Funny what happens when you don't Blog.

I've been twittering a lot more lately and it has affected my blogging. Reading and commenting 134 characters at a time seems to have taken the edge off any need to vent at greater length.   It has been well over a month since my last one and by golly, given the news to-day,  nothing has really changed.


Syria's still going on, looking better for Assad day-to-day - but that was already happening. The US is still in-country but talking about pulling out, On the other hand the French are there  now, Italians too, 'supporting' the SDF Kurds in the north. They're not talking about leaving.

In similar fashion the Germans have deployed to the Sahara,  along with Canadians. The US and French have 'special forces' fighting with the anti-rebel coalition in Yemen. EVERYBODY (The Brits, the Aussies, the Croats and EUkrainians)  looks like they're 'piling back onto' the Afghan rabbit in the hope that eighth time's lucky and the big win's in the cards.

Trump  is still trying to slough-off charges that he's a dupe of the Kremlin but he's got a meeting with Putin on deck - an opportunity to call the pot black and see if he can't make a deal for the Russians to 'back off' in EUkrainia or ,at least, support Jared's plan for 'peace in Palestine',  in return for a 'free hand' he's already got in Syria.  If it's anything like the 'breakthru' deal with the Norks , it's not worth the airtime expended on it. Pompeo was very recently disappointed in meetings with the Rocket-man peeps - he  shone a positive light on it but he didn't get the concessions he wanted and the Norks called the meetings "regrettable".

Brexit looms closer than ever but, once again, thinking about that has been derailed by another 'Novichok' attack. This one involving what have been called by relatives "a pair of lost souls" and long tome drug users. Why the Russians would want to target them is unknown.Save it to say that apparently THEY have smeared a non-toxic form of the deadly substance in places all around Britain - like parks where somebody could inadvertently become 'affected' by it.. The Russians are now targeting everybody in England not just former spies and traitors. The Euros are saying, unless the Brits get their exit act together,  that hard one they're angling for  is going to hurt more than Trump's tariffs. Lots more.

It could have something to do with bringing Putin down a peg or two after what is looking like one of the best FIFA World Cup venues to have happened in a score of years but the niggling of the Russians  goes on. In Britain and, surprisingly, in the USA.  While the US hasn't ever had a World Cup and barely has a international-calibre team, they aren't shy about grousing that Sochi,  the venue for the finals is the site of 'Russia's shame'. They're saying they 'hope' they don't find out that the Russians have doped their soccer squad  and 'fixed' the Cup. But that might take another couple of defected Russian 'pensioners' -  like the other scandal did. No proof of those charges was ever offered.  Not even the hint of a denial of human rights -  even to idiot Englishmen.  the US is complaining after the Russians leaned on a couple of their anti-government media sources in Russia, fining Radio Free Europe $3 000.

Oh by the way. Russia was knocked-out of Cup competition to-day,  by Croatia. I guess they couldn't fix that  World championship.

Syriana - an Update

It's hard to believe that in my last post more than three weeks ago, I commented that 'Afrin' - a Kurdish enclave in NW Syria - had been taken under attack by Turkish forces. What looked back then like a slam dunk waiting to happen,  has degenerated into another second-world failure to win.  For here we  are,  well-up the road and the Turks are barely beyond the areas they had bravely motored-into on Day 1. Motored into and failed to motor out of. Last week, if some sources are to be believed, the Kurds beat-off a Turkish assault that left the battlefield festooned with some burning armor and an estimated 34 Turks dead on the ground.  This is unusual for, until now, the Turks were content to let their SFA 'comrades' take pride of place liberating 'their homeland'.  As one source put it last week, the Turks 'have met mud and mountains and their advance has drawn a blank'. Winter in northern Syria, and southern Turkey is like that. Kurds are coming from  NE eastern Syria through government held arreas, to take part.

In the most recent development the Kurdish forces in Afrin have done a deal with Assad that is quite likely to see the Syrian flag hoisted over Afrin and the Kurds withdrawn to their enclave in the eastern part of Syria.  Today the government forces assumed control over the Kurdish suburb of the long embattled city of Aleppo. It too having suffered the blandishments of Islamic Jihad without caving, so it just as much in need of rebuilding as East Aleppo.

What's really interesting is intersting for Turkey which, all of a sudden, loses its reason to be grabbing another chunk of Syria - this time from Assad's forces and not ISIS or the Kurds.  As well as still having to face-off against the PKK in the Syrian version of Rohava. And that latter involves the USA

America is on the 'horns' of another 'dilemma',  for it now gets to face-off against the Turks or abandon its new friends the Syrian Kurds.  It will be facing-off against Assad as he turns his attention toward the jihadis and FSA still holding on in the Golan and near the SW border. Both of which, without Russian help, will be nasty and with Russian help will be complicated.  I think the Syrian Kurds know on  which side their falafel is greased and there isn't much America could, or would, do to stop the Turks. Assad would.

To ensure there is  no Turkish 'hanky panky' into what is marked out as 'Rojava', Kurdish units are evacuating north from the US-inspired conquest of the east bank of the Euphrates around Deir Ez Zor. That's something the US won't like. Especially if it leaves ISIS isolated and at  the mercy of Syrian forces which already have a bridgehead on the East Bank. (It was bombed last week for "threatening" US "allies"  in the area, or for repulsing an SDR/ISIS attack on the bridgehead - that news is clarified below.)  The US is also in a pickle further north backing-up its  Kurdish allies while facing-down a potential fight with the Turks over the 'buffer zone' the Turks want,  to keep Kurds off their border. Had the Turks not been taking a licking in Afrin, that zone might have been better-formed - as of now, it isn't. 

Assad's forces continue to 'bite back' the remaining ISIS enclaves in western Syria, as well as nipping off parts of Idlib governate not covered by de-escalation agreements.  The Russians are still bombing targets in central Idlib accused of being the launch points of drones that bombed Russian bases a week and a half back and, more recently, of being the 'home' of whichever group it was used a manpad rocket to down a Russian forces fighter-bomber.  The Russians had, I thought,  closed the airspace over Afrin, but since the Turks are still attacking the borders, aside from preventing any further bombardment of the hard-hit governate 'capital',  that isn't having any immediate effect on Turkish Air operations.

That incident near Deir EzZor last week upped the US ante significantly, as they waded-in to 'defend' their part of Eastern Syria and consequently may have killed a large number of Russians when they gave what they thought were 'only' Syrians  the full-treament from assets in the area.  While the Russians, so far, have taken time to study and decry the 'we got ya' idiots,  they were starting to release more information on the dead and wounded 'contractors' they claim had "nothing to do with the Russian military"  They were treating the incident far differently than they treated the notorious ceasefire 'introductory' boming at the same place, a year ago Christmas.

I don't think the fat lady has had her 'ups' about this one. Somebody's going to wait until America gets cocky again to perhaps show them what the Russians can do to a force caught out in the open.

Syria: Another stinking pile of Democratic Doo Doo

The truth about Syria is emerging and will one day - it is to be hoped - see the perpetrators of a staged revolution hauled before the World Court - or better still, fall victims to their own petard - none of them are what anybody would call secure in their establishment.

From the earliest days anybody who was reading more than the US media - where Saddam was depicted as having children beaten and killed, his people brutalized by police goons and cast into dungeons - were hearing a quiet dissonance in the 'chorus of freedom' rising in Syria.    If it hadn't been for disorders breaking out across the Arab world,  as people "cried out for more democracy on social media' - as well as a break from rising bread,  food and fuel prices (after a western engineered food staples price increase), we might not have understood how Syria would 'go wobbly',  like Libya and Egypt  did. After all,  the Syrians and their government seemed to have coped, fairly-well, with a 10 year drought and population shift into the urban areas - none of that caused an uprising.  It turns out that what did cause an uprising was the CIA and Saudis providing weapons and money as well as numbers of foreign fighters, to take things to a dark side. And we 'suckers for a good fight', out west, were panting for some humanitarianism after the press and media pulled another wag the dog on us. America was almost disingenuous in its 'uninvolvement',  as it 'let' the French and British call for the 'invasionary overthrow'. It did  set an ambassador to provide 'photo ops' of visits to 'friendly riots' and protests  - while he begged Assad for  mercy and a resignation. Photos of what appeared to be American 'trainers',  in mufti, started to appear on military photo sites.   Within the first year there were car bomb attacks in Damascus and other towns and a retaliatory strike that was rumoured to have killed Saudi Security Minister  Bandar Bin Sultan,  who disappeared from the Saudi 'whirl' after that explosion  and  has yet to return to the public eye.

