Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama’s Nightmare
The New York Times ^ | November 13, 2012 | Thomas L. Friedman

Posted on 11/15/2012 12:55:07 PM PST by upbeat5

The scandal engulfing two of our top military and intelligence officers could not be coming at a worse time: the Middle East has never been more unstable and closer to multiple, interconnected explosions. Virtually every American president since Dwight Eisenhower has had a Middle Eastern country that brought him grief. For Ike, it was Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s Sinai invasion. For Lyndon Johnson, it was the 1967 Six-Day War. For Nixon, it was the 1973 war. For Carter, it was the Iranian Revolution. For Ronald Reagan, it was Lebanon. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq. For Bill Clinton, it was Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. For George W. Bush, it was Iraq and Afghanistan. For Barack Obama’s first term, it was Iran and Afghanistan, again. And for Obama’s second term, I fear that it could be the full nightmare — all of them at once. The whole Middle East erupts in one giant sound and light show of civil wars, states collapsing and refugee dislocations, as the keystone of the entire region — Syria — gets pulled asunder and the disorder spills across the neighborhood.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; east; iran; iraq; lebanon; middle; nightmare; sinai; syria
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: OldNavyVet

for people who live in a reality world of right, wrong, and honor, it would be a nightmare. But for Obama...he doesn’t feel any of these things. It’s all fun...fun...fun, he’ll laugh about this on the David Letterman show in 3 weeks. Like the people who died in Benghazi.


21 posted on 11/15/2012 1:48:44 PM PST by rovenstinez
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Paladin2
I'd suggest that Egypt is more likely the keystone.

I'm no expert. (got that out of the way)

History seems to suggest that many of the ME nations side with the anticipated winners of any conflict. Normally they side with whoever is allied with the US. Iran and Syria are the exceptions. Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc. They tend to wait to see what everyone else is doing, pick a winner and hope to not get any on themselves.

I fear this situation is more volatile because Moscow is making moves in defense of the Paeos and influencing Egypt. If the ME picks up on the fact that Israel is on her own in this, they may smell blood in the water and throw in.

Iran is loving this. His man got re-elected and the machines are spinning.

22 posted on 11/15/2012 2:19:18 PM PST by Tenacious 1 (The Click-&-Paste Media exists & works in Utopia, riding unicorns & sniffing pixy dust.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Tenacious 1

“Paeos” —> Pallis?


23 posted on 11/15/2012 2:38:54 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: rovenstinez

Honor, discipline, and a sense of right and wrong are quaint customs from another time, and have no place in this regime. The whole business with General Petraeus was a two-fer or even a three-fer for them. A man with a lifetime of honorable service, who has exercised exemplary judgment under trying conditions, is subjected to jeering and condemnation when first called up to testify, being branded even before he spoke as “General Betray-Us” by the wits of the leftist media and academia. But regardless, he was tapped for the highly sensitive position as head of the CIA, at a time when their very mission was under attack from the same witty and overly clever denizens of the fever swamps of the left, and his discharge of duties is subverted by contradictory and confused disruptions in the chain of command, with interference from other branches of government whose purposes ran counter to good statesmanship. Then, in an obscure chain of circumstances, he finds himself stripped bare, with his reputation, his job, his personal life, and just about all his future prospects hanging in shreds, exposed as what appears to be a cheat, a liar, and of little or no integrity.

For the leftists that infest the corridors of power in the high councils of this country, this was an enormous victory. Humbled in the public square, with a resounding defeat at the polls, and a chorus of condemnation raining down, those who believe in those “quaint” concepts of honor, discipline and the sense of right and wrong, have been put to the rout.

We may have lost the culture of the greater mass. The remainder are well advised to throw up a wall against the engulfing firestorm, and form ramparts from where we may first defend, then by inches, bits, and pieces, take back the territories that have been lost to chaos and mind-numbing greed, unfettered by any guiding principle or decency.


24 posted on 11/15/2012 2:50:38 PM PST by alloysteel (Bronco Bama - the cowboy who whooped up and widened the stampede.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: upbeat5

The problem with our foreign policy is that we can’t admit what it is: promote Islam and destroy the US. That’s essentially Obama’s goal, and the people under him are terrified of him and are carrying out his orders.

The Petraeus episode is not a “scandal” or “sexscapade,” but is being made to look like one because it is simply the way Obama has chosen to rid himself of someone who may have been complaisant but suddenly, when he saw Americans being sacrificed for this policy, woke up and said no.

Obama planned to hold the “scandal” over Petraeus’ head to control him and then get rid of him if he was the GOP’s candidate for VP, but he wasn’t.So Obama, favored by Satan, actually discovered an even better use for it.


25 posted on 11/15/2012 2:55:43 PM PST by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: alloysteel

Of late (the last few decades), it seems to me that the CIA needed to be completely disbanded and started all over again with a new crew and culture.


26 posted on 11/15/2012 3:09:28 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: alloysteel

Sorry, but “Betrayus” came from the right.

His acceptance of ROE that naively promoted local Muslim “partners” and forbade US troops to fire back unless they virtually had the jihadi knife at their throats was one of the things that led to so many troop deaths. So the nickname “Betrayus” may have had a bit of foundation, although I’m not sure that he was fully aware of what he was being ordered to do...until fairly recently.

I realize that it is not the position of a general to argue with the Secretary of Defense or the President, who I assume were responsible for these orders (and some of them began under Bush after Rumsfeld had left). Petraeus convinced Bush and his cabinet and their successors to go for the “surge,” which was simply what we should have been doing all along (sending in enough troops to kill the enemy) but then he never came out and protected the troops, even from prosecution for killing the enemy. This is because he was a military man and simply followed orders, so perhaps he wasn’t really responsible for the ROE, but he should at least have said something, which he never did.

So Petreaus was pretty compromised and a lot of the criticism came from the right (although, as usual,the critics didn’t offer any solutions).


27 posted on 11/15/2012 3:10:44 PM PST by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: upbeat5

This is not Obama’s Nightmare, this is Obama’s wet dream - this is actually part of the Arab Spring and the continue rise of Islamic chaos in the Middle East. It is the part of the rise of the Islamic prophet to return because of the chaos. The Islamic prophet is the Christian/Jews ant-christ, watch because will the precursor of things to come - rise in oil prices, more discord in America.

What foreign policy? Just ask Valerie Jarrett, she’s running the country through the auspices of Iranian apeasement.


28 posted on 11/15/2012 3:13:42 PM PST by hondact200 (Candor dat viribos alas (sincerity gives wings to strength) and Nil desperandum (never despair))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: livius
promote Islam and destroy the US
29 posted on 11/15/2012 3:18:18 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: livius
Wiki has Petraeus proclaiming himself as a Rockefeller RINO at some point.

Who knows who he voted for a few daze ago.

30 posted on 11/15/2012 3:20:54 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: livius

Petraeus is much more of a Clan/Nation builder than a warrior.


31 posted on 11/15/2012 3:23:07 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Paladin2

Always has been, always will be


32 posted on 11/15/2012 3:23:31 PM PST by Mom MD (T he country needs Obamacare like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Mom MD
"Doctor MOM", is that you?

;-)

33 posted on 11/15/2012 3:25:08 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Paladin2
“Paeos” —> Pallis?

Tomato, Tomawto... whatever. :o)

34 posted on 11/15/2012 3:40:06 PM PST by Tenacious 1 (The Click-&-Paste Media exists & works in Utopia, riding unicorns & sniffing pixy dust.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Tenacious 1

Just checkin’. </head scratchin’>


35 posted on 11/15/2012 4:06:23 PM PST by Paladin2 (FR is STILL way too slow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

Comment #36 Removed by Moderator

To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks upbeat5. Lucky for him, he can blame the Jews.


37 posted on 11/16/2012 3:24:27 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Paladin2

Not that dr mom but a dr mom! My kids are my proudest accomplishment and my great joy


38 posted on 11/16/2012 7:15:58 PM PST by Mom MD (T he country needs Obamacare like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: upbeat5
I can't tell who the bad guys are and who the good guys are.

Got a Bible?

39 posted on 11/16/2012 7:18:03 PM PST by Jim Noble (Diseases desperate grown are by desperate appliance relieved or not at all.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hondact200

I suspect the good news might be that Obama didn’t stay in the Situation Room when one of the most significant military events occurred on his watch.

The bad news, I suspect, is that he might be developing a lust to watch snuff films in the privacy of his residence and this encouraged his inaction.


40 posted on 11/16/2012 8:13:45 PM PST by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson