Obama’s Hell Or High Water Moment

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/obama-s-hell-or-high-water-moment-carters-second-termSeven Army former POWs greet the media from the balcony of their hospital ward at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) in Landstuhl, Germany, at noon, local time, on Friday, April 18, 2003. Image Credit: Melvin Tarpley, Visual Information Services Europe, 2d Signal Brigade - wikimedia.org

Obama’s Hell Or High Water Moment

Barack Obama, by most any measure, had a very good trip overseas in which his campaign for President of the United States got the much needed “Optics” for Barack Obama on international relations.

There are great photos and video of Barack Obama on the ground in a warzone, standing and walking with the top United States military leaders, shaking hands with political leaders of nations in conflict throughout the Middle East, talking in very friendly circumstances with major ally European national heads of state (Germany's Merkel, France's Sarkozy, Great Britain's Brown), delivering a speech in front of a large crowd in a major public square in Berlin … one could not hope for a better photographic record result.

The problem with this trip is what it exposed about the character of the presumptive nominee of the Democrat Party for President of the United States.

Pretty much, if a camera and a couple of reporters can not be with him as he went about his tasks he felt that were important for the day, then that activity would be scrubbed.

There are some activities, however, that are beyond the camera and of greater importance than a photo-op.

Activities that are directly related to being a standing United States Senator, and potential Commander and Chief of the United States military forces by becoming President of the United States … such as visiting our troops, wounded while carrying out military operations in support of United States interests, would be one such “Hell Or High Water” moment.

On this test of character and follow through of planned intention, Barack Obama failed miserably.

LANDSTUHL, Germany (June 14, 2007) - Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates presents the Purple Heart medal to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Brent A. Homan at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on June 13, 2007. Image Credit: Cherie A. Thurlby - arcent.army.mil

This excerpted and edited from Reuters via The New York Times -

Obama Defends Scrubbing Visit to Wounded Troops
By Caren Bohan, editing by Vicki Allen - REUTERS - Published: July 26, 2008 - Filed at 10:36 a.m. ET

U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday defended his decision to cancel a visit with U.S. troops at a military hospital in Germany because of concerns it would be viewed as a political event.

Obama had intended to stop at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on Friday morning, the day after delivering a speech on transatlantic relations in Berlin as part of his trip to the Middle East and Europe.

But the campaign issued a statement saying the Illinois senator decided to drop the visit from his schedule after an adviser was told it would be perceived as political.
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"That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political," Obama said. "And the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not and get caught in the cross-fire between campaigns."
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The Pentagon said it never told Obama he could not visit Landstuhl, only that he could not do so with campaign staff and reporters there.

The Obama campaign countered there was never any intention to allow reporters and that Gration was to be the only adviser to participate in the visit with the senator.

The U.S. Defense Department has long-standing policies that prohibit military personnel and military facilities from any association with partisan political campaigns and elections.
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He was completing a tour that included Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Germany, France and Britain.
Reference Here>>

This question is begging to be asked, if the Barack Obama campaign (or Barack, himelf) never intended to take cameras and reporters along to the planned trip and visit of our wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) – Why scrub the trip?

It comes down to a matter of character. Barack Obama knew in his heart that this trip and the effort and money expended upon this international show, was for the OPTICS of the campaign. If there was to be NO return upon the investment in any activity that was planned into the trip, scrub the activity.

Barack Obama passed his “Hell Or High Water” moment as it relates to protecting the investment of his campaign, however, he failed this moment as it relates to his duties as a standing United States Senator and presumptive candidate for President and the installment of Carter's Second Term.

Barack Obama And His Perfect Storm Of Peace In Iraq

Senator Barack Obama and Terry Moran of ABC News - "I've always reserved the right, uh, to say---let's say that ethnic, uh, ethnic fighting broke out once again---I've reserved the right to say---I don't--I'm not going to stand idly by if genocide is occurring.”, said Barack Obama. Image Credit: ABC News via my.barackobama.com

Barack Obama And His Perfect Storm Of Peace In Iraq

In an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran for Nightline (July 21, 2008), Barack Obama showed why he really isn’t ready for “Primetime” let alone “Nightline”.

Junior Senator Barack Obama will not say he was wrong about his assessment of the Bush Administration’s implementation of the military operation that has become known as “The Surge”. This is the operation where an additional 30,000 or so United States soldiers were placed in Iraq in order to stop the strengthening growth of anti-Iraq insurgent (Al Qaeda) combatants and provide security for the newly elected government of Iraq to begin to operate.

