by Reps. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)
Two weeks ago, the United States national debt surpassed $16 trillion. To put that into perspective, that is more than $50,000 per person in the U.S. To finance this overwhelming debt, the U.S. is borrowing roughly 40 cents of every dollar we spend, a good portion of it from foreign countries like China.
There are many news stories highlighting instances where the federal government wastes our money, but Americans may not be aware that our federal government is actually using taxpayer dollars to subsidize projects that benefit our foreign competitors, including China.
Last week, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing on the Accountability in Grants Act, which would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from awarding grants under Section 103 of the Clean Air Act for foreign projects. Since 2001, the EPA has awarded grants to foreign recipients totaling more than $100 million. In many instances, these taxpayer-funded grants help foreign companies at the expense of domestic ones.
On the list of recently awarded grants, one is especially troubling to us -- EPA's grant to the China Coal Information Institute for a "Technical Assessment of Coal Mine Gas Recovery and Utilization in China."
Taxpayers may wonder why the EPA is funding coal projects abroad, and in China no less, while simultaneously spewing regulations that are helping to destroy coal mining here at home.
Coal still accounts for nearly half the country's electricity production, even though the coal industry goes through cyclical ups and downs. Recently, natural gas has become a viable alternative to some types of coal, especially for electricity generation. But as the global use of coal is rapidly increasing, the U.S. has seen a decline in coal electricity generation, thanks in large part to new EPA regulations.
More than 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan said, "We're not energy-poor. There's energy yet to be found and developed in this country, including the biggest coal pile that any country in the world sits on."
Even President Obama acknowledged the potential of America's rich coal reserves, once touting the U.S. as the "Saudi Arabia of coal." Unfortunately, our current policies aren't permitting us to utilize this abundant and affordable resource. Just this year, as a result of harsh new regulations, American coal companies have announced premature plant retirements and been forced to lay off thousands of workers. This is why the House of Representatives will stand up for jobs and pass the Stop the War on Coal Act this week. China, on the other hand, continues to dominate the world in terms of coal production, and in the last few years, Chinese coal production has surpassed U.S. levels.
As in a number of other areas, the Chinese don't seem to have any problems competing with us when it comes to coal production. We welcome the competition, but would prefer that our own taxpayer-funded federal government agencies didn't tip the scales by investing in Chinese projects. Thousands of American workers have already been laid off as a result of the EPA's actions, so we question why, in this time of high unemployment, the EPA would want to fund coal projects abroad at the same time the agency is imposing regulations that are helping eliminate coal mining jobs here at home.
Last summer, our committee released a report on EPA's foreign grants. Since then, numerous members of Congress have expressed concern that the EPA is exceeding its core mission by investing taxpayer dollars abroad. Given our nation's mounting debt and deficits, and our continued high unemployment, we believe it is irresponsible to continue to permit the EPA to fund foreign grants. How about betting on American projects and American coal?
Posted by: Au Auric ||
09/23/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
You Republican politicians don't get it. The opposition party is all Karl Marx. When they have taken total control of the energy sector, they have totalitorian/despotic control of the population.
#3
We no longer accept cash or checks (which are essentially worthless now anyway). Natural Gas and electricity will cost you nothing in Obamaland. You will be issued carbon credit stamps for utilities payment based on your actual needs.
#4
So I googled "hydrocarbon emissions by country" and, as you may have guessed, China emits a heckuva lot more than the United States.
But somehow that doesn't stop people from blaming those bad, bad energy producers and consumers in this country for man made global warming.
The next step in the cognitive process is to ask why China pollutes more than we do. IMHO at least part of the answer is our trade policy with China. We encourage them to do our manufacturing for us and then we wonder why so many of our people are unemployed.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/23/2012 16:30 Comments ||
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#3
Why worry in the US about a mere QE8 when 237% Debt-to-GDP Japan is repor launching QE8???
To wit,
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > JAPAN LAUNCHES QE8 AS 20-YEAR SLUMP DRAGS ON | BANK OF JAPAN IS TO BORROW A FURTHER Y$10.0 TRILYUHN [L$79.0B] OF BONDS.
* RELATED SAME > [BoJ Governor Masaaki -] SHIRAKAWA: JAPAN'S RECOVERY MAY BE DELAYED, by six months = 1/2 year due to increasing sluggishness in Global Growth.
versus
* SAME > CHINA TO BE "IN THE RANKS OF INNOVATIVE NATIONS BY 2020 ... TECH POWER BY 2049" | CHINA AIMS TO BE A WORLD TECHNOLOGICAL POWER BY 2049.
from The Onion:
WASHINGTON--More than a week after President Barack Obama's cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime....
So far, the president's double-homicide has not been covered by any major news outlets. The only two mentions of the heinous tragedy have been a 100-word blurb on the Associated Press wire and an obituary on page E7 of this week's edition of the Lake County Examiner
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/23/2012 00:00 ||
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Let's face it: this story could be real, and there are lots of people who would still vote for Obama.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/23/2012 11:49 Comments ||
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#3
NYT: "Under Paul Ryan's budget plan, psychotics like the President would be left without the medication they so desperately need. Don't balance the budget on the backs of America's craziest citizens. Vote Obama, before he kills again!"
Posted by: Matt ||
09/23/2012 17:50 Comments ||
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[Dawn] PRIME Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf's speech at the Ishq-e-Rasool conference in Islamabad on Friday combined denunciation of the anti-Islam movie with an appeal to the people to be peaceful, an appeal also made by all major political parties -- the PPP, PML-N, ANP, MQM and PTI. Yet even before the prime minister had finished, the strike had turned violent. By the time the faithful headed towards mosques for the Friday prayer, violence had spiralled out of control in several cities. The intensity of the violence was shocking. Reason fell victim to emotions, even though the hate-filled film, made by a man who can only be described as a bigot, was condemned by American leaders, including President B.O..
In principle there's nothing wrong with a strike which is a democratic way of expressing protest and resorted to only when all other options have been exhausted. In Pakistain, unfortunately, political parties and even professional bodies like those of lawyers and doctors have abused this principle irrespective of its consequences for citizens, and often for themselves. Horrifying as it is, every Pak crowd is now violence-prone: whether it is a justifiable protest against power outages or an Eid rush for railway tickets, people attack unrelated targets. Political rhetoric has much to do with it, for we have developed a popular culture in which citizens have come to believe that violence pays. Those who call for strikes cannot escape their responsibility by blaming violence on outsiders, for it is their duty to control their acolytes. The violence the day saw in no way advanced the cause of the world's Moslems. Instead, it painted Pakistain as a country where bloodthirsty mobs roamed. Friday is a day that is meant for congregational prayers and piety. But for some strange reason, our religious parties invariably choose this day for tormenting the Pak people.
The government's eagerness to share the people's sentiments and not let the opposition make political capital out of it can be understood. But the way it chose to express its solidarity with the people was astonishing -- by declaring a holiday. The result was a total shutdown, with banks and business transactions frozen for three days. We have seen protests in many Moslem countries, but nowhere did political parties call for a nationwide strike and find the government 'cooperative'. A government's job is to keep the state going and not to help strikers. Yesterday's violence should goad our politicians and leaders of civil society into realising the damage the 'wheel jam' strikes and the accompanying violence are doing not only to the economy but to the nation's moral fibre.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Friday was a day to protest the provocative 'Innocence of Islam' film by demonstrating the love Mohammedans of all persuasions have for the Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)), but it ended in violence, exposing disunity in a common cause.
After the mayhem had ended, people of the twin cities were left discussing why the self-destructive violence and who whipped it up to whose benefit?
"Well I don't know about the movie, but I have heard from my friends that the film contained sacrilegious contents about Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)). I will watch the movie later but first I will teach lesson to the infidels on our soil," young Mohammad Zafran in the crowd gathered at Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh for a march of the US embassy in Islamabad, told Dawn.
Zafran turned out to be an activist of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain ...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts... (SSP) group who works in a brick kiln in Taxila. He was in the company of dozens of his friends, all set to combat police if they were stopped from reaching the embassy. Some protesters had plastic bags filled with stones in their hands.
When in their march on Islamabad, the protesters reached a commercial plaza built on the site of old Naz cinema, they started stoning it, notwithstanding a banner condemning the movie the owner had hung on the plaza.
A holy man kept on issuing battle cries from a loudspeaker-fitted van, and criticising law enforcement agencies when no policeman was in sight.
So the protesters vented their anger by smashing decorative plants flower pots on the Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... Road.
Better sense and unity became visible when people belonging to Shia, Sunni, Alhe Hadith, Deobandi, Barelvi sects and other schools of thought started joining the protest on the way.
They came separately but presented a united mass at Faizabad interchange. They could be identified by their specific slogans inscribed on bands of some youngsters tied on their foreheads.
"We came to stand up and be counted. All Mohammedans are united in their love and commitment to protect the dignity of our Prophet (peace be upon him)," said Ali Abbas who came from Dhoke Ratta.
Abbas said the rally aimed at informing the West that the conspiracies to divide th Mohammedans would not succeed.
Perhaps the biggest among the rallies that converged at Faizabad came from Jamia Masjid Amna on Kuri Road.
Mohammad Zubair, belonging to Deobandi school of thought, agreed with him saying that sectarian differences don't stand in the way of a common cause. Another protester, Naseem Ahmed, interjected calling for a boycott of US products. "Our government should ban US products if the Americans don't act seriously to stop such acts," he said.
Afghan nationals living in Hazara Colony, Fauji Colony, Pirwadhai and along the IJ Principal Road also participated in the protest in large numbers. Most of the young among them were seen carrying sticks.
Mohammad Rahat, an observant resident living close to Faizabad, the gateway to Islamabad, noted that madrasa students among the protesters mostly carried banners. "But once festivities started with police stopping their onward march, they pulled out the sticks from the banners and used them to hit coppers, their vehicles and also public property," he told Dawn.
In Islamabad itself, the scene had a different hue. A group of youngsters on the Park Road was seen trying to hitch a ride to Aabpara. Some of them were in jeans, others in shalwar kameez and they spoke in a mix of English and Urdu, as educated young people are wont to these days.
"We spent the whole night making this US flag," said one of them.
Until he pointed to the Star-and-Stripes painted on the road for the traffic to run over it, the youngsters looked unlikely candidates for the crowds that were gathering at Aabpara and the square in front of the parliament, with plans to march on Serena Hotel, and ultimately the diplomatic enclave.
Though the protesters gathering there had different backgrounds and, as it came out later, different aims, they did not appear to have any religious or political handlers.
Traders of course were present in strong numbers. "We want to express our anger against the derogatory film," Malik Sohail, an office bearer of Federation of Pakistain Chambers Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), told Dawn. Aabpara was chosen as the main convergence point by the leaders of trade bodies. However, the way to a man's heart remains through his stomach... Sohail could not say who the rioters were when the trouble began. He was quick to distance his community from the violence.
"Traders and ordinary citizens are not capable keeping up with the police for hours," he noted.
Most probably workers of religio-political parties with experience of violent protests initiated the violence by throwing stones at police and pushing towards Serena.
"We have walked almost all the way from I-8/3 and the authorities should know that we can go to any extent to protect our faith and the honour of our Prophet," said Hafiz Abdullah, who along with his friends had gathered at Serena after offering prayers in Lal Masjid.
These party workers did not dominate the crowd but stood out because of their typical appearances and the flags they carried.
They came from the madrasas run different groups in the twin cities.
Flags of the banned Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat, Jamaat Ulema Islam, and some Barelvi parties were visible.
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.... was the only political party whose workers came with their party flags and were present during the festivities with police at Serena.
Otherwise, there was negligible presence of any local or national level leaders of any religious or political party.
