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The Tower Of Babel Comes To Paris: The Folly Of Obama’s War On ISIS – David Stockman
TND Article Spotlight: David Stockman | 
US imperialism was once a fearsome force—mainly for ill. Under the latter heading, Washington’s savage destruction of Vietnam four decades ago comes readily to mind. But now the American Imperium has become just a gong show on the Potomac—even as its weapons have gotten more lethal and its purposes more spurious and convoluted.
There is no more conspicuous proof than Obama’s quixotic “war” on ISIS. The quote marks are necessary, of course, because the White House insists that this is merely a counter-terrorism project that is not really a war; that the campaign to “degrade, disrupt and destroy” the Islamic State will not deploy a single American soldier—at least not one with his or her boots on; and that the heavy lifting on the ground against the barbaric ISIS hordes will be conducted by a “broad coalition” of so far nameless nations.
In truth, the whole thing is a giant, pathetic farce. There will be no coalition, no strategy, no boots, no ISIS degradation, no gain in genuine safety and security for the American homeland. This is an utterly misbegotten war against an enemy that has more urgent targets than America, but a war which will nonetheless fire-up the already boiling cauldron of Middle Eastern tribal, religious and political conflict like never before. There is no name for what Obama is attempting except utter folly.
Even before Secretary Kerry brought his medicine show to Paris, it was evident there is no coalition of the willing—or even the bought. The best that the 26 odd signatories to his communique could muster was a vague endorsement of Iraq’s boundaries and a pledge to support its still only partially formed, three-week old government “by any means necessary“………except not by a single one of the “means” that are actually available.
Let’s start with the neighboring nations which should fear ISIS far more urgently than the citizens in distant places like Lincoln NE and Spokane WA. The short answer is not a single one of them want to help, can help or will be invited to help. Obama’s putative coalition consists of the invisible (Germany), the indisposed (Turkey), the indecisive (the UK), the ineligible (Iran), the unwelcome (Saudi Arabia), the insolvent (Egypt) and the incensed (Russia), among others.
Thus, the heartland of the newly emerged Islamic State is in the upper Euphrates valley of Syria centered at Raqqah. That is, the fearsome threat against which Washington wants to mobilize two dozen nations sits cheek-by-jowl along a 560 mile border with Turkey. And the latter possesses the largest and most potent air force and army in the region—-a force of some 600,000 including reserves or 25X the size of the CIA’s most recent, and undoubtedly exaggerated, count of ISIS fighters.
Moreover, against the several score of tanks and armored vehicles that the jihadists seized from the retreating Iraqi Army, the Turkish military possesses 3,500 tanks, 9,000 armored fighting vehicles, 700 multiple-launch rocket systems, 2,000 towed artillery pieces and 1,000 aircraft and helicopters—-much of this right out of the latest US military specs. Finally, by virtue of its membership in NATO, it also happens to host one of the largest US air bases in the world.
But Turkey didn’t even sign the communique; won’t deploy its military against ISIS—despite its adjacency and capability to demolish the ISIS capital in short order; and won’t even permit US bombers to operate against ISIS out of the Incirlik air base–notwithstanding that 60 years ago it was that very facility which allowed Turkey to avoid Stalin’s clutches.
Instead, it seems that the Islamist Sunni regime in Ankara has more urgent fish to fry than the medievalist Sunni sect encamped on its border: Namely, its far higher priority is deposing the secularist Alawite branch of the Shiite tribe represented by the Assad regime in Damascus. Yes, ISIS has 50 Turkish hostages, but that only guarantees that in the immediate neighborhood of the purported greatest terrorist threat ever, according to the US Secretary of Defense, there will be no war of Sunni-on-Sunni.
That means, of course, that the nation with the next largest army in the region ought to step right up because Iran is, after all, the epicenter of the worldwide Shiite community. And it is exactly the 1300-year old “heresy” of that confession which is the real target of the ISIS butchers. To be sure, the latter now find the freedom of young people in distant Buffalo NY to hang around strip malls listening to rap music and drinking beer to be evil incarnate, but their sword is meant first and foremost for the age-old infidel in their immediate environs.
Yet there will be no Shiite boots to mop up behind Obama’s bombers, either. Owing to express malice of forethought in Washington, the Iranians weren’t even invited to Paris. Needless to say, that was no small disappointment to the new government of the very nation we are attempting to rescue.
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Source: http://thenewsdoctors.com/the-tower-of-babel-comes-to-paris-the-folly-of-obamas-war-on-isis-david-stockman/
