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Mark Caserta: US must ramp up campaign against ISIS

20 Jun

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor

Jun. 18, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

The world has now sustained months of unrelenting atrocities by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). We’ve witnessed barbaric beheadings, victims burned alive and a strategic cleansing of Christians refusing to embrace the Muslim religion. Yet, the president of the United States still lacks a strategy to defeat them.

Last week, in a news conference following the Group of 7 summit meeting in Germany, Obama admitted to the world that “we don’t have, yet, a complete strategy” for addressing the threat posed by ISIS. He claims that after nearly a year and a half of the United States and its allies grappling with this group of Islamic terrorists, “the details are not worked out.”

The president’s failure to recognize ISIS as a grave threat early on certainly hampered strategies to squelch their advances. Some may recall that in January 2014 Obama compared ISIS to a “junior varsity basketball team,” playing down the strengths of ISIS, compared with Al Qaeda.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a J.V. team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Mr. Obama told David Remnick of The New Yorker. That same month, ISIS seized Fallujah, a city in Anbar Province, Iraq, and parts of Ramadi, the province’s capital.

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A few months later, as the military prowess of the group became known, the president was questioned about his strategy for addressing the threat that he dramatically understated. Yet he still lacked urgency.

The president has been clear as to what his strategy won’t be!

“I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq,” Obama told reporters. “American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no military solution to the larger crisis there.”

So, the president claims he can defeat ISIS with coalition air power. But a recent Wall Street Journal article reveals the Obama coalition’s air campaign against ISIS pales in comparison to strategic air campaigns waged by presidents since the end of the Cold War, which were deemed successful.

During the 43-day Desert Storm air campaign against Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991, coalition planes flew 48,224 strike sorties, or roughly 1,100 a day. 12 years later, the 31-day Iraqi Freedom campaign averaged more than 800 sorties a day. But the Obama “campaign” against ISIS, now approaching nine months, has only averaged about seven sorties a day! With ISIS now in control of an area around 50,000 square miles, it’s easy to see why these efforts haven’t been effective.

If indeed, Obama plans to decimate ISIS with coalition air power, he should take the lead in increasing the number of strikes commensurate with prior successful air campaigns.

And despite how much we dislike the thought, we must have sufficient ground troops to facilitate coordinated surgical strikes against the enemy.

Protecting America must take precedent over protecting Obama’s legacy.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Congress must unite to protect America

5 Mar

Who will stop Barack Hussein Obama?

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FSP EDITOR, MARK CASERTA

Mar. 05, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

President Obama made a remarkable statement in his sixth State of the Union address to the nation and a joint session of Congress – one which should have all Americans scratching their heads.

“America, for all that we’ve endured; for all the grit and hard work required to come back; for all the tasks that lie ahead, know this: The shadow of crisis has passed.”

Could Obama really be that out of touch with reality?

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Later in the speech he added, “Fifteen years into this new century, we have picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and begun again the work of remaking America. We have laid a new foundation.”

Our Founding Fathers provided us with an enduring foundation – the U.S Constitution. And brave men and women have given their lives through the years to preserve, protect and uphold this deed to freedom. America does not need to be “remade” by Barack Obama.

Hidden within the president’s own words lies what I believe to be the defining aspiration of Obama’s presidency. Every builder understands before laying a new foundation, the old one must be unearthed and deconstructed. All around us, the foundational principles of the United States of America are being dismantled by this administration’s policies.

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An in-depth look at Obama’s life mentors helps explain his apparent ideological distaste for America.

Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor of 20 years, was someone he equated to an “old uncle.” Known for his proliferation of black liberation theology, Wright encouraged blacks to damn America in God’s name in 2003. Obama entitled one of his books, “The Audacity of Hope” after one of Wright’s sermons.

In Obama’s book, “Dreams From My Father,” he writes about “a poet named Frank” who visited his family in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of “hard-earned knowledge” and advice. This childhood mentor, mentioned at least 22 times in the book, was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party named Frank Marshall Davis. All references to “Frank” were removed from the audio version years later.

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And then there’s Obama’s longtime friend, left-wing radical Bill Ayers, who continues to defend the series of anti-Vietnam bombings he carried out as a member of the Weather Underground. A 1995 fundraiser which helped initiate the political career of Barack Obama was reportedly held in Ayer’s living room.

Why revisit history now? America is no longer at a crossroads; we’ve taken a hard left turn toward disaster.

According to several news reports, this administration is offering a pact to Iran which eases restrictions on its nuclear program in several phases over the next decade, paving the way for an Iranian nuclear weapons program. And, once again, Obama intends to bypass Congress in lieu of executive privilege.

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This president simply lacks the qualifications to single-handedly barter a deal with a rogue nation like Iran, one that threatens to bring about a nuclear arms race in the Middle East while alienating our ally, Israel.

It’s truly time for Democrats and Republicans alike to unite against Barack Obama and thwart his mission to remake America.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a

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Mark Caserta: Obama’s denial emboldens terrorists

12 Feb
 Why will this president go to any length to protect the Islamic religion?
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FSP Editorial
Feb. 12, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

Displaying a level of brutality, shocking even by the standards of the previous horrific murders committed by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, First Lieutenant Muath al Kaseasbeh, a Jordanian pilot, was recently burned alive inside a locked cage in the name of radical Islam. The barbarous act, which shocked the world, clearly defined the group’s willingness to viciously propagate the violent extremism of the Islamic State.

