The Wednesday, June 10 Wall Street Journal headline at the top of the page was “Obama Set to Expand Troops in Iraq.” We were 589 days into the two terms Barack Hussein Obama has served in the office of President of the United States and he is as clueless now as he was when he arrived on January 20, 2009.
“President Barack Obama is poised to send hundreds more American advisers to a new base in a strategic Iraqi region to help devise a counterattack against marauding Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said Tuesday, a shift that underscores American concern over recent battlefield losses.” It’s 450 “trainers.”
We have had losses because:
(1) Obama was elected on a promise to end the conflict in Iraq and (2) reelected by pulling out troops to the point that the remaining Iraqi troops—Shiites in the south—decided it wasn’t worth dying for their leaders.
Can’t say I blame them, but dying at the hands of ninth century Islamic fanatics is the fate that threatens the entire Middle East, not just Iraq or what’s left of it.
This is how we lost the war in Vietnam. There was a time when Americans utterly destroyed their enemies on the battlefield. In the latter half of the last century, starting in Korea, we forgot how to do that and why that’s how wars are won.
In all candor, like a lot of Americans, I went back and forth about the Mideast conflicts. Looking back, I think George H.W. Bush showed remarkable insight when, after driving Iraq’s Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, he stopped at the border and came home. George W. had the notion he could somehow introduce democracy to the region. He couldn’t and it will likely never really occur there because Islam is the only law and it has kept the region ignorant, backward, and under the thumb of tyrants for centuries.
The Islamic State troops must be stopped at some point, but Obama is not the President who will do it. Whatever U.S. backed combat occurs will be just enough to present enough television news images to convince the gullible that progress is being made.
Obama arrived in office without any strategy and has spent the last six and a half years “muddling through” as the British say. He and the Democratic Party had only one goal; to win the elections. After that, they wanted to “fundamentally transform” the greatest nation on planet Earth. They have largely made a mess out of everything they touched from ObamaCare to Common Core.
There’s a reason why Obama will send more troops and that’s because every one of our allies has told him that, if the U.S. does not again assert its role of global leadership, they are not going to cooperate with him in a thousand different ways.
Our allies in the Mideast have told him they lack the military strength (and will) to conduct any kind of war with ISIS. The U.S. and much of the rest of the world cannot afford to sit by and let the enormous oil wealth and reserves of the Mideast come under the control of ISIS.
So, once again we read headlines about U.S. troops returning to the Mideast.
What that means is that the 2016 elections are more critical to the future of the nation than all previous ones.
I think Americans, liberals, conservatives and independents alike have had more than enough of President No Strategy. I think there are enough older Americans who remember and take pride in a nation that was unabashedly the world’s leader in the pursuit of peace and democracy. And I think that the thirty percent or so of brain-dead liberals are not sufficient to affect the outcome of a 2016 election devoted to restoring the nation’s economy and leadership.
It can be done. John F. Kennedy was on his way to doing so. Reagan did so. In 590 days from now, we can begin to do so again.
A new claim that American-led airstrikes have killed 10,000 Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria in nine months is backfiring on the administration, as officials had said months earlier that body counts are not the way to gauge success, and because officials had few other details to back up the claim.
The lack of any additional information is also making it hard for skeptics of President Obama's war against the terrorist group to square the body count claim with the news they see every day about the Islamic State seizing control of new cities in Iraq and Syria.
Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken cited the figure Wednesday at a Paris conference that focused on how to stop the Islamic State advances, which ended without any announcements about a change in strategy.
The new figure, an increase of 4,000 deaths since U.S. officials said they had killed 6,000 fighters back in January, was released on the same day that a poll showed flagging support for the Obama administration's handling of the Islamic State threat.
A CNN poll released Wednesday shows that just 32 percent of Americans support Obama's strategy against the Islamic State, down eight points from the last poll in February.
Pressed Wednesday about the plummeting poll numbers, White House press secretary Josh Earnest brushed aside the findings.
"The president is not designing our strategy around this military conflict based on monthly poll numbers, but he's doing it based on the national security interests of the United States," he said. "…That's why the president continues to believe it's not in our best interests to essentially re-invade Iraq to try to solve this problem."
Instead, Earnest said, Obama is sticking to the plan to depend on a U.S.-led international coalition to help support the Iraqi security forces in taking the fight to the Islamic State in their own country.
"That's the strategy that we're going to continue to pursue, and it's a strategy that has shown some success but obviously there's a lot more work to be done," he added.
Still, the 10,000 body count announcement appeared aimed at pushing back against the widespread criticism of Obama's record amid new reports that the Islamic State is positioning itself to take Aleppo, Syria's largest city, aided by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, after successfully retaking the Iraqi city of Ramadi just two weeks ago.
The figure, however, prompted more questions than it answered. The administration faced a barrage of questions on Wednesday about the methodology behind the 10,000 figure and offered very few details about the metrics behind it.
We need to remind ourselves that Memorial Day is not just another three-day weekend or a day when all manner of sales are offered to those who want to go shopping.
It is a day set aside to honor the ultimate sacrifice of those who have fought to defend our nation and take military action in foreign nations. We honor, too, those who suffered wounds and returned home.
We like to think of America as a nation that has gone to war only when we had to, but a new book, “America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Invaded with Almost Every Country on Earth” tells a different story based on history.
As documented by its authors, Christopher Kelly and Stuard Laycock, America, “has invaded or fought in eighty-four out of 194 countries (countries recognized by the United Nations and excluding the United States) in the world. That’s 43 percent of the total. And it hasn’t been militarily involved with just ninety or a hundred countries. It has had some form of military involvement with a spectacular 191 out of 194. That’s more than 98 percent.”
“Most people,” the authors note “would probably agree that much of what America has done around the world has clearly been wise and noble (as in helping liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny.) Some, however, have been wrong and/or unwise. And some of what America has done has been in-between. In some sense, it’s like looking at the history of one’s own family. And, indeed, all of it—the liberations, the fiascos, and follies—is, in some sense, part of the history of every American citizen.”
That’s why it is a good idea to pause on Memorial Day because as an American it is part of your history. “Americans are always hoping for peace but usually preparing for war” says the authors who remind us that “the American eagle is an ambivalent bird holding arrows in the talons of one foot and an olive branch in the other.”
Our natural instinct is for peace. Only aggressive nations, usually led by despots, want war. That is not a description of America. We have not, however, shied from war when the enemy was a well-defined aggressor.
“In the twenty-first century, the United States, though challenged by Russia and China, is the sole remaining superpower. The global responsibilities that we began to shoulder in the twentieth century seem today more burdensome than ever. The cost of being the world’s policeman seems exorbitant in terms of both lives and treasure.”
That’s why we need to remind ourselves that, as a former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has said of America, “We are the indispensable nation.”
We have learned what happens when our President has retreated from the responsibility to deter war. Since leaving Iraq with no U.S. military ground support that nation which was stable at the end of our war there has come under attack by the Islamic State. The President’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran that would allow them to become a nuclear power is causing Arab states to regard the U.S. as abandoning them and could lead to a nuclear arms race in a part of the world that is far from stable.
The U.S. in the wake of World War Two has a vast network of bases and alliances that span the world. Many of those bases were created at the invitation of the host nation. The result, as the authors note is that “The U.S. military, but virtue of its global reach, is almost invariably the first to respond to natural disasters as they occur around the world. If not us, then who will?”
On Memorial Day we honor our sons and daughters who gave their lives when their nation called on them.
“Today the sacrifice of over 218,000 American servicemen and servicewomen is memorialized in military cemeteries in twenty-four different overseas cemeteries in eleven different countries. The boundaries of Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty, therefore, stretch around the world.”
We worry about the emergence of other world powers, but I doubt that Russia which lost 127 million of its people in World War Two or China which is focused on building an economy based heavily on world trade are serious wartime threats.
That does not, however, exclude the likelihood that events may cause the next President to conclude that the only way to put the lid on the Middle East is to return militarily to Iraq and to make it clear to Iran that its nuclear ambitions are untenable and unacceptable.
The ancient Romans knew a truth they share in the phrase, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plans for war.
About the only thing that is predictable is that somewhere in the world there will be new wars and, given its power and its responsibility, America may well be engaged in restoring the peace.
Everyone had a field day with Jeb Bush's mishandling of the Iraq question Megyn Kelly posed during a TV interview last week: "Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?" Over the course of several days, Bush's answer switched from a firm yes ("I would have") to a firm no ("I would not have gone into Iraq").
Other GOP presidential hopefuls, quick to exploit Bush's fumble, quickly declared that in hindsight they wouldn't have gone to war.
Obviously there will be no do-over of the Iraq war authorization; the next president can't hop a time machine back to 2003. But even as a theoretical exercise, it's impossible to answer Kelly's question without clarifying the meaning of "knowing what we know now."
Was Bush being asked whether he would have invaded Iraq, knowing how the invasion was destined to play out over the next 12 years? Or was he being asked whether he would have invaded Iraq, had he known what mistakes to avoid in order to achieve the most successful outcome? If the former, then the question was whether the war on balance was worth its costs.
If the latter, it was whether, in retrospect, the war and its aftermath could have been managed more successfully. Those are very different queries, to which a thoughtful candidate might well give very different answers.
But why revisit only 2003? As long as we're asking presidential contenders what lessons they draw from George W. Bush's decision — widely supported at the time, remember — to topple Saddam Hussein, why not ask whether, "knowing what we know now," they would repeat other historical presidential decisions.
For example:
Would the men and women campaigning for president today have signed the Iraq Liberation Act, as President Clinton did in 1998, thereby making Saddam's removal from power a matter of explicit US policy?
With 20/20 hindsight, would they have ended the Gulf War after just 100 hours, as President George H. W. Bush did in 1991? Would they, like the first President Bush, have explicitly encouraged the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam — but then, when Kurds and Shi'ites heeded his call, done nothing to stop the dictator from savagely crushing the uprising?
Or take the more recent decision, by President Obama in 2011, to pull all American troops from Iraq, rather than negotiate a new Status of Forces agreement to maintain a substantial US military presence. That wholesale withdrawal — which was also widely supported at the time — created a vacuum that ISIS and Iran have filled with blood and terror. Knowing what we know now, would the candidates have brought those troops home?