Eighteen months ago, it was estimated that there were 12,000 armed combatants working throughout the country to disrupt the newly formed government of Iraq. Today, the estimate is that there may be 1,200 armed combatants holed up in the western provinces of Iraq. One year ago in June 2007, we lost over seventy soldiers to violence and IED roadside bombs throughout Iraq … June 2008 saw that number drop to five.

Moran noted that Obama had claimed that the surge "would not make a significant dent in the violence."

Barack Obama insists that the reason the violence is down in Iraq is due to a convergence of factors that he could not anticipate happening … OH, and some “terrific work by our troops”.

The Perfect Storm of factors the junior Senator sites are disturbing ---

“… but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.”

Sorry Barack, the Sunni tribal leaders could not have “had enough” and say so if the additional 30,000 troops were not on the ground to provide security and combative strength. The Shii’a community mailtias would not have stood down if there wasn’t a very capable and ready force (bolstered by 30,000 United States military troops on the ground) aligned against their violent power grabbing agenda.

Further, Barack Obama had this to say as it relates to what HE would do if he were President and the military was pulled out of Iraq … and the violence began to increase inside the country ---

"But," asked Moran,"if the country had pursued your policy of withdrawing in the face of this horrific violence, what do you think Iraq would look like now?"

Obama said it would be hard to speculate. "The Sunnis might have made the same decisions at that time. The Shii’as might have made some similar decisions based on political calculation. There was ethnic cleansing in Baghdad that actually took the violence level down," he said.

Obama also told Moran that there were circumstances under which he could revise his instruction to U.S. generals to begin withdrawing combat brigades at the pace of one-to-two per month.

"I've always reserved the right, uh, to say---let's say that ethnic, uh, ethnic fighting broke out once again---I've reserved the right to say---I don't--I'm not going to stand idly by if genocide is occurring. I'm not going to stand idly by if vital United States interests are at stake. Um, so in that sense yes, I retain the flexibility anyone who in the job of commander in chief is constantly reassessing facts, risks, and so forth."

--- So, basically Barack Obama advocates that our military go back to Iraq and start a third war insde Iraq.

This scenario actually would be an insult to Jimmy Carter and the suggestion that a Barack Obama presidency would result in a second term for the Carter Administration.

Actually, a Barack Obama Administration would be of a greater failure than a Carter’s Second Term.

By the way, the "Surge" has ended.
Resources Here, Here, and Here>>

Messianic Insanity Translates To International Vanity

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Il., left, meets with two of his foreign policy advisers, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, center, and former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, right, in Washington in June. This meeting may be the potential foreign affairs advisory board looking forward to Carter’s Second Term. Image Credit: Jim Bourg / Reuters

Messianic Insanity Translates To International Vanity

Today, the presumptive nominee for President of the United States for the Democrat Political Party (technically, no one has all of the delegates needed to actually BE the nominee for the Democrat Party), Freshman Senator Barack Obama is winging his way toward the Middle East and Europe on a taxpayer subsidised, multi-stop trip designed to bolster his credibility on foreign affairs. It is said that he has 300 named advisors to assist him frame his view of America and how it is to relate in “his” vision to the rest of the world.

Next week will show the American people how much the Main Stream Media and Europe are happy to embrace a man who has been treated as though he already is the leader of the free world. A person who expresses the same exact failed leadership policies that the original colonists were running away from when they came to the America some 388 years ago, should be well received.

This excerpted and edited from Real Clear Politics -

The Audacity of Vanity
By Charles Krauthammer - Washington Post - July 18, 2008

Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate.

He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
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And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 -- who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?
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There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
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In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
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After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: "I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his podium, until general ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced him to take it down.

He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is, 'merci beaucoup.'" Obama speaks no French.
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His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism ... that you come out of your isolation. ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?

We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more.

As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.
Reference Here>>

Now that all three major network anchors have decided to travel with the anointed ONE … maybe, just maybe, America will wake up and get tired of being told how to think by the ONE who insanely thinks HE hung the moon!

Funny, we knew that some people love to characterize Senator Barack Obama as an "Empty Suit" ... how empty does a suit have to be in order to be able to fit 300 foreign policy advisors in it?

We thought that the emptiest suit for Carter's Second Term would only be able to fit 100 to 125 advisors ... TOPS!

