Tag: Free Syrian Army

Welcome to Iraqi-Nam! Obama Sends Troops to Fight ISIS. So Much For “No Boots on the Ground”.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

untitled (9)Have you ever played the “Gossip Game”?

We used to do it all the time on Church Youth Retreats. You line up a long row of chairs and sit your group down in them. Somebody whispers a sentence into the ear of the person in the first chair, who then whispers it in the ear of the person in the second chair, and so forth. By the time the sentence is whispered in the ear of the person in the last chair, it sounds nothing like the original sentence.

The message that Obama and his Administration communicated, over a year ago, about how they are going to prosecute the “limited engagement” against ISIS/ISIL reminded me, at the time, of the “Gossip Game”.

Let’s examine the Administration’s disjointed message, shall we?

To the Wayback Machine, Sherman!

September 11, 2014 – The New York Times reported that

After enduring harsh criticism for saying in a news conference two weeks ago that he did not have a strategy for dealing with ISIS in Syria, Mr. Obama sketched out a plan that will involve heightened American training and arming of moderate Syrian rebels to fight the militants. Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide bases for the training of those forces.

The White House has asked Congress to authorize the plan to train and equip rebels — something the Central Intelligence Agency has been doing covertly and on a much smaller scale — but Mr. Obama said he had the authority necessary to expand the broader campaign.

“These American forces will not have a combat mission — we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq,” Mr. Obama pledged, adding that the broader mission he was outlining for American military forces “will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; it will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

Setpember 16, 2014 – ABCnews.go.com reported that

American ground troops may be needed to battle Islamic State forces in the Middle East if President Barack Obama’s current strategy fails, the nation’s top military officer said Tuesday as Congress plunged into an election-year debate of Obama’s plan to expand airstrikes and train Syrian rebels.

A White House spokesman said quickly the president “will not” send ground forces into combat, but Gen. Martin Dempsey said Obama had personally told him to come back on a “case by case basis” if the military situation changed.

“To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president,” Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. He referred to the militants by an alternative name.

Pressed later by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the panel’s chairman, the four-star general said if Obama’s current approach isn’t enough to prevail, he might “go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of ground forces.”

Dempsey’s testimony underscored the dilemma confronting many lawmakers as the House moves through its own debate on authorizing the Pentagon to implement the policy Obama announced last week. In Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. continued its expanded military campaign, carrying out two airstrikes northwest of Irbil and three southwest of Baghdad.

After the hearing, Dempsey told reporters traveling with him to Paris that the Pentagon had concluded that about half of Iraq’s army was incapable of partnering effectively with the U.S. to roll back the Islamic State group’s territorial gains in western and northern Iraq, and the other half needs to be partially rebuilt with U.S. training and additional equipment.

September 17, 2014 – According to politico.com,

“U.S. ground troops will not be sent into combat in this conflict,” Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Instead, they will support Iraq forces on the ground as they fight for their country.”

…Kerry’s testimony comes as Congress races toward a critical vote to give the Obama administration the green light to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The House is set to vote on the measure later Wednesday, with the Senate to take up the legislation later this week. The measure has run into considerable opposition from both the right and the left but is expected to pass before lawmakers left Washington until after the midterm elections.

President Barack Obama reiterated earlier Wednesday in a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, that he will not send U.S. combat troops to fight ISIL in Iraq, following testimony from Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey that opened the door to that option earlier this week.

And later during the Foreign Relations hearing, Kerry declined to move off that position, despite questioning from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whom Kerry told: “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals.”

“The president has made a judgment as commander-in-chief that that’s not in the cards,” Kerry said, referring to ground troops.

Shortly before the hearing began before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, protesters from the anti- war group Code Pink – a prevalent sight on the Hill in recent days as lawmakers engaged in debate about arming Syrian rebels – stood up, held signs and chanted “No more war!”

Deviating from his prepared remarks, Kerry turned his attention to the protesters, seated in the front row of the hearing room, and told them that while he was sympathetic to their opposition to war, if they believed in the broader mission of Code Pink, “then you ought to care about fighting ISIL.”

Stressing that the Islamic State was “killing and raping and mutilating women” and “making a mockery of a peaceful religion,” Kerry told the protesters: “There is no negotiation with ISIL.”

Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) stressed that if the military campaign continues for an extended period of time – like he expects – lawmakers will need to pass a new authorization for the use of military force that focuses narrowly on ISIL. He signaled last week that the panel will begin drafting one.

“I am personally not comfortable with reliance on either the 2001 AUMF that relies on a thin theory that ISIL is associated with Al Qaeda, and certainly not the 2002 Iraq AUMF which relied on misinformation,” Menendez said.

Later as he questioned Kerry, Menendez told the secretary of state that “you’re going to need a new AUMF, and it’ll have to be more tailored.” Kerry responded that the administration would “welcome” it.

The panel’s top Republican, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, expressed deep skepticism about the Obama administration’s strategy to fight Islamic State extremists, telling Kerry: “We know the Free Syrian Army can’t take on ISIL. You know that.”

“I do want us to deal with this,” Corker told Kerry “You’ve not laid it out in a way that meets that test.”

Later in the day on September 17, 2014 – According to FoxNews.com,

The White House acknowledged Wednesday that President Obama would consider putting U.S. troops in “forward-deployed positions” to advise Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State — even while insisting U.S. troops would not be sent back into a “combat role” in Iraq. 

Obama and his top advisers appeared to be threading a needle as they carefully clarified how exactly U.S. troops might be used, a day after Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey opened the door to approving “U.S. military ground forces.” 

The White House continued to insist Wednesday that a “combat” role has in fact been ruled out, and that U.S. troops will not be engaging the Islamic State on the ground. 

Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, after visiting U.S. Central Command, Obama told troops: “I will not commit you and the rest of our Armed Forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.” 

He vowed that the U.S. forces currently deployed to Iraq to advise Iraqi forces “will not have a combat mission.” Instead, he said, they will continue to support Iraqi forces on the ground, through a combination of U.S. air power, training assistance and other means. 

But shortly afterward, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest clarified that Dempsey was talking about the possible need to put U.S. troops already in Iraq into “forward-deployed positions with Iraqi troops.” 

Earnest said that step has not yet been necessary, but if Dempsey asks to “forward deploy” American advisers, “the president said he would consider it on a case-by-case basis.” 

He said, in that scenario, U.S. troops “would be providing tactical advice to Iraqi security forces” or be in position to call in airstrikes. 

“They would not have a combat role. They would not be personally or directly engaging the enemy,” Earnest stressed. 

Fast forward to the present.

As someone once famously said,

All of Barack Hussein Obama’s promises come with an expiration date.

It might have been Mooch (Michelle).

But, I digress…

So, now, we will officially have “boots on the ground”, even though we already have “Military Advisors” in Iraq.

NBC News reports that

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin “direct action on the ground” against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, aiming to intensify pressure on the militants as progress against them remains elusive.”We won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,” Carter said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, using an alternative name for the militant group.

Carter pointed to last week’s rescue operation with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to free hostages held by ISIS.

Carter and Pentagon officials initially refused to characterize the rescue operation as U.S. boots on the ground. However, Carter said last week that the military expects “more raids of this kind” and that the rescue mission “represents a continuation of our advise and assist mission.”

This may mean some American soldiers “will be in harm’s way, no question about it,” Carter said last week.advertisement
 
After months of denying that U.S. troops would be in any combat role in Iraq, Carter late last week in a response to a question posed by NBC News, also acknowledged that the situation U.S. soldiers found themselves in during the raid in Hawija was combat.

“This is combat and things are complicated,” Carter said.

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Carter said Wheeler “was killed in combat.”

White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz on Tuesday said the administration has “no intention of long term ground combat”. He added that U.S. forces will continue to robustly train, advise and assist.

A feisty Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said on Tuesday in the Senate Armed Services committee hearing that the U.S. effort in Syria is a “half-assed strategy at best,” and said that the U.S. is not doing a “damn thing” to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Carter on Tuesday pushed back against that notion.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the “balance of forces” has tilted in Assad’s favor.

This is what happens when you have a President that is more interested in “fighting a war” against our country’s municipal police departments, and a disease which broke out in his father’s home country, than protecting the country that he is supposed to be leading, from Muslim Terrorists.

Years ago, the local ABC Affiliate in Memphis used to run The Benny Hill Show at 10:30 p.m. on Saturdays. For those of you sheltered younger readers, Benny Hill was a wonderful British comedian and entertainer. “The Lad Himself” wrote a lot of his own hilarious  material, including such memorable characters as Cap’n Scuttle, and songs that would literally have you busting your gut in laughter. However, one of the things that Benny will forever be remembered for, happened at the end of every show, when one thing would lead to another, culminating in a rip-roaring chase scene, set to the saxophone-led accompaniment of the incomparable Boots Randolph’s “Yakety Sax”.

The chaotic manner in which the administration is attempting to “prosecute” a “limited war” against the Muslim Terrorist Group, now numbering almost 32,000 members, known as ISIS or ISIL, is very reminiscent of a Benny Hill Show Chase Scene.

Except…there’s nothing funny about it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave: Syria, al-Qaeda, and Benghazi

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamamyworkDo you remember, right after Obama assumed the office of  President of the United States of America, his minions in the State Department announced that they would no longer refer to “The War on Terror” and that “Muslim Terrorists Attacks”, would be referred to as “man-caused disasters?

Over the next 5 years, Obama would bungle his way though his dealings with those who would kill us without a second thought, embracing them as “our new allies”, inviting them to the White House, and trying to convince our greatest ally, Israel, God’s Chosen People, to give half of their country to them.

Now, the Kenyan Kaiser is arming them.

Per The Los Angeles Times,

The training and Obama’s decision this month to supply arms and ammunition to the rebels have raised hope among the beleaguered opposition that Washington ultimately will provide heavier weapons as well. So far, the rebels say they lack the weapons they need to regain the offensive in Syria’s bitter civil war.

The tightly constrained U.S. effort reflects Obama’s continuing doubts about getting drawn into a conflict that already has killed more than 100,000 people and the administration’s fear that Islamic militants now leading the war against Assad could gain control of advanced U.S. weaponry.

The training has involved fighters from the Free Syrian Army, a loose confederation of rebel groups that the Obama administration has promised to back with expanded military assistance, said a U.S. official, who discussed the effort anonymously because he was not authorized to disclose details.

The number of rebels given U.S. instruction in both countries since the program began could not be determined, but in Jordan, the training involves 20 to 45 insurgents at a time, a rebel commander said.

U.S. special operations teams selected the trainees over the last year when the U.S. military set up regional supply lines to provide the rebels with nonlethal assistance, including uniforms, radios and medical aid.

The two-week courses include training with Russian-designed 14.5-millimeter anti-tank rifles, anti-tank missiles, as well as 23-millimeter anti-aircraft weapons, according to a rebel commander in the Syrian province of Dara who helps oversee weapons acquisitions and who asked his name not be used because the program is secret.

The training began last November at a new American base in the desert in southwest Jordan, he said. So far, about 100 rebels from Dara have attended four courses, while rebels from Damascus have attended three courses, he said.

“Those from the CIA, we would sit and talk with them during breaks from training and afterward, they would try to get information on the situation inside Syria,” he said.

The rebels were promised enough armor-piercing anti-tank weapons and other arms to gain a military advantage over Assad’s better-equipped army and security forces, said the Dara commander.

Here’s were it gets…frightening, sickening, and…traitorous…

According to the United Nations,

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was listed on 6 October 2001 pursuant to paragraph 8(c) of resolution 1333 (2000) as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to” or “otherwise supporting acts or activities of” Al-Qaida (QE.A.4.01), Usama bin Laden and the Taliban.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) is an Al-Qaida (QE.A.4.01) affiliate. It was created in 1995 by Libyans who had fought in Afghanistan and had plotted against the Government of Libya. LIFG participated with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (QE.M.89.02) in planning the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, that killed over 40 people and injured more than 100. LIFG has also been linked to the 2004 attacks in Madrid, Spain.

In 2002, Al-Qaida leader Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Hussein (QI.H.10.01), also known as Abu Zubaydah, was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan, accompanied by at least three LIFG operatives and a fourth individual, the former head of the Sanabel Relief Agency Limited (QE.S.124.06) in Kabul, Afghanistan, who was also known to have ties to LIFG. LIFG commanders, including Abu Yahya al-Liby and the now-deceased Abu al-Laith al-Liby, have occupied prominent positions within Al-Qaida’s senior leadership.

On 3 November 2007, LIFG formally merged with Al-Qaida. The merger was announced via two video clips produced by Al-Qaida’s propaganda arm, Al-Sahab. The first clip featured Usama bin Laden’s (deceased) deputy, Aiman Muhammed Rabi al-Zawahiri (QI.A.6.01), and the second featured Abu Laith al-Liby, who then served as a senior member of LIFG and a senior leader and trainer for Al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

LIFG is believed to have several hundred members or supporters, mostly in the Middle East and Europe. Since the late 1990s, many LIFG members have fled from Libya to various Asian, Arabian Gulf, African, and European countries, particularly the United Kingdom. It is likely that LIFG has maintained a presence in eastern Libya and has facilitated the transfer of foreign fighters to Iraq.

By now, you’re saying, “But, KJ…that’s Libya, not Syria.”

Bless be the ties that bind…

On November 27, 2011, the UK Telegraph reported…

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”

The “covert operation” was immediately laid bare when a rival Libyan rebel brigade detained Belhaj at Tripoli airport, accused him of travelling on a fake passport, and declared they would jail the senior military leader.

Only a letter from the country’s interim president was enough to persuade them to let him leave the country.

The meetings came as a sign of a growing ties between Libya’s fledgling government and the Syrian opposition. The Daily Telegraph on Saturday revealed that the new Libyan authorities had offered money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Belhaj also discussed sending Libyan fighters to train troops, the source said. Having ousted one dictator, triumphant young men, still filled with revolutionary fervour, are keen to topple the next. The commanders of armed gangs still roaming Tripoli’s streets said yesterday that “hundreds” of fighters wanted to wage war against the Assad regime.

According to information found at discoverthenetworks.org, in early 2012, President Barack Hussein Obama signed an intelligence finding that authorized U.S. support for the Syrian rebels, among whom are many heavily-armed, al Qaeda-affiliated jihadists. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Gen. Martin Dempsey (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and then-CIA director David Petraeus unanimously back a plan to arm the Syrian rebels. (Even though, Obama and his entire Administration would vehemently deny it later.)

Also in early 2012, the CIA started working with Arab governments and Turkey to sharply increase the supply of arms shipments to Syrian rebels. (Source: The New York Times (March 25, 2013)

On the 11th anniversary of the most devastating Terrorist Attack ever perpetrated on American Soil, masterminded by Osama bin Laden and carried out by members of al-Qaeda, the U.S. Embassy Compound in Benghazi Libya, was overrun by Muslim Terrorists who killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans.

Since then, there has been a lot of speculation as to the cause of the attack, and why Obama and his Administration tried to convince the world that an unknown Youtube video caused the Middle East Turmoil. David Horowitz’ discoverthenetworks.org tells us that there may have been a difference cause…

Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, writes that after Muammar Qaddafi’s fall from power in the summer of 2011, “[Christopher] Stevens [is] appointed ambassador to the new Libya run by [Abdelhakim] Belhadj [leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] and his friends.” At this point, Stevens is tasked with finding and securing “the immense amount of armaments that had been cached by the dictator around the country and systematically looted during and after the revolution.” Stevens’ mission is to help transfer “arms recovered from the former regime’s stocks to the ‘opposition’ in Syria,” where, “as in Libya, the insurgents are known to include al Qaeda and other Shariah-supremacist groups, including none other than Abdelhakim Belhadj.” These Syrian insurgents, organized under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army,” are fighting to topple the rule of their nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Benghazi is a logical place in which to station Stevens for this task, since, as Gaffney notes, it is “one of the places in Libya most awash with such weapons in the most dangerous of hands.”

Stevens’ duties include not only the transfer of arms, but also the recruitment of fighters willing to personally go into combat against the Assad regime in Syria. Aaron Klein writes that according to Middle Eastern security officials: “The U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi … actually serve[s] as a meeting place to coordinate aid for the rebel-led insurgencies in the Middle East.” Specifically, the building serves as a forum for U.S. collaboration with Arab countries—particularly the Turkish, Saudi and Qatari governments—on how to best support the Mideast’s various insurgencies, especially the rebels opposing Assad in Syria. Many of the fighters who are recruited are jihadists hailing from Libya and elsewhere in North Africa, and they are dispatched to Syria via Turkey (the lead coordinator of aid to the Free Syrian Army) with the help of CIA operatives stationed along the border shared by those two countries. One of the most noteworthy jihadists making his way to Syria is Abdelhakim Belhadj, former leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that brought down Qaddafi in Libya before subsequently disbanding.

This type of covert activity “may help explain why there was no major public security presence at what has been described as a ‘consulate,’” says Aaron Klein. “Such a presence would draw attention to the shabby, nondescript building that was allegedly used for such sensitive purposes.”

Why are we arming those who want to “kill the Great Satan”? Is is naivete or insanity? Is Obama simply “standing with the Muslims”? Is he doing this in the “name of the Prophet”?

Can we Impeach him, yet?

Until He Comes,

KJ