Obama Is Toast

[Lenno]

WaPo: U.S. Allies Can't Wait for Obama to be Gone

Cain TV:

If you can think back this far, the U.S. populace was down on George W. Bush this time eight years ago in part because he supposedly had alienated our allies by being a go-it-alone cowboy. The remedy for this was to elect the cool guy who gave speeches about how we all have to listen to each other and all that sort of thing.

We did find out, did we not, that there is a huge difference between saying something in a speech and actually doing it? Today America's allies would surely love to have Bush back, since despite what you heard from the media, he did not insult them nor did he disregard their concerns.

As the Washington Post of all sources reports in devastating detail, it's Barack Obama who does all that:

Even before he became president, Obama introduced himself to the world as a multilateralist who aimed to solve the thorny problems of the 21st century collaboratively. “True partnership and true progress . . . require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other,” Obama told adoring crowds in Berlin in 2008.

He followed up that speech one year later in Cairo by quoting verses from the Koran, acknowledging America’s mistakes and calling for a new partnership with the Muslim world “based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Seven years later, the soaring, optimistic language of those early speeches has long since been subsumed by the messy reality of war and diplomacy. Obama has not been able to forge a close rapport with many world leaders.

The president’s cold-eyed view was apparent last year after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly by two militant gunmen. World leaders from Germany, France and Britain marched through the streets of Paris with longtime adversaries such as the Israeli prime minister and the head of the Palestinian Authority. No senior official from the United States marched with the European leaders, prompting a rare apology from the White House.

“I’ve never heard that Obama has a personal relationship with any of them,” said Xenia Wickett, head of the Americas program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. “It is neither hot nor cold. There is no personal relationship.”

For Britons especially, that’s a break from a long history of starry-eyed relationships between leaders across the Atlantic. Roosevelt and Churchill. Reagan and Thatcher. Bush and Blair. Obama, the mixed-race child of a single mother, and Cameron, a stockbroker’s son with royal lineage, have never had the same kind of personal chemistry. -

For all his campaign talk about reaching out with an open hand, blah blah blah, he knows he gets no political benefit when he makes the concerns of our allies a priority. Also, he genuinely doesn't care about them.

Americans might want to take that into account when they pick the next president. It's not about how well a candidate says things, nor is it about how much you didn't like the last guy. It's about a candidate's demonstrated and proven priorities. Obama's priority is himself. Don't pick a new president whose obvious priority is and always has been herself.

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[Lenno]

Obama's 'Countering Violent Extremism' Program Collapses Into Absurdity

By Patrick Poole April 20, 2016
chat 25 comments

Obama's 'Countering Violent Extremism' Program Collapses Into Absurdity


In February 2015, President Obama hosted a three-day summit on "Countering Violent Extremism" (CVE) that featured a roll-out of three local programs in Boston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. This culminated CVE efforts by the Obama administration going back to 2011.
But just over a year from Obama's White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, the programs are now admittedly a complete failure -- and publicly rejected by elements of the very communities they intend to serve.
Even at the time of the summit, the CVE programs had already been deemed a failure.
These programs are also a practical failure in preventing violent extremism. Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported on one Somali youth leader in Minneapolis associated with government-funded CVE programs who later attempted to join the Islamic State.
Sponsored

Remarkably, as the Obama CVE programs are in complete meltdown, Republican leaders such as Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and conservative organizations such as the Heritage Foundation are openly embracing Obama's CVE agenda -- and even calling for its expansion.
Kicking off their CVE programs in December 2011, the administration issued the "White House Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism," which articulated its goals:

To support our overarching goal of preventing violent extremists and their supporters from inspiring, radicalizing, financing, or recruiting individuals or groups in the United States to commit acts of violence, the Federal Government is focused on three core areas of activity: (1) enhancing engagement with and support to local communities that may be targeted by violent extremists; (2) building government and law enforcement expertise for preventing violent extremism; and (3) countering violent extremist propaganda while promoting our ideals. (pp. 1-2)

So Obama's own stated goals fall into three areas: 1) engagement; 2) training; and 3) counter-propaganda. In each of these areas, Obama's CVE programs have been a complete failure.
1. Engagement
Obama's CVE policies were developed in 2011 specifically at the demand of U.S. Muslim groups. Now, the very same Islamic groups that demanded CVE are some of its loudest opponents. They claim that the administration is promoting "Islamophobia" through their programs.



