ISIS: We Have Executed 1700 People. What Are You Going to Do About It, Obama?
Wielding the threat of sectarian slaughter, Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come.
The possible mass killing came as militants cemented control of the city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, after two days of fierce clashes with Iraqi troops, residents and senior security officials said. The city came under mortar attack, sending many residents fleeing toward Sinjar to the west and Mosul to the east. Residents said the militants freed dozens of prisoners.
Even as anecdotal reports of extrajudicial killings around the country seemed to bear out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s intent to kill Shiites wherever it could, Iraqi officials and some human rights groups cautioned that the militants’ claim to have killed 1,700 soldiers in Tikrit could not be immediately verified.
. . . .
The sectarian element of the killings may put more pressure on the Obama administration to aid Iraq militarily. In fact, the militants seemed to be counting on it. A pronouncement on Sunday by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had a clear message for the United States: “Soon we will face you, and we are waiting for this day.”
If this keeps up, Iraqi politics might get as brutal as Hillary Clinton’s experience of United States politics.
Meanwhile, we’re moving (some) people out of the embassy, and (supposedly) beefing up security (I know):
On Sunday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that some U.S. security personnel will be added to the staff at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and other staff members will be temporarily relocated to consular offices in Basra and Irbil and to the Iraq Support Unit in Amman, Jordan.
A “substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place,” Psaki said in a statement, and “the Embassy will be fully equipped to carry out its national security mission.”
I think we all see where this is headed.
That’s if we’re lucky.
Chris Stevens could not be reached for comment.
Patterico (9c670f) — 6/16/2014 @ 7:48 amPikers. Obama has squandered 8,000 lives.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:00 amWe don’t have the helicopters, nor the aircraft carriers to land them. Besides, Obama’s people don;t care about anything but the spinning the blame. Benghazi was prelude.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:03 amCan anyone say “Hostage Crisis”?
Jimmy must love Obama.
Yujin (284134) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:19 amR.I.P. Tony Gwynn
Icy (ef91d6) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:32 amIf only we hadn’t invaded Syria;
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27865046#
that was their argument for the Madrid train bombings no?
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:35 amKerry asks the fox to guard the henhouse.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/security-beefed-us-embassy-baghdad-24147974
scott (6196a3) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:39 amI thought lying about Benghazi was bad. I thought the IRS scandal was bad and letting veterans die was bad. When we’re hoping for Iran to become an ally, does that mean that hope is lost? Americans get who they vote for. This isn’t really a surprise, is it? Are we safer than we were before 911?
Jim C (bf5f98) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:49 amfeckless and reckless
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:05 amTFG is also
a clueless Sad Sack
Two things which were obvious years ago to anyone paying attention are I hope starting to becoming obvious even to the infamous “low information voters” about this administration.
First, that no one who matters has ever studied history, and second, even if they have, they don’t give a damn about American interests and American lives. The rest of us sitting on the side lines have been quoting Adm. Painter from Hunt for Red October for months, if not years. “This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.” Sadly, too many of our best and brightest will pay with their lives even if we as a country live through it, all thanks to the traitors and/or incompetents we’ve allowed to be in charge.
LibraryGryffon (53024d) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:09 amThe number 1,700 by the way, is probably too large, and also, although they separated
out the Sunnis from Shiites among the Iraqi troops who surrendered and apparently killed them all (although only a few bodies have been recovered downstream in the Tigris River (or tried to break for it) they are unlikely to be executing just Shiites.
People are saying this is an attempt to start up a sectarian war – make this sectarian and you have Ayatollah Sistani (who should be the real head of the Shiites, of the religious head was to be the ruler, and not those frauds in Teheran, except for the fact that it is a religious principle among Shiites that the religious leaders should be secular rulers) who the day before, in a breal for him, had called for Shiites to volunteer (they are being signed up in separate units not the Iraqi Army by the way) called the next day to exercise maximum restraint.
You’ve got people know who think maximum restraint is executing only members of ISIS.
But actually this could be the purpose of this whole thing.
Baghdadi (as I guess we can call him) does not want any defectors or deserters.
The way to guarantee that is for nobdy to be captured, and give his soldiers no place to go.
The Iraqi army can always run away – they don’t face execution anywhere except territory controlled by ISIS, or ISIL, as Obama prefers to call it *, while ISIS soldiers are not only sorrounded by hostile territory, but cannot desert within their own lines either.
* ISIS – The word translated as Syria – which can also be al-Sham, also justifying the letter S, means territory that encompasses what is now Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, and that includes of course, Gaza and Palestinian territories. The English word would be the “Levant” although perhaps that’s not exact, and ISIS probably doesn’t mean to include Cyprus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant
They also probably claim at least part of Sinai, and there’s a map out there that shows they include Kuwait. And in reality, there is no limit.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:23 amThey seem to have halted their advance. This could be either because Iran indicated it might get involved – start bombing – if they got within 100 kilometers of Baghdad, and we can also maybe expect that from President Obama, since if he tried to evacuate the several thousand american trainers attached to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi army, everything would collapse before they could all get out. The US George HW Bush is getting closer.
Baghdadi may decide, or have decided that, well, for now he’ll just grab everything he can grab without provoking any intervention and only then shoot for more, or perhaps wait for USS George HW Bush to
sailsteam away.Baghdadi would really like to defeat, or appear to defeat, the United States military, and even better capture prisoners, even above killing Americans, so he actually wants Obama to intervene – a little.. The attack on the airport may be an attempt to prevent an evacuation.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:23 amLibraryGryffon (53024d) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:09 am
First, that no one who matters has ever studied history,
Or, as the economist Paul Samuelson wrote in his Newsweek column in January 1967:
http://books.google.com/books?ei=8RufU4r2F5XQsQTw_YDQDQ&id=fgUuAAAAMAAJ&dq=samuelson+sampler&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=crane+brinton
Now Samualeson was talking about raising taxes and choking off the expansion, and he may even have been wrong, but the idea applies. Crane Brinton was an historian of France, especially the revolutions.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:39 amGreetings:
!) As to the immediate case of instant deaths, I would offer Tet ’68 and Inchon. My favorite Platoon Sergeant used to say that there are two basic plays in the infantry game, “Find ’em, fix ’em, and finish ’em.” and “Let them find you, fix ’em, and finish ’em.” The bad guys are out of their holes and on the march, so military opportunity is a-knocking for those with some military gumption. Walter Cronkite aside, Tet ’68 changed that war significantly. As ISIS is now well into Iraq, coming around behind them and trying to seal them off from the border for a human rights approved massacre is the opportunity that I would want to effect. A while back, I channel surfed into a PBS documentary about the Islamist attack on an oil refinery in southern Algeria. The government called out its anti-terror troops who were led by a general whose “nom de guerre” was “The Eradicator”. Surely there’s one of those somewhere in that miserable country.
Two more ideas for the long lingering fit of sickness. First, Islam is the milestone. It is nothing more than the globalization of 7th Century A.D. Arab tribal culture under a thin veneer of religion. And, if your plan doesn’t include (and ours surely doesn’t) constraining, undermining, or eradicating Islam, you don’t have a plan. What you have is a hope. My father used to tell me that the reason Moses took the Jews out of Egypt and into the desert for a couple of generations was to let those born of the slave culture die off and those who grew up in freedom mature before entering the Promised Land. That sure sounds like nation building to me.
11B40 (844d04) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:41 am8. Jim C (bf5f98) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:49 am
When we’re hoping for Iran to become an ally, does that mean that hope is lost?
Senator Lindsey Graham seems to be for that now, comparing the teheran regime to Stalin’s in world War II.
We actually had Iran as an ally, or supposedly on our side, anyway, in Afghanistan in 2001, for about a month.
