Blackfive has a few questions he’d like to put to President Obama tonight when the latter makes his long awaited Islamic State pronouncement, no doubt to explain his hitherto missing “strategy”:
A. Will you continue to cut the military even as operations and optempo increase substantially? Will you increase funding to counter building threats?
B. Will you continue to say there won’t be boots on the ground (our military) but instead send contractors in the thousands to Iraq?
C. What does victory against ISIS look like?
D. Are we fighting an organization, nation, or idea? If it is the latter, how will you (globally) address the Islamic State murdering and enslaving thousands upon thousands of people?
E. Who will lead this fight against radical Islam? How will you involve Iran and Saudi Arabia in the discussions to stop the flow of recruits?
F. Will you seek authorization from Congress?
G. Outside of ISIS, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Iran: What about the Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Lithuania etc? Will we only exert economic pressure over Russian interference and invasion? What will you do about China’s rapidly expanding Navy (aiming towards dominating the Pacific rim)?
H. How do we prevent weaker minded countries from joining ISIS (or Russia for that matter – those countries in G above excepted)?
I. Last, if we are going to engage the enemy on many fronts, what kind of rules of engagement will you support?
Read more here, since Blackfive has pertinent background comments to those questions.
I don’t need to see the speech (and won’t see the speech, because I’ll be ferrying children about) to know Obama’s answers. So I’ve got for you a preview of coming attractions:
A. Will you continue to cut the military even as operations and optempo increase substantially? Will you increase funding to counter building threats?
Answer: Yes to the first question and no to the second. As I said to Mitt Romney during our presidential debate in 2012,
“I think Gov. Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned our Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we had in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have ships that go under water. The question is not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities.”
My administration is quite sure that, once we’ve added open transsexuals to our military services, who will have a military that’s able to respond to any threats. We call this newly augmented force the “Klinger Battalion.”
B. Will you continue to say there won’t be boots on the ground (our military) but instead send contractors in the thousands to Iraq?
Answer: Yes — although with the new Klinger Battalion, we may introduce high heels on the ground.
C. What does victory against ISIS look like?
Answer: I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the meaning of the word “victory,” when used in any context other than a Democrat defeating a Republican in an election.
D. Are we fighting an organization, nation, or idea? If it is the latter, how will you (globally) address the Islamic State murdering and enslaving thousands upon thousands of people?
Answer: None of the above. We’re negotiating with “a religion of peace.”
E. Who will lead this fight against radical Islam? How will you involve Iran and Saudi Arabia in the discussions to stop the flow of recruits?
Answer: A coalition of Muslim countries, led by Iran (which will be in a strong position thanks to its nuclear capabilities).
Iranian troops on parade
F. Will you seek authorization from Congress?
Answer: That bunch of whiners? You’ve got to be kidding. Who needs ’em? They were useless when I wanted blanket amnesty and I learned through that that I don’t need ’em.
G. Outside of ISIS, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Iran: What about the Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Lithuania etc? Will we only exert economic pressure over Russian interference and invasion? What will you do about China’s rapidly expanding Navy (aiming towards dominating the Pacific rim)?
Answer: Your question confuses me. I need to talk to Valerie and David Axelrod before I answer it.
H. How do we prevent weaker minded countries from joining ISIS (or Russia for that matter – those countries in G above excepted)?
Answer: We do so with my superior persuasive powers.
I. Last, if we are going to engage the enemy on many fronts, what kind of rules of engagement will you support?
Answer: Well, considering that our superior fire power and training make our engagement with smaller forces inherently unfair, I would expand the rules of engagement beyond seeing a weapon in someone’s hand before firing and getting a lawyer’s approval before bringing in heavy weapons. Henceforth, we need photo ID of all armed individuals to determine whether they’re a genuine ISIS combatant, or just someone with, you know, a gun. Also, we should use only those weapons that ISIS troops also have — something that won’t require us to draw down too much, since ISIS fighters now control all of the American weapons that we left upon our retreat from, er, withdrawal from Iraq.
Any further questions? Please ask them quickly, because it’s movie night. George Clooney promised to bring the rough cut of his latest and, let me be honest here, I don’t want to miss that.
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Blackfive has a few questions he’d like to put to President Obama tonight when the latter makes his long awaited Islamic State pronouncement, no doubt to explain his hitherto missing “strategy”:
