We can begin with what we know about the honesty of the administration. Our experience begins in 2009 with the eight hundred billion dollar economic stimulus package, and the “shovel ready” infrastructure projects that didn’t exist. Then there was “Cash for Clunkers”, the program that was supposed to boost car sales and clean the environment but did just the opposite. The “salvation” of General Motors that resulted in the closing of hundreds of local dealerships across the country and the loss of thousands of jobs but left the United Auto Worker’s pensions that are still weighing the company down intact, and the eventual eleven billion dollar loss picked up by U.S. taxpayers.
The failure to pass immigration reform while the democrat party controlled both houses of Congress so that the issue could be used as a political cudgel in future elections.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 0bamaCare. The bill so big and obscure that it had to be passed before we could know what was in it. The bill that was argued as not being a tax, but was justified in its existence only as being a tax. The bill that would, under no circumstances provide taxpayer supported health care to those in the country illegally or government funded abortion services. The bill that was passed into law using parliamentary chicanery without a single minority vote. The bill that, it would seem, represents the essence of administration honesty. Thirty million more will be provided with health care, but the cost will actually go down. No one making less than $250,000 a year will see their taxes go up as much as a dime. Average families will see a cost savings of $2,400 every year. If you like your plan you can keep your plan. “Let me be clear. If you like your plan you can keep your plan.”. The roll out disaster. The constantly changing, and conflicting enrollment numbers. The ever changing and capricious enforcement of clearly worded statute.
In Libya the president was shamed into action by the Brits and French to try and prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, and after destabilizing the region tried to maintain an influential presence with a “light foot print”. The resulting attack on the embassy compound and the shameless, bald faced attempt to cover it up will make interesting reading for future readers of tragic comedy. After all, as the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously said in regard to the truth of the story, “What difference does it make?”.
In Egypt the U.S. helped to over throw a brutal and ruthless dictator in favor of an equally brutal and ruthless theocrat.
Brutal and ruthless dictatorial theocrats nearing possession of nuclear weapons in Iran bent on domination of the Persian Gulf region and the destruction of Israel are given a pass.
Which brings us to Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Whatever your thoughts on the justification of U.S. intervention in the region in the first place it is a fact that 2009 Iraq was a safer place to live than Chicago. This did not happen by accident. Four thousand U.S. soldiers gave their lives for this peace. The tax payers of the United States paid over a trillion dollars for this state of calm. And just as this passivity did not come about by random chance, neither did its loss. The peace in Iraq and the sacrifices made to achieve it were traded away for domestic election gains.
Afghanistan will suffer the same fate as Iraq.
But now. Syria. What are we to make of the president’s decision to “bomb” the Islamic extremist ISIS/ISIL army in Iraq and Syria? He was willing to stand back while tens of thousands of Libyan civilians were killed. He was willing to stand back while the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own civilian populations in a conflict that has resulted in the deaths of over a hundred thousand men, women, and children, and made refugees of over a million more. He was willing to make worthless the sacrifice, freely given, of four thousand U.S. service personnel and over a trillion dollars in tax money. He is willing to publicly disregard the advice of his top military advisers, making clear to our adversaries what strategies we will and will not use. Why now, should anyone think, or believe for an instant that the president and his political advisors have any concern that is not based in electoral politics? Everything is to be announced “after the election”. He didn’t care about the Libyans, or his own consular staff. He didn’t care about the Syrians. He didn’t care about the Yazidis trapped on the mountain waiting certain death. He doesn’t care about the Kurds. He doesn’t care about the four thousand dead American service men and women or the money spent. His only care is the “fundamental transformation” of the United States of America into the communist utopia he learned it could be as a child, and he will do anything, say anything that helps him in that effort.
One possible scenario, a plausible one it seems, is that the president, his approval numbers now abysmal, is posturing ahead of the election to try and make the best of a bad situation. He is, after all, in his own mind, the president who “ends wars” not starts them. But it seems likely that after the election or the first of the year that the Congress, prodded by its constituency, will ask what the goal in Iraq is. The question will be asked: what are American taxpayers being asked to pay for. It will become obvious at that point that there is no answer. It will become obvious that “to degrade and destroy them” is something that the president can easily do from behind his teleprompter and not a military strategy or goal. The Congress will refuse by a narrow margin and the president will throw up his hands and say, “Well, I tried. Not my fault.”, all the while thinking to himself “Boy these rubes are SOOO stupid.”.
But that’s just what an average guy thinks
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