To point this out to the masses, Oath Keepers is joining forces with Alex Jones of Infowars dot com; Steven Vincent of End The Fed; Danny Panzellas Truth Squad TV; Brandon Smiths Alt-Mkt.com; Gary Franchis Restore The Republic; and others as quickly as we can contact them. We are planning to Occupy The Fed Now! and publicize this to remind the Occupy Wall Street people that the Fed is the source problem, without which the Wall Street criminals would be set back a hundred years.
[Dawn] CANDIDATES run on hope. Incumbents run on their record. But Barack B.O. Obama, lining up for a second term at the White House next year, has little to offer on either score. The heady optimism of 2008 has dissipated.
At home, Obama is primarily associated with hard times: only 34 per cent of voters approve of his handling of the economy, according to a recent poll. Abroad, his presidency has come to stand for impotence and incompetence. He promised new beginnings; what he has delivered, for the most part, is waffle, dither and drift.
If this verdict seems harsh, take a quick tour round the globe. Everywhere the pillars of American superpower are crumbling.
The old habit of hegemony, formed in the postwar decades and confirmed in 1989 as Soviet power imploded, is fading as fast as a Honolulu sunset.
Part of the explanation is faltering industrial and financial clout, reflecting the rapid rise of rivals such as China and India. But that is compounded by another central element: Obama's persistent failure to stand up, in practical, substantive ways, for the values, beliefs and interests he so eloquently espouses.
Obama's early, anguished indecision over keeping his promise to close Guantanamo Bay now looks like a grim portent. So, too, does his administration's failure to support the Iranian students whose 'green revolution' was so cruelly suppressed in Tehran in 2009. When the Arab Spring took hold this year, the man who in Cairo had preached the pre-eminence of the democratic ideal took fright. Tunisia did not matter much. But when he faced accusations of becoming the president who 'lost' Egypt, Obama's dither default setting was triggered anew.
In the event he achieved the worst of all worlds. Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... , that staunch, unlovely friend of the West, was deposed with Washington's belated blessing -- to the lasting mortification of another key American ally, Soddy Arabia. Now the army-led, supposedly caretaker regime that replaced him appears equally unappealing.
Egypt may soon require a second revolution, and next time the Islamists may not act so coy. For its part, Riyadh absorbed the lesson of US unreliability and took matters into its own hands by crushing dissent in Bahrain.
In Libya, as elsewhere, Obama talked the good fight from the sidelines. Speaking about Syria in August, he condemned President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... 's "imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering" of pro-democracy demonstrators and demanded he step aside immediately. The call came after months of White House debate about the consequences of supporting change in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... . Assad, meanwhile, contemptuously ignores US mouthings, and a fracturing Syria accelerates towards the abyss.
Obama's handling of his legacy wars -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- provides little to crow about on the stump. The Afghan troop surge has not brought about the looked-for breakthrough. Instead, casualties are up, while the Taliban, in contrast, have increasingly resorted to targeted terror tactics -- such as last month's liquidation of Burhanuddin Rabbani ... the murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan... , a former Afghan president and head of the High Peace council.
Any examination of whether Obama and his diplomats and commanders want a negotiated Afghan peace settlement finds President Dither at his most infuriating. Speaking at the end of Ramazan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader, clearly signalled interest in pursuing talks to create a new political order acceptable to all Afghans.
But Washington seems more intent on threatening Pakistain than ensuring a peaceful transition in Afghanistan after 2014.
Much the same may be said of Iraq, where US concerns focus less on the stability of a country it so massively destabilised than on how Iran may exploit the US withdrawal.
Obama's foreign policy under-achievement leaves a global trail. He spoke out forcefully in Prague about the necessary inevitability of a nuclear bomb-free world. But his carrots and sticks have had little impact on North Korea's or Iran's ambitions, while the Libyan war delivered a clear message: if Muammar Qadaffy ...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years... had not abandoned his nuclear weapons programme in 2003 he might still be in power now.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"Waffle, Dither, and Drift;" sounds like a ready made name for Bambi's post-presidential lobbying firm.
#2
Part of the explanation is faltering industrial and financial clout, reflecting the rapid rise of rivals such as China and India. But that is compounded by another central element
Too much:
1. Statist ideology (the notion everything should come from central government)
2. Regulation
3. Bureaucracy
4. Public union influence
5. Disdain for business and capitalism
6. Corruption
7. Crony capitalism
8. Inexperience at doing anything
9. Class warfare and institutionalized racism (DOJ)
11. Selling out to foreign interests (not only BO's administration; Clinton's and Nixon's as well).
12. Taxation
13. Micromanagement of the economy
[Dawn] FOUR days after the All-Party Conference in Islamabad passed its 'consensus resolution', the head of the Council of Islamic Ideology declared on Monday that the beturbanned goons were well-wishers of neither Islam nor Pakistain, and emphasised that violence was no solution to problems. Addressing a presser in Quetta in the presence of Learned Elders of Islam from different sects, Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani appealed to all religious and political parties to unite to face the internal and external forces threatening Pakistain. Coming from the chief of the constitutional body, the rejection of religious militancy is in line with several fatwas given in the past by individual Learned Elders of Islam and larger multi-sect conferences in Pakistain and elsewhere in South Asia against suicide kabooms and acts of terror targeting innocent people. Even though the Learned Elders of Islam's reaction to acts of terror has often been tardy and restrained, some brave individuals, like Mufti Naeemi of Lahore, have paid with their lives for being outspoken in their denunciation of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain's murderous acts.
Maulana Sherani's opinion bordering on a fatwa should be taken note of by the government, which, following some vexatious developments, has renewed its commitment to seeking a negotiated settlement to the Taliban insurgency. While no one in their sane mind would quarrel with this idea in principle, the CII chief's declaration arms the PPP-led government with a moral locus standi with which to negotiate with those who, according to him, are not well-wishers of Islam and Pakistain. The TTP and other religious myrmidon groups have declared war on Pakistain and continue to kill Pak soldiers, men, women and kiddies. If the negotiations are to be held, or are perhaps already under way, the public ought to know where we are headed and what exactly is the price the nation will have to pay if the government is to negotiate and compromise with the beturbanned goons. More regretfully, in spite of the olive branch proffered by the APC, the beturbanned goons have not conveyed a categorical acceptance of the peace call. In fact, the initial reaction from the TTP has been lukewarm and conditional.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/06/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] TUESDAY morning saw yet another horrific attack on Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's hapless Hazara Shias. According to a representative of the community, gunnies removed non-Hazara passengers from a bus on the outskirts of Quetta before opening fire on the Hazara passengers and killing 13 people. The attack followed the chilling murder of 26 Shia pilgrims on their way from Quetta to Iran in Mastung on Sept 20. They were lined up in a row to be bumped off, execution-style. Following as these do a number of other targeted attacks against Hazaras over the summer, this is nothing short of a campaign of sectarian and ethnic cleansing. Members of the community are easily recognisable physically,
I googled images, and they appeared fairer of skin and more oriental of features than my mental image of Pakistanis. Do they also dress differently?
and Sunni beturbanned goons are taking advantage of this fact to target Shias more easily than is possible elsewhere in the country.
But what is also making this possible are the ties that various cut-thoat groups have built with each other across the country. It is the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi of southern Punjab that is suspected to be behind most of these killings; having developed links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi faceless myrmidons have found a convenient area of operation in and around Quetta, retreating into seminaries and other safe havens in nearby lawless border areas between attacks. The sectarian Jundallah group is also suspected to have a hand in anti-Shia violence in Balochistan, despite its focus on Iran. The situation is thus a prime example of the fallout from increasing collaboration among cut-thoat groups present in different parts of Pakistain. It also demonstrates that going after anyone of them will not be enough. Besides providing the Hazara community with much better protection, the situation will require a commitment to tackle the faceless myrmidons who are targeting Shias as well as those who have allowed them to operate with such impunity in this part of Balochistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
@Fred
Hazaras are said to be descendents of the Mongols Armies of Gengis Khan. They are "yellows" like the Japanese and Chinese.
#3
More exactly: have been hated and discriminated by the Pahtuns for centuries. During the Taliban they suffered both for being Hazara and Shia. Horrendous massacre of them when the Taliban took Herat or Marar-el-Sharif (don't remember). The Taliban used hunger to subdue the Hazarjat. It was a first in Afgahnistan's history that a faction cut food supplies to opponents.
#5
They are also enthusiastic members of the Afghan Special Forces. It would not surprise me if some Haziris take extended leave to even the score.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/06/2011 11:20 Comments ||
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#6
@TW
In fact, according to Wikipedia; CAUTION!, genettics trace Hazaras to _male_ Mongols ie it looks like they were Mongol soldiers who had children with local women. That is why they don't look as typically Oriental than Mongols.
[Dawn] AS the rains waned and the sodden ground re-emerged from under the waters, the rising din of war drums echoed throughout the country. Adm Mike Mullen, America's top military official, hurled towards Pakistain a tremendous accusation.
In a statement issued towards the end of last month, the now retired Adm Mullen accused the Pak intelligence agencies of supporting the Haqqani network and concertedly attacking and undermining American troops in Afghanistan.
