The writer, Diane Roberts is also a commentator for NPR. No surprise given the garbage she spews.
American universities are places of art and music, gleaming labs and fine old buildings, famous libraries and fancy football stadiums, old traditions and new thinking, beauty, youth and brains -- about everything you could want. Except guns. Apparently, there just aren't enough guns in those ivy-covered halls.
Never fear: second amendment fundamentalists mean to correct what they see as the sad paucity of weapons on campus. In Florida, a gaggle of true believers calling themselves Florida Carry busies itself arguing that institutions of higher learning have no right to ban guns on their taxpayer-funded property. I mean, why wouldn't you want to pack heat in a class like Organic Chemistry II? Florida Carry's attack is gradual: last year they prevailed in a suit to let students at the University of North Florida stash guns in their cars; this year, they're aiming to force the University of Florida to allow its 50,000 students to keep guns in their dormitories. Not all 50,000, but why spoil perfectly false argument.
Genius! Imagine: students living six to a hutch, hopped up on Red Bull, vodka, stress, lust, Adderall, Spicy Chipotle BBQ Doritos, MIA and Grand Theft Auto 5. Now add a few .38s and maybe a deer rifle or two. The stakes in those passionate late-night debates over the origin of the universe suddenly get a lot higher. Most states outlaw the combination of drugs and alcohol, and guns, but don't let that get in the way of your agenda. Do go on.
Of course, Florida is no stranger to gun controversies. George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin for walking while hoodied. Leave out the unprovoked attack and subsequent pounding a much younger, taller and heavier Trayvon was issuing to Zimmerman.
Just the other day, one guy killed another guy in a movie theatre, apparently for texting during Lone Survivor. But Florida is not alone in this crazy quest to expand gun violence. Lawmakers in North Carolina recently relaxed rules about carrying a gun at public universities. Six states (Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, and Wisconsin) now allow concealed weapons at their public colleges. Good for them.
Just out of curiosity, have there been any Adderal and lust-triggered shootings on those campuses? 'Cause I don't recall reading about such things. And really, if the test cases are operating normally despite the presence of scary boom sticks, why would the rest of the country be different?
The zealots of the NRA, and their even nuttier cousins (Gun Owners of America, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership,
OMG -- joooooos!! You can't trust those people, donchaknow -- they're crazy!
Women Warriors PAC),
Joooos and girls? Y'all might as well give up now -- you're toast.
think that the second amendment is all that stands between us and tyranny. They're still predicting that Barack Obama is "coming for your guns" -- though he doesn't seem in much of a hurry -- and see colleges as a new front in their quest to put a trigger behind every American finger, right to tote a gun trumps all other rights. One conservative pundit, who is also a professor of criminology, thinks concealed carry on campus is for wusses. He advocates for "open possession of firearms", arguing that higher education's drive to curb racism and sexism is more damaging: "Speech codes are a far greater threat to free speech than handguns." What the writer fails to note, and what I will, is that state officials in New York, California, and now, apparently in Maryland, are using their own laws to confiscate guns. Barak Obama may not be confiscating guns but state officials are taking their cues from him and his supporters. As for the second part of that paragraph I would argue for constitutional carry, not just open carry.
The Pennsylvania Board of Governors, which oversees that 14 of that state's pubic universities, plans to decide later this year on allowing guns at universities. In Georgia, legislators would like to see everybody armed, whether sitting in class reading Emily Dickinson or parked in a pew singing "O Sacred Head Now Wounded". Nevermind that polls show 72% of Georgians prefer church to be bullet-free, while 78% say allowing guns on campus is a really stupid idea. Polls and statistics. When you can't be right on an issue you trot out polls and statistics. They explain everything!
It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. I grew up in a house full of guns. I'm a professor at a university in the "Deep South". Guns are part of our culture. But I don't want to be teaching a class on homosocial triangles in the novels of William Faulkner, while also wondering if maybe that surly kid in the corner has a Colt in his backpack. I don't want to hear one promising student shot another promising student over who saw that hot Tri-Delt first. I don't want to see one of my colleagues hurt by a student who freaks out when she fails her final exam. You are afraid. I got a great idea, a really novel one. GET A GUN!
