Tag Archives: war on terror

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.

 

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?

 

 

International news

Boko Haram is back with a vengeance

Do you need any more evidence that the global war on terror is far from over, or that it may never end?

Terrorists are everywhere. Sort of like rats and cockroaches.

You kill one, a dozen or a thousand of them and more emerge to take their place.

They exist in all corners of the globe. They do their dirty deeds, recede into the background as the world’s attention is focused on other terror groups. Then they burst back.

Boko Haram is back in the news.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/12/africa/boko-haram-deadliest-attack/index.html

The Nigerian terror group that kidnapped all those girls and young women is now being “credited” with killing as many as 2,000 victims in a mass terror attack.

Boko Haram went on a rampage about a week ago, spraying villagers with bullets. Estimates put the death toll in the thousands.

Here’s how CNN.com describes the group: “Boko Haram has terrorized northern Nigeria regularly since 2009, attacking police, schools, churches and civilians, and bombing government buildings. The Islamist group has said its aim is to impose a stricter form of Sharia law across Nigeria, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south.”

They’re just one group of terrorists. The others, well, we know about them, too.

I’ve noted already on this blog that we must take back these silly declarations of victory in the war on terror.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/01/11/war-on-terror-is-not-over/

The war isn’t over. Not by a long shot. It may last forever.

The aim now is to keep fighting.

 

national news

Major attack possible in U.S.? Do ya think?

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein says now is the time for “vigilance” after the massacre at the offices of a Paris satirical magazine.

Well, what do you know? The former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee is demonstrating an impressive command of the obvious.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/229145-dem-senator-major-attack-in-the-realm-of-possibility

Feinstein, a California Democrat, is trying to alert Americans to the possibility of a “major” terrorist attack on U.S. soil. I would argue that we’ve been on high alert ever since 9/11. And we should be on alert, possibly for as long as terrorists exist in the world.

The shootout at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris has stunned the world. Twelve people died in the melee. Three of the assassins were killed by French commandos; a fourth remains on the lam.

The Paris mayhem has brought to the fore once again that terrorists will do whatever it takes to strike fear in the world. We’ve known this all along, even before 9/11.

But we let our guard down and on that Tuesday morning 13 years ago we paid a terrible price.

I appreciate Sen. Feinstein’s word of extreme caution.

However, I hope she’s preaching to the proverbial choir.  We damn sure ought to be on high alert already.

International news

Listen to this fellow Aslan about Muslim reaction

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Reza Aslan burst onto the national scene about a year ago when a Fox News Channel talking head tried to goad him into acknowledging that, as a Muslim, he was not qualified to write a book about Jesus Christ.

He told the talking head that she didn’t know what she was talking about and that as a religious scholar who studied all the world’s great religions he was perfectly qualified to write such a book.

Now he tells critics of Islam and the Muslim community that they aren’t paying attention to the outrage being expressed by Islamic fanatics’ acts of terror.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/01/11/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-arent-de/202086

Aslan points out in an interview that Muslims have been criticizing these actions not only after the Charlie Hebdo massacre but have been doing so ever since the 9/11 attacks.

Yet we keep hearing from critics, mainly in the right-wing media, that Islamic believers — the actual believers — have been silent in the face of these terror onslaughts.

Aslan said this: “The answer to Islamic violence is Islamic peace. The answer to Islamic bigotry is Islamic pluralism, and so that’s why I put the onus on the Muslim community, but I also recognize that that work is being done, that the voice of condemnation is deafening and if you don’t hear it you’re not listening.”

Let’s start listening to all the voices out there, not just those that are outshouting everyone else.

 

International news

War on terror is not 'over'

1 Comment

Politicians hate taking back things they say. They aren’t disposed — given the nature of the work they do — to admit when they’re wrong, at least not openly.

President Obama has declared in recent years that “The war on terror is over.”

I cannot read his mind, but my throbbing bunion and my trick knee are telling me the same thing: He well might wish he could take it back.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/09/Krauthammer/

He pronounced the end of the war on terror as the United States was pulling its troops out of Iraq. Our ground war there had concluded. All that was left was to fight the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other splinter terror groups in Afghanistan.

The terrorists have taken a terrible beating at the hands of the greatest military apparatus in world history. They keep coming back. Their resilience is astonishing.

Al-Qaeda is now taking credit for the Paris shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. France is on high alert. French intelligence operatives are looking for a fourth terrorist who reportedly might have fled to Syria; three other terrorists were killed.

The columnist Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist by training who isn’t known as a counterterrorism “expert,” says we’re entering the “third stage of the jihad.” His link is attached to this blog post. I don’t quite understand how he knows what stage this we’re, or how the terrorists measure these things. He’s a smart fellow, though, so perhaps he knows something many of the rest of us don’t know.

I do know, this, though: The president spoke far too prematurely in declaring the “war on terror is over.”

Indeed, some of us have noted since the dark days immediately after 9/11 that the war against international terror may never end. I questioned at the time of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan how we could declare victory, other than by simply declaring it and going home. The late U.S. Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., once proposed such a thing — only partly in jest — when he suggested we declare victory in Vietnam and then just leave.

That well might be what President Obama has done. He declared a victory that he couldn’t define.

The Paris attack and all the attacks that have come in the years since 9/11 persuade me, at least, that the war on terror will be ongoing well past the foreseeable future.

I am not expecting an admission of error from the president of the United States. I believe, though, that we ought to stop talking like victors while continuing to act like combatants.

This war isn’t over.

 

International news

'This is not a war against Islam'

George W. Bush said it with crystal clarity.

Barack Obama has repeated it with equal amounts of force and conviction.

The United States of America, both presidents have stated, is not waging a war against Islam. The enemy, they have proclaimed repeatedly, is the radical fringe of a great religion that has perverted its holy word and misinterpreted it for its own evil intentions.

Sadly and tragically, the other side — the enemy — doesn’t see it that way. The enemy has declared a religious war against the West. Should our side follow that lead? Absolutely, categorically not.

The attack in Paris has produced some chilling aftershocks. The massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices — where gunmen attacked staffers at the satirical magazine for publishing unflattering images of Mohammed — has led to real fear that more terror cells have been activated in Europe.

More mayhem is on its way.

But the United States and our allies must stand firm in the belief that their war isn’t against Islam.

The 9/11 attacks against the United States were not carried out by mainstream Muslims. They occurred because a monstrous terror cell decided to kill innocent victims, which is prohibited explicitly in the Quran. The leader of that cell, Osama bin Laden, had done this deed before. U.S. and allied intelligence officials knew of this individual’s evil ways, sought to kill him before 9/11, failed, leaving those victims vulnerable to paying a terrible price on that bright morning more than 13 years ago.

Did the president at the time declare all Muslims to be evil? No. President Bush laid down the marker clearly and succinctly: We are going to take the fight to the evil elements that brought to us.

The president left office in January 2009, handing the war plans over to a new commander in chief, Barack Obama. President Obama has said it time and again: This war must be fought against vicious rogue elements.

U.S. commandos finally brought justice to bin Laden in the middle of a moonless night in May 2011, killing him on sight and then burying him at sea.

Did we kill an Islamic cleric? Did this man command a religious following? He was a monster.

And other monsters must remain in our sights as we pursue this global war on terror.

The Paris attack will prompt more violence from more monsters. Yes, they belong ostensibly to the religion of Islam and they technically are “Muslim terrorists.” But the war we fight is not against the peaceful mainstream.

As for the enemy, let the other side declare a religious war. We must remain focused on the real enemy.

The terrorists.

 

 

business news, International news, national news, political news

Economy now off the table for 2016 campaign?

Let’s allow this declaration: Barring an unexpected collapse that could occur at any moment, the state of the nation’s economy will not be an issue in the 2016 campaign for president of the United States.

The Labor Department released more job numbers today. They’re good.

The economy added 252,000 jobs in December; unemployment fell from 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent.

Is it a perfect score? No. Wages took a slight dip in December, compared to the substantial growth they showed the previous month.

Republican contenders for the White House, though, are going to have to look beyond our borders for issues to toss against Democrats — namely against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Those opportunities aren’t going to be that easy to exploit against the former secretary of state, former U.S. senator, former first lady and prohibitive frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The economy? Well, I’ve noted before how the Obama administration took bold steps early on to stop the free fall it inherited when Barack Obama took the presidential oath on Jan. 20, 2009.

The economy is picking up considerable steam now.

The war on terror? It’s still going on. Yes, the president said the “war on terror is over.” He misspoke. The nation continues to hunt down killers, who continue to strike at innocent victims, such as those most recently in Paris.

Let’s face this cold, harsh fact: The war on terror is unlike any war we’ve ever fought. There will be no way to declare victory. The 9/11 attacks brought forward what intelligence analysts and deep-cover agents have known all along, that terrorists are out there plotting against us.

That fight will go on, and on, and on.

At home, though, the economy has recovered.