“A Victim Of The True Intent Of Terror”: How Lindsey Graham Succumbed To The Tactics Of Terror And Embarrassed His Nation
If the objective of terrorism is to create fear in the minds and hearts of those who once walked the earth secure in the belief that their government will protect them from evil, Senator Lindsey Graham must now be presented as Exhibit A in the case to be made that the terrorists have, at least in the matter of Senator Graham, won.
Appearing on Fox in June of this year, Graham made the argument that America’s willingness to take on the ISIL challenge with a military response wld help head off another 9/11 style attack—not an irrational point of view at a time when we were coming to grips with the arrival of this new, well-funded and well-organized enemy.
A short time later, Graham was back on TV raising the ante.
As Simon Maloy points out over at Salon.com, “In August, Graham was invited to Fox News Sunday to talk terrorism, and upped the Islamic State’s fantasy body count to an entire city’s worth. “
Said Graham, “When I look at the map that Gen. Keane described, I think of the United States. I think of an American city in flames because of the terrorists’ ability to operate in Syria and Iraq.”
Somehow, in just a matter of weeks, Graham’s fears had escalated from concern over a 9/11 style attack to an entire American city going up in smoke at the hands of the ISIL forces. A bit much, in my opinion, but at least one could make a somewhat credible argument that terrorists seeking to destroy an American city might have the means to accomplish such an objective.
But that was nothing when compared to what was to come.
This past Sunday, Graham was making another of his seemingly never-ending appearances on Sunday morning TV when he looked at the camera, eyes ablaze in a fashion that brought to mind the frantic visage of Howard Beale, and exposed for all to see the terror that had come to grip his soul—
“This is a war we’re fighting! It is not a counterterrorism operation. This is not Somalia. This is not Yemen. This is a turning point in the war on terror. Our strategy will fail yet again. This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.”
I can agree with the Senator on his assertion that the battle to be fought in Northern Iraq and Syria is not akin to our experiences in either Somalia or Yemen. Like Graham, I thought the President was off-base when he sought to use our experiences in Yemen and Somalia as a point of comparison when describing what we might expect in the battles to be waged against the Islamic State.
I can also agree that this is, indeed, a war that we are now fighting, despite the huge amount of wasted ink and airtime that has been dedicated to useless discussions over those in the administration willing to use the word ‘war’ versus those who chose, initially, not to do so.
Sadly, I would also have to agree that Graham may be right about one more thing—this may indeed be a turning point in the war against terror, but certainly not the turning point Graham has in mind.
When a United States Senator appears before the world and reveals that he has grown positively unhinged and fully terrified at the prospects of our entire American population being wiped out by an organization infused and infected with a poisonous and murderous ideology, the terrorists have most assuredly succeeded in their efforts to terrorize Senator Lindsey Graham.
It is that fact that I now fear could be the turning point in the war against terror as it is now a United States Senator who seeks to put terror into the hearts of his countrymen where those committed to using that particular weapon of war have largely failed in their efforts.
One can only imagine the satisfaction terrorists around the world must have experienced at that moment when Lindsey Graham displayed how the latest example of a vicious terror campaign had, indeed, succeeded in infecting the mind and heart of someone who sits at the very highest levels of the United States government.
That feeling of inevitable satisfaction on the part of those who wish the world pain and evil comes at the expense of my own profound embarrassment that one of our nation’s leaders—and I could not care less which party that leader represents— would get in front of a camera and expose himself as a victim of the true intent of terror.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, September 16, 2014
“John McCain Is A Dangerous Radical”: He Has Advocated Attacking Roughly Half The Eastern Hemisphere’s Land Mass
It should be obvious by now that John McCain wants to attack everyone, everywhere. In September 2013, Mother Jones made a map of the world showing that McCain has advocated attacking roughly half the Eastern Hemisphere’s land mass. Now he wants to attack basically everyone in Syria. Even the hawkish Jeffrey Goldberg thinks this is a bit much:
McCain’s second criticism: Obama is not attacking the root cause of the Syrian war, which is the behavior of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its supporters in Iran. He said the U.S. should be bombing government targets at the same time it is bombing Assad’s Islamic State enemies. I, too, am dispositionally interventionist, but it seemed to me that McCain was outlining not only a formula for chaos, but also a program that could not possibly be sold to the American people.
