In the animation of the Long March 8 landing here (at sea no less, so launching from Wenchang then) the side boosters stay attached to the 1st stage, apparently as ballast that addresses lack of throttling down/variable thrust engines. Let's see. Source: http://t.co/c3elMW5axypic.twitter.com/REBRfUt1ai
[RoadsideAmerica] The secret of the tasty-taste of Dyer's hamburgers, according to Dyer's Burgers, is that they're cooked in the grease that the restaurant started with back in 1912. Or at least some of that grease (The restaurant adds fresh grease to the old grease every now and then). To its credit, Dyer's Burgers has been very protective of its grease over the years, moving it under armed guard as the restaurant has relocated to various Memphis addresses.
If you feel uneasy about burgers fried in "ancient grease," the restaurant does say that the grease is strained every day. So it's clean 100-year-old grease.
[AmGreatness] The United States is no longer the sole superpower in the world. Of course, it is the most dominant force on the planet, but that dominance‐relative to the capabilities of other countries‐has declined. Revanchist states, such as Russia, China, or Iran‐even "friendly" states that have become disenchanted by the West, such as Turkey‐are now arising to complicate U.S. foreign policy in ways not experienced since the nineteenth century. This is particularly true in the vital region of the Middle East.
If the world has entered a multipolar age in which many, variegated powers compete with one another in an endless game of dominance over limited territory and resources, then the Mideast is the definitive example of the trend. All of the problems the United States is facing today are playing themselves out with terminal intensity in the land between Europe and Asia, also known as the Middle East.
Riven by ethno-religious, tribal, and historical tensions, the Middle East is experiencing harrowing changes. In many respects, the same kind of turmoil that drove Europe mad during their religious feuds several centuries ago are now driving politics in the Middle East today; the only difference being more advanced weaponry. Today, a potentially nuclear-armed Iran is gobbling up the region, as are the Russians.
Continued on Page 49
PEARL-CLUTCHING IS A WASHINGTON SPORT
Everyone in Washington is screaming that Trump is handing Syria (and the wider Middle East) over to Russia, Iran, and their newfound allies in Turkey, while at the same time selling out America’s erstwhile Kurdish friends to be annihilated by the Turks over long-standing religious, political, and historical differences.
The experts, once again, are wrong. Their appraisal of American military power and reach undercuts the fact that the United States still will be capable of striking back against enemy targets that may appear in Syria after American forces pull out.
By pulling out U.S. forces, Trump is likely giving Turkey time to recognize that neither the Iranians nor the Russians will prove receptive to their goal of reconstituting the Ottoman Empire in the region. Israel will not be too keen on the idea, either.
Trump isn’t "handing" Syria over to anyone. The president is merely recognizing that geopolitics is about leverage. Compared to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, as well as the Russians, Iranians, and Turks, the United States has little leverage there. Keeping 2,000 Americans on the ground in Syria, with big targets painted on their backs, will not "stabilize" the region. It will likely compel Russia, Iran, and others to take harsher action against perceived U.S. interests in the region.
[Investor's Business Daily] Economics: What seemed like an impossibility just a few years ago is now a reality for many across the country: gasoline that costs less than $2 a gallon. It's amazing for many reasons.
USA Today reports that almost one in five gas stations in the country are charging less than $2 a gallon. As many as eight states could soon have an average price of under $2, the paper said, citing data from GasBuddy.
The national average for gasoline last week was under $2.40, according to the Department of Energy. In the Midwest and the Gulf Coast, it's barely above $2.
$2 A GALLON IN CONTEXT
Let's put that in some context. First, there was a time not too long ago when President Obama insisted that $2-a-gallon gas was a thing of the past. "We can't just drill our way to lower gas prices," was his constant refrain.
Earlier this year, Democrats made hay when gas prices neared $3 a gallon. Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer blamed "President Trump's reckless decision to pull out of the Iran deal." He said it caused "soaring gas prices, something we know disproportionately hurts middle- and lower-income people."
#1
So, it's worth examining assertions and outcomes:
"You can keep your doctor." - Turns out, no, not so much.
"We can't drill our way out of this." - Turns out we sort of can.
"Ignoring malcontent students in public schools will lead to more justice." - Tell it to Parkland.
"We have to be at war, everywhere, all the time, forever." - Outcome not yet announced, but some already have their minds made up and they will freely call you an idiot if you don't agree...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 10:10
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#2
Gas is $1.73 in my part of Texas.
Funny how things work once you get the enviro-wackos out of the way.
[Canadian Free Press] In November of 2016, the American people elected Donald Trump to be our nation’s 45th President. He campaigned on a platform of bringing our troops back home from Syria and Afghanistan and focusing on an "America First" foreign policy. By announcing he was removing our 2,000 troops from Syria, the President is following through on another campaign promise.
Syria is a hodgepodge of multiple terrorist groups, regional forces, foreign troops and religious fighters exerting influence. Our forces have been working with the Kurdish fighters in the Northeast section of the country fighting Islamic State terrorists. The operation has been an amazing success and the Islamic State has suffered tremendous losses. In both Iraq and Syria, the terrorists now control only 1% of the land they used to dominate.
The conflict in Syria will continue with or without the involvement of the United States.
Continued on Page 49
#1
The paragraph about restocking military hardware is apropos. More whack-a-mole or B-21s and Columbia class SSBNs? I say buy the hardware and invest in the manpower.
There are going to be hellholes in this world whether the US is there or not. Let's get our own house in order now.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 10:30
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#2
There are going to be hellholes in this world whether the US is there or not. Let's get our own house in order now.
Ques: A man and woman or quarreling loudly at the other end of the bar. What should you do ?
#3
Just make sure it doesn't turn into America Only. We need allies. And we should always go after the wolf instead of waiting for it to start eating our flock.
You'll find people with shared common interests in a particular matter. If they share no interest as demonstrated by their behavior, they're not allies.
[Daily Caller] Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is blaming President Donald Trump and his "domestic realities" for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants coming into Canada.
Trudeau made the comments Friday during a year-end interview with Global News.
Dubbed a "border crisis" by the Official Opposition Conservatives, an increasing number of Canadians are also concerned about the steady stream of illegals coming into Canada, according to polls. The flood of would-be refugees began shortly after Trudeau issued the now infamous #WelcomeToCanada tweet in January 2017 that invited the refugees of the world to come to Canada, even as Trump aimed to tighten American borders.
#1
Ok, Trudeau. I propose a deal. You apologizd and stop trash talking us for not treating illegals as legals, and we won't remind you how hypocritical you are.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/22/2018 18:11
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#3
Wasn't that long ago the Burg had its own Canadian troll taunting us about our immigration policies. Revenge is a dish best served up cold (in December, you bet its cold).
[VOA] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that his country would hold off on a military operation against the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, citing a telephone conversation this past week with U.S. President Donald Trump.
"Our phone call with Mr. Trump, as well as the contacts of our diplomatic and security units, and the statements from the American side have led us to wait a little longer," Erdogan said during an awards ceremony in Istanbul.
"Of course, this is not an open waiting period," he said, underlining his country's intention to carry out an assault in "the coming months" on the Kurdish fighters, known as the People's Protection Units (YPG), who played a key role in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
CIVILIANS FLEE
The Turkish military launched an operation against the YPG in January and took over the Kurdish town of Afrin in northwestern Syria. The military last week threatened another incursion against YPG, this time vowing to eliminate the fighters from all of northeastern Syria, where about 2,000 U.S. special forces have operated, helping in the fight against IS and serving as a buffer in Turkish-Kurdish clashes.
The recent Turkish threats have forced many civilians to evacuate their homes on both sides of the border to avoid being targeted.
WATCH: Turkey's Gaziantep Residents Concerned Amid Border Tensions With Syria
Posted by: Besoeker ||
12/22/2018
09:28 ||
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#1
When we were in trouble, my father would count to three:
“One.
Two.
Two and a half.
Two and three quarters.
Two and seven eighths...”
I don’t recall him ever getting to three. But we did learn our fractions.
[Daily Caller] Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly found himself in hot water after he posted what many considered to be an insensitive tweet about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s cancer surgery.
The Supreme Court announced on Friday that Justice Ginsburg underwent a successful medical procedure that removed cancerous nodules from her lung.
"Justice Ginsburg is very ill," O’Reilly tweeted. "Another Justice appointment inevitable and soon. Bad news for the left."
O’Reilly caught plenty of heat for his comment. "The View" co-host Meghan McCain called it "gross and ghoulish."
"There’s really nothing more gross and ghoulish than people in the media pontificating on a public persons health and the hypothetical political ramifications of their death," McCain tweeted. "Join me in praying for RBG to have a speedy and healthy recovery ‐ we are Christians, aren’t we Bill?"
#7
Well, Meggie Moo is gross, and the way she and the rest of her family used daddy McSssssschtain's funeral to advance their petty political ends was ghoulish, so, I guess she knows what she's talking about for once, anyway...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 12:33
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#8
If Ruth Buzzy Ginsberg had any integrity she would retire as she is incapable of serving.
But no.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/22/2018 14:15
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#9
Considering all the vitriol I've seen lefties tweet whenever a Republican pol is in ill health, O'Reilly's comment was downright respectful.
Two women were caught allegedly stealing $1,900 worth of electronics from a Bloomfield Township Target on the same day the store was packed with police for a Shop with a Cop event.
"I couldn't believe it," Bloomfield Township Police Sgt. Dan Brown said.
About 15 police officers from four departments ‐ Sylvan Lake, Keego Harbor, Orchard Lake and Bloomfield Township ‐ were at the Target at 2400 Telegraph Wednesday night, helping 22 disadvantaged children pick out Christmas presents for their families.
Keiana Wilson, 40, of Burton and Dana Johnson, 18 of Flint were also there.
Brown said store loss prevention officers watched on cameras as the women loaded a cart with two Apple watches, two iPads and a Nintendo gaming system. At about 7:30 p.m., they walked past the registers without paying.
They never made it to the parking lot.
"The loss prevention (officers) actually apprehended them, then they asked for police assistance," said Sylvan Lake Police Sgt. Michael Mondeau, who organized the Shop with a Cop event. "The police officers were only about 20 feet away when they tried to walk out of the store."
[Jerusalem Post] Four Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured during weekly 'Great March of Return' protests along the Gaza border fence on Friday.
The fatalities were identified by WAFA News Agency as Maher Yasin, 40, Abdul-Aziz Abu Shari'a, 28, Ayman Munir Mohammed Shabir, 18, and Mohammad Mo’een Jahjouh, 16.
According to the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Health Ministry, Shabir was shot in the abdomen during clashes with Israeli troops east of the al-Bureij refugee camp and teenage al-Jahjuh was killed after he was hit in the neck by a bullet fired by Israeli troops. Abu Sharia and Yasin died from their wounds after being shot in separate incidents along the border fence.
Four paramedics and two journalists were reported to be among the injured.
Some 8,000 Palestinians took part in the protests on Friday, burning tires and throwing rocks and an explosive device towards troops, though it did not land in Israeli territory.
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer used to smuggle his Russian-escort mistress into the luxury Upper East Side home he shared with his wife ‐ by stuffing her inside a piece of luggage, she told The Post.
"He used to sneak me into his Fifth Avenue apartment in a black suitcase . . . when his wife was away,’’ Svetlana Travis Zakharova told The Post in an exclusive interview.
"My knees would be up by my face. When the doorman would ask if he could help, Eliot would say, ’No, thanks.’ "
Zakharova revealed the sleazeball sneak tactic ‐ which she said the pair pulled off about 15 times at Eliot and Silda Spitzer’s home ‐ as her lawyer prepared a new push to put the disgraced former pol behind bars.
The Russian sexpot first hit the headlines in early 2016 when she accused Spitzer of choking her during a sex-session-gone-awry at The Plaza hotel in Midtown.
Now, Zakharova’s Queens lawyer, Joseph Murray, is asking Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman to investigate Spitzer for alleged "improprieties" in his efforts to evade prosecution.
[News24] A South African teenager who was detained in China says she'll never leave the country to work overseas again after her month-long detention.
Tristan-Lee Niemand, 19, spoke to News24 about her ordeal shortly after landing at OR Tambo International Airport on Saturday.
She opened up about how she found herself detained after working as a teacher in Nanjing, China, for three weeks.
Niemand and six other South Africans working as teachers in Nanjing were detained after it emerged that they didn’t have the proper work permits to teach in the country. They only had student visas and they were promised to be provided with work permits by the school that employed them.
