Hi there, !
Today Mon 07/18/2016 Sun 07/17/2016 Sat 07/16/2016 Fri 07/15/2016 Thu 07/14/2016 Wed 07/13/2016 Tue 07/12/2016 Archives
Rantburg
531690 articles and 1855967 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 68 articles and 283 comments as of 11:38.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
BREAKING in Turkey: MILITARY COUP UNDERWAY
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
6 20:07 trailing wife [3] 
8 19:04 Grins Snese4215 [] 
3 19:12 Grins Snese4215 [] 
1 07:57 Bobby [] 
12 21:19 magpie [1] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
61 21:50 Procopius2k [2]
11 22:21 Barbara []
0 []
1 12:05 Pappy []
3 11:48 Cravirt Flusong7056 []
3 05:44 Shipman [1]
3 11:43 Ebbang Uluque6305 []
1 04:31 g(r)omgoru []
0 []
1 04:32 g(r)omgoru []
3 20:14 trailing wife []
0 []
0 []
1 08:54 Richard Aubrey []
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 [2]
1 05:32 Shipman []
1 12:49 Shipman []
1 14:50 Mystic []
0 []
1 05:01 Shipman [1]
2 15:15 Frank G [1]
0 []
2 12:12 Pappy []
26 16:59 Dave D. []
Page 2: WoT Background
10 20:35 airandee [1]
6 21:35 g(r)omgoru [2]
0 [1]
24 21:23 Skidmark [1]
4 15:38 Frank G []
7 21:26 Skidmark [2]
0 []
2 12:47 Ebbang Uluque6305 []
0 []
2 04:38 Besoeker []
1 06:04 Shipman []
0 []
0 []
0 []
Page 3: Non-WoT
4 14:34 Pappy []
4 16:48 AlanC []
0 []
0 [2]
4 12:23 Pappy [2]
8 17:05 Skidmark [1]
6 10:55 JohnQC []
0 []
1 17:39 swksvolFF []
2 13:57 Shipman []
0 []
14 19:39 trailing wife []
4 13:26 Shipman [1]
3 10:22 gorb []
Page 6: Politix
3 14:36 Shipman []
2 08:56 g(r)omgoru []
7 17:38 magpie []
4 16:28 charger []
5 12:19 gorb [1]
0 []
3 10:31 JohnQC []
1 09:35 Skidmark []
Europe
Some potential insights into to why France continues to be a terrorist target
This article and the French motivations could certainly be challenged, the end result, probably not.
Always helpful to know what clueless elites are thinking...
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 09:37 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  this is an opinion piece

also somewhat tendentious as it blames the french for provoking terrorism without mentioning Islam
Posted by: lord garth || 07/15/2016 9:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Thanks LG, moved to opinion.

Yes, certainly tendentious, but it captures the historical reluctance of the French to completely let go of their colonial holdings. Their reluctance and continued military footprint could be debated at length.

The downside of a removal of the military presence can be found currently in Iraq.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 10:14 Comments || Top||

#3  The author pretends history began in the 19th/20th century.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 07/15/2016 10:48 Comments || Top||

#4  For the same reasons everyone else in the West is also a target? Unbridled immigration, open borders, soft targets, failing to identify the problem, ignoring Sharia Law, political correctness, etc. left-wing policies.
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/15/2016 11:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Geography is obviously another factor. I suspect the Islamic connection is implied by the author. It certainly is certainly implied by most readers.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 12:14 Comments || Top||

#6  "Spengler"'s take on defective Euro police intelligence
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 07/15/2016 17:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Very interesting perspective. Thanks AH.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 17:29 Comments || Top||

#8  The author of this piece seems to believe that people are mainly motivated by looking at the past and seeking revenge for perceived wrongdoing. There is no truth to this notion.
People, most of whom have little knowledge of the past, are concerned about the future, and direct their activities at seeking future goals.
These goals generally involve increasing one's power influence or wealth, or getting absolution for one's sins. Unfortunately there are many moslems who consider killing unbelievers to be the best way to do the last of these.
Posted by: Grins Snese4215 || 07/15/2016 19:04 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
The view from Egypt: Erdogan, Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood
[AlAhram] Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations will resume without The Sick Man of Europe Turkey's two demands being met: lifting the embargo on Gazoo and an Israeli apology for attacking a Turkish aid ship, killing and wounding activists

Six years have passed since the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara was attacked by Israel off the Gazoo coast and after Erdogan escalated his hollow rhetorical stance against Israel with the aim of acquiring a certain amount of support in the Arab region and among Islamist movements, opening wider spheres for Turkish influence in the paths of the Paleostinian cause.

