Category: Terror War

Remember the other day when the president made a “rare’ visit to the Pentagon and the whole internet was a-buzz about it and how we were finally going to get a strategy from the President – then when it happened all we heard were the same old platitudes? Well, Ash Carter, the Secretary of Defense and out-going Chairman of the Joint Chiefs martin Dempsey went to the Senate yesterday and laid out their strategy to stall Congress, much like they’re stalling in the war against ISIS. From Stars & Stripes;

Only 60 moderate Syrian fighters have been trained this year, but recent gains in the country by U.S.-backed militias show the strategy can work, Carter told skeptical senators on the Armed Services Committee. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., committee chairman, called claims about success delusional.

Carter and Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey came to Capitol Hill to make the administration case for the current war strategy a day after President Barack Obama underscored the importance of training ground forces and allied militias on a rare trip to the Pentagon. The administration had a strategy meeting on the often uneven, year-old Islamic State offensive.

“It is going to take some time to get the numbers up to the point where they can have an effect,” Carter told senators.

60 Syrian fighters. That should have a real impact in this war, won’t it? The other day, we learned that were about 3,000 Iraqi and Peshmerga soldiers in the pipeline, you know, because everyone gets their own personal trainer. And 60 Syrians.

Dempsey, reminding us that he has been ROAD (Retired On Active Duty) for years said that he’s not making any recommendations that the President doesn’t want to hear;

“I agree there are points on the battlefield where embedded forces…would make them more capable,” Dempsey said. “I can tell you I have not recommended it.”

So, basically, we’re just going through the motions of being concerned about ISIS without actually doing something because we don’t want to tip over the President’s legacy applecart.

Yesterday morning, the internet and the media were all a-buzz about that fellow Obama and his “rare” trip a mile and a half from the White House to the Pentagon. That President fellow was finally going to wow us with his strategy for the war against those mean guys in Syria and Iraq, you know, the people who we can’t decide what their name is – ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State, or whatever. So what do we get? Well, here it is – that whole strategy thing encapsulated by the Associated Press;

President Barack Obama on Monday conceded difficulties in fighting “opportunistic” and “nimble” Islamic State militants, but defended progress that had been made in combating the extremists in Iraq and Syria.

During a rare visit to the Pentagon, Obama also warned of the Islamic State’s efforts to recruit and inspire vulnerable people in the United States.

“The threat of lone wolves or small cells of terrorists is complex,” Obama said following a meeting with top defense officials.

Um, well, surely, Bloomberg has something useful to say about the President’s address on the subject;

“This is a long term campaign,” Obama said at the Pentagon. Islamic State “is opportunistic and it is nimble.”

No amount of military force can dislodge Islamic State unless the “underlying conditions” of economic hardship and sectarian strife are addressed in the region, he said, characterizing the fight as a “generational struggle.”

Recent loses of territory previously held by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria prove that the group “can and will be defeated,” Obama said.

The visit to the Pentagon follows a weekend of heavy coalition airstrikes against Islamic State’s stronghold in eastern Syria. More than a dozen strikes targeted buildings and transit routes used by the militant group, according to the Pentagon.

Platitudes and nothing substantive. I’m not saying that he has to tell us a piece-by-piece strategy or anything. I just want to hear that he knows what he’s doing. But here’s a quote for the ages; “Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they’re defeated by better ideas”. Yeah, well, ISIS isn’t really an ideology, fella. It’s a bunch of criminals that you’re not willing to imprison in Guantanamo.

An Iraqi plane had a hung-up bomb that failed to fall on it’s target, but, proving that Murphy is alive and well in Iraq, it fell off of it’s mount over a Baghdad neighborhood killing at least eight people, according to the Washington Post;

Iraq has just a handful of functioning fighter jets, which it acquired second-hand from Russia and Iran in its attempts to cobble together an air force in the wake of the Islamic State’s advances last year. Monday’s misfire is not the first mistake involving the aging Sukhoi fighter jets, which accidentally bombed government forces in the city of Tikrit earlier this year.

I’m pretty certain that the US wouldn’t have allowed the jet over a populated area with a bomb hanging off of it – if the pilot was even aware of the malfunction.

The Iraqi Air Force accidentally killed almost as many people as the US air strikes killed when they intentionally targeted ISIS targets in their capitol. If that’s not a metaphor for the US strategy against ISIS, I don’t know metaphors.

Thanks to Parachutecutie for the link.

The Associated Press reports that the President, that Obama fellow. is going to make a trip to the Pentagon today to get an update on the war against those bloody murdering fellows in Iraq and Syria who we occasionally call ISIS. Oh, by the way, ten months into the deployment of US troops to the region, this Obama fellow will supposedly outline a strategy for the war. I can’t help but think the media and the stank-ass hippies wouldn’t give a Republican president ten months to figure out a strategy after a deployment. In fact, I remember the stank-ass hippies protesting the war against Afghanistan a few weeks after 9-11 and weeks before the first US boot hit the ground there.