#3
Better find a good plan B country to plan A South Africa. Just sayin’,
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/22/2018 20:14
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#4
China is stricter on immigration stuff than the USA. Here, you can work as a student, but you need to get permission from the school, and have special paperwork. Also, if you do have a work permit (about the size of a US drivers license), it contains a QR code that specifies where you can work, with a specific address. If you are found working at a different address, various sorts of spanking will ensue. I've met English teachers(with valid work permits for one address) that have been naughty and detained for 4-12 hours after being caught working at a different address than allowed, then usually fined and let go.
Working with no proper work permit at all in a foreign country is just asking for trouble. I think that is how is should be. It's rife in China, many college students (M-F) get tempted into Sat/Sun jobs at training centers, because all college kids need a little cash, here or there.
[Irish Times] A fifth person has died of their injuries after Tuesday’s Christmas market attack in Strasbourg, French prosecutors have confirmed.
An official from the Paris prosecutor’s office said the victim was a Polish national, but gave no other details. An Italian journalist, a Thai tourist, an Afghan mechanic and a French national were also killed in the shooting.
The suspected attacker, Cherif Chekatt, was killed by police on Thursday night following a two-day manhunt for the 29-year-old by 700 French security forces. Link provides lengthy terrorist attack compendium
[Euro News] Catalan separatists have blocked roads and clashed with police as Spanish ministers held a cabinet meeting in the regional capital Barcelona, and not in Madrid.
The decision to move the meeting failed to reduced tensions months after Catalan leaders were jailed for trying to break away from Spain.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Catalan leader Quim Torra had agreed on Thursday to an "effective dialogue" but there were violent scenes near the venue where the cabinet assembled.
Friday's meeting was convened exactly a year after the previous Spanish government held snap elections in Catalonia, a decision seen as provocative by pro-independence groups.
[GEFIRA] Though the end of the European Union is inevitable, the proponents of a further integrated or federal superstate are busy making a last effort to achieve their goal. The opposition against the project is mounting with every day. Europe is suffering from economic stagnation, and is facing a demographic calamity.
The pro-European establishment’s last hope was the newly-elected French President Emanuel Macron who was to revive the economy and integrate the European Union under French leadership. Gefira was of the opinion that all these expectations were misplaced. The once great nation is broken beyond repair. France’s problems are much worse than those of Italy. Though Italy has a higher debt-to-GDP ratio than France, France has a larger budget deficit, and the difference is that while Italy has a trade surplus France has a trade deficit, so the country cannot pay for its imports.
While the Italian "populist" Mateo Salvini is earning the nation’s respect, Emmanuel Macron’s popularity is at a historic low. All of France is engulfed by riots, civil unrest and looting. In city after city, village after village, protesters have been clashing with the police for weeks now while President Macron has nothing to offer to appease them, unless he violates the budget deficit boundary of 3%.
Like the Soviet Union once was, France is a sizeable social-multicultural experiment, and like the empty shops in communist countries, the demographic changes in France are visible in every section of the society, but nobody dares to name them. Once the whole world saw that the French team playing at the FIFA World Cup was made up of almost exclusively Africans, and even on Twitter Africans boasted about it. Yet, the French establishment insisted that those Africans were genuinely French. Dissenters were branded as racists or Nazis.
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - At least 13 people were killed and 17 wounded in a car bomb attack claimed by al Qaeda-linked group al Shabaab close to the president’s residence in the Somali capital Mogadishu, police said on Saturday.
A second explosion followed nearby. Al Shabaab, in comments broadcast on its Radio Andalus, claimed responsibility for both blasts and said the second was also a car bomb.
"The death toll has risen to 13 people including civilians and soldiers. Seventeen others were injured. The casualties are from the two blasts," Major Mohamed Hussein, a police officer, told Reuters.
Among those killed were a journalist, two security personnel and a driver working for local station Universal TV, whose car was passing the checkpoint at which the first blast went off, another reporter working for the station said.
"My colleague Awil Dahir Salad died in the blast together with the driver and two security guards. They were killed by the first blast as they drove. May Allah rest their souls," journalist Abdiasis Ibrahim who works for Universal TV, told Reuters.
AMMAN (Reuters) - U.S. troops have not left the strategic Tanf garrison on the Iraq-Jordan border following President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria, the leader of a Pentagon-backed rebel group there said on Saturday.
Colonel Muhanad al Talaa, leader of Maghawir al-Thawra whose several hundred fighters work alongside U.S. troops at the Tanf camp, said although they were notified of Washington’s decision, the situation on the ground remained as it was.
"American troops plan to withdraw completely form Syria but I don’t have details and things are as they are up until this moment," Talaa told Reuters from the base.
The garrison is located in a strategic area near Syria’s Tanf border crossing with Iraq at the crossroad of a main Baghdad-Damascus highway, Tehran’s main arms supply route by land to Syria and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militia.
Russia and the Syrian government have repeatedly called on Washington to pull its troops from the Tanf base, where it has declared a 55 km (35 mile)-radius "deconfliction zone" which has become a safe haven for at least 50,000 civilians, mostly women and children, who live in the Rukban camp within it.
[Wash Examiner] James Comey has recognized a kindred spirit in Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who in 1951, penned the immortal lines, "Do not go gentle into that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light." To wit, the former FBI director confidently strode up to microphones following two days of contentious testimony before House lawmakers, and let it all hang out. Comey, the man some sympathetic media-types have referred to as a humble servant-leader, seized the opportunity to settle some old scores as he pilloried Fox News and the Republican Party.
"The FBI’s reputation has taken a big hit because the president with his acolytes has lied about it constantly," Comey lectured reporters following the final closed-door session with the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees on Monday. Recognizing a unique opportunity, Comey paused for effect ... and then continued: "At some point, someone has to stand up and face the fear of Fox News, fear of their base, fear of mean tweets, stand up for the values of this country and not slink away into retirement but stand up and speak the truth."
His shot across the bow at House Republicans was his latest in a recent line of partisan snipes at a political party with which he once publicly claimed affiliation. During his long government career, Comey played the near-perfect nonpartisan actor, earning accolades from both sides of the aisle. His behind-the-scenes, self-serving planting of a story that highlighted his "courageous nonpartisanship" during a now well-chronicled hospital bedside standoff with the George W. Bush White House on March 11, 2004, during the Stellar Wind reauthorization battle, is legion ‐ and earned him former President Barack Obama’s nod to become the seventh director of the FBI. About the author.
LONDON (Reuters) - British forces stormed an Italian cargo ship on Friday and regained control after stowaways threatened crew members as it sailed close to the coast of southeast England.
Police said no one was injured in the operation.
The Sun newspaper said the rescue was led by members of the navy’s elite Special Boat Service. Four stowaways had threatened crew on the ship, the Grande Tema, a spokesman for the boat’s operator, Grimaldi Lines, said.
Four men were detained under Britain’s immigration laws and the vessel was being taken safely to the port of Tilbury, police said in a statement.
Sky News said the stowaways were believed to have boarded the ship in Nigeria and had demanded to be taken to the English coast, threatening the crew with iron bars.
Earlier, police said they did not think the incident in the Thames Estuary was piracy or terrorism-related. Police first attended the incident at 0900 GMT on Friday and the operation was concluded about 14 hours later.
The BBC said the crew had locked themselves in the vessel’s bridge for safety.
[NYT] WASHINGTON ‐ The Pentagon is considering using small teams of Special Operations forces to strike the Islamic State in Syria, one option for continuing an American military mission there despite President Trump’s order to withdraw troops from the country.
The American commandos would be shifted to neighboring Iraq, where an estimated 5,000 United States forces are already deployed, and "surge" into Syria for specific raids, according to two military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The strike teams are one of several options ‐ including continued airstrikes and resupplying allied Kurdish fighters with arms and equipment ‐ in a new strategy for Syria that the Pentagon is developing as officials follow the order Mr. Trump gave on Wednesday for a military drawdown even as it tries to maintain pressure on the Islamic State.
The Pentagon will deliver the options to Mr. Trump for approval within weeks ‐ well before Defense Secretary Jim Mattis steps down at the end of February. Mr. Mattis resigned on Thursday, in part because of Mr. Trump’s decision to overrule his senior advisers and withdraw troops from Syria.
Officials at the Pentagon said the plans sought to maintain American support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia of Arab and Kurdish soldiers who have proved to be the most successful ground fighters against the Islamic State.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
12/22/2018
06:45 ||
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#1
I doubt our friend in Iran will be cheering this potential course of action. Could it have been the plan all along ?
[Aljazeera] With Syria's war nearing an end, Israel turns its attention to tunnels allegedly dug by Hezbollah along Lebanese border.
Kafr Kila, Lebanon - Across the border wall that divides the village of Kafr Kila in south Lebanon from Israel, the sound of Israeli excavations is disturbing a relative calm that has endured for 12 years.
On December 4, Israel decided to take on Hezbollah in Lebanon and began "Operation Northern Shield". It started digging along several points on the Lebanon-Israel border to locate and destroy what it said were tunnels dug by Hezbollah into Israel.
The Israeli army alleges that the tunnels violate the country's sovereignty and are big enough - some two metres in height and width - for armed men to travel through.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the tunnels pose a grave danger to the country, while an Israeli official has called them a conspiracy by Hezbollah to "conquer Galilee", its northern territory.
Hezbollah, in line with normal practice, has not responded.
[Hot Air] This is the third day in a row that a host of the president’s favorite show has unloaded on him on air for troop withdrawals. Credit to Brian Kilmeade (and Fox) for not pulling his punches despite pressure from his audience to conform and a keen awareness that the commander-in-chief was probably watching.
Although if this keeps up, I’d bet on "Fox & Friends" having one less friend next year.
Spare a thought too for poor Sarah Sanders. Instead of making straightforward defenses of Trump’s policy ‐ "Americans are tired of war and don’t understand what our national interest is in Syria" ‐ she’s forced for whatever strange reason to resort to inanities like this:
Putin said publicly within the past 36 hours that he agrees with Trump’s decision to withdraw. Russian state media is chipper about it. And ISIS doesn’t threaten Russia, or at least doesn’t need to. Surely an agreement can be reached between the axis of Assad and the jihadis to leave them unmolested in some small enclave of Syria provided that they steer their jihad towards mutual enemies like the United States. Even if it can’t, sporadic battles with ISIS is a price Russia and Iran should be willing to pay to have the United States out of their way in the region. Kilmeade’s criticism is harsh and hyperbolic (although he’s playing off of Trump’s own hyperbole) but more reasonable than Sanders’s spin.
Our media is strongly pro-intervention and even more strongly anti-Trump so the reaction to withdrawal from Syria and Mattis resigning was destined to be grim. But … it’s really grim.
#2
Obvious from the first sentence this was written by Allahpundit - squishy eeyore loser beta male
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2018 9:04
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#3
Wait and see. I believe SecDef Mattis was right, and President Trump is wrong. Read the resignation letter. It makes sense. And if you have been there you'd know the truth of it.
A phased withdrawal with support built in for our allies in the region would have been the way to go. This move was too abrupt, and looks too much like Obama's turn tail and run withdrawal from Iraq a few years ago.
Why can't you folks admit that Trump may have made a mistake here? Well intentioned, but so was Obama when he did the same thing in the region, and you see where that got us. This was a move that will cost us by emboldening Russia in the region, as well as Turkey and Iran. And that's a nuclear armed Iran, which threatens Israel and Saudi Arabia.
By the way, going ad hominem those who disagree with you is not going to win you friends, nor win the argument. It makes you look stupid.
#4
I have no problem with saying he MAY have made a mistake here. I'm just not a perfect prognosticator as some here seem to think they are. We'll see....
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2018 9:19
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#5
I too hope President Trump has not made a mistake, but if he has I hope its not as costly as I and others think it will be.
#7
*Mistake*... People keeping using that word loosely as if everything can be boiled down into a single Yes/No/Good/Bad evaluation of the outcome. Withdrawing will have both Good and Bad outcomes and will cause us to change our strategies...
But First: What Are we doing by staying there? We are still in South Korea and after 60-odd years and most of the South Koreans want us to stay, can we say that of the people in Syria? Do we leave now or do we leave after a repeat of the 1983 Beirut Bombing?
