Tag Archives: Syria

International news, national news, political news

Ready, set, bombs away!

Back and forth we go.

Congressional Republicans are so angry at President Obama that they want to sue him for taking on too much executive authority to get things done. Now comes a report that the White House is considering air strikes against targets in Syria.

The response from Congress, from Democrats and Republicans? Ask us for authorization, Mr. President, before you unleash our air power.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/215962-corker-congress-must-authorize-airstrikes-in-syria

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., says the president should seek congressional approval. So has Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. Others on both sides of the aisle say the same thing.

They’re likely correct to request congressional approval. Recall that Obama earlier decided to seek congressional authorization after he threatened to hit the Syrian government over its use of chemical weapons on its people. Then the Russians intervened and brokered a deal to get the Syrians to surrender the WMD; they did and the weapons have been destroyed.

Congressional approval is likely the prudent course, given that the president has so few allies on Capitol Hill upon whom he can depend.

It’s fair to ask, though, whether senators like Corker and Kaine are going to stand with the commander in chief when the vote comes. If they’re going to demand congressional approval, then I hope they don’t double-cross Barack Obama with a “no” vote.

Obama reportedly wants to hit ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. He’s already authorized the use of surveillance aircraft to look for targets. I continue to hold out concern about where all this might lead.

I’ll say this next part slowly: I do not want my country to go to war … again. I’ve had enough. I do not want ground troops sent back to Iraq, where we’ve bled too heavily already.

But if we can lend our considerable and deadly air power to the struggle to rid the world of ISIS, then let’s get the job done.

 

International news, national news

U.S.-born ISIS fighter is dead

All the hand-wringing over the use of drones to target terrorists who might be American citizens makes me angry.

U.S. airpower struck at a U.S. citizen who had been working with al-Qaeda in Yemen. Our ordnance killed him and civil libertarians and others lamented the lack of “due process” given to the young man before the missile blew him away.

Too bad for that.

Now comes word that another young American, someone named Douglas McCain, was killed in a battle among terror groups in Syria. McCain had been recruited by ISIS, which is fighting governments in Syria and Iraq.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/world/meast/syria-american-killed/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Will there more hand-wringing over this one? Probably not, given that he died at the hands of another extremist group. Suppose, though, he’d been killed by U.S. forces. Suppose further that those forces knew that an American was shooting back at him and that he intended to kill whoever he could hit.

Would we have legal and moral standing to kill someone who had renounced his country and taken up arms with the enemy?

Absolutely.

I’m as progressive as anyone on many issues. When it comes, however, to “protecting the rights” of Americans who turn on their country, all bets are off.

My curiosity goes only so far as to wonder what drives Americans to join forces with enemy combatants.

I don’t know the first thing about Douglas McCain and what lured him into the embrace of a hideous terrorist organization. To be honest, I don’t particularly care to know.

What’s left to ponder only is that someone who had declared himself to be an enemy of the country of his birth is now dead.

Whether he died at the hands of other bad guys or at the hands of our soldiers wouldn’t matter to me one little bit.

 

Uncategorized

Strange bedfellows, indeed

What may be about to happen in Syria just might re-define the term “strange bedfellows.”

This one utterly blows my ever-loving mind. The United States apparently is about to start launching surveillance flights over Syria to help pinpoint the whereabouts of ISIS fighters battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, the guy we threatened once to hit with airstrikes after he crossed the “red line” of using chemical weapons on his own people.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/215935-report-us-to-conduct-surveillance-flights-over-syria

ISIS is running rampant in Syria and Iraq. The terrorist organization has beheaded an American journalists, threatened to bring its mayhem to American shores, pledged all-out war against Israel and promised to overthrow the Iraqi government we helped install.

The group personifies evil.

It’s also fighting Assad’s wicked regime in Syria. Assad is another enemy of the United States. President Obama has called on him to step down. He has pledged support to insurgents fighting against Syrian government troops. One of those so-called “allies” appears to be ISIS, if that’s what we’re led to believe.

How can that possibly be happening?

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Remember that cliché?

You want more? Syria now has offered to help the United States by providing intelligence data on the movements of ISIS within that country’s border. No word yet on whether we’ve accepted the offer of assistance.

My head is about to explode as I ponder this amazing tangle of relationships.

Someone help me out. Please.

 

Intgernational news

Terrorists release U.S. journalist … to what end?

Peter Theo Curtis is a free man.

Yes, that’s reason to cheer. He’d been held captive by an al-Qaeda-linked terror organization in Syria for two years. Now he’s out, apparently in good health.

His country is happy that he’s free. It’s time to cheer that event.

How, though, does one American family react to this news? I refer to the loved ones of James Foley, another American journalist who was murdered by his captors, also after being held for about two years in Syria.

http://news.msn.com/world/us-says-american-held-in-syria-has-been-freed

My heart breaks for the Foley family. They cannot possibly be greeting this news with unabashed joy. They are still crushed by their loved one’s fate.

The White House reacted with understandable relief at the news. But issued a word of caution: “The president shares in the joy and relief that we all feel now that Theo is out of Syria and safe,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “But we continue to hold in our thoughts and prayers the Americans who remain in captivity in Syria, and we will continue to use all of the tools at our disposal to see that the remaining American hostages are freed.”

The United States and our allies are dealing with unpredictability in the extreme. One terror organization commits a cold-blooded act of murder while another one releases a hostage. How does a government respond to this complicated set of circumstances juxtaposed to each other?

No one should delude themselves into thinking this is an easy puzzle to solve or a problem with a clear solution.

 

Intgernational news, national news

Let's hear plan? No, wait … that'll tip off the bad guys

These guys are killin’ me.

Critics of the president of the United States now say they want to hear his plans, in detail, on how he intends to “finish off” ISIS, the terror group running rampant in Syria and Iraq.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/215847-ryan-wants-to-hear-obamas-plan-to-finish-off-isis-militants

Do you get it? They want Barack Obama to reveal to congressional Republicans the precise manner in which he intends to battle the hideous terror organization. Then what? Will they blab to the world whether the president is on the right track or wrong track? Will they reveal to the ISIS commanders what they’ve learned? Will they tip our hand, giving the bad guys a heads up on where we’ll attack and how much force we’ll use?

I get that the critics want to be kept in the loop. I also get that they need to some things about how an international crisis is evolving.

There seems to be a limit, though, on how much a commander in chief should disclose to his political adversaries — let alone his allies — on how he is deploying military and intelligence assets to do battle with a sworn enemy. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., noted that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey are speaking out, but he wants to hear directly from the president.

Mr. Chairman, the defense boss and the Joint Chiefs chairman are speaking on behalf of the president. I’m betting they’re saying what he wants them to say.

 

 

Uncategorized

Social media offer some barometer of public mood

Judging the mood of the country through social media posts is a bit like relying on those instant Internet polls. Neither is very accurate and could be slanted depending on who you associate with on social media and who is answering the Internet “surveys.”

I get into exchanges with my network of Facebook “friends” about the state of things in the United States. I at times feel a bit lonely, as so many of those who read my Facebook posts — usually fed from this blog — have swilled the conservative Kool-Aid that makes them think the country has gone straight to hell under the leadership of the “socialist, Muslim-sympathizing, empty-suit fraud,” aka, the president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Others with whom I’m acquainted through this medium tilt the other way and they, too, weigh in with their own thoughts on the state of affairs in America.

I keep getting the feeling, though, that they — and I — are getting out-shouted. My friends on the other side have taken command of the public megaphone and are winning the argument.

One individual today said the nation has gone to pot. She’s given up on things, or so it appears.

This sorrowful attitude makes me wonder about just what has been accomplished since Barack Obama became president. Let me count them, as best I can remember:

* The annual federal budget deficit has been cut by more than half.

* Job growth is accelerating, although not at a rate fast enough to suit many people.

* Domestic energy production is at an all-time high; yes, many have credited private industry, not government, for that fact.

* Home foreclosures have slowed dramatically; meanwhile, new home construction has accelerated. Has anyone taken a look at all the houses being framed in Amarillo lately?

* Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.

* We’re deporting illegal immigrants at record rates. Our southern border remains too accessible to illegal entrants, but we’re catching them and sending them back to their country of origin.

OK, have we had a run of perfection? Of course not. Then again, no presidential administration in my lifetime has been run perfectly.

International hot spots are burning hotter than ever in Iraq and Syria. Ukraine and Russia are going nose to nose. Israel is defending itself against Hamas terrorists who keep launching missiles into Israeli neighborhoods. Terror groups are kidnapping women and girls in Nigeria, beheading captives in the Middle East and persecuting Christians and other religious minorities throughout the Third World.

Amid all those international crises, critics keep yammering about the United States doing too little. What are the options? Send in ground troops to settle these disputes? Clamp economic embargoes? Do we ship more armaments to our friends, and if so, at what cost? What about those who say we should cut off “all foreign aid” and concentrate solely on the needs of Americans here at home?

It’s fair to ask: Has this country over the past two decades taken on too large an international role in a time when our adversaries have become more diverse, more elusive and pose greater and more varied existential threats than our former, easily identifiable enemy, the Soviet Union?

I am not a Pollyanna. I understand full well the challenges that await us. I also appreciate the challenges we’ve met over the years.

Has the United States of America gone to pot, as so many of my social media acquaintances have suggested? We’re just as strong as ever.

Uncategorized

Iraq terrorists 'beyond anything we've seen'

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has laid it out there.

The monsters who killed journalist James Foley comprise a group that surpasses any terror organization Americans have seen since the war on terror began.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/chuck-hagel-isil-defense-james-foley-110241.html?hp=t1

We’re in for yet another fight for our lives. We’d better get ready.

This, I submit, is what we got when we declared war on international terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“They’re beyond just a terrorist group,” Hagel said. “They marry ideology, sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess, they are tremendously well funded. This is beyond anything that we’ve seen. So we must prepare for everything. And the only way you do that is take a cold, steely, hard look at it and get ready.”

Hagel is referring to ISIL. They’re fighting in Syria against an enemy government and in Iraq against a friendly government. They’re vowing to bring the fight to the United States, which prompted Texas Gov. Rick Perry to suggest this week that the terror organization might already be lurking in this country.

I’m not going to suggest that we shouldn’t have declared war on terrorists after 9/11. They struck hard at us on that Tuesday morning in New York and Washington and we responded as we should have done.

Matters worsened when we invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the false premise that Iraqis possessed weapons of mass destruction that they would use against us and Israel.

What now? Do we re-enter the fight in Iraq with ground troops? Absolutely not. Do we invade Syria? Again, no.

President Barack Obama is deploying significant air power against the terror organization in Iraq. Reports indicate the strikes are working. Yes, the war must continue for as long as monsters keep killing innocent people.

Critics of the current strategy should recall the lessons of Vietnam. We fought tooth and nail there for nearly a decade. We left eventually and the communists took control of the country we fought to defend. We can commit ground troops in Iraq until hell freezes over, leave that country and the chaos we’re witnessing today will erupt.

What’s the solution?

Intense vigilance here at home against forces that seek to harm us. Yes, keep up the attacks on the Sunni extremists whom Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey describes as “an organization (that) has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision, and which will eventually have to be defeated.”

The question remains: How will we know — in this new age of open warfare — when our enemy is beaten?

Uncategorized

Lawsuit to be put on hold … perhaps?

