Tag Archives: Islamic State

2016 election, Donald Trump, military news

Central Command not consulted? Well, what’s new?

I guess none of us should be surprised to hear this bit of news from near the very top of the U.S. military chain of command.

Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commanding officer of the nation’s Central Command — which has authority over deployment of personnel in the Middle East — told Congress that Donald Trump didn’t consult with him before announcing his decision to withdraw our forces from Syria.

The president, though, did declare the Islamic State to be “defeated badly,” which was his seat-of-the-pants justification for leaving Syria and turning the fight over to . . . Syrian resistance forces.

The non-surprise comes in the form of those idiotic 2016 presidential campaign boasts that Trump made. He told us he was the smartest man in human history, that he knew the “best words,” had the “best mind,” would surround himself with the “best people” and, here’s my favorite, how he knows “more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.”

Trump knows all

The tragedy of it is that the Republican presidential candidate persuaded just enough voters living in just the right states to score an Electoral College victory to be elected the 45th president of the United States.

So he now gets to govern without consulting the “best people” who ought to include Gen. Votel, a combat Army veteran with vast knowledge of the Islamic State and the threat it still poses in the region and around the world.

According to Time.com: When Trump announced his decision to pullout on Dec. 19, it sent shock waves through Washington and the rest of the world. “Our boys, our young women, our men, they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now. We won.” 

But did we? ISIS has claimed responsibility for terror attacks after the announcement, suggesting to many of us that the Sunni Muslim terror outfit isn’t “defeated.”

However, Donald Trump is wired to be all-knowing all the time, or so he would have us believe.

Except that I don’t believe a single word that flies out of his mouth.

International news

What? GOP is about to stand up to POTUS? Wow!

I had to blink once or twice, shake my head a bit, clean my eyeglasses and rub the sleepy stuff out of my eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

The U.S. Senate Republican caucus is poised to issue a stern rebuke of Donald J. Trump, who continues to exhibit shocking, stunning, jaw-dropping naivete regarding foreign policy crises.

The Senate is planning to push forward an amendment that warns the president about the dangers of a “precipitous withdrawal” from Afghanistan, given the ongoing threat posed by the Taliban and the Islamic State.

Trump (in)famously declared ISIS to be “defeated” in Syria. He is wrong. The Senate is going to respond by saying in a resolution that ISIS and al-Qaida pose a “continuing threat” to the United States and our allies around the world.

So, there you go. The Senate GOP majority has finally grown a set of . . . you know.

national security

Trump vs. Intelligence Brass

Let’s just ponder for a moment a remarkable U.S. Senate committee hearing.

Donald Trump says the Islamic State has been defeated; he says North Korea no longer presents a nuclear weapons threat; he stands by his decision to pull the United States out of a deal that bans Iran from obtaining nukes.

Then we heard this from our nation’s intelligence leadership, CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats:

  • ISIS has thousands of fighters and is planning guerrilla attacks against innocent victims and nations it considers to be enemies.
  • North Korea is working toward developing nuclear weapons and that those weapons are likely to pose a direct threat to the United States of America.
  • Iran is continuing to comply with the agreement that seeks to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons.

I am left to ask: What in the name of national security is the president of the United States thinking?

Oh, I know the answer. He isn’t thinking.

International news

Intelligence chiefs do it again: they’re contradicting Trump

Those pesky intelligence professionals are at it once more.

Donald Trump says “ISIS is defeated.” The intelligence community says “not so fast.” The Islamic State is still planning terror attacks. They’re still recruiting members. Their ranks still number in the thousands.

Yet the president would have us believe that ISIS in Syria has been dealt a mortal blow. They’re gone. Destroyed. Wiped out.

ISIS isn’t defeated

CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told members of Congress today that they are not willing to buy into the commander in chief’s seat-of-the-pants “assessment” that ISIS is done for as a national security threat.

Who do we believe? I’ll stick with the intelligence pros any day of the week. Trump, as I’ve noted before on this blog, doesn’t know what he’s doing, what he’s talking, nor does he know to whom he is talking. He thinks the nation comprises hundreds of millions of rubes who buy into every single lie that flies out of his mouth.

