Tag Archives: ISIL

International news

Now it's Congress's turn to step up in fight

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My fellow Americans, let us now declare that a moment of truth has just landed on Capitol Hill’s doorstep.

Do members of Congress, most of whom belong to the Republican Party, stand ready to authorize the commander in chief’s use of military force against the Islamic State? Are they now going to sign on in this fight, rather than carp at the president’s strategy, or criticize him for allegedly not having a clear cut mission in this ongoing battle?

Barack Obama today sent a request to Congress for a three-year authorization to keep taking the fight to ISIL. It contains language that prohibits the long term use of U.S. ground forces — except for special operations forces that could be used to conduct specific, surgical strikes against the enemy.

The plan isn’t perfect, but the president says he has heard the calls for congressional approval of however the commander in chief chooses to fight this battle.

So, will Congress step up and sign on? I surely hope so.

President Obama has declared that ISIL is on the defensive. He also said the fight will be difficult, but that the coalition of 60 or so nations — several of which are in the Middle East — are winning the fight. ISIL has been degraded, Obama said, and the coalition of nations is continuing to pound ISIL targets in a relentless air power campaign. Fighters have been killed, as have their commanders. Command and control centers have been disrupted. Morale among ISIL fighters reportedly has deteriorated.

I happen to endorse the president’s reluctance to put U.S. ground troops into yet another Middle East war. The air campaign has been savage and it well could be enough to break up the ISIL fighting force that has created so much havoc, heartache and hysteria in the region it has terrorized.

So, is Congress now going to give the commander in chief the authority he is requesting? Will the legislative branch join this fight?

If the answer is yes, then it must stand with the head of state as he seeks to destroy this dastardly enemy.

 

International news

Kayla Mueller: another ISIL victim

It now appears that Kayla Jean Mueller has died as a result of an air strike by Jordan air force fighter jets.

The Prescott, Ariz., aid worker died while being held captive by Islamic State terrorists, which in my mind makes her a victim of the monsters who kept her in bondage.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kayla-jean-mueller-american-isis-hostage-is-dead-family-confirms/

Mueller’s family confirmed the young woman’s death in a statement released today.

The fight must go on.

Mueller’s death now becomes another rallying cry for the good guys seeking to destroy ISIL and end its campaign of brutality against the world.

She was doing good work, trying to lend aid and comfort to those who were suffering in Syria. ISIL captured her and no doubt subjected her to unspeakable horror.

The Jordanians — enraged at the ghastly immolation death of that young fighter pilot — have stepped up their air strikes against ISIL targets, becoming more fully involved in the U.S.-led air campaign against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. We should welcome Jordan’s participation in this effort.

Yes, it comes at a terrible cost. The fight must continue. “No matter how long it takes,” President Obama said, “the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death.”

Kayla Mueller’s tragic end is on the hands of the terrorists.

 

International news

'Every believing Christian' offended? I think not

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Jim Gilmore, a former Virginia governor, and a possible Republican presidential candidate next year, is trying to put words into my mouth.

Of the remarks made this week by President Obama about the Crusades and how Christianity has produced acts of violence in the name of its religion, Gilmore said that Obama has “offended every believing Christian” with his statement.

Um, governor? As a “believing Christian,” sir, I am categorically not offended by those remarks.

So, there.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/232027-white-house-defends-prayer-breakfast-remarks

If you listen to the president’s remarks in their totality, he said at the prayer breakfast that Islam isn’t the only religion that’s been perverted by cultists who are performing terrible deeds in the name of their religion. Christians launched the Crusades a millennium ago and, yes, did some terrible things to non-believers who stood in their path as they marched through the Middle East.

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

The president is holding the United States up to a higher standard than all that he cited.

Deputy White House press aide Eric Schultz said: “The president believes that America is the greatest country on earth, not only because of our military or economic prowess or because we serve in a unique leadership role amongst the international community.”

That hasn’t stopped right-wing critics from slamming the president. Erick Erickson, author of RedState.com, said Obama isn’t even a “meaningful” Christian, whatever in the world that means. Good grief, young man. The president has proclaimed his faith repeatedly whenever he’s given the chance.

But I digress …

Barack Obama understands history as well as any American, and as well as any practicing Christian. He knows Christians have committed barbaric acts. He merely was seeking to put this whole discussion of present-day terrorism being carried out by Islamic radicals in some historical context.

And I’m fully confident the remains fully dedicated to fighting those radical Islamists to the death.

So, let’s chill out here. I’m not offended by what the president said. I am more interested in ensuring that we continue to fight the war against international terrorism.

International news

War on terror gets a new identity

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Muath el-Kaseasbeh may have become the new face in the global war on terror.

The young Jordanian air force fighter pilot is the latest high-profile victim of the Islamic State’s hideous campaign of brutality and this week Jordanians poured out in large numbers to pay their respects to the officer who died an unspeakable death at the hands of his ISIL captors.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jordanians-hail-pilot-killed-by-islamic-state-on-third-day-of-mourning/ar-AA95gAb

Jordan has gone into mourning over the pilot’s death. He was set afire by ISIL terrorists, who were retaliating against Jordan’s participation in the bombing campaign launched by the United States and its allies to destroy the terrorist organization.