The thought occurs to me: If the speaker of the House of Representatives wants the president to concentrate on his job, might he and his Republican congressional colleagues want to delay their goofy lawsuit over Barack Obama’s alleged misuse of executive authority?

Let’s think about this.

The United States is up to its armpits in a variety of international crises: Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Hamas vs. Israel. They are taking up a lot of the president’s time, attention and energy.

The speaker has been critical of the president because, he says, the president has abused his executive authority by changing parts of the Affordable Care Act without congressional approval.

Obama has countered Boehner’s contention by encouraging him to “sue me.”

But now the nation is trying to resolve these crises. Does the president need to be “distracted” by the lawsuit? I don’t think so.

Indeed, with beheadings, rocket attacks, air strikes, Americans in physical danger in hostile places, the idea of going to court over domestic policy differences seems, well, rather irrelevant.

Don’t you think?

Uncategorized

Obama must stand strong against monsters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQ-D7GD92o

Barack Obama likely never envisioned dealing with the monstrous behavior he and the rest of America have witnessed in recent days.

No, he took office as the nation was mired in a financial meltdown. The nation was at war with terrorists and had made progress in that effort. Osama bin Laden was still on the loose, but that crack SEAL team killed him in May 2011.

The president made another statement today about the death of a journalist in Syria at the hands of ISIL, the terrorists seeking to overthrow the Iraqi government while also fighting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Can there be any more complicated relationship here, with the United States despises the terrorists fighting a government we support in Iraq while fighting a government we oppose in Syria?

These monsters took the life of an American journalist, James Foley. They’re demanding we stop the air strikes against them, or else they’ll kill others held hostage.

Plus, the world learned today that this summer, the United States launched an attempt to rescue Foley and others from ISIL, but couldn’t locate him or his captors.

The president today vowed to keep up the fight against the killers. He held Foley up as a courageous journalist, while calling ISIL a band of cowards.

He used strong language, as the video attached to this post will attest. Words, though, fail to persuade terrorists bent on destroying their enemies.

The president’s response to the terrorists’ demands was to step up the air attacks against targets in Iraq.

They must continue. Let us take caution, though, to avoid that slippery slope. This nation has plenty of air power assets to deploy against the monsters. Let us use them with maximum force and prejudice.

Uncategorized

WMD crisis averted

The world can focus only on one crisis at a time, or so it seems.

The Syria crisis gave way to the Ukraine crisis, which then gave way to the Nigeria girl-kidnap crisis, which then made way for the Iraq crisis.

Back to Syria. Remember the “red line” President Obama drew and then said the United States would strike militarily at Syria if it used chemical weapons against its people? The Syrians did. The president blustered, threatened to hit them hard, then asked Congress for permission.

Then came the Russians, who then brokered a deal that persuaded the Syrians to get rid of the gas they used on their citizens.

You know what? It now appears the last of the weapons are gone. Destroyed. We never fired a shot at them.

It’s not entirely clear that all the weapons are gone, as the New York Times editorial notes with caution. The “known weapons” have been removed and destroyed. It remains to be seen whether the entire cache of WMD is gone.

Still, it is worth noting that Obama’s critics had it wrong when they blasted him for failing to act on the “red line” threat, even though Republicans kept insisting the president seek congressional approval before he did anything. The president did that — but it wasn’t good enough to suit the critics.

Barack Obama took office in January 2009 vowing to bring diplomacy back as a tool to help stem international crises. He’s sought to do that, all the while deploying military might when needed. Drone strikes have been effective at killing terrorists. Let us not forget what happened in early May 2011 when the SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in that daring raid to wipe out Terrorist No. 1.

The Syrian crisis is far from over. People are still dying in a civil war. Bashar al-Assad’s forces have taken back the momentum in the struggle.

One key element of that crisis — those dreaded WMD — has been removed. As the New York Times editorial notes: “President Obama’s critics excoriated the deal, but they have been proved wrong. The chemical weapons are now out of the hands of a brutal dictator — and all without firing a shot.”