Liveblog President Obama Speech on ISIL
The President interrupts your Prime Time at 9PM EDT to tell the nation about his plan to deal with ISIL. The Guardian has a good overview of what to expect from tonight’s speech, because apparently the American outlets are occupied with 1) the optics, 2) the horserace, 3) the appetite of Americans for bloodshed and 4) President Obama’s poll numbers. Sheesh.
Barack Obama will pledge on Wednesday night to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State insurgency operating in both Syria and Iraq in an address to the American people expected to herald a significant escalation of the US military role across the region.
Though the exact extent of the anticipated US intervention in Syria remained unclear in the hours leading up to the key speech, White House officials made clear the president planned to pursue a two-pronged strategy on both sides of the border that is likely to build on existing air strikes in Iraq against the group known as Isis or Isil.
“Tonight you will hear from the president how the United States will pursue a comprehensive strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy Isil, including US military action and support for the forces combating Isil on the ground – both the opposition in Syria and a new, inclusive Iraqi government,” said a senior administration official in a statement issued to reporters on Wednesday morning.
“The president will discuss how we are building a coalition of allies and partners in the region and in the broader international community to support our efforts, and will talk about how we work with the Congress as a partner in these efforts.”
Paul Waldman over at the Washington Post has good Questions:
How long is this conflict likely to last?
What are the factors that will affect the success of this mission, and how important is each one?
How will we know when we’ve succeeded enough to leave?
ISIS seems to want nothing more than a confrontation with America. How do we deprive them of whatever they think they’ll gain from that?
What will other countries be doing?
What are the implications of extending our involvement into Syria?
Is it possible that we could raise the danger to the United States even as we degrade ISIS?
He also has the dumb questions (the ones the cable news and Politico will be tackling):
Was Obama sufficiently “tough” and “strong”?
What words did the President use?
Is this going to give Obama a boost in the polls?
Is this conflict going to affect the midterm elections?
Definitely give Waldman’s entire article a read.
The President’s speech should be on a bunch of TV channels, and live streaming from the White House website and CSPAN. If you are watching (or even watching the pre-speech “analysis”), feel free to add your comments and observations below.
Tags: liveblog, President Obama
do we honestly BELIEVE there is an “end ” to this conflict?? they have 10,000 foreign fighters from Fifty countries— with their passports – come back?? – and what about the Islamic religious aspect when SUNNI ISIS terrorists perhaps strike Shia mosques here in the US- I don’t care how tough Obama sounds like – or even weak – let’s not get lost in the verbal game— what matters is even if we are “successful” – there will be no victory — only an acceptance of a type of “new normal” like the Israeli’s have had to deal with for years—–
Has The World Been Bamboozled By The ISIS PR Machine?
Air strikes with other people’s boots on the ground. Is that what I heard?
Well that was short and sweet. Did not address Waldman’s “good” questions, in favor of pitching the speech to looking good on Waldman’s “dumb” questions.
The text of the President’s speech.
If there is to be a war, let there be a war tax. No more free wars.
Also, this is probably a bad time to be planning a large outdoor wedding party in northern Iraq.
>If there is to be a war, let there be a war tax. No more free wars.
Agreed. Double the tax rate so we can pay for all the wounded vets from the most recent wars.
So on NPR the talking heads are taking up the wingnut point that the President should not have taken boots on the ground off of the table. They don’t think that there *should* be boots on the ground, mind you, but he shouldn’t say it.
🙄
In the end, all he asked Congress for is authority to arm Syrian rebels. Seriously? We are already having to bomb our own equipment in Iraq. Who didn’t see that coming?
“Why do we need a war tax while we have all these people living large on welfare? ”
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to predict the future these days.
I’ve come to the sad point of wishing John McCain would just die. It’s the only way he’s going away. I know, I’m going to Hell.
I just wish for once we would try something different in our dealings in the midfle east. How about a total withdrawal from the entire area of all of our troops and as much of our equipment as we can reasonably extract. Let the native population settle their dusputes among themselves with no outside interference
We have practiced the same basic policy there for nearly 70 years and where did it get us
I would think that the insanity of trying the same think over and over and expecting a different result would grow tiresome after a while
We should give the whole area to China’area of influence… Say: “Here, you wanted to be a world player.. Here’s your first project”… and we would be done with it…
Switch enemies upon them.
Let them learn it isn’t the West who is the “Great Satan”. It is they themselves…
@k “We should give the whole area to China’area of influence…”
Just like how Russia gave us Afghanistan? Good idea…
If we would stop buring oil, the middle east would be irrelevant