{"id":13417,"date":"2014-08-09T00:27:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T07:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13417"},"modified":"2014-08-09T00:36:20","modified_gmt":"2014-08-09T07:36:20","slug":"responding-to-a-republican-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/09\/responding-to-a-republican-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to a Republican Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Would one of you lovely ladies please come sit in my lap?  No, sadly, the old TomCat has not remembered how to prowl.  I just need help holding my leg steady.  I have a strong urge to jerk the knee, because the US is conducting airstrikes in Iraq.  The target is ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), although Obama and others call it ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).  This group would not exist were it not for GW Bush and the Republican Party.  Prior to the Republican War for Oil in Iraq, there were no Sunni extremists.  They came to fight in Iraq because Bush was supporting the Shia there.  During the surge, Bush and the Republican party armed, financed and trained Sunni extremists to bribe them into not attacking us.  The took the money, learned, grew stringer and waited.  We bare some responsibility for this mess, because it’s a Republican mess.  Now it has become a murderous crisis.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0809Isis\"<\/p>\n

The catastrophe of Iraq has been growing steadily worse for weeks, but by Thursday, it became impossible for the United States and other civilized nations to ignore it. Iraq’s bloodthirsty Sunni extremists were threatening the extermination of tens of thousands of members of religious minorities who have refused to join the fundamentalist Islamic state the terrorist forces want to create.<\/p>\n

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS, drove Christians, Yazidis and other minorities from their homes by giving them a choice between religious conversion or slaughter. There have been reports of scores of civilians being killed. Many of these frightened and desperate people have surged toward the Turkish border and some 40,000<\/a> are estimated to be suffering from heat and thirst on Mount Sinjar<\/a> in northeast Iraq.<\/p>\n

So it was not surprising to hear President Obama announce Thursday night that the United States was dropping food and water supplies in northeast Iraq and that he had authorized targeted airstrikes against ISIS, if needed. Mr. Obama made a wise policy call, and showed proper caution, by keeping his commitment not to reintroduce American ground troops in Iraq, but humanitarian assistance for the imperiled civilians was necessary…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Here is Obama’s complete statement:<\/font><\/p>\n