Nothing new here if you've been reading Rantburg for the past six months--but it's interesting that a Leftist (1) sees what's going on so clearly and (2) recognizes that there's little difference between Obama! and Hillary! when it comes to policy positions or likely actions once in office.
Rhodes' Don Imus like foul mouthed rant is SOP for a core of so called progressive writers that post on the Huffington Post, and write for the Nation, Mother Jones, Daily Kos, the Underground Democrat, and a handful of other leftist sites. They have feasted at the hate Hillary trough. Their shrill diatribes, name calling, slanders, slurs, distortions and flat out lies should make the hard guys at Fox Network turn red faced. . . .
The objection here is not that progressives shouldn't level a reasoned, principled, and critical dissection of Clinton positions. There are legitimate policy issues and positions to take her to task on. Unfortunately, that got tossed and Clinton's left side critics have found it much easier, and more fun, to engage in juvenile delinquent wolf ticket selling. They then pivot and froth, fume, and rail at Fox for doing the same thing. And Heaven forbid if anyone dare utter any criticism of Obama. That's deemed treasonous and the name calling kicks in with a vengeance against the offender.
The reasons for the juvenile delinquent name calling by Rhodes and company boil down to this. Clinton initially backed the Iraq war and refused to apologize for it or claims as Obama wrongly does that he was an outspoken anti-war guy from day one. Two, she supposedly is a back room, deal-making, opportunist Democrat who has been a shill for big money, corporate donors.
Her greatest sin, though, is that she pig headedly stands in the way of the coronation of Obama. A subtext to that is that by blocking the supposed inevitable, she, not Obama, is tearing the guts out of the Democratic Party and is making it that much harder for Obama to coast into the White House. Putting aside for a moment this wishful thinking fantasy land knock, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, have I seen the progressive Hillary baiters itemize exactly what they think they'll get out of an Obama White House that will be radically different than what they'll get from any other top Democrat who's backed by big money corporate interests, pockets money through the back door from corporate special interest lobbyists, is lauded by defense industry top brass, hailed by centrist Democratic Senators and governors, and fawned over by hard nosed GOP conservatives, headed by former Bush political strategist Karl Rove, as Obama is. Tell me?
Liberal Democrats and progressives rhapsodize that Obama is gutsier, visionary, progressive, and far less likely to wheel and deal in high Washington and corporate circles than Hillary. But again that's a delusion.
The ancient political truism for White House aspirants will, no has, kicked in with a fury with Obama. That is run to the right or left when you're on the outside looking in, then flee to the middle when you're on the inside and want to win. . . . If progressives would simply stick to challenging Obama and Clinton to speak out boldly and clearly about their stance on Supreme court appointments, criminal justice reform, immigration, failing public schools, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and a specific plan for ending the Iraq War, among other seldom heard discussed policy issues then there would be no argument that both need to be hammered for ducking and dodging these thorny issues. But that's far different than acting like 13 year olds and shouting out vile names at one candidate and only one candidate.
Rhodes did just that and got a mild rebuke. But she only engaged in the same silly name calling that her cut buddies on the left have elevated to a high art. Expect no change when Rhodes is quietly eased back in front of an Air America mic. In other words, dumping her won't cure the hateful, and very clinical, Hillary obsession of progressives.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/05/2008 10:25 ||
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#1
Yet the left still won't recognize that they and they alone can't win in a truly democratic America. They can not sell their agenda openly and build a major. They still must rely upon subterfuge, misdirection, and non-democratic institutions to push their agenda. The one thing that binds them is their hate, but not enough hate to pull stakes and practice what they preach in political environments aligned with their spouted beliefs.
#3
And Heaven forbid if anyone dare utter any criticism of Obama.
I actually heard a journalist recently comment that Senator Obama would be forced to display his moderate credentials to attract independent voters if he makes it to the general election. I wonder if those credentials include the common sense legislation he introduced to ban ALL semi-automatic weapons? Or maybe it will be his opposition to the Child Protection Act?
#5
Progressives, them's fighting words. You don't have to take that crap. Act like they're Fatah and Hamas 'em. Skip the mealy-mouthed insulting and go straight to guns. Just give those Trotskyite bastards the dose of lead they've been needing for a long time. Gun 'em until there's not a deviationist left standing, even if it means wading in blood up to your ankles. Only in that way can you purify the Party enough to face the Capitalist Running Dog enemy in November with an ideologically united front. Just DO it! The masses will later thank you!
