Here We Go Again!!! "Islamic State militants pose 'biggest threat' to US"

[grahamhgreen]

Last edited Fri Aug 22, 2014, 11:36 AM - Edit history (3)

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said US air strikes had helped to break the Islamist advance in Iraq, but the militants could be expected to regroup.

America's top general Martin Dempsey stressed that IS could not be defeated without attacking their base in Syria.

The warnings come after IS posted a video showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley.

http://m.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28891325

Here we go again. Get ur duct tape! Don't forget about terrorists with pen guns, baby carriages, and dressed as santa!

Maybe if we stopped invading Muslim countries and bombing Muslim cities then they'd be less pissed. Imagine, some dude from Canada goes to china and blows up a building, then china carpet bombs The US AND Mexico... Maybe we'd act like animals too (maybe we already do... Our torturers are called patriots by our President!). Maybe these 'animals' were children 12 years ago, and they've seen their parents, family, and friends blown asunder, and have been forged by horrors you can't imagine. Not to mention they were funded by the US and Saudi Arabia against Assad to start with.

Anyway, let's remember, it's about the oil and war profiteering.... Any excuse in the book to continue the neo-con vision of the "long war".

At least, that's what I'm thinkin'

[Scuba]

1. Nah, it's still Fox "News".

[malaise]

2. Any excuse in the book to continue the neo-con vision of the "long war".

Maybe if we stopped invading Muslim countries and bombing Muslim cities then they'd be less pissed.

That simple.

[grahamhgreen]

10. Thanks! It aint rocket science with these brainiacs... remember the Vulcans?

The Vulcans is a nickname used to refer to Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush's foreign policy advisory team assembled to brief him prior to the 2000 U.S. presidential election. The Vulcans were led by Condoleezza Rice and included Richard Armitage, Robert Blackwill, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Dov S. Zakheim, Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz, and Wolfowitz protégé, Scooter Libby. Other key campaign figures including Dick Cheney, George P. Shultz and Colin Powell were also closely associated with the group but were never actually members. During the campaign, Bush sought to deflect questions about his own lack of foreign policy experience by pointing to this group of experienced advisers. After the election, all the members of the team received key positions within the new Bush administration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vulcans

Like clickish high schoolers playing with the world.....

[qazplm]

3. so you think ISIS

is killing, raping, torturing, stealing women, destroying Mosques, forcibly converting (against predominately Muslims) because we invade Muslim countries and bomb Muslim cities?

[grahamhgreen]

4. Not only that, but they wouldn't exist had we not done so:(

[L0oniX]

8. ...and if we had not sold weapons to Saddam, Iran would have taken over Iraq.

See how that works?

[grahamhgreen]

9. No, not following... You mean the chemical weapons Rumsfeld sold to Saddam, and then

used as the excuse to invade?

[L0oniX]

11. If we would have helped Saddam more to fight the war with Iran...

there wouldn't be an Isis. (hind sight puff) Ruthless as Saddam was he did keep his country in check. (I'll bet more young black men have been killed by the pigs since then than the people who died from Saddam gassing people) Helping them win the war with Iran would have at least subdued one of the Bush axis's of evil. Should the US be ashamed it helps the Saddam types now ...after it has always given its support to whoever gives the us a strategic advantage? I know ...I am saying we are dirty and been dirty going back to at least Kissinger and then Reagan. This is not a Superman tv show where "truth justice and the American way" as it was supposed ...prevails. IMO the biggest mistake this country has made is to not follow the warnings from the past from those who knew about the MIC's ideas and goals. We can be a country of war but we will never be a country of peace. Just look at Ferguson. That's what a country who's economy would fail without war turns into.

[arcane1]

54. And if we had not overthrown Iran's democracy, we might be great friends now n/t

[L0oniX]

67. So many mistakes ...so little wisdom.

[arcane1]

71. Sad but true :(

[qazplm]

55. that's just plain insane

not every single little thing that goes wrong in the world is tied to us.

[grahamhgreen]

61. In this case, destabilizing the region by invading Iraq, and supporting Surian rebels, is one of the

'Little things' we actually are responsible for

[L0oniX]

68. Have fun waving your flag.

[clarice]

22. I will never understand the "Blame America First Ethos"....

It's almost like someone is getting paid to post such tripe.

[Maedhros]

28. The first step to recovery for this nation is to admit we have a problem. [n/t]

[clarice]

29. Of course...every Country has it's problems.....at least we don't behead people. nt

[Maedhros]

30. Why is beheading someone worse than blowing up children with Hellfire missiles?

That's simply moral relativism based upon cultural prejudice.

[clarice]

31. Perhaps it is prejudice..but I wouldn't want to live anywhere but here. You ? nt

[Maedhros]

32. I wouldn't mind leaving the United States for a country that is less callously bloodthirsty.

I'm done here. Bye.

[clarice]

34. I'm sorry you feel this way...Peace and out. nt

[grahamhgreen]

66. It is amazing how clean the cities are in countries that are not run by their militarists.

[kwassa]

72. at least under Mussolini the trains ran on time.

see? this works both ways.

[FrodosPet]

39. Fair winds and full sails!

[Maedhros]

40. American Militarism - love it or leave it, eh? [n/t]

[FrodosPet]

42. LOL!

Been feeling under the weather all day!

Thank you for the laugh I needed!

(The world needs more laughing and less yelling. Is it REALLY that hard for our species to figure out?)

[LanternWaste]

48. False Dilemmas, love 'em or leave 'em, eh?

False Dilemmas, love 'em or leave 'em, eh?

[L0oniX]

70. I am so wanting to live in French Polynesia...

but right now I only have a 27' sailboat.

[tabasco]

60. Stupidest post I've read today.

Congratulations.

[LanternWaste]

47. I think the first step would be reading histor

I think the first step would be reading history. In this case, reading what the The Sykes–Picot Accord was, and the effects it had on the twentieth century would be a great -place.

But, as an admission to a diaphanous and undefined problem does indeed, take less time and less concentration, I can see why many would feel that to be the First Step Toward Righteous Recovery (insert Law & Order clangs here).

[grahamhgreen]

62. In this case, the biggest instigator of violence on the region does happen to be the US, doesn't it?

[eridani]

64. Blame imperialism first

The US is the only imperialist nation left.

[L0oniX]

69. I can't and never will respect or accept the rejection of introspect.

[Sunlei]

5. According to reports, "the beheader" was from London? mask off the cowards face & expose him.

Same with the 'base in Syria' , don't let the location be a secret. Remove their masks and the power of anonymity!

[grahamhgreen]

6. Pull the mask back even further, and you get John Macain, and Lindsay Graham.... and Prince Bandar:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/

McCain tells Saudis to fund what has become ISIS, 'Thank God for the Saudis': ISIS, Iraq, and the Lessons of Blowback

U.S lawmakers encouraged officials in Riyadh to arm Syrian rebels. Now that strategy may have created a monster in the Middle East.
....

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the “moderate” armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assad’s forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

........

“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January 2014. “Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends,” the senator said once again a month later, at the Munich Security Conference.

McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.

Note that Bandar and wife channeled money to the 911 hijackers when they were in the US through HSBC. (HSBC was later convicted of laundering drug money and terrorism funds.)

Also remember that Bandar was shown the invasion plans for Iraq, BEFORE the US Congress was.

[L0oniX]

13. Don't forget to add the MIC mask too.

[woo me with science]

41. +100000 The ugly, and deliberate cycle.

Intervene, destabilize, CRISIS! Intervene, destabilize, CRISIS! Intervene....

Meanwhile, the weeping bury their children, and plutocrats polish their yachts.

[BaggersRDumb]

53. McCain is such a prize, but imagine a world that doesnt use fossil fuels, wonder if we would

have half of these problems.

[CJCRANE]

7. We Created A Huge Army Of Nutters

in the desert.

Now we have to fight them.

Who's with me?

Let's go!

[grahamhgreen]

12. That sums it up nicley! Rinse and repeat, and you get endless war for perpetual profit, weehee!

[L0oniX]

14. Anything to help MIC stocks and congressional war investors.

[frylock]

21. yep, see you at the post-production party..

and we'll contact your agent regarding the sequel.

[CJCRANE]

37. The turnaround this time was amazing.

At least with the Mujahideen it took over a decade for them to morph into Al Qaeda in the public consciousness.

But it was only last year that we were prepared to bomb Assad on behalf of the Syrian rebels.

Now they cross the border into Iraq and suddenly they're the evildoers.

However, the images of McCain palling around with them and lobbying on their behalf are still fresh in our memories.

Over on the other side of the Atlantic British Foreign Minister William Hague was doing the same thing. He's since lost his job as, like McCain, he is inextricably linked with supporting ISIS in the public mind.

[truth2power]

15. You would be thinkin' correctly...

Fear-mongering! I'm old enough to remember "I Was a Communist for the FBI" Booga Booga!!

The American people don't seem to have caught on to the fact that a few entities are making a lot of money off all this warmongering.

And you are correct that if the US would stop killing people's families around the world maybe those people wouldn't be so angry. That fact seems to have been lost on our Fearless Leader. Or maybe that's the plan...

[jen63]

16. Gee and last week we heard

that right wing militia groups were the biggest terror threat to the country. Fear, fear, fear. I wish they'd make up their minds. Stop killing Middle Eastern women and children and then we'd only have those militias to worry about.

[hifiguy]

17. Let's see . . .

Do they have

Missiles? Nope.
An Air Force, or any planes at all? Nope
A deep-water navy, or any navy at all? Nope.
Any way to get, en masse, out of their sphere of influence? Nope.
An intelligence agency with well-trained and -equipped spies? Nope.
WMD? Nope.

So how again are they a threat to the US?

Which is not to say that it wouldn't be a good thing if they were wiped off the face of the earth withe xtreme prejudice down to the last stone-age barbarian in the name of humanity, but that is a separate issue.

[Bigmack]

19. What you said ... 3 minutes earlier than me....

Behold the mighty Taliban navy....behold the mighty AlQaeda air force...
or the IS missile subs....

None of those things exists..? Hmmm....

I think these guys are evil and certainly a threat, but they ain't Superpowers, and the weapons the MIC invented to fight superpowers won't work on these guys.

We gotta work smarter with different tools...not harder with the old tools.

But we have proven time and again that we can't do that.

[grahamhgreen]

38. They got scimitars!!!! The "biggest threat" for sure:

[Matrosov]

18. Even without Western involvement..

..there'd be Muslims eager to kill Christians, Jews, and other Muslism; stoning women for the "crime" of having been raped; cutting the genitals off little girls, and so forth.

No doubt they are extremists and not representative of all Muslims, but I also worry that we are sometimes too eager to turn a blind eye toward Muslim extremists or even justify their actions just because of our opposition to Christian extremists.

There's no place in this world for extremists who would harm and kill innocent people, regardless of their nationality, race, or religion.

[CJCRANE]

23. Except that these groups were under control

before western intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Saddam was a secular leader whose second in command was a christian.

Gaddafi was also a secular leader who opposed Al Qaeda.

Assad is in alliance with christians and religious minorities in Syria.

The intervention in Libya unleashed extremists who streamed into Mali and also have links with those in Syria.

Western intervention has unleashed huge numbers of extremists where before there were secular governments.

Neocon policies were never about spreading "liberal democracy".

Their policies only serve to restrict our freedoms and spread religious fundamentalism at home and abroad.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Not yet. But, after we sell them the 7th Fleet and 2ndMarDiv they will be.

[Rex]

24. Here's the thing

Even if we ignore them, IS/ISIS will continue on murdering innocent people day after day. We ARE kinda responsible for the power vacuum left in Iraq...so I think it is morally our duty now to try and stop something that would not have happened, if we had never invaded Iraq.

If Iraq still have a secular leader, there would be no IS or ISIS in Iraq. I also don't think Obama would go into Iraq for nefarious reasons like the BFEE did.

At least that is the way I feel bout it.

[grahamhgreen]

36. We are responsible for torturing Iraqi's and Abu Ghraib. We are resposible for the war crimes of the

Bush era.

Our responsibility is to prosecute those crimes.

NOT to commit more.

That's how I see it.

[Rex]

51. Well I don't think we will have any of those things happen, because Obama is not the BFEE.

But that is just what I believe will happen.

[whatchamacallit]

25. They're the newest stretch of track on the neocon railroad

All aboard!

[Viva_Daddy]

26. I hope for a day when there is a "rush to Peace" in America.

[flamingdem]

27. They have to address the challenge of Isis

and this is not another Bush neo-con war, even if it's a monster created by those wars.

Isis can be contained pretty well with airstrikes. That's a lot different than boots on the ground.

Let's hope it's limited to that. It's about discouraging Isis and this has begun by taking back Mosul dam. The USA can't do anything about it past that, congress would have to approve for one thing, plus it's the problem of the new government in Iraq. Iraq has an army of 900,000 of which 300,00 are capable according to news reports. Isis is about 40-50k. Do the math. Assad has stepped up strikes as well.

[grahamhgreen]

35. "Isis can be contained pretty well with airstrikes." What makes you think that? I would submit

that is pure specualtion, and that every time we've projected force into the region, we've wound up with a worse situation than before.

I say, let's let the Iraqi's, Kurds, Iranians, Saudi's and Kuwaiti's deal with it.

My guess is the sooner we get out, the better it will be, I use Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge as historical basis.

[Maedhros]

43. We're seeing the standard playbook right now.

1. Make claims of "genocide." How can you ignore the horror? (check)

2. Demonize the Other as inhuman savages. (check)

3. Claim an "imminent threat" to the United States. (check)

4. If you don't agree with the President, YOU SUPPORT TERRORISM! (and...check)

[flamingdem]

45. They can't move into Jordan, Israel, Iran so they are contained

but better to contain them more with airstrikes. Preferably flown by Iraqis or Syrians.

There are 40-50 thousand of them vs. 900,000 in the Iraqi army.

I agree about getting out as fast as possible but there are opportunities for the US in this situation - as far as realignments go.

[CJCRANE]

46. AFAIK there are less than that.

I thought it was 17,000. But others have said 6,000.

The core group are the foreign fighters. Once the tide turns they should be easier to isolate and the local tribes will go back to their old alliances.

Also bear in mind that one method they use is to pretend there are more of them, even to the point of using thousands of sockpuppets.

[flamingdem]

49. Yes, they're using that old trick

Richard Engel of msnbc said that he estimates 15,000 in Iraq and 50,000 between Syria and Iraq (pretty sure this was his number yesterday). He said that this month alone 6,000 have joined in Syria and that 1500 to 2000 are foreign fighters. That sounds about right for the foreign fighters part since I've read 600 from the UK, 500 from Belgium (why there!?) and 500 from France elsewhere.

Some of course have been forced to join so the real core of the group is probably a lot smaller plus who really knows.

It will be a nasty war for the press to cover, I'm sure many are already thinking about leaving the area!

[CJCRANE]

50. Fair enough.

It's hard to tell where they get all these numbers from or how accurate they are.

I remember in the First World War On Terror the nebulous number of Al Qaeda operatives who managed to get away in the raid on Osama Bin Laden's supervillain underground fortress at Tora Bora...which of course turned out not to exist. And of course the endless #2s who were killed or captured. And the color-coded terror alerts. Not to mention Saddam's mobile chemical weapons labs.

So...I accept these ISIS guys are real but I also know that both they and our MSM are masters of deception.

[flamingdem]

59. haha wasn't thinking of the MSM exaggerating

but of course.. they need material and we know the corporate owners benefit from military sales. Isis will give them a ton to work with as long as their correspondents stay intact.

[qazplm]

56. they were killing a lot of people

and taking a lot of land before we "got into it."

The Kurds were spared serious risk of being overrun because we "got into it."

Your guess is tied to some pretty heavy "everything we do is bad, and everything is bad because of us" bias.

[grahamhgreen]

58. ISIS did not exist, and Al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before we got into it. Agreed?

[ProfessorGAC]

33. Simple Question To Hagel

Then why Saddam?

[n2doc]

44. Seems to me this group, and those like them, are bigger threats to the USA

Killed more Americans, too.

[gordianot]

52. At some point there are just too many threats then what?

[JEB]

57. Wait. Are you talking about these guys?

And why did Islamic State, formerly ISIS, become winners? Because the "West" regimented, schooled, trained, logistically helped and weaponized most of IS's Takfiri goons with a mission at hand: to destroy Syria. The "West" lauded them as "Syrian rebels." Freedom fighters.


Washington even promoted Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, and a "terrorist organization," according to the State Department) as "good" jihadis, as well as the preferred Saudi combo, the Islamic Front.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-killer-on-the-Saudi--by-Pepe-Escobar-Assad_Beheading_Britain_ISI-140822-820.html

[grahamhgreen]

63. Yes, those guys!

[JEB]

65. It's like a slow motion false flag

or an elaborate con game. Fund some radicals to fight someone for you and when they inevitably become a problem in their own right....well it's boom times again for the MIC. Of course there will be collateral damage (dead women, children, innocents). At some level, being beheaded seems more dignified than being collateral damage. Somehow your death was important enough for someone to commit at very close range a personal homicide. Collateral damage, you are just a bit of dust swept under a rug, a footnote at best. Either way, just as dead, and a big waste.