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."

Friday, May 22, 2015

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2012 knew that Al Qaida in Iraq was behind the Syrian insurgency



On Monday, May 18, the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch published a selection of formerly classified documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department through a federal lawsuit.
While initial mainstream media reporting is focused on the White House’s handling of the Benghazi consulate attack, a much “bigger picture” admission and confirmation is contained in one of the Defense Intelligence Agency documents circulated in 2012: that an ‘Islamic State’ is desired in Eastern Syria to effect the West’s policies in the region.

Secret Intel Reports on Syria and Iraq Revealed


Why did U.S. Ignore the Analysis and Predictions?
Almost three years ago the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the U.S. Dept of Defense accurately characterized the conflict in Syria and predicted the emergence of the Islamic State. This stunning revelation has emerged as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch in connection with the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
The heavily redacted August 2012 seven page intelligence report reveals the following:
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) confirmed the sectarian core of the Syrian insurgency. 
It says:
Events are taking a clear sectarian direction.  The Salafist, The Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” (capitalization in the report; AQI = Al Queda in Iraq)
This analysis is in sharp contrast with western media and political elite which has characterized the “Syrian revolution” as being driven by protestors in a quest for “democracy and freedom”.
DIA confirmed the close connection between Syrian opposition and Al Queda. 
The report says:
AQI supported the Syrian Opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media….. AQI conducted a number of operations in several Syrian cities under the name Jaish al Nusrah (Victorious Army).
DIA confirmed that the Syrian insurgency was enabling the renewal of Al Queda in Iraq and Syria.
The report says:
There was a regression of AQI in the Western provinces of Iraq during the years of 2009 and 2010; however, after the rise of the insurgency in Syria, the religious and tribal powers in the regions began to sympathize with the sectarian uprising.  This sympathy appeared in Friday prayer sermons, which called for volunteers to support the Sunnis in Syria.
DIA predicted the Syria government will survive but foreign powers and the opposition will try to break off territory to establish an opposition ‘capital’ as was done in Libya. 
The report says:
The regime will survive and have control over Syrian territory…. opposition forces are trying to control the eastern areas adjacent to the western Iraqi provinces (Mosul and Anbar), in addition to neighboring Turkish borders. Western Countries, the Gulf States and Turkey are supporting these efforts. This hypothesis is most likely in accordance with the data from recent events, which will help prepare safe havens under international sheltering, similar to what transpired in Libya when Benghazi was chosen as the command center of the temporary government.
DIA predicted the expansion of Al Queda and declaration of “Islamic State” (two years before it happened). 
The report says:
If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).  The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation …. this creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the Jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the Dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.
The last prediction (in summer 2012) is especially remarkable since it predates the actual declaration of the “Islamic State” by two years.
The August and September 2012 secret reports were sent to the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, State Department, Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command.
Conclusions and Questions
The Defense intelligence report accurately characterized the sectarian core of the Syrian opposition and predicted the renewal and growth of ISIS leading to the declaration of an “Islamic State”.
The consequence has been widespread death and destruction. Today much of the world looks on in horror as ISIS military forces murder and behead Palmyra soldiers and government supporters and threaten the destruction of one of humanity’s greatest archaeological treasures.
Knowing what was in this report raises the following questions:
* Why did the U.S. Government not change their policy?
* Why did the U.S. Government continue to demonize the secular Assad government and actively support a Syrian insurgency where “The Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major force?”?
* Why did the U.S. Government prevent mainstream media from seeing and reporting on this intelligence in 2012? (It might have quieted the barking hounds of war.)
* Why did the U.S. Government continue to allow the shipping of weapons to the Syrian opposition, as documented in another secret report from September 2012?
* Is the destruction and mayhem the result of a mistake or is it intentional?
Intentional or not, aren’t the U.S. government and Gulf/NATO/Turkey allies significantly responsible for the mayhem, death and destruction we are seeing in Iraq and Syria today?
Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: rsterling1@gmail.comRead other articles by Rick.





167 comments:

  1. I cannot overemphasize the importance of the DIA. It is impossible that this information was not known to The Congress, The White House and The Pentagon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Feb 11, 2014 in comments before Senate Armed Services Committee:

    The current instability in Syria presents a perfect opportunity for Al-Qa’ida and associated groups to acquire these weapons or their components. While Syria’s stockpiles are currently under the control of the regime, the movement of these weapons from their current locations, for disposal or other reasons, drastically increases the risk of these weapons or their components falling into the wrong hands.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...What he fails to say is the weapons of mass destruction that were falling into the hands of ISIS were manufactured in the US and given to the allies of ISIS.

      06/22/14 09:39 AM EDT


      Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that the Sunni militants taking over Iraq have quickly gained power because the United States armed their allies in Syria.

      “I think we have to understand first how we got here,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” "I think one of the reasons why ISIS has been emboldened is because we have been arming their allies. We have been allied with ISIS in Syria."

      Paul was asked whether the U.S. should shift its focus to Syria

      "We have been fighting alongside al Qaeda, fighting alongside ISIS," he said. "ISIS is now emboldened and in two countries. But here's the anomaly. We're with ISIS in Syria. We're on the same side of the war. So, those who want to get involved to stop ISIS in Iraq are allied with ISIS in Syria. That is real contradiction to this whole policy."
      Paul downplayed the idea that ISIS is an immediate threat to the U.S., but said it could be “at some point.”

      “I don’t think ISIS in in the middle of the battle right now thinking, ‘Hmm, I think we’re going to send inter-continental ballistic missiles to America,’” Paul said.

      ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, has been collaborating with the Syrian rebels whom the Obama administration has been arming in their efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Paul explained.

      The administration has reportedly assisted the moderate opposition in Syria, but details about the dissemination of those resources are unclear.

      “That is the real contradiction to this whole policy,” Paul said. “If we were to get rid of Assad,” it would become a “jihadist wonderland in Syria.”

      Delete
    2. Nick Thompson, CNN Sun October 7, 2012

      Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, says militant groups “of all persuasions" are now operating in Syria -- and that some groups increasingly appear to be carrying out joint co-ordinated attacks.

      While Lister says the majority of the militias now in Syria are not Islamic extremists, analysts believe a hard-line jihadist group known as Jabhat al Nusra, which has claimed responsibility for a string of recent suicide attacks across Syria, has close links with al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq.

      "Their focus now is on recruiting suicide bombers. They want to copycat the Zarqawi model,” Noman Benotman, a former Libyan Jihadist now with the Quilliam Foundation in London, told CNN.

      Delete
  3. Biden’s admission: US allies armed ISIS

    6 October 2014



    Speaking to students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Forum Thursday, US Vice President Joseph Biden committed what the US media characterizes as a “gaffe.” In other words, he told an embarrassing truth about US government policy, one that is usually obfuscated in the remarks of government officials and the commentaries of media pundits.
    Asked about US policy in Syria, Biden touched on the dirty secret of the current US-led war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. ISIS (or ISIL as the Obama administration terms it) is essentially the creation of the United States and its allies who fomented civil war in Syria against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
    Referring to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Biden said, “They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad—except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”
    “Now you think I’m exaggerating,” he continued, to emphasize his point. “Take a look! Where did all of this go?” Biden claimed that the US opposed arming these al Qaeda-linked groups, which included ISIS, adding, “We could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them.”
    According to Biden’s narrative, only in the summer of 2014 did these countries realize that ISIS was a threat to them as well as to Assad, and shifted, joining in the US campaign of air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria. He gave as an example the position of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggesting that he had admitted the error of a permissive policy towards the extremists: “President Erdogan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border.”
    It is testament to the degeneracy of the American political system that the circumstances behind ISIS’s rise, alluded to in Biden’s remarks, have not been the subject of any investigation. There have been no calls in Congress for hearings to examine the origins of an organization whose actions have been seized on to proclaim a new war in the Middle East.
    As for the media, it merely serves as a government mouthpiece.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bottom line:

    The US government knew about what was behind the Syrian opposition from the beginning.

    Syria was an extension of what happened in Libya and arms captured in Libya were shipped by the CIA into Syria and used by ISIS and their front groups.

    The Obama Administration wanted to speed up the fall of the Assad regime by bombing them in concert with the British. The US public said no and without the bombing the US and its allies in the Middle East pumped more lethal arms into the forces of those fighting Syria but were in fact ISIS.

    The Neocon scheme to destabilize regimes hostile to Israel has blown up in the faces of the US and all the usual suspects including the British, The French and according to reports tonight, Saudi Arabia.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Headlines:

    Islamic State (IS) have claimed a suicide attack on a mosque in Saudi Arabia's Qatif governorate that killed at least 20 people and injured 70, according to local reports.

    In a statement released on social media, an affiliate calling themselves Wilayat Najd (Najd Province) claimed responsibility for the attack, naming the perpetrator as Abu Amer al-Najdi.

    - See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/deadly-suicide-attack-mosque-saudi-arabias-qatif-eyewitness-1535212409#sthash.tGzbne3A.dpuf

    ReplyDelete
  6. ISIS now claims that they have the money, the means and the motivation to buy a nuclear weapon.

    I take them at their word. Didn’t the Neocons have a great idea?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I heard some one say they were "JV"

      Oh wait, that was Obama, on taking the troops out too soon.

      Been down the shit slide ever since.

      But wait ! In any case we have it from our house 'military expert' that ISIS is total toast in Iraq in less that four days.

      Rufus, out other predictor here, has backed off his 4th of July date, saying now sooner or later they will get theirs, makes no biggie exactly when.

      Chill.

      Everything is gonna be fine.

      "It's not an ending unless it's a happy yet, Uncle Bob....."

      Delete
    2. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson is fantasizing about incestuous 'happy endings'.

      Delete
  7. It certainly explains why the US support of the Iraqi government has been so anemic.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What city would ISiS nuke first ?

    Tehran

    Tel Aviv

    Cairo

    Damascus

    Vatican City

    Rome

    Detroit, Michigan

    NYC

    LA

    ?????????

    Your guess is probably better than mine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      No doubt, Moscow, Idaho, then center of US intelligence.

      .

      Delete
  9. Please Support Israel’s Caucus in The U.S. Congress

    http://www.israelallies.org/usa/member_directory/

    ReplyDelete
  10. O Oh

    The signs for Hillary are looking bad :


    EMAILS: Interview becomes 'awkward' when reporter repeatedly touches Hillary's knee...

    MONICA II: 'Can I ride in your lap to the White House?'

    Redacted words cause more trouble... MAG: Demise of Democratic Party... Hillary Discussed Speculation About Her Health...

    'My cracked head'...

    Forgets Where She Is...

    Campaigning in 'bubble,' isolated from real people...

    Demands Anonymity On Conference Call With Media...

    Racking up endorsements -- from rappers!.................Drudge



    Really really bad.

    Look at this :

    'My cracked head'...

    Forgets Where She Is... Drudge

    ReplyDelete
  11. Time for you to go for it and try to get that $Billion Dollar Interview you've always talked about, Quirk.

    ReplyDelete
  12. (CNN)A three-hour shootout between Mexican security forces and unidentified gunmen Friday left 42 of the gunmen dead, as well as one federal police officer, officials said.

    Three gunmen were arrested.

    The lengthy firefight erupted in the town of Tanhuato, Michoacan state, when a joint force of federal and state security forces encountered the gunmen in the course of an investigation, Mexican National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said at a news conference.

    The gunmen belonged to a criminal organization operating in the neighboring state of Jalisco, Rubido said, though he didn't name the group.

    The commissioner's description of the gunmen contradicts earlier reports that described them as "armed civilians." At least two news agencies, Reuters and AFP, reported that the confrontation was between security forces and civilians. They cited unnamed Mexican officials.

    The governor or Michoacan, Salvador Jara, said in television interview that it is "very likely" that the shootout involved the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/22/americas/mexico-tanhuato-michoacan-shootout/

    ReplyDelete

  13. If the Islamic State can buy a nuclear weapon, then the Iranians could easily buy one, if the Iranians wanted one.

    The fear mongers are going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, their logic is flawed.
    If nuclear weapons are available on the weapons market, the Iranans cold certainly afford to buy one, if the Iranians wanted a nuclear weapons capability.

    So either the story that the Islamic State can buy one is false, or the idea that the Iranians really want one is.
    That is the pudding, why don't you tell us how it tastes, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The Iranians don't need to buy one. They already have the fixings.

    Th Saudis do need to buy one, and perhaps ISIS too, ISIS is on the ropes come Memorial Day, 2015 as we have been foretold by you, da fool.

    ISIS is not a player in Iraq in three more days.....

    ReplyDelete
  15. Was going to mention how the Republicans, who have 16 viable candidates for President at this point, are trying to narrow it down to 10 some way so they can have some manageable debates......

    Carli Fiorina doesn't want to be left out.......nobody wants to be left out......Q is, once again, demanding his place in the sun......the Reborn Republican he is calling himself.......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He has signed the pledge to never ever vote for Hillary under any circumstances.....

      Delete
  16. US officials: Iran enters Iraqi fight for key oil refinery

    May 22, 4:00 PM (ET)

    By ROBERT BURNS

    (AP) Displaced civilians from Ramadi wait to receive humanitarian aid from the United...
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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran has entered the fight to retake a major Iraqi oil refinery from Islamic State militants, contributing small numbers of troops — including some operating artillery and other heavy weapons — in support of advancing Iraqi ground forces, U.S. defense officials said Friday.

    Two U.S. defense officials said Iranian forces have taken a significant offensive role in the Beiji operation in recent days, in conjunction with Iraqi Shiite militia. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    One official said Iranians are operating artillery, 122mm rocket systems and surveillance and reconnaissance drones to help the Iraqi counteroffensive.

    The Iranian role was not mentioned in a new U.S. military statement asserting that Iraqi security forces, with U.S. help, had managed to establish a land route into the Beiji refinery compound. The statement Friday by the U.S. military headquarters in Kuwait said Iraqis have begun reinforcing and resupplying forces isolated inside the refinery compound.

    Iran's role in Iraq is a major complicating factor for the Obama administration as it searches for the most effective approach to countering the Islamic State group. U.S. officials have said they do not oppose contributions from Iran-supported Iraqi Shiite militias as long as they operate under the command and control of the Iraqi government.

    Friday's U.S. military statement quoted Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley as saying that over the past three days Iraqi security forces and federal police have made "steady, measured progress" in regaining some areas leading to the Beiji refinery compound, in the face of suicide vehicle-borne bombs and rocket attacks. Weidley, chief of staff of the U.S.-led military headquarters in Kuwait, recently described the oil refinery as a "key infrastructure and critical crossroads."

    The U.S. statement said Iraqis, enabled by the U.S. and its coalition partners, have "successfully cleared and established a ground route" into the refinery to resupply Iraqi troops. It listed U.S. and coalition contributions as including airstrikes, reconnaissance and the use of "advise and assist elements."

    Asked about the newly emerging role of Iranian forces in Beiji, the U.S. command in Kuwait declined to comment directly, citing "operational security reasons." It added that all forces involved in Beiji are "aligned with the government of Iraq" and under the control of Iraqi security forces.

    Separately, the Pentagon said Friday that the cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria since U.S. airstrikes began in August is $2.44 billion as of May 7.

    IS fighters recently gained substantial control over the Beiji oil refinery, a strategically important prize in the battle for Iraq's future and a potential source of millions of dollars in income for the militants. They also control the nearby town of Beiji, on the main route from Baghdad to Mosul, along the Tigris River..................

    http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150522/us--united_states-iraq-3f3b258281.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's just becoming the Shias vs. the Sunnis.....might as well drop the Iraq altogether.....

      Delete
  17. SPECIAL FOR QUIRK

    SPECIAL FOR QUIRK



    We sure spent a lot on those awful TSA naked body scanners

    posted at 6:01 pm on May 22, 2015 by Matt Vespa



    Earlier this month, Jaie Avila of News4 San Antonio discovered that those full body scanners that were scrapped by TSA over privacy concerns in 2013 are being sold for a little as ten dollars, whereas the government spent $40 million, meaning a huge loss for taxpayers. To make matters worse, some scanners are brand new. They’re still in their original packaging (via News4):

    The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) paid $160,000 a piece for them, but we found them being auctioned off in San Antonio for as little as ten bucks.....................

    http://hotair.com/archives/2015/05/22/we-sure-spent-a-lot-on-those-awful-tsa-naked-body-scanners/


    Full butt-naked body scanners, Quirk !

    $10 bucks unopened !

    I KNOW you can figure a great angle on this one......

    I JUST KNOW IT !!!!!!!!!!!!




    ReplyDelete
  18. The U.S. is at last facing the neocon captivity

    US Politics Philip Weiss on May 19, 2015 -


    See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/facing-neocon-captivity#sthash.G8o1aqNn.dpuf

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

    The best thing about this political moment in the U.S. (if not for the good people of Iraq) is that the rise of ISIS and the Republican candidates’ embrace of the Iraq war is posing that deep and permanent question to the American public, Why did we invade Iraq?

    Last night Chris Matthews asked that question again and David Corn said it was about the neoconservative desire to protect Israel. Both men deserve kudos for courage. Here’s part of the exchange:

    Matthews: Why were the people in the administration like [Paul] Wolfowitz and the others talking about going into Iraq from the very beginning, when they got into the white house long before there was a 911 long before there was WMD. It seemed like there was a deeper reason. I don’t get it. It seemed like WMD was a cover story.

    Corn: I can explain that. For years. Paul Wolfowitz and other members of the neocon movement had talked about getting rid of Iraq and there would be democracy throughout the region that would help Israel and they came to believe actually a very bizarre conspiracy theory that al Qaeda didn’t matter, that Saddam Hussein was behind all the acts of violence…

    Matthews: The reason I go back to that is there’s a consistent pattern: the people who wanted that war in the worst ways, neocons so called, Wolfowitz, certainly Cheney.. it’s the same crowd of people that want us to overthrow Bashar Assad, .. it’s the same group of people that don’t want to negotiate at all with the Iranians, don’t want any kind of rapprochement with the Iranians, they want to fight that war. They’re willing to go in there and bomb. They have a consistent impulsive desire to make war on Arab and Islamic states in a neverending campaign, almost like an Orwellian campaign they will never outlive, that’s why I have a problem with that thinking. … we’ve got to get to the bottom of it. Why did they take us to Iraq, because that’s the same reason they want to take us into Damascus and why they want to have permanent war with Iran.


    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}
      What a great exchange. And it shows up Paul Krugman, who mystifies this very issue in the New York Times. (“Errors and Lies,” which poses the same question that Matthews does but concludes that Bush and Cheney “wanted a war,” which is just a lie masquerading as a tautology.)

      Here are my two cents. We invaded Iraq because a powerful group of pro-Israel ideologues — the neoconservatives — who had mustered forces in Washington over the previous two decades and at last had come into the White House were able to sell a vision of transforming the Middle East that was pure wishful hokum but that they believed: that if Arab countries were converted by force into democracies, the people would embrace the change and would also accept Israel as a great neighbor. It’s a variation on a neocolonialist theory that pro-Israel ideologues have believed going back to the 1940s: that Palestinians would accept a Jewish state if you got rid of their corrupt leadership and allowed the people to share in Israel’s modern economic miracle.

      The evidence for this causation is at every hand.

      It is in the Clean Break plan written for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996 by leading neocons Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser — all of whom would go into the Bush administration — calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein and the export of the Palestinian political problem to Jordan.

      It is in the Project for a New American Century letters written to Clinton in 1998 telling him that Saddam’s WMD were a threat to Israel. (A letter surely regretted by Francis Fukuyama, who later accused the neocons of seeing everything through a pro-Israel lens.)

      It is in the PNAC letter written to George W. Bush early in 2002 urging him to “accelerate plans for removign Saddam Hussein from power” for the sake of Israel.

      the United States and Israel share a common enemy. We are both targets of what you have correctly called an “Axis of Evil.” Israel is targeted in part because it is our friend, and in part because it is an island of liberal, democratic principles — American principles — in a sea of tyranny, intolerance, and hatred.

      {...}

      Delete
    2. {...}

      It is in Netanyahu testifying to Congress in 2002 that he promised there would be “enormous positive reverberations” throughout the region if we only removed Saddam.

      It is in Wolfowitz saying that the road to peace in the Middle East runs through Baghdad. (Possibly the stupidest thing anyone has ever said in the history of the world, including Douglas Feith.)

      It is in all the neocon tracts, from Perle and Frum’s An End to Evil, to Kristol and Kaplan’s The War Over Saddam, to Berman’s Terror and Liberalism, saying that Saddam’s support for suicide bombers in Israel was a reason for the U.S. to topple him.

      It is in war-supporter Tom Friedman saying that we needed to invade Iraq because of suicide bombers in Tel Aviv– and the importance of conveying to Arabs they couldn’t get away with that.

      It is in the head of the 9/11 Commission, former Bush aide Philip Zelikow, saying Israel was the reason to take on Iraq back in 2002 even though Iraq was no threat to us:

      “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 – it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002. “And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”

      {...}

      Delete
    3. {...}

      It is in Friedman saying that “elite” neoconservatives created the war in this interview with Ari Shavit back in 2003:

      It’s the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It’s the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.

      It is in Tony Judt’s statement about the Israel interest in the war back in 2003:

      For many in the current US administration, a major strategic consideration was the need to destabilize and then reconfigure the Middle East in a manner thought favorable to Israel.
      {...}

      Delete
  19. {...}

    And yes this goes back to rightwing Zionism. It goes back to Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol launching neoconservatism in the 1970s because they said that the dovish policies of the Democratic Party were a direct threat to Israel– an analysis continued in this day by Norman Braman, Marco Rubio’s leading supporter, who says that the U.S. must be a military and economic power in order to “sustain” Israel.

    An Economist blogger wrote several years ago that if you leave out the Zionism you won’t understand the Iraq war:

    Yes, it would be ridiculous, and anti-semitic, to cast the Iraq war as a conspiracy monocausally driven by a cabal of Jewish neocons and the Israeli government. But it’s entirely accurate to count neoconservative policy analyses as among the important causes of the war, to point out that the pro-Israeli sympathies of Jewish neoconservatives played a role in these analyses, and to note the support of the Israeli government and public for the invasion. In fact any analysis of the war’s causes that didn’t take these into account would be deficient.
    Many writers, including Joe Klein, Jacob Heilbrunn, and Alan Dershowitz, have said the obvious, that neoconservatism came out of the Jewish community. And I have long written that the Jewish community needs to come to terms with the degree to which it has harbored warmongering neoconservatives, for our own sake.

    But America needs to come to terms with the extent to which it allowed rightwing Zionists to dominate discussions of going to war. This matter is now at the heart of the Republican embrace of the war on Iran. There is simply no other constituency in our country for that war besides rightwing Zionists. They should be called out for this role, so that we don’t make that terrible mistake again. And yes: this issue is going to play out frankly in the 2016 campaign, thanks in good measure to Matthews.

    - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/facing-neocon-captivity#sthash.G8o1aqNn.dpuf

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. REPEAT:
      But America needs to come to terms with the extent to which it allowed rightwing Zionists to dominate discussions of going to war. This matter is now at the heart of the Republican embrace of the war on Iran. There is simply no other constituency in our country for that war besides rightwing Zionists. They should be called out for this role, so that we don’t make that terrible mistake again. And yes: this issue is going to play out frankly in the 2016 campaign, thanks in good measure to Matthews.

      Delete
    2. Go here to verify the links and attribution:


      http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/facing-neocon-captivity

      Delete
  20. It wasn't long ago you were calling Matthews a nitwit, and worse.

    It's hard to keep up.

    About the same time you were calling Matthews a nitwit, I was mentioning that Israeli General who was warning that we might look back and long for the days of Saddam.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Israel Warned US Not to Invade Iraq after 9/11
    by
    Gareth Porter

    WASHINGTON - Israeli officials warned the George W. Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilising to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.

    Wilkerson, then a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recalled in an interview with IPS that the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, Wilkerson says, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy -- Iran is the enemy."0829 030829 03Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."

    The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the administration, Wilkerson recalls. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence and private citizens.

    Wilkerson notes that the main point of their communications was not that the United States should immediately attack Iran, but that "it should not be distracted by Iraq and Saddam Hussein" from a focus on the threat from Iran.

    The Israeli advice against using military force against Iraq was apparently triggered by reports reaching Israeli officials in December 2001 that the Bush administration was beginning serious planning for an attack on Iraq. Journalist Bob Woodward revealed in "Plan of Attack" that on Dec. 1, 2001, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld had ordered the Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks to come up with the first formal briefing on a new war plan for Iraq on Dec. 4. That started a period of intense discussions of war planning between Rumsfeld and Franks.

    Soon after Israeli officials got wind of that planning, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked for a meeting with Bush primarily to discuss U.S. intentions to invade Iraq. In the weeks preceding Sharon's meeting with Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, a procession of Israeli officials conveyed the message to the Bush administration that Iran represented a greater threat, according to a Washington Post report on the eve of the meeting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Israeli Defence Minister Fouad Ben-Eliezer, who was visiting Washington with Sharon, revealed the essence of the strategic differences between Tel Aviv and Washington over military force. He was quoted by the Post as saying, "Today, everybody is busy with Iraq. Iraq is a problem...But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq."

      Sharon never revealed publicly what he said to Bush in the Feb. 7 meeting. But Yossi Alpher, a former adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote in an article in the Forward last January that Sharon advised Bush not to occupy Iraq, according to a knowledgeable source. Alpher wrote that Sharon also assured Bush that Israel would not "push one way or another" regarding his plan to take down Saddam Hussein.

      Alpher noted that Washington did not want public support by Israel and in fact requested that Israel refrain from openly supporting the invasion in order to avoid an automatic negative reaction from Iraq's Arab neighbours.

      After that meeting, the Sharon government generally remained silent on the issue of an invasion of Iraq. A notable exception, however, was a statement on Aug. 16, 2002 by Ranaan Gissin, an aide to Sharon. Ranaan declared, "Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose. It will only give [Hussein] more of an opportunity to accelerate his programme of weapons of mass destruction."

      As late as October 2002, however, there were still signs of continuing Israeli grumbling about the Bush administration's obsession with taking over Iraq. Both the Israeli Defence Forces' chief of staff and its chief of military intelligence made public statements that month implicitly dismissing the Bush administration's position that Saddam Hussein's alleged quest for nuclear weapons made him the main threat. Both officials suggested that Israel's military advantage over Iraq had continued to increase over the decade since the Gulf War as Iraq had grown weaker.

      The Israeli chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Farkash, said Iraq had not deployed any missiles that could strike Israel directly and challenged the Bush administration's argument that Iraq could obtain nuclear weapons within a relatively short time. He gave an interview to Israeli television in which he said army intelligence had concluded that Iraq could not have nuclear weapons in less than four years. He insisted that Iran was as much of a nuclear threat as Iraq.....

      http://www.commondreams.org/news/2007/08/29/israel-warned-us-not-invade-iraq-after-911

      Delete
    2. This may be difficult for some who see all things in racial, religious or ethnic terms but:

      Not all Jews are Zionists.

      Not all Israelis are part of Likud.

      Not all Jews are Neocons.

      That slander is used as a shield by certain Jews who are NEOCONS, who are Likud, who are religious fanatics and Israeli-firsters. The slander is used to impugn the credibility of those critical of Israeli politics, but not critical of Jews. It is meant to divert and to create an intellectual safety zone and to cry that they are being disparaged because of their religion. It is ironic that those with the weak or non-existent argument are the first to bring up religion.

      That Mathews has enough honesty and intellectual acumen to change his mind is commendable. It is what an intelligent and an educated person does. Only a fool would be self-satisfied and argue that new changed facts and conditions would be irrelevant to past held convictions and that somehow one must never change a view.

      Delete
  22. And now Iran controls the southern third of Iraq.

    If the Israelis and the 'NeoCons' are really running our foreign policy they are doing one terrible job of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are and they do:

      Last night Chris Matthews asked that question again and David Corn said it was about the neoconservative desire to protect Israel. Both men deserve kudos for courage. Here’s part of the exchange:

      Matthews: Why were the people in the administration like [Paul] Wolfowitz and the others talking about going into Iraq from the very beginning, when they got into the white house long before there was a 911 long before there was WMD. It seemed like there was a deeper reason. I don’t get it. It seemed like WMD was a cover story.

      Corn: I can explain that. For years. Paul Wolfowitz and other members of the neocon movement had talked about getting rid of Iraq and there would be democracy throughout the region that would help Israel and they came to believe actually a very bizarre conspiracy theory that al Qaeda didn’t matter, that Saddam Hussein was behind all the acts of violence…

      Delete
  23. Iraqi oil production is up to 3 Million Barrels / Day +.

    If the Iranians are responsible, more power to them.

    ReplyDelete
  24. They are fighting for civilization. They are fighting for all of us.

    ReplyDelete
  25. IS now controls 50% of Syria’s entire territory - as well as a third of Iraq.

    IS reportedly controls more than half of Anbar’s territory.

    BBC - “Military operations to liberate Husayba, 7km (4.5 miles) east of Ramadi, have begun,” a police colonel told AFP news agency.
    Witnesses also said they had seen troops move out of their base at Habbaniyah, about 20 miles (30km) from Ramadi.

    About 3,000 Shia fighters - and Iraqi troops - were involved.

    A senior local official in Anbar told the BBC they now controlled about 90% of Husayba was under their control.

    Ramadi’s fall was a massive blow to the Iraqi army, to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and to the US, which had encouraged his policy of relying on the official armed forces and police and ruling out a role for Iranian-backed Shia militias, says the BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut.


    It is total insanity that we would choose ISIS over Iranian backed forces destroying ISIS. Who would benefit from that decision, certainly not the US Public?

    Who wants Syria and Iran destroyed?

    Who wanted Iraq and Libya destroyed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How could any American be so wed to the Neocon agenda, so against US interests, that they would prefer ISIS over Iran helping the civilized World destroy ISIS?

      Delete
    2. What force of evil could not recognize the consequences of an ISIS victory and be acting to reject the assistance of an ally to kill ISIS?

      Delete
    3. The Saudis would like Iran destroyed. So do the Egyptians, and the Israelis, and lots of other Sunni folk.

      It is devolving into a Shia/Sunni religious war.

      They have been at this for 1400 years.

      If they all nuke up it may be the last time for a while.

      Delete
    4. I can't think of anybody that has come out for an ISIS victory.

      Maybe the Turks, as they supply them.

      Delete
    5. Can't think of anyone that is really for an Iranian victory, either.

      Most people seem to be OK with a sort of Mexican standoff.

      Delete
    6. Bush and the others had very little to do with Libya, or Syria. And very little to do with Iran.

      It's a Democratic Party party, now.

      Delete
    7. I would place the Saudis as one of the forces for evil. In fact, I would put them in front.

      Delete
    8. ISIS sucks, Iran Sucks.

      ISIS has murdered about 10 thousand. Iran and her proxies Syria, Hezbollah and Sadr in Iraq have murdered about 280 thousand in Syria and 550 thousand in Iraq.

      Hmmmm

      ISIS SUCKS Iran Sucks.

      ISIS wants to purchase a nuke. Iran (and Syria) have full chemical and biological weapons and programs of uranium and plutonium already in production, Biden stated last month that Iran already has enough uranium for 8 bombs....

      hmmmm

      Delete
  26. Out break of plaque carrying rats/squirrels south of Boise.......

    http://www.ktvb.com/story/news/health/2015/05/22/ground-squirrel-plague-boise/27786733/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Time to get Quirk in there with his $10 TSA full body scanners and get a grip on this.

      Delete
  27. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson tells us that Iran will not buy a nuclear weapon, because 'they have all the fixings'

    But the Zionists of Israel have been claiming that the Iranians have wanted a nuclear weapon for over twenty years now.
    Since well before 'they have all the fixings' could be claimed.

    If there are nuclear weapons available for sale, why did not the Iranians not buy one, back in 1992?
    One of the two ideas is fals.
    Either there is no market where nuclear weapons can be bought, and the Islamic State cannot obtain one by purchasing it ...
    Or the Iranians really do not want a nuclear weapon, as they consistently claim.

    The Zionist warmongers cannot have it both ways.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Delusional as always,..

      take your meds please.

      Delete
    2. An ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed. 

      It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

      In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.

      Delete
    3. No ad hominem, just an observation.

      Now this is an ad hominem "The Zionist warmongers cannot have it both ways."

      :)

      Jack, take your meds.

      Delete
    4. Jack HawkinsSat May 23, 08:37:00 AM EDT
      Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson


      An ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed.

      It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

      In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.


      Just slandering Robert is an ad hominem attack Jack...

      Which you do repeatedly. Daily, Hourly.....

      Delete
    5. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson has never been slandered, not once, not at the Elephant Bar, it is an impossibility to slander anyone at the Elephant Bar, "O"rdure.

      Words have meanings, look up 'slander'...

      Delete
    6. An ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed.

      It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

      In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.


      Just slandering Robert is an ad hominem attack Jack...

      Which you do repeatedly. Daily, Hourly.....



      Every time you call Robert a Draft Dodger it is slander and an ad hominem attack.

      We BOTH know that's your MO....

      LOL

      Here is an attack that is not an ad hominem.

      Jack, due to your death threats and stalking I DID report you to the AZ FBI, a report that you claimed you saw, in violation of the FBI's on going criminal investigation polices. ( a crime ) you then told us that the FBI was INVESTIGATING me for arms dealing. You LEAKED on an open forum about classified ongoing FBI investigation about me!!! Another CRIME

      No ad hominem., just the FACTS Jack....

      Delete
  28. Okay, we have updated casualty figures for the "battle of Ramadi."

    U.S. Casualties - 0

    U.S. Fatalities - 0

    Acceptable, I suppose

    (except for the blog's ISIS supporters - we know who you are)

    ReplyDelete
  29. The latest in a series of clashes between Mexican authorities and a powerful, fast-growing drug cartel turned into the deadliest confrontation in recent memory, with 42 suspected gang gunmen and one Federal Police officer killed during a three-hour firefight at a remote western ranch.

    The battle on Friday followed two other recent unprecedented attacks by the cartel, one that killed 15 state police officers and another that shot down an army helicopter with a rocket launcher for the first time in Mexico's history. The death toll from all three is at least 76 people at a time when the Mexican government claims crime is falling dramatically and the interior minister recently insisted the country "is not in flames."

    Black smoke billowing upward from vehicles set on fire during Friday's fighting in the municipality of Tanhauto on the border between Jalisco and Michoacan states could be seen for miles.


    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-mexico-shootout-20150522-story.html

    ReplyDelete

  30. Bill to extend "Patriot Act" surveillance programs blocked in U.S. Senate


    Legislation to extend for two months a program in which spy agencies sweep up vast amounts of data about Americans' telephone calls was blocked in the U.S. Senate early on Saturday, adding to uncertainty about the future of the program.

    The Senate voted 45-54 on the procedural measure to stop debate on the extension of provisions of the "USA Patriot Act," falling well short of the 60 votes in favor needed to advance the measure. The legal authorities that allow the collection of so-called telephone "metadata" expire on June 1.


    http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/05/23/usa-security-nsa-extension-idINKBN0O804320150523

    ReplyDelete
  31. Deuce ☂Sat May 23, 08:05:00 AM EDT

    I would place the Saudis as one of the forces for evil. In fact, I would put them in front.
    ****

    Everyone has their favorite.

    I am surprised you didn't place Israel at the top of your list.

    I call it a tie between the Saudis and the Iranians, myself.

    The folks of Boko Haram aren't at all nice, but they don't make the news much, so we tend to forget.

    I think the Iranians, when they get going good, can be every bit as bad as ISIS.

    They used to send their little kids with keys to heaven around their necks to clear Saddam's minefields.

    Hamas sucks too, in the same way.

    I'll give a generic fuck you shout out to our two military experts here, ruf and The Criminal rat, before I turn in.

    Cheers !

    Serenity !

    later

    ReplyDelete
  32. The BBC reports ...

    Iraq militias start fightback against IS in Ramadi


    About 3,000 militia members in Iraq have begun moving against Islamic State militants after the fall of the city of Ramadi last week, officials say.

    The pro-government forces say they have retaken Husayba, east of Ramadi.
    ...
    ... the Popular Mobilisation (al-Hashd al-Shaabi) launched their operation out of the Iraqi air base at Habbaniya, about 20 miles (30km) from Ramadi.

    A Sunni tribal leader in Anbar, Sheikh Rafia Abdelkarim al-Fahdawi, told AFP news agency that his volunteers had also been deployed - in addition to police, special forces and army troops.

    Iraqi police spokesmen told news agencies that IS militants had been driven from Husayba and it was now under the control of pro-government forces.

    ReplyDelete
  33. The US support of the "Purple Fingers of Freedom" has been anemic.
    Little wonder, if the US has been knowingly arming the Islamic State in an effort to depose Assad.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s trip to Moscow on Thursday does not only reveal Baghdad’s desperate need to get more arms in the face of a militant offensive to seize more of his country’s territory, but it also shows Russia as more of an easier and “faster” option than its ally in Washington.

    With the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group seizing the last Syrian regime-held crossing near Iraq late Thursday, Abadi left his country earlier in the day to be in Moscow in such critical timing and in spite of him being “advised not to go,” Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi political expert and the head of the UK-based Iraqi Foundation for Development and Democracy, told Al Arabiya News.

    But Abadi is “in need of arms as soon as possible,” the London-based Attiyah said. “He cannot wait months and therefore Russia can offer him the light and medium-size weapons as soon as possible.”

    While this “doesn’t cancel the need for American arms,” Attiyah confirmed, Russia is posed to offer Iraq a more “deferred” method of payment for it is arm purchases, he added.

    Like Attiyah, Baghdad-based retired military officer Ameer al-Saadi, also described Russia as offering more of a flexible type of payment and it can send the much needed arms “within hours.”

    Instead, the United States is slow and stipulates conditions when giving arms to Iraq in order to wield more political pressure on Baghdad with the latest U.S. proposal to send direct arm supplies to Sunni fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, angering the central government in the Iraqi capital, Saadi explained.

    “Abadi could not appeal to the Obama administration to diversify quantity and quality of arms requested during his visit to Washington last month,” Saadi said, adding that the arms shipment received to Iraq was “drop by drop.”


    http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2015/05/23/Does-Russia-provide-a-faster-arms-option-to-Iraq-than-the-U-S-.html

    ReplyDelete
  34. Obama said from the start that he would help the Iraqi government against ISIS, but only to the extent that they shared, and worked with, the Sunnis, and Kurds. Abadi has drug his feet on this (to the extent that even his own party is on his ass,) and Obama has held his feet to the fire.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And that strategy is failing if the goal is to degrade and defeat ISIS.

      Delete
    2. ISIS is not going to be degraded and defeated by the USA without a major military operation.

      But the fact that everyone IGNORES Iran/Syria/Hezbollah's slaughter of hundreds of thousands tells all....

      But, maybe that is the plan....

      The Shits verses the Suns...

      All in it's grand glory, all my plan according to rat and deuce....

      man I am the master..

      Delete
    3. An intellectual master baiter, no doubt about it.

      Is your name "Yinon", I truly doubt it. So here you are, "O"rdure, taking credit for the work of others.
      Typical of your ilk.

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

      Delete
    5. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson continues to reach for the Zionist ideal...

      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

      Delete
    6. Nicely cut and paste, misleading, distorting and of course bullshit.

      Disassembling I think is your new term..

      It fits.

      Delete
  35. We've killed somewhere over 12,000 of the assholes. If that isn't "degrading" I'll kiss the dirtiest ass in the parking lot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good Grief !

      You'd REALLY do that ?

      Trouble is, even if we've killed 12k they've gained 14k.

      Wife has the car, won't be with you long.

      Persevere.

      Delete
    2. O my God......DOYLES' Parking Lot ?

      Delete
    3. The Islamic State has been beaten in Tikrit, beaten in Kobane and now, driven out of Husayba, one its latest gains in Anbar.

      In each case it was local combatants doing the heavy lifting. In Kobane elements of the Iraqi Security Forces assisted Syrians in driving back the Islamic State.

      There is an operative model that works, examples abound of the Islamic State being degraded.
      The US just has to embrace the model if the Islamic State is to be destroyed.

      Another invasion of the Middle East, by the United States, is not required. Supporting those engaged against the Islamic State is. The reality, though, the US Congress does not want to destroy the Islamic State, the Republicans will not endorse an AUMF to that effect.

      The smoke is clearing, the mirrors breaking, the lies are being exposed ...

      Breaking (Old) News: Bush and Cheney Lied us into Iraq.

      http://dagblog.com/breaking-old-news-bush-and-cheney-lied-us-iraq-19591

      Delete
    4. .

      Where do you get your casualty figures? Tried to google the info a number of times? Got zip. The US military says they don't report the numbers (or even track them which is of course absurd). Syrian Observatory seemed to be the only one providing numbers and they only deal in casualties in Syria.

      In Kobane elements of the Iraqi Security Forces assisted Syrians in driving back the Islamic State.

      Ridiculous of course. It was Kurds helping Kurds and the heavy weapons the Iraqi Kurds provided that turned the tide in Kobane. Question has anyone heard anything about the Kurds in Iraq in the last few months?

      Money invested in Iraq = $2.4 billion

      ROI to date = 0

      Acceptable to some, I suppose.

      .

      Delete
    5. Not ridiculous at all, Legionnaire.
      The Kurds of Iraqi, the forces of the Peshmerga are part of the Iraqi Security Forces, just as the Shia militias are.
      The militias, the Kurds and Shiite, even those of the loyal Sunni do not operate independently of the Iraqi government.

      That is just the reality of the situation

      Delete
    6. As to the ROI, the oil is flowing, the world economy has not collapsed ...

      What do we value that at?

      Delete

    7. Which is not to say that the same result could not have been achieved at a much lower cost.

      Delete
  36. Rufus IISat May 23, 10:11:00 AM EDT
    We've killed somewhere over 12,000 of the assholes. If that isn't "degrading" I'll kiss the dirtiest ass in the parking lot.

    Reply


    Not bad out a population of 800,000,000 potential recruits...

    you really are clueless..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The US is not at war with potential recruits, "O"rdure.
      Never has been.

      You really are misinformed, aren't you?
      Or are you dissembling on purpose?

      Delete
    2. rufus condemned Israel for killing about 1000 headcutters in Gaza.

      Of course he complained about the excessive killing of women and children by the Jews.

      He even taunted that if he lived in Gaza, he'd be a member of Hamas.

      So what's the point?

      America is bombing ISIS, and it's women and children. How many? Who knows, rufus doesn't give a hoot...

      He ONLY cares about American deaths (not that I disagree with him on that specific point)

      But IF he condemns Israel for collateral damage, he should condemn America for the same.

      Now what also is interesting is the fact that ISIS never attacked America directly, the forces of ISIS/ISIL in the middle east are not an American ISSUE. We travel thousands of miles away from our shores to kill them, Israel was and is being attacked directly on it's border.


      Maybe Rufus fails to see how many Sunni Moslems America HATERS we are creating by our stupid, senseless actions in Iraq and Syria.


      IF America was serious about taking out ISIS in Iraq? Why did they NOT BOMB the MILITARY PARADE that ISIS just had there???????????????????????????

      Delete
    3. IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

      He cannot make war on Hezbollah, Assad or Iran, based upon the 14SEP2001 AUMF.
      He can against the Islamic State or al-Qeada, the two being one and the same.

      Delete
    4. Wiggle wiggle wiggle....

      He can do as he pleases until the War Powers Act is invoked.

      Your limitations are bullshit.

      as are you.

      Delete
    5. Amazing how you can set up so many "Straw man" arguments in one day...

      You must have graduated from the "Acme Arab School of Bullshit"

      Delete
    6. The War Powers Act is covered by the 14SEP2001 AUMF, "O"rdure.

      (1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

      It has been invoked, the President's actions are authorized under its auspices..

      Delete
    7. Once again, your responses are non-responsive.

      In a court? You would be held in Contempt.

      Delete
  37. Jack HawkinsSat May 23, 10:37:00 AM EDT
    The US is not at war with potential recruits, "O"rdure.
    Never has been.

    You really are misinformed, aren't you?
    Or are you dissembling on purpose?



    An ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed.

    It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

    In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.


    Just slandering me is an ad hominem attack Jack...


    If you can't type my name? Seek professional help.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Jack HawkinsSat May 23, 10:37:00 AM EDT
    The US is not at war with potential recruits, "O"rdure.
    Never has been.

    You really are misinformed, aren't you?
    Or are you dissembling on purpose?



    Notice Jack responses to something I said with made up suppositions?

    He creates points out of nothing......

    But look to his projections to tell us his modus operandi...

    "Jack HawkinsSat May 23, 10:37:00 AM EDT
    The US is not at war with potential recruits, "O"rdure.
    Never has been.

    "You really are misinformed, aren't you?
    Or are you dissembling on purpose?"



    Misleading, distortions and inventions are the Jack way...

    Lies, none to small, none to large are his game

    ReplyDelete
  39. Jack HawkinsSat May 23, 10:30:00 AM EDT
    The Islamic State has been beaten in Tikrit, beaten in Kobane and now, driven out of Husayba, one its latest gains in Anbar.



    LOLOLOLOLOLOL



    Grasping at straws, the narcissist cannot admit defeat, just like Monty Python's The Black Knight's famous "it's just a flesh wound" line...


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4



    Jack/rat the perfect...

    On his headstone it will say "Here does not lie a man who died, even in death he refused to admit it's victory"

    ReplyDelete
  40. Oh, the United States may not be very serious about attacking the Islamic State,
    "O"rdure, that is a matter of discussion.
    The US may be using the Islamic State to topple Assad
    Mr Obama and his government may even be willing to accept al-Qeada operatives taking power in Syria, though they would never say so in public.
    Unlike the ISraeli.

    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.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. The Republicans in Congress will not provide an AUMF specifically targeting the Islamic State, that is telling.
      The Likud Force in DC is equivocating, the chickens coming home to roost, if one is watching.

      Delete
    2. Do you just post and type to feed your narcissist need to see responses?

      After all you really don't say anything do you...

      Delete
  41. Jack HawkinsSat May 23, 10:09:00 AM EDT
    An intellectual master baiter, no doubt about it.

    Is your name "Yinon", I truly doubt it. So here you are, "O"rdure, taking credit for the work of others.
    Typical of your ilk.


    The name? is What is Occupation.

    An ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed.

    It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

    In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.


    Just slandering me is an ad hominem attack Jack...

    One would think an employee of the Islamic Republic of Iran would have been briefed better...

    Are they cutting the English budget back?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Quirk: Money invested in Iraq = $2.4 billion


    What is that amount?

    Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study
    NEW YORK | BY DANIEL TROTTA


    This from 2 years ago: NEW YORK The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.Mar 14, 2013

    and then there is this:

    We drew from sources including various news reports, The Brookings Institute 's Iraq Index, and the Costs of War Project to document money and blood spent on the Iraq war between 2003 and 2011.

    189,000: Direct war deaths, which doesn't include the hundreds of thousands more that died due to war-related hardships.

    4,488: U.S. service personnel killed directly.

    32,223: Troops injured (not including PTSD).

    134,000: Civilians killed directly.

    655,000: Persons who have died in Iraq since the invasion that would not have died if the invasion had not occurred.

    150: Reporters killed.

    2.8 million: Persons who remain either internally displaced or have fled the country.

    $1.7 trillion: Amount in war expenses spent by the U.S. Treasury Department as through Fiscal Year 2013.

    $5,000: Amount spent per second.

    $350,000: Cost to deploy one American military member.

    $490 billion: Amount in war benefits owed to war veterans.

    $7 trillion: Projected interest payments due by 2053 (because the war was paid for with borrowed money).

    $20 billion: Amount paid to KBR, contractor responsible for equipment and services.

    $3 billion: Amount of KBR payments Pentagon auditors considered "questionable."

    $60 billion: Amount paid for reconstruction, (which was ruled largely a waste due to corruption and shoddy work.)

    $4 billion: Amount owed to the U.S. by Iraq before the invasion.

    1.6 million: Gallons of oil used by U.S. forces each day in Iraq (at $127.68 a barrel).

    $12 billion: Cost per month of the war by 2008.

    $7 billion: Amount owed to Iraq by the U.S. after the war (mostly due to fraud).

    $20 billion: Annual air conditioning cost.

    Missing: $546 million in spare parts; 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47s.

    40 percent: Increase in Iraqi oil production.

    $5 billion: Revenue from Iraqi oil in 2003.

    $85 billion: Revenue from Iraqi oil in 2011.

    $150 billion: Amount oil companies are expected to invest in oil development over the next decade.

    $75 billion: Approximate amount expected to go to American subcontracting companies, largest of all Halliburton.



    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-iraq-war-by-numbers-2014-6#ixzz3ayVBOOs0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      And you miss the point.

      My point is, what is the point?

      .

      Delete
  43. Rufus,

    Using your metric killing just 1 would qualify as degrading IS. Your were convinced there were only 25k of them in Iraq originally and that it would be easy to roll them out if Iraq by July 4th. Sorry if it is hard to take your analysis seriously but, well, it us given your track record.

    ReplyDelete
  44. The smoke is clearing, the mirrors breaking, the lies are being exposed ...

    Breaking (Old) News: Bush and Cheney Lied us into Iraq.




    Shhh Someone tell Bill Clinton he's off the hook

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do not think he was ever on the Iraqi hook, "O"rdure.
      If you think he was, explain how, when and why?

      Delete
    2. The name? is What is Occupation.

      An ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed.

      It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

      In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.


      Just slandering me is an ad hominem attack Jack...

      Delete
    3. As I said, previously "O"rdure, no one can be slandered at the Elephant Bar ...
      Words have meaning, look up 'slander'

      Delete
  45. Anbar provincial council member Azzal Obaid said hundreds of Shi'ite fighters, who had assembled last week at the Habbaniya air base, moved into Khalidiya on Saturday and were nearing Siddiqiya and Madiq, towns in contested territory near Ramadi.

    Two police officers later told Reuters the pro-government forces, which they said included locally allied Sunni tribesmen, had advanced past those towns to within one kilometer of Husaiba al-Sharqiya, an Islamic State-run town 7 kilometers (4 miles) east of the Ramadi city limits.

    One officer said the Shi'ite-led forces exchanged fire with Islamic State but there was no immediate word on casualties.

    Jaffar Husseini, spokesman for Shi'ite paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah, said more than 2,000 reinforcements had joined the pro-government advance and they had managed to secure Khalidiya and the road linking it to Habbaniya.

    "Today will witness the launch of some tactical operations that pave the way to the eventual liberation of Ramadi,"
    he told Reuters by telephone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/23/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-ramadi-idUSKBN0O805D20150523

      Delete
  46. Neoconservative hawks at Washington think tanks are a “government in waiting” if a Republican is elected president.
    ust a couple of years ago Elliot Abrams, a hawkish foreign policy expert who has provided counsel to nearly all the current crop of Republican contenders for the White House, feared that a contagion might take over the Republican Party.

    He worried that the resistance to the use of military force demonstrated by the libertarian Kentucky senator Rand Paul – now a presidential candidate – might take hold.

    Not anymore. ISIS and its beheadings fixed that, Abrams, a neoconservative academic and former adviser to both George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, told Fairfax Media this week.

    Now there is consensus among the leading Republican contenders for the 2016 election that America should return to a more aggressive foreign policy posture of the sort advocated by the neoconservative movement that championed the invasion of Iraq.

    Advertisement

    Does that mean if a Republican wins office next year a war with Iran is more likely?

    "Yes," Abrams says. This should not be surprising, he adds. Republicans have always advocated a tougher defence posture.

    This foreign policy hard line among the leading candidates has come into sharp focus over the past couple of weeks as they faced – and arguably failed to convincingly answer – questions about America's invasion of Iraq.

    The issue came to a head when Jeb Bush was asked if, given what he now knows to be true, he would still have authorised the war. Yes, he said, stunning many observers. He later qualified the answer, saying he meant that given the intelligence available at the time he would have made the same decision as his brother, then president George W. Bush.

    Another leading contender, Marco Rubio, was confronted with the same question just a few days later and also stumbled in his answer.

    "The question was whether it was a mistake, and my answer was it was not a mistake," he said. "I still say it was not a mistake, because the president was presented with intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ... [Bush] made the right decision based on what he knew at that time. We learned subsequently that information was wrong. My answer is, at the time, it appears the intelligence was wrong."

    But Americans overwhelmingly do believe the war – fought over the false premise that Iraq was on the brink of creating a nuclear weapon – was a mistake. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll found last year 77 per cent believed it "was not worth it".

    Further it is commonly understood that it was not brought about by an intelligence failure, but by the selective use of intelligence to justify a war that neoconservatives in the Republican Party had long wanted to fight.

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}
      Nor was the cost of the war light.

      It is estimated that half a million Iraqis and 4500 Americans were killed. It has destabilised the region, contributed to the rise of Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, and increased Iran's' regional strength. It cost the US more than $US2 trillion.

      Unsurprisingly then among critics of the war there is consternation at the return of the neocons.

      Paul Wolfowitz, a former US secretary of defence and president of the World Bank.
      Paul Wolfowitz, a former US secretary of defence and president of the World Bank. Photo: Wolter Peeters
      Their influence is perhaps most clear in Rubio's camp.

      He gave a foreign policy speech this month at the Council on Foreign Relations – the same think tank where Abrams is a senior fellow – in which he made a neoconservative moral case for the expression of American power.

      "My foreign policy consists of three pillars," he said. "The first is American strength. This is an idea that stems from a simple truth that the world is at its safest when America is at its strongest. When America has the mightiest army and navy and air force and Marine Corps and Coast Guard and intelligence community in the world, the result is more peace, not more conflict."

      And this: "America is the first power in history motivated by a desire to expand freedom rather than its own territory."

      One of Rubio's closest foreign policy advisers is Jamie Fly, who as far back as 2012 wrote an editorial for the conservative Weekly Standard challenging those who suggested that bombing Iran might be a dangerous act.

      "Would it be so dangerous? That is a debate the country needs to have, publicly and frankly, before it's too late."

      Not attacking Iran would be dangerous and dishonourable, the piece suggested in conclusion.

      {...}

      Delete
    2. {...}The co-author was William Kristol, the Standard's editor and a leading cheerleader for the war in Iraq, who also serves as a Rubio adviser, along with another leading neocon intellectual, Robert Kagan.

      Jeb Bush is also closely surrounding himself with proponents of that war, not least his brother, whom he recently described as a key Middle East adviser.

      Paul Wolfowitz, another leading neocon and as deputy secretary of defence under George W Bush a key architect of the Iraq invasion, has also been drafted into the Jeb Bush camp.

      He is among five Jeb Bush foreign policy advisers who worked with Reagan, six worked with his father, and 17 worked with his brother, according to a Washington Post report.

      By some early measures the third most likely contender is Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin and a man with no foreign policy track record. He is one of those who has been recently briefed by Abrams though, who called him a quick study and likened him to George W. Bush.

      Walker said in a recent radio interview that cancelling any deal struck between the Obama administration and Iran would be among his first acts as president.

      That sort of tough talk is common among the second-tier contenders too.

      During a recent visit to Israel, Mike Huckabee, the Christian Evangelical former governor of Arkansas, said that negotiating with Iran "is like trusting the snake. You can try to calm, and reason with, the snake – but the snake is going to bite when it can. It's absurd for us to consider that the Iranians are going to be anything other than what they are."

      Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, has also pledged he would scrap a deal, while Senator Lindsey Graham has long championed the use of US military force around the region.

      Only Rand Paul has resisted such language, but even he has abandoned his earlier isolationist rhetoric.

      Asked why the ideas of the neocons have proved so resilient, Abrams says that Americans have lived for six years under an Obama ideological "experiment" in resisting foreign intervention, and the world is more dangerous for it. He says the president's insistence on cutting a deal with Iran has not only failed to halt that nation's nuclear program, but fear of offending Iran has blunted America's policy throughout the region.

      Stephen Walt, the self-described foreign policy realist and professor of foreign affairs at Harvard University who once wrote a scathing article for Foreign Policy entitled "Being a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry", disagrees.

      He gives four answers for the movement's resilience.

      Firstly, he believes there is a critical lack of unaccountably at the elite level of America's foreign policy milieu because wealthy vested interests have funded think tanks that act as havens for experts who have been proven wrong when their ideas are adopted.

      This provides what he calls a “government in waiting" installed among conservative Washington, DC, institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

      {...}

      Delete
    3. {...}Secondly, he believes that when neoconservatives dominated the foreign policy architecture of the George W. Bush administration they effectively purged the party of centrists and realists like Brent Scowcroft, James Baker and Henry Kissinger. There are no younger voices echoing moderate views in the party, he says. He argues that even if a future Republican administration wanted to build a staff of centrists, they would not be able to make up the numbers, so thorough has the purge been.

      Thirdly, he believes that mainstream media like CNN, The New York Times and the Washington Post kept turning to men like Kristol and the conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer for comment and analysis even when the war in Iraq was proven to have been fought on a false premise and had failed in practical terms. This, says Walt, rehabilitated the neoconservatives.

      Finally, Walt says, money plays a part. Republican candidates compete with one another to secure mega-donors like Sheldon Adelson​, whose prime policy concern is driving America's commitment to Israel's defence.

      He agrees with Abrams that the election of a Republican president next year would increase the chances of war with Iran, though it is unclear by how much.

      No matter how much sabrerattling the candidates engage in, the winner's views are likely to moderate during their first briefing with the air force when they learn how long, complicated and dangerous an air campaign to knock out Iran's command and control, air defences and nuclear infrastructure would be.

      “When we bomb someone's country," he says, " we tend to do a very thorough job of it."
      {...}

      Delete
    4. NEOCONSERVATISM

      Neoconservatism is an ideology born out of the old anti-Stalinist left in the United States. Some of its earliest adherents were Trotskyites and often Jewish. However, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, the neocons broke with the New Left, which they regarded as radical and anti-American, and began a migration to the Right, hence the neoconservative or new conservative.

      Neoconservatives believe in a muscular foreign policy made possible by large defence budgets and a confidence that the US is a unique nation with a special role in the world. Properly directed, they believe, American power is a force for good. Such an outlook can even justify a "preventive" war.

      Neocons were present in the Reagan administration, but mostly in junior roles and were rarely permitted to have significant influence over policy. Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, sidelined the neocons almost entirely, favouring a more traditional American foreign policy based on managing allied and great power relationships to advance national interests. The neocons reached their greatest influence during the administration of Bush's son, George W. Bush, who campaigned on a “humble" foreign policy in 2000, but turned to the neocons after having "a revelation after September 11", according to Robert Kagan, perhaps the pre-eminent neoconservative intellectual.


      http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/the-neocon-supremacy-20150522-gh6s5c.html

      Delete
    5. Don’t bother recommending that I quit posting about the damage don to this country by the Neocons. They will not give up until they are politically destroyed. They are relentless. AIPAC will never give up nor will the Israeli Lobby implanted in Congress.

      Our entire foreign policy has been dominated by our self created, self-destructive obsession with the Middle East. The Republican Party is a corrupt malignancy on sane governance.

      They are a scourge on US politics, and need to be removed from government.

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

      Delete
    7. But you have nothing against Jews?

      lol

      Delete
  47. Case in point:

    How Lindsey Graham’s blustery neocon nonsense could help Rand Paul


    Lindsey Graham is 99.9 percent certain he's running for president in 2016. South Carolina's senior senator says he's motivated to run because "the world is falling apart." But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Graham also wants to pick a fight with Rand Paul on the GOP debate stage, in addition to the many fights this neoconservative hawk would like to pick abroad.

    Graham is an able debater and scrappy political survivor. He demolished libertarian-leaning Republican primary challengers seeking his Senate seat last year. So it's not surprising that he thinks he can take Paul down a few pegs. Indeed, he is already working on it. After Paul zinged Jeb Bush on Iraq, Graham took a shot at Paul, suggesting the Kentucky Republican would call a lawyer before striking terrorists.

    Yet Graham is, in some respects, a perfect foil for Paul. It's a lot easier for a libertarian-leaning presidential candidate to make a case against aggressive military intervention when the poster boy for the neocon cause is a cartoonish, blustery senator who never met a hyperbole he didn't like. Consider the Palmetto State lawmaker's anti-Paul line: "If I'm president of the United States and you're thinking about joining al Qaeda or ISIL — anybody thinking about that? — I'm not going to call a judge, I'm going to call a drone and we will kill you." A drone strike for your thoughts!

    This is part of a larger pattern with Graham — and one that reveals that the neocon position is often little more than tough talk papering over an intellectually hollow core. During a debate over the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, Graham exclaimed on the Senate floor, "And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'"

    The trouble here is that we're not just talking about terrorists, but due process rights for American citizens. Graham finds such constitutional niceties annoying. "Free speech is a great idea," he has said, "but we're in a war."

    The South Carolinian also declared he would not "let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We’re not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts."

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}

      Graham later insisted he was joking, but Republican presidential candidates don't normally engage in humorous banter about the military coercing a civilian-controlled branch of government into increasing federal spending.

      Unlike other hawks in the race, Graham makes it very easy to demonstrate how his outsized foreign policy would lead to big government at home. Graham's contention that the American homeland is a battlefield is ultimately incompatible with constitutionally limited government, something made plain by his frequent willingness to weaken Bill of Rights protections on its behalf.

      Also unlike some other Republican hawks, Graham isn't that big of a limited-government guy outside foreign policy. He's defended the Wall Street bailout. He's co-written op-eds with John Kerry demanding cap and trade. He's suggested he's to the left of most Republicans on taxes. Graham has teamed up with John McCain on campaign finance reform and expressed support for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, a fashionable cause on the left.

      Maybe the cost of Marco Rubio's "muscular" foreign policy would wipe out the savings from his entitlement reforms. But Rubio is more of a conventional fiscal conservative on domestic policy.

      Graham compares unfavorably to Rubio in another way, too. While the Florida senator engages in threat inflation and has a Graham-like slogan about how nothing matters if we are not safe, Rubio also capably wraps his foreign policy in a more optimistic vision of America's role in the world.

      In Graham's version, it's almost all fear. When the world is not falling apart, it is "literally about to blow up." Despite Graham's reputation as a Washington grownup on national security, The Federalist's Ben Domenech describes the senator's rhetoric on these issues as "regularly unhinged and bereft of facts."

      As Republicans struggle to put Iraq behind them, Graham is doubling down in defense of the unpopular war. While Graham accuses Republicans like Paul of carrying water for Barack Obama's foreign policy, he backed Obama and Hillary Clinton on war in Libya and Syria. Graham's only regret is that we couldn't intervene more.

      Finally, Graham is polling near the bottom of the Republican pack. In one recent Fox News poll, he received zero percent — that's zilch, nada — of the GOP vote nationally.

      If Rand Paul has to have a hawkish thorn in his side during the primaries, Graham is the one he should want.


      http://theweek.com/articles/556042/how-lindsey-grahams-blustery-neocon-nonsense-could-help-rand-paul

      Delete
  48. Case in point:


    Ronald Reagan Was No Neocon: Peace Through Strength Did Not Mean War at Any Price
    Posted: 05/18/2015 7:58 am EDT Updated: 05/18/2015 8:59 am EDT



    The third, and sadly disastrous, intervention was Lebanon. The U.S. had few measurable interests at stake in that tragic nation's civil war, but sought to strengthen the nominal national government, in truth but one of some 25 armed factions, and support Israel, which had invaded its northern neighbor. Washington trained the Lebanese military and allied militias and introduced U.S. combat forces. John H. Kelly of Rand observed: "In Lebanon it looked very much as if the United States had taken up arms in behalf of the Christians." Indeed, the U.S. took an active role in the fighting; officials were forced to admit that heavy naval bombardments resulted in civilian casualties. Washington's intervention triggered attacks on both the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks.

    Reagan recognized that he'd erred. After briefly emphasizing retaliation, he decided not to double down and "redeployed" existing troops to naval vessels which then sailed home without fanfare. He consciously rejected a policy of Iraq-lite: invasion, occupation, and transformation. We all should be thankful that he had the courage to back down. Otherwise, thousands of Americans could have died fighting in another meaningless Mideast war. More enemies would have been created and terrorists would have been activated.

    Yet neoconservatives denounced him sharply for refusing to invade and occupy Lebanon. Their criticism continues to this day. Philip Klein of the American Spectator said the withdrawal "sent the message to terrorists that they could attack us and we wouldn't have the appetite to respond." Podhoretz charged Reagan with "having cut and run." President George W. Bush argued that Reagan's withdrawal was one reason terrorists "concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves, and so they attacked us." Former CIA Director James Woolsey claimed that Iran and Syria saw America as cowards since “They saw us leave Lebanon after the '83 Marine Corps bombing."

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}

      Lebanon was a terrible mistake, but, in contrast to the perpetual war lobby, Reagan learned from his errors. More important, Reagan was no global social engineer. He stood on behalf of individual liberty, but saw America's role as the famed "city on a hill." He advocated increased military outlays for defense of this country, not international social work. Even where he acted militarily he had a narrow objective. He was willing to adapt his policies to changed circumstances.

      It's presumptuous to claim to know what Reagan would think today. But the world is much different than when he was in office. He undoubtedly would recognize that the end of the Cold War terminated the most serious threat against the U.S. He likely would have been horrified at the self-delusion which went into the disastrous decision to invade Iraq. He probably wouldn't be happy how Washington's defense policy has kept rich allies as welfare dependents more than a quarter century after he left office. An opponent of social engineering at home, it's hard to imagine him wasting American lives and money for more than a dozen years attempting to turn Afghanistan into a liberal democracy. An advocate of aid to insurgents fighting outside oppressors, he likely would have recognized the risk that local insurgents would take up arms against American occupiers. He certainly would worry about Washington's lost credibility, but likely would recognize that the answer was to make fewer foolish promises in the future rather than to make good on dumb ones in the past, such as to bomb Syria over its apparent use of chemical weapons.

      Finally, he would be angry at the attempt to use his legacy to justify a failed foreign policy. When Ronald Reagan left office the U.S. truly stood tall. George W. Bush more than any of Reagan's other successors squandered the Reagan legacy. And the former did so with a recklessly aggressive policy that ran counter to Ronald Reagan's far more nuanced approach in a far more difficult time. In contrast to Reagan most of today's leading Republicans appear to want strength but not peace.

      This article was first posted to National Interest online.

      Delete
  49. Case in point:

    A Fraternity of Failure: Paul Krugman On How Neocon Ideology Rewards Being Wrong

    Jeb Bush’s inability to articulate a coherent position on Iraq - or the economy - is due to the fact that the GOP establishment, still held captive by the neoconservative clergy class, are constantly trying to fit a rigid ideological square peg into the round hole of reality.

    W's Iraq War was a categorical and unquestionable failure in every sense. Moral, strategic, legal, political: the wrongheadedness of the 2003 invasion is broadly seen as one of the few black and whites in contemporary politics, despite recent attempts to "rebrand" the Bush presidency as anything other than a total disaster. Nevertheless, here we are. Little brother must at once acknowledge that the Iraq War was a bad idea while simultaneously not rejecting the American Enterprise Institute orthodoxy that makes up his inner circle and their entire foreign policy ethos. Krugman would call it what it was, total sleaze:

    Then he tried to walk it back. He “interpreted the question wrong,” and isn’t interested in engaging “hypotheticals.” Anyway, “going back in time” is a “disservice” to those who served in the war.

    Take a moment to savor the cowardice and vileness of that last remark. And, no, that’s not hyperbole. Mr. Bush is trying to hide behind the troops, pretending that any criticism of political leaders — especially, of course, his brother, the commander in chief — is an attack on the courage and patriotism of those who paid the price for their superiors’ mistakes. That’s sinking very low, and it tells us a lot more about the candidate’s character than any number of up-close-and-personal interviews.

    Wait, there’s more: Incredibly, Mr. Bush resorted to the old passive-voice dodge, admitting only that “mistakes were made.” Indeed. By whom? Well, earlier this year Mr. Bush released a list of his chief advisers on foreign policy, and it was a who’s-who of mistake-makers, people who played essential roles in the Iraq disaster and other debacles.

    Seriously, consider that list, which includes such luminaries as Paul Wolfowitz, who insisted that we would be welcomed as liberators and that the war would cost almost nothing, and Michael Chertoff, who as director of the Department of Homeland Security during Hurricane Katrina was unaware of the thousands of people stranded at the New Orleans convention center without food and water.


    {...}

    ReplyDelete
  50. {...}

    ...The craven team that made up W's White House sits in waiting. Backed by the same toxic mix of free-market ideologues, religious extremists, and pseudo-centrist apologists, Jeb is trying the same lay low strategy his brother did in 2000. The only problem, politically, is that he must carry the baggage of a Presidency so inept and corrupt it's become shorthand for what one doesn't want in a President. Americans notoriously have short memories, but, as Bush is finding out, there are limits to our collective amnesia. As Krugman would note:

    What’s going on here? My best explanation is that we’re witnessing the effects of extreme tribalism. On the modern right, everything is a political litmus test. Anyone who tried to think through the pros and cons of the Iraq war was, by definition, an enemy of President George W. Bush and probably hated America; anyone who questioned whether the Federal Reserve was really debasing the currency was surely an enemy of capitalism and freedom.

    It doesn’t matter that the skeptics have been proved right. Simply raising questions about the orthodoxies of the moment leads to excommunication, from which there is no coming back. So the only “experts” left standing are those who made all the approved mistakes. It’s kind of a fraternity of failure: men and women united by a shared history of getting everything wrong, and refusing to admit it. Will they get the chance to add more chapters to their reign of error?

    http://www.alternet.org/fraternity-failure-paul-krugman-how-neocon-ideology-rewards-always-being-wrong

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      I dislike Krugman immensely. I find most of his articles are motivated by politics rather economics. However, I have to admit he saw what was coming as a result of the Iraq war and was arguing against it back in 2003.

      Kudos Paul Krugman.

      .

      Delete
  51. Neocons - A fraternity of failure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Neo-Con" is a code word for Jew
      This is my experience in political discussion. Whenever people, whether they be liberals or old-line conservatives, use the term "neo-con," they're always talking about the same people: Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Bill Kristol, and the philosopher Leo Strauss. All Jewish. Neo-conservativism is usually discussed as a type of conservatism based only on political cynicism and lacking the traditional moral values that constitute "real" conservatism. And it's usually used as a term of contempt. And the topic of Israel always seems to seep in whenever you're talking to someone and that "N-word" comes up.

      This is my experience; others may think differently. But what I have found is that Neo-Con has become a political code-word for "Jew."

      Delete
  52. .

    Don’t bother recommending that I quit posting about the damage don to this country by the Neocons.

    Why would anyone?

    I was writing e-mails to everyone I could think of in the government in early 2003 arguing against any war in Iraq. I was denouncing the neocons while you were still shouting oohray to Bush's speeches.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  53. .

    The Kurds of Iraqi, the forces of the Peshmerga are part of the Iraqi Security Forces, just as the Shia militias are.

    Your silly parsing of words is childish, rat. You were wrong when you suggested there was any chance the Iraqis could send 800 soldiers to bail out Kobane. It was a stupid suggestion given the Iraqis were up to their ass in alligators at the time and being harassed by ISIS around Baghdad. Now, after the Kurds sent help, you suggest it was Baghdad that did it. More foolishness.

    Erdogan didn't negotiate with Baghdad to allow the Kurdish reinforcements, he talked to Barzani because of the good relations he had with him. It was Barzani that send the reinforcements to Kobane not Adabi. It was Barzani's brother that led the reinforcements and heavy artillery that helped turn things around in Kobane. It was the Kurds that helped the Kurds win in Kobane not fairy tales.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are correct, Legionnaire, I mentioned the 800 number a that is a battalion, the Iraqi sent a reinforced company, about 150 instead.

      Mr Barzani is part of the Iraqi government.
      Masoud Barzani is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who has been President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region since 2005
      IraqI Kurdistan Region ... In July 2009, in the first direct election for the presidency of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Masoud Barzani was reelected as president by a popular ballot, receiving 69.6% of the votes. The elections were closely monitored by international observers and the Iraqi Electoral Commission.

      The Kurdistan election, monitored by the Iraqi government, of which it is part.

      Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as an autonomous entity within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005.

      Kurdistan is analogous to a US state, Legionnaire.
      Mr Barzani similar to a Governor, in the United States.

      Delete
    2. Now, does Mr Barzani support an independent Kurdistan ?
      It would seem that he does, is there an independeent Kurdistan?
      The answer is an unequivocal NO.

      That is the political reality, today.

      Delete
    3. Barzani said the Kurds were coordinating with Baghdad in the fight against ISIS, where their Peshmerga military forces have played a major role. But he voiced the Kurds’ long-held dream of their own independent state.

      “Certainly the independent Kurdistan is coming,” he said, speaking through a translator at an event sponsored by the Atlantic Council and U.S. Institute of Peace think tanks. “It’s a continued process. It will not stop, it will not step back.

      Iraq’s unity “is voluntary and not compulsory, so therefore the important thing is for attempts to be made for everyone in Iraq to have that conviction that it would be a voluntary union and not a forced union,” he said. He added that any changes in Iraq's make-up should be made peacefully.

      http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/05/07/Barzani-We-are-on-behalf-of-free-world-fighting-ISIS-.html


      The US Embassy in Baghdad ..: “US policy toward Iraq has not changed. We support a unified Iraq. All of our military assistance and equipment deliveries are provided through the government of Iraq and the Iraqi security forces.”

      http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_us-congress-bill-on-iraq-and-iraqi-kurdistan_379862.html

      Delete
    4. Btw, Rat, as best I can figure, an Iraqi "battalion" is about 150 soldiers.

      I don't understand the discrepancy, but that's my judgment from reading Iraqi Media accounts of military engagements.

      Obviously, I might be wrong.

      Delete
    5. If 800 members of the Iraqi Security Forces had gone to Kobane, rather than the approximately 150 that were sent, the fight may have ended sooner.

      Delete
    6. .

      You talk around the subject, rat. As I said, wordsmithing. Erdogan and the US negotiated additional help for Kobane. Baghdad, the central government had zip to do with it. Erdogan didn't talk to Adabi, he reached agreement with Barzani.

      If 800 members of the Iraqi Security Forces had gone to Kobane, rather than the approximately 150 that were sent, the fight may have ended sooner.

      Again, the general shows his ignorance of the importance of the 150 troops. It wasn't the 150 troops (or the 800 troops). It was the heavy weapons that they brought. After the US started bombing in Kobane, the refrain from the Kurds was the same, in fact the same one they have to this day, the air support is great and we appreciate it but what we really need are heavy weapons. Barzani gave them the heavy weapons.

      .

      Delete
  54. Where are those 7,000 American trained, and equipped, Iraqi troops?

    Are they engaged in preparations for the Mosul Campaign?

    ReplyDelete
  55. .

    As to the ROI, the oil is flowing, the world economy has not collapsed ...

    What do we value that at?



    The simple uncluttered purity of a simple mind. Now, by going to war in Iraq, we have save the world economy from collapse. How many times has this excuse been used before?

    Another of rat's number 42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It's like Yinon (once again mentioned above) and his Plan, the number 42 of every event affecting the ME or N. Africa since 1982.

    It must be comforting to be able to categorize the cause of every event into a few simple bromides.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cause and effect, Legionnaire.
      You used to be a big fan of 'luck'

      While I tend to be a fan of Mr Milton

      “Luck is the residue of design.”
      ― John Milton

      Delete
    2. .

      Rat, you are like a crow after a shiny object or a cat following a moving light beam, always looking for the next new thing, a single thing that encompasses the entire explanation for a given event or action, the new number 42. Someone throws out a new theory, you jump on it and repeat it interminably on this blog like some new convert that has just come to Jesus and must share the experience. You credulity amazes. You did it with that guy's theory of how fundamentalist religion was created. You did it with the Khazar myth, the Yinon Plan, with you explanation for why the oil has continued to flow in Iraq.

      I am...well...I am speechless.

      .

      Delete
  56. Like it or not?

    Israel is what is RIGHT about the middle east...

    ReplyDelete
  57. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah is in a dire state - its worst since the onslaught of the 1982 First Lebanon War - and is on the brink of mobilizing its troops for reinforcement in a battle for survival, the Arab-language daily as-Safir reported Saturday.

    Nasrallah said his party is in the midst of fighting an existential battle against ISIS and other extremist groups in Syria and on Lebanon's border. Also challenging Hezbollah's regime are Sunni Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, which Nasrallah said have joined forces against Lebanon's Shi'ite group.

    He compared Hezbollah's current dire state to its state in 1982, following Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. "Then, just like today, we were faced with an existential crisis," he said. "We defeated the Zionists and we will defeat the extremist groups fighting us now."

    The Hezbollah leader said that now is the time for mobilization. He called on everyone "who enjoys a reputation of integrity" to contribute.

    Sheik Naim Qassem, deputy leader of the Shi'ite group, said the Middle East is at risk of partition and that he sees no end to the war in Syria, where it is fighting alongside President Bashar Assad against insurgents supported by his regional enemies.

    "Solutions for Syria are suspended. There is no political solution in the foreseeable period, and it is left to attrition, to the battlefield, and to wait for other developments in the region, particularly Iraq," he said.


    ReplyDelete
  58. Quirk can't seem to get it in his mind that it has been O'bozo that has fucked everything up.

    31 hours till Memorial Day.

    They're gonna really have to crank up that 'rat Doctrine' now.

    And Rufus has finally asked a good question:

    Rufus IISat May 23, 02:07:00 PM EDT

    Where are those 7,000 American trained, and equipped, Iraqi troops?

    Are they engaged in preparations for the Mosul Campaign?

    No, they are drinking with Quirk and some Russians at the Mosul Motel Six and are planning to flee to New Brunswick on the next flight out. ISIS has promised them passage in exchange for their guns and ammo. Ash has promised to meet them there and provide shelter 'in the interests of peace'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wouldn't you rather be in Canada than in Mosul ?

      Delete
  59. Surprise!


    How the world has surprised Brad DeLong:


    Four Ways in Which the World Has Surprised Me Over the Past Decade with Its Economics: A good day yesterday at the University of California center in Sacramento...

    I started out saying: I find my peers, as they age, become increasingly unwilling to mark their beliefs to market. .... So let me ... spend my time this lunchtime detailing four points in economics at which the world has surprised me over the past decade, and in which as a result reality has led me to shift my beliefs.

    In brief:
    •The world has turned out to be more Keynesian than I would have imagined a decade ago.
    •Low-tax, low-service U.S. state level political economy has proved to be ineffective as an economic development model. I was always pretty sure that it was a lousy bet from the standpoint of societal welfare. But a decade ago I thought it at least boosted state-level GDP. Now I do not.
    •The success of the implementation of Obamacare has raised my estimation of the administrative competence of the government.
    •And the aggregate economic costs to America of local NIMBYism now appear to me to be much larger than I would have thought reasonable decade ago: we are no longer a country in which people can afford to move to places where they will be more productive and more highly paid because high-productivity places refuse to upgrade their residential density.

    All this, I said, has powerful political consequences. And the politics of the last decade has also been very surprising to me. But I did not have time to get into that in any depth…

    The biggest surprise for me, and perhaps it shouldn't have been, is the degree to which politicians are willing to put political interests ahead of helping people in need. Watching the political/policy reaction to the Great Recession was both disappointing and eye opening.


    Posted by Mark Thoma on Saturday, May 23, 2015 at 09:41 AM in Economics | Permalink Comments (71)

    Economist's View

    ReplyDelete
  60. Quirk has been working from the old paradigm, that is his basic problem.

    It is not an ad world any longer.

    ReplyDelete
  61. 28 hours until Iraq is cleansed, and free of ISIS.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Gaza: Dozens Injured at Hamas Camp
    By MAJD AL WAHEIDI MAY 14, 2015

    A huge explosion at a training camp for Hamas militants in northern Gaza wounded more than 60 people, including women and children, on Thursday night, Hamas officials said. Iyad al-Buzom, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, described it in a Facebook post as an “internal explosion.” Witnesses said the blast, in Beit Lahiya, damaged nearby houses and caused power failures in the area.


    Hamas, a peace loving group of needle pointers....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Militant on militant

      A worrying uptick in violence directed against Hamas from groups linked to Islamic State

      NINE months after a devastating war with Israel, Gaza’s militants have been turning their weapons on each other. On May 4th a little-known group calling itself the Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem gave an ultimatum to Hamas, the less-extreme Islamists who control the strip: release our prisoners within 72 hours or face attacks.

      Within hours a bomb went off outside the security headquarters in Gaza City. No one was injured. Four days later the group shelled another Hamas compound, this time in the city of Khan Younis, at the southern end of the strip, and promised more violence. The authorities have been rounding up suspected enemies: more than a dozen new prisoners have been taken in the past few days.

      The French cultural centre in Gaza has been bombed twice in eight months. Prominent intellectuals and artists received death threats in December from a group calling itself Islamic State. Last month, a bomb went off near a United Nations building.

      Officially, at least, Hamas denies that there is a problem. “There is no Islamic State in Gaza,” said Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas official. “This extremism is a recent phenomenon in some areas… but in Gaza this environment does not exist.”

      Privately, they are concerned. After the group delivered its ultimatum to Hamas earlier this month, security forces set up dozens of checkpoints across the strip. They also stepped up patrols on the border with Israel, fearing that Salafist groups might launch attacks and invite Israeli retaliation. Police bulldozed a mosque last month, and dozens of people have been arrested, although Hamas did in fact release Adnan Mayyat, the sheikh whose arrest prompted the original deadline.

      The UN has raised its threat assessment in Gaza, fearing that extremist groups might target its employees. Kidnappings are rare: the last foreigner abducted in Gaza was Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist murdered by Salafist militants in 2011. Diplomats and aid workers worry that may change.


      More more, faster faster.

      Delete
  63. >>> Iyad al-Buzom, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, described it in a Facebook post as an “internal explosion.” <<<


    Hmmmm.......an "internal explosion".......I am uncertain as to what this refers, though it obviously must be quite different than an "external explosion".

    It must be some kind of term of art created by these guys in Gaza that spend all their time blowing shit up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe an "internal explosion" is one pulled off by the folks over at the "Interior Ministry" ?

      Delete
  64. US officials: Iran enters Iraqi fight for key oil refinery

    May 22, 4:00 PM (ET)

    By ROBERT BURNS

    (AP) Displaced civilians from Ramadi wait to receive humanitarian aid from the United...
    Full Image


    WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran has entered the fight to retake a major Iraqi oil refinery from Islamic State militants, contributing small numbers of troops — including some operating artillery and other heavy weapons — in support of advancing Iraqi ground forces, U.S. defense officials said Friday.

    Two U.S. defense officials said Iranian forces have taken a significant offensive role in the Beiji operation in recent days, in conjunction with Iraqi Shiite militia. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    One official said Iranians are operating artillery, 122mm rocket systems and surveillance and reconnaissance drones to help the Iraqi counteroffensive.

    The Iranian role was not mentioned in a new U.S. military statement asserting that Iraqi security forces, with U.S. help, had managed to establish a land route into the Beiji refinery compound. The statement Friday by the U.S. military headquarters in Kuwait said Iraqis have begun reinforcing and resupplying forces isolated inside the refinery compound.

    Iran's role in Iraq is a major complicating factor for the Obama administration as it searches for the most effective approach to countering the Islamic State group. U.S. officials have said they do not oppose contributions from Iran-supported Iraqi Shiite militias as long as they operate under the command and control of the Iraqi government.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Friday's U.S. military statement quoted Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley as saying that over the past three days Iraqi security forces and federal police have made "steady, measured progress" in regaining some areas leading to the Beiji refinery compound, in the face of suicide vehicle-borne bombs and rocket attacks. Weidley, chief of staff of the U.S.-led military headquarters in Kuwait, recently described the oil refinery as a "key infrastructure and critical crossroads."

      The U.S. statement said Iraqis, enabled by the U.S. and its coalition partners, have "successfully cleared and established a ground route" into the refinery to resupply Iraqi troops. It listed U.S. and coalition contributions as including airstrikes, reconnaissance and the use of "advise and assist elements."

      Asked about the newly emerging role of Iranian forces in Beiji, the U.S. command in Kuwait declined to comment directly, citing "operational security reasons." It added that all forces involved in Beiji are "aligned with the government of Iraq" and under the control of Iraqi security forces.

      Separately, the Pentagon said Friday that the cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria since U.S. airstrikes began in August is $2.44 billion as of May 7.

      IS fighters recently gained substantial control over the Beiji oil refinery, a strategically important prize in the battle for Iraq's future and a potential source of millions of dollars in income for the militants. They also control the nearby town of Beiji, on the main route from Baghdad to Mosul, along the Tigris River.

      The militants' move on Beiji largely coincided with its successful offensive in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, last week. Iraqi forces withdrew from Ramadi on Sunday, leaving behind large numbers of U.S.-supplied vehicles, including several tanks. The U.S. said Friday that its airstrikes in Ramadi overnight hit an IS fighting unit, destroying five armored vehicles, two tanks and other military vehicles, as well as nine abandoned tanks and other armored vehicles.......................

      http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150522/us--united_states-iraq-3f3b258281.html

      The Pentagon Spokespersons have gotten good at sugar coating the daily pep pill.

      Not to worry: only 24 1/2 hours till Iraq is ISIS Free !! (latest reports are that the 'rat Doctrine' is finally beginning to 'bear some fruit', whatever that means)

      Delete
  65. Long, but interesting -


    ISIS Targets City that Inspired Washington, D.C. for Destruction
    May 22, 2015 by Daniel Greenfield 124 Comments
    325134120
    Print This Post Print This Post

    palyrmaDaniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

    The great columns and pediments of Washington, D.C. that give it a Roman and Greek air have their origins in a lost city in the Syrian desert. After Robert Wood and James Dawkins visited the ruins of Palmyra in the eighteenth century, the illustrations of the bare columns and broken arches helped inspire neoclassical architecture. Now the city that helped inspire Washington is occupied by ISIS.

    It is a historical irony that the classical architecture of our national capital where Islamic terrorists are appeased owes a good deal to a forgotten Christian outpost that surrendered to the armies of Islam.

    Some would even say that history is repeating itself.

    Palmyra fell when it was besieged by the savage horde of Khalid ibn al-Walid; the Sword of Allah. The Sword of Allah was known for numerous atrocities. One particularly gruesome account describes how he murdered the Arab poet and chieftain Malik ibn Nuweira for returning taxes demanded by Mohammed to his people, telling them, “Your wealth is now your own.” The Islamic IRS was even nastier than ours.

    The Sword of Allah cut off Malik’s head and used it to cook dinner before raping his wife. Through such atrocities, that helped inspire the modern crimes of ISIS, the Sword of Allah was able to keep Mohammed’s conquests together after his death. When he came to Palmyra, the Sword swore by Allah that he would conquer it even if it were in heaven and capture its sons and daughters.

    Hoping to save their lives, the people of Palmyra surrendered and became dhimmis. Arabic replaced Aramaic, Islam replaced Christianity and the city once founded by King Solomon mostly vanished from history. Those inhabitants who survived the terrible centuries of Islamic occupation, lost their identity, their religion and any knowledge that they were of a nobler kind than their brutal conquerors.

    Palmyra falls again with its capture by ISIS. This fall may be its final one. If ISIS has its way, the ruins of the city that helped inspire the rebirth of classical architecture in England and America will be destroyed.

    Like the old armies of Islam that destroyed the Library of Alexandria because its books were a threat to the totalitarian writ of the Koran, ISIS destroys the remains of the civilizations that predated Islam. It is not alone in seeking to destroy the histories of more civilized times so that none of the peoples under its rule can ever seek to better themselves by reaching for something higher and better than the Koran.

    America found inspiration in ancient civilizations to reach higher. ISIS wants a world where no one can ever know that there were better men than Mohammed and the Sword of Allah, so that its followers will aspire to be nothing better than murderers and rapists, destroying the past to kill the future.

    While the archeological mass destruction practiced by ISIS and the Taliban is well known, “moderate” Muslim kingdoms like Saudi Arabia engage in the same practice. Wahhabism began with the destruction of relics. While Europeans were marveling over Palmyra, the House of Saud was massacring thousands and destroying historical artifacts across Iraq and Syria in a manner indistinguishable from ISIS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Islamic State’s Caliph has vowed that “After Ramadi, will come Baghdad and Karbala.” ISIS is retracing the path of the House of Saud, which had declared, “We took Karbala and slaughtered and took its people (as slaves), then praise be to Allah… and we do not apologize for that and say: ‘And to the unbelievers: the same treatment.'”

      That horrid event took place in the same year that Washington D.C. was incorporated as a city and the Library of Congress was founded. There could hardly be a better contrast between Islam and America.

      That is what we are up against, not only in the fight against ISIS, but in the Clash of Civilizations.

      Islamists in Libya and Timbuktu, after Obama’s illegal regime change destabilized the region, were left free to destroy mausoleums and shrines. When UNESCO protested, the Jihadists of Ansar Dine, the Defenders of Islam, responded by mocking the helpless international organization, “We are all Muslims. UNESCO is what? [We are acting] in the name of Allah.”

      Now UNESCO is appealing to protect Palmyra from the modern Swords of Allah, but it’s equally helpless to do so. The Swords of Allah and Defenders of Islam are savages who thrive on terror. They destroy everything that reminds them of their own cultural inferiority. They cannot be reasoned with.

      UNESCO chief Irina Bokova calls the potential destruction of Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site, “an enormous loss to humanity.” But we cannot save the ruins of Palmyra until we recognize that the forces threatening it today are the same as those that left it a forgotten ruin in the desert.

      The enormous loss to humanity started when the warlords of Islam began the destruction of thousands of years of civilization. ISIS is only finishing what the armies of Mohammed began.

      When it burns manuscripts in the Mosul Library, ISIS is following up Caliph Omar’s destruction of the Library of Alexandria. When the Jihad conquered Persia and found “innumerable quantity of books and scientific treatises”, Omar commanded, “Throw them into the water.”

      Until we recognize that ISIS is the extension of the Islamic imperative of cultural mass destruction, we will continue losing cultural heritage sites, not only in the Middle East, but in Europe as well, where churches are being turned into mosques, Georg Engelhard Schröder’s Juno is covered up in the Swedish Legislature to avoid offending Muslims and a Mozart opera is shut down in Berlin.

      Palmyra is likely to meet the same fate as Aleppo and Nimrud. As have Hatra and Khorsabad.

      The ruins of Nimrud were bulldozed and blown up. In Mosul, ISIS savages rampaged through the museum smashing artifacts. Dabiq, the ISIS magazine, explained that, “The kuffar (non-Muslims) had unearthed these statues and ruins in recent generations and attempted to portray them as part of a cultural heritage and identity that the Muslims of Iraq should embrace and be proud of.”

      ISIS, like the armies of Islam dating back to Mohammed, has as its core mission the destruction of the pre-Islamic cultures that might inspire people living under Islam to better themselves, to look beyond the black veil of Islam to the past and the future. There is nothing savages hate more than civilization.

      What is at stake in the Clash of Civilizations is the destruction of civilization. The ruins of Palmyra inspired our civilization. Their threatened destruction should inspire us to protect our own civilization from the Swords of Allah before all that remains of our cities is the ruins of a lost greatness.

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/isis-targets-city-that-inspired-washington-d-c-for-destruction/

      Delete
  66. And finally, for Quirk, who is scratching his head and looking for the golden thread to explain it all - not that I believe every word of this article - just providing 'food for though' -

    >>>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.<<<

    Obama’s Policies to Empower ISIS Exposed
    May 22, 2015 by Raymond Ibrahim

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/raymond-ibrahim/obamas-policies-to-empower-isis-exposed/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. food for thought for the thoughtless and starving

      Delete
  67. >>>When Obama took office in 2008, Iraq was by Arab standards, relatively stable. There were the usual bombings and shootings but things were returning to normal. The government, with U.S. military backing, was beginning to exercise some measure of control and the army was gaining confidence and performing better. The city of Ramadi, once a hotbed of insurgent activity, was pacified, largely as a result of military action taken during the 2007 surge, and Anbar was stable.

    But the Obama administration allowed hard-won gains to slip away by setting definitive timeframes for troop withdrawals and ignoring sectarian transgressions by Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. Compounding the error, the administration failed to identify and assist moderate anti-Assad rebels in Syria early on in that nation’s civil war, allowing more extreme elements, supplied and financed by Qatar and Turkey, to flourish.

    Moreover, the CIA and State Department received and ignored intelligence reports warning that ISIS posed a credible strategic threat long before ISIS morphed into the juggernaut menace that it is today. That assessment, issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency, was made 17 months before President Obama dismissively referred to ISIS as the “JV team.”

    While Anbar burns and Iraq falls further under the influence of extremist Sunni and Shiite factions, ISIS is on the offensive in Syria, threatening to take the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. The city’s historic archeological ruins have been designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO.

    ISIS has already seized control of two critically important gas fields to the city’s north-east and the terrorist group now controls one-third of the city. Assad’s troops, who excel at inflicting civilian casualties and not much else, have retreated to the city’s center. If ISIS succeeds in capturing the city — and that possibility appears very real — there is a genuine concern that it will lay to waste the city’s historic archeological sites as it did to Iraq’s Nineveh, Hatra and Nimrud.

    The loss of Palmyra would represent another blow for the Assad regime which has experienced a string of setbacks in the northern and southern parts of the country this past month. Iran’s Shiite proxy Hezbollah, which has been instrumental in propping up Assad’s ailing and increasingly demoralized army has itself suffered heavy casualties in the last few weeks, sustaining at least 250 killed in battles against anti-Assad forces in the Qalamoun Mountain range.

    The Obama administration has been conducting a farcical campaign in both Syria and Iraq. Its airstrikes have not prevented ISIS from carrying out large scale attacks like those recently witnessed in Ramadi and Palmyra. It continues to allow Assad to indiscriminately shell civilian areas and employ chlorine gas without repercussion. Obama attempted to justify his passivity by almost comically stating that chlorine has not “historically” been considered a chemical weapon. Try telling that to those blinded, burned or killed as a result of Assad’s chlorine gas poisoning....<<<

    Anbar Province Lost
    May 21, 2015 by Ari Lieberman

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/ari-lieberman/anbar-province-lost/

    I like this article because it correctly names the true culprit here - Obama.

    Cheers !!

    Serenity !!

    out

    ReplyDelete
  68. >>>It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.<<< - Mark Twain

    May 24, 2015
    Why Official Christianity Is Dying
    By Mike Konrad

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/05/why_official_christianity_is_dying.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. >>>What separates Christianity from all other religions is a hard truth: Man is intrinsically evil. This flies in the face of hyper-leftist dogma that man is essentially good; all that is necessary is an environmental tune up.

      While it is true that crime is greater in poor neighborhoods -- poverty can bring out the worst in people -- it is equally true that that potential for evil has to be there. Increasing prosperity will lessen street crime to be sure. Well-fed people have less need to steal, but crime will merely blossom in other areas.

      This doctrine is called "Original Sin;" and it has been replaced in our culture by self-esteem.

      Other religions do not have this concept. Islam treats men as morally neutral, with his eternal fate being the accumulation of merits and demerits from his actions. Hinduism and Buddhism (which is really reformed Hinduism, the Buddha was born Hindu) teach that men eventually merit nirvana through cycles of reincarnation. Here, again, men must merit their redemption, however it is defined. Technically, Jews do not believe in original sin, either.

      Moses declared that it is man alone who can and must merit his own salvation. - Outreach Judaism

      Though I have seen some lectures by Hasidic rabbis speaking of intrinsic weaknesses, most Jews I have discussed the matter with have denied a concept of original sin. This is no small matter, nor a theological curiosity unique to Christianity, which makes a neat topic for a college debate. It is the essence of good Republican governance....<<<



      *** Hinduism and Buddhism (which is really reformed Hinduism, the Buddha was born Hindu) teach that men eventually merit nirvana through cycles of reincarnation. Here, again, men must merit their redemption, however it is defined. ***

      "It's not an ending until it's a happy yet, Uncle Bob"

      :)

      Delete
    2. I don't buy the argument that original sin is intrinsic to Christianity in the first place.

      Matthew 4: 1 - 17

      Delete
  69. >>>And nobody in Waco gave any press conferences about the need to understand the legitimate rage of the poor white peckerwood dumbass class.<<<

    O Miss T, I miss you so.

    More on the Waco Police Riot here -

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418578/gunfight-not-riot-what-happened-waco-kevin-d-williamson

    ReplyDelete
  70. Yesterday, California tapped Renewables for 31% of its Electricity

    (does not include Large Hydro.)

    Daily Ca ISO

    ReplyDelete
  71. Yesterday Quirk tapped large renewable vats of Relski Vodka for 91% of his personal energy needs.

    The other 9% was provided by mint flavored party sized crinkle potato chips with 'Detroit Sauce Mix', a mixture of Detroit River bottom mud, humidity and decaying plant life.

    Daily Quirk ISO

    ReplyDelete
  72. We all must be getting really old.

    IRELAND voted in GAY MARRIAGE.

    How likely is that ?

    What's next ?

    POLAND going TRANSGENDER ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Ireland 'changed utterly' by gay marriage vote
      AFP
      2 hours ago

      

      Gay marriage supporters celebrate outside Dublin Castle following the result of the referendum on May 23, 2015
      .

      View gallery

      .
      .

      Dublin (AFP) - Ireland's newspapers said Sunday that the country had dramatically changed and confirmed its emergence from the shadow of the traditionally powerful Catholic Church by voting in favour of gay marriage.
      Related Stories

      High turnout seen favouring Yes in Irish gay marriage vote Reuters
      High turnout seen favoring Yes in Irish gay marriage vote Reuters
      Irish set to say 'Yes' to gay marriage in world first AFP
      Ireland celebrates after huge 'Yes' to gay marriage AFP
      Ireland says big 'Yes' to gay marriage in world first AFP

      Tabloids and broadsheets alike carried colourful pictures of partying "Yes" supporters cheering the landslide referendum result Saturday as they reflected on what the decision meant for Ireland.

      The Sunday Independent, Ireland's biggest-selling newspaper, said the vote was truly "historic".

      "A new beginning" said its front page, which carried a picture of a lesbian couple who plan to marry as others in the background jumped in the air waving the rainbow flag.

      "On a fine day in May 2015 this country became a much more open, inclusive and modern society. With the mark of a ballot paper, hundreds of thousands of citizens voted by a large majority to leave behind those grey decades of a less tolerant Ireland," the broadsheet's editorial said.

      "Ireland has changed, changed utterly... in the voice of its young people, who have declared as one that nothing will ever be the same again.".................

      http://news.yahoo.com/ireland-changed-utterly-gay-marriage-vote-105252944.html


      I'll believe Ireland has 'changed utterly' when give up the Guinness dry stout.

      Delete
  73. Just 18 hours until Iraq is ISIS Free, based on d. rat's prediction.

    ReplyDelete