WhatFinger


The Holy League stopped in its tracks the Ottoman Empire from expanding further along the European side of the Mediterranean

Best ISIS Strategy Another Lepanto



In the strange language of the CIA, ISIS can ‘muster’ between 20,000 and 31,500 ‘fighters’. With another ISIS beheading threatened for as soon as next week, we have a president who calls ISIS ISIL and a CIA who calls ISIS ”fighters” rather than terrorists.
“A CIA assessment puts the number of ISIS fighters at possibly more than three times the previous estimates. (CNN, Sept. 11, 2014)
“The terror group that calls itself the Islamic State "can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria," a CIA spokesman told CNN on Thursday. “Analysts and U.S. officials initially estimated there were as many as 10,000 fighters, including those who were freed from prisons by ISIS, and Sunni loyalists who have joined the fight as the group advanced across Iraq. "This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity and additional intelligence," the spokesman said. “The news came a day after President Barack Obama laid out his plan to "dismantle and ultimately destroy" ISIS, including authorizing airstrikes.”
If Obama and the CIA were doing their jobs to protect the masses from the tyranny of radical Islam, they would be cutting ISIS off at the pass, by stopping them from gaining entry over their government-arranged porous borders. Ditto for Prime Minister David Cameron and MI6 over the pond.

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Both the U.S. and Britain have made one big Disneyland for ISIS. Everybody goes there; lots of imaginary characters hanging about. In Obama’s case, ISIS terrorists knew he had no strategy to deal with them months ago. After his Wednesday White House address, they now know the Obama-Jarrett no-strategy-for-ISIS is largely based on, yada, yada, yada. “Mass executions and videotaped beheadings, including those of two American journalists, have led to the push for a broader counterterrorism mission, including possible airstrikes in civil war-torn Syria.” (CNN) Even at this point in ongoing brutal ISIS human butchery, it’s only possible airstrikes. Yet, the main possibility of which there can be little doubt is that it’s getting more and more possible each passing day for terrorists to get into the countries whose mission it is to destroy over wide open borders.
“More than 15,000 foreign fighters, including 2,000 Westerners, have gone to Syria, a CIA source told CNN on Thursday. The fighters come from more than 80 countries, the source said.” What’s not being said is that these are the only ones we know about. “It's not immediately clear whether these were primarily ISIS fighters or were dispersed among a number of groups fighting the Syrian government. (CNN) “The details about the increased number of fighters followed news that the United States has begun surveillance flights over Syria, which a U.S. official told CNN is part of an effort to gather intelligence that will help the decision whether to launch airstrikes against ISIS.”
The surveillance flights over Syria puts the U.S. officials at the wrong border. “The United States "will take action at a time and place" of its choosing, a third official said. But while a broader campaign is not imminent, the officials -- who all spoke on condition of anonymity -- said the military can strike at any time if there is a target of opportunity.” Yesterday was the 13th consecutive anniversary of 9/11. The countdown from Sept. 11, 2001 to the present day on the progress of radical Islamist terrorism should be an eye opener for all rendered vulnerable by irresponsible governments: In 2001, 19 al Qaeda terrorists had no difficulty penetrating U.S. borders. They travelled freely to international assignments, meeting with Muslim brothers while making their deadly plans, and some had no trouble signing up for flying lessons in Florida. Terrorism visited Americans again on Sept. 11, 2012, when Ambassador Chris Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty died in a terrorist attack, for which there are still no answers in Benghazi, Libya. “The Obama administration promised swift justice after a terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi killed four Americans -- but exactly two years later, the U.S. attorney's office wants more time to prosecute Ahmed abu Khatallah, the only suspect in custody.” (Fox News, Sept. 12, 2014)
"You're dealing with classified information and a terrorist who was part of Al Qaeda for two decades, and so it doesn't surprise me at all that we've ended up in this place,"  Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who sits on both the House Intelligence and Benghazi Select committees, told Fox News. “Pompeo said there is no question, based on the classified evidence, that Khatallah played a central role in the attack, but he doubted a lot of that evidence will get into court because it will expose sources as well as methods used by the US intelligence community to collect information. "It shouldn't surprise anyone that when you try and force upon a terrorist a legal system that wasn't meant or intended to deal with crimes committed that night in Benghazi, Libya…I think the results are a mess."
And now with Obama dithering filling in for strategy, ISIS threatens that yet another beheading will take place sometime next week.

Battle of Lepanto

On October 7, 1571, the Battle of Lepanto took place when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of southern European Catholic maritime states, soundly defeated the flagship fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five straight hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece. The Ottoman forces sailing westward from their naval station in Lepanto were confronted by the Don John of Austria-led Holy League forces, which had come from Messina, Sicily. The Holy League stopped in its tracks the Ottoman Empire from expanding further along the European side of the Mediterranean in the last major naval battle in the Mediterranean fought entirely between galleys. Historians record that a Turkish victory could have led to Western Europe being overrun were it not for Lepanto. It only happened because the Holy League forces had a strategy in place.


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Judi McLeod -- Bio and Archives -- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

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