The West has all but forgotten the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps…..32 years ago the IDF allowed Lebanese Phalangists enter into the refugee camps and let the killings begin….
This should NEVER be forgotten….just like the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty should NEVER be allowed to be forgotten.
Read about the massacres……
Remembering Sabra & Shatila 32 Years Later | Institute for Palestine Studies.
I know that the American public is hopped up on revenge right now…..but is the plan as put forth by the prez the best plan?
Most Americans do not want to hear any negativity about the fight against the Islamic State…..but there needs to be a truthful conversation and a deep search to the realization that there may not be a path to victory against IS.
Obama’s Hazy Plan To Fight ISIS Is Unlikely To Succeed by Ivan Eland — Antiwar.com.
That is the negative….how about a positive….well sort of……..
As promised I will try and keep my readers up to date on the happenings around our newest war……the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq/Syria….or the coalition of the willing (cute name for a handful of cowards) against the spread of the Islamic State…….
There is a lot more happening than the media is willing to tell the public…..I will try and do my best to tell “the rest of the story”…….
Item 1–the media coverage of the conflict…….we know that the media will not have free access as in Vietnam but rather an imbedding system that way the control of information can be controlled. the media will be used to drive the conversation…I know I keep harping on that point but if not why would this have taken place?
President Barack Obama met with over a dozen prominent columnists and magazine writers Wednesday afternoon before calling for an escalation of the war against the Islamic State, or ISIS, in a primetime address that same night.
Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, reported on Saturday that Obama had met with columnists and magazine writers but did not name the attendees.
Baker wrote that three New York Times columnists and one editorial writer attended, but indicated they weren’t sources for his story. Since the meeting was off the record, the Times columnists could not report what Obama said. But Baker, a Times reporter not in attendance, was under no obligation to withhold the fact that the meeting took place.
The Obama team will need some allies in their trip to control the flow of information……and the media is a willing participant. You still think that there is a free press?
Item 2–The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been named as one of the ‘moderates’ that we should be supporting…..but how successful are they?
The FSA has a much smaller footprint across Syria than it once did, having lost virtually all of its territory to rival rebels, and seeing mass defections, including large numbers joining ISIS.
The FSA’s ability to recruit and keep fighters seems to be heavily weighed down by the group’s lack of success so far, as the group has not shown itself to be particularly adept at anything but currying favor with Western nations, and what arms its obtained from them are quickly distributed to other factions, which do all the heavy combat.
Sounds like any training and weapons we give the FSA will be of more use to IS than any coalition Obama may put together…….
Item 3–Some members of the ‘coalition of the willing’ does not think it is a good idea that it include other Arab nations……
The Obama Administration’s efforts to cobble together a coalition of nations for the new war on ISIS has netted a handful of Sunni Arab nations willing to conduct airstrikes inside Iraq, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and by some accounts Egypt.
The big problem is that no one asked the Iraqis if they were okay with this, and President Fuad Massoum today made clear that the Iraqi government considers such nations “unnecessary,” which is a polite way of saying extremely unwelcome.
That dislike comes from sectarian distrust more so than any geopolitical reasons…..will this be a major sticking point when the hard choices become necessary?
Item 4–I personally do not like smoke up my butt……it appears that some Americans relish the idea……I am talking about the Iraq/IS thing……as long as Maliki was the PM we did nothing in Iraq….we went on and on about the needs for a inclusive government…….you see Maliki was of the Shia persuasion and a majority in the country are of Sunni……so Obama’s rhetoric was a more inclusive government….then there was a new Pm and our airstrikes began seemingly because it was a new day in Iraq and inclusiveness…..but there is a slight rub that no one mentioned very much in all the reports…..
New Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s cabinet is 56 percent Shia, according to a count by indispensable Iraq blogger Joel Wing. That makes his cabinet even more Shia heavy than either of his disgraced predecessor Nuri al-Maliki’s last two administrations, which were (respectively) 52 and 46 percent Shia.
“I’ve insisted that additional US action depended upon Iraqis forming an inclusive government, which they have now done in recent days,” Obama said in his September 10 address announcing the new counter-ISIS campaign.
But the reality of the Iraqi government, thus far, suggests the opposite. “The government is composed mostly of Shia Islamists who may not differ from Maliki on many key issues,” Fanar Haddad, an expert on Iraq’s Sunni-Shia divide at the National University of Singapore, told me in an email. “In fact, the track record shows that the new government is likely to be more hardline than Maliki on contentious issues.”
So what part of the Iraqi election changed anything? Anything culturally that is……
Item 5–Al Anbar province of Iraq, a Sunni majority area has been under attack and parts controlled by IS…..but it seems that IS has decided to pull out of the region at least for now…..
In a piece written in Asharq Al-Aswat an Arabic newspaper………
Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is adopting new tactics in anticipation of impending air strikes by the US-led coalition, an expert on armed groups has told Asharq Al-Awsat, at the same time that authorities in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province announced the group is beginning to flee areas in and around the governorate.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the head of the Anbar Provincial Council, Sabah Karhout, said Anbar’s security forces had received information that members of ISIS were “fleeing the districts and surrounding areas of the province which are under their control and heading to the Western Desert region and to Syria in a state of panic.”
Hisham Al-Hashimi, an expert on armed groups from the Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies, told Asharq Al-Awsat that ISIS was adopting “new tactics” in anticipation of international military action, including “hiding in ditches and using camouflage to evade fighter jets, since the [impending] international mobilization [against the group] will only rely on air strikes for the time being.”
Hopefully Western intel has picked up on this change in tactics……..if I were part of the ‘coalition’ I would be concerned about this…..what tactic will they replace it with?
Item 6–One might ask….why is the US having such a problem lining up willing participants in the war on IS…..and the answer is an easy one to pin point…….
U.S. credibility has suffered in the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, which doesn’t help the recruitment effort. The arguments for invading Iraq have been discredited, and the Iraqi and Afghan campaigns — which went on years beyond the original plan — are not looking successful. Smaller fights against terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen seem destined to continue without end. The Obama administration’s swift abandonment of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 shocked allies in the region, most of whom were hardly more democratic than the ousted Egyptian leader. U.S. attempts to work with Islamists, during the brief rule of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, left many concluding that American leadership was naive and its diplomacy inept. When the U.S. threatened Syria if it used chemical weapons, and then did not attack after their alleged use, it was seen as America flinching, even though Assad eventually gave up the arms. In an echo of colonial-era animosities, many in the region see Western leaders who are stirred to action by the beheading of a few Westerners — but not by hundreds of thousands of Arab deaths. Washington also has proven unable to influence its close ally Israel to slow down Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank — one of the few things that can unite virtually all Sunnis and Shiites in angry opposition.
That ends briefing #2. You may smoke if you have them.
If you want to stay up to date on the newest US war in the Middle East then I suggest that IST become your new fave site. I will be giving you all the info available that you will need to stay up to date and on your toes….
Next briefing will be as soon as possible the intel is available.
Thanx for your attention.
Turn the page.
War is an interesting subject….the causes and effects. I got my interest in the issue after returning from Vietnam back in the Dark Ages….I enter school and majored in International Relations with an emphasis on the Middle East….so this situation is in my wheelhouse…I’m loving it!
The words have been spoken and now the real results of the speech will be known….nightly.
And after the words have been spoken the first thought I had was FUBAR. For those not serving in the military..FUBAR means F*cked Up Beyond All Repair. Or I could use the more common…SNAFU….Situation Norrmal All F*cked Up.
For days now the analysis has been almost overwhelming at least to someone who has NO idea of the region and the true situation. Every channel has its analyst to give expert opinion….they are even letting Cheney voice his views which shows the depths some media outlets will sink to for ratings. Even the actually ‘reliable’ news outlets are going to McCain fr his expert opinion…..and that is foolish……let a person who has been wrong on the Middle East for 30 years as some sort of expert…….
Anyway…I was listening to a former undersecretary of state, Paul Brinkley and in his analysis about Americans in Iraq he stated…..”US troops will be manning the forward positions and not on the front lines”…..my question to the tube was……just where these forward positions would be? If by definition the front lines are not in a forward position where would they be?
This is what I bitch about…the media lets these twats babble on and never challenge their statements….this is how they sell BS to the masses…..this is how they get the public to play their games……misinformation.
There are so many statements being made that it is hard to distinguish fact from BS….for instance….we will train and arm the Syrian opposition…..good one…..but just who are the opposition….and why does the US have to do that…..let the cowards in the region fund these ‘fighters’.
I am still concerned about arming the Kurds. why? their fighters have been on the terrorist list for at least ten years……so now they are not so bad?……….is that the way we do this terror list now. We know how that can come back to bite us….if you recall we were arming and training the Afghan rebels during the Soviet days and one of those was AQ.
Then there is the promise of no American troops on the ground (I refuse to use the de-humanzing term “boots on the ground”)……we already have them there and then what if a plane goes down who will retrieve the pilot? This will take troops doing what they do….hit the ground running.
These are just a couple of my concerns…..we are not being fed the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth….and I do not like that…..we are about to force more Americans to risk their lives in the name of…..WHAT?
I know all this may sound like nit-picking…….or even redundant………and it is……..but I will continue to do so as long as we are throwing our young men and women into a meat grinder….for you see I have seen human lives wasted during war and do not want to see any more…..our young deserve a life without the problems that war will bring.
War is good business….invest your young!
My days at college was when students were leading the way to social justice and cultural change and along the way we were faced down by police and national guard and sometimes a few campus security were part of the coalition of the willing to beat down the students.
Today we have students that are willing to protest to the point of arrest and jail…….but are they willing to demostrate and face down the federal government? Or at least a militarized campus security?
It’s not just municipal police forces that have obtained military-style weaponry through a federal program: Modified grenade launchers and M-16 rifles are on college campuses, too, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The publication finds that 117 colleges have received equipment thanks to a federal system called the 1033 program. The program, which lawmakers and President Obama are reassessing following events in Ferguson, Mo., provides the equipment to colleges for free; the educational institutions just have to pay the shipping costs, the Chronicle notes.
The University of Central Florida has a modified grenade launcher intended to shoot tear-gas canisters; Hinds Community College, in Mississippi, also has a grenade launcher. At least 60 schools have M-16 assault rifles, and Ohio State has an armored vehicle. The 1033 program “is a force multiplier for us,” says the head of both Florida State’s police and an international campus police group, citing understaffing. “We are not given budgets comparable to some large cities and municipalities, so we need to find ways to make it reach.” But other campus figures question the system; click for the Chronicle‘s full report.
Granted we have a few whackos that want to shoot up the campus or a few that go on some crime spree like smoking dope…..but does any of that justify the need for military equipment on our campuses and institutions of higher learning?
It is NO secret that I am a supporter of the Palestinian people and their struggle for a homeland to call their own…..my support comes from personal experience and I also worked in the region for a time in my younger days…..
I try to give my readers a look into what being Palestinian means…..sometimes it does not come off so well…..but I will continue to try and help the world see the injustice the people have to deal with every day…..
I have written about the last 3 wars in Gaza and other happenings around the Occupied territories but I recently read one that took my aback……
This article was written in Al-Bawaba News………
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has blocked an attempt to push for the prosecution of Israel for war crimes in Gaza at the International Criminal Court, the second-deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament said on Friday.
Hasan Khreisha told Ma’an that the Palestinian Authority’s decision to join the ICC and thus press charges against Israel for its offensive that killed more than 2,100 and devastated the Gaza Strip was halted by Abbas in order to push forward a new peace talks bid.
“President Abbas decided not to sue Israel at the ICC unless his new initiative fails to resume peace talks with Israel,” Khreisha said, adding that the PA was waiting for the United States to officially reply to a message from Abbas asking for the resumption of talks.
Khreisha told Ma’an that even though all major Palestinian parties had given president Abbas a document in which they voiced their support for Palestinian accession to the ICC, “so far no practical steps have been taken in that direction.”
okay I understand that the president of the Palestine National Authority, Abbas, would be concerned about finding a lasting peace with Israel…..but to decide NOT to support the actions by Israel just flies in the face of justice.
I use to think that abbas was the best person for the job…..but with this action he has lost my support.