"moderate" terrorists, it is for show.

And how come no air strikes in Syria yet, the American Air Force not able to locate any targets yet?
Obama has not been terrorized by the American mass hysteria media I think, but has no choice but to cater to it, not unlike Grimes catering to the gun crowd in Kentucky. Sometimes you have to go with the flow...even if it is unhinged mass generated consumer grade fear.

I wish that were the case. Arming "moderate" rebels in Syria is beyond stupid. But the administration and the Congress appear committed to it.

And I do think there is a lot of theatre, who know what the money will ultimately be used form and experts say the procurement, training, transport and deployment, not to mention control, is going to be a nightmare , at least a year in the actual mercenary boots on the ground is concerned....

that are too politically damaging to the Democrats. Everyone is screaming AMERICA HAS TO DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING MR PRESIDENT! But what can we do? Our military created the circumstances for ISIS to thrive in the first place. They cannot be destroyed by pure military force. Arming other groups carries the same old risks. We armed Bin Laden and the Taliban. There are already photos of IS fighters with American weapons, either captured or bought from the Iraqi army and/or Syrian rebels. The Kurds are the only group we can hope to be dependable at all, but Turkey is totally against giving them heavy weapons.

It seems pretty clear that the best foreign military forces can hope for in Iraq is to prevent ISIS from overrunning anyone else.

In the long run it will be clear that the right thing for the president to do would have been to tell everyone to STFU and admit there is no real solution to the Islamic State, but Obama is too much the politician for that.

You mean like carving up the middle east like a pan of brownies?
Creating countries by fiat and supporting small, privileged oligarchies that exist to make it safe to drill and export?
Overthrowing governments, playing one faction off the other, supporting the most repressive and violent 'legitimate' rulers in the name of stability?
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The house of cards that is the Middle East and the is a product of a long history of interference and exploitation.
To put ISIS at Obama's doorstep is lie blaming the fire department for the fire.

Most of the factors leading up to the enabling of ISIS were well established before Obama took office. IMO, Obama's policies, while well intentioned, are not helping matters much, but the underlying causes surely are not Obama's fault.

... that's only if you believe all of our leaders are stupid and that perpetual war is not the intended result.

Now the Iraqi Shiite militias say they will attack us if we show up. Aren't they the ones we're supposedly saving? Stay the hell out is my humble opinion.

in scope because we don't want to serve as the Shia/Iran air force attacking Sunni targets in Iraq. That would just exacerbate the problem that led to Sunnis allowing ISIS to take over in the first place. That's also why we're not going to put a lot of forces on the ground--we'd just be a new target, like we were the last time we occupied.

expanded. And we keep hearing more and more that to really defeat ISIL we will need American boots on the ground in significant numbers. I don't think that was Obama's intent. But like so many previous American military involvements mission creep is becoming virtually unavoidable.

But I don't think a big ground operation with US troops is in the works, because it would be counterproductive and costly. We'll have to see how it goes. I hope airstrikes work--they've been working already, to a fair extent.

So he doesn't want the international community to take care of things, he wants a return to Pax America?

That's what he's getting paid to generate, outrage about us not being in control of the world?

Is this just another way to play the 'American exceptionalism' card? If we are bad, we have to be the baddest of all time in egomanical fashion?

As if the world didn't know how to be bad without us. Maybe our influence goes back to genocides that went on for thousands of years before we were a gleam in the eyes of the Founding Fathers?

Sorry, Mr. Freeman, that Obama is not your man. And that ship has sailed. We don't want to be in charge of that cluster fornication, but we as a nation did our part to cause it, but not all of it.

You can put the new 'USA, USA, USA' chant back in its box. Oh, and I see how you added all the appropriate dog whistles to cover that up.

We are in a position to grant aid, even if it's of the lethal kind to divert the ground game, to help those closest to it.

That's not incoherent, it's called withdrawing in a slow manner and letting the factions warring with each other decide what they want to have there.

