re looking at a guy that had no Plan B. After healthcare and stimulus, it was supposed to be over. He was assured that Keynes would work. Now that it hasn’t, this poor community organizer has nothing else to fall back on; no life experience or belief system that he has ever been exposed to prepared him for this.
That may be a fairly accurate description of Comrade Obama, though I think his Red Diaper Baby upbringing trained him somewhat better than you give him credit for. But be that as it may, he is no more than the man behind the teleprompter; Soro’s cabal, which includes bunches of US leftist foundations and funds, and not a few Muslim interests tell him what to do. Predicating analyses on your estimation of Comrade Obama really isn’t an estimation of the whole of the opposition.
Dummy, Oshambo is no where near being a christian. He is an advocate for racism, abortion, homoseuality, deceit, theft- he is a satanist who supports every moslem cause he can find.
Are you the cable guy all those dimwit housewives ran off with?
the LRA is muslim. stop spreading the LRA is Christian propaganda.
It’s simple … it is “distraction” he’s after … haven’t you noticed that everytime things look bad for him, something happens … all of controversies are to keep us busy fighting them, instead of him or his close co-workers at the top.
“He’s sending special operators to Uganda to fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army, which is itself a bizarre movement that combines shamanism, Christianity, animism and various other African cultish themes, and that slaughters people, most certainly including little children, in a war against the peoples of Uganda, Kenya, and the charmingly misnamed Democratic Republic of Congo.”
What baffles me is that Kenya is currently sending a very large group of troops into Somalia to fight the Muslim-al Qaeda terrorists there. That’s a nice thought, but the Ethiopians are already IN Somalia doing the same thing. Why doesn’t Kenya send these troops into Uganda to help them against the Lord’s Resistance Army? After all, if all Uganda needs is 100 highly trained troops for “training,” I’m sure a big country like Kenya could scrape those up and send them to Uganda.
Nope, something more is going on here. And, let’s get down to it. There is only so much 100 troops can do. Of those 100 troops, probably 25 of them are support troops (administration, supplies, etc.). So what is Uganda going to do with about 75 fighting troops? And Kenya HAS a decent Army. Some of their troops are the finest in Africa. And wouldn’t it be better for the Ugandens to get help from another black African country, rather than a white “colonialist” nation (which is the way the blacks probably see us in Africa)? No, something more is at play here. Maybe a terrorist group is making a move into Central Africa and Obama wants to put a stop to it. If so, 100 American troops seems like a very weak way to do it. But, then again, how many “advisors” did Kennedy initially send to South Vietnam?
One thing that will never work with “marxist revolutionaries” is to think there is a rational explanation to what they are doing. The only thing they care about IS the revolution. There is no thinking of building a grand, happy, and just society. They are the ultimate anarchists. How can a rational person understand them?
You DONT send 100 troops to fight.
In an Ideal Scenario, those troops are supposed to be “Force Multipliers”.
You send senior enlisted people over, and you teach THEM to create their own “corporals and sergeants” to be effective troop leaders. You create small cadres of responsible leaders within their ranks that can control a squad, or a platoon.
You teach them how to TEACH. You create local weapons instructors and partol leaders, who can then mentor the NEXT group of barefoot farm kids/conscripts to acomplish basic tasks. Think tactically. Move at night. Communicate. Report.
This allows whatever few of their own that may have the capacity for higher level thinking to “move up” the chain, and concentrate on strategy, supply, and logistics.
All Indians and no Chiefs is just as bad as all Chiefs and no Indians. An extra 100 “middle feathers” creating a few thousand reasonably competent squad leaders can go a long way in places like that.
Ask Von Stuben.
But of course, this gig is all politics, which means these guys are set up to fail before their plane lands.
That is exactly the core mission of the Green Berets. Their primary job is NOT to be the uber-commandoes who go in and pull off the dazzlingly dangerous “Mission Impossible” type raids (though they do that, TOO).
Their primary job is to teach other people how to do that, and to be conventional fighters, as well.
100 men is about the size of a Special Forces company. Hmmm….
Black Hawk Down!
The Kenyan Army went into Somalia because al Shabaab swine had kidnapped a French tourist (who died) and Spanish doctors (from NGOs) from inside Kenya, while also raiding Kenyan villages and Somali refugee camps in Kenya. In other words the Kenyans are responding to al Shabaab attacks on Kenya.
Um, er, aaahhh, what?
the missing elements you must consider to end your bafflement are these:
obama is rabidly pro-islam, as well as being a Muslim. would a christian take the name, hussein? would a christian have the cross covered up behind a lacturn at georgtown as obama did? would a christian say the call to prayer blasted from minarets is the most beautiful sound in the world? people recite this prayer when they convert to islam? would a christian visit saudi arabia because “this is where the holy quran was revealed?” he has criticized both the old and new testament, but never the quran.
obama admires Chavez and seeks to emulate his fascist dictatorship in Venuzeala.
there is great evil a foot and not published in the media. last week a muslim set fire to an apartment building in roxbury making seventy five people homeless. did this get into the media.
Well, Mark Twain said “Of course, truth is stranger than fiction – fiction has to make sense.”
Well without some spiritual input the only thing that I could come up with when reading
The “intelligence” in this case didn’t come from CIA, and the FBI seems to have been brought in after the conspiracy had been penetrated by the DEA,
is that maybe Jaime Gorelick has been dicing the “Intelligence” again.
The fact that the Congressional approval for the Uganda op came through in ’09, when the Democrats had a trifecta in DC, tells me one of two things;
1. This was approved as a “gesture” and they never expected anyone to actually do it; or
2. Liberal Dems pushed it through “under the radar” because they assumed that any outfit named the “Lord’s Resistance Army” just had to be the African equivalent of a “right-wing Christian militia group” here in the States. Which they of course self-righteously despise.
