Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category

After ISIS’s rise, President Obama was forced to take action against his will. He really didn’t want to send troops back into Iraq. Initially, the Obama administration announced airstrikes. Predictably, they didn’t have much of an effect. Now that President Trump has increased pressure on ISIS, ISIS is getting exposed as being terrible fighters. This article highlights how ISIS has crumbled.

The article starts by saying “The Islamic State group once drew recruits from near and far with promises of paradise but now bodies of jihadists lie in mass graves or at the mercy of wild dogs as its “caliphate” collapses. Flies buzz around human remains poking through the dusty earth in the Iraqi town of Dhuluiyah, 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Baghdad, at a hastily-dug pit containing the bodies of dozens of IS fighters killed in 2015. They should have ended up in the stomachs of stray dogs,” local police officer Mohammed al-Juburi told AFP. ‘We buried them here not out of love but because we wanted to avoid diseases.'”

Farmer Shalan al-Juburi is quoted as saying “We buried them with bulldozers. Even in the ground they are still mired in their own filth. They said that they would go to paradise to enjoy the gardens of delights, but this is how they ended up.”

But as Iraqi forces in Anbar now look to oust the jihadists from their final footholds, operation commander Mahmoud al-Fellahi insisted any jihadists killed will end up in mass graves. A similar fate befell IS members in the city of Mosul, the group’s largest urban stronghold in Iraq that it lost in July. There, a senior Iraqi commander told AFP, authorities used earthmoving equipment “to bury the jihadists after we collected information on their identities and nationalities”.

During President Bush’s surge, he benefitted from the Anbar Awakening. Once the people saw that they had a reliable military partner, the people started helping al-Qa’ida strongholds. It didn’t take long to defeat al-Qa’ida.

Unfortunately, thanks to President Obama’s politicization of US foreign policy, the US quickly lost the ground it had gained during the Bush administration. Now that we’ve got a legitimate commander-in-chief again, the tide quickly turned. This video offers a nice summarization:

This article in the Pi-Press is disgusting in its dishonesty. In the article, the ‘reporter’ says that “Trump’s highly controversial order suspends refugee admissions for 120 days and bars all immigration for 90 days of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries with terrorism concerns: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Those now being barred from the country include refugees who have already been thoroughly vetted by U.S. agencies.”

Either this reporter is telling an outright lie or he’s incredibly ignorant of the truth. Though Politifact attempts to sweep things under the carpet, the fact remains that FBI Director James Comey testified that “We can only query against that which we have collected, and so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interests reflected in our database, we can query our database till the cows come home, but … there’ll be nothing show up, because we have no record on that person.”

Politifact tried spinning things by saying “But did James Comey actually say the FBI “cannot properly vet” people coming from the Middle East? No, he didn’t. Beruff is distorting a point Comey was making about a flaw in the vetting process, but he was reiterating the system in place was actually much better than it had been in the past.”

Here’s the real exchange:

Ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) asked Comey, “Mr. Director, before this committee, [FBI] Assistant Director [Michael] Steinbach said that the concerns in Syria is that we don’t have the systems in place on the ground to collect the information to vet. That would be the concern. Databases don’t hold the information on these individuals. Is that still the position of the department?”

“Yes, I think that’s the challenge we’re all talking about, is that we can only query against that which we have collected, and so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interests reflected in our database, we can query our database till the cows come home, but we’re not gonna—there’ll be nothing show up, because we have no record on that person,” said Comey. “That’s what Assistant Director Steinbach was talking about,” he added.

Not having verifiable data to compare against isn’t “a flaw in the vetting process.” That’s admitting that it’s impossible to vet people. Here’s video of FBI Director Comey’s testimony:

That’s pretty open-and-shut testimony.

Technorati: Donald Trump, Executive Order, James Comey, Extreme Vetting, Refugee Resettlement Program, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Barack Obama, Politifact, Spin

This article points to the possibility that the Democrats’ uproar over the so-called Muslim ban is manufactured. The article starts by saying “Many of President Donald Trump’s core political supporters had a simple message on Sunday for the fiercest opponents of his immigration ban: Calm down. The relaxed reaction among the kind of voters who drove Trump’s historic upset victory - working- and middle-class residents of Midwest and the South - provided a striking contrast to the uproar that has gripped major coastal cities, where thousands of protesters flocked to airports where immigrants had been detained.”

Let’s get serious about something. Democrats didn’t utter a peep in 2011 when then-President Obama temporarily stopped admitting Iraqis when 2 al-Qa’ida in Iraq terrorists were discovered in Bowling Green, KY after getting admitted as refugees. The Washington Post’s ‘fact-checker’, Glenn Kessler tweeted his explanation for why the media didn’t say anything about Obama’s temporary halt in bringing in refugees, saying “two big differences: 1) pause was not announced at the time, done quietly. reporters only found out years later. 2) not based on religion.” Roxanne Chester put Kessler in his place with this tweet, saying “The most transparent adm did things they didn’t publish? Isn’t it the job of a free press to monitor that?”

The chances of the Democrats’ protests being spontaneous aren’t high. They’re pretty unlikely. It’s difficult to say that the grass roots are rising up when they’re rent-a-protesters. If these ‘grass roots’ activists are that into human rights, why didn’t they say anything about this?

These protests are as phony as the Democrats. It’s that simple.

The dishonest media is doing its best to whip the nation into a frenzy by not reporting the contents of President Trump’s EO accurately. Democrats are doing everything possible to keep the public misinformed. Kamala Harris, who replaced Barbara Boxer as the junior senator from California, is protesting President Trump’s EO that temporarily bans Muslims from 7 specific nations known as terrorist hotbeds. Rather than doing the job that people expect them to do, which is to accurately inform people of what’s happening in Washington, DC, the dishonest media is doing its best to mislead the public while telling people that President Trump is a racist and an Islamophobe.

William Jacobsen rightly said in this post that people “should actually read it“. The important part of what President Trump’s EO said actually cites the US law that permits him to act in our nation’s national security interests. It says “Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.”

Not only is the dishonest media getting things wrong. It’s badly misleading people to the point where it’s difficult that this isn’t intentional. Progressive activists aren’t helping, either, by flocking to social media to complain about President Trump’s EO, then aggregating them under the hashtag #MuslimBan. What the dishonest media and these progressive activists haven’t explained is how the so-called #MuslimBan doesn’t include the nation with the biggest Muslim population in the world (Indonesia) or how Muslim nations like Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia aren’t on the list.

Then there’s this:

The order bars all people hailing from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Those countries were named in a 2016 law concerning immigration visas as “countries of concern.”

If Trump is anti-Muslim for temporarily banning people from these countries, then former President Obama must be anti-Muslim, too, because he signed the bill into law. Thomas Lifson’s article highlights the fact that Syria is the only nation named in President Trump’s EO:

I read the order and Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are not mentioned in it. Go back and read it again. Do a “ctrl-f” to find “Iraq.” Where is “Iraq” in the order. It’s not there. Only Syria is there. So where are the seven nations? Where is the “Muslim ban?” It turns out this was a form of fake news, or alternative facts. Trump didn’t select seven “Muslim-majority” countries. US President Barack Obama’s administration selected these seven Muslim-majority countries.

This is proof positive that President Trump is right in calling the dishonest media the opposition party. I’d go a step further. I’d argue that they’re unindicted co-conspirators with dishonest Democratic Party politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi.

If their collective dishonesty were political capital, that bunch would rule Washington, DC for decades. Thank God that isn’t the case. They’re just a bunch of dishonest progressive politicians that the nation rejected this past November. I’ll leave you with this video:

It’s video of a manipulative, dishonest politician. I never thought I’d say this but I think I’d prefer Harry Reid over this politician.

This NY Times article highlights the fact that liberals haven’t come to grips with the fact that the nation rejected President Obama’s agenda this past Tuesday night.

Dan Pfeiffer, a senior advisor to President Obama, said “It was not a rejection of Obama or Obama-ism. It was probably more about the two candidates running in this election.” It’s indisputable that Hillary wasn’t a good candidate. Still, this isn’t an either-or situation. Just like FBI Director Jim Comey didn’t lose this election for Hillary, it’s equally true that President Obama’s policies tied a millstone around Hillary’s neck, too.

Obamacare was something that Mrs. Clinton couldn’t avoid. With premiums skyrocketing right before the election, Hillary was essentially silent. Unfortunately for Mrs. Clinton, Bill Clinton and Gov. Dayton criticized the ACA right before the election. From that point forward, Mrs. Clinton was trapped in an impossible situation. From that point forward, President Obama’s signature achievement was attacked. It will be largely dismantled, which is good news for families because it’s hurt more people than it’s helped.