Sarah Abed offers this explanation of the early days

Every Syrian I have spoken with, whether they side with Assad or not,  explain that it was not local forces, on either side, that caused them to flee the country - it was "gunmen" - armed foreigners who quickly took the fight to unexpectedly violent levels and threatened  to involve them in it directly, or indirectly.

Who these gunmen were was not unknown to the US security services and, hence, to the government.  Material leaked by Snowden pointed to the direct involvement of the Saudis in directing attacks that killed civilians in Damascus. At least one operation noted in US security sources

The intercept that might have changed everything

Six months before Assad was accused of gassing his own people the first time, a British newspaper printed what it claimed were emails from a hacked site in Malaysia belonging to a British security firm. The emails detailed plans to import Libyan weapons of Russian manufacture and engineer an outrage that could be blamed on Assad.  That story quickly went south when the security firm sued the British paper that published the story for libel. That case later wound-up, successfully, for the security firm - who, if they didn't make money off the Syria plan,  made money from the court ruling. e are very aware that, at about the same time the British court ruled, Assad was accused of firing sarin tipped missiles into a rebel-held area. The UN investigated and Obama threatened war.

We all 'know' that Assad used rocket artillery to gas his rebelling people. An incident that nearly led to a war with the USA, did lead to Assad dis-arming himself, chemically, and was later investigated and demonstrated that the incident might have been more like that spurious, 'emailed  scenario' mentioned above, than the one we all believed.

Would the  news that 'the bozos',  so roundly congratulated by -  and later armed at the behest of -  John McCain, were in fact the command echelon of what would turn out to be  ISIS,   have changed anything? Not even if they 'offed' the Pope,  or bull-dozed every church in Syria.  They were there to remove Assad for us. And had they not tried removing the Shiite government of Iraq instead - threatening much of the 'goodness' we had already done there, they might well have succeeded making that Caliphate, governed from Baghdad, instead of Mosul, Idlib,  or Raqqa.

If they'd been really smart they'd have gotten us to arm and pay for it all  - massacring everybody only after we anointed them.

ISIS on the SKIDS?

Since Bob Dylan wrote the song,  Americans have been entranced by 'ISIS' - the all-wummin chief goddess of ancient Egypt and the head-lopping semi-political threat to world peace that loons so large in its 'world interests' these days.  It seems that that creation of the 'Arab Spring' (TM) - Arabs willing to 'rise up' and do to each other and their countries what only a handful would do when encouraged by the invading forces of Iraq and Afghanistan, are the single 'positivity' to emerge from America's centennial Asia pivot. They're 'bad guys' doing to 'worse guys' what America needs to be done.

But those who have done so much are now in trouble.

And now they need some help - not the Arab ones, they can go twist - but the real ISIS - the ones who will generate the next decade's worth of security funding - the thousands and thousands of 'foreign fighters' who flocked into ISIS training camps, learned jihad and small unit tactics and are now poised to do to Europe and all points west what they've done to Syrian and Iraq.   But they need to escape Assad's trap in Syria.

Enter the greatest farce for good on earth and its third 'prong' of the modern military assault, the vertical insertion - in this case vertical evacuation. Which is reportedly what US choppers are being used to do -  extract ISIS fighters from south central Syria and replace them with Syrian 'Freedom Fighting' forces. A win-win situation -  ISISs live to fight another day and the anti-Assad coalition picks up some new territory to be used to balkanize Syria.

A new fly in the ointment appeared this week when US forces operating in central Raqqa province in Syria were reportedly attacked by CIA-armed Syrian Free Army forces, operating with the Turks. These forces were greeted coldly when they first appeared in Syria,  and more lately have been demonstrated to be importing increased supplies of heavy vehicles - supposedly to turn over to Kurdish forces.  Reports that the FSA forces working with the Turks are virtually useless for operations but provide a 'cover' for Turkish forces being in Syria ( to support anti-Assad forces and to do something to prevent a Syrian Kurdistan along the southern border). The US is currently operating with the Kurds in Raqqa - something the Turks would rather not see.

               Watch Joe Biden at 10:12 - "It's was all our pals" ... and America didn't know???

At the same time US spokespeople are blaming Assad for them having to take out the ISIS fighters being renditioned out of the Lebanon front.  These aren't good enough bad guys or, more likely America's best bad guys like those mentioned above - so they qualify for some airborne termination.  The claim is that a number of them have been eliminated when they get out of the blast radius that might hurt the beautiful babies in the buses with them.

Get 'im while he's squattin'.

                                                  Rockin' & Rollin' - Real Mercs

The Outrage that Got Away

Just after the latest Assad 'killing his own people' farce, a real outrage did take place. It was roundly ignored in western media because, very obviously, the good guys, or the Moslem extremists we're backing in Syria,  did it. They made a video record of their attack and they very obviously targeted a defenseless 'enemy' civilian population.

 What we saw of the massacre was 'given out' as 'payback' of some kind for the alleged  'atrocities' done by the Assad regime when it liberated our 'poster city' for western-based Jihad in West Aleppo.  Even that latter point failed to mention that those 'victims' were involved in another of the Assad regime's - 'move them instead of maim them' population swaps - the main reason why any Jihadis weren't carried out (some were) .

These 'victims' were  pro-regime people who had been besieged, for 3 years,  by AlNusra/AQ/ISIS forces in their Idlib town,  being swapped for a an anti-Assad population being moved to rebel held areas. And many of them - including children - failed to make the swap.

The following post is graphic - although President Trump wouldn't find many of these dead babies beautiful, - or worth a humanitarian bombardment of somebody.  It should be required watching for moral relativists like Nicky Haley.

By way of a follow-up  Caution graphic pix

Lancing the 'Berl' on America's 'Brane'

Fake news.  Propaganda. Leaks. Hacks and the horsepellets than make us free.  America relies on the media, repeating 24/7, the daily dose of 'factoids' that drive the nation to greatness.

Yesterday a piece from a think tank, published in NewsWeek, stated that the Trump Organizaion was deliberately 'losing' Syria to the Assad regime, after 'winning' it from ISIS. That was followed by the White Hiuse threatening (and Nikki Haley repeating in a Tweet) the Assad government with big trouble,  the next time it gassed its people.  Some watchers stupidly thought that was an 'invitation' for ISIS, or what's left of it,  to make another issue of 'beautiful dead babies' for Donald to weep about and Nikki Haley to shake before the UN. And a darn good reason to 'blitzkrieg' Damascus with the force of  'punkerpans' so carefully built-up in Northeastern Jordan.

Newsweek

Getting the Goods on Gassing

The Leftists Knoweth naught about the Rightists

And finally, on the last time Assad gassed his own people.

There was (is) yesterday's MASSIVE' attempt by those 'russian hackers' to take over he world's Windows systems, or at least 'corner' the Bit Coin Market. Strange that every affected computer lit-up with the same MSDOS message about how to fix it and where to buy the ticket - in English! That must have been the CIA 'part' of the 'stolen'  hacking tool used to do it.

Get the Word out!

BitCoin EUkrainia

And thien there's today's brouhaha about 'Bullshit" - all courtesy of the Voice of America: CNN.

 First off a CNN producer is taped talking about what is passed-off as news, particularly about Russia.  He called it "Bullshit". But he could be a 'commie' plant, too.

Calling Bullshit on the Big Lead


And to ice that cake we have the story of a story appearing on a CNN site - the kind of thing that prefaces another 'blreakout blurb for the TV treatment, about another spurious 'meeting' between another Trump admin employee and another mysterious Russian business man. But this meeting didn't happen at all, and that got noticed. The three dopes who created that writing - for it was 100 percent bullshit - were immediately fired.  I'd be wondering how they got the idea and if there was some 'source' for the info, aside from a few Buds and a possible Pulitzer.

Three lying Liars who lie get axed

That all turned into a riposte from the WH press office and some 'shox and aw' from the US media about all being "inflamed' with the same brush.

CNN a Disgrace to Journalism

Hey! We been Inflamed!

This is just more turds in the teacup,  for the 'saga' will contnue.  Unless there's a real war.

I guess we're giving up on the notion that China 'hacked' the SatNav system and the world time clocks - at least in that small part of the world off the coast of Japan - long enough to turn the 7 Dwarves' container ship into a Kamikaze 'ramming device' to catch the USN with its gatchies on deck.  The dead heroes werre buried yeasterday at a mass 'mourning' event. No word on posthumous citizenship for the Philippino sailors in the Destroyer's crew, the other Philippinos are still 'under investigation' in Japan.

Farewell and Adieu


Remember the downing of a Syrian jet last week for 'ilegally dropping bombs'?  Turns out the 'jet jockey' called that shot, and informed  UNICOM afterward.   This after it was wondered A) why the super duper stealth F22 ranging at will over Syria didn't do it and B) there were some questions about 'the shoot down' that they didn't know the answers to in Doha, Qatar.  Of such things do wars get started.

And an update or 2:  The Hacking Saga - Amended


NYT Retraction

AP's 'correction'



Was is "surreal".

Comey and the Rest of the BS

                                          the 'fleg' of the (terrorist) UVF flies outside  #10

Eizabeth May thought that she could take some advantage of how quiet things were by  having a 'snap 'election , she explained to the Brits that it 'needed' to be done to pave the way for a successful Brexit negotiation - and to help Britain 'stand'  tall among the warrior-nations of the earth.  Apparently ISIS punctuated her sentiments with a couple of terror attacks - during 'the campaign'. Despite an outpouring of world empathy and massive security drills at home, the attacks failed in their purpose of engendering support for more 'rigor' in security or 'vigor' in the fight. May is 'hanging on' to-day 'supported' by the 10 votes Ulster 'loyalist' DUP.   The shortly forthcoming Brexit negotiations - due to her ruptured ducky-ness' - are more tendentious now than ever, peace in Ulster, possibly, as well. .

In the rest of the world the beat goes on.

US forces in Syria claimed another attack made on 'threatening' government forces. A number of vehicles were destroyed,  as was an 'attacking' enemy drone. Government forces advanced to reach the Iraqi border northeast of the 'coalition' positions at Al Tanb -  re-esatablishing a government claim to control of its eastern border and cutting-off any further unopposed advance by the coalition or its Al-Nusra employees. In a late-breaking story, it was reported that two vehicles and a number of the latter had been 'eliminated' after trying to infiltrate Jordanian territory. This was taken as the 'rebel force' withdrawing, or retreating, from Al Tanb back to safety in Jordan - and being 'discouraged from' (killed for)  doing that.



In  liberated Aleppo  the saga of the little chap who became the poster boy for all Assad's evil - that the white helmets  couldn't mention  had a new chapter added.  Needless to say now that the boy and his family are safe in government-held Aleppo, their story is changed:

Whether the change is due to being safe in the regime area again, or because they have been forced to recant their former support for all things good and holy, is debatable.  It would appear that they did lose a child in the incident that brought brief fame to their younger son,  this loss is no longer mentioned nor are their other experiences 'being rescued' from a collapsing home. 

New news reports a rupture of sorts in the amity that were the Gulf States. It was announced that Saudi Arabia had given the government of Qatar an ultimatim to 'cease supporting terror', shut down Al Jazeera, stop telling lies, cut-off trade relatons with Iran and stop selling oil cheap .... or else.  The war cry was soon taken-up in the form of an embargo by all the Gulf neighbours except Iran, and most of the Arab coalition forces fighting for freedom in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.  It was looking like Qatar was 'in extemis' when Donald Trump weighed-in with his castigation.  Since then, in the absence of any more 'kinetic' activities, Qatar has receved military assistance from Turkey and humanitarian support from Iran , Morocco and a number of other states. Along with this all is a notable lack of action at the UN which will probably play-out in some action directed at an 'agressive' Saudi Arabia.   This is all being laid-off to Trump's recent visit to the Middle East and his blessing on Saudi arms.  It was announced on Wednesday that Qatari forces are being withdrawn from the Arab mission to the Horn of Africa. 

In Russia, yesterday, it was 'Down with  Crooked Crap Day' and , we are told, thousands of Russians - in cities aross the land - took to the streets to protest the Prime Minister's reported wealth - as well as reports that Putin is the richest man on earth. To head things off,  the opposition leader, Navalny, was arrested as he headed-out to protest, Afterwards 'thousands more' - but maybe not all the same thousands protesting - were arrested. Standing-up for Russian freedom,  the US government demanded that they all be released.  Most of the peaceful demonstrators were, but not the leader who was sentenceed to 30 days for calling another inllegal public gathering,  or the 'emblem' of the protest - a large inflatable Rubber Duck. '  We are told the ptotestors were singing a song about ' the  Dimon' a prerjorative form of Dmitri (Medvedev) . That seems to bear a close resmblemnce to the 'Old Shoe' and the 'Men of the 303' - the emblem and theme song to go with the contrived farce in  the 'Wag the Dog' film . 

Here's an interesting little segue from the on-going purification that is Qatar, Emirate of.    It tells the updated story of an unique character from the tale of freedom that is revolutionary Libya - a rebel leader who spoke with a thick Irish brogue.  In the light of Irish links to the recent terror attack in Manchester comes this tale to explain how a perfectly good 'freedom-fighter has been rebranded as an "ISIS-sympathizing terrorist" by the Trump organization. 

Would yiz be havin' a loight fer me bahmb?

Then there is  what passes for news from the Senate Select Committee hearings - the National Circus in X acts. I imagine these ARE 'selected' Senators,  because almost to an individual they all seem convinced that Russia hacked something, sometime , somewhere - although for the life of them they can't offer any proof beside what they've been told by 'all 13 US security agencies' - the same ones the 'bodacious  but bloody' Megan Kelly referenced to, and  had dismissed as 'ludicrous' by, Vlad the detailer.   As far as I've been able to tell,   those 'reportS'  are all  based on one report from 'Crowd Strike Inc' of California  - which is so secret is hasn't been vetted by any other Cyber minder - except perhaps the one in Kyiv, and another top secret report commissioned from and generated by a  former agent of MI6 - which details the possibility that Putin could  be  blackmailing Trump with some Russian porn.  All  this week,  members appearing on the committee and answering their questions have all prefaced their remarks, or questions , with the fervent belief that they know who dunnit and look forward to finding out fer sure.  What's 'been done' should be so clear, for the rest of the week seems like an interminably boring and unenlightening exercise in "Don't listen to what I say, listen to what I mean."   

I can't wait for the 'blonde bomber' to show-up  as he said he would, and be sworn-in to give his side of the fantasy - but I'm not holding my breasts. 

Suppose they gave an Atrocity and nobody Noticed?

In all the revolving hoopla that is America to-day:  pseudo-medicare and fired pols - interspersed with what the Kardashians are doing,  or the odd military celebration, we forget that Syria is still the object of somebody's desires and Assad a target for regime change.

 We thought that Trump warning the Norks by cruising an obscure airfield in Syria was the end of it.  But America's interests stretch further afield - the Marines are IN northern Syria working with their 'free Syrian Allies' and making a buffer zone to keep the Turks from killing our  other pals the Kurds. The US is also on Syria's eastern border moving in, with the Kurds, toward Raqqa and, in the south, trying to drive on the outpost at Dier Ez Zor - the place accidentally bombed last December to accidentally 'pave the way' for ISIS taking the Army base it hadn't been able to capture in 5 years of trying. And then there are the security pistoleers hanging out in Jordan.

Messier 'operations'?

You may recall one of those being killed in a 'green on green incident not all that long ago. At one time it was just another training cadre working at developing contractors in the finest pseudo shoot- 'em-up 'village' that real bucks could buy. An Xbox 'experience' on 100 percent scale, with live ammo.

But it seems that somebody has brought a significant force of US armor to the Syrian border in the Kingdom - just as the FSA in the area decided it had the balls to take the market town of  Dara'a . Turns out it didn't and couldn't - at least after Assad transferred a couple of his best units there to give them some resistance. So the 'coalition' force sits, scoping the battle by drone and binocular, Waiting, waiting, waiting..

 'Waiting for what?' you might ask. A Syrian  invasion of Jordan?  Highly unlikely. The Syrians have, until very recently,  managed to ignore the freedumb fighters of the south front. There are too many 'uninvaded' rebel parts of Syria, that are far more important than starting a war with the King of Jordan.

What they're waiting for is another 'outrage'  - Assad gassing his people again - thumbing his nose at somebody 'dutiful' and then invading Syria to save it.  If the soothsayers are right that outrage is going to happen within days and the target zone will be in east Damascus - and area being fought over by two 'rebel groups' while Assad's forces watch for the opportunity to eliminate both. A 'peace' was in the works just a couple of days ago - with the rebels to be removed to rebel territory.  But, hey, a good gassing doesn't let peace get in the way.

(It seems that the east Damascus scenario has changed significantly in the last week. After a protracted period of fighting between 'Free Syrian' forces themselves, in the enclave, it was announced two days ago (May 15) that large numbers of the rebel forces were being transported out of the City to other rebel held areas. These transfers of populations, like the one described further below) are a 'hall mark' of the apparent lack of brutality in the Assad regime's crack down on his people.  But he could I imagine gas somebody, somewhere ,to cause that  US invasion.)


 The US has been distracted by domestic issues and Russia.  It has China to worry about and the Norks are making people crazy with their  threats and bad behavior.  It's just right for another white helmet sneak attack.

rescuing their victims


America did miss the last 'sneak attack'.  That happened a couple of weeks after the gassings - during another one of those peace exchanges. It targeted pro-regime Syrians and was carried out by our freedom-fighting allies. It killed a lot of babies but 'crispy critters' and busted buses don't have the same photogenic 'jolt' as little clean faces, dead for no reason other than Assad's 'hate' and craziness.

Another similar evacuation, yesterday, of the northern town of  Taqba and involving ISIS forces surrendering positions controlling a Euphrates River dam there, was derailed when US helicopter gunships reportedly  intercepted and destroyed the ISIS column that had been released by Kurdish forces in return for a peaceful surrender.

Report in the Independent

Heads Up!

I thought I'd be writing about EUkrainia being really invaded. But no!

                                                    The Hebrew Sooth sayer

                                               Porko's peace bang-bang goes ka-blooie!

                                     Another one bites the dust - shot by a real EUkrainian


I started this. Then went 'on hols' for a few days. While I was away the shit hit the fan.

It seems that, after hearing that the Trump administration was removing the gunsights from himself and, perhaps,  the Baathists, peace-wise,  the President of Syria decided that he needed to, or more likely just wanted to,  drop some chemical weapons on a target within easy reach of the 'white helmet'  Oscar winners and the media attached to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory.

The necessity (or desire) was imparted to the world by little miss Haley, America's mouth at the UN. While not as strident as Gudrun the Widder, she makes the kind of case that would leave a Seal team in tears. She did a number on Assad and used the pix supplied by media 'on the scene' as evidence of the 'eevuls' tyrants do.  From 40 seconds after the first 'announcement;' the world knew who dunnit. This time it may not have been Putin, but Putin has his back.

                                                               The Russian 'slant'.

Big Donnie has decided to act 'Presidential' after the Syrian rebels supplied him with a saga. While, surprisingly, the 'Star Sangled Banner' crowd aren't waving lighters out front of the White House just yet (they want him to DO more), the 'innernational community'  and Trumps 'bettors' are adulating the hell out of the big palooka.  You'd almost swear they were 'up' for going 'in' alongside the Marines. Dead babies have such massive affects on those who don't believe aborted ones wind-up in a surgical bucket - or don't want to see those either.

Assad took the attack with equanimity. He sent a panel of generals out to inspect the destruction - that photo duly posted in western mendia - some kind of couterpoint that military sheiks are waaaaay safer than Syrian civilan infants, eh?  Even AFTER a damned good bombing.

Putin, the basilisk,  didn't act very 'manly' either. He simply called the attack a bad name and said he'd be slipping some more AA defences into Syria. He didn't 'go nuts' over his subway bombing either, rounding-up accused perps the next day, just like he had a regular security organization  - like Sweden's. No racing off to drop 'payback' bombs on Kirghizstan.   But he didn't have the 'slaughter of the innocents' on Anderson's '360' and CNN,  did he?

The neocons and their fundamentalist Israel-loving (Bennie hearted that bombardment) buddies now in power (still)  in America  are going to have to do a lot better before 'the sheeple' start to lose interest in the White Sales and start demanding more bayonet practices. They 'fecked-it-up'  under Bush and let Obama away with murder - for all the wrong reasons. Problem is, there is still a large 'rump' of America who, while they might love bombing bad guys for killing babies,  still hate Trump on principle and would neither buy a condo, or another war, from him.



 



 But it's all no surprise.  Note the last one from South front. It was posted November 2016.

If You've been Keeping-up with Syria ... Duh! Eh?

If you've been keeping-up with Syria - which seems to have been knocked-out of western media by the murder of the Nork's leader's older 'playboy' stepbrother and the on-going saga of the 'evil that is Trump' - you may have noticed there is little being reported.  But that doesn't mean there is nothing going on.

 If you look at a situation map you will notice that Syria is, now, split into enclaves occupied by the actors of the piece. the Syrian Arab government and its Syrian Arab Army hold the capital and areas around it, they hold a strip of land extending toward the north west corner of the country - fighting is going on in Idlib (west of Aleppo). They have retaken Aleppo and are advancing east on two fronts  into territory held by ISIS.

ISIS territory now extends in a wide strip to the southeast, through central Syria, to the border of Iraq. It contains the ISIS capital of Raqqa and the air base city of Deir ez Zor.  The North Eastern part of Syria is largely held by Kurdish forces of the PKK, they also hold territory south of the Turkish border in western Syria.  It is to prevent the Kurds forming a large enclave along the border, that Turkish forces made an incursion into Syria  "in support of FSA forces fighting ISIS" (coloured green on the map above) .


The FSA ("moderate" rebels)   hold a considerable enclave west of Aleppo and another north of the Jordanian border. They also hold smaller enclves and villages in government-held territory.

An enclave in north central Syria has been invaded from Turkey. The Turks claim to be supporting an ill-defined group of what they claim are FSA fighters and who accompany them on operations.

                                            SFA "fighters" employed by the Turks.



Very recently the  White House announced that a US Marine artillery unit was being deployed to 'Raqqa' to assist FAS forces. There have been other US forces in Syria for some time now. They have taken and control the area around a Syrian Air Force base in the northeastern part of the country. It is possible that these forces are supporting Syrian Kurdish forces, although the PKK is, still,  designated as a 'terrorist organizaton' by the USA.It is reported that both US and Russian forces are located in the same city  Manbij, in  the northeast

US/Russian forces 'eyeball' each other.

