"But we won, in the end, right?"

"I mean, we ended the Muslim civil war, we brought peace and democracy to Iraq and all those other places, and we saved the world from Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban. So we won... right?"

Errr... actually, NO! Ever since WWII, and particularly since the fall of the Twin Towers, the Paranoid States of America has considered itself the World's Policeman, on a mission to spread freedom, democracy, and the American way of life (ugghhh, brrrrr) throughout the rest of the world, whether ROTW wants it or not.

After 9/11, the words "al-Qaeda" became shorthand for Islamic terrorism anywhere in the world. The cry "Allahu akbar!" was  heard in London, Paris, Berlin [That's enough world cities. Ed.] and is still our best guess any time there's a suicide bombing or mass shooting or terror attack anywhere in the Middle East or the Western world.

With the US of A as the unwitting midwife, Al-Qaeda begat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The Muslim civil war in Iraq begat the same in Syria. The American-led (but really America-only) missions in Iraq and Afghanistan ended in ignominious retreat. 

Saddam Hussein and Muammar Ghadafi were deposed and killed, but today the countries they ruled remain no-go zones for Westerners, as does the entire Muddled East from the Mediterranean all the way to Pakistan. (The possible exception is Israel, although it has its own wars with Palestinians and Hezbollah to worry about.) 

Instead of bringing the Islamic republics, sheikdoms, etc into the New World Order, American intervention (read: meddling) has turned the region into one huge shithole, stuck in the mentality of the Middle Ages and intent on bring the ROTW down to its level. I call our mission a failure, utter and complete.

Further reading: And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East, by Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News. Simon & Schuster, 2016. Clear and concise, not overly biased, easy reading.

Footnote: Regular readings should know that Walt fully supports Ukraine and Ukrainians in their reistance to the illegal Russian invasion and occupation of their land. Слава Україні! Героям слава! 

I believe we should give the Ukrainians as much humanitarian and military assistance as we can, short of putting US or NATO boots on the ground. Why stop at that? Precisely because of the mess America has made of every foreign intervention since (and including) Korea. That kind of "help" is the last thing Ukraine needs!

Everything happened at once, Part 3

21 years ago today

Yes, I am well aware that this is the 21st anniversary of 9/11. And I know the topic of who dunnit and what happened after that has been done to death. But I think it's worth revisiting as Americans ask themselves which is the right party to entrust with national security in these ever more troubled times.

Recommended reading: The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, Penguin Press, 2006. As you would expect, considering who Mr Rich worked for, the book is an attack on President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Republican Party. 

But... in revealing how the American people were suckered into supporting an unprovoked war on Iraq (and later Afghanistan), Mr Rich reveals how Deep State, which is non-partisan, co-opted his newspaper and the rest of the lickspittle media. 21 years later, the same mass media are conspiring, at the behest of Deep State and the WTF giants who fund them, to gull you into believing that you should overlook the disastrous failures of the Biden administration and leave them in control of Congress. "Don't worry folks, everything's gonna be OK. Trust us (again)!"

When the Islamic extremists -- the jihadis -- attacked the US of A on 9/11, Americans almost unanimously rallied behind its new, untested president. The papers, notably but not only the NYT and WAPO, and the TV networks, particularly CNN, organized the cheerleading, which went on 24/7 until years after the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq had been passed.

That there was no basis whatever for the claims that the Iraqis had, or were about to have weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al-Qaeda, was ignored or suppressed, just as all those stories about the nefarious dealings of Son Hunter are being suppressed today. 

One is reminded of the story of the famous American painter, Frederic Remington, who was sent by William Randolph Hearst, the master of yellow journalism, to cover the incipient Spanish-American war. When he reported from Havana that there was nothing going on, Mr Hearst allegedly replied, "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war."

So it was after 9/11. The priority of the Deep State behind Dubya was not to vanquish Al-Qaeda but to consolidate its own power at any cost. It was a mission that could be accomplished only by a propaganda presidency in which reality was steadily replaced by a scenario of the White House's own invention. Thus it was that America was led for a second time to intervene in the Muslim civil wars, and attack a small and impotent country which had never attacked it.

The Republicans and the lickspittle media intimidated the Democrats into incoherence and impotence, and turned the presidential election of 2004 into an irrelevant referendum on macho imagery and same-sex marriage. Mr Rich's book shows, with a day-by-day timeline, how the institutions that should have exposed these fictions -- the mainstream news media -- were too often left powerless by the administration's relentless attack machine and their own unquestioning political correctness. 

Nothing has changed. If anything, the situation has worsened. The Biden administration controls the media. Deep State controls the administration. Are Americans going to be fooled again?!

One final thought. Among the political leaders who rallied behind the Bush War effor was none other than Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.  During the run-up to the last election campaign, Demented Joe claimed that despite voting to authorize military force against Iraq in 2002, he opposed the Iraq war from "the moment" it began. That's a lie. Read "Biden's Record on Iraq War", FactCheck.org (a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center), 10/9/19. What follows are excerpted from the article.

Biden never outright opposed military action in Iraq in the immediate days after the start of the invasion, as he claimed. He now admits his recent comments went too far. During the second Democratic primary debate on July 31, Biden said his “bad judgment” in voting to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq in 2002 was “trusting the president saying he was only doing this to get inspectors in and get the U.N. to agree to put inspectors in.” 

In a speech days before the 2002 vote, Bush did say approving the resolution “does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable,” but he also laid out in detail why military action “may” be needed. And on the day the war broke out, Biden acknowledged, “We voted to give him the authority to wage that war. We should step back and be supportive.” 

It wasn’t until Nov. 27, 2005, that Biden acknowledged on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that his 2002 vote authorizing force in Iraq was “a mistake.” “It was a mistake,” Biden said. “It was a mistake to assume the president would use the authority we gave him properly. … We gave the president the authority to unite the world to isolate Saddam. And the fact of the matter is, we went too soon. We went without sufficient force. And we went without a plan.”

Right now, the Democrats and their propaganda machine are manufacturing -- just as in 2001 -- "threats to national security", which they are trying to lay at the feet of President Trump. Don't listen to them. Listen to me! The greatest threat to the safety, security and well-being of America and Americans does not come from within Mar-a-Lago, but from within the White House. Keep that in mind when you vote in November.

Dr. Ron Paul: Twenty years on, we’ve learned nothing from 9/11

Ed. here. What follows is Dr Ron Paul's column from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prospertity, reposted with permission. Thank you, Dr Paul, for your clear and constant warning abouot the dangers of big government and the folly of meddling in foreign affairs which are none of our business.

Nothing upset the Washington Beltway elites more than when in a 2007 presidential debate I pointed out the truth about the 9/11 attacks: they attacked us because we’ve been in the Middle East, sanctioning and bombing the civilian population, for decades. The 9/11 attackers were not motivated to commit suicide terrorism on the Twin Towers and Pentagon because they dislike our freedoms, as then-President Bush claimed. That was a self-serving lie.

They hated – and hate – us because we kill them for no reason. Day after day. Year after year. Right up until just a few days ago, when President Biden slaughtered Zemari Ahmadi and nine members of his family - including seven children - in Afghanistan. The Administration bragged about taking out a top ISIS target. But they lied. Ahmadi was just an aid worker, working for a California-based organization, bringing water to suffering Afghan village residents.

This horror has been repeated thousands of times, over and over, for decades. Does Washington believe these people are subhuman? That they somehow don’t care about their relatives being killed? That they don’t react as we would react if a foreign power slaughtered our families?

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously suggested in an interview that killing half a million Iraqi children with sanctions designed to remove Saddam Hussein from power was “worth it.” It was an admission that the lives of innocents mean nothing to the Washington elite, even as they paint their murderous interventions as some kind of “humanitarian liberation.” The slogan of the US foreign policy establishment really should be, “No Lives Matter.”

The Washington foreign policy elites – Republicans and Democrats – are deeply corrupt and act contrary to US national interests. They pretend that decades of indiscriminate bombing overseas are beneficial to the victims and keep us safer as well. That is how they are able, year after year, to convince Congress to hand over a trillion dollars – money taken directly and indirectly from average Americans. They use fear and lies for their own profit. And they call themselves patriots.

The Washington establishment lied to us because they did not want us to stop for a second and try to understand the motive for the 9/11 attacks. Police detectives are not apologists for killers when they try to look for a motive for the crime. But the Washington elite did not want us to think about why people might be motivated to suicide attack. That might endanger their 100-year gravy train.

What was the real message of 9/11 to Americans? Give up your freedoms for the false promise of security. It’s OK for the government to spy on all of us. It’s OK for the TSA to abuse us for the “privilege” of traveling in our own country. We must continue to bomb people overseas. Don’t worry it’s only temporary.

So, twenty years on what have we learned from 9/11? Absolutely nothing. And we all know what the philosopher George Santayana said about those incapable of learning from history. I desperately hope that somehow the United States will adopt a non-interventionist foreign policy, which would actually protect us from another attack. I truly wish Americans would demand that their leaders learn from history. The only way to make us safe is to end the reign of the Washington killing machine.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Iran admits its rocket shot down PS752... "but Trump!"

Iran's president has finally acknowledged what Walt and almost everyone else have suspected from the getgo. It was indeed an Iranian missile that downed Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 on Wednesday, killing all 176 people (mostly ethnic Persians) on board.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake," Hassan Rouhani said late Friday in a post on Twitter. "My thoughts and prayers go to all the mourning families. I offer my sincerest condolences." Walt's lifetime pct .984.

Iran announced Saturday that its military "unintentionally" shot down the Ukrainian jetliner that crashed earlier this week, killing all 176 aboard, after the government had repeatedly denied Western accusations that it was responsible. The plane was shot down early Wednesday, hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on two military bases housing American troops in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an American airstrike in Baghdad. No one was wounded in the attack on the bases.

A military statement carried by state media said the plane was mistaken for a "hostile target" after it turned toward a "sensitive military centre" of the Revolutionary Guard. The military was at its "highest level of readiness," it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander said his unit accepts "full responsibility" for what happened. In an address broadcast by state TV on Saturday, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that when he learned about the downing of the plane, "I wished I were dead." Walt thinks that can probably be arranged.

But the responsibility is not that of Gen. Hajizadeh alone, nor even that of the mad mullahs who form the government of the Islamic Republic. The "heightened tensions", we are asked to believe, were caused by the assassination of Gen. Soleimani, the mastermind behind Islamic terrorism that has plagued the Middle East sandpit for years and caused 1000s of deaths to Muslims and infidels alike. And who ordered Soleimani's assassination? Why, Still-President Trump, of course!

"In such a condition, because of human error and in a unintentional way, the flight was hit," the military said. It apologized and said it would upgrade its systems to prevent future tragedies. For its part, the Iranian government, through its foreign minister, expressed "profound regret" for the "incident". So that's all right then.

Credit where credit is due Dept.: Meme scraped from Blazing Cat Fur.

NATO troops start pulling out of Iraq; Americans just "moving"

There are further developments in the drama of Western meddling in the Middle East. As reported here, the Iraqi parliament voted on Sunday to oust US forces from their shithole country. The resolution said "all foreign forces", which means they would like NATO forces to follow the Americans towards the "EXIT" sign, and not slam the door on the way out. Yesterday they were signs that a number of America's "allies" [Fair weather friends? Ed.] may actually be ahead of the US military in getting out of Dodge.

Canada's chief of the defence staff, Gen. Jonathan Vance, announced that Canuckistan's military is temporarily "relocating" some soldiers from Iraq to Kuwait. The move, posted to Twitter this morning, follows the lead of Germany and several other allies. Western troops in Iraq have been on high alert since the weekend killing, by an American drone, of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the mastermind behind Islamic terrorist activities in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the rest of the sandpit.

Following Gen. Vance's announcement, Harjit Singh Sajjan, Canada's defence minister and self-proclaimed hero of Aghanistan, insisted that the "relocation" of Canuck forces was just a minor matter, and that the NATO military mission in the Middle East would stay the course. Any confusion about this, he said, was triggered by a leaked letter which suggested Washington was prepared to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Media reports about the letter from a senior USMC brigadier general said the pullout would happen over the next few days "in deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq", in response to the resolution of the Iraqi parliament mentioned above

But, according to Reuters, US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, later told a group of reporters that the letter was only a draft, meant only to inform the Iraqi government of "increased US troop movement". Nothing more. No withdrawal is being planned. Said the general, "Poorly worded, implies withdrawal. That's not what's happening." Yeah. Right.

The leaked letter said the repositioning was taking place "to prepare for onward movement" but did not specify where that movement might take place, whether west toward the "EXIT" door {read: Kuwait, where the USA has been furiously enlarging its bases) or eastward, towards, errr, Afghanistan, or northward, towards... wait for it... Iran.

American Secretary of Defense Mark Esper also insisted the US has no plans to pull out of Iraq. "There's been no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq," Mr Esper told Pentagon reporters on Monday, adding there also have been no plans issued to prepare to leave. Stay tuned.

Further reading: "Matt Gaetz: Trump Doctrine 'Best' When U.S. Strikes Terrorists, Bring Troops Home", Breitbart News, 7/1/20. Lede: "Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Breitbart News in an exclusive comment Tuesday that the Donald Trump foreign policy doctrine works best when 'we strike the terrorists' and then 'bring the troops home.'" Sounds like Mr Gaetz has been reading WWW.

Iraqi parliament wants US troops out of their country

Regular readers will know that, along with such right-thinking patriots as Dr Ron Paul, I am absolutely opposed to American involvement the Muslim civil wars in the Middle East.

It's not that I'm a pacifist or peacenik. I do believe in the doctrine of the "just war". It's just that I think it's foolish to waste 1000s of lives and billions of dollars on a war we can't win, in an affair which is none of our business.

So I was heartened to hear yesterday that the Iraqi parliament voted in favour of a resolution asking the government to expel US troops from their shithole country. Mostly Shiite factions voted in favour, while Kurdish and most Sunni members of parliament did not attend the session, presumably because they want the American presence in Iraq to continue.

The resolution says, "The government commits to revoke its request for assistance from the international coalition fighting 'Islamic State' due to the end of military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory. The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason."

