The US Senate will soon vote to authorize a war on behalf of al Qaeda...

...and they'll probably take this vote, to become al Qaeda's air force, on...September 11.

Rest assured, however, that our new allies are only partly al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.  Most of them are pro-western freedom fighters -- fully eighty percent of them, according to one expert cited by Secretary of State Kerry.  

That expert:

Our specials include jalopeno poppers and the Mondo Margarita!

Of course, there's no need to introduce this renowned expert on middle-eastern affairs -- this is Elizabeth O'Bagy.  And no, that's not a very old photograph -- it's quite recent.  She's 26 years old.


Just four short years ago, she was working second shift at Applebee's while finishing up her bachelor's in political science.  Now she's the most trusted adviser to the highest echelons of our government with respect to the most volatile and complex region on earth.  Eight years ago, she was struggling with a book report on To Kill a Mockingbird for senior AP English literature; now she's writing policy papers that go right to the president's desk.

Rest assured that she's eminently qualified, however:  The young Ms. O'Bagy is a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.  The junior analyst?  This guy:

Setting aside for the moment the wisdom of investing faith in the counsel of someone who considers Soundgarden to be "classic rock" and still receives monthly shipments from Proactive, it's been suggested by some that her impartiality might be in question, merely because she's on the Syrian opposition's payroll:

But in addition to her work for the Institute for the Study of War, O’Bagy is also the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates within the United States for Syria’s rebels...

 But wait, she has a perfectly reasonable explanation:

In speaking with TheDC, O’Bagy regularly insisted that she was not a salaried employee of SETF, but a paid contractor acting in an advisory role.

So it's not as though she actually works for them -- she just performs services for them, and in return, they pay her money.  As a private contractor.  So no harm, no foul.

I was concerned about whether I was being fair to O'bagy, so I tried to find a bio on her, some sort of background.  I couldn't find a biography, because she doesn't have one, because she's fucking 26 years old.  I did, however, find this video, that I think will help some of you reverse-ageist assholes in dealing with O'bagy's generation as they lord over us from their exalted seats of enormous influence: