CRANKY CLINTON'S USE OF A PRIVATE E-MAIL SERVER WAS WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS AND NOW AMERICA LEARNS THAT THE STATE DEPARTMENT HAD TO TURN OFF SECURITY FEATURES AT ONE POINT JUST SO CRANKY'S E-MAILS FROM HER PRIVATE SERVER COULD REACH STATE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES.
REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING, CRANKY INSISTED WHAT SHE DID WAS IN KEEPING WITH "EVERY SECRETARY OF STATE BEFORE ME. I'M SURE IF YOU LOOKED AT THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WEB BROWSING HISTORY AND HIS E-MAILS, YOU'D FIND THE EXACT SAME PROBLEMS."
WHEN IT WAS POINTED OUT THAT THE INTERNET DID NOT EXIST UNTIL AL GORE INVENTED IT, CRANKY FUMBLED FOR A RESPONSE.
"YOU KNOW WHAT?" SHE ASKED FINALLY. "ALL THE PRESS DOES IS FOCUS ON MY MISTAKES. WHAT ABOUT MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS? WHY DOESN'T ANYONE EVER TALK ABOUT THEM?"
ASKED FOR EXAMPLES OF SOME ACCOMPLISHMENTS, CRANKY FELL SILENT FOR SEVERAL MINUTES BEFORE SNARLING, "YOU KNOW WHAT? I HAD SOCKS THE CAT PUT DOWN AND I CAN DO THE SAME WITH YOU!"
Adam H. Johnson
Recall: our current bombing campaign in Iraq was pitched as "limited". It's now almost 2 yrs old.
Today, the US Defense Dept announced:
Strikes in Iraq
Rocket artillery and bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 17 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
-- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed eight ISIL fighting positions, three ISIL vehicles, an ISIL improvised explosive device, an ISIL vehicle-borne IED, four ISIL rocket rails, two ISIL mortar systems, an ISIL supply cache and an ISIL anti-air artillery piece and damaged five ISIL berms.
-- Near Fallujah, three strikes struck two separate large ISIL tactical units and destroyed 11 ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL vehicle, two ISIL heavy machine guns, five ISIL light machine guns, five ISIL rocket propelled grenade systems and two ISIL mortar systems and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Kisik, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL tunnel and three ISIL rocket rails.
-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, six ISIL assembly areas and an ISIL rocket system.
-- Near Qayyarah, three strikes destroyed three ISIL rocket rails and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed nine ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL light machine gun, an ISIL rocket-propelled-grenade system, an ISIL boat and three ISIL weapons caches.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike suppressed an ISIL heavy machine gun position.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
That they'll release.
Other things?
Not really.
At yesterday's Pentagon press conference moderated by press secretary Peter Cook, the following exchange took place
Q: Peter, during last week's briefing, the issue of injured American service members came up, and you said you would take the question and look into it.
Can you confirm that four American service members were injured in Northern Syria on June 9th?
MR. COOK: (Inaudible) -- this is -- I'm glad you raised the question, because this does raise a question, a policy question for us about identifying injured service members.
And as I stated last week, and probably should have stated more clearly, our policy is not to identify wounded service members, for a variety of reasons -- including operational security, including privacy reasons.
And so, I'm not going to be able to elaborate more fully on that situation. Just as I wouldn't with other wounded service members, because of that -- because of our policy in place.
Q: I believe on May 31, the Pentagon did come out and say there were two service members, one in Iraq and one in Syria, who were injured and I think you even gave a specific location -- (inaudible), north of Raqqah. And I'm not asking for a specific location or name. You know, were there American service members injured? Because in the past, you have acknowledged when they have been injured.
MR. COOK: And what -- and of course one of the things that we're concerned about here is not just operational security -- (inaudible), but also, we do not want to provide additional information to the enemy that might enhance their own assessment of the battlefield situation and their own impact.
Q: (inaudible) -- because on May 31, you did give out two numbers of Americans injured.
MR. COOK: I'm just spelling out right now our policy consistent with what it's been in the past with regard to wounded service members. We provide information with regard, of course, to casualties. But for a variety of reasons, we do not provide information on wounded service members and we're going to continue to stick to that, again, because we don't want to provide information to the enemy that might be helpful, we have privacy concerns that we want to address.
And again, we don't routinely release that information. There have been some exceptions in the past, but that is our -- our basic policy and I'm going to stick to that policy.
Cook insisted this was not a change. Idrees Ali and Leslie Adler (REUTERS) point out, "However, the Pentagon has released such information in the past and responded to queries, and it was unclear how Cook's comments were consistent with previous disclosures." At the conservative website HOT AIR, Jazz Shaw maintains:
It’s hard not to read something overtly political into this policy change, no matter how the Pentagon describes it. We’ve already seen the President standing by his policy of not mentioning Islamic terrorism and our own Attorney General has tried to keep mentions of ISIS out of transcripts of conversations with terrorists attacking at home. Any news about battlefield injuries in the war against this enemy clearly plays against the Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton’s election hopes in particular, so suppressing public discussion of such unpleasant realities has a clear political side to it.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
That they'll release.
Other things?
Not really.
At yesterday's Pentagon press conference moderated by press secretary Peter Cook, the following exchange took place
Q: Peter, during last week's briefing, the issue of injured American service members came up, and you said you would take the question and look into it.
Can you confirm that four American service members were injured in Northern Syria on June 9th?
MR. COOK: (Inaudible) -- this is -- I'm glad you raised the question, because this does raise a question, a policy question for us about identifying injured service members.
And as I stated last week, and probably should have stated more clearly, our policy is not to identify wounded service members, for a variety of reasons -- including operational security, including privacy reasons.
And so, I'm not going to be able to elaborate more fully on that situation. Just as I wouldn't with other wounded service members, because of that -- because of our policy in place.
Q: I believe on May 31, the Pentagon did come out and say there were two service members, one in Iraq and one in Syria, who were injured and I think you even gave a specific location -- (inaudible), north of Raqqah. And I'm not asking for a specific location or name. You know, were there American service members injured? Because in the past, you have acknowledged when they have been injured.
MR. COOK: And what -- and of course one of the things that we're concerned about here is not just operational security -- (inaudible), but also, we do not want to provide additional information to the enemy that might enhance their own assessment of the battlefield situation and their own impact.
Q: (inaudible) -- because on May 31, you did give out two numbers of Americans injured.
MR. COOK: I'm just spelling out right now our policy consistent with what it's been in the past with regard to wounded service members. We provide information with regard, of course, to casualties. But for a variety of reasons, we do not provide information on wounded service members and we're going to continue to stick to that, again, because we don't want to provide information to the enemy that might be helpful, we have privacy concerns that we want to address.
And again, we don't routinely release that information. There have been some exceptions in the past, but that is our -- our basic policy and I'm going to stick to that policy.
Cook insisted this was not a change. Idrees Ali and Leslie Adler (REUTERS) point out, "However, the Pentagon has released such information in the past and responded to queries, and it was unclear how Cook's comments were consistent with previous disclosures." At the conservative website HOT AIR, Jazz Shaw maintains:
It’s hard not to read something overtly political into this policy change, no matter how the Pentagon describes it. We’ve already seen the President standing by his policy of not mentioning Islamic terrorism and our own Attorney General has tried to keep mentions of ISIS out of transcripts of conversations with terrorists attacking at home. Any news about battlefield injuries in the war against this enemy clearly plays against the Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton’s election hopes in particular, so suppressing public discussion of such unpleasant realities has a clear political side to it.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Hejira"
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