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John Bolton: Obama Administration’s reaction to Egypt “feckless”

And if you think “feckless” is a candid broadside on the current administration’s response, you should have heard what Bolton’s straight-talking mustache, Regis, had to say. Before downing three fingers of Johnny Walker Black and banging a pair of fetching red-headed sisters from the UN secretarial pool. F-words were involved, but “feckless” was the least of them.

Elections have consequences. Only as a country, we’re only now starting to figure that out en mass.

132 Replies to “John Bolton: Obama Administration’s reaction to Egypt “feckless””

  1. serr8d says:

    When the Suez Canal is choked closed, along with the free-flow of sweet light crude, some will recall DRILL BABY DRILL! and despair of CHANGE.

  2. Jeff G. says:

    Drill? We can’t even mine coal anymore.

    Let them eat arugula.

  3. geoffb says:

    Reaganite Republican has another video of Bolton discussing this on a Fox news segment.

    “It is not inevitable that street demonstrations
    lead to Jeffersonian democracy”

  4. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    The kings and dictators over there are loosing their shit. Abdullah (or whatever his stupid name is- the one Barry curtsied to) put on a shiny robe, went on Saudi tv, and threw a spittle-flecked fit over Egypt.

    This is one of those times I’m glad Obama is an incompetent poser. Though I wish he’d shut up with his, “Remember my Cairo speech?”, I told you so’s. No matter what, it has to be about him. Sigh. Just let the grown ups talk. I think with Egypt we’re actually much better off with the devil we know. I sincerely hope the well respected, former intel chief Mubarak just tapped as VP gets the nod to run the country. If not? You know good and damn well, after the dust settles, we’re gettin’ the Muslim Brotherhood running the show. Goodbye peace treaty with Israel. Hello 1,000% increase in weps and fighters into Gaza. Just look at the smile on Iran’s face right now.

    In any case, none of this ends well for the West.

    Like ser8d said. Get ready for $150/ barrel. I may actually go by a fucking Chevy Volt.

  5. Jeff G. says:

    Jimmy Carter with a tan, and a bigger fucking ego. And the media carries water for this flop.

  6. bh says:

    Beyond Suez, there’s also the SUMED pipeline to consider.

  7. Jeff G. says:

    Matthews gobbles Obama cock. It’s sad to watch.

    Bush responsible for high unemployment and $25 loaves of bread in Egypt? How?

    Our own country is going to fail if we don’t root out the hard leftism, is the lesson here. I’ve learned it. You?

  8. bh says:

    Short little overview.

  9. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Chris Matthews Blames Egypt Riots on George W. Bush and Iraq War

    Someone print this out, stuff it in a sock with three rolls of quarters, find Chris Matthews, and beat him about the head and neck with the sock.

    I’d do it but I’m on parole.

  10. sdferr says:

    A few of Ledeen’s thoughts on the subject: Revolution by Whom? For What?

  11. geoffb says:

    Matthews is using the same line as progressives elsewhere.

    “The lesson from Egypt is clear: people will no longer accept oppression, particularly when oppression is married with rising food prices, a lack of employment and the destruction of hope for a young generation,” Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, told Reuters.

    And there’s that Piven driven secret stash again too.

    …business bosses are starting to look again at spending the trillions of dollars of cash sitting on their balance sheets.

  12. bh says:

    People have been buying broadly, btw. Across instruments (futures, etfs, call options) and time (playing all expiries). The bulls have the field.

    Okay, enough of that. Just been on my plate for a couple days so I thought I’d mention it.

  13. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Across instruments (futures, etfs, call options) and time (playing all expiries). The bulls have the field.

    Heh.

    If the left/media was always gonna claim it as fact anyway, maybe we should have just gone ahead and stole Iraq’s oil.

  14. sdferr says:

    Should we characterize why they’re buying bh, for instance as an anticipation of events driving prices (higher, in this case, though I suppose they don’t care so much about the direction as about their certainty of the casual connection)? As opposed say, to an expectation of better economic times in general, where production will improve and the like, due to increasing freedom of action for instance. Or is that going too far?

  15. TaiChiWawa says:

    Is the Egyptian situation local or is there some connection to the impending split in Sudan?

  16. happyfeet says:

    if you want to find all the cops they’re hanging out in the donut shop I think

  17. bh says:

    I’d characterize it as a bet that prices will increase. Heh.

    Definitely event driven. We’re looking at supply concerns.

