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Israel Gaza campaign kills 28, wounds more than 150
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 6: Politix
3 20:01 Procopius2k [6]
10 15:19 rjschwarz [2]
34 23:58 Zenobia Floger6220 [3]
10 17:24 Lowspark [3]
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Is Obama Just a Hapless Putz?
Posted by: DarthVader || 07/09/2014 17:35 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Feckless nitwit? Conceited ignoramus?
Posted by: Solomon Thiting9822 || 07/09/2014 17:39 Comments || Top||

#2  No - Obama just does as his masters tell him to do.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/09/2014 18:29 Comments || Top||

#3 
Posted by: spano bellingbo3665 || 07/09/2014 18:31 Comments || Top||

#4  #3 black. Which is the worst thing, according to the typical Teabagger in the trailer park.

Peeping Toms of the Spano persuasion
Indulge in repressive evasion:
Espying his quota
Of right-leaning scrota,
He only perceives the Caucasian.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 07/09/2014 19:40 Comments || Top||

#5  spano bellingbo3665: No, he's half black. Mommy was a sperm dumpster (OK, Baby Momma) for a serial donor (Sound familiar? If not, see the South Side of Chicago, Detroit, various perma-relief agencies, etc.).

If Elmer Gantry's only qualifications were a touch of melanin and a Potemkin-village of "accomplishments," he, too, would be presidential to those of your ilk.

If this sounds raaaaaacist, well, it's a function of and directed towards our "leadership" . I seriously support, like and respect Allen West and, although don't feel it necessary to spread out my inclusive cred, have no doubt that I have had more positive black relationships than yourself.
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 07/09/2014 19:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Spano sees the entire world through the lens of race (perhaps gender and queer as well), so of course he thinks his opponents do the same. It's inconceivable to him that conservatives value and judge people based on character, skills and ability, because spano himself would never do that.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/09/2014 21:36 Comments || Top||

#7  your Mum, Trebek Spano
Posted by: Sean Connery || 07/09/2014 22:12 Comments || Top||

#8  The Dems cannot let the first "Black" president appear incompetent.

It would destroy the narrative they have so carefully crafted for the past 5 decades.

"True individual achievers need not apply."
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 07/09/2014 22:50 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Media Ignorance Is Becoming A Serious Problem
Posted by: DarthVader || 07/09/2014 13:15 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I will have to add, not only ignorance but willful ignorance.

They don't learn or read what doesn't fit the narrative.
Posted by: DarthVader || 07/09/2014 13:16 Comments || Top||

#2  The sad thing is many of the problems sited could have been fixed with a simple google search.

Willful ignorance combined with extreme laziness.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 07/09/2014 15:34 Comments || Top||

#3  It's only a problem to those who still pay attention to them. For the LIV's it doesn't matter. They cannot be turned even if the truth were told. For those who have any kind of grasp on reality, we know the truth is what is ignored or they are completely lying. The mass media psyop if failing miserably.
Posted by: Lowspark || 07/09/2014 17:04 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Arabia's Family Feud
Reading the tea leaves of the House of Saud, which may or may not be able to keep ISIL away from the two holy places. Much more at the link.
[WashingtonInstitute] Facing threats from all directions, King Abdullah is moving to get his foreign policy team in place -- and quell infighting within the royal family.

The usual somnolence of Ramadan in 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...
is being broken this year by intense politicking within the royal family. Official Saudi work hours for the holy month are limited to just six hours a day, but key princes in the House of Saud are working long and late. Just after midnight local time on July 1, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) announced a "royal order" making Prince Bandar bin Sultan -- formerly the long-serving ambassador to Washington and later the intelligence chief -- King Abdullah's special envoy. Four minutes later, another SPA story announced that Bandar's cousin, Prince Khalid bin Bandar, had been made head of the Saudi intelligence agency.

The two appointments have both domestic and international significance. The Islamic State's invasion of Iraq leaves Saudi Arabia's borders exposed to the chaos of what is left of the "Arab Spring." Bandar bin Sultan, who was replaced as intelligence chief in April after spending several years spearheading Saudi attempts to depose Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
, is now needed to make sure that the jihadists' successes in Iraq threaten Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014...
without threatening the kingdom. At home, Khalid bin Bandar's elevation to the top position in the country's intelligence community came after he became the victim of a surprisingly public feud within the royal family that saw him pushed out as deputy defense minister a mere six weeks after his appointment.

The turnover at the Saudi Defense Ministry will probably have prompted at least one foreign embassy in Riyadh reporting home to recall Oscar Wilde's line from the play The Importance of Being Earnest: "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." Bandar's exit from the apparently dysfunctional ministry made him the fourth deputy defense minister to lose his job within the space of 15 months. Like his predecessors, he seems to have fallen afoul of a junior cousin, Muhammad bin Salman, a 30-something son of Crown Prince Salman, the defense minister and heir apparent. The elder Salman, who turns 78 this year, has been widely reported to be suffering from dementia -- the accounts run the gamut from memory issues to Alzheimer's -- making him personally incapable of running the Defense Ministry.

Muhammad bin Salman has come out of nowhere, relatively speaking. While the major royal players below the level of King Abdullah and the other sons of the late Abdul Aziz, also known as Ibn Saud, are in their 50s and 60s, Muhammad's great -- and perhaps only -- strength is that he is liked and trusted by his father. Starting as a mere advisor, he was made head of the crown prince's court last year and he was further boosted this year to minister of state, which gives him a seat at the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers. He is the eldest son of Prince Salman's third wife, and his older half-kin include tourism chief and one-time astronaut Prince Sultan bin Salman and Deputy Oil Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, though, significantly, neither is seen very often at their father's side. Although not officially part of the Defense Ministry, Muhammad uses his role as gatekeeper to his father to control decision-making on the kingdom's army, air force, and navy, and thwart what is now a long list of ex-deputy defense ministers.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/09/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
Opinion: China: Too big to fail or too corrupt to save?
  • Beijing's anti-corruption campaign is about restoring the party's credibility.

  • Delivering economic benefits no longer sufficient for increasingly cynical public. A generation now coming of age lacks their parents' emotional ties to the party and the solidarity forged from fighting side by side in the trenches of the revolution that saw the birth of new China.

  • Beijing is stepping up the drive to remove so-called "naked officials"

The public has long viewed corruption investigations as shams -- showcase trials of lower-ranking cadres unlucky enough to be targeted or a pretext to justify the expulsion of senior officials who had lost internal power struggles. Corruption campaigns typically fizzle out.

But there are no signs of this campaign fizzling out. President Xi has made fighting corruption the hallmark of his administration and has repeatedly declared that the Party would crack down on the "tigers" as well as the "flies".

the anti-corruption campaign has spawned a new campaign as Beijing renews efforts to eliminate so-called "naked officials". These are government officials and state company executives whose families live abroad or have foreign citizenship. Beijing frowns on such behaviour -- the reasoning is that only those with something to hide would send their families abroad.

The southern province of Guangdong has recently uncovered 866 "naked officials". These officials have variously been demoted or told to retire or resigned. Another 200 plus officials moved their families back from overseas. And this is data for just one province.

Will the campaign succeed in reducing the number of "naked officials" nationwide? The number of EB-5 visas issued by the United States under its investment programme provides a proxy measure that is publicly accessible. Applications from China so far this year are up 50 percent. It would be interesting to see how the numbers stack up by October at the end of the programme's quota year.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/09/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The destabilization of China + Russia + India wrought by internal corruption + over-centralization, Radical Islam + Global Jihad, "Peak Resources", + Sun-led GWCC will be the catalyst that forces a halt to OWG-NWO + "Globalism".

* FYI BHARAT RAKSHAK > NEW LEADERSHIP STYLE IN CHINA [ + India = Asia]COMPLICATES AMERICAN DIPLOMACY [OBAMA MEETS CHINA'S "REAGAN", INDIA'S "REAGAN" JUST GOT ELECTED].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 07/09/2014 2:50 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Escalation At Hamas' Request
[Ynet] Analysis: Out of despair, Islamic organization is doing a lot to draw Israel into Gazoo, seeing it as the only choice it has left.

After several days of uncertainty, Israel's confrontation with Hamas in Gazoo became somewhat clearer Monday.

Hamas is doing a lot — 100 rockets is a lot — to draw Israel inside, into Gazoo. It is likely doing so out of despair, because according to its perception, it's the only choice it has left.

Hamas is facing Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most restrained prime ministers in the State of Israel's history when it comes to using military force. "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk," said Eli Wallach, the ugly one in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," a moment before he shot his rival to death. "When you don't have to shoot, talk. Don't shoot," Netanyahu is in fact saying.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, the IDF echelon and the majority of ministers in the cabinet stood behind him until Monday. The flood of rockets from Gazoo on Monday evening made this restraint increasingly difficult.

There is no Israeli government capable of dragging over a long period of time a reality in which the life of hundreds of thousands of Israelis is subject to the firing abilities of terror organizations in Gazoo, and the defense abilities of the Iron Dome system — with all due respect to the Iron Dome.

What has been happening in the past few days in Gazoo can of course be seen as a classic round: Hamas begins by firing mortar shells at the Eshkol Regional Council; we respond with Air Force strikes on empty targets; they expand their activity to Sha'ar Hanegev, then to Sderot; we expand the bombings; they go for Ashkelon, Netivot, Ofakim; we call up infantry brigades; they go for Beersheba, Kiryat Gat, Yavne; we expand the bombings and threaten to come in; they go for Rishon Lezion� This is where it usually stops.

The problem in this game is that there is always the possibility that one of the sides will be too successful: Many civilians will get killed, and there will be no escape from expanding the fighting — from their side, by firing at the Tel Aviv metropolitan area; from our side, by using artillery fire and entering Gazoo with infantry forces.

The restraint exercised by the current cabinet is really exceptional: It's unusual both compared to right-wing governments and compared to left-wing governments.

"Calm will be met with calm," Netanyahu said. This sentence became part of the political lexicon after being said by Ehud Barak, the defense minister in Ehud Olmert's government. Barak sought a "hudna" (truce) with Hamas, not war. He fought against Olmert and Tzipi Livni, the two other members of the "kitchen cabinet," the narrow forum of the inner security cabinet. When Major-General (res.) Amos Gilad brought a list of Egyptian-brokered understandings reached with Hamas, Barak presented the equation "calm for calm."

Here the calm-for-calm was not an agreed upon condition. It was a desire, expressed during and despite massive rocket fire from Gazoo. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, two senior cabinet members, criticized the restraint outside, but were much less aggressive in the internal discussions. In practice, they let Netanyahu and Ya'alon deal with the rocket fire from Gazoo according to their perception. Whoever blames or praises Livni and Yair Lapid for the restraint is underestimating Netanyahu, Ya'alon and the military officials.

The current conflict is unique in another way: In the past, the main question was what would happen to Israel's relations with Hamas after they reached a ceasefire. There were those in Israel who stressed the deterrence; others pursued an agreement. Both knew that everything achieved would be temporary, until the next round.

The question being raised now is different: If Israel deals Hamas a critical blow, who will fill the governmental void it leaves behind? Gazoo could turn into an anarchy like Somalia or into a shelter for terror organizations affiliated with al-Qaeda, like what happened in Sinai, in northern Iraq and in some parts of Syria. In other words, Hamas is bad, but it may be the lesser of two evils.

Another unique aspect is the Egyptian involvement, or should I say the lack of involvement. During the Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
and Mohammed Morsi eras, Egypt served as an active mediator between Israel and Hamas. General al-Sisi's government is not eager to play this role; it is definitely not eager to pay Hamas a price for delegating the authority of mediator on Egypt.

There is another unique event taking place during this crisis: It is accompanied by a crisis within the ruling faction, a crisis which has to do with the Hamas affair in Gazoo only marginally. When missiles fall, the public opinion has no desire for political crises. It tends to support the government and the prime minister, at least in the first days. The timing chosen by Lieberman to split from the Likud Beiteinu faction did not add to his popularity.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/09/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Just turn off the fricking water!
3 days with no water and it is over.
Posted by: 3dc || 07/09/2014 11:06 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Declaring an Islamic State, Running a Criminal Enterprise
A taste:
[The Hill] The United States and its allies beat al-Qaeda on the battlefield several years ago, but ISIS has financed a resurgence in Syria and Iraq that poses no less a threat to regional stability.

When the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) stormed into Iraq and captured djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, the largest city in northern Iraq, the group not only walked away with a tremendous amount of abandoned military hardware, but also raided the city's central bank and took off with some $425 million. Perhaps even more amazing is that the group was already one of the best-funded terrorist groups in the world.

ISIS, which has renamed itself the Islamic State and unilaterally declared the reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate, has been financially self-sufficient for at least eight years, according to U.S. government estimates. Remember that before it renamed itself the Islamic State, the group was known as ISIS, as the Islamic State of Iraq, as al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), as Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin and as Jamaat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad. And unlike other groups, which are reliant on state sponsors, major donors or abuse of charity, the group now calling itself the Islamic State has been financially independent by virtue of engaging in tremendously successful criminal activity enterprises.

By 2006, when the group was still known as AQI, it was already bringing in approximately $70 million through criminal activities. According to a November 2006 U.S. government assessment cited in The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, AQI and other groups had successfully created a self-sustaining insurgency in Iraq, raising from $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities alone. The assessment highlighted oil smuggling, kidnapping for ransom and political corruption as the most significant and profitable enterprises. Even during the height of the Iraq War — and in large part because of it — AQI had established an independent financial structure.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/09/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant

#1  I think it's time to get fracking and forget about "regional stability"---a western term translating as pandering to Arab belligerence.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/09/2014 2:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Since people aren't taught real history anymore, most people don't recall (and those who do are dying by the trainload everyday) that we bombed the living day lights out of the Germans and Japanese before we tried to rebuild them. Those generations remember what war was about and the long process of rebuild also had an effect on subsequent generations. So much for 'kinder gentler' wars.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/09/2014 8:11 Comments || Top||

#3  + Germans & Japanese are social (understand reciprocity), whereas Arabs are eusocial (only understand kin selection).
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/09/2014 9:22 Comments || Top||

#4  They only understand reciprocity after we killed a couple million of them who weren't practicing it.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 07/09/2014 10:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Well then I guess that depends on what criminal is. By the way, Political Corruption as income, does that mean trying to pay off, or purchase for mission(s), something along those lines?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 07/09/2014 12:36 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
40[untagged]
10Hamas
7Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
4Govt of Pakistan
2Taliban
1Fatah
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Iraq
1al-Shabaab
1Govt of Syria
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1Hezbollah
1Houthis
1al-Qaeda in Arabia
1Seleka
1Commies
1Thai Insurgency

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In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2014-07-09
  Israel Gaza campaign kills 28, wounds more than 150
Tue 2014-07-08
  Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia branch allies with ISIS
Mon 2014-07-07
  Yemen Bombs Rebels After Cease-Fire Falters
Sun 2014-07-06
  ISIS destroys shrines, Shiite mosques in Mosul
Sat 2014-07-05
  Iraq's Maliki to Run Again
Fri 2014-07-04
  IDF Begins To Shift Forces South As Rocket Fire Continues
Thu 2014-07-03
  Saudi Arabia deploys 30,000 soldiers to border with Iraq
Wed 2014-07-02
  Civilian group: 56 dead in Nigeria market blast
Tue 2014-07-01
  Report: Abbas holding 'frantic' talks with US, EU
Mon 2014-06-30
  Bodies of Kidnapped Teens Found Near Hevron
Sun 2014-06-29
  Afghan Forces Claim Victory in Major Taliban Battle
Sat 2014-06-28
  Maliki rejects calls for emergency government
Fri 2014-06-27
  Syrian planes bomb Sunni targets in Iraq, Maliki rejects calls for emergency government
Thu 2014-06-26
  At least 21 killed in rush-hour blast in Nigerian capital
Wed 2014-06-25
  Zarb-i-Azb: 47 militants killed in NWA, Khyber blitz


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