Obama authorizes air support for Iraq

The President announced last night that he was authorizing air strikes against the Islamic State forces in Iraq to prevent genocide. He also authorized air delivery of humanitarian aid for Iraqi refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar, according to the Tribune in Stars & Stripes;

“Today, America is coming to help,” Obama said in brief remarks from the White House.

Well, only about seven months too late. ISIS or ISIL or the Islamic State could have been halted back in February when they took Fallujah from the Iraqi Army, but, like everything else this administration has done, it took months of ignoring events on the ground until it reached crisis proportions.

The president repeated his pledge that no U.S. combat troops would be sent back to Iraq, saying that “as commander-in-chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.”

But Obama shed little light on how long the U.S. was prepared to conduct airstrikes and what he would do if air power alone failed to halt the militants’ advance.

Well, it’s really too late to be making pronouncements like that – boots on the ground or wings in the air, we’re being dragged into fighting in Iraq for the third time in twenty years because we don’t have the political will to fight to a successful conclusion – and the enemy knows it which makes useless pronouncements like that one nearly comical. Well, it’d be comical if it doesn’t cost American warriors pay for it with their lives.

CNN reports that John Kerry and the UN are launching rhetoric like Hamas’ missiles;

In a statement released Thursday night, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the situation a “wake-up call.”

ISIS, he said, is “offering nothing to anyone except chaos, nihilism, and ruthless thuggery.”

“With a gut-wrenching humanitarian crisis unfolding, and the rolls of the starving and sick growing daily, there’s not a minute to waste,” Kerry said. “The United States is acting and leading, and the world cannot sit by and watch innocents die.”

After an emergency meeting on the situation Thursday, the United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the Islamists’ attacks.

“The members of the Security Council reiterate that widespread or systematic attacks directed against any civilian populations because of their ethnic background, political grounds, religion or belief may constitute a crime against humanity, for which those responsible must be held accountable,” the statement said

I’m sure that will have a profound affect on the Islamic State. Or not.

Category: Terror War