The world keeps turning…..the brain keeps working….and in between there is the reality that we are all just marking time…….research gives me brain farts! Time to sit back and groove with the sounds of the past.
Today’s selection is probably the best band that you have never heard of in your search for those great old tunes……The Electric Flag.
There has been a wealth of news about the latest air drops of supplies and weapons to the defenders of Kobane in Syria……Turkey is not happy about them…..ISIS intercepted at least one of the drops…….something that is a seemingly minor occurrence has generated a couple of days of news ……….
But what of the air drops themselves….good or bad?
What do Kobani airdrops mean for regional politics? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.
Good Day
Things are starting to move at a little quicker pace…..but the question to answer…….. will it be enough?
Item 1–The Coalition has been looking for ground troops to take on ISIS they may have found their agents……
Iraq’s Kurdish regional parliament will hold a session on Wednesday to vote on deploying peshmerga security forces to aid Syrian Kurds battling jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group, a senior lawmaker said.
“Today, the Kurdistan parliament will hold a session… to give the authorization and allow the president of the region to move forces to the town of Kobane” in Syria, Omid Khoshnaw, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s parliamentary bloc, told AFP.
Good news right? The problem is with these troops heading to Syria who will keep Kurdistan safe? This may not be the best plan at this time.
Item 2–Iraq does not want US troops on the ground but yet they push for the US to expand their scope…..
US officials say that a recent Baghdad visit by top Obama aides, including deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken saw them fielding requests from Iraqi leaders for increased deployments of US troops as “military advisers” on the ground in Iraq.
The exact number of new troops being sought is not disclosed, but it’s also not the end of the story, with Iraq also reportedly pushing for more airstrikes, more weapons, more tanks for the Iraqi military. Just more in general.
Iraq needs to make up our minds for us…….
Item 3–The whole “moderate” rebel thing gets more confusing by the day………
The Syrian opposition force to be recruited by the U.S. military and its coalition partners will be trained to defend territory, rather than to seize it back from the Islamic State, according to senior U.S. and allied officials, some of whom are concerned that the approach is flawed.
Although moderate Syrian fighters are deemed essential to defeating the Islamic State under the Obama administration’s strategy, officials do not believe the newly assembled units will be capable of capturing key towns from militants without the help of forward-deployed U.S. combat teams, which President Obama has so far ruled out. The Syrian rebel force will be tasked instead with trying to prevent the Islamic State from extending its reach beyond the large stretches of territory it already controls.
Sorry to inform my readers….but if you goal is to “degrade and destroy” ISIS….you are not going to do that from a defensive position.
Item 4–Turkey is still whining about the US air drops of weapons and supplies to the defenders of Kobane…….
“I have difficulty understanding why Kobani is so strategic for them, because there are no civilians there, just around 2,000 fighters,” Erdogan added.
From time to time I write and/or report on things happening in my state of Mississippi…..I saw this and wanted to pass it on.
A Mississippian with a gun killing brown people….sounds like the state’s history in a nut shell….
I am conflicted….should I give him props or ask why? I bet there is more to this story than the PR work a local paper gave him……
It is no secret that I think the War on Drugs like the War on Terror is a perfect way for people to get rich….there is NO real plan to win either of the wars….
My previous post is about the waste of money to fight opium production…waste of time and money…..but there is more…..
The Drug War Doesn’t Work Abroad Either by Lucy Steigerwald — Antiwar.com.
While Americans were breathing a sigh of relief over their waning fear of Ebola…..BAM! We have something else to clog the airways with endless hours of trivial bullshit…..the armed attack on Canada’s Parliament building…..the shooting was horrific….what followed afterwards is trivial filler.
But while you were sitting on the edge of your seat there was another news item that will be little reported.
The murder of Iraqi civilians by American mercenaries, oh my bad….American security consultants in 2007…….
.Four former Blackwater security contractors were convicted today in federal court for a 2007 mass shooting in Baghdad that left Iraqi civilians dead, the AP reports. (Some accounts cite an original death toll of 14, but the BBC notes that an Iraqi investigation later raised the total to 17; about the same number were injured.) Nicholas Slatten was found guilty of first-degree murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and gun charges. The defense had claimed its clients were acting in self-defense after insurgents and Iraqi cops shot at them, while prosecutors painted a picture of the guards having a “low regard and deep hostility toward Iraqi civilians,” as the AP describes it.
The defendants were ordered to jail immediately. Slatten faces life in prison and the others long stretches, but all are expected to appeal. On the day of the Sept. 16, 2007, shootings in Nisur Square, Blackwater guards were trying to clear the way for a State Department convoy before shots rang out, Reuters reports. There was “gunfire coming from the left, gunfire coming from the right,” as hundreds of Iraqi people in the square fled, a prosecutor said in closing arguments. The case incited Iraqi outrage and anti-American feelings around the world and made some question what rules government-employed security contractors had to follow overseas, Reuters notes. (Not surprisingly, Blackwater isn’t known as Blackwater anymore.)
I have been a very vocal opponent of these so-called private security companies, which in reality is a bunch of highly paid mercenaries….who act like they are not to be held accountable….that they are above the law.
There should be NO need for private security firms……it is solely to drive large profits to private hands.
These, especially Blackwater, are private armies…I am sure there should be some sort of constitutional thing concern this situation….
Anyway….did anyone see the movie 7 Days in May? Maybe you read the book? If not may I suggest that you do so and see what I am talking about…..okay?