I Stand With Obama.

I Stand With Obama.  Lord have mercy, I never thought I would write those words in this blog; but here they are.  Watching Josh Earnest being interviewed on Fox this morning, I have to say that I agree with nearly every word he said.  Although he has been a weasel about how he has gone about implementing his policy, and has been very inconsistent and nebulous to boot, I support Obama’s position on combating the Islamic State.  I do not subscribe to the notion that the Iraq War was a mistake, but I cannot help but think that the price we paid for our participation in it was far too costly.  The world is a chaotic cauldron these days and Obama’s (and Hillary’s) policies have helped to move it into that position.  But how it came to be and why it came to be is not really the important question that we face today.  That question is “What do we do about it?”

I think Obama is correct in stating that the Islamic State is Iraq’s problem.  I would like to see him go a step further towards honesty and admit that the Islamic State is a Muslim problem.  Regardless, even though the Islamic State is committed towards harming our nation and its citizens, I cannot support more bloodshed and death in a Middle East that refuses to deal directly with its own problems.  As terrible as it is to admit, I fear that the Middle East…Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, all of them…is going to have to settle their conflicts in their own ways.  As Obama says, when we can support the proper faction with a high degree of certainty (not sure how that is possible in today’s environment), then we should supply them with funds, weapons, and political support. Furthermore, I agree with him when he proposes that a limited number (again, an ephemeral object) of special troops might serve as support for the right cause.  Even though this poses a clear and present danger of American fatalities, it is undeniable that some ground intelligence is required if the other support we offer is going to be effective.

The world has changed.  The abilities of our intelligence services to identify specific, immediate and reliable threats to our national security have been diminished.  Our intelligence agencies must evolve; they must change their approach to how they seek to protect our nation and its people.  Our next president must begin to re-establish the credibility of our nation and regain its position as the primary defender of freedom and human dignity on this planet.  But the time for us to send our best men and women to wars when you can’t even identify the combatants and what they stand for should be over.