Iraq

Obama Took Credit BEFORE He Was Against Taking Credit

Published by Papa Giorgio

Obama is SUCH a joke! HotAir has this:

….A dandy little edit here by the Free Beacon, via Ace. I know I’ve linked it before but the piece you want to read as accompaniment is Iraq hawk turned dove Peter Beinart lamenting all the ways Obama screwed up post-Bush American policy in the country. O wants you to believe at the end of the video here that he pushed hard to keep a residual American force inside Iraq for counterterrorism (i.e. counter-ISIS) operations but it’s simply not true. He didn’t push hard for it; when Maliki initially resisted his demand that U.S. troops be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, O took that as his cue to pull everyone out. And that wasn’t the only time he indulged Maliki’s dumbest impulses. The story of the U.S. vis-a-vis Iraq after 2009, writes Beinart, is a story of disinterest and disengagement:

The decline of U.S. leverage in Iraq simply reinforced the attitude Obama had held since 2009: Let Maliki do whatever he wants so long as he keeps Iraq off the front page.

On December 12, 2011, just days before the final U.S. troops departed Iraq, Maliki visited the White House. According to Nasr, he told Obama that Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, an Iraqiya leader and the highest-ranking Sunni in his government, supported terrorism. Maliki, argues Nasr, was testing Obama, probing to see how the U.S. would react if he began cleansing his government of Sunnis. Obama replied that it was a domestic Iraqi affair. After the meeting, Nasr claims, Maliki told aides, “See! The Americans don’t care.”

In public remarks after the meeting, Obama praised Maliki for leading “Iraq’s most inclusive government yet.” Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq, another Sunni, told CNN he was “shocked” by the president’s comments. “There will be a day,” he predicted, “whereby the Americans will realize that they were deceived by al-Maliki … and they will regret that.”

And now the day has come. Remember that the next time O walks out to the podium and acts indignant about Maliki clinging to power.

One more bit, this from Dexter Filkins, on just how much of a fight O put up in demanding a residual troop presence:

President Obama, too, was ambivalent about retaining even a small force in Iraq. For several months, American officials told me, they were unable to answer basic questions in meetings with Iraqis—like how many troops they wanted to leave behind—because the Administration had not decided. “We got no guidance from the White House,” Jeffrey told me. “We didn’t know where the President was. Maliki kept saying, ‘I don’t know what I have to sell.’ ” At one meeting, Maliki said that he was willing to sign an executive agreement granting the soldiers permission to stay, if he didn’t have to persuade the parliament to accept immunity. The Obama Administration quickly rejected the idea. “The American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible,” Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament, said…

(read more)

(Still the Lynn University campus debate via WaPo)

  • Romney: “With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement,”
  • Obama: “That’s not true,”
  • Romney: “Oh, you didn’t want a status of forces agreement?”
  • Obama: “No,” … “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”

Some other things Mitt got right and “O” didn’t:

Obama Admins Jayvee [Jr. Varsity] Foreign Policy (Megyn Kelly is PRO)

Published by Papa Giorgio

H/T Gateway Pundit

He was against status of forces agreement before Iraq was against it. FromThe Washington Post:

President Obama surprised a few people during a news conference Thursday by claiming that the 2011 decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, a politically popular move on the eve of an election year, was made entirely by his Iraqi counterpart. The implication ran counter to a number of claims that Obama has made in the past, most notably during a tight campaign season two years ago, when he suggested that it was his decision to leave Iraq and end an unpopular war.

His remarks, coming as an Islamist insurgency seizes territory across northern Iraq and threatens the central government, recalled key moments in his reelection race when he called his opponent hopelessly out of step with Middle East realities for wanting to keep U.S. forces in the still-fragile country America had invaded nearly a decade earlier.

In the 2012 campaign’s stretch, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney met inside the performing arts center of Lynn University for the last of three presidential debates. The race remained close, and in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA-run annex in Benghazi, Libya, the Romney team saw foreign policy as an area of potential vulnerability for the incumbent. The debate focused on the issue.

For much of that election year, Obama had included a line of celebration in his standard stump speech, one that among an electorate exhausted by more than a decade of war always drew a rousing applause: “Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq,” Obama proclaimed in Bowling Green, Ohio, in September 2012, and did nearly every day after until the election. “We did.”…

…con’t below…

(Still the Lynn University campus debate via WaPo)

  • Romney: “With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement,”
  • Obama: “That’s not true,”
  • Romney: “Oh, you didn’t want a status of forces agreement?”
  • Obama: “No,” … “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”

Democrats Are Handing the Keys of the Middle-East To Radicals

Published by Papa Giorgio

Think your gas cost a lot now Prius owners? With the new restrictions on coal plants and coming taxes on electric cars… you eco-fascist liberals will get a bigger bite than most driving to work. Karma’s a bitch!

