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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Tunisia says resort gunman was trained in Libya
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Home Front: Politix
No Truce With the Left
There comes a time when every conservative thinker tries to find some common ground with the left in some area. Today it's criminal rights and the headlines have Rand Paul denouncing the racist justice system while Grover Norquist and the Koch Brothers join with the left to back their reforms. As usually happens, the conservatives or libertarians turn out to be the useful idiots of the left.

Liberals have a long history of being the left's useful idiots. It's only fair that libertarians get a turn.

Republicans are still trying to figure out a truce on gay marriage. They retreated to civil unions, then accepted a full defeat on gay marriage and then acted baffled when Christian bakery owners were dragged into court for refusing to participate in gay weddings. When the left insisted that gay marriage was a civil rights issue, they refused to take them as their word.

Now they're wondering how an accommodation can be made with tranny rights. A brief look back at gay rights will show that the only possible accommodation is one in which men in dresses have a legal right to use the ladies room and every single closed female space and event. And yes, that means your business will be shut down if you object to Steve using the female locker room.

...To understand the left, you need to remember that it does not care about 99 percent of the things it claims to care about. Name a leftist cause and then find a Communist country that actually practiced it. Labor unions? Outlawed. Environmentalism? Chernobyl. The left fights all sorts of social and political battles not because it believes in them, but to radicalize, disrupt and take power.

The left does not care about social justice. It cares about power.

That is why no truce is possible with the left. Not on social issues. Not on any issues.
I just wonder just how the current "confederate flag controversy" will play out---parking lots replacing confederate dead cemeteries?

...The left will destroy the things you care about, because you care about them. It will destroy them because that gives them power over you. It will destroy them because these things stand in the way of its power. It will destroy them because a good deal of its militant activists need things to destroy and if they can't attack you, they'll turn on the left in a frenzy of ideologically incestuous purges.

The left's social justice program is really a wave of these purges which force their own people to hurry up and conform to whatever the Party dictated this week. Examples are made out of laggards on social media to encourage the rest to stop thinking and start marching in line. As Orwell knew well, these shifts select for mindless ideological zombies while silencing critical thinkers.

Yesterday we were against fighting Hitler. Today we're for it. Retroactively, we were always at war with Oceania. Retroactively, Bruce Jenner was always a woman. Retroactively, Obama was always right about Iraq, even when he appeared to be making the wrong decisions.

These changes are a test of reason. If you can reason, you fail. If you can Doublethink, you pass.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/01/2015 02:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You don't even have to wait. The US justice department just ruled that students have to be allowed to use the restroom of the gender they identify with. Next up, no doubt is showers. And of course it will be illegal for girls to not participate in PE.



Posted by: dlr || 07/01/2015 18:23 Comments || Top||

#2  no showers....except for the Jooooos, amirite?
Posted by: Frank G || 07/01/2015 21:52 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
MQM facing extinction
[NATION.PK] The political realities for MQM changed in the wake of 2013 general elections. The PTI replaced it as the third big political party by securing 35 seats in National Assembly. Imran Khan
... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five...
and his party men did what was earlier considered unthinkable. They openly talked on national media about the intimidating tactics of MQM employed to secure his support base and urged 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...
tes to come out to bring to end the atmosphere of fear. For the first time in bye-elections of NA-246, the MQM felt the need of door-to-door canvassing to ensure its victory. Thus the role of PTI in challenging MQM on its turf is laudable.


Besides a diminution of its political clout, because of the rise of PTI, the MQM landed in serious trouble with the decision of the federal government to cleanse the city of Karachi of network of criminals and myrmidons. MQM raised hue and cry against the arrest of its affiliated criminals but the operation went on with unabated intensity. The PPP supported the operation at initial stage, as Asif Ali Zardari could not foresee the clean-up operation against its maladministration and corruption.

Now when the BBC report reinforcing the public perception of MQM to be receiving funds from India and engage in terrorist activities, has come to the fore, MQM's current leadership is in dire straits. The possible handing over of three people involved in planning and executing murder of Imran Farooq at the behest of Altaf Hussain
...think of the head of the Barzini clan, only in Urdu...
, will add to the worries for him in London and consequentially the influence of the MQM will further weaken. The party might survive but, without the present leadership, it will only be a shadow of its former self.
Posted by: Fred || 07/01/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
In Iraq, Coordination With Iran Not Impossible, Gen. Dempsey Says
[KALW Radio] Originally published on September 3, 2014 1:26 pm
Yes, Sept 4th of last year. Impossible to un-say things already said, the challenge is finding them.
In an interview with All Things Considered, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to rule out coordination with Iran and Iranian-backed forces in Iraq. Dempsey also told NPR that one option in Iraq might involve U.S. air assets going after "high-value" individuals within the main Sunni insurgent group.

"One of the things we need to find out is whether Iran is embedded in and advising and supporting the Iraqi security forces," Dempsey said. "It is really about understanding facts on the ground before we make a decision on how to address them."

"We will look at Iran with a cold eye on where and when we may need to operate in the same space and toward what is potentially the same goal of countering" the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

"But I can state with some assurance that their goals in Iraq are not going to be completely aligned with ours, and we're very clear about that," he told NPR's Melissa Block.

"I'm not predicting that it's entirely impossible that we would at any point act collaboratively with Iran," he said. "But there's a long way to go between here and there, in my judgment."

Dempsey's remarks were more nuanced than an earlier statement from the White House that seemed to rule out any possibility of coordination with Iran, which has long backed Shiite militias inside Iraq.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on June 16, press secretary Josh Earnest said: "Any conversation with the Iranian regime will not include military coordination."
The original statement is dated Sept 2014. Dempsey reportedly made a similar statement last week (which I have been unable to locate). My comment the other day regarding Iran as a "regional U.S. proxy" [Posted article - Iran 'has the upper hand' in final round of nuclear talks Ex-CIA chief] is based in part on the Dempsey statements. As you may recall, Dempsey also recently stated that the "U.S. has no strategy regarding ISIS" ...or ISIS Iraqi city conquests. This parallels the recent Obama statement of a "strategy under development" etc, etc. Please forgive the clumsy paraphrasing.

Yes, of course they have a strategy. Only a fool would fail in this regard. But how can they openly discuss it without looking the greater fool? I would wager there are two parallel dialogues underway between Iran and the U.S. One involves the fiction or cover of restricting Iranian nuclear capabilities, the other, a regional strategy which facilities Iranian regional hegemony. Just my unvarnished assessment, tin foil hat firmly in hand.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/01/2015 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I guess it will require President Hillary Clinton and her Muslim Brotherhood agent of influence, Huma Abedin, to formulate a coherent anti-Iran strategy. The current white House occupant, the Iran born Valerie Jarrett, isn't doing so hot.
Posted by: Whonter Darling of the Bunions4601 || 07/01/2015 2:02 Comments || Top||

#2  I suspect that it's already happening.

There has been a long-standing, tacit "professional understanding" between US and Iranian military (not IGRC) forces. WRT the IRGC, let's just say there have been "spirited disagreement."

The game-changer is that the IRGC is the Iranian force in Iraq/Syria that will be/is coordinated with.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/01/2015 12:28 Comments || Top||

#3  U.S. Comments on Iranian Presence in Iraq

Dempsey said Iran has been "interested in and sought to influence the future of Iraq since Iraq's sovereignty was restored in 2004."

However, the top U.S. military leader said, the Iranian presence and any Iraq partnership with Iran is not troubling at the moment, since it is not threatening U.S. forces or the U.S. mission in Iraq.

"If it is a path that ties the two countries more closely together economically or even politically, as long as the Iraqi government remains committed to inclusivity of all the various groups inside the country, then I think Iranian influence will be positive," he said.

Link to the above DoD Jan 2015 news release.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/01/2015 14:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Read it twice. Lingering vanilla aftertaste persists.

National Military Strategy, June 2015
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/01/2015 14:33 Comments || Top||

#5  General Dempsey's statement is rather at odds with Mr. Obama's recent and very public snub of Prime Minister Al-Abadi, no?
Posted by: Pappy || 07/01/2015 18:32 Comments || Top||

#6  I agree. In Dempsey's defense however, it must be difficult for him to read traffic, attend briefings, ceremonies, and keep up with the Obama foreign policy weegie board.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/01/2015 18:37 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
26[untagged]
8Govt of Pakistan
6Islamic State
2Taliban
2Govt of Iran
2Govt of Syria
2Jamaat-e-Islami
1Palestinian Authority
1Hamas
1Houthis
1Ansar al-Sharia
1Jaish al-Islam
1al-Qaeda
1Baloch Liberation Army
1Muslim Brotherhood
1Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis

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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2015-07-01
  Tunisia says resort gunman was trained in Libya
Tue 2015-06-30
  Mosul resistance group 'kills 23 Saudi fighters'
Mon 2015-06-29
  US air strikes target militants near border in east Afghanistan
Sun 2015-06-28
  Activists: ISIS fighters kill 200 civilians in Kobani
Sat 2015-06-27
  UN chief condemns 'appalling' attacks in France, Tunisia, Kuwait
Fri 2015-06-26
  Man decapitated in ISIS attack in France
Thu 2015-06-25
  Deadly IS car bomb in Kobani
Wed 2015-06-24
  39 Killed, Dozens Wounded in South Yemen Clashes
Tue 2015-06-23
  Taliban attack Afghan parliament, seize second district in north
Mon 2015-06-22
  Air strikes kill 15 in Yemen attacks: Houthi media
Sun 2015-06-21
  Witness: ISIS publicly executes 25 'spies' in Mosul
Sat 2015-06-20
  ISIS beheads three of its own amid fighting and regime raids in Syria
Fri 2015-06-19
  Al-Qaeda War against ISIS in East of Libya
Thu 2015-06-18
  Chad bans Islamic face veil after suicide bombings
Wed 2015-06-17
  US targets leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen with CIA drone strike

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