Tag Archives: Iraqi

Some Politicians Are Playing With Fire

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On June 25th Reuters reported:

Four men with suspected ties to the Islamic State militant group were captured on Tuesday by members of the Nicaraguan armed forces after entering the country illegally from Costa Rica, Nicaraguan police said.

The identities of three of the men matched those of suspects featured in an alert attributed to U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) warning that three possible terrorists had recently arrived in Central America.

In a statement, Nicaraguan police said two of the men were Egyptian nationals and the other two were Iraqi. The four were due to be deported back to Costa Rica, it added.

The Egyptians were named as Mohamed Ibrahim, 33, and Mahmoud Samy Eissa, 26, while the Iraqis were Ahmed Ghanim Mohamed Al Jubury, 41 and Mustafa Ali Mohamed Yaoob, 29.

The first three men were named in the HSI alert published by Mexican media on Monday, which identified them as possible members of Islamic State headed for the United States.

They were not coming here to improve their economic status.

How Wars End

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Yesterday Frank Gaffney posted a short article at the Center for Security Policy website entitled, “How Wars Don’t End.” In his article he reminds us that President Obama once explained to America that unilateral withdrawals from conflicts is “how wars end in the 21st Century.”

Well. so much for that.

The article states:

Recent events in Iraq show that – in our time, as throughout history – unless both sides in a war agree to stop fighting, the conflict will continue. Such fighting generally comes at the expense of the interests or security of the party that calls it quits.

The mayhem in Iraq that has flowed from President Obama’s decision to “end the war” there unilaterally has reached the point where he felt compelled yesterday to authorize renewed U.S. airstrikes.

The trouble is that his delusional approach to ending wars is of a piece with his tendency to micromanage, limit and, thereby, make ineffectual the military operations he does approve.

I hope we don’t have to put actual boots on the ground again in Iraq, but it breaks my heart to see the gains we made with the surge thrown away. I truly believe that had we left forces there, there would have been enough pressure on Prime Minister Maliki to create a more inclusive government. Now we are faced with a radical caliphate in the Middle East that will grow to include some of the countries that in the past have supported us. Being an ally of America doesn’t mean much right now, and our abandonment of the Iraqis is an illustration of that. Hopefully air power will be enough to stop the slaughter of the innocent Christians that is currently taking place.