  18. bh says:

    ay oh whey oh/
    ay oh whey oh

  19. cranky-d says:

    Bambi will get his $5 per gallon gasoline soon enough. Lucky him.

  20. newrouter says:

    also check the falafel stand

  21. sdferr says:

    Bambi will get his $5 per gallon gasoline soon enough. Lucky him.

    Heh, and then he’ll get to figure out why he really didn’t want it in the first place. Silly Barry, tricks are for kids governing is for adults.

  22. newrouter says:

    how interesting:

    At the same time, Code Pink had also allied itself with the Muslim Brotherhood. Code Pink took out banner ads on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English language Web site asking jihadis to “join us in cleansing our country” of so-called war criminals which included former President George W. Bush and wife Laura.

    The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt and is widely considered to be the father of the modern Islamic terrorist movement.

    It is telling that the protests Friday in Egypt were dubbed by the Muslim Brotherhood, a “day of rage.”

    The Brotherhood said its members will demonstrate “with all the national Egyptian forces, the Egyptian people, so that this coming Friday [today] will be the general day of rage for the Egyptian nation.”

    “Days of Rage” is what the Weathermen called their violent, riotous protests in Chicago in 1969.

    The question is begged: What have Obama’s allies Ayers, Dohrn and Code Pink taught the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Mubarak organizations in Egypt about using protests, riots and the modern social media to coordinate their actions to undermine the Mubarak regime?

    link

  23. happyfeet says:

    Mubarak is shitting his pants

    the cowardly Saudi king is scared scared scared

    it’s fear what’s in the driver’s seat in the middle east

    but mostly I think for right now the takeaway is that America’s own piece of shit cocksucker coward president probably should have thought a little more deeply before destroying domestic oil exploration and production

  24. sdferr says:

    Odds Barry dips into the SPR in an attempt to save his own ass before this is all over? Growing.

  25. happyfeet says:

    yes, but probably a tricky thing to get the timing right on, no? Eevn if he gets it right I think it will still a lot highlight bumblefuck’s stupid reckless sabotage of American oil production.

  26. happyfeet says:

    *Even* I mean

  27. sdferr says:

    I don’t think the attempt necessarily works. No, that’s not right. I mean, it’ll be seen as a stupid attempt to save his own ass and therefore can’t work, is the deal. He’s already stewed hisself.

  28. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    Code Pink had also allied itself with the Muslim Brotherhood

    I’m seeing a huge upside here.

    A trade in of bomb vests for nifty protest signs, pink clothing, good weed, & bad acid.

    Plus hippies bring free love, venereal disease, bad poetry, & Phish concerts & shit. This could work.

    Look, if there’s one thing I’d like to see in the whole Middle East Islamist thing-a-ma-bob, it’s lazy slackers.

    Be quiet Obama. Let this thing play out.

  29. Wm T Sherman says:

    For whatever it’s worth: A claim in the Daily Telegraph (UK) that covert U.S. encouragement and support of uprising by opposition in Egypt has been carried out over the last three years. Perhaps this has already been posted here.

    Egypt protests: America’s secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising

    The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt-protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html

  30. geoffb says:

    Wm T Sherman, yes, last night.

  31. newrouter says:

    Particulars? In Egypt, since the Muslim Brotherhood is banned, supporters “run for office as independents.” It preaches “social justice,” “the eradication of poverty and corruption,” “political freedom” — important caveat — “to the extent allowed by the laws of Islam.”

    link

  32. sdferr says:

    I wonder what the Copts are thinking right now?

  33. SDN says:

    sdferr, probably calculating routes to the Israeli border….

    Jeff, as long as “rooting out the hard leftism” is defined as “planting six feet under”, we’re on the same page.

  34. Joe says:

    Obama and Biden will fuck this up. That said, the Shah analogy is valid if we push Egypt toward revolution. But are we supposed to back Mumbarak to the end? If we are going to get involved it has to be done competently. Mumbarak has to start having a peaceful transition of power because having him in charge is not fucking working and the Egyptians are rightfully pissed off. No, I do not want a Muslim Brotherhood sharia state either (or a return of Nassar like politics).

    And if we don’t know what we are doing, then the first rule applies: Do no harm.

  35. AJB says:

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO our neo-colonial puppet regime is collapsing!!!!

    The Mohameddan savages obviously cannot govern themselves so we must step in and take up the White Man’s Burden.

    For their own good, of course.

  36. bh says:

    You really are a child.

  37. geoffb says:

    From sdferr’s link in #11.


