COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Allies by default in the Cradle of Civilization

Isis in Syria: A general reveals the lack of communication with the US - and his country's awkward relationship with their allies-by-default









Thick smoke from an air strike by the US-led coalition rises in Kobani, Syria (AP)
Thick smoke from an air strike by the US-led coalition rises in Kobani, Syria (AP)

Phones were ringing through the army headquarters in central Damascus and a veteran of Syria’s 1982 war with Israel in Lebanon was explaining how all wars involved victories and defeats - that Syria's forces also suffered setbacks in their war against “terrorism” - when the news arrived at his own desk. A flurry of calls established that Jabhat al-Nusra rebels had stormed into the centre of Idlib, the surrounded but still government-held city west of Aleppo; that they had captured the governor’s office and were beheading senior Syrian officers. Our interview was not intended to have gone quite like this. It was a good day to see the general. Which means it was a bad day.

The leading Syrian army officer, who requested anonymity, takes a shrewd view of events - and history - and clearly had no objection to America's air strikes on Isis targets in his country, although he viewed them dispassionately. “Our army doesn't know where or when these strikes are going to happen,” he said.
“We see aircraft on our radar - we can see everything - but if our checkpoints (on the front) see the strikes, it is only by chance. We and the Americans are not sharing information with each other. The Americans just do it. It's natural. They decide in the UN that they are going to do these strikes. Syria says 'yes'. We are fighting 'Daesh' (Isis) and the other terrorist groups. But America never asked us about their targets.”
Isis, Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamist groups are one and the same - he dismisses the Free Syrian Army (FSA) so beloved of President Barack Obama and US Republicans as more of a fantasy army than a reality - and insists that the strategy of Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra is the same wherever the Syrian army fights them. “It's the same plan, the same orders, and we are using the same tactics in fighting them. There is a priority for the Syrian army - to know where they have to fight. I can't say that in all the military operations that the Syrian army is taking the upper hand. War is not just about victory. There are winners and losers. That is the nature of war.”
That's when the phones started ringing. Other officers arrived in the general's office. He walked into another room to take a call. His right-hand fingers tapped on his desk. Was the army to announce the events in Idlib? But he returned to our interview, remembering exactly where he had broken off. “Yes, there are places where the Syrian army loses and there are some setbacks, we can't deny that. We don't pretend that we always have victories. But our victories are bigger than our losses. Three days ago a town called Moraq - strategic between Idlib and Aleppo was recaptured by our army - the main road from Damascus to Aleppo is now completely safe.”
But not Idlib. The phones rang again. “Nusra tried to infiltrate into the city, but we foiled them,” he said triumphantly. True. But the general didn't mention - perhaps did not even then know - that his own comrades were being beheaded, even as the army was about to recapture the governor's office. By chance, I had been asking the general about Raqqa province, whose last military fortress and airbase was captured by Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra this year. Videos showed hundreds of Syrian soldiers being executed beside mass graves, one even showed two fighter jets being towed through the streets by rebels. And within days, reports from outside Syria spoke of Isis being trained on Mig-21s by former Iraqi pilots.

He knew about the jets. “This is cheap propaganda - these were old, unflyable jets that stood near the airbase gates. If they could have been flown, we would have taken them away. They were very old Mig-17s, junk jets without radar or control. We couldn't rebuild them - and nor can they. Even the Russians can't rebuild them. We know everything that is flying over Syria - even the American planes - but these old Migs can never leave the ground.”
As for Raqqa and its citizens and the fate of his soldiers, he was visibly angry. “Isis is reactionary, trying to represent the past - the medieval era. There are executions, torture, they are telling people they are practising sharia. And they are teaching children how to behead people....” The general would not speculate on how many of Syria's soldiers had been murdered in Raqqa. “I can't give you exact numbers - some are still missing, videos can be doctored. We don't take Isis's word for anything. There are soldiers who have been captured. We don't know how many.” Unknown to the general, up to 70 soldiers had just been beheaded in Idlib.
I was surprised, I said, that Syria does not call these executions war crimes - as Syria's enemies always accuse Syria of war crimes. But it was clear from his reply that this is a war without any prisoners. “The Syrian Arab Army has been in open war with terrorists for four years. Of course we are feeling angry. We have setbacks and they are targeted by us every day. We are killing hundreds of them. I am not going to give Syria to these stupid people. We are fighting to the death. But we are for a political resolution.
"We are concerned that in the end there must only be a political resolution for Syria. Eliminate the terrorists - all the people in the world are against them - and anyone who carries weapons against Syrian soldiers or the Syrian government or civilian people is involved in terrorism. We will deal with them.
"America did this because a journalist was murdered - it was a pretext for America to come to Syria. But we are going to eliminate all the terrorists on Syrian soil. In my opinion, we are cooperating with the Coalition because we said 'yes' when they attacked Isis. The UN resolution was a sign of cooperation.”
As for the battle of Ain al-Arab, or Kobani, on the Turkish border - famous on television screens around the world - the general had some cynicism. “We must separate the military and the political. Ain al-Arab is a Syrian town, the majority of its people are Kurds and Isis attacked them, just to control it. And to base themselves there, because it's a border town. Politically, however, there is something of a theatre about this. The Turks want to have a buffer zone and to pressure the US to give them this buffer zone. And the Americans are trying to push Turkey into the war situation. This is the 'headline'! But they are trying to use each other, the Turks and the Americans, and Ain al-Arab's civilians are paying the cost of this.”
As for the FSA into which the US put so much faith, he laughs. “There may be some in Idlib and near Deraa.”There were soldiers and some officers who defected from the Syrian army,” he said. “Some asked to come back and are in our army again. Others returned and we sent them home.” More Dad's Army, it would seem to the general, than the Free Syrian Army.

123 comments:

  1. From all that is open sourced and available, looks like the Kurds of Kobane could really use a Battalion of Iraqi troops, rather than just a company strength unit, but hey, it's a start...

    Reinforcements Enter Besieged Syrian Town via Turkey, Raising Hopes

    Mr. Cagaptay, the Turkish analyst, said the range of forces now in Kobani was striking. It incorporates Syrian Arab insurgents, the Iraqi Kurds, and local Kurdish fighters from the Y.P.G., a militia affiliated with Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., movement.

    “That’s huge, the first time this has happened,” he said. “This builds up a working relationship between these three groups, so if the goal is to build a native, indigenous boots-on-the-ground strategy, this could be the beginning.”


    Step by step the "Rat Doctrine" is being implemented in the war against Daesh.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... in music the "Rat Doctrine" and "The Plan" ...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmTJ0bUG8mo
      LA DONNA E MOBILE

      "Woman is flighty
      Like a feather in the wind,
      She changes her voice — and her mind."

      Delete
  2. Isis could not have emerged without support from western powers and their regional allies.

    These facilitated the travel of jihadis from 80 countries into Syria, funded them, and then trained and armed them. So long as these jihadis were committing crimes in Syria against Syrians and Assad’s regime (which, to be clear, bears responsibility for the ongoing disaster there), western governments turned a blind eye. After all, at the time Isis was doing the bidding of the same neoconservatives and liberal interventionists who had decided that the overthrow of Libya’s despot, Gaddafi, should be followed by the overthrow of Assad. This would then enable them to go for the main prize, the Iranian regime. However, Isis became a problem for the west when, following the pattern established by al-Qaida and the Taliban, they turned their guns against western interests in the region and tried to capture the oil fields of the Kurdish region, which was not part of the plan.

    Although Isis is a product of the west’s policy of domination, it is also a Sunni version of Khomeinism. It was Ayatollah Khomeini who sanctified and glorified violence under the garb of religion, and the heinous crimes committed by his regime set precedents for Isis. These include the beheading of opposition leaders and others, the execution of prisoners and the injured (which, after the June 1981 coup against me, reached 300-400 a night and climaxed in 1988 when the regime executed more than 4,000 prisoners who had already been sentenced and were serving prison terms).

    {...}

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  3. {...}

    Khomeini, Iran’s one-time supreme leader, implemented a doctrine of victory through terrorization (al-nasro-be-rob), and his regime’s ideologue, Mesbah Yazdi, has said that “if violence is the only way of achieving the Islamic goal, then it is necessary to use it”.

    He also said that “if, in a place like the desert where the police are not accessible, and if somebody insulted God, the prophet and Islam, then the sentence [hokm] for insulting Islamic sacred is execution and if there is no possibility for a trial, then it is the duty of any Muslim to personally carry it out”. This is exactly what Al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, is doing. Needless to say that Khomeini could not justify his crimes with even one Qur’anic verse, and neither can Isis. I challenge them to cite a single verse from more than 6,600 in the Koran which tolerates, let alone permits, such savagery. From the Qur’an’s perspective, war is a Satanic act and peace and human rights are blessings – in contradiction to Khomeini’s (and his Sunni counterparts’) glorification of war and violence.

    So, in the mirror of Isis, we can see the organic relation between Islamic fundamentalism and the exercise of western power. What, then, should be done?

    Terrorism is a product of relations of domination. As long as such relations are not addressed, we can see no end to it. Isis is not an internal phenomenon of Syria and Iraq but an international one. The US, Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf Arab regimes are culprits in creating a monster that is now threatening their interests. The solution should thus also be sought in the collaboration of these players. At the moment, the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria is under threat by Isis forces. Isis is not trying to annihilate them because of their religion, as they are Sunnis, but because it says that the Kurds are ethnically Iranians and therefore heretics. Here we are not observing religious cleansing as Isis inflicted on the Yazidis in Iraq, but ethnic cleansing nonetheless.

    {...}

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  4. {...}

    Turkey would prefer the town to fall as this would weaken the PKK and create the opportunity to pursue its unstated policy of reviving the Ottoman empire.

    The Assad regime wants the town to fall to Isis so it can march into the region and portray itself as an anti-terrorist champion and thus secure the survival of its regime. The US’s aim is to prop up the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and other oil kingdoms. The Iranian regime wants to see the town fall so it can rescue the refugees and portray itself as a defender of the Kurdish people. In every case, then, we can see how national interest violates human rights and makes human life expendable.

    However, we are also in one of those rare historical moments in which the defence of human rights does not contravene the national interest of any of these countries. All the countries involved in the disaster in Syria through which Isis has emerged and who are responsible for the present catastrophe need to get together and agree to stop funding and arming the parties involved. Turkey could close its borders to jihadis, and when all the funds and weapons have dried up, the UN could send a peace force to the country, made up of a combination of forces that have no interest in Syria. This would initiate not only the ending of one of the most brutal civil wars in the 21st century, but also reverse the gains of a violent so-called Islamic movement which seriously threatens even western societies. The Islamic world has an opportunity to educate itself in Islam as a discourse of liberty, which is defined by principles of human dignity and human rights.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/27/isis-monster-international-solution

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the UN could send a peace force to the country, made up of a combination of forces that have no interest in Syria.

      Not likely to happen.
      Has never been a successful strategy anywhere else.
      The Congo and Central African Republic both sterling examples of UN Peacekeepers not keeping the peace.

      Delete
  5. This is worth repeating:

    However, we are also in one of those rare historical moments in which the defense of human rights does not contravene the national interest of any of these countries. All the countries involved in the disaster in Syria through which Isis has emerged and who are responsible for the present catastrophe need to get together and agree to stop funding and arming the parties involved. Turkey could close its borders to jihadis, and when all the funds and weapons have dried up, the UN could send a peace force to the country, made up of a combination of forces that have no interest in Syria. This would initiate not only the ending of one of the most brutal civil wars in the 21st century, but also reverse the gains of a violent so-called Islamic movement which seriously threatens even western societies. The Islamic world has an opportunity to educate itself in Islam as a discourse of liberty, which is defined by principles of human dignity and human rights.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If the President really wanted to poke Bibi, who has recently been described as a 'chickenshit', in the eye ...
    If Mr Obama decided that there should be a price tag on those settlement expansions ...

    The US could start to communicate and coordinate with the Syrian military in regards to the air strikes against the Daesh.
    The Coalition could begin to provide Close Air Support to the legitimate government of Syria, the one recognized n the UN.

    Making sure that al-Qeada operatives never came to power in Syria ...
    Despite Israeli preferences for that outcome to the war.

    ReplyDelete
  7. A rights group has said that the Islamic State (IS) has released 25 Kurdish schoolchildren who were kidnapped by the group in May.

    ...

    The IS kidnapped Kurdish schoolchildren while they were returning to their hometown, Kobane, after taking exams in the city of Aleppo.

    The release came amid ongoing clashes between the terror group and the Kurdish forces in the Syrian town of Kobane.

    ReplyDelete
  8. TUNIS, Tunisia - A liberal party with ties to the deposed regime has taken the most seats in Tunisia's parliamentary elections, leaving the once dominant Islamists running a close second.

    ReplyDelete

  9. Amazon Warriors Did Indeed Fight and Die Like Men
    Archaeology shows that these fierce women also smoked pot, got tattoos, killed—and loved—men.


    They've been excavating Scythian kurgans, which are the burial mounds of these nomadic peoples. They all had horse-centred lifestyles, ranging across vast distances from the Black Sea all the way to Mongolia. They lived in small tribes, so it makes sense that everyone in the tribe is a stakeholder. They all have to contribute to defense and to war efforts and hunting. They all have to be able to defend themselves.

    The great equalizer for those peoples was the domestication of horses and the invention of horse riding, followed by the perfection of the Scythian bow, which is smaller and very powerful. If you think about it, a woman on a horse with a bow, trained since childhood, can be just as fast and as deadly as a boy or man.

    Archaeologists have found skeletons buried with bows and arrows and quivers and spears and horses. At first they assumed that anyone buried with weapons in that region must have been a male warrior. But with the advent of DNA testing and other bioarchaeological scientific analysis, they've found that about one-third of all Scythian women are buried with weapons and have war injuries just like the men. The women were also buried with knives and daggers and tools. So burial with masculine-seeming grave goods is no longer taken as an indicator of a male warrior. It's overwhelming proof that there were women answering to the description of the ancient Amazons.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ISIS 'emerged' when President Incompetent took our troops out.

    It is very simple.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      My, My. Capital letters.

      Da rat is mortified. Incensed? Enraged? Panties in a twist?

      I assume the word liar comes so easily to his lips since when you do it enough you must think about it a lot.

      .

      Delete
    2. Do not post lies, Legionnare Q.

      You were going to produce a tome of them, but nary a single one made it through the editing process.

      The cupboard really was quite bare, wasn't it?

      Delete
    3. .

      I published them, rat, yet in your stubbornness you refuse to read them.

      Have you finished that assignment I gave you?

      If not, do it now.

      .

      Delete
  11. Now let them fight it out.

    Enjoy.

    Only thing to do now, in our own bests interests, in support the Kurds as best we can.

    ReplyDelete
  12. If we read a little history we will read about these people and their 'philosophy' slaughtering one another endlessly.

    One notes that the Jews, and the Hindus, for instance, have given up such mutual slaughter.

    The better part of Hindu civilization has turned towards the west, and self interest.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Jews did have a 'civil' war and one Jewish Prince invited the Romans in. .....

      This was an historical mistake of big proportions......

      Delete
    2. The current crop of Zionist Israeli have no connection to those Jews.

      Delete
    3. Jack HawkinsThu Oct 30, 08:43:00 AM EDT
      The current crop of Zionist Israeli have no connection to those Jews.

      So says the resident jew hating, zionist bashing, Israel trashing, lying, misdirecting, distorting fool of a blogger.

      It's above your pay grade to make those types of comments.

      But you saying those types of things? Destroys Deuce's efforts at being taken seriously..

      THANKS

      Delete
    4. Describe how King Herod is connected to Zionism, or the Jews of today.
      He was not even a 'real' Jew.

      His family were converts to Judaism, not of the Moses folks ...

      Guess you are correct, "O"rdure - King Herod and the Ashkenazi are connected, neither are 'real' Jews.
      Neither regimes being made up of the genetic seed of Abraham and Moses

      I stand corrected

      {;-)

      Delete
    5. Both regimes placed in Palestine by foreign, occupying powers and thaen had to fight the locals for control of the land.

      You are correct, "O"rdure, the present regime in Israel has many similarities to that of King Herod.

      Delete
    6. King
      Herod slaughtered innocents in Bethlehem.
      he current regime slaughtered innocents in Gaza.

      "A Slaughter of Innocents": Henry Siegman, a Venerable Jewish Voice for Peace, on Gaza

      Henry Siegman, the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, long described as one of the nation’s "big three" Jewish organizations along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Henry Siegman was born in 1930 in Frankfurt, Germany. Three years later, the Nazis came to power. After fleeing Nazi troops in Belgium, his family eventually moved to the United States. His father was a leader of the European Zionist movement, pushing for the creation of a Jewish state. In New York, Siegman studied and was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. He later became head of the Synagogue Council of America. After his time at the American Jewish Congress, Siegman became a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He now serves as president of the U.S./Middle East Project.

      Doubt that Mr Henry Siegman qualifies as self-loathing

      Delete
    7. When one thinks that this is what is necessary for Israel to survive,that the Zionist dream is based on the slaughter of—repeated slaughter of innocents on a scale that we’re watching these days on television, that is really a profound, profound crisis—and should be a profound crisis—in the thinking of all of us who were committed to the establishment of the state and to its success. It leads one virtually to a whole rethinking of this historical phenomenon.
      = Henry Siegman

      Delete
    8. You see such a short story arc, "O"rdure ...

      Never look ahead ...
      You can't even play checkers very well, can you?

      Delete
    9. Wish Farmer Fudd had been available as a copy editor, but he never did utilize that English Lit degree.
      Oh well ...

      {;-)

      Delete
    10. Jack HawkinsThu Oct 30, 09:48:00 AM EDT
      Describe how King Herod is connected to Zionism, or the Jews of today.
      He was not even a 'real' Jew.


      He aint, but for years you held him up as a Jew. Something real Jews never did.

      I aint descended from Herod.

      Nor is any Israeli Jew.

      Herod and his line? Not Jews.

      Glad to see you actually started reading and started to censor yourself

      Delete
  13. See;

    Joe Campbel,l and his opinions on our own self interest.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Joe Campbell

    Just read Joe.......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Joe Campbell was a benighted, self-promoting, universalist who was able to sell his ideas to the ill-informed public but who carried little weight with other academics in his field.

      .

      Delete
    2. You are are an idiot on the level of Croc Shit.

      Delete
  15. There are a lot of people (Middle-easterners) who care about ME politics. Thank God, we don't have to.

    Our job is simple - with the added benefit that it is one at which we're pretty good.:

    KillingDaesholes.

    ReplyDelete

  16. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29828547

    A spokesman for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has described the closure of a disputed Jerusalem holy site as a "declaration of war".
    ...
    Palestinians hold the Israeli government responsible for a "dangerous act", Mr Abbas was quoted as saying by Mr Rudeina, in remarks carried by AFP news agency.

    "This dangerous Israeli escalation is a declaration of war on the Palestinian people and its sacred places and on the Arab and Islamic nation," Mr Rudeina added.

    "The state of Palestine will take all legal measures to hold Israel accountable and to stop these ongoing attacks."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cool.

      So much for the fake nationalistic people self named "Palestine". I guess all the rockets, bombings, stabbings, ied's, kidnappings, murders, hijackings they have thrown at the Israelis were NOT declaration of war?

      LOL

      Delete
    2. Saudi Arabia closed a holy site to Ebola patients, they aren't allowed to do their circles around Mohammad's outhouse in Mecca, did Liberia call that a declaration of war?

      Delete
  17. Wonder which way this will spin, in the summer of 2016 ...

    Michael Bay in Talks to Direct Benghazi Movie '13 Hours'

    In a massive change of pace, Michael Bay is going from toy tentpole to a Benghazi political drama.

    Bay is in negotiations to direct 13 Hours, the adaptation of Mitchell Zuckoff’s book about the attack on an American compound in Libya that left U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens dead.

    Chuck Hogan wrote the script adapting the book, which details how on Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi. The focus is on six members of a security team that valiantly fought to defend the many Americans stationed there. They only partially succeeded: Stevens and a foreign service worker were killed in one attack, and two contract workers were killed during a second assault on a CIA station nearby.
    ...
    Erwin Stoff is producing the Paramount film.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stoff's achievements as a producer now rival those of his three-decade-long career as a personal manager. Among the numerous motion pictures on which he has served as executive producer or producer over the past 10 years are "The Matrix," "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" and "I Am Legend," all of which combined to earn $1.3 billion in box offices worldwide.

      Stoff co-founded 3 Arts Entertainment 20 years ago with his partners, and his experience as a producer has been a key catalyst in the company's steadfast growth as a hybrid management/production entity.

      3 Arts has continued to distinguish itself for both the artists it represents, as well as its ability to consistently generate commercially successful and artistically bold movies and television shows.

      His company's high-powered roster of performing, directing and writing talent includes Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, David Ayer, Debra Messing, Chris Evans, Francis Lawrence, Mike Judge, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Daniels and Jason Bateman. Stoff and his partners at 3 Arts are able to repeatedly match clients with projects, guiding each to success.

      During Stoff's tenure at 3 Arts, the company has produced Emmy Award-winning shows such as "King of the Hill," "30 Rock," "The Office," "Starter Wife" and "Carnivale." Some of the films that he has personally been involved with as producer or executive producer include "A Scanner Darkly," "Constantine," "Guess Who," "Picture Perfect," "Devil's Advocate" and most recently, a re-make of the classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still.

      Delete
  18. A spokesman for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has described the closure of a disputed Jerusalem holy site as a "declaration of war".

    It's all fun and games to declare war when you're the head of a pretend state, like the queen of Moonrise Kingdom, but if you are the head of an actual state, like Abbas holds himself to be (and as various Eurabian countries concur) then you're liable to get a war back when you declare one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Egypt destroys homes to make a buffer zone

      CAIRO — With bulldozers and dynamite, the Egyptian army on Wednesday began demolishing hundreds of houses, displacing thousands of people, along the border with the Gaza Strip in a panicked effort to establish a buffer zone that officials hope will stop the influx of militants and weapons across the frontier.

      The demolitions, cutting through crowded neighborhoods in the border town of Rafah, began with orders to evacuate Tuesday and were part of a sweeping security response by the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to months of deadly militant attacks on Egyptian security personnel in the Sinai Peninsula, including the massacre of at least 31 soldiers last Friday.


      That assault was the deadliest on the Egyptian military in years, and a blow to the government, which has claimed to be winning the battle against insurgents. The resort to a harsh counterinsurgency tactic — destroying as many as 800 houses and displacing up to 10,000 people to eliminate “terrorist hotbeds,” as el-Sissi’s spokesman put it — highlighted the difficulties the military has faced in breaking the militants as well as the anger that operations like Wednesday’s inevitably arouse.

      “Our house in Rafah is more than 60 years old,” Hammam Alagha said on Twitter on Tuesday, detailing his family’s eviction in a series of widely shared posts. After an army officer told the family to evacuate — and Alagha said he refused — the officer “said tomorrow we will bomb it with everything in it.”

      Delete
    2. Those Egyptians do not respect property rights, guess they are not the font of 'Western Civilization', either.

      Another authoritarian regime that the US should not be subsidizing, should not be providing weapons for.
      al-Sisi installing a regime in Egypt that Israel has managed to find equivalency with.

      Delete
    3. Thanks Jack for another meaningless post that adds nothing to the conversation.

      I guess you never learned "less is more"

      Delete
    4. Because it isn't "O"rdure ...

      You drew attention to the connection between King Herod and Bibi.
      Two Chickenshits whose similarities span the 'Ages'

      Both ruled regimes installed by foreign, colonial empires.
      Both slaughtered innocents for the short term political gains.
      Both sought to legitimize their regimes with construction projects

      I have to thank you, for that.

      But that you did not 'see' it coming ...
      Par for the course.

      Hard to play checkers, much less chess, by yourself.

      {;-)

      Delete
    5. Not Mr Liar,

      You brought up "king Herod" not I.

      Once again you add nothing but distortions and lies.

      What is like being a scoundrel of a human being?

      Delete
    6. Both ruled regimes installed by foreign, colonial empires.
      Both slaughtered innocents for the short term political gains.
      Both sought to legitimize their regimes with construction projects



      More hand job logic from the "distorter in chief"

      Your attempts at building an argument remind me of a 4th grader and the old cat and a kite both have tails so a cat is a kite..

      You are a moron.

      Go shovel some horse shit…

      Delete
    7. Well, "O"rdure, you could learn something from 4th graders.

      Keep on keepin' on, I'm sure you'll get out of kindergarten, soon enough.

      Delete
    8. And I am sure your crimes against humanity will catch up to you soon enough.

      Delete
  19. Decent GDP number for 3rd qtr. - Up 3.5% Annualized

    Another very good "jobless claims" number - 287,000 - 4 wk. average 281,000.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. US Labor Force Participation Rate is at 62.70%, compared to 62.80% last month and 63.20% last year.

      Delete
    2. Revenge of the machines ...
      Wonder if those Luddites were more right than wrong ?

      Delete
    3. .

      The FED is as useless as tits on a bull.

      They finally end QE but offer up as their reason for doing so that the employment situation has stabilized and is improving. Laughable. Like the other polls in D.C. when they finally admit the error of their ways they simply 'declare victory and go home'.

      However, they still continue to hold short term interest rates near zero which you would think would keep the dollar low and spark commerce although now with the EU talking about adopting the same policies the FED has been using for 6 years it's possible the dollar will strengthen. The FED's interest rate policy still continues to stick it to the little guy, the elderly and those on fixed income or who are still suffering from the results of 2008 while helping business and the banks who are sitting on piles of cash and thus further exacerbating the income distribution crisis in the US.

      .

      Delete
    4. The challenge is systemic, it's not going to fixed by sweeping the porch.

      Delete
    5. If Democrats can figure out how to let robots vote, then Rufus' economic numbers would be good news.

      Delete
    6. Hey, if those robots know more about stuff than the usual aisle person bring them on!

      Delete
  20. Let me repeat.

    Quirk is an idiot on the level of Croc Shit.

    A god damned lapser.......

    ReplyDelete
  21. And there is nothing worse than a POLISH Catholic lapser...

    ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A moron of the City who puts up metallic music.

      Delete
    2. Nothing but idiotic METALLIC music.

      Desipair, degrepitude, and drivell and degeneration, and I have spelled all those words wirtie in urban Detoroit.

      Delete
  22. http://www.123greetings.com/send/view/10329914501927828336

    ReplyDelete
  23. Quirk is....... POLISH.

    O my GOD to the heavens........

    An embarrassment of the first sort....

    Shit!

    As my Hindu Niece once in a while says................

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bob, you can't even spend a single evening well, as all your deleted posts on the last thread attest, yet you want eternal life. You want more of this shit. I don't think Jesus would be doing you a favor giving it to you.

      Delete
  24. .

    As my Hindu Niece once in a while says................Uncle Bobbie, while do you drink so often and so early. It destroys brain cells and according to the testing you really don't have that many left.

    On another matter, though I am Hindu I have decided to celebrate Christmas this years and will be accepting presents.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  25. Out of control police brutality (including outright murder), and the militarization of cops across America, while significant issues in their own right, take on an even more pressing degree of concern when viewed as a reflection of society as a whole. For years now, I have been trying to point out the connection between banker bailouts, corruption in Washington D.C., imperialistic foreign policy and police aggression. They are all different sides of the same coin. All of these things are merely symptoms of the core cancer, which is a sociopathic elite running the nation and not applying the rule of law to those who are in power; wherever that power happens to reside.

    As long as the worst amongst us continue to get away with their criminality, the more of it we will see. In fact, the more brutal and cartoonish it will get.

    A very sad and disturbing example of this happened in 2012, when a terrified, 49-year old, mentally illl homeless man, Milton Hall, was gunned down to death in broad daylight by 8 cops in Saginaw, Michigan.

    He represents everything our superficial, greed obsessed, immoral culture despises. He was a homeless, mentally ill black man.

    This is how cops disposed of him:

    The Shooting of Milton Hall

    This happened in 2012, but the reason it is being highlighted today is the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan recently released a statement highlighting the fact that the “Justice” Department has failed to prosecute the officers involved. The DOJ claims that: “this tragic event does not present sufficient evidence of willful misconduct to lead to a federal criminal prosecution.”

    How can anyone who sees this video agree with that statement. The bad guys won again. Justice no longer resides in America. No wonder Ferguson exploded.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Well, what do you know ...

    Joaquin G*****o, Police Officer is a 23-year police veteran; 22 years with the City of Saginaw Police Department (Michigan).
    In 2010 Guerrero trained at the Israeli Military Industries (IMI) Academy in Israel for Advanced Security and Anti-Terror Unit.
    Saginaw's "Urban Assault Vehicle" (video)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AixSpkLpRko&app=desktop

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now, there is no reason to believe that Officer G******o was involved in the Miller shooting ...
      It is an indicator, though, that the civilian police of Saginaw MI have been training in Israel, sopping up the techniques that the Mossad used in Guatemala.

      The results of that training, even if it was just 'Training the Trainers' illustrated, again, in the shooting of Mr Miller.

      Delete
    2. AND you TAUGHT people how to be a sniper in Central America.

      Are you held responsible for all those you taught to KILL?

      Delete
    3. The US Government is/was responsible, for who it trains and what they then proceed to do with that training,
      You better believe it.

      Delete
    4. When are you going to be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for your crimes against humanity?

      Delete
  27. Right on. What the hell is going on that US civilian cops are being trained by the Israeli para-military police?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, he is not losing his mnd, the people of the United States are being steadily stripped of their liberties, freedoms and civil rights.

      Done by authoritarians trained in the techniques the Israeli have refined in their sixty plus years of persecuting the Palestinians.

      Delete
  28. HOUSTON WHEELCHAIR KILLING

    This police incident was a classic. The victim was living in a group home for the mentally ill. He was in a wheelchair having lost an arm and leg some time before in a rail accident.

    Two Israeli trained Houston Police were sent. The spokesman for the Houston Police, Jodi Siva, claimed the man “cornered” one of the police officers and threatened him with an object.

    Both officers had completed Krav Fit martial arts training from their Israeli instructors at a cost of thousands of dollars a day.

    There is, within this tragedy an aspect of absurdity. Other than guns and watching sports, martial arts is one of the biggest forms of recreation in the United States. I began formal training at 8 and continued as a trainer or in competition well into my 50s.

    Of course all US Marines have advanced martial arts training as with Army Rangers, Special Forces, SEALS, specialized units of the Air Force and about 4 million civilians who hold “black belt” or above level training.

    There are two initial issues here, one, of course, is turning to what may officially be the least athletic nation on earth, Israel, for training in an area of athletic prowess, sort of a “coals to Newcastle” type of thing.

    Israel is not Okinawa or Korea. If I want violin or chess lessons, Israel will be among my first 100 choices.

    The second, of course, is that the whole thing is a “con” in the first place, the only time a police officer in Houston was involved in a potential terror plot, he mistakenly killed a CIA agent. This is quite an interesting story from May 2008:
    Federal sources close to this case have told me CIA Agent Roland Carnaby had proof a “suitcase nuke” had arrived inside the U.S. from Israel on Tuesday. He was chasing the device and the Israelis who had it.

    As local law enforcement was called-in, for some unknown reason cops allegedly began chasing the CIA Agent instead of the Israelis and ultimately shot the CIA Agent dead!

    The Houston wheelchair shooting is a classic. We have two armed police officers, highly trained in the mysterious martial arts of Israel, we have a subject in a wheel chair with one arm and one leg and in his hand is a ballpoint pen.

    The officers, of course, had batons, tasers, and were wearing body armor.

    A more likely scenario, one with a typical Israeli aspect to it, would have had the second officer simply take the handles of the wheel chair, run it out into the street and under a passing bus or perhaps a bulldozer of one could be arranged.

    The victim had committed no crime, had no warrants but was suspected of “causing a disturbance.” Group homes, such as this one, are seldom staffed with competent professional personnel and are generally a method of bilking government programs out of money while commonly physically and emotionally abusing residents.

    Personnel working in “group homes” typically have, themselves, criminal records. This is the average qualification in the United States for taking care of the old, the helpless and the infirm.

    The officer who killed the unidentified man is named Matthew Jacob Marin. He has been placed on a 3 day administrative leave.


    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/09/27/press-tv-tragedy-of-us-police-training-by-israeli-companies/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Then quit squatting, "O"rdure, and get to studying, or you'll never get out of kindergarten.

      Delete
    2. Jack HawkinsThu Oct 30, 03:40:00 PM EDT
      Then quit squatting, "O"rdure, and get to studying, or you'll never get out of kindergarten.


      ad hominem attacks are used when you cannot add to the discussion.

      Delete
    3. Not an attack at all, "O"rdure, merely advice.
      I'd like to see you advance out the kindergarten, soon.
      Within a year or two, anyway.

      Keep your nose to that grindstone ...

      {;-)

      Delete
    4. If you stay in the squat, calling BULLSHIT every time you take a dump, why, you'll never advance from the kindergarten outhouse.
      Gotta try to get you out of the patterned habits that you've gotten so established.
      Playiin' in the BULLSHIT, why, it's just so ... you

      Delete
  29. Deuce is paranoid.

    He sees Jews in USA City Cop Uniforms.

    What a joke.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In 'black' communities, that'd be a great step forward.
      In 'white' communities, it's be revolutionary

      Delete

    2. “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you”.

      ― Joseph Heller

      Delete
  30. COLUMBIA, S.C. - U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's remark at a private, all-male dinner about only helping white men if he became president was a joke taken out of context, his campaign said Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Ebola deaths are down by 2/3rds in Monrovia; here's how they're doing it:

    "K.I.S.S.

    The three main factors might surprise you:

    1. Bug sprayers with kitchen bleach

    2. Flyers

    3. "Blocker" drugs

    Yeah, the ordinary $15 bug sprayer that you'd pick up at Home Depot. Most folks here get one to battle ants and roaches. It has a hand pump to pressurize the reservoir; add water and a couple ounces of Malathion and you're in business.

    In Africa you add bleach. Mix kitchen bleach at a 10% mix with water. A fine spray kills Ebola on contact. In Monrovia the health service started handing these out in July.

    Then flyers came out with a description of the virus, how small it is, how it compares with human RNA, how to kill it, how to avoid it, how to clean up, how to contact health services, and the many dangers presented by Ebola corpses.

    The flyers changed community attitudes toward the Ebola threat. Denial all but disappeared within days. And the flyers got handed around. Add on the availability of the little sprayers, people had what they needed to put up a decent fight.

    As to "blockers" they already had a usable medicine available. Generic antivirals are not "Experimental Drugs" as described in corporate MSM here in the U.S. The only part of it that's experimental is taking a drug that works with hepatitis, flu, HIV and using it with Ebola.

    The best known drug is Lamivudine (common commercial name, Epivir.) This was invented in 1988 at McGill University in Montreal. It has been used for severe viral infections ranging from Hepatitis-B to HIV. Those are DNA viruses but apparently the transcription mechanisms are close enough that Epivir works to cut RNA-based Ebola fatalities.

    Dr. Gorbee Logan, the physician at Tubmanburg, Liberia, started this approach in August when he treated 15 Ebola patients with Lamivudine/Epivir. His early-phase patients survived. Tubmanburg is an hour's drive from Monrovia so news of this treatment got into play right off."


    This regime for treatment expanded out from Tubmanburg. The one and only limit is availability of Lamivudine/Epivir in West Africa. AIDS clinics have it; others do not and that includes all of the small towns. You can think of Lamivudine/Epivir as a generic antiviral. It blocks specific viral-induced DNA replication, but also inhibits RNA replication in certain circumstances. A big Biden deal.

    Thank God, for Dr. Logan.

    O-Ring Problems and Ebola Response

    Most of this audience are familiar with . . . . "

    Good News

    ReplyDelete
  32. BREAKING NEWS

    Recently Unearthed Documents at the University of Idaho confirm the training of the Idaho State Police by Israeli Agents of the Mossad.......


    Download documents here:

    ReplyDelete
  33. Deuce's new friends give us love...

    BEIRUT - Bombing runs by the Syrian air force over the past 10 days have killed at least 221 civilians, a third of them children, a group monitoring Syria's civil war said on Thursday.

    The intensifying offensive by President Bashar Assad's forces has heightened concerns among his opponents that he may be taking advantage of US-led air raids on Islamic State insurgents to regain territory elsewhere in the country.

    Since October 20 the Syrian military has staged at least 769 attacks including barrel bombings in many areas of Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and more than 500 people have been wounded.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The US should not supply the Syrians with financial aid.

      oh, that's right, the US doesn't give them a dime..
      They are not equivalent to Israel or Egypt.

      Back to kindergarten with you, "O"rdure, at least until you can show an understanding of Equivalency.
      Can't advance to the next level until you exhibit mastery of the subject matter.

      {;-)

      Delete
  34. .

    The intensifying offensive by President Bashar Assad's forces has heightened concerns among his opponents that he may be taking advantage of US-led air raids on Islamic State insurgents to regain territory elsewhere in the country.


    Ya think?

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The US and the regime of Mr Assad, the legitimate government of Syria, the one recognized by the United Nations,, have a common enemy in extreme, radical Wahhabist Islam. It is reminiscent of the relationship the US had with Joe Stalin's Societ Union, only the US is not supplying Assad''s government with weapons or war materials, as the US did with the Soviets during WWII.

      The Wahhabi are not the equivalent of Hitler, obviously, or the US would be supplying support to Assad.
      As it did to Stalin, who was many, many more degrees of vile than is Assad and his regime of Alawites, Christians, and Kurds.

      Delete
  35. I love the expansiveness of the Hindu outlook.......

    She says " I will marry you in the next life, Bob"

    She no longer calls me "Uncle Bob".

    ReplyDelete
  36. I am working on it, Ash.

    I am digging into the Imagery of the drowned woman as I type.


    Bobbo

    ReplyDelete
  37. “Deuce’s new friends give us love...”

    Not. quite. I want the US to be free of the albatross that flew into the USS America’s rigging when in October 1973 Opec proclaimed an oil embargo in response to the U.S.decision to re-supply the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur war. The cost of the bizarre forty year one sided idiotic relationship must be in the trillions.

    Whomever can align to fight, is willing to fight and will fight ISIS is the friend de jour of the US public and national interest. I want out. Let Israel and the rest of the lot sort it out. We never owed Israel anything. They bit the hand that helped them and have done nothing of consequence that can justify the massive resources that have been siphoned by our politicians for a state the size of Chile and of less real importance. It is no more complex than that. I wish them good luck but mostly good riddance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JERUSALEM — The Swedish government on Thursday officially recognized a state of Palestine, as the new prime minister, Stefan Lofven, ignored Israeli protests and followed through on a pledge he made at his inauguration this month.

      The Swedish Foreign Ministry posted a message on Twitter on Thursday announcing the move and saying the Swedish government “expressed hopes for peaceful coexistence between #Israel and #Palestine.”

      Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said that Sweden hoped its “excellent cooperation” with Israel would continue and that the decision would be met in Jerusalem “in a constructive way,” The Associated Press reported.

      The Palestinian leadership welcomed the move, which came amid growing criticism and frustration in Europe and the United States of Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

      Israel fears that the move by Sweden could lead other influential European countries to follow suit, a trend Israeli officials say would pre-empt the results of future negotiations over a Palestinian state with agreed borders

      Delete
    2. Israel’s fears will be correct and threats about harm to future negotiations is a joke where we all have heard the punch-line time and time and time again.

      Delete

    3. In the case of Israel and its seriousness about 'negotiating' with the Palestinians ...

      Past performance does predict future results.

      Delete
  38. All this politics is shit, Deuce.

    Why bother about it ?

    The heart says love, follow that.

    ReplyDelete
  39. The United Nations has warned that foreign jihadists are swarming into the twin conflicts in Iraq and Syria on “an unprecedented scale” and from countries that had not previously contributed combatants to global terrorism.

    A report by the UN security council, obtained by the Guardian, finds that 15,000 people have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the Islamic State (Isis) and similar extremist groups. They come from more than 80 countries, the report states, “including a tail of countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida”.

    The UN said it was uncertain whether al-Qaida would benefit from the surge. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida who booted Isis out of his organisation, “appears to be maneuvering for relevance”, the report says.

    The UN’s numbers bolster recent estimates from US intelligence about the scope of the foreign fighter problem, which the UN report finds to have spread despite the Obama administration’s aggressive counter-terrorism strikes and global surveillance dragnets.

    “Numbers since 2010 are now many times the size of the cumulative numbers of foreign terrorist fighters between 1990 and 2010 – and are growing,” says the report, produced by a security council committee that monitors al-Qaida.

    The UN report did not list the 80-plus countries that it said were the source of fighters flowing fighters into Iraq and Syria. But in recent months, Isis supporters have appeared in places as unlikely as the Maldives, and its videos proudly display jihadists with Chilean-Norwegian and other diverse backgrounds.

    “There are instances of foreign terrorist fighters from France, the Russian Federation and and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland operating together,” it states. More than 500 British citizens are believed to have travelled to the region since 2011.

    ReplyDelete
  40. The five most liberal states:

    WASHINGTON

    Voted for Democratic president in last seven elections; two Democratic senators; six out of 10 House representatives are Democrats; past three governors have been Democrats; Democratic-controlled legislature.

    MINNESOTA

    Voted for Democratic president in last seven elections; two Democratic senators; five out of eight House representatives are Democrats; past three governors have been one Reform Party member, one Republican and one Democrat; Democratic-controlled legislature.

    OREGON

    Voted for Democratic president in last seven elections; two Democratic senators; four out of five House representatives are Democrats; past three governors have been Democrats; Democratic-controlled legislature.

    CALIFORNIA

    Voted for Democratic president in last six elections; two Democratic senators; 38 out of 53 House representatives are Democrats; two out of past three governors have been Democrats; Democratic-controlled legislature.

    RHODE ISLAND

    Voted for Democratic president in last seven elections; two Democratic senators; two out of two House representatives are Democrats; past three governors have been Republicans (current governor is Independent from 2007 to 2013); Democratic-controlled legislature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What does being ""Democrat" have to do with being "Liberal", Ms T?

      The Democrats are just as authoritative as the Republicans, they are not "Liberals", not by any stretch of the imagination.

      Delete
  41. Continuing with our mutual studies, Dear Ash. the Image of the Drowned Woman in "After The Storm" is the ass backwards up side down Image of the Most Desired Of All Things in the Monomyth, the coming of Higher Consciousness.

    This is easily understood in Hindu Culture but is lost on nearly all Canadians and most Americans,

    It has never even been whispered in Detroit, Michigan, nor Phoenix, Arizona.

    Much less Philly.

    http://www.123greetings.com/send/view/10329914501927828336

    ReplyDelete


  42. Bob,
    "HAPPY HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!"

    68 years young!!!! :)

    So sorry I forgot yesterday! I did have a reminder on my calendar and still forgot
    to send you wishes yesterday. :(
    Between my friends husband's suicide Saturday, I finally have her back in her home
    with her sister who arrived from France; then yesterday brother Don's arrival. So
    nice to have him here. Non stop house guests I have had. After Monday when Don goes
    home I will be house guest free hopefully for quite sometime.


    Taking Don to the Mon museum today. :)
    Jacque :)

    ReplyDelete
  43. Thinking of Dear Hem,

    we can say he TRIED

    "The Old Man and the Sea"

    I loved him.

    I find it odd, and interesting too, that my Niece and future wife and many another of different and Foreign accent are so interested in him too.

    ReplyDelete
  44. We will get to the ending, Dear Ash, of "After The Storm" in a few days.

    ReplyDelete
  45. When Mr Abbas said that closing the Temple Mount was tantamount to war, the Zionists here applauded.
    Thinking there would b further persecution of the Palestinians, that their brethren in Israel would scorch some more of earth.

    But ...

    Israel backed down, instead

    Haaretz - ‎
    The decision to reopen the holy site was taken by Jerusalem Police commander Moshe (Chico) Edri on Thursday evening, following a review of the security situation in East Jerusalem.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Henry Kissinger: ''In 10 years Israel will cease to exist''
      This being the second anniversary of the statement ...
      8 years to go ...

      http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2012/10/30/16913.shtml

      Delete
  46. You are one sick puppy, and need a vet.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Bob sez: "You are one sick puppy, and need a vet."

    Bob sez: "...my Niece and future wife..."

    Nuff sed.

    ReplyDelete