Just a few months after the February 2015 White House Summit, Islamic groups in Boston -- one of the cities selected for funding local CVE programs -- were openly attacking those policies:

Islamic and civil rights groups in Boston and two other cities spoke out Thursday against a federal government initiative to counter violent extremism, saying it unfairly targets the nation’s Muslim communities.“There’s no evidence programs like this are effective,” said Liza Behrendt, organizing consultant for Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-discrimination group. “It’s a federal program that singles out Muslim communities and reinforces false notions of the link between Islam and terrorism.”
Nadeem A. Mazen, a Cambridge city councilor, called the program “authoritarian.” He urged an alternative approach that would increase community engagement and community policing, rather than using “violent practices like surveillance and racial profiling.”
Shannon Erwin, cofounder of the Muslim Justice League, said the program could rely on false indicators to identify potential at-risk youths, targeting people who grow beards, express interest in foreign policy, and adhere to strict religious beliefs.

Sponsored

More recently, Islamic groups in Minneapolis denounced the administration's CVE policies. Again, one of the three cities targeted by the White House for CVE funds:

A diverse group of leaders representing civil rights and religious organizations Tuesday called on Minnesotans to stand against Islamophobia and oppose a federal anti-terror program.The leaders, who met at the State Office Building for an event organized by the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said they are concerned about recent anti-Muslim comments from presidential candidates and the "negative impact" that the federal government's Countering Violence Extremism program might have on the Muslim community.

These engagement efforts targeting communities vulnerable to terrorist recruitment have been such a failure that National Public Radio had to recently report that even if the CVE programs aren't effective, they somehow mystically still benefit these communities.
2. Training
One of the first federal agencies to openly embrace the White House CVE initiative was the Defense Department.
Nearly two months before the White House Strategic Implementation Plan was issued, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an October 14, 2011 memorandum directing all elements of the DOD to screen CVE trainers and speakers. This was specifically tasked to the service academies and other academic centers, including the Joint Special Operations University and the National Intelligence Defense University. Particular emphasis for this new undefined and secretive CVE screening process targeting "Military Information Support Operations, Information Operations, and Military Intelligence curriculum."
But at the time, some warned that the administration's "purge" targeting both counter-terrorism training and instructors was based on highly partisan reporting, and that the DOD's efforts would lead to a blinding of the foremost elements of the U.S. government conducting the War on Terror. Unable to define the enemy, the U.S. would wander aimlessly, fighting an unending war against an ever-shifting opponent.
Those predictions of the Pentagon's intentional blinding of its war-fighting units have proved catastrophically true.
In late 2014, the New York Times reported that Major Gen. Michael Nagata, then-head of Special Operations Command Central, had held a series of conference calls attempting to understand why the Islamic State had grown so dangerous:

Trying to decipher this complex enemy -- a hybrid terrorist organization and a conventional army -- is such a conundrum that General Nagata assembled an unofficial brain trust outside the traditional realms of expertise within the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence agencies, in search of fresh ideas and inspiration. Business professors, for example, are examining the Islamic State’s marketing and branding strategies.

In the midst of these discussions, Gen. Nagata issued this damning indictment of how the Obama administration's CVE policies had blinded the very tip of the American war-fighting spear:

“We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it,” he said, according to the confidential minutes of a conference call he held with the experts. “We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.”

