Posted on 09/19/2014 5:54:39 PM PDT by xzins
Washington DC thinks we are stupid, they really do. The professional political class has yet to grasp the understanding that “WWW” as a prefix in the internet stands for “World Wide Web”. We are quite capable of connecting, collecting and digesting information directly from the heart of the issues being debated.
Despite all the DC pontifications, obfuscations, and professional talking points to the contrary, we know in Syria there are two options, support Bashir Assad or support radical Islamists, that’s it. There is no mysterious “moderate” third option; the “rebels” are radical islamists.
President Obama and Republican Senator John McCain are making the same argument in 2014 toward Syria they both made in 2011 toward Libya. 2014’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, is merely repeating the 2011 meme sold by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – the difference is within the audience.
In Libya 2011 there were two options, support Moamuar Kaddafi, or support radical Islamists under the nom de plume “rebels“. The White House supported the “rebels“, Kaddafi was killed, and as a consequence right now in Libya chaos reigns as the islamists, now collected under the banner “Libyan Dawn”, are destroying the country.
How can McCain and Obama expect these pesky facts to go unnoticed? As the Jerusalem Post accurately outlines:
[...] After a week of talks and shuttle diplomacy, aside from Australia, no one has committed forces. Germany, Britain and France have either refused to participate or have yet to make clear what they are willing to do.
The Kurds will not fight for anything but Kurdistan. The Iraqi Army is a fiction. The Iraqi Sunnis support IS far more than they trust the Americans.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan will either cheer the US on from a distance, or in the best-case scenario, provide logistical support for its operations.
It isn’t just that these states have already been burned by Obama whether through his support for the Muslim Brotherhood and the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. And it isn’t simply that they saw that the US left them hanging in Syria.
They see Obama’s “strategy” for fighting IS – ignoring the Islamic belief system that underpins every aspect of its existence, and expecting other armies to fight and die to accomplish the goal while the US turns a blind eye to Turkey’s and Qatar’s continued sponsorship of Islamic State.
They see this strategy and they are convinced America is fighting to lose. Why should they go down with it? Islamic State is a challenging foe. To defeat it, the US must be willing to confront Islamism. And it must be willing to fight to win. In the absence of such determination, it will fight and lose, in the region and at home, with no allies at its side. (link)
We will not hear the details of a John Kerry ‘Mid-East coalition’ because the entities who would assemble within such a coalition (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, UAE, Saudi Arabia and four Gulf States) know the entire U.S. campaign against ISIS is a farce.
ISIS, or as President Obama calls them NI-ISIL (Non-Islamic Islamists) are supported by, funded by, and aided by, Turkey and Qatar.
Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan views Sunni ISIS as a pure and righteous effort, and it is brutally obvious to Arabs and non-Arabs alike that President Obama supports the overall Sunni cause.
What Obama and Kerry are assembling is a list of nations who answered a poll tested question, “is ISIS a little too authentic about Islam by chopping up people“?
With a list of those states who say “yes, ISIS behavior a tad too extreme” in hand, Kerry/Obama are proclaiming they now own ‘a coalition’.
No, what they actually own is a list of countries who disagree with the methods of ISIS – but they don’t have a single Mid-East nation willing to put their blood on the document swearing to stop it.
The “Syrian moderates 2014″ are as invisible as the “Libyan moderates 2011″ and the support for them will deliver the same result, chaos.
It has been frequently stated, removing a dictator under such circumstances is akin to removing the zookeeper and leaving open the doors to the big cat cages.
Aesop’s fable also comes to mind.
scorpion-frog
Does President Obama really believe that removing Bashir Assad will lead to greater stability for the region including Jordan and Israel ?
Of course he doesn’t.
President Obama is well aware what the removal of Bashir Assad means to the Sunni majority, the ISIS majority.
President Obama knows that if Assad falls the larger consequences are a stronger Muslim Brotherhood, stronger Hamas, stronger coalition of hard-line islamists and a far weaker position for Jordan and others who would prefer secular moderation.
There is indeed an end goal in mind, but that end goal has little or nothing to do with ridding the Mid-East of Sunni ISIS.
Is it just coincidental that Assad is an alawite Shiite?
Every so often, I notice the world around us, and have the crazy idea that the Sunnis are the big problem. All of them, even those wonderful Saudis that DC dances like a monkey on a stick for. Repub and Dem alike.
The District of Criminals is just keeping it real.
The U.S. helping to oust the Shah, Saddam, Gaddafi, Mubarak, Assad, etc., has enabled the Caliphate. Is the ‘U.S.’ really making these decisions? No.
“Islamic State is a challenging foe. To defeat it, the US must be willing to confront Islamism.”
An upstart republic defeating a 1400 year ISOM (Islamic State Of Mind)? Not with current leadership.
From the Quranic Concept of War...
Dr. Antulio Echevarria recently argued the US military does not have a doc- trine for war as much as it has a doctrine for operations and battles.5 The military has a deficit of strategic, and, one could add, philosophic thinking.
http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/06winter/win-ess.pdf
I’ve wondered if democracies must necessarily be strategically weak just by the nature of changing leadership and also due to the same inward focus that enables them eventually to discover they can vote themselves the national treasury.
