Tag Archive for: U.S. Military

Here’s How Biden Could Embroil America In Yet Another Foreign War

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  • The Biden administration could put U.S. troops on the ground in Guyana to defend the threatened democracy against a Venezuelan invasion, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • Although an invasion is unlikely, recent U.S. actions send a signal to Venezuela that America is prepared to intervene if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro acts on his pledge.
  • “The U.S. should work to create strong disincentives for Venezuela to carry out any aggression, including helping to establish stronger military deterrence. It remains to be seen how compelling these disincentives will be and how Maduro will respond to them,” Daniel Batlle, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former State Department official, told the DCNF.

The Biden administration could be compelled to put U.S. military boots on the ground to defend Guyana, a democratic South American country with a history of cooperation with the U.S., from a potential Venezuelan invasion, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has threatened to annex by force large swaths of oil-rich territory in neighboring Guyana following a manufactured referendum as troops mass on both sides of the border in a bid to consolidate support for the country’s 2024 elections. A full-scale invasion resembling Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine is unlikely, but possible, placing pressure on the U.S., and international partners, to respond in defense of a democratic country, the experts told the DCNF.

The Biden administration would want to intervene to show it will “credibly defend its friends against external aggression,” just as it has done with Israel and Ukraine, Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, told the DCNF. “Once we make that commitment, it sends a very strong signal that we can’t just walk away from.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged “unwavering support” for Guyana’s sovereignty.

Other experts questioned the administration’s commitment to defending democratic partners in light of sweeping sanctions relief Biden offered Venezuela in the fall of 2023 in exchange for yet-unfulfilled promises to conduct legitimate elections and free political prisoners — which could further embolden Maduro.

“It is unclear what precisely is motivating the current administration in its policy toward Venezuela, but it is clearly not democracy, human rights, or electoral freedom. I do not see how anyone, including the Maduro regime, will take American threats seriously when they offer sanctions relief under such insane conditions,” former Deputy Special Representative for Venezuela Carrie Filipetti told the DCNF.

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has made conspicuous shows of force as Maduro carried out a national referendum on the annexation question. Such displays are “firm, clear signals” from the U.S. that if Venezuela takes action, “it will not be unopposed,” Ellis told the DCNF.

SOUTHCOM and the Guyana Defense Force (GDF) conducted flight operations in country on Dec. 7, according to the U.S. Embassy in Guyana.

“This exercise builds upon routine engagement and operations to enhance security partnership between the United States and Guyana, and to strengthen regional cooperation,” the embassy said in the statement.

In an unusual step, U.S. Air Force special operations later showed several videos of an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship, equipped with precision-guided missiles and cannons capable of “measured, but ruinous fire” that can rip people and armored vehicles to shreds, training against targets.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Maduro met Thursday to hash out an agreement on where the border line should be drawn, and both sides agreed not to use force, the Associated Press reported. But they did resolve the issue.

“I have made it very clear that on the issue of the border controversy, Guyana’s position is non-negotiable,” Ali said in a national broadcast, indicating that any negotiations over the territory are likely to be fraught.

Maduro claimed sovereignty over the territory encompassing two-thirds of Guyana, which also includes the coastline near two massive offshore oil deposits, according to The New York Times. The claim depends on a referendum held to shore up his control over domestic politics and built on an internationally-unrecognized pretext of historical control over Essequibo.

On Dec. 5, Maduro ordered state-owned oil companies to begin granting licenses and doing exploration in Essequibo, the Financial Times reported.

He likely won’t order an invasion, experts told the DCNF. The Venezuelan military is afraid of revealing systemic deficiencies, but more importantly, Maduro could put his regime at risk by becoming embroiled in protracted fighting through inhospitable jungles against guerilla forces.

And, there’s the possibility of U.S. involvement, most likely alongside other countries.

“Maduro could essentially stumble into hostilities, whether it’s sending troops to the border or something that sparks military action, and that’s always a risk,” Ellis told the DCNF.

“The U.S. has to be careful of portraying the image that it is acting unilaterally in South America, especially in a militarized manner,” Aileen Teague, a professor at Texas A&M University who studies U.S. history and relations with Latin America, told the DCNF. “Working through diplomatic channels is the United States’ best option for success. ”

Any American-led intervention would not take place without extensive coordination with regional and global partners, including Brazil, which has massed troops on the border to ward off Venezuelan aggression, the experts said.

The GDF comprises of just 3,000 troops compared to Venezuela’s estimated 130,000 active duty and 1.6 million paramilitary troops.

But the U.S. can “wreak havoc on those Venezuelan forces within that jungle environment by  taking advantage of the ability to control the air and do select targeting,” Ellis explained, to “essentially make the few roads that are there impassable” for the Venezuelan military and supply lines.

“You basically turn an occupying force very quickly into a lot of Venezuelans trapped in a jungle,” he said.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

RELATED ARTICL: EXCLUSIVE: Illegal Venezuelan Migrants Continue To Pour Into US Despite Biden Admin Beginning Deportation Flights

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Ticking Time Bomb: China Infects American Infrastructure With Malware To Disrupt U.S. Military

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Meanwhile the Democrat ruling party is obsessed with ….. transitioning your kids to the opposite sex and instructing them on depraved sexual acts.

We’ve lost the war before its begun.

‘A Ticking Time Bomb’: China Infects American Infrastructure With Malware To Disrupt U.S. Military

By: Ryan Saavedra • DailyWire.com • Jul 30, 2023:

U.S. officials are aggressively searching for malware that they say hackers from China have implanted into American infrastructure to disrupt U.S. military operations in the event that the communist nation launches an attack on Taiwan.

Officials said that the malicious computer code, which penetrated U.S. systems well over a year ago but was only detected by Microsoft in May, was especially troubling because its purpose was not traditional spying, i.e., information gathering. Microsoft and the U.S. government both said the malware came from China.

