#2
I predict that on March 13th, 2007 AT least one democrat contender for pres will drop out of the race. I believe it will be due to hit pieces from the Hildebeast's brownshirts.
Oh and I predict the Earthquake psychic will be the only one injured when their crystal ball falls on their head in a freak accident involving a cat, a bird and 2 hits of LSD.
#4
Let's see... A galactic tsunami on March 9, now an earthquake on March 13 and don't forget Satan is being exposed on March 18.
Is March usually such an eventful month?
#5
Gladys said: #4 Let's see... A galactic tsunami on March 9, now an earthquake on March 13 and don't forget Satan is being exposed on March 18.
Is March usually such an eventful month?
A galactic tsunami? I must've missed something somewheres.
Details, please.
Oh, and I'll put $50 on CA having an earthquake somewhere along its west coast, probably along a faultline near San Francisco or Los Anegeles (within 50 miles of either) or near Mt Shasta area, within 24 hours.
Lefties will condemn it as paranoid. I wish they were right. But this phenomenon has been building for a long, long time. And now the nightmare he describes is coming into the daylight. It's hideous looking.
Dan Riehl is to be congratulated for a Herculean effort, one which will bring down the wrath and withering ridicule of those he exposes. However, our European friends will not be so quick to condemn what has become their reality.
Syed Saleem Shahzad The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad's influence into southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in its push to capture Kabul.
One-legged Mullah Dadullah will be Pakistan's strongman in a corridor running from the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Urzgan, Kandahar and Helmand across the border into Pakistan's Balochistan province, according to both Taliban and al-Qaeda contacts Asia Times Online spoke to.
Using Pakistani territory and with Islamabad's support, the Taliban will be able safely to move men, weapons and supplies into southwestern Afghanistan.
Using Pakistani territory and with Islamabad's support, the Taliban will be able safely to move men, weapons and supplies into southwestern Afghanistan.
I confess I'd forgotten that Dadullah was minus a leg. Can we collect another part or two?
The deal with Mullah Dadullah will serve Pakistan's interests in reestablishing a strong foothold in Afghanistan (the government in Kabul leans much more toward India), and it has resulted in a cooling of the Taliban's relations with al-Qaeda. Despite their most successful spring offensive last year since being ousted in 2001, the Taliban realize they need the assistance of a state actor if they are to achieve "total victory". Al-Qaeda will have nothing to do with the Islamabad government, though, so the Taliban had to go it alone.
The move also comes as the US is putting growing pressure on Pakistan to do more about the Taliban and al-Qaeda ahead of a much-anticipated spring offensive in Afghanistan. US Vice President Dick Cheney paid an unexpected visit to Pakistan on Monday to meet with President General Pervez Musharraf. The White House refused to say what message Cheney gave Musharraf, but it did not deny reports that it included a tough warning that US aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy.
Continued on Page 49
Note to Moderators: I searched both the author's name and the article's title before posting this. No hits on either term ensued, so I would like to share this vital essay. I'm hoping you will consider leaving it intact, or at least abridging it to Page 49. If this has already run here at Rantburg, please delete this post. Thanking you in advance.
All: This is a MUST READ work that provides the definitive analysis of why Iran must be defeated at the soonest opportunity. Lewis' writing is lucid, cogent and factually based. His conclusions are clear cut and explicit. I have yet to see a more compelling argument made for crushing the Iranian mullahs. This is a long piece but, once finished, no one will dispute the time spent reading it.
Please don't post long articles in full like this. The beauty of the web and weblogs is the link. Provide the link and the first few paragraphs. This isn't an article, this is a treatise. Thanks, AoS.
By: John Lewis
The Greek historian Thucydides, writing about the calamitous war that had destroyed his own world, made an important observation about the causes of historical events: Even though circumstances may change, human nature remains the same; and certain human elementsespecially moral and psychological factorsare at the root of all wars. We can disagree with Thucydides about the identity of those factors, and reject his pessimistic view of human nature, but we will benefit from accepting his challenge to rise above particular circumstances and focus on the principles of human action that are common to all time. Differences in technology, politics, or economics will always remain secondary to the ideas that motivate aggressors to launch bloody attacks and that empoweror restraindefenders opposing those attacks.