I asked him this question: “Wouldn’t the generals say to you, ‘You want me to fight ISIS, and you want me to fight the guys who are fighting ISIS, at the same time? Why would we bomb guys who are bombing ISIS? That would turn this into a crazy standoff.’ ”
“Our ultimate job is not only to defeat ISIS but to give the Syrian people the opportunity to prevail as well,” McCain answered. “Remember, there are 192,000 dead Syrians thanks to Assad. If we do this right, if we do the right kind of training and equipping of the Free Syrian Army, plus air strikes, plus taking out Bashar Assad’s air assets, we could reverse the battlefield equation.”
The U.S. could conceivably wage war on two fronts against two vicious parties that are also warring against each other, on a battlefield in which another set of America’s enemies — Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — are also fighting. But this is a much too complicated mission for any post-Iraq War American president to prudently tackle, even a president not quite so reluctant as Obama.
For those Americans who are moving toward McCain and away from Paul on crucial questions concerning the U.S.’s role in the world, I can’t imagine that they would be able to stomach such a war, either.
If you think John McCain actually understands the complexity of trying to hold together an alliance to fight ISIS that includes Sunni governments in Amman, Riyadh, Cairo, and Ankara and Shiite governments in Baghdad and Teheran, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. The war in Syria is sectarian in nature, as are most of the problems within Iraq.
If you are trying to get Baghdad to govern inclusively, you can’t take the side of the Sunnis in Syria. If you can get consensus from the Sunni powers to eliminate the most radical and effective army on their side of the fight, then you’ve accomplished something. But, if you take it too far, everything will blow up in your face.
I wake up every day thanking fate that John McCain never got to order our armed forces around.
By: Martin Longman, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 14, 2014
“Rubio Says Defeating ISIS Has Been ‘Achieved’ In The Past”: Inadvertently Helped Prove Just How Difficult The Current Challenge Is
The debate over U.S. counter-terrorism policy is obviously complex, and in the wake of President Obama’s speech this week, there are no easy answers. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), perhaps inadvertently, helped prove just how difficult the current challenge is.
As Amanda Terkel noted, the Florida Republican has been urging President Obama to be even more aggressive in confronting the Islamic State – beyond the 150+ airstrikes the president has already ordered – but in an NPR interview, Rubio seemed to stumble onto the broader problem.
“Absolutely it’s a realistic goal. It’s been achieved in the past,” said the senator when asked by “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep whether “defeat” was truly possible. “This very same insurgency was defeated during the Awakening in Iraq. This is the same group that was driven out by Sunnis, who then reconstituted itself in Syria when that became an unstable and ungoverned space. … But no matter how long it takes, we need to do it.”
As Simon Maloy explained in response, “There you have it. According to Rubio, we can absolutely defeat a terrorist insurgency because we have already defeated the same insurgency that we now have to defeat. Again.”
Right.
The point wasn’t lost on NPR’s Inskeep. “There are connections between this group and earlier extremist groups in Iraq,” the host told the senator. “They were battled for years and pushed back, but here they are years later. This could just be something that goes on and on, couldn’t it?”
Rubio replied, “It could, but that’s not – I mean, that’s just reality.”
Well, yes, I suppose it is, but the point is reality isn’t as easy as simply deploying the U.S. military to take out bad guys. On the one hand, Rubio believes it’s “absolutely” realistic to think we can “defeat” ISIS terrorists. On the other hand, Rubio also appreciates the fact that “reality” tells us violent radicals like these can be squashed temporarily, only to return.
