Prime Minister David Cameron: 'Increasingly Likely' Foley's Murderer British (VIDEO)

At the Telegraph UK:

David Cameron cut short his holiday to return to Downing Street and oversee the response after the horrific video was posted online.
Speaking to reporters in Number 10, Mr Cameron said it seemed "increasingly likely" that a British citizen was the killer.

"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," he said.

"We have not identified the individual responsible, but from what we have seen it looks increasingly likely that it is a British citizen.

"This is deeply shocking. But we know that far too many British citizens have travelled to Iraq and travelled to Syria to take part in extremism and violence. And what we must do is redouble all our efforts to stop people from going. To take away the passports of those contemplating travel, arrest and prosecute those who take part in this extremism and violence. To take extremist material off the internet and do everything we can to keep our people safe. And that is what this Government will do."

How to Take a Picture of a Severed Head

From Sebastian Meyer and Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer, at Foreign Policy:

In the buildup to the premier of part one of VICE News' documentary, the company touted its journalist's "unprecedented access." Indeed, VICE's cameras appear to go deep into the caliphate, and the footage they capture is chilling: In the first two installments, based in Raqqa, Syria, children as young as 11 pledge loyalty to the caliphate, and IS members give brazen interviews that include pledging to "raise the flag of Allah in the White House." There are also happy scenes, of a sort: Men living under IS rule play with children in a river. And front and center, of course, are the demonstrations of Islamic State power: a tank spinning in circles; IS's signature black flag waving from a turret; a parade of stolen Iraqi weapons; a rally in which a crowd is prodded into a call-and-response: "The Caliphate!" "Established!"

In an email statement to Foreign Policy, VICE offered no details about the terms of the embed, nor did it share them in an interview with the Huffington Post. It said it offered "a previously unseen look at life under the control of this terrifying extremist group" and said filmmaker Dairieh "has worked in the region's most challenging environments ... and has extensive contacts."

Part I of the VICE series is here: "The Spread of Islamic State."

Obama Approves Targeted Airstrikes on Islamic State in Iraq

At the Wall Street Journal, "Barack Obama Approves Airstrikes on Iraq, Airdrops Aid: Bid to Protect Refugees Fleeing Extremists: Bid to Protect Refugees Fleeing Extremists":

President Barack Obama authorized targeted airstrikes and emergency assistance missions in northern Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. must act to protect American personnel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the face of advances by violent Islamist militants.
The U.S. military said it completed a delivery of meals and water to thousands of members of a religious minority who fled the town of Sinjar and are trapped in nearby mountains by the group calling itself the Islamic State.

Mr. Obama said he ordered the use of U.S. airstrikes if necessary either to stop militants from closing in on the northern city of Erbil or to allow local forces to aid the Yazidis, the religious minority. No U.S. strikes had been conducted by late Thursday, officials said.

His remarks at the White House capped a day of soaring concern about militant advances in Iraq, where extremist fighters seized control of areas long considered safe and took over the Mosul Dam, the country's largest, according to local reports.

But Mr. Obama also acknowledged domestic jitters about renewed military involvement in Iraq, where America fought an eight-year war.

"American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq because there is no American military solution to the crisis in Iraq," he said, emphasizing the word "American."

"The only lasting solution is reconciliation among Iraqi communities and stronger Iraqi security forces," he said. Separately, Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement stressed the U.S. view that Iraq can only regain stability through the formation of a new, more inclusive government.

The sudden acceleration of U.S. military activity reflected White House concern over a burgeoning crisis in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. An Iraqi military official said the Iraqi air force conducted its own airstrikes in the area Thursday.

The White House and Pentagon previously have said they reserve the right to use force in Iraq to protect Americans, and repeated that stance Thursday. The U.S. troops in Erbil are part of a force of planners and advisers working in joint U.S.-Iraqi centers.

Washington has held off on any direct military involvement as the Obama administration pressures Iraqi lawmakers to form a new government.

"We are sending a clear message to the Iraqi government," said a U.S. official...

Also at the New York Times, "American Forces Said to Bomb ISIS Targets in Iraq."

VIDEO: Anarchists, Communists Attack 'American Power' at Anaheim #ANSWER Protest: 'He's an Agitator!'

"He's an agitator! That's just what he does. He's just going to cause a problem."

Watch the clip starting at 24:45 minutes. As noted, I was surrounded by dozens of anarchists, communists, dirty hippies, and meth-heads. Look at this retinue of human waste. Note especially the dirtbag with the obligatory upside down American flag. And of course notice at all the cameras being stuffed in my face. My response all day was "This is a public park. You have no right to stop me from participating in this protest." But with no police presence on the ground, thuggery was the order of the day. My phone was stolen from my hands at total of three times (I forgot to mention previously that the dirty tie-died hippie also assaulted me, stealing my phone and throwing it to the grass. Recall I had to retrieve my phone out of the street and from over a 10-foot brick wall as well.)



And forget the lies at the clip. I wasn't agitating anything, other than trying to take a few photos and Vines for my blog. What you're seeing is the mob siege that took over once the ANSWER communists realized who I was. This went on for probably half an hour at least, as I tried to move toward the main speakers, including Genevieve Huizar, the mother of dead gang-banger Manny Diaz, who in 2012 Anaheim police saw brandishing a weapon before being shot while fleeing the scene.

Robert Stacy McCain has the roundup of my earlier posts, "Commies in Anaheim?"

I'm surprised I haven't yet seen more videos of the mob attack. The reality is that the anarcho-communists were in my face, trying to intimidate and provoke me into violence, which then would have been captured on video as "proof" that I was a violent right-wing extremist. To their endless dismay, I was classically peaceful and composed, while being shut-down by criminal thugs in the typical fashion of leftist brownshirt totalitarianism.

Anti-Israel Nutjob Max Blumenthal: Netanyahu’s 'Extreme Right-Wing' Coalition Conducting 'Revenge Campaign' in Gaza

Apparently there were two alleged "neo-Nazi" counter-protesters at a Tel Aviv pro-Gaza demonstration on July 12th, and there are claims that "right-wingers" were shouting "death to Arabs."

Two, that's it. At Revolution News, "2 Israelis Wore Neo Nazi Shirts During Attack on Anti War Protest in Tel Aviv."

Cited there is this piece at 972 Magazine, "The night it became dangerous to demonstrate in Tel Aviv." And you gotta love this leaps of complicity here:

I have to say this clearly: it is not just these fascists, Eliassi and his people, or those carrying Liberman’s posters and the rest of the thugs. It comes from the top. It comes from a government which serially incites against Arabs and the Left. It comes from MK Yariv Levin sitting in the Channel 10 News studio, boldly lying about the Gaza siege policy, and refusing to allow Ran Cohen from Physicians for Human Rights to talk, calling him a liar, saying Channel 10 was derelict in its duty when it allows the government to be criticized on the air – criticism which was entirely hard, dry facts. It comes from policemen, who are quite adept at attacking Left-wing demonstrations, or ultra-Orthodox ones, and of course Arab ones – but somehow stand in silence in the face of fascists marching through the streets. And it comes from a prime minister who has been silent for weeks while masses flood the streets, attacking Arabs, swearing, humiliating, a whole population group feeling threatened and isolated, with nobody to turn to.

So yes, it will happen again. We will keep demonstrating, as we demonstrated this evening also in Haifa and Jaffa and earlier in Tira and Sakhnin and other places. But we have to know this will happen again, and prepare accordingly.

Also, according to JPost, in Haifa "Buses carrying Arab protesters who were coming to demonstrate against the Gaza operation were attacked."

Hmm, okay.

Here here comes insane anti-Israel extremist Max Blumenthal, alleging that "neo-Nazis" have "infiltrated" right to the top, and Israel's self-defense in Gaza is a "revenge campaign" orchestrated by "extreme right-wing elements" and "army reservists" who "came together as part of the orange cells that protested the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2006."



Man, some really nasty, nutjob conspiratorial stuff. See, "Israeli Peace Demo Violently Disrupted, Dozens Injured as Counter-Protesters Yell 'Death to Arabs'."

Pretty typical for the left, though, whose contingents are currently protesting around the globe in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands, demanding the extermination of Israel and death to the Jews.

Seriously, there is nothing comparable on the pro-Israel side, which explains why insane nutjobs like Max Blumenthal have even been widely repudiated by anti-Israel leftists.

'Which feminism are you talking about?...'

Another must-read excursion into the bizarre world of radical feminism (and lesbianism), at the Other McCain, "Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace’":

Many women who today identify themselves as feminists have never examined the history of these conflicts and are unfamiliar with the militant personalities and radical ideologies that have influenced feminism for the past half-century. When confronted with the extremist rhetoric of feminists — vehement denunciation of males, condemnation of heterosexuality, claims that men (collectively) oppress and victimize women (collectively) in ways comparable to the Holocaust — the average woman is understandably startled and, if she thinks of herself as a feminist, she quickly shifts into denial mode. The anti-male passage you’ve just quoted to her is an aberration, an anomaly, an expression of fringe beliefs that does not represent the feminism that she endorses. She is not a Marxist, she is not a lesbian or a man-hater, she is not the kind of pro-abortion fanatic who views motherhood as male-imposed tyranny. The question thus arises: Is she actually a feminist?

Keep reading.

Where's the Apology to Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction?

From Arnold Ahlert, at FrontPage Magazine, "Saddam’s WMDs: The Left’s Iraq Lies Exposed":

The recent turmoil in Iraq brought on by the rise of the Sunni extremist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has ironically struck a blow to the American Left’s endlessly repeated narrative that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq prior to the war. The State Department and other U.S. government officials have revealed that ISIS now occupies the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex. Al Muthanna was Saddam Hussein’s primary chemical weapons facility, and it is located less than 50 miles from Baghdad.

The Obama administration claims that the weapons in that facility, which include sarin, mustard gas, and nerve agent VX, manufactured to prosecute the war against Iran in the 1980s, do not pose a threat because they are old, contaminated and hard to move. “We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible to safely move the materials,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

The administration’s dubious rationale is based on information provided by the Iraq Study Group, which was tasked with finding WMDs in the war’s aftermath. They found the chemical weapons at Al Muthanna, but they determined that both Iraq wars and inspections by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) had successfully dismantled the facility, and that the remaining chemical weapons were rendered useless and sealed in bunkers. The report called the weapons facility “a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities,” the 2004 report stated.

Yet other sections of the same report were hardly reassuring. “Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there,” it stated. “The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although declared, the bunkers’ contents have yet to be confirmed.” It added, “These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential black-marketers.”

