[EDITION.CNN] More than 2,800 people have been killed in Nigeria since the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... crisis in Nigeria started in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... . The Islamic bad turban group, which wants to enforce a strict version of Islamic law in northern Nigeria, has successfully hit soft and hard targets in a manner that questions the capacity of the Nigerian state to protect its citizenry. Hard targets have included the police and United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... headquarters in Abuja.
Frustrated by his inability to solve the problem by peaceful means, President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... had to fall back on the provisions of Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution. In May 2013, he declared states of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in northeastern Nigeria -- three key flashpoint states that had been wracked by activities of Boko Haram and its offshoot, Ansaru.
"We have taken robust steps to unravel and address the root causes of these crises, but it would appear that there is a systematic effort by Death Eaters and gunnies to destabilize the Nigerian state and test our collective resolve," Jonathan said in a televised speech.
More troops were deployed to the three states; the country's borders with Cameroun, Niger and Chad were shut down. The Nigerian Air Force provided air cover for the army and police, which raided the hideouts of the Death Eaters. The crackdown began to produce positive results in terms of a drastic reduction in attacks by the Death Eaters -- resulting from a blockade of their supply lines of fighters, arms and food.
But how sustainable is all this? Can we say that the last of the Boko Haram crisis has been heard? The answer is a categorical no.
Last weekend, gunnies stormed a school in Yobe, killing 20 students and a teacher in an attack local media said had been claimed by Boko Haram.
Whereas the Nigerian government would say Boko Haram members are being "flushed out", an objective observer would say many are simply hibernating in various northern Nigerian communities. Locals know who -- and where -- they are, but share two related grievances against the Nigerian state that is warring against the group.
First and foremost, many northern Nigerians are unhappy with the way the military carries out its operations. In its pursuit of Boko Haram, the Nigerian military views everything as a legitimate target -- including mosques, market places, women and kiddies. The people regularly allege the killing of innocent people by the military. They claim to be more afraid of the soldiers than Boko Haram Death Eaters.
The Nigerian military recently told Human Rights Watch that reports of civilian casualties during military raids were "grossly exaggerated," but U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... has warned his Nigerian counterpart over alleged atrocities by soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2013 10:48 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Boko Haram
The roll out of President Obama's health care reform package was always going to be tricky, with vehement opposition from his political opponents and pushback from employers large and small. But after announcing last week that penalties for companies failing to comply with the law will be delayed by a year, the Affordable Care Act has a new, high profile set of dissenters: Unions.
The leaders of three major U.S. unions, including the highly influential Teamsters, have sent a scathing open letter to Democratic leaders in Congress, warning that unless changes are made, President Obama's health care reform plan will "destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class."
If that's not bad enough, the Affordable Care Act, if not modified, will "destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans," the letter says.
#3
they'll make it up once the illegal are legalized...remember, the Dems have to create new underclasses to stay in power.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
07/13/2013 11:50 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Eat it, damn unions were renegotiating health benefits within hours of this stone passing; knew it all along.
End mandatory union fees now; the right to assemble is also the right to not assemble.
And to pro-union people, what this Obamacare law did was finalize the unionization of all workers, effectively destroying unions. Grab a book, it is SOP, and now instead Unions - which have now overserved their mission - the new caste system will be full timers/part timers/no timers, and a whole series of small businesses being run by not ready for prime time managers, like tripling the number of pro baseball teams overnight there is not the talent pool or cultural resources for such a thing.
They will keep doing the "oh, just one more hill" game for years out until you are gone. Bet a box of twinkies that this immigration bill as a paragraph about expanding hauling rights for Mexico truckers. As the VP would say, your making your own noose, Jack.
#6
Just as the Congressional Black Caucus has discovered the amnesty bill will kill any job prospects in their community for those with low skill abilities. This with the Union people.
Well, when you sell your soul to one party machine, this eventually arrives, along with that understanding that you've been used all along to further the agenda of the ruling caste and are no longer useful in their accumulation of power.
#7
No, they are in the Political caste and in CYA mode.
A person working in an industry should have the option to be or not to be in a union, and if an individual is forced to join an organization, their income should not be additionally taxed without permission.
I think it would actually benefit the union members to have their boosters have to perform and justify their budget.
#8
Wasn't it the unions who DESIGNED this monster?
I remember the DNC-Union secret meetings in the middle of the night (to which no notes were taken and the American public were forbidden to know the details of.).
Of course they don't want a repeal - they want a special exemption.
#9
The unions have been behind the ACA from the beginning. They partnered with the Dems. One word in early 2009 from these unions and the Dems in the House and Senate would have frozen into place.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/13/2013 14:00 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Unions have been bragging for years about how they were the ones who gave America the 40 hour week. Now, we will have the 28 hour week. America is making progress!!
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/13/2013 14:08 Comments ||
Top||
#11
they're pissed because the exemptions they got for their support don't last long enough.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/13/2013 14:48 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Hmmm, Democrats on one side and unions on the other,
Don't Dem's and Unions usually go hand in hand?
Having them fight is GOOD for us the people.
And bad for Obama.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/13/2013 21:43 Comments ||
Top||
#13
now, if they can both lose, then America will win.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
07/13/2013 21:44 Comments ||
Top||
[Dawn] The children of his caretakers called him "Miskeen Baba", he liked to wear a cowboy hat while working in the garden, for snacks he preferred apples or chocolate. These are just some of the inane details of Bin Laden's life on the run that you would have been able to learn from the leaked report of the Abbottabad Commission. I say had, because to the disappointment of those who crave the domestic details of absconding terrorists, the link to the dossier leaked by Al-Jazeera appears to be blocked inside Pakistan. Like the dancing fat children and skateboarding grandmas of YouTube, the intrigues and entertainments of Osama's Abbottabad abode are now unavailable to the curious Pakistani.
All is not lost, when one cannot have something, it is best to degrade it and downplay its value. In this sense, many of the leaked report's purported revelations are really no news at all. Take for instance, what the report called an "implosion of governance". This condition refers to the fact that no Pakistani Government authorities, from the property tax office (the Bin Ladens did not pay property taxes for six years) to the utility companies (illegally obtained meters under different names) to the zoning authorities (18.5 meter walls!), paid any attention whatsoever to the Bin Ladens. Similarly, inattentive were the intelligence authorities, the various wings of the military who should have noticed a vagabond terrorist and his harem, or have been alert to two American helicopters flying into the heart of the country. It is all very sad, but for Pakistani consumption, all very predictable, a 337 page report to lay out again what everyone knows and is reminded of everyday, is in the frugal days of circular debt, simply indulgent.
While the loss of a thick compendium of Pakistan's already well known failings may not be one that we mourn much, Pakistanis should sulk at being deprived of the portions of the report that mirror our country's conundrums with identity, authenticity and our enduring obsession with becoming Arab. These emerge most prominently in the stories of the two brothers Ibrahim and Abrar Al-Kuwaiti, the Pakistanis who served as Bin Laden's front men. While the interactions between Osama the man and the two lackeys he trusted is not particularly noteworthy, the interactions between the wives certainly is. The wives of the two brothers Bushra and Maryam, were both largely ignored by the uppity Mrs. Bin Ladens, their meetings, the report tells us were limited to a paltry 10 minutes a month. Such silence and restraint between those relegated to a secluded existence in a decrepit house could only happen between Arabs and the South Asians they consider inherently inferior.
And the tension doesn't end there, in a dramatic moment worthy of a soap opera, Rahma the precocious little girl of one of the brothers, recognises what she has believed to be an old, poor man to be Bin Laden. The scenario could not be better scripted by the most talented of screen writers. Its first episode occurs when while being tutored in the Holy Quran by Sumayya Bin Laden, the little girl unexpectedly encounters and then greets the mysterious man. The second comes when she sees the same man on an Al-Jazeera Television newscast and recognises him. In the very worst of childish hunches realised Miskeen Baba is actually Osama Bin Laden! For the first transgression, all the caretaker's children are banned from the Bin Laden house forever. For the second, all the women, the wives and daughters of Ibrahim and Abrar Al-Kuwaiti, are banned from watching television. Many more long boring nights in Abbottabad in store for them.
The darkest and most tragically comic moment comes in the report's recounting of the raid. After the bravado, heavy and adjective heaped accounts coming from the members of Seal Team Six, these present the pathetic condition of the Bin Laden household and the ease with which they were ultimately taken down. The report presents accounts of what each of the wives was doing and of what they said. Prominent and highlighted in this instance is the ineptitude of the police in Abbottabad. The report's writers seem perplexed by the fact that the police is ill-informed about the goings on of Pakistan's military intelligence agencies, the rest of us would not perhaps have been able to feign such confusion. It is in the context of this, that the most memorable words recorded in the report are uttered. According to the testimony of the police DIG who did ultimately arrive at the scene, Khairiyya Bin Laden, Osama's eldest wife turned to him and said in English "Now you come, when everything over". In that moment perhaps, this Mrs. Osama Bin Laden was closest than she had ever been to the Pakistani experience in her years of residence in the country ... for those words are ones that every Pakistani can understand.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Whitney-vs-Madonna.
Personally, my life seems to be closely interlocked wid that of Osama, as Covert Warriors to Govt-Nations + ultimately beyond to that of God + Faith.
#3
Joe is drawing from the well of the unconscious. It is a deep well, and you never know what will come up.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/13/2013 2:03 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Me, I just look at the photo of Bin laden with a bullet in the eye and the mess of his face. At the end he had all the fine dignity of a spot of cat Urp.
And then....over the side. As to the pakistanis and their Culture and their Institutions...well, Islamic Cat Urp still comes to mind. Imagine an entire country of Moslem Cat Urp.
Isn;t that the country that murdered 3 million Hindus in just 8 months...in Bangla Desh? Skull walls and Tamerlane for saints and role models. yeah, those people. Long history of Islam.
Smell it?
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.
[EDITION.CNN] More than 2,800 people have been killed in Nigeria since the 
Goodluck Jonathan
[Dawn] The children of his caretakers called him "Miskeen Baba", he liked to wear a cowboy hat while working in the garden, for snacks he preferred apples or chocolate. These are just some of the inane details of Bin Laden's life on the run that you would have been able to learn from the leaked report of the Abbottabad Commission. I say had, because to the disappointment of those who crave the domestic details of absconding terrorists, the link to the dossier leaked by Al-Jazeera appears to be blocked inside Pakistan. Like the dancing fat children and skateboarding grandmas of YouTube, the intrigues and entertainments of Osama's Abbottabad abode are now unavailable to the curious Pakistani.
