Field-Marshal Obama warns us against “fighting the last war”
It’s a cliche on the level of “throwing someone under the bus”: generals are always “fighting the last war”:
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong deterrent. But we will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy,” Obama said.
He added, “The danger … is that we are constantly fighting the last war, responding to the threats that have come to fruition, instead of staying one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century.”
Wow, what a profound insight–in 1993. Now it’s a tired old nostrum thrown out there to pad out the candidate with a veneer of worldly military-strategerical sophistication, when in fact Obama’s foreign-affairs resume is about as distinguished as Mike Huckabee’s.
It’s a crutch, like his Middle East strike force! It’s one more little item that Obama can throw out there to sound smart.
You know, I think Obama’s “brilliant” the same way Bill Clinton was “brilliant”–very good at projecting interest and seriousness. He has what the educational theorists call a very high “intrapersonal” intelligence, which in nerdspeak means “an 18 charisma”. I certainly don’t think he’s dumb–quite the opposite: he’s a quick study, but he figured out long ago that he can get farther playing the Obamessiah role than he can by buckling down and putting his brainpower to work on a problem, or by taking an unpopular position.
Meanwhile, the friend who sent this item to me (who knows a thing or two about a thing or two) suggests
How about … fighting *this* war, the one we’re in, today, every day, around the world? Can we try that for a little while? Please?
Nope, sorry, that’s not very geostrategicalistic. Or popular.
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{Post by See-Dubya}
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Categories: Barack Obama
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He’s also good at doublespeak (see 1984).
Once in the oval office, he will do exactly what Reid, Pelosi and Kennedy tell him to do. He has no experience, so he will have to rely on the democratic leadership for support. It is always dangerous to have all 3 parts of the national government under one party. They will run amok, because there won’t be any control. The loss of rights and liberty will be tremendous, all in the name of “helping us”. Of course, both major party candidates will say and promise anything to be elected. That’s the only interest/problem they have.
Is he kidding us or what?…Baroque Obozo and his coterie of lefty syncophants have been fighing the Vietnam war for over 30 years now….”Remember the lesson of Vietnam” has become a lefty catch phrase for trying to suggest that the US should never ever under any circumstances use its military anywhere for any reason.
Thankfully, Obama is feeling more and more like a Dukakis. I just hope the electorate hasn’t become so much more stupid that the outcome will be different.
Is there a Dukakis Tank Moment awaiting Obama on his trip abroad? Gee, I hope lots of people are trying to set one up!
Does this mean Don Rumsfeld will get his job back as SecDef in a Barry Obama administration?
While this all sounds good, unless you have good sound intelligence on how your potential enemy is going to fight the next war, you can’t harldy train for it.
Of course, you can always use clandestine methods to get that potential enemy to attack someone else so that you can observe their methods, but it rarely works out that way.
The U.S. military has the best corp of officers and have proven time and again that when presented with new types of warfare, both conventional and unconventional, they can improvise, adapt, and overcome to defeat the enemy.
Well, hopefully he won’t make it to the Oval Office, he only raised $52 million in June, way short of the $100 million they bragged about.
http://www.foxnews.com/urgent_queue/index.html#1c568248,2008-07-17
“geostrategicalistic”; heh. Now that’s funny!
The truly scary part is that we don’t know who the ‘puppet master(s)’ is or are, controlling the strings to Hopey Changerson the puppet. All we can be sure of is ‘they’ don’t have the best interests of the United States in mind. They also wish to scrap our Constitution.
Clausewitz is some pretty tedious reading written way before rap music and S&M Barbie dolls were popular. Think Obama has a clue who he is?
This guy just consistantly displays a stunning ignorance - really. If he spent more than 140 or so days as a working, functioning senator, maybe he’d have more of a grasp on our military - what it actually does and how it does it. He’s like a Chatty Kathy doll, except he pulls his own string, over and over, vomiting up this “fighting the last war” drivel.
What a dumbass.
Sort of the same way every element of liberal domestic policy is a replay of The War on Poverty (TWOP)?
It sounds like he would like to fight the one before the last war. You know… Vietnam.
