"Today America is coming to help"

[Bob Of Burleson]

Obama authorizes renewed airstrikes in Iraq

By JULIE PACE and ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama authorized U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq on Thursday night, warning they would be launched if needed to defend Americans from advancing Islamic militants and protect civilians under siege. His announcement threatened a renewal of U.S. military involvement in the country's long sectarian war.

In a televised late-night statement from the White House, Obama said American military planes already had carried out airdrops of humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Iraqi religious minorities surrounded by militants and desperately in need of food and water.

"Today America is coming to help," he declared.

The announcements reflected the deepest American engagement in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew in late 2011 after nearly a decade of war. Obama, who made his remarks in a steady and somber tone, has staked much of his legacy as president on ending what he has called the "dumb war" in Iraq.

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[GFB]

Made fun of "Bush's war"..called it the "Wrong war at the wrong time"

..Bush wins war..Obama pulls out..

bad guys return..Obama starts his own Iraq war after flushing all of that hard work,loss of life and incredible expense down the toilet.

TOTAL LOSER

[planosteve]

If Sadam Hussain were still there, this would never have happened. Plus thousands of Iraqis and Americans who are now dead, would still be alive. And US taxpayers would be a couple of trillion dollars less in debt. Remember Bush told us it would only cost 40 billion. Then he fired the guy that said it could cost 100 billion or more.

[Addisonrose]

Yeah. BHO is an epic fail.

[Bob Of Burleson]

By Carol E. Lee
And Felicia Schwartz
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama stepped in front of the cameras on Thursday to utter words he hoped he would never say as commander in chief.

"I've therefore authorized targeted airstrikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq," Mr. Obama said in a statement from the White House. "Today America is coming to help."

The return to military engagement in Iraq is a reversal for Mr. Obama, whose early opposition to the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, and his promise to end it, fueled his long-shot campaign for the White House.

It also puts a spotlight on what has become a familiar feature of the Obama presidency, in which the leader of the most powerful military in the world has become defined by his reluctance to use it.

"They're very, very wary," said Barry Pavel, a former defense official and director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council. "There are situations that will come up in the world where that wariness is tested in order to ensure that U.S. national security interests will be protected."

Mr. Obama said the situation in Iraq was one of those. And as with other instances when Mr. Obama deployed U.S. military might, events forced his hand. "There is no decision that I take more seriously than the use of military force," Mr. Obama said. "And I've been careful to resist calls to return time and again to our military."

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[Sangersteve]

Obama has painted himself in a corner, he had an opportunity to extract himself from said corner.

He didn't even try.

All he had to do is finally admit his foreign policy with regard to terrorism was flawed.

"My fellow American's, tonight I come to you to admit my approach to the threat of muslim terrorism was fatally flawed. I apologize, I thought that if the United States presented no threat to muslim terrorists they would see no reason to continue jihad. By removing all troops from Iraq,I set in motion the murderous path of these animals, who have twisted the muslim religion into something it is not supposed to be.

They(the terrorists) have taught me to have no restraint against evil, we have no choice now but to eradicate this threat to all people who do not accept the radical muslim terrorists.

I'm sorry I was wrong on this matter, please forgive me"

You know what? We would have forgiven him.

But,no, we get a limp wrist-ed response that basically tells the terrorists" Hey guys back off for a couple of weeks and I won't have to lob a couple of missiles at you "

There is evil in our world, and the left refuses to see that evil must be stopped.

BHO destined to be written in the history books as the president who allowed evil to flourish.

[Bob Of Burleson]

The strongest military left in Iraq
has not stopped the Islamic State

By Terrence McCoy
The Washington Post

For a time, there was a pleasant fiction that the Kurdish capital of Irbil was safe. With much of greater Iraq splintered by the Islamic State’s brutality, Kurdistan seemed protected, insulated, economically booming and buoyant enough to recently extend its borders to nearby Kirkuk. Plus, the narrative went, Kurdistan had its pesh merga — a vaunted militia of grizzled fighters who fought Saddam Hussein and whose name, after all, means “those who confront death.”

In the past several days, however, it has become clear that rumors of Kurdistan’s safety have been exaggerated. Earlier this week, the Islamic State, in yet another sign of its nascent strength, captured the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar, which had been under the protection of the pesh merga. Pictures soon circulated on social media of executed members of the Kurdish security force, Islamic State militants fluttering their black flag and hundreds of thousands of fleeing residents.

It got worse. Perhaps for tactical reasons, Kurdish forces reportedly relinquished control of Iraq’s largest dam and the largest Christian city in the country with little fighting. Then, as airlines suspended flights to Irbil, the militants besieged villages just 30 miles west of the Kurdish capital, a boomtown where “people are panicking,” Kurdish journalist Namo Abdulla told The Washington Post. “They are panicking in Irbil. People are fleeing and going into the mountains. They are terrified. The militants love death more than they love life. They don’t care about anything; they just want to kill.”

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