"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Ok, 2 navy jet dropped 500lb bombs on an ISIS artillery piece.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Shi'ite militia forces loyal to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki stepped up patrols around Baghdad on Sunday night after he delivered a tough televised speech indicating he would not cave in to pressure to drop a bid for a third term.
Political deadlock has prevented Iraqi politicians from uniting Iraqis against Islamic State militants whose advance in the north has rattled the Baghdad government and its Western allies.
Just days after the US launched a campaign that implicitly aides the current regime headed by the supposedly outgoing PM, al-Maliki, it appears that latest US intervention has already led to "unexpected" consequences, this time with the prime minister appearing to have just staged a coup overthrowing Iraq's president President Fouad Massoum moments ago.
Reuters reports that the prime minister "indicated that he will not drop his bid for a third term and accused the president of violating the constitution in a tough televised speech likely to deepen political tensions as a Sunni insurgency rages. Maliki, seen as an authoritarian and sectarian leader, has defied calls by Sunnis, Kurds, some fellow Shi'ites and regional power broker Iran to step aside for a less polarising figure who can unite Iraqis against Islamic State militants.
Bloomberg adds that Maliki says he’s going to federal court to sue President Fouad Masoum for violating the constitution, according to comments made to Iraqi state television. President Masoum in breach when he extended constitutional period for chosing a candidiate to form government and for missing deadline for new period, according to Maliki. Maliki adds that Masoum is in a "coup against the poilitical process” that would lead “Iraq into a dark tunnel.” Maliki warned Presidential council, parliament and federal court about Masoum.
The news has promptly led the WaPo Beirut chief correspondent Liz Sly to ask the question: did Baghdad just have a coup 3 days after the US conducted its fourth military intervention under as many US presidents?
A coup in Baghdad? Maliki announces he won't resign and orders security forces on alert. So much for bringing democracy to Iraq.
Odd timing indeed. One thing is certain: the US will not let this crisis go to waste either.
However, what makes this particular development especially interesting is that a very organized ISIS is already doing its best to conquer the Iraq capital. A very disorganized army coup may be all that was needed to facilitate this goal, and to put the Iraq oil trade "in play" once again.
We may as well finish up the weekend on yet another inexplicable appearance by the Commander in Chief. And this one is a doozy, picked up by Joel Gehrke at The Corner. The President, during his brief, pre-tee off time availability this weekend, chose to address what a mess Iraq currently is and whether or not our lack of presence there had anything to do with it. Well, it did, but it obviously wasn’t his fault. He never really wanted to leave in the first place.
President Obama refused to take responsibility for the lack of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that American soldiers had to pull out due to political pressure from Iraqi leaders.
“This issue keeps on coming up as if this was my decision,” Obama retorted when asked if he had any second thoughts, in light of the terrorist force taking over regions of Iraq, about having pulled all American troops out of the country.
“The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq,” he said.
Now, normally if we wanted to refute a statement like this, we might have to go to Fox News or some conservative bastion of record keeping to find some supporting evidence. But in this case, why don’t we go straight to the horse’s mouth and check in at the White House web site.
“After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011,” he said. “So today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.”
The government has clearly hit the petting zoo stage of planning and execution, so let’s leave the final comment to the animals.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees have fled to Syria-Turkey border region of Kobani to escape onslaught of Islamist militants
September 21, 2014
Kurdish fighters from Turkey and Iraq are scrambling to help defend a vital Kurdish safe haven in northern Syria, where tens of thousands of Kurds have fled after an offensive by Islamic State (Isis) militants.
The border region of Kobani, home to half a million people, has held out for months against an onslaught by Islamists seeking to consolidate their hold over swaths of northern Syria. But in recent days, Isis extremists have seized a series of settlements close to the town of Kobani itself, sending as many as 100,000 mostly Kurdish refugees streaming across the border into Turkey.
"I don't think in the last three and a half years we have seen 100,000 cross in two days," the representative for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Turkey, Carol Batchelor, told Reuters. "So this is a bit of a measure of how this situation is unfolding, and the very deep fear people have about the circumstances inside Syria and, for that matter, Iraq."
A Kurdish commander on the ground said Isis had advanced to within 9 miles (15km) of Kobani.
A Kurdish politician from Turkey who visited Kobani on Saturday said locals told him Isis fighters were beheading people as they went from village to village.
"Rather than a war this is a genocide operation … They are going into the villages and cutting the heads of one or two people and showing them to the villagers," Ibrahim Binici, a deputy for Turkey's pro-Kurdish People's Democratic party (HDP), told Reuters.
"It is truly a shameful situation for humanity," he said, calling for international intervention. Five of his fellow MPs planned a hunger strike outside UN offices in Geneva to press for action, he said.
The Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), a rebel group that has spent three decades fighting for autonomy for Turkey's Kurds, renewed a call for the youth of Turkey's mostly Kurdish south-east to rise up and rush to save Kobani.
"Supporting this heroic resistance is not just a debt of honour of the Kurds but all Middle East people. Just giving support is not enough, the criterion must be taking part in the resistance," it said in a statement on its website. "[Isis] fascism must drown in the blood it spills … The youth of North Kurdistan [south-east Turkey] must flow in waves to Kobani," it said.
Hundreds of people gathered in solidarity for a third day on the Turkish side of the barbed wire border fence near the town of Suruc, where many of the refugees have crossed. Security forces trying to maintain order fired teargas and water cannon and some protesters started throwing stones at them in frustration.
Even by the standards of Syria's bitter war, the refugee numbers are alarming. Their numbers add to the 2.8 million Syrians who have become refugees in the past three years, and another 6.4 million who have been displaced within their own country – approaching half of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million.
UNHCR and the Turkish authorities said they were preparing for the possibility of hundreds of thousands more refugees arriving in the coming days.
Kobani's relative stability through much of Syria's conflict meant 200,000 internally displaced people were sheltering there before Isis's advance, UNHCR said.
"This massive influx shows how important it is to offer and preserve asylum space for Syrians as well as the need to mobilise international support to the neighbouring countries," said Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.
Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda.
The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles.
But on Saturday night Harakat Hazm surrendered military bases and weapons supplies to Jabhat al-Nusra, when the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria stormed villages they controlled in northern Idlib province.
In Idlib, Harakat Hazm gave up their positions to Jabhat al-Nusra “without firing a shot”, according to some reports, and some of the men even defected to the jihadists.
In Aleppo, where Harakat Hazm also has a presence, the group has survived, but only by signing a ceasefire agreement with Jabhat al-Nusra, and giving up some of their checkpoints to the group.
There are no “moderate” rebels. There are only Jihadists pretending to be what we want them to be to get weapons, money and air support from us. Once they get it, they will pass it on up the ladder.
As I pointed out back in June, this is how it works.
Four out of five of the FSA’s front commanders had demanded to work with Al Qaeda last year. Parts of the FSA joined the Islamic Front and seized the FSA’s weapons warehouses taking anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. The FSA fighters fled. Earlier ISIS had seized USAID items intended for the FSA.
After these embarrassments Obama was forced to temporarily suspend aid to the Free Syrian Army.
Pouring weapons and money into Syria just means arming and funding ISIS.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
President Obama, are these Islamic groups also exploiting a “legitimate and beautiful religion,” while they invoke the quran and Islamic texts and teachings myriad times daily?: Hamas, Hezb’allah, Boko Haram, the Muslim Brotherhood and these other designated Islamic terrorist organizations:
Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade,
Abu Nidal Organization,
Abu Sayyaf,
al-Aqsa Foundation,
al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades,
Al-Badr,
al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya,
Al Ghurabaa,
al-Haramain Foundation,
Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya,
al-Qaeda in Iraq,
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,
Al-Shabaab,
Takfir wal-Hijra,
Al-Umar-Mujahideen,
Ansar al-Islam,
Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna,
Ansar Dine,
Ansaru,
Armed Islamic Group of Algeria,
Army of Islam,
Osbat al-Ansar,
Caucasus Emirate,
Deendar Anjuman,
Dukhtaran-e-Millat,
East Turkestan Islamic Movement,
East Turkestan Liberation Organization,
Egyptian Islamic Jihad,
El Kaide Terör Örgütü Türkiye Yapılanması,
Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front,
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades,
Haqqani network,
Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami,
Harkat-al-Jihad al-Islami in Bangladesh,
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen,
Harakat-Ul-Mujahideen/Alami,
Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin,
Hezbollah Military Wing,
Hezbollah External Security Organisation,
Hilafet Devleti,
Hizb ut-Tahrir,
Hizbul Mujahideen,
Hofstad Network,
Holy Land Foundation,
for Relief and Development,
Indian Mujahideen,
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army,
Islamic Jihad – Jamaat Mujahideen,
Islamic Jihad Union,
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,
Jabhat al-Nusra,
Jaish-e-Mohammed,
Jamaat Ul-Furquan
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh,
Jamiat al-Islah al-Idzhtimai,
Jamiat ul-Ansar,
Jamiat-e Islami,
Jemaah Islamiyah,
Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid,
Jund al-Sham,
Jundallah,
Kata’ib Hezbollah,
Khuddam ul-Islam,
Lashkar-e-Taiba,
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group,
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group,
Muslim Brotherhood,
Palestine Liberation Front,
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine,
People’s Congress of Ichkeria and Dagestan,
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan,
Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage,
Stichting Al Aqsa,
Students Islamic Movement of India,
Supreme Military Majlis ul-Shura of the United Mujahideen Forces of Caucasus,
Taliban,
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi,
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,
United Liberation Front of Assam,
World Uygur Youth Congress ….
We didn’t link Islam to terrorism. The Quran does.
US Envoy: To Defeat ISIS, We Must Highlight ‘Our Profound Respect’ for Islam
By Patrick Goodenough, CNS, October 29, 2014
CNSNews.com) – A global effort to counter claims by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) that it is acting in the name of Islam must include a counter-narrative that highlights “our profound respect” for the religion, the administration’s point man in the anti-ISIS coalition said this week.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen was speaking in Kuwait, where representatives of more than a dozen Islamic and Western met to discuss using public communications to combat ISIS (also known as Da’esh – an acronym for the Arabic rendering of the group’s name, ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fil-Iraq wa ash-Sham).
“As we seek to expose Da’esh’s true nature,” Allen told the gathering on Monday, “we must also tell a positive story, one that highlights our respect – our profound respect for Islam’s proud traditions, its rich history, and celebration of scholarship and family and community.”
“We must work with clerics and scholars and teachers and parents to tell the story of how we celebrate Islam, even as we show that Da’esh perverts it.”
The conference in Kuwait City brought together officials from leading Arab states, Turkey, France, Britain and the U.S. to discuss ways their governments are working to counter ISIS’ message.
The jihadist group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has declared a “caliphate” in those areas, runs a dynamic propaganda and recruitment operation, including a full-color online magazine, video clips, and an active social media presence.
The Qur’an and other Islamic texts, along with viewpoints of historical and modern-day Muslim scholars, are central to its messaging, and the U.S.-led coalition is prioritizing attempts to counter the purported religious justifications for its actions.
Allen said that ISIS propaganda serves both to attract recruits and “perverts the innocent.”
“It is only when we contest Da’esh’s presence online and deny the legitimacy of its message – the message that it sends to vulnerable young people – and as we expose Da’esh for the un-Islamic, criminal cult of violence that it really is, it is only then that Da’esh will be truly defeated.”
He said every member of the coalition had a role to play in combating the image ISIS portrays of itself.
“Da’esh’s online messengers present themselves as the true and victorious representatives of Islam. They seek to portray themselves as winners, true leaders worthy of financial support that attracts and radicalizes foreign fighters,” he said.
“I believe every coalition partner, every one, has a unique and a vital role to play in striking down this image – this image within the context of our respective cultural, religious, and national norms.”
Allen noted that leading religious figures in the region have spoken out against ISIS on religious grounds.
Last August, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia declared that ISIS’ ideas and violent conduct made it “enemy number one of Islam.” The same month, Egypt’s grand mufti launched an Internet-based campaign to discredit ISIS, and urged media to stop using any name for the group that incorporates the word “Islamic.”
More than 120 Islamic figures last month signed a letter to ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – who calls himself “Caliph Ibrahim” and has called on jihadists everywhere to swear loyalty to him – challenging him on religious grounds.
‘Islamic foundations’
According to the State Department, coalition members at the conference in Kuwait discussed ways in which governments can “strengthen the resistance of our communities” to ISIS’ message.
“This involves intensifying our engagement to address significant events; enhancing exchanges, training and other cooperative programs for government leaders and spokespersons; actively opposing the recruitment of foreign fighters; and encouraging important religious and social leaders, opinion makers, and the millions of young people who oppose violent extremism to raise their voices through traditional and social media,” it said in a statement.
Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday underlined the priority being given to the task.
“We will leave no effort untested with respect to our efforts to shut down the ability of these people to propagandize, to lie, to deceive, and to have whatever influence they may be able to have on young minds or other minds anywhere in the world. That’s already going on,” he told reporters in Ottawa.
“We also have a major effort undertaken at this moment to engage religious communities around the world to delegitimize ISIL’s claims with respect to any Islamic foundations that their actions may have.”
The administration last month appointed Allen as special presidential envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk, an Iraq specialist, serving as his deputy.
Allen served as deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq’s Anbar province in 2006-2008, and was credited with playing a key role in the “awakening” campaign by Anbar’s Sunni tribes against al-Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS’ precursor. He was coalition commander in Afghanistan from 2011-2013.
Sheesh.
Here again the leading scholar of Islam tells us what it is or what it’s not. Nuts.
Secretary Kerry, are these Islamic groups also exploiting a “legitimate and beautiful religion,” while they invoke the quran and Islamic texts and teachings myriad times daily?: Hamas, Hezb’allah, Boko Haram, the Muslim Brotherhood and these other designated Islamic terrorist organizations:
Yes, that’s why they strap one on or hack heads off with six-inch knives or gang-rape non-Muslim women and sell them at slave markets and …
In a conversation with The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons at the Washington Ideas Forum on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry cited a world of “masses of young people”—concentrated especially in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—where “if these kids are left to no devices, or their own … something is going to come along and say, ‘The world is disappointing you, and we’re a better alternative.’How else do you get young kids to strap themselves in suicide vests and think thing are better on the other side? But that’s happening.” (thanks to Christian)
So the United States Secretary of State John Kerry thinks that young Muslims blown themselves up and take scores of innocents with them because …. they are bored? Really is he really this brain dead or is this just for public consumption. These Muslims are newly devout and they do it to reach paradise. That is why they do it. They do it for Allah.
It is not surprising at all that Muslims in the West would express support for the Islamic State. The idea of a caliphate transcending national allegiance goes back to the beginning of Islamic history. The Obama administration and Western analysts are surprised by this because they have discounted Islamic theology as a motivating factor for jihadis, and don’t understand the implications of the jihadi’s attachment to Isl
And how does Secretary of State explain the “disappointment” of tens of thousands of young Muslims from the US. Canada, UK, Europe, Australia and beyond — many private school educated from affluent homes– flocking to the Mideast to wage jihad in cause of Islam?
Idiocy.
It’s a fear Kerry said he’s heard voiced by his counterpart foreign ministers in other parts of the world.
The fear is pure Islam, devout Islam
“They’re disciplined,” Kerry recalled his counterpart saying of terrorist recruiters. “And they don’t have a five-year plan. They have a 30-year plan.”
“We don’t even have a five-year plan,” Kerry continued. “We have got to get our act together.”
A five-year plan? We haven’t got a plan for an hour from now.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Well, Obama did decide to help a little bit against ISIS because.... Well I hate to point out that the PKK is still officially a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, last time I checked.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraqi troops abandoned dozens of U.S military vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery pieces when they fled Islamic State fighters in Ramadi on Sunday, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, estimated that a half dozen tanks were abandoned, a similar number of artillery pieces, a larger number of armored personnel carriers and about 100 wheeled vehicles like Humvees. He said some of the vehicles were in working condition; others were not because they had not been moved for months.
This repeats a pattern in which defeated Iraq security forces have, over the past year, left behind U.S.-supplied military equipment, prompting the U.S. to destroy them in subsequent airstrikes against Islamic State forces.
Asked whether the Iraqis should have destroyed the vehicles before abandoning the city in order to keep them from enhancing IS's army, Warren said, "Certainly preferable if they had been destroyed; in this case they were not."
Warren also said that while the U.S. is confident that Ramadi will be retaken by Iraq, "It will be difficult."
The fall of Ramadi has prompted some to question the viability of the Obama administration's approach in Iraq, which is a blend of retraining and rebuilding the Iraqi army, prodding Baghdad to reconcile with the nation's Sunnis, and bombing Islamic State targets from the air without committing American ground combat troops.
"The president's plan isn't working. It's time for him to come up with overarching strategy to defeat the ongoing terrorist threat," House Speaker John Boehner said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama has always been open to suggestions for improving the U.S. approach in Iraq.
"It's something that he's talking about with his national security team just about every day, including today," Earnest said.
Derek Harvey, a retired Army colonel and former Defense Intelligence Agency officer who served multiple tours in Iraq, says that while the extremist group has many problems and weaknesses, it is "not losing" in the face of ineffective Sunni Arab opposition.
"They are adaptive and they remain well armed and well resourced," Harvey said of the militants. "The different lines of operation by the U.S. coalition remain disjointed, poorly resourced and lack an effective operational framework, in my view."
One alternative for the Obama administration would be a containment strategy - trying to fence in the conflict rather than push the Islamic State group out of Iraq. That might include a combination of airstrikes and U.S. special operations raids to limit the group's reach. In fact, a Delta Force raid in Syria on Friday killed an IS leader known as Abu Sayyaf who U.S. officials said oversaw the group's oil and gas operations, a major source of funding.
Officials have said containment might become an option but is not under active discussion now.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a written statement Monday that suggested Ramadi will trigger no change in the U.S. approach.
"Setbacks are regrettable but not uncommon in warfare," Dempsey said. "Much effort will now be required to reclaim the city."
It seems highly unlikely that Obama would take the more dramatic route of sending ground combat forces into Iraq to rescue the situation in Ramadi or elsewhere. A White House spokesman, Eric Shultz, said Monday the U.S. will continue its support through airstrikes, advisers and trainers.
The administration has said repeatedly that it does not believe Iraq can be stabilized for the long term unless Iraqis do the ground fighting.
Pentagon officials insisted Monday the current U.S. approach to combating IS in Iraq is still viable and that the loss of Ramadi was merely part of the ebb and flow of war, not a sign that the Islamic State had exposed a fatal weakness in the Iraqi security forces and the U.S. strategy.
Others are skeptical.
"We don't really have a strategy at all," former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday on MSNBC. "We're basically playing this day by day."
Gates, who headed the Pentagon for Obama as well as President George W. Bush's administration before that, said "right now, it looks like they're (Iraq) going the way of Yugoslavia," suggesting an eventual breakup of the state.
The Institute for the Study of War, which closely tracks developments in Iraq, said Ramadi was a key Islamic State victory.
"This strategic gain constitutes a turning point in ISIS' ability to set the terms of battle in Anbar as well to project force in eastern Iraq," the institute said.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Today the Islamic State again won a major battle, this time in Syria.
After being pushed out of some neighborhoods of the ancient town of Palmyra on Monday, Islamic State fighters now control almost all of Palmyra after violent clashes with Assad’s forces and its Shiite allies, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported an hour ago.
Syrian state television reported earlier this evening that Assad’s forces were battling large groups of ISIS fighters and citizens of Palmyra were evacuated.
The BBC reported that Syria’s head of antiquities, Maamoun Abdul Karim, said the world has the responsibility to save Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Known as Tadmor in the Bible, tradition holds the city was first fortified by the Israelite King Solomon over 3,000 years ago.
Hundreds of statues have been moved to safety, but large monuments could not be moved.
IS militants have ransacked and demolished several ancient sites that predate Islam in Iraq, including Hatra and Nimrud, leading to fears that it might attempt to damage or destroy Palmyra.
In southwest Syria, ISIS is still trying to set up camp in the vicinity of Kuneitra, close to the Israeli border. Israeli news radio station Reshet Beth reported today that two days ago, the Free Syrian Army, in cooperation with the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra, overpowered fighters of the Islamic State affiliate Shuhada al-Yarmouk Brigades. This was the second time in a month Islamic State fighters were driven out of the area.
Over the last two weeks, a number of mortar shells landed in Israeli territory on the Golan Heights, but this time Israel chose not to respond in order to avoid undermining the effort to drive out ISIS from the area.
The fighting against ISIS on the Golan Heights is solely carried out by the Free Syrian Army, which is backed by the West and reportedly receives aid from Israel and al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, which declared war on the Islamic State last week. Israeli defense officials claim the fighters of al-Nusra on the Golan Heights are simply local residents who joined the organization to benefit from the logistical and financial support it offers them.
Elsewhere in Syria, ISIS last week launched an offensive, supported by multiple suicide operations, in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor against President Assad’s regime holdouts at the military air base.
Islamic State also recently clashed with Syrian rebels and the regime in the eastern countryside of Aleppo and the provinces of Homs and Hama.
The Islamic State’s gains in Iraq are not confined to Ramadi. The group has advanced deep into the Baiji oil refinery, the largest in the country. Islamic State has, since the fall of Ramadi, pushed on with an attack on the town of Khalidiya. If ISIS succeeds to seize the town, it will provide the necessary territorial depth to advance on Baghdad.
It is clear from all these developments that the U.S. policy of airstrikes and a sporadic ground action to take out an ISIS commander has failed. It will never be enough to stop the Islamic State from taking over more territory in Iraq and Syria because this strategy is allowing the group immense space for planning, maneuvering, and redeployment.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Approximately 8000 people were forced to leave Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, when fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant .
Thousands of people are fleeing Ramadi, the capital of violence-torn western Anbar province, as fighting intensifies in the area. Islamic State (Isis) fighters are .
Thousands of families continue to flee the Iraqi city of Ramadi as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group closes in on the capital of Anbar province, .
Thousands of people are fleeing Ramadi, the capital of violence-torn western Anbar province, as fighting intensifies in the area. Islamic State (Isis) fighters are .
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
And yet the picture shows Russian equipment in the picture.
Good job journalists!
But the entire fall of Ramadi makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. So many lives and so much blood spilled. I feel like we've let those brave troops that fought for that ground down with Obama as President. :worried:
Every time I see images of the black flags spreading across the middle east with the carnage that follows, I hear this song in my head.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
General Jack Keane
The US must send 20,000 troops to take part in operations in Iraq or risk losing the war against IS, two high-profile advisers of former president George W Bush warned the Senate.
Retired General Jack Keane and Frederick Kagan of the Conservative American Enterprise Institute told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the increased presence of US troops is essential for halting the progress of the jihadist group.
"We are not only failing, we are losing this war," said Keane, who previously served as Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army, and added that the US' "conceptual plan is fundamentally flawed."
"Isis is on the offense, with the ability to attack at will, anyplace, anytime," said Keane.
The advisers are the architect of the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, in which 30,00 troops were sent to quell Sunni/Shia violence in Iraq during the US occupation. Theyare now calling for the return of US soldiers to the region to combat the rise of Isis.
Their latest claims come as the Republicans in the Senate urge the government to step up its presence in Iraq following a series of astonishing Isis successes.
Isis militants this week seized the strategically vital towns of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria.
Isis is "expanding beyond Iraq and Syria into Sinai, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan. They are also inspiring and motivating radical sympathizers throughout the world," said Keane.
Yet the US and its allies have "no ground force, which is the defeat mechanism. Air power will not defeat ISIS. It has not been able to deny ISIS freedom of maneuver and the ability to attack at will".
He urged lawmakers to "get past" the questions of whether the US should have invaded Iraq in 2003, or pulled its forces out of the country in 2011.
"We [have] no strategy to defeat ISIS in Syria," he argued. "Syria is Isis sanctuary. We cannot succeed in Iraq if ISIS is allowed to maintain that sanctuary in Syria," he said.
He called for the US to ramp up the number of special forces raids, such as that which killed Isis 'oil minister' Abu Sayyaf recently.
Kagan argued that the US was in a worse strategic position in the Middle East than it was in 2006, ahead of the US surge.
"Isis is one of the most evil organizations that has ever existed in the world," he said. "We really have to reckon with that. This is not a minor annoyance. This is not a group that maybe we can negotiate with down the road someday. This is a group that is committed to the destruction of everything decent in the world."
He called for "15-20,000 US troops on the ground to provide the necessary enablers, advisers and so forth," Kagan said. "Anything less than that is simply unserious."
He said that they could direct Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the battlefield, conduct special ops, and train Iraqi Sunni tribes to bring them into the fight against Isis.
"We are not anticipating putting American brigades and having them clear house by house as we have previously done," he said.
Kegan and Keane were among the advisers to urge President Bush to send 30,000 extra troops into Iraq in 2007, a decision that was opposed by a number of senior military figures.
Committee chairman John McCain called for a new troop surge in the Senate floor on Wednesday.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Re: Obama Surrenders Iraq
Originally Posted by vector7
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks