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Benazir Bhutto killed by suicide bomber
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Lurid moonbat fantasy #46: "Apocalypse Red-States"
Global Warming Will Save America from the Right... Eventually

by Dave Lindorff

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

Look at a map of the US. The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.

So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.

Then there’s the matter of the Midwest, which climate experts say is likely to face a permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable. The agribusinesses and conservative farmers that have been growing corn and wheat may be able to stretch out this doomsday scenario by deep well drilling, but west of the Mississippi, the vast Ogallala Aquifer that has allowed for such irrigation is already being tapped out. It will not be replaced.

So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics. . . .

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called “red” state region either gone or depopulated.

There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.

Now we see the famed "compassion" of the "progressive" Left:
The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes. . . .

He forgets, of course, that the migrating hordes of red-staters will include a high proportion of people with deer rifles and 12-gauge pump-action cylinder-bore shotguns who know how to use them. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

About the author: Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is a 34-year veteran, an award-winning journalist, a former New York Times contributor, a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a two-time Journalism Fulbright Scholar, and the co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of a well-regarded book on impeachment, The Case for Impeachment. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.
He's also nutty as a fruitcake, and no fun at parties.
Posted by: Mike || 12/27/2007 18:15 || Comments || Link || [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is a 34-year veteran, an award-winning journalist, a former New York Times contributor, a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,



Quelle surprise
Posted by: charger || 12/27/2007 18:46 Comments || Top||

#2  "Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes."

Nice little dike ya' got there, Yankee. Shame if somebody blew a hole in it something were to happen to it....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/27/2007 19:07 Comments || Top||

#3  How many of Mr. Lindorff's circle know how -- and where -- to build effective dikes? And what are they going to produce that the few remaining farmers will be willing to take in trade when there won't be nearly enough to feed the dense population of the Boston-to-Washington, DC corridor? It's awfully hard to maintain a decent Victory Garden on an apartment balcony... or to persuade the peasants to supply your dinner parties after they notice they've been gerrymandered into political impotence. Clearly the gentleman was trained to write elegant prose, but somehow he managed to avoid learning to think clearly.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/27/2007 19:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Barb, your remark remind me of some of the "made men" I used to know when growing up in Youngstown.

(Note to self: do not get on Barb's bad side.)

TW, I loved your last sentence: Clearly the gentleman was trained to write elegant prose, but somehow he managed to avoid learning to think clearly.
Posted by: Mike || 12/27/2007 20:40 Comments || Top||

#5  So...how many people is this guy willing to see die for the creation of his little utopian Lefty America?
And I'll bet he thinks Bush is Hitler too, right? And he won't be one of the dead...
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/27/2007 21:31 Comments || Top||

#6  Paraphrasing Lindorff: "Who needs farmers? There is enough to eat in blue cities, you just go to the grocery store!"

...and if worst comes to worst, there is enough people...
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 21:44 Comments || Top||

#7  then we'll take what we want. Happy?
Posted by: Frank G || 12/27/2007 22:21 Comments || Top||

#8  #4 Mike - just a short & sweet, cut-to-the-chase version of TW's elegant prose. ;-p

#6 2x4: "if worst comes to worst, there is enough people"

Nahhh, Yankee Lefties are too scrawny.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/27/2007 22:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Barb, scrawny... you mean that... they won't? And save the planet? ;-)
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 22:29 Comments || Top||

#10  Barbara is certainly efficient. That's why we stay on her good side and don't startle her. ;-)

A question occurs to me, Frank, and I hope you see this before we roll over into tomorrow. I'm under the impression, based on how my own house is arranged, and what I've seen on television and in the movies, that the electrical systems of apartment buildings and sky scrapers are in the various basements and sub-basements. It also seems to me that should the oceans rise, the water table on the land side would rise at least somewhat as well, regardless of dikes keeping the sea from flowing through the streets. If so, mightn't the basements and sub-basements flood, seriously messing up the buildings' electrical systems... which would affect the viability of lighting, refrigerators, elevators...

