HALF-FULL REPORT 08/08/14

The United States is once again at war in Iraq – sort of. President Barack Obama authorized last night humanitarian air drops to the up to 40,000 Yazidi refugees trapped on Mt. Sinjar, and "limited" air strikes on the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) terrorists who want to exterminate them.

The belated American intervention comes at the 11^th hour for Iraq, where it is rapidly approaching midnight. It remains to be seen whether the "narrow," defensive, heavily conditioned air strikes the president approved will be enough to avert catastrophe, or if they’ll just make a terrible situation worse.

"Pity Obama didn’t have the leadership and vision to conduct some strikes on ISIS before they took Mosul, dug in, and became a threat that simply cannot be neutralized from safe altitude," said John Hayward.

"Bombing once started makes enemies and kills people. Unless it is done for a definite object and terminal state in mind, then it is better not done at all," Richard Fernandez notes. "Any action sufficient to ‘stop the genocide’ requires defeating ISIS. Either Obama aims to defeat ISIS or he is merely prolonging the agony."

"Obama’s doctrine of largely defensive and reactive air strikes in Iraq drags the US in, without accomplishing much of anything," said Daniel Greenfield, who writes about radical Islam. "The air strikes won’t intimidate ISIS which now has a chance to directly humiliate America by continuing its advance. If it can do that, then things will get ugly."

How ugly?

If ISIS wipes out the Yazidis – who adhere to the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism – it would be the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since Hutus hacked to death roughly a million Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, said Dan Hodges of the London Telegraph.

That’s just for starters. ISIS has seized control of the Mosul dam on the Tigris. If it were breached, Baghdad would be covered by 15 feet of water within hours.

You’d have to be very cruel and more than a little crazy to do that deliberately, but ISIS qualifies on both counts. A few months ago, they destroyed the dam that supplied water to Fallujah.

The Mosul dam is built on water soluble rock in a region prone to sinkholes. It may fail on its own if the fighting around it disrupts routine maintenance, says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

If ISIS were to take Baghdad, or destroy it, the likely consequence would be an oil price shock comparable to the Arab embargo of 1973-74, says oil industry analyst Andrew McKillop.

U.S. Navy FA-18s dropped two 500 lb bombs on ISIS forces approaching Irbil, the Kurdish capital, the Pentagon announced Friday. But air strikes alone – especially air strikes that are that limited – aren’t likely to stem the ISIS tide.

The Kurdish Peshmerga have a well deserved reputation for ferocity in battle, but their capabilities have declined substantially since the Obama administration cut off military aid, ex-CIA analysts and Special Forces soldiers told Jacob Siegel of the Daily Beast.  When the ISIS offensive began last weekend, the Peshmerga had to retreat because they’d run out of ammunition.

The Peshmerga are stretched thin because they must defend hundreds of miles of border. "ISIS can give up territory, but the Kurds cannot," a former Special Forces officer told Mr. Siegel.

President Obama’s response to the emergency has been late and "listless," the Washington Post said in an editorial Thursday. In his news conference that night, the president expressed ambivalence about whether military action would be required halt the ISIS advance – though it ought to be clear by now to all the sentient that monsters such as they can be stopped only by killing them.

"I picture the enemy watching this video and laughing," said Ann Althouse. Obama takes half steps to prevent Iraq’s collapse, said Jennifer Rubin.  Zero is just making a "political gesture," said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey.

In Afghanistan Tuesday, Army Maj. Gen. Harold Greene was killed and 15 others wounded by an Afghan soldier turned terrorist. Gen. Greene was the highest-ranking American service member to be killed since the war on terror began, the 2,340th to die in Afghanistan. More than 73 percent have died since Barack Obama became president.

Islamists have seized control of Benghazi, Libya. Hundreds are dead in fighting throughout the country. Britain has closed its embassy. The Royal Navy is evacuating Europeans.

"Foreign Policy No Longer Obama Strong Point," headlined an AP news analysis Aug 1. Well, duh. 

* * * *

They’re fighting again in Gaza, where Hamas, for the umpteenth time, has broken a truce by firing rockets into Israel. Quite a lot of the Palestinian "civilians" killed in the fighting were young men in their 20s.

* * * *

But, fortunately, they’re not fighting yet in Ukraine. A NATO spokesman warned Wednesday Russian troops were massing along the border.

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Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan, and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn, won their primaries this week, giving conservative insurgents bupkes for the year in their challenges to incumbent GOP senators. The margins were closer than many expected, which may provide the insurgents some comfort. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Robert Costa, who used to be with National Review, offers here his explanation for why Alexander survived, despite being a squish on illegal immigration.

The one clear cut victory for the Tea Party this week came in Michigan, where young libertarian Rep. Justin Amash turned back handily a very well funded, very nasty campaign to oust him. Amash, understandably, was not in a forgiving mood toward the Establishment types who smeared him.

The primaries indicate rank and file Republicans are wary of the Tea Party types, skeptical of the establishment, said Michael Barone. But the number who turned out to vote in the primaries is a good sign for November.

* * * *

Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont, appointed to fill the unexpired term of Max Baucus, plagued by accusations of plagiarism while a student at the National Defense University, has dropped his campaign for re-election. The election is now a gimme for GOP Rep. Steve Daines. Five more, and the Republicans will control the Senate.

* * * *

Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, didn’t enhance his prospect of being elected to the Senate when a videotape of him mocking Iowa farmers in a speech to trial lawyers in Texas surfaced. The folks back home aren’t too thrilled about his lawsuit against a neighbor for letting her chickens walk across the yard of his vacation home either. This won’t enhance his popularity either. 

If all Braley’s chickens come home to roost, we may only need four more pickups. His opponent is state senator, Army National Guard colonel, and Tea Party favorite Joni Earnst. 

* * * *

The Emergency Operations Center of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has moved to a level one (highest) response to Ebola. The disease is out of control in West Africa, an expert to a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing Thursday. It’ll get worse, the World Health Organization says.

It was a mistake to bring Ebola patients to the U.S., said Dr. Ben Carson. But Michael Fumento, who specializes in mass hysteria, doesn’t think we have much to worry about.

* * * *

The Santa Barbara Masters, the water polo team on which Joel Wade plays, won the gold medal in the 55 and older category in the World Championships in Montreal last week.

To take home the gold, Joel and his teammates beat Brazil, Australia, Russia, Germany, Argentina, Italy, and, finally, in the championship game, the Dutch.

This was no mean feat. They may be getting a little long in the tooth, but players in this age group are among the best water polo players in the world. Many are former Olympians. Congratulations, Joel!

Joel thought this would be a good time to remind you his life coaching practice involves improving performance and overcoming challenges, which the Santa Barbara Masters have done in spades.

* * * *

The Obamunists may be having second thoughts about issuing new executive orders to gut what little remains of enforcement of immigration law and protection of our southern border.

If Obama issues an executive order to grant legal status to millions of illegals, it would be a "nuclear bomb" that would divide the nation, said Ron Fournier of the National Journal, a liberal who favors legal status for illegals, but said executive orders of dubious legality would be the worst way to do it.

Such an executive order would be "constitutionally dubious, politically explosive and flatly contradictory to his own recently expressed views," said Washington Post editorial writer Charles Lane.

Red state Democrats have urged Obama not to do it, Politico reports.

But if Zero is having second thoughts, it’s most likely because of this devastating Reuters-Ipsos poll released Thursday. Seventy percent of respondents said illegal immigrants threaten "traditional U.S. beliefs and customs, 63 percent say illegals impose a burden on the economy. Only 17 percent say more illegals should be permitted to come to the U.S.

"If Obama starts using executive orders to grant citizenship or to stop deportations I think he gives Republicans a big opening," said Jennifer Duffy, of the Cook Political Report analyst group. "It’ll be about the issue at hand, immigration, but it also feeds into this Republican narrative of overreach, of sort of abusing his power."

If he issues those executive orders, Republicans will be more likely to vote in November, said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson.

Surprisingly, concern about illegals was strongest in New England.

Opposition is likely to increase as people learn more about what’s actually going on at the border. Many of "the children" flooding across the border aren’t, I noted in a column last week.

"These are not people just coming here to work as the so-called line is fed to us," said Border Patrol Agent Shawn Moran, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, on Fox News Thursday. "These people are coming here to do horrible things," he said, referring to the MS-13 gang members among "the children" the administration has ordered the Border Patrol to let go.

Several of those released had confessed to committing murder in their home countries. Two illegals from Mexico murdered an off-duty Border Patrolman in front of his wife and family last Sunday night. One had been caught illegally entering the country four times; the other twice.

Morale in the Border Patrol "is at an all time low," because agents are not "allowed to do the job they were hired to do," said Chris Cabrera, also a vice president of the National Border Council.

This video, made by a trucker at a Border Patrol station in Texas, has gone viral:

* * * *

This is a month of significant anniversaries. World War I began 100 years ago this week, I noted in a column. Forty years ago today, I – then a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald – was at Andrews AFB for the start of the flight during which, somewhere over Kansas, Richard Nixon turned into a pumpkin.

The Watergate scandal dominated the news from March of 1973 — when Judge John J. Sirica "broke" James McCord (who, it turns out, tried awfully hard to get arrested) – until Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 8, 1974. What he and his senior aides did to cover up the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee June 17, 1972 (about which they had known nothing) seemed so appalling then. But when it comes to abuse of power, Nixon was a piker compared to Zero.

