To Crush Islamic State, the West Must Settle on Military Tactics, Cut Off Oil Money, Counter Propaganda

At WSJ, "The War on Islamic State":

The Paris attacks and the downing of a Russian airliner have heightened determination in Moscow, Paris and Washington to defeat Islamic State, a challenge easier said than done.

Many strategists say military advances will show little progress unless more work is done to eliminate the militant group’s financing, counter its propaganda and cut a diplomatic deal among world powers on Syrian rule.

For military planners, destroying the terrorist group’s headquarters and crippling its fighting force is a relatively simple assignment, say strategists: It would require some 40,000 troops, air support and two months of fighting.

The problem is what do to after taking responsibility for won territory. With the recent experience of Afghanistan and Iraq, that is a job no Western leader wants. Many officials, especially in Europe, believe a full-scale military response would help Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, by broadcasting an image of Westerners seizing Arab lands, attracting more followers to the militants’ cause.

“Drawing us into a ground war with them is a trap,” said a French government official. “Frankly, I doubt it would go very well.”

The options short of a ground invasion are limited. After fighting Islamic State for more than a year through airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, military officers, diplomats and analysts agree there is no easy formula for victory.

Western allies are developing ways to escalate their operations and shift tactics. France is stepping up air attacks and bringing in 24 planes on the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which will arrive in the eastern Mediterranean next week to triple French air power in the region.

The U.S. military has developed options to accelerate the fight against Islamic State, including measures designed to strengthen local partners—Kurdish forces, for example, in Iraq and Syria—against the militants.

The U.S. also is considering creation of a base in Iraq to launch raids on Islamic State leaders; tripling the number of special operation forces working in Syria; and expanding the list of Islamic State targets by risking additional civilian casualties in more aggressive airstrikes.

Derek Chollet, a former Pentagon official with the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. think tank, said taking more aggressive steps, such as sending U.S. forces to the front lines to call in airstrikes, could help in the fight but will take time. Entering into a ground war, he said, could be a mistake.

“We made a lot of decisions as a country in the wake of 9/11, in the fever of fear and the desire to do something decisive, that we are still digging ourselves out of,” he said.

Some strategists say Islamic State may be more vulnerable than it appears. The group seems to have challenged the world, said Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank in London. Islamic State has picked fights not only in the Middle East, but with the U.S., Russia and France. This week it baited Beijing by killing a Chinese hostage.

“They think this is their time in history, their victory is divinely assured,” Mr. Clarke said. “From a strategic point of view, they are making every mistake.”

The Paris attacks—along with the bombing of a Russian plane and attacks in Turkey—have raised the prospect of an alliance between Moscow and the West.

Whether the gestures of solidarity over the past week will continue is an open question. Russian aggression in Ukraine looms in the background. Many Western officials say Europe and the U.S. can’t ignore the annexation of Crimea or Moscow’s support for Ukraine separatists.

And, on Syria, the diplomatic rift remains between Russia, which sees the government of President Bashar al-Assad as the best bulwark against chaos in the region, and the West, which believes the Assad regime is to blame.

“There is the potential for this to work,” said a senior official in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “But you have to start any talk about any sort of coalition with a common objective, and we don’t yet have a common objective.”

European diplomats and scholars say both sides may now be willing to compromise. “This string of attacks have had a catalytic effect,” said Marc Pierini, a former European Union diplomat and scholar at the think tank Carnegie Europe. “Something is happening that is entirely new.”

Keep reading.

National Review's 60th Anniversary Issue

Jeff Jacoby has a write up, "At 60, National Review’s battle of ideas is as spirited as ever."

And at the magazine, "NATIONAL REVIEW 60TH ANNIVERSARY."

Deals in TV, Video, and Audio for Black Friday Week

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Also, Shop Amazon - Black Friday Office Deals.

Plus, for under the tree, from Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis, and Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris.

"ISIL stands for the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” not the “Radical Jihad State of Iraq and the Levant,” which Clinton, Obama and the other P.C. Democrats seem to think it is. Geez..."

From Elizabeth Price Foley, at Instapundit, "WELL, IT’S NOT THE “RADICAL JIHAD” STATE, YOU KNOW: Rex Murphy writes in the Canadian National Post about Hillary Clinton’s doublespeak hypocrisy..."

Amber Lee's Monday Forecast

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Why Paris Could Happen Here

From Mitchell Silber, at WSJ, "The elements of an attack are available, including the weapons, manpower and a ‘permissive environment’":

In the afternoon of Nov. 13, when news of the horrific Paris attacks began to reach the U.S. and the fear and chaos there began to sink in, many Americans asked one important question: Could a similar attack by jihadists linked to Islamic State occur in a major American city? The answer is yes.

To understand why, it is vital to deconstruct the Paris attack and the factors that enabled it and then see if they can be mapped onto an American urban environment. During my tenure as director of intelligence analysis at the New York Police Department, this is what we did after any major attack around the world to stay ahead of ever-evolving terrorist threats.

While more operational details of the Paris attack will be uncovered, four necessary ingredients have already emerged: First, European citizens willing to kill themselves and their countrymen. Second, material for the attack, including assault weapons and hydrogen peroxide for suicide bombs. Third, the technical and paramilitary skills to make improvised explosive devices and operate assault weapons. And fourth, a “permissive environment” in which the national and local security and intelligence agencies were not able to detect the plot in advance.

Thankfully, the United States has—in absolute numbers and per capita—significantly fewer members of its Muslim population who are alienated from American society, inspired by Islamic State’s toxic ideology and radicalized to violence. But they do exist. As FBI Director James Comey recently noted, the bureau has more than 900 active ISIS investigations in 50 states. Those are just the domestic ISIS supporters that the FBI knows about. In May two ISIS-inspired American citizens, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, stormed an event featuring Muhammad cartoons in Garland, Texas, wearing body armor and carrying assault weapons. If it were not for the good work of law enforcement, who shot and killed the men, scores may have been murdered.

What about material? Semiautomatic weapons with high-capacity magazines are fairly easy to acquire, legally or illegally. Hydrogen peroxide, the active ingredient for deadly triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosives, is sold throughout the U.S. and requires only patience and small purchases at different locations to acquire enough for multiple explosive devices. The technical know-how to make operational explosive devices can be obtained through online tutorials or more directly (and thoroughly) by traveling overseas to training camps.

Mr. Comey told Congress this summer that upward of 200 Americans have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria to participate in the conflict. According to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, about 40 of those Americans have returned from the jihadist battlefields of Syria since that civil war began.

In May 2014, a U.S. citizen from Florida, 22-year-old Moner Abu-Salha, carried out a suicide-bomb attack for the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. After training in Syria he had traveled undetected to and from the U.S. There are likely more American citizens like Moner Abu-Salha.

As for the permissive environment: Some analysts argue that French and Belgian intelligence services and police are overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential terrorists, but that U.S. agencies aren’t as stressed and won’t miss anyone. That is dangerous and inaccurate. The 2013 Boston Marathon attack by the Tsarnaev brothers was not that long ago. In that case the FBI received warnings from Russia, conducted its own investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and then—despite his travel to a potential zone of conflict in the Caucasus and a pro-jihadist social-media profile—closed its investigation.

Police and intelligence agencies have an enormously difficult job because radicalization pathways to violence are not always straightforward...

Still more.

Salah Abdeslam, Subject of European Manhunt, Not Among 16 Arrested in Belgian Anti-Terror Raids (VIDEO)

Abdeslam's ability to elude capture for over a week is a terrifying indictment of the abilities of European counter-terrorism officials.

It's simply ridiculous that this jihadist is still at large.

The background's at WSJ, "Police Scour Brussels District in Terror Manhunt."

And at the Guardian UK, "Brussels terror raids: police announce 16 arrests but Salah Abdeslam not among them – as it happened."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES," and Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – I Have Seen The Enemy."

Get $20.00 Off All-New Kindle Paperwhite

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Plus, Delicious Deals on Holiday Kitchen.

And books for under the tree, from Nicholas Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945, and Alistair Horne, Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century.

Obama Scrambling Desperately to Regain Control of Syrian Refugee Debate (VIDEO)

I'm positively giddy with all the political flak Obama's taking.

I love it. It's so well-deserved, heh.

Even far left-wing journalists are slamming the idiot POTUS, so that's like icing on the cake.

At Politico, "White House scrambles to regain control of refugee debate":

Democrats who voted for an anti-refugee bill complain the Obama administration has failed so far to make its case.

The White House, caught flat-footed this week as President Barack Obama visited Asia, is scrambling to regain control of the debate on allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. and to slow legislation that it says would be against American values.

In the days since a group of attackers unleashed a night of terror in Paris, Republicans have zeroed in on the threat that Syrian refugees could pose if fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant slipped in with them and have fast-tracked legislation that would tighten the screening process.

Dozens of Democrats, fearful of voting against such security measures, have joined the GOP effort, and they're publicly grumbling about subpar messaging from the White House.

But now the Obama administration has cranked up a multifront effort to halt the legislation and try to reclaim the conversation around the thousands of refugees who were due to be resettled in the U.S. next year.

Still more.

Donald Trump Says Maybe Black Protester 'Should Have Been Roughed Up...' (VIDEO)

The pearl-clutching left is having a Sunday tizzy over this.

At Vox, via Memeorandum, "Protester gets punched at Trump rally. Trump: “Maybe he deserved to get roughed up”."

Also at the Soros-back Think Progress, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump: My Fans Were Right To Beat Up Black Protester."

CNN's Jeremy Diamond caught the video, "A black protester at Trump's rally today in Alabama was shoved, tackled, punched & kicked."

CNN's got the video, with Trump's comments on the background audio, "Donald Trump: Maybe protester 'should have been roughed..."

But listen to the whole thing. The comments, from his Fox & Friends interview this morning, come toward the very end of the clip:



The full background's at WaPo, "Trump on rally protester: ‘Maybe he should have been roughed up’."

Salma Hayek at Evening Standard Theater Awards

Holy smoke!

She's bursting out of her bustier!

At London's Daily Mail, "Ay Caramba! Salma Hayek, 49, commands attention in dramatic cleavage-enhancing gown at Evening Standard Theatre Awards."

Carmen Ortega for Playboy (VIDEO)

She's voluptuous.

At E!, "Hollywood Cycle's Carmen Ortega Strips Down for Playboy! See the Super-Sexy Pics."

She pushes the boundaries on Instagram too!

Pew Research Center Poll Finds at Least 60 Million Muslims Support Islamic State (VIDEO)

Here's the irrepressible Ezra Levant, at Rebel Media, "Pew poll: 60 million Muslims support ISIS."

At read it, at Pew, "In nations with significant Muslim populations, much disdain for ISIS."

Not everybody over there's disdaining ISIS, which is exactly the fun-fact Ezra points out.

Russians Write Messages on Bombs for Islamic State (VIDEO)

Watch, from Agence France-Presse, "Russian defence ministry releases new video."

And at London's Daily Mail, "'This is for Paris': Russian pilots write messages of support for terror victims on their bombs before launching latest air raids and cruise missile strikes against ISIS."

Nicholas Stargardt, The German War

I want this book for Christmas.

From Nicholas Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945.

Synopsis

The Second World War was a German war like no other. The Nazi regime, having started the conflict, turned it into the most horrific war in European history, resorting to genocidal methods well before building the first gas chambers. Over its course, the Third Reich expended and exhausted all its moral and physical reserves, leading to total defeat in 1945. Yet 70 years on – despite whole libraries of books about the war’s origins, course and atrocities – we still do not know what Germans thought they were fighting for and how they experienced and sustained the war until the bitter end.

When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict – the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of Germany’s cities – change their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realise that they were fighting a genocidal war?

Drawing on a wealth of first-hand testimony, The German War is the first foray for many decades into how the German people experienced the Second World War. Told from the perspective of those who lived through it – soldiers, schoolteachers and housewives; Nazis, Christians and Jews – its masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs, hopes and fears of a people who embarked on, continued and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.

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Plus, stay warm, Lasko 754200 Ceramic Heater with Adjustable Thermostat.

And for under the tree, Gary Kasparov, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.

Donald Trump Calls for Waterboarding in Fight Against Islamic State (VIDEO)

The video's here, from ABC's "This Week," "Donald Trump: I'll bring back waterboarding."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Donald Trump calls for waterboarding to combat Islamic State."

Senator Dianne Feinstein: Obama Administration's Approach to Islamic State is 'Not Sufficient to the Job' (VIDEO)

That's putting it mildly, isn't it?

At CBS Face the Nation this morning:



ADDED: At the Los Angeles Times, "Feinstein criticizes Obama's Islamic State strategy, urges more U.S. special forces in Syria."

The Long War Continues

From Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, at the Weekly Standard:

In many ways, the reaction to the horrific attacks in Paris has been familiar. There were the expressions of solidarity: flowers at French embassies; social media avatars changed from silly selfies to photos of the French flag snapping defiantly in the wind; buildings across the Western world lit up in red, white, and blue; spontaneous and deeply moving renditions of the national anthem, sung by spectators being evacuated from a soccer match at the Stade de France, site of one of the attacks, and three days later by French legislators after President François Hollande addressed them at Versailles.

There were glimpses of the attacks themselves: gut-wrenching descriptions of sudden horror from eye-witnesses; cell-phone videos capturing slices of the chaos and carnage; photos of rescue workers walking gingerly through broken glass and torn clothing and human flesh; and, later, the emotional remembrances of those lost, by friends and relatives whose ordinary Friday had just become the worst day of their lives.

And, of course, there were the condemnations and declarations of resolve from Western leaders: The world must not tolerate such barbaric acts; together we will fight those who have carried out such unfathomable deeds; we will work with the international community against terrorism; and on it goes.

President Obama’s words on the night of the attacks were familiar, too. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to work with the French people and with nations around the world to bring these terrorists to justice, and to go after any terrorist networks that go after our people.”

They were meant to be reassuring, but rang hollow. Nobody expected that the United States under Barack Obama would actually “do whatever it takes” to win a war the president has long neglected. Even his mouthing of the promise seemed perfunctory—a man saying what the president is supposed to say in such a moment, rather than a leader announcing a new American resolve in the long war against jihadism.

Obama validated this skepticism in short order. Three days after the Paris massacre, as President Hollande was calling the slaughter an “act of war” and preparing a full-scale international response, Obama gave a bizarre press conference in which he made clear that for him nothing had changed.

Speaking to reporters at the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Obama said that, while the Paris attacks might have been a “setback” for his ISIS strategy, they would not change it. When reporters expressed surprise at his continued embrace of an approach that was failing, he lashed out at them for daring to question him. At a time when an American president might have been expected to show some righteous anger at the attackers and those who enabled them, Obama instead directed his fury towards critics at home who worry about jihadist violence against the homeland. It was a shameful spectacle, and a revealing one.

Barack Obama remains committed to a failed strategy against an enemy he has long underestimated in a war he has no plans to win. Nothing has changed. And this time, what’s past truly is prologue...

Keep reading.