After all these manoeuvres, it was declared earlier that there was an agreement on the return of diplomatic relations between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Gaza has one of highest levels of diabetes in the world - 20% of the population - which results from eating too much processed food and too much food in general. The last thing they need is shipments of more processed food.
Posted by: phil_b || 07/15/2016 1:31 Comments || Top||

#2  PhilB, what the Gazooks need are explosive diapers.
These are now being prepared for shipping by a second Mawi Marmara repeat performance organized by the Grand Turk.
I personally do not buy any Turkish products and I avoid any flight of Turkish Airlines or any other flight stopping at Istanbul.
I don't trust the Mad Dog Erdoggan.
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 07/15/2016 8:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Ok, but what is this coup business about?
Posted by: Grins Snese4215 || 07/15/2016 19:12 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Furious Christie Refuses to Pick Up Trump's Dry Cleaning
Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, angrily refused to pick up Donald Trump's dry cleaning during a tense encounter between the two men on Friday, campaign sources confirm.

The ugly scene unfolded at the billionaire's offices in midtown Manhattan, shortly after Trump revealed that his Vice-Presidential pick would be Governor Mike Pence of Indiana.

According to Trump aides, Christie stomped into the presumptive Republican nominee's office and hurled a dry-cleaning ticket onto his desk, telling Trump, "You can pick up your own damn dry cleaning."

The New Jersey governor then stormed out, and has not been seen by Trump or his staffers since.

Trump's press secretary, Hope Hicks, warned the media against making too much of the apparent rift between the billionaire and Christie. "In the long hours of a campaign, emotions can sometimes get a little raw," she said. "We are confident that Governor Christie will pick up Mr. Trump's dry cleaning going forward."

Reached later by reporters, Governor Christie issued a brief statement: "Get away from me. Just get away from me, you bastards."
;-)
Posted by: gorb || 07/15/2016 14:41 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This can't be a real story...
Posted by: Raj || 07/15/2016 15:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Note the web address:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/furious-christie-refuses-to-pick-up-trumps-dry-cleaning
Perhaps this should be in Opinion?
Posted by: magpie || 07/15/2016 16:00 Comments || Top||

#3  I stopped reading the entire URL after I saw it was the New Yorker, my bad.
Posted by: Raj || 07/15/2016 16:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Thought maybe it was the Onion at first.
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/15/2016 16:55 Comments || Top||

#5  He didn't want to drive across that bridge on a Friday afternoon.
Posted by: Skidmark || 07/15/2016 17:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Perhaps this should be in Opinion?

Agreed, magpie. So moved. ;-) Cute, gorb, but note that humour definitely belongs in Opinion.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2016 20:07 Comments || Top||


Rasmussen Reports - White House Watch: Trump 44%, Clinton 37%
[Rasmussen Reports] Just days before the Republican National Convention is expected to formally nominate him for president, Donald Trump has taken his largest lead yet over Hillary Clinton.

The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly White House Watch survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Trump with 44% support to Clinton’s 37%. Thirteen percent (13%) favor some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

This is the third week in a row that Trump has held the lead, although last week he was ahead by a statistically insignificant 42% to 40%. This week’s findings represent Trump’s highest level of support in surveys since last October and show Clinton continuing to lose ground.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jill or Johnson? I am torn.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 6:35 Comments || Top||

#2  This kind of stuff isn't suppose to show up till October. You recall, that week or two before the election when the 'polls suddenly tighten'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/15/2016 7:46 Comments || Top||

#3  She's feeling the pain:


Hillary Clinton said she views the battle against terrorism as a “war” against “radical jihadist” groups, in the aftermath of a Bastille Day attack in Nice, France.

In her first interview in the past eight years on Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor program, Clinton also called for an intelligence surge between the U.S. and its closest allies and “strong, tough diplomacy.”

“We've got to do more to understand that this is a war against these terrorist groups, the radical jihadist groups,” Clinton told O’Reilly.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/15/2016 8:39 Comments || Top||

#4  I don't believe she can feel anything ( least of all real pain). If she could, we would have seen some real action taken against the "state of psychopaths" long ago.
Posted by: Elder of Zion || 07/15/2016 8:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Concur EOZ, and some would opine an untreatable prognosis. I recommend an Advance Directive and an early winter.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2016 8:54 Comments || Top||

#6  For some reason Elder I'm reminded of the saying "If you don't think an Apache can tell right from wrong, wrong one and see what happens."
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/15/2016 8:54 Comments || Top||

#7  “We've got to do more to understand that this is a war against these terrorist groups, the radical jihadist groups,” Clinton told O’Reilly.

