COLLECTIVE MADNESS


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

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

`Another Day, Another Stinking Rotten US Cop



A white police officer who fatally shot a black man after apparently mistaking his gun for a Taser has been charged with manslaughter.
Robert Bates, a 73-year-old volunteer sheriff's deputy, shot Mr Harris after an undercover weapons sting.
A video filmed on 2 April in Tulsa shows Eric Harris, 44, chased and brought to ground before he is shot. 
It follows a series of shootings of black men by white US police officers, which have sparked a national debate. 
Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler said the manslaughter charges involved culpable negligence.
It carries a prison sentence of up to four years.
Prosecutors said Mr Bates had served as a reserve deputy, a volunteer position, since 2008.
Some are questioning how Mr Bates, chief executive of an insurance firm and a major donor to the Sheriff's Office, came to be involved in such a high-risk operation.
The Harris family lawyer said he had paid big money to "play a cop".
Reserve Deputy Robert Bates
Robert Bates was a volunteer
The video of the shooting was released on the request of Mr Harris's family after an investigation. 
Mr Harris was accused of trying to sell an illegal gun to an undercover officer in a sting operation.
In the video, a gunshot is heard and a man says, "Oh, I shot him. I'm sorry."
Mr Harris is heard calling out "He shot me, he shot me" and says he is losing his breath as he is pinned down.
Another voice dismisses Mr Harris's complaint using an expletive.
Mr Harris was treated at the scene but died later in hospital. 
Eric Harris
Eric Harris's family described him as "sweet, nice, forgiving"
A police investigator said Bates thought he drew a stun gun, not his handgun.
For the second time in a week, a videotaped fatal shooting of a black man has provoked an outcry.
Last week Walter Scott, an unarmed 50-year-old, was shot in the back and killed in South Carolina. 
The protests that followed that incident continued months of demonstrations about police use of force, ever since a black unarmed teenager was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer.

69 comments:

  1. Listen to the dialogue on the video.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Fuck your breath," says our hero.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yesterday, the 8th largest economy on earth obtained 22% of its electricity from non-large hydro Renewables.

    CAISO

    ReplyDelete
  4. Did you see the tattooed scumbag cop on him?

    ReplyDelete
  5. It was a “sting”. I’ll bet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We're wasting the time and effort of a lot of good cops, sending them out to try to keep average Joes from smoking a joint. As a result we have to hire yahoos that have no business carrying a gun and badge to fill out the force.

      It's idiocy.

      If we're not careful, we'll end up no better than Nazi Germany, Israel, S. Africa, etc.

      Maybe when we get a white president the crazies will settle down a little.

      Delete
  6. These cops will never police themselves. This is a civil rights violation of the worst possible kind. The DOJ needs to take a few of these entire departments and disband them. Fire every last cop and rebuild from the ground up. Take a few dozen departments out and maybe they will get the message.

    Every time I see one of these over muscled, jacked up, blackbooted, cop-thug with the American flag on his shoulder, I want to spit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This country, glorifying cops and the military needs to get a grip.They don’t need to be thanked for their service. They are hired guns and need to know who their boss is and we better start selecting better bosses. Your right, we will end up with the likes of the shit birds in the IDF. We probably are almost there.

      Delete
    2. You speak out your ass.

      The IDF has a much finer record than American fighting forces when it comes to civilian kills or abuses.

      But don't let real fact interfere with your Israel hatred.

      The good news? 5 times as many palestinian have been butchered by fellow arabs in the last 39 months than the entire history of the Israel - arab conflict.

      The Arabs KNOW who to fear.

      And it aint the IDF.

      They fear Assad, Abbas, Hamas, Hezbollah and the non-aran Iranians.

      What is also interesting is how you claim to LOVE the palestinians and DO NOTHING to actually help them.

      all you do is spit hatred at Israel and now America.

      You cheerlead for Iran..

      Interesting.

      Delete
    3. The Zionists are killing an average of 13 Palestinian children each and every month of the 21st century.
      This is verifiable, what "O"rdure preaches, lies, deciet and agitprop.

      Delete
    4. I cheerlead for justice. You smugly run defense for the injustices caused by your first love, Israel. Interesting, hmmmm, LOL

      Delete
    5. That cop does not represent America, neither does AIPAC nor do the shit birds in the GOP Likuds Force.

      You have been singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” to destabilize the Middle East except of course and you are All American till your not as when the Israelis were using US military men, which you were never one of, for target practice on the attack of the USS Liberty.

      Interesting, hmmmm, LOL Asshole.

      Delete
    6. AIPAC is a large group of Americans from many religions, faiths and cultures that share importance of the US Israel relationship.

      No matter you define it as "not representing" America, Americans, by the tens of thousands do.

      You obsess about the USS Liberty and make excuses for the Iranians bombing the Barracks of the Marines, of killing US solders in Iraq with advanced IEDs, you have no problem supporting the Palestinians that have murdered a US Ambassador, kidnapped Americans, tortured and murdered them.

      Why do the 34 America soldiers, killed by Israel, rate higher than the THOUSANDS of Americans (both civilians and soldiers) INTENTIONALLY murdered by the Arab and Persians?

      Interesting.

      Israel apoligized for the incident, and paid reparations.

      The Palestinians, Iranians CELEBRATE the killings of Americans...

      Your selective outrage is suspect.

      Delete

    7. ISraeli are killing children, with US funding.
      They should be ashamed, more so the people of the US should b ashamed ...

      More are, every day. It is a 'good thing' that the support of the Zionists is slipping away.

      A hundred years before the advent of Hitler, the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, had declared:
      "Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."

      On the night of May 10, 1933, an event unseen in Europe since the Middle Ages occurred as German students from universities once regarded as among the finest in the world, gathered in Berlin to burn books with "unGerman" ideas.
      …. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-bookburn.htm

      May 20, 2008 - Orthodox Jews burn hundreds of New Testaments in latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in Israel. ... The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that hundreds of students took part in the book-burning. . . .

      Delete
    8. Yet wherever the left holds sway, Israel is seen through jaundiced eyes. There has been an unprecedented moral inversion, illustrating the power of a noxious idea to seep from the ideological fringe to the mainstream.

      The United States is not yet down to one pro-Israel party. But the seepage among Democrats continues. At the 2012 Democratic convention, a fight erupted over the deletion from the party’s platform of standard language acknowledging Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It took an order from the White House to restore the pro-Israel clause, and even then it had to be gaveled through over the vocal opposition of half the convention delegates.

      Not long ago, such a hostile gesture would have been unthinkable. Now, with each new poll confirming Democratic chilliness toward the Jewish state Democrats once loved, can it be anything but a precursor of worse to come?


      - Jeff Jacoby

      Delete
    9. What is "Occupation"Tue Apr 14, 10:22:00 AM EDT
      AIPAC is a large group of Americans from many religions, faiths and cultures that share importance of the US Israel relationship.

      No matter you define it as "not representing" America, Americans, by the tens of thousands do.

      You obsess about the USS Liberty and make excuses for the Iranians bombing the Barracks of the Marines, of killing US solders in Iraq with advanced IEDs, you have no problem supporting the Palestinians that have murdered a US Ambassador, kidnapped Americans, tortured and murdered them.

      Why do the 34 America soldiers, killed by Israel, rate higher than the THOUSANDS of Americans (both civilians and soldiers) INTENTIONALLY murdered by the Arab and Persians?

      Interesting.

      Israel apoligized for the incident, and paid reparations.



      Here is what the Israelis paid for The USS Liberty:

      $6.7 million to the injured survivors and the families of those killed in the attack
      $6 million for the loss of the Liberty itself.

      Delete
    10. Hawks like Cotton calling for Iran war are ignorant of battle’s human toll

      Bryan Box
      April 11, 2015


      “So you served in Afghanistan?”

      “Yep”

      “It must have been tough. I really think we should have turned the whole Middle East into a glowing crater."

      I’ve had that dialogue so many times I don’t even care to count. I’m still a little shocked every time I hear that sentiment. A “glowing crater” — it sounds pretty cool, but I hope most of the people who have said it to me while leaning in for that personal moment with a wink and some kind of knowing smile said it because they think it’s what I want to hear. A verbal celebration of savagery in response to an inhuman enemy.

      42 SWB 30859 26028

      It’s a string of letters and numbers to you. I get that. But to me, it’s exactly where I was standing when I first shot at another human being.

      Did I hit him? Who cares. I didn’t care at the time because I was in between the initial reaction of “Holy-mother-of-God-that-was-a-rocket-propelled-grenade-that-zipped-by-me!!” and the roaring adrenaline rush that comes to a paratrooper wanting nothing but to hear the blood-curdling screams of his enemy in the Afghan night.

      Six years into a “Short, Victorious War,” I got my chance to experience ultra-violence on a scale many of the readers of this newspaper cannot even comprehend: Commanders ordering us to unleash a 3,000-round hell-storm of machine gun fire, followed by a dozen or so mortar and artillery rounds, with an utterly world-ending finale of five GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munitions. Ten thousand pounds of ordinance — about a 200th of a kiloton, to kill one guy in a Toyota truck who had shot 30 rounds of AK at us from over 1 kilometer away. That simultaneous detonation was so utterly massive some of us were physically thrown by the shockwave, and the mountain was on fire for most of the next day.

      There’s a point to this tale of gratuitous violence, and I hope you pay attention.

      Of late, there has been a lot of saber-rattling regarding the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Certain members of our legislative branch appear to have more in common with the Likud party of Israel than with many of their countrymen, insisting that stricter sanctions and increased suffering on the part of the Iranian people will break the will of the Islamic Republic, and that if the sanctions fail to stop them from developing a nuclear weapon, a swift military solution will solve the problem.

      These people are what I call “unrealistic.”

      In no uncertain terms, they are leading us on the path to war, just as the neocon architects of the Bush Doctrine led me and my comrades into a 14-year-long campaign with zero strategic objectives or coherent instructions. Tom Cotton, the infantry platoon leader-turned-freshman U.S. senator from Arkansas, with a healthy building list of constitutionally inaccurate open letters, apparently thinks that a short air campaign to stop the Iranians will be a cakewalk. He likens the campaign to 1998’s Operation Desert Fox, and thinks it would not involve major ground operations.

      Delete


    11. An attack on Iran will not resemble Desert Fox by any means.

      Desert Fox’s attempts to neutralize potential WMD manufacturing and storage sites, and the Israeli airstrikes to destroy the Iraqi nuclear facilities in the 1980s were “easy” because the French had built Hussein’s reactor in plain sight, and eight years of sanctions and bombing every suspicious piece of hardware in the no-fly zones had significantly degraded Iraqi air defense capabilities.

      The Iranians had these opportunities to learn that we could strike anywhere with near-impunity, and adjusted their plans accordingly. Some of their facilities are underground and hardened to such a degree that even our improvised “Bunker Buster” munitions from the 1991 Gulf War could not touch them, and those things were — I kid you not — custom-made from howitzer barrels to destroy a single target. We have nothing conventional in the arsenal up to the task.

      The complete destruction of the Iranian nuclear facilities would require the deployment of nuclear weapons.

      Period.

      This is why Secretary of State John Kerry has been working his tail off to negotiate a peaceful solution, because our alternative is not just a short series of precision strikes, but a long, arduous campaign through mountainous terrain against an army featuring some of the best partisan operators since Jean Moulin and the French Resistance. These people are not joking around.

      The Iranians would never forgive us if we attacked, and would likely do everything in their power to build and operationally deploy a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible. Within days of such an attack, we would see every Iranian moderate who supported the peace talks hanging from Tehran light poles. Iran could also mine the Strait of Hormuz, hit a carrier strike group with swarms of Exocet missiles, and do a whole grab-bag of other bad things to us. This doesn’t even account for the number of dead soldiers in a ground campaign, which I assure you, would make the recent "Global Death Blossom" look like a tea party.

      Make no mistake, we would win. The American strategy of "overwhelming violence of action" can win. But at the end of it, we would be nothing more than a blood-slathered pack of barbarians perched on a pyramid of skulls in the eyes of the world, and any future American diplomatic endeavor would forever be tainted by such a flippant, thoughtless military action.

      Why do I want to prevent this war? I have been to war twice. It’s a disgusting, bloody and violent affair that ruins the lives of innocent people and soldiers alike. These war-hawks have never had to wash the blood of a 6-year-old boy out of their uniform like I have. They have never had to see a kid come into an aid station with a fistulated colon because some trigger-happy American platoon leader ordered his machine gunner to spray a crowd after a roadside bomb attack the year before. They’ve never looked into the eyes of a kid with a year-old wound oozing feces out of a hole in his stomach, and they’ve never had to watch good men die.

      Never make the mistake of forgetting the humanity of the people you see through the looking glass.


      Bryan Box is a veteran of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and is currently using his Post-9/11 G.I. Bill at UAA to earn a bachelor's in biology with dual minors in physics and chemistry, which he considers a gift from the American people he is truly grateful for.

      Delete
    12. This guy knows what he is talking about.

      Delete
    13. The complete destruction of the Iranian nuclear facilities would require the deployment of nuclear weapons.


      There is NO NEED for the "complete destruction" of the Iranian nuclear facilities, targeted key links in the chain could delay it, coupled with regime change support....

      That's the ticket...

      It's not an all or nothing equation.

      Delete
    14. Giving Iran billions in sanctions relief is already paying off for Iran, billions in weapons, advanced weapons have been transferred to Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas and Hezbollah are already tunneling under Israel's borders for another round of war....

      But Deuce have said that Israel has no right to be and the Jews should leave, so it's their own fault if their 6 year's blood is spilled...

      Thanks Iran, thanks Obama.

      Delete
    15. The idea of the IDF attacking Iran is absurd. I can just see that motley crew marching onto Teheran.The only thing Israel will do is what it does best and that is shakedown DC for more money. Any bets against it. I’ll give two to one odds.

      Delete
  7. .

    A volunteer cop?

    On patrol?

    73 years old?

    How widespread is this?

    Sounds crazy to me.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pretty widespread, Legionnaire.
      Developed decades ago in AZ, by the Maricopa County Sheriff.

      We call 'em Posse members.
      Real popular form of hobby, out in the retirement villages.

      Delete
    2. http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/injured-mcso-posse-member-phillip-grigg-among-graduates-at-sheriffs-citizens-academy

      http://www.azfamily.com/story/28616376/man-gets-7-years-for-armed-robbery-that-led-to-officer-posse-member-shooting

      Delete
    3. Wow Jack you learned how to USE google.....

      Amazing.

      Delete
    4. The only thing that amazes, "O"rdure, you never realized that salient reality, previously.

      Been using it for years, you ought to try. If you were to, it would become apparent to you that many of your long held delusions are just that, delusions.

      Delete
    5. I KNEW it, that's why I called you a lazy prick of a man for NOT using it just yesterday.

      Sarcasm, you really don't understand English do you?

      Delete
  8. .

    Jim Kramer on CNBC is hyperventilating this morning over the strong dollar.

    He argues that we should have an administration that will come out against any and all trade deals. He argues our record on negotiating trade deals is pathetic. He can't think of a one that has helped the US. He argues the ones pushing them here are the big boys, that they help the multinationals but they hurt jobs and the US.

    He, and most of the panel, argue that the US should be investing a $1 trillion dollars (as a start) in infrastructure projects, fixing roads, bridges, the net, creating a new a US autobahn.

    I tend to agree especially with the infrastructure investment. The US spends almost $1 trillion a year in the military and domestic security and we have seen the results or lack of them worldwide and domestically. I saw an article yesterday on the amount of money we waste storing obsolete military equipment. In many cases, it costs many multiple times more to store the equipment than the original cost of the equipment. that is likely the reason we are arming our civilian police forces. It's easier and cheaper to give away the obsolete and surplus equipment than to store it.

    In trying to google the article, the first 5 links that popped up where titled

    Special Report: The Pentagon's doctored ledgers conceal epic waste

    Lawmakers force Pentagon to buy tanks, keep ships and planes it ...

    New Air Force Planes Go Directly to 'Boneyard' | Military.com

    Scrap Heap of War: Billions in equipment being left behind - Fox News

    Military Waste and Fraud Are the Main Cause of Our Problems | The ...


    15 Facts About Military Spending That Will Blow Your Mind

    The payback on the infrastructure on the hand is very short. The infrastructure in the US is third world at present and getting worse. Not only is it an embarrassment it is costing us dearly.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rufus has advocated for an infrastructure project that would limit the US dependence upon foreign oil, to which you have been steadfastly opposed, Legionnaire.

      Are you coming around ?

      Delete
    2. .

      I have been politicking for infrastructure investment for as long as I have been on the blog.

      As for my position on energy projects it also has not changed. Your question would indicate to me you might not understand that position.

      My arguments with Rufus, and with you, have centered mainly on priorities, on your emphasis on all positives while ignoring the offsets, and with your Pollyannish optimism that major shifts in the way we live can be accomplished over night.

      From the beginning, I have argued that going forward we will need every energy source available to us to meet future needs. However, in speaking of infrastructure, my idea of government infrastructure spending in energy would be investment in research and the development of new technologies or in tax breaks for private investment in R&D as opposed to dictates and mandates. I also argued against the priorities set by this administration. In 2009, I thought Obama's stimulus program should have been centered on jobs that were actually 'shovel ready', the type of infrastructure jobs I was talking about above. Instead, he concentrated on other things, on 'shovel ready jobs that weren't quite shovel ready'.

      .

      Delete
    3. Shifting consumption from pure petroleum to an ethanol mix is a solution that would not cause ...
      ... major shifts in the way we live ...

      Anything but.
      Now one could dispute the 'speed' with which the infrastructure could be developed, but that was not your primary concern.

      You told us that ethanol blends were destructive ... but never addressed the decades of ethanol consumption in Brazil and the reality that their vehicles last as long as ours, mas o menos.

      Delete
    4. .

      You told us that ethanol blends were destructive ...

      Pure nonsense.

      What I argued is the fuel has to meet the engine design. I quoted right off the DOE website. I argued the 'reality in the USA' as dictated by politics and law. You offer up bubblegum and lollipops just like your statement a few years ago that we could within a year replace all our energy needs by planting on government land and turning it into ethanol or Rufus' statement that we could set up ethanol plants in every county in the US. It ignores practical reality.

      If you don't like it, take it up with the Department of Energy.

      As of 2011, EPA began allowing the use of E15 in model year 2001 and newer gasoline vehicles.2 Pumps dispensing E15 must be labeled (see example). The vehicle owner's manual may indicate the manufacturer's maximum recommended ethanol content.

      https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml

      .

      Delete
    5. .

      Now one could dispute the 'speed' with which the infrastructure could be developed, but that was not your primary concern.

      Of course this was one of my primary concerns. You are going to have to try reading a little closer. Some of the comments I've seen here look like they have been put up by itinerant futurists high on loco weed. They ignore reality.

      .

      Delete
    6. You have been reading your own missives, again?

      Delete
    7. >>itinerant futurists high on loco weed<<

      Hmmm.....that's got the sounds of ol' Rufus, to me.

      Delete
  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
    2. Deuce hasn't any sense of humor, or of reality either.

      Delete
  10. Philly would be even worse than the bad dream it is without the Police.

    It would be a nightmare in under two months.

    Deuce would survive, however, at least for awhile, due to his Security Force and Walled Compound.

    My OGF lives in one of these places with an ex-Marine who is loaded with guns, and I told her they would make it for awhile.

    Until things got organized amongst the criminals, then they would become Target Number One, and would last about as long as the Amish in a famine.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Deuce ☂Tue Apr 14, 11:06:00 AM EDT
    Interesting indeed.

    How much have the Palestinians paid in reparations for war crimes against Americans?

    Have they apoligized?

    How about Iran?

    Have they?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How many America GI's were killed by Japan? Germany? The Brits?

      Delete
    2. Your mixing the victims with their tormenters. The French, Dutch, Belgian, Yugoslavian and Polish Underground fought the Nazi occupiers. The Iranians are on the side of the underground not the occupiers.

      Delete
    3. The NAZI of Europe have become the NASI of ISrael ...

      The twists and turns of politics, being what they are.
      But that the Zionists had no compulsions against killing European Jews, to advance the political aims of Zionism, a fact.

      On Nov. 25, 1940, a boat carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, the “Patra,” 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

      Zionists murder civilians, Jewish refugees in a False Flag operation


      Delete

    4. “Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the few in order to save the many,”



      Finally, in "Shabtai Tzvi", Labor Zionism and the Holocaust, which was published also by Modiin, Barry Chamish writes (on pg. 232) that, about a year before he became Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon said that had Jabotinsky been head of the Jewish Agency instead of Ben-Gurion, millions of Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust.

      "Perfidy, The Transfer Agreement", and "The Scared And The Doomed" are accurate books (which were created by Jewish people, not anti-Semite bigots) that detail how Labor Zionism prevented the rescue of European Jewry.


      http://firstlightforum.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/zionists-collaborate-with-hitler-to-squeeze-the-lesser-jews-into-palestine/



      Delete
  12. I am all in for infrastructure but let the Treasury finance it with new project currency. Keep the Fed and Wall Street out of it. Use the new currency to pay suppliers and wages. Withdraw the currency over the depreciated life of the asset. You will see wage and economic growth without debt expansion.

    ReplyDelete
  13. interesting what those US boots "not on the ground" on the ground in Iraq are saying about the Iraqi army:

    "U.S. Soldiers, Back in Iraq, Find Security Forces in Disrepair
    By ROD NORDLANDAPRIL 14, 2015

    CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Lt. Col. John Schwemmer is here for his sixth Iraq deployment. Maj. James Modlin is on his fourth. Sgt. Maj. Thomas Foos? “It’s so many, I would rather not say. Sir.”

    These soldiers are among 300 from the 5-73 Squadron of the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army, about half of them trainers, the rest support and force protection. Stationed at this old Iraqi military base 20 miles north of Baghdad, they are as close as it gets to American boots on the ground in Iraq.

    Back now for the first time since the United States left in 2011, none of them thought they would be here again, let alone return to find the Iraqi Army they had once trained in such disrepair.

    Colonel Schwemmer said he was stunned at the state in which he found the Iraqi soldiers when he arrived here. “It’s pretty incredible,” he said. “I was kind of surprised. What training did they have after we left?”


    Continue reading the main story

    Related Coverage



    Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq speaking to the news media in Baghdad before a trip to the United States on Monday.

    Iraqi Prime Minister, in Washington, Seeks Billions to Overcome DeficitAPRIL 14, 2015


    Apparently, not much. The current, woeful state of the Iraqi military raises the question not so much of whether the Americans left too soon, but whether a new round of deployments for training will have any more effect than the last.

    Iraq’s army looked good on paper when the Americans left, after one of the biggest training missions carried out under wartime conditions. But after that, senior Iraqi officers began buying their own commissions, paying for them out of the supply, food and payroll money of their troops. Corruption ran up and down the ranks; desertion was rife.

    The army did little more than staff checkpoints. Then, last year, four divisions collapsed overnight in Mosul and elsewhere in northern Iraq under the determined assault of Islamic State fighters numbering in the hundreds or at most the low thousands, and the extremists’ advance came as far as this base.

    An army that once counted 280,000 active-duty personnel, one of the largest in the world, is now believed by some experts to have as few as four to seven fully active divisions — as little as 50,000 troops by some estimates — although the director of media operations for Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, Qais al-Rubaiae, said that even by the most conservative estimates, the army now has at least 141,000 soldiers in 15 divisions.

    ..."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/world/middleeast/iraq-military-united-states-forces-camp-taji.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yeppers, Ash.

    The US left Iraq to the Iraqi .
    Rather than stay and submit US troops to Sharia Law, much as that annoys Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.

    That the Iraqi leaders, those elected by the "Purple Fingers of Freedom", did a poor job seems quite evident.
    Whether that was an outcome of the US approved constitution or the cultural proclivities of Iraq, another of the many 'unknowns'.

    I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that.
    Donald Rumsfeld


    ReplyDelete
  15. USA TODAY -

    CAIRO (AP) - Yemen's al-Qaeda branch announced on Tuesday that its top cleric, a Saudi-national who has had a $5 million bounty on his head, has been killed, allegedly in a drone attack.

    So, this would seem to indicate that the interests of the US have not been 'Set Back' by the civil war in Yemen

    ReplyDelete
  16. An itinerant futurist named Rufus, high on loco weed, another of God's own original prototypes, never even considered for mass production.

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

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


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

      Delete
  17. Dang, forgot the smiley face.

    :)

    One must admit that Q, along with WiO,c is one of the remaining delights of this blog, and with a good deal of regularity comes up with a memorable and hilarious phrase.

    We also have Ash, a continual source of delight, for his naivete and college level incoherence, as well as Rufus for his professional league level optimism.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How did that c get in there right after WiO ?

      Got a doc's appointment and got to go.

      Last PSA level test results need to be gone over.

      Hopefully this is the end of the prostate cancer saga.

      If Dale had good doctors like have I had he'd still be alive today.

      Alas, he got the VA/ObamaCare treatment and was simply put in 'park' until he died, a money saving measure to be sure, and is now resting in his grave.

      Delete
  18. Deuce ☂Tue Apr 14, 01:00:00 PM EDT
    Your mixing the victims with their tormenters. The French, Dutch, Belgian, Yugoslavian and Polish Underground fought the Nazi occupiers. The Iranians are on the side of the underground not the occupiers.


    So when Iran blows up a Jewish Community Center and murders several hundred kids they are the "underground"?

    You and Denile are not just a river in Egypt.

    ReplyDelete
  19. How many Iranian scientists, mostly professors and post graduate students with young families, have the Israelis murdered?

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    1. the Mossad - ran an assassination campaign for several years aimed at Iran's top nuclear scientists. The purpose was to slow the progress made by Iran, which Israel feels certain is aimed at developing nuclear weapons; and to deter trained and educated Iranians from joining their country's nuclear program.

      At least five Iranian scientists were murdered, most of them by bombs planted on their cars as they drove to work in the morning. Remarkably, the Israeli assassins were never caught - obviously having long-established safe houses inside Iran - although several Iranians who may have helped the Mossad were arrested and executed.

      In addition to strong signals from the Obama Administration that the U.S. did not want Israel to continue the assassinations, Mossad officials concluded that the campaign had gotten too dangerous. They did not want their best combatants - Israel's term for its most talented and experienced spies - captured and hanged.

      President Obama - much to the discomfort of Israeli officials - is pursuing negotiations with Iran. The United States is one of the P5+1 nations, continuing to talk with the Iranians about rolling back some of their nuclear potential.

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    2. Yep so this justifies the bombing of civilian community centers?

      Iran has ran an assassination campaign for several years aimed at Israel's top politicians and embassies…..

      It's war.

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    3. How many Jews has Iranian rockets fired down on from Hamas and hezbollah?

      3-4 million people?

      Iran is playing with fire and will get it's fingers burnt.

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    4. Deuce ☂Tue Apr 14, 04:22:00 PM EDT
      How many Iranian scientists, mostly professors and post graduate students with young families, have the Israelis murdered?


      How many Iranian Jews have been arrested and tortured to death?

      How many were expelled?

      How many Americans have been kidnapped by Iran?

      How many Syrian & Iraqi Sunnis has Iran helped murder? At last count 300,000 Syrians and 550,000 Iraqis

      Not bad for your pals..

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    5. In a fascinating lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history.
       
      The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things.
       
      Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.


      http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html


      Genrikh Yagoda, the greatest mass murderer of the 20th Century, was an Ashkenazi Jew

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    6. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system.

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    7. The Zionists cannot handle armed opponents, "O"rdure.
      So they do not even try.

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    8. The Zionists specialize in killing children and women, mostly.
      Old men, too.

      Just like the folks they would accept ruling in Syria ... al-Qeada and its progeny.

      Israel 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.




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  20. At this moment, California is obtaining 34% of its electricity from non-large hydro Renewables.

    CaISO

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  21. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces targeted Islamic State militants in Syria with three air strikes and conducted another 15 strikes against the group in Iraq from Monday to Tuesday morning, the U.S. military said.

    All three of the strikes in Syria were conducted using fighter aircraft and hit targets near Kobani, it said in a statement released on Tuesday. In Iraq, the air strikes were conducted with fighter and attack planes as well as drones and occurred near Bayji, Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadim and Sinjar, it said.

    (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

    Mo Daid

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