Tuesday, November 29, 2016

All so sad and disgusting

crybabysoreloser

From Sunday, that is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cry Baby Sore Loser" which reminds me of the denial in 'snowflake' land.  Hillary looked tired, haggard and disgusting when she showed up for the Children's Defense Fund gala.

It was not pretty.

You have to be far, far from reality to pretend otherwise.

So many of her cult are just insane.


😂 Elitist millionaire admits he is totally clueless re populist anger at the .



Paul Krugman was never for the people and this latest crap only goes to that.

Krugman doesn't care about working class people.

He's disgusting.


On CNN today, we got more nonsense.

"Are you going to have a very militarized cabinet?"  Barbara Starr said (on Jake Tapper's show) regarding Donald Trump considering several generals for posts.

No grasp of the fact that the State Dept has become increasingly materialized or that John Kerry struts around like he's Secretary of Defense.

It's all so sad and disgusting.



This  C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Monday:



Monday, November 28, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, the Mosul 'liberation' effort continues, Rosie O'Donnell goes after a child, and much more.





Iraqi Sunni Civilian tortured , burned  and killed by Shia militias backed by Iraqi Gov.







RUDAW reports:


Head of the Sunni tribe of Shammar in Iraq has voiced concern over Saturday's official recognition of the Hashd al-Shaabi, a Shiite paramilitary group with growing influence in the country following its sweeping victories against ISIS militants across Iraq. 

After a voting session on Saturday, Iraq's parliament granted legal status to the controversial group which has managed to mobilize Shiite forces and push back ISIS militants in several key regions across the country in the wake of Iraqi army's humiliating defeat after ISIS offensive in 2014.

But the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces in Arabic) has faced mounting criticism in the country as rights groups accused its forces of illegal detention of Sunni men and destruction of their properties in what activists view as Shiite retaliatory actions against Sunni populations in Iraq.

"Members of Shia militias, who the Iraqi government has included among its state forces, abducted and killed scores of Sunni residents in a central Iraq town and demolished Sunni homes, stores, and mosques following January 11, 2016 bombings claimed by the extremist group Islamic State," a statement by the Human Rights Watch noted earlier this year.


The Washington-based rights group has also accused the Shiite group of possible war crimes and inhuman treatment of Sunni detainees. 

"We understand that there is a war taking place at present in Mosul, but on the other hand the Hashd al-Shaabi has been legalized and that we deem as dangerous for Iraq's future," said Abdulrazaq Shammar, head of the Shammar tribe, a large Sunni tribe in Nineveh Plains. 



In 2014, when the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq finally pushed US President Barack Obama to stop covering for thug and then-prime minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki, a number of things should have happened including a diplomatic surge.

As Peter Beinart observed (at THE ATLANTIC) in June of 2014:

But sooner or later, honest liberals will have to admit that Obama’s Iraq policy has been a disaster. Since the president took office, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has grown ever more tyrannical and ever more sectarian, driving his country’s Sunnis toward revolt. Since Obama took office, Iraq watchers—including those within his own administration—have warned that unless the United States pushed hard for inclusive government, the country would slide back into civil war. Yet the White House has been so eager to put Iraq in America’s rearview mirror that, publicly at least, it has given Maliki an almost-free pass. Until now, when it may be too late.
Obama inherited an Iraq where better security had created an opportunity for better government. The Bush administration’s troop “surge” did not solve the country’s underlying divisions. But by retaking Sunni areas from insurgents, it gave Iraq’s politicians the chance to forge a government inclusive enough to keep the country together.
The problem was that Maliki wasn’t interested in such a government. Rather than integrate the Sunni Awakening fighters who had helped subdue al-Qaeda into Iraq’s army, Maliki arrested them. In the run-up to his 2010 reelection bid, Maliki’s Electoral Commission disqualified more than 500, mostly Sunni, candidates on charges that they had ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
For the Obama administration, however, tangling with Maliki meant investing time and energy in Iraq, a country it desperately wanted to pivot away from. A few months before the 2010 elections, according to Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker, “American diplomats in Iraq sent a rare dissenting cable to Washington, complaining that the U.S., with its combination of support and indifference, was encouraging Maliki’s authoritarian tendencies.”


