Monday, October 07, 2013

Wag the Dog


The United States' Seal Team Six staged an unsuccessful raid in Somalia Saturday morning in an attempt to capture or kill an Al Shabab leader.  They were forced to retreat after experiencing heavier-than-expected return gun fire … see: CS Monitor Story.  Much as I admire President Obama’s pluck in approving this military excursion, I am forced to surmise that this and a similar raid in Libya may well have been a “wag the dog” response to (aka, a distraction from) his plummeting approval ratings as a result of the current budget and debt-ceiling imbroglio with the Republicans.

Must everything that this administration does be a political calculation?

1 comment:

DEN said...

Hah! You are trying a bit of disinformation yourself there, professor. Republicans will end-up taking the biggest political hit on the shutdown. But I agree that Dems missed the chance to call the bluff by going along with selective reopening bills. And the executive decisions on closings that hurt traveling Americans were hypocritical and wrong.