Thursday - September 25, 2014

A bit of street cleaning in London

Radical preacher Anjem Choudary was one of nine men arrested today as part of an investigation into Islamist terrorism.

Choudary, 47, and eight other men aged 22, 31, 31, 32, 36, 38, 39 and 51 were arrested by Metropolitan Police officers in London this morning, and have all been taken to police stations - where they remain in custody.

His arrest came on the morning he posted a series of tweets at about 5am with an anti-Western tone, referring to the ongoing crisis involving ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria.

Muslim activist Abu Izzadeen - born Trevor Brooks - is also among the men arrested.

Some 19 residential, business or community premises were being searched today as part of the investigation, Scotland Yard said.

A police spokesman said: ‘These arrests and searches are part of an ongoing investigation into Islamist-related terrorism and are not in response to any immediate public safety risk.’

Officers confirmed that the nine men were arrested on suspicion of being a member of a proscribed organisation, supporting a proscribed organisation and encouraging terrorism.
...
Choudary co-founded the now banned group al-Muhajiroun. Fanatics Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who were both jailed earlier this year for the brutal slaying of Fusilier Lee Rigby, were both seen at demonstrations organised by al-Muhajiroun.

Choudary said he knew Adebolajo, who was pictured beside him at a rally in 2007, and the second founder of the group, Omar Bakri Mohammed, claimed that he had spoken to the future killer at meetings.

The group, which has changed names a number of times, was banned in the UK in 2010. A study suggested that in the preceding 12 years, 18 per cent of Islamic extremists convicted of terror offences in the UK had current or former links with it.
...
Anti-extremism campaigners Hope Not Hate welcomed the arrests. Chief executive Nick Lowles said: ‘For over a year, since our own extensive investigations into Anjem Choudary and his disciples, we’ve been saying that more must be done to curb this hate-supporting and recruiting organisation.’

In an interesting aside, anti-extremist campaigners Britain First is claiming partial credit in these arrests, saying that it was there investigation and protests that brought public attention to this bunch, forcing an otherwise lazy government to finally act. Britain First is not mentioned in the above news article.

[email from Britain First] This morning, SO15 Counter Terrorism Command swooped on hate preacher Anjem Choudary and his minions.

This is a significant development in our fightback campaign.

It seems that the recent swoops on Britain First were intended to garner intelligence to support these raids, perhaps.

It seems that our recent fightback activities have “stepped on the toes” of SO15 Counter Terrorism Command as they were ready to swoop on Choudary and his network.

They were also intended to temporarily disable Britain First on the verge of these raids.

We cannot see any other cause or reason for the heavy handed actions against Britain First to have taken place.

This is a major triumph for our “Operation Fightback” campaign: our relentless exposures and face-to-face pressure has rendered the State’s policy of giving Islamic extremists a free-hand completely untenable.

When the public doesn’t see, or know, about the Islamic extremist networks, the State can safely ignore them.

Our public exposures, and confrontations, and our enormous online reach, has rendered this policy unworkable.

We have forced the situation!

Firstly Choudary’s network was banned, now they have all been rounded up.

It’s also a strong possibility that because of our fightback activities, and the result that these extremists have been banned and arrested, and taking into account that they have been arrested on terrorism charges, that our actions in forcing the hand of SO15 Counter Terrorism Command has saved lives somewhere down the road.

Naturally, the arrests work as a fundraiser for the group, because the government’s approach to acquiring Britain First’s information was to raid their offices and impound all their computers and gear!

Another reason I am writing this is because the ferocious assault of the police raids have left us utterly stunted in our ability to carry on working.

Because of the police raids, Britain First has ground to a halt.

Why? Because the police confiscated all of our office equipment.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/25/2014 at 07:29 AM   
Filed Under: • UK • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - September 21, 2014

Canada Has A Good Idea

One of the things that can be done in our networked, digitized world. Your paper passport is really mostly only for show.

The government has begun invalidating the passports of Canadians who have left to join extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander revealed in an interview on Friday.

The minister told the National Post his department had also revoked the passports of several Canadians who had not yet left the country but who had intended to travel to the volatile region to enlist as foreign fighters.

He would not disclose the number of passports Citizenship and Immigration Canada had revoked over the conflict but said there were “multiple cases.” The government says about 30 Canadians are with extremist groups in Syria and 130 are active elsewhere.

Canada, eff yeah!!

The action means Canadian fighters in Syria and Iraq may effectively be stranded there. Their passports are no longer valid and therefore cannot be used to return to Canada. Nor could they be used to travel elsewhere.

...

Measures to staunch the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria are among the strategies Canada and its allies have adopted to degrade ISIS. On Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told the United Nations Security Council, which met to discuss the situation in Iraq, that ISIS was a “terrorist army” that had blended “medieval ideology” with modern weapons. “We must also reject their nihilistic worldview wherever we find it,” he said.

Of course, to do this means the government is already keeping extra close watch on a whole lot of citizens, but being a mostly Socialist nation these days, perhaps Canadians are used to that. Maybe they like it. And it’s not like the government is throwing them out of the country or taking away their citizenship. It’s just that they’ve woken up, and realized that ISIS is rather like a bunch of pirates. An enemy of all mankind, living in stateless limbo. So if you’re with them, you’re against everyone. Including Canada. So you won’t be needing your Canadian passport then, eh? Take off, hoser!

Posted by Drew458     on 09/21/2014 at 09:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Canada • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - September 18, 2014

I say, Off With Their Heads

Australian counterterrorism forces detained 15 people Thursday in a series of suburban raids after receiving intelligence that the Islamic State militant group was planning public beheadings in two Australian cities to demonstrate its reach.

About 800 federal and state police officers raided more than a dozen properties across 12 Sydney suburbs as part of the operation—the largest in Australian history, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Colvin told the Associated Press. A sword was removed as part of evidence at one of the homes.

Separate raids in the eastern cities of Brisbane and Logan were also conducted.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the plan involved kidnapping randomly selected members of the public off the streets in Sydney and Brisbane, beheading them on camera, and releasing the recordings through Islamic State’s propaganda arm in the Middle East.

Later Thursday, Attorney General George Brandis confirmed that a person born in Afghanistan who had spent time in Australia and is now working with the Islamic State group in the Middle East ordered supporters in Australia to behead people and videotape the killings.

“If the ... police had not acted today, there is a likelihood that this would have happened,” Brandis told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A crowd of around 300 people protested the raids at a rally in Sydney on Thursday night.

Uthman Badar, a spokesman for the Islamist group Hizt ut-Tahrir, warned of a growing unrest within Australia’s Muslim community.

“We are tired of being made scapegoats. The government is the terrorist,” he said in front of supporters wearing anti-government placards, according to News.com.au.

“We would be fools to think we can now wake up and feel safer,” he added. “We are not fools to be deceived. There is anger in the community. We have been victimized for years and years.”

Really? Well go the hell home then. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You think you’re a victim now? Just wait until your butt-buddies actually give an Ozzie the chop.

The government raised its terrorism threat last week from “crikey” [medium] to “strewth” [high] on a four-tier scale on the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. The domestic spy agency’s Director-General David Irvine said the threat had been rising over the past year, mainly due to Australians joining ISIS to fight in Syria and Iraq.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/18/2014 at 12:37 PM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • War On Terror •  
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   Saturday - September 13, 2014

Even The Left Is Right Once In A While

Now here is Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 largely because he promised to end the Iraq war, back for another bite at the apple. A small bite — since Obama’s aversion to large-scale intervention on the ground will largely restrict the U. S. effort to aerial bombardment supplemented with a bit of advice and equipment.

Whether the president will make good his promise to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State militants will depend less on the accuracy of U.S. bombs and missiles than on the effectiveness and motivation of surrogate forces fighting on the ground. Identifying willing and able proxies is like to pose a challenge.

...

The countries that ought to care more than the United States simply because they are more immediately threatened by Islamic State fighters — Iran, Turkey, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia — have not demonstrated a commensurate willingness to act.

...

Destroying what Obama calls the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant won’t create an effective and legitimate Iraqi state. It won’t restore the possibility of a democratic Egypt. It won’t dissuade Saudi Arabia from funding jihadists. It won’t pull Libya back from the brink of anarchy. It won’t end the Syrian civil war.  It won’t bring peace and harmony to Somalia and Yemen. It won’t persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms in Afghanistan. It won’t end the perpetual crisis of Pakistan. It certainly won’t resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

...

Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing.

Nice metaphor at the end there.  And what a great joke to open the essay with; “elected president because he promised to end the war”. What a delusional hoot!!  But aside from that, he’s got a good point. Killing ISIS won’t solve everything. Not that anyone ever said it would. But if somebody in charge was really smart, attacking ISIS in Syria could tip the scales on their revolution if you’ve coordinated with your favorite rebels ahead of time. Fly in, blast an ISIS place to shreds, have your rebels occupy the place while the bricks are still hot. Go to the next area, lather rinse repeat. 

Posted by Drew458     on 09/13/2014 at 10:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • War On Terror •  
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   Friday - September 12, 2014

Because He Thinks You Are That Stupid

Slap in the face, much?

Good God. Ka-Boom backpacks? Backpacks full of Ka-Boom? On 9/11.

I guess they couldn’t get that Tamerlan Tsarnaev kid to attend.

I can’t believe nobody thought about the “visuals”. This was done on purpose. Because to them it’s funny. +100 points for the irony. And it’s another stick in the eye to America, hardy har har.

No, it doesn’t make any difference that this KaBoom is some kind of national network that builds play areas for poor kids, instead of that other Kaboom, the horrible chemical saturated clown cereal from the 80s. The cereal of the defeated.  Both of them use the sound of explosions as their name.

Explosions. Like backpack bombs at marathons. Or jets flying into buildings. “KaBoom volunteers” ... you know ... suicide bombers.

This is taking tacky to a level previously unknown in all human history.

Oh, and PS: the Boston mosque where the Marathon bomber attended is chock full of terrorists, with ties to ISIS.

And I’m still not sure why 9/11 is supposed to be a day of national service, but I guess that doesn’t really hurt anything. As long as you don’t loose the memory of that day. But for today’s teens, is it anything more than Arbor Day on a grander scale?

Posted by Drew458     on 09/12/2014 at 02:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - September 11, 2014

Is Anybody Listening?

Thomas Sowell from 3 days ago:

If you start from the assumption that Barack Obama wanted to advance America’s interests, this is truly an unbelievable record of failure. But what is there in Obama’s background that would justify the assumption that America’s best interests are his goal?

He has, from childhood on, been mentored by, or allied with, people hostile to the U.S. and to American values. His mentors and allies have all been very much like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, even if they were not as flamboyant.

Barack Obama has succeeded in reducing America’s military strength while our adversaries are increasing theirs, and reducing our credibility and influence with our allies. That is completely consistent with his vision of how the world ought to be, with the West taken down a peg and humbled.

We are currently at a point where we can either kill as many of the IS terrorists as possible over there — where they are bunched together and visible against a desert background — or else leave the job half done and have them come over here, where they will be hard to find and can start beheading Americans in America.

Everything in Barack Obama’s history suggests that he is going to leave the job half-done, so long as it gets the issue off the front pages and off the TV newscasts.

Read it all

Can we give him promotion, to Colonel Obvious? 

Posted by Drew458     on 09/11/2014 at 06:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One • War On Terror •  
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And Another Year Passes

9/11

It’s a Thursday this year. It was a Tuesday that year.

Where two iconic buildings once fell, one iconically named but otherwise forgettable building now rises.

You personally are considerably less free now than you were then, in so many ways. Thanks to your government. Most likely you’re poorer too, but that’s not a subject for today’s post.

Over 8,000 lives of our military have been lost fighting this thing we stopped calling The Global War On Terror years ago. The victories we achieved seem to have turned to ashes. Our borders are meaningless and we are being saturated with disease carrying illegal foreigners by our own government’s hidden plan.

And last night, that flaccid speech by our laughingstock President, laying out a half-baked lightweight plan to fight ISIS that is guaranteed to be ineffective. And all the rest of his inanity, starting with “Islamic State is not Islamic”, when in fact they enact the teachings of the Quran nearly word for word.

And the empty talking heads on the TV news keep saying how tired of war Americans are, when in truth most have forgotten, or never knew, and certainly never felt the slightest bit of impact, of the several wars that we are in.

Sorry Mr. Soldier, you can not enter your son’s school while in uniform. Someone might be offended.  We have learned nothing.

Obama’s blithering last night ought to have been a John Paul Jones moment. His words should have been bold enough to get a “damn right” from George Patton. Instead we got ... what the hell was that, anyway?  Pusillanimous? Knock-kneed? I’m running out of verbs that mean chicken shit. Fly weight; minimalist.

Tired? Yes, I am tired. Tired of lies, tired of half measures, tired of political correctness, tired of politics. I know who the enemy is, I know what the enemy is, I know where the enemy is, and I know why they feel they must be our enemy forever. So I’m tired of waiting.

Two links that are worth following:

Preston tells it like it is

The NY Times tries to put a good light on things, fails

Posted by Drew458     on 09/11/2014 at 08:54 AM   
Filed Under: • FREEDOM • USA • War On Terror •  
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   Friday - August 22, 2014

So True, I Just Had To Repost It

Posted by Drew458     on 08/22/2014 at 02:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - August 21, 2014

And The End Approaches, Now Even Faster

Bloody marvelous.  And it’s been going on for months now.

Islamic State’s thirst for blood has the world on edge, but its equally insatiable yearning for oil could prove a “catastrophe” for the global economy if the terror organization isn’t stopped, experts say.

The jihadist group, formerly known as ISIS, now controls seven oil fields and two small refineries in northern Iraq, bringing in as much as $2 million per day by selling up to 40,000 barrels via middlemen in illicit deals. The black market oil sells for roughly $25 to $60 per barrel, compared to the current market rate of $102, according to Luay al-Khatteeb, founder and executive director of the Iraq Energy Institute. And while this is a veritable drop in the global bucket of oil production, the crude spigot will continue translating into terror funds for Islamic State militants if unchecked, al-Khatteeb and other experts told FoxNews.com.

“Unless we choke this organization’s revenues, and the areas it’s able to access revenues, it’s going to keep growing,” said Denise Natali, a senior research fellow for the Institute for National Strategic Studies. “The Iraqi government has announced it now, but this has been going on for months.”

A source close to the matter told London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that Islamic State is selling Iraqi oil to Kurdish traders in regions bordering Iraq, Iran and Syria before being shipped to Pakistan, where it’s being sold for less than half of market rates.

While production within those oil fields is globally insignificant, it does directly power the extremist group, offering the militants a degree of fiscal autonomy, according to al-Khatteeb.

“They’ve become very much self-sufficient,” he told FoxNews.com. “They control about 60 percent of Syria’s producing fields in its oil-rich eastern region. In Iraq, they control about seven oil-producing fields and two small refineries with a potential output of 80,000 barrels. And the black market is expanding into Turkey, which is becoming the main beneficiary of that market.”

Wait, so the very same Kurds that ISIS is busy shooting and beheading are the people buying up the illicit oil? Or are these Turkish Kurds, who - in a gesture of complete tribal solidarity - couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what happens to Iraqi Kurds on the other side of the mountain? But hey, all the oil - and the money - stays within the islamic world, so no harm, no foul. Right?

Funny thing ... back before Gulf War One, the hippie-dippy left was running around protesting “No blood for oil” when it came time to free Kuwait from occupation and enslavement. What will they say now, or next month, when the West will have to go in and destroy ISIS one goat humper at a time, and take back those oil fields in the process? Because if they don’t, the world will have an ever increasing, insane, psychopathic murder machine on it’s hands, funding themselves to the tune of half a billion or more per year.

Kind of makes me wonder ... do the muzzies really want to stop ISIS? Or is that just lip service to keep the stupid West sending in more aid, more supplies, and more weaponry. And they just sit back and let somebody else do the dirty jihad work for awhile. If the Caliphate wins, they win. (assuming that ISIS stops killing the locals and starts focusing on the West, as they seem to be starting to do?)

What if the entire civilized world went on a crash course to convert to natural gas, and from then on in only used petroleum to make plastics and synthetic rubber?

“Haha Infidels, the Caliphate controls all the oil in the Middle East! You will pay dearly now!!”
“Um, no thanks, sorry, we don’t want any of that stuff any more.”

Because I’m pretty sure there isn’t a single LNG plant anywhere over there. Not one. And the US, Canada, and the Soviet re-Union have oceans of the stuff. Maybe Brazil and Venezuela do too?

Posted by Drew458     on 08/21/2014 at 03:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices • War On Terror •  
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   Wednesday - August 20, 2014

Obama Gets Tough

Obama speaks out after ISIS beheading of US journalist Mike Foley, vows to take action. Then he goes back to playing golf.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the U.S. won’t back down from ISIS, the militant terror group that released a video Tuesday showing one of its militants beheading an American photojournalist.

‘Today, the entire world is appalled by the brutal murder of Jim Foley by the terrorist group, ISIL,’ said Obama, calling the group by the White House’s preferred name.’

‘No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and ... every single day,’ he said.

‘ISIL speaks for no religion,’ he said, aiming his words at the Islamist faction that claims to have established a Muslim caliphate in portions of Syria and Iraq. ‘Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.’

Well, right, true, except for that muslim religion that teaches their people to massacre innocents who won’t convert or pay the jizya tax. But why let facts get in the way?

As with his last public statements, Obama followed a brief speech with a round of golf, according to a White House pool report.

Obama delivered a statement from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, during his vacation on Wednesday. His remarks come after ‘Islamic State’ insurgents released a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who had gone missing in Syria nearly two years ago

Americans ‘are all heartbroken at their loss and join them in honoring Jim,’ he said, somber but not wearing a necktie, as has been his practice during his extended family holiday.

Foley stood ‘in stark contrast’ to his captors and executioners, he said, blaming them for a series of ‘cowardly acts of violence.’

‘One thing we can all agree on is a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century,’ a defiant Obama said.

The president said the terror group has tortured and killed ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq, including women and children.

‘They have rampaged across cities and villages, killing innocent civilians,’ he said.

‘They have murdered Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can, for no other reason than that they practice another religion.’

He seemed to double down on the threat of airstrikes, even though Foley’s executioner claimed another journalist will die if they continue.

‘There has to be a common effort to expel this cancer so it does not spread,’ Obama said.

America’s military has carried out nearly a dozen new airstrikes in Iraq since Tuesday, with the attacks coming after the terror group’s appalling video release.

Foley’s executioner addressed President Barack Obama personally in the video, warning that his group would kill Steven Sotloff – another American journalist the group is holding – if the U.S. didn’t stop a campaign of targeted attacks that Obama green-lighted on August 8.

Other reports are saying that the minimal nature of US airstrikes so far has caused ISIS to adopt a tactical change; no longer are they traveling in convoys like an actual military, but in small groups, herding local residents or foreigners ahead of them as human shields.  So perhaps Big O’s strategy of little hits wasn’t the smartest move to open with; a few alpha strikes rich with carpet bombing would have done major damage to ISIS at the time. Too late for that now.

In typical British newspaper fashion, there is a huge amount of further detail and loads of photographs at the link above.

PS - the knife wielding insane ISIS beheader ... is probably a British citizen.

‘It’s increasingly likely he is British’: Cameron admits ISIS butcher who beheaded a US journalist is probably from the UK as race begins to identify hooded executioner
David Cameron has condemned the on-screen beheading of American journalist James Foley as ‘murder without justification’ - adding it is ‘increasingly likely’ that a British jihadist carried out the murder.

The Prime Minister, who broke off his holiday amid the escalating crisis, said the killing of the kidnapped American reporter was ‘brutal and barbaric’ - but he insisted the act would not change the Government’s approach to tackling the group in Iraq and Syria.

‘Let me condemn the barbaric and brutal act that has taken place and let’s be clear what this act is - it is an act of murder, and murder without any justification,’ Mr Cameron said from Downing Street.

Mr Cameron’s remarks came amid claims the jihadist who beheaded Mr Foley is the leader of a group of British fighters holding foreign hostages in Syria - and are known to their captors as ‘The Beatles’.

The English-speaking militant was identified to the Guardian newspaper by one of his former hostages. He is understood to be one of the main guards of foreign nationals in Raqqa, a stronghold of Islamic State rebels in Syria.

The militant, who appeared on the Foley video, allegedly called himself John and is believed to be from London.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/20/2014 at 12:59 PM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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   Saturday - August 09, 2014

Seeing The Future

Gee whillikers, I could’ve sworn I wrote something just like this only yesterday. Guess I’m not completely alone in my viewpoints. That’s nice to know.


yay me, I suppose.

The fact is that it was Obama who ensured the premature pulling of our troops, because this is what Democrats do…

Democrats lose won wars.

Vietnam was won.

Yep.

Your history teachers and professors don’t tell you this; nor do media documentaries. But the Vietnam War was won and America won it.

Which is what I’ve always said.

Oh, the war in Iraq was won, but it wouldn’t stay won without an American presence.

Regardless, the President bugged out of Iraq without an all-important status of forces agreement. In other words, like the stabilizing troops we still have in Japan, Germany, and South Korea — we left no one in Iraq.

The results in Iraq have already been catastrophic. But if Obama, the Democrats, and media stay true to their obvious desire to have Iraq go down in the loss column for America, these days will be remembered as the good ole’ days.

Thanks to Obama’s highly dangerous combination for ambition and ignorance, ISIS is now a terrorist nation-state within Iraq (and part of Syria) with a standing army, a command and control infrastructure, control of a 600-mile front in the North, and a half-billion dollars. It gets worse…

The terrorist nation-state of ISIS, or whatever they call it, is America’s worst nightmare realized.

Obama describes ISIS as “junior varsity.”

Obama is a liar.

Go and read the rest. I didn’t finish it, so I don’t know if he digs down deep enough to remind us that it was Democrat perfidy that lost China to the communists, under Truman. Another won war, lost. [no, he doesn’t, since Iraq is the focus of this short essay]

liar liar pants on fire!!

via PU

Posted by Drew458     on 08/09/2014 at 06:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • War On Terror •  
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   Wednesday - July 30, 2014

A 44% Solution

To protect itself from Hamas rockets and tunnels, Israel is forcing tens of thousands of people out of their homes, turning their old neighborhoods into a no-man’s land.

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza — This narrow strip of land that used to be called “the Gaza Strip,” already one of the more densely populated places on Earth, is growing dramatically smaller. The Israeli military, relentlessly and methodically, is driving people out of the 3-kilometer (1.8 mile) buffer zone it says it needs to protect against Hamas rockets and tunnels. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the buffer zone eats up about 44 percent of Gaza’s territory.

Expect the Joooo hating world to cry foul in ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

“Scorched earth,” historically, means destroying land to deprive the encroaching enemy of its use. Israelis shy away from using the phrase to describe what they are doing because, in Israel, it brings to mind the strategy of the Nazi retreat from Russia at the end of the Second World War.

According to Hebrew University political scientist and longtime analyst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Yaron Ezrahi, with or without the phrase, the idea does have a certain logic. Ezrahi says there is a military and political calculation behind this devastation. Some in the Israeli government believe it will create enough Palestinian suffering so that Gazans will rise up against Hamas or force the leaders to come to terms with Israel when they come out of hiding.

But that is an assumption that greatly underestimates the resolve of Gazans to see an end to their seven years of Israeli blockade and rid themselves of the Israeli presence that controls the strip like guards positioned around a prison yard.

At the same time, said Ezrahi, the practice of systematically flattening neighborhoods is focused on saving the lives of Israeli soldiers, who might otherwise be more exposed to hit-and-run attacks.

“Israel is more sensitive than any other country in the West to the death of its soldiers,” said Ezrahi. “The death of [Palestinian] civilians is a moral crisis but is without political impact.”

Actually, the Israelis are just copying what the Egyptians started doing back in February, building a razed earth buffer zone. It’s just that theirs is several times wider, since Egypt isn’t under actual constant attack from Hamas in Gaza. And Egypt built their 1/2 km wide buffer zone by giving up their own land, something Israel has done time and time again. But not this time. This time, the land comes from Gaza.

It sounds like a good start to me, although it’s actually an enlargement of a plan started 6 years ago. Not that it will do much good, other than to give the IDF time and space to locate and destroy every attack tunnel they can. And when the attacks continue (or start up again, I’m guessing this could be about the end of this iteration of that never ending war), they can bulldoze another buffer zone 1.5 km wide. Which would leave the Gaza Strip just a little bit wider than the boardwalk at Atlantic City NJ. And that will, in my opinion, be a good second step in the three step program. Because these animals will never ever learn to live in peace.

http://972mag.com/not-about-tunnels-israeli-tanks-take-aim-at-central-gaza/94582/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/as-israel-enforces-its-buffer-zone-gaza-shrinks-by-40-per-cent.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/30/palestinians-accuse-israel-striking-un-school-in-gaza/
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-plans-buffer-zone-north-gaza-strip/2208

Wasn’t it old Aesop who wrote the fable about the fox and the fleas? Somehow this reminds me of that.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/30/2014 at 11:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Israel • War On Terror •  
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   Thursday - July 24, 2014

like trying to empty the ocean with a tea spoon

A most excellent, must read essay up at Theo’s. An interview with an Israeli farm family and life under the daily attacks from Hamas for THIRTEEN YEARS. And now the war is nearly in their front yard. THIRTEEN YEARS. And the world chides Israel for any response, because it’s always a “disproportionate response”.

Like Hell.

Do you understand? We don’t hate them. We had good friends in Gaza. We know there are good people there and what kind of chance does a child have there to grow up NOT to want to kill me? That’s all he’s raised with, rocket and guns and hand grenades. They dress their toddlers up in suicide vests and take pictures of them. That’s like their Purim costume , their halloween. Isn’t that cute? Isn’t that sweet ? He’s a little suicide bomber. Here we’ll take his picture and send it to grandma so she’ll be proud. We know they have a gun to their heads. But what should we do when they come to kill us? When they pop up out of the ground on our front lawn and want to kill us? What should we do? And the world blames us because not enough of us are dead? That’s the crime?

Go read Dan Gordon’s piece.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/24/2014 at 08:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Israel • War On Terror •  
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   Tuesday - July 22, 2014

Fallen Off The Radar Screen

Nigeria marked a solemn milestone Tuesday in the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls. Exactly 100 days after the girls were kidnapped by by Islamic extremists Boko Haram, 219 of them were still missing, a presidential committee said. In the three months since they were taken, at least 11 of their parents have died, residents told The Associated Press.

The militants have been steadfast in their attacks throughout Nigeria and have balked at international pleas to release the girls. Nearly 60 students managed to escape from the thick jungle where most of them are still believed to be captive, but the AP has reported that at least 20 others are ill, and at least two have died of snake bites. Seven of the girls’ fathers were killed in a militant attack this month near their hometown of Chibok, and at least four other parents have died from heart failure and other illnesses that the community attributes to trauma from the girls’ abduction. A health worker offered the AP one ray of hope: The escapees, who at first refused to talk about their experience, are now participating in music and art therapy, though they are still gravely concerned about their missing classmates.

Yup, 3 and a half months later, no rescue, no success, no forward motion at all. Video at the above link, along with 119 other stories on the kidnapped schoolgirls.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/22/2014 at 06:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa • War On Terror •  
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