Kurdish forces besieging an ISIS-held position Tuesday have confirmed that Ashley Johnston, 28, an Australian pictured above at right, was killed fighting with the Kurds, making him apparently the first English-speaking Westerner to die in combat against the Islamic State.
It takes a special kind of person to leave home and join a foreign militia to fight the theocratic brutes of the Islamic State's army. It takes an even more special person to realize, a little too late, that his chosen anti-ISIS militia holds a political and religious ideology that's as antithetical to his own as ISIS's.
While liberal and left-wing Americans stare distastefully and apprehensively at their pitiful choices for next year's presidential election, Greek voters are celebrating the victory of Syriza, the young, pragmatic, and popular left-wing party led by a young atheist ex-communist with a son named after Che Guevara. Let us guide you through Greece's election and the ramifications for Syriza's victory.
The Yemeni government just collapsed, its president prodded into resignation by an Iran-affiliated insurgent group. In the south, citizens are demanding an independent state. The U.S. is freaking out at the possibility of losing its drone-friendliest partner in the middle east. What the hell is going on? Let us explain.
