I hate to sound conspiratorial, but I’ve been wondering where the company formally known as Blackwater might be on this, and what role that mercenary company might be playing in supplying arms, training, etc. to these fractious rebel groups.
I know they were sold by Prince and relocated to, I think Dubai (so too, I think, did Halliburton); maybe they’ve gone rogue. Or went over to the dark side.
Corker is like Reagan, kick unions around but once Arab Terrorists threaten American interests back off like the little sniveler he is. Corker, send a cake and some guns to the current Ayatollah-of-Rock-and-Rolla (my favorite movie line EVER!), that’s what Ronnie “Grecian Formula” Reagan would have done.
3 Likes
This is evisceration? More like a gentle spanking by my standards. She should have used far more colorful language to get me thinking she had eviscerated Mr Corker.
They ARE the dark side.
3 Likes
Without a country there is no point in chasing power.
Oh, Dat Barbara! Yabba!
Amendment 17 “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years…” The number of times a person can be elected to the Senate is not mentioned in the Constitution. Some people are in favor of limiting the number of times a person can be elected to the Senate.
Which brings to mind this question: Who takes DiFi down (because there’s no way she retires) in '18? Sandra Fluke won’t be ready yet (I expect her to be a vested congress critter by then, though), and other than Zoe Lofgren, I can’t think of a single person in the current delegation who could do the job.
Boxer then noted that she did not vote for the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq in 2002 (though she did in 2001)
Iraq wasn’t up for a vote in 2001. This article should make this more clear, at the very least. The Senator’s statement was not inaccurate or misleading. Can’t say the same for the article.
Doremus, sorry to say but that outcome ain’t likely to happen the way the CIA or any of us would want. Any arms/material that gets in the hands of the FSA is quite likely to get spread around rather freely. Syria/ Iraq is a very murky place where all sorts of evil shit happens daily whether there is a government or laws or whatnot. I visited the Kurdish region in Iraq a very long time ago in the 1970’s and I thought Iraq was a failed state then.
1 Like
No, we need some easy target to amp up our own base from time to time.
And location.
Pity she couldn’t bitch slap this guy like he deserved. But then again, a southerner did cane a New England yankee in Congress in the run-up to the Civil War.
I’d trade Richard Burr for…well, just about anything. Dryer lint, mud pies, a rabid raccoon who just got into the crystal meth, whatever. And I’d be coming out ahead on the deal!
2 Likes
Agree that Blackwater had a very questionable role constitutionally in the war.
But I’m thinking about something more subversive or nefarious, like when the GW Bush administration re-classified a number of federal positions to make them immune to political appointment, thereby creating a cadre of “stay-behinds” and moles which could affect or subvert the functioning of the Obama administration.
Think EMBED.
1 Like
A reason Syria’s secular, Assad regime, père ét fils, lasted so long in peace was that they treated all religious and ethnic groups fairly. I fear the motives of even the “moderate” rebels who oppose the government.
Not to mention that it has been a Likud policy position, since 1982, to topple the Baath government and let Syria fragment into factional enclaves in order to guarantee Israel’s regional hegemony. Didn’t the CIA also back certain of the Iraqi resistance groups who were to take power after we toppled Saddam? To paraphrase somebody, “an unexamined resistance group is not worth supporting”.
1 Like
Newsome and Kamala Harris, a team for the next generation.
I agree that in theory with each new election a term limit could be imposed but I meant the real term limits as imposed, for example, on the California legislature and the governorship, four terms and two terms, respectively.
I couldn’t agree more. They are the future of the party in this state.
1 Like
Had Bashir treated all groups fairly then I would not expect a civil war. The pere et fils ran Syria as a personal fiefdom with absolute ruthlessness and that’s why the war started…
And one of the unexamined groups was AQ in Iraq/Syria that split and one became ISIS. Some have said the US created ISIS. I think it’s more complicated than that.