Category Archives: International news

International news, military news, national news, political news

Take ownership of this failure, Mr. President

It pains me to say this, but President Obama’s response to the question of how the U.S. got “surprised” by the rise of the Islamic State is disappointing — to say the very least.

I’ve noted before how the president likes to use the first-person singular pronoun references to his presidency. He’s particularly fond of using it when they involved success.

When Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” asked him the other day how he could have been surprised by ISIL’s emergence, the president said: “Well I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

There it is: “they underestimated …”

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/isis-sweep-into-iraq-was-no-surprise-to-anyone-paying-attention.html/

I’m not going to join the right-wing mainstream media chorus in saying Barack Obama has thrown Clapper “under the bus.” But as the blog from the Dallas Morning News notes correctly, ISIL’s emergence wasn’t a surprise to those intelligence officials who were paying attention.

Furthermore, as commander in chief, the chief executive of one branch of the U.S. government, the head of state and government, it falls directly on the president of the United States to be aware fully of these matters in real time, as they are happening.

The president did receive a letter signed by senators from both parties that warned him about ISIL. It was sent to the White House nearly 11 months ago, long before those gruesome beheadings captured the nation’s attention. Now we know what’s stake, yes?

Well, apparently, some legislators had more than an inkling nearly a year ago and warned the White House of the impending danger.

As the Morning News’s Tod Robberson notes in his blog: “Okay, let’s assume that Obama disregarded the letter as partisan hyperbole from the same ol’ critics, namely McCain and Graham. That doesn’t account for the contribution from Levin and Menendez. Let’s assume that Obama was reluctant to react because he didn’t trust the mercurial whims of al-Maliki. How does any of that explain his failure to respond when ISIS clearly was sweeping into Iraq’s Anbar Province in January?”

Well, the president is responding now. I’m grateful for that.

I do wish, though, he would take as much ownership of the setbacks as he does of the triumphs.

International news, military news, political news, State news

Dewhurst is pushing the panic button

David Dewhurst always seemed like a reasonable, responsible, reliable Republican.

I didn’t know much about him when he and I met the first time as he ran for Texas land commissioner back in 1998. He was new to the Texas political spotlight. He seemed bright and engaged fully in the nuance of Texas government at many levels.

Now he’s gone to the dark side. He’s joined the nut-case crowd of the Texas Republican Party. He’s now a lame duck, having been beaten for his job by someone who’s even farther out there on the rightest wing of the party, Dan Patrick.

So what does Dewhurst do? Does he recede quietly back into the shadows and wait for his term to end? Oh no. He goes to that Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. and proclaim that Muslims are infiltrating our southern border.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/09/26/dewhurst-tells-dc-crowd-prayer-rugs-found-border/

How does he know that? He says Border Patrol authorities have found prayer rugs way down yonder. That means those dreaded “Islamic fanatics” are coming into Texas to blow up buildings, kill people and convert the United States of America into an Islamic nation.

Of course, the federal government denies such rugs exist.

The Texas Tribune reports: “(A) Texas congressman who sits on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee has argued that there’s no threat of extremism on the border. U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, said during that same panel that top Pentagon officials had denied that there was any threat on the Texas-Mexico border from the Islamic State (ISIS) or similar groups. He added that similar claims were made about extremists crossing into Texas from Mexico during the United States’ conflicts with Libya in the 1980s, which he also mentioned to The Economist in an article published this week.”

Dewhurst always struck me as a studious guy, dedicated to the meticulous detail of legislating. It’s been said of him that he at times lacks the people skills needed to be an effective politician.

After reading his remarks at that Values Voter gathering, he also seems to lack the judgment to keep his finger off the panic button that signals the start of a religious war.

This isn’t a fight against Islam. It’s a fight against terrorists.

Cool it with the prayer rug talk, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Revenge on tap? Who knew?

This is the nature of the enemy with which the United States and other nations are at war.

Al-Qaeda officials vow “revenge” for the air strikes that have hammered Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq. And why are we striking those targets? Because of terrorist acts against innocent civilians.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/al-qaida-leader-syria-warns-revenge-airstrikes-n213636

Al-Qaeda started this fight 13 years ago when terrorists hijacked those airplanes and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The United States, led by two presidents, have sought to finish the fight they started.

There’s no end game in sight yet. President Bush declared our intention to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan. President Obama has followed through.

ISIL has emerged as an offshoot of al-Qaeda and has executed innocents, some of whom in a horrific way.

And now these terrorists are vowing revenge?

Someone will have to explain to me how this makes any sense.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Let's debate this war declaration notion

Matthew Dowd, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, is quite correct to call attention to whether the United States of America has gone to war under the rules set forth by the U.S. Constitution.

He was speaking this morning on ABC-TV’s “This Week” and said the debate should have commenced 30 years ago.

The Constitution states in Article I, Section 8 that Congress has the power “To declare war.”

There it is. No argument. No qualifier. The power to declare war rests exclusively with Congress.

And yet …

We’ve been to war in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Korea — am I missing anything? — without Congress voting on a declaration of war.

The discussion this morning comes just as the United States is gathering a coalition of allies to bomb the Islamic State into oblivion as it seeks to destroy what’s been called “an existential threat” to this country. Congress has authorized the training and arming Syrian rebels, but hasn’t yet debated whether to send American aviators into hostile air space to bomb ISIL forces.

That’s warfare, as I understand the meaning of the term.

Shouldn’t we be having this debate? Shouldn’t Congress declare war on ISIL if that is what the commander in chief says is occurring as we seek to “degrade and ultimately destroy” this terrorist cult?

International news, national news, political news

We are not engaging in a religious war

The Values Summit is underway in Washington, D.C., and the usual cavalcade of kooks is drumming up something akin to a religious war.

The international war on terror, they imply strongly, is a war between Christians and Jews against Muslims.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/ted-cruz-values-voter-conference-111363.html?hp=f2

Let’s hold on here.

It is a war pitting civilized human beings against cult followers.

Michelle Bachmann, the lame-duck Minnesota congresswoman, kept harping on what she called “Islamic terrorists.” So did lame-duck Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a roundtable of “experts” who contend that Muslims pose an existential threat to our way of life.

Give me a break.

Another conservative American president, George W. Bush, was quite astute back when this war began immediately after 9/11 to declare that America is not waging war against Islam. He singled out the terrorists who have perverted a great religion to suit their insane political cause. Does anyone remember when President Bush visited a mosque in New York immediately after touring the wreckage of where the World Trade Center stood?

The Islamic State is not a religious organization. It is a cult. It is a cabal of sociopathic murderers who seek to use religion as a pretext to commit heinous acts of terrorism on innocent people.

They are the enemy. The do not represent Islam any more than, say, the crackpots at Westboro Baptist “Church” in Topeka, Kan., represent Christianity.

The task now is to persuade the goofballs on the right to quit trying to make this a religious war.

It is no such thing.

International news, military news, national news

ISIL is a cult, period

Let’s quit trying to suggest that the Islamic State has anything at all to do with religion.

As in Islam, from which it draws its filthy name.

I’ve made a pact that I’m now going to refer to ISIL as a “cult.” I’ll conceded it’s not an original thought. I’m appropriating it from someone who said it on a news-talk show the other day. If I could remember who said it, I’d credit him specifically.

ISIL doesn’t represent anything about Islam.

I shall concede that I am not a Muslim scholar. I have enough trouble trying to understand my own Presbyterian faith, so I cannot pretend to know much at all about Islam.

However, I am quite comfortable lumping ISIL with other infamous cults.

The worst of them in recent times, for me at least, is the Jonestown cult that committed mass suicide in its Guyana jungle compound in 1978 after gunmen murdered Congressman Leo Ryan and others who had gone there to investigate what was going on with the cult gathering organized by the late Jim Jones.

I would rank ISIL as worse than the Jonestown cult, given the nature of the beheadings they’ve shown the world and the manner in which they treat Muslims, Jews and Christians.

As I have noted already, one group victimized by the ISIL cult has been women in general. Thus, it gladdens my heart to hear about the young major in the United Arab Emirates leading a recent air strike against ISIL in Syria. The major, I hasten to add, is a woman. (See the previous post on this blog.)

President Obama has noted already that “no god” condones the kind of violence that ISIL has brought to others. Indeed, the term “Islamic State” is an insult to a great religion.

Do these monsters represent “religious extremism”? No. They represent something far worse.

International news, military news, national news, political news

ISIS's 'worst nightmare' answers the call

2 Comments

This story absolutely, positively knocks me out.

Major Mariam Al Mansouri has flown a combat mission striking Islamic State targets in Syria.

Al Mansouri is a major in the United Arab Emirates air force.

The major is a woman!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/25/world/meast/uae-female-fighter-pilot/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Al Mansouri might be, in the words of CNN.com, the Islamic State’s “worst nightmare.”

The Islamic State — aka ISIS or ISIL — is at this moment the world’s No. 1 terrorist organization. It is a Sunni extremist cult that beheads prisoners and brutalizes women, denying them any semblance of respect.

These terrorists are animals. President Obama has declared his intention to “degrade and destroy” the terrorist organization.

Accordingly, he and Secretary of State John Kerry have enlisted several nations to join in a coalition to fight ISIL/ISIS. The United Arab Emirates is one of them. Among the service personnel ordered to fly combat sorties against the Islamic State is the aforementioned Major Al Mansouri.

“She is (a) fully qualified, highly trained, combat ready pilot, and she led the mission,” Yousef Al Otaiba told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” according to CNN.com.

This is fantastic. A female UAE air force officer has led a combat mission to destroy military targets manned and operated by sworn enemies of women all around the world.

The delicious irony is way beyond measure.

International news, national news, political news

Obama deserves unified nation

The late great Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan had it right.

Partisanship, he said, should “stop at the water’s edge.”

Put another way: When a president takes a nation to war then it becomes imperative for a nation to rally behind the effort.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/obama-un-address-111287.html?hp=l1

President Barack Obama went before the United Nations today to tell the world body that it’s time for the world to step up in the fight against the Islamic State. He didn’t sugar-coat it. He said the fight well could take years. He said ISIL is a tough and resilient foe. He also said that dozens of nations have lined up as part of a growing coalition to fight the terrorists.

But can the commander in chief perform his duty to protect Americans without much of the partisan carping that has plagued him to date? If his Republican foes choose to heed the words of one of their predecessors — the late Sen. Vandenberg — then there might be a unified nation rallying to fight a determined enemy.

Unity, of course, isn’t always the norm.

President Bush was able to rally the nation initially when he took us to war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Much of the support evaporated when he expanded that fight into Iraq in March 2003.

President Clinton had his critics when he started bombing fighters in Bosnia and Kosovo.

President Truman heard the critics when the Korean War dragged on.

And Vietnam? Well, we know what happened there.

Barack Obama received congressional authorization to arm and train Syrian rebels. He’s consulted with political friends and foes in advance of launching the air strikes. Some critics will continue to say the strikes are too little too late.

Let us not undermine this necessary effort to destroy the Islamic State, however, with partisan carping.

International news

Not the U.S. fight alone

President Obama said it correctly.

The fight against the Islamic State does not mean the United States wages this battle alone. ISIL presents a worldwide threat and therefore the world — or at least those nations closest to the threat — must step up.

Five of them have done so as air strikes have begun in Syria.

http://news.msn.com/us/obama-says-arab-support-shows-this-is-not-americas-fight-alone

It is to the great credit of Secretary of State John Kerry that he was able to cobble together a coalition of Arab states to take part in this fight alongside American service personnel. French fighter aircraft already have joined U.S. pilots in hitting ISIL targets in neighboring Iraq.

Obama said, “America is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with these nations. This is not America’s fight alone.”

So the fight has been joined with the Islamic State in Syria. Does this mean we’re now cozying up to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator who remains an enemy of the United States? Not in the least, although U.S. commanders did alert Assad in advance that the air strikes against ISIL targets would commence.

The pressure must remain on the Arab states to stay in the fight for as long as it takes to put down these terrorist monsters, who have made it clear they intend to target Americans for future heinous acts.

Yes, the fight will take some time to complete. It must be done.

International news, national news, political news

Air strikes in Syria begin … with help

American pilots are now doing what the commander in chief said was likely: launching air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.

With that news, the war against the terrorists has expanded.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/22/world/meast/u-s-airstrikes-isis-syria/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

My view from many thousands of miles away is this: We’d better hit them hard and keep hitting them hard for as long as it takes to render them “degraded” significantly.

I do not want U.S. “boots on the ground.” Those “boots” would be carrying Americans, which is why I have grown weary of that cliché. I remain cautiously optimistic that air strikes can do what President Obama wants them to do, which is to degrade and ultimately defeat the Islamic State.

No, we cannot do this alone. The Pentagon has said that partner nations are involved in the air strikes, which began with Tomahawk missiles and fighter aircraft launched from the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush.

There can be no doubt that any military operation requires friendly nations to take part. The Pentagon hasn’t been very specific on which nations are contributing to this cause, but reports indicate that Sunni Arab states have been involved. That’s an encouraging sign.

What’s the biggest worry, other than ISIL responding with some hideous execution? My guess is that it would Syria reacting badly to U.S. aircraft entering Syrian airspace. If the Syrians are smart — and I believe they are — they’ll be quietly applauding the air strikes, as the ISIL targets represent the biggest threat to that government’s survival.

Oh, boy. This fight has just gotten a whole lot more complicated.