"It is the responsibility of the parties to control their workers and abide by the law of land," said Amir 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... , Mian Aslam, who led the protest from China Chowk to D Chowk.
Activists of the MWM and Imamia Students Organisation were relatively docile on Friday, maybe because their central leadership was part of the big show outside the US Consulate in Lahore and had burnt the US flag.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The violence on Friday kept the nation spellbound and hooked to their television sets but despite the rampage it was a very quiet day for many.
The reason for this was the blocked phone service. Cellphones had fallen silent across Pakistain on early Friday morning cutting off nearly half of the 100 million users from the world at the behest of the interior ministry.
Even angrier than the inconvenienced citizens were the telecom industry leaders -- they claimed that the blockade across 15 cities caused a loss of over Rs450 million, as the duration of the blockade was longer than last time.
This is not the first time that cellphones services have been shut off to prevent mischief, terrorist activities and violence. On 'Chaand Raat' before Eidul Fitr and in Quetta on Aug 14, the ministry of interior under Rehman Malik Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship. had ordered the Pakistain Telecommunication Authority to impose a similar blockade. The problems it posed for the ordinary people on Friday were no less than on other occasions.
Dr Farhana Niazi, a physician working at a leading private hospital, was on her way back home when she got caught in the middle of a small mob. Scared she pulled out her phone to call home for help but to no avail.
The 29 years old had a frightening 10 minutes till she managed to escape unhurt.
Similarly, Ghazala Saleem, a software engineer by profession, waited in her office for her father to pick her up.
"He called from home to say he was on his way but he got stuck enroute till six in the evening," she said. Ms Saleem and her family had no idea where her father was for four hours. "My ailing mother fainted from all the worry and fear," she added.
Countless such stories were the order of the day across the country.
But the anger in the telecom industry was no less.
"Closing down the mobile phone services is becoming an 'extortion' tactic of the federal government. It also shows their lack of regard for international investors and multinational companies," asserted a senior executive vice president of a mobile phone company. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
His words were echoed by others.
"The government left over 50 million subscribers in trouble while the estimated financial loss is over Rs450 million," said a bigwig of a mobile phone company.
He added that around 100 million active users of mobile phone companies are using the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) network across Pakistain." Half of these mobile users are urban; and on Friday even some rural areas were denied the service till the evening," he said.
Even essential services suffered because of the blockade. Doctors were out of touch with hospitals on a day that expected to see more than the usual medical emergencies.
"A number of senior physicians could not be consulted on the phone and a few surgical procedures had to be delayed," one medical officer at the Pims hospital told Dawn.
Another sector badly hit by the closure was security firms.
Major (retd) Sheryar Khan, a bigwig of a private security company, told Dawn that "most of our private guards deployed at residences in different parts of city are connected through mobile phones and we found it difficult to manage routine duties and tasks."According to the data shared by an official of a national mobile phone company the mobile phone services were down in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , Lahore, Islamabad, Rawlapindi, Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. , Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... , Multan, Quetta, and a number of cities in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... and Punjab, along the Grand Trunk Road. "We started shutting down the service early Friday morning since the entire exercise takes time and it's easier to do it at night when the phone traffic is less," a network supervisor of one company told Dawn.
Industry insiders fear that the damage is not limited to the duration of the blockade as the frequent use of this tactic will in the long run impact profits; morale; and investor confidence.
"We are planning to approach the Chief Justice of Pakistain over the high-handedness of the federal government," said an official of a multinational mobile company.
An industry analyst said that telecom sector's contribution to Pakistain's GDP declined in the financial year 2010-11 due to a drop in profits and that such measures would hit it further.
"Eventually, the government will be affected as investors will be less enthusiastic about the upcoming 3G licences auction," he said.
What has angered the citizens and telecom officials more is that the measure did not help control the mayhem on Friday. The violence still went out of control at a number of spots in different cities.
This is why security operatives are no less disgusted with the interior ministry than the telecom officials.
