More gun grabbing garbage, this time from E.J. Dionne.
President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. “This is something we should politicize,” the president said. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.” And so Obama has. Just saw a graphic from an award winning short story writer about killing anyone with an NRA sticker on their vehicle. Obama's politicization has had the intended effect.
This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics. Puleez. Obama has been violating "etiquette" for incidents that should be out of his purview since he took office. The Upmqua massacre was just another show for the cheap seats.
But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It’s politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It’s politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from “even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.” We reduce gun deaths by having armed citizens. The cops can't be everywhere, but an armed individual can be.
“Politicize” is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics. E.J, no one gives a sh*t about gun safety. Your customers -- the left -- want to kill gun owners, and everyone else are doing everything they can to get armed in the face of such incipient hostility of the government and their supporters.
I have criticized timid Democrats for doing the NRA’s bidding, and they need to be challenged in primaries, even if this means putting some of the party’s seats in Congress at risk. But it is the GOP that is institutionally tied to those who insist that gun rights supersede all of our other rights. And I cordially invite House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to prove me wrong.
Engaging in politics also means unmasking rationalizations that may sound plausible but are merely intended to justify pathetic pandering to the forces of evasion and inertia. The most debilitating dodge is to claim that nothing can be done, that nothing works. The gun lobby specializes in isolating a given incident and declaring sagely that this or that particular solution would not have prevented it. And the gun lobby is arguably correct.
News flash: No law will ever solve every problem or create heaven on Earth. But it is a straight-out lie to assert that stronger gun laws make no difference. Here is the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.” State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands. Guns are already difficult to get into even serfs' hands. The last two massacres were from young men who abided by the law, I.E. they were law abiding citizens with evil in their hearts. The laws did not prevent a massacre, but something else: they should never prevent anything. The law is for prescribing punishment for illegal deeds; not preventing illegal or evil acts.
Politicians who go on about American greatness should be ashamed of saying that the United States is the one and only nation that can’t act effectively to solve a problem every other free and democratic country has contained. Every other "free and democratic" nation has its own unique sets of circumstances. Ours is that the United States is the arsenal of democracy, filled with armed citizens the grand majority of which would never consider an armed and hostile act perpetrated on the unarmed.
Conservatives might usefully listen to former Australian prime minister John Howard, who has noted that he led “a center-right coalition” whose parties represented “virtually every nonurban electoral district in the country.” In other words, his party is a lot like our Republicans. Spineless?
After a psychologically disturbed man killed 35 people in Tasmania, Howard championed state bans on the ownership, possession and sale of all automatic and semiautomatic weapons by Australia’s states, along with a federal ban on their importation. He also sponsored a gun buyback scheme that got almost 700,000 guns — the statistical equivalent of 40 million in the United States — off the streets and destroyed. “Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control,” Howard wrote in the New York Times shortly after the Newtown killings.
Politicizing this struggle means being unrelentingly candid in calling out an American conservative movement that proudly champions law and order but allows itself to be dominated by gun extremists who deride every gun measure that might make our country a little bit safer — no matter how many mass killings we have. E.J, I will bet you twenny bucks that nearly every "conservative writer -- because that is who we are speaking about -- has never touched nor owns a firearm of any kind. They just know that more firearms laws will not work, even if they had merit, which they do not. Gun laws only makes government safer with all the armed thugs they have on their side. It does nothing for the average serf.
Conservatives all over the world are aghast at our nation’s permissive attitude toward guns. Is a dangerous and harebrained absolutism about weaponry really the issue on which American conservatives want to practice exceptionalism?
#2
Just look at Chicago to see how well very restrictive gun laws work.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/05/2015 12:03 Comments ||
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#3
Whenever there is any kind of shooting, the game of the left is to blame Pubs, white conservatives even if they have to distort the truth. At one time this distortion of the truth was known as lying. In the world of the left, seldom do you read or hear of someone defending themselves or their loved ones with a firearm. For the left, it is an Alice Through the Looking Glass Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle Dum reversed kind of world: Up is down...
[DAWN] SHORTLY after the horrific Mina stampede, a news item appeared on the Iranian English language TV channel Press TV's website. This article alleged that the stampede was caused when a massive security convoy escorting Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud arrived at Mina with 200 army and 150 police personnel. It was his arrival, the report alleged, that "prompted a change in the direction of the movement of the pilgrims and a stampede".
This news item was then picked up by various outlets and was also widely shared on social media. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... this was not independently reported by any other news agency, prompting an examination of the source of this news.
