Obama And His AUMF

By now everyone in the English-speaking world is aware that “our” Nobel Peace Prize winner of a president, having casually squandered the blood of thousands of Americans who gave their lives in the decade-long effort to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq, wants Congress to authorize him to send American forces back into the Middle East. The questions of greatest immediate importance are:

1. Why?
2. Does he think everyone in Congress is blind, deaf, and crazy?

Okay, okay. Given Congress’s behavior in recent years, he might have a basis of sorts for an affirmative answer to question #2. But given Obama’s demonstrated unwillingness even to mouth a word Muslims might deem offensive to them, coupled to his open hostility to America’s military, how could a rational man expect that an Obama Administration military action waged against an Islamic enemy could work out well? He doesn’t fight wars to win; he hates our armed forces; and he flinches at the very thought of offending a Muslim.

So his request might just meet with sufficient resistance to derail it:

President Obama’s request that Congress authorize military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was met with skepticism from both parties on Wednesday, raising questions about Capitol Hill’s ability to pass a war measure.

The divide is largely centered on language prohibiting the use of “enduring offensive ground combat operations” against ISIS.

Democrats say this does too little to limit the White House from committing ground troops to the fight, while Republicans say the restrictions could handcuff the military.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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Senator Rand Paul was recently quoted as saying that sending American ground troops to battle ISIS is a mistake – that ISIS can only be defeated by troops supplied by the regional states. For that statement he was roundly criticized by several figures on the Right. His statement was variously mischaracterized as isolationism, as moral indifference to the horrors ISIS has inflicted on its victims, and as a slur on America’s fighting forces. Yet when viewed in the proper context, he was quite correct.

Ours is not the fully roused, invincibly resolute United States of America that defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Nor is ISIS the sort of terror that can raise Americans onto our hind legs. Worse yet, those we would go forth to rescue from ISIS are in fundamental agreement with ISIS’s premises and principles. Worst of all, we have been made all too aware that Obama simply won’t allow a war against an Islamic enemy to be fought effectively – that whatever gains American forces would achieve at the cost of further American blood and treasure would be fleeting at best, illusory at worst.

Obama might well have been pressured by his political advisors into requesting the AUMF. I could easily believe it – and that he opposed them to the extent of insisting that it be so sharply limited that it would be clear to all and sundry that he doesn’t really want to fight.

As submitted to Congress, the requested AUMF displeases both caucuses. The Democrats, ever the lily-livered, quail at the idea of further American casualties. More, they detest the thought of having to defend a new and foredoomed war against the criticisms of their hard-left base. The Republicans, a trifle more alert to the reasons the requested AUMF is shaped as it is, are unwilling to allow Obama another double-bind at their expense. For should the AUMF be approved as requested, Obama would not hesitate to blame the subsequent failures on the GOP. Should Congress modify the AUMF to provide an actual possibility of military victory, Obama and his allies would castigate the Republicans for letting more of our young men die in foreign lands.

Though our military men are inhibited against giving their opinions of such matters to the media, it would be difficult for me to believe that our commanders are at all enthusiastic about heading back to the Middle East while Obama is their Commander-In-Chief. They’ve worn his shackles long enough to know them – and him.

No, the war against ISIS, if it’s to be fought at all, must be fought by the locals. America must stay out of it, at least for now.

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In straining to comprehend a geopolitical insanity such as contemporary Islamic militancy, it’s vital that we look beyond the superficial aspects to the foundations of the thing. Those foundations are on vivid display for anyone to see:

1. Islam is a program of totalitarian conquest with a few theological decorations. Its founder, a sex-crazed, bloodthirsty warlord who commanded jihad against “unbelievers” until the whole world is under the boot of Islam, is venerated as The Perfect Man, to be emulated in all things.
2. The program draws substantial support from the Muslims of the world: reliable estimates range from 10% to 25% accord with the militants’ aims and methods.
3. The hypothetical majority of “moderate” Muslims is unable to resist the claims of their militant co-religionists, because:
   1. The militants have the Islamic scriptures firmly on their side; and:
   2. The militants are willing to slaughter “moderate” Muslims as heretics and apostates.
4. The will of the West to resist the Islamic program is weaker than ever before in history. Indeed, our “leaders” aren’t even willing to call Islam-powered terrorism (or ISIS itself) Islamic.

If ever there were a time for Islam to strike the West, this is it. We are divided, weakened by secularism, multiculturalism, moral relativism and a pervasive reluctance to judge others of “different standards.” The states of Europe have emasculated themselves militarily, while America has squandered her own power in a number of pointless, even pathological efforts. If more were needed, a resurgence of imperialism from Russia and looming threats from China have divided our geopolitical attentions.

This is not a time for another expeditionary war on our part. It’s a time for redressing our mistakes:

• We must extinguish the cultural viruses of multiculturalism and moral relativism.
• We must reanimate American principles and values.
• We must reinvigorate the American military and reinforce the virtues that made it fearsome.
• We must cleanse our halls of power of the secret allies of anti-American, anti-freedom forces worldwide.

The war against world Islam – and make no mistake; ISIS is only the tip of the spear – is a world war. It can only be won by a fully mobilized, morally resolute, armed-to-the-teeth nation determined to obliterate the enemy completely and permanently, as we did in World War II. It’s madness to commit one’s forces to such a war in the hesitant, divided, unprepared state we’re in today.

Obama’s request for an AUMF should be defeated.