[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The former Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ...Former president of Aghanistan, part of the problem not part of the solution... has said he strongly opposes the new strategy of the United States for Afghanistan and Central Asia. But we already knew which side he's on.
The former President in a statement said "I very strongly oppose the new U.S. strategy towards Afghanistan as it is against peace and the national interest of Afghanistan."
Karzai further added "The strategy excludes bringing peace and prosperity to Afghanistan and is focused on more war and rivalry in the region. U.S. must seek peace and stability in Afghanistan rather than extending conflict and bloodshed in Afghanistan and the region."
President Trump on Tuesday unveiled the new strategy of the United States for Afghanistan and South Asia. If this caped bugger opposes the strategy, then it must surely be the correct strategy.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2017 8:40 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Karzai - that guy that ended the night raids and turned a blind eye to the war lords.
President Trump has the right strategy - Lawfare backed up with a kinetic response...mitigate the exposure of our supply lines by staying close to the airfields...hit the war lords in the pocket...and put a missile up their azz if they complain...and kick the US State Dept out of the region along with any of their nation building fantasies.
AF is a huge criminal enterprise that uses the Taliban as muscle - ID the criminal enterprise and crush it kinetically please. Once the ability for the bad guys to make a profit ends...the Taliban will miraculously subside.
#5
Yeah, Karzai, me too. We should have left you to the tender mercies of the Taliban.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/24/2017 12:08 Comments ||
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#6
I strongly suspect Karzai made a deal with the Taliban midway through his presidency, in exchange for drug money and a promise to avoid targeting him, both before and after the Taliban takes power.
#10
Question for Fred - aren't email addresses for blog identification purposes only - i.e. they're not supposed to show up in the comments?
They actually are not for blog identification purposes here at Rantburg, Zhang Fei, though other websites do use them that way. I've removed yours from that comment.
[Iran Press TV] Egypt has censured Washington’s decision to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the country over its human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... record amid a visit to Cairo by an American delegation, including Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner, as part of a tour of the Middle East.
The delegation, which is in Cairo for meetings on the so-called grinding of the peace processor regarding the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict, met Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Wednesday, his front man Alaa Youssef said.
The meeting had been initially removed from Shoukry’s schedule with no explanation, which was interpreted as a response to the aid cut.
How, then, to interpret the fact that they subsequently met anyway?
The delegation also met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said the front man.
Washington on Tuesday cut $96 million in aid and delayed $195 million in military funding. The US State Department said the decision followed a lack of progress on human rights and the passing of a new law regulating the work of non-governmental organizations, which was seen as restricting their activities. Sisi ratified the law in May.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that it "regrets the decision."
"Egypt considers this step as a misjudgement of the nature of the strategic relations that binds the two countries over decades," the statement added.
The ministry also warned that the move "may have negative repercussions."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Is it that idiot McCain in charge of messing with Egypt right now?
[Iran Press TV] The Iranian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned a Saudi Arclight airstrike against residential areas in the Yemeni province of Sana’a, calling on the UN to step up efforts to put an end to Saudi aerial raids on its impoverished neighbor.
On Wednesday, an Arclight airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition pounding Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... struck a two-story hotel near the capital Sana’a, killing 46 people, according to the latest tally by Lebanese al-Mayadeen television channel.
The fighter jets targeted a hotel in the town of Arhab, about 35 kilometers north of Sana’a, officials said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Bahram Qassemi called on the UN and other international bodies to investigate the killing of civilians in the attack.
"The escalation of attacks on residential buildings and civilian targets and preventing relevant international bodies and organizations from delivering aid amount to the violation of humanitarian principles and standards," Qassemi said.
He called on the UN and the influential countries in the Yemeni conflict to double their efforts to put an immediate halt to the attacks and guarantee the safety and security of civilians, especially children and women.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Wonder how many Iranian 'advisers' were staying at the hotel?
[Rooters] A teenage Moroccan asylum seeker who admitted on Tuesday that he had killed two women and injured eight other people in a knife attack in the Finnish town of Turku had had his application for asylum rejected before the attack, authorities said.