The report cites an Arabic-language Lebanese daily named Al Diyar as its source. This newspaper is generally considered to be pro-Baathist and leans towards the Syrian government of Bashir al-Assad. That's important because, as we all know, the Syrian government is supported by Iran and opposed by Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , making the latter a target of choice for the paper in question.
The Saudis have been less agile in their damage control.
It was Al Diyar that first ran the story regarding an alleged Saudi offer to build 400 mosques in Germany for Syrian refugees. The Saudi government has since denied that it made any such offer, but that denial got a lot less play than the story itself. A news report claiming that the Makkah governor Prince Khalid Al Faisal blamed the stampede on African pilgrims was also later denied, but it is unclear if that statement was in fact retracted or if it was not made in the first place.
Press TV later also ran a televised report based on this same story, running footage that shows a large security convoy arriving at Mina. The footage is indeed authentic, but dates back several years and is in no way related to the current stampede.
The Saudis, for their part, have been less agile in their spin and damage control. Belatedly, they released an infographic from a semi-official source that claimed the stampede was caused by a group of Iranian pilgrims going the wrong way.
Just like the Al Diyar report was picked up and reproduced by pro-Iran outlets, groups and individuals, the Saudi version of 'news' was duly picked up by pro-Saudi and pro-GCC media outlets, such as the Saudi Gazette, the Khaleej Times and many others.
One particularly creative report even had a quote from an (unnamed) Iranian Haj official who "admitted" that Iranian pilgrims caused the stampede. This particular report even made it to the pages of none other than our very own Daily Ummat, where it was gleefully reproduced. Needless to say, the unnamed official has not been identified, probably because he does not exist.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[Quartz] Sweden is supposedly a liberal utopia: a land of generous welfare, substantial foreign aid donations, and green-fingered sustainability. But Sweden's noble image is hiding an ugly truth. They've obviously not tried Planned Parenthood, employment preferences, free food, cellies, and education. What about an NFL or NBA franchise ?
Racism is blighting Swedish society, and people of African descent face daily harassment and hate crimes, according to a United Nations report presented to the UN human rights council earlier this week. Yet the country is so convinced by its tolerant reputation that it refuses to acknowledge the problem. The report found:
The Swedish philosophy of equality and its public and self-image as a country with respect for human rights, non-discrimination, and liberal democracy blinds it to the structural racism faced by Afro-Swedes and Africans in its midst. "Why can't we all just get along?"
There has been a 31% rise in reported "Afrophobic" hate crimes from 2010 to 2014, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (pdf). The UN Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent reported "a real fear within the communities, especially for young black men, that they could be violently attacked at any time." Structural racism means that black people in Sweden have reduced access to health care and education, according to the UN report, while "the police view people of African descent as criminals rather than a vulnerable community that needs protection." Yes, the police are generally the problem as they must deal directly with the issue at the grassroots level. If we only had some sort of U.N. policing.
But Sweden is so convinced by its own reputation that the government has removed the word "race" from the Discrimination Act--because the law assumes that all people belong to the human race. The United Nations was unimpressed: Obviously an image and attitudinal change issue. Has anyone tried teevee shows emphasizing African heroes and victims, or comedies portraying white Swedish men as dimwitted simpletons?
The Working Group is aware that to delete "race" from the lexical corpus does not eliminate racism based on racial discrimination. Rather it may be a way to ignore, minimize, or obscure the reality of the specifically "racial" racism faced by a part of the Swedish population.
There are roughly 200,000 Africans and people of African descent living in Sweden, who make up 2% of the country's 9.6 million population. But the UN found that Sweden did not properly address or acknowledge its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. Changing words and naming conventions should have resolved these problems. Appears it is time for U.N. sanctioned boycotts and heavy fines.
A xenophobic political party, the Swedish Democrats, won almost 13% of the national vote in 2014 and became the third-largest party. Yet Sweden continues to cling onto its "self-perception of being a tolerant and humane society," according to the UN report. And there you have it, if the U.N. can't be believed, who can you believe.
#2
The use of such terms as "Xenophobic/racist hate crimes" in the report already distorts the narrative. Sweden Crime Statistics. Someone thinks recognition of Islamic crime against Swedes is not being xenaphobia.
If the Biskop's talking only about the Mission, I can almost see her point. But what the hey...
Mohammedan seamen in town?
"More access!" insists Eva Braun.
"And lest they feel awkward,
Face buttered bums mosqueward,
And when they pray, blow the man down!"