Americans get who they vote for. This isn’t really a surprise, is it? Are we safer than we were before 911
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:41 amAmericans get who they vote for. This isn’t really a surprise, is it?
It was more of a surprise when Obama stayed the course.
Are we safer than we were before 911
So far, but things are not going in the right direction.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:43 amNote that Kerry is going to ask Iran for help, hat in hand. What do you think the odds are that they will get their bomb soon. Hell, the way things are going, we may give it to them along with a player to be named later.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:58 am11B40 (844d04) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:41 am
My father used to tell me that the reason Moses took the Jews out of Egypt and into the desert for a couple of generations was to let those born of the slave culture die off and those who grew up in freedom mature before entering the Promised Land.
This is a common commentary, but that’s not really what it says in Numbers Chapters 13 and 14, which we just heard read in synagogues last Shabbos, two days ago.
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0413.htm
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0414.htm
Moses just wasn’t good enough at combating political demagogues. He had thought he’d dispose of those people who thought the land of Canaan was not a good place to go, by asking them to spend a long time there, and take back some fruits, and sending Joshua with them just to make sure that happened. He thought he’d be really making sure they’d prove the land was good. And he succeeded at that.
But then they told different lies.
First it was only bad arguments, and Caleb successfully countered them. Then they began telling lies claiming that the children of Anak were from the Nephilim and that they were like grasshoppers compared to them – that’s how tall they were. Of course they’d fall down being that tall, due to the square cube law. The actual original Nefillin were tall enough and constantly were falling down,
They are mentioned in Genesis 6:4
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0106.htm
4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. {P}
Not fallen angels or anything like that. People so tall, they kept falling down. I don’t know if anybody has realized what “Nefillim” means.
The only reason this is mentioned in Genesis, I think, is because the Nefillim are also mentioned in Numbers Chapter 13 – a way of indicating that the 10 men, besides Caleb and Joshua, who toured the land, were liars, but only in such a way so that you have to figure it out for yourself.
The reference there to Sons of God daughter of men seems to me to refer to two different class divisions of people, and the names they called themselves. The Hebrew word translated “God” here also means any higher authority, like judges.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:03 amSammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:23 am
Sammy just knows this. It’s amazing what Sammy just knows.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:04 amjin (284134) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:19 am
Can anyone say “Hostage Crisis”?
Jimmy must love Obama.
For this to be worse:
1) The number of hostages would have to exceed the number held in Teheran. (or there’d ahve to be a large number of avoidable deaths)
2) Obama would have to be constantly making bad predictions.
We’re not there yet.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:06 amSteve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:04 am
The number 1,700 by the way, is probably too large
Sammy just knows this. It’s amazing what Sammy just knows
I said probably. That seems to be the consensus. They probably didn’t capture 1,700. ISISis going out of its way to emplhasize how brutal they are, so why shouldn’t they be exaggerating the number, too?
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:08 amIf we could land Iran as an actual ally, that would justify a lot. But of course that won’t happen, any more than the USSR was our actual ally during WW2. FDR may have deluded himself that it was so, but Stalin always kept in mind that he was merely our enemy’s enemy, and even during the War was preparing for future war against us. Iran helping in Iraq would be exactly the same.
Milhouse (2c3555) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:09 amSteve57: I should have mentioned this yesterday.
You seem to have forgotten that Shia and Sunni islam are different streams of Islam and Shiites would never regard a Sunni Caliph as a legitimate leader of Islam, so they weren’t running away because they thought the ISIS cause was just..
They were running away because their commanders abandoned them, and their commanders abandoined them because they were being shot at by very, very, good snipers, who practiced on civilians in Syria, and the comamnders also weren’t very good, because Maliki made a deal with Iran in which Iran would put an end to its Shia militia and the career of al-Sadr, and he let them pick, or at leasst eliminate officers, with Iran probably warning him of coups.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:15 amI’m surprised the US Media has labelled the ISIS advance as a quagmire yet. I mean they STILL haven’t reached Baghdad!?
But maybe it is only a quagmire if U.S. troops are involved. ISIS was never in Vietnam.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:15 amIt’s a common theme with this administration. Hillary! went hat in hand to Morsi and the MB for help back in 2012 if you recall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-conflict.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Considering Obama created the crises in the fist place by his shameful withdrawal of troop from Iraq on the one hand and deposing Mubarak on the other, both of which created vacuums that could only have been intended to draw in the MB and Iran so Obama could paint them as “partners” and responsible actors.
Recall how the Egyptians were holding up signs that read “Obama supports terrorists.” Oh, how right they were. Little did we know how right they were.
There’s a saying in the military. Once could be an accident. Twice might be coincidence. Three times and it’s enemy action. Although sometimes you don’t have to wait until the third strike, like on 9/11, to know it’s enemy action.
What we are seeing in Iraq is the result of enemy action, all right. Directed from the WH. Pro-MB, pro-iranian President ValJar and her most anti-Israeli administration in history is calling the tune.
When this country elected Obama we switched sides.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:17 amWarning; I linked to the NYT article @25 just to refresh peoples memories of the events. Nothing in the article is remotely accurate. It’s not even a worthwhile read; you’ll end up stupider afterward. Did I mention it’s from the NYT?
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:19 amAlissa Rubin, formerly of the Dog Trainer’s Baghdad bureau, wrote Carlos Slim’s
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/06/analysis_isis_allies.php
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:21 amYour suspicions were correct, Steve, one can also infer from what happened with Israel, after they withdrew from Gaza
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:23 amSammy @21, they aren’t just killing captured Iraqi security force personnel. They are also killing military-age Shia civilian men. They’re killing Sunni civilian officials of the central government, along with Sunni clerics who refuse to sign oaths swearing loyalty to ISIS and endorse their takeover.
How hard to you imagine giving the broad categories of who they’re killing do you think it’d be to kill 1,700 people in a city with a population of approx. 1.5 million like Mosul?
The numbers are if anything are too low. If anything is dubious about their claim, it’s that they’re calling some of the men they murdered soldiers when they weren’t.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:28 am*They’re killing Sunni and Shia civilian officials of the central government
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:28 amSamuelson, (Paul), was that generation’s Krugman,
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:29 amwell I don’t think that’s quite right;
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/16/u-s-doesn-t-know-who-to-hit-in-iraq.html
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:34 amI imagine that a lot of vets who fought in Iraq, especially those who lost friends and their own health, are sick to their stomach, pretty irate, or both right now.
And I bet if they all marched on the golf course that the president is playing at, no one would cover it.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:34 amThe sectarian element of the killings may put more pressure on the Obama administration to aid Iraq militarily.
This just cements Obama’s alliance with Iran. Valerie is so proud.
Mike K (cd7278) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:54 amMD, recall how candidate Obama was saying that genocide wasn’t a good reason to maintain forces in Iraq. I’ve had a hard time coming up with an exact quote; my searches just produce sites where people are discussing what he said. For instance, this from answers.com, seven years ago:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070726054958AAAi568
In which 2007 Obama presents us with another false chaice. Since we can’t intervene everywhere we should not keep US forces in Iraq to prevent genocide.
Everybody knew sectarian violence and genocide would ensue if we withdrew all our forces. Obama publicly denied it, but not only have I concluded he knew it too (or at least President ValJar did) but that this America-is-the-cause-of-all-evil administration wanted it to happen for a variety of reasons. Hence Obama’s “mission accomplished” golf vacation as the bloodletting ramps up to eleventy.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:57 amthey might have this guy in the delegation,
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/30/130930fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all
or the other general, who planned the attack on the Saudi Ambassador
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 11:02 amSamuelson, (Paul), was that generation’s Krugman,
Well, Samuelson was sane, so there’s that difference.
Kevin M (56aae1) — 6/16/2014 @ 11:05 amSteve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:28 am
How hard to you imagine giving the broad categories of who they’re killing do you think it’d be to kill 1,700 people in a city with a population of approx. 1.5 million like Mosul?
The numbers are if anything are too low. If anything is dubious about their claim, it’s that they’re calling some of the men they murdered soldiers when they weren’t.
The claim, or tweet, wasn’t they they’d killed, altogether, 1,700 people, in different places, but that they’d carried out one big mass execution of 1,700 Shiite soldiers, and it was accompanied with video. They may not have killed that many people yet (since June 10) altogether; they may be planning or expecting to kill far more, and while they may have executed soldiers, they probably didn’t capture half that many.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 11:41 amThis is the Robert Kagan article in the New Republic that may have prompted President Obama’s West Point speech (which almost looks like it was delivered in a previous year)
New Republic, May 26, 2014
Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire
One place he doesn’t mention is Iraq. He didn’t see it coming.
He just finishes:
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:03 pmTNR… another liberal bastion of untruth.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:12 pmOr half-truths, anyway.
This Robert Kagan seems to be somewhat impressed with Hillary. He seems to make the mistake of thinking that if someone shows they understand your arguments, they agree with you, and agree also on the importance of acting accordingly.
Not when you’re dealing with Bill or Hillary Clinton.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:18 pmHas bagdad been renamed Osama Bin Ladin City yet ? Why not send the illegal alien children coming across our border to iraq ? Unless you want to go their and fight ???
iraq arabic for vietnam (01463d) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:25 pm32. Military offensives can’t be hidden.
All they have to do is do a lot of reconnaissance, rely mostly on the Iraqi government to tell them what’s on their side, and go after what looks like preparations for an attack, and if there’s nothing that day, don’t bomb anything.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:45 pmI like Robert Kagan, he earned kudos for a very sympathetic take on the Contra movement in the 90s,
but the notion that Obama has been a realist is fanciful;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/world/middleeast/fear-of-trend-after-bombing-by-a-us-man.html?ref=world&_r=1
how long before the dateline for this, is some place closer than Idlib
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:52 pm35. Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 10:57 am
MD, recall how candidate Obama was saying that genocide wasn’t a good reason to maintain forces in Iraq. I’ve had a hard time coming up with an exact quote; my searches just produce sites where people are discussing what he said.
Best of the Web from last Friday references a Best often web column from July 26, 2007. That column quotes, but does not link to an AP interview.
It goes like this: (emphasis mine)
The link here is:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB118541112759578392
You may need a subscriptiopn to see it, but sometimes links like that work.
Anyway, here is quote, now we need to find a more original source.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 12:54 pmWell, the prez and Sec of State will “not rule anything out,” so that’s comforting.
That means no decision will be made because they will not rule anything out.
Hamlet in the White House.
Patricia (5fc097) — 6/16/2014 @ 1:02 pmCBS News July 19, 2007:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-dont-stay-in-iraq-over-genocide/
Associated Press article in the Washington Post Friday, July 20, 2007; 5:50 PM:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072000831.html
American Thinker, May 13, 2013, quoting that:
http://www.americanthinker.com/assets/3rd_party/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/a_care-less_foreign_policy.html
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 1:03 pmI really don’t get ISIS. Are they trying to get Barack Obama’s attention? This is not the way to go about it.
Head on down Mehico way, change your name from Mohammed to Pancho, and don a sombrero. Obama will airlift you into the United States and hand you an EBT card. From there, you can move to Detroit and start shooting up 1,700 black people.
Then you’d might get Barack Obama’s attention.
Obama could give two shits if you’re shooting up other Muslims.
wonderingman (1fce96) — 6/16/2014 @ 1:29 pmRest assured they focus like a laser beam;
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/meet-the-press-grills-mitt-romney-about-iraq-as-obama-goes-golfing-video/
narciso (3fec35) — 6/16/2014 @ 1:41 pmAll is proceeding as the Emperor has foreseen. Judge Benedict Obama not by his words but by how deeply his deeds have damaged America, and you’ll conclude he’s a stealth operative working for the other side, and doing one heck of an effective job of strangling our economy, undermining our federal institutions, and demoralizing our troops. Benedict Obama represents the single greatest threat to American freedom and liberty since the bloody British blockaded Boston Harbor.
ropelight (65715c) — 6/16/2014 @ 1:54 pmWill this be the images from the US Baghdad Embassy next month?
http://0.tqn.com/d/asianhistory/1/0/B/M/-/-/AmericanHostageinTehran1979MPIGetty.jpg
or this?
http://celebpictu.com/images/daniel-pearl-05.jpg
rd (46662d) — 6/16/2014 @ 2:29 pm46. Patricia (5fc097) — 6/16/2014 @ 1:02 pm
Well, the prez and Sec of State will “not rule anything out,”
Did you see this, where his people sort of contradict him?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/world/middleeast/iraq.html
Special Forces are not troops, I gather.
, and he asserted that “we’re not going to allow ourselves to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we’re there, we’re keeping a lid on things.”
.
Sammy Finkelman (69aa73) — 6/16/2014 @ 3:31 pmGreat. The US to now team up with Israel’s sworn enemy, Iran, who say openly they will eliminate the Jews the first chance they get. Obama’s game plan is unfolding. What will Israel do about it?
The Emperor (6685ec) — 6/16/2014 @ 3:31 pmHe’s not very stealthy. This is what I don’t get; people reelected him even though he makes his hatred for this country so obvious. His first foreign policy foray was to side with Castro and Chavez against Honduras upholding its Constitution, for Chrissakes (shades of Christmas future, right there).
In the ME he has consistently sided with the anti-American regimes, and undermined the pro-American regimes. It might appear his policy is incoherent. It is not. For instance Sammy @45 dug up the quote I mentioned earlier. Keeping troops in Iraq to prevent genocide wasn’t a good reason to keep troops there. Yet Obama fabricated a “Responsibility to Protect” to intervene against Ghaddafi (with zero legal authority, mind you).
Keeping troops in Iraq would have not only prevented this debacle in Iraq (this is not conjecture) but would have provided leverage to force Maliki to make the concessions that a pro-American President (I’m talking a US President, mind you) would have wanted to see. Obama is not such a President. Now he’s demanding the impossible; the Iraqis have to form a government of national reconciliation in the midst of a fight for survival before he’ll even consider military intervention.
Obama has said numerous times that he has been monitoring this situation for months. I know that his advisors had told him the Iraqi government could easily fall. Yet Obama did nothing to pressure Maliki to make these concessions. Instead he waited until the Iraqi government is in extremis to make his demands.
This is the foreign policy equivalent of having a doctor come up to an ER patient who just had a massive heart attack and is in dire need of emergency surgery immediately, and informing the patient that they won’t even consider the surgery unless the patient demonstrates a commitment to his long term health by getting out of that bed and going to the gym.
Ghaddafi was a bad guy, but he committed an unpardonable sin in Obama’s eyes. After Ghaddafi saw what happened to Hussein in Iraq, he gave up his nuclear program and actually started cooperating with the US in the war on terror.
This is why we had a “responsibility to protect” in Libya and not Iraq. Obama wanted to teach the dictators of the world a lesson. Never give up your anti-Americanism and your WMD programs.
In both cases it’s his goal to give Islamists a power base. He succeeded in Libya, he’s succeeding in Iraq. He almost succeeded in Egypt, but al Sisi put a stop to it.
I feel really bad for the Iranians who died in the Green Revolution, thinking that the US was on the side of freedom. Not Obama, and not the people who voted for him with their eyes wide open. Recall how Obama couldn’t wait to give Ahmadinejad, calling him immediately to congratulate him on his obviously stolen election. Waiting over a week to speak up about the Iranian regime gunning down their own citizens who don’t like being slaves of Islamic extremists. You could tell he was hoping Ahmadinejad would crush the protesters quickly so he could ignore it.
Watch. In some situations we have a “responsibility to protect” that’s so urgent he’ll break laws to intervene. In other cases he’ll wait a couple of weeks before acknowledging the savagery and then he’ll lecture us on how we can’t be everywhere. It’s always the same. When we intervene it’s on the most anti-American side. When we don’t intervene it’s because he’s on the side of an anti-American government that can kill its opponents as no long as no one helps the protesters.
I’ve noticed there was never a “responsibility to protect” when the socialists in Venezuela were gunning down and imprisoning protesters.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 3:33 pm*Obama couldn’t wait to give Ahmadinejad a tongue bath, calling him immediately to congratulate him…
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 3:36 pmMy earlier point. He knew as well as anyone else that if we left Iraq there’d be a bloodbath. He denied that possibility publicly.
He knew it would happen, and as we see now he didn’t want to keep the lid on it.
Does anybody doubt this genocide is what he wanted?
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 3:47 pmChimperor… When did you have the mental enema that cleansed your fever swamp mind?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/16/2014 @ 4:37 pmdeath and poverty is food stamp’s legacy Mr. 57
and you can bet the cowardly and debased food stamp slurping american people will name many schools after his whore ass
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/16/2014 @ 4:57 pmDunno. Maybe your rhymes had something to do with it. :).
The Emperor (03864d) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:26 pmObama to begin a hashtag bombing campaign.
Rodney King's Spirit (e9cae7) — 6/16/2014 @ 8:32 pmJen Psaki will be holding a State Dept. presser tomorrow, in which ISIS will learn that “The power of the hashtag compels you!”
Vengeance shall be of biblical proportions. Real Old Testament $ch*t.
Hosea 8:7: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the hashtag.”
Maybe Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf will join her for a tag team press conference. It’ll be Baghdadi’s worst nightmare; like America is ready to unleash the entire cast of “Legally Blonde” on him. He’ll have no choice but to retreat, Rodney King’s Spirit.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:04 pmThis too shall pass… http://warontherocks.com/2014/06/isis-this-too-shall-pass/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/16/2014 @ 9:55 pmI’m wondering how much Sharif or Putin are going to charge in the way of ransom so we can get the free passage to pull the rest of our troops out of A-stan.
You want to talk hostage crisis? There’s your hostage crisis.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/16/2014 @ 11:44 pmIt seems to have been a raiding party for their main front
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/isil-moving-seized-u-s-tanks-humvees-to-syria/
narciso (3fec35) — 6/17/2014 @ 5:53 amI blame George Bush for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, a man whose presence until then was a controlling influence in that region. No AQ, no terrorists. That war has not brought peace but worsened the situation. I blame Obama for not reading the situation as it was but was more interested in keeping a silly campaign promise and withdrawing all US forces and leaving the region vulnerable to what we now have. As it stands now we are going to lose all the investments there: lives, money and resources. What is the way forward? We must begin to think of the possibility of splitting Iraq into 3 countries: one for the shiites, one for the sunnis and one for the kurds. Iraq is broken and cannot be fixed. That time has passed.
The Emperor (a70425) — 6/17/2014 @ 2:51 pmSo you were cool with his repeated violations of UN resolution 1441 and the 500,000 children that Madeleine Albright said was worth dying because of the sanctions due to the failed oil for food program was being circumvented? Then there was that 1998 Iraq Liberation Act signed by BJ Clinton about the regime change, so that was like the stated policy of the US government, and stuff!
I don’t know that I’d categorize that as a controlling influence in the region, but we can agree to disagree.
Hadoop (7fc17e) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:03 pmSaddam had broken that country for 35 years, since the coup, there was no pottery barn, there was the Anfal campaign against the Kurds that included Halabja, there were similar efforts against the Shia,
the first wave of ethnic cleansing of them, drove them into a few locations like Sadr city:
I know, rarely does one do a Politico link, but ‘needs must;
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/06/dana-milbanks-heritage-disaster-190551.html#.U6BySZQv38c.twitter
narciso (3fec35) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:13 pmSaddam Hussein was not a good man but he was important. Look at Syria today, do you advocate the removal of the Syrian president because of his crimes? What do you think will happen if he is removed considering the new threat of ISIS there? Sometimes it is necessary to use a bad man to stop evil.
The Emperor (09061e) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:19 pm64. The Emperor (a70425) — 6/17/2014 @ 2:51 pm
I blame George Bush for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, a man whose presence until then was a controlling influence in that region. No AQ, no terrorists.
It wasa Saddam Hussein who put al Qaeda into Iraq. He let them have a certain small amount of territory in the north, next to the Kurdish region.
If you want to blame anyoneyou shopuld blame George Bush the elder for not finishing Saddam Hussein off in 1991. If he had done taht, there would have been no insurgency, no al Qaeda there, no nothing just like in the Kurdish area, which was kept ouyt of his control.
What happened after 2003, would not have happened in 1991.
Sammy Finkelman (59be71) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:22 pmIt wasa Saddam Hussein who put al Qaeda into Iraq. He let them have a certain small amount of territory in the north, next to the Kurdish region. Sammy
The Emperor (fc6588) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:41 pmDo you have proof of this statement?
So I guess you feel that Obama’s position toward Egypt with Mubarak and Libya with Gaddafi was misguided, i.e., the Arab Spring was basically bad for the ME?
Hadoop (f7d5ba) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:45 pm60. “The power of the hashtag…”
Nicely done, and awesome, seriously, if original. You may have a future beyond grub.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:50 pmthen there’s this;
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/02/ayman_al_zawahiris_d.php
at least one of these characters was the basis for Abu Nazir in Homeland,
narciso (3fec35) — 6/17/2014 @ 3:58 pmIt was original,gg, especially my adaptation of the Old Testament.
I have to admit part of it was inspired by Iowahawk. Dave Burge has variously described Psaki and Harf as sorority pledges, sales girls at Forever 21, and how an Olive Garden in Indiana is missing a hostess.
It was the sorority pledge description that made me think of “Legally Blonde.” What can I say? I stand on the shoulders of giants.
Steve57 (d38ceb) — 6/17/2014 @ 4:01 pmWell I had the ‘Legally Blonde’ reference last week, but I defer to Iowahawk’s genius.
narciso (3fec35) — 6/17/2014 @ 4:27 pmfish gotta swim’
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/wow-hillary-clinton-doubles-down-still-says-a-video-was-a-factor-in-benghazi-massacre-video/
narciso (3fec35) — 6/17/2014 @ 4:36 pm“I got 176 rounds of golf, but Iraq ain’t one of ’em”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/17/2014 @ 4:37 pm– Barack “LayZ” Obama
@Hadoop.
The Emperor (e28272) — 6/17/2014 @ 7:11 pmLooking strategically at the ME after the so called Arab spring, wouldn’t you say that removing those men, bad as they were was not such a good idea? The libyan president was already on our side and cooperating with us. There is no doubt that Ghaddafi was an asset alive than he is dead. Look at libya today. The same with Egypt. The Arab spring was nothing more than an agenda to enthrone Islamic fundamentalism under the guise of freedom. Mubarak was a strategic and useful ally both to the US and Israel. In all honesty who has the Arab spring favoured more? Certainly not us.
@Steve57
The Emperor (03864d) — 6/17/2014 @ 7:23 pmThere is no doubt that Saddam was a bad guy. But look at iraw and tell me in all honesty if Iraq is better off with him gone. They have simply traded one dictator for another. I believe it is the lesson we learned from the Iraq mistake that has kept us from hurriedly removing Assad now. If Assad should fall what do you think Syria will become? I am even moving towards the idea of ending all hostilities against the Syrian leader and seeing how to help him bring some stability in that area. America should stop arming the opposition because they may be feeding the beast that will one day rise to destroy the region.