Weekly Address: The World Is United in the Fight Against ISIL

[cal04]

Source: White House

In this week’s address, the President thanked Congress for its strong bipartisan support for efforts to train and equip Syrian opposition forces to fight ISIL. This plan is part of the President’s comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy to degrade and destroy the terrorist group, and does not commit our troops to fighting another ground war. America, working with a broad coalition of nations, will continue to train, equip, advise, and assist our partners in the region in the battle against ISIL.

In the coming week, the President will speak at the United Nations General Assembly and continue to lead the world against terror, a fight in which all countries have a stake.

Read more: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/09/20/weekly-address-world-united-fight-against-isil

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Transcript

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/20/weekly-address-world-united-fight-against-isil

Over the past week, the United States has continued to lead our friends and allies in the strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL. As I’ve said before, our intelligence community has not yet detected specific plots from these terrorists against America. Right now, they pose a threat to the people of Iraq, Syria, and the broader Middle East. But its leaders have threatened America and our allies. And if left unchecked, they could pose a growing threat to the United States.

So, last month, I gave the order for our military to begin taking targeted action against ISIL. Since then, American pilots have flown more than 170 airstrikes against these terrorists in Iraq. And France has now joined us in these airstrikes.

Going forward, we won’t hesitate to take action against these terrorists in Iraq or in Syria. But this is not America’s fight alone. I won’t commit our troops to fighting another ground war in Iraq, or in Syria. It’s more effective to use our capabilities to help partners on the ground secure their own country’s futures. We will use our air power. We will train and equip our partners. We will advise and we will assist. And we’ll lead a broad coalition of nations who have a stake in this fight. This isn’t America vs. ISIL. This is the people of that region vs. ISIL. It’s the world vs ISIL.

We’ve been working to secure bipartisan support for this strategy here at home, because I believe that we are strongest as a nation when the President and Congress work together. We’ve been consulting closely with Congress. And last week, Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Hagel, and military leaders worked to gain their support for our strategy.

A majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans in both the House and the Senate have now approved a first, key part of our strategy by wide margins. They’ve given our troops the authority they need to train Syrian opposition fighters so that they can fight ISIL in Syria. Those votes sent a powerful signal to the world: Americans are united in confronting this danger. And I hope Congress continues to make sure our troops get what they need to get the job done.

more at link

[truthisfreedom]

1. Why does the media call it ISIS?

[ballyhoo]

8. Because it is easier to say...(That's what I heard on some show.)

[Amonester]

12. Another case of the media being wrong :^/

They should somehow send memos to each other to say that, that mob is not Islamic (Islam is basically a peaceful religion: they commit awful crimes on a daily basis, even if they call each other "brothers" between restless boys with guns), and it's not a State (who would call any big mafia out on a barbarian killing spree a State?).

No, they have to be arrested (if possible) and brought to justice (somehow), like any mafia ought to. The sad part is, they will (and already do) resist that.

[Igel]

2. Proverb.

Protiv ovets, sam boets.
Protiv boitsa, sam ovtsa.

Against sheep, he's a warrior.
Against a warrior, he's a sheep.

IS isn't a huge threat to many. It's a politically convenient threat. It gets to play off all the Iraqi angst that we like to wallow in and then fling about like chimpanzees and poo; we can cast ourselves in the roles of protecting an endangered minority, so we're not doing it for ourselves--think of the women and children; it makes us look good in the eyes of states that consider us to be bad guys as we continue to repeat other-serving platitudes that make us seem enlightened in our own eyes, so we're convinced we're loved when, really, it won't make any difference because eye-wash and the only people needing it is us. It's Kosovo, but even better because we can have a kind of collective back-patting party that's much, much larger.

At the same time, we get to scream "terror! terror!" and each politician gets to play the role of the Father-Protector.

IS is also the kind of thing that pops up every so often in tribal societies that are largely religion-governed. Some survive in some form--Sa'udiyya did. Others, like the one in Sudan, collapsed fairly soon and not because of what Westerners did. It created a local mess, but not an extremely bad local mess. They all want to recreate the Opening (called in the West "the Islamic Conquest," but mostly ignored because many consider that an oxymoron, preferring to believe that Islam just flowered and expanded of its own accord, not by conquest and imposition over time as occurred in some places or by conquest and imposition at sword-point as occurred in others--it makes the entire thing seem so colonialist and imperialist, a distinction we reserve for ourselves).

The fight against IS also gives us a chance to avoid the same mess we created in Libya, even though it really is the same mess as in Libya (with a few parameters changed)--at least it takes eyes off of Libya and how swell that worked out. If Assad had squelched the opposition we encouraged, there'd be a vestigial rump of an ISIS were it was in 2010. With the proviso that a lot of the Syrian rebellion that Western reporters didn't want to admit was happening because it didn't meet with the approval of their confirmation bias was the same kind of ferment that congealed as an-Nusrah and ISIL. If you really, really hate being ruled by somebody different from you, it means you're already really, really in bed with intolerance. Except we like to conflate ethnic/religious hatred against something we have an ideological predisposition against with our own views. Because everybody is just like us.

Humorously, notice that the opposition we had to Syria was to meet all the criteria that the IS fight does: Make us look good in defending a minority, extend freedom in a way that * could only sweat about, fight terrorism. As with Libya, IS takes our eyes off that great success and gives us a whole new field for showing our awesomeness. This time the bar is so low that we need to get a trench-digger to find it, so perhaps this crisis will achieve its goals.

There are bigger problems. Then again, perhaps this is just another political gift that politicians will yet screw up. (Gee ... isn't this a pleasantly cynical post. Gotta up the dosage on my optimism medication.)

[ballyhoo]

3. ISIS, ISIL, IS--whatever..

is a Hegelian Dialectic created by the US using a terrorist group from nowhere that we help train and pay for their guns and other assorted weapons of war. This was done to give the US an entity to fight and come out the world hero who "hunts down bad guys" anywhere they run. In short, IS a manufactured joke complete with props. And having it come in September, October works out real good for the creators.

[candelista]

5. I don't see what this has to do with Hegel.

Please explain.

[ballyhoo]

6. Hegel developed the process...

“Dialectic ….the Hegelian process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite… development through the stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in accordance with the laws of dialectical materialism ….any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict …
….the dialectical tension or opposition between two interacting forces or elements.”

Put simply: Say one needs something to happen so one can address the situation. One simply fabricates the opposite of what is current, which causes the addressing of the new situation to be necessary. Some CT's said this is what Bush did with 911. As far as explaining all of Hegel's thinking that would be a job maybe for DeSwiss, who I don't think posts here anymore.

[candelista]

11. I have read the Phenomenology of Mind from cover to cover.

So I understand something about Hegel. What I don't see is how the dialectic applies to your example. Okay, all change is based on "contradiction," the opposition of forces in nature or society, which results in a "synthesis,"--an outcome that is not just a compromise between the two forces, but which may be something totally new and unpredictable.

So how, for example, does Bush's treatment of 9-11 fit into this?

[candelista]

4. "I won’t commit our troops to fighting another ground war in Iraq, or in Syria."

Then how are you going to "destroy" IS, as you have vowed to do? The US army chief of staff says you can't do it with air power alone. Are our puppet Syrian rebel forces supposed to save the day? The same ones that sold journalist Steven Sotloff to IS for $50,000?

[ballyhoo]

7. That's the whole point. You see it, as do many of us here

see it. It's all a sham--a setup to make people think the situation we are fighting happened spontaneously.

[avaistheone1]

9. The world is united in the fight against ISIS? REALLY?!!

We're not even united in the U.S. about ISIS.

[candelista]

14. We are not of this world.

[tazkcmo]

10. Good

Now let the whole world fight them beginning with the armies of the ME with the rest of us providing support.

When I got recalled for Oil War I, I spoke with a few Kuwaitis stationed at Ft Bliss (They were being trained on our older AD systems) and asked why they hadn't returned home to join the fight. Their answer: "That's what you're for." All I could do is shake my head and walk away.

[freshwest]

17. Well, no more. They can do their own dirty work. Kuwait is the conduit as they've funded ISIS.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014885240#post26

Main reason Obama has been for alternative energy is to get us off the oil kingdom's blackmail list as they have some pretty bad ideas.

[tazkcmo]

18. Energy

I've always felt solar energy in particular was a matter of national defense. Now here we are, fighting Oil War III.

And yes, all of them have dirty hands including us thanks to thee MIC and their Congress trinkets.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. As always, thanks for posting!

Listened this morning and didn't realize a U.N. session was coming up. Forgot that it's that time of year!

[MFrohike]

15. Including Qatar and Saudi?

Just curious.

[quadrature]

16. lets hire criminals to do our fighting in Syria

lets hire terrorists to be security
for our consulate in Benghazi

........historical adaptation.............
Rolling Stones
lets hire Hell's Angels, to be concert security

[blkmusclmachine]

19. The Nobel Peace Prize winner sez whut?!?!

[blkmusclmachine]

20. Pic URL http://blustarproject.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/war-is-peace.jpg

Caption is mine.