George Stephanopolous is horrible for obvious reasons. Again, WHAT LEGAL BASIS ?
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the media seem to be avoiding a rather obvious question:
You might have noted a few, well, probing flights recently outlined by media of Russian incursions into U.S. and NATO qualified defense zone airspace. Yet interestingly no-one seems to be connecting the dots between the Russian pokes, and Obama’s proclaimed Syrian strategy. Remember, Russia is an ally the “state of” Syria, and Bashir Assad.
The U.S. State Department, and the U.S. White House team, have been very careful to note they will not be coordinating any offensive NI-ISIS engagements with Iran or Syria.
For all current intents and purposes the matter with Iran is a non-issue, however the matter with Syria is an entirely divergent situation altogether.
As far as we can tell there is no precedent for hostile U.S. action into the sovereign territory of another nation, even to target terror threats, without a specific agreement in hand before the action. (more…)
CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is feeling vindicated by the world’s alarm over Islamic extremism that is fueling wars and bloodshed across the Middle East.
The former army general has faced widespread international criticism for his ouster last year of Egypt’s first freely elected president and his ferocious crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 and imprisoned more than 20,000. A year later, after el-Sissi’s election as president, his critics fear he is leading his country into autocracy, with pro-democracy dissenters jailed or silenced.
But in an interview with The Associated Press — his first with the foreign media since he took office in June — el-Sissi insists all his actions were to combat militancy and save the country from civil war. He said Egypt is a model for fighting terrorism and that the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria should take note.
“More than a year ago, I warned that the region was heading to great danger from extremist thought,” he said. “It didn’t receive proper attention until the events in Iraq took place and the Islamic State swept over the Iraqi-Syrian borders.” (more…)
Shepard Smith was supposed to interview Josh Earnest today, but some guy who is still a journalist and looks remarkably like Shep Smith showed up and replaced him.
Watch this, and stay with it…. the last minute is well, pretty awesome.
Washington DC thinks we are stupid, they really do. The professional political class has yet to grasp the understanding that “WWW” as a prefix in the internet stands for “World Wide Web”. We are quite capable of connecting, collecting and digesting information directly from the heart of the issues being debated.
Despite all the DC pontifications, obfuscations, and professional talking points to the contrary, we know in Syria there are two options, support Bashir Assad or support radical Islamists, that’s it. There is no mysterious “moderate” third option; the “rebels” are radical islamists.
President Obama and Republican Senator John McCain are making the same argument in 2014 toward Syria they both made in 2011 toward Libya. 2014’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, is merely repeating the 2011 meme sold by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – the difference is within the audience.
In Libya 2011 there were two options, support Moamuar Kaddafi, or support radical Islamists under the nom de plume “rebels“. The White House supported the “rebels“, Kaddafi was killed, and as a consequence right now in Libya chaos reigns as the islamists, now collected under the banner “Libyan Dawn”, are destroying the country.
(more…)
It should be remembered that John McCain hired a known paid advocate for Syria, Elizabeth O’Bagy, as part of his staff after she was fired by The Institute For The Study of War for lying about her professional credentials. A year ago we wrote:
… So knowing she’s a liar, knowing that she’s in bed with the “rebels”, that she put out conflicting accounts, that she whitewashed the “rebels” into a more “moderate” force, this woman is worthy, according to John McCain, of being hired to his staff. This is so unbelievable, it makes one think that there is some greater personal underlying reason operating here….
As you review this article it’s wise to keep in mind that Elizabeth O’Bagy was the one who set up the John McCain visit to Syria.
(Via Breitbart) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his aides swear the Syrian “rebels” he was pictured last year with weren’t ISIS members or supporters, and the mainstream media is by and large buying the 2008 GOP presidential nominee’s story.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has endured brutal criticism—media fact checkers, reporters, and political figures have shredded him—for questioning just who McCain posed with.
But a closer look at the situation tells perhaps a different story than McCain’s office or the mainstream media have pushed. (more…)
(Wall Street Journal) The president hasn’t yet given the green light for an attack on Islamic State militants in Syria, but the U.S. military campaign against the group there is being designed to allow President Barack Obama to exert a high degree of personal control–going so far as to require that the military obtain presidential signoff for strikes.
The requirements for the strikes will be far more stringent than those targeting Islamic State in Iraq, at least at first. U.S. officials say it is an attempt to limit the threat the U.S. could be dragged more deeply into the Syrian civil war. (more…)
AUSTRALIA – POLICE say co-ordinated raids on homes across Brisbane’s south and in Sydney this morning were in response to threats of random attacks on members of the public, including the possible beheading of a random member of the public on a city street and mass shootings.
Fifteen people have been detained and one person charged with terrorism offences, following pre-dawn raids across Sydney and Brisbane, as part of a pre-emptive strike amid fears a suspected terror cell was close to launching an attack.
A Sydney court heard this afternoon that a man arrested during today’s raids was plotting a public execution on Sydney streets that was designed to horrify the community.
Omarjan Azari, 22, faced court on one count of committing an act in preparation or planning for a terrorist act.
Court documents show Azari is accused of conspiring with Mohammad Baryalei, who is known to have recruited Australians to fight with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, including wanted terrorists Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar. (more…)
WASHINGTON DC – The House voted Wednesday to grant President Obama authority to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels waging war against Islamic extremists.
!["NO ISLAM WITHOUT JIHAD" - members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year. They try to hide their presence. "Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags," said Abu Khuder. "They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?" But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even passers-by joke with the men about car bombs and IEDs.](https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/no-islam-without-jihad.jpg)
They try to hide their presence. “Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags,” said Abu Khuder. “They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?” But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even passers-by joke with the men about car bombs and IEDs.
The Syria language was considered as an amendment to a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1. (read more)
TURKEY– Turkey would welcome senior figures from Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood after they were asked to leave Qatar under pressure from other Gulf Arab states, Turkish media quoted President Tayyip Erdogan as saying late on Monday.
A senior Brotherhood official based in London said on Saturday that Qatar had asked seven senior figures from the movement to leave the country after its neighbors pressed it to stop backing the Islamists.
Senior Brotherhood figures would be welcome to come to Turkey if they wished to do so, Turkish television stations quoted Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane back from an official visit to Qatar on Monday.
Qatar and Turkey were the only regional countries to back the Brotherhood after Egypt’s army toppled Islamist President Mohammad Mursi last year following mass protests against him. (more…)