Fatboy Dim begs Obama

I have said in print before that I am singularly unimpressed when the Left offers us some Hollywood celebrity or group of celebrities advocating for or against some issue. I'm sure we all remember actors like Sean Penn, Alex Baldwin, Eric Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Janeane Garofalo making the rounds of talk shows arguing against the war in Iraq. I'm sure we've all seen comedian Jon Stewart's faux-news show, The Daily Show, and been dismayed when we heard that it was the primary news source for a depressingly large percentage of young people of high school through college age.

Of course celebrities have every right to express their opinions. Too many of America's soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines - not to mention merchant marine and Coast Guard - have bled and died on battlefields ranging from the frozen North Atlantic to the burning deserts of Iraq to preserve our Constitutionally recognized freedoms. Even the freedom of stupid people to express idiotic opinions about things that they clearly know nothing about.

Which brings us to this weird screed from movie maker Michael Moore (who is known on this blog as Fatboy Dim). Moore posted this open letter to President Obama on his blog yesterday:

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

[. . .]

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore

The thing that occurs first to anyone with a functioning memory is the question, didn't Fatboy listen to Obama during the campaign?

Obama said that the war in Iraq was a waste of time and resources which should be devoted to Afghanistan! Afghanistan was - according to Obama- the "war of necessity", the "war which must be won".

Obama promised the American people that he would provide VICTORY in Afghanistan after Bush's "mishandling" of the war there.

Fatboy, are you so delusional that you simply tuned out Obama's pounding the war drum on Afghanistan all through his campaign or is it that you thought that he was lying?

Ann Coulter thought he was lying. She pointed out in her writings that Obama's rhetoric on the Afghan war matched past Democrat policy of always supporting the war that we were not fighting and never the war that we were fighting.

Mr. Dim, poll the American people issue by issue and you will find that the socialist agenda that you support gets the support of only about 20% of the American people. In order to gain enough support from the other 80% Obama had to pretend to be something that he wasn't. He was successful enough at this to fool a narrow majority of the electorate (a few percentage points dose not a "landslide" make) and so became president.

Obama has shown average Americans over and over again that he is not the man that they thought they were electing.

The question that he must face now is whether to pander to the 20% by surrendering in the war that he said we absolutely had to win or whether he is going to show us one of those rare moments when he manages to rise above the narrow leftism of his inner nature and puts the nation first.

Also Fatboy, do you really want to consign the 25 million people of Afghanistan to the unspeakably cruel rule of the Taliban? Are you utterly lacking compassion for the vast majority of those people who do not wish to see the likes of Mullah Omar returning to torment them?

Is it your attitude that their lives and freedom are worth less than ours because they are not - what - white, Christian, don't speak English? If so have the courage to say so and proudly take your place around the burning cross with others who think like you.

After all one cannot plausibly claim that the war against the Taliban is not morally and legally justified. They invited al Qaeda into Afghanistan. They provided them with land to set up training camps. They provided part of their funding and they used their military to protect them. Osama bin Laden was a part of the Taliban government in everything but name.

So what is the basis of your opposition to the war in Afghanistan, Fatboy? If it isn't racism then what is it? Could it be that you simply hate the United States so much that you don't think we have the right to defend ourselves when attacked?

If that is the case, and I suspect it is, then you should have the courage to come out and say so. But good luck getting anyone other than that 20% who are your and Obama's true soul-mates to go along with you.

Wisdom from American Thinker

From American Thinker:

The gangster regimes of the world are on the march, and they've got our number. They know how to squeeze more civilized nations. Our weakness is cowardice, and that goes double or triple in the face of nuclear weapons. That's why all the rogues are trying to get nukes as fast as they can. They know it's the perfect blackmail weapon, and it makes them invulnerable to attack.

That is also why President Obama's public rejection of General McChrystal's advice on Afghanistan affects your personal safety and mine. Gen. McChrystal wants more troops. Obama doesn't want to send them because he needs the money to promote his socialist take-over of America. You can't have both. Look at Europe, where the military have become pathetic social welfare programs. All the air is sucked out by bigger and bigger victim programs.

Obama must be realizing by now that the chance of a major war in the Gulf next year is rising to 100 percent. Ahmadinejad will have nuclear weapons too, and he already has enough radioactive materials for a dirty nuke, a low-tech weapon that can spread terror everywhere in the world. The Left always puts the burden of proof for WMDs on America, which can never prove their existence because the CIA rarely can penetrate totalitarian regimes. You can't prove a negative. Ever. So the Left is always asking the impossible. It makes them sound reasonable when they are just sabotaging common sense.

But Saddam had a warehouse full of yellowcake uranium, as we now know, and to make a terror weapon all he had to do is load a plane full of that stuff and crash it into the LA Library Tower. You don't need a nuclear explosion to spread terror. All you need is a lot of radioactive stuff thrown together with explosive; agricultural fertilizer will do. For radioactive material you could use the Cesium in your local X-ray unit. Saddam did not do that because he feared our inevitable retaliation.

If Israel attacks Tehran, the Iranians will try to retaliate, either by a missile strike or by local attacks using Hezbollah and Hamas. If Israel does not attack Tehran, the Iranians will try to attack Tel Aviv anyway, because it is the key plank in their ideological doctrine, the one they have been chanting about for thirty years. For Israel it's just in the difference in the timing of an inevitable war. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. So it makes more sense for Israel to attack first, and expect to defend immediately against Iranian retaliation. It is far, far better to do that before the Iranians get actual nukes.

If Obama expects to stay out of that battle, good luck. The Iranians are just as likely to strike the Saudi oil fields (fifty miles away), the Gulf sheikhdoms, the US military in Iraq, the US Navy in the Gulf, or Israel. Israel is the best-defended state in the region. Unlike the Arab states Israel has proven retaliatory capacity. The Arabs have to rely on us, but if we don't come through and defend them successfully, the Saudis are all ready to import nuclear weapons from Pakistan. They've already paid for them by financing Paki nuke development.

So the United States will be drawn into an East Asian or Gulf war. There's no way it can stay out. Unless of course we want a war to spread wider.

As soon as rogue nations get their nukes we are in completely unknown territory. Nothing in the US-Soviet balance of power over the last sixty years is guaranteed to work anymore. The nuclear balance will not have two sides, but half a dozen. Tehran preaches suicide warfare, the first regime to do so since Tojo's Japan sixty years ago. Pakistan does not, but if Pakistan is taken over by the Taliban, you can't trust that any more. India certainly will not trust Islamic radicals with nuclear weapons next door.

So everything depends upon vigorous American action. That's what McChrystal has undoubtedly been telling Obama behind the scenes. We know that the General decided to go public at the risk of his career. That means Obama was resisting the iron logic of reality. He is by far the most unqualified president ever to occupy the office in a time of grave national danger. He's no Washington, no Lincoln, no Truman, no FDR, no JFK, and no George W. Bush. If he can learn quickly enough, he might be able to rise to their level of courage and realism. If not, the world is back to 1939 and Hitler's invasion of Poland.

Will the United States back Israel in a preemptive war? If so, and if preemptive strikes succeed, we can keep the rogues in their place. Beating down Iranian nukes will signal to the other rogues that nuclear weapons are not the ace in the hole they think it is.

That is why Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan, AfPak, is a historic watershed moment. If we lose in Afghanistan and the Taliban win, and they can combine with their brethren in Pakistan to get control over a nuclear weapon, and we will see an Al Qaeda look-alike with nukes. That's what Cheney and Bush were warning us about. India can't afford that, and they are quickly arming up. China can't afford it either.

The same logic applies to Iran. Ahmadinejad has been threatening not just Israel and the United States, but the Saudis and Gulf States. The Saudis have financed Pakistan's nuclear program to be able import them instantly, as soon as Tehran gets its own.

It is the United States that keeps its finger in this dike. Pull that finger out, and we'll see a flood.

So we lose, and the world does, too, if we don't beat down the threat. If we succeed in defending the world in alliance with other countries, we will survive and the gangster regimes will be held back.

Welcome to Obama's Choice.

The White House debate on Afghanistan is therefore critical. That is why General McChrystal is risking his career by going public, and why the White House is sneering at him in public, the way they do. But McChrystal was appointed just ten months ago as the best expert in the Petraeus anti-insurgency doctrine. There aren't any better military leaders for this kind of conflict. His willingness to go public shows what kind of values he has.

Obama is now where he dreamed of being: Making a huge life-or-death decision on civilization. He has never shown any comprehension of America's strategic aims and doctrines in the last sixty years. I can only guess that he is getting intensive tutoring right now by General Jones and SecDef Robert Gates; maybe even by Hillary and Bill. Anybody with credibility will do.

If Obama makes the wrong decision, start digging that hole in your back yard. It'll be a long-term investment, because you'll want a bomb shelter for years to come.

This could be the real Obama Stimulus Plan.

Israel is bound and determined to defend herself. If the United States fails to back an Israeli attack on Tehran they will do it anyway. The US will then be caught in the middle, along with Saudi Arabia and all the rest.

There is no substitute for successful preemption. Bush and Cheney tried to point out those harsh realities, but they were shut out by our fantasy-driven media. The Left chose to close its eyes and ears to the plain facts.

Now Obama is in charge.

We're waiting for the answer. So are the gangster regimes.

There are many things I could say about this but only one really covers all the facts.

Obama is a supreme narcissist.

In the world occupied by Barrack Hussein Obama the only thing that matters, no the only thing that is REAL is Barrack Hussein Obama.

What Barack Hussein Obama decides to do in Afghanistan will be what he feels is the best thing for Barack Hussein Obama.

If the "best thing for Obama" results in the needless deaths of American servicemen or the loss of the region to Islamic fundamentalist fanatics then so be it. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, can you?

So what, you might ask, is the "best thing for Obama"? It is his plan for National Socialist Health Care. This is the monument to himself that he is obsessed upon building.

In his mind this will make him greater than FDR, who failed in bringing this about.

To get his Soviet-style takeover of the nation's medical services he needs the rock-solid support of his party's left-wing lunatic fringe lunatic base. To get that he needs to deliver an unambiguous defeat for the USA in a war and Afghanistan is the logical place to lose (to a leftist).

That is what it comes down to with our preening narcissist-in-chief a cold cynical political calculation.

Obama can't vote "Present" this time

From the Telegraph:

The relationship between President Barack Obama and the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has been put under severe strain by Gen Stanley McChrystal's comments on strategy for the war.

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

In an apparent rebuke to the commander, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, said: "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately."

When asked on CNN about the commander's public lobbying for more troops, Gen Jim Jones, national security adviser, said:

“Ideally, it's better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.”

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: "I wasn't there so I can't answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views."

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

Gen McChrystal delivered a report on Afghanistan requested by the president on Aug 31, but Mr Obama held only his second "principals meeting" on the issue last week.

He will hold at least one more this week, but a decision on how far to follow Gen McChrystal's recommendation to send 40,000 more US troops will not be made for several weeks.

A military expert said: "They still have working relationship but all in all it's not great for now."

Some commentators regarded the general's London comments as verging on insubordination.

Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: "As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements."

He added that it was highly unusual for a senior military officer to "pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy".

Relations between the general and the White House began to sour when his report, which painted a grim picture of the allied mission in Afghanistan, was leaked. White House aides have since briefed against the general's recommendations.

The general has responded with a series of candid interviews as well as the speech. He told Newsweek he was firmly against half measures in Afghanistan: "You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn."

As a divide opened up between the military and the White House, senior military figures began criticising the White House for failing to tackle the issue more quickly.

They made no secret of their view that without the vast ground force recommended by Gen McChrystal, the Afghan mission could end in failure and a return to power of the Taliban.

"They want to make sure people know what they asked for if things go wrong," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defence.

Critics also pointed out that before their Copenhagen encounter Mr Obama had only met Gen McChrystal once since his appointment in June.

During the Bush administration there was a "shadow government" operating out of the State Department, CIA headquarters and the Pentagon which sought to undermine the war effort though leaks and through "creatively" writing summaries to reports which told a different story that the body of the reports did.

This was done in order to sabotage the presidency of George W Bush and was actively aided by the mainstream media which abandoned everything but the most microscopically thin pretense of objectivity and became enthusiastic advocates for the left-wing of the Democrat party.

What this cabal of Bush haters did was treason because America was (and is) fighting a war and their efforts to damage the president also damaged American chances for victory.

What Gen. McChrystal is doing is insubordinate but not treasonous.

The General is insubordinate because he is going outside the chain of command and making public statements critical of his commander-in-chief.

The General is not treasonous because he knows that if the President continues on the course that he seems bent on that American troops will remain deployed in Afghanistan fighting and dying in a war which National Command Authority has no intention of allowing them to win.

Gen. McChrystal is placing his career on the line to force the President to either commit to a course of action which will bring about victory in Afghanistan or else withdraw completely. And he is making sure that both the public knows the consequences of withdrawal and that the President knows that they know.

The ball is now in Barak Hussein Obama's court. He is absolutely within his legal rights to fire McChrystal as Truman fired MacArthur. But if he does he will be telling the nation, our allies and (even more importantly) our enemies that he has no real interest in winning the war.

For a soldier to reach the rank and position which McChrystal has attained requires a lifetime of dedication and hard work and one does not do it without a great deal of ambition. There are many men who would place the furtherance of their career ahead of the lives of the men under their command, ahead of the lives and freedom of the people who it is his mission to liberate and even against his nation's long-term interests.

That McChrystal is willing to fling his stars into the nearest dumpster along with his hopes of closing out his career as the chairman of the JCS speaks volumes about his character.

The man is a hero, albeit and insubordinate one.