Saturday, January 31, 2015

ISIS Admits Defeat in Kobani

 

  1. www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/kurds-isis-defeat-kobani/2015/...   Cached
    Jan 31, 2015 · ISIS Admits Defeat in Kobani. Saturday, 31 Jan 2015 08:56 AM Get Link | Email Article | Comment | Contact ...
  2. www.theguardian.com  › World  › Islamic State (Isis)
    Jan 31, 2015 · Isis finally admits defeat in Kobani after air strikes force its fighters to retreat ... The failure to capture Kobani was a major blow to Isis.

    Isis finally admits defeat in Kobani after air strikes force its fighters to retreat

    ‘We had to withdraw and the rats advanced’, say Islamic State fighters in video statement after US-led attacks drive jihadis from Syrian town
    A Syrian Kurdish sniper looks at the rubble of Kobani, which Islamic State controlled half of before being driven from the town.
    A Syrian Kurdish sniper looks at the rubble of Kobani, which Islamic State controlled half of before being driven from the town. Photograph: AP
    Islamic State (Isis) has admitted for the first time that US-led air strikes on Kobani have forced its fighters from the Syrian town.
    Two fighters from the Islamist group said in a video that aerial attacks by fighter jets from the US and several Arab countries were the main reason for the withdrawal.
    “The warplanes were bombarding us night and day. They bombarded everything, even motorcycles,” one said in Arabic.
    Another said the warplanes “destroyed everything, so we had to withdraw and the rats advanced”.
    They vowed to attack the town again and defeat Syria’s main Kurdish militia, the YPG.
    The US military confirmed that Kobani had been retaken from Isis.
    Lieutenant-General James Terry, the commander of the task force that has been leading air strikes against Isis, said: “Kurdish ground forces, supported by our air component, were successful in retaking the town.”
    Earlier this week activists and Kurdish officials said Kobani was almost cleared of Isis fighters, who once controlled almost half of the town.
    The failure to capture Kobani was a major blow to Isis. Their hopes for an easy victory dissolved into a costly siege under relentless air strikes by coalition forces and an assault by Kurdish militia that cost the lives of about 1,000 fighters.
    The US and several Arab allies have been targeting Isis positions in Syria since late September.
    The aerial campaign aimed to push back the jihadis after Isis took over about a third of Iraq and Syria and declared the captured territory a new caliphate.
    Advertisement
    Isis began an offensive in the Kobani area in mid-September, capturing more than 300 Kurdish villages and parts of the town.
    However, the air strikes and staunch Kurdish resistance forced its fighters to begin retreating few weeks ago.
    More than 200,000 Kurds were forced from their homes, with many fleeing across the nearby border to Turkey.
    Last Sunday the Turkish disaster and emergency management authority opened its biggest refugee camp to date. The camp, in the predominantly Kurdish border town of Suruç, can accommodate 35,000 refugees from Kobani.
    Turkish troops are blocking the border to stop residents from returning until the town is safe. But even when the all-clear is given, many people from Kobani may decide the scale of destruction makes going back any time soon futile.
    “They tell us Kobani does not exist any more,” said Adila Hassan, a 33-year-old mother in the newly constructed camp. “We do not know how long we will be staying here. We will return once the town is rebuilt. That’s not going to happen soon.”
    “Return, yes, but not in the near future,” agreed Anwar, a 34-year-old school teacher living in a nearby tent.
    end quote from:

    Isis admits defeat in Kobani after air strikes force it...


     

On CNN: Michael Weiss: Co-Author of "Isis: Inside the Army of Terror"

Some of the points he made:
1. given the current strategy ISIS cannot be eliminated.
2. ISIS soldiers say "We prefer to be heard from rather than about"
3. They appeal to an audience that believes the western world is a vast conspiracy.
4. Upper echelons of ISIS are Iraqi officers trained by the Soviets in operational warfare
and information warfare KGB style.


Also, still ISIS is still winning on the propaganda front just because of their videos killing people and blowing up stuff. The western world is not winning the propaganda war or the military war that is going on with ISIS.

All this information was reported on CNN News Today with Poppi Harlow around 7pm Eastern time.

President Obama quote from same CNN program: "Standing together with a broad coalition of allies and partners, the U.S. will continue taking decisive action to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.

Bob Baer on CNN: "There is no way to reason or compromise with ISIS: The only thing left is to destroy them"

Most groups are sane enough to make agreements with or compromise with in some way. However, then there are groups like ISIS that can only be destroyed to the last man or woman by the Western World or whoever wants to fight them in the world.

Bob Baer:ex CIA: was saying how there is no redeemable political mileage for them regarding executing more people by beheading them. Everyone knows someone who does this is completely insane and no one (in most of the world) will have any sympathy for people who think like this.

Like I've said before ISIS wants to literally kill most people on earth. So, sooner or later they all will be dead at the hands of everyone on earth.

However, the real question might be how many countries in the Middle East will be failed states by then?

1?
10?
20?

And when will the last ISIS fighter or leader die? 1 year? 5 years? 10 years or 20 to 50 years from now?

It is the unknowns that are problematic for everyone on earth.

beach sand out of your Crocs?

I live near the ocean and so I often wear Crocs to the  beach, walk through salt water at the ocean either with my Crocs or barefoot (especially because of the very warm winter weather this year (wildflowers started blooming January 22nd 2015) here in Northern California near San Francisco.

So, after going to the beach often I need to get sand off my feet before I enter my house so my wife won't yell at me. For example, if I put Crocs on at the beach even if my feet are sandy I can go to my hose in my front yard or on my Redwood Deck in my back yard and wash off the sand from my feet and Crocs.

However, today I discovered something that I felt sort of silly it took me this long to discover. I have been wearing Crocs a lot now for at least around 10 years because they massage my feet so I can keep feeling the bottoms of my feet. This also allows me to walk, run, swim and drive better too at my age of almost 67.

However, what I discovered a few moments ago is running a hose from the heel up towards the toe is better than the other way around because Crocs appear to be designed to shed sand out the front better than out the back because in the back has a little berm at the very back to keep your foot in the shoe while you walk. So, I realized if I stack them against the glass door to the back yard to dry out it is also actually better to dry them toe down against the window door instead of heel down.

It's amazing the things it takes years to realize. But once having discovered these things it makes life a lot easier ever after. (As long as you wear Crocs).

I don't like calling ISIL ISIS

Though the U.S. government seems to prefer calling ISIS ISIL, most other people want to call ISIS ISIS.

However, I think this is a bad name to use because ISIS was originally an Egyptian Goddess of the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt so I consider this to be a misuse of the name.

I have tried to use only ISIL but I'm not sure how successful this has been because many people only seem to know ISIS as ISIS and don't recognize the word ISIL as being the same thing. So, I'm finding my wanting to call ISIS ISIL and the U.S. government wanting to call ISIS ISIL just isn't enough to overcome most people's understanding of the whole situation. So, I'm finding I have to call it both names so enough people understand what I'm talking about. So, I guess I'm sort of frustrated by this but I cannot decide what people choose to understand and what they don't. But, then again this is life as it happens rather than life as I might want it to be. So, I likely will begin more calling ISIS ISIL or both or whatever seems to be appropriate in the moment. So, even though I don't like this both names now appear to be completely interchangeable to the average person here on earth. However, most seem to want to use ISIS which I still think is a misuse of the Goddess ISIS' name.

Daesh by the way is a derogatory name for ISIL in Syria:

begin quote from:

  1. France says the name 'ISIS' is offensive, will call it 'Daesh ...

    theweek.com/.../france-says-name-isis-offensive-call-daesh-ins...
    The Week
    What's in a name? When it comes to how to refer to the extremist group that has terrorized Syria and northern Iraq and violently imposed a caliphate, a lot.
  2. Twitter/CBC News
    What's in a name? When it comes to how to refer to the extremist group that has terrorized Syria and northern Iraq and violently imposed a caliphate, a lot.
    The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a bit of a misnomer, says France, as it lends the imprimatur of Islam to a group that the vast majority of Muslims finds despicable. "This is a terrorist group and not a state. I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists," France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement. "The Arabs call it 'Daesh' and I will be calling them the 'Daesh cutthroats.'"
    The name Daesh, according to France24, is a "loose acronym" for "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham). The name is commonly used by enemies of ISIS, and it also has many negative undertones, as Daesh sounds similar to the Arabic words Daes ("one who crushes something underfoot") and Dahes ("one who sows discord"). Samantha Rollins


ISIS and Al Qaeda and Boko Haram can only seriously be equated to Gangsters

If you and I imagine a Mafia Boss with millions and now billions of dollars running ISIS this likely is the most useful comparison. That they claim to espouse a cause based on religion can't really be taken seriously when you see what happens to volunteers usually within a month or two.

They are usually either dead in battle or dead because they don't like being drugged with Zolam or disenchanted and wanting to leave and then beheaded or worse for wanting to leave because it wasn't what they expected.

So, either way within a month or so they are dead. For example, even here in the U.S. the Hell's Angels Motorcycle gang members have only a life expectancy of 25 on average. However, ISIS has a life expectancy for new recruits of like 1 month or less the way this whole thing is being run.

So, it isn't really useful to see ISIS as a religion, it is more useful to see the individual soldiers as being idealistic and possibly religious but mostly just suicidal because they don't see a future anywhere for themselves ever.

So, calling ISIS "Suicidal Soldiers" might be the most useful term anyone has ever thought of for this group at a grunt or private first class level.

Crowded

My son was showing me what "Crowded" brought up in Google Images. I thought I would share this with you:  I can remember things like this truck in places like India or the steam trains in India with people hanging all over them around 1985 and 1986. Can you imagine traveling across a desert in over 100 degrees Fahrenheit like this?
I remember getting on top of a bus in India because the bus wasn't air conditioned and it was hot. So, I and my two older sons got on top of the bus with a friend with the luggage inside the rack. But, then we had to constantly watch tree branches and power lines so we weren't hung or knocked off the bus as we traveled. So, I only did this once because I found it too dangerous for my sons (then 10 and 14) to consider doing this again. You really had to be on top of every single phone or power line or tree branch sweeping you off or hanging you along the way. So, is this picture safe above? What do you think. As you are traveling across the desert if someone fell off would anyone notice or even go back and pick you up? And what happens if you fall asleep and fall off or hit a bump?
However, in many parts of the world this might be the only way to get somewhere.

Note: most of these pictures are attached to a web page somewhere. So, by clicking on individual pictures you might get to the page where these pictures are displayed around the world.

Images may be subject to copyright.Send feedback