[France24] Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar’s advance on Tripoli has shocked the international community and sparked a UN call for a military halt. But is it too little too late to contain the self-aggrandising military man’s ambitions?
On Thursday, April 4, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in a heavily fortified UN compound in Tripoli when Khalifa Haftar ordered his fighters to move on the Libyan capital with the bravado of an ancient warrior king launching a military conquest.
"Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim," began Haftar in an audio statement released online, invoking the Islamic "In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful" incantation. "Today we are responding to the call of our people in our precious capital."
Guterres however was in the capital to respond to an internationally-backed call for peace, to help organise a planned national reconciliation conference and the chutzpah of Haftar’s timing stunned the international community.
"Declaring an operation to move on Tripoli the same day that Guterres arrived hoping to give impetus to the forthcoming peace conference was really audacious," said Mary Fitzgerald, a researcher specialising on Libya. "Haftar has tried to undermine the UN process at every step. He wants to create facts on the ground ahead of that UN conference planned for mid-April."
But Haftar’s designs didn’t go quite as planned. The strongman’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) was repulsed late Thursday by anti-Haftar forces at the Checkpoint 27 ‐ also called "Gate 27" ‐ a strategic checkpoint on the coastal road between Tripoli and Zawiya, a city located around 45 kilometres west of the Libyan capital. Perhaps we are silent because we just don't give a shit. Solve your self-created problems yerselves
To be fair, certain select Western countries did drive out that spiffy Colonel Moammar Khadaffy, who worked so hard to annoy everyone. Still, letting the locals figure it out by themselves is probably a better response than us trying to impose another unworkable solution.
[American Thinker] While the Democrat socialist gaggle of declared 2020 presidential hopefuls attempt to woo the masses by promising a feast of free stuff, potential independent candidate Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO, continues to test the campaign waters. In a recent Fox News town hall broadcast, Mr. Schultz deftly and with polished ease impressed a small studio audience by employing straight forward frankness and common sense.
His disapproval of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal differs greatly from the socialist screed, parroted in unison by the gaggle. Suffice it to say, should Mr. Schultz decide to run for president, his candidacy is guaranteed to frustrate and anger the far-left liberals and perhaps appeal to the centrist Democrats, in addition to offering up a sobering alternative to the NeverTrump crowd.
For the record, I watched the Fox News town hall meeting, and I have to admit‐I was impressed. Disclaimer: What follows is not an endorsement, simply an observation. Without a doubt, Howard Schultz is intelligent, articulate, and an eloquent speaker. It's immediately apparent that he does not hail from the D.C. political swamp. Furthermore, during the town hall audience questioning; he never once wandered off into the weeds, attempting to dodge or avoid the questions. In fact, his replies were concise and sincere. More importantly, he's clearly challenging the Democratic Party's descent into socialism, which explains why Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, isn't happy about a Schultz candidacy.
Not of the socialist mindset and unwilling to run under the Democrat banner, Howard Schultz doesn't believe in government giveaway programs; quite the opposite. He reiterated that Medicare for All is unaffordable and the Green New Deal is unrealistic and immoral. In fact, Howard Schultz is a thorn in the side of the DNC. He's certain to incite far-left liberal angst while attracting the attention of disenchanted centrist Democrats, many of whom are unwilling to jump on the socialist bandwagon.
With the exception of Mr. Schultz, all of the declared 2020 presidential candidates are far-left ideologues, fully embracing the socialist utopian myth. To the man (and woman), each has promised free health care, free college, college student loan debt forgiveness, and guaranteed jobs, and some have even endorsed the idea of universal basic income. As expected, centrist Democrats have remained subdued, although some have openly "walked away."
#1
He knows he will never be nominated let alone elected. He's completely free to say whatever. In his heart I'm sure he is as Bolshevik as any of the other declared dem candidates. But the truth sets him free all the same...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/06/2019 8:51 Comments ||
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#2
I want AOC to run because I love a good circus. Viva El Presidente! err.. La Presidenta?
#4
The new spoiler in the memory of Ross Perot, I plan to do everything I can to encourage him to run, and split the Demorat vote. As a plan B he is less of a stinker than the clown car contents currently running for the Demorat nomination even if he wins...
#5
Schultz actually sounds like one of the adults in the Dem party who might have broad enough appeal to be a challenger. I wonder if he has any skeletons in his closet. I think the Dem Party has gone too far to the far side of crazy to let this guy run.
His drawback is that he was the CEO of a crappy, over-priced coffee company.
[PJ] Why did the Deep State throw caution to the winds in an desperate effort to frame Donald Trump for alleged collusion with Russia--and failing that, to entrap him in an obstruction of justice case? There are a lot of reasons for the Establishment to hate Donald Trump, but one of them stands out. During the campaign, Donald Trump denounced the Obama administration for having created ISIS. That claim drew ridicule from the mainstream media, but it is entirely correct. Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump's campaign adviser, was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 when the DIA blew the whistle on CIA backing for Sunni Islamists fighting the Assad regime during the then-raging Syrian civil war. As my friend Michael Ledeen wrote at PJ Media on March 26, the Mueller investigation was all about Flynn.
President Trump should pardon Gen. Flynn right now and summon him back to Washington. Mueller forced Flynn to plead guilty to an invented charge of lying to FBI agents, even though the FBI agents who interviewed him about Russian contacts said that they thought he was telling the truth. Now that the Mueller investigation has come up with nothing, the frame-up of Gen. Flynn appears all the more heinous. The Deep State feared Mike Flynn, with good reason. Trump should reappoint him to a top job, and really terrify his opponents.
