Lied Into War Again …

We cannot really call it “mission creep” anymore – president Obama’s “limited air strikes” against ISIS have become mission gallop, as within a few weeks, the war aims have continued to broaden so that a temporally limited air campaign has been transformed into a “war that could take years”. The continued insistence that it won’t involve ground troops is the next barrier that is likely to fall.

Readers may recall that we pointed out that all of this would happen in “ISIS and the Coming Escalation in Iraq”, posted on August 12. Admittedly, it was not exactly difficult to foresee this.

Originally, the air strikes were sold to the public as a humanitarian intervention that was required to save 40,000 Yazidis trapped on a mountain. We noted that saving the Yazidis could certainly be regarded as a positive side effect, but at the time we didn’t know it was actually a lie. Apparently the lie was propagated by the Kurdish government, as the Peshmerga were suddenly beginning to lose badly against ISIS. When the Pentagon realized that there were actually barely any Yazidis stranded on the mountain (in addition to this, it was reportedly not predominantly ISIS, but other Sunni neighbors of theirs that were attacking the Yazidis), it dropped the unnecessary rescue plan and decided it had to look for other things to do in Iraq. One by one new goals were added: we must protect Arbil. We must protect Baghdad. We must protect some or other dam. Until we have arrived at “ISIS must be completely eradicated”.

This progression was achieved by various means. As Robert Wenzel reports here, the video showing the beheading of James Foley has been analyzed by experts and essentially found to be a fake. This doesn’t mean that he was not killed – only that it didn’t happen in that video. However, the videos of the execution of US journalists were a key building block in whipping up the war frenzy, so they have certainly served a purpose. In addition to this ever more hysterical pronouncements about the threat ISIS allegedly poses to the “homeland” have been made – which fly in the face of the actual analyses undertaken by the intelligence community. According to Jason Ditz at Anti-War.com:

“The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that US intelligence currently has no indications of any current planning by ISIS to actually attack the US homeland, and told Congress as much. That didn’t sit well with Congress, which insisted that ISIS is “the biggest threat to the homeland” irrespective of the lack of any evidence to that effect, and dismissed the DHS assessment that they are at most a “remote threat.”

It could of course well be argued that the group was an even more remote threat before the US started bombing it. In the meantime, the president has made clear that the war will be expanded into Anbar province, quite likely into Syria, and that it will take years. Jason Ditz summarizes:

“What started out as an “emergency” humanitarian campaign to save people trapped on Mount Sinjar, most of whom weren’t trapped there to begin with, has escalated in a matter of weeks into an open-ended war with ISIS that even the most optimistic Pentagon planners say is going to take years . While he publicly hasn’t confirmed the plans yet, expanding the war from Iraq into neighboring Syria also seems a foregone conclusion at some point , as officials have been downplaying the idea that they could stop ISIS in one country without stopping them planet-wide.

A global war with no strategy for victory and no end in sight certainly wasn’t what the American public were presented with when the campaign began, but White House officials continue to deny that “mission creep” is occurring.”

They are right. As noted above, it isn’t “mission creep”, it is “mission gallop”. The escalation continues, and is by no means finished. As we pointed out in August: it is impossible to destroy ISIS with mere air strikes. And if the goal of wiping it out “planet-wide” is to be achieved, it clearly means that the war must be expand further.

ISIS controlled territory as of August

Ground Troops Needed, “Coalition” Not Prepared to Fight

An air force commander has now pointed out what we have also noted back in August: if one wants to wage an effective bombing campaign, one actually cannot do it without ground troops. The mooted expansion of the war into Syria will definitely require it. Meanwhile, the newest “coalition of the willing” seems totally unwilling to lift even one finger:

“A top Air Force commander has been quoted in USA Today tonight saying that any expansion of the ISIS air war into Syria is going to require US special operations forces on the ground, inside Syria.“It’s absolutely crucial that pilots are talking to an American on the ground” to verify what’s being targeted, the commander insisted. President Obama has repeatedly rejected the idea of boots on the ground, despite sending more and more troops to Iraq.

In last night’s speech, President Obama gave the impression that the “coalition” being assembled was going to be doing the heavy lifting on the ground. That’s not actually the case, however.

