IF SENDING THE ARMY ABROAD FIGHTS EBOLA--WILL WASHING OUR HANDS PREVENT ISIS?



Back in the day…

For centuries, the world’s civilized peoples thought of Isis as a goddess from Egyptian mythology, daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the sky. In Egyptological lore, she married her brother, Osiris, (that was trendy in ancient Egypt) and gave birth to Horus. She is described by the Egyptian Book of the Dead as “She who gives birth to heaven and earth, knows the orphan, knows the widow, seeks justice for the poor, and shelter for the weak.” Obviously, this doesn’t sound much like ISIS as currently constituted, besides which the contemporary band of rapscallions never had their own TV show on Saturday mornings whereas the goddess, gamely portrayed by actress JoAnna Cameron, fought evil in half-hour intervals every weekend between 1974 and 1976 on CBS. But now, Isis’ good name has fallen into disrepute!

As every school child now understands—and, in fact, as even our brilliant young president now seems to realize, today’s ISIS is a far cry from the benevolent mother goddess of antiquity. Rather, the name is now synonymous with a ragged cadre of messianic psychopaths bent on beheading, bludgeoning and massacring everyone in the known world whom they deem at odds with their febrile variety of Islam. And how did this happen? Let us examine the origins and membership of this particularly insensate pack of killers whose numbers and malfeasances have lately multiplied so astonishingly that even the most utterly tuned-out chief executive in our national history has been forcibly familiarized with their deviltries.

ISIS—the early years…

ISIS calls itself “The Islamic State,” but is widely known as ISIS except when it’s called ISIL (sort of the Foggy-Bottom make-nice version) all of which is easier to say than Jama’at al-Tawhidwal wal-Jihad, which was its name when it formed in 1999. Nobody could remember that one, though, so it changed it to Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn—but the same problem arose, so it settled for Al Qaida. It became the Iraqi branch of that infamous franchise under the leadership of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi…remember that guy? He helped pioneer the craze of beheading infidels in videos, and also enjoyed being video-taped shooting his AK-47, except that when it jammed his henchmen had to clear the jam for him, which made him look wimpy. In 2006 two F-16s dropped 500 pounders on him, thus ending his tenure.

As Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) the organization expanded its control of several key geographic areas, but ultimately proved too violent and fanatical for other Sunni groups who withdrew their support, leading to a temporary diminishment in the group’s influence. It managed to keep busy in Syria, however. Styling itself Al Qaida in Syria, the group managed to simultaneously represent itself as the moderate rebellion against Bashar Al Assad’s oppressive dictatorship, and a liberating force of Islamic fundamentalists on the home front. Thus, it was primarily they whom President Obama sought to arm, train, and support back in April while insisting that Assad be deposed because he had crossed one of Our Beloved Leader’s uncrossable lines—we forget which one. Readers may recall that Obama accused Assad of using sarin gas in the spring of 2014, but at this remove it appears better than even money that ISIS committed these atrocities using chlorine gas—a less sophisticated compound. If you scan news reports from that period you will note that most of the testimony about the attacks also came from ISIS, who, for all the American media knew at that time, might as well have been the local Rotary. ISIS also had the most to gain, whereas Assad had nothing to gain and much to lose by engaging in chemical warfare when he was winning anyway. And just for emphasis, here’s a recent news item: On September 18th at least 14 members of the Islamic State (ISIS) died near Baghdad when a rocket they were loading with chlorine gas exploded inside a warehouse. Oops.

But even if ISIS is all thumbs with chemical weaponry, one must respect the sophisticated tradecraft it practices at the level of propaganda and psy-ops. In the wake of the April gassings, had congress not applied the brakes, President Obama would have enthusiastically committed American support to ISIS, who probably performed the chemical attacks, in order to depose Assad, who probably didn’t, based on testimony that he did, which came predominantly from ISIS, who very well may have. Still with us? Readers may also recall that John McCain was vociferously in support of arming Syrian rebels (before Obama wanted to) and famously posed for a group photo with Syrian resistance fighters, at least two of whom were subsequently identified as terrorists wanted in conjunction with kidnapping 11 Lebanese Shi’ite Muslims, and another one of whom appears to be the current leader of ISIS.. It is only now that it once again befits Obama’s purposes to call for an armed Syrian resistance that the Leftist Establishment Media have ceased to guffaw at McCain’s tomfoolery and devoted themselves, instead, to defending it, vide this item from the New York Times.

All things in moderation

That “moderate” Syrian forces exist and would appreciate help in deposing Assad or even confronting ISIS is reasonable enough to assert, but that American treasure and weaponry can be funneled and dispersed to such rare and inconspicuous cadres by an administration that lacks even the most rudimentary powers of international discernment seems highly improbable. Even if it could be done, which it can’t, the idea that moderates would retain power in the wake of an Assad collapse is laughable. Obama, by the way, understands this fully.

