Can We Trust President Obama to Win War on ISIL?

On Sept. 10, President Obama finally announced his "strategy" for dealing with ISIL:

"We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL. ...

"That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.

"It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and support from partner forces on the ground. It's a strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, the same targeted strategy that the United States has been using in Yemen and Somalia."

The President stated his justification for his strategy: "If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including the United States....

"This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."
Do you have any confidence in the President's strategy?

I have no confidence because he either is unable to identify the enemy, or refuses to do so. The president began his Sept. 10 remarks by saying, "Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents."

But if ISIL, which now simply calls itself the "Islamic State," is not "Islamic," why does it call itself "Islamic?" Why is it proclaiming itself "as a caliphate with religious authority over all Muslims across the world?" Why does the Islamic State compel people in the areas it controls, under the penalty of death, torture or mutilation, to accept Islam and live according to its interpretation of Sunni Islam and Sharia law?

Why are its warriors beheading infidels who refuse to convert to Islam? Why is It directing violence against Shiite Muslims and Christians and other non-Muslims? And who, other than Muslims, calls for jihad?

When the President refuses to call Islamic terror "Islamic terror," who can have an iota of confidence that he will "do what is necessary" -- over the long term -- to win this war? Indeed, it is Mr. Obama's "deadline" for the removal of U.S. troops in Iraq that has made the Islamic State's "resurrection" in Iraq possible.

To deny that there is also a violent strain of Islam in the face of daily violence across the Mideast since the time of Mohammad and especially since WWII, at best suggests the president is closing his eyes to reality and seeing Islam as peaceful through rose-colored glasses. It is impossible to win a war if you can't size-up your enemy.

Then too, if The Islamic State (ISIL) poses a "growing threat to the U.S.," why would any rational American president believe that "other nations" will provide ground troops to fight and die? If President Obama isn't willing to risk American lives to protect the U.S., how can we expect France, Canada, England, Australia or Saudi Arabia to send their sons to do so?

The president proposes to employ "the same targeted strategy that the United States has been using in Yemen and Somalia." But in Yemen and Somalia we are killing a handful of terrorists with drone strikes. In Iraq, the Islamic State has seized Iraq's second largest city, a tract of land as large as Belgium and the oil revenues of the Sunni regions of Iraq, and has disappeared among the civilian population. Is the president willing to kill civilians to exterminate terrorists living and hiding among the civilian population?

President Obama has only one choice: exterminate ISIL, or do something less. It is not an easy choice. But he cannot simply sit by while the Islamic State becomes an Islamic Nation.
With oil revenues and the power of taxation, the war will only become harder and more costly for us to win.

Vice President Biden has said "we'll follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice." President Obama now says "if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven." But these are sound-bites, not a strategy. If you corner them at the "Gates of Hell," then what? Kill them? Transport them to New York for jury trials?

The real question is:

Can America win a war, if America fights a civilized, limited war, while the Islamic State fights war rejecting all rules and conventions? Can we successfully fight a limited war, while they fight a war to destroy us? Will half-measures do the job?

So, is the president really taking America into a war he intends to win? Not if you listen to his team.
Less than 24 hours after the president's speech, Secretary of State John Kerry re-muddied the waters: "The U.S. is not at war with ISIS. ... The fact is, it's a major counterterrorism operation."

Even worse, again less than 24 hours after Mr. Obama's address, his press secretary Josh Earnest, when asked, "What does destroy mean?" responded, "I didn't bring my dictionary."

If the president can't enunciate a "strategy," without his secretaries immediately walking back his remarks, why would our enemies fear us? Why would our allies send their sons into ground combat?

Posted Online:  Sept. 19, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

America's Open Southern Border is a Red Carpet for Terrorist's

 On Aug. 28, President Barack Obama told the whole world -- including our enemies! -- he has not yet developed a strategy to combat ISIS. His remarks come weeks after ISIS has seized Iraqi cities and village and declared war on all "infidels," and more than a week after it has beheaded an American journalist.

To quote Mr. Obama: "We don't have a strategy yet." But you can be sure that ISIS does. Their strategy is "We are coming for you" to "kill Americans any way we can."

The beheading of two American journalists should indicate to any president, that ISIS is serious. Connecting the dots in this instance isn't that difficult. Try it yourself.

-- Dot 1: On Feb. 26, Gen. John F. Kelly, the U.S. Marine Corps commander of the U.S. Southern Command testified before the House Armed Services Committee. Here are the remarks by the commander responsible for all Department of Defense security cooperation in the 45 nations and territories of Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea remarks concerning the convergence of transnational" drug crime and terrorism:

"Criminal networks can move just about anything on these smuggling pipelines. My concern ... is that many of these pipelines lead directly into the United States, representing a potential vulnerability that could be exploited by terrorist groups seeking to do us harm. Supporters and sympathizers of Lebanese Hezbollah are involved in ... the region ... in ... drug trafficking. ...

"Terrorist organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives with intent to cause grave harm to our citizens or even quite easily bring weapons of mass destruction into the United States."

-- Dot 2: A July/August 2014 Mother Jones headline states "70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year?"

The article tells the story of "Adrian," a 17 year-old boy from Guatemala, who found his way to a dessert safe-house in Northwestern Mexico. There, the drug traffickers "asked him" to strap on a load of marijuana and walk across the border into Arizona. Adrian" agreed to do so.