Secretary of State John Kerry, while trying to hype the “critical role” of the coalition members, today admitted that not a single member of this broad coalition was even talking about sending ground troops for the war”

(emphasis added)

Not only do no “coalition” members seem to be prepared to send troops, but NATO member and US ally Turkey won’t even let the US air force use its bases for combat missions in Iraq:

“Turkey will refuse to allow a US-led coalition to attack ISIS militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday. “Turkey will not be involved in any armed operation but will entirely concentrate on humanitarian operations,” the official said on condition of anonymity.”

(emphasis added)

To this it should be noted that the countries neighboring Iraq should have the greatest interest in getting rid of ISIS. In fact, if the war against ISIS is anyone’s business, it is theirs. Naturally, they all prefer to let the US do their work for them. In fact, several of them, like e.g. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, may not even be overly interested in stopping ISIS, in spite of paying lip service to the idea.

They have after all funded ISIS to begin with, perhaps not realizing that it would eventually acquire dynamics of its own. While this amounts to playing with fire from the point of view of the Saudis and other Middle Eastern supporters of ISIS (the group takes their money, but plans to eventually take their heads as well), they are all blinded by their hatred of Shia Muslims and their desire to curtail the influence of Shia-dominated Iran. As a result of this, the situation is extremely complex. This is nowhere more obvious than in Syria itself.

The “Vetted” Rebels Hillary Wants to Arm

Hillary Clinton, who is hoping to snatch the Democratic nomination for the presidential race, recently decided that in order to look more presidential, she should add her two cents to the ISIS/Syria debate. According to her, the “vetted” non-Islamic Syrian rebels should receive even more arms and funding, so as to be able to defeat both Assad and ISIS. She even offered the absurd theory that if these rebels had been armed properly to begin with, ISIS would never have come into existence. The problem is that these vetted non-Islamists only exist in the fevered imaginations of Westerners who know absolutely nothing about the region. It has turned out now that the so-called “Free Syrian Army” is in fact an ally of ISIS as well as of the Al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front, and is supplying both of them with weapons and other help:

“On Monday, the Daily Star in Lebanon quoted a FSA brigade commander saying that his forces were working with the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate — both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — near the Syrian/Lebanon border.

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in … Qalamoun,” said Bassel Idriss, the commander of an FSA-aligned rebel brigade.

“We have reached a point where we have to collaborate with anyone against unfairness and injustice,” confirmed Abu Khaled, another FSA commander who lives in Arsal.

“Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values,” he added.

[…]  the bipartisan conventional wisdom amongst the foreign policy establishment was that the bulk of the Syrian rebel forces were moderates, a fiction refuted by a Rand Corporation study published last September that found nearly half of the Syrian “rebels” were jihadists or hard-core Islamists.

(emphasis added)

As Jason Ditz notes in this context:

“Fighting at the border crossing in Qalamoun is a joint FSA-ISIS operation, and Abu Fidaa, the head of the local Revolutionary Council, says that a “very large number ” of FSA fighters have joined ISIS outright.

The US has been funding and arming the FSA for many months now, and recently, reports are  that a lot of those arms are ending up  in ISIS hands. It wasn’t clear how that was the case, but overt alliances between the two makes it more obvious.”

(emphasis added)

The complexity of the current situation in the Middle East is also underscored by the fact that Israeli government officials have recently expressed concern that the US war against ISIS could end up dampening US hostility against Iran. Iran is obviously one of the countries in whose interest it would be to counter ISIS. Iran’s government is probably quite happy as well that the war is fought by the US instead. It is spared the expense of a lot of blood and treasure that way.

Members of the Free Syrian Army, waving their organization’s flag. According to press reports in Kuwait, “the FSA are reportedly welcoming the Kuwaiti fighters for jihad operations” – which is an interesting choice of words.

(Photo credit: alarabiya.net / Archive)

The Propaganda War

Many major internet companies like Twitter and You-Tube are trying to curb the ISIS propaganda machine by deleting accounts that are held to belong to the group or its supporters (recently, even the ISIS anthem which we posted mainly as a musical curiosity has been deleted by You-Tube). As soon as one account is deleted, another one springs up, so it is a bit like fighting the mythical hydra.

The US government has recently joined the propaganda war actively, by creating a video that is supposed to dissuade potential ISIS recruits in the West from joining the jihad in Iraq and Syria: