No wonder Islamic State is going from victory to victory.
This is the product of a feckless strategy (non-existent) that throws people at a desperate situation without any coherent messaging, intent and planning.
Obama’s legal rationale for war against Islamic State secret and ‘very thin’
McClatchy Washington BureauJune 12, 2015
WASHINGTON — As U.S. military operations against the Islamic State approach the one-year mark, the White House has failed to give Congress and the public a comprehensive written analysis setting out the legal powers that President Barack Obama is using to put U.S. personnel in harm’s way in Iraq and Syria.
The absence of an in-depth legal rationale takes on greater urgency with Obama’s decision this week to dispatch up to an additional 450 U.S. military trainers and other personnel to Iraq and to establish a second training site for Iraqi forces in war-ravaged Anbar province, most of which is under Islamic State control.
The only document the White House has provided to a few key lawmakers comprises four pages of what are essentially talking points, described by those who’ve read them as shallow and based on disputed assertions of presidential authority.
“It’s very thin,” Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said of the document.
Schiff contended that without a new congressional resolution that specifically confirms the president’s power to intervene militarily against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Obama is overseeing a dangerous expansion of presidential war-making powers.