The malware was hidden “deep inside the networks controlling power grids, communications systems and water supplies that feed military bases in the United States and around the world,” The New York Times reported. It infected systems that impact not only the U.S. military but also U.S. citizens and the economy.

Officials said that while the effort to destroy the malware has been underway for months, they still don’t know how widespread it is.

Officials say there were two possible goals when China infected utility infrastructure that “serve both civilian populations and nearby military bases,” the Times reported. The malware has not been detected in classified systems.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Senate Democrats Block Oversight Office to Monitor Billions in US Aid for Ukraine

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DeSantis Takes Action To Limit Chinese Communist Party’s Land Buyouts: ‘How Is That In Our National Interest?’

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed legislation Thursday prohibiting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from continuing its “nefarious” policy of land buyouts near U.S military bases in the state.

The measure limits companies affiliated with China and other countries of concern, including Russia, Iran and North Korea, from purchasing sensitive land around the 21 U.S. military bases in Florida. Chinese purchases of land at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, reported by CNBC in July, and Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana triggered worries that the CCP would use the land to surveil goings-on at the bases, potentially giving the CCP a conflict advantage and provide insight to U.S. defense technology.

“How is that in our national interest?” DeSantis said in a press briefing.

“They want to get intelligence. They want to know what’s going on here in the United States,” he added.

China’s Huawei has installed telecommunications equipment on land near U.S. military bases, raising concerns among lawmakers and national security officials that the CCP might intend to capture sensitive data on military procedures and personnel, CNN reported.

Foreign investors hold a stake in 5.8% of Florida’s agricultural land, according to a statement.

“From server farms to farmland, the Communist Party of China has been worming its way into our nation’s data storage systems and buying up tracts of land near sensitive national security sites,” DeSantis said in the statement.

In the same swath of actions designed to protect Floridians from malign Chinese activities, DeSantis signed an executive order barring government entities from obtaining technology products and services from companies those countries own or control. The order also outlaws contracting with companies owned by or housed in the countries of concern, if those contracts would require providing access to Floridians’ personal information, such as medical records.

While some companies appear privately owned, “if you peel back the onion” they display links to the CCP, DeSantis said.

“By prohibiting the purchase of lands, state contracts with Chinese technology firms, and the infiltration of CCP-affiliated groups such as Confucius Institutes, Florida is leading the way to protect our nation from international foes,” said DeSantis.

China purchased a total of $6.1 billion in U.S. real estate last year, much of that near sensitive military and trade sites, Texas Policy reported.

President Joe Biden is aware of China’s “unfair trading practices” and has taken steps to address the ensuing economic risk to the U.S., National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said when asked about China’s land buying scheme in a Sept. 13 briefing.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

DeSantis Takes Action Against China, Six Other Countries Over Security Concerns

Kirby Dodges Reporter’s Question On Foreign Buyers Purchasing Land Around Military Installations

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘The Sexual Revolution’ Gave Us ‘the Rape Culture’

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By Judith Gelernter Reisman and Mary E. McAllister

CNN’s The Hunting Ground has won critical acclaim from filmmakers, winning the Stanley Kramer award from the Producers Guild of America while garnering criticism from Ivy League elites who worry that their reputations are being sullied by the depiction of a “rape culture” on their campuses (Harvard Crimson). That, in turn, has prompted a response from students in the form of a discrimination complaint under the Federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX.

The attention that The Hunting Ground has attracted raises the question, “has it always been so on college campuses?”

VIDEO: Trailer The Hunting Ground.

Even radical sexologists such as Prof. Ira Reiss have to admit that it has not. Reiss reports that unmarried WWII 18-22 year-old Army lads were largely “still virgins.” Even Hugh Hefner was a college virgin at age 22. Dutch “sexperts” Drs. Kronhausens’ 1960 survey revealed, “The average modern college man is apt to say that he considers intercourse “too precious” to have with anyone except the girl he expects to marry and may actually abstain from all intercourse for that reason.” (p. 219). However, by the 1970s youth were generally sexually radicalized–once normalized, most thought unwed sex was “natural.”

How did this transformation occur? A brief chronology shows the historical context:

1950: “Age Disparity (Relations Involving One Adult) …. [P]ersons under the age of 7 are legally regarded as not responsible….but many are by endowment and training fully capable of….responsibility for sexual behavior.”

Manfried Guttmacher, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP).

1953: “The cultural tendency to overprotect women and children [is] often…more detrimental to the…victim than the offense itself….Kinsey’s findings…permeate all present thinking on this subject.” The Illinois Commission on Sex Offenders

1955: “Despite the indication that 12 is…the onset of puberty….it is known that significant numbers of girls enter the period of sexual awakening as early as the tenth year.” Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry; the ALI, Model Penal Code

1983: “[T]he older term “rape” was fraught with negative emotion and [is] unrealistic for this era. . . . [T]he female is [not] … harmed in some unique way by untoward sexual behavior.” C. Nemeth, How New Jersey Prosecutors View the New Sexual Offense Statutes; N.J. Law Journal.

Fast forward from a Hugh Hefner as a 22 year old virgin to today, where high-profile college and professional athletes like Tim Tebow and Russell Wilson are ridiculed for announcing they will abstain from sex until they are married. Does this contempt for virginity reflect somehow a kind of “sexual exploitation pedagogy” of esteemed professors and administrators? And how have these prestigious graduates of a sexploitive pedagogy affected society? Have elitist sex abuse fantasies evolved into ideology, seeping into leading minds of the legal, political, educational, legislative, religious, scientific, medical, justice, law enforcement, entertainment, etc. worlds? And is pornography in university offices and dorms seeding its widespread sexual ideology?

Statistics tell the story. Roughly 80% of college men and 34% of co-eds use porn on campus or off, sanctioned by “free speech” Harvard professors and administrators—that’s campus sex culture! And, ominously, Data4Justice documents many “professors and staff…arrested for trading in brutal child sex abuse, including of infants.”