On the night of July 10, 2005, an obscure militant preacher named Abu Yahya al-Libi escaped from an American prison in Afghanistan and rocketed to fame in the world of jihadists.
The breakout from the Bagram Air Base by Mr. Libi and three cellmates they picked a lock, dodged their guards and traversed the bases vast acreage to freedom embarrassed American officials as deeply as it delighted the jihadist movement. In the nearly three years since then, Mr. Libis meteoric ascent within the leadership of Al Qaeda has proved to be even more troublesome for the authorities.
Mr. Libi, a Libyan believed to be in his late 30s, is now considered to be a top strategist for Al Qaeda, as well as one of its most effective promoters of global jihad, appearing in a dozen videos on militant Web sites in the past year, counterterrorism officials said. At a time when Al Qaeda seems more inspirational than operational, Mr. Libi stands out as a formidable star whose rise to prominence tracks the groups growing emphasis on information in its war with the West. I call him a man for all seasons for A.Q., said Jarret Brachman, a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency who is now research director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Hes a warrior. Hes a poet. Hes a scholar. Hes a pundit. Hes a military commander. And hes a very charismatic, young, brash rising star within A.Q., and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement.
The secrecy that envelops Al Qaedas leadership structure makes such estimates speculative, other analysts noted. But one Islamist insider said that in addition to youth and charisma, Mr. Libi possessed one skill that Al Qaedas leaders had been lacking: religious scholarship. Perhaps with this in mind, Al Qaeda is featuring Mr. Libi, who spent two years in Africa studying Islam, in as many of the videos as the groups top leaders, Mr. bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri. Bin Laden is an engineer and Zawahri is a medical doctor, said Dr. Muhammad al-Massari, a Saudi dissident who lives in London. So it is important that they also present someone who has the role of scholar.
The varied roles that Mr. Libi plays in these videos, from recruiter to ideological enforcer, also shed light on Al Qaedas shifting tactics. In recent months, those tactics have come to include defensive maneuvers aimed at defusing the media counteroperations of the United States and its allies.
Mr. Libi delivers his message with a preachers cadence. His black turban drapes down his chest, and he alternates between white Arabic robes and camouflage jackets. O Muslim youth in the East and West, who listen to God calling you: Go forth to war, whether it be easy or difficult for you, and strive hard in Gods cause with your possessions and your lives, he said in a video sermon released this year.
But increasingly, Mr. Libi uses his videos not to expand Al Qaedas base, but to shore it up. He has lashed out at moderate Muslim scholars who accuse Al Qaeda of using false interpretations of the Koran to justify jihad. He has mocked Saudi Arabias efforts to persuade jailed militants to give up the fight.
In a 93-minute speech released last fall, Mr. Libi urged supporters to brace themselves for a surge in psychological warfare loaded with false propaganda. He cited a rumor that Al Qaedas constitution calls for killing anyone who breaks from the group: Al Qaeda and its leaders are too noble and pure to descend to the rotten level of such nonsense.
These and other frank communications by Mr. Libi have led intelligence analysts at the West Point center and elsewhere to pore over his videos like Kremlinologists looking for operational clues to Soviet intentions.
Mr. Libi began as a militant on a scholarly path, according to a Libyan man who says he knew him. His older brother, now imprisoned in Libya, had been a crucial figure in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, whose members went to Afghanistan to help defeat the Soviet Union.
Mr. Libi, who went to Afghanistan in the early 1990s, was sent back to northern Africa to study Islam in Mauritania. When he returned two years later, Afghanistan was no longer a battleground for militant Libyans, but rather a haven: the Taliban controlled most of the country.
Mr. Libis training in warfare was minimal, and his early work as a preacher rarely touched on militant action, according to the Libyan man who said he had met Mr. Libi in Afghanistan, and who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. He started to visit training camps and talk about Shariah, or Islamic law, this man said in a telephone interview, about morals, etiquette, how to act.
Then a year after 9/11, Mr. Libi was seized by Pakistani authorities and turned over to American authorities, who eventually put him in the Bagram prison.
In one video produced after their escape in 2005, Mr. Libi and his fellow fugitives recounted their breakout, crediting God with distracting their captors. A new version now circulating on jihadist Web sites re-enacts some of the escape with dramatic flair.
Mr. Libi, who has also used the names Hasan Qaiid and Yunis al-Sahrawi, is assumed to be in the Afghan-Pakistani border area.
He appears to have worked his way quickly into Al Qaedas inner circle. He was among the leaders who sent letters of rebuke to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant leader who was killed in Iraq in 2006, who they felt was undermining the groups global strategy by killing too many civilians.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
See IRANIAN.WS > AL QAEDA NO.2: WE [Al Qaeda] WILL ATTACK IRAN. ZAWI > It is to AQ's advantage for the US-Iran to engage in conflict, wid AQ fighting the winner of same; + RUSSIA ALARMED AS US READIES/PREPARES APRIL ATTACK AGZ IRAN!?
(AKI) - Al-Qaeda's battle against the US has been a failure and the organisation is in decline, according to a leading international terrorism expert.
Gilles Kepel, French author and academic, says al-Qaeda has been seriously weakened in Iraq and has been unable to attract widespread support in the Muslim world. "Al Qaeda? It is in decline," Kepel said in an interview published in the Italian daily, Il Sole 24 Ore . "It has not been able to mobilise the masses and create a consensus inside the Muslim world."
Kepel, who speaks Arab fluently, is the author of The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West and several other books.
Head of Middle East studies at Sciences Po in Paris, he has just published a new book, Terror and Martyrs, in which he argues both the US and al-Qaeda have both lost the war on terror. But he singles out al-Qaeda. "Al-Qaeda's base has now shrunk significantly," he said. "Inside Islamic movements, also the radical movements, there is a very critical process underway with respect to the Jihadi strategy."
He recognised there were divisions among Sunni Muslims and in Iraq he said there was a power struggle between the Shia supporters of radical cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, backed by Iran, and the Shia prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.
But Kepel's views were challenged on Friday by Bob Ayers, a terrorism expert from the London-based think-tank Chatham House. "I am disturbed by anyone who says that al-Qaeda is weakened," Ayers told Adnkronos International (AKI). "That presupposes that al-Qaeda was a tightly-run, vertically integrated organisation."
Ayers, an associate fellow at Chatham House's international security programme, said al-Qaeda should be seen as a kind of philosophical or spiritual movement, rather than an operational element. Ayers also disputed Kepel's claim that al-Qaeda had been weakened in Iraq. "I am puzzled by anyone who says al-Qaeda has been substantially weakened in Iraq, given what is happening in Iraq every day," Ayers said.
Kepel also said that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri often described as number two to Osama bin Laden was experiencing a "crisis".
"No-one recognises his right to speak in the name of Islam," said Kepel. "Zawahiri is in crisis".
But Ayers also disputed this perception of the al-Qaeda leader. "This is wishful thinking," Ayers told AKI. "He's sufficiently strong to get all the international media to repeat his words."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Again, in the absence of significant or decisive battalefield victory(s) agz the US = US-Coalition, Radical Islam needs their HIDDEN IMAM/MAHDI = HELP OF GOD-HEAVEN; AND NUKES-WMDS FIREPOWER. They need to protect, enable, empower, + expand NUCLEARIZING IRAN + SURROUNDING MUSLIM REGIONS UNTO A OVERT ISLAMIST NUCLEAR STATE = ISLAMIST NUCLEAR WORLD POWER [Russ,China, CENT-NORTH ASIA].
ION, WAFF.com > SINO DAILY - UIGHURS IN WESTERN CHINA ATTEMPT UPRISING.
The ME Islamists need thier IMAM-MAHDI, the
UIGHURS need THEIR GHENGIS KHAN. OSAMA, etc. NEEDS NUCTECHS + NUCBOMBS + WMDS RIGHT NOW, AND TAINT TAKING NO FOR AN ANSWER FROM ANYONE.
*IRNA > CPM [Indian Marxist-Communist Party] WARNS AGZ MILITARY COLLABORATION PACY WID US
#2
"That presupposes that al-Qaeda was a tightly-run, vertically integrated organisation."... al-Qaeda should be seen as a kind of philosophical or spiritual movement
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.
