“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” Samuel Johnson said. A few centuries later his fellow Englishman, Winston Churchill, quipped, “The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”
It’s not true of the United States, but it is true of Barack Obama who, having exhausted every alternative that involved appeasement or pretending that ISIS wasn’t a threat, has decided to do the right thing.
As long as he gets enough applause for doing it.
With his approval ratings, particularly on American leadership and national security, lower than Assad’s, he decided to exploit September 11 to butch up his foreign policy image.
After spending the last few years ignoring ISIS, he delivered a carefully timed speech vowing to take it on. The speech might have been a little more credible if it had not come from the man whose inaction allowed ISIS to take over parts of Iraq and Syria and who early this year was dismissing it as a JV team.
The scoundrel who lied and claimed that he had defeated Al Qaeda has been reborn again as a patriot who is promising to… defeat Al Qaeda. Even his usual boast of defeating Al Qaeda has been carefully walked back to a claim of having defeated “much of al-Qaida’s leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
That brief moment of near honesty is diminished only by the fact that the war on Al Qaeda had moved on to the Middle East long before Obama even took office. It was Obama who decided to divert away from fighting Al Qaeda in the Middle East on a failed attempt to defeat the Taliban and an even more failed attempt to negotiate peace with the “moderate” Taliban.
Obama’s strategy is a kitchen sink approach that promises air strikes for the patriots and multilateral coalitions for the appeasers. There will be coalitions with Sunni Arabs and with a new “inclusive” Iraqi government. There will be coalitions with everyone. A UN session will be chaired. Syria will be bombed and “terrorists who threaten our country” will be hunted down.
And all of it will happen without a single American soldier being put at risk.
It’s an utterly incoherent and calculatedly unobjectionable speech by a failing politician that fails to address why we’re in this mess and what past policies we have to rethink to get out of it.
In a telling sign, Obama’s giant goodie bag of ISIS proposals also includes arming ISIS.
“Across the border in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I again call on Congress, again, to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters,” Obama said. “We must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.”
It was the Syrian crisis that turned ISIS into an army. Some of the groups now loyal to ISIS once fought alongside the Syrian opposition that he would like to arm.
Some still do.
Not only does Obama know this, but he refrained from fully committing to arming the Syrian rebels precisely because there was no way to do so without risking the weapons falling into the hands of ISIS.
Hillary Clinton wrote in Hard Choices that he had refused to arm the rebels. Last year Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had testified that Obama had vetoed a proposal to provide weapons to them.
At a press conference Obama had said, “We have seen extremist elements insinuate themselves into the opposition, and you know, one of the things that we have to be on guard about — particularly when we start talking about arming opposition figures — is that we are not indirectly putting arms in the hands of folks that would do Americans harm.”
Reports in the New York Times suggested that the administration had not been able to find any “moderates” who could safely be armed with heavy weapons because the actual fighters on the ground are all Islamic Jihadists.
Now Obama is not only reversing one of the few sensible things he did and championing a policy that he knows quite well is wrong, but is also attempting to make Congress complicit in his destructive folly.
Obama was willing to give F-16 jets to the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. If he was holding off on heavy weapons transfers to the Jihadists in Syria, it was because he knew that there was a very high risk that those weapons would end up being used against Americans. And that he would pay a political price.
ISIS became much more lethal when it acquired American equipment that had been provided to the Iraqi military. ISIS allies in Syria had already been photographed with American humanitarian aid and when the Jihadists of the Islamic Front turned on the Free Syrian Army that is the typical vector for US aid, it easily seized their supplies and warehouses.
While the FSA isn’t ISIS, parts of it are aligned with ISIS and the other parts are jockeying for power.
Some Jihadist commanders with the FSA and other non-ISIS groups fight ISIS and its allies. Others are its allies. Telling them apart is hard even with a map and a room full of charts. Fighters drift back and forth. The “moderate” Syrian rebel that we arm and train today will be the “extreme” terrorist tomorrow and there is absolutely no way to tell where a weapon that we provide will end up.
