Surprisingly enough, this Carter-Obama parallel didn't turn out like Operation Eagle Claw did thirty-four years ago, although doubtless not for lack of trying:
U.S. Special Forces attempted to free James Foley, the American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State (ISIS), earlier this summer, but Foley and other American hostages thought to have been at the location inside Syria were not there.
Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby revealed Wednesday night that several dozen Special Forces members landed inside Syria at a location where intelligence had indicated the Americans were being held.
As I discussed on yesterday's podcast, this reinforces in my mind the instinctive conclusion at which I arrived when the James Foley story first broke: ISIS doesn't take prisoners, they liquidate them. With the magic of digital video and audio, they don't need to keep captured "infidels" alive - which involves housing, feeding, and clothing them and providing for other basic needs, as well as creating vulnerabilities that U.S. special forces can potentially exploit - they can just execute them, catch it on film, and throw it on a hard drive for when they need to upload it to the 'Net - such as after U.S. airstrikes. Indeed, I would be unsurprised to learn that ISIS themselves let slip the location where U..S. hostages might be being held in order to lure the Obama Regime into a rescue attempt.
There is also another disquieting possibility:
The New York Times reported that some Defense officials were outraged that the mission had been revealed. One told the Times that the militants now knew the Americans’ desire and willingness to try to rescue the hostages. That would likely make any new missions very difficult.
The new details include things that ISIS is not likely to have known.
“This only makes our job harder,” the official told the Times. “I’m very disappointed this was released. We knew any second operation would be a lot harder.”
Caitlin Hayden, the National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement to the Times that the administration had “never intended to disclose this operation” but had felt that its hand was forced by news media outlets that were preparing to report on the mission.
We know the, to employ the White House's adjective of the week, "appalling" degree to which the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated - or been invited into - the Obama Regime in every commissariat and at pretty much every level from top to bottom, including its intelligence agencies. It is thus entirely within the realm of plausibility that one or more MB operatives could have both funneled in false intel about hostages and where they were being held by the Islamic State and then funneled back to ISIS that, when, and where a rescue attempt was on the way. Or, if they are keeping hostages alive, getting a warning to them in order to move the hostages to another location.
One thing I do not believe is that The One himself had any hand in encouraging, facilitating, or even passively allowing (Benghazi-like) Mr. Foley's beheading. Not that he isn't capable of such a thing if it suits his political purposes, but in this instance it cuts directly against them. Given that his whole Middle East policy has been one of Islamofilic delusions and American retreat, the last thing he wants or needs is such a visceral enemy provocation that can only inflame the anger of the American public. A Bowe Bergdahl type scenario doesn't make sense here because if Foley had been alive in ISIS captivity since 2012, O has had a lot of time to trade Gitmo inmates for his and other journos' release, and hasn't done so. The notion of his orchestrating all of this in order to successfully rescue Foley and friends in order to give himself a bin Laden-esque "football-spiking" triumphant photo-op seems too convoluted. And if the other rumor that Mr. Foley was possibly homosexual (Never a wife or girlfriend at age 40), that and his ideologically simpatico profession would suggest a genuine motivation to bring home Mr. Foley and his fellow captives. Recall that Major-General Greene's family didn't get so much as a written White House statement of boilerplate condolence after he was executed by a jihadist.
The irony is that the enemedia was probably breaking the story in order to give their demigod some positive press. But I can see the White House being fine with no more such attempts. Continuing the pinpricks - which the Regime has evidently decided is the better of the bad PR options at this point - will run enough risk of my decapitation videos. More botched rescues can only make that bad situation worse.
Gallows humor it is that a one-time "messianic" figure has been reduced to so "appalling" a level of powerlessness.
No comments:
Post a Comment