ISIS leader was secretly held in notorious Abu Ghraib torture prison - report
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Through a Freedom of Information Act records request, the Intercept was able to confirm with the US Army that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), had been imprisoned in a special high-profile section at the Abu Ghraib prison in the Iraqi city of the same name, from February to October 2004.
Al-Baghdadi, who has also gone by the name Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali Badri, was simply referred to by his assigned serial number, US9IZ-157911CI, in detention records. While Abu Ghraib is not mentioned by name, that code reveals that’s exactly where Al-Baghdadi was held.
“Former detainee al-Baghdadi’s internment serial number sequence number begins with ‘157,’” US Army spokesperson Troy A. Rolan, Sr. told the Intercept. “This number range was assigned at the Abu Ghraib theater internment facility.”
During Spring of 2004, just weeks after al-Baghdadi had been booked at Abu Ghraib, graphic photos leaked of torture sessions and abusive humiliation tactics utilized at the secretive prison.
On October 13 of that year, al-Baghdadi was transferred to Camp Bucca, as were many other Abu Ghraib inmates. Bucca had previously been reported as the sole facility where the IS caliph was held, but according to this new report, al-Baghdadi actually was there for less than two months. He was given an “unconditional release”on December 9.
Al-Baghdadi’s prisoner status had been “civilian internee,” for those with ties to terrorism but hadn’t been captured while carrying out such activities, according to Reuters.
Just 13 months after al-Baghdadi’s release, in January 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s group al-Qaeda in Iraq aligned with other Sunni radicals to establish the Mujahideen Shura Council, and after Zarqawi’s death in a US bombing raid in June 2006, that new coalition renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq. That group would go on to elect Islamic scholar al-Baghdadi its leader, who remains one of the most wanted terrorist suspects in the world.
BOTTOM LINE:
ReplyDeleteThe Choice:
1) Hillary Clinton is a destructive human wrecking ball. She supported Bush’s war; is the darling of the Neocons; a shill for the Saudis; Destabilizer of Libya, Syria, Yemen and has responsibility for the masses fleeing the ME to Europe and Latin America. She destroyed families, cities, children, businesses, infrastructure, social tranquility . Americans and others by the hundreds of thousand died partly and in whole, based on her catastrophic decisions.
2) Donald Trump, flawed, is a builder and creator of wealth. He had some losses and mostly wins. No one died.
Choose.
Trump.
DeleteI would add O'bozo to the mix for taking the troops out too soon.
One should play the cards one is dealt upon becoming President.
So now, day after day, we are treated to Ruf's daily roundup of bombing runs.
Ans ISIS "Q"Nits around the entire world.
Speaking of "Q"Nits we all know Germany has become Ground Zero for this recent phenomemon due to the idiocy of Frau Merkel letting into that country millions of unassimilable moslems.
DeleteThe Germans however, being creative at times, have come up with a Teutonic Solution to this disaster.
It's is called The "Q"Fix
Germany Devises "Q"uick Fix To Thwart Sexual Assault
Read about and see photo of this life saving "Q"Fix here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/germany_devises_quick_fix_to_thwart_sexual_assault.html
(Be sure to check out the difference between the "Q"Fix: Germany and the "Q"Fix: Texas in the lovely photo at the end of the article)
Delete.
DeleteIs that a "Q"Tip?
From an "N"Wit?
.
Check out how much money, Saudi Arabia and the UAE donated to the Clinton Foundation and the speaking fees reviewed by Bill Clinton to groups doing business with the same companies.
ReplyDeleteCheck out how much money was made by the war contractors selling to the same companies while Hillary Clinton was SOS.
Poll: Trump Back In Lead....DRUDGE
ReplyDeletehttp://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/
This will really piss my wife off -
ReplyDeletePurge At The Clinton (Commie) News Network
Dr. Drew loses his CNN show a week after questioning Hillary’s health - 8/26/16
The American media is now on notice. If you hit Hillary where it hurts, you will regret it More
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/dr_drew_loses_his_cnn_show_a_week_after_questioning_hillarys_health.html
but she was voting Trump anyway.
I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteWhy would Hillary use BleachBit to erase her emails if they were about yoga, and Chelsea's wedding ?
Only smoke ?
Pyromania, rather.....
GDP SLIPS TO 1.1%....Drudge
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteHow many decades does it take before the US wars of choice 'legitimized' by the WOT are recognized by the American people as perpetual and the status quo?
In another context, some dolt mentioned the concept of de-sensitization. The American people have become de-sensitized to this idea of constant war. (Well, as long as the war is 'over there'.) Why not? They have government officials of all stripes taking up these wars for every excuse under the sun, up to and including R2P. Also, for the most part we have no real skin in the game. There is no draft. We can't really get our heads around the idea of the trillions of dollars wasted on these efforts or the opportunity costs lost. Who could? Besides, we'll never end up paying it back anyway. We are constantly being frightened by Washington, their color code alerts (though the silliness of that overt propaganda has now become more subtle), by the MSM, and by the MIC, all parties preaching that terrorism is the biggest threat facing this country, all using it as an excuse for their constant wars. And it has worked. A recent PEW poll said that 80% of the country insanely believe that a crew of motley ragheads are the biggest existential threat to this country. Americans have been willing to put up with a loss of many of their personal freedoms as well as hundreds of billions (and by now trillions) of dollars just so they can 'feel' safe. We have seen the results. It reminds of the saying 'when seconds count the police are only minutes away'. This is our reality. This is our status quo.
Hillary Clinton is merely the current poster girl for that status quo. We know what she is. We know what we are getting. Yet, she is the odds on favorite to get elected in November.
And the only choice we are given? A buffoon who rides in in a chauffeured clown's car. To think Trump will be any different is to be pollyanish. His many revisions on policy and the numerous course changes he has made over the past year show how easily he can be manipulated by people who have turned it into an art form. If you are looking for change from Trump, you better count on the first hundred days. After that, you won't be able to tell the difference between a Trump presidency and a Clinton presidency. He will be the status quo.
.
Give me a break. We're hardly at war at all.
DeleteMore US people get shot just in Chicago on a weekend than get shot in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rufus is right about one thing - Obama's air war in Iraq hasn't cost us any US casualties.
DeleteAnd the drones do much of the flying.
.
DeleteYou prove my point you amoral twit.
You could give a shit how much damage we do around the world, how many people we kill, how many cities we destroy, how many refugees we create, how many billions we waste that could be used for productive uses, how many radical militants and terrorists we help create. It's all SOP to you. You have become comfortable with the status quo. You are the problem.
Today, the US has special forces deployed in 135 countries around the world. No doubt doing god's work.
And its all perfectly fine with you as long as no Americans are killed.
You are the typical American. A sheeple.
.
You immoral turd.
DeleteYou could care less how many people ISIS torments.
And, you illiterate dumb fuck, I was speaking of Rufus -
DeleteRufus is right about one thing - Obama's air war in Iraq hasn't cost us any US casualties.
And the drones do much of the flying.
.
DeleteAgain, you prove my point about the intellectual level shared by the sheeple.
Prior the the US intervention, we were told there were only 10,000 ISIS in Syria/Iraq. Now, after two years of fighting them we are told there are 15,000-30,000 of them and this after killing 45,000 of them. They were centered in two countries, Iraq/Syria. Now, they are in a dozen more.
It is you and the rest of your flock who by rationalizing and defending the US presence in the ME who a abetting and enabling ISIS and all the other radical groups throughout the world.
Wake up and stop deluding yourself.
.
WSJ: no former member of Council of Economic Advisors supports Trump
ReplyDeleteBy teacherken
Thursday Aug 25, 2016 · 11:19 PM CDT
In a story posted Thursday morning, the Wall Street Journal reached out to all 45 living members, present and former, of the Council of Economic Advisors, from the presidencies from Richard Nixon through Barack Obama.
The results are reported in a piece titled Economists Who’ve Advised Presidents Are No Fans of Donald Trump and subtitled “In a WSJ survey, no former members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers—spanning eight presidents—openly support Mr. Trump.”
This of course corresponds with the analysis by Moody that Trump’s economic plan would add trillions to the debt and cost millions of jobs.
As the story notes:
Among 17 Republican appointees who responded to Journal inquiries, none said they supported Mr. Trump. Six said they did not support Mr. Trump and 11 declined to say either way. An additional six did not respond to repeated messages. Among the 20 Democrats who responded to the Journal, 13 said they supported Mrs. Clinton, none said they opposed her and seven declined to say either way. Two Democratic appointees didn’t respond to messages.
RSS
TAGS
CouncilofEconomicAdvisors
DonaldTrump
GregMankiw
HillaryClinton
WallStreetJournal
moodyanalytics
Share this article
In a story posted Thursday morning, the Wall Street Journal reached out to all 45 living members, present and former, of the Council of Economic Advisors, from the presidencies from Richard Nixon through Barack Obama.
The results are reported in a piece titled Economists Who’ve Advised Presidents Are No Fans of Donald Trump and subtitled “In a WSJ survey, no former members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers—spanning eight presidents—openly support Mr. Trump.”
