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  1. Sorry but you have more than implied the above many times. You have also supported the president's contention of the.

    Problem is Red he stayed the wrong course for much too long. I have criticized his lack of action in the past. It has NOT been pragmatic but has ignored reality. What is happening today is due to him ignoring the advice from his Sec of State (HRC) and senior advisors.

    Actually Red he is doing what is required right now and I have no complaints. Read my criticisms Red don't imagine them.

    It was there for your edification Red not a debating point.

    As I said above I have no complaints about what the president is doing right now. I will watch and see if he is able to get a coalition of ME countries to not only support our action but participate in them as Bush Sr did in 1991 and W did in Iraq 2.

    Frankly this is a time to give him and his advisors a chance.
  2. "Implied?" Seriously?

    Look, I support many of the Presidents policies that I think are getting unfairly criticized. That doesn't mean that everything that he says is anything that I have said or defended. If you want to criticize me, then quote my comments and try to get it right.

    Amazing. You completely ignore that the circumstances have changed dramatically and he has taken action in the past. Its the same old "everything Obama does is wrong" mantra. That hasn't flown in a long time .

    Then you forgot that Hillary is NOT his Secretary of State, but a Presidential candidate. He has many senior advisors with many different opinions which he weighs when making decisions. His Secretary of State agrees with him.

    Hell, I'll quote them . . . "After years of claiming AQ has been destroyed and ISIS is the JV and that W's war authorization was not right, he has reversed himself. Now he is twisting his past words, actions and claims." -- Winston1

    Sounds like criticisms to me.

    And since you have already criticized me for it, I will address them now.

    1. When has Obama claimed that Al Qaeda was destroyed? He didn't. He said that Al Qaeda has been decimated, which is true. Look up decimated, it does not mean destroyed.

    2. When has Obama said that ISIS is the JV? He didn't. Here is what he said.

    Remnick: "In Iraq, in Syria, of course, in Africa, al-Qaeda is resurgent."

    Obama: "Yes, but, David, I think the analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian."​

    In context, it is quite clear that he is discussing many groups engaged in local jihads versus Al Qaeda who has actually attacked the homeland.

    3. "W's war authorization was not right"? This is confusing. What Obama quote are you referring to?

    Not one middle eastern country contributed combat troops to the Iraq War in 2003. It had worked in 1991 because it was an invasion by an ambitious Arab country against a peaceful Arab country. It failed in 2003 because it was the US invading an secular Arab country. This time it is about an radical religious sect waging insurgencies against two Arab countries. It is far more complex because of the radical religious jihadist element and because two very different countries are involved--one an ally, the other an enemy. It will likely take more time than in 1991 to sort out the politics and get Arab troops involved as in 1991.

    On this we can agree.
  3. From rapper and hip hop artist to jihadist. From Densi Cuspert to Deso Dogg to Abu Talha, this psycho couldn't make it as a gangsta


    As war in Syria and Iraq attracts a growing number of Muslim extremists from Europe, intelligence officials in Germany believe a former gangsta rapper has joined the inner circle of Islamists fighting there.

    Denis Cuspert was once a modestly successful member of Germany's hip-hop scene going by the stage name Deso Dogg. Now he calls himself Abu Talha the German and is a top propagandist for the so-called Islamic State (IS) caliphate, which is blamed for several wartime atrocities.

    His ascent into the upper IS ranks is raising concerns that such "homegrown" Islamists could embolden Muslim extremists in Germany or that they might one day return themselves to target the country for terrorism.

    "Cuspert won't come back since there's an arrest warrant waiting for him," Elke Altmüller, a spokeswoman for Germany's Verfassungsschutz domestic intelligence agency, told Yahoo News. "But there's a danger he could incite others."

    And as the cross-border conflict in Syria and Iraq continues to rage, it is luring hundreds of would-be jihadis from Europe, including radicalized converts like the ex-rapper. Although the German authorities have said they see no indications an attack is imminent, they are attempting to track fighters returning from the war zone.

    Currently, there are an estimated 400 Muslim extremists from Germany in Syria, either directly engaging in fighting or otherwise supporting the Islamists. Altmüller said roughly 10 percent of them were German converts to Islam. According to intelligence reports, some 40 have been killed in the conflict.

    That was almost the fate of the 38-year-old Cuspert after he was seriously injured in an airstrike by Syrian forces in September 2013. But he survived, and being wounded apparently helped him win respect among the extremists. He eventually swore allegiance in an online video this spring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has since declared himself caliph of the repressive Islamic State.

    Born to a German mother and Ghanaian father, Cuspert grew up in a gritty Berlin neighborhood and got involved in petty crime and gangs while aspiring to become a rap star. He enjoyed some success, even touring in Germany with U.S. rapper DMX. His lyrics in his song "Who's Afraid of the Black Man" document his early disillusionment and violent tendencies:

    Doing time in my skin like Tookie Williams in San Quentin/
    No identity, where will this end?
    In a white world full of hate and illusion/
    The last option was only violence and emotion.

    But he never managed to make it big rapping, and after a car accident he started to look to radical Islam for direction in life. Over the past four years, he abandoned his music career to become an Islamist poster boy in the German-speaking world, posting videos that encourage Muslims to join the caliphate's holy war.

    "I was a sinner. I lived in sin before I turned to Islam. Surrounded by music, drugs, alcohol and women," he said in one recent propaganda video.

    Another scene shows Cuspert hitting the head of a corpse with a rock at the site of a suspected IS massacre east of the Syrian city of Homs.

    The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany, which has a thriving Salafist scene promulgating an especially dogmatic form of Sunni Islam. The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany.

    After two policemen were stabbed during a Salafist protest in the city of Bonn in May 2012, Cuspert used his rap skills to glorify the attacker as "the German lion Murat K." in a poem. And despite renouncing his musical background, he regularly composes Islamic chants known as "anasheeds" in praise of jihad.

    According to the German authorities, the man behind the only deadly Islamist attack in Germany, Arid Uka, watched a video of an anasheed by Cuspert before he shot dead two U.S. servicemen at Frankfurt Airport in 2011. Uka's Facebook account was also linked with Cuspert's profile on the social media website.

    German mother and Ghanaian father, Cuspert grew up in a gritty Berlin neighborhood and got involved in petty crime and gangs while aspiring to become a rap star. He enjoyed some success, even touring in Germany with U.S. rapper DMX. His lyrics in his song "Who's Afraid of the Black Man" document his early disillusionment and violent tendencies:

    Doing time in my skin like Tookie Williams in San Quentin/
    No identity, where will this end?
    In a white world full of hate and illusion/
    The last option was only violence and emotion.

    But he never managed to make it big rapping, and after a car accident he started to look to radical Islam for direction in life. Over the past four years, he abandoned his music career to become an Islamist poster boy in the German-speaking world, posting videos that encourage Muslims to join the caliphate's holy war.

    "I was a sinner. I lived in sin before I turned to Islam. Surrounded by music, drugs, alcohol and women," he said in one recent propaganda video.

    Another scene shows Cuspert hitting the head of a corpse with a rock at the site of a suspected IS massacre east of the Syrian city of Homs.

    The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany, which has a thriving Salafist scene promulgating an especially dogmatic form of Sunni Islam. The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany.

    After two policemen were stabbed during a Salafist protest in the city of Bonn in May 2012, Cuspert used his rap skills to glorify the attacker as "the German lion Murat K." in a poem. And despite renouncing his musical background, he regularly composes Islamic chants known as "anasheeds" in praise of jihad.

    According to the German authorities, the man behind the only deadly Islamist attack in Germany, Arid Uka, watched a video of an anasheed by Cuspert before he shot dead two U.S. servicemen at Frankfurt Airport in 2011. Uka's Facebook account was also linked with Cuspert's profile on the social media website.
  4. It's only a matter of time before some American or Euro scum perpetrate a crime on US or Euro soil. We've all seen the Australian terror plot get disrupted but intelligence isn't perfect. I think we will see a beheading in Times Square.

    ISIS knows what it's doing. They are appealing to the disenfranchised....the ones who want fame, attention, and power. They are using social media in a very effective way.

    The Germans are always the most fringe element.
    shane0911 likes this.
  5. Try again Red Not only HRC but both former Sec of Defense (who BTW aren't running for President) and according to Leon Paneta his whole national security team urged he take more action to support moderates in Syria and to stay in Iraq and to stop ISIS earlier.
    The fact is he has a fixed idea of they way he wants the world to be and cannot adjust to reality until it is forced on him. That Kerry agrees with him is unknown...he is being the loyal soldier he is supposed to be while in office as was HRC when she was SOS.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/gate...um=email&utm_source=alerts&nr_email_referer=1

    BTW the article I cite is to support my comment not for you to debate.
  6. This has been happening for some time now, ISIS is hardly the first jihadist group out there to influence domestic muslims in the west . . . the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Fort Hood shootings, the British subway bombings, and dozens of smaller murder incidents.

    None of these incidents, not even 9/11, threatened the existence of the United States. Osama bin Ladin thought that bringing down the WTC would cause a US economic collapse. As much as they enrage us, they are pinpricks. Regarding ISIS, right now they are potential pinpricks.

    We have thwarted dozens of potential attacks already--the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the toner cartridge bombs, NY subway boomers, the Times Square bomber, etc. Homeland security and the FBI can deal with these kinds of crimes, which pre-existed ISIS and will continue to exist long after ISIS is gone. Each of them does not call for an overseas war. Did we attack Chechnya after Boston? Nope. Did we step up surveillance and monitoring of radical Chechans among us? Damn right we did.

    ISIS is also smart enough to bait the US into fighting the kind of war that they want to fight--a guerrilla war in a hostile land. That is not the kind of war that America wants to fight. American wins wars of attrition (Civil War, WWII, Cold War) and blitzkrieg wars (The Gulf War, Panama, Grenada) using overwhelming force and deep pockets.

    America muddles around in guerrilla wars (Phillipines, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) and never leaves with a true victory. We end up in a knife fight with an enemy on his own terms on his own turf and leave with an agreement that nobody honors. We cannot use overwhelming force to advantage against an enemy who rarely stands and fights and prefers ambushes and mines. These wars become protracted and we bleed casualties and $billions for years. We need to fight smarter this time.

    It is important that we not repeat old mistakes expecting new results. We have time to get this right and fashion a war on our terms. One that forces the locals to step up and defend themselves rather than sit on their asses and let us try to do it. This will take patience from us because the locals we have to deal with are stubborn, xenophobic, dogmatic, untrustworthy, and not particularly courageous.

    Well, half of them were raised and educated under Soviet domination in East Germany while the other half was raised under NATO domination and both were indoctrinated with non-violence and compliance with authority, which both resisted, of course. Germany has always been an amalgamation of small principalities with hot politics and occasional dictators who manage to unify them and march them off on huge lemming-like military adventures from time to time. Europe is always sensitive to the sound of marching jackboots on the north German plain.

    Germans are also prosperous. Just like we let millions of Mexicans come to the US to pick our lettuce, make our hotel beds, and mow our grass, the Germans import mostly muslim Turks but some formerly communist Poles, Romanians, and Hungarians who are now restless and sometimes radical minorities. This ain't our daddy's Germany.
  7. With all the talk about ISIS being "the JV team" and no threat the fact is they are pretty well funded. They make about $3 Million a day smuggling Iraqi oil and more with their human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom.

    Austin Long, a Columbia University assistant professor and former RAND Corp. analyst, compared ISIS s approach to that of the Mob.

    "It's like the Mafia. When it sees an opportunity to make money, it jumps in with both feet," he told NBC News. "So historically, they've made money on everything from protection rackets to carjacking to people's donations. … Now, they're selling resources they've taken from oil fields and oil refineries ... (and collecting) ransom."

    The second U.S. official said that in addition to selling equipment seized from the oil fields it has overrun, ISIS has been able to export some oil by disguising its point of origin and smuggling it out of the conflict zone. Some of that oil is going through Turkey, likely by truck, the official said.
    It also has enriched itself with the spoils of war in other ways.

    In June, the group raided Mosul's central bank and other smaller banks as its fighters overran Nineveh province in Iraq. Initial reports from the mayor of Mosul had the group had made off with as much as $400 million in currency and gold bullion, but a senior intelligence official told NBC News last month that number was more likely "to the tune of millions of dollars."


    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/is...als-how-will-isis-keep-funding-terror-n187296



    They are smuggling the oil in tanker trucks. It would seem like we should be able to blow up the trucks and shut off that source of income pretty easily.
  8. This is why they are not a state, but just a very large criminal organization operating in a power vacuum.

    Exactly. Turkey must be pressured to stop trading with ISIS. NATO and the EU have influence upon Turkey that must be utilized. ISIS supply routes are very vulnerable to air attacks but there are two problems.
    1. If we operate in Syrian airspace to interdict ISIS logistics we must destroy the Syrian anti-aircraft system or risk having planes shot down. That will put us at odds with the main people fighting ISIS on the ground.
    2. Most of the trucks supplying ISIS are civilians from Turkey. Destroying them will piss off Turkey, who we need in the coalition as a base for training rebels. Much diplomatic arm-twisting must happen.
  9. Apparently we have built an Arab coalition with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, UAE and Qatar (they're not taking part in airstrikes), and started launching cruise missiles in to Syria a head of the bombing and airstrikes that came earlier tonight. Right now hitting ISIS' hard targets are what we're after, but once there are no more hard targets left... who's boots are going to move in and take ISIS on as they move in to the urban areas?

    Also, laughable as it is... Putin is trying to call out these airstrikes on Syrian soil as illegal... claiming we have invaded a sovereign country. Guess he's forgotten about Ukraine and his part in a commercial jet liner being shot down.
  10. Iraqis in Iraq, Kurds in Kurdistan, and Syrians in Syria. Don't hold your breath in Syria. The rebels are too fragmented and will require a huge amount of training. That will also take some cooperation from Turkey, which ain't looking good. Those bastards are responsible for letting supplies into Iraq and letting ISIS sell oil through Turkey.

    Putin has a credibility issue. Let him flap his gums.
    GregLSU likes this.
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