I've been saying it for months, but there is SO much here that is waiting to be unearthed. Mueller is not sticking to any specific, narrow spectrum here. He is, now, ostensibly, not only looking at collusion, but illegal work as foreign agents, money laundering, and the obstruction of justice issue (which I already think Trump is 100% guilty of, and will be made more clear in the Comey hearings next week). Either everyone is going to take a bullet for this guy, or one or more of them is going to save their own ass. And that is all it will take. Furthermore, there is a possibility Trump will try prevent Comey from testifying by citing Executive privilege. If he hadn't have been as dumb as he is, maybe that could have worked. But he not only fired Comey, he also discussed everything Comey will be talking about in a TV interview with Lester Holt and on Twitter. He waived it without even realizing it. Again, these people are far too stupid not to get caught. And they will be.
Devin Nunes, the California Republican who supposedly stepped aside from the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, on Wednesday, was again using his power as chairman to issue subpoenas related to the inquiry.
He subpoenaed people, mostly Obama officials to get to the bottom of the unmasking of Trump associates treasons from classified reports because what's really important is who spoke up about the treason, not the treason itself.
Jeff Sessions lied under oath (we now know he had TWO meetings he didn't disclose in his Senate testimony) and SUPPOSEDLY recused himself from the Russia investigation, yet he was instrumental in firing Comey. That is not recusal. Devin Nunes was caught getting info from the White House directly, pretending it was from an intelligence source, then doing on a dog and pony show for the cameras and bringing it to the White House as if the info hadn't originated from there in the first place. He ALSO recused himself, and is now getting directly involved. The plan seems to be if they wait 4 or 5 weeks, everyone will just forget that this is the case.
I'm telling you, this is simply NOT the behavior of a group of people with nothing to hide. There is CONSTANT lying about meetings with Russian officials (and only Russian officials it seems). You would have to believe that every major player in this White House has one of the worst memories in the world to believe they are simply "forgetting" these things took place. I still remember exact conversations that took place decades ago, and these people FORGOT they talked to the Russian officials MULTIPLE times?? The fact is this: if there was nothing nefarious going on, there is absolutely no upside to lying under oath or negating to mention them on your security clearance. If there is no wrongdoing, you tell the truth and offer the information. Flynn, Sessions, Kushner....every single one of them has, without question, tried to cover-up their meetings with Russian officials. If there was nothing going on, why do this?? Would they have us believe they are risking perjury, or, in the case of lying on the security clearance form, a felony, simply for shits and giggles??
Say your kid comes home and insists to you he hasn't been smoking while out with his friends. You then find a empty pack of Camels in the trash can in the garage a few days later. You confront him about this and he says "oh, right....you know what Dad, I DID smoke those cigarettes, but it wasn't what you think. I have a totally innocent explanation for why." And then you stand there and wait for the explanation to come. If you're waiting for the Trump Administration's explanation for the cigarettes, you've been standing there for months now. Point being, you would never trust your kid to tell the truth about smoking again. But plenty of people are sure giving the benefit of the doubt to these people who have been caught lying time after time about the exact same issue.
To me they're candy cigarettes. Nothing's going to come of this because I don't think most people care about the Russian supposed 'interference'. Just ask around. Even my liberal acquaintances at work don't care about this issue anymore.
To me they're candy cigarettes. Nothing's going to come of this because I don't think most people care about the Russian supposed 'interference'. Just ask around. Even my liberal acquaintances at work don't care about this issue anymore.
Sorry...
Honestly I think this has soured the milk. Even if the republicans manage to keep the house / senate in 2018, I highly doubt Trump is going to be able to recover in time for the next presidential election. Especially given that a recession is bound to take place in the next 4 years (voters tend to vote out whoever is in charge at the start of a recession).
To me they're candy cigarettes. Nothing's going to come of this because I don't think most people care about the Russian supposed 'interference'. Just ask around. Even my liberal acquaintances at work don't care about this issue anymore.
Sorry...
Honestly I think this has soured the milk. Even if the republicans manage to keep the house / senate in 2018, I highly doubt Trump is going to be able to recover in time for the next presidential election. Especially given that a recession is bound to take place in the next 4 years (voters tend to vote out whoever is in charge at the start of a recession).
I'd be surprised if Trump even runs for re-election. He's out of his element and he's being exposed. Unless he starts listening to his advisors (unlikely with his personality type), he's going to burn out quickly...
To me they're candy cigarettes. Nothing's going to come of this because I don't think most people care about the Russian supposed 'interference'. Just ask around. Even my liberal acquaintances at work don't care about this issue anymore.
Sorry...
Honestly I think this has soured the milk. Even if the republicans manage to keep the house / senate in 2018, I highly doubt Trump is going to be able to recover in time for the next presidential election. Especially given that a recession is bound to take place in the next 4 years (voters tend to vote out whoever is in charge at the start of a recession).
Well, the Republicans have almost no chance of losing the Senate because of what States are up for re-election. The House is another matter entirely. The healthcare vote is going to destroy them. If Ossof wins in GA in the next few weeks here (and I think he will), we are only looking at 23 seats. The most likely scenario in 2018, right now, is a Democratic House, a Senate that looks like it does now, and Trump either still embattled by the Mueller investigation, or hanging on for dear life. It's not really a question of IF there was wrong-doing. It's if the Republicans are willing to go down with this ship. All signs point to that being the case. They will carry water for him to the gates of hell.
I agree about the recession as well. It's simply very likely we are going to see an economic downturn. Obama didn't set the world of fire with the economy after the Bush recession, but you can't argue that it wasn't steady and stable for most of his term. There was a slow recovery, and then things pretty much just flattened out.
One thing I never see get much play as to how popular the ruling party is is gas prices. By the last year of Obama's term, gas was down to $2 a gallon (for the most part). That's pretty damn good considering I remember it being higher than $3.50 for years previous. A simple $1 difference in gas prices can save a family thousands of dollars a year. It's probably THE most tangible financial element most people see besides their paycheck. If they start to climb back up, that's not good news for anyone in charge.
I wouldn't predict an economic downturn very soon. Very little is happening in terms of legislation, and bad policy would take time to have a negative impact. Things are probably just going to keep going much as they are now in terms of economic growth.
Living standards, taxes, and inequality are more likely to change in the near future.
Growth had returned to normal levels by 2010. After that, we were maintaining the typical growth rate for advanced economies (2% is the historical average going back for 200 years) up to now. Same goes for unemployment.
And before somebody says unemployment figures don't represent underemployment, that's always been true. Underemployment and discouraged workers were always present during economic downturns; this is just the first time we've been paying attention to the issue. It's a problem regardless, but it's not like the Great Recession or the recovery were unique in that sense.
The dip in oil prices was the result of a Saudi Arabian decision. It was awful for the Russian economy (thank Putin for making Russia into an undiversified petro state), but good for U.S. consumers. Whether the Obama administration had any role in that decision, behind the scenes, is another question. Saudi Arabia works with us, but it's not like we can just make them change their economic policies.
Despite the growth rate, wages have remained stagnant for 20 years for women and 50 years for men. Aside from a slight increase in the late Obama years, they didn't change much. Most of the economic gains went to the folks at the top of the economic ladder.
In January next year, it'll be the one-year mark and we can start making judgments about the Trump administration's performance. But I think we'll mostly see more of the same trends for the rest of his term.
Another day, another series of European terror attacks. Seemingly more than one today.
As i've shown before, across the whole of Europe a Trump-esque travel ban has majority support. Yet for whatever reason the misguided, aching conscience of their leaders compels them to make sacrifices out of their own people.
In the U.K especially two of the very biggest issues are Brexit and immigration. Not hard to see why.
"An eyewitness on London Bridge, told the BBC he saw three men stabbing people indiscriminately, shouting "this is for Allah" in a "rampage"."
I would wager that there is a reason for the "misguided, aching conscience of their leaders".
What would you propose they do? Ban Muslims? Would that make the problem better? Or would that make them more determined to hurt the West?
What about the Muslims already in their countries not making terror attacks? Would they be happy their brothers and sisters can't come? Would they speak well of their western countries once they stopped letting in their brothers and sisters? Either among themselves or to outsiders? Walls and bans are not the answer. They are an easy answer but they are not a solution.
What should we do? There's no magic one step solution. Trump's solution to drugs - "uh build a wall, all drugs stopped!" is laughable in that situation and laughable as a response to terror.
I think we have to go to the 'Art of War' or something. We have to win without fighting. Convince your enemy that they've lost. Or convince them to stop we're actually not a bunch of intolerant racists, then maybe they would not bother, they'd set their sights on other things. It might require us to actually, you know tolerate muslims, maybe learn more about their way of life. I said it wouldn't be easy. Yeah I don't know. Walls and bans are simplistic and won't work.
It might require us to actually, you know tolerate muslims
Well, some might say we already do. As in "We're kinda forced to without ever having been asked".
I have never in my life been asked my opinion or what my view was on how I felt about "tolerating" a certain group of people, nor has it ever crossed my mind that it is something I should be worried or complain about. What exactly would be your interaction with Muslims if some amorphous something wasn't forcing you to tolerate them??
Well, some might say we already do. As in "We're kinda forced to without ever having been asked".
The law does indeed require you to tolerate muslims - but then it requires you to tolerate everybody. Would you really want to live in a country where that was not the case?
It's not like the West has been acting like a bunch of meek children in dealing with terrorism. In the US we bombed two countries back to the stone-age (one of which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 at all, and in fact was probably a bulwark against terrorists because of Saddam's dictatorship). We were told for 8 years how much safer it would make us, make the West. Hard to overstate just how much that DIDN'T work out. Obama went absolutely nuts with his drone program. We kill terrorists on a weekly basis. We also kill people at weddings who are in the general vicinity. Clearly, NOTHING is making it better, or at least anything we've been doing for nearly the past 20 years.
Travel bans are a form of surrender. Especially for a multicultural & multilingual metropolis like London which has gained so much from freedom. If anyone thinks that a majority of Londoners favour such a policy, or that a few outbursts of violence are likely to change their opinion of the matter, then I'm sure a visit to the city will disabuse you of the notion.
A big part of being a terrorist is being too weak to wage an actual war and lacking the support to make any major difference through normal political means. So you use terror to create fear and to appear stronger than you actually are. That's why I think things like travel bans and traditional warfare, like the Iraq war, are just counterproductive. Because you are basically buying the lie the terrorists feed you and start fighting on the wrong fronts and often with the wrong people.
A big part of being a terrorist is being too weak to wage an actual war and lacking the support to make any major difference through normal political means. So you use terror to create fear and to appear stronger than you actually are. That's why I think things like travel bans and traditional warfare, like the Iraq war, are just counterproductive. Because you are basically buying the lie the terrorists feed you and start fighting on the wrong fronts and often with the wrong people.
Saying that some things doesn't work isn't the same as saying that we shouldn't do anything at all. I don't understand why people so often seem to assume this.
There's been a lot of research on terrorism and how to prevent it. And the usual answer is that there is no easy solution, or even combinations of solutions that always work. One thing we should do however is look more into what that research tells us. Like how many people who join terrorist groups become disillusioned and deeply regret it, but have no way to get out of it again. Or how terror attacks are an effective strategy because they create exactly the kind of reaction terrorists wants, which makes it easier for them to recruit even more potential terrorists.
So in the end, I don't know how to prevent terrorism. Because no one really knows. We just have a lot of experience in what doesn't work. And the best thing we can do is listen more to the people who at least know a bit more of the mechanisms that create terrorism.
In the long run it's education and time itself that will end it. Progress is leaving pockets of people behind which causes resentment. Leaders with agendas recognise that and recruit these folks to further their purposes.
Monitoring the internet, as proposed by the British PM, might be a good start. Not sure how that could be done and still preserve the freedom of the web though.
I don't think I've ever seen a national leader try score political points on the backs of the dead bodies of victims faster than Trump does with terrorist attacks. I mean, some do eventually, but how about a 12 hour grace period.
And it's not like the UK and London are incompetent in this regard. They pulled off the Olympics in 2012 without a hitch, and they've been on heightened alert for the past two weeks. Almost 10 million people live in London. Sorry to say, but there is no way you can find and stop every maniac willing to kill with a knife or a van.
In the long run it's education and time itself that will end it. Progress is leaving pockets of people behind which causes resentment. Leaders with agendas recognise that and recruit these folks to further their purposes.
Monitoring the internet, as proposed by the British PM, might be a good start. Not sure how that could be done and still preserve the freedom of the web though.
I mean, they're already allowing the selling of our browser history to telcoms, and the ads on the internet and my smart-phone are already tailor-made as if a cord had been injected in my brain Matrix-style, so yeah....maybe so. How much worse could it get?? It's already pretty clear our web browsing is in no way "private", so I'm not even sure we'd be surrendering something we haven't lost already.
I don't care what there opinion of us becomes as a result of protecting our citizens. Their opinion is not worth a single life. Obviously, opening our borders and singing cumbaya is not a solution and never has been. Appeasement not only doesn't work but is a direct insult to the dead. I see no reason at all to continue that course.
And yet no matter how often they occur, how brutal they are, how frequent they become, or how little popular support open borders have, they will probably remain unless May remains and keeps to the Conservative Manifesto but im not holding out hope. Is it really any wonder we are seeing a growing nationalism? It looks like the logical consequence of what is being crammed down our throats.
Is it really any wonder we are seeing a growing nationalism? It looks like the logical consequence of what is being crammed down our throats.
You could turn that argument around and ask is it any wonder we are seeing more terrorism given the growing nationalism?
Terrorism is not a huge threat to Western society unless we choose to make it so. In the USA incidents classed as terrorism (all forms, the majority of which are not islamic) have resulted in 200-300 deaths a year in recent history. Contrast that with the 15,000 or so murders annually and the 10,000+ gun deaths not classed as murder. Or how about the 30,000+ deaths in road traffic accidents every year?
I'm not suggesting that terrorism is not a significant issue, but the threat shouldn't be blown out of proportion. Nor should we effectively (and actually in some cases) wage war on islamic populations - that will just continue to provide willing recruits (and most terrorist incidents are perpetrated by citizens of the countries targeted rather than immigrants).
We should be targeting terrorist behavior, but not by suggesting that everyone in particular countries is a potential terrorist. That makes about as much sense as if other countries refused Americans the right to travel on the grounds that, because 1% of the adult population are in prison, everyone is a potential criminal.
I don't care what there opinion of us becomes as a result of protecting our citizens. Their opinion is not worth a single life. Obviously, opening our borders and singing cumbaya is not a solution and never has been. Appeasement not only doesn't work but is a direct insult to the dead. I see no reason at all to continue that course.
And yet no matter how often they occur, how brutal they are, how frequent they become, or how little popular support open borders have, they will probably remain unless May remains and keeps to the Conservative Manifesto but im not holding out hope. Is it really any wonder we are seeing a growing nationalism? It looks like the logical consequence of what is being crammed down our throats.
Who are we appeasing?? Are you seriously suggesting we haven't tried bombing the shit out of as many Middle-Eastern countries as possible?? And the UK was right there with us the whole time. May just said we have been too tolerant of Islamic extremism. In what world?? Western military strikes are killing terrorists constantly. Crammed down whose throat?? There hasn't been a single refugee who has committed a terrorist attack in the US, and as for this particular one in Britain, for all we know, they may have been born in the UK. We don't know yet. But open borders have had nothing to do with terrorist attacks in the US, as nearly every one of them has been committed by someone who was born here or a legal citizen.
So what is the solution....arrest and deport all Muslims in the UK?? And let's remember who is charge over there, and the explicit promises made by the proponents of Brexit and the Conservative Party and Theresa May. This is coming straight on the heels of Manchester. If their philosophy, which is ascendant right now, is the magic bullet, why are these things still happening?? How come the law and order crowd can't seem to protect it's citizens any better the the so-called "weak-minded liberals"?? I also seem to remember one Donald Trump saying he had a plan that would defeat ISIS "very quickly". That seems to be working out well so far.
And let's never lose sight of one simple fact: ISIS only exists today because of the Iraq War. That is their spawn pool. We disbanded the majority Sunni military after we and the UK invaded the wrong country, and killed a couple 100,000 civilians. Those former Iraqi military men were turned loose in a country we decimated with our bombs, and this is the result anyone who had any knowledge of the situation in the Middle East was predicting in 2003. ISIS was the inevitable result of our actions. They exist because George Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Bremer, and Tony Blair literally CREATED them with the Iraq War, but more specifically, with the decisions made during the occupation.
Comments
I've been saying it for months, but there is SO much here that is waiting to be unearthed. Mueller is not sticking to any specific, narrow spectrum here. He is, now, ostensibly, not only looking at collusion, but illegal work as foreign agents, money laundering, and the obstruction of justice issue (which I already think Trump is 100% guilty of, and will be made more clear in the Comey hearings next week). Either everyone is going to take a bullet for this guy, or one or more of them is going to save their own ass. And that is all it will take. Furthermore, there is a possibility Trump will try prevent Comey from testifying by citing Executive privilege. If he hadn't have been as dumb as he is, maybe that could have worked. But he not only fired Comey, he also discussed everything Comey will be talking about in a TV interview with Lester Holt and on Twitter. He waived it without even realizing it. Again, these people are far too stupid not to get caught. And they will be.
He subpoenaed people, mostly Obama officials to get to the bottom of the unmasking of Trump associates treasons from classified reports because what's really important is who spoke up about the treason, not the treason itself.
Straight up sabotage.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-un-recusal-of-devin-nunes/528882/
I'm telling you, this is simply NOT the behavior of a group of people with nothing to hide. There is CONSTANT lying about meetings with Russian officials (and only Russian officials it seems). You would have to believe that every major player in this White House has one of the worst memories in the world to believe they are simply "forgetting" these things took place. I still remember exact conversations that took place decades ago, and these people FORGOT they talked to the Russian officials MULTIPLE times?? The fact is this: if there was nothing nefarious going on, there is absolutely no upside to lying under oath or negating to mention them on your security clearance. If there is no wrongdoing, you tell the truth and offer the information. Flynn, Sessions, Kushner....every single one of them has, without question, tried to cover-up their meetings with Russian officials. If there was nothing going on, why do this?? Would they have us believe they are risking perjury, or, in the case of lying on the security clearance form, a felony, simply for shits and giggles??
Say your kid comes home and insists to you he hasn't been smoking while out with his friends. You then find a empty pack of Camels in the trash can in the garage a few days later. You confront him about this and he says "oh, right....you know what Dad, I DID smoke those cigarettes, but it wasn't what you think. I have a totally innocent explanation for why." And then you stand there and wait for the explanation to come. If you're waiting for the Trump Administration's explanation for the cigarettes, you've been standing there for months now. Point being, you would never trust your kid to tell the truth about smoking again. But plenty of people are sure giving the benefit of the doubt to these people who have been caught lying time after time about the exact same issue.
Sorry...
I agree about the recession as well. It's simply very likely we are going to see an economic downturn. Obama didn't set the world of fire with the economy after the Bush recession, but you can't argue that it wasn't steady and stable for most of his term. There was a slow recovery, and then things pretty much just flattened out.
One thing I never see get much play as to how popular the ruling party is is gas prices. By the last year of Obama's term, gas was down to $2 a gallon (for the most part). That's pretty damn good considering I remember it being higher than $3.50 for years previous. A simple $1 difference in gas prices can save a family thousands of dollars a year. It's probably THE most tangible financial element most people see besides their paycheck. If they start to climb back up, that's not good news for anyone in charge.
Living standards, taxes, and inequality are more likely to change in the near future.
I musta missed that memo.
And before somebody says unemployment figures don't represent underemployment, that's always been true. Underemployment and discouraged workers were always present during economic downturns; this is just the first time we've been paying attention to the issue. It's a problem regardless, but it's not like the Great Recession or the recovery were unique in that sense.
The dip in oil prices was the result of a Saudi Arabian decision. It was awful for the Russian economy (thank Putin for making Russia into an undiversified petro state), but good for U.S. consumers. Whether the Obama administration had any role in that decision, behind the scenes, is another question. Saudi Arabia works with us, but it's not like we can just make them change their economic policies.
Despite the growth rate, wages have remained stagnant for 20 years for women and 50 years for men. Aside from a slight increase in the late Obama years, they didn't change much. Most of the economic gains went to the folks at the top of the economic ladder.
In January next year, it'll be the one-year mark and we can start making judgments about the Trump administration's performance. But I think we'll mostly see more of the same trends for the rest of his term.
As i've shown before, across the whole of Europe a Trump-esque travel ban has majority support. Yet for whatever reason the misguided, aching conscience of their leaders compels them to make sacrifices out of their own people.
In the U.K especially two of the very biggest issues are Brexit and immigration. Not hard to see why.
"An eyewitness on London Bridge, told the BBC he saw three men stabbing people indiscriminately, shouting "this is for Allah" in a "rampage"."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/03/london-bridge-incident-armed-police-respond-several-people-mown/amp/
What would you propose they do? Ban Muslims? Would that make the problem better? Or would that make them more determined to hurt the West?
What about the Muslims already in their countries not making terror attacks? Would they be happy their brothers and sisters can't come? Would they speak well of their western countries once they stopped letting in their brothers and sisters? Either among themselves or to outsiders? Walls and bans are not the answer. They are an easy answer but they are not a solution.
What should we do? There's no magic one step solution. Trump's solution to drugs - "uh build a wall, all drugs stopped!" is laughable in that situation and laughable as a response to terror.
I think we have to go to the 'Art of War' or something. We have to win without fighting. Convince your enemy that they've lost. Or convince them to stop we're actually not a bunch of intolerant racists, then maybe they would not bother, they'd set their sights on other things. It might require us to actually, you know tolerate muslims, maybe learn more about their way of life. I said it wouldn't be easy. Yeah I don't know. Walls and bans are simplistic and won't work.
There's been a lot of research on terrorism and how to prevent it. And the usual answer is that there is no easy solution, or even combinations of solutions that always work. One thing we should do however is look more into what that research tells us. Like how many people who join terrorist groups become disillusioned and deeply regret it, but have no way to get out of it again. Or how terror attacks are an effective strategy because they create exactly the kind of reaction terrorists wants, which makes it easier for them to recruit even more potential terrorists.
So in the end, I don't know how to prevent terrorism. Because no one really knows. We just have a lot of experience in what doesn't work. And the best thing we can do is listen more to the people who at least know a bit more of the mechanisms that create terrorism.
Monitoring the internet, as proposed by the British PM, might be a good start. Not sure how that could be done and still preserve the freedom of the web though.
And it's not like the UK and London are incompetent in this regard. They pulled off the Olympics in 2012 without a hitch, and they've been on heightened alert for the past two weeks. Almost 10 million people live in London. Sorry to say, but there is no way you can find and stop every maniac willing to kill with a knife or a van. I mean, they're already allowing the selling of our browser history to telcoms, and the ads on the internet and my smart-phone are already tailor-made as if a cord had been injected in my brain Matrix-style, so yeah....maybe so. How much worse could it get?? It's already pretty clear our web browsing is in no way "private", so I'm not even sure we'd be surrendering something we haven't lost already.
And yet no matter how often they occur, how brutal they are, how frequent they become, or how little popular support open borders have, they will probably remain unless May remains and keeps to the Conservative Manifesto but im not holding out hope. Is it really any wonder we are seeing a growing nationalism? It looks like the logical consequence of what is being crammed down our throats.
Terrorism is not a huge threat to Western society unless we choose to make it so. In the USA incidents classed as terrorism (all forms, the majority of which are not islamic) have resulted in 200-300 deaths a year in recent history. Contrast that with the 15,000 or so murders annually and the 10,000+ gun deaths not classed as murder. Or how about the 30,000+ deaths in road traffic accidents every year?
I'm not suggesting that terrorism is not a significant issue, but the threat shouldn't be blown out of proportion. Nor should we effectively (and actually in some cases) wage war on islamic populations - that will just continue to provide willing recruits (and most terrorist incidents are perpetrated by citizens of the countries targeted rather than immigrants).
We should be targeting terrorist behavior, but not by suggesting that everyone in particular countries is a potential terrorist. That makes about as much sense as if other countries refused Americans the right to travel on the grounds that, because 1% of the adult population are in prison, everyone is a potential criminal.
So what is the solution....arrest and deport all Muslims in the UK?? And let's remember who is charge over there, and the explicit promises made by the proponents of Brexit and the Conservative Party and Theresa May. This is coming straight on the heels of Manchester. If their philosophy, which is ascendant right now, is the magic bullet, why are these things still happening?? How come the law and order crowd can't seem to protect it's citizens any better the the so-called "weak-minded liberals"?? I also seem to remember one Donald Trump saying he had a plan that would defeat ISIS "very quickly". That seems to be working out well so far.
And let's never lose sight of one simple fact: ISIS only exists today because of the Iraq War. That is their spawn pool. We disbanded the majority Sunni military after we and the UK invaded the wrong country, and killed a couple 100,000 civilians. Those former Iraqi military men were turned loose in a country we decimated with our bombs, and this is the result anyone who had any knowledge of the situation in the Middle East was predicting in 2003. ISIS was the inevitable result of our actions. They exist because George Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Bremer, and Tony Blair literally CREATED them with the Iraq War, but more specifically, with the decisions made during the occupation.