Tag Archives: Islamic State

International news, military news

ISIL clearly not ‘contained,’ however ….

obama and kerry

President Obama might have been a bit more precise in his answer to a question this past week regarding the U.S. war against the Islamic State.

He told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that ISIL has been “contained.” Twenty-four hours later, terrorists launched the hideous attacks throughout Paris, killing nearly 200 innocent victims.

The president’s foes have seized on the “contained” remark as proof, they say, that he’s clueless.

What he said later in his answer to the question dealt with ISIL’s battlefield capabilities and whether the fighters’ advances in Syria and Iraq have been stopped. He believes that our air campaign has stalled the Islamic State’s march.

Clearly, though, the terror cabal is capable of launching the kind of attack that it did Friday in Paris. Richard Clarke, the anti-terror expert who’s worked for administrations of both political parties, said this morning that ISIL is far more capable and fearsome than al-Qaeda.

ISIL has committed “an act of war” against the civilized world, said French President Francois Hollande. How do nations respond to such acts? By going to war.

Contained or not, the Islamic State needs to face the combined fury of the immense military power of the nations it has chosen to fight.

 

International news, military news

How do we end this world war?

war on terror

The Paris attacks that killed more than 120 innocent victims this week brought a question to my mind this afternoon as I visited with my boss … the one at work.

I asked, perhaps rhetorically, “How are we going to kill every single person on Earth who seeks to commit an act of terrorism?”

French officials today vowed to “destroy” the Islamic State. I trust they’ll take their place in a long line of officials throughout the civilized world who’ve made similar vows.

President Francois Hollande is a very angry man today as France seeks to collect itself after the worst single act of violence committed there since World War II.

The question, though, lingers in my mind.

I am beginning to believe we’re engaged in a new kind of world war. It’s not being waged against enemy states. It’s being fought wherever we find evil men and women who seek to terrorize the world. They do not represent a government, per se. They represent some perverted ideology that uses religion as some form of cover.

How do we wipe them out? How do we know when we’ve got the last person on Earth who seeks to commit a heinous act of terror? Moreover, suppose we wipe the last person out. How can ever guarantee that another individual, or group of individuals, will emerge from the shadows to resume such acts?

We are facing a very uncertain time. Indeed, it’s been an uncertain time ever since that beautiful Tuesday morning in September 2001 when those terrorists flew the jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and fought with the passengers aboard the third plane that crashed into the Pennsylvania field.

My boss noted the 9/11 attack as being perhaps the first “shot” in this new world war.

When on God’s Earth will it end? Can it ever end?

I fear for the worst, which is that we’ll be fighting these forces of evil for as long as human beings are able to fight.

 

International news

Up next? A ‘pitiless’ response to terror

epa05024278 French president Francois Hollande speaks in Paris, France, 14 November 2015, following a series of coordinated attacks in and around Paris late 13 November 2015, which left more than 120 people dead. Hollande blamed the Islamic State group for the attacks in Paris that left at least 128 dead, calling them an 'act of war'. EPA/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL MAXPPP OUT

There can be nothing good to come from the Paris attacks this week that killed at least 120 French citizens.

However, the response from French President Francois Hollande gives one hope that the civilized world has gained another full-time participant in the world war against terrorism.

Hollande has vowed a “pitiless” response to the coordinated, well-planned attacks at several locations throughout the City of Lights. And from across the English Channel, British Prime Minister David Cameron told the French that “their fight is our fight.”

France brings considerable muscle to this global effort. The country has a significant military force capable of bringing great harm to whomever it engages. Its intelligence network ranks as one of the more sophisticated on the planet.

Meanwhile, the United States has been waging its own brand of warfare against the Islamic State — which has taken “credit,” if you want to call it that — for the horrifying act it committed in Paris.

Air strikes are continuing. President Obama has decided to send in a small cadre of special operations forces to help train the Kurds in their fight against ISIS in Syria. The British continue to provide air support for the air strikes against terror targets. And, yes, the Russians have joined the fight, too — although it remains an open question whether the MiG fighter jets are actually hitting ISIS targets or merely going after rebel forces fighting the brutal regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who remains a sworn enemy of the United States.

What will it take to defeat the Islamic State? Perhaps it will take more acts of brutality by the monstrous organization against more of our allies throughout the world.

We should continue to accept and welcome all the help we can get.

 

International news

Is this what world war looks like?

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Paris has been hit. Again.