...Behind all of this re-alignment of the "war on terror" is the Islamic State (IS) bogeyman. Over 62 countries have joined a coalition since last year to "fight IS," as we keep hearing. Every month brings more coalition partners. In July Turkey claimed it was joining the "ongoing cooperation against Daesh [IS]." On September 26 the British Parliament voted to allow air missions to be flown against the Islamists (the same parliament rejected David Cameron's request for air strikes against Assad in 2013). At the same time Belgium and Denmark "joined the growing coalition, which includes France and Australia, along with Arab allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates." Even Iran, which is already supporting Assad and Shi'ite militias in Syria and Iraq, has said it may help fight IS alongside the coalition.
If you want to have some fun go to an online portal that allows you to color-code a world map (I like mapchart.net). Click all the 62 or more countries now engaged in "fighting IS." Eventually much of the world will look red.
The countries with the strongest militaries in the world, the highest GDPs and some of the largest populations are all allied against IS. Almost all of the countries who fought on both sides of World War II in Europe are allied against IS. Germany, Italy, Russia, France, the UK and US, all on the same side. These countries jointly possess the most hightech military equipment that has ever existed.
And what are they fighting? Islamic State is a terrifying organization -- if you are an Iraqi or Syrian civilian, or a minority Yezidi or Christian, whose communities have been murdered en masse. But setting aside its propaganda, rape of women and murder of civilians, IS was estimated to only have 31,000 fighters at the height of its offensive in September of 2015. The number of people living under IS control in Syria is estimated at around two million, although some have fled. That includes people in the province of Aleppo, Hasakah, Raqqa and the areas around Deir as-Zor. Bolstered by 20,000 foreign volunteer fighters, IS can only draw on 200,000 men of fighting age for recruitment and logistics. In Iraq it has a few more resources. But it is stretched thin in both Iraq and Syria, fighting Shi'ite militias, Iran and the Kurds of the YPG in Syria and Peshmerga in Iraq. The Kurds alone field fighting forces that are larger than IS and have defeated IS in battle. So if the Kurds, by themselves, with truck-mounted .50 caliber guns and AK-47s can defeat IS, why can't the 62-country "anti-IS coalition"? How is it possible that the countries who fought on both sides of WWII in Europe can't defeat 40,000 men armed with mortars and riding around in Toyota trucks? IS doesn't have an air force. It doesn't have air defenses.
It doesn't have tanks. It improvises armored vehicles by welding plates to civilian cars, and by capturing Humvees from the Iraqi army. With no way to service the captured equipment, much of it falls apart eventually. If you resurrected just one division of Patton's Third Army from 1944, it could defeat IS. So why is IS still growing in power in Syria, still fighting? Because the 62-nation coalition and all its friends in Ankara and Moscow are not really fighting IS.
We live in an era of fabrications, bombastic statements, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo and nonsense, where paying lip service to "fighting" is always preferable to actually fighting. One foreign volunteer who served with the Kurds actually fighting IS wrote on Facebook yesterday: "Surprise, surprise, 'fighting terrorism' is a good excuse to kill whoever you don't like these days."
His cynical comment is basically correct. When Turkey claimed it was going to "fight IS," it actually launched a war against the Kurdish militant group PKK partly as a way to cement its popularity ahead of November elections.
Putin's claim to be fighting IS was just a way to get a stamp of approval from the international community to go deep into Syria to support Assad and defeat the Syrian rebels. Its no surprise that after Russia launched its first air strikes it was reported that Putin would hold "urgent talks" with US "after Putin defies West, 'targets US-backed rebels.'" Every nation has learned that "fighting IS" is a ticket to carry out other policy agendas. For Turkey it was a way to fight the Kurds. For Russia, a way to support Assad. For Iran a way to deepen its influence over Iraq and Syria. For some countries, it's a way to get closer to the US, or to test out military equipment. Seems Israel is the only country in the region that doesn't fight ISIS.
#1
Back in September, 2014, the coalition consisted of 40 nations according to Obean and Kerry. Since that time the coalition has picked up another 20+ nations? 40 nation coalition. I suppose, it is like the 57 states in the U.S. No one knows who they are except Obean--it is one of those esoteric, nuanced things.
[DAWN] TO create a more tolerant and inclusive society, it is essential that textbooks contain lessons that foster a spirit of unity rather than fuel divisions. However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... as experts pointed out at a seminar on the curriculum held in Islamabad recently, textbooks of both public and private educational institutions in Pakistain contain material that promotes prejudice. As one participant of the programme put it, our books did not reflect "love, respect or plurality", and highlighted divisions instead. There is, of course, much merit in what the academics highlighted, as Pakistain was a relatively more tolerant place several decades ago than it is today. While the rise of and the free rein given to murderous Moslem religious groups in the country has had a role to play in making society less tolerant, the state is largely to blame for promoting a narrow, exclusivist ideology through textbooks.