President Obama’s aides are citing President Obama’s accomplishments:

Moreover, although Mr. Obama said that all of his progress would go “out the window,” advisers now argue the opposite: that many accomplishments cannot be overturned. He will be remembered, they said, for pulling the country out of the Great Recession, saving the auto industry, bringing home most troops fighting overseas, killing Osama bin Laden, enacting higher fuel efficiency standards and restoring relations with Cuba.

Killing bin Laden was something big that he’ll deservedly get credit for. I don’t think he’ll get credit for pulling the nation out of the Great Recession, though. TARP was enacted before the 2008 election. That pulled us out of the Great Recession. Further, Obamanomics never worked that well. Economic growth has been anemic for 8 years. (It’s difficult to claim that President Obama pulled us out of the Great Recession when economic growth was virtually nonexistent for 8 years.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say that President Obama pulled us out of the Great Recession when voters elected Donald Trump. Trump specifically ran on a program that’s intent on reversing most of President Obama’s economic agenda. Trump plans on enacting tax reform, including the lowering of marginal tax rates, regulatory reform that’s killing the energy industry and repealing the ACA. I’m betting that this talking point will disappear once those things are enacted and the economy starts growing at a robust clip.

Bringing the troops home is something President Obama’s political base will appreciate but I don’t think the nation at-large agrees. They won’t agree because the price of bringing the troops home was the rise of ISIS.

This is President Obama from Fantasyland sounds like:

“When I think about the polarization that occurred in 2009 and 2010, I’ve gone back and I’ve looked at my proposals and my speeches and the steps we took to reach out to Congress,” he told the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in a pre-election conversation published by Vanity Fair. “And the notion that we weren’t engaging Congress or that we were overly partisan or we didn’t schmooze enough, or we didn’t reach out enough to Republicans — that whole narrative just isn’t true.”

First, Speaker Boehner didn’t reject President Obama’s stimulus plan out of hand. Second, it was President Obama that rejected the Republicans’ ideas without giving them serious consideration. He told Eric Cantor that “elections have consequences. You lost.”

When his policies get dismantled, which is inevitable, he’ll have nobody but himself, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to blame.

Technorati: Barack Obama, Legacy, Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, Great Recession, Stimulus Package, Bailouts, Partisanship, TARP, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Democrats, Iraq War, ISIS, Osama bin Laden

When Hillary Clinton talks about US national security, people listen. It isn’t that they think she’ll tell the truth. HRC’s honest and trustworthy ratings are worse than an ant’s popularity rating at a mid-summer picnic. Some people will listen to hear what absurd lies she’ll tell. Others will listen so they’ll know what she said once Lanny Davis and other Clinton spinmeisters appear on TV to tell us that she didn’t say what everyone watched HRC say.

Those are probably the good old days. Now, the DFL and other Hillary enablers don’t wait until after she’s gotten caught lying. They’re proactive, telling us nonsense prior to her lying to us. This tweet is a perfect example of Democrats being proactive so they can change the subject once a moderator asks about HRC’s statements. The DFL tweeted “When @HillaryClinton talks about keeping our country safe, she means it.”

After visiting HRC’s website, I feel safe. That’s where I read this comforting thought:

The threat we face from terrorism is real, urgent, and knows no boundaries. Horrific attacks like the ones in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, and San Bernardino have made it all too clear: It is not enough to contain ISIS and the threat of radical jihadism—we have to defeat it.

That’s the hard-hitting policy that we need. I feel safer already. Well, I’d feel safer if it wasn’t for this:

On NBC’s Meet the Press, moderator Chuck Todd asked Pence about Trump’s policies to ban Muslims from entering the United States. In recent weeks, Trump has said he would ban Muslims from countries with terrorist activity.

When Todd pressed Pence about what countries those would be, Pence changed the subject to Clinton’s Syria policy. “Well, Hillary Clinton wants to increase Syrian refugees to this country by 550 percent,” Pence said. “Donald Trump and I believe that we should suspend the Syrian refugee program.”

It doesn’t make sense to take out ISIS hotspots in Syria, Iraq and Europe, then invite potential ISIS terrorists to the US through our refugee resettlement program. Despite what Pat Kessler reported, it’s still highly possible for ISIS terrorists to infiltrate the US through the refugee resettlement program.

Hillary’s plan to protect the US from ISIS terrorist attacks is essentially killing terrorists in Iraq and Syria while inviting new terrorists into the US. Killing terrorists there, then increasing the number of potential terrorists in the US seems slightly counterproductive. Then again, how can people feel safe watching video like this?

Technorati: Hillary Clinton, National Security, ISIS, Refugee Resettlement Program, Terrorist Attacks, Pat Kessler, Reality Check, DFL, Democrats, Election 2016

Donald Trump’s acceptance speech last night has been characterized as being scary or dark by Democrats. Mo Elleithee, a former Hillary campaign spokesman, said that this was a dreadful week for the GOP. That’s spin but not very good spin.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s pollster, said that she expects Trump and Hillary to be tied in all of the major swing states when the swing state polls start coming out. While it’s wise to take anything from a candidate’s pollster with a grain of salt, I’ve watched Mrs. Conway since she was Ms. Fitzpatrick. She isn’t a spinner. She’s earned the benefit of the doubt with me.

As for Trump’s speech, it was different in important and profound ways. He stripped away the façade that the Obama administration has hidden behind for 8 years. It started when Mr. Trump said “It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation. I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore. So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths, the Democrats are holding their convention next week. Go there.”

Think of that as Trump’s way of telling the elitists in the media and in the Democratic Party (pardon the repetition) that America would hear the truth. Here’s an example of that truthfulness:

These are the facts:

Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement. Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60 percent in nearby Baltimore.

In the president’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office. The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50 percent compared to this point last year.

Democrats say that the speech was dark. Let’s ask this question: Are those the type of statistics that should make us feel happy? Or are they the type of statistics that make your heart ache? If that wasn’t enough information to make a decision on, this will help thoughtful people make the right decision:

One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years old and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 grade point average. Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law. I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.

There’s no spinning that story. If I were to put it in tennis language, that story would be “Game. Set. Match. Championship.” Thoughtful people can’t hear that story and think we need to continue this administration’s immigration policies.

This is a powerful indictment of Hillary’s incompetence:

In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map. Libya was stable. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq had seen a big reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was somewhat under control.

After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region and the entire world. Libya is in ruins, and our ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos. Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.

This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: Death, destruction and terrorism and weakness.

That’s a devastating and accurate before and after portrait of Hillary’s incompetence. Think of it as the indictment the Justice Department didn’t attempt to get.

Technorati: Donald Trump, Acceptance Speech, Law Enforcement, Sarah Root, Violent Crime, Terrorism, Republican National Convention, Hillary Clinton, Illegal Immigration, Libya, Iraq, ISIS, National Security, Democrats, Election 2016

The Boston Globe’s Joan Vennochi is one of the most consistently liberal columnists in the nation. That’s her persona. Think of this morning’s column as the literary equivalent of Vennochi taking a wooden spoon to Mrs. Clinton’s political backside.

It didn’t take long for Ms. Vennochi to break out the punishment, saying “One man driving a truck, 84 people dead. Donald Trump wants to declare war on that. It isn’t real policy. It’s rhetoric, a direct appeal to the gut, to the anger and fear people experience when they watch the reports from Nice. Hillary Clinton wants us to be smarter, talk to our allies, and maybe hold a summit. Her typically wonky response reflects little understanding of what average Americans feel when they see bodies, strollers, and a stuffed animal strewn along a beach promenade.”

I haven’t been a fan of Mr. Trump but I’d be intellectually dishonest if I didn’t say that, when it comes to terrorism, Donald Trump gets it. Hillary’s litany of foreign policy mistakes is proof that she doesn’t get it. Ms. Vennochi wasn’t done. A couple paragraphs later, she wrote “Statistically, the likelihood of a terror attack may still be small, but at a certain point, statistics don’t matter. After terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Istanbul, such violence feels possible in any major city. And attacks at home, in San Bernardino and Orlando, instill fear of the lone wolf terrorist next door, making us suspicious of each other. Last week’s murders of five Dallas police officers were not inspired by any foreign terrorist cause, but elevate the fear and suspicion.”

Dissertations aren’t in order when terrorists hit a soft target. That’s for the professors to deal with a year later. Leaders need to lead. One of President Bush’s highest moments came while standing on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero:

That’s what leaders do. They rally their citizens to a cause bigger than themselves. They don’t issue 5,000-word dissertations on where terrorists start. They don’t explain why we need to understand the terrorists. They tell people that terrorists are evil and, like with other evil people, they need to be destroyed ASAP.

That doesn’t require a 2-year commitment of 250,000 ground troops in a distant country. That’s Iraq, not ISIS. To win this war, we need to listen to people like Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and others who think like him. ISIS is constantly morphing and transforming itself. It’s essential that we do the same to keep them at bay and prevent their attacks.

Technorati: Donald Trump, Nice, France, Ultimate Plowing Machine, Inspire Magazine, AQAP, Anwar al-Awlaki, George W. Bush, Ground Zero, National Security, Leadership, Republicans, Hillary Clinton, Russian Reset Button, Arab Spring, ISIS, Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2016

CNBC’s Larry Kudlow has earned the reputation of being pro-immigration reform. That’s why Mr. Kudlow’s NRO op-ed is startling. Mr. Kudlow admits that we’re at war with Islamic terrorists and that “there should be no immigration or visa waivers until the U.S. adopts a completely new system to stop radical Islamic terrorists from entering the country.” If that sounds like Trump’s plan, it’s because it’s similar but it isn’t the same.

Kudlow explains “Let me emphasize that my support for wartime immigration restrictions is not based on religion. I think Donald Trump made a big mistake here. Instead, I agree with this Rupert Murdoch tweet: ‘Complete refugee pause to fix vetting makes sense.'”

That’s the point I’ve made from the start. Let me outline the principles I’d use to prevent the next Paris or the next San Bernardino. First, I’d establish a tiered list of countries to accept refugees from. The first tier would be countries that we’d never accept refugees from. Basically, any nation whose government exists in name only would be on that list. Syria, Somalia, Mali, Libya and Yemen would be on that list.

I’ve nicknamed the second list the Procto list. Refugees from these countries would be given a full proctology examination. Each refugee would be given a full examination including everything up to the person’s tonsils. Twice. I picture nations like Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey and Greece on that list. It isn’t that there are many Greek terrorists. It’s that a bunch of ISIS terrorists stopped in Greece on their way to the west from Iraq and Syria. Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan are marginal allies but they’re terrorist hotbeds, too.

I wrote this article to highlight the corruption within the Obama administration, especially in the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Tashfeen Malik, the terrorist bride, didn’t “slip through the cracks” like the administration is spinning it. They all but rolled out the red carpet for her by shutting down a program that likely would’ve put her terrorist husband, Syed Farook, on the federal government’s no-fly list because he attended a radicalized mosque.

FYI- That likely would’ve meant Malik’s visa being rejected, too.

Larry Kudlow should be applauded for changing his very public stand. The late economist John Maynard Keynes was once asked why he’d changed his policy. His epic reply fits here:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Exactly right.

Daniel Greenfield’s article provides a worthwhile teaching moment on what’s constitutional and what isn’t. Greenfield’s article starts with him saying “Trump is a monster, a madman and a vile racist. He’s just like Hitler. Or Jimmy Carter. During the Iranian hostage crisis, Carter issued a number of orders to put pressure on Iran. Among these, Iranians were banned from entering the United States unless they oppose the Shiite Islamist regime or had a medical emergency.”

Later in the article, Greenfield wrote “Now unlike Muslims, Iranians were not necessarily supportive of Islamic terrorism. Many were and are opponents of it. Khomeini didn’t represent Iran as a country, but his Islamist allies. So Trump’s proposal is far more legitimate than Carter’s action.” That’s a non sequitur defense of Trump’s bombastic statement. It’s illegal to exclude people based on their religious beliefs.

Kimberly Guilfoyle explained, saying that “[we] are signatories to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are international laws and treaties that we are bound by. You can not ban people based on their religious beliefs.”

Treaties that the president signs and that Congress approves in its advise and consent responsibilities are then treated as equal in legal strength as a US statute passed by Congress and signed by the president. Further, treaties that’ve been signed by the president, then ratified by Congress, can’t be repealed by executive order. Just like repealing statutes, Congress has to pass a bill calling for repeal of the law.

The repeal isn’t complete until the president signs the bill calling for withdrawing from the treaty.

Greenfield finishes by saying “Maybe the professional conservatives running around shrieking their heads off can calm down now long enough to have a rational conversation on the subject.” I’d prefer Mr. Greenfield taking a closer look at the laws that apply to banning people based on their religious beliefs. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights says signatories can’t deny people rights based on their religious beliefs. It doesn’t say that the US can’t ban people from specific nations, presumably because of the United States’ right to defend itself.