Sunday, September 22, 2013

Mr President, Where Is Your Righteous Outrage?


Watching these farces of domestic and foreign "policies" these last few weeks, one has to wonder where our esteemed President's priorities lay. Two years too late, he aims to enforce his mouth diarrhea about "red lines" in a failing state that could have been punished more effectively and succinctly by surgical air strikes before sarin had been used and Islamist forces took control over a "rebel" continent in Syria. He's embarrassed his biggest ally, himself, America and the West in general, and allowed our traditional rival and Dictator-in-Chief Vlad Putin an easy global political victory. After weaseling out of a direct Presidential order to strike Syria over his nebulous red line and attempting to throw Congress (and his political opponents and so-called allies) under the bus, he threatens this very same Congress over ridiculous budgetary shutdown terms. Where was that spine with Syria two years ago, Mr President? Where was it against Iran's Green Movement crackdown by the despots and the Revolutionary Guard? 

Yesterday, in a Kenyan mall shooting, dozens were killed by al-Shabab militants—allied to al-Qaeda, no less—the same terrorists responsible for Somalia's decades of misery and horror. These people are the Taliban of East Africa. Americans were murdered there, as they were in the twin 1998 hotel bombings that President Clinton ignored. Al-Qaeda's first salvos went unmet by Clinton. Mr President, al-Shabab won't go away; will you have a spine against these animals? 

All the hand wringing over domestic gun violence—be it school shootings or neighborhood watchmen defending themselves—random sports events bombings, aerial drone strikes and Gitmo tribunals will pale in comparison if we fail to stand up for our ideals and project our force across the world where we have been directly threatened.