War on Terror Report Card - Part 2: The Obama Years

by Harrold "Haole" A`hole

Osama the Sick has already remained in power longer than Bush 1 and Bush 2. Things for President Obama to consider as he carries forward the mistakes of the Bush terms:

1. So, after all these Bush 2 years of War on Terrorism, will Obama consider our proven victories in North Korea, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Iran and Saudi Arabia are finally bastions of freedom loving moderates. Amazingly Sri Lanka was able to defeat its Tamil Tiger terrorists using all of our military power and hundreds of billions in "aid." Not!
2. Obama promises to pull our troops out of Iraq by 2010. Um, but he may leave 50,000 troops there longer. With retreats like that, who needs invaders? No mention about how many contractors (previously known as troops before the day of outsourcing, or mercenaries) will be there, too. Boo!
3. Obama promises to send more troops to Afghanistan, a country so bumbling that President Karzai's term in office will end three months before they hold their next election. Karzai family corruption, illicit drugs, warlordism, corrupt politicians, corrupt police, no national sensibilities, and the Taliban remain the norm and are as bad now as they were when Osama hung out there. Got it wrong once. Got it wrong twice. Why not get it wrong yet again?
4. Torture may no longer be official policy, but apparently politicians and military commanders who knew better are left off the hook for their illegal activities. Obama sees no need to "look backwards" when it comes to enforcing U.S. and international laws. The corrupted powerful are allowed to remain powerfully corrupt. Bogus!
5. Nuclear power Pakistan has turned over the Swat Valley to Taliban sharia law lunatics, abandoning millions of people's rights and hopes while helping to empower the Taliban in southern Afghanistan as well. Ugh!
6. Obama gives the orders to shoot the Somali pirates and frees the captain. Hurray!
7. North Korea restarts plutonium extraction at its reactors in defiance of Obama's call for yet more powerless U.N. resolutions against the launch a flubbed "satellite" using its ballistic missiles Boing-Boing-Gone-A-Dong. Blah blah blah!
8. A recent spate of suicide bombers in Iraq kills over 80, mostly Shiites attacked by al Qaeda in Iraq. Then Maliki hides behind false outrage and demands that U.S. troops involved in killing a woman during a battle be turned over to Iraqi authorities against the status of forces agreement. It appears that Maliki is becoming the "Shiite Saddam" as he makes no progress to integrate Sunnis and former Baathists and wields his military for political gain. Boo!
9. A rocket is launched into the Green Zone, which is followed by a murder (by cutting his throat) inside. Are we safe yet? Boo!
10. Time to close Gitmo? Absolutely, just not during the Obama presidency. Apparently, Americans are too afraid to hold foreign prisoners who kill Americans in foreign lands. Interestingly there is no such fear of imprisoning other Americans who kill Americans right here as we now hold a greater percentage of our own population behind bars than any other country. The old NIMBY effect is proudly proclaimed by politicians who cannot stomach holding foreign prisoners on American soil, yet seem to think nothing of holding them in another country, like Cuba. Yet isn't Cuba the country we pretend to despise, have no diplomatic relations (at least Obama is correcting this absurdity ever so slowly) and have occupied long after our welcome expired. In other words, so-called freedom loving Americans continue to occupy a foreign land against that country's will so we can house foreign-captured terrorists without trial or legal recourse, yet we're so cowardly we can't even consider holding them in our own prisons. Shameful cowardice!
11. North Korea flips the bird with a second nuclear bomb test and firing a short-range missile. What now?
12. U.S. pulls out its combat troops from most major cities in Iraq. About time! Obama seems more like Bush 3 now that he's no longer a candidate.
13. So Iraq's bombings return now that U.S. troops are no longer protecting them from themselves. Elections in Afghanistan are as legit as those in Iran, while the Taliban continue to kill more American troops. We're told that this strategy has kept us safe, yet more Americans have been killed in the wars than in 9/11, and don't even talk about the 10 times higher number seriously wounded, and we brave Americans never talk about the uncounted dead and wounded Iraqi, Afghani and Pakistani men, women and children who never attacked us. But Obama seems to know that more troops will "solve" this destructive inclination of a once great nation that proudly limps along on nostaligia and the savings of Asians, that touts itself as a "Christian nation" that kills in Jesus' name. Who, outside of the sentient, would have ever guessed this outcome? Gag!
14. Gen. McChrystal warns of "mission failure" in Afghanistan, but follows Obama's leaden lead in thinking that more troops is the answer. Too bad they don't listen to the V.P. who, unlike our Cheney predecessor, sounds like the only sane person at the Whitehouse these days. Yea Biden! You'd think after 8 years of wasted killings costing billions of dollars, the scientific reasoning-based strategies purported by Obama would have taken hold. Maybe Obama just needs to murder and bomb a few more times with his own bloody hands before the killings and bombings by those "lunatic Taliban" will end peacefully. Boo to the Absurd Obama Liar!