    We shoulda, coulda done better all along. But here we are. It’s quite clear that Obama is totally bamboozled. He has no culture to deal with this situation, nor does Hillary.
    […]
    We have to play this game. Let’s hope there’s someone who can grab the president’s ears and explain the rules and the players. But the winning gambit — finally support democratic revolution in Iran — isn’t even being discussed.

    This still assumes that, what we would call, good intentions are operating in this administration at the highest levels. Highest levels, as it has been made clear that everything is being run by less than 6 persons in the White House. The Cabinet and other officials are only for appearances.

    44 not only eschewed reaching out to governors, mayors, or CEOs, but he rarely consulted outside the tiny charmed circle surrounding him in the White House. “What you had was really three or four people running the entire government,” says the former White House strategist. “I thought they put a pretty good Cabinet together, but most of those guys might as well be in the witness-protection program.”

  38. newrouter says:

    Events are unfolding, but they have not yet run their course; things are still continuing to cascade. If the unrest spreads to the point where the Suez and regional oil fall into anti-Western hands, the consequences would be incalculable. The scale of the left’s folly: their insistence on drilling moratoriums, opposition to nuclear power, support of negotiations with dictators at all costs, calls for unilateral disarmament, addiction to debt and their barely disguised virulent anti-Semitism should be too manifest to deny.

    Because it will hit them where it hurts, in the lifestyle they somehow thought came from some permanent Western prosperity that was beyond the power of their fecklessness to destroy. It will be interesting to see anyone can fill up their cars with carbon credits when oil the tankers stop coming or when black gold is marked at $500 a barrel. It is even possible that within a relatively short time the only government left friendly to Washington in the Middle East may be Iraq. There is some irony in that, but it is unlikely to be appreciated.

    link

  39. bh says:

    Interesting juxtaposition with AJB’s comment, newrouter.

  40. sdferr says:

    Back atcha geoffb, I look at what nominally counts for wise men in the Heilemann piece:

    Some of the names have been reported: former Clinton chiefs of staff John Podesta and Leon Panetta; former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein; former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle and centrist jack-of-all-trades David Gergen; and, of course, Bill Clinton. But others have not. Longtime Clinton consigliere Vernon Jordan is one. And another, more surprising, is Matthew Dowd . . .

    Ideological hacks or poseurs one and all. Fuck.

  41. newrouter says:

    so did barry soetoro outsource to code pink?

    But when it comes to backing up the president’s rhetoric since that speech in June 2009, the administration has a decidedly mixed record and has disappointed many Egyptians, foreign policy experts tell The Huffington Post. Though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has championed human rights around the world and American diplomats have quietly encouraged political and legal reforms in Egypt, when it comes to promoting democracy in the riot-torn country, efforts have generally been less aggressive than the Bush administration’s. On Friday, amidst violent protests, longtime leader Hosni Mubarak announced the resignation of Egypt’s government.

    In its first year, the Obama administration cut funding for democracy and governance programming in Egypt by more than half, from $50 million in 2008 to $20 million in 2009 (Congress later appropriated another $5 million). The level of funding for civil society programs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was cut disproportionately, from $32 million to only $7 million.

    link

  42. geoffb says:

    Actions speak when lies abound.

  43. happyfeet says:

    shooting unarmed protester kids speaks really loudly I think and America should tell Mubarak to fuck off – peacey peacey bumblefuck is a deer in the headlights, and America looks fucking ridiculous

  44. happyfeet says:

    apparently our fag-ass CIA was busy with their usual duties of watching gay porn and eating twizzlers while all this was fomenting

    America has no clue much less a plan, and the world can’t but notice.

  45. LBascom says:

    Well, I don’t quite follow why citizens of another continent rioting makes America look ridiculous, but I often struggle to keep up.

    I know I don’t like America to be the worlds police, so I think America should do nothing, save expressing a wish for no bloodshed.

    Besides, Iran threw a riot, lost, and Obama did nothing. Tunisia thew one and succeeded (I guess), and Obama did nothing. What makes anyone think he’s going to put his ass in the line of fire for Egypt?

  46. happyfeet says:

    do nothing. So we should just keep handing these Mubarak assholes billions of dollars for to help shoot unarmed kids? Or not? I don’t think our clueless cowardly little president man knows, and I don’t think our clueless jerkoff CIA homos what we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on know either.

  47. happyfeet says:

    but for reals you don’t think our failshit little country looks a tad ridiculous when our vice president says Mubarak isn’t a dictator and we should love him and support him and hug him and give him monies?

