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Rockets Fired on Peshawar Airport, Five Dead, Dozens Injured
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
1 19:04 Mike Kozlowski [336096] 
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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1 03:28 Besoeker [336085]
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5 20:50 airandee [336096]
7 11:59 Skidmark [336072]
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2 17:13 Rambler in Virginia [336076]
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Page 6: Politix
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Europe
Depardieu 'Shrugged'
Posted by: tipper || 12/16/2012 18:14 || Comments || Link || [336096 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...Gotta believe that en Francais, that sounded freakin' awesome.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 12/16/2012 19:04 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Holder Wants to Discuss How to Ban Guns in a Responsible Way
Daniel Greenfield is a serious rock star of a writer. Moved to Opinion...
From TFA:

Attorney General Eric Holder made remarks a short time ago on the tragic school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, where a 20-year-old gunman killed 20 children and six adults. Holder appeared to suggest the country's gun laws may need to be looked at more closely in the wake of the latest mass shooting.

"As a nation I think we have to ask ourselves some hard questions. We gather too often to talk about these kinds of incidents. We need to discuss who we are as a nation, talk about the freedoms that we have, the rights that we have and how those might be used in a responsible way."

Please, by all means, let's have a discussion about how the Second Amendment can be used in a responsible way from a man who ran a gun candy store for Mexican drug lords.
Posted by: badanov || 12/16/2012 10:25 || Comments || Link || [336121 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anything coming from this man and this presidency I will immediately reject.
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/16/2012 10:44 Comments || Top||

#2  I should be able to own and responsibly use the same quality and quantity of weapons as Holder sent to the Mexican Cartels!
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2012 11:01 Comments || Top||

#3  As a nation I think we have to ask ourselves some hard questions...

Absolutely.

1- What the hell are we going to do about a $16T national debt that grows at over $1T a year?

2- Who is responsible for the Mexican and American deaths caused by Fast and Furious?

3- What happened in Benghazi?

4- In words and phrases that Americans outside of the Beltway can understand, how exactly will Obamacare change things?

5- Why is it so hard to get straightforward information from our public employees in Washington?

Etc.
Posted by: Matt || 12/16/2012 11:08 Comments || Top||

#4  And by the way, Mr. Holder, your question about the rights we have has already been discussed in some detail by experts on the subject.
Posted by: Matt || 12/16/2012 11:15 Comments || Top||

#5  Hear, hear, Matt!
Posted by: Barbara || 12/16/2012 11:28 Comments || Top||

#6  No guns were used on 9-11, nor in OKC bombing. Jim Jones used Kool Aid. It's not about guns. Evil will find a way.
Posted by: crazyhorse || 12/16/2012 11:34 Comments || Top||

#7  It's not about taxes or fairness, nor is it about guns. It's about control.

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened. –Winston Churchill
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/16/2012 11:37 Comments || Top||

#8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rtrLBYwIOZs#!
Posted by: crazyhorse || 12/16/2012 11:54 Comments || Top||

#9  Something about the color of pots and kettles...
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/16/2012 12:00 Comments || Top||

#10  Let me see if I have this straight. The government that attempts to clandestinely ship guns to AQ and MB elements across the globe, arms selected drug cartels in Mexico, and turns a blind eye toward urban, gang firearms murders in America...... now wishes to disarm law abiding US citizens ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/16/2012 12:02 Comments || Top||

#11  Right. And they'll give gun-law waivers to union members and their own bodyguards.
Posted by: Matt || 12/16/2012 12:17 Comments || Top||

#12  Discuss all you want.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2012 12:19 Comments || Top||

#13  First disarm the Military, all of it, then talk to me.

Until you do, you're not serious.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 12/16/2012 12:41 Comments || Top||

#14  Matt has it right.

Instapundit has been asking what kind of guns Rupurt Murdoch's and Michael Bloomberg's bodyguards carry.

I have a more basic question as a citizen: why are their lives worth more than mine?

You want to freeze all this stupid blabber about taking away guns, pass a law saying that the bodyguards of the rich and powerful have no more rigs than you and I have for concealed carry. Argument will be over in a New York minute.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/16/2012 15:02 Comments || Top||

#15  Don't ban guns. Ban TV cameras.
Posted by: Iblis || 12/16/2012 15:30 Comments || Top||

#16  Thanks, Rantburgers. I knew I could count on you. I needed a little bit of balance for all the crap that's been coming from the media these past few days. I've been avoiding the television as much as possible but sometimes it still finds me and they only hard questions they are asking seem to be about finding a way around the Second Amendment. Of course, if you're Eric Holder or Barack Obama, you don't need no stinkin' Constitution.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 12/16/2012 17:06 Comments || Top||

#17  D *** NG IT, AMERIKA, ITS FOR THE CHILDREN = OWG NAU!

