Former President Jimmy Carter Criticizing Barack Obama’s Middle East Policy …President Obama Blew It on ISIS

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE HIT ROCK BOTTOM WHEN JIMMY CARTER CRITICIZES YOUR FOREIGN POLICY!!!

It does not get much worse than this for a sitting president, Jimmy “Peanuts” Carter criticizing your foreign policy in the Middle East. OUCH! Jimmy Carter, the president who brought us the rise of radical Islam in Iran in the 1970′s and the  Ayatollah Khomeini, ripping Obama on his Middle East policy in dealing with ISIS. Carter stated, “[W]e waited too long. You know your presidency has hit rock bottom when Jimmy Carter calls you a failure.

Former President Jimmy Carter is criticizing President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, saying he has shifting policies and waited too long to take action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

In an interviewed published Tuesday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the 39th president said the Obama administration, by not acting sooner, allowed ISIL to build up its strength.

“[W]e waited too long. We let the Islamic State build up its money, capability and strength and weapons while it was still in Syria,” he said, using an alternate name for the terrorist group. “Then when [ISIL] moved into Iraq, the Sunni Muslims didn’t object to their being there and about a third of the territory in Iraq was abandoned.”

Carter said Obama’s air campaign against ISIL in Iraq has “a possibility of success,” provided that some troops are available on the ground. He did not specify whether he meant U.S. or other ground forces.

The former Democratic president and Georgia governor also said the president has shifted his Middle East policy on several occasions.

Barack Obama Blames Intel Officials for ISIS … “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

Barack Obama … The Buck always Stop with somebody else other than me …

It did not take long in last nights CBS ’60 Minutes’ interview for President Barack Obama to blame some one else for his not having a strategy or a clue in how to deal with ISIS. Barack Obama threw Intel officials and James Clapper under the bus and stated they underestimated ISIS. Who underestimated ISIS, or did you just not want to see what they were doing?  I could not have said it any better than Instapundit, When things go well, it’s always “I, me, mine” with this guy. When things go badly, it’s always “they” who screwed up.

But wait a minute, didn’t FOX News report Obama given detailed intelligence for a year about rise of ISIS?

President Obama was given detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of the Islamic State as part of his daily briefing for at least a year before the group seized large swaths of territory over the summer, a former Pentagon official told Fox News.

The official — who asked not to be identified because the President’s Daily Brief is considered the most authoritative, classified intelligence community product analyzing sensitive international events for the president — said the data was strong and “granular” in detail.

60 Minutes – Barack Obama interview

The Hill: Obama – Intel officials underestimated ISIS.

President Obama largely blamed the United States’ intelligence community in an interview broadcast Sunday for giving an incorrect assessment of the capabilities of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said on CBS’s “”60 Minutes.”

Obama said ISIS, also known as ISIL, went “underground” when United States forces fought al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade.

That, along with Syria’s civil war, allowed ISIS to regroup and recruit fighters from all over the world, including Europe, the United States, Australia and the Muslim world, Obama said in an excerpt from the interview. The full interview with Steve Kroft will air Sunday night.

“And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world,” Obama said of Syria.

Jim Geraghty at NRO says, oh contaire … “How Many Times Was Obama Warned About an Islamist Takeover of Iraq?”

Isn’t this what all of those allegedly horrific warmongering Bush administration officials warned about? Didn’t we have an entire 2008 presidential campaign debating the consequences of a “precipitous withdrawal”? Didn’t Obama and his team assure us, over and over again, that they would manage the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq responsibly?

Vice President Cheney, November 21, 2005:

Would the United States and other free nations be better or worse off with terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi running Iraq? And would the United States be more or less safe with Iraq ruled by extremists intent on its destruction?

A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an invitation to further the violence against free nations and a terrible blow to the future security of the United States of America.

President Bush, July 12, 2007:

I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.

Even The Daily Beast is calling Obama on his comments … Why Obama Can’t Say His Spies Underestimated ISIS.

Still, other senior intelligence officials have been warning about ISIS for months. In prepared testimony before the annual House and Senate intelligence committees’ threat hearings in January and February, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the recently departed director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the group would likely make a grab for land before the end of the year. ISIS “probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014.” Of course, the prediction wasn’t exactly hard to make. By then, Flynn noted, ISIS had taken the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, and the demonstrated an “ability to concurrently maintain multiple safe havens in Syria.”