Terrorists went on the attack in a concert hall. Dozens of victims were killed. French police then stormed the hall, rescued some hostages and killed two attackers.

World leaders around the globe have issued statements of condemnation. President Obama called the tragedy today an “attack on all of humanity.”

Is this what world war looks like? Have we been fighting this international war against terrorism around the globe to such a degree that someone can declare this to be the start of World War III?

Paris was hit a couple of years ago at a magazine publishing office. Twelve victims died in that act of terror. And there have been countless other attacks all around the world.

The 9/11 attacks in 2001 in New York and Washington seemed to ignite the inferno. There have been so many others they are impossible off the top of one’s head to count them.

We knew when President Bush sent the troops into Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists that this war wouldn’t be won with a surrender document. There wouldn’t be a Battleship Missouri Moment. This looks for all the world like a war without end.

Paris is suffering yet again.

Our hearts go out to the French, its leaders and its people.

Will there be more heartache somewhere else? Most assuredly. Yet the fight must go on wherever we find monsters willing to commit gruesome acts of terror against innocent victims.

For as long as it takes.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

Patience is the key to eliminating these monsters

Drone-Strike

American and British intelligence officials are beginning to talk now as though they believe they have killed Mohammad Emwazi, aka Jihadi John.

The strike was quick but it was months in the planning.

It goes to show that patience is a critical ingredient in this war against terrorism and the people who commit these horrific acts.

Emwazi was a British citizen, born in Kuwait but reared in the U.K. He became a propaganda tool for the Islamic State and was video-recorded beheading captive foreigners, the first of whom was U.S. journalist James Foley.

Yes, a lot of folks demanded immediate justice. As it turned out, though, in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, these efforts require tremendous coordination, attention to the tiniest detail and absolute certainty that we’ve got the bad guy right where we want him if we intend to strike.

The hunt for bin Laden commenced right after the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration hunted far and wide across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bin Laden almost got it at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. He got away. President Bush left office in January 2009, handed the operation off to President Obama, who then took up where his predecessor left off.

Detailed analysis of intelligence led the Navy SEALs and CIA spooks to the Pakistan complex, where they found bin Laden — and then shot him to death.

Emwazi’s death — which is beginning to sound more certain — was delivered after tremendous effort by U.S. and British intelligence agencies and military planners from both countries.

What’s the lesson?

It’s that we cannot antsy when we don’t bring justice to these monsters right away.

Patience, folks. Patience.

 

International news

Jihadi John might have been turned into a pile of ash

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The late, great heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis once said of an opponent, “He can run, but he can’t hide.”

So it is with terrorists. So, indeed, it might be with a particular monster who — one can hope — has been incinerated in a drone strike in Syria.

Mohammad Emwazi has been dubbed “Jihadi John.” He’s the guy on the viral videos seen beheading captives. To say he is an evil monster is to commit a gross understatement.

A U.S. drone reportedly hit a target where it is believed Emwazi was holed up. Secretary of State John Kerry and British Prime Minister David Cameron cannot guarantee he was there.

Emwazi is — or let us hope was — a British citizen. He was born in Kuwait, moved to the U.K. as a youngster, was raised in a middle-class family, got a good education and then became a radicalized Muslim. He joined the Islamic State and became the voice of the terror organization; he hasn’t been the face, because he hides behind a mask whenever he is recorded committing those barbaric acts.

Let’s be clear on one thing. If Emwazi in fact was vaporized in that air strike, we shouldn’t high-five each other for very long. There will be others who’ll take his place. Just as others have stepped up to replace Osama bin Laden, the world is full of men with evil intent in what passes for their hearts and one of them would step into Jihadi John’s shoes.

Still, let them continue to run. They all must know they cannot hide forever.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

‘Take the oil,’ Trump says; how, sir?

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Donald Trump said the following over the weekend …

“You know, if you stop transportation, I mean, you’re talking about the blood – the blood of the world and we’re going to have to be very, very strong … We’re going to have to take away the energy, the fuel, the money from ISIS.”

It’s a position he’s stated several times while running for the Republican presidential nomination. I do not yet know the answer to this question: How does a President Trump (perish the thought) plan to “take away the energy”?

The Islamic State is getting it from sources in the Middle East. It’s likely some form of black market transaction process. Or it could be done up front and in the open.

Either way, Trump’s assertion that we must take the oil, seize control of it connotes a serious military involvement that the candidate — so far — has said would be a mistake. In the same conversation he had Sunday morning with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump described the Middle East as a “quagmire.”