Having intentionally purged the DOD's training of any ability to define the enemy, America's top warriors admit they have lost any ability to identify, and then defeat, the enemy.
3. Counter-Propaganda
On September 8, 2011, Obama signed Executive Order 13584, which led to the establishment of the State Department's Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) to counter terrorist propaganda.
But not even five years after the fact, the program has suffered chronic leadership changes and a string of public embarrassments in the face of the growing international terrorist threat from the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
As a consequence, the State Department has closed the CSCC in the face of widespread failure, and now the U.S. government must delegate these vital tasks to foreign organizations.
Among the many embarrassing CSCC episodes was a graphic video they produced called "Welcome to ISIS Land" that featured severed heads, corpses, and crucifixions interspersed with messages directed at would-be ISIS recruits about the grisly skills they would need to acquire. The CSCC director -- a longtime U.S. diplomat -- was promptly replaced.
Another CSCC effort was their "Think Again, Turn Away" program that pushed out counter-messaging via social media targeting potential ISIS recruits. The program's Twitter account would regularly "troll" ISIS adherents on Twitter.
But not long after the program was launched terrorism experts were openly lambasting the program, including accusations that the CSCC's efforts were legitimizing terrorists.
Another difficulty was that the actual penetration of their social media efforts barely touched the potential terror recruits they were trying to influence. For example, when one well-known pro-ISIS Twitter user, Shami Witness, was arrested, the Soufan Group compared the Twitter followers of Shami Witness and the Think Again Turn Away account -- nearly 40,000 followers between the two accounts -- and found that they only shared FIVE followers:
In the comments to that tweet, some users revealed that they were among the five followers that overlapped -- and they weren't even recruiting targets, but terrorism researchers or academics.
In February 2015, Obama's envoy to the Muslim world, Rashad Hussain, was appointed to lead the CSCC. Yet by year's end, a State Department panel of experts concluded that the CSCC's efforts were not effective, and questioned whether the U.S. government should be involved in counter-propaganda at all.
Rashad Hussain was promptly moved to the Justice Department and the CSCC shut down.
In January 2016, a new effort, the Center for Global Engagement, was launched, but with little prospect that rebranding their efforts will be more effective.
So the Obama administration's counter-propaganda efforts were not only unsuccessful, but found to be so harmful and counter-productive that they had to be shut down and replaced.
Now, most of the U.S. government's counter-propaganda efforts have been outsourced to the Sawab Center in Abu Dhabi, and the continued in-country counter-propaganda efforts of the Obama administration now have to be characterized as "ninja" because they are so unseen (and unmeasurable).
Obama's CVE: A Catastrophic Failure
By the three key areas of activity established by the December 2011 White House Strategic Implementation Plan -- namely community engagement, counter-terrorism training, and counter-propaganda -- all of the CVE efforts have been at best ineffective, and at worst an aid to the enemy.
Meanwhile, reports about the dismal performance of their local CVE programs announced at the White House Summit in February 2015 continue to emerge. The whole CVE industry of government, academics, and community groups has devolved into farce, as I noted here at PJ Media recently following the "CVE Summit" held in Washington, D.C.
This has transpired as the domestic and global terror threat continues to grow. The Obama administration demonstrates time and again that it is not up to the task of protecting Americans from those threats. Solutions to these problems are undoubtedly out there, but they will continue to be crowded-out and dismissed by the "experts" as long as the absurdity of CVE continues

[Lenno]

Obama Gives Queen Photo Album Featuring Pics Of Himself…


I suppose it’s not as bad as the time he gave her an iPod full of his own speeches.

[Lenno]

London Mayor Accused Of ‘Dog-Whistle Racism’ For Saying Obama ‘Part-Kenyan’…
In related news, facts are racist.
Via TPM:

London mayor Boris Johnson welcomed President Obama to Europe Thursday with a scathing newspaper op-ed slamming his policies as “downright hypocritical” and suggesting Obama’s hostility to the British is rooted in him being “part-Kenyan.”
Johnson, who is also a conservative member of Parliament, strongly condemned Obama’s recent call for the UK to remain in the European Union in The Sun column.
“Some said it was a snub to Britain,” Johnson wrote about Obama removing a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office in 2009. “Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”
It’s an argument the British media has floated before, but the Washington Post debunked the story, reporting the bust was returned to the Brits before Obama even arrived in the White House.
In the column, Johnson goes on to repeatedly invoke Churchill to make his case for Britain leaving the EU, at turns attacking Obama’s policies as “incoherent,” “inconsistent,” and “downright hypocritical.”

[Lenno]

Obama Blackmails U.K Over Attempt To Leave EU, Says It Would Go To The Back Of The Line For Trade Deals…
Via The Sun:

BARACK Obama was last night accused of voter blackmail by threatening to put Britain “at the back of the queue” for a trade deal if we Brexit.
The US president issued the extraordinary warning standing alongside David Cameron after talks in Downing Street.
Leave campaigners claim the UK will be able to swiftly crack fresh deals with major partners such as America outside of the EU.
But in a bid to demolish the crux referendum argument, Mr Obama said he “figured you might want to hear from the president of the United States what I think the United States is going to do”.
He added: “Maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement.
“But it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done.
“The UK is going to be in the back of the queue.”
Keep reading…

[Lenno]

[Lenno]

Obama: Brits Burned My House Down But We Made Up…
His house?

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on President Barack Obama’s visit to the United Kingdom (all times local):
10:40 a.m
President Barack Obama is asking young Britons to reject xenophobia and efforts to restrict people’s rights.
Obama says he wants young people to take a “longer and more optimistic view of history and the part that you can play in it.”
The president is speaking at a town hall in London. His remarks were a pointed reference to the debate in Europe over immigration and taking in refugees who are fleeing violence in the Middle East.
The president says he want young people to view integration and globalization “not as threats, but as opportunities.”
___
10:30 a.m.
President Barack Obama is telling young people in Britain that there have been some historical bumps in the road in the history between the U.K. and U.S. — most notably, he says the British “burned my house down” early in the country’s history.
But Obama notes that the two countries “made up” and have stood side-by-side, both on the battlefield against fascism and in creating institutions that help spread peace and prosperity around the world. The president says his main message is for young people to reject cynicism and to recognize that progress is inevitable but requires struggle and faith.
The president’s comment Saturday about institutions that promote peace appeared to be a indirect reference to supporting Britain’s membership in the European Union.
Obama is holding a town hall-style event in London with young people.
Keep reading…

[Lenno]

Obama Says He Was “Robbed” On Putt During Round Of Golf With Prime Minister David Cameron…
The Queen will knight him as “Sir Putts A Lot” before he departs jolly old England.
Via WDAM:

The Latest on President Barack Obama’s visit to the United Kingdom (all times local):
4 p.m.
President Barack Obama says he was “robbed.” But don’t worry: It was just in his golf game.
A putt that looked on line circled around the third hole of his golf outing Saturday with Prime Minister David Cameron.
Obama appeared to be having a good time anyway as the two leaders let reporters catch a glimpse of their golf outing.
“Did you see that?” Obama yelled at the press contingent, which is generally kept away when Obama golfs in the U.S.
The two leaders are playing at The Grove Golf Course in chilly English weather with a stiff breeze.
White House aides Joe Paulsen and Marvin Nicholson are filling out the foursome.
Obama and Cameron have staged a series of sports-themed outings over the years. They’ve played ping-pong and attended a basketball game together.
3 p.m.
President Barack Obama is playing his first overseas golf round as president, and Prime Minister David Cameron is his playing partner.
The two leaders are playing at The Grove, which is hosting The British Masters later this year. The course’s website says The Grove is one of England’s finest luxury golf courses.
Obama is an avid golfer who takes his clubs with him on many domestic trips. He has surely relished the prospect of playing the sport in a country where it has flourished for centuries.
Keep reading…

[Lenno]

Germans Say “Nein!” To Obama…
Making friends wherever he goes.
Via Yahoo:

Tens of thousands of opponents of a proposed transatlantic trade deal poured onto German streets Saturday on the eve of a visit by US President Barack Obama.
A loose coalition of trade unions, environmentalists and consumer protection groups in the northern city of Hanover said they drew a crowd of 90,000 to a march and rally outside the city’s opera house.
Police mobilised a large force to keep the peace and put attendance at 35,000.
Obama’s trip — to open an industrial technology fair and hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders — was intended to lend momentum to flagging efforts to see the world’s biggest trade pact finalised this year.
On a visit to London on Saturday, Obama sought to address sceptics’ fears head-on, admitting that some past trade agreements had “served the interests of large corporations and not necessarily of workers in the countries that participate in them”.
Keep reading…

[Lenno]

UK Defense Minister Says Obama Is Ignorant…
Ignorant doesn’t even begin to describe him.
Via Daily Mail:

A British defence ministers today accused Barack Obama of ‘woeful ignorance’ after he claimed Britain should stay in the EU because it boosts security.
Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt, a Vote Leave spokeswoman, said EU judges and the free movement rules make national security harder to maintain.
The US President flew out of Britain today after a three day visit in which he hammered away at a call for Britons to back EU membership at the referendum on June 23.
Mr Obama infuriated Brexit campaigners by claiming Britain would be at the ‘back of the queue’ for a bilateral trade deal with the US, insisting Britain’s influence in the world was ‘magnified’ by EU membership.
Keep reading…