Day: September 18, 2014

Who Does ISIS Really Threaten?

Thank you, Mr. President.  By taking the country to war yet again you have made my job as a blogger so much easier…..since I like international relations and especially the Middle East….I am thrilled!

We have heard the war hawks thumping their chest like crazed primates about the threat to the homeland…..but really who is threatened by the appearance of ISIS?

Sorry, but US is a low priority for them…..regardless of what mental midgets like McCain and Graham would have you believe……

If not us then who?

Maybe those with the highest probability of attack should be part of this newest intervention by the US……..whatcha think?

 

Worldpress.org – World Press Wire.

 

 

Iraq: ISIS Coalition Briefing #3

The third edition of my briefing series on the war on the Islamic State (IS)……information that the media sees fit not to pass on to the American public……I do this so people interested do not have to spend all day on the internet trying to get all the info……it’s what I do………you are welcome………..

Item 1–McCain has been all over the media with his push to do more for the ‘moderates’ fighting ISIS……but he may need to check IST briefings from time to time apparently he has not gotten the word……

Col. Riad Assad, the leader of the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel, has announced that his group will not join the anti-ISIS coalition the US is assembling, nor will they participate in attacks on ISIS.

Col. Assad insisted that the rebel group’s chief goal is to conquer Syria and oust President Bashar Assad (no relation). He complained the anti-ISIS coalition did not make regime change in Syria its goal.

Even though the FSA isn’t on board with fighting ISIS, Col. Assad did say his group would be happy to keep taking US money and weapons.

The US arms to the FSA and other “vetted, moderate” rebels have been controversial because so many of those weapons have wound up in the hands of ISIS anyhow. The FSA has also been facing growing defections of their fighters into ISIS.

Maybe McCain needs to step aside for he has tunnel vision and that could be lethal in this region.

Item 2–One of the big plans, especially from war hawks, is to train and arm ‘moderates’ to help fight our newest enemy ISIS.  But that is not the way to go….

an international coalition to take its campaign against Islamic State from Iraq into Syria, fighters like Ammar al-Wawi could make the difference.

He fears that restrictions on the kind of weapons he’ll receive and the training he’ll get under a $500 million White House proposal to arm moderate Syrian rebels will make his job impossible.

“We don’t really need more training. And we have enough soldiers. What we need are quality weapons,” said Wawi, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, a loose collection of moderate rebels fighting both the Islamic State and Syrian government forces.

“We need anti-aircraft weapons. We need anti-tank weapons. If we don’t get those, we can’t win, no matter what the United States does.”

They don’t need training?  Yeah, they are doing a helluva job against Assad as they lose area after area to the regime.  And AA guns?  Do we really need to give them those so they can be passed on to ISIS as so many other weapons have?  Wrong to do this!

Item 3–Everybody keeps asking “what about Assad”? after all he is fighting ISIS also as well as a wealth of other groups…….

The United States and other Western governments have dismissed the idea of cooperating with Syria in the fight against Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria. Western governments see Assad as part of the problem and say he must leave power.

The meeting between Faleh al-Fayad, the Iraqi national security adviser, and Assad indicated that the Iraqi government aims to maintain those ties. It also points to the scope for possible indirect contact between Syria and the West over the fight against Islamic State via third parties such as Iraq.

Fayad “put Assad in the picture of the latest developments in Iraq and the efforts that the Iraqi government and people are making to combat the terrorists”, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

The meeting stressed “the importance of strengthening cooperation and coordination between the two brotherly countries in the field of combating terrorism that is hitting Syria and Iraq and which threatens the region and the world,” SANA said.

My educated guess is that we used a proxy to let Assad know what is happening…..even though we are not officially including him in any decisions…….Iraq can.

Item 4–Remember back in the dark days of the last Iraq War?  Remember al-Sadr?  A Shi’a cleric who commanded a large militia that fought against the US in those dark days….well he has NOT gone away…….

Influential Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered members of his Mahdi Army militia to withdraw from areas where US forces are conducting their ir war against ISIS, and urged popular demonstrations against the return of US ground troops to the country.

The Mahdi Army largely disbanded after the US pullout, but Sadr has kept ties with its leadership, threatening regularly to bring them out of retirement if the US tries to return to the country in a military role. With the ISIS war looking to do exactly that, they could quickly be another foe for the US in its ever-expanding conflict.

Another wrinkle in our latest war in Iraq….this could be a major problem down the road…..

Item 5–the US has scouts on the group in Iraq…..they are searching for Sunni tribes to help in the fight against ISIS…….the problem is the lack of trust by the tribes……..

Unwilling to send U.S. troops back to Iraq, Washington is trying to persuade armed Sunni factions and tribal figures to fight Islamic State militants in an echo of the “Awakening” movement that drove al Qaeda from the country six years ago.

Unwilling to send U.S. troops back to Iraq, Washington is trying to persuade armed Sunni factions and tribal figures to fight Islamic State militants in an echo of the “Awakening” movement that drove al Qaeda from the country six years ago.

The plan is far from easy, since many Sunnis regard the Awakening as a failure and a betrayal and see the Sunni Islamic State’s sweep into predominantly Sunni northern and western Iraq as the lesser of two evils, despite its mass killings.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say it is not a rehash of the Awakening but will incorporate Sunnis into a “National Guard”, a security force intended to decentralize power from Baghdad, addressing Sunni demands to stop oppression from the majority Shi’ite security forces.

Sorry dudes but trust is everything to these tribes…….our word was given then ignored….it will be a hard row to hoe…..and then the ‘national guard’ thing…..we will building yet another militia for future conflict….now there is a good plan.

Item 6–al-Qaeda is pushing for more unity among the warring factions in the Middle East……

Two al Qaeda branches urged warring militant factions in Iraq and Syria to stop fighting each other and unite against a U.S.-led alliance preparing to attack the ultra hardline Islamic State armed group, according to a joint statement posted online.

“Stop the infighting between you and stand as one rank against America’s campaign and that of its satanic alliance that lies in wait for all of us, to break us stick by stick,” al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a rare joint statement.

This could be seen as an attempt for unity…….or it could be seen as an attempt to isolate ISIS from other groups so they can carry on without interference from the US and whoever else wants in on this fight.  This needs to be watched closely.

Item 7–this final piece would have been predicted if anyone had taken the time to do some research…….

Support for the Islamic State organization has grown since the US launched airstrikes in Iraq and the group is attracting many new jihadist fighters, top US officials said Wednesday.

The IS group’s “widespread use of social media and growing online support intensified following the commencement of US airstrikes in Iraq,” FBI head James Comey told the House Homeland Security Committee.

This ends briefing #3…..the next briefing will be as events warrant….time for Americans to pout aside their fascination with celebs and to pay attention…..the world is about to become a lot more dangerous and we need to stay alert.

Thanx for the attention to this briefing.

Turn the page.

Ignorance Fuels the Calls for War – Reason.com

Americans are ready to go to war……again.  As usual Americans as usual are not thinking they want revenge…..and revenge is not a good way to go into a war.  Americans show a massive bag full of ignorance on so many levels.

When the war goes to crap then they start blaming everyone but themselves…..right now the polls show that Americans want some sort of action against the common enemy, in this case ISIS…..without thought of the consequences of their actions……

 

Ignorance Fuels the Calls for War – Reason.com.

Iraq: Is There A GOP Plan?

I have written often that it is a shame that the GOP has not got a clue……on every issue they are scratching their heads trying to find something the American people can get on board with…….so far they got NOTHING!

Seeing that most of the WAR HAWKS are in the GOP you would think that they would have at least a stupid idea of how to handle the Islamic State……..they have their fair hair boys and among these is the Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio…….

But first let us look at the plan that Obama mapped out during his speech……..

First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists.  Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense.  Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are.  That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.  This is a core principle of my presidency:  If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

Second, we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground.  In June, I deployed several hundred American servicemembers to Iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi security forces.  Now that those teams have completed their work –- and Iraq has formed a government –- we will send an additional 475 servicemembers to Iraq.  As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission –- we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.  But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.  We’ll also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL’s control.

Third, we will continue to draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks.  Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into and out of the Middle East.  And in two weeks, I will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to further mobilize the international community around this effort.

Fourth, we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization.  This includes Sunni and Shia Muslims who are at grave risk, as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities.  We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands.

There you have Obama’s plan………

Now back to Rubio…..in a recent interview he critiqued Obama’s plan thusly…….

. In an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Rubio writes that Obama’s speech offered the “potential to begin a departure from the isolationism that he and former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton have advocated during their years in office,” but there is a “risk” that Obama’s “focus on a counterterrorism campaign akin to those waged in Yemen and Somalia, and his reliance on regional partners to deal with the challenge posed by the Islamic State, could lead to the continuation of what has been the most disengaged presidential foreign policy in modern American history.”

Okay Rubio is not happy with Obama’s plan….he sees it as leading to failure.

Then when asked just what his plan would be if it were up to him…….

To confront the Islamic State terrorists, we need a sustained air campaign targeting their leadership, sources of income and supply routes, wherever they exist. We must increase our efforts to equip and capacitate non-jihadists in Syria to fight the terrorist group. And we must arm and support forces in Iraq confronting it, including responsible Iraqi partners and the Kurds. In addition, we must persuade nations in the region threatened by the Islamic State to participate in real efforts to defeat it.

There you have it….a GOP plan for the handling of the situation in Iraq and Syria……..

You know I think I have heard that plan somewhere else recently…..can you think of where that would be?