ISIS in Libya is growing stronger - close to 10,000 fighters - and occupies prime coastal real estate that helps it import more fighters from the Levant, and aids its illicit economy via smuggling and crime
-- Dr. Theodore Karasik
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] As the Government of National Accord (GNA) tries to set up its government in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , Libya continues to lurch from crisis to crisis. We are observing the uneven, hypothetical transition from a two government debacle- represented by the General National Council (GNC) in Tripoli (Tripolitania) and the House of Representatives in Tobruk (Cyrenaica) ‐ to one government.
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Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2016 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] In November 2015, the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... declared its intent to extend its operations to Bangladesh, threatening: "The soldiers of the Khilafah will continue to rise and expand in Bengal and their actions will continue." Unfortunately, ISIS efforts seem to be working. While ISIS’s ideological appeal far outweighs its operational capacity in Bangladesh, eight "affiliated" attacks have occurred under the group’s mantle since the autumn of 2015. What do the eight attacks in Bangladesh in the last six months tell the world about ISIS in South Asia?
First, that the spread of ISIS ideology to South Asia will result in increasing attacks targeting religious minorities and foreigners. ISIS is rooting its domestic appeal in social fault lines already present within the state. Bangladesh has not previously been targeted as fertile ground by jihadis, allowing ISIS to control much of the narrative. Though ISIS is struggling to retain its territory in the Middle East, its successful establishment of terror cells to carry out attacks abroad will perpetuate attacks by disenfranchised local terror groups and lone wolves. These types of attacks are the most difficult to prevent and the most effective for spreading terror.
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Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2016 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
Is America a better place today than it was back in 1956? Of course many Americans living right now couldn’t even imagine a world without cell phones, Facebook or cable television, but was life really so bad back then? 60 years ago, families would actually spend time on their front porches and people would actually have dinner with their neighbors. 60 years ago, cars were still cars, football was still football and it still meant something to be an American. In our country today, it is considered odd to greet someone as they are walking down the street, and if someone tries to be helpful it is usually because they want something from you. But things were very different in the middle of the last century. Men aspired to be gentlemen and women aspired to be ladies, and nobody had ever heard of "bling", "sexting" or "twerking". Of course life was far from perfect, but people actually had standards and they tried to live up to them.
So how did it all go so wrong?
Could it be possible that life in America peaked back then and we have been in decline ever since?
Before you answer, I want to share with you a list of comparisons between life in America in 1956 and life in America in 2016...
Something, something, about urban growth. How many cities ranked at one million, how many at ten million. The urban bubble grew and forgot what kept it sustained. What sustained it became magic. Flip a switch and you got light. Go to a store and see it loaded with food. Nothing is understood how it all got there. It's magic. Let's not forget it's also about the decline in education to grasp all that. So let's close down the icky stuff that makes it all happen.
#5
America as conceived by the founders was wrecked long before the 50's. Wilson's progressive amendments and FDR had pretty much obliterated our Constitutional form of government. Everything since then has just been us getting used to the new regime.
#7
In 1956, you retired at 60, but you probably died five years earlier. You lived in a shoebox, and thought a Levittown Cape Cod of less than 900 square feet was a palace. You drove a rolling stamped-steel piece of shit that drank oil by the gallon. Your relatives drank and drove and died like flies on underbuilt highways. Your children were eating lead paint chips. Europe was surging economically because they were starting to get a handle on "rebuilding from rubble and starvation". The US was fat and stupid from ten years of being the only major undestroyed industrial economy left in the world. Taxes were through the ceiling, and everybody who couldn't figure out how to legally shelter their income cheated like bandits. A sickeningly high percentage of the economy was run by gangsters, and big corporations ran much of the rest. Everybody chain-smoked. Everything stank of tobacco. Pollution was terrible - Pittsburgh was practically mainland-China-level lethal.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/07/2016 15:06 Comments ||
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#8
So America peaked when the world was still mostly wrecked and recovering? I'd say most stats from that era are an anomoly that should be ignored for this sort of thing.
#9
So America peaked when the world was still mostly wrecked and recovering? I'd say most stats from that era are an anomoly that should be ignored for this sort of thing.
#10
Pining for the past through rose colored glasses. Happy days was a movie, not a reality for most Americans. In the city housing was cramped, and not very safe. in rural America outhouses were still in use. People were not as healthy as today. And cars were cars? Really? They looked cool but 40,000 miles was the end of its life. Today 40k is when we change tires. When folks restore a 50s era car they replace the entire drivetrain. But then I do love a girl in a poodle skirt and pony tail...
Posted by: 49 pan ||
04/07/2016 15:55 Comments ||
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#11
So America peaked when the world was still mostly wrecked and recovering? I'd say most stats from that era are an anomoly that should be ignored for this sort of thing.
Y'know, if that analysis were entirely true, they wouldn't need to pass laws to shut down coal plants, coal mines, and fracking, it would just dry up on its own.
#12
The biggest difference between then and now was in the pervasive sense of endless optimism for most of the population.
That was the year we moved out of NYC to NJ because my parents hated the public schools in the city and wanted us kids to have a better life.
A lot of good things were around. The biggest cliff off which we fell was base in civil rights, or lack thereof. After the desegregation of the Army in WWII there was a chance to get it right. It was tricky but doable. A number of events made it too hard to overcome the cynical manipulation of LBJ and his cohort.
Now, the rampant optimism is cynicism and pessimism. Material products are much better but does that mean anything important?
#13
A number of events made it too hard to overcome the cynical manipulation of LBJ and his cohort.
LBJ...The whole country went nuts after JFK was shot. Then we got Vietnam, the Great Society, taxes, inflation, hippies, Affirmative Action. Dunno if we ever recovered from that. Wilson and FDR might have been bad but LBJ really got us sliding down that slippery slope.
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.