The first would indicate typical liberal cynicism. The second would indicate even more typical liberal ignorance of reality.
If the whole thing wasn’t so brutal, it would almost be funny. The LRA is, as you state, one of the most violent, brutal, and frankly bats**t crazy terror groups in a region noted for such things almost being the norm. I, personally, am all in favor of stamping them out like scuttling cockroaches, just on general principles. (Ditto their competitors, who altogether have turned the region into a large-scale Kosovo over the last three decades.)
But somehow, I can’t see 100 U.S. advisors making that much difference- not least because it’s unlikely they’ll find enough local government infrastructure left to work with.
In spite of what most of the anti-war left would be screaming if this had been done by a Republican administration, this isn’t “another Vietnam” in the making. Because there probably isn’t enough of a government left to support or salvage. My guess is that inside of a few months, those advisors will be retasked to supervise the evacuation of foreign nationals, as with the Congo in 1964-65.
That at least would make some kind of sense. Which means it probably hasn’t occurred to the Doofus-in-Chief or any of his buddies.
That would require actual thought.
clear ether
eon
I vote for the buffoon explanation. Never explain by conspiracy what you can explain by stupidity or incompetence. Save your very valuable time and mental energy sorting through some other problem.
Cleverness is a luxury that Captain Zero cannot afford.
He is like many adolescents; Grandiose plans without the wherewithal to accomplish them. That, naturally, means that others will have to step in and provide that “cleverness” that he himself lacks.
We all knew dorks like wee Barry in high school, who somehow lived in a manufactured world in their own head but never comfortable in their own skin. Not having any particular skill or talent, and over-compensating for it with an “attitude” of superiority. In my farmer’s almanac, under “unusual presidential facts” it says that Obama’s classmates called him “O-bomber” in basketball. One can look at that a couple of ways but I assume it’s because he sucked at it. Probably sucked at everything else as well but had to cover for his incredible feelings of inadequacy.
However, I don’t get the impression he’s all that bright. A manipulator, to be sure…but if you’re smart, you can avoid his little baiting arguments and see that he’s just letting his lips vibrate while sound comes out of his mouth.
Cleverness is not something Barry can afford.
I agree with your assessment. He’s a dunderhead.
Oh, tell it, Michel. Of course you are baffled. Every intelligent person is baffled. Look at Obama and Reid’s plan to become the hiring agency for all state and local governments for teaching and first-responder positions, or at least that is the lie they are now telling. (What they are really trying to do is give spendthrift states
and cities extra dough so they won’t have to do any cost cutting.)
Another baffler, why are we letting Obama get away with calling his bill a “jobs bill” when it is really a “government jobs bill”.
Sorry, Michael. I’m really going to have to consider firing my copy editor.
Oh the liberals who doubt the administration is obvious, they’re following the media.
The media and liberals all over decided that they were embarrassed for believing Colin Powel’s testimony leading into the Iraq war and vowed “never again”… so for no damn reason, they’re spreading an “don’t trust the Administration, trust Iran” meme far and wide. I was really pissed off to catch that meme. Pity Iranian democrats, being killed by Iran, tortured in prison, and now insulted by American media far and wide from the NY Times on down, with bullshit like “Iran is logical not ideological, Iran would never assassinate anyone .. ” etc etc.
Never mind the Jewish center they blew up in Argentina, .. the past doesn’t matter. The media has made up it’s mind to hold it’s breath till it turns blue. That way they’ll never be embarrassed again.
As for the LRA.. idk. Obviously they’re not a high priority but at least they’re getting some attention.
Funny thing to not, both the far left media who always believe every lie by every militia or fascist as long as it’s anti-American is fighting Obama. The word at Pacifica was “Obama is just going after Oil” And they’re joined by the idiot right – Rush Limbah said that obviously the LRA are good christians and Obama is going after them because he hates Christians.
Someone ought to send both sides some pics of the LRA’s victims, like that poor kid on the bbc cover with all his fingers and nose cut off.
Exceptional Narcissism is not something which most people get to see live and direct. If Obama is truly thinking that he has been right every time, he is suffering from extreme delusion, which is slowly disintegrating into something bizarre and strange at this point.
wonder when he will appoint a horse as senator…
He can’t do that- only Governors can appoint Senators! Nah, if Obama wanted to do something like that, he’d have to nominate a horse to one of the Federal courts.
In either capacity, at least a horse couldn’t do any damage! (well, besides funding another janitorial job
It is called panic; It is caused by confrontation with a reality
which can no longer be ignored, and results in an immediate and
unconsidered response which somehow manages to be the _worst_
response of all the options available.
Taken one by one, the seeming contradictions can be untangled.
For one, the Uganda affair: simple. George Soros has oil interests there which the LRA is screwing around with. He asks his marionette for help and =:obama throws a hundred American teenagers under the bus for George, but at the same time burnishing his macho image for the election year “independents”.
Everything is a feint for reelection which will give the back room gang more time to consolidate the destruction of America.
Meanwhile the Córdova House, the ground zero mosque, which will be the new western capital of the 3rd Caliphate (Córdova, Spain was the capital of the 2nd), grows apace. And the beheadings south of the border proliferate with the Hezbollah reinforcements sent up by Hugo Chavez from his border peninsula.
And you’re baffled?
Sometimes when you fail to find a sensible explanation it is because there is none.
“Sure, Obama is a lefty with the knowledge of a typical liberal arts undergrad (not so much).”
“…we’re governed by buffoons.”
If the brilliant Obama continually arrives at erroneous conclusions, demonstrably false philosophies, and creates one giant cluster#$&K after another then one should question the premise that he is brilliant.
On the other hand, there are ‘conspiracy theorists’ who offer the explanation that the left is engaging in a cloward-piven strategy of overloading the system from multiple directions ( engage in multiple wars, dump many into the entitlement system, crash the economy, arm and empower criminal gangs, etc. ) in order to bring the system down. Those people are looking less and less crazy these days.
