There may be no better indication of how far outside the general norms of American foreign policy practice the Obama administration is than the standard bearer for left wing opinion in Israel, Haaretz, completely slamming Kerry for his indulgent reaching out to Hamas in order to secure a peace that would be fraudulent and illusory and serve only the interests of Islamist terror at the expense of Israel. The liberal elite in America can easily rationalize their ignoring of conservative opinion when it comes to Obama with cries of racism or warmongering or whatever - how do they explain away the criticisms of Israel's left? I mean, Livni herself, a notable figure of the Israeli left, said just a few days ago that talk of a truce was foolish - and yet Kerry actually thinks he knows better? Calling the actions of this administration farcical may be giving it too much credit - a farce at least manages to amuse. Ain't nothin' funny about this. 

With US embassy staff fleeing Libya flanked by an armed escort WR Mead pens a nicely focused piece of bitterly sarcastic anger regarding the grotesquery that is Obama's foreign policy and the further obscenity of the national media trying desperately to hide this farce from the American people.

But luckily for Team Obama, the mainstream press would rather die than subject liberal Democrats to the critiques it reserves for the GOP. So instead, as Libya writhes in agony, reputations and careers move on. The news is so bad, and the President’s foreign policy is collapsing on so many fronts, that it is impossible to keep the story off the front pages. “Smart diplomacy” has become a punch line, and the dream Team Obama had of making Democrats the go-to national security party is as dead as the passenger pigeon. But what the press can do for the White House it still, with some honorable exceptions, labors to accomplish: it will, when it must, report the dots. But it will try not to connect them, and it will do what it can to let all the people involved in the Libya debacle move on to the next and higher stage of their careers.

It's troubling enough to have an awful president who either may be one of the most incompetent leaders a great power has ever had - or, may be so delusional or arrogant that he actually believes that if not for those racist Republicans getting in his way everything would just be moving along swimmingly - or, most worrisome of all, may in fact in the manner of a truly committed left wing zealot be doing exactly what he set out to do to the country - all that's troubling enough, but that trouble will be magnified several times over in the coming years if because of a biased media that cannot or will not come to terms with how utterly misguided they were about Dear Leader the electorate never comes to fully appreciate that making a left wing ideologue like Obama chief executive of a country like America was a very, very bad idea that should never ever be repeated if you have any hopes of this great country remaining that city on a hill with the eyes of all upon us.

Conservatives seem to be pleased to see Obama's approval rating drop to 39% - and I suppose the way these statistics play out in a democracy 39% makes sense in some statistically practical way - but personally I find it frightening that almost 40% of the population is so utterly detached from reality, so despairingly incapable of scratching two modestly coherent thoughts together that they still somehow can convince themselves that this is a good president doing a good job - that disturbs me greatly - makes me feel that when I'm walking down the street today no matter in which direction I may happen to look scattered throughout my view will be the torpid, bovine stares of complete fucking morons. Far as I'm concerned if reality held any sway in this increasingly lost land Obama's job approval rating would be at about 10% which would cover that segment of the population that is very close to being brain dead but can still on good days manage the complex operations of a TV remote.

And now it's becoming very clear that sometime in the next few months Obama is going to unilaterally, without any regard to the constitution he swore to uphold or the people he was ostensibly supposed to be the servant of, he's going to for all intents and purposes abrogate America's immigration laws, he's essentially singlehandedly gonna say that the country no longer has any borders - and apparently about 40% of the electorate is going to be fine with that. Sorry, I just don't know how not to be utterly disturbed by something like that - disturbed not by Obama's actions which are just par for the course for him - if you're surprised by any corruption of power or dereliction of duty he and his catamites involve themselves in at this point then you really haven't been paying attention - no, what I find so disturbing is that so many people either don't care about what's going on or simply have no problem with it - there's just no way to look at something like that and not fear for the survival of the democracy.

It's one thing to think Obama an awful president - it's another to contemplate the disturbing reality that this awfulness has been deliberately enabled by a very large chunk of the electorate and virtually all of the media - that's the thing that's truly frightening - because eventually he's not gonna be president anymore, but if the electoral processes of this country are so screwed up, so compromised by idiocy and blind ideology and so vulnerable to manipulation by savvy numbers people that progressives can somehow find a way to get an Obama part two like Elizabeth Warren elected president, then it's over for us - you might as well hang a sign on the door that says 'no longer in the superpower business - goodbye and have a nice day'.

Why is a country led by this Islamist lunatic still a member of NATO? Why the fuck hasn't NATO chastised the man for his extremist anti-West rantings [for in slandering Israel the way he does he is in essence slandering the West]? And why the fuck are we still planning on selling his guy F-35s? This is obviously a man who cannot be trusted to respect and protect the interests of Western civilization so why the hell would we give him F-35s?! I read military journals every single day and I've yet to see one person raise the issue of maybe it not being a good idea to trust this guy with highly sensitive tech - as far as I'm concerned you give this Islamist tyrant F-35s and you might as well hand them right over to Russia and China at the same time - I'm obviously missing something 'cause I just don't get this. Erdogan has clearly demonstrated that any country led by the likes of him should not be a part of NATO nor should it be trusted to protect access to highly sensitive military tech - and yet no one is saying anything about this quite obvious problem. Does the West truly intend to destroy itself through a mind numbing devotion to political correctness? Is this really the way our history ends, with a bunch of pantywaist liberals arguing about how not to offend anyone while the barbarians are storming the gates?   

Occurs to me point made in previous post about connecting Gaza to Obama's true intentions viz Iran's nuke program may be the most interesting thing no one's talking about when it comes to Gaza: if you indeed were serious about all options being on the table - I never believed that but could only infer that belief from somewhat vague and subjective sources - but if Obama indeed was serious then taking care of Hamas and its extensive tunnels system would be an absolutely necessary preparatory step to any military strike on Iran's nuke program - that Obama seems to want to stop Israel from degrading Hamas' capabilities in this way may not amount to solid proof that Obama is lying about all options being on the table but it does look like strong circumstantial evidence, certainly strong enough I'd say to convince both Israel and Iran that Obama cannot for the former be trusted or need not for the latter be feared when it comes to stopping Iran's nuke program.

Again, I've always believed this to be true and think Iran has acted throughout these 'negotiations' as if they as well believe it to be the case - I think Iran has acted all along as if they have the upper hand in these negotiations because they feel Obama needs a face saving agreement much more than they need fear retributions from refusing to sufficiently compromise - anyway, I've always suspected Obama to be lying about all options being on the table but when you start connecting the threat of Hamas to Iran's nuke program and realize that Obama and Kerry are not making that connection, then you no longer need to be a sorry mean spirited cynic like me to start suspecting Dear Leader of being a man for whom the truth is a very relative thing indeed.    

Some [many, most] who oppose Israel's Gaza move seem to think those who support it are suffering under the delusion that it offers a long term solution to the problems that trouble the region - certainly not the case with me - I don't think a long term solution to etc etc is possible since the main issue for the region needing to be resolved is the dysfunctional, retrograde nature of Islamist governance and culture - until those negatives are addressed the problems plaguing the region will persist. No, the reason I support Israel's Gaza move is that given the bad options to choose from it was the least bad with the most potential upside viz Israel's security needs and since no 'long term' fix is possible all that really matters from Israel's point of view is their short to midterm security needs - invasion was the logical choice given the options.

Now, I do believe it's a bit more long termish than that - yes, I think Israel's main goal is to degrade Hamas' capabilities and infrastructure as much as possible since with Sisi in Egypt shutting down the smuggling Hamas will be hit hard and for a long time by this action - but I also think a secondary goal is hoped for, namely to send a clear message to the idiots calling the shots in the White House and the EU that if they don't get serious about disarming Hamas and addressing in a practical and realistic way the actual problems plaguing the region [which have nothing to do with Israel] then what is happening now will happen again and next time we're re-occupying Gaza -  and I think there also may be a message in this to Obama about Iran, which Hamas is a proxy of, ie we're serious about not letting them become a nuclear power and if you're not gonna take care of it we will. Remember, if Israel is actually serious about stepping in to take out Iran's nuke program should Obama fail to do so, Iran will retaliate through Hamas [and of course Hezbollah which is a much harder target for Israel to get at] - that's what all those tunnels Israel is digging up in Gaza are about, waiting for the order from Tehran to attack - and so you see degrading significantly Hamas' capabilities would be an absolutely necessary preparatory step if one plans on going after Iran's nukes - and interestingly enough this would still be the case even if America is the one doing the shooting, which makes Obama/Kerry's reluctance to let Israel finish the job look like they are indeed lying when they say they will not let Iran become a nuclear power and all options are on the table - clearly all options are not on the table if you don't see the logic of letting Israel finish Hamas off.   

