"France joins US against Islamic State over Iraq" by Jamey Keaten | Associated Press September 20, 2014
PARIS — France is back at America’s side in conducting military strikes in Iraq.
More than a decade after spurning President George W. Bush’s war against Saddam Hussein, France on Friday became the first country to join US forces pounding targets inside Iraq from the air in recent weeks — this time in pursuit of militants of the Islamic State group.
Flying from the United Arab Emirates, two French Rafale jets fired four laser-guided bombs to destroy a weapons and fuel depot outside the northern city of Mosul, part of the territory the militants have overrun in Iraq and neighboring Syria, officials said.
An Iraqi military spokesman said dozens of extremist fighters were killed in the strikes. A French military official said a damage assessment had not been completed, while showing reporters aerial images of targets hit. Officials said it was at a former military installation seized by the group.
One analyst said the French action was more symbolic than substantive — France’s military means in the region are limited — but it could give political cover for other allies to join in and show that the United States is not acting alone in a country still sown with deadly violence 11 years after Saddam’s ouster.
I'm just going to say I, myself, am sick of the symbolism of imagery and illusion. We call it propaganda now, and I've had more than a lifetime's worth already.
‘‘We are facing throat-cutters,’’ French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a meeting of the UN Security Council that was called to show support for Iraq’s government in battling the militants. ‘‘They rape, crucify, and decapitate. They use cruelty as a means of propaganda. Their aim is to erase borders and to eradicate the rule of law and civil society.’’
Gee, that last bit looks a lot like the Yinon plan for the Middle East.
For all his political and economic troubles at home, French President Francois Hollande has again shown that he will use force to fight Islamist militants to help a beleaguered government.
He really turned out to be a major disappointment, both politically and privately. What a scum.
Other such operations in Iraq would continue in coming days, Hollande said, ‘‘with the same goal — to weaken this terrorist organization and come to the aid of the Iraqi authorities.’’
‘‘In no case will there be French troops on the ground: This is only about planes that, in liaison with Iraqi authorities [and] in coordination with our allies, will allow for a weakening of the terrorist organization,’’ he said.
Then, like the U.S., they must already be there.
Hollande stressed that France’s actions were limited to supporting the Iraqi military or Kurdish peshmerga forces, and would not involve targets in Syria.
Not so long ago, coordinated French and US military strikes in Iraq might have been unthinkable. But feeding off sectarian strife in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State group has destabilized the region and become a lure for jihad-minded youths from France, elsewhere in Europe, and beyond.
Hollande says France is operating independently in Iraq, based on a request for airstrikes from Baghdad and in coordination with its allies. The US Central Command said Thursday the American military has conducted 176 airstrikes in Iraq since Aug. 8.
Broadly unpopular at home, Hollande has nonetheless drawn praise for a muscular foreign policy.
Praise from who? Certainly not the French people!
Iraq is the third country in which he has authorized firepower: French troops largely purged Al Qaeda-linked militants from Mali in 2011, and have sought to end sectarian violence in Central African Republic.
Yeah, the further occupation of Africa has not gone over well inn the age of French austerity, either.
In 2011, France and the United States, as well as Britain, did the heavy lifting in the NATO-led airstrikes in Libya. Last year, France was ready to join possible US military action against President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria, before President Obama stopped short.
But not now?
Btw, Obama was pulled back from the brink by Putin after Kerry's foot in mouth about chemical weapons. They think we forget what happened do these propagandists.
Related: US Says Syria Still Has Chemical Weapons
Absolutely incorrigible!
In recent weeks, French authorities have ruefully suggested that the US inaction fostered the rise of jihadists in the region.
Hell, THEY CREATED and TRAINED THEM!
On Monday, Hollande hosted Secretary of State John F. Kerry and top diplomats from more than two dozen countries that pledged to help Iraq fight the extremist group, which has drawn widespread condemnation for its brutality, including the beheadings of Western hostages.
More lies and propaganda. The videos are fakes, just like the lies about WMD and incubators.
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"John Kerry garners Arab support for expansion of ISIS battle" by Anne Gearan and Loveday Morris | Washington Post September 12, 2014
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia — US and Arab diplomats agreed Thursday to boost military and financial efforts against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, yet President Obama’s call to arms against the extremists received mixed reviews in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Related: Obama Announces Wider Invasion of Middle East
Oh, that got mixed reviews, huh?
Secretary of State John F. Kerry and diplomats from across the Middle East coordinated strategies to blunt the militants’ swift march in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State group has proclaimed a caliphate on a third of those nations’ territory, functionally erasing the border between the countries in some places.
I was told they have already been blunted on a number of fronts, but don't let that spoil the narrative pushing war forward.
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states agreed to expand military help, including opening more bases for airstrike launches and holding training programs for Syrian rebels fighting the Sunni militants, diplomats said Thursday.
Yeah, let's fund one group of terrorists against another. That will stabilize things.
The specifics of the effort, however, were not revealed.
‘‘This is a moment which is one of those rare opportunities in history where leaders making the right choices can actually bend the arc of history in the right direction,’’ Kerry said after a day of talks with officials from Persian Gulf nations, along with Iraqi, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Lebanese diplomats.
With all due respect, Hitler thought that way (or so I have been told by my ejewkhazion and ma$$ media).
‘‘We believe that we will beat back the evil of ISIL,’’ he said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State, which grew out of an Al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq.
The old divide-and-conquer strategy, 'eh?
Who are the terrorists again?
A statement issued by the participating nations said they agreed to ‘‘do their share in the comprehensive fight against ISIL.’’ The effort would include, ‘‘as appropriate, joining in the many aspects of a coordinated military campaign.’’
Maybe it would have helped if you all hadn't helped create them, huh?
The group also agreed to work toward stopping the flow of foreign fighters across some of their borders and counter financing of the group from abroad.
Meaning they are going to stop letting them and doing that?
The United States accuses Qatar and Kuwait, both participants in Thursday’s talks, of not doing enough to stop private donations from their citizens to the militants.
This $illy game these governments have going thinking we don't know. How disrespectful and delusional.
US officials have said that American training of Syrian rebels, a feature of the strategy Obama outlined in his prime-time address Wednesday, would take place in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is a linchpin of Obama’s strategy because of its wealth and well-equipped military and because of its role as the spiritual leader among Sunni Arab states.
The fast rise of the Islamic State has unnerved Saudi rulers, as well as the authoritarian Sunni governments in Jordan and Egypt, which fear that the militants could continue their march across other borders and inspire further Islamist insurrections.
The fact that they have not tells you something.
Folks, this is all such rubbish and garbage I guess it explains why you and I are both reading it for the first time here.
‘‘Now they have a much deeper appreciation of what ISIL could mean to them, and the Iraq transition [of leadership] has moved ahead reasonably successfully,’’ a senior State Department official said of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the additional commitments from Arab governments have not been disclosed.
Those same Sunni Arab governments were unwilling to commit major resources toward fighting the militants in Iraq when the country was led by Nouri al-Maliki, who left office this week after eight years as prime minister. Maliki was widely considered a Shi’ite partisan who systematically marginalized Iraq’s Sunni minority.
That was the point of funding the insurgency, to get Maliki out. Mission accomplished.
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"John Kerry opposes Iran’s inclusion in Iraq security talks" by Michael R. Gordon | New York Times September 13, 2014
He will always be known to me as the peddler of Iraq war lies.
ANKARA, Turkey — Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that “it would not be appropriate” for Iran to attend an international conference on the security crisis in Iraq that is to be held in Paris next week because of what he called the role that Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force is playing in the fighting in neighboring Syria.
Yeah, they only live next door and are still in U.S. sights despite the convoluted propaganda.
France is the host of the Monday meeting, which is to coordinate aid to the new Iraqi government for its fight against the Islamic State militant group. French officials have left open the possibility that Iran might attend.
But during a visit here to consult with Turkish officials on the international effort against the Islamic State, Kerry said that he opposed including Iran.
“Under the circumstances, at this moment in time, it would not be right for any number of reasons,” said Kerry, who noted that the French had not consulted with him on the question.
“Iran has been deeply involved with its forces on the ground in Syria,” Kerry said. He also called Iran a “state sponsor of terror in various places.”
It's reached the point where he is not worth wasting my time to comment.
In recent weeks, speculation has risen that the fight against the Islamic State might present an opportunity for the United States and Iran to make common cause against a mutual foe and, thus, improve relations. But such a prospect also has raised speculation that the Obama administration’s fight against the Islamic State might distract US officials from their effort to negotiate a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program.
Can't do both at the same time?
In his remarks, Kerry indicated that the administration had opted for a dual-track approach. The United States, he said, would continue to carry out what he called a “deep and serious conversation” with Iranian officials on a possible agreement that would lift economic sanctions in return for serious constraints on Iran’s nuclear program.
At the same time, Kerry has said, the United States does not plan to coordinate with Iran in the fight against the militant group in Iraq.
Or they want to keep it secret lest Israel's media machine get wind of it. They were not to happy about Obama going behind their back to get talks started in the first place.
And while the White House has authorized the deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, to discuss regional issues with Iranian officials on the margins of the nuclear talks, Kerry suggested that Iran needed to curtail its military activities in Syria before a fuller discussion of the situation in Iraq and Syria might be possible.
As the U.S. and its allies ramp up theirs!
(Blog editor shakes his head in incredulity)
“IRGC forces are on the ground,” Kerry said, using the acronym for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which the United States says is present in Syria.
“These are serious issues, and that’s why they need to be approached in a proper way,” Kerry said. “Not at a conference like this at this moment, but through a process which we are entirely prepared over a period of time to engage in.”
Kerry successfully opposed a United Nations move this year to invite Iran to a peace conference on Syria in Geneva. Western diplomats asserted at the time that if Iran were given a prominent role at that conference, the moderate Syrian opposition and some Sunni Arab states might not attend.
During his visit, Kerry pledged $500 million in new aid for Syrian refugees and civilians displaced within the country. The gift brings the total amount of US humanitarian assistance since the start of the conflict in March 2011 to nearly $3 billion.
This at a time when austerity is being imposed at home.
And they wonder why we hate them?
Kerry met here with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and other senior Turkish officials on his effort to mobilize a broad international coalition against the Islamic State.
The Islamic State is holding 49 Turkish government employees and members of their families in Iraq. And Turkey has been taking a low profile in the efforts to coordinate an international response to the Islamic State.
Yeah, turns out Turkey is not going along with any operations and is not allowing its territory to be used (at least publicly).
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"Kerry scours Mideast for aid in fight against Islamic State" by Michael R. Gordon and David D. Kirkpatrick | New York Times September 14, 2014
Gross.
CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry received broad assurances but no commitments from Egypt on Saturday as he continued his tour of the Middle East to try to assemble a coalition behind an American campaign against the extremist group known as the Islamic State.
What was the carbon footprint on that?
The Obama administration is keen to enlist material support from regional powers with Sunni Muslim majorities such as Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to avoid the impression that the United States is intervening in a sectarian war on behalf of the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi government against its opponents in the Sunni minority.
Too late.
Egypt is not expected to make an important military contribution. Rather, American officials want Cairo to use its clout as the traditional capital of Sunni Islam — and home to the Al Azhar center of Sunni scholarship — to mobilize public opinion in the Arab world against the Islamic State.
I thought Saudi was the, at least that is what I was told abo.... SIGH!!!!!!!!!!!
“As an intellectual and cultural capital of the Muslim world, Egypt has a critical role to play,” Kerry said.
Look at him suck up the criminal coup junta.
In Baghdad on Saturday, Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, took a small step toward alleviating the deep alienation that has made some in the Sunni Muslim minority receptive to the Islamic State.
Abadi said he had ordered the Iraqi security forces to stop shelling civilian communities under the control of the militants. Senior Iraqi officials have acknowledged in recent days that shelling by their armed forces has killed civilians in the course of the battle against the militants.
So have U.S. air strikes.
Together, the professions of good intentions in Baghdad and Cairo underscored the long and potentially lonely road ahead for the Obama administration as it attempts to roll back and dismantle the Islamic State.
Too bad they spent so much time and money creating them, 'eh?
There have been only token steps so far by Iraq’s government to win back the trust of the Sunni minority and only token commitments of support from regional allies such as Egypt and Turkey.
After meeting with Kerry in Cairo, Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, declared at a joint news conference that “Egypt believes it is very important for the world to come together to fight this extremism.”
But Egyptian officials declined to specify what help they would provide in the campaign against the Islamic State, and Shoukry made it clear that he also had in mind fighting Islamist militants at home and in neighboring Libya.
So every repressive government in the region will use this as an excuse to crack down on dissent.
Kerry has already visited Baghdad, Amman, Jordan, and Ankara, Turkey, and he attended an emergency meeting of regional governments in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, in his drive to mobilize support for a campaign against the Islamic State.
USrael's lead war broker. How pathetically disgusting and embarrassing.
Saudi Arabia has pledged to allow the training of Syrian rebel forces opposed to the Islamic State at bases in its territory, but no country in the region has offered concrete military support.
Meaning it is once again going to be almost all U.S. despite what our lying leaders say.
Egyptian state media and Islamist militants based in the Sinai Peninsula have both recently raised alarms that the Islamic State might be influencing Egyptian militant groups, too.
After the Islamic State made headlines around the world for beheading American hostages, militants in Sinai began carrying out beheadings as well, and Egyptian state media seized on the atrocities to underscore that the government’s fight to consolidate its authority at home was part of the same fight as the US battle with the Islamic State.
A senior State Department official traveling with Kerry said there were anecdotal accounts that volunteers who had fought with the Islamic State later provided tactical advice to the main Egyptian militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, while stopping in the Sinai Peninsula on their way back to their homes in Egypt and North Africa.
“They stop off and sort of lend their professional skills,” said the State Department official, who could not be identified under the agency’s rules for briefing reporters. “These terrorist groups are beginning to cooperate.”
Related: US-Backed Syrian Rebels Signed Pact with ISIS
What?
It's all about getting Assad and always was about that, wasn't it?
While in Cairo, Kerry met with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, Shoukry, and Nabil al-Araby, the secretary-general of the Arab League.
During a visit in July, Kerry sought to strengthen relations with Sissi by declaring that he was confident that the United States would soon restore military aid it had suspended after Egypt’s military ousted President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and waged a bloody crackdown on his Islamist supporters.
And restore it they did. To hell with democracy.
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"Arab nations offer to conduct airstrikes against the Islamic State" by Michael R. Gordon | Associated Press September 14, 2014
PARIS — Several Arab countries have offered to carry out airstrikes against militants from the Islamic State, senior State Department officials said Sunday.
The offer was disclosed by US officials traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is approaching the end of a weeklong trip that was intended to mobilize international support for the campaign against the group.
From what I heard he didn't get much even as the propaganda pre$$ furiously shines this turd.
***********
Kerry, who is in Paris to attend an international conference hosted by France on Monday on providing aid to the new Iraqi government, has already visited Baghdad; Amman, Jordan; Jidda, Saudi Arabia; Ankara, Turkey; and Cairo.
The carbon footprint must be huge!
During Kerry’s stop in Jidda on Thursday, 10 Arab countries joined the United States in issuing a communiqué that endorsed efforts to confront and ultimately “destroy” the Islamic State, including military action to which nations would contribute “as appropriate.”
Yeah, thanks for helping to staff and fund them, a$$holes.
U.S. officials said the communiqué should be interpreted as meaning that some, but not all, of the 10 Arab countries would play a role in the military effort.
The United States has a broad definition of what it would mean to contribute to the military campaign.
“Providing arms could be contributing to the military campaign,” said a second State Department official. “Any sort of training activity would be contributing to the military campaign.”
A statement is fine.
This is the same Potemkin coalition we saw in 2003.
Still, while the United States would clearly have the dominant role in an air campaign to roll back the Islamic State’s gains in Iraq, it is clear that other nations may also participate.
President François Hollande of France told Iraqi officials that his country would be willing to carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq, senior Iraqi officials said.
“We need aerial support from our allies,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq said during a joint news conference with Hollande on Friday. “The French president promised me today that France will participate in this effort, hitting the positions of the terrorists in Iraq.”
Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia has also said that his country will join the air campaign and is sending as many as eight FA-18 attack planes, as well as an early warning aircraft and a refueling plane.
The Australian aircraft will operate from the United Arab Emirates. Australia is also sending 200 troops, including commandos, to serve as advisers to Iraqi soldiers and the Kurdish peshmerga forces.
Those are called ground troops!
Related: SILLI Saturday: Australia's ISIS
The State Department officials, who asked not to be identified under the agency’s protocol for briefing reporters, did not say which Arab nations had offered to carry out airstrikes.
There are other ways Arab nations could participate in an air campaign against the Islamic State without dropping bombs, such as flying arms to Irbil in the Kurdistan region or Baghdad, conducting reconnaissance flights or providing logistical support and refueling.
The officials said the Arab offers were under discussion.
“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that these Arab members haven’t offered to do airstrikes, because several of them have,” the first State Department official said. “The Iraqis would have to be a major participant in that decision,” the official added. “It has to be well structured and organized.”
Too late.
Iraqi officials have already offered some thoughts about what the next step should be. In recent weeks, the United States has focused its airstrikes on the defense of Irbil, securing the Mosul Dam and protecting the Haditha Dam.
Airstrikes near dams? What if there is an oopsie?
But al-Abadi has asked the United States to take action on the Syrian side of the Iraqi-Syrian border to deprive the Islamic State of the safe havens it enjoys in that area. Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish autonomous region, made a similar request in telephone call with Kerry on Saturday night, State Department officials said.
We all know where this is headed, and I preemptively condemn it!
“The Iraqis have asked for assistance in the border regions, and that’s something we’re looking at,” the first State Department official said.
Iraqi officials have long experience working with the United States military and had appealed for U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq months before the Obama administration decided to conduct them.
Yeah, and the appeals were denied because ISIS was being used to force out Maliki.
But the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government has no experience in working with militaries from Sunni states in the Persian Gulf.
That is where the print ended.
Arab nations have the capability to conduct air operations. Saudi Arabian planes participated in the American-led coalition that evicted Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991.
23 years and counting regarding war on Iraq.
And the United Arab Emirates sent F-16s and Mirage fighters to join the 2011 international military intervention in Libya that eventually led to the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.
I've been told they are the mystery bombers in the drone war on Libya, I thought it was the U.S., but it looks now like it was Israel.
Last month, the United Arab Emirates carried out airstrikes against Islamist allied militias in Libya, operating out of bases in Egypt. The Obama administration was not consulted in advance of that operation, U.S. officials have acknowledged.
Whatever.
While indicating a willingness to carry out airstrikes inside Iraq, France appears to have reservations about bombing targets inside Syria. But some Arab states appear to have no such inhibitions.
“Some have indicated for quite a while to do them elsewhere,” the first State Department official said. “But, again, we’ve got to sort through all that, because you can’t just go and bomb something.”
Since when?
Iraq has a small air force and a limited capacity to deliver accurate airstrikes. The civilian casualties from some Iraqi attacks have been exploited by the Islamic State to try to mobilize popular support against the Iraqi government.
Good thing my government or its propaganda pre$$ never exploit anything.
On Saturday, al-Abadi sought to reassure Sunnis that Iraqi forces would not risk civilian casualties by using artillery or conducting airstrikes against Islamic State targets in heavily populated areas.
“They have a very new air force,” a third State Department official said, referring to the Iraqi military. “Their targeting is not nearly as precise as ours, and they have made some real mistakes.”
Much of the air campaign is intended to support Iraqi armed forces that are still in the process of being reconstituted and new Iraqi National Guard units, which will include Sunni tribal fighters but which still need to be established. A Pentagon program to train and equip the moderate Syrian resistance also has yet to be carried out.
We already did that once.
The time-consuming mission to train these ground forces is essential because they are needed to control territory after Islamic State fighters are pushed out, and the Obama administration has ruled out sending U.S. ground troops.
Already there, just calling them advisers.
But it will slow the pace of the campaign to contain, degrade and eventually destroy the group, a process that officials said last week could take three years.
Then it is a RE-INVASION!
“This is not the ’91 gulf war,” the first State Department official said Sunday. “It’s just a different type of campaign.”
Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide bases for training moderate Syrian rebels. U.S. officials say there have been similar efforts by other Arab countries, but declined to identify them.
Al-Nusra, the Al-CIA-Duh affiliate, are now the moderates.
Iraq’s foreign minister announced Sunday that the new Iraqi government had received a political lift when Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, promised that his country would open an embassy in Baghdad. But no date for opening an embassy was given and the announcement noted that “security issues” would first need to be resolved.
But in a setback for the effort to portray the campaign as a partnership with Muslim-majority states rather than a Western intervention, an influential Muslim scholar on Sunday declared his opposition to the American action even though he said he was also against the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.
“I disagree completely with ISIS in thought and means, but I do not accept that America fights them,” said the scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, leader of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, in a Twitter message reported around the region. The United States, he said, “is not moved by Islamic values but by its own interests, even if it spills blood.”
Everyone sees it!
Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born cleric based in Doha, Qatar, who is a popular television preacher and close to the Muslim Brotherhood, has been a vocal opponent of the Islamic State for months. In July, his scholars’ union declared the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate “null and void,” arguing that its extremism stigmatized more mainstream Islamists and undermined broader Sunni opposition movements in Syria and Iraq.
Maybe that is why western intelligence created ISIS. Gives all Muslims a bad name.
Now his criticism of the American role may increase the fears of a backlash against Arab governments that publicly join the campaign.
There was going to be that any. The people of those governments oppose all of this.
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"Arab nations offer military role in Mideast; Several countries suggest airstrikes; Say Iraqis must approve missions" by David E. Sanger, Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt | New York Times September 15, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday that several Arab nations had offered to join in airstrikes against the Islamic State, but any sustained military campaign does not appear imminent, and may require an even more significant commitment from other nations and fighting forces in the region.
In interviews and public statements, administration and military officials described a battle plan that would not accelerate in earnest until disparate groups of Iraqi forces, Kurds, and Syrian rebels stepped up to provide the fighting forces on the ground. Equipping, training, and coordinating that effort is a lengthy process, officials cautioned.
Another LONG WAR!!
US officials have made it clear they do not want the airstrikes to get ahead of the ground action against the Islamic State, which they said would take time to mass.
“This isn’t going to be ‘shock and awe’ with hundreds of airstrikes,” one official said, referring to the initial attack on Baghdad at the opening of the Iraq war in March 2003. “We don’t want this to look like an American war.”
Already does, and there have been hundreds of airstrikes already.
Iraqi and Kurdish officials are pressing their view of what the next step should be, even as the United States already has carried out more than 150 airstrikes since President Obama announced the campaign to destroy the Islamic State on Sept. 10. Specifically, senior Iraqi and Kurdish officials asked the United States as recently as this weekend to take action along the Iraqi-Syrian border to deprive the Islamic State of the safe havens it enjoys in that area.
“The Iraqis have asked for assistance in the border regions, and that’s something we’re looking at,” one State Department official said.
The description of a calibrated military buildup by coalition forces, combined with a steady effort led by the Treasury Department to choke off the Islamic State’s ability to reap $1 million or more a day from oil sales, has emerged as the administration has tried to define what Obama meant when he said the US goal is to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Sunni extremist group.
Who is buying their oil, and why are they not under sanction?
I mean, THIS IS RIDICULOUS! The western powers are LETTING THE TERRORISTS SELL the OIL!
The president’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, provided the most current definition of White House thinking Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Using an abbreviation for another translation of the Islamic State, he said that “success looks like an ISIL that no longer threatens our friends in the region, no longer threatens the United States, an ISIL that can’t accumulate followers or threaten Muslims in Syria, Iraq or otherwise.”
I'm so happy I no longer watch such rubbish.
That definition falls short of the classic understanding of what it means to destroy an opposing force. But the administration is betting that it has tailored the goals to appeal to the oftentimes reluctant partners it is trying to assemble, many of whom are deeply suspicious of one another.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, speaking from Paris, declined to say which states had offered to contribute air power, an announcement White House officials said could await his return to testify in Congress early this week.
State Department officials, who asked not to be identified under the agency’s protocol for briefing reporters, said there are other ways Arab nations could participate in an air campaign without dropping bombs, such as flying arms to Iraqi or Kurdish forces, conducting reconnaissance flights or providing logistical support and refueling.
“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that these Arab members haven’t offered to do airstrikes because several of them have,” said one State Department official. “The Iraqis would have to be a major participant in that decision,” the official added. “It has to be well structured and organized.”
The United Arab Emirates, which provided some air power in the 2011 attacks on Libya, seemed at the top of the list, with Qatar hosting a US military headquarters. US officials cautioned that all strikes would have to be approved by the newly assembled government in Iraq, as well as by US military planners.
After Maliki was removed! It's a puppet government!
That could prove just one challenge to the offer by Arab nations to participate in airstrikes: While Iraq’s struggling military forces have experience operating with the United States, its Shi’ite-dominated government has never worked with the Sunni states of the Gulf.
The United States has identified Islamic State targets in Iraq during the past several weeks. But officials said they were waiting, in part, to match the allied commitments with actual contributions: warplanes, support aircraft that can refuel or provide intelligence, more basing agreements to carry out strikes, and the insertion of trainers from other Western countries.
There are no plans, as of now, to increase the number of US attack planes in the region. Nor are there any plans to increase American ground-based strike aircraft at facilities around the region, in hopes that Persian Gulf and European allies would make up the difference.
Whatever, Mike.
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"Kerry vows better treatment for families of hostages" by Martin Finucane | Globe Staff September 17, 2014
US Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday that the government will seek to work better with families of people held hostage by Islamic State militants, responding to concerns raised by the family of executed journalist James Foley.
“We’ve got to make sure that people feel better about the process. I can assure you — the president on down — everybody feels that sensitivity,” Kerry said at a congressional hearing, responding to a question by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who represents Foley’s home state of New Hampshire.
Foley’s family and their advisers said in a New York Times story on Monday that, after militants demanded ransom for Foley, the US government was sympathetic but offered little active support. That left the family feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what they should do, the Times reported.
Shaheen told Kerry that she hoped that this administration and future ones would “seriously reassess what can better be done to assist families” dealing with such crises.
Foley, 40, was the first of three hostages, two Americans and one Briton, who have been beheaded by the Islamic State militant group.
Related: The CIA's GlobalPost Assets
The videos are all fake, folks.
Kerry said he had worked personally on the effort to free Foley. He said “everybody here just shuddered at what [Foley’s family] had to go through.”
He also recalled the failed rescue mission that was launched to free Foley and other hostages. “I sat in the White House, in the Situation Room, and watched that entire mission unfold and was amazed by the capacity of our military people to do what they did,” he said.
Carter-like incompetence.
“The intelligence was correct to every degree. They went to the right place. They did things correctly. It just was empty. They’d moved them,” he said.
Then the intelligence wasn't correct for the staged and scripted farce (if it ever happened at all).
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Related: James Wright Foley Beheading HOAX Parents = CRISIS ACTORS
Maybe Kerry's brother could do a better job.
"US comes to aid of Iraqi forces with airstrike" by Michael R. Gordon and Thomas Erdbrink | New York Times September 16, 2014
PARIS — As the United States opened a new phase of its air campaign against the Islamic State fighters in Iraq, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the Obama administration would keep the door open to confidential communications with Iran on the security crisis.
I thought so.
The US Central Command said it took the first step in its expanded fight against Islamic State militants, conducting an airstrike in defense of Iraqi security forces southwest of Baghdad who were being attacked by enemy fighters, the Associated Press reported.
I was told this whole effort was going to be limited.
Central Command said Iraqi forces requested assistance Monday. The strike represents the newly broadened mission authorized by President Obama to go on the offensive against the Islamic State group wherever it is.
Previous US airstrikes in Iraq were conducted to protect US interests and personnel, assist Iraqi refugees, and secure critical infrastructure. Monday’s strike was in direct support of Iraqi forces fighting the militants.
There was also an airstrike Sunday near Sinjar in northern Iraq that destroyed six vehicles belonging to the militants but it was not part of Obama’s expanded mission, AP reported.
So it was a mistake or accident?
Pffft!
Kerry spoke at a summit in Paris where more than two dozen nations pledged to stop the advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The effort is expected to include intensifying airstrikes, cutting off financing to the radical group, and helping Baghdad with military and humanitarian aid.
As the conference began, two French jets took off over Iraq. It was France’s first reconnaissance missions over the country, and a sign of the larger battle ahead.
Kerry’s comments came despite sarcastic criticism from Iran’s supreme leader, who said the American plan for bombing Islamic militants, their common enemy, was absurd.
Related: Iran Leader a Prick
Kerry acknowledged that the United States had opposed a role for Iran at the international conference here on strengthening a coalition to help the new government in Baghdad fight the Islamic State.
France and Iraq believe the Shi’ite leadership of Iran could bring its influence to bear against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State, but Saudi Arabia and other Arab states disagree.
Both King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and top officials from the United Arab Emirates had informed the United States that they would not attend the meeting here if Iran was present, said Kerry, who also stressed that the United States would not coordinate militarily with the Iranians.
But Kerry also said US officials were still prepared to talk to Iranian officials about Iraq and Syria, including on the margins of the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, which will resume in New York on Thursday.
Just because Iranians were not invited to the Paris conference, Kerry said, “doesn’t mean that we are opposed to the idea of communicating to find out if they will come on board or under what circumstances or whether there is the possibility of a change.”
Kerry said that “having a channel of communication on one of the biggest issues in the world today is common sense.”
Still, Kerry acknowledged that attempts made by Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns to draw the Iranians into a discussion of regional issues on the margins of earlier talks had not been productive.
In Tehran, officials told local reporters Monday they had rejected multiple invitations by the United States to join the coalition. Never, they asserted, would Iran consider working with the United States to cleanse the region of terrorists, who the Iranians asserted had been created and nurtured by the West.
The Iranians are correct.
The country’s highest leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicated that no matter who had invited whom, Iran would sit with arms crossed and watch as the coalition tries to bomb the Islamic State away.
On Monday, as Khamenei was discharged from the hospital after a prostate operation, he said he had enjoyed his time as a patient, since he had “a hobby,” which was “listening to Americans making statements on combating ISIS — it was really amusing,” a statement posted on his personal website read, using one of the acronyms for Islamic State.
“Of course,” he said, such statements are “absurd, hollow, and biased.”
Khamenei, who has long argued that the United States and other Western countries have had a hand in the creation and swift expansion of the Islamic State, gave details on what he said were several instances of outreach by US officials, asking Iran to participate.
Although some Iranian officials wanted to consider the offer, Khamenei vetoed it.
The real goal of the US-led coalition is to be able to bomb Iraq, and Iran’s main regional ally, Syria, with impunity, Khamenei said, revealing increasing worries of a US drone army hovering over the region.
Why would he worry about that, and how did this all turn into a discussion about Iran?!!
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, declined a request by Kerry, the ayatollah said.
Ideologically, any form of partnership with Iran’s old enemy is hard to stomach for Khamenei and his supporters. Analysts say Iran’s leaders simply cannot participate in an umbrella group in which the United States plays a decisive role.
Whatever you say, NYT. I'm sure it is not duplicitous U.S. policy or anything.
Iran also fears that the coalition will ultimately further undermine its regional ally President Bashar Assad of Syria, who has been receiving extensive financial and military support from the Iranians.
Why would they think that after the covert coup attempt the last three years?
Of course, it is the plan after all. ISIS in Iraq the backdoor to Syria.
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Back to Iraq:
"Iraq PM orders halt to shelling of civilian areas" by Sameer N. Yacoub | Associated Press September 14, 2014
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday he has ordered the army to stop shelling populated areas held by militants in order to spare the lives of ‘‘innocent victims’’ as the armed forces struggle to retake cities and towns seized by the Islamic State extremist group this summer.
‘‘I issued this order two days ago because we do not want to see more innocent victims falling in the places and provinces controlled by Daesh,’’ Haider al-Abadi said at a press conference in Baghdad, referring to the Islamic State group by its Arabic acronym.
He accused the militants of using civilians as a human shield to stop the advance of Iraqi security forces. But he vowed to continue military operations against the Qaeda breakaway group, which seized large territories in the north and west in an unprecedented June offensive.
‘‘We will continue to chase them and we know that they are hiding behind the civilians,’’ he added.
The United Nations envoy to Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, who was present at the conference, welcomed Abadi’s commitment to protect civilians.
The army has acknowledged killing some civilians in its campaign against the Islamic State. Its tactics have fueled anger among the country’s Sunni minority, leading many to welcome the insurgents as liberators when they swept into Sunni-majority areas earlier this year.
I feel like I have read all this before (because I have).
The Shi’ite-led government is under mounting pressure from the international community to reach out to both Sunnis and Kurds in order to form a united front against the militant onslaught.
Also Saturday, the US military said that it had conducted two airstrikes Friday against Islamic State militants near the Mosul dam.
US Central Command said the strikes destroyed a mortar emplacement and an armed vehicle and brought the total number of strikes to 160 across Iraq since the military campaign began.
The Islamic State’s brutal sweep through northern Iraq has left many towns almost uninhabited, with thousands of residents afraid to return even after the militants have been forced out.
What happened to being greater as liberators?
In the northern town of Gwer, misspelled graffiti on walls pockmarked by bullets and torn up propaganda stickers make up the few remaining traces of the militant group after Kurdish forces finally managed to free it from militant control.
Also missing are as many as 20,000 residents who once lived in the town and are now too scared to return after Kurdish peshmerga forces reclaimed Gwer from militants last month with the help of American airstrikes.
All that’s left are empty buildings with the phrase ‘‘Islamic State’’ painted on walls. In many instances it is misspelled to read ‘‘Salam State’’ — or state of peace — a sign that many of the militants holding the town were probably foreign fighters. Torn-up stickers with the group’s black flag logo litter the streets.
CIA-created and funded with help from Arab allies.
Much of the graffiti has since been painted over with ‘‘long live Kurdistan.’’
The fear and anxiety that Gwer’s liberation will be short-lived have prompted many to stay away.
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I've said it before, I will say it again. The mercenary army known as ISIS that gives the EUSraeli empire excuse to occupy is everywhere yet nowhere.
I've said it before, I will say it again. The mercenary army known as ISIS that gives the EUSraeli empire excuse to occupy is everywhere yet nowhere.
"Bomb attacks kill at least 31 people in Iraq" by Sameer N. Yacoub | Associated Press September 20, 2014
BAGHDAD — A series of vehicle bombings in Iraq killed at least 31 people Friday, officials said, in the second straight day of attacks in Baghdad blamed on militants who have seized large swaths of the country.
A parked explosives-packed car detonated shortly before midday prayers near the Al Mubarak mosque in the Iraqi capital’s mostly Shi’ite central district of Karradah, killing nine people and wounding 18 others, police said.
Cars later exploded in two outdoor markets, one in the Shi’ite suburb of Nahrawan and the other in the Shi’ite district of Bayaa. Those attacks together killed nine people and wounded 23, according to police. Just south of Baghdad, yet another car bomb went off in a parking lot in the town of Mahmoudiyah, killing three and wounding 10, police said.
Medical officials confirmed the casualty tolls. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
While most of the attacks occurred in the Iraqi capital, the day’s deadliest occurred in the northern city of Kirkuk, when a motorcycle bomb went off near a gun shop, killing 10 people and wounding 14, said provincial police chief Brigadier General Jamal Tahir Bakir.
The attacks on Friday came a day after a series of deadly attacks in mainly Shi’ite areas in and around Baghdad that left dozens dead.
The coordinated nature and style of the attacks strongly suggested they were the work of the Islamic State extremist group. It considers Shi’ites heretics and has captured large chunks of territory in western and northern Iraq, plunging the country into its worst crisis since US troops left at the end of 2011.
Message received loud and clear: we should never leave anywhere.
US warplanes have been carrying out airstrikes against the group as Iraqi and Kurdish security forces work to retake territory it has seized.
Meanwhile, the Sunni militant group said it has set up a police force for law and order in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which it seized in June. Iraqi security forces effectively collapsed as the extremists advanced and took the city and other towns earlier this year.
‘‘The Islamic State has restored the Islamic police system and has assigned hundreds of mujahedeen to protect the Muslims and their properties,’’ the group said in a statement issued Friday.
As they carry out a brutal rule. This stuff is really reaching the point of absurdity.
The authenticity of the statement could not be verified.
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Meanwhile, back in France:
"French prime minister wins confidence vote" by Elaine Ganley | Associated Press September 17, 2014
PARIS — Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France won a vote of confidence Tuesday in a tense ballot, allowing him to push through economic reforms that have divided his Socialist Party.
So from elections to legislative votes the whole damn $y$tem is rigged in favor certain $elect intere$ts.
The government’s once comfortable margin was diluted in the 269 to 244 vote, with 53 abstentions. The result denies the government its absolute majority, but allows Valls to carry out reforms aimed at lifting France out of its economic crisis.
Using the same old banker-driven austerity measures that have failed.
President Francois Hollande’s popularity has plunged over failure to cure the nation’s high unemployment rate, zero growth, and an oversized deficit. He had promised to create jobs for the French when he took office in 2012 after defeating the conservative incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Related: Sarkozy Says He Will Seek French Party Leadership
He's a crook, but aren't they all?
In a speech laying out government policy before the vote, Valls addressed Socialist dissenters who feel he has abandoned his leftist ideals in favor of big business and is resorting to financial austerity measures....
How do you say betrayal in French?
The vote came amid a series of political disasters for Hollande, whose popularity rating was confirmed this week at 13 percent, an all-time low for a French president.
So basically a $mall $lice of French $ociety is benefiting from the $ociali$t's term.
The number is astounding and speaks of utter failure by the French president.... but at least he is strong when it comes to the Zionist Neo-Con war agenda around the globe.
One really has to wonder what horrible dirt the information-collecting horde has on Hollande to make him betray his entire existence.
Hollande was lately bashed in a book by his former companion and a newly-appointed Socialist minister lasted but nine days on the job after revelations he had not been paying taxes and other bills on time.
I couldn't finish the book and need to ferry this post to a finish.
‘‘Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, your days are numbered,’’ said the chief of the conservative opposition, Christian Jacob, in response to Valls’s speech. ‘‘Without a clear majority and with a discredited president,’’ he said, Valls does not have the means to reform.
We have one over here, too.
Valls hopes his reforms will help cure a litany of ills afflicting the world’s number five economic power.
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Also see: Rise in extremists recruiting French women, girls
Good thing they banned the veil.
Man accused of Islamic State membership on trial in Germany
Just doing their part to support the narrative.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"New plan offered in Iran stalemate
With Iran refusing US demands that it gut its uranium enrichment program, the two sides are discussing a new proposal that would leave much of Tehran’s enriching machines in place but disconnected from feeds of uranium, diplomats said Saturday. The talks have been stalled for months (AP)."
Why do they have to gut their entirely legal and above-board program?
Talk about being a tool for the Jewish State.
"Pilots to extend strike at Air France
PARIS — Nearly a week after beginning a strike to protest Air France-KLM’s new European strategy, the airline’s French pilots voted Saturday to extend their walkout until at least Friday and asked to meet with France’s prime minister to make their case against the plan to shift much of its European operation to a low-cost subsidiary. As a consequence of the extended strike Air France said it expected to cancel 62 percent of its flights worldwide Monday (New York Times)."
First I've seen of it, although I will go back and check my Globes!
France does have planes to fly and bomb in Iraq, though!
