President Obama began his Wednesday night speech with:
"My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL."
What can he possibly mean by "destroy"? I can't think of a single example of a terrorist group being "destroyed," and he certainly provided no such examples. Let's make a list of the comparisons that he and Kerry did make in the excerpts quoted above:
# Al-Qaeda: Kerry said, "it's not dissimilar to what we've been doing the last few years with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Is he claiming that al-Qaeda has been "destroyed"? The Taliban is surging in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. There's every reason to believe that as soon as American troops have departed, later this year, Afghanistan will once again be governed by the Taliban.
# Yemen: Is Obama claiming that Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), headquartered in Yemen, has been "destroyed"? Coincidentally, I just wrote about Yemen a few days ago, and Yemen's government is in crisis from both AQAP and another terror group, the Houthis.
# Somalia: The U.S. was forced to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 because of the famous "Blackhawk Down" incident. The Somali forces that defeated the U.S. were later alleged to be linked to al-Qaeda, and a group subsequently named al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab wants jihadists from UK, Germany and Minnesota", al-Shabaab is drawing would-be jihadists from Minneapolis, and was responsible for the horrific Westgate Mall terror attack last year in Nairobi, Kenya. Obama bragged that American bombs did kill one al-Shabaab leader a few days ago, but al-Shabaab is nowhere near "destroyed."
*) One of Obama's big problems is that he keeps making ridiculous promises that he would know can't be kept if he understood what was going on in the world. The worst one was the chemical weapons "red line" in Syria that would trigger an American military response. Syria's genocidal president Bashar al-Assad continues to use chemical weapons to this day, targeting innocent women and children with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas.
So now Obama has committed to "destroying" ISIS. How the hell is he going to do that?
And here's one more thing from his speech:
"Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."
What's he talking about? Is he really going to take action against ISIS in Syria, when he refused to take action after Bashar al-Assad killed hundreds of people with Sarin gas?
When Obama was campaigning in 2008, he promised that as soon as took office then the earth would heal and the tides would recede. Obama is still making ridiculous promises. He just can't stop himself. Let's hope this doesn't end up as another debacle....
