[DAWN] In 2007, during the height of the so-called 'Lawyers' Movement', I received a call from BBC Radio's World Service.
A news hound from the station who was probably directly covering the movement asked for my comments on the subject, especially on the Emergency Rule imposed by the embattled government of General Parvez Musharraf.
I told her that I kind of supported the Emergency. She was clearly taken aback: "Please, can you repeat that?' I repeated myself, triggering an almost 5-second silence on the other end of the phone.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2014 00:00 ||
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Grom: don't use the 'big' tag in formatting. Thanks. AoS.
"It neither helps us nor hurts us, but exactly the opposite," Mexican President Luis Echeverria is supposed to have said ("Ni nos benefica ni nos perjudica, sino todo lo contrario"). In the case of Iraq, as so often, it depends: the winner is the side best able to bear the burden of uncertainty. America should be the winner when our prospective enemies fight each other (as I argued in [a] February 2012 essay). In the language of option trading (see here), we should be long volatility, but instead are short volatility. That is because neither the Obama administration nor the Republican mainstream can admit that Iraq and Syria are not to be stabilized, and are stuck with the onus of apparent policy failure.
Iraq's woes surely are good for the Russians and the Iranians. Russia just delivered five Sukhoi 25s, their nimbler but less powerful competitor to our Warthog close-air-defense fighter (that's the one the Pentagon proposes to eliminate), the first installment on a $500 million contract for a dozen of them. Russia also is selling $2 billion of arms, including attack helicopters, to Egypt, and with Saudi funding. The Iranians meanwhile have sent in special forces and armaments.
All of this makes our leadership in both parties look like idiots, and that is bad for America. Even those of us who think that our leadership are idiots cringe when it becomes obvious to the rest of the world.The American public by a margin of 71:22 thinks that the Iraq War wasn't worth it. They are against any sort of intervention because there is no-one they trust to conduct intervention sensibly.
Putin is not smarter than we are. He is simply unburdened by the illusion that most of the countries in the region should or will succeed, and he is willing to stay one jump ahead of the game, maneuvering for advantage as opportunities emerge. We are fettered by Obama's affirmative-action approach to the Muslim world as articulated in his July 2009 Cairo address and numerous subsequent statements, and the Republicans' ideological belief that the mere form of parliamentary democracy fixes all problems.
The intrusion of reality benefits the likes of Putin, because Putin is a realist It hurts us, because we refuse to accept reality. Our leaders live in ideological bubbles; they are incapable of considering the consequence of their errors, because they believe in their respective causes (the innate goodness of Islam or the innate propensity of people towards democracy) with religious intensity.
#5
Putinist Russia's achilles heel is its perennially struggling, decrepit industrial base which makes it highly vulnerable to either China's andor Soon-to-be-Nuclear Islam's geopol ambitions.
Lest we fergit, IMO VLAD'S REAL REASON(S) FOR ANNEXING THE CRIMEA FROM UKRAINE ...
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM, WORLD NEWS > [Business Week] RUSSIA'S FORCES ON THE UKRAINIAN BORDER MAY NOT BE AS FORMIDABLE AS IT LOOKS.
* RELATED TIME.COM > WHY IS RUSSIA'S INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY SO POOR?
* GROONG > ISIS: AZERBAIJANI + TURKY WILL SOON BECOME ISLAMIC STATES | GROUP OF "ISLAMIC STATE OF SYRIA + THE LEVANT" [i.e. ISIS/ISIL] ASKS AZERBAIJANI PEOPLE TO JOIN THEIR STRUGGLE.
* SAME > [ICH] IFF MILITARISM CONTINUES, HUMANITY IS DOOMED.
D *** NG IT, WHATS HUMANITY GOING TO DO IFF RADICAL ISLAM = NUCLEAR ISLAM SUCCEEDS IN TAKING OVER THE WORLD, OR MOST OF IT - LEAVE EARTH???
And thus, little Virginia, we learn once again why God, Madonna, + 1960's-70's = 2014 Guam Taotamonas invented the old new movie
"INTERSTELLAR".
I was going to comment a tiny bit on Vanden Heuvel's silliness, but things got out of hand.
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
The left are trying to shut down discussion on Iraq falling to an Islamist enemy, by telling media views that the war in Iraq is a mess, and a sinkhole, begun by George W. Bush and his advisers.
I won't argue the point that Iraq at the very outset was an expensive mess, improved somewhat by the efforts of George W Bush, but eventually, whatever improvements which did take hold were thrown away by Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton.
I will argue that the moment Saddam Hussein's air defense grid lit up American aircraft, the ceasefire that ended the first Gulf War was no longer valid, and, chemical weapons or not, liberating Iraq was the next best option in a slate of terrible options.
And make no mistake, despite all the protestations by the left to the contrary, America liberated Iraq.
We have been watching for nearly 18 months as the security situation worsened with the same kind of sectarian violence that Bush tempered in 2007. Constantly pointing it out in this tiny venue would have done very little to help the matter, but in the pages of Rantburg, this is what we did, constantly, watching as the bumbling, stumbling boobs ran our nation's foreign policy, emphasizing gay rights over security.
So, what little security that Iraq had is being destroyed by a hostile force clumsily helped along by a flatfooted, clownish, leftist American government, which thinks that leaving the field of battle without a victory is the same as victory.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel, a down to the bone leftist publisher of the Nation wants to shut down discussion of options on Iraq using the old antiwar counter that the "old men" who want to send young men to war should themselves first become soldiers. Kristol never enlisted, nor did former vice president Richard Cheney nor a galaxy of others who wanted the war in Iraq prosecuted properly; who did not want Iraq to be a sinkhole for American resources.
So by doing nothing about Iraq as it is being destroyed by an Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic enemy, the left and Barak Obama are about to take the sinkhole that is Iraq and cemented it forever into an enemy state that, like the Islamic republic of Iran, will remain under the political protection of the American left as a constant reminder of the dangers of doing nothing about hostile enemies.
One of the main reasons why an American politician constitutionally has sway over the nation's military strength is that the founders knew that a military class may not have the same stakes in war that a political party or the president could have. Braying like a jackass that only military people should have a say in security policy is as an unhelpful notion as the one which left Iraq to fend for itself.
And you can see where that thought has gotten the nation.
I hope Vanden Heuvel enjoys the photos of pogroms we will see over the ensuing weeks as her erstwhile allies in Iraq enjoy committing them.
Loads.
Chris Covert writes on 2nd Amendment issues for Rantburg.com He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
#2
"...the old antiwar counter that the "old men" who want to send young men to war should themselves first become soldiers."
Cause 'women' like Ms Heuvel somehow have never found it fitting since the advent of the 19th Amendment to be in the front lines like all those (often drafted*) troglodyte males have been for nearly a hundred years.
* since the inception of the old republic males have been by definition members of the federal militia (see-Militia Act of 1792 to USC Title 10, para 311 Militia), so that along with the franchise (ie vote), they also carried the obligation of service which included the notion of giving of that 'last full measure of devotion'. If you want to shut down the argument then be prepared to be called on that very point Ms. As the Instaprof posted - here is male privilege. /rant off
#3
Katrina is a red-diaper baby from long ago. If she didn't have commmunist support, inherited, foreign and domestic, she'd be peddling her skanky body on the street
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/30/2014 22:39 Comments ||
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[Iraq Sun] Iraqis aren't alone in wondering if the Sunni Muslim insurgency led by the al-Qaida offshoot the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) can be stemmed. Al-Qaida, once the world's leading terror organization, is being surpassed by its onetime, wayward affiliate and it is none too pleased, say analysts.
In the winter, al-Qaida's top leadership disowned ISIL and its mercurial leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - a slap down for refusing to obey orders and for his ambition to carve a borderless caliphate across the Levant taking in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and even Lebanon. And al-Qaida's official affiliate in Syria joined Islamist and mainstream Syrian rebels in battling ISIL and pushing its fighters out of some key northern Syrian border towns and the city of Aleppo.
On Sunday, in an audio recording posted online, ISIL declared its chief "the caliph" and "leader for Muslims everywhere" - another affront to al-Qaida, which claims that al-Baghdadi swore allegiance it its overall leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's successor.
According to ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani the group decided "to establish an Islamic caliphate and to designate a caliph for the state of the Muslims."
He added: "the words 'Iraq' and 'the Levant' have been removed from the name of the Islamic State in official papers and documents."
Caliphate refers to a system of government stretching across most of the Middle East and Turkey that ended nearly a century ago with the fall of the Ottomans.
