#2
I think there should be a popular recognition of a name change for the Taliban. Perhaps "primitives", "Muslim troglodytes", "Necrophages", "psychothropes", etc.
[Dawn] ON a Friday night last November Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... was running three hours late. A group of foreign academics, journalists and selected Russian TV cameras were quarantined in a restaurant in an equestrian centre. Deadlines were lapsing and Putin's guests began asking questions about the odd location. Everything from the oak beams, log fires and snug bars had been rigged. The venue had been constructed for this one meal.
Putin finally emerged wearing a ski jacket. He stopped in the entrance. An unseen hand removed the puffer jacket, another slipped an elegant sports coat onto his shoulders. Putin hardly paused, but in a flash he had changed roles. He emerged on the other side of this catwalk as the tanned chief executive of Russia Inc.
He had just made the biggest mistake of his career. In front of millions, he forced his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, to nominate him for another two terms as president. In a spectacular miscalculation of political timing, Putin had destroyed not only Medvedev's career as a reformer but severely damaged his own. He had made nonsense of the elections that followed -- a parliamentary vote in December and the presidential one this coming Sunday -- because everyone already knew the result. This might have worked for the old Russia -- passive, fatalistic, offline -- but the new middle class was not buying it.
Four mass demonstrations later, Putin's campaign is on a knife edge. He has to be elected president on the first round on Sunday. If he succeeds, most political analysts in Russia are agreed that a third term of office as president will be a transitional one. There is unlikely to be a fourth.
This was not in the script. The man who had pulled Russia back from the brink of collapse had a vision. That vision -- to restore Russia to what he saw as its rightful place in the world, one which was not just deserved but ordained -- needed him to stay in power for at least another two terms. Not anyone else, just him, Vladimir Putin. How did the man with the penchant for Soviet slang and the swagger of the new Russia, lose his greatest asset: his political nose for what Russians thought?
Putin's family lived through one of the bleakest periods of Soviet history, the Nazi siege of Leningrad. His father was a commando, one of only four to return from one mission. The family lost their first son, to diphtheria, and when Putin was born in 1952, he was regarded as miracle of fate.
Until 1996, Putin was a virtual unknown. But he had also become indispensable to the democrats because of his skills in taming the monster created through the chaotic privatisations of the Russian economy: the oligarch.
What Putin created was not a restoration of the Soviet state. Nor was it totalitarian, because Putin's reach was not total. He created instead a personalised state, one with his name written right through it like a stick of rock. Putin lost no time in creating his own cult following. As Boris Yeltsin was swaying under the influence of drink and a series of mini-strokes, Putin, his prime minister, was active.
There are two questions Putin faces in this third and final period of office. Can he separate himself from the dead hand of the elite around him -- can he separate himself from Putinism? The second is even harder to achieve. Can Russia separate itself peacefully from him?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
By my read of various MSM-Net Artics, Pootey's popular support remains subtantially larger than that of his opposition.
#3
He faces the same problems that every major leader before him has faced. He adequately maintained things, but he is not a builder. Russia needs to again decentralize and devolve power away from Moscow, then begin to rebuild and renew.
But Russia can only do this if Putin picks a successor capable enough to do these things, but strong enough to fend off the ambitious.
#4
My Wash. Times today will vouch for that. Pootie-Poot is the only one that has the intestinal fortitude to dominate over the competition; who apparently are lacking in passion. Here, under a normal administration, we could take advantage of an obvious leadership vacuum.
[Dawn] IN the 2008 general elections, according to Election Commission data, over 560 female polling stations -- nearly 480 of them in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... -- saw a zero per cent turnout. Over 580,000 women were registered at these stations. As the next countrywide polls approach, recent by-elections indicate that this unacceptable state of affairs may well continue. In by-elections held on Saturday, women were effectively barred from voting at certain polling stations in Mardan and Mianwali.
These are not cases of women being physically held back from going to cast their votes. Instead, pandering to the conservatism of certain areas of the country, political candidates in those areas develop informal agreements, or at least understandings among themselves, that they will not try to bring out the female vote. Over time this regressive approach has taken hold to the point where voting for women in some constituencies has become as taboo as going to the mosque or walking into the male section of segregated wedding functions. It has, in other words, become the cultural norm, one perpetuated by those in a position of power.
What is particularly alarming is that this is true of parties across the political spectrum. The ANP and PPP are dominant in the Mardan constituency that was contested on Saturday and the PML-N in the Mianwali constituency. These are all significant and mainstream parties, and at least the former two clearly position themselves as being secular and progressive. Yet Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where the ANP and PPP have dominated in 2008 and since, is the province where this problem is most acute. The National Commission on the Status of Women and the Free and Fair Election Network have called for the by-election results from the relevant polling stations -- and therefore the constituencies in which they are located -- to be scrapped. This is a perfectly legitimate demand; political parties need to be held accountable for failing to make it clear to their candidates that creating conditions that effectively bar women from voting is both unconstitutional and against the spirit of democracy.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The bloodbath of Shia Mohammedans at the hands of fundamentalist Sunnis continues along the streets and roads in Pakistain. The Shia victims of sectarian violence have little hope for justice since three out of every four terrorism cases end up in an acquittal on technicalities.
Yesterday, Shias en route to their homes in Gilgit were removed from buses, lined up along the road, and shot in cold blood near Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... . Eighteen perished, while scores others were maimed. Less than two weeks ago in Parachinar 43 Shias were killed in a kaboom and subsequent firing by the security agencies. Eyewitness account reveals that the bomb exploded remotely after it was placed on an empty cart in the Kurrami Bazaar by a person who disappeared in the same hotel where security forces were hosting reportedly "internally displaced people."
While the convoy of buses near Kohistan was attacked by Jundallah, a sectarian outfit that thrives on murdering Shias, the attack in Parachinar was perpetrated by the supposedly "good Taliban", who only recently were presented to the world as those who have renounced violence. However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... killing Shias for the Taliban, both good and bad, is fair game.
Shias, however, have not been the only victims of violence in the past two weeks in Pakistain. Beautiful Downtown Peshawar is experiencing a spell of murderous violence. A kaboom at the Kohat Road bus stand killed 13 last Thursday. The very next day four coppers died in a coordinated attack on the fortified Kotwali cop shoppe by hard boyz who blew themselves up during the attack. Yesterday, a Chinese woman and her guide were murdered in the centre of the Peshawar City. In the neighbouring city of Nowshera, six people were killed in a kaboom after a political rally on Monday.
While the attacks on police and indiscriminate violence against civilians is equally reprehensible, the perpetrators of violence, however, are not attacking the victims for their religious, political, or any other beliefs. The attacks on Shias and other religious minorities are assassinations primarily motivated by the bigoted religious intolerance exhibited by certain fundamentalist Sunni sects.
The State seems helpless in delivering justice even when it is successful in arresting those accused of terrorism. The path from arrest to conviction is punctuated with traps that capture the public prosecutors, but give a free pass to the accused. Several well-known snuffies have been acquitted by the anti-terrorism courts because of the flawed judicial system where errors and omissions during documentation, investigation and prosecution of the crimes have earned the accused their freedom who wasted no time in rejoining beturbanned goon outfits.
When courts fail victims
During 1990 and 2009, the anti-terrorism courts (ATC) in Punjab alone failed to convict the accused in 74 per cent of the 311 cases in which a final verdict was delivered. Most of the accused were acquitted not because they were able to demonstrate and/or substantiate their innocence, but because the judicial system in Pakistain is not capable of handling terrorism cases where prosecution's case rests on circumstantial and forensic evidence, and not on the eyewitness account.
A systematic review of 178 ATC verdicts by Syed Ejaz Hussain, who until recently served as the deputy inspector general of police for anti-terrorism in Punjab and also holds a doctorate in criminology from University of Pennsylvania, revealed that the courts acquitted the accused in 77 per cent of the cases. Most of the accused were apprehended for being involved in sectarian violence.
The review of cases revealed that errors, omissions, misconduct and the judicial system's undue requirements during the registering of the complaint (first information report (FIR)), investigation of the crime, and prosecution lead to the acquittal in three out of four cases.
In 36 per cent of the cases, the courts acquitted the accused because they were not personally named in the FIR. This is an absurd requirement in terrorism cases. How can one ascertain the identity of the accused immediately after the terrorist attack when the FIR is registered? In most instances, FIRs are registered against unknown accused, which should not be the reason for the courts to acquit the accused because their identity was not known to the police or to the victims the very second the attack took place.
In 11 per cent of the cases, the courts have acquitted the accused because eyewitnesses could not put the accused at the scene of the crime. Again, an absurd requirement by the anti-terrorism courts. The dead victims of the terrorist violence cannot step out of their graves to identify the accused for the courts. The injured may have never seen the person/s detonating the bomb through a remote control device. Victims of sniper firing never know where the bullet has come from. Why then are the courts acquitting the accused because the eyewitnesses could not place them at the scene of the crime?
In another 17 per cent of the cases, the courts have acquitted the accused because the FIR registered soon after the incident either did not describe the unknown accused or his role in the crime.
It appears that the courts fail to appreciate the fact that perpetrators of terrorist violence are not immediately known to the victims or to the police. Their identities are ascertained much later as the case is investigated. Just because the accused have not been singled out in the first information report, which is filed immediately after the incident either by the victims or by the state, the courts should not necessarily acquit the accused, especially when other compelling circumstantial/forensic evidence is available to consider.
The review of the 178 cases further revealed that many cases were thrown out because of the shortcomings during investigation. In 35 per cent of the cases issues with the police line-up (identity parade) resulted in an acquittal. In some cases the witness failed to identify the accused in the line-up, while in other cases a police line-up was never put together. In 26 per cent of the cases, the recovered evidence was found unsatisfactory by the courts. For instance, the recovered evidence, such as the weapon used in the crime, did not match the weapon described by the forensic expert. In another 14 per cent cases, the confessional statements were not recorded adequately, which resulted in an acquittal. Excessive delays in submitting cases to the courts, improper recording of witness statements, and compromised medical or forensic evidence also resulted in acquittals.
The above suggests that there is an urgent need to train the Sherlocks in modern detective work that now involves forensic scientists, and computer and communication experts. Furthermore, there is a need to have the public prosecutors and magistrates advise detectives so that the evidence collection procedures comply with the regulations set by the courts. For instance, there should never be a delay in presenting the accused in front of the courts. The public prosecutors are intimately aware of the repercussions of such delays, and hence they can advise the detectives of the legal requirements. In fact, the government may want to show episodes of shows, such as Law & Order, and CSI to the Sherlocks in Pakistain so that they may learn about the intricacies of investigative work.
Lastly, missteps during prosecution have also resulted in acquittal of the accused. Most problems arise with witnesses who often change their testimony, fail to show up during the trial, offer contradictory testimony or settle with the accused. Most of the time the witnesses feel intimated by the accused and out of fear for their lives or that of their families, they refuse to bear witness. This suggests that there is an urgent need for a witness protection program in Pakistain to offer necessary safety to the witnesses in terrorism cases. In fact, the witness protection program may work only if the witnesses are settled abroad afterwards rather than having them settle in Pakistain where they will always be looking over their shoulders.
The Supreme Court and the press in Pakistain are pressuring the intelligence agencies in the missing person cases who have been accused of terrorist activities and have been secretly kept in jug by various intelligence agencies. The Supreme Court is well-placed to argue and stand for the rights of the accused, who are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
At the same time, it is also incumbent upon the higher courts and the press in Pakistain to be mindful of the fact that the accused in terrorism-related violence are most likely to be acquitted by the lower courts on technicalities. I understand and appreciate that due process matters.
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... the rights of the victims of terrorism matter as well. With the odds of conviction being less than one in four, the balance is tilted in favour of the accused rather than the victims of terrorist violence in Pakistain.
As the battle of both words and deeds heats up between Iran and the west, some experts have begun to question whether Israel even truly has the capability to effectively strike Iran's nuclear facilities. A recent assessment by American defense officials, for example, outlined the difficulties that Israel's air force would have in conducting an attack on Iran. Other analysts have claimed that Israel is creating a disinformation campaign about its capabilities in order to deter its adversaries. The truth, however, is that Israeli ingenuity has proven itself time and again, with Israel's enemies consistently regretting when they have underestimated Israeli military capabilities.
As far back as Israel's war of independence in 1948, when Arab armies invaded the same day the nascent Jewish state was born, Israelis proved their ingenuity and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. Ben Gurion himself was told that Israel had about a 50/50 chance of being victorious. Yet with their backs against the wall, the Israeli military proved itself to be a capable and lethal force. In 1948, much like in 1967 and 1973, Israel did not have the technological superiority over its neighbors that it enjoys today. During the 1967 Six Day War, as enemy troops were amassed on its borders and international waterways were sealed off to Israeli shipping, nobody would have predicted such an overwhelming victory in six short days. During its initial air strike back in June of 1967, the Israel Air Force took the calculated risk of deploying nearly its entire fleet of aircrafts to preemptively attack Egypt and later Syria, leaving approximately a dozen planes to protect its airspace.
#1
By now, Israel should have elite forces and saboteurs all over Iran, able to disrupt just about everything. Other nations, as well, can be of great assistance in monkey wrench efforts.
For example, the Saudis and UAE owe a LOT of payback to the Iranians for attacks against them over decades.
I imagine a lot of it will be to deeply damage oil production in Khuzestan, totally neutralize the Bushehr reactor, take out electrical plants, blow some dams, etc.
#2
"I imagine a lot of it will be to deeply damage oil production in Khuzestan, totally neutralize the Bushehr reactor, take out electrical plants, blow some dams, etc."
I love it when you talk dirty sexy, 'moose. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/01/2012 21:17 Comments ||
Top||
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.
NYT
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
[Dawn] IN the 2008 general elections, according to Election Commission data, over 560 female polling stations -- nearly 480 of them in 
The bloodbath of Shia 
It appears that the courts fail to appreciate the fact that perpetrators of terrorist violence are not immediately known to the victims or to the police. Their identities are ascertained much later as the case is investigated. Just because the accused have not been singled out in the first information report, which is filed immediately after the incident either by the victims or by the state, the courts should not necessarily acquit the accused, especially when other compelling circumstantial/forensic evidence is available to consider.
Lastly, missteps during prosecution have also resulted in acquittal of the accused. Most problems arise with witnesses who often change their testimony, fail to show up during the trial, offer contradictory testimony or settle with the accused. Most of the time the witnesses feel intimated by the accused and out of fear for their lives or that of their families, they refuse to bear witness. This suggests that there is an urgent need for a witness protection program in Pakistain to offer necessary safety to the witnesses in terrorism cases. In fact, the witness protection program may work only if the witnesses are settled abroad afterwards rather than having them settle in Pakistain where they will always be looking over their shoulders.