Like so many resolutions passed by so many politicians in so many talking shops around the world, this resolution is likely to come to nothing. It still needs to be approved by the Iraqi cabinet, which, under their system, is not responsible to parliament. However, interim Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi voiced support as he railed against US "violations of Iraqi sovereignty."

He was referring to the US air strike on Friday which killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, near Baghdad's airport. The force has been declared an Islamic terrorist organization, and the killing of its commander -- a man with the blood of 1000s on his hands -- was intended to prevent the execution of a major terrorist attack against Americans in the Middle East, while at the same time dealing a blow to the heart of Iran's Middle East policy.

About 5,200 US troops are deployed at Iraqi military bases -- built at considerable expense to American taxpayers -- to train and support local security forces, in hopes -- faint hopes -- of preventing a resurgence of ISIS. The troops are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government as part of an US-led international coalition against the Islamic extremist group.

The usual suspects (read: Democrats) filled the airwaves yesterday with complaints about the air strike, and dire warnings about immanentizing the eschaton. (You can look it up.) At the very least, they say, Still-President Trump's action has facilitated conditions for Iran to achieve one of its main regional objectives: removing the US military from its neighbour.

And I say: GREAT! What I see here is a brilliant plan to, at long last, get America out of Iraq and perhaps the entire sandpit, without spending at little cost in lives or money, and without losing face!
Previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, got the USA into the Middle East quagmire (giggity!), without any realistic chance of victory, or any exit plan. The Prez promised to clean up the mess left by Bush, but just spread it further, into Libya.

President Trump said he'd find a way, and was attacked for preparing to bail out, abandoning the "good" Muslims, yada yada yada. What better way to end this colossal exercise in futility than to have the people that invited America to go in to "help" them, order the US to leave. Walt says, DO IT! NOW! Leave the Sunnis and the Shiites and ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to fight it out. And may all the jihadis get what they so richly deserve. Selah!

Turks invade "Kurdistan" -- What next?!

And so it begins. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Twitter Wednesday that the Turkish offensive into northeast Syria has started. He calls it "#OperationPeaceSpring". The aim of the operation, he tweeted, is to "eradicate the threat of terror against Turkey." And the invasion will be good for Syria too, of course. "We will preserve Syria's territorial integrity," he wrote, "and liberate local communities from terrorists."

What kind of terrorists? Well, "PKK/YPG and Daesh terrorists", of course! You can't tell the players in the Muslim civil war without a programme, Walt will elucidate. "Daesh" is the name the PC media use for ISIS/ISIL, to avoid have to use the word "Islamic" (as in "Islamic terrorists"). "PKK" stands for "Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê" (= Kurdistan Workers' Party‎), a Kurdish far-left militant and political organization based in Turkey and Iraq. The Turkish government has been trying for years to suppress them, often by making them dead. "YPG" is the armed wing of the leftist Kurdish Democratic Union Party, closely allied to the Syriac Military Council, a militia of Assyrians.

The Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group native to Western Asia. Their mountainous "native land", known as Kurdistan, includes southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. The most widely practiced religion in the region is Islam. According to a 2011 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, nearly all Kurds (98%) in Iraq identified as Sunni Muslim, while the other 2% identified as Shiite Muslims.

The predominant branch of the Religion of Peace in Iran is Shia Islam. In Turkey, Sunni Muslims are in the majority, with about 80% of the populartion. 19% of Turks are Shiites.

So you might think that there should be no friction, in Turkey, between the Sunni Turks and Sunni Kurds. You would be wrong. The problem is that the Kurds of Turkey would prefer to be united with the Kurds of Iran, Iraq and, yes, Syria in an independent Kurdistan. That is what they have been fighting for, allying themselves with whatever other groups or powers may be useful. See "How goes the war against IS/ISIL/ISIS? It's a fiasco!", WWW 27/5/19 (includes video).

The problem for the Kurds is that they just lost their biggest ally, the Excited States of America. Still-President Trump's decision to withdraw American forces from Syria, opens the desert of northeast Syria for Mr Erdogan's "Operation Peace Spring". (Dontcha love how all these invasions -- no matter who leads them -- have names that include "Peace", "Freedom", "Liberation", etc?) A UK-based Syrian war monitoring group, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported today that people were fleeing the border town of Tal Abyad, which Turkey is expected to attack first. And Turkish television reports said Turkish jets had bombed Syrian Kurdish positions across the border from Turkey.

And so it begins. What happens next? Will Shia Iran seize the opportunity to move against the Sunni Kurds in its westerly regions? Will the Arab Iraqis try to oust the ethnically different Kurds from the oil-rich northern party of their alleged country? Where will it all end? God (or maybe Allah?) only knows. But don't forget that south of Syria lies Israel, and within Israel lies... wait for it... Armageddon.

Further reading (and viewing):
"Meanwhile, in the Middle East, something big is on the horizon", WWW 10/11/17 (includes video from Ron Paul Liberty Report)
"Scrapping the Iran deal: another milepost on the road to Armageddon", WWW 10/5/18.

VIDEO: Ron Paul comments on long-overdue US withdrawal from Syria

In case no-one noticed, our blog quietly passed its 10th anniversary back in July. [If I'd remembered I'd have baked a cake. Ed.] How time flies when you're having fun! One of the themes that I write about again and again [and again and again. Ed.] is the folly of America being entangled in foreign wars that it can't win, especially the oil wars in the Gulf and Middle East. See, for example, "Will America never learn? The persistence of bad foreign policy" (WWW 2/5/13).

It's not that I'm a pacifist, or anti-Israel, or an apologist for the Islamists. I'm just a realist, like Ron Paul, and think it's stupid to waste tens of thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars meddling in and tens of thousands trying to act as referees in Muslim civil wars. Here's what Dr Paul has to say about Still-President Trump's announcement that US forces will be withdrawn from Syria, starting yesterday!



IMHO the withdrawal is long overdue! We have (dare I say it?) no dog in those fights. The USA will be no better off no matter who wins, and no worse off no matter who loses. The usual suspects say the Bushes, Slick Willy, and the Prez sent American forces to the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan, and kept them there, not just to convert the feudal Arab states to modern Western democracy, but to keep the Saudis and multinational companies in control of the oil that lies beneat the blood-stained desert sands.

I call BS on that. With the development of fracking and shale oil, and the slowly lessening use of plastics and other oil-based products, America is virtually self-sufficient in oil. And if the liberals on both sides of the Canada-US border would smarten up and support the development of Canada's oil sands and the import of Canadian oil through pipelines which the leftists don't want to be built or expanded, oil self-sufficiency would be guaranteed. Who needs Arab oil?!

Mr Trump's announcement late Sunday has set the lefties' hair on fire. Expressions of shock and horror are being heard from all liberal quarters, notably Brussels, the capital of the European Union, and (of course) the commentariat of America, Britain and Canada.
* America is leaving its Kurdish allies in the lurch!
* America is surrendering! Another failure for Trump!
* America is caving to Assad!
* The Turkish invasion of Syria will be disastrous!
* More millions of refugees will be washing up on our shores!
and, inevitably
* We're inviting a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and ISIS!

Walt says, who cares?! Let the Islamists duke it out. And if a humanitarian disaster ensures, let the Europeans and Canucks take care of it, if they're so minded... and can afford it. Getting out of the Middle East is absolutely the right thing to do. As Dr Paul and Dan McAdams say near the end of the video, it's not going to happen overnight, but this week's decision by Still-President Trump is a step in the right direction.