From University of Virginia’s Assistant Dean, Michael Morris downloading infant anal rape to Kirk Nesset, creative writing professor at Allegheny College with over 500,000 videos/images including” rape of infants. Professors and staff are involved in child sex trafficking….Since 2015 August, at least two professors per week have been arrested, arraigned or sentenced.”

Moreover, FBI’s Joseph Campbell says “the level of pedophilia is unprecedented right now.” A “survey of high school graduates” found 13.5% had sex with a teacher. If some administrators and professors are viewing child rape on campus computers does this become an intellectualization of a “rape culture”? A 2014 op-ed by Yale Professor Jed Rubenfeld, drew heated objections from Yale Law Students. He reminds our largely historically ignorant populace of the fallout following the nostalgic 1969 “Woodstock” “sexual revolution”.

It’s part of the revolution in sexual attitudes and college sex codes that has taken place over the last 50 years. Not long ago, nonmarital sex on college campuses was flatly suppressed. Sex could be punished with suspension or expulsion….Rape was a matter for the police, not the university. Beginning in the late 1960s however, sex on campus increasingly came to be permitted….The problem then became how to define consent.[Emphasis added]

So almost three generations ago, youth were lied to (read Dr. Reisman’s books for details) and persuaded that the WWII generation were closet sexual adventurers. This belief in their parental hypocrisy (see, The Graduate, 1967) helped youth reject the American legacy of sex restrictions in exchange for “sex drugs ‘n rock-n-roll.” Since then, each subsequent generation has been increasingly sexually permissive. Sexpert ideologues now teach sex to children in school, videos, social media, film, novels, text books, even pulpits while “every five days, a police officer in America is caught engaging in sexual abuse or misconduct.” And sexual victimization of males occurs in the military today, not just in prisons. Well over 14,000 in 2012, “[a]ccording to the Pentagon, thirty-eight military men are sexually assaulted every single day.  So, it’s not just more reporting. Is it possible pornography is training a rape culture?

Meanwhile, back at Harvard, nineteen Law Professors posted an irate protest of CNN’s portrayal of the sexualized campuses as a “rape culture.” Their most illustrious professorial signatory is Prof. Laurence Tribe, an admitted plagiarizer, who taught American Legal History to Obama and two Supreme Court Justices. Tribe apparently is inexcusably ignorant of, or deliberately hiding, the worst child sex crimes and frauds in American Legal History—of pedophile Prof. Alfred Kinsey of Indiana University, the “father of the sexual revolution.” American past and present sexual law was revolutionized based upon experiments on up to 2,035 children raped and tortured for alleged “orgasms” published in Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) Kinsey, a sadistic obsessive masturbating pedophile and pornography addict was the scientific authority for these disastrous changes. His Tables 30-34 record the worst, unprosecuted, infant andchild sexual experimentation ever conducted in American Legal History, (Reisman, 2013)

By 1952 Herbert Wechsler’s Harvard Law Review article relied on Kinsey’s sex tome to justify liberalizing all sex laws. By 1955 Wechsler, chief author of the first-ever American Law Institute Model Penal Code (MPC), reported that sex protections for females were onerous for men. The new, innovative MPC argued that reduction of sex crime required more sexual freedom, lighter penalties, parole, and tax paid therapy for all sex criminals. Under Wechsler the neoteric MPC proposed age ten for consent as her “seductive” conduct might push men to rape. Kinsey claimed of 4,441 female interviewees none was really injured by a sexual assault, hence the Kinsey-MPC plan was to eliminate “unrealistic” rape and statutory rape laws. No rape harm, no need for rape laws! With this “cultural” pedagogy promoted by our prestigious legal lights and backed by Kinseyan “sex science” our legacy would inevitably be a “rape culture”—rape on college campuses, middle schools, libraries, bedrooms, barrooms, church pews, court rooms, etc. Be careful what you ask for. After the MPC advised a lowered age of consent (to allow “peer” sex), as Reisman documents, America’s legislatures and courts loosened state laws that had favored women (harsh laws against rape, adultery, child sex abuse, incest) and eased criminal penalties for sex offenders in more than two-thirds of U.S. states.

Wechsler and others used Kinsey’s alleged “sex science” to justify these actions and claims such as “[t]he cultural tendency to overprotect women and children [is] often…more detrimental to the…victim than the offense itself… Kinsey’s findings … permeate all present thinking on this subject.” Recall, until Kinsey, society allowed “the marital act” only in the “institution” of marriage, severely limiting even “fun consensual” fornication.Morris Ploscowe wrote, in the 1948 “Pre-Kinsey era” three states gave mandatory death sentences for rape—nineteen states provided the death penalty, life, or very long terms. Twenty-eight states gave the rapist 20 years or more, and one 15 years or more. Post-Kinsey’s “data” stated that 95 percent of men were already sex offenders and most women were promiscuous, or wanted to be. According to Ploscowe, justification for strict rape, child abuse or obscenity law was largely old fashioned.

How many millions of college lassies were spared disease, pregnancy, heartbreak, rape, suicide even homicide by such “old fashioned” ideas?

Now, trained by these elite academics and since “tween-age” by media such as Cosmopolitan magazine (be a “fun, fearless female”– booze up and hook-up), millions of Cosmo followers reveal how well they have learned by accepting or appearing in student pornography magazines such as Harvard’s “Diamond” launched in 2004. At least 10 American universities followed suit, featuring nude photo-spreads of ordinary students. Dozens more host “sex events,” such as naked parties at Yale, “sex week” at Tufts or “Outdoor Intercourse Day” at Western Washington University. Other examples include photographs of half-naked gay couples at the University of Chicago, Squirm at Vassar and, arguably, the most explicit, Boink….College Guide to Carnal Knowledge at Boston University.

