IS crisis in Iraq and Syria

[The Romulan Republic]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... e20735854/

The U.S. conducted its first airstrikes in Syria, a major expansion of President Barack Obama’s effort to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the terrorist Islamic State.

“U.S. military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against ISIL terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said tonight in an e-mailed statement.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

Islamic State urges attacks on Canadian citizens in audio recording
Anti-terrorism laws being reviewed due to Islamic State, Harper says
A fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul, June 23, 2014.
VIDEO
Video: Followers urged to kill Canadians in new Islamic State video

OIL AND GAS
SPONSORED CONTENT
A new sea monster to save B.C from oil disasters
France opens Iraq conference urging "global" fight on jihadists. Katie Sargent reports
VIDEO
Video: Thirty countries gather to formulate response to Islamic State
The U.S. is seeking to reverse the advances of Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group that has seized a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria. The U.S. has conducted more than 190 airstrikes against Islamic State targets, all of them in Iraq until now. ISIL is an acronym for the group’s former name.

Obama said in a televised speech on Sept. 10 that he would “not hesitate to take action” against the group “in Syria as well as Iraq.”

“The decision to conduct theses strikes was made earlier today by the U.S. Central Command commander under authorization granted him by the commander in chief,” Kirby said tonight in his statement.

While Iraq’s government has invited the U.S. and other nations to help it fight Islamic State, no such request has come from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose ouster the U.S. seeks.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a U.S. Senate hearing on Sept. 17 that in helping to defend Iraq, “you have a right of hot pursuit, you have a right to be able to attack those people who are attacking you as a matter of self- defense.”

Russia’s Opposition

Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, whose country backs Assad, told the UN Security Council on Sept. 19 that any attacks inside Syria without Assad’s approval would be “considered illegal” under international law.

Some U.S. allies have also shown reluctance to extend the strikes into Iraq.

While France has joined the U.S. in airstrikes in Iraq, President Francois Hollande ruled out attacking in Syria.

“We’re very concerned with the aspects of international law,” Hollande said last week at a press conference. “We’ve been called in by the Iraqis; we’re not called on in Syria.”

Army General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing last week that about two-thirds of Islamic State’s personnel, which the Central Intelligence Agency estimates at roughly 20,000 to 31,500, are in Syria.

Dempsey told the panel that attacks on Syria “will not look like ‘shock and awe’” airstrikes that opened the 2003 Iraq War because that isn’t how Islamic State is organized, “but it will be persistent and sustainable.”

‘Targeted Actions’

“This plan includes targeted actions” against Islamic State positions, including “command and control, logistics capabilities and infrastructure,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week.

“Only in Syria can ISIS be defeated,” said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a former French diplomat who served in Syria and is now a professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, a university in Paris. ISIS is an acronym for a former name of Islamic State.

“The head of the snake is in Syria,” Filiu said by video teleconference at a forum today sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

As the U.S. expands its air campaign over Syria, the Pentagon has at its disposal manned B-1B bombers and F-16, F-15E and F/A-18 fighters. It also has Predator drones capable of dropping laser and satellite-guided bombs, including one with a 13-pound warhead called the AGM-176 Griffin.

Tomahawk Missiles

U.S. flexibility in hitting Islamic State targets also is aided by the capabilities of the latest version of Raytheon Co.’s Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be redirected in flight to new targets. The Navy has warships in the Persian Gulf capable of launching Tomahawks.

The latest Tomahawk’s “key advantage” is “you fly it and it can receive changes in targeting, changes in direction,” the Navy’s chief of operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, told reporters last year. “It can go up and actually loiter.”

Airstrikes are just the beginning of what will be needed to defeat Islamic State in what promises to be a years-long mission that ultimately will require some trained ground troops, said Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Washington Institute’s military and security studies program.

“On its own, it won’t be enough to defeat ISIS,” Eisenstadt said at the forum today.

While Obama is counting on Iraqi and moderate Syrian rebel ground troops, “Our battlefield partners in Iraq and Syria are not ready yet,” Eisenstadt said.

Training a 5,000-man force of Syrian rebels could take more than six months, said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq who also spoke at the forum.

[Channel72]

It is a truly rare case when things are pretty much this black and white. There is really zero moral gray area here; ISIL has pretty much exited the human race at this point - they have descended to Nazi level behavior. And that's not even an invocation of Godwin's Law - it's literal. ISIL is a genocidal, criminal organization with ZERO moral right to exist. At this point, the unfortunate reality is that military action to eradicate them is the only viable option.

If ISIL's support increases with US air strikes, the better questions to ask are

a. Can we kill more of them faster than their propaganda can recruit
b. Will less overt support lead to their weakening without being a recruiting tool, and if yes what groups are willing to fight them.

Well, the answer to (a) is of course trivially yes. The real question to ask is, can we kill them faster than their propaganda can recruit while minimizing innocent casualties and preserving as much of the existing Iraqi infrastructure as possible. So far, the US has drafted a pretty extensive list of targets in Iraq and Syria to economically and military cripple ISIL and their lines of support. The long-term goal is of course to destroy ISIL, but the short-term goal is also to cripple them and thus weaken their viability as a successful movement capable of recruiting in the first place. The intermin between these two goals is of course going to include various spikes in recruitment and determination on the part of ISIL.

But the reality is that despite the recent surge in recruitment, most Muslims don't give a fuck about ISIL. As the telegraph nicely put it, most Muslims care more about the World Cup than ISIL's stupid "Caliphate".

Also, read http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politic ... ction.html# for an interesting Islamic perspective.

At the end of the day, even al-Zawahiri and his Al-Qaeda network are rooting for Obama to eradicate ISIL. (ISIL has managed to somehow create common cause for the US, Iran and Al-Qaeda - a feat I would have deemed completely impossible two years ago.) ISIL basically attracts young, stupid recruits because they have a grandiose vision fueled by active violence - the sort of bullshit fantasy that tends to appeal to testosterone-driven teenage males - and they've been wildly successful... initially. They have zero support from the wider network of Islamic theologians. As soon as they start failing hard as they become overwhelmed by US/NATO airstrikes, we'll see how fast their recruitment and support disappears.

[jwl]

Well, yeah, the Big Meanies attack the people who slaughter unarmed/surrendered men, pass the women around as sex slaves/housekeepers/"wives", enslave and/or slaughter children and of course the supporters of such activity are going to rally around the "victims" whose rampage of death and torture is being impeded.



A conflict generally does have at least two sides. As the argument escalates people polarize. This is a surprise?

The age and lack of experience of the recruits is also telling, in my opinion. At least some of these young men are caught up in the romance of supporting a cause, but the reality is they will be pawns and cannon fodder.

If ISIL's support increases with US air strikes, the better questions to ask are

a. Can we kill more of them faster than their propaganda can recruit
b. Will less overt support lead to their weakening without being a recruiting tool, and if yes what groups are willing to fight them.

The answer to the first one is hell if I know, but given how hard its been to root out terrorist organisations (when one like AQ in Iraq weakens, another like ISIL rises in its place), I wouldn't be willing to place bets either way.

The answer to the second question is probably. They can't use the West as a bogey man if say Arab armies were the ones crushing them. The second part of the question has plenty of groups in that region willing to fight. Unfortunately a lot of them are most probably not strong enough to win, aside from people we don't want to deal with, Assad and Iran spring to mind.

Another important point to mull over is: how important are troop numbers compared to infrastructure and such? If you break up the technology, economy, and organisation of a group without reducing their numbers, you still have a weaker group.

[Channel72]

Holy shit... Obama is really taking these airstrikes to a new level.

So, the US is now not only bombing ISIS targets, but also various other terrorist cells, such as al-Nusra and some group I only just now heard of called Khorasan which alledgedly was planning various attacks in the US.

Obama also really went out of his way to make this whole initiative as politically palatable as possible by getting Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and UAE to participate in the air strikes.

Anyway, it looks like ISIS is basically fucked at this point.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/world/mea ... ?hpt=hp_t1

The United States is doing what it must to "take the fight to terrorists," leading a coalition of Arab nations in a series of airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State terror group in Syria, U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

At the same time, the United States took action -- on its own -- against another terrorist organization, the Khorasan Group. Obama described its members as "seasoned al Qaeda operatives in Syria."

U.S. officials said the group was plotting attacks against the United States and other Western targets.

The plots against the United States were discovered by the intelligence community in the past week, an intelligence source with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The source did not say what the target may have been, but said the plot potentially involved a bomb made of a nonmetallic device like a toothpaste container or clothes dipped in explosive material.

A plot involving concealed bombs on airplanes "was just one option they were looking at," a U.S. official said.

"Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people," Obama said in televised remarks from the White House.

Concern over a possible backlash by the terror groups has prompted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to issue a bulletin warning law enforcement agencies to be on heightened alert for lone-wolf terror attacks on U.S. soil in wake of the airstrikes, a U.S. law enforcement official with knowledge of the warning told CNN.

The bulletin calls for vigilance as well as scrutinizing social media for anyone encouraging violence in response to the strikes, according to a U.S. law enforcement official with knowledge of the warning's contents. It points to the use of social media as a tactic by ISIS to spread its message and call for violence.

It also advises agencies to look for changes in appearance or behavior in those they're tracking, the official said.

------

The airstrikes, meanwhile, appear to have taken a toll on another terror group, killing the leader of the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, according to a statement released by the group. It identified the leader as Abu Yousef al-Turki, also known as "The Turk."

The al-Nusra statement posted on Twitter was accompanied by a so-called proof-of-death -- a photograph -- of the former fighter.

CNN cannot independently verify al-Nusra's claims, but the monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the terror group was among those targeted during the airstrikes. The United States has not identified al-Nusra as a group targeted in the strikes.

The airstrikes that began early Tuesday morning local time "were only the beginning," Pentagon spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said. He declined to comment about future military operations.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan took part in airstrikes on ISIS targets, the U.S. military said. Qatar played a supporting role, the U.S. military said.

Saying he "made clear that America would act as part of a broad coalition," Obama said: "That's exactly what we've done."

"The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America's fight alone," the President said.

Obama met hours later with officials from the five Arab nations who make up the coalition. There was an a strong agreement that "the campaign against ISIS was a long-term one and they were all in it for the long haul," a senior State Department official with knowledge of the meeting said.

"Everyone at the table agreed there are times in the world when you need to take a stand," the official said on condition of anonymity.

But Syria warned the United States not to repeat the "American fiasco in Iraq by undertaking the same kind of blind military attacks," Bashar Ja'afari, Syria's ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN.

Strikes came in three waves

The airstrikes came in three waves, with coalition partners participating in the latter two, Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr. said Tuesday. The first wave, which mostly targeted the Khorasan Group, started at 3:30 a.m. (8:30 p.m. ET Monday) and involved U.S. ships firing missiles into eastern and northern Syria.

The second wave, 30 minutes later, involved planes striking northern Syria, with targets including ISIS headquarters, training camps and combat vehicles. The third wave, begun shortly after 7 a.m., involved planes targeting ISIS training camps and combat vehicles in eastern Syria, Mayville said.

It's too early to say what effect the U.S. strikes had against the Khorasan Group, Mayville said.

The airstrikes against ISIS focused primarily on the city of Raqqa, the declared capital of ISIS' self-proclaimed Islamic State.

The operation began with a flurry of Tomahawk missiles launched from the sea, followed by attacks from bomber and fighter aircraft, a senior U.S. military official told CNN.

The goal: Taking out ISIS' ability to command, train and resupply its militants.

In all, 200 pieces of ordnance were dropped by coalition members, and four dozen aircraft were used, a U.S. official told CNN. About 150 weapons used were precision-guided munitions. The United States fired 47 Tomahawk missiles, eight of them against Khorasan targets.

The strikes marked the first time the United States used F-22 Raptor stealth aircraft in a combat role. The military has previously run into problems with the aircraft.

The number of casualties was not immediately clear. But U.S. Central Command said the strikes damaged or destroyed ISIS targets including fighters, training compounds, command-and-control facilities, a finance center and supply trucks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 70 ISIS militants were killed and more than 300 were wounded. But CNN and other news outlets were unable to confirm the figures.

Celebration amid fear

For months, civilians in Raqqa have been living under the harsh rule of ISIS after militants took over their city, which had been one of Syria's most liberal cities. The group now controls much of their lives, imposing a strict brand of Sharia law and doling out barbaric punishments, such as beheadings and crucifixions.

Abo Ismail, an opposition activist inside Raqqa, said Tuesday that residents were elated to see the U.S. attacking ISIS targets there.

But at the same time, he said, ISIS has increased security in the city.

"I would dance in the streets, but I am too afraid," Ismail said.

A U.S. intelligence official said that while law enforcement is aware the airstrikes against ISIS in Syria could incite a response, there is no evidence to suggest any terrorist strike is in the works against the United States.