Gateway Pundit:

Retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel and author Ralph Peters says the recent Al-Qaeda victories in Iraq are the greatest Islamist conquests since the 12th Century.

“Patty Ann, this is President Obama’s real legacy. The creation of the first jihadi state in modern history stretching from central Syria to Central Iraq and now approaching Baghdad all because President Obama saw everything through a political lense. He’s gonna end the War in Iraq. He refused to negotiate seriously for residual US presence.

And now, just to put this in perspective for viewers, with this jihadi conquest of Mosul and jihadi forces approaching Baghdad, this is shaping up to be the biggest Arab jihadi victory since the 12th Century, 1187, and the fall of Crusader Jerusalem. This is momentous.”

The Iraqi government asked the United States for airstrikes in western Iraq on surging Al-Qaeda groups. But, Barack Obama has turned them down.

Bush wanted a base in Iraq to be able to stop such incursions. Obama is handing the keys of the Middle-East over to radicals.

It’s An Obama World!

The Legacy Media’s Shoe-Horn of a Double-Standard (Dub v. Hill)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Remember when President Bush had a show thrown at him by a “journalist” in the Middle East? The media covered that as “more bad news for Bush” and the unpopularity of the war on terrorism. CBS even compared Bush to Saddam Hussein.

  • “Sock and awe. How the Iraqi shoe-thrower is now being hailed as a hero and drawing thousands of supporters….It’s being referred to as the ‘toss heard around the world.’ In fact, many Iraqis are showering accolades on the journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush.”  — CBS’s Harry Smith on The Early Show, December 16, 2008.
  • “In the Middle East, there’s no bigger insult than hitting someone with a shoe, a dirty object worn on the lowest part of the body. By showing the kind of contempt formerly reserved for Saddam Hussein to President Bush, [Muntathar] al-Zaidi’s become an instant hero….Al-Zaidi should do jail time, said the Iraqi bloggers – because he missed.” — CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer on the December 15, 2008 Evening News.

(NewsBusters)

(Kyle Drennen, via FoxNation) On Friday, all three network morning shows fretted over a woman throwing a shoe at Hillary Clinton during a speaking event in Las Vegas. NBC Today co-host Tamron Hall was particularly melodramatic: “I mean, but how scary is that?…Had it hit her, that would have been awful. It would have been awful.” Weatherman Al Roker added: “Jeez, that’s frightening.” Hall declared: “It’s hard for me to watch, actually.”

The shoe was on the other foot in 2008, when an Iraqi journalist threw two shoes at then-President George W. Bush during a Baghdad press conference. At that time, ABC and CBS referred to the shoe-thrower as a “celebrity” and “folk hero” who “thrilled the Arab world.” In 2009, then-MSNBC host David Shuster actually cheered the release of the footwear assailant from prison. Tamron Hall happened to be on the show at the time and observed that people would have been “more outraged” if someone threw a shoe at President Obama. Here are some reactions to the shoe throw at Hillary:

  • On CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose observed that Clinton “handled that quite well” before noting that the thrower was “facing federal charges.” Fellow co-host Norah O’Donnell gushed: “You know, it was amazing to see how calm she [Hillary Clinton] was….she didn’t really react much at all and had a great retort, you know?” Rose agreed: “It was amazing.” O’Donnell concluded: “Incredible, indeed.”
  • By contrast, on Friday’s ABC Good Morning America, White House correspondent Jon Karl reported: “Hillary Clinton took that with good humor. But it was a scary moment.” Co-host George Stephanopoulos remarked: “Yeah, Hillary Clinton, quick with the quip. But that was a scary moment there for a second.”
  • On CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose observed that Clinton “handled that quite well” before noting that the thrower was “facing federal charges.” Fellow co-host Norah O’Donnell gushed: “You know, it was amazing to see how calm she [Hillary Clinton] was….she didn’t really react much at all and had a great retort, you know?” Rose agreed: “It was amazing.” O’Donnell concluded: “Incredible, indeed.”