The “I”- “Me”, uh, Barack, uh, Oba, uh, ma

Barack Obama sits down to speak with the editorial board of The Military Times. Image Credit: YouTube Account, pe11201 - Video by M. Scott Mahaskey / Military Times Staff

The “I”- “Me” (monopolistic thinking), uh, Barack, uh, Oba, uh, ma

Somebody please ask junior Senator Barack Obama what he means when he says that contract worker support of our war effort should be just used for kitchenwork and automobile repair. Does Barack Obama actually know what kind of invaluable service outfits like Blackwater perform in the support of our efforts in ferreting out zeolots who want to do harm to the Iraqi citizens we are trying to liberate?

This is what Barack said to The Military Times, July 2, 2008:

There is room for private contractors to work in the mess hall, providing basic supplies and doing some logistical work that might have been done in-house in the past. I am troubled by the use of private contractors when it comes to potential armed engagements... I think it creates some difficult morale issues when you've got private contractors getting paid 10 times what an Army private's getting paid for work that carries similar risks…

Does Barack even understand what Blackwater does ... they are NOT mercenaries. They do not replace the activity of our armed forces but actually complement the effort through special tasks best left to security professionals.

But Barack continued:

… When it comes to our special forces, what we've seen is that it's a potential drain of some of our best-trained special forces, and you can't blame them if they can make so much more working for Blackwater than they can working as a master sergeant. That, I think is a problem.

Q: Blackwater would argue that they're a bargain: that you get a higher level of ability, that they can put people there, they can keep top-level talent there perpetually.

A: I am not arguing that there are never going to be uses for private contractors in some circumstances. What I am saying is if you start building a military premised on the use of private contractors and you start making decisions on armed engagement based on the availability of private contractors to fill holes and gaps that over time you are, I believe, eroding the core of our military's relationship to the nation and how accountability is structured. I think you are privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is a monopoly on violence. And to set those kinds of precedents, I think, will lead us over the long term into some troubled waters.

Barack Obama doesn’t know… what he doesn’t know. What does he mean when he says I think you are privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is a monopoly on violence. WHAT?!

War is war and to be truthful, there is no monopoly of violence when bullets start flying or when people are strapping bombs to themselves to blow innocent citizens up. What does exist is an environment where specialized talents are placed into use to enable our effort to push back and win more efficiently and effectively. This is not much different than how American Rules football is put together, where specialized talent helps to move the ball down the field.

The same interview showed that Barack also does not understand the difference between an ally and an enemy.

He continued, And if you look at costs and benefits and if you look at the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, overall I think it was a bad decision on the part of our commander in chief.
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Those are the kinds of decisions that are going to be coming up in the future.

We're going to have to make decisions about Iran, we're going to have to make decisions about Pakistan.

The capacity of the next commander in chief to forge alliances so that we can, when we act militarily, act in the ways that we did during the first Gulf War, a war in which, not only were our casualties kept low, but it effectively cost us almost nothing in terms of taxpayer dollars.

For us to think in a forward-looking way about energy, and understanding the strategic geopolitical implications of our failure to implement a serious energy strategy in this country.

Our ability to engage the Muslim world in a serious way so that we are tamping down anti-American sentiment even as we recognize that there is always going to be an element of extremism that can only be dealt with militarily.

Pakistan is an ally … Iran is an enemy. Also, what happened to Mr. Negotiation when he now comes out and says - Our ability to engage the Muslim world in a serious way so that we are tamping down anti-American sentiment … is this type of comment an example of his famous promise of “CHANGE”?

I must add that Barack has become increasing difficult to listen to . He used the “uh” transition filler eleven times in a single 90-second segment of this interview (as observed by Hugh Hewitt on his program this afternoon). I do not care if this becomes Obama's first term or Carter's Second Term if Barack gets into office ... four years of listening to him alone without a teleprompter will ruin the country.

The audio of this interview is very telling as to the level of what the junior Senator Barack Obama does NOT know.

Additional proof on how hard it is to listen to Senator Barack Obama - he says "uh" nine, or ten times in this fifty-five second clearification of his position on Iraq (some would say flip-flop).

Video Credit: YouTube account 3873uj201, added July 07, 2008

Quoted & Comments At Gateway Pundit:
Gateway Pundit: And, Here's Obama's Gobbly-Gook, Mumble-Jumble, "What the H*ll Is He Talking About?" -Video Clip of the Day#comments