The insufferable Leon Panetta has a new book revealing how President Obama, Denis McDonough, Valerie Jarrett and Ben Rhodes constructed every encountered policy, including defense, through a domestic political lens. Duh!
This short-sighted and naïve world view is why the foreign policies of the Obama administration -from Libya and the support for al-Qaeda, to Iran and the almost certain nuclear bomb they will acquire- have been catastrophic in consequence. But it really doesn’t matter now does it?
The value in Panetta’s public push back -against the amateur crowd occupying the White House- would have been important when those disastrous policies were being debated, planned and executed. But now, not so much – the Rubicon has been crossed, and hundreds of U.S. military have been killed.
It should also be remembered that Panetta the Prog is responsible for constructing ‘Operation Zero Footprint’ with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. A State Dept. and CIA operation which eventually led to the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Neither Clinton nor Panetta have been held to account.
(Via Washington Post) Tell-all memoirs can be tough when they actually, well, tell all. But it would be hard to surpass the shot that Leon Panetta, President Obama’ s former CIA director and secretary of defense, takes at his former boss and the White House foreign policy team in his new book: “Worthy Fights.” (more…)
(Via Sky News) Fighters from the Islamic State extremist group have used a rocket launcher to shoot down an Iraqi military helicopter, say officials.
The pilot and co-pilot of the Mi-35 aircraft were reportedly killed in the attack which happened between the towns of Beiji and al Senniyah in northern Iraq.
The shooting down of the helicopter showed the insurgents’ ability to hit back against air operations by Iraqi authorities and the US-led coalition. (more…)
Our educated hunch was the quid-pro-quo (which led to the quiet release of the 49 Turkish hostages) included an acceptance by Erdogan to allow the Sunni jihadists, ISIS, a certain amount of, well, ‘Islamic discretion in genocide’, consequently creating refugees that Turkey would have to deal with.
However, eventually as ISIS killed more and more Kurds, the Sunni campaign was going to force too heavy an exodus of Kurdish people toward, and into, Turkey.
Ideally if ISIS could kill the Kurds off quickly, Erdogan would not have to face a difficult decision; at least that appeared to be the overall strategy the western media was avoiding.
In order for our analysis to be correct the question became: “how many Kurds Erdogan would accept, and how long those attacks against them -which created the border crisis- would be accepted”? The answer therein would be the tipping point to a change in Erdogan’s position.
It appears -much to the dismay of Erdogan- the ISIS fighters have been unable to kill off the Kurds quick enough, and now his internal political dynamic, his parliament, has stepped in to debate and allow military intervention. (more…)
Anyone who knows anything about the logistics of moving 2,200 U.S. military personnel into “contingency positions”, knows there are equivocal amounts of “support personnel” from other branches -within the military apparatus- assigned to supportive roles.
YAHOO NEWS – The US Marine Corps plans to deploy 2,300 troops to the Middle East for a new unit designed to quickly respond to crises in the volatile region, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
It will include several aircraft and be prepared to move rapidly in the case of “contingencies,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters. (more…)
WASHINGTON DC – Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said Monday that he doesn’t believe lawmakers should cut their six-week break short to vote on authorizing military strikes in Syria.
“I think that the fact is that this matter will be considered in the lame-duck. Whether it will be passed in the lame-duck, I don’t know,” Mr. Hoyer said at a National Press Club event in D.C. “I do not believe it’s necessary nor do I think it’ll happen that we’ll come back before the lame duck, but it is my expectation we will start debate give the circumstances that exist today. […]
Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said lawmakers need to return before then to vote to give the president authorization to strike the Islamic State in Syria. Speaker John A. Boehner said Sunday that he would consider bringing lawmakers back to D.C. early if President Obama asked him to. (read more)
The Islamic State’s (ISIS) rise to become a dominant threat to the entire known universe was an intelligence failure that, according to Obama, Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has already taken responsibility for. I wonder if Mr. Clapper is aware of that.
It’s not his administration to blame, oh, no – no – no – NO! NEVER !
It’s those pesky “others” who didn’t do their job and cause problems for the administration’s magnanimous excellence.
Just like the fictional Unaccompanied Alien Children ruse the White House created to sell a comprehensive immigration reform strategy, so too is the Khorosan group a purely fictional political construct designed to avoid ideological embarrassment.
Andrew McCarthy exposes the same fraud we have continued to share. In a recent column for NRO McCarthy explains how the White House had come up with the “Khorosan” al-Qaeda group as nothing more than a political ploy to avoid being ridiculed for their inept and detached prior espousals. After the McCarthy article we’ll show you the timeframe when the Denis McDonough ruse was designed:
Andrew McCarthy – We’re being had. Again.
For six years, President Obama has endeavored to will the country into accepting two pillars of his alternative national-security reality. First, he claims to have dealt decisively with the terrorist threat, rendering it a disparate series of ragtag jayvees. Second, he asserts that the threat is unrelated to Islam, which is innately peaceful, moderate, and opposed to the wanton “violent extremists” who purport to act in its name.
Now, the president has been compelled to act against a jihad that has neither ended nor been “decimated.” The jihad, in fact, has inevitably intensified under his counterfactual worldview, which holds that empowering Islamic supremacists is the path to security and stability. Yet even as war intensifies in Iraq and Syria — even as jihadists continue advancing, continue killing and capturing hapless opposition forces on the ground despite Obama’s futile air raids — the president won’t let go of the charade.
Hence, Obama gives us the Khorosan Group.
The who? (more…)
The U.K Parliament has voted to join the U.S. led coalition to eliminate NI-ISIS, but only in Iraq. The attacking of ISIS behind the sovereign territorial lines of the Syrian state was not a part of the U.K referendum request put forth by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Unlike President Obama – David Cameron understands the problematic approach of attacking an entity within Syria -without the approval of the Syrian government- as illegal. Indeed, by all international definitions, the incursions into Syria are both illegal and unauthorized.
…”I do believe there is a strong case for us to do more in Syria but I did not want to bring a motion to the house today which there wasnt consensus for”… (David Cameron 9/26/14)
It is impossible to remain lawfully consistent against unauthorized Russian incursions into Ukraine, and simultaneously carryout the same activity into Syria. There is no structural context in U.S. or International Law which would permit such activity. Yet, Obama does it anyway. [Prediction – Syria will be Libya 2.0]
UK Via Fox News – British lawmakers voted Friday to join the U.S.-led coalition and launch airstrikes on Islamic State group militants as early as this weekend in northern Iraq, but the motion did not endorse airstrikes in Syria. (more…)
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron does an effective job describing the danger of “extremism“, not just “violent extremism“, all extremism. (Cameron Speech Here)
However, anyone interested in actually following, researching and analyzing international action against radical Islamist extremism, must also note that Egypt’s President Fatah El-Sisi is about two years ahead in confronting the extremist ideology.
Almost everything both Obama and Cameron have stated in the past month can be viewed curiously against their unwillingness to hold such public views while El-Sisi was pushing back against extremism, and doing something about it.
~ At the root of all extremism lies the fertilizer of hatred ~
Hatred is an outcome of evil manifested. Readers and visitors to the Treehouse community know full well we have watched Egypt intently. We continue to share that no international leader has done more to confront ALL the tentacles of radicalism than Fattah El-Sisi.
Yet he has also been the recipient of marginalization – at best, from both Obama and Cameron; and significant western political admonishment. Through the past two years Sisi has consistently carried out a challenging mission to provide secular stability not only to Egypt, but as a direct consequence, also to the entire region. (more…)