    Me I think America looks pathetic and clueless as unarmed kids die like dogs in the streets of Cairo and if America is supposed to be a shining beacon of hope then God help the rest of the world.

  48. happyfeet says:

    this is the exact same bullshit our tyranny-loving failshit little country’s president pulled in Honduras you know

  49. sdferr says:

    . . . probably calculating routes to the Israeli border . . .

    Just a couple of things about that: Paul Rahe notes that he thinks the Christians of Egypt (who are not all, but mostly Coptic) amount to closer to 20% of the Egyptian population than the officially touted 10%. So if 20%, then near 16+/- million souls, or if 10%, then only 8+ millions. Israel’s entire population? 2010 estimate has it at 7,653,000.

    Of course I took your Israel comment as mostly jest, though also expressing the truth that Israel is the nearest nation remotely resembling a place of widespread tolerance. But on the ground, these Christians of Egypt are most likely looking at a far worse rather than better circumstance if they can’t exert themselves on their own behalf at home.

  50. LBascom says:

    “So we should just keep handing these Mubarak assholes billions of dollars for to help shoot unarmed kids? Or not? “

    No.

    “but for reals you don’t think our failshit little country looks a tad ridiculous “

    Again, no. I don’t believe the American identity is defined by what a current politician does at any given moment.

    Biden has always been ridiculous.

    “Me I think America looks pathetic and clueless as unarmed kids die like dogs in the streets of Cairo”

    So…what? We invade?

  51. happyfeet says:

    no… not invade – America is too poor and pitiful to do anything of the sort even if it were advisable, and Moody’s would have no choice but to downgrade their credit rating.

    Apparently America is left to wing it… cause it’s been caught off guard without a plan.

    Thank your failshit president. Thank your failshit CIA.

  52. sdferr says:

    Interesting, no? And in Iran, this.

  53. guinsPen says:

    Maybe if he’d called it “freckles,” instead, he wouldn’t alienate so many people.

  54. JHoward says:

    I think Jeff’s link supports feet’s assertions. This is some serious hole this little tiny incompetent self-consumed grinning president man’s dug us the west. How? Both directly post 2008 and by not stemming that particular tide prior to that unfortunate date.

    Leftism is a disorder.

  55. SDN says:

    ‘feets, why don’t you head to Cairo and show us how it’s done. Or run for President.

  56. LBascom says:

    Tell me, what should the United States do in response to the riots in Egypt?

    Greece? Tunisia?

    Is the rest of the world Obamas marionette on a string?

  57. Stephanie says:

    America is winging it. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This IS the administration of the former Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. You know. The committee that never met. Not once.

  58. happyfeet says:

    first thing is we should clearly be seen to be siding with freedom Mr. lee

    second thing is to try and empower a suitable successor to this rabid and murderous Mubarak fuckhole

    third is we should examine how we can use our aid programs to steer or spin events to a more better conclusion

    fourth is we should use these events to highlight the perverted Saudi king’s support for child-killing cocksucking Egyptian fuckholes

    fifth is we should re-examine president bumblefuck’s disastrous sabotage of America’s domestic oil development

    sixth is we should reiterate our unwavering support for Israel

    then we can sorta improvise from there

  59. happyfeet says:

    seventh we should make every CIA employee stand on a street corner holding a sign saying hi there I’m useless. Instead of working to protect America and advance her interests I spend my days watching gay porn and eating twizzlers

  60. LBascom says:

    “first thing is we should clearly be seen to be siding with freedom Mr. leefirst thing is we should clearly be seen to be siding with freedom Mr. lee”

    State the obvious, check.

    “second thing is to try and empower a suitable successor to this rabid and murderous Mubarak fuckhole
    third is we should examine how we can use our aid programs to steer or spin events to a more better conclusion “

    Ah. Like JFK and Cuba, Carter and Iran, Reagan and China (Tiananmen Square), Clinton and Somalia, Bush 42 and Iraq, like that…

    “fourth is we should use these events to highlight the perverted Saudi […]

    fifth […]America’s domestic oil development

    sixth […]Israel”

    Never let a crisis go to waste huh?

    “then we can sorta improvise from there”

    Wing it?

  61. LBascom says:

    Double paste! oops…

  62. happyfeet says:

    oil is for reals shooting through the roof and we have some shitty cocksuckers for allies in the middle east – namely a bunch Saudi royal whores

    Egyptians are asking which side we’re on – freedom or tyranny.

