In PJ Media today, I discuss entrenched false beliefs that lead to repeated foreign policy errors:
Presidents come and presidents go, but the State Department’s foreign policy establishment is forever. And no matter how many times its remedies fail to heal problems (and usually cause worse ones), it keeps on applying them, without an ounce of self-reflection. And in Barack Obama, the lifers at State have a president after their own heart – one whose vision of the world coincides exactly with theirs, and who takes their recommendations without question and fronts for them eagerly, no matter how often and how abysmally they have failed.
Here are six policies that have failed miserably again and again, and yet are still front and center in the Obama administration’s foreign policy planning:
6. Supporting the Afghan regime
The corrupt and treacherous kleptocrat Hamid Karzai is gone, but his legacy lives on. The new president, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, is almost certainly still receiving those bags of cash from the CIA, and the new regime shows no more interest in accountability than Karzai did. It was revealed Thursday that
nearly $420 million in weapons and other “sensitive items” have gone missing from U.S. Army bases in Afghanistan and are not likely to be recovered due to mismanagement and improper accounting, according to an internal report by the Pentagon’s inspector general obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
These include “some 15,600 pieces of equipment—including ‘weapons, weapons systems, and sensitive items,’” which “went missing in the past year from Army facilities in Bagram and Kandahar, accounting for around $419.5 million in losses, according to the report, which was issued in late October and marked ‘for official use only.’”
Will this slow down the flow of money and materiel to the Afghan regime? Don’t be silly. Despite the regime’s corruption, unwillingness to do anything to curb green-on-blue attacks, and inability to stop the Taliban, this won’t even be a speed bump.
Yet Obama and the State Department have never explained exactly what benefits to the United States will accrue from the massive expenditure and loss of American life in Afghanistan – they know the mainstream media and the Stupid Party will not call them on it, so why bother?
5. Fighting terrorism with money
Late in 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish then-Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu launched what they called the “Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience,” which CNSNews.com said was intended to “support local communities and organizations to counter extremist ideology and promote tolerance.” It would do this essentially by giving potential jihad terrorists money and jobs – an initiative that proceeds from the false and oft-disproven assumption that poverty causes terrorism.
Kerry demonstrated his faith in this false assumption when he spoke about the importance of “providing more economic opportunities for marginalized youth at risk of recruitment” into jihad groups. The GCTF is devoting $200 million to this project, which it calls “countering violent extremism” (CVE).
Kerry explained:
Getting this right isn’t just about taking terrorists off the street. It’s about providing more economic opportunities for marginalized youth at risk of recruitment. In country after country, you look at the demographics – Egypt, the West Bank – 60 percent of the young people either under the age of 30 or under the age of 25, 50 percent under the age of 21, 40 percent under the age of 18, all of them wanting jobs, opportunity, education, and a future.
This will be $200 million down the drain, for a lack of “economic opportunities for marginalized youth” doesn’t fuel Islamic jihad terrorism in the first place. In reality, study after study have shown that jihadists are not poor and bereft of economic opportunities, but generally wealthier and better educated than their peers. CNS noted that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.’”
But none of this has sunk in among the political elites.
4. Working to topple Assad
Barack Obama has long had Bashar Assad in his sights, but has been stymied by the fact that the only significant opposition to the Assad regime are Islamic jihad groups. Now, however, he thinks he has found a way to square the circle: remove Assad, and the jihadis’ raison d’etre will be gone.
CNN reported Thursday that Obama “has asked his national security team for another review of the U.S. policy toward Syria after realizing that ISIS may not be defeated without a political transition in Syria and the removal of President Bashar al-Assad.”
Alistair Baskey, spokesman for the National Security Council, explained: “Assad has been the biggest magnet for extremism in Syria, and the President has made clear that Assad has lost all legitimacy to govern.”
The fact that this is even being considered shows that Obama doesn’t take seriously the Islamic State’s proclamations that it is a new caliphate that is going to keep on trying to expand. He thinks they’re just fighting to get Assad removed, and so if he obliges them, they will melt away.
