23,144 U.S. BOMBS DROPPED ON MIDDLE EAST NATIONS IN 2015

The Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, has estimated that 23,144 bombs have been dropped by the U.S. on Muslim-majority countries in 2015. 

The chart, provided by the generally pro-State Department think tank, puts in stark terms how much destruction the U.S. has leveled on other countries.
Whether or not one thinks such bombing is justified, it's a blunt illustration of how much raw damage the U.S. inflicted on the Muslim world in 2015. 

[TOO BAD THERE'S NO CHART ON HOW MANY MUSLIMS WERE KILLED BRUTALLY BY OTHER MUSLIMS, AND HOW MUCH DAMAGE SUCH INTENSE INFIGHTING HAS CAUSED, YES?
JUST LOOKING AT HOW SAUDI ARABIA HAS BOMBED THE SUPREME HELL OUT OF YEMEN MAKES SYRIA LOOK LIKE A PICNIC, DOESN'T IT?
TALK ABOUT MASSIVE CIVILIAN DEATHS!
AND LET'S SEE THE NUMBERS ON THOSE SUCCESSFUL SUICIDE BOMBERS. ]

HERE ARE THE STATS, AND ONE NATION IS ACTUALLY AN AFRICAN NATION.

22,110 BOMBS DROPPED ON IRAQ AND SYRIA. 
947 BOMBS DROPPED ON AFGHANISTAN.
58 BOMBS DROPPED ON YEMEN AS A GIFT TO THE HOUSE OF SAUD.
18 BOMBS DROPPED ON SOMALIA.
11 DROPPED IN PAKISTAN, PROBABLY ON THOSE OPPOSED TO THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT.

NONE IN LIBYA?
SERIOUSLY?
THE U.S. MUST HAVE FOUND THE HIDDEN GOLD THEN.

AND, LOOK!
NOT ONE WAS DROPPED ON ANY NATION THE U.S. CONGRESS HAS DECLARED WAR ON!
THERE ARE NO DECLARATIONS OF WAR, NOT SINCE WORLD WAR 2.

ALL WERE DROPPED AT THE BEHEST OF THAT WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA.
PEACE, PEACE....SUDDEN DESTRUCTION, RIGHT? 


LET'S LOOK AT THE WONKY MATH ON ISIS KILLS....
"About 77 percent of the U.S. airstrikes targeted ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

The problem with the U.S.'s  "kill-'em-all with airstrikes" rule, however, is that it is not working.

Pentagon officials claim that at least 25,000 ISIL fighters have been killed (an anonymous official said 23,000 in November, while on Wednesday, Warren added "about 2,500" more were killed in December).
Remarkably, they also claim that alongside the 25,000 fighters killed, only 6 civilians have "likely" been killed in the seventeen-month air campaign.

At the same time, officials admit that the size of the group has remained wholly unchanged.

In 2014, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated the size of the ISIL to be between 20,000 and 31,000 fighters, while on Wednesday, Warren again repeated the 30,000 estimate.

To summarize the anti-ISIL bombing calculus: 30,000 – 25,000 = 30,000."

WELL, LIKE THE CALCULUS PROFESSOR TOLD ME BEFORE I RAN SCREAMING FROM THE ROOM, "IF YOU NEED A NUMBER, JUST USE AN IMAGINARY NUMBER."

I IMAGINE MATH WASN'T A FAVORITE SUBJECT OF WHOEVER DID THE MATH ON ISIS.
30,000 IS WAY TOO LOW.
THEY'VE HAD THAT MANY FOREIGNERS JOIN THEIR RANKS IN THE PAST YEAR.
100,000 ISLAMIC STATE FIGHTERS MAY BE TOO LOW AN ESTIMATE.

IF 2 ISIS MEMBERS WERE KILLED BY AMERICAN BOMB RUNS, IT WAS LIKELY AN ACCIDENT.
ISIS, AFTER ALL, IS ANTI-ASSAD.