ISIL’s latest act of brutality has become a rallying cry for those who now are beginning to realize that they, too, must join the fight — all the way.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II has vowed his country will launch a “relentless” campaign against ISIL, no doubt understanding that such an effort well might produce more captives who could be subjected to the fate that befell el-Kaseasbeh.

The Middle East region, though, is full of other nations in close proximity to the havoc that is being played out by ISIL and other terror cults carrying out these dastardly deeds in the name of a great religion.

They, too, must step up. They need not suffer the pain being felt by Jordanians at this moment. They need to join the fight as a preemptive measure against these hideous monsters.

 

International news

ISIL's latest act must intensify world scorn

The Islamic State well might have performed an act that finally — finally! — has produced a unity in resolve among Arab states to wage all-out war against the terrorist monsters.

ISIL burned a Jordanian pilot to death, causing Jordan’s King Abdullah to declare his nation will conduct a “relentless” pursuit of the terrorists.

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2015/02/05/Horrific-act-The-Islamic-State-group-earns-the-world-s-hatred/stories/201502050140

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette opined in an editorial: “The latest brutal execution by the Islamic State group, of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh, may be hardening Middle East perceptions of the organization.”

The civilized world should hope that is the case.

President Obama today, at the National Prayer Breakfast, called ISIL a “cult of death.”

ISIL terrorists have beheaded prisoners and shown those brutal acts to the world. Now the immolation of the fighter pilot has occurred and it well might steel the Arab world to join the fight fully, along with the United States and other Western allies, in seeking the destruction of ISIL.

The beheading of those two Japanese journalists was appalling in the extreme as well, prompting an angry response from the Japanese government. As the Post-Gazette noted: “The reactions of Japan and Jordan were strong. The prime minister of Japan, with its post-World War II tradition of nonmilitarism, is talking about a new constitution that would permit a more robust Japanese military role.”

These acts of sheer brutality and barbarism have defined this new world war.

May the nations closest to the fight — those in the Middle East — now join the fight in earnest.

The civilized world needs their righteous anger on the side of human decency.

 

International news, military news

Condemnations pouring out over latest ISIL atrocity

President Obama called it “heinous.” Secretary of State John Kerry called it “barbaric.” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called it a “cruel and despicable act of terrorism.”

The object of this worldwide scorn once again is the Islamic State, which reportedly beheaded a captured Japanese journalist supposedly in “retaliation” for Japan’s assistance in the international fight against these terrorist monsters.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/231381-kerry-isis-killing-of-journalist-barbaric

Kenji Goto was murdered because Japan has been sending food and medical supplies to assist the international coalition and to lend aid to those who are suffering from the violence in Iraq and Syria, where ISIL is conducting its reign of terror and destruction.

Japan’s hands are tied in this fight, given that its government is sworn by the treaty it signed at the end of World War II that prohibits it from deploying armed forces overseas. Japan maintains a stout military for national defense purposes only. And that’s an understandable caveat that the Allies placed on Japan, given its own history of ruthlessness and, um, barbarism during WWII.

However, none of that excuses for an instant the fate that apparently befell Kenji Goto and Huruna Yakawa — who was beheaded earlier.

All of this insane ghoulishness only requires that we maintain the fight against these monstrous agents of evil.

ISIL’s appetite for barbarism stretches one’s ability to describe it in strong enough language. Heinous, despicable, barbaric, cruel? Yes, all of those are true, but they don’t go far enough. I’m at a loss to find the appropriate description to hang on these monsters.

They need to die. A painful and excruciating death would suit many of us just fine.

 

Intgernational news, national news

'Terrorist' requires a nuanced definition? No

The Taliban is a terrorist organization.

That’s my view and I’m sticking to it — no matter how finely the White House press flack tries to parse the definition of the term “terrorist.”

Press secretary Josh Earnest sought Thursday to say that the Taliban carries out “acts that are akin to terrorism,” but stopped short of calling the brutal killers and kidnappers “terrorists.” He said the Taliban falls into a “different category.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/taliban-terrorists-white-house/story?id=28588120

I guess Earnest, speaking on behalf of the president, is saying the Obama administration believes it’s OK to negotiate with the Taliban, whereas the White House refuses to negotiate with, say, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hezbollah or Hamas.

I’m beginning to sense that the famed nuanced foreign policy apparatus that the Obama White House is conducting might be getting a little too cute.

The Taliban are taking credit almost weekly for attacks against civilians in Afghanistan. They’ve brought considerable havoc as well to innocent victims in neighboring Pakistan. Good grief! The Taliban send in suicide bombers, they set off explosive on roadways traveled by villagers going to market, they kidnap and disfigure girls and young women who have the gall to stand up for their rights.

You’re more than welcome to correct me on any of this, but doesn’t any of that fit the classic description of a terrorist organization?

Yep. That’s the Taliban.

 

International news, military news

ISIS or Yemen? U.S. effort is getting stretched

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry says the United States is stretched too thin in its war against terrorists.