This of course corresponds with the analysis by Moody that Trump’s economic plan would add trillions to the debt and cost millions of jobs.
As the story notes:
Among 17 Republican appointees who responded to Journal inquiries, none said they supported Mr. Trump. Six said they did not support Mr. Trump and 11 declined to say either way. An additional six did not respond to repeated messages. Among the 20 Democrats who responded to the Journal, 13 said they supported Mrs. Clinton, none said they opposed her and seven declined to say either way. Two Democratic appointees didn’t respond to messages.
The story has gotten a lot of play on various cable news shows.
The link I have provided is not behind a pay wall.
There are quotes from some well-known economists, names most here would recognize.
Allow me to offer the material from one noted Republican economist, one whose textbook is probably the most widely used for Advanced Placement Economics courses in high schools around the country:
Harvard University economist Gregory Mankiw, who chaired the council under George W. Bush and has been mentioned as a possible future Fed chairman, said recently on his blog that he would not support Mr. Trump.
“I have Republican friends who think that things couldn’t be worse than doubling down on Obama policies under Hillary Clinton. And, like them, I am no fan of the left’s agenda of large government and high taxes,” Mr. Mankiw wrote. “But they are wrong: Things could be worse. And I fear they would be under Mr. Trump.”
Before the article provides a chart of all 45, identifying their President and party and how they responded, the article concludes with the following paragraph:
DeleteSome of the economists who declined to endorse a presidential candidate cited current jobs that require them to remain nonpartisan including Ms. Yellen, the Fed chairwoman who chaired the council in the late 1990s, and Kristin Forbes, who served on the council in the early 2000s and currently is a Bank of England policy maker.
In other words, the number who would endorse would probably be higher.
Thought it worth sharing.
Teacherken @ Daily Kos
.
ReplyDeleteSure, but it's only economists that we are talking about not normal people. Their opinion and half your paycheck will buy you a cup of joe at Starbucks.
And why does the name Moody sound so familiar?
.
Everyone is moody because the economy sucks and it takes half your paycheck if you have one to buy a cup of joe at Starbucks, and they might dilute the coffee.
DeleteI don’t know about about Pollyanish, we have a choice between Madame Defarge and Roger Riderhood.
ReplyDeleteMadame Defarge: No? Do you know who I am?
DeleteMiss Pross: You might - from your appearance - be the wife of Lucifer; yet you shall not get the better of me. I'm an Englishwoman! I'm your match!
Madame Defarge: Pig, get out of my way or I'll break you in pieces.
Roger 'Rogue' Riderhood, Illustration from 'Character Sketches from Charles Dickens', C.1890
DeleteBy Joseph Clayton Clarke
http://www.art.com/products/p14499976374-sa-i6746681/joseph-clayton-clarke-roger-rogue-riderhood-illustration-from-character-sketches-from-charles-dickens-c-1890.htm
I don't see the resemblance to The Donald.
Looks more like Quirk to me.
DeleteOn one of his better days.
.
DeleteRemove the clothes and he looks just like those nude statues of Trump they have been putting up.
.
People are putting up nude statues of The Donald ?
DeleteDidn't know that.
The obvious riposte is nude statues of The Hag.
If that won't make one stay home on election day nothing will.
Makes me think about rethinking my position on the burkini.
Delete.
DeleteOf course, you haven't seen it. Look at what you read. The story been on the national news and most newspapers over the last couple weeks.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/18/12538672/nude-donald-trump-statues-union-square-los-angeles-indecline
.
.
DeleteMakes me think about rethinking my position on the burkini.
You know thinking gives you a headache. The shock of rethinking would kill you.
.
A lot of the foreign policy stuff is pretty much unknowable. That's why I'm more focused on Domestic issues.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big supporter of Obamacare, a higher Minimum Wage, more affordable Education/Childcare, and expanded investment in Renewable Energy,
and that makes my vote a very easy decision.
ObamaCare is collapsing, the high minimum wage isn't working so well, the drive thru is being robotized, the rents going up, and how do you proposed to get 'more affordable' Education/Childcare?
DeleteObamacare rate hikes could save the Senate for the GOP - 8/26/16
In nine of 11 states with competitive Senate races, at least one insurer seeks to hike rates for Obamacare customers by at least 30 percent More
Princeton professor says Obamacare marketplaces in a 'death spiral' - 8/26/16
Massive rate increases a sure sign that Obamacare exchanges are on the ropes. More
American Thinker
You are left with renewable energy.
After Hillary shuts down the coal companies and puts the miners out of work, as she promised to do, you better get your ass in gear and do something.
Oregon is going pure renewable now.....phasing out all the coal over the next decade. It's very doubtful that it's going to work well....
If you got a Lobotomy, your decision would become even easier.
DeleteListen to this shit.....if Hillary wins, BillyGoat is leaving The Clinton Foundation.....but Chelsea is to remain.....
ReplyDeleteAnd keep going with the foreign donations, too -
DeleteClinton Foundation: We’re keeping Chelsea, and probably foreign-gov’t donations too
Aug 25, 2016 4:41 PM by Ed Morrissey
Hot Air
"Monica's War"
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton Bombed Iraq To Distract From Monica Scandal, Huma Abedin's Journal Claimed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3758922/Bill-Clinton-bombed-Iraq-distract-Monica-scandal-Huma-Abedin-s-Muslim-journal-claimed-boss-s-husband.html
Huma should know. She was an 'intern' at the same time as Monica....
Did you know Huma has a look alike sister named Heba ?
BBC: France’s highest court suspends burkini ban
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteThe burkini ban was counterproductive. There were very few women wearing them prior to the ban. Since the ban the company that invented them is getting rich as sales have exploded out of protest against the ban especially among the young.
As for protecting public order, it's a joke. It has merely acted as one more catalyst dividing the French population.
The ban was just one more example of the French's absurd and puerile assumption that banning symbols can change thought.
.
We need here in our country to ban moslem immigration and worry about symbols some other time.
DeleteThe French are having a real problem, of their own making.
They are losing their country.
We still have time.
.
ReplyDeleteYou could care less how many people ISIS torments.
Again, you prove my point about the intellectual level and delusions shared by the sheeple.
Prior the the US intervention, we were told there were only 10,000 ISIS in Syria/Iraq. Now, after two years of fighting them we are told there are 15,000-30,000 of them and this after killing 45,000 of them. They were centered in two countries, Iraq/Syria. Now, they are in a dozen more.
It is you and the rest of your flock who by rationalizing and defending the US presence in the ME are abetting abetting and enabling the growth ISIS and all the other radical groups throughout the world and consequently the terror they spread.
Wake up and stop deluding yourself.
.
Turdo, you know what my 'position' is -
Delete1) Support Israel (cultural grounds)
2) Help Kurdish Independence
3) Support Folks Like Sisi
If ISIS kidnapped your own daughter and other young women for sexual slavery, you, and SMIRK too, wouldn't water board some turd who knew where they had taken them and wasn't talking.
Take your moral superiority and peddle it along some sidewalk somewhere.
Hell Quirk, you don't even give a damn about the Christian genocide going on.
Delete.
DeleteNonsense. This is what I am talking about. You are always talking about the Christians and the women. Please, explain to me what actions the US has taken to prevent any Christian genocide in the ME. Or, what they have done to help the women. Especially from 30,000 feet. I am interested.
John Kerry finally said that ISIS actions against Christians (as well as other groups) amounts to genocide. What he didn't say is that the US was going to do anything about it. Actions are more important than words. And the US has done nothing. In fact, Christians are sorely under-represented in the number of refugees the administration is planning on bringing into the US. And given their minority status, the Christians can't even go to the UN refugee camps as they are persecuted there too. Hell, one of the few places in the ME where Christians can feel relatively safe is with the Assad regime.
Once again, explain to me what the US has done for the Christians of the ME or the women for that matter. Tell me exactly how the US presence in the ME has helped rather than hurt these groups by turning more of them into refugees when not killing them. Tell me again how we are saving the village by burning it.
As for ISIS, Of course I am concerned about them. But I have something that is foreign to you, perspective. ISIS is a serious and major problem for us and for the world. ISIS is not an existential threat to the US as you and your bros in the flock seem to emote.
You throw these charges around all the time but they merely illustrate the vacuity of your thought processes. There is nothing behind them but a reliance on the same ol same ol. Where has that gotten us? Fifteen years older an exponential increase in debt. Don't even talk about what it's done to a good chunk of the world.
I would cite Einstein's definition of insanity to you again but it has become cliche, overworked and stale, when describing your posts here.
Go scrounge up some quarters and go to the casino.
.
We haven't done a thing under Obama.
DeleteAll he's done is made it worse, enabled the rise of ISIS, putting people at risk.
And your solution is ?
To call people like me who wanted to put up a no fly/safe zone(s) in Syria warmongers.
piddle, piddle, piddle
You must do better.
***********
Changing the subject to get on your nerves -
Portman is up over Strickland in Ohio by about 8%.
One of the reasons I think Trump will win Ohio.
.
DeleteAnd your solution is ?
Stop digging.
.
DeleteAmerica’s Retreat and the Agony of Aleppo
As Obama said on Aug. 31, 2013, in announcing his decision to delay military action and seek authorization for the use of force from Congress: “What is the point of the international system” if the chemical weapons ban can be flouted? He also said, “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?”
The answer is now clear: The dictator Assad will slaughter many more children. The international system undergirding global peace will become weaker.
Obama did not in fact say in the Rose Garden three years ago that he had rejected force; he urged Congress to get behind it. With time these events have blurred to make him “very proud of this moment.”
No outcome in Syria could be worse than the current one. Assad’s bomb-spewing jets and his airfields should have been taken out early in the war, before ISIS. The red line should have stood. The consequences for the European allies of Obama’s let-Syria-fester policy have been overwhelming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/opinion/from-sarajevo-to-aleppo.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
So there you are.
Things are not so simple as you might hope.
No man is an island....
DeleteNo outcome in Syria could be worse than the current one.
Wrong, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson
A Syria with al-Qaeda operative in charge would be a much, much worse outcome.
It is the outcome the Zionists preferred, which means, ex post facto, that it would not be in the best interest of the US.
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.
Delete“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.
Sorry to post so much Drudge, but his is a knee slapping gas -
ReplyDeleteKKK LEADER ENDORSES HILLARY....DRUDGE
Video Of KKK Grand Dragon Endorsing Hillary Clinton
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/video-kkk-grand-dragon-endorses-hillary-clinton/
Reporter: Who do you like for President, Sir ?
Will Quigg: Hillary Clinton
Reporter: Do you think whites are superior to blacks and latinos ?
Will Quigg: Well we are God's Chosen People
So we have La Raza preaching Latino superiority, the Nation of Islam preaching whites are devils and black superiority, the KKK endorsing Hillary because Quigg knows Hillary will keep the blacks penned up in the urban ghetto, for the votes, and The Donald is proclaimed the racist/fascist.
DeleteAnd D.F. Rufus buys it.....
Anyone remember when Hillary and BillyGoat played the white race card ? -
Delete“Flashback Friday”: Trump raises ante on Hillary attacks on “racism” with 2008 campaign reminders
posted at 10:01 am on August 26, 2016 by Ed Morrissey
A day after Hillary Clinton attacked Donald Trump for “pushing discredited conspiracy theories with racist undertones,” the Republican nominee has struck back — largely with Hillary’s own words. A new video on Trump’s Instagram pulls together some lowlights from the 2008 campaign that prompted criticism of Team Hillary’s alleged racist undertones at the time. Team Trump is calling this “Flashback Friday.”
Trump doesn’t limit the flashback to 2008, either:........
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/26/flashback-friday-trump-raises-ante-hillary-attacks-racism-2008-campaign-reminders/
Rufus ?
Remember ?
Just putting up an article from the NY Times -
DeleteAmerica’s Retreat and the Agony of Aleppo
Roger Cohen AUG. 25, 2016
Sarajevo and Aleppo, two cities once part of the Ottoman Empire, two cities whose diverse populations have included Muslims and Christians and Jews, two cities rich in culture that have been besieged and split in two and ravaged by violence, two cities where children have been victims — 20 years apart.
What a difference two decades make! Sarajevo was headline news through much of its 44-month encirclement. NATO planes patrolled the skies to prevent, at least, aerial bombardment of the population. Blue-helmeted United Nations forces were deployed in a flawed relief effort. President Bill Clinton, after long hesitation, authorized the NATO airstrikes that led to the lifting of the Serbian siege and an imperfect peace in Bosnia. Belated American intervention worked.
Aleppo lacks such urgency. It’s bombarded: What else is new? How often does the word “Aleppo” fall from President Obama’s lips (or indeed the lesson-freighted word “Sarajevo”)? At which dinner parties in London, Paris, Berlin or Washington is it discussed? Which Western journalists are able to be there to chronicle day after day their outrage at a city’s dismemberment? Who recalls that just six years ago Aleppo was being talked about in Europe as the new Marrakesh, a place to buy a vacation home?
Aleppo is alone, alone beneath the bombs of Russian and Syrian jets, alone to face the violent whims of President Vladimir Putin and President Bashar al-Assad.
Oh, yes, I know, when the photograph of a child like Omran Daqneesh is seen, as it was this month, covered in blood after being dug from the rubble of Aleppo, the image may go viral just long enough for people to lament the Syrian debacle. Lament and forget. There’s Donald Trump to think about. Forget the more than 400,000 dead, the more than 4.8 million refugees, and the destruction of a city like Aleppo that is an expression of millennia of civilization.
Daqneesh, whose brother Ali was killed, is this year’s Alan Kurdi, the dead Syrian child washed up on a Turkish beach who prompted another ephemeral spasm of outrage last September.
Today, as then, Aleppo is divided between a beleaguered eastern sector controlled by opposition groups and a larger western sector controlled by Assad’s brutal regime. The “cessation of hostilities” of last February has predictably collapsed. Russia, which moved into Syria last year when it realized that — come what may — Obama would sit this war out, leads the United States in a grotesque diplomatic pas de deux going nowhere.
American power has lost credibility in the past two decades. From Ukraine to Syria, Russia dictates events with impunity. The optimism, perhaps naïve, about a perfectible world that led to the endorsement by all United Nations member states in 2005 of the Responsibility to Protect — a commitment to prevent genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing — has died. R2P (its acronym) seems quaint, a wasted effort in a bygone world. ISIS and jihadi terrorism have curtailed Western journalists. Attention spans have shrunk as connectivity has accelerated.
These are some of the changes on the road from Sarajevo to Aleppo. They have produced a more dangerous, pessimistic world.
DeleteObama has said the Libyan intervention was his worst mistake. He has said he is “very proud of this moment” in 2013 when he decided to resist “immediate pressures” and not uphold with military force his own “red line” against the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
No, Syria has been Obama’s worst mistake, a disaster that cannot provoke any trace of pride; and within that overall blunder the worst error was the last-minute “red line” wobble that undermined America’s word, emboldened Putin and empowered Assad.
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.
As Obama said on Aug. 31, 2013, in announcing his decision to delay military action and seek authorization for the use of force from Congress: “What is the point of the international system” if the chemical weapons ban can be flouted? He also said, “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?”
The answer is now clear: The dictator Assad will slaughter many more children. The international system undergirding global peace will become weaker.
Obama did not in fact say in the Rose Garden three years ago that he had rejected force; he urged Congress to get behind it. With time these events have blurred to make him “very proud of this moment.”
No outcome in Syria could be worse than the current one. Assad’s bomb-spewing jets and his airfields should have been taken out early in the war, before ISIS. The red line should have stood. The consequences for the European allies of Obama’s let-Syria-fester policy have been overwhelming.
Watch the shattering video by Britain’s Channel 4 about the florist of Aleppo, the brave man who kept the city’s last flower store open, and weep. Understand that desperate people still beautify streets with flowers to assert life over death. The flower-seller is dead, his son’s terrible anguish that of a whole city.
Aleppo, symbol of failure, symbol of indifference, symbol of American retreat, should not have been left to bleed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/opinion/from-sarajevo-to-aleppo.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
DeleteA country cannot retreat or escape from a place it has NEVER been, Robert "Draft Dodger" Petrson
Hillary’s Race War
ReplyDeleteDisgusting lies, smears and hate.
August 26, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Hillary Clinton has met with leaders of a racist hate group responsible for torching cities and inciting the murders of police officers.
Deray McKesson, one of the Black Lives Matter hate group leaders she met with, had praised the looting of white people and endorsed cop killers Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Black Lives Matter hate group had specifically made a point of targeting white people in “white spaces” for harassment. It would go on to incite the mass murder of police officers in Dallas and other racist atrocities.
Despite all this, Hillary Clinton has never disavowed the racist hate group. Instead she doubled down on supporting the hate group and its icons at the Democratic National Convention.
Now, after Trump’s appeal to the black community, Hillary is desperately trying to divide us by race.
Despite Hillary’s latest hypocritical and self-serving accusations, Donald Trump has never held a meeting with leaders of a racist hate group. Hillary Clinton has. And she has refused all calls by police unions to end her support for a vicious hate group that has championed the release of cop killers and endorsed BDS against Israel.
When an 83-year-old great grandmother is viciously beaten by racist thugs and then set on fire, Hillary Clinton has nothing to say. She has remained silent about the wave of racist violence by her political allies that is sweeping this country and leaving victims battered or dead.
Hillary is trading on accusations of racism to distract attention from her ugly record of pandering to racists to get ahead. As Trump has said, “It’s the oldest play in the Democratic playbook. When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument. You’re racist, you’re racist, you’re racist!”.....
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263972/hillarys-race-war-daniel-greenfield
No man is a Rubber Duckie.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump's Doctor
"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," Bornstein wrote.
Asked how he could justify the hyperbole, Bornstein said, "I like that sentence to be quite honest with you."
As good a reason as any. I guess.
Bornstein didn't talk politics but said he's a fan of his patient.
"I like Donald Trump because I think he likes me," he said.
The Doctor is all in
.
He's got my vote.
DeleteIf I want some drugs, I'll tell him how much I like him.
===
GWB was in such great shape his pulse was 42.
Didn't keep him from falling off the couch.
Or blowing Michelle's mind with his dance moves.
Strikes in Syria
ReplyDeleteAttack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted nine strikes in Syria:
-- Near Shadaddi, five strikes engaged five separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed five fighting positions, a tactical vehicle and another vehicle.
-- Near Manbij, four strikes engaged four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed three fighting positions, four vehicles, an artillery system and a weapons cache.
Strikes in Iraq
Bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted eight strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Kisik, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.
-- Near Mosul, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed a fighting position and suppressed a tactical unit.
-- Near Qayyarah, a strike engaged an ISIL vehicle bomb factory.
-- Near Ramadi, three strikes destroyed an ISIL mortar position and a vehicle and damaged a fighting position.
-- Near Sinjar, a strike suppressed an ISIL rocket position.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle.
I see the blog's 'Dirt Bag Dead Beat Dad' is back.
ReplyDeleteI'm going in to the Casino.
Trying to de-program Quirk is bad enough.
Covering up for The Hag -
DeleteClinton's Schedule withheld
US won't provide before Election Day all Clinton schedules of her time as Secretary of State
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seven months after a federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing monthly batches of the detailed daily schedules showing meetings by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, the government told The Associated Press it won't finish the job before Election Day.
The department has so far released about half of the schedules. Its lawyers said in a phone conference with the AP's lawyers that the department now expects to release the last of the detailed schedules around Dec. 30, weeks before the next president is inaugurated.
The AP's lawyers late Friday formally asked the State Department to hasten that effort so that the department could provide all Clinton's minute-by-minute schedules by Oct. 15. The agency did not immediately respond.....
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CAMPAIGN_2016_CLINTON_FOUNDATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-08-26-19-32-28
"Q"Nit of the Day: Mississippi
ReplyDeleteMississippi: Son of Imam Gets 8 years for ISIS Plot
ByPamela Geller on August 26, 2016
Jihad in America
dakhlalla-jihadi - photo
This would-be mass slaughterer was given a sentence of only eight years. It’s a joke, and it shows how soft we are on the most savage and grave threat this nation faces. Muhammed Dakhlalla (photo above) gets eight years of prison dawah, halal meals, jihad terror network building, and incitement to kill once he emerges from his intensive “radicalization” program.
Another imam tied jihad plot to slaughter. Behind every act of Islamic terror, there is the imprimatur of a Muslim cleric. How did this “misunderstanding” of Islam become so widespread? Perhaps because it is the Islamic apologists and running dogs for sharia in the media and culture who are the ones “misunderstanding” Islam.
Where are Muslims and Muslim clerics teaching against the ideology that incites to jihad and sharia supremacism? Right now, nothing is being done to stop jihad recruiting in US mosques, even as more young Muslims engage in jihad terror.....
“Mississippi: Son of Starkville Imam Gets 8 years for ISIS Plot,” By Creeping, August 25, 2016:
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2016/08/mississippi-son-of-imam-gets-8-years-for-isis-plot.html/#sthash.sPKMeERG.dpuf
.
ReplyDeleteThe trend has reversed and Trump is running out of time.
RCP average: Clinton +6
.
.
DeleteOn the other hand, you gets who you vote for.
Paul Wolfowitch to vote for Hillary Clinton? Why not?
Ex-Bush adviser Paul Wolfowitz slams Trump, may back Clinton
BERLIN, Germany — Leading neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz said he would not back Donald Trump for US president and might vote for Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton instead, in an interview published Friday.
Wolfowitz, a top advisor to George W. Bush during his presidency and vociferous champion of the “preemptive war” in Iraq, told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that he saw Trump as a security risk.
“I wish there were somebody I could be comfortable voting for,” said Wolfowitz, also a former World Bank chief.
“I might have to vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I have big reservations about her..."
.
.
DeleteWhoops...
UPDATE
Today's RCP poll average has it
RCP Average: Clinton +6.3
And it's still interesting.
.
.
ReplyDeleteSyrian regime airstrikes kill 15 civilians in Aleppo mourning tent
Human rights monitor says first barrel bomb hit site near mourners as second struck while rescue services arrived
BEIRUT, Lebanon — At least 15 civilians were killed in a barrel bomb attack on a rebel-held district of Syria’s Aleppo city on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
The Britain-based group said regime aircraft had dropped two explosive-packed barrel bombs several minutes apart on the Maadi district of eastern Aleppo.
The strikes hit “near a tent where people were receiving condolences for those killed this week in the neighboring district of Bab al-Nayrab,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
“There was a first barrel bomb and when people gathered and the ambulances arrived, a second barrel struck and there were more deaths,” an AFP reporter in the rebel-held part of the city said.
“One ambulance was completely destroyed,” he added, citing the local civil defense unit.
The Observatory said dozens more were injured in the two strikes and the death toll was expected to rise.
In this frame grab taken from video provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), a child sits in an ambulance after being pulled out or a building hit by an airstirke, in Aleppo, Syria, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016. (Aleppo Media Center via AP)
Saturday’s deadly strikes come after 15 people, among them 11 children, were killed in a barrel bomb attack on Bab al-Nayrab on Thursday.
The local Shabha Press news agency said 23 people were killed in Saturday’s attack, and published photos showing several of the dead, including a man who appeared to have been riding a motorbike at the time of the strike.
Most of his blood-soaked body lay on one side of the overturned bike, but his severed leg lay on the other side...
.
.
ReplyDelete1930’s Redux
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ahead-in-polls-dutch-far-right-party-vows-to-close-mosques-ban-quran/
Ahead in polls, Dutch far-right party vows to close mosques, ban Quran
Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, set to double its seats in elections next year, wants to close borders, reverse ‘Islamization’
HE HAGUE, Netherlands — The political party of Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, which is leading polls ahead of parliamentary elections next year, has vowed to close mosques and “ban the Quran” in its manifesto.
“All mosques and Islamic schools closed, a ban on the Quran,” said the document outlining the electoral program of the Freedom Party (PVV) ahead of March 2017 legislative elections, which was posted on Wilders’ Twitter feed Thursday.
Wilders’ manifesto was the first published by a major political party ahead of elections for the lower house of Dutch parliament which are due by March 15 next year.
The PVV says it will reverse the “Islamization” of the country with a range of measures including closing the borders, shutting asylum seeker centers, banning migrants from Islamic countries and stopping Muslim women from wearing the headscarf in public…
==============================================
Wilders, who will go on trial for inciting racial hatred in October, also said he would do all he could to hold a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the EU, despite an unsuccessful first attempt in June following Britain’s shock Brexit vote.
His party has also pledged to cut all foreign aid while boosting funding for police and security.
.
Good for Wilders and the Dutch.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete.
DeleteI see the resident skin-head has signed in.
:o)
.
.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/poland/2016-08-25/polands-constitutional-crisis
Poland's Constitutional Crisis
How the Law and Justice Party is Threatening Democracy
By R. Daniel Kelemen
After simmering for nine months, the tension between Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, is coming to a boil. The PiS government is attempting an unconstitutional takeover of the tribunal—ignoring its rulings, trying to pack it with new judges, and, most recently, threatening the head judge with prosecution. At stake are the survival of constitutional democracy and the rule of law in Poland.
On July 27, the European Commission, which has been pressing the PiS to change course for months, called on the government to remedy the situation within three months or risk facing disciplinary proceedings that could lead to sanctions. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chair of the PiS and puppet master behind Prime Minister Beata Szydło’s government, responded that he was “amused” by Brussels’ warning. In the weeks since then, the PiS has pressed on with its attacks.
The PiS is determined to defeat the Constitutional Tribunal because it is a major impediment to Kaczynski’s plan to introduce a populist electoral autocracy in Poland along the lines of Viktor Orban’s in Hungary. When Orban became prime minister, in 2010, he had a parliamentary majority large enough to legally rewrite Hungary’s constitution to help cement his grip on power. But in Poland, where the procedures for amending the constitution are more demanding, the PiS does not have that option…
.
.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesofisrael.com/kurdish-militants-claim-deadly-car-bomb-attack-in-turkey/
Kurdish militants (terrorists?) claim deadly car bomb attack in Turkey
Attack at checkpoint near the town of Cizre killed at least 11 police officers and wounded 78 others
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Kurdish suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into a checkpoint near a police station Friday in southeast Turkey, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people, the prime minister said.
The attack struck the checkpoint 50 meters (yards) from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Sirnak province that borders Syria. Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck and the three-story police station gutted from the powerful explosion.
Rebels linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK claimed the attack — the latest in a string of bombings by the group targeting police or military vehicles and facilities.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim vowed to “destroy the terrorists…”
.