Hey, good news - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has come up with a plan to staunch the troubles roiling Gaza - destroy Israel. Of course that does tend to be his stock answer to any question regarding what's wrong with the world - destroy Israel, destroy America - for sure one can't call it brilliant thinking on his part but he does have a knack for getting to his point with gusto. Why on earth would anyone be skeptical about us being able to hammer out a workable nuke deal with such enlightened creatures as these?

One can't help but wonder if it even enters into Kerry's mind that in trying to force Israel into a ceasefire before the completion of its military goals you're essentially allowing yourself to be played by Hamas, a terrorist organization that wouldn't think twice about exterminating the Jewish people had they the opportunity, at the expense of Israel's security needs - you're rewarding the mindset and tactics of Islamist terror and penalizing, helping to delegitimize the fundamental security needs of a democracy and key ally - I mean, it confounds common sense to imagine that the thought doesn't occur to him - and yet he carries on all the same. Clinical psychologists should come up with a name for this kind of pathology - or we can just keep calling it liberalism. 

Jen Rubin posts nice little laundry list concerning the awfulness of Obama's foreign policy [and re Russia links to Hillary's 60 Minutes interview I'd forgotten about that's just devastating given recent events and should be an integral feature of any GOP advertising campaign in 2016 should she choose to run] - but it occurred to me that Obama has effectively soundly re-established the given that liberals are very bad, and in Obama's case abysmally bad when it comes to national security, foreign policy and defense issues and that this opens up an opportunity in 2016 for any GOP candidate who is very good at talking about such. Conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy doesn't play well in presidential elections because despite its importance it's too esoteric a subject, too removed from the average voter's daily concerns - but the potential certainly exists that Obama's foreign policy record could amount to such an excruciatingly awful thing that it plays big in 2016 - and that's a boon to any GOP candidate who excels at talking about foreign policy - which, from what I've heard, means Marco Rubio. All things being equal I'd prefer a governor for the GOP offering - I'm a big believer in executive experience - but governors, given their busy schedules and local concerns, are generally not very convincing when discussing foreign policy - of everybody out there considering a run for Republican presidential candidate only Rubio, and possibly Ryan, sounds credible on the foreign policy issue - everyone else just sounds like they're spouting bromides. Yes, people mention Cruz, and he certainly likes to sound tough on foreign policy in order to separate himself from Paul, but I don't see Cruz as a viable candidate - he's a guy who can never appeal to moderates and therefore he has no chance of winning a presidential election.     

Curious, reading this account of Muslim response in European countries to Israeli action in Gaza - curious, if one believes in the clash of civilizations dynamic, which I generally do, and therefore believes that the West's relations with the Muslim world will continue to be problematic, what does it mean that the Muslim population in these Western democracies is growing and yet a significant proportion of this demographic still thinks and acts reflexively in predominantly Islamist terms which are antithetical to Western traditions and interests? That can't be good, no? And what happens when Muslim populations in Europe reach such a point that getting elected without their support is difficult and yet in order to get that support you have to embrace policy positions that are not at all in keeping with Western traditions and interests? Not good.

And then there's the issue of Jews fleeing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, which history shows is bad news for the countries from which they're fleeing and good news for the countries they're fleeing to - but aside from that, if many of these people end up in Israel and you are of the type to think Israel's security preferences are far too conservative now [which I don't - for all the problems it gives rise to, I'm 100% behind Netanyahu's move into Gaza and think anyone who can't see the logic of it is blinded by a prejudicial ideology] then wait till this new reverse diaspora hunkers down and starts setting the rules.