Obama’s Iraq Options? Nothing. Nothing. And Nothing.

Translation for Obama’s options on Iraq

Written by Allen West on June 13, 2014 Obama said he is going to consider options for Iraq. Let me translate. Option one, you close down the US Embassy and flee today. Option two, you close down the US Embassy and flee tomorrow.

Operation Clusterfuck

Obama needs this on his Air Force One jacket

Today’s speech was vintage Obama: more words, more talk, and no solutions. It is up to the Iraqis to solve their problems? Then why Mr. President did you violate the War Powers Act and provide military support to islamists in Libya? Obama says, “We should look at the situation carefully” — well, what red lines does he need? It would have been better for Obama to say nothing — or maybe it doesn’t matter because in giving a speech, he said nothing anyway. Is the Syrian Civil War overflowing into Iraq? Obama responded, “That’s been happening for some time.” Yes, Obama, it is a long-term problem, one which you created and could have been avoided. http://allenbwest.com/2014/06/translation-obamas-options-iraq/

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Christiane (a woman friend on an Amazon Book Review site) says: For those who like to condense the complicated war in Iraq down to spoon fed liberal talking points, here is more information explaining how Obama is now losing the war that had been won upon his taking office.

Bush’s finest hour in Iraq: the Status of Forces Agreement.

Signing a Status of Forces Agreement requiring the full withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq on a fixed three year timeline demonstrated a real flexibility on Bush’s part. It demonstrated a pragmatism and willingness to put the national interest ahead of partisanship that few of us believed he possessed. It is largely thanks to Bush’s acceptance of his own bargaining failure that Barack Obama will inherit a plausible route to successful disengagement from Iraq. Conservatives now like to claim the SOFA as a “Bush-negotiated” success. But Bush entered the SOFA negotiations looking for something entirely different than what emerged at the end. The U.S. went into the SOFA talks intent on obtaining legitimacy for a long-term military presence in Iraq once the Security Council mandate ended. When negotiations began, it was widely assumed that Bush would extract from the Iraqis an agreement which made the removal of U.S. troops entirely contingent upon American assessments of conditions on the ground. There were widespread discussions of permanent U.S. bases and a Korea-style presence for generations, an assumption that the U.S. would retain a free hand in its operations, and an absolute rejection of an Obama-style timeline for withdrawal. But Iraqi leaders, to most everyone’s surprise, took a hard line in the negotiations. Their tough line was encouraged by Iran, no doubt, as stressed by many frustrated American commentators. But it also reflected Iraqi domestic considerations, including several rounds of upcoming elections and an intensely strong popular Iraqi hostility to the U.S. occupation under any name. The Iraqis were also helped by the calendar. As negotiations dragged on, the December 31 deadline loomed large, threatening to leave the U.S. troops without any legal mandate to remain in the country and forcing the hand of American negotiators. Finally, the Iraqi leaders clearly kept a careful eye on the American Presidential elections and used Obama’s stance to strengthen their own hand in negotiations. And here’s where I will offer some sincere praise for Bush and his team. When the Iraqis insisted on an Obama-style timeline for U.S. withdrawal instead of a Bush/McCain- style conditions-based aspirational time frame for U.S. withdrawal, he could have insisted on the latter. This would have fit with his administration’s often-repeated preferences. He could have continued to push for this conception closer to the December 31 deadline, playing high-stakes chicken at the expense of American military planning for the coming year and at the risk of the Iraqi political system not having adequate time to ratify the deal. But he didn’t. To his credit, Bush agreed to the Obama-style timeline for U.S. withdrawal. Granted, he hedged — he didn’t authorize Ambassador Ryan Crocker to sign off on the deal until after the Presidential election (on November 18). But at that point he bowed to the political realities in the U.S. and Iraq and agreed to a SOFA which far more closely matched Obama’s avowed vision for Iraq — withdrawal of U.S. forces in three years, no permanent bases — than his own. Thanks to this pragmatism, Obama can now work closely with the Iraqi government in managing the drawdown instead of spending his first months in office trying to wriggle out of an unacceptable deal. And this, I might speculate, is among the reasons why Robert Gates will continue as Secretary of Defense. And thus I offer Bush’s willingness to sign the SOFA mandating U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and not the surge, as his finest moment in Iraq.” BUT, Obama did NOT work closely with the Iraqi government in managing the drawdown. He was either unwilling or unable to negotiate a SOFA with Iraq. Bush had negotiated just such an agreement in 2008. Rather than working out an updated SOFA, the Obama administration let the 2008 pact lapse, and ALL U.S. forces departed Iraq at the end of 2011. It was then that military leaders and Congressmen such as McCain, who understand war, predicted that what is happening today was inevitable. Obama took all the credit for using Bush’s timeline of ending the war, then turned his back on Iraq, failed to communicate with al-Maliki any further, and worst of all he left with no Status of Forces Agreement, which was crucial. This explains how one POTUS, who inherited a war that had been won, unilaterally saw to it that years of fighting, a trillion dollars, and thousands of Americans whose lives had been lost and ruined, was all for naught in his attempt to appease his base and end the war in such a way that it was a foregone conclusion that the enemy would return with a vengeance. Now Obama does nothing, as if he never saw it coming (like everything else that happens). Obama says he “Read about it in a newspaper.” Iraq had asked him for help, but they never got a response. Bush accurately predicted the consequences, see link. Obama called it the “Arab Spring,” but today we know it as the Benghazi debacle, the false video and lies that followed it, and the rise of radical Islam and ISIS, which is now a huge threat to America and the world.

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My reply to Christine: Alas, Gates did not continue as SECDEF. He was traded for Chuck Hagel — a Soros lackey. Hagel is a Vietnam Vet and a Republican, but weak, political, servile, and with no command experience. His job? To preside over dismantling our Military. Hagel did his master’s bidding: https://blog.johntrudel.com/?p=941 I was not fond of Bush’s policies, for reasons best not discussed here. Still, despite much too high a cost and coddling (versus killing) dangerous jihadist leaders (who are now being set loose by Obama to kill us), the truth is that after the surge, radical Islam was soundly defeated in Iraq. The surge worked. Militarily, the jihadists controlled nothing. Politically, they were no longer a factor. But Iraq,  alas, was still what Iraq always had been: Divided, conflicted, and populated by groups who hated each other and had warred against each other for centuries. Recall, Churchill created Iraq by drawing lines on a map containing groups of fanatical warring factions in a (successful) effort to put them under British control and manage the threat. Saigon-hubert-van-es Still, the Iraq war was over — just as Vietnam was won when we left, with our troops out and a peace treaty signed — part of which was an American agreement to provide air support, arms, training, etc. But when the left swept into power, it was Crazy Joe Biden in the Senate who led the charge to cut off funding, preventing these promises from being kept. The result was the fall of Saigon and the Killing Fields where millions died. The same tragic dynamic, it seems, is unfolding in the Mideast. Crazy Joe was given the job, by Obama himself, to negotiate the needed terms in the Iraq status of forces agreement so we could leave troops and bases there as every military commander recommended. This never happened. The result now? Still unfolding, but given the Soros/Obama/Code Pink/Hillary Arab Spring (= Islamic Winter) along with our greatly weakened military, Obama’s Anti-American pro-Islamist inclinations, the troubled state of our country, and the monumental incompetence of his administration, my guess is a regional or wider war. VietnamWall As a Thriller Author I have many fans and friends who are Vets or serving military. A number of young Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are horrified and saying things like, “It’s just like what my father said about watching the fall of Saigon.” We have again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and thus wasted the blood and sacrifice of our brave young men and women in the military. But in this case, it is worse. Obama has also doubled down by releasing the most dangerous terrorists on the planet, and opening our Southern Border to a flood of OTM illegals, including drug cartels, paramilitary groups, and Islamic jihadists. Regional war is likely. So are jihadist attacks on our homeland. Obama doesn’t WANT to fix this. He doesn’t care. And, even if he did, he’s not COMPETENT to do so. And in either case, NOTHING he says can be trusted. By anyone. Polls consistently tell us that, while he is still liked by Americans, a MAJORITY OF THE PUBLIC DOES NOT TRUST HIM.

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Revealed: How Obama SET FREE the merciless terrorist warlord now leading the ISIS horde blazing a trail of destruction through Iraq.

  • WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
  • The U.S. once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, it was revealed Friday
  • Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.’s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq
  • It is unclear why the U.S. let the merciless al Qaeda leader slip away
  • Al Baghadadi and his troops took the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi earlier this year and conquered Tikrit and Mosul within the last several days
  • They are now bearing down on Baghdad, burning down everything that stands in their way and carrying out executions on Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officers
  • ISIS posted an image today of an officer’s decapitated head tweeted with sickening message: ‘This is our ball. It’s made of skin #WorldCup’

By Francesca Chambers The United States once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, but president Barack Obama let him go, it was revealed on Friday. Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.’s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq. But now five years later he is leading the army of ruthless extremists bearing down on Baghdad who want to turn the country into an Islamist state by blazing a bloody trail through towns and cities, executing Iraqi soldiers, beheading police officers and gunning down innocent civilians. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2657231/Revealed-Obama-RELEASED-warlord-head-ISIS-extremist-army-five-years-ago.html#ixzz34YrZ1Atb

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2 Responses to Obama’s Iraq Options? Nothing. Nothing. And Nothing.

  1. Pingback: War on Terror –> Jobs for jihadis –> “Hand’s up, Don’t Shoot” for terrorists… | Freedom Writers

  2. John Trudel says:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/isis-leader-see-you-in-new-york.html

    ISIS Leader: `See You in New York’

    When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi walked away from a U.S. detention camp in 2009, the future leader of ISIS issued some chilling final words to reservists from Long Island.

    The Islamist extremist some are now calling the most dangerous man in the world had a few parting words to his captors as he was released from the biggest U.S. detention camp in Iraq in 2009.

    “He said, `I’ll see you guys in New York,'” recalls Army Col. Kenneth King, then the commanding officer of Camp Bucca.

    King didn’t take these words from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a threat. Al-Baghdadi knew that many of his captors were from New York, reservists with the 306 Military Police Battalion, a unit based on Long Island that includes numerous numerous members of the NYPD and the FDNY. The camp itself was named after FDNY Fire Marshal Ronald Bucca, who was killed at the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

    King figured that al-Baghdadi was just saying that he had known all along that it was all essentially a joke, that he had only to wait and he would be freed to go back to what he had been doing.

    “Like, `This is no big thing, I’ll see you on the block,'” King says.

    King had not imagined that in less that five years he would be seeing news reports that al-Baghdadi was the leader of ISIS, the ultra-extremist army that was sweeping through Iraq toward Baghdad.

    “I’m not surprised that it was someone who spent time in Bucca but I’m a little surprised it was him,” King says. “He was a bad dude, but he wasn’t the worst of the worst.”

    King allows that along with being surprised he was frustrated on a very personal level.

    “We spent how many missions and how many soldiers were put at risk when we caught this guy and we just released him,” King says.

    During the four years that al-Baghdadi was in custody, there had been no way for the Americans to predict what a danger he would become. Al-Baghdadi hadn’t even been assigned to Compound 14, which was reserved for the most virulently extremist Sunnis.

    “A lot of times, the really bad guys tended to operate behind the scenes because they wanted to be invisible,” the other officer says.

    “The worst of the worst were kept in one area,” King says. “I don’t recall him being in that group.”

    Al-Baghdadi was also apparently not one of the extremists who presided over Sharia courts that sought to enforce fundamentalist Islamic law among their fellow prisoners. One extremist made himself known after the guards put TV sets outside the 16-foot chain-link fence that surrounded each compound. An American officer saw a big crowd form in front of one, but came back a short time later to see not a soul.

    “Some guy came up and shooed them all away because TV was Western,” recalls the officer, who asked not to be named. “So we identified who that guy was, put a report in his file, kept him under observation for other behaviors.”

    The officer says the guards kept constant watch for clues among the prisoners for coalescing groups and ascending leaders.

    “You can tell when somebody is eliciting leadership skills, flag him, watch him further, how much leadership they’re excerpting and with whom,” the other officer says. “You have to constantly stay after it because it constantly changes, sometimes day by day.”

    The guards would seek to disrupt the courts along with and any nascent organizations and hierarchies by moving inmates to different compounds, though keeping the Sunnis and the Shiites separate.

    “The Bloods with the Bloods and the Crips with the Crips, that kind of thing,” King says.

    The guards would then move the prisoners again and again. That would also keep the prisoners from spotting any possible weaknesses in security.

    “The detainees have nothing but time,” King says. “They’re looking at patterns, they’re looking at routines, they’re looking for opportunities.”

    As al-Baghdadi and the 26,000 other prisoners were learning the need for patience in studying the enemy, the guards would be constantly searching for homemade weapons fashioned from what the prisoners dug up, the camp having been built on a former junkyard.

    “People think of a detainee operation, they think it’s a sleepy Hogan’s Heroes-type camp,” the other officer says. “And it’s nothing of the sort.”

    Meanwhile, al-Baghdadi’s four years at Camp Bucca would have been a perpetual lesson in the importance of avoiding notice.

    “A lot of times, the really bad guys tended to operate behind the scenes because they wanted to be invisible,” the other officer says.

    King seemed confident that he and his guards with their New York street sense would have known if al-Baghdadi had in fact been prominent among the super-bad guys when he was at Camp Bucca.

    King had every reason to think he had seen the last of al-Baghdadi in the late summer of 2009, when this seemingly unremarkable prisoner departed with a group of others on one of the C-17 cargo-plane flights that ferried them to a smaller facility near Baghdad. Camp Bucca closed not along afterward.

    Al-Baghdadi clearly remembered some of the lessons of his time there. He has made no videos, unlike Osama bin Laden and many of the other extremist leaders. The news reports might not have had a photo of him at all were it not for the one taken by the Americans when he was first captured in 2005.

    That is the face that King was so surprised to see this week as the man who had become the absolute worst of the worst, so bad that even al Qaeda had disowned him. The whole world was stunned as al-Baghdadi now told his enemies “I’ll see you in Baghdad.”

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