#2
Yet more of the insidious PC wussification of the west.
Though I voted for him twice I mostly blame GWB for this. As of 9/11 it was up to him to define the enemy and go after it openly. We are at war with Islam not their preferred tactic of terrorism.
#4
Though I voted for him twice I mostly blame GWB for this. As of 9/11 it was up to him to define the enemy and go after it openly. We are at war with Islam not their preferred tactic of terrorism.
Just how do you get Congress to go along with a campaign to erase Islam from this Earth? Let say he convinces Congress - how do you get cooperation from foreign countries? Do you really think Europe would allow US forces on their soil to be used to erase Turkey from the map?
#5
ZF; it's no different than drawing a distinction between Nazis and Germans or communists and Russians.
We don't, I hope, have to slaughter all Muslims, but we DO have to openly recognise the conflict between the enlightenment virtues / values and the dark ages death cult which is attacking us.
Turkey can decide if it wants to be part of the modern age or if it would rather revert to a pre-Ataturk life run by sharia.
The Half-Trillion raises the debt ceiling by that amount in return for an equal amount of spending cuts. At the current obscene rate of deficit spending about $100 billion a month it yields about five months respite before the debt ceiling is reached again.
The Half-Trillion is best: It is clean, straightforward, yields real cuts, averts the current crisis and provides until year-end to negotiate a bigger deal. At the same time, it punctures President Obamas thus far politically successful strategy of proposing nothing in public, nothing in writing, nothing with numbers, while leaking through a pliant press supposed offers of surpassing scope and reasonableness.
As part of this pose, Obama had threatened to veto any short-term debt-ceiling hike. Which has become Obamas most vulnerable point. Is the catastrophe of default preferable to a deal that gives us, say, five months to negotiate something more significant because it doesnt get Obama through Election Day?
Which is why Obama is already in retreat. On Wednesday, press secretary Jay Carney showed the first crack by saying the president would accept an extension of a few days if needed to complete an already agreed long-term deal.
Meaning that he would exercise his veto if that larger deal required several months rather than several days? Call his bluff. Let the House pass the Half-Trillion. Dare him to put America into default because he deems a short-term deal insufficiently grand. After all, it dovetails perfectly with parts of the G6, for which the president has expressed support and which explicitly allocates roughly the same amount of time six months to work out the grander $3 trillion to $4 trillion deal.
The Half-Trillion with or without the G6 Part One: ceiling raised, crisis deferred, cuts enacted and time granted to work out any Grand Compromise. You cant get more reasonable than that.
Do it. And dare the president to veto it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/22/2011 06:41 ||
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#1
Just under US$500 million has gone to Somalia this year alone, with the UN demanding a further US$300 million in the next 2 months with US$1.6 billion overall.
Well just put that as a downpayment on your federal debt and you're 1/15th of the way to buying your country back from the Fed and the Chinese.
And Somalia would actually be better off. UN would suffer, though.
I meant to write, put the Somali donation on the debt and you will be 1/15,000 (roughly) of your way to buying your country back from the Chinese and the Fed.
Jeez when you realise you were talking billions and the debt was trillions it really brings it home how massive that servitude is.
#3
There's no doubt that you could put Rantburg onto the federal budget, and within a week we'd come up with a trillion dollars a year in spending cuts. Including in Defense, which would not be sacrosanct.
Ditto the citizens at Ace of Spades, though they'd go through $100 million in blow, hookers and booze to find that $1 trillion.
The good citizens at Gateway, Hot Air, etc could all do this.
Even the citizens at Talking Points Memo Cafe could find cuts, though their cuts might look different than ours.
Point is: this wouldn't be hard. We could have the citizens of the top twenty or forty blogs comb the budget, and if we agreed to make ONLY the cuts that the majority of blog reviewers agreed to, we'd still cut the budget by (I say) a half-trillion a year.
We can do it, but our Congress and our President can't. That's the root core problem here.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/22/2011 8:02 Comments ||
Top||
#4
We are running out of time. The first part of August they will go on vacation. Some may already have left due to the heat and humidity. If they have power outages in DC then they are gone for certain.I see a patch job to cover us to elections in 2012. The Republicans will cave and the Democrats will do what they always do- spend. Then just after elections these troubles will be back with a vengeance. Most countries are doing what we are doing just printing more money. Gold and other precious metals can only go up in value.
The problem then is more money is taken out of circulation.
#5
Our government p!sses away more money than is imaginable.
Fraud, corruption, earmarks, aid to countries who hate us and want to kill us, duplication of effort across multiple agencies, agencies that do little or are inefficient (Energy and Education come to mind), the funding of silly, useless programs and silly, useless research, and on and on and on to the tune of trillions. Our kids and their kids and their kids will be enslaved all of their lives.
#7
Any reasonable measures of accountability, such as the IBM program developed specifically to track fraud and waste in healthcare, has been rejected by Obummer. A few other suggestions from an email circulating:
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present &future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
May I add, suspend Congressional and White House salaries until this dire debt business is taken care of. I also like the one from a RB'r about limiting voting to taxpaying citizens to ensure fair representation as intended by the Founders.
#9
And to equitably bring in revenue, a flat tax with no exceptions or loopholes. It requires equal sacrifice proportionately from all--no free rides nor does it stifle businesses. Stop the work visas that allow them to bring in skilled workers from India, etc. but escape paying Social Security, unemployment ins. and healthcare costs for them until the unemployment rate is truly stable and low. Businesses cannot locate overseas and avoid taxes without stiff penalties.
On the 'flat tax' make it *no* *exceptions* and *no automatic pre-paycheck withdrawl*
If someone is on welfare they must pay their tax out of that welfare check - ditto for Social Security, Unemployment, etc...
Also they must *see* that money going out every month. A bank may setup a automatic payment from their checking - but they must account for that in their checkbook and **see** the $Payroll - $Taxes = $WhatIHaveLeft computation.
Heck I have no idea how much was taken out of my last paycheck (automatic deposit) - it just isn't seen and I hardly ever go look up my 'electronic' paystub.
#11
I like the idea of having multiple entries in one's bank account that one sees, not on a paper/electronic paystub that people rarely look at closely: one deposit from one's employer, then three deductions for federal, state, and union dues/taxes.
Federal taxes on state welfare: how the blue states would HOWL!
#12
I like the idea of having multiple entries in one's bank account that one sees, not on a paper/electronic paystub that people rarely look at closely: one deposit from one's employer, then three deductions for federal, state, and union dues/taxes.
Federal taxes on state welfare: how the blue states would HOWL!
[Dawn] "Weaponisation" as a negative concept was something to which I was completely unfamiliar while growing up. Though I spent most of my childhood in Lahore, my rural, agricultural background meant arms had always been a regular presence in my life. I had learnt to fire, load/unload and clean them as a child. It was an unquestionable truth in my environment that guns were integral to our protection and our status. Though in hindsight, I find it ironic that I was taught to handle weapons but I was never allowed to own them because of my gender.
It was only after I met an anti-arms activist for the first time after my teens, that I was introduced to the menace this "weaponisation" had become in our country. Years down the road, I am now able to recognise and identify the menace of weaponisation of Pak society and its adverse effects on us. It's everywhere: the display and use of personal weapons.
Whether it is the blood-soaked days of Bloody Karachi, extra-judicial killings in Islamabad, or pompous waving guns in rural areas, the presence of "small arms and light weapons" (SALW) is overwhelming. Anti-gun campaigners claim that Pakistain has one of the greatest per capita rate of gun ownership in the world.
Though the UN does not have an official definition of the term, the body has come close to defining it in 2005: "Small arms" are, broadly speaking, weapons designed for individual use. They include, inter alia, revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns.
In Pakistain, the infiltration of SALW increased manifold with the Afghan-Soviet war during the 1980s. In addition to importing SALW, these weapons were also readily manufactured and available in the northern areas of the country including the infamous Darra Adam Khel and Landi Kotal in FATA. Darra Adam Khel had been a hub of local arms manufacturing for better part of 20th century but its cult and legendary status increased as Pakistain became the centre spot for fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan.
After the end of the Afghan war, though there was decrease in demand of these arms, Darra's business did not dwindle to any substantial extent. The reason unfortunately was the repeated crisis which engulfed this region of South Asia: the civil war in Afghanistan, the insurgency in Kashmire, the violent 90s in Bloody Karachi, post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, subsequent rampant militancy and politically backed ethnic rifts in Pakistain.
Although there had been various de-weaponisation drives in the country, the government of Pakistain launched an ambitious de-weaponisation campaign in 2000 which continued for roughly a couple of years. The campaign was divided in three stages, where first of all people were encouraged to register their arms; then they were required to surrender illegal weapons in their possession and; finally a massive crackdown was launched for recovery of remaining illegal weapons. Though this campaign received accolades across the globe, its result was similar to almost every prior government initiative; it fell victim to petty politicking and lack of follow-up procedures of accountability.
Besides deweaponisation campaigns, the government also tried to regularise arms manufacturing in Darra by giving the arms producers an opportunity to work in state-run ordnance factories. However, some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them... the monetary compensation offered to them was so low that many workers left the programme and others were reluctant to join at all.
It is important to note though that the infiltration of illegal SALW in Pakistain is a result of not only weapons manufactured in Darra Adam Khel and Landi Kotal but also of cross-border smuggling and a surplus of older weapons in the market. Russian AK-47 from Afghan War are still available in the market.
However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... in addition to the overwhelming presence of these weapons in Pakistain, what is most disturbing is the acceptance of these weapons--legal or illegal--in our society. It is considered perfectly normal to own weapons, and in the patriarchal sphere, it even helps raise the status and power of the gun owner. There is not nearly enough information available to people about the damage such rampant ownership causes.
If a person like me struggled for years in giving credence to the view opposing weaponisation of the society, I can only imagine what an uphill task it must be for the government to convince those for whom arms define their status. The dismal security situation, tethered justice system and the writ of the state continually being challenged from north to south, all add up to the surfeit of problems which needs to be simultaneously addressed if we want any hope of combating the weaponisation of our society. We cannot expect people to stop carrying arms when the state fails to provide ample security to their lives and assets.
Lastly, our public education has got to stop valourising weapons and armed jihad in its text books. My personal experience is enough to tell me that the best strategy for any ideological formation is always to target the young minds. A good portion of our battle will be won if we can get the next generation to cherish peace and tolerance instead of finding heroes among gun-toting terrorists.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] For over two decades, Pakistain's socio-political landscape has been dominated by narratives and actions of the religious right.
Those concerned by the right's onslaught and dominance have bemoaned the decline and defeat of the country's 'moderate' and liberal polities, rightly complaining that their voices have been drowned.
The religious right's growing intolerance, intimidation and sometimes outright violence (ever since the 1980s), has actually helped it control and almost monopolise Pakistain's religious and political discourse, allowing the spread of various right-wing fringe groups.
Though both the religious right and liberal sections of the population still have their mainstream political outlets, it is the religious right that is ruling the roost when it comes to visible militancy and affective propaganda.
But it wasn't always like that. Below we look at the once thriving Islamic exemplar expressions of secular and left-wing Pakistain that offered stiff resistance to right-wing militancy but today lie forgotten under the cruel heap of contemporary history.
Red Guards
Group formed by the workers of the left-wing Democratic Students Federation (DSF) in 1955.
DSF was Pakistain's largest student organization in the 1950s, but it was banned by the government for being the student-wing of the Communist Party of Pakistain (CPP) that too was banned for allegedly indulging in 'anti-state activities.'
The Red Guards was put together to (physically) tackle the police and pro-government student groups on the eve of DSF's attempt to initiate another student organization (All Pakistain Students Organization).
The Red Guards -- made up of pro-DSF toughies -- clashed with the police and government-sponsored hoodlums who were sent to disrupt APSO's launch in Bloody Karachi but were able to keep them at bay.
The Red Guards were armed with chains, knives and knuckle-dusters. Some ex-members maintain they also had a few pistols but they were never used.
The outfit was disbanded with the rise of another left-wing student organization, the National Students Federation (NSF), in the late 1950s.
Further reading: Through a Pak's Eyes: Life on Three Continents --Dr. S Akhtar Ehtisham (Algora Publications)
National Students Federation (Meraj)
NSF was the country's largest and most influential student group in Pakistain in the 1960s, in spite of the fact that it broke into various pro-China and pro-Moscow factions after 1965.
Among the most Islamic exemplar of these factions was NSF-Meraj, led by former firebrand student leader of the University of Bloody Karachi, Meraj Muhammad Khan.
While most NSF factions retained affiliation with the left-wing National Awami Party (NAP), the Meraj group moved closer to the then nascent Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967.
It was also this group that led the widespread youth movement against the Ayub Khan dictatorship in the late 1960s in Bloody Karachi and dominated politics in the educational institutions of the city.
Its main nemesis here was the student-wing of the Jamat-i-Islami, the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT), with which it regularly clashed on the city's campuses.
NSF-Meraj was Maoist in orientation and some of its members had advised PPP chairman, Z A. Bhutto, to initiate a 'Maoist style revolution' in Pakistain instead of campaigning for social democracy.
Nevertheless, Meraj joined the PPP and became a minister (in 1972), but had a falling out with Prime Minister Bhutto. He was expelled from the party in 1974 and jugged for inciting unrest among factory workers.
NSF-Meraj began losing influence and clout across the 1970s, folding in the late 1980s after a failed attempt by some of its senior patrons to arm its decampedgling members at the University of Bloody Karachi.
Further reading: Political Dynamics of Sindh -- Dr. Tanvir Tahir (Pakistain Studies Centre).
Peoples Guard
During the campaigning of the 1970 general elections, PPP rallies were repeatedly attacked by members of the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) whose mother party had accused the PPP of 'undermining Islam' by spreading 'atheistic ideas' like socialism.
The PPP accused the IJT attackers of being funded and backed by the country's top industrialists and the military regime (of General Yahya Khan).
After another such attack took place at a PPP rally in Lahore, left-wing student leaders like Meraj Muhmammad Khan and Raja Anwar advised Z A. Bhutto to form a 'Peoples Guard' to tackle the attackers.
Thus was born the Peoples Guard, structured by Meraj and Raja Anwar and overseen by the brilliant PPP organiser and left-wing intellectual, Sheikh Muhammad Rashid.
The outfit consisted of various young snuffies belonging to NSF factions and pro-PPP musclemen from Lahore and Bloody Karachi's working-class areas.
They were armed with knives, clubs, chains and a few pistols and were involved in running battles with IJT in the streets of Lahore. No firearms were used.
IJT attacks on the rallies soon came to a halt and the Peoples Guard evolved into becoming Peoples Students Federation (PSF) in 1972 after the first PPP government came into power.
Further reading: Pakistain Peoples Party Rise to Power -- Philip E. Jones (Oxford University Press).
Peoples Students Federation (Tipu)
With the fall of the first PPP regime at the hands of Ziaul Haq's military coup in 1977, PPP workers faced immediate arrests, harassment and torture.
The party chairman, Z A. Bhutto, too was jugged and then put on death row (through a highly controversial trial) for supposedly ordering a murder.
Facing intense reactionary action from the new military junta, the police and its politico-religious backers, former NSF leader and youth minister in Bhutto's cabinet, Raja Anwar, began forming cells of young working-class PPP members and supporters.
The cells were secretively formed to put pressure on the military regime through court arrests and disrupt the regime's implementation of harsh laws that included public floggings of anti-Zia students, journalists and, of course, PPP workers.
The cells slipped into disarray when in 1978, a number of PPP workers set themselves on fire to protest against the regime.
Some suggest that Anwar also wanted to arm the cells to conduct urban guerrilla warfare against the right-wing dictatorship, but he has rejected this claim.
Anwar beat feet arrest by slipping into the then Soviet-controlled Afghanistan (in 1979-80) to join Bhutto's exiled sons, Murtaza and Shahnawaz.
Meanwhile the party's student-wing, PSF (in Bloody Karachi) that had been a part of various progressive student alliances in the city's colleges and universities was facing severe harassment from the police and IJT.
As other progressive and anti-IJT groups like Baloch Students Organization (BSO), Pakhtun Students Federation (PkSF) and the nascent All Pakistain Mohajir Students Organization (APMSO) formed the United Students Movement (USM) at the University of Bloody Karachi, PSF got together with NSF to form Taleba Ittihad (TI).
IJT had armed itself with sophisticated weapons; soon USM and TI too began arming themselves.
But shortly before the formation of USM and TI, a loose group from among PSF emerged in Bloody Karachi led by Salamullah Tipu.
Tipu who belonged to a lower middle-class Urdu-speaking (Mohajir) family in Bloody Karachi had begun his career as a student politician in 1973 with the IJT.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... he was soon expelled from IJT and he then joined the left-wing NSF in 1974 (According to his maternal uncle, Tipu was convinced that 'Marx made more sense than Mauddudi!').
By the time he joined PSF in 1975 at Bloody Karachi's National College, he had bagged a raunchy reputation of being a 'drunken brawler' and 'street-fighter' who (according to colleagues) 'specialised in terrorizing IJT members.'
Tipu rose rapidly in PSF and was named the president of PSF's Bloody Karachi wing in 1978.
After IJT began arming itself and Zia regime's persecution of progressive student groups increased, PSF (in Bloody Karachi) became the first non-IJT student outfit to begin arming itself.
The outfit's most Islamic exemplar and gang was (unofficially) called PSF-Tipu. In 1980 it attacked an IJT gathering at the University of Bloody Karachi (in which an IJT leader was killed).
The incident took place a day after IJT's notorious (and well armed) 'Thunder Squad' had attacked an anti-Zia rally at the university being held by progressive student groups.
IJT members had then handed over some progressive student leaders to the police who dutifully tortured them.
PSF-Tipu folded after Tipu, who too wanted to initiate urban guerrilla warfare against the Zia regime, beat feet to Afghanistan and joined Murtaza Bhutto's Al-Zulfikar.
Further reading: The Terrorist Prince -- Raja Anwar (Verso Press).
Formed by Z A. Bhutto's sons, Murtaza and Shanawaz Bhutto in 1979.
AZ was initially funded and supported by Afghanistan's communist regime as well as by the radical Ba'athist regime of Syria, Kaddafi's Libya and Yasser Arafat's PLO.
It operated from Kabul.
Bulk of AZO's members consisted of renegade PSF members and workers of radical Pukhtun, Sindhi and Baloch student groups, even though many of its early members hailed from Punjab and Bloody Karachi.
AZO fashioned itself as a left-wing urban guerrilla outfit and was involved in a string of political liquidations, bank robberies (to raise funds) and an liquidation attempt on the Pope who visited Pakistain in 1981.
It also attempted to twice shoot down the plane carrying Ziaul Haq.
It's most prominent act came in the shape of the 1981 hijacking of a PIA plane. The hijacking was led by Salamullah Tipu and three other PSF members.
Though the hijacking forced Zia to release dozens of PPP, PSF, NSF and members of various Baloch and Pukhtun organizations rotting in Zia's already cramped jails, it left the still tossed in the slammer PPP co-chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, disowning and chastising AZO.
By 1982 a power struggle between AZO chief Murtaza Bhutto, Tipu and the Afghan intelligence agency, KHAD, erupted, and by 1983 Murtaza was convinced that Tipu had managed to form his own group within the AZO.
A paranoid Murtaza prevailed over the increasingly wayward Tipu and -- according to Raja Anwar -- tricked Tipu into murdering an Afghan for which KHAD jugged and executed Tipu (in 1984).
The second version of AZO (beginning in 1986) only had radical Sindhi snuffies and AZO was reduced to being a violent Sindhi nationalist organization before fading away in the early 1990s.
Further reading: The Terrorist Prince -- Raja Anwar (Verso Press); Pakistain: A Modern History -- Ian Talbot (Palgrave McMillan Press).
Black Eagles
Formed in 1979 in various universities and colleges of Lahore by radical leftist students as a Islamic exemplar anti-Zia student outfit.
Co-operated with other progressive student groups during student union elections, but also began arming itself after IJT started using sophisticated weapons.
Managed to oust IJT from various colleges in Lahore (through both the ballot and the bullet), before folding after the Zia regime's most severe crackdown on left-wing student groups in 1984.
Black Tigers/Nadeem Commandos
Though the All Pakistain Mohajir Students Organization was formed (in 1978) by ex-IJT members, it became a self-proclaimed progressive mohajir group.
It also joined various progressive student alliances in Bloody Karachi (USM).
APMSO soon spawned Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1984 which too presented itself as a progressive and secular party.
APMSO gradually became IJT's leading nemesis in Bloody Karachi clashing with IJT's 'Thunder Squad' in its bid to oust IJT from Bloody Karachi's campuses.
It was largely successful in this respect, even though IJT was heavily armed.
To meet this challenge, APMSO/MQM formed secret Islamic exemplar cells and its members began being called Black Tigers.
Though formed to tackle the Islamic exemplar off-shoots of various religious parties in Bloody Karachi, the Tigers ended up battling PPP and PSF snuffies during Benazir Bhutto's first government (1988-91).
The Tigers evolved into the even more Islamic exemplar 'Nadeem commandos' an enigmatic group within MQM which (the government and Army) accused of initiating an urban war (against the state) to form a separate 'mohajir state.'
As it turned out, though Islamic exemplar cells were present in the MQM, most of them were first constructed to tackle IJT Islamic exemplars.
They were never formed for any separate 'mohajir state.'
Further reading: Migrants & Militants - Oskar Verkaaik (Princeton University Press); Guns, Slums & Yellow Devils - Laurent Gayer (Cambridge University Press).
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/22/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Thanks, Fred. I've saved this one for future reference.
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.
Punjab
