Posted tagged ‘Islamic State’

Leftist and Islamic Policymakers Outlaw the Truth

July 4, 2015

Leftist and Islamic Policymakers Outlaw the Truth, American ThinkerSonia Bailley, July 4, 2015

No need to worry, the recent Ramadan triple slaughter fest in Tunisia, France and Kuwait has nothing to do with Islam.  There is no linkage between Islam and terrorism, and the word Islamic need not be used to describe the terrorists because their murderous and barbaric ideology has nothing to do with Islam.  Islam is, after all, a religion of peace that is being hijacked, perverted and distorted by only a small percentage of savage extremists.  

Welcome to the false narrative that Western leaders, mainstream media outlets, and academic elites are enforcing on civil society to help shape the public’s perception of Islam so that it is always presented in a positive light.  Any form of expression that reflects badly on Islam is in violation of Islamic law, which forbids any criticism of Islam, even what that criticism expresses the truth.  Stories that are reported according to this narrative need not have anything to do with factual accuracy or truth.  Both the 2009 Fort Hood massacre in Texas and the beheading in Vaughan Foods in Oklahoma last September were reported as workplace violence and not Islamic terrorism.

With the aid of leftist and Islamic policymakers shaping the course of international relations and security policies, that false narrative is finding its way into international policy to destroy the West’s hard-won, cherished core values.  Realities and facts that might tarnish Islam’s name are deemed hate speech and becoming lost through censorship. The 57-state Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which is the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization that happens to be rooted in communism, and the 57-state Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is the most influential and largest Muslim organization in the world pushing to criminalize any criticism of Islam, are two such policymakers who are influencing world leaders and the news media.

Most Western world leaders are bleating the same empty platitudes about the recent Ramadan terrorist attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait, carefully avoiding the word “Islam.”  UK Prime Minister David Cameron explained to the media that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the terrorists who “do these things…do it in the name of a twisted and perverted ideology.” When asked if it’s right to say that the recent Ramadan attacks have nothing to do with Islam, UK Home Secretary Theresa May responded to BBC’s Andrew Marr in the positive, “that it has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion,” and that the terror attacks are “about a perversion of Islam.”

Instead of issuing travel warnings not to vacation in Islamic countries especially during Ramadan, the Islamic “sacred” month of feasting — a month rife with bloodshed and battle since Islam’s inception, when armed raids on Meccan trade caravans and bloody battles were waged by Mohammed and his followers (including the 1973 Yom Kippur War on the 10th of Ramadan), not to mention the ISIS Ramadan message that jihad is 10 times more obligatory during Ramadan, and that those who die will be rewarded by Allah ten times more than during the rest of the year — Western leaders like Cameron continue to nourish the official politically correct narrative of Islam being a religion of peace not linked to terrorism.

The twisted and perverted ideology to which both Cameron and May refer, pervades pages and pages of the Koran and other Islamic doctrine, inspiring jihadists and religious Muslims to “do these things,” including operating child sex slave grooming gangs throughout Europe, especially in the UK, to rape, pimp, torture and sometimes kill non-Muslim underage schoolgirls.  The Koran itself contains over 100 verses  promoting violence against non-Muslims who, to this very day, remain victims of the verse.

What lies at the heart of Islam is an antipathy towards non-Muslims, as well as a deeply-entrenched duty and commandment from Allah to wage Jihad and eventually subjugate non-Muslims worldwide to Islamic rule in the name of Allah.  Massive street prayer is one form of subjugation conducted only to intimidate and Islamize Western society, to remind non-Muslims who’s really in control. Similarly, forcing non-Muslims in their own countries, in the UK for example, to eat halal slaughtered meat — an utterly inhumane and barbaric Islamic practice, not to mention a multi-billion dollar industry controlled by Muslim Brotherhood organizations that fund jihad worldwide — when only a mere 5% of the UK population is Muslim, and when the Koran specifically exempts its followers from eating halal if it’s not available, is another way to subjugate non-Muslims.

People are becoming sitting duck targets for Islamic terrorists in Western countries and abroad because of the little-known but powerful world policymakers like the OSCE and OIC who influence world leaders to kowtow to Islamic interests.  Western leaders fail to convey an accurate picture and understanding of what is really going on in the world because it might reflect badly on Islam, and they don’t want to appear “Islamophobic” for fear of more terrorist attacks.  By failing to report the truth, they are denying citizens the opportunity to take appropriate action that could save their lives when faced with something that could be considered a threat, such as a beach vacation in an Islamic country over Ramadan.

The dead European tourists in Tunisia might still be here today had there been an undistorted flow of information to warn them that warfare and killing in the name of Islam are encouraged during the month of Ramadan.  Furthermore, people might choose to avoid Islamic countries at all times if they were aware that these countries rely upon the most non-liberal draconian and barbaric Islamic or sharia-based corporal punishments imaginable.

The anti-blasphemy narrative pushed by the highly influential but little-known OIC, ehich speaks on behalf of over 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, not only silences any expression considered to be offensive and insulting to Islam, but punishes the offenders, as Mohammed did to his dissenters and insulters.  They were either condemned to hell or killed.  Because Muslims consider Mohammed as the ideal model for mankind to follow, many Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, have also made blasphemy subject to the death penalty with their anti-blasphemy laws.

It is this anti-blasphemy law that the OIC is striving to legally enforce on the world in order to curtail speech and expression when it comes to Islam — not so much for religious compliance as for the global subjugation of non-Muslims to Islam.  Since 2005, the OIC has been pushing relentlessly for a UN blasphemy resolution (Resolution 16/18 passed in 2011) to silence so-called Islamophobia — a term deliberately coined and marketed in the 1990s by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, one of the thousands of Muslim Brotherhood front groups worldwide, to drive public discourse and policy.  However, the OIC’s top priority is to globally criminalize any criticism of Islam, and is working with the Muslim Brotherhood to accomplish this. Ten years later, in 2015, telling the truth about Islam has become a crime in some European countries.

The highly influential yet little-known OSCE that is rooted in communism, is supposed to protect and promote civil liberties.  Instead, it is negotiating them away by capitulating to the OIC narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated goal from the 1990s is to destroy Western civilization from within.  Its goal of global domination is to be accomplished not through violence, at least not yet, but rather through the slow infiltration of Western government, military, judicial and academic institutions.

So far, there has been practically no opposition from  any Western administration in power, only cooperation from world leaders, government officials, and leftist policymakers.  In fact, the cooperation from Western leaders with OSCE and OIC policymakers has been so great, that the U.S. co-sponsored Resolution 16/18 with Pakistan, and helped usher it through in 2011, despite this resolution being a direct assault on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

At an OSCE May session in Vienna (on how the media can help prevent violent radicalization that leads to terrorism), OSCE panelist Leila Ghandi, producer and TV show host on the most popular Moroccan TV channel (2MTV) that is over 60% government-owned, maintained that the truth or facts about “a community” can sometimes constitute hate speech when those facts are offensive and therefore should not be said.  The panelist’s words echo those of the new OIC Secretary General, Iyad Amin Madani, who tweeted earlier this year following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris, that “freedom of speech must not become a hate speech and must not offend others.”  In other words, truth about Islam is designated as hate speech.

Furthermore, OSCE panelist Victor Khroul, correspondent for Rossiya Segodnya, a Russian state-owned international news agency, questions why the mainstream media throughout the world still refer to the “self-proclaimed self-established state in the Middle East” as the Islamic State. His words echo those of Madani, who proclaimed last year that the Islamic State has no connection with Islam.  Khroul claims it’s a mistake for these people to be called Muslim and their state Islamic, which only “confuses the audience with this correlation with Islam.”  He maintains that it’s still possible “to find other words to describe this so-called state and its activity,” discounting the facts that Islamic State is what ISIS named itself and its state, and that ISIS clearly credits its motivation to Islam and its acts to Allah. The name Islamic State does not have to be rectified because it accurately reflects reality, defines the organization in question, and is therefore a correct term that would sit well in the world of Confucius and his doctrine on rectifying names.

Major Stephen Coughlin, an attorney, former U.S. Army intelligence officer, and the Pentagon’s leading expert on Islamic law and jihad (until he was dismissed in 2008 for linking Islam with terrorism with his Red Pill Briefings), stresses the urgency of defining the enemy as he defines himself:  “you cannot target what you will not define…if I can’t use the concepts of Jihad that Al-Qaeda say they rely on, then I can’t understand what they are going to do.”

Author of Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad, Coughlin attended the OSCE May session and responded to the OSCE jargon as follows:

“Once you decide that facts on the ground as they present themselves, can be considered hate speech, this is no longer about truth…you are subordinating facts that the public has a right to know when they formulate their decisions, and replacing them with narratives to keep them from coming to the understanding of events that can be articulated and verified.  That can never be considered hate speech. We’re not talking about speech at all. We’re talking about brazen disinformation.”

Rather than disseminate vital information to the public that can save lives, Western world leaders are betraying their citizens by submitting to the OSCE and OIC narrative of outlawing any criticism of Islam and rendering truth illegal.  Reassuring citizens that Islam is a religion of peace merely renders them incapacitated from exercising sound judgment, crippling their ability to make the right decision in the face of potential harm.

While global institutions and national security policies are being shaped, and compromised, by highly influential but ill-known world organizations such as the OSCE and OIC, it’s critical that citizens get to know who those policymakers really are, and become more engaged in public affairs and the political process in order to arrest the Islamization process of the West…before it’s too late to reverse.

 

Researcher: ISIS Could Exist Without Islam Because There Is Christianity & Judaism

July 3, 2015

Researcher: ISIS Could Exist Without Islam Because There Is Christianity & Judaism, Truth RevoltTrey Sanchez, July 3, 2015

isis-fighters

“Dalia Mogahed may be the most influential person guiding the Obama Administration’s Middle East outreach.” For years she has been a frequent spokesperson in league with the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America: CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MAS, and MPAC.

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Dala Mogahed, a research director for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, said that ISIS could exist without Islam because extremist groups simply use “the local social currency” to carry out their terror and that could just as easily be Christianity or Judaism.

Mogahed is not merely some policy wonk for an obscure institute. As Hudson Institute fellow Lee Smith, author of The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab, put it: “Dalia Mogahed may be the most influential person guiding the Obama Administration’s Middle East outreach.” For years she has been a frequent spokesperson in league with the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America: CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MAS, and MPAC. Check out her extensive profile here at the Freedom Center’s Discover the Networks resources site.

Speaking at a global terrorism forum at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Mogahed said, “[A] world without Islam would still have a group like ISIS — they would just be called something else that may be less catchy.” She added, “That is sometimes Christianity. That is sometimes Judaism. That is sometimes Buddhism. And it is sometimes secular ideologies.”

As The Atlantic points out, Mogahed is suggesting that the Qur’an is not the driving force behind ISIS’s violence but simply their desire for violence to begin with. “We start at the violence we want to conduct, and we convince ourselves that this is the correct way to interpret the texts,” Mogahed said.

Or she could just read from the Muslim holy book:

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.” — Qur’an (8:12)

ISIS’ Sinai Attacks Show Real Threat to Hamas

July 3, 2015

ISIS’ Sinai Attacks Show Real Threat to Hamas, The Clarion ProjectRyan Mauro, July 3, 2015

Hamas-640Hamas fighters (Photo: Video screenshot)

Should a full-blown war between Hamas and ISIS break out that makes Gaza look like Syria, the West mustn’t embrace Hamas as the better alternative. The minute differences between them should not be exaggerated out of a desire for a side to pick. They are the two manifestations of the same enemy.

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The attacks on Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula by the Islamic State (ISIS) this week shows why its new vow to topple Hamas in the Gaza Strip should be taken seriously. Polls show that Palestinians have the highest level of sympathy for ISIS in the Arab world with the possible exception of Syria.

ISIS has killed at least 17 Egyptian security personnel (13 soldiers and 4 police officers) and injured 30 in coordinated attacks that reflect increasing sophistication.  The Egyptian military said 70 Islamist terrorists participated and five checkpoints were assaulted. ISIS claims it struck 15 sites all at once.

The Egyptian government immediately accused the Muslim Brotherhood of involvement as it has in the past. Egypt also claims Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, is secretly supporting ISIS operations in the Sinai Peninsula. It has even threatened to attack Hamas in Gaza in response.

The Egyptian claims are questionable because of the open animosity between the two groups and ISIS’ new video pledging to conquer the Gaza Strip, but the Israeli military confirmed the links after Wednesday’s attacks. It identified two senior Hamas officials who advise ISIS and covertly arrange for hospital visits in Gaza for its injured operatives.

The Brotherhood denies involvement and its website has a statement urging Egyptians to reject violence, but the group’s double-talk is well-documented. It is simply false that the Brotherhood is completely non-violent and Brotherhood media outlets explicitly call for violence like that perpetrated by ISIS this week.

However, there does appear to be a division within the Brotherhood. Youth leaders and elements outside the country are advocating violent jihad, while the older generation repeatedly reaffirms the group’s non-violent stance in Egypt. It’s possible this is all a calculated deception. It’s also possible the rift is real and a faction would be willing to support ISIS against a common enemy.

One Brotherhood official, Mohamed Gaber, said it “seeks to use all expertise inside and outside the Brotherhood to achieve its goals at this stage,” referring to toppling the Egyptian government.

The Egyptian government’s crackdown on the Brotherhood makes it tempting for Hamas to support ISIS operations in the Sinai. Hamas may prefer a situation where its southern border is a battlefield between ISIS and Egyptian forces instead of a base for either. Plus, the Brotherhood uses every death as proof that Egypt’s crackdown is counter-productive and should end.

There are three possibilities: Claims of Hamas/Brotherhood links to ISIS in Sinai are simply wrong; the two groups simultaneously collaborate and fight with each other depending on circumstances; or there are elements within Hamas/Brotherhood that work independently with ISIS against the wishes of the leadership.

Whatever the truth is, the attacks in the Sinai show the threat to Hamas should be taken seriously.

A November 2014 poll found that the Palestinians are the most sympathetic population to ISIS in the Arab world. Only 4% view ISIS positively but if you include those who view it somewhat positively, it grows to nearly one-quarter of the population. However, another poll found that only 3% of Palestinians view ISIS’ gains positively and 88% view it negatively.

ISIS could capitalize on widespread dissatisfaction with Hamas and the situation in Gaza. ISIS’ message that Gaza is in bad shape because Hamas is not sufficiently implementing Sharia could resonate with Islamists who are struggling to understand why Hamas’ rule has not been blessed by Allah. The video also slams Hamas for being too soft on Israel.

A poll released last month shows that 50% of the population in Gaza—and an astounding 80% of the youth—want to leave. About 63% favor continuing rocket attacks on Israel. Another poll found that almost 25% would not vote if elections were held today.

Should a full-blown war between Hamas and ISIS break out that makes Gaza look like Syria, the West mustn’t embrace Hamas as the better alternative. The minute differences between them should not be exaggerated out of a desire for a side to pick. They are the two manifestations of the same enemy.

Israeli policymakers’ alarming over-reliance on Egypt to grapple with Hamas and ISIS

July 3, 2015

Israeli policymakers’ alarming over-reliance on Egypt to grapple with Hamas and ISIS, DEBKAfile, July 3, 2015

Sinai_fight_1.7.15Egyptian troops battle ISIS in Sinai

The statements coming from different Israeli spokesmen this week were not just at dangerous variance with the actual events but with one another, when it came to Egypt’s massive confrontation this week with ISIS close to Israel’s border, a fresh round of Palestinian West Bank anti-Israel terror and the ambivalent role played by Hamas extremists in all these events.

Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said in an Al Jazeera interview Thursday, July 2, that Israel had “clear evidence” of Hamas aiding the offensive the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate launched against Egyptian positions in northern Sinai Wednesday.

The Israeli commander accused Hamas of giving “weapons and logistical support to the ISIS affiliate.”  He added “we have examples of Hamas commanders who actively participated in this assistance,” and named “Wael Faraj, a brigade commander of the military wing of Hamas…who smuggled wounded [ISIS fighters] from Sinai into Gaza,” and “Abdullah Kitshi …who trained operatives belonging to Wilayat Sinai.”

Asked about Israeli-Egyptian cooperation, Mordechai commented: “Egypt is a strong and independent country.”

The Defense Ministry’s strategic adviser Amos Gilead was more specific: He said Egypt was “a strong country of 90 million people with an army of half a million.” Gilead was sure that the Egyptians would do everything necessary for a determined war on ISIS.

Thursday, July 2, the day after the ISIS raid, the Egyptian military said it had killed 123 Islamic State gunmen in two days, 100 of which were killed on Wednesday. Egyptian bombers were then described as wiping out ISIS concentrations around the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid. “The situation in northern Sinai is now under complete control,” said the Egyptian spokesman

All three officials were doing their best to put a good face on the Egyptian army’s reverses in its largest battle yet with ISIS, say DEBKAfile’s military sources. No one was ready to admit that the Islamic State’s Sinai branch had won this confrontation on points.

For two years, the Egyptian army has only chipped away at the edges of the threatening Islamist presence growing larger in the Sinai Peninsula, even through Israel suspended the restrictions of the 1979 peace accord and allowed Egypt to bring large military forces, tanks, artillery and helicopters into Sinai for a major campaign to expunge that presence. This has not happened although both the Egyptians and the IDF know the exact whereabouts of the Islamist terrorists’ bases.

Even while playing down the unwelcome outcome of the Wednesday battle, the IDF took the precaution of closing to traffic the main Israeli highway running parallel to the Egyptian border from Nitzana to the southern port of Eilat. The army in the south was also placed on high alert in case ISIS raiders crossed the border from Egyptian Sinai.

Then, on Friday afternoon, parts of southern Israel heard a red alert for rockets which the IDF estimated had come from Sinai, i.e. ISIS, rather than the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials are at their most mixed up when they discuss Hamas – even after crediting that extremist Palestinian group with conducting a fresh surge of terrorist attacks on the West Bank and Jerusalem. In the past week, they murdered three Israelis – David Capra, Danny Gonen and Malachi Moshe Rosenfeld.

Yet, according to the mantra the IDF has taught accredited military correspondents, all Hamas wants is a long-term ceasefire so as to live in peace. They also trot out the official claims that the deadly attacks were the work of “lone wolves,” just as the persistent trickle of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip comes from “rogue” elements.

Israeli officials appear to have lost their way amid vain attempts to let Hamas off the terrorist hook.

Hamas’ own willingness to jump into bed with Egypt, Hizballah, Iran and ISIS – all at once – undoubtedly creates a confused picture about its shifting motives. However, Israeli policymakers must beware of falling into the dangerous trap of ambivalence and loss of focus.

President El-Sisi must realize by now that his army has missed the boat for a resounding one-strike victory against ISIS, because that enemy is no longer alone. Its association with Hamas is further bolstered by a secret pact with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the deadly foe of the El-Sisi administration.

Hamas, as the Brotherhood’s ideological offspring, in fact hosted Mahmud Izzat Ibrahim, head of the Brotherhood;s clandestine operational networks, which run from Libya through to Sinai.

This tripartite ISIS-Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas axis is currently in full momentum. Egypt is therefore in for a drawn-out bloody war.

Israeli policymakers would be foolish to depend on Cairo pull this red-hot iron out of the terrorist fire any time soon. They must find ways – the sooner the better – to grapple with the reality of a rampant Islamic State next door. ISIS is already in the process of overrunning the Gaza Strip; it is on the way to seizing expanding sections of the Sinai Peninsula. That territory will serve as a convenient base for Islamist raids against Israel.

If ISIS leaps further to hijack the coastal areas of Sinai, it may be necessary to fight a major war to preserve  the freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal and Israel’s southern exit through the Gulf of Aqaba.

Reality versus Fantasy – Obama’s Proxy War In Syria

July 2, 2015

Reality versus Fantasy – Obama’s Proxy War In Syria

Author

By Eddie Pedersen — Bio and Archives July 2, 2015

via Reality versus Fantasy – Obama’s Proxy War In Syria.

Funding alleged Freedom Fighters aka Magical Fighters who historically fall prey to swapping allegiances increase the risk of genocide to astronomical proportions, unwarranted

The Kurdish people are fighting our terrorist enemies and losing their lives in the process, and it’s not just men, 30% of Kurdish fighters are now female fighters, who can never be captured alive.  Think about that the next time you can’t find a shopping cart at the local grocery store.  Think about it when you’re grilling hot dogs and burgers this Fourth of July, or when you hear the national anthem this weekend.  These men and women fight in your place.  Think about what you have done for them.

Of course Turkey is making a bundle off of this Syrian proxy war, monies from the USA and concerned European nations are pouring into Turkish President Erdogan’s hands, and Ankara’s political big wigs don’t want the cash to stop flowing.  But for now, the Kurds have warned Erdogan to stay the hell out of their Syrian affairs, because they are too busy killing the real terrorists to be bothered with Erdogan’s vendetta against Assad.  And the Kurds should get away with saying it too.  Not surprisingly, Turkey is upset because the Kurds are expanding their grip on the border, therefore they are able to secure and shut down supply routes from Turkey to the alleged freedom fighters in Syria, while strengthening Kurdish power in Syria.

Arresting the flow of enemy arms into a hot shooting war is a good idea.  If our administration was really interested in human rights and human suffering they would be compelled to stop funneling arms into the hands of Syria’s alleged freedom fighters.  Remember how the libs always love to say, ‘oh, if it just saved one life, just one single life then it would all be worth it’.  Remember that about Iraq?  Now the tables are turned and our administration is funneling in arms to alleged Freedom Fighters.  Funneling arms and monies into the hands of alleged Freedom Fighters who have pledged allegiances to the same terrorists the Kurds are fighting.  And it’s killing their Kurdish brethren not to mention Syrian civilians who are dying by the thousands.

Freedom fighters aka Magical fighters

On to the Magical Fighters!  First, to contrast things, we have two articles, just released into cyberspace: First one is titled Syria’s Kurds Warn Turkey Not to Intervene Militarily, and then there is example B, the Obama administration, U.S. Defense Secretary says, that he won’t speed up the training of Syrian Freedom Fighters thereby lowering their abilities.  Freedom fighters who have sworn allegiances to known terrorist factions in Syria we ask?  They don’t shoot at the terrorists yet sometimes they do?  But of course they always shoot at Assad, who protects the Syrian Christians plus other rare and interesting people endemic to this quaint region of the globe.  Come on, what is that?  Freedom from reality?  Are these magical fighters who operate in total submission to an administration in a far away distant capitol?  Yet we’re all supposed to believe these magical fighters will somehow make a significant difference.  A difference worth losing Kurdish fighters to bullets and arms American tax dollars paid for?  At some point we must say, this has gone on long enough, put an end to the lunacy.

To further pontificate.  The world’s population see the Kurdish people making startlingly significant gains in an anti terror war by cutting enemy supply lines; and their “reward” is they are now being threatened by a thug, Turkey’s Erdogan, because the Kurds dare cutting off highly profitable supply lines to these alleged Magical Fighters who attack Assad in conjunction with the enemies that they (the Kurds) are fighting right now, aka Islamic terror!  See the problem here?  The reality is this self destructive Kurdish self sacrifice is being demanded because of this administration’s pipe dream fantasies.  Thusly the Kurds, who are actually killing the enemies of humanity (Islamic terror), are being threatened by a Muslim brotherhood thug (Erdogan) because they (the Kurds) are cutting off supply lines for Erdogan and our administration’s outlandish fanatical obsession with killing Assad.

So somehow the Kurds are supposed to allow arms into the hands of alleged Freedom Fighters who have sworn allegiances with the terrorists because these alleged Magical Fighters say they will only shoot in Assad’s direction?  And not let their arms fall into the hands of terrorists who would definitely turn the gun barrels and rocket launchers towards Kurdish held areas?  These are all the assurances we get?  Remember, real people are fighting these terrorist monsters and dying, Kurdish men and women die daily, and to make matters worse this is a hideously ugly Islamic war being fought against Daesh monsters who do the most horrific things to the people they capture.  This isn’t a nice squeaky clean Geneva convention conflict.  Kurdish women really do carry the last bullet for themselves and in some cases have had to actually use it.  This particular war will be long remembered as an incredibly ugly and notoriously dark chapter in human history.  You can rest assured of that.

Arresting the flow of enemy arms into a hot shooting war is a good idea

Once again, in a hot shooting war it’s a good idea to starve the bad guys of weapons while funneling superior weaponry into the hands of those who are fighting in our stead.  Our Administration has let their ambition get the better of them in that weapons being funneled into a region known for factions allegiances changing overnight puts thousands of civilians at risk and could case the loss of Kurdish fighting men and women.  Let us be crystal clear about Assad.  Yes, Assad has done some really bad things, everybody knows that.  Yet he protects Syria’s Christians who are just one faction amongst many rare and unique peoples in Syria, and Assad supports a secular society, yet he has used gas in the past.  And it is here where we come down to the hard realities of this whole nightmare.  Hard realities beget hard problems that demand the harshest remedies.  And the realities in the region aren’t this Zinn and Chomsky blame-America-First alternate reality, but the one true reality,  which is that Assad, like him or not, his Syrian dilemma is incredibly similar to Muammar Gadhafi and the collapse of Libya.  It is a dramatically yet eerily similar situation, only it is happening in a completely different country.  So hear our warning now, pull the keystone out of this particular arch and an entire nation comes crashing down in genocidal ruins.  This is the reality, not some alternate reality, where the Freedom Fighters turn into Magical Fighters and defeat Assad then plant their magical flag in Damascus and the Terrorists all go away!  Just like the comic books!  Please, Washington, get a grip, come on, people. This isn’t that hard a thing to figure out, if we can do it, then our government should be able to do it too.

We are subjected to an endless Assad obsession

Time and time again we think ‘what the heck is it with the obsession to oust Assad’.  Is it that Obama once said he would (and like his promise to pull out of Iraq) topple Assad regardless of the consequences?  Is that it?  Is it petro dollars being fueled into this horrible specter shooting war to oust Assad and build the Islamic pipeline?  Is that it?  Is it oil rich checkerboard Arabic states?  Is it them?  Are they the ones fueling the west’s fantasy that they can oust Assad and then become billionaires by investing in the mega Islamic oil and natural gas pipeline that would surely be constructed?  Is it being done to further cripple Russia by breaking their grip on European fossil fuel markets?  Is it a vendetta, pure hatred or blind ambition and greed?  What compels one to funnel in vast amounts of arms and money into the hands of deserters and insurrectionists who can change allegiances overnight?  Many put it up to man’s vanity.  Some say it’s being done because it serves the egos that fuel their oppositional defiant disorder.  But the overarching reality remains, people are needlessly dying because of it.  This policy could touch off the worst genocide of the new millennium.  With America’s Magical Fighters being the catalyst, all   preventable.

Egyptian Air Force strikes Ansar Bait al-Maqdis targets in Sinai

July 2, 2015

Egyptian Air Force strikes Ansar Bait al-Maqdis targets in Sinai

Since last night, the Egyptian Air Force has been striking Ansar Bait al-Maqdis targets in the northern part of Sinai, following the terror attack that killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers and officers. The organization is a known supporter of the Islamic State.

Jul 02, 2015, 02:11PM | Yael Klein

via Israel News – Egyptian Air Force strikes Ansar Bait al-Maqdis targets in Sinai – JerusalemOnline.

Bodies of terrorists in uniform

Bodies of terrorists in uniform Photo Credit: Egyptian television/Channel 2 News

Following the coordinated terror attacks in Sinai that killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers and officers, the Egyptian Air Force attacked targets belonging to the Ansar Bait al-Maqdis organization, which supports the Islamic State. At least 20 people were eliminated in the attacks. Cairo claims the military has gained control over the Northern Sinai Peninsula.

The Egyptian Military attacked targets in the area between Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah. According to reports in Egypt, several senior-level terror organization members were eliminated in the attacks.

The Egyptian television broadcast a photo of the dozens of bodies of terrorists, in which they are seen wearing military uniforms. “The situation is 100% under the military’s control,” Mohamed Samir, the Egyptian Military spokesperson, stated. “We eliminated nearly 100 terrorists; everything is under the control of the forces in the field.”

The Egyptian Air Force Air strikes were implemented after eleven Muslim Brotherhood members were eliminated yesterday in Cairo.

Following the eliminations, the Muslim Brotherhood called out to start rebelling against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whom they called the “Butcher”, and to regain control of Egypt.

US blocks attempts by Arab allies to fly heavy weapons directly to Kurds to fight Islamic State

July 2, 2015

US blocks attempts by Arab allies to fly heavy weapons directly to Kurds to fight Islamic State, The Telegraph (UK), Defence Editor, July 1, 2015

Barack-Obama-_3361379bPresident Barack Obama pauses speaks at Taylor Stratton Elementary School in Nashville Photo: AP

The United States has blocked attempts by its Middle East allies to fly heavy weapons directly to the Kurds fighting Islamic State jihadists in Iraq, The Telegraph has learnt.

Some of America’s closest allies say President Barack Obama and other Western leaders, including David Cameron, are failing to show strategic leadership over the world’s gravest security crisis for decades.

They now say they are willing to “go it alone” in supplying heavy weapons to the Kurds, even if means defying the Iraqi authorities and their American backers, who demand all weapons be channelled through Baghdad.

High level officials from Gulf and other states have told this newspaper that all attempts to persuade Mr Obama of the need to arm the Kurds directly as part of more vigorous plans to take on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have failed. The Senate voted down one attempt by supporters of the Kurdish cause last month.

The officials say they are looking at new ways to take the fight to Isil without seeking US approval.

“If the Americans and the West are not prepared to do anything serious about defeating Isil, then we will have to find new ways of dealing with the threat,” said a senior Arab government official. “With Isil making ground all the time we simply cannot afford to wait for Washington to wake up to the enormity of the threat we face.”

Kurdish-weapons_3361377bKurdish Peshmerga fighters train on a weapon during a training session with British military advisers

The Peshmerga have been successfully fighting Isil, driving them back from the gates of Erbil and, with the support of Kurds from neighbouring Syria, re-establishing control over parts of Iraq’s north-west.

But they are doing so with a makeshift armoury. Millions of pounds-worth of weapons have been bought by a number of European countries to arm the Kurds, but American commanders, who are overseeing all military operations against Isil, are blocking the arms transfers.

One of the core complaints of the Kurds is that the Iraqi army has abandoned so many weapons in the face of Isil attack, the Peshmerga are fighting modern American weaponry with out-of-date Soviet equipment.

At least one Arab state is understood to be considering arming the Peshmerga directly, despite US opposition.

The US has also infuriated its allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states, by what they perceive to be a lack of clear purpose and vacillation in how they conduct the bombing campaign. Other members of the coalition say they have identified clear Isil targets but then been blocked by US veto from firing at them.

“There is simply no strategic approach,” one senior Gulf official said. “There is a lack of coordination in selecting targets, and there is no overall plan for defeating Isil.”

Western leaders increasingly accept that the “war on Isil” has not gone well, from the moment last year Mr Obama called the group a “JV [junior varsity] team” of jihadists compared with al-Qaeda. At that point, Isil had seized Fallujah, which US forces took in a bloody battle in 2004. It went on to take much of western Iraq and large areas of Syria, and in May took Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.

Britain is moving closer to expanding its role in the war. The Government on Wednesday gave its strongest indication yet that MPs will be given a new vote on whether to bomb Isil in Syria.

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said it was “illogical” that British planes were able to hit extremists in Iraq but not across the border.

Any decision to bomb in Syria would have to be approved by MPs. In 2013, the Prime Minister lost a vote for British military action in Syria. However, Mr Fallon said: “It is a new Parliament and I think new Members of Parliament will want to think very carefully about how we best deal with Isil, and the illogicality of Isil not respecting the borderlines.”

Mr Fallon suggested that a bombing campaign could be mounted in revenge for the terror attacks in Tunisia if a link could be proved between the killer and Isil in Libya. Britain would only take military action in Libya “where we think there is an imminent threat, a very direct to British lives or, for example, to British hostages”, he said.

Senior Whitehall sources did not distance themselves from Mr Fallon’s comments but insisted there was no immediate prospect of military action.

The Telegraph understands that Mr Cameron is concerned that Labour might force the Government into another defeat over Syria.

Islamic State Captures First Territory in Afghanistan

July 1, 2015

Islamic State Captures First Territory in Afghanistan

by Oliver Lane30 Jun 2015

via Islamic State Captures First Territory in Afghanistan – Breitbart.

Islamic State fighters have taken substantial areas of Afghanistan for the first time, displacing the Taliban to become the new masters of parts of the east of the war-torn country.

Known commonly by the acronym ISIS, encompassing their initial territorial holdings in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has rapidly expanded its influence in the year since its establishment as the new Caliphate last Ramadan. Fighters pledging allegiance to the Caliphate now control territory accross North Africa and the Middle East, including Boko Haram in Nigeria and now in Afghanistan.

Witnesses who fled fighting in Nangarhar province told Reuters that hundreds of insurgents pledging allegiance to Islamic State pushed out the Taliban, scorching opium poppy fields that help to fund the Taliban’s campaign to overthrow the Afghan government.

They also distributed directives purportedly from Islamic State’s Middle East-based chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although it was not clear whether he issued them for the Afghan theater or if previous edicts may have been translated.

“They (ISIS loyalists) came in on many white pickup trucks mounted with big machine guns and fought the Taliban. The Taliban could not resist and fled,” said Haji Abdul Jan, a tribal elder from Achin district.

“Unlike the Taliban, they (ISIS) don’t force villagers to feed and house them. Instead, they have lots of cash in their pockets and spend it on food and luring young villagers to join them”, he said. ISIS forces have already banned the sale of cigarettes and have burned poppy fields, the staple of the traditional local economy.

Reports suggest many of the Islamic State forces in Afghanistan are former Taliban fighters who are following the money to the now more successful Caliphate. Black flags fly over villages and foreign Imams preach the extremist ISIS creed in Mosques, with translators on hand to render their words into local dialects. The scenes are redolent of foreign leaders active within Boko Haram, who deliver sermons and verdicts on punishments through translators.

One video captured by Nigerian security forces shows a man of presumed Sudanese origin handing down sharia law judgements before a large crowd of Nigerian villagers. After he finishes speaking, some men are flogged, others have their hands cut off, and one is buried to his neck and then stoned to death. The ISIS leader giving orders to the Boko Haram militants says: “God ordered all believers to enforce his punishments… God ordered us to cut off the hand of the thief and flog the adulterer and adulteress”.

Reuters Contributed to This Report

Israeli border troops, US Mid East forces on alert after massive ISIS assault on Egyptian forces in Sinai

July 1, 2015

Israeli border troops, US Mid East forces on alert after massive ISIS assault on Egyptian forces in Sinai, DEBKAfile, July 1, 2015

Sinai_Attack_1.7.15ISIS attacks Egyptian Sinai positions

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant moved ominously close to Israel’s borders Wednesday, July 1 – not as predicted in the north, but in the south, from the Sinai Peninsula. There, ISIS followed up on its Ramadan terror outrages in France, Tunisia, Kuwait and Kobani, with a massive assault on Egyptian forces in the northern Sinai region of Sheikh Zuwaid close to the Israeli and Gaza Strip borders.

Not just a terrorist attack, ISIS launched a full-scale military assault, starting with mortar fire and suicide bombings against five Egyptian military checkpoints.

Using a tactic similar to that employed in the capture of the Iraqi town of Ramadi last month, ISIS gunmen followed this initial assault by riding in on minivans, backed by heavy mortar fire, to storm the positions held by stunned Egyptian troops. Altogether some 20 Egyptian army positions were attacked in and around Sheikh Zuwaid.

Egyptian troop reinforcements setting out from El Arish to the northeast to aid the beleaguered force, went up on mine and bomb traps secretly planted around their camps and police stations. Egyptian Apache assault helicopters striking the ISIS force themselves faced ground fire from shoulder-borne anti-air missiles.

Egyptian forces are reported to have sustained heavy casualties, at least 64 dead and many more wounded. The Islamists are additionally said to have taken Egyptian prisoners as hostages.

As the fighting grew fierce during Wednesday, Israel to shut its border crossings with Egypt and the Gaza Strip, and sent reinforcements south in case the jihadis launched an attack on Israel from northern Sinai.

Our military sources also report that US Middle East forces located in Jordan and at Sharm el-Sheikh are on the ready in case the Islamic State decides to attack the US officers and men at the Multinational Force facility in Sinai, which is located near the Sheikh Zuwaid battlefield.

The ISIS Sinai offensive is part and parcel of the reign of terror launched last Friday by Yassin Sahli when he beheaded his French boss, and Seifeddine Rezgui, who murdered 39 holidaymakers on a Tunisian beach. Standing ready for the Islamist offensive in Sinai were the jihadis of the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which recently declared Sinai a province of the Islamic State and took an oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

ISIS draws on two additional major sources for its fighting manpower: the infrastructure it established in turbulent Libya for training and arming jihadis to cross the Egyptian border into Sinai; and the fatal attraction its radicalizing ideology holds for young Muslims who are taught that the brutal murder of Islam’s foes is a cleansing and purifying act.

Putin Proposes New Coalition to Fight Islamic State

June 30, 2015

Putin Proposes New Coalition to Fight Islamic State

Putin’s initiative comes after the failure of the U.S.-led airstrikes to dislodge Islamic State from its Syrian and Iraqi strongholds

Mike Wheatley

via Putin Proposes New Coalition to Fight Islamic State.

 

President Vladimir Putin has reaffirmed Russia’s support of the Syrian government following a meeting with its Foreign Minister Walid Muallem yesterday, TASS reported.

Speaking to journalists after the talks, Putin acknowledged the Islamic State terrorist group remains the biggest threat in the region, and said Syria must unite with neighboring countries in order to combat it. He added that Russia was ready to facilitate dialogue between countries in the region.

“We believe that in order to effectively combat terrorism and extremist radicalism, it is necessary for all countries in the region to unite their efforts,” Putin said.

The president said that Moscow’s contacts with the countries in the region, including with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, “showed that everyone wants to contribute to fight this evil,” referring to the Islamic State.

He exhorted all nations in the region, whatever their relations with Syria are, to “pool their efforts together” to fight the Islamic militants. “In this regard, we call on all of our friends, including Syria, to do everything they can to establish constructive dialogue with all concerned countries in the fight against terrorism,” Putin said.

The president admitted that creating a coalition to fight the Islamic State would not be an easy task, given the differences that exist between the countries on the frontline of the war. But he said, “if the Syrian leadership considers it appropriate and feasible, we will do everything to support you. That means using our good relations with all countries in the region to try and create such a coalition.”

The odds may be against that happening, but Putin’s comments show that Russia recognizes the reality that U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State have largely failed to make a dent in it. As such, any serious effort to defeat Islamic State clearly needs to involve the Syrian government and its military, which along with the Kurds is one of the few effective forces ranged against it on the ground.

Putin added that Russia’s “policy to support Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged.

For his part, Syria’s Muallem told reporters he had been given assurances that “Russia will continue to help Syria politically, economically and militarily.”

Moscow’s show of support for the embattled Syrian government comes just days after the European Union voted to extend sanctions against Russia for another six months, and once again illustrates its determination to lead an independent foreign policy no matter how much pressure its rivals apply.