British drones target ISIS for the first time The RAF has launched its first drone strikes against Islamic fundamentalists ISIS, marking an escalation of Blighty's air war in Iraq. A British Reaper drone attacked a terrorist encampment near Bayji, north of Baghdad, where militants were planting improvised explosive devices. It then circled the area, providing real-time …
And it is further reported that a flight of US carrier-based F18's destroyed an ISIS courier on a moped, and heavily damaged an abandoned van at a desert crossing checkpoint.
<sigh> I do so miss the days of daily North Vietnamese body counts. We were so refreshingly naive and gullible back then. Meanwhile, sending another 1,500 US troops to Iraq as "advisors and trainers" ... is there a vague hint of deja vu in the air ... ?
My True Confession is that these Screaming Diz Busters cut short the Career of Evil of a few ISIL Cagey Cretins and send them on Hot Rails to Hell.
Unfortunately, I have to wonder what Secret Treaties are being made by these Subhuman monsters so that they can extend their game of Dominance and Submission.
"Why were the militants were blowing up their own camp?"
Probably not their own camp. Another different group of terrorists' camp. As far as I can see there is nobody but terrorists in that part of the world. One month we're backing the Syrian rebels. Next month we're attacking the Syrian "extreme" rebels and supplying weapons to different "moderate" rebels. Then the second group are beaten by (or simply join with) the first "bad" rebels. Also need to remember the Kurds are good guys now (after we previously listed them as terrorists because Turkey classes Kurds as terrorists). But its apparently OK if Kurds have guns in Syria, you see. Then you've got pro-Iranian groups. Last year they were terrorists (as were all Iranians), but now they're sort of on the good side whilst still being bad in an absolute sense. And Assad and his homies, well, they're all bad, bad, bad, but we're not actually fighting them (well, some of the Lebanese do). And of course there's the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, widely believed to be down to Turkish false flag interfering. But Turkey's in NATO even though they won't help against IS, so it's OK if they use chemical weapons, so long as they pretend its somebody else.
That clear to everyone?
Wow, you really have been paying attention. (Seriously) This is pretty much how it happens thereabouts. I used to read as much non-US news as I could lay my hands on so I might have a clue on where I might be sent, division of local antipathies, and which friends might torture/shoot me regardless. Far more challenging than either kind of 'football.'
"Are these controlled by "pip pip old bean" pilots, or "nuffing but a wind up, you geezer" pilots?"
"Pip pip old bean", since these drones are RAF, and "flown" by officers, as are RAF manned aircraft.
British army aircraft and drones are flown (typically) by NCOs, so they'll be "nuffing but a wind up" types.
Assuming he was an ISIS adherent, he might have been carrying info that could have substantially helped ISIS in their various murderous no-goodery, even if in the local area. But let's not crow about using a $40M plane and a $50K+ bomb to blow up a guy on a moped.
Much less the abandoned van:
"Dude, the Americans totally fucked up the Sex Machine! I just got a new 8-track in it too! The battery died on the side of the road, but I was totally going to go back and put in a new alternator once I got my next pizza delivery paycheck!!"
"Oh bro, that totally sucks! I was hoping we were going to cruise chicks after mosque on Friday!"
I had earlier written: And it is further reported that a flight of US carrier-based F18's destroyed an ISIS courier on a moped, and heavily damaged an abandoned van at a desert crossing checkpoint.
I suppose there should be an icon for irony/tongue-in-cheek. Yeh, using a $50M warplane (an outrageously cheap model compared to the F-35) and a $50K munition to obliterate a courier on a moped ... doesn't it seem the cost/benefit ratio here is a bit askew?
Three points to make (which was in mind at the time): 1) the US is allocating $Billions for anti-ISIS air strikes; 2) authoritative military pundits say this tactic is about as affective in stopping ISIS as is clearing the swamp of mosquitoes with a fly-swatter; 3) America's industrial-military complex is forecasting ever-soaring profits for the next decade; which profits might be even higher if only they could devise a means to out-source weapons production to China.
"which profits might be even higher if only they could devise a means to out-source weapons production to China."
Actually the big win for the corporations has already been made. Their campaign donations to war-mongers on both sides of the house (for example Menendez, Feinstein and others) have got those people elected, and in the lead on powerful committees. This guarantees that US foreign policy will be one of intervention and war regardless of which party "wins". In fact, both have already won, locked in a buggins-turn arrangement to enrich themselves and their Wall Street friends. And likewise the real economy can go to hell, because the Federal Reserve is busy fixing things for bankers rather than for businesses that pay taxes, employ people, or export goods.
Sadly this isn't going to change. The US has a fully purchased Congress and Senate who work in their owners best interests. There's no challenger parties I can see in US politics. Nobody working for the average joes, nobody fighting against the decline of Main Street, against the vast cost of a misbegotten policy of permanent war on distant failed states. Curiously enough you've got a failed state on your southern border, where students are rounded up en-masse and murdered on the whim of a politicians wife. Where corruption, murder, extortion, drugs and violence have easy primacy over the non-existent rule of law. And this spills over into drug running into the US, bringing violent crime and money laundering with it, along with a strong flow of illegal immigrants. But apparently a bunch of dirty-arsed jihadis slaughtering each other in the sand 6,000 miles away is the biggest threat your government has to defend you against. Curious that.
So what do you get in return for the masses subsidising the 1%, and the perma-war foreign policy? Simply a lot of war-porn. You know the stuff - videos of guided missile destroyers launching cruise missiles at night, or infra-red gun camera footage showing aircraft launched weapons destroy a building. Everybody's happy with this deal, aren't they?
Whats the maximum range on detecting those little RFID thingys embedded in the back page of UK passports? I hope the RAF drones make a special point of targetting ISIS fighters carrying them. The one good thing about the war against ISIS is that it got a bunch of the worst muslim psychopaths to leave the UK to go over there and fight. The last thing we want is to let those scum back in. We need the RAF drones to find and wack them all before they can get back on the plane home.
I simply cook my passport in the microwave, along with a cup of water, for 80 seconds and Bingo! the evil chip is like the parrot in Monty Python's "Pet Shop Sketch" or "Parrot Sketch" ... deceased.
It doesn't make immigration clearance any slower since a surprising number don't have RFID readers.
"It doesn't make immigration clearance any slower since a surprising number don't have RFID readers."
No, but you're now on a travel watchlist because you've got an RFID passport that doesn't work all of a sudden.
"We need the RAF drones to find and wack them all before they can get back on the plane home"
The Libdems and Labour would be frothing at the mouth that singling out our own traitors would infringe their human rights. I'd like to think that the Conservatives had more of a spine, but the reality is that they don't - remember that feckless twerp Iain Duncan Smith protesting loudly about how Gadaffi's killers should be "brought to justice"?
And the majority of our idiot MPs appear to subscribe to the idea that we can't simply cancel their passports and tell them to find somewhere more to their liking. Arseholes.
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