[Al Ahram] Armed, bloody festivities among Death Eaters have characterised the political scene in Libya for almost three years: fighting and killing aren't news anymore.
Open conflict rose to the surface after the removal of long-time dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them... from power in the 2011 uprising, with armed rebels refusing to unite under the umbrella of a national army functioning within the bounds of state authority.
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Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"The Americans know him very, very wellI think working for the CIA for the sake of your national interest is nothing to be ashamed of," The Washington Post quoted Ali Aujali, Libya's ex-ambassador in Washington DC, during a CNN interview in 2011. .
Ambo Ali Aujali perspective differs just slightly from the view of many Americans, who have become fok'n sick and tired of Klingon led misadventures and regime toppling schemes. Feckless schemes and global cock-ups which have left thousands of US service men and women dead in their wake.
[DAWN] Fifteen years later, Shah is a driver at the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, surviving on a meagre salary and a Rs5,000 pension. He blames Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... . "Kashmire was in our hands," he told me at his house, sitting in a blue plastic chair under harsh fluorescent lights and a clock that read 6:54, no longer keeping time.
"But then Sharif went to the United States and we had to give Kargil ... three months of unprovoked Pak aggression, over 4000 dead Paks, another victory for India ... back." For Shah, and his neighbours, many of them ex-army men, Sharif's greatest betrayal was calling the Kargil fighters mujahideen. "Kashmiri mujahideen?" he scoffed. "He said we were mujahideen! I'm retired from the army. He disowned his own army." While Shah has never been compensated for what he left behind, and several trips to the GHQ have borne nothing, Sharif will travel to India next week to make gains for the future.
A neighbour's son Ali Raza, now 20, also remembers shells: exploding Indian shells dripping like rain every day on his way to school. A shell fell near his school bus once, so close it rocked the bus from the side to side. He tells me about the 12-year-old girl whose nose was sliced off by shrapnel. He also tells me about how the war changed children's lives -- and their toys too.
"They [army] would give us one gola (grenade) each and send us to throw them on the Indians," Ali, a cook at Nadra, said. "The children were small and were hard to detect at night. And plus we knew all the inside routes that even the adults didn't. So they gave us a gola each and off we went, running up the hills."
As Ali tells me about the unusual toys and the invented games, his infant daughter plays with a rattle by his feet. She chuckles. At least for her, one can pray, the war is over.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2014 00:00 ||
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Former Air Defense General Jean-Vincent Brisset has suggested that Vietnam bring China to the international arbitration court as an effective way of dealing with China's violation of international law.
Beats holing up in an indefensible valley...
VOV: Besides legal action, what else do you think Vietnam should do to resolve the matter?
Brisset: Vietnam should immediately convene a conference of ASEAN countries involved in the territorial dispute [the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and even Indonesia] to reach consensus on reactions to China. ASEAN countries should be aware that a single nation is unable to confront China in the long run.
Vietnam needs to enhance communications overseas, for instance publishing more video clips that show Chinese ships firing water cannons at Vietnamese coast guard and fishing vessels near the rig, to unmask China's provocation.
VOV: As a leading expert on China, how do you view China's strategy in the East Sea following its oil rig placement?
Brisset: This is part of China's long-term strategy aimed at controlling the entire East Sea. They carefully premeditate every step, and their strategy is targeted at related nations, one after another, so that ASEAN cannot produce a strong common reaction altogether.
Regional countries must realise that China is emerging and this trend will continue with stronger actions in the near future. This is the naked truth and the sooner you deal with it, the more you counterbalance the risk.
VOV: Do you think there is a military risk in the region?
Brisset: Not really at the moment. China is aware that a military conflict means the whole world will adopt another stance towards it, and condemn its action. Therefore, China strives to avoid a military conflict over territorial tensions in the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.
However, there is a high risk of serious collision between the two sides' vessels at sea, and a loss of temper could lead to escalation.
#2
Two long term action for the East China Sea crowd for future action. One - make quality inspection of products for export to be beyond reproach. Two - organize in the US to promote at the right time a consumer boycott of Chinese made products. When you execute two, show the panicked western capitalist running dogs number one.
#6
Realistically speaking, even presum that Vietnam, etal. wins its case before the ICC, only the UNSC in which both China, + China's SCO-CSTO BFF + strategic partner Russia, hold formal veto power to [militarily] enforce any ICC decision.
In effect, Vietnam's action [+ PHIL] is more an attempt to empower diplomacy than anything else.
CHINA WILL REMAIN IN THE SCS + ECS UNTIL SUCH TIME CHINA PER SE DECIDES TO UNILATER LEAVE OR GIVE UP ITS CLAIMS, OR IN LATERN A MAJOR WAR BREAKS OUT WHICH CHINA LOSES.
[National Review] Making mistakes is human, but lies and cover-ups are evil....., the people must awaken and look objectively at the actions of both Democrats and Republicans and not simply accept what party leaders say. Freedom is not free, and vigilance in responsible voting is necessary to preserve it. An obvious and indisputable truth.
#2
Dr. Carson is a national treasure; a man of calm, calculated wisdom and great insight. I have seldom found a man whom I was in universal agreement with on nearly any subject. Carson is such a man. At some point, I hope he finds his way into a position of national leadership.
#5
Dr. Carson isn't politician material. But he would be wonderful as a presidential advisor or a think tank pundit, the latter of which he seems to have taken on voluntarily.
[National Review} The VA problem is not Shinseki, it's socialism. The Veterans Affairs health-care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program. National Review editor Rich Lowry calls it "an island of socialism in American health care." He is right. I've been arguing this all week.
So perhaps Democrats and Republicans will get together to sack VA secretary Eric Shinseki. But that won't change a thing. In fact, it's a distraction. Might not change anything, but as they say in the army "...he has lost our confidence in his ability to lead."
The long waits for treatment, with excessive delays resulting in as many as 40 deaths, are a tragically predictable outcome. This is the result of bureaucratic rationing, price controls, inefficiencies, and the inevitable cover-ups. It was the late James Buchanan, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who taught us all about bureaucratic incentives in his seminal work on public choice.
So if Congress thinks it can find somebody who can tame the VA bureaucracy, it should go right ahead. But the statist VA health-care system, which in so many ways mirrors the government-run health-care problems in Britain, Europe, and Canada, must be completely changed. Relief of Shinseki aside, Kudlow knocks it out of the park.
#1
A a huge bureaucracy is a danger to a free country. It as if there are four branches of government instead of three. Government becomes unmanageable. More and more people become a government employee. Free enterprise suffers and consequently the country. A growing bureaucracy, unionization of the federal government and lobbyists have nearly destroyed the republic. I'd like see the next president begin lopping off federal agencies although I doubt there is any hope for that. Any candidates for lopping?
#2
JohnQC: I'll nominate the Departments of Agriculture and Education. Ag and Ed should be handled at the State level. The Department of Homeland Security is redundant. The F.B.I. has historically been responsible for this task.
#3
The fundamental question is 'who is accountable with consequences?'
No accountability. No control. No quality. You can at least court martial in the uniform services and there is no tenure except in the 18-20 time frame.
#4
The man wearing the 'green tabs' [leadership tabs] is both accountable and responsible. Blaming subordinates or the enlisted is cowardly and despicable.
Posted by: Skunky and Tenille1759 ||
05/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
That and Indian Health Care. Heck, just look at the wonderful work of government on the reservations and the inner cities. Is that the model that the Permanent Party Propaganda Machine want's the gullible to see nightly as their ever masterful big government solution to economic and social ills clamors on? "But we meant well" doesn't cut it.
[PJ Media] In an era of roughshod marketing tactics and semiotic overload, Call the Midwife, with its pure, heartfelt approach to the vicissitudes of life, is therapeutic television. We are a desensitized audience: No one cries when a pregnant mother is stabbed to death on Game of Thrones. Yet, everyone, including the burly guys on set, shed a tear at every birth on Call the Midwife. We are treated to an East End rife with chamber pots, not sexy chamber maids, and yet audiences are drawn to the show in droves. We love the midwives, even when they are dressed in habits and wimples; they are the ideal face of medicine, mother, and God in an era when we've been taught to doubt all three. Like a nurse checking our pulse, Call the Midwife reminds us that we are human after all, and perhaps not as sick as we've been led to believe.
Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in a while you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault.
~ Jennifer Worth
Churchillian hat tip to Goldberg. Albion lives on.
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.
[DAWN] Fifteen years later, Shah is a driver at the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, surviving on a meagre salary and a Rs5,000 pension. He blames 
Former Air Defense General Jean-Vincent Brisset has suggested that Vietnam bring China to the international arbitration court as an effective way of dealing with China's violation of international law.
