ISIS threatens
Back in January, ISIS issued this threat to Iraq and to the US:
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), issued a rare audio message back on January 21 in which he flatly stated his group’s intention to march on Baghdad and move into “direct confrontation” with the United States.
“Our last message is to the Americans. Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day,” Baghdadi said. “So watch, for we are with you, watching.”
Apparently, Obama didn’t even read about that one in the paper.
By the way, we had al Baghdadi in prison in Iraq for four years, then transferred him in 2009 to the Iraqi prison system as part of the drawdown plan. Then the Iraqis released him.
And we didn’t even get a Bergdahl in return.
Watch this video and hear what al Baghdadi said to the Americans as they handed him over:
Will ISIS ultimately overreach and finally wake the sleeping giant of the west? Or Israel, which is not a sleeping giant in the first place?
between ISIS, China, Russia, and things not being impeded, this may end up being the start of WWIII rather than a collection of incidents that slow to a halt, and given choices being made, things will get mighty thin.
It will be interesting to see what 22nd century historians write about the 21st century’s dawn.
Ymarsakar:
Would be interesting, that is.
Unless you plan to be around then 🙂 .
We might come up with a time machine yet, that’s not impossible yet.
“Sleeping giant of the West”? I think those days are over.
Sleeping giant with no eyes, no hands, and no legs perhaps. When asleep, the lemmings cut it all off and used it to produce more Demoncrats.
I think Baghdad will fall. The ISIS army is simply more ruthless and more determined to win than the Maliki government. There is a cold logic to the leaving of headless police, soldiers, and government officials along the sides of the roads. By the time ISIS reaches the outskirts of Baghdad, there won’t be any Iraqi acknowledging he works for the government.
It is possible that Iran will step in and save the Iraqi government, but I have my doubts they will want to get that deeply involved.
Obama is probably preparing his “I told you so” speech right now.
Neo…
He was golfing during THAT Security Council confab.
The raft of state is not for turning — spinning, yes.
Iran’s already involved. Quds force in Iraq. More on the way.
rickl:
I don’t think those days are over. I think many people are still asleep; they went to sleep a couple of years after 9/11, lulled by a false sense of security. They don’t think ISIS, or any of the rest of it, can matter to them. They think letting the border be virtually unguarded won’t matter to them. They think the mayhem will be confined to a place like Mosul. But if it were to come to their own doors again it might change things.
Ymarsakar,
They will have to do much, much more than send just a few thousand men.
As I said in a previous comment, these jihadis are bad dudes. We cannot comprehend what they are about. Just like we can’t comprehend what Obama is about. We think in terms of tolerance, good will, measurable results, law and order, good versus evil – all the Judeo-Christian ethics.
The jihadis are drunk on a religion (in name only) that is the total opposite of Judeo- Christianity and one that demands they spill the blood of all non-believers. For a young man fueled by testosterone and told it is his moral duty to kill people, it is a sort of a narcotic. Once they get going, they can’t get enough of it. But those are the trigger pullers and bomb makers. Behind them are the masterminds like Zawahari, bin Laden, and Baghdadi. The money comes from oil sheiks and imams funneling money from mosques all over the world. We are focused on the insane, barbaric jihadis, when we should be focused on the money that supports them and the imams who incite all this. The jihadis living in Afghanistan or the boonies in Syria, Somalia, and other hell holes cannot do much without money and new recruits.
That said, I think we need to get some air strikes on these “technicals” as they convoy down the highways. That’s easy pickings for modern tactical aircraft. It will slow them down, scatter them, and maybe put some starch in the Iraqi’s spines. My understanding is that the Kurds are getting ready to defend their territory in the northeast around Kirkuk. I think they have more cohesion than the Iraqi national army. Imam al Sistani has called for young Shia men to volunteer to defend Baghdad. There are pictures of truck loads of Shias heading north. Unfortunately, they may not be much of a match for the ISIS. With our air strikes and some determined effort by the Shias, the ISIS can be stopped short of Baghdad and possibly rolled back. It needs to happen. We have 5000 people working in the embassy in Baghdad. They need to be protected.
However, if we do nothing and Baghdad falls along with another embassy debacle, the future will become uncertain. It is provable that Obama has been warned about the ISIS since January. This wasn’t a failure of intelligence. It was a failure to protect and defend our interests. It seems surprising that Obama would do such a thing, but he just does not think like we do. His mind set is totally foreign to us.
If the ISIS can set up a “Caliphate” in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, they could become a threat to a lot of countries – Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and us. Why would we allow it? Yes, that is the question isn’t it?
