Obama Trolled by ISIS

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/ted-rall/58293/obama-trolled-by-isis

Obama Trolled by ISIS
Iraq | Terrorism
by Ted Rall | September 13, 2014 - 8:49am

President Obama’s reaction to the videos of two American freelance journalists getting beheaded by Islamist militants gives me the uncomfortable feeling that the American people are getting punk’d — again.

The same thing happened 13 years ago this week, when a dozen and a half Muslim fundamentalists attacked our financial and political capitals using our own planes. The hijackers got exactly the reaction that they wanted: overreaction.You should never underestimate an adversary, least of all when their remarkable success against difficult odds have demonstrated the wisdom of their tactics. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, like the 9/11-era Al Qaeda from which it split, is not run by stupid people. Stupid people don’t take half of Syria away from its longtime authoritarian dictator – whose armed forces happen to be better equipped and trained – and half of Iraq away from a puppet regime backed by the world’s most ferocious superpower – in two years.

Considering ISIS through the lens of proper respect for their leaders’ intelligence, what were they thinking when they posted those two gruesome videos? Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abu Suleiman al-Naser and other top officials of the Islamic State had to know they would provoke a political reaction. It has: More Americans (94%) are aware of the ISIS execution videos than any other news event in the last five years.

~snip~

The genius of 9/11 was to provoke the United States and its allies into behaving exactly like the monsters Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups had long argued they were. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, brazenly embracing torture and mass kidnappings and opening a gulag archipelago of secret prisons everywhere from Eastern Europe to Guantánamo to jail ships floating in the Indian Ocean, as well as the brazen disregard for innocent civilians demonstrated by Bush and Obama’s willy-nilly drone program, convinced countless fence sitters and former moderates to join the militants, cut them a check, or at least look the other way. By the end of the Bush years, the United States was wildly unpopular, viewed as “violent” and “selfish” throughout the Muslim world.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I'm sure some people will see this as just another Ted Rall attack on the President,

but replace the President's name with 'America', 'Congress', or any other such variant, and the message remains the same.

We're being led by the nose, and the country is leaping on the chance to do exactly what terrorist leaders want us to, yet again.

[AuntPatsy]

3. Kick

[tazkcmo]

4. And of course

Their chances of success go up with cooperation from the victim.

[cilla4progress]

5. 'zactly

They got us right where they want us!

How come Murkans never see the strength in holding back? In restraint? In responding smarter, with less instant violence and more support for those innocent victims who really who need it? Is it our youth - because as a country we are in our reactionary teenage years, ruled more by hormones than by a sane, thoughtful program.

Maybe after war comes to our shores, we'll be less likely to turn so readily to the military response. When we can no longer keep it at bay by remote control, and understand fully and personally what it costs. Maybe then we'll become a nation more of peace, than of war.

[Dems to Win]

6. Al Quaeda/ISIS are driving the US to bankruptcy

As they did to the USSR in Afghanistan

The smart move would be to not play their game.

K&R for Ted Rall