2015 or ASAP afterward.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/16/2012 19:19 Comments || Top||

#18 
Posted by: European Conservative || 12/16/2012 21:10 Comments || Top||

#19  We have fire alams, fire extinguishers, fire escapes, and so on to protect our kids from fire in a school. But violence in school affects far more every year than does fire.

Why then are the leftists who mandate all the things in the school systems so adamant about not having armed and trained teachers/staff, or police officers present in the schools?

We have armed personnel guard the government buildings and the politicians judges and bureaucrats who are in there - are our children and school buildings any less important?
Posted by: OldSpook || 12/16/2012 21:44 Comments || Top||

#20  I'm a parent with 2 kids in school. I will be suggesting to the school principal that we implement a policy of 100% searches for ALL people entering the school. And this policy may also require the presence of a full-time armed guard to deal with high-risk offenders. I don't believe changes in the gun laws will alter the risks of school shootings in any measurable way. We will have to change safety & security at the schools themselves.
Posted by: Raider || 12/16/2012 22:56 Comments || Top||


The Mysterious Death Of General Patton
Posted by: Grunter || 12/16/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336116 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Quite difficult for deceased war heroes or those bedding with their biographers to enter politics, always has been.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/16/2012 3:38 Comments || Top||

#2  "He wanted to start World War III by fighting the Russians."

He wanted to finish WWII properly. And he would have. Imagine the welcome American troops would have received in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltics, Ukraine...
Posted by: European Conservative || 12/16/2012 4:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Imagine the welcome the Soviet Steamroller would have provided the Americans. They had, what, 50 artillery pieces for each kilometer of front?
Posted by: gromky || 12/16/2012 7:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Run over and crushed to death by a heavily laden manure wagon I heard. What are the odds it was just an accident.

And the Soviets of the time were ..how shall I say it...quite capable of that sort of thing. A lot of talent out there.

I remember a guy named Dubcek too. Whatever happened to him?
Posted by: Threater Flusoper9823 || 12/16/2012 7:56 Comments || Top||

#5  @gromky
Yes the Soviets had the artillery, but Americans had the air power.
Also loudly announcing that the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine would be made free sovereign states would have faced Soviet artillery with another problem.. being shot in the back.
Posted by: European Conservative || 12/16/2012 8:06 Comments || Top||

#6  But quantity had a quality all its own.

Americans did not want to be in Europe in 1941 and would not have been if Hitler had not been so stupid as to declare war on us. Staying there was not something we wanted to do either, but Stalin was equally stupid in playing his hand so clumsily. Now we have been the world's policeman so long no one remembers when we didn't want to be entangled in foreign alliances. Another gift from the anti-American FDR.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 12/16/2012 9:08 Comments || Top||

#7  Supposedly it was an accident that Patton himself covered up because he didn't want the guy who ran into him to have his life ruined. Supposedly.

Personally I think we're all looking for a conspiracy where there is none. Shit happens in wartime. All the rumors are just a coping mechanism that someone with so much damn potential and, in hindsight, vision died like that.
Posted by: Charles || 12/16/2012 11:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Isn't this a little self-promoting?
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/16/2012 12:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Woodring, slow down damn it! Listen closely, I can almost hear that Cadillac engine and over there is Neckarstadt, and....
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/16/2012 12:13 Comments || Top||

#10  Another gift from the anti-American FDR.

Nobody ever talks about his war on the hobos, either
Posted by: SteveS || 12/16/2012 14:27 Comments || Top||

#11  Soviet archives supposedly had it down as a hit ordered by Stalin himself.
Posted by: 3dc || 12/16/2012 17:19 Comments || Top||

#12  Adolf didn't war wid the USA in 1941 - thats why he was upset at Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor + locked himself in a room. IHO Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor made war wid the USA inevitable now - Nazi Germany's declaration was just a simple technicality.

Even presum that Nazi Germany didn't declare on the USA after Pearl Harbor, Japan as Germany's ally wanted German assistance, i.e. $$$ + arms + Troops, etc. to help defeat China. STALIN = USSR VERY LIKELY WOULD NOT HAVE HAVE TOLERATED NAZI GERMAN TROOPS IN CHINA UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, + DESPITE THE RUSSO-GERMAN NON-AGGRESSION PACT.
In addition, it is also highly likely that to secure its desired Oil-Rubber,etc. resources in SE Asia Japan would still had attacked the various Euro Colonies throughout East, South Asia - Brits [HK + Singapore + Malaya], French [Vietnam + French Polynesia], Netherlands [Indonesia], India, + Australia.

HITLER WASN'T STUPID - HE JUST WASN'T POLITICALLY, MEDIA = PR CORRECT [Fatalist?] IN HIS DECLARATION OF WAR AGZ THE US AFTER 12/07/1941.

As for Soviet Artillery, always remember that it was STALIN himself whom said that the USSR + Europe, in sole or combined, could NOT defeat Nazi Germany widout the USA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/16/2012 19:50 Comments || Top||

#13  Gromky, 2 words: Atomic Bomb. Game Set Match.
Posted by: OldSpook || 12/16/2012 21:39 Comments || Top||

#14  "IHO Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor made war wid the USA inevitable now - Nazi Germany's declaration was just a simple technicality."

Actually it wasn't. There was no treaty with Japan requiring that. After all Japan had attacked the U.S.

What is more Japan had actually let Germany down earlier when Germany attacked the USSR. The Japanese didn't even need to attack Siberia but only let the Soviets know that they could do so anytime. Thus Stalin would not have been able to bring in so many divisions from Siberia, which may have made the difference when the Germans could already spot the cupolas of the Kremlin cathedrals.

Hitler may not have been "stupid" but he certainly was delusional. His generals certainly didn't want war with the U.S. For good reason Hitler assumed supreme command over the Wehrmacht.

The U.S. would have reached Moscow within a few months. And yes, the bomb would have made the difference, but it might not even have been necessary. US air power would have been the decisive factor plus cooperation with Eastern European troops.
Posted by: European Conservative || 12/16/2012 22:30 Comments || Top||

#15  @Gromky and EC

Marshall Zukov said that 80% (eighty percent) of Soviet Union's gunpowder was provided by the Allies. On the other hand don't dismiss the Red Air Force who was mopping the floor with the Luftwaffe.

About properly finishing WWII, I remind both of you the Allied armies were about one third the size of the Soviet forces. That meant that for a war with Soviet Union they would have required allying with the people who made Auschwitz. And forget about the "pure and innocent Wehrmacht": the Allies bugged the cells of German war prisoners and what they heard was pilots boasting of having shot strollers or strafing garden parties in England, of mass murders and rapes in Russia (rape was not punished in Russia). I repeat: they didn't lament, they boasted. It's true WWII was not properly finished: half the Wehrmacht should have been shot for war crimes. But both sides forgave "their" Germans because they needed them.
Posted by: JFM || 12/16/2012 23:36 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Sunni Tehrik: On Dangerous Grounds
In the first of a series of profiles of religious outfits in Pakistain, Mohammad Shehzad looks at Sunni Tehrik
...formed in Karachi in 1992 under by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. It quickly fell to trading fisticuffs and liquidations with the MQM and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, with at least a half dozen of its major leaders rubbed out. Sunni Tehreek arose to become the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque, headed by Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was eventually bumped off by person or persons unknown. ST's current leadership has heavily criticized the Deobandi Jihadi leaders, accusing them of being sponsored by Indian Intelligence agencies as well as involvement in terrorist activities...
In 1990, nine leaders of the Barelvi sect decided to get organized to protect their interests in the face of what they saw as the growing influence of Wahabism during the regime of Gen Zia ul Haq
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
. Several mosques, seminaries and shrines belonging to Barelvi Moslems were targeted or occupied with indirect support from the Zia government.

Saleem Qadri, Abbas Qadri, Iftikhar Bhatti, Dr Abdul Qadeer, Akram Qadri, Abdul Aziz Chishti, Shadab Akmal, Waheed Qadri, and Saleem Raza founded Pakistain Sunni Tehrik with the specific aim of protecting their shrines and mosques. In the two decades that followed, they were all killed.

Saleem Qadri, the chief of the party, was killed along with his bodyguards, driver and nephew in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
in 2002. His successor, Abbas Qadri, was among 50 other key men killed in a suicide kaboom during a public meeting in Nishtar Park. Since then, the party has been led by Sarwat Ejaz Qadri.

The Kashmire jihad was at its peak in the 1990s and Bloody Karachi was home to operatives from a number of state-backed Jihadi outfits, who were also anti-Shia and anti-Barelvi. Besides fighting in Kashmire, beturbanned goons from these organizations were also targeting Shias and Barelvis all over Pakistain.

Some analysts say the Sunni Tehrik began as an armed wing of the Barelvi Jamaat Ulema-e-Pakistain (led by Shah Ahmed Noorani). Qadri denies that. "Our mandate was to launch a legal and constitutional struggle for our rights," he said in an interview. "We held peaceful protests against the occupation of our mosques and seminaries, met local administration officials to convey our concerns, and challenged the illegal occupations in courts."

In 2002, the group decided to participate in electoral politics. Not too long after it began its political journey with a tree planting campaign in Bloody Karachi, Saleem Qadri was assassinated. The loss set back their campaign for the local elections. In 2008, Sunni Tehrik did not win a seat, but ranked fourth in Bloody Karachi, after the MQM, the PPP, and the MMA.

As the party gained influence, it was also accused of extortion. There are allegations that Sunni Tehrik takes protection money from traders in its areas of influence in Bloody Karachi. Qadri says they are false. "There is a difference between donation and extortion."

Born in Quetta on July 14, 1961, Sarwat Qadri is a son of a civilian employee of Pakistain Navy. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Bloody Karachi, and a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Government College of Technology, Bloody Karachi. Before joining Sunni Tehrik, he was a member of Dawat-e-Islami, a Barelvi preaching outfit.

He said education was among the four key points in his party's manifesto. "Education is the most important thing. Without education, Pakistain will never progress." Qadri has been to Japan twice on scholarship, while he was working in the Japanese company Pak-Suzuki. "When bombs were dropped on the Japanese, they did not pick up weapons in response. They did not starting abusing the enemy. They did not start massacring people. They gave their children education and sent them to the same country for higher education that had dropped nuclear bombs on them." He is proud his children went to missionary schools.

Other key postulates of the Sunni Tehrik manifesto are faith, tolerance, and equality. Qadri admits his party has a long way to go.

Among the major hurdles it has to face is violence from sectarian outfits. The Sunni Tehrik blames Sipah-e-Sahaba for attacks on Barelvi leaders. Sarwat Qadri believes those who bomb their mosques are themselves committing blasphemy. "Those who are bombing mosques and desecrating the Holy Koran, those who are beheading innocent people, those who are orchestrating terrorist attacks and liquidations, how can they call themselves Moslems? They are an insult to Islam."

"Islam is a religion of peace," Qadri said to a question about violent protests in response to incidents of blasphemy. "It does not permit murder," he said. "It does not ordain beheading innocent people." But he does glorify Mumtaz Qadri, the man who assassinated Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer.

Like all rightwing parties, the Sunni Tehrik is critical of the US. Sarwat Qadri blames the US for terrorism and sectarian violence in Pakistain, because it backed bad boy groups during the Afghan jihad, which he says was carried out with Saudi money.

Sunni Tehrik has 350 offices all over Pakistain, and claims it has hundreds of thousands of members. But it has not been able to win even a single seat in the parliament. The reason for that, according to Sarwat Qadri, is that Pak politics are based on castes and clans. "People don't vote for a cause," he says, "they vote for a caste."

Qadri's high-security gated enclave guarded by coppers and dozens of volunteers is a stark reminder of the security problems in Bloody Karachi. The reason, he believes, is that people in the government are trying to protect their own interests.

"The government can enforce its writ whenever it wants," he said. "It knows who the beturbanned goons are and where are they hiding. When it will decide that it has to cleanse the city of terrorism, not a single terrorist will survive."

The Sunni Tehrik is known for its stance against suicide kabooms. Clerics from the party have issued an edict that says suicide attacks are not allowed in Islam. One of them, Dr Sarfraz Naeemi of Darul Naeemia, is said to have been assassinated because of that edict.

The writer is an Islamabad based journalist and researcher. His work is archived at www.pol-dev.com.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/16/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:



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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2012-12-16
  Rockets Fired on Peshawar Airport, Five Dead, Dozens Injured
Sat 2012-12-15
  Tunisian Salafists attack bar, call drinkers 'infidels'
Fri 2012-12-14
  Coca-Cola resumes its production in Somalia
Thu 2012-12-13
  'Friends of Syria' Recognize Syrian Opposition
Wed 2012-12-12
  Syria Fires Scud Missiles at Insurgents, U.S. Says
Tue 2012-12-11
  North Korea 'launches long-range rocket'
Mon 2012-12-10
  Rebels Seize Chunk of Aleppo Base as Fighting Rages across Syria
Sun 2012-12-09
  Mohammad Ahmed Almansoor Drone-zapped in North Wazoo
Sat 2012-12-08
  Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti Drone-zapped During Breakfast
Fri 2012-12-07
  6 dead, 450 injured in clashes at Egypt's presidential palace
Thu 2012-12-06
  Two Dead as Egypt Islamists Overrun Opposition Tents
Wed 2012-12-05
  Hundreds of thousands besiege Egypt's presidential palace to protest draft constitution
Tue 2012-12-04
  Syria FM Spokesman 'Defects' from Regime, Leaves Syria
Mon 2012-12-03
  Car bomb in Syria's Homs kills 15: State media
Sun 2012-12-02
  Mullah Nazir orders out Mehsud Taliban fighters

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