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So now you are going to have the three year war, I suspect what he is really doing is getting approval for his term, leaving some time for the next CIC to get approval for continuence. I don't get this, the war in Syria has raged for three years and like many of these things may become generational, how does he think a limited engagement can finish it in three years
He doesn't Clete, the next CIC can ask for his own strategy, or whatever. The congress can say yah, or nay, or whatever.
It's really simple, there is no real strategy until the congress and CIC can find one. Until then we stay home except for planes, bombs, and a few special ops forces.
Feel free to send your own army if you have one.
Ah Yes Tal but a fickle electorate changes the composition of Congress every two years and so there must be time for debate particularly if there is an unpopular CIC, it does happen and history might repeat itself
Not as many as we will lose if "DUD" keeps playing with ISSL.
So let them debate, they have two years.
it is bizarro world . You know what this is all about don't you ? Just this week he was dismissing the threat...... you know ;random "zealots " beheading and shooting "folks " .
But then yesterday it was confirmed that Kayla Mueller was killed while being held captive by the Islamic State .(and I don't believe for one second that she was killed by a Jordanian bomb.) I think the pressure on him to get the AUMF done hit the boiling point.
Yes it always makes a difference if one of your nationals is killed, the level of attention changes instantly, what was tolerable before becomes intolerable, etc. This is about political expedience and not having a situation where criticism is carried over. It's about ownership, getting Congress to own it. So for Obama boots on the ground means special forces with the grunt work being done by others, I wonder if he has read from the Johnson manual; let's see first you have advisors, then you have more advisors, and then you have an incident, and then you have mobile capabilities, and then.. well you remember, need I say more? An "apocolypse now" scenario, operations against a hostile population and assassination of rogue force leaders
The US surrenders in Yemen . No other way to read this news .
Marines Surrender Weapons Before Yemen Evacuation | Military.com
Is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Let the arabs fight their own wars, SA can now fight Yemen another proxy war let's see how well they do when the US isn't fighting their wars. You fought for them in Iraq, you have had the good sense not to fight Iran and now you are committing to fight against those they have been funding in Syria
Read it again as the other countries who had embassies left too, so what's your point? A read it as a strategic retreat. Since it was calm and orderly and without ay conflict, surrender isn't an accurate term.
Quote:What would you expect after a coup? Wait to see what happens next? Defending the embassy to the last man? An emergency under fire evacuation?Quote:
Warren also could not say why a civilian charter flight was used rather than military aircraft for the evacuation. He suggested that the handover of weapons may have resulted from international rules barring weapons on a civilian flight.
Better than hopping helicopters on the embassy roof. A orderly evacuation and a few personal weapons surrendered, Tom makes it look like a crisis rather than what it is a strategic withdrawl of embassy staff, but then no american likes to give up his sacred gun
tal ,the truth is that the USS Iwo Jima task force is off the coast of Yemen with at least 2 Marine Transport craft . Why DOS had the Marines board a civilian flight is a mystery all to itself . There may have been protocol involved in the destruction of the Marine supplied weapons . But they also made them destroy their personal weapons before boarding the plane . I think they should've made a convoy to the beach and let the task force pick them up.
They did their job and got the Embassy staff out . They should not have been forced to surrender or destroy their weapons.
Yes it is a matter of honor .Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
That's not what the article you linked said. I understand your need for the feel good pomp and ceremony, and prying a weapon out my dead cold hands philosophy. But quiet retreat to a safer position, a cocktail and a movie was much just as good and effective.
I will will provide a new link since the site updated their report . The good news is that the Houthi rebels did not get their guns. However ,they were forced to disable them before boarding the plane.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...vacuation.html
I don't care what you say . I'm sure there was equipment and classified information carried out that was not subject to inspection. The personal weapons could've and should've been secured in the same way for transport . If you ask any one of those Marines they will tell you that giving up their weapon sure feels like surrender . I'm sure they would tell you it's a matter of honor.
Let's not get carried away on honour Tom, what is important is they evacuated the people they were protecting so no Benghazi in Saana, someone has learned something
Tell that to the Marines.Quote:
Let's not get carried away on honour
Cliché
I am sure the sensitive stuff was taken, but even your latest article points to the orderly planned in advance leaving of embassy personnel.
Quote:
"Upon arrival at the airfield, all personal weapons were rendered inoperable in accordance with advance planning," the statement said. "Specifically, each bolt was removed from its weapons body and rendered inoperable by smashing with sledgehammers. The weapons' bodies, minus the bolts, were then separately smashed with sledgehammers."
Well of course it would be well planned the military were involved. A orderly evacuation upon a change of government. The rest is just someone getting their knickers in a knot. Hard luck you no longer rule Yemen
For now the drones aren't supposed to stop in Yemen anytime soon. The rebels hate AQ, but they don't like us either so who knows.
of course it was 'planned ' .I'm, just saying it was the wrong call.Quote:
Originally Posted by talaniman
the rest of the world will regret it soon enough. The Iranians now control choke points out of the Arabian Gulf and into the Red Sea. They also influence the government in Sudan . So they now cover the whole length of the Red Sea to the Suez Canal.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
How many dollars do you want invested in stopping THEIR influence, or troops, NUKES? Be specific King Tom.
The ironic thing is that they were ripe for toppling in 2009 -10 . All it would've taken was support for the Green Revolution. Yet even though the emperor went out of his way supporting every other revolutionary effort against Sunni nations ,he did NOTHING to help the revolution that would've had the biggest positive impact on the region.
