Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham - ISIS - GRAPHIC PG. 15

American Female Hostage Killed in Jordanian Airstrike, ISIS Claims
Posted 9:24 AM, February 6, 2015, by CNN Wire, Updated at 09:43am, February 6, 2015
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The Jordanian military has struck hard at ISIS targets in Syria, parts of its efforts to avenge the death of one of its pilots. But did it end up killing an American hostage in the process?

That’s what ISIS said in online posting Friday, claiming that a female American it was holding captive had died in a Jordanian airstrike on its de facto capital, Raqqa. The posting include a picture of a collapsed building that ISIS claimed the woman was being held.

But it did not show her, or provide any proof of her death.

Jordanian Interior Minister Hussein Majali swiftly and firmly knocked down the ISIS report, calling it “another PR stunt by ISIS.”

“They tried to cause problems internally in Jordan and haven’t succeeded,” Majali said. “They are now trying to drive a wedge between the coalition with this latest low PR stunt.”

Previously, ISIS has held a number of hostages from the United States, Britain and Japan. As of now, at least two Westerners were thought to be in its custody: British journalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in a number of ISIS-produced videos, and an American woman who is a 26-year-old aid worker.

Most of ISIS’s hostages have been executed by the terror group, which then touted the grisly deaths online.

That was the case for Jordanian pilot Lt. Moath al-Kasasbeh, who was captured by the Islamist extremist group after his F-16 fighter jet crashed while on an anti-ISIS mission near Raqqa. Video emerged Tuesday of ISIS burning him alive, outraging Jordan and others around the world.

Yet, while that video only came out this week, Jordanian officials said later that have reason to believe al-Kasasbeh was actually killed in early January. In the interim, ISIS had suggested that he was still alive while signaling its openness to a prisoner exchange with Jordan.

Jordan executed two jihadist prisoners in retaliation on Wednesday.

Pilot’s death stirs outrage

The Jordanian pilot’s death, and the horrific manner in which it happened, spurred outrage in Jordan and beyond.

Safi al-Kasasbeh, Moath’s father, called on Jordan and its allies to “annihilate” ISIS. Government officials appear, at least in their rhetoric, determined to do just that.

“(Jordan will extract) revenge that equals the tragedy that has befallen the Jordanians,” government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said.

Jordan began that process Wednesday, executing the two imprisoned jihadists. The next day, it launched its first strikes since the news emerged about al-Kasasbeh.

The late pilot’s father said that King Abdullah II told him 30 Jordanian warplanes participated in Thursday’s action, which were focused in and around Raqqa.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many jets took part in Friday’s airstrikes, or what they managed to achieve. The anti-ISIS activist group, “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently,” reported warplanes in that Syrian city as well as loud explosions, releasing a photo of dark smoke rising above.

At the very least, the latest strikes prove that Jordan’s mission, dubbed “Moath the Martyr,” is not a one-day affair.

Sermonizing against ISIS, supporting the fight

Until now, ISIS hasn’t shown any inclination to back down. Just the opposite, in fact: The terror group has been relentless and brutal in its quest to establish a vast caliphate under its strict, twisted version of Sharia law.

The organization’s savagery seemingly knows no bounds, not only in its use of captives’ killings as grisly propaganda tools but in its campaign of mass killings, rapes, kidnappings and other atrocities while taking over swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Just this week, a U.N. report claimed ISIS has stepped up its use of children in its bloody campaign, even putting price tags on some and selling them as slaves.

Al-Kasasbeh’s killing was an attempt by ISIS “to instill terror and fear in the hearts of its enemies,” making them less willing to provoke or put up a fight, says a prominent Sunni Muslim cleric who has been exiled from Syria.

“What’s happening is the opposite,” Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour this week. “The martyrdom of Moath has united Muslims … against ISIS, leaving no slight room of doubt that these people do not represent Islam. They represent savagery, terrorism and extremism.”

That seems to be the sentiment in Jordan, at least, where citizens rallied again Friday in Amman to honor al-Kasasbeh and condemn his killers.

Thousands filled the King Hussein Mosque there, listening to a sermon decrying ISIS as antithetical to Islam and insisting that Muslims cannot stand idly by.

After prayers, crowds spilled out onto the streets to march calmly and defiantly toward Palm Square. Many held up banners and signs — including Queen Rania, with a poster that read, “Moath, the martyr of justice” — and chanted, “Long live the King.”

‘We are upping the ante’

Such public support for the effort to destroy ISIS is significant in the Middle East, given the terrorist group’s stated goal of establishing a pure Islamic state and the fact the United States is leading the international coalition fighting against it.

For weeks, Jordan had been one of a handful of nations in the region taking part in the U.S.-led fight.

That campaign is continuing, with the U.S. military announcing Friday — apart from Jordan’s own actions — nine airstrikes targeting ISIS tactical units and fighting positions near the northern Syrian border city of Kobani and another strike of storage and staging facilities in Hasakah.

Also, in Iraq, Kurdish and Iraqi fighters on the ground are getting help from their coalition partners in the air. Between 8 a.m. (midnight ET) Thursday and Friday, local time, the American military reported eight airstrikes on five Iraqi locations.

Still, Jordan has come to the fore among coalition members in its pursuit of ISIS. And that doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon.

The armed forces promised Thursday on state TV that “this is just the beginning.”

“We are upping the ante,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told CNN. “We’re going after them wherever they are, with everything that we have.”

Quote:

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Originally Posted by American Patriot

AH!

News will NOT report the name. The WH ACCIDENTALLY released the name of the alleged hostage (of course).

---

They just reported her name.

Kayla Mueller.

She's been missing months. Hasn't been heard from for months. There's been NO indication she was being held hostage. There's been no proof of life about her in months.

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ISIS Claims Female American Hostage, Kayla Mueller, Killed in Airstrike

Feb 6, 2015, 11:54 AM ET
By BRIAN ROSS, LEE FERRAN and RYM MOMTAZ Brian Ross More from Brian »
ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent

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Associate Producer

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http://a.abcnews.com/images/Internat...6_16x9_992.jpg Kayla Mueller, an aid worker, was held by the terror group ISIS.
The Daily Courier








The terror group ISIS released a statement today claiming that Kayla Mueller, a female American hostage the group had been holding, was killed in a Jordanian airstrike recently.


The statement, which circulated on Twitter, said an airstrike outside Raqqa, Syria killed the 26-year-old Mueller. The statement used Mueller’s full name, which had not been public.


The claim could not be immediately confirmed and ISIS did not provide photographic evidence of Mueller’s death, as the group has in the past with other hostages and its own fighters.



ISIS Expands Into Libya While Bedeviling World With Latest Hostage Drama


New ISIS Video Purports to Show Beheading of Japanese Reporter


Digital Feature: What Is ISIS?


http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Inter..._lf_150206.jpgMueller Family



PHOTO: Kayla Mueller, from Arizona, was kidnapped in Syria in August 2013.




A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said they have “not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s claim,” using an alternate acronym for the terror group.


A Jordanian official told ABC News ISIS's claim was "illogical" and was part of the terror group's public relations campaign. "We need to be very careful not to fall in their trap," the official said.


Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, called ISIS's claim "an old and sick trick."


"So they behead innocent #US #UK & Japan hostages & BURN a brave #jordan pilot ALIVE & now a hostage is killed by an airstrike? Sure! Sick!" Judeh said on Twitter, referring to previous atrocities apparently committed on camera by ISIS fighters.


The ISIS statement appeared to contain some discrepancies, including Thursday’s date on accompanying pictures purportedly showing the building that was struck, while the statement claimed the strikes occurred during Friday prayers. ISIS also claimed Mueller was the only person killed in that particular airstrike, with none of its fighters injured or killed.


Officials believe ISIS has misled the public before about the fate of hostages. The Jordanian government said ISIS killed a Jordanian pilot the terror group was holding a month ago, even though the terror group pretended he was alive during hostages negotiations last week.


Mueller, from Prescott, Ariz., was kidnapped Aug. 4 after leaving a Spanish Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria, according to information provided by a family spokesperson.


She had graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2009 and “has devoted her career to helping those in need in countries around the world,” the family spokesperson said.


Mueller told her town's local newspaper, The Daily Courier, she felt called to help those suffering the most in the midst of the Syrian conflict.


“For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal,” she said in the May 2013 report. “[I will not let this be] something we just accept… It’s important to stop and realize what we have, why we have it and how privileged we are. And from that place, start caring and get a lot done.”

6 February 2015 Last updated at 14:18

Islamic State crisis: Thousands rally in Jordan




"Tribes from around Jordan are here to express solidarity and support to the armed forces," says the BBC's Issam Ikirmawi in Amman





Thousands have rallied in Jordan's capital, Amman, in support of their government's military response to the killing of a Jordanian fighter pilot by Islamic State (IS) militants.


Among those marching was Jordan's first lady, Queen Rania, who told the BBC the country was "united in our horror".


Jordan says its warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes on IS targets on Thursday in response to the killing.


The country's foreign minister said it was "upping the ante" against IS.


Until now, Arab states have only been involved in a fraction of the US-led air campaign against the militants.


The focus of Jordan's air strikes is reported to be Raqqa, the IS stronghold in Syria.


Local activists and IS sympathisers reported fresh strikes in the city on Friday, but these have not been confirmed by officials.


'This is our war'

On Friday morning, crowds gathered outside the capital's al-Husseini mosque after weekly prayers, waving Jordanian flags and pictures of the murdered pilot, Moaz al-Kasasbeh.


Some held placards that read: "Yes to punishment. Yes to the eradication of terrorism", the AFP news agency reported.



Queen Rania of Jordan: "We cannot win this war alone, but it is absolutely our war"



Queen Rania said Lt Kasasbeh's killing had made Jordanians "determined to rid the world of this evil".


Some internal critics have criticised Jordanian involvement, but she said: "This is absolutely Jordan's war, it is every Muslim's war... We can't win this war alone but it is absolutely our war."


Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said Thursday's strikes were "the beginning of our retaliation" against IS.
A video of Lt Kasasbeh, 26, being burned alive in a cage was posted online by IS earlier this week.
He was captured by the militants in December after his F-16 fighter jet crashed in Syria. The video is believed to have been filmed on 3 January.
Jordan had previously only bombed IS sites in Syria, but Mr Judeh said it was now also targeting IS in Iraq.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...25748395-1.jpg Queen Rania was among thousands to take to the streets of Amman
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...25748567-1.jpg Many of those rallying carried images of the murdered pilot
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...609a5c36cd.jpg Lt Moaz al-Kasasbeh had been held hostage since his plane came down on 24 December
After Thursday's strikes, Jordanian war planes flew over Lt Kasasbeh's home village of Aya, near the city of Karak, south of Amman.
Their flight coincided with a visit to the village by King Abdullah II, who was meeting the pilot's family.
King Abdullah, sitting sombre-faced with Saif al-Kasasbeh, the pilot's father, was said to have gestured to the skies as the warplanes flew overhead.
The army said in a statement that "dozens of jet fighters" had struck IS targets, including training camps and weapons warehouses.
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Footage released by the Jordanian military shows air strikes against IS

State television showed people writing messages on what appeared to be missiles for the air strikes, with one calling IS "the enemies of Islam".
On Friday, jihadi cleric Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, whose writings had inspired members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, said the killing of Lt Kasasbeh was "not acceptable in any religion".
Mr Maqdisi, who was unexpectedly released from prison on Thursday, told Jordanian TV station Roya that he had been involved in back-channel talks with IS to secure the release of Lt Kasasbeh.
Jordan had offered to swap Sajida al-Rishawi, a failed female suicide bomber, for the captured pilot but Mr Maqdisi said the militants were never serious about an exchange.
Jordan executed Rishawi and another convicted al-Qaeda operative on Wednesday.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...54_line976.jpg
Timeline: Jordanian pilot held hostage 24 December 2014: Jordanian Lt Moaz Youssef al-Kasasbeh captured by IS after his plane crashes
25 December 2014: Pilot's father urges IS to show mercy
20 January 2015: IS threatens to kill two Japanese hostages unless Japan pays $200m ransom within 72 hours
24 January: IS releases video of Japanese hostage Kenji Goto holding a picture apparently showing Haruna Yukawa's decapitated body
24 January: IS calls for release of Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi militant sentenced to death in Jordan
28 January: Jordan offers to release Rishawi in exchange for Lt Kasasbeh
29 January: Deadline to kill Lt Kasasbeh and Mr Goto expires
31 January: Video released appearing to show Kenji Goto's body
3 February: Video released appearing to show Lt Kasasbeh burnt alive, with Jordanian media suggesting he was killed weeks earlier
Mid-East press calls for Islamic reform
Profile: Lt Moaz al-Kasasbeh

Too little, too late dumbasses.

In unison, Muslim clerics lash out against Islamic State

By VIVIAN SALAMA
Associated PressFebruary 6, 2015 Updated 1 hour ago



http://media.sanluisobispo.com/smedi...q.AuSt.55.jpeg Jordanians attend the Muslim Friday prayers, surrounding posters of slain Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh taped on a light pole, ahead of an anti-IS group rally in Amman, Jordan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Several thousand people marched after Muslim Friday prayers in support of King Abdullah II's pledge of a tough military response to the killing of the pilot. Arabic on the posters reads, "Muath is the martyr of the right, Jordan's eagle, to heaven, the country's martyr."


NASSER NASSER — AP Photo





















BAGHDAD — The immolation of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group has brought a unified outcry Friday from top religious clerics across the Muslim world — including a prominent jihadi preacher — who insisted the militants have gone too far.


Abu Mohammed al-Maqdesi, considered a spiritual mentor for many al-Qaida militants, said the killing of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh is "not acceptable in any religion." He spoke in an interview with Jordan's Roya TV a day after being released from more than three months in detention.


At Friday prayers in neighboring Iraq, where the militant group has seized territory in a third of the country, top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani declared in a sermon that the "savage" act demonstrates the extremists know no boundaries and violate "Islamic values and humanity."


Religious groups, often at odds with one another over ideologies or politics, are increasingly speaking out in unison against the militants, who continue to enforce their rule in Iraq and Syria through massacres, kidnapping, forced marriages, stonings and other acts of brutality.


Iranian Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani claimed in his sermon that militant groups like the Islamic State are created by Western nations as a means for promoting "an ugly picture of Islam."


Earlier this week, Islamic State militants released a video of al-Kaseasbeh, a Muslim, being burned to death in a cage. While the beheading of hostages from the U.S., Britain and Japan brought condemnation from most religious sects within Islam, the gruesome images of the airman's slaying served as a unifying battle-cry for Muslims across the world.


Jordan joined a U.S.-led military coalition against the militants in September, but said it would intensify its airstrikes in response to the killing of its air force pilot. On Thursday, dozens of fighter jets struck Islamic State weapons depots and training sites, Jordan's military said.


Outrage escalated in the capital of Amman following Friday prayers, with demonstrators unfurling a large Jordanian flag and holding up banners supporting King Abdullah II's pledge for a tough military response to avenge al-Kaseasbeh's death.


"We all stand united with the Hashemite leadership in facing terrorism," one banner read.


It is unusual to see such a unified response from religious institutions, because moderate camps often represent drastically different views to those of hard-line minority groups. The recent attacks on journalists at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, for instance, brought a range of responses in the Muslim world, with many condemning the death of innocent people but disagreeing on whether the publication crossed the line in its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.


The Sept. 11 attacks in the United States spurred a hint of celebration and praise from anti-American radical groups, including al-Qaida, the group behind the hijackings, but condemnation from moderate Islamic factions. Now, even al-Qaida has grown more outspoken against the Islamic State group, which originally was an al-Qaida offshoot in Iraq. That criticism has left the IS extremists in an increasingly isolated position.


Even clerics aligned with the Islamic State group are said to be speaking out against the pilot's killing. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said extremists dismissed one of its religious officials in Aleppo province after he objected to how the Jordanian pilot was put to death.


The religious official, a Saudi cleric known as Abu Musab al-Jazrawi, said during a meeting that such killings contradict the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Abdurrahman said. Other clerics in the meeting in the northern town of Bab began a verbal attack against the Saudi cleric, who was later sacked and referred to a religious court, he said. The incident could not be confirmed independently.


Many Facebook users in Bosnia posted pictures Friday of the Jordanian king in his military uniform, hailing his pledge to take a "severe response" for the pilot's death. The head of Bosnia's Islamic community, Husein Kavazovic, denounced the militant group, saying "there is no 'but' in condemning those crimes." At least 150 Bosnians have reportedly joined the Islamic State group, and Kavazovic called on his government to strip them of their citizenship.
Al-Maqdesi criticized the militants for declaring a caliphate, or an Islamic state, last year in the areas under their control. Al-Maqdesi said such a state run according to Islamic law is meant to unite Muslims, but the extremists have been divisive.


Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the world's most prestigious seat of Sunni Islam learning, Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque, said earlier this week that the IS militants deserve the Quranic punishment of death, crucifixion or chopping off their arms for being enemies of God and the Prophet Muhammad.


"Islam prohibits the taking of an innocent life," al-Tayeb said. By burning the pilot to death, he added, the militants violated Islam's prohibition on the immolation or mutilation of bodies — even during wartime.


Iraq's top Sunni mufti, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaie, said the crime against al-Kaseasbeh is "unprecedented," adding that "the Prophet Muhammad said that only God can punish with fire."


Pakistani Sunni cleric Munir Ahmed, in his sermon in Islamabad, also dismissed any theological basis for the crime, saying the "gruesome" death of the Jordanian pilot "is the most horrible act of cruelty." It's a punishment that "Allah has kept for its own authority and no human is authorized to do it," Ahmed said.

My opinion....

I don't think this gal was killed in a raid.

I think she has been dead for some time or else she was killed and transported to the site of a bombing so ISIS could make light of it.

Either way, regardless of HOW she died, she died because of these assholes in ISIS.

They killed her as surely as if they shot her themselves (if killed by a Jordanian bomb) because they were HOLDING HER HOSTAGE.

If a person dies as a result of friendly fire because they are held by an enemy then the enemy should suffer for their deaths.

WHY America hasn't started going after these people is completely beyond me.

The President has the power and authority to stop these fuckers. He's chosen to stand with the Muslims.

It's time to remove him physically from the White House.

Biden... if you don't have him arrested you will be held responsible too.

Congress... IMPEACH HIM NOW!

This alleged killing of this girl... is ISIS attempt to drag us into it now.

They WANT American troops on the ground, and have been practically begging for us to send troops.


Does anyone else sense a "trap" here? Including Obama actually throwing in the towel and start fighting these pigs, I can't imagine that there's not MORE to this. I suspect she may have been dead for awhile, or they deliberately put her in harm's way to ENTICE us as Americans to come at them.

Not that I think it will be much of a trap.

Not that, at this point, what difference does it make.... to coin a phrase... should we continue to sit on our asses and do absolutely nothing at all is what the Left wants.

Congress is getting pissed. Americans are pissed. Jordan is pissed.... Alan Colms is on TV saying "we shouldn't start a war over this"... wtf?????????????

AP/Reuters


Iraq
06.14.14
ISIS Leader: ‘See You in New York’
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi walked away from a U.S. detention camp in 2009, the future leader of ISIS issued some chilling final words to reservists from Long Island.

The Islamist extremist some are now calling the most dangerous man in the world had a few parting words to his captors as he was released from the biggest U.S. detention camp in Iraq in 2009.

“He said, ‘I’ll see you guys in New York,’” recalls Army Col. Kenneth King, then the commanding officer of Camp Bucca.

King didn’t take these words from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a threat. Al-Baghdadi knew that many of his captors were from New York, reservists with the 306 Military Police Battalion, a unit based on Long Island that includes numerous numerous members of the NYPD and the FDNY. The camp itself was named after FDNY Fire Marshal Ronald Bucca, who was killed at the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

King figured that al-Baghdadi was just saying that he had known all along that it was all essentially a joke, that he had only to wait and he would be freed to go back to what he had been doing.

“Like, ‘This is no big thing, I’ll see you on the block,’” King says.

King had not imagined that in less that five years he would be seeing news reports that al-Baghdadi was the leader of ISIS, the ultra-extremist army that was sweeping through Iraq toward Baghdad.

“I’m not surprised that it was someone who spent time in Bucca but I’m a little surprised it was him,” King says. “He was a bad dude, but he wasn’t the worst of the worst.”

King allows that along with being surprised he was frustrated on a very personal level.