ISIL's recent successes in Iraq have increased its standing among jihadi groups worldwide and more foreign fighters are choosing to join ISIL rather than al-Qaida, analysts say. "The two groups are now in an open war for supremacy of the global jihadist movement," according to Middle East scholar Aaron Zelin in a research paper published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank bas in the U.S. capital.
"ISIL holds an advantage, but the battle is not over yet," Zelin believes.
The announcement of the establishment of a caliphate by ISIL will likely exacerbate the feuding between the two terror groups and intensify their fierce competition to secure the loyalty of affiliates and offshoots across the Middle East and Africa. Jihadi religious scholars skirmished in the winter and spring with opposing rulings about al-Baghdadi's refusal to obey instructions and withdraw ISIL to Iraq and allow al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra to assume the lead role in Syria.
Most of the leading jihadist ideologues such as Abu Qatada al-Filistini and Iyad Qunaybi sided with al-Qaida. Abu Qatada al-Filastini, a Jordanian whom Britain deported to Jordan this summer, criticized al-Baghdadi for being power hungry.
Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi - according to the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute the most senior jihadist ideologue - bewailed the al-Qaida disputes in Syria but condemned al-Baghdadi.
But the ISIL leaders have attracted the backing of his fair share of militant theologians in the continuing struggle for ideological supremacy. Another Jordanian sheikh, Omar Mahdi Zidan, defended the ISIL leader, arguing the mujahedeen (warriors) are entitled to exercise their own judgment and choose which commanders they want to follow.
And in shake-up of the global jihadi order, al-Baghdadi has secured the backing of some al-Qaida affiliates and other jihadist groups.
The Sinai-based Egyptian jihadist group Ansar Bait Al-Maqdis, which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a tourist bus earlier this year in Egypt that left three South Koreans dead and more than a dozen people injured, has been sympathetic to al-Baghdadi. "There are indications that it is allying itself with ISIS (aka ISIL)", says Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
He says ISIL "is positioning itself as an alternative to al-Qaida."
Ansar al-Sharia groups in the North Africa's Tunisia and Libya have posted pro-ISIL propaganda online. And jihadists in Gaza are siding with al-Baghdadi.
Sunday's declaration of a caliphate by ISIL "poses a huge threat to al Qaida and its long-time position of leadership of the international jihadist cause," says Charles Lister, a visiting fellow with the Brookings Doha Center.
"Put simply, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared war on al-Qaida. While it is now inevitable that members and prominent supporters of al-Qaida and its affiliates will rapidly move to denounce Baghdadi and this announcement, it is the long-term implications that may prove more significant," says Lister.
For Lister and other analysts Sunday's announcement demonstrates that al-Baghdadi has no intention of caving in to al-Qaida, and means to pursue a rivalry that they say represents its biggest challenge since U.S. Special Forces killed bin Laden.
Lister adds: "Taken globally, the younger generation of the jihadist community is becoming more and more supportive of ISIL, largely out of fealty to its slick and proven capacity for attaining rapid results through brutality. We will very likely find ourselves in a dualistic position of having two competing international jihadist representatives - al-Qaida, with a now more locally-focused and gradual approach to success; and the Islamic State, with a hunger for rapid results and total hostility for competition," says Lister.
But some analysts say the declaration also risks splitting the Sunni coalition ISIL has managed to pull together for an insurgency that in the last two weeks has swept northern and western Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
you mean I'll now get constant phone solicitations to donate to both al qaida and ISIL
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/30/2014 19:38 Comments ||
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#2
"Declared war on Al-Qaida" > On Ayman + Osama, etal??? Sorry, I'm not convinced, I'll have to hear it from him personally.
The good senator pens an op-ed in which he notes that wars tend to go regional faster than politicians can keep them local. This is called "common sense", which is why the current administration is bewildered.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/30/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The American people are too soft to fight. Plus American Leadership is cowardly. The US won't do a damn thing.
Its off to Walmart to lay in the goodies for a 4th of July of eating, farting and beer.
Plus the youth of America are over- weight and don't have any patriotism to speak of anyway. Wanks.
Am I lyin' to 'ya?
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
06/30/2014 2:24 Comments ||
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#2
We're sick of it. Perhaps the Poms could jump in, or simply convince other to fight on their behalf. Link
#3
Try this, Big Thromoth3646. It's ok, the writer doesn't use a lot of big words or complicated sentences, so you'll be able to understand it. And then you'll understand why you have such ideas about Americans.
#7
Could the reason he came back from Nam be
To wake the American zombie?
Could his indignation
Enliven the nation?
Could the man of the hour be Thromby?
God knows I do, but in this case I'm coming from a place (as some drag queen once said of the great Shirley Q. Liquor) of love. Affection, anyway. One jackal snarling in the desert to another. That said, I share Pappy's bemusement about motive and method, and I only see about half of BT's posts. I'm always mildly annoyed to miss the ones the mods have whacked, but I know it's for the greater good.
[Ynet] After getting global sanctions off their back, Iranian will continue building nuclear facilities, mainly against Arab countries.
Man works in mysterious ways. Now so long ago — one, two years — we lived here under the threat of the Iranian nuclear bomb.
Day and night — newspapers, radio and television channels, the government, Knesset members, military officials and commentators, a lot of commentators, explained, asked, answered, warned, threatened, created an existential fear, and suddenly poof! Not a word. No smoke and no fire. As if the earth swallowed up the issue.
Have we forgotten? Absolutely not. So here's the "bottom line" of this article, the ones which preceded it and the ones which will follow: The United States is holding negotiations these days to ease the global sanctions on Iran, and Iran will promise in return not to build a nuclear facility.
And what is the real "bottom line?" My guess is that the Iranians will deceive the Americans and the world, and will one day reach the point of building a nuclear facility — which is an easier word on the ears and on the eyes than a nuclear bomb.
The question is, of course, when will this happen. And we are even more interested in knowing whether we are also on Iran's "list of customers"?
My friend and neighbor, Brigadier-General (res.) Tzuri Sagi, who served as the personal military advisor of Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Al-Barzani, is very familiar with the Iraqis, the Kurds and the Iranians. A real great expert.
Let's start from the end: He believes that the Iranians are not building an atom bomb because of us and for us, but that "on this festive occasion" a nuclear arms race will begin in the arena, "and in any event, an atom bomb is not a good thing for us, because we are not familiar with their crazy people who believe in their god, and wherever God is involved it's likely not to end well."
Sagi believes that the Iranian nukes were born in the Iranian oil area in Khuzestan, east of Shatt al-Arab. This is Iran's main source of oil and primary source of life. The area is inhabited by Sunni Arabs.
Egypt's leader at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser, called for the release of Khuzestan's Arabs from Iranian rule, and that's how Israel's amazing alliance with Iran at the time was created. The basis was: My enemy's enemy is my friend. We Israelis were in the capacity of friends then.
The idea at the time was to guide the Kurds on how to confine the Iraqis to the northern part of their country, thereby keeping them — and their coveting eyes — away from the oil wells of Iranian Khuzestan. Today we can already reveal that it was the IDF and the State of Israel which prepared the plans to defend Khuzestan and the oil flowing from its lands.
The Khomeini revolution weakened the Iranian army, which had been involved in everything at the time. The Iraqis, who detected this weakness, seized the opportunity to invade the Khuzestan area. That is where the Iran-Iraq War took place, also over the outlet to the sea, to the Persian Gulf.
The Iranians regained their composure during the war and paid with the lives of a million people for its results, which ended more or less in what is known in the world of soccer as "a tie."
And Sagi says, "Those who lose a million of their people, like the Iranians, look for their real enemies."
The Iranians waited for another round against Iraq after it attacked them with a chemical weapon (gas), and so they began preparing a nuclear bomb as a response.
The Iranians know they cannot rely on Egypt and Jordan, which have signed peace treaties with Israel, and so in the meantime they have taken the road of terror and are helping Hezbollah and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, hold the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict in abeyance.
Peace in the Arab world is not good for the Iranians, who are building nuclear facilities, mainly against the Arab world, out of farsightedness and thoughts about the future.
In the near future, therefore, the Iranians' goal is to get the global sanctions off their neck, because then the Arab world may also let go of their throat. And upon the sanctions' removal, they will continue building nuclear facilities, i.e. atom bombs.
One has to be completely crazy to use such a bomb against Israel, but one also has to be irresponsible in the State of Israel not to think about it and prepare for it.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/30/2014 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