Haspel and Coats did say today that ISIS has been “weakened” by sustained U.S. and allied attacks. For that I am grateful. The organization isn’t defeated, they said. ISIS is still capable of inflicting serious damage, causing significant misery. ISIS keeps taking responsibility for terror attacks against Muslims, which of course belies the notion that our war against terror is in fact a war against Islam; as Presidents Bush and Obama have declared, it is no such thing, that the terrorists aren’t “religious leaders,” but merely are religious perverts.

I am now wondering how the president is going to react to this contradictory testimony. Might there be more firings in store?

International news

Trump doesn’t ‘know’ his key anti-ISIS diplomat? Huh?

Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015. Was supposed to leave in February but he just resigned prior to leaving. Grandstander? The Fake News is making such a big deal this nothing event!

— Donald Trump

Let’s consider this statement for a moment, OK?

It came from the president’s Twitter fingers. He doesn’t “know” the man who has resigned as the administration’s top diplomat who works with forces that seek to destroy the Islamic State.

Brett McGurk quit to protest the manner in which the president announced the planned withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria. Trump declared that ISIS is “defeated.” So he’s leaving the fight to, I guess, the Russians and the Turks.

Defense Secretary James Mattis also quit to protest the president’s decision and the manner in which he arrived at it.

But for the president to say — again, via Twitter — that he doesn’t know the man charged with working to destroy the pre-eminent terrorist organization speaks volumes about the president’s astonishing inattention.

Think of it. Donald Trump declares his intention to destroy the Islamic State. He campaigned for the presidency saying he knows “more about ISIS than the generals, believe me.” He said ISIS’s destruction would be among his major foreign policy priorities.

And he doesn’t “know” the guy charged with leading the diplomatic effort in conjunction with our allies?

Astonishing.

Brett McGurk’s resignation is far more than a “nothing event.”

military news

The cascade continues

I’ll admit to not knowing anything about Brett McGurk . . . until today.

That’s when I learned that our nation’s leading envoy in the fight to eradicate the Islamic State has decided to quit early. He is angry with Donald J. Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria, to abandon the fight against ISIS in that country. It was a decision that prompted Defense Secretary James Mattis to quit.

Now it’s McGurk who’s hitting the road.

This is a big deal, too.

McGurk had planned to leave in February, but decided to submit his resignation to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

McGurk joined the George W. Bush administration and stayed on through the Obama administration, where he was appointed to his current post.

Two years into the Trump administration, McGurk seems to have had enough.

As NBC News reported: Trump’s decision left McGurk flat-footed, unable to explain to U.S. allies who have been fighting ISIS with the United States why they were neither consulted nor informed in advance. Nor have senior Trump administration officials been able to tell allies and Kurdish forces whether U.S. air strikes will continue in Syria to support the mission against ISIS.

Mattis was quite clear in his resignation letter that part of where he differed with Trump is in the treatment of our allies. They cannot trust us to be faithful to our pledges and commitments.

Neither can key administration operatives who are charged with doing the most serious work possible. In McGurk’s case, it is the task of working with allies in the fight to defeat the monstrous terrorists known as the Islamic State.

The chaos is showing signs of taking a terrible toll on U.S. influence in a world that has grown accustomed to what we once touted as our national indispensability.

No longer can we make that make assertion.

International news, military news

Danger still lurks in Syria, Mr. POTUS

Donald Trump, the self-described “stable genius,” has given us yet another demonstration of why he is so damn dangerous as commander in chief of history’s greatest military machine.

With all the combat-experienced officers surrounding him, he either (a) ignored their advice or (b) never consulted with them prior to announcing a decision to pull all 2,000 or so troops out of Syria.

Trump declared that the Islamic State in Syria “has been defeated.” Really? Has it? Do we believe this president’s simple declaration? Do we take anything he says about such matters as a statement of irrefutable fact? I certainly do not!

The Pentagon got a major surprise Wednesday when the president tweeted a decision to pull the troops out. So did the State Department. Same with the CIA and the director of national intelligence.

No one saw it coming, according to reports.

One theory being kicked around is that Turkey’s president talked the president into pulling out of Syria. What do you suppose might have prompted that request? It might be that the Turks wanted our forces out of the way so they can deal more aggressively with Kurdish forces along the Turkey-Syria border; the Turks, you see, hate the Kurds and want to eliminate the threat posed by the Kurds — who have been fighting against the Syrian government — to the Turkish government.

Let’s not forget another party that is happy with this decision: That would be Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Enough said about that one, yes?

To be clear, Trump acted within his presidential authority. He is the commander in chief. He possesses broad executive authority to do what he did.

It’s the so-called “wisdom” of the decision that has riled so many observers in Congress, most notably many of the president’s supposed “allies” within the Republican caucus in both congressional chambers. Congressional Democrats, of course, are shaking their heads in astonishment.

They, too, were surprised. The president didn’t consult with them, either.

Many of the president’s more ardent critics point out another curious dichotomy. It is that a New York attorney general has ordered the shuttering of the Trump Foundation because of what is alleged to be misuse of charitable donations, but still . . . the creator of that foundation maintains control of the nation’s nuclear launch codes.

Is this how you make America great again?

I think not.

International news

Have we really defeated ISIS?

I am wishing for the day when we no longer have troops fighting terrorists abroad. To that end, I join with Donald Trump in saluting the young Americans who put themselves in harm’s way to defend us against the monsters who hate us.

However, the president has acted prematurely and impulsively in declaring the war against the Islamic State in Syria is over. “ISIS is defeated,” he said. But is it? Really? How does he make that determination?

We’re getting word now that Trump didn’t consult with the Pentagon brass. He didn’t visit with State Department officials. The CIA wasn’t brought in for consultation. He didn’t talk to the director of national intelligence.

He just, um, did it. He made the declaration via Twitter. He has said we’re getting out of Syria.

Who benefits? The Russians do. So do the Turks, who hate the Kurds who have been dying while fighting on our side against ISIS, but who pose a threat to Turkish sovereignty along that country’s border with Syria. Iran is happy with this seat-of-the-pants decision.

The president has gotten way ahead of himself.

He surrounded himself with advisers, key aides, top military minds, a national security adviser. Did he listen to any of them? Did he even seek their advice?

It appears he acted entirely on his own. The president who declares he knows everything about everything has shown yet again that he knows nothing about anything.

Weird.

International news, military news, national news

Trump knows ‘more about ISIS than the generals’

Oh, how one can bring back some of Donald Trump’s idiotic statements while he ran for the presidency of the United States. If only they had registered with enough voters in at least three key states to keep this guy out of the White House.

Alas, it didn’t happen.

“I know more about ISIS than the generals,” Trump boasted recklessly during the campaign. We now are likely to learn the utter fallacy of that nonsensical boast.

Trump issued a statement via Twitter that he is ready to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria. He has declared that ISIS in Syria has been defeated, meaning I suppose that the terror monsters no longer pose a threat to innocent human beings.

However, Trump’s statement goes against what the Pentagon brass wants. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have argued that the United States should maintain at least a token force in Syria to lend assistance to the anti-ISIS forces that are seeking to destroy the organization.

The president didn’t heed the Joint Chiefs’ desire.

I suppose you can say that he is acting on the boast he made, that he knows “more about ISIS than the generals.”

I do not believe for an instant that the president knows anything about anything.

International news

Have we gotten rid of ISIS permanently?

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

So said Donald J. Trump this morning via Twitter as he signaled a planned withdrawal of about 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria.

I am dubious of this declaration of victory. My concern is as it has been throughout the war on terror, which commenced after 9/11. It is that a declaration of victory is a tenuous proposition at best.

The Islamic State is not — as President Obama infamously described it — the “junior varsity” of terror organizations. ISIS is the real thing. They are monstrous murderers who have, along with al-Qaida, perverted a great world religion and used it to justify their horrendous attacks on fellow Muslims, let alone against Christians and Jews.

To suggest that we can declare categorical victory in the fight against ISIS is risky in the extreme.

How will we respond if ISIS launches another hideous attack in Syria after we have left? Do we send the troops back in?

The president has gotten some push back from congressional allies, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who called a U.S. withdrawal from Syria “a big win for ISIS.” He said pulling out prematurely would be an “Obama-like mistake.”

This war against terror cannot possibly be concluded the way “conventional wars” have ended, with someone on one side surrendering and then signing documents signaling the end of a conflict.

I don’t yet know how you determine whether you’ve eradicated the last known terrorist from any battlefield. I just fear we haven’t accomplished that mission in Syria, or anywhere else.