In other areas the government has succeeded in removing rebel forces from water sources supplying the cities of Baghdad and Aleppo. Water has been restored to the former and is being restored to the latter.The government continues to be criticized for continuing to attack rebel-held areas in a few of its cities (Homs for example)

In a demonstration of the effect of the war,  a 1 000 man 'legion' (5th) was mobilized by the government,  after completing training, just last week.   It is reputed to have been trained to a highly effective edge by Russian trainers. While that might be the case, one only has to look in the ranks to see that Syria could be at the "Heimwehr'  stage of military population. The 5th Legion is currently part of the force 'stretching the envelope' around recently re-liberated Palmyra.  I'm inclined to  think that a very large number of Syria's fighting-age males are (wisely?) living out-of-country.

From a Horse's Mouth

This guy is surprisingly cogent. He must have had some 'escape and evade' training  from some really smart guys.

Bomben auf Bashir !

US-NATO’s War On Russia: The Winds Howl Before The Storm

A piece from a Canadian lawyer Chris Black got my attention amid the increasing calls for somebody to do something to stop the city of Aleppo, or the part of it that is still controlled by Jihadi terrorists, from being destroyed.  Turns out this is the part of the city frequented by MSF and a number of western NGOs -  one of which brought us the saga of the 'White Helmets'.   Strange that, for all the concern about 'trapped civilians' nobody is calling for their release to join the rest of the civilians of Aleppo, in non-rebel held parts of that city.  Just what does it take to make somebody a human shield?  Our bombs?

Aleppo is one among a number of Syrian cities that have 'fallen' (for we westerners don't think that any of them, legitimately, belong to anybody unlike ourselves) in whole or in part, to either the government forces of Bashir Assad or to one of the numerous 'Islamic fighters groups'  opposing him. Save for a couple of small villages near the Jordanian border, which are controlled by a US-funded and supplied - 'moderate militia'.  Most of the other 'moderate militias' were eliminated by the more powerful forces, or in most instances,  simply took their US weapons, equipment and supplies directly over to ISIS.

Most of those Syrian cities have to varying extents been destroyed - some of them completely - in fighting that has seen the liberal use of high explosives of all kinds and by both sides. Again we in the west have a myopia that makes us, or our media.  think that the destruction is all 'one-sided' and that Bashir has taken into his mind to wipe all other Syrians out.  Or that's what we're told by the media and the government sources they quote.  That would of course be Assad and the Syrian supporters who have kept him in power, much like the government of Ukraine is supported by a 'majority' of Ukrainians fighting-off a russian-inspired insurgency and invasion. Well not quite.  Ukraine is 'good' because we back that government (that took over after a coup), while Syria is bad  because  we don't back Assad (who got himself elected). What it's all about us that Assad is stopping the Syrian people from having a happy, 'free' and, as it turns out, fundamentalist Islamic life.  Stupidly they insist on having their country back, without the rebels. That's just not gonna happen. Nobody can go back from liberty.

So to-day we hear their are voices being raised around the situation room table in the White House action bunker - and they're calling for a kinetic solution. They want America to stop the bombing of Aleppo by increasing the bombing on Damascus. They're the same 'voices' that didn't say anything about the raid last week that scuppered the ceasefire - until they said 'sorry' afterwards.  And if the advisory panel of retired intelligence workers, that has been calling the shots correctly, as least, as long as the anti-war movement has been correct, there is nobody with a pinch of horse sense speaking out against them.  The ONLY thing that could be stopping it is Obama's fear of making his foreign policy legacy even worse than it is.  He spent some time, yesterday,  talking about his 'domestic legacy' to the next guy.

The foreign policy legacy probably keeps him up nights.

Recent developments. Get the proxies busy.

A spate of calls for a war crimes investigation by the World Court  is being spearheaded by the pacifists of France.   Meanwhile the Brits are debating the merits of having the RAF fly top cover for the fighting citizens of north-east Aleppo.  The US is 'all up' for a war crimes trial in a court that neither they, nor the Russians recognize.  And it would probably be 'all up' for an Article 5 duty to protect a NATO ally,  if it gets attacked while flying top cover for the fighting citizens of north-east Aleppo.

 And then there's Mr Obama and his foreign policy legacy.

The White Hats

Coming to an HBO/Netflix outlet near you, the saga of those who so willingly go into deadly places to rescue innocent victims.  This is waaay better than the 9/11 firefighters who survived - the white hats apparently never complain about being 'used' or developing and work-related illnesses. Aside from the white hard hats and sharp, da-glo rescue vests and perhaps the 'team' T-shirts these could be rescuers from anywhere, but they're not - they're ours.

If there is any particular skill that Syrians have developed over the past 4 years, aside from moving themselves away from danger and hopefully into the EU, it is digging the stay-behinds out of the rubble that four years of war fighting and aerial bombardment  have spread over much of the country. Whammo! Some humanitarian, or otherwise, drops some ordinance and faster than one can say 'open sesame' they're hauling kids of every age out of the wreckage. The news and various 'reportages' (now there's a new word)  are filled with the stuff. It's the photo-op, human interest material that we don't get from dead babies or relaxing tank crews. But until the 'White Helmets', it was rarely done professionally, neither the rescue screws,  or the videographers who filmed them. But that's all changed thanks to a few bucks from western NGO's - there are 'professionals' - both in the rubble and recording them -  in Dolby and HD. Western organizations - usually affiliated with the distaff (ie non-Assad) side of the Syrian struggle -  sponsor these guys. And sometimes, it seems, they hold back until a video recorder is in place before they go to work. The photography, too, seems to bear the mark of a 'professional staging', sorely-lacking when the world was being 'sold on' Assad's poison gas offensives.  Hell,  we've now got a poster child for what Assad's done to the poor democratic jihadis.



And very soon we'll have an HBO/Netflix extravaganza to sell America on everything right and pure being done for America's interests in seeing Assad off.  Up close and personal we're gong to get to know those great guys who don't pick sides, who'll rescue a Christian or a Shiite, or a stray European.  But we won't see them 'back off' as they did when some 'rebels' were forced to saw the head off a 12-year-old 'government spy'.   But heck,  that happens, apparently,  on all sides,  except when the government is using barrel bombs. 

I was watching the trailer last night to the haunting strains of a tune all Syrians would no doubt recognize from American radio: 'When the Saints Go Marching In'.  Maybe they have saints in Islam, the Sufis do, but they aren't the 'stoic' kind of Moslems who want to turn Syria back into a theocracy.  But this subject isn't for Syria, it's for America and we'll see the kind of stuff a Nobel Prize was designed for.

 In a 'sop' to the bloodshed they didn't complain about,  the American glitterati universe is a-twinkle with 'the word' that the 'White Helmets' merit  what Obama got for nothing. A campaign is being organized to develop another international coalition to ensure the Nobel panel doesn't mistakenly award the gong to somebody else.  But I wouldn't bet that,  if successful, these 'concerned citizens of Terra' would want to  challenge the orthodoxy that this war doesn't need to stop until Assad goes.
 The White Hats will last as long as their funding,  and continue after the real money goes back home. For White Hats don't 'win' anything, even saving lives  - except perhaps a public outcry, in America, for more 'rescue' bombardment on other Syrians with no hard hats.

Ooopsie daisy!

Only yesterday, after mistakenly eradicating some 85 of Assad's soldiers in an airstrike on a town that had been besieged by ISIS for more than a year, America ambassatrix to the UN, and gender non-specific sorority sister,  Sam Power, spent 25 minutes railing about the evil that is Assad and comparing the Russians with terrorists. She forgot to mention the evil that is ISIS, the intended targets outside that bombed town and the other reason President Obama said he needed to start bombing Syria in the first place - other than mentioning that America was 'all over them'.

This stunning cu*nt is a cunning array of stunts herself.  Being serious about Syria?  Hah!

