Showing posts with label Houthi rebels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Houthi rebels. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Rules of Engagement


President Obama once played the me-too game in Afghanistan. After he took office, he said that Afghanistan was the "good war." Then after months and months of feckless indecision, our fearful leader sent a "surge" of troops there but effectively disarmed them with very constrictive rules of engagement. As a consequence, these additional 30,000 troops ... see: New York Times Story ... became targets of Islamic (read Taliban) green-on-blue assassins who killed hundreds of unsuspecting American and allied troops  ... including one general. All in all, during this puny presidential pugilistic posing, the United States lost over 1,100 troops with another 15,000 or so wounded ... see: Antiwar Blog ... many more than under President Bush's war there  ... with essentially no progress to show for all this sacrifice..

And of course we all remember when Obama drew a red line with Syria over its use of chemical weapons ... which he promptly forgot when challenged. Now, President Obama is again flexing his military flab ... sending an aircraft carrier and flotilla of naval ships to intercept the Iranian navy  escorting a suspected shipment of arms to the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen ... see: Fox News Story. But wait! Now it seems that our fearful leader has once again got cold feet and is now saying that this show of American naval power is there just to insure "freedom of navigation." Am I to suppose that his new constrictive rules of engagement for the U.S. Navy there might be to help the Iranians offload their weapons cargoes.

What's the term Rush Limbaugh often uses? Our fearful leader seems to have a "linguine spine?"

Barf!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Scrambled Eggs


The United States' policy in the Middle East is a plate of scrambled eggs. We have been launching air strikes against the ISIS powers (partly Sunni Muslims) in Tikrit, Iraq along side the Iranian-backed Shia Muslim militias ... which were not gaining an edge and are now pulling back ... see: Powerline Blog Comments. In Yemen we are encouraging the Saudis (Sunnis) to attack the Iranian-backed Houthi Shia rebels with both air power and soon possibly with ground troops ... see: Al Jazeera Story. So we are helping Iran with one hand while slapping it down with the other.

The situation is somewhat duplicated in Libya where Egypt (Sunni) is bombing the ISIS forces there ... see: BBC Story. Simultaneously, we are grabbing our ankles in order to close the nuclear deal with Shia Iran. What a mishmash!

And all the while, President Obama (a Shia sympathiser IMHO) is playing golf in Florida ... see: Washington Times Story.