Europe really needs to come to terms with the fact that they simply must immediately return those they reject, rather than piously hope such people will quietly take themselves away with no further effort, just because they were told to go.
But though he confessed to the killings in a closed-door court hearing, 18-year-old Abderrahman Mechkah did not admit any terrorist motive, lawyer Kaarle Gummerus said. "No, no! Certainly not!"
"(My client) admits manslaughter and injuries ... But what the investigator has brought up this far may not be enough to classify this as a terrorist crime," Gummerus told Rooters.
Mechkah, who had been living in a Red Thingy immigrant reception centre in Turku since coming to Finland in spring 2016, had been appealing against the result of his asylum application at the time of the knife attack last Friday.
"He has received the result of his asylum application and he has appealed it. He is still in the (asylum) process," said a spokeswoman from the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.
Though she would not say directly what the initial outcome of his application had been, the spokeswoman's form of words indicated it had not been successful.
Applications for asylum of at least two of three other suspects who had been jugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! were also being processed, the Red Thingy said.
The court ordered Mechkah, who has yet to be charged with any offence, and three other Moroccan men to be detained in prison pending trial.
A fifth Moroccan, who had been under arrest since Friday, was released, the court said.
Investigators have not made clear what role the three other Moroccans, who deny involvement in the attack, are suspected of playing.
One of them, 18-year old Ilyas Berrouh, was refused a residence permit in Sweden twice in 2013, authorities said. He was also refused when he made a third application under an alias, a Swedish migration official told Rooters.
Police have issued an international arrest warrant for a fifth Moroccan national. Europol said it was assisting in the investigation.
Politicians meanwhile signalled that Finland, a Nordic country boasting one of the lowest levels of crime, should change its immigration-related policies.
Finance minister Petteri Orpo said the government should consider establishing better-controlled "return centres" in order to monitor more closely those who had been denied asylum.
"For some, it is a critical situation when they get a negative decision. It may increase risks, and this has to be assessed now," Orpo told Verkkouutiset news site.
Prime Minister Juha Sipila called on Monday for political unity to fast-track already planned legislation giving authorities new powers to monitor citizens online.
In 2016, 155 Moroccans applied for asylum in Finland. Only 20 were granted.
[AnNahar] French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... published Wednesday a provocative front-page cartoon about Islam and the recent terror attacks in Spain, leading to criticism that it risked fanning Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... The latest edition of the magazine, which was targeted by Islamist gunnies in 2015, shows two people lying in a pool of blood having been run over by a van next to the words "Islam, eternal religion of peace."
A dozen hard boyz of Moroccan origin are believed to have plotted last week's attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, where 15 people were killed and over 100 injured after a van and car were driven into crowds.
The attackers are thought by Sherlocks to have been radicalized by an bully boy Islamic preacher who died in a house where the group was trying to produce explosives.
Critics of Charlie Hebdo saw its front-page as tarring an entire religion, practiced by around 1.5 billion people worldwide, by implying it was inherently violent.
As the cartoon became one of the top trending topics on Twitter in La Belle France, prominent Socialist MP and former minister Stephane Le Foll called it "extremely dangerous."
"When you're a journalist you need to exercise restraint because making these associations can be used by other people," he said.
Charlie Hebdo editor Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau explained the choice in an editorial, saying that experts and policy-makers were avoiding hard questions out of concern for moderate law-abiding Moslems.
"The debates and questions about the role of religion, and in particular the role of Islam, in these attacks have completely disappeared," he wrote.
Charlie Hebdo lampoons all religions and religious figures, but its depictions of the Prophet Mohammed -- an act considered sinful under Islam -- led to outrage, death threats and ultimately violence.
Two gunnies who claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda killed 12 people in an attack on its offices in January 2015 which left many of its star cartoonists dead.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of La Belle France afterwards, rallying behind the slogan "Je Suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie") in defense of the right to free speech.
