Bombs over Raqqa, Syria
Why on earth was this not done earlier? Was it because everyone was hoping the crocodile would eat them last?:
The operation, carried out in coordination with U.S. forces, struck a command centre, recruitment centre for jihadists, a munitions depot and a training camp for fighters, it said. Activists inside Syria have suggested that no civilian casualties have been sustained in the Raqqa bombings.
Water supplies and electricity have reportedly been cut as a result of the air strikes, with activists claiming there has been ‘panic’ inside the city.
If that’s true, once again I ask: why has this not been done before?
I understand the answer is “lack of leadership, lack of will.” But that doesn’t completely explain it, either. Perhaps the leaders of Europe (and Obama, naturally) were, among other things, deluded into thinking that ISIS hadn’t set its sights on the West and that the carnage would remain confined to the barbaric murder of a bunch of Arabs in Arab countries: Christians, but also Muslims who didn’t quite toe the proper ISIS line.
Paris, on Friday the 13th, may have convinced them otherwise. Not that this response is nearly enough, but perhaps it’s a start.
[NOTE: That article I linked to in the British press has, as is so often the case, the most comprehensive coverage of these events. What is it with the Brits?]
[ADDENDUM: Here’s a plus for security and then a big minus (also found in that British article):
Last night French intelligence officials were quizzing a man suspected of being a quartermaster to the Paris murder gang.
The suspect ”“ identified only as ‘Vlatko V’, 51 ”“ had driven 750 miles from Montenegro through Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, before he was stopped on an autobahn in Bavaria last Thursday.
Thursday, the day before the Paris attack.
Officers discovered eight loaded AK-47 assault rifles in secret compartments of his Volkswagen Golf.
Three handguns, two hand grenades, fuses, detonators and almost half a pound of TNT completed the mini arsenal.
Also found in the vehicle were several Parisian telephone numbers and other addresses.
The man, who is Muslim according to unconfirmed reports, has no apparent previous criminal record or specific links to radical Islamists.
But police believe he is linked to organised crime groups in Montenegro that may have agreed to supply weaponry to jihadi groups.
A German intelligence source said police officers blundered by not reporting the seizure to anti-terror specialists in Berlin, who may have alerted France.
It also emerged that French security police arrested a man in August on suspicion of plotting a terror attack on a concert venue.
The man was held just two months after he returned from a six-day trip to Raqqa, Syria.
According to reports, the suspect confessed that he was ordered by an IS leader to return to Europe or France to carry out an atrocity and suggested a busy concert hall as an ideal target.
Of course, “a concert hall” isn’t very specific. But still.]
Excellent video featuring Ted Cruz (next neo blog post).
He is speaking plainly, more plainly even than The vaunted Donald, and far more intelligently. It’s the difference between bluster and a statesmanlike call to battle. It is time. As neo writes, “Why on earth was this not done earlier?”
“We are facing an enemy who is at war with us even if our own president doesn’t understand that it is at war with us, and who will not stop until it is defeated.”
“I recognize that Barack Obama does not wish to defend this country; that he may have been tired of war but our enemies are not tired of killing us, and they’re getting stronger.”
The final two quotes in the preceding comment are spoken by Senator Cruz (not written by neo-neocon).
My thought exactly.
Obama should have crushed ISIS months ago.
And will he stop calling it ISIL?
Loser.
News flash. Obama transfers 5 from Gitmo to UAE.
Just in time for the 5 to join the fight in Paris.
“The operation, carried out in coordination with U.S. forces, struck a command centre, recruitment centre for jihadists, a munitions depot and a training camp for fighters, it said.”
Hmm. That is exactly what I have been advocating since the beginning of the U.S. bombing campaign. Air power is supreme in the desert. Especially when your enemy has no air defenses to speak of. In addition, we have satellite imagery of everything, which is continuously analyzed by intelligence. You attack their command and control, their training camps, their munitions storage, their POL supplies, their transportation networks, etc. We know where they are. You make it impossible for any trucks, tanks, or other vehicles to move freely – night or day. In other words, you sap their ability to do anything except try to survive. You degrade their war making capabilities – big time.