15. October 2009 set a record for killed and wounded American troops in Afghanistan after 8 long years of war. Iraq continues to suffer huge bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere despite claims that the surge worked and Iraq's new government is providing "security." Karzai steals an election in which 1 millions votes (1 out of every 3 votes he "won") are thrown out, and the decision to hold a run-off election will use the same election officials who rigged the first. Perhaps Karzai won't steal the second since he'll be the only one on the ballot. Good thing we've brought Chicago-style Democracy to the Middle East, complete with drug kingpins in the the highest offices funded by the CIA. Meanwhile, Obama fails to take any action to end these wars as promised, despite his Nobel Peace Prize to the contrary. Boo!
16. After spending months dilly dallying about troop levels in Afghanistan, it was odd that Obama says he's in a rush to deploy an additional 30,000 troops there, bringing the total to around 100,000. He'll need to hope and pray for a lucky win or he'll be shown to be as clueless as Bush on such matters. Does Obama really believe that Al Qaeda is still there? Does he really believe that the Taliban ever attacked the U.S.? Does this Nobel Peace Prize winner even know that there is no army to fight as he sends more Americans to their death, and that he'll just add to the civilian casualties in an already tattered non-nation? Arrrg!
17. A double agent kills a handfull of CIA agents, showing how hard it is to know friend from foe when occuping foreign lands. Intelligence?
18. A lone African male, with no checked luggage and a one-way ticket paid for in cash while on a TSA watch list was not enough to warrant extra scrutiny that could have discovered his hidden explosives. So now the TSA is making it uglier for all passengers when they can't even find a needle in a sewing kit. And of course a foreign, civilian passenger came to the rescue by subduing the terrorist. Cheers to the hero, jeers to airline security theater run by Homeland Security. Oops!
19. Eight years of "war" and Obama is leading the largest assault ever in Afghanistan since the war started in order to take out the Taliban who controlled Marjah. And we're somehow winning how? I guess victory can be seen in the wonderfully democractic Iraqi elections in which the "bad" competitors are banned from running because the "stupid" people might prefer them to the controlling powers installed through American force. Success, not!
20. Pakistan arrests a leading Afghan Taliban leader, Baradar, and did so without an invading military force. They then followed up with more high profile arrests. Great, Pakistan! Actual Intelligence used
21. Whether accurate or not, the FBI has closed the terrorist investigation for the anthrax letter attacks because it assumes they were carried out by Bruce Ivins who committed suicide. Of course some here are upset because they remain convinced Islamic radical terrorists were responsible, proving their imagined threat of "weapons of mass destruction" is real. To them, it just doesn't fit that instead the attacks were carried out by one older, white American man, and an Army biodefense expert at that with an obsession about two female collegues. They don't like to admit that the WMD was All-American and developed and paid for by our tax dollars. Case closed
22. Thankfully the recent American terrorist with Pakistani Taliban ties couldn't even set his car on fire in Times Square though the idiot was trying to murder thousands of unknown innocent people. Captured!
23. Mid-May 2010 and Obama is responsible for nearly as many American deaths in Afghanistan as Bush was, propping up a corrupt and illegitimate government with no rationale for even being there. Bloody boo!
24. Karzai, a thug who stole an election, has lost faith in America's ability to beat the Taliban. The U.S. may have had better fortune had he not stolen his election and run his government as if it didn't need to represent its people. Oh yeah, we installed Karzai by military force, so I guess he learned from the best. Ugh!
25. General McChrystal disses the president and vice president and our ambassadors, in Rolling Stone magazine of all places, yet he, after 9 long years, can't even beat the poor, illiterate country fighters who have no real weapons or military training. I think we know who the real losers are, and a wimpy Obama can share it with a clueless McChrystal. Our military is great at killing our enemy, but is unsuited to nation building and playing police. Sad we waste their superb talents on misguided imperialism and classical hubris born from fear. Shameful!
26. Osama and his tighter-knit band of crazies are still free and waging war against us. War and terror in Iraq continue. Yes, Osama is free while Bush is no longer in power. Bush started two wars and failed to win either. Iran is emboldened now that Iraq will also be run by similar-minded Shiites. North Korea has gone nuclear. Islamic militancy is even directed against Canada, eh. Afghanistan wallows in poverty, the illegal drug trade funds private militias and warlords, and there's an ongoing resurgence of the Taliban. Pakistan is growing its homegrown terrorists that it exports east and west while its political divide widens. We continue to keep ourselves by ensuring our nail clippers and bottled water are kept off airplanes while our spies continue to collect tons of data and still can't analyze it. And apparently Secretary of State Clinton can't even meet Russians without embarrassing our nation of numbskulls because we can't even find a single person who knows how to read or write reset in Russian. Intelligence apparently does not imply intelligence or even basic competency. This was a war against terrorists, right? Boo!