I don't want to be as paranoid as those fetishisers of the second amendment who believe if you don't have a gun, you will be a victim of people who do have guns. They claim if those kindergarten teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School had only been armed, they could have taken the shooter down, and that if a critical mass of Virginia Tech faculty and students back in 2007 had Glocks in their waistbands or folding stock AK 47s in their desks, lives would have been saved. It's not about paranoia, nor is it about prevention of crime. It is about tyranny. The writer is a mini tyrant. The guns are meant as protection against them and their protectors in the political class.
This makes perfect sense -- if you think that real life is indistinguishable from a video game. Barrel-polishers have a vision of the world as infinitely hazardous, pulsing with mortal threats to 1. America; 2. freedom; 3. themselves and their families. The solution is for everyone to have a gun and to use it with the flawless accuracy of those square-jawed, super-fit characters we see on our screens. That's you, dearie. Most gunowners I know don't care about films except for what they are, fantasies. They do not guide their lives. But as little as the current media affects them, those same folks know that they are responsible for their own protection, which the government cannot and will not provide.
But that ain't real life. In real life, we are overweight, nearsighted, uncoordinated creatures who would shoot the wrong people. Even David Frum, a Reagan-loving, McCain-voting, Republican cautions: "a gun in the house is not a guarantee of personal security -- it is instead a standing invitation to family tragedy. The cold dead hands from which they pry the gun are very unlikely to be the hands of a heroic minuteman defending home and hearth against intruders. They are much more likely to be the hands of a troubled adolescent or a clumsy child." That's the thing about freedom. It can be messy, bloody and violent. But as messy and bloody and violent as it could be, it beats the tyrannical vision that this writer hold for the rest of the 99.99 percent who pose no threat to anyone.
Gawdamn fascist.
#2
American universities are places of art and music, gleaming labs and fine old buildings, famous libraries and fancy football stadiums, old traditions and new thinking, beauty, youth and brains
#3
American universities are places of art and music, gleaming labs and fine old buildings, famous libraries and fancy football stadiums, old traditions and new thinking, beauty, youth and brains
She left out the big three: Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll. I'm mean four: Indoctrination of Marxist political pooh.
#4
Idon't want to be as paranoid as those fetishisers of the second amendment who believe if you don't have a gun, you will be a victim of people who do have guns.
Sorry professor, crime statistics prove the "fetishisers" are correct.
#5
One of the fundamental fears of the left is that a school will allow and/or encourage gun ownership. Then the population would self select (her child would never attend), the school would then have low violence and even lower Marxist tendencies.
#7
There article is full of "red herrings." Many, many students live off campus and legally possess firearms and you don't read about an epidemic of alcohol, drug, sex-fueled firearm deaths around college campuses. Utah passed a concealed carry law that applied to campuses and there have not been any problems so far as I know. The latest FBI statistics indicate a decline in firearm deaths while the applications for concealed carry permits have increased. FBI violent death decline. A quote from the article: This is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline in the FBIs violent-crime rates, said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association. It would be disingenuous for anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to account for this decline.
#12
Typical whine against guns, as if the gun was the problem, and not the people wielding it..
There's not a gun that ran amock, shooting people with no regard, there's always been a nut holding it, which is ignored, "It's always the GUN's Fault, at least to these short sighted idiots.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/17/2014 11:06 Comments ||
Top||
#13
It is always so cute when residents of the blue-state bubble try and pretend they know all about red-state, conservative, Tea Party, constitutionalist types. It's like the six blind men and the elephant, trying to describe something they have never actually seen.
#14
NPR National propaganda radio. Frum as a conservative? No. He's an establishment beltway weasel who was a Bush guy. GOP does not mean conservative. Only someone in a liberal bubble would use Frum as a conservative example.