When Iraqis went to the polls in March 2010, they gave a narrow plurality to the Iraqiya List, an alliance of parties that enjoyed significant Sunni support but was led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite. Under pressure from Maliki, however, an Iraqi judge allowed the prime minister's Dawa Party—which had finished a close second—to form a government instead. According to Emma Sky, chief political adviser to General Raymond Odierno, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, American officials knew this violated Iraq’s constitution. But they never publicly challenged Maliki’s power grab, which was backed by Iran, perhaps because they believed his claim that Iraq’s Shiites would never accept a Sunni-aligned government. “The message” that America’s acquiescence “sent to Iraq’s people and politicians alike,” wrote the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth Pollack, “was that the United States under the new Obama administration was no longer going to enforce the rules of the democratic road…. [This] undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state and the civil war.” According to Filkins, one American diplomat in Iraq resigned in disgust. 
By that fall, to its credit, the U.S. had helped craft an agreement in which Maliki remained prime minister but Iraqiya controlled key ministries. Yet as Ned Parker, the Reuters bureau chief in Baghdad, later detailed, “Washington quickly disengaged from actually ensuring that the provisions of the deal were implemented.” In his book, The Dispensable Nation, Vali Nasr, who worked at the State Department at the time, notes that the “fragile power-sharing arrangement … required close American management. But the Obama administration had no time or energy for that. Instead it anxiously eyed the exits, with its one thought to get out. It stopped protecting the political process just when talk of American withdrawal turned the heat back up under the long-simmering power struggle that pitted the Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds against one another.”


In July of 2014, Ali Khedery shared in THE WASHINGTON POST:



To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — and why the United States has supported him since 2006.

I have known Maliki, or Abu Isra, as he is known to people close to him, for more than a decade. I have traveled across three continents with him. I know his family and his inner circle. When Maliki was an obscure member of parliament, I was among the very few Americans in Baghdad who took his phone calls. In 2006, I helped introduce him to the U.S. ambassador, recommending him as a promising option for prime minister. In 2008, I organized his medevac when he fell ill, and I accompanied him for treatment in London, spending 18 hours a day with him at Wellington Hospital. In 2009, I lobbied skeptical regional royals to support Maliki’s government.

By 2010, however, I was urging the vice president of the United States and the White House senior staff to withdraw their support for Maliki. I had come to realize that if he remained in office, he would create a divisive, despotic and sectarian government that would rip the country apart and devastate American interests.



America stuck by Maliki. As a result, we now face strategic defeat in Iraq and perhaps in the broader Middle East. 



We could go on and on.

But those of us paying attention in real time didn't need the 2014 articles.  Check the archives, we were sounding alarms the whole time including noting in late 2011 as peaceful protests began that they were the last chance before violence.


We were noting that the ballot box had now failed, the leaders had failed and now it would be up to the people.


Instead of heeding the protests, Nouri al-Maliki dubbed the Iraqi people "terrorists" and began using his forces to attack them -- as well as to attack reporters who covered the peaceful demonstrations.


His war on the Sunnis was in full bloom.


Two years after Barack forced him to step down and after the US installed Hayder al-Abadi as the new prime minister, nothing has been done to address the persecution of the Sunnis.

All the conditions that allowed for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq still exist.


And the slog in Mosul continues -- Mosul's been held by the Islamic State since June 2014.  The 'liberation' effort's been going on 42 days now.


