Tag: ISIS

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Congress slow to authorize ISIS fight

Iraq ISIS Abu Wahe 2941936b

JUNE 28, 2015, 10:19 PM    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2015, 10:21 PM
BY HERB JACKSON
RECORD COLUMNIST  |
THE RECORD

Swept into power by Tea Party-inspired crowds demanding stricter adherence to the Constitution, the Republican-controlled Congress has decided not to exercise one of the powers clearly given to the legislative branch by the Founding Fathers: the power to declare war.

Even when there is overwhelming support, resolutions authorizing military force are never simple, as members know they are making choices that history will prove to be right or wrong. Debates can last days, as nearly every lawmaker gets his or her say before voting.

But in the case of the battle against the group known as the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL, congressional leaders seem to be content to let President Obama operate without a specific authorization.

Opinion appears divided, with some in Congress wanting a more aggressive response than Obama has provided to date, and others wanting to see a clear endgame before endorsing an extension of what has already been nearly 14 years of war in Iraq.

So far, the push for Congress to debate these questions, however, has come from a minority that includes strict adherents to the Constitution, like Republican Rep. Scott Garrett, and lawmakers who regret their votes to invade Iraq more than a decade ago, like Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/jackson-congress-slow-to-authorize-isis-fight-1.1364841

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On ISIS’ Terms: Courting a Young American

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By RUKMINI CALLIMACHIJUNE 27, 2015

Alex, a 23-year-old Sunday school teacher and babysitter, was trembling with excitement the day she told her Twitter followers that she had converted to Islam.

For months, she had been growing closer to a new group of friends online – the most attentive she had ever had – who were teaching her what it meant to be a Muslim. Increasingly, they were telling her about the Islamic State and how the group was building a homeland in Syria and Iraq where the holy could live according to God’s law.

One in particular, Faisal, had become her nearly constant companion, spending hours each day with her on Twitter, Skype and email, painstakingly guiding her through the fundamentals of the faith.

But when she excitedly told him that she had found a mosque just five miles from the home she shared with her grandparents in rural Washington State, he suddenly became cold.

The only Muslims she knew were those she had met online, and he encouraged her to keep it that way, arguing that Muslims are persecuted in the United States. She could be labeled a terrorist, he warned, and for now it was best for her to keep her conversion secret, even from her family.

So on his guidance, Alex began leading a double life. She kept teaching at her church, but her truck’s radio was no longer tuned to the Christian hits on K-LOVE. Instead, she hummed along with theISIS anthems blasting out of her turquoise iPhone, and began daydreaming about what life with the militants might be like.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/world/americas/on-isis-terms-courting-a-young-american.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

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To Destroy ISIS, Conscript Millennials, Says Baby Boomer Journalist

Millennials theridgewoodblg.net

I am a millennial, get me out of here!

Robby Soave|Jun. 17, 2015 10:40 am

National Journal’s Ron Fournier has come up with a frightening, ageist approach to defeating ISIS: enslave the millennials! He explains:

I know a better way to fight ISIS. It starts with an idea that should appeal the better angels of both hawks and doves: National service for all 18- to 28-years-olds.

Require virtually every young American—the civic-minded millennial generation—to complete a year of service through programs such as Teach for America, AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or the U.S. military, and two things will happen:

1. Virtually every American family will become intimately invested in the nation’s biggest challenges, including poverty, education, income inequality, and America’s place in a world afire.

2. Military recruiting will rise to meet threats posed by ISIS and other terrorist networks, giving more people skin in a very dangerous game.

The tone of Fournier’s column suggests that he considers mandatory national service a compromise in light of political realism—he would clearly prefer to restore the draft outright. This “compromise” idea is less horrifying than the draft, but not by a whole lot.

Disclaimer: I’m a millennial. I’m 26-years-old. I’m married and have a surprisingly steady job writing about why the government sucks. I’m supposed to just set all that aside for a year to work for causes I either don’t support, or actively oppose?

There are so many things wrong with this idea. For starters, it violates the principles upon which this nation was founded—that all men and women have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While the Supreme Court has never held that mandatory national service violates the Constitution, the language of the Thirteen Amendment seems pretty clear to me: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

At the root of Fournier’s plan is a more insidiously evil notion: that millennials aren’t doing anything worthwhile with their lives right now, and their time would be better spent in Teach for America, or the Army. There’s some anti-market thinking at work here, since typically, the activities that free people choose for themselves are more productive and profitable than the ones totalitarian governments assign to them. This is why the comparatively less meddlesome U.S. government is generally in better shape than, say, Venezuela. Fournier is essentially saying that in order to defeat our enemies, we have to mimic their levels of disrespect for individual freedom.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/06/17/to-destroy-isis-conscript-millennials-sa

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Fall of Ramadi Raises Questions About Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS in Iraq

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Fall of Ramadi Raises Questions About Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS in Iraq

James Phillips / May 19, 2015

The seizure of the city of Ramadi by the Islamic State (or ISIS) on Sunday was a major setback for the Iraqi government and for the Obama administration.

Although U.S. officials downplayed the significance of the defeat, saying that Ramadi was not “strategic” in a military sense, Ramadi is a very important political symbol because it is the capital of Anbar province, the predominantly Sunni Arab western province that has been a stronghold for the Islamic State and its predecessor organizations, ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The panicked retreat of Iraqi police and security forces from Ramadi underscores the continued weakness of the Iraqi army and police. It also raises questions about the viability of the Obama administration’s strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq.

The fact that the Baghdad government now is considering moving Shiite militias to Ramadi, a predominantly Sunni city, suggests that Iraq’s central government still lacks adequate support from Iraq’s Sunni Arabs to defeat the Islamic State, a Sunni revolutionary movement. This spells trouble for Iraqi and American plans to defeat the Islamic State.

Those plans included the building of an inclusive ruling coalition in Baghdad that would unite Iraq’s Shiite majority with the Kurdish and Sunni Arab minorities, who would contribute militia fighters to aid the Shiite-dominated Iraqi army.

Earlier this month, the first 1,000 Sunni recruits joined a pro-government Sunni tribal militia that is slated to grow to 6,000. But the arming of Sunni militias in Anbar province has been delayedby the opposition of Shiite political leaders who doubt the loyalty of many Sunni Iraqis in an increasingly polarized sectarian atmosphere.

The fall of Ramadi also has weakened Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who became Iraq’s top leader last year with strong backing from the United States.

Abadi, a Shiite political leader who promised to lead a more inclusive government, reached a deal on sharing oil revenues with Iraqi Kurds and pushed for arming Sunni tribesman to fight against the Islamic State. But Abadi’s plans to arm Sunni militias have been trimmed back by rival Shiite leaders backed by Iran, who favor the ruthless employment of Iranian-trained Shiite militias.

Now Iran’s preferred militias are building up in preparation to retake Ramadi. Their presence is likely to further exacerbate sectarian tensions which the Islamic State has exploited to gain support from Iraqi Sunnis fearful of Shiite domination.

A military victory for Iran’s surrogate militias in Ramadi would amount to a political defeat for the United States and for Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi. And such a victory could trigger a Sunni backlash that could boost the Islamic State and prolong, rather than shorten, Iraq’s civil war.

https://dailysignal.com/2015/05/19/fall-of-ramadi-raises-questions-about-obamas-strategy-to-defeat-isis-in-iraq/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailydigest&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRojs6vBZKXonjHpfsX56eUoX6C0lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4JT8RqI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

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FBI forums focus on ISIS recruitment threat in N.J.

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MAY 18, 2015, 10:28 PM    LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015, 10:31 PM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

Law enforcement officials, alarmed by Islamic State’s sophisticated online recruitment campaigns and by the rising number of young people they’ve caught trying to join the extremist group, are reaching out to warn community leaders and clergy across New Jersey.

“It is a threat to our young people. It is a threat to the future of all of us,” said William Gale, supervisory special agent for the FBI’s Newark Division, in a recent forum in Wayne.