    We haven’t given them an answer really have we? We should. Cause lots of other people are wondering as well, especially after America sided so enthusiastically with tyranny in Honduras.

  63. happyfeet says:

    a bunch *of* I mean

  64. Stephanie says:

    Feets, I suspect that within the next 3 months Obama will be praising Soros the Brazilians for coming to our rescue with oil pumped from all those rigs that used to be in the Gulf.

    And no one in the MFM will note the connection or the irony.

  65. happyfeet says:

    we better hope and pray that Brazil is of a mind to sell us their oils I guess – it sucks to be as beggarly dependent and helpless as America is become

    meanwhile the TSA and their illiterate fat-ass union whore workforce is actively working to undermine airport security

  66. LBascom says:

    “Egyptians are asking which side we’re on – freedom or tyranny.”

    Are you sure that’s the question the people burning down buildings are asking.

    Maybe it’s – theocracy or secular. Whose side should we be on then?

  67. LBascom says:

    Damn! there outta be a question mark there in #68…

  68. happyfeet says:

    then maybe we shouldn’t pick a side – but even if all the protesters are islamist theocrats there’s still no reason to stand with a murderous piece of shit dictator.

  69. happyfeet says:

    and for America’s vice president to get down on his knees and give the dictator a sloppy sloppy blowjob is very very shameful I think

    America, as whorish and destitute as she has become, is supposed to have a bit more class than this.

  70. happyfeet says:

    just a skosh

  71. sdferr says:

    Here’s a discussion thing about Democracy in the Middle East, held in calmer times I guess (6/15/09). Anyhow, they’ve a way to go and our help — where we can help — would be useful.

  72. bh says:

    Seems as though we should promote self-rule in the form of a representative republic. Which sets us apart from both dictators and theocrats.

  73. bh says:

    Constitutional republic, that is.

  74. bh says:

    I sometimes wonder if the model really isn’t the US. Maybe it’s England. Dictator > dictator with some parliament > years of bloody religious and foreign wars… finally, generations later, a liberal democracy.

    Egyptians are asking which side we’re on – freedom or tyranny.

    I don’t know that this is accurate, ‘feets. Certainly some feel that way. But, are they going to take to the streets and put some bullets into the Muslim Brotherhood when the dictator flies away? Do they even have guns?

    Lee’s concern seems very reasonable to me.

  75. happyfeet says:

    there’s no room to temporize really – we know that our boy is a murderous piece of shit what kills unarmed people.

    America is certainly welcome to side with that. But the rest of the world will notice and quite rightly think rather badly of us.

    God bless America, dictator-fellating whore state?

    Maybe. If God is some kind of depraved pimp daddy I guess.

    But me I think we have to give the Egyptian people the benefit of the doubt and try to help them.

    If it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out, but the status quo is become as untenable as it is intolerable.

  76. happyfeet says:

    is it even remotely realistic to think that congress will continue to shovel billions of dollars to a regime run by this Mubarak piece of shit?

    I just don’t think it’s realistic. Dick Lugar would vote for it, but he’s an unredeemed geriatric whore what probably doesn’t give a shit if he gets re-elected ever again.

  77. bh says:

    Well, the gay folks, Christians and women are Egyptian people, too, right? What favor do we do them, the majority of the citizens, to help install their newest dictator/theocratic council?

    Look, I agree that we should support those Egyptians who actually want freedom. Hence, we should everywhere and always be talking up the sweet, sweet good times of a constitutional republic.

    But, let’s not kid ourselves. We run this scenario 100 times and we’re getting a theocracy out of it the majority of the time.

  78. bh says:

    Actually, I’d guess that if Mubarak agrees to a goodly bit, our spigot keeps flowing.

  79. happyfeet says:

    yes it will very likely end badly – Egypt is poor with few resources

    but it’s not failshit America’s place to thwart Egypt’s destiny by propping up a murderous cocksucker … we can’t afford it and we’re not terribly good at it besides

    we should have been ready for this

    we failed

  80. newrouter says:

    you need a falafel

  81. bh says:

    we should have been ready for this

    we failed

    I keep hearing 2005 as the year we went off course from (our form of) democracy promotion. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to grasp that immediately and I haven’t had the time to do the required reading and thinking.

  82. bh says:

    Okay, it’s Instapundit. Here but I think I’ve seen a few other references to this as well.

  83. happyfeet says:

    I read that too – but I also read that we maintained a dialog with democratically-minded dissidents until bumblefuck’s administration cut it off in 2009

    But we should have been ready for a popular uprising – isn’t failshit America’s official position that political instability will increase the world over as global warming inexorably progresses? Yes. Even the military signed off on that strategeric view. We should have been ready.