But who does he think will replace Assad? Does he seriously think he can find someone who can immediately marshal enough support to be able to withstand the Islamic State? If he picks an Alawite, the ruler will have the same problems Assad does. If he picks a Sunni, the Islamic State leaders will say he is an apostate puppet of the Westerners, and fight on. Meanwhile, the disruption in Syria will give an opportunity to the Islamic State, which will be the force best situated to take advantage of a power vacuum in Syria.
So what Obama is saying is that to defeat the Islamic State, we have to let the Islamic State win. And you can see his point — at least then it will be out of the headlines and he won’t have to be constantly hearing about it. Or so he thinks.
3. Arming the “moderates”
Alistair Baskey also said Thursday that “alongside our efforts to isolate and sanction the Assad regime, we are working with our allies to strengthen the moderate opposition.” Who are the moderates in Syria? In September 2014, Obama said: “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted.”
That was over a year after Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh in July 2013 and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area. Worthy News reported that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.” And in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the FSA took to the Internet to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.
Even after all that, Obama was calling them “moderates.”…
Champ says
6 failures? …you’re being kind, Robert!
Coolio says
Dumb, caught in collective dhimmithink, or Moslem?
Mirren10 says
I think we are being abysmally foolish, if we assume that creatures like obama, camoron, may, merkel et al are merely stupid, well meaning Libtard idiots, who truly believe the nonsense about ”the religion of peace”.
I don’t subscribe to nonsensical ‘conspiracy’ theories, but I do wonder, what, in the name of all reason, can explain this deliberate determination to *not* ascribe mohammedan atrocities to the religion they espouse ? How stupid do they all think we are ?
Wellington says
“How stupid do they all think we are?”
Sound question, Mirren. I would answer by averring that they (the Western elites, whether in politics, the media or academia) have a contempt for the common folk, although some of them couldn’t even admit this to themselves. Jonathan Gruber, recently in the news here in America, is a perfect example of this elitist snobbery by way of saying (and on several occasions) that the American people are too stupid to comprehend how wonderful Obamacare really is and so deception about Obamacare must be the order of the day.
Something else though. It’s this: There is an understandable, but I would contend still erroneous, assumption that the present crop of Western elites can’t be as stupid as they appear to be. To this I woud say——-oh, yes they can. Elites, in whatever area—-politics, the media or academia—-must possess a certain tactical intelligence in order to become an elite. But this tactical intelligence is taken often times as overall intelligence when it shouldn’t be (including the absence of a very important type of intelligence—–common sense). For instance, Obama is very savvy in a Chicago-style, politically oriented kind of way, but this deeply fooish and limited man has said that “Austrian” is a language, has pronounced “corpsmen” with the “ps” articulated, has stupidly and unethically commented on not only one, but two, ongoing legal cases during his term (the Professor Gates “tempest in a tea pot” matter and the Trayvon Martin case), has run up some additional seven trillion dollars in debt to no account and has, per so many other Western elites, refused to acknowledge the transparently clear horrible aspects of Islam.
I think there is yet something else going on: Enormous pride. Present Western elites simply can’t admit that they have been wrong about such a major issue, i.e., Islam, so they keep doubling down when confronted by more evidence that Islam is utterly wretched. This is very human, but with this particular matter also very stupid and dangerous.
In brief, elites have certain tactical abilities which enable them to become elites but they also come up way short ordinarily when looked at from an overall strategic view. Herein lies, I submit, the explanation for the elites—-in any generation but never more so and destructively so than in ours.
RichardL says
I agree. There is no conspiracy of the evil.
There is the oldest and completely unorganised conspiracy of the dumb who have gotten in power.
Obama is stupid and thinks he is smart. Merkel is dumb, but thinks she is smart, etc.
The US will come out of this stronger. Europe will suffer and suffer badly…
Mirren10 says
Excellent analysis, Wellington.
TrishP says
I wholeheartedly concur!
Would that the press—and, more importantly, our elected representatives,—would come to terms with the truth that Muslims plan to rule the world under Sharia law, which abuses, persecutes and murders any and all “infidels”—in other words EVERYONE not converted to Islam. And there is no such a thing as equal rights for Muslim women, they are very simply the cannon fodder for Muslim men to beat, rape or murder at will. There is no peace under Islamic rule, nor will there ever be!
