The French attack

[fishpoopoo]

What keeps me up at night (seriously) is a repeat of the Beslan school massacre. About 400 people (mostly children) were murdered by Chechen islamo jihadists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege

400.

Can you imagine that on U.S. soil?

But that's the reality we are looking at right now.

Have we forgotten?

The ocean that separates us from the muslim terrorists won't hold them forever.

Take some time to talk to your local police and homeland security agents.

Do you know how this is going to unfold?

Here's a scenario that will give you the chills.

Schoolbuses.

[Nebe]

My argument is that NOT ALL Muslims are bad. Weewee said that the only solution to solve this is to consider genocide. Genicide is the wiping out of an entire group of people.

Sure.. Let's nuke em all like a nest of cockroaches. I bet a lot of mouth breathers are thinking that is a good idea.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by Nebe

My argument is that NOT ALL Muslims are bad. Weewee said that the only solution to solve this is to consider genocide. Genicide is the wiping out of an entire group of people.

Sure.. Let's nuke em all like a nest of cockroaches. I bet a lot of mouth breathers are thinking that is a good idea.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Nebe,

I said logically genocide is the only sure way. I didn't say that's what we should do, lol. Even I'm not that cranky.

Close the borders. Boot some of the f*ckers out. Don't give in to PC.

[Nebe]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

Nebe,

I said logically genocide is the only sure way. I didn't say that's what we should do, lol. Even I'm not that cranky.

Close the borders. Boot some of the f*ckers out. Don't give in to PC.

I agree. Closed borders is a good step.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Nebe]

There is no military solution to this problem. Has any one actually listened to what they want ?? They want western military to leave to area. Seems simple enough, no?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by Nebe

There is no military solution to this problem. Has any one actually listened to what they want ?? They want western military to leave to area. Seems simple enough, no?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I don't think bombing them does all that much. I'm pretty sure that ISIS was prepared for that when they planned the Paris attacks.

You have to have infantry go in and kill all of them. But it's hard when the rats scurry and melt into the general population.

That's why, from the perspective of prevention, it's important to seal the borders and keep a close eye on them (that means profiling) and booting the rabblerousers out.

Bring back the guillotine, while we're at it.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

There is no military solution to this problem. Has any one actually listened to what they want ?? They want western military to leave to area. Seems simple enough, no?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Do you really believe that if the west removed its troops, the jihadists would lay down their arms? They hate everything we stand for, they hate that we let our womed go to school and we don't foirce them to dress like ninjas.

Israel made massive concessions, they turned over parts of Gaza, and they removed Israelis from disputed settlements. Yet the conflict goes on.

Nebe, if I thought a troop withdrawal would end the bloodhshed, I'd support it. There's no reason to suspect it would.

As Rockhound said, all options suck, but some suck less than others.

[fishpoopoo]

If ISIS stayed put and kept their crap within a defined area, I think the world could afford to say "not my problem."

But with what happened in Paris on Friday night, well, I don't think that's going to be very realistic.

This is foreign policy f*ckup squarely on Obama and Hilldog. They've owned it for 7 years.

[Nebe]

Obama is in charge of protecting France ? You lost me there.
But I'm in agreance with you 90%
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[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Obama is in charge of protecting France ? You lost me there.
But I'm in agreance with you 90%
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

No, but by abandoning Iraq he enabled ISIS to form and consolidate in strength.

That then started a cascade of events in Syria, with Obama supporting the anti al-Assad rebels, intensifying the civil war, which gave ISIS an opening to invade Syria, creating a humanitarian refugee crisis, allowing ISIS fanatics to sneak into western Europe.

Really, this is a big f*ckup.

[spence]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

No, but by abandoning Iraq he enabled ISIS to form and consolidate in strength.

That then started a cascade of events in Syria, with Obama supporting the anti al-Assad rebels, intensifying the civil war, which gave ISIS an opening to invade Syria, creating a humanitarian refugee crisis, allowing ISIS fanatics to sneak into western Europe.

Really, this is a big f*ckup.

There's so much wrong here I'm not sure where to begin.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

There's so much wrong here I'm not sure where to begin.

Fact - at the height of the Surge, Al Queda in Iraq was decimated. We have th ecommunications intercepts from their leaders, saying it was lost.

Fact - when Obama announced that he wasn't going to seek a SOF agreement, but was going to pull everyone out, many military experts advised him that bad things would happen in th evaccuum our departure would create. Ask the Cambodians if it's a coincidence that Pol Pot waited until we withdreew from Vietnam to start his genocide.

Fact - after we withdrew, ISIS filled that void.

Fact - Obama (who is always wrong, yet somehow never in doubt), called them "the junior varsity".

Fact - hours before the Paris attack, Obama said that ISIS was contained, and that among our successes, has been increased security at international airports. Incredibky, he said that, while the fuselage of the downed Russian plane was probably still smoldering. Did no one on his staff tell him that happened?

[Fly Rod]

We drop leaflets and warn that we will attack oil trucks in 1 hr....we do not kill anyone.....russia attacks oil fields and kills about 600 isis....maybe trump is right,let the russians do it...

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Fact - at the height of the Surge, Al Queda in Iraq was decimated. We have th ecommunications intercepts from their leaders, saying it was lost.

But it wasn't destroyed. al Qaeda in Iraq was suffering largely because we were PAYING Sunni militants to push back against it. That's not a long term strategy...

Fact - when Obama announced that he wasn't going to seek a SOF agreement, but was going to pull everyone out, many military experts advised him that bad things would happen in th evaccuum our departure would create. Ask the Cambodians if it's a coincidence that Pol Pot waited until we withdreew from Vietnam to start his genocide.

As we've discussed a million times (perhaps you need a million +1) there already was a SOF agreement in place per the Bush administration. The new Iraqi government wanted us out, and the Bush policy of de-Bathification is a key reason we didn't have reasonable options.

I'm not sure what Cambodia has to do with this. Are you suggesting we should have left a small residual force?

Fact - after we withdrew, ISIS filled that void.

Not really. The first void that ISIS was able to take advantage of was more a by-product of the Syrian civil war. The second void was created by the Iraqi government using Shiite troops to guard Sunnis in Mosul.

Fact - Obama (who is always wrong, yet somehow never in doubt), called them "the junior varsity".

He did, and at that time they were the JV. I don't think he wanted to give them any more cred than necessary.

Fact - hours before the Paris attack, Obama said that ISIS was contained, and that among our successes, has been increased security at international airports. Incredibky, he said that, while the fuselage of the downed Russian plane was probably still smoldering. Did no one on his staff tell him that happened?

The context for that remark clearly was that ISIS was not capturing new territory and in fact appears to be losing some critical ground. I think the timing of recent terror events are a result of this pressure.

ISIS knows they can't win if the key powers unite to destroy them. They need to stir up a global backlash against Islam. Listening to most of the GOP candidates it sounds like we're starting down that path.

[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by spence

There's so much wrong here I'm not sure where to begin.

And Washington D.C. disagrees with you.

This came out before the Paris attacks.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ebel-training/

Senators tell Obama to halt Syrian rebel training

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Friday, October 2, 2015

President Obama’s program to train Syrian rebels is a total failure and needs to be scrapped, a bipartisan group of senators said in a letter to the administration Friday, saying it’s time the national security team acknowledge the disaster and come up with a new strategy.

As the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s Syrian strategy, along with American airstrikes, the training has backfired — and some of the rebels the U.S. equipped turned around and struck a bargain to give ammunition and trucks to al Qaeda-backed forces in Syria, the senators said.

“The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat,” the four senators — three Democrats and one Republican — said in their letter.

Defense officials admitted last month that they were falling far below their promise of thousands of fighters trained this year, and of the several dozen who had been trained, only “four or five” are actually on the battlefield. The others were killed or captured almost immediately upon being deployed.

The Pentagon says it has dozens more fighters in the pipeline, but said it will miss its targets. But officials rejected the need for a rethink, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that the president and top Pentagon officials think they have the right mix.

One key to that was a decision to allow American warplanes to provide air cover for U.S.-backed rebels. But that could be more difficult now that Russia has committed its forces to the fight in Syria, complicating American military officials’ plans.

[spence]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

And Washington D.C. disagrees with you.

This came out before the Paris attacks.

When in doubt, quote random story...

[fishpoopoo]

Obama and Hilldog f*cked up Syria so bad that Putin felt he had to step in.

I don't like Putin, but he was justified in scolding Obama.

"Do you know what you did?!!!"

The dems have to realize that the middle east is not solveable by writing a white paper. Mooslims have been killing innocents and each other for thousands of years.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

Obama and Hilldog f*cked up Syria so bad that Putin felt he had to step in.

I don't like Putin, but he was justified in scolding Obama.

"Do you know what you did?!!!"

The dems have to realize that the middle east is not solveable by writing a white paper. Mooslims have been killing innocents and each other for thousands of years.

It is also not 'solveable' by committing 100,000's of troops for an indefinite amount of time per the hawks either. This is not solely on Bush, and not solely Obama's fault or either Clinton's.

I don't know what the answer is, most options suck.

[fishpoopoo]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

It is also not 'solveable' by committing 100,000's of troops for an indefinite amount of time per the hawks either. This is not solely on Bush, and not solely Obama's fault or either Clinton's.

I don't know what the answer is, most options suck.

The middle east sucks. lol.

Every time we meddle there, however, we f*ck it up just a bit more. Hate to say it, but the region needs strong and brutal leaders to keep order amongst the two mooslim tribes. The Syria situation sits squarely on Obama and Hilldog. If we didn't take sides in the Syrian civil war and draw it out so much, maybe ISIS wouldn't have had the window of opportunity to step in.

It's really funny to say this, but Hillary Clinton really is a warmonger. I wonder if people are picking up on this.

More participation from other nations like Russia may not be a bad thing from the purely selfish perspective of saving American blood and treasure. Syria has been a Soviet/Russian client state for decades anyways. We can deal with the pernicious effects of Rooskie influence in the region later.

[Raven]

war is big business
lotta money in it

with prohibition
it requires Prisons (Clintons built-em)

with country skirmishes (campaigns)
it requires weaponry
that funds technology.... $$$$

bring on the drones
and bots with heat seeking
explosive darts

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

It is also not 'solveable' by committing 100,000's of troops for an indefinite amount of time per the hawks either. This is not solely on Bush, and not solely Obama's fault or either Clinton's.

I don't know what the answer is, most options suck.

"It is also not 'solveable' by committing 100,000's of troops for an indefinite amount of time "

The "Surge", in Iraq, worked. Obama's removal of those troops, led to ISIS.

No one wants big numbers of troops over there for a long peropd of time. But it' sbetter to fight them there, than here. Better to figh tthem before they take out a city, than after. Correct?

"I don't know what the answer is, most options suck"

At a high level, I think the "what" is obvious and not complex - we have to kill all the jihadists, and everyone helping them. The "how" is going to suck. But it has to be done. Obama has no stomach for this, all he cares about is getting the hell out of office with poll numbers that meet his satisfaction, he's not up for this.

[Nebe]

Ok. Agreed.
So much energy was focused on Iran and the nuke deal... No doubt this is a cluster #^&#^&#^&#^&. I'd love to see Russia go in there and do some muscle flexing on the ground.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Ok. Agreed.
So much energy was focused on Iran and the nuke deal... No doubt this is a cluster #^&#^&#^&#^&. I'd love to see Russia go in there and do some muscle flexing on the ground.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Russia will, in retaliation for that downed plane. I suspect ISIS will find out that Putin isn't Eric Holder.

[Nebe]

#^&#^&#^&#^& is about to get real over there I think.
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[Fly Rod]

Nothing is going to get real over there.....the french used ten planes dropped 20 bombs, very few were killed.....what was the human kill number?.....big news was U S wart hogs destroyed oil tankers.....before strafing and bombing the tankers we dropped leaflets one hour before telling people to get away from their trucks.....my question is Y?....kill them!!!!.....we bomb empty buildings so that there R no civilian casualties....kill them!!!!....they did not care about killing civilians on 9/11

If U read between the lines of your presidents message yesterday he said...." hug an Isis."........lol

[Doover]

Originally Posted by Nebe

#^&#^&#^&#^& is about to get real over there I think.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Jeepers, in your mind, Kissy abandoning Iraq, Kissy trying to install the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Kissy drawing a red line in Syria and then ignoring his own demands, kisyy giving birth to ISIS, which creating a word wide refugee crisis...

IS NOT REAL??

[Nebe]

We shall see....
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[fishpoopoo]

The results speak for themselves.

This is an Obama and Hillary policy screwup of huge proportions.

[fishpoopoo]

Great article in Mother Jones of all places. Remember we (secretly) started helping the rebels in 2013 to fight Assad. Which drew the civil war out and allowed ISIS to take advantage of the stalemate and vacuum in Syria.

Note the date of this article.

Hillary was secstate until 2013. CIA would not act without State's and WH's approval.

So, I ask again, what does this say of Hillary's statecraft?

If it's all Lurch's fault, what does this say about Obama's statecraft?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...aq-syria-assad

How the US Helped ISIS Grow Into a Monster

In his new book, Patrick Cockburn writes that America's failed strategy will only make ISIS stronger.

—By Patrick Cockburn

Thu Aug. 21, 2014

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn's new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch.

There are extraordinary elements in the present US policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the US is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The US would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington's policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities.

But US, Western European, Saudi, and Arab Gulf policy is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, which happens to be the policy of ISIS and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then ISIS will be the beneficiary, since it is either defeating or absorbing the rest of the Syrian armed opposition. There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a "moderate" Syrian opposition being helped by the US, Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day. Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from happening is the Syrian army.

The reality of US policy is to support the government of Iraq, but not Syria, against ISIS. But one reason that group has been able to grow so strong in Iraq is that it can draw on its resources and fighters in Syria. Not everything that went wrong in Iraq was the fault of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as has now become the political and media consensus in the West. Iraqi politicians have been telling me for the last two years that foreign backing for the Sunni revolt in Syria would inevitably destabilize their country as well. This has now happened.

By continuing these contradictory policies in two countries, the US has ensured that ISIS can reinforce its fighters in Iraq from Syria and vice versa. So far, Washington has been successful in escaping blame for the rise of ISIS by putting all the blame on the Iraqi government. In fact, it has created a situation in which ISIS can survive and may well flourish.

Using the al-Qa'ida Label

The sharp increase in the strength and reach of jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq has generally been unacknowledged until recently by politicians and media in the West. A primary reason for this is that Western governments and their security forces narrowly define the jihadist threat as those forces directly controlled by al-Qa'ida central or "core" al-Qa'ida. This enables them to present a much more cheerful picture of their successes in the so-called war on terror than the situation on the ground warrants.

In fact, the idea that the only jihadis to be worried about are those with the official blessing of al-Qa'ida is naïve and self-deceiving. It ignores the fact, for instance, that ISIS has been criticized by the al-Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri for its excessive violence and sectarianism. After talking to a range of Syrian jihadi rebels not directly affiliated with al-Qa'ida in southeast Turkey earlier this year, a source told me that "without exception they all expressed enthusiasm for the 9/11 attacks and hoped the same thing would happen in Europe as well as the US"

Jihadi groups ideologically close to al-Qa'ida have been relabeled as moderate if their actions are deemed supportive of US policy aims. In Syria, the Americans backed a plan by Saudi Arabia to build up a "Southern Front" based in Jordan that would be hostile to the Assad government in Damascus, and simultaneously hostile to al-Qa'ida-type rebels in the north and east. The powerful but supposedly moderate Yarmouk Brigade, reportedly the planned recipient of anti-aircraft missiles from Saudi Arabia, was intended to be the leading element in this new formation. But numerous videos show that the Yarmouk Brigade has frequently fought in collaboration with JAN, the official al-Qa'ida affiliate. Since it was likely that, in the midst of battle, these two groups would share their munitions, Washington was effectively allowing advanced weaponry to be handed over to its deadliest enemy. Iraqi officials confirm that they have captured sophisticated arms from ISIS fighters in Iraq that were originally supplied by outside powers to forces considered to be anti-al-Qa'ida in Syria.

The name al-Qa'ida has always been applied flexibly when identifying an enemy. In 2003 and 2004 in Iraq, as armed Iraqi opposition to the American and British-led occupation mounted, US officials attributed most attacks to al-Qa'ida, though many were carried out by nationalist and Baathist groups. Propaganda like this helped to persuade nearly 60% of US voters prior to the Iraq invasion that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and those responsible for 9/11, despite the absence of any evidence for this. In Iraq itself, indeed throughout the entire Muslim world, these accusations have benefited al-Qa'ida by exaggerating its role in the resistance to the US and British occupation.

Precisely the opposite PR tactics were employed by Western governments in 2011 in Libya, where any similarity between al-Qa'ida and the NATO-backed rebels fighting to overthrow the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was played down. Only those jihadis who had a direct operational link to the al-Qa'ida "core" of Osama bin Laden were deemed to be dangerous. The falsity of the pretense that the anti-Gaddafi jihadis in Libya were less threatening than those in direct contact with al-Qa'ida was forcefully, if tragically, exposed when US ambassador Chris Stevens was killed by jihadi fighters in Benghazi in September 2012. These were the same fighters lauded by Western governments and media for their role in the anti-Gaddafi uprising.

Imagining al-Qa'ida as the Mafia

Al-Qa'ida is an idea rather than an organization, and this has long been the case. For a five-year period after 1996, it did have cadres, resources, and camps in Afghanistan, but these were eliminated after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Subsequently, al-Qa'ida's name became primarily a rallying cry, a set of Islamic beliefs, centering on the creation of an Islamic state, the imposition of sharia, a return to Islamic customs, the subjugation of women, and the waging of holy war against other Muslims, notably the Shia, who are considered heretics worthy of death. At the center of this doctrine for making war is an emphasis on self-sacrifice and martyrdom as a symbol of religious faith and commitment. This has resulted in using untrained but fanatical believers as suicide bombers, to devastating effect.

It has always been in the interest of the US and other governments that al-Qa'ida be viewed as having a command-and-control structure like a mini-Pentagon, or like the mafia in America. This is a comforting image for the public because organized groups, however demonic, can be tracked down and eliminated through imprisonment or death. More alarming is the reality of a movement whose adherents are self-recruited and can spring up anywhere.

Osama bin Laden's gathering of militants, which he did not call al-Qa'ida until after 9/11, was just one of many jihadi groups 12 years ago. But today its ideas and methods are predominant among jihadis because of the prestige and publicity it gained through the destruction of the Twin Towers, the war in Iraq, and its demonization by Washington as the source of all anti-American evil. These days, there is a narrowing of differences in the beliefs of jihadis, regardless of whether or not they are formally linked to al-Qa'ida central.

Unsurprisingly, governments prefer the fantasy picture of al-Qa'ida because it enables them to claim victories when it succeeds in killing its better known members and allies. Often, those eliminated are given quasi-military ranks, such as "head of operations," to enhance the significance of their demise. The culmination of this heavily publicized but largely irrelevant aspect of the "war on terror" was the killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad in Pakistan in 2011. This enabled President Obama to grandstand before the American public as the man who had presided over the hunting down of al-Qa'ida's leader. In practical terms, however, his death had little impact on al-Qa'ida-type jihadi groups, whose greatest expansion has occurred subsequently.


Ignoring the Roles of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan

The key decisions that enabled al-Qa'ida to survive, and later to expand, were made in the hours immediately after 9/11. Almost every significant element in the project to crash planes into the Twin Towers and other iconic American buildings led back to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was a member of the Saudi elite, and his father had been a close associate of the Saudi monarch. Citing a CIA report from 2002, the official 9/11 report says that al-Qa'ida relied for its financing on "a variety of donors and fundraisers, primarily in the Gulf countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia."

The report's investigators repeatedly found their access limited or denied when seeking information in Saudi Arabia. Yet President George W. Bush apparently never even considered holding the Saudis responsible for what happened. An exit of senior Saudis, including bin Laden relatives, from the US was facilitated by the US government in the days after 9/11. Most significant, 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report about the relationship between the attackers and Saudi Arabia were cut and never published, despite a promise by President Obama to do so, on the grounds of national security.

In 2009, eight years after 9/11, a cable from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, revealed by WikiLeaks, complained that donors in Saudi Arabia constituted the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. But despite this private admission, the US and Western Europeans continued to remain indifferent to Saudi preachers whose message, spread to millions by satellite TV, YouTube, and Twitter, called for the killing of the Shia as heretics. These calls came as al-Qa'ida bombs were slaughtering people in Shia neighborhoods in Iraq. A sub-headline in another State Department cable in the same year reads: "Saudi Arabia: Anti-Shi'ism as Foreign Policy?" Now, five years later, Saudi-supported groups have a record of extreme sectarianism against non-Sunni Muslims.

Pakistan, or rather Pakistani military intelligence in the shape of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was the other parent of al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and jihadi movements in general. When the Taliban was disintegrating under the weight of US bombing in 2001, its forces in northern Afghanistan were trapped by anti-Taliban forces. Before they surrendered, hundreds of ISI members, military trainers, and advisers were hastily evacuated by air. Despite the clearest evidence of ISI's sponsorship of the Taliban and jihadis in general, Washington refused to confront Pakistan, and thereby opened the way for the resurgence of the Taliban after 2003, which neither the US nor NATO has been able to reverse.

The "war on terror" has failed because it did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed and a movement. The US did not do so because these countries were important American allies whom it did not want to offend. Saudi Arabia is an enormous market for American arms, and the Saudis have cultivated, and on occasion purchased, influential members of the American political establishment. Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population of 180 million and a military with close links to the Pentagon.

The spectacular resurgence of al-Qa'ida and its offshoots has happened despite the huge expansion of American and British intelligence services and their budgets after 9/11. Since then, the US, closely followed by Britain, has fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and adopted procedures normally associated with police states, such as imprisonment without trial, rendition, torture, and domestic espionage. Governments wage the "war on terror" claiming that the rights of individual citizens must be sacrificed to secure the safety of all.

In the face of these controversial security measures, the movements against which they are aimed have not been defeated but rather have grown stronger. At the time of 9/11, al-Qa'ida was a small, generally ineffectual organization; by 2014 al-Qa'ida-type groups were numerous and powerful.

In other words, the "war on terror," the waging of which has shaped the political landscape for so much of the world since 2001, has demonstrably failed. Until the fall of Mosul, nobody paid much attention.

Patrick Cockburn is Middle East correspondent for the Independent and worked previously for the Financial Times. He has written three books on Iraq's recent history as well as a memoir, The Broken Boy, and, with his son, a book on schizophrenia, Henry's Demons. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. His forthcoming book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, is now available exclusively from OR Books. This excerpt (with an introductory section written for TomDispatch) is taken from that book. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.

[Clammer]

Not up to all the he said/ she did stuff ...can soneone answer why we won,t join the other nations in a joint effort to rid ISIS ????