COMMON SENSE AND CIRCUSES

By Charlie Daniels

The Charlie Daniels Band
June 30, 2014

I lay no claim to a great knowledge of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, nor do I hold degrees from prestigious universities, and I've never claimed to be the sharpest saw at the mill.

I look at things in a blue collar layman's sort of way and use a measure of judgment I call Cowboy Logic, which consists of three things. Water never runs uphill, two and two is always four and if there's smoke, there's a fire somewhere.

The recent actions of the Obama administration in the Middle East seem to defy all of the above, and unless there's a cork here that hasn't made it to the top of the water yet, it flies in the face of everything logical.

1. Obama was warned by the generals who executed the war in Iraq that if all the troops were pulled out without a decent sized residual force left in place, the very thing that has happened would happen, that there would be war among the Islamic factions that would quickly negate the few gains America had left behind when we pulled out.

Obama refused to honor the general's advice and pulled all the troops out, he makes lame excuses about immunity and political claptrap that precluded his leaving a meaningful force in place, but the truth is that he could have worked it out if he had wanted to. His reasons were purely political.

2. There's nothing new in America propping up a lame ineffective leader and leaving them in place when we pull out, but this fruitcake al-Maliki is even a cut below some of the losers we've supported in the past. Besides being hated by over 10 million of the opposing Sunni population of Iraq, he is obviously a puppet of the Iranians.

3. Even the mainstream media which does everything but polish Obama's shoes is having to admit that the ISIS forces are a clear and present danger to the homeland, as several Jihadists with American passports have joined the fight in Syria and Iraq and there is an uncomfortable possibility that they will come back to the US, bringing with them, the latest technical knowledge in bomb building.

We have been inhibited from making gains in Iraq because the enemy hides among the general population, but ISIS rides through open desert in long convoys, a prime target. Why has Obama not unleashed missiles and fighter planes?

4. Obama released five of the most dangerous terrorists in the world recently, even he himself admitting that there was a chance they would again join the war of terror against America.

Does this make any sense at all? Is this not tantamount to allowing a rattlesnake nest to exist in your living room?

5. After claiming that the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi Libya was the result of some insulting video, then reneging, the Obama administration is identifying the recently captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah as the ringleader of the massacre.

If this is so, Khatallah is most certainly an enemy combatant, and as such should be tried by a military tribunal, not in a civil court with some headline seeking superstar lawyer pleading his case and the media coloring the coverage to Obama's advantage.

6. I recently got an email from a friend of mine in Israel who is in position to stay on top of events in that part of the world and he called Obama and Kerry a "two man wrecking squad" and said the prestige and credibility of the Obama administration in that neighborhood were practically non existent.

Even the idea of America having diplomatic dealings with Iran has to send shock waves the length and breadth of Israel. Much less the ludicrous notion of involving them in Iraq. That is no way to treat the only ally America has in that entire part of the world. Especially since Israel and America are the common enemies of Iran; they hate us as much as they hate the Jews.

I don't know what the upshot of all this will be, but I can tell you that absolutely no good can come from it. Passivity and inaction in the face of danger always gives the advantage to the bad guys and I'm afraid when the chickens come home to roost, disaster is coming with them.