Posted on 10/01/2014 5:27:03 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Joseph Miller is the pen name for a ranking Department of Defense official with a background in U.S. special operations and combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has worked in strategic planning.
President Barack Obama has taken a lot of flack since his Sunday night “60 Minutes” interview, in which he blamed the intelligence community for his failure to tackle the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. And that is right and proper. Because not only was his excuse of blaming us a lie, but when questioned on his lie, White House press secretary Josh Earnest doubled down with a whole new lie — both of which are easily, publicly proven false.
On Sunday, Obama said the intelligence community had underestimated the rise of ISIS, saying in an interview with CBS, “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”
But we know that isn’t true, as nearly a dozen administration officials have testified to the threat posed by ISIS publicly over the last year.
The fact that the president chose to use the word “they” instead of “we” immediately drew condemnation from friend and foe alike, who saw it as the president’s attempt to pass the buck. (RELATED: Obama Has Spent More Time Playing Golf Than In Intel Briefings)
To mitigate the fallout, Earnest’s office issued a statement stating that, “…A lot of that [decision-making] was predicated on the will of the Iraqi security forces to fight for their country.”
But this was also not true.
In 2010, General Lloyd Austin, then-commander of United State Forces in Iraq, directly informed the president that over 20,000 U.S. troops would be required to maintain the gains made by U.S. forces against al-Qaida and its affiliates, and to mentor the fledgling Iraqi security forces– because he knew they were not ready to go out on their own. (MILLER: The Facts Are In, And Obama’s Policy Is A Direct Danger To The United States)
But in order for Austin’s plan to work, the United States would have to negotiate and sign a security agreement with the government of Iraq to give the U.S. legal authority to keep U.S. military forces in that country beyond December 2010. The White House claims they were forced to withdraw because then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to grant U.S. force serving in Iraq post 2010 immunity from Iraqi prosecution– a prerequisite for the presence of U.S. forces anywhere else in the world. But the administration made no attempt to seriously negotiate an agreement with the Iraqis, and cited our withdrawal from Iraq as a major achievement during the 2012 elections, giving the American intelligence community the distinct feeling that the move was politically motivated. (MILLER: Obama’s Current Strategy Is Doomed To Fail)
Instead of investing any time in negotiating the agreement, the Obama administration used the Maliki regimes refusal to grant immunity as a political out for withdrawing all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2010. That saw the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces and the end of Operation New Dawn, the successor to Operation Iraqi Freedom. It also saw the rise of ISIS, and brings us to where we are today. (MILLER: What It Will Take To Win The War Against The Islamic State)
Today, Gen. Lloyd Austin is in command of U.S. Central Command– the U.S. combatant command in charge of fighting all wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of North and East Africa. From that post, he once again recommended to the president that ground forces would be required in order to achieve the White House’s goals, this time against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. (MILLER: Iraq A Symptom Of Larger Obama Failure — Syria)
Once again, the president overruled his commanding general and has chosen to use air strikes alone to “destroy” a terrorist army of 30,000.
The president clearly does not think the mission is worth the cost necessary to complete it; but by pursuing his ends without authorizing the necessary means, he is dooming that mission to failure. (MILLER: Special Forces, Not #Hashtags, Mr. President.
The United States military and intelligence community have learned a lot over the past decade of conflict. Our commander in chief, unfortunately, has not. Since the start of his administration, President Barack Obama has ignored his generals and the intelligence community. Over the past few weeks, he has half-heartedly pursued a strategy that destines us to fail in our mission, and over the past three days, he and his White House have lied to prove otherwise. To those who wear our nation’s uniform, or serve in her intelligence community, that’s insult — and injury.
Don’t worry....we don’t believe anything he says.
Is the Pentagon official Captain Obvious?
ObeyMe is lying? This should be posted in Breaking News!
/sarc
I wonder if this guy just figured this out recently, or did he know it for years, like the rest of us?
Bammy is really going to regret picking a fight with his spooks.
Has the ABCBSNBCNN consortium and national print media reported this?
If he is “Captain Obvious” what are they?
Obama’s a Democrat....they ALL LIE....it’s what they do BEST!
The basic problem Obama has is he and his fellow travelers hate the (US) military and see its only purpose as a left wing social laboratory and meals on wheels. When he famously said in 2009 that the police officer acted stupidly in Cambridge, Mass, he could have and probably was using that officer as an example of every American who wears a first responder or military uniform. The left and especially the radical left has hated our military since Vietnam and nothing has changed except that they have to be a bit more circumspect with that hatred now. Obama does not listen to his Generals and Intell folks because he has no respect for them. Likewise, they have no respect for him. But they put their careers over their country and continue to do his dirty work.
> is really going to regret picking a fight with his spooks.
Yep. And they conceal themselves and gather damning intel in the background for years keeping their mouths shut until the opportune time to strike...: )
The answer is easy, after 9-11 many on the left accused Bush of lying, saying he knew of the imminent danger before the attacks. The left claimed Bush was fully briefed on the imminent danger leading up to 9-11 and that he ignored warnings.
In response to these accusations, Bush declassified all his intel briefings leading up to 9-11 to show he was not briefed about a potential 9-11 attack.
Here's the deal. The spooks say Obama is lying, and I totally believe them. Obama says he knew nothing about ISIS and the dangers. It's simple. Obama should do what Bush did and declassify his daily intel briefings so we can where the truth lies.
I'll bet my last dollar Obama will never do this.
:) criminally clueless?
Liberal ideology has taken the place of ‘faith’ for a great many Americans.
It IS their religion. Try to influence anyone who is committed to their ‘religion’ and you will have an uphill fight on your hands...AND the people holding this ‘religion’ are barely educated.
What you are up against is institutionalized ignorance.
If they ever declassify the briefing, which won’t happen unless subpeoned by an impeachment commmittee, they will also find numerous comments about the Ebola threat IMO. If they get the original briefing documents, I bet they don’t find Barry’s fingerprints on any of them.
Baghdad Barry rides again.
Has been for his entire life, lying.
Did you see that he let Ebola fly into Dallas from Liberia? Of all the States to infect, he picked Texas. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
We will pay for a very long time, and a high price for this man's effort to bring down America and Americans. He's really turned out to be the number one foreign enemy combatant of the country.
To Barry, a lie is simply another kind of middle-finger salute.
While they will not do it themselves, they are willing to risk WW3 with Russia by bombing Syria, in hopes that the Iranians will follow though with their threats to kill ...
As Congress debates whether to support President Obama’s call for a limited strike against Syria for the alleged use of chemical weapons, Iran is vowing to back Bashar al-Assad’s regime to the hilt and threatening to unleash terrorism should the U.S. strike.
Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Wednesday told the Assembly of Experts — the body that chooses the supreme leader — that “[w]e will support Syria to the end.”
And in an unprecedented statement, a former Iranian official has warned of mass abductions and brutal killings of American citizens around the world and the rape and killing of one of Obama’s daughters should the United States attack Syria.
Alireza Forghani, the former governor of southern Iran’s Kish Province, threw down the gauntlet last week. Forghani is an analyst and strategy specialist in the supreme leader’s camp and closely aligned with Mehdi Taeb, who heads the regime’s Ammar Strategic Base, a radical think thank, and thus speaks with the blessing of the Islamic regime.
“Hopefully Obama will be pigheaded enough to attack Syria, and then we will see the … loss of U.S. interests [through terrorist attacks],” he threatened. “In just 21 hours [after the attack on Syria], a family member of every U.S. minister [department secretary], U.S. ambassadors, U.S. military commanders around the world will be abducted. And then 18 hours later, videos of their amputation will be spread [around the world].”
A similar act was committed in a video of the torture of William Buckley, a CIA station chief who was abducted in Beirut in 1984 and later killed by Hezbollah on Iran’s order. That video was dropped off at the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Former CIA Director William Casey later described what he saw in the video: “They had done more than ruin his body. His eyes made it clear his mind had been played with. It was horrific, medieval and barbarous.”
In addition, Forghani warned, “We should remind Obama that if you are a bastard, there are other bastards all around the world who can assault Sasha.” The statement is written in both English and Farsi, but in the Farsi version, Forghani clearly stated that Sasha will be raped by someone who has been able to get close to the Obama family.
“Obama will attack Syria and then you’ll go to hell, and the world’s public opinion will accept that you deserve to be attacked and assaulted, so please attack,” Forghani concluded. ...
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