ManchesterLad says
While agree the ‘leaders’ Obama, Cameron et al are certainly fools. I am finding it harder and harder to grant them such benefit of the doubt to accept they really don’t have **a clue** that what they are saying is gibberish.
The left have the capacity for infinite self-regard, but is it really possible they have not noticed the diversion between what they say and what is happening?
Perhaps the bubble of sycophancy they move in does not allow any introspection for the intellectually feeble?
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Mrs Sherringham says
Too right. Pols are such prannies.
Daphne Donges says
Has anyone the statements of one Albert Pike 33 degree Mason in 1871? He spoke of three world wars. The first to bring down monarchies and the Russian csar to bring in Communism. The second to bring about the breaking of the UK and to bring in a Jewish homeland. the third to bring about a war between Islam and Judeo/Christianity. I think that has already begun and it is all to bring about the worship of Lucifer.
Wellington says
The six policy failures of the Obama Administrattion and the State Department, convincingly put forward here by Robert Spencer, have one very BIG THING in common. It’s this: The continued refusal to see Islam for the heinous, totalitarian, freedom- crushing, equality-under-the-law detroying, anti-Western Civilization religion which it is.
As long as Islam continues to be exculpated by Western elites, whether in America, Britain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, et al., then to such an extent is Western Civilization in significant peril. Holy Hell, by now one knows this or shoud know it.
And again can be seen that Islam is not the primary problem for the West. It is the secondary problem. The primary problem for the West is the continued excuse-making for Islam by the current crop of Western elites, regarding whom I have lost all respect for—-like those in the Obama Administration and the State Department. They are either traitors or fools and, considering what is at stake, the distinction has become irrelevant except for the most purely theoretical and academic reasons.
Jay Boo says
Who comes and goes in the White House?
Apparently no one really knows.
Even the Secret Service have let their guard down with the recent intruder incident.
Have they been told to stand down or directed away from the entrance?
I would guess that the white house dogs not longer even bark when a member of the Muslim Brotherhood slips in after dark.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/06/documents-show-obama-administrations-close-ties-to-muslim-brotherhood
duh_swami says
Advocating sharia, the speaker spoke…’The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam’…Who said that?
Lindsey Lohan?
Pee Wee Herman?
Rasool Obama?
Ted Nugent?
Alan Colmes?
Sam says
Our culture has changed due to liberal policies in that America is the bad guy not the others. So why look at others to solve problems even if they keep chopping our heads off. We have to send more money to others, including poor muslim countries so that they like us. Also Israel has to stop building apartment complexes which is the main cause of middle east conflicts.
A great portion of our society thinks this way. This society elects OBAMA twice. Now are we in trouble for our lives or not? I say we are in great danger. Islam is winning.
Salah says
“Now are we in trouble for our lives or not? I say we are in great danger. Islam is winning.”
No, Islam is not winning. *We* are losing.
We’ve started losing the day we abandoned our Judeo-Christian values, the day we started to murder our own unborn babies, the day we redefined marriage, the day we turned away from the only true God.
On that day, we’ve created a vacuum, and Evil filled the vacuum. Evil is nothing more than the absence of Good, the absence of God.
“And when an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith: I will return into my house from whence I came out. And coming he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goeth, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is made worse than the first. So shall it be also to this wicked generation.” Matthew 12:43-45
PRCS says
“This society elects OBAMA twice. Now are we in trouble for our lives or not?”
Huckabee is a very Christian man and he might actually run for the presidency. Assuming–merely for the sake of argument–he were to win, would his public pronouncements about Islam be more informed and confrontational than Obama?
Anyone who, at this stage of the problem continues to label jihadists as “radical Islamic extremists” either still doesn’t “get it” or is too fearful of offending Muslims.
Clifford Hall says
Robert…the analysis is compelling. But what then should be the policy?
Milan68 says
“sensitive items” have gone missing .. They’re not missing,they were given away.. obama is nothing but a liar and it has been proven time and time again..You can’t pick up a news paper or without obama and liberals lying about something..Mu hated for obama and his brothers and sister in arms (muslims) is of the chart
Hummer says
Makes you wonder what the President’s real agenda is doesn’t it. He obviously is not someone with common sense so how can he be considered smart? We should be greatly concerned as should our gutted of leadership military and so called intelligence community. Congress apparently is gutless too.