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard a politician ever suggest it is in the country’s best interests to thrust our cherished young American men and women into a quagmire.

So … how would Trump propose to take that oil?

Talk to us, Donald.

 

International news

ISIS might have enlisted a new, powerful foe

russianjetcrash

Is there any chance that the Islamic State has opened the door for a powerful new adversary to enter the active worldwide fight against the terrorist monsters?

British and U.S. intelligence officials are beginning to piece together a theory that a bomb was placed aboard a Russian Metrojet charter airplane that exploded over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

All 224 people aboard the craft, mostly Russian, died in the tragic crash.

ISIS takes credit

Then we hear that ISIS has taken credit for the explosion, even though recovery teams at the crash site initially said they couldn’t find evidence of a bomb.

Well, if there is to be any possible silver lining in this tragedy — and the world is sending its sympathy to the families of those who perished — it is that Russia well might now become an active ally of the United States in this global anti-terror conflict.

If history is a judge of how the Russians might react to this carnage, then the Islamic State well might have picked the wrong foe to fight.

History tells us that when Nazi German troops invaded the then-Soviet Union in June 1941, they plundered the territory they captured en route to Moscow. They killed millions of Russians.

The Red Army then turned the tide against the Germans and began advancing westward, driving the Germans out of Russia. They returned the “favor,” so to speak, by killing German soldiers who were surrendering. They fought a vengeance-filled advance on an enemy that had brought so much misery to innocent victims.

Yes, history possibly can be a guide to the kind of vengeance that contemporary Russia might seek in this worldwide war against the Islamic State.

President Obama would do well to recruit his adversary Russian President Vladimir Putin to join us in this struggle.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

Should the president return that Peace Prize?

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barack obama

Barack H. Obama campaigned for the presidency vowing to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His election in 2008 prompted the Nobel Committee to award him the Peace Prize the following year with the hope of a peaceful future in those two countries. The new president accepted the prize while acknowledging the unusual context in which the committee awarded it.

I never thought I’d say this, but I have to wonder if President Obama has ever considered giving the award back.

Why? Well, consider that that he vowed to end both wars. They haven’t ended. Now he’s about to commit a handful of U.S. troops into a third country to engage in the battle against the Islamic State.

Obama faces dilemma

The president recently announced that he would keep troops fighting in Afghanistan past the time he leaves office in January 2017; our commitment in Iraq remains, despite the pullout of frontline combat troops. Now this, the deployment of Special Forces to assist the Kurds fighting ISIS in northern Syria.

He took office while the country was fighting in two countries. He likely will leave office with the nation fighting in three countries.

This is not the legacy that Barack Obama ever wanted, but it’s part of the legacy he will leave the next president of the United States.

I get that circumstances have changed since he took office as the so-called “transformational” president. The Islamic State has exploded onto the scene. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has brutalized and murdered hundreds of thousands of his people. The Iraqi military has fallen far short of its mission to defend the country against Islamic State murderers. The Taliban has fought back in Afghanistan.

Yes, we killed Osama bin Laden. We’ve continued to hunt down and kill terrorists all across the Middle East and South Asia. And we’ve known all along that the Global War on Terror would not end in the conventional way, with one side signing a peace treaty to end the hostilities. We are fighting an elusive and cunning enemy.

However, all that hope that Barack Obama brought to the presidency has dissipated as he heads for the final turn of his two terms in office.

I’m not going to say President Obama should give back the Nobel Peace Prize, although I wouldn’t complain out loud if he did.

 

International news, military news

Another ISIL leader bites the dust; more to follow

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A U.S. drone strike is believed to have killed the No. 2 goon in the Islamic State terror command.

His name was Haji Mutazz and he died on Aug. 18 when a drone launched a missile at his location.

Boom! He’s dead.

Let’s be clear about one terrible truth. It is that another goon likely will emerge to take his place. Does that mean we stop sending these missiles into places where the ISIL monsters are believed to be hiding? Not for a second.

Mutazz reportedly was riding in a car near Mosul when the drone took him out.

As one who strongly supports the use of these drones, I am glad to know they are capable of inflicting serious pain on this network of terrorist monsters.

Will there ever be an end to this ? My guess: Probably not, at least in the immediate term.

That’s all right. The more effective we are at launching these missiles either from unmanned platforms such as drone or by manned fighter jets, the better off the world is without these individuals slithering among us.