Syrian terrorists being trained by US

There are one or two things about whoever/whatever is behind ISIS that are strange, Lily. Not the head-chopping maniacs, they are standard snackbar, but someone is thinking:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-13/isis-now-commodity-trading-powerhouse-islamic-states-steals-iraqs-grain-then-sells-i

It is no secret that the crack al-Qaeda "spin-off" ISIS is well-versed in the ways of the modern world: from quickly taking control of (i.e., robbing) a central bank, to capturing the latest and greatest in US military equipment, to staging an amazing blitz-campaign that has resulted in the creation of a caliphate and captured the bulk of northern Iraq and a third of Syria including all of the former country's oil fields, to even having glossy year end annual reports, one would almost be forgiven in assuming that some vastly more strategic minds are behind what on paper at least would be a far more disorganized force. Now, judging by the latest revelation from Reuters, showcasing ISIS as a consummate commodity trader, one could even assume that a major Wall Street bank (or Swiss-based "independent" commodity trader) is behind the effort.

According to Reuters, a top Iraqi government grains official said on Wednesday that Islamic State militants are taking wheat from state silos in northern and western Iraq, in order to mill it there and in neighboring Syria.

More on this tangled tale at link.

It may simply be that because the survivors of Saddam's army are involved, they're a bit sharper than the usual jihadists, but something about the whole set-up makes my nose twitch.

Have you ever seen jihadists produce glossy yearly reports before?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-17/isis-stunner-terrorist-organizations-annual-reports-unveiled-reveal-full-investment-

They've got more in common with SMERSH that anything else.

The plot thickens....

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101916826

Why is Turkey supporting Islamic State fighters in Iraq?

Now that U.S. forces are engaged in combat operations against Islamic State fighters in Iraq, the Obama administration must press ISIS on all fronts, targeting its financing, logistics, and weapons providers. Turkey — America's ally and NATO member — is allegedly involved. Clarifying Turkey's role would serve U.S.-Turkey relations.

More at link.

I confess, I am none too sure why the author doesn't think the US knows all this, having been arming and training the 'nice rebels' in Jordan. Interesting money trail, though.

I wonder who has been helping them?   

It's tantalising, isn't it? One thing's for sure, whoever is doing the thinking, isn't going to care if some of the lunatic headchoppers get an early appointment with Allah, courtesy of a few bombs, they're only cannon fodder.

But I can do without sanctimonious cries of Something must be done! Boots on the ground! from western politicians and armchair generals when it's them that have caused all this in the first place, right from the invasion a decade ago, to the murderous criminals they have been encouraging, arming and funding more recently.

Amen to that, Bonny.

Meanwhile, back in St Louis, the rioting goes on....

Extract from:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/08/us-police-fire-tear-gas-at-protesters-201481423942289865.html

Journalists arrested

Police have been slow to release information about the shooting, except to say that it followed a struggle between the unnamed officer and Brown.

Earlier on Wednesday, authorities urged people to confine their protests to daylight after three nights of tense confrontations, looting, tear gas and a second shooting nearby.

An Al Jazeera journalist was tear-gassed, and two other reporters covering the protests said they were arrested at a McDonald's restaurant.

Al Jazeera's Ash-Har Quraishi said the team had thought they had reached a safe area when they were tear-gassed.

"The Al Jazeera crew were in a place we believed to be safe," he said.

"Soon afterwards people started running towards us saying they were being fired on with rubber bullets. Rubber bullets were fired on us, and then a canister. We had to retreat into the neighbourhood."

Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of The Huffington Post say they were working in the fast-food restaurant when SWAT officers came in to quickly clear the area.

Both quickly tweeted about their arrests , detention and subsequent release without any charges.

Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson did not immediately return a cellphone message from the Associated Press news agency seeking comment.

Tear gas? Journos being arrested? The AJ staff must have thought they were back in Egypt...

As is being said in the AJ comments...how would the US feel if, say, Syria and Russia sent in weapons and aid to the 'nice rebels' in St Louis, maybe an ambassador or two with cookies?

Fair's fair!  

Naturally, it had to be Huffington Post reporters that were arrested.....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/huffington-post-reporter-arrested-ferguson_n_5676829.html

The Huffington Post's Ryan J. Reilly and the Washington Post's Wesley Lowery were arrested Wednesday evening while covering the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer last week. The journalists were released unharmed, but their detentions highlighted the town's ramped up police presence, which has left numerous residents injured by rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas during protests held every night after Brown's death.

SWAT officers roughed up the reporters inside a McDonald's, where both journalists were working. Reilly snapped a photo, prompting cops to request his identification.

"The officer in question, who I repeatedly later asked for his name, grabbed my things and shoved them into my bag," said Reilly, who appeared on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes" shortly after his release to recount the arrest. "He used his finger to put a pressure point on my neck."

"They essentially acted as a military force. It was incredible," Reilly said. "The worst part was he slammed my head against the glass purposefully on the way out of McDonald's and then sarcastically apologized for it."

More at link.



An Al Jazeera television crew, covering demonstrators protesting the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown, scramble for cover as police fire tear gas into their reporting position on August 13, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. (AFP Photo / Getty Images / Scott Olson)

AJ crew don't usually run away from anything....



αηιs @theblogpirate
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Top: Baghdad, Iraq - Bottom: #Ferguson, Missouri.

Those are police?  

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the shooting, and the looting that followed, Ferguson PD seem to have caused a public relations disaster...

http://www.infowars.com/shock-video-ferguson-police-deliberately-tear-gas-journalists/

Of all the news crews to tear gas, they picked on Al Jazeerah.



The clip shows Al-Jazeera journalists preparing to do a live camera shot of the scene in Ferguson before they are hit with a round of tear gas. The reporters run in the opposite direction. Subsequent photographs show militarized police officers seizing and dismantling their camera equipment as another officer points a sniper rifle at the fleeing reporters.

They then arrested US two reporters working for very influential publications:



Two journalists working for the Huffington Post and the Washington Post were also arrested for not leaving a McDonalds quickly enough

The authorities couldn't have done worse if they tried, those images have now gone round the world.

You bet......what they did was oh so wrong.

If they'd wanted to make matters worse, they couldn't have done better, Lily.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/huffington-post-reporter-arrested-ferguson_n_5676829.html

Of all the reporters to arrest....

And of all the camera crews to tear-gas...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/08/us-police-fire-tear-gas-at-protesters-201481423942289865.html

Naturally, AJ and Russia Today are having a field day with this. And as is being pointed out in many comments, by European/Middle East standards, it wasn't even that big a riot. Or at least, it wasn't till last night.

It looks like a war zone.   

Those police are coming across as such bullies. It is staggering to comprehend.

Here's why.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/13/ferguson-police-michael-brown-militarization-column/14006383/

Department of Defense provided surplus military vehicles, rifles, pistols to local police departments.



UPDATE: St. Louis County law enforcement agencies received twelve 5.56 millimeter rifles and six .45 caliber pistols from the Department of Defense between Aug. 2, 2010, and Feb. 13, 2013, a Missouri public safety official confirmed Thursday. Ferguson, Mo., is within St. Louis County. The Pentagon allows information on "tactical" equipment to be released only at a county level, so which police department(s) in the county received the weaponry is not available.

Pentagon fueled Ferguson Confrontation

The Pentagon might not have boots on the ground in Ferguson, Mo., where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by police on Saturday, but it does have wheels on the street.

Michelle McCaskill, media relations chief at the Defense Logistics Agency, confirms that the Ferguson Police Department is part of a federal program called 1033 that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus military equipment to civilian police forces across the United States. The materials range from small items, such as pistols and automatic rifles, to heavy armored vehicles such as the MRAPs used in Afghanistan and Iraq.

More at link.

Seriously, what else did anyone in charge expect to happen? Did the Pentagon really think all those macho new toys weren't going to be used at some point, with disastrous consequences?

http://www.infowars.com/black-panthers-take-over-ferguson-fire-department/

BLACK PANTHERS TAKE OVER FERGUSON FIRE DEPARTMENT
Leader said Obama is Kenyan and allowing Africans to be killed in the streets

by INFOWARS.COM | AUGUST 14, 2014

Hashim Nzinga, the leader of the New Black Panthers, and his followers marched into the Ferguson Fire Department on Thursday and preempted a news conference by Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson.


Nzinga used the spotlight to engage in a tirade against Obama.

“This is a shame that as we speak the president of United States is talking to Russia, he’s talking to China, he’s talking to North Korea, he’s talking to Iraq and the Middle East about treating their people better,” he said. “But as he look out the window at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he’s watching the black man, who built the White House, shot down like dogs.”

Nzinga said Obama is from Kenya. He called him a “Mau Mau” and said he needs “to go back to his roots and stop people from killing Africans in the streets.”

Unlike the original Black Panthers, the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP) is not Marxist in its ideology. Instead, it draws from Maulana Karenga’s Kawaida theory, a pan-African communitarian philosophy. It is also influenced by the Nation of Islam. Nzinga was the personal assistant of Nation of Islam minister Khalid Abdul Muhammad who was the national chairman of the NBPP from the late 1990s until his death in 2001.


You've got to hand it to Obama, he's done a fantastic job of changing American. We're hearing and seeing race hate - in every possible direction - that hasn't been seen for decades. Even then I don't recall it being quite as horrible and personal as it is now.

Police version of events that led up to the death of the young black guy in Ferguson:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/15/ferguson-police-say-michael-brown-fit-description-strong-arm-robbery-suspect/

Even the Fox news anchors sound a bit dubious....

On the plus side, things seem to have calmed down on the streets. The Rambos were removed, and the Highway Patrol appears to have restored order by the simple expedient of...acting like peace officers, not RoboCop...

But on Thursday, county police in riot gear and armored tanks gave way to state troopers walking side-by-side with thousands of peaceful protesters. The dramatic shift came after Gov. Jay Nixon assigned oversight of the protests to the state Highway Patrol, stripping that authority from the St. Louis County Police Department.

Let's hope things stay calm over the weekend.

He has to show something for his time in office...  

The deceased, whose death in contentious circumstances sparked all this off, was certainly, er, well-fed.

The truth emerges....

Indeed; the local police actually couldn't have handled this more badly if they'd tried.

The whole thing is shocking.

It's a disaster from start to finish, from this side of the Atlantic, Lily.....the police not keeping the media updated about - anything, treating a small US town as if it was Afghanistan with the Taliban on the loose, etc. But at least your Dear Leader was concerned:




Tonight, the President and First Lady attended the birthday celebration for Mrs. Ann Jordan at an event at the Farm Neck Golf Club. There were approximately 150 guests in attendance.

Among the attendees seated with the Jordans and the President and First Lady were former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett and her mother Mrs. Barbara Bowman, Ursula Burns, Kenneth Chenault and his wife Kathy, along with other friends and family of Mrs. Jordan. President Obama honored Mrs. Jordan with a toast before dinner, as did Mr. Jordan and Secretary Clinton and others. The President and First Lady have known the Jordans for over twenty years, and were grateful to have been able to share this special evening with them.

The President and First Lady also were happy to have the chance to spend time with Secretary Clinton and former President Clinton.

Yes, and I have a pet unicorn.      

         

I see Ferguson kicked off again:

http://www.infowars.com/police-in-ferguson-fire-tear-gas-amid-looting-protesters-protect-stores/

The looters seem to have tried to rob local stores, then the protesters moved in to protect the shops. All very strange.

http://news.sky.com/story/1319731/missouri-shooting-state-of-emergency-declared

Missouri Shooting: State Of Emergency Declared
Tensions are heightened again as the Governor of Missouri imposes a state of emergency and curfew in Ferguson.

The Governor of Missouri has imposed a state of emergency and a curfew in the city of Ferguson after looters attacked a shop which police claimed a black teenager had robbed before he was shot dead.

In a news conference, Democrat Jay Nixon described the death of Michael Brown last Saturday as "tragic" and said violent protests which have taken place since have left the community in fear.

He said: "The tragic shooting death of Michael Brown one week ago today and the events that followed have left a family grieving the loss of a son, a community wracked by fear and unrest and an entire world looking for answers and justice.

"To protect the people and property of Ferguson, today I signed an order declaring a state of emergency and ordering the implementation of a curfew in the impacted area.

"This is not to silence the people of Ferguson or this region, but to contain those who are drowning out the voices of the people with their actions.

"We will not allow a handful of looters to endanger the rest of this community."



More at link.

That's bad, isn't it, Lily? I am none too sure just exactly what it entails...