So who does? Apparently he expects the friends and allies of the Islamic State to fight against the Islamic State.
“Obama reaffirms opposition to US combat in Iraq,” by Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press, September 17, 2014:
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama reaffirmed Wednesday that he does not intend to send U.S. troops into combat against the Islamic State group, despite doubts about the ability of Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and Syrian rebels to carry out the ground fight on their own.
“The American forces do not and will not have a combat mission,” Obama told troops at MacDill Air Force Base.
It was a firm response to suggestions raised Tuesday by his top military commander that under certain circumstances, American ground forces may be needed.
Obama said U.S. troops “will support Iraqi forces on the ground as they fight for their own country against these terrorists.”
But, he added, “As your commander in chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.”
Obama offered a vision of a potent force that can have a major role in conflicts, a more forceful view than he has embraced before. But he still stressed that for the effort to succeed against the Islamic State group, the U.S. will need to lead the international coalition and local forces must handle a significant role.
“Frankly, there just aren’t a lot of other folks who can perform in the same way. In fact, there are none. There are some things only we can do. There are some capabilities only we have,” he said.
“Our armed forces are unparalleled and unique. So when we’ve got a big problem somewhere around the world, it falls on our shoulders. Sometimes that’s tough. But that’s what sets us apart. That’s why we’re American.”
Obama spoke after consulting with officers at U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military efforts in the Middle East.
Obama’s speech to troops at MacDill Air Force Base was one more chance to try to make the case for the airstrike campaign against the militant group.
His meeting Gen. Lloyd Austin, the Central Command head, and other officers took place as Congress prepared to vote on Obama’s request for authority to equip and train Syrian opposition fighters.
Lawmakers in both parties have raised worries that the U.S. might be unable to find enough Syrian rebels who could be trusted to confront the Islamic State group or that their numbers would be sufficient.
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a small group of reporters traveling with him to Paris that about half of Iraq’s army is incapable of being an effective partner with the U.S. to push the Islamic State group back in western and northern Iraq. He said the other half needs to be partially rebuilt with U.S. training and additional equipment.
Dempsey told senators on Tuesday that if it became necessary for U.S. military advisers to accompany Iraqi troops into combat, he might “go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of ground forces.”
Beagle says
Kerry doubling down on this idiocy in front of US Senate with Code Pink signs in the background.
So the plan is to attack the IS enough to infuriate it, keep the borders open, admit many more Muslim ‘refugees’, but not do enough to actually harm or destroy the IS. Kerry: “gross distortion of Islam”. Drink!
This will be interesting going forward.
Daniel Triplett says
Because he wants the Islamic State and Global Caliphate to succeed. He just can’t say it out loud. Taqiyya.
Bezelel says
IS has to be happy to hear that they only have to fight the other “JV” team.
ralph says
You gotta love the Brits! https://www.youtube.com/embed/tjJc8xLYhak
much better than “OVomit”
Infidel says
Thanks, that was really funny.
John says
Traitor in Chief, the Dishonorable Barack Husein Obama.
jihad3tracker says
Yes, John — ( and reminding JW readers here that I am a lifelong Dem ) — the grandson of proud & strong Norwegian prairie farmers who survived the Great Depression with FDR’s profound commitment to our nation’s renewal.
Obama is in complete mental meltdown now — obviously — and beyond any ability to think out strategy, astonishingly telling ISIS day by day about our military plans, which of course change direction and scope more often than the wind in Alaska.
BHO will doubtless go into history as the biggest presidential disgrace ever to plague America and thereby threaten our survival. Utterly disgusting….
Bezelel says
I honestly do not believe hussein is a democrat. Party lines dont mean what they used to.
Angemon says
Yup, this is exactly the kind of reassurance the american people need after seeing their fellow countrymen beheaded by an organization who declared war against the US… I wonder what those ISIS fellows think of it…
Biff H says
What then is the Orwellian synonym for combat? The American pilots that let loose the hellfire missiles on IS were on a training mission with unintended collateral damage?
Biff H says
Better still: We are strongly committed to the premise that combat training be as close to an actual combat experience as is humanly possible. The use of live ordinance in a war setting for interests that share our common values benefit from this exercise. Those that would label this combat or an act of war are on a witch hunt that no reasonable person would countenance as a valid representation of truth.
awake says
And unfortunately, Obama is entirely correct in this decision. If they can’t accomplish this by air, they can’t by ground, unless we want to baby-sit tar-baby Iraq for nothing more than temporal gains for another mission-less decade of wasted U.S. blood and treasure.
Thomas Wells says
If Obama had been president on Dec.7,1941; he would have issued an apology and vowed to pay for any damage to the aircraft of Imperial Japan. He would then have bowed and apologized for any misguided Americans who expressed doubts as to our ability to get along peacefully.
Daphdong says
And they say Benedict Arnold was a traitor. He was a patriot compared to this clown.
When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sat down in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, surrounded by the leaders of 10 Arab states, to build a coalition against Islamic State (ISIS), the scene dripped with irony.
For decades, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with Arab billionaires in Gulf Arab states, have financed the breeding grounds of Islamic extremism in the tens of thousands of madrassas spread around the world, from Philippines to Philadelphia.
Take the case of the al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, whose death President Barack Obama boasted about at the Wales NATO summit as an example of America’s approach to dismantling al-Qaida-affiliated groups.
What Obama failed to mention was the fact Godane became a jihadi terrorist only after obtaining a Saudi scholarship to study radical Islam at madrassas in Sudan and later Pakistan.
Assuming the objective of the American/Arab coalition was to fight the misogynist murderers of ISIS, it was also ironic not a single woman sat at the table. Not even a female State Department staffer or assistant.
This was not a coalition that will defeat ISIS; it was a coalition that will end up reinforcing Islamic State as the one true answer to the crimes being committed against the Arab people by its own leaders.
Islamic State is being formed exactly the way Saudi Arabia was formed when thousands of bloodthirsty jihadis rose from the Sultanate of Nejd and invaded the Kingdom of Hejaz, slaughtering the country’s citizens into submission in 1925.
John C. Barile says
BHO–a man of action committed to inaction, and vice versa. Resolutely irresolute; fixed on vacillation; firmly set on a course of drift.
Anon says
This is not going to go well. The Pretender In Chief also seems to have a short memory:
June 10th, 2014 – “…security forces fled many of their posts. The fighters stormed police stations, bases and prisons, capturing weapons and freeing prisoners.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-city-of-mosul-falls-into-hands-of-isis-jihadists-after-police-army-abandon-posts/
June 26th, 2014 – “The parade, down the streets of the large city of Mosul, showcased the stolen American-made military equipment ISIS may use to continue…”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/06/26/ISIS-Holds-Parade-in-Mosul-Iraq-Showing-Off-American-Made-Vehicles
“The Great Pretender”
Richie says
The reason is obvious.
Obama does not want Islamic state destroyed. He supports them. He wants them to grow and spread.
Just wait and see, any western country that fights back against the Islamic State (my bet is Russia will hit them the hardest) will have the full condemnation of Obama, who will of course paint the Muslims as victims
Salah says
“Obama does not want Islamic state destroyed. He supports them. He wants them to grow and spread. ”
That’s what I’ve been saying here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/islamic-state-beheads-british-aid-worker-david-haines-cameron-vows-justice
Unfortunately, many JW commenters didn’t like my comment!
Salah says
Here’s the link to my comment:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/islamic-state-beheads-british-aid-worker-david-haines-cameron-vows-justice/comment-page-1#comment-1119133
gravenimage says
Actually, Salah, you weren’t saying that Obama enables and supports the Islamic State—you were saying that America *created it*. You wrote:
“JW readers need to understand one thing: ISIL is made in and by the USA.”
It was that claim—that the Islamic State did not grow from Dar-al-Islam, but was trumped up by Americans, that many Jihad Watchers—including myself—took issue with.
Salah says
Don’t get me wrong, gravenimage. When I say USA, I mean the W.H., not the people. And when I say the W.H., I mean the REAL masters of the W.H. (i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood.)
Obama and his gang are merely puppets, they follow the orders of their Muslim Brotherhood “advisers” that’s all.
The MB failed to rule the Middle East thanks to the Egyptian uprising. Now they’re trying plan B: terrorizing the region with ISIL, their most violent offshoot.
Remember, ISIL gets its arms and recruits from Turkey, a NATO member. They get their funds from Qatar, where the US has 2 of their most powerful military bases. Don’t try to convince me that Turkey and Qatar do not have the green light and blessings of the W.H. (ruled by the MB thugs.)
eib says
Our soldiers are headed to slaughter. The beheading sword is out. And the traitor forbids them the fight for their lives.
MK75Gunner says
Amazing the stupidity in this pronouncement; “The American forces do not and will not have a combat mission,” Barry ignores a well known Military maxim, the enemy gets a vote in this too. Go to the Wall and check the names of the first casualties in Vietnam. They too were “advisors”. Barry loves to play word games calling people advisors as if it were no different that you walking into your local Fidelity brokerage to engage with a financial advisor. These are Combat Infantrymen, SF, men that have trained and honed the very skills required to “advise” the indigenous forces. They will accompany these forces in the field and they will be armed, it is the way it’s done, contrary to Barry’s obsession with deceiving the public. How long before one of our brave Soldiers is KIA while accompanying the forces they are tasked with training? And when will the sycophants of the left and the enablers in the press stop their slavish devotion to believing anything this charlatan utters?
mitchell stevenson says
for me the problem is not obama or ISIS its the american people who are undecided and clearly divided if obama is to send troops into the IS then you prosecute him for puting you into a g bush situation and since he is clearly trying t avoid that you call him tratoir for not sending your sons and daugters to die so what really is it that you the Americans who elected him to office want.
awake says
For anyone suggesting a re-entry into Iraq, via infantry, let me me be first to call you a dope, or if you cannot understand that, a moron.
inkahutz says
Of course he doesn’t have a war with the Islamic State, as a Muslim himself, his war is with Israel. Nothing would raise his stature in the Muslim world like helping them in their agenda to annihilate Israel.