Obama’s ‘war’ on ISIS remains strangely nameless.
Right now, there is no specific budget request for Obama’s promised long-term effort to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. A tell-tale sign. Given Obama’s record on veracity, this would seem to indicate “long-term” in his mind means at least through Nov. 5.
Funds for this campaign are being borrowed from other Pentagon accounts. Can a president have a serious war with no budget and no name?
Sure he can. If he’s on the other side.
Breitbart: Obama Has Missed over Half His Second-Term Daily Intel Briefings
It’s not either/or: “Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting,”
More here.
Joe Biden in 2012: If Romney Wins, We’ll Go To War With Syria
Andrew Klavan answers the tough questions:
This is the group the president once called the JV Team of terrorism. “If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” the president quipped hilariously, to which ISIL replied, “If you put on the title of commander in chief, that doesn’t make you Abraham Lincoln,”…
“Obama’s strategy isn’t to win. It’s to make it look like he’s doing something until after the November elections.”
Related: This week, Washington Post editors noted that “Though derided by some as a ‘unilateral’ U.S. action, the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was supported by troops from 39 countries, nine of which deployed more than 1,000 soldiers.” The Post described Obama’s efforts, so far, as “meager” in comparison.
Via Drudge.
BWWAAHAAAA!!! Obama Sees 2002 Iraq War Resolution As A Legal Basis For Airstrikes.
The Times noted that our Arab allies seem a bit tentative. No kidding – Obama and Kerry were wrong about the surge in ’07, wrong about the Iraqi troop withdrawals in ’11, wrong to walk away from post-Qadaffi Libya in ’11, wrong not to arm the moderate Syrian rebels in ’11, wrong to draw a faux red line in 2013, and now no one will get behind him? The headless chickens have come home to roost.
More – Instapundit suggests that Kerry doesn’t want to call it a war because we might lose it.
He and I corresponded by email and planned to meet in Libya last year, though it didn’t work out. He had to leave and I had to cancel my trip and re-route myself to Lebanon, so we never actually met.
Via Weekly Standard.
Related: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice.
White House Says We Are Not At “War With ISIS”…
Libya’s toothless interim government, led by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, announced late Thursday it had tendered its resignation to the elected parliament, days after a rival Islamist administration was created.
The interim government, operating in the east of the country to avoid the Islamist militias which have a strong presence in Tripoli, said it “presented its resignation to the elected parliament”, which is based in Tobruk, 600 kilometres east of the capital, also for security reasons.
President Obama acknowledged Thursday he doesn’t have a plan for defeating Islamist militants in Syria and backed away from imminent military action, while he also downplayed reports of a new Russian invasion in Ukraine.
“We don’t have a strategy yet,” Mr. Obama said of his plans for defeating the Islamic State in Syria. “We need to make sure that we’ve got clear plans. As our strategy develops, we will consult with Congress.”
Scramble the spin doctors: White House Rushes To Clarify
Fire destroyed the terminal at Tripoli’s main airport on Sunday, one day after it was seized by militia fighters from the Libyan city of Misrata, witnesses said.
Unidentified war planes also attacked targets in the capital, residents said, the latest stage of the worst fighting in Libya since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Tripoli residents heard jets followed by explosions at dawn but more details were not immediately available.
It was unclear who had burned the terminal and supporters of the rival factions took to social media to accused each other.
Update: Egypt and the United Arab Emirates were responsible for carrying out two series of air strikes in the past week on armed Islamist factions in Tripoli, Libya, U.S. officials said on Monday.
Who could have known, after regime change in Libya had gone so swimmingly?
What a difference a year makes. Around this time last year, the West was gearing up for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was accused of carrying out chemical weapons attacks on his own people. That intervention never came to pass, not least because domestic public opinion in countries such as Britain and the United States was opposed to further entanglements in the Middle East.
Now, the U.S. is contemplating extending airstrikes on Islamic State militants operating in Iraq in Syria — fighters belonging to a terrorist organization that is leading the war against Assad. The Islamic State’s territorial gains in Iraq and continued repression and slaughter of religious minorities there and in Syria have rightly triggered global condemnation. “I am no apologist for the Assad regime,” Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, told NPR. “But in terms of our security, [the Islamic State] is by far the greatest threat.”
The irony of the moment is tragic. But to some, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Many cautioned against the earlier insistence of the Obama administration (as well as other governments) that Assad must go, fearing what would take hold in the vacuum.
One of those critics happened to be Russian President Vladimir Putin, who warned against U.S. intervention in Syria in a New York Times op-ed last September.
Red Line related: The United States has made the strongest indication to date that Syria may have withheld some of its chemical weapons on 18 August, when it said there are still “serious questions” about its declaration to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Well, all things considered, they might want to give some back.