#9
I think the reason the troops were withdrawn might be because Erdogan intends to attack the Kurds they are stationed with. Could be wrong, but US troops dying at Turkish hands is problematic for keeping Ikrit open to say the least. Fact is, we probably won't know the full reasoning for months.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/22/2018 14:34
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#10
Pull back into Kurdish Iraq. Let Russia deal with ISIS and bomb the crap out of them if they cross into Iraq.
[The Hill] A man climbed the National Christmas Tree near the White House on Friday night and refused to come down before he was taken to a hospital, NBC4 Washington reported.
U.S. Park Police told the outlet that they negotiated with the man, who they said is emotionally distressed. The man was reportedly taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation after getting out of the tree.
Police closed the surrounding area, telling the news site that it will be closed for the remainder of the evening. Some tree lights were damaged, according to NBC4.
The Hill has reached out to D.C. police and U.S. Park Police for comment.
The tree, located on the Ellipse near the White House, is a popular winter attraction for Washington tourists.
#1
U.S. Park Police told the outlet that they negotiated with the man, who they said is emotionally distressed. The man was reportedly taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation after getting out of the tree.
[Hot Air] Geoffrey Woo runs a small company called HVMN (pronounced "human") in San Francisco. The company, which currently has 10 employees, used to have offices in the financial district but needed to expand and so moved to a larger space in the Mid-Market area. Tuesday, one of Woo’s employees stepped outside the office and witnesses a violent assault which Woo would later say looked to him like attempted murder. Tuesday night he posted a brief video of the incident on Twitter in which a man can be seen stomping on the head of another man who is already down on the sidewalk. Woo said his neighborhood felt like a "war zone" and begged for more police help and tagging the city, the SFPD and Mayor London Breed.
The next day, Woo posted a follow up video of himself speaking to the camera. “What you just witnessed was an assault and essentially an attempted murder that happened this morning right outside my office,” Woo said. He continued, “San Francisco! We live in a pretty f**ked up city, no other way to really put it. But no one really talks about it. A lot of us just gossip about national politics, Trump this, Russia that, Mueller this, GOP, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Democrats. It’s all just bulls**t entertainment. What I care about is my day-to-day safety and quality of life.” He goes on to request that a couple of SFPD officers be tasked with patrolling the street every single day, saying his personal observation is that when cops are on hand the street is safer.
#4
Easier to shame complainers than fix the problems.
Bets on whether Mr Woo starts receiving regular visits from the city building and fire inspectors?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018 14:07
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#8
Not heaven, but certainly not Hades:
Bell bottomed men, skirt suits on ladies;
Stiff hairdos, more formal,
At least if you're normal.
The Eighties... San Fran on Euphrates?
#10
Bets on whether Mr Woo starts receiving regular visits from the city building and fire inspectors?
And, what would that accomplish? The odds are that he is leasing his office space. The owner of the building would be liable for any code issues discovered by the city fire and building inspectors.
[Telegraph] A man and a woman have been arrested in connection with the "criminal use of drones" which sparked chaos for three days at Gatwick Airport.
The arrests came as passengers braced for further disruption while the airport tried to recover from the turmoil.
Sussex Police said the people were arrested in the Gatwick area just after 10pm on Friday night.
Superintendent James Collis of Sussex Police said: "Our investigations are still ongoing, and our activities at the airport continue to build resilience to detect and mitigate further incursions from drones by deploying a range of tactics.
"We continue to urge the public, passengers and the wider community around Gatwick to be vigilant and support us by contacting us immediately if they believe they have any information that can help us in bringing those responsible to justice.
"The arrests we have made this evening are a result of our determination to keep the public safe from harm, every line of inquiry will remain open to us until we are confident that we have mitigated further threats to the safety of passengers."
[UPI] THURSDAY, Dec. 20, 2018 -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram -- the list of popular social media outlets is long and always expanding. But could staying connected through them lead to depression?
That's the question posed by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Nearly 1,800 Americans, aged 19 to 32, answered questionnaires about their activity on 11 popular social media sites. On average, the participants spent just over an hour a day in total on social media, and went to their accounts 30 times a week.
Whether engagement was measured in time or number of visits, the people in the top 25 percent of social media users had significantly higher odds of depression than the bottom 25 percent, between 1.7 and 2.7 times the risk.
[PJ] WASHINGTON -- The federal government shut down for the third time in 2018 over the border wall appropriations impasse, with both parties blaming each other and one House office branding it "the nightmare before Christmas."
It's the first time since 1977 that the government has closed over a budget dispute three times in a year.
With several senators not yet back in Washington, Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote for the Senate to begin consideration of the House bill that provides more than $5 billion for a border wall.
Senators vowed to not vote on a bill until there's an agreement between leaders. The House adjourned Friday and was not planning to come back for Saturday votes. Schumer Shutdown™
"Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!" President Trump tweeted.
Despite Trump's Twitter pleas for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to deploy the nuclear option that would do away with the 60-vote cloture threshold, McConnell made clear on the Senate floor Friday evening that "any eventual solution will require 60 votes here in the Senate."
"It’s been clear that from the beginning that two things are necessary: The support from enough Senate Democrats to pass the proposal at 60, and a presidential signature," he said. "As a result, the Senate has voted to proceed to the legislation before us in order to preserve maximum flexibility for productive conversations to continue between the White House and our Democratic colleagues."
"I hope Senate Democrats will work with the White House on an agreement that can pass both houses of Congress and receive the president’s signature," McConnell added. "So, colleagues, when an agreement is reached, it will receive a vote here on the Senate floor."
David Popp, McConnell’s communications director, said in a statement earlier that McConnell "has said for years that the votes are not there in the Conference to use the nuclear option -- just this morning, several senators put out statements confirming their opposition, and confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a joint statement said the president "threw a temper tantrum and convinced House Republicans to push our nation into a destructive Trump Shutdown in the middle of the holiday season."
#1
Democrats in the Senate shut the government down.
That should be the headline. If they would simply allow the vote, it would pass.
McConnel was gutless in allowing a voice vote instead of demanding a roll call to put all these Democrats on record as favoring a shutdown and opposing funding for the wall.
#3
Unlike Obamacare, which passed with majority vote, this is a budget item to fund the already approved wall. Budget items are approved with a majority vote. I don't understand the issue here.
The issue is that much of the GOPe doesn't want the wall any more than the Dims want it.
The good news is that this is a stare down Trump can win. Shutter the gov for 6 months and see what happens. People will get on with their lives. The worst possible outcome for the Dims and GOPe is that people realize that they aren't needed.
#5
The only people to get screwed are the troops. That will go over well, given something like 2/3rd of government spending is automatic. (do I need to put a /sarc on that?)
About three-quarters of the government, including the military and the Department of Health and Human Services, is fully funded until the end of September 2019, leaving 25 percent unfunded as of Saturday.
Most NASA employees will be sent home, as will Commerce Department workers and many at the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Agriculture and State.
National parks will remain open, but most park staff will stay home while Washington is unable to accomplish one of its most basic tasks -- keeping the government up and running.
[Study Finds] Researchers found that people who don’t feel "very strongly" about their national identity were most likely to consider life outside the U.S.
KENT, England ‐ A third of natural-born Americans have thought about packing up and living elsewhere ‐ outside the United States ‐ at some point in the future, but it may not be for the reason you think, a new study finds.
Researchers from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom and Tufts University in the U.S. say that the most popular reason (87.4 percent) to live abroad is the simple desire to explore the world. Surprisingly, whether a person identifies as liberal or conservative politically had no correlation to their hopes of moving overseas.
"While one might think that ideological orientation plays a role, at least in this pre-Trump survey, we found out that it did not, at least not directly," says Dr. Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies, in a release.
Yet while politics didn’t have a direct link, the authors found that one’s own national identity was an important underlying factor in one’s aspirations of living in another country. Specifically, those who didn’t respond that they had a very strong national identity were also more likely to leave.
#8
First, 1/3 thinking about living abroad means 2/3 (AKA 'most') are not.
Second, researchers ... say that the most popular reason (87.4 percent) to live abroad is the simple desire to explore the world. So it's not living under the brutal TrumpHitler regime that motivating people, despite what the headline hints at.
And just to throw some snark into the mix: At one time, you had to travel thousands of miles by steamer and be the only white man north of the Limpopo to experience strange and exotic cultures. Now, you can just move to one of our large cities, like Minneapolis.
#9
And just to throw some snark into the mix: At one time, you had to travel thousands of miles by steamer and be the only white man north of the Limpopo to experience strange and exotic cultures. Now, you can just move to one of our large cities, like Minneapolis.
#12
There are number of places in America that might qualify for third world living. You can easily tour some of these places: South Chicago, parts of LA, parts of Baltimore, same for Minneapolis, a large swath of Detroit. San Francisco is vying for the list. "Don't leave America and enjoy that expat experience." Most are Dem strongholds.
Want to live abroad? Join the military. I "lived abroad" plenty. You'll see the real world, not the tourist traps.
For them it would open their eyes to what real poverty looks like, and how much irrational hatred certain cultures breed and just how evil centralized government is.
[The Federalist] President Trump has made a bold and immensely consequential decision in pulling U.S. troops out of Syria. His detractors on both the right and left will be many. But as someone who has spent time on the ground in Iraq and Syria both with U.S. troops, local tribal militias, and rebel forces since 2005, I can tell you that it was the right one to make.
Throughout this summer, i drove into the part of northern Syria cleared of the Islamic State (daesh) that does not have a U.S. military presence. Syrian northern cities of Azaz and Jarablus were the sites of two separate stages of the Syrian war. First rebels battled the Assad regime, then against daesh. Transnational terrorists haven’t had a foothold in those areas ‐ jointly managed by Turkish armed forces and their newly created Syrian National Army ‐ for years. It is a template that could help fill the vacuum left behind as the U.S. military leaves.
Life was bustling in these cities when I visited, though scars of the sieges they faced by the Assad regime and daesh were visible everywhere. The rolling landscape along the northern Syrian countryside could easily be mistaken for the gentle farmlands of the American midwest. The kebab shops were open, motorcycle repair shops (the most popular way of getting about in these parts of the world) were bustling, and the two-lane road was packed with the traffic of trucks carrying goods into a swath of territory that is now governed by an interim government ‐ an entity recognized by officials Ankara, but certainly not by that of the Assad regime in Damascus (nor Russia for that matter).
Nonetheless, reminders that the war was still raging in other parts of the country were everywhere. Newly built camps for internally displaced persons who were forced from their homes in other parts of Syria dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see.
This new reality in Syria ‐ one where transnational terrorists do not have the luxury of a safehaven to plot attacks against the U.S. homeland and its allies ‐ is very much possible without the need of permanent U.S. military presence. The withdrawal of U.S. forces need not lead to the doom and gloom scenario of a daesh resurgence that many Washington pundits are predicting.
Other countries like Turkey who are more invested and have longer term interests are footing the bill of stabilization and they are able to do it much more efficiently and effectively for a variety of reasons ‐ to include cultural and historical connections to local communities and the land.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
12/22/2018
05:36 ||
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#1
Thank you for the Turkish perspective. I hope Mr. Shahbandar is registered as a Turkish foreign agent. Would hate for him to run afoul of FARA laws.
[Free Beacon] Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane said on Thursday that President Donald Trump will come to regret his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, if he doesn't reconsider the move.
"I don't discuss any conversations I may have with the president. All I can say is that I do hope he reconsiders," Keane told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. "I'm convinced that if he doesn't reconsider, he will come to regret it."
Mattis abruptly submitted his resignation letter on Thursday after meeting President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the president's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Mattis tried to convince Trump to reverse his decision or at least let some troops remains, but Trump refused, according to reports. Trump tweeted that Mattis was "retiring" but Mattis' letter shows he resigned over policy disagreements with the president.
"I'm certainly saddened to see Jim Mattis departing, but I also understand. I think the factors that are contributing to the resignation ‐ maybe not all of it ‐ but certainly the decisions in Syria and Afghanistan," Keane said.
The Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported Wednesday that the Trump administration planned to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria. There are currently 2,000 U.S. troops in the country that were there to train local forces in fighting ISIS. Trump has ordered military leaders to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, according to reports.
#1
"I don't discuss any conversations I may have with the president. All I can say is that I do hope he reconsiders," Keane told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. "I'm convinced that if he doesn't reconsider, he will come to regret it."
Heads up Fox News viewers, I have the ear of the president, of Gaia, Pachamama, Putin, and Shakti.
