Defense Secretary Ash Carter testifies before the House Armed Services Committee, June 17, 2015. Carter outlined the Defense Department’s strategy on dealing with terror threats in the Middle East and approaches to dealing with recent significant gains by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. DoD photo by Glenn Fawcett
Washington Post: Fight against the Islamic State enters a new phase with pledge from seven countries
PARIS – The U.S.-led military coalition’s fight against the Islamic State militant group entered a new phase on Wednesday, with defense ministers from the seven countries most heavily involved in the operation pledging to continue fighting and look for ways to more aggressively target the group.
The United States, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands made the promise here after a joint meeting hosted by U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and his French counterpart, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. The group’s members said in a joint statement that they have “expressed our broad support for the campaign plan objectives, and the need to continue gathering momentum in our campaign.”
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Update #1: US, Allies Agree to Intensify Fight Against Islamic State -- AP
Update #2: US, allies to intensify fight against Islamic State group -- France 24
WNU Editor: Defense Ministers from 27 Countries to meet next month to plan and implement a strategy against the Islamic State .... Carter: 26 Defense Ministers to Meet for IS Talks Next Month (VOA). MOre here .... US to Convene 27-Nation Meeting on ISIS (Defense One).
3 comments:
Yes, because Putin came and embarrassed Obama by really fighting.
Aizino,
What you suggest may well be a factor, however, there are two other factors that are likely impacting decision making here. 1.) The US generally faces extremely intense and usually hostile media coverage. As such, to carry out the types of military actions necessary to defeat this enemy will lkkely lead to massive "collateral damage." Such damage could and likely would at some point lead to war crimes tribunals for US officials. In comes Russia now and no one is going to dream of scrutinizing them on the same level as the Americans would be. So here are the Russians carrying out actions American officials would likely be taken to task for. To turn a blind eye toward the Russians while heavily scrutinizing the Americans, is going to be hard to justify and may even cause challenges for the Russians that might be uncomfortable for them. For lack of a better term, it could create "bad optics" for some. Sorry about the length but essentially this takes some of the pressure off of the US and its leadership hence we are seeing a stepped up effort.
2.) Paris, France has been attacked. While few are going to come to the aid of America, the French garner deep sympathy. As such, as in point 1, the US now has more lattitude to actually carry out military action than it had before.
While I think Obama being embarrassed may well be a factor in this, thetwo factors explained above are going to be affecting things as well.
" The US generally faces extremely intense and usually hostile media coverage."
The press that does this is an arm of the Democrat party in the U.S.
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