If yes, Mr. Lindorff and his friends might have more than mere starvation to worry about in this brave new world he anticipates with such relish.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/27/2007 22:59 Comments || Top||

#11  exactly, TW - (nearly) all heating and electrical services are at or below ground level for a) service accessibility,
b) meter reading, c) fuel deliveries, d) heat rises... libs will freeze in the dark
Posted by: Frank G || 12/27/2007 23:11 Comments || Top||

#12  #11: "libs will freeze in the dark"

Awwwww - my heard bleeeeeeds for them, Frank.

No, wait - that's just the chili....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/27/2007 23:16 Comments || Top||

#13  TW, the only dykes the lefties would have are these that they already do have.

I mean, imagine them digging and building the enclosures. I can't.
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 23:23 Comments || Top||

#14  FREEREPUBLIC Poster said it best [paraph] > "WHY WOULD RUSSIA [PUTIN] NEED TO ATTACK A SOCIALIST AMERICA"?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/27/2007 23:47 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Bush's Very Good Year
By Lawrence Kudlow

Against all odds, and despite the usual drumbeat of criticism, President Bush has had a very good year. The troop surge in Iraq is succeeding. America remains safe from terrorist attacks. And the Goldilocks economy is outperforming all expectations.

At his year-end news conference, Mr. Bush stated with optimism that the economy is fundamentally sound, despite the housing downturn and the sub-prime credit crunch. The very next day, that optimism was reinforced with news of the best consumer spending in two years. The prophets of recessionary doom, such as a former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, Republican advisor Martin Feldstein, ex-Democratic Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, and bond-maven Bill Gross have been proven wrong once again.

Calendar year 2007 looks set to produce 3% growth in real GDP, nearly 3 % growth in consumer spending, and over 3% growth in after-tax inflation-adjusted incomes. Meanwhile, headline inflation (including food and energy) will have run at 2.5%, with only 2% core inflation. Jobs are rising over 100,000 per month and the stock market is set to turn in a respectable year despite enormous headwinds. Low tax rates, modest inflation, and declining interest rates continue to boost Goldilocks, which is still the greatest story never told.

Bush's optimism is well-earned, in Congress too. He has stopped a lot of bad legislation on higher taxing and spending. He won on S-CHIP and the alternative minimum tax. He mostly prevailed on domestic spending. And he got much of what he wanted on war funding without any pullout dates. And he's not yet finished. In the most dramatic statement of his holiday news conference, Mr. Bush said he will not stand for the continuing congressional proliferation of pork-barrel earmarks...
Posted by: Fred || 12/27/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:


Tortured Democrats
By Mona Charen

It didn't get much attention, but in mid-December, U.S. forces in Iraq discovered an al Qaeda torture center north of Baghdad. Muqdadiya is about 60 miles north of the capital. American soldiers found a blood-spattered room where chains still hung on the gory walls. A metal bed frame was still connected to an electric shock generator. The Americans also found bloody knives and swords. Outside, the bodies of 26 people were buried in common graves.

That al Qaeda has made rape, torture and murder its calling card in Iraq is not news. Michael Yon (michaelyon-online.com), among others, has reported the atrocities committed by al Qaeda in Iraq, and even the major media have at last come to acknowledge that Sunni leaders — disgusted by atrocities they witnessed — have teamed up with Americans to defeat al Qaeda. Iraqi locals pointed the U.S. patrol to the torture house in Muqdadiya.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 12/27/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under: Global Jihad

#1  How does this sound?

Democrats in Washington are apes and monkeys.
Allah will say "here, behind this tree is a democrat" or " here behind this rock is a democrat"

IF you are not willing to pay mind to the reality of this earth, yours shall soon be shattered.

Abandoned are "the good of the people".

This nation will leave me if it choses to do so, I will never leave this nation.
Wake up numbskull's. See these buildings here? DC? Not a one shall be standing. You write your own prophesy.