There's nothing to understand. Their view of paradise is at odds with the liberal view of Utopia. Done. They must change or be pushed out or die.
Posted by: gorb || 07/15/2016 10:25 Comments || Top||

#8  #3 She's feeling the pain:

One cannot believe anything this witch says.
Posted by: JohnQC || 07/15/2016 10:43 Comments || Top||

#9  The fact that she had to respond is indication that things are... uncomfortable.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/15/2016 12:28 Comments || Top||

#10  Pappy are you saying this story is Yuge? Or are you implying this story might have cankles?
Posted by: Shipman || 07/15/2016 14:31 Comments || Top||

#11  Cankles. That she went on O'Reilly means a dentist visit - grinding the molars and all that.
Posted by: Pappy || 07/15/2016 14:37 Comments || Top||

#12  She still has an army of rentseekers on the government dole that will vote Democrat for Life! in November. This looks more and more like the last days of the Roman American Republic.
Posted by: magpie || 07/15/2016 21:19 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Congressmen’s fury
[DAWN] LIKE most legislatures in the democratic world, committee hearings are mostly turgid, wonkish affairs that attract virtually no public interest.

But when known Pakistain-bashers gathered in the US Congress for a joint subcommittee hearing provocatively titled ’Pakistain: Friend or Foe in the Fight against Terrorism?’ there was certainly going to be a spectacle.

Yet, what transpired during the hour-long hearing was extraordinary even by the already low standards that could be expected from a cast of characters that usually chides, berates and threatens Pakistain.

Not only were there epithets casually uttered and incendiary allegations tossed around like irrefutable fact, the range of punitive measures discussed bordered on the pathological.

One of the so-called expert witnesses called to testify on Pakistain suggested a travel ban to the US for Pak citizens, including students.

Earlier in the session, a congressman made a number of wild accusations about militancy in Sindh. By the time a notorious Pakistain-bashing congressman spewed hate about Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and the Pak state, the reasonable observer could have been forgiven for wondering if a collective madness had overcome the room.

To be sure, there are continuing and important questions to be asked of the Pak state’s anti-militancy policy.

The army leadership has in the last week explicitly indicated that it will act against those using Pak soil for attacks inside Afghanistan, but that extraordinary commitment remains to be tested.

Yet, no sober, realistic or honest appraisal of what has transpired in Afghanistan over the past decade and a half can possibly lay the bulk of the blame for that country’s continuing instability and insecurity at Pakistain’s doorstep.

Indeed, when asked about his and the US government’s support for Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
as the post-Taliban leader of Afghanistan, former ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad offered a weak defence, citing the need for a Pakhtun leader in Afghanistan.

But few American officials would deny that the Karzai era proved to be hugely damaging for Afghanistan itself -- the opportunity to build institutions and a somewhat viable state was lost to the preferences and choices of Mr Karzai who put self-interest first.

Moreover, no rational outside observer would suggest that the US has ever had a viable or realistic strategy in Afghanistan. No one should forget Gen Stanley McChrystal’s infamous "We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in" boast.

The arguments over Afghanistan, what went wrong and who is to blame can be endless because they are mostly rooted in political and strategic preferences of those arguing.

What is undeniable, however, is that wild and vicious comments from the US Congress have the potential to stoke anti-Americanism here in Pakistain and make it significantly more difficult for reasonable voices on both sides to engage in healthy debate.

Democratic norms prevent calling for a ban on political speech, but perhaps sensible voices in the US can speak out with clarity on Pakistain right now.

Posted by: Fred || 07/15/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Interesting. I can see his point. Too bad he can't see ours.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/15/2016 7:57 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
49[untagged]
6Islamic State
4Govt of Pakistan
3Taliban
1Commies
1al-Qaeda in North Africa
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1Hamas
1al-Nusra
1Govt of Syria

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2016-07-15
  BREAKING in Turkey: MILITARY COUP UNDERWAY
Thu 2016-07-14
  Truck Plows Through Bastille Day Crowd, Kills 30
Wed 2016-07-13
  Trial begins for Virginia, Washington women accused of fundraising for Al Qaeda affiliate
Tue 2016-07-12
  Nigerian Islamists Hack Female Pastor to Death – Place Her Head on Bible
Mon 2016-07-11
  Pakistan condemns India's killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander
Sun 2016-07-10
  Iraqi Forces Push ISIL Back from Air Base in Mosul
Mon 2016-07-04
  NYC: Walker in Central Park severely injured in explosion
Sun 2016-07-03
  20 Foreigners Hacked to Death in Bangladesh Hostage Carnage
Sat 2016-07-02
  Bangladesh security forces storm hostage restaurant
Fri 2016-07-01
  Gunmen Seize Hostages at Bangladesh Restaurant and Detonate Explosives

Better than the average link...



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.
3.236.234.62
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (27)    WoT Background (14)    Non-WoT (14)    (0)    Politix (8)