Mother Jones said, "When the Border Patrol caught Adrian a week later in the Arizona desert -- he'd ditched the pot at a drop point along the way -- he became one of the 38,833 unaccompanied minors apprehended by the Board Patrol in fiscal year 2013. That was a 59 percent jump from the year before, and a 142 percent increase from fiscal 2011; no one knows how many more kids avoided Border Patrol detection... . This year, officials have told advocates they anticipate the numbers to double again, to as many as 74,000 unaccompanied children. That's equivalent to every single student in Dallas' 81 public middle and high schools." (motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/child-migrants-surge-unaccompanied-central-america)

-- Dot 3: Now King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is warning the U.S. that jihadists could target the Europe and the U.S. if world leaders do not react to the growing terrorist threat from ISIS.

"If neglected, I am certain that after a month they will reach Europe and, after another month, America.

"These terrorists do not know the name of humanity and you have witnessed them severing heads and giving (the heads) to children to walk with in the street."

 -- Dot 4: According to senior U.S. officials, the United States government is tracking as many as 300 Americans supposedly fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. "We know that there are several hundred American passport-holders running around with ISIS in Syria or Iraq."

Washington is worried that these radicalized American fighters, presently fighting abroad, could create havoc in U.S. if they return and carry out jihad in the U.S. (washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/26/us-citizens-joining-islamic-state-pose-major-threa/)

So, if 300 American jihadists opt to come home to fight "holy war" here, how are they going to get here? Use their passports to re-enter? Enter illegally from Mexico?

If 70,000 unaccompanied children can walk across our open southern border (and if no one knows how many of those aren't being caught by the Boarder Patrol), it should be duck soup" for 300 trained terrorists try to infiltrate. And if kids can slip past the Border Patrol, is there any reason to believe that trained terrorists will fare any worse?

Our open southern boarder is a red carpet to Muslim terrorists to pull off a second — and perhaps worse -- 9/11. But if it happens, rest assured President Obama will quickly advance a strategy: Blame George Bush!

We elected a president to preserve and protect" the Constitution and the country. We don't need an "Ethelred the Unready," or "Nero fiddling while Rome burns."


Posted Online:  Sept. 8, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right in Ferguson

Eighteen year-old Michael Brown, a black teenager, was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. State and federal prosecutors will investigate to determine whether the officer used "excessive force." If he did, he should face prosecution.

So, what legal or moral principle justifies the looting? (I am not talking about lawful "peaceful protesting." I am talking only about "looting" and destruction of neighborhood stores).

When I was a boy, my mother taught me that "two wrongs don't make a right."

During the 1858 Galesburg Debate, Abe Lincoln said "Judge Douglas declares that if any community want Slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in Slavery; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong."

The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution says. "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Riot, on the other hand, is not peaceably assembling; it is an assembling to do violence.

So assume, for purposes of argument, that Michael Brown, a black teenager, has been wrongfully shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson. I say "assume" because at this point no proof has been shown before any competent tribunal that the officer did anything whatsoever wrong.

A shooting if wrongful can be murder or manslaughter. But a shooting can be done with legal justification, if it is done in self-defense or in defense-of-another. Illinois law provides that a person "is justified in the use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another, or the commission of a forcible felony."

In Illinois "forcible felonies" include first- and second-degree murder, aggravated battery resulting in great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement, and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.

The facts will determine whether the officer was legally right or wrong. Facts adduced in court will show whether the officer used excessive force, or justifiable force.

Riots won't help. Nor will lawful, peaceful protests.

The key idea found in the statute is that deadly force can only be used where that use of force is "necessary" to "prevent "imminent death or great bodily harm" to the person or another, or the commission of a forcible felony."

Did Michael Brown use or threaten deadly force against the officer?

The statute nowhere authorizes the use of deadly force for "revenge"or any other purpose.

So, what then is the justification -- legal and/or moral -- for burglarizing, looting and wrecking neighborhood stores? They are owned by whites? They are owned by blacks? They are owned by strangers? They are convenient to destroy? They are owned or operated by people who had absolutely nothing to do with Michael Brown's death?

"The only good cop is a dead cop?" It's great fun to destroy a community? The unemployment rate is too high in the community? We are poor? We dropped out of school? We are living in one-parent families. There are drugs in our community? Reparations for slavery? Cops pick on young black men? The store owners are rich? We looters are merely helping ourselves to our "fair share?" Revenge? Hatred? Black racism? The end ("more" for me) justifies whatever means I choose to get "more," including burglary, looting and wanton destruction of my neighbors' property.

Personally, I can see no justification for the rioting in Missouri. If each faction in a society is free to achieve its own perceived (good( ends by resorting to evil means, the society degenerates into chaos, if not civil war. If riot is an acceptable means for a black minority, riot is also be an acceptable means for a white majority.

My mother was right: "Two wrongs don't make a right." And President Lincoln was right when he said "nobody has a right to do wrong."

Since the time of Moses, the law has been, "Thou shall not steal; thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods." If that is God's law, how do the looters justify their conduct? And if the command is "love your neighbor as yourself," how is this rioting justified?

And if someone else is killed during the rioting, will that justify more rioting?

Posted Online:  Sept. 2, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea