THU SEP 11, 2014 AT 09:17 AM PDT
Obama's vision of victory in Iraq looks just like failure
Last night the nation waited to hear how President Obama planned to defeat ISIS.
Instead of a message of hope, he gave what might be the most discouraging sentencespoken by a president since George "The Moron" Bush was in the White House.
Instead of a message of hope, he gave what might be the most discouraging sentencespoken by a president since George "The Moron" Bush was in the White House.
“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”Yemen and Somalia? Good Gawd!
If Yemen and Somalia are Obama's measures for success, two essentially failed states, then Lawd help us, because this isn't going to end well.
“The question I have is, If the Obama administration is confident that its strategy in Yemen is correct, then why is Al Qaeda growing in Yemen and why is the group still capable of forcing the United States to shut down embassies in more than a dozen countries?” Gregory D. Johnsen, a scholar and journalist who has written extensively about AQAP asked last year.Yemen wasn't a good model to emulate last year when Gregory Johnsen was talking about it. It was an even worse model to emulate when Obama referenced it this July (just days after Obama's statement the State Department told all Americans to flee Yemen for security reasons).
“We continue to assess that AQAP remains the al-Qa‘ida affiliate most likely to attempt transnational attacks against the United States,” National Counterterrorism Center Deputy Director Nicholas Rasmussen told the Senate just today. In contrast, he said, ISIS’ “ability to carry out complex, significant attacks in the West is currently limited.”
And Yemen has gotten much worse in just the past few weeks. Just yesterday Amnesty International warned of 'full-blown conflict' in the streets of Sana’a, Yemen's capital, whileSaudi Arabia pulled out their diplomats.
In southern Yemen AQAP has set up an an islamic emirate.
But that's not the worst part by a long shot.
In southern Yemen AQAP has set up an an islamic emirate.
But that's not the worst part by a long shot.
Between the number of threatened coups and the government opening fire on unarmed protesters, Yemen is hardly a model that any country should aspire towards.It's not just sad that President Obama couldn't find a better example to use than Yemen. It's downright scary.
If this is the model to aspire to, then what does Obama's definition of failure look like? What does it say that three years ago President Obama was calling Libya a recipe for success? Libya is now a failed state that France calls a 'terrorist hub'.
Let's not forget Somalia, probably the most brutalized people on the face of the Earth even before we started bombing them.
As for Somalia, the United States has been facing off there against al-Shabaab, a group that has plagued the region since 2006 now. In an example of just how hard it is to destroy a group like Shabaab, the United States recently launched a secret mission to kill Ahmed Godane, the head of the terrorist group. The mission was a success. But rather than discouraging the remaining members, the group instead named a new leader and renewed its allegiance to al Qaeda. If these are the countries that are being held up as success stories, the fight against ISIS is going to be even more of a slog than originally assumed.Like Iraq, there was no significant al-Qaeda presence in Somalia before Bush The Moron decided to start funding Somali warlords (and later Ethiopia's invasion), but that's all water under the bridge now (along with tens of thousands of dead civilians).
I'm guessing that President Obama used the examples of Yemen and Somalia because so few Americans were even aware that we were bombing those countries. Which speaks of the ignorance of Americans, not of policy success.
President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.It's a good thing he did so, because just the other day it was proven that those weapons given to "vetted" partners wound up in the hands of ISIS.
You know, the guys we just went to war with.
The real tragedy is that the president and the media never seem to get around to examining how effective/ineffective our bombing is to winning this so-called War on Some Terror.
Has anyone looked at Afghanistan recently?
How about Pakistan?
Those are two other nations, besides Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Libya that we've been bombing.
Has anyone looked at Afghanistan recently?
How about Pakistan?
Those are two other nations, besides Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Libya that we've been bombing.
What do all of those nations have in common?
They are all worse off than before we started dropping high explosives on them. (except maybe Somalia, which simply couldn't get any worse off)
They are all worse off than before we started dropping high explosives on them. (except maybe Somalia, which simply couldn't get any worse off)
Maybe the solution to winning the War on Some Terror isn't to blow up wedding parties.
Finally, let's consider President Obama's plan for this being primarily a bombing campaign.Rachel Maddow does a good job of cutting through the crap.
"It may be very convenient to say you support airstrikes, but not combat, or to say you support airstrikes, but not boots on the ground," Maddow said. "But there already are more than 1100 US personnel in Iraq to support the airstrikes that are already happening. God forbid, if American aircraft start to get shot down by this militant group with their anti-aircraft artillery, then you better believe there are going to be boots on the ground and very quickly."What do you think the reaction will be the first time ISIS shows a captured American pilot with a knife to his neck on TV?
One thing Rachel Maddow is wrong about, the number of US troops in Iraq is now over 1,600.
9:48 AM PT: Bombing ISIS will have a very limited impact.
That's the overwhelming consensus of analysts and senior Pentagon planning officersand Pentagon director of operations.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says “military option is not the option that’s going to end the conflict”.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says “military option is not the option that’s going to end the conflict”.
9:58 AM PT: Top CIA officials say that drone strikes INCREASE terrorism.
Don't want to believe CIA officials (I don't blame you), then how about the actual peoplebeing effected.
Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post reports — after interviews with tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and officials from four provinces in southern Yemen — that "unintended consequence of the attacks has been a marked radicalization of the local population."Is there any evidence of this? Look at this chart of terrorist attacks in the world since 2004.
Raghavan notes that since Barack Obama ordered the first air strike in Yemen in 2009,the number of core AQAP members in Yemen have more than doubled from 300 to at least 700.
Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University told the BCC that the number is closer to 1,000 and the "more the US bombs, the more they grow," noting that al-Qaeda is adept at using the deaths of women and children to recruit people for revenge...
"That one bombing radicalized the entire area," Abdul Gh ani al-Iryani, a Yemeni political analyst, said. "All the men and boys from those families and tribes will have joined [al-Qaeda] to fight."
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