WHO FOUNDED ISIS AND WHO CARES ANYWAY?

Of course neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton founded ISIS but who did?  It was Abu Musab al Zarqawi in 2004.*

Though Trump is getting criticized for his language, the more standard Republican reply is more polite but is every bit as faulty as Trump.  They ASSUME that leaving maybe 10,000 troops in Iraq would have stiffened the Iraq military, and they wouldn't have been so easily defeated by ISIL as actually happened.  Maybe but they DON'T know that.  After all more than 10,000 troops were left in Afghanistan, and the Taliban regrouped in Pakistan and came back stronger than ever.  Furthermore, the elected Prime Minister if Iraq, Milaki, wanted us to leave and said if any American troops remained they would have been under Sharia Law.**  You can imagine the uproar the first time a U.S. soldier raped a Muslim woman and was sentenced to death by stoning.  Of course, I suppose we could have just ignored their decision on Sharia Law, but would we then have been occupiers and go in and rescue the soldier?  How popular would that make us?

Republicans also ASSUME that everything would have been all right in Syria if we only had inserted a small force early to overthrow Assad without plans for a successor; however, at the same time they bemoan our helping overthrow Qaddafi without plans for a successor.  Even now, Obama is unable to find a good plan for a successor to Assad in Syria should he be overthrown.  After all G.H.W. Bush resisted pursuing Saddam in Iraq because we didn't know who the successor would be and it might be someone even worse.***

Also when Assad overstepped the Red Line in Syria and used poison gas on his citizens, Obama is widely criticized for not bombing Assad's stronghold as promised.  Obama didn't do it because Assad promised to turn over his outlawed poison gases if he was not bombed.  These critics ASSUME that Assad was a goner if bombed; however, we really don't know that.  I'm sure that we could have destroyed a lot of buildings and probably killed a lot of civilians in the bombing, but it is doubtful if Assad himself would have been killed as he was no doubt secured in some well protected bunker.  I could understand people saying that Obama should have gotten more than "just" getting rid of the outlawed poison gases, but I have never heard this argument.

Seems like whatever you do in the Middle East is wrong.

* http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/11/who-founded-isis-abu-musb-al-zarqawi-started-the-terror-group.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/08/iraq-and-afghanistan.html
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/07/syria-vs-libya.html

ISIS POLICY BY AMERICA

My thought is that Obama is feeling for the minimum U.S. exposure to ISIS territory to accomplish its elimination.  He also insists that the locals participate in the erosion of ISIS.  I agree with this. ISIS seems to be steadily losing ground in Iraq with estimates of 20% loss in Syria.

He is also delaying a major move against Assad until some agreement is reached on a replacement for him.  We didn't do this in Libya with chaos resulting and two governments.  There are some encouraging signs of the two governments merging, however, and both dislike ISIS.  I am surprised that Republicans want to repeat the Libya experience in Syria where ISIS would almost certainly win in the short term.

With the recent election in Afghanistan, I think we got the best government one could hope for as both candidates have excellent credentials.  If they can't make it work, then I think there is really no hope.  Obama is raising the number of residual forces to be left in Afghanistan to help out, but again, the Afghans must do the heavy lifting.  Otherwise we are just another occupying force.

Tom Cotton (U.S. Senator, Arkansas) feels that we should have jumped to the final solution.  He must mean a surge, a large invading force.  A problem with this is that locals aren't participating plus our military has been at war for 15 yrs with surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan (one by Obama).

I agreed with the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan no matter how it came out.   We had to do something after 9/11. Iraq was diffenent and it put us in a quagmire of nation building.  As H.R. Haldeman said (by memory), "When the toothpaste gets out of the tube, it is very difficult to put it back in again."  What a mess!

TRYING TO MAKE THE UNWORKABLE WORK?

Reports today (February 17, 2015) are that polls are showing something like 47% of Americans polled are in favor of boots on the ground in Iraq.*

It has been proposed that the Sunni countries develop a force and get rid of ISIL requiring "boots on the ground."  Respected Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, has been one prominent person to call for such a force.**  Does anyone really believe that the White House wouldn't like such a move?  It is such a great idea that one wonders why the Sunni nations aren't already developing such a force?  One should take into account that even Haass says such a force is a long shot.  Can there be something in the Sunni psyche that we Westerners don't understand?

