Dallas, always eager to showcase its "world-class" bona fides, has a sterling opportunity right now. Opportunity = hang on to your wallet
It is an opportunity to demonstrate world-class compassion by providing temporary shelter for some of the scared, desperate kids trapped in the migrant crush at the U.S.-Mexico borders. It's a chance to show that Texans are compassionate people who can put aside their political differences to address a humanitarian emergency. It's not their fault. Sort of like the really young kids - the unborn.
The blame for this mess is a big, juicy pie that can probably be split a lot of different ways. What is undeniable, however, is that these children �-- some of them as young as 3 or 4 years old, and many of them traveling alone �-- are already here. They're jammed into overcrowded border processing centers, which cannot cope with the sheer numbers of tired, dirty, hungry kids pouring in. Here's a thought question - do you really want to send a four-year old back to the parents who sent her off with a note pinned to her shirt?
News photos show children and teenagers sleeping on blankets spread on bare concrete, or behind fenced partitions that resemble dog kennels. There are anecdotal stories of Border Patrol agents using their own money to buy shoes and diapers. Are these photos being broadcast to the originating countries? Instead we send Lurch to threaten them with all the kids are going back.
Some of the response to this crisis, I'm sorry to say, is genuinely appalling. Meaning, in this case, any point of view other than my own.
Well, anonymous online comment forums don't always bring out the best in people. But it's genuinely upsetting to note that more than a few irate Americans are referring to these refugees as "aliens," "intruders," "criminals," "asylum pests" and "subsidy-sucking illegals." Yeah, Jacquielyne, I'm upset that they're here, attracted by the notion they are going to get a free ride. And they are sucking the subsidies right out of my pocket.
"They are bringing in diseases." "This is a ploy to swell our welfare rolls." "Having to feed illegals 3 meals a day plus buying diapers for illegal kids is sickening." These are a few comments I ran across during a cursory review of news stories about the growing crisis. I bet you had to dig pretty deep, Jackie.
Diapers for babies is "sickening"? A meal for an exhausted, disoriented child is a political "ploy"?
Dallas, let us please not be those commenters. Let's be human enough to recognize that these are kids who did not engineer this crisis, and whose need for the bare essentials required to survive is urgent. While you're at is, Ms. Floyd, how about preventing this from continuing? I say if we had any real compassion, we'll buy them all airline tickets from San Salvador.
The Christian Life Commission, the ethics wing of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, adopted a resolution last week calling on its member churches to respond to the migrant crisis with compassion. I'm feeling a twinge of conscience. A small twinge.
The resolution stated that the children themselves "are not at fault for the circumstances in their home countries or for the confusion created by human smugglers and American policy."
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/02/2014 13:05 ||
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#1
how about we pass a law that says we care for all of the kids but that they can never, ever, become citizens. At 18 they go back to their home countries and the home countries get a bill for babysitting and such at $20 an hour.
#2
These kids are being used by unscrupulous politicians to satisfy their agenda and ideology. They are also being used by slavers, drug dealers, and cartels.
#5
How about we pass a law saying that those under a certain age have been clearly abandoned by their parents, and should be wards of the court and available for immediate adoption? Those poor liddle kids, apparently abandoned at the border - why yes, they deserve permanent, loving homes with stable and middle-class families here in the USA ... and absolutely soonest. It's for the children, you see. Their birth parents obviously don't give a damn ... so let them be adopted and cared for by American families, in the spirit of our traditional American values.
It's only fair, you see. For the children.
#7
As long as they can't sponsor their biological parents or relatives Sgt. Mom.
All those kiddies will be granted citizenship and the first think they will do is petition their parents, siblings, etc... Oh and since they can't afford it the taxpayers will pay for all that and it'll be discrimination to require an Affidavit of support as is required by legal immigrants.
[DAWN] THE launch of ground operations against gunnies in North Wazoo is a relevant time to reiterate why a military operation is so necessary. Militancy is spread across Pakistain and there is no real, physical centre of gravity anymore — but that should not in any way diminish the importance of North Waziristan to militancy of every stripe. To begin with, virtually every major attack inside Pakistain in recent years has been traced back to planning and organization in North Waziristan. In addition, virtually every high-profile victim of kidnapping is smuggled into the area. Then there is the reality of doing business: the krazed killers' control of large swathes of an agency populated by hundreds of thousands of people meant a lucrative fiefdom feeding the militancy machine and becoming a justification for it. Moreover, there has been the intense problem of cross-pollination and the mixing and matching of myrmidon ideologies in North Waziristan, which produced a lethal cocktail of militancy posing a threat to Pakistain, Afghanistan, the region and even the world on the lam.
Yet, necessary as an operation in North Waziristan is, an old problem seems to be once again reasserting itself: the tendency for military strategy to overwhelm and be put ahead of a national security strategy. To make Pakistain internally safe and secure, military strategy — ie battles, operations, troops, bases and the like — alone will not suffice. There seemed to be some awareness of this problem with the drawing up by the interior ministry of a National Internal Security Policy, but not much appears to have come of that. And where there has been work on the non-military aspects of the internal security policy, it has come in the form of the Protection of Pakistain Ordinance, a piece of legislation set to be approved by parliament in a somewhat diluted form but still with deep and very problematic issues from a rights perspective. In essence, the overall thinking on fighting militancy still appears to come down to eliminating gunnies with guns and bullets and little attention is paid to the causes of militancy and how to begin rolling back the infrastructure of jihad that has proliferated across Pakistain.
Nor are the trade-offs involved seemingly ever considered. If a military operation was necessary, did it make sense to botch the handling of IDPs? If the security forces need protection in the cities when they take on krazed killers, does it mean giving them near carte blanche as the PPO has? Finally, there is the problem that even when the country's security architects purport to think strategically, they make disastrous choices. If, as claimed by former military sources, the North Waziristan Agency operation was in part delayed by concerns about the Haqqani network, can anyone explain what rational national-security cost-benefit analysis made putting it off for years a worthwhile choice?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] THE landmark agreement between Islamabad and Kabul to take action against all gunnies and their hideouts on either side of the border without any distinction signifies an important shift in our short-sighted security outlook. Never before had the security of the two nations been so intertwined as it is today.
So it is about time they shed their age-old legacy of using proxies against each other with disastrous consequences for regional security. The war of sanctuaries has only benefited the gunnies who have sought to establish their barbaric rule on both sides of the border. We may have learnt it the hard way, but it is never too late.
In a significant move, Pakistain and Afghanistan have also agreed to establish a joint working group on security to develop closer cooperation and coordination to deal with a common menace. The accord was signed last week following the visit to Islamabad of Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the national security advisor to the Afghan president. The working group comprising representatives of security agencies of the two sides is scheduled to meet on July 3 in Islamabad.
This initiative could not have come at a more opportune time as Pak security forces fight their most critical battle against local and foreign gunnies in North Wazoo. Such cooperation between the two neighbouring countries is imperative for the success of the operation. The fleeing bully boyz using sanctuaries on the other side of the Durand Line for cross-border attacks has been Pakistain's biggest security nightmare.
Many top Pak Taliban leaders including Mullah Fazlullah ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... , the new TTP chief and Omar Khalid Khorasani, the chief of the group's Mohmand chapter, are now operating from their bases on the Afghan side of the border. Cross-border attacks have become a major source of tension between Islamabad and Kabul.
Equally dangerous for regional security are the Afghan myrmidon sanctuaries on Pak soil. Islamabad's ambivalence on cracking down on them has largely been blamed for the continued instability in Afghanistan. In an apparent policy shift, the Pakistain military has now for the first time declared that the latest offensive will target all murderous Moslem groups without discrimination, including the Haqqani network.
Making a distinction between 'good murderous Moslems' and 'bad murderous Moslems' has been a major factor contributing to the rising violent extremism in Pakistain. This policy of appeasement and patronising so-called good gunnies has also threatened regional security.
Since the start of the war in Afghanistan, the tribal regions had become home to a dangerous nexus of Al Qaeda operatives, Pak and Afghan Taliban and jihadists from across the globe. The largest number of fighters based in North Waziristan is associated with the Haqqani network led by the legendary former Afghan Mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin. The group not only has strong ties with Al Qaeda but also is closely linked with the Pak murderous Moslems.
For Pakistain, the network remained a useful hedge against an uncertain outcome in Afghanistan. The deep reluctance to take action against the Haqqani network is a reflection of Pakistain's worries about the events that would transpire after the eventual pullout of foreign forces from Afghanistan. The group is blamed for some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks in Afghanistan.
Pakistain's patronage of the Haqqani network became a convenient rationale for the Kabul government for allowing sanctuaries for Pak bully boyz on Afghan soil. There is strong evidence of close links between some TTP factions and the Afghan intelligence agencies. This tit-for-tat policy has had disastrous consequences for both nations.
Most of the fighters associated with the Haqqani network are believed to have moved to Afghanistan before the offensive in North Waziristan began. The military has said the group will not find Pak territory a safe haven anymore. There is, however, no likelihood of the Haqqanis engaging in any confrontation with their old patrons.
One hopes this change in Pakistain's stance will encourage the Afghan government and the coalition forces to take action against Mullah Fazlullah's headquarters in Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... .
Both countries need each other to cooperate more than ever at this critical juncture as the Western forces plan to end their combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of this year. Any continued instability in Afghanistan is bound to have severe spillover effects in Pakistain.
The North Waziristan offensive was long overdue and any further delay would have made things much more complicated. The continued hold of gunnies on a large part of the territory would have made the country's security much more vulnerable. An unsecured border would have allowed the gunnies to move around both sides of Durand Line with much greater ease after the withdrawal of the coalition forces from Afghanistan.
A major worry for the security establishment is that an open Afghan side of the border could become a revolving door for Pak Taliban fleeing the latest offensive as has happened during past operations. More gunnies entering the cross-border sanctuaries would make the success of the operation under way in North Waziristan more problematic. For this reason, Islamabad has requested the Afghan government to take measures to prevent the entry of gunnies fleeing the offensive.
It is now for the Afghan cops to respond to Pakistain's call for reinforcing security along their side of the border. There is no other option left for the two countries but to cooperate with each other. Both face the same threat and it is only through cooperation that they can deal with the daunting security challenges confronting them.
The decision to establish a joint security working group is surely a positive step. But the two countries also urgently need to take practical steps to achieve the required results. Kabul and Islamabad now have to move beyond statements and implement the bilateral security agreement with all sincerity. It is in the interest of both countries to close the revolving door on the common enemy.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2014 00:00 ||
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IS is gaining momentum in the struggle to control two natural resources that have defined the history of the Middle East -- oil and water.
With its conquest of Mosul and Tikrit, IS gained a stranglehold over Iraq's northern oil export pipeline and the country's largest refinery.
It is IS's turn to flex its hydrological muscles. In February 2013, IS took control of the Tabqa Hydroelectric Dam (Syria), once a showcase in Hafez al-Assad's development plan and a major electricity source for Aleppo. Earlier this spring, IS opened up dikes around Fallujah to impede the Iraqi army as it tried to besiege the stronghold, causing flooding as far away as Najaf and Baghdad. With its recent advances, IS now controls the hydroelectric dam at Mosul, Iraq's largest, and IS is poised to take the dam at Haditha, the country's second largest. With the tables turned, the Iraqi government finds itself considering a preemptive opening of the Haditha floodgates to block IS's path.
According to New York Times reporter Thanassis Cambanis, IS left the staff at the Tabqa Dam unharmed and in place, allowing the facility to continue operations and even selling electricity back to the Syrian government. Similarly, oil fields under IS control continue to pump. Indeed, IS has shrewdly managed these resources to help ensure a steady and sustainable stream of revenue.
Beside revenue from oil and water, IS collects a variety of commercial taxes, including on trucks and cellphone towers. It has also imposed the jizya on Christian communities under its control. According to the Chaldean patriarch, so far there has been no violence committed against the significant Christian population around IS-controlled Mosul.
Whereas resources like diamonds or drugs motivate rebel forces to take as much as they can as quickly as they can, the need to manage capital and technology-intensive natural resources has actually increased the interdependence between IS and civilians in the territory it controls.
Oil and water, unlike diamonds or drugs, contribute to the coherence to the Islamic State and the discipline of its governance. While both the United States and (even more significantly) Iran have dispatched military advisers to Iraq, full-blown outside intervention is difficult to imagine. Other forms of non-violent interventions, such as placing sanctions or embargoing IS's oil production, are unlikely to be effective. Alternatively, coming to agreements on the disposition and distribution of water and oil resources could form the basis for some modes of negotiation.
[An Nahar] The declaration of an Islamic caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria is a direct challenge to Al-Qaeda and could set off a dangerous contest for the leadership of the global jihadist movement, experts say.
Desperate to retain its preeminent role, the movement behind September 11 may be driven to carry out fresh attacks on Western targets to prove it remains relevant.
"This competition between jihadists could be very dangerous," said Shashank Joshi of the London-based Royal United Services Institute, warning that Al-Qaeda may look to make a "spectacular" show of force.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] IRAQ is up for grabs, Syria has irretrievably been damaged, the West Bank sits on a powder keg. And that's just the regions where some of the worst-case scenarios have come to pass.
