By Erick Erickson September 12, 2014 Resident Obama addressed the nation this past Wednesday night to outline his strategy for combating ISIS. Having declared the War on Terror over, he referred to "terror" in various forms 18 times in his speech. The problem is that so many real-world facts directly contradict what President Obama said in his speech. A man who claims often to not know certain facts because he has not seen the news has clearly not been reading the paper. In his speech, the president said, "It is America that helped remove and destroy Syria's declared chemical weapons so that they can't pose a threat to the Syrian people or the world again." Notice the weasel word, "declared." After his speech about Syria in September 2013, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry boldly declared Syria had given up all its chemical weapons. Now he is resorting to "declared" chemical weapons. Why the weasel word? On Sept. 4, the New York Times reported that "the United States expressed concern ... that Syria's government might be harboring undeclared chemical weapons, hidden from the internationally led operation to purge them." On Sept. 9, the day before the president addressed the nation last week, the New York Times reported, "a toxic chemical, probably chlorine, was used as a weapon to attack Syrian villages in April, an international watchdog agency confirmed on Wednesday." On Oct. 7, 2013, Secretary Kerry told reporters in Indonesia, "I think it's extremely significant that yesterday, Sunday, within a week of the (U.N.) resolution being passed, some chemical weapons were being destroyed." On Feb. 10, 2014, the BBC breathlessly reported "a third shipment of chemical weapons materials has left Syria, with some destroyed inside the country." Conservatives who doubted Syria would give up its chemical weapons were pilloried in the press as being so partisan they could not even give Barack Obama credit for doing such a good deed. Now reality dawns. This then gets to the problem with Barack Obama's strategy. A year ago, Congress rejected authorizing action in Syria largely because we did not know who these rebels were. Some of the rebels helped spawn the new terrorist threat ISIS. At the beginning of this year, President Obama referred to ISIS as junior varsity. Later in the year he declared them amateurs. Less than three weeks ago the president said he had no strategy to combat ISIS. Less than two weeks, President Obama referred to the non-ISIS rebels in Syria as farmers incapable of leading the resistance against ISIS. This past Wednesday night, President Obama's bold new strategy is to arm the very rebels he says are incapable of leading resistance to ISIS. But who are the rebels? They are people who have been in a civil war against the Syrian government. But from the rebels have also come loyal foot soldiers for ISIS. How does the president know the rebels will not use our weapons and funds to fight Syria instead of ISIS? Likewise, how does the president know some of the rebels will not take our weapons to ISIS? More troubling, how does the president know these rebels will not turn on us? And is it not possible the Syrian government and ISIS may not now make an alliance of convenience to rapidly and jointly crush the rebels? The sad truth is Barack Obama knows the answers to none of those questions, but wants Congress to approve sending arms and training to the rebels anyway. (Excerpt) Read more: http://townhall.com/columnists/erickerickson/2014/09/12/the-no-strategy-strategy-n1890433/page/full Who is Obama really seeking to train? We know that the arms, munitions and materiel primarily used by the ISIS terrorists were supplied by Obama through Libya and the Turkish conduit. That was why Christopher Stevens was assassinated. Obviously this has not been raised or investigated by the MSM. Why were Foley and Sotloff were captured by the "Free Syrian Army" and sold to ISIS. Is Obama proposing to arm this same group and actually be supplying ISIS?
has ANYONE heard ANY alternative strategy from the right, or like me all you see is whinging, criticism and derision?
You won't. The Sane ones know the Right has no answers that would work or be politically popular.....so all they do is complain and carp. The Insane ones....want to kill every Muslim on the planet. Some even are open about it.
Who's the current president of the United States? Who's responsible right now for formulating and conducting American foreign policy? Who is the Commander in Chief of Americas armed forces?
He has a strategy. But apparently even when articulated it seems it isn't good enough for some conservatives. Not that they will actually explain why it isn't good enough nor what they would do. Its just a constant stream of negative criticism without a single rational alternative presented. Unless of course you think Cheney's wage war everywhere is sane. Maybe its time for some republicans with balls to standup and proclaim they want a full scale war. If not perhaps they should shut the f up, and support the strategy that has been developed that actually gets both allies and the locals involved. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/09/11/if-republicans-want-full-scale-war-they-should-say-so/.
Obama is following the The Art of War by Sun Tzu, abridged edition "Confuse the enemy by having no strategy so that they don't know what to defend."
