By Alan Caruba
Two trends have emerged since President Obama’s September 10
speech regarding his intention to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic
State.
One is the understanding that he will not commit U.S. troops
as “boots on the ground” to fight a force estimated variously between 10,000
and 30,000 depending on intelligence guesswork.
The other trend is the reluctance of any other nation to
engage in the warfare that would be necessary to defeat the terrorist army
occupying northern Iraq and a swath of Syria.
This was initially signaled at the NATO meeting in Wales
and, according to a September 12 page one report in The Wall Street Journal, “A day after President Barack
Obama outlined a strategy to combat Islamic State militants, Washington’s
international allies didn’t make clear how far they would go to join military
operations even as they pledged support.”
Who would support a President who said he had no intention
of being “dragged back into a war in Iraq”?
That is not a “strategy.” It’s surrender. It is an admission
of a lack of intent to confront what will surely emerge as a major threat to
the Middle East and the West.
Word
Games
The Obama administration was initially reluctant to even
call it a war. It was a “counter-intelligence operation” according to Secretary
of State Kerry. The President and his administration have spent six and a
half years labeling terrorist attacks as anything other than acts of war. But
9/11 was an act of war.
The killing of soldiers at Fort Hood was called
“workplace violence” when it was clearly a terrorist act. Obama and
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told us that the September 11, 2012
attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed our ambassador and
three security personnel was just a bunch of militants angered by a video no
one ever saw.
In Iraq—a nation now in name only—its military fled from
combat with ISIS. The result has been a demonstration of the barbarity of ISIS,
killing Muslims and “infidels” alike in large numbers. The videos of the beheadings
of two American journalists sent the U.S. a message that dramatically altered
the simmering reluctance of Americans to make war on the Islamic State. The
beheading of a British citizen will no doubt echo the U.S. population's desire
for revenge and a full-scale war on ISIS.
Middle East expert, Walid Phares, says ISIS's message is
that it has concluded that neither the U.S. nor Great Britain will engage
it with troops, preferring only air strikes. No military expert believes that
will be sufficient to defeat ISIS.
Turkey, that shares a border with Syria, Iraq and Iran, is
fearful for the lives of nearly fifty of its diplomats taken hostage in Mosul
when it was captured in June. They have cause, but Turkey has been increasingly
Islamic in its outlook for nearly a decade, shedding its secular approach to
governance. It has refused to allow the U.S. to use bases there to fight ISIS.
In Europe, Germany said it would not take part in any
airstrikes against ISIS. Other EU nations will likely follow its lead. In
a similar fashion, Arab nations have not indicated any intention to
actively—militarily—participate in what appears to be a “coalition” in name
only.
“We are in the gravest of situations. Our
military—once the most powerful in the world—is crumbling.
Obama is purging every branch of the US armed forces at an alarming rate.
He's deliberately crippling our military, setting them up for failure and defeat. Through his actions he is rapidly demoralizing our troops en masse, creating a dangerous situation at home and abroad, leaving our troops, our country and we citizens open to attack.
Obama is purging every branch of the US armed forces at an alarming rate.
He's deliberately crippling our military, setting them up for failure and defeat. Through his actions he is rapidly demoralizing our troops en masse, creating a dangerous situation at home and abroad, leaving our troops, our country and we citizens open to attack.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, recipient of the U.S.
military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, as well as other top retired
officers, say Obama’s agenda is decimating the morale of the U.S. ranks to the
point members no longer feel prepared to fight or have the desire to win.
Our Army has not
trained for six months. Meanwhile there is
tremendous domestic and foreign unrest taking place. "To have the Chief of
Staff of the Army confess to the world that our Army has not trained for six
months is highly disturbing,” says former Florida Congressman Allen West. ‘[It]
should make us all sleep less soundly at night.’”
Obama has been destroying our military in every way he can
and, other than air power, he has a greatly reduced infantry and other
forces with which to wage a ground war in Iraq. ISIS knows this and so
does the rest of the world.
Not since the end of World War II and our ascendance as a
superpower has America fallen to such a loss and lack of real power both
militarily and economically.
The years since Obama’s election in 2008 have been an
unqualified disaster for the nation, the West, and the rest of the world. They
have looked to the U.S. to lead and now see a U.S. that has twice elected a man
whose entire agenda has been to abandon leadership.
To some, his actions reek of treason.
© Alan Caruba, 2014
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