Riss said in the wake of the violence that the magazine would stop depicting the prophet, leading one top journalist to quit and accuse its new management of going soft on Islamist extremism.
[Iran Press TV] Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has used a meeting with US Defense Secretary James Mattis to relay his disappointment with Washington over its support for Kurdish groups in Syria, sources say.
In a meeting in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s capital Ankara on Wednesday, Erdogan told the visiting Pentagon chief that the ongoing military cooperation between the US and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) made him feel "uneasy," Ottoman Turkish presidential sources said.
Ankara views the YPG as a terror organization linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a myrmidon group that has been fighting the central Ottoman Turkish government since 1984.
While the US acknowledges the YPG’s connection to the PKK, it also deems the group as an important element in the ongoing fight against the ISIS terror group in Syria.
Over the past months, Washington has been purportedly assisting the Kurdish group in its fight against ISISturbans controlling Syria’s Raqqah, the group’s main bastion in the conflict-ridden country.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] The Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... on Tuesday warned that if the federal government didn’t abolish the Frontier Crimes Regulation and announce the merger of Fata with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... before Eidul Azha, it would begin a long march on Islamabad. The Chicoms did that long march thing and it worked for them. Now Paks do it every time they get diaper rash, thinking it's gonna overthrow the government.
Addressing a sit-in protest near the Governor’s House, JI chief Senator Sirajul Haq ...current head of the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami. Siraj was born in 1962 and entered politics shortly after that... urged the party workers and tribal people to prepare themselves for a long march on Islamabad.
"If the federal government doesn’t accept demands, then I will lead the long march," he said.
The JI chief said the people of Fata, especially youths, had revolted against the status quo and rejected the system of colonial era as it served the interests of the corrupt people only.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
The Chicoms did that long march thing
That and HUGE supplies of Russian weapons. I'm leaning more toward the weapons.
[DAWN] The United States warned an angry Pakistain on Tuesday that it could lose its status as a privileged military ally if it continues giving safe haven to Afghan krazed killer groups.
One day after President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... unveiled a new strategy to force the Taliban ...Arabic for students... to negotiate a political settlement with the Kabul government, his top diplomat upped the heat on Islamabad.
Trump had warned that Pakistain's alleged support for the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani myrmidon network would have consequences, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has now spelled these out.
"We have some leverage," Tillerson told news hounds, as he fleshed out Trump's speech, "in terms of aid, their status as a non-NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... alliance partner -- all of that can be put on the table".
As one of 16 "Non-NATO Major Allies", Pakistain benefits from billions of dollars in aid and has access to some advanced US military technology banned from other countries.
This year, the US has already withheld $350 million in military funding over concerns Pakistain is not doing enough to fight terror, but the alliance itself was not in question.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... has no understanding of the South Asian region, Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... said on Wednesday as he strongly criticised Washington's recently-revealed South Asia policy.
A day earlier, Trump had announced his long-awaited South Asia policy, calling for greater troop deployment and Indian involvement in Afghanistan. In his speech, the US president had also lambasted Pakistain for offering safe havens to "agents of chaos".
Addressing the press on Wednesday, Imran spoke about various elements of Washington's new policy.
"Grave allegations have been made against Pakistain," Khan said, referring to accusations made by Trump.
Khan said that the allegations signalled that Trump has "no understanding of the South Asian region or the dynamics of the 'war on terror'" as he pointed out the sacrifices Pakistain has made in the fight.
The PTI chairman further questioned the role allotted to India in Afghanistan in the policy.
He said that while Pakistain has made sacrifices and fought a war "that is not ours," India has been asked to become involved even though it does not share a border with Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Whereas 0bumhole did? I wonder what you use as a yardstick.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) More than 4000 Iraqis have forcibly disappeared in “secret prisons” in the country, with authorities still unable to locate them, according to Iraqi parliamentarians and human rights advocates.
Zana Saeed, a member of the parliament’s legal affairs committee, who is in charge of the forcible disappearance file, told London-based Alquds Alarabi that “according to governors of central and western provinces, the number of forcibly disappeared civilians since 2014 stands at more than 4000, mostly from Baghdad Belts”. He said certain “bodies” receive citizens’ reports of those disappearances.
“There could be information available about their whereabouts, but the government is still unable to take practical steps to rescue them,” Saeed told the newspaper.
He blamed the phenomenon on the “appearance of armed groups taking the law into their own hands, especially in Baghdad and other provinces”.
Saeed said that, being, himself, a resident of Baghdad, there are neighborhoods which he considers no-go areas since they fall outside the control of government security forces. “Some rogue groups assault citizens, and kidnap and kill whoever they want,” he said.
“There is no security authority adopting those groups, but they, however, operate under the umbrella of security agencies, with insignias, weapons and headquarters,” Saeed added, but did not identify those groups.
Popular Mobilization Forces, the Shia-led paramilitary force fighting Islamic State militants alongside the Iraqi government, have regularly faced accusations of human rights violations during their operations against the extremist group.
[IsraelTimes] PA head also reportedly considering renewing bid for full membership at UN; a delegation from Ramallah will meet ICC chief prosecutor
Disillusioned about US efforts to revive the grinding of the peace processor, the Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... is considering dissolving the PA and renewing a Paleostinian bid for full United Nations
Continued on Page 49
#2
On Tuesday, Ahmad Majdalani, a top aide to Abbas, said the Paleostinians asked Kushner for the US position on two key issues -- Israeli settlements and support for Paleostinian independence -- during his last visit to the region in June.
"Since then we didn’t hear from them," he said.
"We hope they bring clear answers this time,"
Remember when you "didn't hear from them"? That was your answer, dipshit
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2017 8:44 Comments ||
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#3
Does that mean US Aid checks can't fill in the "Pay To" line? Or should checks be made out to "Cash"?
[DAWN] Iranian opposition leaders have been "protected" under house arrest for six years and would regret facing trial, a court chief said on Wednesday, amid calls for them to be allowed to face justice.
"A trial will bring regret for these people... because the court and the system do not joke around with anyone and do their legal duty with determination, power and precision," said Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, the head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court.
Quoted by the Dana news website, he was responding to renewed demands that former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi finally face trial for their part in the Green Movement protests of 2009.
The protests, known as "the sedition" by hardliners, followed allegations of rigging in that year's election, which they lost to hardliner Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.
They were put under house arrest in early 2011 but have never been charged with a crime.
"Under house arrest, the heads of the sedition are protected and cared for," said Ghazanfarabadi.
He suggested that if Mousavi and Karroubi were set free, they may be harmed by someone trying to delegitimise the regime.
The demands of reformists to put them on trial "are not the words of sympathisers of the revolution," he added. "Those saying it may not be aware, but these are the words of foreigners."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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[PJMEDIA] A new video circulating today from ISIS features a 10-year-old kid, Yusuf, who claims to live in Raqqa and who warns that America's fight against the terror group will "end in your lands."
The video is the fourth in a series called "A Fertile Nation" and begins with scenes of ISIS fighters preparing for battle in what appears to be Raqqa. Coincidentally, the fighters huddle over an iPhone looking at a map of the city, presumably preparing their defensive positions against coalition forces.
Then Yusuf is introduced, reading quickly from a prepared script. He identifies himself and says that he is an American who made hijrah two years ago "from the land of kufr (infidelity)" to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... . The video then shows drone footage of what appears to be Los Angeles.
Yusuf then claims that his father is a former American soldier who fought "against the mujaheddin" in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/24/2017 00:00 ||
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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.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The former 
[Iran Press TV] Egypt has censured Washington’s decision to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the country over its 
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
[Iran Press TV] 
[DAWN] Iranian opposition leaders have been "protected" under house arrest for six years and would regret facing trial, a court chief said on Wednesday, amid calls for them to be allowed to face justice.
[PJMEDIA] A new video circulating today from ISIS features a 10-year-old kid, Yusuf, who claims to live in Raqqa and who warns that America's fight against the terror group will "end in your lands."