(NewsBusters)

Here is CNN covering Bush’s “Shoe Debacle,” take note of the public dislike of Bush in this report… from mentioning “disliking” him, to marveling that Bush would try and turn this into a positive:

  • “You may not like President [George W.] Bush‘s politics, but one thing you can say for sure is that the man has great reflexes,” then-CNN anchor Alina Cho told foreign correspondent Michael Ware in the wake of the December, 2008 incident in Iraq.
  • Ware marveled at the fact that Bush joked about the situation and attempted to “turn the incident to his advantage,” as opposed to dwelling ruefully on his shoe-administered repudiation.
  • “Bare in mind that, in Iraqi culture, throwing a shoe is close to the ultimate insult,” Ware noted. Unlike in the United States, where shoe-throwing is a traditional feature of weddings and christenings.
  • “This may become the press conference of the Iraq War that everyone will remember,” Ware later reported. He noted that this insult is “reserved only for the most hated.”

(Media’ite)

This blatant double-standard should be embarrassing to the legacy media. Alas, it is probably a badge of honor to them – unfortunately. Sad.

Concepts: “Let Allah Sort It Out” ~ Sarah Palin

Published by Papa Giorgio

Firstly, I must applaud John for saying something not too many on the left say, and that is when he slighted the U.N. properly, “The mere fact that it is not even on the United Nations agenda shows how impotent that organization is in enforcing its own Charter due to the Security Council’s veto power.” Awesome. For those reading this, I recommend a great documentary entitled, “U.N.Me.” A great and actually funny look at the uselessness of that body.

Now, to discuss quickly John’s ending sentence.

  • “I do feel sorry for Sarah though: she still thinks there is a difference between God and Allah.”

I know John is illiterate in his theology, comparative-religious studies, historical depth, and the like. Because there are huge differences between Allah and the God of the Bible. And they express themselves in their founders, Jesus, and Muhammad:

MUHAMMAD ordered his followers (and participated in) the cutting of throats of between 600-to-900 persons. Not all men, but women and children. He was a military tactician that lied and told others to use deception that ultimately led to the death of many people (taqiyya). We never see any depictions of Muhammad with children, we just know that he most likely acquired a gal at age 6 and consummated the “marriage” when she was 9. He was a pedophile in other words. While the Qu’ran states that a follower of this book should have no more than 4 wives, we know of course that he had many more. Many more.

JESUS, when Peter struck off the ear of the soldier, healed it. Christ said if his followers were of any other kingdom, they would fight to get him off the cross. Christ invited and used children as examples of how Jewish adults should view their faith… something culturally radical – inviting children into an inner-circle of a group of status oriented men as the Pharisees were and using them as examples to learn from. Jesus, and thusly us, can access true love because the Triune God has eternally loved (The Father loves the Son, etc. ~ unlike the unitarian God of Islam). Love between us then, my wife and I, the love in community/Body of Christ, has foundations in God. Even the most ardent Muslim still leaves his or her entrance into “heaven” as an arbitrary choice of “god.” The love of Christ and the relationship he offers is bar-none the center piece of our faith… something the Muslim does not have. Which is why the Church evolved because they have a point of reference in Christ to come back to. We would not want the Muslim to fall back to his point of reference but to look to Jesus as a referent.

Remember, in Christian theology, Jesus IS God. This is lost on an old-progressive soul like John however… so to my real reason for posting on this recent “Concepts.” And it is surely John’s, like most liberal Democrats, BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) that is driving this painting of history the wrong way.

  • “George W told us he obeyed a higher father than his earthly father, but we see what that accomplished: nothing.”

If you [the reader] are not familiar with this mantra John is referencing, deals with “Dubya” supposedly praying to God and getting confirmation to go into Iraq (the key back-and-forth begins at 1:35… listen to it all after that):

This mantra and myth is still alive in the likes of “Concepts,” where history and reasonable thought are something akin to the abundance of the Blackfin Cisco. The left leaning (really it fell over) Guardian Newspaper sums up the myth well:

George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.

Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”

Mr Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”

And another headline from a progressive site should sum it up, “Bush: God Told Me to Invade Iraq — President ‘revealed reasons for war in private meeting‘” This is the junk John is spreading, and people take him serious? Seriously?

I bet John is also confused on some other mantras, like “nation building.” I will let Larry Elder take us out of the Looney Tunes known as “Concepts.”

A Refutation of a Liberal Mantra About Dubya and Nation Building from Papa Giorgio

A Marine Capt., Timothy Kudo, Obfuscates Ethics/Just War as Well As Moral and Biblical Categories ~ Dennis Prager

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

Of course higher education and the legacy media play a damning role in this Marines fallacious thinking. But ultimately the onus is on him to look into this matter. I wish it were before the article, but better late than never, let us hope. Capt. Kudo’s article can be found here:  — no “kudos” for him however.

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/

Five Muslim men alleged to be involved in brutal, sadistic gang rape of Colorado woman ~ `Most brutal rape I have seen in my career as a police officer`

Published by Papa Giorgio

From Libertarian Republican:

Victim says the attackers expressed anger at Americans

So far, only local media are reporting on the story.