I’m not trying to pick on Rubio, per se, but rather, his rhetoric is a helpful example of the underlying tension in the broader discussion. The Florida Republican is confident that fully defeating ISIS is “a realistic goal,” even while the senator realizes that it’s “just reality” to acknowledge a complete ISIS defeat may not be possible.
Rubio added that the U.S. mission against Islamic State must continue, “no matter what it takes” and “no matter how long it takes.”
And under Rubio’s vision, that would almost certainly be a very long time, pursuing an endpoint that remains on a perpetual horizon.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 12, 2014
“The New Politics Of Foreign Policy”: Steadier, More Sober, More Realistic—The Balance We Have Been Seeking
Over the last decade, Americans’ views on foreign policy have swung sharply from support for intervention to a profound mistrust of any military engagement overseas. Over the same period, political debates on foreign affairs have been bitter and polarized, defined by the question of whether the invasion of Iraq was a proper use of the nation’s power or a catastrophic mistake.
This contest for public opinion has taken place in the shadow of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. For understandable reasons, the United States was thrown off balance by the horrific events of 13 years ago, and we have never fully recovered.
The emergence of the Islamic State and its barbaric beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff have shaken public opinion again. It is, of course, possible that the public’s guardedly increased hawkishness is another short-term reaction to an enraging news event. But there is a strong case that, after all the gyrations in policy and popular attitudes, we are on the verge of a new politics of foreign policy based on a steadier, more sober and more realistic view of our country’s role in the world and of what it takes to keep the nation safe.
And it fell to President Obama on Wednesday night to take the first steps toward building a durable consensus that can outlast his presidency. The paradox is that, while polls show Americans more critical than ever of the president’s handling of foreign affairs, the strategy he outlined toward the Islamic State has the potential of forging a unity of purpose across a wide swath of American opinion. In many ways, it is an approach that goes back to the pre-9/11 presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Two things are clear about where the public stands now: It is more ready to use U.S. power than it was even a few months ago. But it remains deeply wary of again committing U.S. combat troops to the Middle East. Thus the wide popularity of using air attacks to push back the Islamic State.
Obama’s strategy seeks to thread this needle. As the president explained Wednesday night, the bombing campaign the United States has undertaken is aimed at supporting those — including the Iraqi army, the Kurdish pesh merga and, perhaps eventually, Syrian opposition forces — who are bearing the burden of the fighting. Although the circumstances are quite different, Obama’s reliance on air power is reminiscent of Clinton’s actions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Obama said he was sending an additional 475 U.S. troops to Iraq “to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.” But he was again at pains to insist that they would “not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.”
More generally, Obama is pushing a tough-minded multilateralism. His stress on building “a broad coalition of partners” and the administration’s aggressive courting of allies in both the Middle East and Europe recalls the intense rounds of diplomacy that former secretary of state James A. Baker III led on behalf of the first President Bush before the successful war to drive Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait in 1991.
Obama’s diplomatic exertions have extended to pressuring Shiite politicians in Iraq to create what he called “an inclusive government” that Sunni Muslims could regard as their own. It was the creation of such a government, he said Wednesday, that now made the rest of his strategy possible. Above all, Obama went out of his way to describe his new effort as a “counterterrorism strategy,” tying it back to the cause that large majorities of Americans embraced after the 9/11 attacks and have never stopped supporting. His new effort, he insisted, “will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Some who championed the Iraq war will, no doubt, object to this implicit criticism of a venture they still defend. Others will point to the risks of relying on Iraqis and others to take the lead on the battlefield. In the meantime, anti-interventionists — who still loom large in the president’s party and in Republican libertarian quarters — will continue to be wary of any re-escalation of U.S. military engagement. And a bitter election season is hardly an ideal moment for building bipartisanship.
