It was Israel that attacked our Twin Trade Towers, and they got Saddam to invade Kuwait, and the Israelis manufactured small 'keys to Heaven' that were given to the Iranian kids as they cleared the minefields for the Mullahs, in the war with Saddam, and it is the Israelis that really control the entirety of the US Congress, and the Israelis caused the recent earthquak in Nepal, and they are causing the drought in California, and are poisoning all of our food and drink. They even eat cats, like the Hindus.
Yawning is a mostly involuntary process and is usually triggered by sleepiness or fatigue. It is a very natural response to being tired. http://www.healthline.com/symptom/excessive-yawning
Snoring may indicate a serious health condition ... Medical devices and surgery are available that may reduce disruptive snoring. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/snoring/basics/definition/con-20031874
There is no mention of hatred in the video towards Jews nor has any post or thread at the Elephant Bar ever indicated any hatred or prejudice towards Jews.
No one has ever referred to Jews as "sons of satan", never, not once.
There have been references to the "Synagogue of Satan". But that has nothing at all to do with the genetics or lineage Jews. Just a reference to the King James Bible, and the source of what Mətušélaḥ once referred to as an abomination ... ... the Babylonian Talmud.
Those who follow the Book written by those favored by Nebuchadnezzar's Chaldean royal court, in what the Jewish Virtual Library tells us was ... within the crucible of despair and hopelessness ...
They go on to tell us that Judaism was 'reinvented' in Babylon ... But the Jews in Babylon also creatively remade themselves and their world view.... ... During this period, Jewish leaders no longer spoke about a theology of judgment, but a theology of salvation. In texts such as Ezekiel and Isaiah, there is talk that the Israelites would be gathered together once more, their society and religion purified, and the unified Davidic kingdom be re-established.
Those exiled to Babylon dramatically changed Judaism, abandoning the Torah and embracing their new book, the Babylonian Talmud. It is there, in Babylon that the roots of Zionism were established, not in the Torah, not in the Judaic traditions, not in the Laws of Moses as written in Leviticus.
Mətušélaḥ Thu Dec 20, 11:18:00 PM EST Israel is wrong on this issue, as it does not follow the Biblical precepts. The Talmud is an abomination, and is not a source of authority. The Torah is the only authoritative source we should be referring to. As far as the Sanhedrin goes, it, as well as the Temple Complex should never have existed. That they no longer exist is good thing.
To my mind, while there are situations where certain interests may coincide or even affect decisions to a degree, to posit that every foreign policy fuck-up committed by the US is the result of influence on the part of Israel is bizarre (or worse) and deflects responsibility for those fuck-ups from the people who made the decisions, the D.C. fuckees.
I may dislike Bibi as much as anyone I can think of, I may view Israel as a theocracy and flawed democracy, I may believe some of the excuses they use as pure hypocrisy, but it is not Israel I blame for decisions made in Washington. I wouldn't give the dolts we have elected there any excuse for the asinine policies they concoct. As for any money coming from the Lobby, the only politician you can corrupt is one that is corruptible.
We get enough conspiracy theories around here already.
There is no question that Washington politicians are responsible for their decisions, but the decisions were not made for any benefits to ordinary Americans. The facts were manipulated to equate Israeli interests with US interests. A lobby gives something for something. The Neocons, through media manipulation and buying politicians got the US involved in all these Middle East wars for the perceived benefit of weakening Israel’s enemies.
Now that the entire ME is collapsing, the question arrises why and how did it happen. Netanyahu, the Israeli PM wants to take it to Iran. Who is responsible? Who benefits?
Every US foreign policy decision made in the Middle East, is done with Israel’s disproportionate influence and intimidation of US politicians. That is the bizarre part.
The real conspiracy theory is the one where the Zionists attacks anyone the dares to criticize Israel as being an anti-semite or Nazi. I have yet to see any of the critics of my post dispute the facts, the videos or the reports.
On this posted video, where is the presenter wrong?
MSNBC - Sidney Blumenthal defended the advice he gave to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Libya and has agreed to testify before a House committee investigating the deadly Benghazi terror attack, according to a statement provided by his lawyer Thursday.
On Nov. 25, 1940, a boat carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, exploded and sank off the coast of Palestine killing 252 people.
The Zionist “Haganah” claimed the passengers committed suicide to protest British refusal to let them land. Years later, it admitted that rather than let the passengers go to Mauritius, it blew up the vessel for its propaganda value.
“Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the few in order to save the many,” Moshe Sharett, a former Israeli Prime Minister said at memorial service in 1958.
Unfortunately the way the comments are structured, if I delete multiple repetitive posts, I lose track of them and when I delete them permanently they take down comments tied directly to them.
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake jolted the Napa Valley Thursday evening, offering a brief reminder of last summer's 6.0 quake that left millions of dollars in damage in the heart of the state's winemaking region.
...
The earthquake was originally reported as magnitude 4.3 but was later downgraded by the USGS. In the past 10 days, one other earthquake with a magnitude 3.0 or greater has occurred nearby.
The real conspiracy theory is the one where the Zionists attacks anyone the dares to criticize Israel as being an anti-semite or Nazi. I have yet to see any of the critics of my post dispute the facts, the videos or the reports.
On this posted video, where is the presenter wrong?
Where to start?
Simply another conspiracy theorists, IMO. He takes correlation and a number of questionable assumptions and offers them up as causation and established facts. Heck, within the first minute or two, the guy posits that in the middle of the cold war instead of being opposed to communist Russia because of adversarial philosophical differences, warring nationalist interests, or the nuclear arms race, the neocons were actually opposed to communist Russia because the country was anti-Semitic.
While most people would define the neocon philosophy as arguing that American culture and mores are the ‘best’ in the world, that US power is supreme in the world, and given that the US has the means, it also has the duty to share that way of life, the democracy, the culture, the mores, with the rest of the world whether they want it or not. This guy on the other hand insinuates its all about Israel.
That being said, he does outline numerous instances where neocon aims match those of Israel (Likud), in other words they tend to correlate. While that may show some serendipity it does not prove any causation, there is no evidence that it is Israel pulling the strings for every American action.
I have yet to see any of the critics of my post dispute the facts
The guy throws out all kind of facts, facts I wouldn’t dispute. Where we differ is in the interpretation of those facts. To the conspiracy theorist they mean only one thing while to others there could be other meanings. For instance, the guy talks of the ‘Clean Break’ paper written in the mid-90’s and comments that it is a little strange that ‘an Israeli policy paper was being written by Americans’. Wink wink. It’s like he discovered the Illuminati. But is this really evidence of some massive conspiracy? Is it all that strange for Israel to ask Perle and the boys to write up a policy paper? Perle and the others were neocons and well known as such. We have already said the neocon objectives in the ME pretty much matched those of Israel. The guys worked for a conservative American think tank. And they were Jews. Is it all that strange that Israel would ask them to draw up a policy paper?
What is kind of interesting to me is that Netanyahu seems to have pretty much ignored the paper’s recommendations.
Strictly my opinion of course, however, it is my view that anyone who buys this guy’s premise based on the subject video already had his mind made up before turning it on. Anyone buying his schtick based on the ‘facts’ and ‘conclusions’ presented isn’t thinking logically. And anyone who blames Israel for every US foreign policy fuck-up since 1948 probably needs to calm down and reevaluate a bit.
Israel didn’t get us into Iraq. Bush did. Netanyahu didn’t get us into Iraq. Obama did.
There’s a lot I don’t like about Israel but I am not going to use them as an excuse for the dolts we have elected to D.C.
The 05/22/2015 Jihad Watch Daily Digest: Australia to strip citizenship of Australian-born jihadis with immigrant parents By Robert Spencer on May 21, 2015 11:06 pm Australia to strip citizenship of Australian-born jihadis with immigrant parents Common sense. This is a start in the right direction — one that no other Western country has had the courage to take. “Australia to strip citizenship of Australian-born jihadis with immigrant parents,” Associated Press, May 21, 2015 (thanks to Kenneth): Australian Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton, seen here in February 2015, says […] Read in browser »
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Islamic State seizes Syria’s last border crossing with Iraq By Robert Spencer on May 21, 2015 10:46 pm Islamic State seizes Syria’s last border crossing with Iraq Barack Obama and John Kerry want to keep you ignorant and complacent regarding the Islamic State’s gains. For them, it is all about maintaining the electoral advantage of their party — not that their rivals in the Stupid Party have the wit or the will or the patriotism to call the nation’s attention to what […] Read in browser »
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Islamic State approaches Israel By Robert Spencer on May 21, 2015 10:23 pm Islamic State approaches Israel Prediction: if the Islamic State gets into a position to threaten Israel in any serious way, we will start seeing the mainstream media grow markedly sympathetic to it, with a spate of articles hailing the new “maturity” and “moderation” of the Islamic State. “ISIS Approaches Israel: Islamic State Loyalists Thwarted By Syrian Rebels Along Golan […] Read in browser »
Israel’s new deputy foreign minister on Thursday delivered a defiant message to the international community, saying that Israel owes no apologies for its policies in the Holy Land and citing religious texts to back her belief that it belongs to the Jewish people.
The speech by Tzipi Hotovely illustrated the influence of hardliners in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s new government, and the challenges he will face as he tries to persuade the world that he is serious about pursuing peace with the Palestinians.
Hotovely, 36, is among a generation of young hardliners in Netanyahu’s Likud party who support West Bank settlement construction and oppose ceding captured land to the Palestinians. Since Netanyahu has a slim one-seat majority in parliament, these lawmakers could complicate any attempt to revive peace talks.
With Netanyahu also serving as the acting foreign minister, Hotovely is currently the country’s top full-time diplomat.
In an inaugural address to Israeli diplomats, Hotovely said Israel has tried too hard to appease the world and must stand up for itself.
“We need to return to the basic truth of our rights to this country,” she said. “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.”
Hotovely, an Orthodox Jew, laced her speech with biblical commentaries in which God promised the land of Israel to the Jews. Speaking later in English, she signalled that she would try to rally global recognition for West Bank settlements, which are widely opposed.
“We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere,” she said.
Hotovely will manage the ministry’s day-to-day functions, but Netanyahu will remain in charge of foreign policy.
During the recent election campaign, Netanyahu angered his western allies by saying he would not permit the establishment of a Palestinian state on his watch. On Wednesday he told the visiting EU foreign policy chief that he remains committed to a two-state solution.
Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev, declined comment on Hotovely’s speech, but said Netanyahu’s statements Wednesday reflected his policy.
The economy of Gaza – assailed by war, poor governance and a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade – has reached the “verge of collapse” with the coastal strip suffering the highest rate of unemployment in the world.
The bleak picture is presented in a devastating report by the World Bank, released on Friday, which said that Gaza’s economy had been strangled by years of blockades, war and poor governance and faces a dangerous crisis over its ability to meet wages and other spending requirements.
Calling for the “lifting of the blockade on the movement of goods and people to allow Gaza’s tradable sectors to recover” the report warned that about 43% of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents are unemployed, with youth unemployment reaching about 60% by the end of last year.
Prepared ahead of the bi-annual meeting in Brussels next week of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which coordinates international donor support for the Palestinians, the report is published almost a year after the 50-day conflict between Gaza militants and Israel, in which about 2,200 Palestinians were killed.
On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed.
“Gaza’s unemployment and poverty figures are very troubling and the economic outlook is worrying. The current market in Gaza is not able to offer jobs leaving a large population in despair particularly the youth,” said Steen Lau Jorgensen, World Bank country director for West Bank and Gaza.
“The ongoing blockade and the 2014 war have taken a toll on Gaza’s economy and people’s livelihoods. Gaza’s exports virtually disappeared and the manufacturing sector has shrunk by as much as 60%. The economy cannot survive without being connected to the outside world.”
OOPs, bad for optics, but we still know where their heart is
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has cancelled a pilot scheme banning Palestinian workers from Israeli buses in the occupied territories – denounced as tantamount to apartheid – only hours after it was announced.
The plan had been approved by Netanyahu’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, but was cancelled amid fierce criticism from Israeli opposition figures, human rights groups and a former minister in Netanyahu’s own party, who said it was a “stain on the face of Israel” that would damage its international image.
The move had been enthusiastically welcomed by settler groups and pro-settlement MPs who had long been lobbying for the ban.
The three month pilot scheme – which had been due to come into force on Wednesday – would have imposed strict new controls on thousands of Palestinians with permits to work in Israel, insisting they travel home through certain designated checkpoints and banning them from using Israeli run buses in the occupied West Bank.
Islamic State’s victories in Palmyra and Ramadi have been painful blows for the US-led coalition in both Syria and Iraq respectively, underlining the flaws in a strategy that has been widely criticised as both wrong-headed and half-hearted.
Until the last few weeks the conventional wisdom in Washington, London and Arab capitals was that Isis had been forced on to the back foot, suffering from shortages of cash, weapons and problems of resupply, even if its morale was sustained by a slick propaganda machine that kept attracting recruits.
Now events may be forcing a rethink. The Obama administration is taking “an extremely hard look” at its approach, in the words of an unnamed official who declared in the wake of the fall of Ramadi: “You’d have to be delusional not to take something like this and say ‘what went wrong, how do you fix it and how do we correct course to go from here?’”
Robert Gates, the former US defence secretary, put it even more bluntly: “We don’t really have a strategy at all. We’re basically playing this day by day.” The urgent delivery of new anti-tank missiles for the Iraqi army has been one short-term response. But larger military and political questions are still unanswered.
Iraq remains the priority. Air attacks launched last September have been carried out by the US, Britain and half a dozen other countries, while operations in Syria are limited to the US and the largely symbolic presence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Coalition aircraft have carried out 2,200 air strikes in Iraq and 1,400 in Syria.
The recapture of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border has been the headline achievement for the air campaign. Last week the US highlighted a special forces raid that killed a Isis financier. Britain made great play of the imposition of EU sanctions on the Syrian purchasing oil from the group on behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Squeezing Isis cash is an important element of the overall strategy, officials say. So is domestic counter-terrorism work.
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In recent weeks a significant novelty in the regional mix has been the greater effectiveness of Saudi Arabia, which is now working with its old rivals Qatar and Turkey to build a more potent coalition of non-Isis Syrian rebel groups fighting Assad on the ground, not just from 30,000ft.
By contrast, the US programme to “train and equip” a Syrian force to fight Isis – though not Assad – is moving agonisingly slowly after its launch in Jordan a few weeks ago. Britain backs that effort as well as maintaining financial and political support for the opposition Syrian National Coalition. But the SNC’s unceasing demands for a no-fly zone or a safety zone to protect civilians from the regime’s barrel bombs and chlorine gas are getting nowhere slowly.
On the Iraqi front, analysts say the US has to decide how many more victories by Isis it can sustain before increasing support to the underperforming Baghdad government forces on the ground. It and its allies must also do more to back “acceptable” insurgent groups in Syria, argues Charles Lister of the Brookings Institution.
“Next time you read some grand statement by US officials on [the] campaign against Isis or see a Centcom [US Central Command] map about Isis reversals, just bin it,” commented Emile Hokayem, a respected Middle East expert with the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
The fundamental problem is that Isis is waging war across two countries in a single interconnected crisis that is sustained by Sunni anger and the perception that the US and the west are content to look on as a confident Iran backs Shia groups in Iraq and beyond for its own strategic and sectarian reasons.
In the Middle East the conventional wisdom remains that Islamic State will not be defeated until Assad is. But while there is no doubt that the Syrian president’s position has weakened in recent weeks, his regime’s demise is not in sight.
On a recent trip to Tehran, India’s Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with his Iranian counterpart for the development of Chabahar port. The port, situated in southeastern Iran, is seen by India as a gateway to both Afghanistan and Central Asia and a possible counter-balance to Gwadar port in Pakistan, which is now operated entirely by China.
“With the signing of this MoU, Indian and Iranian commercial entities would now be in a position to commence negotiations towards finalization of a commercial contract under which Indian firms will lease two existing berths at the Port and operationalize them as container and multi-purpose cargo terminals,” read a statement released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
,,,In 2012, Iran dispatched a team to Delhi to deliver something of an ultimatum over India’s non-delivery on the Farzad B project. Tehran asked India to immediately commit the $1 billion promised, or the field would be promised to “others,” an indirect reference to China, which today is Iran’s biggest trading partner and which has funded railway and road projects in the country. For Beijing, like Delhi, Iran is an important source of hydrocarbons, as both China and India are dependent on large imports of crude oil and natural gas, specifically from West Asia. Iran has the world’s second largest proven natural gas reserves and sixth largest oil reserves. A considerable part of these reserves has yet to be fully exploited.
Around 2010-11, Iran was beginning to feel the sanctions, as its income from the sale of hydrocarbons, vital to its economy, began to dwindle. For India, Iran had fallen from its second largest source of oil to seventh place by 2012, as New Delhi turned to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Iraq to hedge its supplies. However, Delhi still imported as much oil as it could from Iran, with business worth nearly $5 billion over two to three years. Even as India managed to negotiate with Washington some waivers for limited periods of time to continue energy trade with Iran, transferring payments became difficult and much of Tehran’s dues were being deposited in a bank account in Kolkata. Tehran pressured India to free its dues, suggesting “unconventional” ways to transfer the money via Oman. However India persisted, and Iran grew impatient with Delhi’s buckling under American pressure. Iran’s billions were only transferred in phases in 2014 after sanctions eased as a thaw emerged between Tehran and the P5+1 negotiating countries.
In 2013, India’s National Security Advisor called out the Ministry of External Affairs for “dragging its feet” on projects in Iran, particularly Chabahar, prompting some sense of urgency in Delhi. In early 2014, Iran invited global oil and gas majors for a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani, as it sensed an easing of sanctions and the potential for foreign investment. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, with Indian companies notably absent. The reasons for this faux pas given by government sources ranged from deliberately not attending the meet to a communication lapse within the Indian delegation.
Now, in 2015, India is already late to the “rush” that is expected to begin as Iran looks to open up following its expected negotiations breakthrough by the end of next month. Western and Chinese companies have been camping out in Dubai and other Gulf cities to pounce on the anticipated opportunities. India and its businesses are lagging, and the loss of both time and strategic space is visible.
Earlier this month, an Indian delegation was hurriedly put together and sent to Tehran to represent the Indian oil and gas sector. Tehran, while receptive, reportedly took India’s strategic edge away as it refused Delhi’s latest package for the development of the Farzad B field, which was a modified version of the deal offered in 2010. Worse, Iran has now also refused to give the field to India without a tender bid, which means after all these years Farzad B could slip out of India’s hands and end up with the highest bidder.
Both India and Iran can look back on more than a decade of squandered potential for a strategic partnership, with both sides more often than not acting against their own interests. Now, if Iran can open up successfully, India should be ready with its best diplomatic and economic face to once again start what it could have successfully concluded half a decade before anyone else.
Take a look at the ports and transportation infrastructure created by China since 911. This was in 2011, Since the guess how many more have been added. ------------------
108 Giant Chinese Infrastructure Projects That Are Reshaping The World VIVIAN GIANG AND ROBERT JOHNSON DEC. 5, 2011, 1:00 PM 697,196 60
There's an old Chinese saying that goes: “If you want to be rich, you must first build roads.”
And, boy, have they built some roads: In the past year, we've seen the world's longest sea bridge, the world's longest gas pipeline and a high-speed railway that's left everyone else in the dust — literally.
The resultant infrastructure push is incredible. A list of 108 super projects is floating around Chinese message boards and we picked out the 45 coolest ones to showcase here.
From highways spanning the continent, to the largest wind power base in the world, to a modern Silk Road that links Europe and India, to new cities in the desert, China is showing what it really means to do big things.
While the US is mired in the Neocon created calamity in the Middle East, China has doubled global infrastructure projects since 2011:
Japan, China spar over Asian infrastructure
Japan has unveiled a massive spending plan to improve infrastructure in Asia. The plans came as China launches a new infrastructure lender aimed at curbing the financial clout of Tokyo and Washington in the region.
China said Friday it would hold the largest stake in a major new infrastructure investment bank that the United States and Japan view as a counterweight to Western-dominated institutions, as the new bank’s prospective founding members convened in Singapore to figure out when the new lender would begin operations.
China's share in the $100-billion (89 billion-euro) institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), would be between 25 percent and 30 percent, the news agency Reuters quoted unidentified delegates at the meeting as saying. India reportedly offered to take a 10 to 15 percent share in the bank.
Following a three-day meeting in Singapore, the prospective founding members of the AIIB announced that the newly-founded lender would be operational at the end of this year.
“In the three-day meeting, the chief negotiators discussed the draft environmental and social framework and draft procurement policy framework, among other topics," the bank's interim multilateral secretariat said in a statement.
Asian countries would own between 72 to 75 percent of AIIB, while European and other nations would own the rest, the delegates, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
A total of 57 countries have so far joined AIIB, including countries as diverse as Germany, Britain, Iran and Laos. The United States and Japan have chosen to stay out of the regional infrastructure lender, considering AIIB as a rival to the US-dominated World Bank and Japan-led Asian Development Bank.
The US has now spent $3 trillion on the Middle East. What will the return be to US workers?
TOKYO: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on Thursday a $110 billion investment plan for infrastructure projects in Asia in an apparent counter to China's move to launch a new development bank.
Abe said in a speech in Tokyo that Japan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will boost their assistance by 30 per cent to offer the massive investment aid under a five-year public-private partnership vision.
"By attracting diverse funds, we hope to bring changes to Asia," Abe said in prepared remarks, in the latest twist in the tussle for influence in the fast-growing region.
China leads the world in infrastructure investment. Explore today’s impressive reality, and see what the future holds, in this by-the-numbers summary.
June 2013 | byYougang Chen, Stefan Matzinger, and Jonathan Woetzel
Infrastructure development remains a top priority for China’s government, which has long recognized that a modern economy runs on reliable roads and rails, electricity, and telecommunications. From the late 1990s to 2005, 100 million Chinese benefited from power and telecommunications upgrades. Between 2001 and 2004, investment in rural roads grew by a massive 51 percent annually. And in recent years, the government has used substantial infrastructure spending to hedge against flagging economic growth.
China’s leadership has charted equally ambitious plans for the future. Its goal is to bring the entire nation’s urban infrastructure up to the level of infrastructure in a middle-income country, while using increasingly efficient transport logistics to tie the country together. What follows is a by-the-numbers portrait of this dynamic sector.
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How many Americans have benefited from The Neocon Crusade? Boring isn’t it? Move along, don’t let the facts flutter you.
Let’s return to 1991 and read something that was ignored by the US Conga Line :
“Ancient History”: U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention
By Sheldon L. Richman August 16, 1991 Executive Summary
When Iranian revolutionaries entered the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and seized 52 Americans, President Jimmy Carter dismissed reminders of America’s long intervention in Iran as “ancient history.” Carter’s point was not merely that previous U.S. policy could not excuse the hostage taking. His adjective also implied that there was nothing of value to be learned from that history. In his view, dredging up old matters was more than unhelpful; it was also dangerous, presumably because it could only serve the interests of America’s adversaries. Thus, to raise historical issues was at least unpatriotic and maybe worse.[1]
As the United States finds itself in the aftermath of another crisis in the Middle East, it is worth the risk of opprobrium to ask why there should be hostility toward America in that region. Some insight can be gained by surveying official U.S. conduct in the Middle East since the end of World War II. Acknowledged herein is a fundamental, yet deplorably overlooked, distinction between understanding and excusing. The purpose of this survey is not to pardon acts of violence against innocent people but to understand the reasons that drive people to violent political acts.[2] The stubborn and often self-serving notion that the historical record is irrelevant because political violence is inexcusable ensures that Americans will be caught in crises in the Middle East and elsewhere for many years to come.
After 70 years of broken Western promises regarding Arab independence, it should not be surprising that the West is viewed with suspicion and hostility by the populations (as opposed to some of the political regimes) of the Middle East.[3] The United States, as the heir to British imperialism in the region, has been a frequent object of suspicion. Since the end of World War II, the United States, like the European colonial powers before it, has been unable to resist becoming entangled in the region’s political conflicts. Driven by a desire to keep the vast oil reserves in hands friendly to the United States, a wish to keep out potential rivals (such as the Soviet Union), opposition to neutrality in the cold war, and domestic political considerations, the United States has compiled a record of tragedy in the Middle East. The most recent part of that record, which includes U.S. alliances with Iraq to counter Iran and then with Iran and Syria to counter Iraq, illustrates a theme that has been played in Washington for the last 45 years.
An examination of the details and consequences of that theme provides a startling object lesson in the pitfalls and conceit of an interventionist foreign policy. The two major components of the theme that are covered in this study are U.S. policy toward Iran and the relations between Israel and the Arabs. Events in which those components overlapped—development of the Carter Doctrine, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Persian Gulf War—will also be examined.
In the aftermath of the most overt and direct U.S. attempt to manage affairs in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf War, it is more important than ever to understand how the United States came to be involved in the region and the disastrous consequences of that involvement. President Bush’s willingness to sacrifice American lives to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait, to restore the “legitimate” government of that feudal monarchy, and to create a “new world order” proceeds logically from the premises and policies of past administrations. Indeed, there is little new in Bush’s new world order, except the Soviet Union’s assistance. That may mean the new order will be far more dangerous than the old, because it will feature an activist U.S. foreign policy without the inhibitions that were formerly imposed by the superpower rivalry. That bodes ill for the people of the Middle East, as well as for the long-suffering American citizens, who will see their taxes continue to rise, their consumer economy increasingly distorted by military spending, and their blood spilled—all in the name of U.S. leadership.
Written in 1991. It got worse since them, but don’t read it.
Go to AIPAC to find out what is in your interest but please, spare me the condescending lectures that there is no ongoing direct connection and disastrous consequence to the subservient US obsession with the Colony Club of seven million of God’s chosen elite.
As for the standard rejoinder that Israel has been the staunchest U.S. ally in the Middle East, one is reminded of the one-liner about lawyers: if we didn't have them, we wouldn't need them. The U.S. relationship with Israel produces the very adversaries that are pointed to as justifying the close relationship.
"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East" - John Sheehan
Egghead-warmonger Bill Kristol published a column yesterday about the Iraq war. Astonishingly, it was titled “We Were Right to Fight in Iraq.” The piece would be laughable if it wasn’t written earnestly, and without a hint of irony. But we’ve come to expect this sort of thing from Kristol. There are, apparently, not enough corpses in the world to convince him that a mistake was made.
Kristol is a special breed of ideologue; his ability to hold false beliefs in spite of contrary evidence verges on the heroic. Like most neoconservatives, he’s a disciplined nihilist; he simply refuses to believe in reality. The man helped lay the intellectual foundations for America’s misadventure in Iraq, and he appears not to have noticed that it was a bad idea. Indeed, he persists in recycling bankrupt arguments in defense of it. A quick glance at his latest screed is instructive.
Kristol writes:
“We were able to bring the war to a reasonable conclusion in 2008…When President Obama took office, Iraq was calm, al-Qaeda was weakened and ISIS did not exist…The Obama administration threw it all away. It failed to support the dissidents in Iran in 2009, mishandled the Iraqi elections in 2010, removed all U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, and allowed the Syrian war to spiral out of control from 2011 on.”
Virtually every syllable of that passage is dripping with errors. First, notice how he casually uses the phrase “reasonable conclusion.” What, exactly, does that mean? There was nothing conclusive about the situation in Iraq at that time. On the contrary, Bush surged troop numbers in 2007 which temporarily provided stability, but that stability was destined for collapse the second our troops withdrew. Kristol won’t say so, but what he’s really arguing for here is a permanent occupation of Iraq, not the end of a war.
- Salon - http://www.salon.com/2015/05/22/bill_kristols_latest_iraq_nonsense_dumber_and_more_dangerous_than_david_brooks/
No inspection of the Israeli/US alliance is permitted by the Israeli- firsters. By any standard, the relationship between the United States and Israel has been extraordinary. Criticism of any other American ally does not cost a person an elective or appointed position in government. Criticism of any other American ally does not bring accusations of being a hater of the dominant religious group in the allied nation. Both of those things happen, almost routinely, to anyone who criticizes Israel. Elected U.S. officials who have cast a single vote against an Israeli position have seen major opposition mounted by Israel's American supporters. The rare journalist who points out unattractive facts about Israeli conduct is likely to be smeared as an anti-Semite. The chilling effect that has had on public debate is too obvious to need elaboration.
U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's anti-Arab remarks on Election Day has "foreign-policy consequences," The Atlantic reported on Thursday.
The U.S. president made it clear during the interview with the American periodical on Tuesday that Netanyahu's portrayal of Arab voters as "an invading force that might vote" is contrary to the very language of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which explicitly states that all people regardless of race or religion are full participants in the democracy."
"When something like that happens, that has foreign policy consequences, and precisely because we’re so close to Israel, for us to simply stand there and say nothing would have meant that this office, the Oval Office, lost credibility when it came to speaking out on these issues,” he said. Obama remarked in the interview that despite the confrontations with Netanyahu over the past number of years, most of the American Jewish community still voted for him in the 2012 presidential election.
"What I also think is that there has been a very concerted effort on the part of some political forces to equate being pro-Israel, and hence being supportive of the Jewish people, with a rubber stamp on a particular set of policies coming out of the Israeli government," he said.
"So if you are questioning settlement policy, that indicates you’re anti-Israeli, or that indicates you’re anti-Jewish. If you express compassion or empathy towards Palestinian youth, who are dealing with checkpoints or restrictions on their ability to travel, then you are suspect in terms of your support of Israel. If you are willing to get into public disagreements with the Israeli government, then the notion is that you are being anti-Israel, and by extension, anti-Jewish. I completely reject that."
U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's anti-Arab remarks on Election Day has "foreign-policy consequences," The Atlantic reported on Thursday.
Gee, that's pretty tough talk. Consequences you say?
Could it be that the actual consequences will be the usual US SOP, money? It is being reported (yet unconfirmed at this point) in different places that the US and Israel are in negotiations for a massive aid package to Israel in compensation (read hush money) to silence debate on the US/Iran nuclear deal. The massive package reportedly includes additional F-35's, more support for Iron-Dome, etc, basically anything Israel can dream up.
While the reports aren't officially confirmed at this point, it wouldn't surprise me if true. Obama has invested too much in the Iran nuclear negotiations. I kind of doubt he will let anything interfere at this point.
"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East" - John Sheehan
Your writing, "O"rdure, usually is just that, delusional.
You never provide a reference, never provide an accurate accounting, you fly 'False Flags' and often tell outright lies. In short, "O"rdure, you are a Zionist.
The so-called modern version of the Middle East sits where Africa, Asia and Europe meet. The countries of the modern Middle East are all part of Asia, but for clarity reasons we geographically show them here as a separate landmass.
Jack Hawking lies, misdirects and distorts meanings, but we all KNOW the truth, the arabs of tripoli, the arab moslems of morocco are all part and part of the middle east..
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew to Russia on Wednesday seeking closer military cooperation as he faces tough challenges in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group.
Abadi, who is due to meet President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, heads a large delegation that includes several ministers and a number of civil and military advisers.
The focus will be "the development of relations between the two countries, mainly expanding the military and security cooperation, and support for Iraqi forces in the face of terrorism," Abadi's office said.
His one-day official visit comes after IS seized Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, in the worst setback for the Iraqi government since the jihadists first swept across Sunni regions in June last year.
...
Russia delivered Sukhoi fighter jets to Iraq last year, shortly after IS seized entire swathes of the country. Baghdad has also received attack helicopters from Moscow.
Amid delays in the delivery of some US weaponry that Iraq has been expecting under an agreement with Washington, Baghdad is said to be increasingly looking to Russia, China and Iran for military purchases.
Another example of Obama's schizophrenic approach to war. He seems to think war is a video game
As soon as he declared we will 'degrade and destroy' IS you had to question his thinking. When he said this war could take years, you had to think all he is trying to do is get this thing to 2016 with as little damage as possible so that he can dump it onto the next guy.
Deuce ☂Fri May 22, 09:01:00 AM EDT Rubbish the expansion map is the map of Israel since 1967.
LOL
So are you willing to admit that the wars in 67, 73, 82 and more were caused by Arab trying to destroy Israel and that they LOST?
Are you willing to concede the Israel willingness to give up 90% of ALL liberated lands? From the Sinai, Gaza and SOuthern Lebanon to MOST all of the west bank?
I am sure that Deuce can answer for himself ... But the idea that the land seized by the European colonialists was "Liberated", well ... That is just another lie the that "O"rdure is trying to propagate.
Jack, why do you IGNORE the majority of Israelis? Those that NEVER left the middle east, those that were expelled and driven into Israel like cattle by the arabs? Of course there were Jews living in the lands of Israel for thousands of years, but that's besides the point, why do you ONLY look at the Jews that moved to Isarel from Europe?
Of course, those Jews that were not murdered by your cousins in Europe were but a trickle and they moved there and purchased lands from the arabs and the ottomans….
Why do you find that unruly when you, yourself moved to the Arizona and purchased lands as well?
What right do you have to live in America, after all you have ZERO historic connection to the USA.
Jews of Europe, do have a historic connection, as per the League of Nations and the UN…
The discussion is not about Jack Hawkins, Arizona or Mexico. Indeed, "O"rdure, you have told us that Mexico does not matter ...
The discussion is about the policies the US should be pursuing with regards to what is known as the "War on Terror". ISrael is in the Middle of it. Arizona is not.
Again, the discussion is not about Jews, not about Judaism, except when you try to 'Make It So'. The real discussion is about governments and political movements. Why you incessantly attempt to inject religion, just part of your typical agitprop.
The Zionist government in Occupied Palestine supports al-Qeada in Syria. Is allied with the Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia and founded Hamas as a 'counter balance' to Arabfat.
Go to AIPAC to find out what is in your interest but please, spare me the condescending lectures that there is no ongoing direct connection and disastrous consequence to the subservient US obsession with the Colony Club of seven million of God’s chosen elite.
Point of clarification.
Am I correct in assuming this comment is directed at WiO and Bob and not me?
I did think the US would do more to assist the Iraqi.
The fact the US only flew nine missions during the Daesh assault of Ramadi, illustrative of the surprising lack of support the US has provided the Iraqis.
So, yes, there was a mistake made in accessing the timetable.
The good news? Iran has over reached and has hit it's wall… All the Obama BRIBE money 50 billion or so, will not change the fact that the Sunni's have awakened against the Shia ….
Iran and Obama CREATED ISIS.
The sectarian war is enjoined…
Countless moslems will die by moslem hands….
Now that's ok by this blogs standards but the real crime is that Israel still is claiming the Western Wall and Jerusalem as it's Capital.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria.
“We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.” Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda.
The good news? Iran has over reached and has hit it's wall…
An interesting point. One I have been thinking about lately.
And another reason the US should have not gotten involved in Iraq again.
I have been complaining about current US strategy in Iraq for numerous reasons. One of the points I made was that if there is anything positive that comes out of our adventure in Iraq (doubtful), the credit will likely go to Iran and the Shia militias rather than the US.
However, on a more basic level, we need to realize that in the ME we may have 'allies' but we don't have any friends. Though we are both working against ISIS at the moment, Iran is not our friend. Strictly my opinion, but...
1) At the point where the US entered the latest fighting in Iraq, ISIS had probably reach about as far into Iraq as they were going to go there. Aided by an Iraqi army shredded by problems, their initial campaign was impressive. However, we have to question whether they had already gone as far as they were likely to go.
2) ISIS had taken over most of Anbar in the initial thrust and the recent capture of Ramadi has been a blow to Iraq and the coalition. However, we have to remember that according to reports the coalition had already taken back about 25% of the territory ISIS had captured in Anbar. Also, there was the success of the operation in Tikrit. No doubt IS controls most of Anbar but its hard to measure net/net the gains vs losses there after the US entered the war even though most coalition action hasn't been centered there.
3. In Kurdistan, given the cooperation that seems to be evident between the various Kurd factions in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, it is hard for me to believe that ISIS would have been able to move much further there.
4. In Baghdad and the south, though the government appears incompetent, you have the Shia militias which represent a formidable force plus support from Iran. For that reason, I would be surprised if ISIS would have been able to move further south and east.
5. Had the US not entered the war, I personally doubt Iraq would be that much worse off than it is in today. However,
6. Without the US there, the Iranians would probably be playing a much bigger role. With any luck, Iraq could have turned into Iran's Vietnam.
The Iraq war has turned into a pissing contest with everyone pointing fingers at each other.
The other day, I heard reports of the US military blaming the fall of Ramadi on incompetence in Baghdad. Today, I hear reports blaming the US for delays in getting Shia militia support to Ramadi before it fell by using the same arguments they used when Iraq used the militias in Tikrit.
Naw, Quirk, it was simply they 'snuck' in during the sand storm ;)
I also think it is a misnomer to look at it, now especially, as the "Iraq War" as what is becoming increasingly apparent - the whole thing is a regional war occurring across artificial borders primarily, but not confined to, Sunni vs Shia.
At the meeting last week, Obama reiterated that the U.S. commitment to the defense of its allies in the region was “ironclad” and that Washington was ready to use all its capabilities, including military force, if they were threatened. To head off that possibility, the governments agreed to expand intelligence and maritime-monitoring cooperation, to more joint exercises, and the development of rapid response capabilities and implementation of a regional missile defense system. Reportedly, the U.S. is willing to grant the Gulf countries major non-NATO ally status, which would make them eligible for certain kinds of military assistance.
The meeting marked, said Obama, “the beginning of a new era of cooperation between our countries — a closer, stronger partnership that advances our mutual security for decades to come.” A diplomat from the Gulf states agreed, saying the relationship “had reached a new level.”
While welcome, those pledges fell short of the formal defense agreement that some Gulf governments sought. But then, the U.S. did not get all it wanted from the meeting either. The Gulf states offered a less than full-throated endorsement of the Iran negotiations. While the emir of Qatar said the group “welcomes this agreement,” the Saudi Arabian foreign minister noted that the deal is not yet final, and “it would be too early to prejudge what we accept and … don’t accept.”
That it was the Saudi foreign minister, and not the king himself, in attendance, produced some hand wringing in Washington.
What is the point of having 'allies' when net/net they are more a liability than a benefit?
Even in Jordan which is the best of the lot, unless you look at it from a humanitarian standpoint, the return is negligible. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, when the chips are down they put their own perceived parochial nationalistic and hegemonic interests above those of the US.
Would you like Israel more if it simply offed it's self so that the arabs and islamists would like America better?
It's the old story, no one likes the Jew that fights, they like the victim jew, the dead jew, the homeless jew....
But wait! Israel and it's Jews will not simply allow it's self to retreat to suicide borders because Obama and others think that it will bring peace....
My point is simple though idealistic, stay out of the ME.
Providing humanitarian aid? No problem. Providing military aid? Don't like it. However, let's be realistic. There is money in it and it's going to happen. Likewise, it can be used as a counter-balancing tool.
Beyond that, stay out. The US has no large national interest in the region.
I am much more worried about China's encroachment into the Americas, their adventurism in the Pacific and the East China Sea and Russian adventurism around or possibly in NATO countries in Europe.
Despite often repeating that they represent “a united front,” the interlocutors sitting across the table from Iran do not make up a unified entity. There are very real differences among them, with each country having different interests at stake and hopes for the process.
The P5+1, as the group has come to be known, is the official party negotiating with Iran, but it can really be divided into two camps. The Western side is composed of the United States and its European partners: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. China and Russia are the non-Western parties to the talks. Though they all share the goal of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, each of these actors also has its own agenda. Their respective interests are political, strategic, and economic...
An independent internet panel of real judges has ruled Judge Bob among those as the top of the Judicial Pyramid, with a ranking of 9, or 10 on the two separate votes taken. These folks are not real judges, but were just nominated by the real judges based on their legal know how as expressed over the internet over the years. It is a prestigious award. Worth some bucks, too.
Then there is, or, was, Judge Rufus aka Hang 'em High From the Roof, who has had his blacks robes taken away for him and his gavel too, as he was found by the Judicial Panel to be an immediate danger to any and all defendants.
The final straw was when be began bypassing the Jury stage altogether and began ruling 'guilty as charged on all counts' right from the Bench.
Fence Jumping05.22.155:25 AM ET Where ISIS Gets Its Bombs How does the so-called Islamic State get new recruits and supplies from abroad? With amazing ease. An eyewitness report.
AKCAKALE, Turkey — Within sight of an unoccupied watchtower, and a couple of hundred meters from the border gate at Akcakale on the Syrian-Turkish border, two small girls are skipping on stacks of piping ready for shipment to the town of Tel Abyad, now controlled by the Islamic State, or ISIS, across what the Turks claim is a locked-down frontier.
It is the weekend and so in this slow-paced, dusty border town, decorated with multi-colored banners and pennants of Turkish political parties campaigning for next month’s parliamentary polls, no one is hurrying to transport the suspicious cargo. And so here the pipes, several meters long and three inches in diameter, remain.
Around the corner there are more pipes—larger ones, six inches in diameter. Smugglers say the piping can sustain high pressure and will be used by jihadists in Syria to manufacture pipe bombs, improvised explosive devices and launch-tubes for mortars.
The 35-year-old smuggler warns me not to get out of the car. The few men lounging around are watching us intently.
A few days ago, The New York Times published an article about how large amounts of ammonium nitrate are being transported on carts across the border, into the so-called caliphate. Ammonium nitrate is used not only as a fertilizer but also as an ingredient to build powerful explosives. The town is now on edge: Local officials, who claimed at first the ammonium nitrate was just flour, are not welcoming to Western journalists. And more alarmingly, ISIS agents in the town and their smuggler-allies are said to be on the lookout for reporters. A few months ago, two freelance news photographers reported there was an attempt to abduct them—and so I content myself with filming the pipes from the safety of a car.
We have just passed seven boys sitting on a low concrete embankment overlooking unused railway tracks running alongside the border. They are waiting for three bored-looking border guards manning an old, battered armored personnel carrier to look the other way so that they can make a quick dash to the low wire fence and clamber over easily into ISIS’s self-styled caliphate. Two of them have bikes and the fence will pose no daunting obstacle to getting those across either.
In the distance, a black flag is waving above a building in downtown Tel Abyad. A new white Toyota pickup accelerates on a road on the Syrian side shadowing the border fence—the Turkish guards pay it no heed.
Today the border gate is closed, but come Monday, says the smuggler, the pipes will likely be whisked across—although not before ISIS agents, clean-shaven to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves, will inspect the goods.
Two Turks—both longtime Islamists and now members of ISIS—are the key organizers guiding foreign recruits and overseeing cross-border trade.
Welcome to the border crossing nearest to the de facto capital of the Islamic State.
One could have expected this border gate separating NATO from the world’s first self-proclaimed jihadi state to be bristling with soldiers and guns. Turkey, after all, has the second-biggest military in the Western alliance. But the scene here wouldn’t be out of place in the old Peter Sellers comedy about a blustering mini-state, The Mouse That Roared.
Local Turkish officials claim that only Turkish-supplied humanitarian aid is going through the border gate, which is closed officially every now and then when fighting flares between Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel militias and ISIS. But a flare-up hasn’t happened for some time, and humanitarian aid isn’t the only thing going through the border gate.
“Depending on the thickness of the pipes, both diameter sizes could be used for mortars, but it is more likely that the three-inch ones would be used for making IEDs and pipe bombs,” says Darren White, a British defense consultant who served a quarter of a century in the British army. “And these improvised devices have been seen around in Syria and Iraq. The bigger pipes, yes, more likely to be used for launch-tubes. And the piping can be used as casing for homemade mortar bombs.”
Field investigators for Conflict Armament Research, a private arms-tracking organization in Britain, noted in a report on where ISIS gets its weapons that during the months-long siege of the mainly Kurdish border town of Kobani improvised devices were present. “ISIS forces used improvised munitions of different types in significant quantities… suggesting a lack of factory-produced, military-grade weapons in its arsenal. Most of the improvised munitions were based on mortar rounds of various calibers and 105 mm rockets containing aluminum based homemade explosives.”
“They are very tough with the Kurds and the areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, but with areas across from ISIS not so much,” he explains over a cup of tea in the sitting room of his apartment a short walk from the border. On a flat-screen TV, Turkish cartoons are playing but the sound is muted—his children banished to another room. One small girl slams the door when shooed away to join her siblings ranging in age from 6 months to 7 years.
Up until about 18 months ago, Ahmed was smuggling foreign recruits across the border, but stopped when he realized they were going to ISIS. “I thought they were going to Jabhat al-Nusra or the FSA,” he says. The fighters he guided across the border either a few miles east or west of the town, where there are easy paths through farmland and olive groves, were young, in their late teens or very early 20s.
He says of the 20-plus recruits he assisted, none were Arabs: They were Georgian, Russian, and Azerbaijani as well as three Britons and two Americans. Through an Azerbaijani, he asked the British recruits why they were going to Syria. “They said for jihad.”
In those days it was easier for foreign recruits. The foreigners would board a domestic flight from Istanbul’s international airport to Urfa or Gaziantep and then be driven to Harran, a small town 12 miles from Akcakale, where they would stay at the hotel for a few hours before being guided to Tel Abyad. Harran, once a center of Assyrian Christianity, was resettled by the Ottoman Turks during the 18th century with ethnic Arabs from what is now Syria and, as with Akcakale, Syrian Arab influence is obvious with many locals able to speak Turkish and Arabic.
Under pressure from Washington and the Europeans, Turkish authorities have become more vigilant in Istanbul and are monitoring the Gaziantep and Urfa airports.
Foreign recruits are being intercepted and their journey has become more disguised, says Ahmed. Recruits and would-be jihad brides are flying to more far-flung airports and then busing themselves to Urfa or taking a bus from Istanbul. And instead of congregating at the hotel in Harran, they are being distributed by their handlers more discretely, in safe houses in Akcakale. Once here, the chances are slim of Turkish interception. Hatay Boumeddiene, the partner of Amedy Coulibaly, the jihadi gunman who murdered Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket in Paris in January, slipped across to ISIS at Akcakale despite a Europol alert.
“For us, Akcakale doesn’t exist,” says Ahmed. “Locals call this town Tel Abyad, too, just like over the border. We are the same town, the same family separated by a railway line and a little fence—we have relatives over the border.” Locals, though, have mixed feelings about ISIS. Some were happy when the jihadis eventually vanquished FSA militias in Tel Abyad, relieved that the booms and crash of battle were over. Others say they have no sympathy for the jihadis.
Aside from efforts at more discretion, not much has changed since Ahmed was a people smuggler. He says five brothers and a few of their relations are the main smugglers for ISIS and will purchase items the jihadis need. Two Turks—both longtime Islamists and now members of ISIS—are the key organizers guiding foreign recruits and overseeing cross-border trade.
“One is responsible for bringing the foreigners to Akcakale; the other stays in Syria and escorts the foreigners to Raqqa.” The men are well known to Turkish authorities, locals say. The Syrian-based smuggler travels back to Turkey once a week to go to the court at the city of Adana to attest to his presence in Turkey, and then returns to Tel Abyad. He had been arrested by the Turks for smuggling and is awaiting trial. Ahmed chuckles. “But they are still able to operate,” he says.
Neither qualify, the Turks would never agree to the ISreali joining. As to the Indians, they are joining with China and Russia in an economic alliance.
Neither India nor ISrael are signatory to the NPT, rogue nations need not apply, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson
May 22, 2015 Obama, ISIS, and the Writing on the Wall By Raymond Ibrahim
For months, many Western observers have been closely following the minute-by-minute developments concerning the battle between Islamic State and coalition forces in the hopes that such data will help them discern what the future may hold.