The Clarendon Republican says U.S. efforts have turned away from Yemen while fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

What to do?

Thornberry: ISIS war leaves fewer resources for Yemen

If I read my congressman’s thoughts correctly, I believe he’s saying we need to spend more money on defense needs. He’s saying it without really, um, saying it.

This conundrum defines pretty clearly to me why this war on terror may never end. You turn away from enemy and another surfaces in another region of the world — not that we’ve really turned away from any of our enemies. Near as I can tell, our forces still are conducting robust strikes and raids on suspected terror targets.

“We don’t have the (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) ISR that we used to have, so when you got to move it to Iraq and Syria, you leave Yemen less covered than it used to be because you have to make choices, and it increases the danger to the country,” he said.

I got that part, Mr. Chairman. So what happens if and when we concentrate on Yemen — a known terrorist breeding ground — and the Islamic State takes further advantage as we look the other way in fighting this on-going anti-terror war?

Do you get where Thornberry is talking about spending more money on defense matters to wage a multi-front war on international terror?

I doubt we can afford it.

According to The Hill: “The administration has implemented a ‘light footprint’ counterterrorism approach in Yemen that relies heavily on drones for surveillance of terrorist threats and for striking targets in the country.”

Here is where the drones can do the same kind of work as manned aircraft. Turn them loose on those suspected targets and deliver enough firepower to send those we don’t kill scurrying for cover.

Therein, though, lies the difficulty in continuing to wage this global anti-terror war. It’s a war like we’ve never fought. President Bush all but declared war on the terrorists after 9/11. It was the right call for the time. President Obama has continued to pursue that war at virtually the same pace as his immediate predecessor.

There are those, though, who insist the Pentagon is being whittled down to dangerous levels. I don’t buy it. We’re still spending hundreds of billions of dollars on new weapons and we’re deploying them throughout these terror hot spots.

I will argue that we still have plenty of assets to deploy against these forces of evil. We just need to fine-tune how we deploy them — and have them deliver maximum punishment.

International news

Boko Haram is as dangerous as ever

While most of the world focuses on the Middle East brand of international terrorism — al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian mullahs — another group of goons needs our attention as well.

The Boston Globe points out in an editorial that Boko Haram, the kidnappers of those young girls and the murderers recently of as many as 2,000 innocent victims, needs as much of the world’s attention as we can muster.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/01/15/boko-haram-atrocities-must-not-forgotten/a9W6xuRQqQZz54sbVPjAhI/story.html

The murder of journalists and others in Paris in recent days has sucked much of the attention away from Boko Haram is doing in Nigeria, the Globe writes. The Paris shootings are “leaving little media attention for equally detestable atrocities by Boko Haram in Nigeria this month. The world ignores the Islamic extremist group at great risk both to Nigeria and the broader region. Boko Haram must be stopped in its tracks before it engages in mass murder again.”

When those girls and young women were kidnapped this past year, first lady Michelle Obama sought to lead an international outcry against atrocities against women. It had resonance for, what, perhaps a month or two? Then the world’s attention was pulled away to another international crisis. I cannot even remember which one it was, but we’ve stopped talking collectively about the fate of those girls.

The Boston Globe editorialized: “In a horrific new low, the militants have reportedly been using little girls as human bombs to inflict terror.”

And the world isn’t rising up in massive outrage over this?

President Obama once declared mistakenly — perhaps even foolishly — that the “war on terror is over.”

It is not, Mr. President. Even if we set aside the murderers running rampant in the Middle East — and we cannot do that — the Islamist monsters rampaging through Nigeria are causing untold grief and misery on thousands of innocent victims.

Once again, it is fair to ask: What about those girls?

 

 

national news, political news

Terrorists compared to American patriots

You shouldn’t have gone there, Dr. Ben Carson.

No sir. You should not have compared the Islamic State terrorists — the monstrous demons who behead people in public — to the brave warriors who fought against British tyranny to create the United States of America.

That’s what you did, Doc, when you said: “They got the wrong philosophy, but they’re willing to die for what they believe, while we are busily giving away every belief and every value for the sake of political correctness.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ben-carson-likens-islamic-state-to-american-patriots/ar-AA8dMf7

That statement might have stood on its own, Dr. Carson, but you had prefaced it by saying American revolutionary patriots also were willing to die for their cause.

Perhaps a better comparison, Doc, would have been that kamikaze pilots flying for the Japanese Empire were willing to “die for their beliefs” as they flew their aircraft into American warships during World War II.

What you’ve done, sir, is juxtapose a cherished American ideal — the fight for liberty, freedom and individual dignity — with monstrous acts, crimes against humanity.

I understand, Dr.Carson, that you are pondering a run for the presidency in 2016. Conservatives adore your ideology and they hang on your words. I appreciate as well your intelligence and obvious brilliance as a leading neurosurgeon and medical scholar.

But just as that goofy Texas congressman, Randy Weber, erred in comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler in a tweet — for which he later sort of apologized — you have mixed two radically different examples of why people lay down their lives for causes in which they believe.