On the borders of the Middle East, Afghanistan's fate remains indeterminate, while the initial repercussions of Pakistain's military offensive in North Wazoo are reflected in the rapid multiplication of internally displaced persons, amid reports that the intended targets had fled to Afghanistan well before the first air strikes.
The latter arena of conflict was some years ago dubbed Af-Pak by the Americans, and the somewhat Orwellian terminology attracted plenty of flak.
Over the decades, though, it is by no means just the jihadists who have derided the colonial-era Durand Line. On the other hand, the challenge to the post-First World War border between Syria and Iraq has come fundamentally from Islamist warriors.
A maliferous genie has been unleashed.
It is perhaps unlikely that the latter region will be designated as 'Syriraq', if only because that would seem to endorse the propaganda of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who has proclaimed himself caliph in an area that straddles parts of Syria and almost a third of Iraq, with the Islamic State of Syria and al-Sham (ISIS) now rebranded simply as the Islamic State.
To a large extent, the fate of the ersatz caliphate will be determined by what happens in Iraq during Ramazan. A few days ago, Baghdad announced the recapture of Tikrit, but the claim turned out to have been an exaggeration, with battles still raging in the zone this week.
One of the explanations for the rout of the Iraqi army revolves around the nepotism and corruption that determined its nature under the aegis of Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014... .
Shia militias, the most formidable among them apparently controlled by Iran, have entered the fray, while Maliki, after failing to immediately invite US air strikes against ISIS and its Sunni collaborators, has reportedly spent half a billion dollars on purchasing superannuated Sukhoi aircraft from Russia, which are supposed to turn the tide.
Barack Obama I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go... , meanwhile, has solicited exactly that amount of money from the US Congress in the interests of arming 'moderate' Syrian militias supposedly challenging the depleted supremacy of Bashir al-Assad. But, as veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk ...British journalist who is invariably on the other side of any question. The logic of his prose is so shaky, the ideas so predictable, that he has given his name to the process of mocking a piece of poorly reasoned hackery. He was once beaten up by an Islamic mob and decided they had every right to thump him because he was so Western... has lately pointed out, moderates are thin on the ground, and those who exist cannot be relied upon not to sell their hardware to the highest bidder.
And that often turns out to be ostensibly their worst enemies. The B.O. regime has lately been accused of training ISIS foot soldiers in Jordan. And Assad is said to have not just freed large numbers of Salafi prisoners from Syrian jails in 2011-12, but to have actively promoted ISIS as a means of countering the Al Qaeda-approved Jabhat al-Nusra as well as his more secular adversaries.
There may be some truth in both accusations. It is, after all, hardly unknown for governments to sponsor dubious forces with a view to protecting or advancing their interests. The US was a vigorous proponent of jihad, alongside its regional allies, when the Mujahideen were combating Soviet forces and their proxies in Afghanistan. And there was a time when Israel encouraged Islamists to undermine the Paleostine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Now Israel's determination to destroy Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has been reinforced by the unconscionable murder of three teenage yeshiva students from the occupied territories whom the Islamist organization is accused of having kidnapped.
Whoever committed this egregious atrocity in the vicinity of Hebron clearly intended it as a provocation — not only against Israel, from where a predictably rash reaction could be guaranteed, but against the unity government lately inducted in Ramallah, a supposedly technocratic outfit that includes no Hamas members but receives its backing.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has meanwhile done the cause of the Kurds no favours by explicitly endorsing a Kurdish state — an idea that is apparently not anathema to Ankara either, provided it does not involve any Turkish territory.
Iraq's neighbours would do well to remember that the border with Syria is not the only one that ISIS is determined to obliterate.
Iraq is currently a focus of broadly mutual interests between the US, Russia, Iran and Syria. But the situation is much too convoluted to draw any hopeful conclusions from this unlikely alliance.
The unprovoked Western aggression against Iraq in 2003 liberated not the Iraqi people but a maliferous genie. In the event of sectarian strife engulfing not just Iraq and Syria but their (not entirely blameless) environs, precious little credit will accrue to those who continue to argue that a prolonged occupation of Iraq or Western military intervention in Syria would have produced an altogether more desirable outcome.
But even those of us who derided the absurd project from the outset are left dangling with a question that has become progressively harder to answer: what next?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Time for Israel to annex Judea and Samaria during all this turmoil.
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.
Wazoo
...British 