What an uninformed, unthinking, inexperianced fool. “I will work to rid the world of nuclear weapons”. Who is he trying to bring to the table - 14 year old girls and beauty pagent contestants?
“I asked my daughter Amy what she thought was the biggest problem facing the world today and she said, ‘Nuclear weapons.’”–Jimmy Carter
Field Marshal Comrade Obama’s jive talking is getting tedious. You would think he would know at least something about anything.
From the groove yard of forgotten favorites, the world will be out of oil by the year 2000 collection
“Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.” — JIMMY CARTER, televised speech, Apr. 18, 1977
This whole campaign of B.O.’s is little more than attempts to put lipstick on a pig…
That’s why young people like him. They have no life experience to use as a reference, and the leftwing brain washing they have been subjected to in schools and popular culture has only conditioned them to believe democrats.
Old people that fall for his b.s. have no excuse. They’re either uninformed idiots, or died in the wool lefties!
It’s bad that he has an 18 Charisma, probably a 14 in intelligence, but a 3 in Constitution, a 4 in wisdom.
Just for fun, if you want to check your personal nerd stats, this site is a fun one.
just as a benchmark, my stats in order on their site was 17, 13, 15, 16, 13, 12
See-Dubya doesn’t think Obama is dumb, and maybe he isn’t. But he’s sure as heck ignorant. I wonder if his trip to Iraq will enlighten him. Nah, that’s a lost cause. He can’t afford to flip-flop in the presence of those fawning MSM anchorpersons who will be among his entourage.
Being a longtime student of Clausewitz, yes Golden his book is a huge read, it’s kind of hard to see his name and Obama’s in the same sentence. But, points need to be made….
Goldwater I meant to say… my apologies
Right. Ask Jamie Gorelick about that wall of separation between the FBI and the CIA. And then ask Obama about how the DHIMMIcRATs have done everything they could to emasculate our efforts to preempt terrorist strikes on the USA by putting the rights of some hysterical left-wingers over the rights to life by the rest of us.
No he’s not dumb, but I agree that only uses what he needs in order to get ahead… but i believe he also has knee-jerk blame America syndrome. Case in point: When he gave his little talk about how America should lead the way in securing/eliminating nuclear weapons, he made sure to add that it was the U.S. who led the world in creatingthem in the first place (behind that stetement I see blame)…
he neglected to mention that it was in fact a race between the U.S. and the Nazis to get th ebomb, just a sly little dig at us for being the warmongers of the 20th century….
he’s an a-hat extraordinaire…
It’s okay to speak softly as long as you carry a BIG stick. He wants to give ALL of our sticks away. If he truly wants to destroy our nuclear weapons that will leave us open for any and all comers. We will be doomed because the bad guys will still be holding their big sticks behind their backs.
God help us make the right choices in this election. Who will feed the world if the worlds breadbasket becomes a third world nation?
Coincidentally, my fourteen-year-old sister and I were just talking last night about the stupidity of the “get rid of all nukes” logic (while watching The Iron Giant, appropriately).
The folks on this thread (inclduing MM) who assume that BO IS actually intelligent really crack me up…..
Here’s a guy who actually believes he visited 57 States…LOL……yeah, he’s intelligent alright…
Exactly! Islamists have been conducting their war against us – since November 4, 1979! They offer us two choices – Submit to Islam or Die! We do have a third choice, we can kill them, but we seem reluctant to do so.
It took us 22 years to figure out that they had declared war on us, and about two year - say 2005 - before the calls for retreat sounded…sheesh!
Obama is very, very stupid.
The saying is that the military is always PREPARING for the previous war…not fighting the last war.
It’s meant to imply that during peacetime, the military procures weapons and conducts training designed to counter the threats/issues experienced in the previous war.
What would “fighting the last war” mean anyway?
good point #27 corky…
I think it means that the Rapture has taken place.
I’ll fix this for ya.
the nascent U.S. government took a pragmatic, but ultimately self-destructive route. In 1784, the United States Congress allocated money for payment of tribute to the Barbary pirates and instructed her British and French ambassadors (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively) to look for opportunities to negotiate peace treaties with the Barbary nations. Unfortunately, the price demanded for these treaties far exceeded the amount that Congress had budgeted
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”, the ambassador replied:
Don’t know. The last war is over and now we’re fighting a war against islamist.
