Beltway Insider: Obama/ISIS/Syria/Turkey Update; Election 2016; Brie Larson

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Category: Beltway Insider

Published on Sunday, 28 February 2016 20:55

Written by Janet Walker

President Obama, speaking at the State Department, admitted his original estimation of the Islamic State was incorrect and even with a global coalition a greater enemy than previously thought, and as ISIS remains entrenched, he remains confident they will be destroyed.

According to Gallup, President Obama's job approval, over the past week, remained consistent with 48% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President also remained consistent at 47%.

Obama/ISIS/Syria/Turkey Update

President Obama's Special Envoy to the Global Counter-ISIS Coalition, Brett McGurk, joined White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest to brief the media on the strategy of the coalition partners and the United States in the current effort to dismantle and ultimately destroy the Islamic State Organization.

McGurk, began the briefing with a few key understandings of how the Islamic State organization is delineated. Several important facts came through the briefings.

The first and most noticeable was the simple fact of time. McGurk exhaustively briefed the media through multiple tiers of the terror organization.

Key takeaways from the press conference included the complexity of the organization, a new, delineated definition of ISIS, determined networks and what each of these terror units organize and its partners and wartime strategy.

"I can't overstate the complexity of this and yet despite that, we now have some real traction against this very serious enemy," McGurk said.

Islamic State Definition

The agreed on definition of the Islamic State organization has been determined as "it's a global organization; that's why we've built a global coalition of 66 partners to combat it.  It's really defined as the core in Iraq and Syria, the phony, self-proclaimed caliphate.  There are then networks -- global networks, propaganda networks, foreign-fighter networks, financing networks -- so we've kind of gotten a handle on those. And then affiliates, about eight of them around the world," McGurk said.

Network Delineations

Within the global terror organization that makes up the whole of ISIS is extremely well organized with a definite hierarchal system. Each of these units within the whole have duties and responsibilities.  The Islamic State main headquarters are now located in Raqqa, Syria.

War plans essentially are conducted within the Raqqa units. Terrorist attacks such as Paris are planned and coordinated form this area. ISIS has developed into an intelligent enemy either through instruction of other known global enemies and adoption of policies within its main unit that is often the case in war.

Islamic State leaders are never housed in the same place. Networks within the organization, propaganda networks, financing, training, missions now each separate units and separately housed in various areas around Syria.

Win, Lose, Draw

Providing the media with a color coded map of the operations, how they are determined, the Russians who recently entered into a partnership which appears to be a double-agent type of effort as the recent bombings have targeted civilian and rebel strongholds of Aleppo, and most recently have bombed the main corridor between Aleppo and Turkey.

When questioned over the miscalculation responses have been vague or non-existent and according to the map which can be seen online, the Russian have cut off one of the main humanitarian corridors, which severely limits supplies to Syrian citizen.

 "Just to situate this map real quick -- orange is areas that ISIL controls.  Green are areas that they've lost over the last 18 months, so you can see the constriction of the areas they used to control.  And red are areas in which they've actually made some gains.  So just to the west of this number one is where they've tried to push out, and we call that the Mar'a line.  They've been trying to push out there for about a year.  We think we've halted that flow," McGurk said.

According to McGurk, ISIS has continued it momentum to overtake specific towns and areas within Syria essentially becoming the second wave campaign the rebel fighters have to fight against.

The Islamic State has essentially carved out a country from the northeast portions of Syria, portion of Iraq and portions of Turkey. The philosophy is similar to the Russian's annexation of sovereignty of the Ukraine.

Islamic State has moved closer and closer to claiming a portion of the Turkish countryside, near the Manbij pocket, which is about 61 miles along the Turkish/Syrian border. The United States military and coalition partner Turkey have concentrated efforts on this portion of the Turkish border to push back the advancement of ISIS. For the most part all agree it is working.

McGurk focused on four separate area the Manbij pocket, which centers on the Turkish border. Number two is Raqqa, the location of the main headquarters, where wartime planning and strategy are conducted.

"It's where we think most of the leaders are.  It's where plots like Paris are planned and coordinated.  And so, therefore, we are focused on eliminating the enemy in Raqqa every single day.  We're doing airstrikes there constantly, but most importantly, not just the military part, we're fusing information from across the government and, most importantly, from across the coalition about what we know about this enemy -- about how it finances itself, how it communicates, how it funds itself.  We know more now than we ever did before, and we're beginning to constrict its hold on Raqqa," McGurk said.

Number three Tishreen Dam and simultaneous the town of al-Shaddadi which was primarily Kurdish ad then taken over.  Stopping access to the Dam was a major offensive of the coalition and finally realized the adjoining town, held by ISIS and in desperate need of liberation. The liberation of al-Shaddai began recently.

Number four was Sinjar, the main connector between Raqqa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq. Al-Shaddadi was the center point between these two areas. Cutting off access was a necessity to stopping access to both Raqqa and Mosul.

Mosul continues to be a stronghold for ISIS, despite the weakening for the infrastructure of their organization.

The information presented by Special envoy was so exhausted even he decided to move along to cover more territory and shifting the focus form the ongoing battle, civilian bombings to success stories.

Number seven is the city of Tikrit, overtaken by ISIS in the summer of 2014. The horror stories that follow an ISIS takeover, including mass massacres, entire towns fleeing into the surrounding mountains hoping to hide out until they can return.

Tirkit, according to McGurk has become the desired success story with 90 t0 99 percent of the population relocated back into their homes and stabilizing the region. The difficulty remains of course after war and the atrocities often witnessed. Returning displaced peoples to their homes is one thing easing the loss and assisting in the PTSD is another.

Humanitarian assistance is also slow and the United Nations have taken up some of the responsibility and all partners are working to assist slowly, piece by piece, in ensuring he land is demined, that no uprising or insurgence flare up.

Also Beltway Insider: Obama Failed Policy; Election 2016/Super Tuesday; Scalia Funeral; Ray Charles

 Election 2016 – Hillary's Decisive Win Burns Bernie's Campaign

The 2016 Presidential race, oddly, seems to be winnowing down to the presumptive democratic challenger Hillary Rodham Clinton and the unlikely and surprising Republican choice New York Real Estate mogul billionaire developer Donald J. Trump.

Super Tuesday, where Clinton and Trump are both highly favored to walk away with the Lion's share of the delegates will use the foundation Super Tuesday provides to positon themselves for securing the nominations later this year.

Ms. Clinton, who interested the race with few challengers, has found Vermont senator Bernie Sanders formidable until South Carolina's decisive primary win.

Winning more than 75% of the vote, South Carolina set the pace for the African American demographic. Ms. Clinton's long relationship with minorities, civil rights groups and the disenfranchised dates back to her days.

Clinton emerged as expected as the delegate leader with 91 awarded, through the primary process and 453 pledged by Superdelegate holders, bringing her total to 544 delegates of the 2383 needed to win, outright the nomination.

Sanders has 85 awarded delegates and no Superdelegate. He is expected to win Vermont on Super Tuesday.

Donald Trump has 82 awarded delegates and no Superdelegates. Ted Cruz has 17 awarded delegates and Marco Rubio, 16. No republican candidates have any Superdelegates.

Crystal Ball prediction have Clinton winning 11 of the 12 states on Tuesday with Senator Sanders winning his home state of Vermont.

The same predictors have Donald Trump winning 11 of the 12 states with Senator Ted Cruz winning his home state of Texas.

Brie Larson: A Reluctant and Unknown Champion of The Missing Woman

Brie Larson, the actress who brought the character of "Ma" to life in the film titled Room, based on the book of the same name by Emma Donoghue has just won her first Oscar for a portrayal that has had critics bowled over, cheering since the pre-release screenings.

Larson, 26, whose portrayal of the imprisoned, serially raped, abused, beaten and broken down "Ma" has received acclaim throughout the world and garnered her every award possible in this awards season including the BAFTA, the foreign press association's Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild and the Spirit Award.

The role tells the tragic story of a girl gone missing and held captive for seven years, the last five with her son, born in captivity from rape played by Jacob Trembley, who acts as narrator.

Larson, at some points in the film seems to have given herself over to her life in captivity, the horrors of slavery, of imprisonment. And other times her fighting will takes over as she and her son scream hoping the aliens will hear. For those who haven't seen the film it is stunning.

Statistically, women go missing by the millions across the globe. The United Nations lists the number at a staggering 113million to 200million women around the world are in a missing category. Each year 1.5 to 3 million women lose their lives as a result of gender based violence or neglect.

In a world where the debate rages whose lives matter more, statically women across the globe are considered the lesser in the debate. In third world countries boy children are a prize, girl children a burden and are often neglected. The genocide of women and girls around the globe has been compared to the Holocaust.

In the United States women who are missing are categorized by race. Natalie Wilson, the Co-founder of the Black and missing foundation states that nearly 64,000 black women are currently missing in the United States and rarely receive media attention. Missing Black women, until patterns of similarities become evident are often disregarded. The poverty line, of which many fall under, is the defining line in media attention.

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons system (NamUs) there are as many as 661,593 active Missing Persons cases in the United States at any given time. Many are under the age of 18. Adults are free to vanish should they choose and many do. Elderly wander off; which is considered missing and high priority.

According to the FBI the "typical child victim of abduction or murder is a white female who is 11 years old."  Teenagers are often targeted for many reasons; predators choose victims with intent of breaking them down; long term hostage situations should result in the imprisoned being mentally unable to cope and suicide is often the only perceived out.

Room details the story of a young suburbanite high school track and field star, helpful, kind, in a typical push pull relationship with her mother BT. Suddenly snatched she becomes a name and number in an overloaded system.

The story of triumph, of the ability to escape to outwit a captor, mental or physical, is a testament to the human spirit.

Hopefully, as society has embraced the story of Room, which was based on an actual imprisonment, others, survivors, everywhere, will come forward and finally escape the mental prison that silence holds.

Silence equals violence. Refuse to be held hostage by the past.

For more information on President Barack Obama: www.whitehouse.gov

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Wikipedia.com,

#JeSuisParis