Wednesday, August 13, 2014

The Iraq Endgame Obama Tried to Avoid

"US airstrikes against ISIL ordered by President Barack Obama last week will not weaken the group's overall terrorist capabilities, despite slowing its advance," a senior US military official said. "We assess that US airstrikes in northern Iraq have slowed ISIL's operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances toward the province of Erbil," said Army Lieutenant General William Mayville, Joint Chiefs of Staff director of operations, according to The Hill. "What I expect [ISIS] to do is look for other things to do, to pick up and move elsewhere. So I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the threat posed by [the group]," he said. He added that the mission is helping Kurdish security forces by giving them time to fortify their positions as they receive additional reinforcements and US arms. Mayville said the military had no plans to expand its operations beyond the current mission of protecting US citizens and rescuing refugees, stressing that the effect of the airstrikes was "temporary," The Hill reported. It should be noted that military officers responsible for US airstrikes in Iraq are reporting that ISIS units are digging in and also dispersing among civilian enclaves, making airstrikes less feasible. ~~~~~ Senator John McCain has led the chorus of US lawmakers saying Obama's limited airstrikes in Iraq do not constitute an aggressive and effective strategy to combat ISIS. "I would be rushing equipment to Erbil. I would be launching airstrikes not only in Iraq, but in Syria against ISIS," McCain said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." McCain added, "I would be providing as much training and equipment as I can to ... the Kurds and I would do a lot of things that we can [and] not have to wait for Maliki to leave there. And I would be giving assistance to the Syrian - the Free Syrian Army, which is on the ropes right now because we failed to help them.” The UK's Daily Mail reports that ISIS' reputation in the Middle East is that of a ruthless force, too radical even for Osama bin Laden. According to The Daily Mail, the 9/11 mastermind wrote a letter disavowing ISIS and saying the group was so vicious it could damage al-Qaida's reputation. The Daily Mail says the 21-page letter was found among papers in bin Laden's hideout. ~~~~~ While the debate and handwringing go on, ISIS has subdued a huge swath of Syria and Iraq, blurring the frontier between the two countries in the process. ISIS has staged mass executions and displayed the heads of victims in village squares. Thousands of Syrian and Iraqi Christians have been forced from their homes by ISIS during their march across the region. In some villages, ISIS has forced residents to convert, pay burdensome taxes, or be executed. Some who have chosen conversion were executed anyway. And the Yazidis have been driven to Iraq's Mount Sinjar, stranded there for days before relief efforts began to supply food or water. The US, France and the UK have airlifted supplies to them, but the suffering continues, even though an evacuation is well underway. The question is where to send them that will put them beyond the reach of ISIS. And, ISIS has armed itself with American-made heavy artillery supplied to the Iraq Army and stolen after Iraqi soldiers either fled or were executed. They are also is making millions in black-market oil sales from seized oil fields in the region. And in each captured city, ISIS raids banks and hauls away gold and currency. Private Arabs have supported ISIS financially, and the world should be demanding that, to the extent banks are used, such payments be tracked, halted and prosecuted under antiterrorism laws. Experts are warning that the threat ISIS poses to the United States should not be underestimated, and that the group may be capable of launching attacks on the US mainland, as well as in Europe. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said Friday that ISIS had been focused on recruiting fighters to send to the West to "attack us in our backyard." The intent [to attack the United States] is there and we are concerned the capability is growing, according to a senior US official quoted by The Hill but not identified by name. ~~~~~ Dear readers, as President Obama scurries to stay ahead of his plummeting favorability ratings, he is facing the dark endgame he created by his own desire to do things his way, and only his way, in Iraq. His goal was to show that he was better, smarter, more sophisticated than George W. Bush. But he has fallen into a trap of his own making. And it is not only Congress and the media that are calling him out. It is also the American military. While nobody is urging the US to rush ground forces to Baghdad, there are now more than 600 US military special operations personnel in Iraq -- in what the White House describes as short term fact-finding and US diplomatic personnel protection missions. They are clearly also helping the Kurdish peshmerga military regroup, while they undoubtedly are trying to breathe life back into the Iraqi army. Vietnam ghosts die hard and many Americans must now be hearing the echoes of White House statements from the 1960s, announcing that American military advisors were being deployed to Saigon. Barack Obama finds himself in the worst of all corners -- he must do something to save the Middle East from being devoured by ISIS, and to prevent its stealth warfare creeping into Europe and America with ISIS recruits returning home -- and whatever he does must necessarily include US troop deployment. There are no other possibilities. The brutal truth is that if Obama had done what was required to keep troops in Iraq in 2011 and if he had led the region to maintain an allied front to control jihadist terrorists, he would not now be staring Vietnam II square in the face.

11 comments:

  1. In Vietnam the United States had a plan, an objective, a goal … and that was the preservation of the Philippine Islands just in case there was any truth and/or accuracy to the “Domino Theory” in the Southeast Asian region. The Domino theory simply stated said that if South Vietnam fell into the hands of the Chinese ALL of Southeast Asia would quickly follow. History has disproved that, hasn’t it?

    But in the Middle East that is exactly what we see about to happen if the likes of ISIS is not halted and some form of parity is not installed between the radical Islamic terrorists and the people of harmony living there.

    This is exactly what Obama, Clinton, and Kerry do not understand still today. This president (Obama) and his minions have no goal or strategy for the Middle East. They don’t understand the Middle East. They don’t understand the use of the military. They don’t understand the complexity of the United States government, it’s military or its ability to institute change – either by force or the presence of potential force.