Nonetheless, circumstances have presented Obama with both an opportunity and an obligation to steer U.S. policy toward a middle course that acknowledges a need for American leadership and the careful use of American power while avoiding commitments that are beyond the country’s capacity to sustain. It is the balance we have been seeking since an awful day in September shook us to our core.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 10, 2014
“Obama And The Warmongers”: The Drums Of War And The Chants For Blood; The Politics Of The ISIS Threat
We seem to be drifting inexorably toward escalating our fight with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, as the Obama administration mulls whether to extend its “limited” bombing campaign into Syria.
Part of the reasoning is alarm at the speed and efficiency with which ISIS — a militant group President Obama described as “barbaric” — has made gains in northern Iraq and has been able to wash back and forth across the Syrian border. Part is because of the group’s ghastly beheading of the American journalist James Foley — which Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the C.I.A., called “ISIS’s first terrorist attack against the United States” — and threats to behead another.
But another part of the equation is the tremendous political pressure coming from the screeching of war hawks and an anxious and frightened public, weighted most heavily among Republicans and exacerbated by the right-wing media machine.
In fact, when the president tried to tamp down some of the momentum around more swift and expansive military action by indicating that he had not decided how best to move forward militarily in Syria, if at all, what Politico called an “inartful phrase” caught fire in conservative circles. When responding to questions, the president said, “We don’t have a strategy yet.”
His aide insisted that the phrase was only about how to move forward in Syria, not against ISIS as a whole, but the latter was exactly the impression conservatives moved quickly to portray.
It was a way of continuing to yoke Obama with the ill effects of a war started by his predecessor and the chaos it created in that region of the world.
In fact, if you listen to Fox News you might even believe that Obama is responsible for the creation of ISIS.
A few months ago, the Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro told her viewers that “you need to be afraid” because of Obama’s fecklessness in dealing with ISIS, adding this nugget:
“And the head of this band of savages is a man named Abu al-Baghdadi — the new Osama bin Laden — a man released by Obama in 2009 who started ISIS a year later.”
That would be extremely troubling, if true. But the fact-checking operation PolitiFact rated it “false,” saying:
“The Defense Department said that the man now known as Baghdadi was released in 2004. The evidence that Baghdadi was still in custody in 2009 appears to be the recollection of an Army colonel who said Baghdadi’s ‘face is very familiar.’
“Even if the colonel is right, Baghdadi was not set free; he was handed over to the Iraqis who released him some time later. But, more important, the legal contract between the United States and Iraq that guaranteed that the United States would give up custody of virtually every detainee was signed during the Bush administration.”
Fox, facts; oil, water.
But the disturbing reality is that the scare tactics are working. In July, a Pew Research Center report found that most Americans thought the United States didn’t have a responsibility to respond to the violence in Iraq.
According to a Pew Research Center report issued last week, however: “Following the beheading of American journalist James Foley, two-thirds of the public (67 percent) cite ISIS as a major threat to the United States.”
The report said that 91 percent of Tea Party Republicans described ISIS as a “major threat” as opposed to 65 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents.
The report also said:
“Half of the sample was asked about ISIS and the other half was asked about the broader threat of ‘Islamic extremist groups like Al Qaeda,’ which registered similar concern (71 percent major threat, 19 percent minor threat, 6 percent not a threat). Democrats were more likely to see global climate change than ISIS as a major threat.
Americans were thrilled by our decision to exit Iraq when we did, but support for that decision is dropping. In October 2011, Gallup asked poll respondents if they approved or disapproved of Obama’s decision that year to “withdraw nearly all United States troops from Iraq.” Seventy-five percent said they approved. In June of this year, the approval rate had fallen to 61 percent.
Yet 57 percent still believe that it was a mistake to send troops to fight in Iraq in the first place.
Now, Republicans are beginning to pull out the big gun — 9/11 — to further scare the public into supporting more action. Senator Lindsey Graham has said on Fox News that we must act to “stop another 9/11,” possibly a larger one, and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has warned, “Sadly, we’re getting back to a pre-9/11 mentality, and that’s very dangerous.”
Fear is in the air. The president is trying to take a deliberative approach, but he may be drowned out by the drums of war and the chants for blood.
By: Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, August 31, 2014
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