Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Only Fools Believe Obama Extricated the American Military from Iraq

The world knows by now that the United States and five Arab countries - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan - launched airstrikes Monday night on ISIS targets in Syria. The vast majority of the bombs and missiles fired came from US aircraft, according to US military sources. The Syria airstrike mission expanded the Obama "strategy" - a no-US-ground-troops military campaign against ISIS - from Iraq into a country whose three-year civil war has given the brutal ISIS group a safe haven to use as their headquarters and command center. Using a mix of manned aircraft - fighter jets and bombers - plus Tomahawk cruise missiles, the strikes were part of the military campaign that President Obama authorized two weeks ago in order to "disrupt and destroy" the ISIS militants, who have slaughtered thousands of people, beheaded Westerners - including two American journalists and one British aid worker - and captured large parts of northern Syria and northern and western Iraq. US Department of Defense (DOD) officials said the airstrikes began around 8:30 pm Washington DC time. The first sorties finished about 90 minutes later, but the operation continued for several more hours, according to one DOD official. Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the military made the decision to strike early Monday, adding that initial indications are that the Syria airstrikes were “very successful.” A White House official said Obama was updated during the mission. The strikes were carried out by manned Air Force and Navy aircraft and Tomahawk missiles launched from US ships in the northern Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, including the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, which is in the Gulf. It is unclear whether drones were used in Monday's airstrikes. The Syrian airstrikes were against ISIS headquarters in Raqqa in eastern Syria, including what the DOD labeled as the militants' command and control centers, re-supply facilities, training camps, financial center and other key logistical sites. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Senators last week : "We will be prepared to strike ISIL targets in Syria that degrade ISIL's capabilities. This won't look like a shock-and-awe campaign, because that's simply not how ISIL is organized, but it will be a persistent and sustainable campaign." General Dempsey said today in an interview with reporters as he flew to Washington after a trip to Europe, that one goal of Monday's strike was to prove to ISIS that they will find no safe haven. The DOD said the US also took separate unilateral action Monday night to disrupt an "imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests conducted by a network of seasoned al-Qaida veterans - referred to as the Khorasan Group - that has used an area near Aleppo in Syria as a safe-haven from which to train and launch terrorist attacks against European and American targets. The US has also increased its surveillance flights over Syria, getting better intelligence on potential targets and militant movements. Lieutenant General William Mayville Jr, the director of Operations for the Joint Staff, said today that last night's strikes are the beginning of a credible and sustainable persistent campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS. Mayville also predicted that ISIS will adapt to the new airstrike campaign and maintain a lower profile. He also described ISIS as a “learning organization...and they will adapt to what we’ve done and seek to address their shortfalls and gaps in our air campaign in the coming weeks." Military leaders have said about two-thirds of the estimated 31,000 ISIS militants are in Syria. Some officials have expressed concern that going after ISIS in Syria could inadvertently help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, since the militants are fighting in part to overthrow al-Assad. But in his September 10 speech, Obama vowed to go after ISIS militants wherever they may be. The US military started launching targeted airstrikes in Iraq in August, focusing specifically on protecting US interests and personnel, assisting Iraqi refugees and securing critical infrastructure. But recently, as part of the newly expanded campaign, the US began striking militant targets across Iraq, including enemy fighters, outposts, equipment and weapons. To date US fighter aircraft, bombers and drones have launched about 190 airstrikes within Iraq. Last night's attack included 14 airstrikes and 47 Tomahawk launches, according to DOD. Congress passed legislation late last week authorizing the military to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. Obama signed the bill into law Friday, providing $500 million for the US to train about 5,000 rebels over the next year. Obama administration officials have also been crisscrossing the globe trying to build a broad international coalition of nations, including Arab countries, to go after ISIS and help train and equip Iraqi security forces and moderate Syrian rebels. ISIS, meanwhile, has threatened retribution. Its spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said in a 42-minute audio statement released Sunday that the fighters were ready to battle the US-led military coalition and called for attacks at home and abroad. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it is hard to know what to make of the Syria airstrikes. Admiral Kirby told CNN's Christiane Amanpour today that the airstrikes may go on for a year while moderate Syrian rebels are being trained and armed. This strongly suggests that the ISIS "war" drag on for years. The Bahrain foreign minister confirmed to Amanpour that Bahrain would be part of the coalition for "as long as it takes." He also called on Islam's religious leaders to make clear that ISIS is not part of Islam. And Obama's statement at the White House early today was in a way his effort to pull both the world and American voters to his side. If we might paraphrase, the President was saying : "I have shown you my Arab coalition so it's your turn to prove you're my friend and my ally by supporting and joining me." And in America, it will temporarily drive up his ratings and make the GOP look bad if it continues to point out the very real insufficiencies in the Obama strategy. The President informed Congress last night about the Syria airstrike and we may well ask how the GOP can refuse or quibble over the budget Obama is asking for, especially after clamoring for him to act -- a dilemma for the GOP. But finally, Obama has done very little except drive ISIS underground, and unless the Free Syrian Army and the Iraqi army can help the Kurd peshmergas, in a month the bomb sites will be nothing more than desert ruins of another Obama failure. In the year it will take to get the renewed Syrian Free Army on the ground, Raqqa will need to be re-bombed and re-bombed. So why did the President choose to act now, knowing that no ground follow-up is available? Maybe it would be more useful to take the advice of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who says recent calls for lone-wolf terror attacks in the West are a larger concern than organized efforts by established terrorist groups. "The lone wolves worry me more, because they're harder to follow, they're harder to track. It's harder to get intelligence," Giuliani said Monday on CNN's "The Situation Room." ISIS on Sunday called for lone-wolf attacks against civilians in the United States and any country planning to aid the US in air or ground attacks against it. "When you have things like...this ISIS leader saying, 'Go off and do your own thing,' nobody has to communicate with anybody," said Giuliani, mayor of New York during the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the security challenge is the most difficult. Giuliani said that ISIS may be less dangerous than the hype about the group, and he also said ISIS has done itself no favors by alienating more of the world than al-Qaida has. It has committed atrocities condemned in some cases even by al-Qaida, including beheadings, crucifixions, mass shootings, rapes, and kidnappings. Dear readers, we may well ask, what is the right mix in the fight to hold the Middle East together and give it the dynamic cooperation needed to move forward? I still believe that a Special Operations-led combined ground and air blitz against ISIS would be better and more efficient than the drip-drip of a prolonged airstrike campaign while Obama tries to create a proxy army simply so he can continue to say that he has extricated America from Iraq. Only fools believe that.

10 comments:

  1. ...but fools rush in where Angels fear to tread!

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    1. When asked earlier today how long he expected the bombing of Syria to last, Lieutenant General William C. Mayville Jr. advised reporters to think “in terms of years.” “Last night’s strikes,” Mayville confirmed, “were only the beginning.”

      Obama has invented a new set of rules for the day, making it clear to one and all that if getting his way requires him to adopt the legal theories that he rejected so vehemently just six years ago, then so be it; that if achieving his ends requires further entrenching precedents that he was sent into office to smash, then so be it; that if his team must apply to Syria laws regarding Iraq, and to the Islamic State laws that relate to al-Qaeda, then so be it; and that, internationally as well as at home, if Congress insists upon maintaining a mind of its own, then it will just have to be bypassed, too.

      Imagine, if you will, trying to explain to an average voter in 2008 that by his second term the Democratic candidate for president would have adopted wholesale an interpretation of the Constitution that was championed by the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney. Less obvious, however, is what this means for America and her future. The bottom line: It’s not good.

      Where we are headed in this Constitutional struggle is was not good for yesterday, is not good for today … and certainly sets a whole new playing field for tomorrow.

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  2. To take at face value, to believe anything that president Obama says, to trust him that he has a solid 40 nations lined up to aide and assist in the fight against ISIS/ISIL is fool hardy stupidity on the part of the same people that elected this under qualified community organizer twice as president.

    Lt. Gen. Mayville, Jr. was right on in his statement that these bombing runs, Tomahawk missile attacks, and any various other sundries that are left on the shelves at our ammunition depots will serve two (2) purposes : 1. drive the terrorists underground to wait out our resolve & 2. it will turn the meager living conditions and housing into shambles for the people we are trying to what free/, save?, be our friends?, create another layer of Western hating terrorists of the children in areas like Northern Syria and Northern Iraq?