The inclusion of Sunni-majority countries fighting a radical Sunni militant group sends a strong message, former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd said.

"Prominent religious leaders have said ISIS is not representative of Islam, and now you have countries that are coming to the fore to attack it," he said.

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi welcomed news of the coalition airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, so long as they "do it right this time."

While he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour it was good some Arab nations joined the fight, he said he wished they had understood and acted on the danger posed by ISIS sooner.

"We have warned ... this is going to end in a bloodbath if nobody stops it," he said. "Nobody was listening."

Iran lashed out at the air campaign. Meeting with journalists at the United Nations, where world leaders are gathering for the General Assembly this week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said there was no legal basis for the strikes without U.N. authorization or an invitation from the Syrian government.

But U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told CNN that a number of countries, including Iran, were told the United States would be taking action.

"We obviously didn't say exactly when or where. We wanted to make sure that nobody got in our way," he said.

The United States defended its actions in a letter to the U.N. secretary-seneral, invoking Article 51 of the U.N. charter -- acting when a country is unwilling or unable to handle a threat itself.

"The Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront these safe havens effectively itself," Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., wrote in a letter obtained by CNN. "Accordingly, the United States has initiated necessary and proportionate military actions in Syria."

I don't know how seriously to take these heightened "terror alerts" from "lone wolfs". I doubt anything serious will happen, but I'll be a bit wary in Penn station this week I suppose...

[jwl]

I'm not sure if attacking al-Nusra at this point is wise. I know they are al-Qaeda, but they are currently big enemies of Daesh and are not as bad as them. This could drive al-Nusra and Daesh back together as a unified fighting force. I would leave them alone for the time being and only attack them when Daesh has been significantly weakened.

[TheHammer]

I'm not sure if attacking al-Nusra at this point is wise. I know they are al-Qaeda, but they are currently big enemies of Daesh and are not as bad as them. This could drive al-Nusra and Daesh back together as a unified fighting force. I would leave them alone for the time being and only attack them when Daesh has been significantly weakened.

Good. Then that will make them easier to target.

I believe the strategy here is that by striking all of these groups at once, you don't leave them to inhabit the power vacuum that will arise by destroying just one of them. Instead, you destroy all three and, in theory, the more moderate groups we hope to fill the vacuum are left the only ones around to do it.

[K. A. Pital]

Moderate groups do not thrive in hell, which is pretty much what Iraq and Syria were turned into by years of civil war.

[TheHammer]

Moderate groups do not thrive in hell, which is pretty much what Iraq and Syria were turned into by years of civil war.

They may not thrive, but they may survive if most of the demons are killed first...

[Broomstick]

Moderate groups do not thrive in hell, which is pretty much what Iraq and Syria were turned into by years of civil war.

That's just a goddamn shame, because intervening in civil war doesn't bring good results, and NOT intervening in civil war allows atrocities which breed evil when then spills over the border.

Not that I have a good answer here, but people seem to be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

[K. A. Pital]

Moderate groups do not thrive in hell, which is pretty much what Iraq and Syria were turned into by years of civil war.

They may not thrive, but they may survive if most of the demons are killed first...

Internvention in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places made them worse. Unless one is willing to occupy the place with like 10 million troops and rebuild it from the ground up, it is probably best not to bother. Even then it may be a failure.

[jwl]

I'm not sure if attacking al-Nusra at this point is wise. I know they are al-Qaeda, but they are currently big enemies of Daesh and are not as bad as them. This could drive al-Nusra and Daesh back together as a unified fighting force. I would leave them alone for the time being and only attack them when Daesh has been significantly weakened.

Good. Then that will make them easier to target.

I believe the strategy here is that by striking all of these groups at once, you don't leave them to inhabit the power vacuum that will arise by destroying just one of them. Instead, you destroy all three and, in theory, the more moderate groups we hope to fill the vacuum are left the only ones around to do it.

Good point I suppose.

[Siege]

Internvention in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places made them worse.

Whilst that is true at least in the case of Iraq, UN/NATO intervention in the Bosnian War made life better for the Bosniaks. And the Provide Comfort/Northern Watch no fly zone made life in Kurdistan better too. Air power may not be a solution in and of itself, but there is precedent for it improving conditions for people on the ground.

The matter is more complex than a binary intervention good/no good, the effectiveness of air power (and indeed ground power) depends greatly on ground conditions and indeed its own goals and terms. If the goal is 'keep shooting until someone tolerable takes power' with no cost or time limits attached then strikes may just work, eventually, for some values of 'work'. How realistic that is, is another matter. But I wouldn't say that air strikes are a bad idea per se.

[Channel72]

Internvention in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places made them worse.

Whilst that is true at least in the case of Iraq, UN/NATO intervention in the Bosnian War made life better for the Bosniaks. And the Provide Comfort/Northern Watch no fly zone made life in Kurdistan better too. Air power may not be a solution in and of itself, but there is precedent for it improving conditions for people on the ground.

The matter is more complex than a binary intervention good/no good, the effectiveness of air power (and indeed ground power) depends greatly on ground conditions and indeed its own goals and terms. If the goal is 'keep shooting until someone tolerable takes power' with no cost or time limits attached then strikes may just work, eventually, for some values of 'work'. How realistic that is, is another matter. But I wouldn't say that air strikes are a bad idea per se.

Yeah, in fact before ISIS poured into Iraq, the Iraqi Dawa government was more or less working. Of course, it had major problems (too biased towards Shia, corrupt, etc.) but the problems weren't really worse than problems faced by various other functional governments in the Middle East/North Africa. At least, around 2012 it was certainly working better than I expected, at least. So if ISIS can be neutralized, and the new government can be more inclusive of Sunnis, I think it could work reasonably well.

Of course, the typical argument is always "kill ISIS and some other group will just emerge... etc." Yeah... that's true to an extent. There are a lot of Jihadist groups in Syria especially, and there's nothing really to stop new ones from forming. But so what? There's hundreds of Jihadist groups - most of them aren't anywhere near capable of overrunning a national military and forming their own state. ISIS is pretty unique in that regard, and was only successful because of a "perfect storm" of political events: Syrian civil war + Iraq war + de-facto power vacuum in Iraq due to weak Iraqi government which excluded Sunnis. The chances of this sort of perfect environment emerging again are pretty small, meaning that while Jihadist groups will always be around, it's reasonable to assume that something as well organized and effective as ISIS isn't going to just pop up every day.

Plus, more broadly speaking, the reality is that the US "war on terror" sort of actually works to some extent. I mean, does anyone even give a shit about Al Qaeda anymore? Al-Zawahiri is literally desperate for attention at this point. Organized terror networks have been hit pretty hard, to the extent that they are mostly only regionally effective, and the greatest danger in Europe and the US right now is random "lone-wolf" attacks, which are pretty much impossible to stop by definition.

[Borgholio]

First U.A.E female pilot leads strike against ISIS.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... ?tid=sm_fb

Maj. Mariam al-Mansouri, the first female fighter pilot in the history of the United Arab Emirates, led the the Gulf state's bombing raids over Syria this week. Photos of al-Mansouri, beaming from her cockpit, that were released by the country's state news agency have taken social media by storm.

The 35-year-old squadron commander was likely part of sorties that dropped bombs on Islamic State positions in Syria's Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa provinces. Some reports suggest that she even spearheaded her country's mission, which complemented the parallel efforts of four other Arab states backing the U.S.: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar.

According to a profile in the National, the Abu Dhabi-born al-Mansouri harbored an ambition to join the air force since her teenage years, but had to bide her time until women were permitted to enlist. She graduated Khalifa bin Zayed Air College in 2007 and is now a veteran F-16 pilot.

In earlier interviews, al-Mansouri has insisted that she received no special treatment because of her gender. "Everyone is required to have the same high level of combat competence," she told Deraa Al Watan, a U.A.E. magazine.

It's not clear how vital her and her compatriots' efforts were in the air campaign against the Islamic State, which is entrenched over a vast swath of territory in Syria and Iraq. More important was the sheer fact of her presence. "While Arab participation in the strikes is of more symbolic than military value," writes the Wall Street Journal's Ahmed Al Omran, "analysts described it as a bold move for a group of countries that for long preferred to act via proxies instead of any direct involvement."

The symbolism of a female fighter pilot bringing the heat to the women-enslaving Islamic State ought be lost on no one and is useful propaganda for the Emiratis. To that end, Saudi Arabia also released pictures of its pilots who took part in airstrikes, including Prince Khaled bin Salman, the son of the kingdom's crown prince. Long blamed for their listlessness and inaction, the kingdoms of the Gulf may try to change their image in the ongoing campaign.

