Friday, June 26, 2015

THIS JUST IN! ROBERTS IS CRUSHING HARD!


BULLY BOY PRESS &     CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

"THIS RULING WILL STRENGTHEN ALL OF OUR COMMUNITIES," DECLARED FADED CELEBRITY OF BARRY O ON THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION TO STAND WITH MARRIAGE EQUALITY.

WHOOPS OF JOY WERE HEARD FROM CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERT WHO HOLLERED HE COULD FINALLY LEAVE HIS SHAM MARRIAGE AND FOCUS ON "THE ONLY BOY I EVER LOVED!"

JUMPING UP AND DOWN, ROBERTS SCREAMED, "BARRY O, I'M COMING FOR YOU!  I CAN'T QUIT YOU, MAN!"







This week has seen a number of Iraqi commanders and military forces sound off in the press about the failures of Barack Obama.

The US President is far from mistake free.

But the criticism has been that he's not given enough weapons, that he's not given enough support?.

They do realize he's the President of the United States, right?

He's not serving the Iraqi people.

And when in history has any domestic military felt they had the right to whine that they weren't getting enough assistance from any other country?

Iraq's security forces are supposed to be responsible for the protection and safety of their country.


They've never managed to pull it off but it is their job.

Any assistance they may receive is just that: Assistance.


It's 'in addition to' -- the primary responsibility remains on them.

I don't fear the criticism is fair of Barack at all.

It's criticism rooted in greed and entitlement.

But mainly it's about refusing to take ownership of your own failures and instead pushing them off on others.

If the Iraqi military is unhappy with the equipment they have, they need to take that up with the Iraqi leaders and officials who have failed them.


Where are all those weapons they bought from Russia, for example?




RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Rand"






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    Thursday, June 25, 2015

    THIS JUST IN! CRANKY CLINTON SHARES LIFE LESSONS!



    BULLY BOY PRESS &     CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE


    FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O'S BUTT WAS YET AGAIN SAVED BY CLOSET CASE JOHN ROBERTS WHOSE WORLD WEARY WIFE SIGHED AND SAID, "OH GET A ROOM!"


    MORE SPECIFICALLY, SHE SAID:

    SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MOVE ON.  LOOK AT ME.  I WAS KIND OF HOMELY, KIND OF PUDGY, KIND OF MEAN AND ANGRY, AND THAT WAS BEFORE I CAUGHT BILL WITH MONICA.  I COULD HAVE CARRIED THAT HATE AND ANGER FOREVER.  INSTEAD I TORTURED SOCKS THE CAT AND, AFTER, FELT GOOD ENOUGH TO MOVE ON.  MOVE ON!  SO YOU'RE OLD AND UGLY AND YOUR SPOUSE CHEATS ON YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE OLD AND UGLY.  MOVE ON!  





    This afternoon, a House Armed Services Committee held a hearing.

    The Subcommittee Committee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities managed to do something every group holding a hearing longs to do -- establish clearly where the problem lies.

    And the hearing did exactly that, the Subcommittee documented the Emerging Threats.

    I'm not really sure though that they grasp that they did.

    Appearing before the Subcommittee were the New American Foundation's Brian Fishman, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Michael Eisenstadt, RAND Corporation's Linda Robinson and the American Enterprise Institute's Frederick Kagan.

    All four offered testimony and -- to one degree or another -- waived the Fifth Amendment.

    It was a long hearing but, more importantly, it was a soul draining hearing.


    While madmen sit up building bombs
    And making laws and bars
    They're gonna slam free choice behind us

    Last night I dreamed I saw the planet flicker
    Great forests fell like buffalo
    Everything got sicker
    And to the bitter end 
    Big business bickered 
    And they call for the three great stimulants
    Of the exhausted ones
    Artifice, brutality and innocence
    Artifice and innocence
    -- "Three Great Stimulants," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her Dog Eat Dog album

    And when Robinson and Kagan especially competed to be 'smartest in the room,' you longed for them to stop cooperating with the Subcommittee and instead reply, "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me."

    We often mock Fred Kagan here as being the "arm candy" of Kimberly Kagan.

    We do that for two reasons.  One, when we started the joke, it was the rare press piece on Kimberly that couldn't work in 'she married to Frederick Kagan!' while the pieces on him could sail right by without ever noting her.  (That's sexism, for those of you on autopilot.)  Second, he's seen -- by some -- as so intelligent.  But he's not.  Kimberly Kagan is not someone I agree with very often -- we're on opposite sides of the political fence -- but she generally speaks -- I'm not talking soundbytes, I'm talking testimony, speeches, papers -- in a manner that acknowledges humanity.  For that reason alone, she's the smarter of the pair.

    When Fred Kagan speaks, we're all just ants in his ant farm that he seems ready to toss in the trash, so bored has he become with humanity and living.

    After nearly two hours, the hearing was finally drawing to a close when Kagan, baited by , had to show just how ugly he can be.

    Yes, Kagan insisted, the US government did have a problem with the current plan or 'plan' for combating the Islamic State in Iraq.

    The problem?

    Too much effort was being made to not kill civilians.


    Think I misheard?

    Here's the exchange with US House Rep Doug Lamborn.  Let's listen in with horror.



    US House Rep: Doug Lamborn:  Thank you all for being here and I'd like to ask you about our targeting of ISIS' assets.  The New York Times reported on May 26th that "American officials say they are not striking significant and obvious Islamic State targets out of fear that the attacks will accidentally kill civilians.  But many Iraqi commanders and some American officers say that exercising such prudence with airstrikes is a major reason ISIS has been able to seize vast territory in recent months in Iraq and Syria."  Dr. Kagan, would you agree with that assessment? And-and is it possible to step up aistrikes while still, uh, to the degree possible, uh, preserving civilians lives?


    Frederick Kagan: Uh, I think that there is a trade off between deciding that you're going to have a more effective air campaign and accepting a higher risk of civilian casualties. I think if your standard for civilian casualties is low, you're probably going to have a very hard time increasing, uh, the intensity of the air campaign -- especially as long as you're not prepared to put forward air controllers on the ground, uh, which would be something that would mitigate that.  But I think that we have too high of a standard, uh, for -- from the standard of collateral damage for civilian casualties.  I think that, uh, the truth is this is a war and, uhm, we always try to minimize, uh, collateral damage and civilian casualty but, uhm,  a standard of effectively zero has done enormous harm to our ability to prosecute this war with the tools that we have at our disposal.




    To make a few things clear . . .



    When Kagan made his puzzling remarks to US House Rep Trent Franks that the US government had poor relations with the Sunnis in Iraq because of the US government's support for the Kurds in Iraq, I disagreed.  (Like Franks, who quickly changed the subject, I couldn't grasp what Kagan was attempting to say or the basis for that bizarre call.)  But as strongly as I disagreed, I could write it off as just disagreeing.

    Second, Kagan is not just right wing, he's a neocon.  Part of one of the biggest neocon families (his brother Robert Kagan, his sister-in-law the dreadful Victoria Nuland, his father is Donald Kagan, etc.).  But his remarks are not a neocon attitude -- or not solely a neocon attitude.


    The allegedly left Foreign Policy In Focus was arguing the same points Kagan was -- we called them out in the June 4th snapshot as well as in "Iraq: Failed follow ups and whining that bombs aren't being dropped quick enough" -- a point worth remembering for those of us on the left who might want to write Kagan's remarks off as something 'only the right could say.'


    Third, the New York Times article was written by the Washington-based Eric Schmitt so we never took it or Schmitty to seriously.

    "Many Iraqi commanders"?

    Did you phone 'em, Schmitty?

    Or did you maybe just put a finger on each temple and 'psychically' connect with them?

    (I'm sure many Shi'ite commanders in the Iraqi military feel there's too much restraint when it comes to bombing Sunni areas.  We've seen, in Tikrit most recently, what Shi'ite forces can do in the name of 'liberation' to Sunnis and Sunni homes.  I'm just as sure that Schmitty himself did not speak to "many Iraqi commanders" -- though he did feel the need to 'give voice to them' -- or maybe just put words in their mouths?)


    And for those who might want to insist that Schmitt got the byline but others could have spoken to Iraqi commanders?  Ben Hubbard was in Urfa, Turkey, Anne Barnard and Maher Samaan were in Beirut.  Only Omar al-Jawoshy was in Iraq (Baghdad).  No, I'm not picturing him rushing to and from commander for comments.


    RECOMMENDED:  "Iraq snapshot"


    Posted by at

    Wednesday, June 24, 2015

    THIS JUST IN! CRACKER CRACKS UP!

    BULLY BOY PRESS &     CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE




    MY LITTLE BLACK CHILDREN?

    WHAT PARENT SAYS THAT ABOUT --

    OH, RENITA'S A CRACKER.

    A SALTINE.

    SHE TOOK SOME BLACK COCK UP HER HOO-HOO AND SHE THINKS THAT MAKES HER AN EXPERT ON RACE AND AN HONORARY BLACK.

    CRACKER, PLEASE.

    STFU.








    Let's start with today's US State Dept press briefing moderated by spokesperson John Kirby.



    QUESTION: Can we go to the war against ISIS?


    MR KIRBY: Sure.


    QUESTION: Today the advisor to the supreme leader in Tehran, Ali Akbar Velayati, after meeting with the Syrian interior minister, said that there’s going to be meetings in Baghdad between Iraq, Iran, and Syria to consolidate efforts against ISIS. Would you object to including the Syrian Government in this process?


    MR KIRBY: I think I would put this in the same area that we talked about when we talked about Prime Minister Abadi traveling to Tehran. It is understandable. And it’s not the first time, by the way, that Iraqi leaders have met – excuse me – with Assad regime leaders. But it – we understand. This is a sovereign country; we have to keep reminding ourselves, I find, to remind everybody that Iraq is sovereign. Prime Minister Abadi is the prime minister of a sovereign nation and we should expect that he’s going to have discussions and meetings and outreach with neighbors in the Middle East, particularly immediate neighbors. And so that’s the rubric under which we understand this meeting is occurring.



    QUESTION: So you don’t object, let’s say, to cooperation between Syria, Iraq, and Tehran in fighting the same enemy that you are fighting?


    MR KIRBY: We have – our position hasn’t changed. The Assad regime has lost legitimacy, has to go. And I think it’s important to remember in the context of this or any other meeting that it’s largely because of Assad that ISIL has been able to flourish and grow and operate and sustain itself inside Syria. And so I think it’s important to remember that. Nothing’s changed about our view on that. But we also understand that Prime Minister Abadi has obligations – security obligations – that he himself and the Iraqi people hold to be important. And if he’s having meetings with neighboring nations, the leaders of neighboring nations, in concert with that, well, that’s certainly his prerogative.


    QUESTION: But, may I? If you’re saying that Assad is the source of all this terrorism, then I mean – or the main cause or continues to be a source of this terrorism, I mean, how are you really going to go after ISIS without a strategy to get rid of Assad?


    MR KIRBY: Well, I didn’t say that Assad is the main reason why ISIL exists.



    QUESTION: Well, this Administration has basically put it at his feet that ISIS was able to flourish and you just said that --


    MR KIRBY: I did. Yes.


    QUESTION: -- ISIS was able to flourish because of --


    MR KIRBY: Absolutely. It’s been able to – one of the reasons it has been able to flourish inside Syria is that the Assad regime has lost all legitimacy. They are – they are not – they’ve – large swaths of ungoverned space inside Syria that ISIL has been able to take advantage of and to exploit.
    The mission against ISIL – the coalition mission is against ISIL. Separate and distinct from that, nothing has changed about our longstanding belief that the Assad regime’s lost legitimacy and needs to go. We’ve also said repeatedly and consistently that there’s not going to be a military solution to that issue, that what needs to happen is a negotiated political settlement.


    QUESTION: Is there any movement on that?



    MR KIRBY: Well, it’s – we talked about this the other day, Elise. We continue to work at this. This is a tough problem in a very complicated area. Everybody understands that. But that’s what really needs to happen here. It’s not going to be solved militarily.



    First on the above:



  • 24 minutes ago
    Freudian slip?State Dept. spox: "#[Iraq] is a sovereign country; we have to keep reminding ourselves." Remind ourselves?




    • Second, Elise is Elise Labott of CNN.

    And the thing to note about the above?

    Even when specifically asked about political efforts ("any movement on that?"), the administration can't answer.

    June 19, 2014 found US President Barack Obama insisting that there was no military answer for Iraq, that the only answer to the crises in Iraq was a political solution.

    Over a year later, they still can't point to any real progress on that front.

    Nor have they devoted significant time or effort towards helping Iraq reach a political solution.



  • Jun 22
    Coalition airstrikes against  terrorists increasing in Iraq & Syria: 50 over last 48 hrs, including 22 yesterday in Iraq. Via 
    39 retweets 13 favorites


    • That's the State Dept's Brett McGurk and he Tweets that nonsense near daily.


    He just never Tweets about efforts towards a political solution.

    Because there are none.

    The State Dept drops no 'diplomatic bombs' on Iraq.




    Today, the host of MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes notes:


  • 9 hours ago Manhattan, NY
    solution to the horror in Iraq is political reconciliation between Sunni and Shia. That is likely to take a very very long time.. <2>
    View conversation 37 retweets 89 favorites



    • And it will take even longer because there are no efforts at real diplomacy and real assistance on the part of the US government.





    RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
    Posted by at

    Tuesday, June 23, 2015

    THIS JUST IN! CRUMBS FROM CRANKY!

    BULLY BOY PRESS &     CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE


    "LET THEM EAT CRUMB CAKE!"

    CRANKY CLINTON MIGHT AS WELL HAVE SAID THAT AS SHE TURNED A WORK FORCE INTO SLAVE LABOR.  


    REACHED FOR COMMENT, CRANKY TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "I PAY THEM IN SMILES.  IF THEY DO SOMETHING NICE, I OFFER A SMILE AND THAT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN CASH."





