The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Bloody Cost of Failure

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 52 Comments

The New York Times reports:

Kneeling in the dirt in a desert somewhere in the Middle East, James Foley lost his life this week at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Before pulling out the knife used to decapitate him, his masked executioner explained that he was killing the 40-year-old American journalist in retaliation for the recent United States’ airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq.
In fact, until recently, ISIS had a very different list of demands for Mr. Foley: The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release, according to a representative of his family and a former hostage held alongside him. The United States — unlike several European countries that have funneled millions to the terror group to spare the lives of their citizens — refused to pay.
The issue of how to deal with ISIS, which like many terror groups now routinely trades captives for large cash payments, is acute for the Obama administration because Mr. Foley was not the lone American in its custody. ISIS is threatening to kill at least three others it holds if its demands remain unmet, The New York Times has confirmed through interviews with recently released prisoners, family members of the victims and mediators attempting to win their freedom.

ISIS obtained it current strength in Syria after 2011, as part of the “militant opposition” to the Assad regime. ISIS was at least encouraged — and some say aided and armed — by the U.S. and its allies during the “Arab Spring” the Obama administration celebrated. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was directly involved in this series of blunders and, while we may stipulate that their intentions were good, their policy was misguided and has manifestly failed.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has not been repealed, nor have The Gods of the Copybook Headings been dethroned.

If you ever wondered what Jimmy Carter’s second term would have been like, you need no longer wonder.

 

Comments

52 Responses to “The Bloody Cost of Failure”

  1. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 21st, 2014 @ 6:15 pm

    This is far worse than Jimmy Carter’s 2nd Term would have been like.

  2. MikeT53
    August 21st, 2014 @ 6:16 pm

    Condi Rice: “The demise of repressive governments in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere during this year’s “Arab spring,” she says, stemmed in part from Bush’s “freedom agenda,” which promoted democracy in the Middle East. “The change in the conversation about the Middle East, where people now routinely talk about democratization is something that I’m very grateful for and I think we had a role in that,” Rice says.”

    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-10-31/condoleezza-rice-memoir-bush/51006960/1

  3. Fore! | Batshit Crazy News
    August 21st, 2014 @ 6:17 pm

    […] TOM: The Bloody Cost of Failure […]

  4. The Bloody Cost of Failure | That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    August 21st, 2014 @ 6:40 pm

    […] The Bloody Cost of Failure. […]

  5. Mike G.
    August 21st, 2014 @ 6:41 pm

    So you’re saying this is Bush’s fault? Why am I not surprised.

  6. Bob Belvedere
    August 21st, 2014 @ 6:50 pm

    That this Administration’s policies are manifestly miserable failures and clusterf–ks of horribly enormous proportions is very true.

    However, I have no doubt that The Jarrett Junto’s view through it’s blood-colored glasses is rather more sunny. To them all is, pretty much, proceeding according to plan.

  7. richard mcenroe
    August 21st, 2014 @ 7:01 pm

    BREAKING NEWS: Obama pardons OJ to seek Foley killers & make golf foursome, but mostly to make golf foursome.

  8. Finrod Felagund
    August 21st, 2014 @ 7:11 pm

    So where did ISIS talk about democratization at all?

  9. Finrod Felagund
    August 21st, 2014 @ 7:22 pm

    Well, actually it’s Carter’s 3rd term, in a sense.

  10. MikeT53
    August 21st, 2014 @ 8:05 pm

    No, “Mushroom Cloud” Condi said it was Bush’s fault. I’m just the scribe.

  11. ZZZZZZZZ
    August 21st, 2014 @ 8:20 pm

    zzzzzzzz……

  12. JadedByPolitics
    August 21st, 2014 @ 8:27 pm

    I will not stipulate that their intentions were “good” if you watched the way they took out the despots that whether you like them or not kept the “peace” as they lined up all of Israels enemies at her doorstep including seating the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt why it was like watching a blueprint from Rev Wrights sermons against the jooos! One need only have watched Obama and Huma/Hillary move the noose closer and closer to their enemy. It is truly only by the grace of God and the bloodlust of the animals they armed that AQ/ISIS etc., took their eyes off the prize and starting killing each other once again.

  13. MikeT53
    August 21st, 2014 @ 8:51 pm

    Better wake up, partner. We’re about to be lied into another war.

  14. johncunningham
    August 21st, 2014 @ 9:27 pm

    time for a pest control campaign in the ME. track down the families of ISIS leaders, kill all the males, put genitals in their mouths, and film them in a pool of pig fat with pigs sodomizing the corpses. kill all their tribes, without exception. as Phil Sheridan explained about killing Indian children, nits make lice.

  15. PhilipJames
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:17 pm

    As far as I am concerned, any American who goes to a war zone and gets captured is on their own. Sorry… if a person wants to leave the relative safety of the US to go to these places (how about those 3 morons who went hiking over the border and had to be ransomed a few years ago… should have ignored those idiots who thought it would be a vacation type thing to do) then whatever fate awaits them is of their own doing…. and especially if American lives would be lost trying to save them. Of course, its another story if it is someone who is ordered to go there as they would have no choice about it.

  16. K-Bob
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:23 pm

    I’ma risk a small re-post of a comment I made in the other thread where Foley was the topic, since I added it late…

    At the Daily Mail website, there’s an interesting analysis of the James Foley beheading video. (Don’t worry, they didn’t post the video there.) It asks and attempts to answer some important questions about how they may have prepared Foley to get “the most” out of the propaganda value of the vid.

    Daily Mail: Five minutes of savagery and a video as slick as it is sickening: How evil footage reveals the true savagery of ISIS

    In other news, Disqus removed me from the SPAM list.

    Yay.

  17. K-Bob
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:23 pm

    I’ma risk a small re-post of a comment I made in the other thread where Foley was the topic, since I added it late…

    At the Daily Mail website, there’s an interesting analysis of the James Foley beheading video. (Don’t worry, they didn’t post the video there.) It asks and attempts to answer some important questions about how they may have prepared Foley to get “the most” out of the propaganda value of the vid.

    Daily Mail: Five minutes of savagery and a video as slick as it is sickening: How evil footage reveals the true savagery of ISIS

    In other news, Disqus removed me from the SPAM list.

    Yay.

  18. trangbang68
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:24 pm

    Scribe? Is that Hungarian for dope?

  19. concern00
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:35 pm

    Welcome back.

  20. Patrick Carroll
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:40 pm

    Kill ’em. Kill ’em all.

  21. Wombat_socho
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:42 pm

    I peeled off the duplicate comment for you. Welcome back from Disqus exile.

  22. Wombat_socho
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:43 pm

    Ann Coulter’s suggestion that we forcibly convert them all to Christianity and kill those who resisted sounds better and better all the time.

  23. texlovera
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:50 pm

    The Brits had the right idea back in the 18th-19th century: bring them kicking and screaming into the modern age, and for those determined to “kill” us, send them to hell first.

  24. texlovera
    August 21st, 2014 @ 11:52 pm

    Funny how the most hideous Presidents have pretty much all been Democrats, isn’t it?

  25. maniakmedic
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 12:07 am

    Trying to get most Westerners to realize the Middle East operates under an entirely alien philosophy and worldview is like trying to get a dog to solve a complex differential equation. Having actually lived there I can say that while I don’t understand it, I at least know their way of thinking is, to be blunt, batshit insane.

  26. K-Bob
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 1:26 am

    Thanks! Evidently one thing that triggers auto-spam is when you put the same text at the bottom of more than one comment. Especially if there’s links in those, and extra-specially if it’s at the same site, thread, or multiple cross-posting at several sites.

    I’ve been having trouble with Disqus double-posting** my comments every once in a while lately, and that might have done it.

    (**ye olde javascript timing bug, I assume)

  27. K-Bob
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 1:27 am

    Thanks!

  28. ZZZZZZZZ
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 1:34 am

    zzzzzzz……

    Huh? Wazzat? Oh, wait, another concern troll. Never mind.

    zzzzzzz……

  29. Finrod Felagund
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 2:03 am

    Don’t forget feeding their corpses to wild dogs.

  30. Finrod Felagund
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 2:05 am

    You seem unable to comprehend written English. You should do something about that.

  31. Zohydro
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 3:05 am

    I like to believe that what Ann Coulter was really trying to say (as only she can) was that some unrestrained Shock and Awe would put a real “fear of God” into these savages…

  32. MPinteractiv
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 3:06 am

    Hi, i’m sorry it’s not directly related to the discussion but just wanted to point to this story on the huffpo that is pretty shocking.Facebook comments are even more shocking ,keep up the good work !

    the link :

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/21/wyatt-neumann_n_5683243.html#comments

  33. K-Bob
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 4:13 am

    No doubt about it.

    In other news, it seems to me that barack has moved so far past Carter in “worst President Ever” status, that he’s pretty much a shoo in for “Worst Western Head of State, Ever”

    And that would include all former League of Nations heads of state, all NATO heads of state, and also any so called “first world” countries.

    And just in time, too, because liberal city councils, mayors, Governors, and other institutions are falling all over themselves to name things after barack. Including one New Jersey town’s plans to yank the “JFK” name off of something and give it barack.

    We need to act quickly and name an open sewer or two after him. Maybe a few landfills and chemical spill sites. Also any Gun Free zones.

  34. Gunga
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 7:39 am

    I didn’t think it was humanly possible, but I think you actually managed to insult Jimmy Carter…

  35. Kirby McCain
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 8:31 am

    Maybe Obama will bring our troops home from Korea. Perhaps he will give the North Koreans a time line for their withdrawal. After all, the man seems incapable of learning.

  36. maniakmedic
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 10:47 am

    If I were South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan I’d be shitting myself. Japan has taken steps toward military autonomy in the past couple of years especially, but if we were to say buh-bye to South Korea and dropped any remaining pretense of giving a damn about Taiwan there would be a lot of dead Asian people in short order – and the vast majority of them would be the people we once called friends/allies.

    The only reason nothing has happened yet is because neither Taiwan nor South Korea is the East Asian version of Israel, so if the Norks or Chinese were to try anything, President Opinion Poll would be forced to get involved. Of course, it would include ridiculously restrictive ROEs and half-hearted, public-opinion-based strategy (because that ALWAYS works well in conflict/war) and would result in a lot of dead American troops. But that doesn’t matter because, as John Kerry assured us all, military people are uneducated cretins. Also, they tend to lean conservative and vote Republican.

  37. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 11:36 am

    She still can’t live down her Christyphelia, however.

  38. XTYPE
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 1:48 pm

    That’s your guy W. His time in office starts with 9/11, the worst intelligence failure in American history, proceeds with constitutional erosion, and the worst corporatism of any administration ever, continues with lies, and misinformation leading us into the disastrous Iraq war, the only beneficiaries turning out to be oil companies, Iran, and other government cronies, and ends with the meltdown of the world economy, and the second Great Depression. What’s Obama got? Benghazi? you’re comparing that to Iraq? fixing a broken healthcare system?

  39. Adobe_Walls
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 2:22 pm

    While no fan of Dubya I must invoke the down twinkles.

  40. Adobe_Walls
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 2:30 pm

    On the bright side think of the employment provided as the many thousands are sent forth with mallet and chisel to remove the name of Barak the Inept from the temple walls and obelisks.

  41. Adobe_Walls
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 2:43 pm

    Actually Eric Erickson had the right idea right after Professor Ditherton stated there is no place for ISIS in the twenty-first century. Fine bomb them back into the 17th century. I’d recommend bombing them back into the 6th.

  42. Adobe_Walls
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 2:51 pm

    She said invade their country, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. No metaphor, no nuance and still a damn good idea.

  43. Adobe_Walls
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 3:12 pm

    Ironic that there was some discussion of bombing ISIS’s enemy in Syria not all that long ago.

  44. George Kato
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 5:13 pm

    This time last year, Senators McCain and Graham were demanding that the US provide weapons to those groups fighting against Assad in Syria.

    Will we ever learn?

  45. George Kato
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 5:14 pm

    Are you saying that we haven’t won their “hearts and minds” ???

  46. Joint Chiefs Chair: Islamic State ‘Immediate’ Threat Due To Open Borders | The Lonely Conservative
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 6:04 pm

    […] As far as the reason for the rise of ISIS, well, the US certainly didn’t do anything to stop it. Some might even say we helped it along. […]

  47. Mike G.
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 7:15 pm

    I second that motion.

  48. Mike G.
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 7:18 pm

    Let the pigs eat the corpses…there will be nothing left.

  49. K-Bob
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 8:09 pm

    The only large group of people massacred faster than “former US Allies” were the Tutsi’s in Rwanda.

  50. K-Bob
    August 22nd, 2014 @ 8:16 pm

    Everything President Double-Downgrade touches turns to crap.

    He has absolutely nothing to show for his time in office that isn’t a wholesale disaster.

    The one thing he did that was almost good was entirely by accident: he fucked up the economy so badly that illegal alien crossings slowed considerably.

    Then he discovered that luring hundreds of thousands of children to run the gauntlet of rapes, murders, abuse, disease, starvation, and death-by-forced drug mule duty, he could end up with a few tens of thousands of the survivors here to prop up those numbers again.

    The death toll of innocents due to your man barack is accelerating beyond any wartime President. He’s vying for the levels achieved by totalitarians all throughout history.

    You like him all you want. The world is growing to hate the man.