Can Obama manage a war?

Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

Josh Rogin 

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WORLD NEWS

 

09.30.14

Exclusive: America’s Allies Almost Bombed in Syrian Airstrikes

The White House says it wants to work with Syria’s moderate rebels. But warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition came awfully close to striking one of their HQs. 

Last week, an airstrike from the American-led coalition nearly hit a command-and-control facility affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, the moderate rebels the Obama administration says are America’s “boots on the ground,” according to two opposition leaders. They are asking the Obama administration to please coordinate with them in the future before America bombs its only allies in Syria.

Since U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria began on Sept. 22, there has been no coordination between the U.S. military and its alleged partners on the ground, according to FSA leaders, civilian opposition leaders, and intelligence sources who have been briefed on the U.S. and allied military operation. It’s this lack of communication that led to an airstrike that hit only 200 meters from an FSA facility in the suburbs of Idlib. One source briefed on the incident said multiple FSA fighters were killed in the attack.

“Unfortunately, there is zero coordination with the Free Syrian Army. Because there is no coordination, we are seeing civilian casualties. Because there is no coordination, they are hitting empty buildings for ISIS,” Hussam Al Marie, the spokesman for the FSA in northern Syria, told The Daily Beast. “We have been getting promises that the coordination will be coming, but we have been getting promises since the beginning of this revolution and nothing has happened yet.”

The incident, which was not been previously reported, doesn’t just highlight the gap between the U.S. and its newly-endorsed allies in the moderate opposition, however. It also shows how complicated it can be to make alliances in the multi-factioned Syrian civil war. The coalition airstrike was targeting a base used by al Nusrah, the local al Qaeda affiliate. And the camp was, essentially, next door to the FSA facility. The al Qaeda fighters and the U.S-endorsed rebels were neighbors—and, at times, partners in battle against ISIS and the Bashar al-Assad regime.

“Because there is no coordination, [the U.S.-led coalition] hit an al Nusrah base in the Idlib suburbs that is only 200 meters from the Free Syrian Army,” Al Marie said.

There were 11 civilian casualties after the first day of U.S.-led airstrikes inside Syria, according to the FSA, and at least one more when the coalition struck a Shariah Court near Idlib two days ago that was under the control of al Nusrah. The U.S. government has said it cannot confirm any civilian casualties but will investigate any accidents.

“There are always civilian casualties when they are hitting al Nusrah because al Nusrah is just living among the people,” said Al Marie. “They didn’t do any real harm to ISIS, the buildings of ISIS were empty. Meanwhile, the main battle on the ground against ISIS hasn’t been supported yet. That’s the important thing, the ground battle.”

In the fight against ISIS in northern Syria, the FSA often fights alongside other rebel groups with varying levels of Islamic flavor: the Islamic Front, the Tawheed Brigade, and even the al Qaeda-linked al Nusrah Front. FSA fighters are moving around the area all the time and sometimes have to pass through al Nusrah checkpoints to get where they are going. And yet, according to the Obama administration, these moderate rebels can be trusted—despite their alliances of convenience with al Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria. (On Sunday, the leader of al Nusrah made his first public statement in eight months, telling moderate rebels that his group, and not the United States, was their true partner.)

Now, in addition to the Assad regime and ISIS, they have to worry about getting killed by U.S. and coalition airstrikes on al Nusrah targets too. Already, one Syrian rebel group supported in the past by the United States condemned the aerial attacks, calling them “an attack on national sovereignty” and demanding that the West train its firepower on Assad instead. To make matters worse, some FSA leaders now say that the airstrikes are threatening to push many rebel groups—including al Nusrah—back toward the side of ISIS.

“Before there were terrorists fighting terrorists. Now, after the airstrikes, you could see them working together against a common enemy (the United States), which is not what we want to see at all,” said Al Marie.

In President Obama’s Sept. 10 speech to the nation announcing his new strategy against ISIS, the president said, “We must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to” ISIS. He then called on Congress to authorize a program to train and equip 5,000 rebels per year in Saudi Arabia, which they did. Sunday night on CBS’s 60 Minutes, the President defended his decision to avoid arming the moderate Syrian rebels for the last two years, as most of his top national security officials had recommended.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken said the FSA would be America’s boots on the ground in Syria and are a crucial part of the coalition strategy to defeat ISIS and then eventually work to oust Assad.