*****

The latest revelations on the details of Saddam’s weapons stockpile, now potentially in the hands of Sunni radicals, affirm the Bush administration’s characterization of Iraq as a territory situated in a hotbed of radicalism, flooded with a bevy of highly dangerous weapons and overseen by a criminal rogue regime. Indeed, the WMDs are to say nothing of the Hussein government’s nuclear weapons program, also put to a stop by intervention in Iraq. In 2008, American and Iraqi officials had “completed nearly the last chapter in dismantling Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program with the removal of hundreds of tons of natural uranium from the country’s main nuclear site,” the New York Times reported. Approximately 600 tons of “yellowcake” was removed from the Tuwaitha facility, the main site for Iraq’s nuclear program. According to global security.org, uranium enrichment levels of 95 percent were achieved at the Tuwaitha facility. That site was also the location of the Osirak nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel in 1981.

And in what sounded like a harbinger of the future, the Times noted that although the yellowcake could not be used in its current form to produce a nuclear device or dirty bomb, the “unstable environment” in Iraq necessitated its removal, lest it fall into the “wrong hands.” In an updated correction to the article, the Times notes that the Osriak nuclear reactor “theoretically produced plutonium, which can fuel an atomic bomb.”

The Left dismissed this reality by claiming the yellowcake had been in Iraq prior to 1991 and thus was not the same yellowcake Bush referred to in his 2003 State of the Union address as part of his justification for invading Iraq. Led by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the emboldened anti-war Left attempted to turn the claim into a scandal saying that Bush knowingly lied to the American public regarding Iraq’s effort to procure yellowcake from Niger.

Ultimately, Wilson and his story were thoroughly discredited a year later by a Senate Select Committee report, which further noted that President Bush had been fully justified in including the infamous “16 words” regarding that intelligence in his speech. Moreover the left has never bothered to explain why yellowcake procured before 1991 was any less dangerous in terms of its WMD potential, given Saddam Hussein’s regular defiance of international law also enunciated by Bush as one of the primary reasons for deposing him.

In 2010, documents procured by Wikileaks revealed more information on the WMD threat posed by Iraq that was known to the government. The self-described whistleblowers, who could hardly be called pro-war, released 392,000 military reports from Iraq that revealed several instances of American encounters with potential WMDs or their manufacture. These included 1200 gallons of a liquid mustard agent in Samarra that tested positive for a blister agent; tampering by large earth movers thought to be attempting to penetrate the bunkers at Muthanna; the discovery of a chemical lab and a chemical cache in Fallujah; and the discovery of a cache of weapons hidden at an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint with 155MM rounds that subsequently tested positive for mustard.

Foreign involvement with WMDs in Iraq was documented as well. A war log from January 2006 speaks of 50 neuroparalytic projectiles smuggled into Iraq from Iran via Al Basrah; Syrian chemical weapons specialists who came in to support the “chemical weapons operations of Hizballah Islami” (Hezbollah); and an Al Qaeda chemical weapons expert from Saudi Arabia sent to assist 200 individuals awaiting an opportunity to attack coalition forces with Sarin. As Wired Magazine characterized it, the Wikileaks documents revealed that for several years after the initial invasion, “U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.”

Left-wing members in Congress were certainly aware of these threats and more posed by the Hussein regime, which lead them to unanimously authorize war and even vocally champion its necessity. Their assessment was based on nothing less than the very intelligence known to the Bush administration at the time. Secretary of State John Kerry, as a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations before war was authorized, said, “There’s no question in my mind that Saddam Hussein has to be toppled one way or another, but the question is how” and that there was likewise “no question” that Hussein “continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction, and his success can threaten both our interests in the region and our security at home.”

Don't hold your breath waiting for that apology.

Australian Foreign Minister Warns Aussie Jihadists Joining #ISIS in Iraq

Following-up from earlier, "Slick #ISIS Propaganda Video Recruits Western Youth: 'No Life Without Jihad...'"

Now at Australia's ABC News, "Number of Australians fighting with militants in Iraq and Syria 'extraordinary', Julie Bishop says." And at the Guardian UK, "Militant Australians join Sunnis in global conflicts, including Iraq: Bishop":

About 150 Australians are fighting with Sunni militants in conflicts around the world, and the government is particularly concerned about jihadists joining the Iraq conflict, the foreign affairs minister has revealed.  

Julie Bishop said her most recent intelligence briefing, on Thursday morning, estimated there to be about 150 Australians involved, most of them based in Syria. Her comments came as the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, would not rule out cancelling the citizenship of Australians who fought with the militant groups.

“It is extraordinary. There are about 150 Australians who have been or are still fighting with opposition groups in Syria and beyond. In Syria it seems that over a period of time they have moved from supporting the more moderate opposition groups to the more extreme and that includes this brutal extremist group, Isis [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant],” she told ABC Radio National, referring to the group that has taken northern and central parts of Iraq in recent weeks.

The director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), David Irvine, told Senate estimates last month it was believed 10 to 12 Australians had died in the Syrian conflict.

Bishop said the jihadists posed a threat to Australia if they return, and the government was “deeply concerned” about Australians joining Isis.

“These are brutal people. The executions and the killings and their boasting of it on social media makes this a particularly virulent form of terrorism. And these people are so extreme that al-Qaida is even distancing itself from them,” she said.

Also, "Australian militants Abu Yahya ash Shami and Abu Nour al-Iraqi identified in ISIS recruitment video."

