Cruz Must Be Doing Something Right As We See The Republicans Hate Him More Than Trump!

GOP Senator: I'd Vote For Bernie Sanders Over Ted Cruz

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ByERICA WERNERPublishedJANUARY 21, 2016, 2:19 PM EST81773 Views

Update: Sen. Richard Burr denies the AP report that he said he would vote for Bernie Sanders if Ted Cruz was the nominee. The AP is standing by its story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are confronting an unsettling possibility: Sen. Ted Cruz, their least favorite colleague, stands within reach of becoming the party's presidential nominee and standard-bearer.

Worse than that, many GOP lawmakers and aides fear the Texas senator could ruin Republicans' chances of hanging onto control of the Senate in November's elections, alienating voters in a half-dozen key swing states with his hardline stances on issues from immigration to abortion.
And yet, these fellow Republicans say they're essentially powerless to stop him. Any attempt to weaken Cruz in his primary campaign against Donald Trump and other GOP candidates risks bolstering his argument that he's running against the "Washington cartel." So there's little Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans can do beyond watch in dismay as Cruz, isolated and boxed out in the clubby Senate after repeatedly angering colleagues, rises in the polls in first-voting Iowa and elsewhere.
With Cruz as the nominee, "state and local races that take place in ideologically moderate electorates could be a bloodbath," says Josh Holmes, McConnell's former chief of staff and a GOP strategist. Vulnerable Republican senators are partly insulated by strong campaign organizations, "but there is no question their job could get tougher," Holmes says.
In the presidential primaries, Cruz has attempted to make a virtue of his rejection by the Washington establishment, and his allies say he will actually help fellow Republicans by energizing the base and turning out evangelicals and others.
One of his favorite lines on the stump is quoting a newspaper article that, according to him, said, "Cruz can't win because the Washington elites despise him."
"I kinda thought that was the whole point of the campaign," Cruz says, almost always generating applause.
Back in the Senate, Cruz has alienated fellow Republican senators on so many occasions they are hard to count. And now, with Democrats optimistic they might win the five seats needed to retake control of the Senate — four if they keep the White House — Republicans are desperate to protect vulnerable incumbents in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Hampshire, where a Cruz candidacy could turn off independents.
"He's a very rock-ribbed conservative and very intelligent young man, very knowledgeable, put it that way," says Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. "And I haven't seen any great desire on his part to really bring the party along with him so that's something that worries me. ... I think it would help him a lot if he would learn how other people feel and work with other people a little bit better, and I think that naturally will occur."
Some GOP lawmakers and pollsters view Cruz as more problematic than businessman Trump, since Trump might have more cross-over appeal to independents. Polling shown to House Republicans recently identified Cruz as the most difficult presidential nominee for any of them to share a ballot with.
""He would definitely be a negative," said GOP Rep. Pete King of New York, who represents an evenly divided Long Island district. King dismissed Cruz as a "fraud" and said, "I don't know of anyone else in Washington, certainly, who gets this opposition from his own people. ... I'm talking about people as conservative as he is who just can't stand him."
In one clear barometer, four GOP senators have endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's bid for president, while none has backed Cruz.
On the other hand, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents this year, says, "If you run a good campaign and let people know what you stand for, you don't have to worry as much about the top of the ticket."
Still, Cruz has become such a pariah that one of his colleagues, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, told supporters at a campaign fundraiser for his own re-election that he would vote for liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders for president before Cruz, according to one person who attended the event. Burr did not appear to be joking, said the person, who demanded anonymity to discuss the private gathering.
The negative reactions started shortly after Cruz arrived in the Senate in 2013. During a confirmation hearing for former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, Cruz implied, without offering evidence, that Hagel had received compensation from North Korea. That drew rebukes from fellow GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona.
Later that year, Cruz pushed for confrontation with President Barack Obama over the new health care law, coordinating with tea party conservatives in the House. Their strategy resulted in a 16-day partial government shutdown that caused the GOP's poll numbers to temporarily plummet.
In December 2014, Cruz again infuriated fellow Republicans when he kept the Senate in session in a failed bid to oppose Obama's immigration policies. This had the result of allowing Democrats to confirm a raft of Obama nominees, mostly lifetime judicial choices, who might otherwise have languished.
Last year, in a dramatic breach of decorum, Cruz delivered a floor speech in which he accused McConnell of lying about scheduling a vote on the federal Export-Import Bank. Senate leaders were livid and went so far as to block Cruz's routine request for a roll-call vote, something all but unheard-of.
___
Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed from Madison, Wisconsin, and Marc Levy contributed from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Should The Pentagon's Hesitancy On Guantanamo Be Praised Or Shunned

Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama's Effort to Close Guantanamo

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and detainee Tariq Ba Odah. (Getty Images and Reuters) 

Monday, 28 Dec 2015 11:41 AM

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 In September, U.S. State Department officials invited a foreign delegation to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to persuade the group to take detainee Tariq Ba Odah to their country. If they succeeded, the transfer would mark a small step toward realizing President Barack Obama's goal of closing the prison before he leaves office.

The foreign officials told the administration they would first need to review Ba Odah's medical records, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode. The Yemeni has been on a hunger strike for seven years, dropping to 74 pounds from 148, and the foreign officials wanted to make sure they could care for him.

For the next six weeks, Pentagon officials declined to release the records, citing patient privacy concerns, according to the U.S. officials. The delegation, from a country administration officials declined to identify, canceled its visit. After the administration promised to deliver the records, the delegation traveled to Guantanamo and appeared set to take the prisoner off U.S. hands, the officials said. The Pentagon again withheld Ba Odah's full medical file.

Today, nearly 14 years since he was placed in the prison and five years since he was cleared for release by U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, Ba Odah remains in Guantanamo.

In interviews with multiple current and former administration officials involved in the effort to close Guantanamo, Reuters found that the struggle over Ba Odah's medical records was part of a pattern. Since Obama took office in 2009, these people said, Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president's plan to close Guantanamo.

Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like "punching a pillow," said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials "would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument," he said. "And then nothing would happen."

Pentagon delays, he said, resulted in four Afghan detainees spending an additional four years in Guantanamo after being approved for transfer.

In other cases, the transfers of six prisoners to Uruguay, five to Kazakhstan, one to Mauritania and one to Britain were delayed for months or years by Pentagon resistance or inaction, officials said.

To slow prisoner transfers, Pentagon officials have refused to provide photographs, complete medical records and other basic documentation to foreign governments willing to take detainees, administration officials said. They have made it increasingly difficult for foreign delegations to visit Guantanamo, limited the time foreign officials can interview detainees and barred delegations from spending the night at Guantanamo.

Partly as a result of the Pentagon's maneuvers, it is increasingly doubtful that Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in the 2008 presidential election: to close the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama criticized President George W. Bush for having set up the prison for foreigners seized in the "War on Terror" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., and then keeping them there for years without trial.

When Obama took office, the prison held 242 detainees, down from a peak of about 680 in 2003. Today, with little more than a year remaining in his presidency, it still holds 107 detainees.

Pentagon officials denied any intentional effort to slow transfers.

"No foreign government or U.S. department has ever notified the Department of Defense that transfer negotiations collapsed due to a lack of information or access provided by the Department of Defense," said Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross, a U.S. Navy commander.

Myles Caggins, a White House spokesman, denied discord with the Pentagon. "We're all committed to the same goal: safely and responsibly closing the detention facility," Caggins said.

Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said in an interview that it was natural for the Pentagon to be cautious on transfers that could result in detainees rejoining the fight against U.S forces. "Look at where most of the casualties have come from -- it's the military," Hagel said.

The Pentagon's slow pace in approving transfers was a factor in President Obama's decision to remove Hagel in February, former administration officials said. And in September, amid continuing Pentagon delays, President Obama upbraided Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in a one-on-one meeting, according to administration officials briefed on the encounter.

Since then, the Pentagon has been more cooperative. Administration officials said they expect to begin transferring at least 17 detainees to foreign countries in January.

Military officials, however, continue to make transfers more difficult and protracted than necessary, administration officials said. In particular, they cite General John F. Kelly, in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, which includes Guantanamo. They said that Kelly, whose son was killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, opposes the president's policy of closing Guantanamo, and that he and his command have created obstacles for visiting delegations.

Kelly denied that he or his command has limited delegation visits. "Our staff works closely with the members of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay and Joint Task Force Guantanamo to support the visits of all foreign delegations," he said in a written statement, "and have never refused or curtailed one of these visits."

Even if Obama manages to transfer all low-risk detainees to other countries, closing Guantanamo won't be easy. Several dozen prisoners considered too dangerous to release would have to be imprisoned in the U.S., a step Republicans in Congress adamantly oppose because, they say, it would endanger American lives.

In a press conference earlier this month, Obama said he still hoped to strike a deal with Congress. He added, however, that he reserved the right to move the prisoners to the U.S. under his executive authority.

The Bush administration faced no political opposition on transfers and was able to move 532 detainees out of Guantanamo over six years, 35 percent of whom returned to the fight, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. The Obama administration has been able to transfer 131 detainees over seven years, 10 percent of whom have returned to the fight.

Priority From the Start
Two days after Obama was sworn in as president in 2009, he signed an executive order mandating an immediate review of all 242 detainees then held in Guantanamo and requiring the closure of the detention center. A year later, a task force that included the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously concluded that 156 detainees were low enough security threats to be transferred to foreign countries.

Members of Congress, meanwhile, seized on reports that transferred detainees had returned to the fight to demand that Guantanamo remain open.

Among those former detainees was Abdul Qayum Zakir, also known as "Mullah Zakir," who hid his identity from Guantanamo interrogators and became the Taliban's top military commander after his release. He was responsible for hundreds of American deaths after returning to Afghanistan, according to David Sedney, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009 to 2013.

In late 2010, Congress passed a law requiring the secretary of defense to personally certify to Congress that a released detainee "cannot engage or re-engage in any terrorist activity."

Detainee transfers out of Guantanamo slowed to a trickle. In 2011 and 2012, only a handful were released under an exception to the new law that allowed court-ordered releases to bypass the newly legislated requirements. By January 2013, the outlook was so bleak that the State Department shuttered the office tasked with handling the closure of Guantanamo.

Michael Williams, the former State Department deputy envoy for closing Guantanamo, said that during that period, William Lietzau, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy, "was not supportive of a Guantanamo closure policy" and an obstacle to transfers inside the Pentagon.

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Lietzau, who left his job in 2013, denied obstructing transfers. He said in many cases, delays resulted from his concerns about the ability of foreign countries to monitor transferred detainees. "You have guys who are cleared for transfer, but there is no way to get the assurances, so what do you do then?" Lietzau said.

In May 2013, President Obama unveiled a new push to close the prison. He appointed two new envoys, one at the Pentagon and one at the State Department, to oversee the prison's closure. One of their top priorities was to transfer as many prisoners as possible to countries willing to take them.

The State Department then proposed that four low-risk Afghan detainees be transferred back to Afghanistan. The four men -- Khi Ali Gul, Shawali Khan, Abdul Ghani and Mohammed Zahir -- then ranged in age from their early 40s to their early 60s. All had been at Guantanamo for seven years but never formally charged with a crime, and all had been cleared for release by the interagency review board years earlier.

In the case of Gul, State Department officials argued that he was almost certainly innocent. "The consensus was that he had never had any contact with the insurgency or al Qaeda," said Dobbins. "I can say with confidence we have captured, detained and released thousands of people who have done worse things than these four."

U.S. officials had offered in secret peace talks with the Taliban in 2012 to swap the four Afghans for captured American soldier Bowe Bergdahl. Taliban negotiators said they didn't want the four men because the four weren't senior Taliban members.

Afterwards, State Department officials began referring to them as the "JV four" or "Junior Varsity four," for their seeming lack of importance to Taliban fighters.

When the State Department added the four Afghans to a list of detainees prioritized for transfer in the summer of 2013, Defense Department officials resisted. At a meeting at the Pentagon, a mid-level Defense Department official said transferring the four "might be the president's priority, but it's not the Pentagon's priority or the priority of the people in this building," according to current and former administration officials present at the meeting.

With the White House's backing, the State Department moved forward. By spring 2014, the four Afghans were about to be sent home. Then, General Joseph Dunford, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the time, sent a memo to the State Department warning that the release of the four detainees would endanger his troops in Afghanistan.

