Tag Archives: syria

Inside the Difficult, Dangerous Work of Tallying the ISIS Death Toll

by MiriamPTCZ Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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The week after ISIS launched its catastrophic November attacks in Paris, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) published its annual “Global Terrorism Index.” It contained an unexpected finding: By killing 6,664 people in 2014, the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram was the world’s deadliest terrorist group, beating out ISIS by nearly 600 victims. But the report, with its exact-sounding figures, raises a question: Is it really possible to know how many people ISIS has killed?

As in many conflicts, assessing the actual toll of the Syrian civil war is a difficult, potentially dangerous business. And when it comes to putting a precise number on ISIS’ death toll, researchers who track these grim statistics are skeptical. “My gut instinct is, we don’t know,” says Megan Price, the executive director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG). “I don’t think those are knowable numbers.”

“What we know is just a part of what is going on,” says Bassam al-Ahmad, the spokesman for the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC), a monitoring organization that gathers information from inside the country to maintain a running count of how many people have died in its nearly five-year-old conflict. Using a three-stage documentation process, the VDC has confirmed the deaths of 4,406 people at the hands of ISIS so far. But Ahmad says that is by no means the total number. “What is the percentage of what we know?” he asks. “Maybe around 50 percent.”

And uncovering the information needed from ISIS territory presents even greater challenges. Media and NGO access is all but barred. In the group’s Syrian capital, Raqqa, internet cafés have been forced to close, and in other areas ISIS militants have put them under surveillance, making it difficult for activists to share information with the outside world. There are consequences for those who dig up information that the insurgent group doesn’t want publicized, like kidnappings, torture, and executions. In January 2014, ISIS militants kidnapped one of the VDC’s reporters in Raqqa. “They came to his house and abducted him,” says Ahmad. “Until now, we don’t know anything. We have sources who say he was beaten and tortured.”

That reporter, as well as four other VDC employees who disappeared from the Syrian city, Duma, in December 2013 and have not been heard from since, are not included in the group’s tally of the dead. The VDC does not know if they’re alive, but it also has no way to confirm their deaths. It’s not an uncommon problem. “We hear many stories about people who are kidnapped by ISIS and are executed. But sometimes you have no information about them. If you don’t have information about an incident, that doesn’t mean something hasn’t happened,” Ahmad says. The number of people who have simply vanished in Syria is in the tens of thousands. They are not included in the VDC’s count.

“Violence can be hidden,” says Price. “ISIS has its own agenda. Sometimes that agenda is served by making public things they’ve done, and I have to assume, sometimes it’s served by hiding things they’ve done.” For example, after Kurdish forces recaptured the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar from ISIS last month, as many as 16 previously unknown mass graves were uncovered.

In determining ISIS’ 2014 death toll at 6,073 people, the IEP drew its data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, which uses publicly available materials like news articles and legal documents to establish its estimates. It’s a common documentation method, but it can be limiting because more newsworthy events, like bombings with a high number of casualties, make it into the data, but under-the-radar deaths may not.

“Traumatic events that cause multiple deaths get very well communicated—and maybe even exaggerated—in their frequency and occurrence compared to more mundane, violent acts that result in death,” says Les Roberts, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University and a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist who has led dozens of surveys on mortality in war zones, including in Iraq. (Read more about the controversy surrounding his 2004 estimate that 100,000 civilians were killed after the American invasion.) “A bomb is newsworthy. A bomb is big enough that the people in the morgue when you call them will say, ‘Oh yeah, we had four deaths in here,’ because they came in together and they create a psychological image, even though they had 42 dead bodies come in from a variety of other causes, mostly gunshot wounds.” In ISIS’ case, this may mean that public mass executions and suicide bombings get counted while other atrocities are overlooked.

Getting a grip on ISIS’ impact is just part of the larger struggle to get an accurate picture of the carnage in Syria. The VDC has confirmed approximately 200,000 casualties by name, photos, or videos. Their number is dwarfed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ most recent estimate of as many as 330,000 casualties. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stopped providing public estimates of Syrian casualties after January 2014, saying it could no longer guarantee the accuracy of its source material.

