President Obama’s ISIS Strategy Isn’t Reality Based

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The Federalist: President Obama’s ISIS Strategy Isn’t Reality Based

President Obama's response to ISIS is another example of how our ruling class couples their illusions with whatever they find it convenient to do.

By Angelo Codevilla SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

President Obama’s promise “to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL” may or may not end up causing problems for the Islamic State. Surely however, it further degraded our security by further engaging us in the combination of fantasy and half measures that has earned America a reputation for un-seriousness and opened hunting season on Americans everywhere.

 

Obama degrades America by dwelling in a politically convenient fantasy world. In his September 10 2014 prime-time speech, Obama claimed to have made America safer by combining the withdrawal of troops from abroad with the killing of Osama bin Laden and “taking out terrorists who threaten us” in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Obama pledged to deal with ISIL in the same successful way.

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Obama’s Weak, Pathetic, And Too Little Too Late ISIS Speech

By: Ulysses Arn (Diary) | September 10th, 2014 at 10:44 PM

This evening in a prime-time address to the nation President Obama finally outlined his strategy to deal with the genocidal Islamic barbarian horde know as ISIS(I am not ever going to call them ISIL).

 

To be perfectly blunt this was a rather pathetic address to the nation, with a weak outlining of the threat ISIS poses to the United States and the rest of the civilized world, with an inadequate strategy to deal with the terrorist scum.

http://www.redstate.com/diary/ulyssesarn/2014/09/10/obamas-weak-pathetic-little-late-isis-speech/

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ISIS Speech Snap Judgements

September 11, 2014

8COMMENTS

Last night, President Obama announced that American forces would “will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy,” largely constituting an air campaign in both Iraq and Syria, and in coordination with the Iraqis and other allies.

http://ricochet.com/isis-speech-snap-judgements/

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Success or Failure?

Thomas Sowell | Sep 11, 2014

 

Those people who say that President Obama has no clear vision and no clear strategy for dealing with the ISIS terrorists in the Middle East may be mistaken. It seems to me that he has a very clear and very consistent strategy. And a vision behind that strategy.

 

First the strategy -- which is to get each crisis off the front pages and off television news programs as quickly as he can, in whatever way he can, at the lowest political cost. Calling ISIS a junior varsity months ago accomplished that goal.

 

Saying before the 2012 elections that "bin Laden is dead" and that terrorism was defeated accomplished the goal of getting reelected.

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2014/09/11/success-or-failure-n1888847

[Cyber_Liberty]

Success or Failure?

Thomas Sowell | Sep 11, 2014

 

Those people who say that President Obama has no clear vision and no clear strategy for dealing with the ISIS terrorists in the Middle East may be mistaken. It seems to me that he has a very clear and very consistent strategy. And a vision behind that strategy.

 

First the strategy -- which is to get each crisis off the front pages and off television news programs as quickly as he can, in whatever way he can, at the lowest political cost. Calling ISIS a junior varsity months ago accomplished that goal.

 

Saying before the 2012 elections that "bin Laden is dead" and that terrorism was defeated accomplished the goal of getting reelected.

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2014/09/11/success-or-failure-n1888847

As with anything from Thomas Sowell, I strongly recommend going to the source link to read his whole article. He's awesome.

[SrWoodchuck]

 

Pity Barack Obama. Our hapless chief executive must be suffering from a cognitive disorder the size of Alpha Centauri.

 

The poor guy grew up on the anti-imperialist mouthings of lefty poet Frank Marshall Davis, schoolboy revolutionary Bill Ayers and later anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, not to mention the well-known anti-American excrescences of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and now he has to go to war — as an imperialist — against the very Third World people he was told again and again we colonized and destroyed. His head must be about to explode.

 

No wonder he insisted in his Wednesday night speech that the Islamic State is not Islamic — what is it?

 

Hindu?

 

Zoroastrian?

 

A lost tribe of Hasidic Jews? — and that we are fighting an amorphous “terrorist group” (the Irish Republican Army? Basque separatists perhaps?), not the jihadism whose violent ideology has so obviously metastasized across several continents under many guises during his administration with no end remotely in sight. He dares not name our enemy, although it’s almost impossible to imagine how we could win without doing so. He cannot say anything that’s true because he doesn’t know what is true or, perhaps more likely, is terrified to know and then have to admit it. If he did, everything would unravel, not just the jejune Marxism of Frank Marshall Davis.

 

Everything.

 

But he does know what his poll numbers are and they aren’t good. So we are where we are. Half way in and half way out. Forget Winston Churchill. Forget Douglas MacArthur. The USA is going to war with a nowhere man who no longer knows what he stands for — and who originally stood for very little more than widely discredited and tired left-wing drivel masquerading as hope and change. Now even that’s gone, a distant memory.

 

We all remember the Beatles’ lyrics:

 

He’s a real Nowhere Man

Sitting in his Nowhere Land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2014/09/10/the-nowhere-man-goes-to-war/

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September 11, 2014

The Democrats' (and Media's) Obama Problem

By Monty Pelerin

The Democratic Party and the mainstream media joined to run interference for Barack Obama when he became a national figure. Obama was painted as a charismatic, competent, new kind of politician. The passage of time destroyed this image. Now, the public increasingly sees Obama as incompetent, untrustworthy and unmotivated.