In terms of gender equality, the U.A.E. stands in relative contrast to Saudi Arabia, where women are not permitted to drive cars, don't have voting rights (more enlightened rules come into effect in 2015), and cope with a whole regime of draconian, religious laws that circumscribe all aspects of their lives. On the same day al-Mansouri won plaudits for her role in the airstrikes, debate broke out in Saudi Arabia over the propriety of a woman — clad head to toe in conservative garb — who was filmed riding a horse while waving a Saudi flag.

The U.A.E. is no paragon of women's rights either. Female migrant workers in the country face harrowing conditions and abuse, while Emirati laws still don't provide legal recourse for marital rape. Men also have license to discipline their wives and children through physical violence. And extramarital sex can land you in legal trouble. In one notorious case last year, a Norwegian woman received a 16-month prison sentence after she reported being raped to the police, who did not believe her claim that the act was non-consensual. The international outcry that followed eventually led to a pardon, but it underlined how much more progress the U.A.E. still has to make, despite al-Mansouri's bravery and skill.

Hey ISIS. You were bombed by a woman. Have a nice day!

Seriously though, a female Arab fighter pilot. That's a step in the right direction.

[Dartzap]

Parliament is currently debating and then voting on action in Iraq, may not be watchable outside of the UK

[Channel72]

Hey ISIS. You were bombed by a woman. Have a nice day!

And she wasn't even wearing a hijab (GASP!)

[FaxModem1]

Fox News correspondents make jokes about first female UAE pilot, rest of the planet feels shame:

E online

News/
Watch the Idiots at Fox News Call UAE's First Female Fighter Pilot "Boobs on the Ground"

by Jenna Mullins Thu., Sep. 25, 2014 12:38 PM PDT

UPDATE: Eric Bolling apologized for his "boobs on the ground" remark during Thursday night's airing of The Five:

"I made a joke and when I got home, I got the look," Bolling said, referring to his wife. "I said sorry to my wife and I apologize to you all and want to make that very clear."

________

We're not sure what's worse about this situation: the fact that these men are allowed to speak or the fact that we aren't even a little bit surprised that this is coming out of a Fox News segment.

On Wednesday night, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle was doing a segment on Mariam Al Mansouri, also known as the United Arab Emirates female fighter pilot who led the ISIS airstrike mission over Syria earlier this week. Also known as the first female fighter pilot coming out of the UAE. Also known as a great role model/complete badass.

NEWS: Emma Watson's #HeForShe campaign gains major traction in Hollywood

Guilfoyle seemed equally impressed and enthusiastic about Mansouri's role in the ISIS strike, calling it "very exciting."

"I hope that hurt extra bad because in some Arab countries women can't even drive," she said gleefully.

And then her fellow hosts, Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld, opened their mouths, and women and mature men everywhere hung their heads in shame, because they share a planet with these two.

"The problem is after she bombed it, she couldn't park [the plane]" interrupted Gutfeld, who we believe took that bit from an 53-year-old man who is trying his hand at stand-up comedy after he got fired from his desk job for sexual harassment and goes to comedy clubs on amateur night to try out jokes and no one laughs at him and actual tumbleweeds blow across the stage.

PHOTOS: Stars' cringe-worthy feminism quotes

And then Bolling cut in with a cutting-edge, witty, well thought out…sorry, we couldn't even finish typing that lie because this is what Bolling added to the conversation:

"Would that be considered boobs on the ground or no?"

And now we have confirmed that Bolling took that little number from a 12-year-old boy from Canton, Ohio, who giggles when anyone says the word "Homo sapien" because it has the word "homo" in it.
Idiots GIF

Fox News: bringing you chauvinistic comments, boob jokes and no actual news since 1996.

RELATED: Jon Stewart is outraged at Fox News over their coverage of Ferguson

For those who don't look at women as just a pair of boobs (and we call those people "intelligent human beings"), here's more about Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri:
Mariam Al Mansouri AP Photo/Emirates News Agency, WAM

• She is 35 years old and graduated from flight school in 2007.
• She was one of the first of three females to join the Emirati air force after it started admitting women.
• She flew an F-16 Desert Falcon during the airstrikes against ISIS over Syria.
• She has a degree in English literature and served in the Army before enrolling in flight training.
• Yousef Al Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, called her "a fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot."

We call her a hero.

What we call those two things at Fox News are not fit to print here.

Way to undercut a trendsetter and hero, Fox News.

[K. A. Pital]

Boobs on the ground? Dicks on air, more like it.

[Channel72]

And... the Brits are in.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/20 ... 86715.html

[Channel72]

So, predictably, the air strikes have essentially driven ISIS into a more "defensive" mode, however they are adapting.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 17974.html

More ISIL sites in Syria hit by US air raids

Warplanes from the US-led coalition have bombed oil installations and other facilities in territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in eastern Syria for a second consecutive day, activists said.

The strikes reportedly hit two oil areas in Deir ez-Zour province on Friday, a day after the US and its Arab allies attacked a dozen makeshift oil producing facilities in the same area near Syria's border with Iraq.

The US Central Command said three air strikes south and southeast of Deir ez-Zour destroyed four ISIL tanks and damaged another.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes overnight and early on Friday hit the Tink oil field as well as the Qouriyeh oil-producing area in Deir ez-Zour.

The raids aim to cripple one of ISIL's primary sources of cash - black market oil sales that the US says earn up to $2m a day.

The Observatory and another activist collective, the Local Coordination Committees, also reported strikes on the town of Mayadeen, including on the ISIL headquarters.

Deir ez-Zour, which borders Iraq, is almost entirely controlled by ISIL and was a major oil-producing province before Syria's conflict began more than three years ago.

Strikes also hit areas southeast of the city of Hasakah, close to the Iraqi border. They targeted ISIL, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch the Nusra Front and other fighters, the Observatory said.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, following the conflict from neighbouring Beirut, said the strikes on ISIL would undoubtedly weaken the group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.

"They'll be on the defensive, they won't be able to expand the territory they control. It will be hard for fighters to move from one area to another, especially in large convoys.

"But now ISIL is adapting to the air strikes, hiding among civilians. It will be very hard to defeat the group."

Reports from the ground said dozens of fighters, from ISIL and the Nusra Front, as well as some civilians, have been killed since the US-led coalition began its bombing campaign in Syria early on Tuesday.

Hundreds of civilians and soldiers have been killed in ISIL's fight to take control of territory in the east and north of Syria and in neighbouring Iraq. The widely-feared group has attacked minorities in both countries and drawn international outrage after the beheading of two American journalists and a British aid worker.

But the foreign intervention has been met with mixed reactions among Syrians, with the political opposition saying the US and its allies should also strike the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Protests against the strikes were held in several towns on Friday, some in support of the Nusra Front.

The air campaign is led by the US, supported by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and France.

So basically, the air strikes have stopped ISIS from advancing, for the most part, but ISIS is predictably adapting by mixing with the local populations. At this point, it's going to take a lot of on-the-ground effort from the Syrians, Kurds, and Iraqis to really dismantle ISIS... which is a lot harder than just launching Tomahawk missles and calling it a day.

[Grumman]

So basically, the air strikes have stopped ISIS from advancing, for the most part, but ISIS is predictably adapting by mixing with the local populations.

I was expecting this to happen at some point. But it's not a bad thing - it makes ISIS less capable of committing atrocities if they can't just march over in the open and start murdering people, and it should make ISIS less capable of recruiting since they're trying to sell themselves as a new empire and not just an organised crime syndicate with delusions of grandeur.

[Broomstick]

Hey ISIS. You were bombed by a woman. Have a nice day!

And she wasn't even wearing a hijab (GASP!)

It's not like a typical flight suit for an F-series fighter + facemask leave a whole lot of exposed flesh anyway....

Pilots in fighter jets are an area where neither gender has the advantage.

[Borgholio]

Pilots in fighter jets are an area where neither gender has the advantage.

What about the idea that female fighter pilots are capable of withstanding higher G-forces than men, allowing them to maneuver more aggressively?

[Block]

Pilots in fighter jets are an area where neither gender has the advantage.

What about the idea that female fighter pilots are capable of withstanding higher G-forces than men, allowing them to maneuver more aggressively?

Pretty much negated by modern flight suits if I remember correctly.

[Broomstick]

Women do seem to have an edge in g-tolerance but it's not a huge edge, and there's a considerable variation between individuals. As noted, largely eliminated through modern g-suits.

Among the highest performers women tend to outperform men at aerobatics, but such maneuvers are not the only factor in actual military aviation. The highest end men are certainly competitive with the highest level of women, the big trophies in aerobatics don't always go to the women.