It might be necessary to conclusively deal with one’s enemies, but sometimes they vote not to do so...just because...
Good observation. The lazy, looting (Socialism Is Legal Plunder) and living large secular totalitarians vs. 1400 year religious/sarc totalitarians. They run on parallel tracks. The strong horse is still around. The also rans have folded/broken down/been shot throughout history.
Myers’ review of Malik’s article on war has a few bottom lines as I scanned/read it. Malik’s view on sovereignty are what one would expect of a moslem. Their god is over everything, so national sovereignties are not real. The continual war until their god is honored everywhere by everyone is an objective that spans centuries. A number of things would make me hesitant to consider it a strategic view. First, it seems to meander through the ages, rising and falling, waxing and waning. IOW, it is directionless and accidental. Second, Islam has at least 2 conflicting denominations and more sup-denominations. That tends to diffuse any coordinated effort at establishing their god’s authority over the whole earth.
Two days ago, Speaker “Blank Check” Boehner approved the spending of $ 500,000,000 of US Taxpayer Dollars to “train” 5,000 Syrian Muslim Rebels in Saudi Arabia for one year. IOW, another Boehner Bailout Bill to Obama.
Here are a few discussion points that were NOT mentioned by Boehner:
* Each Syrian Muslim Rebel will cost $ 100,000 to train.
* 5,000 Syrian Muslim Rebels will be removed from the battlefields in Syria to a training site in Saudi Arabia for one year.
* The removal of 5,000 Syrian Muslim Rebels will leave their families with reduced protection from attack by Syrian Army troops, for one year.
* The removal of 5,000 Syrian Muslim Rebels will leave their families with NO protection from attack by ISIS troops, for one year.
* The removal of 5,000 Syrian Muslim Rebels from the battlefields of Syria will help both the Syrian and ISIS troops to more easily take over areas controlled by the Syrian Muslim Rebels.
BTW, did anyone notice if before the US Senate approved Boehner’s Bailout Bill yesterday, did any US Senator mention that removing 5,000 Syrian Muslim Rebels from the battlefields of Syria, was in effect, “Giving aid and comfort to the ENEMY” for the period of one year?
Nails it.
The US Government has weaponized al Qaeda against the
American people by violating the US Constitution.
There is NO WAY THIS CAN END WeLL, you bastards in DC!
5000 Syrian rebels will be fighting what the cia says is a 35,000 man ISIS army. I assume the ISIS generals know about deployment of forces, units held in reserve, etc.
5000 American troops with air support would wipe out the ISIS Army in a straight up battle, but these rebels will never get close air support from Obama.
I hear Obama is approving/disapproving every single air mission from his white house. He’s a military genius too...who’d a thunk it.
/sarc
The universalism of Islam, in its all-embracing creed, is imposed on the believers as a continuous process of warfare, psychological and political, if not strictly military. . . . The Jihad, accordingly, may be stated as a doctrine of a permanent state of war, not continuous fighting.”— Majid Khadduri
…continuous process of warfare,…, …, educational, economical, social, philosophical, visual, auditory, etc., etc. Jihad - it greatest advancements against modern western civilization have occurred in the last 20 years. The "handsome means" of the jihadis asymmetric war continue unchecked. The prophet's/sarc presence is everywhere. We have nothing to counter it. Our freedoms are ebbing in the flow of fitna. Meccans aren't driving around with COEXIST bumper stickers on their Mercedes. Freedom, not being an imposition placed on individuals, vanishes in time as the willingness to fight against the collective for a cause long ago forgotten becomes futile. Leaders strategize for less lofty goals with lesser collectives. The world is being carved up by anti-truth, anti-freedom, anti-individual, anti-life collectivists/totalitarians imposing their agendas/doctrines and stifling discussions against. Witness current events.
It is true that we are living in a time when islam is advancing in terms of subjugating people. They are a very effective weapon of terror.
How much of the west will they have militarily subjugated in the next 20 years? My sense is that they don’t have the military might to overcome any of the west’s major nations on the military battlefield. So, the alignment of nations will be pretty much the same in 20 years as it is today, barring the return of the Lord, of course.
Nor do I believe they will philosophically subjugate much of the west in the next 20 years. Westerners, with a few rare exceptions, really don’t want anything to do with a serious muslim lifestyle.
The advance the islamics might be successful at is that of increasing their percentage of the population in the western nations in which they reside. They have a large birth rate compared to the west’s mostly negative rate. What I believe this will cause in those western nations is a higher percentage of their people below the poverty line. Islamics aren’t known for their ability to build, grow, and increase wealth in any nation they currently inhabit. In fact, without oil they wouldn’t really be an issue.
So, they will be a drain on the western nations, they will be less than stellar citizens, and they will weaken those nations.
Germany has declared multi-culturalism a failure. They are correct. They should immediately stop the flow of islamics into their country to leach off their social welfare programs.
The US should do the same. The islamics don’t offer us anything at all worth having.
Cowardice is suicidal. Obama is s coward against ISIS if not a fellow traveler.
BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH
Hitler also tried to run the German Army in WW2.
And, iirc, led directly to the Allied victories on D-Day.
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