So, last Friday 15 Taliban fighters managed to successfully [conduct] a raid where they traded 15 fighters for 2 dead US Marines, moderate to severe damage to the British-run Camp Bastion’s facilities… and 6 of our Harrier jump jets destroyed/2 damaged, which last is going to have severe consequences on our ability to conduct and support military operations in Afghanistan. Despite the best efforts of Wired to suggest otherwise (H/T: AosHQ) this was NOT due to any stupid Youtube video. I don’t care what the movies tell you, successful commando raids of this level of sophistication and planning (the attackers wore American uniforms, had clear objectives, and met them) do not get thrown together and launched because a bunch of people without reliable electricity are upset about an online movie clip. In short, last weekend we got an honest-to-God, no-fooling black eye that will eventually get more NATO troops dead. Oh, and almost forgot! Prince Harry is serving at Camp Bastion right now! So we almost had that to worry about.
I’m not actually too happy to drag our domestic politics in this, because people died and everything; but I suggest that fixing this situation may be just a little more important than the President’s current plan to go to Cincinnati and yell about the Chinese about practices that the Chinese have no intention of stopping, and that the Obama administration has no intention of actually doing anything about. Even if Ohio is a swing state this year. After all, getting re-elected is not actually Barack Obama’s job. Barack Obama’s job is to make sure that things like that Camp Bastion attack are isolated, never-to-repeated events; and let us say that his reputation for being able to fulfill that part of the job description is not exactly stellar.
On the bright side: if this was two weeks later we’d know what Obama would be doing on the Saturday after a major strike on one of our bases. He’d be watching the second season of Showtime’s “Homeland.” See Jim Geraghty for a quick and precise analysis of all the alarming implications of that revelation…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Curious, that The Won is coming to Cincinnati to rail about the Chinese. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-ick) has been campaigning by running against the Chinese, claiming that his opponent is in their pockets or something.
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So, the jihadis are attacking us from Gibraltar to the Khyber Pass, and Beloved Tyrant is threatening a trade war with China…
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BRILLIANT!
As long as Obama can hang higher prices and empty shelves at WalMart on Romney*, he doesn’t have to make sense.
Mew
*and the media will gleefully help do so…
US Ambassador killed, American soldiers dying, American flags burning in the streets, “Death to America!” being chanted by Arab crowds. You’d think these would be big, big stories covered breathlessly by our media.
I don’t think we’d get the media’s respect until we started beheading people. I’m NOT advocating this, I’m just saying that’s what it would take.