It is probably fair to say the only silver lining in any of this, from Obama’s standpoint, is that he can renew his twisted efforts to fund “moderate rebel forces” in Syria—but the president’s enthusiasm for this tactic seems no less irrational than last April, and for some old and new reasons. First, Americans are slightly better educated regarding the Syrian situation. They always sensed that Assad was a villain, (even though he has a really pretty wife) but they have grown to suspect his opposition is even more dangerous and far more radical. Why replace a secular lizard with a fundamentalist snake? And then there’s an untimely recrudescence of good will, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, between our prospective allies and the folks we want them to shoot.

Yes, “moderate” Syrian rebels on several fronts just finished signing a non-aggression treaty with ISIS. That’s right. While liberal interference runners such as Olivia Nuzzi of the subversive Daily Beast claimed loudly that the truce was pure rumor, even proclaiming it debunked, Syrian experts like Patrick Poole, a respected national security reporter, unearthed definitive evidence of the truce’s reality along with frank confessions by FSA leaders that they work hand in hand with ISIS. So, our Beloved Leader (and Nobel Peace Prize recipient), now proposes to arm and finance the “good” Syrian insurgents and enjoin them to blow the bejabbers out of the “bad” Syrian insurgents with whom they just forged a truce. Really? Well, no. Obama will of course proclaim in his inimitably clipped, detached singsong that we must assist the rebels because they are joining us in battling ISIS, but he knows perfectly well that’s balderdash. His purpose remains the same—he deems it essential to oust Assad for the same reasons he jerked the rug out from under Mubarak in Egypt and sent Hillary to cackle over Gaddafi’s bloody, swollen corpse in Libya—to ensure a tidal wave of Muslim extremism sweeping through Africa and the Middle East, unfettered by secular despots who maintain relations with the imperialist exploiters (otherwise known as us). In fact, readers with lengthy attention spans will recall that Mubarak was ousted so that Morsi and his bloodthirsty band of anti-Semites (the Muslim Brotherhood) could take over in Cairo.

Obama had a colossal hissy fit when Morsi’s own military deposed him, and it is worth citing here the opinion of one Middle Eastern expert, Jonathan Spyer, an academic who studies the Middle East for a living. Fresh back from reporting on the “moderate opposition” in Syria, Spyer insists the moderates Obama wishes to back are “really Muslim Brotherhood-types” who profess an Islamist ideology. Again, because this gets confusing if you’re not nuts, bear in mind that Obama fully understands this.

On September 18th congress supinely voted to allow the U.S. military to train and equip Syrian rebels to wage war against ISIS, despite the fact that these forces may also be ISIS unless they’re the Muslim Brotherhood, unless they’re not either one, in which case they will be bound by a truce with ISIS…and the problem with all such distinctions is that they cannot be seen from the air. Last week, an airstrike from the American-led coalition (otherwise known as the good guys) nearly blew up a command-and-control facility of the “Free Syrian Army,” Another strike killed a bunch of “FSA” stalwarts because their encampment is next door to an Al Qaeda base at which they intermingles socially.

ISIS, here and now.

If anyone doubted that ISIS was as a major threat to our national security, Obama’s interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick in January of 2012 should have been a giveaway. Remnick explained to the president that the Al Qaida flag was widely seen waving in Fallujah as well as in Syria, and noted the terrorist group did not appear to be “on the run” or “decimated” as Obama proclaimed repeatedly during his 2012 reelection campaign. The president’s reply combined glibness and inaccuracy in his characteristic fashion. He told Remnick, “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” But ISIS doesn’t appear to read the New Yorker, and anyone who does might well have viewed the president’s response, given his demonstrated inability to wax simultaneously dismissive and correct on any topic, as concrete evidence that ISIS was the killer elite, freshly led by one Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, (his name sounds exactly like “Big Daddy,”) a raving jihadist psychopath recently released from American custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq after a Combined Review and Release Board pronounced him harmless. Oops.

ISIS is, in fact, crazier, bigger, and better financed than the Al Qaeda bin Laden led on 9/11. Congressman Tim Bishop (who is, mirabile dictu, a Democrat from New York) warned in a recent speech that at least 40 U.S. citizens who joined and fought with the Islamic State of Iraq have since repatriated themselves to the United States, where they clearly pose a threat of domestic terrorism. For that matter, “John the Beatle,” the terrorist who beheads infidels for ISIS’s entertainment division, is in fact British. The FBI announced last week that they now know “John’s” true identity but said they are withholding it so as not to “tip him off.” We know it too, however. It’s Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, a former British rap “singer,” who, we feel certain, was tipped off the moment the FBI said they knew who he was–right?

It’s foreign policy, stupid!

