Saturday, September 20, 2014
There Will Never Be US Ground Troops in Iraq...Thus Sayeth Obama
President Barack Obama's military campaign against ISIS has never been just airstrikes. It included Special Forces on the ground in Iraq from day one, already extending beyond the limits he first tried to outlined. But military experts inside and outside the administration continue to advise the President in public that an even greater expansion may be needed for the mission to succeed, including positioning US ground troops with front-line Iraqi security forces. Doing that could put Obama close to violating his pledge to keep Americans out of combat. For Obama, re-engaging in combat in Iraq would mean going back on promises about the current mission and abandoning a pillar of his presidency - ending long wars and avoid new ones. But, if General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decides that the ISIS campaign needs US ground troops, he told Congress that he will recommend that to the President. And if Obama refuses to provide ground troops in such circumstances, he would undoubtedly
be accused of putting his legacy first. He began by announcing a limited airstrike campaign, but the US now is pursuing targets across Iraq and is expected to push the attacks into Syria. Soon, the Pentagon will start training and equipping Syrian rebels to fight the militants. And while American coalition allies in the region are enthusiastic about the new American leadership role, even they are saying that unless American ground troops also participate, it will be difficult to defeat ISIS.
Robert Gates, former Defense Secretary for Presidents Bush and Obama has said : "They're not going to be able to be successful against ISIS strictly from the air, or strictly depending on the Iraqi forces or the peshmerga. So there will be boots on the ground if there's to be any hope of success in the strategy." General Dempsey also says that about half the Iraqi army is incapable of partnering effectively with the US to combat ISIS, suggesting a high likelihood that more Americans would be needed on the ground. The President quickly responded to Dempsey's comments by emphasizing his pledge to keep Americans out of combat missions. Last week, Obama told troops at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida : "As your commander in chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq." But White House officials have left open the possibility that Obama could accept a recommendation to put ground troops in forward operating positions alongside Iraqi and peshmerga forces. They would not be sent with a specific combat mission, but they would be armed, as are the 1,600 military personnel already sent to Iraq this summer, and would have the authority to fight back if attacked.
Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for New American Security, said that would leave Obama with "something of a rhetorical quandary. What is happening in Iraq is going to look a lot like combat," said Fontaine, a former State Department official who has advised Senator John McCain on foreign policy. While a CNN poll shows that 76% of Americans back strikes in Iraq and 75% support them in Syria, just 38% favor sending US ground troops to those countries. Obama will be searching for more coalition partners when he attends the UN General Assembly annual meeting in New York next week, taljibg to world leaders and probably looking for countries willing to commit ground troops.
~~~~~ The perfect rebuttal came yesterday to President Obama's simplistic strategy - thinking that he can defeat ISIS with airstrikes but no US ground'troops, aided by Kurdish peshmerga troops whom he has thus far refused to arm. AP and Reuters report that tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds and Arabs pushed through the Turkish border Friday as they fled ISIS’ latest advance in Syria. By sundown Friday, the militants had taken more than 60 villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, which says tens of thousands of residents have fled their homes ahead of the ISIS surge, adding to the over 3 million Syrian refugees scattered among neighboring Middle East countries, including the 800,000 already in Turkey. The Turkish borders remained closed early on Friday but finally they were opened to save the Syrian Kurds massing its borders. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Saturday : "Around 45,000 Syrian Kurds have crossed the border as of now from eight entrance points along a 30 kilometer (18 mile) distance from Akcakale to Mursitpinar since we opened the border yesterday." The ISIS advance in northern Syria has prompted calls for help by the region's Kurds, who say they fear a possible massacre in the town of Ayn al-Arab close to the Turkish border. Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Friday called on the international community to help Syrian Kurds, saying the jihadists must be "hit and destroyed wherever they are." Barzani noted that the United States is drawing up plans for military action in Syria against the radical Sunni Muslim group ISIS and said now is the time to strike in northern Syria and provide heavy arms to the Kurdish peshmerga, adding that ISIS is using confiscated US arms and equipment, and the peshmerga should have US equipment to be better able to fight ISIS. ~~~~~ Dear readers, President Obama has two problems. First, he announced his "no US ground troops" policy and refuses to discuss it with his own military or coalition partners, although both say that victory is not possible without US troops leading on the ground. Second, Mr. Obama talks a good story about working with the Kurds and their peshmerga troops, but thus far it seems he has not provided them with the heavy arms they need to fight ISIS successfully. ~~~ And, perhaps President Obama has a third problem - he continues to use the "no ground troops" mantra even while the White House is talking about the possibility of placing armed US forward forces with Iraqi and Kurdish troops. Now, this line of White House Newspeak nonsense made me remember President Bill Clinton. Remember when Bill Clinton faced impeachment over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky? Clinton was being questioned about a previous statement made by his attorney, Robert Bennett, that stated that there “is” no sexual relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinksky. Clinton defended his attorney's statement as being correct because at the time there was no relationship. He said, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none', that was a completely true statement." Fast forward to Obama and ISIS. Obama might say : "It depends on the meaning of 'never.' If 'never' means no armed US troops on the ground in Iraq because I officially announce that I will never send them, then there will 'never' be US troops on the ground in Iraq. And 'never' ask me to explain how the armed US troops already on the ground in Iraq got there, because I will 'never' tell you." ~~~ Got that? If it seems fuzzy, don't feel bad. Just consider poor President Obama, who is fighting a publicly reported ground war in Iraq while 'never' - and he means 'never' - admitting it.