    Friends this stinks - period.

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  3. Less than 24 hours later Obama is at the United Nations discussing the mundane question of “global Warming.” He appeared at the great world socialist body just as if nothing he had ordered flew in the face of being irresponsible.

    We keep hearing about a coalition of some 40 nations, yet we only see the names of 5 or 6 and no word from them directly as to “exactly” what their level of participation was or will be down the road.

    Did we really know what we were doing Monday night or was this another aspirin factory strike just like Bill Clintons rush to cement his “legacy” with that much needed foreign war.

    Maybe Obama could be accomplishing the same rewards for the United States by securing our borders and keeping the Islamic (of any group) terrorist out of here.

    In the military there is a bit of a tease about the ease of conducting war at 30,000 feet where the soldiers (pilots) don’t have to look those in the eyes they are killing. So similarly it must be child’s play to conduct a war from the comforts of the United Nations in New York City on a warn Autumn day.

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  4. If separation is the only unavoidable solution today in the Middle East region, as in the past between Ireland and England, the Czechs and the Slovaks, or in the future between several states and the Kurds, then borders need to be redrawn and new states must be accepted.

    In the end friends when all is said and done, the Middle East will still be the lands of the Arabs and the Israeli’s. No matter whom lays claim to victory in this recent go around in the Middle East at days end one faction or another of Arab/Islamic sect will have won and the following days there will not be much difference for those living there.

    Why not redraw a few lines in the sand (Obama is good at that) and let like Islamic people rule each other; rather than a continuation of trying to force apples and oranges to get along … after all they never have?

    The one good thing that could come from such a move would be an understanding of allowing the peaceful existence of Israel among peaceful Arabs.

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  5. Mr. President please stop telling us about your fictional "broad consensus" coalition and simply tell us who they are and what is their level of involvement. A simple question with a simple answer. Someone in you inner circle must have the names on a list in their pocket!

    We the people of the United States have the right to know, and you must have the decency to tell us.

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  6. Via a AP report (from approx.. 6 hours ago) the first ‘crack” the first “opening”, the first “justification” to put boots/troops on the ground comes from National Security Adviser Susan Rice is asserting there's no plan to commit American ground combat forces to the fight against the Islamic State group…but the Chairman of the Joint Chief has not asked for them yet in a “direct request.”

    The wordage has begun to be changed towards “advisors” which is a small step for troop request from advisors in the filed … to full blown Iraq War #4.

    There is ground for this leap of logic based on Susan Rice’s 5 Sunday News program appearances right after the Benghazi murders where she firmly and unequivocally said (at Obama & Clinton’s orders) the cause of the Benghazi affair was a video of some mystical subject.

    Ms. Rice is nothing more than a spokesperson for Obama. She was rewarded for her then blind support of the presidents and secretary of State position by being elevated from UN Ambassador to National Security Advisor. The truth be known Ms. Rice knows so little about world security that she may have trouble with her “combination lock at the Health Club.”

    The path is now clear Obama will blame the use of troops on the ground on the military from here on out. Be prepared.

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  7. I may be the most war experienced person that religious reads Casey Pops each and every day. I look forward to the saneness that she brings to complex subject that have serious consequences to each of daily lives. So my comment today comes from firsthand knowledge of war in every region on this planet.

    When Obama for whatever reason(s) has us fully engaged in a land war in the Middle East again there will be human atrocities committed against the (as the terrorists will see us) invading armies of the Infidels. Soldiers will be beheaded, chopped up, diced and sliced to death. Captured women from support units (medical/administrative) will be brutally raped and murdered. As badly as the POW’s (and I know of what I speak) from the Viet Nam war were treated will seem like a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

    The Jihad terrorists/fundamentalists Muslim fighters will act like it’s a feeding frenzy in a shark tank at Sea World.

    So if we are all in agreement and understand the cost factor get ready because the show is just getting warmed up for Prime Time.

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    1. In theory I think we have to engage the terrorist once and for all. And better on their sand dune than on our 5th Ave in NYC.

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  8. It was said of president Bush that he went to Iraq and fought a war for OIL. So can it be said of Obama that he is going to Iraq to fight a war to win a senate election at home?

    "What price glory"

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