This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Special forces went to Syria to rescue hostages

    I don’t know what to think of this story from Fox News by way of the Associated Press;

    Senior Obama administration officials say the U.S. military launched a secret mission earlier this summer to rescue a number of Americans held captive by militants in Syria but failed to find them.

    The officials say the American hostages were not at a location where the U.S. believed they were being held. The mission was carried out by several dozen special operations troops who were on the ground inside Syria for a short period of time.

    […]

    The officials discussed the mission under ground rules that they would not be identified.

    From ABC News;

    Officials said the rescue mission was authorized after intelligence agencies believed they had identified the location inside Syria where the hostages were being held. But the several dozen special operations forces dropped by aircraft into Syria did not find them at that location and engaged in a firefight with Islamic State militants before departing.

    “The U.S. government had what we believed was sufficient intelligence, and when the opportunity presented itself, the president authorized the Department of Defense to move aggressively to recover our citizens,” said Lisa Monaco, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, in a statement. “Unfortunately, that mission was ultimately not successful because the hostages were not present.”

    I don’t know, it just sounds too convenient to me. I guess we can be grateful that no one was killed during this operation, like Jimmy Carter’s failed rescue of the Tehran Embassy personnel in 1980. So that’s a feather in their cap.

    But it sounds more like a story that we can never verify to make this president look better while crapping over the intelligence agencies – you know, so it’s not his fault that it failed – he did everything presidentially.

    So here’s the statement from the White House;

    THE WHITE HOUSE
    Office of the Press Secretary
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    August 20, 2014

    Statement by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco on Attempted Rescue Operation

    As the Department of Defense has now announced, earlier this summer the President authorized an operation to attempt the rescue of American citizens who were kidnapped and held by ISIL against their will in Syria. The President authorized action at this time because it was the national security team’s assessment that these hostages were in danger with each passing day in ISIL custody. The U.S. Government had what we believed was sufficient intelligence, and when the opportunity presented itself, the President authorized the Department of Defense to move aggressively to recover our citizens. Unfortunately, that mission was ultimately not successful because the hostages were not present.

    Given the need to protect our military’s operational capabilities, we will not be able to reveal the details of this operation. But the President could not be prouder of the U.S. forces who carried out this mission and the dedicated intelligence and diplomatic professionals who supported their efforts. Their effort should serve as another signal to those who would do us harm that the United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to hold their captors accountable.

    Our thoughts and prayers are with the remaining hostages’ families and their loved ones during this difficult time. We continue to call for their immediate release. On behalf of all Americans, we keep these individuals and their families in our thoughts and prayers.

  • Engel: “we may have some boots on the ground” in Iraq

    Engel: “we may have some boots on the ground” in Iraq

    Eliot-Engel

    Eliot Engel, the New York Democrat Congressman who is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News yesterday that we may need “boots on the ground” eventually in Iraq, according to The Hill;

    “Ultimately, we may have some boots on the ground there,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

    Engel, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, added “that’s not something I want,” but said there are no easy choices. The U.S. can’t “put our head in the sand,” he added.

    Engel has consistently been more hawkish than President Obama, and called for U.S. airstrikes in Syria last summer after the chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government.

    From the Fox News transcript;

    Well, I don’t think we’re going to put boots on the ground the way we we did before in Iraq. I don’t think anybody really wants to do that. But we do have some boots on the ground right now, and frankly, we need to do everything we can to repel ISIS. I don’t think we have the luxury of putting our heads in the sand and saying, well, it’s over there and we’re not going to do it. I think what we’re doing now is effective and we are going to do more of it and ultimately we may have some boots on the ground there. Not something I want, but you know what, we have that choices and the worse choice is to do nothing.

    CBS reports that Engel isn’t the only one getting us mentally prepared to accept a third war in Iraq for US troops;

    Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson have each warned that fighters pouring into Iraq, some of them American, could be radicalized by their experience on the battlefield and return to plan attacks at home. But despite those concerns, Zarate warned, the U.S. “seems not to be acting with the urgency to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat this network the way that we did post-9/11 with al Qaeda.”

    “Putting the Humpty Dumpty of the Iraqi state back together is important, but it’s not going to solve the immediate problem of the growing strength of [ISIS],” he said.

    “Containment looks like defeat,” added Jeffrey. “You can’t contain these guys. You try to contain them, and you’re going to have hundreds of thousands of young men from across the Middle East either joining them or causing unrest in their own countries.”

    I’m not thinking that they’ll be anymore committed to defeating radical Islam in Iraq anymore than they are at defeating it in Afghanistan. Their time to defeat ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State troops was months ago and they missed that window of opportunity with their dithering and hand-wringing. I don’t think the American people are going to get behind another deployment to Iraq under any circumstances. Especially from this President and his rudderless administration. The only thing he can be counted on is for another political decision to half-ass any involvement.

  • Bush critics trapped by reality

    Bush critics trapped by reality

    John Kerry's Munich Moment

    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shakes hands with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Damascus

    The Washington Time‘s Rowan Scarborough notices the same things that we’ve been noticing for years – that the Obama Administration came in to office with high minded ideals, but they’ve since discovered that ideals don’t always work so well in the real world;

    Mr. Obama today finds himself the brunt of Republican, and sometimes Democratic, attacks on his policies in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine and other hot spots.

    Mr. Bush launched combat operations in two countries in the war on terrorism, but Mr. Obama has boasted about troop withdrawals. “I was elected to end wars, not start ‘em,” he said.

    As the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, Secretary of State John F. Kerry characterized President Bashar Assad as a leader the U.S. could deal with. Months later, after Mr. Assad’s forces killed thousands of civilians, Mr. Kerry called him a “thug and a murderer.”

    The administration was split on the issue of providing arms to the Free Syrian Army to fight both Mr. Assad and Islamic jihadists.

    So, the Obama Administration was frozen by fear of acting in any meaningful way towards Syria, and they got the current situation in Iraq as a reward. They could have intervened in Syria early in the civil war, probably even negotiated a regime change, like the one in Iraq last week. But instead they twiddled their thumbs hoping it would all sort itself out.

    As I’ve said before, they could have begun help for the Iraqis when Fallujah fell to the ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State, but instead they dawdled, hemmed and hawed, made empty promises to Iraq and now we have boots on the ground in Iraq and pilots getting flight time.
    Mr. Hagel has labeled the Islamic State a threat to the United States. Still, Mr. Obama’s stated policy is that Iraq must defeat the group, with limited assistance from America.

    Mr. Obama’s foreign relations are guided by a principle, some would say slogan, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”

    Doing nothing falls into the “stupid stuff” category, too.

    But the [National Defense Panel] last month issued a strong rebuke of Mr. Obama’s basic premise for sizing the force, saying it needs to be scrapped and replaced by one that acknowledges all the new global threats to the U.S.

    P.J. Crowley, who served as Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman at the State Department, said the criticism of Obama policy underscores a basic fact: “The world is complex and difficult to manage.”

    “In our bumper-sticker political culture, there is always a temptation to take complicated issues and offer oversimplified solutions, or suggest that one discreet action would have solved everything,” he said. “You hear that now with respect to Iraq and Syria. If we had just left a residual force in Iraq, [the Islamic State] would never have advanced. Or if we had just bombed Assad in 2011, 2012 or 2013, his government would have collapsed. The reality is different.”

    Yeah, well, a community organizer is better at working on domestic issues than with foreign policy. That’s why they’re so enamored with the “political solution not a military solution” meme. Politics they understand, reality is a little tougher.

  • President takes break from vacation

    Obama vacation break

    I just thought this was funny that the Associated Press is reporting that the President is taking a break from his vacation;

    President Barack Obama returned to Washington just after midnight Monday for a two-day break from a summer vacation, during which airstrikes in Iraq and violent clashes in a St. Louis suburb intruded on his golf and beach plans.

    The exact reason for Obama’s return remained unclear, though it appeared aimed in part at countering criticism that Obama was spending two weeks on the Massachusetts resort island of Martha’s Vineyard in the midst of multiple crises. His return to Washington was planned even before the U.S. military began striking targets in Iraq and before the standoff between police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

    Obama had meetings on both matters scheduled for Monday. The president was scheduled to return to Martha’s Vineyard Tuesday night.

    Whew! At least he’s going back on Tuesday, so we can feel less guilty about making him work during his vacation.

  • Obama: Mission Accomplished

    No, the president didn’t say that exactly, but I needed a short headline for the story that the President, from his vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, told the press that the last few days of airstrikes have rescued the folks stranded on Mount Sinjar, just like he’d planned, according to Fox News;

    “The situation on the mountain has greatly improved,” Obama said. “We broke the ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar. We helped vulnerable people reach safety.”

    But Obama said U.S. involvement will not come to an end, as militants with the Islamic State — also known as ISIS, or ISIL – continue to brutalize the civilian population in the region, especially minorities like Iraqi Christians and Yazidis.

    Obama said “we will continue airstrikes” where necessary to protect American personnel and facilities in Iraq.

    And he said the U.S. is working with partners to provide humanitarian aid to “those who are suffering in northern Iraq wherever we have capabilities.”

    Somehow, I don’t believe a word he said. Yesterday morning, it was a crisis of monumental proportions, earlier today the UN declared a Level 3 Emergency, but because a couple of dozen advisers went to the Mountain, well, everything is fine now. Excuse me if I’m skeptical. We were told a few weeks ago that world has never been more peaceful than it is now, but our Secretary of Defense on Tuesday said that “the world is exploding”. Several months ago, we were told that al-Qeada was being run by the “JV” team. Then, of course, there was the protest in Benghazi about a video.

    Thanks to Hondo for the link.

  • Oh, That Ain’t Workin’ . . . .

    From the Washington Times:

    • Number of rounds of golf Tiger Woods has played since January 2009: 269
    • Number of rounds of golf the POTUS has played since January 2009: almost 200

    Woods is likely done for the year due to injury. So if the POTUS keeps up his normal pace with his golf game, there’s a fair chance he’ll pass Woods in the number of rounds of golf since January 2009 next spring.

    The article also discusses the POTUS’s (and the VPs) penchant for “vacations”.  Apparently the POTUS forgot he foreswore those while campaigning.

    Yeah, that was a stupid thing to say.  Everyone needs a break now and again; even the POTUS is no exception..

    Nontheless, he did say it.  But that statement notwithstanding, he certainly hasn’t been reluctant to vacation in “trendy, toney” places on our dime.  Like a $12M mansion with pool and private beach on Martha’s Vineyard – where he’s on vacation for 2 weeks now.

    Bottom line:  the POTUS is playing nearly as much golf as a PGA golfer – and is on pace to pass him in that respect.  It also seems that he (or his family) is also taking longish and expensive vacations every month or two.  Under those conditions it’s reasonable to wonder if he’s actually doing his job.

    Well, on second thought . . . no, I no longer wonder about that.

  • Hagel: The world is exploding

    Hagel: The world is exploding

    Kerry Hagel

    On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was addressing a group of Marines in San Diego after he returned from a trip around Asia. He was asked a question by a Marine;

    Q: Good afternoon, sir. My question is that, given that the administration’s primary focus is on the Pacific theater, how has all of the issues popping up in the world today, Russia, Iraq, Africa, the rest of the theaters pretty much affected that current mission? And how do you foresee that affecting the mission in the future?

    SEC. HAGEL: Thank you. That’s a — go ahead, sit down — that’s a question I got often when I was in India and Australia. And the trip I just came from was my sixth trip to the Asia Pacific area in the last year-and-a-half. I’ve got four planned this calendar year. And so I get that question all the time. It’s a legitimate question for the very reasons you asked.

    The world is exploding all over. And so is the United States going to continue to have the resources, the capabilities, the leadership, the bandwidth to continue with the rebalance toward the Asia Pacific? And the answer is yes.

    […]

    And I think, as what I did in taking questions yesterday on this, it is pretty clear on where we are today and what we have committed to do, we are continuing to do. Start with the fact that both Secretary Kerry and I, the secretary of state, secretary of defense, were just in that area for a few days. I’ve been there six times in the last year-and-a-half. Look at the new things we have done in the Asia Pacific, the new initiatives.

    […]

    Now, that said, as I’ve said, with that rebalance, which will continue, and we are committed to do that, we’re not retreating from any other part of the world. Great powers can’t pick and choose which challenges and threats they’re going to deal with. There is no power on Earth like the United States of America.

    I guess what all of that means is “When you wish upon a star Makes no difference who you are Anything your heart desires Will come to you. If your heart is in your dream No request is too extreme, When you wish upon a star As dreamers do. Fate is kind She brings to those who love
    The sweet fulfillment of Their secret longing”.

    But that “the world is exploding” line should show up in some campaign literature this season, wouldn’t you think? The world is exploding everywhere but in the Pacific, but guess where this administration’s focus is. But, if we wish real hard, all of the world’s problems will just disappear and maybe the Chinese will do us a solid and start some shit in the Pacific for us.

  • Boots on the ground on Mount Sinjar

    Pinto Nag sends us a link to an MSN article which reports that couple of US troops have already been on Mount Sinjar where all of those refugees are hiding out from ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State. It looks like they flew in under the cover of night and then safely back to Kurd Land. I doubt that they’ll be able to get away with that again now that it’s been broadcast to the world.

    “They were there last night and they did an assessment,” said the official, saying this occurred early on Wednesday in Iraq.

    A second U.S. official said fewer than 20 personnel were involved in the assessment of the situation and all had returned safely to the Kurdistan capital of Arbil by military air.

    The United States has not ruled out using ground forces in an operation to extract thousands of desperate civilians trapped on the mountain by Islamist militants, but they will not engage in combat, a senior White House official said earlier.

    I deal with a terrorist on a daily basis and I know that if I sneaked in somewhere and back out and then made it public knowledge, my personal terrorist would make a big deal about it and plug that particular hole in his defenses. I suspect that will be the case here, too.

    I don’t know why this administration has to broadcast everything that the troops do – especially when that will only put troops in jeopardy. They can’t give us insight into the grand plan, but they like to brag about the things that the troops get away with – once.

    Putting one and one together;

    The Pentagon has positioned MV-22 Osprey troop transports in northern Iraq amid speculation that American forces could be used to help evacuate people threatened by Islamic militants.

    The Ospreys were used Tuesday to move 129 additional U.S. military personnel to the city of Irbil and they remain in the area, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Wednesday.

    “They’ll stay there until they’re no longer required,” Warren said.

    Warren did not say how many Ospreys are there, but a defense official told Stars and Stripes that it’s “a small number.”