Apparently, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, U.A.E and Jordan are participating in these attacks in Syria as well.
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Watching ABC News. Two nights in a row they lead off with ISIS is coming for us in our living rooms while we are just peacefully trying to veg out w. infotainment mixed with the news they want us to see.. OMG Really cool details about the massive bombing and missile attacks. First time a new stealth bomber is being used in combat. Wow! Thank God. OMG I can't even sleep. Please go to war again. Protect us. You guys falling for the same ol same ol again? Just like Iraq and Afghanistan? Not me as I have seen this strategy before and did not fall for it then. Don't go rushing to join the military guys.
You guys? Who are you addressing? I don't watch ABC News B.S., though I guess you do? I'm sleeping A-OK, but I'll cross my fingers you get some sleep soon. BTW, the F-22 Raptor isn't a stealth bomber, though I'll assume you glossed over this fact in your sleepless attempt at some sarcasm.
Obviously he does - as long as it is against Israel and Jews are being murdered, terrorists are "freedom fighters".
Well, yeah. I think WW II was probably the last one at least as far as America goes. Not to say we had the right to nuke Japan or some of our other actions during the war. Certainly the countries in Europe that were attacked by Germany has the right to defend themselves.
I do think that the Palestinians and Hamas in Gaza have the right to defend themselves, but again not all their actions are justified. Funny you mention Israel. Their media does a total number on their citizens to frighten the crap out of them and therefore get them to act like sheep to support Netanyahu and even the folks who are pretty open about explusion, extermination of the Palestinians and cheer ethnic cleansing.
Not true. The Israeli media is more liberal than the u.s media, and most certenly from the Arab or Persian, anti Israel and anti west one. if Israel wanted to exterminate the Palestinians, why get out of gaza and the palestinian authority, and give than weapons as part of the Oslo peace aggremant? It seems the muslims are doing a much better job exterminating themselves, in Syria, Iraq and other ethnic cleans of Jewish, mostly Muslim countries.
There's this idea in the West, that was demonstrated in Deji's comic, that somehow restricting civil rights means a victory for radical Islam. As if we're so important that when Bin Laden and Al-Bagahadi learns about how we take our shoes off at the airport or whatever, that they view it as a great victory. It's not just wrong, it's blatantly arrogant. It's essentially "The Terrorists hate us for our freedoms", just repackaged in a more sophisticated way for supposedly learned men.
First U.S. Stealth Jet Attack on Syria Cost More Than Indian Mission to Mars F-22 Raptor stealth fighters were needed in case the Syrians used their sophisticated air defenses. But Raptors don't come cheap. Fears of a potent Syrian air defense system drove the U.S. Air Force to send its silver bullet force of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters into battle for the first time ever. The Pentagon confirmed on Sept. 23 that the $150 million jets had struck an ISIS command and control facility in Raqqah, Syria with a satellite-guided bomb. That was right after an initial wave of U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles hit their targets around Aleppo and Raqqah. But the Raptors’ first mission wasn’t cheap. Together, the missiles and airstrikes cost at least $79 million to pull off, according to a Daily Beast tally. That's more expensive than India's mission to Mars, which was successfully completed Wednesday at a cost of just $74 million. Spoiler The U.S. government told the Bashar al-Assad regime about the incoming attacks shortly before they happened. But the Pentagon did not trust the Syrian military to leave American warplanes alone as they struck ISIS and another Al Qaida-affiliated terrorist group called Khorasan. That’s why the Air Force needed assets like the blisteringly fast, high-flying Raptor which could operate inside heavily defended airspace with relative impunity. “It’s important to remember that these strikes against ISIS and others in Syria are occurring without any previous degradation of the IADS [integrated air defense system] there,” said one Air Force official familiar with stealth combat aircraft operations. One of the Pentagon’s goals is to minimize the risk to American forces during this air campaign. “You stack that against the clear message to the public in his speech, the President wanted to mitigate risk as much as possible,” the official said. “The use of the F-22 over Syria presently is easily feasible and extremely logical.” Experts and many Air Force officers expect that the Raptor will fly additional combat sorties in the coming days. “More F-22 missions are a real possibility. Even in this open-ended campaign, getting the mission done with precision and least possible risk is paramount,” said IRIS Independent Research president Rebecca Grant, which has close ties to the Air Force. “F-22s really do have unique abilities to evade defenses, strike with precision and sniff up information about Syrian defenses. So why wouldn’t it be used?” Grant said she does not expect any political blow-ups over the Raptor, which was terminated in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Robert Gates—who believed the jet to be a costly and useless relic of the Cold War. Instead of the 750-strong fleet originally envisioned, the Air Force received only 187 Raptors in a move that was viewed by many in Washington as purely political. “This is about doing the job right and the F-22 was simply part of that,” Grant said. But the F-22 is extremely expensive to operate and difficult to maintain. In 2013 the Raptor cost the Air Force about $68,000 per hour to operate once maintenance and other factors are added in, according to documents provided by the Center for Defense Information. The Raptors were only one of the line items for Monday night’s raids. The Daily Beast has tallied up a rough estimate of the cost of the initial air trikes in Syria. According to the Pentagon, the Navy fired 47 Tomahawk missiles, each of which cost about $1.6 million, for a total of $75.2 million. Assuming a mission duration of about six hours, and a strike package consisting of four F-22s, four F-15Es, four F-16s, two B-1 bombers and four MQ-9 Reapers—which would be consistent with Air Force doctrine—the total cost of Air Force portion of the bill would be about $3.9 million. Combined with the cost of the cruise missiles, the Syria raid cost the American taxpayer roughly $79 million, based on the Center for Defense Information data. Because of the F-22’s astronomical price tag, critics often assail the jet for not participating in many recent wars. But one of the big reasons the Raptors have not been used in combat until now is that they were not needed. There was no high tech foe in Iraq or Afghanistan, and over Libya, the Raptor was not the right jet for the task. “The initial OOD [Operation Odyssey Dawn] strikes required surprise, and repositioning F-22s to Italy would have obviously spoiled surprise,” an Air Force official explained. “After the first night of OOD in 2011, stealth wasn’t required, the IADS [integrated air defense system] was completely destroyed and the Libya Air Force completely destroyed within a matter of few short hours.” Once the Air Force completed those chores, there was no reason to use the tiny and expensive fleet of Raptors. “After the early hours of OOD the airpower needs switched to armed Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance (SCAR) missions, which even the newest increment F-22s are not well suited for despite their good ground attack capability,” the official said. link
Stuff we've done over there - or to be more accurate, stuff they believe we've done. Actual truth isn't as important compared to what people believe after all, and the Muslims are more than willing to just believe that we hate all of them - for example, many Middle Easterners were convinced that we were fighting the Muslims during the Yugoslavian conflict in the late 1990s, when in reality it was the opposite. As for why some men join IS - that isn't all just blowback. It isn't even the depradations of capitalism. I've constantly criticized capitalism and its obsession with freedom for destroying any collective concept of "purpose" - and some young men, disillusioned by the spirtual emptiness of capitalism, will go off and fight for a cause which promises great things. It's similar to how some rich white men cavort off into the Peace Corps.
