The claque of foreign correspondent rallying to the support of Stephen Farrell over his kidnap and rescue in Afghanistan are fulsome in their praise of him and each other. Many of them have written books displaying their prowess all with the benefit of "being there", offering their pearls of wisdom and expertise.
To a man (and woman) though, they all seem to make a mistake common to purveyors of their trade. As journalists, they share the belief that grasp of a tiny piece of the story seen from their own limited perspectives necessarily qualify them to hold forth on the bigger picture, and to draw conclusions from them.
What they are doing, most often, is confusing the process of reporting writing up a coherent story on the basis of facts they have gathered with analysis: gathering facts from diverse sources, assessing their relative merits and reliability, assembling them and, drawing conclusions and, where possible, extrapolating possible outcomes.
Although the processes seem similar, they are not. Reporters usually come to the story with a pre-conceived notion of what they want to write, and then collect "facts" to stand up the story and to illustrate it. The narrative is invariably worked out in advance.
The analyst, however, comes from the opposite direction. When the process is done properly, there is neither narrative nor a pre-conceived idea. Instead, the facts are collected, sifted, weighed up, assembled and reviewed, from which the narrative emerges. As its best, it is a journey of discovery, with the conclusions sometimes coming as a surprise, even to their authors.
The often unrecognised difference leads to some of the underlying tensions between the "claque" who claim greater authority from their experiences of "being there" - even if they so often can only claim to have seen a small snapshot and very often do not understand the importance of what they have seen, or how it fits into the bigger picture and the more distant observers who have a wider range of data with which to work and benefit from the detachment that only time and distance can bring.
In some respects, "being there" is a handicap to an analyst. The impressions and power of individual events overwhelm the observers, distorting their perceptions and obscuring less prominent issues that may, in fact, have greater importance. And even then, no one can "be there" in the sense that they are everywhere. They may be in the country but many events happen at a different place and time, when the "on-the-spot" observer can be tens or even hundreds of miles away.
All this serves as a weighty prelude to today's lead item in the Booker column, where Booker without having left his study in Somerset - can pronounce with authority on events in distant Afghanistan and conclude that our intervention there is doomed.
To come to that conclusion, Booker has assembled diverse sources of information almost none of which have been gleaned from the UK claque of foreign correspondents. These serve to illustrate a theme we have rehearsed on the blog and DOTR that the Taleban derive much of their funding not from the oft-quoted sources, but from British and other Western taxpayers. And not only are we in large part paying for the Taleban to kill our troops, our aid programme even supplies much of the material used to make the explosives used to kill them.
A little vignette of this system, writes Booker, is the sad story of the Kajaki dam in northern Helmand. A year ago the MoD was crowing over the success of British troops in ensuring the safe delivery of a new US turbine to this Russian-built hydro-electric power station.
More than 2,000 troops were involved in the operation, and we still guard the plant as it generates its pitifully small amount of electricity (16 megawatts). But and this we learnt from Michael Yon and other sources (even the reviled Associated Press) - the power lines and sub-stations which feed it to several towns are controlled by the Taleban, who then charge money to customers for allowing the juice to reach them.
This has been discussed and analysed on diverse blogs but, while the MSM has offered derring-do accounts of operations in the Kajaki area, none of our ranks of gifted correspondents have seen fit to highlight what is in fact a major scandal.
And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal. Embattled British troops, in a scarcely defensible outpost in Kajaki, are fighting and dying to protect an asset which provides financial resources to the enemy they are fighting.
That alone, though, is but one strand of the "bigger picture" that Booker examines. A far larger source of Taleban income, he writes, are the protection rackets by which they siphon off a significant part of the billions of dollars we and other Western countries pour into Afghanistan to keep troops supplied and to provide new infrastructure, such as schools and roads, under a multiplicity of aid programmes.
Much of the thousands of tons of supplies needed each month by our forces, for instance, is trucked up from Pakistan by private firms contracted to the MoD. But the price we pay is inflated by as much as 20 percent to include protection money paid by contractors to the Taleban to ensure that convoys are not attacked en route.
This has been rehearsed by local sources, not least here, with sums mentioned of up to £350 for each supply truck, to allow safe passage.
Although occasionally mentioned in passing by our ranks of gifted correspondents, none have ever sought to make a big issue of what is in fact a major scandal.
And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal. In order to supply British troops, at the end of a long and fragile logistics train, the British government is paying huge sums to the enemy which our troops are fighting, just so that they will allow through the supplies which our troops need to survive.
Then, from the US Time magazine, Booker picks up the detail of how reconstruction money is skimmed off to pay the Taleban not to destroy projects, thus funding the bombs and weapons that are used to kill British troops. He quotes Maj-Gen Michael Flynn, a senior intelligence officer with ISAF, saying there is now "more money going into the pockets of local leaders (of the insurgency) from [these] criminal activities than there is from narcotics".
And while this information was freely published in a US magazine, of our ranks of gifted correspondents, none have ever sought to make a big issue of what is in fact a major scandal. And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal.
Then Booker picks up the fact that US and UK aid agencies are supplying thousands of tons of free fertiliser to Afghan famers, the very material which the Taleban are using to make bombs with which to kill British soldiers. Yet this information comes not from our ranks of gifted correspondents, none of whom have ever sought to make a big issue of what is in fact a major scandal.
And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal, that British and US taxpayers are subsidising the materials used by the Taleban to kill and maim our troops.
Furthermore, having not reported any of the items in isolation with any degree of emphasis (or at all) none of our ranks of gifted correspondents have put these disparate issues together the essence of analysis. But, if you do, we find that the Taleban is drawing healthy amounts of finance from electricity, from our supply chain and from the reconstruction programme, topped up with free supplies of material that they can use for their bombs.
But it does not stop there. Much has been made of the opium control programme but Booker picks up on the scarce-reported fact that the price (and availability) of opium is linked to the price of wheat. When the price of wheat is high, opium production falls off, which means that British interests are best served by keeping the price of wheat high.
But, with an unerring instinct for doing the wrong things, our government is using our money to give free wheat seed to Afghan farmers, the effect of which will be to drive down the price of wheat and thus increase opium production.
The one consolation and it is a poor one is that this makes very little difference to the finances of local insurgents (although the high-level Taleban do benefit). They levy "taxes" on whatever crops the farmers grow, whether it is wheat or opium a process facilitated by the British Army which spends so much of its time and resource on aimless patrolling and next to no resource on targeting the extortion rackets.
Putting all that together is part of the process of analysis. You don't have to "be there", to do it and its is interesting that none of those brilliant reporters who have so famously been there, and thus pronounce their superiority, have thought to do this simple exercise.
Yet it is the analysis which allows the conclusions, and which gives them their authority. Finance is the lifeblood of any insurgency and, to crack it, you have to deal with the source. Further, there are few better ways of winning the "hearts and minds" of the local population than to bear down on extortion rackets. On the other hand, failure to do so will weaken any counter-insurgency effort.
Thus, as long as the British and other western taxpayers are being forced to subsidise the Taleban to kill and maim British soldiers, and supply them the materials to make their bombs, and then to undermine the opium control programme, our intervention in Afghanistan is indeed doomed. And the more money we throw at the problem, the worse it will get.
It would thus be so refreshing if our journalistic claque could crawl out of their comfort zone and look at the bigger picture. They need to stop bleating about needing "more resources" in Afghanistan. We are already giving the Taleban far too much money. We should not be agitating to give them more.
Howard Kurtz acknowledges that the mainstream media blew the Van Jones story. But he doesnt think the answer is bias, he explains:
Some conservatives accused journalists of liberal bias; it is just as likely that their radar malfunctioned, or that they collectively dismissed Beck as a rabble-rouser.
New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson told readers online that the paper was a beat behind on this story and that while the Washington bureau was short-staffed during a holiday week, we should have been paying closer attention.
The follow-up news pieces focused on the administrations failure to vet Joness background. Perhaps the media bloodhounds should be just as curious why they failed to sniff out a story that ended with a White House resignation.
If this were an isolated event or if the Whoops, missed that! errors were equally distributed among stories that hurt the Left and the Right, Kurtzs explanation might be plausible. But at this point, the denial of bias is nothing short of absurd. The New York Times for weeks and weeks during the campaign ignored the Reverend Wright story. The entire mainstream media played dumb while the surge in Iraq proved successfuluntil candidate Obama planned a trip there. Chas Freeman was a name not spoken on the news pages of the Times or the Washington Post until his appointment was withdrawn. And on the other side, was there a single gaffe, error, or scandal in the Bush administration that went unnoticed or underreported by the mainstream media?
But Kurtz then proceeds to tell us that, in fact, the media has fallen even further into disrepute:
Public respect for the media has plunged to a new low, with just 29 percent of Americans saying that news organizations generally get their facts straight.
That figure is the lowest in more than two decades of surveys by the Pew Research Center, which also found just 26 percent saying news outlets are careful that their reporting is not politically biased. And 70 percent say news organizations try to cover up their mistakes. That amounts to a stunning vote of no confidence.
And while Democrats are increasingly displeased with the media, Republicans remain the most aggrieved. According to Pew, only 25 percent of Republicans thought the press was fair to Bush, while 68 percent of Democrats approved the daily flogging Bush received at the hands of the media.
It might come as no surprise that the Washington Posts media critic cant find evidence of bias (no doubt the coverage of Bob McDonnell by his paper seems evenhanded to him as well). But the public certainly can, and theyve, in overwhelming numbers, reached the conclusion that the media cant be trusted. Perhaps if mainstream news outlets owned up to their bias rather than hunker down in willful ignorance, there might be a chance to recover the publics trust. But if Kurtz is any indication, there is little chance of that happening.
#2
Perhaps the media bloodhounds should be just as curious why they failed to sniff out a story that ended with a White House resignation.
There is no possible way for the MSM to get 'scooped' on a story coming out of the Obama Whitehouse by a Fox News anchor. We all know why this happened.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/14/2009 22:26 Comments ||
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#1
Hmmmm... I thought I was too quick to close a window, so i posted again. It's not coming up as fast as it usually does. Mods - please delete the second post - and this note. Thanks.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2009 6:41 Comments ||
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#2
That's three hung up by some Weekly Standard verbiage! So go read the whole thing!
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2009 6:44 Comments ||
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#3
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million people attempted to get a second opinion on Saturday. Not sure Barry or anyone in Congress was listening. Very, very sad.
#4
I think it is the superior care in the US that is responsible for the higher preterm deaths of infants, also. Other nations don't interfere in difficult pregnancies with high-tech procedures such as en-utero surgeries, and the babies are miscarried and therefore not counted. There is also the factor of the high number of unwed births born to young hip-hops who do drugs in our inner cities, but I won't give the real stats, as it would be considered racist to point it out.
#1
Obamas a condescending ass. The democrats have been trying to socialize medicine since Roosevelt. The storm or "circus" as he calls it is the same outrage that every democrat since Roosevelt has had to face for their stupidity. Obama started down this no win road, now he is surprised? WTF? He has got to be the most arrogant condescending president we have ever had!!! Somehow I think Hillary had something to do with this.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/14/2009 15:52 Comments ||
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I willing volunteer to get waterboarded. Thats right-- you read correctly. You hire a professional to waterboard me, and Ill show up with Nine Inch Nails CDs in hand to the place of your choosing. Hell, well even videotape it and show it on the blog. As an advocate of advanced interrogation methods, I am open to a brief rendezvous with the technique.
And yet the notion of writing an essay in support of waterboarding is personally disconcerting. Critics concerns about waterboarding are indubitably warranted; after all, if our government sanctions simulated drowning, whats next? Cutting off toes? Electric-shock interrogations? Many fear that once a government crosses that ethical line in the sand a slippery slope of amorality may follow.
But in spite of this recognition, it is my belief that the United States is in an extraordinary time in its history. Facing a lengthy ideological conflict against Islamofascism, the United States will confront severe dangers in the coming decade. The government must not forget that Bin Laden and his henchmen desire awe-inspiring destruction in the United States; Islamic fundamentalists are not interested in small suicide attacks in malls and at public events. Their ultimate aim, quite unnervingly, is to bring the United States to its knees by setting off multiple dirty bombs in major American cities.
Those who reject such warnings as ridiculous should remember 9/11 and the impressive array of planning and sophistication that went into those attacks. al-Qaeda is a disturbingly capable enemy that is not going away.
So, recognizing the above statements, if you ask me whether I would sanction waterboarding on a tiny number of high-level al-Qaeda operatives to stop terrorist attacks that could kill millions of Americans? Absolutely. A tightrope of immorality, waterboarding is the ethical line in the sand. It represents political pragmatism at its worst.
But many, however, question whether waterboarding works and if a detainee in distress can even yield credible intelligence. While such concerns are valid, it seems a bit naïve to believe interrogators do not have numerous methods for detecting whether a prisoner is lying. At the very least they have lie detector systems available to them, as well an assuredly vast array of medicines that could aid in bringing out the truth from an enemy operative.
Ali Soufan and the New York Times notwithstanding: known records indicate that waterboarding does indeed work and has directly help save American lives. CIA interrogations of Kalik Shied Mohammed , the mastermind of 9/11, generated crucial intelligence that directly led to the disruption of several plots against the United States...and the capture of other terrorists. The CIA waterboarded K.S. Mohammed 183 times in these extremely fruitful interrogations. In fact, the planner of 9/11 gave up so much helpful information that the CIA referred to KSM as the preeminent source on al-Qaeda.
I disagree with critics who claim that waterboarding had nothing to do with Mohammeds decision to suddenly see the light and confess everything to his American archenemies; when dealing with enemy leaders indoctrinated to destroy you, interrogative psychology and trickery have their limits. It does not seem erroneous to state that enhanced interrogation methods were important for protecting the United States in the years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Obviously the technique is an ugly and distasteful practice to advocate. But in extremely specific circumstances with high-level intelligence-ripe detainees, waterboarding is a practice to implement with approval from the highest-echelons of government.
As a result of reluctantly taking a stance in support of waterboarding, I must offer myself to experience the practice. Though the notion of having water poured down my nose for fifteen to thirty seconds is mildly disturbing, it is the only way to sincerely understand the brute means of our American national-security ends.
#1
Arggg, the American people hold high moral standards, yet we send a JDAM into a building to kill a bad guy and then scream bloody murder when someone get a little water in the face. The slippery slope this guy speaks of slides both ways. If you want to call waterboarding torture, then you must look at what our local police departments do with questioning people for over eight hours not allowing them use of restrooms, or water. We're talking about scaring someone, not cutting their head off with a dull knife. It is silly to keep bringing this up, we need to let it go and get past this. For Gods sake we don't capture terrorists anymore because of this stuff, we kill them with 500 pound laser guided bombs.
Eliminated targets don't need Miranda rights and lawyers!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/14/2009 17:22 Comments ||
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#2
Personally, I like the way the anonymous author ("Doctor Zero") put it, in the essay at: http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/08/25/the-ethics-of-ferocity/ :
"While liberals wave the Justice Departmentâs report on CIA interrogation techniques at the rest of the world and tearfully beg them for forgiveness, the rest of us are wondering why we donât reduce the deficit by selling the rights to these interrogations on pay-per-view. The contestants on your average Japanese game show go through more intense ordeals."
#3
"the rest of us are wondering why we don't reduce the deficit by selling the rights to these interrogations on pay-per-view. The contestants on your average Japanese game show go through more intense ordeals"
Simple, Lone Ranger.
Jihadis and liberals (but I repeat myself) are weenies. Nobody wants to watch a weenie.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2009 19:34 Comments ||
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The war in Swat and some other areas may have been won but as a polity and a citizenry, we have spent very little time reflecting upon the deep-down reasons why there is so much strife in Pakistan.
The obvious direct or reasons are, of course, discussed, for without them there cannot be even a superficial understanding of any issue. We do talk, for example, about how the rise of the Taliban can be explained by the role played by this country's spy agencies, other countries' policies vis-à-vis Afghanistan or Pakistan's own notions of 'strategic depth' etc. And the role played by madrassahs, large-scale illiteracy, economic depravation and related issues. Nevertheless, these explanations fail to touch upon anything other than the specific case of the Taliban, and the immediacy of this particular issue. In terms of strife in Pakistan, what we need is to identify the links between, say, the Taliban and street-criminals, kidnappers for ransom and citizens' riots, dacoits and food adulterators. Taken together, such evidence of the defiance of the rule of law are what underpin the frequent lament one hears of the fraying social order in the country.
So, what are the links between the apparently disparate forms of illegality referred to above? Some answers can be found in political philosophy and anthropology, particularly in Thomas Hobbes' theory of social contract. At its most simplified, the 17th century English philosopher's theory was that without a political government, mankind would have existed in a 'natural state' which consisted of a war of every man against everybody else -- against all competitors for resources. Hobbes' 'state of nature' refers to what human society would look like without government: '[. . .] every man is enemy to every man [. . .] wherein men live without other security than what their own strength, and their own invention, shall furnish them withall. [. . .] continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.'
In such a state, he postulated, each person would have the right or the licence to everything in the world, inevitably leading to conflict -- war of all against all, and thus lives that are nasty, brutish and short.
To escape this perpetual strife, he theorised, men accede to a social contract and establish a civil society -- defined by Hobbes as a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede certain natural rights for the sake of protection.
In other words, free men establish a political community -- a civil society -- through a social contract in which they gain civil rights in return for subjecting themselves to civil law or political authority. Abuses of power on part of this authority are accepted as the price of that peace, though Hobbes also explains that in case of the severe abuse of this power, rebellion by society can be expected.
His 1651 book 'Leviathan', in which Hobbes laid out these theories, bore a title-page adorned with an engraving that has become famous over the subsequent centuries: from behind some hills overlooking a landscape towers the body of a crowned giant, that is itself constituted of tiny human figures. It was written during the English Civil War, and much of the book occupies itself by demonstrating the need for a strong central authority to avoid discord and civil war. It views the State as a great artificial man or monster -- a Leviathan -- composed of individual men, but at the same time also raises the question of the subject's right to change allegiance when a former sovereign power to protect is irrecoverably lost.
Thomas Hobbes was followed by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in developing the principles of contractarianism, which later formed the backbone of theories of democracy. The idea of social contract tries to explain the way people gather themselves into states and/or maintain social order, with people giving up some rights to a government or other authority -- which could even be a tribal chief, in the context of Pakistan's north -- in order to maintain social order through the rule of law. The idea of social contract became central to the notion, now associated with 'democracy', that legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed.
What light does all this throw on the situation in Pakistan? Well, the social contract theory postulates that the civil rights it bestows are neither 'natural rights' nor permanent. In fact, the contract is a means towards an end: the benefit of all. Locke and Rousseau, in fact, argued that the social contract is legitimate only to the extent that it meets the general interest. Since civil rights come from agreeing to the contract, those who choose to violate their contractual obligations, such as by committing crimes, abdicate their rights and the rest of society can be expected to protect itself by punishing outlaws for violating the terms of the contract: seen this way, society works by 'mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon.' On the other hand, when failings develop in the contract, people renegotiate through methods such as elections and the legislature to change the terms. In case the contract led to tyranny, Locke theorised upon the citizenry's right of rebellion.
The right of rebellion refers, in political philosophy, to the right or duty (variously stated through human history) inherent in the subjects of a state that would justify their action to overthrow the government to whom the subjects otherwise owe allegiance. There are indications of this in Islamic thought, where in case of a conflict, allegiance to divine laws takes precedence over man-made laws. And in Europe, the right of revolution can be found in the Magna Carta charter of 1215, that required the King to renounce certain rights and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It also included a security clause that gave the right to a committee of barons to overrule the will of the king through force if necessary. It was this charter that directly influenced the development of parliamentary democracy -- such as that in Pakistan -- and many documents such as the US constitution.
What is happening in Pakistan can be understood on one level through the idea of a social contract, which is in many ways collapsing in the country. We agreed to be ruled by the state and its government, in return for gaining certain civil liberties and protections: protection of our lives, livelihoods, properties and rights; the right to economic and educational opportunity, health care and equality under the eyes of the law; the freedom to live in dignity and prosperity. These requirements are hardly even nominally met in a country where institutional inadequacies have become the norm, shortages of all sorts are a part of daily life and where the price of the lives of most citizens is hardly worth mentioning. The social contract can scarcely be said to be being met in a country characterised by gross inequality and the criminal negligence of citizens' rights.
Postscript: The term 'Commonwealth' comes from the full title of Thomas Hobbes' book: 'Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of A Common Wealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil.'
-- hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
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#3
The obvious problem in all Muslim states is that allegiance to religion takes precedence over allegiance to the state. And in Pakistan tribal areas allegiance to the tribe takes precedence over both.
[Asharq al-Aswat]
Whilst watching one of the [Arabic] satellite channels, I saw somebody who described himself as a political and military expert make a statement in which he said that the people responsible for the Lebanese rocket attack against Israel may be affiliated to the Israeli espionage network! This strategic political and military expert wants to say that Israeli wishes to provoke a crisis with Lebanon, and has therefore ordered its spies to fire rockets into its own territory.
The question that must be asked is; who benefits from rockets being fired from southern Lebanon into Israel?
Is Israeli targeting itself at the same time that it is diplomatically and tactically working to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons?
If we wish to persist in looking at this conspiracy theory we could ask; is it logical that at the same time that Damascus is trying to resolve its issues with the US and the West and is preparing for the difficult months to come, that it would risk opening another [battle] front with Israel i.e. Lebanon?
Damascus is certainly not keen to brighten Hezbollah's image, or return to calling for resistance in Lebanon, as it previously did in the past, especially since Syria's relationship with Hezbollah is not as it was before, and it is Syrian ally -- not Hezbollah ally -- [Michel] Aoun who is obstructing the formation of a government in Lebanon.
It is also important that we pay particular attention to the statement issued by Khalid Mishal a few days ago in Khartoum during which he said that Hamas not only smuggles arms, but that it buys and manufactures them as well. The meaning behind this statement is clear; Hamas is saying to Israel that the Gazan front is prepared for any escalation. Therefore the rocket fire from southern Lebanon into Israel, and Mishal's statement a few days ago, are nothing more than a message to Israel from Iran's allies in the region to the effect that all the fronts, from Gaza to Lebanon, are ready for battle should Israel decide to attack Iran.
We are facing a new media campaign of disinformation that will be launched in the coming days, the goal of which is to distract public opinion until we find ourselves facing a new adventure, such as the Hezbollah adventure in 2006 [Hezbollah -- Israel war], or the adventure of the rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip at the beginning of this year [which led to the Israeli invasion].
We musts therefore be prepared [for this] from now, and in order to be ready we must continually ask ourselves; who benefits from Hezbollah or Hamas giving new causes to Israel to incite a new war?
Is it in the interest of Iran, who wants to gain control of Iraq, exploit the Palestinian Cause, and have a hand in Afghanistan, as was evident by the Iranian response to the West on the nuclear issue?
Therefore is this battle on behalf of those who wan to control and divide us, our battle?
The other important question is; are we destined to pay the price for these adventurers?
It is strange that we have simultaneously become both the victims of these wars, as well as the victims of those who finance them. This is what happened in Gaza and prior to that in Lebanon, and others.
Do we not need our finances to build our own future, and our own nations?
These are questions that we must continually ask ourselves, and discuss aloud. There has been enough reckless shedding of innocent blood, and enough recklessness with regards to our nations and stability, and enough wasting of our money. Resistance is one thing, but defending the mullahs in Iran is something else entirely.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
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#1
I'm not a newsbody. I think Lebanon is commiting suicide.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2009 0:32 Comments ||
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#2
The other important question is; are we destined to pay the price for these adventurers?
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.
The claque of foreign correspondent rallying to the support of Stephen Farrell over his kidnap and rescue in Afghanistan are fulsome in their praise of him and each other. Many of them have written books displaying their prowess all with the benefit of "being there", offering their pearls of wisdom and expertise.
