[Dhaka Tribune] BNP Chairperson the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... has threatened a return to hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... s and blockades after the Eid-ul-Fitr this year, should the government keep refusing to hold fresh elections under a neutral government.
The party would do well to remember that the violence unleashed during the hartals and blockades of 2013 cost many lives and crippled the country's economy. The BNP lost a lot of public sympathy because of the suffering their agitation caused to the common people.
BNP leaders should ask themselves: Why has the public simply accepted the January election, which was held without the participation of the BNP? It was probably because the public had grown weary of the BNP's campaign of hartals and blockades, during which innocent citizens, sometimes even children, were horribly burned to death.
An opposition party needs the goodwill and support of the public to win elections. There is no doubt that last year's senseless bloodshed cost the BNP the goodwill of the public.
Khaleda Zia should realise that recent murders and abductions have increased the BNP's political capital. With Awami Leaguers being charged with serious crimes, the AL is making the BNP look good. The BNP should try to continue to look good until the next election. This means making a commitment to avoiding hartals, blockades, and eschewing violence of any kind.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2014 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] We applaud the court's decision to issue death sentences to eight members of the banned bad boy outfit Harkat-ul Jihad-al Islami, responsible for carrying out the kabooms in Ramna Batamul that killed 10 people 13 years ago. Their offence demands the most severe penalty of the land, and we hope the court's verdict will be executed without delay.
On April 14, 2001, two powerful bombs were blasted in the midst of the Bengali New Year celebrations in the capital's Ramna Park, killing seven people on the spot while three succumbed to injuries at the hospital. The court recently found 14 men guilty of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt — eight were given the death penalty — five are absconding — and six were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The culprits had reportedly carried out the attacks because the program was "anti-Islamic." Using religion as an excuse for such heinous crimes is shameful, and in no way acceptable.
Family members and loved ones of the dear departed have been awaiting justice for a very long time, and this verdict will perhaps bring them some consolation. We urge the authorities to do everything in their power to find the five absconders, and waste no time in carrying out the court's verdict.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2014 00:00 ||
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[Jpost] For most Westerners, Turkey is a hard nut to crack.
How can you understand a state sponsor of terrorism that is also a member of NATO?
How can you explain Turkey's facilitation of Kurdish independence in Iraq in light of Turkey's hundred-year opposition to Kurdish independence?
What is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan trying to accomplish here?
Is he nuts?
Hamas, ISIS, and Al Nusra are three of Erdogan's tools, along with favouring Iraqi Kurdistan to separate them from their "Mountain Turk" cousins... The eminent prime minister has been busy in rcent years. Caroline Glick goes from strength to strength.
#3
A "rump" Kurdistan carved from Iraq can be pretty effectively neutered. And then used as a place to push Kurdish dissenters from Turkey, as well as a political club internationally - as in "See we support Kurdistan" all while repressing the Kurds in Turkey.
Problem for Turkey starts when Iraq resolves itself (i.e. sunni and shia run out of throats to cut on each other), and the Kurds set their focus North. An insurgency fed from a neighboring country, even a small one, can cause all kinds of havoc when there are large indigenous ethnic populations to support it.
#4
OS he might be covered a bit in the medium run as well. If Northern Iraq is recognized as an independent Kurd nation and is a part of the UN it works for Turkey. As you said he can dump Kurds into it as fast as he can, and when the situation quiets down and if the Kurds start supporting insurgents, Turkey is still a member of NATO.
Any bets that Turkey will milk that for all its worth if the Kurds cause issues? An attack on one is an attack on all.
[Huffpoo] Former Vice President Dick Cheney offered an extremely morose prediction about the country's future on Tuesday.
Asked on the Hugh Hewitt radio show whether he believes the United States could survive the decade without another attack on the homeland, Cheney said, "I doubt it."
"I think there will be another attack and next time, I think it's likely to be far deadlier than the last one," he added. "Imagine what would happen if somebody could smuggle a nuclear device, put it in a shipping container and drive it down the Beltway outside Washington D.C." Cheney should not be faulted. He's thinking worst case, outside the box. His and Bush's fault lies in not lining the Memorial Bridge with the heads of the FBI and National Intelligence Agencies immediately following 9/11.
#8
Strange, iff the GOP doesn't act ASAP to save its own arse, IT WILL BE GONE AS A MAJOR ESTABLISHMENT PARTY IN THE USoAMERIKA WIDIN THE SAME TIME FRAME.
[DAWN] HE is neither a Lenin nor a Khomeini. But it is the mere folly of a ham-fisted government that has made a 'revolutionary' out of a charlatan.
Last week's carnage in Lahore and a panicky reaction by the administration on his arrival has provided Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... with the spark he needed to ignite public outrage. But can he succeed?
