August 14, 2014

The Three Stooges of the Apocalypse

John Ransom

8/14/2014 4:09:00 AM

 

The Middle East isn’t just a foreign policy problem; it’s another one of the man-caused disasters that has become the hallmark of the Obama administration’s version of Moe, Larry and Curly.
And the cause of the disaster is transparently clear: These stooges are all campaign and no common sense.
Because the amigos tres in this instance haven’t just been poor executives-- as they have shown in other policy-- they’ve been poor thinkers as well. That they are hurting Muslims in Iraq and the Middle East -- a group they say they stand in solidarity with-- is immaterial to them. Campaigning for these stooges has always come before common sense.
That’s why secretary of state John “Larry” Kerry-- who was for the Iraq war before he was against it while he was campaigning for president-- is secretary of state; and perhaps the worst secretary of state ever if you discount the last secretary of state, who also was for the Iraq war before she was against it.
“This is not a combat, boots-on-the-ground, operation in Iraq,” said Defense Secretary, Chuck “Curly” Hagel—another guy who was for the war before he was against it-- all while he ordered 130 more US boots on the ground.
So let’s just say that the campaign is never ending, and thus common sense is still quite uncommon with our foreign policy stooges.
So uncommon in fact that Barack “Moe” Obama can’t even admit what we all know to be facts.
When confronted with the fact that he promised to remove US troops from Iraq, then kept that promise, and then claimed he ended the Iraq War by removing the troops-- while really he was destabilizing the country—Moe had this to say:
“What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision,” said Obama about the decision to end the US troops that stabilized Iraq. “Under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to a sovereign, democratically elected Iraqi government. So let’s just be clear: The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because the Iraqis — a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there.”
Let’s just be clear, shall we?
It was Moe—and Kerry and Curly-- who claimed from the campaign trail in 2008 that Iraq was just a sideshow, the surge wouldn’t work, and that the real US troop surge needed to happen in Afghanistan. It was Moe—and Kerry and Curly -- who said the Bush administration made a mistake in not pursuing Osama bin Laden, like somehow bin Laden’s death would make a difference. It was Moe-- and Kerry and Curly -- who pulled troops out of Iraq after the surge worked and INTO Afghanistan, even though we know now that Moe— and Kerry and Curly -- didn’t want troops in either country.
So why are they sending troops in now?
Because they are stooges, that’s why.
I’m not sure what it is that these stooges think they are accomplishing for the Muslim world, or for America, but if Obama-- and Kerry and Curly—have something to offer in the Middle East besides an apocalypse now and more apocalypse later and even more apocalypse later still, they should cut the vaudeville routine.
Their slapstick is a painful substitute for statesmanship.