Further reading: "Worried for Kurds in Syria, abandoned by US? Here’s an obvious solution but it will make Washington hawks MAD", by Nebojsa Malic, on the Ron Paul Institute website, 8/10/19.

VIDEO: Suspicions confirmed! Hamilton Gregory talks about "McNamara's Morons"

Whenever I watch Apocalypse Now -- and I've done so several times -- I am struck by the lack of intelligence, or even common sense, displayed by some of the "boys on the boat". I have the same thoughts when I read accounts of the behaviour of American troops during the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Think Abu Ghraib. The average IQ of 1000s of the men... and women... who were chosen to implement US foreign policy seems to have been a degree or two above room temperature.

Why was that? In McNamara's Morons, Vietnam vet Hamilton Gregory argues that people of low intelligence -- "intellectually challenged", if you will -- were deliberately chosen in preference to better abled draftees and volunteers. In this video (running time 36:28) the author discusses the reasons for the deployment of "McNamara's Morons" -- troops of limited mental ability -- and the consequences of this deliberate choice on the part of those commanding the United States military.



Is it any wonder that, for the first time since 1814, the Paranoid States of America lost a foreign war. Sadly, Vietnam wasn't to be the last loss. This week President Trump has ordered another 10,000 troops sent to the Middle East sandpit. How many of them, I wonder, will be smart enough to throw a grenade in a high arc, rather than straight ahead? (Mr Gregory mentions this in his talk.) 100s of them will die as the result of their own stupidity. As for winning a war (even though the Islamist enemies aren't all that bright or brave either), good luck with that!

Further reading: Don't take Walt's word for it. Check out "VP Pence tells West Point grads it's a 'virtual certainty' they will fight on a battlefield for America", Fox News, 26/5/19.

UPDATED: Iraq at Sweet (?) Sixteen - Why are we still there?

UPDATED ADDED 25/3/19 - This comes under the heading of "Further reading", but I just became aware of it this afternoon. Click here to read a transcript of Dr Ron Paul's speech to Congress opposing the authorization of military force against Iraq. If only they'd have listened!

Today is the 16th anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and then... chaos. The Paranoid States of America and its "Coalition of the Willing" involved themselves in the endless Muslim civil war -- a four-cornered one featuring Sunni Muslims vs Shia Muslims vs ISIS vs Kurds -- and there we are, still... 16 years later, after the expenditure of trillions of dollars (literally) and the loss of 1000s of lives of American and other Westerns. 16 years...

Is there any sign of the conflict in Iraq ending? NO! POTUS and our top military people tell us ISIS is "just about" defeated, reduced to a few hundred jihadis encircled in a shithole somewhere in Syria. Once they surrender, we can declare victory... again... and go home. Errr, not the part about going home. There will be a drawdown of some of the US personnel, sometime, but there will be a US presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because there is still a power vacuum, with no united and effective national government in place. And because ISIS has not been vanquished, but is merely going to ground. They will resurface at opportune times, whether in Iraq or Syria... or the Netherlands... or the USA!

I said "American-led" in the first sentence to emphasize that the US is not alone! In 2003, America's gallant ally, Canada, decided to take a pass on Iraq. Apparently the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien asked itself what the point of the mission was, and decided discretion was the better part of valour. A couple of years later, to repair relations with their disgruntled neighbours, the Canucks joined in the invasion of Afghanistan. After 160 troops lost their lives, the Canadians pulled out, leaving the US holding the Afghan bag.

But that was OK (they said) because they'd changed their mind and would send a token force to Iraq instead, to help with training and, like, you know... anything that didn't involve more body bags being repatriated. No more motorcades along the "Highway of Heroes", please! And more than a decade later, the Canucks are still there, working with the American forces to bring peace, order and good government to the shithole that is Iraq. Isn't that wonderful?

How appropriate, then, that Canuck Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan (a Sikh person) and Diplomat of the Year (2018 -- look it up) Chrystia Freeland (the one not wearing a turban) picked yesterday to announce that Canadian armed forces, almost 200 strong (!), will stay in Iraq for another two years... like it or not. That should come as a great relief to the US military. What would the "Coalition of the Willing" be without Canadians?! What do Canadian voters think of this exercise in peacekeeping and nation-building, and other initiatives of Just In Trudeau's Gliberal government? We'll see in October.

Further reading: The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, by George Packer. Farrar Strauss & Giroux, New York, 2005. Mr Packer's thesis is that President Bush II and his advisers (Hello! Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) had no idea what they were getting into when they pressed ahead with the invasion of Iraq even though Saddam posed no threat to the USA or even his Gulf neighbours, and no plan whatever for stabilizing and rebuilding the shithole once the invasion was over. And remember, he wrote this book in 2005. Things only got worse after that. Where and when will it all end?!

Asylum-seeker who raped and murdered German teen arrested in Iraq

Just a short story off the AP mojo wire to get your blood boiling today. Inspektor Katzenjammer of the German Polizei told the meeja today that a young follower of the Prophet man alleged to have raped and murdered a 14-year-old schoolgirl in western Germany has been arrested in his homeland. Ali Bashar, aged 20, was arrested by Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq early Friday at the request of German authorities.

The girl disappeared on May 22nd and her body was found in Wiesbaden on Wednesday, about the same time Mr Bashar and his family left Germany, travelling to northern Iraq via Turkey. What had Mr Bashar and his family been doing in the Fatherland? Why, they were "refugees", of course.

The accused rape-murderer arrived in Germany in 2015, at the crest of the tidal wave of "refugees", asylum-seekers and other less-than-desirable migrants. His asylum application was rejected, but of course he was still in Germany, appealing the rejection. Meanwhile, police allege, he was running around loose, committing a string of offences in the same area.

That's the problem with the immigration and justice "systems" in Germany, Canada, and the rest of the nations of western Europe and North America. Scum like Mr Bashar have the benefit of due process, so their bogus claims of persecution yada yada yada in their shithole countries get a sympathetic hearing. If their claims are rejected, they have a right of appeal -- all this with the assistance of legal counsel paid out of the public purse, of course -- and even if they are ordered deported, such orders are almost never executed.

And so the jihadis, criminals, misfits, remain amongst us. The doors to our homelands, now opened by the liberals and SJWs, cannot be shut again. What fools we be.

Further reading: "Italian Populist Interior Minister Vows Deportations After Viral Police Migrant Attack Video", Breitbart News, 8/6/18. "Italy’s populist deputy Prime Minister has rallied to the defence of police officers who were hospitalised by a migrant gang during an illegal goods seizure.... The provincial secretary of a police union...said the incident gave 'a snapshot of a paradoxical situation in our city, with people who live constantly outside the law, practising an illegal trade, in the belief that the institutions can not do anything against them.'" Trouble is, he's right!

Canadian Army officer cadets punished for desecrating Qu'ran

Does the name "Bagram Air Base" ring a bell? It's the largest American military base in Armpitistan, still very active in spite of that misguided war being over... more or less. You may remember that in February of 2012, 1000s of angry Afghans tried to storm the base when it was learned that American forces had burned hundreds of old Qu'rans that had been used by Taliban prisoners.

In the mélée that ensued, at least 41 people were killed, including several US soldiers who were shot by their allies in the so-called Afghan National Army. Desecrating the Holy Book is something Muslims take very seriously!

Canadians are always kind of slow to pick up on the latest trends, following months and sometimes years or even decades behind their cousins south of the World's Longest Absolutely Undefended Border. So it wasn't until a few weeks ago that four cadets from the Collège Militaire Royal at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu QC thought to have some sport dirtying a copy of the Qu'ran. They are alleged to have smeared the book with bacon and "bodily fluids" during a cottage party over the Easter long weekend.

The incident is said to have involved at least eight army officer cadets, most of them first-year students at the Canadian Armed Forces' military college. According to Lt.-Gen. Charles Lamarre, the CAF Chief of Military Personnel, "Four of those individuals went to sleep at some point and four other individuals stayed up and unfortunately desecrated a Qu'ran. They actually desecrated it with, if I'm not mistaken, bodily fluids, and there might have been bacon involved."

While the head honcho of the HR division Lamarre would not divulge the nature of the "bodily fluids", sources told Canadian Press that it appears to have been, errr, semen. [I would've expected that of the Navy! Ed.] Military commanders have expressed frustration and disappointment over the allegations, particularly at a time when they are pushing to make the Forces more inclusive -- "Diversity is Canada's strength!" dontcha know! -- and say they are taking the case extremely seriously.

More worrisome to the rank and file, especially those about to be sent overseas to keep the peace in yet another shithole country, is the threat to the safety of Canadian military personnel, given the violent reactions that such incidents (like the one at Bagram) have provoked in recent years. Canada is preparing to send troops and helicopters to assist the Disunited Nations mission in Mali, and continues to operate in Iraq, both of which are populated mainly by Muslims. "So we did ask for an [threat] assessment to be done," said the general, "And we have come back and I'm satisfied with where we are right now on force protection and we'll continue to be that way."

Lt.-Gen. Lamarre also said it was fortunate that no videos of the alleged incident were posted to social media. Officials said military commanders have not actually seen any recordings and they are believed to have all been destroyed. Anyone who has a copy is invited to e-mail it to Walt, and I'll see that it gets posted where it will get Maximum Exposure.

Footnote: One of the Islamophobic miscreants has been booted out of the college, while a second has been reprimanded and ordered to write 500 lines saying "Islam is the religion of peace." The cases of two other officer cadets are under review, and the four who fell asleep have been reprimanded for not snitching on their comrades quickly enough.

Note from Ed.: Credit where credit is due. We scraped the meme from one of Walt's favourite blogs, Blazing Cat Fur.

Why the Canadian Army is "suspending" ops in Iraq

The big guys with the beards aren't ISIS jihadis or Iraqi "soldiers". They're Canucks! You can tell because they have better camoduds, with their maple leaf flag (cleverly died green) on the shoulders. They are pictured "advising and training" Kurdish Peshmerga "fighters" somewhere in northern Iraq.

"Gee whillikers, Walt! You mean there are Canadians fighting alongside the brave American forces in Iraq?" Well, not exactly, Bobby. There are Canadian Armed Forces personnel in Iraq, all right, but not all of them are, errr, fighting. There are intelligence officers (as in that great oxymoron "military intelligence"), a helicopter detachment and a medical contingent based in Erbil, the Kurdish capital. Separately, in Kuwait, there is a surveillance plane and an air-to-air refueller.

But yes, there are several dozen Canucks out there in camos, holding guns and other implements of destruction. By way of apology for not jumping at the chance to join the first Iraq fiasco, the government of former Canuck Prime Minister Steven Harpoon in 2014 sent roughly 200 Canadian commandos to "provide advice and assistance" on the ground in northern Iraq in an effort to help defeat ISIS militants. This summer, when it looked like the war was finally going to be won, the alleged government of Junior Trudeau extended the mission for two years.

And then, just as Walt predicted (lifetime pct .991) the war against ISIS took a sudden but not unpredictable turn in another direction. Having cleared the Islamists out of Mosul, the Kurds decided that it was time to consolidate their victory and assert their independence from the rest of Iraq. They held a referendum of sorts and voted to declare their own republic, a formalization of the autonomous state which already existed (in theory) in northern Iraq. The so-called national government of that wretched country, dominated by Shia Muslims, did not take kindly to the challenge to its authority, and sent their army, along with Shi'ite militias, to put the Kurds in their place... or out of their place, looking at it from the Kurds' point of view.

The Arab Iraqis seized the northern oil city of Kirkuk from the Kurds, with surprising ease, a few days ago, and are expected to move against Mosul and the Kurdish capital, Erbil, at any time. That puts the Canadian special forces in an awkward position, since they are based in Erbil and, if the Kurds take a stand against the Arab Iraqis, would be expected to lead their "trainees" into battle against the Iraqi forces whom the Canucks have also been "training".

What would you do, if you were the peace-loving Canadian Minister of Defence (who happens to be a Sikh) or his pussified boss, Justin Trudeau? Would you take the side of the "national" government of Iraq or the separatist Kurds? (See "Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who", WWW 16/10/17.)

Perhaps you have already guessed the answer. It is not the Canadian way to offend anybody... anybody! Canadians, or their government at least, see themselves as the great peacemakers who can bring sanity and stability to a world dominated by crazy warmongers like Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. (That's M Trudeau's view, not Walt's!) So, rather than take sides, the clever and peace-loving Canadians have decided to do... errr... nothing, "until greater clarity exists".

That's the word from Col. Jay Janzen, the director of military strategic communications for the Canadian Armed Forces, in a brief statement made while everyone was watching the World Series last night. "Given the fluidity of the current situation, Canada's Special Operations Task Force has temporarily suspended the provision of assistance to various elements of Iraqi security forces," he said. "Once greater clarity exists regarding the interrelationships of Iraqi security forces, and the key priorities and tasks ahead, the task force will resume activities."

Monitoring the situation without taking sides might seem like the sensible and moral thing to do, but, as with everything the Trudeau government does, there is an agenda behind the decision to put a temporary hold on their training of Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the wake of fighting between the two factions. The Canadian government is deathly afraid of two connected ideologies: separatism and nationalism.

Almost since the day of Canada's creation, just over 150 years ago, the federal government has been fighting to keep the people of Québec --
distinct ethnically, linguistically and religiously from the rest of Canada -- from seceding. In the most recent referendum on the question, in 1995, the people of La Belle Province voted by the narrowest of margins to not become un état -- an independent state. But the spark of separatist sentiment is hard to extinguish, and now it is being fanned into flame by the rise of separatist/nationalist movements in Scotland, Catalonia, and, yes, "Kurdistan".

Just yesterday, Junior Trudeau affirmed his support for a united Spain. Statements by Canadian politicians on the Kurdish question show that the only support for the ideal of Kurdish independence comes from the (federal) Bloc Québécois and the (provincial) Parti Québécois. If the independence of the new Catalan republic is recognized, if the Kurds succeed in driving the Arab Iraqis out of their region, Canada's Liberals will have yet another battle to fight to uphold their ideal of a post-national society. Stay tuned.

Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who

Even though it's the longest-running continuous military engagement in US history, some time has passed since the Gulf Wars (aka Oil Wars) was front page news in the Paranoid States of America. That may be about to change as the fighting enters a new phase.

Now that the ISIS (the Sunni Muslim terrorist "state") has been more or less defeated, at least in Iraq, the "victors" -- Shiite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north -- are starting to fight each other. Western armed forces, mostly American, are caught in the middle, "training and advising" both sides.

The last noteworthy battle in Iraq, which dragged on through most of this summer, was in Mosul, the heart of the Kurdish part of Iraq, also in the middle of large oil fields. The area is also home to millions of Arabs, Turkmen, Yazidis and a few thousand persecuted Christians. Mainly Kurdish forces, led into battle by American and Canadian "trainers" succeeded in driving out the ISIS jihadis.

Last month, flush with success and swimming in oil money, the Kurdish government of the semi-autonomous region held a referendum on independence, in defiance of Iraq's central government in Baghdad. To no-one's surprise, the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favour of declaring the own republic. They already had a flag, so figured a state would make the set complete. The Iraqi government immediately called on foreign countries to stop importing oil from the Kurdish region and to deal with them instead.

This weekend the Iraqi government dropped the other shoe. The so-called Iraqi National Army and state-backed Shia militias launched a major, multi-pronged attack aimed at retaking Kirkuk. Kurdish forces appeared to be pulling back, abandoning fortified positions around the airport as large numbers of civilians fled the northern city ahead of a feared assault.

This latest phase in what is essentially a Muslim civil war pits two close US allies against each other, potentially undermining the unfinished war against ISIS. There is a very real possibility, right now, of American "trainers" and "special forces" being killed by Canadians, or (more likely) vice versa. Walt says it's folly to take sides in this conflict -- a waste of money and of the precious lives of our troops. Let the Muslims duke it out! We can buy oil from any of them... hell, all of them!

Further reading: Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press 2006).

Happy New Year! ISIS takes credit for Istanbul massacre

So, farewell then, 2016. And welcome 2017. What will the new year be like? Walt has a few predictions. Here's one. The Islamic terrorist attacks against Western civilization and any Muslims who don't agree with their extremist views will continue unabated. The Muslim civil war will continue. Two "incidents" this weekend prove me right, as usual.

Yesterday, New Year's Eve, a pair of suicide bombings minutes apart hit al-Sinak, a flea market in central Baghdad, Iraq. Minutes after the first suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden belt, a cry of "Allahu akbar!" rang out again, as a the second attacker struck amid the crowd that gathered. 28 people, mostly Shia Muslims, died. 54 were wounded.

In a statement posted by its Aaqmaq news agency, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks, and confirmed that the blasts came from a pair of suicide bombers. Later on Saturday, three separate attacks in and around Baghdad killed another 8 people, including a policeman, and wounded 17. Provisional total for the day: 36 "infidels" dead, 71 wounded.

This morning at 0115 local time -- just over an hour into the New Year -- a gunman who entered the crowded Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, and opened fire, killing at least 39 people, including a policeman, and wounding 69 others. At the time of the shooting, about 600 people were inside the club, located near a bridge that crosses the Bosphorus River. The venue was popular with wealthy locals and tourists. An Israeli woman has been identified as one of the victims. Other foreign victims came from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon and Libya.

As yet, no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is reminiscent of last June's massacre of 49 people (and wounding of 53 others) at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando FL. The killer in that case was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old "Muslim-American" security guard. In a 9-1-1 call shortly after he started shooting, Mr Mateen swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the ISIS/ISIL. He said the shooting was "triggered" [bad pun! Ed.] by the American killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq the previous month. He later told a negotiator he was "out here right now" because of the American-led interventions in Iraq and in Syria, and that the negotiator should tell the United States to stop bombing ISIL.

Although no connection with ISIS has been established in the Reina killings, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has issued a statement in which he says "I vehemently condemn the terror attack in Istanbul's Ortakoy neighbourhood in the first hours of 2017." Offering his condolences for those who lost their lives, including "foreign guests", Mr Erdogan said, "Turkey continues its combat against terror and is absolutely determined to do whatever is necessary in the region to ensure its citizens safety and peace." Walt wishes the Turks good luck with that!

Walt is keeping his eye on the mojo wire for reports of rape and other Islamic New Year's celebrations from Koln, Berlin, Stockholm and/or other European cities. My prediction: Cries of "Allahu akbar!" will echo around the world for the remaining 365.5 days of 2017. Happy New Year!

UPDATE 1/1/17: AP reports that President B. Hussein Obama expressed condolences for the attack and directed his team to offer US help to Turkish authorities. Whether the Turks want American help is another matter. The White House condemned the incident calling it a "horrific terrorist attack". Notice the omission of the word "Islamic". Even now, the Soon-to-be-ex-Prez can't bring himself to call Islamic terrorism by its name.

UPDATE 2/1/17: To no-one's surprise, AP reports today that ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is claiming responsibility for the New Year's Eve Istanbul nightclub massacre. The ISIS-linked Aamaq News Agency said that the attack was carried out by a "heroic soldier of the caliphate who attacked the most famous nightclub where Christians were celebrating their pagan feast."

It said the man opened fire from an automatic rifle and also detonated hand grenades in "revenge for God's religion and in response to the orders" of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They went on to describe Turkey as "the servant of the cross" and suggested the attack was in retaliation for Turkish military offensives against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

Why President-elect Trump doesn't trust CIA "intelligence"

An assiduous reader has e-mailed to enquire whether Walt thinks President-elect Trump knows what he's doing. Of particular concern (to him) is The Donald's seeming disinterest in the daily briefings to which he (TD) is entitled so that (in theory) he'll be fully in the picture when he takes over in January.

The Prez (outgoing) has already tut-tutted to the lamestream media that Mr Trump doesn't seem to be paying attention, thus may have some rude surprises in store. To this slur, the President-elect [Walt loves rubbing that in! Ed.] replies that the briefings come from the CIA and other agencies which did such a great job on the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMD) file when the US invaded Iraq in 2003. What, he implies, can he learn from them that he can't hear on Fox News?

Good point! Could it be that Mr Trump has read State of Denial, by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, 2006)? Although this post will be longer than Ed. usually allows, I want to share the last four pages or so from Chapter 25, in which the author summarizes the testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, on 28 January 2004, of Dr. David Kay, who headed the Iraq Survey Group which took over the search for WMDs in the summer of 2003. The emphasis is mine.

Kay testified..."We were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself." Kay said 85 percent of the work was done and he had no reason to believe they ever would find WMD stockpiles in Iraq. "It is important to acknowledge failure," Kay said....

[The next day Kay had lunch] with Bush, Cheney, Rice and Andy Card in a small dining room off the Oval Office. How did you reach your conclusions? Bush wanted to know. And how did U.S. intelligence miss all this?

"We missed it because the Iraqis actually behaved like they had weapons," Kay said. "And we weren't smart enough to understand that the hardest thing in intelligence is when behavior remains consistent but underlying reasons change." ...

Bush wanted to know why Kay thought Saddam hadn't just come clean on WMD long ago. Why had he risked his whole life, his government, instead of just throwing the doors open? Kay said he thought Saddam never believed the U.S. would actually invade. But more important, more than he feared the U.S.., he feared the Shiites and Kurds who lived in Iraq. He knew that they in turn feared him because they thought he had WMD.

"You know...totalitarian regimes generally end up fearing their own people more than they fear external threats. It's just the history of totalitarian regimes," Kay said. "We missed that." And, he said, they were expecially susceptible to missing it because they had so little human intelligence, and instead relied on technical collection....

"The disease of the intelligence community is this over-focus on current intelligence," meaning what was going on that week, as opposed to longer-term, strategic intelligence. "Look," he said, "current analysis is better if you turn CNN on or read the paper. Quite frankly, the press does a better job."

"A good example of this is the PDB" -- the President's Daily Brief. "Do you understand that if you respond positively to anything in it, you're going to get nothing but that stuff for the next month of so?" The president's expression of interest put it at the top of the agenda in the intelligence community. "George [Tenet, CIA Director at the time] takes it back and it drives it and it will keep appearing. They respond to it. If you ever respond to a PDB item, it's going to be there for a very long time with more and more information." Presidential interest suggests it is important and the intelligence flow just snowballs out of control....

Bush wondered how the CIA and the U.S. intelligence could have been so wrong.

"You know, one of the problems for a director is if he's inside the political process, he loses his balance," Kay answered. "For example, George comes here every day for the briefing. And inevitably that communicates a sense of the political process to the people at the agency."...

The next day, Rice called Kay back to the White House. "There was something you said to the president that really hit a nerve," she said. She was struck by a point he'd made about how one of the hardest things to do in intelligence is discern real change, to figure out why someone keeps doing the same thing, but for different reasons....

Intelligence services [Kay said] don't do a very good job trying to understand the soft side of societies -- how well the government is working and the fundamental attitudes of the people.

Kay felt there was more than enough blame on the intelligence failures to go around. Some of it definitely fell on Rice's shoulders. Her job had been to guard the president's backside and she had not done so.

Tenet was at fault too. He had been brought in not as an intelligence professional but as a sort of big-picture leader, someone who boosted morale and rebuilt the clandestine service. He had fallen victim to his greatest weakness, Kay felt, which was a lack of affinity for the detailed drudgery of intelligence analysis.

But the real villain at CIA, Kay thought, was [Deputy Director John] McLaughlin. Tenet had made his way on the political side of the intelligence world, but McLaughlin had been with the agency for more than 30 years. He was the professional, and Kay felt he had also been the one who clung most stubbornly to the belief that Iraq had mobile biological weapons labs....

Whatever the excuses for the WMD intelligence, [McLaughlin believed], he, Tenet and the CIA had failed. Tenet would later acknowledge in private that the CIA didn't have a leg to stand on.

That's what happens when "intelligence" is driven by a political agenda, and vice versa. Think about this week's "revelation" by the CIA that the Russians are responsible for the election of Donald Trump. Who could blame President-elect Trump for dismissing such allegations for the ridiculous rubbish they are?

Walt's plan for the war in the Middle East

During the US election campaign, Hellery Clinton responded to challenges on what she was going to do to win the war against the Islamic terrorists -- the ones she wouldn't call by name -- by saying that she had a plan, which included the capture of Mosul, which would fall in a matter of days. Donald Trump said that even if the anti-ISIS "coalition" succeeded in liberating Mosul, they'd find the IS leaders long gone, precisely because La Clinton had given them plenty of notice, plus details of President 0's plans to "degrade" the soldiers of the Prophet.

As I pointed out a few days ago, in "Meanwhile, in the Middle East...", predictions of the capture of Mosul turned out to be premature. Latest reports are that the Kurds, advancing from the area they control in northern Iraq, are stalled at the gates of the city. The alleged Iraqi National Army, coming up from the south, has been unable to prevent ISIS fighters from breaking out to the west and south, heading for Syria. Enough of the terrorists remain in Mosul to make its fall uncertain at best.

Meanwhile, the eyes and ears of the world have turned toward Syria, where ISIS has retaken the ancient city of Palmyra, which it lost some nine months ago. Turns out this great victory for the "coalition" was, errr, of a temporary nature. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, "we" learned that occupying and securing a given area is rather more difficult than taking it in the first place. I can almost hear the cries of "They're baaaack!"

If you believe the propaganda dished out every day by the lamestream media, the retaking of Palmyra by ISIS isn't that big a deal. What is a big deal is the fall of Aleppo -- once Syria's biggest city -- not to ISIS but to [SHOCK! HORROR!] the forces of the evil, devilish, inhuman Bashir al-Assad! With more than a little help in the form of airstrikes by the Russians, Syrian government forces have entered and taken control of 99% of the eastern part of Aleppo, which had been held by rebel militias for years. MORE SHOCK! MORE HORROR!

The chattering classes and spokesthingies for liberal democracy are engaging in an orgy of handwringing, pissing and moaning that almost defies description. Here's a sample, written by someone called Terry Glavin [Who he? Ed.] in today's Emotional Post. "J’accuse! May Allah look down in his mercy upon Aleppo — no help is coming from us. This is what we have become. This is the depravity to which we have all sunk. Aleppo has fallen and so has humanity. We are disgraced."

Walt doesn't see it quite that way. There have been some civilian casualties in the battle for Aleppo, to be sure, including women and children. Hundreds, not thousands, have been killed, but those numbers pale in comparison to the numbers executed -- not killed in fighting, but executed -- by ISIS. So why is it the "end of civilization" when Syrian government forces do the killing, but not when atrocities are committed by the Sunni Muslim rebels and the Islamic extremists of ISIS? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.

As of this morning, the Assad government controls most of western Syria, which is the only part of the country worth having. The Kurds have most of their homeland in northern Iraq. ISIS holds their capital, Raqqa, as well as Mosul (still) and Palmyra (again). The alleged Iraqi government has a tenuous hold on Baghdad, but not much else. Their ill-trained and timorous army is (sometimes) fighting it out with ISIS for eastern Syria and south-central Iraq. I'll go out on a limb here and predict that there will be no significant change of any kind in the year to come. Lifetime pct .985.

What, then, should the USA, soon to be under new management, do about the Middle East? I've given it a lot of thought [All this week? Ed.] and can come up with no better plan than to bug out and let the Muslims duke it out amongst themselves. That, in essence, is what Ron Paul has been saying for years. The Syrian armed forces, with the help of the Russians, will keep pushing eastward, while the Kurds, helped by the Iranians, will keep pushing down from the north. Let them destroy the Sunnis (ISIS plus assorted rebel militias) if they can, and good luck to them. We’ve got no skin in that game.

Further reading: "Some Perspectives on the War on Terror: Anyway you look at it, it's a failure", by Philip Giraldi, in The Unz Review, 20/12/16.

Islamic "hyper-extremists" greatest threat to freedom and peace

Here's the non-news story of the month, if not the year. The Religious Freedom in the World 2016 report, a worldwide survery of religious freedom, has found that Islamic "hyper-extremism" is wreaking havoc, especially in the Middle East, prompting brutal violence and creating an unprecedented surge of refugees.

The report, produced by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, sees the Islamic State as the primary example of Islamic hyper-extremism". In an introduction to the report, Father Jacques Mourad, who was kidnapped by the Islamic State and held for several months before being released, warns that "our world teeters on the brink of a complete catastrophe as extremism threatens to wipe out all trace of diversity in society."

The report says that Islamic extremism -- the phenomenon that Barack Obama and Hellery Clinton refused to name -- is most powerful in Iraq and Syria. No surprise there. It accuses the jihadis of displaying barbarous cruelty and complete intolerance of other views, in a religious war aimed at "eliminating all forms of religious diversity". The authors add that not only the Middle East is threatened, but also parts of Africa and the Asian subcontinent.

No matter how loudly and how often the lamestream media tells us that most Muslims are not extremists, and Islam is "the religion of peace", the fact is that the world has seen a flood of refugees, reaching an all-time high of 65.3 million. The report points to Islamic extremism as the key driver in the displacement of peoples, with millions fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.

The Islamists are not the only offenders. Religious Freedom in the World 2016 also draws attention to setbacks for religious freedom outside the Islamic world, particularly in China and Turkmenistan. Case in point: An Islamist militant, wearing a shirt with the word "jihad" on it, threw a gasoline bomb at a church in Samarinda, on the Indonesian island of Borneo, on November 13th. A two-year-old child was killed and three other children injured. See "Four children injured in suspected militant attack on Indonesia church", Reuters, 13/11/16.

Further reading: Click here to download the executive summary of Religious Freedom in the World 2016. (Don't be surprised if you find yourself on the ACN e-mail list. That's OK. You can always unsubscribe if religious freedom ceases to be of interest to you.)

UPDATED: Round 1: no clear winner

Before the Great Debate (Part I), the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign made two agreements. One was announced to the TV audience; one was not. The public deal was that the audience at Hofstra University should refrain from cheering (or booing) during the debate. Which, it turned out, is like asking a dog to refrain from licking its balls. The second agreement was that The Donald should call Shrillery "Secretary Clinton" and she should call him "Mr Trump". Instead, Mrs Bill Clinton belittled Mr Trump by calling him "Donald" throughout. So much for courtesy and respect.

I watched the whole thing, waiting for the Big Moment when Mr Trump would explode or Mrs Clinton would implode. Neither event eventuated. There was plenty of give and take, lots of interruptions, and more than a modicum of prevarication, obfuscation and assorted bullshit. A few scratches from my notepad....

The Donald had the better of the first section on the economy. He said it takes a businessman -- not a career politician -- to know what businesses need in order to create jobs and get the economy moving again. Having no plan except more regulation, more taxation and more of the same, Hellery tried to attack Mr Trump's business record but said nothing that hasn't been said before.

Mr Trump boasted (imagine that!) of being a successful businessman, and said that his public filings in connection with his candidacy showed that his income last year was $649 million. Mrs Clinton said the real question was how much tax did he pay, and why he won't reveal his tax records. The Donald replied that, against the advice of his lawyers, he would publish his tax returns just as soon as La Clinton published the 33,000 e-mail deleted on purpose from her private server. That was when the audience, unable to restrain themselves any longer, burst into applause. Best hit of the evening for Mr Trump.

Mrs Clinton had the edge on the last section, on the topic of making America secure, which somehow morphed into a discussion about foreign policy and the Obama War. With the assistance of the otherwise weak and ineffectual moderator, Lester Holt, Hellery tried again to pin the "I supported invading Iraq" button on Mr Trump. He retorted that he said "Maybe" to that idea only once, the first time he was asked about it, but consistently opposed the Iraq war after that. "You can ask Sean Hannity!", he said, challenging the lamestream media to do that.

What was overlooked, in that exchange, was that whether Mr Trump was for or against the Iraq war, the withdrawal from Iraq, the half-hearted war on ISIS, etc etc, is beside the point. Mr Trump was not in government or even in Congress. Mrs Clinton was. Along with President 0, she bears direct responsibility for the Middle East mess in which the USA now finds itself embroiled.

Cyber security was mentioned. The Donald missed a glorious opportunity to ask Secretary Clinton what she did to protect her illegal private e-mail server from being hacked. I would have liked to hear Hellery explain that one.

Finally, Mrs Clinton said she would a better president, in terms of dealing with security and negotiating with world leaders because (she says) she has the experience and the "temperament" for it. Mr Trump countered that he doesn't think she has the "stamina", and, as for experience, she's had 30 years of experience, almost all of it bad! Cue more applause from the audience.

I have a thought, which Mr Trump hinted at, about Shrillery's fitness and ability to deal with world leaders. The two most powerful leaders in the world today are Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Guohua. Seems to me if there's going to be a mano-a-mano confrontation between POTUS and Mr Putin or Mr Xi, I want POTUS to be a MAN. So also in dealing with America's good friends (ha!) the Saudis and sworn enemies, the Iranians. The male leaders of those strict Muslim nations won't even sit down to talk with a woman. I say the presidency of the USA is man's job, whether the feminists like it or not.

The consensus of the lamestream media pundits going into last night's Debate was that Mrs Clinton could only win by hitting The Donald with a real knock-out blow. She didn't. They were also saying that if Mr Trump managed to get through the evening without going berserk, he would have done well enough. He did that. But he didn't cause Hellery to have a conniption fit, as his supporters were hoping. So I'm not calling him a winner either. Result of Round I -- a draw.

Further reading, added 28/9/16: Scott "Dilbert" Adams scores the first debate.

Never forget 9/11

As we pause tomorrow to mark the 15th anniversary of 9/11, let's not forget who did this.

The criminals who flew the planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were Islamic terrorists. Most of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia -- not Iraq, but Saudi Arabia. They learned to fly -- or aim the planes, at least -- in the USA, unnoticed by American "security" agencies. They owed allegiance to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi.

Saudi diplomats and members of the Saudi royal family were flown out of Washington, by arrangement with the government of Bush II, even before the dust settled. So who did Dubya, egged on by Cheney and Rumsfeld, decide to make war on? Not their good friends the Saudis. Not Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in the north of Afghanistan or Pakistan. The target for retaliation became none other than Saddam Hussein. He was picked because the Americans knew where he was. Besides, Dubya had an Oedipal fixation on finishing the job his father started, thus proving that he was more of a man.

On 11 September 2003, Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times:

Our leaders have used goofball logic and lousy assumptions to trap the country in a cockeyed replay of the Crusades that could drain our treasury and strain our military for generations, without making us any safer from terrorists and maybe putting us more at risk....

Iraq never threatened US security. Bush officials cynically attacked a villainous country because they knew it was easier than finding the real 9/11 villain, who had no country.... By pretending Iraq was crawling with Al-Qaeda, they've created an Iraq crawling with Al-Qaeda.

The first paragraph turned out to be a considerable understatement. The last sentence was bang on except that the Islamic extremists changed their name from Al-Qaeda to the grander-sounding "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria", the so-called "Caliphate". But make no mistake. They are the same Islamic extremists, the same jihadis, bent on exterminating us "Crusaders", wherever they may find us, including in our homelands. The Bush War (continued half-heartedly by Obama) changed nothing, except to make things worse.

Further reading: "Why the '9/11 Truth' movement endures 15 years later", by Matt Kwong, CBC News, 10/9/16.