Michael Ware On The Iraq War And The Islamic State
These two interviews with the Australian war correspondent, Michael Ware, highlighting his traumatic experiences reporting on the conflict in Iraq, nowContinue Reading
Tag: The Islamic State – IS
The British SAS And The Exploding Heads Of The Islamic State In Syria
Ah, war stories. They grow with every telling. To wit, take this tale of daring-do from battle-torn Syria where Britain’sContinue Reading
Syria In 2015 And The Murder Of Ruqia Hassan
Joshua Landis, the Director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of the ever reliable Syrian CommentContinue Reading
Saudi Arabia Executes Dozens While Saudi Princes Party Hard
The decision by the despotic kingdom of Saudi Arabia to execute forty-seven prisoners convicted of various offensives, primarily what the nominally Salafist-Wahhabi regime inContinue Reading
Former US Intelligence Director Regrets Iraq War
The German news and current affairs magazine Der Spiegel has an informative and surprisingly forthright interview with Michael Flynn, the former director of the DefenseContinue Reading
Irish Neutrality Versus The Anti-Islamist Armchair Generals
A bleak headline from a story in the Irish Independent, reporting the words of the Fine Gael minister of justice, FrancesContinue Reading
Whacking Jihadi John For The Pure Pleasure Of It
So this is the reaction of the “West” to the rise of the Islamic State and the growing conflict inContinue Reading
The Real Islamic State Is The Child-Crucifying Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia
As the United States and its allies (and foes) continue to dither over the expansion of ISIS/ISIL in the Syrian-Iraq borderlands andContinue Reading
They Are Raping The Women
“Evil” is an adjective that has been much used and abused down through the years, being subject to hyperbole, partisanshipContinue Reading
Supporting The Kurds
Malcolm Harris in the New Republic focuses on the great anomaly of the conflict in Syria and Iraq: the United States’Continue Reading
Substituting Numbers For Results In Iraq And Syria
From a report last week by Reuters, republished throughout the “Western” news media: “More than 10,000 Islamic State militants haveContinue Reading
La Rebelle De Raqqa
From France 24, the story of Haya El Ali, a young Syrian woman who befriended female members of the Islamic StateContinue Reading
Barack Obama: ISIL… Grew Out Of Our Invasion
Related to my post on the rise of Iran as a regional superpower in the Middle East as a consequenceContinue Reading
Iran Emerges From The US War On Terror As A Regional Superpower
One of the more interesting if unintended outcomes of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been the elevationContinue Reading
Terror Breeds Terror
Following on from my brief post criticising the agenda-loaded commentary by certain media-friendly “experts” on matters military and intelligence-related, in particular theContinue Reading
People Are Made Radical, Not Born Radical
Paul Beaver is a veteran British defence journalist and member of the ultra-conservative Henry Jackson Society who has been regularly sought outContinue Reading
The United States’ Perpetual Groundhog Day
The team at Tom’s Dispatch have done another excellent job of highlighting the seemingly perpetual nature of the United States’ military misadventures in theContinue Reading
Not All Islamic States Are Equal
There are two quasi-medieval Islamic states in the Middle East making the headlines at the moment. Both have fairly similar initial histories andContinue Reading
6000 Islamic State Fighters Killed In US-Led Attacks?
Back in October of 2014 the CIA estimated that the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq had a militaryContinue Reading
Inside The Islamic State
Martin Chulov in the Guardian newspaper presents a fascinating insider analysis of the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) throughContinue Reading
The West’s Favoured Chop-Chop Regime
As the world, particularly the so-called Western world, looks on in outrage at the activities of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)Continue Reading
Kurdish Factionalism Gives Turkey And IS The Advantage
Western journalism loves to simplify things for readers and audiences at home which is why so much nonsense gets writtenContinue Reading
AN SIONNACH FIONN 