    We failed.

  84. newrouter says:

    i blame harry “the war is lost” reid and his progg allies

  85. happyfeet says:

    what would be nice would be if come what may America could point to concrete things it did, steps it took, to help free the Egyptian people and guide them to a democratic republic unpolluted by the weird and hateful brand of Islam – you know, like Turkey kinda sorta was for awhile

    The military is key if history is our guide.

    But meanwhile Biden and Obama suck dictator cock.

  86. LBascom says:

    Happyfeet, how come you weren’t warning us about how the dictator of Egypt is a bloodthirsty, horrible, terrible, murderous dictator the State Department should be trying to thwart at every turn before now? I mean, you had thirty years, through many presidents, D and R.

    You let us down little buddy.

  87. bh says:

    I was probably brainwashed by reading The Economist through the “Turkey is the model; put them into the EU” years but that jives with my thinking as well.

  88. happyfeet says:

    what do you mean? I was very a lot for democracy promotion. That’s why I still support our expensive fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    It’s true that Mubarak was more acceptable before the killing, political prisoners notwithstanding. But now a line has been crossed, and it’s definitional.

    Is America the sort of country what stands with murderous cocksuckers? It’s very surprising to me how difficult this question is for many people to answer.

  89. sdferr says:

    The account in that discussion I linked had the Bush admin’s ball-dropping in a short form as “panic” at the results of the election of Hamas in Gaza (plus something else similar I forget, for which I apologize).

  90. LBascom says:

    I wonder if the rioters aren’t in part tired of Egypt being moderate with regards to Israel?

    Maybe they want hope and change! And death to Zionists!

    Hell, I don’t know.

    Neither do you…

  91. happyfeet says:

    we’ll need to send israel bigger better guns and such, whatever happens

    this week demonstrates afresh how fast things can move over there

  92. Roddy Boyd says:

    Im not really buying the partisan reading of this. There isn’t an ounce of difference between Carter and W, nor Reagan and Obama in terms of their “strategy” for dealing with it; the only appreciable difference is how they frame the PR.
    Every POTUS has played the Kissingerian real politik gambit with respect to Egypt because of its centrality, size and what lies beneath it: a seething cauldron of Islamo-populist resentment that starts at Muslim Brotherhood and ends at AQ.

    Bush II started down the “freedom road” in the ME and quickly came up short when he was told (or realized) what that really looked like.

    I yield to no one in amazement at the parody of seriousness that is POTUS Barack Obama but on this he is doing what exactly what he should: watching things and nothing.

    It’s in our national interest.

  93. Roddy Boyd says:

    90. Yes, we do stand with “Murderous Cocksuckers” and have for many, many years. As a grad student, studying in the National Archives at Fort Meade, I was taken aback at how many WW II war documents were fully upfront in laying out the US-Anglo war strategy: Have the Russians fight every last SS and elite German unit with every last Red Guards unit they had and if they managed to get back on their feet and drive into Eastern and Central Europe, they were (essentially) welcome to it. You didn’t think we were going to man up in the Spring of ’45 and frogmarch Joe Stalin back through Prussia, do you?

    So there’s that. Please recall: We are Americans and don’t go for foreign entanglements.

  94. happyfeet says:

    I don’t think it’s in our interest to be allied with a murderous Egyptian fiend what is putting unarmed young people down like they were diseased pigs.

    Worse comes to worse we can be allied just as well with the next dictator, no? This is a poor poor hopeless little country what can be very very compliant in exchange for a spot of aid money.

    Let’s roll the dice and see what happens. Maybe bad things. Maybe good things.

    But continuing to ally ourselves with Hosni the Horrible is definitely less than a strategic masterstroke.

    He kills people just for cause they want to be free.

  95. newrouter says:

    “. There isn’t an ounce of difference between Carter and W, nor Reagan”

    it wasn’t like reagan took out a superpower threatening us from 1946-1989

  96. B. Moe says:

    Does anyone else remember when events like this resulted in intelligent, literate discussions on here instead of everyone running around trying to clean up after a foul mouthed babbling child?

  97. LBascom says:

    I thought Egypt was a moderating influence in the middle east. As in, they didn’t go for all that death to Israel stuff. I’m not really arguing either side, It’d just I don’t think anyone in America can. Best to watch and do nothing, as Roddy said.

