Obama releases Taliban prisoners while taking none among Romney donors
By Andrew Malcolm
Investor's Business Daily
Posted 08:28 AM ET
http://news.investors.com/article/610644/201205080828/obama-attempts-intimidation-of-republican-mitt-romney-campaign.htm
Composites seem to be all the rage this month, with the revelation that Barack Obama used them for girlfriends in one of his books and now his campaign has invented Julia to represent something in the presidential campaign.
So, we decided it's our turn to provide a composite of two current news stories that seem to have been largely overlooked in the topsy-turvy news that's afflicting so many of us with dizziness, even six months out from the presidential election.
Both of these bizarre stories are true. They come to us courtesy of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. How to put them both in credible form because they are so inherently unbelievable.
OK, here goes: The Post reports this week that during the Obama administration its military leaders have for some time been secretly releasing high-level enemy military captives from a prison in Afghanistan on the condition that they promise to help quell violence and not fight anymore. Scout's honor.
These are fundamentalist warriors who have been captured by U.S. and coalition forces at the cost of wounded and killed Americans and other troops involved in the struggle to crush al Qaeda and the Taliban there. They are set free by Americans as a sign of allied good faith to insurgent leaders.
During the more than 10-year conflict, now America's longest ever, 2,996 allied troops have perished. Of those, 1,961 were Americans, 97 of them dying so far just this year.
According to the Post's Kevin Sieff, his sources understandably sought anonymity and admitted that freeing senior enemy leaders during continued fighting with American men and women "poses substantial risks."
Do ya think?
Not for the officers making the release decisions, of course, but for the exposed troops out doing the fighting, now expanding with the arrival of improved weather in that forsaken, chronically-embattled land.
The Obama administration sees negotiations with the Taliban as part of a larger exit strategy. But as with the friendly hand toward Iran, there's been little progress, over Taliban demands for the U.S. release of five prisoners from the Guantanamo Detention Center in Cuba. Unlike there, clandestine releases from Parwan do not require congressional approval.
But officials declined to say how many insurgent leaders had been released so far, whether they'd kept their unenforceable promise or returned to combat, or even when the secret releases began. Or why the unnamed sources were revealing them now. This news plays right into Republican criticism over Obama's handling of the war, especially publicly announcing a departure date and schedule for U.S. combat troops.
So, loosening up on the enemy in Afghanistan, while clamping down on political opponents at home:
Here's the second unbelievable story, as told in compelling terms by the Journal's Kimberley A. Strassel. The headline makes it very clear: "The President Has a List: Barack Obama attempts to intimidate contributors to Mitt Romney's campaign."
It's really that simple.
One of Obama's campaign websites took after eight Romney donors by name the other day. In Strassel's words: "Describing the givers as all having 'less-than-reputable records,' the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that 'quite a few' have also been 'on the wrong side of the law' and profiting at 'the expense of so many Americans.'" One is identified as "a bitter foe of gay rights."
Their alleged crimes? They work for a mortgage or oil company, run a hedge fund, are lobbyists. None have ever been convicted of anything illegal. none hold elective office.
Their real "crimes?" They're rich and they gave some of their money to Obama's Republican opponent. That's not a crime -- yet.
Remember some weeks back when the president of the United States actually warned the independent Supreme Court of the United States against throwing out Obamacare in its decision next month? Could a legal defendant possibly act more stupidly? Or arrogantly?
More recently, Obama's hand-picked national committee chairwoman dispatched an operative to go on TV and mock the stay-at-home wife of the Republican candidate and mother of their five sons? After Obama had placed his own wife, assistant fundraiser and campaign warm-up act off limits to political criticism?
Or the EPA official who talked of crucifying oil companies.
True, such squabbles keep public discussion off Obama's miserable lack of economic-job achievements and the long list of crumpled campaign promises from 2007-08, beginning with bringing Americans together without blaming others.
And true enough, Obama's fundraising is way behind his goals. Gee, why ever would any Wall Streeters withhold donations after three years of bashing by the Real Good Talker?
Politics, as they say, is not beanbag. But some people see a developing pattern of panic here, of attempted political intimidation and political thuggery that's more fitting to the grime-ridden ward wars of Democrat Chicago than to the presidency of a grand nation called the United States of America.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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