http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/wo...es-to-act.html

Why is the White House avoiding calling it a war?

The stated goal is to 'ultimately destroy' them. So, what's the catch?

U.S. Backed "Moderate" Syrian Fighters Agree To Non-Aggression Pact With ISIS

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...cs&ir=Politics

And these are the folks President Obama says will help us to "destroy" ISIS in Iraq?

I'm sure Obama and his foreign policy "experts" have calculated that Vladimir Putin will sit on his hands and do nothing while the Free Syrian Army and ISIS try to topple Russia's long time ally Bashar Assad?

Get ready to see a lot more death and destruction inside Syria.

American Generals Strategize How To Go After ISIS

Scroll down a page and a half on this link:

http://weeklysift.com/category/weekly-summaries/

and check out the cartoon.

ISIL executed David Haines, a British aid worker.

US should stay out of that quagmire. ISIS is no threat to the US. I guess it is a threat to the status quo and maybe that's what they're afraid of. It's okay to be brutal dictator, but just don't change the borders that were created by European colonists.

Frankly it is Assad who is the strategic threat to the US. He's part of the Iran/Russia axis of countries that oppose the US and western led world order. If he goes down, it hurts Russia who could lose their port in Syria, it hurts Iran, whose main client is the Assad regime, it hurts Hezbollah who is always threatening Israel.

You think? I mean look at the 1st paragraph and look at whether or not they're long shots:

Quote:

in his prime-time speech Wednesday, Obama envisioned the emergence of a newly unified Iraqi government,

Long shot, the overriding concept of the current Iraqi govt is one of a federation of Sunni, Shiah, and Kurds. Why would a unified govt emerge at this point given what has transpired?

Quote:

an effective Iraqi fighting force

Why would this actually happen now?

Quote:

and a reenergized, U.S.-backed "moderate" rebel front in Syria.

Again how does this actually happen? How much does the US actually know about the Syrian rebel factions? It doesn't appear that at this point there is a lot known to me. If so how did the ISIS emergence in Iraq catch the Obama administration completely off guard? Help from US allies? I think it has been demonstrated how much help is forthcoming already and it isn't much.

I think this is more of a speech addressing the political situation in the US than anything else.

Easiest war to fight ever....

Thou art right, adios! It's those beheadings of the journalists in which the executioner goes out of his way to taunt and mock President Obama that got our President off the golf course and engaged. Those visuals generated the sudden flurry of action and "ginning it up" for war.

The bad optics of those executions are making Obama look weak and ineffectual - a condition which, politically speaking, is never a good thing for a President less than two months prior to an election. It was the unresolved Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979-1980 that helped end Jimmy Carter's presidency. Americans have a visceral (negative) reaction to seeing their President mocked as weak and ineffectual.

Obama had to "do something" - otherwise he would be skewered with unflattering comparisons to Jimmy Carter. It's all about the politics ...

i think they have to degrade them first. or dismantle. or something.

The real answer is that Obama gets knocked for saying war and not saying war so the WH spinmiesters pick the phrases/terms they think are least bad.

Do you guys think Bush would have gotten away with saying ISIL is not Islamic?

.

rowcoachhhhhh

Remember when noted ****ing ****** Rick Perry claimed that he "didn't have any evidence to support" his assertion that "ISIS is about to attack USA#1 from Mexico?" Apparently Fox News/RCP is actually running with it.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...ls_active.html

"We found Korans lying around on the trail."

Painter made the same claims to Don Lemon on CNN a week ago. Looks like Dempsey has redefined military advisers to look like boots on the ground. Should be an interesting day of spin.

I stand corrected.

Chelsea Manning thinks we should allow ISIS to create their Islamic State and it will collapse under it's own misinterpretations of reality and internal divisions. http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-isis-strategy

Rowcoaa oh wait, what?

This is what ultimately has to happen. IS isn't just an isolated incident but the fulfillment of a movement. Ultimately the movement is going to fail if it gets crushed or is its dream fails. Communism is as good as dead because it didn't work out not because the US militarily defeated the USSR.

I'm not so sure it'll be as straightforward as she predicts though. Brutal and ruthless states can last a long time and it's not a given that it would collapse.

The Soviet Union lasted around 80 years now it has fallen into the hands of a dictator. Is that what we really want to happen?

wishy-washy interpretation influenced by the enlightenment = true Islam
fundamentalist (true to the basics) interpretation = not true Islam

Good deeds = thanks to religious beliefs
Bad deeds = politics, greed but never religious beliefs

So they set up a state and commit genocide. Necessary evil on your watch?

Sure, but in as far as the president has to make political decisions and give speeches more aimed at political goals more so than theological debates. I don't mind the president be it Bush or Obama making these statements when the intent of them is pretty obviously to smooth over tensions and suspicions about Muslim Americans, many of whom are law abiding citizens.