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Thoughts on Presidents Speech about ISIS and US Actions?

Thoughts on Presidents Speech about ISIS and US Actions?

  • Positive

    Votes: 11 21.6%
  • Negative

    Votes: 18 35.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 22 43.1%

  • Total voters
    51
Heya HB. :2wave: Well you see Right away its back to Bush and him leaving a SOFA for BO to handle.....which BO couldn't handle that fact due to BO's own mentality about Iraq and what he thought was his Great Achievement. He was wrong. Then he ran from the problem.....thinking if he ignored it. It would go away.

Those powerful Sunni Tribes and Ousted Baathists would have never sided with the Terrorists. If BO peep would have just did his job in Iraq.....rather than trying to bask in his own glory. Thinking he had Iraq and Afghanistan, Right. What he really did was play on the American people being war weary. Now he looks like a fool all across that Global Stage.



Throughout 2014, powerful Sunni tribes and ousted Saddam-era Baathists have coordinated with ISIS to capture much of central, western, and northern Iraq. On the other side are demoralized Iraqi troops and increasingly sectarian Iranian-trained militias, some of which had been fighting in Syria. The U.S. didn't truly tune into the crisis until after a few hundred ISIS militants overran Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul on June 10. "There was a concerted effort by the administration to not acknowledge the obvious until it became so apparent — with the fall of Mosul — that Iraq was collapsing," The New York Times' Arango said on Reddit.

"Obama was hugely (and understandably) reluctant to authorize the use of force in Iraq — he considered ending the war there one of his chief accomplishments as president," geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, told Business Insider recently. "But there wasn't much choice,
as ISIS forces proved far more capable than U.S. intelligence had assessed,
" he said.....snip~

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-already-huge-flaw-obamas-145400925.html

We lost all meaningful intelligence in the area with our ill-advised withdrawal. It's no surprise our intelligence is lagging behind events, and this "late to the party" approach has been repeated by Obama time after time. Now we're going to arm the moderates? He has to be kidding. Where in the hell was he 3 years ago, when that very thing might have made a difference? Now we're more than likely going to end up supplying arms to our enemies, one way or the other. I'm glad he's doing something, but damn what a bonehead he is.
 
Is ISIL a direct threat to the US?
(The speech basically said 'no')

Why are we declaring war if it isn't?

We are now on Iran's side, sorta. I'm just wondering when the official announcement will be when we find we are at war with Europa and at peace with Oceana, or vice versa.

If a person threatens to kill the President, they are investigated.

If they are found to have a plan and the means they are arrested.

That is what is happening here.

The US should not wait for the attack that this group said is coming. The US needs to stop it before it happens.
 
The terrorist organization has been known by various names ISIS, ISIL, and now IS. I don't think the references to ISIL materially change the President's approach.

There are similarities to Yemen e.g., drone and other air strikes. The big difference is that Yemen has a reasonably cooperative government. The U.S. is estranged from Syria's government. Syria is also in the midst of a larger sectarian conflict. Syria is vastly more complicated than Yemen is. Yemen, of course, is much more a work in progress than a success at this point in time.

Finally, subsequent reporting has revealed that the U.S. is still trying to "broaden" the coalition by bringing the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey on board. I'm really taken aback that this was not already done. It should have been done much earlier. Indeed, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, President Bush had put together an Arab coalition in 7-10 days.

It takes direct Presidential effort to do so. Bush recounted in his and Brent Scowcroft's A World Transformed (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998) with respect to August 7, 1990, "Throughout the rest of the day I worked the phones with our Arab allies, now reaching the other Gulf States." He added, "We were also gathering commitments from teh Western allies."

Of August 11, Bush noted:

I called Mubarak at 5:30 in the morning...and thanked him for his help. Hosni said that everyone understood we had pushed diplomacy, and that it was making a difference in building Arab support... Egyptian and Moroccan troops began to arrive in Saudi Arabia that same day, and with them stark evidence for Saddam that the Arab world too would stand up to him.

That the U.S. had not created such a coalition right now and has not even defined roles for the coalition partners is astonishing. However, given how reactive and ad hoc American foreign policy has become in recent years, I'm not surprised that the kind of strategic thinking and execution required to put together a broad and effective coalition has not already occurred.

Finally, Bush also revealed the benefits of having paid attention to prospective partners even before the Iraqi invasion observing:

The year before, Mubarak had offered me some advice: touch base with these small countries whenever you can, just to acknowledge their importance to the United States, and it will make a difference with them. I had, and my wise friend Hosni had been absolutely right. We were now seeing some of the fruits of tending to these relationships.

Priorities and building/sustaining relationships matter. The President prioritized in rapidly putting together an Arab coalition and he was intensely and personally involved in doing so, rather than outsourcing most or all of his efforts to others. Of course, his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense were also heavily involved. At the same time, he carefully managed relationships and those efforts paid off.

On a larger point, building and managing relationships is why Presidents such as Reagan, Clinton, and Bush (Sr.) were able to accomplish as much as they did even with the Opposition controlling one or both branches of Congress. One cannot understate the importance of investing time and effort in building and leveraging relationships with the people whose support can be crucial.



Sure it does DS.....if he is afraid to acknowledge what is a fact. Finds it detestable and so horrible. He starts from a Defaulted pre-judged position.

You are correct that Bush put a coalition together in matter of days. It is clear BO cannot even do so with a little over a month. Note what most of the left says about the SOFA......that would be the left here at DP. As several others know the real truth to that issue.

Yes that cooperative government in Yemen put boots on the ground while we drone and Airstrike AQ. We are now over a decade on the Invisible war. Which has worsened under BO's terms in Office. Work in progress where BO rarely makes that effort to Engage the Yemen Leadership.....himself.

BO should have been working the phones this whole year keeping our allies from feeling the unease or from feeling the US cannot be trusted.

But then all have said the Issue would be Syria. Thinking the Rebels can be those troops on the ground is ludicrous. The start of a 3 pronged attack.....is what was reported. Yet they know just going into Syria will not end ISIL in 3 years.


"The U.S. and the West have avoided the Syrian conflict for two years, essentially permitting the conditions that spawned ISIS," said Clint Watts, counterterrorism expert at the Foreign Policy Institute. The Obama administration's nominal partner on the ground in Syria is the Free Syrian Army, which Obama has repeatedly disregarded as "an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists, and so forth."

The rub is that Obama decided in 2013 that the U.S. wouldn't “get in the middle of somebody else's civil war," and the White House only allowed the CIA to "provide enough support to help ensure that politically moderate, U.S.-supported militias don’t lose but not enough for them to win." "The leadership of the FSA is American," a veteran FSA officer who defected from the Syrian army two years ago and won respect for leading rebel forces in southern Syria told McClatchy recently. "The Americans are completely marginalizing the military staff." To defeat ISIS, the U.S. commander in chief will have to eventually confront the Assad regime — a move that would strain tensions with an increasingly assertive Iran.....snip~

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-already-huge-flaw-obamas-145400925.html
 
The rub is that Obama decided in 2013 that the U.S. wouldn't “get in the middle of somebody else's civil war," and the White House only allowed the CIA to "provide enough support to help ensure that politically moderate, U.S.-supported militias don’t lose but not enough for them to win." "The leadership of the FSA is American," a veteran FSA officer who defected from the Syrian army two years ago and won respect for leading rebel forces in southern Syria told McClatchy recently. "The Americans are completely marginalizing the military staff." To defeat ISIS, the U.S. commander in chief will have to eventually confront the Assad regime — a move that would strain tensions with an increasingly assertive Iran.....snip~

IMO, had the U.S. increased support to Syria's sectarian elements, one might actually be dealing with a stronger ISIS, not a weaker one. In that case, the current dictatorship might have been sufficiently weakened to permit ISIS to take control of the entire country.

On the point about building a coalition, Reuters reported:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Arab leaders on Thursday to back President Barack Obama's new military drive against Islamic State, calling for tighter curbs on funding for militants and fewer extremist messages in Arab media.

Meeting Arab leaders in the Saudi city of Jeddah a day after Obama announced his plans to strike fighters in Iraq and Syria, Kerry also sought permission to make more use of bases in the region and fly more warplanes overhead.


Kerry presses Arabs to back campaign against Islamic State | Reuters

IMO, these are things the President should have done before he finalized a strategy and before he gave his speech. In effect, he's asking the Arab leaders to accept a strategy in which they had little input and may not necessarily address their critical interests. Basic approach: Establish goals (with input), align support, then announce. What happened is that the President set a strategy before he aligned support, and then announced the strategy proclaiming a broad coalition which, in fact, does not yet exist.

Finally, Russia has now weighed in. The same Reuters piece reported:

The prospect of U.S. armed action in Syria also drew concern from Russia, which has backed Assad. In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry said air strikes in Syria would require a U.N. Security Council mandate or be considered an act of aggression, Interfax news agency reported.

Given the precedent in Libya and announced increase in arms to sectarian groups in Syria, concern by Russia among other pro-Assad countries that there is a "backdoor regime change" component is not unreasonable, especially as no controls or mechanisms to preclude that outcome were mentioned. Considering that Arab support was not lined up in advance of the speech, my guess is that the U.S. never considered the possibility that Russia, Iran, and other Assad backers might have concerns and might also take measures of their own.
 
There are two completely contrary and opposite dynamics at work here;
1- the situation in the Middle East is deteriorating and there is a serious lack of any Islamic stabilizing force to turn this around in any short order.
2- the American people have little if any desire to become the worlds policeman and get involved in another major war - especially in the Middle East where lots of Americans see it as a cesspool anyways with only potential disaster no matter what the goal or plan.

So the President of the USA - and that is irregardless if it is Obama or somebody else in the near future - has to resolve these two contrary forces and no matter how he or she does it - it has a good chance of turning into the same thing that steak does in 24 hours after ingestion.
 
HA! Great point.

What I find difficult to understand is why we are arming crazy rebel terrorists on the other side of the world in order to assist them in overthrowing their own governments, while at the same time having the desire to see gun confiscation of lawful citizens at some point here in this country. Do they see gun owners here as an impediment to some agenda? They must, but the dichotomy in thinking does cause a general feeling of distrust.
 
When it comes to fighting terrorists Obama has put his money where his mouth is. I didn't watch the whole speech; just enough to understand what he's going to do with ISIS and I support that.
 
Greetings, SouthernDemocrat. :2wave:

Yep, that's just what the world needs - dozens more extremist groups! And that is what he wants? WTH? It almost sounds like Obama is scolding ISIS for becoming big enough to warrant international notice! In other words, we're still going to continue to interfere in the ME, toppling governments because we want others in charge who want to go back to the dark ages.... all because they have religious arguments with each other, and have had for a thousand years - three times longer than America has been a country! This whole mess is too weird for me to try to make sense of it! Sanity has left the building, IMO....

Well the article was satire, but its likely the end result. Everything we have done since 9/11 has basically taken big terrorist groups and broken them into lots of smaller ones.
 
When it comes to fighting terrorists Obama has put his money where his mouth is. I didn't watch the whole speech; just enough to understand what he's going to do with ISIS and I support that.

What he says and what he does are two different things. He says we have to wipe ISIS/ISIL out. Bet you any amount of money he won't actually do it.
 
Given Obama's propensity to make grandiose speeches and then forget about it--his track record on follow through has not been great--I take pretty much anything he says with a huge grain of salt. I don't trust him to have a clue about what he is talking about--he dutifully reads whatever his staff puts on the teleprompter--and I don't trust him to have any kind of personal conviction about much of anything other than what makes Obama feel good, feel important, feel gratified.

But the one thing that caught my attention in the speech was that 475 troops he plans to send into the mess over there. If it was your husband or wife or son or daughter among that 475, how happy would you be to know that they are going with so few numbers into the ISIS strong hold and thousands of terrorist minded, hate-filled people who would love nothing better than to behead those 475 soldiers?
 
