For those of you that are new to my blog…..I lived and worked for a time in the Middle East and I can tell you that the news we get here in the US is not always the most accurate….so I spend time reading papers from the area so that I may have a better grasp on the situations that arise……and I pass them on so that you too can be better informed…..
War on the Horizon: Crossing Syrian Red Lines | Al Akhbar English.
A question I have heard many right wingers ask about people in the Middle East….and now they have their answer….
While the whole world was focused on the massacre and subsequent manhunt in Boston….there was a little reported occurrence…..
Source:StratRisks
The Pentagon is sending about 200 soldiers from a U.S. Army headquarters unit to Jordan to assist efforts to contain violence along the Syrian border and plan for any operations needed to ensure the safety of chemical weapons in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress Wednesday.
The decision to dispatch the 1st Armored Division troops of planners and specialists in intelligence, logistics and operations comes as several lawmakers pressed the Obama administration for even more aggressive steps to end the two-year civil war.
Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced persistent questions from senior members of the Armed Services Committee about efforts to force out Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Pentagon leaders made clear that the situation is extremely complicated and they must be certain of the endgame before any military step to try to end the bloodshed.
“You better be damned sure. No-fly zone, safe zone. Once you’re in, you can’t unwind it,” Hagel said.
Dempsey said he has spent a significant portion of his adult life trying to figure out the Mideast. “This is the toughest of all,” he said.
Hagel said the fresh troops will replace a similar number of U.S. forces that have been in Jordan for some months. They also will provide leadership personnel that could command additional forces if it’s determined they are needed in the future.
And then there is even more disturbing news…..
These are now astonishingly the very areas the US CIA is overseeing the flow of thousands of tons of weapons and aid – aid that is clearly falling almost entirely into the hands of Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.
The New York Times in their article titled, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid,” admits that:
With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.
The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.
While the West attempts to claim these weapons are being sent to “moderates,” the US State Department itselfadmits that Al Qaeda is operating in every major city in Syria, carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks, and is by far the most highly organized, most prominent militant front in the conflict. If the West via Saudi Arabia and Qatar is sending thousands of tons of weapons to “moderates,” who is sending more weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra?
I have said all along that the war in Syria would eventually spill out to bordering countries like Lebanon, Jordan and eventually Israel………we are now getting close to that prediction……
We need to worry! For this could come back to bite us in the ass like Afghanistan…….
An excellent question and I would very much like to hear what my readers think…….
Has the Left Made Peace With the Warfare State? by Norman Solomon — Antiwar.com.
I believe it was Conan O’Brien that said, “LaPierre is the executive VP of the NRA…..just fucking crazy do you have to be to be the President?”
Inkwell Institute
This week barring any major happenings I will focus on international issues……
A lot has happened in the past month….a lot for the media to fixate on….sadly the doings in Syria have fallen by the wayside of coverage……..and possibly NO one really cares anymore, especially the twats in Washington….but there are things happening that cannot be good in the long run……
(Newser) – The head of Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group at the forefront of Syria’s civil war, has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda honcho Ayman al-Zawahiri. What that means isn’t exactly crystal clear at this point. While Al-Qaeda in Iraq says the groups have merged under the snappy title of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, al-Nusra chief Abu Mohammed al-Jawalani denies his group will be ordering new letterhead just yet, the BBC reports. “The banner of the Front will remain unchanged despite our pride in the banner of the State and those who carried it and sacrificed and shed their blood for it,” he said in an audio message, the AP reports.
Al-Nusra is among the most effective of the rebel groups fighting the Syrian government. It has committed more than 40 successful bombing attacks and has been on the frontline of clashes against Assad forces, adds the Daily Beast. The alliance is not a surprise (Obama labeled it a terrorist organization last year), but it is concerning, says CNN. Al-Nusra’s success on the battlefield and reputation for distributing free bread makes it popular with everyday Syrians. With a powerful army in Syria, al-Qaeda would gain a strong strategic position in the Middle East, and a safe haven for long-term scheming.
Back in January I predicted that the Syrian civil war would spill over into neighboring countries…there have been some minor excursions across into Turkey and Lebanon……the the situation could only get worse with this news…….and since the rumor of chemicals being used is also a reason this could be a prelim to a wider participation of the US…….
More sdiencey stuff…..the stuff that makes it worthwhile to be on the ‘net….
Back in January of this year when I made my predictions for the year I said then that scientist would discover Earth 2……..and it looks like Nostradamus has a rival….ME!
Newser) – The Kepler telescope is certainly earning its keep. It has found even more Earth-like planets, NASA announced today, and one is being described as the most Earth-like yet. The news of Kepler-62f comes as part of the discovery of three exoplanets that could possibly support life, explains Space.com. Kepler-62f is just 40% bigger than our own planet, and orbits a star that’s only 20% as bright as our sun; the neighboring Kepler-62e circles the same star, which is 1,200 light years away. And as the AP explains, they’re just the right size (past ones have been too big, and are likely gas balls like Neptune) and in just the right place (ie, the habitable zone, where it’s not too hot or cold) near their star. “This is the first one where I’m thinking ‘Huh, Kepler-62f really might have life on it’,” says a co-author of the study on the two, published today.
Space.com explains that a separate modeling study indicates the planets might be completely covered in oceans. As for temperature, chief Kepler scientist William Borucki says Kepler-62e is a bit warm, like a Hawaiian world, and Kepler-62f is a bit chilly, more Alaskan. The third exoplanet spotted is Kepler-69c; it’s 70% bigger than Earth but revolves around a star much like our own; it’s being described as the smallest world located in the habitable zone of a star akin to our sun. These are just the most promising of Kepler’s latest lot; an additional four planets were found in the two new solar systems identified, but none of them could support life.
And I did it without the necessity of a de-coder ring……huh?
A question I have often pondered while staring amorously at my reflection in the early hours of the morning…….it is a good question and bear with me and I will explain why I ask…..
Have you heard about Saudi Arabia? You know the country where women are not allowed to drive or talk to the opposite sec or even vote……the country that has a religious police that makes sure that one acts in a respectfully religious way……you have heard of them, right? From the country that brought us beheading…….
Well it seems that a man can be “too handsome” for his own good…….
Three Emiratis have been forcibly removed from an annual culture festival in Saudi Arabia and sent back to the UAE after it was suggested that women might find them irresistible.
The delegates from the UAE were at the Jenadrivah Heritage and Culture Festival in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, when religious police officers stormed the stand and evicted the men because “they are too handsome,” according to the Arabic language newspaper Elaph.
“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them,” Elaph reported.
Elaph said the festival’s management took swift action to deport the trio back to Abu Dhabi, capital of the Emirates.
Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious and ultraconservative society that forbids women from interacting with unrelated males and refuses to accord them the same rights as men.
These people just get more ridiculous by the year……..where will they draw the line on absurdity?
The one good point is that I shall never be deported for being “too handsome”……..
This week is Earth Week…..are you celebrating?
In keeping with the theme of this week I will post a piece on the environment…….when I started this blog about 7 years ago I wrote a piece about the new light bulbs that were all the rage…..the CFLs…..you know those compact little screwy looking bulbs that they are trying to get the whole world to switch in an attempt to protect the environment…..the post I wrote pointed out that these bulbs have mercury in them and I was concerned that the disposal of these into local landfills would eventually make our groundwater toxic, once the mercury leached into the soil……..I had a comment from a reader that pointed out that Home depot was providing people a collection center for later disposal……I thanked them for pointing that out but I was then concerned on just how many people would take the time to use such a service or would they be lazy and throw them away in their family trash which in turn would go to the landfill and eventually the mercury would make it into the drinking water…….I was called an alarmist many times and I guess I may have been the alarmist that people thought…….
But then I saw an article about a happening in Canada that played into my alarmist nature…….
A large home improvement retailer has decided to quietly pull the plug on its compact fluorescent light-bulb-recycling program nationwide, upsetting an environmental non-profit that has handed out hundreds of thousands of the energy-efficient bulbs in Canada.
Home Depot started selling CFL bulbs, which contain a small amount of mercury, about six years ago. And around the same time they also started collecting the burned-out bulbs — until last week.
An email from a Home Depot spokeswoman said “changes to the enforcement of compliance requirements in a number of provinces” made the company decide to leave the job to other recycling programs in Canada.
In addition to cancelling the CFL bulb recycling program nationwide, Home Depot has also cancelled its paint recycling programs in Ontario and Quebec.
How will this effect the US? Will Home Depot here in the lower part of North America follow suit? What are the alternatives in recycling for these potentially dangerous bulbs?