One security agency official told Dawn: "Our job also became more troublesome. We could not get in touch with each other except those of us who were on wireless communication."
He then narrated a story from Oct 12, 1999, when the military coup happened.
"The 111 Brigade had taken over the national telecommunication grid and we were considering jamming the cellphone communication also."
But he added that the military leadership immediately realised that this would be a mistake because the officers were using mobile phones to communicate with each other as federal government installations were being secured.
"Shutting down the mobile phone service means that you are shutting your own eyes and ears. Communication is the backbone of swift intelligence operations in such crisis and rioting," the official said.
But the question then remains -- who is allowing Interior Minister Rehman Malik to get away with the same mistake again and again?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Friday's forecast: A quiet day with scattered rampage.
The fear in the Islamic world is not so much that the enraged Moslems will kill non-Moslems, but that they will end up killing fellow-Moslems and destabilise their governments
On 15 September 2012, Din TV discussed the blaspheming film 'Innocence of Moslems' with the host taking the view that innocent people should not be killed to avenge the crime of one person in America. He tried to attract the attention of half a dozen discussants to the fact that an American ambassador had been killed in Libya which was an outrage against Islam itself because an innocent man had been killed; he also warned that offended Moslems should not destroy Moslem property and kill innocent Moslems to quench the fire of their rage.
After regulation expression of outrage, most discussants were inclined to the cautious view but two holy manal scholars tended to excuse the killing of Americans becae the US as a state was to blame 'on the basis of the passage of the offending film by US Censor Board and its widespread showing in American cinema' houses before it finally appeared on Youtube. Qari Zawwar Bahadur was full of anger and insisted together with another holy man that Moslems should express their outrage and let the Americans be shown all over the world that their government was guilty of an inexcusable crime.
US Special Envoy Ambassador Grossman was in Islamabad planning the next tripartite Pak-Afghan-US talks later in the year. He announced that his government condemned the blaspheming film and was in no way involved in making it public. American website American Spectator on 15 September 2012 put out this observation: 'The supposed source of all this froth is a satirical movie called "Innocence of Moslems" directed and produced by a man named Sam Bacile, isn't packing theatres nationwide; in fact, it hasn't even been released yet. But a few trailer snippets drifting around YouTube were supposedly enough to incite a mob to murder an ambassador'.
The state has erred by embracing an unrealistic anti-Americanism which lacks capacity to harm the target country but prompts the Paks to attack their own state as a 'slave of America'
The American ambassador was killed at the consulate in Benghazi after he had issued an official condemnation of the blaspheming film. In Washington the Republicans attacked President B.O. for taking an apologetic position on the film. The violence at the consulate in Benghazi was followed in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... when a mob attacked the US consulate in the city. Just as in Libya, through the salafists, and in Egypt, through a flag, Al Qaeda may have been acting behind the scenes in Bloody Karachi too, threatening to assert its domination through the creeping conquest of the Taliban - as reported by interior minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship. . Police mobiles have been burned and one man killed as if according to a plot aimed at damaging Pakistain under the pretext of protest.
More ominous events are foretold for Afghanistan where American troops are physically exposed to an Afghan Army that the US has built up as its surrogate after it leaves the country in 1914. After Laghman, where the Taliban killed American troops, luring a counterattack that killed a number of innocent Afghan women, Afghan Army troops have killed their American partners in Zabul and Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... . Elsewhere Moslem protesters will kill fellow-Moslems, destabilise their countries in the process and pave the way for turban organizations like Al Qaeda and its affiliates for takeover.
The American News Agency that Dare Not be Named agency dug out the truth about the offending maker of the film. The man behind 'Innocence of Moslems' is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Coptic Christian with a criminal past who lives in Caliphornia. He has admitted to providing logistical support for the production of 'Innocence of Moslems' but has denied being Sam Bacile, the name given as the film's maker. But the evidence so far unearthed suggests he is the man. He has stated that the film cost $5 million, which was raised from 100 Israeli donors.
Or not. But Pakistanis do love hating those Juices.
The film is of poor quality. Priest Terry Jones, the Florida-based, Koran-burning pastor, is also said to be involved.
In Pakistain the National Assembly condemned the Youtube outrage and called the incident 'shameful' and 'derogatory' and demanded that YouTube, the platform which hosts the video, remove the 14-minute clip. (It has since been removed.)
Has it? I thought they refused.
It is still available here in the USA, but has been blocked in several foreign countries.
The foreign Ministry had already sent out a strong condemnation earlier.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sea battle, the Terror of the Baltic's career had come to an abrupt and watery end... Pakistain Moslem League-Nawaz (PML-N) Christian minority member Dr Nelson Azeem called for a ban on the video and said that every Christian in Pakistain condemns this act.
"Please don't hurt us!"
The Christian community of Pakistain condemned the blaspheming film to demonstrate their solidarity with the Moslem community of Pakistain. Pakistain has mounted special security for European and American diplomatic missions in Pakistain to prevent Death Eaters from committing vandalism.
The fear in the Islamic world is not so much that the enraged Moslems will kill non-Moslems but that they will end up killing fellow-Moslems and destabilise their governments. It has happened in Pakistain after the Salman Rushdie affair and in the wake of the insulting cartoons published in Denmark in 2006.
Predictably,
Indeed.
Egyptian demonstrators clashed with police, protests in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Yemen and Sudan went kaboom!. American and Western embassies came under threat and Christian minorities in the Islamic world anticipated terror. Expat Moslems in the West came out in the streets to shout their outrage, their media coverage worldwide sparked further action, while Afghanistan promised to be the final battleground because of the physical presence of American and Allied troops there.
Pakistain should tremble at what might happen next. Al Qaeda has stamped its presence in Egypt, Syria and Libya where a new prospect of carnage of Moslems to punish the West is opening up. Already Pakistain's innocent citizens are being massacred by Al Qaeda with the help of Punjabi Taliban and jihadi warriors laid aside by Pakistain Army when it decided to abandon jihad in Kashmire.
Did they do? I missed that.
Memories of what happened in Pakistain in 2006 in Lahore and other cities after a newspaper in Denmark published blaspheming cartoons will inspire Al Qaeda in its latest round of terror. In this it could be helped by the generalized outrage against the film among the prospective victims.
In March 2006, the blaspheming Danish cartoons caused one of Pakistain's most historic cities, Lahore, to be put to the torch.
In March 2006, the blaspheming Danish cartoons caused one of Pakistain's most historic cities, Lahore, to be put to the torch. The politicians, keen to steal the thunder of the clergy, joined in the anti-cartoon march and refused to act as the moderating influence in society. Getting together with the clergy to stage a protest march in Lahore against Denmark was a not a wise policy.
The Denmark cartoons which had been published in September were avenged in November. The Punjab government thought it could capitalise on the Moslem rage and win the 2007 or 2008 election. On Lahore's Mall, the rioters torched hundreds of cars and cycle of violences and damaged government buildings and private businesses. Outlets of foreign fast food companies McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut as well as several local restaurants and businesses were attacked and set on fire. Several shops and travel agencies were broken into and looted.
The demonstrators entered the Punjab Legislative Assembly and torched a room next to the chamber of the opposition leader. After that they moved on to the Pakistain International Airlines (PIA) building and broke its front. They attacked the hotel Holiday Inn on Egerton Road and the nearby Aiwan-e-Iqbal, smashing windows and burning cars. On The Mall, Dayal Singh Mansions came in for thorough destruction. The blaze at the KFC restaurant spread to the upper stories of the Coopera Art Gallery, a Moslem Commercial Bank branch, a National Bank branch, and a Telenor franchise. The mob had earlier set fire to a petrol station there.
Pakistain's capacity for self-damage on the basis of outrage is enhanced because of two factors: 1) presence of America and Al Qaeda close to Pakistain and 2) the persistence in force of Blasphemy Law which victimises non-Moslems. The public mind has been rendered dull by repeated scenes of death and annihilation - which is ignored by the victims as America's war. The state has erred by embracing an unrealistic anti-Americanism which lacks capacity to harm the target country but prompts the Paks to attack their own state as a 'slave of America'.
#1
You need to put a bounty on those who sell, Import, or reload bullets and clamp down on their Bullet-Makers, that'll end this war.
It's not so much fun if you have to hack people to death, far easier to pull a trigger.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2012 1:05 Comments ||
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#2
passage of the offending film by US Censor Board
AH... What US Censor Board?
obviously these dorks will never understand...
freedom!
Posted by: Water Modem ||
09/23/2012 1:11 Comments ||
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#4
I hope that Israel coordinates with India so that whenever Iran is bombed the Pakistani nukes can be grabbed at the same time. After that let the muslim world rage itself to death.
Analysis: Radical jihadists determined to establish Sunni Islamist state in the Levant
While discussing the bloodshed in Syria at a September 7 conference held in Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan drew a chilling parallel. "What happened in Karbala 1,332 years ago is what is happening in Syria today," he said, comparing the Syrian revolution to the most divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... event in Islamic history, the Battle of Karbala.
Those in the West with any interests in the region have much to learn from Erdogan's history lesson. What was originally depicted as a popular uprising against tyranny is now undeniably a war for religious supremacy in the Middle East. In this war, those Syrians who originally erupted into the streets in their aspirations for democracy have become the only guaranteed losers.
In the year 680 AD, Hussein Ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and 70 of his followers confronted 1,500 fighters from the Umayyad Caliphate in present day Iraq. Hussein had embarked on a crusade to wrest control of the caliphate from his archrival Yazid I, only to be slaughtered along with his family. Hussein's followers would eventually form the Shiite sect of Islam, and remain locked in a bitter rivalry with Yazid's fellow Abu Bakr supporters, whose descendants comprise the Sunni sect.
Now, 1,332 years later, Hussein's descendants are marching into Syria to fend off another onslaught in the historic territory of the Umayyad Dynasty. In recent months, Iran's elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has become an important gear in Assad's ever-resilient fighting machine, while Iranian currency and equipment continue to flow across Iraq to into Assad's coffers. Meanwhile, ...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact... Tehran has also begun to send in hundreds, if not thousands, of rank and file Basij Orcs and similar vermin - the notorious henchmen responsible for crushing Iran's Green Revolution - to intimidate the opposition. In addition, reports indicate that Iran is dispatching members of Iraq's notorious "Mahdi Army" - the foot soldiers of firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... Shiite holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... - to do battle in Syria at the ayatollah's behest.
The alliance between the Assad dynasty and the region's Shiites is a classic example of realpolitik - Middle East style. Assad's secretive Alawite minority is by no means similar to Shiism, having been branded as an offshoot of Islam following a politically-motivated fatwa (religious decree) issued by a prominent Lebanese holy man named Musa Sadr in the 1970s.
Foreign policy swamp
The fatwa enabled the Assads to stave off accusations of heresy from Syria's majority Sunni population. In return, the Assad regime agreed to bolster Leb's previously impoverished Shiites and Syria's Alawites into the formidable force they are today. Today, the Shiite Hezbollah faction continues to return the favor, funneling its members into Syria to participate in hostilities, while even firing rockets previously aimed at Israel into rebel strongholds across the border.
This strategic alliance, born out of mutual fears of domination by the region's Sunni majority, has placed Syria at the heart of Iran's Shiite axis. Losing Assad would ultimately put Shiite rule in Leb and Iraq in jeopardy, and Iran on the defensive against a Sunni-Islamist surge backed by petrodollars from the Gulf Arab states and diplomatic cover from the West.
The Iranians now unabashedly admit their support for the world's most isolated regime. Iran's defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi said, "Syria is managing this situation very well on its own, but if the government can't resolve the crisis on its own, then based on their request, we will fulfill our mutual defense-security pact." It is well known that Vahidi's defense pact is already in play. Farsi is now a common dialect spoken in Assad's command centers, while Shiite holy warriors dispatched by Iran are fighting alongside Alawite Orcs and similar vermin in the alleyways of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... In their eyes, Iran's ayatollahs and Shiites across the region are as outnumbered in today's Middle East as when Hussein confronted Yazid 1's army in the eighth century. Under the patronage of Sunni powerhouses in the Arabian Gulf, radical jihadists are making their presence felt, determined to establish a Sunni Islamist state in the Levant. The growing rate of suicide kabooms, beheadings, and persecution of religious minorities across Syria are further indicative that these gunnies have stolen the show from a secular opposition long-abandoned by so-called "Friends of Syria" coalition in the West.
The apocalyptic scenario unfolding in Syria combined with anti-American protests gripping the rest of region are enough to turn the deserts of the Middle East into a foreign policy swamp for decision makers on both sides of the Atlantic. Disengagement, however, will only bring the specter of terrorism and instability closer than ever to Europe's soft underbelly. In an age where the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction threatens global security, Syria's continued position as an Iranian outpost is as threatening to the region as the prospect of Syria becoming an assembly line for Sunni jihadists.
In a conflict which will ultimately be determined by foreign support, the United States and its NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... allies must be religiously devoted to bolstering Syrian moderates. Only by matching the resolve of Assad's allies with a fanatical commitment to secular and rational elements in the Syrian opposition, can the United States and its allies finally re-establish themselves as a major influence in the Middle East, and stop the age old battle of Karbala from wreaking havoc on the region for years to come.
The authors are intelligence managers and senior analysts at Max Security Solutions, a geo-political risk consulting firm based in Tel Aviv, Israel They specialize in Middle East and North African affairs..
#2
One of the things that makes America exceptional is there are no 1,300 year old battles to keep fighting. While the Civil War is more alive in the south than the north, it's been a long time since there was a massacre in the name of Gettysburg or Shiloh.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2012 10:47 Comments ||
Top||
#3
it's been a long time since there was a massacre in the name of Gettysburg or Shiloh.
Posted by Bobby
Exactly correct, it was settled! State's Rights... we no longer have any.
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.
by Reps. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)
PRIME Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf's speech at the Ishq-e-Rasool conference in Islamabad on Friday combined denunciation of the anti-Islam movie with an appeal to the people to be peaceful, an appeal also made by all major political parties -- the PPP, PML-N, ANP, MQM and PTI. Yet even before the prime minister had finished, the strike had turned violent. By the time the faithful headed towards mosques for the Friday prayer, violence had spiralled out of control in several cities. The intensity of the violence was shocking. Reason fell victim to emotions, even though the hate-filled film, made by a man who can only be described as a bigot, was condemned by American leaders, including 
In principle there's nothing wrong with a strike which is a democratic way of expressing protest and resorted to only when all other options have been exhausted. In Pakistain, unfortunately, political parties and even professional bodies like those of lawyers and doctors have abused this principle irrespective of its consequences for citizens, and often for themselves. Horrifying as it is, every Pak crowd is now violence-prone: whether it is a justifiable protest against power outages or an Eid rush for railway tickets, people attack unrelated targets. Political rhetoric has much to do with it, for we have developed a popular culture in which citizens have come to believe that violence pays. Those who call for strikes cannot escape their responsibility by blaming violence on outsiders, for it is their duty to control their acolytes. The violence the day saw in no way advanced the cause of the world's 
The government's eagerness to share the people's sentiments and not let the opposition make political capital out of it can be understood. But the way it chose to express its solidarity with the people was astonishing -- by declaring a holiday. The result was a total shutdown, with banks and business transactions frozen for three days. We have seen protests in many 
[Dawn] Friday was a day to protest the provocative 'Innocence of Islam' film by demonstrating the love 
[Dawn] The violence on Friday kept the nation spellbound and hooked to their television sets but despite the rampage it was a very quiet day for many.
Moqtada 