Flynn was not alone. Clapper himself in that hearing warned that the three most effective jihadist groups in Syria—one of which he said was ISIS—presented a threat as a magnet for attracting foreign fighters. John Brennan, Obama’s CIA director, said he thought both ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s formal franchise in Syria, presented a threat to launch external operations against the West.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said February 4 that because of areas of Syria that are “beyond the regime’s control or that of the moderate opposition,” a “major concern” was “the establishment of a safe haven, and the real prospect that Syria could become a launching point or way station for terrorists seeking to attack the United States or other nations.”

US and Colalition of 5 Arab Allies Begin Bombing Missions in Syria Against ISIS

Military operations have begun in Syria against ISIS.

As reported at FOX News, the United States and five Arab allies, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qater, have begun military operations in Syria against ISIS. The bombing campaign consisted of  airstrikes, bombings and Tomahawk cruise-missile attacks against the Islamic State.  The airstrikes focused on the city of Raqqa, the declared capital of ISIS’ self-proclaimed Islamic State, but also about 20 to 25 targets have been struck.

VIDEO via The Gateway Pundit from Fox News

The United States, joined by five Arab allies, launched an intense campaign of airstrikes, bombings and cruise-missile attacks against the Islamic State and another militant group in Syria Monday night – marking the first U.S. military intervention in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011.

U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement released early Tuesday that 14 Islamic State targets were hit, including the group’s fighters, training camps, headquarters and command-and-control facilities, and armed vehicles. The operation involved a combination of fighter jets, Predator drones and Tomahawk missiles launched from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

VIDEO – AP: The U.S. Navy released video early Tuesday of missile launches from sea toward Islamic State militant group targets in Syria. (Sept. 23)

The strikes “destroyed or damaged” multiple targets, according to the U.S. military, which reported “all aircraft safely exited the strike areas.”

The mission was not limited to hitting Islamic State positions. Centcom said that U.S. aircraft also struck eight targets associated with another terrorist group called the Khorasan Group, made of up Al Qaeda veterans. Those strikes, near the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo, targeted training camps, a munitions production facility, a communication building and command-and-control facilities.

Centcom said the Khorasan Group was involved in “imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests.”

CNN: U.S. airstrikes hit ISIS inside Syria for first time

American jets began bombing ISIS targets in Syria early Tuesday, raising U.S. involvement in the war-torn country and sending a forceful message to the terror group.

The airstrikes focused on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, a U.S. official told CNN, though other locations were hit as well.

At least 20 targets in an around Raqqa were hit, the opposition group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

They’re the first strikes against the terror group inside the country since President Barack Obama’s announcement this month that he was prepared to expand the American efforts beyond targets in Iraq.

All foreign partners participating in the strikes with the United States are Arab countries, a senior U.S. military official told CNN. Those nations are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

Diplomatic sources told CNN that Qatar was also involved, though it was not clear whether Qatar actually conducted airstrikes itself.

BBC News -  US begins air strikes on Islamic State in Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry Says U.S. Not At War with ISIS

UNREAL … SO THE US IS NOT AT WAR WITH ISIS, GUESS WHAT JOHN KERRY, ISIS IS AT WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES!!!

One day after President Barack Obama spoke to the nation and told us about the threat of ISIS and his strategy to deal with them, his Secretary of State John Kerry says we are not at war with ISIS. Unbelievable. After the tough talk of Obama saying, “if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven,” it is followed up of the weakness of Kerry refusing to say we are at war with ISIS. Kerry stated, that’s the wrong terminology. It is not a war, it is a major counter-terrorism operation. WHAT!!! The Obama administration is more worried about semantics than they are victory. John Kerry went on to say, there is “No need for “war fever” in ISIS operations.  These are the wrong people, at the wrong time to be in charge.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday would not say the United States is at war with ISIS, telling CNN in an interview that the administration’s strategy includes “many different things that one doesn’t think of normally in context of war.”

“What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counterterrorism operation,” Kerry told CNN’s Elise Labott in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “It’s going to go on for some period of time. If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it’s a major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts.”

