Obama-Hollande meeting; united in “total solidarity”
Yesterday. President Obama and French President Francois Hollande promised the world that they stand “united in “total solidarity”” against ISIS in the aftermath of the latest attack on France. Yeah, I don’t know what that means either. I always hoped that we were united in solidarity before this last attack, but, for some reason the pair thought that they needed to reassure us. From ABC News;
But beyond some changes on the margins of the United States’ participation in the fight against ISIS extremists, the president did not announce any major shifts in strategy in light of the deadly terrorist attack in Paris.
Rather, he said the United States would “step up” its coordination with France by providing additional airlift and intelligence to its European partner, and he called for the European Union to implement an agreement that would require airlines to share passenger information.
[…]
“We must prevent an escalation,” added Hollande, who is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday to discuss ramping up their cooperation, although the Turkey incident undoubtedly complicates that prospect.
The White House had been keeping expectations for the Obama-Hollande meeting low well before it happened.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the meeting, but I also wouldn’t downplay the significance of additional expressions of solidarity and support,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday.
In other words, the only thing that anyone is really ramping up is the rhetoric. When the Jordanians and the Russians get pissed, ISIS bears the brunt of that anger, but when France and the US get pissed, it’s the voters who take it on the chin. They are doing their best to fight a war while not really doing any real fighting.
The pair hope that that their “solidarity” will convince Putin to abandon Assad. He hasn’t up to now, so I don’t see him doing it. France and the US and the UK missed their opportunity to pay off Assad. They squandered their chance years ago, before all of this civil war began. Turkey shooting down Russian aircraft isn’t helping.
Oh, by the way, Obama is trying to get Hollande to stick to his commitment to take in 30,000 refugees. I wonder what that’s about.
Category: Terror War
Milbank, who I generally detest, had what I thought was a decent article on President Oh-bummer and Hollande (his words).
“There was little difference in their strategies for fighting the Islamic State, but Hollande was upbeat and can-do, while Obama was discouraging and lawyerly. It was as if the smoke-’em-out spirit of George W. Bush had been transplanted into the body of a short, pudgy, bespectacled French socialist with wrinkled suit-pants.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-president-oh-bummer/2015/11/24/9ed001c6-92f4-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
There must be a constituency out there that responds favorably to empty rhetoric. “United in total solidarity?” Huh? Sounds like something coming from a person for whom English is not the first language.
Lars
Meh, he’ll write four paragraphs of hot air to say something that could be mainly stated in a sentence or two thinking it’ll spellbind people into thinking he’s some shining intellectual.
The term, I believe, is ‘pseudo-intellectual.’
There is indeed a constituency out there that responds to appeals for “solidarity”, OWB. There are two of them.
One group is called “socialists/leftists/communists”, such as the late Harry Bridges and Eugene Debs. These typically form the leadership providing the empty rhetoric.
The other group are those who prefer to remain naive, unaware, and play “follow-the-leader-unthinkingly” all their lives. We used to call such dim-witted individuals “fellow travelers” and “useful idiots”.
I’m not sure what the accepted term for such clueless individuals is today.
That would be ‘slackers’, Hondo, unless there is a word to replace that now.
Personally, I prefer the technical term: “fucking morons.”
^^^:-)^^^
I believe the word you’re looking for Hondo is “Targets”.
Remember +we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” during the campaign. Never did figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean.
Must beware because Obama speak with forked tongue.
Perhaps Berryo can lead the coalition in a few verses of Onward, Christion Solders.
James Taylor songs will be more appropriate.
Or, We Are The World.
Oh, stop it! All of you! Vlad wants a working coalition of Russia, France, the USA and whoever else is interested, including Turkey, to stop ISIS/Daesh.
See this article.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/25/us-mideast-crisis-russia-idUSKBN0TE0RE20151125
Seriously, the only thing Frankie Hollande got out of bodaprez was a reasonably decent lunch and some gushing rhetoric.