Elitist administrators, perhaps some of those who complained about The Hunting Ground, award free speech funds and/or advocate for abusive porn events. Yale graduate Nathan Harden reports on “Sex Week” at Yale, recruiting naïve students into today’s vicious sexploitation. Here “porn stars and sex industry CEOs are invited on campus for a marathon of sex-related film screenings, seminars, and product demonstrations — all sanctioned by the university as ‘sex education.’” Harden notes that the university polity (steeped in the sex-saturated, rape culture they deplore yet breed) no longer understand the reason for education.

This is an unanticipated cost of the ‘60’s sexual revolution along with an explosion of inventive, barbaric sex crimes against women, children, even infants, and increased recidivism.

Some academic elites are waking up. Feminist lawyer and former Democratic presidential Campaign Manager for Michael Dukakis (1988), Susan Estrich was perplexed by the MPC influence on rape laws. She wondered at the “fresh complaint” clause that said, “a complaint must be filed within three months,” if the crime were sexual. This clause had not been part of America’s Common Law. Moreover, now that liberal lawyers were in charge, only “if serious bodily injury is inflicted” would rape be a “first degree felony.”

Moreover, noted Estrich, the lawyerly libidos had new rules for rape. If the victim had a “racy” past she might be classed as a “prostitute.” Therefore, even when she was the victim of a “gang” or fraternity “group” rape, the guilty predator might be cleared of the crime. These and other new laws followed on Kinsey’s claims that rape was a harmless, natural and normal reaction to seductive females (by age 10). Also, the New York Times reported, March 8, 1949, Kinsey had proven that not more than 5 percent of arrestees cause any real damage and thus sex offense laws had no function other than to preserve custom.

Today—60 years later, the same Ivy League Schools are embroiled in controversy regarding the “rape culture” they helped create through training students, lawyers, judges, politicians and legislators in Kinseyan pansexuality and the MPC. Many of these 2nd generation learned professors are now signatories on letters protesting claims that there is a rape culture caused by the very sexual revolution they helped institute on campus.

For a truly touching video on the reality of the damage done to all by the elites’ promotion of the sexual revolution, do take time to view former porn “star” Shelley Lubben’s reverential video, Dead Porn Stars Memorial.

Judith Gelernter Reisman, PhD 

Research Professor, Director Liberty Child Protection Center, Liberty University School of Law

Mary E. McAlister, Esq.

Senior Litigation Counsel, Liberty Counsel

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on Breitbart.com.

Kosovo Muslim arrested for hacking U.S. Military files for the Islamic State

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“A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice said Mr Ferizi, known by his moniker ‘Th3Dir3ctorY’, hacked into a U.S. company’s systems in order to take the personal details of 1,351 U.S. military and government staff.” The repercussions of that theft could be felt for quite some time.

“Malaysia arrests Kosovo man for ‘hacking US files for IS,’” BBC, October 16, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):

A Kosovan man has been arrested in Malaysia for allegedly hacking into a computer database and providing information on US security officials to the so-called Islamic State group.

The man, who is in his 20s, was detained on 15 September, Malaysian police said in a statement on Thursday.

Separately, the US identified him as Ardit Ferizi, thought to head a hacker group called Kosova Hacker’s Security (KHS).

Mr Ferizi will be extradited to the US.

A statement from the US Department of Justice said Mr Ferizi, known by his moniker “Th3Dir3ctorY”, hacked into a US company’s systems in order to take the personal details of 1,351 US military and government staff.

He will be charged with computer hacking and identity theft, and faces up to 35 years in jail, the statement added….

Between June and August this year, Mr Ferizi is alleged to have passed the data on to IS member Junaid Hussain, also known as Abu Hussain al-Britani, who later posted the details online along with a threat to target the officials….

Malaysia has arrested more than 100 people this year, suspected of links to IS, including ten people in August – six of them members of Malaysia’s security forces.

What? 100 people in modern, moderate Malaysia misunderstood Islam so drastically as to adhere to the Islamic State?

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51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

Georgia: Note left on Soldier’s Car, “Mohammad will show no mercy on you”

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Last September, an Islamic State spokesman said: “If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever […] including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be.”

“‘Death to you coward child killer – Mohammad will show no mercy on you: Chilling note found on serviceman’s car in Georgia promises revenge on U.S. military,” by Belinda Robinson,Dailymail.com, July 24, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

A chilling note was left on a serviceman’s car blasting him for being a ‘coward women child killer who Mohammad will show no mercy to’.

The warning was placed under the front windshield wiper of the vehicle after it had been parked near Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia on Wednesday.

The note, which was unsigned and had the heading ‘untitled’, promised revenge for U.S. military involvement in the Middle East – saying ‘attacks will come full force’ and ‘death is to come to you’.

The full message, all in lower case, reads: ‘dear american soldier, death to you coward women child killer and all the american military / Mohammad will show no mercy on you / attacks will come full force / death is to come to you.’

It appears to be a reproduction of a warning that has been posted to military Facebook pages, MyFoxAtlanta reports.

Cobb County Police Department is investigating who put the note on the car.

They said that the victim may have been targeted because his license plate identified him as a service member….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Belgium arrests two ex-Guantanamo inmates on jihad terrorism charges

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Democratic Treachery

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As we enter the preliminaries for the 2016 presidential election, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media… including such heretofore “fair-minded” journalists as Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday… are trotting out their favorite “gotcha” questions, reserved exclusively for Republican candidates.  To date, their two favorites are: “Are you personally opposed to gay Americans or same-sex marriage?  And, “If you knew then what you know now, would you have sent U.S. ground troops into Iraq in 2003?”

No less a liberal icon than Bob Woodward of the Washington Post has set the record straight on the buildup to the Iraq War.  In a May 25, 2015, appearance on Fox News Sunday, Woodward agreed that George Bush may have made mistakes, but that to say he had lied to get us into war was “grossly unfair and inaccurate.”  He said, “I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq… lots of mistakes… but it was Bush telling George Tenet the CIA director, ‘Don’t let anyone stretch the case on WMD.’  He was the one who was skeptical.”

