Thoughts on crises, and urgency:
One of the implicit assumptions of “fierce minimalism” is that action fuels the flames. Obama argued as much at an American Legion speech. He said, ”the answer is not to send in large scale military deployments that over stretch our military, and lead for us occupying countries for a long period of time and end up feeding extremism.” An alternative point of view using almost an identical metaphor was articulated by Franklin Roosevelt. “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire.”
The difference in the two presidential fire examples is the element of urgency. Roosevelt was aware that the fireman’s enemy is time and one of the points of the hose story, which everyone in that era understood, was the importance of dousing the fire while it was still small. Obama, by contrast, lacks the dimension of time. His approach implicitly assumes he has the leisure to add an ounce here and an ounce there to achieve a nuanced outcome. Roosevelt understood that a crisis was urgent. In the current case, Obama is busy calibrating, thinking and golfing like he had all the time in the world.
What happens when a fierce minimalist meets a fierce fire?
Things can get out of control very quickly.
And then there’s this additional comment:
Any return to the Middle East will be as a salvage party re-entering the smoking hulk of a ship looking for survivors. And whoever reboards that derelict in the future had better be alert. In the glare of their flashlights they’ll glimpse strange, furtive forms.
“Was that a man I saw Captain?”, one boarder will ask. “It looked funny but I only saw it for an instant.”
“That’s because he was carrying a head.”
“Oh. What’s through this door Captain?”
“It used to be Lebanon. Ok men, form a stack. On my count …”
There is no way back to the status quo ante. The Iraq legacy, for good or ill, is gone. The Cold War victory of 1989 is gone. What Kissinger called “a brief moment in human history when one could speak of an incipient global world order” is gone. Maybe for the best.
Obama will be remembered as an extremely consequential president. He did “fundamentally change” the world but not in the way he can understand. I almost wish he did by design. But I have a feeling the verdict of history will be that he pushed the wrong buttons by accident, simply because they had bright colors and made beeping sounds.
Frighteningly true.
Reverend James Manning warned everyone that Obama was a long-legged mack daddy. After just six years with the lazy king of pimps at the helm, jihadists are selling captured young girls as sex slaves for $10 each.
Obama will be giving us a load of historical precedent. ‘Load’ being the operative word.
Knowing that urgency is required and not seeing it is extremely frustrating when you are on the sidelines.
What would help, is if Obama wasn’t a worse public speaker than Bush. Obama can not put together a sentence without stammering his way through it, which doesn’t work very well when he is trying to show he has thought about the problem and understands it. Another thing, he should practice going more than a sentence or two before contradicting himself. Also, he should stop trying to mime his way through statements.
Obama does drop in a sentence or two that shows he is attending the occasional briefing but it comes across as information he learned that morning, just before going on stage, rather than something he has been deeply involved in for six years.
Everyone here is a nerd. Obama was sold as a nerd that likes to drill down into details. Wouldn’t you love to have access to the information that Obama has, the ability to request detailed reports and presentations from our countries most knowledgeable people? Wouldn’t a nerd Obama spend all day geeking out on this stuff rather than golfing and partying? Obama comes across as having the most superficial knowledge on the most serious issues facing our country. Then he gets on stage and presents things as his just learning about something means that no one else knew anything before he did. (shovel ready jobs not so shovel ready, turns out the health care industry is complicated, ISIS is a problem, ect)
I thought Obama did a pretty good job with Clint at the convention!
Contrast the hesitancy and “measured response” in dealing with ISIS, in whose path rivers of blood flow, with the rush to depose Qaddafi, a dictator attempting to keep the peace. King Putz’s sense of “crisis” seems 180 degrees off course.
I think a big part of the rush on Libya was that European leaders, particularly France, would have made a go of it even if the US didn’t get involved. Maybe having the EU knock over a country by themselves was a precedent that even he didn’t want.
ISIS has three Migs and are threatening to take out Putin and liberate Chechnya and the Caucus. Given the massive leadership vacuum opposing ISIS, Putin might decide to step in and save the day again, perhaps taking over Middle Eastern oil fields while he’s at it.
Iraqi News link
Checking out Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds, I came across “Jane the Actuary”
http://janetheactuary.blogspot.com/
who had the answer to “what is going on.” Actually it was a comment to one of Jane the Actuary’s posts asking if anyone knew “what is going on”, and this appears to make sense. Jane appears to be modest enough to ask such questions and gracious enough to ponder this answer.
Mr. Assad has his back against the wall. He doesn’t want to end up swinging or trampled upon, which are distinct possibilities given recent history, but his options are limited. One remains: “Release the Kracken!”
Meaning, he empties his prisons of the sort of threatening people that his Mukhbarat has efficiently rounded up over the years because they are . . . threats. This is where the IS came from — these people. A dangerous gambit, but it makes the opposition to his rule unsupportable . . . at least by us.
A desperation move, but what is he going to do instead? Now, what are we going to do? Fiendishly clever, but it looks like Mr. Assad has “gotten inside our OODA Loop.”
What do we do?
Um, Obama’s OODA loop encompasses us all – since everybody is inside of it. In his little mind, that makes him magnificent.
Obama’s OODA loop is bigger than a Kuiper object’s orbit.
LOL. Oort cloud.
Putin has always been inside Obama’s OODA loop. I’m sure this operation in Estonia was ready to go 5 minutes after Putin learned Obama is headed to Estonia:
“Less than 48 hours after President Obama vowed to “defend Estonia,” Russian goons kidnapped an Estonian cop to demonstrate just what U.S. red lines are worth. Any questions as to the nature of the threat?
The abduction of Internal Security Service officer Eston Kohver from Estonia was no ordinary criminal act.
The Russians who took him jammed police radios, tossed a smoke grenade, seized Kohver and marched him into Russia at gunpoint. They then falsely claimed that he was caught spying on Russian soil….
t was nonsense. Estonia’s leaders have said it was clearly a targeted attack and very serious, coming as it did two days after Obama made his strongest-worded speech ever on U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance.
“The defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London,” Obama said. “Article Five is crystal clear. An attack on one is an attack on all.
“So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who will come to help, you’ll know the answer: the NATO alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now.”
Well, it’s into the “right here, present, now” that Vladimir Putin has stuck his face.
…………………………….
The Kohver abduction will have a terrible effect on Eastern Europe, which has just seen a bullied Ukraine sign a “peace” treaty with Russia. Ukraine had no choice, since the U.S. and EU failed to do much to help it defend itself.”
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/090514-716330-russian-aggression-in-estonia-the-result-of-obama-weakness.htm
I guess that also answers whether Putin is going to be satisfied with what he has.
Ok so now Obama finds himself with a new challenge:
He stood there in Estonia and mouthed platitudes.
Less than 48 hours later Putin slapped Obama in the face and presented Obama with a chance to show how tough he is. What, if anything, is Obama going to do about the captured cop?
Note well how Putin is using Obama’s favorite formula:
Present the opponent with a no-win scenario:
An example of Obama technique is to say, well I’ll use my pen and unilaterally proclaim amnesty for some large fraction of illegals (like the dreamers).
If the GOP were to then fight that, Obama can say they are beasties who love to hurt poor women and children only looking for a better life. How cruel.
Or the GOP can do nothing, in which case the rachet has gained another notch; Obama has obtained tacit approval of the “pen” technique of disobeying the law and circumventing Congress.
Now Putin has done the same thing (several times in fact, starting in Crimea):
Putin’s goons nap an Estonian cop on trumped up charges – right after Obama mouths empty platitudes.
Obama could try to do something about it – in which case Russia has further “evidence” of the oppression of Russian-speaking citizens in Estonia. US interference with soverign peoples yadda yadda.
Or Obama could do nothing (that’s where my milk money is) in which case the rachet has advanced a notch; Putin’s action and methods are given tacit approval; Putin’s mission of showing Eastern Europe that NATO does not care about them enough to shed blood for them advances.
That latter point, by the way, provides a bit of decisional chaos which is always useful to guys like Putin: If Eastern Yerp can no longer absolutely depend upon NATO, The Eastern nations might start considering actions they may never have considered in the past. Actions which are Pro-Putin.
You know……………………
Like Ukraine’s recent deal with the Russians…..
While Putin is consolidating his wins a real president would be moving troops. Wait long enough and troops at home will be right where we need them.