Connections

In an odd way, the trained hamsters of the main stream media focus on the ramblings of Donald Trump and the serial scandals of Hillary Clinton to avoid making important and dangerous connections.

Over the past few weeks, the brutal deaths of Muslim immigrants to Europe from the Middle East (Syria and Libya, in particular) have gained the attention of major media outlets. But when the story is presented, there's rarely any background, i.e., details about what is causing this mass immigration and the resultant deaths of hundreds of innocents. The reason, I suspect is that background information (context)‚ might cause even low information folks to connect some dots and begin to ask questions about the actions of Barack Obama and his Team of 2s in the Middle East over the past six years. Even worse, context might cause people to ask whether very bad decisions by this president might portend a very bad result from his Iran deal‚ now a virtual fait accompli.

Richard Fernandez writes about this:

The news spotlight is on the US electoral drama. Everything outside the circle of media brilliance is momentarily in shadow, most especially Obama administration’s governance record. They persist in a singular state of invisibility. Scandals, domestic crises, foreign conflicts — none have been resolved. It is just that the newspapers don’t talk about them any more.

They don't talk about them because connections might be made. And those connections might reflect badly on the Democratic party going forward. And they can't have that, so they remain silent.

Fernandez continues:

Occasionally some media outlet will blurt out a dissonant observation, suggesting a reality outside the administration’s claims. Joshua Keating in Slate asks: “ISIS Is Probably Using Chemical Weapons. Where Did It Get Them?” From Saddam’s stockpiles maybe, those which didn’t exist or perhaps from Syria’s arsenal, whose destruction Obama negotiated, but clearly from outside the Narrative.

Ahhh, the Narrative. WMDs in Iraq? Lies, all lies. Obama's "victory" over Assad in Syria and the consequent destruction of his chemical weapons—except ... where did ISIS get the chem weapons? Syria? ... but, Obama told us they destroyed their chem weapons just like Iran will destroy its centrifuges. Didn't they?

And, oh by the way, is ISIS really the "JV team," as Barack Obama claimed they were? You know, the JV team that now has forced hundreds of thousand of refugees to flee with the subsequent humanitarian crisis. And if ISIS is just a J.V. team, we're winning in our attempts to defeat them, right? Doctored intelligence reports tell this president we are, so we must be, right?

Again from Fernandez:

Power means the last word on things. It is not as if some future Republican president can reverse Obama and re-attempt a civil society in the Middle East the way America did in Europe and Japan at the end of World War 2. Obama demonstrated the American Left can veto any attempt to resist imposing its vision upon the nation. It has the will to throw away any victory, however complete, to have the last say.

The mistakes of Obama’s policies are secondary to the principle that a certain point of view should prevail.

I suppose that's why a group of puppy dog democrats have supported an Iran Deal even though they have to know that it's not the best we can do. I think they also know that bad things will be spawned by this deal, but they simply don't care. After all, it's far more important that "a certain point of view should prevail."

Never mind. Let's get back to Donald and Hillary.

UPDATE:
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And this from Michael Gerson:

One little boy in a red T-shirt, lying face down, drowned, on a Turkish beach, is a tragedy. More than 200,000 dead in Syria, 4 million fleeing refugees and 7.6 million displaced from their homes are statistics. But they represent a collective failure of massive proportions.

For four years, the Obama administration has engaged in what Frederic Hof, former special adviser for transition in Syria, calls a “pantomime of outrage.” Four years of strongly worded protests, and urgent meetings and calls for negotiation — the whole drama a sickening substitute for useful action. People talking and talking to drown out the voice of their own conscience. And blaming. In 2013, President Obama lectured the U.N. Security Council for having “demonstrated no inclination to act at all.” Psychological projection on a global stage. …

What explains Obama’s high tolerance for humiliation and mass atrocities in Syria? The Syrian regime is Iran’s proxy, propped up by billions of dollars each year. And Obama wanted nothing to interfere with the prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran. He was, as Hof has said, “reluctant to offend the Iranians at this critical juncture.” So the effective concession of Syria as an Iranian zone of influence is just one more cost of the president’s legacy nuclear agreement.

For Obama and his Team of 2s, Iran seems to be at the center of every bad decision they have made. Now that the nuclear deal is a a "go," the consequences of those bad decisions, like that poor little boy on a European beach, will ultimately wash up on our shores.