Military So ISIS & the Middle East

Sorry but you have more than implied the above many times. You have also supported the president's contention of the.

Problem is Red he stayed the wrong course for much too long. I have criticized his lack of action in the past. It has NOT been pragmatic but has ignored reality. What is happening today is due to him ignoring the advice from his Sec of State (HRC) and senior advisors.

Actually Red he is doing what is required right now and I have no complaints. Read my criticisms Red don't imagine them.

It was there for your edification Red not a debating point.

As I said above I have no complaints about what the president is doing right now. I will watch and see if he is able to get a coalition of ME countries to not only support our action but participate in them as Bush Sr did in 1991 and W did in Iraq 2.

Frankly this is a time to give him and his advisors a chance.

 

From rapper and hip hop artist to jihadist. From Densi Cuspert to Deso Dogg to Abu Talha, this psycho couldn't make it as a gangsta


As war in Syria and Iraq attracts a growing number of Muslim extremists from Europe, intelligence officials in Germany believe a former gangsta rapper has joined the inner circle of Islamists fighting there.

Denis Cuspert was once a modestly successful member of Germany's hip-hop scene going by the stage name Deso Dogg. Now he calls himself Abu Talha the German and is a top propagandist for the so-called Islamic State (IS) caliphate, which is blamed for several wartime atrocities.

His ascent into the upper IS ranks is raising concerns that such "homegrown" Islamists could embolden Muslim extremists in Germany or that they might one day return themselves to target the country for terrorism.

"Cuspert won't come back since there's an arrest warrant waiting for him," Elke Altmüller, a spokeswoman for Germany's Verfassungsschutz domestic intelligence agency, told Yahoo News. "But there's a danger he could incite others."

And as the cross-border conflict in Syria and Iraq continues to rage, it is luring hundreds of would-be jihadis from Europe, including radicalized converts like the ex-rapper. Although the German authorities have said they see no indications an attack is imminent, they are attempting to track fighters returning from the war zone.

Currently, there are an estimated 400 Muslim extremists from Germany in Syria, either directly engaging in fighting or otherwise supporting the Islamists. Altmüller said roughly 10 percent of them were German converts to Islam. According to intelligence reports, some 40 have been killed in the conflict.

That was almost the fate of the 38-year-old Cuspert after he was seriously injured in an airstrike by Syrian forces in September 2013. But he survived, and being wounded apparently helped him win respect among the extremists. He eventually swore allegiance in an online video this spring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has since declared himself caliph of the repressive Islamic State.

Born to a German mother and Ghanaian father, Cuspert grew up in a gritty Berlin neighborhood and got involved in petty crime and gangs while aspiring to become a rap star. He enjoyed some success, even touring in Germany with U.S. rapper DMX. His lyrics in his song "Who's Afraid of the Black Man" document his early disillusionment and violent tendencies:

Doing time in my skin like Tookie Williams in San Quentin/
No identity, where will this end?
In a white world full of hate and illusion/
The last option was only violence and emotion.

But he never managed to make it big rapping, and after a car accident he started to look to radical Islam for direction in life. Over the past four years, he abandoned his music career to become an Islamist poster boy in the German-speaking world, posting videos that encourage Muslims to join the caliphate's holy war.

"I was a sinner. I lived in sin before I turned to Islam. Surrounded by music, drugs, alcohol and women," he said in one recent propaganda video.

Another scene shows Cuspert hitting the head of a corpse with a rock at the site of a suspected IS massacre east of the Syrian city of Homs.

The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany, which has a thriving Salafist scene promulgating an especially dogmatic form of Sunni Islam. The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany.

After two policemen were stabbed during a Salafist protest in the city of Bonn in May 2012, Cuspert used his rap skills to glorify the attacker as "the German lion Murat K." in a poem. And despite renouncing his musical background, he regularly composes Islamic chants known as "anasheeds" in praise of jihad.

According to the German authorities, the man behind the only deadly Islamist attack in Germany, Arid Uka, watched a video of an anasheed by Cuspert before he shot dead two U.S. servicemen at Frankfurt Airport in 2011. Uka's Facebook account was also linked with Cuspert's profile on the social media website.

German mother and Ghanaian father, Cuspert grew up in a gritty Berlin neighborhood and got involved in petty crime and gangs while aspiring to become a rap star. He enjoyed some success, even touring in Germany with U.S. rapper DMX. His lyrics in his song "Who's Afraid of the Black Man" document his early disillusionment and violent tendencies:

Doing time in my skin like Tookie Williams in San Quentin/
No identity, where will this end?
In a white world full of hate and illusion/
The last option was only violence and emotion.

But he never managed to make it big rapping, and after a car accident he started to look to radical Islam for direction in life. Over the past four years, he abandoned his music career to become an Islamist poster boy in the German-speaking world, posting videos that encourage Muslims to join the caliphate's holy war.

"I was a sinner. I lived in sin before I turned to Islam. Surrounded by music, drugs, alcohol and women," he said in one recent propaganda video.

Another scene shows Cuspert hitting the head of a corpse with a rock at the site of a suspected IS massacre east of the Syrian city of Homs.

The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany, which has a thriving Salafist scene promulgating an especially dogmatic form of Sunni Islam. The Islamists clearly see the former rapper's potential in recruiting others in Germany.

After two policemen were stabbed during a Salafist protest in the city of Bonn in May 2012, Cuspert used his rap skills to glorify the attacker as "the German lion Murat K." in a poem. And despite renouncing his musical background, he regularly composes Islamic chants known as "anasheeds" in praise of jihad.

According to the German authorities, the man behind the only deadly Islamist attack in Germany, Arid Uka, watched a video of an anasheed by Cuspert before he shot dead two U.S. servicemen at Frankfurt Airport in 2011. Uka's Facebook account was also linked with Cuspert's profile on the social media website.

 

It's only a matter of time before some American or Euro scum perpetrate a crime on US or Euro soil. We've all seen the Australian terror plot get disrupted but intelligence isn't perfect. I think we will see a beheading in Times Square.

ISIS knows what it's doing. They are appealing to the disenfranchised....the ones who want fame, attention, and power. They are using social media in a very effective way.

The Germans are always the most fringe element.

 

Try again Red Not only HRC but both former Sec of Defense (who BTW aren't running for President) and according to Leon Paneta his whole national security team urged he take more action to support moderates in Syria and to stay in Iraq and to stop ISIS earlier.
The fact is he has a fixed idea of they way he wants the world to be and cannot adjust to reality until it is forced on him. That Kerry agrees with him is unknown...he is being the loyal soldier he is supposed to be while in office as was HRC when she was SOS.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gate...um=email&utm_source=alerts&nr_email_referer=1

BTW the article I cite is to support my comment not for you to debate.

 

With all the talk about ISIS being "the JV team" and no threat the fact is they are pretty well funded. They make about $3 Million a day smuggling Iraqi oil and more with their human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom.

Austin Long, a Columbia University assistant professor and former RAND Corp. analyst, compared ISIS s approach to that of the Mob.

"It's like the Mafia. When it sees an opportunity to make money, it jumps in with both feet," he told NBC News. "So historically, they've made money on everything from protection rackets to carjacking to people's donations. … Now, they're selling resources they've taken from oil fields and oil refineries ... (and collecting) ransom."

The second U.S. official said that in addition to selling equipment seized from the oil fields it has overrun, ISIS has been able to export some oil by disguising its point of origin and smuggling it out of the conflict zone. Some of that oil is going through Turkey, likely by truck, the official said.
It also has enriched itself with the spoils of war in other ways.

In June, the group raided Mosul's central bank and other smaller banks as its fighters overran Nineveh province in Iraq. Initial reports from the mayor of Mosul had the group had made off with as much as $400 million in currency and gold bullion, but a senior intelligence official told NBC News last month that number was more likely "to the tune of millions of dollars."


http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/is...als-how-will-isis-keep-funding-terror-n187296



They are smuggling the oil in tanker trucks. It would seem like we should be able to blow up the trucks and shut off that source of income pretty easily.

 

Apparently we have built an Arab coalition with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, UAE and Qatar (they're not taking part in airstrikes), and started launching cruise missiles in to Syria a head of the bombing and airstrikes that came earlier tonight. Right now hitting ISIS' hard targets are what we're after, but once there are no more hard targets left... who's boots are going to move in and take ISIS on as they move in to the urban areas?

Also, laughable as it is... Putin is trying to call out these airstrikes on Syrian soil as illegal... claiming we have invaded a sovereign country. Guess he's forgotten about Ukraine and his part in a commercial jet liner being shot down.