“The president has been very clear. This is going to be a long-term effort. It's going to be sustained and it's going to be more effective because we're going to be working with partners on the ground, not sending in hundreds of thousands of Americans,” he said.

But a week into the strikes, the FSA hasn’t heard anything from the Obama administration or the U.S. military about where the strikes are, how they can help make them effective, or even how to avoid getting killed by U.S. bombs and missiles. And because Obama doesn’t want American boots on the ground, there are no U.S. air controllers to guide in the strikes. Throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American military found that such personnel were essential for minimizing civilian casualties.

‘This is really dangerous,” said Al Marie. “I really don’t know what’s the strategic plan for these airstrikes, how they are doing it. I can’t believe it, our friends are doing this big thing in our country and here we are, their friends, and they won’t coordinate with us.”

The U.S.-led airstrikes have not done any significant damage to ISIS, Al Marie said, because the group moved all of their command and control, valuable weaponry, money, and even family members to new locations after Obama announced publicly the airstrikes were coming.

Another civilian Syrian opposition official told The Daily Beast that the lack of coordination was such a big problem, Syrian National Coalition President Hadi al Bahra pressed National Security Advisor Susan Rice last week in New York to set up a joint coordination center with the FSA for the operations to fight ISIS. Rice was noncommittal, the official said, but the opposition leadership is trying hard to get the Obama administration to start working more with the FSA.

“The FSA is passing on solid targeting information about ISIS and Nusrah. We don’t know if they are using it or not,” the opposition official said. “We’re hoping that the campaign will eventually transition to one of close air support based on mutual intelligence sharing.”

Major Curtis Kellogg, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told The Daily Beast he could not comment on the FSA’s allegation that the coalition had struck an al Nusrah base right next to a moderate rebel headquarters.

"As a matter of policy, we’re not going to discuss the specifics of our targeting process, coordination or intelligence, but based on our ISR capabilities and careful evaluation, we have high confidence in the ISIL and Khorasan Group targets we have chosen,” Kellogg said, using the government’s preferred acronym for ISIS and its name for a cadre of veteran al Qaeda planners.

Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Obama administration is not coordinating with the FSA because it still doesn’t believe it can trust the FSA with sensitive information about ongoing military operations. But that also means the FSA can’t capitalize after the strikes by taking over the territory that has been cleared.

“Everybody knows you can’t bomb your way out of this problem, and if your game plan is for the moderate opposition to fill up that vacuum, then it would seem it’s important the moderate rebels benefit,” he said. “We need to win the opposition over to our side and this doesn’t help that at all. And if this continues, the Assad regime will be the main party to benefit.”

By announcing that U.S. airstrikes would be paired with help for the FSA but then not delivering that help quickly or even talking to the FSA, the U.S. is putting the moderate rebels in the worst possible position and needlessly harming the effectiveness of the mission, said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an American-based organization that works with the Syrian opposition, and political director of United for a Free Syria.

“You are helping alienate the FSA from their popular support on the ground and you are risking ISIS regrouping or allowing the regime to take over these areas, which contradicts the stated policy of the president of the United States,” he said.

Obama's moral relativism minimizes the vile actions of Islamists and at the same time distorts Israeli actions

Obama Chided for Telling UN: Many Israelis Ready to Ditch Peace

With all eyes turned to Netanyahu's UN speech, ZOA cites Obama for claiming that violence led "too many Israelis" to despair of peace.

By Hillel Fendel

First Publish: 9/30/2014, 

Morton Klein

Screenshot

With the world concentrating on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's hard-hitting remarks at the UN General Assembly on Monday, the Zionist Organization of America turns attention to President Barack Obama's address to the UN – and what it calls his "baseless and offensive claim" that "the violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace."
Obama addressed the UN on Sept. 24, two days before PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of "genocide" from the same podium.
President Obama said in his address, "The situation in Iraq, Syria and Libya should cure anyone of the illusion that this conflict [between Palestinians and Israelis] is the main source of problems in the region."
He then mentioned the Muslim extremist violence "engulfing the region" in the same breath as the "too many Israelis [who are] ready to abandon the hard work of peace."
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "It is remarkable that President Obama can deduce from current Middle Eastern developments and realities that Israel is to be chided for not pursuing peace."
"In fact," Klein continued, "it is the PA which has made not a single concession, while continuing unabated with its glorification of terrorists, incitement to hatred and murder, denial of Jewish history in Israel, non-acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state and publicly stating that a future Palestinian state will never allow Jews."
Klein further noted that the PA has "concluded a unity regime agreement with Hamas, the U.S.- and European Union-listed terrorist organization that calls in its Charter for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews," and has "refused without counter-offer U.S. and Israeli offers of Palestinian statehood throughout virtually the whole of Judea/Samaria, all of Gaza and half of Jerusalem in 2000 and again in 2008."
"Instead of admitting his errors" in promoting the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamic movements, and in concentrating on the Israeli situation so exclusively, "President Obama has chided Israel for supposedly tiring of peace, even as he now rightly claims that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is not the heart of the Middle East's problems at all -- a position the ZOA has long argued."

Dissecting the "People's Climate March"

Idiocracy on Parade 

Insularity in the black community is its downfall

Poverty In The Black Community Is The Result of Culture Not Racism

By Patricia L. Dickson

I have often been accused by friends (black, white and all others in between) of being too logical, to the point that I am inhibited from seeing other people’s point of view ( I am not sure if that is a compliment or insult). They say that I enter into discussions with the false assumption that others are just as logical and rational as I am. I have been told this so often that I have conceded that perhaps they are telling the truth (they know me well enough to make such claims). Because I have finally accepted the charge against me, I often consult friends on matters that I find perplexing.

A black female friend and I once discussed how our historically unemployed (lazy) relatives often claimed that we were rich simply because we had things that they did not. I said to her that surely they understood that we worked for everything that we have. Her response to me was that they did not understand how we acquired what we had. I told her that it was illogical for someone not to correlate money or possessions with work, and I refused to believe it. Well, a short time later, my friend’s comments proved true.

 A female relative of mine came to live with me for a short time. One day when I came home from work, she asked me where everyone in the neighborhood was. She said that during the day, she would go outdoors looking for someone to talk to and no one was around. I told her that they were at work, and I asked her how she thought the neighbors could pay for their homes if they did not go to work (just as I was going to work every day). She looked at me with a confused look on her face. Up until that point (she was nearly sixty years old), she had lived in neighborhoods where everyone (including her) received some kind of government check and therefore did not work. She always had someone to shuck and jive with because everyone was at home all day long. She told me that she was bored living in my (middleclass working) neighborhood.

A male relative of mine once tried to play the guilt trip on me in order to get money from me by lamenting about how tired he was of being broke. He told me that I did not know how it felt to be broke because I have always had money. He was in his early fifties and had spent his entire adult life mostly unemployed and in and out of jail for petty crimes. I asked him: did he think that money grew on trees? I told him that I have worked all of my life for everything that I have. He walked away with his tail between his legs.

If poor blacks cannot correlate money and possessions with work, there is no wonder that they think that they are entitled to the same things as working people. Most liberal voters are immature and live in a fantasy world. They believe that everything that working people have fell from the sky, and they somehow were not around to catch some of it. Therefore, they believe that it is not fair that they do not have the same things. Is that why it is so easy for the race baiters to go into these communities and claim that the rich have stolen from them?

Many black conservatives have said that Republicans need to go into the black communities in order to win the black vote. However, my concern is with how our message of hard work will be received by individuals in these liberal bastions who have never witnessed anyone consistently going to work every day.  Liberals have inoculated these individuals against work and responsibility by continuously plying them with government handouts.

I once had a discussion with another black female friend about the unemployment history in the black inner city neighborhoods. I asked her why the blacks in these neighborhoods did not apply for jobs at the establishments that they frequent. She told me that the reason why they did not apply for jobs is that poor blacks do not think that the jobs are for them. I asked her what she meant by for them. She explained that poor blacks have been programmed to believe that jobs are only for white people and not for them, so therefore they do not apply.  I do not know how my friend came to that conclusion; however, it was not long before her statements also proved true.

A young black man was lamenting to me about the lack of job opportunities for black men in corporate America. He told me that although he had a college degree, he was unable to obtain employment. Assuming that he had been applying for jobs, I asked him where he had applied. He told me that he had not applied anywhere. I asked why had he not applied and he said that he did not fit the description that the employers were looking for. He went on to claim that society, through television and movies, portray white men in suits as successful executives, therefore, he concluded that he did not fit the description for corporate America. I will concede that there is some merit to the argument that television and movies portray white businesspersons in suits as successful; however I cannot logically understand why someone would not at least apply for jobs. If poor blacks really believe that jobs are not for them, who is it that taught them that?

Most of the things that individuals are taught comes from the culture in which they were raised, whether it be work ethic, habits, or beliefs. Growing up in the South, my parents could not afford to buy me designer clothes and shoes. After joining the military, I purchased my first pair of designer sneakers and wore them home on my first leave after boot camp and job training.  My older male cousin looked down at my sneakers and asked me what I was doing wearing them. He said that black people were not supposed to wear those type of shoes. It has been over 26 years since he made that statement and I remember it just like it was yesterday. He had been programmed by the culture that he was raised in to think that even if you have the money to purchase something, you were not supposed to have it. I often talk with successful blacks who think that they do not deserve what they have. One black male friend that lives in an affluent neighborhood told me that when he and his family are walking around in the town center, he feels that he is not supposed to be there.

Until the black community looks inward to solve its problems, nothing will change. Many problems in the black community are the result of a self-imposed inferiority complex. That is why it infuriates me so much to hear race baiters telling poor blacks that they are victims. The victim mindset causes complacency and impotence of action in an individual. One reason that the black community has regressed instead of progressed is due to the victim mindset that has caused cognitive blindness and mental paralysis. Blacks cannot continue to blame society for how blacks Americans are perceived.  The black community must examine its culture and its effect on the lives of the individuals in the black community.

The regime's intentional lack of transparency

Transparency Groups Press White House on FOIA Delays

White House staff currently reviews requests involving ‘White House equities’

AP

BY: CJ Ciaramella 
September 29, 2014 

Government watchdog groups and transparency advocates are asking the Obama administration to review its policy of having the White House sign off on an expanded number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests—a procedure they say causes significant delays.

In a letter to the White House released Monday, 25 transparency organizations said the Obama administration’s policy of reviewing FOIA requests that contain so-called “White House equities” has “caused significant confusion and delay among agencies in their compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.”

According to a 2009 memo from the White House Counsel to all agency heads and general counsels, the White House reminded all agencies to send FOIA requests containing White House “equities” to it for review.

The equities mandate “applies to all documents and records, whether in oral, paper, or electronic form, that relate to communications to and from the White House, including preparations for such communications.”

Transparency groups say the review process has significantly delayed some requests and that agencies do not have proper guidance on what counts as a “White House equity.”

Government watchdog group Cause of Action, one of the signers of the letter, first obtained the formerly secret 2009 memo. The group sued a dozen government agencies in August for more information on their White House equities policy.

“Public promises of transparency are no excuse for secret memos that prevent it. Americans deserve a government that is fair and open and delaying the release of documents prevents the ability of a free press to educate the public,” Cause of Action executive director Dan Epstein said in a statement Monday. “Our hope is that President Obama honors the laws in place designed to provide transparency, such as the Freedom of Information Act, and withdraws this 2009 memo.”

Other signatories include the Society of Professional Journalists, the Sunlight Foundation, the American Library Association, the Government Accountability Project, the Project on Government Oversight, and OpenTheGovernment.org.

“To put it simply, ‘White House equities’ is not a well-defined term. Not surprisingly, a policy based around protecting an ill-defined term can sow confusion among agency officials and the public, and make it very hard to know exactly the effect of the policy,” Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org, said in a statement. “In the interest of the unprecedented levels of openness in government committed to by the president, the White House needs to review this policy, and send agencies any additional guidance if needed.”

As previously reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the executive branch has asserted its privilege to review White House documents and communications produced through FOIA requests since at least the Reagan administration. However, transparency advocates say that under the Obama administration such review has expanded beyond its original intended scope to include documents that do not originate from the White House at all.

The Treasury Inspector General wrote in a 2013 report on White House’s policy on reviewing documents subject to FOIA requests that “none of the document sets we reviewed appeared to originate with the White House.”

The Treasury Inspector General also said White House involvement was minimal and found no evidence of bad-faith practices. However, it did note that White House review “was responsible in several cases for adding a significant processing delay.”

An anonymous FOIA officer at a federal agency made similar claims in an interview with the Washington Times earlier this year.

“Under the Obama administration, I am personally aware of multiple cases [including those in litigation] in which records were sent to the White House because they dealt with a politically hot topic,” the official told the Washington Times. “The records did not originate from or even mention the White House.”

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.

How the Left devolves society

National Disarmament Plan not aimed at criminal gangs

Fifty fire arms were delivered on the first day

The minister of the interior and justice granted 20 scholarships to those who surrendered their weapons (AVN) 

EL UNIVERSAL

Tuesday September 30, 2014  10:11 AM

Calls for voluntary submission of weapons do not particularly aim at members of criminal gangs. Instead, they are the target of other actions launched by Foreign Policy Deputy Minister José Vicente Rangel Ávalos.

The idea is that civilians in possession of fire arms because they either inherited or bought them for their personal protection surrender them to the authorities under this special plan, explained Minister of the Interior and Justice, Miguel Rodríguez Torres during the first day of the National Disarmament Plan which will be enforced until 2015.

Rodríguez Torres informed 50 fire arms were delivered on the first day.

The minister of the interior and justice granted 20 scholarships to those who surrendered their weapons.

What George W. Bush said about Iraq on July 12, 2007 was quite prescient

“To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we’re ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States,” Bush said. “It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It’d mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It’d mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It’d mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.”

Hamas: pictures of children being used as human shields

Netanyahu reveals photo of children playing near Hamas rocket launcher

Modal Trigger

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about the photograph as he addresses the United Nations General Assembly. Photo: Reuters

Hamas concealed missiles in civilian neighborhoods during the Gaza conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged Monday as he provided photographic proof to the UN.

“Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children live and play,” he told the General Assembly, displaying a chilling picture of kids amid weaponry.

“It shows two Hamas rocket launchers, which were used to attack us. You see three children playing next to them. Hamas deliberately put its rockets in hundreds of residential areas like this. Hundreds of them,” he added.

Critics claim Israel perpetrated genocide by firing its rockets into Gaza.

Netanyahu reacted angrily to the accusation leveled against a nation where many citizens fled from the Holocaust.

“Israel was using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles,” the prime minister seethed. “It used schools, not just schools — UN schools, private homes, mosques, even hospitals to store and fire rockets at Israel.”

He angrily contrasted Hamas’ tactics with those of Israel — and blasted the UN’s Human Rights Council for what he called a double standard in condemning Israel.

“Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians, that’s a double war crime, Hamas is given a pass,” Netanyahu said.

Who will pay for paroling this monster?

Kidnapper of real estate agent: She was rich and alone

The body of the Arkansas real estate agent who vanished last week was found in a shallow grave, police confirmed Tuesday.

Prison parolee Arron Lewis, 33, has officially been charged with capital murder for the death of 49-year-old Beverly Carter, local CBS affiliate KTHV reports.

Lewis, who’s admitted kidnapping Carter, told reporters that he abducted her because she was alone and had money.

“…she was a woman that worked alone — a rich broker,” Lewis said to a Fox Channel 16 reporter as he was being walked out of the Pulaski sheriff’s office.

Authorities found Carter’s body just after midnight Tuesday when investigators received a tip which led them to a suburb of Little rock about 25 miles from where the woman disappeared last Thursday, cops said.

Lewis was arrested Monday and admitted kidnapping Carter, but he refused to reveal her whereabouts. He was booked at the Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility around 12:40 a.m. Tuesday, according to KTHV.

The accused murderer spoke to reporters outside the Pulaski sheriff’s office and said he did not kill Carter — adding that he hadn’t seen her in two days and that an associate of his named Trevor might be responsible for her death.

“He’s Air Force at the military base,” he told a reporter as he was escorted to a vehicle for transportation to county jail.

Carter was reported missing Sept. 25 when she didn’t come home after showing a house. Her husband called police after he noticed her car was still in that house’s driveway with her purse inside.

Lewis was on parole for theft in Arkansas and has prior arrests in Utah and Kansas, according to Reuters. He is expected to be arraigned Tuesday.