In a nation ruled by apathy and ignorance, where most Americans still tune to CNN or the Dinosaur Networks on those rare occasions that they perceive some necessity for glimpsing a newscast (while remaining oblivious of these “news sources” roles as progressive propaganda mills), it is easy to comprehend why sheer bombast suffices again and again as policy for the current administration. But facts, as John Adams once pointed out, are stubborn things, and ISIS is a stubborn fact. Moreover, it is a curious aspect of foreign policy that it uniquely imposes such stubborn facts in ways that defy insouciance, both presidential and proletarian, and imposes them with greater and graver intensity when initially ignored. Too, the classic Obama tactic of claiming ignorance and feigning aloofness cannot be practically applied in the realm of foreign affairs. An American president plays many roles in conjunction with the other arms of government, and often delegates many areas of administrative responsibility to others. Thus he may on occasion, (or on nearly every occasion if he is Barack Obama) lay claim to being ill-informed, even out of the loop, rather than culpable of professional msconduct—but never in matters of foreign policy. The president alone is commander in chief and while treaties and the waging of war must, at least theoretically, be sanctioned by congress, the protection of his nation’s shores and the defense of its population is the lonely duty of the man at the top. For this reason, when stubborn facts present themselves on the geopolitical scene, whether as Pearl Harbor, the Bay of Pigs, the Tet Offensive, the Twin Towers, or ISIS storming Fallujah, they demand presidential responses.

Obama’s Achilles heel…

And so it is for Our Beloved Helmsman! The American news media, always left-wing in outlook, abandoned all pretense to the contrary and effectively functioned as the Illinois Senator’s advance team during both recent elections. Candy Crowley even debated for him! For more than six years we have been assured by the pundits that when Obama says dumb things or makes perplexingly awful decisions, he is operating on a cerebral level too ethereal for our meager minds to grasp—and when any of us questions this, or questions the man’s curious background, we are called racist.

But now we have ISIS, that ill wind from the East, that provocation from beyond our bordering oceans, and they don’t care about any of the above. They are like the virally infamous honey badger, and we all know honey badger don’t care! ISIS don’t care that Obama sends them coy little signals of Muslim affinity, or makes plain in every way possible that his goals for the Middle East are essentially similar to theirs. To ISIS Obama is just some parvenu in the White House who needs his throat slit along with the rest of us. Moreover, ISIS is devoid of any inclination to negotiate. It is also implacably hostile and ludicrously visible, and thus President Obama has been driven to the wall. He cannot distract us with a war against Ebola, or a speech about “climate disruption,” and he dare not create a firestorm by granting blanket amnesty to illegal aliens until after the elections next month—no, he needs to appear determined to confront ISIS with force. It is tempting to write that Obama needs a strategy, but this is untrue. As we shall continue to argue, he has a strategy. What Obama needs now is an apparent strategy—a sham piece that maintains appearances while the plot thickens unobserved.

Curb your hostilities!

B y now most Americans have been sufficiently informed by the administration to realize that we either are, or are not, at war with ISIS. On the one hand President Obama has denounced ISIS as a cancer that “must be destroyed,” while our Secretary of State, John Forbes Kerry (who served in Vietnam before he was against it) almost simultaneously assured CBS’s Margaret Brennan that we are not at war with ISIS, emphasizing that while “a global coalition” was being assembled to “battle” ISIS, “war is the wrong terminology and analogy” for such a “very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity.” So, setting aside for the moment our Secretary of States’ pathological obsession with all things ‘global,’ what, exactly, is going on? Before we depart this subject, WOOF will explain in detail how we are and are not at war with a “cancer” that was previously the junior varsity and which we simultaneously intend to destroy but, really, merely to degrade while causing it, in the President’s words, to be “vanquished from the earth” by American forces who “will not have a combat mission” because “we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq,” despite which, our vice president assures us, we will hunt ISIS “to the gates of Hell” even as his boss helpfully adds that ISIS “is not Islamic,” and reminds us that, while we are not a war, fighting them will necessitate a “very real battle.” Can one descry a strategy here? Well, WOOF can—we’re just that good!

The noise before defeat…

Sun Tzu wrote that “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, while tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” In this one instance (unlikely to be repeated) WOOF agrees that our president’s thoughts actually do occupy an ideative realm set well apart from more pedestrian insights. For Barack Hussein Obama, “tactics without strategy” constitute the perfect strategy; and the final goal is, in fact, defeat, meaning the defeat of the colonial powers (that’s us) and the triumph of the Caliphate abroad, and socialism, pestilence, and cultural deracination at home. But this, like virtually everything else the administration strives for, must be wrapped in deceit.

Thus, if he had his druthers, which for once he does not, Obama would prefer to ignore ISIS altogether and let radical Islam first destabilize and eventually engulf the nations of the Middle East, sweeping across North Africa and Turkey while he played golf. The First Marxist fully expected to continue speechifying at fund raisers, chowing on kobe beef and talking Five Percent Nation with Beyonce and Jay Z while this occurred. All that such a plan required was that Americans be persuaded to join their president in ignoring ISIS (they’re just the junior varsity, hee, hee!) and normally that would have been simple enough to accomplish. The same eagle-eyed journalists who made the wars and casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq disappear as soon as Obama was sworn in were expected to ignore ISIS. Sure, FOX would yammer about them, but the president would smirk and say, “Well, that’s just a FOX story,” and the press corpse would provide the sycophantic laugh track. So what went wrong? ISIS kept slitting the throats of journalists, darn it—even American journalists—good, liberal, pro-Muslim journalists–and some vestigial trace of journalistic simpatico required even MSNBC to cover the slayings.

And no sooner had they been denounced as the JV than ISIS rolled over the Iraqi army, occupied Fallujah and Mosul and threatened to capture Baghdad—somewhat hard to explain as “just a FOX story.” For these reasons, the preferred Obama strategy of ignoring and de-emphasizing the problem wouldn’t work. Distraction was trotted out next. This entailed first importing Ebola and then declaring war on Ebola, and when that failed initially, war was declared on global warming, (again), but finally, ISIS won overdue acknowledgement.

Realize that to Barack Obama, ISIS is that beloved but unruly Pit Bull puppy whose place in the family is secure, but whose rambunctiousness creates public embarrassments that must be finessed from time to time by feigning concern. This included devoting an entire week to denying he ever called ISIS the junior varsity to begin with, which enormity even his most slavishly devoted journalistic lickspittles could not bestir themselves to report straight-facedly (you know, because there are transcripts and video tape—duh), and which enormity even the preternaturally disingenuous Josh Earnest seemed hard pressed to enunciate without blanching.

Even today, ISIS, that rowdy Pit Bull pup, persists in irksomely beheading hostages while the president gamely prevaricates about how decisively he is subduing them. Fifty-five-year-old Herve Gourde, a French mountain climber, was beheaded on camera while Obama addressed the UN on September 24—a surefire scene stealer guaranteed to distract even the most ardent globalist from the president’s longwinded aphorisms. But bombing is a good attention-getter too, traditionally, and when bombing is desirable because it slyly advances the cause of radical Islam in Syria, or cannot be avoided because it is suddenly important to appear resistant to the onward march of radical Islam, or both, then bombing becomes Obama’s fallback position. It looks wonderfully forceful on television, but militarily this is not a war that can be fought decisively from the air. ISIS likes to operate amid thronging civilian populations so that bombing them without killing hundreds of non-combatants will be next to impossible, and Obama has gone out of his way, as usual, to assure the enemy that he will absolutely not put “American boots on the ground,” unless we count the 1,600 “advisors” just dispatched to Iraq, and the 450 plus we admit inserting into Syria—assuming they have boots.

Our suddenly militarized media

Report from U.K.-based human rights organizations like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, allege that U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria are killing mainly civilians. Obviously, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) differs, insisting that the areas targeted were “being used by ISIS as a logistics hub and vehicle staging facility,” while the Observatory maintains they were used exclusively for food storage making the only casualties civilians who worked there. The only (almost amusingly ironic) certainty is that the Liberal Establishment Media will now ignore humanitarian claims of innocent civilian deaths while emphasizing CENTCOM’s version. Indeed, American military leadership must be wondering if they are suddenly “back to the future,” as the Pentagon enjoys its most supportive press coverage since Walter Cronkite emitted war whoops from the rear seat of a dive-bombing jet over Da Nang back in 1965—yes, Woofketeers, back when Cronkite was praising Vietnam as “the courageous decision that Communism’s advance must be stopped in Asia and that guerilla warfare as a means to a political end must be finally discouraged.” Surely what we have before us is a mean season indeed for the likes of Cindy Sheehan, unless she too has transformed into a hawk—we confess, we haven’t checked.

More significantly, the media also refuse to take note of the lopsided tactical emphasis on Syria while Iraq, where we might presume to have a vested interest, is paid little more than lip service. As American planes readied assaults reaching far into Syria, a large Iraqi army base in Anbar province fell to a stream of Humvees manned by ISIS fighters who killed or captured around 500 Iraqi troops (and then slaughtered the captured ones) as they occupied Camp Saqlawiyah outside of Baghdad. Example: On October 4th, ISIS occupied the entire Abu Ghraib region, putting it within artillery range of Baghdad while we relentlessly bombed Syria. The American trained Iraqi army is ignored even as those always miasmic “moderate” Syrian insurgents are lately praised by Obama as “our boots on the ground,” which might worry Americans a tad if they recall the president telling us only two months ago that these same rebels were nothing but “farmers, doctors and pharmacists who couldn’t possibly stand up” militarily. The oddity of the Syrian emphasis seem to have briefly distracted even the subversive Washington Post, which permitted Senator Corker to editorialize: “Today, after three years of bold rhetoric divorced from reality, 170,000 Syrians are dead, and we are not innocent bystanders. Extremist groups from Syria have surged into Iraq, seizing key territory and resources, and are threatening to completely undo the progress of years of U.S. sacrifice.” So, arming these elements now that they are either radicalized or bound by articles of truce appears to be Obama’s master plan. The real plan (we pause here to reiterate at the risk of waxing boresome), is the overthrow of Assad…a rerun of Libya…so don’t volunteer for the ambassadorial post, just saying.

M ost of us have noticed the president never misses an opportunity to tell the enemy what he won’t do to beat them, what he will do, when he plans to begin, when he’ll stop, what he plans to do in the meantime, and when he’ll pull out entirely. That’s partly because when the sole purpose of military action is to make a visual splash on the home front, secrecy is not useful. It is also to subdue those elements of his base that honestly oppose war (as opposed to that larger element that appears to oppose war when Republicans are in office). It is also meant to keep the likes of ISIS updated on our movements, which fact is hard to accept, we know. But now, despite having divested every branch of the military of battle-worthy leadership [story here], Obama is now getting flak from his brass hats, domesticated though they be. Seemingly, even the most sycophantically-political officer corps can be driven from opportunism to perplexity and finally to alarm by sufficient levels of presidential irresponsibility…while remnants of the authentic martial caste froth at the mouth from retirement, much of it forced.

A little rebellion:

It began when Obama came under attack for announcing numbly that he possessed “no strategy” for dealing with ISIS prior to jetting back to Martha’s Vineyard. True to form, as soon as critics seized upon this mind-boggling admission, Our Beloved Helmsman blamed somebody else. In this case, he blamed the Pentagon for not generating a strategy for him by which to confront ISIS. This whopper actually provoked the Pentagon into a rare display of contumacy. The military unequivocally asserted that the Commander-in-Chief had been handed a number of operational options, and chosen to do nothing. Or rather, to play golf, but the Pentagon didn’t specify that. We just added it to be helpful.

It may also be recalled that the president appeared thereafter on the subversive CBS TV program 60 Minutes explaining that his intelligence services were in fact responsible for completely underestimating ISIS, thus inciting even his personal implant at the CIA, John Brennan, (former Democrat party hack, intelligence-community dilettante and probable closet Muslim) to excuse himself from bugging the Senate long enough to contradict Obama publicly, insisting that CIA had been warning the president about ISIS for well over a year. Even Janet Napolitano, that loyalest of Obama’s apparat-chicks, sounded off to the effect that DHS had been warning the First Marxist about ISIS “for years.” Even the subversive Daily Beast felt obliged to fact check the Obama interview, contacting a “senior Pentagon official” who remarked, “Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting.” Although it appears to have eluded the Beast, these allegations are far from mutually exclusive.

“A snowball’s chance in Hell”

Once the president finally explained that we would do some bombing but nothing more, the usually tractable chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dempsey, went so far as to suggest publically that the president reconsider his policy. This sufficiently jolted Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel that he took time off from reducing our military to pre-World War Two levels to insist that he and Dempsey had, in fact, agreed on a Middle East policy and already briefed the president on it, which would have played better had not a freakishly incautious reporter asked whether the president had ever actually gotten around to approving the plan– which Hagel tersely admitted he hadn’t.

Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis who served under Obama until last year, proceeded to tell the House Intelligence Committee that, “Half-hearted or tentative efforts, or airstrikes alone, can backfire on us and actually strengthen our foes…we may not wish to reassure our enemies in advance that they will not see American boots on the ground.” Meanwhile, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, active commander for the Middle East, recommended interposing American forces on the ground in Iraq even as Obama’s former defense secretary Bobby Gates recently assured CBS News that “There will be boots on the ground if there’s to be any hope of success in the strategy.” Former Secretary Gates is not, so far as we know, a WOOF reader and may be forgiven, therefore, for failing to fully conceptualize the Obaman approach to all this. So too may retired Marine General James Conway who addressed the Maverick PAC conference in Washington, declaring, “I don’t think the president’s plan has a snowball’s chance in Hell of succeeding.” The discerning Woofketeer will by now have grasped that each of these critiques exhibits an identical misconception—namely, that the president seeks an American military triumph in the Middle East. He does not. He seeks only to do the minimum necessary to deflect criticism while the Caliphate rolls on.

“Failing and failing miserably”

John Kerry, of course, is entirely in his element amid all this eyewash, and flanked by Jan Psaki-type hash-taggers from Foggy Bottom, whom Victoria O’Kane perfectly described as looking like “rejects from the cast of Mean Girls without the intellect,” Kerry gushed over his coalition of Arab nations nominally supportive of our air offensive (and who may even contribute a jet plane or two without of course contributing any boots). Kerry (who served in Vietnam before he was against it) continues to deliver himself of bold rhetoric around which his international forces may rally, booming only recently that if “Iran and Syria don’t have any capacity to take on Isil. I mean, who knows? I don’t know what’s going to happen here…If we’re failing and failing miserably, who knows what choice they’re [sic] might make?”

Indeed, even as Slow Rappin’ Preezy announced his perception that armed Syrians could carry the day against, well, other armed Syrians, despite his formerly expressed views on the matter, Kerry busily denied reports he’d begged Iran’s mullahs for assistance, denouncing the rumors as “utterly false.” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, took exception to Kerry’s claim, however, insisting that the Obama administration privately approached Tehran seeking assistance in battling ISIS, but was flatly rejected because, as the Ayatollah reminded his followers, the US administration has “corrupt intention and stained hands.” Even a stopped clock, right?

Organizing Arabs…

Before we discuss the president’s recent speech to the world (via the subversive United Nations), let us first review his September 3rd remarks, delivered in Estonia, where the First Marxist enjoined Estonians, and the rest of us, one assumes, “to recognize that threats evolve, and threats have evolved as a consequence of what we’ve seen in Ukraine, but threats are also evolving in the Middle East.” We at WOOF resonated to this, because we’ve long suspected that the Middle East was evolving on a path separate from, but commensurate with, the president’s views on Gay marriage and Putin’s intentions respecting the Ukraine—but despite the president’s assurances of a year ago that his policy worked “to end a decade of war,” it seems the Arab world is not entirely free of strife, apparently because “pervasive unease” erupted in the region, although Mr. Obama explained “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam [because] Islam teaches peace.” “What we’ve got to do,” Obama explained, “is make sure that we are organizing the Arab world.”

While the president’s wartime exhortations may be said to compare unfavorably with William the Conqueror’s prior to the Battle of Hastings, i.e., “May the lightning of your glory be seen and the thunders of your onset heard from east to west,” or Henry the Fifth’s at Agincourt: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…”or practically anything Winston Churchill ever breathed into a microphone decades prior to his forcible removal from Mr. Obama’s Oval Office, that’s not important now. We are briefly intrigued, however, by Obama’s bizarre, almost poignant regression into the belief that the Arab world requires simply to be organized! (At last, something with which he has actual experience!)

The President’s speech.

From the moment he began his address to the nation in the wake of the original Fort Hood massacre by jubilantly offering “shout outs” to his staffers, Obama’s tone deafness has been a consistent source of astonishment. Whether golfing in the immediate wake of a beheading or snapping giddy selfies at Mandela’s funeral, the absence of authentic empathy is impossible to ignore. He is lately reported to giggle inappropriately during briefings and babble incoherently during phone conversations. It should not surprise us, then, that Obama’s performance at the UN amounted to a desultory concatenation of PC bromides rather than a call to arms. Let us sort through the debris.

Obama first congratulated the UN on having established world peace inasmuch as “The shadow of World War that existed at the founding of this institution has been lifted…” despite which, somewhat paradoxical references ensued to “Russian aggression in Europe [that] recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition.” The worldwide economic crisis was pronounced over and dealt with, oddly because we’ve “learned how to cure disease, and harness the power of the wind and sun.” “And yet,” Obama reflected, “there is a pervasive unease in our world – a sense that the very forces that have brought us together have created new dangers, and made it difficult for any single nation to insulate itself from global forces.” (If college kids are not playing drinking games during administration speeches mandating a shot every time some permutation of “global” pops up, WOOF cannot imagine why not!)

Despite having learned how to cure disease, the president reminded the assembled nations that “Ebola overwhelms public health systems in West Africa, and threatens to move rapidly across borders,” especially ours, of course, because we don’t seem to have any. And yes, “the brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness.” But lest the stirring imagery of Joseph Conrad overwhelm the assemblage and shame it to authentic action, the president immediately sank into the banal conceit that such horrors were merely “symptoms of a broader problem – the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.” You know—globally. In fact, all too often “we have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism, and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.” (Take a shot, kids!)