Arming the Syrian opposition is the same thing as arming ISIS. The Syrian Jihadists fighting it don’t “reject its extreme ideology” as much as they’re angling for their piece of the Caliphate. The Al Nusra Front was fighting ISIS before it pledged allegiance to ISIS. The Sunni opposition consists of a lot of wannabe Caliphs trying to collect enough bakeries and oil wells to cash in for a Caliphate.
Obama insisted once again in his speech that ISIS is not Islamic. “No religion condones the killing of innocents… ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”
The vision of Islam, past and present, has been the slaughter of all who stand in the way of the religion’s supremacy. But the attempt to portray ISIS as a unique entity that is detached from all other Islamic terrorist groups is a misleading effort to justify an incoherent policy.
“These terrorists are unique in their brutality,” Obama claimed. “They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide.”
There isn’t anything unique about these things. Wahhabi Jihadists have been doing all of them for centuries. And these tactics date back to Mohammed.
ISIS isn’t unique in its brutality. It’s unique in its successes. And its successes can be credited to Obama’s Arab Spring and his refusal to admit that his policy of ignoring Iraq had failed.
“America is safer,” Obama claims. But that’s a lie.
America is less safe than ever. Not just because of ISIS, but because of a leadership that allows such crises to become severe threats because it refuses to address what they really are.
Obama’s speech promises action against ISIS while denying what it is. If Obama follows through on his policy, instead of defeating ISIS, he will arm it. It’s an old mistake being repeated all over again.
We can’t defeat terrorists by arming terrorists.
Max Said:
I know yawl, ain’t that GRAND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ honeybee:
Really not much difference between youse and the obvious enemy.
yamit82 Said:
YOU’RE THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with 100%, Max can go spit BB’s.
yamit82 Said:
All species are Homo Sapiens Sapiens including Jews and Muslims. Jew are humanity. If you have hatred towards all except Jews then that is one of the lesser qualities of humanity. If the West outside of Israel perishes then so will Israel.
Adolph Eichmann was prosecuted for his crimes both against the Jews and agaisnt humanity. As Hannah Arendt said if it were not so that would be to say that the Jews were not Human – but you Yamit, you do not want the Jews to be human for some reason. You are going backwards.
The stock market is an artificial creation – it could and was supposed to make the entire country prosperous but instead it became a tool of oppression and made everyone losers but the elite.
A cannibalistic, society run by a fascist elite is not a loving self-protecting society, it is a society of slavery and servitude. is not a loving one. You do not support fascism out of love, you support it out of fear – fear of losing the pathetic nothing that you are doled out by the elite. .
The world, like democracy, and capitalism is what you make of it, and you make something dysfunctional of it because of fear, selfishness and shortsightedness. You think embracing “humanity” means you will lose something, but in fact it means you will gain something. If you display cruelty and hatred to the outer world , you will display it in you own worlds in that paradigm.
The comment you made about “food” shows you have a crippled sense of altruism and disbelieve that it exists in others. Almost everyone on this site could learn to be more empathetic and go out and learn more about the ordinary live s of those who they consider to be the enemy. If nothing else , it would make you more effective and objective when it comes down to the necessity of killing them. No one ever “lost” by knowing more and being more.
…
I already know this paradigm form my own common sense , You do not follow this – you deplore democracies , will not work to help them evolve and support fascist and totalitarian systems. You are all to willing to club your inner circle members over the head if out of fear and greed.
The reason your leaders and your media do not support the survival of Israel is directly because of the type of dysfunctional society that exists ,in Israel that you support. you and many other haters are hoist by your own petard. The system of oppression by economic elites does not and will never work for your interests and precisely since you do not follow the stated paradigm you will always be confused and not understanding what is going wrong.
That is a false paradigm and a paradigm of hatred It is not either the civilized civilization versus Israel it is both. By supporting both they strengthen and reinforce each other.
One does not need to hate America and the West as you do in order to support Israel. In such an attitude you can expect no allies and of course you state you don’t want any. But then why complain about antisemitism , why discuss world politics – it’s nothing to do with Israel in your paradigm and none of your business from an Isolationist perspective.
The primary consideration is to save Civilization form totalitarians ism of which Islamism is just one expression and of which Israel is just one of the battlefields – a very important one but just one of the battlefield.
This is what the world and humanity is, it is there, you cannot erase it or ignore it, you must work with it.
@ yamit82:
yamit82 Said:
I think they will avoid that confrontation at all costs as it would be a can of worms, or is already.
@ bernard ross:
How much longer can Nato avoid a confrontation with Turkey??
Max Said:
Wrong the world is made of winners and losers like the stock market. For every inner there is a loser.
Don’t push the one world humanity crap on me. If it were up to your humanity neither you or I would exist today. We Jews owe your humanity bubkis.
On the other hand Judaism has a Humanist side which I only partially agree with and it goes something like this:
“Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) developed a paradigm for love in terms of concentric circles. He wrote that first a Jew must love himself, the center of the circle. The next step is to focus on loving one’s family. The next concentric circle outward is love for the Jewish people. Beyond that, one should strive to love all human beings. The outermost circle is love for all living creatures.
Success with the inner circles impacts one’s success with the outer circles. A person who hates himself will have great difficulty loving others. A person who does not love his own siblings or cousins often bears only a specious love for all Israel. How can a Jew claim to love all humanity but hate his own people? A person who is devoted to saving the whales but couldn’t care less about saving starving Africans suffers from a glaring myopia.
Judaism considers the entire creation worthy of love (for, after all, who created it?), but prioritizes according to an inner logic. Thus, the Mishna lists “loving all humanity” as one of the prerequisites for acquiring Torah (Ethics of the Fathers 6:6) and Torah law forbids causing unnecessary pain to animals. No circle is skipped, but the more genuine the love, the more it will radiate from the center out.”
How many steak dinners have you forfeited in solidarity with the starving of the world? When you sit down to a great meal do you even think about them? I’m sure you don’t.
Our first and primary obligations are to take care of our own and for us that means Jews first. If you disagree what the hell are you doing here?
@ yamit82:
Its too bad that savage often cut off klein before he could state facts. EG on the Israel support of jihadis and Isis it was completely inaccurate; Israels prime effort was humaitarian to any rebels with some coop through the US in the earlier bombings of transfers to hezbullah. My understanding is that that it is al nusra rather than ISIS who represent the jihdis in golan + The FSA. However, they are interchangeable. Of course it makes sense that Israel would give some support to anyone who would weaken existential enemies like syria, hezbullah and Iran…and it makes sense that they all keep fighting each other…I am sure that if and when they become a real threat that Israel can easily deal with them. I dont expect them to become a real threat unless it is a false flag excuse for Israel to go in or declare a no fly zone.
yamit82 Said:
You are wrong and it’s everybody’s problem. My “us” includes Israel. You are incredibly myopic.
Because of your ant-American bias you have only been thinking of the threat to Israel and not to the rest of the civilized world. After a triple WMD attack Red Dawn with a scimitar can easily be a reality – and in the dust while everyone in North America is too busy to care about anything else – that’s the time they will take out Israel.
Guys like Greenfield and you hate America so much they’ll say anything to get at Obama. Articles like the one above can’t be trusted for intellectual honesty.
You and Obama have soothing in common – you are both Isolationist. I see only one world and one species. Any solution must be good for all our species, for everywhere, for everyone’s future.
yamit82 Said:
yes, the big danger in local and global jihadi threat is Iran and hezbullah also to the US. Hezbullah has apparently infiltrated many jihadis into the US through their latin connections. The sunni jihadis would be more responsible for false flag terror in the US, IMO.
My perspective is that all the sunni jihadi mercenaries are related not through each other but through their funders, suppliers and sponsors. this is the model I see: on the sunni side the gulf monarchies fund control and arm the various jihadis through different countries…e.g. Saudi controls and funds salafi while qatar controls and funds the MB. their overall goals are the same ins Syria, Iraq and even gaza. qatars appearance of a quarrel with the GCC enables it to maintain its credentials with the MB jihadis. A few months back, Meshaal informed Hamas that qatar instructed him that they must form a unity gov with PA as saudi was demanding it. the leaderships know whats happening but the Jihadi on the street in his various “different” jihadi orgs and names, thinks they are all separate. all of this confusion allows anyone to claim anything. Suddenly debka has us bleiving that Israel is now changing sides from the rebels to assad… I dont beelive it at all, they may enterunder that cover but there is no gain from operating with assad. Israel can control and maintain the jihadis on its borders and has been so doing. Israel might go into syria, or create a buffer zone under pretexts of breach of armistice or threat of jihadis but I think keeping assad back from the border strengthens Israels hold on the golan…assad having no sovereignty of that area, not in control of his borders, etc.
Max Said:
That’s your problem Bub.
Short of Nukes and a plague, I don’t think you have too much to worry about yet. They are not a global mega threat and they are taking care of business close to home bases. Stopping them is not so difficult at this point unless they are not pursued and allowed to grow and expand.
Iran is still the danger and ISIS is a handy diversion probably for both Obama/EU and Iran.
They seem to be playing a game of 3 card Monte on a global scale. Keep your eye on the little pea.
@ bernard ross:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V938kQ8bqtw
yamit82 Said:
absolutely right, lots of baloney flying about.
One wonders how long the public will buy the elephant cornpie that the Islamic Terrorists that are killing and attacking people EVERYWHERE are not Islam. And long will they think it’s not Islam when they see all the Muslim people continually come out on North America streets rioting over trivia like “being criticized” and having hurt feelings and demonstrating to support terrorists?
Perhaps til the first Islamic Pearl Harbor. But now that we are infested with Terrorist sympathizing immigrants will the wake up call come in time and what will be left of us when it comes?
I agree with arming the moderates and so do the Republicans. If Obama had done this 2 years ago as everyone else (American military advisers) suggested ISIS would not have come to power. Everyone backs a winner – when the Syrians saw that America would not back any of them they went to the strongest power against Assad which was ISIS -.
ISIS is Obama’s fault for not doing enough. – for not supporting the moderates.
It may be too little too late or even perhaps Obama is not sincere enough in his stated objective – I believe he will cop out of doing what he says or he will just do it too weakly. He is an anti-war , hide head in the sand . President.
As for the article above – just Anti-Obama hysterics as usual – no common sense. So what are the Governments in Afghanistan and Iraq – Jihadists? We the West need to have hands in the play, cards in the deck ,allies even weak allies are better than none and if they turn we just kill them off as usual.
We armed Saddam agaisnt Iran , then we hanged Saddam when he became a threat – just business as usual.
,..
“Kill with a borrowed knife” – look up what it means. Using one against the other is the ancient art of war – tried and true method.
yamit82 Said:
I agree. I think Israel’s involvement has been on a case by case basis a wait and see what happens approach, caution, operating form the sidelines, and yet, engaging in one by one commitments which are influenced by this overall collaborative effort of the west/GCC.
I think that there was a collaboration at pillar of defense when qatar “brokered” the cease fire. In this case I even speculate that the targets in gaza prior may have been Iranian linked gaza targets in a joint effort to put gaza into the pocket of the gulf monarchies and out of Irans hands. In return Israel was not the target of all the foreign jihadis brought to syria but Israel benefited from the weakening of hezbullah, Assad which would mitigate blowback from those proxies if israel attacked Iran. In return I believe that BB freed the prisoners for the false peace talks to enable them to end with Abbas claiming some victory for the meaningless engagement. This so as to allow the GCC to recruit their jihadis to war against the shias instead of war against israel, keeping the Israel pal issue from distracting from the war against Irans proxies. Even this latest Egyptian involvement and the operation of protective edge decisions, I believe has as part of the decision making, the regional develpments.
I predicted that if the assembled jihadis in Syria refrained from attacking Israel but went for Assad, hezbullah, then Iraq…that it would indicate that my model of background cooperation might be correct.
the way I see it is that the pivotal point, that brings all the disparate elements together, each with their own self interests, is the US. that the US has shown each player what their share of the heist is. They did the same with turkey, remember I predicted that the turks would cooperate with the Kurds in this whole plan.
We have an enormous amount of rhetoric and talk going on over the last 2 years and today but in actuality, according to facts, ISIS has enabled the west to have a say in Iraq and Syria. In my view Obamas stance with sisi and Isis are false front red herrings. same with the so called Qatar GCC split. Qatar is the GCC link to having an influence on that segment of sunni islam under the influence of the MB. Qatar is the lighning rod which allows Saudi to remain out of the limelight as jihad sponsor. the most recent action of saudi is to move troops to the borders of Iraq and now announces that its response to ISIS is to train “moderate” syrian rebels in keeping with its latest makeover. Meanwhile everyone looks to Qatar while Saudi works quietly in the background.
from the Israel project in an article which was highlighting Turkey and qatar terror involvements, this snippet showing how I thin it really works:
while everyone watches qatar and Turkey the Saudis still operating in the background probably doing the same they always did. I do not see the goals and aims of the gulf monarchies having changed…only appearances of changes and conflicts as red herrings. They ALL still want the same thing in Iraq, syria and with iran. Note that Qatar is still a full fledged member in GCC in spite of all the drama saying otherwise.
Yidvocate Said:
US arms have been ending up in Jihadi hands for almost 3 years now: Benghazi arms shipments, CIA brokered Saudi 500 mill croatian arms purchase, ISIS capture of US arms left from Iraq war.
I have found Klein to be the most credible source on the Benghazi issue over the last 2 years. Once one accepts that Benghazi was a collaborative effort to arm, train and fund jihadis in syria then everything else makes more sense. Especially all the fabricated gobbleygook created by the new red herring of ISIS.
ISIS has done everything that the western alliance and GCC wanted to accomplish and are the only reason that the they still have any shred of a negotiating position with the russian, Iran, Hezbullah axis. I consider the recent flurry of activity by GCC, US etc towards the ISIS bogey man to be a false front. Notice that in the months prior to the sudden blitzkrieg of ISIS both the US and Saudi were cultivating an image of separation from terror and rebel groups…….ISIS is the new proxy at arm’s length giving plausible deniability…
(NOte: I do not necessarily agree with Klein on the reason for the Bengahzi attack. I think it may have been a response by the russian/syrian/iran axis to obstruct the arms shipments to syria. there are many different motives and scenarios presented for the attack but I do not doubt that the US was intentionally collaborating to collect and ship the arms and to train the rebels in jordan)
@ Yidvocate:
I tend to mostly agree you but will add that ISIS to a larger or lesser degree is an invention or creation of the USA/England/France and the Saudis, with aid from Jordan and Turkey and I’m not sure how much Israel is involved.
Seems to be a lot of cross and double cross going on here and you need a score card to line up those involved and the real opposing sides.
I prefer to wait this one out for now till the chess board is reduced to fewer active players to know who to support if anyone.
Daniel Greenfield ,I believe knows better and knows a lot more than he is telling here.
Greenfield thinks Obama is making a mistake. That he truly believes that ISIL/ISIS/IS or the Caliphate or whatever it is, is not an authentic representation of Islam. But wasn’t Obama raised as a Muslim and educated as a Muslim? Ya really think he doesn’t know that Jihad is authentic Islam and that US arms will end up in Jihadi hands? This Manchurian Candidate, stealth jihadi and Terror-Enabler-In_Chief knows all to well that this is just another ploy in his plan to weaken America and the West and further empower the Islamic enemies of democracy and freedom.