Posted on 06/12/2014 6:30:34 AM PDT by kristinn
At a closed-door gathering of Gulf states in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in May, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Arab counterparts all signaled agreement on one thing for the first time: Islamist forces seizing territory in Syria and Iraq had become a regionwide menace that can't be ignored.
What they didn't agree on was what to do about it, U.S. officials said.The fall this week of the Iraqi cities Mosul and Tikrit to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham rebel group shows how the insurgent threat is outpacing the response and posing a challenge to President Barack Obama's approach of limiting U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.
The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged.
State Department and Pentagon officials have long warned about ISIS's desire to create an Islamic state based in the Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq and Syria.
Now, current and former officials say Washington's options for helping the Iraqi army fight back are limited—both because the threat in Iraq is so entrenched and because the U.S. hasn't invested in building up moderate allies on the Syrian side of the border.
SNIP
Some military officials now believe ISIS is the single greatest terrorist threat the U.S. and its allies face—stronger than the al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen or Africa and far more powerful than al Qaeda's central leadership in Pakistan. Other senior U.S. officials say ISIS has yet to carry out any attacks directly targeting the U.S.
"It makes you want to kill yourself," a senior U.S. official said of the intelligence on ISIS, which was presented by U.S. and Gulf allies during the May meeting in Jeddah.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The absence president speaker inchief.
“”Heckuva job CIA and NSA.”
They are busy ya know. Spying on Americans, building new data centers, surfing social media. Important stuff.”
Its kind of hard to keep track of your enemy’s when you spend so much time and resources trying to spy on your friends and allies, and Boss’s personal political rivals.
Argue for more defense spending not an end to Sequestration no matter how unbalanced they are.
That being said the Federal army is more than capable of carrying out its defense capabilities on but a fraction of what it has now. They just need to get out of the sodomite bunker, and get to work.
Technically all we need here is a sustained bombing campain to reduce ISI’s army to little more than a bunch of disorganization terrorist which even the Iraqi army should be able to suppress if they were inclined.
That of course is the long term problem that may make all this effort go to wast. The Iraqi army, like it seems the Iraqi people doesn’t seem to be all that inclined towards defending Iraq. I suppose that is because they don’t feel their country is worth dying for.
Their Provence or faith seems to be a completely different story on the other hand. And thus you might say the only way to really bring security to Iraq is to reduce it to 3 counties that the people there actually will fight and die for.
I agree with you in principle, as with the rest of you post. But please don't think with one glib comment you can deny the reality that Obama and Congress are destroying our military through budget cuts, and all we have to do is stop the homosexual policies and all will be well.
The homosexual/morality policies of this administration are poisonous. However, the great majority of military men and women are still patriots and good people. You must understand - Sequestration came about on top of two previous, massive cuts to Defense spending. In 2009, over $330 Billion (supposed to be spread out over ten years) was taken from Defense to pay for Obama's corrupt "Stimulus" that ended up in the pockets of Solyndra, unions, minority groups, and lawyers.
In 2012, another $487 Billion (again, supposed to be over ten years) was taken from the military.
Then came Sequestration, taking another $550 Billion.
The Tea Party types who share about as much logic as Libertarians (i.e. all will be well with humanity if we just can be left alone to our own sinful selves) LOVE any budget cut, and show zero discretion about National Security. I have news for them. Wars are Come As You Are.
If there is a real war, in Korea, Russia, the Pacific, or the Middle East, we are screwed. Our military has been decimated by budget cuts after budget cuts.
Food Stamps, Medicare, and Welfare are growing at an exponential rate, all while we cut the military by leaps and bounds.
War is coming, and I am great fear for our nation.
I will not go to war to defend the Dammed of Sodom and Gorma. I therefore only worry about God’s people among us.
As for the military situation, we have such an advantage built up over the last 200 years Obama is simply incapable of tearing it all down. Not that this is his primary objective merely a product of his insatiable need for money to fund his war upon everything that defines us at home.
The real question is not whether or not we can defend ourselves but what we are defending. Obama is waging war, but that war is not overseas, its not on the Enemy’s of freedom but rather upon our own people.
Upon historic American values of Economic and religious freedom, as well as the Constitutional foundation of our Republic. We still have such an arsenal to defend this from threats abroad, but in but a within a decade or two there really won’t be anything here left of America to defend.
There is nothing those foreign threats will do to us, that Obama is not already doing over time.
You worry about our wealth, well that is being striped from us bit by pit as Obama redistributes it among his own squandering cronies and foreigners.
You worry about our culture, well that is collapsing in both economic and religious value as Obama and his friends wage unrelenting war upon anyone with virtue. (Using this same military i might remind you.)
You worry about our land, and control of it? Well with the Southern invasion and demographic replacement with people who are decidedly foreigner and won’t even permit the flying of our own flag on our own soil in the places that they have overrun.
This is not a population that has any intention of assimilation. They are here for the land, resources, and economy, while they retain loyalty to their own country with clearly nothing but contempt for ours. For such a people It is only a matter of some time and opportunity before they will attempt to realign their captured territory’s Official status to their old government as well.
You worry about our country’s history and legacy well the very Soul of our country, and everything that has ever defined it in contrast to those foreign threats will have been destroyed and replaced with something fundamentally evil by then.
There is nothing our military will do to address the threat that is already overtaken our country, just as they have done nothing to uphold their oath and our Constitution. They are subordinate to the very force that is destroying us.
Whatever virtue, honor, integrity, or love for our country they once had is now in conflict with the new Government definition of their “duty”, and the political and practical confines of their position.
The truth is sending our men abroad to combat the progress of evil over seas will do nothing to protect us as that evil is already overtaken us at home.
Wait, the Regime said the expanded spying done by the NSA would help natl security yet they weren’t spying on al baghdadi??? A terrorist released from gitmo???
If I were to take every one of you positions, then I would say we are DONE as a nation. Now, I think we are CLOSE to that, but I won't give up. Yet. We must pray and have faith in God.
I don’t agree with Funding any of theses programs, and would indeed be inclined as you are to send the military off to do the job they were designed to do.
Sadly it doesn’t matter much due to the dire threats here at home are likely to kill us long before the threats overseas build strong enough to take us down.
I for one am most pleased that you don’t take all of my positions, someone has to hold out some hope in the hopelessness of a Post-Obama America. That is not to say I am without hope, I have great hope that one day we shall be permuted a public voice again in which to actually present our ideas and explain the utter stupidity of the current positions, before the laws of nature and Nature’s God teach this country about such evil & self-destructive ideas the hard way.
But as you so keenly noted, most of my present attention is in preparing for the worse in attempting to plant a cultural seed in the faithful lot of us from which a New Nation founded once more upon Freedom could be born from the Ashes of the one destroyed by the likes of Obama. This is the great task that occupies my mind, time, and resources.
Oh so “sKerry”...
This means defense money is shifted to attack on US money via amnesty and funding for hostile food stamp troops.
Save
The Doofus on the Dime is not remotely in the same class as Reagan.
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