Keeping Abreast of the ISIL/ISIS Threat...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth


Following the ISIL/ISIS threat... The three articles below, two from The New York Times and the third from The Guardian discuss the threat, the administrations current positions, and the possible military course the USA may find itself taking at some point to effectively "dismantle and destroy" ISIL/ISIS, to use the President's words.

WASHINGTON — Militants for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have traveled to Mexico and are just miles from the United States. They plan to cross over the porous border and will “imminently” launch car bomb attacks. And the threat is so real that federal law enforcement officers have been placed at a heightened state of alert, and an American military base near the border has increased its security.

As the Obama administration and the American public have focused their attention on ISIS in recent weeks, conservative groups and leading Republicans have issued stark warnings like those that ISIS and other extremists from Syria are planning to enter the country illegally from Mexico. But the Homeland Security Department, the F.B.I. and lawmakers who represent areas near the border say there is no truth to the warnings.

“There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an active plot by ISIL to attempt to cross the southern border,” Homeland Security officials said in a written statement, using an alternative acronym for the group.

Democrats say opponents of President Obama are simply playing on concerns about terrorism as part of their attempt to portray Mr. Obama as having failed to secure the border against illegal immigration.

“There’s a longstanding history in this country of projecting whatever fears we have onto the border,” said Representative Beto O’Rourke, Democrat of Texas, who represents El Paso and other areas near the border. “In the absence of understanding the border, they insert their fears. Before it was Iran and Al Qaeda. Now it’s ISIS. They just reach the conclusion that invasion is imminent, and it never is.”

At a congressional hearing last week, Representative Jeff Duncan, Republican of South Carolina, pushed back strongly against the testimony of Homeland Security Department officials and Mr. O’Rourke, saying they were ignoring a gathering threat.

“Wake up, America,” Mr. Duncan said before storming out of the hearing. “With a porous southern border, we have no idea who’s in our country.”

But counterterrorism officials say they are far more concerned that an ISIS militant will enter the United States the same way millions of people do each year: legally, on a commercial flight. Their efforts have focused on the more than 2,000 Europeans and 100 Americans who have traveled to Syria to fight alongside extremist groups, nearly all of them crossing over its unprotected borders. Without markings in their passports to show that they traveled to Syria, American border authorities have few ways of determining where they were and stopping them from entering the country.
Read More BENEATH THE FOLD.


WASHINGTON — Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States combat forces against Islamic extremists in specific operations if the current strategy of airstrikes was not successful, offering a more expansive view of the American role in the ground war than that of President Obama.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said that while he was confident in the ability of the coalition of American, European and Middle Eastern governments to stop the Islamic State, he could not completely close the door to eventually asking Mr. Obama to commit ground troops to fight the group, known as ISIS or ISIL.

“My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true,” he said. “But if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the United States, then I of course would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground forces.”

Any future commitment of American personnel on the ground could put Mr. Obama in a difficult position, as he has repeatedly insisted that no American troops would engage in the battlefield, and Gen. Dempsey sought to explain the apparent contradiction.

“His stated policy is that we will not have U.S. forces in ground combat,” General Dempsey said, adding, “He has told me as well to come back to him on a case-by-case basis.”

In his speech last week announcing the expanded campaign against Islamic State, Mr. Obama said the military advisers he was sending to Iraq would help Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence, and equipment. But he emphatically ruled out front-line fighting.

“These American forces will not have a combat mission — we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq,” he said.

But as General Dempsey made it clear, the reality of the battle might make such a hands-off approach insufficient. When Iraqi or Kurdish forces are trying to dislodge militants from urban areas like Mosul, airstrikes are less effective because they can cause civilian casualties.

In those cases, the general said, he might recommend to the president that the United States send Special Operations troops to provide what he called “close combat advising,” essentially working alongside Iraqi commanders in the field and helping them direct troops to targets.
Read More BENEATH THE FOLD.


The Pentagon leadership suggested to a Senate panel on Tuesday that US ground troops may directly join Iraqi forces in combat against the Islamic State (Isis), despite US president Barack Obama’s repeated public assurances against US ground combat in the latest Middle Eastern war.

A day after US warplanes expanded the war south-west of Baghdad, Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate armed services committee that he could see himself recommending the use of some US military forces now in Iraq to embed within Iraqi and Kurdish units to take territory away from Isis.

“If we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific [Isis] targets, I will recommend that to the president,” Dempsey said, preferring the term “close combat advising”.

It was the most thorough public acknowledgement yet from Pentagon leaders that the roughly 1,600 US troops Obama has deployed to Iraq since June may in fact be used in a ground combat role, something Obama has directly ruled out, most recently in a televised speech last week.

Dempsey, who has for years warned about the “unintended consequences” of Americanizing the Syrian civil war that gave rise to Isis, said he envisioned “close combat advising” for operations on the order of taking Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, away from Isis.

He also opened the door to using US “advisers” to call in air strikes from the ground, something Dempsey said they have thus far not done but which the US Central Command leader, General Lloyd Austin, initially thought would be necessary when pushing Isis away from the Mosul Dam last month.

“He shares my view that there will be circumstances when we think that’ll be necessary, but we haven’t encountered one yet,” said Dempsey, himself a veteran of the last Iraq war.

Obama’s prohibition on ground forces in a combat role was less ironclad than the president has publicly stated, Dempsey suggested.

“At this point, his stated policy is we will not have US ground forces in direct combat,” Dempsey said, to include spotting for US air strikes. “But he has told me as well to come back to him on a case-by-case basis.”
Read More BENEATH THE FOLD.


All Via: Memeorandum

Comments

  1. “There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an active plot by ISIL to attempt to cross the southern border”.

    Exactly. I find the sentences that precede this rational assessment of the situation incredibly hard to believe. Nothing but scare tactics from the warmongering Right which is desperate to militarize and "seal" the border. As if that were possible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another wd alias, or sock puppet, or whatever... eh wd? Now get lost.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not only that, Les.. it was a wilful misquote of you

      Delete
  3. PS wd, I posted your remarks only because there happens to be some validity. For once.

    Don't plan on getting posted again with this moniker.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That moniker is a piker, Les, compared to some of the crazed doozies that I've gotten.......Full dissertations, some of them.

      Delete
  4. I've received a few of the whale type from wd as well Will. None were posted. wd is literate, is manipulative, has many obsessive compulsive bevavioral traits, is narcissistic, and possesses no self awareness. He is who he is, and unfortunately some of us are stuck with him and his antics.

    I actually think the dude would like to be a Lenin or Stalin if he had the opportunity. Weird is really what wd is, in an unsettling way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He lives at out sites and we never go to his. That pretty much sums it up and I totally agree with your character assessment.

      Delete
    2. He sure is glad to see us there. But I honestly have not gone back to see any of his blogs since I glimpsed the erection photo he put on one of his his " Dennis" fan blogs. Seems WD is way too happy to see us! Some things you can't un see.

      Delete
    3. How 'bout an Anthony Weiner, wd ticket? It would certainly garner the homoerotic, trolling the internet at all hours of the evening demographic for certain.

      Delete
  5. Representative O’Rourke: “In the absence of understanding the border, they insert their fears. Before it was Iran and Al Qaeda. Now it’s ISIS. They just reach the conclusion that invasion is imminent, and it never is.

    In other words, the partisan battle over immigration reform is rife with demagoguery, deception, pandering, and fear mongering and has been for a long time. Although our southern border is porous with regards to organized crime (i.e. drug cartels), there is no evidence linking the infiltration of terrorists across the same border.

    Yet, let’s try this thought experiment: Suppose organized terror made a pact with organized crime. In exchange for big money, suppose terrorists paid cartels large sums of money to traffic terrorists across the border. It hasn’t happened yet but the question is: Could it happen?

    Perhaps, but I doubt it because organized crime knows this: It would be very bad for business; the full force of American wrath and military power would be brought to bear.

    There are dangers within borders: Sovereign Citizens and Survivalists who shoot law enforcement offers and plan mass murder; free range militias; anarchists; and …

    ... this man, Russell Pearce who said: “You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations.”

    So which is worse: A barbaric and savage terrorist group such as ISIS that enslaves women, or the outrageous words of a deranged politician such as Russell Pearce who advocates forced sterilization.

    There are enough cranks and crazies WITHIN our borders who are as dangerous as any terrorist group.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Octo: So well said...especially on immigration.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

RN USA is a No Judgement Zone (to steal from Planet Fitness), so please, No Judgement of others. We reserve the right to delete any such comment immediately upon detection.

All views are welcome. As long as the comment is on topic and respectful of others.



Top Posts

As the Liberal/Progressive Media and Blogosphere Attempt To Destroy Governor Chris Christie...

And The Carnage Continues...

Unspeakable Evil...

Recommended Reading, Thomas Piketty’s best-selling new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”...

Our Biggest Creditor {China} Tells Us "The good old days of borrowing are over"

On the Zimmerman Trial amd Outcome...