Pat Buchanan, who was with Nixon every step of the way as he came back from the politically dead following his defeat by Jerry Brown’s father in the race for governor of California in 1962, has a retrospective here.

The chief takeaway from this anniversary should be what total hypocrites are liberals generally, liberal journalists in particular.

* * * *

It was mostly during August 150 years ago that the best American general ever waged the brilliant campaign that resulted in the capture of Atlanta (Sep 2), which guaranteed the re-election of Abraham Lincoln and the preservation of the Union.

His mastery of the Indirect Approach made William Tecumseh Sherman one of the greatest captains in world history, said the British military historian B. H. Liddell Hart. Constantly on the strategic offensive, Sherman tried – and usually succeeded – to obtain his objectives through maneuver rather than battle.

In most of the battles he fought, his troops were on the tactical defensive (where the defense has a natural advantage), as desperate Confederates launched one hopeless assault after another to try to keep another city from falling into his hands.

The Indirect Approach was most masterfully demonstrated in his March to the Sea, which began Nov. 15. Confederates were kept guessing about his objective(s) until it was too late to concentrate their forces to  stop him.

Alone among the generals on either side, Sherman had the strategic vision to see the way to win the war was to punish and humiliate the small minority of Southerners who owned slaves, were responsible for the war, Victor Davis Hanson notes in this retrospective. Sherman’s "bummers" looted every big plantation on their route of march, but mostly left untouched the hardscrabble farms of poor whites. VDH describes Sherman’s march in greater length here.

By attacking principally Southern pride and property, Sherman kept casualties on both sides low. From the time it left Atlanta until the end of the war, the Army of the Tennessee suffered fewer casualties than the Army of the Potomac suffered in 20 minutes at Cold Harbor.

Chiefly because he was as parsimonious with their lives as Scrooge McDuck was with his money, his soldiers loved the man they called – often to his face — "Uncle Billy." And "Uncle Billy" loved them back. For decades, he opened his heart and his wallet to any indigent vet who came to his door. No American general since – with the possible exception of "Mad Dog" Mattis – has been so popular with his troops.

And if the Army of Northern Virginia wasn’t the best fighting force of Americans ever assembled, it was the tough, confident Midwestern farm boys of Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee. When he saw that nothing could stop them from advancing a steady five miles a day through the swamps of South Carolina, Confederate Gen. Joe Johnson knew the South was doomed.

With victory in hand, Sherman was magnanimous. The surrender terms he offered Joe Johnson were more generous even than those Grant had offered a startled Robert E. Lee – so generous Lincoln, who favored conciliation, felt compelled to stiffen them.

Probably fewer than 1,000 Confederates were killed during the March to the Sea, Victor Davis Hanson notes. That Southerners have reviled Sherman far more than any other Union general proves Machiavelli was right when he said: "men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."

* * * *

Zero could use a Sherman now – or a Mattis, who he fired – but wouldn’t know what to do with him.

I concluded last week’s HFR by saying that for the forseeable future, the news should be evaluated in the context of a race. Will the Obamunists destroy the country before we can stop them?

This week, I think we’re ahead. Zero and his party are sinking like a stone. According to a CNN poll released today, trust in government is at an all time low. Republicans have a "trust" edge on 7 of 8 issues polled by the Associated Press

"These are awful numbers for incumbent Democrats heading into the fall," said Noah Rothman of Hot Air. "And we haven’t even started applying likely voter screens yet."

Speaking of that, "Democrats fear a debacle on turnout," reported The Hill newspaper.

It can only get worse for Zero and his minions. The "mainstream" media still strives mightily to spin the news on his behalf, but can no longer conceal the consequences of his incompetence, or worse. Some are no longer trying. Sam Baker of the National Journal, long an Obamacare apologist, reports on a nasty surprise most who’ve signed up for it will get soon. NPR(!) reports that having health insurance doesn’t mean you’ll have access to health care. 

The rapidly spreading catastrophe in Iraq, and Zero’s belated and half-assed response to it, will cause dissension among the Demonrats, contempt among most other Americans.

This week two loathsome and despicable world "leaders" – Putin huilo and Obama huilo – are staring into an abyss created by their massive miscalculations, trying to decide whether to jump in. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard pointed out this week, Putin’s done whether he invades Ukraine or not. And Zero is done whether he issues an amnesty executive order or not. If either chooses to jump into the abyss, they’ll go down faster – and take a lot of the world with them.

I think his troubles in Iraq – and those surely coming in Afghanistan and Libya – will keep Zero from pulling the trigger on amnesty. He is, at bottom, a risk averse gutless wimp who has difficulty making decisions. But I wonder if Putin might try to use the West’s distraction over Iraq to steal a march on Ukraine. 

I’m way long again, so I’ll stop here. Jack Wheeler should be back next week.

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