Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How has Obama failed you today?

Not all heroes wear capes.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Lighten up, Francis.

Just a few bad apples.

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

Verified, but limited!

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Word salad with all caps

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Consistently wrong since 2002

No one could have predicted…

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

Too inconsequential to be sued

What fresh hell is this?

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

Women: They Get Shit Done

Han shot first.

It’s a tarp!

Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

The Math Demands It!

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War on Terror

Late Night Open Thread: When Narwhal Tusks Are Outlawed…

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… Actually, as far as I can tell from a cursory google search, because the narwhal is a protected species, only pre-1972 narwhal tusks are legal in the U.S. (The one spontaneously repurposed in London was a pub ornament, date of its collection unspecified.) And given the legal ones are hella pricey, there’d probably be fewer stories like this…


I’m not fond of unannounced drop-ins either, but jeez.

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DisOrder & UnDiscipline: An Out of Control E7, an Out of Control Fox & Friends Weekend Loud Mouth, and an Out of Order Chain of Command

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The Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, has accepted being terminated (no one told me you could ignore that sort of thing, but what do I know…). His resignation letter is below.

At this point it is unclear what actually has transpired with Secretary Spencer’s termination. The initial reporting was that he’d made an end run around Secretary of Defense Esper, which led Secretary Esper to ask the President to fire him. In this recounting of events, Secretary Spencer is accused of going to the President and ensuring him that if the President let the Naval Special Warfare review board convened by Rear Admiral (RADM) Green, commanding admiral of Naval Special Warfare, play out, then Secretary Spencer would ensure that Eddie Gallagher would retire shortly at the rank of E7, as a member of the SEAL community/with his trident, and with his full benefits.

All of this occurred after several days of reporting that Secretary Spencer and RADM Green had made it clear that if the review process regarding Gallagher remaining a SEAL, as well as three officers in his chain of command at the time of the crimes he’s alleged to have committed, was not allowed to play out, then they’d both resign. This was quickly followed by Secretary Spencer stating he’d never made this ultimatum. So if you’re confused, that isn’t surprising. Until the all too predictable leaks occur over the next several days to fill out the narrative, we won’t really know how this all went down.

We do, however, know that a major problem here is that the President is, as usual, not listening to the people he actually hires and/or promotes into the positions to advise him on issues and manage those issues for him. This leaves the President susceptible to influence by those with their own agendas. In this case Gallagher himself, as well as weekend Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth. Hegseth hosted Gallagher this morning on the Sunday weekend edition of A Blonde with Two Boobs on a Sofa, D/B/A Fox & Friends Weekend. Hegseth honorably served in the US Army National Guard for 11 years, served in Iraq and Afghanistan, earned the rank of major (O4), and has basically been influencing the President’s views on the US military and the VA from both his weekend perch at Fox, in private meetings, and on calls with the President on the President’s unsecured cell phone (Estonia, if you’re listening, and we know you are…) since the President began his campaign. During his appearance with Hegseth this morning, Gallagher publicly went after his chain of command, especially RADM Green, accusing him of being derelict in his duty by trying to suborn the clear orders and guidance of the President, as Commander in Chief of the US military, regarding Gallagher’s case.

I cannot express not only how irregular what I’ve just recounted is, but how BATSHIT FUCKING INSANE it is as well! Serving US military personnel, and to a lesser extent DOD and the Service civilians (civil servants) do not speak to and/or engage with the news media unless it has been approved by the Public Affairs Officer at their command. And they certainly don’t go on a cable news talk show program and publicly accuse their commanding officers of being derelict in their duty and insubordinate. If you were wondering if Gallagher was a disciplinary problem waiting to happen and a real impediment to good order and discipline, wonder no more. What he did this morning should dispel any doubt. And if you were Gallagher and trying to show the review board and the commanding admiral that you weren’t either or both of these things, going on Fox & Friends Weekend and making these statements is a really stupid way to demonstrate that you’re not a problem child and a shitbird.

Even before Gallagher made himself the poster boy for an out of control culture within the SEAL and Naval Special Warfare community, Rear Admiral Green had already begun a commander’s strategic initiative to try to understand the problems that have developed within the Naval Special Warfare community’s culture and develop specific ways and means to address and correct them. His initiative is inline with those of GEN Clarke, the Commanding General of US Special Operations Command, who has instituted a similar strategic review. GEN Clarke, as well as RADM Green and GEN Clarke’s other subordinates at the Army, Air Force, and Marine special operations commands are rightly concerned that the corrosive nature of war, especially a war in it’s 18th year, that is poorly defined at the strategic level, and that is overly reliant on Special Operations at the tactical and operational levels, has done major harm to America’s Special Operations Forces. And the effects of the corrosion that this ongoing war has caused on US Special Operations culture and those within that culture needs to be assessed, analyzed, and understood so that corrective measures can be developed and put in place.

What we’ve seen with the way Gallagher behaves, obviously empowered because he feels that his advocates like Hegseth have the President’s ear and, therefore, the President has his back, is a very public example of the cultural corrosion that GEN Clarke, RADM Green, and their peers in the Special Operations community are concerned with. Just for his actions today, Gallagher should be facing an Article 15 hearing, popularly known as a captain’s or admiral’s mast, first thing tomorrow to answer for his public insubordination. What he did today on Fox & Friends should make whether he keeps his trident the least of his worries.

At this point, however,  I have no idea what is going to happen. RADM Green, GEN Clarke, ADM Gilday the Chief of Naval Operations, GEN Milley the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary Esper, and RADM (ret) Braithwaite, the announced nominee to be the next Secretary of the Navy all know by now they have both a good order and discipline problem and that the public face of that problem’s name is Gallagher, who thinks he’s untouchable. The President’s undue command interference in Gallagher’s trial and the post conviction handling of him as a personnel matter, as well as several other military prosecutions and disciplinary matters all involving accusations of or convictions for war crimes, has created a good order and discipline problem within the ranks. Leadership knows that if they don’t make an example of Gallagher, then any Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine who gets in trouble and can get to Hegseth or anyone else who has the President’s ear, has the ability to short circuit the military justice system. And unless that notion is quickly disabused, then good order and discipline is going to become nothing more than a hollow slogan. And this problem is as dangerous as the message the President’s interference in military justice for Gallagher and others sends both our allies and adversaries about the behavior that will be tolerated by the US military because it will be tolerated by the President of the United States. That makes our allies uncomfortable and provides aid and comfort to our adversaries by giving them seeming approval to conduct war however they like, regardless of the Law of Armed Conflict, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Rules of Engagement for any specific operation.

Open thread!

Full disclosure: I served as a Senior Special Operations Fellow at SOCOM’s Joint Special Operations University from May through August 2015.

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“Bring Me the Head of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”: Early Reviews, Not Promising

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Publicity-grab sequels seldom match the success of the originals. Title of this post from a Christopher Dickey article in the Daily Beast, “Trump Turns Baghdadi’s Killing Into a Reality Show”:

PARIS—President Donald J. Trump wants you to see his new movie: “Bring Me the Head of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

At a special Sunday morning press conference in Washington D.C., Trump described the way U.S. Special Operations Forces attacked Baghdadi’s compound and killed him in such graphic and explicit detail that some intelligence professionals worried he may have revealed, again, too much about sources and methods.

But Trump knows great television when he sees it, and he was enthusiastic about the images he was watching from the White House situation room Saturday night. “It was absolutely perfect, as though you were watching a movie,” he said…

The reasons such a video of the 2011 Osama operation was not released are the same ones that the intelligence community will use to argue against dissemination of the Baghdadi death: because such images could compromise so much about the operation.

But quite apart from Trump’s worthy desire to undermine the messaging of the still virulent ISIS organization, there is also his unworthy inclination to gloat. Remember when Trump tweeted a highly classified high-resolution image of a failed Iranian missile launch earlier this year for little more reason, it would seem, that smug self-satisfaction?

Trump hates it when the fast-turning news cycle that he uses effectively to obscure his failings also works to push his accomplishments into oblivion…

He’ll be tweeting obscenities — not dirty words, but actual graphic images & descriptions — no later than tomorrow morning. And that’s only if the Fox News prime-time lineup lathers sufficient Kim-Jong-un – style propaganda all this evening.

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Those Photos

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A great many details are coming out about the raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS. It’s looking like (surprise!) not all the details that President Donald Trump gave at his statement this morning were accurate, but I’d like to let things settle out a bit before trying to work through them. Trump gave out a lot of operational information, as is his wont, so at this very moment people are sifting through that information to learn more, both in the open intelligence community and in national intelligence services.