It's all over the Western world. Jihad is attracting criminals and bums from all over.

PREVIOUSLY: "Calgary Police Service Issues Warning on Canadian Muslims Joining #ISIS Jihad in Iraq."

#ISIS Jihadists Enter Ruthless Alliance with Former Saddam Loyalists in Baath Party of #Iraq

Following up on my previous entry, "#ISIS Advance Through Iraq is 'Basically a Blitzkrieg'."

And now at the New York Times, "Uneasy Alliance Gives Insurgents an Edge in Iraq":

ERBIL, Iraq — Meeting with the American ambassador some years ago in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki detailed what he believed was the latest threat of a coup orchestrated by former officers of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.

“Don’t waste your time on this coup by the Baathists,” the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, chided him, dismissing his conspiracy theories as fantasy.

Now, though, with Iraq facing its gravest crisis in years, as Sunni insurgents have swept through northern and central Iraq, Mr. Maliki’s claims about Baathist plots have been at least partly vindicated. While fighters for the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, once an offshoot of Al Qaeda, have taken on the most prominent role in the new insurgency, they have done so in alliance with a deeply rooted network of former loyalists to Saddam Hussein.

The involvement of the Baathists helps explain why just a few thousand Islamic State in Iraq and Syria fighters, many of them fresh off the battlefields of Syria, have been able to capture so much territory so quickly. It sheds light on the complexity of the forces aligned against Baghdad in the conflict — not just the foreign-influenced group known as ISIS, but many homegrown groups, too. And with the Baathists’ deep social and cultural ties to many areas now under insurgent control, it stands as a warning of how hard it might be for the government to regain territory and restore order.

Many of the former regime loyalists, including intelligence officers and Republican Guard soldiers — commonly referred to as the “deep state” in the Arab world — belong to a group called the Men of the Army of the Naqshbandia Order, often referred to as J.R.T.N., the initials of its Arabic name. The group announced its establishment in 2007, not long after the execution of Mr. Hussein, and its putative leader, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was one of Mr. Hussein’s most trusted deputies and the highest-ranking figure of the old regime who avoided capture by the Americans.

Referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s fighters, Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has researched the Naqshbandia group, said, “They couldn’t have seized a fraction of what they did without coordinated alliances with other Sunni groups.”

In some areas under militant control, including areas around Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, he said, “there are definitely pockets where the Naqshbandias are wearing the pants.”

Mr. Douri, the king of clubs in decks of cards given to American forces in 2003 to identify the most-wanted regime leaders, is a mysterious figure, so furtive he was even declared dead in 2005. It is believed that he is still alive today — he would be in his early 70s — although even that is uncertain. After the American invasion he was said to have fled to Syria, where he reportedly worked with Syrian intelligence to restore the Baath Party within Iraq and led an insurgency from there that mainly targeted American interests.

“He’s a great totem of the old regime,” Mr. Knights said. “You need that kind of individual to keep the flame going.”

It's said that representatives of Douri's Naqshbandia group have met with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the secretive ISIS leader sometimes considered the next Osama bin Laden.

Notice the irony here: The left claimed there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein maintained ties or support for al-Qaeda before 9/11, and it was claimed no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq in 2003; but in 2014 Saddam's top butchers are now coordinating chemical weapons development with al-Qaeda-in-Iraq's splinter group, all while the Democrat who was once the most antiwar member of the U.S. Senate prepares to launch airstrikes on some of the world's most dangerous elements, who President George W. Bush had placed in the Axis of Evil.

Blow-back is a bitch sometimes, especially for the Democrats.

PREVIOUSLY: "No WMDs? #ISIS Jihadists Seize Saddam's 'Premiere' Chemical Weapons Production Facility."

Hey John Kerry, Iran's EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators) Killed Hundreds of U.S. Troops in #Iraq!

A number of outlets are reporting that Secretary of State John Kerry is opening talks on security cooperation with Iran, which is world's biggest state-sponsor of international terrorism.

For Example, at the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. may join Iran in effort to resolve crisis in Iraq"; at Politico, "John Kerry: U.S. open to talks with Iran over Iraq"; and the Wall Street Journal, "Iraq Loses Key City, as U.S. 'Open' to Iran Talks on Crisis."

It boggles the mind that the Obama administration would be seeking an entente with our greatest enemy in the region, or perhaps not, since the president and his treasonous cronies have been scheming to reduce U.S. global power from their first day in office.

Here's National Journal's report from 2011, "Record Number of U.S. Troops Killed by Iranian Weapons":

U.S. military commanders in Iraq say Iranian-made weaponry is killing American troops there at an unprecedented pace, posing new dangers to the remaining forces and highlighting Tehran’s intensifying push to gain influence over post-U.S. Iraq.

June was the deadliest month in more than two years for U.S. troops, with 14 killed. In May, the U.S. death toll was two. In April, it was 11. Senior U.S. commanders say the three primary Iranian-backed militias, Kataib Hezbollah, the Promise Day Brigade, and Asaib al Haq, and their rockets were behind 12 of the deaths in June.

A detailed U.S. military breakdown of June’s casualties illustrates the growing threat posed by Iranian munitions.