I don’t understand why you are “baffled”. The criminal element is not brilliant. He is just plain evil and if you were to examine that condition, then you would fully understand his agenda. First of all, he is Kenyan. His father was Kenyan and he was born in Kenya. With that out of the way, consider his proclomation during the campaign. He said he wanted to “fundamentally transform” (DESTROY) America. I find it very easy to follow his agenda. He hates America. He hates Israel. He is a muslim terrorist who is hell bent on destroying this nation. While he isn’t flying airplanes into building or exploding body bombs in pizza parlors, he is with a stroke of the pen taking one of the greatest nations in the world to her knees. It is logical for his evil agenda to flourish when the country has given over her Christian ethics to the evil, corrupt forces that have destroyed other nations with a like agenda. Unless and until this nation returns to her roots of Christian ideology and the Church rises up to proclaim the truth, then this nation will fall. That is the intent from this evil, corrupt man that the blind and evil put into our white house.
Excellent I couldn’t have said it so well. Thanks !!
perfectly said
:3
/me waves
After I forced myself to read your whole comment, I realized you were making fun of PJ media’s fruits and nuts.
Well done.
Isn’t it sad that short of accusing Obama of flying planes into buildings there is absolutely nothing you can say that sounds out of place on these blogs.
Even saying he’s pure evil and hates God is fairly within the norm.
I don’t think he’s evil, or even really a muslim (except by birth), especially since he went to a radical evangelical Christian church. I just happen to think he’s an incompetent Keynesian who never had to really work hard in his life until now, and he’s not up to it. Kind of like what the less rabid of the left said about GWB. Likely, both sides are right- but I think GWB had a better moral and ethical compass.
josh this is not an outlet for your inner blogger. stick to the subject please and no personal slimes. so yes, i trashed your rude remarks to another commenter.
I think by using Obama’s Kenyan heritage as a pejorative detracts from reasonable arguments that can be made to critcize him for the damage he is doing to the US. That line of reasoning will only bolster the left’s claim that all those who find fault with Obama are racists and xenophobes. Keep your discourse factual to the problems at hand if you wish to persuade anyone that they are mistaken in their support of his policies. I can name many foreign born individuals such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dinesh D’Souza and, humbly, yours truly that if given a chance would work towards the return of values and policies that made this country once the envy of the world. I assure you that we would be more American than those Occupiers who are screaming “f–k the USA”.
Judy, you are my kind of girl!
Politicans do not do things randomly. They do things that promote their interests. I suspect that Soros has operatives on BOTH sides of the aisle. The Iranian plot could either be a distraction and meant to bolster his “tough on terrorists” image. The other scenario could be to set up Iran for war. Nothing this guy does would surprise me.
No, but they do do things incompetently. I think that’s what we have here. Obama is doing things that he think support his ends, but in fact MAKE NO SENSE IN ANY SCENARIO.
Once you believe that the regime is intentionally trying to destroy the US and to do so he must completely wear out the military, then you’ll begin to understand.
I flat do not get why we are throwing 100 of our best soldiers into that frog-blender. No clue. None. I thought that was the job of the Organization of African States, and I don’t even really keep track of that stuff. Why? Are? We? Sending? our soldiers there?
It’s not like the man doesn’t have an excuse to not know what is going on. Ismail Beah ( sp?) got promoted all over the place the year Obama was campaigning. The New York Times gave him the full publicity tour. He wrote a tender, sensitive memoir about being a drug- addled, chaotically violent child soldier in Africa. He was rescued and then sent to some land-grant college in the middle of America. Obama ought to have read it, and decided to stay fah, fah away. Americans were derided as being entirely shallow for preferring Marley and Me, that year, to Ismail Beah’s horrifying memories. It was the fashionable read.
Has he decided our military is solely composed of supermen in kryptonite suits? B/c he’s failing basic Clausewitz- no two others are worth the life of one Pomeranian grenadier. Or the modern equivalent. I didn’t even read the big book- I’m not aiming for president. I just listened to two or three soldiers. He’s done that, right? They’re near unavoidable, as President, right?
For O’s friend Soros whose chain the LRA is pulling.
100 troops is just about right for a presidential guard
Obama is basically lazy — he wants o be left alone to eat his waffles. The most he is willing to do to earn his keep is read speeches off a teleprompter, and not too often mind you. Whenever controversy erupts, he listens to those who tell him the nation needs another speech and then he’s done. He thinks it’s the height of cleverness to go into permanent campaign mode now in order to avoid the presidential type stuff piling up at the white house. Whenever some government agency, military or non-military, approaches him for permission to do something new, he approves it and they go away happy, leaving him alone. Our government’s non-military agencies are full of stupid ideas, so when they approach Obama they get the go ahead and bad things happen (stimulus money going directly to cover the local and state governments’ funding gaps , Obamacare, Fast and Furious, etc.) Our government’s military agencies are basically competent, so when they get the go ahead good things tend to happen (the death of bin Laden, downfall of Qadaffi, etc.) When both military and non-military are involved, you get both good and bad (capturing the shoe bomber but then reading him his rights, discovering the Iraninan plot and then announcing it to the world, etc.) Before suggesting elaborate conspiracy theories, remember Obama’s fundamental laziness.
To me it’s not that hard to figure out. Everything in the first 2 years was dedicated to ramming the progressive agenda as far down our throats as possible. The next two years are all about gettting re-elected. He’ll have Iraq and Afghanistan drawing way down by the election for the left, and for the center he can say, look I’m one tough hombre’ not afraid to take action and keep us safe. Bin Laden, check; Iranian plot, check; Libya and Uganda, in and out force like it should be.
All the while Iran is the timebomb and this leftist idiot ignores them, while he runs around the country on his Magic Bus blaming Bush and millionaires for all the trouble in the US. Hard to believe the media will allow him to continue to blame Bush 3 years in, but you know they will. They will help him divide our country by race and class, and it saddens me.