According to Price, the HRDAG intends to publish new numbers in early 2016—nearly two years after the last public UN estimate. These figures will be based on not only cases gathered by the VDC and three other groups documenting deaths in Syria, but an extrapolated estimate of unreported deaths. Even if it’s the most accurate account to get presented, however, the new number will still likely be off. “Having looked at the data in this particular conflict, as well as several others, the safe answer always is: that number is too low,” Price says.

Roberts notes that it can be hard to collect reliable casualty data even in a country that’s at peace. “In the United States, which I think is a near-optimal environment for us investigating murders,” says Roberts, “our best estimate is that something in the ballpark of one-third of murders are never detected.” Sometimes a death is misclassified as an accident or a suicide, or a body is never found. Now imagine trying to get this information with ISIS breathing down your neck. “If in the United States we have a gross undercount of murders, how can we expect in the anarchy of Syria that it’s going to be even comparable?”

Continued here – 

Inside the Difficult, Dangerous Work of Tallying the ISIS Death Toll

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Chris Christie: "Hell No," America Shouldn’t Lead on Climate Change

by LoriZVJtsn Posted on December 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Most Americans say the United States should be a global leader in the fight against climate change, according to a recent poll conducted by YouGov and our Climate Desk partners at the Huffington Post.

Chris Christie is not one of those Americans.

In a remarkable interview published today by The Atlantic (another Climate Desk partner), the New Jersey governor and Republican White House hopeful criticized President Barack Obama for supposedly prioritizing climate change over the battle against ISIS. “His priorities are climate change,” said Christie. “He thinks that this is what we need American leadership on.”

Check out Climate Desk’s ultimate guide to the presidential candidates’ positions on climate change

“And you don’t,” responded The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.

“Hell no!” said Christie. “I think there’s a lot more important things to worry about. I’ll guarantee you this—the 220,000, 230,000 dead Syrians aren’t worried about climate change.”

In reality, a number of experts argue that a devastating drought linked to climate change was one of the factors that contributed to instability in Syria. Of course, Christie’s statements aren’t likely to hurt him with Republic voters, who are much more skeptical of climate action—and, for that matter, climate science—than the general public. According to the poll, 52 percent of all respondents said the United States should lead the way on climate, compared with 26 percent who said it shouldn’t. But among Republicans (PDF), just 32 percent want the country to take a leadership role; 46 percent don’t.

The Huffington Post

You can read the entire Atlantic interview with Christie here.

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Chris Christie: "Hell No," America Shouldn’t Lead on Climate Change

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The US Is Preparing to Ramp Up Its Ground War in Syria

by ValentinaFrueh7 Posted on December 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said on Tuesday that the United States is willing to add more soldiers to its small but controversial deployment of special operations troops in Syria—and allow soldiers stationed across the border in Iraq to conduct raids into the country.

The administration announced last month that it was sending a group of fewer than than 50 special operations soldiers to northern Syria to work with the Kurdish-Arab opposition forces fighting ISIS. Carter said those soldiers had produced better intelligence, helped ramp up airstrikes against ISIS, and aided the opposition forces in making important gains. “Where we find further opportunity to leverage such capability, we are prepared to expand it,” he told the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing on Tuesday.

Carter said the United States would deploy a “special expeditionary targeting force” to Iraq that would conduct raids to kill or capture ISIS leaders and create a “virtuous cycle of better intelligence which generates more targets, more raids, and more momentum” against the terrorist group. While the force would be based in Iraq, Carter pointed out that such soldiers would be able to strike into neighboring Syria, where the Defense Department says special operations soldiers aren’t yet taking part in combat. “This force will also be in a position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria,” he said. “The enemy doesn’t respect boundaries. Neither do we,” added Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was testifying alongside Carter.

While neither Carter or Dunford provided more details on the targeting force at the hearing, the rough outline sounded much like the special operations machine that conducted daily raids and intelligence gathering on Al Qaeda fighters and other insurgents during the Iraq War.

Carter also called out the international community for inaction in Syria. “We all—let me repeat, all—must do more,” he said. He praised a “galvanized” France for its airstrikes against ISIS following the terrorist attacks in Paris, but attacked Russia’s air campaign in support of the Syrian government and pointed out that Persian Gulf countries have barely taken part in airstrikes by the coalition against ISIS in months.

“American leadership is essential,” he said. “But the more contributions we receive from other nations, the greater combat power we can achieve.”

See the article here: 

The US Is Preparing to Ramp Up Its Ground War in Syria

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This Composer Wants You To Know Who Syrian Refugees Really Are

by Bradly2804 Posted on November 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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When Suad Bushnaq thinks of Syria, she thinks of the wonderful years she spent studying at one of the Middle East’s top conservatories, attending performances at the Damascus Opera House, and catching jazz gigs in back-alley cafes.

She thinks of musakhan, shwarma, fresh-squeezed juices; and of her dearest friends and the jokes they told each other.

She thinks of her late mother, born and raised in Syria, and of her mother’s family still living there.

But these days, watching events unfold from the safety of the United States, she is barraged by daily images of violence, airstrikes, and fleeing refugees. And the public apprehension, ever since the Paris terrorist attacks, that has allowed craven politicians (including the governor of her home state) to paint those refugees as a threat. “No one in the West has the image of the Syria that I know,” Bushnaq told me. “The beautiful Syria filled with culture and history and amazing food and people who laugh.”

Syria has changed dramatically in the decade since Bushnaq, one of only a handful of Arab women composers on the planet (Layal Watfeh and Farah Siraj being among the other notables), last set foot there. The ongoing civil war has disrupted and even claimed the lives of many of her friends and relatives. Now she’s fighting the loss of Syrian culture in the only way she knows how: by creating orchestral pieces and scores that combine the Western and Middle Eastern musical traditions.

She has released two albums and collaborated with award-winning Arab filmmakers, as well as the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra, which performed a movement of her orchestral suite Hakawaty (or Suite for Damascus) to a sold out international audience in Bremen, Germany, this past September.

The 33-year-old composer was born and raised in Amman, Jordan, by a Syrian mother and Palestinian-Bosnian father with a large LP collection. (“My house was full of music,” she says.) She started piano at age four, but hated her lessons, preferring to make up her own songs. “When I was in fifth grade, my mom told me, ‘If you stop taking piano lessons I will break the piano! I am not the type of mom who would allow us to have a piano as a piece of furniture.”

By 16, she decided that composition was more than just a whim. She dreamed of attending McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal, but her parents said no. It was too far away and too expensive. So Bushnaq moved to Damascus.

There she attended the Higher Institute of Music, where she learned from and performed with some of the region’s premier musicians—many of them women who’ve gone on to international success. But Bushnaq was the only one studying composition. She would also be the only Arab woman ever admitted to McGill’s prestigious composition program, where she landed a full scholarship in 2005. At McGill, she further honed her compositional style—a distillation of the influences of “a classically trained pianist who grew up in the Arab world, who has a bit of Balkan blood, and who likes to listen to jazz.”

Bushnaq, who now lives with her husband in North Carolina, has worked on the scores of several films. One of them is a documentary about a 12-year-old Syrian refugee, by the female Lebanese director Niam Itani. There’s also a psycho-thriller called The Curve, which will premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival in December, by Jordanian-Palestinian director Rifqi Assaf. (The strings on the soundtrack were recorded by Syrian musicians in Damascus.)

Lately, Bushnaq has been looking around for an orchestra to perform her Suite for Damascus in full, following on the success of the Syrian Expat concert. She remains in constant contact with friends and family back in Syria, where, despite all the chaos, the Higher Institute of Music continues to operate, and its musicians continue to perform.

“It’s sad what’s happening now,” Bushnaq told me. “But it makes me happy to know that the music scene is still going. It shows me that despite the war, people are still trying their best to live.”

Source – 

This Composer Wants You To Know Who Syrian Refugees Really Are

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How Big a Deal is the SAFE Act?

by HollisDjfrzp Posted on November 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Dante Atkins on the SAFE Act:

The bill requires the specific signatures of three high-ranking officials to personally approve refugees into the United States, a burden that both Republicans and the White House believe would all but cease the flow of refugees into the United States because it is believed that said officials would be too fearful of the career implications should one of the detainees turn out to become even a mere criminal, much less a terrorist.

I have to say, this bill has me confused. After looking into it, I wrote a post a couple of days ago suggesting that it was mostly symbolic. The vetting process didn’t change, it just needed to be documented and “certified” by the White House. Beyond that, some top officials would get half a dozen refugee approvals every day for their autopen to sign. Big deal. The only real effect would be a short pause while the certification was drafted and signed off.

Since then, though, every single story I’ve read about this bill describes it on a spectrum from “tightening” requirements to virtually shutting down the flow of refugees from Syria entirely. None of them ever provide any details, though. They talk about background checks, but the FBI already does background checks on refugees from Syria and Iraq. They talk about tougher procedures, but there are no new procedures in the bill. The actual vetting process itself is left up to the executive branch.

And yet, the White House is dead set against this bill, which it probably wouldn’t be if it was mostly just symbolic. So I remain puzzled. What’s the real deal with this bill? Is it really likely that, say, the Director of National Intelligence would simply refuse to ever sign off on a refugee approval? Hell, the DNI already signs off on hundreds of things with more potential for blowback than that.

I dunno. It’s all very strange.

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How Big a Deal is the SAFE Act?

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Read Elizabeth Warren’s Heartfelt Email in Support of Syrian Refugees

by King6726zyd Posted on November 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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As more Republicans declare their opposition to the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday sent out an email to her supporters, passionately urging them to stand with her in pushing back against calls for rejecting those fleeing violence in Syria and the Middle East.

Here’s an excerpt:

In the wake of the murders in Paris and Beirut last week, people in America, in Europe, and throughout the world, are fearful. Millions of Syrians are fearful as well—terrified by the reality of their daily lives, terrified that their last avenue of escape from the horrors of ISIS will be closed, terrified that the world will turn its back on them and on their children.

Some politicians have already moved in that direction, proposing to close our country to people fleeing the massacre in Syria. That is not who we are. We are a country of immigrants and refugees, a country made strong by our diversity, a country founded by those crossing the sea fleeing religious persecution and seeking religious freedom.

We are not a nation that delivers children back into the hands of ISIS murderers because some politician dislikes their religion. And we are not a nation that backs down out of fear.

Warren’s letter was sent out by her Senate campaign, but it made no request for donations (which is rare when a politician zaps out an email to her list of supporters). The note follows a similar plea she made to her fellow lawmakers in the Senate on Tuesday. Warren is among but a handful of politicians who publicly support accepting a limited number of refugees in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday.

“It is easy to proclaim that we are tough and brave and good-hearted when threats feel far away,” Warren said in that speech. “But when those threats loom large and close by, our actions will strip away our tough talk and reveal who we really are. We face a choice, a choice either to lead the world by example, or to turn our backs to the threats and suffering around us.”

Here’s the full email:

Over the past four years, millions of people have fled their homes in Syria, running for their lives. In recent months, the steady stream of refugees has been a flood that has swept across Europe.

Every day, refugees set out on a journey hundreds of miles, from Syria to the Turkish coast. When they arrive, human smugglers charge them $1000 a head for a place on a shoddy, overloaded, plastic raft that is given a big push and floated out to sea, hopefully toward one of the Greek islands.

Last month, I visited the Greek island of Lesvos to see the Syrian refugee crisis up close. Lesvos is only a few miles away from the Turkish coast, but the risks of crossing are immense. This is a really rocky, complicated shoreline – in and out, in and out. The overcrowded, paper-thin smuggler rafts are tremendously unsafe, especially in choppy waters or when a storm picks up.

Parents try their hardest to protect their children. They really do. Little ones are outfitted with blow up pool floaties as a substitute for life jackets, in the hope that if the rafts go down, a $1.99 pool toy will be enough to save the life of a small child.

And the rafts do go down. According to some estimates, more than 500 people have died crossing the sea from Turkey to Greece so far this year. But despite the clear risks, thousands make the trip every day.

I met with the mayor of Lesvos, who described how his tiny island of 80,000 people has struggled to cope with those refugees who wash ashore – more than 100,000 people in October alone. Refugees pile into the reception centers, overflowing the facilities, sleeping in parks, or at the side of the road. Recently, the mayor told a local radio program that the island had run out of room to bury the dead.

On my visit, I met a young girl – younger than my own granddaughters – sent out on this perilous journey alone. I asked her how old she was, and she shyly held up seven fingers.

I wondered what could possibly possess parents to hand a seven-year-old girl and a wad of cash to human smugglers. What could possibly possess them to send a beloved child across the treacherous seas with nothing more than a pool floatie. What could make them send a child knowing that crime rings of sex slavery and organ harvesting prey on these children.

Send a little girl out alone. With only the wildest, vaguest, most wishful hope that she might make it through alive and find something – anything – better for her on the other side.

This week, we all know why parents would send a child on that journey. Last week’s massacres in Paris and Beirut made it clear. The terrorists of ISIS – enemies of Islam and of all modern civilization, butchers who rape, torture and execute women and children, who blow themselves up in a lunatic effort to kill as many people as possible – these terrorists have spent years torturing the people of Syria. Day after day, month after month, year after year, mothers, fathers, children and grandparents are slaughtered.

In the wake of the murders in Paris and Beirut last week, people in America, in Europe, and throughout the world, are fearful. Millions of Syrians are fearful as well – terrified by the reality of their daily lives, terrified that their last avenue of escape from the horrors of ISIS will be closed, terrified that the world will turn its back on them and on their children.

Some politicians have already moved in that direction, proposing to close our country to people fleeing the massacre in Syria. That is not who we are. We are a country of immigrants and refugees, a country made strong by our diversity, a country founded by those crossing the sea fleeing religious persecution and seeking religious freedom.

We are not a nation that delivers children back into the hands of ISIS murderers because some politician dislikes their religion. And we are not a nation that backs down out of fear.

Our first responsibility is to protect this country. We must embrace that fundamental obligation. But we do not make ourselves safer by ignoring our common humanity and turning away from our moral obligation.

ISIS has shown itself to the world. We cannot – and we will not – abandon the people of France to this butchery. We cannot – and we will not – abandon the people of Lebanon to this butchery. And we cannot – and we must not – abandon the people of Syria to this butchery.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

Link to article:

Read Elizabeth Warren’s Heartfelt Email in Support of Syrian Refugees

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When Will Republicans at Last Get Serious About National Security?

by JohnettBloodswo Posted on November 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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Today the Wall Street Journal editorial page sings the praises of French President François Hollande:

French security forces Wednesday conducted hundreds of antiterror raids and placed more than 100 suspects under house arrest….Security forces found a weapons cache in the city of Lyon that included Kalashnikov rifles and a rocket launcher….France has some 11,500 names on government watch lists. Many are likely to be detained under the three-month state of emergency that Mr. Hollande declared after Friday’s attacks.

….Mr. Hollande has been right to declare war on Islamic State and order French bombing raids on its capital in eastern Syria. France is still a militarily capable nation, as it proved when it turned back an al Qaeda offensive in Mali in 2013. It can do significant damage to ISIS if it increases the tempo of its current bombing or deploys its Foreign Legion to liberate the city of Raqqa.

….Until America gets a new Commander in Chief, Mr. Hollande is the best antiterror leader the West has.

Hmmm. It’s certainly true that Hollande has been among the most hawkish of European leaders. It’s also true that France was one of the first to join the US air campaign against ISIS—though their military efforts so far have been little more than pinpricks. But let’s roll the tape back to June 2014, when President Obama was first trying to put together a coalition. He and Hollande issued a joint communique with all the right promises, but as France 24 reported, “Behind that facade of unity, there are significant disagreements between the two countries about how best to respond to the recent bloody territorial surge by ISIS.”

Why France is reluctant to act against ISIS in Iraq

On June 18, a meeting was held in the Elysee with the French Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs….For the moment, however, no military measures are planned….Moreover, “No one has asked for it”, added the same source. Requests for military assistance from Baghdad have so far been addressed to the international community or Washington, but “not specifically to France”, as a foreign affairs spokesman pointed out on June 17.

….The lack of French enthusiasm for an armed intervention in Iraq, whether it be air strikes or sending military advisers to Baghdad, is due partly to fear that any intervention would be ineffective if it were not accompanied by a real commitment by the Iraqi government to act on sectarian tensions.

That’s the best anti-terror leader the West has, according to the Journal. Nobody had “specifically” asked France, so Hollande decided to hang tight and see which way the wind was blowing.

This is the kind of thing that makes it so hard to talk about ISIS and terrorism. It’s not as if this has been Obama’s finest hour, after all, and it would be silly to suggest otherwise. But the opposition has generally been much worse. Obama waffled over Syria’s use of chemical weapons, but then Congress bungled things further by refusing to approve Obama’s call for retaliatory strikes—with both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio joining in. Obama may have been late to recognize the threat from ISIS, but he’s still the guy who put together the coalition. France has been a good partner in the fight against ISIS, but that happened only after Obama spent some time cajoling them into action.

And Republicans simply can’t be bothered to take any of this seriously. They blather about Obama being weak, but when you ask them for their plans you just get nonsense. They demand “leadership”; they bask in cheap applause lines about a bigger military; they all chime in like puppets to agree on a no-fly zone; they suggest we stop worrying about civilian casualties; they propose more arms for the Kurds; they want to team up with Sunni tribal leaders without saying how they’d accomplish it; and they vaguely imply that we should bomb ISIS differently….or more….or with greater determination….or something.

None of this is remotely serious. A bigger military wouldn’t affect ISIS. A no-fly zone wouldn’t affect ISIS. Killing civilians would actively help ISIS. The Kurds aren’t going to fight ISIS in Sunni territory. Sunni leaders aren’t going to be reliable allies until they trust Baghdad to treat them equitably. And sure, we could bomb more, but there’s not much point until we have the ground troops to back it up. But Republicans have been unanimously opposed to American troops all along, and Iraqi ground troops flatly aren’t yet willing or able to do the job.

I hardly want to be in the position of pretending that Obama’s ISIS strategy has been golden. But Republicans make him look like Alexander the Great. They treat the whole subject like a plaything, a useful cudgel during a presidential campaign. Refugees! Kurds! Radical Islam! We need to be tougher!

That isn’t leadership. It barely even counts as coherent thought. It’s just playground jeering. But right now, that’s all we’re getting from them.

Continued here:

When Will Republicans at Last Get Serious About National Security?

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The French Have Begun Bombing the Capital of ISIS

by OpalHarbison Posted on November 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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The French have begun bombing the Syrian city of Raqqi:

French warplanes struck Islamic State militants in Syria on Sunday, a French government official said, two days after attackers linked to the terrorist group carried out a coordinated assault on Paris that killed 129 people.

Prior to the attack on Paris, France had been sparing in its strikes against targets in Syria.

News reports in France said the airstrikes were focused on Raqqa, the city in northern Syria that is the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State.

This is unrelated but I was curious to know what life is like in a city under ISIS occupation and stumbled on this story from last year, which has the following surreal quote:

Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, a pseudonym for a young anti-IS activist from Raqqa, told Al-Monitor the situation was dire. He said, “People in Raqqa are outraged. There are a lot of immigrants who came and joined IS: Americans, British, Germans, Europeans in general and from around the world. They are given special treatment, pampered by the organization.”

He added, “They are given the best homes and cars while locals pay taxes. They took the abandoned houses — some left behind by Christians, others by Sunnis — while those in the city who own more than a house are forced to give all other houses to the immigrants.”

Continued: 

The French Have Begun Bombing the Capital of ISIS

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Let’s Take a Look at How Tough Republicans Would Be Against ISIS

by ConnorTrudeau Posted on November 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, conservatives are eagerly taking the opportunity to accuse Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of fecklessness and appeasement for not taking a harder line against ISIS. We need someone with the guts to lead, and who isn’t afraid to use the term radical Islam. Apparently that’s important.

Maybe so. But ground troops are the only way to destroy ISIS in the short term, and the Republican presidential candidates have all been oddly reluctant to get behind a serious American invasion force. So before we allow them to get too far up on their high horses about how tough they’d be, here’s a reminder of what they were saying about ISIS before two days ago.

Donald Trump wants to take away oil fields controlled by ISIS, but has explicitly dodged the question of whether he would use a substantial ground force to do it. His preference is for an air campaign: “I would just bomb those suckers. That’s right. I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.”

From Tuesday’s debate: “If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100%.“

Jeb Bush has previously ruled out a “major commitment” of ground troops. He would support a modest increase in “supportive” troops, and wants to unite the moderate anti-Assad forces in Syria. But he also thinks Trump is crazy.

From the debate: “Let ISIS take out Assad, and then Putin will take out ISIS?….That’s not how the real world works. We have to lead, we have to be involved. We should have a no fly zone in Syria.“

Carly Fiorina has specifically said ground troops are unnecessary. Our allies should provide any troops necessary.

From the debate: “We must have a no fly zone in Syria….We also have a set of allies in the Arab Middle East that know that ISIS is their fight….King Abdullah of Jordan….The Egyptians, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Bahrainis, the Emirati, the Kurds….They must see leadership support and resolve from the United States of America.”