Falluja was 'liberated' earlier.  Kamal Al-Ayash (NIQASH) reports:


When he returned to the city of Fallujah, Ayman al-Mamawi wasn’t surprised to see his house in ruins. The 46-year-old had already received pictures a friend had taken for him and he knew there was substantial damage, even before he made the decision to return to his home in Iraq's central Anbar province.
As he got closer to his house, al-Mamawi said he started thinking about his priorities in terms of reconstruction and return, what he should start fixing and when.

“But as soon as I got closer I started to smell a really bad smell,” al-Mamawi told NIQASH. “Finding the source of that smell became our first priority. And finally we discovered what was causing it: There were corpses in the ruins.”
Al-Mamawi says that next he went to notify the security forces. “We were too scared of explosives to count how many dead there were. And we decided that the best thing to do would be to demolish the whole house and get rid of the human remains – as well,” he notes, “as all of our belongings and memories, which were also in the ruins.”
Of course, al-Mamawi argues, the corpses of the dead fighters from the extremist group known as the Islamic State that once controlled the city, is a good sign. “It’s an indication of the success of the Iraqi forces during the fighting,” al-Mamawi argues. “At the same time though, it is also a criticism of the local government. They have not done their job. There are still corpses everywhere!”
Al-Mamawi is not the only returnee in Fallujah to have to deal with this problem. People are finding rotting corpses all over the city and now there is a fear they might cause an epidemic, not to mention the psychological impact they have. The corpses are also a problem for the local authorities and the security forces because of the concern that there are explosives on them or hidden around them – special engineering teams are needed to get rid of the bodies.

“It would never have occurred to me that one of my biggest problems would be that there would be a corpse in every corner,” says Amer Halbusi, a 53-year-old, who recently returned to his home in the Nazirah area of Fallujah.



That's what 'liberation' in Iraq looks like to the people.

And the rulers have not been forced to address anything -- or even encouraged.

The White House has handed over F-16s, US troops, reconstruction funds (millions) and dropped bombs.

It just hasn't attached any of this to a requirement that the Iraqi government show progress on the political front, that they work towards reconciliation.


So it's all been one long waste.

Doubt it?

Refugees are dying in refugee camps.



RUDAW reports:

All Mosul refugees at the Iraq-Syria border crossing where several had died of the cold have been evacuated and brought to a camp in Syria, the UN’s refugee agency reported on Saturday.

“2,458 people have now been moved from Rajm Slebi border crossing point to Al Hol camp north-east Syria,” the UNHCR stated on their website. The number includes 2,031 Iraqi refugees and 427 displaced Syrians.

“The crossing point, which is not an environment where humanitarian agencies can adequately meet people’s protection and humanitarian assistance needs, is now empty.”

At least four people, including three children, died in the cold at the border crossing his month. 



How do you fail at protecting the refugees?


Turning to the US . . .

Oh, Ro-Ro.  Rosie O'Donnell stepped in it again and tracked it across the carpet and then tried to pretend she didn't.  As RADAR explains:



Rosie O’Donnell is desperately trying to sweep her comments she made about Donald Trump‘s 10-year-old son under the rug.
O’Donnell came under fire by fans on Twitter after she sent a bizarre tweet out about the president-elect’s son Barron: “Barron Trump Autistic? if so – what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic,” with a video clip.


Her fans quickly exploded, blaming the former View hostess for putting the spotlight on him for no reason.


As INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES notes, she's insisting this was a good will Tweet.

Because calling a 10-year-old, in public, autistic is clearly a compliment to both the young child and his parents, right?

Rosie's full of it and she really needs to stop lying.

Check out Kat's "Shame on Rosie O'Donnell and Debra Messing" from earlier this month.

She should have her Twitter account suspended them.  She was trying to shame Donald Trump's wife by posting photos of First Lady's fully clothed and then one of Ms. Trump nude.

She was trying to 'slut shame.'

She knows she did it.

And she got away with it.

Now she thinks she can walk it back and pretend like because her most recently adopted child (that she refused to share custody of with her ex-wife) has autism.

Okay, Ro-Ro, someone needs to break it down for you.

Your use of money to attack your ex-wives and keep them from the children is disgusting.  It's Bully Boy behavior.  Here's another thought Ro-Ro, this behavior could qualify as fraud and put your adoptions at risk.  You don't have to remain married to keep an adopted child but if you promised a child two parents and you're now using things like the suicide attempt (that your actions forced your latest ex-wife into) to keep the women from seeing their children?  That could get you in hot water.


There is nothing in feminism that allows you to keep a mother from her child.

You're a bully.

And nothing allows you the right to put a cloud of suspicion over any child.

You were wrong and you should apologize.

But you don't have the integrity or ethics to apologize.

So instead, you'll just act as though you intended no harm and pretend you're puzzled why so many are appalled by what you did.

Children are supposed to be off limits.

But a woman who robs other women of their right to raise their own children doesn't really seem like a loving parent, does she?  She just seems like an angry and bitter fool who sees children as toys and pawns to be used.

Grow up, Rosie.


New content at Third:












Saturday, November 26, 2016

The continued descent of Paul Krugman

As I was saying recently in "Never fell for the lie," I never fell for the whole 'the Democrats will save us!!!' b.s.


Bill Martin (CounterPunch) isn't falling for it either:


There is plenty of historical evidence to suggest that social-democrats are worthless or worse when it comes to fighting fascism.  Clinton Democrats are not even remotely social-democrats, and perhaps Trump is something other than a “fascist,” exactly.  But the analogy is good enough, especially given the way that Clinton supporters are attempting to place blame for the Trump election on those who did not support Clinton, and otherwise hiding behind “Trump is not my president” and the like.  This is just further evidence that, when it comes to really changing the world, Democrats are irrelevant at best.  It is only in making a radical break with this whole scene that anything good can be accomplished.


This isn’t a matter of welcoming crisis or trying to do something to bring on crisis–that was never a good strategy, but crisis doesn’t work that way in any case–but instead of truly taking advantage of the galvanizing effect that a Trump presidency will have.  The question will be, “galvanizing for what?”–the answer cannot and must not be another retreat into depressing Democratic fantasies and thinking about the next election.  You said something was different this time–little did you know.  So, please, get your crying done and get ready to get down to some real work.



Meanwhile, it's amazing to watch Paul Krugman get crazier and crazier in public.


As political scientist Lynn Vavreck reported in NYT, 75% of HRC's ads were about DJT's personality. 🤗


Oops. 

Hillary emphasized Donald's personality.

So did the press.

The New York Times needs to fire Krugman so he can go work at the mill he was destined to end up with: David Brock's Media Matters.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:



Friday, November 25, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, the 'progress' on Mosul has been a wee bit stretched (to put it mildly), a US service member is killed in combat in Syria, and much more.


It took a slow US news day (Thanksgiving) and a major death toll but, in the last 24 hours, Iraq finally made it back into the news cycle with everyone from CNN to NPR remembering a war does in fact continue in Iraq.

The numbers continue to rise in Thursday's suicide bombing in Hilla.  Murtada Faraj (AP) reports, "The death toll from a car bombing south of Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group rose to 73 on Friday, including about 40 Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi hospital and police officials said, the deadliest IS attack in four months."  BBC NEWS adds forty more people were left wounded.




ISIS kill around 100 (100!) Shia Muslim pilgrims, mainly Iranians, near Baghdad. Iraq's horrors never end:





If you're wondering why Mehdi is so specific, he's a Shi'ite Muslim himself.

No, when it's Sunnis in Iraq he's not outraged.

He's not even concerned enough to Tweet.

But remember, he's 'objective.'

Oh, he's something alright.






Noam Chomsky tells me on that leftists who didn't vote for Clinton to block Trump made a "bad mistake":

UpFront special: Noam Chomsky on the new Trump era
“The most predictable aspect of Trump is unpredictability. I think it’s dangerous, very dangerous,” says Noam Chomsky.








Did they make a bad mistake, Noam?

And what about leftist professors who recruited for the CIA?

Right now, I'm just asking Noam.

Right now.

But we both know this is a question I ask fully knowing the answer already.


Mehdi's only up in arms when it's Shi'ites.

Life in Iraq isn't easy for anyone.

But the people that the government target are Sunnis.

Even in the so-called liberation of Mosul.





Shia Militias crimes
الممثل الشيعي القطري غازي حسين في كربلاء ليدعم الحشد الشيعي لقتل سنة العراق











  1. Shia Militia crimes
    عاجل اين الحكومة التركيه
    الحشد الشيعي الارهابي اختطفت عشرات العوائل العراقيه التركمانيه السنيه من تلعفر واقتادهم للمجهول




Urgent
report
Dozens of Iraqi Turkoman Sunis families  kidnapped by Shia militias backed by Iraqi Gov. in Tal Afar, where Turkish government






Leith Fadel (AL MASDAR NEWS) states, "The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd Al-Sha'abi) launched their 5th stage of the Mosul offensive on Friday, targeting the western part of this strategic city located in Iraq's northwestern countryside."

If you're scratching your head, yes this is what they were saying on Wednesday as well.

Actually, on Wednesday, they were saying that the effort had been completed successfully.

From AL JAZEERA on Wednesday, "ISIL's last supply line from Mosul to Syria has been severed by Iraqi-led forces, leaving the armed group's stronghold completely isolated.  Shia-Muslim paramilitary forces, known as Hashed al-Shaabi, captured the road linking Tal Afar to Sinjar west of Mosul on Wednesday and linked up with Kurdish forces there, security officials say."


From AFP on Wednesday, "Forces battling the Islamic State group in northern Iraq have cut off the jihadists’ last supply line from Mosul to Syria, trapping them in the city for a bloody last stand. [. . .]
To the west of Mosul, Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary forces made a push to cut the road between two towns on the route heading to Syria, security officials said on Wednesday."

So now, it turns out, that the success being boasted of on Wednesday was premature.

Another "turned corner" in the Iraq War usually turns out to be a detour and not success.


That's one thing the waves and waves of Operation Happy Talk have taught us all over the years.


Today is day 39 of the operation to liberate or 'liberate' Mosul.

How's that 'victory' going?

Not well.

Not well at all.

Tim Arango (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:



By the time little Amira, just a year old, reached the field clinic near the front line in Mosul, she was already dead. All her father could do was bundle her up in a golden blanket, carry her to a nearby mosque and bury her.

When a Humvee pulled up to the door of the clinic, a young boy in the back was draped over a man’s body. “My father, answer me!” he cried. “My father, answer me! Don’t die!” But he, too, was already dead.

It was barely noon on Wednesday, and eight bodies had already arrived at the clinic, an abandoned house where medics provide a minimum of treatment, just enough to keep the lucky ones alive long enough for the hourlong drive to a trauma center.


Arango observes "civilians are paying a growing price."

Tamer el-Ghobashy and Ali A. Nabhan (WALL STREET JOURNAL) report:


Ahead of the battle to oust Islamic State from its Mosul stronghold, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sent a message to residents: Stay in your homes.
Now, more than a month into the battle, Iraq’s top military commanders are lobbying Mr. Abadi to shift tactics, officials said, as the initial lightning advance toward Iraq’s second biggest city turns into a perilous urban slog, with gains measured in feet rather than miles.

Commanders want the government to encourage residents of Mosul to flee through the handful of neighborhoods the military has already secured, they said, and thereby free the military to use heavy artillery and air power that could cause widespread harm in densely populated neighborhoods.




But the civilians of Mosul aren't really a concern.

They never were.

If they were, they wouldn't have bombs dropped on them already by the US-led 'coalition' (that term was mocked when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House but is treated seriously with Barack Obama in the White House).

If the citizens of Mosul were of any real concern to the government of Iraq, the effort to liberate the area wouldn't have started last month.

Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, was seized by the Islamic State in June of 2014.

Two years and four months later, the Iraqi government finally gets around to trying to liberate it?

Get real.

At THIRD on Sunday, we offered "Editorial: Was the Christian population why the Iraqi government didn't try to liberate Mosul sooner?" which asks a question no one wants to ask.

The Christian population was of no concern to the Baghdad-based government.

They were more than happy to see it disperse out of Baghdad and to Mosul or other countries.

There was no effort to protect the Iraqi Christians.

There was no effort to go after those who attacked the Iraqi Christians.

There were efforts to trash their stores.

More recently the Parliament banned the sale of alcohol.

Who sells alcohol in Iraq?

Iraqi Christians.

That's why their shops have been trashed repeatedly since the US-installed exiles who embrace fundamentalism as a means to control the population.


Saad Salloum (AL MONITOR) noted earlier this month the reactions to the new law:


Journalist Ali Hussein's Oct. 24 column posted on al-Mada news site ran with the headline, "Parliament decides: No place for Christians in Iraq." In it, he summarized how Christians and other minorities view the message behind the new law.
Joseph Sylawa, a Christian member of parliament with the Warka bloc, told Al-Monitor the ban on alcohol is part of a war against religious minorities that aims to force them out of the country through exclusion, marginalization and harassment policies.
Others also challenge the law.
"This is an unprecedented, dangerous and controversial law," said Mona Yako, a law professor at the University of Salahuddin in Erbil and an activist defending the rights of minorities. "It is a clear indicator of the nature of the conflict between those who support applying the Islamic Sharia and those who support a civil state."
Some activists believe the law is a step toward the Islamization of a state that was destined to be a pluralistic model in the Middle East.
Abbas Sharifi, a member of the Civic Center for Studies and Legal Reform in Baghdad, told Al-Monitor, “[We] are truly afraid for how the civil state, agreed upon in the constitution, is going to be. [We] fear this tight grip on personal freedom would be a prelude toward altering the state’s laws to apply Sharia law, such as in Saudi Arabia and Iran.”


 


The law passage was major.  We covered it here.

Which US outlets treated it as real news?

Exactly.

Part of the problems in today's Iraq -- besides the war itself -- stem from the US insistence upon (a) installing exiles into power and (b) imposing de-Ba'ahtification.

de-Ba'athification was supposed to remove all the members of the Ba'ath Party -- a pan-Arab political party that was also the party of Saddam Hussein -- the ruler the US toppled.

But de-Ba'athication didn't work.

Nor was it ever intended to work.

If it was an honest mistake on the part of the US government, then surely it would have removed all Ba'ath Party members.

It did not.



Shia Militias crimes
النائبة الشيعيه مها الدوري كانت بعثيه ترقص ل صدام
والان لبست الزي الايراني واصبحت من اتباع مقتدى الصدر وتمثله بالحكومة
 




Iraqi Shiite MP Maha Al_Douri
was  Baathist
But it was not enforced by the law against the Baath cuz she
backed by  Iran Gov.
Why?!!
 




Shia Militias crimes
النائب الشيعي بهاء الاعرجي كان بعثي يكتب تقارير ضد اتباع الصدر واليوم هو نائب تابع لمقتدى الصدر !!!
صدق او لا تصدق




MP Bahaa al-Araji
Iraqi Shiite  was  Baathist
But it was not enforced by law against the Baath cuz he from Shia sect
backed by  Iran Gov.




النائبه عاليه نصيف
كانت غير محجبه وترقص ل صدام وتؤيده والان لبست الزي الايراني واصبحت اهل السنه
ليش هيج عاليه
هذا تاريخج




Shia Militias crimes
النائب الشيعي علي شلاه احد نوري المالكي كان بعثي
والان بحزب الدعوه ولم يطبق ضده قانون اجتثاث البعث بل دعمته ايران
 




MP Ali Shlah  Iraqi Shiite  was  Baathist
But it was not enforced by the law against the Baath cuz he from Shia sect
backed by  Iran Gov.
 




Shia Militias crimes
وثائق وادله فضيحه النائبه الشيعيه العراقيه حنان الفتلاوي كانت بعثيه ولم يطبق قانون اجتثاث البعث ضدها بل دعمتها ايران
 




Iraqi Shiite MP Hanan Fatlawi was  Baathist
But it was not enforced by the law against the Baath cuz she
backed by  Iran Gov.
Why?!!
 






So if you were a Shi'ite who was a Ba'athist -- as so many were (most Iraqis were Ba'athists) -- you got a pass and a seat at the table.  If you were a Sunni, you were kicked out -- or fought like crazy against Nouri al-Maliki in the 2010 elections to stay in.





In neighboring Syria, where the US isn't supposed to be engaged in combat either, a US service member has died. The US Defense Dept noted Thursday:


Defense Secretary Ash Carter today offered his condolences to the family, friends and other loved ones of a U.S. service member who was killed on Thanksgiving in Syria.
“I am deeply saddened by the news on this Thanksgiving Day that one of our brave service members has been killed in Syria while protecting us from the evil of ISIL,” Carter said in a statement issued today. “It is a painful reminder of the dangers our men and women in uniform face around the world to keep us safe.”  
The secretary added, “Please keep this service member's family, friends and teammates in your thoughts and prayers, and this Thanksgiving I hope you will join me in expressing thanks to all of our dedicated troops who selflessly protect us every day.”
The U.S. service member died from wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast in the vicinity of Ayn Issa in northern Syria, according to a Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve news release.





US President Barack Obama had no statement, of course.  He never does.  Not on real issues.

Glen Ford (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) takes on Barack's nervous nellie dance around 'fake news:'


Was the world’s most powerful individual (until January 20) in despair over Facebook’s failure to erase three or four fictitious, yet ultimately inconsequential, stories from its pages? Of course not. Obama’s problem -- and capitalism’s crisis-- is that people no longer believe the fake “news” and bogus narratives issued by the ruling class and its corporate and military misinformation specialists. “If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not, and particularly in an age of social media when so many people are getting their information in sound bites and off their phones, if we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems,” said Obama.
This is the man that told the nation’s assembled bankers, a year after the Greet Meltdown of 2008, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." When the people come to believe that the president and the corporate media’s narrative -- that the system can be fixed with a little tinkering -- is a bunch of “propaganda,” rather than “serious argument,” then future Obamas will no longer be able to protect the Lords of Capital from the pitchforkers.
Losing control of the narrative is what happened after Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Missouri, when Black youth stopped listening to Obama’s fictitious sermon that racism is not endemic in America, a fake history that candidate Obama had successfully dispensed in his “A More Perfect Union” speech in Philadelphia, in 2008.

Obama’s targeted handful of phony social media articles generally favored Donald Trump. But the biggest “fake news” of the recent campaign, promulgated by virtually the entirety of the ruling class ensconced in Hillary Clinton’s Supersized Tent, was that the Russians were scheming to despoil and disrupt the U.S. elections -- crimes Americans commit all by themselves every cycle through massive voter purges and other racist conspiracies. To Clinton and Obama’s horror, this McCarthyite deluge of fake anti-Russian news failed to sway the very “Middle Americans” that were thought to be the most belligerent, warlike constituency of all.



Fake news attempts to turn War Criminals into people worthy of applause.





Blair talks of political homelessness but most of us won't forget half a million Iraqi children his illegal war turned into orphans.






Tony Blair, forever linked to Bill Clinton and Bully Boy Bush, isn't that different from Hillary Clinton.


But the massive efforts by so many to paint that War Hawk as the face of humanity continue, don't they?



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