International news, national news

Coalition building … then and now

James Baker III is a great American who’s served with honor over many years as secretary of state, secretary of commerce and White House chief of staff.

It was his job at the State Department that has brought him into the discussion over how President Obama should handle the fight against the Islamic State.

Baker appeared today on Meet the Press and expressed — no surprise there — misgivings about Obama’s plan to fight ISIL. Specifically, Baker questioned the ability of the president to gather the coalition needed to destroy the terrorists. He compared the latest coalition-building plan to the effort launched in 1990 in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War.

I have great respect for Baker, but the comparison isn’t entirely apt.

Baker was tasked with recruiting nations to aid in the ousting of Iraqi forces that invaded Kuwait, the oil-rich emirate. The mission was clear and simple: Oust the Iraqis from Kuwait using maximum military force.

President George H.W. Bush ordered the deployment of 500,000 American troops. Baker persuaded allies to send in another 200,000 troops. The allies — including the British, French and, oh yes, the Syrians — sent troops into combat to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces.

The task before Barack Obama, according to Baker, is to persuade Sunni Muslim nations to actually aid in a fight that hasn’t yet been defined. The president won’t commit ground troops; Baker believes we need to send special operations forces into Syria and Iraq to aid in locating targets for the air campaign that Obama has planned.

My point here is that the enemy isn’t nearly as clearly defined as the enemy was in Kuwait. Baker knows that as well. The Muslim nations need to have a clear mission, as do Americans who are weary of sending young warriors back into battle.

The conflict we’re entering now is infinitely more complicated than the 1990-91 Persian Gulf crisis.

Can it be done? Yes. With great care.

business news, national news, State news

Export oil, deplete supply, price goes up

Pressure reportedly is mounting on Capitol Hill to lift a four-decade ban on exporting U.S. crude oil.

This notion gives me pause. I’m not totally against it. It surely, though, does raise a fundamental economic question: If supply-and-demand policy regulates the price consumers pay for a product, would exporting oil overseas reduce the supply here at home and, thus, mean we pay more for what we purchase?

Momentum builds to allow US oil exports

I watched the price of gasoline drop twice Saturday while I was working. The price of regular unleaded gasoline is now around $3.07 per gallon in Amarillo.

Then this morning I read in the Wall Street Journal that prices might be coming down even more. And this comes as the pressure builds to allow U.S. exports of oil. Why? Because we have so much of it now being produced here at home, thanks to the enormous shale oil reserves being developed in places such as North Dakota and Montana — not to mention the production that’s occurring in West Texas and Oklahoma.

Some Republicans want to lift the ban enacted in the 1970s when oil was relatively scarce. We had been through those oil embargoes slapped on us by rogue Middle East nations. The price of fossil fuel products has gone nowhere but up ever since … until now.

The price is coming down, thanks to a lot of factors: better motor vehicle fuel efficiency; increased development of alternative energy sources, which means less reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity.

All of this has contributed to a glut of oil supply in the United States.

Do we want to draw down that supply when Americans might start to see some serious relief as they fill up their motor vehicles with fuel?

Supply goes up, prices go down. Isn’t that what we want? I need to think some more about this idea.

national news, political news

Mark Sanford's back in the public eye

Mark Sanford had dropped off my radar. Indeed, I thought he was gone forever.

Until now.

He’s back. The reason has something to do with why he was such a notorious character in the first place.

http://news.msn.com/us/us-rep-sanford-calls-off-engagement-to-soul-mate

Back when he was the Republican governor of South Carolina, he famously disappeared for a few days. He told his staff to put the word out he was “hiking on the Appalachian Trail.” Turns out he was cavorting with his mistress — way down yonder in Argentina.

He lied to the public about his whereabouts and as AWOL from his elected duty as governor of the Palmetto State.

What a goofball.

Well, he later got engaged to his “soul mate,” Maria Belen Chapur, after his wife, Jenny, divorced him. He then got elected to Congress, where he served before becoming governor.

Now the nutty guy says he’s calling off his engagement to Chapur, apparently because of continuing difficulties with the former Mrs. Sanford, the one on whom he cheated with Chapur.

“No relationship can stand forever this tension,” wrote Sanford in a Facebook message to Chapur. He alluded to possibly getting re-engaged if his situation with Jenny Sanford calms down. There has been trouble over visitation with one of the couple’s children.

According to MSN.com: “His Facebook posting comes after attorneys for Jenny Sanford last week asked a family court judge to limit the lawmaker’s visitation with his youngest child. They also want Mark Sanford to undergo psychological tests and take anger management and parenting courses.”

Let’s remember that Mark Sanford once slept on his couch in his congressional office so he could be sure to get home every weekend to be with his wife and their children; he cited his belief in strong “family values.” Then he cheats on his wife, lies to his constituents, gets engaged to his mistress, and then breaks off his engagement while lawyers try to get this goober to undergo “anger management and parenting courses.”

Go away, congressman. Please?

