Barack Obama Quotes

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.

He was arguing that normal Constitutional limitations should not apply to the President in wartime.

Later, when he ran for the Democratic Presidential Nomination had had changed his mind and was a major opponent of the Vietnam War. This was the pattern of so many Americans whose first instinct was to support the government’s decision to wage war, and over time grew disenchanted with the war and ended up opposing the war actively.

Ironically, one of the major objections to drone strikes is that they have caused civilian casualties.

We bombed the building but it was the Chinese embassy. The map and intelligence as to what was in the building was provided as a recommended target by the CIA in another of their serious blunders.

The Pakistani Intelligence Service and the Pakistan Army were never under the control of the civilian government which wanted an alliance with the United States in the War on Terror. However, the Pakistani military and especially their intelligence service (ISI) wanted the support of Al Qaeda and the Muslim religious extremists in Pakistan in their endless crusade against India. The Afghanistan Taliban could not sustain their attacks if they were not given sanctuary, weapons, and supplies over the border in Pakistan, This was arranged and given the go ahead by the ISI. Holbrooke, with American responsibility for BOTH Afghanistan and Pakistan speculated that the war in Afghanistan would end if we attacked the Pakistani ISI and blocked their supply and sanctuary activities, hence the quotation. “The Wrong Enemy” was taken from this quote by Carlotta Gall in her book in the role of Pakistan in the Afghanistan War.

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.