Obama knew that al Qaeda wasn’t so “decimated”
The Washington Times reports that while the president was campaigning last year and touting the “decimation” of al Qaeda as one of his accomplishments, he knew differently from classified briefings;
The gulf between the classified briefings and Mr. Obama’s pronouncements on the campaign trail touched off a closed-door debate inside the intelligence community about whether the terrorist group’s demise was being overstated for political reasons, officials told The Washington Times.
Many Americans believed when they voted in November that the president was justifiably touting a major national security success of his first term. After all, U.S. special operations forces succeeded in May 2011 in capturing and killing the al Qaeda founder and original leader, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan.
Of course, we knew he was lying to our collective face and voters should have seen through the thin veil that this administration cast over their snappy campaign phrases. We had friends in Africa facing al Qaeda. It was al Qaeda’s black banners that went over the walls of our embassies in Egypt and Libya. Al Qaeda has made a resurgence in Iraq and thrives in the maelstrom of the Syrian Civil War. The French are currently chasing al Qaeda around central Africa.
We were told last year that there were about a dozen al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, yet they’re credited with market suicide bombings in that country at least once every week. Using the Obama Administration’s math, they should have blown themselves up by now.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
‘The terrorist group’s demise was being overstated for political reasons’?
No, REALLY?? Ya think?
Frankly, I don’t believe anything coming out of the mouths of the staffers or anyone else at the White House. I don’t believe anything they say. Like anyone else here, I can find facts reported elsewhere that refute almost everything they have said since Day One. And how on earth those reporterd can sit there and take notes as if they truly believe any of that crap is beyond me.
It’s starting to implode, isn’t it?
Sure, “we” knew because, as former military personnel, certain things are obvious. It is disconcerting to note however, that so many people know so little about foreign affairs or world politics or even US politics that they are compelled to believe talking heads and corrupt politicians as fact.
That lack of knowledge is why we are electing politicians who talk a good game, or have a perceived celebrity status as opposed to politicians who can actually get the job done and done well. The creation of a new American religion that revolves around the worship of celebrity status above all else is what drives politics these days, substance matters little.
That’s how liars, frauds, and inexperienced junior senators rise to the highest levels of government in the United States.
Comments 1 and 2 covered it all. Amen.
@2, it’s not all a lack of knowledge, there is the entitlement mentality to deal with, also. The takers have to have theirs, regardless of what it does to the makers.
forget not that the term “decimated” originally means to kill 10%, not the currently misused meaning of wipe out. He was maybe factually correct if he meant 90% of AQ was still alive, well,and very much in play.
@5 – True, but in modern usage it is meant as ‘wiped out’ rather than ‘reduced by 10%’.
I made a typo that is an unintentional, but apt, descriptive noun for the reporters that swallow the BS coming from the WH press podium: reporterd.
I will use that from now when those naive children breathlessly report every piece of misinformation coming from That Place.
Reporturds. I like it.
EX, I may borrow that for the other places I comment. Nicely done.
Be my guest, UpNorth.
Just wonderng if we are starting to see some disenchantment in the press sector, too. Have the spell and the glamour worn off? Is it possible that reality is starting to sink in?
Obama-and the left overall-can say things like this and be believed because they know that there are so many who want to believe, who have a great deal invested in the fantasy (the narrative, the vision whatever you want to call it) being true. As in “The Gods of the Copybook Heading” they (lefties) “promised these beautiful things”, never mind that they are nonsense. So long as it is true (that our foreign enemies are non-existent, that white racism is the root of most social problems, that income inequality-but not culture-is the basis for crime and so on) they can avoid the hard choices that come with seeing the world as it is and not have to make those difficult decisions. Because hard choices are mean (and not at all cool), and nice (hip, sophisticated) people should never have to make decisions that might hurt someone. I’ve got a friend, a man who I like a lot and have a long history with, who I suggested go see the movie “Flight 93” when it came out in 2006. “No,” he said “it’s too soon”. Within a year I pointed out something else about 9/11 and his response was that “it’s time to move on”. So I guess I missed whatever brief time period it would have been OK to memorialize 9/11. But my point is that my friend is hardly unique (he voted for Obama in 2008, ignoring my arguments, though he hates him now) and I think he ignored things like that movie because it would have reminded him that he had a duty to pursue (or at least support the pursuit) of those who carried out that attack until they were destroyed. Duty is difficult, much easier to listen to the nebulous calls for “Hope and Change” from the nice Senator from Illinois. Anyway, the left and the media (but I repeat myself) will use every means at their disposal to cover for Obama-they’ve got too much invested in him. So this will get attention from the right-leaning press (like the Washington Times above), but all of the… Read more »
@68W58, good point, but lest we forget, the real world is constantly intruding on the internet and, as is happening now, contradicting ‘victory’ statements and self-congratulatory remarks as quickly as they appear in the press.
The so-called ‘feel good’ stuff is losing its charm.