P.S. Bless Michael Hauser
Posted by: newc || 12/27/2007 0:17 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto on the October assassination attempt
Published today in OpinionJournal.com.

Also, an interview she had in August with Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal. Free, but registration required.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/27/2007 16:26 || Comments || Link || [11 views] Top|| File under:


Benazir Bhutto: Killed by the real Pakistan
Hat tip Sherry in the comments today.
By Andrew C. McCarthy

A recent CNN poll showed that 46 percent of Pakistanis approve of Osama bin Laden.
Aspirants to the American presidency should hope to score so highly in the United States. In Pakistan, though, the al-Qaeda emir easily beat out that country’s current president, Pervez Musharraf, who polled at 38 percent.

President George Bush, the face of a campaign to bring democracy — or, at least, some form of sharia-lite that might pass for democracy — to the Islamic world, registered nine percent. Nine!

If you want to know what to make of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder today in Pakistan, ponder that.

There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.

Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White || 12/27/2007 14:34 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  An excellent, excellent piece. I think you could extend his analysis to a heck of a lot of other Muslim countries. You can rag on the rulers all you want, but the fact is that the populations of Muslim countries aren't goose-stepping to the tune of Der Führer of the moment, they're goose-stepping to the tune of Muhammad, who started it all 1300 years ago. And they will take down any ruler who contradicts Muhammad.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 15:31 Comments || Top||

#2  There is the Pakistan of our fantasy.

Ummmmmm...nope. Not mine
I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/27/2007 15:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Need to re-work the Rantburg-futures thing.
Posted by: Thomas Woof || 12/27/2007 17:36 Comments || Top||


After Bhutto
National Review has a "symposium" up including comments by VDH and Bill Roggio.
Posted by: Mike || 12/27/2007 13:31 || Comments || Link || [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Taliban and al-Qaeda seem lately to be giving less attention to Afghanistan and more attention to Pakistan itself.

No one is mentioning Iran, but they are the big winner from a destabilized Pakistan.
Posted by: phil_b || 12/27/2007 15:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Same page.
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 22:55 Comments || Top||


Mark Steyn: "Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan had a mad recklessness about it"
Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan had a mad recklessness about it which give today's events a horrible inevitability. As I always say when I'm asked about her, she was my next-door neighbor for a while - which affects a kind of intimacy, though in fact I knew her only for sidewalk pleasantries. She was beautiful and charming and sophisticated and smart and modern, and everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be - though in practice, as Pakistan's Prime Minister, she was just another grubby wardheeler from one of the world's most corrupt political classes.

Since her last spell in power, Pakistan has changed, profoundly. Its sovereignty is meaningless in increasingly significant chunks of its territory, and, within the portions Musharraf is just about holding together, to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation. "Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything," I wrote last month. "It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate." The State Department geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They'd arranged a shotgun marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a "united" "democratic" "movement" and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with them. That's what diplomats do: They find guys in suits and get 'em round a table. But none of those representatives represents the rapidly evolving reality of Pakistan. Miss Bhutto could never have been a viable leader of a post-Musharraf settlement, and the delusion that she could have been sent her to her death. Earlier this year, I had an argument with an old (infidel) boyfriend of Benazir's, who swatted my concerns aside with the sweeping claim that "the whole of the western world" was behind her. On the streets of Islamabad, that and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee.

As I said, she was everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be. We should be modest enough to acknowledge when reality conflicts with our illusions. Rest in peace, Benazir.
Posted by: Mike || 12/27/2007 11:14 || Comments || Link || [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pakistan is about to come apart. I see the Afghanistanization or Balkanization of it. We might need to snatch a portion of the country to keep Afghanistan supplied. The Islam War is far from over and about to head into the next chapter.
Posted by: US Army || 12/27/2007 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  If The Pure turn to fighting amongst themselves, they won't have as much attention for adventuring in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Perhaps we should consider establishing new supply lines from Iraq through Iran...

/yes, I know it's an awful lot harder for our guys to do than for me to say. But it looks so neat on the map!
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/27/2007 11:47 Comments || Top||

#3  State Department's idea....
Posted by: danking70 || 12/27/2007 12:06 Comments || Top||

#4  If Rice doesn't get booted from State for this disaster, I don't know what will get her fired.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 12:30 Comments || Top||

#5  A typical Steynian off-the-cuff comment - brilliant stuff. One can't find anything close to it in the New York Times or the Washington Post. A pity, that.
Posted by: mrp || 12/27/2007 13:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Right on that MRP. Classic Steyn distillation.
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 12/27/2007 14:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Steyn has additional thoughts here:

When you invent an artificial country, you better be sure that your artificial identity will stick. Pakistan today is not what the British and Jinnah had in mind, nor Ayub Khan, nor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, nor General Zia, nor Nawaz Sharif. Instead, across 60 years, their failures incubated an identity that would have seemed utterly deranged to even the more excitable Punjabi Muslims of the early 1940s. As Andy noted earlier, according to one recent poll, 46% of Pakistanis support Osama bin Laden.

What should be easy to agree is that Pakistan is getting worse. Even those who thought at the time that its creation was one of the most unnecessary mistakes in British imperial policy wouldn't have predicted that a mere half-century later it would be a coup-prone nuclear basket-case exporting both its tribal marriage customs and irredentist jihadism to the heart of the western world. Fifty years ago, Pakistanis emigrating to England and Canada brought with them an essentially Britannic education and a moderate Sufi Islam that was not a barrier to integration. Today they bring a narrow madrassah education and Deobandi Islam, which is deeply hostile to assimilation. In other words, what a "Pakistani" is is profoundly different. I liked Benazir Bhutto very much, but she represented Pakistan's past, and her murder is a horrible confirmation of that fact.
Posted by: Mike || 12/27/2007 18:00 Comments || Top||

#8  Only 46% of Pakistanis support Osama bin Ladin? I thought it was more like 85%. I guess the rest think Osama's too Westernized, not Muslim enough, something like that.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 12/27/2007 21:10 Comments || Top||


The Legacy of Benazir Bhutto: Pakistan's Proxy Wars, Islamic Jihad and the Taliban
by Dr. Subhash Kapila

Benazir Bhutto twice ousted as Prime Minister of Pakistan, prompted by fears of arrest is presently in self-imposed exile in Dubai for the last two years. Sensing that elections may be held by the Pakistan Army next year and with a political vacuum existing due to banishment of the last Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, she has been active in running around Western countries subtly projecting that she is the only viable civilian alternative to head Pakistan. With the inauguration of President Bush in Washington, she has already visited Washington in February and embarking soon on a second outing. Her campaign on Capitol Hill is aimed at impressing the American law makers and the think-tanks in Washington that she is a moderate Pakistani leader having nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism, proxy war in Kashmir or with Taliban. Such a line carries conviction to the Americans when coupled with her personal charm and western education eloquence.

In India too, there are many advocates of Ms. Bhutto amongst retired diplomats of Nehru-Gandhi vintage, Track II participants and Generals/Admirals turned peaceniks. The Indian media glitterrati as is their wont, do not take pains to delve deep in to the political background of such leaders.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum || 12/27/2007 09:20 || Comments || Link || [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  None of this is a problem anymore.

Oddly, I feel saddened by Morticia's departure. She was no gem. And yet, for a few fleeting weeks, it seemed as if Pakistan might duke it out at the polls instead of killing one another because of disagreements.

Foolish me.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 12/27/2007 10:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Lemme get this expert Indian analysis straight. Bhutto was the Islamists' best friend. This must be why they had her killed. This is as fine as example of Indian logic as you will ever see.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 13:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Zhang Fei, logic has not much to do with it.

Lemme give an example:
Lefties are best islamists' friends. Yet, they will be the first, if islamists get into power, to have their height shortened by the height of their heads. Happened in Iran, and would happen again where islamists get their sway.

She courted islamist croc, fed him, and now with increased appetite, he had her for a snack.
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 13:52 Comments || Top||

#4  ZF, thinkig of it... you are not, perchance, biased against Indians, are you?
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 13:54 Comments || Top||

#5  TBF: ZF, thinkig of it... you are not, perchance, biased against Indians, are you?

I'm biased against Indian logic. And mythology.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 14:09 Comments || Top||

#6  TBF: Lefties are best islamists' friends. Yet, they will be the first, if islamists get into power, to have their height shortened by the height of their heads. Happened in Iran, and would happen again where islamists get their sway.

She courted islamist croc, fed him, and now with increased appetite, he had her for a snack.


This is another way of saying that whatever she previously did, Bhutto is no longer an ally of the Islamists. So they killed her. But the idea that Bhutto was bad because she previously cooperated* with the Islamists has, as an assumption, the Indian fantasy that anyone who cooperates with the Islamists in Pakistan is wilfully doing so. The reality is that in Pakistani politics, the population is our enemy, not the leaders. Any leader who does not take the interests of Islamists will soon be an ex-leader in short order. This is what every Pakistani leader since Zia has had to deal with.

But Indians persist in this fantasy that Pakistani leaders could just change course and resolve the whole Islamist problem. BTW, you're not prejudiced against Pakistani leaders, are you? I am personally prejudiced against the ideology of Muslims everywhere, but am sympathetic to the problems that Muslim leaders have in dealing with the animalistic ideologies of their citizenry. We have a Muslim population stateside that is not much different ideologically, but seriously hampered in carrying out what they'd like to see happen to Uncle Sam by their relative prosperity and lust for material possessions, and by their numerical inferiority.

* Note that just because an Indian (or an American commentator cribbing from Indian sources) says that Bhutto was cooperating with Islamists doesn't mean that she was actually doing so. Indians have this obsession with caudillos defining the course of their nations - and have applied this theory to Pakistan in particular, tarring every leader with the Islamist brush. If this were truly the case, why the heck has no one in Pakistan been able to hold on to the reins for any period of time without getting assassinated or ejected in a coup? Unfortunately for us, Pakistan's masses do have a man on a white horse - his name is Muhammad, he died 1300 years ago and the book written by his followers are the source of their ideology, not any Pakistani or Muslim leader.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 14:34 Comments || Top||

#7  We always hear and talk about the possibility of the whack job Muzzies getting their hands on a bomb and going after Israel or NYC. Assuming that the wakis win in Pakland might we not see the bomb heading south-east rather than west?

What would the Indian response be to a nuke going off say in Mumbai after it just kind of floated in on some anonymous ship?
Posted by: AlanC || 12/27/2007 15:01 Comments || Top||

#8  ZF, Brillant explanation per usual.

The only issue I have is not so much with India logic but with the fact that in all cases accountability starts at the top. Nawaz, Bhutto, Hul, Musharraf, it doesn't matter. Pakistani's are still violently attacking India in Assam, Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. The ISI has a nexus with the Maoists/Naxalites as well as the MULTA and Manipuri muslim seperatists. Pakistani intel - the spy agency of their government still foments and supports this terrorism. Bhutto may have been the best civilian choice but is civilian rule even an option? I very much enjoyed your rant, I'm just not sold on Bhutto. I guess it doesn't matter now.
Posted by: Rightwing || 12/27/2007 15:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Andrew McCarthy has an excellent piece up on NRO about the real Pakistan vs the fantasy Pakistan:

It is the new way of warfare to proclaim that our quarrel is never with the heroic, struggling people of fill-in-the-blank country. No, we, of course, fight only the regime that oppresses them and frustrates their unquestionable desire for freedom and equality.

Pakistan just won’t cooperate with this noble narrative.

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence — the symbol, however dubious, of democracy’s promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf — as if he were the problem — can camouflage that fact.


Like it or not, the Koran has this irresistible pull for hundreds of millions of Muslims, much as Das Kapital was holy writ and a call to arms for Communist revolutionaries everywhere. Most will not become active fighters, but many will provide financial support and shelter for jihadis. Until the war hits them directly and kills and maims so many of their friends and relatives that they finally cry uncle.

As is happening in Iraq today. Some people say the surge is what caused Iraqi guerrillas to stop fighting American troops. I think it was time and attrition. Time is what kills insurgencies and counter-insurgencies alike. The side that can stand the pain longer wins.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 15:20 Comments || Top||

#10  "Pakistan just won’t cooperate with this noble narrative.

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence — the symbol, however dubious, of democracy’s promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf — as if he were the problem — can camouflage that fact."

So much BS. Doesnt jive at with election returns, or what actual informed people who have been there say.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 12/27/2007 15:25 Comments || Top||

#11  ZF, My comment was not much about Bhutto, but about the nature of islamst beast and what one can expect from it.

Not biased agains Paki leaders... They are individuals, and need to be weighed by their fruits. They are, no doubt, in a difficult position, ever since Zia opened the islamist pandora box.

I only tried to object, obliquely, to your sweeping generalization, "Indian logic" as it were, when we are talking, de facto, about author's logic. Maybe you did not meant it that way, but it came out as a major bias on your part.
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 15:30 Comments || Top||

#12  TBF: I only tried to object, obliquely, to your sweeping generalization, "Indian logic" as it were, when we are talking, de facto, about author's logic. Maybe you did not meant it that way, but it came out as a major bias on your part.

My personal view is that Indian commentators have two major blind spots - British colonial rule and Pakistan. The normal rules of logic do not apply in discussions of those two topics. That is all I meant.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/27/2007 15:48 Comments || Top||


Two bakers and how human rights went wrong in Kashmir
As Kashmiri leaders across the political spectrum vociferously condemned - and rightly so - last week's killing of a baker allegedly by the Indian Army,
Actually the Rashtriya Rifles isn't an Indian Army unit. It is a paramilitary counterinsurgency force
four days later another baker in the same area fell to bullets - this time from suspected militants. But the second incident attracted no political or public outcry.

For the past 18 years, there has been a death dance in Kashmir, but these two killings have unravelled the reality about the politicisation of human rights in Kashmir.
What prompts condemnation is who the killer is, not the fact that innocent blood has been spilled.
What prompts condemnation is who the killer is, not the fact that innocent blood has been spilled.

Riyaz Ahmed Sofi was the baker allegedly killed by the troops of 9 Rashtriya Rifles in Kulgam district of south Kashmir Nov 17, while Manzoor Ahmad Wani was the baker found shot Nov 21 in the same district. Suspected militants had kidnapped Wani from his home two days before his blood-ridden body was discovered in an orchard.

Riyaz's killing sparked mass protests and the government ordered a probe into the incident after a case was registered against the army. Politicians, separatists as well as nationalists, decried the 'cold blooded murder'.

But the political spectrum remained absolutely quiet about Wani's murder. There was no statement from the Mirwaizs or Geelanis, Muftis or Abdullahs. Wani's killing could have hardly provided spice to their speeches. It was a non-issue for all of them because militants were suspected to be behind the killing.

This phenomenon is not new but has been in vogue since violence got mingled with politics in Kashmir. Human rights groups and political parties have always been very choosy about protesting killings. People like Wani die without attracting any attention. And this compartmentalisation of human rights has raised the question of relevance and credibility of rights groups .
Quite simple really: India Bad - Muslim Militants Good
It's time for rights groups in Kashmir to learn to respect human life. While the slain villagers shared similar stories of death, their life was not too different either. Ironically, both Sofi's and Wani's wives are pregnant.

The contrasting ways in which politicians and people have responded to the two tragedies reveal one of the biggest ironies of Kashmir - that it is a land where the identity of the killer makes the deceased a 'martyr' or an 'unsung' victim.
Posted by: john frum || 12/27/2007 07:35 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Roseanne's cranky Christmas card to Jesus
Roseanne Barr certainly didn't get into the Christmas spirit this year. On her blog, RoseanneWorld.com., the cranky comic writes: "Happy Birthday Jesus! Hope you like the gift we got you: War, hatred, Christian inquisition, Muslim holy war and Jewish jihad, mass materialism, poisoning the planet, locking everyone up and letting working-class people go broke and move to tent cities!"
Posted by: ryuge || 12/27/2007 06:58 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I always love it when multi-millionaires rant about 'materialism'...
Posted by: Raj || 12/27/2007 7:52 Comments || Top||

#2  ...and why did you make me so fuckin ugly!
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/27/2007 8:30 Comments || Top||

#3  In my personal rankings of celebreties that don't mean sh!t to me, I would rather look at Paris / Britney exiting limosines that anything this fat earth-bound blimp bleats about.
at least the limosines have class.....
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 12/27/2007 13:29 Comments || Top||

#4  War - check
hatred - check
Christian inquisition - Nope, sorry
Muslim holy war - check
Jewish jihad - Nope, sorry
mass materialism - check
poisoning the planet - Nope, sorry Al et al
locking everyone up and letting working class people go broke and move to tent cities - Nope, sorry

4 outta' 8 is still too much to give to the fat old sow, but I guess that even in the country of the blind the one-eyed sow is (a) queen...

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 12/27/2007 14:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Im out there working on the Jewish Jihad thing, but Im having trouble getting started.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 12/27/2007 14:03 Comments || Top||

#6  LH get ye down to schul and get a couple of committees going on it. Give the entire congregation a choice between Stewardship Visitation Month or Endless, Mindless Jihad.

Trust me on this
Posted by: Thomas Woof || 12/27/2007 14:10 Comments || Top||

#7  Is leftism a mental disorder?

After collecting anecdotal evidence for more than 40 years, under its weight, there is no ambiguity what the answer is.
Posted by: twobyfour || 12/27/2007 14:15 Comments || Top||

#8  Bitchin about the "mass materialism" are ya?
Gonna turn down your next Vegas gig, ya fat ugly pig?
Didn't think so.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/27/2007 14:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Just another Hollywood moonbat.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/27/2007 15:11 Comments || Top||

#10  Living proof of the old Swamp Yankee truism: "You can be fat, ugly or a bitch, but you can be all three."
Posted by: Don Vito Spuper1270 || 12/27/2007 17:48 Comments || Top||

#11  Can't, dammit, can't.
Posted by: Don Vito the dyslexis || 12/27/2007 17:49 Comments || Top||

#12  #7: "Is leftism a mental disorder?"

Well, yeah....

#10: "You can be fat, ugly or a bitch, but you can't be all three."

I beg to differ, Don - see Rosie, Roseanne, et al. Dey be all 3, & then some.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/27/2007 18:17 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2007-12-27
  Benazir Bhutto killed by suicide bomber
Wed 2007-12-26
  15-year-old bomber stopped at Bhutto rally
Tue 2007-12-25
  Government amends Lebanon constitution for presidential election
Mon 2007-12-24
  Hindu nationalists win Indian election
Sun 2007-12-23
  Somalia Islamic movement appoints new leadership
Sat 2007-12-22
  Paks raid madrassah after mosque boom
Fri 2007-12-21
  France Detains Five Men In Connection With Algeria Bombing
Thu 2007-12-20
  Hamas leader appeals for truce with Israel
Wed 2007-12-19
  Turkey's military confirms ground incursion; claims heavy PKK losses
Tue 2007-12-18
  Turkish Army Sends Soldiers Into Iraq
Mon 2007-12-17
  Paks form team to rearrest Rashid Rauf
Sun 2007-12-16
  Kabul cop shoppe boomed, 5 dead
Sat 2007-12-15
  Mehsud to head Taliban Movement of Pakistan
Fri 2007-12-14
  Khamenei appoints Qassem as Hezbollah military commander
Thu 2007-12-13
  Leb car boom murders top general


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