Military officials said six of the 14 dead troops were killed by so-called “explosively formed penetrators,” or EFPs, a sophisticated roadside bomb capable of piercing through even the best-protected U.S. vehicles. Five other troops were killed earlier in the month when a barrage of rockets slammed into their base in Baghdad. It was the largest single-day U.S. loss of life since April 2009, when a truck bomb killed five soldiers. The remaining three troops killed in June died after a rocket known as an “improvised rocket-assisted mortar,” or IRAM, landed in a remote U.S. outpost in southern Iraq.

U.S. officials say the EFPs, rockets, and IRAMs all come from neighboring Iran. Tehran denies providing the weaponry to Shia militias operating in Iraq.

“We’re seeing a sharp increase in the amount of munitions coming across the border, some manufactured as recently as 2010,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said in an interview. “These are highly lethal weapons, and their sheer volume is a major concern.”

Buchanan said much of the current weaponry is passing into the country through its formal border crossings with Iran. Current and former American military officers claim that those border crossings are guarded by Iraqi security personnel whose long-standing financial relationships with their Iranian counterparts means they will accept bribes or turn a blind eye in order to allow munitions through.

Back in 2007, the Washington post called EFPs "The Deadliest IEDs." See, "'The single most effective weapon against our deployed forces'":

IEDs have caused nearly two-thirds of the 3,100 American combat deaths in Iraq, and an even higher proportion of battle wounds. This year alone, through mid-July, they have also resulted in an estimated 11,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and more than 600 deaths among Iraqi security forces. To the extent that the United States is not winning militarily in Iraq, the roadside bomb, which as of Sept. 22 had killed or wounded 21,200 Americans, is both a proximate cause and a metaphor for the miscalculation and improvisation that have characterized the war.

EFPs constituted the most serious threat the coalition forces in Iraq. Here's Toby Harnden in 2006, at Telegraph UK, "Three Iranian factories 'mass-produce bombs to kill British in Iraq'":

Three factories in Iran are mass-producing the sophisticated roadside bombs used to kill British soldiers over the border in Iraq, it has been claimed.

The lethal bombs are being made by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at ordnance factory sites in Tehran, according to opponents of the country's theocratic regime.

Designed to penetrate heavy armour, the devices being manufactured in Iran involve the use of "explosively formed projectiles" or EFPs, also known as shaped charges, often triggered by infra-red beams.

The weapons can pierce the armour of British and American tanks and armoured personnel carriers and completely destroy armoured Land Rovers, which are used by the majority of British troops on operations in Iraq.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed in April that Iranian-made devices employing several EFPs, directed at different angles, were being used in Iraq.

And in June, this newspaper obtained the first picture of one of the Iraqi insurgent weapons - designed to fire an armour-piercing EFP - believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 17 British soldiers.

British Government scientists have already established that the mines are precision-made weapons thought to have been turned on a lathe by craftsmen trained in the manufacture of munitions.

Members of the Washington-based Iran Policy Committee have released the details about the three bomb factories gathered by the exile group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI).

Here are graphic photos of the destruction inflicted by these devices. In your mind's eye, situate yourself behind the controls of a Humvee patrolling Baghdad in 2007. Via Pajamas Media, "How Iran Is Killing U.S. Troops in Iraq." These projectiles explode at more than 2,000 feet-per-second:





And now the U.S. is seeking to give Tehran a lead role in resolving the crisis in Iraq? That'd be like opening talks on cooperation with the German High Command as British and French forces were being evacuated at Dunkirk in 1940.

The Obama administration has sold out American interests and placed the lives of Americans and untold number of Iraqis at risk. The solution is not to let Iran gain greater influence in Iraq. We have the options to reverse the ISIS advance. And we have over a decade of on-the-ground experience in defeating the jihadi extremist. All we need is the requisite leadership to beat back this incursion and avoid an existential defeat in the Middle East.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair Calls for Western Intervention in #Iraq

At the BBC, "Tony Blair: 'We didn't cause Iraq crisis'."

And from the Office of Tony Blair, "Iraq, Syria and the Middle East – An essay by Tony Blair":

The civil war in Syria with its attendant disintegration is having its predictable and malign effect. Iraq is now in mortal danger. The whole of the Middle East is under threat.  We will have to re-think our strategy towards Syria; support the Iraqi Government in beating back the insurgency; whilst making it clear that Iraq’s politics will have to change for any resolution of the current crisis to be sustained. Then we need a comprehensive plan for the Middle East that correctly learns the lessons of the past decade. In doing so, we should listen to and work closely with our allies across the region, whose understanding of these issues is crucial and who are prepared to work with us in fighting the root causes of this extremism which goes far beyond the crisis in Iraq or Syria.

It is inevitable that events in Mosul have led to a re-run of the arguments over the decision to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003. The key question obviously is what to do now. But because some of the commentary has gone immediately to claim that but for that decision, Iraq would not be facing this challenge; or even more extraordinary, implying that but for the decision, the Middle East would be at peace right now; it is necessary that certain points are made forcefully before putting forward a solution to what is happening now.  3/4 years ago Al Qaida in Iraq was a beaten force. The country had massive challenges but had a prospect, at least, of overcoming them. It did not pose a threat to its neighbours. Indeed, since the removal of Saddam, and despite the bloodshed, Iraq had contained its own instability mostly within its own borders.

Though the challenge of terrorism was and is very real, the sectarianism of the Maliki Government snuffed out what was a genuine opportunity to build a cohesive Iraq. This, combined with the failure to use the oil money to re-build the country, and the inadequacy of the Iraqi forces have led to the alienation of the Sunni community and the inability of the Iraqi army to repulse the attack on Mosul and the earlier loss of Fallujah. And there will be debate about whether the withdrawal of US forces happened too soon.

However there is also no doubt that a major proximate cause of the takeover of Mosul by ISIS is the situation in Syria.  To argue otherwise is wilful. The operation in Mosul was planned and organised from Raqqa across the Syria border. The fighters were trained and battle-hardened in the Syrian war. It is true that they originate in Iraq and have shifted focus to Iraq over the past months. But, Islamist extremism in all its different manifestations as a group, rebuilt refinanced and re-armed mainly as a result of its ability to grow and gain experience through the war in Syria.

As for how these events reflect on the original decision to remove Saddam, if we want to have this debate, we have to do something that is rarely done: put the counterfactual i.e. suppose in 2003, Saddam had been left running Iraq.  Now take each of the arguments against the decision in turn...

The reality is that the whole of the Middle East and beyond is going through a huge, agonising and protracted transition. We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that ‘we’ have caused this. We haven't. We can argue as to whether our policies at points have helped or not; and whether action or inaction is the best policy and there is a lot to be said on both sides. But the fundamental cause of the crisis lies within the region not outside it.

The problems of the Middle East are the product of bad systems of politics mixed with a bad abuse of religion going back over a long time. Poor governance, weak institutions, oppressive rule and a failure within parts of Islam to work out a sensible relationship between religion and Government have combined to create countries which are simply unprepared for the modern world. Put into that mix, young populations with no effective job opportunities and education systems that do not correspond to the requirements of the future economy, and you have a toxic, inherently unstable matrix of factors that was always – repeat always - going to lead to a revolution.

But because of the way these factors interrelate, the revolution was never going to be straightforward. This is the true lesson of Iraq. But it is also the lesson from the whole of the so-called Arab Spring. The fact is that as a result of the way these societies have developed and because Islamism of various descriptions became the focal point of opposition to oppression, the removal of the dictatorship is only the beginning not the end of the challenge. Once the regime changes, then out come pouring all the tensions – tribal, ethnic and of course above all religious; and the rebuilding of the country, with functioning institutions and systems of Government, becomes incredibly hard. The extremism de-stabilises the country, hinders the attempts at development, the sectarian divisions become even more acute and the result is the mess we see all over the region. And beyond it. Look at Pakistan or Afghanistan and the same elements are present.

Understanding this and analysing properly what has happened, is absolutely vital to the severe challenge of working out what we can do about it. So rather than continuing to re-run the debate over Iraq from over 11 years ago, realise that whatever we had done or not done, we would be facing a big challenge today.  Indeed we now have three examples of Western policy towards regime change in the region. In Iraq, we called for the regime to change, removed it and put in troops to try to rebuild the country. But intervention proved very tough and today the country is at risk again. In Libya, we called for the regime to change, we removed it by airpower, but refused to put in troops and now Libya is racked by instability, violence and has exported vast amounts of trouble and weapons across North Africa and down into sub- Saharan Africa. In Syria we called for the regime to change, took no action and it is in the worst state of all.

And when we do act, it is often difficult to discern the governing principles of action. Gaddafi, who in 2003 had given up his WMD and cooperated with us in the fight against terrorism, is removed by us on the basis he threatens to kill his people but Assad, who actually kills his people on a vast scale including with chemical weapons, is left in power.  So what does all this mean? How do we make sense of it? I speak with humility on this issue because I went through the post 9/11 world and know how tough the decisions are in respect of it. But I have also, since leaving office, spent a great deal of time in the region and have studied its dynamics carefully.

The beginning of understanding is to appreciate that resolving this situation is immensely complex. This is a generation long struggle. It is not a ‘war’ which you win or lose in some clear and clean-cut way. There is no easy or painless solution. Intervention is hard. Partial intervention is hard. Non-intervention is hard.

Ok, so if it is that hard, why not stay out of it all, the current default position of the West? The answer is because the outcome of this long transition impacts us profoundly. At its simplest, the jihadist groups are never going to leave us alone. 9/11 happened for a reason. That reason and the ideology behind it have not disappeared.

However more than that, in this struggle will be decided many things: the fate of individual countries, the future of the Middle East, and the direction of the relationship between politics and the religion of Islam. This last point will affect us in a large number of ways. It will affect the radicalism within our own societies which now have significant Muslim populations. And it will affect how Islam develops across the world. If the extremism is defeated in the Middle East it will eventually be defeated the world over, because this region is its spiritual home and from this region has been spread the extremist message.  There is no sensible policy for the West based on indifference. This is, in part, our struggle, whether we like it or not...

Continue reading.

Obama's Iraq

From Max Boot, at the Weekly Standard, "Mosul Has Fallen, and al Qaeda Is on the March Towards Baghdad":

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, has long been hard for the central government to control because of its combustible mix of Arabs and Kurds. The first time I visited Mosul was in August 2003 when a tenuous calm was maintained by the 101st Airborne Division. Its commander, a then-obscure two-star general named David Petraeus, had on his own initiative opened the Syrian border to trade, struck deals with Syria and Turkey to provide badly needed electricity, restored telephone service, and held elections to elect local leaders. Along the way he also managed to kill Saddam Hussein’s poisonous offspring Uday and Qusay.

