A MAN WHO BLOGS AT THE MARY SUE IS ALREADY SUSPECT.
AND THAT'S BEFORE HE TRIES TO WHORE THE MARY SUE. (OR BEFORE YOU FACTOR IN THE FACT THAT HE ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE HE'S WEARING LIPSTICK.)
DAN VAN WINKLE DID JUST THAT BY PIMPING A FUNDRAISING SPAM MAIL AS "AN E-MAIL" WRITTEN BY BARACK OBAMA AND THEN ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO USE A LINK AND HAND OVER THEIR INFORMATION TO THE SPY-ER IN CHIEF.
THE MARY SUE -- FOR IDIOTS TO STUPID TO NAVIGATE A POLLING BOOTH ALONE.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
While the world tries to make sense of the 'plan' the White House has
for the Middle East, US House Rep Alan Grayson attempted to do the same
in today's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with regards to
Barack's 'plan' for Iraq.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Gen Olson, trying to piece together information from public sources, it appears to me that we're spending roughly a million dollars for every ISIS fighter that the US military kills. Does that sound right to you?
Brig Gen Gregg Olson: The figure that we understand for the operation cost per day is about 8.5 million dollars.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: But am I right to think that we're spending approximately a million dollars for every single ISIS fighter that US forces kill?
Brig Gen Gregg Olson: I-I haven't done the math, sir.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Alright let's assume for the sake of the argument that that's correct. Does it make sense for us to be deploying the most powerful military force that the world has ever seen and spend one million dollars to kill some man standing in the desert, 6,000 miles from the closest American shore, holding a 40-year-old weapon? Does that make sense?
Brig Gen Gregg Olson: The military strategy as designed provides US support to a coalition that will degrade, dismantle and ultimately defeat ISIL.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: What about you, Gen Fantini? Can you think of ways that we could spend less than a million dollars and still keep America safe for every gentleman standing in a desert, 6,000 miles away, whom we kill?
Brig Gen Michael Fantini: Congressman, I-I can't address the math that you're presenting. I don't know whether that's accurate or not. Uh, from the perspective of continuing with the strategy of developing local forces, to enable those local forces with coalition support to degrade and defeat ISIL, I would submit that is a worthy expenditure of resources.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Well let's talk about that. You of course are very, very familiar with what Gen Powell said about what makes for a good effective war and what doesn't. Gen Powell said that we need a vital national security interest that's pursued by a clear strategy, we need overwhelming force and we need an exit strategy. So let's start with you on that, Gen Allen, what is our exit strategy?
Envoy John Allen: The exit strategy is an Iraq that ultimately is territorial secure, sovereign, an ISIL that has been denied safe haven ultimately has been disrupted to the point where it has no capacity to threaten at an existential level the government of Iraq and the nation of the Iraqi people and ulitmatly ends up in a state that does not permit it to threaten the United States or our homeland.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: General Allen, that doesn't sound like a strategy to me. That sounds like a wish list.
Envoy John Allen: You know --
US House Rep Alan Grayson: You certainly understand the difference between a strategy and a wish list.
Envoy John Allen: And-and I do. And this strategy, in fact, has a whole series of lines of effort that converge on Da'ash to prevent it from doing the very things that I just mentioned.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: But what is our strategy?
Envoy John Allen: The strategy is to pursue a series of lines of effort from defense of the homeland to stabilization of the Iraqi government to the countering of the Da'ash message, to the disruption of its finances, to the -- uh -- impediment of the foreign fighters to the empowerment of our allies to the le-leadership of a coalition ultimately aimed to the defeat of Da'ash. That's a strategy.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: But none of those are exit strategies, right?
Envoy John Allen: There is no exit strategy for this. This is about dealing with Da'ash. This is about defeating Da'ash. The success of the strategy is not about exit. The secees -- success of the strategy is about empowering our partners so that they can ultimately restore the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of a country and deny Da'ash the ability ultimately to, uh, to do that. If you're looking for an exit strategy with respect to our presence in Iraq when we have successfully concluded that strategy. We have said from the beginning that our forces will redeploy. The coalition has said from the beginning that our forces will redeploy. So if that's the term that you are seeking in terms of an exit strategy then-then I would say that is the mechanism by which we redeploy our forces from Iraq. But the strategy is oriented on an effect that we hope to achieve with respect to Da'ash.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Gen Olson, you will agree that we're not using what Colin Powell would have considered to be overwhelming force, correct?
Brig Gen Gregg Olson: We're using an appropriate level of force to --
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Which isn't overwhelming force, right? Not as -- not as Colin Powell would see it, right?
Brig Gen Gregg Olson: Uh, I don't want to speak for Gen Powell. I believe that the resources that we're applying to the in our ends -- to achieve our ends through matching ways and means are appropriate for the strategy as designed.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Gen Fantini, yes or no, are we using what you would consider to be overwhelming military force?
Brig Gen Michael Fantini: Congressman, uh, I-I would submit that, uh, American air power against an AK47 could be construed as overwhelming. I, uh, agree with, uh, Gen Olson that the-the use of the resources and the force applied to support our coalition partners to enable these ground operations are appropriate for the strategy and for the strategy and for success in this fight that will take a clear eyed and long term commitment and, we have stated, at least three years.
There were many key moments in this morning's hearing but that was the most notable.
Not only did Grayson put an understandable dollar amount on the financial cost (paid for by US tax payers) he also got a grand admission from Envoy Barry Allen.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: But none of those are exit strategies, right?
Envoy John Allen: There is no exit strategy for this.
"There is no exit strategy for this."
Barack's begun an action with no exit strategy.
And the way Allen ranted on, it was like an Aaron Sorkin moment.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: But none of those are exit strategies, right?
Envoy John Allen: There is no exit strategy for this. This is about dealing with Da'ash. This is about defeating Da'ash. The success of the strategy is not about exit.
Maybe when you select an envoy, you don't go with some retired general who doesn't grasp diplomacy and thinks sticking to scripted lines makes him sound smart?
Existential?
What is this with the administration's speech writers and the term existential?
It's not like any of them grasp Jean-Paul Sarte but they sure do love to (mis)use the term existential.
They also love "degrade and destroy."
They use these terms far too often.
And, by the way, they and the nonsense of "holistic" all supposedly come from the State Dept's Brett McGurk -- or that's what he's been bragging to others.
There is no exit strategy.
Which shouldn't be all that surprising.
The whole point of endless war is that it's . . . endless.
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