Parsed here for the convenience of readers in a hurry, Obama went on to emphasize the need to “renew the international system” by reaffirming “our collective responsibility to confront global problems” “through concerted and collective effort,” by which we “must meet our responsibility to observe and enforce international norms.” This seemed to remind the president that Russia was not behaving well, which thought prompted him to blurt, “America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy.” Really? He might have added, “The United States and Britain affirmed their commitment to protect Ukraine’s borders in a memorandum signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, reaffirmed by President Bush, and reaffirmed by me, and in keeping with this understanding, any territorial invasion of the Ukraine will be met by American and British steel…” but even if he had said such a thing, which of course he never would, nobody would have believed him. So instead, he sidled into his war on Ebola, assuring the general assembly that “As we speak, America is deploying our doctors and scientists – supported by our military – [huh?] to help contain the outbreak of Ebola and pursue new treatments.” That we would shortly be requiring these services in Texas and soon, presumably, across the continental United States owing to the Obama administration’s open borders policy and its enthusiastic importation of infected medical personnel went unmentioned. Instead Obama suggested that other nations “join us in making concrete commitments to fight this outbreak, and enhance global health security for the long-term.”

And as if this were not sufficiently odd in a speech ostensibly addressing the villainy of ISIS, he added that “America is pursuing ambitious reductions in our carbon emissions, and we have increased our investments in clean energy. We will do our part, and help developing nations to do theirs.” Could it get any balmier? Yes, because the topic of Ferguson also proved irresistible to Obama who lamented “our own ethnic and racial tensions” as he directed his thoughts to “the small American city…where a young man was killed, and a community was divided.” His prescribed solution for perceived American racism? “Globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear,” even though it defies rationality that any tradition is made dearer through diversification…doesn’t it?

And yes, there followed a considerable amount of fustian targeting “ISIL” but oddly conjoined with bizarre allusions to Eleanor Roosevelt, “a champion of the UN and America’s role in it,” [and here we thought that was Alger Hiss] who taught us that “Universal human rights…begin…in small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.” Okay…and with this lackluster recitation of insipidities, the president’s speech dragged through its denouement and lurched to a halt. Only David Brooks, who seems hell bent on establishing his reputation as a more composed version of Chris Matthews, could write unabashedly, “It was one of the finest speeches of his presidency.” Heck, even CBS News headlined it as “Mission Not Accomplished.” But CBS, for all its affiliation with and dedication to the Obaman cause, has no idea what the man’s mission truly entails. WOOF. on the other hand, knows that Obama’s true mission comes in three easy pieces; and here they are in no necessary order…

One: It’s the Caliphate, stupid!

News item: David Lindorff, an investigative journalist in the Middle East remarked during an interview with Press TV on Saturday, September 29th, that US-led strikes advertized as hitting terrorists are actually intended to target Syrian government positions, declaring “…it’s all an effort to eventually be bombing in Syria where they can switch the target to the Syrian government’s target.” Lindorff further opined that British reluctance to participate in airstrikes inside Syria stemmed from Whitehall’s realization that, “They did not want to be dragged into…regime change in Syria.” It may be recalled that the British also quite sensibly resisted rushing to judgment over the White House’s claim that Assad used chemical weaponry back in 2013—back when President Obama first drew the line that he claimed Assad had crossed before saying that he never drew any line before saying that the “international community” drew the line, not him.

Lindorff insists that the “clear suspicion” in Britain is that the US strikes in Syria “are “really about having the planes flying there and then eventually shifting the target to Assad.” So there, gentle readers—now you have heard it from the notorious paranoids at WOOF, from David Lindorff, and (by admittedly tenuous extension) Her Majesty’s government. WOOF knows the president’s bombing campaign is aimed at eradicating any trace of secular governance in Syria permitting radicals to seize power in Damascus…just like in Libya, and just like in Egypt.

So, with England and Europe absenting themselves from the scam, who are our allies in the Syrian bombing sorties? Why, John Kerry’s marvelous coalition of Muslim nations, namely, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates…champions of secular democracy all! And now Turkey, currently led by a radical Islamist, has joined Kerry’s Kommandos. To paraphrase John Wayne, what do want us to do, draw you a picture?

Two: It’s the Senate, stupid!

Domestically, as much will appear to be happening as will suffice to secure the Senate for the Democrats in November. Afterwards, even as blanket amnesty is granted by regal fiat to the masses of undocumented aliens in our midst, and even as fresh attacks on the 1st and 2nd amendments are launched, Iraq (and especially the valiant and serially betrayed Kurds) will be thrown to the wolves and ISIS’s name will no longer play across the lips of America’s liberal TV commentators…this, besides the man’s endemic aversion to substance, is why the president’s speech was so vacuous. It was merely theater aimed at domestic consumption while the Liberal News Media successfully propagandize for the re-election to the senate of Democrats who could not plausibly run for dog catcher in a nation safeguarded by objective journalists.

Three: It’s the Eve of Destruction, stupid!

