Day: July 7, 2015

Can’t Fix Stupid

There are just some things that go beyond the pail…….there is humor then there is stupidity.

I saw this story and the first thing that came to my mind was my fave saying…..”Can’t Fix Stupid”…….

If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how making a mock ISIS execution video is positive in any way, much less a valuable team-building exercise, you and HSBC management are on the same page. The bank has fired six UK employees for doing just that after they reportedly shot the video, then uploaded it to Instagram (it’s since been deleted), reports the Guardian. HSBC reacted after the Sun published both the video and screenshots from it. “Once we saw this abhorrent video released @TheSun we took the decision to sack the individuals involved. We apologise for any offence,” the bank’s UK press office tweeted yesterday.

In the video, five men are shown wearing ski-mask-like balaclavas, while one man is dressed in an orange jumpsuit—much like those worn by Western hostages in the videos of their very-real executions at the hands of ISIS—and kneeling before them. One of the masked men holds what looks to be a coat hanger above their “prisoner” like a knife about to be used for a beheading, and someone says, “Allahu Akbar” and ululates before the group breaks out in laughter. A source tells the Sun: “It’s shocking they would think this is funny.

If these douche bags are some of our best and brightest…..then we are SOO screwed!

Thoughts?

“This Is How We’ll Beat ISIS”

Yesterday Obama gave a rare speech at the Pentagon and basically outlined the strategy for the defeat of ISIS…….he did tell one piece of truth…..this will be a long battle, a generational conflict……and then he presented his outline for victory………

President Obama made a rare visit to the Pentagon yesterday and delivered an update on the mission against ISIS and an outline of US strategy in what Obama stresses will be a long-term fight. The four key points, per the Pentagon conference and the White House, which uses the ISIL acronym for the group:

  • More airstrikes. The US is stepping up strikes in Syria as well as Iraq, and Obama says the strikes will “continue to target the oil and gas facilities that fund so much of their operations.”
  • More support for those fighting ISIS on the ground. The White House says the US has “ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition” fighting the group, as well as continued to provide the training and support Iraqi government forces and Kurdish fighters need.
  • Making full use of US power and counterterrorism expertise. To fight ISIS in ways that include cutting off its funding, the “comprehensive strategy” includes “harnessing all elements of American power across our government—military, intelligence, diplomatic, economic development, and perhaps most importantly, the power of our values,” Obama said yesterday.
  • Helping civilians displaced by ISIS. The White House says its strategy includes helping Muslims of all sects forced out of their homes by ISIS, “as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities.”

Obama didn’t announce the deployment of any more troops, and he said the strategy recognizes that “no amount of military force will end the terror that is ISIL unless it’s matched by a broader effort, political and economic, that addresses the underlying conditions that have allowed ISIL to gain traction,” ABC reports. “They have filled a void and we have to make sure that, as we push them out, that void is filled.” But so far, filling the “void” has exposed weaknesses in US strategy, the Washington Post reports. ISIS has suffered major setbacks in Syria in recent weeks, but the anti-ISIS offensive has been led by Kurdish forces backed by US airstrikes, and as it moves into Arab-dominated areas, even Syrians firmly opposed to ISIS fear that the Kurds are trying to change the demography of the region, the Post reports.

If you are a regular reader of IST then these tactics are NOTHING new!  This is the strategy the US has pursued since the beginning of this conflict.

Can you now see why I am so critical?

All of this “NEW” strategy is the same strategy that we are pursuing and it is NOT working……and yet we will continue to waste time and money chasing a failed strategy……it is pathetic attempt to make all parties happy……..if we continue down this path then any victory may not necessarily be one for the home team……and then we will really have something to bitch about…….and I can utter the four most beautiful words in the English language……”I TOLD YOU SO!”

Middle East: The Road Home

There has been a war raging for years in the Middle East……..the last 2 have been disastrous…….conflict raging in Iraq, Syria with spill over waiting to go into Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and possibly Turkey…..with all this violence can the Middle East ever return to its former self?

And that my friends is the real $64,000 question.

I have been saying and writing that the US needs a new approach to foreign policy……the playbook it is working from today is just not producing any wins………for one, the US needs to come to grips with the fact that the Middle East of 20 years ago is gone forever and will never come back.  Once that realize that simple fact then the foreign policy can move forward into the 21st century.

Sadly, the US will continue down its failed path and because NO one in Washington wants to buck the lobbyists for the Military-Industrial Complex we are looking at decades of problems that we must confront…..because an used weapon is a useless weapon!

This road that the Western world is traveling will bring about a few things for certain….Iraq as a nation is gone……Syria as a nation is gone…….the problems will move head long into Lebanon, which already has it warring factions and then there is the desert of North Africa called Libya…….This country is quickly becoming another Iraq/Syria…….and then neighboring countries will have to deal with the rise, more so than now, of the extremists and their tactics.

As events are playing out in the Islamic world…….there is NO road home!  The region created by the insensitivity of the Britain and France in 1919 with the land grab of the Arab lands liberated from the Ottoman Empire is GONE………and soon forgotten.

The Salafists are re-drawing the region’s map and the rest of the world will have to decide what is best for all parties…….but because of self-interests this will be a generational problem…….if not longer.

When History Is A Surprise

I have lived in the South, Mississippi to be exact, most of my life and in all that time I NEVER thought I would ever see this headline in a newspaper…..

South Carolina senate votes to remove Confederate flag

The South Carolina senate today voted overwhelmingly in favor of removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, the Post & Courier reports. In the wake of a racially motivated massacre that left nine black church members dead in Charleston, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 37-3 to have the battle flag taken down. The flag “doesn’t represent all of the people of South Carolina,” says Republican Sen. Larry Martin. “It’s part of our past.” The bipartisan bill will now move to the House of Representatives, where it may face “a tougher road” despite support from Gov. Nikki Haley, NBC News reports. Influential House Republicans, Speaker Jay Lucas included, haven’t yet revealed their position on the flag. Highlights from today, per the Washington Post:

  • State Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Democrat, read a constituent’s email saying that “it’s not about the Confederate flag. It’s about the entitlement given to minorities.” Sheheen responded that “there’s a quiet bigotry that still exists, and if those of us who are white don’t say anything … then we’re part of the problem.”
  • “When I see a Confederate soldier, I don’t get goosebumps and feel all warm and fuzzy,” says Sen. Darrell Jackson, a Democrat who is black. “I respect the fact that you do. All I’m saying is, you can’t force all of us to have [that same] passion.”
  • Martin says the flag went up over the capitol building in the 1960s for the 100th anniversary of the Civil War—but stayed up to defy the Civil Rights movement. “In my view, that’s the reason the flag stayed up.”
  • “I hate that it took a tragedy like [the Charleston massacre] for me to really, fully understand it,” says Sen. George Campsen, a Republican whose district encompasses Charleston. “But I do fully understand it, and it is utterly amazing. It is one of the greatest testimonies of Christian faith that I have experienced in my life.”

Okay it is not a done deal for it has to make it past the state house of representatives…..but it is a start.

The hidden Hazzard of viral activism – Yahoo News UK

I have to admit as a radical in the South I never thought I would see the day come when the Rebel flag was in such a sad place……

This conversation the country is having has been a long time coming…..but I think that nothing is going to end as some believe……..we are attacking symbols and we should be attacking the hate specifically……

This is a well done piece I came across and I think it needs to be read……

 

The hidden Hazzard of viral activism – Yahoo News UK.