History is always messy, especially the history of wars and their aftermath. Intelligence failures, battlefield misjudgments, diplomatic fiascoes, wavering public opinion — these have played a role in nearly every conflict, including those we recall with approbation. Rarely does the decision to fight proceed as expected. The same is true of the decision not to fight.
World War II, the "good war," the war to liberate Europe from Adolf Hitler, ended with America acquiescing in the enslavement of Eastern Europe by Joseph Stalin. The Civil War was envisioned as a quick and decisive Northern campaign to put down a Southern rebellion; it turned into grinding, appalling four-year bloodbath.
President Reagan chose to withdraw rather than retaliate after US Marines on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon were killed by Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor. That was a signal of weakness that helped convince Osama bin Laden to regard America as a vulnerable "paper tiger," with awful results.
By all means, let's grill presidential candidates on what lessons they've learned from history, and how it informs their approach to national security today.
Let's also remember that politicians always find it easy to tell us how blunders could have been avoided in the past. They're not nearly so adept at avoiding them in the present.
A senior House of Representatives Democrat said Tuesday that the White House’s description of supposed progress in the war against the Islamic State should ring “alarm bells,” and called the fall of the city of Ramadi to the extremists “a very serious and significant setback.”
“I don’t think we’re losing the war, but I don’t think we’re making tremendous progress either,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor. The California Democrat had been asked about White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz’s recitation last week of the number of U.S. and partner airstrikes to counter a reporter’s question about whether the Islamic State is winning. “I wouldn’t use the metrics of the number of sorties or bombs dropped or anything, and to the degree you hear administration officials use those metrics, alarm bells should be going off,” Schiff cautioned.
The lawmaker also warned against using measures like the amount of territory controlled by the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, because in some cases the group has been replaced by other extremist militias hostile to the United States.
At least once a week something seemingly out of my control comes over me, and I have to write something down. It wells up inside, infiltrates and permeates my mind in the middle of the night, and the formula is tossed like a subconscious tennis game to completion.
The time is 0630, and the golden glow of the sun can be seen through the trees from my office window, growing by the moment on a perfectly blue sky. And as I look to fill this blank screen with these thoughts, a dread fills me... It sits inside as a kind of frustrated wonder, as what I want to say might just be beyond my ability. Thoughts so profound, I just don't know where to start... and I know that most likely what I say will make little difference in the broader spectrum...
The block of sliver tags...
Yesterday, I saw a photograph of a war memorial where the dog-tags of every man who died in Vietnam were suspended from a ceiling on filaments. From the photographer's vantage point of just a few yards away, it looked like a large block of silver, topped with vanilla icing.
Men commented on this photograph on Face Book. All seemed to think themselves patriots in one form or another, but with far different perspectives in the viewing... Some looked at it with pride, a display that indicated the comradeship of men in arms, men who fought together as one.
Others viewed it in incomprehensible wonder... Others in awe and reverence... And others still, expressed gratitude for their service, noting that they had paid the ultimate price to advance our freedoms... And all, including myself, felt the utmost respect for these men, our brothers.
I was, however, the only one there who expressed that this war memorial reflected the horror of war. Horror, for the loss of our humanity, without reason. It was the thought that war had no good reason that set them off...
I saw there, over sixty thousand men, my brothers, who died for nothing that could be positively defined... and when I asked the question, “What did these men die for?” no one could tell me. Not one. One stated that it was to fight Communism, and yet could not define that word when questioned.
And yet, they all collectively reveled in a patriotism that could could not be denied. And then, one of them questioned my loyalty to America, which stimulated another to call me a traitor, and another said I was a “Freak'n Liberal.” And yet, though I asked the question again, could not get a definitive answer. I had to withdraw, and it has haunted me ever since to understand it...
Traitors and cowards...
I'm fixing to be sixty-six in a couple of months, and I am no longer the wide-eyed and trusting boy who left his family and home for a place he had only recently found on a map. I was 57 on the draft in 1969. There were men all around me who were refusing to go, and some gave up everything to go to Mexico or Canada... and at the time I thought they were traitors, cowards... but I no longer think this.
I grew up in service, and learned a lot about myself and the world. God knows I needed some form of structure living in that virtual hell-hole called the inner city of New Orleans. I thought it was normal to have six murders over a weekend. I thought it was normal that the black man and white man would fight, and the destruction of property from City Park to Pontchartrain Beach was the transition for a greater good. And I realize I was conditioned from a young age to accept it...but I no longer do.
I looked at that twinkling silver cube that must have taken a stupendous effort to create, and the true horror of it gripped my heart and soul. I saw the lives of men who would now be grandfathers, husbands, sons and brothers, just like me. And the loss, the monumental loss, filled me with the greatest revulsion.
When I participated in war, at 19, the questions I have today were indeed asked then, but the true gravity of the situation was not understood. It took fifty or more years of living to do it, and I'm still trying... as somewhere along the way, from learning the pain of death of a loved one, changing a diaper in the middle of the night, to working hard offshore for my family... somewhere in the middle of it all, as I grappled to find my self-worth and God in my life, I developed an empathy based on Love.
