Tag Archives: Paris attacks

International news, military news, national news, political news

Here’s a novel idea: Ask Congress to declare war

President Franklin D. Rossevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan, December 8, 1941. (National Park Service) NARA FILE #: 079-AR-82 WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 743

Former Florida governor — and Republican presidential candidate — Jeb Bush wants the United States to declare war on the Islamic State.

I am going to make a leap here and presume for a moment that he means the real thing. You know, actually make a formal declaration of war. It’s kind of an old-fashioned idea that hasn’t been carried out since, oh, Dec. 8, 1941. President Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and asked lawmakers to make that declaration … which is how the U.S. Constitution prescribes it.

Well, why not do it the old-fashioned way?

I am increasingly of the opinion that war is what we’ve got on our hands. The Islamic State seems to want it. They committed an act of war Friday in France, bombing and shooting its way further into infamy, killing more than 100 innocent victims.

France has called it a wartime act. French President Francois Hollande has vowed zero mercy in seeking revenge for the killings. The Islamic State already has demonstrated unfathomable barbarism with its video-recorded beheadings of foreign captives, including Americans.

ISIL has killed tens of thousands of Muslims on its reign of terror — supposedly in the name of Islam. It is a murderous cult that must be wiped out.

This war, though, is being fought on terms with which the world is not yet familiar. There used to be a time when we defined war simply as nations taking up arms against each other. This war is vastly different.

It is an ideological war being fought with guns, knives and bombs.

Is it possible then to declare war the way this country used to declare war? I think it can be done.

The question now is this: Does the president have the will to ask for a declaration and does Congress have the courage to make that declaration?

Your thoughts? Is a war declaration possible?

 

International news, media news, military news, national news, political news

Attacks work against Trump, Ms. Coulter

Conservative author Ann Coulter addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on Saturday Feb. 20,2010. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Ann Coulter’s political expertise is, shall we say, quite suspect.

The latest exhibition of her ignorance surfaced this weekend when she tweeted that the Paris terror attacks have guaranteed Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States.

Someone, pass the smelling salts to the fiery conservative commentator and make her take a whiff.

In the hours since the attacks — in the midst of this political season — one of the key questions has become: How does this hideous event affect the presidential contest?

Well, the Pundit Class in Washington and around the country has been virtually unanimous in this regard: The attacks expose Trump’s utter lack of experience dealing with international terrorism.

His empire-building experience won’t help him. Trump’s self-proclaimed ability to “negotiate” deals will be of zero value; we don’t negotiate with monstrous killers such as the Islamic State.

Yet, there was Ann Coulter — the darling of the far-right talk radio listening audience, blathering on her Twitter account that Trump’s election is a sure thing.

We need someone with actual experience in government and/or diplomacy — and someone who gathers his or her military knowledge from sources other than Sunday morning new talk shows — to take the reins as commander in chief.

My own advice to Ann Coulter? Shut the bleep up!

 

 

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.