President Barack Obama is making a rare visit to the Pentagon to get an update from military leaders on the campaign against the Islamic State.

Obama’s meetings follow a wave of weekend airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in eastern Syria. The coalition says it was one of the most sustained aerial operations carried out in Syria to date.

Yeah, our “most sustained aerial operations” killed ten whole ISIS members, so great job!

From ABCNews;

IS said at least 10 people were killed and many others wounded in the attacks which activists said triggered successive explosions that shook the city and created panic among residents. The U.S.-led coalition often targets IS-held towns and cities in Syria, but the overnight strikes on Raqqa were rare in their intensity.

In a statement, the coalition said it carried out 18 airstrikes throughout Raqqa province, destroying a number of IS vehicles and 16 bridges. An earlier statement said the attacks also destroyed vital IS-controlled structures and transit routes in Syria.

“The significant airstrikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq,” said coalition spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Gilleran, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

“This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria, and it will have debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move” from Raqqa, he said.

Yeah, at this rate, we should have them down to just a few hundred thousand in no time.

It was just a few weeks ago that President Obama criticized the Pentagon for not having a clear strategy in the war. The Pentagon answered that they gave to the President several options and he hadn’t come back with an answer to their proposals. I guess that’s why we have a meeting today, you know, during the second rotation of US troops to Iraq.

Offices of the American company Air Products were attacked by two ISIS supporters. They beheaded one victim and placed the head on a fence post with graffiti written on it. From Sky News;

Two other people were hurt in explosions at the factory, French President Francois Hollande said.

The blasts were triggered when two attackers deliberately crashed a car into gas canisters, according to police.

A 30-year-old man had been arrested. He was known to foreign intelligence services since 2008, officials said.

From Fox News;

[A] man walked into the company’s offices saying he was a member of ISIS and carrying one of the terror group’s flags. After beheading a man at the company’s entrance, he went into the building and set off several gas canisters.

One of the attackers was arrested, and local media reported that the man was known to authorities. The status of the second attacker was not known, though Le Parisien newspaper reported that person was killed.

This “known to police” thing is starting to be a little too common.

In 2013, Australian Karen Nettleton helped her daughter and five grandchildren leave Australia to join her daughter’s husband in Syria where he was fighting on the side of ISIS. last year, one of those grandchildren, who was born and raised in Australia, was pictured on Twitter holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers. Well, now the elder Ms. Nettleton says that her daughter made a mistake and she wants the Australian government to correct the younger’s mistake for her, according to the Brisbane Times;

“They want to come home,” she said. “My daughter made the mistake of a lifetime. Today she is a parent alone in a foreign and vicious land looking after a widowed 14-year-old and four other young children.”

Yeah, you read that right, a fourteen-year-old girl, one of the grandchildren, is already widowed. I guess that marriage wasn’t warning enough for them to come back to Australia before the wedding.

From AFP;

She implored Prime Minister Tony Abbott to help bring them home.

“Mr Abbott, I beg you, please help bring my child and grandchildren home.”

Well, that’s the job of government in this day and age, isn’t it? Compensate people for their bad life choices. Government is supposed to pay for abortions, drug and alcohol treatment programs, smoking cessation, unemployment insurance for the Art History majors, forgive their student loans when they’re underemployed, bail out their underwater mortgages and rescue the spouses of terrorists, apparently.

If Ms. Nettleton was so smart that she could get the family out of Australia, you’d think she’d be smart enough to bring them back, wouldn’t you?

For the Prime Minister’s part, he warns the family that Mom faces “significant consequences” upon her return.

Yesterday, we talked a bit of the attack on the Afghan Parliament by Taliban suicide bombers and some follow-on riflemen. Today we learn of the story of Sergeant Essa Khan from Reuters;

Recalling the dramatic events, Khan told Reuters on Tuesday that as soon as a car bomb exploded outside the parliamentary compound, he prepared for more insurgents to attack.

“I started shooting them one by one. I counted six of them lying there. The last one (seventh) was killed by someone else.”

[…]

The 28-year-old even met President Ashraf Ghani, who called him a “brave son of this nation” and handed him the keys to a new apartment as a reward.

It’s no wonder that the Parliament carried on with their business inside like nothing had happened. They knew that soldiers like Sergeant Khan were outside to protect them.

Hamid Haidary, writing on Facebook, urged people to be careful about publishing photographs of Khan or his home, for fear insurgents may target him.

“God forbid our love will harm Essa Khan or his family,” he said.

Khan himself said he was not afraid.

“A male sheep is for sacrifice. I have sworn to God I will keep my head high and fight. I will sacrifice my life for this country.”