Good morning everyone.
The latest on our misadventures in the Middle East, are reports that the US military and five of our “Arab Allies” have started bombing the Islamic State or whatever one chooses to call it in Syria (hat tip to Oui – go read his diary). From the BBC:
The US and five Arab allies have launched the first strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.
The Pentagon said warplanes, drones and Tomahawk missiles were used in the attacks, which targeted several areas including IS stronghold Raqqa. […]
Separately, Centcom said US forces also attacked a network of al-Qaeda veterans named Khorasan who had established a safe haven west of Aleppo and were plotting imminent attacks against the West.
The LA Times is reporting the attacks on Aleppo, as well.
Though Aleppo is the largest city in Syria, I’m sure we and our friends only bombed the bad guys, and not any women, children or other innocent people.
Oh wait, maybe not:
The strikes targeted Raqqa, an IS stronghold in eastern Syria the group captured in 2013, and the cities of Deir al-Zour, Hassakeh and Abu Kamal.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground, said more than 20 militants were killed in two strikes on IS positions in Raqqa.
Earlier, it said 30 al-Qaeda-linked fighters were also killed in strikes west of Aleppo, but it later raised the figure to 50. Eight civilians, including three children, were reported to have died.
Well, they are only “collateral” damage, right? Gotta kill a few civilians break a few eggs to make an omelet (or scrambled eggs). I’m sure no one will hold it against us. The BBC story, by the way has a nice map graphic showing the cities and towns in Syria that were struck in this latest episode of our never-ending war on terror.
Meanwhile Israel is back in the news as well, as its defense forces claim they shot down a Syrian jet fighter “attempting to infiltrate Israeli airspace in the Golan Heights…” Not exactly what I would call an encouraging development. The IDF also says that in Hebron yesterday they shot and killed two “suspects” wanted for the killing of those two Jewish teenagers in the West Bank back in June. The same teens whose murder led to a retaliation murder of a Palestinian boy “Muhammad Abu Khdeir, in his East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat” by “Jewish extremists” (NY Times description, people, not mine), which led to you know what:
The June 12 disappearance of Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, as they hitchhiked home from their West Bank yeshivas, and the subsequent Israeli crackdown in Hebron and surrounding areas, helped set off an escalation of violence that culminated in a seven-week battle between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
Well enough about the Middle East, drones, tomahawk missiles and air strikes.
As for me, I’m bone tired, but I appreciate everyone who has provided diaries to post here or stories via my email (stevendbt at yahoo dot com). You folks deserve plaudits and if I could remember what those things were, I’d send you some (yes, that’s my feeble attempt at humor). But seriously, I hope to have a few new stories up from you guys later today, after I go pick up my wife’s medications, which I must do shortly.
Regarding Booman, I am still awaiting updates from Cabin Girl on his status. With any luck, it will be good news. Sorry I don’t have more to tell you. But let’s end this on an up note shall we? So, hmmm. Let me think a bit.
Have a nice day?
I’m working on something when I get done with work throughout the week. Might take a day, might take the week. It’s a topic I think is discussed plenty in other parts of the Internet, but I haven’t seen it in the prog blogosphere.
To the topic at hand, look, another ceasefire Israel has violated. Will the usual suspects say the West Bank has a right to defend itself?
Thank you Steven and others for keeping this site going in BooMan’s absence. Steve I know this hasn’t been easy for you and I appreciate your efforts. Remember to take care of you and yours first. Wish you had some more upbeat news to relay to us, but that is wishing for too much I’m afraid. Have a good day.
Small nit to pick: Reports have left the nature of the Syrian plane unidentified, not a jet fighter as you state here.
First report stated it was a MIG-21 fighter, later changed to a Su-24 fighter/bomber. The Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer performs tactical bomber, reconnaissance and electronic warfare roles.
Ya know, the mission is immeasurably mired in impossibilities and horrific collateral damage. And everytime I think of the bombers taking off for yet another sorti I’m wishing they would take a hard turn and take the Saudi kingdom out. As Digby’s post this morning reminds from a Steve Clemmons post, “ISIS is a Saudi project”.
Steve Clemmons’ article h/t Digby
Now, now, forgive and forget…what’s an alliance for, if not that? Let’s not argue over who killed whom, or who financed and armed and supplied whoever. This is supposed to be a happy occasion!
Accountability among allies is bad form.
We may have “created” ISIS in our invasion of Iraq. But it exists.
We’ve used the Vietnam analogy for Iraq, and I think ISIS is the Khmer Rouge. A byproduct of our imperial hubris, sure, but an evil that must be addressed.
We can sit down at a table with Putin and the Pakistanis and the kleptocrats of China. They are state actors with legitimacy and responsibilities.
But people like ISIS and Al Qaeda? We didn’t pick a way with those savages, they picked it with us.
Fuck’em.
George Santayana
We and our BFFs most certainly did pick ISIS and al Qaeda. Just as surely as we “picked” Pinochet and the Shah and plowed the fields to facilitate their existence.
The US could have helped take out the Khmer Rouge — but that would have required an alliance with our declared enemy, North Vietnam. Just as today, ISIS would crumble quickly if we formed an alliance with Syria-Iran-Russia. But we’re not going to do that. My how we forget the brilliance of team FDR that were real pragmatists and understood that the US-UK couldn’t go it alone against the axis powers.
Charles P Pierce, as is his style wrt Obama, understates the latest US military actions in the ME, but nevertheless is worth reading: Making More War.
Gag worthy from the mouth of the US Nobel Peace Prize President:
Guess our “friend” KSA does beheadings the “right” way. And the killing, injuring, and displacement of ordinary people goes on and on as the big cheeses duke it out by proxy for power and profit. If only hell in an afterlife for TPTB were real instead of being all true real in this one for those deemed “collateral damage.”
literal reading of Obama’s speech is not helpful, doesn’t tell you what is happening. for one, Obama’s got them to ante up, rather than sit back and let us go out in front then get blamed for everything. that’s major
Not significantly different from GWB’s “coalition of the willing” and GHWB’s guarantee of contracts for US corporations to rebuild Kuwait. Then there was the US military installation in KSA — and we all know how well that worked out.
“not significantly different” = the problem in your analysis
Time will tell, won’t it?
Whose F-22 dropped bombs on Syria? Hint: it wasn’t KSA or Qatar.
first major different, GWB, neighbors did not see a problem. this time the neighbors, and the residents, see a problem –
Turkey declined even to grant overflight privileges to the US for GWB’s war — and turned down the huge bribe offered to do so. Iran stood on the sidelines not to interfere with the US taking down Iran’s Sunni enemy.
KSA definitely saw problems ahead with Bush’s war. Its senior officials aren’t as stupid as you seem to think they are.
you misunderstood me; I meant the neighbors see a problem now that must be addressed re: ISIS. GWB cooked up a war on his own. I’m not stupid although you evidently think I am
Then let them resolve it. It’s not as if KSA/Qatar, with help from Turkey, weren’t instrumental in the creation of these new monsters.
and you think that’s not a significant difference – cooking up a war vs. getting involved where everyone in the region and beyond considers it a crisis?
Making war is what the US does the best!
Step back a minute and try to view the prominent news stories of this year as a historian might. Forget about the latest minute details of ISIS or ISIL, etc. Ask: why did this suddenly become so prominent? Why was there basically nothing said about this group in the news until just recently?
I don’t know the answer but I am skeptical that our daily news stories all come from organic sources that just happen. We’ve seen mountains of evidence in recent decades that many wealthy groups have successfully influenced media and popular opinion by influencing what the news media covers.
So where is Turkey? Did ya know…the Turkish media was forbidden to report on the hostages or their release? I thought Turkey was a NATO member not the jihadi highway.
It’s complicated. All the players seem to have too many “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In aligning Turkey w/KSA-Qatar-US to take out Assad, Erdogan seems to have missed the part that Turkey would lose territory to a newly created independent Kurdistan.
Turkey ain’t gonna do shit.
Au contraire. Turkey is doing plenty of shit.
Quite interesting interview and discussion on Dutch news this evening with Zaman editor Mehmet Cerit and a scholar Michael Leezenberg. IS has numerous terror sleeper cells in metropolitan areas of Istanbul and Ankara. IS enjoys a large backing in the slums, the poorest people. IS has freedom to promote its cause, operate mosques with their religious leaders and recruit fighters which could freely cross the border with Syria. In Turkey. many injured ISIL fighters are treated for severe injuries before returning to the battlefield.
As NATO partner, Turkey has become an unreliable member in the fight with the Islamic State. In addition, Turkey used the ISIL fighters to push back the PKK fighters in Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds had complained ISIL fighters used the border with Turkey as refuge, to appear again in another location for an ambush.
○ Report: ISIL has sleeper cells in Ankara, İstanbul, Konya
Turkish media are reporting freely about the return of hostages …
○ Syrian rebel group freed ISIL militants in swap for Turkish hostages | Hürriyet Daily News |
Heartfelt and rational piece by Pardox: Costs of War.
Read the whole piece. One quibble, the final payout isn’t “nothing” but less than nothing. Well, except for the elites that have and continue to reap profits from the suffering of others here and abroad.
Jeebus, this kinda puts a damper on the Autumn equinox…but it’s not like we didn’t know this was in the works.
Since we’ve clearly got a new US war on our hands, what are we gonna call it? The ISIL War? The War Against ISIL? Can’t see it, too many won’t know what the hell “ISIL” means. Or IS. or ISIS. Clearly the beheaders have not learned the value of branding!
Obama’s War? Probably won’t catch on unless it morphs into a total catastrophe with ground troops. The War against the Sunnis? Sorta strange, with all those Sunni Family Bizness “allies” flying with us (er, somewhat behind us? “supporting” us? serving snacks to the sturmtruppen? thanks for all you do!)
The Third Iraq War? Naw, too many numbers, plus there’s the Syria-bombing glitch, but didn’t we bomb plenty outside of Vietnam proper? Anyway, can’t see it. Of course, it’s clearly just another installment of the War Against Terra ™, but I do feel a bit more specificity will be required, certainly by historians.
When I hear about ME war coalitions, I still can’t get the high comedy of Bushco’s “Coalition of the Willing” out of my memory, which descended into the burlesque of Bush sitting with our (rightwing) Italian and Spanish “partners” at a summit somewhere in the middle Atlantic (the Azores?) if I remember. That’s when Bushco war satire really became pretty much unavoidable. Of course with all noble and virtuous new wars, it’s best not to remember too much about earlier ones….every coalition has its day in the sun!
I think the reality is that we are engaged in another Thirty Years War—or at least the region is, with or without us. The religious upheaval and “caliphate” angle seems pretty front and center at this point, and bombs (however smart) ain’t gonna do shit to some newly emerged religious fervor, crackpot or otherwise. Nor will our bombs do much to tamp down ever increasing religious “schisms” and perceived “heresies”. Nor will they do much to ameliorate absurd wealth inequalities which poison all societies of the region, with a few families controlling 40% of known cheap oil reserves and doling all the lucre out to various royal princes and princesses. What fine allies we’ve shackled ourselves to here!
Of course, we need the oil of the region’s Family Oil Biznesses, er, nations—whatever in hell is going on in their religion. So the Homeland is In Danger, end of story! But who in hell would have wanted to “intervene” in Europe’s Thirty Years War?
ISIS has to be junked — too easily mistaken for Israeli Security Intelligence Services. Plus Isis was a goddess and remains a reasonably popular name for girls in the ME.
Not sure ISIL, International Society for Individual Liberty appreciates being confused with crazed Muslim fundamentalists.
As for IS — “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.” IS=none works for me.
ISIS goddess, all the more reason to use ISIS
I’m ready to dump the ISIS/ISIL names and follow the French lead to call them Daesh purely because it seems to annoy them and I’d like to get rid of any association the terrorists claim to have with the Islamic faith. Sever that tie linguistically and the people will separate themselves.
I hadn’t heard that one. Daesh has a certain cachet …
France is going with Daesh. Also spelled ‘DAIISH.’ Would shorten the whole thing to ‘al-Sham’ for English speaking audiences.
I hope Booman is ok! Arrrrrrrgh!
We all do.