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Why did Obama lie to the American people about ISIS?

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Obama wants to save face while preparing for a longer conflict.

President Obama has found someone to blame for the rise of the Islamic State, and it's the intelligence community that supports him. According to Obama during a 60 Minutes interview, the intelligence community failed to warn him of the rise of the Islamic State.

Highlights

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
9/30/2014 (9 years ago)

Published in Politics & Policy

Keywords: Obama, lie, Clapper, ISIS, islamic state, intelligence

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - In an interview that was aired on Sunday evening, President Obama blamed the intelligence community for not informing him of the dangers posed by the Islamic State. "Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," he told 60 Minutes.

The statement is astounding. Rarely do presidents deflect such blame onto their subordinates on a nationally televised interview, even if the blame is well placed. Unfortunately for Obama, this time it is misplaced.

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As it turns out, James Clapper, the director of the CIA, is on record warning Obama and other administration officials no less than eight months ago that the Islamic State, then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, would become a serious threat.

On the Daily Beast, an unnamed intelligence official put it bluntly, "Either the president doesn't read the intelligence he's getting or he's bull****ting."

When a person makes a deliberately counter-factual statement, we refer to such comments by their technical term, which is "lie." Obama lied, which makes him a liar. There is simply no way to coat the issue and change the facts.

President Obama was warned well in advance by the intelligence community that this al-Qaeda offshoot could become a serious threat and that they had territorial ambitions. He was warned that they could recruit fighters from overseas, even Americans.

So what gives? Why did the president take to national TV to propagate a lie? The roots of Obama's comments could be found in a statement that Clapper recently gave to the Washington Post, where he explained that he did, in fact, underestimate the will of the group and overestimated the ability of Iraq to contain them. However, he did say that he warned about their "prowess and capability."

In addition to Clapper, the White House has had several warnings from other officials who saw this coming. Congressional hearings show officials warning that the Islamic State had already taken control in parts of Syria, was managing to maintain control of at least two cities, and would probably start to expand as its capabilities grew.

President Obama wasn't uninformed or misinformed, he was fully warned that the Islamic State posed a serious threat. However, Obama has other reasons to cover himself on national television.

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The airstrikes against the Islamic State are effective in their own right, but they are woefully inadequate as a strategy to win the war. In order to defeat the Islamic State, a multi-pronged strategy will be required. In addition to using airpower to deter attacks and degrade their abilities, allied forces will need troops on the ground to hunt the enemy, while political and economic policies need to be in place to prevent the Islamic State from generating revenues and attracting recruits.

Unfortunately, Obama has not properly developed this strategy and he relies heavily on the involvement of foreign fighters outside of his control. These same fighters have a losing record against the Islamic State, which armed with heavy equipment, motivated, drug-fueled fighters, and a ruthless ideology is virtually unstoppable. This means the United States has been drawn into a losing conflict, a limited war which we cannot win.

The conflict will have to be expanded, and American troops are almost certain to return to the region in large numbers. Prior to this embarrassment, Obama must establish the narrative that it's anyone but his fault this next step will need to be taken. Blaming his own intelligence community is one way to manage that.

So Obama is lying to protect his reputation and to prepare the nation for the inevitable return of U.S. ground forces. This is hardly news-most Americans already expect this. However, Obama feels that this is the fastest way to victory against the Islamic State. In that regard he is, in fact, woefully misinformed.

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