Divided We Stand United We Fall (The Dividist Papers) |
Posted: 24 Mar 2016 01:02 AM PDT
Declaring War On The New Normal Last fall, in the wake of the October ISIS bombing in Ankara (103 dead), ISIS destruction of an Russian plane over Egypt (224 dead), the November ISIS bombing in Beirut (43 dead) and ISIS massacre in Paris (130 dead), President Obama said: "We will not accept attacks on civilians in places like Paris as the new normal." After the December ISIS inspired massacre in San Bernardino (14 dead), we wrote a post analyzing President Obama's speech outlining his strategy to degrade and destroy ISIS. After reading the Graeme Wood Atlantic article entitled "What ISIS Really Wants" we concluded the Obama strategy would do absolutely nothing to change the "new normal" terror dynamic until and unless the ISIS "Caliphate" was dislodged from Syria and Iraq:
Current Status Of The New Normal - President Obama talks the talk. Since the San Bernardino massacre in December, the Obama administration has been repeatedly questioned by the press and Congress about the status of the President's strategy to defeat ISIS. Administration flacks and the President himself cite bombing sortie statistics, body counts, and incremental territorial gains as evidence that the strategy is working. More recently the President continued to talk the talk, as exemplified by his comments during his historic visit to Cuba in the first minutes of an exhibition baseball game. Here he is interviewed by ESPN on the very day of the ISIS attack in Brussels ... "President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to "go after" the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, in the first apparent official confirmation that the U.S. believes the terrorist group was indeed behind the Brussels attacks that left at least 34 dead. "The notion that any political agenda would justify the killing of innocent people like this is something that's beyond the pale. We are gonna continue with the over 60 nations that are pounding ISIL, and we're going to go after them," Obama said, speaking to ESPN at the top of the third inning in a historic baseball game in Cuba."It was a sentiment he repeated the next day in a press conference during his state visit to Argentina: "My top priority is to defeat ISIL and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that's been taking place around the world," Mr. Obama said. "This is difficult work," he added. "It's not because we don't have the best and the brightest working on it, it's not because we are not taking the threat seriously, it is because it's challenging to find and identify very small groups of people who are willing to die themselves and can walk into a crowd and detonate a bomb."Since the president made his comments about the "new normal" after the horrors last fall, the New York Times has reported 12 additional ISIS related terrorist attacks, comprising of at least 100 civilian deaths in Yemen, Libya, Egypt, France, Turkey, United States, Indonesia and, most recently - on March 22, 2016 - in Brussels, Belgium. The graphic at the top and addendum at the end of this post have been updated with the ISIS terror statistics added since our last "new normal" post. Explaining The New Normal - President Obama thinks you worry too much. Some question how sincere President Obama may be about defeating ISIS and "the scourge of this barbaric terrorism", when he chose to spend the entire day at a baseball game with the Cuban Dictator Raoul Castro. Yes, it was a historic event for the two countries, and yes, it was deserving of a presidential spotlight. But the bombing perpetrators and victim's DNA was still being collected as their remains were cleaned up in the Brussels airport and train station. Tom Brokaw didn't think it was a good look: "So much of politics and national security is a combination of symbolism and reality," he said. "The reality is that we did have that attack yesterday. It was unnerving to us, it was devastating in Europe... But at the same time, the symbolism is that the president stayed at the baseball game all day long where you would have thought he would have said, 'Look, we've got more business that I have to deal with, I wish you well,' and get on the phone," Brokaw said."Brokaw is right about the optics. But what Brokaw missed is that the symbolism Obama is communicating by spending his day watching baseball in Cuba is, in fact, the President's sincere conviction about the relative importance of ISIS sponsored terrorism. Look to the President's official statements in press conferences, speeches, and briefings to find where he is being disingenuous and misleading about the beliefs that inform his policies. If we want to clearly understand the President's real views on ISIS, we need look no further than the current issue of The Atlantic. Jeffrey Goldberg deconstructs "The Obama Doctrine" in an opus developed with extraordinary access to the President and his team over much of his administration: "My goal in our recent conversations was to see the world through Obama's eyes, and to understand what he believes America's role in the world should be. This article is informed by our recent series of conversations, which took place in the Oval Office; over lunch in his dining room; aboard Air Force One; and in Kuala Lumpur during his most recent visit to Asia, in November. It is also informed by my previous interviews with him and by his speeches and prolific public ruminations, as well as by conversations with his top foreign-policy and national-security advisers, foreign leaders and their ambassadors in Washington, friends of the president and others who have spoken with him about his policies and decisions, and his adversaries and critics."This is what Goldberg determined President really believes about ISIS terrorism. These quotes explain his convictions, philosophy, foreign policy, administration actions, and even explains the baseball game:
We can agree or disagree with the President's view of ISIS terrorism. But we cannot dispute this simple observation -- One of these presidential quotes is not like the others:
The image was, of course, wrong and completely unfair. But it captured the gestalt of the moment, the helplessness and anger many Americans felt about what appeared to be the callous incompetence of emergency government services failing to help the people of New Orleans. Which brings us to another interesting gem from the Goldberg piece "... [Obama's] advisers are fighting a constant rearguard action to keep Obama from placing terrorism in what he considers its "proper" perspective, out of concern that he will seem insensitive to the fears of the American people." After the ESPN interview at the baseball game, two words come to mind - EPIC FAIL. This image may be wrong and completely unfair. But it also may capture the gestalt of the moment, the fear and anger many Americans feel about what appears to be this administration's indifferent, inadequate and/or completely incompetent prosecution of the war against the ISIS butchers. Perhaps the Obama Doctrine of attrition and application of minimum necessary force will ultimately work. Perhaps it will slowly degrade, decapitate and demoralize ISIS to the point where the "Calipahate" that inspires fanatical murder and mayhem around the globe collapses of it's own accord. Perhaps. But let's not delude ourselves. For every minute the "Obama Doctrine" permits ISIS to claim control of a continuing "Caliphate" in Iraq and Syria, the "New Normal" of random bombings, stabbings, shootings, murder and mayhem that we have seen worldwide for the last two years will continue unabated. But don't worry. President Obama wants you to become resilient in the face of these low probability atrocities, and be assured by the knowledge that falling in the bathtub is statistically more dangerous to you than the threat of ISIS. I know I take comfort in that knowledge. And the fact that ISIS is doing their best to obtain chemical, biological, cyber, and nuclear weapons should not bother us at all. It is very unlikely that they will succeed. But, as an FYI while we wait for the Obama Doctrine to play out, a review of the last four months of "New Normal." Just so you know what to resiliently expect... ***** Addendum from the New York Times:The New Normal Descriptions of Major ISIS Attacks Since San Bernardino Massacre on Dec 2, 2016
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DRAFT United Coalition of the Divided - 2016 Edition Posted: 24 Mar 2016 01:00 AM PDT The Dividist started this exclusive club during the 2008 election cycle and simultaneously initiated the "Coalition of the Divided Blogroll" - which may or may not be found in the right sidebar somewhere. It was an ignominious start, with the Democrats seizing unified control of the Federal government. Since then we've had better luck rolling out a new membership list in each election cycle. The 2010 edition barely got posted in time for the midterms among much angst and gnashing of teeth. Can't complain about the result though, as divided government was emphatically restored. We had a bit of an earlier start on the 2012 membership drive, and that still worked out fine with the reelection of divided government along with Barack Obama. In 2014, it was just a question of how divided we were going to get, and the Democrats accommodated by digging themselves a deeper hole in Congress, much to the delight of our Midterm Divided Coalition. So now it's 2016. We'll be voting for a new President with the Republicans in majority control of Congress. At the time of this writing, Republicans and Democrats are focused on savaging their own in the primaries. We'll probably need to get past the conventions before Democrats start to realize that the divided government meme is on their side and a divided government state is the best they can hope for in this cycle. As always, the Dividist will welcome these disingenuous, insincere, and hypocritical partisan pretenders to the 2016 United Coalition of the Divided with open arms! Membership is open to anyone writing anything in any form in any media in a vaguely positive way on the subject of divided government. New recruits will be added to the ranks, updating this post and blogroll from now until the 2016 election. You too can join this glorious movement and march in solidarity with the many This is a living list. New recruits and draftees will be updated to this post and in the blogroll periodically between now and election day. Stay divided my friend. The United Coalition of the Divided 2016 Presidential Election |
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