Woodward continued, “And if you try to summarize why we went into Iraq, it was momentum. That war plan kept getting better and easier, and finally at the end people were saying, ‘Hey, look, it’ll only take a week or two.’  And early on it looked like it was going to take a year or eighteen months, and so Bush pulled the trigger.  A mistake certainly can be argued, and there’s an abundance of evidence.  But there was no lie in this that I could find.”

Throughout calendar year 2002, policy-makers in Washington and around the world searched for ways in which to eliminate the threat posed by the weapons development programs of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.  Finally, on November 8, 2002, the U.N. Security Council adopted, unanimously, Resolution 1441.  Under Resolution 1441, the Security Council recognized “the threat Iraq’s noncompliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security.”

Resolution 1441 affirmed that Security Council Resolution 678 of November 29, 1990, authorized member nations to “use all necessary means (emphasis added) to uphold and implement Resolution 660 of August 2, 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to Resolution 660, and to restore international peace and security in the area.”  It was the authority of the U.N. that member states relied upon in their decision to use military force against Iraq.

Few members of Congress were anxious to see American ground forces engaged in a ground war in the Middle East.  Accordingly, during the summer of 2002, under the theory that no dictator can remain a dictator unless his people believe him to be both omnipotent and omniscient, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Porter Goss (R-FL), authorized funds for an “Infowar,” or SOFTWAR, offensive against Iraq… where SOFTWAR is defined as “the hostile utilization of global television to shape another nation’s will by changing its view of reality.”  The goal of the SOFTWAR offensive was to remove one or both of the omnipotence/omniscience advantages from Saddam, advancing the day when the Iraqi people would find it beneficial to overthrow the dictator.  (The SOFTWAR concept was the brainchild of my longtime friend, Chuck de Caro, an Information Warfare lecturer at the National Defense University and other agencies of the U.S. defense/intelligence establishment.)
The SOFTWAR offensive authorized by HPSCI, as a supplement to its FY 2003 defense authorization, read, in part, as follows:

SOFTWAR

The budget request contained $63.9 million in PE65710D8Z for Classified Programs for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence)…

The Committee notes that information operations (IO) is increasingly becoming a more significant weapon in modern military, and moreover, asymmetric operations…

The Committee is somewhat concerned that insufficient consideration is paid to developing a capability to shape the information sphere for asymmetric operations…  The Committee understands that there has been proposed a concept called Infowar, in which intelligence analysis of the threat Infosphere is coupled with the knowledge management functions of television, and an offensive management plan is developed for execution.  The Committee notes that this concept is different from more traditional IO approaches in that it does not “attack” the threat directly, but rather through the threat’s intended public information consumers.  The Committee believes this is a worthwhile new approach and believes the Intelligence Community should pursue it vigorously.

Therefore, the Committee recommends $73.9 million in PE65710D8Z, an increase of $10.0 Million in Classified Programs-C3I, for the SOFTWAR program.

However, the U.S. Senate, comprised of 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, changed from Republican to Democratic control on May 24, 2001, when Sen. Jim Jeffords (R-VT) left the Republican Party to become an Independent, aligning himself with senate Democrats.  As a result, when the HPSCI authorization arrived in the U.S. Senate as a supplement to the FY 2003 Defense Appropriations bill, senate Democrats decided that it was more important for them to have a political issue to use against George W. Bush in his 2004 reelection campaign than to avert a ground war in Iraq.

During the months of September and October, 2002, when the HPSCI proposal was hopelessly stalled in the U.S. Senate, I assisted Chuck de Caro in lobbying key senators, seeking to gain their support for HPSCI’s SOFTWAR offensive.   We met with senior staff aides to then-Senator Dick Shelby (R-AL), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and then-Senator John Warner (R-VA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.  And we met on several occasions with senior aides to then-Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who, along with the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, were the key players in the effort to fund the SOFTWAR offensive in Iraq.  But the enthusiasm of aides to Rockefeller and Byrd were not in sync with the political games that their employers were playing.

While Democrats made impassioned speeches on the floor of the senate, insisting that the Congress could not give George W. Bush the war powers he sought, and that a way had to be found to remove Saddam Hussein through non-violent means, they were busy behind closed doors instructing the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee to kill the HPSCI SOFTWAR authorization… our last best hope of averting a ground war in Iraq.  Senate Democrats were so intent upon creating an issue to use against George W., Bush that when they were asked to fund the project for a single dollar, just to get the offensive “in the pipeline,” with supplemental funding to be added during the 108th Congress, they refused even that.

Thus, as coalition forces prepared for war with seeming unstoppable momentum, the Iraq War Powers Act, P.L. 107-243, passed the Republican-controlled House on October 10, 2002, by a vote of 296-133, and the Democrat-controlled Senate on October 11 by a vote of 77-23.  Twenty-eight Democrats, including Senators Rockefeller, Clinton, Kerry, and Biden voted in favor of the war powers resolution.

But that was not the last we heard of Sen. Rockefeller’s role in sabotaging the Iraq war effort.   In the December 3, 2005 edition of the Canada Free Press, writer Joan Swirsky published an article describing events before and during the Iraq War, titled, “Rockefeller’s Treachery,” republished in the May 21, 2015 edition of the Renew America website.

Ms. Swirsky reminds us of Rockefeller’s November 14, 2005 appearance on Fox News Sunday, during the period in which he served as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  In that interview, Rockefeller recalled, “I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 (months before the HPSCI proposal was approved by the House of Representatives) to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq – that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.”  It was an entirely baseless charge.

Ms. Swirsky went on to say, “By himself, and fully armed with America’s most sensitive intelligence, Sen. Rockefeller decided to go to three Arab countries – including Syria, which is on the State Department’s list of terrorist regimes and a close ally of Saddam Hussein – and literally alert them to what might befall a neighboring Arab state.”  Putting this sharply into context, Ms. Swirsky reminds us that, “This was Sen. Rockefeller’s judgment only four months after September 11th and a full year before President Bush expressed any intention to go to war.”

