I'll tell you what I liked about the President's handling of this ship hijacking crisis - he kept his distance. Reports say that aside from authorizing the use of deadly force, the work was done by security forces, who monitored the situation and decided when to move. Obama kept his mouth shut publically, then released a statement today praising the efforts of the team that rescued the captain.
It's not too much of a stretch to imagine Bush declaring war on the Somali government, somehow unaware that there is practically no government in Somalia nowadays.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Somalia Like It Hot
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8 comments:
Thank God for the Naval commander that took the responsibility to take the shots. Too bad Obama let it go on for so many days. He gets a D+.
Obama reportedly authorized the use of force on Friday night. If the sharpshooters didn't act before then, it's because they judged the situation suboptimal before then.
"It's not too much of a stretch to imagine Bush declaring war on the Somali government, somehow unaware that there is practically no government in Somalia nowadays."
It's not too much of a stretch to imagine BHO declaring a new language for the Austrian government, somehow unaware that there is practically no Austrian language in Austrailia nowadays.
What the hell is the comedic point of that one? Has the lack of an Obama failure fried your fevered brain?
Aust:
Maybe he thought they speak in Austrian in one of those 57 States he was going to visit?
The irony here, of course, is the sudden swooning of the Left to the awesomeness of our Military.
I wonder if the next Captain Phillips will have the opportunity to be saved, as Obama has taken a hatchet to the Defense budget.
Where will the money come from to train the next group of SEALs?
The left always liked the military (well, since the eighties anyway) but was scared about the guy running it making stupid decisions.
Somehow I don't think a 4% increase in military spending next year is going to hurt the seals too much.
I question the 4% increase number.
Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to do away with the supplemental dollars that Bush kept out of the budget, but used to fund the military actions we are involved with. As I recall, those supplementals added $125-150 million in additional military dollars to the overall budget.
While Obama's budget does show a slight increase over Bush's "base" budget, the total number of dollars flowing to the military is reduced.
The "reorganizing" of how dollars are spent under Obama is also an issue. The LATimes wrote just the other day about what programs are being scrapped:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-defense7-2009apr07,0,6842364.story
Gates also proposed scrapping new helicopters, next-generation armored vehicles for the Army and high-tech Navy vessels. At the same time, he would increase spending in other areas, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, F-35 fighter jets and special forces troops. The eminently sensible goal is to shift priorities to fighting insurgencies like those in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than continuing to pour money into systems intended for fighting conventional wars against great powers like Russia and China.
Gates and Obama hardly aim to disarm America, but there's no question that they intend to buy less ammo.Our military needs to be able to fight different kinds of battles: insurgents, pirates, and more "conventional" battles. Obama is limiting that with his budget.
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