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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Damascus bombings kill 40, wound 170: state TV
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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1 13:51 AlanC [1] 
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 6: Politix
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--Tech & Moderator Notes
To Ban Or Not To Ban?
Michael Totten guesting at Instapundit writes:
Germany considers banning Salafist groups (the ideological comrades of the bin Ladenists) after violent street clashes.

I'm not convinced it's a good idea to ban political movements. The ideas can't be banned, after all. Thought cannot be policed. But Germany is already a country that bans totalitarian political parties, so why not add Salafists to the list? Anyone who thinks such a move would be "Islamophobic" should be aware that Tunisia, an Arab country that's 99 percent Muslim, also bans the Salafist party. When these people reach critical mass they're extraordinarily dangerous.
To which I respond:

One indeed cannot and should not ban political movements. I read both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto in college; neither provoked me into being a socialist. Germany has a certain problem with extremism in the past and could potentially sink into extremism in the future, so banning political movements sets a bad precedent.

However, Germany (and the U.S.) has every right to ban immigrants who come into the country specifically to preach radicalism. A person who comes into a new country with the express intent of radicalizing the local population to overthrow the established order has no rights in that country and indeed is violating the terms of his immigration (to become a new citizen and blend in). He can and should be removed forthwith.

We've been reporting this problem at Rantburg for quite a while: Salafist preachers go to Germany, Britain, France, Australia, the U.S., and so on and start preaching their hatred to the gullible rubes in the local mosques. This is one of the essential links in how the Saudis (our friends) plan to spread Wahabbism and Salafism throughout the world. The local believers need to be indoctrinated and trained, so Salafist preachers are imported from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan to do the preaching.

That's where Germany has every right to fix the problem: expel the foreign preachers. This is not a free speech issue; no country allows foreigners to come to its land to preach sedition and revolution. Citizens have a right within the limits of the political system of a democratic state to believe, speak and spread hatred if they wish, as detestable as it may be to reasonable people, but foreigners do not.

Don't ban the movement. Ban the foreign preachers.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/10/2012 13:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I keep going back and forth on this. Consider, for example, banning racial epithets. Sounds like the decent thing to do, but there are problems. The new words start to take on the meaning of the banned words. Also, you get a slippery slope leading to political correctness (social Marxism). So maybe it isn't such a good idea after all?

Flag burning is another example. Best suggestion, BTW, I have ever heard for this issue: accept the idea that symbolic speech is speech, and give that speech a legal meaning. In this case, define the burning of a US flag as an affirmative statement rescinding your US citizenship.

Anyway, I think Orwell was onto something with Newspeak, but at the same time I wonder if changing words really does change ideas in the long run. Don't know.
Posted by: Iblis || 05/10/2012 14:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Not ban, but declare it's members outlaws (no protection from the state).
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 05/10/2012 23:32 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Walter Russell Mead seeks to out-rant Rantburg
Via Meadia is glad the press doesn’t hate Obama as much as it hated Bush; otherwise the papers would be full every day with stories about the unintended, tragic consequences of the humanitarian intervention gone awry in Libya and about the policy failures and miscalculations that landed us in this mess. There would be eloquent lamentations and beautifully choreographed hand wringings by our professional moralists and the custodians of the collective conscience at our better universities and more prestigious magazines. There would be telling comparisons of the destruction of the tombs in Timbuktu with the looting of the Baghdad museums. There would be impassioned denunciations of the hubris that led the ideological zealots to promote the holy war, and scathing, mocking reminders of the promises they made about how nice things would be if we took their advice.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 05/10/2012 12:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don,t always agree with him, but his university got a good deal when they gave him tenure.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/10/2012 23:12 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
In case you really have to flee the authorities…
Posted by: tipper || 05/10/2012 15:20 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The US-Mexico extradition treaty, for example, lists a number of extraditable offenses, such as:

- Violations of the customs laws
- Offenses against copyright or intellectual property
- Offenses related to international trade and transfers of funds or valuable metals
- Offenses relating to prohibition “unfair transactions”

We’re not exactly talking about violent criminals here; these rules so opaque that just about everyone on the planet is in violation of some offense.