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong deterrent. But we will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy,” Obama said.
Uh, I know Obama is a military genius so this is probably just too smart for a dumb conservative like me to understand, but it sounds like Obama is saying that his policy is to eliminate the strongest deterrent to war we have.
Richard Rhodes, the author of several books on the development of the atom bomb, pointed out that the deadliness of wars had been escalating until the invention of atom bombs. From that point forward, the number of deaths plateaued. The fact which is obvious to casual readers of military history is that wars that sputter on at moderate levels with no decisive battles are the most deadly, because they bleed a nation the most and longest. Wars fought hard and quick to a decisive outcome are less deadly, though individual battles may produce dramatic casualties.
The problem with these plans to disarm the world of its nukes is that the reward to those who reneg is too great. The world is fairly safe if several sane powers have a substantial arsenal of nukes. But the world becomes very unsafe if the sane powers give up their nukes while one belligerent retains its nukes. Obama is naive to believe he can talk the belligerents of the world out of their nukes.
Obama: “The danger … is that we are constantly fighting the last war, responding to the threats that have come to fruition, instead of staying one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century.”
Isn’t Obama making a rather damning criticism of himself here? After all, he refuses to recognize the threats to America or fight them.
Hearing Obama speak about any military or foreign policy topic reminds me of a time when I was standing watch on the bridge of one of my first ships with the most junior Ensign onboard. The seas were a little rough, and a good number of the crew were seasick.
We more experienced members of the wardroom had all advised the junior guy(George) that there was nothing wrong with getting seasick, just don’t hurl to windward.
George was a pretty good guy, academy grad, had been to sea before, and generally listened to those more experienced than him. Things were going OK, until about halfway through the watch when one of the enlisted bridge watch team started to gag, and that proved to be too much for George to handle.
He shot a quick look at the anemometer, mumbled a quick “‘Scuse me”, dashed for the bridgewing, and promptly barfed to windward. The result being that his yack rebounded back into his face and all over his khaki shirt.
I, being the understanding guy that I was, refused to allow him to call his relief so that he could change, and he ended up wearing his mistake for the last two hours of his watch (which didn’t help the rest of the bridge watch team much, either). However, George never barfed to windward again.
The moral of this story is, that no matter how much you study what to do, how much you rehearse what to do, and no matter how much you think you are prepared to handle the unexpected, sometimes you still end up with barf on your shirt.
We can only hope that Obama is only faced with something this innocuous, should he ever be tested. But as POTUS, I find that highly unlikely.
Good point Tantor. Why do we need to stay one step ahead when all we have to do is sit down and talk to them.
“You know, I think Obama’s “brilliant” the same way Bill Clinton was “brilliant”–very good at projecting interest and seriousness. He has what the educational theorists call a very high “intrapersonal” intelligence, which in nerdspeak means “an 18 charisma”.”
Or you could just call it old-fashioned charm.
Clinton could soften the tone of his voice, look you square in the eye, bite his upper lip, and make you think that, to him, you were the most important person in the world.
In front of an enthusiastic audience it was magic, kind of like Obama sending that tingle up Chris Matthews’ leg. But it was totally devoid of substance, because Clinton could perform the same act the following night in front of a new audience with a completely different set of beliefs. Ultimately such performances showed only that the only person Bill Clinton cared about was himself.
And as with Clinton, Obama’s supporters will doggedly defend him, not for his record of accomplishments, but because his personality seems to render his ideas transcendently powerful and moral.
Exactly….both are/were made brilliant merely by the MSM.
I noticed you used the word “was” with respect to Clinton. He certainly doesn’t seem so brilliant now, right? It must suck to lose brilliance simply because the MSM abandons you.
Since it was before BO’s time, he doesn’t remember the Soviet arms race. I lived on a SAC base. If we got up the next day, we hadn’t been NUKED! The way to deal with the middle eastern countries who want nukes is to convince these sandnuts that before they see their nukes land, THEY will be radioactive!
A 2nd thought is that, as log as it takes photoshop to show launching missiles, they will probably nuke themselves with their own nukes.
Since someone brought this up!
Thats funny.
Oh crap, I hate secret agendas. They scare the sweat out of me. And since Obama is nothing but a secret to us, I am bone dry.
WTF?????????????????????
That’s something we have been trying to do, well some of us.
It’s the DEMS and the entire LEFT THAT WONT ALLOW US TO STAY ONE STEP AHEAD, you dumb frick.
FISA
INTERROGATIONS
GITMO
CIA
SF
Patriotic Efforts
(every thing you loathe)
ETC.
B. HUSSEIN- GO AWAY, you’re far to young, too elitist and way way too naive to work in Gov’t.
Ooh, Burn! (And so true…)
What is this post babbling on about?
Oh yeah, basically what it says is that you don’t like Barack Obama.
Right, we get that.
Everyone knows you’re going to quibble over every single last thing that comes out of Obama’s American-hating, terrorist-loving, islamofascist, socialist with sanfranciscovalues mouth - so why don’t you do one post where you say that there isn’t anything that you like about him, and then move on to something more substantive, assuming you’ve got it in you.
With ODS like this already happening, it’s gonna be a long 8 years, lol.
Why isn’t he performing his duties to fix something on a point that he has been beating to a hilt lately?
Is this the extent of your depth!?!?!
Ha.
see-dubya’s post is focussed and accurate.
Michelle Malkin (and company) give Obama credit whenever credit is due. AP on Hotair is a great example of that.
Let me ask you something? Do you view these statements by Obama as insulting to our military leadership?
That’s our changeling…states that as long as we have nukes we retain a strong deterrent, then says his goal is to eliminate the nukes and our strong deterrent. Says we are the greatest nation on earth, then says we need to change that! What a dolt. The extent of this charlatains’ military and forieign affairs experiece was learned during a game of STRATEGO.
What puzzles me, among many things, is how anyone can perceive Obama as charismatic and a great orator.
All I can see is a naive, uninformed, spineless socialist who can’t even read a cue card without irritating hesitancy.
With Obama’s doting entourage, surely someone could keep track not only of his flip-flops and contradictory statements but also to point out the stupidity of his reasoning.
Capt Howdy # 44, you miss the point of the forum which affords conservatives a venue to commiserate with like-minded
people and reassure one another we are not alone in our revulsion by Obama.
If you want a single post that “there is nothing we like about Obama”, here ya are. That pretty succinctly sums it up but is somehow both less satisfying and less filling.
I agree lonewolf, there is absolutely NOTHING I like about Obama. He is a Chicago democrat, (read that as corrupt), he can’t talk without that annoying uh uh, he is a serious racist, he has nasty hateful friends, he is without a clue about how to treat our enemies, he panders on a daily basis with his flip flops. He needs to choose the side of an issue he is going to support, and then support it.
McCain needs to flip on the issue of amnesty but he at least has a clue about our enemies and how to treat them.
When he visits Iraq I want him to go out on foot patrol in Sadr City so he can come back and tout his military experience. Let him shake a few hands, pray in a mosque or two, kiss a few babies….maybe the Iraqis will keep him!
It will be more famous than Kerry ’s tale about Christmas in Cambodia!
There you go again, Howdy, with that common theme from liberals everywhere … MOVE ON. Always, when it comes to conservatives commenting on liberals, other liberals insist it’s time to move on. You did it with Clinton and now you’re doing it with BO.
But I don’t see the liberals moving on when it comes to BDS. They’ve been gnawing on that for the last 8 long years.
No way we are moving on. BO gives us new ammunition on an hourly basis.
As to moving on to something more substantive, well we certainly couldn’t do that with BO. He hasn’t said or done anything substantive to move on to.
“Bush agrees to time ‘horizon’ on Iraq troop cuts” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080718/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
Isn’t that like Obama’s time horizon?
I remember the last three wars. I fought them.
Obama thinks that there are 57 states.
We need Obama like We all need another 9.11.01
Enough said.