Kerry made a distinction between ISIS and terror groups operating in Somalia and Yemen.

VIDEO – CNN

Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like Obama changing the “Global war on terror” to ‘Overseas Contingency Operation’. How has that worked out for us America? Political Correctness kills.

The Weekly Standard:

As the famous line goes: Truth is the first casualty of war.

Calling it something else doesn’t change even that.

Especially that.  Perhaps Secretary Kerry should consider the words of General Sherman:

“War is cruelty, you cannot refine it.”

Or redefine it

Barack Obama’s 9-10-14 Full Speech on ISIS … Wrong President at the Wrong Time: From the Jayvee Team to America’s Greatest Terror Threat

SORRY, OBAMA LOST ME AT AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF MY HIGHEST PRIORITY IS THE SECURITY OF  THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, OKAY REALLY IT WAS AT MY FELLOW AMERICANS

Lying to the American people and playing politics with healthcare, the IRS  and jobs is bad enough, but lies and playing politics with terrorism kills.

Barack Hussein Obama is the wrong president at the wrong time with a speech that many feel are just more words. Let’s get serious folks, it was WE THE PEOPLE who forced Barack Obama, kicking and screaming, to speak to the American people with regards to the terror threats of ISIS. The only reason why Obama addressed the American people was because of his sinking poll numbers of terrorism and foreign policy. In gaffe after gaffe, or in Obama’s case, how he really felt, Obama claimed that ISIS offered no threat, they were just the jayvee. As ISIS ravaged innocent men, women and children he stood back and did nothing. As ISIS created a caliphate and took over lands in Syria and Iraq, Obama did nothing. Isis beheads an American journalist and Obama says bad things have always happened, its just the media and social media that make more out of it today. Then when Obama first presents what he will do to ISIS he admits he has no strategy and then when he comes up with one it is to make ISIS a “manageable problem”.  WTF!!!

So now Barack Obama provides us with more words, little details and a 180 on so many of his own words, policies and principles, it makes anyone’s head spin, even Democrats and liberals. Just curious, since when has the core principle of Obama’s presidency been, if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven. REALLY? Did Obama also provide Yemen and Somalia as examples of successes against terrorism? Hold the phone, did Obama just say that  ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East, including American citizens, personnel and facilities? Mr. President, you said ISIS was the jayvee. You dismissed them as not a threat and not on par with Al-Qaeda and now they are a threat to all, including America? Then what might be the flip-flops of all times, Obama states that there will be no American boots on the ground, but instead we will reply on Syrian opposition fighters. The very people that President Barack Obama once derided as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth” are now form a key pillar of the U.S. leader’s strategy to beat back the militant insurgency known as Islamic State. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!

CNN – Transcript of President Obama’s Speech on Combating ISIS and Terrorism:

The White House (CNN) — My fellow Americans — tonight, I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.

As Commander-in-Chief, my highest priority is the security of the American people. Over the last several years, we have consistently taken the fight to terrorists who threaten our country. We took out Osama bin Laden and much of al Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We’ve targeted al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, and recently eliminated the top commander of its affiliate in Somalia. We’ve done so while bringing more than 140,000 American troops home from Iraq, and drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, where our combat mission will end later this year. Thanks to our military and counter-terrorism professionals, America is safer.

Still, we continue to face a terrorist threat. We cannot erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm. That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today. That’s why we must remain vigilant as threats emerge. At this moment, the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL — which calls itself the “Islamic State.”

Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.

In a region that has known so much bloodshed, these terrorists are unique in their brutality. They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide. In acts of barbarism, they took the lives of two American journalists — Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.

So ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East — including American citizens, personnel and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region — including to the United States. While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies. Our intelligence community believes that thousands of foreigners — including Europeans and some Americans — have joined them in Syria and Iraq. Trained and battle-hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.

I know many Americans are concerned about these threats. Tonight, I want you to know that the United States of America is meeting them with strength and resolve. Last month, I ordered our military to take targeted action against ISIL to stop its advances. Since then, we have conducted more than 150 successful airstrikes in Iraq. These strikes have protected American personnel and facilities, killed ISIL fighters, destroyed weapons, and given space for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim key territory. These strikes have helped save the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

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