JUNE 12, 2016
WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
1:59 P.M.
The massacre in Orlando has embarrassed President Barack Obama.
Less than one day after the deadly attack, he stands before a lectern in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, broadcasting live on national television. The Pulse murders have shocked America, and the president has no choice but to address the issue. He will call the shooting an “act of terror” and decry the targeting of the gay community.
Anti-Obama media in America have already resurrected his “JV” comments about ISIS made in January 2014. That was two years ago. Since then, the terrorists have declared the formation of a caliphate and have murdered at least 150 Americans in separate attacks.
Today’s speech does not mark Obama’s first attempt to confront ISIS. Almost a year ago, in July 2015, he warned the nation about the grave terror threat. “This is a long-term campaign,” the president stated then, using words that will be eerie in their prescience after the murders at Pulse. “ISIL has been particularly effective at reaching out to—and recruiting—vulnerable people around the world, including here in the United States.… The threat of lone wolves or small cells is complex—it’s harder to detect and harder to prevent. It’s one of the most difficult challenges we face. And preventing these kinds of attacks on American soil is going to require sustained effort.”*
However, the American people are in no mood for more rhetoric. They are angry that an ISIS killer could murder so many innocent people, while the terrorists celebrate worldwide. In four days, Mr. Obama will give yet another speech, this time at a memorial in Orlando. But this time, he will try to deflect the issue from ISIS to gun control.
The approach does not work. America is electing a new president in November, and top Republican contender Donald Trump, a real estate magnate from New York City, is publicly blaming Obama for the shootings. “We’re led by a man who’s not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump will state at a Manchester, New Hampshire, rally. The Republican calls for Mr. Obama to resign immediately, noting that the president refused to use the words “radical Islamic terrorism” in his address to the nation.†
Politics aside, it is clear most American citizens want the president of the United States to punish ISIS.
Barack Obama has, in fact, dealt harshly with the murderous group. In the past two years, the United States has spent $7.5 billion in military allocations to battle the caliphate. US forces launched thousands of air strikes in Iraq and Syria and assassinated more than 120 ISIS leaders—all in an attempt to defeat the terror organization.
Despite that, ISIS remains on the offensive.
An intense man who does not readily accept most criticism, President Obama well understands he must step up the pressure. Knowing the American people are opposed to sending ground troops into the Middle East, he has adopted a two-pronged strategy against ISIS.
The first method is using quick-strike Special Forces—units from the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, and Army Green Berets—to attack strategic targets. With their minimal battlefield footprint and high level of training, Special Forces operators are more effective than large numbers of troops. These elite units are the smallest groups within the US military, allotted just 2 percent of the nation’s defense budget.
But they are the most lethal—as Osama bin Laden found out.
The second, more controversial aspect of President Obama’s antiterrorism policy is the use of drones. Pilotless aircraft, also known as UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles), have been a part of warfare since the seventeenth century, when Austria used unmanned hot-air balloons to bomb Venice. By the early twentieth century, drones were radio-controlled, meaning the operator had to be relatively close to the aircraft to direct it. Today, satellite technology makes it possible to control a drone’s flight path from enormous distances. And whereas spy planes like the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird flew over an area at a high rate of speed, a modern drone can circle high overhead around the clock—sending video that allows intelligence officials to monitor a situation in real time. Also, drones can go where normal soldiers cannot, monitoring rugged mountain ranges and tribal lands to gather intel or carry out an assassination.*
But perhaps the most significant upgrade is that drones can now launch missiles—a development used by the US Air Force and the CIA during the hunt for bin Laden. The Predator and Reaper drones were originally built for surveillance and intelligence gathering. The Predator has a range of 1,200 miles and is operated by a pilot halfway around the world. First introduced during the Clinton administration in the 1990s for use in the former nation of Yugoslavia, they were almost immediately deployed over Afghanistan in the days after 9/11. Now, in addition to bristling with communications gear and cameras, they are armed—capable of firing five-foot-long air-to-ground AGM-114 Hellfire II missiles with ease.* Some experts claim the Predator drone is the greatest new invention to appear on the battlefield since the intercontinental ballistic missile.
President George W. Bush made frequent use of drones during his eight years in office, waging war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Barack Obama is seen by some as pursuing a less aggressive foreign policy. But the truth is, he has ordered twice as many drone strikes as Bush. By the time Obama leaves office, he will have utilized drones to rain down death from the sky 1,878 times. The reach of their power has expanded to include Yemen and Somalia—nations with which the United States is not at war. The president also keeps a personal “kill list” of deadly terrorists. Targets are separated into “personality” strikes for top leadership and “signature” attacks on training facilities or terrorist compounds.
The current focus of Obama’s kill list is the ongoing ISIS expansion into Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mullah Akhtar Mansour, a former Taliban official thought to be joining forces with the Islamic State, was assassinated just one month ago—vaporized on a rural farm road, his Toyota Corolla a flaming wreck after being struck by two Hellfire missiles. The cleric was driving the N-40 national highway in Pakistan. Photographs will show green fields, a dusty highway, and a single mangled vehicle burning alongside the road.
The mission played out to perfection, with US forces electronically intercepting Mansour’s location and then sending Reaper drones to first evade Pakistani radar and ultimately kill the terrorist. The assassination was not completely authorized until President Obama gave the go-ahead.
The same fate will soon befall Hafiz Saeed Khan, ISIS commander in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the wake of his forces engaging the US Army for the first time, a battle that saw three hundred terrorists die and five Americans wounded, intelligence pinpointed Khan as the instigator. The once-senior Taliban leader switched his loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014, marking an uptick in ISIS’s power throughout the region. A subsequent suicide bombing at a Pakistani hospital, which killed 74 people, confirmed the expanding reach of the Islamic State. In addition, 80 people were killed and 250 wounded in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 24—another ISIS suicide attack. All of this is traced back to Hafiz Saeed Khan. On July 26, 2016, Khan is riding in a small station wagon through the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, a known training center for ISIS fighters. The sun is hot, and Khan feels no threat. All at once, a missile enters the vehicle through the rear hatchback window, blowing Khan into unidentifiable pieces.
The action was personally authorized by President Obama.
The average drone strike kills six victims, with targets including motorcycles, sports utility vehicles, cars, homes, and compounds. For this reason, terrorists are often killed while in the presence of their families and friends. This is what happened to the ISIS killer of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig.
Nicknamed “Jihadi John” by someone on social media, the Kuwaiti-born British citizen epitomizes the brutal terror outfit in a very personal way.
The brutality of his murders, as well as the fact that he wore a mask and did not offer his name, fascinated many around the world. US intelligence soon learned that Jihadi John was really Mohammed Emwazi, a twenty-seven-year-old terrorist who once dreamed of being an international soccer star.
On November 12, 2015, Emwazi is visiting family and friends in the Syrian city of Raqqa. Unbeknownst to the ISIS killer, three drones—two British and one American—have been tracking his movements for several days. Emwazi’s location within the populous city concerns intelligence officials, who do not want civilian casualties. So, it is decided to wait until he departs.
That evening, drones pick up Emwazi exiting a building, accompanied by a friend. Of course, he is oblivious to the fact that his death warrant has been signed.
The US drone, an MQ-9 Reaper with a sixty-six-foot wingspan, launches two Hellfire missiles. Unlike the men he beheaded, who well knew that they would suffer a gruesome death, Emwazi does not suffer—he is dead before he knows the missiles have struck his car. Emwazi’s friend is killed as well. There is nothing left of their bodies.
Upon announcing the successful assassination of the much-loathed Jihadi John, the US command will state that he was “evaporated,” and the mission “flawless.” In fact, American broadcaster Lester Holt of NBC openly showed his enthusiasm for the killing on the air.
But it is a fact that sometimes drones strike the wrong target. Many terrorists have been declared dead, only to reappear quite alive later on. So the American military downplays the action—awaiting confirmation that the ISIS terrorist is, in fact, dead. “It will take time to definitely declare we had success,” states a Pentagon spokesman.
Two months later, the world has its answer: ISIS finally acknowledges the death of Mohammed Emwazi.
Despite these antiterrorist successes, ISIS still flourishes. And the drones may be part of the reason why, as some mistargeted attacks are giving the jihadists propaganda opportunities.
During President Obama’s first days in office, a drone strike accidentally killed tribal elders rather than Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. That rattled Mr. Obama. But he has since come to accept this “collateral damage” as the cost of protecting America. Even so, the Obama administration did not admit to the use of drones until 2012.
And so it is that Barack Obama has one hellacious problem on his hands.
“The American people find themselves living in a world plagued with more terrorism than before Obama took office, not less,” notes Foreign Affairs magazine. “Most worrisome is the emergence in Iraq and Syria of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, whose ability to capture and hold territory, significant financial resources, and impressive strategic acumen make it a threat unlike any other the United States has faced in the contemporary era.”
But it’s not only the United States that is under siege. Western Europe is a closer battlefield, and easier for ISIS terrorists to access. And a terrible blow is about to be dealt to the biggest target in Europe: London.