Aside from delivering warnings about the Islamic State’s luring of young people, meetings between law enforcement and Muslims in metro areas around the country are intended to open lines of communication and provoke an exchange of information, federal agents say. Muslims leaders, who have hosted the talks, say the outreach is a sign of cooperation.

But for Muslims whose forebears built local businesses and institutions, emotions provoked by talk of Islamic extremism mingle with a certain wariness that their communities could be stigmatized by the actions of a few. The worry becomes palpable with fresh memories of undercover spying by NYPD on New Jersey mosques and Muslim student groups.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/fbi-forums-focus-on-isis-recruitment-threat-in-n-j-1.1337318

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FBI director says Islamic State influence growing in U.S

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Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — In a dramatic assessment of the domestic threat posed by the Islamic State, FBI Director James Comey said Thursday there are “hundreds, maybe thousands” of people across the country who are receiving recruitment overtures from the terrorist group or directives to attack the U.S.

Comey said the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, is leveraging social media in unprecedented ways through Twitter and other platforms, directing messages to the smartphones of “disturbed people” who could be pushed to launch assaults on U.S. targets.

“It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill,”’ Comey said in a meeting with reporters.

The FBI director’s comments come in the midst of a federal investigation into a foiled attack in Garland, Texas, involving two ISIL sympathizers, one of whom, Elton Simpson, was long known to federal authorities.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/07/isis-attacks-us/70945534/

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Isis on the run? The US portrayal is very far from the truth

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Sunday 3 May 2015
PATRICK COCKBURN

The map issued by the Pentagon to prove that Isis had lost territory shows how false optimism dominates the actions of the outside powers towards the Middle East.

A graphic illustration of Western wishful thinking about the decline of Islamic State (IS) is a well-publicised map issued by the Pentagon to prove that the self-declared caliphate has lost 25 per cent of its territory since its big advances last year.

Unfortunately for the Pentagon, sharp-eyed American journalists soon noticed something strange about its map identifying areas of IS strength. While it shows towns and villages where IS fighters have lost control around Baghdad, it simply omits western Syria where they have been advancing in and around Damascus.

The Pentagon displayed some embarrassment about its dodgy map, but it largely succeeded in its purpose of convincing people that IS is in retreat. Many news outlets across the world republished the map as evidence of the success of air strikes by the United States and its allies in support of the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. The capture of Tikrit after a month-long siege is cited as a further sign that a re-energised Iraqi state is winning and one day in the not too distant future will be able to recapture Mosul in the north and Anbar province in the west.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/isis-on-the-run-the-us-portrayal-is-very-far-from-the-truth-10221225.html

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Officials: FBI probes possible ISIS-inspired threat

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By Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz, CNN

Updated 6:06 PM ET, Sat April 25, 2015

(CNN)The FBI is investigating a possible ISIS-inspired terrorist threat in the United States, law enforcement officials said Saturday.

The investigation originated from intercepted chatter and other intelligence information that led officials to believe a possible plot could be in the works, the officials said.

No arrests have been made. It’s not clear whether the threat is real or aspirational.

The exact nature of the threat couldn’t be learned. One official said it focused on parts of California where officials stepped up security, a U.S. official said.

The Transportation Security Administration alerted local law enforcement agencies that are responsible for external security around airports, but officials said the possible threat is not necessarily aviation-related.

Some cities around the United States have increased their security as a precaution.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined Saturday to talk about specifics, but spoke about security measures in general.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/25/us/possible-isis-inspired-threat/index.html

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ISIS in New Jersey: How big a threat?

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Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh

Is there an ISIS wannabe living near you?

On some level, the answer is immaterial to the Islamic State and other terror groups like them, terrorism experts say.

Fear is the coin of their realm. So regardless of the reality, the mere perception that there are many other Americans like former Neptune resident Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh lurking in the shadows helps further their cause.