Unless we are attacked on home turf (not likely this year, but possible), there will be no real action. It is ‘yap-yap-yap’ all over again.
Geez, it’s almost a flashback to clintonism. Remember him? He had no use for the military and almost dismantled it and then had to be dragged by the ear into the Balkans. I shudder to think what will happen if that peccary from Hell gets elected.
Clintoon? Isn’t that the guy who treated international terrorism as a legal matter for 8 years, including 4 years after al Qaeda had formally declared war on the USA? The guy who stood around with his thumb firmly inserted doing nothing while an existential threat to US security developed? The guy who had at least 2 and perhaps 3 opportunities to get rid of bin Laden in the late 1990s, but who refused to follow-through and do so? The guy who was photogenic and charismatic, and who could have provided national leadership – but who preferred to chase pudgy brunette interns around his desk instead of doing his job?
Yeah, I remember Billy “Cigar Man” Clintoon. But not favorably.
Neither should the next-of-kin of about 3,000 people who are now deceased.
I am going to beat Lars to the punch today.
We should join Russia and attack Turkey!
This is an easier way to get Turkey out of NATO!
Vraiment! (That is Frog for ‘word’.)
In fairness to Blowjob Willy, look at Hildebeast. If you were married to…that, you’d be feeling up fat chicks at the office, too.
I wonder how the French newspapers are reacting to this ‘solidarity.’ Somehow I don’t fully believe that their President came all this way to ask for US supplies and intelligence.
Here you go, from Agence France Presse:
http://www.afp.com/en/news/france-us-scale-strikes-syria-iraq-hollande
Just wait until next week everybody. The big Climate Summit is coming up and they will announcing how we will use carbon offsets to defeat terrorism.
Yeah, I read about that yesterday on an article linked to Drudge. Maybe B-HO thinks he’ll get himself another Nobel Prize? He’s proven himself to be that level of narcissistic!
Well the climate change summit will severely rebuke ISIL/ISIS/Daesh.
they’ll be so rebuked they’ll probably only behead a few instead of a dozen. Instead of tossing gays off of rooftops they’ll just nudge them out the door, they won’t destroy any UNESCO Heritage sites but just leave a Post-It note with a strongly worded statement, etc
/sarc/
Never could wrap my head around the islamic hatred of the gheys. Given all the dude-on-dude buttsex that’s so commonplace in islamic/shari’a societies, and how they’re evidently perfectly okay with that, it seems awfully hypocritical and downright schizo. But then again, they’re a decidedly fucked-up religion.
They hate what they are, TOW. Or, they hate guys who can coordinate their outfits?
So now ISIS will get two strongly worded letters instead of just one…
Scary thought…
Too bad those letters won’t be “F” and “U”…
I’d prefer to see the letters “M” and “K” – followed by the numbers “41”. With Raqqa as ground zero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb
Nothing says “F___ Y__” quite like “KiloTons”.
One has to wonder. Will it take a mega-deaths funeral pyre to finally convince the non-yahoos that it is long past time to stop supporting, or even tolerating the presense of, the yahoos?
If we cauterize these pinheads in such an over the top fashion, might other places decide maybe, just perhaps, to cut off the support the yahoos require?
Plan B: In an afternoon or six, we could knock out every major economic engine in the entire IS region, including various neighbors and fellow-travelers.
yes, that hurts us and our friends. For a while. Then all the non yahoo areas pick up the slack. Russia and the USA, for example.
With one exception, I doubt anyone non-yahoo is willing to play it that “hard”. Putin might, as it solves a great deal of things for Russia. He gains two things immediately:
1) Oil > $100 per barrel. Russia’s economy goes into high gear, and they then finish rebuilding the Russian armed forces to the Imperial grandeur and potency Putin seeks.
2) Everyone saying “Do not annoy Putin’s Russia”: Less restraint than the Soviets.
Once the Russian build-up in the region is accomplished, they can do this themselves. Perhaps this might occur right around mid-winter, when a convenient weather front is sweeping Western Europe with snowstorms.