Now because he did not support them ,and has done little positive to stop the advance of the Iranian nuke ,it might very well take nukes to stop them . Our ineffective and tepid efforts to stop them will lead to a proliferation ....and that will indeed probably lead to their use.
You have become nervious nellies Tom, given the time that has passed if the Iranians wanted a nuke they would have had one by now, even a backwards nation like NK has a nuke.
it is not easy to get nukes They needed help . The NORKS didn't get them on their own. They needed the help of the A Q Khan network . Not surprising; the gas centrifuges that the Iranians first used are the Pak-1s ....the ones invented by AQ Khan. .
A.Q. Khan boasts of helping Iran's nuclear programme - Telegraph
Help but you get the help you ask for. I really wonder whether the Paki's want an nuclear armed Iran on it's left flank, with India on the right it puts it squarely in the middle and Pakistan is a sunni nation and there is much persecution of shiites in Pakistan
AQ Khan was not an agent of the government . His goal in providing nukes to Iran was to neutralize Israel.......well that and $$$$ .The Iranians had plenty of petro-rial to spend . The Iranians also have purchased nuke and rocket technology from the NORKS .
I cannot imaging what you think a PF power like Iran can do, the boil has gone out of the Israel thing, the Eqyptians have cut off supply to the Palestinians and Iran finds Syria a more interesting playground to taunt the west with. They know you are not going to bomb them unless there is overt aggression so they play at proxy war just as you do, but you are fighting for the shiite cause now and backed off after a shiite victory in Yemen. Perhaps you want them to balance out the Saudi and keep the oil flowing to bankrupt Russia, Iran and Saudi in one stroke'.I would not be surprised if you have met yourself coming back in foreign policy. Evita certainly knew when to get out
Is Obama going to put boots on the ground in Libya too?
Islamic State: Video purports to show 21 Egyptians beheaded in Libya; Coptic Church confirms deaths - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The world has to take this ISIS thing much more seriously. For too long we have looked over the border and said not our problem. My government has begun to stiffen entry requirements and laws associated with security issues. We may even be reaching a time when the presumption of innocence may be questioned, to a time when guilt by association is the norm. It is already working in travel arrangements, go to the wrong place and have your passport cancelled.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31483631
Egypt will react as Jordan reacted so let's see some help from elsewhere to change the situation in Libya, another failed state that "benefited" from US interventionist foriegn policy. The count of failed arab states is now five. Syria, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen with Egypt having dodged the bullet
Sykes-Picot undone. One could say it was inevidible . Egypt was/is the only legitimate nation there anyway . The rest are tribes . The question really is ;so do we help forge a future Levant or do we sit on the sidelines and accept what emerges ? Yes there are prices to pay for involvement . There are equally prices to pay ,possibly more dire ,if we are aloof and uninvolved .
If all the other nations signed up to kick ISIS in the arse where they are, we wouldn't have this problem, but we would have a WAR until the job is done.
Tal there are thirty nations signed up already how many do you want? These nations have been bombing ISIS for months, I would say we have got a WAR, what we need is more than tokenism, particularly from Iraq who have lost territory to them. It is a disgrace that a few thousand terrorists should control a major city like Mosul and all that opposes them are Pesmerga militia. Who trained those troops who threw away their arms? These are not people who can be defeated in an war of degradation of economic assets. Meanwhile the threat grows as other terrorists join ISIS and fight in places like North Africa and the terrorists succeed in a reign of terror
30 nations and no boots. Just planes.
shows what happens when the US leads from behind.
Do you call this leadership? I call it tokenism. Obama and others can say we have responded, look what we have done. However we have reached the stage where territory has to be taken. We would all like the arabs to step up but they are better at running away than fighting, they lack that vital "intestinal fortutude", the more common term being "guts". Saddam used to get them to fight at the end of a gun, we might learn from that. No doubt the Iraqi army remembers a number of glorious defeats and the whole of the arab world couldn't defeat Israel, I also doubt they can defeat ISIS
you guys crack me up . When Saddam was mass murdering and torturing by the 10s of thousands all was cool because under him there was so called stability .Now the Islamic State puts it on video and it's O MY GOD !!!
Using the WMDs that weren't there, even though the Army bought them to destroy.Quote:
Saddam was mass murdering and torturing
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/wo...etType=nyt_now
wait a minute ...... those stockpiles of WMD that were unaccounted for didn't exist ....right ?
If they did exist they may be the same WMD Assad has given up for destruction, who knows, rumour has it they were transported to Syria and buried. If so there is urgent need to defeat ISIS before they gain control of them. You forget Saddam was your lackey before he got off his chain, a useful tool to conduct your proxy war against Iran. He would be there still if he had not invaded Kuwait so let's not get self righteous here.
As to ISIS and their murdering ways they appear particularly heinous because of who the victims are and the manner of their executions. We look back at what was done in France 200 years ago and consider it was the price of freedom and far more blood flowed out of severed necks there, but it has become fashionable not to execute people, even criminals guilty of heinous crimes.
I suggest that fitting punishment for every ISIS fighter is to loose his head but I doubt anyone has the stomach for it
yeah yeah yeah ... and everyone was friends with Uncle Joe in 1941 . But you are mistaken if you think the US had anything to do with Saddam invading Iran . The official position of the US during that war was that we did not take any sides . We only got involved against Iran when they threatened shipping in the Gulf.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
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