Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for attacks that killed 127 people in Paris, saying it sent fighters strapped with suicide bombing belts and carrying machine guns to various locations in the heart of the capital. The attacks were designed to show France would remain a top target for the jihadist group as long as the country continued its current policies, the group said in a statement. Gunmen and bombers killed at least 127 people in Friday's attacks. Islamic State earlier on Saturday distributed an undated video threatening to attack France if bombings of its fighters continued. The group's foreign media arm, Al-Hayat Media Centre, made threats through several militants who called on French Muslims to carry out attacks. "As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace. You will even fear traveling to the market," said one of the militants, identified as Abu Maryam the Frenchman.Juxtapose it with this, from earlier yesterday:
Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” President Barack Obama seemingly downplayed the threat of ISIS in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that aired on Friday’s broadcast of “Good Morning America.”Stephanopoulos asked Obama if ISIS was gaining in strength, to which Obama denied they were.“I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” Obama responded. “What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq, and in Syria they’ll come in, they’ll leave, but you don’t see this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain.”
His statement last evening after the attack was pretty lame, too. As usual, the term "radical Islam" was completely missing.
I kind of wondered whether to focus on this angle in my first LITD post about this act of war (no, Most Equal Comrade, it was not a "tragedy" and we are not "heartbroken."), but what it demonstrates is that we now live in post-America. When this was the United States of America, the Western world used to look to the USA's president for leadership and a resolve to defeat threats.
We're on our own now that everything's fundamentally transformed.
Not that Obama is an empty suit, but I'll take that over Rummie & Cheney (and the TP war hawk who would bring their ilk back--Ted Cruz missle--who has already stated we need to saturation kill, without previous due regard for civilians. Running his prosecutorial mouth like the prick that he obviously is. This ain't no 9/11 and enough people are not listening, yet, to such balderdash and brouhaha. Now you will come back with something like "so you are OK with ISIS taking over?"
ReplyDeleteBig Dickie C was seen at a swank Pub dinner on Thursday night at Disney World running his invalidated mouth. Anybody who brings his failed ilk back on the stage is dealing with a poison much deadlier than a mere empty suit (meaning slow to anger and war).
ReplyDelete"But even among the avid Republicans gathered in Orlando for Thursday's Statesman's Dinner and a two-day presidential candidate summit starting today, audience members found Cheney a less-than-ideal standard-bearer to put forth. "I don't consider him the face of the Republican Party. We'll leave it at that," said state Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton. "We're moving into a new era. … It's more important for us to see the fresh faces of the Republican Party."
Jeb Bush, who is working to differentiate himself from his brother and father, did not attend the speech, but Sen. Marco Rubio watched the former vice president and spoke afterward. Cheney's address to the Florida GOP came as the just-released biography of the 41st president, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, revealed that the father of Jeb and George W. thought Cheney had changed since he served as his defense secretary.
"Just iron-a- -. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East," the senior Bush told biographer Jon Meacham."
Rush thinks Cruz will fill the vacuum if (and that's a biggie) and when (likely never unless the electorate is as thoughtless and clueless as your ilk claims) idiots like Trump and puppets like Carson (although I dig his race because if he is elected it will put the lie of racism in response to disagreeing with Obama to bed to die which is where the likes of Cheney & Rummie are headed). Their actions led more to this juncture than anything Obama can, cannot, will or will not do. I see Paris, I see France, and with Canadian born Cuban Theodore Cruz, I see and smell nasty underpants....
This is so typical of your idea of "conversing" or "debating" about a given topic at hand. Lots of digression and vague attempts to make principled defenders of freedom and Western civilization look like mindless warmongers, but, as is always the case, no solution to the glaring problem in everybody's face.
ReplyDeleteThere's not much room to draw any conclusion other than that you find catastrophic attacks on Western civilization boring annoyances that aren't worth your consideration.
And then trotting out characterizations like "prick" really seals the deal that there is no depth to the "thought" you have applied to the issue at hand.