International news, national news, political news

Did we abandon an ISIL captive?

My heart breaks for Diane Foley, whose son James was beheaded by Islamist terrorists.

Accordingly, I can understand her bitterness that the U.S. government perhaps could have done more to save her son’s life.

Perhaps.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/12/us/james-foley-mother-us-response/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Is it fair, though, so soon after this terrible tragedy to suggest the government failed to do all it could do to secure the journalist’s release?

It’s been revealed that in July the U.S. sent a Special Forces team into Syria to rescue Foley. It failed. The team arrived at where it thought Foley was being held but discovered only an empty building.

Diane Foley now alleges that national security officials threatened her with prosecution if she continued to raise money to pay a ransom for her son. Indeed, U.S. law now prohibits the government from negotiating with terrorists. It’s unclear — to me at least — just how Ms. Foley intended to pay the money if she was able to raise the amount the terrorists demanded.

Secretary of State John Kerry — who’s in Turkey seeking to build an international coalition to fight ISIL — adamantly denies any personal knowledge of a prosecution threat. Kerry told reporters: “I can tell you that I am totally unaware and would not condone anybody that I know of within the State Department making such statements.”

Quite clearly nothing can bring James Foley back. As for U.S. law prohibiting negotiating with terrorists, it needs to stay on the books.

A mother’s grief is overwhelming. A nation still mourns her son’s gruesome death. But let’s not overlay that grief with an understanding of what the government did — or couldn’t do under the law — to secure her son’s freedom.

Let’s concentrate instead on finding the murderers and administering battlefield “justice,” which is what the president and secretary of state already have vowed to do.

Uncategorized

Rand Paul: unfit for presidency

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Sen. Rand Paul has demonstrated the kooky trait that seems to endear him to some Republicans but demonstrates why he is unfit to sit in the Oval Office of the White House.

The Kentucky Republican said this week that if he’s elected president — fat chance — that the first executive order he’d issue would be to undo all previous executive orders.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/217599-rand-paul-says-as-president-he-would-repeal-all-executive-orders

Oh, but wait. His spokesman said he’s more or less kidding. His statement, which he made to Breitbart News, was meant to illustrate that President Obama’s overuse of unconstitutional executive authority is the real target.

OK, then. When he made that statement, did he wink at the reporter? Did he qualify what he said by alluding to what President Obama has done?

Umm. No. He said “all” and I presume he meant “all.”

Such action would repeal a lot of U.S. standing policy, such as the one that prohibits the United States from assassinating foreign leaders. That one was signed by President Gerald R. Ford — in 1975!

Sen. Paul is likely to run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Good. I hope he does. The political debate needs a laugh or two. Lord knows too much seriousness can get a nation down.

International news, political news

Killing top terrorists 'won't work'

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal knows a thing or two about hunting down and killing terrorists.

So, when he says that killing the top dogs in the terrorist chain of command won’t eradicate the organization, he deserves the nation’s ear.

http://news.msn.com/videos/?ap=True&videoid=f189696c-1d54-4eb9-8637-9c422da93289

McChrystal noted — as many others have acknowledged — that killing Osama bin Laden in May 2011 didn’t eliminate al-Qaeda. Others stepped up to replace him. Now some are saying that the terror group is stronger than before.

The general’s comments come in the wake of President Obama declaring war, in effect, against the Islamic State. The plan now is to go after ISIL’s top leadership, eliminate it, decimate the organization and then perhaps be able to declare some form of victory in this war against terror.

McChrystal is dubious of that strategy, as he said to CNN’s Erin Burnett.

I’ve sought to make the point on this blog that the anti-terror campaign is unlike any we’ve ever fought as a nation. There is no clearly defined enemy operating out of foreign capitals, funded openly by hostile governments. They operate in the shadows, seeking to keep their identity secret for as long as possible.

Yes, we know who ISIL’s leaders are, as we know the names of those who lead al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram or any other terrorist organization. If we kill every leader of every group, does that send the minions into hiding, dispirited? No. I enrages them and they find new leaders to step up.

The fight is worth waging and we must fight them with extreme prejudice.

However, as Gen. McChrystal has said correctly, killing the bad guys’ leaders isn’t enough.

International news, national news, political news

OK, it's official: We're at war

Is it war or is it a counter-terrorism campaign?

I’d thought out loud in an earlier blog post that the terminology didn’t matter. We’re going after the Islamic State with heavy weapons. Secretary of State John Kerry — who’s been to war … in Vietnam — was reluctant to use that term. Now the commander in chief, Barack Obama, says we’re “at war” with ISIL.

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-makes-official-us-war-220808683.html

Let’s be mindful, though, of what this “war” actually means, or doesn’t mean.

It doesn’t mean we’re going to take over a foreign capital, run up the Stars and Stripes and declare victory. Nor does it mean we’re going to receive surrender papers from a foreign government aboard some warship. It won’t result in our rebuilding (I hope) some nation that we’ve blown to smithereens trying to root out and kill terrorists.

What the “war” means is that we’re going to be in this fight for perhaps well past the foreseeable future. I suspect we’ll still be fighting this “war” when Barack Obama leaves office on Jan. 20, 2017. He’ll hand the battle plans over to his successor, wish that person good luck and then the new commander in chief will be left with trying to kill all the ISIL fighters our military can find.

The war against terrorism is something we launched after 9/11. Everyone in America knew the war wouldn’t have an end date. Heck, there really wasn’t an strategy to conclude the war when President Bush declared it after the terrorists killed thousands of Americans on that terrible Tuesday morning 13 years ago.

I still don’t give a damn what we call this conflict. If it’s war, then we’re going to have to redefine how we know when it’s over.

First, though, we’ll likely have to redefine when it ends. Good luck with that.

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'Silver lining' showing up in Islamic State fight

President Obama sees a potential “silver lining” in the fight to eradicate the Islamic State.

It lies in capitals of Arab states that are joining the fight with the United States of America.

Obama sees ‘silver lining’ in ISIS fight

It’s time for those nations to declare war — or take hostile action of some sort — against terrorists who are perverting Islam into something that doesn’t resemble one of the world’s great religions.

The president spoke to a group of Democratic donors at a fundraiser and said, “We’re going to be able to build the kind of coalition that allows us to lead but also isn’t entirely dependent on what we do.”

Therein lies the potential silver lining.

For far too long these Islamic extremists have been declaring some kind of “holy war” against the “infidels” of the world. They have embarked on a campaign of terror in the name of Islam. Meanwhile, Sunni Arab states have been relatively quiet. They haven’t joined the fight in an active sense.

Today, just a few days after Obama announced his administration’s strategy to fight ISIL, a coalition is beginning to form and it is including Middle East nations with actual skin in this so-called game.

Yes, the United States can lead the coalition, but it cannot carry this fight all alone.

Let’s hope, therefore, that this coalition of Muslim nations not only holds up, but strengthens in its resolve to destroy terrorist groups that are harming them as much as they seek to harm The Great Satan.

national news, political news

Palins were punchin' 'em out?

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This little tidbit from the tundra almost defies anything that makes sense.

Almost …

It’s been reported that the family of former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin got involved in a brawl at someone’s home near Anchorage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2014/09/11/stretch-hummers-a-bloody-brawl-and-sarah-palin/

The Palin Gang showed up in a stretch Hummer — allegedly — went inside and then a fight broke out. Involved in the altercation reportedly were Sarah Barracuda’s husband, Todd, son Track and daughters Willow and Bristol. It apparently also involved a former boyfriend of one of the daughters.

And then, supposedly, someone apparently from the Palin Gang yelled, “Don’t you know who we are?”

Here’s how the Washington Post reported the story:

“Anchorage Police Department’s communications director Jennifer Castro confirmed to the Loop that there was a fight at a party where the Palins were in attendance. Castro said ‘just before midnight Anchorage police responded to a report of a verbal and physical altercation taking place between multiple subjects
’”.

Ugghhh!

And to think some people actually take seriously what this one-time Republican vice-presidential nominee has to say about anything.

I suppose equally interesting might be that on the day the news broke about this brawl, Sarah Barracuda appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” show to discuss President Obama’s strategy for destroying the Islamic State. Of course, Palin was critical of the president’s plans. However, Sean Hannity didn’t bother to ask her anything about the fight and whether she and her family were involved.

She still thinks of herself as a serious political pundit? You betcha.

national news

Obama better economically than Reagan? Wow!

Here’s a bit of a surprise: Barack Obama’s presidency has had a greater positive impact on the national economy than the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

You want more of a surprise? This assessment comes from Forbes Magazine, hardly known as a liberal-leaning publication prone to sing the praises of lefties.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/

Nope. Forbes isn’t exactly Mother Jones or The Nation.

But in the essay attached to this post, it notes that the unemployment rate has dropped more quickly during the Obama administration than it did when Reagan was president. The deficit? It’s dropped significantly while during the Reagan years it grew way beyond what was considered prudent at the time.

Forbes cites the Bureau of Labor Statistics as its source for the glowing economic report. It notes that the August job-growth figure was a disappointment; the nation added “only” 142,000 jobs in August, breaking the string of 200,000-job string of monthly reports. There’s no need to wallow in despair, according to Forbes: “Despite the lower than expected August jobs number, America will create about 2.5 million new jobs in 2014.”

This is worth noting — and I encourage you to read the Forbes article — because Obama’s critics continue to do an effective job of poor-mouthing the economy. There continues to be this perception among the public that the economy remains in the tank. For the life of me I cannot understand how the right wing is able to sell that notion. But it does.

I suppose one can pick apart all these economic indicators and find negative elements to highlight. It’s just interesting to me nevertheless that Forbes — founded by the late Malcolm Forbes’s father and continued by his one-time Republican presidential candidate son, Steve — would find so much good news to report about someone with whom the organization has so little in common.

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