What makes anybody believe Barack Obama's pinpricks are intended to stop ISIS, in Kobani or anywhere else?:
At least 500 civilians who remain trapped in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani are likely to be "massacred" if it falls to the Islamic State group, the U.N. envoy to Syria warned Friday, calling on the world to help avert a catastrophe as the extremists pushed deeper into the embattled town.
Staffan de Mistura raised the specter of some of the worst genocides of the 20th century during a news conference in Geneva, where he held up a map of the town along the Syria-Turkey border and said a U.N. analysis shows only a small corridor remains open for people to enter or flee Kobani.
The dramatic warning came as the Islamic State group pushed into Kobani from the south and east, taking over most of the so-called "Kurdish security quarter" — an area where Kurdish militiamen who are struggling to defend the town maintain security buildings and where the police station, the municipality and other local government offices are located.
The onslaught by the Islamic State group on Kobani, which began in mid-September, has forced more than 200,000 to flee across the border into Turkey. Activists say the fighting has already killed more than 500 people.
"The city is in danger," said Farhad Shami, a Kurdish activist in Kobani reached by phone from Beirut. He reported heavy fighting on the town's southern and eastern sides and said the Islamic State group was bringing in more reinforcements.
This would seem to be a straightforward proposition: we know where ISIS fighters are, so why not pulverize them with a little "shock & awe"? It would at least buy the Kurds some time and breathing room in which to regroup. If we're launching airstrikes into Syria anyway, why not do so decisively? Even in a "responsibility to protect" context, this would seem to be a no-brainer.
So is that what Barack Obama is doing? Are you kidding?:
U.S.-led airstrikes against the extremists appear to have failed to blunt their push on Kobani. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that with the new advances, the Islamic State group was now in control of 40% of the town....
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the U.S.-led coalition conducted nine airstrikes in Syria on Thursday and Friday. It said strikes near Kobani destroyed two Islamic State training facilities, as well as vehicles and tanks. Another strike in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour — controlled by the extremists — destroyed an Islamic State armored vehicle staging facility, it said. [emphasis added]
Nine airstrikes in two days. An average of one every 5.33 hours, as opposed to the one every six minutes that typified our air campaigns against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This is not an air campaign, it's a public relations campaign, the military equivalent of a leisurely stroll down the 18th fairway.
Frankly, I have tired of beating this deceased equine, so I'll let Rich Lowry take his cuts:
To this point, almost everything has lent credence to the skeptical interpretation of Obama’s war: That in reaction to a spectacular media event, the horrific ISIS beheadings, the president staged his own media event, an inconsequential bombing campaign accompanied by a tough-sounding, prime-time speech.
The experience of the surge in Afghanistan, the red line fiasco and now this, suggest that Obama is a hawk precisely to the extent he feels the politics don’t allow him to wiggle out of it.
And as a direct consequence, thousands of Kurds are about to be massacred. Meanwhile, the architect of this madness spent his Thursday evening getting rhetorically sucked off by Gwyneth Paltrow.
It's always good to be the king, but how much better when you have other people to do your mass-murdering for you?
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