...and sometime it involves conspiracy involving reckless disregard of life and safety and leading to significant death count in that country. You really would deny an extradition request for Mr Holder from Mexico?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/10/2012 17:34 Comments || Top||


Europe
What Austerity?
Posted by: tipper || 05/10/2012 02:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Austerity" has been redefined. It means "not increasing spending as much as the best & brightest think ought to happen." It definitely does NOT mean cutting government spending back to a level below that of the previous 12 months.
From the article: No less than the very sovereignty and liberty of free peoples everywhere depends on rejection of the international order that has evolved since the end of World War II. The central banking cartel and their willing political accomplices are pushing us into an international tyranny — run on debt. Author does have a point. However, changing that order will be very painful, even AUSTERE. And that's not popular anywhere. The people are rejecting the rotting corpse of the established order. Only a few, very few at that.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 05/10/2012 3:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Zerohedge again.
Posted by: gromky || 05/10/2012 4:26 Comments || Top||

#3  The future is a world full of Argentinas.
Posted by: phil_b || 05/10/2012 4:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Zerohedge again.

You have a problem with Zerohedge?
Posted by: Secret Asian Man || 05/10/2012 5:17 Comments || Top||

#5  The only way out is one proposed by Charles Murray years ago.

Either cut the number of government employees by 40% or keep them all but cut all of their paychecks by 40% and to hell with the consequences to their standard of living. If they riot, incarcerate them or do whatever else is necessary to keep the peace.

America will be saved when the boomtown suburbs of D.C. fouled as they are with lawyers, lobbyists, and regulators, are reduced to impoverished ghost towns.
Posted by: no mo uro || 05/10/2012 7:59 Comments || Top||

#6  We are not immune here in the U.S. In fact, we are leading the movement. From Tea Party in 2009 and 2010 to Occupy in 2011 to May 8’s overwhelming defeat of a senior establishment figure like Richard Lugar in Indiana, the people are rejecting the rotting corpse of the established order.

Amen and amen! I noted Lugar's bitter comments on the teevee last evening. Evidently 40+ years supping at the public trough wasn't enough for the greedy bastard!
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/10/2012 8:09 Comments || Top||

#7  I would have labeled Lugar a "superannuated political figure" rather than a "senior establishment figure." He's been long past his "sell by" date.
"Rotting corpses" are still getting plenty of support. Cases in point:

  • New Rochelle, NY - Cash-Strapped NY Town Cancels July 4 Fireworks Oh, the horror!

  • Traverse City, Michigan -- City firefighters washed the city's budget hearing with yellow-clad supporters, some of whom called for tax increases to save the jobs of Traverse City's emergency responders threatened by budget cuts..."I'm a retired teacher,"... said Mary Anderson... "I will pay whatever you need to help pay for it." ...said Carol Tompkins-Parker, whose father was a city firefighter. "I will support the Traverse City Fire Department any way I can, I will pay more taxes," she said.

  • Whistles, whoops and honking cars marked unionized labor's picketing of Milpitas City Hall Tuesday evening. Paul Mullett, a union representative for public works employees, said his group gathered 700 signatures from the public in support of preserving their jobs instead of contracting to less expensive workers.
    "I would say 99 percent do not want us to outsource the parks or the streets," Mullett said.


Anyone can find dozens of news items like these on any given day. When items like these stop being reported with a straight face, it might be a sign people are rejecting the status quo.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 05/10/2012 12:23 Comments || Top||

#8  Yeah. Lugar was a traditional democrat in sheeps clothing. He sucks.

As for Austerity, it has never been tried. You can't cut shit from government - that's what this whole thing is about.

It's called cut government or it will die anyways.
Posted by: newc || 05/10/2012 13:03 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Hansen’s ‘Game Over for the Climate’ op-ed
Hansen is a stark-raving, barking at the moon, the end of the world is nigh fanatic. And he is a top honcho at NASA. We're all doomed I tell ya!
Posted by: tipper || 05/10/2012 12:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All the fervor that only the true believer can generate--wasted on a false religion.
Posted by: Iblis || 05/10/2012 14:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Can we ship him to the nut farm now?
Posted by: DarthVader || 05/10/2012 16:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Those who choose to believe will continue to believe, because they want to believe, and rant that the unbelievers need to be re-educated.

I thought Watts would take apart Hansen's drivel. Not yet.
Posted by: Bobby || 05/10/2012 18:47 Comments || Top||

#4  James Hansen on ‘The Global Warming Debate’ from 13 years ago
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 05/10/2012 21:29 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam
Posted by: Fat Bob Unotch3711 || 05/10/2012 11:12 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That is hilarious. The comment section brings back every false meme ever spouted by the left wing crazies about Iraq...and they all buy in!!

The whole thing about McVeigh being a Christian terrorist is there along with the million dead Iraqies.