We need to recall that Turkey has provided a highway for radicals to join ISIL.  There are Saudi's that are said to have provided ISIL with some funds.

Well, for one thing, I wouldn't be surprised if the leaders of the Sunni nation's are sitting around saying to each other, "Cool it, eventually the U.S. won't be able to resist providing cannon fodder (boots on the ground) and mop up ISIL."  I don't know whether Obama will be able to last out his remaining two years with out invading Iraq again with combat troops.

I've heard it said that the Iraq army is really a loose confederation of Shiite militias.  You have to wonder if the Shiites in Iraq are trainable into an army?  After all we already spent 8 yrs before training them and at the first test a whole army did cut and run.  I think a problem is corruption.  I've heard that the leaders of that army were bribed to disappear and that some even joined ISIL  In a country where corruption is so endemic (so I hear), it may be that any government forces are weak even to the point of defending themselves.

This morning I also heard on Morning Joe that the Sunni tribal leaders will not work to overthrow ISIL if Iran is involved, and they seem to be involved in such Iraq forces (militias) that are effective.

Are we trying to make something work that is not workable?  The only way to hold Iraq together seems to be through a brutal dictatorship, a conclusion "we" do not like.  So it seems like it is past time to let Iraq divided into three countries: Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdistan.

* http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-approval-rating-isis-slides-ground-troops-favored-more-americans-poll-1818610
** http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8f5ff39a-2c39-11e4-8eda-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3S1dGTZS2 (A second option would be to create a pan-Arab expeditionary force, one with units from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and possibly Egypt. )

WHO WILL SUPPLY BOOTS ON THE GROUND?

What a lot of people don't do is review what has happened in Libya.  When we supplied air cover for the the mob there, we had all the ducks in a row.  Everyone was lined up, including the Arab League.  Well the mob won with our help, and we now see that a mob doesn't necessarily result in a going government.  Libya is a mess and as nearly as I can tell the Muslim religious right is gaining ground there.

But ISIS is more complicated than Libya.  We want to get rid of ISIS and so does Iran and presumably dictator Assad of Syria.  Sounds good doesn't it, except we are not really friendly with Iran because we think they want to get THE BOMB.  We also have said that Assad must go.  We must proceed without appearing to support either Iran and Assad.

As for Iraq, we have given air support to the Kurds who have long appeared friendly to us and are willing to fight (and we have also given air support to them before.).  I am less certain about the Shiites, but some of their forces do seem to respond if we supply the air cover.  I assume that a lot of the Sunnis in Iraq are getting fed up with the brutality of ISIS, but their resistance may be half heated unless there is an Iraq government that will share power with them.  We did give some air support for Iraq forces in Anbar Province, a Sunni province.

On Morning Joe this morning, Joe Scarborough indicated that the Arab League seems to have come on board with regards to ISIS.  Obama has also gotten quite a few other countries lined up so I guess he feels he can now proceed.  I had thought that Assad in Syria had seriously depleted the Free Syrian Army that I guess we can support; however, I heard one report of recent Free Syrian Army victories over ISIS.  These poor guys are having to fight on two fronts, but Obama indicates they are the ally of choice to supply the boots on the ground in Syria.  Perhaps if we help arm them and give them air cover they can do better and increase in size but others need to help in both Iraq and Syria.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

There are those who feel that if we had left a residual force in Iraq that the Iraqi army and the Iraqi politics would have been much better.  Well, I am far from convinced even disregarding the fact that Milaki wanted us to leave.  After we beat Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, in Afghanistan we did leave a residual force that varied between 10,000 and 20,000 troops, and the Taliban came back stronger than ever, although Al Qaeda remained subdued in Afghanistan but grew elsewhere.  I suspect that President Obama is closer to the truth in saying that if we had left 20,000 troops there, there would just have been that many more Americans at risk.

It was really depressing that, after 8 years of training, that the first time the Iraqi army was tested, it just disbanded and turned over all the equipment to ISIS.  A woman reporter who interviewed a number of the troops that took tail said that all the deserters said they woke up in the morning and all the leaders were gone.  They feel that the officers and non-coms were bribed to disappear.  Some speculated that some of the leaders actually were given positions in ISIS.  Somehow this sort of corruption sounds realistic.  I also suspect that with time the Sunnis of Iraq will get tired of the ruthless Islamic religious right and start to rebel against them.

One hopes that the Iraqi army and militias can keep ISIS out of southern Iraq where most of the oil is.

As I have said elsewhere, I think we are trying to push something in Iraq that isn't there short of there being a ruthless dictator.*  Opinion seems to be gravitating towards supporting the Kurds to become independent of Iraq.  I presume this makes Turkey a bit nervous because there is a Kurdish part of Turkey contiguous with the Iraqi Kurds that might like to join them in a Kurdistan.

*http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/07/syria-vs-libya.html

I'VE HEARD THIS TUNE BEFORE.

OK, there is this unpopular government we tried to prop up that has an insurgency, thousands of government troops (one estimate is 90,000 police and troops) just melted away before the onslaught.  I'm plenty old enough to remember Vietnam that had a similar story and the minority eventually won, or did they.  Vietnam (or at least southern Vietnam) seems to have become a valued trading partner.

The case of Iraq and Syria may be different in that the insurgency , called ISIS,* seems to be Sunni religious fanatics bound to establish Islamic sharia law.  As I write this, the insurgency is advancing on Baghdad.  We'll have to see how the government troops react there.

Will ISIS try to take over the entire Iraq area, including the Kurdish area and the majority Shiite area?  Will Iran feel compelled to enter the fray to support the Shiite area?   And to what extent will the U.S. re-enter the fray? We'll just have to see.

*ISIS stands for Islamic State Of Iraq and al-Sham (Syria and Lebanon) said to be an al-Qaeda group: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10892898/Iraq-crisis-Q-and-A-Who-or-what-is-ISIS-Is-it-part-of-al-Qaeda.html

IN MEMORY OF SERGEANTS KILLED IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ON 9/11/2013

With two more sergeants (and not others) killed last week, I repeat here a short poem I wrote honoring all the sergeants killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (December 11, 2011).  I find it strange that there have been far more sergeants killed than corporals or privates (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/12/sergeants-poem.html).  Iraq and Afghanistan have been a different sort of war.

THE SERGEANTS (Poem)

Who are these sergeants, mostly men,

Dying in such numbers in far off lands?

Iraq, Afghanistan.

More than corporals,

More than privates.

Our top heavy military?

Some sergeants in their 50s.

More in their 40s.

Many in their 30s.

They must have been surprised

To be called at such ages

Into a savage war.

You might be interested in seeing: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22452.pdf or http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol23/2/23-2.pdf.  I am unable to find up to date figures.

MOST IMPRESSIVE PRESIDENT - RIGHT OR WRONG

Here I will cover only the post WW-II period.  Of course, Lyndon Johnson was impressive because he had to get the votes from the opposing party, Republicans, to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  At that time the South was the Solid South of the Democratic Party and they voted against the Acts.  Perhaps Johnson got some help because it was in the aftermath of the shocking assassination of Present Kennedy, but it was still impressive.  He also initiated the Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964.  Surprisingly he had positive cash flow in the last year of his term.  Of course, Johnson ruined his presidency by massively escalating the war in Vietnam, but that should not detract from the huge importance of the two Acts.

Richard Nixon was impressive for his landmark trip to China that led to resuming diplomatic relations,  finally disengaging our troops in Vietnam in January of 1973, forming the EPA in 1970, and getting the Clean Air Act passed in 1970.  Also it took someone like Nixon to continue that Apollo Program after the near disaster of Apollo 13 on its trip to the moon.  Nixon does not get much credit for these things because it is felt that he only did them to distract the American public from the Vietnam War.  Liberal commentator Mark Shields has called Nixon that last liberal president.  Of course Nixon is the only president to resign the presidency as a result of the so-called Watergate coverup.

Jimmy Carter was impressive for finally settling the Panama Canal issue, forming the Department of Energy, starting the deregulation of the airline (1978) and trucking industries (1980), and the massive Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 that led to more than 107 million acres being being under the protection of wilderness laws.  He lowered the annual Federal deficit to near zero, but never has a positive cash flow.  The amazing thing is that all this was done in one term as President.  The conservative nature of Carter was unpopular among members of his own party (Democrats)  Unfortunately his presidency was ruined by the Iranian hostage crisis that wasn't settled until after the presidential election and assumption of Ronald Reagan to the presidency.

I conclude the most impressive president was George W. Bush - for better or worse.  Though he ignored warnings of an attack by a group known as Al Qaeda, when it occurred on September 11, 2001, he initiated the Afghanistan War in October of 2001, to eliminate Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and to dismantle the Taliban.  I felt we had to do something for better or worse although I didn't know that the war was going to last more than a dozen years.  Though Bush's economic policies drove the U.S. into a deep recession, to his credit when he realized what had happened, he did force passage of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) to curb the fiscal crisis.  Perhpas Bush's greatest accomplishment was to get Medicare D, a prescription drug program against his own party's  wishes (Republicans).  Likewise he managed to get the Clear Skies Act of 2003 against considerable opposition.

The amazing thing was the repeated ability of Bush's team to bully the opposing party as well as members of his own party's congressional members into voting for things they didn't believe in.  In addition to what has been mentioned above, there are the huge tax cuts for the wealthy (The biggest part of the Federal deficit today.),* and to go to war with Iraq under false pretenses, a country that was no threat to the U.S. but has a lot of oil.  I stand in awe of these accomplishments, some good and some bad.

But Bush's influence had limits.  He unfortunately failed to get approval from congress on a trade pact with Vietnam, failed to get immigration reform done,  and fortunately he failed to begin converting Social Security into an investment program from an entitlement,

* Figure from: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/budget/news/2011/06/07/9785/the-bush-tax-cuts-are-the-disaster-that-keeps-on-giving/
Also see article by conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/are-the-bush-tax-cuts-the-root-of-our-fiscal-problem/

NO LEAST BAD CHOICE

I think our president is at a loss as to what to do about the use of poison gas in Syria now that the Brits have backed out from any type of military action.  Curiously the news programs don't mention why the President has changed his mind on military action in Syria.  The President definitely has backed off on his call for regime change, for now anyway.  After the Arab League sounding as it they are on board of some punishment of Assad, they have backed off.  The United Nations is not on board.  So it seems like it is just the French and now maybe us to do something about Assad's use of poison gas..

So now it appears like our president has cold feet about his "red line" over the use of poison gas and has turned the matter over to Congress.  Although Technically, poison gas is outlawed in war by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (not signed by Syria), as if you can make war humane, it overlooks President Reagan's overlooking the poison gas used by Saddam Hussein on several occasions in the Iraq-Iran War and on his own people as well.*  In spite of a stronger prohibition by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (also not signed by Syria), most of the world does not seem to care if poison gas is used.

So what will Congress do?  It seems like a limited attack on Syria as punishment may be approved by the Senate, but what about the House? (1)  The House seems to oppose anything the President proposes. (2) There seems to be a drift among Republicans back toward isolationism (led by Rand Paul), something missing since the Solid South of the Democratic Party joined the Republican Party as the Southern Strategy. (3) The President's own party is not keen on an attack. Therefore my guess, and it is only that, is that the House will not approve any action against Syria.  Time will tell.  If this is the case, the prohibitive actions against the use of poison gas against your own people and probably in war in general will be null and void.  As C. Northcote Parkinson once said about the League of Nations, "The buildings of the League of Nations were  finished in 1938 and so was the League of Nations." (Not an exact quote.)

Although there are non-sectarian forces fighting against Assad, the el Qaeda forces seem to be more effective.  I guess the thought is that if there is a regime change, then there will be another war between the non-sectarian forces (Free Syrian Army) and al Qaeda.  And what role will Hesbollah play in such a circumstance?

* (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran); http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/09/01/world/poison-gas-viewed-as-uniquely-horrible/#.UiUT09uF9rw

CAN IT HAPPEN?

There are Republicans and members of the heirarchy of the Tea Party that would like to do away with things like Social Security and Medicare, and, of course, Obamacare. Others would just like to reduce them to help balance the budget, something that must be done at some point. But would it be possible to do away with them? It is not clear that at the grass roots level that Tea Partiers share this goal, for instance (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/whose-tea-party-is-it/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1).

Suppose we got a clever Republican administration like that of Bush-43 that wanted to do away with them. I imagine that first a part of your Social Security payments would go into something like a 401k. Then more and then more until the whole thing was a 401k. Also somewhere along the line it probably would be made voluntary. So Social Security would be no more.

Medicare would suffer something equivalent to Social Security. It, no doubt, would start with vouchers as in the Ryan plan. With time because of inflation the vouchers would pay less and less of your medical expenses. And of course, it would be made voluntary at some point. And perhaps at some point the vouchers would just be discontinued.

Now the Bush-43 like administration would concentrate on convincing the voting public to go along with this plan, and they would use all the wiles they used to get us to go to war in Iraq to getting rid of Social Security and Medicare. I'm not sure what they would do, but truth would be no object just as it wasn't with us going to war in Iraq. Could this happen? I don't know, but the current candidates for the Republican presidential nomination certainly sound like they would like to do this. Perhaps they could somehow make it unpatriotic to be against doing away with Social Security and Medicare just as they did with the Iraq war.

Could it happen?

LIBYA: WHY ARE WE THERE?

Recently I wrote a piece called Snake Bit in which I wrote that I hoped Presidnet Obama would pull an Eisenhower - i.e. After fomenting the Hungarian uprising, just walk away from it (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/03/snake-bit.html). Pulling an Eisenhower, however, was more difficult because President Obama said that Qaddafi must go. To quote from Snake Bit: I think that it was criticism of our president for not taking sides earlier in the Egypt rebellion that got him to say that Qaddafi must go. And the Tunisian uprising was successful also.

It seems to me that Qaddafi has been behaving himself pretty well in recent years. He gave up trying to get nuclear armaments after a promise that we would not seek regime change in Libya. I haven't heard that he had been playing cute with oil. Should we be surprised that he wanted to put down an armed insurrection in his country?

The main excuse for going into Libya with airpower is to save lives of those in East Libya. Though it is uneven, liberals do have a feeling for helping revolutionaries against dictatorial regimes - witness what was an unpopular Kosovo War by President Clinton. Although it is tempting to think that oil has something to do with our participation in the Libyan War, it very well could be that humanitarian considerations are responsible. After all, oil matters were not a consideration in the Kosovo War.

The Kosovo War is also interesting in that it is the only war I know about that was won by air power alone, without American casualties, and perhaps Obama was led to believe the same can be done in Libya. After all, Sec. Clinton is in the Obama administration. There is a difference, however. In Kosovo there was a no fly zone, and, in addition, we set about destroying the infrastructure of the county, in particular destroying bridges to prevent the advance of tanks while also harming communication of all types throughout Serbia. But is the terrain in Libya conducive to regime change by destroying infrastructure? There was some inkling that this may be the approach because of news about the destruction oil depot.

Our involvement in the Libyan war seems to be cemented because President Obama reiterated that Qaddafi must go. Now it would appear that we are in it to the end, apparently doing whatever it takes to depose the dictator. But even if we were in it to protect the East Libyan revolutionaries from the Qaddafi regime, it would appear we, or someone, would be involved for a long time. Sort of like the Clinton low-level war in Iraq in the 1990s with a no fly zone to protect the Kurds from the Iraqi dictatorship (and what was called by some "fly by shootings") In theory the long involvement need not necessarily be us but might be some combination of the Brutish and French.

Though at present we do not know the outcome of the Libyan War, one hopes it does not do for Obama what the failed rescue in the desert (Operation Iron Claw) did for President Carter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw) by participating in his defeat for reelection. On the other hand, Bush-43 never paid a political price for neither capturing or killing Osama bin Laden as he promised to do. I guess we will just have to see.