Monday, April 13, 2009

Obama's Decisions

"A weak man has doubts before a decision, a strong man has them afterwards." ~ Karl Kraus

Finally, after five days and numerous requests from the media for some reaction, any reaction, to the Somali Pirates taking an American ship captain hostage on the high seas, Barack Hussein Obama threw caution to the winds and ordered the Navy to use lethal force if necessary to secure Captain Richard Phillips' release.

The Navy, in turn, wasted little time in following these orders, which leads me to ask one seminal question:

What took him so long?

Does Obama not realize it is the United States official position to never negotiate with anyone who takes hostages?

Here is the process (I think) by which this thing transpired:

Obama, ever the attention seeker, initially, and as usual, wrongly, thought this little crisis was not worth taking his time to bother with, especially since finally deciding on a family dog was certainly a more important decision for him to make.

However, after news media continued to press him for some reaction to the situation, on which, I might add, he refused to answer, he sought the council of his advisors to help him decide which would be the better course of action. That course would necessarily be whatever action would garner him the most accolades from his adoring fans in the media (Which is practically all of the media, excluding some Fox news commentators and, of course EIB).

Probably, someone whispered to him, "You really should consider taking some strong action to resolve this matter. MSNBC is even starting to question your decision making skills."

Naturally, not wanting to jeopardize his long time loving relationship with Chris and Keith, he decided to give the matter a little more than just cursory consideration.

So, after days of carefully considering how the rest of the world might judge him, he reluctantly conceded the fact that something more forceful than shaking his fist at the pirates might be in order.

After five days, in which Captain Phillips' life hung in the balance, Obama finally issued an order, not to finally end this thing with extreme prejudice, but to use lethal force only if considered absolutely necessary to avoid further risk to the captain's life and/or Obama's political career.

The Commander of the USS Bainbridge interpreted this devastatingly forceful order as permission to send the scumbags to Davy Jones' locker. In a split second decision, as soon as one of the pirates made the fatal mistake of playfully pointing his rifle at the captain's head, the order to fire with intent to kill was issued, and the pirates were quickly and efficiently dispatched to cavort with their seventy-two virgins.

Problem solved, and in less than a minute, too.

Oh, I love things when they zip along!

Let me add here, that I applaud Obama for at last doing something right.

It's just a shame we had to wait for him to decide if such an order was politically expedient first.

Otherwise, the crisis would have been over the first day.


On a lighter note:


Obama's new dog is a Portugese Water Dog, who the girls promptly named Bo. The fawning news media immediately reported the dog was named for Bo Diddley, the now deceased rock and roller. But I'll bet he is named for Obama himself. After all, BO is Obama's initials, right?

This would fit perfectly with the observation that Barack Hussein Obama is a narcissist.

12 comments:

Timothy said...

The entire story made me sick when they rescued him because every other paragraph seemed to be about Obama. The media whore.

Mark said...

That's what Obama's all about, Timothy. It's all about him and he makes sure that the media understands that.

That is why I believe his dog was given Obama's initials for a name. I don't believe it's just a coincidence.

Red said...

I won't even give him that much. You are far too generous and that's not saying a lot when it comes to Barry. People who didn't vote for him in the first place are staving off the temptation to give him any credit. Why pat him on the back at all for doing his job five days late?

The Liberal Lie The Conservative Truth said...

Well said Mark. Sadly the media is touting Obama as the hero for FINALLY authorizing action which should have taken place days ago.

The heros are Captain Phillips and the Seals. Obama just wasted precious time before being making an obvious decision!

Krystal said...

I'm glad this didn't turn into another "Iranian Hostage Crisis" that lasted 444 days. I still think that it should have been handled like this:

The moment our Navy arrived.

US: Hand the American over!
THEM: F you!
US: ***sound of gun fire*** Hello, Capt. Phillips, welcome aboard the USS Boxer. Have a beer. You're going home.

The end.

Pamela Zydel said...

I'm just so glad the Captain is okay. Our Navy Seals did US proud, AS USUAL.

Lone Ranger said...

This rescue should have happened within the first 12 hours. Instead, the Obama administration dithered for several days and held 17 meetings to decide what to do. 17!!

The military should not need the president's approval to take action in situations like this. It should be SOP.

More and more, acts of war against us are being treated as crimes. Wars are fought by troops, not lawyers. Wars are fought on battlefields, not in courts. Thomas Jefferson, possibly our most anti-military president, knew that when he sent the Navy and Marines after Muslim pirates. Apparently, Obama will never think that way. Let's just give the Justice Department the authority to fight our wars. Then, we can convert the Pentagon into an apartment complex and I can live a mile closer to work.

Mark said...

Dang, Red! I thought I was the chief Obama hater on the internet!

Mark said...

Rest assured, every decision Obama makes is contingent on whether it will make him look good. That's the only reason. If he decided rescuing the captain wouldn't help his career, he would have ignored the problem. The man is pure evil.

Marshal Art said...

Here's my response from AmericanDescent, where Mark cross-posted this thread:

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Marshall Art said...
I'm gonna give Barry kudos on this one for finally pulling the trigger figuratively, so that America's best can do so literally.

I won't judge too harshly anyone who must make a decision regarding life/death actions, assuming that there are options being discussed. Though Somalia isn't really a country right now, but an area of land ruled by assholes, there are still int'l considerations that I think even our ideal president would take into account. In this case, I don't think five days from the episode's start to it's conclusion was too prolonged a period. That's just my opinion. Things only move so fast even in the best of conditions.

That being said, what Barry does now is what we need to monitor. As far as merchant ships originating from US ports, I say they all need to be armed or have some security force on board. I've heard that some ports restrict armed vessels in some manner, but some agreement could be reached, such as "Screw you, we'll take our goods elsewhere." or whatever. OReilly suggested blockade of Somalie ports and armed incursions to break up their pirate and terrorist training camps. But I think if the pirates were simply blown out of the water at the first hint of agresssion, the problem would be solved quickly. Barry needs to vocally support and encourage such things, to our own merchant ships and to those of our allies.

Also, there is some Law of the Sea Treaty (since we're on the subject) that he should roundly reject as it gives up some sovereignty status while on the open seas. In other words, it puts our ships under some intn'l law. Not a good idea.

------------------------------

Look. I don't like the guy any more than any of you, but let's not act like Democrats and jump on the dude for not doing the right thing in the most perfect way. He still did the right thing. What happens from here is the key.

Also, I don't think any nation ever dealt with pirates with some kind of sea-borne police force. It's always been the Navy because merchant ships aren't normally armed up for fending off heavily armed pirates. That's what needs to change since the open seas are next to impossible to police. Step up the Naval response and the scum will only change tactics. The merchant ships need to be able to defend themselves, at least if they so choose.

Gayle said...

I'm pretty sure you know I agree with your analysis of both Obama's hesitation in dealing with this situation and with his naming of his dog.

I've been saying that I don't hate Obama, I hate his socialist policies, but I'm coming to the point where I believe that's a cop out. Obama's in the position to push those hateful policies down our throats and is doing his utmost to do so. Jesus said hate the sin, not the sinner. How many of us can be as perfect as Jesus? I do fall so short!

Jim said...

"A weak man has doubts before a decision, a strong man has them afterwards."

Think about it. Isn't this bass-ackwards? Certainly not the traits you would want in a strong, effective decision-maker. And think about your hero, GWB. He never had doubts after making a decision.