Obama Announces Air Strikes On ISIS In Iraq To Prevent Genocide

Obama is just playing it safe. He had to wait till U.S. interests were at stake. While also making it a humanitarian issue that the American People could get behind. Lets face it the vast majority of the American People wanted out of Iraq and the middle east. They were and are sick of those wars.

It seems like a war on ISIS or ISIL or whatever they will be called next. Would be a war everyone could get behind. But that is just not the reality of the America of today. Republicans would say to little to late. Or criticize the way it is being handled or the tactics being used. Any little thing that they can use against Obama. At this point they hate Obama and just want him gone no matter what. Democrats will have sections of their base complain that any war in the middle east is bad. That doing this will just be giving in to the Republicans. And that is bad. Because its giving grounds to the Republicans in the next election. They hate republicans and don't want one in the White House no matter what. America is too polarized. People just care about their side being right not how anything actually affects the country.

And all of that is before we get into all the chess board moves being made on the world stage. Chess board moves that do not and have never taken into account your political views or you at all. Heck the broad outline of all this stuff was probably decided in a turn of the century London room by a bunch of guys twirling their mustaches and laughing maniacally. MUHAHAHAHA MUAHAHAHA MUAHAHAHA HA HA HA

To say that the U.S. is launching these airstrikes out of the goodness of their heart is ridiculous.

I was watching the news earlier and it said quite openly that the strikes were to protect American interests. Are a group of Christians and Yazidis (who let's face it 95% of Americans had probably never heard of until today) America's interests? No they're not but they certainly go down well in the media and make it more palatable for the average American Joe, especially after the U.S. has only just extricated itself from Iraq.

The U.S. has often been consent to sit back and turn a blind eye to genocide. What about the slaughter in Darfur? I didn't see any moral cry for air strikes there? Or perhaps America didn't have any "interests" there. There was nothing in it for them was there?

More recently, Irbil has become a destination in its own right for "the internationals" - the expat employees of multinational firms and aid agencies whose presence in Iraq remains a visible legacy of the US-led invasion.

Global oil giants have been setting up shop in the city, lured by the promise of Iraqi Kurdistan's untapped energy reserves. They have driven up real-estate prices and transformed a dusty backwater into an even dustier boomtown. The sand now is from countless building sites, as well as the nearby desert.

BBC News

Oh how convenient!

originally posted by: FlyersFan

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

So the question I have is this ... Why not let Saudi Arabia deal with it? It's in their backyard. They have the money for the humanitarian aid. They have the fire power. How about they put their hardware on the line and they put their people in the meat grinder for a change?

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

Outside of the small National Guard and the Saudi airforce the rest of the military could not fight its way out of paper bag. They have lots of fancy toys but, do not have the doctrine to use them. So all the Saudis could do is toss money at the problem and as they already are funding the FSA and that has not worked so well money is not going to do much.

Obama Announces Air Strikes On ISIS In Iraq To Prevent Genocide"

...To Prevent Genocide in only the most Vague sense...

the 1st airstrike was on Artillery firing on USA assets in the Kurds capitol city of Arbil

the 2nd airstrike was many miles away from the besieged Mountain sanctuary of the fleeing Non-Sunni sect that has been tagged for death/beheadings/crucifixions near Sinjar...
the 7 Toyota convoy & 1 mortar nest was not a direct threat to the innocent civilian religious sect, nor the scores of women already sequestered for sex-slavery before being butchered by the ISIS Foot soldiers

I cite this long article with lots of pics:
www.dailymail.co.uk... s-Obama-launches-airstrikes.html

Title: #AmessagefromISIStoUS: Islamist militants tweet gruesome images of dead American soldiers and vow to blow up embassies after Obama launches airstrikes

...Two airdrops of food and water supplies were also flown in to about 50,000 refugees who took shelter on a barren mountain after being ordered by ISIS to convert or face death.

The extremists have taken hundreds of women from a religious minority captive, according to an Iraqi official,
[...]

A spokesman for Iraq's human rights ministry said hundreds of Yazidi women had been seized by the militants. Kamil Amin, citing reports from the victims' families, said some of the women were being held in schools in Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul.

'We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them,' Amin told The Associated Press.

'We think that these women are going to be used in demeaning ways by those terrorists to satisfy their animalistic urges in a way that contradicts all the human and Islamic values.'

as to the 10k tweets reported, which promise the Jihadists to attack the USA on all fronts in asymmetric war... is a contrived social media ploy...sure there may have been some tweets from ISIS foot soldiers but I call this 10k tweets as a propaganda campaign to gin-up the USA Air attacks that has been lacking by the Obama WH...


the 2 air attacks by the USA involved more than 9 jet sorties in two days, to knock out 5 Toyotas, 1 mortar site, I artillery piece... this indicates that the Obama scheme is more show than anything---just so much rhetoric about fighting back Genocide while the ISIS Jihadists keep advancing on the mountain sanctuary of the Yazidi


all I see is disinfo, to talk of protecting civilians but refraining to decidedly dissuade the ISIS-Caliphate from the wanton genocide of some 50,000 refugees on the mountaintop in Sinjar
only minor injuries are being deliberately used against this radical-Jihadist army ...


Besides...look at the re-direction of the air-strike topic her on ATS... the slogan: To Prevent Genocide is the remaining thread open for discussion.... a very real case of redirecting the talking-points or shaping the community thought

just to add an alex jones video which covers the 'bombing in Iraq hoax' being played by a reluctant WH...

conservativebyte.com...

Obama being in control of this makes it a disaster in the making. Doing things neatly or quickly is not something Obama is known for.


President Barack Obama’s authorization of air strikes on ISIS targets in Iraq serves as an opportunity to remind ourselves which countries are bankrolling the deadly terror group.

Read more at conservativebyte.com...

the video relevant parts begin 1:10 -thru- 16:00 of the 20:58 video with Ads at the end


I agree with some of the theory, but the WH is not reluctant to bomb ISIS because it is secretly funding them...
but for other reasons, not excluding loyalty or being coerced by the Saudi's....the highly selected airstrike targets are meant to not be singleing out ISIS itself as radical Muslims...but only targeting Insurgents that are poising a danger to American assets (like oil fields, dams, infrastructure which will support metropolitan holding areas for the masses to be corralled into)...
the plot thickens with the Muslim loyalty aspect being plummed to Its full depth & meaning

I'm curious as to why there doesn't seem to be any AC-130's on site. They can air-to-air refuel and lioter for a period between rotations of other AC-130's. They're very accurate as well.

If we're to engage ISIS from the air, I think the ideal mix would be...

AC-130's
A-10's
UCAVs

The fast movers can't loiter that long and carry a limited weapons load.

originally posted by: TDawgRex
I'm curious as to why there doesn't seem to be any AC-130's on site. They can air-to-air refuel and lioter for a period between rotations of other AC-130's. They're very accurate as well.

If we're to engage ISIS from the air, I think the ideal mix would be...

AC-130's
A-10's
UCAVs

The fast movers can't loiter that long and carry a limited weapons load.

Considering how sick America is of war the US is going to do this with as little risk as possible, that means fast movers and drones so nobody gets shot down. That alone is bad news for ISIS. They can either use heavy weapons and watch them get hit or hide and disperse them giving the Kurds a big advantage.

a reply to: TDawgRex

Gunships are extremely vulnerable to MANPADS and any kind of large caliber antiair gun, such as a ZSU.

originally posted by: Kram09
To say that the U.S. is launching these airstrikes out of the goodness of their heart is ridiculous.

I was watching the news earlier and it said quite openly that the strikes were to protect American interests. Are a group of Christians and Yazidis (who let's face it 95% of Americans had probably never heard of until today) America's interests? No they're not but they certainly go down well in the media and make it more palatable for the average American Joe, especially after the U.S. has only just extricated itself from Iraq.

What's a "Yazidi"? Is that some kind of new Italian pasta side dish or something? /sarcasm

a reply to: LrdRedhawk

They are a people who follow a different religion - most of their beliefs are centered in various pre-Islamic beliefs - part Zoroastrianism, part Magian, part many pre-Islamic religions.

They are seen as modern day "devil worshippers" by many. lol.... I don't know... but I figure to each his own. They don't hurt anyone, nor do they run around preaching a thing. I don't see them as being bad people at all.

a reply to: TDawgRex

F-16 Falcons, F-15E Eagles and F/A-18 Hornets using PGMs, and UCAVs as you mentioned, will be much more effective and accurate with less risk.

AC-130 is probably obsolete and fairly useless, as Zaphod said a nice target for MANPADs and AAA and A-10 is a slow tank killer but could be used.

AH-64 Apache could be used but with some risk.

The F-16s, F-15Es, F/A-18s can use PGMs from above 15,000ft avoiding any short range IR SAMS and most AAA. And UCAVs can also be used with minimal risk. Shot down and captured US aircrew would be bad.

They could even use the big guns B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit which can drop a lot of PGMs in one sortie. Accurate ID on targets is critical.

The RAF is sending two C-130J aircraft carrying, among other things, reusable water containers with enough water for 2400 families and 500 solar lanterns. They are for people stranded in the Mount Sinjar region of Iraq.

And just for you AvNerds, there's a great picture in the link on Flight.

www.flightglobal.com...

Here is something to consider when thinking about the New (Aug 2014) USA airstrikes on ISIS locations...

there is 11 years of yet unpublished video footage of towers-of-smoke in Iraq
(most as a result of IEDs set by Islamic Insurgents, 'pre-ISIS' fighters)

which can be used to convince the American public that there is an actual (vs photo-shopped) campaign of bombing the Caliphate/IS... who is to know ?

that is one way that the Muslim leaning CIC in the WH can dis-inform the electorate that he is Christian and keeping 'genocide' at bay... this is a real surreal time we are living in ain't it ...