What he says and what he does are two different things. He says we have to wipe ISIS/ISIL out. Bet you any amount of money he won't actually do it.

Hey man; he got Bin Laden.... He doesn't like those people. GW did absolutely nothing, so talk about what one says and what one does!
 
There was no formal declaration of war. The "War Against Terror" isn't.

Declared wars are more clearly defined, as they must be if they are to be committed action of a nation. We still have no clearly defined mission in Iraq. We have, as we have had since Bush's war, a moveable mission at best, made up and amended as they go along. The "War on Terror" is a PR term created for the masses by the extremely talented and far sighted propaganda apparatus of the Bush Administration. It was perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the Bush Administration. They mastered it.

I'm not sure there's a way for any war against terrorists not to be a moving target. They move from country to country. Their groups break apart and reform under new names. They attack not only us, but allies and even citizens within the countries they're based in. Our forefathers didn't know this kind of war. The enemy's "side" isn't defined by uniform or servitude to a consistent government within consistent borders.

If Congress were required to issue a new declaration every time names changed or borders were crossed, there'd probably have had to have been a dozen separate declarations just to do what we've done already. And I'd put forth that such a process would desensitize the American people and the notion of "declaring war" wouldn't even be seen as a substantial thing any longer.

Fearmongering? Fearmongering is now synonymous with warmongering. Same, same. I support neither.

Forgive me, I am a Vietnam Vet. I have learned to be a pragmatist. Saying the new addition to the "War on Terror" won't escalate is tantamount to "I'll only put it in a little bit, promise."

Sadly that is probably correct. If most Americans had actually made an actual commitment and suffered a palpable sacrifice perhaps they wouldn't have forgotten so soon. If we had declared yet another war, after a declaration of war in Iraq and one for Afghanistan and one for Yemen, and one for Somalia perhaps Americans would have a more realistic understanding of what we are doing and what the costs are in human lives and suffering and the huge financial burden imposed on the nation, and the long term commitments it owes and will owe to its veterans. Up to this point none of that is happening.

That or they'd be given an unrealistic one.

My belief is that people don't remember Libya because it was relatively cheap and didn't cost us a lot of resources. Same with Somalia and Pakistan and the mission against ISIS in Iraq up until now. These are examples of fronts in the actual "War on Terror". Iraq certainly wasn't. Afghanistan was much more than that since we went through a whole regime change there, too (which I never liked us doing).

So with Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan as the model, I really don't think each one needed a separate declaration.

If you look at the declarations of war surrounding World War 2, we didn't declare war on every country we fought against. There were a lot of countries that sided with the Axis powers that I didn't even know about until looking just now. Americans think we fought against the Japanese, Germans, and Italians; but we also fought against Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Thailand, Finland, and--get this--Iraq.

We didn't declare war against each country that contributed soldiers against us, nor did we declare war on every European country we had to pass through and kick the Germans out. As clearly defined as we think WW2 was, it was a moving target, too. A clean example is North Africa. We fought against the Axis powers there, but we certainly never declared war because we stepped foot in Libya.

We went where the enemy was. Just as we do with the "War on Terror".
 
Hey man; he got Bin Laden.... He doesn't like those people. GW did absolutely nothing, so talk about what one says and what one does!

The military got bin Laden. Obama just happened to be in office when it happened. He had nothing directly to do with capturing bin Laden.
 
But the one thing that caught my attention in the speech was that 475 troops he plans to send into the mess over there. If it was your husband or wife or son or daughter among that 475, how happy would you be to know that they are going with so few numbers into the ISIS strong hold and thousands of terrorist minded, hate-filled people who would love nothing better than to behead those 475 soldiers?

Why do you think they're "going with so few numbers"? They aren't going in a combat capacity. Most will probably be in Baghdad doing training and information collation. Some might be closer to danger collecting data or providing logistical support, but those individuals wouldn't be any alone than they would be if we sent 100,000. They'll be with Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

Those 475 troops aren't doing the same duty that tens of thousands did before, nor are they expected to accomplish the same goals on their own.
 
The military got bin Laden. Obama just happened to be in office when it happened. He had nothing directly to do with capturing bin Laden.

And Obama is Commander-in-Chief of the military. It's his military that got Bin Laden.
 
The military got bin Laden. Obama just happened to be in office when it happened. He had nothing directly to do with capturing bin Laden.

More nonsense. Obama oversaw the plan and execution to get Bin Laden - (in Pakistan).

Your just eating sour grapes. Obama did what he said he was going to do, now he's going after ISIS: we've all had enough.
 
What are your thoughts on the Presidents speech about ISIS?

He's saying we're maintaining the status quo of continued meddling, interference, intervention, destabilisation, regime change, and general enforcement of chaos. And the defense contractors, Halliburton, KBR, etc., are grinning. Oh, and Russia and China, are forging ever closer.
 
Why do you think they're "going with so few numbers"? They aren't going in a combat capacity. Most will probably be in Baghdad doing training and information collation. Some might be closer to danger collecting data or providing logistical support, but those individuals wouldn't be any alone than they would be if we sent 100,000. They'll be with Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

Those 475 troops aren't doing the same duty that tens of thousands did before, nor are they expected to accomplish the same goals on their own.

I don't believe I commented on their mission or their goals.
 
Is that a story you have to tell yourself to make you feel better?

More nonsense. Obama oversaw the plan and execution to get Bin Laden - (in Pakistan).

Your just eating sour grapes. Obama did what he said he was going to do, now he's going after ISIS: we've all had enough.

First off, the intelligence work leading to Bin Laden's death goes back into the Bush administration, so under your logic, he deserves at least co-credit if you are going to want to assign credit to Presidents. Unless you are trying to imply that Obama was actually with the Special Forces as they stormed the compound, and personally put the bullet into his head. Also, under your logic, should we also congratulate Bush for not having an attack on American soil after 9/11, and blame Obama for being several?
 
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He's saying we're maintaining the status quo of continued meddling, interference, intervention, destabilisation, regime change, and general enforcement of chaos. And the defense contractors, Halliburton, KBR, etc., are grinning. Oh, and Russia and China, are forging ever closer.

I find it entertaining how people assume that Russia will be against any action against ISIS, when their ally in the ME (Assad of Syria) has been raging a civil war for the past couple of years. If there is to be an alliance against ISIS, one would assume Syria would be playing a big role. My question in all of this is how does this play into out support of the "good" rebels in Syria?

Oh and if you are really going to talk about interference, keep in mind, Russia's the country that has been annexing parts of sovereign countries lately... not the US.
 
Good speech. Not so good examples of what he thinks are successes. As far as a military strategy is concerned, I tend to be concerned that we are putting our hope in ground forces that so far have accomplished record desertions and set a new standard for fleeing from the enemy.

Air power will not, and has never, won a war or defeated and enemy.

What I found most interesting, was the dichotomy of his statements in the speech versus what he was saying just weeks ago, and then trying to present them as if it was his strategy all along - specifically this part: "Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."

Also, he couched the entire speech as if it were some counter-terrorism campaign, yet ISIS has tanks, rocket launchers and is a real Army. Not a bunch of guys that are planning suicide bombings (although they do that as well), but a real Army, with money, heavy weapons and thousands of soldiers. I don't think that a counter-terrorist strategy is what is needed when this is a real war, which will be waged on the ground with ground troops, armor and heavy weapons. None of which the Arab countries, especially Iraq, is prepared to do.

I hope he is successful. I thought he gave a good speech. I just don't think it's going to be successful. I hope I'm wrong.

I see it as political theatre for the reasons presented above.

This is about the mid terms more than it is about success on the battlefield. Your doubts about the ground forces are valid and more. The US has been trying to build an army in Iraq since they destroyed Saddam's and has not succeeded. The question must be asked what's different now?


And the question need be asked 'who are in this coalition and what are their respective roles?'

I am also concerned that he again has chosen to further the on-going war with congress by insisting he needs no authorization. The nation is weary and more from this internal war. I would have gained some respect for him had he, finally, chosen to sit down with congressmen on both sides of the aisle and allow at least the appearance of unity at home.
 
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