OK, I'll just refer to Cheney as Iron Ass, and Cruz as Lil' Iron Ass. So ya think I am cabable of coming u with a solution to the glaring problem in , (key word, here) EVERYBODY"S face? Thanks, but this is a problem no one has solved (only arguably worsened) this time around. Yet. You will becry the clueless doves, lumping us altogether, although we carry that mantle for a variety of reasons. Your displays of outrage and anger are more manly maybe. We all share it though. That's the part you miss by insulting those you are not in agreement with. And if there is no depth to the "thought" applied to the issue at hand. I am as disheartened as the rest of you manly men. It is clear that Cheney is still out there kicking, unlike being the retired rich guy you said he was just weeks ago here. That may comfort you, but it terrifies me. I've always thought he was a prick.
ReplyDeleteSo okay, let summarize what seems to be your position, and you tell me where I might be missing anything: No one - not France, not France in combination with some group of allies, not NATO, and certainly not the United States, should do anything that involves any force in response to what happened in Paris yesterday. And we should let all the Syrians that want to enter thUS do so and not vet them at all.
ReplyDeleteThis is your position in a nutshell, it seems to me.
Our news say’s we cut the head of this or that snake off in the Middle East Swamp. That is a western thought, it’s a snake that regenerates two heads for every head taken. Our Christian values in an arena as this is ineffective, and the advisory is well aware of our weakness. The Terrorist has no such values. In their eyes there are no “innocents”. We seek to punish the guilty, they seek to just punish period. All war is waged by the perimeters of the parties involved. The conflict digresses to the most inhume element involved until a degree of resolution (satisfactory or not) is reached. Selective “just” military action is a media mirage. No war in the Middle East can ever be won, from within or without. A war against terror can be won. The price a terrorist must pay for their actions must be far reaching. Terrorist identified should lose their lives quickly, their families and associates should also bare a “heavy price” innocent or not. Unless the terrorist becomes a pariah in their own environment more terrorism is cultivated. This is not a Christian principal and opposed to our very nature. And I am ill at ease with this as anyone. It is just a realistic viewpoint of an inhumane adversary.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I think I see some of your points, but some questions arise for me. What definitional parameters are we to put on "our news?" Without any narrowing, it's a term that will span the spectrum from MSNBC to Fox News, from the UK Guardian to the Washington Times.
ReplyDeleteDitto "war in the middle east." the ME is a geographically large region, with a dizzying array of players and ever-shifting dynamics. Witness how much the landscape has change since the Arab Spring.
You do indeed get to the crux of the matter when you talk of making a tourist a pariah in his own environment. To some extent that is already the case, The Yazidis, Christians and Kurds of Iraq and Syria certainly are none too keen on ISIS, for example. But jihadists employ a level of brutality that would never occur to most of the human race, and therefore have the upper hand in the dynamic between themselves and those interested in living civilized lives.
It seems to me we do a fairly good job at identifying the jihadists. It's the business about making them "pay a heavy price" where we currently falter.
That's "terrorist," not "tourist." Damn auto-correct.
ReplyDeleteWe are just to civilized, Be laden was correct in the summary of make the west spend enormous assets to fight, Of course he just borrowed that from Ho Chi Min. You can not bomb into oblivion but you can hunt jackals like animals, and you must take out their families to(so sad). It worked for King Saud when he took on the Wahhabis. The price must be devastating. I think the news does a pretty good job in the west. Sure is better than Russia where they are busy trying to prop up Peter the Great II.
ReplyDeleteLast comment of families of terrorist being taken out has degrees, economic to capital punishment. Example Be Laden , recover majority of financial assets of family for damages. Coconspirators are all executed.
ReplyDeleteI am saying the way of Cheney & Rummie is not the way and must not be followed. That appears to be patty cake to the bloggie. Look, 99.99 % of the world is horrified by this outrage in Paris. Let's do something we all can agree on. Er, that's a big lol.
ReplyDelete