United States of America
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Today both President Obama of the United States and President Hollande of France meet to discuss how to deal with ISIS and a variety of other issues ranging from intel gathering to the Russian jet that was shot down by Turkey earlier today. I will try and describe the heart of some of the points they touched on.
Obama stressed the USA's resolve to fight ISIS and described France as our oldest known ally. Hollande also wished to give his thanks, and said Obama was the first world leader to call him on the night of the Paris attacks, and that he was also very grateful for the outcry of support from the American people for France during these times for them. Both sides also briefly reminisced over the brotherhood shown after 9/11.
They then went further into the conference, stating the both France and the United States will now work to share intel on a much higher level than before, and will also push for airlines to pass passenger manifests around to compare so governments can more easily look out for terrorists. Europe will also now work to increase intelligence sharing between the U.S. and their European allies.
President Obama stressed, that he does care for the concern of the American people and understands our 'reluctance' to accept Syrian refugees. His counter for this is that we cannot give in to fear, and allow it to keep us from living up to our ideals of freedom and good will. President Hollande also admired this sentiment.
President Obama and Hollande and were also both asked about the Russian jet shot down over Turkey earlier today. President Obama said he would not comment further on it till more intel came in, but he did say if anything this proves that Putin should join the Western Coalition in their strategy and focus on destroying ISIS, instead of Putin trying to keep Assad in power and bombing moderate rebels near the Turkish border. Hollande backed this with stating that he preferred we focus our combined forces against ISIS exclusively.
Strongly advise you read the description as I tried to highlight the jest of what was discussed at this live discussion today at the White House, East Wing.
Now, I'd have said more but there's a limit on how much can be said now in the image descriptions. That and the rest of what I have to say will mostly be personal opinion based on what was discussed, I do my best to be fair and spare you that in the description however.
Obama pointed out that Russia only had a 2 nation coalition against ISIS, and that the U.S. had over 65 nation coalition. While this is 'somewhat' true, I do have to call BS on that because frankly if we really had a 65 nation coalition with their combined military might. Then ISIS would be long gone by now. We could go in under article 5 of NATO right now to wipe them out with our combined might due to what happened in France, but won't.
Likewise, I also have to point out, just because America (over 65% of the country according to polls) isn't for taking in Syrian refugees due to the Paris attacks doesn't mean we are abandoning our values. There are alternatives, SUCH AS creating a safe zone in Syria for the refugees to stay till the fighting is over. This could be done if the U.S. took a leadership role along with NATO and pushed for the Civil War in the region to stop between Assad and the rebels. Then we could focus on destroying ISIS, and supplying aid and protection to the Syrian people in these safe zones. This would be both humane and ethical.
***** I also have a update on the Russian jet that was shot down. *****
The U.S. and NATO have CONFIRMED that the jet did in fact violate Turkish air space, and a U.S. spokesman for the U.S. led coalition based out of Baghdad said the U.S. indeed heard Turkey on "open channels" issue 10 warnings to the Russian jet before the incident.
Reports out of Russia also say a military helicopter (sent in to rescue the pilots from the downed jet) was shot at in Syria, killing one servicemen. Ive also heard that same Russian chopper (could be another, not certain) that went out looking for the the pilots from the downed jet, was actually shot down/destroyed by rebel forces located around the Turkish border. One of the jet pilots is also said to have been killed by rebel forces, the others fate is currently unknown.
Tuesday's incident is the first time since the 1950s that a Russian or Soviet military aircraft has been publicly acknowledged to have been shot down by a NATO country. Needless to say, dear old Putin is hopping mad. Today wasn't a good one for the Russians.