An empathy based on life experiences, something that is lacking at 19... an element of immaturity sorely needed for the war machine. You see, they don't require men like me to war, because I would ask the question why. And yes, I would die for this country, no doubt, but I will not die so that some man, or a corporation, will get rich... Before I pull the trigger on a fellow human being, I must know why. And I don't think that is too hard to ask!
I could not understand my feelings back then, dull and incomprehensible feelings that welled up in me. I grappled to understand the hate-filled glares on the faces of people at the airport, and some had even spit in our faces... I tried to understand the man who wrote obscenities on the bombs lighting up our horizon, and the people being incinerated by Monsanto's Napalm.
And through it all, deep in the quick, I felt the yearning and lonely solace of my country so far away, marking the days for my return... And as I closed my eyes in the night, in a room of forty other men, I was haunted by the memories of the life I had left behind... I had hugged my girlfriend around the waste while sitting at her kitchen table that last night... my arms held her tight as my head settled on her stomach.
And like the man I wanted to be, swallowed back my tears, my greatest fears, and told her I'd see her soon... I told her not to worry. I laughed it off, and told her a guy who was raised in New Orleans could survive anything. But the body bags were already coming home... the football hero, a neighbor's nephew, the young boy who had worked at the meat market...
I remember the seven people who told me goodbye as I boarded the plane the next morning, and saw them standing at the window from my seat... I saw my sister Cindy, and the love of my life, Maddy, and both were crying. I could never forget this.
We have all been betrayed in this life. Tragedy has stolen loving lives from us, painful relationships that dissolved, and yet we come away from these pangs with a new understanding and insight. But in war... this is another matter...
As I now travel to the Veteran's Administration for checkups... There are many men there suffering from what is called PTSD, Post Traumatic Syndrome. They saw things, did things, things that they never could justify, and so can not forget. There were horrors so great it follows them throughout their lives.
But to me, it seems that those who come away from that experience with some form of justification, are more able to cope... like the men commenting on that war memorial. They used words like justice, honor, good, and right, to keep their sanity. You see, without words such as these, the loss would be just too much to comprehend, too much to reason.
But for me, I find my solace in my unswerving need to find truth. My sanity, my very salvation, is this need. There are those I have known who have had faith, and are now but empty shells, and no matter how I try, my words bounce back unrealized...
Facts I consider today that I had no clue about at nineteen...
The military industrial complex, that we hear about, grew large enough in WW2 to win the war. It was so lucrative, so big, it refused to dissipate, and we were warned by one of our greatest hero, General Eisenhower, that it would control our country if left unchecked. He was right. Find his warning here.
From that time til now we have been in one war after another, and they get around this Constitutional breach by calling it a police action. When there is a lull in the tide of war, another fear is soon promoted, a new enemy created, and threats even from factions inside of our own government are manifested, like our right to bear arms, our open borders, or government spying, and out of this fear we buy every weapon and box of ammunition within reach. Very profitable, and pure genius! Unfortunately, few see through this...
International banking cartels vie to control the world first by war, and then by reconstruction. They care nothing about anything but profit and survival, and make money no matter who wins, as they back both sides.
Industry once found in America are put overseas in places conquered in a variety of methods, some by war, and others economically. These businesses are not regulated as they would be here, nor are there any viable labor laws. For all intent and purpose, they utilize the populous there as slave labor.
Prices can be kept low, and commodities sold back to us, the largest consumers on the planet, accepted by us even with low quality design and workmanship. They are intentionally configured to break one month after warranty.... we live in a throw away society for a reason.... It is designed that way, and it is very lucrative... and that is the true reason for war.
War is a racket. And here was our warning... and here. ...and here. But we did not listen. We did not have the power to change...
The Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air, and charges us interest for that privilege. When President Bush Jr. took the reigns of the Presidency we were at 6 trillion in debt, and when he got out we were at about ten. Now we are at 18.1 trillion, and gaining with no end in sight.
What is happening now as Saudi/OPEC floods the market with oil, is destruction of the last viable industry we have left, the oil patch. It is all about competition, as we made it clear that we the people overwhelmingly want to be energy independent.
The US and Russia are considered competition to these oil producers, and if they can destroy the infrastructure, cause layoffs, it will take years to recoup. If we could learn form the past, we would look at 1983, but one major difference is that we are about to default on our loans, just as the USSR did in the middle '80s. We are told to keep calm, as our country is sold to the highest bidder.
Our congress is the best money can buy. Almost to the last man they are sponsored by a multitude of industry, just as NASCAR drivers. Both sides of the isle take their standing orders from the same source, and all can be likened to a fixed wrestling match.
War is about corporate profit, and has little or nothing to do about fighting Communism, terrorism, or bringing in a nebulous idea like Democracy. A Republic based on law, as was our original concept for America, has been hijacked by a Progressive mindset of big government, and the domination of the people both mind and spirit, by hook or crook.
The only moral compass is found in their offshore bank accounts, and that is a black bottom line. They do not want to promote a Republic based on law, because they are the same people responsible for the destruction of ours...
My era, Vietnam, was motivated by the false flag of The Tonkin Gulf Incident. Learn more here. And though most have been well conditioned to believe the official narrative of 9-11, it too was a false flag. Learn about this here, and here, and here. The world you live in does not belong to you, and from every direction there is a concerted effort to control your mind and destiny. But of course, most will deny this.
Our Constitution has been suspended by the NDAA and Patriot Act. What seems viable is an illusion, granted by a powerful central government who dominates and controls every aspect of our lives from cradled to grave.
Those truly in power in America control the media, our educational system, central banking debt slavery, and we are now considered a socialistic state, where over fifty percent of the population are now getting some form of government assistance. Socialized medicine, has given government power of over a third of industry, with all of our personal information at their disposal.
Two days prior to 9-11 Rumsfeld stated that over two trillion was missing from the Pentagon, and yet we haven't the money to secure the borders. Can you wrap your mind around what two trillion dollars is?
We are not allowed to audit ether our own Fort Knox or the books of our true masters, the Federal Reserve. They have more power then the president, and is unaccountable by even international law or our Constitution. They can destroy us economically by just a simple notation, a virtual transfer of funds. We are utterly at their mercy, and supposed to trust them, and be calm.
We trust them with our future, the future of our children, our sovereignty, our lives and fortunes. We are told we are free, and yet we are not at Liberty to question their actions. Not at Liberty.
Author's note: Once, back in the year 1974, I became friends with a Marine who had spent two hitches in Vietnam. He had actually reenlisted to go back. I asked him why, and he told me he wanted to make things right, to have a second chance, and to back the men in his unit... the men he had left behind...
One night, after a few drinks, as the girls talked and laughed in the living room, he brought me up to a spare upstairs bedroom. There he pulled an old sea-chest from his closet, painted green, with his name and serial number stenciled on the top...
“I'm going to share something with you Ken,” He said in a serious voice... And he unlocked the pad, and opened it up. There on the top was a hand-made comb cut from a piece of aluminum, a clothe pin made out of bamboo, a plastic wallet with pictures of oriental children, faded from water, a woven straw hat with what looked to be a bullet hole in the middle, and there, wrapped in a gallon Crown Royal bag, was a human skull, with a bullet hole at the temple.
I had to sit down.
He had brought that skull from the theater of war, as a souvenir, a trophy. I was speechless, as I let this sink in, and I realized that this man had a side in him that he kept well hidden, and yet respected me enough to share it... but to me, it was a burden I carry to this very day, and hard to admit.
I knew emphatically, for all intent and purpose, that the side he was showing me was indeed insane, and a growing fear swept over me. What horrors had this man witnessed, that he would smuggle these items back, and keep them hidden under lock and key, as his life continued...
I didn't understand it then, and not to this very day... but to me he was ruined in a way, so deep inside, with a pain so great, he could never, ever be whole again. And soon afterwards he divorced his wife, and disappeared from my world... and I must admit I was glad. I saw in his eyes that he was capable of anything, and that his mindset was created in the horrors of war... and his perspective has influenced mine.
And in the process, over a period of many years, I have learned to hate war. It is indeed, the greatest of all waist, and the truest horror for men. And I work to stop it.
In an interview conducted By Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark, US General John Allen, Washington's special envoy for countering the Islamic State, discusses why he believes the recent military campaign has reversed the terrorist group's momentum but warns the battle to stop its ideology could take years.
General John Allen, 61, has served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS) under US President Barack Obama since September. He previously served for three years as the deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Allen uses the Arabic term "Daesh" when referring to IS in order to prevent having to say the word "state".
SPIEGEL: It took more than a decade to halfway stabilize Afghanistan. The situation in Syria seems even worse. When will you be able to say "mission accomplished"?
Allen: I wouldn't put a timeline on it, frankly. This is a difficult moment. The components of instability that we face with Daesh are found widely in the region. It's not just about Daesh, Iraq or Syria. There are broad-based undercurrents of difficulty -- social difficulties, economic difficulties, governance challenges -- that created opportunities for extremism to emerge and the radicalization of populations. So, while we are all interested in dealing with Daesh as the immediate threat, more broadly we're interested in the underlying factors that create these problems. A useful conversation to have is: How can we take action together to eliminate some of these social, ethnic, religious and economic problems that have combined in so many places? There are no short-term solutions. It's going to require concerted action by the community of nations. It's going to require ownership of the problem in the region.
SPIEGEL: President Obama has stated he wants to "ultimately destroy and dismantle" IS. Was it a mistake to set such a maximalist goal that is almost impossible to reach?
As you may recall, last week Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, released what was termed the “torture report.” Of course it was a partisan Democrat report that had no input from a single CIA official or agent.
Sen. Feinstein seemed to believe, for some odd reason, that we needed a “soul revealing” moment in America. And it came at the expense of our intelligence community with some false sense of ensuring a moral high ground over islamic terrorists.
Let me be clear, there is and never will be any moral equivalency between the actions of the barbaric savage jihadists and terrorists and the United States — water boarding, sleep deprivation, loud music, and even diaper-wearing provides no basis for comparison.
And as we have reported today, even now the British military is forbidden from shouting, screaming, banging fists on a table, or using insulting language towards captured jihadists.
