Ben Barrack:
When asked about how he plans to confront ISIS in Syria, President Barack Obama made a stunning admission saying, “We don’t have a strategy yet”. He said this at a time when the intelligence community is reporting a “significant increase” in terror chatter as the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/JePNVyW4Oeg[/youtube]
Reasons why Obama has no strategy for dealing with ISIS are varied but as Shoebat.com has reported, chief among them likely involves Turkey. As evidence becomes increasingly overwhelming that Turkey has a lot riding on the ISIS horse in Syria, the U.S. is in a bigger and bigger pinch.
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Bashar al-Assad gone. The best way to ensure that happens is for the U.S. to let ISIS make that happen. A defeat of ISIS by the U.S. would be a defeat for NATO ‘ally’ Turkey.
Reports also suggest that Erdogan is increasingly angry with the Obama administration and that the two haven’t spoken since February as Shoebat.com reported. In the minds of the neo-Ottomanists like Erdogan, Assad should have been removed a long time ago and it’s the U.S. which hasn’t been able to make that happen. Erdogan would see any successful Obama ‘strategy’ to deal with ISIS as another thumb in the eye to Turkey.
The Benghazi attack two years ago reportedly ended a covert weapons trafficking operation that shipped weapons to the Syrian rebels; this is said to have angered Erdogan. Then after attempts by Turkey to get Obama to declare Assad had crossed the ‘red line’, the best opportunity to get Obama to take the bait came last August with the chemical attack in Ghouta.
That didn’t work either. Credible reports suggest Turkey was behind it in an attempt to frame Assad and create the political appetite for finishing him off; that didn’t happen.
Seymour Hersh put it this way:
Turkey lost 80 Turks back in June when ISIS took Mosul.
But Turkey’s leadership believes ISIS is a puppet (armed by) the West, Obama in particular.
And, for a fact, Obama did arm ISIS when it was going against Assad in Syria.
So, the Turks have some rationale for their opinion.
As pro-Obama as OUR media is, Turkey’s media is even more pro-government.
So, the people of Turkey also believe ISIS is Obama’s puppet in the area.
If, as is his wont, Obama wants to wait for world opinion to lead to action against ISIS, he’s got a long wait coming.
Most of the old Islamic states, like Turkey, the UAE, Kuwait, etc., really sell their people an official line that terrorism is a CIA/American plot to make Islam look bad.
And it doesn’t do us any good that ISIS is running around in OUR tanks, armored vehicles, using our guns and rocket launchers.
Maybe Obama could grow a pair and act like the leader of the free world for once.
But I doubt it.
Does anyone with a brain wonder why respect for the US has fallen under this utterly incompetent buffoon? The level of clueless stupidity he displayed in saying “we have no strategy” is beyond cringeworthy.
Perhaps if this lazy idiot would realize he was not elected to be Golf-pro-in-chief, we might have a foreign policy more organized and focused than a room full of kindergardeners after milk and cookie snacktime. ISIS is MURDERING whole cities, Putin is invading Ukraine, China is becoming more bellicose, all while he is holding press conferences to tell the world that the US doesn’t have any idea what to do.
When obama said, “We have no strategy yet….”, he is actually saying that he doesn’t intend to do anything that will stop them. This says a lot about what he thinks about isis. Look how quickly he reacts to things that happen that he doesn’t like. Things he likes, he leaves alone. Having no strategy for a terrorist organization like isis, means he is all for what they are doing. It wouldn’t surprise me if he invites high ranking members to the white house, like he has other known terrorist leaders.
OK. obama armed ISIS. He said he would help them in Syria, however Congress put the kabash on that party. Obviously they are doing well with the weapons obama gave them and the American military equipment left overseas. My question is. IF ISIS attacks a city in the near/mid/long term does that make obama a terrorist? My guess is yes, it does. He will be complicit .
What do you want to do? Invade Iraq all over again, on the theory that third time’s a charm?
The first time we invaded we unaccountably left the Saddam Hussein government intact. We did secure Qatar at least—which has since returned the favor by funding Hamas and ISIS terrorists.
The second time we decided Saddam Hussein had to go. That was on the Things To Do list before Bush/Cheney were even sworn in. No one gave much thought to who or what would fill the vacuum that the destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime and the disbanding of Iraq’s military would leave behind—except, of course, for the U.S. intelligence community, which accurately predicted what would follow: pretty much what we’re seeing now.
Were those the sort of strategies you had in mind?
I think I prefer hearing a president admit that his administration is still sorting the situation out and considering options. The situation is very complex. There’s no obviously correct approach, and plenty of ways to make things a lot worse. In the meantime, there have been around 100 tactical airstrikes against ISIS targets. The U.S. hasn’t been sitting on its hands while waiting for the overall strategy to be thought through.
I’m not the only one who knows obama is on the terrorists side.
@Greg: #5
I lot of conservatives condemned Bush for this. Why don’t liberals condemn liberal president when they do things like this? At least us conservatives complain about things we don’t like, no matter which party is in office. Bush II got a lot of complaints from us. Most, if not all, of the conservative talk show hosts condemned him several times.
The only videos I have seen of air strikes were of civilian-type vehicles being blown up. No tanks, humvees , or any other type of actual military front-line vehicles. Why aren’t we going after them?
How is anyone surprised by this?
0Muslim simply sent a publicly air message to ISIS, and other Islamic entities, that he intends to do exactly what he claimed when he stated “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
The only thing surprising about this is that 0Muslim, for a change, is actually doing what he said he would.
Meanwhile, his tactically meaningless “airstrikes” against ISIS are nothing more than dog and pony shows designed to satisfy those that worship him.
After the UK’ PM announcement today that they are raising their threat level to IMMINENT Obama canceled his over night part of his trip today.
He will be back inside the WH tonight.
Something is afoot.
Retaliation here looks likely whether Obama wants to admit it or not.
He’s trying to be in a safe place tonight.
Perhaps a UK-led attack is going to be done.
Or perhaps it is just over-reaction to chatter.
Heck, maybe Obama was, for the first time, not telegraphing his next move!
@Greg: The Iraq War was a decisive victory in which Iraq was conquered and Saddam deposed.. The Gulf War was to stop Iraq from invading Kuwait, though the option of invading Iraq was open and considered during the Clinton Administration.
Saying the invasion of Iraq was on a “to do” list is childish, and misinformed, political rhetoric.
If our intelligence said this would happen, then the WH decided it was ok?
PR-wise, it looks as though we “took a hill, and gave it back”, a la Vietnam War.
Americans, women, and children are dying. I can’t pretend to be like an idiot lib/dem supporter and say “blame Obama,” but I will say his leadership on this is lacking and confusing.
If you wanted to hand the ME over to Islamic Extremists, helping them take over every region they can, you couldn’t try harder to do it than the actions the US has taken (or not taken) over the past six years.
It’s good and correct for citizens to question their leadership in times like this, as it would for us to question the Senate, Congress, and the President if they decided to go to war.
I understand it may go against your sports team (the Democrats), but you are not being a critical citizen. If you don’t understand that the current situations are what results in terrorist attacks on US soil, then I can’t say anymore to convince you.
@Greg:
Yes, you blithering fool – only this time we unleash the dogs of war, rather than listen to asshats like Medea Benjamin or any other hate America leftists – and keep fighting until we exterminate these cockroaches.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/28/found_the_islamic_state_terror_laptop_of_doom_bubonic_plague_weapons_of_mass_destruction_exclusive
And you can stuff your sanctimonious leftwing Chamberlain cowardice right up your fourth point of contact. These savages – whose like-minded islamofascist cousins killed almost 3000 people with 19 suicidal maniacs on 9/11 – are not going to stop trying to kill all us kafir:
Reading the article, this laptop was owned by a muslim fanatic who was studying physics and chemistry with the apparent primary motivation of learning how to use science to engage in terrorist attacks. This islamofascism is not a philosophy that can be reasoned with, as the goal is the complete subjugation of the entire planet to this satanic death cult. Godwin’s Law notwithstanding – had the surrounding nations made the effort to stop the Nazis in 1935 when they first violated the Versailles Treaty, or again when they annexed Austria, or at the third aggression of taking the Sudetenland, WW II may not have been quite so destructive, and fewer millions would have been slaughtered. But of course, the left wanted “peace at all costs” and allowed the Nazis to build their military forces up such that they overran Europe.
ISIS must be destroyed, exterminated, crushed and with such brutal military action that all the other muslim thug armies rethink the concept of attacking US territory, citizens or interests.
The last paragraph of the cited article includes this from the ISIS laptop terrorist instructions: (in bold)
You can bloviate all your naive leftist stupidity – just like the extreme left Obama administration did when it referred to ISIS as “JV” – and you can keep trying to defend the incompetent buffoon that Obama demonstrated himself to be with his “we have no strategy yet” hallmark of clueless idiocy. You leftists have shown quite clearly that you are incapable of protecting the country. You need to sit down, stuff your Code Pink panties into your mouths and get the hell out of the way while real Americans do the necessary tasks to ensure the continuation of US liberty, freedom and security.
Anyone who votes for any democrat anywhere is guilty of allowing any future islamofascist attacks against the US by the thugs like ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Less than two weeks before September 11, this statement:
But maybe ISIS is just planning to ”chatter” us to death.
Or maybe there’s more to it….as shown by what was on the ISIS laptop recovered in Syria this January.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/islamic_states_laptop_of_doom.html
How to spread Bubonic Plague.
Doesn’t ISIS know that Bubonic Plague is treatable with cheap antibiotics?
Also manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling.
@Pete, #11:
The quantity and virulence of insults around here often seems to be inversely proportional to the intelligence of their originator’s own observations. Some people are apparently much happier with leaders that act boldly and quickly, even if their actions ultimately turn out to have been abysmally stupid in retrospect. They can easily shift the blame for the consequences of their stupid actions later, because their supporters are incapable of recognizing that it’s their own gullibility that enabled those bad calls. You seem to spend about half of your time defending the Bush administration’s blunders, and the other half trying to shift blame for their lingering consequences to the people who have to figure out how to deal with them.
You know what I almost never hear from Obama’s critics? The specific details of what they would be doing instead. Take ISIS, for example. What exactly does the GOP suggest? It’s got to be something a bit more detailed than grabbing their crotches, pounding their chests, suggesting that Obama grow a pair, and advocating that we somehow take our enemies out.
@Nathan Blue, #10:
I was aware of the Iraq agenda that was clearly spelled out by Project for a New American Century and of who was deeply involved with that organization long before Bush and Cheney were in the White House. PNAC had posted it all on their website. They also documented their intentions in numerous open letters and petitions sent to elected officials during the latter years of the Clinton administration. The Institute for Policy Studies has kept much of this documentation available for examination since PNAC began tidying things up and then went low profile in 2006.
Basically, it’s known what the neoconservative geopolitical agenda and intentions were because they publicly announced them. Rumsfeld and Cheney were prominent in PNAC before they became part of the Bush administration.
This quote, from the PNAC’s year 2000 publication Rebuilding America’s Defenses, has always stuck in my mind:
The 9/11 attack filled the need perfectly. Our subsequent preemptive invasion of Iraq can only be properly understood in the context of that statement. The intention was already there. All that was needed was an event to make the selling of the need for an invasion possible.
During the admission that, YES, the ENTIRE US/Mexico border is at risk for an attack from ISIS, the Dept of Homeland Security pulls an Obama and blames …..wait for it, because it’s a doozy…..James O’Keefe.
Yeah, sure.
ISIS had no intent to target the USA via our porous border UNTIL they saw a James O’Keefe video that showed just how open our border is.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/08/29/Exclusive-Breitbart-Texas-Verifies-ISIS-Threat-With-Leaked-Doc
The leaked document:
http://www.breitbart.com/mediaserver/4BF213C02EED4A4DA9447A86439030F3.jpg
@Greg:
You seem to forget, or willfully ignore, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 signed by a Democrat, Bill Clinton.
Guess Clinton was just duped by those evil Republicans, right?
For whatever it’s worth, btw, my own thought on ISIS is that the world would be a far better place if they were dead to the last man. They’re homicidal psychos. There’s little basis for argument with that estimation. Unfortunately agreeing on that point has little to do with the far more complicated question of what can actually be done about them.
@retire05, #16:
You seem to be ignoring one not-so-minor detail yourself: The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 acknowledged that regime change in Iraq was a desirable goal. It didn’t advocate a preemptive military invasion and occupation of the nation as the means for achieving that end.
@Greg:
Yeah, Greggie, all those stupid Democrats who voted for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 didn’t really think Iraq was a threat although other Dems kept telling them it was. Guess they just thought the Tooth Fairy would liberate Iraq.
@retire05, #19:
The point was to assist the groups that were opposing the Saddam Hussein regime. People tend to value their freedom more when they win it themselves. The results also tend to be more stable than what you get when an external force invades and displaces a former dictator, sets up a government, and then vanishes with all of the original internal divisions remaining and growing worse.
How do you like the results of that 2 trillion dollar experiment? You really do seem to want to repeat it again just to see if it will come out differently this time. And maybe confront Russia militarily, for good measure.
@Greg:
And how were we doing that? Were we secretly arming opposition to Saddam?
We got purple fingers from Iraq for the effort, all now thrown away by Obama.
How does it feel to watch ISIS, and Putin, make a fool out of the man you worship, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr?
Greg, Bush 43s incursion into Iraq was resumptive, NOT preemptive. Yet another bit of lefty revisionist hisory corrected.
@Me:
Don’t use logic or a big word when addressing Greggie. He doesn’t understand either one.
@retire05, #21:
Two trillion dollars for purple fingers, mostly belonging to those who supported the guy who methodically marginalized the religious faction that’s now taken up arms with ISIS? I don’t think everyone in Iraq really got the democracy concept to begin with. Nor has the right ever grasped that reality. They don’t want to get it. Their entire fantasy that the Bush administration had a sensible, workable plan that was a total success until Obama came along depends on not getting it.
Face the facts. The Bush administration was a disaster. Ultimately they broke everything they played with, leaving their successor with the unenviable task of trying to put it all back together while their own party worked relentlessly to block his every effort and erode public confidence in them and in him personally at every turn. The only thing that can be said for the Bush administration is that their policies made the rich even richer, and that accomplishment has had enormous costs. Point to something else they did that hasn’t since gone wrong.
@Greg:
Actually, there was a lot of thought as to who would fill the vacuum but only by conservatives. It was the liberals who left Iraq before the completion of the action. You can blame this administration for the issues in Iraq, not Bush. It takes time to train an army or a police force (About 20 years).
Actually, Greg, the people in Iraq did get democracy. I was there. I talked with them every Sunday for years helping them to understand their responsibilities as individuals in a democratic government. They got it! They wanted it. A successful Iraq would have changed the face of all the countries of the middle east, but Bush, not Obama would have had the credit. Obama shut down their dreams when he failed to leave supporting troops in Iraq to support an army of neophytes. You can spin this all you want, but Obama will go down in history as losing all of the middle east, not just Iraq.
@Greg: Doing NOTHING IS NOT A STRATEGY GREGGIE!! He is commander and chief (sadly with no experience) and the Pentagon reacts to his orders!!
@Greg: And Greggie forgets the fact that Democrats supported his action!!
@Greg:
Greggie, I realize that your position is that of one who is tasked with defending Obama. But you are a major failure.
Let’s take a look at the disaster we have now, shall we?
The lowest number of Americans in the labor force since Jimmie Carter in spite of an increase of millions in our population(not on Bush’s watch)
The most people on food stamps, ever (not on Bush’s watch)
The decrease in median wage and a decrease in middle income wages (not on Bush’s watch)
The entire Middle East blowing up because Obama was too inept to renegotiate the SOFA. His campaign promise to pull all the troops out of Iraq was more important to him than a stable Middle East.
And while I am sure that you railed on Bush over the debt, you say nothing about it under Obama. So shall we take a look at the debt of Bush, that Democrats whined about, compared to the debt under Obama?
Debt on Jan. 20, 2001 – $5,727,776,738,304.64
Debt on Jan. 20, 2009 – $10,626,877,048,913.08
Today’s debt – $17,721,613,306,706.18
So in 68 months Obama has increased the debt more than George W. Bush did in 96 months. Yet on that issue, all we get from you are crickets.
Actually, the 1% has gotten wealthier under Obama while the middle class has gotten poorer. Get your facts straight.
Now, after almost six years in office, Obama has no plan on how to deal with radical Islam. Guess it’s hard to think about those kinds of things when you spend so much time on the golf course and at fund raisers. The only thing I have agreed with Obama on was his decision not to take us to war in Syria. There are no good guys in Syria. But on everything else the Community Organizer in Chief has been a major failure.
Remind me again where Obama was when the mission to capture Osama bin Laden started.
What don’t you understand about the fact that consequences tend to follow sometime after their causes, rather than appearing spontaneously the moment a Democratic president enters the White House?
I’m guessing you’ll suddenly grasp this difficult point, should Republicans regain control.
@Greg:
Well then, if you accept that premise, then you have to accept that the reason for the housing mortgage industry crash of 2008, that started the recession, was due to Bill Clinton’s actions on the Community Reinvestment Act and the requirements he set for the GSEs.
Glad to see you are finally coming around.
@Greg: Greggie, at what point does a President become President?? 0-blama is responsible for 0-blamacare and it’s consequences not BUSH!! 0-blama looked America in the face and said if you like your health insurance and/or Doctor you can keep them “period” with no caveats but rather “period”!! Fact is 5 million Americans lost their insurance due to this failure and the group plan implementation hasn’t even started. Yep consequences that the next President will have to deal with and yes for America’s sake I hope it will be a Republican!! Consequences of a DO nothing Senate could hopefully come to an end this year!! 0-blama told America that Iraq had a Democratic government and he also said Al Qaeda was on their heals. WE know now he lied about this as well. 0-blama can NOT point to one success in his entire Presidency unless you consider lowering his own handicap at golf!!
Greg, perhaps it has escaped your notice that when a Republican enters the White House, he does not spend any time, much less a term and nearly a half, blaming his predecessor!
As an intellectual exercise, open-border-supporting lefties, please explain how you will be able to blame the previous president when a terrorist attack is perpetrated by Middle Easterners streaming through our now non-existent southern border. Now THAT is a consequence!
@Greg:
Keep channeling Chamberlain. Stupid is as stupid does.
Your side did everything possible to hamper the war efforts, which Obama continued on e he took office. Bush One didn’t allow us to remove Saddam during the Gulf War, and despite 17 YEARS of containment strategy by Bush and Clinton, Saddam continued his malevolence until we finally deposed him under Bush Two. Even then, the left insisted on hampering military operations via political chicanery, with the media breathlessly reporting daily casualty stats (which stopped once Obama took office) and giving free publicity to traitors like the scum from Code Pink.
ISIS has openly declared war on the US, and controls a swath of land extending from Syria into Iraq, and are murdering hundreds almost daily, including the brutal beheading of American journalist Foley. We have the captured laptop showing ISIS working on ways to engage in biochemical terrorist attacks against the US. Despite these threats to our homeland, you leftists want to whine and oppose efforts to protect US citizens from such attacks. Obama acts to shrink the military, and threatens to enact suicidal amnesty via executive order, refusing to control our southern border and admitting he has no strategy to deal with ISIS.
The military should be increased in size and combat strength, paid for by cutting welfare rolls by 50%. US military forces should be deployed to engage and annihilate ISIS and remain in Iraq as long as it takes to exterminate every jihadist in the region, and assist the Iraqis who want a peaceful society in establishing a stable government. Any captured terrorists should be waterboarded until they have no useful intelligence left to provide, then executed. Any Code Pink fanatics who protest should be tried for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, then stripped of their US citizenship and dropped into whatever third world hellhole that will take them. Finally, our military will be given ROE that supports the complete destruction of any enemy of the US.
And you can shove your characterization of “crotch grabbing and chest thumping”, Greg. I did 3 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, helping those muslims who worked with us and fighting those that opposed us. It is well past time for us to treat this jihadist threat seriously, and wimpy deployment of surgical airstrikes and military advisors ain’t gonna cut it. Relying on Iran is even more stupid than Clinton and Aspin relying on Dutch armor support of US forces in Somalia, which they did in denying the commander’s request for US armor support.
When your enemy wants to kill you, the leftist tactic of trying to talk out a solution never, ever works. Failure to understand your enemy and his stated goals means our children will have an even harder fight. After all, Hitler was quite clear in describing his intentions in Mein Kampf, and the world paid a very dear price by ignoring his words, just as Obama and the left are doing now.
And exactly how do you suggest we deal with that situation? Eliminate yet another of Iran’s big worries at the cost of U.S. lives and dollars, just to find ourselves back where we were the last time? Meanwhile, there’s Vladimir Putin to worry about. And Iran, and North Korea, and China’s growing ambitions.
There’s got to be a smarter play than that. Yanking the rug out from under Americans depending on our social programs to pay for another questionable war doesn’t strike me as being it.
Hey, maybe we could adopt a traditional approach: We could raise taxes to pay for military expansion, rather than cutting taxes and running a tab. If it’s not worth that to the people advocating more military spending, I might find myself questioning their sincerity.
@Greg:
No, Greggie; how do YOU suggest we deal with the rising threat that is ISIS? You seem to have all the answers. Provide that one.
News flash, my little Marxist: our military is Constitutionally mandated. Welfare for those who are too damn lazy to get an education that would allow them to get a job is not. Maybe if Obama had not run up our national debt so high we could afford both. But that never entered your indoctrinated brain, did it?
@Greg:
Yet again, the resident leftist says the solution is to raise taxes. Baloney. It is not the government’s job, as defined in the Constitution, to buy food, housing, crappy socialist health insurance, or provide any other financial support to adults. It absolutely is the job of the federal government to defend the nation. Welfare only increases the number of people on welfare by taking more and more from those who earn it, and producing nothing but more hands out for “free” money. Destroying enemies and having the will to stay long enough to help an indigenous population establish a stable, peaceful government pays much better dividends to our children, as well as to the conquered. Reagan didn’t blame Carter, especially not 6 years into his time in office, for any problems his administration had. And using Putin’s aggression as an excuse to avoid doing what is necessary with ISIS is typical leftist deflection.
The military has a genuine purpose. Wasting more trillions of dollars on the leftist vote buying scam known as welfare is naked political malfeasance with no discernible benefit to anyone other than leftist political hacks like Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Obama and Clinton.
You don’t know a Marxist from a croquet mallet.
Suggestions? We should provide weapons, financial backing, and critical intelligence to the regional factions that are resisting ISIS and provide air support when and where it will help. We should methodically target ISIS leadership, killing as many of them as possible. Those actions should be put to a vote in Congress. It can’t wait until after the elections. Congress should also take up the matter of U.S. citizens who have joined ISIS ranks. They shouldn’t be able to return to the United States without being subject to arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment if they’re deemed to be a threat. If they’re found while engaging in warfare overseas as part of an organization that has declared itself an enemy of the United States, there should be some legal basis for targeting them.
I don’t support putting U.S. forces on the ground. We’ve been down that road before. We can’t impose stability by force and have it last beyond the point when that force leaves. Nor can we wait 20 years for these idiots to stop being idiots. The locals have to be responsible for maintaining the sort of order they want and need themselves.
I imagine the strategic plan that will emerge will be some variation on all that.
Regarding Russia and the Ukraine, I think the most logical approach is the one being taken. Avoid direct military confrontation, and keep piling on the sanctions until the cumulative economic damage turns Putin’s oligarchy against him.
Western Sanctions And Rising Debts Are Already Strangling The Russian Economy
Knee-jerk reactions aren’t smart. That’s how we allowed a $500,000 attack on 9/11 to ultimately do an estimated $5 trillion in economic damages to the United States.
I realize, of course, that I’m talking to people who don’t or won’t consider this sort of logic.
Greg, the smartest play is unpalatable even to those of us who understand and appreciate the cost. It is to comprehend the depravity of our enemy and truly fathom their end desires.
When faced with an implacable enemy, which the vast majority of the leaders in the middle east appear to be, you face an impasse of ideologies, if not philosophies. At which point, the question becomes, can we agree to disagree on certain principles and coexist, or can we not?
At every turn, our counterparts consistently express their unwillingness to reach a happy medium. Further, they see every olive branch as a sign of weakness. At which point, Greg, are the rest of the world’s governments within their rights to stop acquiescing to these bozos?
@Me, #40:
That’s a very good question. I’ve grown weary of my own country perpetually being on call to solve problems that should more directly be the concern and responsibility of others. I’m beginning to think maybe they won’t take responsibility so long as we’re quick to step in.
@Greg:
Well, obviously, the Community Organizer in Chief didn’t think that was a good idea. When Iraq was begging him to send air support and bomb the ISIS staging areas, he did nothing. And I doubt that we know exactly who the Americans are that have joined ISIS. How do you know if they are fighting for ISIS or not? Or do we just drone anyone that might be part of ISIS?
As to ISIS in Syria; many ISIS fighters were once with the Free Syria Army. There are no good guys in Syria. So which ones would you help, and which ones would you take out? Either way, the last ones standing will eventually come after us.
It is clear you know nothing of the Russian people. Of all people in Europe, the Russians, more than any other, can endure hardships that no other people would survive under. Obama’s pantie waist sanctions will do little. As the sanctions continue, Putin’s favorability rating continues to climb.
Where do you get a $500,000.00 attack on 9/11? Exactly how much do you think the Twin Towers were worth? What was the cost in loss of almost 3,000 lives?
Yet you ignore the $7.1 trillion in debt that Obama has racked up in just 68 months. Bet it makes you all warm and fuzzy thinking about the debt he can rack up in 8 years.
When your enemy cannot be placated, you are left with one option. Smash them until they can accept no more smashing.Your alternative is them smashing you, whenever they think they can. Turn Israel loose and let them do plenty of additional smashing. In the interim, frack the hell out of all the domestic resources you have, such that basic economics drive these simple-minded troglodytes back into the stone-age craphole from which they came. Rest assured, they would do it to us, given the chance.
I realize that statement lacked nuance, but for far too long we have attempted to apply nuance to a situation wherein huge displays of force will carry a much greater exclamation point than additional talks with people whose ideology precludes a negotiable settlement. After all, such displays on their part have drawn our attention to these assholes, have they not?
Developing true energy independence will drive these cro-mags back into the footnotes of history, where they and their progeny belong! Good riddance to unbelievably bad rubbish!
Greg: I understand and appreciate your point regarding the US being the world’s policeman. The real issue is not so much, should we do it, as it is, who will do it in our stead? Make no mistake, Greg, the job will be done, the only relevant question is; by whom?
@retire05, #42:
Half-a-million dollars is what it has been calculated to have cost al Qaeda to prepare for and carry out the entire 9/11 attack. Five trillion dollars is the estimated cost or our response to the U.S. economy. There’s an important lesson in there about the nature of asymmetrical warfare.
An admirable trait, no doubt. Maybe it’s because of their excessive rate of vodka consumption.
I was talking about the small oligarchy of Russian billionaires that Putin has thus far managed to keep under his thumb, however. His adventure in Ukraine has already cost them billions. The Russian economy is becoming increasingly shaky. They’re likely none too happy about the prospect of even more sanctions.
@Greg:
What a clownish and blind answer. It sure seems like giving weapons and munitions to the forces that were fighting Qaddafi worked out so very well, didn’t it? ISIS also seems to be using all kinds of US military weapons.and vehicles that we gave to Iraq. If such a shortsighted strategy had a chance of working, why didn’t we simply just continue with Lend Lease and let the British take care of the nazis instead of sending troops? And you continue to avoid the very real impact that leftist antiwar agitprop had in hampering US military operations in tbe form of stupid ROE and early withdrawal.
As far as the effect sanctions are having on Putin, what a laugh. Despite tbe alleged success you claim sanctions are having against Russia, Ukraine is more endangered than ever, and just yesterday Putin was rattling his saber about retaking Kazahkstan. Sanctions didn’t get our hostages back from Iran, and they sure haven’t stopped Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And marxists are less intelligent than croquet mallets, but the mallets have far more integrity.
Whenever we have new leadership in the United States it is evident there are those around the world who will ‘test’ that leadership…O fraud has been tested a lot. There are those around the world want to see how many buttons they can push….then wait for a reaction…
These savages are laser focused and on a mission. Period.
As we are finding out, Mr. Foley paid the ultimate price for ‘trying to bridge a gap’ – trying to understand – trying for a peaceful conclusion.
Those of us who have been paying attention can see as plain as daylight these savages do not care about negotiations, except when those negotiations include large sums of money. The they do not indulge in trivia’s such as trying to ‘be understood’.
An analogy that crept into my mind regarding these savages has been the movie Aliens. Savage, unfeeling, grotesque monsters…with one aim, one mission. Monsters who keep multiplying….
It boils down to kill or be killed. It is a malignant cancer and it is metastasizing before our eyes and must be cured…take no prisoners. We, and the world are left with no choice.
We have witnessed the pin point accuracy of our weapons during Iraq. Unless it is untrue it has been said every citizen can be ‘tracked’. Is our ‘technology really so limited? So let’s move. Let’s annihilate them.
Obama does not leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling. I can only be thankful that Obama hasn’t tried to lull us with his platitudes that these people need to be ‘negotiated’ with to bring about a ‘peaceful solution’. The strategy is crystal clear, yet, Obama tells us he has no strategy.
Arming fighters of ISIS who are not well trained and backed up is like arming ISIS.
We have enough views of ISIS running around, doing doughnuts, in our old armored vehicles in Iraq.
We know they took all the arms Obama gave to the so-called moderate Muslim fighters in Syria.
The Kurds are the only serious fighters against ISIS and Obama dithers on arming them as they fight an ISIS driving our tanks and using our weapons against the Kurds.
Putin is playing an expansionist game with the weak-kneed world partly because his ethnic Russians have drunk themselves into a demographic death spiral.
Every country and province Putin takes is designed to add a preponderance of ethnic Russians to his old Russia.
His plan won’t work but it is getting a lot of non-ethnic people inside Russia killed…..not covered on the news, however.
Putin is the biggest racist on earth behind ISIS right now.
Israel against Gaza is a false case.
Furgseon is also a false case.
Want to see a real genocide?
Follow the news from inside Russia.
Follow the news about ISIS.
@Nanny G:
Nan, all you said about Putin is spot on. But there is still the “pain” factor. Russians know pain and unlike many nations, they don’t buckle from it.
So while Greggie pacifies himself thinking the sanctions against Russia are working, Putin reminds his people of the World War II, how they suffered under Hitler and the Nazis, and the Russians brace for the hard times and rally around Putin as Putin reminds a inept, weak-kneed Obama that Russia is a nuclear super power. Ethnic Russians long for the glory days of the Soviet Union, and are willing to bear anything at the thought of that, once again, being in their future.
@Greg:
You must think those Russian billionaires are stupid. That they don’t take into consideration Putin’s expansionist goals and the back lash that would surely come from the EU and the US. I doubt they are much bothered by the sanctions, any more than the Democrats favorite money man, George Soros, was bothered by the Recession. In reality, sanctions only give a greater opportunity for the Russian billionaires to work the black market, much like Soros has.
Once again, you prove logic is not your forte.