Flynn's Defense Intelligence Agency produced a now-notorious 2012 report warning that CIA backing for Sunni rebels fighting Assad would lead to the rise of a new Caliphate movement, namely ISIS. The Obama administration threw its support behind the "Arab Spring" rebellion in Syria, ignoring the fact that Islamist terrorists led the opposition to Assad. This was reported exhaustively in specialist media, for example, Brad Hoff's July 2016 essay in Foreign Policy Journal: Flynn humiliated the bungling CIA and exposed the incompetence and deception of the Obama administration, and got fired for it.
If the proper authorities turn over the CIA's rock and examine its underside, the result will be the exposure of an intelligence failure of galactic proportions. The CIA channeled Saudi money into al-Qaeda fronts in Syria and helped move a large part of the late Col. Qaddafi's massive arsenal to Syria. The jihadists backed by the CIA eventually formed a good deal of ISIS. Heads would roll at CIA. And when I say "proper authorities," I mean Gen. Flynn in his capacity as National Security Adviser, a job in which he lasted a month before the Deep State set him up and persuaded President Trump to fire him.
#2
Aside from the emotional appeal, it's a very dumb idea, probably as dumb as it gets. One more reason to never waste time on PJ Media...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/06/2019 10:10 Comments ||
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#3
I'm afraid Flynn will have to wait at least until after the 2020 election for his pardon because the MSM will burn Trump's butt if he does it any sooner. And it didn't take Flynn to know that meddling in Syria was a bad idea.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/06/2019 12:02 Comments ||
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#4
Flynn was caught up in Mueller process crime net. He'll eventually be vindicated. The man did a lot within the beltway intelligence community (IC) to combat the IED problem in ME. Some of the work he began continues. His story and contributions have yet to be told.
His IC mantra was catch or kill the SOB's... "Before the Boom".
#8
Pardon him, and find a way to help his recover the lost home and legal costs through private funds. I'd pay $20 just to get the guy out of the shadows and get all the reasons he was ruined immediately, I'm convinced because he knew too much. Also, bring back Admiral Rogers, the biggest patriot of the whole ugly beginning of this attempted coup!
An interesting perspective from a very interesting Kurdish emigré.
[Rudaw] There are two minorities in the Middle East who share similar fates: Israelis and Kurds. Historically, both repeatedly were persecuted. Although they are neither ethnically nor religiously related, within the two groups there is a discreet mutual sympathy. Of the nation states created in the Middle East last century by Britannia and La Belle France, Israel and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... are the exceptions. Zionism is a national revolution by the Jewish population that says to survive we need our own state and we go back to the Holy Land and ancient Kingdom of Judea. Zionism means to be a Jewish patriot. Everything else is Middle East conspiracy theory. From the beginning, the Zionist movement tried to convince the international community of its intention and it took more than half a century.
The Kurds have tried to convince the international community of a Kurdish nation state; however, there was no real leadership negotiating with the French and Brits. The end result was Kurds are still living in four countries as a minority and their status varies from country to country. The solution of the Kurdish question is one of the most important Middle East issues and is rarely discussed, until now the Kurds have had an ambivalent relationship with the West.
Continued on Page 49
[American Thinker] Wealthy parents buying admission for their children to elite universities. A prominent actor excused from trial in spite of damning police and grand jury evidence. Perceived preferential or deferential treatment by our judicial system. Politicians basking in the fruits of capitalism while publicly condemning it in favor of socialism. What do they all have in common? A passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 short story "Rich Boy" provides insight.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
A century later, those observations still ring true. The rich think they are better than the rest of us poor folks, because they perceive themselves to be different and therefore superior. They feel entitled. Bribing to get the kids into college is no more than their pragmatic take on affirmative action. Do something; do anything money can buy...money talks; lots of it just talks louder. Angelo Codevilla's 2010 The Ruling Class provides a considered insight into the heavy hand of money and claimed superior wisdom of those running our political system.
Another observation by Fitzgerald in that short story quote is that being rich not only makes them different, but also "makes them soft where we are hard." Does that not bring to mind the current demand for safe spaces, cringing snowflake students, and trigger alerts, lest a word provoke a mental breakdown? Lyle Rossiter's 2006 book The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness is a compilation of this psychiatrist's interviews with hundreds of patients. His conclusion is that modern progressives are suffering from their own form of mental illness. The softness of which Fitzgerald spoke is Rossiter's: "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."
In the vernacular, they are a bunch of rich, spoiled brats who have aged chronologically but not matured mentally. They march for saving the climate and the world with the same childish enthusiasm as kids chanting, "I scream for ice cream."
#3
His [Rossiter] conclusion is that modern progressives are suffering from their own form of mental illness.
There might be an opportunity for psychiatrists as there is a shortage of shrinks. Must be that TDS on the left is putting a strain on the shrink business.
Lengthy video.
In this Special Release of Operation Freedom Briefings, Charles Woods & Travis, a Benghazi Whistleblower, blow open the truth of the stand down & cover up. Janda brings up the Foggy Bottom Security Contract and the Michael Krieger story at 29:23
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.
[American Thinker] While the Democrat socialist gaggle of declared 2020 presidential hopefuls attempt to woo the masses by promising a feast of free stuff, potential independent candidate Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO, continues to test the campaign waters. In a recent Fox News town hall broadcast, Mr. Schultz deftly and with polished ease impressed a small studio audience by employing straight forward frankness and common sense. 
[American Thinker] Wealthy parents buying admission for their children to elite universities. A prominent actor excused from trial in spite of damning police and grand jury evidence. Perceived preferential or deferential treatment by our judicial system. Politicians basking in the fruits of capitalism while publicly condemning it in favor of socialism. What do they all have in common? A passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 short story "Rich Boy" provides insight. 