But whenever you can’t figure them out, think re-election. It is the only prism that matters.
Seems the formula explaining this “tail-wagging-dog” anomaly is:
1) never let a good crisis go to waste
2) my left hand is the one to watch (while the right is busy in the “cookie jar”).
3) results of 1)+2)= smoke and mirrors
As pointed out in this article, why the “smoke and mirrors?”
Seems the “top down/bottom up and inside out” operation is threatened, and is taking on a whole new direction.
How so?, one asks.
OK. 1)The top down portion is composed of a troika,i.e., Mr. Obama, Axelrod and Holder. This is already in place and functioning so Mr. “O” has to keep it intact…at whatever costs.
2)The bottom up portion of this formula is composed of Bill Ayers, Trumpka (who Mr. “O” is consulting with on 10/20/11), and every social service political organization operating extra electorally, but capable of affecting an election’s outcome.
Lastly, 3)The inside out portion of this formula. It is more insidious because we’re dealing with shadowy individuals the likes of Cass Sustein, Sibelius, Van Jones et al. These and other “moles” in Mr. “O”s” administration are busy formulating “smoke and mirror” tactics designed for popular citizenry “see may left hand?” type motives. All the while a more sinister program, tome of regulations or whole new government office will be awaiting in the wings for implementation (who knows, a whole new government!!!,the right hand).
The plan in operation:
1) Mr. “O,” Axelrod and Holder will monitor all internal USA activity in the course of his re-election campaign efforts (already underway) for Holder’s DOJ to take action at a moments notice, i.e., Alabama’s SB.56. This is meant to stymie, choke a State’s, County, municipal electoral process…bringing it to a halt.
2) National Popular Vote Movement, aided by Mr. Tom Golisano and “chucky” Schumer, presented legislation to State’s legislatures (those States having large Electoral College presence) for “winner-takes-all” Electoral College Presidential outcomes (Pennsylvania, was last to enact this).
3) Already the “occupy wall street” rent-a-mob crowd from Wisconsin’s Recall Election movement (a precursor to organizing communities)is active on the street and now spread to other parts of America. This is the “social service
political organization” component of this carefully crafted re-election effort by Mr.”O.” Every one of these social service type organizations, operating extra electorally, is capable of affecting an election’s outcome (did in ’08).
Some of these are:Code Pink, PCCC, AFL-CIO, SEIU, ACORN, CredoNation, Democracy For America, AFT, Campaign for Americas Future, ChangeNation, Politico, NEA, AFSCME(Federal employees Union), Food and Commercial Workers Union and George Soro’s various links to his “priorities” organization.
So, this “social engineering” project, which Mr. “O” is masterful at, is in place and unfolding right before our very eyes…look at the left hand, but expect what the right hand will reveal.
Vote massively this 2012 primary election because massive fraud will befall every electoral precinct in Our Beloved USofA. God Bless America
Michael,
“Have you ever heard of a Russian (Obama the Socialist) out thinkig a Jew?”
“You never ask a question, unless you know the answer.”
This Russian (Obama the Socialist) is not that bright! Heretofore, Obama has demonstrated a penchant to rely on street-cunning.
Very predictable.
Now… what say Michael?
Sean
I think Obama wants the Iranian regime, and the UN, to think he, or Israel, is going to strike Iran militarily and is hoping that will spur the UN into going along with increased sanctions they wouldn’t otherwise go along with. He’s most likely bluffing, but Israel might just launch a strike.
On the Lord’s Resistance Army, why now? Simple. The film “Machine Gun Preacher” is bringing public attention to the evil of the LRA.
My thought is that the Ugandan mission mirrors the Libyan mission.
As an outgrowth of the girlz’ influence on the narcissist-in-chief, particularly Susan Rice and Samantha Power, who share the belief that the object of United States’ foreign policy ought to be using our troops in pursuit of “humanitarian” goals.
Hillary and the reality challenged Valerie Jarrett have influence, and even that “cute” (Barack’s description) brain dead person, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Occam has a point.
He’s up to nothing (but campaigning). He has relegated all actions to Van Jones and cronies pushing the Occupy Wall Street mobs.
It’s clear that Dear Liar is incompetent. But that is old news. What he is is a fascist-lite, in the meaning of a soft version of Mussolini – ordering society along similar lines, just without the distasteful violence. (We needn’t go to Benito’s northern friend.) Neither The Whine nor Benito liked capitalism very much, they believe in harnessing it for the state to use, though without the state taking over completely in a socialist/communist manner. The thing is, Mussolini embraced his fascism. Dear Liar doesn’t recognize that in himself. Military adventurism is a hallmark of fascist regimes –rally around the flag & distract from domestic problems. Mussolini exploited that (though the Italians weren’t up to the task.) Our current occupant has those tendencies, but doesn’t recognize it in himself. That’s his real problem. More than his incompetence.
You’re way overthinking the Iran plot thing, Michael. The feds are holding an American citizen on terrorism charges. How, exactly, do you expect the administration to keep the whole story secret, given that the suspect is entitled to a trial, and the Iran connection is a big part of the evidence against him?
yes, dan simon, i do tend to overthink sometimes. it all comes from playing lots of bridge…
I read somewhere that the region, which includes Uganda, sits on top of roughly $24 Trillion worth of natural resources. And the people are some of the poorest in the world. This sounds like another opportunity for the Cecil Rhodes and George Soros’ of the world to do what they do best, exploit, plunder, and deceive.
i believe the uganda mission, soon to be fiasco, is an attempt to lay down a turd in case obama loses the election; if he wins the election uganda can serve multiple uses– it can be trumped up into some kind of humanitarian victory for the great obama or, if things get really dicey, can keep our military away from the civil disorder and near anarchy fomented by the rabblerousers in a backdoor attempt to authoritarianism
i hope it’s not a fiasco, i am a great admirer of US Special Forces, and i rather expect they will win. but i can’t imagine why Obama waited two years, that’s the question for me. it’s easy to imagine the “why do it?” and some of the comments here do that very well.
