NEW YORK – Unless the United States deploys Special Forces on the ground and acknowledges its enemy is Islamic jihadists, the Obama military strategy against ISIS is doomed to failure, charges retired Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin and former congressman and retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West.
Both have experience in Middle Eastern combat.
In separate interviews with WND, Boykin and West asserted President Obama cannot employ politically correct warfare to defeat brutally savage Islamic jihadists who have already demonstrated their ability to achieve victory in the ideologically charged 21st century battlefield of the Middle East.
Retired Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin
West pointed out, affirming a CIA estimate, that ISIS is “a non-state belligerent army consisting of some 31,500 fighters, having grown from a mere 1,500 to 2,000 fighters last January, earning approximately $1 million a day from black-market oil revenues.”
Last week, Congress approved Obama’s plan for training and arming so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels of the Free Syrian Army, the FSA, to fight ISIS. There is evidence that members of the FSA have openly cooperated with ISIS and the al-Qaida-linked group Jabhat al-Nusra.
Boykin, an undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, insisted the U.S. “cannot destroy ISIS with the strategy President Obama has laid out.”
“If we arm and equip the Free Syrian Army, all we are doing is supporting al-Qaida,” he said. “We’ve got to realize ISIS is dedicated to attacking the United States, and any weapons we give the Free Syrian Army are only going to end up in the hands of ISIS.”
West agreed.
“No single Republican in Congress should have put their name on voting for the lack of a real military strategy in what amounts to giving away $500 million to the Free Syrian Army, a rebel force we don’t fully control or understand,” he said.
Both agreed the only way to defeat ISIS is to deploy Special Forces.
“We have a military that is capable and ready, such that ISIS could be destroyed in less than 90 days, much like what we saw in the early days in Afghanistan,” West argued. “At that time, we had 500 to 600 Special Forces operators that in conjunction with the Northern Alliance routed a 70,000-man Taliban army and 5,000 other al-Qaida fighters in less than 90 days with American air power. That is the correct model.”
Boykin also referenced the effectiveness of Special Forces combining with the Northern Alliance in the initial phase of U.S. combat involvement in Afghanistan.
“It’s ridiculous to talk about ‘bringing to justice’ these guys who behead Americans on television for the world to see,” Boykin said. “What we need to get the job done is U.S. Special Forces on the ground combined with U.S. air power. Then we might get somewhere convincing the Sunnis in Iraq that ISIS, like Iran, are holy warriors that will continue to behead people if they are allowed to get away with it.”
Already at the border
Boykin added his concern that ISIS has already entered the U.S. by penetrating the nation’s porous southern border with Mexico.
“If you can get the Border Patrol aside, you will find something like 80 percent of the OTMs, the ‘Other Than Mexican,’ illegal immigrants are from the Middle East,” he told WND. “We know Americans have gone to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS. We should also realize that ISIS terrorists entering through Mexico are already here.”
Boykin and West took strong exception to Obama’s assertion that ISIS is not Islamic.
“A Muslim from Great Britain fighting with ISIS savagely and barbarically beheaded two Americans and one British citizen,” West pointed out.
“If we continue to bring together this false sense of multiculturalism in order to make us feel comfortable fighting ISIS, we are not going to be successful,” he said. “We cannot win on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria by being politically correct. We have to win by correctly defining the enemy.”
Boykin, whose 36-year military career included 13 years in the Delta Force, with two years as its commander, was equally emphatic.
“If President Obama does not realize ISIS is radical Islam, then his military strategy is not going to be worth a plug nickel. Al-Qaida is Islam, and ISIS is al-Qaida,” Boykin stressed.
‘Islamic sympathizer’
Both expressed concern that the way Obama has chosen to fight ISIS shows he’s not serious about winning.
“Barack Obama is an Islamic sympathizer who enables the other side to be quite successful – a political leaning that was obvious as far back as 2009, when he invited the Muslim Brotherhood membership to occupy the first two rows when he spoke in Cairo,” West told WND.
“You want to look at how many Muslim Brotherhood members Barack Obama has brought into the administration and how closely the Obama administration works with groups like CAIR, or how hard the Obama administration works to purge any law-enforcement training material that might offend Muslims?”
Boykin stressed ISIS wants to create an international Islamic caliphate.
He took exception to Obama calling the group ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, instead of ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria.
“I refuse to use ISIL, because the Levant is a concept that does not include Israel,” Boykin said.
“So when President Obama uses the term ISIL, he is acknowledging they are an organization that does not recognize the right of Israel to exist,” he said.
“This is about radical Islam – this is a war and these are holy warriors,” Boykin concluded. “ISIS is already in America today, and if we don’t identify and stand up to them, we are going to suffer the consequences.”
