Thursday Miscellany!

[maxomai]

• Saudi Arabia is building up troops on the border with Iraq in hopes of preventing an invasion by ISIS. Whether they can keep ISIS out is an open question.


• NBC News yanked their reporter Ayman Mohyeldin out of Gaza just before the ground invasion started, citing "security concerns." However, they sent in two other reporters at the same time. So...what's going on here? It's worth noting that Mr. Mohyeldin took a slightly pro-Palestinian slant in his reporting.


• The Kurds have started pumping oil from Kirkuk in defiance of both ISIS and the Iraqi government. (More background here.)


• Yes, the new executive order of sanctions against Russia include Russian weapons manufacturers. No, this isn't a ban on the AK-pattern rifle. More here.

Comments

Thursday replies

[arkham4269.livejournal.com]

Obviously all those wealthy Saudis funding ISIS (like they did/do Al Qaeda) never learned the term "blowback" prior to this.

It's funny how "security" trumps everything. Obviously Israel can't ignore rockets but when so much of the problems are today are in *response* to Israel grabbing land, breaking promises, building walls and generally being a big of dick as they can to the Palestinians, it's just another "provoke'em so we can shell'em"

If I see another post on FB talking about Israel as if they were weak and surrounded by potential enemies, I'll scream. Israel is the big dog on the block. The only enemies Israel needs to worry about is the type we ran into in Iraq and they're certainly doing a bang up job of creating more people willing to go that route.

Good for the Kurds. The quicker people in the region realize it would be best to just let the Kurds have their Greater Kurdistan, the better there will be for peace in that section of the Middle East. The Kurds have the people, the tools and the training to go the distance. Is another long protracted guerrilla war really what Turkey and Iran want?