The Caliphate Has Crumbled; Obama Should Be Along Any Minute Now To Take The Credit

US-led warplanes bombed the north bank of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria today to flush out holdout jihadists from the last sliver of their crumbling caliphate. The bombardment ended two days of relative calm on the front line in the remote village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had paused its advance while it combed a makeshift jihadist encampment, which it overran on Tuesday.

An SDF official who asked not to be named said warplanes of the US-led coalition resumed strikes on suspected jihadist positions before dawn on Friday. Top SDF commander Jia Furat said his forces were engaging with the jihadists on several fronts while the coalition warplanes provided air support. The US-led coalition said the "operation to complete the liberation of Baghouz is ongoing".

President Trump, making brief remarks to reporters after landing in Palm Beach, FL showed a before-and-after map to demonstrate the extent of the caliphate’s losses during his presidency.

Some Islamic State fighters remain holed up in the central Syrian desert, an area entirely surrounded by the Syrian army.

Over the past two months, more than 60,000 people have flooded out of the dwindling pocket on the Euphrates around Baghouz, about half of them civilians including some Islamic State captives, the SDF has said.

The capture of Baghouz was slowed out of concern for thousands of civilian hostages.

The fate of the self-described caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains unknown. He has been reported "killed" perhaps a half-dozen times. In 2017, a Russian lawmaker said a Russian airstrike "close to 100 percent" killed him.

U.S. military officials in Syria believe he is still alive, hiding out in the desert near the Syria-Iraq border, based on communications intercepts and interviews with ISIS detainees. Last August, ISIS released an audio recording purporting to be Baghdadi, but he has not been heard from since.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Bad Blue Uncensored News.  We’re glad you’re here and we are grateful to Doug Ross for linking to this post.

Syrian Boy Has Imaginary Friend...Named "Obama"

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Remember The Aleppo!

Syria’s two-month-old partial truce negotiated by Russia and the US is near collapse.  After nearly five years of civil war, Aleppo is an open wound.  The city has endured barrel bombs and artillery fire reducing its landscape to rubble.

Aleppo is the center for the anti-Assad groups that are part of a UN-negotiated settlement.  If it falls, all hopes for a peace negotiation will have been crushed

The Assad regime, supported by its Russian and Iranian allies, has put great effort into trying to retake Aleppo since parts of it fell to rebel forces in the summer of 2012. .

Secretary of State John “Lurch” Kerry vowed on Tuesday not to allow Syria’s largest city and onetime moderate opposition stronghold to fall to the regime—even if that means abandoning the fragile cease fire that US officials have been trying to uphold in the war-torn nation.

“Lurch”, the same guy who sold Israel, the Middle East and America down the river with the Iranian nuclear arms deal declared, “If Assad’s strategy is to somehow think he’s going to just carve out Aleppo and carve out a section of the country, I got news for you and for him:  this war doesn’t end.”  He also suggested that if serious progress is not made toward politically removing Putin’s puppet from power by August the Obama Administration would have no other choice but to dramatically change its approach to Syria’s 5-year-old civil war.

Kerry fancies himself a coonskin-hat-wearin’, king-of-the-wild-frontier, Davy-Crockett-at-the-Alamo bad ass.

When The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer drew the infamous red line in 2012 and then backed down when the red line was crossed he ruined American credibility not just in the Middle East but in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, Pyongyang but elsewhere in the world.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “The rest of the world must know that when the president of the United States draws a red line, that it is dangerous, if not fatal, to cross it.”

Since our president is a gutless wonder, Ketchup Boy is yelling, “Remember the Aleppo!”

John, the Alamo didn’t work out so good for Davy and your bombast is equally doomed.  It’s time to get over yourself.

UPDATE:  Welcome The Other McCain readers.

Twas the Night After Christmas, and It's All Hit the Fan

Some of us are just waking up from sleeping off our Christmas Eve hangovers and we’re noticing that our government has not been idle while we’ve been celebrating, and as usual, they’ve been up to no good.

Latest revelation from the Wall Street Journal is that the Obama Administration’s obsession with toppling the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria has been simmering a long time.  In fact, even recently, attempts have been made to exploit disgruntled leadership inside his government to form a coup.  This hasn’t worked out very well for the administration or its State Department, but that doesn’t make us feel much better about it.  It’s only a matter of time before Obama and his SecState, John Kerry, figure out how to start World War 3 in Syria, as they’ve almost managed to do all around the Middle East in recent times.  And since I’m still working on the holiday egg nog, I feel like putting my lament to verse.

Inexperienced “Man” With Performance Issues?

For three years in a row, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been declared the most powerful man in the world by Forbes Magazine.

It’s no wonder.  Just last month Putin sent Russian planes, troops and ammunition into Syria to bomb ISIS forces there and met face-to-face with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad making the United States and NATO look weak in the Middle East.

With The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s influence shrinking, his approval ratings consistently mired below 50% and a growing chorus within his own party questioning his foreign policies, the President slipped to third.  Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was named the second most powerful person in the world.  That left Barry slinking in at third.  This is the first year in which a sitting president of the United States has not been in the top two on Forbes’ list.

Mr. Petulant, speaking at a fundraiser in New York, mocked Republican presidential candidates for not being able to handle “a bunch of CNBC moderators.”  Need we remind him when he was running for president he joined The Ice Cube In Heels in 2007 in boycotting a debate hosted by Fox?

Allahpundit got it right when he quipped, “What you’re really seeing here, I think, is Princess’s ego showing. The charge that Putin is kicking sand in his face stings because it’s obviously true and he didn’t pause in his annoyance before hitting back to consider whether maybe he wasn’t a gigantic hypocrite in doing so. Simple as that.”

@markknoller pass this along to POTUS: "The 80s are calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20yrs"

— Mark Mark Mark (@RevJimJonesInc) November 4, 2015

Donald Trump: “I'd Enjoy Meeting With Putin”

Donald Trump believes having a relationship with others is an important aspect of deal-making.

During last Wednesday's CNN GOP debate at the Reagan Presidential Library, the billionaire presidential hopeful said again that he thought he could get along with other global power players.

"I would talk to [Putin], I would get along with him," he said on the debate stage. "I believe—and I may be wrong, in which case I'd probably have to take a different path—but I would get along with a lot of the world leaders that this country is not getting along with."

According to a published report from CBS News, Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to attend the United Nations’ 70th General Assembly in New York City next Sunday.  Michael Cohen, The Trump Organization’s Vice President, hinted “there’s a better than likely chance Trump may meet with Putin when he comes here for the United Nations,”

“People have been talking,” Trump told NBC.  “I heard that he wanted to meet with me and certainly I am open to it.  I would love to do that if he wants to do that.”  If it was arranged, Trump said he’d “enjoy doing it.”

That brought to mind the creatively genius Photoshop™ by bkeyser, the USMC veteran, who submitted the image that went viral of The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer on horseback with Putin.

Carly Rose To The Occasion Lapping The Field

A scrapper with true grit, Carly Fiorina took the stage at the Reagan Presidential Library for the second GOP debate and drew her sword.  Brit Hume and a whole host of male pundits criticized Fiorina’s failure to smile noting that she came across as too aggressive and lacking humor.

Geez boys.  I find nothing humorous about mutilating babies to harvest their organs, the national debt, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, Putin’s incursions into Syria, the growing Islamic Caliphate, drug addiction and the culture of corruption in politics.  How about coming to terms with the fact that she had to show her toughness on stage?

On six morning talk shows today Fiorina said, “This is going to be a fight.  If you can’t fight on a debate stage, you can’t stand up and fight for the American people.”  She went on to say, “It’s only a woman whose appearance would be talked about when running for president—never a man.”  She added, “The point is, women are half this nation.  Women are half the potential of this nation.  Still somehow we spend a lot of time talking about women’s appearance instead of their qualifications.” [Damn right.]

John Podhoretz praised her performance noting, “At almost any moment that she managed to seize time to speak—and she was compelled by the structure of the debate to interrupt repeatedly to get that time—she knocked it out of the park.”

One über-liberal pundit wrote, "If you right wingers get your act together and nominate Carly, you win."

Byron York, writing for The Washington Examiner felt Carly had four “big moments” in the debate.

The first came when Fiorina turned a meandering conversation about Vladimir Putin into a crisp recitation of what a new commander in chief should do about Russian aggression:

"What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Soleimani's name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad."

"We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could also, to Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've asked for, which is intelligence. We could give the Jordanians what they've asked for, bombs and materiel. We have not supplied it. I will. We could arm the Kurds. They've been asking us for three years. All of this is within our control."

Fiorina had packed more policy prescriptions into one brief statement—all while throwing in a dig at Donald Trump with the reference to knowing "General Soleimani's name"—than any other candidate onstage could muster.

Any other campaign might have dispatched spinners to celebrate the moment. But Fiorina was just getting started. Next came an epic and out-of-the-blue connection of two of the issues about which there is a lot of agreement among Republicans—Iran's nuclear ambitions and the scandal over Planned Parenthood's sale of body parts. How to put those two together?

"I would like to link these two issues. One has something to do with the defense of the security of this nation. The other has something to do with the defense of the character of this nation. You have not heard a plan about Iran from any politician up here, here is my plan. On day one in the Oval Office, I will make two phone calls, the first to my good friend to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him we will stand with the state of Israel."

"The second, to the supreme leader, to tell him that unless and until he opens every military and every nuclear facility to real anytime, anywhere inspections by our people, not his, we, the United States of America, will make it as difficult as possible and move money around the global financial system."

"We can do that; we don't need anyone's cooperation to do it. And every ally and every adversary we have in this world will know that the United States in America is back in the leadership business, which is how we must stand with our allies."

"As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it's heart beating, it's legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up in and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us."

The power of Fiorina's presentation simply knocked out a lot of viewers. Conservative writer Mollie Hemingway, who has been pressing the media to pay more attention to the Planned Parenthood videos, was left nearly speechless, tweeting "THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY." 

But Fiorina's most intense big moment was still to come—and it was by far the briefest. Everyone knew that Donald Trump's insults about Fiorina's looks—the "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?" quote from Trump in a recent Rolling Stone article—would come up in the debate. It did, when moderator Jake Tapper read it to Fiorina and noted Trump's explanation that he was not talking about Fiorina's actual face but rather her "persona."

"Please feel free to respond what you think about his persona," Tapper said to Fiorina. Referring to an earlier spat between Trump and Jeb Bush over a Bush statement about women's health, Fiorina answered:

"You know, it's interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said."

Fiorina's answer took just a few seconds, but it knocked Trump flat—something that has not happened in any debate, or any other campaign event, so far. Trump, who has made it a habit not to apologize for attacks and to double down when challenged, surrendered completely. But he managed to do it in a way that did him no good at all. "I think she's got a beautiful face," Trump said, "and I think she's a beautiful woman." Did anyone believe that? And wasn't he still saying her appearance is an issue?

Finally, Fiorina lapped the field when Tapper asked the candidates to suggest a woman to put on the $10 bill. Most of the men onstage were unprepared for the question.  When the question came to the only woman on the stage, Fiorina rejected its premise.

Four big moments in one debate. No other candidate had that. 

Carly Fiorina Rips Planned Parenthood

Carly Fiorina Slams Hillary Clinton

Trump On Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina Gets Personal Discussing Drugs

According to Fiorina’s 2015 memoir, her stepdaughter, Lori, died in 2009 after struggling with alcohol, prescription pills and bulimia. She was just 35.

Chuck, Your Bus Is Here

This morning The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer stood at the podium in the White House State Dining Room to announce the departure resignation firing of his scapegoat third Secretary of Defense.

The president oozed phony platitudes:

“Last month, Chuck came to me to discuss the final quarter of my presidency and determined that having guided the department through this transition, it was an appropriate time for him to complete his service.” 

“Let me just say that Chuck is and has been a great friend of mine. I’ve known him, admired him and trusted him for nearly a decade since I was a green-behind-the-ears freshman senator and we were both on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” 

“If there’s one thing I know about Chuck, it’s that he does not make this or any decision lightly. This decision does not come easily to him, but I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have had him by my side for two years.” 

“And I am grateful that Chuck has agreed to stay on until I nominate a successor and that successor is confirmed by the Senate, which means that he’ll continue to guide our troops at this challenging time.”

I never agreed with Hagel’s appointment to that post. During his confirmation hearing he was ripped for his inflammatory remarks about Israel and the “Jewish lobby”, his support for unilateral reductions of U.S. nuclear weapons and his opposition to the surge in Iraq.

Secretary Hagel’s undoing was when he contradicted the regime’s talking points on Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria and the leaked letter he sent to National Security Advisor Susan Rice in which he asserted that Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, was “indirectly benefitting” from an impotent U.S. policy against ISIS.

Only difference between what WH aides are now saying about Hagel and what GOP said at his hearing is WH aides are talking anonymously.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) November 24, 2014

FROM: Every Republican TO: Every Democrat RE: Chuck Hagel We told you so. We told you so. We told you so. We told you so.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) November 24, 2014

As with OCare, the IRS, Benghazi, and Obama in general -- Hagel vindicates conservatives and proves the media subservient lapdogs.
— John Nolte (@NolteNC) November 24, 2014

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer And The JV Headchoppers Team

Last January, The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer dismissed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a junior varsity terrorist outfit compared to al-Qaida. “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate,” he told The New Yorker, “is if a JV team puts on a Lakers uniform that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”  Now the savage beasts are threatening to raise the black flag of Allah over the White House.

On Friday, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken about TWMDCO’s strategic shallowness.  Tapper seemed incredulous as he posed the question.  In a twofer Jim Acosta, CNN’s Senior White House correspondent, asked WH press secretary Josh Earnest, “Is it safe to say that ISIS are no longer the ‘JVs’?”

Here is Earnest’s angst-ridden response:

“I think what is appropriate to say is there is no question that the Lakers uniforms that were worn, to use that analogy a little bit, that were worn by the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan has been decimated and defeated in Afghanistan. There is no question that is the result of the many decisions made by the president and the courageous service of our men and women in uniform and in the intelligence agencies. What is also true is that there are other organizations that subscribe to the violent extremist ideology that is espoused and promulgated by al-Qaeda.” 

“Many of those groups in the nations across the globe are not particularly sophisticated and are focused on local sectarian conflicts that don't pose a significant or immediate threat to U.S. interests or the U.S. homeland. There are, of course, a couple other organizations that do pose a more substantial threat to the United States and our interests. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is one of them, and you've seen the United States in concert with our allies and partners take significant, important steps to mitigate the threat that is posed by those organizations that do have designs and capabilities to try to strike the United States, and in some cases try to strike the homeland.” 

“We do remain concerned about the military proficiency that has been demonstrated by ISIL and that's why you've seen the president take steps, including the authorization of military force that would protect American citizens who might be harmed by them.”

Let me see if I have this straight.  The administration remains “concerned about the military proficiency that has been demonstrated”.  How reassuring.  I suppose the thousands of Christians stranded atop Mount Sinjar who are thirsting and starving to death are not evidence of a metastasizing force of pure, unadulterated evil and neither is the beheading of a toddler.  (WARNING:  Do not visit this link unless you are prepared to see extremely disturbing images.)

The errand boy sent by grocery clerks may not want a war with the brutal, hateful, oppressive, murderous, genocidal face of Islam, but it is at war with us.

He has known for months, as the rest of the world has, that ISIS has a stranglehold on vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.  It took the gut-wrenching pleading of Yazidi Prime Minister Vian Dakil to Iraq’s Presidential Council to stir the world’s awareness of the systematic genocide occurring in the region.

I have to agree with Turkish poet Serkan Engin:  “…the world will meet with a big tragedy when the Islamists get more power, as the world suffered because of Nazism.”

Mock Him Not

It seems that officials in the West Wing plan to emulate the Clinton administration’s cruise missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan after the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings as a model for intervention against Assad’s chemical warfare on his people.

Flashback:  President George W. Bush, unlike Field Marshal von Unicorn, made it clear following the 9/11 attacks on America what his strategy would be—“When I take action I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.  It’s going to be decisive.”

Apparently, not even the camels in Syria fear the neophyte currently occupying the Oval Office.

UPDATE:  Linked by BigFurHat at IOwnTheWorld
UPDATE:  Linked by Diogenes' Middle Finger

Belly Laughs Emanate Throughout The World’s Capitals At Our Feckless Community Organizer

On Saturday, The Insufferable Airhorn was scheduled to speak to the nation and the world about the situation in Syria from the Rose Garden at 1:15 PM.  He was 20 minutes late, but then he’s always late ala Billy Jeff who seemed to be busy with blue dresses and cigars when he occupied the Oval Office.

Roughly half-an-hour after repeating his fine-tuned sense of moral outrage he left the White House for a round of golf accompanied by VPOTUS and Marvin Nicholson.

By postponing military action until Congress gives him the authorization to strike Assad’s regime is, to me, a political ploy to give him cover for his blustering gaffe about a red line.

Democratic pollster and one-time Bill Clinton advisor, Doug Schoen, writing at Forbes asserted that “the President’s move was calculated to force responsibility on a reluctant Congress and to play to 80% of the American people who have said in polls that they are against intervention in Syria, that does not mean that the US is offering anything but a confused image of our mission in the world to both our allies and foes.”

Schoen continues, “Thus, in the short term the President may have managed to escape from the political quandary he faces. But in the longer term, America looks weaker, feckless and more uncertain.”

To prove Schoen’s point, the day after the Rose Garden speech, a front-page article in Syria’s state-run newspaper, Al-Thawra, called his decision to seek congressional approval “the start of the historic American retreat.”

On Thursday and Friday of this week in St. Petersburg, Russia President McBombypants will meet with Vladimir Putin for the G20 Summit.  If you’ll remember, he called Putin “the bored kid in the back of the classroom,” during the G8 Summit in Ireland where the world took notice of the icy meeting between the two.

Reuters reports that the former KGB spy referred “ironically to Obama as a Nobel Peace laureate” describing U.S. global policy as a failure.

This president’s handling of the Syrian crisis showcases his every weakness in foreign policy and portends an emerging strategic calamity.  A war in the heart of the Middle East where al-Qaeda is far more active in Syria than it is in Libya could spill over into Turkey and Jordan and prove perilous to our ally in the region, Israel.

Reuters reported at 9:02 PM Sunday evening that the USS Nimitz strike group has been rerouted to the Arabian Sea for possible help with Syria.

Nobody knows what’s going to happen, but it is clear to this observer that prayers for our military are in order.

RT @KurtSchlichter: Leftists, feel free to send your sons & daughters into harm's way so the President doesn't look bad. #caring
— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) September 2, 2013

In case anyone needs a reminder of what a real man in the Oval Office looks like when dealing with barbarians here is the epitome: 

Field Marshal Unicorn And His Ineffectual Warmongering

David Burge (Iowahawk) tweeted, “Field Marshal Von Unicorn” and I was inspired to do this Photoshop™.  Jim Treacher asserted at The Daily Caller that, “Sometimes going to war is bad, and those who do it are evil. Other times, the President of the United States is a Democrat.”

Obama drew a red line in the sand for Syria’s Assad without thinking.  He painted himself and this country into a corner.  Foreign policy under this president is spineless, befuddled and strategically incoherent.

The errand boy sent by grocery clerks wandered off prompter and accidentally made a threat.  He has to make good on it with “a level of intensity just muscular enough not to get mocked,” according to one U.S. official.

Too late.  An insolent 11-year-old derided our Field Marshal on Facebook.

The Insufferable Airhorn has become a laughingstock around the world.  His words mean nothing.  You do not wage a war in order to avoid being mocked.

Obama’s Contras

I have not, until now, weighed in on the civil war raging in Syria.  On Thursday, June 13, 2013 the president announced a major shift in U.S. policy that would see America begin arming the Syrian rebels. The dilemma inherent with this decision is that the arms will likely wind up in the hands of radical Islamist elements savage beasts within the Syrian rebels’ camp.

With Susan Rice as the newly appointed National Security Advisor and Samantha Power awaiting Senate confirmation, it is abundantly clear, at least to this observer, that these two Obama loyalists want a more robust involvement in the region.

Surely, we can look to her 2003 essay at New Republic for The Insufferable Airhorn’s apology tour following his inauguration in 2009.  It was that essay in which she appealed to U.S. officials to institute “a doctrine of the mea culpa” publicly apologizing for past “sins” and undertaking “a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States.”

The “Interventionista”, as she was referred to on the magazine cover of The National Interest, successfully goaded Obama to send military forces into Libya to stop Khaddafy from butchering his people.  We all know how that worked out.  Just ask Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the two Navy Seals and the information management officer who were never rescued when the consulate in Benghazi came under attack.  Oh wait.  You can’t.  They’re dead.  They were abandoned to die at the hands of barbarians.  But I digress.

Secretary of State Kerry wanted an immediate no-fly zone established to stop Bashar al-Assad from continuing to use his air power to crush rebel forces and kill innocent civilians.  Let me interject my utter disgust for this fake war hero who threw away as many as nine of his combat medals to protest the war in Vietnam.  So any military strategy he suggests should be dismissed out of hand.

Supporters of a no-fly zone in Syria, like John McLame and Miss Lindsey Graham, point to the one that NATO established in 2011 in Libya.  It’s important to note that little appetite has been shown by European nations for getting directly involved in Syria because of one very simple fact—Assad’s forces command an air defense system made far more robust with Russian-bought weapons than what Khaddafy had.

Last month, Russia acknowledged it had agreed to sell Syria advanced S-300 air-defense missiles, which are considered to be the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology and could make a no-fly zone very costly.

I’m not a military tactician, but some facts to consider are that Syria is 71,398 square miles in size; roughly the size of the state of Washington, shares 600 miles of border with Turkey and it has 16 air bases.  They are located at Damascus International Airport, Deir Zzor Air Base, Dumayr Air Base. Hama Air Base, Jirah Air Base, Khalkhalah, Marj As Sultan, Marj Ruhayyil, Minakh, Qabr as Sitt, Rasin el Aboud, Saigal. Shayrat, Tabqa, Taftanaz and Tiyas. 

The decade-long no-fly zones, Operation Northern and Southern Watch, imposed by the U.S. over Iraq cost about $1.3 billion dollars a year.  With our national debt at $16,879,124,703,927 as of 4:06AM EDT on 6/22/13 we, as a nation cannot afford to pump money into an open war across an ancient sectarian faultline that has been in existence since the schism in Islam surfaced some 1,400 years ago.

The Syrian army and its security apparatus remain loyal, al-Assad’s cabinet has suffered few defections, and the key population centers of Damascus and Aleppo have not joined the rebellion according to Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador of Israel to the United States and a Brookings Institute Fellow.

The latest Gallup Poll results from June 15-16 reveal that 54% of Americans disapprove of this administration’s decision to direct the CIA to send direct military aid to the Syrian rebels while 37% approve.

Reports out of Aleppo seem to clearly indicate that Assad’s regime has inserted spies behind rebel lines.  This would explain a disturbing video that purports to be a rebel group in Syria testing a nerve agent intended to be used against civilians.

The video pans across a room where massive quantities of industrial-sized packages of Tekkim® potassium permanganate, potassium nitrate and potassium chlorate are stored on shelves and countertops.  Tekkim is a Turkish company.  If you have a weak stomach, you might consider not watching it.  It is not a particularly slick production, but I regard it as something the regime may have produced.  The voices are haunting and the visage of the test results is sickening.  The website, My Peta Jawa, finds it to be too convenient.  I couldn’t agree more.

At the conclusion of the G8 Summit, Vladimir Putin warned that the opposition forces include criminals that he likened to the animals who beheaded and hacked to death Ian Rigby in the streets of Woolwich, England last month.  He asked, “Do the Europeans want to provide such people with weapons?”

Just ask Nadia Umm Fuad who watched her son being shot by Islamist rebels in Syria after the 14-year-old referred to the Prophet Mohammed as he joked with a customer at his coffee stall in Aleppo.  “I saw rebels execute my boy for no more than a joke.”

Let the fool gape and shudder at the inhumane beasts of radical Islam.  It is a cancer on the world body.

Syria is a geopolitical nightmare.  Islam is not a religion.  It is a way of life.  It is savage and has been so since its inception fourteen centuries ago. The question then is when will Islam tire of its devotees slaughtering each other? Historically the answer may be never.

For that reason and that reason alone, America should not insert itself in the unrest in Syria.  It cannot end well.  We have expended enough blood and treasure for the ingrates of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wargames

It has been confirmed that a few days remain before a massive air/land/sea exercise gets underway in the Eastern Mediterranean off the Coast of Syria, led by Russia and including Iran, Syria and China.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, reporting from Jerusalem says that the Russians are backing the Assad regime entirely, and that the Russia maneuver means that the P5+1 talks in Moscow will go nowhere.  Iran has no reason to bend with Russia's support so massive and aggressive.

Iran and China have received permission to pass warships through the Suez Canal to participate in the games.  The exercise is to rehearse the repelling of an invasion of Syria from the West or the North.

  

These “wargames” demonstrate that the NATO card played in Libya will not be played again.  Russia believes that the U.S. betrayed the agreement reached with Gadhafi, and Russia will not be fooled again.  Putin plays a strong card.  It’s “game on” for the Obama administration.

Anne Gearan, AP National Security Writer, pens this at Boston.com:

“Pressure increased on Russia over the weekend, when the United Nations suspended its unarmed monitoring mission in Syria out of concern for the monitors’ safety. The move was widely interpreted as a challenge to Russia to intervene with Assad to preserve a U.N. role Moscow sees as a brake on any armed foreign intervention.”

“Meanwhile, Obama’s leverage and options are limited.”

“The United States has refused to arm anti-Assad rebels, in part to avoid confrontation with Russia, which has armed the Syrian regime for years. Although Moscow fears one, there is little chance of a military campaign like the one that led to the ouster of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi last year.”

“Russia has angrily charged that the U.S. and other nations went beyond the bounds of the United Nations Security Council humanitarian mandate in Libya, and have blocked U.S. efforts to win an arms embargo or other tougher Security Council measures on Syria now.” 

“In the days leading up to the G-20, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Russia by charging that it was equipping the Syrian government with attack helicopters that could be used against civilians. She later acknowledged they were helicopters already owned by Syria that were being repaired in Russia, but the U.S. has let the charge of possible use against civilians stand.”