Yes, there will be some collateral damage. (civilian casualties) Which is what Obama and company are trying to avoid at all costs. Thus, their half-hearted air campaign. They don’t believe in waging war. They want it to be as clean and bloodless as possible. Unlike the jihadis who attack the West. War is hell. Let’s make it so for the jihadis and anyone who supports them.
Ask the jihadis to let all women and children leave the ISIS controlled areas to avoid being killed or injured. Even do a bombing pause to allow the innocent to leave. If the jihadis don’t let the innocents leave, you demean their manhood and shame them for hiding behind civilians. Then you continue to bomb their infrastructure into rubble. Show them the same mercy the jihadis showed the people of Paris on Friday.
The left have the mindset that the jihadists do not see them as the target, they believe the jihadists’ target is the left’s own domestic enemies; the knuckle dragging red staters. Remember after 9/11 when Michael Moore (and others) lamented why did they target NYC instead a red state target?, Despite attacks in Spain, UK, and now Paris (the left’s holiest of holy shrines) they will stubbornly refuse to admit islam wants the death/destruction of all infidels. It is ironic that the left – hedonistic, irreligious, champions of LGBT – are the ones the fanatics despise the most.
I do not comprehend the motivations of the elitists in Europe; but I understand bho’s motivation: the destruction of repressive, colonialist Western Civilization. Dreams of his father.
J. J.
It is long past the time to fidget over their colllateral damage and start minimizing our collateral damage. They take one eye, we take one million should be the guiding philosophy.
This is a surprise — Roger Cohen in the NY Times sounding downright bellicose:
Even some criticizing of Obama.
It’s a true tragedy that the U.N. is such an abomination. An organization like that would be able to deal with a threat like ISIS early on, if only the U.N. worked as it should.
It looks like NATO still has some credibility.
Back to the question of “why has this not been done before?”
You are a well informed, intelligent lady behind the apple, so I assume you know the answer. If not I suggest fear, wishful thinking it will just go away, slavish devotion to an ideology that defies reality, and simply passing the buck or euro or pound until they retire to make big bucks, euros, or pounds in the private sector. GB calls the traitors, I see them as fools who think they can escape the alligator first and traitors second.
They need to appear tough, just as Clinton needed to appear tough on Sudan and Somalia. In reality, he was doing everything he could to help the enemy.
We lost 35,000 guys in Korea, 58,000 in Viet Nam. Thousands in the Middle East and elsewhere since the end of the Cold War.
We have not won a single war. Our political class backs out.
That’s why our soldiers are told, and we are told they are, tough, loyal, smart, warriors, tue, valiant, members of storied units with histories going back a hundred years. They fight and win one-sided engagements with great valor, and the great valor is justifiably recognized.
But we don’t call them victors any longer. Because we can’t.
Their sacrifice is thrown away, even at the moment of triump as in Iraq, or when things could have gone well in Viet Nam by political forces whose goal is to piss away their sacrifice.
Thus, Americans are loth to get into another “war”, expecting how it will end…again. No matter how awful things are, our political class will not allow the military to rectify the situation. Would you want to go, knowing that?
Let’s see how long the attacks are sustained. If they had been serious from the beginning there would have been no training centers and headquarters left to attack and the roads would have been closed to traffic from the beginning. The reason I think that wasn’t done is that Obama dithered, dithered some more, played golf, dithered some more, and frankly hoped it would all go away. Why he is that way I don’t know, neither to I care.
About a year ago, ISIS held a victory parade. Endless vehicles, nose to tail, in the daylight, troops waving weapons, trucks, combat vehicles.
Coming into a city. Anybody with a modicum of military history is gnashing his teeth.
A quartet of P47s…. B25s with the twelve fifty-cal pack in the nose. Hell, WW II stuff would have been terrific. I mean, a DC3 with a bunch of bricks pitched out the side. An M4 Sherman.
Modern weapons……?????????? A10 with cluster bombs. B2s, ditto, with the added advantage that nbody would have known whence came the destruction.
Answer. Obama didn’t want to hurt them.
Wanted to not hurt them.
Hussein was funding them. The Left always likes to have their cat’s paws
“Why wasn’t this done before?”
