Via Ron Paul Institute for Peace
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Last week President Obama admitted that his administration has not worked out a strategy on how to deal with the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a dominant force in the Middle East. However, as ISIS continues its march through Syria and Iraq, many in the US administration believe it is, in the words of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a threat “beyond anything we have ever seen.”
Predictably, the neocons attacked the president’s speech. They believe the solution to any problem is more bombs and troops on the ground, so they cannot understand the president’s hesitation.
Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon made it clear that fighting ISIS is going to cost a lot more money and will bring US forces back to Iraq for the third time. The post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan peace dividend disintegrates.
Mr. McKeon said last week:
ISIS is an urgent threat and a minimalist approach, that depends solely on FY15 funding or pinprick strikes that leave fragile forces in Iraq and Syria to do the hard fighting, is insufficient to protect our interests and guarantee our safety in time.
What does this mean in practice? If the neocons have their way, the Federal Reserve will “print” more money to finance another massive US intervention in the Middle East. In reality this means further devaluation of the US dollar, which is a tax on all Americans that will hit the poorest hardest.
A new US military incursion will not end ISIS; it will provide them with the recruiting tool they most crave, while draining the US treasury. Just what Osama bin Laden wanted!
McKeon and the other hawks act as if they had only recently become aware of the ISIS. Or if they noticed it, they pretend US policy had nothing to do with its rise.
McKeon also said last week, “ISIS threat was allowed to build and fester over a period of time.”
In fact, US regime change policy in Syria was directly responsible for the rise of ISIS over these past three years. As journalist Eric Margolis observed recently, the emergence of ISIS is the “mother of all blowback.” The neocons who want us to get tougher on ISIS, including a US attack on Syria, are the same ones who not long ago demanded that we support groups like ISIS to overthrow the Assad government in Syria. US-trained and funded “moderates” from the Free Syrian Army joined the Islamist militias including ISIS, taking US weapons and training with them.
Three years of supporting any force that might overthrow the secular government of President Assad has produced a new monster in the Middle East that neocons insist the US must slay.
Why can’t they just admit they were wrong? Why can’t the interventionists just admit that their support for regime change in Syria was a terrible and tragic mistake?
If ISIS is as big a threat as they claim, why can’t they simply ask Assad to help out? Assad has never threatened the United States; ISIS has. Assad has been fighting ISIS and similar Islamist extremist groups for three years.
Why does the US government insist on aligning with theocracies in the Middle East? If there is anything that contradicts the US Constitution and American values it is a theocratic government. I do not believe that a majority in the Middle East wants to live under such a system, so why do we keep pushing it on them? Is that what they call promoting democracy?
A lack of strategy is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the president will finally stop listening to the neocons and interventionists whose recommendations have gotten us into this mess in the first place! Here’s a strategy: just come home.
Here Comes Increased Deficit Spending to Fight IS
Written by Adam Dick
You might think that, with the US government debt increasing year after year and bloated US military spending nearly equal to the combined military spending of the rest of the world, the US government would try to find a way to fight the Islamic State without increasing spending. Supposing the US government proceeds with further escalating yet another Middle East war, couldn’t President Barack Obama and Congress at least work together to pay the bill by transferring billions of spare dollars from elsewhere in the vast and wasteful US military and intelligence budgets? How about starting by canning the US government’s mass spying program?
If you are asking these sorts of questions, you obviously do not have the qualifications to serve as a US House of Representatives committee chairman overseeing the distribution of largess to the military-industrial complex.
US House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) demonstrates in his Wednesday morning press release how to aid the “masters of war,” declaring:
First, ISIS is an urgent threat and a minimalist approach, that depends solely on [fiscal year 2015] funding or pinprick strikes that leave fragile forces in Iraq and Syria to do the hard fighting, is insufficient to protect our interests and guarantee our safety in time.
While you might want to hold on to your wallets, the days when doing that could stop government spending are long past. Obama, McKeon, and their fellow war conspirators in politics and business have the Federal Reserve to create more dollars for yet more war.
OK, folks, wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute. You have to remember the 1st Rule of Obamunism: Anything Obama says, no matter how accurate it may seem, is actually the exact opposite of the truth (This is frequently known by children as “Opposite Day”).
This means that, for instance, if Obama claims it’s sunny outside, grab your umbrella before you go. Should he tell you it is raining, grab your tank top and water bottle.
When Obama tells you he’s going to have the most transparent administration in history, expect obfuscation and a level of controversy only slightly less than Gay Marriage.
If Obama tells you his massive new boondoggle medical plan will save you $2500+ a year, expect to be in the poorhouse.
Should Obama inform you America will lead from behind, assume America will be a laughing stock.
If Obama tells you the Russians invaded the Ukraine, don’t panic.
If Obama tells you the U.S. is at peace and expects to remain at peace with all her allies and associates, grab your shovel and start digging a fallout shelter in the backyard.
Should Obama tell you he’s working as hard as possible on X issue, assume he will be inconveniencing some community hosting a premium golf course.
So, based on the “Opposite Day” rule, I assume Obama DOES have a strategy, it’s just a strategy we’ll all hate and be fundamentally opposed to. My suspicion is Obama’s non-strategy is peaceful coexistence, financial and military support, with the occasional fearful rhetoric at home and the very occasional scary, but ineffective, airstrike to make it look like America is large and in charge.
You won’t be hearing too much of the war dumbs until after our circus election in November.
Never forget that Obongo is the Cabal’s “creature” and that he is only doing the bidding of his “masters”. That understood – we only need to discern the locus of the Cabal’s sole motive (financial plunder) in the Mideast situation to determine the policy that the Obongo regime will pursue with regard to ISIS. BC-LR to all