And, to counterbalance all this unpleasantry--at least we can rejoice that the President's golf game is flourishing. Why, even this morning, ABC News pointed out that Dwight Eisenhower received his share of flak for playing so much golf. Hmmmm, so does that make Himself a President on par with Ike, the man who launched the Normandy invasion. Well, if you work for ABC news, it must...
Meanwhile, in the real world--
From today's UK Telegraph:
Jihadist fighters captured a major military air base in northeastern Syria
on Sunday, removing the last government-held post in a province the
extremists claim as part of their new "Islamic State".
The storming of Tabqa air field, a major government military facility
containing several squadrons of planes, helicopters, tanks and artillery, is
a significant victory for the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant
(Isil).
"Some of the Syrian regime troops pulled out, and now the Islamic State
is in full control of Tabqa," said Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights. "This makes Raqqa province the first to
fully fall out of government hands."
At least 500 fighters from both sides were reported to have died in the
fighting over recent days, with casualties among Isil forces said to be
running twice as high as among the government troops.
There were reports of celebratory gunfire in Raqqa, Isil's central stronghold
in Syria, after mosques announced through their loudspeakers that the base
had fallen to the Islamists. A witness told the Reuters news agency that
fighters displayed the severed heads of Syrian army soldiers in the city
square.
The jihadists, who have grown in strength and numbers throughout Syria's continuing civil war against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, are now unchallenged in the north east of the country.
Their control has given them access to the regions plentiful oil resources, from which they generate an estimated monthly income of more than $20 million (£12 million) - enabling them also to sweep into neighbouring Iraq.
Located just 25 miles from Raqqa, Tabqa military base had been besieged for several weeks, forcing the Syrian regime to supply its trapped soldiers by parachute.
In recent days however, Isil stepped up its campaign, dispatching suicide bombers to breach the base's outer wall - including, according to its social media accounts on Friday, Sufian al Omar, a 14-year-old boy who it claimed had joined his father in a "suicide operation" at Tabqa.
The jihadists, who have grown in strength and numbers throughout Syria's continuing civil war against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, are now unchallenged in the north east of the country.
Their control has given them access to the regions plentiful oil resources, from which they generate an estimated monthly income of more than $20 million (£12 million) - enabling them also to sweep into neighbouring Iraq.
Located just 25 miles from Raqqa, Tabqa military base had been besieged for several weeks, forcing the Syrian regime to supply its trapped soldiers by parachute.
In recent days however, Isil stepped up its campaign, dispatching suicide bombers to breach the base's outer wall - including, according to its social media accounts on Friday, Sufian al Omar, a 14-year-old boy who it claimed had joined his father in a "suicide operation" at Tabqa.