I’ve seen this mindset before, and the simple word “oikophobia” doesn’t do it justice. Obama and people like him think the US is pedestrian and thuggish. Every stereotype of the “ugly American” is true.
They think there is something exotic, beautiful and morally superior in foreign cultures, even ISIS.
They are Islamic sympathizers.
Because they admire ISIS while denigrating their own country, they convince themselves that they can somehow appease the Islamists or find an amicable arrangement. This deludes them into thinking they don’t need to attack Raqqa.
Obama didn’t attack ISIS because he desperately doesn’t want to offend them. He also is desperate to avoid lumping himself in the same category with that cowboy Bush.
I didn’t have this precise view of things a year ago, but looking at Obama’s track record I was still able to predict that the “war on ISIS” would be a bullshit PR stunt.
Sept 28:
“I think I said it before, but based on his past behavior, I expect that Obama’s actions vs. ISIS will be minimalist. His boasts will be maximalist, and will be exposed as fraud about a year from now.”
Sorry. September 28, 2014.
Richard Aubrery
When I saw that ISIS military parade I wondered why we didn’t blow them to bits.
The untold story is what the military thinks of Obama’s campaign against ISIS.
The ISIS military parade should have been another Great Marianas Turkey Shoot (q.v.). But the “men” leading the country have no ballz atall. Or they’re outright Quislings, like Hussein O. /spit
Good on the French, though, for flying over Raqqa and making the rubble bounce. Let’s just pray that they keep fighting back, hard, and don’t go the way of Spain after the Madrid train bombings.
Remember that? the Leftwing Nutbags were So Impressed with themselves for the huge march through the streets with candles, and tears, and mush; then voted for a pacifist, treasonous Leftist (but I repeat myself):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i33DX9Wjd7E
The mewling idiots have put a peeeeace sign — “Footprint of the American Chicken” — under the victory arch in Washington Square tonight.
Yeah, that will fix ’em! they must be quaking in their boots, the 7th-century barbarians.
This is where water-boarding is helpful. Personally, I’d go Edward II on them, but the less harmful water-boarding seems to work.
Plus, a good dose of A10 strafing on a daily basis. Except the Obama Pentagon wants to retire the A10 Warthog, despite it being the best weapon against the likes of ISIS.
Most of terrorists were french people born and raised in France.
Why not bombing Paris suburbs too?
This is just bullshit. The problem is not in Syria. The problem is in the heart of France. So let’s bomb Syria and this way people will look away from what happens in French suburbs!!!
Neo, I’m a bit disappointed you have fallen in Hollande’s trap. He’s trying to make an external war from what it is really a french civil war. A civil war for which he would have to answer after years of multicultural policies. Sad to say, neo, since you’re my american favourite blogger, but here you’re playing Hollande’s puppets game.
parker Says:
November 15th, 2015 at 7:53 pm
J. J.
It is long past the time to fidget over their colllateral damage and start minimizing our collateral damage. They take one eye, we take one million should be the guiding philosophy.
%%%
Parker & J.J.
Barry regards ISIS as his proxy army.
Hence he wants to only spank troops that go ‘off mission.’
Get it ?
ISIS is the puppet of Erdogan.
Who else do you think is getting food and ammo to ISIS ?
All other ordinates of the compass are blocked — and always have been — for a year and a half.
NO WAY can ISIS grow enough food to feed itself.
The Euphrates isn’t what it used to be.
BTW, there’s a real limit to how far palm dates will take you. Heh.
If the two al Qaeda fronts are not Barry’s proxy armies — then why are they constantly uploading YouTube// LiveLeak videos of them shooting American supplied TOW missiles at Assad’s tanks ?
Why is it that absolutely no-one is fighting under the FSA flag ?
Why is it that EVERY video has the jihadists exulting in “Allahu akbar.”
That’s some secular army Barry is is backing.
&&&
The President can’t say ISIS because it sounds like:
” I… sis ”
He might then have embarrassing video clips all over YouTube.
Heh.
Alternately he’d be left with:
” Is… is ”
Which is the famous Clinton quote.
You hear the problem ?
After Bin Laden was taken down, Obama said we are not at war with Islam, only an organization (Al Qiada).
Isn’t it the same with ISIS for Obama?
Meanwhile, ISIS has declared itself a state, and even issues money.
Isn’t is all about “Leading from Behind?” That is, not leading at all, but just making it up as he goes along?
Rumor says that Valerie Jarret has more influence on Obama’s FP decisions than anyone else.
Can Obama be shamed or goaded into action? By national outrage?
Yann says, “Most of terrorists were french people born and raised in France. Why not bombing Paris suburbs too?”
Well, at least 2 terrorists came in from Syria. More were probably trained in that theater of war.
But Hollande has already extended the Emergency decree for three months, which provide basically unrestricted search, seizure and detention rules – about the equal of martial law. This is exactly what he needs to do, making the “no- go” areas accessible to complete inspection and investigation.
Ex-spook John Shindler boldly suggests that Hollande ought to put ALL terror connected potential Jihadis into internment camps.
His uses the successful example of Trudeau in Canada in 1970, responding to violent Quebec separatists by interning 500 of them. It worked.
A further step would be for Hollande to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, and thus act in collective defense against the ISIS threat.
Speculation is that Valerie Jarret keeps Obama telling Hollande “Don’t” do that – we won’t respond, in violation of our NATO obligations. (Subtext-“DON’T you embarrass me!”)
This is what the American people NEED to shame Obama about! Call your Senators and Congressman. Tell them your outrage at Obama’s lack of support for France!
@ Orson
“Well, at least 2 terrorists came in from Syria.”
Two from eight.
And it’s even unlikely they came from Syria. Another elephan in the room no media wants to talk about: many “syrian refugees” are not syrian, but open gates in Europe are attracting people from all over the third world.
“Yes, there will be some collateral damage. (civilian casualties) Which is what Obama and company are trying to avoid at all costs. ”
I wonder how WWII would have turned out if those earlier American leaders were as concerned about civilians as this current crop of inbreed losers. 🙁
Since these sub-human cretins only seen to understand overwhelming force and have no problem destroying other religion’s cultural history, I would say what is good for the goose is good for the gander. I would publish a list of all their sacred sites up to and including Mecca and tell all the “religion of Peace” followers that the fate of these cultural treasures are in their hands. And the next attack like occurred in Paris would result in the destruction of one of the items on the list. And I would carry it out and work up the list including Mecca.
And for those that complain, that is too harsh and not right. I would suggest you go back and look at the historical sites that were demolished by the allies in WWII.
And I would also suggest you go back to the Byzantine empire back in the 700’s. They too just wanted to live in peace with their neighbors. How did that work out for them?
I agree it is a harsh and unforgiving option. But if you are in a fight for survival for your life with a mugger, how far would you go? The mugger has no regard for your life. Does it change you yes. But to survive it is necessary. The question to be answered is do we have the will to survive or do we submit and turn “Middle Earth” over to the Uruks and Orcs. I’m not sure we have the mettle to survive. Only time will tell.
Golda Meir-
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children,” she claimed. “We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
I think the gist of this is in the following quote from “V the K” @gaypatriot:
In retaliation for the Paris Massacre, France has launched air strikes against a major ISIS command center in Syria.
Here’s a question; Obama has supposedly been bombing ISIS for months. Why is there still a command center for France to bomb? [5:05 pk 11/15/15]
“Can Obama be shamed or goaded into action? By national outrage?”
The short answer is “NO”.
Could Narcissus ever stop admiring himself?
Two peas in a pod. Just be thankful that you are not afflicted with the same disease. 🙁
I have not heard yet whether the French police and possibly the military will start to infiltrate the no go zone suburbs. Not a peep.
Reality Check: It is now our time, the citizenry, to take up arms to save our civilization, as we know it. A few armed men/women could have averted what happened in France. If everyone were armed, this would never happen. There would be a response, immediately. Are we now sheep waiting to be slaughtered by radical Islam? Same with the school shootings in “gun free zones.” Our current Government cannot (or, incredibly, will not) do what needs to be done. Soon it will be too late. It is up to us. Protect yourself and your family — and your friends and neighbors. We are the last (and maybe most effective) line of defense against this threat.
An interesting read from 2006, although the link to the original article appears dead.
While I was searching for a reference to show while the roman senate fiddled, Rome was sacked, I ran across this link.
While I don’t remember the killing of Ilan Halim, it appears the “Barbarians” have not changed their methods, their hatred nor their compassion/ sarc.
AWAITING THE NEW FALL OF ROME
By Avi Davis
In his work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the historian Edward Gibbon describes how a vacillating Roman Senate, with the army of the Barbarian Goths at its city gate, debated fretfully about the Roman Empire’s future. Apparently unknown to them, a civil rebellion, led by slaves and domestics, had erupted within the city walls, leading to anarchy. Days after the appearance of the enemy, the gates were opened from within and the Barbarians poured in to pillage Rome. Within a week, 1100 years of empire building had come to a close.
Sixteen hundred years after that epochal event, it should surprise no one that new barbarians threaten the safety and security of the continent Rome once controlled When the body of Ilan Halimi turned up last week on a railway track outside of Paris the group responsible was identified as the Barbarians. Yet these were not Goths, Huns or Vandals of ancient times, but Muslim criminals whose intent was clearly to commit a racial murder. The torture to which Halimi was subjected and the methods with which he was eventually dispatched should remind everyone in Europe of the original provenance of the term “barbarian” — that of men intent on destruction of centers of Western culture and civilization.
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2006/03/17/barbarians-at-the-gates-the-second-fall-of-rome/
You know why …
Obama is completely alien to American culture, values, history.
During the cold war it also was difficult to see how people could justify the mass murder and enslavement of the Soviet Union and Mao’s China. But leftists did, regularly.
Unfortunately there are large numbers of people in America who are ideologically, culturally, politically Alien.
If Rodham makes it to the White House we will get another eight years to ponder on the origins of these American Aliens.
Neo: “Why on earth was this not done earlier?”
This issue was addressed under a previous post regarding Cornhead’s summary of Fiorina’s observation that President Obama asserts a “false choice fallacy” of “do nothing or full scale war” in order to justify insufficient American action in the War on Terror.
The “full scale war” taboo is derived from the prevalent false/BDS narrative of Operation Iraqi Freedom that was made prevalent in the zeitgeist and continues to be refreshed by the Russians/Left/Democrats. That’s the underlying premise.
Therefore, defeating the “full scale war” taboo requires defeating the false narrative of OIF in the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist. Setting the record straight on OIF would establish a critical precondition necessary to restore sufficient American range of action in the War on Terror.
Simply, if, at the premise level, the public understands that America was right to intervene in Iraq, then the way is re-opened for the public to approve again of a “full scale” range of action to prosecute the War on Terror.
The “full scale war” taboo derived from the false narrative of OIF doesn’t just affect (infect) the erstwhile American leader of the free world. It affects (infects) the West at large. More than just a partisan device for domestic politics, the false narrative of OIF has metastasized into a constant consideration that colors all war-related decision-making, most of all for the Middle East, by the West.
Simply commentating on the issue du jour, which I understand is the bread and butter of bloggers, isn’t going to solve the problem.
Correct decisions follow from correct preconditions with correct premises. Do you wish to do your part as a commentator to restore American and, by extension, Western range of action that’s sufficient to prosecute the War on Terror?
Then use your voice to and call on your fellow commentators to set the record straight on Operation Iraqi Freedom at the premise level of the zeitgeist for the purpose of establishing the socialpre-condition that’s necessary to enable correct war-time decision-making by our leaders.
If you choose to concede the false narrative of OIF, instead, then the “full scale war” taboo in Obama’s “false choice fallacy” will continue to constantly handicap us versus the enemy.
Michael Doran, Mosaic, Feb. 2, 2015: Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy
Michael Ledeen
Excellent questions, NEO. Wish someone with media access would ask them.
I think it’s because a WH insider described our efforts in Syria (August 2013) as “just muscular enough not to be mocked.” Not surprising that stubborn, inflexible Obama has not altered his course 2 years on.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/08/28/obamas-strikes-on-syria-to-be-just-muscular-enough-not-to-be-mocked/
Obama wants to ride it out until January 2017. He wants to end his presidency on what he perceives as a ‘high note’ because he ‘ended’ wars rather than start them. He will not turn from this. Bet on it. He will do marginal things at best to keep up appearances that he cares, all the while desperately hoping that Europe and Russia take the heat and do the work instead.
Even if there is an ISIS event in the U.S. expect this same stuff all the way to the end.
It was obvious during his press conference in Turkey today that he does not like being questioned about his approach. He has used, time and again, the phrase ‘if anyone has any better ideas, I ask them to come forward’ about ISIS and everything else. The better ideas are out there, but he will never, ever acknowledge them.
The worst part about it, is that Obama has gotten rid of a lot of top military brass that disagreed with him. They were ‘retired’ or their commissions were not renewed. These were officers with Iraq and Afghanistan experience. All of that skill and knowledge LOST.
It will be difficult to rebuild a military without experienced officers to guide it.
2016 I predict that Obama’s approval numbers will fall as the ISIS threat grows. We will have other events in Europe and in this country (major or minor), and he will do nothing.
Yann:
The point is not whether they came from Syria, per se. It’s that they came with the flood of supposedly Syrian refugees, posing as Syrians. Also, ISIS has its base in Syria. That is the point.
At least one of the terrorists was identified as having come on a refugee boat to Greece because he was fingerprinted there, and his body in Paris was identified through fingerprints.
Also, doing somethihg about homegrown French Islamic terrorists and bombing Syria are not mutually exclusive. Both could be done. Whether or not Hollande will do anything effective about the local ones I don’t know. In fact, I suspect he might not. But it’s not an either/or choice. Bombing the camps in Syria was an obvious first step.
Josh Rogin, Daily Beast, 8/11/14: “Obama Told Lawmakers Criticism of His Syria Policy is Horseshit”
Hudson Institute Panel, April 24, 2015 — Moderator Lee Smith, Panelists Michael Doran, Matthew Kroenig, David Samuels: What’s Wrong with the Proposed Nuclear Deal with Iran?
sdferr, thanks for the link to the excellent article at Mosaic. I think there it pretty much hits the nail on the head. He ties the threads together of the puzzle that is Obama’s foreign policy.
Oops, ……think that (Not there)it pretty much……
I believe so J.J. (at least for the most part, though I don’t believe Doran goes as far to attribute motivation as I would do), and further, believe we have little excuse to find ourselves in puzzlement at this late date. ClownDeceptor has been signaling (since before his first run for Executive office), if guardedly, obscurantly by intention because his “strategy” if widely understood would be instantly rejected by Americans generally taken. Willful blindness at this point isn’t an excuse for us.
Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, Foreign Affairs: Iran’s ISIS Trap
K-E:
“He has used, time and again, the phrase ‘if anyone has any better ideas, I ask them to come forward’ about ISIS and everything else. The better ideas are out there, but he will never, ever acknowledge them.”
Again, the President’s stratagem works because the Russians/Left/Democrats successfully established the necessary preconditions and premises for it to work – ie, the “full scale war” taboo derived from the prevalent false narrative of the Iraq intervention that I described at 12:58 pm.
The President knows that all the “better ideas” run up against the stigma that the Russians/Left/Democrats have successfully imposed on the paradigm of American leadership that’s manifested by Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The President further knows that the Republicans have conceded surrender to the taboo that justifies restriction of the American range of action for the War on Terror.
How does he know this?
The Republicans announced their surrender to the world repeatedly and across the board.
See the Republican presidential candidates’ responses to the Megyn Kelly ‘knowing what we know now’ hypothetical about the decision for OIF. The Republicans effectively stipulated the Russian/Left/Democratic claim that OIF was a mistake – which effectively stipulated the stigma on the paradigm of OIF – which effectively stipulated the taboo that restricts the range of American action.
In order to re-establish the social condition necessary to seriously consider “better ideas” to prosecute the War on Terror again, the false narrative of OIF and its Russian/Left/Democratic proponents must be discredited in the zeitgeist, and they must be replaced in the zeitgeist by the actual law and policy, fact basis of OIF.
Once the American people understand that OIF was the right decision and the mission’s opponents were wrong, then we can be set up again to approach the War on Terror as a genuine leader of the free world.
The Left betrayed Americans in Vietnam and used that as a way to sabotage American domestic culture for decades, which included OIF and other American wars.
So this is like a chain reaction in a nuclear meltdown. One failure leads to another, as the Left intended it to. Stopping it at the source means wiping the Left from the face of existence. Things like repairing the narrative or resteering the propaganda, are merely means to an end.
This is just bullshit. The problem is not in Syria. The problem is in the heart of France. So let’s bomb Syria and this way people will look away from what happens in French suburbs!!!
The fact that AKs come from Syrian munitions and weapons training units, is bullshit?
You might want to retake that counter insurgency course again.
Eric,
“Once the American people understand that OIF was the right decision and the mission’s opponents were wrong”
Though OIF was legally valid, it was NOT the right decision because it was based on two false premises; first, that there beats within every human heart an unquenchable desire for self-autonomy. Secondly, it was based on the false premise that a yearning for individual liberty superseded cultural imperatives.
Practically, it was not the right decision because OIF was instituted to send a message to the rogue nations and enabling* nations that the prior rules of “the great game” had changed. That America would no longer play the game under the old ROEs. But leftist American traitors and liberal useful idiots would never support such an effort and actively undermined public support and thus the strategy within which OIF operated was unsustainable.
So the fact that OIFs opponents were wrong and even traitorous is irrelevant to restoring OIF’s tarnished image. OIF’s legality can be proven but its flawed rationale cannot be overcome. Bush, his neocon advisers (and I) were wrong.
Bush’s heart was in the right place but the half-way measure of fighting Islam’s ‘radicals’ while insisting that Islam itself is blameless and not the source of Islamic ‘extremism’ is doomed to failure.
*“Rogue states never turn out to be quite the pariahs they are deemed. They are only able to cause, or at least threaten to cause, mayhem because they enjoy the covert support – usually by means of technology transfers – of one or more major powers within the charmed circle of global ‘good guys’.” — Margaret Thatcher
Russia has from the beginning, provided the technological assistance Iran needed to gain nuclear weapons capability. Russia and China have repeatedly and consistently blocked effective international sanctions against Iran from passage in the UN Security Council.
Geoffrey Britain: “But leftist American traitors and liberal useful idiots would never support such an effort and actively undermined public support and thus the strategy within which OIF operated was unsustainable.”
Hence, Russian/Left/Democratic proponents must be discredited in the zeitgeist, and they must be replaced in the zeitgeist by the actual law and policy, fact basis of OIF.
Once the American people understand that OIF was the right decision and the mission’s opponents were wron
* I don’t know what happened with the comment at November 17th, 2015 at 2:22 pm. Somehow that posted in the 1st minutes of writing this comment:
Geoffrey Britain:
“But leftist American traitors and liberal useful idiots would never support such an effort and actively undermined public support and thus the strategy within which OIF operated was unsustainable.”
Hence, setting the record straight on OIF accomplishes the “American people understand[ing] that OIF was the right decision and the mission’s opponents were wrong“. I also said, “the false narrative of OIF and its Russian/Left/Democratic proponents must be discredited in the zeitgeist”.
Geoffrey Britain:
“So the fact that OIFs opponents were wrong and even traitorous is irrelevant to restoring OIF’s tarnished image. OIF’s legality can be proven but its flawed rationale cannot be overcome. Bush, his neocon advisers (and I) were wrong.”
I’m not following you logic. Your argument supports the position that the decision for OIF was right and its opponents are wrong.
Now, if the flaw in the paradigm of American leadership that was manifested with OIF is “leftist American traitors and liberal useful idiots would never support such an effort and actively undermined public support”, then discrediting them helps to correct the flaw in the paradigm.
Your vague characterization of “legally valid” in order for you to elevate your understanding of the reason for OIF bypasses that the substantive policy grounds for OIF are plainly stated in the law and policy of the decision.
* I’m not following your logic.