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ISIS Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on September 13, 2014 7 Comments
Islamic State militants have set fire to Iraq's largest oil refinery, escalating tensions in the region and raising questions about how much control ISIS could potentially gain over the world's oil supply. This isn't the first time this particular refinery has been attacked; it's a favorite target of ISIS militants. They have attacked the refinery in the past as a way of securing fuel to smuggle to parties who fund their self-declared "caliphate" in northern Iraq and Syria. Via Bloomberg Businessweek:
“The fire could go on for two or three days as there is no civil defense to put it out,” police said in the statement, without indicating how much oil the tank contained. “The situation in the refinery’s perimeter is quiet now.” ... The Baiji refinery has an installed capacity of 310,000 barrels a day and the storage tank that came under attack belongs to a group that typically contain 100,000 barrels each, Saad Al-Obaidi, a protection force personnel at the plant, said by phone. The plant stopped working in June.
The Islamic State's control over the oil supply in the middle east is affecting oil prices all over the world. According to Fox News, the inflation caused by ISIS activities has raised the price per barrel by as much as ten dollars.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 13, 2014 29 Comments
Obama may be America's commander-in-chief, but he's not a leader who is interested in military strategy. Bearing all that in mind, this report from Dustin Walker of Real Clear Defense is nothing short of stunning:
Obama Rejected "Best Military Advice" As he laid out his strategy to combat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, President Obama rejected the “best military advice” of his top military commander in the Middle East. Quoting two U.S. military officials, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said “that his best military advice was to send a modest contingent of American troops, principally Special Operations forces, to advise and assist Iraqi army units in fighting the militants.” Austin’s recommendation was taken to the White House by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. The White House rejected CENTCOM’s “advise and assist” contingent due to concerns about placing U.S. ground forces in a frontline role. In a press briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the president had rejected Austin’s recommendation because he believes “it is not in the best interest of American national security to send American combat troops in a combat operation to act on the ground in Iraq.”

Posted by Amy Miller on September 12, 2014 24 Comments
A new CIA report reveals that the the government's original estimates regarding the strength of the Islamic State's fighting force has fallen short. Previously, the Agency believed that if needed, ISIS could gather up to 10,000 troops. New information, however, has revealed that the group has between 20,000 and 31,500 readily available in Iraq and Syria alone. Via Fox News:
The spokesperson said the new figures were determined after a review of “all-source intelligence reports” on the group from May to August. ... [A CIA] spokesperson said the increase is likely due to the militant’s group recruiting gains after its success on the battlefield. “This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity, and additional intelligence,” the spokesperson said.
The release of this report comes on the heels of President Obama's address to the nation in response to growing concerns regarding the ability of the Islamic State to threaten American interests. That address---and the counterterrorism plan presented---did little to clear up what has been widely reported as "mixed messaging" from the Administration with regards to America's strategy in the Middle East.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 11, 2014 17 Comments
Barack Obama's address to the nation regarding the threat of ISIS was met with both cautious optimism and unbridled mockery from pundits on both sides of the aisle. No one was more optimistic than CNN's latest hire, former Obama Administration press secretary Jay Carney. Unfortunately for Carney, however, CNN had also invited Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who was more than a little irritated at the media's willingness to overlook the fact that Obama chose to ignore the possibility of the current crisis when he decided to pull the occupying force out of Iraq.
Facts are stubborn things, Mr. Carney. His entire national security team, including his Secretary of State, said we want to arm and train and equip these people and he made the unilateral decision to turn them down. And the fact he didn’t leave a residual force in Iraq, overruling all of his military advisers, is the reason we’re facing ISIS today. So the facts are stubborn things in history, and people ought to know them. And now the president is saying basically that we are going to take certain actions, which I would favor. But to say that America is safer, and that the situation is very much like Yemen and Somalia shows me that the President really doesn’t have a grasp for how serious the threat of ISIS is.
Carney eventually managed to respond, in true Carney fashion:
It is a mis – basically a whitewash of history to suggest that there weren’t periods of enormous chaos and fighting and bloodshed in Iraq when there were tens of thousands of Americans troops on the ground. That is a fact. And that was true in 2004, it was true in 2007. And it was true even when we had the highest number of U.S. troops on the ground. We cannot – the United States of America – ask our military to be a permanent occupying force in a country like Iraq.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 10, 2014 47 Comments
You can watch the full address here. President Obama addressed the nation tonight in response to growing concerns regarding the ability of the Islamic State ("ISIS") to threaten American interests. President Obama came out of the gate on defense: Then attempted to draw a difference between the Islamic State and...Islam?

Posted by Amy Miller on September 08, 2014 6 Comments
The Islamic State, otherwise known as "ISIS" or "ISIL," made a name for itself earlier this summer via graphic videos showing the beheadings of American hostages Steven Sotloff and James Foley. The atmosphere of terror created by ISIS in northern Iraq and Syria has helped the group draw in millions of dollars in ransom money, and motivated world leaders to work together to develop the growing terror threat in the Middle East. Part of the United States' strategy to fight ISIS is happening online in the form of propaganda videos targeted at Americans who are considering defecting to the Middle East to fight with the Islamic State. The first hit, “Welcome to ISIL-Land," features a series of graphic smash cuts highlighting the torture, beheadings, and mass violence that has defined the group's presence in the American media. WARNING: It's graphic.

Posted by New Neo on September 08, 2014 25 Comments
Now that Ted Cruz has proposed that Americans who fight with ISIS be stripped of citizenship, there's been a rash of articles questioning whether this would be legal, such as this one at Hot Air. At American Thinker, Rick Moran has written:
Currently, natural born citizens of the US cannot have their citizenship revoked against their will. It is unclear whether Cruiz's bill would supercede the denaturalization law. It is also against international law to strip an individual's citizenship if they are not also a citizen of another country. In other words, the US cannot create a "stateless" person that no other country would accept.
The relevant law is this statute originally from the 1940s, as well as several subsequent SCOTUS cases. This is how that portion of the statute reads:
a) A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality— ...

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 07, 2014 43 Comments
When you consider the disturbing number of Americans allegedly working with ISIS already, this sounds like a solid idea. Senator Cruz is going to introduce legislation next week. Mario Trujillo of The Hill reported:
Cruz: Strip citizenship from Americans in ISIS Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is slated to introduce legislation next week that would revoke the U.S. citizenship of anyone fighting or providing support to terrorist groups working to attack the United States. Cruz said he is filing the Expatriate Terrorist Act in reaction to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It would provide another level of protection to prevent foreign fighters from re-entering the United States, he said. “Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured,” Cruz said in a statement. “There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to re-enter our country and carry out further attacks on American civilians.”
This is a very interesting development considering what's happening in the UK.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 05, 2014 8 Comments
Our "boots on the ground" troops in Iraq are receiving mixed messages, and it's causing more than just a morale problem. Officials overseas are calling out the Obama Administration on their jumbled approach to current actions being taken against the Islamic State in Iraq. The current mission against ISIS calls for diplomatic protection in addition to airborne and humanitarian missions, and military leadership can't get a clear read on just how far President Obama is willing to go to destroy (or shrink, he can't decide) Islamic extremism. Via Fox News:
Biden on Wednesday delivered what was probably the toughest statement to date from the administration, declaring, after another U.S. journalist was beheaded by the Islamic State, "we will follow them to the gates of Hell until they are brought to justice." But his tough talk was at odds with a message delivered earlier in the day by President Obama, who said that while his administration's goal is to "destroy" ISIS -- it also is to "shrink" it to a "manageable problem." Amid the mixed messages, a source in contact with special operators in Iraq told Fox News that "frustration and confusion reign" among Americans on the ground there. The source relayed the complaint of an unnamed special operator: "Chase them to the Gates of Hell? How the [f---] are we going to do that when we can't even leave the front gate of our base!?"
President Obama recently agreed to send 350 additional troops to Baghdad to protect our diplomatic mission, bringing our troop total on the ground to just over 1200. According to the White House, those troops were meant to relieve previously deployed units while "providing a more robust, sustainable security force for our personnel and facilities in Baghdad.” Now, it seems even the President and the Vice President can't get their messaging straight.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 05, 2014 12 Comments
Yesterday, we wrote about Senator Paul's apparent departure from isolationism.  Last night, the Kentucky Senator chatted with Sean Hannity about his foreign policy stance:
"I've been trying to say that for the last four years of public life that I'm I'm neither an isolationist nor an interventionist. I'm someone who believes in the Constitution and believes America should have a strong national defense and believes that we should defend ourselves. But when we do it, we should do it the way the Constitution intended. That's the President should come before Congress and make the case for war." "There's a big difference between that and between doing it unilaterally. And I think the example of Libya, with both Hillary's support and President Obama's support shows all the unintended consequences when they around the Constitution."
I don't disagree we should respect Constitutional channels, but objectively speaking, this is just political posturing and an attempt to define his position as diametrically opposed to that of both Mrs. Clinton and the administration. Which is smart. But his argument seems to hinge on the fact that we would not be in this nightmare of a foreign policy situation had President Obama gone to Congress. Perhaps he's right. He continued:

Posted by David Gerstman on September 04, 2014 7 Comments
Steven Sotloff, the journalist whose beheading by the Islamic State was announced earlier this week, was not only Jewish, but an Israeli citizen. Apparently Sotloff became an Israeli citizen when he attended the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. Given the ease with which one can gather information he understood the risks involved in reporting from a part of world where Jews aren't welcome. He told his "almost-friend" Oren Kessler, "Yeah, Google definitely isn’t my friend.” Kessler was quoted further in The Times of Israel:
London-based analyst Oren Kessler, who corresponded with Sotloff, said he never shared his Jewish identity with anyone in the field, opting instead to tell locals that he had been raised Muslim but secular, without mosque affiliation. He sometimes even chose to tell people that he was of Chechen origin, and that Sotloff – a name that rings decidedly Jewish to those familiar with Jewish names – was actually a Chechen name.
The same report quoted a former hostage who said that despite the risks Sotloff feigned illness on Yom Kippur so he could fast and made efforts to pray towards Jerusalem:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 03, 2014 12 Comments
Advocating for foreign intervention is not something you usually hear from libertarian poster children like Senator Paul. And yet, that seems to be what he's preaching. From WaPo:
"If I were president, I would call a joint session of Congress," Paul told the AP. "I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily."
Good. Someone should have a plan to deal with those monsters. But as WaPo points out, Paul is supposed to be the only non-interventionist in the bunch of potential 2016 contenders. Compare Paul's statement to the rest of the pack of GOP potential candidates, as compiled by WaPo:
Chris Christie: ""The ISIS situation is one that deserves a really detailed answer, which I'm not going to give you while walking down the boardwalk and taking selfies." Marco Rubio: "If we do not act now to assist our Iraqi partners and moderate Syrians who oppose ISIL, as well as utilize our own forces to directly target ISIL’s leadership, the result will be more suffering and tragedy for our people.”

Posted by Amy Miller on September 03, 2014 23 Comments
The White House has agreed to send 350 additional troops to Baghdad following a State Department request for more protection at the U.S. embassy and other installations. Via Time:
“This action was taken at the recommendation of the Department of Defense after an extensive interagency review, and is part of the President’s commitment to protect our personnel and facilities in Iraq as we continue to support the Government of Iraq in its fight against [ISIS],” [White House press secretary Josh] Earnest said. “These additional forces will not serve in a combat role.” ... “The President has made clear his commitment to doing whatever is required to provide the necessary security for U.S. personnel and facilities around the world,” Earnest said. “The request he approved today will allow some previously deployed military personnel to depart Iraq, while at the same time providing a more robust, sustainable security force for our personnel and facilities in Baghdad.”
According to CBS News, this will bring the U.S. troop count sent to Iraq to deal with the current crisis to 800, and the total U.S. troop presence in Baghdad to 1,213.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 01, 2014 57 Comments
During an appearance on FOX News Sunday, Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan was asked how many Americans have joined ISIS. His answer was nothing short of stunning. Ian Tuttle of National Review has the details:
House Intel Chair: ‘Hundreds’ of Americans Have Fought with ISIS; Some Have Returned to U.S How many Americans are fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria? “It’s in the hundreds,” says Representative Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. There are “hundreds” of Americans “that have at least one time traveled, participated, and trained with them. Some of them have drifted back [to the U.S.], some of them have gone to Europe,” Rogers says.
Here's the video:
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