Why did the lame duck cross the road?

Submitted by Michael S. (United States), Oct 29, 2014 at 14:43

"Well, I'm not sure how they're defined at this particular moment."

Daniel,

I hope you are treating this whole semantic/ political/ diplomatic fiasco with a sense of humor, and not actually trying to make sense of it. The US will have an election, less than a week from today, in which a President already accustomed to ruling by fiat will become even more divorced from his government and from reality. In the run-up to this election, when he and his party should be doing clever things to reverse their dismal slide in the polls, (1) God has smitten them with a plague, (2) we have gone back into a war that Big O and the Dems were supposed to get us out of, (3) a confused Middle East situation has gotten, thanks to our fearless leader, more confused than ever, and (4) the Administration has responded to it all by calling the Jewish leader in Israel "chickensh_t".

I remember the Watergate tapes, which amazed most Americans because they got to hear President Nixon using foul language and saying that so-and-so "didn't have his head screwed on right". What we are seeing today is not just a President without his head screwed on right, it's like a kid spinning around on an office chair and causing it to screw right out. Obama is flat-out becoming unhinged; and the more he tries to blame Israel for his problems, the more unhinged he is getting!

Election week is clearly not a good time to find rational comment on the news, much less on American or anyone's foreign policy; but the fundamental situation on the ground keeps moving inexorably onward, in spite of Presidential lunacy and media spin.

Terrorism? Are we concerned about terrorism? Should I be amazed, that a State Department spokesman has to check his Presidential ticker-tape, to see if our leader is bullish or bearish on the Taliban being terrorist today? The Taliban are a secretive lot, after all, living in caves in the mountains. Who's to know, whether they are plotting terror today, or having a knitting circle?

Instead of trying to figure out the plans and motives of the murky Taliban, why don't we just try to make sense of something that's happening in plain sight? By this, I mean the battle for Kobane, at the Syria-Turkish border. Over there, we have a shooting battle. On the one side is ISIS, whom Obama calls terrorists; but our Turkish allies aren't so sure. They definitely say they want to destroy terrorism; but when it's right in front of them, they tell their tank commanders to hold their fire.

Then there's the YPD, the brave Kurdish men and women fighting for their lives and honor against overwhelming odds against ISIS. The Turks say they are terrorists; but our State department says they are not -- despite the fact that they are essentially the Syrian wing of the PKK, which both our State Department and the Turks call terrorists; but notwithstanding this the PKK are our main fighters against our "terrorist" enemies ISIS in Iraq.

We have other allies in Iraq as well, but we dare not call them allies. They are the Shi'ite militias that are plainly trained, equipped, officered, etc. by the Iranians. That's because our State Department and President are putting on a show of opposing the Iranians because they are developing nuclear weapons with which to blow Israel off the map. In fact, not only are we fighting alongside the Iranians in Iraq; we are also bombing ISIS alongside Bashar al-Assad's Russian-built MIG fighters in Syria; and in Yemen, we are conducting drone strikes against Al Qaeda forces in support of the Iranian-backed Sunni Houthi rebels.

After having destroyed Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists in Iraq, who were Iran's greatest enemies to its west; and after having driven the Taliban out of Afghanistan, who were Iran's biggest problem to their east, it really takes some mental gymnastics to see how we are anything but Iran's biggest friend in the region. President Obama, in fact, would love more than ice cream, more than chocolate, more than sex, to put away all this "nuclear weapons" stuff and go give the Ayatollah a great big hug -- but, ugh! Those d*@#! Israelis keep getting in the way, concerned about -- hello? what's that? "existence"? "survival"?

The only thing that has kept Obama AND his predecessor from disrobing and jumping into bed with the Iranian mullah-king, has been fear that if they did, they would be disturbed in the middle of their fun by Israeli F-16s dropping bombs on them. That thought creates a lot of tension; and it seems our leader has had enough of it. He has decided that the Israelis are, after all, to use the US Administration's very own words, "chickensih_t"; so they don't have to worry about them.

That's unwise thinking, on Obama's part; but during election week, it's raving madness.

Yes, "terrorists" indeed. It's hard to call the Taliban "terrorists", when we have a fatal attraction for the equally terrorist Iranians. The Taliban, after all, are just IED and Kalashnikov terrorists/ militants/ really macho guys; but the Iranians are getting nukes and playing with the big boys! Compared with the Taliban, they're far more dangerous and, well, "terrifying", if you think about it for a moment. But Obama's got the hots for them, so what's the poor State Department to do?

Why did the lame duck cross the road? To get run over? Who knows?

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