Finally, on March 20, 2003, with all multi-national coalition forces in place, the invasion of Iraq commenced.  And while Democrats continue to this day to try to convince the American people that George Bush and Dick Cheney lied to launch the Iraq War, there is a strong case to be made that it was their own politically-motivated treachery that was most responsible for our entrance into the war.  In that war, some 4,500 American men and women, and countless Iraqis, paid with their lives.  Clearly, their blood is on Democrat hands, not on Bush and Cheney’s hands.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Shutterstock.

BOOM! Allen West Goes After Muslim Student Association Cancelling American Sniper

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american sniper posterIt is the highest grossing war movie in U.S. history but — as we’ve reported previously — it is in the target sights of Muslim students. Once again, a showing of “American Sniper” has been cancelled, this time at the University of Maryland, College Park.

As reported by Foxnews.com, “The University of Maryland announced it will postpone indefinitely an upcoming screening of “American Sniper” after Muslim students protested – calling the film Islamophobic, racist and nationalistic.

“American Sniper only perpetuates the spread of Islamophobia and is offensive to many Muslims around the world for good reason,” read a petition launched by the university’s Muslim Students Association. “This movie dehumanizes Muslim individuals, promotes the idea of senseless mass murder, and portrays negative and inaccurate stereotypes.”

“The critically-acclaimed film about the life of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle was supposed to be screened May 6 and 7. It was “postponed” on April 22 by the university’s Student Entertainment Events (SEE). While SEE did not mention the Muslim Students Association’s petition, they referenced a meeting with “concerned student organizations” about the film. “SEE is choosing to explore the proactive measures of working with others during the coming months to possibly create an event where students can engage in constructive and moderated dialogues about the controversial topics proposed in the film,” read a statement from SEE posted on the university’s website. The Muslim Students Association posted a Facebook message praising the university’s capitulation to their demands.”

“Praising the university’s capitulation to their demands” — in other words, the surrender of our freedom of speech and expression. Now, I find it doggone funny that the Muslim Students Association (MSA), an organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, is allowed to operate freely on our colleges and universities in the first place. I furthermore find it unconscionable that this group of 250 who signed this petition would influence the decision on a campus of some 28,000.

However, consider this irony: black students were allowed to freely stomp on the U.S. flag at Valdosta State College and an Air Force veteran who sought to claim the flag for proper disposition was physically restrained by campus police, arrested, and ordered never to step on the Valdosta State campus again.

Are we upside down or what?

Regarding the MSA protest, I’m starting to believe something is up with states that begin with the letter “M.” I know this banning of “American Sniper” has occurred at the Universities of Missouri, Michigan, and now Maryland — where next, U-Mass?

But who are these individuals to tell an American university what can be shown on its campus? I wonder if the movie “Twelve Years a Slave” was shown at the University of Maryland? And if these MSA students believe “American Sniper” is offensive to Muslims it means means they are supportive of Islamic terrorism and jihadism.

If they stand for freedom, liberty, and democracy, they should not be offended. As a matter of fact, Kyle’s exploits came primarily in Al Anbar province — Fallujah and Ramadi — is it offensive to these Muslim students that ISIS, the reconstituted al-Qaida in Iraq, is now driving Muslims from their homes in Ramadi? Then again, MSA is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is affiliated with Hamas and supports Islamic terrorism and jihadism, so maybe the gist of all this is that these Muslim students are upset to see the story of a heroic American who fought against their compatriot jihadist brothers.

Maybe they don’t want the truth to be known about the savage barbarism of their associates. And the University of Maryland SEE and leadership is so cowardly that they succumb to these “demands.”

The President of the University and the SEE should have sent back a simple letter with a one-word response, “Nuts.” Now, the question I have, is there a Coach John Harbaugh on the campus of Maryland, someone who will stand up to these stealth jihadists who would seek to advance their intolerance in order to suppress our rights? And let me ask a very basic question — why are they here in America studying in our schools and universities promoting their beliefs which are counter to our Constitutional Republic?

If they don’t like the fllm then doggone, don’t go see it! But, how dare they make a “demand” and worse, Maryland caved.

“We sincerely appreciate your commitment to exercising your freedom of speech to create an inclusive, just and safe campus community,” MSA wrote. Furthermore the Muslims Student Association said “American Sniper” creates a “dangerous climate for Muslim students and severely devalues the community atmosphere.”

So what the heck does beheading Christians create? What kind of climate exists in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the hotbed of ISIS recruiting? What type of community atmosphere exists for Christians and Yazidis in Mosul?

“Breyer Hillegas, president of the university’s College Republicans, told Fox News that he was furious about the cancellation. “Universities are always trying to satisfy the political correctness police and worry about who they might offend – rather than standing up for principle and the First Amendment of the Constitution,” Hillegas told me. He said the College Republicans had been behind the effort to convince SEE to show the film. “If the university prevents a movie like that from being show – it promotes intolerance and stifles dialogue and debate – and goes directly against the atmosphere that the University of Maryland is supposed to support,” he said.

What do the University of Maryland Campus Democrats have to say on the matter? Crickets. Their silence is deafening — and telling.

So here is my message to the MSA:

I and many other Americans deployed to Muslim countries to bring a chance for liberty and freedom. We lost our brothers and sisters. Some lost their limbs — all gave some, some gave all. And to have you here in our country “demanding” the story of one of our own not be told is offensive.

Your time is running out, as we will not tolerate the intolerant for much longer. You will be crushed and defeated, because in America we just don’t take crap for too long — regardless of the complicit bond you’ve found with progressive socialists — stretching from the White House to the College and University campuses — Islamic fascism will not prevail in these great United States of America.

Two words: Molon Labe!

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Five Florida cities increase security over Islamic State “kill list”

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Last month we had the story of the U.S. military personnel being targeted, but not the particulars of the cities targeted. They’re listed below. “ISIS releases ‘Kill List’; Seven Texas cities included,”News Channel 10, March 24, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Pentagon has responded to a globally-released ‘Kill List’, asking law enforcement to give extra protection for military personnel whose personal information was released.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports the Pentagon spent the weekend notifying the soldiers who appeared on the list, and urged city police departments and military police to increase patrol in the neighborhoods where the targeted live.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) published the list days ago, a report that contained names, photos, and home addresses of U.S. Armed Forces personnel, causing alarm in cities potentially at high-risk.

According to the publication, ISIS urges followers and sympathizers in the U.S. to kill the servicemen. Specific personnel on the list are largely from the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy – branches of the country’s military that have conducted massive air strikes against ISIS.

The air strikes have left ISIS mostly defenseless, killing over 8,000 fighters with attacks carried out on more than 5,000 targets. But ISIS appears to be fighting back through forms of social media.

The Pentagon says the the targeted appeared to be compiled from public sources — anything from news articles to Facebook posts that could have linked them to attacks on the terrorist group. Officials with the Pentagon say some members were incorrectly identified, but right or wrong, it’s still a threat.

Seven Texas cities were included on the list: Abilene, New Braunfels, San Antonio, Wyle, Fort Hood, Bedford, and Kileen.

Cities expected to increase in security due to the threat are below:

Texas: Abilene, New Braunfels, San Antonio, Wyle, Fort Hood, Bedford, Kileen

Indiana: Michigan City, Bolivar

Michigan: Dearborn Heights, Lake Orion

Connecticut: Barkhamsted, Manchester

Nevada: Reno

Georgia: Griffin

Maryland: Upper Marlboro, Warrensburg, Lexington Park

Arizona: Phoenix

Louisiana: Shreveport, Bossier City

South Carolina: Daniel Island, Charleston

North Carolina: Fayetteville, New Bern

Virginia: Burke, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Springfield, Norfolk, Chesapeake

Colorado: Colorado Springs

California: Manford, Solvang, San Ardo, Monterrey, Newberry Park, Carlsbad

New Mexico: Farmington

North Dakota: Minot

South Dakota: Rapid City

Florida: Merritt Island, Palm Coast, Saint John, Middleburg, Saint Augustine

Washington: Colton, Cheney, Seattle, Spokane, Ancortes

Nebraska: Bellvue

Illinois: Orland Park

Rhode Island: Newport

Idaho: Bonners Ferry

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Islamic State posts names and addresses of 100 U.S. service members

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“Know that it is wajib [an Islamic religious duty] for you to kill these kuffar [unbelievers]! and now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for? Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking they are safe.”

“We have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for?” John Esposito’s bottom-feeder, the “Islamophobia” smear merchant Nathan Lean, has repeatedly published what he thinks is my home address and places I frequent. His objective is clearly the same as that of the Islamic State: to get me killed or frighten me into inaction — and that shows yet again the congruence and commonality of aims between the “Islamophobia” fantasists and the jihad terrorists.

“ISIS hackers call for homegrown ‘jihad’ against U.S. military, posts names and addresses of 100 service members,” by Jason Molinet, New York Daily News, March 21, 2015:

Islamic State hackers have posted the personal details of 100 U.S. service members they claim took part in the bombing of ISIS targets in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan – and called on homegrown radicals to strike back.

The group calling itself Islamic State Hacking Division allegedly gathered the dossier from cracked military databases and made an open call for “jihad against the crusaders” using JustPaste.it, a Polish-based social network favored by ISIS propagandists.

“These Kuffar that drop bombs over Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Khurasan and Somalia are from the same lands that you reside in, so when will you take action?” the group asks. “Know that it is wajib for you to kill these kuffar! and now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for? Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking they are safe…”

The black flag entry is a self-styled terrorist WikiLeaks titled “Target: United States Military.”

It lists the name, unit and address of 100 U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines – many of them pilots – along with headshots of each. One of the targeted is a Navy aviator from upstate New York.

“You crusaders that fight the Islamic State, we say to you: ‘Die in your rage!’” the ISIS post said….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Boston Marathon jihad murderer jury questionnaire: “Do you believe the ‘war on terror’ unfairly targets Muslims?”

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Afghan Muslim cleric defends lynching of woman for burning Qur’an

Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul: Islamic State “dedicated to a contemporary holocaust”

America’s Military Power in a Steep Decline

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“Eliminating the terrorists of today with force will not guarantee protection from the terrorists of tomorrow. We have to transform the environments that give birth to these movements…It may be training young people so they can get jobs…it may be working to eliminate corruption and promote the rule of law…”

The Obama administration proposal that a jobs program be created for the militants in the Middle East was met with appropriate derision because what the jihadists need is killing. That’s what they are doing to Christians, Jews and others in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The quote above is by John Kerry, the Secretary of State, and to be fair, his February 18 Wall Street Journal commentary began by saying “The rise of violent extremism represents the pre-eminent challenge of the young 21st Century. Military force is a rational and often necessary response to the wanton slaughters of children, mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, and beheading of innocents. But military force along won’t achieve victory.”

Kerry is wrong. History as recent as the mid-20th century is proof enough that the military defeat of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan was the only thing that ended the threat they represented. He was also wrong when he told a congressional committee that the world is a safer place these days when it is clear to anyone it is not.

We are being led by people who live in some alternative universe where pixie dust and unicorns exist.

The real question the Obama administration has to answer is why, since he took office in 2009, has he been systematically reducing the military power of the United States? By pulling our troops out of Iraq he created a vacuum filled by the Islamic State (ISIS) that now threatens the entire Middle East and parts of North Africa. He has since curtailed plans to pull most of our troops out of Afghanistan.

soldiers in dust stormOut of sight of Americans, however, the key personnel, the leaders on which our military depends, have been subject to a purge. General Paul Vallely (Ret) has warned that “Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented,” adding that “He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

In late February, 84 former U.S. government officials, retired U.S. military leaders, and national security experts sent an open letter to the House and Senate leadership asking them to work together to end the harm that the Budget Control Act and sequestration is inflicting on our Armed Forces.

