Syrian terrorists being trained by US

What an awe inspiring place it must have seemed to the people then, it still is today.

Worth remembering it was originally a very secure royal palace; it didn't become a place of dread and fear until our old friends, the Tudors, came along and started decapitating people in large numbers. I think H8 holds the record for the most in one day?

This diagram shows exactly where Traitor's Gate is and where the old moat was.   There was a small section of moat on the river side, but the main area went from the Thames up and around the Tower.     The water in the landing stage at Treaitor's gate would have come from the Thames as it still does today.    LL

That's the name of a tower I couldn't remember that I see by Traitor's Gate - Wakefield Tower.

France has decided it wants some Chaos too - their government has collapsed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28924279

French PM Manuel Valls cabinet falls amid economy row
French President Francois Hollande has ordered PM Manuel Valls to form a new government after two senior ministers criticised their austerity policies.

After Mr Valls announced the cabinet's resignation, Mr Hollande immediately asked him to set up a new one.

Economy minister Arnaud Montebourg and education minister Benoit Hamon are expected to lose their jobs.

They had both called for France to tackle low growth by resisting fiscal discipline imposed by Germany.

Offering his and the government's resignation, the prime minister said Mr Montebourg, a left-wing MP, had crossed "a yellow line".

Moments later, the president issued a statement asking him to set up a new government "consistent with the direction [Mr Hollande] has set for the country".

A French presidential source said Mr Valls's decision had been a matter of "absolute consensus" between President Hollande and the prime minister.

More at link.

Hey ho! Can't be long till the comets and dragons appear.

Latest frigging mess news. There's been a lot of speculation about just WHO has been bombing ---- some set of lunatics in Libya.

Turns out it was Egypt and the Emirates, and Washington is Furious yet again. Quote from piece at:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-25/us-furious-after-source-mystery-libya-bombing-raids-revealed

But what is surprising is not the intervention: after all, hardly a day passes now when there isn't some small to medium political invasion taking place somewhere, in a world in which newsflow no longer affects anything. It is that both countries decided to roundly ignore advising the one country which previously had made it quite clear it has explicit national interests in Libya: the United States.

The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington or seeking its consent, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines.

It gets worse: Egyptian officials explicitly denied the operation to American diplomats, the officials said. It is almost as if the theme of ignoring and/or mocking US superpower status exhibited most recently by both China and Russia, is gradually spreading to even the more "banana" republics around the world. Because while one can debate the pros and cons of any previous administration, it is very much improbably that any regime, especially ones as close to the US as the UAE, and to a lesser extent Egypt, would have conducted such military missions without preclearing with the Pentagon first.

So now that the "mysterious" owners of the punitive bombing raids has been revealed, the next question is: why? The answer is simple - to keep Islamists in check. And since the US can no longer be relied on to do the bidding of formerly key petrodollar allies, the UAE decided to take the law into its own hands.

Must say, I'm rather impressed; I know Egypt hates snackbars, but I didn't foresee the UAEs joining in. Without Obama's permission, too - how very dare they!

Just goes to show you.......some people there know what they are doing.

I probably shouldn't be cheered up by a whole new set of countries taking up bombing, but it's strangely reassuring to know there are actually people in the world still capable of doing things in an orderly fashion.

Incidentally, when did bombing your enemies stop being an act of war? It seems to go on all over the world, without too many hairs being turned.

Don't you feel as though everything we thought was true has been turned on it's head?

Very much so, Lily, the world has turned upside down.

But think how much pleasanter the world would be if bombs weren't used as a substitute for diplomacy, if nations concentrated on building trading alliances, and making life better for their own people, only using force when trouble erupted right on their own doorstep. Instead of meddling in sovereign nations thousands of miles away.

It's actually rather amusing that Washington is miffed because neither Egypt nor the Gulf states asked for permission before they bombed whichever set of jihadist lunatics are on the loose in Libya.

I think that all civilized people want what you stated, Bonny.  It sounds so easy but is so hard to do.....as you know.

I think it's quite likely that they didn't bother because they remembered what happened to our Ambassador in Libya?  Look how the people with the power in the government didn't come to his and his colleagues aid.....If that doesn't say a thousand words, I don't know what does.......

Ah yes, of course - I'd forgotten about Benghazi. No, there was no point in disturbing Obama at the golf course...

I'm no pacifist, far from it, Lily, but too often these days, military force seems to be being used to settle whatever's wrong, instead of as a very last resort?

I have no problem with that either, Bonny. I have no faith if what is currently happening as there seems to be a lack of moral ethics.

I will put this here if you don't mind.

There seems to be confusion coming from the top.

http://drudgegae.iavian.net/r?hop=http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/obama-sent-no-representative-memorial-mass-beheaded-journalist-james

Neither was one sent here.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/death-two-star-army-general-harold-greene-rare-killing-n173436

It's appalling behaviour. I wish I could say I am surprised, but sadly, I'm not, Lily.

CNSNews.com asked the White House why no White House official attended James Foley’s memorial Mass.

“The President expressed his profound condolences to the family in his statement last week,” responded Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “He was speaking on behalf of his Administration—as well as the American people—in offering these words to the Foley family, and he continues to keep them in his thoughts as we attempt to bring the other American hostages home.”

I don't believe for one minute that he is sparing a second's thought for the Foleys, or that he will try to get other hostages home, unless it fits in with whatever Byzantine scheme Langley is cooking up.

I just don't believe anything Washington or Westminster says any more.

bb1 wrote:CNSNews.com asked the White House why no White House official attended James Foley’s memorial Mass.

“The President expressed his profound condolences to the family in his statement last week,” responded Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “He was speaking on behalf of his Administration—as well as the American people—in offering these words to the Foley family, and he continues to keep them in his thoughts as we attempt to bring the other American hostages home.”

I don't believe for one minute that he is sparing a second's thought for the Foleys, or that he will try to get other hostages home, unless it fits in with whatever Byzantine scheme Langley is cooking up.

I just don't believe anything Washington or Westminster says any more.

Of course he doesn't spare anyone a thought unless its about his golf. Cameron seems like he went to the same school for leaders.

From:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/26/world/meast/syria-american-killed/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Death of American fighting for ISIS spurs question: Are there others?

(CNN) -- An American man died last weekend in Syria while fighting for ISIS, the latest evidence of the reach of a terror group that's become increasingly powerful and feared in the eyes of Americans.
Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, died in a battle between rival extremist groups in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria's once-bustling commercial capital and largest city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the conflict.
The man's uncle, Ken McCain, said that his nephew had gone to fight as a jihadi and that the U.S. State Department told the family Monday about the death.

More at link.

So, using Obungle's own logic, Syria would now be justified in bombing Washington.

Just as the rebels in Ukraine would be justified in bombing Washington, after a US mercenary was killed on their soil.

Incidentally, isn't

Douglas McAuthur McCain

rather an embarrassing name for a mad headchopper?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/08/26/coast-guard-cutter-fires-warning-shot-at-iranian-sailboat-in-brief-altercation/

If things weren’t already tense enough in the Middle East, a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat got into an altercation Tuesday with an Iranian sailboat in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon announced.

U.S. military officials said the trouble started when the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Monomoy, which regularly patrols international waters in the Gulf, approached an Iranian dhow, a traditional sailing vessel used by fisherman and traders. According to the U.S. account, the cutter dispatched a smaller boat with some folks on board, apparently to try to get closer to the dhow and possibly climb aboard.

The dhow was less than friendly, however; its crew pointed a machine gun at the visiting party. In response, the Monomoy fired a warning shot, which apparently had its desired effect. The dhow sailed off, the cutter retrieved its personnel from the small boat and went its own way.

Excuse me, but WTF is the US Coast Guard doing threatening Iranians in international waters in the Gulf? And no, I don't blame the Iranians for firing at these megalomaniacs - for all they knew, they were about to join all the other people that have been kidnapped by the US.

WTF????

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268798/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=HhRZK0ku

In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets. However, that option is largely unappealing to the president given that it could open the U.S. to the kind of long-term commitment to Syria's stability that Obama has sought to avoid.

Or Washington could always try NOT sticking its nose into matters thousands of miles from its own shores?

If US policy is now so depraved that they are even thinking of bombing both sides in a war thousands of miles away, then the UN might like to think about declaring the US a rogue state and expelling it, as it appears to be being run - mainly into the ground - by a bunch of corrupt, megalomaniac lunatics.

Or maybe Russia, China and Iran could regime-change Washington in the interests of world peace? Return a few favours?

Sigh, sigh, and sigh again.

Oh dear....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28948925

IMF's Christine Lagarde 'under investigation'



Christine Lagarde denies wrongdoing in the Bernard Tapie compensation case

French authorities have formally opened a negligence investigation into Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

She has been questioned about her role in awarding 400m euro (£318m; $527m) in compensation to businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008. She denies wrongdoing.

Ms Lagarde, 58, was finance minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government at the time of the award.

Mr Tapie supported Mr Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.

He was once a majority shareholder in sports goods company Adidas but sold it in 1993 in order to become a cabinet minister in Francois Mitterrand's Socialist government.

Mr Tapie sued Credit Lyonnais over its handling of the sale, alleging the partly state-owned bank had defrauded him by deliberately undervaluing the company.

More at link.

Doesn't sound at all corrupt to me, awarding a crony of your crony all that money! What was it the last head of the IMF did - was it rape, or bunga-bunga parties? Or both?

PS - she looks a bit Lizardy to me.

After reading that, I thought not another one...

A bit, you say? Come to think of it she looks a bit like the wife of the last one.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/28/us-looking-into-report-2nd-american-killed-fighting-with-isis-in-syria/

A second American reportedly killed fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria has been identified as Abdirahmaan Muhumed, of Minneapolis, two sources told Fox News late Wednesday.

KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that Muhumed was killed in the same battle as Douglas McAuthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego. The State Department confirmed McCain's death earlier this week, but spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the U.S. has no independent confirmation of the second American's death. "We're looking into it," she said.

A source told Fox News that Muhumed's family had been sent a photo of his body from Syria, but had not been formally notified by the State Department. Fox News was unable to contact the family.

A profile of Muhumed by Minnesota Public Radio this past June described him as a 29-year-old Somali-American who had been married more than once and was a father of nine children. MPR reported, citing the FBI, that at least 15 young men from the Twin Citites' Somali-American community had traveled to Syria to join Islamic State, the militant group formerly known as ISIS that has captured wide swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

Seems to me Assad would be quite justified in bombing Washington, as his country is being flooded with American terrorists.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-27/bombs-away-washington-has-gone-stark-raving-mad

On the subject of this giant MESS.