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] THIS is what happens when you allow your railways minister to control air traffic. Eyebrows were raised and there was talk of what angry steps an international airline could resort to when the aircraft carrying Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... was diverted to Lahore from Islamabad on Monday morning. It is said the brilliant idea came from the minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq. A top-of-the-line train-stopper among Pakistain's politicians, he apparently wanted to take his powers to altogether a new level. He did succeed in helping Islamabad avoid an unwanted guest, even if at the cost of some embarrassment to the country's civil aviation authorities and a little chaos in his own city of Lahore. The act brought back uneasy memories of the past: confused swirling around by planes on the Pak horizon and the dangers of sharing airspace with prominent people. At this rate, the reformists should soon be flying all by themselves.
This is one area where there has been a lot of activity and where the country has made progress. Fifteen years ago, when Gen Pervez Perv Musharraf
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2014 00:00 ||
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[AmericanInterest] ISIS is bigger, badder, richer, and better organized than any jihadi threat the United States has faced thus far. Its rise represents a foreign policy disaster of the first order.
A group more radical than al-Qaeda, better organized, better financed, commanding the loyalty of thousands of dedicated fanatics including many with Western and even U.S. passports? And this group now controls some of the most strategic territory at the heart of the Middle East?
Welcome to President Obama's brave new world. After six years in office pursuing strategies he believed would tame the terror threat and doing his best to reassure the American people that the terror situation was under control, with the "remnants" of al-Qaeda skittering into the shadows like roaches when the exterminator arrives, Obama now confronts the most powerful and hostile jihadi movement of modern times, a movement that dances on the graveyard of his hopes.
Not a rant, but an honest assessment of the current situation. All the more scathing, especially given that the writer is a thoughtful liberal of the classical type. Like VDH, he's on my list to read when I have a few minutes to spare for that bigger picture good historians provide.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/25/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
And this group now controls some of the most strategic territory at the heart of the Middle East?
#2
The jihadi menace has always been real. Their plan has never wavered from supremacy and domination. The plan is guided by hatred of the civilization and particularly the West. Our MSM/Democratic Party/Progressives give them too much cover.
"Transnational terrorist groups have developed effective intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities"..., warns DIA Director Michael Flynn
Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee
United States Senate 11 February 2014
Michael T. Flynn, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army
Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
(UNCLAS) "Globalization, rapid technological advancements, and an uncertain fiscal environment present new avenues of collection and threats from traditional nation-state intelligence services and non state entities to target U.S. national security information, systems, and personnel. Increased financial pressures due to resource cuts create potential vulnerabilities that foreign intelligence entities seek to exploit to identify vulnerable employees and contractors with access to sensitive and classified national security information.
Foreign intelligence entities conduct a wide range of intelligence and clandestine activities that threaten and undermine our national security interests and objectives worldwide. Such actors target our armed forces; our military and national security-related research, development, and acquisition activities; our national intelligence system; and our government's decision making processes. In addition to threats by foreign intelligence entities, insider threats will also pose a persistent challenge. Trusted insiders with the intent to do harm can exploit their access to compromise vast amounts of sensitive and classified information as part of personal ideology or at the direction of a foreign government.
The unauthorized disclosure of this information to state adversaries, non-state activists, or other entities will continue to pose a critical threat.
DIA is leading an Information Review Task Force to examine grave damage caused to Department of Defense equities and US national security as a result of the unauthorized NSA disclosures. An emerging threat that concerns the department involves the potential for foreign intelligence entities to compromise critical supply chains or corrupt key components bound for vital war-fighting systems.
Additionally, a few transnational terrorist groups have developed effective intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities--we have seen this manifest in Iraq and Afghanistan, and terrorist groups are now using and sharing the knowledge and experience they gained in those conflicts."...
#1
Flynn is no potted plant. If I had to guess [and it is only a guess] I suspect Mike Flynn and his deputy were beating the Iraqi warning drums a bit too hard. Their great sin however, may have been the attempted transformation of DIA from a featherbed for beltway senior grades to a more relevant organization focused on the warfighter. Plumpish old dem voting, greybeaver SES's have no desire for overseas tours I assure you. Their greatest daily challenge is making their way from the DIA cafeteria to the elevator and back to their offices with take-away boxes. DIA should be at the very top of the flush list.
#4
This administration has zero tolerance for debate, disagreement, or dissent. This is the mark of a tyrant. There is an old Irish curse appropriate to Bumble: "Gurab ecen mer dot munad in airecht!" In other words, "May you become so insignificant that it be necessary to point you by finger (preferably the middle finger) in a crowd!"
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] HE is neither a Lenin nor a Khomeini. But it is the mere folly of a ham-fisted government that has made a 'revolutionary' out of a charlatan.
[DAWN] THIS is what happens when you allow your railways minister to control air traffic. Eyebrows were raised and there was talk of what angry steps an international airline could resort to when the aircraft carrying Dr 
Pervez 