This is like listening to the 3 Stooges translated into Japanese then spoken by Russians for whom Japanese is their 3rd language.
Posted by: AlanC || 05/10/2012 13:51 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Hillary Clinton's claim
[Dawn] IS the current Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri
... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
in Pakistain? "We believe" he is, said Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as The Woman to Call at 3 a.m. and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another William Jennings Bryan ...
. The certitude in her voice was alarming, though it would have been better had she not gone public with her views. True, the Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
raid has weakened the credibility of the Pak Foreign Office's rejoinder. Since the days of Gen Musharraf, Islamabad has insisted that it knew nothing about the whereabouts of the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones...
. If, therefore, Islamabad implies that Ayman al-Zawahiri is not in Pakistain or dismisses Ms Clinton's assertion as conjecture, it should not be surprised if the world is sceptical. On May 2 last year, American Navy SEALs humiliated Pakistain's intelligence establishment the way nothing else has. Moreover, given the capture of senior Al Qaeda operatives -- with the help of Pak intelligence -- allegations of Ayman al-Zawahiri's presence on Pak soil cannot be dismissed altogether.

Nevertheless, on Monday the American secretary of state chose the wrong time and place to level familiar charges against Pakistain. Speaking in Kolkata, Ms Clinton renewed America's determination to go after Al Qaeda leaders, some of whom were "on the run", and indicated that it was in Pakistain's interest to apprehend terrorist leaders inside the country. Must the secretary of state have chosen the soil of a country, with which Pakistain has had a long history of rivalry, to say the things she did? Equally unfortunate was the timing of her disparaging remarks, for they came at a time when negotiations between the US and Pakistain to reset ties are at a crucial stage. In fact, on Monday a State Department front man said that matters were not at a "standstill" between the two countries and the negotiators were trying to lay down "the groundwork for new cooperation". Ms Clinton's ill-advised words go against this spirit. As Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said, if the US has any information that the Al Qaeda chief is hiding in Pakistain, it should share it with Islamabad instead of making speculative statements. Indeed, Ms Clinton should put her faith in quiet diplomacy rather than make sensitive statements through the media.
Posted by: Fred || 05/10/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  India = Indjuh is still reminding the US "D ***ng it, We told You so"! as per Osama being in Pakistan.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/10/2012 0:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Boy howdy! That "smart" diplomacy keeps flying "Fast and Furious" don't it?
Posted by: AlanC || 05/10/2012 8:34 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Undermining Affirmative Apartheid
Posted by: tipper || 05/10/2012 06:41 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Whenever I have to fill out a form that asks my ethnicity I tell them I'm a Martian. I'm sure they know that really means I'm a cantankerous old white guy but I can still hope that it goofs up their database.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 05/10/2012 12:33 Comments || Top||

#2  I've always "affirmed" equal TIME for the right and the left.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/10/2012 13:22 Comments || Top||

#3  I can support that.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 05/10/2012 13:44 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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3al-Shabaab
3Govt of Sudan
3Govt of Pakistan
3Govt of Syria
2Pirates
2Boko Haram
1Taliban
1Lashkar-e-Islami
1Arab Spring
1Hamas
1al-Qaeda in Arabia

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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.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
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sherry
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Bright Pebbles
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2012-05-10
  Damascus bombings kill 40, wound 170: state TV
Wed 2012-05-09
  Annan Fears 'Civil War' Looming in Syria
Tue 2012-05-08
  Al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot was targeted by US drone
Mon 2012-05-07
  Nine soldiers killed, military convoy attacked in N Wazoo
Sun 2012-05-06
  Man wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen: tribal chief
Sat 2012-05-05
  Pro-Regime Gunmen Kill 12 'Qaida' Militants in Yemen
Fri 2012-05-04
  Bajaur teenyboomer kills 24
Thu 2012-05-03
  Afghanistan: Pakistani driving truck bomb arrested
Wed 2012-05-02
  Suicide bomb blast hits hotel in Somalia, two MPs believed dead
Tue 2012-05-01
  'Egyptians thwart Iranian plot to kill Saudi envoy'
Mon 2012-04-30
  US drone 'kills three militants' in Miramshah
Sun 2012-04-29
  Syria Troops Kill 10 Rebels in Damascus Region
Sat 2012-04-28
   21 Taliban Insurgents Killed in Clashes
Fri 2012-04-27
  Separate bomb blasts rock Nigeria's newspapers, at least six killed
Thu 2012-04-26
  Libya bans religious, tribal or ethnic parties

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