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."

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Wesley Clark lets the cat out of the bag

“Our Friends and Allies Funded ISIS to Destroy Hezbollah”






In case there is any doubt about Israel preferring ISIS over Hezbollah, listen to former  Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, talking to a friendly crowd. Case fucking closed.



Nonaligned media


Former US General and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Wesley Clark, told CNN in a recent interview that
“ISIS got started through funding from our friends and allies. People will tell you in the region that if you want somebody who will fight to the death against Hezbollah, you don’t put out a recruiting poster saying ‘sign up for us we’re gonna make a better world.’ You go after zealots and you go after these religious fundamentalists. That’s who fights Hezbollah. It’s like a Frankenstein.”
Wesley’s statements echo assertions by Israeli leaders who say that their main threat is Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, not ISIS, al-Qaeda, etc. who pose “no threat,” according to the Israelis. I wonder who told Clark that the main purpose of creating ISIS was to undermine Hezbollah, Israel’s chief rival in the region?
“Tehran-Damascus-Beirut arc is the greatest danger,” says outgoing Israeli envoy to US Michael Oren. “‘Bad guys’ backed by Iran are worse for Israel than ‘bad guys’ who are not supported by the Islamic Republic, Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the US Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post in a parting interview.

AND JUST SO YOU DON’T FORGET WHO PAYS FOR THE NEOCON DREAM:



283 comments:

  1. Any doubts that the Lobby wants the US to take on Iran? None here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In a previous video we learn that wealthy Jewish Americans are donating 90% of the money that Netanyahu is using to get reelected. The billionaire donors are using tax exempt organizations to send this money to Israel. Do you have any doubts that some of this same money along with money from the Saudis and Emirates went to ISIS.

    If the two Neocons, McCain and Graham were so on board with getting us into Syria and now onto Iran, anything is possible.

    On the previous thread, Rufus made an observation that ISIS is doing their best to drag US troops into the fight. I wonder what the dot connecting muthafuckas will do with that?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I heard Jeb Bush talking on an interview. Romney Redux there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Whites in South Africa talked the same way. La Traviata your ass.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bush said: He and that guy "embarked upon an adventure, together."

    There's only one larger moron than Bush that I'm aware of, and that's Me. I voted for the ignorant sonofabitch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Then you surpassed yourself and voted for a Moslem.

      Delete
    2. U.S. Won’t Back Egypt’s Attacks on ISIS

      Two long-time allies are attacking ISIS—and growing frustrated with one another. That's good news for the so-called Islamic State.

      The Obama administration was given multiple chances Wednesday to endorse a long-time ally’s airstrikes on America’s biggest enemy at the moment, the so-called Islamic State. Over and over again, Obama's aides declined to back Egypt’s military operation against ISIS. It’s another sign of the growing strain between the United States and Egypt, once one of its closest friends in the Middle East.............

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/18/u-s-won-t-back-egypt-s-attacks-on-isis.html

      O'bozo is still smarting that his pals the MB aren't running Egypt.

      Delete
    3. Opinion: National Security
      Libya's chaos is Obama's shame
      By Timothy P. Carney | February 17, 2015 | 3:37 pm
      Photo - Libyan military soldiers fire their weapons during clashes with Islamic extremist militias in Benghazi, Libya, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014. (AP) Libyan military soldiers fire their weapons during clashes with Islamic extremist militias in...

      President Obama attacked Libya in 2011 without congressional authority, and then shirked any responsibility to help stabilize the country after deposing its dictator.

      By 2013, Libya had become a chaotic hellhole mired in a permanent war. Today it is a new beachhead and recruiting ground for the Islamic State.

      Obama’s illegal, ill-considered, and immoral drive-by war in Libya ought to be a permanent stain on his presidency. The recent video of masked ISIS killers beheading 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya deserves to be the emblem of this president’s rash foreign policy.

      “There is no overstating the chaos of post-Qaddafi Libya,” writes veteran war journalist Jon Lee Anderson in the New Yorker. “Two competing governments claim legitimacy. Armed militias roam the streets. The electricity is frequently out of service, and most business is at a standstill….”

      Wars in Libya in the past year alone have taken about as many lives as 9/11 did. Those who can get out flee. Anderson reports that “nearly a third of the country’s population has fled across the border to Tunisia.”

      The militants of the Islamic State are actually late arrivals to the “scumbag Woodstock” Libya has become, in the words a military contractor quoted by Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake. Ansar al-Sharia, a terrorist group connected to the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, is already a staple there, along with at least three Al Qaeda affiliates, Lake reported last year.

      Qaddafi was evil. But the lawless power vacuum he left may already be worse.............

      http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/libyas-chaos-is-obamas-shame/article/2560325

      Delete
    4. Qaddafi was evil. But the lawless power vacuum he left may already be worse.............

      Not for the US, perhaps for the Libyans, but their well being is not a National Interest of the United States.

      Delete
    5. The Egyptians have been supplied with the best main battle tank, in the world.
      Their air force, is first rate.

      The Egyptians are perfectly capable of protecting Egypt and Egyptians in their region of the world.
      That is why we supplied them with the military hardware, to use it in their defense.

      They should get on with it and protect their people threatened by ISIS, not whine that they need more US blood and treasure to fulfill their responsibilities to their people.

      Delete
    6. February 19, 2015
      Obama Administration: Egypt Bad. Iran Good. Israel?
      By Lauri B. Regan

      Where does one begin to parse the inane and irrational thinking that went into the Obama administration’s public rebuke of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates for attacking the Islamists who beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya? Pentagon Spokesperson Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby condemned Egypt’s airstrikes on ISIS stating

      We discourage other nations from taking a part in Libya’s issues through violence. We want the issues solved in Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics and not violence.

      So it’s okay for the U.S. to join forces with Iran (an enemy) to help fight ISIS in Iraq, a county that fell into chaos when the geniuses in the White House decided to lose a war that had been won - just for political expediency. But it’s not okay for Egypt (an ally) to defend itself and its citizens against the maniacal terrorists in Libya, a country that fell into chaos when the geniuses in the White House decided to lead from behind - just for political expediency.

      The U.S. may discourage nations from using violence in Libya but the Libyan terrorists (perhaps the same ones who killed four Americans in Benghazi two years ago) could care a less what we want. Violence is all they know and while Obama may prefer to turn and run with his tail between his legs, it’s nice to see that the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Emiratis actually have some balls...............

      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/02/obama_administration_egypt_bad_iran_good_israel.html

      Delete
    7. Enemies of us, good.

      Allies, BAD.

      Delete
  6. when your wet dream is realized and they come to kill us Jews in the middle of the night, you better come well armed.....

    we will fight back....

    sorry deuce, your efforts to exterminate us will fail....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only folks working to destroy Jewry, the Zionists that hijacked Judaism.

      Delete
    2. Now now Jack, you are trying to murder Jews.

      That is why I reported you to the AZ FBI.

      You admitted you are on the Homeland Security Watch List.

      As you should be since you make terrorist threats against Jews.

      Delete
  7. Isis sucks. they have murdered about 10 thousand men women and kids.. they are butchers...

    at the same time?

    The Tehran-Damascus-Beirut arc has butchered almost 300,000 men women and children and make almost 10 million refugees...

    which devil IS WORSE?

    By Deuce's math ISIS.

    And since Deuce lives 9000 miles away, he's a great judge of which group is more dangerous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ISrael prefers al-Qeada. Mr Oren told US that, we ought to listen and believe.

      Delete
    2. thanks for listening and supporting Mr Oren, now embrace his statement that Israel is the Nation State of the Jewish People.

      Choke on it you Jew hating piece of shit.

      Delete
    3. Never met a Jewish person I didn't like, but then, I never met you.
      It would be an indicator that you are not Jewish

      Delete
  8. That does sound defensive.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Who does Deuce prefer, Hezbollah or ISIS ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's simple, the United States.

      Delete
    2. And the United States is at war with ISIS, it is not at war with Hezbollah.

      The AUMF passed by Congress, signed by the President makes it crystal clear who makes the determination, and it is not someone 9,000 mile away.

      Delete
    3. The greater threat, to the United States, is ISIS.
      it is part of the organization that attacked US on 11SEO2001, it has been determined, so it IS.

      That ISrael has decided to side with al-Qeada, a decision that was not made in DC, but 9,000 miles away.
      ISraeli hubris, gonna bite 'em in the ass.

      Delete
    4. it is part of the organization that attacked US on 11SEP2001, it has been determined, so it IS.

      Delete
    5. So anyone that would claim that Hezbollah was a greater threat than ISIS to the United States, not one of US, but one of IS.

      Delete
    6. "Our allegiance must be purely to the United States.
      We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.



      “But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic,
      he is just as good an American as any one else.”

      ….

      The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic.

      He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”

      Theodore Roosevelt 

      Delete
    7. You are now spokesman for Deuce ?

      The question was who does Deuce prefer, Hezbollah or ISIS ?

      Delete
    8. I provided the answer that any one loyal to the US would provide

      Delete
    9. No you provided a bullcrap answer.

      As you are NOT a loyal American but rather an agent for Iran and it's Shiite agenda I doubt any answer from you would be honest.

      Delete

    10. If that were true I would be buying those Islamic deserts thatChocolate Emporium specialize in, but I don't.

      Delete
  10. Wall Street Journal -

    BEIRUT—Syrian rebels on Wednesday dismissed a United-Nations cease-fire proposal for the city of Aleppo agreed to by Syrian President Bashar al- Assad.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Boston Globe -

    CHICAGO - Former Florida governor Jeb Bush on Wednesday promised to chart his own course on foreign policy - even as he announced a campaign braintrust associated with the most contentious policies of his brother's and father's presidencies.

    ReplyDelete

  12. How the Jews Treat Christians in Israel - It's Serious!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jG6kJm-50k

    Israeli people attacking Christians in Israel
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3O3EB6pjHw

    ReplyDelete
  13. I prefer the US President over the Prime Minister of Israel

    Friends and supporters of ISIS are my enemy

    The enemies of my enemies are my friends

    ----------------------

    The audience for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on March 3 is shaping up to be largely Republican — and almost completely white.

    Many members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’re planning to skip the speech, calling it a slight to President Barack Obama that they can’t and won’t support.

    Israeli officials have been taken by surprise by the CBC backlash, kicked off by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights leader who said last week he won’t attend, quickly followed by Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and others. As a result, they’re working to set up a meeting for CBC members with Ambassador Ron Dermer — or even Netanyahu himself when he’s in Washington.

    “To me, it is somewhat of an insult to the president of the United States,” said Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.), leaving the White House on Tuesday after a long meeting with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who also will miss the speech. “Barack Obama is my president. He’s the nation’s president, and it is clear, therefore, that I’m not going to be there, as a result of that, not as a result of the good people of Israel.”

    Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, scheduled just two weeks before Israeli national elections, is aimed at stopping a deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons program — a diplomatic opening Obama administration officials believe could reintegrate Iran into the international community and enhance Israel’s security. Netanyahu, however, feels the United States and its international partners are being naive about Iran’s true intent.

    “I’m determined to speak before Congress to stop Iran,” Netanyahu tweeted on Tuesday.

    Democrats across Capitol Hill have been increasingly vocal about their opposition to the speech, criticizing the prime minister and House Speaker John Boehner for making them choose between their support for their president and support for Israel. Announcements that Democrats plan to sit out the speech have trickled in for days.

    But the CBC reaction has been particularly potent, striking at the political alliance between Jews and African-Americans that dates to the civil rights movement but has grown more fraught over the years.

    Often Obama’s strongest defenders against political attacks, black members say they’re outraged that a foreign leader would try to intervene in the U.S. political process.


    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/benjamin-netanyahu-congressional-black-caucus-115103.html#ixzz3SBkftYdL

    ReplyDelete
  14. Then you support Hezbollah over ISIS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Israel doesn’t have the guts or the interest to fight ISIS. On the contrary, they kill those who are trying to destroy ISIS. They, along with their Saudi friends have chosen to provide support for ISIS in Syria.

      Given the binary choice of supporting ISIS or Hezbollah, that is a no-brainer, as I prefer the US President to The Prime Minister of Israel, I prefer to support Hezbollah and others that have the courage to fight ISIS. Hezbollah if in a fight to remove a foreign invader from their lands. They are in a fight with an enemy that kills their people. The Israeli assault on Lebanon and Gaza provided motivation to Hezbollah.

      We are witness to an example of Israeli arrogance with the affront being made to a sitting US President. If that is how the Israelis dare to treat a sitting US President, imagine what goes on in the occupied territories under Israeli military rule. I can hardly imagine but have full sympathy to the daily humiliation imposed on the Palestinians and in the day Lebanon by IDF thuggery.

      No real American would tolerate humiliation and occupation of our communities. I don’t expect the Palestinians, Persians or Arabs to be less manly.

      Delete
  15. Here is letter, typical of the Lobby - (my comments) :

    Bibi won't "disrespect" Obama. He will merely state facts.( as he did in Iraq) And the facts are clear to the vast majority of Americans. (as they were in Iraq) We face a potential existential threat from Iran ( the existentialists again) if they are successful in developing nuclear weapons ( like the 300 Israel has). Any treaty... or agreement... between this Admin and Iran must ensure that there is a “trust but verify” protocol to ensure that Iran does not develop the technology ( unlike the surreptitious behavior of Israel in developing their nuclear weapons - This falls under the “It takes one to know one rule”) to enable them to “break out” of any agreement and produce a weapon that could upset the nuclear balance or threaten nations in the ME ( Israel with 300 and everyone at “zero” is the in balance.) or Europe (The Lobby really cares about Europe - see Netanyahu’s latest on asking the tribe to return to Israel.). And we don’t want any agreement that would allow Iran to produce a portable nuke that could be easily transported to other nations outside of missile range. (just to prove he is an idiot)

    If the President tries to circumvent the Constitution ( Our Constitution gives specified rights to Israel - This is something new) by “agreeing” to a regime that avoids Senate scrutiny and approval, that would be malfeasance on the Part of this President. Truth is a powerful thing! ( see previous video on the power of truth) Pres. Obama has to be transparent and truthful about the threat we face. He drew a "red line" and that must be enforced this time ("We will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons!").

    ReplyDelete
  16. Wesley Clark is no fool. He is spreading the word. I would love to knock down a few with him and hear what he really thinks.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "Wesley Clark is no fool."

    :-)

    ReplyDelete

  18. “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, but we've always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by ISIS to the bad guys who were backed by ISIS.”

    Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with Hezbollah.
    “We understand that they are pretty bad guys”.




    ReplyDelete
  19. I'd rather have a couple with W, and tell him to tell Jeb, Laura, Barbara, and 41 to

    FUCK (the hell) OFF!

    ReplyDelete
  20. anonymouse interrupted my attempted exchange w/Deuce.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is what the reply button is for ....

      {;-)

      Delete
    2. Did you hear it on the 'grapevine', Doug, that the next time that 'Bob' or as he is known locally, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson is rude, inconsiderate or calls any other contributor a criminal ...
      His 'ripping off the bank' confession is going public.
      Grand theft, by fraud and identity theft, fully confessed to by the scion of a lawyer in Idaho.

      Or did you just drop in for a chat?

      Delete
    3. Just a chat.

      ...but Grand Prix Bank O sounds interesting.

      Delete
  21. NBCNews.com - ‎

    In what could be a potentially troubling barrier in Jeb Bush's presidential ambitions, an influential conservative group with a network of more than 7 million conservative activists has declared the former Florida governor "unelectable.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Sounds like you have to get Wesley liquored up to get the truth of 'what he really thinks'.

    ReplyDelete
  23. P Boston
    To honestly and objectively present Islam as anything other than a criminal enterprise one would have to completely disassociate it from the behaviour of Mohammed who pillaged, robbed, enslaved, raped and murdered countless other human beings to advance his own interests.

    Perhaps there are some outlier Islamic sects who can do that, although I am not aware of any. The non-arguable fact is that all Islamic schools, both Sunni and Shia, hold up Mohammed as the perfect person whose conduct must be emulated and copied by every Muslim. Both Sunni and Shia jurisprudence hold that you can legitimately be killed for suggesting otherwise.

    The contradiction is irreconcilable. Islam cannot be reformed because at its root it is anti-human.

    Are Obama and other Western political elites ignorant or malevolent? Does it matter?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is one of the three religions of Abraham, birds of a feather, they've all flocked together.

      Delete
    2. Motherflockers and Cocksockers.

      Delete
    3. P Boston - an Islamic scholar is he? ummmm - NO!

      Delete
  24. Hey, Rat:

    I clicked the "reply" link on Anonymouses Thu Feb 19, 08:28:00 AM EST post, and got this comment box.
    We'll see what happens...

    Comment:
    Jeb Bush is fucked because he is an other dumbfuck named "Bush"

    (and he'd be worse than 41 and 43 combined)

    Plus, he's a fat ass dumb fuck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I told you it don't work!

      Delete
    2. There you have it, then

      Check up thread, where it did work, there is a question there, begging an answer

      Delete
    3. Scroll up to Thu Feb 19, 08:44:00 AM EST

      Delete
  25. road tested
    Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat.
    ISLAM:
    Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

    Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges. When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.
    Here's how it works. As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:
    United States -- Muslim 0.6%
    Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
    Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
    China -- Muslim 1.8%
    Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
    Norway -- Muslim 1.8%
    At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:
    Denmark -- Muslim 2%
    Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
    United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
    Spain -- Muslim 4%
    Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%
    >From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:
    France -- Muslim 8%
    Philippines -- Muslim 5%
    Sweden -- Muslim 5%
    Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
    The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
    Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%
    At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.
    When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:
    Guyana -- Muslim 10%
    India -- Muslim 13.4%
    Israel -- Muslim 16%
    Kenya -- Muslim 10%
    Russia -- Muslim 15%
    After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:
    Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%
    At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:
    Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
    Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
    Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%
    From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:
    Albania -- Muslim 70%
    Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
    Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
    Sudan -- Muslim 70%

    Read more: http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2015/02/18/a-lying-in-winter/#ixzz3SCNaZmoU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:
      Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
      Egypt -- Muslim 90%
      Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
      Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
      Iran -- Muslim 98%
      Iraq -- Muslim 97%
      Jordan -- Muslim 92%
      Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
      Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
      Palestine -- Muslim 99%
      Syria -- Muslim 90%
      Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
      Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
      United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%
      100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:
      Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
      Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
      Somalia -- Muslim 100%
      Yemen -- Muslim 100%
      Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.
      'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'
      It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death. Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.
      Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.

      Delete
    2. Majority Rules !

      Delete
  26. Are these your friends and new allies?

    Iran not only executes more people per-capita than any other state but the execution rate has actually escalated under President Rouhani, with the UN General Assembly expressing concern about the "alarmingly high frequency" of executions. At present, Iran now executes a person every eight hours, with death sentences carried out for overbroad crimes such as "corruption on earth" and "enmity with God." Iran has already executed more than 80 people in the first month of January 2015 alone -- the largest rate of executions of any month on record.

    Indeed, under the new Islamic Penal Code, there are 80 offenses that can result in a death sentence, with many of those executed being activists for ethnic and religious minorities arrested on trumped up charges.

    As well, the true number may very well be higher, as many are carried out in secret. While Rouhani continues to preside over a massive execution binge, the regime continues to deny Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, access to the country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are fighting for civilization. :(

      Off to work..............

      Cheers !

      Delete
    2. The folks that the "Draft Dodger" would have US troops fight and die for ...

      The discovery of widespread FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan suggests the assumption to be incorrect that FGM is primarily an African phenomenon with only marginal occurrence in the eastern Islamic world. FGM is practiced at a rate of nearly 60 percent by Iraqi Kurds, then how prevalent is the practice in neighboring Syria where living conditions and cultural and religious practices are comparable?

      Why should a single US soldier die to protect this horrid cultural practice,
      Answer US that Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson

      Delete
    3. How many Palestinian civilians were executed by the Israelis in Gaza last summer?

      Delete
  27. This is a very big deal:

    Walmart is increasing Wages, significantly. Entry level workers will now make $9.00 +.

    Something about $10.00 / hr, next year, although the details about exactly who this will apply to is a bit hazy.

    Walmart sets the floor for wages in many small towns. This is pretty important, I think.

    Movin' on up

    ReplyDelete

  28. Iraq preparing to retake Mosul from Islamic State - PM


    Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says its armed forces are preparing for an offensive to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State (IS).

    Mr Abadi told the BBC he hoped Mosul would be liberated in a few months' time, and with a minimum of casualties.

    Mosul, which was home to more than a million people, fell to IS last June.

    Mr Abadi also said he had been "a bit frustrated" in his first few months in office by the slowness of international help for the fight against IS.

    But in recent weeks, he added, the situation had changed for the better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Soldiers and allied Shia militiamen have now begun to retake territory north of the capital Baghdad with the help of US-led coalition air strikes, while Kurdish Peshmerga forces have made advances around Mosul.

      In an interview with BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, Mr Abadi said Iraqi government forces were "planning an offensive on Mosul in the next few months".

      However, he did not specify when the offensive might be launched, saying that he hoped it would be before the end of the year.

