Barack Obama Quotes
This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out Isil wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.
Obama, Barack. "Statement by the President on ISIL." Obama White House Archives, 10 Sept. 2014.
The Iraqi Army when first confronted by the ISIS forces literally dropped their uniforms and weapons and ran to melt into the civilian population. Many of the best Iraqi officers had been purged by the Sunni-dominated government because they were Shiite. Others because they had no political connections. That left an officer corps of cronies and incompetents to lead troops that had little loyalty to the national government and had no ideas why they should risk their life. They were much better equipped than ISIS because of their American supplied weapons, but they allowed ISIS to capture much of these. Ya’Alon and many others were very skeptical of the same army to do better the second time around.
Grenier was fired by the Republican CIA Director Porter Goss because Grenier had internally been an opponent of Vice President Cheney’s Desire for Torture (like waterboarding) of terrorists suspects and detaining terrorists in secret prisons so the United States legal system could not order the government to stop breaking the law if they did.
The Seals who conducted the raid captured all the computers and documents that there were in bin Laden’s compound.
ground troops fighting in Iraq & Syria in addition to air power Quote A was made in June of 2014. Quote B, 3 months later in September. In June there are rumors that the Obama administration might commit more military assets to the situation in Iraq and Syria and Graham was afraid that the President might be considering ground troops. Three months later, President Obama announced a policy of making a serious military commitment to the area, but stated that he would not be using ground troops. Graham then criticized the President for NOT deploying ground troops reversing his previous position. This is a marvelous example of the hyper partisanship and the virulent anti-Obama action by the Republicans. Actually, Graham was better than most of the Republicans. He was always polite. He criticized the President’s policies and actions even if he had to twist around to do it. Many of his colleagues made vicious personal attacks on the President and kept spreading rumors that he was not a Christian but a Muslim who was not born in America and was indoctrinated in Islam as a boy. Graham’s flip flop was explained by him as a change that was made necessary by the rise and military aggression of ISIS which he also blamed on the President for not committing more resources to the Syrian insurgents.
Objecting to the United States supporting the Kurdish Peshmerga forces attacking ISIS in Syria when they were affiliated with the PKK an organization that used terror tactics to gain independence for Kurds in Turkey.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