    Let's start with crap.







  • 1 hour ago
    "if you looked at who has harmed the Sunni people the most since 2008, it would easily be the Islamic State movement" 
    35 retweets 23 favorites 


    • Oh, Medhi, we love you.

    We love all the 'special' from Al Jazeera -- the channel that went silent because of the deal the owner made with Nouri al-Maliki back in the day.

    People are periodically shocked that Al Jazeera self-censors and lies but, remember, we told you about it in real time.

    Mehdi  links to Joel Wing -- are you sides aching yet?  And Joel's interviewed Mr. Naval War College.



    He interviewed a part of the war machine who, no surprise, wants you to know the Islamic State has done more damage.

    Why?

    Because Craig Whiteside is an idiot, a liar or a whore.

    He can pick which one.

    It doesn't matter because he doesn't know what he's talking about.


    [Joel Wing King Dumb Ass]: 2. A conventional wisdom has formed about how the Islamic State was able to rebuild itself after its nadir in 2008. Most of that argument centers on Syria providing a rebirth for the group, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s autocratic politics. You’ve written those were important, but there was more to the story. What else do you think was pivotal for the group’s re-emergence?


    [Idiot/Liar/Whore Craig Whiteside:]  We tend to rely on these simplistic narratives to explain complex events like the resurgence of the IS. Not to defend the indefensible, but I don’t think you can say that Maliki’s autocratic politics – as counterproductive as they were - can physically force someone to join a horrific organization like the Islamic State. The Sunnis know exactly who IS is and what they are capable of doing. I mean, if you looked at who has harmed the Sunni people the most since 2008, it would easily be the Islamic State movement, which has killed thousands of Sunnis in its return to power (and advertised this fact in real time on jihadist websites by the way). So I don’t see the IS resurgence simply as a result of some grievance narrative against Maliki, or from the very real advantages the IS movement did see from their investment and leverage of the chaos in Syria to recruit, upgrade weapons, and secure additional funding from extortion and oil sales. It is more complex than that.



    A conventional wisdom?

    Rebirth from 2008?


    Even in the administration, there is not agreement that you can trace the Islamic State back to 2008 in Iraq.  Let alone prior.

    Even in the Pentagon, there is disagreement on that.

    And I can quote Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on that.

    And as for "some grievance narrative against Maliki"?

    What a bunch of cheap liars.



    The murders carried out by Nouri al-Maliki will continue to emerge.


    The Sunnis were targeted.

    Even removing the ethnic cleansing -- which Nouri carried out with the US government's help -- pre-2008 leaves you with a lot of dead.

    And that's before we get to the other issues.

    The Islamic State did not run off a Sunni politician.  Tareq al-Hashemi was run off by Nouri al-Maliki.

    It was Nouri who staged a dawn raid on a Sunni politician's home, after all.

    It was Nouri who tortured peaceful protesters.



    Craig, don't remember you saying a damn word when that took place but, of course, you wouldn't.


    And it's cute how after so many Sunnis have spoken to the press, Captain Blowhard knows better than the Sunni people.

    Here's Alice Fordham reporting on NPR's Morning Edition on February 3, 2015:


    Now his group is in a de facto alliance with al-Qaida's successor, ISIS. Their thinking is similar. They fight alongside each other. Dabbash's views are typical of a broad spectrum of Sunnis in Iraq - Islamist, tribes, one-time supporters of Saddam Hussein. They feel victimized by Iraq's Shiite-led government, and many fight against the Shiite-dominated army, either joining ISIS or allying with them, even if they find the group extreme. 



    Here's Nour Malas and Ghassan Adnan (Wall St. Journal) reporting May 22nd:


    While some of his Sunni kinsmen in Anbar province set about working with Shiite militias on a strategy to oust Islamic State, Emad al-Jumaili was making a very different kind of plan.
    The tribal elder was busy preparing to guard his home and family from those same militias.

    “I have always said I would much prefer to be killed by a Sunni terrorist organization than a Shiite terrorist organization,” said Mr. Jumaili.



    Abigail Hauslohner (Washington Post) reported July 12, 2014:


    The worshipers and other Sunnis interviewed in Baghdad said they have little affinity for the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State that routed Iraqi forces last month and declared a “caliphate” across a vast swath of the country.
    But as the militants take aim at Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, these educated, professional Sunnis leave no doubt that their sympathies lie with the insurgents.

    “It’s a revolution against oppression,” Moussa said. “We believe there will be a zero hour here in Baghdad soon. The Sunnis have nothing to lose.”



    We could do this all day.





    RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"



  • "Hillary responds"
  • "THIS JUST IN! SHE'S GOT AN INVITATION FOR THE FELLAS!"





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