Over at PJ Media I explore the latest contradictions in the foreign policy of the post-American President:
Now that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has taken Mosul and Tikrit and has set its sights on Baghdad, Barack Obama has responded with a strong statement – and in doing so, revealed the deep contradictions in and incoherence of his entire foreign policy….
2. “Jihadists”? What?
In referring to the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as “jihadists,” Obama broke with his own administration’s policy. CIA chief John Brennan said in 2010 that Islamic jihadists were not Islamic jihadists: “They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing — absolutely nothing — holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.”
This was not just Brennan’s opinion: in October 2011, the Obama administration placed off-limits any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists, overseeing the scrubbing of all counter-terror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. At that time, Dwight C. Holton, former U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon, emphasized that training materials for the FBI would be purged of everything politically incorrect: “I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated.”
But if the people who just took Mosul are indeed engaged in an Islamic jihad, then Islam is at least arguably “a religion of violence or with a tendency toward violence.” In this, of course, Obama fell into the chasm between his fantasy-based counter-terror policy and what is obvious and manifest reality: he knows that the warriors of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are jihadists, and in an unguarded moment, said so – thereby demonstrating the incoherence of his own position on this question.
1. Aiding jihadists in Syria and opposing them in Iraq
Last year, Barack Obama wanted to invade Syria on the side of the “jihadists” he is now saying must be stopped. He has given weapons to groups in Syria that he claimed were “moderate,” but which actually were collaborating with these jihadists: the Long War Journal reported on June 29, 2013, that the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, which is “al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria,” has “cooperated with Free Syrian Army units to establish sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo and in eastern Syria.”
What is the Free Syrian Army? The “moderates” whom we are training and to whom we are giving weapons: “the US government is backing the Free Syrian Army despite the group’s known ties to the Al Nusrah Front.”
So apparently it’s all right for the group the U.S. backs to establish Islamic law in Aleppo, but not all right for a similar and allied group to establish Islamic law in Mosul.
Barack Obama’s foreign policy is utterly incoherent, and the world is on the brink of catastrophe because of it.
Read the rest here.
jihad3tracker says
HELLO TO C.A.I.R. ! ! ! ! ! So howzitgoin’ dudes ?
We know you constantly monitor Jihadwatch here… C’mon just admit it, OK ?
There’s no shame in wanting to know exactly the extent to which your Brothers of Allah have slaughtered their fellow human beings in — oh — let’s see — the last 24 hours. Gotta keep up with current events, doncha know !
Boy, what a lousy week for you — is that extra-large bottle of aspirin suppressing the headaches ?
If the ISIS prom dance accomplishes one thing good, it will be to finally make your “Islamophobia” peddling bullcrap useless. Even dumb Americans are finally getting the reality —
ISLAM IS PURE DEATH — JUST LIKE MUHAMMAD HIMSELF.
John C. Barile says
Yeah, that’s right, Bro–Islam is the Final Answer!
I forgot the question.
Uri says
Almost as contradictory as this site: Obama Watch.
Used to be focused on Jihad – but Spence really needs to rename it .
So, what does Pamella think? That’s all that matters.
duh_swami says
Almost as contradictory as this site: Obama Watch.
What makes you think Rasool Obama is not a stealth jihadist?
If you enable jihad, you are a jihadist…
Uri says
Reagan was a jihadi then. Through and through.
Foolster says
Another facts free post, brought to you by Uri.
DVult says
Obama watch, there’s a horrible thought. You’d have to look at his stupid face every time you wanted to know the time. Considering the source the time would probably be unreliable anyway. The time – anything it pleases and if you don’t like it you are racist.
Uri says
You see his face everyday on this site – formerly Jihad Watch, now Obama Watch
Comparing Obama to George almighty Bush is like comparing Nicholas Tesla to Alfred E. Newman.
Transmaster says
You are comparing Obama with Nicholas Tesla, Oh what a howler, har-de-har-har.
What world do you suppose the Sultan of Clueless is saving, hmmm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtGrp5MbzAI
Or This one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2VTIw9Mbms#t=22
Uri next you are going to compare these horrors with the Crusades of over a 1000 years ago as a moral equivalency. I mean isn’t that what your bud’ Reza Aslan says.
Mirren10 says
That first video you posted, ”Obama’s going to change the world”, reminds me of nothing so much as the Hitler Youth, and the song from Cabaret.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co
Ugh.
David Vazquez says
You apparently not familiar with who Tesla was. He was a great inventor and electrical engineer. Obama is neither.
BlueRaven says
Obama & Co are betraying tens of thousands American lives lost in Iraq and Afghanstan to keep the al-quida out of these countries. We trusted a false allied, Pakistanies. They incubinated Talibans and Al-Quida for over twenty years. We paid them several billion dollars yearly so they can nurish Talibans and Al-Quida. I feel gutted to the stomach with this Administration. They are nothing but liars and cheats. We see thousands time more Jihad in the world now than before 9/11. They are Jihad enablers – more than the Saudies.
BlueRaven says
Correction: “We paid them tens of billions dollars yearly to keep the terrorists out and they nurtured Talibans and Al-Quida in the best of places.”
Uri says
C’mon dumbo…
Bush = Alfred E. Newman
Or am I being unfair to Alfred?
occupant 9 says
Uri, if Bush was so stupid why did Obama, who is extra smart, continue with and/or enhance his failed policies and in the end, ensure that the worst of the Mohammadanism thrives?
Barrack Obama (the PREZ) says
Let me be clear! This uh…making fun of me…is…uh…racist….and uh….a Republican plot by George Bush and Mitt Romney to…uh….make my foreign policy…uh…look bad. Let me be clear…Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. And uh…do not take the name of the prophet in vain. My muslim faith…uh…Christian faith doesn’t allow it. Now excuse me….I’m late for a round of golf and fund raising.
Islofob IS-1 says
We are sure to see in the end, no matter how long it takes, or whom our progressive “leaders” support in these efforts, that those who follow islam will win in Iraq.
If we would only see islam as the threat, as the death cult that it truly is, we could then support our interests in this current conflict.
That would be the West, [ meaning US ], the great Republic of the United States of America, and our other true friends, like Israel.
Call on the entire world to reject islam, all of it.
The death cult that is islam needs nothing from us, we should return the favor.