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....Obama is making a rare visit to the Pentagon to get an update from military leaders on the campaign against the Islamic State. Obama's meetings follow a wave of weekend airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in eastern Syria. The coalition says it was one of the most sustained aerial operations carried out in Syria to date.

U.S. president meets with Pentagon officials following weekend airstrikes in eastern Syria The complex threat of the ISIS extremist group will not be ultimately defeated by guns but through ideology, Barack Obama says. The U.S. president made the remarks Monday on the military campaign against the Islamic State group after being briefed by Pentagon officials earlier in the day. He called for co-operation among countries in a fight he said spills over borders. Obama will look to partner with Muslim communities that he said are often the target of ISIS attacks. "The battle for hearts and minds is going to...

The use of the W-word could have both legal and political implications. Top Obama Administration officials have publicly given conflicting accounts in recent days over a fundamental question of the new U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria: Is the nation at war? With 158 airstrikes carried out on ISIS targets and more than 1,600 troops deployed to Iraq in various capacities, Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC News Thursday that the nation was not in fact at war with the militant group. But by Friday afternoon, the White House and the Pentagon were...

The mass media, in their coverage of Obama's speech, outlining his new strategy on managing the crisis of the 'Islamic Caliphate', are acting as retail merchants for the White House and State Department's campaign of deception on Syria and Iraq. The most obvious aspect of this co-operative effort is seen in the repetition of the mythology that Obama hasn't yet tried assisting rebel forces in Syria. Such claims are so divorced from reality they are staggering. Even so, Americans are, in the main, so willfully misinformed, that they are easy targets for the false narratives they are fed in deceitful...

Reaction to the president’s prime-time speech on ramping up efforts to take on the terror group ISIS ranged, not surprisingly, from very supportive — loyal huzzahs from Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Richard J. Durbin — to openly dismissive: Sen. Ted Cruz called the president “unserious.” “Tonight’s speech was disappointing, but not surprising. The President’s approach to ISIS has been – and remains – fundamentally unserious,” the Texas Republican said in a statement. An even more withering assessment of President Barack Obama’s address came from Oklahoma Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe. “Tonight, the President’s strategy...

ANALYSIS: Obama Plays Catch-Up With Public and Himself Sep 10, 2014 ANALYSIS by RICK KLEIN President Obama on Wednesday night entered a new phase of his presidency -- and he did it in a most Obama of ways. First, to what’s changed: He’s announcing a war, not ending one. He’s preparing to act without Congress, almost exactly a year after deferring to the legislative branch on a question of whether to use American military force. The president is rushing to catch up with and soothe an anxious, even frightened, public. He’s doing it while looking to reverse perceptions that he’s...

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and newly minted CNN contributor and former Obama press secretary Jay Carney spar over the Iraq war and if the current situation in Iraq and Syria could have been avoided. SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I think it was a very weak argument. And by the way, I'm astounded that Mr. Carney should say that the Free Syrian Army is now stronger. In fact, they have been -- JAY CARNEY: Well, that's not that I said, Senator. If I could, sir, what I said is, if we know a great deal more now about the makeup of the...

The U.S. is not at war with ISIS, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted today. Kerry was asked today whether the U.S. was at war with ISIS. "No. Look, we’re engaged in a counterterrorism operation of a significant order," the secretary responded. "And counterterrorism operations can take a long time, they go on. I think 'war' is the wrong reference term with respect to that, but obviously it involves kinetic military action."

Look at the map below. You'll see four regions of "Iraq and Syria" that the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" express no desire to conquer: Why is that? All four of these areas are where non-Sunni Muslims predominate. They include Southern Iraq (Shiites), Northwestern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), Syria just north of Lebanon (Alawites and Shiites) and the area surrounding the Golan Heights (Druze and Shiites). So why would ISIS fight so bitterly for largely Kurdish Erbil and Mosul, yet make no claim to what is officially Kurdistan? Because Erbil and Mosul are Iraqi centers of Christendom, the real target...

The United States has begun surveillance flights over Syria, part of an effort to gather intelligence that will help the decision whether to launch airstrikes against ISIS, a U.S. official told CNN on Thursday. The Pentagon is refining its targets based on improved intelligence-gathering, including the surveillance flights now under way over Syria, a Defense official said.

...Obama, seen here giving a speech on ISIS and Islamic terrorism last night, was photographed in a startling way. He appeared to have twin horns protruding from the sides of his head in a kind of demonic apparition.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday would not say the United States is at war with ISIS, telling CNN in an interview that the administration's strategy includes "many different things that one doesn't think of normally in context of war." "What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counter-terrorism operation," Kerry told CNN's Elise Labott in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. "It's going to go on for some period of time. If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it's a major counterterrorism operation that...

ISIL and ISIS literally stands for "Islamic State" but the current President of the United States doesn't think they're "Islamic." "ISIL is not Islamic," Obama said in his speech Wednesday night about ISIL [ISIS]. "No religion condones the killing if innocents. The vast majority of ISIL victims have been Muslim and ISIL is certainly not a state." By this logic, Islamic State terrorists who kill Muslims because they aren't radical enough or the proper type of Muslim, aren't "Islamic." Obama's asinine statement comes just a few weeks after two American journalists had their heads sawed off in the name of...

When it comes to foreign policy, a presidential speech is measured by two things: strategic tone and strategic substance. On the first count, President Obama’s ISIS address was largely successful. Centering in passionate emotion, the president outlined the moral abhorrence that defines ISIS. He listed the group’s atrocities, in contrast with American humanitarianism. The president was also wise to draw America’s attention to the gratitude of the Yazidi civilians who were saved by U.S. naval aviators. Understandably, many Americans are irritated by what they regard as the thanklessness of many military operations abroad. But the speech was weakened by its...

NBC News Correspondent Richard Engel, reporting live from Kurdistan in northern Iraq Wednesday night, said U.S. troops are on the ground in Iraq and avoiding reporters. "They are troops who are staying away from reporters, they are embedded with local fighters trying to guide in air strikes, gathering intelligence -- But, Engel added, "The rest of the strategy seemed incredibly fuzzy -- how there was going to be this international coalition that would lend its moral support of Sunni countries, that you would have to rebuild the Iraqi army, which has lost a tremendous amount of credibility so far; and...

In a televised address on how to address the Islamic State this evening, President Barack Obama declared the organization variously known as ISIS or ISIL to be “not Islamic.” In making this preposterous claim, Obama joins his two immediate predecessors in pronouncing on what is not Islamic. Bill Clinton called the Taliban treatment of women and children “a terrible perversion of Islam.” George W. Bush deemed that 9/11 and other acts of violence against innocents “violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith.” None of the three has any basis for such assertions. To state the obvious: As non-Muslims and...

Nearly six years into a presidency devoted to ending wars, President Obama on Wednesday announced he is launching a new global war against the ultra-violent al Qaeda terror group known as the Islamic State. The president’s new strategy of conducting U.S. airstrikes combined with foreign military ground operations against IS in Iraq and Syria, however, will be limited to the terror group, and lacks what analysts say is a broader ideological offensive against Islamist terror of all stripes.

. September 10, 2014 Newt Gingrich : 10 Questions for Obama on ISIS ===================================================== President Barack Obama has a remarkable opportunity Wednesday night. The American people have been awakened by the videotaped beheading of two U.S. journalists. Many Americans have also been deeply angered by the killing of Christians and other minorities by the Islamist radicals. Americans increasingly realize that the entire movement of radical Islamism, from Boko Haram in Nigeria through Hamas in Gaza to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is dangerous to Americans and to our civilization. Americans know that 13 years of effort under two...

President Obama is scheduled to address the nation this evening to discuss destroying the terrorist army of ISIS. But before hitting the airwaves, he´s asking Democratic donors to "chip in $10 or more right now to help elect Democrats." He made the ask in an email to supporters of the Democratic party. "There are just 55 days left in this election, Daniel," writes Obama in the email. "That´s 55 days left for Democrats in tight races across the country to build the organization they need to win -- and if we don´t step up right now, it´s going to be...

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