Eli Ramos

Five Months After Obama States “No US Troops in Iraq,” President Asks Congress to Pay to Double Forces

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Five months after US President Barack Obama stated that America would not send troops to fight the Islamic State in Iraq, the president has approved a plan to double the number of US boots on the ground, and has asked Congress to fund it.

“We can’t do it for them,” said Obama in June, ruling out sending US combat troops into Iraq. “We’re not going to allow ourselves to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we’re there we’re keeping a lid on things, and after enormous sacrifices by us, after we’re not there, people start acting in ways that are not conducive to the long-term stability and prosperity of the country.”

Last week, Obama approved a plan to double US troops in Iraq to 3,100, asking Congress for an additional $5 billion to fund the mission. After one month of almost daily US airstrikes against IS militants, Obama continues to state that the “American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission.”

The White House maintains that their actions in Iraq are to “degrade and destroy” IS, and forces sent are aid to Iraqi and Kurdish forces–which are fighting IS. The new troops will also not be used in a combat role, according to the Pentagon.

However, no additional troops will be sent to Iraq if Congress does not authorize the $5 billion dollar expense, the White House has said.

US troops in Iraq are currently training Iraqi forces, but this training is expected to take around a year. If Congress approves the bill, it will take three months to select training sites, and the regimen will last six to seven months. The Iraqi forces will continue to fight IS throughout the training.

By Eli Ramos

Men May Be Getting More Abuse Online Than Women – Study

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Men Getting More Abuse Online Than Women - Study
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According to a recent study, and despite popular sentiment that the internet is not safe for women, men may be ones who receives the most abuse on social media. According to think tank Demos, male public figures are several times more likely than female public figures to receive abuse on Twitter.

The think tank analyzed over 2 million tweets over a two-week period. The sample of public figures included celebrities, politicians, journalists and musicians. An equal number was chosen for males and females.

Despite recent claims that the internet is misogynist and is particularly unsafe for women, the think tank found that men were more often abused than women, at least on Twitter.

Over 2.5 percent of tweets directed at the males–tweets containing the @username–contained abuse. Less than 1 percent of the tweets directed at the females was abusive.

That is, over 1 in 20 tweets sent to the males included abuse. Only 1 in 70 tweets directed at the females included abuse.

There was one category, however, where female celebrities received more abuse than men: journalism. Females in this line of work recieved abuse around 3 times as often as men.

Males were found to also be the most common abusers. Men were behind 75 percent of abusive tweets toward other men, and were behind over 60 percent of abusive tweets directed toward women.

There may be more to the issue than can be understood based on these figures alone, however.

According to a recent Harvard study, men have 15 percent more followers than women, men are almost twice as likely to follow another man than a woman, women are 25 percent more likely to follow men than women, and the average man is 40 percent more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman.

The Harvard team concluded that, although there are more women on Twitter, and unlike most other social networks, men dominate the action on Twitter.

By Eliana Ramos