#1
I participated in a CMP event over 20 years ago. It was a blast, but I never took it far enough to quality for a free M1. A good friend did, though, and he said he would not do it again due to the amount of paperwork and background checks required.
[Bangla Daily Star] Odhikar's fact-finding report, "Assembly of Hefajat-e Islam Bangladesh and Human Rights Violation", is a composition of half-truths, biased and one-sided presentation of what happened on May 5 and in the early hours of May 6 in the capital, according to an analysis by The Daily Star.
The June 10 report says nothing about the destructive activities by Hefajat men, the involvement of Jamaat-Shibir activists and their instigation of acts of violence. But it has elaborately described the role of law enforcers and pro-ruling party men.
Hundreds of unruly Hefajat men were involved in widespread violence, including arson and even torching of bookshops that sold copies of the holy Koran. Though many TV channels broadcast the incidents live, Odhikar is completely silent about it. It has depicted Hefajat-e-Islam as a very peaceful organization and its leaders and activists as innocent individuals.
While being flushed out of Shapla Chattar, Hefajat men attacked a policeman with bricks near the Alico building in Motijheel, leaving him dead on the spot. A correspondent of The Daily Star covering the event on that night witnessed it, but the Odhikar report made no mention of it.
The 28-page report starts with an introduction of Hefajat and its objectives. It termed Hefajat a people's platform, a non-political and socio-cultural organization, and mentioned its objectives were to promote "social dialogue to dispel prejudices that affect community harmony and relations".
In reality, Hefajat's character is completely the opposite of what the Odhikar report states. The organization's recent activities, provocative speeches of its leaders, the 13-point demand, its anti-women and anti-constitutional stance clearly go against the spirit of community harmony. It is against the secular education policy and has staged violent demonstrations against the government's avowed policy of equal rights for women.
Hefajat is no longer a non-political organization. Practically, it is now a political force -- very much aligned with the BNP, Jamaat and other Islamist and smaller political parties.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/01/2013 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna these are Russians' POV not mine. But IMO, well worth knowing
...Simonyan: If you tune in to CNN or the BBC on a regular day, 80 or 90 percent of the stories are identical. We want to show that there are more stories out there than the 10-a-day that you usually encounter. I'm not saying that you should watch only our program; I'm saying that you should also watch it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Russian media have a slightly more dramatic take on your objectives. Many are comparing the network to the Ministry of Defense. You said it yourself, when Russia goes to war
Simonyan: ... then we will join them in battle, yes. That goes for the country's real, armed conflicts. Do you remember the August war of 2008? Back then, most Western media outlets acted as if they were Georgia's ministry of defense.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In 2008, Russian troops invaded Georgian territory after President Mikheil Saakashvili gave the order to attack South Ossetia, a separatist republic with close ties to Russia.
Simonyan: All of the Western broadcasters gave only the Georgian side of the story. Saakashvili was featured on all the networks; his statements were broadcast on all the programs. It was said that Russia started the war.* It was said the country's troops bombed a busy market in the provincial town of Gori. We immediately sent our correspondents out there, who found no trace of either shootings or bombings. Western broadcasters focused their entire coverage on the suffering of Georgian civilians. There was no mention of South Ossetians, meanwhile, who were suffering nightly artillery attacks at the hands of Saakashvili. It was pro-Georgian propaganda, pure and simple.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It wasn't that one-sided. SPIEGEL, for one, reported at an early stage that it was Saakashvili who had fired the first shot. A European Union committee came to the same conclusion.
Simonyan: Sure, afterwards! But how many people actually ended up reading the EU report? The majority of people to this day believe that Russia started the war totally unprovoked. The evil Russia pounces on poor little Georgia.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you explain Russia's negative image?
Simonyan: The West never got over the Cold War stereotype. One thing that only few journalists understand is that Russia started dissolving the Soviet Union of its own accord. We were the ones to realize that Communism was a failure. We understood that it was wrong to impose our will on other nations. We released the Eastern bloc into freedom. We are a different country today, one with a different mentality -- which is something that Western journalists sometimes find difficult to comprehend. You, for example, stated earlier that Russia was acting aggressively without backing it up with facts.
Salt added by me for the nonsense about an "American Union"... h/t Gates of Vienna
Below is my translation of an interview with former Soviet dissident and political prisoner Vladimir Bukovsky by Alessandra Nucci, published in the December 2012 issue of the Italian periodical Radici Cristiane. What he says helps to understand what lies behind the European Union project and its similarities with the Soviet Union, a subject on which Bukovsky has written a book.
Vladimir Bukovsky, 70, is one of the most famous ex-political prisoners of the former Soviet Union. In total he spent twelve years in internment, in prisons, labour camps and psychiatric hospitals, before being released and swapped for the Chilean prisoner Luis Corvalan in 1976. Since then he has lived in Cambridge and has taken British citizenship.
In 2007 he co-authored with Pavel Stroilov EUSSR: The Soviet Roots of European Integration in which he reconstructs, on the basis of documents copied from the Soviet archives in 1992, plans to transform the European Union into a Union of Socialist Republics in all identical to the former Soviet Union.
...Are they therefore all socialists in Brussels?
The project is socialist. I do not know these people personally, but most of them are on the Left, more or less extreme. That means that they favour statist solutions and the regulation of everything. And they all talk like in Lenin's book The State and Revolution, which explains how the nation state will die. His words are that it will "fade until it disappears".
...Among your predictions for the EU-USSR there was also the gulag. Do you confirm it?
Unfortunately, yes. The EU is creating it slowly. Political correctness is imposed not by persuasion but by repression. In Britain just last month they jailed for hate speech a nineteen-year-old who had written something offensive on Twitter about a black football player. He was sentenced to a month and a half in prison.
As nobody protests, they will gradually widen the net and eventually we will get the gulag. And remember that the European police force is granted immunity, something that was not granted even to the KGB!
Is Barack Obama not part of all this?
For now, Americans do not perceive the European Union, do not see where it is going. But America has a parallel special project, the American Union. If the process includes the United States of America, what hope is there to stop this global government? It will fail, because it is too big to handle. It is impossible to govern such a huge entity. And notice that the most common resistance is not open, but passive: sabotage.
Syrians are fond of saying that their country is "the beating heart of the Arab world," having played an outsize role in the history and politics of the region, from the Islamic golden age in the 7th century and the Arab Revolt during World War I to the Arab-Israeli wars. After 2-1/2 years of civil conflict, however, it is becoming more difficult to think of Syria as the spirit and soul of the region.
There was a moment early in the Syrian crisis when one could imagine that foreign intervention would have had salutary effects. In January 2012, I wrote that it was "time to think seriously about intervening in Syria" and laid out moral and strategic arguments in a piece for the Atlantic's Web site. No link to the "I toldya so" article.
At that time, the conflict had killed 5,000 people, the vast majority at the hands of the regime. This was more than Moammar Gaddafi had killed on the eve of NATO operations in Libya. If Libyans deserved protection, then Syrians did, too. No blood for oil! Besides, some of see how well Libya turned out.
There is another concern that should figure into the president's calculations: The missile strikes the White House is contemplating would advance Syria's dissolution.
Assad would remain defiant in the face of an attack. It is not as if he is constrained now, but he would probably step up the violence both to exert control within his country and to demonstrate that the United States and its allies cannot intimidate him. Like a schoolyard bully, he'd make more innocents pay the price.
At the same time, the regime's Iranian patrons and Hezbollah supporters would increase their investment in the conflict, meaning more weapons and more fighters pouring into Syria -- resulting in more atrocities. And on the other side, Syrian opposition groups would welcome a steady stream of foreign fighters who care more about killing Alawites and Shiites than the fate of the country. This environment would heighten Syria's substantial sectarian, ethnic and political divisions, pulling the country apart. Like Yugoslavia, but with more brutality.
The formidable U.S. armed forces could certainly damage Assad's considerably less potent military. But in an astonishing irony that only the conflict in Syria could produce, American and allied cruise missiles would be degrading the capability of the regime's military units to the benefit of the al-Qaeda-linked militants fighting Assad -- the same militants whom U.S. drones are attacking regularly in places such as Yemen. Military strikes would also complicate Washington's longer-term desire to bring stability to a country that borders Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. Washington just wishes this would all go away. Champ made nice to everyone, why can't they all just get along?
Unlike Yugoslavia, which ripped itself apart in the 1990s, Syria has no obvious successor states, meaning there would be violence and instability in the heart of the Middle East for many years to come. I like popcorn as much as anyone, but I think there may be better outcomes without our intervention. Champ already has zero credibility. Nothing he can do now to restore it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/01/2013 15:10 ||
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#1
there would be violence and instability in the heart of the Middle East for many years to come
#3
If there could be some way to contain Muzzie Community Activists without their problems spilling over to Israel, I am sure most of us would like nothing more than to see them resolve their internal issues to the last kaboom standing.
My cynicism, however, says that our Executive Branch, with support of many in Congress, is doing everything they can to bend to the wills of other than those of the American public at large.
I wish some Constitutionalist leader(s)(names anyone?) c/would step forward to, at least superficially and for the good of Country, make The President (only) look strong, while successfully bending the arc of his trajectory.
I believe we are doomed to be involved in a foreign civil conflict with no accrual of positive benefit or outcome near term, and the potential for long-term serious ugly; Syrian civilians shall become spoils.
War, like things that have T's or T's are gonna' be a problem, something I doubt Mr. Obama's staff has wrapped their heads around....
#1
I kind of agree with Krauthammer. A token slap on Syria's wrist will embolden Iran.
Although I also think Iran's anti-Israeli rhetoric is just that, rhetoric.
But if Hezbollah start firing rockets at Israel, and Israel smacks them hard and hits Syria, Iran may respond against Israel with chemical weapons, and frankly Israel may feel now is the time for a couple of tactical nukes against Iran's nuclear program.
#3
The Miscalculator in Chief, making a wrong call? What blasphemy. I generally listen closely to what the 'Hammer' has to say. A professional, psychiatric opinion is undoubtedly the correct approach when dealing with victims of lifelong narcissism.
"Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:
Believing that you're better than others
Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
Exaggerating your achievements or talents
Expecting constant praise and admiration
Believing that you're special and acting accordingly
Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
Taking advantage of others
Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
Being jealous of others
Believing that others are jealous of you
Trouble keeping healthy relationships
Setting unrealistic goals
Being easily hurt and rejected
Having a fragile self-esteem
Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional
In addition to these symptoms, the person may display arrogance, show superiority, and seek power."
We all know his speeches a full of "Me, Myself and I" but when he had that Photo Op Friday and said "His Military" it was all I could do to keep from throwing something through my 52" flat screen.
#5
Yes, always heartwarming to listen to these preppy, plastic, beltway folks who employ personal pronouns such as "I, me, we, us, our, ours" when referring to the tasks reserved for rough men who must remain ready to go into harm's way.
I despise these been nowhere, done nothing parasites, and their fungal, life sucking spawn.
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.