This kept militants at bay, but they returned with a vengeance after the 101st pulled out in 2004, to be replaced by a smaller American unit whose officers were less attuned to the demands of civic action. Mosul became a hotbed of Saddamist and Islamist militants, as I saw for myself in February 2008 when, during another visit, the U.S. Army convoy in which I was riding was hit by a “complex ambush”: The Humvee in front of mine hit a bomb concealed in a big puddle, and insurgents opened machine gun fire from the left. Luckily no one in our unit was hurt, but a bystander had his arm sliced off by a flying piece of the Humvee’s engine.

Mosul was the last major city to be pacified by the successful “surge.” It took until at least 2010 before it was secure. But now that achievement has been undone. Black-clad fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as Al Qaeda in Iraq has rebranded itself, stormed into Mosul last week and seized control. Dispirited Iraqi soldiers ran away rather than fight. Many were so eager to escape that their discarded uniforms littered the streets. ISIS freed more than 2,000 of its fighters from prisons and seized copious stocks of money, ammunition, and weapons—many of the latter provided by the United States to Iraqi forces.

This was only the latest and most alarming advance for this extremist group, which has risen out of its grave to display dismaying strength in recent years. In January, ISIS seized Fallujah and holds it still—a loss that, like Mosul, is particularly painful to American veterans who sacrificed so much to wrest control of those cities from militants. Following up on their success in Mosul, ISIS fighters advanced south to seize, at least temporarily, Tikrit, Saddam -Hussein’s hometown, and Baiji, home to Iraq’s largest oil refinery, which supplies Baghdad with much of its electricity. Their next targets are certain to be Baqubah and Baghdad. In the capital, ISIS has already inflicted devastating casualties with a series of car bombings. Iraq Body Count calculates that some 9,500 people were killed in Iraq last year, the highest total since 2008. Worse is surely yet to come as Shiite militant organizations such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah respond to Sunni atrocities with atrocities of their own. 

This is not just a problem for Iraq. ISIS, as the name implies, has spread across the border into Syria, where it has been showing increasing strength amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war, in no small part because the United States has done so little to aid the non-jihadist opposition to Bashar al-Assad. ISIS is well on its way to carving out a fundamentalist caliphate that stretches from Aleppo in northern Syria to Mosul in northern Iraq. The post-World War I borders of the Middle East seem to be unraveling. Syria is being split into two entities, one controlled by Sunni Islamists, the other by Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds Force and their Alawite proxies. Iraq is being split into three, with a prosperous and stable Kurdish state, a fundamentalist Sunni Triangle state controlled by ISIS, and the Shiite portions of the country under the sway of militants backed by Iran. Iran is directly involved in the fighting in both countries: It has already sent Quds Force troops to Syria and now reportedly to Iraq as well. The only thing that remains to be determined is whether Shiite or Sunni extremists will control the capital—the new battle for Baghdad, which has already begun, is likely to be even bloodier than the previous installment from 2003 to 2008.

It is hard to exaggerate how much of a disaster this is, not only for Syria and Iraq and their neighbors, but for the United States...

 More.

#Iraq Drama Catches U.S. Off Guard

At WSJ, "The Quickly Unfolding Drama Prompted a White House Meeting Wednesday of Top Policy Makers and Military Leaders":

WASHINGTON—At a closed-door gathering of Gulf states in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in May, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Arab counterparts all signaled agreement on one thing for the first time: Islamist forces seizing territory in Syria and Iraq had become a regionwide menace that can't be ignored.

What they didn't agree on was what to do about it, U.S. officials said.The fall this week of the Iraqi cities Mosul and Tikrit to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham rebel group shows how the insurgent threat is outpacing the response and posing a challenge to President Barack Obama's approach of limiting U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.

The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged.  State Department and Pentagon officials have long warned about ISIS's desire to create an Islamic state based in the Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq and Syria.

Now, current and former officials say Washington's options for helping the Iraqi army fight back are limited—both because the threat in Iraq is so entrenched and because the U.S. hasn't invested in building up moderate allies on the Syrian side of the border.

U.S. military leaders said they had thought that Iraqi security forces' efforts would be enough to slow ISIS's advance. But those assumptions were proven wrong when Iraqi troops largely abandoned their posts.  The loss of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, was a strategic blow and the U.S. doubts the Iraqi military will be able to take it back soon, the officials said.

Top State Department officials long argued that the civil war in Syria was the root cause of ISIS's rise because it gave them a haven in which to operate and recruit. They said the U.S. won't make headway unless ISIS is contained on both sides of the porous Iraqi-Syrian border.

Pentagon officials believe that Baghdad is unlikely to fall under the current onslaught because it is a heavily-guarded stronghold of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. But they noted that other Sunni extremist groups, like the remnants of the vanquished Sunni Baathist movement, have allied themselves with ISIS, adding to their power and building on its momentum.

Recent events in Iraq show the potential risks of the administration's foreign policy approach. In a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last month, Mr. Obama outlined a policy that favors a lighter U.S. military footprint and, where possible, calls for regional allies to take the lead in fighting terrorist threats in their backyards, so American troops don't have to.

But allies have grown to expect the U.S. to take the lead in counterterrorism efforts around the world, officials say, particularly in the Gulf. "Are they willing to step up?" a senior U.S. official said. "It is possible we are victims of our own leadership."

Still more.

