OBAMA, TERROR WATCH LIST, GUNS

Watching President Obama last night seemed to be more of the same. While talking about upping the ante on ISIS, the reality is that in the last 18 months of military strikes against ISIS we were forbidden to bomb oil trucks carrying oil because the drivers may not be actual terrorists. We could not bomb oil wells as this might cause pollution.  ISIS headquarters were off limits because the leaders had their families living there. Our planes return without dropping all of their ordinance, due to restrictive rules of engagement. This is very dangerous for our pilots and ground personnel, landing planes with ordinance attached. Turkey is buying the discounted ISIS oil with our approval. Saudi Arabia is still supporting radical Sunnis including ISIS and Al Qaida, as well funding mosques in Europe and America, some with questionable motives. I have some sympathy for the President, because I don't believe he knows what action to take, and if we were willing to go in and kill ISIS would that end the Middle East crisis?

It is obvious his heart is not in destroying ISIS, but he sure is motivated in regulating American citizens in any way possible. We hear the same phrases and talking points, "high powered military weapons"...but if he would care to inquire, the 223 round, which is 1/3 the size of the average deer hunting round, also has a solid projectile designed to wound, not kill.  More deadly in the these instances would be a shotgun with 00 buckshot which could contain 15,  32 cal. pellets.  A nine-shot shotgun would be capable of delivering 135 pellets 1/3 larger than a 223 in 15 seconds. I hate to get into these details, but you can become tired of hearing so much misinformation. All of his gun control proposals would not have been effective against these attacks.

As for terrorist bombs, these can be made from many items in the average household - propane, matches, hair spray, agriculture fertilizer, and gasoline. What about a car, truck or other vehicle, how many could be killed in a crowded street or highway? We could go on and on. The point is we will not be able to stop dedicated terrorists from acquiring or manufacturing weapons and the means of inflicting mayhem.  We need to stop potential terrorists from entering the country.

We need to focus on terrorists,  not the means to kill and maim. Obama wants to allow 100,000 refugees to come here; if only 1% are motivated terrorists that means 1000 possible troublemakers. His Attorney General stated this week, that it may be an indictable offense to talk negatively about Muslims. I am sure that most Muslims are not terrorists, but I am also sure that a certain percentage are supportive of these attacks without actually being active players. We should suspend all travel from the Middle East until we are confident we can properly screen people entering the country.

Obama's plan to close Guantanamo and place these prisoners into state and federal prisons on the mainland would be a perfect way for radical Jihadists to recruit new members. There is a fertile place to spread anti-American propaganda.

I am sure that the internet is used to spread propaganda and recruit new members; I'm pretty sure that it is monitored. Capturing cell phone calls of all Americans probably will overload analysts with too much information; while new unsophisticated terrorists may use cell phones and e-mail, I doubt serious terrorists are that naïve. Individuals can be adequately investigated with the laws we now have. Bin Laden used personal couriers for years, and the post office, UPS and Fed-X, is a lot more discrete.

I understand the opposition to restricting the rights of people on the terrorist watch list - this list is now over 1,000,000 and growing. It has been used in the past as a weapon against political opponents.  With the record of this administration's use of government agencies to punish political enemies, I would expect it would be expanded 10 fold. People can be placed on these lists, without review, by many government agencies. Someone placed on this list wrongfully would have to fight this with his limited money against the federal government.

I would still like to know what is our purpose in the Middle East? What is the end game? What result are we looking for? It appears we have a conflict  between Sunni and Shia forces, both bent on establishing an Islamic caliphate across the whole Islamic world.  There are coalitions on both sides, and we seem to be jockeying back and forth between sides. The so called radical extremists are the warriors in this struggle, but their supporters are much more widespread. Until we decide what our objectives are we should keep out of this as much as possible.