Yet knowledge of the end game has been available for anyone cognizant of what the Obama administration is all about.
In an article published over seven months ago, I anticipated the main developments to have taken place since U.S. President Obama declared war (i.e., “air strikes”) on the Islamic State in September, 2014. Titled “Does Obama Need ‘Time to Defeat or Forget ISIS?” I made the following predictions, all of which have come true, and in the same sequence:
Obama’s “it will take time” [to defeat IS] assertion prompts the following prediction: U.S. airstrikes on IS targets will continue to be just enough to pacify those calling for action against the caliphate (“we’re doing what we can”). The official [U.S. government’s] narrative will be that the Islamic State is gradually being weakened, that victory is a matter of time (remember, “It will take time”)….
[W]e will hear about the occasional victory against IS -- this or that leader killed or captured…
Then, just as they “suddenly” appeared in Iraq, we will “suddenly” again hear -- probably first from IS itself -- that the Islamic State has made some major comeback, winning over some new piece of territory, as the caliphate continues to grow and get stronger.
Now consider how the Obama administration’s actions have fulfilled these predictions, and often in the same sequence.
The official [U.S. government’s] narrative will be that the Islamic State is gradually being weakened, that victory is a matter of time…
Last February, key Obama administration figures -- including Secretary of State John Kerry and retired General John Allen, the president’s special coordinator for the coalition against the Islamic State -- triumphantly asserted that, thanks to U.S. air strikes, “half the group’s [IS] leaders in Iraq had been killed.”
Not long thereafter, an investigative report demonstrated that such claims were utterly false and hardly representative of reality.
[W]e will hear about the occasional victory against IS…
In April, the Pentagon announced that, thanks to U.S. air strikes and the Iraqi army, “ISIL [Islamic State] is no longer the dominant force in roughly 25 to 30% of the populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once had complete freedom of movement.” The Pentagon even released a map showing which territories the Islamic State had lost.
Soon, however, it became evident that the Pentagon’s claim and map were misleading and incomplete. Among other irregularities, the map, while showing territories that IS once held and territories it had since lost, failed to indicate the new territories IS had gained since the coalition effort began -- making the 25%-30% claim totally misleading.
[W]e will hear about … this or that leader killed or captured…
Nor was Obama administration grandstanding concerning the killing of “key” ISIS figures wanting. Most recently, on May 16, U.S. special forces managed to kill Abu Sayyaf. Although only a mid-ranking leader, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said his killing “represents another significant blow to Isis.” (Read here for an idea of how many times U.S. officials have made the “significant blow” assertion whenever this or that jihadi dies, only for the jihad to spread and conquer more lands.)
Even the New York Times observed that “Abu Sayyaf is a midlevel leader in the organization — one terrorism analyst compared him to Al Capone’s accountant — and likely is replaceable in fairly short order.”
Then, just as they “suddenly” appeared in Iraq, we will “suddenly” again hear -- probably first from IS itself -- that the Islamic State has made some major comeback, winning over some new piece of territory, as the caliphate continues to grow and get stronger.
Finally, after the Obama administration had claimed that it had killed half of IS leadership, that it had pushed IS out of 25%-30% previously held territory, that its killing of an IS midlevel leader was a “significant blow”—right on cue, the Islamic State just announced its takeover of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, one of Iraq’s most strategic provinces. According to a May 17 Reuters report:
Islamic State militants said they had taken full control of the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday in the biggest defeat for the Baghdad government since last summer.
[…]
It was the biggest victory for Islamic State in Iraq since security forces and Shi'ite paramilitary groups began pushing the militants back last year, aided by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition.
The U.S. Defense Department, while not confirming the fall of Ramadi, sought to play down the impact on the broader Iraq military campaign of an Islamic State seizure of the city.
To fully appreciate the significance of this latest conquest by the Islamic State, consider the words of Anbar governor Ahmed al-Dulaimi, spoken back in November 2014: “If we lose Anbar, that means we will lose Iraq.”
Of course, none of these developments are surprising for those among us who were able to take a step back -- to transcend the distracting noise and nonsense daily grinded out by mainstream media -- and look at the big picture. For those able to read the plain writing on the wall, the end game of Obama and IS was always easy to discern.
Put differently, Americans need to start viewing the Obama administration with the eyes of a hedgehog, not a fox.
Yep, the US did not provide the assistance I thought it would, to the Iraqi.
Missed that call, on to the next.
The only one that ever called any contributor here a 'military expert', was Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson. He also called d. rat a gentleman.
{;-)
bobal Mon Sep 01, 05:20:00 PM EDT Rat's a gentleman.
With his own way of thinking about things.
Habu has his own way of thinking about things too, but is so corrosive, that after a while you don't want to read him anymore. While with Rat, you are always eager to hear what he has to say. http://2164th.blogspot.com/2008/09/progressives-reveal-their-motivation.html
Now Rufus, hates Israel and the stupidity of Jewish thought, culture, wisdom, lore and faith but claims he has no problem with Jews, just those that are colonial occupiers and he would, if he lived in Gaza, be a hamas member...
Now the interesting thing of course is that Hamas hates JEWS and calls for the genocide of the Jews world wide... Their hatred is not limited to Israel out side of 1948 borders but the very fact that Jews have created/liberated themselves from Islamic.arab oppression...
This genetic information was developed at John Hopkins, the Albert Einstein Medical Center and written about quite extensively by Sholmo Sand, a professor of history at the University of Tel Aviv.
The notion of Judaism as a “race”, rather than a religion of various races, is without foundation.
The results of a recently published study by Israeli-American geneticist Dr Eran Elhaik at John Hopkins University have scientifically and genetically validated Sand’s research
The idea of a “nation race” was progressively developed and reinforced over centuries among segregated Jewish communities in Europe.
With the rise of German nationalism in the 19th century, Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz “retrospectively” crafted a discrete identity for the ghettoized people – mapping their origin to an old kingdom and wandering exiles. The exiles tales transpired from a Christian myth of “divine punishment” imposed on Jews for rejecting the new religion.
The parable is likely to have originated from the Old Testament story of Jews wandering the desert for disobeying God and worshipping a golden calf.
Christians propagated the concept of exile to lure “disobeying” Jews to the new religion, becoming their saviour from another eternal banishment.
Modern political Zionism, which otherwise rejects the Christian Bible, adopted the untested story of “Jewish exile” to establish a mythical linkage between European Jews and the Middle East.
But Jewish history tells us that the Romans did not expel the original Jews from Palestine when they crushed the Simon bar Kokhba revolt in 136 AD but instead barred them only from city of Jerusalem – and even then they were allowed to visit it during Tisha B’Av, the annual fasting day on the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar.
Under Christianity and during the Roman Empire a large number of native Jews converted to Christianity and, with the advent of Islam, most adopted the new religion and assimilated under the new power.
In addition to the descendants of the Canaanites, the original denizens before patriarch Abraham’s arrival from Mesopotamia, Sand concludes that today’s Muslim and Christian Palestinians are actually the true progenies of the original Jews.
AshFri May 22, 03:24:00 PM EDT Don't forget the Jewish people, and the Christians, both also in the fight.
No ash, we aint "IN" the fight, were are targeted by both the sunni and shia for murder.
Christians and Jews just want to live, eat, drink and be merry...
Deuce loves to point out how the Jewish state is "expanding" it's size and causing so much turmoil....
but if you look at a map, a real one and were honest? You'd see that the Nation State of the Jewish people is but a speck compared to the vast lands of the arabs, let alone the moslems...
Heck, Israel's return of the sinai, southern lebanon and gaza amounts to almost 99% of all disputed lands...
so show me, on a map of the middle east thefts lands of Israel and now compare to the lands that ISIS/ISIL now occupies..
I hope my Niece moves to occupied USA someday, permanently. She is thinking of doing so. She would make great USA citizen, doesn't blow stuff up, energetic, like Jews, like blacks........she'd fit right in.........already knows the language, better than many right here........highly educated......does not eat gator tails, nor cats.....nor beef......no drink, smoke, drugs......good humor....
It was Israel that attacked our Twin Trade Towers, and they got Saddam to invade Kuwait, and the Israelis manufactured small 'keys to Heaven' that were given to the Iranian kids as they cleared the minefields for the Mullahs, in the war with Saddam, and it is the Israelis that really control the entirety of the US Congress, and the Israelis caused the recent earthquak in Nepal, and they are causing the drought in California, and are poisoning all of our food and drink. They even eat cats, like the Hindus.
ReplyDeleteI call your yawn and raise you a yawn.....
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...............getting sleepy......
I am about to fall asleep...
Yawn....
Y a w n ......
ReplyDeletesnooze
Hard snore.....
Yawning is a mostly involuntary process and is usually triggered by sleepiness or fatigue.
DeleteIt is a very natural response to being tired.
http://www.healthline.com/symptom/excessive-yawning
Snoring may indicate a serious health condition ...
Medical devices and surgery are available that may reduce disruptive snoring.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/snoring/basics/definition/con-20031874
Or yawning is a way of showing disgust at those that are a broken record of Jew hating shit, day after day..
DeleteThere is no mention of hatred in the video towards Jews nor has any post or thread at the Elephant Bar ever indicated any hatred or prejudice towards Jews.
DeleteLOL
DeleteIs that why you post anonymous?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteNo one has ever referred to Jews as "sons of satan", never, not once.
DeleteThere have been references to the "Synagogue of Satan".
But that has nothing at all to do with the genetics or lineage Jews.
Just a reference to the King James Bible, and the source of what Mətušélaḥ once referred to as an abomination ...
... the Babylonian Talmud.
Those who follow the Book written by those favored by Nebuchadnezzar's Chaldean royal court, in what the Jewish Virtual Library tells us was ... within the crucible of despair and hopelessness ...
They go on to tell us that Judaism was 'reinvented' in Babylon ...
But the Jews in Babylon also creatively remade themselves and their world view....
...
During this period, Jewish leaders no longer spoke about a theology of judgment, but a theology of salvation.
In texts such as Ezekiel and Isaiah, there is talk that the Israelites would be gathered together once more, their society and religion purified, and the unified Davidic kingdom be re-established.
Those exiled to Babylon dramatically changed Judaism, abandoning the Torah and embracing their new book, the Babylonian Talmud. It is there, in Babylon that the roots of Zionism were established, not in the Torah, not in the Judaic traditions, not in the Laws of Moses as written in Leviticus.
Mətušélaḥ Thu Dec 20, 11:18:00 PM EST
DeleteIsrael is wrong on this issue, as it does not follow the Biblical precepts. The Talmud is an abomination, and is not a source of authority. The Torah is the only authoritative source we should be referring to. As far as the Sanhedrin goes, it, as well as the Temple Complex should never have existed. That they no longer exist is good thing.
<http://2164th.blogspot.com/2007/12/value-of-life.html
It was in Babylon, under the auspices of Nebuchadnezzar, that the "Synagogue of Satan" was established.
DeleteIts book is the Babylonian Talmud.
Jack you say it all, you are a jew hating hack.
DeleteMaybe you could grow a spine and be honest.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, while there are situations where certain interests may coincide or even affect decisions to a degree, to posit that every foreign policy fuck-up committed by the US is the result of influence on the part of Israel is bizarre (or worse) and deflects responsibility for those fuck-ups from the people who made the decisions, the D.C. fuckees.
I may dislike Bibi as much as anyone I can think of, I may view Israel as a theocracy and flawed democracy, I may believe some of the excuses they use as pure hypocrisy, but it is not Israel I blame for decisions made in Washington. I wouldn't give the dolts we have elected there any excuse for the asinine policies they concoct. As for any money coming from the Lobby, the only politician you can corrupt is one that is corruptible.
We get enough conspiracy theories around here already.
.
There is no question that Washington politicians are responsible for their decisions, but the decisions were not made for any benefits to ordinary Americans. The facts were manipulated to equate Israeli interests with US interests. A lobby gives something for something. The Neocons, through media manipulation and buying politicians got the US involved in all these Middle East wars for the perceived benefit of weakening Israel’s enemies.
DeleteNow that the entire ME is collapsing, the question arrises why and how did it happen. Netanyahu, the Israeli PM wants to take it to Iran. Who is responsible? Who benefits?
Every US foreign policy decision made in the Middle East, is done with Israel’s disproportionate influence and intimidation of US politicians. That is the bizarre part.
The real conspiracy theory is the one where the Zionists attacks anyone the dares to criticize Israel as being an anti-semite or Nazi. I have yet to see any of the critics of my post dispute the facts, the videos or the reports.
DeleteOn this posted video, where is the presenter wrong?
Hardly Deuce, but you keep telling yourself that...
DeleteI post rebuttals but you DELETE them…
DeleteMaybe you should allow folks to posts without your heavy hand of censorship..
Oh wait, you only censor the Jew and the friend of the Jew…
MSNBC -
ReplyDeleteSidney Blumenthal defended the advice he gave to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Libya and has agreed to testify before a House committee investigating the deadly Benghazi terror attack, according to a statement provided by his lawyer Thursday.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Deletesee?
DeleteCenosred
I was telling the story of my fight the the naked fierce injun kiddos in August of that year.......
ReplyDeleteI had pulled up to their duplex, and they were water pistolled ,and water ballooned up, I can tell you.
I immediately became their Target # 1.
I hightailed.
To wal mart.
Purchased biggest boom water blaster they had.
Filled up with water ammo.
Parked half block away.....snuck up by the retaining wall.......
Counter Assault !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Full bore with water cannon.
Kiddies screaming, formations broken !
Alas, they regrouped, counter attacked, full force, from three sides................
O'erwhelmed, I emptied my water gun and went down in a lake of wet and a mud bath......
We all laughed like hell after..............
GOOD TIMES !!!!
I love those kids.
They counted coup, the little savages !
DeleteHe he
(I was the coup that was counted)
DeleteRobert "Draft Dodger" Peterson flies a 'False Flag' and feels vindicated ...
ReplyDeleteHe is such a Zionist at heart.
Zionists murder civilians, Jewish refugees in a False Flag operation
On Nov. 25, 1940, a boat carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe,
exploded and sank off the coast of Palestine killing 252 people.
The Zionist “Haganah” claimed the passengers committed suicide to protest British refusal to let them land.
Years later, it admitted that rather than let the passengers go to Mauritius, it blew up the vessel for its propaganda value.
“Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the few in order to save the many,”
Moshe Sharett, a former Israeli Prime Minister said at memorial service in 1958.
http://beforeitsnews.com/strange/2013/03/zionists-led-jews-to-annihilation-in-ww2-2447940.html
More shit from the jew hater.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWe will all
ReplyDelete"Hoot Hoot Hoot"
too
!!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteSlight and none, if he don't break off the romantic relationship.
ReplyDeleteHe don't realize it, but she's got him by the short hairs.
Unfortunately the way the comments are structured, if I delete multiple repetitive posts, I lose track of them and when I delete them permanently they take down comments tied directly to them.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing a great job, hoss. :)
DeleteI'm glad it's you, and not me. :) :) :)
Damn! I'm glad it's you, and not me. :)
you suck
DeleteA magnitude 4.1 earthquake jolted the Napa Valley Thursday evening, offering a brief reminder of last summer's 6.0 quake that left millions of dollars in damage in the heart of the state's winemaking region.
ReplyDelete...
The earthquake was originally reported as magnitude 4.3 but was later downgraded by the USGS. In the past 10 days, one other earthquake with a magnitude 3.0 or greater has occurred nearby.
Just
ReplyDeletefour Days now......
Deuce just LOVES his little delete button
All REAL Americans would love to have one...
heh
.
ReplyDeleteThe real conspiracy theory is the one where the Zionists attacks anyone the dares to criticize Israel as being an anti-semite or Nazi. I have yet to see any of the critics of my post dispute the facts, the videos or the reports.
On this posted video, where is the presenter wrong?
Where to start?
Simply another conspiracy theorists, IMO. He takes correlation and a number of questionable assumptions and offers them up as causation and established facts. Heck, within the first minute or two, the guy posits that in the middle of the cold war instead of being opposed to communist Russia because of adversarial philosophical differences, warring nationalist interests, or the nuclear arms race, the neocons were actually opposed to communist Russia because the country was anti-Semitic.
While most people would define the neocon philosophy as arguing that American culture and mores are the ‘best’ in the world, that US power is supreme in the world, and given that the US has the means, it also has the duty to share that way of life, the democracy, the culture, the mores, with the rest of the world whether they want it or not. This guy on the other hand insinuates its all about Israel.
That being said, he does outline numerous instances where neocon aims match those of Israel (Likud), in other words they tend to correlate. While that may show some serendipity it does not prove any causation, there is no evidence that it is Israel pulling the strings for every American action.
I have yet to see any of the critics of my post dispute the facts
The guy throws out all kind of facts, facts I wouldn’t dispute. Where we differ is in the interpretation of those facts. To the conspiracy theorist they mean only one thing while to others there could be other meanings. For instance, the guy talks of the ‘Clean Break’ paper written in the mid-90’s and comments that it is a little strange that ‘an Israeli policy paper was being written by Americans’. Wink wink. It’s like he discovered the Illuminati. But is this really evidence of some massive conspiracy? Is it all that strange for Israel to ask Perle and the boys to write up a policy paper? Perle and the others were neocons and well known as such. We have already said the neocon objectives in the ME pretty much matched those of Israel. The guys worked for a conservative American think tank. And they were Jews. Is it all that strange that Israel would ask them to draw up a policy paper?
What is kind of interesting to me is that Netanyahu seems to have pretty much ignored the paper’s recommendations.
Strictly my opinion of course, however, it is my view that anyone who buys this guy’s premise based on the subject video already had his mind made up before turning it on. Anyone buying his schtick based on the ‘facts’ and ‘conclusions’ presented isn’t thinking logically. And anyone who blames Israel for every US foreign policy fuck-up since 1948 probably needs to calm down and reevaluate a bit.
Israel didn’t get us into Iraq. Bush did. Netanyahu didn’t get us into Iraq. Obama did.
There’s a lot I don’t like about Israel but I am not going to use them as an excuse for the dolts we have elected to D.C.
.
Hi ho
DeleteAnd this is why Quirk is still in my written will.
He is, the old Quirkster, after all is said and done, sane.
I like that. My Niece has given him thumps up, too.
And I always follow her lead..........
"mentioned" in my written will.....
DeleteGot wonder letter from Niece today.
ReplyDeleteIt's odd how little focused she is on things in the mid east.
It is wonderful the things she is actually focuses on......
She has another paper in the works to be published....
My Niece thinks Deuce needs some other girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteAll the negative signs are there, she says.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Deletecensored
DeleteShe thinks rat-O needs confinement.
ReplyDeleteShe joins the vast majority in this learned opinion.
DeleteShe, by the way, has nothing against the Jews.
ReplyDeleteWhen moslems are mentioned, her eyes often roll.
"The ones in the mid east are the worst, Uncle Bob"
That is what she says.
"The ones in the mid east are the worst, Uncle Bob."
She is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteShe says stuff like:
"It's not an ending till it's a happy yet, Uncle Bob."
I love her.
The right thing has happened to a happy man.
Let Deuce delete that, if he can.
ReplyDeleteThe right thing happens to the happy man.
The bird fly out, the bird flies back again
The mountain becomes the valley, and is still
The right thing happens to the happy man
Let him delete that, if he can...
The right thing happens to the happy man
>>>>Child of the dark
ReplyDeleteHe can out leap the sun
His being single, and that being all<<<<
This is a metaphysical statement.
The Hindus get it, many American Christians wander about it in confusion, the moslems go akilling through misunderstanding...
And Deuce hasn't a clue...........
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAs would my old girl friend in Vegas, to whom I have just replied to her wonderful letter.
DeleteHer latest is a retired Marine. to whom I have taken a liking.
She finally - finally - got a good un !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers !!
To us all, sinners.
ReplyDeleteThe 05/22/2015 Jihad Watch Daily Digest:
Australia to strip citizenship of Australian-born jihadis with immigrant parents
By Robert Spencer on May 21, 2015 11:06 pm
Australia to strip citizenship of Australian-born jihadis with immigrant parents
Common sense. This is a start in the right direction — one that no other Western country has had the courage to take. “Australia to strip citizenship of Australian-born jihadis with immigrant parents,” Associated Press, May 21, 2015 (thanks to Kenneth): Australian Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton, seen here in February 2015, says […]
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Islamic State seizes Syria’s last border crossing with Iraq
By Robert Spencer on May 21, 2015 10:46 pm
Islamic State seizes Syria’s last border crossing with Iraq
Barack Obama and John Kerry want to keep you ignorant and complacent regarding the Islamic State’s gains. For them, it is all about maintaining the electoral advantage of their party — not that their rivals in the Stupid Party have the wit or the will or the patriotism to call the nation’s attention to what […]
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share on Twitter Like Islamic State seizes Syria’s last border crossing with Iraq on Facebook Google Plus One Button
Islamic State approaches Israel
By Robert Spencer on May 21, 2015 10:23 pm
Islamic State approaches Israel
Prediction: if the Islamic State gets into a position to threaten Israel in any serious way, we will start seeing the mainstream media grow markedly sympathetic to it, with a spate of articles hailing the new “maturity” and “moderation” of the Islamic State. “ISIS Approaches Israel: Islamic State Loyalists Thwarted By Syrian Rebels Along Golan […]
Read in browser »
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=12857896c3097382b25b80a09&id=5985be951d&e=ed5f5d431b
God promised the land of Israel to the Jews.
ReplyDeleteIsrael’s new deputy foreign minister on Thursday delivered a defiant message to the international community, saying that Israel owes no apologies for its policies in the Holy Land and citing religious texts to back her belief that it belongs to the Jewish people.
The speech by Tzipi Hotovely illustrated the influence of hardliners in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s new government, and the challenges he will face as he tries to persuade the world that he is serious about pursuing peace with the Palestinians.
Hotovely, 36, is among a generation of young hardliners in Netanyahu’s Likud party who support West Bank settlement construction and oppose ceding captured land to the Palestinians. Since Netanyahu has a slim one-seat majority in parliament, these lawmakers could complicate any attempt to revive peace talks.
With Netanyahu also serving as the acting foreign minister, Hotovely is currently the country’s top full-time diplomat.
In an inaugural address to Israeli diplomats, Hotovely said Israel has tried too hard to appease the world and must stand up for itself.
“We need to return to the basic truth of our rights to this country,” she said. “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.”
Hotovely, an Orthodox Jew, laced her speech with biblical commentaries in which God promised the land of Israel to the Jews. Speaking later in English, she signalled that she would try to rally global recognition for West Bank settlements, which are widely opposed.
“We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere,” she said.
Hotovely will manage the ministry’s day-to-day functions, but Netanyahu will remain in charge of foreign policy.
During the recent election campaign, Netanyahu angered his western allies by saying he would not permit the establishment of a Palestinian state on his watch. On Wednesday he told the visiting EU foreign policy chief that he remains committed to a two-state solution.
Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev, declined comment on Hotovely’s speech, but said Netanyahu’s statements Wednesday reflected his policy.
According to Hamas, the PLO, Fatah, King of Jordan, King of Arabia, and 1.2 BILLION Moslems God promised them almost all of the world...
Deleteisrael is 1/900of the middle east.
Deletethe arabs have 899/900th
why should the Jews NOT have their tiny sliver?
The Children of God and their handiwork in Gaza
ReplyDeleteThe economy of Gaza – assailed by war, poor governance and a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade – has reached the “verge of collapse” with the coastal strip suffering the highest rate of unemployment in the world.
The bleak picture is presented in a devastating report by the World Bank, released on Friday, which said that Gaza’s economy had been strangled by years of blockades, war and poor governance and faces a dangerous crisis over its ability to meet wages and other spending requirements.
Calling for the “lifting of the blockade on the movement of goods and people to allow Gaza’s tradable sectors to recover” the report warned that about 43% of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents are unemployed, with youth unemployment reaching about 60% by the end of last year.
Prepared ahead of the bi-annual meeting in Brussels next week of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which coordinates international donor support for the Palestinians, the report is published almost a year after the 50-day conflict between Gaza militants and Israel, in which about 2,200 Palestinians were killed.
On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed.
“Gaza’s unemployment and poverty figures are very troubling and the economic outlook is worrying. The current market in Gaza is not able to offer jobs leaving a large population in despair particularly the youth,” said Steen Lau Jorgensen, World Bank country director for West Bank and Gaza.
“The ongoing blockade and the 2014 war have taken a toll on Gaza’s economy and people’s livelihoods. Gaza’s exports virtually disappeared and the manufacturing sector has shrunk by as much as 60%. The economy cannot survive without being connected to the outside world.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/22/gazas-economy-on-verge-of-collapse-jobless-rate-highest-in-world-israel
Hamas caused and created the "handiwork" in Gaza.
DeleteMaybe instead of investing in rockets, bombs, tunnels and weapons Gaza's leaders could try to build a society ?
Oh that's right, Hamas is ISIS.
Hamas, founded by ISrael.
DeleteThe Islamic State, accepted by ISrael.
Zionists and Wahhabi, allied, that is 'Joined at the Hip'.
Jsck, you out of prison?
DeleteI thought you were arrested for making terrorist threats again...
OOPs, bad for optics, but we still know where their heart is
ReplyDeleteIsrael’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has cancelled a pilot scheme banning Palestinian workers from Israeli buses in the occupied territories – denounced as tantamount to apartheid – only hours after it was announced.
The plan had been approved by Netanyahu’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, but was cancelled amid fierce criticism from Israeli opposition figures, human rights groups and a former minister in Netanyahu’s own party, who said it was a “stain on the face of Israel” that would damage its international image.
The move had been enthusiastically welcomed by settler groups and pro-settlement MPs who had long been lobbying for the ban.
The three month pilot scheme – which had been due to come into force on Wednesday – would have imposed strict new controls on thousands of Palestinians with permits to work in Israel, insisting they travel home through certain designated checkpoints and banning them from using Israeli run buses in the occupied West Bank.
Better that Palestinian NON-citizens stay OUT of Israel?
DeleteNo, better is that the European colonists give all the people of the country equal rights.
DeleteThe Apartheid systems the Zionist would further implement, that is "Occupation"
Most of Israel is made up of Jews from the middle east. most of the european Jews were murdered…
DeleteNow it's interesting that the so called palestinians do not have equal rights any arab nation..
Now in Israel? Arab citizens of Israel have equal rights,,
The arabs of the disputed territories have declared their own state and have been recognized as a nation by over 100 other countries.
Their citizens have NO RIGHT to go to Israel for anything.
But you are incapable of being honest
as usual.
Islamic State’s victories in Palmyra and Ramadi have been painful blows for the US-led coalition in both Syria and Iraq respectively, underlining the flaws in a strategy that has been widely criticised as both wrong-headed and half-hearted.
ReplyDeleteUntil the last few weeks the conventional wisdom in Washington, London and Arab capitals was that Isis had been forced on to the back foot, suffering from shortages of cash, weapons and problems of resupply, even if its morale was sustained by a slick propaganda machine that kept attracting recruits.
Now events may be forcing a rethink. The Obama administration is taking “an extremely hard look” at its approach, in the words of an unnamed official who declared in the wake of the fall of Ramadi: “You’d have to be delusional not to take something like this and say ‘what went wrong, how do you fix it and how do we correct course to go from here?’”
Robert Gates, the former US defence secretary, put it even more bluntly: “We don’t really have a strategy at all. We’re basically playing this day by day.” The urgent delivery of new anti-tank missiles for the Iraqi army has been one short-term response. But larger military and political questions are still unanswered.
Iraq remains the priority. Air attacks launched last September have been carried out by the US, Britain and half a dozen other countries, while operations in Syria are limited to the US and the largely symbolic presence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Coalition aircraft have carried out 2,200 air strikes in Iraq and 1,400 in Syria.
{...}
{...}
DeleteThe recapture of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border has been the headline achievement for the air campaign. Last week the US highlighted a special forces raid that killed a Isis financier. Britain made great play of the imposition of EU sanctions on the Syrian purchasing oil from the group on behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Squeezing Isis cash is an important element of the overall strategy, officials say. So is domestic counter-terrorism work.
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In recent weeks a significant novelty in the regional mix has been the greater effectiveness of Saudi Arabia, which is now working with its old rivals Qatar and Turkey to build a more potent coalition of non-Isis Syrian rebel groups fighting Assad on the ground, not just from 30,000ft.
By contrast, the US programme to “train and equip” a Syrian force to fight Isis – though not Assad – is moving agonisingly slowly after its launch in Jordan a few weeks ago. Britain backs that effort as well as maintaining financial and political support for the opposition Syrian National Coalition. But the SNC’s unceasing demands for a no-fly zone or a safety zone to protect civilians from the regime’s barrel bombs and chlorine gas are getting nowhere slowly.
On the Iraqi front, analysts say the US has to decide how many more victories by Isis it can sustain before increasing support to the underperforming Baghdad government forces on the ground. It and its allies must also do more to back “acceptable” insurgent groups in Syria, argues Charles Lister of the Brookings Institution.
{...}
Obama’s credibility is extremely low.
Delete“Next time you read some grand statement by US officials on [the] campaign against Isis or see a Centcom [US Central Command] map about Isis reversals, just bin it,” commented Emile Hokayem, a respected Middle East expert with the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
The fundamental problem is that Isis is waging war across two countries in a single interconnected crisis that is sustained by Sunni anger and the perception that the US and the west are content to look on as a confident Iran backs Shia groups in Iraq and beyond for its own strategic and sectarian reasons.
In the Middle East the conventional wisdom remains that Islamic State will not be defeated until Assad is. But while there is no doubt that the Syrian president’s position has weakened in recent weeks, his regime’s demise is not in sight.
On a recent trip to Tehran, India’s Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with his Iranian counterpart for the development of Chabahar port. The port, situated in southeastern Iran, is seen by India as a gateway to both Afghanistan and Central Asia and a possible counter-balance to Gwadar port in Pakistan, which is now operated entirely by China.
ReplyDelete“With the signing of this MoU, Indian and Iranian commercial entities would now be in a position to commence negotiations towards finalization of a commercial contract under which Indian firms will lease two existing berths at the Port and operationalize them as container and multi-purpose cargo terminals,” read a statement released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/indias-missed-iran-opportunity/
-------------------
China meanwhile is taking care of business
,,,In 2012, Iran dispatched a team to Delhi to deliver something of an ultimatum over India’s non-delivery on the Farzad B project. Tehran asked India to immediately commit the $1 billion promised, or the field would be promised to “others,” an indirect reference to China, which today is Iran’s biggest trading partner and which has funded railway and road projects in the country. For Beijing, like Delhi, Iran is an important source of hydrocarbons, as both China and India are dependent on large imports of crude oil and natural gas, specifically from West Asia. Iran has the world’s second largest proven natural gas reserves and sixth largest oil reserves. A considerable part of these reserves has yet to be fully exploited.
DeleteAround 2010-11, Iran was beginning to feel the sanctions, as its income from the sale of hydrocarbons, vital to its economy, began to dwindle. For India, Iran had fallen from its second largest source of oil to seventh place by 2012, as New Delhi turned to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Iraq to hedge its supplies. However, Delhi still imported as much oil as it could from Iran, with business worth nearly $5 billion over two to three years. Even as India managed to negotiate with Washington some waivers for limited periods of time to continue energy trade with Iran, transferring payments became difficult and much of Tehran’s dues were being deposited in a bank account in Kolkata. Tehran pressured India to free its dues, suggesting “unconventional” ways to transfer the money via Oman. However India persisted, and Iran grew impatient with Delhi’s buckling under American pressure. Iran’s billions were only transferred in phases in 2014 after sanctions eased as a thaw emerged between Tehran and the P5+1 negotiating countries.
In 2013, India’s National Security Advisor called out the Ministry of External Affairs for “dragging its feet” on projects in Iran, particularly Chabahar, prompting some sense of urgency in Delhi. In early 2014, Iran invited global oil and gas majors for a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani, as it sensed an easing of sanctions and the potential for foreign investment. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, with Indian companies notably absent. The reasons for this faux pas given by government sources ranged from deliberately not attending the meet to a communication lapse within the Indian delegation.
Now, in 2015, India is already late to the “rush” that is expected to begin as Iran looks to open up following its expected negotiations breakthrough by the end of next month. Western and Chinese companies have been camping out in Dubai and other Gulf cities to pounce on the anticipated opportunities. India and its businesses are lagging, and the loss of both time and strategic space is visible.
Earlier this month, an Indian delegation was hurriedly put together and sent to Tehran to represent the Indian oil and gas sector. Tehran, while receptive, reportedly took India’s strategic edge away as it refused Delhi’s latest package for the development of the Farzad B field, which was a modified version of the deal offered in 2010. Worse, Iran has now also refused to give the field to India without a tender bid, which means after all these years Farzad B could slip out of India’s hands and end up with the highest bidder.
Both India and Iran can look back on more than a decade of squandered potential for a strategic partnership, with both sides more often than not acting against their own interests. Now, if Iran can open up successfully, India should be ready with its best diplomatic and economic face to once again start what it could have successfully concluded half a decade before anyone else.
While the US squanders, China wanders...
ReplyDeleteTake a look at the ports and transportation infrastructure created by China since 911. This was in 2011, Since the guess how many more have been added.
------------------
108 Giant Chinese Infrastructure Projects That Are Reshaping The World
VIVIAN GIANG AND ROBERT JOHNSON
DEC. 5, 2011, 1:00 PM 697,196 60
There's an old Chinese saying that goes: “If you want to be rich, you must first build roads.”
And, boy, have they built some roads: In the past year, we've seen the world's longest sea bridge, the world's longest gas pipeline and a high-speed railway that's left everyone else in the dust — literally.
The resultant infrastructure push is incredible. A list of 108 super projects is floating around Chinese message boards and we picked out the 45 coolest ones to showcase here.
From highways spanning the continent, to the largest wind power base in the world, to a modern Silk Road that links Europe and India, to new cities in the desert, China is showing what it really means to do big things.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/108-giant-chinese-infrastructure-projects-that-are-reshaping-the-world-2011-12?op=1#ixzz3arOn4Cqb
While the US is mired in the Neocon created calamity in the Middle East, China has doubled global infrastructure projects since 2011:
ReplyDeleteJapan, China spar over Asian infrastructure
Japan has unveiled a massive spending plan to improve infrastructure in Asia. The plans came as China launches a new infrastructure lender aimed at curbing the financial clout of Tokyo and Washington in the region.
China said Friday it would hold the largest stake in a major new infrastructure investment bank that the United States and Japan view as a counterweight to Western-dominated institutions, as the new bank’s prospective founding members convened in Singapore to figure out when the new lender would begin operations.
China's share in the $100-billion (89 billion-euro) institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), would be between 25 percent and 30 percent, the news agency Reuters quoted unidentified delegates at the meeting as saying. India reportedly offered to take a 10 to 15 percent share in the bank.
Following a three-day meeting in Singapore, the prospective founding members of the AIIB announced that the newly-founded lender would be operational at the end of this year.
“In the three-day meeting, the chief negotiators discussed the draft environmental and social framework and draft procurement policy framework, among other topics," the bank's interim multilateral secretariat said in a statement.
Asian countries would own between 72 to 75 percent of AIIB, while European and other nations would own the rest, the delegates, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
A total of 57 countries have so far joined AIIB, including countries as diverse as Germany, Britain, Iran and Laos. The United States and Japan have chosen to stay out of the regional infrastructure lender, considering AIIB as a rival to the US-dominated World Bank and Japan-led Asian Development Bank.
The US has now spent $3 trillion on the Middle East. What will the return be to US workers?
ReplyDeleteTOKYO: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on Thursday a $110 billion investment plan for infrastructure projects in Asia in an apparent counter to China's move to launch a new development bank.
Abe said in a speech in Tokyo that Japan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will boost their assistance by 30 per cent to offer the massive investment aid under a five-year public-private partnership vision.
"By attracting diverse funds, we hope to bring changes to Asia," Abe said in prepared remarks, in the latest twist in the tussle for influence in the fast-growing region.
Chinese infrastructure: The big picture
ReplyDeleteChina leads the world in infrastructure investment. Explore today’s impressive reality, and see what the future holds, in this by-the-numbers summary.
June 2013 | byYougang Chen, Stefan Matzinger, and Jonathan Woetzel
Infrastructure development remains a top priority for China’s government, which has long recognized that a modern economy runs on reliable roads and rails, electricity, and telecommunications. From the late 1990s to 2005, 100 million Chinese benefited from power and telecommunications upgrades. Between 2001 and 2004, investment in rural roads grew by a massive 51 percent annually. And in recent years, the government has used substantial infrastructure spending to hedge against flagging economic growth.
China’s leadership has charted equally ambitious plans for the future. Its goal is to bring the entire nation’s urban infrastructure up to the level of infrastructure in a middle-income country, while using increasingly efficient transport logistics to tie the country together. What follows is a by-the-numbers portrait of this dynamic sector.
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How many Americans have benefited from The Neocon Crusade? Boring isn’t it? Move along, don’t let the facts flutter you.
Let’s return to 1991 and read something that was ignored by the US Conga Line :
ReplyDelete“Ancient History”: U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention
By Sheldon L. Richman
August 16, 1991
Executive Summary
When Iranian revolutionaries entered the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and seized 52 Americans, President Jimmy Carter dismissed reminders of America’s long intervention in Iran as “ancient history.” Carter’s point was not merely that previous U.S. policy could not excuse the hostage taking. His adjective also implied that there was nothing of value to be learned from that history. In his view, dredging up old matters was more than unhelpful; it was also dangerous, presumably because it could only serve the interests of America’s adversaries. Thus, to raise historical issues was at least unpatriotic and maybe worse.[1]
As the United States finds itself in the aftermath of another crisis in the Middle East, it is worth the risk of opprobrium to ask why there should be hostility toward America in that region. Some insight can be gained by surveying official U.S. conduct in the Middle East since the end of World War II. Acknowledged herein is a fundamental, yet deplorably overlooked, distinction between understanding and excusing. The purpose of this survey is not to pardon acts of violence against innocent people but to understand the reasons that drive people to violent political acts.[2] The stubborn and often self-serving notion that the historical record is irrelevant because political violence is inexcusable ensures that Americans will be caught in crises in the Middle East and elsewhere for many years to come.
After 70 years of broken Western promises regarding Arab independence, it should not be surprising that the West is viewed with suspicion and hostility by the populations (as opposed to some of the political regimes) of the Middle East.[3] The United States, as the heir to British imperialism in the region, has been a frequent object of suspicion. Since the end of World War II, the United States, like the European colonial powers before it, has been unable to resist becoming entangled in the region’s political conflicts. Driven by a desire to keep the vast oil reserves in hands friendly to the United States, a wish to keep out potential rivals (such as the Soviet Union), opposition to neutrality in the cold war, and domestic political considerations, the United States has compiled a record of tragedy in the Middle East. The most recent part of that record, which includes U.S. alliances with Iraq to counter Iran and then with Iran and Syria to counter Iraq, illustrates a theme that has been played in Washington for the last 45 years.
An examination of the details and consequences of that theme provides a startling object lesson in the pitfalls and conceit of an interventionist foreign policy. The two major components of the theme that are covered in this study are U.S. policy toward Iran and the relations between Israel and the Arabs. Events in which those components overlapped—development of the Carter Doctrine, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Persian Gulf War—will also be examined.
{...}
In the aftermath of the most overt and direct U.S. attempt to manage affairs in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf War, it is more important than ever to understand how the United States came to be involved in the region and the disastrous consequences of that involvement. President Bush’s willingness to sacrifice American lives to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait, to restore the “legitimate” government of that feudal monarchy, and to create a “new world order” proceeds logically from the premises and policies of past administrations. Indeed, there is little new in Bush’s new world order, except the Soviet Union’s assistance. That may mean the new order will be far more dangerous than the old, because it will feature an activist U.S. foreign policy without the inhibitions that were formerly imposed by the superpower rivalry. That bodes ill for the people of the Middle East, as well as for the long-suffering American citizens, who will see their taxes continue to rise, their consumer economy increasingly distorted by military spending, and their blood spilled—all in the name of U.S. leadership.
Deletehttp://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa159.pdf
ReplyDeleteWritten in 1991. It got worse since them, but don’t read it.
Go to AIPAC to find out what is in your interest but please, spare me the condescending lectures that there is no ongoing direct connection and disastrous consequence to the subservient US obsession with the Colony Club of seven million of God’s chosen elite.
As for the standard rejoinder that Israel has been the staunchest U.S. ally in the Middle East, one is reminded of the one-liner about lawyers: if we didn't have them, we wouldn't need them. The U.S. relationship with Israel produces the very adversaries that are pointed to as justifying the close relationship.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThe answer is so obvious but you are blind due to your jew obsessed brain....
DeleteTurkey and Iran are splitting up Iraq.
the Return of the Ottomans...
ISIS is the the return of the Sunnis in Iraq
Iran gets Baghdad and the south....
The Kurds still get screwed.
and Israel? doesn't gain one square inch of land.
Bit that won't stop you from claiming Israel is expanding..
Want to see expansion? Look at a map.
Rubbish the expansion map is the map of Israel since 1967.
DeleteThe US/Neocon war on Iraq destabilized Iraq beyond repair.
Delete
Delete"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East"
- John Sheehan
Egghead-warmonger Bill Kristol published a column yesterday about the Iraq war. Astonishingly, it was titled “We Were Right to Fight in Iraq.” The piece would be laughable if it wasn’t written earnestly, and without a hint of irony. But we’ve come to expect this sort of thing from Kristol. There are, apparently, not enough corpses in the world to convince him that a mistake was made.
DeleteKristol is a special breed of ideologue; his ability to hold false beliefs in spite of contrary evidence verges on the heroic. Like most neoconservatives, he’s a disciplined nihilist; he simply refuses to believe in reality. The man helped lay the intellectual foundations for America’s misadventure in Iraq, and he appears not to have noticed that it was a bad idea. Indeed, he persists in recycling bankrupt arguments in defense of it. A quick glance at his latest screed is instructive.
Kristol writes:
“We were able to bring the war to a reasonable conclusion in 2008…When President Obama took office, Iraq was calm, al-Qaeda was weakened and ISIS did not exist…The Obama administration threw it all away. It failed to support the dissidents in Iran in 2009, mishandled the Iraqi elections in 2010, removed all U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, and allowed the Syrian war to spiral out of control from 2011 on.”
Virtually every syllable of that passage is dripping with errors. First, notice how he casually uses the phrase “reasonable conclusion.” What, exactly, does that mean? There was nothing conclusive about the situation in Iraq at that time. On the contrary, Bush surged troop numbers in 2007 which temporarily provided stability, but that stability was destined for collapse the second our troops withdrew. Kristol won’t say so, but what he’s really arguing for here is a permanent occupation of Iraq, not the end of a war.
- Salon - http://www.salon.com/2015/05/22/bill_kristols_latest_iraq_nonsense_dumber_and_more_dangerous_than_david_brooks/
No inspection of the Israeli/US alliance is permitted by the Israeli- firsters. By any standard, the relationship between the United States and Israel has been extraordinary. Criticism of any other American ally does not cost a person an elective or appointed position in government. Criticism of any other American ally does not bring accusations of being a hater of the dominant religious group in the allied nation. Both of those things happen, almost routinely, to anyone who criticizes Israel. Elected U.S. officials who have cast a single vote against an Israeli position have seen major opposition mounted by Israel's American supporters. The rare journalist who points out unattractive facts about Israeli conduct is likely to be smeared as an anti-Semite. The chilling effect that has had on public debate is too obvious to need elaboration.
DeleteIt is SOP here and it is also ignored.
DeleteReally deuce?
DeleteYou are now claiming
That Israel has been expanding since 1967?
LOL
I guess the far that the Arab Armies ATTACKED and lost means nothing…
I guess the fact that Israel RETURN the entire SINAI, southern lebanon, gaza and MOST of the west bank accounts for shit in your book?
really…
U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's anti-Arab remarks on Election Day has "foreign-policy consequences," The Atlantic reported on Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. president made it clear during the interview with the American periodical on Tuesday that Netanyahu's portrayal of Arab voters as "an invading force that might vote" is contrary to the very language of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which explicitly states that all people regardless of race or religion are full participants in the democracy."
"When something like that happens, that has foreign policy consequences, and precisely because we’re so close to Israel, for us to simply stand there and say nothing would have meant that this office, the Oval Office, lost credibility when it came to speaking out on these issues,” he said.
Obama remarked in the interview that despite the confrontations with Netanyahu over the past number of years, most of the American Jewish community still voted for him in the 2012 presidential election.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.657636
"What I also think is that there has been a very concerted effort on the part of some political forces to equate being pro-Israel, and hence being supportive of the Jewish people, with a rubber stamp on a particular set of policies coming out of the Israeli government," he said.
Delete"So if you are questioning settlement policy, that indicates you’re anti-Israeli, or that indicates you’re anti-Jewish. If you express compassion or empathy towards Palestinian youth, who are dealing with checkpoints or restrictions on their ability to travel, then you are suspect in terms of your support of Israel. If you are willing to get into public disagreements with the Israeli government, then the notion is that you are being anti-Israel, and by extension, anti-Jewish. I completely reject that."
Delete... the notion is that you are being anti-Israel, and by extension, anti-Jewish. I completely reject that.
Jack, being against Israel doesn't make you anti-jewish….
DeletePosting 1000's of posts slandering Jews, Judaism does..
.
DeleteU.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's anti-Arab remarks on Election Day has "foreign-policy consequences," The Atlantic reported on Thursday.
Gee, that's pretty tough talk. Consequences you say?
Could it be that the actual consequences will be the usual US SOP, money? It is being reported (yet unconfirmed at this point) in different places that the US and Israel are in negotiations for a massive aid package to Israel in compensation (read hush money) to silence debate on the US/Iran nuclear deal. The massive package reportedly includes additional F-35's, more support for Iron-Dome, etc, basically anything Israel can dream up.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/05/20/should-israel-take-obamas-iran-payoff/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israel-said-to-discuss-compensation-in-wake-of-emerging-nuke-deal/
While the reports aren't officially confirmed at this point, it wouldn't surprise me if true. Obama has invested too much in the Iran nuclear negotiations. I kind of doubt he will let anything interfere at this point.
.
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DeleteTo be clear, the same reports indicate the same type of negotiations are going on with some of our loudest Arab critics...er, I mean 'allies'.
.
Israel should not take a penny from Obama.
DeleteIsrael can wait it out…
Meanwhile the IRan deal is suicide for the world, not just Israel.
Reap what you sow…
yawning is my reaction to knee jerk anti-Israel crap by hacks who sell books about the great Jew conspiracy
ReplyDeleteJack HawkinsFri May 22, 09:07:00 AM EDT
ReplyDelete"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East"
- John Sheehan
delusional.
Jack what universe do you live in?
DeleteDo you not remember America's FIRST war in it's history was in the middle east with the moslems of the Barbary Coast?
That's right you are not an American! I forgot…
Your writing, "O"rdure, usually is just that, delusional.
DeleteYou never provide a reference, never provide an accurate accounting, you fly 'False Flags' and often tell outright lies.
In short, "O"rdure, you are a Zionist.
"O"rdure, Libya, Tripoli to be specific is not in the Middle East, it is in Africa.
DeleteLearn a little geography,will you please?
You continue to conflate things that are not at all related.
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/me.htm
DeleteNo Libya, no Tripoli ...
The so-called modern version of the Middle East sits where Africa, Asia and Europe meet. The countries of the modern Middle East are all part of Asia, but for clarity reasons we geographically show them here as a separate landmass.
DeleteOh, once again you change meanings to FIT your fiction..
DeleteNo sense arguing with an arab…
Jack Hawking lies, misdirects and distorts meanings, but we all KNOW the truth, the arabs of tripoli, the arab moslems of morocco are all part and part of the middle east..
DeleteNo reasonable person could argue otherwise…
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew to Russia on Wednesday seeking closer military cooperation as he faces tough challenges in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group.
ReplyDeleteAbadi, who is due to meet President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, heads a large delegation that includes several ministers and a number of civil and military advisers.
The focus will be "the development of relations between the two countries, mainly expanding the military and security cooperation, and support for Iraqi forces in the face of terrorism," Abadi's office said.
His one-day official visit comes after IS seized Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, in the worst setback for the Iraqi government since the jihadists first swept across Sunni regions in June last year.
...
Russia delivered Sukhoi fighter jets to Iraq last year, shortly after IS seized entire swathes of the country. Baghdad has also received attack helicopters from Moscow.
Amid delays in the delivery of some US weaponry that Iraq has been expecting under an agreement with Washington, Baghdad is said to be increasingly looking to Russia, China and Iran for military purchases.
http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-pm-heads-russia-seeking-more-arms-183512587.html
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DeleteAnother example of Obama's schizophrenic approach to war. He seems to think war is a video game
As soon as he declared we will 'degrade and destroy' IS you had to question his thinking. When he said this war could take years, you had to think all he is trying to do is get this thing to 2016 with as little damage as possible so that he can dump it onto the next guy.
.
Deuce ☂Fri May 22, 09:01:00 AM EDT
ReplyDeleteRubbish the expansion map is the map of Israel since 1967.
LOL
So are you willing to admit that the wars in 67, 73, 82 and more were caused by Arab trying to destroy Israel and that they LOST?
Are you willing to concede the Israel willingness to give up 90% of ALL liberated lands? From the Sinai, Gaza and SOuthern Lebanon to MOST all of the west bank?
We are waiting...
I am sure that Deuce can answer for himself ...
DeleteBut the idea that the land seized by the European colonialists was "Liberated", well ...
That is just another lie the that "O"rdure is trying to propagate.
An aversion to the truth, that is "Occupation".
Jack, why do you IGNORE the majority of Israelis? Those that NEVER left the middle east, those that were expelled and driven into Israel like cattle by the arabs? Of course there were Jews living in the lands of Israel for thousands of years, but that's besides the point, why do you ONLY look at the Jews that moved to Isarel from Europe?
DeleteOf course, those Jews that were not murdered by your cousins in Europe were but a trickle and they moved there and purchased lands from the arabs and the ottomans….
Why do you find that unruly when you, yourself moved to the Arizona and purchased lands as well?
What right do you have to live in America, after all you have ZERO historic connection to the USA.
Jews of Europe, do have a historic connection, as per the League of Nations and the UN…
You have nothing but squatting rights.
The discussion is not about Jack Hawkins, Arizona or Mexico.
DeleteIndeed, "O"rdure, you have told us that Mexico does not matter ...
The discussion is about the policies the US should be pursuing with regards to what is known as the "War on Terror".
ISrael is in the Middle of it. Arizona is not.
Again, the discussion is not about Jews, not about Judaism, except when you try to 'Make It So'.
The real discussion is about governments and political movements.
Why you incessantly attempt to inject religion, just part of your typical agitprop.
The Zionist government in Occupied Palestine supports al-Qeada in Syria.
Is allied with the Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia and founded Hamas as a 'counter balance' to Arabfat.
Historic realities.
When, "O"rdure, you try to use ancient myth in your rants, you will be answered with historical realities ...
DeleteBabylon = the cradle of Zionism
I see, you can't answer the question so you avoid the question…
DeleteYou change the subject, redefine the subject and wiggle, wiggle wiggle.
You are a habitual Jew hating, Israel trashing, Zionist defaming, troll of a person.
It is about you and your lies.
Your misdirections.
Your absolute anti-semitic bullshit.
You are a spiritual nazis.
OWN IT. Jack.
When we see you post? We see a wannabe Nazi..
That is the fact.
.
ReplyDeleteGo to AIPAC to find out what is in your interest but please, spare me the condescending lectures that there is no ongoing direct connection and disastrous consequence to the subservient US obsession with the Colony Club of seven million of God’s chosen elite.
Point of clarification.
Am I correct in assuming this comment is directed at WiO and Bob and not me?
.
I love that line…
DeleteColony Club of seven million of God’s chosen elite.
Was the United STATES of America not "COLONIES"?
I see a certain bitterness that Deuce conveys about the Jews being "chosen"
I suggest Deuce take that up with God.
ONLY THREE DAYS TILL MEMORIAL DAY AND THEN ALL OF IRAQ WIIL BE ISIS FREE
ReplyDeleteThis was predicted for all the world to see right here on these noble pages by House Military Expert Jack ass Hawkins.
Military Expert Jack ass Hawkins aka The Criminal
DeleteJack HawkinsThu May 14, 01:12:00 PM EDT
DeleteHow much cash I got from the cartels is hard to say, but they were happy
with the body count I gave them…
I was desperate to raise money for my 350 acres of bottom lands in AZ
http://2164th.blogspot.com/2014/01/it-takes-greener-potemkin-village.html?showComment=1431623548643#c1077157311286017977
Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, please post the time and date that the prediction was made, 'for all the world to see'.
DeleteYou have no problem posting false flags and lies, so try to hit the target, will you?
I did think the US would do more to assist the Iraqi.
DeleteThe fact the US only flew nine missions during the Daesh assault of Ramadi, illustrative of the surprising lack of support the US has provided the Iraqis.
So, yes, there was a mistake made in accessing the timetable.
LOL
Deletewiggle wiggle wiggle
The good news? Iran has over reached and has hit it's wall… All the Obama BRIBE money 50 billion or so, will not change the fact that the Sunni's have awakened against the Shia ….
ReplyDeleteIran and Obama CREATED ISIS.
The sectarian war is enjoined…
Countless moslems will die by moslem hands….
Now that's ok by this blogs standards but the real crime is that Israel still is claiming the Western Wall and Jerusalem as it's Capital.
More agitprop lies from "O"rdure
DeleteIsrael prefers Daesh (al-Qeada) in Syria, over the Alawites, Christians and their Kurdish allies
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria.
“We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”
Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda.
http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328.
ISreal flies combat support missions for the Islamic State.
DeleteThere is no getting around reality, "O"rdure.
Sorry "spiritual Nazi"…
DeleteYou can't even spell ISRAEL….
LOL
So blinded by your hate..
.
DeleteThe good news? Iran has over reached and has hit it's wall…
An interesting point. One I have been thinking about lately.
And another reason the US should have not gotten involved in Iraq again.
I have been complaining about current US strategy in Iraq for numerous reasons. One of the points I made was that if there is anything positive that comes out of our adventure in Iraq (doubtful), the credit will likely go to Iran and the Shia militias rather than the US.
However, on a more basic level, we need to realize that in the ME we may have 'allies' but we don't have any friends. Though we are both working against ISIS at the moment, Iran is not our friend. Strictly my opinion, but...
1) At the point where the US entered the latest fighting in Iraq, ISIS had probably reach about as far into Iraq as they were going to go there. Aided by an Iraqi army shredded by problems, their initial campaign was impressive. However, we have to question whether they had already gone as far as they were likely to go.
2) ISIS had taken over most of Anbar in the initial thrust and the recent capture of Ramadi has been a blow to Iraq and the coalition. However, we have to remember that according to reports the coalition had already taken back about 25% of the territory ISIS had captured in Anbar. Also, there was the success of the operation in Tikrit. No doubt IS controls most of Anbar but its hard to measure net/net the gains vs losses there after the US entered the war even though most coalition action hasn't been centered there.
3. In Kurdistan, given the cooperation that seems to be evident between the various Kurd factions in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, it is hard for me to believe that ISIS would have been able to move much further there.
4. In Baghdad and the south, though the government appears incompetent, you have the Shia militias which represent a formidable force plus support from Iran. For that reason, I would be surprised if ISIS would have been able to move further south and east.
5. Had the US not entered the war, I personally doubt Iraq would be that much worse off than it is in today. However,
6. Without the US there, the Iranians would probably be playing a much bigger role. With any luck, Iraq could have turned into Iran's Vietnam.
Of course, I could be wrong.
:o)
.
.
DeleteThe Iraq war has turned into a pissing contest with everyone pointing fingers at each other.
The other day, I heard reports of the US military blaming the fall of Ramadi on incompetence in Baghdad. Today, I hear reports blaming the US for delays in getting Shia militia support to Ramadi before it fell by using the same arguments they used when Iraq used the militias in Tikrit.
.
Naw, Quirk, it was simply they 'snuck' in during the sand storm ;)
DeleteI also think it is a misnomer to look at it, now especially, as the "Iraq War" as what is becoming increasingly apparent - the whole thing is a regional war occurring across artificial borders primarily, but not confined to, Sunni vs Shia.
i.e. it is devolving into a regional civil war.
DeleteAsh, it's not civil.
DeleteAnd it's not one country,
It's a "sectarian" war.
the Sunnis verses the Shia...
I hope they do awesome damage to each other..
And yes, they both suck...
Don't forget the Jewish people, and the Christians, both also in the fight.
DeleteWe have trained, to date, 7,000 Iraqi troops - but, none of those "trained-up" troops were in Ramadi.
ReplyDeleteNot bad for a trillion dollars..
DeletePlease, don't attach your idiocies to my comments.
DeletePlease understand that you do not OWN the internet or even this blog.
Delete"not bad for a trillion dollars" is spot on...
None of those trained up troops were in Ramadi cause they immediately ran away.
DeleteAnd it was the Iranians that took Tikrit.
Mosul ?
Not to worry for a long time about Mosul.
Here is the good news…
ReplyDeleteThe Sunnis and the Shia's are whacking each other…
Israel is STRONG, democratic and free.
Iran may just crumble by it's own ISIS issues soon…
Let's enjoy a hot summer..
>>>Iran may just crumble by it's own ISIS issues soon…<<<
DeleteNow there is a delightful thought.
Hadn't really considered that before, but ....who knows.....
I turn to WiO Channel and Fox News Channel for my mid east insights........
well according to Rat/Jack, master of all things under the sun....
DeleteLibya is NOT part of the middle east...
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ReplyDeleteAt the meeting last week, Obama reiterated that the U.S. commitment to the defense of its allies in the region was “ironclad” and that Washington was ready to use all its capabilities, including military force, if they were threatened. To head off that possibility, the governments agreed to expand intelligence and maritime-monitoring cooperation, to more joint exercises, and the development of rapid response capabilities and implementation of a regional missile defense system. Reportedly, the U.S. is willing to grant the Gulf countries major non-NATO ally status, which would make them eligible for certain kinds of military assistance.
The meeting marked, said Obama, “the beginning of a new era of cooperation between our countries — a closer, stronger partnership that advances our mutual security for decades to come.” A diplomat from the Gulf states agreed, saying the relationship “had reached a new level.”
While welcome, those pledges fell short of the formal defense agreement that some Gulf governments sought. But then, the U.S. did not get all it wanted from the meeting either. The Gulf states offered a less than full-throated endorsement of the Iran negotiations. While the emir of Qatar said the group “welcomes this agreement,” the Saudi Arabian foreign minister noted that the deal is not yet final, and “it would be too early to prejudge what we accept and … don’t accept.”
That it was the Saudi foreign minister, and not the king himself, in attendance, produced some hand wringing in Washington.
Hand-wringing?
Lordy, who gives a shit what these dolts think?
.
Because they are US allies - is that not whom we are fighting for... no?
Delete.
DeleteWhat is the point of having 'allies' when net/net they are more a liability than a benefit?
Even in Jordan which is the best of the lot, unless you look at it from a humanitarian standpoint, the return is negligible. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, when the chips are down they put their own perceived parochial nationalistic and hegemonic interests above those of the US.
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Israel is fighting for it's survival.
DeleteWould you like Israel more if it simply offed it's self so that the arabs and islamists would like America better?
It's the old story, no one likes the Jew that fights, they like the victim jew, the dead jew, the homeless jew....
But wait! Israel and it's Jews will not simply allow it's self to retreat to suicide borders because Obama and others think that it will bring peace....
Peace?
That's a joke...
.
DeleteMy point is simple though idealistic, stay out of the ME.
Providing humanitarian aid? No problem. Providing military aid? Don't like it. However, let's be realistic. There is money in it and it's going to happen. Likewise, it can be used as a counter-balancing tool.
Beyond that, stay out. The US has no large national interest in the region.
I am much more worried about China's encroachment into the Americas, their adventurism in the Pacific and the East China Sea and Russian adventurism around or possibly in NATO countries in Europe.
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ReplyDeleteThe divided front negotiating with Iran
Despite often repeating that they represent “a united front,” the interlocutors sitting across the table from Iran do not make up a unified entity. There are very real differences among them, with each country having different interests at stake and hopes for the process.
The P5+1, as the group has come to be known, is the official party negotiating with Iran, but it can really be divided into two camps. The Western side is composed of the United States and its European partners: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. China and Russia are the non-Western parties to the talks. Though they all share the goal of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, each of these actors also has its own agenda. Their respective interests are political, strategic, and economic...
http://thebulletin.org/divided-front-negotiating-iran8333
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rat is starting in his wiggle wiggle mode
ReplyDeleteHe is a shameless baldfaced Liar, always has been
Less than 60 hours to an ISIS Free Iraq now........
Whoopie
All because of the 'rat Doctine'
yeayeayeayyea
whooohooooo
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteAll these a - rabs is trash, Ash.
All dicks.
Some a little worse than others, is all.
Like the Republicans and the Democrats here.
Once in a long while a decent man or woman shows up but it's few and far between.
Judge Napolitano is ripping the Patriot Act and the spooking over there at Fox.
ReplyDeleteHasn't caught anybody, and basically doesn't work..
I always listen carefully to what this Judge has to say. And to Judge Pirro, too.
There's some dude named Judge Q out and about the airwaves these days too.
DeleteSurprisingly, even this oddly named Judge is worth a listen, but only on select topics.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteAn independent internet panel of real judges has ruled Judge Bob among those as the top of the Judicial Pyramid, with a ranking of 9, or 10 on the two separate votes taken. These folks are not real judges, but were just nominated by the real judges based on their legal know how as expressed over the internet over the years. It is a prestigious award. Worth some bucks, too.
DeleteThen there is, or, was, Judge Rufus aka Hang 'em High From the Roof, who has had his blacks robes taken away for him and his gavel too, as he was found by the Judicial Panel to be an immediate danger to any and all defendants.
DeleteThe final straw was when be began bypassing the Jury stage altogether and began ruling 'guilty as charged on all counts' right from the Bench.
Breaking from Fox:
ReplyDeleteSTUDY FINDS MEN MORE VAIN THAN WOMEN
Well, well, well......
Fence Jumping05.22.155:25 AM ET
ReplyDeleteWhere ISIS Gets Its Bombs
How does the so-called Islamic State get new recruits and supplies from abroad? With amazing ease. An eyewitness report.
AKCAKALE, Turkey — Within sight of an unoccupied watchtower, and a couple of hundred meters from the border gate at Akcakale on the Syrian-Turkish border, two small girls are skipping on stacks of piping ready for shipment to the town of Tel Abyad, now controlled by the Islamic State, or ISIS, across what the Turks claim is a locked-down frontier.
It is the weekend and so in this slow-paced, dusty border town, decorated with multi-colored banners and pennants of Turkish political parties campaigning for next month’s parliamentary polls, no one is hurrying to transport the suspicious cargo. And so here the pipes, several meters long and three inches in diameter, remain.
Around the corner there are more pipes—larger ones, six inches in diameter. Smugglers say the piping can sustain high pressure and will be used by jihadists in Syria to manufacture pipe bombs, improvised explosive devices and launch-tubes for mortars.
The 35-year-old smuggler warns me not to get out of the car. The few men lounging around are watching us intently.
A few days ago, The New York Times published an article about how large amounts of ammonium nitrate are being transported on carts across the border, into the so-called caliphate. Ammonium nitrate is used not only as a fertilizer but also as an ingredient to build powerful explosives. The town is now on edge: Local officials, who claimed at first the ammonium nitrate was just flour, are not welcoming to Western journalists. And more alarmingly, ISIS agents in the town and their smuggler-allies are said to be on the lookout for reporters. A few months ago, two freelance news photographers reported there was an attempt to abduct them—and so I content myself with filming the pipes from the safety of a car.
We have just passed seven boys sitting on a low concrete embankment overlooking unused railway tracks running alongside the border. They are waiting for three bored-looking border guards manning an old, battered armored personnel carrier to look the other way so that they can make a quick dash to the low wire fence and clamber over easily into ISIS’s self-styled caliphate. Two of them have bikes and the fence will pose no daunting obstacle to getting those across either.
In the distance, a black flag is waving above a building in downtown Tel Abyad. A new white Toyota pickup accelerates on a road on the Syrian side shadowing the border fence—the Turkish guards pay it no heed.
Today the border gate is closed, but come Monday, says the smuggler, the pipes will likely be whisked across—although not before ISIS agents, clean-shaven to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves, will inspect the goods.
Two Turks—both longtime Islamists and now members of ISIS—are the key organizers guiding foreign recruits and overseeing cross-border trade.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the border crossing nearest to the de facto capital of the Islamic State.
One could have expected this border gate separating NATO from the world’s first self-proclaimed jihadi state to be bristling with soldiers and guns. Turkey, after all, has the second-biggest military in the Western alliance. But the scene here wouldn’t be out of place in the old Peter Sellers comedy about a blustering mini-state, The Mouse That Roared.
Local Turkish officials claim that only Turkish-supplied humanitarian aid is going through the border gate, which is closed officially every now and then when fighting flares between Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel militias and ISIS. But a flare-up hasn’t happened for some time, and humanitarian aid isn’t the only thing going through the border gate.
“Depending on the thickness of the pipes, both diameter sizes could be used for mortars, but it is more likely that the three-inch ones would be used for making IEDs and pipe bombs,” says Darren White, a British defense consultant who served a quarter of a century in the British army. “And these improvised devices have been seen around in Syria and Iraq. The bigger pipes, yes, more likely to be used for launch-tubes. And the piping can be used as casing for homemade mortar bombs.”
Field investigators for Conflict Armament Research, a private arms-tracking organization in Britain, noted in a report on where ISIS gets its weapons that during the months-long siege of the mainly Kurdish border town of Kobani improvised devices were present. “ISIS forces used improvised munitions of different types in significant quantities… suggesting a lack of factory-produced, military-grade weapons in its arsenal. Most of the improvised munitions were based on mortar rounds of various calibers and 105 mm rockets containing aluminum based homemade explosives.”
“They are very tough with the Kurds and the areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, but with areas across from ISIS not so much,” he explains over a cup of tea in the sitting room of his apartment a short walk from the border. On a flat-screen TV, Turkish cartoons are playing but the sound is muted—his children banished to another room. One small girl slams the door when shooed away to join her siblings ranging in age from 6 months to 7 years.
Up until about 18 months ago, Ahmed was smuggling foreign recruits across the border, but stopped when he realized they were going to ISIS. “I thought they were going to Jabhat al-Nusra or the FSA,” he says. The fighters he guided across the border either a few miles east or west of the town, where there are easy paths through farmland and olive groves, were young, in their late teens or very early 20s.
DeleteHe says of the 20-plus recruits he assisted, none were Arabs: They were Georgian, Russian, and Azerbaijani as well as three Britons and two Americans. Through an Azerbaijani, he asked the British recruits why they were going to Syria. “They said for jihad.”
In those days it was easier for foreign recruits. The foreigners would board a domestic flight from Istanbul’s international airport to Urfa or Gaziantep and then be driven to Harran, a small town 12 miles from Akcakale, where they would stay at the hotel for a few hours before being guided to Tel Abyad. Harran, once a center of Assyrian Christianity, was resettled by the Ottoman Turks during the 18th century with ethnic Arabs from what is now Syria and, as with Akcakale, Syrian Arab influence is obvious with many locals able to speak Turkish and Arabic.
Under pressure from Washington and the Europeans, Turkish authorities have become more vigilant in Istanbul and are monitoring the Gaziantep and Urfa airports.
Foreign recruits are being intercepted and their journey has become more disguised, says Ahmed. Recruits and would-be jihad brides are flying to more far-flung airports and then busing themselves to Urfa or taking a bus from Istanbul. And instead of congregating at the hotel in Harran, they are being distributed by their handlers more discretely, in safe houses in Akcakale. Once here, the chances are slim of Turkish interception. Hatay Boumeddiene, the partner of Amedy Coulibaly, the jihadi gunman who murdered Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket in Paris in January, slipped across to ISIS at Akcakale despite a Europol alert.
“For us, Akcakale doesn’t exist,” says Ahmed. “Locals call this town Tel Abyad, too, just like over the border. We are the same town, the same family separated by a railway line and a little fence—we have relatives over the border.” Locals, though, have mixed feelings about ISIS. Some were happy when the jihadis eventually vanquished FSA militias in Tel Abyad, relieved that the booms and crash of battle were over. Others say they have no sympathy for the jihadis.
Aside from efforts at more discretion, not much has changed since Ahmed was a people smuggler. He says five brothers and a few of their relations are the main smugglers for ISIS and will purchase items the jihadis need. Two Turks—both longtime Islamists and now members of ISIS—are the key organizers guiding foreign recruits and overseeing cross-border trade.
“One is responsible for bringing the foreigners to Akcakale; the other stays in Syria and escorts the foreigners to Raqqa.” The men are well known to Turkish authorities, locals say. The Syrian-based smuggler travels back to Turkey once a week to go to the court at the city of Adana to attest to his presence in Turkey, and then returns to Tel Abyad. He had been arrested by the Turks for smuggling and is awaiting trial. Ahmed chuckles. “But they are still able to operate,” he says.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/22/where-isis-gets-its-bombs.html
Anyway the answer they get them from the Turks.
DeleteGet the Turks out of NATO, they are no longer wanted or needed there.
Let India and Israel into NATO.
Neither qualify, the Turks would never agree to the ISreali joining.
DeleteAs to the Indians, they are joining with China and Russia in an economic alliance.
Neither India nor ISrael are signatory to the NPT, rogue nations need not apply, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson
May 22, 2015
ReplyDeleteObama, ISIS, and the Writing on the Wall
By Raymond Ibrahim
For months, many Western observers have been closely following the minute-by-minute developments concerning the battle between Islamic State and coalition forces in the hopes that such data will help them discern what the future may hold.
Yet knowledge of the end game has been available for anyone cognizant of what the Obama administration is all about.
In an article published over seven months ago, I anticipated the main developments to have taken place since U.S. President Obama declared war (i.e., “air strikes”) on the Islamic State in September, 2014. Titled “Does Obama Need ‘Time to Defeat or Forget ISIS?” I made the following predictions, all of which have come true, and in the same sequence:
Obama’s “it will take time” [to defeat IS] assertion prompts the following prediction: U.S. airstrikes on IS targets will continue to be just enough to pacify those calling for action against the caliphate (“we’re doing what we can”). The official [U.S. government’s] narrative will be that the Islamic State is gradually being weakened, that victory is a matter of time (remember, “It will take time”)….
[W]e will hear about the occasional victory against IS -- this or that leader killed or captured…
Then, just as they “suddenly” appeared in Iraq, we will “suddenly” again hear -- probably first from IS itself -- that the Islamic State has made some major comeback, winning over some new piece of territory, as the caliphate continues to grow and get stronger.
Now consider how the Obama administration’s actions have fulfilled these predictions, and often in the same sequence.
The official [U.S. government’s] narrative will be that the Islamic State is gradually being weakened, that victory is a matter of time…
Last February, key Obama administration figures -- including Secretary of State John Kerry and retired General John Allen, the president’s special coordinator for the coalition against the Islamic State -- triumphantly asserted that, thanks to U.S. air strikes, “half the group’s [IS] leaders in Iraq had been killed.”
Not long thereafter, an investigative report demonstrated that such claims were utterly false and hardly representative of reality.
[W]e will hear about the occasional victory against IS…
In April, the Pentagon announced that, thanks to U.S. air strikes and the Iraqi army, “ISIL [Islamic State] is no longer the dominant force in roughly 25 to 30% of the populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once had complete freedom of movement.” The Pentagon even released a map showing which territories the Islamic State had lost.
Soon, however, it became evident that the Pentagon’s claim and map were misleading and incomplete. Among other irregularities, the map, while showing territories that IS once held and territories it had since lost, failed to indicate the new territories IS had gained since the coalition effort began -- making the 25%-30% claim totally misleading.
[W]e will hear about … this or that leader killed or captured…
Nor was Obama administration grandstanding concerning the killing of “key” ISIS figures wanting. Most recently, on May 16, U.S. special forces managed to kill Abu Sayyaf. Although only a mid-ranking leader, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said his killing “represents another significant blow to Isis.” (Read here for an idea of how many times U.S. officials have made the “significant blow” assertion whenever this or that jihadi dies, only for the jihad to spread and conquer more lands.)
DeleteEven the New York Times observed that “Abu Sayyaf is a midlevel leader in the organization — one terrorism analyst compared him to Al Capone’s accountant — and likely is replaceable in fairly short order.”
Then, just as they “suddenly” appeared in Iraq, we will “suddenly” again hear -- probably first from IS itself -- that the Islamic State has made some major comeback, winning over some new piece of territory, as the caliphate continues to grow and get stronger.
Finally, after the Obama administration had claimed that it had killed half of IS leadership, that it had pushed IS out of 25%-30% previously held territory, that its killing of an IS midlevel leader was a “significant blow”—right on cue, the Islamic State just announced its takeover of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, one of Iraq’s most strategic provinces. According to a May 17 Reuters report:
Islamic State militants said they had taken full control of the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday in the biggest defeat for the Baghdad government since last summer.
[…]
It was the biggest victory for Islamic State in Iraq since security forces and Shi'ite paramilitary groups began pushing the militants back last year, aided by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition.
The U.S. Defense Department, while not confirming the fall of Ramadi, sought to play down the impact on the broader Iraq military campaign of an Islamic State seizure of the city.
To fully appreciate the significance of this latest conquest by the Islamic State, consider the words of Anbar governor Ahmed al-Dulaimi, spoken back in November 2014: “If we lose Anbar, that means we will lose Iraq.”
Of course, none of these developments are surprising for those among us who were able to take a step back -- to transcend the distracting noise and nonsense daily grinded out by mainstream media -- and look at the big picture. For those able to read the plain writing on the wall, the end game of Obama and IS was always easy to discern.
Put differently, Americans need to start viewing the Obama administration with the eyes of a hedgehog, not a fox.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/05/obama_isis_and_the_writing_on_the_wall.html
55.5 hours left until the start of Memorial Day, Iraq ISIS Free Memorial Day 2015 as predicted by our 'military expert', d. rat's ass.
DeleteYep, the US did not provide the assistance I thought it would, to the Iraqi.
DeleteMissed that call, on to the next.
The only one that ever called any contributor here a 'military expert', was Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.
He also called d. rat a gentleman.
{;-)
bobal Mon Sep 01, 05:20:00 PM EDT
Rat's a gentleman.
With his own way of thinking about things.
Habu has his own way of thinking about things too, but is so corrosive, that after a while you don't want to read him anymore.
While with Rat, you are always eager to hear what he has to say.
http://2164th.blogspot.com/2008/09/progressives-reveal-their-motivation.html
A few weeks ago, Jack was claiming that the Jews were frauds, that the Palestinians were the real jews..
ReplyDeleteNow he claims the Jews of Europe (and hence from Bavel) are Satanists...
But also Jack claims he's not a jew hater, or a Judaism hater, just an Israel/zionist hater...
Same with Deuce... He hates Israel, but not Jews and yet? He calls them "god's bulldozer chosin"
Now Rufus, hates Israel and the stupidity of Jewish thought, culture, wisdom, lore and faith but claims he has no problem with Jews, just those that are colonial occupiers and he would, if he lived in Gaza, be a hamas member...
DeleteNow the interesting thing of course is that Hamas hates JEWS and calls for the genocide of the Jews world wide... Their hatred is not limited to Israel out side of 1948 borders but the very fact that Jews have created/liberated themselves from Islamic.arab oppression...
Wrong, again, "O"rdure.
DeleteThere was never a time when Jack described Jews as frauds.
Just that there majority of Jews were not the genetic seed of Abraham.
This genetic information was developed at John Hopkins, the Albert Einstein Medical Center and written about quite extensively by Sholmo Sand, a professor of history at the University of Tel Aviv.
DeleteThe notion of Judaism as a “race”, rather than a religion of various races, is without foundation.
DeleteThe results of a recently published study by Israeli-American geneticist Dr Eran Elhaik at John Hopkins University have scientifically and genetically validated Sand’s research
The idea of a “nation race” was progressively developed and reinforced over centuries among segregated Jewish communities in Europe.
With the rise of German nationalism in the 19th century, Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz “retrospectively” crafted a discrete identity for the ghettoized people – mapping their origin to an old kingdom and wandering exiles.
The exiles tales transpired from a Christian myth of “divine punishment” imposed on Jews for rejecting the new religion.
The parable is likely to have originated from the Old Testament story of Jews wandering the desert for disobeying God and worshipping a golden calf.
Christians propagated the concept of exile to lure “disobeying” Jews to the new religion, becoming their saviour from another eternal banishment.
Modern political Zionism, which otherwise rejects the Christian Bible, adopted the untested story of “Jewish exile” to establish a mythical linkage between European Jews and the Middle East.
But Jewish history tells us that the Romans did not expel the original Jews from Palestine when they crushed the Simon bar Kokhba revolt in 136 AD but instead barred them only from city of Jerusalem – and even then they were allowed to visit it during Tisha B’Av, the annual fasting day on the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar.
Under Christianity and during the Roman Empire a large number of native Jews converted to Christianity and, with the advent of Islam, most adopted the new religion and assimilated under the new power.
In addition to the descendants of the Canaanites, the original denizens before patriarch Abraham’s arrival from Mesopotamia, Sand concludes that today’s Muslim and Christian Palestinians are actually the true progenies of the original Jews.
Jamal Kanj
AshFri May 22, 03:24:00 PM EDT
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the Jewish people, and the Christians, both also in the fight.
No ash, we aint "IN" the fight, were are targeted by both the sunni and shia for murder.
Christians and Jews just want to live, eat, drink and be merry...
Deuce loves to point out how the Jewish state is "expanding" it's size and causing so much turmoil....
but if you look at a map, a real one and were honest? You'd see that the Nation State of the Jewish people is but a speck compared to the vast lands of the arabs, let alone the moslems...
Heck, Israel's return of the sinai, southern lebanon and gaza amounts to almost 99% of all disputed lands...
so show me, on a map of the middle east thefts lands of Israel and now compare to the lands that ISIS/ISIL now occupies..
Now ash, you now live in occupied Canada right?
DeleteWhat is the square miles of the occupied Canadian nation?
It's a great big occupied puppy, that's for sure.
DeleteMega mega mega times the size of occupied Israel.
Ash moved from the occupied USof A to occupied Canada.
DeleteI hope my Niece moves to occupied USA someday, permanently. She is thinking of doing so. She would make great USA citizen, doesn't blow stuff up, energetic, like Jews, like blacks........she'd fit right in.........already knows the language, better than many right here........highly educated......does not eat gator tails, nor cats.....nor beef......no drink, smoke, drugs......good humor....
Delete