Doubts About U.S. vs. ISIS

As you know, McClatchy reporters (then with Knight Ridder) were among the few that seriously questioned to Bush evidence on WMD and Saddam.  Now one of them, Jonathan Landay, and another stellar longtimer there, Hannah Allam, warn that Obama's plans to combat ISIS revealed today promises many years of military and other U.S. involvement. "Even limited success for this new effort, analysts say, hinges on an unenviable to-do list for the Obama administration: foster cozier relations with Iran, gamble on the so-called 'moderate' Syrian rebels, strong-arm Iraq’s Shiite Muslim leaders into power-sharing with the Sunni Muslim minority, and persuade Sunni-ruled nations in the Persian Gulf region not to undermine the whole effort by striking out on their own."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/05...
James Risen (above left) the heralded investigative reporter--possibly heading to prison thanks to the Obama anti-leak offensive--recently joined Twitter, just in time to raise necessary questions on his feed about the current media push for war, of some kind, against ISIS.  He says it reminds him of the run-up to the Iraq war in certain ways (and for more of that, see my timely-again book on Iraq and the media).  I've been raising questions myself for weeks.   Here are some of his tweets from the past few days at @JamesRisen:

The fact that U.S. intelligence assesses that ISIS poses no current threat to the US is repeatedly ignored by politicians and the media.

This does remind me of the late 2002- early 2003 pre-war period.

War fever in America always seems to develop in pretty much the same way. Over and over again.

For American hawks, the dateline is always MUNICH, September 30th, 1938 --

After 13 years of GWOT, you would think the fact that Islamist groups debate near enemy/far enemy would at least be discussed here.

America marched blindly into Baghdad. And now seems intent on a rerun.