The ISIL paraded captured US provided humvees.
So it won’t be merely technicals, but US military hardware the Bush will blow up.
Iran devoted their entire army to fighting Iraq. They’ll spend quite a bit to get permanent bases in Iraq, or to occupy the entire country (the shia part at least).
As for “we” and “us”, I never found it particularly difficult to read the minds of such people. The lack is in other people’s lack of imagination.
ISIL is doing what one side argued that the US military must do to defeat the resistance of tribes. Absolute ruthless deathmongery. But the counter argument was that it would take some true blue killers and it would backfire eventually.
For ISIL, “eventually” may never come, given they are looking for Virgin Jihad deaths.
gucci boston handbags
Greetings from Colorado! I’m bored to death at work so I
decided to browse your site on my iphone during lunch break.
I really like the info you provide here and can’t wait to take a look when I get home.
I’m amazed at how quick your blog loaded
on my mobile .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G ..
Anyways, superb blog!
J.J.: “It is provable that Obama has been warned about the ISIS since January. This wasn’t a failure of intelligence.”
They took Fallujah in January. We junped past the intelligence at that point.
“That said, I think we need to get some air strikes on these “technicals” as they convoy down the highways.”
I favor carpet bombing all of Iraq except the strongholds held by the Kurds. If that doesn’t work; nuke Mecca, Medina, and Qom. And then, Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, and most of all Riyadh. Sometimes it takes a harsh lesson for some people to get their heads straight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a88Z7YOh_us
Its the only way to be sure.
Maliki packed the Iraqi Army with cronyist (Shi’ite) generals who bailed from Mosul.
The Kurds, de facto, conspired with the ISIL as it caused them to get what they REALLY wanted: their own show up north.
FYI, Kurdistan has JUST completed its oil connection — on the hurry up — to Turkey. Ankara is going to export Kurdish production — over the protests of Maliki — from here on out.
The Kurds apparently exchanged intelligence with the ISIL (deniable, of course) so that the Iraqi Army would flee. In particular, ISIL had advance knowledge — in extreme detail — of the comings and goings of all elite Iraqi officers.
THIS is the reason that they bailed. ISIL had sent in suicide assassin squads with all the info necessary to take out the families of the commanding officers.
So, upon discovering this, the general officers simply bailed out and took their families with them — back down south to the Shia heartland.
Various formations are now reporting that every Shi’ite officer above the rank of major (just about) skipped town. (no notice, of course)
When line formations requested back-ups or orders — the phone was ‘dead.’ No-one told them that ‘Elvis had left the building.’
All combat supply co-ordination broke down virtually at once.
To top that off, the Kurds refused to permit the Shi’ites passage through their lines. This meant that totally demoralized non-coms were flying down the highway — demoralizing yet more Shi’ites as they passed.
This explains the rolling collapse of the Shi’ite Army.
For reasons of trust, Maliki did NOT deploy formations with substantial Sunni man-power up north.
Lest we forget:
1) Maliki’s screamfests with General David Patraeus — and others.
2) Maliki’s vendetta against Sunni politicians, generally — which note his expulsion of various Sunnis — now hiding in Turkey.
3) Maliki’s refusal to follow essentially any American advice. (Like Saddam, Maliki wanted an ethnically pure government. And he was running the show with a minority of the vote. He came in second. He gained his position by kissing Tehran’s tush.)
4) Maliki’s years-long fight against Kurdish economic independence. He was as busy shafting the Kurds as he ever was shafting the Sunnis.
Then he was stunned when DC didn’t back his play.
(As if Patraeus didn’t tell Barry plenty about Maliki!)
%%%
Similar antics have occurred in Kabul.
So it’s no wonder why Barry can’t bear to be in the same room with either Maliki or Karzai. He blames both on Bush, of course.
(Barry comes up w a a a y short on people skills. He doesn’t have any time for charming anyone other than himself.)
&&&
I seriously doubt whether Maliki & Co can ever retake the Sunni heartland.
I expect that his priority will be to eject the remaining Sunnis from Baghdad. This can begin at any moment. By doing so, he will severely limit the ISIL’s ability to assassinate his government. (one by one)
No doubt, that’s what ISIL intends to do from here on out.
It sure worked in Mosul.
&&&
Likewise Kurdistan has begun. Confounding all, it will be aligned with Ankara, and largely supplant the Iranians WRT energy imports.
Additional pipelines from the Med to Kurdistan and to Sunnistan are in the works at this time. (all on the hurry-up)