From KKTV Channel 11, Colorado Springs, “Document Reveals Accounts of Vicious Assault From Victim and Suspects”:

As the investigation continued, the affidavit says the victim was able to identify Sarmad Fadhil Mohammed in a photographic lineup. Looking at the photo, the victim identified him as the male who held a knife during the original disturbance. She also remembered that he had exposed himself to her before she lost consciousness.

Two are charged with the crime while all five are charged as accessories with the crime. Some of the victim’s injuries were described by police as being “rarely seen.”

“I can tell you this is one of the most horrific sexual assaults I’ve seen in my career as a police officer,” said Lt. Howard Black with the Colorado Springs Police Department.

…read more…


Collateral Murder Deconstructed

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Best investigation done on this incident linked via above graphic)

The below video supposedly showing U.S. military Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent persons in 2007 (Iraq) elicited comments from me a while ago. It has come up again in discussion and this time I will post it here at RPT in order to reference it in the future.

Conservative Refocus News Blog has this about the above video:

….However, the Web site does not slow down the video to show that at least one man in that group was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a clearly visible weapon that runs nearly two-thirds the length of his body. 

WikiLeaks also does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG. 

“It gives you a limited perspective,” said Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. “The video only tells you a portion of the activity that was happening that day. Just from watching that video, people cannot understand the complex battles that occurred. You are seeing only a very narrow picture of the events.” 

Hanzlik said images gathered during a military investigation of the incident show multiple weapons around the dead bodies in the courtyard, including at least three RPGs. 

“Our forces were engaged in combat all that day with individuals that fit the description of the men in that video. Their age, their weapons, and the fact that they were within the distance of the forces that had been engaged made it apparent these guys were potentially a threat,” Hanzlik said. 

Military officials have also pointed out that the men in the video are the only people visible on those streets. That indicated something was going on and that these individuals still felt they could walk freely, one official told Fox News. 

Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks editor, [the guy who leaked the video] acknowledged to Fox News in an interview Tuesday evening that “it’s likely some of the individuals seen in the video were carrying weapons.”….

…read more…

This frame grab image, taken from a video posted at Wikileaks.org, shows a group of men in the streets of the New Baghdad with weapons just prior to being fired upon by a U.S. Army Apache helicopter July 12, 2007. (FNC)
Of course, you will hear the critics of this military action say the military is at fault, and not the guys carrying the RPGs and AK-47s, but you didn’t hear them complain that between March and September 1991, the Iraqi Army and security services killed as many as 300,000 Shiites. One mass grave near the city of Hillah is said to hold 30,000 bodies alone. These Iraqi military officials that carried this out received medals, mansions, and $$ for their service. In cases when the military purposefully targets innocent lives (which is almost never), court-marshals abound! But, the most important thing to know is that children were not killed. Some adults were killed in the situation were, innocents and terrorists, but the children survived!

“The watching helicopter crews requested permission to engage, stating “…looks like [the men] possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons” from the scene,[31] and upon receiving permission opened fire on the van and its occupants.[18][24][30] Two children sitting in the front seat were wounded but survived.[18][24][30] Chmagh was killed[18][24][30] along with the father of the children.[32]“ (Wiki)

Some good audio of Julian Assange can be found at Science and Technology’s post titled, The Internet Springs a Leak:

…That may be, but some critics say Wikileak’s posting of some documents in and of itself may be in error.

“To my way of thinking, their approach is quite wrong,” says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy and publisher of the Secrecy News blog.  “Not every act of editorial judgment is censorship, and not every act of withholding information is censorship.”

[….]

Aftergood has plenty of experience receiving, vetting, and publishing secrets.  He has praise for Wikileak’s posting of the Baghdad video.  “It’s useful for all of us to be reminded from time to time that war is genuinely, unspeakably horrible.  And I think this video did the service of reminding all of us of that.”

But Aftergood says, “There are also problems with the video and the way it was released.”   He says the video appears to show the presence of weapons such as a rocket propelled grenade (RPG), something not noted in the Wikileaks on-screen graphics.  Assange says the video was classified, a claim Aftergood cannot verify.  And the titling of the video itself – Wikileaks calls it “Collateral Murder” – is something Aftergood calls “a heavy-handed, propagandistic exercise.”

…read more…

Just another example of weapons found at the scene as viewed from the helicopter as well as on the ground investigators:

View from the ground:

View From the Apache:

So, all being said, this video making new rounds on FaceBook is a big flop for the anti-military crowd.