Hi there, !
Today Fri 12/07/2012 Thu 12/06/2012 Wed 12/05/2012 Tue 12/04/2012 Mon 12/03/2012 Sun 12/02/2012 Sat 12/01/2012 Archives
Rantburg
531206 articles and 1854425 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 59 articles and 142 comments as of 5:12.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Syria FM Spokesman 'Defects' from Regime, Leaves Syria
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
1 23:08 JosephMendiola [336084] 
3 22:48 JosephMendiola [336077] 
1 19:34 JosephMendiola [336068] 
0 [336071] 
2 11:09 Barbara [336076] 
1 09:09 Procopius2k [336072] 
5 12:39 Rjschwarz [336070] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 [336071]
5 23:10 JosephMendiola [336089]
0 [336072]
4 16:42 Pappy [336069]
0 [336071]
0 [336070]
0 [336070]
0 [336122]
0 [336069]
0 [336072]
0 [336070]
0 [336067]
1 06:24 trailing wife [336072]
0 [336071]
0 [336075]
0 [336071]
0 [336070]
0 [336073]
1 07:49 Glenmore [336073]
Page 2: WoT Background
1 19:36 JosephMendiola [336082]
1 21:14 James Bond [336082]
16 21:28 Charles [336073]
3 23:17 JosephMendiola [336089]
6 11:17 tipper [336069]
8 22:14 wr [336077]
0 [336072]
0 [336072]
0 [336070]
0 [336076]
0 [336071]
6 22:05 Pappy [336080]
0 [336071]
6 15:21 Charles [336070]
0 [336069]
0 [336067]
0 [336072]
1 17:53 Skidmark [336068]
0 [336068]
0 [336068]
Page 3: Non-WoT
3 23:20 JosephMendiola [336084]
6 23:22 Alaska Paul [336083]
1 20:55 Procopius2k [336079]
1 08:10 AlanC [336073]
0 [336069]
0 [336072]
7 23:20 Alaska Paul [336078]
6 22:19 CrazyFool [336084]
0 [336069]
Page 6: Politix
9 20:58 Eric Jablow [336082]
14 23:32 JosephMendiola [336092]
13 21:40 Rambler in Virginia [336085]
10 16:10 Thusort Ebbomoting1144 [336073]
Africa North
Tensions within Islam tear Middle East apart
Posted by: tipper || 12/04/2012 20:04 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In West Asia as well ...

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > ESCALATION:LINKS BETWEEN [anti-Shia] VIOLENT SECTARIAN GROUPS + PAKISTANI TALIBAN GROWING.

Taliban + pro-Sunni, MilTerr Civie fringe groups collude to persecute, hunting down, and kill many Shia elites in Pakistan.

versus

* TOPIX > [BBC News] WHY AL-QAEDA FINDS NO RECRUITS [yet] IN INDIA?

IIUC, basically the overwhelming majority of India's Muslims are peace-minded and STILL HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE despite pervasive Hindu + Govt-supported discrimination agz them.

ARTIC NUTSHELL > INDIA'S HINDUS, GOVT. = MAINSTREAM, WOULD BE WISE TO REFORM + COMPROMISE, + NOT ERODE OR DESTROY CHANCES FOR PEACE + NATIONAL UNITY.

versus

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > TERROR ATTACKS SOAR: INDIA AMONG [World's Top Five] MOST AFFECTED NATION -STUDY, as per Global Terror Index.

Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, + Yemen, in that order.

* SAME > INDIA SAYS PAKISTAN TERROR STRUCTURE [40+ border training, base camps] REMAINS INTACT.

* SAME > NYT: PAKISTAN'S HAZARA SHIITES UNDER SIEGE, by local Sunnis.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/04/2012 23:08 Comments || Top||


Al-Qaeda Terror Cells Move To Africa, Dig In, Branch Out
Posted by: tipper || 12/04/2012 10:30 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ah yes, OWG MADONNA + AFRICA + MALAWI + HOLLYWOOD ADOPT-A-KID(S), in the fine tradition of BradGelina + Not-Octomom.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/04/2012 19:34 Comments || Top||


Arabia
What Happens When America No Longer Needs Middle East Oil?
Posted by: tipper || 12/04/2012 18:41 || Comments || Link || [336077 views] Top|| File under:

#1  An era of peace and prosperity at the very least.
Posted by: Iblis || 12/04/2012 19:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Israel will be allowed to do that which must be done....
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 12/04/2012 20:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Versus ...

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > [Wayne Ma] CHINA'S SHALE-GAS BOOM SLOW TO START.

Looks like both post-Millenial/Y2000 Perts + 1960's Guam Taotamonas may yet end up being right about Energy = Peak Oil-Gas being Rising China's "Achilles Heel"???

In reality, however, the OWG "Consensus is that there is no Consensus" + Peak Resources affects everyone + every country + agendum on Earth.

E.G. GMA NETWORK > [Ban Ki-Moon]UN CHIEF: EXTREME WEATHER IS THE NEW NORMAL, as well as a de facto threat to Human Survival.

ARTIC > KI-MOON = WORLD ACTION ON STOPPING GWCC IS OCCURRING SLOWER THAN ANTICIPATED OR DESIRED, WORLD-WIDE DROUGHT HAS DECIMATED ESSENTIAL GLOBAL CROPS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/04/2012 22:48 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Mexican Archdiocese reads President Pena the riot act
Retranslated

The arrival of Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto as President of Mexico opens new prospects for development in a society divided ideologically, overwhelmed by poverty, social inequality and lack of opportunity for new generations; a society wounded by a demented, apocalyptic violence unleashed by organized crime, and powerless before an inefficient and corrupt judicial system, allowing the most outrageous of impunity; and a political class in which many seek only to live in their interests and irresponsible wasting of public resources, a society with a deplorable education system; and petty trade unionism that promotes community development and has built a culture of corruption that eats like black hole, the resources of which should be channelled to social development.

Mexicans owe no good bet to failure of the new government because it would be to the detriment of all citizens. And although the described reality is bleak, we must hold fast the hope that can transform our nation and forge a better society. It should leave the personal meanness to put on ourselves to build a country that can not lose the opportunities they have to be sensitive about the many problems that afflict us, and to aspire together to progress and development, which should be pillars of justice and peace.

President Enrique Peña Nieto has before him a number of challenges that are postponed to address, namely:
  • Promotion of an authentic humanism that puts the person and dignity in the service center of the political agenda, above party interests or particular political institutions or associations, and their ideologies.

  • Education, understood not only as a transmission of knowledge, but as a comprehensive education that promotes the values ​​of the peace, respect, brotherhood and civic responsibility in building the nation.

  • Similarly, the scientific and technological progress, the arts and sport.

  • Promoting and strengthening the family, considering marriage as the basis of society, promoting education of the new generations in the moral and civic values ​​for integration into the social development.

  • Combating social injustice, dramatically present in the abysmal social inequalities and suffering of poverty, through the creation of well-paying jobs, and the implementation of social programs.

  • Free paternalism and political patronage to promote a culture of work, solidarity, community engagement and savings.

  • The fight against entrenched corruption to be from a clean record of public officials, vigilant at all times with the understanding that the enemy is also home.

  • A tangible commitment by the government to combat and repudiate dishonesty, and proposals that severely punish this practice, because today is cancer that consumed the country and corrupt the younger generation who see this evil something natural or necessary.

  • Promoting economic development initiatives, going through a series of constitutional reforms, which historically has been postponed by the mixed policy that unfairly and irresponsibly slows development of future generations.

  • The fight against organized crime, which is an obligation on the State, with full respect for human rights and the preservation of the public peace, not only with the legitimate use o force, but through education for peace, and civic and moral values ​​Remake the social fabric and lead us to a national reconciliation. care, protection, promotion and social integration of the people most vulnerable, the elderly, indigenous people, children and the disabled, fighting discrimination, abuse and marginalization.

  • Finally, the care and the preservation of ecological and natural resourcs and the nation, raising awareness in their care, fighting exploitation and pollution, and educating new generations in the responsibility for the goods of the earth that are entrusted to us by God.
Posted by: badanov || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...a society divided ideologically, overwhelmed by poverty, social inequality and lack of opportunity for new generations...

Hey, the ruling class has been working hard for generations on that by dumping millions of those mestizos y indios on their neighbor. They can lead them to the border, but they can't make them cross.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/04/2012 9:09 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Susan Rice, Distraction: The Real Benghazi Questions
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 12/04/2012 04:02 || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Rice wasn’t making life-and-death decisions on Sept. 11, 2012, when the U.S. compound in the Libyan city of Benghazi came under attack

Apparently, BO wasn't either. He either voted "Present" or was a no show. The other possibility is that he was handicapped to make a decision. I would always worry when BO says: "I got your back!" Prepare for the worst.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/04/2012 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  "I would always worry when BO says: "I got your back!'"

I never worry about that, John.

I know he's really saying "I've got a knife for your back." >:-(
Posted by: Barbara || 12/04/2012 11:09 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Weapon of choice
[Dawn] CALL it a weapon, a tool, or gloss things over by referring to it as a menace, the fact is it changed Pakistain’s social fabric.

The term Kalashnikov culture appeared in the country’s popular lexicon in the 1980s. In all the literature produced in and about Pakistain in the decades since it has been decried and rejected and has yet held murderously on.

Is this culture, and the popularity of the gun, declining? A newspaper reported recently that the Kalashnikov — the AK47 assault rifle — has been replaced by 9mm pistols as the weapon of choice for Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
’s myriad killers. In 80 per cent of the assassinations in the city, the latter are being used.

It’s obvious why: 9mm pistols are easy to carry concealed, can fire more bullets with one magazine, and are cheap to lay one’s hands on — Rs15,000 upwards. The pistol is the official weapon of NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
troops and is reportedly smuggled in large numbers into Pakistain. The Chinese-made replica, the CF-98, is also widely available, and the pistol is being bootlegged, among other places, in Darra Adam Khel.

The Kalashnikov was designed in 1942 as the Nazi army halted at Stalingrad. The brutality of that war is well-known, with Russians sent to the front to put up resistance but actually getting shot. The losses were huge — in part because guns were in extremely short supply among the Russians. Also, the Germans had machine guns (the MP44s); the Soviets, in the main, had rifles.

So a young tank sergeant of the Soviet army, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, designed an answer: the AK47, produced for the first time in 1947.

No patent for the gun was ever taken out, and the gun is pretty easy, technologically, to replicate. And so it was manufactured in hundreds and thousands across the world, becoming a staple for at least one of the sides in pretty much any armed conflict since 1947: the warlords in Mogadishu, the Vietcong in Vietnam, the child soldiers of Liberia, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and the gun-hung tough guys in Pakistain, even Bloody Karachi’s hit mans.

The AK47, and other arms, are manufactured in a Russian town called Izhevsk, known as the ‘armoury’ of Russia, at a factory called Izhmash. For decades, the lathes and presses have thumped and clanged, forging the Kalashnikov and other deliverers of death for armies and gun-hung tough guys or irregular forces around the world.

According to a report published in the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, about 100 million Kalashnikovs have been manufactured, making that one for every 70 people on earth. And that’s not counting the replicas made elsewhere.

One would think that business would be booming for Izhmash, but that is not the case. At the end of October, Mikhail Kalashnikov — 92 years old, now — and 16 of his colleagues wrote an open letter to President Vladimir Putin
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
, calling his attention to record low levels of production at Izhmash and the “catastrophic situation at what was once a manufacturing giant”.

It seems that armies are no longer buying AK47s in any appreciable quality, so the factory has had to shift its focus to sales to civilians. (The civilian version does not have the fully automatic mode, which fires bursts of bullets with one pull of the trigger.)
Civilian rifles now account for 70 per cent of the factory’s output, up from 50 per cent two years ago. And of the civilian versions, some 40 per cent is exported to the US, with its well-known resistance to gun control and where the import of Chinese-made handguns and rifles has in the main been banned since 1992.

Regrettably, though, the slowdown of the Izhmash production line does not mean that the Kalashnikov culture — to which Pakistain is not alone in its affliction — is dying. This and weapons patterned on it are used every day in conflicts around the world, but few are bought from Izhmash because used and replicated copies are so easily available. The significance of their being manufactured in Darra should not be lost on anyone.

Curiously, around the Kalashnikov, a culture has developed that can only referred to as some dark version of romance. In Pakistain, there are ads for ‘Kalashnikov mosquito killers’, and ‘Kalashnikov deals’.

The weapon features regularly in a recently published book, Poetry of the Taliban. The image has been woven into carpets and rugs, and in Turkey, a prayer mat. I’ve got a feisty dance number from a Punjabi film whose lyrics translate approximately to “I am a Kalashnikov, my aim is always true; When I dance, that’s when the mujra really takes off.”

Jeremy Clarkson of the BBC’s ‘Top Gear’, in fact, argues that because of certain characteristics, this weapon is unique in that it has soul. Because “…it was born amid unimaginable strife and suffering so it has genuine working-class, hard-man origins. And … the AK has never sold out. You never find it in the pampered hands of an American soldier, boasting about how it was brought up in a cave in Saigon. It was born to help the underdog and that’s what it’s been doing, non-stop for nigh on 60 years. …

“It is, after all, one of the design classics. You could frame one and hang it on the wall, and no one would want to know why you had done such a thing. Except the police, perhaps.

“Design is rarely art because design, when all is said and done, exists purely to make money. And yet the AK was never conceived to do that. In fact, Mikhail Kalashnikov lives today on nothing more than a Soviet Army pension. And that’s why his most famous creation can be called an art form. And that’s what gives it soul.”

But things in Pakistain have moved far beyond the simplicity of a Kalashnikov, into a world where the Kalashnikov culture feels oddly — almost endearingly — archaic; even the gangsters of Lyari
...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot....
now have access to uranium-tipped bullets that can pierce armoured personnel carriers. How curious that contemporary violence is so harshly inventive that the AK47 feels old-fashioned.
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hard to hide a rifle, A switch means easier to hide, Nothing more.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 12/04/2012 0:16 Comments || Top||

#2  9mm pistols are easy to carry concealed, can fire more bullets with one magazine

???? What the heck kinda 9mm's are these guys getting there?
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 12/04/2012 8:48 Comments || Top||

#3  I don't get that either. There are 30 rd mags for 9s but at times they don't feed so well.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/04/2012 10:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Cabelas doesn't ship to Pakistan, perhaps. Natchez either, I guess.
Posted by: lotp || 12/04/2012 11:06 Comments || Top||

#5  "No patent for the gun was ever taken out, and the gun is pretty easy, technologically, to replicate. And so it was manufactured in hundreds and thousands across the world, "

Yeah, it was just copycats taking advantage of lax Soviet patent law and not the USSR distributing the things everywhere hoping to destabilize and create client states.
Posted by: Rjschwarz || 12/04/2012 12:39 Comments || Top||


Iraq
The Frenemy Next Door In Iran
Posted by: tipper || 12/04/2012 10:26 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
35[untagged]
5Govt of Syria
3al-Shabaab
2TTP
2Arab Spring
2Jamaat-e-Islami
1Commies
1Govt of Iraq
1Govt of Pakistan
1Ansar Dine
1Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
1al-Qaeda
1Lashkar e-Jhangvi
1Taliban
1Thai Insurgency
1Boko Haram

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2012-12-04
  Syria FM Spokesman 'Defects' from Regime, Leaves Syria
Mon 2012-12-03
  Car bomb in Syria's Homs kills 15: State media
Sun 2012-12-02
  Mullah Nazir orders out Mehsud Taliban fighters
Sat 2012-12-01
  Egypt assembly approves new draft constitution
Fri 2012-11-30
  Damascus fighting cuts off airport, Emirates suspends flights
Thu 2012-11-29
  Bomb injures top Talibunny Mullah Nazir
Wed 2012-11-28
  Packed Tahrir Square defiant as deadlock prevails
Tue 2012-11-27
  30 Inmates Escape as Gunmen Attack Nigerian Police Unit
Mon 2012-11-26
  Syrian Rebels Claim Capture of Helicopter Base Near Damascus
Sun 2012-11-25
  Thousands of anti-Morsi protesters spend the night in Egypt's Tahrir square
Sat 2012-11-24
  7 People Killed in Pakistan Shiite Procession
Fri 2012-11-23
  IDF, Shin Bet Arrest 55 Terror Operatives In West Bank
Thu 2012-11-22
  Mashaal: I accept a Palestinian state on '67 borders
Wed 2012-11-21
  'Bomb blast' on bus in Tel Aviv
Tue 2012-11-20
  Female Suicide Boomer Targets Qazi

Better than the average link...



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.
34.229.223.223
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (19)    WoT Background (20)    Non-WoT (9)    (0)    Politix (4)