      The timing of the assault depended "on the situation on the ground" and "our own preparation", he said.


      http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31484732

      Delete
    2. Haider al-Abadi gives the impression that he wants to run Iraq as rationally and unemotionally as he ran his engineering company during his exile in the UK.

      His predecessor, Nouri Maliki, was often accused of pushing the sectarian interests of the Shia population. Mr Abadi says he is determined to end sectarianism, and to govern in the interests of Iraq as a whole.

      Delete


  29. Al Assad becomes preferred alternative in Europe


    Changing stance seen after Daesh advance in the region

    Beirut/Paris: Some European Union countries which withdrew their ambassadors from Syria are saying privately it is time for more communication with Damascus even though Britain and France oppose it, diplomats said.

    Those states have become more vocal in internal meetings about the need to talk to the Syrian government and have a presence in the capital. London and Paris reject this, saying President Bashar Al Assad has lost all legitimacy.

    This makes a change in EU policy unlikely, but the debate underlines a predicament for Western states which ostracised the government at the start of the crisis, imposed sanctions, and four years on still find Al Assad in power.

    Diplomats say the calls have come from or would be supported by countries including Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria and Spain, as well as the Czech Republic, which did not withdraw its ambAl Assador. Norway and Switzerland, which are outside the EU, are also supportive.



    http://gulfnews.com/news/region/syria/al-assad-becomes-preferred-alternative-in-europe-1.1459514

    ReplyDelete
  30. Deuce: No real American would tolerate humiliation and occupation of our communities. I don’t expect the Palestinians, Persians or Arabs to be less manly.


    But Deuce, you occupy the Indian's Land.


    And Deuce, Israelis have a right to be, even if you don't agree, but you are in good company, the Grand Mufti, a friend of Hitler agreed with you. And 9 out of 10 Jew hating nazis would agree with you too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. American Indians are citizens of the United States.
      For your analogy to be accurate, the Zionists would have to allow the Palestinians full citizenship in a "One State" solution.

      They have chosen the Apartheid Path, instead.
      The ISraeli have no equivalency with the United States.

      Delete
    2. American Indians have federal and state preferences in education and set asides for business and contracting. Is that how the Israelis do it with the Palestinians?

      There are no US laws that disallow American Indians from bringing their prospective spouse into the US. Is that hw they do it in Israel?

      Most of the World and a majority of US citizens are opposed to Israeli behavior. I am comfortable on being on that side.

      Delete
    3. No real American would tolerate humiliation and occupation of our communities. I don’t expect the Palestinians, Persians or Arabs to be less manly.

      Delete
  31. As we have previously highlighted, other Muslims claim that ISIS is directly violating core Islamic principles by resorting to some of the grisly execution methods the group has used, such as burning people alive.

    “It is Islamically forbidden to burn a human, whether dead or alive,” writes Dr. Wael Shihab, PhD in Islamic Studies, Al-Azhar University. “Allah Most High says, {Truly We have honored human beings} (Al-Isra’ 17: 70); burning a human being is a blatant disregard of the honor owed him or her as per the Divine will. In one of his hadiths, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “No one is entitled to punish with fire except the Creator (God) of the fire”. (Abu Dawud, Sunan, No. 2673)


    ISIS also violated the Islamic faith when they beheaded American journalist James Foley despite the fact that he had converted to Islam. It is forbidden under Islam to kill a convert.

    Meanwhile, some westerners who have been held prisoner by ISIS members assert that members of the group seem to be motivated more by politics than religion.

    Didier François, a French journalist who was held captive by ISIS for nearly a year, told CNN that none of the ISIS militants he came into contact with even had a copy of the Quran.

    ReplyDelete
  32. headline of thread…

    In case there is any doubt about Israel preferring ISIS over Hezbollah, listen to former Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, talking to a friendly crowd. Case fucking closed.


    Why do you distort? Why do you misrepresent? Why can't you just let Oren's real words stand?

    Any REAL American would listen and not inflame and distort.

    At the TIME of this interview Oren says, "Israel prefers the Sunnis over the Shiites" he clearly says both are evil.

    He clearly says that the Sunnis (not called ISIS back then) had just killed 750 iraqi solders in a firing squad and was evil, but he then said that the Iranian/Syrians had killed over 160,000.

    Interesting, this now can be updated to ISIS having killed 10 thousand innocents and the Iranians, Hezbollah and Syrians killing almost 300,000 and creating almost 10 MILLION homeless refugees….

    Iran is more of a threat to Israel than Isis. Iran is building multiple nuclear weapons and has BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars to spend funding and supporting proxies to wipe Israel off the map.

    Isis sucks.

    Hezbollah sucks more.

    Your distortions? REALLY SUCK, you should be ashamed of yourself

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iran is more of a threat to Israel than Isis.

      What does that have to do with US National Interests?
      Iran was not determined to have attacked the US on 11SEP2001, there is no AUMF that applies to Iran.
      Iran is not the issue, ISIS is.

      ISrael supports ISIS - Mr Oren told US so.
      Bibi's actions since that revelation was made public confirm it.
      ISreal supports al-Qeada.

      The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic.

      He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”

      Theodore Roosevelt 


      Delete

    2. 'You are either with us or against us in the fight against terror."

      - GW Bush

      Delete

  33. Texas Republican Opposed Obamacare Until She Really Needed It – Now She’s Thankful


    http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/17/texas-republican-opposed-obamacare-until-she-really-needed-it-now-shes-thankful/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I'm just trying to make it in my little apartment, and not be on government assistance."

      I got news for you, you republican bitch, healthcare subsidies ARE "government assistance."

      Selfish asshole.

      Delete
  34. (Bloomberg) -- The biggest entitlement legislation in a generation is causing barely a ripple in corporate America.

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- otherwise known as Obamacare -- is putting such a small dent in the profits of U.S. companies that many refer to its impact as “not material” or “not significant,” according to a Bloomberg review of conference-call transcripts and interviews with major U.S. employers.

    That’s even after a provision went into effect this year requiring companies with 50 or more full-time workers to provide coverage, and after more workers are choosing to enroll in existing company coverage because of another requirement that all Americans get insured.


    “It’s just part of doing business,” said Bob Shearer, chief financial officer of VF Corp., which owns the North Face and Vans apparel brands. “Obamacare has added costs, but not so much that we felt we had to talk about it specifically.”

    The collective shrug from the nation’s biggest employers undermines the arguments of Republicans, who call the law a job-killer as they seek its repeal.

    While U.S. health-care costs . . . . . . .

    It's a disaster, I tell ye

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For now, the additional costs of Obamacare are coming in the form of requirements to cover more workers. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. said this month that the cost of covering more than 1,000 employees who work 30 hours a week or more -- a key requirement of Obamacare -- will add as much as $8 million to health insurance expenses in 2015. That’s less than 1 percent of its projected operating profit for this year, based on the average estimate of analysts compiled by Bloomberg.

      Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the biggest U.S. employer, had bigger health-care costs this year than it anticipated, with more workers enrolling and costs rising faster than it expected, Greg Foran, chief executive officer of the company’s U.S. unit, said in August. The retailer estimated then that its health-care expenses would rise by about $500 million last year. That’s about 0.1 percent of its annual revenue, or 1.8 percent of operating profit.

      Delete
  35. (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Turkey signed an agreement on training a Syrian rebel force to combat Islamic State as well as seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Jack ass has apparently gotten over his hopeful flirtation with Schopenhauer. He is back to quoting Teddy Roosevelt.


    On the matter of preferences, I prefer the current President of Egypt Sisi and the current Prime Minister of Israel Bibi over the current President of the USA O'bozo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDT

      But I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback. …


      http://2164th.blogspot.com/2010/05/gloom-and-doom-wednesday.html

      Delete
    2. Now, really Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, you stole $7,500 dollars, by fraud.
      In the process you destroyed your Aunt's reputation and ...

      You try to justify it as "payback" ...

      You are nothing but a self-confessed felon.
      Now you can attempt to paint me or others with a similar brush, but you will be unable to provide any reference for it.
      Proving that you are not only a thief, but a liar. Which you proved when you defrauded the bank.

      Delete
  37. Jack,

    It may be difficult of you to understand, but I will try to tell you again.

    Thanks for being a vicious, genocidal advocating Jew, hating prick of a man.

    You make it easy for people to think this blog is nothing but a primer on Jew hatred.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is easy to understand that "O"rdure is the only one here who speaks of genicide, of anyone.
      He advocates for the genocide of Palestinians, Arabs and/or anyone he considers a threat.

      No one speaks of 'hating' Jews, no one else speaks of nuking threats, no one but the Zionist.
      Now that is easy to understand, as Zionists have a history of murdering Jews.
      It is documented, it is reality.

      The rest of "O"rdure's ranting, just the paranoid delusions of a fascist.

      Delete
    2. You said the Israelis were 'the scum of the earth".

      Truth is, you are "the scum of the earth" you little nazi prick-o.

      Delete
    3. "There is something really wrong with you, rat."

      Delete
    4. To the general reader:

      Trish, a good woman, finally left after being hen pecked by prick-o daily, for months.

      Whit, one of the original owners of this blog, left for the same reason.

      Delete
    5. Prove it you lying thief.
      Post the comments you are referring to.

      bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDT

      But I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback. …

      Delete
    6. Stealing, because it was easier than working, that is the way Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson got 'er done.

      Delete
  38. The US has accused Israel of selectively leaking information from the Iran nuclear talks to misrepresent its position in the negotiations.

    White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Israel was "cherry-picking" information and using it out of context.

    Six world powers want Iran to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.

    Negotiations with Iran are due to begin again on Friday.

    Iranian officials said that US Secretary of State John Kerry will also be travelling to Geneva this weekend for two days of talks with Iran's foreign minister.

    'Selective sharing'
    On Wednesday, Mr Earnest that the US was mindful of keeping negotiations private because of selective leaks on the part of Israel.

    "There's no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterising our negotiating position have not been accurate," he said.

    State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed that there was a "selective sharing" of information.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Funny since The obama administration also said that it has withheld sensitive information FROM Israel in the last 6 months

      Delete
  39. New federal data shows that the price of hospital care in the United States fell between this January and a year prior — the first time the government has seen a year-over-year drop since it started keeping track in 1998.

    The price of hospital care fell 0.1 percent between January 2014 and January 2015, Modern Healthcare reported Thursday morning. When you focus on Medicare prices, the decline gets steeper: prices there fell 2.9 percent over the same time period.

    Medical prices getting smaller rather than larger is a big deal. Health wonks typically get excited by something more modest: when health-care prices rise more slowly than they used to. But this new federal data (which is preliminary and could be revised) suggests something even more meaningful: not just slower growth in medical price-tags from one year to the next, but an actual drop in how much care costs.

    This isn't the first sign of a hospital price slowdown

    The most recent Medicare Trustees' report showed per person spending on Medicare Part A (the program that covers inpatient care) falling over the past few . . . . . . .

    The End of Times

    ReplyDelete
  40. According to a Walmart spokesman, the new wage floors will apply to current employees. New hires next year will be earning at least $9, but will be bumped up to at least $10 per hour after roughly six months of training.

    In the CNBC interview, McMillon suggested that the improving U.S. economy -- with unemployment falling recently to 5.7 percent from a peak of 10 percent after the recession -- was also pressuring Walmart to raise wages.

    "It's great to see the job market getting better, and the market works, so we're adjusting to that market," he said.


    Definitely, The End of Times

    ReplyDelete


  41. Robin -

    Jim, my farmer, counted about 120 elk just yesterday, right where
    the photo I sent you was taken.

    Keep you eyes open and your camera ready.

    The wolves must be nearby.......

    Bob



    Hey Bob,

    I saw a wolf yesterday morning walking my dog on Stilby Road. I couldn't
    believe it. He was not afraid of me at all. The wolves are near....... I
    can't believe you said that. And yes, Tim counted 50 plus on Wilson Loop
    this morning. I can't believe how many Elk there are. Thanks for the
    update. It's time to start antler hunting !!

    Robin


    Exchange between my lawyer's secretary and myself. She lives out that way. We never had elk out there before the wolf introduction program. The elk have come down from the mountains to escape the wolf packs, seeking the protection of the relatively more wolf free human farm areas. Time to start hunting wolf pelts, it's open season 24/7/52/12.

    Quirk has agreed to come out and work for food as skinner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had briefly thought of offering the job to Deuce, in the hopes of perhaps getting him away from his monomania for awhile, but decided against it on the grounds he called me a Buffoon, the ass.

      Besides I don't like him any more.

      If Q does a good job I may move him out of his pup tent into a small camper.

      Delete
    2. Prove it you lying thief.
      Post the comments you are referring to.

      bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDT

      But I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback. …

      Delete
    3. Stealing from the banks, would that make your father proud, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson?
      Was it his sister whose name you defamed with the credit card fraud?

      Delete
    4. Deuce Thu Jun 30, 08:55:00 PM EDT

      Whit retired. He talked about it for some time.


      No reason was given. But I doubt that the "Draft Dodger" even remembers the particulars.
      He just tells a lie to fit his situation, when he's broke, he steals and defames family members.
      Just like a meth head.

      Delete
    5. The last posts made by whit, not a word about desert rat - nope - not one.

      whitSat May 28, 07:36:00 PM EDT

      According to Wikipedia, the Whiskey Rebellion was about taxes

      The whiskey excise was unpopular among small farmers on the western frontier, where protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent government officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed Pennsylvanians attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. The Washington administration responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time raising a militia force to suppress the violence. The insurrection collapsed before the arrival of the army; about 20 men were arrested, but all were later acquitted or pardoned.
      Reply
      whitSat May 28, 07:41:00 PM EDT

      Here's another account of the "rebellion":
      In late October 1794, the Federalized militia entered the western counties of Pennsylvania and sought out the whiskey rebels. By mid-November, the militia had arrested 150 rebels, including 20 prominent leaders of the insurrection. Under the President's authority, General Lee issued a general pardon on November 29th for all those who taken part "in the wicked and unhappy tumults and disturbances lately existing" with the exception of 33 men named in the document. [9] While most of the militia returned home, a regiment occupied the area until the following spring, and organized opposition to the tax evaporated.

      Of the whiskey rebels who were arrested, many were released due to a lack of evidence. Only a few men were tried and just two were convicted of treason. In July 1795, President Washington pardoned the two convicted men and those still in custody or under indictment. Several rebels sought for arrest fled the area, but most were later pardoned as well. President John Adams pardoned David Bradford, who escaped to Spanish-controlled New Orleans, in March 1799.

      While violent opposition to the whiskey tax ended, political opposition to the tax continued. Opponents of internal taxes rallied around the candidacy of Thomas Jefferson and helped him defeat President John Adams in the election of 1800. By 1802, Congress repealed the distilled spirits excise tax and all other internal Federal taxes. Until the War of 1812, the Federal government would rely solely on import tariffs for revenue, which quickly grew with the Nation's expanding foreign trade.

      Delete
    6. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, posting as Anonymous, in 2011 ...

      AnonymousSun May 08, 11:23:00 AM EDT

      Deuce said...
      I have no recollection of DR ever posting anything that WIO claims regarding killings in Central America where he had any connection. The claim is false. I cannot find any such post.

      I remember it very clearly.

      Look for a post where I say, "A self confessed criminal."

      I imagine you'll find some scrubbing around in there.

      dwr


      But no one ever could, he could not even find his own post.
      He is a liar and a thief, that's the fact of the matter.
      The only self confessed criminal at the Elephant Bar, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, identity thief and credit card fraudster.

      Delete
    7. To which Deuce replied ...

      DeuceSun May 08, 01:07:00 PM EDT

      You find the post. I cannot. Until that time don't make charges you cannot back up.


      Which, of course, he never did do.
      Because the post was not there, it never was.
      The "Draft Dodger" could not even find the post he alleges he wrote.

      Thieves are like that, they make claims and try to get by on bluster, but ....

      bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDT

      But I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback. …


      Delete
    8. Just like a meth head, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, justifies his crime by saying the loot, it was owed him, by the people or institution he ripped off

      Delete
  42. That’s why lawmakers and policy wonks have shifted their attention to wages: The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has illustrated how the economic recovery hasn’t translated into income gains for most Americans over the past few years, instead flowing mostly into the pockets of people who own stock. If workers have better options, the theory goes, they’ll start to jump ship. If too many of them do that, as Neil Irwin writes at the Upshot, the cost of replacing them starts to eat into the bottom line.

    And in fact, it looks like that might be happening. In a new analysis out today, EPI finds that while wages have continued to sink for people at most income levels through the economic recovery, since 2012, they have actually risen for the bottom 10 percent — which suggests that, at a time when the economy is creating more low-wage jobs than high-wage ones, it might actually have to pay a little bit more in order to fill them. And Wal-Mart itself might have figured that putting more money in the pockets of its workers — who are also its customer base — might generate consumer demand that could boost its sagging profits.

    A Really Interesting Chart

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. instead flowing mostly into the pockets of people who own stock.

      Not if they were in SodaStream.
      That has cratered since becoming the focus of the BDS Movement.

      Delete
  43. WASHINGTON (AP) — The operation to retake Iraq's second largest city from Islamic State militants will likely begin in April or May and will involve about 12 Iraqi brigades, or between 20,000 and 25,000 troops, a senior U.S. military official said Thursday.

    Laying out details of the expected Mosul operation for the first time, the official from U.S. Central Command said five Iraqi Army brigades will soon go through coalition training in Iraq to prepare for the mission. Those five would make up the core fighting force that would launch the attack, but they would be supplemented by three smaller brigades serving as reserve forces, along with three Peshmerga brigades who would contain the Islamic State fighters from the north and west.

    The Peshmerga are Kurdish forces from northern Iraq.

    The official said there also would be a Mosul fighting force, largely made up of former Mosul police and tribal forces, who would have to be ready to go back into the city once the army units clear out the Islamic State fighters.

    Included in the force would be a brigade of Iraqi counterterrorism forces who have been trained by U.S. special operations forces. The brigades include roughly 2,000 troops each. The official . . . . . . . .

    Plans

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That would put the Iraqi in control of Mosul by sometime in June.
      It is a better than even chance that when Mosul is lost to the Daesh, that they will abandon Iraq and begin to fall back to Syria.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, Mosul is the key.

      I'd bet that more than a few of the "leaders" are glancing, nervously, at the door, even as we speak.

      Delete
  44. How to,keep your constituents happy, Saudi style:

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/world/middleeast/saudi-king-unleashes-a-torrent-as-bonuses-flow-to-the-masses.html

    ReplyDelete
  45. Signs of tension emerge among Islamic State militants

    BEIRUT — As the Islamic State group tries to expand and take root across the Middle East, it is struggling in Syria — part of its heartland — where it has stalled or even lost ground while fighting multiple enemies on several fronts.

    Signs of tension and power struggles are emerging among the ranks of its foreign fighters.

    The extremists remain a formidable force, and the group’s hold on about a third of Iraq and Syria remains firm. But it appears to be on the defensive in Syria for the first time since it swept through the territory last year and is suffering from months of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and the myriad factions fighting it on the ground.

    “They are struggling with new challenges that did not exist before,”
    said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
    ...
    The gains have strained supply lines between the Islamic State group’s westernmost strongholds in Aleppo province from its core territory in eastern Syria. The Kurdish-rebel forces are now expected to take the fight to some of those strongholds, particularly the large towns of Minbij and Jarablus, as well as Tal Abyad, a border crossing with Turkey that is a major avenue for commerce for the extremists.

    Around the town of al-Bab, one of the IS group’s westernmost strongholds, the extremists are making tactical withdrawals. Residents have noted a thinner militant presence in al-Bab.

    The militants are also finding themselves bogged down in costly battles with the government forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

    The extremist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has been stuck in fierce fighting with the Syrian army near the Deir el-Zour air base, the last major Syrian military stronghold in the eastern province. IS launched an unsuccessful attack to seize the base last month, and it continues to try.


    The wheels have not fallen off, but the lug nuts are loose

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When hit hard in Iraq, combined with the losses in Syria, the Daesh will have to consolidate in a defensive position, or be destroyed piece meal.

      They have definitely hit their 'High Water Mark', it looks as if Doc Z was/is a better strategist than whomever is running al-Qeada in Iraq & Syria. He knew that the Islamoids could not win a conventional fight against US air power.

      It looks more and more like a case of the Tet Offensive, the enemy makes initial gains, shakes the confidence of the US public, before being destroyed in place by the counter-offensive.

      In Iraq, that is the scenario playing out, there is one major difference, in Vietnam it was not the South Vietnamese that took the country back. A fatal strategic flaw on the part of the US.
      Very similar to the decade of occupation the US maintained in Iraq, a mistake which some would like to repeat.

      Lessons learned and now being applied.

      Delete

    2. Bari Abdellatif, a resident of al-Bab who also has fled to Turkey, said friction between Chechen and Uzbek militants recently led to clashes between the two that ended only with the intervention of Omar al-Shishani, a prominent Chechen IS commander. At least two senior figures were killed because of the internal strife, he said.

      “The prolonged battle for Kobani caused a lot of tensions — fighters accused each other of treachery and eventually turned on each other,” Abdellatif said.

      Several other activists confirmed recent clashes between factions from different national backgrounds within IS.

      Last month, a senior official with the group’s Hisba, or vice police, was found beheaded in Deir el-Zour province. ... there are suspicions the official — an Egyptian — was killed by the extremists who suspected him of spying.

      Delete

    3. "Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan."

      - John F. Kennedy

      Delete

    4. An activist based in the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, said foreign fighters bicker over administrative and financial issues. Several militants have been killed on suspicion of spying or trying to defect.

      “Daesh tries to portray itself as one thing, but beneath the surface there’s a lot of dirt,”
      the activist said, using the Arabic acronym for the group and speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for his security.

      Earlier this month, the extremists dismissed one of the group’s religious officials in Aleppo province and referred him to a religious court after he objected to the immolation of a captured Jordanian air force pilot, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

      “IS is now beginning to struggle to keep its own forces coherent — and this is separate from all the external factors that are impacting it negatively,” Khatib said.

      She said the new troubles have a lot to do with the fact that IS in Syria is operating in the context of a civil war where people become greedy and refuse to cede power to others.

      “Even ISIS is not immune from the warlord phenomenon that takes place in the context of civil war and is being witnessed in Syria today,” she said.

      Delete
    5. If I was one of these guys I wouldn't be buying any green bananas. :)

      Delete
  46. Meanwhile, the Republicans are learning, they put their faith if AIPAC, it was misplaced.

    AIPAC finds itself caught in a difficult position. Republicans want the lobby to use its clout on Capitol Hill to defend Netanyahu, but the White House is pressuring the group not to put Israel’s interests ahead of America’s.

    “They’re really between a rock and hard place,” says a Republican Jewish political operative who asked not to be identified to talk frankly about the lobby.
    “That doesn’t excuse them from not taking a position. People are looking to them for leadership, and as a result, there’s a lot of frustration and disappointment with AIPAC.”


    There is even talk of "Regime Change, in ISrael.

    “The administration is taking advantage of a ready-made opportunity handed to them by Netanyahu to do something that they would like to see, which is a new Israeli prime minister, or at least a new Israeli political coalition more in tune with their own views,”
    says Aaron David Miller, a senior aide to six secretaries of State on Middle East peace talks.
    “There’s no question about that. You would have to be completely obtuse not to figure out that both the president and [Secretary of State John] Kerry want a change in Jerusalem. They may not say it. They may be restrained in how they pursue it, but they want it.”


    {;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Obama hates Bibi and Israel. No big guess there jackshit....

      Good news?

      Israel will select it's own leaders.

      Now America? Selected Obama and are getting what they deserve...

      Delete
  47. ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey and the United States signed an agreement Thursday to train and arm Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State group, said the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.

    The two countries have been in talks about such a pact for several months. The deal was signed Thursday evening by U.S Ambassador John Bass and Turkish Foreign Ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, said Embassy spokesman Joe Wierichs. He gave no further details.

    Sinirlioglu called the deal "an important step" in the strategic partnership between Turkey and the United States, according to Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency.

    et tu Turkey

    ReplyDelete
  48. "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America," Giuliani reportedly said on Wednesday. "He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."

    Uh

    In his interview with the Times, Giuliani denied that race was at play in his criticism, but that he was critiquing Obama's worldview, something that

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Holy Jumpin' Jehosephat. The perfect way to end a day. I can't wait till tomorrow. :)

      Delete
  49. Giuliani has it exactly right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aiding Islamic Terrorists Is Our Foreign Policy
      February 20, 2015 by Daniel Greenfield 2 Comments
      18113
      Print This Post Print This Post

      Obama says that we are not fighting a war on Islam. What he leaves out is that under his administration the United States is fighting in a civil war that is taking place within Islam.

      It’s not a conflict between the proverbial moderate Muslim and the raging fanatic. That was an outdated Bush era notion. Instead Obama has brought us into a fight between Muslim governments and Muslim terrorists, not on the side of the governments we were allied with, but on the side of the terrorists.

      It’s why Egypt is shopping for French planes and Russian nukes. Yemen’s government was run out of town by Obama’s new Iranian friends in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis are dumping oil.

      Iran and Qatar are the regional powers Obama is closest to. What these two countries have in common, is that despite their mutual hostility, they are both international state sponsors of Islamic terrorism.

      Obama’s diplomats will be negotiating with the Taliban in Qatar. Among the Taliban delegation will be the terrorist leaders that Obama freed from Gitmo. And Iran gets anything it wants, from Yemen to the bomb, by using the threat of walking away in a huff from the hoax nuclear negotiations as leverage.

      In Syria and Iraq, Obama is fighting ISIS alongside Islamic terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and Iran. In Libya, he overthrew a government in support of Islamic terrorists. His administration has spoken out against Egyptian air strikes against the Islamic State Jihadists in Libya who had beheaded Coptic Christians.

      At the prayer breakfast where he denounced Christianity for the Crusades was the foreign minister of the Muslim Brotherhood government of Sudan that has massacred Christians. Unlike Libya, where Obama used a false claim of genocide to justify an illegal war, Sudan actually has committed genocide. And yet Obama ruled out using force against Sudan’s genocide even while he was running for office.

      The United States now has a strange two-tier relationship with the Middle East. On paper we retain a number of traditional alliances with old allies such as Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia, complete with arms sales, foreign aid and florid speeches. But when it comes to policy, our new friends are the terrorists.

      American foreign policy is no longer guided by national interests.................

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/aiding-islamic-terrorists-is-our-foreign-policy/


      About Daniel Greenfield

      Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.


      Delete
    2. Terror Apologist Named to Federal Anti-Terror Post
      February 20, 2015 by Matthew Vadum
      Print This Post

      President Obama is appointing an openly terrorist-sympathizing Muslim to head a government office dedicated to countering Islamic State propaganda.

      In April, Rashad Hussain will take over as director of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, a small office within the U.S. Department of State that Obama plans to make bigger. A new component called the Information Coordination Cell will be added to the expanded center and will reportedly be staffed by intelligence analysts. It will have a staff of around 80 people and will coordinate with other government agencies.

      “We’re getting beaten on volume, so the only way to compete is by aggregating, curating and amplifying existing content,” Richard A. Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, told the New York Times.

      The head-chopping barbarians of the Islamic State will no doubt cower in fear because the U.S. government has, as the newspaper notes, “more than 350 State Department Twitter accounts, combining embassies, consulates, media hubs, bureaus and individuals, as well as similar accounts operated by the Pentagon, the Homeland Security Department and foreign allies.”

      Hussain is reportedly a devout Muslim who maintains close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood’s network in the U.S.

      He has been spewing radical Islamic propaganda for years.

      As a law student at Yale University in 2004, Hussain whined that the prosecution of University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian was a “politically motivated persecution” calculated “to squash dissent.” The academic was recently deported and he entered guilty pleas regarding his activities as a leader of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad............

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthew-vadum/terror-apologist-named-to-anti-terror-post/


      About Matthew Vadum

      Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative reporter and the author of the book, "Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers."

      Delete
  50. >>>ISIS Thugs Don’t Need Employment Opportunities

    While there really is no solution to the Iran problem, short of an Operation Persian Freedom that will not happen, there is one to the ISIS threat, and it’s not more employment opportunities in the Middle East. As I explained months ago, the Islamic State is deeply vulnerable to air power, aggressively applied in coordination with Special Operations Forces (SOF), backed by excellent intelligence. However, the Obama administration has been diffident in its application of air power against ISIS, and the terrorist insurgency remains far stronger than it ought to be, given that the United States has been waging war, albeit of a low-grade sort, against it for half a year already.
    While the Islamic State will continue in some evil guise for years, it will not be a serious threat to the Middle East, if the Obama administration does what it must.

    Deploying a couple divisions of the U.S. Army or Marine Corps would crush ISIS quickly, but the wisdom of that is dubious, given the history of Iraq since 2003. What will degrade ISIS is U.S.-led airpower, at a higher sortie rate, in coordination with our SOF, the finest snake-eaters in the world. In a matter of months, this lethal tandem will inflict such serious losses on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, particularly on its high-value targets, that it will gradually lose operational effectiveness. We will incur losses, but the enemy’s will be hundreds-fold more. While the Islamic State will continue in some evil guise for years, it will not be a serious threat to the Middle East, if the Obama administration does what it must.

    Actually defeating ISIS comprehensively will take longer, and will require seriously revamped counterterrorism policies that this administration seems unlikely to even consider. That our attorney general says he’s “not sure an awful lot is gained” by saying “Islamic” when discussing ISIS, while stating this is really all the fault of Fox News making nomenclature an issue, does not inspire confidence, particularly when Eric Holder is fond of quickly labeling crimes he cares about the result of white racism. Elements of the mainstream media are now realizing, belatedly, that ISIS is exactly what it claims proudly to be—a virulent, apocalyptic death cult grounded in a literalist reading of Sunni Islam, dumbed down for the Internet age—and it would be nice if the White House realized this, too. We will not defeat ISIS, which represents a far graver strategic threat than al Qaeda ever did, until we confront what it actually is............<<<


    Foreign Policy

    We Need To Destroy ISIS, And We Need To Destroy It Now

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/02/19/we-need-to-destroy-isis-and-we-need-to-destroy-it-now/

    ReplyDelete
  51. AP Investigates: Bulk of Gaza Deaths Civilians
    By contributors | Feb. 20, 2015
    Associated Press | –

    “AP Exclusive: High civilian death toll in Gaza house strikes during Israeli conflict with Hamas militant group during the summer of 2014. Over 60 percent of those deaths were children, women and older men, all presumed to be civilians.”

    AP: “AP Investigates: Bulk of Gaza Deaths Civilians”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow..

      When you get your information from a Hamas organization what do you expect…

      Love the LINE

      "ALL PRESUMED TO BE CIVILIANS"

      So all counted as civilians until proven otherwise..

      Delete
  52. Why would Hamas and Hezbollah possibly hate Israel?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because both groups are Islamic and their book tells them to do so.
      ............................................................................


      Utah Court Allows Woman To Sue Herself For Wrongful Death Of Her Husband
      February 19, 2015 6:35 AM
      Share on email 196
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      File photo of a judge in a courtroom. (credit: Chris Ryan/Getty Images)

      File photo of a judge in a courtroom. (credit: Chris Ryan/Getty Images)
      Related Tags:
      Barbara Bagley, Utah Court of Appeals, woman suing herself, wrongful death lawsuit
      You've Earned Points for Reading!Claim points in our Reward Center, and earn more tomorrow.Claim Points

      Salt Lake City, Utah (CBS LAS VEGAS) – A Utah woman has been granted the ability to sue herself for negligence in the case of a deadly accident that killed her husband in 2011.

      The Utah Court of Appeals has ruled that Barbara Bagley will be allowed to proceed with a wrongful-death lawsuit against herself for alleged negligence in the Dec. 27, 2011 accident east of Battle Mountain, Nev., that killed her husband, the Salt Lake City Tribune reports. Court documents show that Bagley will be suing the driver of the vehicle, Bagley, for an unspecified amount of money stemming from losses in medical, funeral costs and mental anguish.

      Bagley lost control of a Range Rover while driving in the desert when she hit a sagebrush which caused the vehicle to flip over. Her husband, 55-year-old Bradley Vom Baur, was thrown from the vehicle and suffered severe injuries that ultimately led to his Jan. 6, 2012 death.

      Bagley made news after the crash when the family’s dog went missing but then showed up a month later for a surprise reunion.

      Court documents show that Bagley claims she was negligent for failing to maintain proper control of her vehicle and for not keeping a proper lookout as she was driving.

      The case was dismissed by Third District Judge Paul Maughan in 2014 but the Utah Appeals Court last week reinstated the suit in a 3-0 ruling that state law doesn’t ban Bagley from suing herself for damages.

      Attorneys for Bagley say the widow is pursuing legal action for the benefit of the estate, and not just herself. Creditors will be paid prior to Bagley receiving the money she’d receive as her husband’s sole heir.

      Lawyers defending Bagley – as the driver – are representatives from her insurance carrier. These attorneys say the wrongful-death suit should follow other state rulings in which cases involving people suing themselves for damages have been declared unjust.

      Much of the case centers around each side’s view of the phrase “of another” to determine which heirs or personal representatives of an estate can sue for damages.

      “If this suit is allowed to continue, a jury would be asked to determine whether Barbara Bagley’s fault caused Barbara Bagley’s own harm,” attorneys Peter Christensen and Kathryn Tunacik Smith said in a motion to dismiss the suit. “The jury would be asked to determine how much money will fairly compensate Barbara Bagley for the harm she caused herself. The jury will be highly confused — it cannot order a person to compensate herself.”

      Insurance company attorneys for Bagley – the driver – told the Tribune Tuesday that no decision has been made on whether to appeal the ruling with the Utah Supreme Court.

      — Benjamin Fearnow

      http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2015/02/19/utah-court-allows-woman-to-sue-herself-for-wrongful-death-of-her-husband/

      Delete
    2. I wonder how the folks in Mosul will feel after experiencing American close air support?

      Delete
    3. Another Republican Genius


      Rudy Giuliani is apparently under an odd impression: the problems he creates by saying dumb thing will go away if he just keeps talking. Someone probably ought to tell him he has this backwards.

      The New York Republican declared Tuesday night that President Obama doesn’t love America or Americans. By Wednesday morning, Giuliani insisted this was not necessarily an attack on the president’s patriotism. By mid-day, the clownish former mayor was seemed eager to embarrass himself, insisting, “President Obama didn’t live through September 11, I did”

      And by last night, Giuliani’s descent into farce was complete.
      Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York on Thursday defended his assertion that President Obama did not love America, and said that his criticism of Mr. Obama’s upbringing should not be considered racist because the president was raised by “a white mother.”
      He added, “This isn’t racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism.”

      I see. So, by this reasoning, it seems as if Rudy Giuliani as positioned himself as pro-colonialism.

      Delete
  53. Did your book tell you it was alright to 'rip off' the bank, or was it your father?

    bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDT

    But I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback. …


    Just like a meth head, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, tries to justify his crime by saying that the loot was owed him, by the people or institution he ripped off.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. so says a self confessed rapist of 11 year old girls…

      Jack "the rapist" Hawkins…

      never met a child he didn't want to rape.

      Delete
    2. Har de har har.

      desert rat has a profile, he has 17,000 plus views.
      The above post, another "False Flag".

      Their quiver is empty. The "False Flag" they're flying, a sign of desperation.
      A tactic of a liar, wonder if it is a genetic condition

      Delete
    3. google "desert rat"Fri Feb 20, 01:07:00 PM EST

      Then the 17,000 plus viewers should KNOW that desert rat is a rapist.

      Delete
  54. Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly is facing scrutiny over his own war reports by Mother Jones via Youtube Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly is facing scrutiny over his own war reports by Mother Jones.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Washington Post - ‎

    New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is rapidly losing support among some of his most prominent home-state donors and power brokers, who are either hesitant to back him or shifting allegiance to former Florida governor Jeb Bush

    ReplyDelete

  56. Russian researchers expose breakthrough U.S. spying program


    (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives.

    That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based security software maker that has exposed a series of Western cyberespionage operations.

    Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, Kaspersky said.

    The firm declined to publicly name the country behind the spying campaign, but said it was closely linked to Stuxnet, the NSA-led cyberweapon that was used to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facility. The NSA is the agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence on behalf of the United States.

    A former NSA employee told Reuters that Kaspersky's analysis was correct, and that people still in the intelligence agency valued these spying programs as highly as Stuxnet. Another former intelligence operative confirmed that the NSA had developed the prized technique of concealing spyware in hard drives, but said he did not know which spy efforts relied on it.

    NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines declined to comment.


    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-usa-cyberspying-idUSKBN0LK1QV20150216

    ReplyDelete
  57. In a call Thursday night, O'Reilly told me: "He's a far-left guy trying to damage me, and timing this [story] to Williams."
    He added: "Everything I've said about my reportorial career [in books and on TV] has been accurate. There is not one thing that has been embellished or fabricated. Not one thing."

    "These people will say and do anything because they know they can get away with it. They will report anything and they know they can do damage. I'm lucky I can fight back. Most people can't — they get slimed."


    http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/bill-o-reilly-rebuts-magazine-account-that-he-embellished-war-reports-1.9957876

    ReplyDelete

  58. U.S. reveals massive operation to retake Mosul from ISIS using 25,000 Iraqi soldiers in the spring as terror group is rocked by defections and disgust over pilot's death


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2961044/As-25-000-Iraqi-troops-training-retake-Mosul-country-s-second-largest-city-Islamic-State-militants.html#ixzz3SIPp1MuB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it." -
      - An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre.

      Delete
  59. During the first week of the Tet Offensive the VC made their big move of attacking Saigon. The 3/39 Inf. was initially sent to fight in the big battle for Saigon. This left us alone to face an NVA regiment of 5,000 men that surrounded us on January 29. We survived that. And we remained surrounded and cut off for several weeks. As best I recall, the 3/39 Inf. was in Saigon for about two weeks. I certainly remember this, because while they were gone from Rach Kein we were on our own as far as defending against ground attacks. These must have been likely, for at one point, the 9th Inf. Div. sent in several companies of the 2/39 Inf. to bolster the town defenses and to conduct sweeps around Rach Kein while the 3/39 was away.

    I especially remember that one platoon of infantry was wiped out in a well laid ambush in an open rice paddy. It was just a few hundred yards from where we eventually built a school near the first village North of Rach Kein (can’t remember its name). The VC had cleverly built machinegun bunkers into the rice paddy dikes (it was the dry season), and the infantry walked right up to them before the VC opened fire.

    Then the 3/39 returned. Or I should say that 75 percent of them returned. The fighting in Saigon had been intense. After only a few days rest, they were air-lifted by chopper to retake the town of Ben Tre. Ben Tre had been occupied by the VC during Tet. The VC had dug in heavily, and were not ready to retreat without a big fight. So the still exhausted and depleted infantry troops of the 3/39 were thrown into another vicious fight. I cannot tell you how much respect that I have for those guys. True heroes, every one of them. Tough, plucky, and mostly draftees. I still remember my wonder at the ability of America’s youth to endure.

    I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who remembers them. So I willingly tell this story, so you can help me to remember. Their deeds should not be forgotten. The 3/39 Inf. Bn. suffered 100% casualties during the year 1968. I watched it. It is something that still haunts me. Eight hundred young men gone, dying bravely to serve the country they so loved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anyway, the fighting in Ben Tre went badly for the Americans. House-to-house all the way. The VC were so well dug in and barricaded that progress got stalled. So, in desperation, artillery and air strikes were called in on the town. Much of the town was heavily damaged in the resulting melee, but the town was retaken.

      Several days later, Major Robert Black (the Rach Kein U.S. Army Advisor) invited me to attend with him an evening briefing that the 3/39 was going to give for a group of journalists and Saigon army brass. I had never before been invited to attend an infantry battalion briefing. I accepted the invitation. The briefing was held in a Vietnamese house that served as the S-3 office. It was about 7 houses East of where the VC barbershop was at one time set up. The house was on the left side of the road as you drove through the infantry compound, just about across from the infantry mess hall.

      Anyway, the living room of the house was packed, mostly with civilians. The purpose of the briefing was to explain the battle of Ben Tre. Such briefings are usually conducted by the S-3, in this case, Major Booris. He was a heavy-set fellow.

      He was also not my favorite officer. This was because he was the guy who told the infantry on guard to open fire on us the morning when we were walking back to Rach Kein across the rice paddies. This was when we had chased the VC who had ambushed the infantry Road Runners that one infamous and well-remembered morning (but that is another story). Fortunately for us, the infantry sergeant (an E-5) on duty had ignored the major’s orders. I’ll never forget his grin as he told me that he had saved our bacon by ignoring the S-3’s orders. He could clearly see that we were friendlies, so he withheld his fire.

      Anyway, at one point the journalists were pressing Major Booris to explain why it had been necessary to wipe out the town. They were definitely pressing the point that perhaps too much force had been applied by the US forces. Major Booris was trying his best to put a good face on the situation. But at one point he got flustered, and blurted out, “We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it.” I have to admit that I almost laughed when he said that. It was a really unfortunate comment. But Major Booris, in his defense, was trying his best to defend his battalion’s honor. His CO, Lt. Colonel Anthony P. Deluca, deftly jumped to his feet and interceded to rescue Major Booris from this difficult moment. He smoothly carried the rest of the conversation. I really liked LTC Deluca. He was a good combat leader, and he was always fair to Task Force Builder.

      Anyway, that was the only briefing of the infantry that I ever attended. But it turned out to be the most famous. Some of the journalists present at that briefing seized Major Booris’ comment, and they really publicized it. As I recall, it appeared on the cover of Newsweek or Time magazine within the month. And it has gone down in history as an example of the some of the insanity that was Vietnam.

