Saturday, February 28, 2015

The Gurkhas are coming - again?

By Alec.

British Army to consider creation of Sikh regiment
 23 February 2015


A Sikh platoon at the Monument Aux héros de l’armée d’Orient des terres lointaines, Marseille during world war commemorations


The head of the British Army is examining proposals to create a Sikh regiment, the Armed Forces minister has said.



Mark Francois said the idea "may well have merit" as he told the Commons a reserve company is also under consideration.



The Tory front-bencher added the reserve company would inherit many of the "proud traditions of Sikh regiments" from the Army's past....

More here.

In reversing a decision made to counter claims of racial segregation within the British Army, although ignored with Ghurka regiments, the British lost a number of fine regiments with a proud history of dying bravely and equally on the field of battle.


I do feel this is a cynical move by a Government in response to counter the homegrown terrorist threat by recruiting from the same communities targeted by Islamic Fundamentalists.


However, provided they can recruit the right calibre of man, if they can at all, it's carried out with the full backing of the communities they wish to recruit from and can balance the proud traditions of past regiments with modern mans expectations and beliefs along with patriotism, this has the chance of being a fine moment for the British Army.



[Related:  Gurkha History

UPDATE: Gurkha Warrior the lastest to feel the government budget knife




Video: Happy HAPPY Birthday SJP




I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
GOD forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.


I hope you dance....I hope you dance.


I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance.


I hope you dance....I hope you dance...


To infinity and beyond......that much and more...




Thursday, February 26, 2015

Rest In Peace Lt. Col. Ernest Côté WWII Hero







From the CBC:

Ernest Côté, WW II veteran and home invasion survivor, dead at 101

Ian Bush faces attempted murder charge after senior was left bound, with plastic bag over his head


CBC News  Feb 26, 2015

Second World War veteran Ernest Côté, who survived a violent home invasion at his Ottawa condo in December, died Wednesday night at the age of 101.

Côté's family said in a French-language statement he died of natural causes at Ottawa's Montfort Hospital.

His family said the retired lieutenant colonel helped plan the Normandy landing and helped put together the World Health Organization charter. He received France's Legion of Honour award in 2004 for his service during the Second World War.


(Ernest Cote received his Legion of Honour Award from the Ambassador of France, Phillippe Guelluy at the French Embassy to Canada in Ottawa on Thursday, May 27, 2004. (Tobin Grimshaw/Canadian Press)

His funeral will be held at Ottawa's Notre-Dame Cathedral at 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 7. His family is asking donations in his name be made to Montfort Hospital.

Members of Parliament gave Côté a standing ovation in the House of Commons after his death was announced by Ottawa-Orleans MP Royal Galipeau and Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O'Toole...
[...]
Côté made headlines after he was tied up and robbed inside his Ottawa apartment. He was left with a plastic bag over his head, but freed himself and called police.

"I was madder than a wasp, and I couldn't do a damn thing, and that's all I could do until he left," Côté said in January. "I was never afraid. I was madder than a wasp. Wasps ain't afraid; they're mad.

"Life is such that when you see these things happen to you, you try to get out. The important thing is to concentrate on how to get out of the position in which you happen to be. If you're afraid and paralyzed, you don't move. I was never afraid. I was not afraid of the landing, the D-Day landing. I was not afraid."...

ISIS Cell Arrested in Brooklyn – Planned Attacks on Obama, US

From Clarion Project:

The FBI arrest of the three Islamic State members in New York is, in large part, due to a confidential informant at a mosque.


 RYAN MAURO Thu, February 26, 2015


From an Islamic State video depicting the beheading of Coptic Egyptians



FBI has arrested three Islamic State (ISIS) members in Brooklyn, New York, in large part due to a confidential informant at an unidentified mosque. The conspirators discussed carrying out an attack in America if they are unable to join the Islamic State in Syria.


