In a recent article, Fox News' Chief Intelligence Correspondent, Catherine Herridge, stated that one of her sources, who until recently worked at the Pentagon, told her President Obama has been receiving up-to-date information about ISIS in his daily security briefings for the last year.
The source says that detailed and specific intelligence information has been included in the President's Daily Brief for at least a year. The information clearly showed the danger and expansion ISIS proposed. Yet the President did nothing about it and told the American people he was "caught off guard" by the developments in Syria and Iraq in the last six months.
One cannot help but wonder why the President would say he was caught off guard. Could it be because the President doesn't really get his daily security briefings? The source told Catherine Herridge that when it comes to security briefings, President Obama is unique. Unlike former Presidents, who got their daily briefings from various people in person in the Oval Office, President Obama gets his in written form that he can read at his leisure. There are no question-and-answer sessions, as have occurred in most other administrations. Could this be the reason the President always says he learns about incidents around the world from the television - because he doesn't get his briefings in person and doesn't actually read the printed ones? It's just a thought.
Remember back in September of 2012 when the Government Accountability Institute reported that President Obama had attended less than 44% of his daily briefings? The White House did not dispute that report. Could it be Obama began receiving his reports in written form so whether or not he attended a briefing could no longer be tracked? I believe that's certainly possible from "the most transparent administration in history...."
Yesterday morning President Obama spoke about ISIS, the beheading of a second American journalist, and the possibility of a US response. The President first said the United States would "degrade and destroy" ISIS. Then he said he wanted to degrade them to the point "where we can control the problem."
"Our objective is to make sure that ISIL is not an ongoing threat to the region. And we can accomplish that. It's going to take some time and it's going to take some effort. As we've seen with al Qaeda, there are always going to be remnants that can cause havoc of any of these networks, in part because of the nature of terrorist activities. You get a few individuals, and they may be able to carry out a terrorist act.
But what we can do is to make sure that the kind of systemic and broad-based aggression that we've seen out of ISIL that terrorizes primarily Muslims, Shia, Sunni -- terrorizes Kurds, terrorizes not just Iraqis, but people throughout the region, that that is degraded to the point where it is no longer the kind of factor that we've seen it being over the last several months."
What's interesting is even Obama's cabinet members feel the need to say we must destroy ISIS, even as President Obama seems unwilling to do so. Obama once said he doesn't like the word "victory" when it comes to war. It seems he's still in that mode.
John Kerry and Chuck Hagel have both stated we need to destroy ISIS. Hagel even followed up on the President's message by saying "Our mission is to degrade and destroy ISIS," apparently thinking the President said the wrong thing about control.
What I still don't understand is why the President is taking so long to do anything at all. Even Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) said “I’ve learned one thing about this president, and that is he’s very cautious. Maybe, in this instance, too cautious,”
The more time that goes by, the more innocent people, including women, children and thousands of Christians, are dying. Some say we need to stay out of it and let the Middle Eastern countries handle it. But if the United States of America is truly a Christian nation (instead of a Muslim nation as the President wants people to believe) then we have an obligation to help fellow Christians who are being slaughtered. And interfering against a terrorist organization that is brutally murdering tens of thousands of people is never wrong.
Hopefully something will jump-start President Obama's response to ISIS and get him into the game. Maybe ISIS should bomb his favorite golf course, thus directly interfering with his game. Maybe then he'd take some decisive action...? Nah - he'd probably just move to another course.
No comments:
Post a Comment