In case you have not been keeping up with goings on with those darn pesky Syrian chemical weapons….I can help.
Most of the CWs in Syria have been located, tag and set for destruction. Destruction? How would that monumental task be accomplished, you may ask…..and I am glad you did…..once again…I CAN HELP!
How Syria’s chemical weapons are being destroyed – Telegraph.
Syria has slipped from the headlines….thanx in part to Christie and his bridge and the egg debacle of the Beebs…..there is so much more going on in the world and these are what mental midget want to focus on……so I guess it is up to me to keep the important people, my readers, up on the international implications going on in this little galactic sphere….
Syria is beginning to look a lot like Greece in late WW2…..various resistance groups started fighting each other and not the Nazis……….and years of chaos followed……something for Syrians to look forward to in the future (yes, that was sarcasm)…….
In case you missed it, and I bet you have, Syria is not going well….the rebels spend more time fighting each other and Assad sits back and claims more and more victories…
Syrian rebels are locked in a bitter and violent struggle—with each other. Hostilities between Syria’s more moderate rebel factions and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria exploded into open warfare on Friday, and it’s been so costly that the head of another al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, is calling for an Islamic court to be set up to settle disagreements, the New York Times reports. Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said the fighting was the result of the “incorrect policies” of the ISIS, but that if there wasn’t a ceasefire soon, “the whole battlefield … will pay the price of losing a great jihad.” Other rebels accuse the ISIS—which wants to combine Iraq and Syria into one Sunni-ruled country—of hogging resources, applying strict social codes, and kidnapping and killing its foes. So far at least 300 people have died in the rebel in-fighting since Friday, including dozens of civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and rebels today captured a hospital-turned-ISIS base in Aleppo, the AP reports. The infighting also highlights a challenge for Saudi Arabia, which is backing the rebels in hopes of ousting Assad’s Shiite, Iran-affiliated regime, but is uneasy about the potential for jihadist spill-over, the Times adds.
Now think about it…..do you think that the Iraqi government’s problems with AQ could be part of the plan to somehow combine the two countries? (This is your essay question for the day)…….
While the idiots, who once had Assad on the run, continue to fight….the government makes progress…..this from the Global Post……
Syrian troops seized a rebel-held town north of Aleppo on Saturday and pushed toward the second city, taking advantage of fighting between rebels and jihadists elsewhere, activists said.
“Regime forces have taken over the area of Naqarin and are advancing towards the industrial area of Aleppo city,” said the Aleppo Media Centre, a network of activists on the ground.
“This advance is clearly a result of the rebels being busy fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” activist Nazeer al-Khatib told AFP in a Skype call.
The army’s moves come eight days after Islamist and moderate rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad’s regime launched a major offensive against ISIL.
Syria is becoming a more bloody mess and NO one is watching and NO one cares……and that is WHY I AM HERE!
Keeping with today’s topic, the Middle East…..may I suggest the Chicken Shwarma today’s gastronomical delight….now with lunch ordered let’s move on to the next subject for today’s discussion.
We will talk about KSM….that AQ leader and master mind of 9/11 captured in Iraq during the glory days of our latest Iraq excursion……he was captured in Pakistan…..it seems that he may have had an epiphany………
After more than a decade in American custody, confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appears to have had second thoughts about the use of violence. The former al-Qaeda propaganda chief suggests Islam should not be spread by violence in a rambling manifesto viewed by Channel 4 News. He also blasts Western society, the US military, and quotes from Richard Nixon and George W. Bush as well as the Koran. He says two further installments of the manifesto will explain the 9/11 attacks and reveal “the truth about the so-called war on terror.” The Koran “forbids us to use force as a means of converting” others, and “truth and reality never comes by muscles and force but by using the mind and wisdom,” writes Mohammed, who is being kept in solitary confinement at Guantanamo Bay. How sincere is he? The manifesto suggest that he either believes he can convert American readers, or is “playing a mind game to attract publicity, feign mental illness, or spare himself the death penalty if convicted in the 2001 attacks,” decides the Los Angeles Times.
Personally, I think it is a big time con…..looking for some easier outcome in his trial….but I could be wrong…..they say that a leopard cannot change his spots….does that seem to fit here?
Okay, break into groups and discuss.
To quote Roy Batty (now if you got that reference then you are bigger nerd than you think).
First let me congratulate the Right wing for their amazing win! They have their ‘proof’ on Benghazi and the story of the day will be that win…..but the bigger story will go unnoticed because they have a WIN……..
For months I have trying to expose the BS around the deaths in Benghazi……some think it is a scandal….I think that it is weird….for one the ambassador knew the problems in Benghazi, why would he go in so light in the security part? If it was a covert meeting why would he go and not the CIA station chief? Like I said I have questions.
But yesterday I was reading my usual sites about the Middle East and came across some info that makes me think…….
The US government didn’t do enough to prevent the attack on the Benghazi consulate, a long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes. The bipartisan report chastises the CIA for operating out of a different building than the State Department—a facility the military didn’t even know about, the Washington Post reports. It criticizes the State Department for failing to increase security as the situation became more dangerous, and the military for being ill-prepared, and slow (but not intentionally slow) in response. “The attacks were preventable,” the panel wrote. In one attention-grabbing nugget, the report also reveals that during the probe, 15 people “supporting the investigation” have been killed in Libya, though it’s unclear if their deaths are related. The report also addresses the central political conflict around the attacks—the question of whether the Obama administration intentionally mischaracterized the attack as a protest. The report blames intelligence agencies for providing Susan Rice with inaccurate talking points, according to Politico. Testimony declassified Monday, however, indicates that the Pentagon believed it was a terrorist attack right away, the New York Daily News reports.
Coincidence? After working for a certain organization, especially in the Middle East, I do NOT believe in coincidence. There is way too much happening around the Benghazi affair….but I think all those screaming “Scandal” are missing the point….they missing the obvious.
In the rush to try and nail Obama for something, anything, they are missing way too much….especially when it pertains to Benghazi…..
Anyone care to pass on some thoughts on this subject?
Today I would like to focus on my favorite spot….the Middle East. All posts will deal with the region….some past situations and some present ones……
This post is on the former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon. As some will know he recently passed on after an 8 year coma….the world is helping Israel mourn his passing……..well not everyone sees this person as the up standing individual that the media will no doubt paint him……..as a matter of fact because of his actions in 1982 the Palestinians call him “the Butcher of Beirut”………and with good reason…..
Ariel Sharon’s death has brought on a bout of hagiography. The American and Israeli media will call him “controversial,” but then call him a hero. Joe Biden praised him for his pursuit of peace yesterday, while Henry Kissinger terms him a “peacemaker” in today’s Washington Post, noting his late-life willingness to pull out of Gaza. It’s a “grotesque” characterization, Rashid Khalidi argues at Foreign Policy. “It is hard to imagine this kind of kid-glove treatment of anyone else with such a list of atrocities to his name.” Khalidi was living in West Beirut during Sharon’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and it was obvious Israel “had no qualms about killing large numbers of civilians” to get at the PLO. “A building that housed refugees located several blocks from my home … was entirely destroyed from the air, killing dozens,” he writes. Soon after, a car bomb went off, presumably “in order to kill those trying to rescue survivors,” nearly killing one of Khalidi’s friends. Sharon characterized all Palestinians as terrorists, and did more than anyone to prevent a contiguous Palestinian state. “In a more just world, he would have ended up facing the International Criminal Court in The Hague.” Click for the full column.
There is a good reason he is called that……ever hear of Sabra and Shatila? Of course you have not……it means NOTHING to someone not of Palestinian descent…….
The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place in the Sabra and ShatilaPalestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon between September 16 and September 18, 1982, during the Lebanese civil war. Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were massacred in the camps by Christian Lebanese Phalangists while the camp was surrounded by Israeli forces. In that period of time, Israel was at war with Lebanon. The Israeli Forces occupied Beirut and dominated the refugee camps of Palestinians and controlled the entrance to the city. After the assassination of Bachir Gemayel, leader and president-elect of the Lebanese Phalangist, a Maronite group, also called Lebanese Forces militia group, entered the camp and murdered inhabitants during the night. The exact number of victims is disputed, from 700–800 to 3,500 (depending on the source).
Israeli forces enabled the entrance of the angry Kataeb Party group to the refugee camps, by providing them transportation from outside Beirut and firing illuminating flares over the camps.
The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate, and in early 1983 it found Israel indirectly responsible for the event. Ariel Sharon was held personally responsible for allowing the Phalangists into the camps.
Under different circumstances this man would have been held responsible….but since it is Israel he got a free ride…..If Israel can get away with killing American sailors (USS Liberty) then why would anyone think they would be held responsible for the deaths of Palestinian refugees?
He will not be missed among Palestinians.
In Saner Thought 