Perhaps we should just play some Barry White and offer a little Chivas Regal to provide a soothing atmosphere.
With that being said, I have yet to hear or see Sen. Dianne Feinstein or any member of the Democrat party — including President Barack Obama — go on TV and strongly denounce this latest barbarism of ISIS.
As reported by the UK Daily Mail, “Four young Christians were brutally beheaded by ISIS in Iraq for refusing to convert to Islam, according to a British reverend forced to flee the country. Canon Andrew White, known as the Vicar of Baghdad, told the horrifying story how of the youths, all under 15, were murdered for standing up to the jihadists.
The vicar of the city’s St George’s Church, the only Anglican church in the whole of Iraq, has had to leave the country for Israel amid constant threats on his life by Islamic State.”
I’m sure the vicar takes comfort in knowing that if the British military were to capture these guilty savages they wouldn’t be yelling at them or using insulting language. Here we worry about making these animals drink water in large quantities while they’re slicing the heads off children because they refuse to convert to Islam.
And no, Islamist apologists, this isn’t just radical version stuff — this is part of the Hadiths (the traditions of Muhammad).
Here we have the Obama administration considering sanctions against our ally in the Middle East, Israel, yet cannot bring itself to crush this abject evil. Last week, the United Nations stated the individuals complicit in Feinstein’s “report” should be arrested, charged, and tried – but there’s not even a condemnation out of that dubious body on these beheadings.
The Daily Mail writes, “In a harrowing interview with the Orthodox Christian Network, White said ISIS had killed ‘huge numbers’ of believers in Jesus. ‘Islamic State turned up and said to the children, “you say the words that you will follow Mohammad”’, he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
‘The children, all under 15, four of them, said “no, we love Yesua; we have always loved Yesua; we have always followed Yesua; Yesua has always been with us”. ‘They [ISIS] said, “Say the words.” They [the children] said, “No, we can’t”. ‘They chopped all their heads off. How do you respond to that? You just cry. ‘They are my children. That is what we have been going through and that is what we are going through.”
So Mr. President, don’t tell us ISIS isn’t about Islam — and this certainly wasn’t “schoolyard violence.”
I wrote this Sunday afternoon. Many went to church yesterday professed their faith in Jesus Christ as Christians — but do we all have the faith of these four children? It reminds me of the Old Testament story of the three boys; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who refused to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar and were willing to suffer the consequences.
As written in Daniel Chapter 3, verses 15-17 (NIV) “Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, very well.
But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king.…”
If you know your biblical history, they were indeed cast into the fire and when those who placed them there gazed into the furnace they saw four, not three. And so they were taken out of the furnace and King Nebuchadnezzar said, Daniel 3:28 (NIV), “Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants!
They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.”
Of course Assyrian King Nebuchadnezzar ruled in what is today known as Iraq — the area known as Kurdistan. And one can only presume this occurrence led to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, the Assyrian Church — today being decimated by the bloodthirsty followers of Muhammad.
I pray for the souls of those four Christian children who would not deny their Savior, Jesus Christ. They showed the same commitment and conviction of spirit as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I know that each of those four have been welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven for their unyielding faith and their courage and grace under duress from the most horrible of evil and the most disgusting of death.
These four demonstrated far more courage than Senator Dianne Feinstein and certainly than our own president, who refuses to commit to the destruction of this evil.
Perhaps these children have provided us an example we should follow of faith. Perhaps we may be able to find something within ourselves to finally take the battlefield and crush this historical pestilence that has masqueraded as a religion over a millennia that has wrought nothing but violence upon the world.
Perhaps in a week where we in America argued over silly inconsequential actions such as water boarding and saw pictures of recently released Islamic terrorists yukking it up in Uruguay– these four had their heads severed because they stood for something. God bless their souls.
The question is, do we stand for anything in this “fundamentally transformed” America?
Vice President Joe Biden recently proclaimed we would “chase ISIS to the gates of hell” — well, it seems they’re going to be a bit delayed, as they’re at the gates of Baghdad right now. Perhaps those almost 1,500 American troops — boots on the ground — will be allowed to leave from behind the gates of the U.S. Embassy and compound to fight — oops, that would be combat, and Obama said that’s not allowed.
So could we be on the verge of seeing a 21st century version of the last U.S. helicopter taking off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon as the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong breached those gates?
And you must understand this would be the third U.S. Embassy that would have been evacuated in this year! First Libya, now it seems we’re doing the same in Yemen, and Baghdad could be next. I remember transiting through Baghdad as we moved in to take up our positions at Taji AB, just north of the city.
But it’s not just ISIS at the gates. The al-Qaida in Syria affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, is joining forces with ISIS — so much for those Obama air strikes to “degrade” ISIS.
As reported in the UK Independent, “Isis fighters are reportedly just one mile away from Baghdad as reports emerge of al-Qaida militants bolstering their ranks in Syria. According to the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, Isis was approaching the Iraqi capital on Monday morning.
“The Islamic State are now less than 2km away from entering Baghdad,” a spokesperson said. “They said it could never happen and now it almost has. Obama says he overestimated what the Iraqi Army could do. Well you only need to be here a very short while to know they can do very, very little.”
I suppose this is something else that will sneak up on the Obama administration? It’s clearly evident — well, except to the mindless progressive socialists — that Obama’s political agenda and narrative is far more important to him than the security of the American people or the precious blood many of my warrior brothers and sisters shed in Iraq.
Just last year at the UN General Assembly, it was B. Hussein Obama who spiked the football in his speech and took a personal victory lap before the world over his acclaimed achievement of ending the war in Iraq and bringing all US troops home — looks like he never consulted with the enemy about their perspective on the matter.
But we can all expect Obama to just blame the U.S. intelligence community — or maybe he’ll blame ISIS for not playing along.
The Independent says “Isis fighters were also battling Government forces in a key town 25 miles west of Baghdad – Amiriyat al-Fallujah. According to a BBC correspondent, fighting had calmed by Monday afternoon but a standoff continued along the main road to nearby Fallujah, which is under Isis control.
US air strikes overnight targeted other Isis positions in Anbar province, the Pentagon said, and in Syria four more oil fields controlled by militants near Raqqa were hit on Sunday.”
“American officials called the attacks “successful” but the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed mostly civilians were hit and a grain silo was destroyed.”
Folks, this is what happens when you’re just dropping bombs with no targeting assets on the ground to enable precision. I love the pretty fighter jet tapes that are being released, but all I’ve seen are a truck here and a truck there being brilliantly blown up.
According to the Independent, “The news comes amid reports of an emerging alliance between ISIS forces in Syria and Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front. The group is the Syrian offshoot of al-Qaida and has been fighting against the Assad regime in the civil war.
Despite months of clashes between its forces and Isis (also known as Islamic State) militants, the two groups appear to be forming a loose coalition in parts of the country to fight increasing attacks by the US and its allies.”
“Al-Nusra’s official spokesperson, Abu Firas al-Suri, threatened the coalition nations with retaliation on Saturday. “These states have committed a horrible act that is going to put them on the list of jihadist targets throughout the world,” he said. “This is not a war against al-Nusra, but a war against Islam.”
Ok, so I just have to ask, is this guy al-Suri a high school or college teacher of the “religion of peace?” Now, does anyone believe we should take the enemy at his word and realize that his reality must become our own? So now please remind me, who are these “moderate” Islamists who are going to fight ISIS again?
“Al-Nusra and Isis leaders are now holding war planning meetings together, a source told the Guardian, although no formal alliance has been confirmed. The reports follow growing defections from other Islamist groups to Isis, which is seen as better organised and equipped to create an “Islamic State” straddling Iraq and Syria.
A loyalty pledge was reportedly made by al-Nusra in June in the town of Al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, and the two groups have fought together against Government forces.”
People follow winners and in the eyes of those in the Islamic world, ISIS is kicking arse, and they want to be a part of that. Here in America we have a loser – and just so you know, winning presidential elections through deceit, media manipulation and nefarious voting actions doesn’t make you a winner, just a progressive socialist.
I’m waiting to hear the excuses when Baghdad potentially falls — which is quite possible within this week. May Obama be cursed with nightmares by all those who lost their lives in Iraq.
The “Lie of the Year for 2013″ was Obama’s “You can keep your doctor.”
The Lie of the Year for 2014 should be “ISIS is the jayvee team.”
But the greatest lie has to be, “al-Qaida has been decimated and is on the run.”
Leaders take responsibility, not credit, and winners don’t need to lie.
Alexander the Great is often attributed with the sentiment, “I would not fear an army of lions if led by sheep, I would however fear an army of sheep if led by a lion.”
On Wednesday, Barack Hussein Obama took the stage at the home of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), MacDill AFB in Florida, and all I heard was baa-baa-baa.
As reported by CNS News, “President Barack Obama said he will not commit U.S. forces to fighting “another ground war in Iraq,” and explained that he had built a coalition of nations to help Iraq combat Islamic State terrorists.”
I’ve included an excerpt from Obama’s speech below, but you can watch the video if you prefer. It must be quite reassuring to our enemies.
This is not leading. It is retreating. And if our troops deployed to Iraq do not have a combat mission, then what are they there to do? Oh, right, advise and train, the exact same mission Obama was recommended to approve as part of a residual force in Iraq some three years ago.
So, I just have to ask, do we have a Status of Forces agreement with Iraq now? If Obama hadn’t been a political dupe and instead was a strategic visionary then we wouldn’t have to contend with “retraining” the Iraqi Army led by the Iranian cronies. Furthermore, we wouldn’t have to see ISIS riding around in American vehicles and using American weapons.
We continue to hear about this armada of a coalition but have yet to see any credible proof of its existence. Air power alone cannot destroy an enemy — and who exactly will be on the ground coordinating the air strikes?
If the Kurdish Peshmerga forces or Iraqi Army are engaged with ISIS in ground combat operations, then someone in a U.S. uniform will be the GTAC (Ground Tactical Air Coordinator) communicating to our air assets. And if that person is on the ground alongside Iraqi forces in combat — are they not engaged in combat?
What kind of sheep stands before warriors – lions — and states, “As your Commander-in-Chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our Armed Forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq?”
Why do we have a volunteer military who understands the commitment they are called to make to support and defend this nation?
Far better to have a Commander-in-Chief who stands before these warriors and conveys to them a sense of confidence that we are going to defeat this savage and barbaric threat to our nation. To give them the directions and rules of engagement enabling them to meet the desired effects in the most expeditious timeframe and manner.
Can you imagine a top 25 college football coach standing before his team and telling them he isn’t going to commit them to playing the game? That we will support and advise a coalition that includes the cheerleaders, college band, and concession workers to play and we’ll lead them? Well, that’s what Obama the sheep basically did.
We lack leadership, but worse, America lacks courageous leadership. All we have as president is a weak speech-giver. Funny, he can muster far more anger and angst to commit his domestic ground troops to attack conservatives than to defend the honor of our Republic. Pathetic.
Uh, Houston, we have a problem. Back in January the terrorist group formerly known as al-Qaida in Iraq morphed in Syria and renamed itself ISIS and crossed back into Iraq and took over western Al Anbar province and the towns of Al Ramadi and Fallujah — cities where Marines and Soldiers spent precious blood to win. At the time, this group had an estimated strength of 1,500 to 2,000.
We did nothing then, as a matter of fact our President referred to them as the “jayvee” team — well, they’ve gone straight to college level.
As reported Friday by Fox News, “The CIA said Thursday that the number of Islamic State fighters has grown to as many as three times previous estimates, a day after President Obama announced he is drastically expanding the U.S. military campaign against the militants.
A spokesperson for the agency told Fox News that new assessments show that the militant group can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria. The spokesperson said the new figures were determined after a review of “all-source intelligence reports” on the group from May to August.”
So I go back to Obama’s speech Wednesday evening and ask a simple question. Can you degrade and destroy an army of 31,500 (equivalent to almost three US Army light infantry divisions) with a “very significant counter-terrorism operation” focused only on air strikes?
Military calculations for offensive operations will tell you that 3:1 is the preferred ratio, if you want to “destroy” the enemy. That means you are enemy-oriented and will conduct a multi-phased operation to include a pursuit phase to achieve your desired end state — the enemy’s destruction.
As we say in the military, “no plan survives first contact,” so will Obama and his crew of Keystone Cops adjust and perhaps allow the real professionals in the Pentagon and CENTCOM to develop a plan? Instead of his poll-driven political partisan drivel that doesn’t define success or victory.
I have to ask Mr. President, what are the area of operations and the area of interest? What is the shaping operation and what is the decisive operation? Where is our main effort and who are the supporting efforts? We already have further confusion in the command chain as the Obama administration announced a retired Marine General to be in charge of the operation.
What does that tell the CJCS General Martin Dempsey and the CENTCOM CG General Lloyd Austin? Are they supposed to report to a retired Marine General as we execute a combat operation — and this is war, it is combat?
Folks, we have watched, in less than a year, a terrorist band of brigands expand from 1,500 or so to 31,500. And yet Obama didn’t address the issue of domestic jihadist recruitment.
Fox says, “the new numbers are a big jump from the CIA’s previous estimate that there were at least 10,000 Islamic State fighters.The CIA spokesperson said the increase is likely due to the militant’s group (Islamic terrorist army’s) recruiting gains after its success on the battlefield.
“This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity, and additional intelligence,” the spokesperson said.”
The battlefield calculus has changed as the “assumptions” on the enemy’s strength has changed. Why didn’t Obama say we’re going back in to operate from Kirkuk AB which would cut down on the flight legs of our strike aircraft and would give them more “time on station” — that means being able to loiter over target areas.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no coalition. The enemy is larger than what was reported and assessed for Obama’s plan. The Arab nations are doing nothing. This is all reflective of the failure of Obama as any type of leader — and ISIS continues to grow and expand.
We’re sitting around debating and looking incompetent, weak and neutered. This is the result of electing and reelecting someone based on the cult of personality and popularity based on nothing more than charismatic speeches. America is going to pay a high price as we have witnessed the Christians, Yazidis and others at the hands of ISIS.
And Mr. President ISIS is Islamic — whether that upsets your sensibilities or not, I don’t give a damn — and thanks to you, their numbers are growing.
Dan Youra is one of the outstanding conservative cartoonists in the trade today. He follows in the footsteps of the great political cartoon masters, whose quotes inspire a new generation of followers.
"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will." ~ Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist
"Too many of today's artists regard editorial cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers." ~ Bill Mauldin
He was one of the first recipients of a Fulbright Scholarship and worked in Latin America. He served as an editor of Current Thought on Peace and War at the United Nations in New York.
"As long as there are politicians who continue to try and fool the voters, there is no chance of ever running out of material to work with because they create it themselves and about themselves," says Dan Youra.
Dan is the small business owner and operator of the Youra Studious located in the State of Washington.
In a July 12, 2007 speech, Former President Bush, forecast what could happen if the U.S. pulled troops out of Iraq prematurely.
In his desperate attempt to defy all logic from the former administration, President Obama is finding that President Bush was correct with his forecasts as far back as 2007.