    Also, I hope Obama doesn’t do something stupid, just to be doing something

  98. Roddy Boyd says:

    HF, don’t get confuzzled, as you might put it.

    In your personal life, call it meatspace, if dealing with something or someone in a certain fashion consistently produces adverse effects, you would either change the way you relate to that situation, or you would stop dealing with it altogether.

    In the world of “diplomacy,” no such easy out exists. If we decide that anything is better than Mubarak and his thuggish thugism, then we can very easily get the factionalized slaughter orcs of Hamas and PIJ, leavened with a bracing shot of AQ. They won’t be running the Territories this time mind you, but a key geostrategic entrepot, replete with resources and two jacks in the back pocket.

    So you just ensure, as countless POTUS’ have, that every Egyptian thug-in-chief is inclined to see things the way we do, or if not, do us a solid when we have to do things that every State must, in the dark places and late at night.

  99. happyfeet says:

    oh really nice Mr. Moe… yes I should be more respectful to the murderous dictator guy, and perhaps I should consult a historical tome or read a bit of political philosophy before deciding that it’s wrong for my little country to support the continued rule of such a man… but I didn’t.

    Frankly I think some things are simple.

  100. bh says:

    Have to disagree with you there, Roddy.

    Obama has singled himself out for whipping. He ran on being a one man outreach to the Arab world. Did it in Cairo, as a matter of fact. Lots of people bought it because of Bush.

    No one else has ever, ever done that. Is he under-performing now? A bit. Was he over-promising before? I’m trying to think of an expressive enough superlative.

  101. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Boyd I think that’s sort of a static analysis. I think the… what are they saying… “flash mob” nature of the revolt offers a clue as to the wisdom of supporting a Hosni. Things are changing over there, and we’re not in particularly good company.

  102. bh says:

    MerrybearfuckingChristmas!

    Nope. Not expressive enough.

  103. happyfeet says:

    if they revolt and we don’t even try to help them as they and theirs die and suffer, that will have its own set of consequences I think

  104. B. Moe says:

    A lot of people are simple.

    Things not so much.

  105. Roddy Boyd says:

    Reagan did what he did by hitting them where it hurt: the economy.

    Also, every POTUS–even Carter after his fashion, well, eventually–played the Soviets with the Iron Fist/Velvet Glove formulation….Diplomatically.

    There wasn’t one POTUS that proposed doing anything more than espionage or having underlings use strong language at gilt-edged summits. They were quite content to happily let tens of millions of very democratically inclined people rot, suffer, be tortured, enslaved, bored and murdered behind the Iron Curtain.

    Eisenhower, who knew something about high firepower wars of movement against a foe with resources, found that when the Hungarians got positively enthused about freedom and self-determination, it was best to let the tanks crush them like sand mites before things got sticky between DC and Moscow. When all was said and done, Ike was on the back nine at Congressional and the Soviets took weeks to execute and burn the silly Hungarians.

  106. LBascom says:

    “if they revolt and we don’t even try to help them as they and theirs die and suffer, that will have its own set of consequences I think”

    Define “they”.

    I wanna know who I’m helping, and it ain’t no Islamacommie.

  107. B. Moe says:

    And if you want me to take you seriously, stop typing like a fucking retard, it is getting tiresome.

  108. Roddy Boyd says:

    Well said BH.

    Like I noted, I too share an inability to frame my asonishment at Obama. when you mine a superlative, pull up one or two foe me, would you?

    On an unrelated note, Ill have a few more stories up on the website over the next few weeks. I did the final edits on the book and now can get back to some enterprise reporting.

  109. Roddy Boyd says:

    foe=for.

    Sorry.

  110. newrouter says:

    “There wasn’t one POTUS that proposed doing anything more than espionage or having underlings use strong language at gilt-edged summits. They were quite content to happily let tens of millions of very democratically inclined people rot, suffer, be tortured, enslaved, bored and murdered behind the Iron Curtain. ”

    yea reagan didn’t do nothing in grenada, nicaragua, afagistan

  111. bh says:

    Heh, the other attempts all involved combining MD 20/20, short-fused firecrackers and the Indigo Girls, Roddy.

    Look forward to the new posts.

  112. newrouter says:

    also solidarity jeez you missed the ’80’s

  113. happyfeet says:

    I don’t agree. The lesson of 9/11 wasn’t hey Americans go right ahead supporting dictators in the middle east thinking you have impunity.

    No.

    Supporting dictators for to rule our muslim friends is not good policy. People resent that and their resentments grow and bam next thing you know innocent Americans die screaming.

