#2
the Water Resources Boards are minor-league Nazis. Like an HOA on steroids
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/15/2014 19:20 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Why don't they just make water? It's not like the recipe is a secret. And the ingredients are simply hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, and oxygen, which is readily available here on Earth.
I haven't yet read the series, so I may go for it. I've read some other stuff by Bracken. The man can put together a sentence or two.
If you want to read a free compilation of news stories actually published on Rantburg during the worst of the drug war, click here and follow the links to The Wounded Eagle Series. Volume Four is available for free download, too.
#2
Hey, NSA whistleblower, George Orwell already beat you to the story...it was called 1984 and was published in 1949. Implemented in 2009 by the election of the present administration. You are a little late to the game fella.
* RELATED GUARDIAN.UK ?> NSA EXPERTS: ULTIMATE GOAL OF NSA IS TOTAL POPULATION CONTROL.
* FREEREPUBLIC > [TownHall.com] THE LEFT MEANS TO OUTLAW CHRISTIANITY.
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Der Spiegel] NSA EXPERTS:
"NATIONAL SECURITY" HAS BECOME A STATE RELIGION.
* SAME > DAVID STOCKMAN: GOLD IN THE AGE OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT.
IIUC being Honest = Truthful = Moralist = Ethical is increasingly akin to being a WILY DASTARDLY SNEAKY RADICAL/EXTREMIST = "ENEMY OF THE STATE" that must be Gulagged or put down???
[DAWN] THE North Wazoo operation is now a month old. Everything we are made to believe tells us that the operation has been successful in hitting the physical centre of gravity of the snuffies and taking out scores of them. The effort is being presented as the grand finale in Pakistain's fight against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain & Co.
If it is indeed so, the headline for me is no longer the day-to-day of the operation. Rather, it is the absence of the much-feared backlash in Pak metropolises that was the argument put forth by those within the military and beyond who opposed the operation over the past four years.
Why hasn't it occurred? And what does this tell us about the operation and the state's counterterrorism abilities?
Of course, it is premature to say that we have gotten past this phase without backlash. It may still come. But even if it does now, it is clear that the TTP has either forfeited or been unable to exercise the option of trying to raise the costs of the state to force it to rethink the utility of the operation itself.
There can be two basic explanations for the relative calm. One, that the TTP has failed to hit back in a major way despite trying. If true, there are crucial lessons to be learnt in terms of the state's counterterrorism capacity. What measures have the law enforcement and intelligence apparatus taken over the years to undercut the turbans' urban presence? Have their successes in neutralising terrorist sleeper cells and lines of communication been underappreciated? Does this make the constant sliming on the civilian counterterrorism apparatus unfair and the thought of calling out the military in preventive mode under Article 245 absurd?
The other explanation points to a need to question what we know about the operation. Is this really a do-or-die fight for the TTP? Or are they holding back deliberately?
The TTP and its affiliates know that they don't have the capacity to prevent North Waziristan from being physically recaptured by the state. The destruction of their centre of gravity has to be taken as a foregone conclusion. But beyond that, if the TTP feel they can let the operation pass by melting away, it would be logical for them not to irk the state further by conducting an urban terror campaign when the state is prepared to unleash its wrath. Indeed, empirical evidence tells us that it is easiest for states to keep expanding the purview of their lethal actions at a time when state and society are mobilised on a war footing.
In this scenario, the TTP would choose to lose ground for now but prepare to raise their head once the active operation is over. If all the key holy warrior leadership is already in Afghanistan or has melted away in Pak towns, we need to recalibrate the expectations from this operation. The TTP would likely begin to re-operate in pockets from Fata in the coming months. They could also make their Afghanistan-based 'reverse strategic depth' permanent and continue to prick the Pak state from there — without holding Pak territory.
Is this also why the Punjabi Taliban have not set Pakistain's heartland on fire? Is it a conscious and joint decision by the TTP and Punjabi Taliban not to overplay their hand? Or have we exaggerated all along what the Punjab-based presence means for the TTP conglomerate? Their undoubted links notwithstanding, is the Punjabi Taliban's silence evidence of their operational and ideological autonomy, indicating they are not willing to go down fighting for their Pakhtun counterparts even if the latter want them to?
Or is this a case of the state's complicated game of differentiating between various holy warriors at play? Is there a tacit quid pro quo between the state and the Punjab-based groups by virtue of which Punjab will be left untouched (in return for whatever the state may have offered)?
Finding out more about what is truly at play will reveal quite a bit about the severity of the challenge the state faces in Punjab, the state's ability to influence these groups, and the ease (or not) with which the Pakhtun-Punjabi nexus of holy warriors can be broken.
Finally, if the relative calm in cities holds, my fraternity must be called upon to introspect. What about the plethora of analyses that continued to plead that the operation would prove to be a death trap; that it was an American agenda? Have we not let this flawed narrative hold for four years to Pakistain's own detriment? Also, was this narrative really a coincidence? Or was it fuelled to protect the state's highly questionable self-defined geo-strategic interests?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
[IsraelTimes] It's not yet completely clear how Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Israel will respond to the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire to to be announced on Tuesday morning. But one thing is certain: This is the darkest hour for the Hamas leadership in Gazoo and abroad.
If they accept the Egyptian proposal, they will be perceived as having been heavily defeated in the latest round of conflict with Israel; a defeat that is close to a humiliation.
That's because the conditions in the Egyptian proposal do not include any of the demands that Hamas has been repeating day and night in the last few days. As reported in the Egyptian media, there is no mention in the proposal of Hamas's oft-repeated demand for the release of the dozens of its operatives, freed in the 2011 Shalit deal, who were retossed in the slammer Please don't kill me! in recent weeks by Israeli forces in the West Bank in the wake of the murders of the three Israeli teenagers. There is also no concrete commitment regarding the opening of the Rafah border crossing or the payments of the salaries of Hamas's 40,000 clerks in Gazoo. And there is no mention whatsoever of the situation in the West Bank. All these demands were raised by the Hamas military wing two days after Israel began Operation Protective Edge, and repeated interminably ever since.
Yes, there is some language providing for the opening of the border crossings, and an easing of movement of people and goods via those crossings as permitted by the security situation. But that language is almost a direct repetition of the November 2012 ceasefire terms that brought Operation Pillar of Defense to a close. Time and again, Hamas's leaders have been stressing in recent days that "there will be no return to the 2012 ceasefire terms."
As late as Monday night, Arabic TV stations were broadcasting a recorded speech by former Hamas Gazoo prime minister Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... , in which he repeatedly praised the heroism of the Hamas military wing, which had "restored Paleostinian pride." He heaped praise on its courage and achievements⦠and also repeated those familiar demands — the prisoners, the salaries, the border crossings, the blockade.
And then came the Egyptian proposal, ignoring those demands almost completely.
Hamas's problem is that if it rejects the Egyptian proposal it will find itself unprecedentedly isolated in the international community and the Arab world. Cairo will accuse it of torpedoing the opportunity for calm, and Jerusalem will have the legitimacy to mount a ground offensive into Gazoo.
Thus the options open to Haniyeh, the military wing in Gazoo, and political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar range from bad to worse.
Soon after the Egyptian proposal was published, one Hamas front man, Fawzi Barhoum, announced "there will be no truce unless the demands of the military wing, and of the Paleostinian people, are met."
Did that represent Hamas's rejection of the proposal? That's not clear — and won't be until the spokesmen of the military wing, who are leading this conflict with Israel, have stated their position.
But sources in the Strip told this news hound late Monday that the military wing has decided not even to discuss the Egyptian proposal. These sources said that Hamas is fuming over the process by which the Egyptian terms were brought to its attention — via the media.
Indeed, the leaking of the proposal to the Egyptian media, the fact that it ignores Hamas's demands, and the further fact that it includes a nod to Israel via its similarities to the 2012 terms, must seem suspicious indeed to Hamas. Could it be that Jerusalem and Cairo hatched this move together, in order to corner Hamas?
It seems obvious that there'll be few tears shed in Cairo if Hamas is perceived as weakened by a ceasefire deal, or, alternately, is hit hard by the Israel militarily. This much is clear from the discussions between Israeli and Egyptian officials, and in recent days, from the tone of the Egyptian media, which is taking great delight in criticizing and denigrating Hamas.
And what of the Netanyahu government? It would seem that most members of the security cabinet recognize that the Egyptian proposal represents a fair achievement for Israel, and a significant failure for Hamas.
[Ynet] Analysis: Decision to bomb entire areas in northern Gazoo after warning residents indicates is aimed at signaling to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, that Israel is climbing one more step up the ladder.
On Saturday evening, after the first five days of Operation Protective Edge, armed Paleostinian groups from Leb joined the fighting. The IDF was prepared for this option, but the goal will likely be to contain the event rather than escalate the situation.
Hezbollah was probably not involved in the rocket fire directed at Israel's northern communities, but it's possible that global jihad organizations — which have already done this before — participated in the rocket fire or even initiated it.
Continued on Page 49
... taking over every form of mass media of any image-making stuff is always the first priority of leftist governments because they're really fanatical putzes selling themselves as geniuses and because reality -- that meany -- inevitably fails to conform to their expectations.
Yes, I know, the vultures of doom will swoop into my comments like they swooped onto Klavan's. There will be Alinsky this and rules for radicals that. And how it's all working perfectly. PERFECTLY.
I'm not going to deny that this wrecking crew is running a job on our country. What I'm going to deny is that they're geniuses or even that as much of a wrecking job as they're doing is necessarily because they want it so.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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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.
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Wazoo