Mr. Ledeen,
Comment #2 ‘VBB’ touched upon corruption with foreign oil interests and Uganda pols.
The obvious difference between the West’s political arena and Africa’s is the West pols ATTEMPTS to hide his/her corruptive nature whereas African pols.. it’s blatant.
I don’t know if African pols use such ‘in the open’ corrupt tactics, assuming ‘post-colonialism’ sentiment allows them employing such graft-like actions.
For I’ve seen this B S in action, and be successful (!) when they’re dealing with Belgians from UNESCO, Peace Corps and other useful idiot organizations and their ‘helping’ (not teaching or instructing for self efficiency mind you) these pols and ‘their’ people.
Again, I don;t skirt around the issue of U.S. policy being squeaky clean. BUt the pols I’ve dealt with on the dark continent bring it up to an immeasurable level.
OK, I’ll give a try at an explanation. The Uganda adventure is the late wish fulfillment of a secular gender (female) driven foreign policy by people endemically suspicious of patriarchal religious types ever since getting burned by Jim Jones and the electric cool aid acid test in Jones Town; so they’re all making up for the Sudan and Clinton’s no show during the last Uganda genocide when he was busy getting on the job blow jobs in the oval office.
The assassination plot allows Holder to claim some expertise in dot connecting after failing to discover who authorized arming Mexican drug cartels by ATF? No, but it does open up a whole new dimension in meaning for future presidential pardons that Holder seems to excel at.
WOW! I am humbled to discover I know more about something than Michael Ledeen!
The Uganda Adventure is all about a group called Invisible Children. As for Obama, he probably wants its many followers in his 2012 campaign. He ought to ask them to run it.
So who is Invisible Children?
Lesson 1 – IC as a youth phenomenon – Listen to this punk rocker and peace activist describe them in this 2010 video {2:49}: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJCLk-CDow
Lesson 2 – IC as a marketing phenomenon – Read this short 2006 blog post:
http://www.leadernotes.com/2006/04/how_to_raise_500000_from_middl.html
Optional: Click above the post to go to the next day’s even shorter post “Invisible Children is Viral.”
Lesson 3 – Time to check out Invisible Children: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/
In the photo of Obama signing the order is a young guy behind wearing a pinkish shirt. Now go watch the “LRA Crisis Tracker Introduction” to hear the same guy explain to how they track the LRA. Presumably, the same network will be employed by US troops to get rid of Kony.
Welcome to the first US war planned by some hip kids with laptops, video cameras and a flair for marketing. Move over, Charlie Wilson, this is Gen X’s war.
thanks. did Invisible Children exist two years ago? why the delay? that’s what baffles me, although i didn’t hear about IC until you very thoughtfully enlightened me.
Sir, about the 2 year delay, I suggest you contact Sen. Inhofe’s office (he’s in the photo as well). Sorry, my last post was all I know and that includes mere inferences (ie., things I really don’t know).
Correction: Your quickest answers should come from using the press contact number on this page: http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2011/10/19/im-baffled-whats-he-up-to/?replytocom=42815#respond
A little time on the Invisible Children website reveals more that bolsters my claim that they are driving this: Video of Members of Congress crediting them from the floor(s). Film screening schedules showing upwards of 15-20 screenings across the country in a single day and all hosted by their staff members. It goes on and on. This group is a real phenomenon.
As for the YouTube linked in “Lesson 1″ in my first post, I was in a hurry when I chose it but I’ll stand by the choice because it demonstrated the broad support of IC amongst youngsters… even the girl listening had heard of the group… and his insight that IC was lobbying for military action.
Sorry, wrong link. Should be: http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2011/10/official-statement-from-invisible-children-regarding-president-obamas-action-against-lra/
Also, read the statement at the link as well. Thanks.
Please! Obama does not do anything that will not line the pockets of his
Brazillionaire Buddies. There are over a hundred sites that lead to Soros-Congo,
Soros-Uganda.
http://www.americanthinker.com/…/obamas_uganda_gambit_to_serve_soros
http://www.seekingalpha.com/article/274856-soros-out-of-China-into-Africa
One would imagine that Soros has been pulling the strings long before Obama’s great words of wisdom at the 2004 Convention.
BO knows exactly what he is doing. To be baffled by his moves, means you are not looking at him through the correct prism. Try looking through the prism of wanting a Caliphate to arise, and for this Caliphate to be ruled by Sharia Law. With the Anti Christ at the helm and BO beside him. Now look at what he does and everything falls into place. Breaking the bank here, and around the world. Stopping the anti missile defense in Europe, stating no nukes to be used,open borders, declaring that this nation is not Christian any longer, declaring the quran as holy, totally ignoring the Constitution, bringing in thousands of muslims from Somalia as refugees,pis*ing all over our national allies Britain, Israel, etc.,Gun Runner, stopping the economy, end drilling for oil throughout the nation as much as he could, deliberately over regulate the coal industry, push for any rules to depress business, while saying how he wants to help.The list goes on and on. Try this PRISM.
NOW FOREIGN AFFAIRS. BO and HAJI Hillary are claming that they want a democratic government in Libya, Egypt etc. Not true. Democracy and Capitalism are diametrically apposed to muslim sharia law. They know this. The result is a Theocracy of muslim Sharia. Make no mistake Hillary’s assistant is muslim and is connected to the muslim brotherhood. The muslim brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organization. So through Huma the brotherhood has all State Department secrets available to them through Huma, Hillary’s assistant. So no surprise here, something is amiss. Just keep looking through the proper prism and all will become clear.
ICE, you have my vote for anything you want to run for!