When State Department officials read Dunford's memo, they realized he was citing intelligence about a different group of Afghans who were more senior Taliban. State Department officials pointed out the error, but it was too late. The transfer was halted.

Sedney, the former deputy defense secretary, said that there was broad resistance within the Pentagon to releasing the four Afghans because between 30 and 50 percent of the roughly 200 Afghan detainees repatriated by the Bush administration had rejoined the fight. The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai often freed detainees as soon as they returned home, Sedney said.

The four men were finally flown back to Afghanistan on Dec. 20, 2014 -- nearly five years after they were cleared for release. Since then, none have returned to the fight, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Gul declined a request for an interview. Zahir, now in his early 60s and one of the three Afghans considered low-level Taliban, works as a guard at a school in Kabul. He said that the primary evidence against him -- Taliban documents found in his home -- were from his work as an administrator in the Intelligence Ministry when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. He said that when American soldiers flew him to Afghanistan for release, one spoke with him briefly before handing him over to Afghan officials. "The American soldier tapped on my shoulder and said, 'I am sorry,' " Zahir said, adding: "I don't know why they kept me there for 13 long years without proving my guilt or crime."

Video Games

Pentagon obstacles delayed and nearly derailed other transfers. In early 2014, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev offered to take as many as eight Guantanamo detainees. The Central Asian leader, eager for a counterweight to an increasingly assertive Russia, hoped to strengthen his relationship with Washington.

Kazakhstani officials asked to send a delegation to Guantanamo for three days to videotape interviews with prisoners before deciding which ones to accept. Kazakhstani psychologists and intelligence experts wanted to study the interviews for signs of deception.

According to multiple current and former administration officials, Pentagon officials forbade the delegation to videotape the interviews, nixed plans for a multiday visit, ordered detainee interviews shortened, and put new restrictive classifications on documents requested by the Kazakhstanis.

Senior commanders at Joint Task Force Guantanamo -- the military unit responsible for administering the detention center -- said the visiting Kazakhstanis would be allowed one hour with each prisoner and one day at the detention center.

Allowing taped interviews had been common practice with foreign delegations. This time, the Pentagon banned them on the grounds that the practice would violate the Geneva Conventions' prohibition on using prisoners of war for "public curiosity."

After two weeks of failed talks, the Kazakhstanis said they were canceling the visit and wouldn't take any detainees. An alarmed White House intervened, ordering the Pentagon to compromise, according to current and former administration officials.

The Kazakhstanis would be allowed two hours with each detainee, the Pentagon said, and would be allowed to stay one night at Guantanamo. They said the Kazakhstanis would not be allowed to bring recording equipment with them. Instead, the U.S. military agreed to videotape the interviews and provide the Kazakhstanis with copies of the tapes. The Kazakhstanis visited the prison.

Six weeks later, the Kazakhstanis still hadn't received the videos. "They were calling us every couple of days, saying, 'Where are the videos?' " said an administration official.

The White House ordered the Pentagon to hand over the videos. The Pentagon complied, and sent the videos to the State Department, but with a new classified designation on it, "Secret/NOFORN," which means it is illegal to share the material with a foreign country. Administration officials complained again. Days later, the video came back with a more lenient classification. The video was sent to the Kazakhstanis.

Two days later, the Kazakhstanis called Washington. The videos had been processed to look as if it had been shot through dimpled glass. For the Kazakhstanis, who wanted to scrutinize detainees' body language and facial expressions, the videos were useless.

For a third time, White House officials intervened to force the Pentagon to compromise. Finally, in December, nearly a year after the process began, the five prisoners were transferred to Kazakhstan.

In private meetings, some Pentagon officials have been dismissive of Obama's policy. After the president publicly pledged early this year to respond to a five-year-old British request for the repatriation of British detainee Shaker Aamer, a senior Pentagon official mocked that vow at an interagency meeting on transfers.

"We will prioritize him -- right at the back of the line where he belongs," the Pentagon official said, according to an administration official present at the meeting. A senior NSC official snapped back: "That's not what the president meant." Aamer was transferred to Britain in October.

In autumn this year, a foreign government was invited to Guantanamo to interview eight detainees for possible transfer -- a process that can take several days. General Kelly's command, which oversees Guantanamo, instituted a new policy, suddenly banning the delegation from spending the night at the detention center, according to administration officials. (Officials declined to identify countries involved in transfer negotiations out of concern that doing so would jeopardize the process.)

As a result, the delegation was forced to commute 90 minutes by plane each morning and afternoon from Miami, adding tens of thousands of dollars in government plane bills to U.S. taxpayers. In December, the country decided to take no detainees.

During another foreign delegation's visit to Guantanamo in autumn, Kelly's command further cut interview times with detainees, to as little as 45 minutes each, making it harder for foreign officials to assess potential transfers.

Ba Odah, the hunger-striking detainee, is now in his late 30s. Multiple members of the National Security Council have intervened to demand that the Pentagon turn over his complete medical file. The Pentagon has held firm, citing patient privacy concerns.

Ba Odah's lawyer, Omar Farah, said the Pentagon's justification is baseless.

"Invoking privacy concerns is a shameless, transparent excuse to mask intransigence," Farah said. "Mr. Ba Odah has provided his full, informed consent to the release of his medical records."

© 2015 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Istanbul Paper Reports On ISIS Threat And Response By US Allies.

TURKEY AMONG HUGE COALITION AGAINST ISIS THREAT IN IRAQ, SYRIA

As the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition gradually gathers steam, Turkey's crucial support comes with major concern for the safety of its citizens in the hands of the terrorist group

• Mehmet Solmaz
• Updated : 11.09.2014 10:29:56
• Published : 10.09.2014 20:41:16

ISTANBUL — The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham's (ISIS) threat to the region, which was the core subject of the NATO summit held last week in Wales, led dozens of countries to pledge their support for a coalition force to fight against ISIS.

Ten countries have formed a coalition against ISIS on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Wales: the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Turkey and Canada as well as non-NATO member Australia. However, according to U.S. officials, more than 40 countries have agreed to be a part of the coalition, but those countries and their roles have not yet been disclosed. A security meeting was held in Ankara yesterday, chaired by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. While the meeting's content was not revealed, the coalition's possible action against the ISIS threat was discussed, according to sources from the Prime Ministry. Reportedly, officials discussed to what extent Turkey will aid the coalition against ISIS, which has held 49 of its citizens hostage for three months.

According to U.S. officials, Turkey is seen as a key to the coalition due to its proximity to the troubled regions of Syria and Iraq. After the two-day NATO Summit in Wales last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in Turkey to discuss Turkey's contribution to the U.S.-led coalition against the ISIS threat with Turkish officials.

The American president said that his administration has so far been focused on the problem of ISIS, assessing the situation on the ground. "The next phase is now to start going on the offensive," he said. "I will then meet with congressional leaders on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I'll make a speech and describe what our game plan's going to be going forward."

Speaking to Daily Sabah on Wednesday, Mehmet Özkan, foreign policy analyst at the Ankara-based Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), stated that a larger coalition that includes other Islamic countries means Turkey would not be the sole Muslim country to stand against ISIS's terror and that the participation of other Muslim countries also shows the religious perspective of the opposition against ISIS.

Pointing to Turkey's hostage issue in Iraq, Özkan said Western countries' outspoken expectations on the ISIS threat undermines the 49 citizens of a NATO state that are being held captive by the organization. He added that Turkey is likely to play its role in the coalition behind the scenes for the safety of its citizens.

Obama recently underlined that any offensive on ISIS would not include U.S. troops on the ground and noted that the U.S. will use proxies such as Kurdish forces, the Iraqi army and the moderate opposition in Syria. It will be a multipronged approach, including sharing intelligence, identifying and cutting funds, contributing to political efforts on the ground as well as airstrikes, he said. He also stated that the U.S. needs the support of other countries, especially Sunni ones, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Turkey. "They need to be involved. This is their neighborhood.
The dangers that are posed are more directed at them right now than they are at us. Our goal should not be to think that we can occupy every country where there's a terrorist organization," Obama said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in the Middle East in an effort to form the coalition, while President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have had phone calls with several leaders to discuss the issue. Kerry said a coalition against ISIS militants would need to be durable. "Our global coordinated campaign with a global coordinated coalition will be built not just in a matter of days or weeks, but it will be built to endure for the months and perhaps even the years to come," the top U.S. diplomat said at a press conference ahead of his trip.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday the international community would not sit and watch Islamic State grow and identified Iraq as a key partner in the fight against the group. "We all have an interest in supporting the new government of Iraq at this particular critical junction," Kerry told reporters. "The coalition that is at the heart of our global strategy I assure you will continue to grow and deepen in the days ahead..."
Speaking to his counterparts during the two-day NATO summit in Wales, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized ally countries for not taking effective necessary measures to stop its citizens from leaving their countries to join ISIS in war-torn Syria and Iraq, both of which border Turkey. Addressing the heads of NATO member countries, Erdoğan said that keeping silent about massacres by regimes in the region is paving the way for terrorist organizations, and thus, necessary measures should immediately be taken with a determination to confront terror activities that threaten global security and stability.

Complaining about Turkey's Western allies' insufficient efforts in combatting ISIS, which has displaced and killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Syria, Erdoğan told British Prime Minister David Cameron that Turkey had taken all necessary measures. He later told Cameron that Turkey had blocked all foreign citizens whose names were given by the countries from which they held the passports from entering Syria and Iraq. He then said ISIS is more popular in Western countries, and the issue should be questioned by the authorities of these countries. "These people [ISIS recruits] were educated and raised in your country," Erdoğan reportedly told Cameron.

Ali Ünal contributed to this report

Will ISIS Attack US And Europe This Year?

Saudi King: West Will be Jihadists' Next Target

Saturday, 30 Aug 2014 09:05 AM

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King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is "rapid" action.
"If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month," he said in remarks quoted on Saturday by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station.
"Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East," said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a new envoy from Saudi ally the United States.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has prompted widespread concern as it advances in both Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of people, including in gruesome beheadings and mass executions.
Lack of action would be "unacceptable" in the face of the phenomenon, King Abdullah said.
"You see how they (jihadists) carry out beheadings and make children show the severed heads in the street," he said, condemning the "cruelty" of such acts.
"It is no secret to you, what they have done and what they have yet to do. I ask you to transmit this message to your leaders: 'Fight terrorism with force, reason and (necessary) speed'."
President Barack Obama has yet to decide whether the United States should launch raids against positions held by the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria to follow US air strikes on IS activities in Iraq.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called Friday for a global coalition to combat Islamic State fighters' "genocidal agenda".
Writing in the New York Times, Kerry said he and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet European counterparts on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales next week, to enlist assistance.
They will then travel on to the Middle East to build support "among the countries that are most directly threatened".
"With a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread to other countries," Kerry said in Friday's op-ed piece.
Asharq Al-Awsat said the king urged other countries to join the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre, set up in 2011 to respond to new threats, and to which Saudi Arabia has made a grant of $100 million.
wak-tm/anw/pdh

© AFP 2014

Think This Administration Loves The Military? Think Again!

While a Military Daughter Buries Her 2-Star General Daddy, the Commander-in-Least is Nowhere to Be Found

248,894Shares By Michael Hausam 2 days ago

When two-star Major General Harold Greene, the highest-ranking officer killed in combat since Vietnam, was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, neither the President nor the Vice President were present.

The nominal Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama was playing a round at the Vineyard Golf Club with Valerie Jarrett’s cousin, Cyrus Walker, the World Bank president and former President of Dartmouth College Jim Kim, and former lobbyist and ambassador Ron Kirk.

The clownish Joe Biden was in the middle of the third day of a week long vacation in the Hamptons, which followed a week in Wyoming, which was preceded by a week at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

Was this noticed? Yes, it was:

Colonel Morris Davis was the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo under George Bush, a 25-year Air Force veteran, and an Assistant Professor at Harvard. His tweet referenced the two most recent high-ranking military deaths, that of Major General John Dillard, Jr. who was shot down and killed in 1970 in Vietnam, and Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, who was killed in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

While America has lost a two-star General who has served in a war the president has waged questionably, the Commander-in-Chief could not show the common decency to honor him with his presence.

Instead, President Obama showed it was more important to play yet another round with well-connected elites, as the nation grieves and families suffer. The disconnect could not be more profound.