It's only incoherent to those unable to see past the old paradigm which we are leaving. And it's not all about America in the world. I find the need to keep on feeling we are in control of all that goes on globally, pathetic and egotistical, and bordering on magical thinking.

From all I've seen, the President is an extremely reluctant war leader. I don't want anyone who isn't reluctant to go to war leading this nation. And, we are not going to war, either, although media want to stoke both sides of the aisle as you are doing here.

Aid to allies is not going to war and shows respect to them to determine their destiny, which we cannot force on them.

Mr. Freeman, you sound rather incoherent, but just keep on with it, because you have bills to pay. We understand, but not all of us will be purchasing your product.

From the article:

It is indicative of the incoherence of Obama’s campaign that Turkey, a largely Sunni state which has funded and fostered ISIS, and which shares a 560 mile border with Syria, will not participate in the coalition to defeat ISIS. And neither will Turkey help the Kurdish Peshmerga fight ISIS because it doesn’t want to have to cede territory to them in their pursuit of a new Kurdistan, part of which would have to come from Turkish territory.

It is further indicative of incoherence that the target proxies for U.S. boots on the ground, the mythical “moderate rebels” fighting Assad, have declared publicly that they will not take up arms against ISIS. Since it was these same “moderate rebels” who passed so many U.S.-supplied weapons to ISIS to help in its formation, this should not be surprising. But it hardly bodes well for the stated U.S. strategy.

Further signs of incoherence? The forces most able to defeat ISIS are those of Iran, Syria, and Russia which have the strategic position, manpower, and organization to dispatch ISIS in short order. But Obama cannot ask for their help because the U.S. is engaged in hostilities against all three. So it would rather see ISIS fester than have it defeated by foes of the U.S.

A final sign of U.S. incoherence is the conflicting accounts given by senior U.S. officials concerning whether the conflict will require U.S. boots on the ground. Obama has repeatedly said, “No way.” But hardly were the words out of his mouth than General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was on Capitol Hill warning that such boots would almost assuredly be needed, given that an air campaign alone will not be enough to dislodge ISIS.

The ISIS imbroglio lays bare the embarrassing truth of U.S. policy in the Middle East: that it is controlled by Saudi Arabia and Israel, for their own benefits, and not for that of the U.S.

....it is a CIA operation to get US troops back into Iraq? Build up an enemy that is so dangerous to the survival of Iraq that they will have to ask us back in.

We cannot go back in to Iraq if we are not asked.

The present strategy doesn't make sense because it isn't supposed to make sense. The bottom line is that we need to be back in Iraq in order to protect the oil fields and to keep the oil fields out of the hands of "unfriendlies".

Yes, it is possible that it is an elaborate propaganda campaign and most of the American people have fell for it, hook, line, and sinker...

These are incoherent statements below from what I understand.

ISIS does not equal "proto-ISIS" rebels in Syria. First of all ISIS will destroy anyone who doesn't believe in their version of Islam and the proto Isis fighters include/included secular Syrians.

One thing people don't believe, and I can't blame them, is that the US has Intel on who is who in the Free Syrian Army. They aren't announcing how this Intel backs up what they're doing.

Incoherent statements - quotes:

The second step in ISIS’s creation was the U.S. campaign to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria. As was Hussein in Iraq, Assad is a secular strong-man who for many years held an eclectic mix of religious sects together in relative peace. That is, until the U.S. started trying to overthrow the Syrian regime, a move that played into the hands of ISIS’ precursors, including the al-Nusra brigade.

The third step in ISIS’s creation came when the U.S. organized Saudi Arabia and Turkey to fund and support the proto-ISIS rebels in Syria. Recall that 15 of the 19 identified 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Their form of Sunni Islam—Wahabiism—is among the most virulent and aggressively anti-Western in the world. Think Osama bin Laden, a former Saudi prince and founder of al Qaeda.