27 Mar, 2015

"The alliance of 60 countries declaring plans to finish off the Islamic State is not serious, Syrian President Bashar Assad told Russian media. Some of its members would prefer to retain the terrorist force to blackmail different countries, he said.
The rate of airstrikes conducted by the anti-ISIS coalition member states, some of which are “rich and advanced,” is only about 10 raids a day on the territory of both Syria and Iraq, Assad said in an interview published Friday.

“The Syrian Air Force, which is very small in comparison to this coalition, conducts in a single day many times the number of the airstrikes conducted by a coalition which includes 60 countries,” Assad said.

“This doesn’t make sense. This shows the lack of seriousness,” said Syria’s president. “They don’t want to get rid of ISIS completely.”
“There is no serious effort to fight terrorism, and what is being achieved by the Syrian forces on the ground equals in one day what is being achieved by these states in weeks,” Assad said. “An anti-terrorist coalition cannot consist of countries which are themselves supporters of terrorism.”

THAT'S WHAT THE KURDS AND IRAQIS HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR OVER A YEAR NOW...IMAGINE THAT.


THE CURRENT PREZ IS ALSO 'KING OF DRONE STRIKES'.

HOW MANY U.S. DRONE STRIKES IN 2015?

The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that U.S. drone strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan have killed 3,674 people.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that up to 4,404 people have been killed – just in Pakistan and Yemen alone – between 2004 and 2014. 

WHAT ABOUT IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN?

JANUARY, 2015 (A YEAR AGO) 
While it’s hard to estimate how many additional people have been killed by drone in Iraq and Afghanistan, a December 2012 report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that US and UK forces had carried out over 1,000 drone strikes in Afghanistan over the previous five years. 
Given that numerous people are often killed by each drone strike, it is reasonable to assume that several thousand people have been killed by drone in that country.

And many Iraqis have also been killed by drones … long before ISIS even appeared on the scene.    So – altogether – the number of people killed by drone is probably well above five thousand.

The West is intentionally targeting farmers, small-time drug dealers and very low-level Taliban members with drone assassination.

And the process for deciding who to put on the “kill list” is flawed.    

People are often targeted by the metadata on their phones, a process which a former top NSA official called the drone assassination program “undisciplined slaughter.”

And people are targeted for insanely loose reasons. 
As the New York Times reported in 2012:

Mr. Obama had approved not only “personality” strikes aimed at named, high-value terrorists, but “signature” strikes that targeted training camps and suspicious compounds in areas controlled by militants.  

But some State Department officials have complained to the White House that the criteria used by the C.I.A. for identifying a terrorist “signature” were too lax.  

The joke was that when the C.I.A. sees “three guys doing jumping jacks,” the agency thinks it is a terrorist training camp, said one senior official.  

Men loading a truck with fertilizer could be bombmakers — but they might also be farmers, skeptics argued. 

[IT'S WRONG TO JOKE ABOUT THIS, AND THERE'D BE NO JOKING IF IT WAS AMERICANS BEING KILLED, OR SO WE WOULD HOPE.]
 
And then there are “double taps” … where the family members, friends or neighbors who try to rescue someone hit by a drone missile are themselves targeted for assassination.

American University Professor Jeff Bachman reports:

Strikes focused on the Kill List “killed on average 28 other people before they actually succeeded in killing their target.”

The Brookings Institution also noted the high proportion of civilian deaths in 2009:

Critics correctly find many problems with this program, most of all the number of civilian casualties the strikes have incurred. Sourcing on civilian deaths is weak and the numbers are often exaggerated, but more than 600 civilians are likely to have died from the attacks. That number suggests that for every militant killed, 10 or so civilians also died.

The Costs of War Project – a nonpartisan, nonprofit, scholarly initiative based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies – notes:

In Iraq, over 70 percent of those who died of direct war violence have been civilians.

STATS FOR AFGHANISTAN ARE NOT VERY RELIABLE, BUT A VERY EXTENSIVE LIST CAN BE FOUND <HERE>.

It is stated in a Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) report that of all the drone attack victims since 2004, more than 76% of the dead fall in the legal grey zone, 22% are confirmed civilians (included 5% minors) and only the remaining 1.5% are high-profile targets.
84 of the 2,379 dead have been identified as members of al Qaeda.

ERRORS HAPPEN, DRONES GONE WRONG....   
Up to 90 percent of U.S. drone strikes hit the wrong target ...

Family of Italian aid worker killed in US drone strike still waiting for answers.   

Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians ...   

U.S. KIDNAPS 4-YEAR-OLD DRONE VICTIM, PAYS $2,000 IN 'COMPENSATION' FOR EACH OF 14 FAMILY MEMBERS KILLED BY DRONE.   

DRONES ACROSS AMERICA!

THE TEA ROOM DEMONSTRATED THE PRESENCE OF DRONES IN THE U.S. BACK IN 2013.  

"In a letter to Rand Paul dated on Monday [Early March, 2013], Holder said it was possible, "I suppose," to imagine an "extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate" under U.S. law for the president to authorize the military to "use lethal force" within the United States."

 APRIL 4, 2008, a drone was used to locate illegal marijuana field.

A drone was instrumental in the arrest of an American citizen in 2012. 

Above map depicts the approximate locations of current and planned Department of Defense unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) activities inside the U.S. in 2012.

THAT SITE SUPPLIES A LIST OF EACH FACILITY IN THE U.S. FLYING DRONES IN 2012, AND WHAT TYPE IS FLOWN FROM EACH INSTALLATION.
THE NUMBERS HAVE SURELY INCREASED IN 4 YEARS.

HOW MANY DRONES OVER AMERICA? HOW ABOUT 30,000!  June 16, 2012  http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/06/dron-j18.html    

All this gives "bombs bursting in air" a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

As I've said since 1960, if any nation did to America what America has done abroad, we would already have seen a REAL World War 3.

U.S. MEDIA CONDEMNS ISRAEL, RUSSIA, ANY OTHER NATION THAT STRIKES AN ENEMY, BUT NOT EVEN THE DAMNABLE ABOMINATION, THE UNITED NATIONS, CONDEMNS NONE OF THE ABOVE KILLS...IT'S AMERICA, AFTER ALL,  HOME OF THE U.N.
HYPOCRISY REIGNS AS AMERICANS CONDEMN THOSE WHO DO LESS KILLING THAN AMERICA DOES, EVEN WHEN OTHERS KILL IN SELF DEFENSE.

TRUTH...NO MATTER WHOM IT HURTS.
WRONG IS WRONG EVERYWHERE THAT WRONG EXISTS.

THE U.S. SHOULD ACCEPT THAT ASSAD IS NOT GOING DOWN AND BACK OFF SYRIA.

"From the start, President Obama’s wrongheaded support for the anti-Assad revolt is what led directly to ISIS’ resurgence. By calling for Assad’s ouster in 2011 and 2012, by green-lighting Saudi and Turkish aid to the rebels, by ordering the CIA to train anti-Assad forces in Jordan, by drawing red lines that he couldn’t enforce, and by supplying those ragtag rebels, Obama unleashed hellish forces in Syria that neither he nor his Saudi and Turkish partners could control. Unspeakable atrocities have been committed on both sides, and it’s obvious that Assad is no friend of humanity. But he’s there, and he’s better than ISIS.  
According to Josh Rogin of The Daily Beast, there’s an actual debate going on inside the White House and the State Department over whether to call it quits in Syria. Writes Rogin:

There’s a battle raging inside the Obama administration about whether the United States ought to push away from its goal of toppling Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and into a de facto alliance with the Damascus regime to fight ISIS and other Sunni extremists in the region.… The 3 1/2-year grinding civil war is Syria has been put on a back burner for now. Some officials inside the administration are proposing that the drive to remove Assad from power, which Obama announced as U.S. policy in 2012, be set aside, too. The focus, these officials argue, should instead be on the region’s security and stability. Governments fighting for survival against extremists should be shored up, not undermined. "  

LESS THAN ONE YEAR LEFT FOR THE OBAMA REGIME.
BUT, IF THE GOP WINS THIS NEXT ELECTION FOR THE PRESIDENCY, WE CAN EXPECT MORE OF THE SAME AND ESCALATION EVERYWHERE. 
WALL STREET LOVES WAR, AND THE GOP LOVES WALL STREET.  

KA-CHING   $$$ .