#17
Diane (DK) is what passes for the Liberal Aristocracy in Tallahassee. Her daddy (BK) was the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. The Building Housing the FSU Laywer Skool is named for him, not bad for a boy from Sopchoppy. I don't know for a fact, but I gotta hunch Daddy was hell on quail and I seem to remember DK wasn't an amateur either. Not certain on this.
#19
You don't want to be as paranoid as fetishers you say? Liar or louse, this whole article is about how to accept that very level of paranoia.
AKs in the desks of college students? Whuh, last school desk I could store things in was in grade school. You little flowers studying Faulkner are likely not a problem. Its when dainty first row is walking back home, as little britches does not have NPR&Professor front row parking with armed security guards at whim, and coming across angry drunks.
#21
When I was in third grade, I managed to talk someone in the high school biology lab out of a piece of the salmon they were dissecting. I stored it in my desk for about a week, after which I had some difficulty opening the desk. Had a problem eating salmon for quite a while afterwards.
[DAWN] IT was almost inevitable -- the massive and most successful, relatively speaking, counter-insurgency operation in Pakistain is to be crowned off with a permanent military cantonment. Is it a good idea to establish a permanent new cantonment in the Swat/Malakand region, and what does that say about Pakistain's approach to counter-insurgency? The latter question may be easier to answer: the Pak state has not truly been able to move from the 'hold' phase of counter-insurgency to 'build' and 'transfer'. The need for a long-term military presence is precisely because failure to capture or eliminate the TTP Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... leadership early on meant that it was able to reappear with new guerrilla, hit-and-run tactics that have kept the overall security situation in the region less than stable. And now, of course, Mullah Fazlullah ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... is also the TTP's national head. Secondly, the failure of the civilian arm of the state -- whether because the military arm had displaced it or because of an inherent lack of capacity on the part of the civilians, or perhaps both -- to take meaningful charge of civil administration and the lead on rebuilding Swat has meant that the region has not been able to capitalise on military gains.
Still, what may make sense from a narrow military perspective may not be the best idea from a state perspective. If Swat/Malakand is the model for other counter-insurgency campaigns, then does that mean a permanent military presence will be established in the other insurgency-hit areas of KP and Fata -- and what about the now-rejected idea of cantonments in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... ? While local resentment in Swat isn't very high, other regions may not be similarly amenable to a military operation leading to a permanent military presence. Better counterterroism measures, a stronger police, a more invested civil administration and a local politicianship willing to lead -- that route is preferred to the one the Pak state is set to embark on in Swat.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
This should help'm with containment SWAT 25% Bigger
#1
Overly redacted prior to declassification. Not sure why it needed to be classified at this point anyway. Perhaps the 'little people' have "no need to know" why their fellow citizens were needlessly slain.
#2
yep, spilled blood could spook the herd (you are just as expendable for the political elite who consider you no better than cannon fodder for their ambitions - here on the 100th anniversary of the butchery of the 'little people' in the fields of France).
#3
Well, adjusting my tin foil hat.... the Klingons knew full well who they were dealing with [GITMO detainees, etc] and were fully aware they were sitting on a shi* sandwich. So out of an abundance of caution, they enhanced their security profile.
The State Department on the other hand, assumed Stevens had everything wired with the indigenous rabble, and having a 'top down' distrust of knuckle dragging military types, refused additional security and precautionary measures.
#4
There is a certain inevitability that creeps into stories about the Democrat candidate for 2016. The inevitable candidate is Hillary Clinton. The State Department seems to have been a tick mark in her candidacy. She completely failed in this her role as SOS. When the 3:00 am call came, she was absent (as was Obama). When in the voting booth and considering a candidate for President, ask the question: Do I want my brother, sister, husband, son or daughter serving under this Commander in Chief?" Can she be trusted to watch their backs?"
#5
Still outstanding, is the question of WHY no one has been arrested or in the Champ's words, "brought to justice."
Of course, the discovery that some, or any of these people [or former GITMO detainees] were actually on the Klingon payroll would be most embarrassing.
I disagree. Some of it appears to refers to specific names and locales. Other parts refer to operational capabilities.
...pointing fingers at "institutions" = no accountability in a personal sense...go figure...still more to be found here...
Perhaps. Please note who the Majority is on the Select Senate Intelligence Committee.
Some things to note:
The Committee notes that the IC, Suite, and DoD provided the Committee with hundreds of key documents throughout this review, although sometimes with a significant amount of resistance, especially from State...
...the U.S. Temporary Mission Facility hereinafter "the TMF," "the Mission facility," or "the Mission compound")... the uncertain future of the Mission facility, due to its one-year expiration in December 2012, contributed to a lack of continuity for security staff and constrained decision-makers in Washington regarding the allocation of security enhancements to that facility... the Mission facility had received additional surveillance cameras, but they remained uninstalled because the State Department had not yet sent out the technical team necessary to install them.... In contrast, the CIA, in response to the same deteriorating security situation and IC threat reporting, consistently upgraded its security posture over the same time period... Although officially under cover, the Annex was known by some in Benghazi as an American facility. the Committee received conflicting information on the extent of the awareness within DoD of the Benghazi Annex. According to U.S. AFRICOM, neither the command nor its Commander were aware of an annex... However, it is the Committee's understanding that other DoD personnel were aware of the Benghazi Annex.
The DoD's Site Security Team [SST], which was provided by the DoD at no expense to the Department of State, consisted of 16 special operations personnel detailed to the Chief of Mission in Libya, although its numbers fluctuated slightly due to rotations... SST personnel were based in and spent most of their time in Tripoli, but traveled to Benghazi two or three times... State Department headquarters made the decision not to request an extension of the SST's mission in August 2012... because State believed that many of the duties of the SST could be accomplished by local security forces, DS agents, or other State Department capabilities... DoD confirmed...that Ambassador Stevens declined two specific offers from General Carter Ham, then the head of AFRICOM, to sustain the SST in the weeks before the terrorist attacks...
... there were at least 20 security incidents involving the Temporary Mission Facility, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and third-country nationals and diplomats in the Benghazi area in the months leading up to the September 11, 20 12, attacks...
... A dearth of clear and definitive HUMINT or eyewitness reporting led IC analysts to rely on open press reports and limited SIGINT reporting that incorrectly attributed the origins of the Benghazi attacks to "protests," over first-hand accounts from U.S. officials on the ground... As a result of evidence from closed circuit videos and other reports, the IC changed its assessment about a protest in classified intelligence reports on September 24, 2012, to state there were no demonstrations or protests at the Temporary Mission Facility prior to the attacks. This slow change in the official assessment affected the public statements of government officials, who continued to state in press interviews that there were protests outside the Mission compound... The IC continues to assess that although they do not think the first attack came out of protests, the lethality and efficacy of the attack "did not require significant amounts of preplanning" ...the collective assessment of the IC remains that the attacks "were deliberate and organized, but that their lethality and efficacy did not necessarily indicate extensive planning...
... "there appeared to be very real confusion over who, ultimately, was responsible and empowered to make decisions based on both policy and security concerns" at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, and the Mission facility in Benghazi.
Individuals affiliated with terrorist groups, including AQIM, Ansar alSharia, 134 AQAP, and the Mohammad Jamal Network, participated in the September 11, 2012, attacks... It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attacks or whether extremist group leaders directed their members to participate. Some intelligence suggests the attacks were likely put together in short order, following that day's violent protests in Cairo against an inflammatory video, suggesting that these and other terrorist groups could conduct similar attacks with little advance warning... The Libyan Government has not shown the political incentive or will within its own country to seek out, arrest, and prosecute individuals believed to be associated with the attacks.
The SSCI conducted two closed, on-the-record sessions and one unrecorded session regarding the Benghazi talking points with the General Counsel of the ODNI, Robert Litt... He provided a summary document he created showing the changes made to each draft, without email time stamps and sender/recipient information because the Administration, claiming privilege, would not provide the Committee the opportunity to look at the actual emails... This Committee faced significant resistance from the Administration in getting access to the emails and documentation... This resistance was apparently based, in part, on Executive branch concerns related to executive privilege and the deliberative process which appeared to evaporate when the emails were made public...