    That’s what Mr. Bush knew and I believed in him then and I believe in him now.

    What’s happening in Egypt is a change we need to embrace and do our best to help guide.

  114. bh says:

    He’s just expressing examples of realpolitik, newrouter. Dispute this instance or that, it’s still never less than half of all foreign policy.

  115. bh says:

    That’s what Mr. Bush knew[…]

    Musharraf. House of Saud.

    Hey, I supported the guy, too. C’mon though, let’s not pretend we don’t compromise when we think we need to.

  116. Roddy Boyd says:

    Newrouter:
    Yeah, But we fought proxies all over the place and the Soviets say it had, at best, a marginal effect. Some HAD to be fought, like Korea, some didn’t, like Vietnam, some were low-hanging fruit, Afghanistan, and some were what the British called “The Great Game,” the diplomatic-strategic ball-kicking that all States give to each other in places like Angola, Cuba and a dozen other shitholes just because they can.

    What killed the Commie filth and their dreams of Commie filthdom was the utter bankruptcy of the Left idea. It just took almost 50 years to happen. Playing games in odd sandboxes hurt them, but forcing them to their knees economically was what did it.

    The Soviets were tough.

  117. happyfeet says:

    but the idea wasn’t that we were gonna upend everything everywhere, the idea was that when you have an opportunity like Egypt presents today, your instinct shouldn’t be to use the old “client state friendly dictator” template … it was to acknowledge that people want freedom and that America stands with those ones.

    Yes it’s a mischievous little policy. But so what?

  118. LBascom says:

    Better red than dead?

  119. newrouter says:

    “What killed the Commie filth and their dreams of Commie filthdom was the utter bankruptcy of the Left idea.”

    yea that’s why statism is on the march

  120. LBascom says:

    Where did you stand when the youth were rioting and burning cars in Paris a couple of years ago?

    VIVA LA RESISTANCE!

  121. bh says:

    […] acknowledge that people want freedom and that America stands with those ones.

    It’s really hard for me to disagree with this as our official position. I’d just be a freedom-loving dick about it and mention a few dozen times in each speech how the theocrats hate freedom just like they hate everything cool and, oh yeah, they’re angling to be the next dictator.

    So, find out where they sleep, kill them… and then we’ll talk… good night and good bless America.

  122. bh says:

    “Good bless America”, that sorta sounds like a typo.

  123. happyfeet says:

    Does anyone think that bumblefuck’s smarmy words on the matter are going to persuade Egyptians that America is doing anything other than propping up a murderous regime?

    I don’t.

    And I still hope the Egyptians have Mubarak’s head on a stick before this is over and that the head on a stick is on the tv and the fuckhole king of Jordan sees it and the optometrist pansy in Syria sees it and the pervert king of Saudi Arabia sees it and et cetera.

    Cause that would be justice.

  124. LBascom says:

    I hope that’s a metaphorical stick, otherwise the irony would be pretty intense…

  125. happyfeet says:

    no a real stick like from a sycamore tree what somebody sharpened to where you could poke a head on it

  126. happyfeet says:

    all your better murderous dictators die violently you know

    it’s kind of a thing

  127. newrouter says:

    “all your better murderous dictators die violently you know”

    so when does the big push for north korea start?

  128. Roddy Boyd says:

    121.
    Statism is on the march for an odd tick peculiar to the rich: contentment and laziness.
    It’s easy to be for healthcare for all when THE STATE provides it; less so when you have to pony up for it.
    You could also throw in some tropes about a post-modern reach for meaning–THE STATE as benevolent provider for all–is nicer to consider and easier to digest than the more weighty and cumbersome issue of divinity and eternal meaning. We are so rich, in other words, that we can afford to play around with the ideas guaranteed to bankrupt us.

    Me personally? I’d throw in the self-defeating idiocy of the modern GOP, most of whom are as statist and corporatist as the democrats. Why bother voting conservative or arguing classically liberal ideas when the people in power are all Nancy Pelosi?

  129. TRHein says:

    I am sick of hf… and not sure about Roddy Boyd. To my thinking they both miss the point of this blog… Jeff’s house as I think of it. Take your defeatist outlook somewhere else.

  130. Roddy Boyd says:

    TRH,
    Would you be so kind as to illuminate how I am defeatist and then, when you have a second, perhaps explain how I am defiling JG’s house?
    Extra points go for reconciling his work on the declining fortunes of being classically liberal in the these times with the thrust of your post.

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