      Michael D. Miller
      Former Captain, US Army Corps of Engineers
      Commander, Task Force Builder, 1968
      46th Engineer Battalion
      159th Engineer Group

      http://www.nhe.net/BenTreVietnam/

      Delete
  60. By Luke Baker

    Related Stories

    U.S. accuses Israel of inaccurate leaks on Iran nuclear talks Reuters
    Netanyahu says Congress speech not meant to anger Obama Associated Press
    Netanyahu speech to U.S. Congress still on for March 3 Reuters
    Obama: 'Real differences' with Israel's Netanyahu on Iran Associated Press
    Obama: Time has come for Iran to decide on nuclear deal Associated Press
    JERUSALEM (Reuters) - For someone who was educated in the United States, speaks fluent American-accented English and worked as a management consultant in Boston, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sure knows how to rub his closest ally up the wrong way.

    In surprisingly critical and unvarnished comments on Wednesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused Israel of distorting details of the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program in order to scupper the talks.

    It was the latest in a series of increasingly terse exchanges between Netanyahu's right-wing government and President Barack Obama's administration that has brought U.S.-Israeli ties to their worst pass in decades.

    "There's no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterizing our negotiating position have not been accurate," Earnest told reporters, after Netanyahu dismissed the emerging deal with Iran as "bad and dangerous" and said he would do what he could to prevent it.

    "We see that there is a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States."

    If Earnest's words weren't already stern, it is only the beginning of what is likely to be a tense two weeks in the run up to March 3, when Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on the threat from Iran.

    Netanyahu was invited by John Boehner, the Republican speaker, in an initiative cooked up between Boehner and the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, without the White House initially being kept informed.

    That has upset the U.S. administration for a couple of reasons: first, because of the impression created that Netanyahu is teaming up with the Republicans to rubbish Obama's strategy on Iran and attempt to secure new U.S. sanctions.

    Secondly, it tramples on diplomatic protocol by inviting a foreign leader days before an election - Netanyahu will speak just two weeks before Israeli parliamentary elections on March 17, when he will bid for a fourth term. As a result, Obama will not meet him during the visit.

    Relations between the two have always been uncomfortable, but the sense of mutual irritation has deepened in recent months, with Netanyahu increasingly critical of U.S. policy on Iran and the United States pushing back on everything from Israeli settlements to the lack of talks with the Palestinians.

    Gideon Rahat, a professor of politics at Hebrew University, regards the current state of affairs as the worst between Israel and the United States in more than 20 years, since George Bush senior and Yitzhak Shamir were in office.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The whole article is quite amusing since Obama has stopped informing Israel of details of the talks over 6 months ago.

      Since Israel is not privy to American and Iranian top secrets how can he distort what he doesn't have access too…

      Delete
    2. The truth?

      If the deal is SO good that America is getting why is it secret?

      Why is Israel not allowed to be part of the talks?

      If Israel is not part of the talks? Then it's NOT bound by any agreement that the USA makes with Iran.

      Delete
  61. "Is Zionism past its expiry date?

    The Globe and Mail
    Published Friday, Feb. 20 2015, 3:00 AM EST




    “The 2015 elections will go down in Israeli history as the most ‘Zionist’ in the annals of the state,” veteran Israeli political columnist Akiva Eldar wrote this week.

    It may seem a rather strange statement considering that Zionism was the rallying cry for a Jewish homeland more than a century ago and fell out of broad contemporary use after the state of Israel was established in 1948.

    But Mr. Eldar is right. Not since 1975, when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring that Zionism was a form of racism, has the subject been so hotly contested. The Z-word is on most people’s lips in Israel these days, both those who are wrapping themselves in its banner, and those who denounce it.

    The country’s right wing utters it a lot, as a way of justifying the expansion of Israeli settlements into the “disputed” territory of the West Bank, home to 2.7 million Palestinians. Zionism, to these Israeli ultra-nationalists, means extending the boundaries of the Jewish state to all of Biblical Israel.

    Zionism also is something the right accuses the left and the Arab Israeli community of opposing, and they mean it to sting. To be “anti-Zionist,” they say, is to oppose the very existence of the state; even to seek to destroy it.

    That is what they said last week of Hanin Zoabi, an Arab Member of Knesset from Nazareth in the predominantly Arab Galilee district of Israel, when the Central Elections Committee voted to disallow her from running in next month’s parliamentary election.

    Ms. Zoabi doesn’t deny she’s anti-Zionist. She argues that it is a discriminatory ideology, one that favours Jewish Israelis over Arab Israelis, who make up 20 per cent of the population. She argues that it is her right, as an Israeli, and her obligation as an Arab to express her views publicly.

    Israel’s Supreme Court agreed with her – by an 8:1 margin – in a verdict handed down Wednesday.

    Right-wing political leaders denounced the verdict. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beitenu party, said the ruling was “a mark of disgrace against Israeli democracy.”

    Of course, what’s really prompted the resurgence of the Zionism debate is that an anti-Zionist party is poised to become the third largest bloc in the Israeli parliament.

    Israelis elect their parliamentarians according to a proportional representation system, and the vote is always so dispersed that no one party can rule on its own; coalitions are the norm. In an effort to reduce the number of small parties in the Knesset, parliament voted recently to raise the threshold of votes needed for a party to win any seats.

    Some thought this would reduce the number of Arab seats, since that community is always quite divided in its support for several parties. But the Arab parties succeeded in forming a combined Arab list, to which was added the joint Arab-Jewish Hadash party, historically a communist group.

    According to recent polls, this list stands to win 12-15 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, putting it behind only the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the joint Labour-Hatnua list led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.

    And so the name calling began.

    Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, delivered a speech on Feb. 8 that described Arab Israelis as thieves. “Anyone who’s gone travelling in the Negev in recent years knows that they can’t leave their car … because it will be broken into and stolen,” he said.

    Others called Arab Israelis such as Ms. Zoabi “terrorists” and “traitors.”

    Even Mr. Netanyahu got into the act. He condemned some of the judges in the illustrious Israel Prize jury as anti-Zionist extremists, and refused to authorize their participation in this year’s panel, though he later backed down following a national outcry.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So powerful has been the current of Zionism that the country’s historic Labour Party felt compelled to change its name for the purpose of this election and to call itself and its Hatnua partner the Zionist Camp.

      The very name of this bloc “conveys a message of cultural superiority of a close, superior group,” said Amal Jamal, professor of political science at Tel Aviv University. What the political parties have learned, he says, is that “the more racist and vocal you are and the more you define the other side as a threat, the more votes you get.”

      It’s worth noting that Mr. Herzog’s father, Chaim Herzog, was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations when the Zionism-is-racism resolution was passed. He stood in the General Assembly that day and said the resolution “based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value,” before tearing it in half.

      Avraham Burg’s father, Yosef Burg, was a member of the very first Israeli Knesset, and one of the founders of the National Religious Party, a breakthrough movement in which Orthodox Jews embraced Zionism, something the ultra-Orthodox initially denounced as sacrilegious.

      Today, the younger Mr. Burg, a former speaker of the Knesset and head of the Jewish Agency, has renounced the ideology that, he says, discriminates against Arab Israelis.

      “Why do we need the Zionist definition?” Mr. Burg asked in a recent article, “unless we want to perpetuate the injustice and deprivation in the name of an ideology that has successfully achieved its goal and is past its expiration date.”

      Mr. Burg, once a leading member of the Labour Party, has recently joined Hadash, the joint Arab-Jewish leftist movement that has renounced Zionism.

      “We are now at a critical juncture,” Mr. Burg told reporters earlier this month. “In 20 years, the country will be in one of two places – either it will be a fundamentalist religious republic … or … we will see the establishment of an Israel-Palestine confederation with open borders.”

      Mr. Burg has opted for the latter, the road to which follows the anti-Zionism path.

      He recalled that Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, said that history will judge the state of Israel by its attitude toward the Arab citizenry. It will not remember who shouted loudest “I am more Zionist.”"

      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/world-insider/is-zionism-past-its-expiry-date/article23107754/

      Delete

    2. Zionism is racism, based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, Zionism is devoid of any moral or legal value.

      Delete
    3. Zionism is the right for Jewish self determination in their historic homeland.

      To say otherwise?

      Proves your parents should have aborted you when they had the chance.

      Delete
    4. It’s worth noting that Mr. Herzog’s father, Chaim Herzog, was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations when the Zionism-is-racism resolution was passed. He stood in the General Assembly that day and said the resolution “based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value,” before tearing it in half.

      Delete

    5. Zionism is racism, based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, Zionism is devoid of any moral or legal value.

      Delete
    6. You are a life based on based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance. Please kill yourself and do us all a favor.

      Delete
  62. If Zionism really is ...
    ... the right for Jewish self determination in their historic homeland.

    They'd have gone to old Khazar, not Palistine.
    The Ashkenazi have no historic homeland in Palestine, none in Arabia, none on the shore of the Mediterranean.

    Zionism is a lie.
    A historic travesty.

    The historic homeland of the Ashkenazi, aptly illustrated on a map

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are a historic travesty.

      But Zionism LIVES.

      Israel IS

      and you still suck.

      Delete
    2. Jack, I hope that the ever growing and prospering Zionist dream called Israel gives you nothing but heartache and bitterness in the last 9.9 years of your cancer ridden life.

      Make sure you use NO Israeli medical innovations in the hospital

      Delete
    3. ISrael is IS, we know ...

      But thanks for the confirmation.

      Delete
    4. Jack,

      What are you in 3rd grade?

      But knowing how bitter you are brings me pleasure...

      Delete
  63. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/trey-radel-drug-testing_n_4305348.html

    Trey Radel, Busted On Cocaine Charge, Voted For Drug Testing Food Stamp Recipients

    WASHINGTON -- In September, Rep. Trey Radel voted for Republican legislation that would allow states to make food stamp recipients pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs. In October, police busted the Florida Republican on a charge of cocaine possession.

    “It’s really interesting it came on the heels of Republicans voting on everyone who had access to food stamps get drug tested," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told BuzzFeed Tuesday. "It’s like, what?”
    ...
    "Why don't we drug test all the members of Congress here," McGovern said shortly before the drug-testing measure passed. "Force everybody to go urinate in a cup or see whether or not anybody is on drugs? Maybe that will explain why some of these amendments are coming up or why some of the votes are turning out the way they are."

    ReplyDelete
  64. AnonymousFri Feb 20, 12:17:00 PM EST

    Zionism is racism, based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, Zionism is devoid of any moral or legal value.


    Your parents are brother and sister….

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When it comes to inbreeding the facts speak for themselves.


      On average, all Ashkenazi Jews are genetically as closely related to each other as fourth or fifth cousins

      said Dr. Harry Ostrer, a pathology, pediatrics and genetics professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the author of
      "Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People" (Oxford University Press, 2012).

      Delete
    2. Better than your relatives the arabs….

      do some research…

      Ask your dad and your mom, after all they are brother and sister

      Delete
  65. Jack HawkinsFri Feb 20, 12:26:00 PM EST
    If Zionism really is ...
    ... the right for Jewish self determination in their historic homeland.

    They'd have gone to old Khazar, not Palistine.
    The Ashkenazi have no historic homeland in Palestine, none in Arabia, none on the shore of the Mediterranean.



    Sorry Jack your understanding of the Jewish people leaves much to be desired.

    Heck, even your god-father HITLER thought the Jews of Europe were Jews.

    If they were good enough Jews for your family to slaughter thru out the ages they are GOOD enough Jews to be considered Jews todays.


    In one generation your people murdered jews cause they were jews. In this generation your people are not capable of defeating even the Jew so you now play silly word games..

    Hmmm.. I think the problem here is your lack of self esteem…

    You failed, you are just a bitter little evil man…

    Cant fight jews that can FIGHT back…

    You want the old victim jews..

    Sorry Jack… You killed all the easy ones already, all that are left? ARE ARMED and waiting for your attack...

    ReplyDelete
  66. Massive inbreeding among Muslims has been going on since their prophet allowed first-cousin marriages more than 50 generations (1,400 years) ago. For many Muslims, therefore, intermarriage is regarded as being part of their religion. In many Muslim communities, it is a source of social status to marry one’s daughter or son to his or her cousin. Intermarriage also ensures that wealth is kept within the family. Islam’s strict authoritarianism plays a large role as well: keeping daughters and sons close gives families more power to control and decide their choices and lifestyles.

    Read more: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-problem-of-inbreeding-in-islam/#ixzz3SJEErcb2

    ReplyDelete
  67. REBELS CAPTURE 32 SYRIAN TROOPS AND ALLIED GUNMEN IN ALEPPO

    BEIRUT (AP) -- Rebels in Syria have captured 32 soldiers and pro-government gunmen near the northern city of Aleppo, where fighting is raging as the two sides try to grab new territory ahead of a possible truce, activists said Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wonder how many Pakistani, Hezbollah, Iraqis and Iranians were in the bunch?

      Delete
    2. Why don't you tell us?

      Or have your super secret sources dried up?

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. I hope that many of them were Hezbollah….

      A wasted life pursuing criminal butchery in Syria…

      Delete
  68. The Daily Star
    BEIRUT/NABATIEH, Lebanon: Hezbollah Thursday buried two of its members who died carrying out duties in Syria. Al-Manar director Hasan Abdullah, who was killed while filming the raging battles in the Syrian city of Aleppo, was laid to rest in the Beirut southern suburbs cemetery of Rawdat al-Shahidain. His coffin roamed the streets of the suburb of Ghobeiri before he was buried. Dozens of Abdullah’s relatives and his supports marched in the funeral.

    In the south Lebanon village of Kfour in the district of Nabatieh, the 3-year-old Qassem Qaoum would touch the coffin of his father Hussein Qaoun, kissing it every once in a while, as members of Hezbollah chanted “Labayki ya Zeinab” (All hail oh Zeinab), in reference to the daughter of Imam Ali.

    - See more at: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Feb-20/288120-hezbollah-buries-two-party-members-slain-in-syria.ashx#sthash.PcBb5ibj.dpuf


    ah, another 2 gone… good

    ReplyDelete
  69. The Syrian army’s 9th Division mistakenly directed artillery and missile fire on Iranian, Hizballah and its own forces Wednesday, Feb. 18 during their push from southern Syria towards the Golan. This is reported by DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources. A Syrian general was also among those killed by the “friendly fire,” which military experts attribute to faulty coordination among the assorted forces taking part in the drive towards Quneitra.
    Their operation has so far claimed an estimated 200 Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah lives.
    It was this incident which greeted Iranian Al Qods Brigades commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, shortly after he arrived this week at the Iranian command center west of Damascus, to take command of the South Syrian warfront with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s assent.
    This was the first time in the four years of the Syrian conflict that Assad has agreed to relinquish control of any of his army’s war sectors and pass it in full to an Iranian commander.


    Hope this story pans out and is true...

    ReplyDelete
  70. Now this is from last year but it's a goody…

    Iran executed two gay men on Sunday for the crime of “perversion” and has sentenced a third individual to death for “insulting the prophet,” according to human rights activists tracking the situation.

    The head of Iran’s judiciary department in the northern city of Rasht announced on Sunday that two homosexual men had been executed for “perversion,” which is considered a severe crime under Iran’s hardline Islamic law.

    The executions come less than two months after Iranian authorities publicly hanged 40 individuals in a two-week period. Iran is executing at least two people a day, according to activists.

    Executions in Iran have surged over the past year with well more than 500 being killed for crimes ranging from “waging war against God” to misdemeanor drug charges that would carry minimal penalties in Western countries.

    State-sanctioned killings have spiked since the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who initially vowed to address the issue.

    ReplyDelete
  71. At the Pentagon, another official said “not one word of operational value” to the Islamic State was released Thursday. Officials appeared to make the case that the information released Thursday has value as a part of psychological operation, in which information is released in an attempt to influence the enemy and civilians in an area of military operations.

    “It was all very much big arrow, little map, and highlighted Iraqi commitment to taking back the city and provided some data points to underscore the scope and general timeline of the operation,” the Pentagon official said, speaking on background.
    “Putting out the date forced [the Islamic State] into a defensive crouch, which saps their energy.”
    ...
    It isn’t clear what will occur with Mosul. For now, U.S. troops will continue to train Iraqi soldiers for the battle.
    About 2,000 have graduated already, and another 3,400 are currently in training, the Centcom official said Thursday.


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/02/20/why-is-the-u-s-military-sharing-details-about-a-planned-assault-on-mosul-some-possibilities/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So, is the plan to send in these new recruits leaving the battle hardened experienced guys, as they've requested, sitting on their asses 'protecting' Baghdad?

      Delete
    2. What ever the Iraqi Generals and politicos decide is best, Ash.
      It's their country, their fight.

      Without US ground troops in the mix, the US is not in command.
      Ain't that great !

      Delete
    3. Can you say, "Pass the Popcorn?"

      :)

      Delete
    4. Right on, Go USA - fling bombs from up high with nary a care in the world where they may land.

      It is really quite sad where folk get all upset when, say, a Palestinian straps a bomb on and takes out a bunch of folk but all is fine if the good ole USA sends the bomb from up high - even better if a drone does as no pilot is even at minimal risk.

      Delete
    5. p.s. Jack, it will be Iraqi fighting Iraqi in Mosul. Heck, why don't you urge America put her muscle behind the 'official' government in Libya in their fight against the rebel Libyans?

      Delete
    6. I see Rufus is doing his WiO impression.

      Delete
    7. And, you're doing your "ignorant, lefty asshole" impersonation.

      " fling bombs from up high with nary a care in the world where they may land." ? ? ?

      Jesus.

      Delete
    8. Wrong, Ash.
      The US cares very much about where those munitions land.
      It is one reason that Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson was proclaiming the US effort a failure. Aircraft would take off loaded for bear, and return to base without expending any of their payload. There were no adequate targets to fire upon.

      Your bias is evident, but not really applicable.

      It is an Iraqi fight, the Iraqi are in the lead, making the command decisions.
      If the Iraqi government cannot field a force capable of defeating the Daesh in Iraq, the Daesh will not be defeated in Iraq.

      Each sovereign state will have to step up, the US no longer willing to carry their water.
      The US will assist the sovereign government of Iraq, but not of Syria.

      That is the reason that the 'War on ISIS' could be called a 'Phony War'.
      Assad is not as evil as Stalin, and the US did suply his regime with arms and material to fight the NAZI.
      If the US is not willing to do the same with Assad, than ISIS is cannot 'really' be considered a threat.

      If there is a hole in the US policy concerning ISIS, that's it.

      Delete
    9. If the US is not willing to do the same with Assad, then ISIS is cannot 'really' be considered a threat.

      Delete
    10. And, btw, why don't you piss and moan about your own country? They're right in there "flinging bombs," also.

      Delete
    11. The Egyptians are providing the Libyan government with the support they need, Ash.
      That is why we have supplied the F16s and those 1,400 M1 Abram main battle tanks that are the backbone of their armed forces.

      The Egyptians and the Libyan government have requested that the UN lift the arms embargo, no idea if that will happen, or not.

      Delete
    12. My 'bias' is that the US policy in Iraq is a bad one - if IS is bad enough to go to war against as per the recent AUMF then it is bad enough to beat and that should be done. My 'bias' is that IS is not enough of a threat to the US and the US should let the region sort itself out.

      My 'bias' is that rufus is a hypocritical naïve war mongering fool and that Jack Hawkins spews gibberish trumpeting tautologies as brilliant strategy (i.e. the rat doctrine). Bob ranks right up there with you two in his nonsense.

      Delete
    13. The Daesh will be beaten, by the Iraqi, Ash.
      But the invasion of Iraq is not a good option, for US.

      The Iraqi have made it clear that they do not want Coalition ground troops in their country.
      They could consider any deployment of US ground troops to Iraq an invasion.

      Perhaps that is why Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia militia leader has stood his militia down.
      To defend Baghdad from a US invasion from Kuwait.
      It has happened before, there is no need to repeat the errors of the Bush Administrations.

      Delete
    14. The current policy is attempting to repair the 'collateral damage' that a decade of occupation by US in Iraq has wrought.

      Delete
    15. Sorry Rufus but let's look at your history:

      You were for the war in Vietnam, so much so, you joined up to fight it. Then you learned, over time, it wasn't a good war.

      You were for the Bush II invasion and occupation of Iraq, until you learned, over time, that it wasn't a good war.

      You thought re 2008 financial.....

      You think taking out IS in Iraq will be easy, done by July 4th, and worthy entertainment for popcorn eating.

      'nuff said.

      Delete
    16. right, repairing the broken thing that we broke more by breaking it again. brilliant policy!

      Delete
    17. "fool?" Maybe.

      "hypocritical?" "naïve?" Nah.

      "war mongerer?" Because I think the headcutters need killing? Whatever.

      Delete
  72. The Rat Doctrine is quit simple, Ash, that is a fact.

    The US should supply Local Forces with logistical support. Arms and munitions.
    It should provide Close Air Support to those local force engaged in combat with Daesh.

    That is it, that is all that it is.
    The Rat Doctrine is not 'strategic bombing', it is not searching for 'targets of opportunity' from 35,000 feet.
    It is simply providing our allies what they cannot provide for themselves.

    They have lots and lots of boots, and it is their ground.

    ReplyDelete