[GeopoliticalFutures] One of the most important things to remember is that the North Koreans are neither ignorant nor psychotic. Strange as it may sound, ignorant psychotics don’t build nuclear weapons and missiles. Rational actors who feel cornered do. Washington rightly takes the threat seriously; it wouldn’t be deploying its military so measuredly were that not the case. Going to war with someone you regard as a fool is the most foolish thing you can do,
Not necessarily. In some cases not going to war is more foolish, regardless of one's opinion of the other team's wisdom and intelligence...
and there is no evidence that that would be the case with North Korea. It’s always best to overestimate your enemy.
In Washington, many will claim that if President Donald Trump orders an attack, he will have done so only for political reasons.
In Washington, many are idiots.
But such accusations ignore U.S. policy on North Korea, which has stood stalwart for more than a decade. (Barack Obama even warned Trump that North Korea would be his biggest challenge in foreign policy.)
(Golly. Because Barack Obama was ever right about anything.)
It was inevitable that Pyongyang’s strategy would bring it close to, or push it over, the red line. It just so happens that it did so under Trump. This is not a defense of Trump but a defense of our belief at Geopolitical Futures that imperatives, not personalities, dictate the actions of states.
IMO, most are getting the Norks motivation for nukes wrong. I think their primary purpose is to extort money from Skor, Japan, and anyone else who can be extorted.
#3
"Going to war with someone you regard as a fool is the most foolish thing you can do,"
uhh, beg to differ.
Just as an exercise, make a two column page list of wars of (a) wars started by who won, and (b) wars started by who lost, or at least who didn't get what they wanted.
It will make you think.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/26/2017 8:19 Comments ||
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#4
Strange as it may sound, ignorant psychotics don’t build nuclear weapons and missiles.
Strange as it may sound, that is not necessarily true.
#5
Werner von Braun was not a fool or a sociopath but his boss was. And while Pudgy has some very intelligent people working for him I would argue that the reason he feels cornered is that he is a sociopath. Now, if the NORKS could just get rid of him...
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/26/2017 11:44 Comments ||
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It doesn't occur to them to void an election if there's less than a certain percentage of women voting.
[DAWN] ILLEGAL agreements among certain political parties or candidates have routinely barred women in certain areas from contesting elections and voting in this country. In a long-awaited development, legal protections for women’s electoral rights were recently instituted with amendments to sections 78 and 103AAA of the Representation of the People Act, 1976, thereby empowering the Election Commission of Pakistain to disqualify candidates who prevent women from voting. This is a significant step, especially when female disenfranchisement is routine in remote areas of KP and 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... . Tabled by Senator Sherry Rehman as the Representation of the People [Amendment Bill, 2017], this law also allows the ECP to declare an election void, calling for a repoll in constituencies where women have been stopped from voting. Under the amended section 103AAA, the ECP can conduct summary inquiries when it gets reports of election irregularities, declaring polls in such constituencies void. Appeals against the ECP’s decisions can be filed in the Supreme Court.
Given that these amendments allow the ECP to counter the patriarchal traditions forming the core of such unforgiveable and discriminatory behaviour, the law’s implementation is expected. It should have no excuse not to nullify poll results in constituencies that bar women voters. The ECP must start by making inquiries into last week’s Shangla by-election where women voters were stopped. Moreover, political parties should be penalised for forcibly keeping women away from the poll process. The belief in many conservative areas that women’s duties revolve around their home, and not outside, is indicative of misogyny, and shows up exclusionary and anti-women practices at all levels. Furthermore, in the run-up to the next general election, a bill pending in parliament allowing for repolling at polling stations or even entire constituencies if less than 10pc of registered women voters cast their ballot, must be passed. The state must make it clear that interfering in women’s electoral rights will not be tolerated.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] WHEN a high-profile kidnapping takes place in broad daylight in one of the most heavily policed urban centres in the country, questions are bound to be raised. On Tuesday afternoon in Quetta, two Chinese nationals, a man and a woman who run a language centre in the city’s affluent Jinnah Colony, were forced into a car without a number plate by three gunnies who then drove away firing their weapons in the air. Another Chinese woman managed to break free and ran back into the centre. When a passer-by, a commendably brave one at that, intervened, he was shot and injured. So far, no one has grabbed credit for the abduction.
The incident underscores the precarious security situation in insurgency-wracked 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... as well as the murky transnational interests that complicate matters there. The province has seen a number of acts of terrorism since the Aug 8, 2016, suicide kaboom in Quetta that killed scores of lawyers. On Oct 24, holy warriors stormed the police training college in the scenic provincial capital, killing around 60 young cadets. In November, a suicide kaboom at the Shah Noorani shrine left at least 50 people dead. On April 13 this year, 10 labourers were rubbed out at a construction site, and on May 12, a suicide kaboom targeted the convoy of the deputy chairman, Senate, Maulana Ghafoor Haideri in Mastung. The holy man sustained injuries, while close to 30 people bit the dust. Those who have grabbed credit for these attacks include Baloch krazed killers, and various Islamist outfits including the hard boyIslamic 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.... group, Jamaatul Ahrar ...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough... , etc; there are also a number of shadowy criminal groups in the province with links -- sometimes tenuous, at other times not -- to Lion of Islam organizations. Balochistan today is a confoundedly complex problem, a powder keg of competing interests, the outcome of a decades-long failure of state policy marked by a refusal to honestly address the political grievances -- some of them very legitimate -- of the Baloch; that omission is being exploited by subversive foreign elements with some success. Arguably, the inception of CPEC has made the situation even more fraught, with security for Chinese nationals acquiring particular urgency. The abduction two days ago is evidence that law-enforcement authorities in the province have yet to get their act together. It is pertinent to ask how, in a city with an overwhelming security footprint, did the perpetrators get away with such a brazen crime?
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
For now, everyone knows the sonorous name and cherubic face of 8-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos.
She’s the littlest known victim of Monday night’s jihad attack in Manchester, England. Her doe-eyed image spread as rapidly across social media as the #PrayForManchester hashtags and Twitter condolences from celebrities.
But I guarantee you that beautiful Saffie Rose will evaporate from the memories of those most loudly proclaiming "Never forget" faster than a dewdrop in the desert.
Look no further for proof of the West’s incurable terror attack amnesia than the reaction to the Manchester massacre. Reporters, politicians and pundits expressed shock at the brutality of Moslem murderers targeting children and young people.
Labour Party leader Yvette Cooper posited on BBC Live that it was a "first."
"The architects of terror have hit a new low," a Liverpool newspaper editorialized.
U.K. columnist Rosie Millard described the bloody bombing as an "attack unique in its premeditated targeting of the young."
What planet have these people been living on for the past 16 years? How quickly the blind, deaf and dumb virtue signalers forget.
Last year, the Orlando, Florida, nightclub jihadist purposely targeted young people simply having a good time. Among the youngest victims cut down in their prime: Jason B. Josaphat, 19, and vacationing high school honors student Akyra Monet Murray, 18.
Somali jihadist Abdul Razak Ali Artan plowed his car into Ohio State University students last fall before stabbing several of them. The attack was swept under the rug as the usual, terror-coddling suspects worried more about a nonexistent "backlash" against Moslems than they did about the steady infiltration of refugee jihadis and Islamic holy warriors at colleges and universities across the country.
In 2004, Islamic baby-killers attacked a school in Beslan, Russia, during a three-day siege that took the lives of 186 young children.
At Fort Hood in 2009, soldier Francheska Velez and her unborn child were murdered by jihadist Nidal Hasan with 13 other victims. Her last words: "My baby! My baby!"
Eight children were murdered on airliners that jihadists hijacked and crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Christine Hanson, 3, was on United Airlines Flight 175 with her parents. She was on her first trip to Disneyland. Juliana McCourt, 4, was traveling with her mom -- also on her way to Disneyland. David Brandhorst, 3, was traveling with his adoptive dad and his lover companion.
Sisters Zoe Falkenberg, 8, and Dana, 3, were headed to Australia with their parents on American Airlines Flight 77.
Bernard Brown Jr., 11; Rodney Dickens, 11; and Asia Cottom, 11, all from Washington, D.C., were also on the Falkenbergs’ flight. They were public schoolchildren traveling with their teachers on an educational trip.
An additional 10 pregnant women and their unborn babies died as the Twin Towers toppled. Eight years before, during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, one pregnant woman and her unborn child also perished.
The Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 injured 263 and claimed three lives, including 8-year-old Martin Richard. Authorities recounted at trial that Martin suffered "visceral pain" in nearly every part of his body as shrapnel -- metal, wood, nails and pellets -- from the jihadists’ pressure cooker bomb ripped into him.
Yes, the same type of sadistic torture bombs suspected of maiming and killing kids and teens in Manchester this week.
Newsflash: There is nothing new or unique about the barbaric soldiers of Allah executing premeditated attacks on our young. History teaches us there is no appeasing the unappeasable. They will not be bought by welfare subsidies, sensitivity programs, college educations or diversity-is-our-strength platitudes.
The slaughter of the innocents will continue unabated as long as the West’s useless last responders to jihad violence -- addled by short-term memories and child-like comprehension of the Islamic imperialism imperative -- prevail. The real enemy is not Moslems - they're just predators attracted to opportunity - the real enemy are "Western Elites" and their war against our very Humanity. Never believe the enemy's not Moslems. Not all of them, but a pretty significant strain. Katy Perry and similar nitwits are aiders and abettors. They deserve to be sent to the un-air conditioned Tower of Needles, assuming one can be built large enough, there to live out their miserable lives without contact with the civilized world. The Salafist murder crew need to be killed like the human cockroaches they are.
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.
North Korea
By Michelle Malkin