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The one thing that these middle -of-the-readers, and the Progressive Liberals is (as I was told years ago) ...WORDS HAVE MEANINGS -and those meanings are pretty clear cut when the words are use correctly.
ReplyDeleteWhen Obama says there will be “No boots on the ground" he is playing a game of words. There are already military advisors on the ground (has been for months now) and the certainly have boots on, and certainly walk on the ground.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama meant that NO American military personal would not be part of any military action then he is hedging his bet. If American are acting as advisors sooner or later a group of Iraqi or Syrian being “advised” by American(s) will come under fire and the American advisor will participate in the battle.
So again Obama is lying to the American people and he knows it.
If the coalition (if there is ever a real coalition) doesn’t defeat ISIS, we may have a lot more “boots on the ground” in Iraq, which will likely lead to boots on the ground in Syria, which can end up where? All when there are severe budget cuts to the military. It’s the ultimate in “mission creep.”
ReplyDeleteThe United States Armed Forces have been cut back by the Administration. There are American troops in over 150 nations across the globe thus far. We have troops to ostensibly “guard” the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, plus rumors of Special Forces troops assisting the Kurds in Northern Iraq (reportedly there are 2,350 US troops in Iraq. We have 28,970 troops in Afghanistan that are scheduled to leave soon. We have troops going to take part in NATO military exercises close to the Ukraine.
Today the President wants to send troops to “fight” the Ebola outbreak, which could increase the total US troops in West Africa by 3,000. The Pentagon is asking for $88 Million more than the $100 Million already allocated to combat the virus.
Obama is a man who not only “leads from behind” but marches to the rear.
This is terrific and the ending has me laughing...
ReplyDeleteIn a December 2011 video, 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.
ReplyDeleteOh, the war in Iraq was won, but it wouldn’t stay won without an American presence. 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.
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. These American-made weapons could very well make the difference for the savage barbarians looking to wipe out Iraq's Kurds, the most pro-Western/pro-American part of the country and region.
Iraq was won. All we had to do was leave behind an American force that would continue to mentor and hold the Iraqi army together, and work as a deterrent against terrorist adventurism.
The fact is that it was Obama who ensured the premature pulling of our troops, because this is what Democrats do… DEMOCRATS LOOSE WON WARS.
Obama sayeth far too much it hopes that quiet by chance something of his chatter comes true.
ReplyDeleteI think the big problem right now is that 'we the people" have NO idea of what he is doing in Iraq/Syria except playing Commander-in-Chief with people's lives and future.
I think he has thrown in with the wrong side and is playing camouflaged games with the rest of us.
Obama says he has/is putting together a far reaching coalition to disperse and or end the terror rein of ISIS/ISIL starting in the Northern regions of Iraq & Syria. He has yet to come to the podium and enunciate what various countries comprise this list. But most mentioned countries for membership seem to all have one common denominator – they will not put up military components even to train & instruct. They will as Obama says contribute supplies, humanitarian components, away from the action aid to displaced civilians and escaping civilians.
ReplyDeleteSo what Obama is admitting is his failure to put together a fighting force. He believes that within a short period of time that the Syrian forces and Kurds can be trained to take on and defeat the advancing ISIS field force. Consider that France is going it alone in combating ISIS with their own designed Air Strikes.
Obama is questioning and vetoing his own military advisors planned actions and therefore in essences running the military op’s relying on his own vast military experience and knowledge.
America as the saying goes …’get in, sit down, buckle up, and get ready for Iraq War #3 being conducted by American soldiers again’. Boots on the ground, well Obama is going to have tens of thousands of little American toes all over Northern Iraq & Syria attached to dying and badly wounded American soldiers. Something that he will via his own stupidity and lack of knowledge and leadership justify
Is American “War Weary” as Obama says we are or are we “Obama Weary?” Has American really lost its will to help others incapable of fighting their own fight for freedom? Have we got to the point of only caring for our own comfort, and monthly welfare assistance checks?
ReplyDeleteAmerican – with leadership and commitment from the president – is capable of going into the Northern Iraq/Syrian region and wiping out this Rag Tag ISIS/ISIL army that is nothing more than provocateurs of Dark Ages, provocateurs of a religion that deals in brutality, male superiority, female child abuse (in many ways), providers of leadership and counseling under a uniquely ineffective religious doctrine called Sharia Law – which is NO law(s) at all, but just immoral weight that keeps the citizens under control; in essences an antiquated tranquilizer.
The conflict with, the rapid advancement of ISIS/ISIL is not about America not willing to do something …it’s about Obama not wanting to do something. A war with ISIS/ISIL could be over in Northern Iraq region before it started with the correct leadership and acceptance that it’s a military job – not a job for a Community Advisor from Chicago.
No success comes without a cost, and sometimes that cost can be "significant".
DeleteLet’s remember that Obama ran for the presidency and has touted throughout his administration about how transparent he would be in the operation of his government! R I G H T.
ReplyDeleteToday his overly unqualified United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power touted international support against Islamic State but won't name countries ANY of involved 40 countries that she and the White House claims are 100% in on this coalition.
“The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that the American-led effort to destroy the terror group Islamic State has support from more than 40 countries, but declined to name them or the extent of their support. It’s up to the individual country,” Ambassador Samantha Power told ABC’s “This Week.” She went on to say that France had joined the US in their Air Strikes … indicating that France was acting in accordance with the US which is a lie friend.
Obama it appears to be has NO countries of any significance in the coalition of his. So he is dragging out the UN Ambassador just as he did Ambassador Susan Rice when Benghazi occurred to do his fictitious story telling.
The world has always been a dangerous place, which accounts for why anyone needs a military. Assuming that a threat is not real does not make it go away. Calling it something else does not change its nature. But fools still make such pronouncements.
ReplyDeleteThe military option is not one that should be played lightly. In fact, many nations have realized that the best way to use a military option is to simply have it available so that no one will confront you. They turn it into a threat that they expect to never use beyond the threat stage. It is their last resort that they do not want to employ. But when you face an enemy that wants to fight; an enemy that sees the military option as its first choice, and intends to use it regardless, you are dealing with a different animal.
The biggest problem that America faces today in confronting the jihadists is overcoming the idea that they are “people just like us.” They may be people, but they are not just like us. Instead, they have more in common with the aliens in Independence Day than they do with the rest of us.
Within the confines of the Middle East region the (far-reaching) world is trapped in a ‘perpetual war’ and until the representatives, the promoters, the advocates of the ongoing genocide of those that represent radicle, jihad, terrorist, Islamic Fundamentalist call World Co-Existence are permanently eliminated; this war will rage on.
ReplyDeleteThis is simple fact. There are no bright sunny days ahead for the Middle East until ISIS/ISIL, al-Qaeda Boko haram, Al-Shabaab, Hamas, Hesbollah, PFLP,PLO, Ansar al-Sharia, Al-Nusra Front, etc., are eliminated. Neither eliminated nor slowed down – WIPED OUT.
So Obama and his inner circle of Progressive Socialists can talk all about a 40 plus nation coalition of forces that are still in the planning stages of the destruction of terrorism; the well-defined job is right in front of us just waiting for the free world to roll up their sleeves and get to work.