“We spent how many missions and how many soldiers were put at risk when we caught this guy and we just released him,” King says.

During the four years that al-Baghdadi was in custody, there had been no way for the Americans to predict what a danger he would become. Al-Baghdadi hadn’t even been assigned to Compound 14, which was reserved for the most virulently extremist Sunnis.

“A lot of times, the really bad guys tended to operate behind the scenes because they wanted to be invisible,” the other officer says.

“The worst of the worst were kept in one area,” King says. “I don’t recall him being in that group.”

Al-Baghdadi was also apparently not one of the extremists who presided over Sharia courts that sought to enforce fundamentalist Islamic law among their fellow prisoners. One extremist made himself known after the guards put TV sets outside the 16-foot chain-link fence that surrounded each compound. An American officer saw a big crowd form in front of one, but came back a short time later to see not a soul.

“Some guy came up and shooed them all away because TV was Western,” recalls the officer, who asked not to be named. “So we identified who that guy was, put a report in his file, kept him under observation for other behaviors.”

The officer says the guards kept constant watch for clues among the prisoners for coalescing groups and ascending leaders.

“You can tell when somebody is eliciting leadership skills, flag him, watch him further, how much leadership they’re excerpting and with whom,” the other officer says. “You have to constantly stay after it because it constantly changes, sometimes day by day.”

The guards would seek to disrupt the courts along with and any nascent organizations and hierarchies by moving inmates to different compounds, though keeping the Sunnis and the Shiites separate.

“The Bloods with the Bloods and the Crips with the Crips, that kind of thing,” King says.

The guards would then move the prisoners again and again. That would also keep the prisoners from spotting any possible weaknesses in security.

“The detainees have nothing but time,” King says. “They’re looking at patterns, they’re looking at routines, they’re looking for opportunities.”

As al-Baghdadi and the 26,000 other prisoners were learning the need for patience in studying the enemy, the guards would be constantly searching for homemade weapons fashioned from what the prisoners dug up, the camp having been built on a former junkyard.

“People think of a detainee operation, they think it’s a sleepy Hogan’s Heroes-type camp,” the other officer says. “And it’s nothing of the sort.”

Meanwhile, al-Baghdadi’s four years at Camp Bucca would have been a perpetual lesson in the importance of avoiding notice.

“A lot of times, the really bad guys tended to operate behind the scenes because they wanted to be invisible,” the other officer says.

King seemed confident that he and his guards with their New York street sense would have known if al-Baghdadi had in fact been prominent among the super-bad guys when he was at Camp Bucca.

King had every reason to think he had seen the last of al-Baghdadi in the late summer of 2009, when this seemingly unremarkable prisoner departed with a group of others on one of the C-17 cargo-plane flights that ferried them to a smaller facility near Baghdad. Camp Bucca closed not along afterward.

Al-Baghdadi clearly remembered some of the lessons of his time there. He has made no videos, unlike Osama bin Laden and many of the other extremist leaders. The news reports might not have had a photo of him at all were it not for the one taken by the Americans when he was first captured in 2005.

That is the face that King was so surprised to see this week as the man who had become the absolute worst of the worst, so bad that even al Qaeda had disowned him. The whole world was stunned as al-Baghdadi now told his enemies “I’ll see you in Baghdad.”

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Horror
02.06.15
ISIS Took Her Hostage. Now They Say She’s Dead.
Kayla Mueller went to Syria to help suffering children. Then she was abducted by monsters.

The terrorist group ISIS has claimed that its last remaining American hostage, a young woman and humanitarian aid worker, was killed in a Jordanian airstrike.

The claim, which was also reported by the private intelligence group SITE on Friday, remains unconfirmed, and U.S. officials weren’t able to immediately verify it. But ISIS did release the name of the hostage, Kayla Mueller, as well as what it claimed were personal details about her, including her phone number. The group showed a destroyed building where it claimed Mueller was held, but it released no photos of her.

Mueller, a 26-year-old from Arizona, was taken captive by ISIS on August 4, 2013, in Aleppo, Syria, while leaving a Spanish Doctors without Borders hospital.

The Daily Beast, along with other news organizations, had agreed to withhold Mueller’s name at the request of her family and U.S. officials, who feared that further attention would put her in jeopardy.

If confirmed, Mueller’s death would bring to an end months of speculation about what ISIS, whose brutality seems to know no bounds, had planned for its last American captive. ISIS has killed Muslim women, as well as children. And the group has held other female captives, notably Yazidi women for example. But Western women had, so far, not been touched.

That fact, terrorism analysts had said, may have helped to keep Mueller alive. Even for a group as brutal as ISIS, killing a woman aid worker could potentially be seen as a bridge too far, and risk igniting public opposition to the group, which aims to establish a new caliphate.

A Jordanian official denied ISIS’s claims that Mueller was killed in one of the country’s airstrikes. “This is just another PR stunt,” the official told The Daily Beast. “This is just part of their whole media-spinning strategy. They’re trying to throw a wedge in the coalition” to combat ISIS. The official noted that ISIS has manipulated the public before when it comes to the status of hostages, most recently by seeming to claim that the Jordanian pilot was alive when he’d really been killed weeks ago.

“We are obviously deeply concerned by these reports. We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s claim,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told The Daily Beast.

For the past few weeks, military and intelligence sources in the United States and abroad had speculated that Mueller might be dead. When the coalition strike campaign began Aug. 8, Pentagon officials privately fretted the self-proclaimed Islamic State would claim hostages or civilians had been killed by their strikes. As it turned out, ISIS wants to shift all attention away from the strikes. After nearly 4,000 targets hit, this appears to be the first time ISIS has claimed coalition forces killed a captive.

Mueller had said she felt drawn to humanitarian work to ease the suffering Syrians, particularly children, whose lives were devastated by years of civil war.

Mueller had said she felt drawn to humanitarian work to ease the suffering Syrians, particularly children, whose lives were devastated by years of civil war. Working in refugee camps in Turkey with the humanitarian group Support to Life, she used art as therapy, encouraging children to draw pictures of places where they felt safe—invariably they drew their houses, which they’d had to flee or were destroyed.

“When Syrians hear I’m an American, they ask, ‘Where is the world?’ All I can do is cry with them, because I don’t know,” she said during a speech to the Kiwanis Club in Prescott, Arizona, her hometown, in 2013.

“In the chaos of waking up in the middle of the night and being shelled, we’re hearing of more children being separated from their families by accident,” Mueller said. She told the audience she felt she “can’t do enough” to help Syrian refugees and others fighting the dictatorship of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

The Daily Courier reported on the speech and recounted how while working in Turkey, Mueller helped to reunite a Syrian man with a young family member after his camp was bombed. Mueller used a video image of the missing boy to track him down at a hospital after he came out of surgery.

In her speech, Mueller evinced a passion for helping the Syrian people and was hopeful that her work would make a difference in their suffering.

“For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal. I will not let this be something we just accept. It’s important to stop and realize what we have, why we have it and how privileged we are. And from that place, start caring and get a lot done.”

Mueller graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2009. From then until 2011, she lived and worked with humanitarian aid groups in northern India, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. She then returned home to Arizona and worked for a year at an HIV/AIDS clinic and volunteered nights at a women's shelter.

In December 2011, Mueller traveled to France to work as an au pair so she could learn French and then working in Africa. But in December 2012, she went to the Turkish and Syrian border and worked with aid groups helping Syrian refugees.

Mueller's kidnappers first made contact with her family in May 2014, providing proof of life evidence that she was alive and demanding a ransom.

Notably, Mueller didn’t appear in any ISIS videos, including at the end of one released in November 2014 documenting the death of Peter Kassig, another aid worker who, at the time, was the only other American the group was holding.

With the Kassig video, ISIS broke with its custom of showing the next hostage it intends to kill. Subsequent ISIS films showed the murder of a group of Syrian pilots, and most recently the beheading of two Japanese men and the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot.

After Kassig was shown dead, a former U.S. counterterrorism official told The Daily Beast that before ISIS decided what to do with its remaining American hostage, it would consider carefully the public reaction it could spark. “Before they’re doing anything, they want to have a really good feel for how it will play,” the former official said.

As recently as Wednesday, the State Department said it was doing all it could to bring the woman home. At an event about the U.S. policy toward hostage cases, Douglas Frantz, U.S. assistant secretary of State for public affairs, said the case was a priority.

“We are working very hard,” Frantz told the audience at the Newseum in Washington D.C., “to free an aid worker who is held in Syria.”

—with additional reporting by Nancy A. Youssef

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Matt Lambros
Justin Jones
Justin Jones

FACE LIFT
02.04.15
Brooklyn Movie Palace Brought Back From the Dead
The Kings Theatre in Brooklyn was left to rot for nearly forty years. But a $95 million renovation has revived the once derelict building into a cultural palace.

Three steps in and your jaw will drop. There is no escaping the awe-inducing splendor of the newly renovated Kings Theatre in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood.

Ornate gold moldings flood the ceiling as the intricate designs cascade towards rich, wood panels that flank the walls. Deep red fabrics drape lushly from arched doorways and over mirrors as the building’s original art deco chandeliers illuminate a grand staircase. The 3,200-seat theatre waits steps away, revealing a performance venue unlike anything else in Brooklyn.

For nearly forty years it had been left to rot, but a $95 million renovation, spearheaded by the ACE Theatrical Group, has revived a once derelict building into a cultural palace, a smaller-scale Paris Opera House, which inspired its original design.
150203-jones-bk-theater-embed1Matt Lambros

“It is a miracle what has been done to restore this masterpiece,” Brooklyn Borough historian Ron Schweiger told The Daily Beast. Before the project began in 2013, vandalism and water damage had despoiled most of the venue while much of its interior had been looted.

It was 1929 when the Loew’s Kings Theater opened its doors as the company’s flagship playhouse. It was one of five “wonder theaters” that held no restraints in its opulent design and grand debuts. A program from opening night reveals a cinematic event much like celebrity-studded premiers today.

Evangeline, starring Dolores Del Rio, headlined the bill. Numerous performance acts, including song and dance preceded it, denoting the style of vaudeville entertainment that was popular during the Kings early years.

But the decline of vaudeville throughout of the 1930s and 40s forced many of the area’s one-stage theaters to begin housing former Broadway plays and musicals to stay in business.

The Kings Theatre however adapted to the cinematic revolution when color and sound were introduced to the film industry. It soon became a premier destination for the latest blockbuster films, including Gone With the Wind (1939) and Wuthering Heights (1939).

“The Kings was the epitome of exuberance,” Schweiger said. “It wasn’t a movie theater, it was a movie palace. You walked in and you felt like royalty.”

“The Kings was the epitome of exuberance. It wasn’t a movie theater, it was a movie palace. You walked in and you felt like royalty.”

The community continued to engage in the venue in other ways. Being one of five movie theaters in a five-block radius, the Kings basement held a basketball court where the venue’s many ushers, including Sylvester Stallone and Henry Winkler, would practice and compete with neighboring staff.

It’s even rumored that a young Barbra Streisand, who grew up in the area, once proclaimed she’d see her own name on the marquee. It did in 1973 for The Way We Were.

So you can’t help but wonder: why would such a lavish venue with a huge connection to its community succumb to decaying abandonment?

Gradually, Schweiger said, cable television created a convenience for movie lovers to see their favorite flicks from the comfort of their own homes. Campaigns to “Fight Cable Television” and contests involving donations began to litter the entryway of movie theaters in an attempt to keep the doors open. This, along with the neighborhood’s growing crime throughout the 1970s, kept fewer people from attending the Kings Theater and forced the owners to seal the doors in 1977.
150203-jones-bk-theater-embed2Albert Watson

But over the years, many attempts at restoration have proposed a hopeful future for Kings. After it closed, the building became part of the Flatbush Development Corporation, which was founded in 1975 to preserve the neighborhood. By 1983, the City of New York had claimed the property due to back taxes.

Locals, like Bruce Freeman, rallied together in campaigns to save the building. These groups brought pressure to city officials to allocate funds for repairs to the water damage, which eventually proved successful.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is rumored to have contemplated moving in. The New York City Board of Education proposed turning it into a vocational school, enlisting students to update the electrical units, plumbing and other updates. Even Magic Johnson, who owns a handful of movie theaters, once set his sight on taking claim in the property and converting it into a multiplex theater.

Now, the ACE Theatrical Group is giving the center of Brooklyn the cultural facelift it deserves. With no major performing arts venue in the immediate area and “with all the development in Brooklyn as a borough—the Barclay Center and BAM—it was just the right time to create this theater,” the Kings executive director Matt Wolf told The Daily Beast.

“We spent a lot of time doing research, cultivating relationships, and reaching out to local promoters,” Wolf added, “to make sure we had a programing that was both outstanding and diverse.”

Diana Ross headlined the venue’s re-opening on Tuesday with a sold-out performance. Future events include big-name singers like Sarah McLachlan, Sufjan Stevens, as well as preforming arts like the Russian ballet, the musical “Annie” and many artistic shows from the Caribbean and Latino communities.

“It’s a shot in the arm for the Flatbush community,” Schweiger said. “Not only for the neighborhood, but for the entire Brooklyn borough.”

The Kings Theater, 1027 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, will host an open house for the public from noon-4pm on February 7, 2015.



Barbaric
02.06.15
Is ISIS Drawing Jordan Into A Quagmire?
Will Rahn joins MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss an op-ed from Charles Krauthammer on ISIS's motives in the brutal execution-by-fire of a Jordanian pilot.

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Artothek/AP
Emily Shire
Emily Shire

Big Spender
02.06.15
What is Qatar Hiding Behind Its Expensive Love of Art?
The Qatar Museums Authority is thought to have spent $300 million on a Gauguin. Is the oil-rich country using art to obscure darker injustices?

Nothing makes a louder statement in the secretive, sophisticated, elite world of art than dropping close to $300 million on a single painting. The Qatar Museums Authority has not yet confirmed the New York Times report that it paid the astounding amount on Paul Gauguin’s 1892 Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?), but the chatter is exactly what the oil-rich country desires.

Such a purchase would be the kind of heavy hit that Qatar has relied on in recent years to turn heads in the global community of fine arts. The message it conveys is clear: Move over, London, Paris, New York because Qatar is the new you.

Tongues were already wagging when it was reported that the Qatar Museums Authority dropped over $250 million for Paul Cézanne’s “The Card Players.”

The 2011 purchase was more than double the previous auction record-setters for a work of art, and the details of it were not revealed until 2012 when members of the art world elite were headed to the country for a Takashi Murakami exhibit in Doha. The timing made it clear that Qatar welcomed – and wanted – the newest, trendiest art world baubles as well as the classic, coveted markers of prestige.

“Our mission is not cultural integration and independence. We do not want to have what there is in the West. We don’t want their collections.”

And it certainly could afford them: the Qatar Museums Authority (which is state-run and specifically headed by Sheikha Mayassa Al Thani, the daughter of the emir of Qatar) reportedly dropped $1 billion on art commissions and purchases in 2013 alone.

However, for the Qatari royal family, a couple of hundred millions here and there may be a small price to pay to rapidly recast your country as an international cultural center – especially when you need people to get the massive oppression of migrant workers and vast gaps between the nation’s wealthy and poor.

Developing art collections that could blow the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre out of the water may be Qatar’s best bet for drawing in foreigners who would otherwise be repulsed by an absolutely monarchy with a well-documented record of exploitation and abuse of workers.

As these matters come under further scrutiny with the impending 2022 World Cup, a burgeoning art collection that will appeal to Western minds may be the perfect attraction, or more accurately, distraction.

Qatar has been quite open about its artistic ambitions. From 2009 to 2012, the country began hosting Doha Tribeca Film Festival in conjunction with the famous Tribeca Film Festival. British artist Damien Hirst was commissioned for a reported $20 million to open his “The Miraculous Journey” exhibit of 14 massive bronze sculptures in Doha tracing development from conception to an anatomically correct boy.

Qatar’s royal family have also netted former Christie’s executives, such as Guy Bennett and Edward Dolman (who resigned from his role as executive director of the Qatar Museum Authority in 2014), to guide their purchases, though the family has its own art aficionado who can hold her own.
150206-shire-qatar-embedArtothek/AP

Sheikha Mayassa, the Duke University-educated royal, has carefully cultivated her country’s art holdings. In the process, she has become one of, if not the, most prominent players in the rarefied world of art collections.

She has professed the country’s development of museums and art collections is part of embracing their Arab identity. “Our mission is not cultural integration and independence. We do not want to have what there is in the West. We don’t want their collections,” she professed in a TED Talk. However, the above-mentioned purchases suggest otherwise.

While Sheikha Mayassa claims her country’s art purchases are a way to assert Qatar’s identity on the world stage, the country does not have the best track record in supporting Middle Eastern artists. Lebanese artist Ninar Esber told the New York Times in 2012 that Qatar’s art museums make for an “empty golden shell” that “glitters from the outside, but from the inside, it is empty.”

Although the Qatar opened the Museum of Islamic Art in 2008 and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in 2010, the recent attempts at creating a unique national or regional art identity ring false considering the country’s political and social actions.

Esber and others rightly pointed out that it is difficult, in not impossible, to truly support an art scene without support for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. “There is no freedom of expression in Qatar and yet there is so much to be disclosed about its problems and injustices,” a Bahraini artist told the New York Times in that same 2012 article.

That sentiment holds true in 2015 -- and no amount of multi-million dollar Gauguins or Cézannes will make those “problems and injustices” go away.

We're on the same page, Rick. ISIS lied about the Pilot, they had killed him earlier in the month and then released the video. I think they're lying about the girl too. She's been dead some time, but in the wake of Jordans airstrikes they're saying those airstrikes killed her just to see if it breaks Jordans will and to drive a wedge between allies. I really don't believe a word they say about anything. They're trying to create chaos and disinformation, they thrive in it.

Most countries have a "Minister of Information".

We and ISIS have "Ministers of Disinformation"... Josh Earnest and Marie Harf or whatever her 16 year old name is.

Remember this guy?

http://www.transasianaxis.com/attach...tid=1449&stc=1

He took spin to a whole new level.

LMAO!

I was JUST talking about him with a co-worker! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, listening to the newsies... makes me sick.

They are going on about how some of the Muslims in Jordon were supporting ISIS before, but "because ISIS was trying to negotiate the release of the pilot who was already dead, they have over stepped some bound...."

Killing people by beheading them isn't a boundary.

Do Americans NOT YET GET THIS?

Arabs who are Muslims are PIGS.


GOT IT YET?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Toad

Remember this guy?

http://www.transasianaxis.com/attach...tid=1449&stc=1

He took spin to a whole new level.

---

I heard he was roasting by now...but I just looked it up and he's still topside.

I had heard various things about him. That he was killed in an attack. He was arrested when Saddam was. He was hanged. He moved to Hollywood...

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-ne.../4039127183001

President Obama's ISIS strategy falling short? Plus, Dr. Ben Carson on measles outbreak, vaccines

Written by Chris Wallace / Published February 08, 2015 / Fox News Sunday

Special Guests: Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Dr. Ben Carson, Manny Pacquiao

This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," February 8, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.

Jordan escalates its war on ISIS. But what is the U.S. plan to defeat Islamic extremism?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES: We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: This president is sitting on the sidelines putting our allies at risk and allowing radical Islam to run while throughout the Mideast.

WALLACE: We'll discuss the threat and the need for a coherent strategy in a rare sit down with the former director of the defense intelligence agency, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.

It's a "Fox News Sunday" exclusive.

Then, the measles outbreak becomes a political flash point for members of the GOP's 2016 short list.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I got annoyed as people trying to depict me as someone who didn't think vaccines were a good idea.

WALLACE: We'll talk with rising conservative and star potential White House hopeful, Dr. Ben Carson, who says vaccination should be mandatory for children.

Plus, our Sunday group weighs in how it could shake up the 2016 field.

And our Power Player of the Week, world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao on finding God.

Do you see any conflict between your faith and boxing?

MANNY PACQUIAO, CHAMPION BOXER: God has a purpose.

WALLACE: All, right now, "Fox News Sunday."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

The U.S.-led coalition continues to pound ISIS targets, with airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The United Arab Emirates says it will rejoin the campaign, sending a squadron of F-16 fighters to Jordan. And Jordan dismisses ISIS claims that American aid worker was killed on a coalition airstrike as criminal propaganda.

At this key moment, we're honored to have a rare interview with Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who retired last year as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, CIA. Over 30 years, he held almost every top level military intel post, and he helped revolutionize how our military handles intelligence.

General Flynn, welcome to "Fox News Sunday."

LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN (RET), FORMER DIRECTOR DEFENSE INTEL AGENCY: Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. Appreciate being here.

WALLACE: The Obama administration issued a new national security strategy on Friday. In it, President Obama writes this, "The challenges we face requires strategic patience and persistence."

National security adviser Susan Rice said this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: While the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or during the Cold War. We cannot afford to be buffeted by alarmism and a nearly instantaneous news cycle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: General, is that the right way to look at the threat from Islamic extremism?

FLYNN: Well, let me just start out by saying that, you know, obviously, if you read the national security strategy, it's very complex. This is not about one president or one administration or another. This is about the nation's strategy going forward.

And I would tell you that we are facing a form of a cancerous component of the Islamic religion which has a fanaticism to it that has everything, which is against our way of life and they, in fact, have declared war on us. And I think that we have to recognize that the biggest challenge right now is what I kind of describe as the wolf or the wolf pack closest to the sled is ISIS. But there are other wolf packs around the world right now that are actually part of this larger expanding violent extremist version of Islam.

WALLACE: But when the president talks about, quote, "strategic patience", when Susan Rice says this is not an existential threat, and that we shouldn't be caught up in the alarmism of the news cycle, is that an adequate response to the threat you've just laid out?

FLYNN: Yes, I don't think it is. I think what -- I think what the American people is looking for is they are looking for moral and intellectual courage and clarity, and not a sense of passivity or confusion. I mean, I think there's confusion about what it is we're facing. It's not just what has defined as 40,000 fighters in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It's also a large segment within that radical version of Islam that is actually -- you know, is threatening our way of life.

WALLACE: And when you talk about passivity or confusion, is that what you see coming out of this White House?

FLYNN: What I see, I see it's not just -- it's not just the White House. I mean, I really do believe that when members of Congress are yelling at the White House for strategy and the White House is talking back to them, I think what they really need to do is they need to sit down and figure out what is our strategy going forward.

WALLACE: OK.

FLYNN: This is not about one administration or another. This is about how do we move forward against this radical form of Islam.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about that, because you say that first thing we must do is we have to adequately and accurately identify the enemy. Last week, General Jack Keane showed us a map, and let's put it up on the screen. And it's pretty alarming, because what you see there is Islamic terror groups, not just ISIS, Islamic terror groups extending all the way from Pakistan and Afghanistan, all the way across the Middle East and into North Africa.

So, precisely, General, who or what is the enemy?

FLYNN: Chris, 10 years ago, I drown that map and there was only two or three dots on it. Today, what you are seeing is a doubling of the enemy. And what I have --

WALLACE: A doubling of the enemy?

FLYNN: Or a doubling or more, because usually our numbers, that we define the size of a -- the scale of the enemy that we're facing, are usually -- it's usually lower than what it really is. I would tell you that what we have in front of us and the strategy that we've had for over a decade, which is sort of this counterterrorism strategy, that is only a component of an overall strategy and I think that we have to do is recognize that it is not working. The counterterrorism component works just fine to go after the high value targets and the key leaders, but we need a much broader strategy that recognizes that we're facing not just this tactical problem of Iraq and Syria.

But just as that map show, we're facing a growing expanding threat around the world in some cases, particularly in the trans-region of the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

WALLACE: So, are you saying that at this moment, after all these years, that we do not have a coherent strategy, full 360 degrees, to combat Islamic terrorism?

FLYNN: Yes, I think what I'm saying is that the strategy that we've had is not -- is not working. I mean, it's clearly not working. Just look at the kinds of things we're facing.

I mean, I -- you know, in my -- in my world, what I have grown up to have to do is define the enemy that we are facing. Like I said, if you -- you can't defeat an enemy that you don't admit exists and I think that we have to clearly define what the enemy is. That's number one.

And I think the next thing is to clearly articulate a strategy that is broader than just counterterrorism, broader than just -- I hate to use those sort of military vernacular of air strikes, but I feel like we are -- we're kind of like a football team with the quarterback at the huddle and the quarterback says, ready break, everybody is supposed to step down the line, and the team is supposed to move down the field together in a synchronize way, you know, to the goal line to win.

I feel like we say, "ready break", all the players that are on the team, they're going off to different stadiums playing different sports. I mean, we really don't have an effective strategy that is coherent, that actually addresses the wider problem --

WALLACE: I want to get into --

FLYNN: -- which is the ideology, Chris.

WALLACE: I want to get into that in just a moment.

But this week seemed to be something of a turning point because with the savage burning to death of the Jordanian pilot, you had, you know, a huge explosion across the Middle East. Jordan obviously escalating its efforts. You hear expressions of outrage in Cairo, in Qatar, in Turkey -- is this a potential turning point to get more Arab buy-in opposing, not just ISIS but Islamic extremism?

FLYNN: Yes. We should quit using phrases like "turning points" and "tipping points". There's been multiple turning points, multiple tipping points. What we need to do is we need to come to grips with this cancerous form of the Islamic religion that is breaking down the Arab world order and that is very clear.

All you have to do is look at the different countries that -- where these groups exist and that break down of that order is affecting Europe, is affecting this country. We have as our great director of the FBI said recently in a statement that he made in Mississippi, I believe, talking about the numbers of radical Islamists that are in this country that are being -- that are being convinced to go overseas as part of this effort that's happening in the Middle East right now. I mean, just a stunning number of foreign fighters alone that are -- that have traveled to Syria and the numbers of countries I think it's somewhere of 40 and 50.

So, we have to come to grips with this. This is not just a problem in Iraq and Syria.

WALLACE: OK. So, let's get off the counterterrorism side and let's talk about the other, because you have said, look, we have to combat what's going on in the Middle East and also outside the Middle East now with these recruits, with economic efforts, with cultural efforts, with psychological efforts, to fight this ideology. How?

FLYNN: Right. So, I think that first thing we have to do is we have to look at how are we organized inside of our own country to deal with it and then we have to look at how do we want to organize ourselves internationally? And I think for our own country, it's looking at what the State -- how the State Department is involved in this, how the Department of Defense is involved in this and how the CIA is involved in this?

I mean, I think the -- all three of those components have a role nationally, but we have to organize better in order to achieve what we want to do in our own self-interest. Internationally, we have to come to grips with the Arab nations that are part of this problem in many cases to get them to come together and it's not just, you know, what's happening in Jordan or what's happening in Saudi or what the Emirates are doing, what is going on in Libya, or Mali or Nigeria? All of them need to come together. But there are problems with that.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you, because you have suggested an Arab NATO.

FLYNN: Right.

WALLACE: A kind of mutual defense organization like we have with our allies in Western Europe. Is that realistic to get these countries to come together?

FLYNN: If we don't, then what we'll continue to see is a breakdown between what I call the leader and the led. I mean, these countries, all of them, are at risk if they don't come together and work together to achieve what it is that we are all saying is to get to this moderate form of Islam, if it exists.

You know, I was sent a note about where we've had 126 Muslim scholars recently crying out about that this type of Islam is not appropriate for that particular religion. Why only 126? There should be 126,000. I mean, more of the Arab nations, more of the leaders need to step up to the plate. I was --

WALLACE: How do we do that? And again, how do we -- I mean, look what we're talking about here and you have pointed out to me, this isn't just kids, sometimes these are middle aged professionals, doctors --

FLYNN: Engineers, teachers, that's right.

WALLACE: Right. And what is it -- something -- they obviously find something from ISIL and these other Islamic groups that is attractive and appealing to them. How do we shake some sense into them, if you will?

FLYNN: Well, I think the young people that are being attracted, I think it's a disconnect. In fact, I know it's a disconnect between sort of what I would describe as the leader and the led, in many cases, their parents and these young children that are being attracted to this. The economic depravity, the corruption that exists in some of these nations.

I mean, we have to recognize that the social and cultural, psychological underpinnings that are at risk and that are challenging these countries are going to come back to bite them. And in fact, that's what we are seeing.

WALLACE: I know you don't want to be political about this and you've made it clear and I respect that. But there was a comment made this week by President Obama that I want to play. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Honestly, General, at this particular moment in time when we are in a brutal fight, and we've seen just how brutal it can be with ISIS, how productive is it for the president to try to put what ISIS is doing in historical perspective with what the West did a thousand years ago? And how productive to use the word Crusades, which is epithet which they throw at us to come out of the president's mouth?

FLYNN: Yes, I think the risk that we take by comparing religions to religions, what we should be doing is we should be looking at one side being those contributing nations of the world, those that are willing to help the greater good of humanity against this radical form of Islam and that's where I'm at and that's where we need to be projecting ourselves forward -- history is an indicator for a lot of things and we should study and we should know it and we should recognize it for what it is.

But right now, as I said earlier, the wolf closest to the sled is this radical form of Islam. The tactical issue is ISIS or ISIL in the greater Levant area, which is essentially Syria, and Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, et cetera. But the wider problem is not just trans-regional in that part of the world, but it's also global.

I mean, 40 to 50 countries supplying fighters to this current fight in the Middle East? Come on.

WALLACE: And when you were head a few months of the defense intelligence agency, if you've seen the president was going to start talking about the Crusades, what would you have said?

FLYNN: I would have recommended that he talk about something else.

WALLACE: Because?

FLYNN: Because I just don't think it's appropriate. I really don't think it's not appropriate to begin to compare religions to religions. I mean, this is not -- we are not about -- you know, religions fighting religions. What we're about is the greater good of the people of this world, of planet, particularly this country, fighting against this evil that exists and this evil that exists is inside of this religion.

And so, it's just like other ideologies that we faced, Chris. We faced the Nazis, we faced the communists, we defeated those ideologies. This is another ideology that we're going to have to face. And those contributing nations of the world and those Arab nations, as I said, if they don't come to grips with this, they're going to -- they're going to feel the pain.

WALLACE: Well, finally, and that's my last question. Because you have compared the fight we face against Islamic extremism to World War II or the Cold War and our battle for half a century against the communists and you have called for a unified chain of command like we had with General Eisenhower in World War II.

Question, honestly, you were at the Pentagon, at the DIA, for the last couple of years -- who is in charge of this war right now?

FLYNN: Good question. I mean, I think that we need to -- we need to be asking that question. It can't be the president. It can't be the secretary of state.

You know, the reason why I use Eisenhower because essentially was, you know, General Eisenhower, go defeat the Nazis the Europe, go win the war in Europe, and here's the resources, here's the authorities, here's all the permissions, everybody is going to work for you essentially to achieve that purpose and he did.

WALLACE: And I have to ask, briefly -- is there anybody who's in that role right now?

FLYNN: I can't sit here and tell you that I know who it is. I really don't, which is part of the problem.

And when you -- so if everybody is in charge, nobody is in charge and it's like the analogy I just used with the football team, we're saying ready, break and everybody is going into different stadiums. We have to face the reality that we are -- that it is staring us in the face right now and that's this expansion of radical Islam and it -- they are against our way of life and we have to make sure that we understand that.

And the growth of it over the last decade, OK -- so it goes between a couple of administrations and it will continue to go as I said -- in the statements I made, this is more than just something that's going to be solved in the next two years. This is going to have to take 10 years, maybe an entire generation or more.

WALLACE: General Flynn, thank you. Thanks for joining us today, sir.

FLYNN: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Please come back.

FLYNN: I will.

WALLACE: I'd love to continue the conversation.

Coming up, as Jordan escalates its airstrikes, is the Middle East -- we've been told no -- at a turning point at the war in terror. Our Sunday group joins the conversation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Let there be no doubt, we still do not have a viable strategy to counter ISIL, and if you are not winning in war, you are losing.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

WALLACE: President Obama denouncing ISIS this week, while Senator John McCain says the White House still doesn't have a plan to beat them.

And it's time now for our Sunday group: GOP strategist Karl Rove, Bob Woodward for "The Washington Post", radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, and FOX News political analyst Juan Williams.

Bob, you wrote a book about Obama's war. How do you explain this week his talking in his national security strategy about strategic patience and calling -- comparing what we're doing to the crusades a thousand years ago. What do you make of those kind of comments at a time when we are -- the war against ISIS seems to have, if anything, only become more urgent?

BOB WOODWARD, THE WASHINGTON POST: If you talk to people in the White House and the military, I think there's agreement and John McCain is right and General Flynn is right, there is no strategy. They have not sat down and said this is where we want to go and this is how we want to do it, and the measure of that, when you head into the weeds here, people from the White House are micromanaging the tactical situation on a daily and weekly basis. That's not their job. They have to kind of do strategic planning and say, what do we want to accomplish in the next year?

WALLACE: Wait a minute, are you saying that -- forgive me -- Susan Rice, is telling the generals what to do?

WOODWARD: And they've got all these people in the White House -- you talk to people in the military who are there and they say, we are being micromanaged and we're not given a real plan to say what are we going to do here, and it's not the way to run a war or try to win a war.

Now, in fairness, this is a very difficult, ugly situation, and what they need is George Kennan, who was the one who came up --

WALLACE: The architect of containment.

WOODWARD: Of containment, to deal with the Soviet Union, which worked on a bipartisan basis, Republican presidents, Democratic presidents, saying, we're going to contain the Soviet Union, and there were elements that worked with people.

This -- you've talked to the working level people and they say, where are we going?

WALLACE: Karl, just on an issue of leadership, I very much doubt that during the London blitz that Winston Churchill would have somehow put what the Nazis were doing in historical context with what the Anglo Saxons had done a thousand years before.

KARL ROVE, GOP STRATEGIST: Yes, appalling lack of leadership.

But, look, there's even bigger problem. If you read this national security document, there are two fundamental errors. One is a belief that wishing something to be true will make it so. The president is clearly intent upon disabusing a notion that ISIL and other groups like it represent an existential threat to the United States and the world order, as he told Fareed Zakaria last weekend in his interview.

But ISIL, if it achieves its goal of a caliphate in the Middle East, fueled by oil riches, will be a threat to the world order. Similarly, if the Taliban reestablishes its control over Afghanistan and again becomes a sanctuary for terrorists, it will become a threat to the world order.

The second problem is, is that they declare their failures as successes in order to repeat them. The president withdrew troops from Iraq, leaving behind no residual force as the Iraqis wanted, and as a result, he's not able to even undertake the three critical capabilities that his own strategy says are essential to success, namely, targeted counterterrorism, collective action, with responsible partners and stopping the growth of this kind of terrorist organizations.

WALLACE: Laura, you know, I can't emphasize how important the interview we just had was. Here's Mike Flynn, one of the nation's top military intelligence people for a quarter of a century and I got to tell you -- not a partisan guy. He did not want to come on to go after Obama and yet, when I asked him direct questions -- because he's a straight shooter -- he said, we don't have a strategy to defeat not just ISIS, but this whole -- and he believes that we don't even identify what the problem is -- this growing virulent form of Islamic extremism.

LAURA INGRAHAM, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, anyone with a pulse or brain wave knows there no strategy. It's clear.

But we know the president is capable of putting together a strategy for things he really cares about -- free community college, immigration amnesty, he knows how to produce this strategy, he knows how to sell the strategy, he knows how to engineer a great moment in the Oval Office with the DREAMers and it's very emotional. So, he does know how to make the case to the American people on the issues he cares about, Chris.

But I think on this issue, it's just one other problem of many problems. And Karl is right, that comment he made at the big prayer breakfast speech, when he said get off -- we have to get off our high horse, I found that offensive. A high horse? We have a man burned to death? We have all these children being buried alive, we have Christians being tortured and brutalized throughout Africa, and now in the Middle East. And we're on our high house?

I found that to be one of the most appalling statements of a modern day president at a time of great crisis.

WALLACE: Juan, you are shaking your head, but wait a minute, is the president's desire to keep his campaign promises, is his tremendous obviously -- he wants to be the president whose legacy is that he got us out of war, is that getting in the way of this ability to confront the reality that he faces right now?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, let's look at this as the president as leader, for just a second, I don't have my brain waves questioned this morning. But the president represents the American people, Chris. The American people are not calling for more war after two wars -- two wars that drained our economy, strained our military.

Let's look at it in terms of his role of madder in chief. We've had six months of air strikes, strategic air strikes on is. Six months, 90 percent of them by the United States of America. I don't see our Western allies seeing some reality that he is not seeing. They are not in the fight.

I don't see our Arab allies, those Muslim countries right there are right there directly threatened. I don't see them picking up the pace.

WALLACE: Well, Jordan now is doing that.

WILLIAMS: No, now, 90 percent by the American military. So, I don't see why we blame America and the American president instead of looking farther.

And secondly, even the far right, in saying where's the strategy? They are not calling for putting troops on the ground. They say oh, no, we're not saying put troops on the ground, they know the American people don't want troops on the ground.

WALLACE: All right. Karl, last word?

ROVE: Well, the American people would support action if the president enunciated the necessity for that action. Juan makes referenced to the U.S. airstrikes. That tempo of 700 roughly airstrike is what was normally done within a day or two.

And why the Arabs not stepping up to the line, because they think this president is feckless and weak. We need strong American leadership. The American people will follow if the president enunciates what's at stake and so will our allies. But none of them are going to get out there in front of us, except maybe the Jordanians, because they do not want to get out in front and be cut out from underneath as this president's time and time again done again to our allies.

WILLIAMS: This is a blame game, and you can do alarmism and you can say it's instantaneous and urgent. We got to do this right now.

WALLACE: Can I get to one thing because we have to cut off. Sometimes it's worth getting alarmed and when they are killing hostages, cutting their heads off, burning them alive, you know what --

WILLIAMS: Yes, but that's not to say there's a direct threat to the United States like 9/11.

WALLACE: Time to hear the alarm here.

All right. We have to take a break here. We'll see you all later in the program.

Up next, the vaccine debate spills over into the race for the president. We asked potential 2016 Republican candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, about it.

And what do you think about vaccinating children? Should it be mandatory? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday and use the #fns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-ne.../4039127183001

President Obama's ISIS strategy falling short? Plus, Dr. Ben Carson on measles outbreak, vaccines

Written by Chris Wallace / Published February 08, 2015 / Fox News Sunday

Special Guests: Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Dr. Ben Carson, Manny Pacquiao

This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," February 8, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.

Jordan escalates its war on ISIS. But what is the U.S. plan to defeat Islamic extremism?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES: We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: This president is sitting on the sidelines putting our allies at risk and allowing radical Islam to run while throughout the Mideast.

WALLACE: We'll discuss the threat and the need for a coherent strategy in a rare sit down with the former director of the defense intelligence agency, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.

It's a "Fox News Sunday" exclusive.

Then, the measles outbreak becomes a political flash point for members of the GOP's 2016 short list.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I got annoyed as people trying to depict me as someone who didn't think vaccines were a good idea.

WALLACE: We'll talk with rising conservative and star potential White House hopeful, Dr. Ben Carson, who says vaccination should be mandatory for children.

Plus, our Sunday group weighs in how it could shake up the 2016 field.

And our Power Player of the Week, world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao on finding God.

Do you see any conflict between your faith and boxing?

MANNY PACQUIAO, CHAMPION BOXER: God has a purpose.

WALLACE: All, right now, "Fox News Sunday."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

The U.S.-led coalition continues to pound ISIS targets, with airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The United Arab Emirates says it will rejoin the campaign, sending a squadron of F-16 fighters to Jordan. And Jordan dismisses ISIS claims that American aid worker was killed on a coalition airstrike as criminal propaganda.

At this key moment, we're honored to have a rare interview with Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who retired last year as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, CIA. Over 30 years, he held almost every top level military intel post, and he helped revolutionize how our military handles intelligence.

General Flynn, welcome to "Fox News Sunday."

LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN (RET), FORMER DIRECTOR DEFENSE INTEL AGENCY: Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. Appreciate being here.

WALLACE: The Obama administration issued a new national security strategy on Friday. In it, President Obama writes this, "The challenges we face requires strategic patience and persistence."

National security adviser Susan Rice said this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: While the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or during the Cold War. We cannot afford to be buffeted by alarmism and a nearly instantaneous news cycle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: General, is that the right way to look at the threat from Islamic extremism?

FLYNN: Well, let me just start out by saying that, you know, obviously, if you read the national security strategy, it's very complex. This is not about one president or one administration or another. This is about the nation's strategy going forward.

And I would tell you that we are facing a form of a cancerous component of the Islamic religion which has a fanaticism to it that has everything, which is against our way of life and they, in fact, have declared war on us. And I think that we have to recognize that the biggest challenge right now is what I kind of describe as the wolf or the wolf pack closest to the sled is ISIS. But there are other wolf packs around the world right now that are actually part of this larger expanding violent extremist version of Islam.

WALLACE: But when the president talks about, quote, "strategic patience", when Susan Rice says this is not an existential threat, and that we shouldn't be caught up in the alarmism of the news cycle, is that an adequate response to the threat you've just laid out?

FLYNN: Yes, I don't think it is. I think what -- I think what the American people is looking for is they are looking for moral and intellectual courage and clarity, and not a sense of passivity or confusion. I mean, I think there's confusion about what it is we're facing. It's not just what has defined as 40,000 fighters in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It's also a large segment within that radical version of Islam that is actually -- you know, is threatening our way of life.

WALLACE: And when you talk about passivity or confusion, is that what you see coming out of this White House?

FLYNN: What I see, I see it's not just -- it's not just the White House. I mean, I really do believe that when members of Congress are yelling at the White House for strategy and the White House is talking back to them, I think what they really need to do is they need to sit down and figure out what is our strategy going forward.

WALLACE: OK.

FLYNN: This is not about one administration or another. This is about how do we move forward against this radical form of Islam.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about that, because you say that first thing we must do is we have to adequately and accurately identify the enemy. Last week, General Jack Keane showed us a map, and let's put it up on the screen. And it's pretty alarming, because what you see there is Islamic terror groups, not just ISIS, Islamic terror groups extending all the way from Pakistan and Afghanistan, all the way across the Middle East and into North Africa.

So, precisely, General, who or what is the enemy?

FLYNN: Chris, 10 years ago, I drown that map and there was only two or three dots on it. Today, what you are seeing is a doubling of the enemy. And what I have --

WALLACE: A doubling of the enemy?

FLYNN: Or a doubling or more, because usually our numbers, that we define the size of a -- the scale of the enemy that we're facing, are usually -- it's usually lower than what it really is. I would tell you that what we have in front of us and the strategy that we've had for over a decade, which is sort of this counterterrorism strategy, that is only a component of an overall strategy and I think that we have to do is recognize that it is not working. The counterterrorism component works just fine to go after the high value targets and the key leaders, but we need a much broader strategy that recognizes that we're facing not just this tactical problem of Iraq and Syria.

But just as that map show, we're facing a growing expanding threat around the world in some cases, particularly in the trans-region of the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

WALLACE: So, are you saying that at this moment, after all these years, that we do not have a coherent strategy, full 360 degrees, to combat Islamic terrorism?

FLYNN: Yes, I think what I'm saying is that the strategy that we've had is not -- is not working. I mean, it's clearly not working. Just look at the kinds of things we're facing.

I mean, I -- you know, in my -- in my world, what I have grown up to have to do is define the enemy that we are facing. Like I said, if you -- you can't defeat an enemy that you don't admit exists and I think that we have to clearly define what the enemy is. That's number one.

And I think the next thing is to clearly articulate a strategy that is broader than just counterterrorism, broader than just -- I hate to use those sort of military vernacular of air strikes, but I feel like we are -- we're kind of like a football team with the quarterback at the huddle and the quarterback says, ready break, everybody is supposed to step down the line, and the team is supposed to move down the field together in a synchronize way, you know, to the goal line to win.

I feel like we say, "ready break", all the players that are on the team, they're going off to different stadiums playing different sports. I mean, we really don't have an effective strategy that is coherent, that actually addresses the wider problem --

WALLACE: I want to get into --

FLYNN: -- which is the ideology, Chris.

WALLACE: I want to get into that in just a moment.

But this week seemed to be something of a turning point because with the savage burning to death of the Jordanian pilot, you had, you know, a huge explosion across the Middle East. Jordan obviously escalating its efforts. You hear expressions of outrage in Cairo, in Qatar, in Turkey -- is this a potential turning point to get more Arab buy-in opposing, not just ISIS but Islamic extremism?

FLYNN: Yes. We should quit using phrases like "turning points" and "tipping points". There's been multiple turning points, multiple tipping points. What we need to do is we need to come to grips with this cancerous form of the Islamic religion that is breaking down the Arab world order and that is very clear.

All you have to do is look at the different countries that -- where these groups exist and that break down of that order is affecting Europe, is affecting this country. We have as our great director of the FBI said recently in a statement that he made in Mississippi, I believe, talking about the numbers of radical Islamists that are in this country that are being -- that are being convinced to go overseas as part of this effort that's happening in the Middle East right now. I mean, just a stunning number of foreign fighters alone that are -- that have traveled to Syria and the numbers of countries I think it's somewhere of 40 and 50.

So, we have to come to grips with this. This is not just a problem in Iraq and Syria.

WALLACE: OK. So, let's get off the counterterrorism side and let's talk about the other, because you have said, look, we have to combat what's going on in the Middle East and also outside the Middle East now with these recruits, with economic efforts, with cultural efforts, with psychological efforts, to fight this ideology. How?

FLYNN: Right. So, I think that first thing we have to do is we have to look at how are we organized inside of our own country to deal with it and then we have to look at how do we want to organize ourselves internationally? And I think for our own country, it's looking at what the State -- how the State Department is involved in this, how the Department of Defense is involved in this and how the CIA is involved in this?

I mean, I think the -- all three of those components have a role nationally, but we have to organize better in order to achieve what we want to do in our own self-interest. Internationally, we have to come to grips with the Arab nations that are part of this problem in many cases to get them to come together and it's not just, you know, what's happening in Jordan or what's happening in Saudi or what the Emirates are doing, what is going on in Libya, or Mali or Nigeria? All of them need to come together. But there are problems with that.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you, because you have suggested an Arab NATO.

FLYNN: Right.

WALLACE: A kind of mutual defense organization like we have with our allies in Western Europe. Is that realistic to get these countries to come together?

FLYNN: If we don't, then what we'll continue to see is a breakdown between what I call the leader and the led. I mean, these countries, all of them, are at risk if they don't come together and work together to achieve what it is that we are all saying is to get to this moderate form of Islam, if it exists.

You know, I was sent a note about where we've had 126 Muslim scholars recently crying out about that this type of Islam is not appropriate for that particular religion. Why only 126? There should be 126,000. I mean, more of the Arab nations, more of the leaders need to step up to the plate. I was --

WALLACE: How do we do that? And again, how do we -- I mean, look what we're talking about here and you have pointed out to me, this isn't just kids, sometimes these are middle aged professionals, doctors --

FLYNN: Engineers, teachers, that's right.

WALLACE: Right. And what is it -- something -- they obviously find something from ISIL and these other Islamic groups that is attractive and appealing to them. How do we shake some sense into them, if you will?

FLYNN: Well, I think the young people that are being attracted, I think it's a disconnect. In fact, I know it's a disconnect between sort of what I would describe as the leader and the led, in many cases, their parents and these young children that are being attracted to this. The economic depravity, the corruption that exists in some of these nations.

I mean, we have to recognize that the social and cultural, psychological underpinnings that are at risk and that are challenging these countries are going to come back to bite them. And in fact, that's what we are seeing.

WALLACE: I know you don't want to be political about this and you've made it clear and I respect that. But there was a comment made this week by President Obama that I want to play. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Honestly, General, at this particular moment in time when we are in a brutal fight, and we've seen just how brutal it can be with ISIS, how productive is it for the president to try to put what ISIS is doing in historical perspective with what the West did a thousand years ago? And how productive to use the word Crusades, which is epithet which they throw at us to come out of the president's mouth?

FLYNN: Yes, I think the risk that we take by comparing religions to religions, what we should be doing is we should be looking at one side being those contributing nations of the world, those that are willing to help the greater good of humanity against this radical form of Islam and that's where I'm at and that's where we need to be projecting ourselves forward -- history is an indicator for a lot of things and we should study and we should know it and we should recognize it for what it is.

But right now, as I said earlier, the wolf closest to the sled is this radical form of Islam. The tactical issue is ISIS or ISIL in the greater Levant area, which is essentially Syria, and Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, et cetera. But the wider problem is not just trans-regional in that part of the world, but it's also global.

I mean, 40 to 50 countries supplying fighters to this current fight in the Middle East? Come on.

WALLACE: And when you were head a few months of the defense intelligence agency, if you've seen the president was going to start talking about the Crusades, what would you have said?

FLYNN: I would have recommended that he talk about something else.

WALLACE: Because?

FLYNN: Because I just don't think it's appropriate. I really don't think it's not appropriate to begin to compare religions to religions. I mean, this is not -- we are not about -- you know, religions fighting religions. What we're about is the greater good of the people of this world, of planet, particularly this country, fighting against this evil that exists and this evil that exists is inside of this religion.

And so, it's just like other ideologies that we faced, Chris. We faced the Nazis, we faced the communists, we defeated those ideologies. This is another ideology that we're going to have to face. And those contributing nations of the world and those Arab nations, as I said, if they don't come to grips with this, they're going to -- they're going to feel the pain.

WALLACE: Well, finally, and that's my last question. Because you have compared the fight we face against Islamic extremism to World War II or the Cold War and our battle for half a century against the communists and you have called for a unified chain of command like we had with General Eisenhower in World War II.

Question, honestly, you were at the Pentagon, at the DIA, for the last couple of years -- who is in charge of this war right now?

FLYNN: Good question. I mean, I think that we need to -- we need to be asking that question. It can't be the president. It can't be the secretary of state.

You know, the reason why I use Eisenhower because essentially was, you know, General Eisenhower, go defeat the Nazis the Europe, go win the war in Europe, and here's the resources, here's the authorities, here's all the permissions, everybody is going to work for you essentially to achieve that purpose and he did.

WALLACE: And I have to ask, briefly -- is there anybody who's in that role right now?

FLYNN: I can't sit here and tell you that I know who it is. I really don't, which is part of the problem.

And when you -- so if everybody is in charge, nobody is in charge and it's like the analogy I just used with the football team, we're saying ready, break and everybody is going into different stadiums. We have to face the reality that we are -- that it is staring us in the face right now and that's this expansion of radical Islam and it -- they are against our way of life and we have to make sure that we understand that.

And the growth of it over the last decade, OK -- so it goes between a couple of administrations and it will continue to go as I said -- in the statements I made, this is more than just something that's going to be solved in the next two years. This is going to have to take 10 years, maybe an entire generation or more.

WALLACE: General Flynn, thank you. Thanks for joining us today, sir.

FLYNN: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Please come back.

FLYNN: I will.

WALLACE: I'd love to continue the conversation.

Coming up, as Jordan escalates its airstrikes, is the Middle East -- we've been told no -- at a turning point at the war in terror. Our Sunday group joins the conversation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Let there be no doubt, we still do not have a viable strategy to counter ISIL, and if you are not winning in war, you are losing.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

WALLACE: President Obama denouncing ISIS this week, while Senator John McCain says the White House still doesn't have a plan to beat them.

And it's time now for our Sunday group: GOP strategist Karl Rove, Bob Woodward for "The Washington Post", radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, and FOX News political analyst Juan Williams.

Bob, you wrote a book about Obama's war. How do you explain this week his talking in his national security strategy about strategic patience and calling -- comparing what we're doing to the crusades a thousand years ago. What do you make of those kind of comments at a time when we are -- the war against ISIS seems to have, if anything, only become more urgent?

BOB WOODWARD, THE WASHINGTON POST: If you talk to people in the White House and the military, I think there's agreement and John McCain is right and General Flynn is right, there is no strategy. They have not sat down and said this is where we want to go and this is how we want to do it, and the measure of that, when you head into the weeds here, people from the White House are micromanaging the tactical situation on a daily and weekly basis. That's not their job. They have to kind of do strategic planning and say, what do we want to accomplish in the next year?

WALLACE: Wait a minute, are you saying that -- forgive me -- Susan Rice, is telling the generals what to do?

WOODWARD: And they've got all these people in the White House -- you talk to people in the military who are there and they say, we are being micromanaged and we're not given a real plan to say what are we going to do here, and it's not the way to run a war or try to win a war.

Now, in fairness, this is a very difficult, ugly situation, and what they need is George Kennan, who was the one who came up --

WALLACE: The architect of containment.

WOODWARD: Of containment, to deal with the Soviet Union, which worked on a bipartisan basis, Republican presidents, Democratic presidents, saying, we're going to contain the Soviet Union, and there were elements that worked with people.

This -- you've talked to the working level people and they say, where are we going?

WALLACE: Karl, just on an issue of leadership, I very much doubt that during the London blitz that Winston Churchill would have somehow put what the Nazis were doing in historical context with what the Anglo Saxons had done a thousand years before.

KARL ROVE, GOP STRATEGIST: Yes, appalling lack of leadership.

But, look, there's even bigger problem. If you read this national security document, there are two fundamental errors. One is a belief that wishing something to be true will make it so. The president is clearly intent upon disabusing a notion that ISIL and other groups like it represent an existential threat to the United States and the world order, as he told Fareed Zakaria last weekend in his interview.

But ISIL, if it achieves its goal of a caliphate in the Middle East, fueled by oil riches, will be a threat to the world order. Similarly, if the Taliban reestablishes its control over Afghanistan and again becomes a sanctuary for terrorists, it will become a threat to the world order.

The second problem is, is that they declare their failures as successes in order to repeat them. The president withdrew troops from Iraq, leaving behind no residual force as the Iraqis wanted, and as a result, he's not able to even undertake the three critical capabilities that his own strategy says are essential to success, namely, targeted counterterrorism, collective action, with responsible partners and stopping the growth of this kind of terrorist organizations.

WALLACE: Laura, you know, I can't emphasize how important the interview we just had was. Here's Mike Flynn, one of the nation's top military intelligence people for a quarter of a century and I got to tell you -- not a partisan guy. He did not want to come on to go after Obama and yet, when I asked him direct questions -- because he's a straight shooter -- he said, we don't have a strategy to defeat not just ISIS, but this whole -- and he believes that we don't even identify what the problem is -- this growing virulent form of Islamic extremism.

LAURA INGRAHAM, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, anyone with a pulse or brain wave knows there no strategy. It's clear.

But we know the president is capable of putting together a strategy for things he really cares about -- free community college, immigration amnesty, he knows how to produce this strategy, he knows how to sell the strategy, he knows how to engineer a great moment in the Oval Office with the DREAMers and it's very emotional. So, he does know how to make the case to the American people on the issues he cares about, Chris.

But I think on this issue, it's just one other problem of many problems. And Karl is right, that comment he made at the big prayer breakfast speech, when he said get off -- we have to get off our high horse, I found that offensive. A high horse? We have a man burned to death? We have all these children being buried alive, we have Christians being tortured and brutalized throughout Africa, and now in the Middle East. And we're on our high house?

I found that to be one of the most appalling statements of a modern day president at a time of great crisis.

WALLACE: Juan, you are shaking your head, but wait a minute, is the president's desire to keep his campaign promises, is his tremendous obviously -- he wants to be the president whose legacy is that he got us out of war, is that getting in the way of this ability to confront the reality that he faces right now?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, let's look at this as the president as leader, for just a second, I don't have my brain waves questioned this morning. But the president represents the American people, Chris. The American people are not calling for more war after two wars -- two wars that drained our economy, strained our military.

Let's look at it in terms of his role of madder in chief. We've had six months of air strikes, strategic air strikes on is. Six months, 90 percent of them by the United States of America. I don't see our Western allies seeing some reality that he is not seeing. They are not in the fight.

I don't see our Arab allies, those Muslim countries right there are right there directly threatened. I don't see them picking up the pace.

WALLACE: Well, Jordan now is doing that.

WILLIAMS: No, now, 90 percent by the American military. So, I don't see why we blame America and the American president instead of looking farther.

And secondly, even the far right, in saying where's the strategy? They are not calling for putting troops on the ground. They say oh, no, we're not saying put troops on the ground, they know the American people don't want troops on the ground.

WALLACE: All right. Karl, last word?

ROVE: Well, the American people would support action if the president enunciated the necessity for that action. Juan makes referenced to the U.S. airstrikes. That tempo of 700 roughly airstrike is what was normally done within a day or two.

And why the Arabs not stepping up to the line, because they think this president is feckless and weak. We need strong American leadership. The American people will follow if the president enunciates what's at stake and so will our allies. But none of them are going to get out there in front of us, except maybe the Jordanians, because they do not want to get out in front and be cut out from underneath as this president's time and time again done again to our allies.

WILLIAMS: This is a blame game, and you can do alarmism and you can say it's instantaneous and urgent. We got to do this right now.

WALLACE: Can I get to one thing because we have to cut off. Sometimes it's worth getting alarmed and when they are killing hostages, cutting their heads off, burning them alive, you know what --

WILLIAMS: Yes, but that's not to say there's a direct threat to the United States like 9/11.

WALLACE: Time to hear the alarm here.

All right. We have to take a break here. We'll see you all later in the program.

Up next, the vaccine debate spills over into the race for the president. We asked potential 2016 Republican candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, about it.

And what do you think about vaccinating children? Should it be mandatory? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday and use the #fns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Quote:

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but I feel like we are -- we're kind of like a football team with the quarterback at the huddle and the quarterback says, ready break, everybody is supposed to step down the line, and the team is supposed to move down the field together in a synchronize way, you know, to the goal line to win.

I feel like we say, "ready break", all the players that are on the team, they're going off to different stadiums playing different sports. I mean, we really don't have an effective strategy that is coherent, that actually addresses the wider problem --

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Yeah, that right there... that is how it feels.

American ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller dead, family says

By Jason Hanna and Pamela Brown, CNN
Updated 10:35 AM ET, Tue February 10, 2015


(CNN)The family of Kayla Mueller, an American woman held captive by the Islamist terror group ISIS, said Tuesday it has received confirmation that she is dead.

"We are heartbroken to share that we've received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller, has lost her life," a statement from the family reads.
"Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice, and peace," the family said.
On Friday, ISIS claimed that Mueller -- captured in northern Syria in 2013 -- had been killed in a building that was hit during a Jordanian airstrike on Raqqa, the militants' de facto capital in Syria. At the time, ISIS offered no proof to back up its claim, other than an image of a building in rubble.
Over the weekend, ISIS sent the family a private message, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Tuesday.
"Once this information was authenticated by the intelligence community, they concluded that Kayla was deceased," Meehan said.
The new information does not clarify how Mueller died, a law enforcement source familiar with the case said on condition of anonymity.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam...medium-169.jpg

The ISIS terror threat 46 photos

EXPAND GALLERY



U.S. President Barack Obama offered his condolences to the young woman's family.


"Kayla's compassion and dedication to assisting those in need shows us that even amongst unconscionable evil, the essential decency of humanity can live on," Obama said in a statement released by the White House Tuesday.


Mueller's relatives on Tuesday also released a handwritten letter that they say she wrote while in captivity in spring 2014.
Read transcribed version of letter (.PDF)



"It's hard to know what to say," the letter reads. "Please know that I am in a safe location, completely unharmed + healthy (put on weight in fact); I have been treated w/the utmost respect + kindness."
Taken hostage in 2013

Mueller fell into the hands of hostage-takers in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, her family said, after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital.


Her family said ISIS contacted them in Mary with proof that she was alive. The militants eventually said they would kill her if the family didn't pay nearly $7 million by August 13, 2014, according to a source close to the family. What happened after that deadline is unclear.
American held by ISIS moved by suffering of Syrian people
A life serving others

Mueller, 26, made it her life's work to help others. After graduating from Northern Arizona University in 2009, she worked with humanitarian groups in northern India, Israel and Palestinian territories, a family spokeswoman said. In Israel, she volunteered at the African Refugee Development Center.


Mueller went back to Arizona in 2011, volunteered in a women's shelter and worked at an HIV/AIDS clinic, helping to facilitate events and providing local coordination for World AIDS Day, the family spokeswoman said.


After working for a year as an au pair in France, she traveled to the Turkish/Syrian border to work with the Danish Refugee Council and the humanitarian organization Support to Life, which assisted families who had been forced to flee their homes due to the civil war in Syria, the spokeswoman said.


In a YouTube video produced in October 2011, before the rise of ISIS, Mueller said she supported a sit-in that protested the Syrian regime.


"I am in solidarity with the Syrian people," she said. "I reject the brutality and killing that the Syrian authorities are committing against the Syrian people."

Americans not directly attached to the Military should not be allowed to gallivant around in war zones, most especially females and most especially where muslims are involved(which is every current war zone).