    “To not understand the problem, is to not understand the solution to the problem.” And Obama & Gang have no idea what the problem is.

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    1. The terrorist nation-state of ISIS, or whatever they call it, is America's worst nightmare realized. Obama has describes ISIS as "junior varsity." I’m afraid that Obama is a liar.

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  2. There may well be 2 endgames in Iraq. One is the overall health and viability of the country. Since the invasion by the so-called American ‘Christian infidel crusaders’ during the second Iraq war, life for the Christians Iraq citizens living there (for centuries) has become increasingly perilous, and as a result their numbers have fallen by over 50%.

    Mosul is the site of ancient Nineveh of the Assyrians, many of whom converted to Christianity in the first century. It is considered by Christians to be the place of last resort inside Iraq, Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh Plain has been home to many Christian refugees driven out of Baghdad and Basra.

    Mosul has the only viable university, the best hospitals, and the largest markets serving the Christian towns and villages of the Nineveh Plain.

    With the arrival of some of the most hard core, barbaric Islamists in the Middle East - ISIS, it would be surprising if any Christians now remain in Mosul, and before long, if any remain in Iraq. The religious cleansing of Christians living in Iraq is entering the end game. Soon these Christians, these people of faith, these people that are guilty of only being “Christians”, these people who trace their Christianity back nearly 2000 years may be gone forever.

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  3. In a December 2011 video address of sorts, Barack Obama declared the mission in Iraq accomplished -- in his words, a "success." According to the president, we were leaving behind an Iraq that was "stable and self-reliant." Except we weren't, and Obama knew it and so did anyone else paying attention. Oh, the war in Iraq was won, but it wouldn’t stay won without an American presence as we are witnessing today. In less than 3 years Obama’s “stability & self-reliant” of Iraq has fallen apart.

    Regardless, the President bugged out of Iraq without an all-important status of forces agreement. In other words, like the stabilizing troops we still have in Japan, Germany, and South Korea -- we left no one in Iraq. The results in Iraq have already been catastrophic. But if Obama, the Democrats, and media stay true to their obvious desire to have Iraq go down in the loss column for America, these days will be remembered as the good ole' days.

    Thanks to Obama's highly dangerous combination for ambition and ignorance, ISIS is now a terrorist nation-state within Iraq (and part of Syria) with a standing army, a command and control infrastructure, control of a 600-mile front in the North, and a half-billion dollars. It gets worse… With only his re-election in mind, Obama fled Iraq before the country was ready, and as a consequence, when ISIS attacked, the Iraqis dropped and left behind weapons, many of which are American-made. Those weapons are now securely in the hands of ISIS.

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  4. In his effort to avoid yet one more problem - Obama has put the WORLD in the middle of a substantial problem in Iraq that could in reality take years to correct or a very drastic decision on wiping out ISIS in the Iraq-Syria region.

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  5. "Something's happening here, What it is isn't exactly clear, There's a man with a gun over there, What it is ain't exactly clear...." Buffalo Springfield

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  6. Well folks on the way to "no boots on the ground" something happened and we have Spec Ops troops on the mountain top. Seems militarily Obama just can't get it right.

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  7. There is a book that I think became a movie titled ... "Children of a Lesser God". That's what ISIS certainly must be - Children of a Lesser God.

    The danger lies in the fact that ISIS us so proficient in collecting funding that I worry that the other no-account terrorists organizations operating in the region wher ISIS is that they will feel compeked to adopt some, or all (plus some new vile techniques) in irder to be seen as relevant in the world of terrorism.

    What will life in the Middle East be like with 6,8, even 10 dominant terrorists organizations competing for the same dollars in order to continue?

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  8. US President Barack Obama, before deploying his golf holidays in Martha’s Vineyard, casually dropped that bombing the Caliph’s goons in Iraq will take months. One may interpret it as another layer of the Obama administration’s self-avowed “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff” foreign policy doctrine, not so subtly mocked by prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Shock and Awe in 2003 destroyed the whole of Baghdad’s infrastructure in only a few hours.

    Obama also confirmed the US was showering Iraq again with humanitarian bombing “to protect American interests” (first and foremost) and, as an afterthought, “human rights in Iraq.”

    One could not possibly expect Obama to declare the US would now bomb “our” allies the House of Saud, who have supported/financed/weaponized IS, in Syria and Iraq. The same erstwhile ISIS that thoroughly enjoyed the marvels of US military training in a secret base in Jordan.

    Obama also could not possibly explain why the US always supported ISIS in Syria and now decides to bomb them in Iraq. Oh, the perils of ‘Don’t Do Stupid Stuff’.

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  9. Evil does – as Evil says. Sometimes folks life just comes up on the short side of being right.

    There are times when confronting the existential truths of life … those that still evade the COWARDLY & POLITICALLY CORRECT Obama Administration more than seems possible.

    Some humans friends are simply and irreversible EVIL and they will not relent until we simply wipe them from the face of this earth.

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  10. “Obama: ISIS siege broken in Iraq, rescue effort not needed”

    This is a very latest news headline on Fox News.

    There are two things that could be happening here:
    1. That Obama is the most inept Commander-in-Chief that we have ever had. And include with him the Sec. of State, Sec. of defense, National Security Advisor, etc.
    Or

    2. There is something going on with and/or about ISIS that the people are being not told.

    For my part I’ll take all of both choices

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