 

Supporters are now in an awkward position. Do they continue to support what is increasingly seen as an inept president or do they turn against him?

 

Continuing the subterfuge is dangerous. Lending credibility to an incredible man is a certain way to destroy one’s own validity. Obama, once considered a savior and asset for Democrats,

http://americanthinker.com/2014/09/the_democrats_and_medias_obama_problem.html

[SrWoodchuck]

‘Vetted Moderate’ Free Syrian Army Commander Admits Alliance with ISIS, Confirms PJ Media Reporting http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/10/vetted-moderate-free-syrian-army-commander-admits-alliance-with-isis-confirms-pj-media-reporting/

 

As President Obama laid out his “strategy” last night for dealing with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and as bipartisan leadership in Congress push to approve as much as $4 billion to arm the Syrian “rebels,” it should be noted that the keystone to his anti-Assad policy — the “vetted moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA) — is now admitting that they, too, are working with the Islamic State.

 

This confirms our reporting about the FSA’s alliances with Syrian terrorist groups here at PJ Media last week.

 

On Monday, the Daily Star in Lebanon quoted a FSA brigade commander saying that his forces were working with the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate — both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — near the Syrian/Lebanon border.

 

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in … Qalamoun,” said Bassel Idriss, the commander of an FSA-aligned rebel brigade.

 

“We have reached a point where we have to collaborate with anyone against unfairness and injustice,” confirmed Abu Khaled, another FSA commander who lives in Arsal.

 

“Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values,” he added.

 

In my report last week I noted that buried in a New York Times article last month was a Syrian “rebel” commander quoted as saying that his forces were working with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in raids along the border with Lebanon, including attacks on Lebanese forces. The Times article quickly tried to dismiss the commander’s statements, but the Daily Star article now confirms this alliance.

 

Among the other pertinent points from that PJ Media article last week was that this time last year the bipartisan conventional wisdom amongst the foreign policy establishment was that the bulk of the Syrian rebel forces were moderates, a fiction refuted by a Rand Corporation study published last September that found nearly half of the Syrian “rebels” were jihadists or hard-core Islamists.

 

Another relevant phenomenon I noted was that multiple arms shipments from the U.S. to the “vetted moderate” FSA were suspiciously raided and confiscated by ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, prompting the Obama administration and the UK to suspend weapons shipments to the FSA last December.

 

In April, the Obama administration again turned on the CIA weapons spigot to the FSA, and Obama began calling for an additional $500 million for the “vetted moderate” rebels, but by July the weapons provided to the FSA were yet again being raided and captured by ISIS and other terrorist groups. Remarkably, one Syrian dissident leader reportedly told Al-Quds al-Arabi that the FSA had lost $500 million worth of arms to rival “rebel” groups, much of which ended up being sold to unknown parties in Turkey and Iraq.

 

At the same time U.S.-provided FSA weapons caches were being mysteriously raided by ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the senior FSA commanders in Eastern Syria, Saddam al-Jamal, defected to ISIS. In March, Jabhat al-Nusra joined forces with the FSA Liwa al-Ummah brigade to capture a Syrian army outpost in Idlib. Then in early July I reported on FSA brigades that had pledged allegiance to ISIS and surrendered their weapons after their announcement of the reestablishment of the caliphate. More recently, the FSA and Jabhat al-Nusra teamed up last month to capture the UN Golan Heights border crossing in Quneitra on the Syria/Israel border, taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

*****************************************************************************************************************

 

Not to mention the reports that both beheaded Americans....were sold to ISIS....by the FSA [where they were "imbedded"]....for $50K & $25K, respectively.

 

Via PJTattler

[Valin]

Is IS a State?

 

Aug 14, 2014

 

The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

 

The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.

 

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

 

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The question is...will they be a State 2-3 years from now.

[SrWoodchuck]

Obama Says He Will Play Through Congress On New Middle East War

http://www.conservativehq.com/print/18238

 

Looking more like a golfer reading a teleprompter than a wartime president, last night President Barack Obama announced he was taking America back to war in the Middle East without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), or indeed any public input at all.

 

Yesterday, we told you that President Obama’s speech would not renounce the failed Middle East policy he laid out at the beginning of his presidency and that his remarks would be aimed at solving his political problem going into the 2014 midterm elections, not the military, political and cultural problem presented by ISIS (ISIL) and the rise of Islamic State. (See yesterday's article through this link [10].)

 

We were right about that, and indeed Obama doubled down on the myth that Islam is “a religion of peace” by claiming that “ISIL is not ‘Islamic’” leading Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to dub the speech “”fundamentally unserious.”

 

After saying that the United States would soon begin operations in Syrian airspace, the President then dropped this interesting line:

 

“I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL, but I believe we are strongest as a nation when the President and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger.”

 

The problem for Obama is that is plainly not the truth.

 

In the summer of 2013 the House passed an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill preventing the President from spending appropriated funds on American military "involvement" in Syria without first coming to Congress for their Constitutional approval – and it passed unanimously we might add.

 

The amendment, which you can read here http://amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/RADEL_018_xml716131348284828.pdf

 

[11], says simply that,

 

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for United States military involvement in Syria without express authorization of Congress.”

 

So it appears the House has a policy on U.S. military involvement in Syria that plainly prohibits Obama from making good on his statement “That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.”

Via ConservativeHQ http://www.conservativehq.com/article/18238-obama-says-he-will-play-through-congress-new-middle-east-war

[SrWoodchuck]

His Royal Buffoon-ness: Barack Hussein Soetoro Obama

 

 

Via TheoSpark

[Valin]

 

 

 

Ouch!

 

BTW Jay this is what its like to get your ass kicked by an old fighter jock.

[Draggingtree]

Obama Gave a Pretty Speech

Posted on

 

12 September 2014

by eehines

 

As he often does. But what did President Barack Obama really say? I’ll elide his bald claims regarding his having “consistently taken the fight to terrorists who threaten our country.” Threats like ISIS; like the terrorists who destroyed our Benghazi consulate and butchered our Ambassador there, along with three of his security detail; like al Qaeda in the Maghreb and al Qaeda in Yemen; like the Taliban in Afghanistan, from which—and whom—we’re retreating; …. Yes, yes, we’ve killed a few key players in some of those gangs, but we’ve not damaged the gangs themselves in any material way. But enough of that.

http://aplebessite.com/2014/09/12/obama-gave-a-pretty-speech/

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Is Obama a War Criminal?

Paul A. Rahe September 12, 2014

10COMMENTS

 

Like many other auditors, Howie Carr of The Boston Herald was perplexed after he listened to Barack Obama’s televised address on Wednesday night. He cannot understand, any more than can you or I, how the President can deny that ISIS — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — is Islamic. He could have added that it was also rather odd that the President of the United States denied that ISIS is a state. “What,” we might ask, “does a state do that ISIS does not now do?” And Carr was no less nonplussed when Secretary of State John Kerry denied that we were going to war against ISIS, resorted to euphemism, and asserted that what we are about to become engaged in is “a very important counter-terrorism operation.”

 

“Does that,” Carr asks, “make it … a police action? Will we have to destroy the village in order to save it?” http://ricochet.com/obama-war-criminal/

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Real Clear Defense: Obama Ignored “best military advice” on ISIS

Posted by Aleister ▪ Saturday, September 13, 2014 at 10:24am

 

Because after all, Obama has such extensive military experience.

 

Obama may be America’s commander-in-chief, but he’s not a leader who is interested in military strategy.

Bearing all that in mind, this report from Dustin Walker of Real Clear Defense is nothing short of stunning:

 

Obama Rejected “Best Military Advice”

 

As he laid out his strategy to combat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, President Obama rejected the “best military advice”

http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/09/obama-ignored-best-military-advice-on-isis/

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OBAMA’S MISDIRECTION PLAY

By Larry Thornberry on 9.11.14 | 3:38PM

 

“ISIL isn’t Islamic,” our golfer-in-chief invited us to believe Wednesday night. Right. And La Cosa Nostra isn’t Italian. The Pope isn’t a Catholic. And a wild bear won’t…

 

This is just the most audacious of Obama’s many attempted misdirections. And it stands a good chance of being believed. By people who’ve spent the last 30 years on Mars, or by those who ingest large quantities of controlled substances on a daily basis.

 

As he spins his unique and entertaining view of the world, Dave Barry is forever telling us, “I’m not making this up.” Obama, on the other hand, clearly is.

http://spectator.org/blog/60405/obama%E2%80%99s-misdirection-play

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Congress Must Reject President Obama’s Plan for the Syrian Rebels

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | September 15th, 2014 at 04:30 AM

We as a nation must do something about ISIS. The organization is a threat to our national security. If we do not kill them now, they will come here to kill us. They are not a rational player. They are an apocalyptic player. They do not just have expansionist desires. They have desires to bring about the end of the world to usher in the Mahdi and Jesus. We must deal with this threat in the Middle East or in some street in the United States. But the Congress must reject President Obama’s plans to fund, train, and arm the Syrian rebels. That is not a solution, but an Admiral Ackbar moment.

 

The New York Times documents just how flawed the approach would be.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/09/15/congress-must-reject-president-obamas-plan-for-the-syrian-rebels/

[Valin]

[Draggingtree]

all I got to say WOW

[Cyber_Liberty]

Thank goodness for the "Arab Spring," huh?

[Valin]

Thank goodness for the "Arab Spring," huh?

Actually Yes. The political situation had been frozen for too long. Bernard Lewis (I believe) put it best after the liberation of Iraq, (I paraphrase) "Until now the Arabs have only had 2 choices the dictator or the terrorist, now there is a 3rd choice.

 

I would remind people that major changes in a society rarely happen bloodlessly. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the 30 years war, The Troubles in Ireland, The War Between The States, come to mind.

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