...Harun's lawyers (click here) had asked Cogan to impose less than a life sentence, but Cogan said Friday that Harun was a "person of murderous zeal" who had to be imprisoned to protect the public....
I think those are great words and could easily apply to Cruz as well.
In yet another killing of a small group of American soldiers, they were used for ISIS propaganda purposes. When no one could make sense of the murders, the USA military forgot what ruthless Daesh will go to in recruiting footmen.
January 24, 2018
By Ellen Mitchell
The U.S. military (click here) is reviewing images posted on social media purportedly showing dead American soldiers from the Oct. 4 ambush in Niger....
...The video, broadcast by ISIS in Mali (click here) on its attack on the US Special Force in Niger, lasted more than 10 minutes, including scenes of a screaming wounded soldier, in addition to the bodies of three other dead American soldiers....
Why does the propaganda video still exist? Why isn't the TWEETER already arrested? Has the USA no relationship with other countries to end all Daesh propaganda?
TAKE THE DAMN SHIT OFF THE NET. I MEAN ALL OF IT! Don't tell me it can't be done. There are professionals in the USA capable of making the world a safer place by tracking down and removing the propaganda while giving the ID information to the intelligence agencies and/or the military!
DO IT! They can probably track high school assassins, too, with greater accuracy than a hotline!
Finally, some sanity regarding Turkey and the Kurds; enough of the killing fields with Kurds. The Kurds have a right to defend themselves and Turkey has a really difficult time stating they are some of their best allies.
Defending the Kurds might be the only thing Tom Bossert has said that makes sense so far; he defended the pardoning of Arpaio. That was a mistake. Silence is better than words when the presidency is used for politics and not national security.
By Murat Yetkin
In the White House readout on Jan. 24, (click here) there was an important sentence regarding United States President Donald Trump’s telephone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkish presidential sources have not denied that sentence.
The sentence was: “He [Trump] urged Turkey to exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces.”
Shortly before Trump arrived in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum on Jan. 25, his Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert repeated those words in a rather straightforward manner. Bossert said it would be “a terrible outcome if Turkish troops clashed with the proxy forces that we have all been relying on to defeat ISIS, especially if there are U.S. advisers in the region.”
The “proxy forces” referred to by Bossert are the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia that forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the U.S. Central Command uses as ground troops to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) despite objections from its NATO ally Turkey. Ankara has objected to fighting one terrorist organization, ISIL, with the help of another, the YPG, not least because it sees the YPG as having links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the U.S has designated as a terrorist organization.
Bossert also warned Turkey by saying “there would be grave consequences to any miscalculation and escalation” and told Ankara to be “mindful” and “withdraw from Afrin.”...
When targeting terrorist groups, as if they stood alone and were the real problem, may I suggest learning from the growth of Hezbolla.
Hezbollah was cut off from it's usual duty of protecting the Alawites in the eastern coastal border of Syria. In response to it's isolation, Hezbollah did not disappear into the vapors, it regrouped and began a drug trade to the rival of none. That drug trade was then used to arm itself and become autonomous from Assad and Iran.
When Turkey practices ethnic terror against the Kurds it is providing a real reason for the Kurds to rethink it's alliances. I don't believe that is a wise choice on the part of Turkey.
The only terrorists that have an automatic death sentence in the Middle East is Daesh. I rather have other groups be considered survivors of past misdirected policy and a solution be found for them.
I think the so called USA "List of Terrorist Organizations" be reviewed for the role these groups played with Daesh and realize their strength AND REASON they fought for their survival. Their victories were our victories and they need to be considered as a stabilizing force in the Middle East and not a destabilizing force. This needs to be done before a stupid list turns into a Middle East war that few will survive.
No one is sacrificing Israel, it is securing it when solutions for survivors are found. I want no ethnic cleansing in the Middle East and that especially includes the Kurds. The Shi'ites are a minority population and religion and need a permanent place, including, pilgramages.
