House, Senate intel chiefs flag Islamic State risk
Source: AP-Excite
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees on Sunday prodded President Barack Obama to take decisive action against what they say are growing threats from Islamic State militants on U.S. soil.
The lawmakers, one Republican and one Democratic, offered bipartisan pressure on the White House to turn back the hazard of Islamist fighters who have taken control of vast swaths of Syria and Iraq. Those militants now are looking toward the United States or Western Europe for its next targets, lawmakers said.
Without offering specifics on any threats or suggestions how to confront them, the lawmakers said Obama soon needs to develop a comprehensive strategy to crush the fighters.
"His foreign policy is in absolute free-fall," said Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee.
FULL story at link.
Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen chant anti-terrorism slogans after breaking the siege on 15,000 Shiite Turkmens stranded in the farming community town of Amirli, following U.S. airstrikes against Sunni Islamic State group positions, 105 miles (170 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2014. The Islamic State extremist group has seized cities, towns and vast tracts of land in northeastern Syria and northern and western Iraq. It views Shiites as apostates and has carried out a number of massacres and beheadings {2014} often posting grisly videos and photos of the atrocities online. (AP Photo)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140831/us-united-states-iraq-fb88fd3215.html
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threat currently facing the United States. It has been in absolute free fall for a generation and is dragging any possibility of a decent world down with it.
I am a retired Army officer, serving 1967 - 1995. As a young lieutenant I was ten feet tall and bulletproof, full of piss and vinegar. The very best and brightest minds we could find told me if I didn't stop the Commies in Vietnam, they'd rampage through Southeast Asia and be in the streets of San Francisco before we knew it. (See "Domino Theory" and "The Best and the Brightest."
I believed 'em, so, along with a few million other young men, I saddled up, went to Vietnam, and killed Commies. Then, in 1973, we figured out the Best and the Brightest were full of shit. We buried 60,000 dead young Americans along with untold thousands of dead Vietnamese and now we buy all our Nikes from Vietnam.
I was born in 1944 and for almost half-a-century I was told we MUST keep tens of thousands of troops in Europe and Japan and God-only-knows-where-else as well as spending zillions of dollars to stop the Evil Empire in its tracks. Then, one day in 1989, the Evil Empire went "poof" and was gone.
And now the Best and the Brightest are telling us we need to stop ISIS before we see nuclear clouds over American cities.
I'm ignoring them this time.
Wow! "The Islamic State extremist group has seized cities, towns and vast tracts of land in northeastern Syria and northern and western Iraq." Wow! I guess the logical next stop is rolling into Washington or Berlin! Wow! Let's all soil ourselves!
I wonder if they'll make up another laughable graphic like this one that was actually taken seriously at the time:
Yes, that's right. This was actually printed in major newspapers as a serious depiction of "the enemy." Nothing like this exists outside of bad movies and cartoons, of course. But I wonder if they'll try this again to gin up (or manufacture in the media) more "support" for our never ending war machine.
A scary word.