The one thing I will note is a big contradiction between Trump’s recent retreat (and then return?) from Syria and his saying that this operation had been going on for weeks. To cover for an operation like this, the smartest thing would have been to continue US operations in Syria as they had been going. That would have meant turning down President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s desire to go after the Kurds – delay his operation at least. It’s not clear what role this contradiction played in the actual events, but I suspect it was significant.

So let’s look at what we have. Reports are coming out that Trump’s victory photograph was staged a couple of hours after the operation. It certainly looks staged. Let’s compare that photo and the photo of President Barack Obama’s team during the operation to kill Osama bin Laden.

 

The Trump photo contains only six people, all white men, all old except Defense Secretary Mark Esper. It looks like a seventh may have been cut out of the photo at the left, with a laptop in front of him. From left to right, they are National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump, Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and a military man I don’t know. Most obviously missing is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The Obama photo contains fifteen people, only two in full suit and tie.

The Obama photo is active – people are engaged with a screen to our left. The Trump photo is static, posed, about the men,particularly Trump. All of them are looking at the camera, hoping for a place in posterity, although Esper may be looking at something above the camera.

The mess of cables almost steals the center of the photo from Trump. A short red cable lies unconnected in the foreground. For a number of reasons, including security, I would have gotten those cables out of the way in the preparation for the photo. Notice the more economical arrangement of laptops in the Obama photo. Also coffee cups, which indicate an operation in progress.

The Obama photo is much more diverse – two women, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism for the National Security Council. Additionally, the clothes and manner of wearing them varies across the photo, as do the postures and facial expressions of the participants. Identifications of all the people in the photo at Wikipedia. It’s a team of people, each contributing something different to make the operation work.

Trump is, of course, at the center of his photo, the seal of the President of the United States just above his head, in case anyone might not recognize who this is.

Both photos show papers that may contain classified information. In both cases, I think the papers are too blurred to see much, but I am sure we will hear from the open-source intelligence folks if they can figure something out.

I’m posting this quickly to get ahead of the news flow. Already the New York Times has an article supporting my surmise about the contradiction between the retreat and this raid. It also looks like Trump was golfing rather than watching the raid, as he claimed. More later.

Update: The officer on the right is Brig. Gen. Marcus Evans, the Pentagon’s deputy director for special operations and counterterrorism.

 

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Looking Ahead

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The little town downriver from us scared the shit out of me about an hour ago by blasting an air raid siren I never knew existed until today. I only heard it faintly because of the distance, but it was alarming, as it was designed to be.

I’m speculating it was sounded at a noon observance of the 9/11 attacks? Here’s my personal observance of 9/11, and I think it will be the last one I ever share here or anywhere else.

Our daughter was three years old on 9/11/2001. Now she’s 21, and the war that started that day is still going on.

Our nephew was 18 years old on 9/11/2001. Today he’s 36, the father of two small children, and an officer in the US Army serving in Afghanistan. (He’s also done tours in Iraq, including leading foot patrols through Baghdad during the most dangerous period for US service members.)

Last week, Trump apparently mistook diplomats engaged for months/years in peace negotiations for an annoyingly balky reality show production crew and stepped in to personally speed things up for a glitzy Sweeps Week finish. Because he is and always has been an epic fuck-up, Trump fucked that up too, so now the war in Afghanistan will continue for at least another 14 months.

Enough of this fucking bullshit.

Sometimes I wonder how much “Never Forget” gets in the way of “Get the Fuck Out.” Fascist shit-birds like Rudy Giuliani, Karl Rove and Donald Trump will hump the 9/11 attacks until their wizened scrotums pass into dust because they (correctly) perceive it as a path to power.

Their role in extending our national trauma for power and profit has been obvious since the beginning. Joe Biden, God bless him, called Giuliani out on it more than a decade ago.

But even our good politicians feel obligated to issue solemn statements and speak in hushed tones every September 11. Here’s what I wonder: Does fixating on that horrendous day all these years later perpetuate its power and contribute to its potential to cause even more suffering?

I honestly don’t know, but personally, I’m done with “Never Forget,” at least in the prescribed way that the dishonest tragedy-humpers wallow in on this day every year.

Instead, I’ll look ahead and work toward a future where my daughter can consciously live in a country that isn’t “at war” (accursed phrase!) for the first time in her life, and my nephew can come home to his wife and children.

Open thread.

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From Russia with Schadenfreude

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I’m old enough to remember the ghastly Ronald Reagan presidency, though I was too young to give a shit about politics in those days. One thing I do remember was how Reagan praised the heroic “freedom fighters” of Afghanistan with gooey lumps of quavering jingoism and piety that were likely fresh from the pen of a then-youthful Peggy Noonan.

This was when the US helped bleed out the USSR by supplying arms and support to religious fanatics in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden, who eventually drove the Soviets out after massive casualties. Then came the blow-back.

And now, as the US marks more than a decade and a half of post-9/11 futility in Afghanistan, it appears the boot is on the other foot. From The Post:

A senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence on the issue, said the Russians have increased their supply of equipment and small arms to the Taliban over the past 18 months. The official said the Russians have been sending weapons, including medium and heavy machine guns, to the Taliban under the guise that the materiel would be used to fight the Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan. Instead, the official said, the weapons were showing up in some of Afghanistan’s southern provinces, including Helmand and Kandahar — both areas with little Islamic State presence.

Interesting that the Russians felt emboldened to increase their support to the Taliban over the past 18 months.

The US currently maintains nothing like the force the Soviets once had in Afghanistan; there are fewer than 10K troops there now. The Post article notes that US officials describe the current situation as a “stalemate,” but it’s mostly Afghans in the meat grinder instead of Americans.

If we’re a hollowed out, debt-ridden, exhausted empire, that’s mostly thanks to George W. Bush’s dumbfuckery, not Putin or Trump’s. But the article also notes DefSec Mattis is still deciding whether to ask Trump for more troops.

Maybe the Russian arms are a not-so-subtle signal to Trump to get the US out of Afghanistan so Russia can bring that country more fully under its influence, not as a communist state this time but as a territory to be exploited by the transglobal gangster state Putin rules.

Such a move would have to be a personal triumph for Putin in his revanche project, and he can make his wishes known to his lackey Trump in person next month when they meet, possibly in Vienna.

Personally, I wish the US had declared victory and left Afghanistan the day after the SEALs offed bin Laden, if not sooner. I’d rather they reallocated military spending to resettle refugees and provide assistance to Afghanistan as part of a global economic development effort instead of pouring it down the warlord rat hole. But no one asked me.

Anyhoo, it’ll be interesting to see which strings Putin pulls in Central Asia. He must be the most self-satisfied autocrat on earth right about now.

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The Boltoning Continues (Memo To Self: Start Digging That Shelter)

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Not even through his second day on the job and John Bolton is making real progress in his effort to fully crazify the US  national security apparatus:

[Homeland Security advisor] Tom Bossert was an ideal Trump administration official – a man with the résumé of an Establishment Republican, and the capacity for sycophancy of a Trump crony.

…In a West Wing beset by chaos and dysfunction, Bossert was regarded as one of the few competent aides still standing.

And John Bolton just got him fired. As Homeland Security adviser, Bossert would have been a subordinate of the incoming, mustachioed White House national security adviser; and Bolton would prefer to assemble his own team. [links in the original]

Official portrait of that new band of all-stars:

This is really Adam and Cheryl’s turf, of course, so I won’t foist my amateur analysis on the jackals; I hope they’ll weigh in on Bolton early and often.  But I will go so far as to say that so far the new National Security Advisor is behaving exactly as advertised: he’s the boss from hell, and no independent minds or voices will be allowed anywhere near power.  It’s all mustache all the time.  Given his wretched record as anything but a bureaucratic infighter, the US — and the world — should be damn nervous.

Open thread.

Image: Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, Fools have the most fun, 1661

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You Call That a Cat? THIS is a Cat…(With a Depressing Postscript)

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Tikka has been in fine form lately, so I thought I’d share the force of his personality on a blog that can always use some more afternoon thread.

Here he is recently, showing some signs of mental wear and tear:

Tikka does not like strangers. And by strangers he means just about everyone who isn’t me.  He’ll tolerate my son and spouse, but after that?  We’ve had a lot of relatives staying over the last month or so, my wife’s sister for one, who is very much a cat person, and my own sister, likewise — she’s a pillar volunteer at the local pet shelter and all that good stuff.

My S-I-L has learned not to engage Tikka, and in his turn he now merely growls when she passes, and only very rarely whacks her as she goes.  My sister knows Tikka hates her, but can’t resist making eye contact. The result is increasing cat madness.  Those two bipedal monsters have both returned home now, and my fair feline is calming down quite a bit.  Hence this, taken about an hour ago:

A Cat In Full — and don’t you ever doubt it.

And now to some heavier material.  I’m very much looking to the next posts in Cheryl’s series on gender and national security (first one here). As we wait for those, you might want to check out this by Andrew Bacevich [corrected link], a professor at B. U. (and a retired U.S.A. Lt. Col.) focusing on national security.

A taste:

What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they were charged at least as reprehensible.

…As far as male sexual hijinks are concerned, we might compare Weinstein’s epic fall from grace to the stock market crash of 1929: one week it’s the anything-goes Roaring Twenties, the next we’re smack dab in a Great Depression.

…All of this serves as a reminder that, on some matters at least, the American people retain an admirable capacity for outrage. We can distinguish between the tolerable and the intolerable. And we can demand accountability of powerful individuals and institutions.

…

[But] compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or promoted this country’s various military misadventures of the present century.  Those wars have, of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will ultimately cost American taxpayers many trillions of dollars.  Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated “terrorism,” as President George W. Bush promised back when today’s G.I.s were still in diapers.

…war has become a habit to which the United States is addicted.  Except for the terminally distracted, most of us know that.  We also know — we cannot not know — that, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. forces have been unable to accomplish their assigned mission, despite more than 16 years of fighting in the former and more than a decade in the latter…

Bacevich isn’t quite talking about what Cheryl’s begun to lay out.  But it seems to me that the two may be striking some of the same notes.  Anyway, I am as I have long been astonished, angered, and deeply saddened by the way so many of our leaders — lately but not always mostly Republicans — have been so profligate with other people’s kids.

 

The old Lie.

Damn — that’s a downer ending for a cat post.  Sorry. The times are what the times contain.

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War Pigheadedness

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“Any forces that would impose their will on other nations will certainly face defeat.”

I just read President Carrot top’s speech from last night, and the usual suspects are, predictably, participating in the usual “presidential pivot” mutual masturbation society after party:

Ugh. To the speech. What the fuck does this mean:

But to prosecute this war, we will learn from history. As a result of our comprehensive review, American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically in the following ways.

A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin or end military options.

We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out.

I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.

Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power — diplomatic, economic, and military — toward a successful outcome. Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen.

Did I miss Bush and Obama announcing our attacks from a podium or something? And learning from history? How in the fuck is sending in a paltry force of 4k troops and expecting anything different learning from history. A refresher- Bush’s “surge” in Iraq was about 20k troops, but it may have amounted to more in theater briefly because they also extended the tour for folks already there. Trump is sending 4k more.

And just what does 4k troops mean?

Basically, nothing. Whenever you hear of troop numbers, you need to understand that sending 4,000 more soldiers somewhere does not mean you are sending 4,000 more trigger pullers. The vast majority of these 4,000 soldiers will be logo toads dealing with supply and logistics and maintenance and signals and what not. This probably amounts to about 800 actual combat troops being sent there. That’s basically a batallion. They’ll be able to do what- build another firebase? And you can’t have all of them on patrol at once, because soldiers need sleep and rest, they need to pull security, etc.

Again, I have not been in the military for almost twenty years, so I am not an expert and my numbers may be wrong, but from where I sit, this isn’t a fucking plan. It’s a blood sacrifice.

If the most abrasive, arrogant, and imperious President we have ever known thinks all he can get is political support for 4k more troops, it’s game over, man. I heard McMaster pushed for 50k more troops and was rejected, and that wouldn’t have been enough.

This is bullshit. After sixteen years, the American people have moved on. We have lost the will to fight in Afghanistan, as we should have. It’s just a waste of blood and money. All we are doing now is feeding the war pig. Stop sending Americans off to slaughter for no reason. Bring home the troops now.

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How Many Terrorists Did We Just Create?

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What happens when you take the “gloves off,” unlike that sissy boy Obama:

The U.S. military acknowledged for the first time Saturday that it launched an airstrike against the Islamic State last week in the densely packed Iraqi city of Mosul where residents say more than 100 people were killed.

“An initial review of strike data … indicates that, at the request of the Iraqi security forces, the Coalition struck ISIS fighters and equipment, March 17, in west Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties,” the task force leading the coalition said in a statement.

Previously, the U.S.-led coalition had said that officials were unsure whether the United States had conducted air attacks targeting the affected site in Mosul al-Jadida where local officials say they have so far pulled at least 60 bodies from one destroyed building.

This is a disaster on so many levels. Hopefully Adam can discuss what is happening in Yemen, which is also being dialed up and will lead to more incidents like this.

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Let’s Extrapolate

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We all know the situation in Dallas, and here is another in Tennessee:

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has released the name of the suspect behind Thursday morning’s random shooting in Bristol, TN that claimed the life of an area newspaper carrier and injured three others, including a local police officer.

The TBI says 37-year-old Lakeem Keon Scott was armed with at least two weapons, an automatic-style rifle, a pistol and a large amount of ammunition, reports CBS statation WJHL in Tennessee.

Preliminary findings indicate Scott may have targeted people and officers after being troubled by recent events involving African-Americans and law enforcement officers in other parts of the country.

Let’s ignore the similarities regarding the guns, because I’ve basically given up on gun control in the US. It’s never going to happen in my lifetime. Let’s look at the fact that they were radicalized by events that didn’t involve anyone they know personally being killed or hurt.

Now, think for a second. How many terrorists do we think we create every time we bomb someone in the middle east and kill a bunch of innocents?

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The Battle for Fallujah (Has Once Again) Begun!

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3143CB00-9A6B-4E85-A41A-680FC57092E3_w640_s*

Earlier today, which is already tomorrow in Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi announced that Iraqi Forces (regular Iraqi Army and [most likely the National] Police, as well as irregular forces from the sectarian and tribal militias) had begun their operations to retake Fallujah. From the Iraqi perspective, specifically the Iraqi leadership’s perspective, this is necessary to take the remaining Islamic State pressure off of Baghdad. This is because Baghdad as the seat of government is the core of Iraq for the Iraqi leadership, whether it makes strategic, operational, or tactical sense.

What should be of great concern to everyone is whether the fate of Fallujah is similar to that of Ramadi. The Iraqis retook it, but it was reduced to rubble. And as Major Mohammed Hussein, a member of the counter-terrorism battalion that was first into Ramadi at the start of the offensive remarked: “All they (Islamic State) leave is rubble. You can’t do anything with rubble.” Islamic State has, apparently, mined and wired explosives throughout Fallujah as they did in Ramadi and there is a large civilian population trapped within the city and behind the enemy lines. The Iraqi’s have conducted an Information Operation informing these civilians to fly white flags from their buildings so they won’t be targeted by the Iraqi Forces. Unfortunately if they do so they will be targeted by the Islamic State Forces for collaboration.

Here’s what Ramadi looks like now:

isisramadidestructionap16116413304064 **ramadiisiscratersap16116413160960**

* Image from Voice of America.

** Images found here.

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They Are Who We Thought They Were, Part Deux

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The CIA really, really doesn’t want us to know just how badly it can f**k up:

The CIA inspector general’s office — the spy agency’s internal watchdog — has acknowledged it “mistakenly” destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved, Yahoo News has learned.

Das_Geheimnis_-_Le_secret

Although other copies of the report exist, the erasure of the controversial document by the CIA office charged with policing agency conduct has alarmed the U.S. senator who oversaw the torture investigation and reignited a behind-the-scenes battle over whether the full unabridged report should ever be released, according to multiple intelligence community sources familiar with the incident. [Via the esteemable Charles Pierce.]

As the aforementioned Mr. Pierce writes

A democracy cannot survive if its people believe they are being played for marks. It can survive for even less time if they turn out to have been right.

Shitty cops are bad enough.  Shitty secret police…

Feh.

Image: Felix Nussbaum, The Secret, 1939

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Sunday Evening Open Thread: Highly Suspicious

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Catherine Rampell, at the Washington Post, salutes this week’s True Amurkin Terrorized, massively delaying her flight for gut-wrenching fear of… MATH:

… On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse.

Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought.

The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” – but something about him didn’t seem right to her…

… The woman wasn’t really sick at all! Instead this quick-thinking traveler had Seen Something, and so she had Said Something.

That Something she’d seen had been her seatmate’s cryptic notes, scrawled in a script she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was code, or some foreign lettering, possibly the details of a plot to destroy the dozens of innocent lives aboard American Airlines Flight 3950. She may have felt it her duty to alert the authorities just to be safe. The curly-haired man was, the agent informed him politely, suspected of terrorism.

The curly-haired man laughed.

He laughed because those scribbles weren’t Arabic, or another foreign language, or even some special secret terrorist code. They were math.

Yes, math. A differential equation, to be exact…

Deadbeat Donald Trump salutes you, Flip-Flopped Blond Woman. Math — it’s a terrorist tool!

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Apart from the many & various Tools available, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Highly SuspiciousPost + Comments (320)