Paracha is discussing his friend Yousaf, who ran off to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan...
[DAWN] In 2011, Jonathan Steele, author and war correspondent of UK’s The Guardian published his eighth and most referenced book The Afghan Ghost.
Steele puts to rest the common belief that it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 which kick-started the civil war there. A former CIA operative and later President Obama’s defence secretary, Robert Gates, wrote in his 2015 book Duty that a number of insurgent leaders who fought against the Soviets had earlier rebelled against the ‘modernist’ Afghan nationalist regime of Sardar Daud (1973-78). Gates also wrote that many of these insurgents were already being backed by the US and by the Z.A. Bhutto government in Pakistan, years before the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet forces.
The claim which Steele takes the most pleasure in debunking is regarding the Islamic insurgents’ role in triggering the fall of Soviet communism. Steele quotes Morton Abramowitz, who directed the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the time, as saying that in 1985 there was great concern in Reagan’s White House that the mujahideen were actually losing the war. Abramowitz told Steele that the insurgents were losing major battles and ‘falling apart.’
According to Steele it was the new Soviet leader Gorbachev who decided to pull the plug and begin to roll back the war in Afghanistan. Steele wrote that “Gorbachev calculated that the war had become a stalemate” and was draining the Soviet economy. The Soviet economy was already under strain mainly due to failed socialist experiments. Its ultimate failure and the Soviet Union’s eventual collapse had little to do with the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. Basically the Soviet Union imploded from within.
Yousaf went to Afghanistan again in 1987. He returned later that year and by the early 1990s he had become completely disillusioned by his earlier passions. I last met him in 2004 when he was moving to Nairobi with his wife and children. I handed him back the two booklets he had given me in 1986, jokingly telling him that he might still need to give his life some spiritual meaning.
He laughed, then ran to his bedroom and came back with an old paperback biography of Karl Marx. He took the booklets from me and handed me the Marx bio, saying: “Thanks, and here, this is for you. These booklets and the Marx bio will remind both of us about the utter stupidity of youthful idealism.”
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2017 00:00 ||
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[The Hill] A toxic and deadly political correctness has enveloped Western Europe and enabled an unending wave of terrorist attacks. Refusing to utter the words "radical Islamic extremism," opening the door to millions of half-vetted refugees and decrying the concepts of borders and assimilation have resulted in a culture in crisis ‐ a culture without democratic, freedom-loving identity and constantly under murderous attack from cancers within.
Skipping down to the facts:
Blind to reality, they ignore the facts.
The fact that last Ramadan ‐ the Muslim holy month during which ISIS called for "all-out war" on "infidels" ‐ an Islamic terrorist attack occurred once every 84 hours. The fact that far-left Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted mistakes in admitting millions of refugees into her country. And the fact that 65 percent of all people convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offenses in the U.S. were foreign-born, pointing to a clear, inextricable link between immigration and terrorism.
These are facts, in the face of which fictitious falsehoods are embraced.
To be sure, most immigrants are good and most Muslims are peaceful. But responsible leaders must nevertheless acknowledge the radical Islamic extremists that seek to cross our borders and kill our people.
America and Europe face a choice ‐ a choice between realism and idealism. While the American people chose the former on Nov. 8 in the election of Donald Trump, Europe and the establishment political classes in American society consistently choose the latter.
Angela Merkel chose idealism when she lectured President Trump at the NATO headquarters just over a week ago, saying it "is not isolation and the building of walls that make us successful...." The American courts have chosen idealism in striking down Trump’s revised travel pause from seven countries where vetting proves impossible, despite the action being well within Trump’s Article II powers. And Congress has chosen idealism in its refusal to allocate money for building a border wall along our southern border.
In stark contrast, President Trump has embraced realism full throttle. In addition to being maligned for his executive order on travel and his border wall, he was mocked by the severely out-of-touch chattering class for a slew of spot-on tweets in the aftermath of the London attacks, warning that "[w]e must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people." And he appropriately chastised London Mayor Sadiq Khan for suggesting there is "no reason to be alarmed." This is the same London mayor who previously suggested that terrorism is just "part and parcel of living in a big city."
Trump’s realistic take was nevertheless shunned and rejected with flashy headlines.
#1
When you go PC on war, this is what you get. 16+ years of continuous warfare without an end in sight. The cancer was allowed to spread instead of being obliterated at the very beginning.
#2
But a PC strategy based on denial allows you to establish local shuras (meetings) to pump USAID resources ($$$) into the local economies to recruit willing sources cultivate the 'moderate Muslims' and help build Klingon target folders them establish democracy.
Prolonging the conflict, regional destabilization, and regime change are the goals.
Looks like he's got his priorities right.
A young man who fled yesterday's terrorist attacks with a pint of beer in hand has become something of an internet hero.
The photo, which has been retweeted over 28,000 times, features the man fleeing from the scene with a pint of beer in hand. For some, the photo provided a moment of profoundly dark comedy on a day otherwise entirely colored by tragedy.
"People fleeing #LondonBridge but the bloke on the right isn't spilling a drop. God Bless the Brits!" Howard Mannella, who posted a photo of the tweet, wrote.
People couldn't help but feel a little twinge of pride upon seeing a fellow Londoner refuse to leave his beer behind, despite the danger around him.
#4
He's probably broken a pint over someones head once or twice when a soccer match went bad. That may be a pint to most people, but its a weapon as well.
[DailyMail] We can’t just respond again by organising a benefit concert and waiting for a sympathetic world to light up its landmarks in red, white and blue. We, the British people, the good people of Britain, need to stand united in demanding drastic measures.
Firstly, as Tarique Ghaffur - Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard when the 7/7 bombings took place - proposed last weekend, we need to round up the terror watch list, all 3,000 of them, and intern the lot.
And secondly, we need to lock down the 650 jihadis we allowed to return to the UK or get them out. If they went to Saudi or Syria to train, they can go back there. And their passport and right to British nationality hits the incinerator on their way out.
I know all the arguments against internment – the camps become universities for terror, it will alienate other Muslims and help radicalise extremist sympathisers.
And a few weeks ago I’d probably have said that tipped the balance. But we are way beyond that now.
Our security services clearly cannot cope in monitoring all the threats out there against us so it’s time we took the most obvious ones off the streets.
If we breed more homegrown terror, we incarcerate or deport. A or B.
Thirdly, Theresa has to mean what she says about cracking down on extremism.
She has to drain the swamps of hate. That means zero tolerance of the people in the Muslim community peddling this breed of hatred, the ultra-conservative imams, the extremist mosques that encourage new Jihadi recruits to seek vengeance on the British way of life. Close down Saudi-funded mosques, charge ultra-conservative imams; incarcerate or deport.
Do not let the liberals speak to you of protecting British values of tolerance and decency. Many extreme Islamists are fighting against the very values we cherish. They want to oppress and frighten our women and girls indoors. Islamic extremists are at war with our culture. They have no wish to integrate and are proud to live apart in ghettos of extremist hate.
WTF is this "less" crap? If you actually want results, make it ZERO tolerance.
4. Reinforce British values
Bring back the Tower of London and the executioner's axe. When it comes to dealing with Islamic terrorism, THAT is a British value I can heartily endorse.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/05/2017 7:41 Comments ||
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#9
...repeat..they are suicidal. They want to die.
As g(r)om has already pointed out, you go after the family, deport, exile, shower dishonor upon them and their fate back in their own medieval world. That they seem to have a connection with. Exploit their own warped sense of honor, motivate the families to turn them in. When junior becomes a threat to their life style in the west, they'll cough them up.
#2
The media over there is just as bad as here. Merkel will go down in flames eventually. She has absolute disdain for alpha males like Putin or Trump. Germany is losing its culture. With their numbers in decline the imported will rule the day eventually.
[FB] The free world... all of Christendom... is at war with Islamic horror. Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter. Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down. Hunt them, identity them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.
-Captain Clay Higgins
There's a tried and true American approach to suppressing terrorism, and it worked quite well during Gen. Sherman's 1863 Kentucky campaign and Gen. Phil Sheridan's subsequent reduction of the Shenandoah Valley. We don't have to be particularly smart; we merely have to do some disgusting things. Sherman and Sheridan suppressed sniping at Union soldiers by Confederate civilians by burning the towns (just the towns, not the townsfolk) that sheltered them. In other words, they forced collective responsibility upon a hostile population, a doctrine that in peacetime is entirely repugnant, but that in wartime becomes unavoidable. By contrast, the peacetime procedure of turning petty criminals into police snitches has backfired terribly. No doubt we will learn that the perpetrators of tonight's horror at London Bridge were known to police, like the Manchester Arena suicide bomber and most of the perpetrators of large-scale terrorist acts in Europe during the past several years. (Update: "At Least One London Bridge Terrorist Was a 'Known Wolf'") The remedy is time-tested and straightforward. We merely require the will to apply it.
#1
During WWII and even in Korea, we did not worry about winning hearts and minds. One can have the luxury of thinking about winning hearts and minds(or not) after winning.
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.
[Weekly Standard] By Christopher Caldwell
[FB] The free world... all of Christendom... is at war with Islamic horror. Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter. Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down. Hunt them, identity them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.