The words fell from Adm Mullen's lips into the waiting embrace of the Pak media, saddled with the tiring and timeless task of finding novel ways to hate America.
The snippet was a juicy one, a morsel with the capacity to invoke much nationalism and afford many diversions from nearby failings: the mediocre rants about power failures and natural disasters. And so it was put to good use to create an impenetrable bubble with anchors whetting expert opinion and politicians goading the newspapers into a frenzy of fulfilment -- a moment of unification for a shredded country.
The new week came and there was no war, no ground invasion, nothing other than the retirement of Mullen himself; but prophecies are never accurate and no one had said that war would happen this week ... it could happen next week, or the week after that. Pakistain is a nation of the waiting, and after decades of disappointment from holding out for something better, it has managed finally to alter expectations to suit reality. In their moment of misery Paks have discovered magic: if you wait for war, disappointment itself is a victory.
It's a heady feeling, the exercise of hating America. Waiting for the infliction of American injustice renders Pakistain earnest.
Imbued with a sincerity they could never muster in less morally monolithic encounters, Paks can take to the airwaves, to Facebook groups and Twitter forums and recite the narrative of the righteous.
They can recount episodes of meddling and secret CIA intrigues that have left their country messed up, rattle off the costs of imported war and enumerate civilian casualties. Pakistain's list of wrongs is robust, written in blood and poignant in its tragedy. And in their obsession with it Paks are sincere.
This reality of American wrongs, their recent profusion and the proliferation of secret killings and drone attacks, border evasions and public castigations explain only one part of Pakistain's addiction to anti-Americanism. The other part is distinctly Pak: for against American excesses, their glaring injustice, their obvious hypocrisy, Pakistain is rendered instantly, and by virtue of its silent suffering, finally and ultimately pure. In this last sense there is something more to the equation of the Pak hatred for America than the realities of historic wrongdoings and the divulgences of strategic opportunism. While those make anti-Americanism factual, it is something deeper and more psychological than purely ideological. This is what makes it so deeply fulfilling, so morally consequential.
In a country eking out a rudderless moral existence, where assaults on maidens of tender years and killings of labourers must be overlooked and erased from public consciousness, where no amount of faith has assuaged the pain of falling short of integrity, suffering is purifying like nothing else.
Like a drug that within moments renders an addict suddenly unshackled from the logic of reality and the fidgeting calculations of life and normality, Pakistain, roused, descends into the comforting miasma of being right by having been wronged. The enormity of America's might, its relative greatness and unfairness, pose few demands.
Unlike the aversion to India which requires escalations and calculations, there is no vexing question of prevailing here; just postulations rendered with pride and fomented by fear. You could point to the inability of the B.O. regime to sell another war to a weary, jobless and frustrated America, you could remind one or another analyst that a retiring American joint chief of staff cannot initiate a new war, but the exercise of penetrating the high of hating America would still be futile.
Like all addictions, the rigours anti-Americanism imposes on Pakistain's organs and its inner processes are as yet invisible. In the swoon of an altered moral state, most cannot see the ravages that the consumption of so much hatred with such defiance can pose.
All Paks know that the United States will turn away, move to another problem, discover a danger other than them to frame as an existential threat. Other countries will be crowned with the title of being the most dangerous, the most lethal.
Indeed, the end of Pakistain's tiny moment of strategic greatness will, like its beginning, be ordained by those who name threats rather than those who are named.
The Pakistain of then will be left only with the empty hollowness that lies in wait for all those descending from the leniency of euphoria; the banal problems that await every addict, just as onerous and annoying as they were when escape was first considered.
It is in that faraway future, so unimaginable, when Al Qaeda's number threes are no longer in the headlines, and US officials do not fly in and out of Islamabad at every sunrise and sunset, that the costs of now will be revealed.
In those days, as yet unlived in and unconsidered, a weary Pakistain by then used to the passive demands of hating will face the questions now stored away in the comforting shadows of blame.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Gee, does this mean that Obumble's foreign policy charm campaign has failed???
Anyway, it seems that every country on Earth has some psychological/emotional need to hate and/or feel superior in relation to the US. It goes from Canada (Read old issues of Canada's MacLeans magazine.)to Pakistan in its relative strength/intensity.
Sheeesh!
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.
CANDIDATES run on hope. Incumbents run on their record. But 
President-for-Life Bashir 
North Korea
[Dawn] AS the rains waned and the sodden ground re-emerged from under the waters, the rising din of war drums echoed throughout the country. Adm Mike Mullen, America's top military official, hurled towards Pakistain a tremendous accusation.
