POLITICS_ How far can Obama pass the buck?

WASHINGTON EXAMINER

How far can Obama pass the buck?

By Washington Examiner | September 30, 2014 | 5:00 am

Was President Obama caught flat-footed by the rise of the Islamic State? When asked, he offered this answer in Sunday's 60 Minutes interview: “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

“They” indeed. Obama may be the first U.S. president never to have made a mistake. Obama likes to remind people that he is the one with the pen and the phone, yet somehow, everything is always the fault of “they.”

Often — as in the Veterans Affairs and IRS scandals — this “they” is someone buried deep within the bureaucracy and conveniently just on the cusp of retirement. But Obama can't play this blame-casting game when it comes to the Islamic State. There is simply too much evidence that he personally knew or should have known what was happening.

The Daily Beast's Eli Lake quoted a former Pentagon official who had dealt with the Islamic State threat as reacting with disbelief: “Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s [B.S.-ing].”

The facts strongly indicate the latter interpretation. As Lake notes, the potency and capability of the Islamic State was not even a secret. Any American with access to the Internet in early February, shortly after Obama compared them to a basketball “jayvee” squad, could have read about it in the written testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee by the Defense Intelligence Agency's head, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. It notes that Islamic State was likely to “take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014,” and that the group had already seized control of Ramadi and Fallujah. He also wrote:

While most Sunnis probably remain opposed to [the Islamic State's] ideology and presence in Iraq and Syria, some Sunni tribes and insurgent groups appear willing to work tactically with [them] as they share common anti-government goals. Baghdad's refusal to address long-standing Sunni grievances, and continued heavy-handed approach to counter-terror operations have led some Sunni tribes in Anbar to be more permissive of [the Islamic State's] presence. Since the departure of U.S. forces at the end of 2011, [the Islamic State] has exploited the permissive security environment to increase its operations.

This was no vague warning, and it was probably backed up by even more specific classified information to which Obama has access.

Think back to all the election-year football-spiking over the killing of Osama bin Laden, the supposed “decimation” of al Qaeda and the supposedly safe, successful conclusion of the Iraq War. With this bravado, the White House apparently committed itself to deceiving the public and possibly even itself about the threats posed by terrorist groups and the time-bomb Iraq had become.

Even now, Obama invented a different name (“the Khorasan Group”) for the al Qaeda affiliate he just bombed, which had been plotting attacks against western targets. Al Qaeda, after all, is supposed to be in ruins already.

Someone had his eye off the ball. It was probably not some “they,” but rather the guy with the pen and the phone.

Share this article on Facebook or Twitter

***

Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc . 
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị . 



conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30092014
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là ĐỒNG LÕA với TỘI ÁC