CNN has discovered that Ebola is here and infectious despite their hero’s dutifully reported assurances that Ebola spreading in America was “unlikely,” and they have discovered that it gets ratings. This means they will have to lean over backwards to avoid reporting that President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Johnson, and Secretary of State Kerry could have stopped Ebola from entering our country at any time by asserting their authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and didn’t bother. Why not? Doesn’t Obama live here too? Hilariously, the administration simply banned Ebola, qua Ebola, as though that were even possible—as though doing so were akin to, say, Britain banning Michael Savage. But nothing was done to limit Ebola’s spread. Flights continue to land in the United States from countries infested with the virus while head scratchers in congress continue to wonder why Obama doesn’t seem engaged. And lest you suppose that the Left will now awaken to the administration’s culpability in these matters, consider that the anti-gun group “States United to Prevent Gun Violence” is already informing its membership that the National Rifle Association is to blame, because they are stalling the nomination of anti-gun leftist Vivek Murthy as Surgeon General who could otherwise “educate the American public about the actual level of risk.” And if you think this is too absurd to be taken seriously by anyone, consider: MSNBC is now running with the story—and no, WOOF is not making this up!

Yet lately it seems as if even the most obedient media popinjays (and popinjettes) are at a loss to explain, even to one another, the illogic of Our Beloved Helmsman’s strangest enthusiasms. It is one thing to assist an ever-diminishing viewership in shrugging off the chief executive’s utter lack of attention to virtually anything besides himself and his amusements while the planet careens toward chaos—and quite another to believe it yourself. An NBC cameraman in Africa has contracted Ebola… journalists are getting their heads sliced off. This wasn’t exactly the deal liberalism made with “hope and change,” and yet even the president’s most ardent political critics seem unable to and grasp the operative metanarrative: Destruction.

The wreck of the Narcissist

The 5th edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders notes that certain human beings present with symptoms that include a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a pronounced lack of empathy, a tendency to exaggerate their achievements and talents, a requirement for excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement, a willingness to take advantage of or exploit others, a belief that they are superior, special, or perfect, a tendency to become furious when others do not seem to acknowledge their specialness, and “arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.” We will (albeit gleefully) leave our readers free to assign such attributes to whichever public figures they deem appropriate. Our only clinical contribution here will be to point out that an individual who meets these criteria is one who is afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (coded by the DSM 5 as 301.81—you know, just in case Obamacare covers it).

Narcissism is not a diagnosis that blends well with ignominious endings. Limping off stage as the worst president in American history, just for example, is not an outcome a narcissist would enjoy. Psychic instability could result from such a circumstance and when this occurs the extreme narcissist risks a level of transient psychosis, or decompensation. In lay terms, he goes a bit bonkers. He may generate a crisis—and were his grandiosity of, say, presidential proportions, the crisis would be commensurate. Any sense of rejection, overt or implicit, would beget rage–rage against the unappreciative, ungrateful maggots who failed to acknowledge and support the narcissist’s genius, and at this point, the narcissist lashes out. Hitler’s ravings in his bunker that Germany had proved unworthy of his greatness are classic. The lust to bring destruction upon an entire civilization, moreover, might dovetail nicely with a need to destroy evidence or eliminate loose ends (think Jim Jones). If one had faked this or that element of his persona, or fraudulently represented his past, how better to cover one’s tracks than by provoking Gotterdammerung? Or, in a pinch, enough social destabilization, communicable disease, military decline and racial and religious strife to ensure disaster.

McCarthy’s maxim:

I f you follow us on TWITTER (and we certainly don’t demand it of you), you have already noticed that we respond to claims that Barack Obama is simply not up to the job intellectually with the same quote every time. We are often asked the origin of the quote. It is, in fact, Joe McCarthy. Confronted with suggestions that General Marshall’s record of perceived collusion with the USSR was nothing more than a series of naïve misjudgments, McCarthy rejoined, “If [he] were merely stupid, the laws of probability would have dictated that at least some of his decisions would have served this country’s interest.” C’mon, even if you abhor Joe, you have to love that. McCarthy’s maxim defines Obama’s presidency and predicts his endgame. Slow Rappin’ Preezy is no genius—good heavens, he has proved himself an intellectual lightweight on innumerable occasions. But he is not an idiot. And it doesn’t take a genius to set America ablaze, just an ego on steroids, a loyal coterie of pernicious communists and Islamists, a media and entertainment industry mindlessly devoted to Dear Leader’s cult of personality, and all the powers of the U.S. presidency, both constitutional and assumed. Scared yet?

No matter what transpires in November, gentle readers, the odds will not shift enough to ease our plight greatly. We are living in perilous times, and the days ahead will challenge our faith and test our cause. So cowboy up, hunker down, and stand the lonely watches, for the whirlwind fast approaches, the enemy has breached our walls, “and ladies and gentlemen,” as the above-cited Junior Senator also once remarked, “the chips are down—they are truly down..!”