We are now bombing TWO groups in Syria, for TWO different reasons.

[dixiegrrrrl]

We are bombing both ISIL AND a "new" Al-Quada "affiliated" group in Syria.
That was the happy headline that greeted me this am.

Just to be clear...here is the WH reasons for bombing ISIL in Syria:

Senior Obama administration officials: Airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria are legal because they were done in defense of Iraq

http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/syria/

and here is the WH reason for bombing another group in Syria:

The White House this morning is confirming that airstrikes against the al-Qaida-affiliated Khorasan Group in Syria were carried out due to its plotting of an 'imminent' attack against the US. This information was also confirmed earlier today by the US Central Command.

same source as above

[font style=color:#FF0000;]"Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on." [/font]
Kurt Vonnegut

[Fred Sanders]

1. There is another group mad at America and wants to terrorize Americans? Sorry, ISIS has dibs and

they, along with major media, are doing a fine job of it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Yeah, it would be horrible if we were to ever have a long endless war that escalated.....

What's the Arabic word for "quagmire?"

[MrMickeysMom]

17. It's the same word for doing the same thing over and over...

and expecting the same result!

I'll say it as long as I can … This is INSANITY.

[choie]

2. Throw it all on the wall..

and hope something sticks..

[morningfog]

3. I wish Obama would just tell the truth.

We're not leaving til Assad is toppled, even if it means ground troops.

[geek tragedy]

4. Khorasan group is not 'new' nt

[leftstreet]

5. 'Khorasan Group' sounds like an investment firm

How were they planning to 'imminent attack' the US? Do they have a navy?

What a bunch of bullshit

[malthaussen]

7. I think the rationale is...

... infiltration by common carrier and assembling of strike groups once in-country. This is hardly specious on the face of it, but how much truth there is to it is not something we mere citizens are allowed to know. And don't examine too closely the question about how bombing them there is supposed to keep them from infiltrating here.

-- Mal

[leftstreet]

8. The US could really use about 17+ Intel agencies

Oh wait...

[hifiguy]

9. Probably one with Booosh family connections.

[Glassunion]

10. Maybe they are just trying to save gas...

If you can nail 2 groups on one flight, you save a ton of gas. Jet fuel is like $6 a gallon. A super hornet uses about $14 a mile. Do the math.

[stranger81]

11. Here's what I think the truth is: if the United States were a natural person,

we would be clinically diagnosed as paranoid, narcissistic, sociopathic and antisocial.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. I assure you that we are NOT in a quagmire...

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Whew! What a relief.

[cwydro]

13. This is insane.

Truly.

I'm horrified.

[randome]

14. We have plenty of oil. We are even exporting it.

I think it's short-sighted to see every move on the international stage as some sort of master chess game. The current administration is not the same as the previous one.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. I agree....the administration is not the same.

Unfortunately, the policies are very similar, except Bush did not have a policy of droning to death overseas Americans with out a trial or conviction.

[BrotherIvan]

19. That's a good one!

[cali]

22. I agree that the current administration

is not the same as the previous one, but that doesn't mean that this administration isn't vulnerable to both the pressures of public opinion and corporate pressures. As, we've seen, it is.

And yes, oil is a factor. Big oil has interests in the middle east.

And yes, we import a lot of oil still- and we'll be doing that for the foreseeable future:

As events in Iraq continue to unfold, we have been getting quite a few queries on just how much oil the US imports from Iraq. In my previous post – The Top 10 Oil Producers in 2013 — I showed that even though the US is a major oil producer, we are an even greater oil consumer. So we import millions of barrels a day of oil from over 40 countries — one of which is in fact Iraq.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) tracks US oil imports and finished product exports, and I have tabulated our Top 10 sources of crude oil imports from 2013. Overall, the US imported 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in 2013, a 2 million bpd decline since 2008. We imported another 2.1 million bpd of finished products like diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel, but we also exported 3.6 million bpd of petroleum and petroleum products (mostly as finished products).

<snip>

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Where-The-US-Got-Its-Oil-in-2013.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Ya know, I have to take back my earlier response that said I agreed that admin. is not the same

Just been reading Juan Cole blog, and came across this:

Just to add to the general eeriness factor, the key people in charge of putting Washington’s plans into effect are distinctly familiar faces.

Brett McGurk, who served in key Iraq policy positions throughout the Bush and Obama administrations, is again the point man as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. McGurk was once called the “Maliki whisperer” for his closeness to the former prime minister.

The current American ambassador, Robert Stephen Beecroft, was deputy chief of mission, the number two at the Baghdad embassy, back in 2011. Diplomatically, another faux coalition of the (remarkably un)willing is being assembled. And the pundits demanding war in a feverish hysteria in Washington are all familiar names, mostly leftovers from the glory days of the 2003 invasion.

Lloyd Austin, the general overseeing America’s new military effort, oversaw the 2011 retreat.
General John Allen, brought out of military retirement to coordinate the new war in the region — he had recently been a civilian advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry — was deputy commander in Iraq’s Anbar province during the surge.
Also on the U.S. side, the mercenary security contractors are back, even as President Obama cites, without a hint of irony, the ancient 2002 congressional authorization to invade Iraq he opposed as candidate Obama as one of his legal justifications for this year’s war.
http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/apocalypse-iraq-edition.html

[tabasco]

18. Good job, Droney!

Can't kill enough of those ISIS assholes, AFAIC.

[BuelahWitch]

20. What luck! We got a bomb 1 get 1 free deal!

[CJCRANE]

21. ISIS seems like a bunch of adolescents

so they had to pull an old school Al Qaeda group out of the hat and give it a new moniker.

I also wonder why we never heard of this Muhsin guy before, if he was in Bin Laden's inner circle.