Syrian terrorists being trained by US

What pieces of work he and his wife are.

I read about that hostage stuff last night, Bonny.  What can you say?  If that was a Trayvon Martin the ransom might be okay?

It's utter hypocrisy, Lily, especially considering the West's role in arming and training these maniacs when it suited their own ends. Unless, of course, you believe that Western intelligence is so naive, it can't tell the difference between a 'nice rebel' and an organ-eating head chopper?

Did the west care when Christians and others were being massacred in Syria? No, not for a minute.

IMO, these poor sods should be ransomed and returned to their families - with a strict warning that anyone else that gets grabbed as a result of sticking their heads into these messes is on their own.

Especially if it's Kerry, McCain or Blair.

Zero Hedge is carrying a story about ISIS having beheaded David Haines.

Richard Engel ✔ @RichardEngel
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Isis photos appear to show murder of british hostage. Same Desert location. Masked man. Beheading. Disgusting.


I hope to God it isn't true. If it is, I hope Cameron burns in Hell for letting him die.

  What on earth are the clowns doing?  Or rather, not.

http://news.sky.com/story/1335482/fco-verifying-british-aid-worker-beheading

The Foreign Office has said it is working to verify a video which appears to show the beheading of British aid worker David Haines.

Mr Haines is thought to be being held captive by militant group Islamic State after being kidnapped from a Syrian refugee camp close to the border with Turkey.

A statement put out by the Foreign and Commonwealth said: "We are aware of the video.

"We are working urgently to verify the content. If true, this is another disgusting murder. We are offering the family every support possible.

"They have asked to be left alone at this time."

More follows...

What 'support' can they offer, when they made no effort to get him home, just parroted empty tough talk, from thousands of miles away.

Empty words just like their hearts and souls.

http://neoneocon.com/2014/08/22/europe-pays-ransoms-the-us-and-uk-dont/

A good article on a thorny subject. LL

That is interesting, LL. I am in the PAY THE RANSOM camp. It's been the norm for centuries to ransom captives taken in war - though generally only kings and nobles, the commoners just got killed.

It's the most sickening hypocrisy for Washington and Whitehall to be moralising about ransoms, given their involvement in the creation of these terrorist groups when it's suited their political agenda.

I have just watched Faraz Gerges on BBC News talking about this latest atrocity. He says ISIL is NOT in any way Muslim, they are infidels, and ransoms mean nothing to them, their goal is the Caliphate and anyone, Muslim or not is a target for their savagery. They are Sunnis and hate Shias and anyone who does not subscribe to their maniacal beliefs must convert or die, no middle road. Even if the UK Government had offered a ransom it would have been futile - ISIL want to put fear into the US, UK and other governments and online beheadings are their way of doing this. What should we do? Back off totally and watch as ISIL slaughter their co-religionists - thousands of innocent shia are now dead or displaced? I would not like to be in any politician's shoes over this one. LL

Perhaps we should be asking, Why is it our business? - apart from the fact that it's the west that set fire to the Middle East in the first place.

Where's the Arab League? The Saudi and Gulf States' air forces succesfully attacked some bunch of snackbars in Libya - without asking for the US' permission, how very dare they!

I have little doubt that the Arab League can call on ample forces to sort it out themselves; western involvement will, as usual, make matters worse, not better, as the involvement of the Great Satan and its UK imp gives the head-choppers a rallying point.

Incidentally, why isn't Israel shaking in its boots and desperate to get stuck into ISIS? There was a battle between assorted factions on the Israeli-Syria border recently, in the course of which Philipino UN troops were briefly captured by the snackbars - and Israel did nothing.

When have you known Israel NOT bomb arabs at the slightest excuse?

Why didn't the US give Iraq some semblance of air cover when the snackbars first - supposedly - appeared there? All Iraq had was two Cessnas and some helicopter gunships; they had to beg fighters from Russia and Iran.

Those long columns ISIS columns, in the desert in the looted Humvees, could have been wiped out at the start - but they weren't. Now, why would that be? There's a very dirty game being played here, IMO, and these poor hostages are paying the price.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-13/moderate-syrian-rebels-sign-non-aggression-pact-isis-iraq-defies-us


First it was the 'broad coalition' that appeared a little narrower than President Obama explained to the world last week. Today, 2 more crucial aspects of the 'strategy' appear to be faltering. Despite the promise of $500 million to train "moderate" Syrian terrorist/rebels to fight ISIS, GlobalPost reports Syrian rebels and jihadists from the Islamic State have agreed a non-aggression pact for the first time. Under the deal, "the two parties will respect a truce until a final solution is found and they promise not to attack each other because they consider the principal enemy to be the Nussayri regime." Not exactly what Obama and Kerry had in mind. But it is John Kerry's trip to Iraq that appears to have had blowback already as Reuters reports the newly installed US-friendly PM al-Adadi ordered his air force to halt strikes on civilian areas, "even in those towns controlled by ISIS," just a day after Kerry's visit (which left Turkey explaining how it would not support US airstrikes either). So far, so good?!

More on this tangled tale at link.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/09/14/378716/us-not-serious-in-fighting-terrorism/

A senior Iranian diplomat has criticized the US for its hypocrisy in countering the Takfiri ISIL militants operating in the Middle East, saying Washington has not been serious in its so-called war on terror.

“We believe that one should be serious in fighting against terrorism and we have not seen such seriousness in the Americans,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Europe and Americas Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi said on Sunday.

The remarks came two days after US President Barack Obama announced that the United States is assembling an international coalition to “snuff out” the ISIL terrorist group. The development followed Washington's inaction regarding the massacres in Iraq and Syria while the rise of the ISIL Takfiri militants has been directly attributed to the Western interventionist policies in the region.

Syria has been gripped by a deadly conflict, fueled by Western-backed militants, for more than three years. The crisis spread into Syria's eastern neighbor, Iraq, and escalated profoundly in early June after Takfiri ISIL militants took control of large swathes of the Arab country.

When the ISIL Takfiri militants were operating in Syria, the Western governments remained silent and some countries even supported the terrorist groups, Takht-e-Ravanchi said.

“These countries should explain how there is such a dualism in their policies. Lip service is not sufficient for fighting terrorism, but it should be real and serious…,” he added.

The ISIL terrorists, of whom many are foreign militants, currently control parts of eastern Syria and Iraq’s northern and western regions, where they have been committing heinous crimes, including the mass execution of civilians and Iraqi security forces.

Worth remembering that, contrary to propaganda, Iran IS a democracy, and has Jewish and Christian MPs.

http://rt.com/news/187704-us-failure-saudi-isis/

​US failure to see Saudi role in 9/11 contributed to rise of ISIS – ex-senator

Failure by the US to investigate Saudi Arabia’s connection to the 9/11 attacks is among the factors that led to the rise of ISIS, Bob Graham, a former senator and co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11, told The Independent in an interview.

Graham has expressed doubts about the US’s reliance on Saudi Arabia as an ally in fight against Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). Earlier this week President Obama announced a plan, according to which Saudi Arabia is supposed to provide training for moderate Syrian rebels, who are expected to fight both the ISIS and Assad's forces.

‘No safe haven’: Obama declares airstrikes on Islamic State ‘wherever it exists’

The former senator said it was not the best decision to rely on the country which has often been accused of sponsoring “the most extreme elements among the Sunni.”

The US appears to have a history of turning a blind eye to the disputable activities of its long-time ally. Graham, who was in the Senate for 18 years and chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee for more than a year following 9/11, questions the way US intelligence treated the Saudis after the attack on the Twin Towers.

Despite the fact that 15 out of 19 of the hijackers were Saudis, some 144 of their compatriots mostly from the Saudi aristocracy, were able to return home to Saudi Arabia within days of the attack without being questioned by the FBI.

“There were several incidents [in which US officials] were inexplicably solicitous to Saudis,” Senator Graham recalls.

“I believe that the failure to shine a full light on Saudi actions and particularly its involvement in 9/11 has contributed to the Saudi ability to continue to engage in actions that are damaging to the US – and in particular their support for ISIS,” he says.

US allies cultivated Islamic State. Now IS plans to 'raise flag of Allah in White House'

Some light on the Saudi role in the 9/11 tragedy could be shed if the 28 redacted pages from the inquiry were made public. Graham has been campaigning for that.

Obama promised to release the censored documents during his first presidential campaign, but haven’t yet delivered on the promise.

Graham speaks of close personal ties between the Bush family and the Saudi Arabia rulers. But why the “policy of covering up Saudi involvement [in 9/11] persisted under the Obama administration” is something he fails to understand.



Interesting; the conspiraloons would be better off focusing on this strange blindness to the Saudis, than dreaming up rubbish involving hologram planes, etc.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-15/petrodollar-panic-eu-officials-admit-buying-oil-isis


A senior European Union official has revealed that some EU member states have purchased oil from ISIL Takfiri militants despite their rhetoric against the group.

In a briefing to the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, EU Ambassador to Iraq Jana Hybas-kova said some European countries have purchased crude from the ISIL.

She, however, refused to disclose any names despite pressure by some Parliament members to do so.

The EU official also warned against any support by the West for separatist Kurdish groups who, she said, would destabilize the Middle East.

Earlier reports accused Turkey of buying and transporting oil from both the ISIL and Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. According to the reports, Western intelligence agencies could track ISIL oil shipments as they moved across Iraq and Turkey.

ISIL reportedly controls eleven oil fields in northern Iraq as well as Syria's Raqqa province.

US intelligence officials estimate that the Takfiri militants earn more than USD 3 million a day from oil profit, theft, human trafficking and ransom. They say the militants sell oil and other products via established networks in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq's Kurdistan region. ?Turkey has denied reports of involvement in ISIL's oil smuggling operations.
* * *

Well, someone in the West is clearly buying it; no chance of Sanctioning them? Or are they members of the latest bombing coalition?

And does anyone know why on earth Australia is getting involved in this? More than 500 Aussies were killed in Vietnam, and the anger over that just about tore Australia apart. It's just about possible to see a reason for Australia to have been worried about Vietnam, but Iraq?

He does sound like he has dementia, Bonny....

Agree, Lily, he just isn't making sense. He really should retire, before he says something awful and HAS to retire.

Yes he should.  He is really embarrassing himself.

from-

http://news.sky.com/story/1339886/blair-airpower-alone-not-enough-to-defeat-is

Tony Blair has said Britain should not rule out sending forces into Syria and Iraq to counter the threat posed by Islamic State.

In a 6,500-word essay, the former prime minister said that while no desire existed for ground engagement in the region, airpower alone would not be enough to defeat the group.

"We have to fight groups like ISIS," he said. "There can be an abundance of diplomacy, all necessary relief of humanitarian suffering, every conceivable statement of condemnation which we can muster.

"But unless they're accompanied by physical combat, we will mitigate the problem but not overcome it.

"Airpower is a major component of this to be sure, especially with the new weapons available to us. But - and this is the hard truth - airpower alone will not suffice.

"If possible, others closer to the field of battle, with a more immediate interest, can be given the weapons and the training to carry the fight.

The Ceremonial Funeral Of Former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher
Tony Blair: 'The enemy we're fighting is fanatical'
"I accept fully there is no appetite for ground engagement in the West. But we should not rule it out in the future if it is absolutely necessary."

I've an even better idea - give Blair and the other warmongers rifles and sent THEM into Iraq, with McCain and co in the vanguard, They caused this mess by invading Iraq on a lie, and then by arming the 'nice rebels' and turning a blind eye as long as they only massacred Christians in Syria.

I see NO reason why any more of our best young people should be killed and maimed for the benefit of war criminals like Blair.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/21/us/massachusetts-missing-afghan-soldiers/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Three Afghan National Army soldiers, who were in Massachusetts for training, have gone missing after a trip to a shopping mall, authorities said. It's the second time in a week that Afghan security trainees in the United States have disappeared.
The three soldiers do not appear to pose any threat to the public, the Massachusetts National Guard said.

No, of course they don't, perish the thought! It's not as if anyone of them have ever turned their weapons on US soldiers in Afghanistan, or anything! Oh wait........