The news media reported that the United States in a joint
military operation tried but filed to rescue James Foley, the reporter recently executed
by ISIS or ISIL; the military did not want the story reported. The public seemed to treat the entire affair as a background story of no
or little merit. I am a bit ashamed that I did not appreciated the significance—diplomatic
sensitivity—of the story at the time. I thought
it was a valiant attempt and was proud of Obama for taking the chance
and that the president should be proud of it. I thought perhaps that White
House silence related to Obama’s style of leadership; as he is prone to do, he
did not try to take credit for the heroic attempt to rescue an American
prisoner. I should have realized there was a reason for not revealing the
attempt.
As the story unfolded, it became clear that the raid was
inside the sovereign territory of Syria; thus, was a clear violation of another
countries diplomatic status, especially when that country is Syria, which is in
a delicate power balance. Bashar al-Assad is a ruler under attack by ISIS and several
other radical Islamic fundamentalist groups. To have anyone of them in power in
Syria would be considerable worse then having al-Assad in power; Obama was able
to neutralize the poison gas treat threat made by al-Assad and establish a
working, but not supportive, relationship with him. He was able to avoid right
wing pressure to arm any of them; can you imagine where those arms would be
today if he had? At the time, last July, when the rescue mission took place, we
are walking a tight rope trying to avoid supporting Assad or anyone of the radical
militant groups of which ISIS was one if not a consolidation of those groups. Therefore,
anyone of the radical groups including al-Assad could have interpreted our rescue
attempt as the United States supporting Al-Assad or one of the factions just as
sending arms to them would have done. Stated another way; the rescue attempt was
diplomatically sensitive. It could be an embarrassment to the Obama administration,
which is an administration that is trying to take the “respect for nations”
approach to foreign relation as opposed to the +neo-con +Charles Krauthammer, +Bill
Krystal, +John McCain tough guy approach that guided +George W. Bush; do what
we say or we will bomb, bomb, depose your government, take your oil, etc.
In addition to the hate, hate, hate of Fox news, we have +Rachael
Maddow and +Chris Hayes, among others, upon learning of the government not wanting
to make the rescue attempt public, I am sure they would accuse the administration
of “secretly” starting a war. They would say reporters involved were just as
right as they believed Snowden was right in revealing government secrets. The military
made the rescue attempt based on carful intelligence obtained by various means
now made public by the news media. For example, they found out where ISIS held the
prisoners by interviewing those prisoners were release because their respective
countries paid ransom. Seriously, do you think ISIS and many other terrorist
organizations will release any more prisoners or at least change how they do
things, thanks to the media that uncovered the story and released it? Do you
think one of these reporters will take credit for the next prisoners who are
beheaded rather than release for ransom because they know too much?
The significance of the rescue attempt being in a sovereign
nation seemed to go right over the heads of reporters and the public; however, as
I just admitted, I can empathize with that oversight because I missed that as well.
A raid made in the confines of a sovereign nation clearly embarrassed our
nation just as the Snowden revelations embarrassed our relation with Germany. Germany
knew about us spying on them but when the press made the details public, of
course, they had to retaliate to save face in the eyes of their people and the
world. Obviously, President al–Assad and ISIS knew about the rescue attempts
even if they did not know the inside details—now they do. There will be a price
to pay for that as well.
URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated
No comments:
Post a Comment