America isn't trying to save Syria from ISIS terror, that's a made-in-America 'prawduct', They're trying to change the Assad regime. That's been the truth all along.  Even though it took inventing ISIS it still hasn't happened. America needs another 'ground swell of opinion' calling for war, in order to go in and get that job done. The target has been 'prepped' for four long years, but you know what? America will still be fighting an 'insurgency' in Syria and Iraq, and Afghanistan  and Libya and Yemen as long as America exists.  There are more Moslems, living to-day, who hate what America 'stands for' than when Bushco announced they existed. The Long War is some really new shit and something Americans have never experienced, even thought about before or are prepared for. It will hit them someday,  at the Mall,  and prevent them from being the 'winners' Bushco II told them that shopping would make them .

Ain't none of this going to end well.


PS At the Mall?  I must have been getting the Raelian vibes again - Minnesota = stabbings

Russia ... Bleeding Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=132&v=pv6ROkgsiNs


Russia seems to be covering-up well the fact that it's going down the 'caca hole'.  Or, perhaps, the Russians are 'enjoying the ride'.  Whatever it is, they seem to be disconnected from the 'facts' on the ground, or at least the groundswell of caterwauling and accusations of  'disrupting world order', 'threats to world peace', destabilizing neighbor countries, downing airliners (their own and other peoples') bombing middle eastern hospitals and -  the very latest - cheating at the Olympics.

Russia may be a media hell-hole, but we still 'heart' those Russians.  We'd be more than willing for them  rise up and cast off their chains.

What Will Putin Do?

Putin's great Syrian adventure is being 'doomed and gloomed' as Mr Obama's similar adventure wasn't. But then he doesn't have any 'coalition', or 'duties to protect' anybody.  Well neither does America really, either. There are some people very interested in regime change, or thorough destabilization in Syria but it's hard to see the benefit, other than to be having 'that' happening 'over there' rather than 'over here'. Some of the protagonists will get the blow-back, if any, before the USA does. Russia may be one (IS, now according to the wise) of them. But it's  a fair statement to make that Russian bombing isn't going to be any more militarily-successful than coalition bombing has been - other than to pound the rubble into smaller particles.  The one essential point, I think, missed by so many commentators - the reason Assad didn't fall like other 'tyrants', the reason the civil war in Syria still rages -  is because the half of the Syrian population that haven't fled into refugee camp,  are still there, fighting for their homeland and their President.  They're not all 'free Syria rebels' and the Jihadis are, largely, not Syrians at all.   As in a previous Afghan 'quagmire',  Russia is not alone.

Lawyer 'gets it' chapter and verse


The US secretary of defense Ash Cater recently pegged Putin for threatening world peace and the 'world order'. He must have been listening to Kristol and Perle's 'Visions of Amerika' again,   for he seems to think that if it isn't America doing the military stuff it has to be an enemy. This week however he's 'sticking up' for those around the East China Sea who can't stick up for themselves. But that's all about  China and another threat.


Putin continues to 'disrupt' gallant little EUkrainia. He was recently accused of sending 'modern weapons' into eastern Ukraine because somebody claimed a T90 tank has appeared in the east - it looks remarkably similar to the T80 , 82, 85 or 88 tanks that have already appeared in eastern Ukraine - usually unloaded from a western Ukrainian railroad cars. Somebody also seems to think Putin has slipped in a newer variety of rocket artillery with which to 'invade' the place. So far OSCE has failed to come up with any evidence that Russians are crossing the border with anything, but we KNOW they are, eh?

 Just like we 'know' they downed the Malaysian airliner, but we can't prove it and, like, they probably downed their own over the Sinai just for sympathy. The good guys didn't drop it, see?

Just recently, we think, or pretty well know,   they've been cheating at the Olympics.  Not the ones at Sochi, where they almost certainly did cheat, no,  the ones in England - where we found 'evidence' of two labs in Russia doing doping tests and covering-up results by losing things and misplacing samples. As if the Russians were testing their athletes who won in London, taking the samples back to Moscow? If they were,  there is something wrong with that, and probably the rest of the doping testing regime as well. Once again he media is full of  reputed wrongdoings and demands for sanctions.  One writer even opined that it might would be good for the Rio Olympics if Russia was banned and its 'allies' boycotted - more medals for the real 'sports'.  Maybe the US should boycott in protest?  It should be simple to drum up another coalition.

Putinic Russia  meanders on to economic ruin and political turmoil while the pacific west apparently hits new heights of stock market activity and consumer confidence.  Sadly, all that 'progress' is nonexistent outside the first world and increasingly to more denizens of that, as well.   Things are great if you have a) a steady income and b) a 'good' job and really great if you're in the top 15 percent.

Leonhid Berszhidski,   writing for the National Post,  points out that the current brouhaha, and especially the ceasefire, have shown Ukrainian weaknesses - he describes this as "the rot at Ukraine's core".  Whether or not there ever was a ceasefire, let alone a war in the east, Ukraine has been rotten on the inside for a long time. But he can't say the  'skin' isn't impressive.  If you take a look at some of the malarky coming out of the place, you get the notion it's just another house of cards waiting to get kicked-in .

Well,  for starters there is that 'new' police force being depended-on to bring Eukrainia beyond the knout and the billy club. You know the ones with the US-style uniforms - paid for be guess who - (so that's why). But those service 'shakos' look more like something the SS sported on dress-up day - black with the silver piping, all that's missing is a little totenkopf. And where did they get the training - why from US cops of course, but I haven't been able to figure out what city, or cities they came from. That would have to cause some confusion, for America doesn't have a  much of a homogeneous police force outside the military and the FBI. Watch for the tasers and the 'SWAT' squad - although there are a number of security and militia units already doing those. Interesting, too, that the top echelon chosen to command this are a number of Georgian ladies - ex-government and police officials come to help Saarkaasvili birth Ukraine into NATO and the EU.  Like Ukraine,  they thought a military showdown with Putin was a good way to start. Like Georgia the money and effort were  wasted and the military came out a bust.

Ukraine still has a way to go.

Russia is not alone in its 'misery'

Putin is Assad (Offside) Again

Putin is 'off side' in Syria now, as well as in EUkrainia. Russian 'interference' in Syria is starting to bother America. Just yesterday the US had to complain that Putin was giving Assad the 'red carpet treatment' on his first visit outside Iraq in 4 years. I expect they would have preferred the Russians 'shirtfront' him over the barrel bombs and ostracize him into leaving office. For the first, and most annoying, aspect of that Russian interference has been an insistence on maintaining Assad in power, in contravention of everything else good and holy that's been going on in Syria.  Assad you see has been busily killing 'everybody' that ISIS hasn't already killed.

Add to that a rumor that the Iraqi government was preparing to ask the same kind of Russian assistance for its war on terror and you have America 'hitting back'. "It's him or me, Delores"  or something like that General Joe Dunford - Marine tough guy and US Chief of Staff is supposed to have told the Iraqi government. There is only room for one good-guy (or 65 of them)  in Iraq's GWOT. If Russia wants to help fight ISIS in Iraq, the USA will be taking its 'balls' home. What in the heck are the other 65 'independent' nations who've seen the sunny side of the need to fight terror in Iraq going to do?  Are they going home on the freedom bird, too?  That would sort of make a big fat lie - or expose a nasty truth -  about 'growing democracy and freedom' and rebuilding damaged lands. I think there would be a whole whack of people in a number of first world countries looking at their boys being used as America's cannon fodder, and changing the regimes that pretend independent action but really just sell-out to Washington. Something like this could put the kibosh on NATO.

Our way or the Other way?

Since Putin started his Syrian campaign the world is missing the blow-by-blows we've come to expect with serious military operations. That could be good reason,  for such 'reporting', later,has often failed to meet any criterion for truth. The results have certainly not borne out the 'descriptions' of 'vic'try'.   Assad has LEFT Syria for the first time in four years.  Maybe something is changing and we just haven't heard about it.  And maybe the Iraqis have.

Maybe 'getting it done' have a very different meaning in US English and in Russian.  Or the 'it' part is completely different between the two.

 It's obvious, given 14 years of the best warfare money money can buy,  that something hasn't been done right, or at all. Who needs a multi-national  coalition if  the strategy and tactics are clear and unimpeded by massive economic 'disruption'?

That trip to Moscow?  Another 'bust' for US intel.  They didn't know he'd gone until he was back in Damascus. And he flew through US-controlled airspace - a war zone - to get there.

Assad's Flight into Russia

Since the Last Time....

Not to be outdone by the Ottomans,  the New Russian Empire itself took up the bombing of the  jihadis in Syria. Like the Turks bombing the Kurds, the Russians targeted  America's allies and bombed the 'anti-Assad forces near their bases on North western Syria. That earned Putin more 'mad dogging' and almost more sanctions - if anybody could think of any. Where any of this goes remains within the 'Mystikal 8 Ball'.
  

 The change in Russian 'attitude' - from an 'interferer' to a bombing pal,  came after the Prez and the President traded  stink-eyes and unminced words at the UN General Assembly last week.   Apparently Putin came away from that either unknowing, or unconvinced, that the good guys knew better about where he should be dropping his bombs.  The UTube coverage after the first raids was the kind of thing only a real warfighter would want, no shredded women or babies to be seen. Only what the coalition calls 'fighting aged males' - on stretchers or carrying them away.  Surprising since that category seems to make up a significant proportion of the refugees pouring into Europe. But hey, fighting age males have everything going for them.


Speaking of the upside of media coverage. As the Coalition of Justis got ready for a little recorded ass-kicking in Kunduz this past week, they ran afoul the twitterverse when MSF started complaining that somebody with an air force had treated their hospital in that place, to 90 minutes of the best high- rate firepower a first-world military-industrial complex can produce. The shooting killed more 20 staff  and patients and wounded  a good number more.


MSF pulled out of Kunduz.

Nothing out of the ordinary, either in the event - they happen all the time to Afghans- or in the Coalition reaction.  First of was was the doubt over who'd done it, or if it wasn't a fairy tale.  That was followed by the 'mistake' mantra  and the 'well the bad guys were in the hospital wire' malarky.  The latest ' evolution'  of the story is that the Afghans asked fore close air support after 'being attacked' in the area of the hospital. Washes for me if we recall that the C130 'Spooky' and 'Spectre' gunships are the cutting edge of accurately-placed fire. If  you've seen John Wayne in 'The Green Berets' you've seen how they can stitch a lead  seam between gooks and good guys - and that outfit was primitive. Today we're told 'eyes on the ground' designate targets with laser and the guns put the ammo within centimeters - just to make sure they don't shred the wrong people. The Hospital in some weird battle zone prescience,  informed the good guys of their GPS location to save them having to look it up in combat. That apparently didn't happen either.

You'd think the Coalition would train the Afghans better before giving them a designator?  After all wasn't it Afghans who called in an airstrike that wound up 20 miles from the guys who needed it causing an international incident when the attack helos shot up a post 14 miles inside Pakistan?   But that was before the days of Afghans with laser designators ... and MSF 'battlefield' hospitals.


See the update to the story  - Nov 26


Closer to home the Canadian election is entering the home stretch.  The incumbent leader continues to pointing out the danger of switching horses in mid-stream but generally doesn't appear to have much first-hand knowledge of the stream itself. Maybe the horse does. He equates this go-round with not spending money like he has done for 8 successive years now. Almost like magic a budget surplus of $2 billion he said he knew he had,  just 'appeared' in time for the election.  I was reading to-day how the government had 'trimmed back' public housing this year and guess what?  It saved 4 billion dollars!  I think he may have promised it away in new spending.

His other big thing is banning the niqab at citizenship ceremonies. Since the candidate for citizenship would have to identify herself (this isn't gender issue, yet) to the Judge and probably to one other agent of the crown, it matters naught what she has on when she takes her oath - although dignified clothing is mandated for all attending - within abilities, genders and other rights and freedoms. You can't  be sporting a set of bodacious ta-tas, even though a woman's right to do just that in public has been enshrined at least in the Province of Ontario. Most 'old stock' Canadians are 'up in arms' about the topic, swinging the election round to the Steverino who has removed more rights than any premier before him, and some of those were fighting real wars.  Now if Steve were to mandate that all those 'old stockers' also had to attend a citizenship ceremony, say sometime before the age of 18 and twenty-five, and also risk 'decitizenshipment' and exile should they 'turn foul traytor' or become an unwanted criminal, he would lose this election.

The yanks are still playing around getting ready for the first primary, next Spring.

And that refugee crisis in the news for the last two weeks. It's gone just like Yemen, and magic. 

From Bad to Freakin' Horrible

Since last I wrote,  Syria has taken another distinct turn for the worse. Not the least part of this is the far-more-evident problem of Syrian refugees seeking safety by storming the walls of the EU.

First the Syrian part. There are really no new developments to note, ISIS continues to be the 'pain in the ass' and bombing target it was last month.  Anti-ISIS operations in Iraq are as bogged-down as they have been since the great offensive to liberate Tikrit flopped last spring. The only good news there is that the bombing goes on, unopposed and unabated. But there are now some new 'boots on the ground' - the Turks have gone to war.



 No friends of the Assad regime, the Turks have been calling for his ouster all along but until this last fortnight, aside from allowing some 'free access' to those foreigners 'pouring in' to join ISIS  and setting up some camps for the hordes pouting out, the Turks haven't done much at all. Twitted, no doubt, by the USA - which is looking for all the coalition they can get - the Turks announced they'd be bombing targets in Northern Iraq. Problem was that when the bombs started falling, the folk underneath them were the other great Turkish 'dislike', the Kurds.

Now as we all know the Kurds are being 'prepped' as the saviors of most of the middle east for goodness, decency and the democratic way. They've been de-listed as world-terrorists, trained by the Israelis and the Germans, armed by America and supported by a number of military contingents from all he best warfighting nations in the free world. A start-up of Turkey's 'long war' with America's best 'friends and allies' was not in President Obama's game plan. The report that over 100 people have been killed in 'terrorist' attacks in southern and eastern turkey over the past two weeks does not bode well for a unified resistance to ISIS.

Turkey - last Friday - the Kurds strike back

It was briefly hooted around, this week,  that the Russians were coming 'on-side' to face down ISIS, and - it was hoped -  to stop supporting Assad. That hope was dashed yesterday when the Russian Foreign Secretary was called to hear America's concerns that the Russians were expanding their presence in Syria and substantially increasing Assad's supply of heavy weapons and aircraft. Fear that Russian Spetznaz operatives might somehow wind-up clashing with US special forces on clandestine operations in eastern Syria were mooted in some military websites.  Vlad pulled another 'fast one' while the gipper was contemplating Alaska.

The latest 'offensive' to recapture Ramadi has bogged-down (as all such Iraqi government operations seem to do). Somehow their hearts don't seem to be in taking back Sunni territory - even if the elected government does have the right. They'd have to fight the Kurds, too, for the chunk they hold.  If it wasn't for the on-going horror of the beheadment knives, the Shiites might just quit. I have a feeling Iran is saving something for later, right now they just want to not help America.

The war on terror is what it is but the western media are filled with the plight of refugees displaced by the war in Syria and Iraq.  The warm-up of Turkey's Kurdish trouble destabiliazed the area where most of the refugees have been placed, making them some kind of camouflage for the Kurds and potential targets for government retribution. Educated by the past 10 years,  they have wisely voted with their feet and headed for Turkey's Mediterranean coast.  No doubt happy to see them going, Turkey hasn't stopped them traveling to the Greek off-shore islands from where they are able to island-hop to the mainland and Europe. From Greece they travel north into former Yugoslavia and through that to Hungary. For a while it seemed that was the finish line. The Hungarians announced a border fence - not yet constructed - and no passage for refugees - or as they were increasingly described 'migrants'.  Numbers overwhelmed the border and a second attempt was made to stop them using the railways to head for Austria and Germany. Once again that failed and large numbers have managed to work their way to the German border. Angela Merkel is under some pressure to deal with the problem and just to-day the Hungarians - goaded no doubt by fearful fellow-members of the EU announced they were deploying troops to the southern border. Clashes between refugees and Hungarian police were reported to-day.