My observations:
1. This was the Senate Intelligence Committee; any investigation they would do would be related more specifically to intelligence. Hence we would not see any timelines related to the White House, or response centers at Langley or the Pentagon.
2. Again, note who the Majority on this Committee is. Though the Committee stressed that it was "bipartisan" there still is a "Minority statement" that brought out its concerns, particularly "important questions remain unanswered as a direct result of the Obama Administration's failure to provide the Committee with access to necessary documents and witnesses" and "one of the biggest failures is the Administration's complete refusal or inability to attain accountability-from the attackers themselves and from those U.S. Government officials who made poor management decisions relating to the Benghazi facilities" and "the Administration's ongoing failure to secure justice and accountability for those responsible for these attacks." However, that it is a minority report, it will unfortunately be relegated by the press and public as having been made on political grounds.
Summary: It is, by reality, a document tainted by political concerns. However, it is not a complete waste of time and effort.
#9
I disagree. Some of it appears to refers to specific names and locales. Other parts refer to operational capabilities.
Valid points and assessment at #8. I have no problem with the redaction of people, sources & methods. The twin elephants in the kitchen remain the question of what exactly was going on with the AMBO, and whom in Washington was holding the yoke.
No, not a "waste of time", but the investigation should not end with this report.
#10
Agreed; most professionals would concur. One would hope that the other committees will provide that information.
Unofficially, the Fourth Estate would also be working on it. Unfortunately, as seen by the New York Times, that appears to have succumbed to very severe cases of partisanship and ideology.
1. If the U.S. Temporary Mission Facility had a "one-year expiration in December 2012," were there plans to build a new facility? If it was temporary, why was there an addition of a new media center at the Temporary Mission Facility, the inauguration of same ostensibly being the reason Ambassador Stevens was there?
2. The SSCI report states that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were "security officers." However, initial reports stated that Woods was a CIA contractor assigned to the agency's weapons-purchase program in Libya and working in Benghazi. Doherty has been described in news reports as contractor working for the CIA's Global Response staff in Tripoli. Is the SSCI report inaccurate, or was the "security officer" designation a matter of convenience?
3. When the team from the Annex asked 17th February Brigade members to "provide cover" for them to advance to the gate of the Temporary Mission Facility with gun trucks. The Brigade members refused, "saying they preferred to negotiate with the attackers instead." Without any other details to go on, is there an implication that the attackers, or at least a portion of the attackers, were known to the 17th Brigade?
4. The Department of State security officers, per the report, "did not fire a single shot" during the attack on the Temporary Mission Facility. Indeed, they had to retrieve their weapons, and that only occurred in the middle of the attack. The Department of State Accountability Review Board stated: "While none of the five DS agents discharged their weapons, the Board concluded that this was a sound tactical decision, given the overwhelming degree to which they were outgunned and outnumbered..." While it may have been a sound tactical decision, it is somewhat at odds with initial statements that the invasion of the Mission was an outgrowth of a demonstration. Was there was not a contingency plan in place? Is there a DoS requirement for facilities to have a security plan to deal with incursions at their facilities? Should there have been exercises conducted, or at least an on-scene review made, to deal with the possibility?
It would be nice to have access to the sources listed in the appendix; I wonder if an FOIA request would be productive.
#12
"While none of the five DS agents discharged their weapons, the Board concluded that this was a sound tactical decision, given the overwhelming degree to which they were outgunned and outnumbered...
Sounds to me like they may have been given orders not to return fire.
#13
Sounds to me like they may have been given orders not to return fire.
I have not heard or read anything to indicate they were ordered not to fire. I think it was more of case of being outnumbered by 10 to 1. The focus was on getting the AMBO to the Safe Haven and calling for help rather than a gunfight.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
01/17/2014 18:40 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Thanks Billy. Still be nice to chat with some of those fellas.... while they were under oath. Seems strange that no one would have had the occasion to use their weapon, but of course I wasn't there.
"AMBO to Safe Haven and calling for help"....not much success in either case.
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