They deemed the trillion dollars of required defense spending cuts “a grave and growing danger to our national security…as threats intensify across the globe.” The cuts “are undermining the readiness of our forces today and investment in the critical capabilities they will need tomorrow.”

“In the last three years, the Army’s strength has been cut by nearly 100,000 soldiers. The Navy’s contingency response force is at one-third the level of what it should be. Less than half of the Air Force’s combat squadrons are fully ready. Approximately half of the Marine Corps non-deployed units lack sufficient personnel, equipment, and training.”

These were facts set forth in the National Defense Panel’s July 2014 report. It warned that if sequestration takes effect in fiscal year 2016, the U.S. would be facing an “immediate readiness crisis.”

putin 2This lack of readiness was the subject of a Wall Street Journal commentary, “Europe’s Defense Wanes as the Putin Threat Grows” by Ian Birrell, so it is not just the United States that lacks sufficient troops and weapons in the event of a war. Birrell noted that “With fewer than 100,000 full-time troops, Great Britain now has a smaller army than during the mid-19th-century Crimean War.” Other members of NATO have cut their defense budgets in recent years. He warned that “As we fight this new Cold War, Western leaders need to relearn the old lessons of crisis management and deterrence that defeated Mr. Putin’s Soviet predecessors—and relearn them quickly.”

Recall that Secretary Kerry has gone on record saying that “climate change” is the greatest threat the U.S. and the world faces. Little wonder that Chuck Hegel resigned as the former Secretary of Defense given the pressure he was under from a White House indifferent to the real problems and threats the U.S. faces.

In 2014 the Pentagon released a “Climate Change Adaptation Forecast” and any defense funds diverted to this plan were just that much less than needed for our troops in the field and the real needs of the U.S. military. Are they supposed to be fighting melting ice bergs or staying ready for potential military threats from China or Russia?

An example of the idiotic political correctness, scarce Pentagon resources are being diverted to a plan to generate 50% of the Navy’s energy needs from “alternative sources” by 2020, including $3.5 billion for biofuels. You cannot fight a global war if the Navy cannot swiftly and easily acquire oil to run its ships that are not nuclear-powered and fly its aircraft.

At the same time, the U.S. has been reducing its stockpile of nuclear arms. The State Department’s Rose Gottemoeller, under-secretary for arms control and international security, recently told a group “The U.S. commitment to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons is unassailable.” She noted that the nation’s stockpile of active weapons is down 85% from maximum cold war levels, falling to 4,804 in 2013 from a high of 31,255, adding that “We still have more work to do.”

This completely ignores nuclear nations like North Korea who have bad intentions toward the U.S. and their neighbors and it runs completely contrary to the U.S. negotiations with Iran that would permit it to become a nuclear armed nation.

This is worse than diplomatic schizophrenia; it is a plan for national suicide.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently told Congress that Russia and China have placed their highest priority on building up and maintaining strategic nuclear forces.

If you want to know what is wrong about the entire approach to our nation’s military needs, consider that since 2009 when Obama took office, the Pentagon’s civilian workforce has grown about 7% to almost 750,000, while active-duty military personnel have been cut by approximately 8%.

At the same time, dozens of military-equipment and weapons programs have been canceled, including a new Navy cruiser, a new search-and-rescue helicopter, the F-22 first-generation fighter, the C-17 transport aircraft, missile defense and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

We are not prepared to fight a war and now you know why.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Obama sending 300 soldiers to fight the Islamic State & 3,000 to get infected with Ebola

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Daily it seems the foreign policy priorities of President Obama are misguided at the least and wrong headed at worst. It appears that President Obama is more concerned with fighting Ebola in Liberia than fighting the Islamic State in Iraq.

How do we know? By the number of our soldiers he is putting at risk to address each crisis.

Fighting Ebola is not a role for the U.S. Military. That is a role for the international health community and other non-governmental organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO website states, “It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.”

The role of the U.S. Military is to close with and destroy the enemy using all means available. Fighting a pandemic in Liberia is not part of our military’s mission nor is it an existential threat to the U.S. The best way to fight Ebola is quarantine. Do not allow those infected to come to the United States.

The Weekly Standards William Kristol asks, “Aren’t there other parts of the U.S government suited to carry on this fight? If not, shouldn’t there be? Max Boot suggested building such a non-military civilian ability in the pages of this magazine over a decade ago. Surely an administration committed to smart power would have developed the civilian capabilities to fight a virus without deploying 3,000 troops?”

What President Obama is doing is exposing our soldiers to the deadly Ebola virus. These soldiers will all be returning to the United States and some of them may become infected. There is a potential for all 3,000 to be infected, as they are neither trained nor equipped to deal with this Ebola crisis.

President Obama is sending 300 soldiers, boots on the ground, to take on the existential threat of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. This is too small of a force to make any substantial difference even with air superiority. The U.S. military experience fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan does not equate to the threat of the Islamic State. The two theaters of operation differ in terms of terrain, enemy strength, how IS is armed and funded.

President Obama is putting these 300 in the same situation as King Leonidas did when he led 300 Spartans to hold back the Persian Army of Xerxes. A potential massacre of our soldiers.

Neither decision makes any sense militarily. Neither decision makes sense from a foreign policy perspective. The only way these two decisions make sense is from a political perspective.

President Obama wants to be both the humanitarian and war fighter. Sadly the price for his faulty decisions will be paid by our soldiers who are being put into untenable situations.

It appears President Obama is focused on November 6, 2014 and not the long term national security of the United States.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

U.S. troops head to Africa for Ebola mission – Army Times

Doctors: Sending U.S. troops to fight Ebola irresponsible, appalling, ‘misuse of military’

Islamic State: Find U.S. soldiers’ homes, “show up and slaughter them”