 The three suspected terrorists are Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, Akhror Saidakhmetov and Abror Habibov. Those involved made it clear that their violent intentions are not motivated by political grievances. They are motivated by the Islamist teachings that require Muslims to engage in violent jihad for the sake of a “global caliphate” and apocalyptic prophecies.



Juraboev is a permanent resident of the U.S. and citizen of Uzbekistan. It is unclear when he was radicalized but he told Islamic State members online that his family in Uzbekistan is not devoutly religious. He frequented an Uzbek website that implored Uzbeks to join the Islamic State and fight for its “global caliphate.”



On August 8, Juraboev wrote a post on the website under a pseudonym talking about his desire to “strike fear in heart of the infidels,” referencing the Quran (3:151). He asked if he could join the Islamic State while remaining in America and if it would be acceptable to become a “martyr” by trying to shoot President Obama.



The FBI saw the message traced the IP address to his Brooklyn address. He admitted to the authorities that he is a supporter of the Islamic State, would like to join the terrorist group in Syria. He said he’d kill President Obama or bomb Coney Island if the Islamic State asked him to and the “order had a basis in the Koran and the ‘Sunna’ (the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad).”

The indictment summarizes his explanation as follows:....

There is more here.


The evidence continues to mount that we DO have a major problem within our borders.


Pay attention.

World Trade Center Bombing 1993: Have we forgotten?

(photo source)


From the FBI:
First Strike: Global Terror in America

[On this day]at about 17 minutes past noon, a thunderous explosion rocked lower Manhattan.


 The epicenter was the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center, where a massive eruption carved out a nearly 100-foot crater several stories deep and several more high. Six people were killed almost instantly. Smoke and flames began filling the wound and streaming upward into the building. Those who weren’t trapped were soon pouring out of the building—many panic-stricken and covered in soot. More than a thousand people were hurt in some way, some badly, with crushed limbs. It was Friday, February 26, 1993, and Middle Eastern terrorism had arrived on American soil—with a bang.



As a small band of terrorists scurried away from the scene unnoticed, the FBI and its partners on the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force began staffing up a command center and preparing to send in a team to investigate. Their instincts told them that this was terrorism—they’d been tracking Islamic fundamentalists in the city for months and, they’d later learn, were tantalizingly close to encountering the planners of this attack. But hunches weren’t enough; what was needed was definitive proof.

They’d have it soon enough. 


The massive investigation that followed—led by the task force, with some 700 FBI agents worldwide ultimately joining in—quickly uncovered a key bit of evidence. In the rubble investigators uncovered a vehicle identification number on a piece of wreckage that seemed suspiciously obliterated. A search of our crime records returned a match: the number belonged to a rented van reported stolen the day before the attack. 


An Islamic fundamentalist named Mohammad Salameh had rented the vehicle, we learned, and on March 4, an FBI SWAT team arrested him as he tried in vain to get his $400 deposit back.


One clue led to another and we soon had in custody three more suspects—Nidal Ayyad, Mahmoud Abouhalima, and Ahmed Ajaj. We’d also found the apartment where the bomb was built and a storage locker containing dangerous chemicals, including enough cyanide gas to wipe out a town. All four men were tried, convicted, and sentenced to life.


The shockwave from the attack continued to reverberate....




[...] The FBI later called it the “largest by weight and by damage of any improvised explosive device that we’ve seen since the inception of forensic explosive identification.”


Six people died, including a pregnant woman. More than 1,000 others were injured, mostly from smoke that snaked its way up the stairwells and elevator shafts. As rescue workers dug for victims, survivors began making their way out by any means possible.

A woman in a wheelchair was carried down 66 flights of stairs by two friends. A class of singing kindergartners descended from the 107th floor. A group of engineers stuck in an elevator pried open the doors and then used car keys to cut a hole in the sheetrock walls leading out to a 58th-floor women’s bathroom. Nearly 30 people with medical conditions were taken to the roof and whisked away by police helicopter.


By late that night, the buildings had been completely cleared. They would not reopen for nearly a month....


For more:  Remembering the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing



 
12:20 P.M. Emergency vehicles on West Street Emergency vehicles responding to the explosion jam West Street, which runs alongside the North Tower and the Vista International Hotel. Meanwhile, evacuees stream out of the World Trade Center complex. Photograph © by Allan Tannenbaum. All rights reserved.

At the National 9/11 Memorial, which opened on the tenth anniversary of the 2001 attacks, the six adult victims of the 1993 bombing are memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-73. The recovered fragment of the memorial fountain is on display inside the museum.


Remembering the Six Victims of the WTC 1993 Bombing
Names of the six victims of the Feb. 26, 1993 bombing are forever inscribed in bronze on the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site. (Amy Dreher photo)






From CNN in 2003:

1993 BOMBING VICTIMS
John DiGiovanni
Bob Kirkpatrick
Steven Knapp
Bill Macko
Wilfred Mercado
Monica Rodriguez Smith



New York remembers 1993 WTC victims


From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York Bureau
Wednesday, February 26, 2003



[...]


Four of the six people killed in the attack worked for the World Trade Center's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Most of the victims were having lunch in their basement office, adjacent to the parking garage where terrorists parked their explosives-laden van.



Bob Kirkpatrick, 61, Steven Knapp, 47, and Bill Macko, 57, were mechanical supervisors for the transportation agency. Monica Rodriguez Smith was Macko's secretary. All were killed in the bombing.



The fifth and sixth victims were Wilfred Mercado, 37, who worked for the Windows on the World restaurant atop the North Tower and was checking in food deliveries in the basement, and John DiGiovanni, 45, a dental salesman who was in the parking garage when the bomb exploded.



Another thousand people suffered injuries. It took 11 hours to evacuate some 50,000 people from the complex....





Port Authority employees received this pin after the bombing on February 26, 1993. (Photo: Jin Lee)


During the course of my research for this column, I read many, many articles of conspiracy theories,  - with accompanying videos -  political mudslinging, etc etc etc...ad nauseum.

Lost in all the fog is the indisputable facts that we lost SIX  American innocent lives as they went about their daily business.

Also, and most egregious to me, is the lessons either not learned from this outrageous terrorist attack on American soil, or a deliberate forgetting of those lessons; a deliberate sweeping under the rug, if you will. 

As I read the constant  daily headlines from around the world on the scourge of today's terrorist threats, I am reminded that those who forget the lessons of history, are doomed to repeat them.

We must NOT forget, and we MUST learn.  To forget is to seal our future at the hands of terrorist thugs who work tirelessly for our destruction. 

The memory of the victims of 1993 demand we REMEMBER.

1993 BOMBING VICTIMS
John DiGiovanni
Bob Kirkpatrick
Steven Knapp
Bill Macko
Wilfred Mercado
Monica Rodriguez Smith


Related: 1993 World Trade Bombing Center







(I am sure my regular readers know my response to this 2013 article that swears:  His lawyer says he's no longer a threat )









Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Canadian Troops ordered to stand down in Diffa

(map source)

Who knew we had Canadian Troops there?  Apparently we do, and other coalition Troops as part of  training mission Flintlock.  What is Flintlock?   From USAFRICOM:

Exercise Flintlock is an annual regional exercise among African, Western, and U.S. counterterrorism forces, which has taken place since 2006. It is a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-directed, U.S. Africa Command-sponsored, Joint-Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara -conducted Special Operations Forces exercise. Occurring in nations across the Sahel region of Africa, the exercises are planned by Special Operations Command-Africa to develop the capacity and collaboration among African security forces to protect civilian populations. Flintlock participation has included ground and air forces from over 16 countries across a broad spectrum of operations....

It appears that Boko Haram didn't get the memo that this is a training exercise, and from Globe and Mail comes this:

Canadian soldiers ordered to leave region threatened by Boko Haram

Steven Chase February 24, 2015

Canadian special-forces soldiers providing counterterrorism training in Niger have been forced to pack up from a border region and relocate to another part of the African country in order to stay out of the way of fighting between Boko Haram extremists and government troops.


At the same time, the Canadian military says it stands ready to step up its role in Niger if Ottawa decides to send aid. The government of Niger, a poor desert country, recently declared a state of emergency in the border region of Diffa after a number of attacks by Boko Haram, an Islamist terror group.


Troops from Canada are training African counterparts in shooting, communications and mission planning – skills they could use in order to combat groups such as Boko Haram, which controls more than 50,000 square kilometres of territory in western Africa and is destabilizing the region.


The operations are being conducted as part of an annual U.S.-sponsored military exercise called Flintlock, which this year began in February and runs until March 9...


Many more details on this interesting situation here.    All is good though, as "The military is emphatic that Canada’s special-forces troops did not come under fire from Boko Haram and did not engage the militants.... none were injured."

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

POTUS vetoes Keystone XL Pipeline

(map source: CTV)


From NY Times:

February 24, 2015

[...]
President Obamaon Tuesday vetoed a bill to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, rejecting an effort by Republicans and some Democrats to force his administration to let the highly contested energy project move forward.



 By saying no to the legislation, Mr. Obama retains the authority to make a final judgment on the pipeline on his own timeline. The White House has said the president would decide whether to allow the pipeline when all of the environmental and regulatory reviews are complete.



 But the veto — his first rejection of major legislation as president — is also a demonstration of political strength directed at Republicans who now control both chambers of Congress. Mr. Obama is signaling that he will fight back against their agenda.... 

 More here.





More all politics, all the time.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Nigeria: 7 year old girl used as 'suicide bomber'


While women at the Hollywood Oscars were demanding 'equal pay,' little girls in Nigeria continue to be used as explosive weapons by murderous thugs.


JihadWatch:

Nigeria: Girl as young as 7 blows herself up in busy market, murdering 5 people and wounding dozens

FEBRUARY 22, 2015 BY 


This girl could have been one of those abducted last year, and for whatever reason found unsuitable for any other use than this. The mainstream media attention is gone, but the savagery continues. [emphasis mine]
"Girl as young as seven kills herself and five others in Nigerian bombing,” by Aislinn Laing, theTelegraph, February 22, 2015 :
A girl thought to be as young as seven has blown herself up in a busy Nigerian market, killing five people along with herself and wounding dozens more.

The girl was reported to have been turned away from a security checkpoint at the entrance to a mobile phone market in Potiskum, the commercial capital of northeastern Yobe State, on Sunday, but she returned and ducked under a rope before the explosives strapped to her body detonated.

The attack came as the Nigerian military hailed a significant victory in retaking of the town of Baga, captured by Boko Haram just after New Year with the loss of up to 2,000 lives.

Meanwhile the country’s president Goodluck Jonathan admitted that his government had “underrated” the terrorist group’s capabilities but said it was confident of bringing the group to heel ahead of delayed presidential and parliamentary elections on March 28....

 'The mainstream media attention is gone, but the savagery continues....'  This is the truth, with very few of the msm reporting what is happening every.single.day around the world.  Go read the rest of this here....And please: pay attention.  These lives do matter.



(picture source: Ruth Maclean Cape Town)

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Video: Israel - Who is Netanyahu’s true electoral rival?


(photo: Western Journalism...go read that article, too)


From Jerusalem Post:

[...]

If Netanyahu’s speech is a success, Obama’s foreign policy will be indefensible
CAROLINE B. GLICK

 02/19/2015


Officially, the election on March 17 is among Israelis. Depending on how we vote, either Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will remain in office and form the next government led by his Likud party, or Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni will form a government.


But unofficially, a far greater electoral drama is unfolding. The choice is not between Netanyahu and Herzog/Livni. It is between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.



As the White House sees it, if Herzog/Livni form the next government, then Jerusalem will dance to Obama’s tune. If Netanyahu is reelected, then the entire edifice of Obama’s Middle East policy may topple and fall.



Secretary of State John Kerry made clear the administration’s desire to topple Netanyahu last spring during his remarks before the Trilateral Commission. It was during that memorable speech that Kerry libeled Israel, claiming that we would automatically and naturally become an apartheid state if we didn’t give Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the PLO, Jew free, as quickly as possible.

Despite Israel’s venality, Kerry held out hope. In his words, “if there is a change of government [in Israel], or a change of heart, something will happen.”...

 Go read more here.

If none of that is serious enough, watch Naftali Bennet, Israel Minister of Economy and a member of their Security Cabinet:
Elie Wiesel's plea to Congress


 Despite all of Obama's flowery rhetoric in support of Israel,  (and Bibi's statesmanship in acknowledging those words) anybody paying attention knows exactly what he thinks of Netanyahu, leader of America's strongest ally in the Middle East.

Pay attention.

Related:  Obama May Snub Netanyahu Yet Again, This Time Via AIPAC

 Netanyahu - Bombs won't distinguish between Republicans, Dems

Greta Van Susteren on Pelosi's boycott





Saturday, February 21, 2015

Video: President Obama - 'Aiding and abetting the enemy'???

NO, those are not my words, but part of a segment on FOX featuring Senator Tom Cotton and Lt.Gen (Ret) Tom McInerney.  Both Military Veterans pull no punches when responding to POTUS' laying out in plain view, for all to see (including ISIS) the US Military timetable for a retaking of Mosul in April.  They discuss other aspects of the current ISIS crisis as well.

Tom Cotton describes military's response to Obama's summit

 Feb. 19, 2015  U.S. reveals details of Iraq war plans



Yes, politics as usual by this administration.


[Related:   The public plan to take back Mosul


 GOP Sen. Tom Cotton’s response to State Department J.V. team is pure gold [photos]

Allen West (another Combat Veteran) continues to speak truth: Why reveal battle plan for ISIS and world to see?

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Video: Jen Psaki named WH Communications Director: Russia applauds


(AFP photo)

US President proves what his cheerleaders have always wanted the rest of us to believe: he really IS forward-thinking, and yes, he is a jokester.

Today he named the current State Department Spokeswoman as the new White House Communications Director, with a starting date of April 1.  


I don't know Psaki at all, and while I am sure she is a nice person in her personal life, with this appointment, I am reminded again of this administration's tone-deafness in terms of America's place in our world.






What could possibly go wrong? She may be honored to be returning to the White House, and think the next two years will be 'exciting' but not everybody is enthralled.
From Twitchy:
One poster on that says she should actually be called the "Hashtag Director" and it is hard to disagree, since she has become synonymous with hashtags as she faithfully repeats the party line, which these days seems to be the Obama admin's choice of sharing what should be important policy sharing with the American public.

For Obama, she is a smart choice, you might say part of 'the family', since this William and Mary graduate has worked for Obama since the start of his never-ending election campaign in 2007. She has proved she can repeat the party line with no hint of embarrassment.
From May 2014

She may be able to call the next two years "exciting" but the rest of us - aware of what is really going on globally - may struggle to share her excitement.
That video on Barack's successful handling of foreign diplomacy comes courtesy of Russia Today, who apparently find great ongoing sport in mocking Psaki. Check out one of their collections of what they call Jen Psaki’s most embarrassing fails, most entertaining grillings from June 2014.
Well yes, it IS embarrassing, and yes, it could be entertaining if it wasn't so serious.
From Yahoo News:
[...]
 In Russia, on the other hand, “Psaki” is a household name. 
Or at least Russia’s pro-Kremlin media wants it to be. 
Mashable pointed out Thursday that the incoming communications director has already inspired a new nightly program on Russia’s NTV. “Psaki at Night,” which premiered about a month ago, is kind of like the Russian version of “The Daily Show.” Except, since NTV is a pro-Kremlin network, instead of Russian politicians, host Mikhail Gendelev lambasts the envoys — Psaki in particular — of other Western countries.
This relatively obscure communications operative might seem like a random choice for the focus of an entire nightly TV show, but “Psaki at Night” is just the latest manifestation of the Russian media’s obsession with Psaki. Back in June, ABC News pointed out that any State Department spokesperson is traditionally mocked in Russia but that Psaki had become a particular favorite punch line of the Russian press. Her briefings on the escalating crisis in Ukraine prompted relentless ridicule.
Media outlets like the state-sponsored Russia Today latched onto Psaki’s slip-ups — real and imaginary — as evidence of the U.S.’s incompetence....
Not funny at all,  especially since in these perilous days the world desperately needs strong signs of America's competence in foreign policy.
Obama as jokester?  Of course he is. Why else would he have Psaki start her new job on April Fools Day?

  

(Obvious disclaimer: Of course, I really do NOT wish anybody dead as a result of Obama's policies)
I started a joke which started the whole world crying But I didn't see that the joke was on me ...Oh If I'd only seen that the joke was on me

The 'joke' really is on us.  Well played, Mr President, well played.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

US Foreign Policy? 'Give ISIS jobs"

Just when you think the current US administration can't get any more absurdly tone-deaf, it DOES!



(Source)

I can't believe that there is anybody who still believes the myth that if only those poor, disaffected young 'uns had jobs, all would be unicorns and rainbows in our world., and peace would break out. The years-long evidence - including the most recent profiles of western-born ISIS wannabe terrorists - does not support that glib rhetoric.



Found this picture of State Department Spokesman Marie Harf  here....  Go over and read their snarky response (filled with historically correct FACTS, by the way.)

I wanted to know who this woman is, making such 'official' pronouncements, and guess what?  She actually does claim a Masters degree in Foreign Affairs:

Ms. Harf received her Master’s degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where her thesis evaluated the prospects for continued regime stability in Saudi Arabia. She graduated with honors from Indiana University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with concentrations in Jewish Studies and Russian and Eastern European Studies. 

This, of course, adds fuel to the street smarts - v - academics debate that I have been part of lately...[Full disclosure:  I also wear glasses, and yes, I do have an academic background -  although my own claims to foreign affairs did not get academic recognition. But I digress .]


Quite apart from how foolhardy, how dangerous such comments are, the ongoing ineffectiveness of the US  non-existent foreign policy has not gone unremarked on both across the US, and globally.

JihadWatch can always be counted upon for incisive analysis: 


In reality, it’s an unpleasant fact, but killing the enemy is indeed how wars have historically been won.  [emphasis mine] Never in the history of the world has a war been won by alleviating the poverty of the enemy. And while even Chris Matthews finds this hard to swallow here, this is Obama Administration policy, and it was Bush Administration policy before that. The Washington establishment, both Democrat and Republican, believes that poverty causes terrorism, and that giving money to countries from which terrorists come will ultimately eradicate terrorism. There are three problems with this: first, study after study has shown that jihad terrorists are wealthier and better educated than their peers; second, this has been tried for years, with billions pumped into Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries, and it has failed: the problem of jihad terrorism is worse than ever; and third, the jihad terrorists believe they are warriors of Allah, the Lord of the Worlds — the noblest calling on earth. Does Marie Harf really think that they would give that up for a chance to say, “Would you like fries with that?”

There is much more in that same tone, here.

From Commentary Magazine:

Barack Obama’s post-midterm second term continues to be enlightening. Mostly the president has been spending his time confirming conservative critiques of his presidency. But he’s also been demonstrating, as I wrote last week, startling ignorance. And the latest example comes from State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, who last night enlightened MSNBC’s viewers by revealing why Obama’s attempts to stop ISIS have been so disastrous.


It turns out that the Obama administration believes two very silly, discredited tropes about terrorism and violence. ..


[...]


And getting terrorism wrong is significant. Additionally, it has long since ceased being enjoyable to correct the purveyors of Harf’s “root causes” fallacy regarding the economic motivations of terrorist recruits. This is the national-security version of a flat-earther. We use flat-earthers as an example; we don’t actually still engage with flat-earthers, if there are any left. There’s nothing fun about rehashing an argument your side won long ago....


[...]


But Harf can’t be dismissed or ignored, because she speaks for the Obama administration...[And THERE'S the rub]


Which raises a broader question: Where does Obama find all these staffers who are so far removed intellectually from the issues they deal with? To populate an administration with such incompetents, you’d almost have to go back in time. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Obama administration, then, is how easily Obama has been able to find fellow dissenters from reality....
[...]

The other part of Harf’s statement is likewise absurd: “we cannot win this war by killing them.” Harf might be surprised to hear this but yes, you can win wars by succeeding on the battlefield. It’s happened before, I swear. Wars have been won–quite a lot of them, in fact–by defeating the enemy. Maybe it sounds too obvious to be true. Could it really be that simple? You can win a war by winning a war? Wonders never cease....[emphasis mine]

Yes, sometimes the obvious really IS that simple. There is much more, including a transcript of the offensive Harf interview, here.


The UK's Daily Mail also got in on the smack-down, of course.



The Obama administration is drawing fire for suggesting that defeating ISIS requires more of a jobs program for terrorists than a sophisticated approach to killing them.


State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday night on MSNBC that 'we cannot win this war by killing them, we cannot kill our way out of this war.'


Instead, she said, the administration should 'go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups' – including 'lack of opportunity for jobs.'


'We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance,' Harf insisted. 'We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.'


The embarrassing gaffe aired as the White House attracted new criticism for papering over religious aspects of a mass-beheading of Coptic Christians by the ISIS terror army....



There is much more of the same here.

In the last six years the US administration has proved that 'embarrassing gaffes' cost lives.
That is more than embarrassing, it is inexcusable.

Enquiring minds must ask how many job fair booths will be at the three day conference on generic terrorism (don't you DARE say 'Islamist Terrorism')  now under way in Washington, DC.

God help us all.

Related (and as always, read the comments too): Marie Harf; we need a jobs program for ISIS

GEORGE W. BUSH HELPS IRAQI TRIBES FIGHT ISIS AFTER OBAMA OFFERS LITTLE HELP

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Canada: Military Reservists wait too long for severance pay



Question of the day:  Would ANY politician be willing to wait up to 2 years for their own severance pay????

Read on at the CBC:

Former part-time soldiers face long wait for severance pay


'I am just so disgusted with everything that's been done there': former reservist Nicholas Vanderplas


By Murray Brewster, The Canadian PressFeb 17, 2015

Nicholas Vanderplas, a former corporal and part-time member of the infantry, says he's used to shoddy paperwork in the army, but waiting nearly two years for $4,500 in severance pay has exhausted his patience.


He is not alone.


As of last week, there was a backlog of 2,754 severance payment cases waiting to be processed. And those part-time soldiers who are on the list now, having just left the military, face longer waits than those just a few years ago.


According to the department, it takes up to 21 months in some cases to process reservist severance claims through a old, inefficient system the Department of National Defence had promised to fix.


"I am just so disgusted with everything that's been done there," said Vanderplas, 24, of London, Ont., who quit in May 2013 after dislocating his shoulder in a helicopter rappelling exercise, an injury that left him unable to do other training....

Further in the report is this: Department recognizes 'significant' wait time
Really?  'Recognising' does NOT put food on the table for our Troops, nor keep a roof over their families' heads.
Read the rest of this inexcusable treatment of our Troops here.
Something tells me that not one of our politicians would sit by and tolerate this disgusting situation, if it was their payment for services.
'Support the Troops'  rings kind of hollow....