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| Iraq |
| Obama's self-defeating fight |
| 2014-09-17 |
| h/t Gates of Vienna The United States has a problem with Islamic State. Its problem is that it refuses to acknowledge why Islamic State is a problem. The problem with Islamic State is not that it is brutal. Plenty of regimes are brutal. Islamic State poses two challenges for the US. First, unlike the Saudis and even the Iranians, IS actively recruits Americans and other Westerners to join its lines. This is a problem because these Americans and other Westerners have embraced an ideology that is viciously hostile to every aspect of Western civilization. ...The presence of Westerners in IS, indeed, IS's aggressive efforts to recruit Westerners wouldn't pose much of a problem for the US if it were willing to secure its borders and recognize the root of the problem. But as US President Barack Obama made clear over the summer, and indeed since he first took office six years ago, he opposes any effort to secure the US border with Mexico. If these jihadists can get to Mexico, they will, in all likelihood, have no problem coming to America. Even if the US were to secure its southern border, it would still be unable to prevent these jihadists from returning to attack. The policy of the US government is to deny the existence of a jihadist threat by, among other thing, denying the existence of the ideology of Islamic jihad. When President Barack Obama insisted last Wednesday that Islamic State is not Islamic, he told all the Westerners who are now proud mujihadin that they shouldn't worry about coming home. They won't be screened. As far as the US is concerned their Islamic jihad ideology doesn't exist. Whereas every passenger arriving in the US from Liberia can be screened for Ebola, no one will be screened for exposure to jihadist thought. And this brings us to the second problem IS poses to the US. As a rising force in the Middle East, IS threatens US allies and it threatens global trade. To prevent its allies from being overthrown and to prevent shocks to the international economy, at a minimum, the US needs to contain IS. And given the threat the Westerners joining the terror army constitute, and Washington's unwillingness to stop them at the border, in all likelihood, the US needs to destroy IS where it stands. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that the US is willing or able to either contain or defeat IS. As US Maj. Gen. (ret.) Robert Scales wrote over the weekend in The Wall Street Journal, from a military perspective, IS is little different from all the guerrilla forces the US has faced in battle since the Korean War. Scales argues that in all previous such engagements, the outcomes have been discouraging because the US lacks the will to take the battle to the societies that feed them or use its firepower to its full potential out of fear of killing civilians. Clearly this remains the case today. Moreover, as Angelo Codevilla explained last month in The Federalist, to truly dry up the swamp feeding IS, it is necessary to take the war to its state sponsors -- first and foremost Turkey and Qatar. In his words, "The first strike against the IS must be aimed at its sources of material support. Turkey and Qatar are very much part of the global economy... If...the United States decides to kill the IS, it can simply inform Turkey, Qatar, and the world it will have zero economic dealings with these countries and with any country that has any economic dealing with them, unless these countries cease any and all relations with the IS." Yet, as we saw on the ground this weekend with US Secretary of State John Kerry's failed mission to secure Turkish support for the US campaign against IS, the administration has no intention of taking the war to IS's state sponsors, without which it would be just another jihadi militia jockeying for power in Syria. And this leaves us with the administration's plan to assemble a coalition of the willing that will provide the foot soldiers for the US air war against Islamic State. 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. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #11 Besoeker. You got my hopes up that this was real. LOL :) |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-09-17 15:39 |
| #10 lol, Besoeker |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-09-17 15:20 |
| #9 |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-09-17 15:13 |
| #8 I suspect a week or a month later they'd be begging to come back. And how, pray tell, is that to be accomplished in a militarily aggressive totalitarian society? We haven't yet invented Star Wars beaming technology, even if it can be seen on television. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-09-17 15:07 |
| #7 In most cases I think the women in question are young and haven't really thought it through. I suspect a week or a month later they'd be begging to come back. We are better off without them. They should be forced to renounce their citizenship in order to leave. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2014-09-17 14:48 |
| #6 In the first instance, the women who leave the West to join IS have no qualms about entering a society in which they have no rights. They are happy covering themselves in black from head to toe. They have no problem casting their lot with a society that prohibits females from leaving their homes without male escorts. They have no problem sharing their husband with other wives Are these the same women who would be protesting that the government should be providing birth control and who think the conservatives have a "war on women?" |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-09-17 13:05 |
| #5 As Boston demonstrated, they'll be attracted to the usual Big Blue city hand outs and prefer not to venture too far to engage in their mayhem and wanton display of war against the infidel. The Big Blue culture, as shown with Obama, will refuse to acknowledge the problem. Rinse and repeat. What's the down side? Think of it as turbo charging the Darwin effect when entities are unable to adapt to a changing environment. It'll speed up the 'Detroit' effect for these cities. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-09-17 09:02 |
| #4 In my opinion let them cross the border. Give them welfare. Best weapon to nullify their cause. Talk is cheap. Action requires effort. Export left ideas over there and like a cancer destroy enterprise and hard work efforts. Why fight for anything if you have your pot and drugs. Appears the best way to manage a population. Then of course free abortions. Then free end your life clinics. 50 years old, 40 years old whenever. Free choice and expand planned parenthood. The left has always felt there are too many people in the world. Young adults are committing suicide now in greater numbers than ever it appears to me. Every week here in my area and my area is a small community. |
| Posted by: Dale 2014-09-17 08:37 |
#3  |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-09-17 07:39 |
| #2 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. Champ has absolutely no intention of 'defeating' ISIL or Islam. His actions against the threat are little more than political theater. He is Mooslim first, his citizenry is simply a thinly veiled cover for action. His fellow shadow gov't handlers and facilitators, people like Brennan, Valjar, Rice, Holder and others share his beliefs and goals. Statement such as "ISIS is not Islam" clearly betray his true intentions. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-09-17 07:32 |
| #1 unicode fixed |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2014-09-17 06:55 |