For instance, it is often pointed out that Pakistain Studies lessons can be problematic in their narrative of the Pakistain Movement; in many cases Hindus are demonised as a community in our textbooks while describing the background of Partition. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... administration -- under the previous Awami National Party founded by Abdul Wali Khan in 1986. Part of the PPP-led cabinet 2008-13. The ANP is considered left wing, advocating for secularism, democratic socialism, public sector government, and economic egalitarianism.... government -- tried, for example, to interpret the Pakistain Movement in a more progressive and less exclusivist manner. Yet these efforts were reversed when the PTI came to power in 2013, reportedly at the behest of the Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , the party's coalition partner in the province. Another issue of concern is that of making non-Muslim students study Islamic material, especially in primary classes. While Pakistain is a Muslim-majority state, it also has people of other faiths living within its borders, which is why it is unfair to make non-Muslim students memorise Islamic prayers or learn the majority population's religious rituals. Perhaps the key to reforming the system and inculcating more tolerant values in our textbooks lies with the provinces, as they have the power to interpret the curriculum. Textbooks must be purged of all material that promotes hate against any religion, sect or nation and the goal must be to impart lessons that will aid the intellectual growth of students, not make them merely regurgitate ideological slogans. Moreover, textbook-writing should be the domain purely of subject specialists and must be free from political meddling. There is much that is wrong with our education system; one essential area that can help set it right is to promote a progressive curriculum that favours peace over bigotry.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
TO create a more tolerant and inclusive society, it is essential that textbooks contain lessons that foster a spirit of unity rather than fuel divisions
[DAWN] Despite the Protection of Pakistain Act 2014 in place, the passing of a resolution by the Sindh Assembly and a motion submitted by the Jamaat-e-Islaami (JI) in the National Assembly earlier this year in March for the protection of witnesses, the only witness in the murder case of Sabeen Mahmud was rubbed out in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... .
Take a look: Key witness in Sabeen Mahmud murder case rubbed out in Karachi
It goes without saying that the Witness Protection Bill needs to be effective and implemented strictly, especially in Karachi. The bureaucracy and administrative machinery of the government should increase the implementation of this law on a larger scale.
At present
While Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) are active in eliminating terrorism and murders, those involved in heinous crimes manage to flee because of a lack of implementation of the said bill as no one willingly testifies against the accused. Those who do are attacked -- just like the witness in Sabeen Mahmud's murder.
Similarly, slain journalist Wali Babar's attackers have still not been brought to justice because all the witnesses in the case were eliminated one by one. There is a dire need in Pakistain to ensure implementation of witness protection laws.
Recent amendments
A resolution passed in the National Assembly demands for witnesses to have protection under LEAs. However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... with a majority of LEAs having political backing and links to Death Eater groups, such a bill stands nullified altogether.
In view of the 21st amendment in the Constitution of Pakistain 1973 (which approved the establishment of military courts to try terror suspects) witness protection should be linked and separate LEAs should be constituted for the same.
Comparison with other countries
In the United States, the Federal Witness Protection Program is aimed at protecting threatened witnesses before, during and after a trial. It is administered by the United States Department of Justice and operated by the United States Marshals Service.
Recent statistics state that as of 2013, 8,500 witnesses and 9,900 family members have been protected by the US Marshals Service since 1971.
In the United Kingdom, the openness of judicial proceedings is a fundamental principle enshrined in Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (The right to Fair Trial).
This underpins the requirement for a prosecution witness to be identifiable not only to the defendant, but also to the open court. It supports the ability of the defendant to present his case and to test the prosecution case by cross-examination of prosecution witnesses.
In some cases, it may also encourage other witnesses to come forward. Furthermore, the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (YJCEA) proposes a range of measures that are available to witnesses in criminal proceedings who are deemed to be 'intimidated'.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2015 00:00 ||
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by Tunku Varadarajan Tunku is one of my favorite writers. He gave a brilliant description of Pashtuns back in 2001 or 2002, when he was working for the WSJ.
[INDIANEXPRESS] On the day Narendra Modi returned from the United States, having wowed Silicon Valley with his openness to all things digital, a Muslim man was murdered in a village a mere 30 miles from the PM's residence, his life pulped out of him by a Hindu mob that believed that he'd eaten beef for dinner.
The contrast between the modernity of the PM's diplomacy and the unhinged primitiveness of the mob was so stark as to appear almost make-believe, like some sort of passion play staged to remind us that -- for all our pretensions as a global power -- we're still a benighted land mired in the muck of bigotry. Drive 30 miles from 21st-century New Delhi and you're in the midst of "junglies" from the Dark Age.
When historians sit in judgment of India 50 years from now, the murder of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri will be seen as an event on a par with the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 as a national moral nadir. Personally, I'm inclined to see it as worse. Here's why.
The Babri demolition was part of an ugly, slow-moving political upheaval in an India on the cusp of change. The event itself, with 'kar sevaks' crawling over the structure, clawing and gouging at bricks in a state of messianic ecstasy, was a form of political theatre, part of a contentious narrative of Indian history in which the guardians of historical fact and religious fervour fought each other to a standstill.
Remember: it was 1992. This was India before the Internet, an India impoverished, unglobalised, barely beginning to shake off its economic sloth, a still-stagnant India of frustrated aspirations and repressed ambition. Mark Zuckerberg, the latest god in the Indian pantheon, was only 8 years old.
The murder of Mohammad Akhlaq -- whose son, it is reported, is a technician in the Indian Air Force -- was the kind of demonic incident that mars a society forever. It was the reaching by a mob (and the ideology that drove that mob) into the private life of a citizen of India. It was an eruption into the innermost recesses of a citizen's sanctity, and will breed the kind of viral fear and paranoia that you only get in totalitarian countries -- or in primitive societies where rumours of blasphemy or odium settle on people arbitrarily, like a curse.
After all, in such a lynch-mob climate, no one knows if the original offence -- however preposterous in the first place -- even took place. Suddenly, you have a mood of fear and whispers; of rumours that poison all social relations; of rumours, in fact, that are broadcast by priests in temples, inciting mobs to take matters into their own hands. Inciting mobs to murder.
A news website carried a photograph of Akhlaq's fridge, broken and on its side, the door detached from the frame. There had been meat in it -- mutton, says his family; beef, said the temple priest; beef, bawled the mob.
We now know that its origins weren't bovine, because the police made it a priority to send the flesh for forensic testing, the message being that the bloodlust of the mob would have been explicable if the contents of the fridge had been beef.
This was not an ugly moral lapse by the police. It was proof of a mentality. If the meat had been beef, we'd have politicians rationalising the murder with talk of religious "offence". After all, where there's sentiment scorned, there must be blood. The blood of Mohammad Akhlaq. An utterly Pakistainian kind of event, in which human blood is required to expiate whatever sin the local mullah claims to have discovered, real or imagined. Only in India, by Hindoos, indicating it's a subcontinental mindset. India, being more civilized than Pakistain, should be trying to eradicate it, despite "hinduvta," which isn't the same thing as "vedic." Bangla, for all its other faults, appears to be less susceptible, mostly reserving mob lynching for actual criminals.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[Wash Times] Russia is sweeping into Syria with what one defense official described to Fox News as "the largest deployment of Russian forces outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of the USSR."
As Russian officials continue to play Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama for the fools they are, the world has realized Russian President Vladimir Putin is not rushing in to stop ISIS, he's doing something much different. He's saving his client, Syrian tyrant Assad, but also he intends to defeat the United States, the West in general, and to take control of the region. Overrunning feckless Europe with hungry mooslim refugees is a bonus dividend for Vlad.
With Mr. Obama's ascension to the American presidency, Americans have become used to so-called leadership wrapped in retreat, surrender, acquiescence, ambivalence, incompetence, naivetas, and very often, idiocy. The world will now be reminded what happens when someone has a plan for defeating an enemy versus a plan for another round of golf.
After annexing Crimea and attacking Ukraine, Mr. Putin learned the West would do nothing. The great United States sent Meals Ready to Eat, arguing any arming of Ukrainians would "escalate" the situation.
For a man like Mr. Putin who likes real estate, the message was clear: go and get what you can while you still have a useful idiot in the White House. And boy, is he going and getting.
Russia's involvement with Syria is nothing new. The first time the Soviet Union provided arms to Syria was in 1955. At Fox News, Jennifer Griffin reminds us, "Moscow helped rebuild Syria's military after its disastrous wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973. Syria is home to Russia's only naval facility in the Mediterranean, a base at Tartous. Since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, Russia has been a chief backer of Assad, fending off U.N. resolutions against him and stepping up arms deliveries to his military."
