By the same author
Posted on 09/12/2014 9:50:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
The strategy that President Obama laid out Wednesday night to "degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL," is incoherent, inconsistent and, ultimately, non-credible.
A year ago, Obama and John Kerry were straining at the leash to launch air strikes on Syrian President Bashar Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in "killing his own people."
But when Americans rose as one to demand that we stay out of Syria, Obama hastily erased his "red line" and announced a new policy of not getting involved in "somebody else's civil war."
Now, after videos of the beheadings of two U.S. journalists have set the nation on fire, the president, reading the polls, has flipped again.
Now Obama wants to lead the West and the Arab world straight into Syria's civil war. Only this time we bomb ISIL, not Assad.
Who will provide the legions Obama will deploy to crush ISIL in Syria? The New Syrian Army, the same rebels who have been routed again and again and whose chances of ousting Assad were derided by Obama himself in August as a "fantasy"? The NSA, the president mocked, is a force of "former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth."
Now Obama wants Congress to appropriate $500 million to train and arm those doctors and pharmacists and send them into battle against an army of jihadist terrorists who just bit off one-third of Iraq.
Before Congress votes a dime, it should get some answers.
Whom will this Free Syrian Army fight? ISIL alone? The al-Nusra Front? Hezbollah in Syria? Assad's army? How many years will it take to train, equip and build the NSA into a force that can crush both Assad and ISIL?
"Tell me how this thing ends," said Gen. David Petraeus on the road up to Baghdad in 2003.
The president did not tell us how this new war ends.
If Assad falls, do the Alawites and Christians survive? Does Syria disintegrate? Who will rule in Damascus?
The United States spent seven years building an army to hold Iraq together. Yet when a few thousand ISIL fighters stormed in from Syria, that army broke and fled all the way to Baghdad. Even the Kurdish peshmerga broke and ran.
What makes us think we can succeed in Syria where we failed in Iraq.
If ISIL is our mortal enemy and Syria its sanctuary, there are two armies capable of crushing it together -- the Syrian and Turkish armies.
But Turkey, a NATO ally, was not even mentioned in Obama's speech. Why? Because the Turks have been allowing jihadists to cross into Syria, as they have long sought the fall of Assad.
Now, with the Islamic State holding hostage 49 Turkish diplomats and their families in Mosul, Ankara is even more reluctant to intervene.
Nor is there any indication Turkey will let the United States use its air base at Incirlik to attack ISIS.
In Iraq, too, thousands of ground troops will be needed to dig the Islamic State out of the Sunni cities and towns.
Where will these soldiers come from?
We are told the Iraqi army, Shia militia, Kurds and Sunni tribesmen will join forces to defeat and drive out the Islamic State.
But these Shia militia were, not long ago, killing U.S. soldiers. And, like the Iraqi army, they are feared and hated in Sunni villages, which is why many Sunni welcomed ISIL.
A number of NATO allies have indicated a willingness to join the U.S. in air strikes on the Islamic State in Iraq. None has offered to send troops. Similar responses have come from the Arab League.
But if this is truly a mortal threat, why the reluctance to send troops?
Some of our Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf Arabs, have reportedly been providing aid to ISIL in Syria. Why would they aid these terrorists?
Because ISIL looked like the best bet to bring down Assad, whom many Sunni loathe as an Arab and Alawite ally of Iran in the heart of the "Shia Crescent" of Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Hezbollah. For many Sunni Arabs, the greater fear is of Shia hegemony in the Gulf and a new Persian empire in the Middle East.
Among all the nations involved here, the least threatened is the United States. Our intelligence agencies, Obama, says, have discovered no evidence of any planned or imminent attack from ISIL.
As the threat is not primarily ours, the urgency to go to war is not ours. And upon the basis of what we heard Wednesday night, either this war has not been thought through by the president, or he is inhibited from telling us the whole truth about what victory will look like and what destroying the Islamic State will require in blood, treasure and years.
The Forever War is a GREAT book, BTW. It’s sequel, Forever Peace, sucks.
The tyranny of media driven politics. Roman Emperors must have had to poll the Plebians for their satisfaction level with the Bread & Circuses.
This war ends with the pope consecrating Our Lady of Arabia cathedral in Mecca or with our surrender.
Among all the nations involved here, the least threatened is the United States. Our intelligence agencies, Obama, says, have discovered no evidence of any planned or imminent attack from ISIL.
As the threat is not primarily ours, the urgency to go to war is not ours
And even though there is pressure from the right and the left to "do something", the best course of action at this time is to leave these (Not Islamic) Islamists alone.
"Forever Free" wasn't too bad.
By the same author
This is an absolute Holy War. It is a war against Sunni Wahhabi sect which now number about 200 million of the 1 billion Sunnis. Sunnis attacked the world trade center and pentagon. Sunni wahhabis are suicide bombers all over the world . Nidal Hasan , the terrorist at Fort Hood, was a Sunni. Its all Sunni. They are rumming wild now in the Unites States because we let them in.
Until we understand who the enemy is -we waste time and lives. We are so stupid.
I met and had a nice conversation with Joe Haldeman at a Cambridge, MA book signing. Among other things he told me his biggest Sci Fi influence was Robert Heinlein. Also, Ridley Scott of the Alien franchise fame bought the rights to make The Forever War movie. Doesn’t mean he’ll make it, but at least a cool director has his hands on it.
Via e-mail:
Dr. Gary North (rightly points out)
: Here is his problem. ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIL stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Hardly any American knows what the Levant is. It's the entire region. If President Obama were to stick with the acronym ISIS, this would create a huge PR problem. If he calls it the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, this makes it clear that two countries are involved. Therefore, he must commit American forces — but not troops, meaning "boots on the ground" — to war in two nations. One of them is Syria. Until a few months ago, ISIS was regarded by American foreign policy experts as being part of the opposition in Syria — opposition to the government of Syria, which is run by Bashar "Hitler" Assad.
ISIS four months ago was a freedom-fighting organization. Now it is officially a fighting-freedom organization.
He calls it ISIL Over the last year, the President has overseen the transfer of money and weapons to ISIS, a freedom-fighting organization in Syria. Now he is going to transfer more money and more weapons to the freedom fighters in Syria, who will use it to fight the ISIL organization, which is fighting-freedom organization.
I hope you understand the difference. You have an obligation to understand the difference. Without this understanding, American foreign policy would look like decision-making by lunatics.
One of the most prophetic parts of the book was when he came back to a future where there were a LOT of homosexuals. The government was promoting it as a form of birth control. ;-)
Our intelligence agencies said the same thing about al Qaeda on 09/10/2001.
You get a forever war when one side is utterly fanatical but lacks the means to compel surrender and the other side has the means but lacks the will.
We will probably always lack the will until the American left is cut out of the body politic like the cancerous lesion it is.
It's odd to see both Buchanan and Obama counseling the same policy of burying our heads in the sand and pretending nothing is going on.
The problems all began when Obama got that peace prize. Obama believed he was the 2nd coming of Gandhi and removed all the troops from Iraq against military advice.
Ultimately, that’s the way it’s going to be ... one way or another.
That thinking worked for us as well in 1933...
Yes it did. The US was very “isolationist” until one certain Sunday in 1941.
Then we got involved.
I’m of the opinion that its just a matter of time before we have another December 7, or another 9/11. And when that day comes, the tried and not so true methods we’ve engaged in the last 13 years will not be an option.
Another couple of famous days will be our only option to the muslim threat.
Days like August 6 and August 9, 1945.
“I have a strategy. A stupid one, but I have one”
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