Category Archives: Barry Kelly

by Barry Kelly | August 14, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 140

OBAMA AND IRAQ

The first requirement for the development of an effective foreign policy is to differentiate between your beliefs and reality. I don’t believe President Obama can see the real world. He only sees what he wants it to be. That kind of vision is dangerous in the making and implementing of foreign policy.

Iraq is a clear example. General David Petraeus and his surge strategy won the war in Iraq. To be fair, President Obama did not inherit a stable Iraq. He made the situation worse by his haste to pull all troops out of Iraq. The Iraqi government Bush left him could not last without enough American troops on the ground to check Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s rush to follow Iran’s guidance and to purge his administration and military of all Sunni and Kurd leaders. The end result was the creation of a Shiite oligarchy, no better that the Sunni dictatorship President Bush defeated.

The Bush regime won the war, but paved the way for a failed Iraqi government when they destroyed the Iraqi army and the Bath party of Saddam Hussein. None of the existing infrastructure every government needs was left. To make matters worse, the Bush administration failed to understand a Shiite/Maliki government would never be a check to the Shiite nation of Iran. Instead the Iranians ended up owning Maliki who preceded to further weaken the Sunnis and the Kurds. For all the American blood and treasure the Bush administration spent in Iraq, little was left for Obama to work with, especially given his primary motive to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible. I doubt President Obama, or either of his inept secretaries of state, ever saw the real geo-political problem a Maliki government would cause. You would think that President Obama, who leans hard in the direction of supporting Sunni Muslims, would have recognized the growth and consequences of Shiite power in Iraq.

You didn’t need timely intelligence, which Obama claims he never received, to see the Sunni Islamic radicals that joined the rebellion against Syrian Shiite President Assad could easily cross the border into Sunni areas of Iraq. The Sunni tribes alienated by Maliki were ready to provide support in the form of manpower, logistics, weapons and money. Borders mean nothing if they are not defended.

The result of the ISIS invasion of Iraq is that tribal and religious areas no longer follow the lines drawn by western diplomats after WWI. All remnants of the Shiite/Maliki government are being forced to fall back into Shiite populated areas, primarily south of Baghdad. A realistic map of Iraq will soon show Sunniland, Kurdistan and Shiiteland. The Sunnis and the Kurds will never go back into a centralized Shiite-run government. That failed experiment is over. Only more American blood and treasure could delay the collapse of Iraq, and for what? Our government needs to stop believing a Iraqi centralized government is possible. It is not.

Our policy should be to support the Kurds with modern weapons and monetary aid until their own fighters get properly equipped and to persuade the outside Sunni world to help bring the ISIS under some restraint. In the meantime, use unfettered air power and required boots-on-the-ground to break the advance of ISIS and stop their atrocities against the Christians and other religious groups ISIS is now slaughtering. Some massive evacuations of endangered refugees may be necessary. All because two administrations failed to see the Middle East as it is. Hawks and doves are equally to blame.

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EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 139

ISRAEL AND HAMAS

When Israel and Hamas have their battles every few years you can depend on a number of things being repeated. There is the start of the conflict provoked by some aggressive act by Hamas, a raid from a tunnel or the launch of missiles from Gaza into Israel. We have also seen repeated cease fires, some lasting days, some a few hours and others never getting started. We can also count on some bumbling by the State Department. Secretary Kerry is a world-class bumbler. In the end, Israel’s air, ground, and artillery forces prevail and the fighting stops until the next time.

During the conflict all the anti-Israel liberal voices in America and Europe bleat their moronic chants. They need no practice. It is always the same. “Israel needs to be controlled. They are not trying to avoid civilian deaths, the citizens of Gaza under Hamas’s leadership are fighting for their independence. If only Israel would end their occupation of Gaza and withdraw to the 1967 borders there would be no more violence. Israel won’t negotiate. The government (America’s) needs to pressure Israel to act responsibly.”

I know the radical left (today’s liberals) dislike facts unless the facts are theirs, but here goes in constant hope the truth will prevail.

(1) Hamas always starts the mini wars. Mostly with an increase in missile attacks. An increase because Hamas has launched missiles into Israel several times every month. How many nations would remain defensive in the face of rockets and mortars landing in civilian centers? Hamas missiles have poor or no guidance systems beyond the burning of the missile’s engine. So Hamas has no capability of avoiding population centers. In fact, population centers are their targets but poor guidance capabilities and the effectiveness of Israel’s “iron dome” missile defense and civilian missile shelters have spared Israeli population centers from heavy damage.

(2) No nation can negotiate with an enemy whose clearly stated goal is the total destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. What’s to negotiate?

(3) Hamas diverts cement and building materials, the Israelis permitted to cross the border, to the building of tunnels and other military facilities.

(4) Without support from radical Muslim nations, Hamas could not wage war.

(5) Hamas cares little about improving the lives of their citizens.

It is hard to understand why liberals equate the actions of a designated terrorist state with those of the only democracy in the Middle East. Except the liberal history is to always blame America or Israel. I think this blame America attitude has it roots in the liberal belief you can negotiate with anyone. If you show willingness to compromise your adversary will reciprocate. This history is shared by high officials in our government. How else can you explain the reckless reliance on negotiations and sanctions? Nations whose goal is to destroy us, use negotiations to buy time. If the end game is critical to our enemies, they will embrace the trade of continued negotiations and possible sanctions for time.

Israel is our only real ally in the Middle East. Why should we not use our influence and power to encourage the growth of democracy? Even in Muslim states. The book describing wars between democratic nations has not yet been written. The source material is just not there. I guess it never will be. On the other hand, there is great source material for the attacks of Muslim states on both other Muslims states and non-Muslim states. What is ISIS about? Has it shown tolerance for Christians or heretical Muslims? (Muslims who do not fit their definition of acceptability.) Is the ISIS movement’s mission to reinstitute a strict Muslim rule over the territory its armies spread the Muslim religion in the 700s AD?

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by the author of the Brandon mystery/thriller novels.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, Hamas, Intelligence & Politics, Israel, Obama, Politics, Terrorism

Tagged as Islam, Israel, Middle East

by Barry Kelly | August 7, 2014 · 7:35 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 137

FREEDOM OF CHOICE

The real result of all far-left ideologies, be they communism, socialism, or Obama’s progressivism, is their impact on the choices left to other groups, organizations, and individuals. Far-left ideologies all have the goal of establishing a one-party system of government to manage the affairs of business, education, health, industry, justice, the military, and individuals. The progressive government is controlled by a small group of the progressive elite. The driving force is that the elite progressives “know what is better for everyone.” They are not evil. They just believe that the only way to establish their version of heaven on earth is to take control of all aspects of society. This is where they get their willingness to constantly use any means to accomplish the end: “a much better and fairer life for all.”

The very essence of progressivism is to control choice because they believe it is chaos when people are free to chose their life’s occupation, their education, reading material, TV programs, news, religion, ways of raising children, including the choice to have children or not, health care, and the people who govern them. The current struggle in America between conservatives and liberals (the far-left liberals are progressives who now control the Democratic Party) is not over some obscure political difference. It is over who makes life’s choices, you or a progressive elite.

Progressives and communists hate what capitalism and the free market stand for. They do not believe the forces of the free market are real and think greed is the only driving force of capitalism. Progressives will not believe the infinite number of choices made by a free people in a free competitive economy can result in anything but chaos. Instead, a small group of progressives can make better economic decisions that will produce a vastly more efficient economy and much fairer distribution of wealth.

The promise of freedom is the existence of choices. Without individual choices there is no freedom. Those of us who have lived seven or eight decades have seen, sometimes up close and personal, societies where the basic choices Americans exercise every day were unheard of or only imagined. The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and some South American nations have tried various far-left ideologies. In every one of them personal or individual choices vanished.

The last remaining choice is to fight the system. Not many take that choice. All isms can be measured by the choices made by an elite and those made by the people. North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, probably the best political organizer of the 20th century, had North Vietnamese people organized into to a cascading staircase of political, economic, and social organizations. Everyone belonged to a peer organization with each peer group sending a delegate to the next higher group. There was no real individual choice.

All of the socialist, communist, or progressive one party elites are more or less the same. The more mature the system becomes the more extensive its choice making. Let’s look at a few of those. Take education. The elites decide what schools and courses will be available, who will be selected to go to what school, and what each will study. The same elites will decide what doctor, what hospital, what treatment is authorized, where people can live, what size of apartment, what will be grown on the farms, what industries will be allowed, and what each will produce in both quality and quantity. Some even decide how many children a couple can have. Internal travel and trips to other countries is strictly controlled.

When you lose your individual freedom, you lose the right to make most of life’s choices. The elites will look after you. When you think about something conceptual like freedom, think instead about the right of making choices being taken from you and your family. Don’t be taken in by the words. They don’t mean anything. Remember, “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” Without choice all hopes are narrowed.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Capitalism, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as choices, elite, freedom, Progressives, socialism, transformation

by Barry Kelly | August 5, 2014 · 7:34 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 136

IMMIGRATION ISSUE

The president is not concentrating on fixing the border. He is focused on the border/immigration issue.

Obama doesn’t care one bit about the plight of the people on either side of the border. But the issue is wonderful. He is using it to further marginalize the Republican Party: “They don’t care about Hispanics, not even the the little helpless children.” To find a parallel exploitation of children, you have to go back to the time of the Crusades when children were rounded up and led on a disastrous journey to the Holy Land. I’m not sure anyone knows or understands the political reasons for the journey of children to Palestine, but you can be sure there were benefits to some organization and that the issue was twisted and lived longer than the children.

Back to our southern border. Does anyone doubt that the president would close the border if it was in the interest of progressives? But he knows that

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closing the border would close the issue and that is not an option. The immigration issue is too important to the progressive mission of destroying their conservative opposition to have it fixed. The solution is not hard and there are enough bi-partisan supporters to pass a decent and effective immigration bill. All conservatives and many non-progressive liberals agree closing the border is a critical part of any solution. There are a few conservative hold outs, but America is not going to deport millions of people living here now. Stop the flow across the border, issue temporary work permits when it is in our interest, and enforce the law that future immigrants wait their turn for legal entry. Anyone crossing after a fixed date is immediately deported. Anyone staying here beyond the limits of their work permit or visa gets deported.

That doesn’t sound hard and it isn’t until you realize that President Obama will continue to cause chaos in the border region to detract attention from his other problems. The potential gains of causing border chaos to his progressive agenda are huge.

(1) Convince Hispanic voters the Progressive, formerly Democratic Party, is their best bet;
(2) Increase the number of Hispanic voters;
(3) make the unemployment problem worse so people will accept his socialistic solutions; and
(4) weaken the power of traditional influence in American so his phone and pen can finish with the transforming of America.

Only then will he focus on closing the borders, this time to keep people in his “paradise” of socialism.

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EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 135

OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY

We all know our president does not like the tedious nature of foreign entanglements but by education and experience he is not prepared for working on the world stage. Maybe that’s why he is so eager to turn to the United Nations to handle problems our previous presidents, with one exception, understood and handled in house.

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President Obama’s intellectual mentor, Mr. Saul Alinsky, wrote a brilliant guide for progressives (socialists and far left liberals) to gain power. Unfortunately, Mr. Alinsky never had any experience running a government. So even after the president is well on his way to seizing power, he is not equipped to use it to solve America’s foreign and domestic problems. He continues to use all issues as a means to destroy his opposition, the Republican Party. And that is Obama’s weakness. He doesn’t know how to use or keep power. Unfortunately for the nation, the Republican Party is not worth the title of the opposition party.

The president has not been helped by his two secretaries of state. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are also clueless when it comes to solving intricate foreign policy issues. I have long been a student of foreign affairs. It is very hard to point to anything those two hapless secretaries of state have accomplished except to compete for leaving the heaviest jet engine carbon trail of any previous and hopefully future secretary of state. Their responses to any foreign affairs issue facing the president have been limited to causing chaos and confusion. The world is in worse shape than any time since WWII. Korea and Vietnam were not nearly the threat to world stability as current Russia, China, Iran, the Islamic Caliphate or the current conflict between Hamas and Israel.

The last troubled area is worth some more discussion. John Kerry, who I believe cannot be underrated, is proving again he can make any bad situation worse. Imagine the hypocrisy of bringing a truce agreement to Israel that was based on his consultations with leaders in Turkey and Qatar who are open suppliers and political supporters of Hamas, a recognized terrorist state. Any secretary of state with an ounce of common sense would have stopped in Egypt for advice. Egypt holds the overland gateway to Gaza and has a direct interest in stability on its borders since the Muslim Brotherhood is no longer in power in Egypt.

It is possible that Secretary Kerry was acting on the instructions of the president, who seems to be very pro-Muslim and, by his speeches and actions, clearly anti-Israel. If Kerry was acting on the president’s orders, it is clear that creating chaos and weakening the influence of America in the world still needs more attention from our president. In the least, it further exposes the ineptitude of our foreign policy secretary. There used to be a time when secretaries would refuse foreign policy approaches they did not feel were ethically or pragmatically acceptable.

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