[DAWN] THE election deal secured in Afghanistan by the international community yesterday cannot really be called democratic, but at least it has given the country a chance to establish relative peace and stability.
Unhappily, three elections into a new era aspiring towards democracy, the Afghan electoral process remains hostage to back-room deals, powerbrokers and warlords. Without forgetting Pakistain's own struggles with democracy over more than six decades, the most worrying part about the post-2001 Afghan political system is that it does not quite give an impression of being sustainable.
If elections are to be a complete sham -- the winner was announced yesterday by the Independent Election Commission chairman without even sharing a final vote count -- and do not incrementally move towards the goal of transparency and fairness, then surely at some point behind-the-scenes powerbrokers inside Afghanistan may dispense with the façade altogether.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one.
#2
Interesting, g(r)om. I am trying to think of a depot who improved his barbarians enough to enjoy a democracy. Or a republic.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/22/2014 9:12 Comments ||
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#3
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England.
Is he weak? Arrogant? Ambivalent? Don't overthink the president
Peggy Noonan continues her attempt to atone for her gushing endorsement of Champ in 2008. In this piece (may be behind a paywall) she correctly understands the difference between intelligence (in her words, "brightness") and judgment. However much of the former Champ has, he's woefully lacking in the latter.
Margaret Thatcher once said that Ronald Reagan "had a second-class intellect but a first class temperament." With Champ it has been the reverse and has been so for his entire life. That is why Reagan was successful by any measure, and Champ has not.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#5
Ms Noonan, you're zone of relevance ended several decades ago...
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/22/2014 8:10 Comments ||
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#6
Has anyone seen O's academic credentials. Can the journos speak to his brilliance? Never have seen this side of him.
"O" has character issues. His weakness, ambivalence, and personality and psychology affect his judgment.
IMO Reagan was seen as an American President with American values and ideals. Someone who valued our freedoms. He came across as a leader who was a patriot and cared about all Americans. Obama never has been seen as such.
#7
The bigger question about his academic credentials is why they are sealed by court order?
He's in over his head, he has no clue what he is doing, he is ill-equipped, and ill-advised. He's a hot house flower, he's been groomed, coddled and protected his entire academic and political career.
He's a softy.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
09/22/2014 11:55 Comments ||
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#8
Reagan has been dissed as unintelligent ever since day one. However, his private personal writings revealed a much more astute person than he was ever given credit for.
He didn't care particularly how he was percieved just so long as he could accomplish his ends. He was successful I feel because he genuinely liked people.
Our current asshole-in-chief is the exact opposite. He is much less intelligent than touted while thinking himself the smartest man ever. He cares deeply only about how he is percieved, all form over substance. He generally dislikes and scorns others in his hubristic narcissism.
That's why he is a failure by any rational measure.
[DAWN] POLICING in a politically polarised and vendetta-prone society like ours has become the most hazardous and difficult job. Pity the nation beset with bickering politicos and corruption-infested corridors of power. The police leadership walks a tightrope in an environment devoid of decency, manners, tolerance and respect for human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
The last three months have witnessed a horrendous display of intolerance, propensity for violence, chicanery and attempts at gross misuse of police not only to settle political scores but also to weaken an important state institution. The sit-ins and marches on Constitution Avenue in the capital are a manifestation of state paralysis.
It all began on June 17 in Model Town, Lahore. A dual citizen holy man imbued with revolutionary zeal had to be taught a lesson. Who better than the terror-inspiring Punjab police to deliver a brutal punch to a recalcitrant prayer leader who once used to sing the praises of the house of Sharif? How dare he play someone else's game to dislodge a heavy-mandated political dispensation? Make him feel insecure by removing the barricades around his fortified office-cum-residence.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] IT'S hard to say what it will take to shake the state out of its apathy towards polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... . There's not a shadow of doubt that the crippling disease is not just on the upsurge, but rapidly accelerating.
In recent days, almost 20 new cases have been reported across the country -- 13 on Sept 16 alone. The number of confirmed cases so far this year has reached 166.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Does anyone have a clue why the tin hats among the Muslims think vaccination is un-Islamic???
Seems to be about the only place outside of Eastern Afghanistan that thinks so. Last time I checked kids in Libya, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Mali, and Indonesia were getting their shots just like the infidels...
Like I said, Islam's biggest problem is that a illiterate drooling goat herder can proclaim himself Imam and spout the most ridiculous stuff and it is treated with the same veracity as a proclamation from one of the Grand Imam's in Mekkah...
Of course that's sort of like the climate warming crowd, most of the "science" on global warming is some kook sitting in McDonalds with a 8 year old laptop and a shopping cart full of aluminum cans.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
09/22/2014 11:45 Comments ||
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Arab civilization has collapsed. It won't recover in my lifetime. By HISHAM MELHEM
Long piece at Politico, of all places, pointing out, from an inside view, that almost all of the Arabs' problems today are of their own making. Worth the read.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/22/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
I have problems with the term "Arab Civilization".
#2
Absolutely nails it. But he leaves out the same detail that everyone else does - that if the Islamists can't recreate the Caliphate, they want to take the rest of the world down with them.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/22/2014 7:35 Comments ||
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#3
"Barbarians" seems to capture the Islamists. We will have to deal with them at some time unless the Muslims (Egypt, SA, Persian Gulf States, Jordan, Iraq) decide to take care of the ISIS problem. It is doubtful that is going to happen.
#4
So it's taken a hundred years of history to create ISIS. Will the rest of the world deal with them before they reach the Gates of Vienna? Or will a Sunni-Shiite meltdown put an end to it?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/22/2014 13:01 Comments ||
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#5
Or will a Sunni-Shiite meltdown put an end to it?
I'm betting that they are both waiting for some "outsider" to come in so they can rant, rage, and seethe about the evil infidels sullying the land. Of course, there was the conflict between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s--basically, Baathists vs. Shia.
#6
Radical muslims will be easy to deal with once society has finally had enough and decides its a war.
Until then finding a way to get them out of our midst would be helpful. Saudi's used to convince their radicals to fight Soviets in Afghanistan, and lately to fight alongside ISIS before it was ISIS. I think we should follow a similar plan.
[Ynet] Australian Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma says new cross-border mechanism can help restart, not only rebuild, the Gazoo economy.
The honourable ambassador's optimism would be sweet, if it didn't endanger the actual people who live in the region.
This week I visited one of the Gazoo periphery communities, Kibbutz Nahal Oz. It felt anything but normal. High concrete blast walls surrounded the kindergarten. Many families were yet to return, too fearful and uncertain about the future. To the residents, the current calm seemed tentative and fragile.
The fifty day conflict with Gazoo took a heavy toll on both sides. But the current ceasefire remains all too fragile. The status quo needs to change, or the prospect of rocket fire resuming towards Israel is real.
Following the ceasefire, Israel expanded Gazoo's fishing zone to six nautical miles. 400 truckloads of goods now cross the border at Kerem Shalom each day. From sacks of flour to cartons of nappies, from Australian cattle and cooking gas to roofing and watermelon seeds -- I saw it all when I visited this week.
These are positive steps, but more is now needed.
That is why the Israel-PA-UN agreement announced earlier this week to facilitate the reconstruction and recovery of Gazoo is so important, and why countries such as Australia are so keen to support it.
Israel has legitimate security concerns that need to be addressed in any new cross-border mechanism. No-one in the international community will tolerate seeing sacks of cement being used to rebuild the terror attack tunnels.
But provided we can protect Israel's security concerns, improving economic conditions for ordinary Gazooks is a goal Israel and the international community can share.
Gazoo's reconstruction needs are real and significant. As importantly, economic opportunities for Gazooks to earn a living on their own must improve.
When I visited Gazoo several months ago, I was shocked by the stranglehold that Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, exercised over the economy.
If people had a job, they worked for Hamas or were employed by an aid agency. Much of the population subsisted on welfare and handouts. The economy was closed and stagnant. It was a miserable snapshot of a place once renowned for its commercial class.
A new cross-border mechanism with robust monitoring and verification could change this equation.
If goods can move more freely in and out of Gazoo, if exports can resume, if a private sector can re-emerge, then the politics of Gazoo can be transformed.
Gazook strawberry and carnation growers could sell their goods into the West Bank, where incomes are three times as high. West Bank Paleostinians could become a big source of tourists for Gazoo's beaches.
"Fatima, pack up the kids and your bathing suit. We've won an all expenses paid vacation in Gaza!"
"Ohhh Bassem, how exciting! Lets see... I'll need to buy a hijab, and one of those black sacks the women wear, and a burkini -- or do you think I should just wear the black sack to the beach, too? -- and we'll need get the same for the girls, but the boy will be fine, and so will you..."
This will not happen overnight, but if we can break Hamas' stranglehold on the Gazook economy, their political dominance will soon be challenged.
True. Which is why Gazans are heading to Europe via Egypt in their hundreds instead.
This is an outcome that would benefit both the security of Israel and the people of Gazoo.
A reader comment at the link: "No need to worry Mr. Sharma...
You won't be "seeing sacks of cement being used to rebuild the terror attack tunnels." (Roll eyes here)"
#3
Sheik Ahmad Yassin, the Muslim Brother and Islamist firebrand made his home in Gaza and while there helped found Hamas. Jailed by Israel in 1984 for abetting sedition, he was freed in a 1985 prisoner exchange. Yassin was the first to conceive of Palestine as a battlefield in which Palestinian freedom could only be won through jihad. However, even Yassin was thought to be too soft by some Gazans. In 1987 Palestine Islamic Jihad, an even more violent Islamist movement was created. It was inspired by events in Iran, and has had Iranian patronage ever since. In response Yassin created Hamas and initiated the first general Palestinian uprising, or Intifada.
And so it has been ever since. When Hamas is thought to be too weak PIJ emerges with a vengeance. Thus, it is not sufficient to say, let's sideline Hamas. First it would be very hard to do, if not impossible. Second, it does nothing to eliminate the ruthless PIJ. In sum, Gaza (as the Egyptians know) is a tough nut to crack.
[PJ Media] WASHINGTON -- Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman, an executive producer of the new CBS series Madam Secretary, said President Obama "has been extraordinary" during his time in office.
"My feeling about what he's done is he has been extraordinary in the wake of such partisanship. He's gotten a lot done," said Freeman at the premiere of Madam Secretary on Thursday evening at the United States Institute of Peace.
In 2012, Freeman donated $1 million to the pro-Obama political action committee Priorities USA Action. He also narrated a commercial for the Obama campaign.
Madam Secretary is a television drama about Elizabeth Faulkner McCord, a female secretary of State played by Téa Leoni. Freeman told PJ Media Madam Secretary is not a political show.
"We don't think it's a political film. The State Department is not a political arm of the government."
This is how you know it's a fiction...
"We're talking about the diplomatic corps, that's ongoing. These people are -- they're there when administrations move on, all right. So, we don't want to get it locked into like, politics," Freeman said. Who fok'n knew? I'm certainly glad Morgan set the record straight on that one.
#2
So then why did Morgan Freeman pick an actress who(somewhat) resembles the Hildabeest? Why not a black actress who looks like Condoleezza Rice? Mrs. Bobby says the 'background' of the character is more like Rice's - an academic, not the hack wife of a lifetime intern abuser.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/22/2014 9:09 Comments ||
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#3
Well, no matter what Morgan says, the ads have a definite Hillary aroma about them and the timing?
Right before the midterms...something to elevate liberal agenda right before the elections?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
09/22/2014 11:29 Comments ||
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#4
Freeman has got to be a Muslim. He is such a convincing liar.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