Obama Turned Down Requests for Airstrikes in #Iraq

Following up from earlier, "Iraq Signals Openness to U.S. Airstrikes Against al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say."

Now at the New York Times, "Iraq Said to Seek U.S. Strikes on Militants":

WASHINGTON — As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.

But Iraq’s appeals for military assistance have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.

The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also called attention to the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region.

Anti-Liberalism on the Left? Just Call It #LiberalFascism

An interview with far-left (pro-abort extremist) Michelle Goldberg, at Vox, "Why are students forcing out commencement speakers?"

Is this just on college campuses, or is this something you see within the left as a whole?

There is not that much of a left in America. Whenever you talk about the American left, a big part of their base is going to be on college campuses. … There's a specific part of the anti-liberal left that sees civil liberties and free speech ideas as secondary to social justice. You see expressions of it on Twitter, but it's mostly on college campuses.

Partly that's just because college campuses are really the only place where the left has any power to enforce its own agenda. In the broader world, there are probably leftists who want to shut up all kinds of people, but they have no ability do so. They have no power in American life. But they have power on college campuses...

I think she badly underestimates leftist power off America's campuses. I mean, c'mon, the mainstream mass media is objectively leftist. Even outlets like ESPN are now pushing a Gramscian Marxian social ideology.

But keep reading.

RELATED: From our little leftist friend Olivia Nuzzi, at the Daily Beast, "The Oh-So-Fragile Class of 2014 Needs to STFU And Listen to Some New Ideas."

No More Excuses for Islamic Monsters — #BokoHaram

From Ralph Peters, at the New York Post, "Stop making excuses for Islamist extremist monsters."

And Peters interviewed on Fox News, "Hillary Clinton Refused to Put Boko Haram on Terror List."

The Obama administration's engaged in "deceit, deception, and outright lies."

Who knew?!!

'Our Youngest Hostage'

This is so evil I can't believe it.

At Gateway Pundit, "Jihadists Post SHOCKING PHOTO of Their “Youngest Hostage” in Syria."

But the source Raymond Ibrahim has the links to Arabic-languages websites. So, there's that. Horrifying.



And in related news, "Advanced U.S. Weapons Flow to Syrian Rebels: Supplies of Anti-tank Missiles Will Test Whether Fighters Can Keep Arms Out of Extremist Hands."

Yeah, better be careful not to arm the "extremists." (Eyeroll.)

Debbie Vincent, Transgender Animal Rights Extremist, Sentenced to Six Years for Europe-Wide Campaign of Terror

At London's Daily Mail, "Former soldier who became animal rights commander is jailed for six years over campaign of terror against animal testing company."

Here's a particularly grizzly account at the Times of Zambia, "Animal rights activist jailed for blackmail plot":

Debbie Vincent, a 52-year-old former soldier who underwent a sex change, was found guilty last month for her part in a conspiracy to blackmail British-based Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS).

Vincent became the public face of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) after seven members of the group were jailed for a total of 50 years in 2009 for their role in the campaign.

Members of the group falsely accused HLS staff members of being paedophiles, sent them hoax bombs and sanitary towels claimed to be infected with AIDS, and caused criminal damage to their cars and homes.

In May 2009, activists dug up a grave in Switzerland and removed an urn containing the ashes of the mother of Daniel Vasella, the then-chairman of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, one of HLS' suppliers.

Sentencing Vincent at Winchester Crown Court in southeast England, judge Keith Cutler said: "It is difficult for a judge to calculate the repugnance felt by society to such appalling acts.

"Nothing at all could justify such attacks."

He added: "You express no shred of remorse or condemnation for the incidents of extreme terror and desecration which have been caused."

A group of Vincent's supporters held placards outside the court reading "No Excuse for Animal Abuse" and "Against Animal Testing and State Repression".

Vicious and violently depraved transgender leftists.

Meanwhile back in the states, Washington D.C. is recognizing "gender dysphoria" as a medical condition, so insurance companies (and taxpayers) will be forced to pick up the bill for transgender sexual reassignment surgery. Recall that last year the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that sex reassignment surgeries would be available through ObamaCare, so Americans can rest assured that we'll have an ample supply of Debbie Vincents in the pipeline.

Homosexual Extremist John Aravosis Goes Full Godwin on Fox Sunday's Media Buzz with Howard Kurtz

According to Godwin's Law, when political argument devolves to making Nazi analogies, the proponents of the analogy have lost the debate. I'm actually critical of Godwin's Law to the extent that it removes legitimate comparisons from debate, but when you invoke the Holocaust to attack someone who supported a ballot proposition that passed with nearly 53 percent of the vote, you're seriously a sick nutjob.

At Gateway Pundit, "Outrageous! Gay Activist Compares Brendan Eich & Gay Marriage Opponents to Holocaust Deniers (Video)."

Remember, "'Without question and without exaggeration, the 'gay rights movement' is the angriest, most ruthless, most controlling, most intolerant of all the ideological enterprises in the country. Now, everyone knows it...'"

And they're proving it everyday, "Gay Rights Thought-Enforcer Tara Dublin Can't Handle the Truth."

Right Wing Extremist Kristina Ribali!

Nothing like a big beautiful buxom blonde toting an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, lol.

On Twitter:

@JayCaruso Did you see what I won? Yeah... I'm an extremist. Extremely happy! pic.twitter.com/P1YuPMo21U

— Kristina Ribali (@KristinaRibali) April 6, 2014