Instead of saluting and offering solutions and complimenting strategies which could lead to success, the general piles on. Perhaps Gen. Keane should resign from Fox News in protest.
#2
For Rantburg posters, I guess nothing is worse than being right when Trump is wrong.
Even the best Presidents make mistakes. Admit it, he is making a mistake here. Not in pulling away from Syria, but in how he is doing it. Just like Obama and Iraq. I recall reading many here being critical of how that was done. Same applies here.
Bailing out suddenly and completely will leave a mess, which will be exploited by our enemies (Iran, Turkey, Russia), and our allies, especially the Kurds, will be screwed by them.
You cant deny that. And you can't deny that Trump means well by bringing the troops home, but he is making a big mistake in how he is doing it. Cut and run is not how to do it.
If there’s one good thing about the political crisis triggered Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria it’s been to make people realize the US is there. As Seth Harp in the New Yorker noted, it has done everything possible to conceal that fact. . . .
Perhaps more people than were ever aware of the combat presence in Syria are outraged the US is leaving it and that is a good thing. The lack of awareness was the result of the breakdown of the national security debate and the abdication by Congress of its role in war making. The public is now like a man waking up in a strange city with a 3 week growth of beard with no memory of how he got there.
As the Los Angeles Times noted the US inherited a whole bunch of shadow wars from the past administrations. “Before he took office in 2008, Barack Obama vowed to end America’s grueling conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his second term, he pledged to take the country off what he called a permanent war footing. … U.S. military forces have been at war for all eight years of Obama’s tenure, the first two-term president with that distinction. He launched airstrikes or military raids in at least seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.”
But they all went into the back pages.
Somehow withdrawing back Iraq doesn't seem like withdrawing back to the US. Get a grip.
#9
#8 is the not-spoken-nearly-enough truth of the day.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 13:00
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General, just spare me the Delphic Oracle prognostications: “Give me a one-handed Economist. All my economists say 'on hand...', then 'but on the other...” ― Harry Truman
[Daily Caller] The head of the firm behind a report on ongoing Russian influence campaigns in the United States was part of a Democratic project to create fake Russian bots during the Alabama special election in October 2017.
The chief executive of cybersecurity firm New Knowledge, Jonathan Morgan, was one of the operatives on a self-described "false flag" operation meant to link Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to Russian bots in order to boost his Democratic opponent, now-Sen. Doug Jones. The project sought to spread misinformation about foreign interference in an American election.
Morgan’s firm also recently authored a report on that very topic for the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The New Knowledge report ‐ which is posted in full at the bottom of this article ‐ stated that Americans’ hesitance to embrace censorship puts the U.S. at a "disadvantage" in dealing with Russian influence campaigns.
The report also called for "robust collaboration between government agencies, platforms, and private companies" in order to combat the threat of Russian influence campaigns.
#1
Additional evidence (as if any were needed) of the political intent of 'LinkedIn' and other social media outlets. They do not collect and store data for the 'good of the order.' Disinformation and political fund raising are their goals.
[Townhall] Well, the GoFundMe campaign to build President Trump’s border wall raised over $500,000 in two days. On the third day, it blew past $5 million. We’re now four days into the campaign and it’s raised more than $13 million. The effort launched by Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage has a goal of $1 billion. He said he’s mirroring this effort off of the $7.5 million donation that was forked over to repair the Washington Monument. With the government is hours away from a shutdown over border wall funding, why not donate if you support border security. In the meantime, an alternate liberal fundraiser to collect money for ladders to scale Trump’s wallis not nearly as successful (via Axios):
A GoFundMe created to raise money for President Trump's border wall has raised over $11 million [UPDATE: Over $13 million] in four days, but that's a small fraction of its $1 billion goal.
Why it matters: Congress is in a stalemate over the border wall. The House passed a short-term funding that includes $5.7 billion for border security, but the Senate, which passed their own bill that did not include the amount of wall funding Trump has demanded, will likely shoot it down. President Trump said last week that he'd accept full responsibility for a shutdown over wall funding, but said this morning that Democrats will be to blame if the Senate fails to pass the House's bill.
The other side: A counter-fundraiser has raised over $74,000 of a $100 million goal for ladders to get over the border wall. If either of the fundraisers' goals are not met, the ladder GoFundMe will donate its cash to the Texas-based nonprofit Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES).
Kolfage has updated the page regularly, adding an address for people to mail checks and noting that donations made in the name of celebrities would be refunded. If you wish to donate, please go here.
$15,578,027 of $1.0B goal
Raised by 255,512 people in 5 days
The latest update:
Update 10
Posted by Brian Kolfage
2 hours ago
Share
4
Hey guys people out there are trying to discourage you and spreading lies. I'll set it straight.
If the wall gets funded by the govt, this fund will no longer be needed. My original promise stands true to refund. However many people also don't want a refund and would like it to go to a charity since it's such a large amount; actually most people have said donate it . IF... the wall gets funded, you will have two options, refund or donate.
Wepay will process all refunds, and then what is left over we will donate to a recognized charity that we agree on.
Furthermore, we are pushing on, the wall has not been funded yet. DON'T STOP! THE MISSION CONTINUES!
Sign our petition, we are taking it to DC to show the support! WeFundTheWall.com
Help spread the word!
#2
Recently Trump said there is $100 bin for enterprise zones. He should declare border areas as enterprise zones and allocate 25 bin for enterprise zone infrastructure and security (wink, wink)
[Breitbart] Mass deportations effectively deter the violent El Salvadoran MS-13 gang from expanding across the United States, an investigation finds.
Research conducted by the State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation found that mass deportations of illegal aliens, which took place in the 1990s and 2000s, helped deter the expansion of the MS-13 gang across the U.S.
The report reveals:
In the 1990s and through the 2000s, law enforcement sought to counter MS-13’s growing influence by enlisting U.S. immigration authorities to deport tens of thousands of immigrants who had been convicted of crimes in the United States [emphasis added].
The strategy proved a stopgap solution. While it initially diminished MS-13 in California, it exported the gang’s culture to Central America, where deep poverty and corruptible law enforcement agencies allowed the gang to flourish [emphasis added].
The study also notes that mass immigration to the U.S. ‐ where more than 60 million immigrants have arrived since 1965 ‐ helped the MS-13 gang grow in membership and size, now spanning across 40 states with more than 10,000 members.
"Migration, both within the United States and from Central America to the United States, contributed to the gang’s spread through the 1990s and 2000s," the report states. "MS-13 established beachheads in Texas, Charlotte, N.C., Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Long Island, and Massachusetts. Numerous cliques are now entrenched in these strongholds, fed by the recruitment of teens and young men."
[The Saturday Paper Auz] The Indonesian military has employed airstrikes in West Papua – suspected to include the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus – as a retaliation for murders following a flag-raising protest.
#2
Why is this important? Because there are allegedly gold reserves in the area. And the New Guinea population in the area is either tribal or Catholic, and Indonesia is Muslim. You do the math.
#3
How many thousand US troops are needed to rectify this?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 10:33
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Howe many? A few advisers, some weaponry. And that is already in place. Locals should be able to handle this with support.
Or would you rather let Islamic Fundamentalists flourish here until they strike at the US - like we did in Afghanistan in the 90's.
Their blood now vs Our Blood later.
Islamic fundamentalism needs to be opposed, it is a threat to the US. And you are being short sighted if you dont realize this is a long game. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
[NYP] Keeping score of the daily ups and downs of the Trump revolution is tricky business. Some days, it looks as if the president is making good on his promise to liberate America from the stranglehold of the political elite and corrupt government insiders.
Then there are days like Tuesday, when the deep state asserts its power and proves it’s not dead yet.
True, it was only one day, but it was an important one. And the results were lopsided.
The brazen quote of the dismal day comes from New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood after she got the president’s family foundation to agree to dissolve itself under court supervision.
"This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone," Underwood crowed.
If there really were "one set of rules for everyone," Underwood would have been arrested on the spot and charged with perjury.
Her claim of equality before the law is about as bald-faced as a lie can get.
Recall that she presides over an office that turned a blind eye to years of suspect conduct by the Clinton Foundation, in apparent solidarity with the Clintons’ politics, then singled out the Trump Foundation for fine-tooth scrutiny as Democrats built their resistance to his presidency.
That’s not to say the Trump Foundation always acted honorably. Charges of "self-dealing" are serious and there were abuses of its privileges. But with just $1.7 million left to spend, after it distributed a reported $19 million over a decade, the foundation was relatively insignificant in Trump World.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The shadow military chief of Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... for northern Parwan province has been killed in an apparent infighting, the local security officials said Friday.
Provincial Police Chief Mohammad Mahfuz Walizada said Mullah Qadir, the shadow military chief of Taliban has been killed along with two others in Jabal Saraj district.
He said Mullah Qadir has apparently been killed in an infighting among the Talibs.
Muhfuz further added that another Taliban bully boy has also sustained injuries during the clash which took place late on Thursday night.
The anti-government armed bully boy groups including Taliban have not commented regarding of Mullah Qadir so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
03:45 ||
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least ten snuffies were killed during a clash and Arclight airstrikes in northern Faryab province of Afghanistan, the Afghan Military said Saturday.
The 209th Shaheen Corps of the Afghan Military in the North in a statement said the Afghan Air Force carried out airstrikes in Sari Hawz area of Pashtun Kot district, leaving at least 2 snuffies dead.
The statement further added that five snuffies also sustained injuries and four of their cycle of violences were destroyed.
A clash also broke out between the Talibs and the security forces in Jat Arkalik and Nawdri villages of Qaisar district, leaving 8 snuffies dead and 16 others maimed, the 209th Shaheen Corps added.
The anti-government armed Lion of Islam groups including Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... have not commented regarding the report so far.
Faryab is among the relatively volatile provinces in North of Afghanistan. The Talibs are active in some of districts and often attempt to carry out attacks against the government and security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
03:41 ||
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[RADIOSHABELLE]A huge explosion was heard in the heart of Mogadishu on Saturday morning, witnesses said. The blast has resulted from a car packed with explosives that was detonated near Somalia’s National Theatre. There was no immediate confirmation of the casualties.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The UN Security Council on Friday voted unanimously to send a civilian observer mission to war-wracked Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... to monitor a fragile truce in the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah and supervise the departure of Houthis.
The new UN resolution 2451 supports the Stockholm deal on the situation in Hodeidah and its ports.
It also stresses on Hodeidah ceasefire commitment and the withdrawal of Houthis from the city.
The new UN resolution allows sending a civilian observer mission to war-wracked Yemen to monitor a fragile truce in the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeida and supervise the departure of Houthis.
The Yemeni legitimate government welcomed the new resolution's support to the Sweden deal, stressing on the importance of sticking to the timeline of execution.
The Yemeni ambassador also said that his government provided many suggestions in Stockholm to ease the suffering of the Yemeni people.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
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[DAWN] Police in Attock on Thursday started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the owner of a welfare institute for allegedly assaulting maiden of tender yearss and making their videos.
The suspect was tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... on December 19 after police conducted a raid at the welfare institution near the Gora Qabristan in Attock, said police officials at the City station.
16 girls, between the ages of five and 14 including orphans as well as others who belonged to low income families, were found at the institute. Two women ‐ a matron and a caretaker for the girls ‐ were also rescued.
The police officials added that mobile phones and laptops were retrieved in the raid.
According to the first investigation report (FIR) registered on Dec 20 by a girl's father, who said his daughter had been at the institute for three months, the suspect used to take the girls in a room at night, assault them and make videos.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Rudaw] Iraqi forces are in full coordination with the Kurdish Peshmerga in monitoring the activities of ISIS remnants in the Hamrin mountain areas and both sides are fighting the group together with help from coalition air forces, said the spokesperson for the joint-operations command.
“There isn’t any security vacuum in this area, but there is coordination at the highest level with the Peshmerga,” Brigadier Yayha Rasool, spokesperson for the Iraqi joint-operations command told Rudaw in Baghdad.
“This terrorist group is constantly changing its locations,” Brig. Rasool added.
He said that movements of members of the group have been noticed recently in the Qarachogh Mountains and “coalition jets have intensely bombed their caves and hideouts.”
After the fall of Mosul and liberation of Hawija west of Kirkuk several thousand ISIS militants are believed to have escaped and taken position along the Hamrin mountain ridge.
Brig. Rasool said that the coalition forces are helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces track down the ISIS militants.
“Before any operation we would have full coordination with coalition jets,” he said. “Very advanced technology is employed in our operations and that’s why all operations are successful.”
Brig. Rasool said that the “terrorists” are constantly on the run as Iraqi forces are in hot pursuit.
“Some of the militants are local and others are foreigners,” he said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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[PJ] According to Census Bureau data released on Wednesday, the state of Illinois lost a net of 45,116 people in 2018 -- the fifth straight year the population of the state has suffered a net decline and the worst year yet for population loss.
Chicago Tribune:
This is terrible news for House Speaker Michael Madigan and his cronies who in recent decades have steered the Illinois General Assembly toward higher taxes, rising public debt and anti-business policies that discourage employers from locating, expanding or just keeping their workforces here. Residents fed up with the economic climate here are heading for less taxaholic, jobs-friendlier states.
The new numbers confront Democrats who’ve run the legislature ‐ and who keep raising taxes ‐ with realities they’ll wiggle to explain but can’t deny: As the nation’s population expands, the populations of Illinois and eight other states are declining. On their watch, an Illinois once revered as a land of opportunity now is in decline.
More ominously, every other state in the Midwest is growing.
Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House and the most powerful politician in the state, will have a new toy to play with in January. Newly-elected Governor J.B. Pritzker knows who his boss is and will ask "how high" when Madigan orders him to jump.
The rest of the census report isn't any better. About 114,000 people left the state for friendlier climes.
I am accusing you gross misconduct as a moderator.
As a reader, contributor and commenter since 2009 I have never seen the kind of misconduct by a 'moderator' until the unfortunate day you transitioned from a reader and a commenter to 'moderator'.
1) You are deleting comments at random of commenters that in no way violate rules of conduct at this site.
2) When commenters engage in a debate of an issue you attempt to shut that debate down when it is not in violation of rules of conduct. When one of those commenters call you out on that attempt you go on a comment deleting rampage.
Your personality issues clearly do not point to a reasonable resolution, therefore I am saying strongly that you need to cease moderating.
I am taking a screen shot of this comment and if you chose to delete it I have that information available for others to view. If other moderators chose to delete the comment and investigate Besoekers misconduct, that is fine with me, but leave a comment that clearly indicates you are looking into the issue.
As an excellent site focused on national security issues a rogue individual harassing community who are in dialogue of their opinions demeans the spirit of the site.
Posted by: Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365 ||
12/22/2018 0:45
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#2
Classic Rant #1. I however do not agree. Tis the season.
#4
Politicians elected with Union backing and money signing pension programs that basically reduce the citizens of Illinois into generational tax servitude. Can you say conflict of interest? Can you say abandonment of fiduciary responsibilities?
#6
Ref #1: He has a personality? Them's fightin' words!
It was a good rant. Not sure what the issue is here exactly, but two things I do know:
Oftentimes, someone has to act as the grownup to keep the place tidy.
Occasionally, comments get deleted accidentally. It happens.
Yes, Classical Liberal, Besoeker has been a moderator since 2015. He takes the responsibility seriously, both in terms of providing articles and in terms of keeping an eye out for spammers and certain of our madder posters. Hemingway, for instance, and drunk-voice-to-text guy. The Sink Trap did not survive one of Fred’s upgrades, so our only weapons are deleting posts and blocking posters.
That dear Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365 does not agree with Besoeker’s decision is one of the risks of moderating. I do not question Neville’s claim to have been a reader and commenter since 2009. The frustrating part is that he is clearly one of those who takes a new anonymous identity each time he posts, so I have absolutely no idea who he is, nor how he has behaved all these years, nor even whether his dislike of Besoeker predates Besoeker accepting Fred’s invitation. This, of course, is the reason one goes anonymous, and is his right, but there are downsides to that decision.
Moderating at Rantburg is a balancing act undertaken in moments carved out from daily life. The discussions here are as valuable, if not more so, as the articles themselves. But sometimes a commenter will get carried away into flame war territory, some are spammers or — like drunk-voice-to-text guy — just plain spew nonsense. And then there is Hemingway, under a variety of nyms, who claimed a military background but was outed by Pappy as a wannabe Scott Thomas Beauchamp, writer of luridly false articles about the war for The New Republic magazine as the Baghdad Diarist. And even that long ago blocked Saudi lad, JUSTICE, who had a thing for my armpit hair and a friend who’d taken CompSci101.
Besoeker was not the only moderator who deleted your posts, Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365. They were following the rules laid down by Steve White when he was senior moderator — I missed the excitement yesterday, or I’d have got involved then. But if you would like to join the moderating crew, my dear, please drop me a note in the O Club with your contact information. I would dearly love someone to take on the Britain/Europe Moslem Colonist beat, which needs more attention than I can give it.
P.S. Thank you for your description of Rantburg as an excellent site focused on national security issues. I shall treasure that.
[DAWN] Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday confirmed the death sentences awarded to 14 hardcore terrorists, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.
The convicts were involved in heinous terrorist offences, including attacks on armed forces, law enforcement agencies, destruction of communication infrastructure, a cop shoppe, an educational institution, and killing of innocent civilians.
The convicted murderous Moslems were responsible for the deaths of a total of 16 people ‐ 13 armed forces personnel and three civilians ‐ and causing injuries to 19 others, the military's media wing said. Arms and explosives had also been recovered from their possession.
Special military courts had awarded death sentences to these convicts, the ISPR said. The courts also handed down imprisonments to 20 convicts.
All 14 of the murderous Moslems were found to be members of banned ...the word banned seems to have a different meaning in Pakistain than it does in most other places. Or maybe it simply lacks any meaning at all...
organizations. They confessed to their offences before a judicial magistrate and in their statements during their respective trials.
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12/22/2018
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[IsraelTimes] Decision comes nearly four years after 3 button men killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine in Gay Paree
French prosecutors are calling for 14 people to be tried in connection with the January 2015 jihadist attacks including the massacre at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... , judicial sources said Friday.
It will be up to anti-terrorist judges to decide whether all 14 are tried.
The decision comes nearly four years after brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015.
The next day a policewoman was killed just outside Gay Paree, while another gunman took hostages at a Jewish supermarket, four of whom were killed.
All the attackers were killed in separate shootouts with police.
Authorities said the attackers had claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... krazed killer group.
Those likely to face trial are accused of "complicity" in assisting the attackers, including providing them with weapons.
Another man, French national Peter Cherif, an associate of the Kouachi brothers, was tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in Djibouti on December 16, French officials said Friday.
Cherif was expected to be extradited from Djibouti. He has not yet been indicted in connection with the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/22/2018
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Morocco has tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! nine new suspects over the murder of two Scandinavian tourists in the High Atlas mountains.
Two female tourists from Norway and Denmark were found dead last Monday in the Atlas Mountains in central Morocco, with both having neck wounds caused by knives, the country’s interior ministry said.
According to a statement from the Interior Ministry, the women from Denmark and Norway were discovered on Monday with "evidence of violence on their necks" inflicted by a "cold weapon."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
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[Al Jazeera] Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... said on Friday that his country would postpone a military operation against Syrian Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria as he "cautiously" welcomed Washington's decision to withdraw its troops in the area.
Speaking during a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said the US decision meant The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor.... would "wait a little longer" before launching the operation.
"Of course, this is not an open-ended waiting period," he warned, adding that Turkey was working on plans to "neutralise ISIS elements" that still exist in Syria. ISIS is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS).
Erdogan had announced on December 12 that Turkey would start an offensive in northern Syria in "the next few days", but on December 14, he spoke to US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... in a phone call.
According to Ottoman Turkish daily Hurriyet on Friday, Trump decided to pull out of Syria during that call with Erdogan and ordered his national security adviser John Bolton to "start the work" to prepare withdrawing troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[DAWN] US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad raised doubts on Thursday about the Taliban ...Arabic for students... ’s desire to end the 17-year war, after the forces of Evil refused to meet a Kabul-backed negotiating team.
While he was certain the Afghan government wanted to stop the conflict, Khalilzad told Ariana News that he questioned whether the Taliban were "genuinely seeking peace".
"We have to wait and see their forthcoming steps," he said, according to a translation of the interview provided by the US embassy in Kabul.
Khalilzad’s remarks to Afghan media following his latest face-to-face meeting with the Taliban echoed those expressed privately by some Western diplomats in the capital.
Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and Pakistain also attended the talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this week, which the United Arab Emirates hailed as "positive for all parties concerned".
But the Taliban would not meet a 12-person Afghan delegation, Khalilzad said, describing the decision as "wrong".
"If the Taliban are really seeking peace, they have to sit with the Afghan government ultimately to reach an agreement on the future political settlement in Afghanistan," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Duh
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2018 8:49
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[IsraelTimes] In latest ghoulish discovery, authorities discover bodies of civilians, believed kidnapped and executed by jihadist group, at the bottom of a well in Kirkuk.
Iraqi authorities said they uncovered a new mass grave containing the remains of dozens of people in an area of northern Kirkuk province once held by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
Security forces have discovered dozens of mass graves since they drove out IS in 2017 after three years of occupation of swathes of northern and western Iraq.
The United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... said in November that more than 200 mass graves containing up to 12,000 victims had been found in Iraq that could hold vital evidence of war crimes by the jihadists.
The latest macabre discovery was made on Thursday in the Hawija district of Kirkuk province, Adel Ismail, a lieutenant-colonel in the Iraqi federal police force, told AFP.
He said the grave contained the remains of "innocent Iraqi civilians" who "were kidnapped and then killed" by the jihadists.
It was found in what appears to be a deep well in the al-Abbassi area of Hawija.
"This is a mass grave used by ISIS," said Wani Firas, a resident of the area, using an Arabic-language acronym for IS.
"They used to come here, execute and throw (the victims) inside, and we used to watch and observe from nearby," he said.
The United Nations in Iraq (UNAMI) and its human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. office said last month they had documented a total of 202 mass graves in parts of western and northern Iraq held by IS between 2014 and 2017.
Of them, just 28 had been excavated and 1,258 bodies exhumed by Iraqi authorities, the report said.
Even more sites could be uncovered in the months to come, it warned, urging Iraqi authorities to properly preserve and excavate them to provide closure for victims’ families.
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[DAWN] United States President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... has decided to pull a significant number of troops from Afghanistan, a US official told AFP on Thursday, with some reports suggesting as many as 50 per cent could leave the war-torn country.
The surprise move stunned and dismayed foreign diplomats and officials in Kabul who are involved in an intensifying push to end the 17-year conflict.
"If you're the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... , Christmas has come early," a senior foreign official in the Afghan capital told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
"Would you be thinking of a ceasefire if your main opponent has just withdrawn half their troops?"
It is not clear if US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad or the Afghan government had been aware of Trump's plans.
A front man for President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. said "if there is any reaction by the Afghan government, we will share it later".
The decision apparently came after Khalilzad met with the Taliban in Abu Dhabi this week, part of a flurry of diplomatic efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table with the Afghan government.
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#1
Maybe POTUS is drawing down to reduce the possibility of Blue on Blue when the B-52s return en masse??
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
12/22/2018 3:53
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#2
17 years and we can't win. What can we do in an 18th year?
#2
Will you be saying the same thing when the Turks and Iranians destabilize the entire region and we end up forced to go back in?
I don't understand attitudes like this. Its not "globalists" (go sell that line of paranoid conspiratorial horseshit to Alex Jones), its called supporting our allies in the region and slowing the roll of Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and Turkey in the region.
Or maybe you want a Sultan in Turkey, and the Ayatollahs dominating the middle east (with nukes)?
#3
Why should the US care if the entire middle east is destabilized? I say stir the anthill and let all the players kill each other off with hopefully none of our people in harms way.
#4
The Middle East has never been *stabilized*. The people who live there don't want it that way; they want the chance to murder everyone they hate -- which is everyone not directly related to them.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/22/2018 12:25
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The Middle East has never been *stabilized*.
DING-DING-DING! Winner behind door number 4!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 12:38
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#6
And to M.Murcek jpal and others like you who seem to have turned this place, philosophically, into InfoWars isolationism with your talking of globalists elites and warmongering cabals & conspiracies:
You have forgotten the most important lesson of history. There will always be war as long as free men exist. To remain free you must fight and be willing to fight. If you think otherwise you are gravely mistaken. Its a matter of when and where, not if.
Islam as it exists in its current form will always be waging war (jihad) on us either overtly or covertly. Its in their book. Submit or die. So you're dead wrong when you place the "blame" for war on some imaginary cabal in the west. Its not us that wants war, or an eternal struggle. Totalitarians, evil men, and Islam (redundant) do. So they made their choice.
Our choice is surrender or fight.
I ask you this: Where? Over there with allies helping versus fighting alone with our homes at our backs.
I ask you this: When? Sooner is better than later, so they do not get stronger.
I have fought - and I say fight. You are apparently choosing surrender (walking away) until your back is against the wall.
In the words of Sam Adams:
"If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
#7
Yes. Because the way it's been run since, oh, the end of WW II has been just dandy.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 13:05
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#8
It's better to let the Muslim fight among themselves, and have free men not insert themselves in the crossfire.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/22/2018 13:52
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#9
"If you don't agree with me, you're... you're... you're Alex Jones!"
That argument, right there, that's going to make me seriously re-evaluate every single thing I have ever thought.
LOL
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 13:54
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OS: The problem I have is not fighting over there, it's we aren't fighting to WIN. If we're over there, we need to be committed all the way. I want a clear goal, I want a path to achieve victory for our nation! I don't want a second Afghanistan we're we constantly have troops over there for maintaining the "Status Quo".
That isn't winning, it's just choosing which of our Citizens to use as human shields. Too often the BEST of our Citizens.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/22/2018 14:25
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#11
Every policy has limits. No policy should be viewed as beyond criticism.
Every proposed or continued forward deployment of US troops needs to pass some basic tests:
1. What outcome are we are trying to prevent with this force?
2. Can that outcome be achieved without a US forward deployment - either through non-military means or via other nations' military forces?
3. If the answer to #2 is No, then what is the opportunity cost of this forward deployment of US troops, and is the objective worth that cost?
Re. #1, the goal in Syria was never made clear by Obama or his people.
In this, Obama was continuing the American tradition since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan of asserting half a dozen muddled and contradictory Mideast goals, and ending in strategic incoherence. (After the Marine barracks bombing in 1983, Reagan's people told the public that our Marines were there to "defend themselves," to which Kissinger responded by noting "they can do that more effectively at Camp Lejeune.")
Obama's successor introduced - for the first time anyone can remember - CLARITY and SIMPLICITY to our Middle East policy. The goal is simply to neutralize ISIS. Toward that end, he approved a small US force engaged in what appears to be a very a limited - in scope and duration - hammer/anvil operation.
That operation appears to be 95% or more complete. Perhaps he's withdrawing a few months too early, but that's a minor quibble. There is no reason that the Russians cannot mop up the remaining ISIS hard boys.
This would spare us the risk of a war with Russia - note that we have already engaged Russia's "little green men" on the ground in Syria - and allow us to get our policy toward Russia back on a sane and manageable footing.
Trump, buffoon that he is, has restored clear focus and limited, sensible aims to our Mideast policy for the first time since Nixon. He deserves our gratitude.
#12
There is a far far greater risk on the horizon than that posed by ISIS: the very real risk of a war with Russia.
Unnoticed amid all the absurd and unhinged conspiracy theories about Russia and Trump, back in the real world, we and the Russians have escalated our confrontation on every front and at every possible flashpoint.
We are inches away from an utterly pointless confrontation with a nuclear-armed rival that does not threaten us in the slightest.
Trump is probably the only person in Washington - aside from the left-liberal journalist Tom Frank and a few journalists of Russian birth - who recognizes the insanity of ratcheting up our confrontation with Russia. Our relations could not get worse.
Now is the time to get out of Syria, find an accommodation over Ukraine (the Cold War solution of "Finlandization" would work fine), scale back the buzzing and other saber-rattling stunts, and find a way to give Russia the space and respect they deserve as a great power with legitimate interests on their periphery.
The cyber version of the Great Game will continue. But we must not have a war with Russia. This is the broader context of Trump's wise and bold moves.
#15
I don't agree with each and every one (Ukraine/Russia as a great power again) of his points, but I see the logic/observation. Civil, well-reasoned discourse
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2018 18:04
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#16
I'm an old student of history.
Been watching this movie for going on 50 years.
The US does not understand the Middle East. It is an anarchic state of nature where none of our liberal internationalist assumptions applies.
Consider this oddity: The only US presidents that have ever had a clue about how to make sense of and make decent predictions about the behavior of mideastern nations have been our two most erratic, emotionally unbalanced presidents: Richard M Nixon and Donald J Trump. Why do you think that is?
#17
two most erratic, emotionally unbalanced presidents
I would offer that that was the establishment/MSM take on both. Strategic unpredictability can be misused but often yields results
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2018 18:15
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#18
MMck, apparently me calling you out on "globalists" and "eternal war" (which is an Alex Jones special, which he stole from the left) is too close to the mark for you.
I've said when, and I've said why. Lets see your answers. And lets look at the cost.
By the way, how many casualties has the US taken in the ops in Syria? You talk as if there had been mass casualties.
Here are all five (5) of them.
U.S. pilot 00 November 2014, F-16 crashed in Jordan after a mission against ISIS. Also November U.S. special forces team member was taken by an IED while advising Kurdish-led forces ISIL in Raqqa. A US servicemen died on 30 March 2018 by an IED explosion.
Two other service members died due to non-combat causes in northern Syria in 2017.
Thats 5 total. And 3 combat deaths in a bit over 2 years. The allies have been and still are doing the dying and bleeding over there.
I bet you didnt know that.
And I also bet that whatever delayed actions you advocate will result in eventually more US casualties, as well as large amount of casualties among our allies.
I know many of these people. They deserve our support. Ask nearly (legal) foreign Western combatant who has been to the Kurdish areas. They will tell you the same.
Yet you want to abandon them, and you don't even have a good reason other than the usual leftist cry of "Bring our boys home", and "these people arent worth fighting for". Did you realize you now sound more like the anti-war left did back in 2006-7? Those who have been there think they are worth it.
Shameful. Just shameful.
The one hope I have is that President Trump will realize he has made a mistake because good people will let him know, and he will change his mind on the sudden and total withdrawal. Instead slow-roll any pullback of regular troops, put in special ops to train and advise like we are already doing, and keep resupplying these fighters via Kurdish areas of Iraq.
Leave a framework and a fighting force of locals so we are not forced to come back again in 2-3 years to fight the Turks, the MB, the Iranians, and ISIS, all entrenched and rearmed.
[IsraelTimes] 8,000 Paleostinians gather on border, throwing rocks and incendiary devices at soldiers; deaths are first Gazoo fatalities since last month’s ceasefire
Three Paleostinians, including a 16-year-old, were reported killed on Friday by Israeli fire during border protests and festivities east of Gazoo City, the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-run health ministry said, as some 8,000 Paleostinians protested along the border.
The ministry identified the teen as Mohammed al-Jahjuh and said he was "hit in the neck by a bullet (fired) by Israeli soldiers."
Abdelaziz Abu Sharia, 28, and Naher Yasin, 40, died from their wounds after being shot in separate incidents along the heavily fortified frontier with Israel, officials said.
The ministry said 46 others were maimed. There were no reports of casualties on the Israeli side.
The Israeli army said around 8,000 Paleostinians had gathered along the border, burning tires and launching rocks and incendiary devices toward soldiers, which did not reach the troops. It said it had opened fire "according to operational procedures" in place.
Army radio said these were the first Paleostinian fatalities in Gazoo protests since a ceasefire deal went into effect last month.
[Al Jazeera] Mattis tells Trump 'you have the right to have a defence chief whose views are better aligned with yours'.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Domestic side effect but works.
1) Give me my wall! UniParty ,Deep State & Muller - 1000 cuts
2) Will Veto, Give me my wall! UniParty ,Deep State & Muller - insult, pass without wall
3) I am Pulling the US out of Syria. Give me my wall! UniParty ,Deep State & Muller - insult, claim worry about Kurds, Shutdown
4) I am Pulling the US out of Afghanistan. Give me my wall! UniParty ,Deep State & Muller - insult, claim worry about Kurds, Afghanistan, Muller Investigation, Shutdown
5) I will Veto, Mathis quits, Give me my wall! UniParty ,Deep State & Muller - insult, claim worry about Kurds, Afghanistan, Muller Investigation, Shutdown, adult Mathis quitting
6) I will Veto. Mz Sainted Judge gets lung cancer! I will get to appoint another judge! Give me the fricking Wall. UniParty ,Deep State & Muller - insult, claim worry about Kurds, Afghanistan, Muller Investigation, Shutdown, adult Mathis quitting, Potential new Pub justice. SCREAM! Threaten Instant Impeachment.
Public: WTF! How much is no wall worth to the UniParty?
UniParty Campaign Donors: WTF! How much is no wall worth to the UniParty? More than all our interests? Why are we giving them donations again? They are not obeying the needs of their owners!
#4
Ace of Spades, Dec. 20, opined that "Too much 'Option C' with Trump", viz: Option A: Is what Trump asks for, but the bureaucrats raise every possible horrible problem and outcome in implementing it. Option B: Something that Trump will never want to do. Option C: Something presented as the "Reasonable Solution" and What the Entrenched Bureaucracy wanted to do in the first place.
#5
At the point where The Atlantic is publishing a sloppy kiss article about Mattis, I'd say we are just about at the point where we can expect Code Pink to protest against any US troop withdrawals from anywhere.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/22/2018 12:07
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[Al Jazeera] The possible withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan will not affect the security situation of the country, senior Afghan officials have said, following numerous media reports that President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... was planning such a move.
"If the few thousand foreign troops that advise, train & assist, leave it will not affect our security," Fazel Fazly, chief adviser to the Afghanistan's Caped PresidentAshraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. , said on Twitter on Friday.
"In the past four & half years our security is completely in the hands of Afghans and the final goal is that ANDSF [the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] will stand on their feet to protect & defend soil on their own."
Presidential spokesperson Haroon Chakhansuri also said on social media that a US withdrawal will not have a security impact.
Various US media outlets reported on Thursday that Trump planned to withdraw some 7,000 of 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan.
The news followed a two-day meeting in Abu Dhabi between US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban ...Arabic for students... representatives at which the two sides discussed the withdrawal of international forces.
In 2002, some 130,000 international troops entered Afghanistan following the military intervention of US forces to topple the Taliban government. Since then, close to 2,500 US troops have bit the dust in the war.
Former Ministry of Defense front man Zahir Azimi said on Friday that a possible withdrawal could affect the capabilities of Afghan troops in conducting effective night raids. US aerial support is also critical to Afghan ground forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
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[NR] Comey is a bigger political figure than ever before but has revealed himself to be exactly what critics always said.
Never before has a former FBI director boasted about taking advantage of an administration’s disorganization for his own ends.
But never before has a former FBI director been as self-satisfied as James Brien Comey Jr.
In an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Comey delighted his Upper East Side audience with his tale of how he exploited the Trump White House’s disarray in its initial days to send two FBI agents to talk to then-national security adviser Michael Flynn without honoring the usual processes (e.g., working through the White House counsel’s office).
Comey said that in a different administration, it was "something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with." He apparently didn’t consider how that might sound to anyone not already inclined to enjoy the wit and wisdom of James Comey, or old enough to remember when an FBI director pushing to "get away" with things wasn’t so amusing.
A lot of people have been diminished by the Trump years, Comey among them. He’s a bigger political figure than ever before but has revealed himself to be exactly what critics always said ‐ a politically savvy operator who matches his bureaucratic skills with an impregnable sense of self-righteousness.
#2
He will have to live to the end of his days knowing that this country would have been better off if his mother had consulted planned parenthood just before he came into existence.
Posted by: Daniel ||
12/22/2018 4:12
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#3
He belongs in jail. If we had an AG with any balls, he'd be there. Trumps biggest mistake was appointing Sessions and then letting the swamp rat stay so long after he showed just how bad he was.
#4
We saw the same behavior with John Koskinen in the IRS scandal. They are smug and insufferable because they know they will get away with it. And with their pensions intact.
[Al Jazeera] Kurdish-led forces in Syria may not be able to hold prisoners from the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS) if the situation in the region gets out of control, a senior Syrian-Kurdish official has said.
Ilham Ahmed of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) warned that the Trump administration's decision to withdraw all of its forces would have dangerous repercussions and a destabilising effect on the entire region.
"Under the threat of the Ottoman Turkish state, and with the possibility of ISIS (ISIS) reviving once again, I fear the situation will go out of control and we no longer be able to contain them," Ahmed said at a news conference in Gay Paree on Friday when asked if the SDF was considering releasing hundreds of ISIS detainees.
On Thursday, The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported that the SDF had discussed releasing almost 3,200 local and foreign ISIS prisoners.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2018
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#1
If the Kurds are forced out of Manbij that they took and held from ISIS with US support, like the State Department and Trump want, ISIS will move into the vacuum.
#3
I'll be shocked if they let any of their prisoners live. We're the only reason the took prisoners in the first place most likely.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/22/2018 14:40
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#4
"They keep falling fatally with head injuries as we moved them from a secure holding place to another"
"But it's level flat ground?"
"Exactly! Perplexing"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2018 17:55
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[Al Jazeera] The United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Security Council has unanimously approved the deployment of its observers to war-torn Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... to monitor a fragile truce in the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
The resolution, submitted by the UK, was the subject of tough negotiations, and was amended several times before the vote on Friday.
The resolution also endorsed the results of UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden last week, when Yemen's warring parties agreed to a ceasefire that took effect on Tuesday.
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[DAWN] The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has jugged You have the right to remain silent... a Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... resident for allegedly blackmailing a woman in Lahore and forcing her to marry him, read a statement issued on Friday.
According to the FIA statement, the suspect, who is a resident of North Karachi, had been blackmailing the Lahore woman by threatening to post private photos and videos of her on the internet if she did not agree to his marriage proposal.
He travelled to Lahore from Karachi along with his family and baraat (wedding party) to marry the complainant. However, death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... upon arrival at the Lahore railway station, a team of FIA's Cybercrime Wing arrested the suspect.
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[Bloomberg] President Donald Trump’s love of coal, rejection of climate science and disdain for things like fuel efficiency hark back to a smokier, smudgier era. Yet if this year has shown anything, he is one of the biggest disruptors in energy. He just does a different kind of disruption.
In a prescient essay published late last year, Jason Bordoff, founder of the Center on Global Energy Policy, wrote that Trump’s energy-specific policies would have less of an impact than his broader shifts in foreign and domestic policy. One look at the minimal impact of efforts to revive coal mining suggests Bordoff was on to something. When it comes to Trump and energy, macro trumps micro.
As outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis put with skewering politeness in his resignation letter, Trump personifies what you could call a profound shift in U.S. foreign relations. The prior constants of free trade and security guarantees underwritten by the U.S. were the product of a Cold War that ended three decades ago. See this column for a more detailed discussion, but suffice to say the post-1945 order that nurtured the world’s energy markets is now being challenged by its chief sponsor.
Continued on Page 49
PLANO, Texas, Dec. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Liberty Institute sent a letter today to the United States Postal Service ("USPS") seeking clarification of its policies regarding custom postage. The letter follows the adoption in 2017 by the USPS of a regulation barring "any depiction" of religious content, which forced vendor Zazzle and Stamps.com to deny First Liberty client Tavia Hunt the purchase of a personalized, custom Christmas card stamp featuring her family’s vacation photo in front of a historic cathedral.
"No one should have to go to court to send a Christmas card," said Hiram Sasser, General Counsel for First Liberty Institute. "USPS policies are so ambiguous and unequally applied that even its approved vendors don’t know what is allowed and what isn’t. The USPS has made Zazzle and Stamps.com agents of discrimination."
In late November, Mrs. Hunt sought to purchase a personalized, custom stamp through Zazzle, which partners with Stamps.com to print custom postage, that included a photo of her family in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral taken this year while in Moscow for the World Cup. After initially accepting her order, Zazzle informed Mrs. Hunt that her order was being cancelled because of its "religious" nature, specifically the presence of St. Basil’s cathedral in the background. Zazzle then indicated that Mrs. Hunt’s order would be approved if the photo were cropped to make the cathedral "less obvious." Ultimately, Zazzle chose to indefinitely "pause" its production of custom postage for the entire nation rather than run afoul of the Postal Service’s comprehensive ban on religious images.
In response to the rejection of her stamp, Mrs. Hunt said, "All I wanted was to add something personal to my family’s Christmas cards. I was shocked that a family photo that includes a historic cathedral in the background is considered too religious by the Post Office."
First Liberty explained that the USPS regulation is overly broad and as applied may violate the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Both Stamps.com and Zazzle.com commented against the breadth of the religious restriction when it was published in the Federal Register, but the offending provision was not changed. Without clarification, legal action is possible.
"American taxpayers who fund the Postal Service deserve to know whether they can order a customized stamp or not," added Sasser.
#3
if the usps were serious about fiscal discipline they would cancel all commemorative stamp work and issue generic ones.
do we really need flower stamps or other bs?
and toss the union
Idiots. The simple solution is to not issue religious stamps themselves, but to make them for customers who want them. That way the government doesn't interfere with their right of expression. Just avoid vulgar stuff.
[IsraelTimes] USS John C. Stennis transits Strait of Hormuz after longest post-9/11 absence; Revolutionary Guard vessels launch rockets away from carrier, fly a drone nearby
A US aircraft carrier sailed into the Persian Gulf on Friday, becoming the first since America’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and breaking the longest carrier absence in the volatile region since at least the September 11 terror attacks.
The arrival of the USS John C. Stennis comes as Iranian officials have returned to repeatedly threatening to close off the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels shadowed the Stennis and its strike group, at one point launching rockets away from it and flying a drone nearby.
The long absence of a carrier, however, could become a standard practice here as now-outgoing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sought to shake up naval operations and American air bases spanning the region can scramble fighter jets and drones.
"We are trying to be more operationally unpredictable," said Lt. Chloe Morgan, a spokeswoman for US’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. "Now we’re switching it up because our adversaries are watching closely. We want to be operationally unpredictable to our enemies, but strategically predictable to our partners."
Throughout its trip Friday, some 30 Iranian Revolution Guard vessels trailed the Stennis and its strike group. One small vessel launched what appeared to be a commercial-grade drone to film the American ships. Photographers and videographers on the Iranian boats could clearly be seen also filming the Stennis while journalists on board the aircraft carrier filmed them.
"The Iranian craft drove in front of our ship and stopped and tried to capture their own sort of picture of what was going on," said Capt. Randy Peck, the commanding officer of the Stennis.
There was no immediate mention of the Stennis’ arrival to the Persian Gulf in Iranian state media.
The long gap between carrier deployments in the Persian Gulf represents a change in US military strategy dating back to the first Gulf War in 1991 and the overflights of Iraq that followed for years after. Mattis, as the head of the US military’s Central Command, himself demanded two carrier groups in the Persian Gulf as he led the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since then, Mattis has said he wants a more unpredictable Navy to respond to Russia and China, which he sees as the "great power competition" America now faces.
It’s unclear, however, whether Mattis’ strategy will continue. The defense secretary resigned Thursday after clashing with Trump over the abrupt withdrawal of US troops from Syria.
The US military also operates air bases in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and the United Arab Emirates, as well as a major Army base in Kuwait and its Navy base in Bahrain. That offers the American military a variety of locations both in the Persian Gulf, as well as other bases in the wider Mideast, to launch strikes.
"Carriers were needed to support many of the initial strikes in Afghanistan in 2001, some attacks in Iraq in 2003, and most tactical missions in Syria in 2011," said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "After access to adequate ground bases was obtained for today’s operations in Syria and Iraq, carrier-based aircraft were not as essential for these missions."
As military operations wind down in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, that likely will mean less need for Arclight airstrikes as well. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... the 5th Fleet still maintains a fleet of 21 ships from Bahrain and other Navy ships will continue to transit the strait.
[Al Jazeera] Imtiaz Khan, a 12-year-old schoolboy, and Majloom Ansari, a 32-year-old cattle trader, were kidnapped, beaten and hanged from a tree in Latehar in the Indian state of Jharkhand in March 2016.
The two had been walking with their oxen they planned to sell at a cattle fair, some 40km away, when they were intercepted by members of a Hindu "cow protection committee" in the next village and fatally attacked.
They were beaten with sticks and axes, and hanged from a tree with the same nylon ropes they used for their cattle.
Now, more than two years later, a Latehar district court found the eight involved in the killings guilty of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
As the accused were brought to court, around 100 supporters shouted slogans such as 'Bharat Mata ki jai' (Glory be to mother India) and 'Gau hatya band karo' (Stop killing cows).
Friday's ruling is only the second such conviction in a series of lynchings by Hindu cow vigilantes across India in the last few years.
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[IsraelTimes] 2 Israelis were seriously injured by hammer-wielding Taher Halef, who had allegedly been seeking to carry out such an attack since 2008
A Jordanian man who was employed in the southern port city of Eilat was indicted Friday over the assault of two Israeli men several weeks ago, in what prosecutors are saying was a terror attack.
According to the indictment, which was filed at the Beersheba District Court, Taher Halef had been planning to attack Israelis for over a decade. He is accused of several counts of attempted murder, as well as a terrorist conspiracy.
Two Israelis, who were working as divers at the port, were seriously maimed when Halef attacked them with a hammer on November 30, police said at the time. In addition to the injured Israelis, who were brought to the city’s Yoseftal Hospital with head injuries, a second Jordanian worker who tried to restrain the attacker was lightly hurt.
Halef was incarcerated Book 'im, Mahmoud! following the incident, and police said several hours later that an initial probe had raised suspicions that the attack was nationalistically motivated.
The suspect began working in Israel days before the attack after receiving a daily work permit from the Population and Immigration Authority. Friday’s indictment said he had succeeded in passing the screening process despite being flagged as a potential terrorist by the Jordanian manpower agency that first interviewed him.
Israel in 2014 granted permission for 1,500 Jordanians to work in Eilat, the Red Sea resort town located directly across the border from the Jordanian city of Aqaba. The countries signed a peace treaty in 1994, but relations have been tumultuous due to occasional violent incidents and political disagreements.
The indictment said that Halef, who identifies as Paleostinian, received help from cousins in Jordan on previous occasions that he sought to carry out attacks.
Allegedly, his first terrorist plot was in 2008, when, after seeing television footage of the first war between Israel and Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", in the Gazoo Strip, Operation Cast Lead, he planned to carry out a shooting attack at the border. The indictment said that Halef’s father foiled his son’s plan by blocking the road while he was already en route to the border, having stolen the father’s gun.
During the summer of 2017, the indictment said, Halef and his cousins resolved to enter Israel through the border fence and carry out a shooting attack. However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... after surveying the landscape, they realized their plan was unfeasible.
It was then that he decided to obtain an entry permit to Israel and carry out a stabbing attack in Jerusalem. To that end, he allegedly enlisted the help of his brothers and cousins, who agreed to travel to Israel with him.
While they were initially turned down by an agency in Amman, Halef eventually received a permit to work in Eilat.
On his second day working in Israel, after crossing over from Aqaba, he attacked the two Israeli divers at the port, named in the indictment as Tamir Gross and Yevgeny Kolomitz, as well as the second Jordanian worker, who attempted to stop him.
Allegedly, during the attack, he yelled at the other Jordanian, "We’re Moslems and they’re Jews."
His lawyer, Khaled Mahajna, insisted Friday that Halef’s assault was criminal in nature rather than a terror attack.
[DAWN] The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday sought record of the private land where a mosque and seminary had been allegedly built on an encroached piece.
A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed, issued this directive while hearing a civil application filed by a private company, International Brands (Private) Limited, against alleged attempts to encroach upon some portion of a piece of commercial land by the prayer leader of a mosque.
The counsel of the company, Arshad Mohsin Tayebaley, told the court that his client had purchased Plot number F/2 X in Trans Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... Quarters, Site, from the Pakistain Tobacco Company Limited, which executed a deed of assignment in respect of the land in favour of the applicant in 1996.
According to the lawyer, in 1965 the PTC had constructed a mosque named Mubarak Masjid with a Hujra on 7,015 square feet for the religious benefit and use of the workers and appointed Maulana Noor Muhammad Qureshi as its Pesh Imam (prayer leader).
Later, the holy man started unauthorised construction for an accommodation for his family adjacent to the mosque, but it was demolished by the district magistrate concerned after an inquiry.
The counsel contended that the holy man still claimed the portion of the demolished structure and later involved religious organizations in this matter.
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... the Sindh High Court in Nov 2011 decreed a lawsuit instituted by the applicant in its favour, ordering the holy man to vacate the premises and refrain from interfering with the property.
The high court also restrained the applicant company from demolishing or disturbing the mosque or the seminary and told it to continue to use it for offering prayers and religious purposes.
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... the counsel submitted that in addition to the existence of the mosque and seminary now attempts were being made by the respondent to encroach upon the adjacent portion of the land for a graveyard.
During Thursday’s proceedings, a bench member, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, asked how prayers could be offered in a mosque allegedly built on an encroached piece of land. Justice Ahmed observed that whether the illegal occupation could be legitimised even after the passage of a century.
Addressing the respondent’s counsel, the judge asked whether they had forgotten the example of the Masjid-e-Nabvi and asked him to cite a single example where the Khulfa-e-Rashideen had built a mosque on encroached land.
The judge further observed that if anyone wanted to build a mosque, it must be done in a legal way as building a mosque on encroached land amounted to defaming the Islam.
The bench members noted that Allah had not permitted building of a mosque on government land or on the property of private persons.
The counsel said that the applicant company was ready to offer the portion of the land where the mosque and the seminary had been built, but requested the court to restrain the respondents from unlawfully occupying the rest of the land for a graveyard.
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[IsraelTimes] Boycott campaign removed over complaint that notes its affiliation to umbrella group of Paleostinian factions including Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", and Islamic Jihad.
A US software company said Friday it blocked the fundraising account of the Paleostinian-led boycott movement against Israel following a complaint by a pro-Israel group that the campaign has links to Death Eater organizations.
Donorbox, which makes fundraising management software, confirmed that the BDS campaign’s account was temporarily blocked while it investigates the allegations.
The BDS movement called the Israeli move "McCarthyite."
The decision came in response to a complaint from Shurat HaDin, an Israeli advocacy group that files lawsuits around the world against Israel’s foes, submitted in coordination with Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry.
"This decision does not mean that we consider BDS to be a nefarious organization. We are merely reviewing evidence following this complaint. Their donation forms were closed as a precautionary measure," Donorbox said in a statement. The the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... firm, whose product is used by BDS and other nonprofits to collect online donations, gave no indication how long the review would take.
The complaint noted that the boycott movement’s membership includes the "Council of National and Islamic Forces in Paleostine," an umbrella committee representing all major Paleostinian political factions. Committee members include Hamas, Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine, groups that have been branded terrorist organizations by the US.
The council, also known as the PNIF, was formed two decades ago and rarely meets due to deep divisions among its members.
"We have no intention to allow terrorist organizations and their accomplices to raise money online without interference," said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Shurat HaDin.
Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, whose office is spearheading Israel’s battle against the boycott movement, called the decision "a significant achievement in our efforts to counter the discriminatory BDS campaign."
The BDS campaign advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli businesses, universities and artists. Comparing itself to the anti-apartheid movement during apartheid-era South Africa, it says it is using nonviolent means to resist unjust policies toward Paleostinians. The group has made significant gains in recent years, particularly among artists and university students.
Israel says the movement masks its motives to delegitimize or destroy the Jewish state.
Israel’s allies have passed a series of anti-BDS laws in the US. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently challenging a Texas law requiring contractors to certify that they do not boycott Israel or Israeli-occupied territories, saying it violates the right to free speech.
Omar Barghouti, a founder of the BDS movement, called Shurat HaDin a "repressive organization with clear connections to the far-right Israeli government" that is "engaging in McCarthyite... tactics."
"They are making categorically false allegations, threatening and bullying our partners and service providers in a desperate attempt to undermine our ability to challenge Israel’s regime of apartheid and oppression," he said. "While this legal repression may temporarily burden us, it has failed to deter us from continuing our peaceful anti-racist and inclusive struggle for freedom, justice and equality."
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Indian police nabbed Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! on Friday 126 people working for an allegedly fake call center making up to $50,000 a day by duping US citizens, officials said.
India became the global call centre capital in the early 2000s as foreign firms, drawn by an educated and cheaper English-speaking workforce, farmed out jobs answering customer phone enquiries.
The suspects arrested in Noida outside Delhi would tell Americans there were problems with their social security numbers and solicit money to fix it, police said.
Another scam was telling people they had committed tax offences and that they had to pay to settle, Noida police official Ajay Pal Sharma told AFP.
"Your warrant is on my desk and if this issue is not resolved we will have to freeze your account and put you behind the bars," one caller is heard to say in a recording made available to AFP.
In Indian-accented English, he says that the man can either fight the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... ) in court and face a $75,000 fine as a "tax defrauder" or pay immediately an "out-of-court settlement".
"Many responded to the call and fell for their trap," Sharma said.
The local authorities have also contacted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and shared the details of the case.
The call center had been in operation for three years. Around 300 computers were seized.
Mumbai police in October 2016 detained more than 770 people suspected of defrauding Americans by impersonating IRS agents and demanding payments.
The US Justice Department subsequently charged 61 people for involvement in India-based schemes that defrauded nearly 15,000 US citizens.
Later in April 2017 they arrested the alleged criminal mastermind of the racket, 24-year-old Sagar Thakkar, who was making more than $155,000 a day at the height of the scam.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Meanwhile the list of spoofed fake caller ID numbers continues to pile up on my ZTE cell phone. The phone companies allow this to happen.
#2
The FBI prefers to investigate Trump for imaginary crimes and ignores real crimes like these involving millions of US citizens. Meanwhile all the #%@ political hacks make our simple tool of a telephone useless each election season.
[DailyMail]A poisoning plot was allegedly hatched by the cleric to defame an official at the Kichguth Maramma temple in Karnataka and take control of its treasury of 3.4 million rupees (£38,000).
So it was not merely accidental food poisoning. Good to know.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The political coordinator of the US mission to the UN, Rodney Hunter, expressed to the Security Council on Friday his country's regret that the new UN resolution on Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... did not hold Iran accountable for its actions in the war-torn country.
The United States had wanted to condemn Iran for breaching an arms embargo on Yemen, but Russia objected, diplomats said.
"We hope that in the days to come Iranian missiles or misdeeds do not shatter the promise of peace and bring us back to where we were before. But if that does happen, this council may come to regret this omission," US diplomat Rodney Hunter told the Security Council after the vote.
At the end of last month, the US provided evidence on Iran violating UN arms export ban in Yemen.
The US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, displayed rockets, missiles, small arms and debris from an Iranian drone that he says were intended for Houthis in Yemen.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Don't worry Iran, Trump will run away like he's doing in Syria. And some will cheer him for taking on the "globalists" 'eternal war', on the left AND now on the right.
Trump, Obama, going back to Nixon and Jimmy Carter have taught them all they have to do is wait us out, and we will quit, leaving our allies to twist in the wind.
#2
Not nearly the same. Th Houthis are Iranian puppets. The US is aware of this. And the Saudis will be "assisted" by people you would likely never expect it from. As for Syria, that is not a done deal yet. As for the Hmong, that was another era and the Cold War was going on. Blame Kissinger and RealPolitik if you want to blame anyone for that. He led Nixon, Ford and Carter around by the nose. Thank God for Reagan.
[Ynet] The Israeli military on Friday confirmed shooting a Paleostinian car passenger dead in the West Bank.
The army said it opened fire on the car after it broke through a West Bank checkpoint. The military said it was on high alert in the area after shots were fired from a Paleostinian village late Thursday. It said soldiers fired warning shots in the air when the driver ignored orders to halt but car sped up instead. The army said it responded with live fire, killing one passenger.
The Paleostinian Health Ministry identified the dead passenger as Qasim Abbasi, 17, from east Jerusalem.
[Al Jazeera] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... has said it is creating government bodies to boost oversight of its intelligence operations, in the wake of international outrage over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder.
The kingdom has said Khashoggi was killed inside its Istanbul consulate on October 2 in a "rogue operation" led by the then Deputy Intelligence Chief Ahmad al-Assiri and Royal Court Adviser Saud al-Qahtani, both of whom have been sacked.
King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Lord of Most of the Arabians.... subsequently ordered a restructuring of the main intelligence agency under the supervision of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ...Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as of 2016.... (MBS), who has faced global criticism over the journalist's murder even though the government denies he was involved.
A committee headed by the prince has approved the creation of three departments to ensure intelligence operations are in line with the national security policy, international human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... law and "approved procedures", the official Saudi Press Agency said on Thursday.
The statement made no mention of Khashoggi.
Bessma Momani, professor of political science at the University of Waterloo, said the modifications were an attempt to shift attention away from the crown prince.
"I think the optics of reform are clear," she told Al Jazeera. "The message being portrayed here is that there are checks and balances in the system, that there is oversight, but frankly is doesn't really address a bigger cloud hanging over the crown prince, that he was implicated in ordering this murder of Khashoggi.
"The key issue doesn't go away, but I think the cosmetic restructuring is meant to try and deflect attention."
"The idea here is that these three departments are going to be overseen by this committee, and this committee is going to be the crown prince. It really is, I think, quite difficult to see it as a genuine effort."
The intense global backlash over Khashoggi's killing has tarnished the prince's international reputation and left the oil-rich kingdom diplomatically weakened, analysts say.
It has also cast a fresh spotlight on the Saudi-led conflict in Yemen, which is gripped by what the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
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[Washington Examiner] A controversial U.S. private security firm signaled Friday it is slated to return to business, spurring questions of whether President Trump will seek to privatize the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
Blackwater took out a full-page ad in the latest edition of Recoil magazine with the message: "We are coming," the Military Times reported on Friday. The ad comes a day after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced he would resign from his post and word emerged that President Trump will draw down troops in Afghanistan.
Former founder Erik Prince sold the company in 2010, but has maintained communications with Trump and reportedly pressed him to employ private contractors in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is said to be preparing to withdraw nearly 7,000 troops.
Prince ‐ who has also been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into whether Trump colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election ‐ does not have any known relations to the Constellis Group, the new name put on the company after it was purchased by Apollo Holdings Group. The firm reportedly shelved plans earlier this year to try to sell the Constellis Group.
The tease about a return to business comes after a federal judge on Wednesday found a former Blackwater guard guilty for his role in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad, long considered a low-point in the 17-year-old conflict.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Caller] Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is blaming President Donald Trump and his "domestic realities" for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants coming into Canada.
[Detroit Free Press] Talk about terrible timing.
[Jerusalem Post] Four Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured during weekly 'Great March of Return' protests along the Gaza border fence on Friday.
[NYP] She ain’t heavy, she’s my lover.
[News24] A South African teenager who was detained in China says she'll never leave the country to work overseas again after her month-long detention.
[GEFIRA] Though the end of the European Union is inevitable, the proponents of a further integrated or federal superstate are busy making a last effort to achieve their goal. The opposition against the project is mounting with every day. Europe is suffering from economic stagnation, and is facing a demographic calamity.
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - At least 13 people were killed and 17 wounded in a car bomb attack claimed by al Qaeda-linked group al Shabaab close to the president’s residence in the Somali capital Mogadishu, police said on Saturday.
AMMAN (Reuters) - U.S. troops have not left the strategic Tanf garrison on the Iraq-Jordan border following President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria, the leader of a Pentagon-backed rebel group there said on Saturday.
[Aljazeera] With Syria's war nearing an end, Israel turns its attention to tunnels allegedly dug by Hezbollah along Lebanese border.
Some perspective may be helpful retarding the ongoing topic of US troop withdrawals. 
[UPI] THURSDAY, Dec. 20, 2018 -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram -- the list of popular social media outlets is long and always expanding. But could staying connected through them lead to depression?
[Study Finds] Researchers found that people who don’t feel "very strongly" about their national identity were most likely to consider life outside the U.S.
[Free Beacon] Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane said on Thursday that President Donald Trump will come to regret his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, if he doesn't reconsider the move.
[Daily Caller] The head of the firm behind a report on ongoing Russian influence campaigns in the United States was part of a Democratic project to create fake Russian bots during the Alabama special election in October 2017.
[Breitbart] Mass deportations effectively deter the violent El Salvadoran MS-13 gang from expanding across the United States, an investigation finds.
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
[Bloomberg] President Donald Trump’s love of coal, rejection of climate science and disdain for things like fuel efficiency hark back to a smokier, smudgier era. Yet if this year has shown anything, he is one of the biggest disruptors in energy. He just does a different kind of disruption.
[IsraelTimes] USS John C. Stennis transits Strait of Hormuz after longest post-9/11 absence; Revolutionary Guard vessels launch rockets away from carrier, fly a drone nearby
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
[Al Jazeera] Imtiaz Khan, a 12-year-old schoolboy, and Majloom Ansari, a 32-year-old cattle trader, were 
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as of 2016....
