"Wrongthink is doubleplusungood," says area vanity presidential candidate, adding, "those who commit thoughtcrime must be executed, LOL KIDDING." Soon-to-be presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) could be heard laughing on Saturday as he told a crowd of Iowa Republicans that if an American were suspected of associating with terrorists, he would order a drone to … Continue reading Lindsey Graham campaigns on a “Punish Thoughtcrime” platform

Over the weekend, ISIS finally completed its capture of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's (if it can even still be said to be part of Iraq) Anbar Province. You may recall that a few weeks ago, Martin Dempsey argued that Ramadi wasn't as important as, say, the oil refinery at Baiji, and in a sense … Continue reading Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

US Special Forces conducted a raid against an ISIS target in Syria overnight that reportedly killed an ISIS bigshot: US special forces soldiers have killed a senior leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group during a raid carried out in eastern Syria, the US secretary of defence said. Pentagon chief … Continue reading US forces kill Some Guy, key ISIS leader (plus: Arabic 101 for big media)

Well, that attempted coup in Burundi certainly could have gone better for the plotters... Three leaders of a failed coup against Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza have been arrested, his spokesman says. However, coup leader General Godefroid Niyombare is "still on the run". He told the AFP news agency that he and his followers were going … Continue reading Flown the coup

Ramadi, capital of Iraq's Anbar Province, finally appears to be falling to ISIS: IS "now occupies the government centre in Ramadi and has also raised its flag over the police HQ for Anbar", a police major told the AFP news agency. The militant group itself issued a statement confirming it had taken control of the … Continue reading One step back

https://twitter.com/ajaltamimi/status/599222350026944513 Remember Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri's death? Yeah, about that... This is why you don't declare these guys dead just because a report comes in that says they are. Hell, Douri may actually be dead, and this speech video just a ruse, but actual video of the guy has to at least introduce some doubt into … Continue reading Speaking of declaring people dead who aren’t actually dead

The Iraqi government seems to have gotten a jump on the summer reruns. First there was the fourth (or twentieth, maybe, I'm losing count) claim that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been grievously, maybe mortally, wounded in a coalition airstrike, this one supposedly having come in March. ISIS, as it turns out, just released … Continue reading Early summer rerun season

The refugee crisis that's attracted the most notice of late is the one in the Mediterranean Sea, but there's another one taking place in Southeast Asia involving Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya. The Rohingya are arguably the single most abused population on the planet, denied citizenship by a Burmese government that insists, absent evidence, that they are … Continue reading The Rohingya have nowhere to go, but that’s better than staying where they are

Earlier this week it was JEB, now Rubio dives face-first into the quicksand: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Wednesday that he would not have authorized the invasion of Iraq given what he knows today, becoming the latest candidate to weigh in on a question that has tripped up likely GOP rival Jeb Bush. "Not only … Continue reading It’s been 12 years; how can Republicans still not have a good answer about Iraq?

Lots of words have been written lately about whether or not Bashar al-Assad is finally losing the war in Syria, including by some incredibly sketchy characters, but everybody should understand that "losing" doesn't mean "lost." Assad still has a big army, uncontested air superiority, and his well-trained and cohesive Hezbollah allies on his side, and … Continue reading In one sense, maybe Bashar al-Assad has already lost