All it would take is another tragedy.

The first tragedy came last week in the form of one of those pivotal photo ops, this time of a dead four-year old on a Lido beach in Greece. The image shot round the world and initially generated a wave of sympathy - with the concomittent appeals for cash by western charities. The dead child may have accomplished more by dying than he ever could have in life - or he might have been the savior of mankind, but not any more. He did put a beaming, happy face on what to most people was something very safely ignored. The news also generated the typical spate of (mostly Australian) anti-moslem rhetoric about it being a 'scam', a fake a false flag,  a cover for creeping jihadis to avoid the invasion rowboats and have 'us' paying to import 'them' where they could do the most harm, etc.

 Aussie perspective

Somebody even 'reported' the grieving father to be 'living in luxury' in Turkey (as if), that he'd invented the story or fled Syria,  to "get new teeth". An English newspaper followed him, and his coffins, back to a ruined house in Kobane and photographed the funeral,  as well as the bombed town the family fled.

Daily Mail

The Prime Minister of Canada (which had rejected a sponsorship application for the boy's family - his aunt lives in Canada) ruminated, empathized, not only with Syrians but "the millions displaced" in the GWOT. He blamed ISIS for the plight and reminded Canadians that this tragedy shouldn't interfere with Canada's very necessary bombing of northern Iraq and eastern Syria.  He also pointed out what good job Canada had done with refugees on his watch, allowed as how we could do more but had to be careful about letting the bad guys sneak through with the needy. Eminently sensible considering he, personally, declared us a target in the anti-Islamic terror wars.

In a fit of hubris PM Harper was embarrassed this morning to be greeted by video of one of his 'team' running for reelection taking a leak into somebody's coffee cup. By such things are the mighty humbled. Something like that should happen to the jackass governing Australia - but it would just serve to make him more 'human'.   (Off topic but I just had to mention it.)

Take Those Gals Outside and Shoot Them

Yesterday morning (two weeks ago - mea culpa)  - up early - I happened across an interesting story that ISIS had recently shot 19 young women for refusing to (marry?) have sex with their fighters. The story of sex slavery among ISIS fighters almost differentiates them from all the other Islamic evils  - who have also been accused of massacres and lopping-off heads for the edification of the young 'uns too. But this particular tale - as recounted - the piece mentioned - by an unnamed "Kurdish official" who claimed it happened in an unnamed location last week - grabbed my attention, not only for the garish subject material, but also because of the vitriolic response of the readership.  The source was a CNN-affiliated site IN India, and the respondents, I assume, were Indians, outraged at the killing of a perfectly good answer to the national shortage of females, or something, and who were demanding that Europe, of all places,  get involved to stop it. Why they weren't calling on the Indian armed forces escapes me.

By 9:00 am the story was appearing in the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media sources. By now the official had a name and other details and tie-ins to related stories (a UN official's 'slave price list'  a notable one).  The story spread westward, throughout the day, until CNN discovered its affiliate's piece in time for the evening news.

Today the story has spawned a host of 'studies' of ISIS predilection for sex slaves. One military site, in relation to Gen.  Odierno's  retirement, calling for the 'restrategization of Syria',  cited sex-slavery as a potential 'winning' strategy for ISIS and demanded a strategy to counter it. Sex slavery was all over the place to-day. The British Daily Mail upped the ante to accuse ISIS of securing young girls to the windshields of their captured 'humvees' as they drove into battle. The graphics used were the same ones used to accompany the sex-slaves stories from the day before.

Daily Mail; human shield

Daily Mail - rape is religion

The Mail is tabloid journalism at its finest, but for some reason more sober (WaPo, NYT) sources  (WaPo, NYT) seem to feel 'sensible'  citing  its material.   Note that in none of this - nor in the sober sources is there any fact checking, corroborating details of even the basis on which the story could be checked.  But the cry for revenge is noteworthy - any world leader considering slinging some bombs on Syria couldn't help but feel the effort was justified. Even Ghaddafi wasn't abusing little girls. .

All of this is remarkable in two ways. First there is a tremendous response from readers almost all of whom demand more European involvement in Syria. The Brits last week flew their first RAF sorties against ISIS targets - they had been flying USAF machines as seconded pilots before this time. The second aspect is that there is not one iota of corroborative evidence appearing in any internet sources, to back these stories up. That Kurdish official, who started it all, could qualify for a Pulitzer if column inches and volume of citations were the requirements.  But, stangely, he wasn't recorded giving his statement, nor asked about how he learned of it.  In fact no by-lines have been attached to the story, until possibly to-day - and it's strange with a capital S.

A Catholic news site in the USA  (Catholic Online) ran the standard story, but extended the work - with the same graphics, etc, into an appeal for prayer and one assumes donations, as if the dead girls and sex slaves are all Roman Catholics.   The interesting part is that it attributes the story to one "Abigail Jones"  at "News Consortium" - its own news service - and claims that Abigail wrote it on August 7th - a week before the world found out courtesy of India.

Catholic Online Story

If it wasn't for the hue and cry, and for remembering a heartbroken young woman from Kuwait (who turned out to be the ambassador to the US's  daughter) telling the UN of watching Iraqi soldiers empty incubator babies onto the floor (it turned out to be a 'story') in preparation for US 'warfighters' cheering as the baby-dumpers were carbonized when American air strikes 'caught' them fleeing a month later,  I might almost believe this. But it smacks of the kind of bullshit we need to make our wars 'right'.

Publishing this on September 1,  I can say that the 'outrage' dissipated as quickly as it arose. Save that the French are supposedly joining the English to bomb Syria  tomorrow.

 It apparently worked.

ISIS

The hypnotic charms of Old Egypt's 'mother goddess', the assembler of dead Osiris little bits, Bobby Dylan's paean to loss and recapitulation and now the nemesis of western civilization are enshrined in the name ISIS - the latest civilized way of expressing an idea for english-speakers that we can hardly get our heads around. if we can't say it we'll give it an acronym - at least its not something entertaining like SPECTRE or UNCLE.

ISIS (الدولة الإسلامية - ad-Dawlah l-ʾIslāmiyyah) (al daesh) appeared as an offshoot in the Syrian civil war - one of the numerous groups attacking the Al Assad regime. Shortly after it first hit the press in the west it was announced that it had 'usurped' AlQaeda and was facing off against other rebel groups. In short order it had subsumed those who agreed with it and destroyed the ones that didn't. The latter included the very small 'moderate' rebels favoured by America. It did however 'fall heir' to a large quantity of  their US-supplied arms and resources. ISIS soon became the main contender in central and south eastern Syria and it had strong ties to the Sunni areas of Iraq, particularly the restive province of  Anbar.

There are less positive schools of thought that lay ISIS directly at the door of the CIA and or Israeli Mossad or both. If that is the case, then either there is a plan for disrupting the oil region to benefit America (what could be wrong with $30 a barrel ISIS oil?) or ISIS has, like AQ before it, escaped the control of its masters. If it isn't the case, then somebody was sound asleep at a very important switch....the same people who are now trying so sell an salutary war.

The Monster

When the Baghdad government failed to put down the Sunni uprising in Anbar, fighters from Syria soon became involved, until, this past summer, ISIS itself became involved in Iraq, removing the government presence from Anbar and a large swathe of the Iraqi northland. It was opposed, practically, only by the Kurdish forces around Basra and Kirkkuk.

It was at this point America decided that action needed to be taken to prevent a seizure of the whole of Iraq. The Iraqi government was resupplied, as were the Kurds, and an offensive mounted to 'hold' ISIS forces.  When ISIS threatened a "humanitarian disaster' the US undertook a  tactical bombing campaign in support of non-ISIS forces.

This bombing campaign has now been extended to Syria and is upgraded to a 'strategic' campaign to reduce, and eventually eliminate ISIS completely.