In that spirit, let us begin by considering an event of cataclysmic proportions, a deadly attack against Americans, and then examine two possible responses to it. This approach will show us that the crisis we face todaya series of highly motivated attacks against the heart of civilizationis not unique, can be understood, and can be endedif we choose to understand and end it.
#1
Very Good, but speaking of Greeks - REGNUM.RU > ARAB WORLD READY TO RECOGNIZE NORTHERN CYPRUS. OTOH, REGNUM > IRANIAN EXTREMISTS AND AMER REPUBLICANS, A CONSPIRACY STORY. Fer 2008.
#4
Global domination is the end of the Muslim ideology. If they get the means - and indulgence of Iran's nuclear Ayatollahs would assist same - then they will wage final jihad. Muslim victory would commence genocidal sectarian wars.
#5
The question then becomes, with the leftist Gramscian cancer living within the body of the West, can this be accomplished?
It's been suggested here on the 'burg and in other writings that as long as the class of '68 is alive and in positions of power in the education and infotainment industries in appreciable numbers, the West will lack the will to achieve total victory, unconditional surrender, in any war.
Die they will, eventually. But in time?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/05/2007 7:42 Comments ||
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#6
"The question then becomes, with the leftist Gramscian cancer living within the body of the West, can this be accomplished?"
I no longer believe it can; excising that cancer is an absolute prerequisite for defeating Islamic totalitarianism, in my opinion. Until we rid ourselves of the political movement that is the source of our squeamishness in dealing with the enemy, we're just spinning our wheels.
I no longer believe the Gramscian cancer can be excised via the ballot box, either.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/05/2007 7:59 Comments ||
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#7
My personal opinion is that the existing left-wing elite sincerely believes that on the conclusion of an islamic victroy they will still be on top running things.
I do not believe that they understand that their vision is doomed to die in an islamic victory.
Until that vision changes and they too realize that they too are running for their lives, nothing will exorcise the cancer.
Then again, maybe they do not care. Maybe their vision is truely just a pure lust for power over the great unwashed, no matter what the world looks like, and they see this as their ticket.
Posted by: kelly ||
03/05/2007 11:29 Comments ||
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#8
"My personal opinion is that the existing left-wing elite sincerely believes that on the conclusion of an islamic victory they will still be on top running things.
Kelly, I commented on this last week. This notion held by the elite is not meaningfully different than that of Charles Manson who thought that black folks would destroy Western Civilization in a racially motivated war, but that the blacks would not be able to run the world, so they'd need the few enlightened whites left (Manson's followers, of course) to run things after the war was over.
What's scary is that an essentially identical hope (substituting "Islamicist" for "black") is now held, not by an illiterate isolated group like the Manson family, but by substantial swaths of the Gramscian cultural elite living in the West. Wretchard at Belmont Club (see his link on Rantburg's front page) wrote an excellent article entitled "The Ichneumon Wasp" that touched on this subject.
Radical Islam and the leftists living in the West both have a common goal, to take out the true, American Revolution-inspired (vs the false cancerous French revolution-inspired) version of Western civilization and feed on its corpse. This is not a conspiracy, but rather a confluence of purpose, and although the Left hates Islam and vice versa, both are happy when either scores points against the West. Also, both believe that if the West should fall, then they would be the supreme force on Earth.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/05/2007 11:58 Comments ||
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#9
"I no longer believe the Gramscian cancer can be excised via the ballot box, either.
This could be the scariest possibility of our time.
I hope you're wrong, but I cannot rule this out.
When I hear a few leftists calling for a ban on organized religion (this is already happening, folks) I am concerned. If and when this spills over into leftist politicians doing the same, the bullets will certainly fly, and all bets will be off.
It would be better if the Gramscian cancer could be done away with through plebiscite. But I agree that it must go no matter what.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/05/2007 12:03 Comments ||
Top||
#10
In the minds of many people, the Bush administrations allegedly offensive strategy has discredited the very idea of genuinely offensive war for American self-interest, which it pledged to fight, and then betrayed to its core. Our soldiers come home maimed or dead, and military offense, rather than timidity, takes the blame.
Herein is contained one of the most vital truths. America has forgotten the vital lessons learned during World War II. Even at this late stage, other than by dint of financial expenditure, the Iraqi liberation bears not one whit of resemblance to the Viet Nam conflict, save in one crucial way. Politicians, not generals, have overseen both of these campaigns and have done so with equally disastrous results in each case. That we cannot even retain the lessons of Viet Nam bespeaks a nation with the collective attention span of a fruit fly.
World War II and the monstrous ideologies we successfully confronted should have forever etched upon our national memory the will to engage in Total War. The Holocaust, The Rape of Nanking, The Bataan Death March, all of these should have reinforced an enduring recollection of why Total War has no substitute. Yet, once again faced with an identically genocidal enemy, we are attempting to negotiate our way out. Few, if any, even have the courage to point out that our enemys objectives are, for them, non-negotiable. We are attempting to dismantle an ironclad juggernaut with tweezers. Middle ground is being sought in a situation that can only be satisfied by Unconditional Surrender.
Democracy is not a route to freedomnot for the Greeks who voted to kill Socrates, nor for the Romans who acclaimed Caesar, nor for the Germans who elected Hitler.
This is, perhaps, one of the most difficult lessons of all to learn. In a naive haste to share our achievements with once despotic nations, we have overlooked how American democracy sprang from soil carefully tended for centuries with well-honed tools like the Magna Charta. Implements intentionally crafted to delimit governmental power and abuse of station. Instead, we have arrived bearing the most fragile of gifts hoping to plant these same seeds in soil utterly parched of the vitality conferred by liberty and free thought. We may as well be planting hothouse orchids in Death Valley.
If we do not understand that we should defeat themif we think that we are as bad as they are, or that they have legitimate grievances that justify their attacks, or that we have created a situation that morally demands that we compensate themthen our lack of moral self-confidence will undercut our motivation to fight.
The author rounds up the usual suspects of altruism, moral relativism, self-loathing and appeasement for the wooden stake he is sharpening.
That we have the overwhelming capacity to defeat the Islamic Totalitarians militarily is beyond doubt. Yet far from elevating technology to the key issue in winning a war, this illustrates the unequivocal importance of the moral self-confidencethe state of mind that proceeds from an awareness of ones own moral goodness and efficacythat is needed to use this weaponry.
It is a chilling irony that in our time of greatest need, neither the permissive liberal left nor the moralizing conservative right, can manage to summon forth this indispensable moral self-confidence. Fortunately, this does not deter the author from driving home his critical point.
But proponents of Islamic Totalitarianism have political power, to some extent, in dozens of nations. Should we attack them all, immediately? No. We need to aim for the political, economic, and ideological center of this movementthe core that embodies its naked essence and that fuels it worldwide. This does not mean finding the particular people who organized the 9/11 attacks. The question is: In which state is Islam most solidly linked with political power, dedicated to the violent spread of Islamic rule, and infused with hatred of America? What state is founded on these ideas, and their practice, as a matter of principle? There is a clear answer, which is known, admittedly or not, by almost everyone today. The political centerpiece of Islamic Totalitarianism todaythe state in which Islam is most militantly welded to political power and contempt for America and the Westthe world leader in the violent spread of Islamis Iran.
Few better cases against Iran have ever been made today, or all the way back to 1979.
America, acting alone and with overwhelming force, must destroy the Iranian Islamic State now. It must do so openly, and indeed spectacularly, for the entire world to see, for this is the only way to demonstrate the spectacular failure and incompetence of the Islamic fundamentalist movement as a whole.
A fact we continue to ignore as Iraq guts itself in the process of trying to install their own special brand of religious theocracy.
We must not seek legitimacy for the removal of the Iranian Islamic State beyond the principle of our right to defend ourselves. To pretend that something more than this principle is needed would be to deny the sufficiency of the principle. To base our reasons on the alleged good of others, especially on any alleged benefits to the people of the Middle East, would be to accept a position of moral dhimmitude: the moral subordination of our right to life and self-defense to an allegedly higher principle.
One of a very few remaining nails is hammered into the coffins lid.
Most importantly, by ousting the regime in Iran, we would send a clear message to the world: Political Islam is finished.
Why it is that Bush simply cannot understand the necessity for this, be it due to religiosity, selling out to Political Correctness or sheer flat out stupidity, goes beyond all reason. Swimming in their Multicultural Kool-Aid, the democrats can hardly be expected to do anything more than spout their usual torrent of Moral Relativism. That the conservatives somehow have been frozen in Islams totalitarian headlights will remain an eternal mystery.
Most importantly, Western intellectuals must present not only a negativea repudiation of the Totalitarian Universebut also a positivea clear explanation to the world that the moral purpose of a government is to protect its citizens rights to think and act on the judgment of their own minds, free from coercion by church, mosque, or state.
Do we even have any politicians who are capable of this? The names of Virgil Goode and Tom Tancredo bubble to the surface.
This is not a clash between civilizations; it is a clash between civilization and barbarism.
The Islamic StateTotalitarian Islammust go.
End of story. Sadly, no one in elected office has the courage to openly say such things. Instead, they delude themselves with the Politically Correct notion that, when all is said and done, it is actually possible to pick up a turd by its clean end.
#11
SPECIAL NOTE: I would like to thank Fred and Rantburg's moderators for leaving Lewis's essay intact, without abridgement. By rendering it most convenient to read, more people will peruse this superb piece of critical analysis.
I still maintain that any Iranian campaign need only consist of dismantling or breaking whatever is needed to cripple their nuclear aspirations and oust the mullahs. No boots on the ground, this time. No reconstruction or nation building. No installation of democracy.
Just the solemn promise that should Iran even hint at again pursuing theocracy, we will return to wreak havoc of a sort unknown for more than half a century.
#12
"I no longer believe the Gramscian cancer can be excised via the ballot box, either."
I reached that conclusion right after 9/11, when the MSM and other usual suspects returned to business as usual. Problem is, who or what, is going to kick it off?
#14
Please don't post long articles in full like this. The beauty of the web and weblogs is the link. Provide the link and the first few paragraphs. This isn't an article, this is a treatise. Thanks, AoS.
Steve, is there any way to abridge the text to Page 49? I was concerned about this and only wanted to make sure it was made available. I know that too often, I don't always click through unless it's real easy to do.
If you look at my posting history, I rarely put up works of this length, ever. The current indecisiveness afflicting both the public and our administration motivated me to get this piece in front of people as it gives them the tools to argue effectively for our overthrow of the Iran's mad mullahs. America is at a critical juncture with respect to this.
Please rest assured that I will excerpt and link in the future. I appreciate your understanding in this matter.
The Bush administration has been urged to recognise Pakistans legitimate interests in Afghanistan, such as its concerns about India, while remembering that it is an article of faith with Islamabad and part of its national security doctrine that the US is an unreliable ally.
In an extended testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee on March 1, Barnett R Rubin of the Centre on International Cooperation, New York University, said the US should try to encourage greater transparency concerning Indian activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He suggested that as the US increased pressure on Pakistan through the military assistance package, it needed to develop a multilateral approach with China because Pakistan, when it felt that the US was not supporting it, had tended to turn to China. It tried to do that after the US-India nuclear deal last year, and China turned it down. So it would be very important to have a joint approach with China and the other NATO members on this as well, he added.
Rubin said Pakistan also needed assistance in building of its capacity to integrate the tribal areas into the countrys political and economic system. In the absence of integration, Pakistan had been unable to do anything about safe havens it was believed to provide to the Taliban and others, he said, adding that the US also needed to help Pakistan and Afghanistan address their bilateral relationship. This is not a personal problem between Hamid Karzai and Gen Pervez Musharraf. There are a whole set of issues regarding the border, trade, transit, ethnic relations, that have gone un-addressed for 60 years, but we can no longer afford to allow them to go un-addressed.
He said if the US did not deal with the sanctuary problem, it would not succeed in Afghanistan, but it should be remembered that this was a region problem. He said that it was not that Pakistan was pro-terrorist, pretending to be anti-terrorist. Islamabad perceives the situation in Afghanistan in terms of its interests. Pakistan and Afghanistan have had antagonistic relations since the beginning. Rubin said the infrastructure built with US and Saudi help during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, was still there and being used by the same people to fight against the US, including the same people in the Pakistan military and intelligence on the ground level who have been involved in this thing for 20 years, and are still there on the ground level and have not changed, even if their orders have changed. Rubin said Musharrafs political problem was that he was the head of the largest political party in Pakistan, which is the Pakistan military.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Okey Dokey, but what about IRAN's? IRAN > Labels PAKISTAN A "TERROR SANCTUARY", + IRAN FENCES IN PAKISTAN artiiiicle.
HT Gates Of Vienna.
There are two ominous developments on the Syrian front today. First, Russia has decided to sell thousands of advanced weapons to Syria. Second, Syria has been constructing and moving infrastructure to its border with Israel that can be used in preparation for war.
Jerusalem aimed harsh criticism at Russia on Friday for its decision to supply Syria with advanced missiles, including anti-aircraft missiles and new anti-tank missiles that can penetrate Western-made tanks.
Senior Israeli officials expressed concerns that the arms would be transferred to Hizbullah, warning that missiles that were supplied to Syria in the past got into the hands of the group and were used against IDF tanks during the summer's war in Lebanon. [I suspect that Syria has purchased enough weapons for both itself and Hezbullah. But now that UNIFIL is sitting in Southern Lebanon acting as human shields, Israel cannot even go in and interrupt the arms flow without going over, through or around them. Thank you Foreign Minister Tzippi Feigele Livni for agreeing to the inane Security Council Resolution 1701. CiJ]
Vice Premier Shimon Peres said that the supply of arms to Syria "encouraged Damascus to turn to war." [As if they need any encouragement. CiJ]
"Syria is moving between peace overtures and its temptations to go to war to which arms supply is an incentive," added Peres.
The vice premier went on to say that the UN had admitted that the weapons flow from Syria to Hizbullah was continuing, adding that Israel needed to exert pressure on Moscow to stop supplying Damascus with arms. [Like Israel is in a position to pressure the Russians. If the Russians have learned nothing from their own experience in Chechnya, how are we going to put pressure on them? CiJ]
Meanwhile...
Syria has spent the past few months constructing and moving infrastructure to its southern border that could be used to launch a war against Israel, senior defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.
According to the officials, the Syrian military - while restricted in the number of troops it is allowed to deploy along the border - has moved military infrastructure, including fuel depots, closer to the frontier. The Syrians have also built structures in the area that could serve as weapons stores and military bases.
"There is no doubt that something out of the ordinary is taking place on the Syrian side of the border," a high-ranking official said.
Of course, the UN Disengagement Observer Force (yes, there's one on that border too) is taking the usual UN attitude:
The commander of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), deployed in Israel and Syria and responsible for maintaining the cease-fire between the two countries, told the Post in an interview that he had not noticed any military changes on the ground.
"From our point of view the situation is quiet and there is no indication from our side that anything has changed in last weeks or months," Maj.-Gen. Wolfgang Jilke said in a phone interview from Syria. UNDOF conducts weekly inspections of the demilitarized zones on the Israeli and Syrian sides of the Golan Heights.
The Post also notes that the IDF has drastically reduced its overflights of Lebanon. My guess is that this is because it believes that Hezbullah has finished re-arming and the IDF already knows where their weapons are hidden.
Haaretz describes the failed diplomacy that has resulted in Russia supplying arms to the Syrians:
According to various estimates, the deal is worth several hundred million dollars and involves several thousand advanced anti-tank missiles.
Syria secured anti-tank missiles from the Soviet Union for years, and later, from Russia. During the war in Lebanon last summer, Israel said it found proof that Syria had transferred to Hezbollah advanced Russian-made anti-tank missiles from its arsenal.
Evidence of the existence of these advanced missiles, the Kornet AT-14 and Metis AT-13, came in the form of crates discovered in the villages of Ghandurya and Farun, close to the Saluki River. The shipment documents showed that they had been procured by the Syrian army and transferred to Hezbollah.
Until Israel was able to produce such evidence, the authorities in Moscow refused to acknowledge that advanced Russian-made weapons were being transferred to Hezbollah.
But after the war, an Israeli delegation that included members of the National Security Council and the Foreign Ministry presented the evidence to senior Russian officials.
The Russians promised to reevaluate some of the planned arms deals with Syria to ensure that advanced weaponry would not make its way to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.
However, there are now concerns in Israel that Russia will not keep its promise and that the deal with Damascus for the anti-tank missiles is near being finalized.
Syria stepped up its efforts to convince Russia to make the sale following the lessons it reached from the war in Lebanon. The fact that Hezbollah succeeded in delaying an Israeli armored column at the battle near the Saluki River with accurate fire from anti-tank missiles was noted favorably in Arab armies.
In retrospect, and following an IDF study, the number of tanks that were actually damaged during fighting in the war did not exceed several dozen, and in some of them the damage suffered was very minimal. But missile types like the Kornet and the Metis proved their destructive abilities and in some cases even penetrated the armor of the Merkava Mark IV, which is considered to be the best protected tank in the world.
The IDF found it difficult to counter this threat, particularly since the weapons could be fired accurately from distances of five kilometers.
I've already gone out on a limb and said that I believe that there will be another war in the north by late spring or early summer. I'll go further: May 24. That's the day after the Shavuoth holiday here. I believe war will happen on the northern front no later than May 24. You heard it here first.
Meanwhile, our buffoonish 'defense' minister Amir Comrade Peretz is trying to convince our corrupt 'prime' minister Ehud K. Olmert that now is the time to further divide the country by evacuating 'outposts.' It's good that God watches over this country, because otherwise we wouldn't stand a chance.
#2
If it were to come to war, Israel should impose, as part of the resultant peace settlement, that all "Palestinians" on the West Bank be relocated to Syria and become Syrian citizens opening the West Bank to Israeli settlement and development. Oh, and force Egypt to take Gaza.
#3
Nah, in case of East-border war push all Paleos out of Gaza, too. And take over the entire Sinai if Egypt doesn't welcome and host their Paleo "brothers".
Posted by: Kalle ||
03/05/2007 14:27 Comments ||
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#4
Israel should get together with Kurds and other minorities in Syria so that someone can take charge after the war. The war should not end until the current regime is gone and that should be made clear to Assad.
#6
And of course the meeting between Saudi Arabia and Iran has no bearing whatsoever on Syria's actions on the border, because Saudi Arabia is "irritiated" with Syria, right? Saudi Arabia is trying to convince Iran to tamper down on Hezbollah to cool off the region-isn't that what we're expected to believe? Phooey. Saudi Arabia and Russia, each in their own way, are starting to put the pressure on.
Very, very long articles like this generally should not be included in full. Provide us with the first few paragraphs; those who wish can hit the link. Thanks, AoS.
For the past three decades and more, many of the leading opinion makers in our universities, the media and the arts have regarded Western culture as, at best, something to be ashamed of, or at worst, something to be opposed. Before the 1960s, if Western intellectuals reflected on the long-term achievements of their culture, they explained it in terms of its own evolution: the inheritance of ancient Greece, Rome and Christianity, tempered by the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the scientific and industrial revolutions. Even a radical critique like Marxism was primarily an internal affair, intent on fulfilling what it imagined to be the destiny of the West, taking its history to what it thought would be a higher level.
Today, however, such thinking is dismissed by the prevailing intelligentsia as triumphalist. Western political and economic dominance is more commonly explained not by its internal dynamics but by its external behaviour, especially its rivalry and aggression towards other cultures. Western success has purportedly been at their expense. Instead of pushing for internal reform or revolution, this new radicalism constitutes an overwhelmingly negative critique of Western civilization itself.
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.
The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad's influence into southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in its push to capture Kabul. 
