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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Sunday, June 14, 2015

ISIS now controls 50% of Syria - Thank you Obama



ISIS Grows and Grows
Map shows the growth of ISIS in Syria in black and gray.


(Newsweek)  -  Thomas van Linge’s colorful, detailed maps showing which parties control which parts of Iraq, Libya and Syria are a hit whenever he posts them on Twitter. They have been cited on news stories in the Huffington Post, Lebanon’s Daily Star and Vox, as well as on the University of Texas at Austin’s website. But van Linge isn’t a policy expert and he’s never been to the region: In fact, he’s just a Dutch high school student who tracks the war on social media.
Van Linge, who goes by @arabthomness on Twitter, has amassed nearly 11,000 followers since joining the platform in January 2013, the year he published his first map. Many of his followers work for influential think tanks or suggest policy for the region he maps.
Van Linge’s latest map of conflict-ridden Syria, updated June 5, 2015, illustrates just how complex the situation in the country has become. In northeastern Syrian Kurdistan, a tip of yellow is mainly in control of the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units), while the country’s west is a mix of red—representing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—and varied green blotches representing the Free Syrian Army and mixed rebel and jihadi-controlled countryside. The city of Aleppo is a palette of colors representing myriad forces like Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic Front and government soldiers vying for power, making normal life for civilians a deadly struggle.
The rest of Syria is a vast swath of countryside, colored gray, controlled by the militant group Islamic State (ISIS), and punctuated with black circles denoting ISIS-controlled towns and cities. The map is corroborated by news reports from last month that say ISIS now controls around 50 percent of Syria.
“I want to inform people mostly and show people the rebel dynamics in the country,” Van Linge told Newsweek, referring to his motivation for creating his maps. “I also want to inform journalists who want to go to the region which regions are definitely no-go zones, which regions are the most dangerous, and also to show strategic developments through time.”
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I am sure the mountains of weapons shipped into Syria by the CIA and our Islamist allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey had nothing at all to do with the rise of ISIS.  That would be "crazy" talk.




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