My question, Mr Ledeen, is why you expect these criminals to conform to any sort of logic that a normal person might employ.
A few things to consider.
1. Radical leftists like Obama are in no way peaceful people. There never has been a peaceful one so why should anybody think Obama is peaceful in any way.
2. He isn’t acting in the best interests of the United States.
3. There is massive resistance to everthing he stands for in the military and intelligence services. And many of them in key positions live in fear for themselves and the country.
4. He never takes a breath without first determining who will be blamed if something goes wrong. It’s probably the only planning he does.
5. We don’t know 5% of what Obama and his thugs are doing. We catch an occasional glimpse inside through a peephole and try to imagine what the entire monstrous criminal maze is up to. It’s simply impossible.
They can’t be rationalized.
They have to be removed.
Yes, baffling is the appropriate confession to make, when with open eyes and mind taking in what Obama is up to.
I’m just now remembering the “bottomless pit” wonderment a leading physicist expressed, many years ago, as he fully took into account the fact that the very atoms that make up our apparently solid universe are almost completely empty space.
He pictured himself walking across a room in boots, and falling through the “cracks”!
We each “grow up” and are eventually all certified members of sane society—those who accept the consensual physical-mental reality, anyway—but sometimes weird events break through, to remind us that at the base of our existence,
We are never in danger of knowing a single thing.
We live in wonder, truly, but usually we go with the crowd, which is the current “flow” of “what’s happening, man”. That’s why it’s so valuable to find those cutting edge people, like Michael Ledeen, who are in their own unique way sharing a vision that is as clear and in focus as can be.
Still, I wonder.
Moving, I wonder.
“I will be happy to fully discuss both Solyndra and Fast and Furi…OMG! Look over there at what’s happening in Uganda! Another murderer worse than Saddam we must do something about! And look over there! Iran is trying to kill people!” THAT is what’s happening. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog.
Robert A. Hall
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
(All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans)
For a free PDF of the book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com
Why baffled? Just ask yourself, what would a politically tone deaf, extreme doctrinaire lefty with no real world experience do?
Obama just doesn’t know hard work. That may be a blessing, but his day ends at 4pm–when he is not on vacation. Where there is malice and incompetence joined to power without supervision, anything is possible, including Gunwalker. The trash was not put out and the dogs are up.
I am almost ashamed to add my two obvious cents to the brilliant Dr. Ledeen’s points but at least in case of Uganda follow the money. No more complicated than that.
The first “mystery” regarding Uganda is easy to solve: Obama is African-American. The people in Uganda who are being slaughtered are Africans…go figure.
Michael, do you think that the offer the UK made to France, just before France surrendered to Nazi Germany, can be attempted today?
This time, it would be the US receiving the offer from the British Commonwealth, and the result will be the retiring of those whose fingers are all over the delays you cite.
For the benchmark of no favouritism is worth while implementing, and frankly there are too many examples of Washington, DC, not measuring up.
My mind is spinning on the Uganda thing. The media is focusing on Occupy Wall Street, Republican debate, Obama’s bus trip, etc., and no one is talking about the troops sent to Uganda, and asking questions.
I have done a little research myself and am amazed at things I have uncovered. I’m still trying to connect all the dots.
I do agree that I think Soros plays a part in this. Here are some facts that I have uncovered.
1. Then, Senators Obama and Clinton wrote a bill that became law in Dec. 2006. Public Law 109-456. It authorizes the appropriation of funds to provide assistance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. it also would direct the President to appoint a Special Envoy to help resolve instability in the Eastern Congo.
2. That area is known for mining. The largest Investor in the mining sector is the U.S. company Freeport-McMoRan. Something told me to GOOGLE that company and Soros. SURE ENOUGH, earlier this year, Soros sold most of his holdings in the bullion-backed SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust funds, while buying 301,300 shares of Freeport-McMoRan.
3. Here is the amazing discovery! In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, is the section on Congo Conflict Minerals (and I thought Dodd-Frank was about banking/Wall Street reform). It ….”requires the State Dept. to submit a strategy to address the illicit minerals trade in the region and a map to address links between conflict minerals and ARMED GROUPS and establish a baseline against which to judge effectiveness.
4. I found a letter dated 11-17-10 RE: SEC Initiatives under Dodd-Frank Act.
There are many new regulations tied to this Congo Conflict Minerals item. One name associated with this (and quite frankly, the only one I have researched so far) is Darren Fenwick, Enough Project. He is also (was?)Center for American Progress’ Senior Govt. Affairs Manager. Was that the group that wrote the Stimulus bill?
5. There is an interesting post entited: “Libya and Congo: Africa in the Age of Obama – Why Military Intervention is not the Answer
Posted on May 12, 2011 by Kambale Musavuli
This article has many links and I urge others to read this. Perhaps someone can help me connect all these dots.
My suspicion is this is about boosting Dear Leader’s creds as a great foreign policy President — far better and more successful than Bush. The chest pounding and the MSM’s back slapping over Qaddafi’s death also fits this meme.
This admin and the MSM are in full campaign mode. This is part of the strategy. Other prongs include:
a) promoting class warfare and class envy;
b) painting the Repubs as obstructing increased taxes on the freeloading wealthy — the wealthy as parasites on the state (Lenin is smiling in his grave);
c) painting opposition to Obama’s proposals to “create jobs”, “cut spending”, and save the economy as racist.
The hope is that creating the illusion Obama is a great foreign policy prez will help reinforce the charge that the opposition is racist. If he is better than Bush on foreign policy and he is better than Bush and the GOP on the economy (they actually believe this), then the opposition and obstruction must be motivated by racism.
Obama’s campaign strategy in a nutshell is class warfare and racism.
Obama Stalls Deepwater Drilling Despite Lifting of Moratorium by Sen. David Vitter 10/20/2011
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46994
Michael Leeden, a quick Google search brings up a lot of articles connecting George Soros’s Ugandan oil interests to Obama’s latest little intervention. Here’s just one:
http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2011/10/15/212-4/
I, too, thought “why now” when the news about Uganda broke and the administration used the rationalization that Congress had authorized action back in 2009 (they remind me of small children inadvertently telling on themselves). Obama’s re-election campaign is scrambling to raise cash, some of its past sources are not as forthcoming as they were in 2008 and Soros’s cash would be a big help. It may also be a way of thanking him for the OWS movement.
It’s a great thing to admit we don’t have critical information, only tons of circumstantial evidence that doesn’t add up. I believe the best hypotheses are conspiracy theories, which we can’t fairly judge right now (although I’ve made some attempts).
Perhaps the government tells “noble lies” that are somehow important for security? I don’t think it’s all about Obama, Arab oil, or Israeli settlements. I do think the deceptions have gone too far because they’re keeping me awake at night…
me too
Valerie Jarrett, and Van Jones Talks About Transforming Society
http://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=TnDxzvc0OXk
What’s he up to? Same thing as he’s always been up to. Looking out for himself. In October 2012, Barack Obama, losing badly in the election to Mitt Romney, will order the bombing of Iran. Some useful idiots will cheer.
An old retired Gunnery Sergeant came up with a theory on Barry’s Ugandan Adventure. You see, Barry’s homeland of Kenya has sent troops into Somalia, so their back door is open right now. Sending in those Special Forces troops gives Kenya some protection along their Ugandan border.
I would make no pretense that I know what has motivated Obama to intervene in Uganda, but I do think that a lot of the commentary and speculation seems ill informed.
As has been noted, at least in part, the Congress passed “The Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009″ and Obama signed it into law in 2010. This Act included, among other provisions, authorization for military assistance to the Ugandan government. So Obama is not acting unilaterally here, at least within the context of the US government.
Why now? Well, the LRA has been acting across international borders in that part of Africa, including across the Ugandan-Sudanese border. Our relationships with the Sudanese, islamist, government (Khartoum) have been fraught for a long time. However, in July, South Sudan became independent from Sudan. The former Sudanese-Ugandan border is now the South Sudanese-Ugandan border. From the standpoint of the Khartoum government, the LRA was hurting the breakwaway south, so they didn’t care. South Sudan is not islamist–quite the contrary–and has no interest in seeing the LRA continue its destructive activities. My guess is that this change in government of this key border area has created an opportunity to strike at the LRA on both sides of the border–in a way that was not present previously. I.e., Sudan was a sanctuary, South Sudan is not.
Next, Obama and his three Valkyries probably feel that they demonstrated the validity and value of “Duty to Protect” in Libya, and that a similar, smaller scale operation Africa for the same stated reasons will help him politically. They may turn out to wrong about Libya (just wait till the first pilfered shoulder-fired SAM takes down an airliner), and they may end up being mistaken in Uganda, though frankly Uganda seems a lot lower risk to me. Obama is increasingly paralyzed politically on the domestic front, and that won’t get better for him over the next year. Foreign & military affairs are the realms in which he can still act to change events, and my guess would be that he is hoping for an outcome of political benefit in advance of the 2012 election.
Finally, I’m not too worried about our troops. I haven’t seen any details of who is going, but this sounds like a typical type of Army SF mission–train up the locals, assist them with capabilities they don’t have (e.g., target location, communications), etc. The SF know how to do this very well, and you can be certain that they are operating elsewhere, quietly, against enemies a lot more dangerous to them than the LRA.
I don’t trust Obama any more than many of the other posters do, but “even a blind pig finds an occasional acorn.”
It would be easier to understand if you perceived that Obama is a Comintern mole.
He’s definitely a Red Diaper Baby; nothing else would explain his family history. Who runs him and how is a more interesting question.
I have come to the conclusion that everything Obama does makes perfect sense, if you assume that he is the real-life equivalent of Dilbert’s Pointy-Haired Boss. An egomaniacal, narcissistic, clueless idiot who got as far as he has by parroting every cliche’ of his contemporaries to the point that he believes that each and every one is absolutely true, even the ones which contradict each other. And whose only actual “skill set” is blaming others for the failure of his own brainstorms, which barely qualify as drizzles.
Like Dilbert, we can now put on our resumes’ that we have “four years experience being micro-managed by an idiot”. Or in The One’s case, more like a full-on gibbering dingbat.
cheers
eon
interesting eon, Dilbert’s boss.
Somebody should do a serious compaison of how well the theories about the part-time dictator / part-time party boy explain his regime:
- Marxist Manchurian
- Daddy’s little anti-colonialist
- mini-me Soros
- Chicago union thug
- brainwashed anarchist
- the Don of DC
- Muhammed Obamed, secret jihadist
- malignant narcissist
I think the Dibert’s Pointy-headed Boss would stack up very well against the other theories.
“we’re governed by buffoons.”
Thank you saying that. I tire of commenters who think their political enemies are evil geniuses. They are merely evil, in the Obama Admin case.
The reason it took two years was that the EPA spent that time evaluating the environmental impact of such an action.
Save the planet.
There’s a saying in the intelligence community, to the effect that amateurs are dangerous. Same is true in martial arts.
Why? They do stupid things. REALLY stupid things. So stupid that a non-stupid person can’t see them coming.
This is the problem with trying to second guess the management of Sprint – whoops, no, I mean, this administration. (Sorry, I’m mixing in some workplace talk here…)
Anyway, back to the Obama administration. They are amateurs. It’s not that they are stupid (that would be the management of Sprint), it’s that they are evil, AND, they have no clue about the real world. Leftists are like that. In fact, it’s a very large part of what defines them. They have no clue about how the real world works.
Ergo, they do things that a clueful person (isn’t that the opposite of clueless?) would never think of.
This makes them difficult to figure out at times.
Also, remember that they are evil, and simply assume the worst. You’re much more likely to be right that way.
I don’t know about evil, as evil generally has to at least be minimally conscious, which I’m not sure anyone in this White House is. (Well, except maybe The Hill.) Stupid and clueless, I absolutely agree with.
But that in itself is dangerous. Moreso to us than to our enemies.
“The world’s greatest swordsman does not fear the second greatest. He fears the worst swordsman, because he has no way to know what the damned fool will do next.”
- Uncertain, but generally attributed to Musashi Miyamoto.
cheers
eon
While toking in the White House, he decided to show a token of his appreciation for his people by sending a token force….
It’s open season on US GIs in Iraq – will make them withdraw by end of the year.
Thank you Obama, then we will run an air and land corridor of weapons to Mr Assad to put down the armed insurgency and expect no one to utter a word just like your utter silence visa vis saudi arabi/ bahrain.
Have a great weekend. I was waiting for that statement from Obama. thanks u made my weekend.
So, I was initially under the impression that Ms. Bagheri was writing from Iran. And I thought how sad it was that she was defending a regime that has marginalized women as second class citizens to be bought and sold as common property. Of course that assumes that she is actually a she and not a he impersonating a she to subliminally imply that women do actually have a voice under the Mullahs. But after reading her last comment it is clear to me that she is not in Iran as she writes “thanks u made my weekend”. A Freudian slip if she was intimating that she was actually in Iran as the weekend does not start there until Thursday evening. Now that we have established that she lives in a country that starts the weekend Friday evenings, which for the most part are the ones that the Islamic Republic regards as decadent and morally corrupt, then one can justifiably ask her as to why she has chosen not to return to Iran and live under the draconian Sharia laws that she so forcefully defends? Unfair question?
Don’t trust an Obambi when you meet one.
Mr Ledeen:
Mr. Soros’ Oil Company and
an interesting question
many thanks seanmahair, much appreciated.
Obama’s venture in Uganda should be understood as an initiative intended to give Obama bragging rights on the campaign trail. Obama has bragged that his administration killed Osama bin Laden, and more recently his administration has used drones to kill other al-Quaeda agents, including American citizens. Hillary Clinton bragged about the death of Gadaffi: “We came; we saw; he’s dead.” Now they want to kill Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army so that they can claim one more killing of a very dangerous person as a triumph of Obama’s foreign policy. Obama doesn’t have many triumphs to brag about, and killing individuals is often easier than cutting government spending without reducing in any way the power of the government employees’ union. So after Kony’s dead, expect that Obama will say that Bush wasn’t able to kill Osama bin Laden, but Obama was able to kill lots of bad guys all over the world. One might almost think he was even more of a war hero than John Kerry.
Dr. Ledeen, I think the answers on Uganda may be simpler than you think. The women around Obama are all R2P supporters, and that answers the why. The question of why now is probably best explained by limitations. We simply didn’t have enough SF to send without freeing up SF elsewhere. SF life is hard (highest divorce rate in the military) and SF is in constant recruit mode. The top SOCOM guy warned about one year ago that SF was worn out. They’ve spent the last decade being the chief terrorist hunters in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as training the Columbian Army to take on FARC, as big missions. They’ve has numerous other small mission too.
Dear Dr. Ledeen,
I’m baffled, too, but I’m WORRIED about Obama’s impulsive decision to abandon Iraq (after a similar decision some months ago for Afghanistan.). Americans are sick and tired of both Iraq and Afghanistan, but that does not change their strategic importance. It’s a geographical fact. We were attacked by Safalist terrorists harbored and protected by the Taliban. Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan are therefore strategic concerns.
Iraq is the same, except worse. As long as Persian Gulf oil is strategically necessary to the West, Iranian control over Iraq, the Gulf States, and Kuwait will be critical. Since our friends on the Left don’t have the brains to crash-develop the God-send of shale in many locations around the world, the mad hatters of the Middle East will have us by the short hairs.
Both of these fast pullout moves by Obama resemble the pullout from Saigon, and we know what happened immediately after that. But Vietnam did not control strategic oil supplies for the world. The Middle East does.
Obama lies more than half the time, and his announced withdrawals may just be happy talk for the delusional Left. For what it’s worth, my sense is that it’s not.
Jim
it wasn’t an impulsive decision by Obama. It was imposed on him by the government of Iraq, and was agreed to by George W. Bush.
I have never met a stupid Persian. The Zeta murder plot story does not hold water.
I can not believe that iranian spies would be stupid enough to send Mansour Arbabasiar to Reynosa looking for Zetas to do a politcal murder in Washington DC.
I think they would teach you in spy school that you can not remotely pull off such a complicated operation. The bad boys from the cartel would only ask the money to be wired to Mexico. They could then spend the money on cocaine and rifles from the ATF.
Believe thee me, there are plenty of stupid Persians, as of most any other group, so I don’t think your experiences are reliable.
WHAT OUR MARXIST MUSLIM PRESIDENT IS UP TO IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY IN ORDER FOR A SOCIALIST ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT BE SET UP!!!!!!!! IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT THEN STICK AROUND, IT WON’T BE LONG GOMING!
With all due respect, Dr. Ledeen, the recent “let’s get out now!” Obama announcement was not the agreement negotiated with Iraq, according a today’s cited stated by General Keane. As you know so well, there are all kinds of compromises possible between total cutting and running, leaving Iraq to collapse to the Quds infiltrators, and maintaining adequate logistics and air cover (for example), to support the most civilized Iraq possible.
Since Obama lies habitually, it’s not possible to know what all this means before it happens. But that means of course that nobody can trust our word anymore either. If you remember the Vietnam collapse, it was triggered at least as much by the Democrats suddenly withdrawing aid to the Vietnamese as it was to objective conditions on the ground. Not all withdrawals have to end in panic and abject surrender.