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But two days later, rather than simply condemn the act as a violent display of Islamic terrorism, Barack Hussein Obama used the bully pulpit at the National Prayer breakfast to persuade the world that violence rooted in religion isn’t exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well. In fact, he compared the ISIS atrocity to violent acts committed by Christians in the Crusades. He also said Christ was used as justification for slavery and radical discrimination in the United States.

“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ,” the president said.

The comments were considered outrageous to many.

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“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,” said former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, a Republican. “He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

Catholic League’s Bill Donohue says Obama should apologize for using the Crusades as an example of “terrible acts” by Christians, saying the crusades fought against Islamic jihad.

“The president should apologize for his insulting comparison,” Donohue said. “Obama’s ignorance is astounding and his comparison is pernicious.”

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Now, this president has always dismissed the idea of American exceptionalism. And frankly, his decision over the past six years to have the White House avoid the term “radical Islam” has brought to question Obama’s loyalty to America and the foundational principles on which our great nation was built.

Yet, anyone honestly assessing terrorism can easily conclude that Islamic extremism is at the very heart of murder and destruction in the world today. In fact, according to the non-partisan website, The Religion of Peace, over the last 40 years there have been 74 attacks on American soil by Islamic terrorists resulting in the murder of thousands of innocent people. We just simply don’t see attacks of this magnitude in the name of any other religion.

Let’s be clear. Islamic terrorism is flourishing under this president’s rule. His purposeful choice not to properly identify our enemy is indeed emboldening their mission.

As Obama continues to reject the notion that America is in a religious war based on the fundamental beliefs of the Islamic State, American’s lives are increasingly being placed at risk.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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OBAMA’S PLAN IS FAILIING TO DEGRADE OR DESTROY ISIS.

12 Oct

WE ARE LOSING THE WAR ON RADICAL ISLAM

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America’s plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group’s fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.

The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.

Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town’s remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

In the face of a likely Isis victory at Kobani, senior US officials have been trying to explain away the failure to save the Syrian Kurds in the town, probably Isis’s toughest opponents in Syria. “Our focus in Syria is in degrading the capacity of [Isis] at its core to project power, to command itself, to sustain itself, to resource itself,” said US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, in a typical piece of waffle designed to mask defeat. “The tragic reality is that in the course of doing that there are going to be places like Kobani where we may or may not be able to fight effectively.”

Unfortunately for the US, Kobani isn’t the only place air strikes are failing to stop Isis. In an offensive in Iraq launched on 2 October but little reported in the outside world, Isis has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar province, a vast area in western Iraq that makes up a quarter of the country. It has captured Hit, Kubaisa and Ramadi, the provincial capital, which it had long fought for. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army which showed itself to be as dysfunctional as in the past, even when backed by US air strikes.

MILITARY AIR

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U.S. Confirms ISIS Planning Infiltration of U.S. Southern Border

10 Sep

 

President’s “strategy” may not be enough…

Militants from the al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) removing part of the soil barrier on the Iraq-Syria borders and moving through it / AP

Washington Free Beacon,

A senior Homeland Security (DHS) official confirmed to Congress on Wednesday that militants associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) are planning to enter the United States via the porous southern border.

Francis Taylor, under secretary for intelligence and analysis at DHS, told senators during a hearing that ISIL supporters are known to be plotting ways to infiltrate the United States through the border.

“There have been Twitter, social media exchanges among ISIL adherents across the globe speaking about that as a possibility,” Taylor told Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) in response to a question about “recent reports on Twitter and Facebook of messages that would urge infiltration into the U.S. across our southwestern border.”

“Certainly any infiltration across our border would be a threat,” Taylor said, explaining that border security agents are working to tighten measures that would prevent this from taking place.

“I’m satisfied we have the intelligence and the capability on our border that would prevent that activity,” Taylor said.

However, McCain was dubious, referring to recent videos released by activist James O’Keefe showing him crossing the border while wearing an Osama bin Laden mask.

Asked by McCain why agents did not stop O’Keefe, Taylor could not provide an answer.

“You can’t answer it because they weren’t there to stop him,” McCain responded.

“The fact is there are thousands of people who are coming across our border who are undetected and not identified, and for you to sit there and tell me that we have the capability or now have the proper protections of our southwest border, particularly in light of the urgings over Facebook and Twitter [by ISIL] for people to come across our southwestern border, is a great concern to the citizens of my state.”

Taylor admitted that more must be done to shore up border security in light of ongoing threats.

“The security at the southwestern border is of great concern to the department and I certainly understand the concerns of the citizens of your state,” he told McCain. “If I gave you the impression I thought the border security was what it needed to be to protect against all the risks coming across the state that’s not what I meant to say.”

There is little evidence to prove that ISIL militants or other terror actors would be stopped if they attempt to cross the border, McCain said.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt, I don’t see when you look at ISIS and the growth and influence of ISIS that it would be logical [to claim they would be stopped], as they’re saying on Facebook and Twitter, to come across our southwest border because they can get across,” he said.

Other U.S. officials have warned ahead of President Obama’s speech this evening that ISIL is growing in strength and seeking the capability to attack America directly.

“We remain mindful of the possibility that an ISIL-sympathizer—perhaps motivated by online propaganda—could conduct a limited, self-directed attack here at home with no warning,” Matthew Olsen, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said in a recent speech.

“We have seen ISIL use a range of media to tout its military capabilities, executions of captured soldiers, and consecutive battlefield victories,” Olsen said. “More recently, the group’s supporters have sustained this momentum on social media by encouraging attacks in the U.S. and against U.S. interests in retaliation for our airstrikes. ISIL has used this propaganda campaign to draw foreign fighters to the group, including many from Western countries.”

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