Marco Rubio said last year the he would like to see a permanent US presence in the Middle East. “I’m not saying 100,000 troops, but certainly some level that allows us to project power quickly and confront challenges and threats.” More recently, he’s backed off that position: “ISIS is a radical Sunni Islamic group. They need to be defeated on the ground by a Sunni military force with air support from the United States.” And this: “Intervening doesn’t mean ground troops. Intervening can be a lot of things.” His official position on his website specifically recommends air strikes, special ops, training, arms for Sunni and Kurdish forces, diplomacy, financial targeting, and better PR. It does not mention ground troops.

From the debate: “ISIS is now in Libya….Soon they will be in Turkey. They will try Jordan. They will try Saudi Arabia….They hate us because of our values. They hate us because our girls go to school. They hate us because women drive in the United States. Either they win or we win, and we had better take this risk seriously, it is not going away on its own.”

Ben Carson has suggested that ground troops “might” be necessary, but has declined to go any further.

From the debate: “We’re talking about global jihadists….We have to destroy their caliphate. And you look for the easiest place to do that? It would be in Iraq. Outside of Anbar in Iraq, there’s a big energy field. Take that from them. Take all of that land from them. We could do that, I believe, fairly easily, I’ve learned from talking to several generals, and then you move on from there.”

Ted Cruz has suggested that Kurdish pesh merga are all we need: “We need boots on the ground, but they don’t necessarily need to be American boots. The Kurds are our boots on the ground.” Cruz has generally dodged specific questions about sending in American troops, instead supporting an “overwhelming” American air campaign.

From the debate: Cruz declined to address ISIS during the debate.

And just for comparison, here is Hillary Clinton on her website:

ISIS and the foreign terrorist fighters it recruits pose a serious threat to America and our allies. We will confront and defeat them in a way that builds greater stability across the region, without miring our troops in another misguided ground war. Hillary will empower our partners to defeat terrorism and the ideologies that drive it, including through our ongoing partnership to build Iraqi military and governing capacity, our commitment to Afghanistan’s democracy and security, and by supporting efforts to restore stability to Libya and Yemen.

So Hillary is a little bit more categorical about not using American ground troops, but basically she’d fit in just fine on the Republican stage. She supports an air campaign; she supports a no-fly zone in Syria; she supports arming the anti-Assad rebels; and she supports partnerships with our allies. If the Republican candidates are any tougher on ISIS than Hillary, they’ve been oddly timid about saying so.

Taken from:  

Let’s Take a Look at How Tough Republicans Would Be Against ISIS

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The Chinese Are Coming….To Syria

by ShelbyNorthcott Posted on November 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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In a typical election, candidates move from the extreme to the middle as the campaign progresses. If you’re a Republican, for example, you start out as a fire-breathing conservative in order to win the early primaries, and then slowly move to the center to win the later primaries and the general election.

Donald Trump has flipped the script, though. Now, you start out outrageous in order to get some attention, and then slowly become more sober-minded in order to appear more plausibly presidential. Will it work? Wait and find out! But it sure looks like Ben Carson has been taking lessons from the master. In Tuesday’s debate he seemed to suggest that China had troops in Syria. Today, his business manager and all-around campaign major-domo, Armstrong Williams, took away any possible doubt:

When MSNBC’s Tamron Hall told Williams on Wednesday that the Chinese are not in Syria, Williams remained steadfast.

“From your perspective and what most people know, maybe that is inaccurate,” Williams told MSNBC….”Just because the mainstream media and other experts don’t want to see any credibility to it, does not mean some way down the line in the next few days that that story will come out and will be reinforced and given credibility by others,” Williams said. “But as far as our intelligence and the briefings that Dr. Carson’s been in and I’ve certainly been in with him, we’ve certainly been told the Chinese are there.”

Carson—or Williams—really ought to tell us who these experts are that keep briefing the campaign on foreign policy issues. Are these the same guys who told him that seizing the Anbar oil fields in Iraq could be done “fairly easily” and that ISIS could then be destroyed in short order? I mean, I like the can-do attitude here, but I’m still a little curious about what the exact battle plan would be. Maybe Carson will share that with us in the next debate.

Original source: 

The Chinese Are Coming….To Syria

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