“You know that expression, ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity,’ ” said Robert J. Louden, director of the homeland security program at Georgian Court University, Lakewood. “Because even bad publicity brings your name to someone’s attention.” (Mullen/Asbury Park Press)

https://www.app.com/story/news/local/2015/03/20/tairod-pugh-isis-recruting-westerners/25110621/

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ISIS, Communism, and the Lure of Violent Utopianism

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ISIS, Communism, and the Lure of Violent Utopianism

Jihadi John is nothing new.

A. Barton Hinkle | March 9, 2015

“Nihilists! . . . I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.” So proclaimed Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski, and Americans stunned by the horror of the Islamic State’s barbarity could be tempted to think the same. The Nazis were totalitarian monsters, but at least they believed in something, no matter how evil. Whereas ISIS is simply—in Secretary of State John Kerry’s words—“inexplicable, nihilistic, and valueless.” Particularly mystifying to some is how people such as Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State butcher known as Jihadi John, could join such a movement despite growing up in comfortable circumstances in London and getting a university degree in computer programming. Nor is he alone. Many of those drawn to ISIS are intelligent, educated and economically well-off. What drives them to chop off people’s heads?

The horrible truth is that ISIS and its converts, such as Jihadi John, represent nothing new in the modern era. The movement is not inexplicable—a recent essay in The Atlantic explicated it well, albeit controversially. It is not valueless; it champions the values of one very strict reading of Islam. And it is not nihilistic. A nihilist is someone who believes there is nothing to believe in. The fanatics of the Islamic State, however, believe very strongly in the absolute rightness of their own Utopian vision for the world.

Absolute belief renders ISIS’ atrocities not only explicable but seemingly almost mandatory. After all, if you hold the keys to the perfection of life on Earth, then anyone who stands in your way is actively depriving everyone else of that outcome and thereby ensuring the continued suffering of millions. Eliminating such people therefore serves the good of all mankind. (And the grisly beheadings, crucifixions, immolations? They can be justified on the same grounds as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were: They will shock and awe the enemy into an earlier surrender, and thus save lives in the end. Mercy becomes a justification for cruelty.)

None of this is new. A century ago another Utopian movement behaved very much the same.

https://reason.com/archives/2015/03/09/isis-communism-and-the-lure-of-violent-u

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Analysis: More Mideast allies fear U.S. soft on Iran

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Obama-Golf

Analysis: More Mideast allies fear U.S. soft on Iran
Jim Michaels, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Israel is not the only vital American ally in the Middle East increasingly alarmed that the U.S. is working too closely with Iran. So are America’s most important Arab partners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has trumpeted his worries about a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal, most recently to the U.S. Congress last week. Equally concerned but less vocal are Saudi Arabia and other moderate Arab states who play vital roles as bulwarks against radical Islamists in the region.

Shared interests Washington and Tehran have in driving the Islamic State out of Iraq and Syria are another source of worry for the allies, who do not want to see Iran’s radical leadership emerge as a more powerful and potentially nuclear-armed state in the region.

“Distrust in Saudi Arabia toward the United States hasn’t been this high since 1973,” during the oil embargo, said Michael Rubin, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

Reports last week that Iran’s military was playing a prominent role in an Iraqi offensive to drive Islamic State militants from Tikrit, north of Baghdad, raised a fresh a wave of fear that the United States isn’t doing enough to blunt Iran’s expansionist designs.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/08/iraq-iran-nuclear-kerry-dempsey-/24602807

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Muslim Mayor: ‘I Cannot Accept that Poverty Leads to Terrorism,’ ‘If You Do Not Like’ Western Values, ‘F*** Off,’ Leave!

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Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Muslim mayor of Rotterdam,not everyone is a coward

Muslim Mayor: ‘I Cannot Accept that Poverty Leads to Terrorism,’ ‘If You Do Not Like’ Western Values, ‘F*** Off,’ Leave!

By Barbara Boland | 5 hours ago

“I cannot accept that poverty leads to terrorism,” Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Muslim mayor of Rotterdam, told CNN Wednesday, taking issue with the Obama administration’s claims. “I know how it is to live in poverty. I spent 15 years in Morocco on one meal a day, walking without shoes… I know how it is to be a product of poverty.”

The mayor made headlines in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks when he said on a Dutch television program:

“It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom. But if you do not like freedom, in Heaven’s name pack your bag and leave. There may be a place in the world where you can be yourself. Be honest with yourself and do not go and kill innocent journalists.

And if you do not like it here because humorists you do not like make a newspaper, may I then say you can f*** off.

This is stupid, this so incomprehensible. Vanish from the Netherlands if you cannot find your place here.”

He told Michael Holmes on CNN that what he’s received thousands of emails praising his courageous words.

https://www.mrctv.org/blog/muslim-mayori-cannot-accept-poverty-leads-terrorism-if-you-do-not-western-values-f-and-leave#8CZNGa:ViO

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Three missing London schoolgirls ‘travelling to Syria to join Isil’

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Shamima Begum at the airport, your daughter could be next?

Three missing London schoolgirls ‘travelling to Syria to join Isil’

Metropolitan Police ‘extremely concerned’ about three teenage girls from east London school believed to be attempting to travel to Syria via Turkey

Police are appealing for help to find three schoolgirls who have gone missing and are thought to have travelled to Turkey with the intention of crossing the border into Syria.

They are Shamima Begum, 15, who could be using the name Acklina Begum, and 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana. The third girl, 15, is not being named at the request of her family, Scotland Yard said.

Police fear the girls, all pupils at the Bethnal Green Academy, in east London, might be heading to join terror group Isil – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as Islamic State.

They travelled from their homes on Tuesday, February 17 and boarded a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11424884/Three-missing-British-schoolgirls-travel-to-Syria.html

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President Obama Blames Parents

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Barack Obama: Muslim elders too ‘boring’ to win Isil propaganda war

Islam is not to blame for rise of Islamic State says Barack Obama, arguing people not religion responsible for violence and terrorism

By Peter Foster, Washington

11:27PM GMT 18 Feb 2015

President Barack Obama has warned that Muslim community leaders are in danger of losing the propaganda war with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and are often too “boring” to prevent their young people from getting radicalised.

Paying Isil a back-handed compliment for the effectiveness of its gruesome social media outreach campaign, Mr Obama said it was imperative to reach young Muslims and address their social, political and economic grievances in a way that they understood.

“By the way, [to] the older people here – as wise and respected as you may be – your stuff is often boring,” he told a White House summit on combatting the rise of extremism, “compared to what they’re doing. You’re not connected. And as a consequence, you are not connecting.”

Mr Obama it was time to be “honest” that slickly-produced Isil videos of fighting scenes, beheadings other atrocities were succeeding in brainwashing young Muslims.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/11421767/Barack-Obama-Muslim-elders-too-boring-to-win-Isil-propaganda-war.html

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Paul: ‘I blame’ Clinton for ISIS conflict

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Paul: ‘I blame’ Clinton for ISIS conflict

By Ben Kamisar

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of helping to spur unrest in the Middle East that led to the current battle against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“One of the people I blame for a lot of this, frankly, is Hillary Clinton,” he said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

“The disaster that is Libya is now a breeding ground for terrorists and also a breeding ground for armament. I really do blame Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya for creating a lot of the chaos that is now spreading throughout the Middle East.”Paul has repeatedly needled Clinton ahead of the two politicians’ potential 2016 bids, this time when host Bill Hemmer asked for his take on President Obama’s proposed authorization to fight ISIS, sent to Congress Wednesday. The proposal includes vague language that limits the president from “enduring offensive ground combat” but would allow him to authorize limited ground operations and have soldiers target ISIS forces and their associates.

But the plan hasn’t been welcomed with open arms on Capitol Hill. Some Democratic lawmakers told The Hill that the language may still be too broad, while Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement that he’s concerned the president’s language isn’t broad enough to give “our military commanders the flexibility and authorities they need.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/232463-paul-i-blame-clinton-for-isis-conflict