Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall. For those of us who were not familiar with ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – the savage beheading of American journalist James Foley, and now that of a second Journalist, Steven Sotloft – certainly made the introduction. Speaking after Foley’s brutal execution, President Obama had this to say about his ISIS murderers: No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. God may not stand for it, but the most powerful man on the Earth – Barack Obama – certainly did. Today, the American people will all say a prayer for those who loved Jim. All of us feel the ache of his absence. All of us mourn his loss. We keep in our prayers those other Americans who are separated from their families. And we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for. And we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.* Asterisk. See below… Because what President Obama neglected to tell the American people that day – before returning to the golf course – was that there is in fact an unread condition attached to his statement that he will “protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.” What he meant to say was he will “protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for…” so long as there is no risk of adversely affecting poll numbers Or his political – or even personal -- identity, for that matter: Barack Obama is a life-long “anti-war” radical, was an “anti-war” Senator and has committed himself to withdrawing and reducing American power around the world. A month and a half before James Foley had his head sawed off, a team of Special Forces operatives were flying through the darkness on a mission to rescue Foley and presumably Sotloft as well as other western hostages. And it wasn’t just any evening. It was just after midnight on the Fourth of July. For thirty days President Obama delayed this mission. Thirty Days. It was June when US Intelligence had a solid lead of the location of Foley and other captives, but it was also well understood that ISIS, like all terrorist organizations, constantly moves hostages in order to prevent raids like the one that was finally launched after four weeks of delay. Why the hesitation? Well, President Coward was worried that a failed mission would leave him, in the words of his advisors, “Carterized” – recalling the catastrophic failure to rescue the Iranian hostages in 1980. And so this self-absorbed, term-limited President, with actionable intelligence on the location of James Foley and others and the full understanding that such information is fleeting, dithered and vacillated and golfed and raised campaign funds while he weighed the pros and cons and golfed and delayed and asked more questions and golfed and raised more campaign funds. Finally he gave the go-head, on the condition that the raid take place on the Fourth of July so that, if successful, he could make the announcement to major fanfare on the nation’s birthday. Delta and SEAL team operators leapt out of their specially modified, low radar cross-section Blackhawk helicopters. Up to 15 ISIS fighters emerged from the building to meet them, and their wish to die for Allah was granted by an orbiting AC130 gunship. As US warriors secured the compound, lead elements breached the doors to where the captives – including James Foley – were being held. The room was empty. Foley, his murderers, and other hostages had been moved. Recently. We know about this, in far more detail than we should, because when trying to cover for his inaction the President revealed critical operational details that compromised – again – the safety of the Team elements and their ability to be successful in the future. And this wasn’t the first time President Coward left people to die because of fear of what a failed attempt might do to his image. Of course, neither could he afford to be seen as a man forcefully using the proud power of America as did presidents Reagan and Bush. On the evening of September 11th, 2012, at about 4pm Eastern time, reports began to come in of an attack on the Consulate in Benghazi. By 5:10pm, an unmanned surveillance drone was providing real-time video of the ongoing firefight at the compound. And yet, almost immediately, the White House issued a direct order to FEST – the Foreign Emergency Support Team, a highly-trained, well-armed extraction squad standing by at various locations around the world for this exact contingency – to stand down. We need to be crystal clear on this. It’s not that President Obama failed to give the order for these men to get into their helicopters and go and try to rescue Ambassador Chris Stevens and the rest of “our people and the timeless values they stand for.” Those men were in the helicopters. They were, unlike the president, mentally and operationally prepared and ready to go and defend American civilians from these murderers and savages. President Coward told them to shut down the engines and sent these warriors back to their bunks, because he was afraid of what a failed attempt might do his image, and what a successful attempt might do to his phony claims that the war on terror had been won – by him. He had an election coming up, and priorities are priorities, after all. So he watched, on TV, in real time, as former SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods ran from safety towards the sound of gunfire and fought off scores of heavily armed enemy fighters for six hours, their laser target designators on the enemy mortar position that eventually killed them, looking up to the sky not only to a just God but awaiting help from a President who was watching them die. And they did die, of course, at which point President Coward joined the FEST operators in retiring for the evening, getting a good nights sleep for the next day’s fundraiser with Jay Z and Beyonce in Vegas. Reports are that the men who were in the helicopters, ready, and as it turned out, able to save Doherty and Woods did not sleep quite as well. Oh, and one more thing. The signature Obama success in the war on Terror – the raid that killed Osama bin Laden – was delayed for what appears to be about 100 days, as President Coward weighed the consequences of the failure of such a raid on his personal reputation. He was, according to several independent accounts, essentially overruled by the Secretaries of Defense and State who insisted that somebody take action before Bin Laden was tipped off and vanished once again. That’s why Obama is sitting in the back of the room like the Pizza delivery boy in the iconic shot of the Operation. He just popped in from the golf course to see how things were coming along. Put aside – if you are able – the monumental narcissism, selfishness and moral cowardice of this man, and focus for a moment on just how disconnected he really is from the people that elected him. They thought they had elected a leader – a leader, not a self-obsessed moral coward – who would use the most powerful and capable military in the history of the world “to protect our people and the timeless values they represent” without that ever-present asterisk of “so long as there is no chance of making me look bad.” We’re kind of past that point now, Mr. President -- don’t you think?
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 12:07:23 +0000
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