Mr. Obama's refusal to aid Ukraine, his infamous Syrian "red line" debacle, lack of action when an American ambassador and three others were murdered in Benghazi and the U.S. consulate destroyed, and his capitulation to Iran, was like setting the table for a tyrant like Mr. Putin.
[DefenseOne] Viewed one way, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's UN address (PDF) appeared to offer the prospect of a new partner in calming the roiling Mideast. Noting diplomacy yielded the nuclear deal, Rouhani dangled the possibility of further cooperation: "Considering the fact that this deal has created an objective basis and set an appropriate model, it can serve as a basis for foundational change in the region," he said.
Yet taken in full, Rouhani's speech was a typical exercise in Tehran doublespeak that crystallized the Orwellian cosmology of the Islamic Republic. Rouhani began his list of indictments by castigating the United Nations for "imposition of sanctions against the Iranian nation and government as a result of misunderstandings and sometimes overt hostilities of some countries." Rouhani neglected to mention that the sanctions resulted from Iran's systematic violations of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its obstinate refusal to adjust its course for over a decade.
In an even more intriguing passage, the president of a country Washington rates as a leading sponsor of terrorism bemoaned that "the greatest and most important threat to the world today is for terrorist organizations to become terrorist states." Rouhani proceeded to assure, "We are prepared to assist in the eradication of terrorism and in paving the way for democracy and ensuring that arms do not dictate the course of events in the region."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 ||
10/05/2015 00:00 ||
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FrontPageMagazine] Doctors Without Borders has a long history of collaborating with and defending terrorists. And even being terrorists. The issue came up just last month in relation to Hamas.
Its current attacks on America and collaboration with the Taliban are completely unacceptable. Doctors Without Borders' personnel are once again lying through their teeth, denying the facts put forward by US and Afghan personnel and covering up the use of medical facilities by the Taliban Jihadists as human shields.
This is the same tactic that we've seen with Hamas.
It's time to deal with Doctors Without Borders, a cynical name for an organization in bed with Islamic terrorists.
The acting governor of Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province said Sunday that Taliban fighters had been routinely firing "small and heavy" weapons from the grounds of a local hospital before it was apparently hit by a U.S. airstrike over the weekend.
In an interview, Hamdullah Danishi said the Doctors Without Borders compound was "a Taliban base" that was being used to plot and carry out attacks across the provincial capital, Kunduz city.
"The hospital campus was 100 percent used by the Taliban," Danishi said. "The hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there. We tolerated their firing for some time" before responding.
Doctors Without Borders is lying and denying everything. The media is predictably taking the side of the extremist left-wing group. But the solution is obvious.
1. Treat Doctors Without Borders members just like ISIS recruits when it comes to international travel. At no point in time should they be allowed to travel to conflict zones since it is manifestly clear that they do so to aid terrorists. If they lie about their travel plans, they should go to jail.
2. End non-profit status for them and for any organization that funds them.
3. End any special status that they have when operating in conflict zones since they aren't medical personnel, just terrorist auxiliaries who were aiding the Taliban takeover of Kunduz.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/05/2015 11:00 Comments ||
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#5
For decades MSF employees have projected a fanatical anti-Americanism. They also project a holier-than-thou attitude that has made them few friends in the NGO community. Thus, when MSF says something, few believe it.
Further open source investigation would be useful for determining if Taliban fighters were truly operating in the hospital, as Afghan officials have alleged. The MSF, which has shown no reason to be considered untrustworthy in its account of the airstrike, has steadfastly denied the Afghan claim
Fire up trucks of the Earth
Advance combines together!
Something is knocking in the worlds transmission.
This is the main bearings leaving town,
We will buy new heads together!
Enslaved masses, stand up, stand up.
Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee released the final report of its Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel and its conclusions weren't pretty. The following are a dozen hair-raising facts from the bipartisan report:
1. "Today, we are witnessing the largest global convergence of jihadists in history."
If you consider how the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets impacted the terrorist threat to the West, then we're in for a heap of trouble due to the jihad in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
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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.
[Quartz] Sweden is supposedly a liberal utopia: a land of generous welfare, substantial foreign aid donations, and green-fingered sustainability. But Sweden's noble image is hiding an ugly truth.
[DAWN] TO create a more tolerant and inclusive society, it is essential that textbooks contain lessons that foster a spirit of unity rather than fuel divisions. 
[Wash Times] Russia is sweeping into Syria with what one defense official described to Fox News as "the largest deployment of Russian forces outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of the USSR."
