#3
Gen. Mattis, while capable, efficient, fearless, etc. was also something of a loose cannon at times, saying things out loud in public that were better said quietly in person.
Notwithstanding that, he was said to be the type of commander who, if any of his subordinates hade made this kind of sarcastic threat, would have dressed them down quickly, or maybe even worse.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/25/2013 7:11 Comments ||
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#4
Skid
I followed a link from Instapundit yesterday. I recommend a tour of the site, Duffleblog, I like the writing/humor.
Its a sad state of affairs in this country when you read the comments at the site. Talk about wish fulfilment.
#5
...need to get over the dreams of the old republic. It's dead Jim. It's an oligarchy, of which the old majority and still the majority have been stripped of their original standing. All the rest is just a facade to keep you dreaming and servile.
#6
Say what you will about Gen. Mattis - I have no doubt he could get 100,000 Marines to follow him. Most would follow him to hell in gasoline-soaked cammies.
I agree that the republic is dead. It is not an oligarchy though.
Ineptocracy - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
12/25/2013 10:22 Comments ||
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#7
Ineptocracy - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers
BB,
May I have your permission to shamelessly steal that?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/25/2013 10:43 Comments ||
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#8
Actually, for all their Che loving up-the-revolution posturing, many of the DC denizens would not flee, as they would never recognize an actual revolution on their own doorstep. The best the average citizen could hope for would be to actually hear a senator, representative or bureaucrat whine "don't you know who I am!" just before he she or it swung from a lamppost...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/25/2013 12:00 Comments ||
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#9
Well said, BB!
And, unlike Mike, I'm not asking, I'm just cheerfully stealing it (with credit given, of course.) ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/25/2013 14:55 Comments ||
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#10
I saw the term on another site and felt I need to share in the Xmas spirit.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
12/25/2013 18:13 Comments ||
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#11
FYI YOUTUBE advance trailers for Tom Cruise's new flick next year i.e. "EDGE AFTER TOMMOROW/LIVE, DIE, REPEAT" is out - it appears to show the US + UK or US-Allies failing in some kind of futuristic, RoboSoldier-techy massive invasion of a seemingly occupied Europe.
Cruise's character supposedly has troubling visions or premonitions that the invasion will fail, where Cruise's character says "... WE LOSE EVERYTHING". As per a MADONNA video lyric, the movie's main Femme "suffers the same" as Cruise's character.
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"" Luke 2:13, 14
The blogger touches on the main reason why we have a second amendment: The gun owners who helped establish the republic were to keep their arms in exchange for supporting the new Bill of Rights and the new republic. Over time, the reason remains unchanged: RKBA is a bulwark against tyranny imposed by fiat.
A search engine sent someone here searching for "why are democrats eager to confiscate guns."
Essentially, to facilitate remaining in power, and for self preservation. And for the full answer to that, let me turn to the recognized expert on the topic. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote Il Principe, The Prince, which most rulers of the past 500 years have had on their nightstand. While The Prince should take up a quarter of one high school civics or government class, one chapter in particular should be read and understood by every gun owner.
The title and chapter number varies with the translation, but it is usually Chapter XX, twenty, and the title usually refers to either castles or fortresses.
A faithful translation of that chapter will have a paragraph that could be summed up much like this, "There has never been a prince who was loved by his people who did not arm them; that they may defend him with their blood. There has never been a prince whose people hated him that did not disarm his subjects, that they may not overthrow him by force of arms." Read the whole thing.
#1
Clarence Thomas in an opinion issued on one of the gun decisions laid out how Southern blacks were disarmed in the post-Civil War period and that action's contribution to the stripping of their basic civil rights for nearly a century. Those acts were perpetrated by the very party in question.
#2
The main reason gun control is unpopular in America today is that the anti-gun (read: Leftists) side's argument has devolved to "guns are icky" at the same time that leftists embrace things that are actually icky to appalling, and hypocritical as well. If they can't stop having a crush on urban gangstas, why should anyone believe they really have a problem with gun violence at all? Oh, they loves them some school shooting hysteria, but beyond that, they are silent. And they are too stupid to realize that Average Joe and Average JoAnne see right through it...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/25/2013 10:21 Comments ||
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#3
Yes, why do democrats love gun laws?
Because they can, and we cant do anything about it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/25/2013 11:12 Comments ||
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#4
The desire to disarm the populace is not limited by partisan politics. The assumption that its only the Democrats is not only foolish but downright dangerous.
#2
Various Perts are claming that 2013 was a bad year for the Bammer + Amerika, + 2014 will likely be much worse regardless of any rhetotic to the contrary.
[Washington Post] But the reason the president can't cite a specific time the phone meta-data program stopped a similar tragedy is because it hasn't.
Law professor Geoffrey Stone, a member of the presidential task force charged with reviewing NSA programs, told NBC News the group specifically looked for times when the program may have helped prevent a terrorist attack, but "found none." The task force's final report reflects that, saying:
Our review suggests that the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional section 215 orders.
But the lack of evidence that the program is effective will probably not prevent the NSA's defenders from continuing to invoke 9/11 to protect the program. Another member of the task force, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, admitted the group had found that "the program to date has not played a significant role in stopping terrorist attacks in the United States," but earlier in his interview credited the NSA as one of the agencies responsible for the lack of successful terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11.
Duh. Intel doesn't work that way. For every "we attack at dawn from the southern sector using two divisions" piece of data there are literally millions of other pieces that might construct background, lay out an operations network, add (or subtract) persons from the organizational structure, track the movement of money, any one of the thousands of things that go into operating a terrorist -- or spy or sabotage network or even a Boy Scout troop. The WaPo writer is, I think, writing from a point of view in which he expects a result, rather than where evidence takes him. Or maybe it was Law Professor Geoffrey Stone who started from his conclusion and argued backwards.
I have no well-formed opinion on NSA's domestic operations. When I was in the business they didn't have any. Period. My personal opinion is that they shouldn't -- except for when there's a foreign terminal in the conversation, and then with special handling.
But I still have a bit of an idea how intel works.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Surely it's better to concentrate on needles rather than hay though.
Every Indian diplomat in the U.S. has told the same lie, because none of them can afford to pay the local minimum wage when their own pay, even with the foreign allowance, is barely more than that
In the outrage over the arrest of Devyani Khobragade, we are perhaps not asking if the grounds the United States has given for this unusual step are morally or legally sustainable. The U.S. is right that Ms. Khobragade falsely stated when she applied for her domestic helps visa that the woman would be paid over the minimum U.S. wage of $7.25 an hour. Every Indian diplomat in the U.S. has told the same lie, because none of them can afford to pay the local minimum wage when their own pay, even with the foreign allowance, is barely more than that. The U.S. government knows this, because the bank account of every Indian diplomat posted there, to which it has easy access, will make this plain. If it issues visas nevertheless, it is complicit in the lie.
The U.S. has a right to expect that no one brought there will be ill-treated. That forms the basis of its second charge, that because Ms. Khobragade did not pay her help the minimum U.S. wage, she treated the woman like a slave. Indians who agree, and believe the help is the real victim, perhaps do not know the facts.
The minimum wage in the U.S., as in India, is the governments fanciful notion of what it costs to keep body and soul together, but civil society has long argued that it is woefully inadequate. Several U.S. non-governmental organisations make calculations for every city and county what the living wage should be, taking into account that the wage-earner must pay for food, housing, medical care, transportation and other essentials, including clothing. They hold that the minimum living wage in New York city for a single person is $12.75 an hour. For a single parent with two children, the dominant family pattern, it is $32.30, four times the official minimum wage.
This gap between actual need and the governments perception of it translates into widespread poverty and hunger, particularly among the blacks and the Hispanics who form the bulk of the population that works at the minimum wage; they cannot live on it and therefore sink into debt. NGOs estimated that in 2012, 49 million Americans lived in food-insecure households. Households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national average included households with children headed by single women (35.4 per cent), black households (24.6 per cent) and Hispanic households (23.3 per cent).
While the U.S. argues that anyone in New York paid less than the minimum U.S. wage is being ill-treated, what is in fact the case is that anyone who has to live only on that wage is as the U.S. NGOs so vehemently argue condemned to a life of poverty and hunger. Forbes pointed out in an article earlier this year that the unemployed who live on welfare get more in several States than those who work for minimum wages. In New York, Forbes calculated the annual take-home from welfare at $43,700 a year, or $21.01 an hour, almost three times the minimum wage.
It is important to remember this because a help employed by an Indian diplomat has none of the expenses that are assessed to compute either a minimum or a living wage. She stays in a room in the diplomats house, with her food, clothing, medical bills and transportation all paid for. Every dollar she earns is saved. If Sangeeta Richard was paid $500 a month, she was saving that a month. No one living on minimum wages in the U.S. has savings; most are up to their eyes in debt. Saving $500 a month for them is a pipe dream. The black and Hispanic women who work as domestic help and charwomen in the U.S., and form its underclass as the societal and lineal descendants of slave labour, would happily trade places with Sangeeta Richard.
Members of our civil society who argue that she was bonded labour, as defined in our Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, perhaps do not know the terms under which domestic help are employed by Indian diplomats. Neither that Act, nor any of the judgments of the Supreme Court which interpreted it, applies to them.
Those who claim that the Indian government has no interest in protecting domestic workers, and therefore is indifferent to Sangeeta Richards plight, ask why it has not ratified Convention 189 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers, which came into force in September 2013. This is unfair because the government of India voted for the draft, and has since prepared a draft Policy for Domestic Workers, incorporating many of the provisions of the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act (UWSSA), 2008.
It is also not germane to this case because ILO Convention 189 would protect a domestic worker abroad only if the host government has ratified it. Like India, the U.S. government also voted for the Convention in 2011, but made a remarkably candid statement in explanation of vote: In the case of the United States, a number of the provisions present complex issues with respect to our existing law in practice, including in regard to our federal system of government. Accordingly, we want to make clear that our vote to adopt this Convention entails no obligation by the United States to ratify it.
Convention 189 offers all the protections that the U.S. claims Sangeeta Richard was denied. If these are already statutory requirements in the U.S., it is hard to understand why the convention presented it with complex issues, which had to be reconciled with its laws.
What is disturbing is that the U.S. evacuated the Richard family after issuing them T-visas, given to the next of kin of victims of human trafficking. This meant that, in its view, Sangeeta Richard was a victim of human trafficking as defined in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC).
The protocol defines trafficking in persons in detail. None of the conditions precedent applies to Sangeeta Richard, and a person travelling on an official passport of a democracy run by the rule of law by definition is not someone who is being trafficked. Moreover, when the Indian Embassy had asked the U.S. government to help trace her when she absconded, the T-visas in response make it clear that the U.S. considered the Indian government complicit in human trafficking.
It follows that the U.S. does not have the slightest intention of abiding by Article 8 of the Protocol, which sets out the terms under which a victim of trafficking is sent back to her country. In turn, this violates the assurance the U.S. gave when it ratified the protocol, to which it entered a reservation, but clarified that this reservation does not affect in any respect the ability of the United States to provide international cooperation to other Parties as contemplated in the Protocol.
Instead, the U.S. claims that its laws were broken, and since a consular officer does not have the full immunity of an accredited diplomat, Ms. Khobragade was not immune from either arrest or subsequent prosecution. This, though, is not what the U.S. argued as the applicable international law when its diplomatic and consular staff were taken hostage in Iran in 1979, and the government in Tehran threatened to prosecute them for acts that were, in its view, crimes in Iranian law. The U.S. moved the International Court of Justice and in its submission, claimed inter alia that: Pursuant to Articles 28, 31, 33, 34, 36 and 40 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Government of lran is under an international legal obligation to the United States to ensure that the consular personnel of the United States be treated with respect and protected from attack on their persons, freedom, and dignity; and that United States consular officers be free from arrest or detention. The Government of Iran has violated and is currently violating the foregoing obligations.
The court ruled in favour of the U.S. on all points, by a large majority on most, but unanimously on the U.S. contention, examined at length in its judgment, that the Iranian threat to prosecute diplomatic and consular staff was a violation of the Vienna Conventions. The court held that: no member of the United States diplomatic or consular staff may be kept in Iran to be subjected to any form of judicial proceedings or to participate in them as a witness.
The U.S. therefore does not really have a case, on either moral or legal grounds. What is surprising is that it was prepared to offend a country that is now of some strategic and commercial interest to it, and so blatantly breach the Vienna Conventions that protect its diplomatic and consular agents as much as they do all others. Except, it seems, in Iran in 1979 and in the U.S. in 2013.
(Satyabrata Pal, a former High Commissioner to Pakistan, is a Member of the National Human Rights Commission.)
Posted by: john Frum ||
12/25/2013 09:28 ||
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[DAWN] IT was not the first time a Pak military post was attacked and our soldiers were killed by Death Eaters in North Wazoo. But the retaliation by the troops to last week's ambush in Mirali that reportedly killed five soldiers was indeed swift and fierce. Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual name-calling or slapsy... involving artillery fire and helicopter gunships left dozens of alleged Death Eaters killed.
That was not entirely unexpected from an army constantly under Death Eater attack and with an escalating number of casualties. The incident reflected the growing frustration in the military command over the prolonged indecision of the national leadership on how to deal with bully boy sanctuaries in the region presenting the biggest threat to internal security.
There has been a marked increase in the frequency of IED attacks in recent days as the government begs the Death Eaters for peace. The new army chief's tough warning that terrorist attacks would not be tolerated anymore indicates that patience is running out.
But such punitive action in the absence of a clear counterinsurgency strategy has its downside too. The relentless artillery pounding of terrorist hideouts located amidst civilian population centres carries the risk of collateral damage. It is therefore not surprising that the offensive may have cost some civilian deaths as alleged by some political parties. The fierce fighting also forced many to flee their homes evoking angry protests feeding into the bully boys' narrative against military action.
What is more worrisome, however, is the intriguing silence of the politicianship on the brazen bully boy attacks and the military reaction. This ambivalence virtually de-legitimises the army's action against the attackers. Instead, there is ever-stronger rhetoric about talks with the Taliban and the army's withdrawal from the tribal areas.
This apologetic stance adds to the bully boy propaganda campaign. In fact some political parties such as the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... and other right-wing groups echo the bully boy version of events in North Waziristan adding to the prevalent confusion over the gravity of the terrorist threat.
The latest surge in attacks on Pak forces in North Waziristan appears to be a calculated move by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain to bring a weak-kneed national leadership under further pressure. Reports emanating from the region suggest that the TTP is preparing to launch a new wave of terrorist strikes against security forces in North Waziristan. The group has warned the rustics to leave their homes. Mullah Fazlullah ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... , the new TTP chief, who is now believed to have shifted his base from across the border in Afghanistan's Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... to North Waziristan, has vowed to escalate attacks on the Pakistain Army.
While the TTP plans to engage security forces in new guerilla warfare, the national leadership does not seem to have a clear strategy to respond to this threat. Last week, the top civil and military leadership approved a much-delayed draft of a new national security policy. But there's a long way to go before it is implemented.
Although its contours are not clear, officials claim the proposed policy provides a comprehensive strategy to deal with militancy and terrorism. The policy awaits cabinet approval. It is still to be seen how effective this will prove.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the new policy assigns top priority to dialogue with the TTP and the use of force would be the last option. There is certainly no disagreement on peace talks with the TTP or any other group. But the main issue is whether the Death Eaters are interested in constructive dialogue and will give up violence.
It is not the first time that peace offers have been made by the government. In fact, more than half a dozen peace deals were signed with Death Eaters in the past. None of them have worked -- the peace accords were used by Death Eaters to regroup and expand their activities.
One such deal which is not effective anymore was reached in North Waziristan with local rustics in 2006. Thus the arguments by the PML-N government and politicians like Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... that peace has never been given a chance are flawed. It is also not true that the peace deals were broken because of US drone strikes.
The government seems to be stuck on the dialogue mantra despite its repeated rejection by Mullah Fazlullah and leaders of other TTP factions. Dismissing the concept of peace talks immediately after the government's announcement of using force as a last resort, Shahidullah Shahid, a front man for the TTP, warned that the bully boyz were ready for battle.
How long will the government keep begging for talks while the TTP keeps blowing up our soldiers with IEDs and killing innocent people? What is most dangerous is the narrative adopted by some politicians that talks were the only option. It does not only breed inaction, it also legitimises bully boy violence.
There is a total consensus among security officials that North Waziristan has become the epicentre of militancy threatening national as well as regional security. Almost all major terrorist attacks in Pakistain in recent times have roots in the region. There is no way Pakistain can effectively fight terrorism without eliminating the bully boy training camps based there.
The rapidly deteriorating security situation in North Waziristan presents a defining challenge for the country's new civilian and military leadership. Failing to confront this effectively will have serious consequences not just for Pakistain's national security, but for regional peace as well.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] The mixed emotions stirred in Pakistain by Malala Yousafzai coming within kissing distance of the Nobel Prize is reminiscent of the way Sharmeen Chinoy's Saving Face gave us a high when we saw Pakistain the maligned mentioned in the same breath as the sublime Oscar. The fact that the path to glory was paved with acid burnt faces took a while to sink in.
Malala and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, deserve all the kudos we can heap on them. The story has all the ingredients of a powerful cathartic tale. By attacking her, the Taliban made the ultimate expression of impotent rage. She is the piece of crockery broken by someone who cannot do much to harm his actual tormentor. For the west, she is one of the props in the quest to justify a farcical military adventure gone horribly wrong. From the Oval Office to the Queen's Buckingham Palace, she chatted with world leaders with an ease of manner that crusty South Asian politicians can only aspire to. The world listened intently to her pleas for promoting education. She received several awards amidst waves of loathing for her attackers.
[Ynet] Analysis: Abbas must realize that 'popular uprising' he initiated may jeopardize peace talks, as well as PA's survival
"The Paleostinians don't want an intifada," a security bigshot in Israel said Sunday, but they may get one. Sunday's bombing on a bus in Bat Yam should serve as a stark warning to the defense establishment and Israel's citizens. Indeed, this is likely not the opening shot of an organized third intifada, like the second intifada was, but it's a clear sign of a threatening process which is gaining momentum above -- and mainly below -- the surface on the Paleostinian street.
Paleostinian Authority officials are referring to it as a "popular uprising," while the defense establishment is labeling it as a "soft intifada." The two definitions, the Paleostinian and Israeli, appear to point to a misestimate of the phenomenon's dangerousness. As a result of this misestimate, Israel and the American mediators are not firm enough in their demand that the Paleostinian Authority stop the incitement against Israel on the media, while the Paleostinian Authority on its part is knowingly allowing a certain level of street violence, and is even encouraging physical damage to what it calls "the symbols of the occupation" (settlements, the security fence and wall, bypasses and boycotting settlement products).
In addition, the Paleostinian Authority is doing nothing to stop the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails, which are considered legitimate as part of the popular uprising. Abbas and his advisors believe, apparently, that they can control the popular uprising and adjust it to a low level of violence which will be enough to promote his political interests, but without jeopardizing the negotiations with Israel and the prisoner release.
The Paleostinian leadership is interested in having the international media cover the unrest in the Judea and Samaria area, hoping that this will prompt not only the Israelis but also US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... to accept their demands. So everything that is not real terrorism, namely the use firearms and explosives by the Paleostinians, is taken leniently and ignored in Ramallah.
But Abbas, as usual, is not taking into account the fact that the Paleostinian street is not a tamed animal which obeys his orders, and that the people on the ground do not always interpret correctly the semi-aggressive signals he and his people convey in their statements. So groups and individuals in the Paleostinian arena easily move from throwing stones and Molotov cocktails to shooting and using explosives, although "the Rais" would rather not see that happen.
Abbas does not fully control the Paleostinian street. The Israeli intelligence community observed about six months ago that the Paleostinian Authority and its security organizations are finding it difficult to enforce their authority in the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria. Groups of gunnies who were born in those camps, including Fatah members, are doing whatever they like there and are even openly threatening senior PA officials who refuse to accept their demands.
Within the ranks of the political Fatah, the inner discipline appears to be weakening too. For example, several days ago, during a discussion on a political issue, a member of the Paleostinian Council punched Jibril Rajoub in the face. An embarrassing brawl erupted, eating away at the authority the PA leadership conveys to its subjects.
As a result of all this, Abbas and his security organizations' control of the refugee camps and Fatah ranks is diminishing. Those taking advantage of the situation are Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , which are operating from the Gazoo Strip. These organizations have an urgent interest -- ideological and political -- to boost the terrorist activity in the West Bank, thereby trying to cover their avoidance of launching rockets and terror attacks at Israel directly from the Strip at this time.
The new military rule in Egypt has sentenced them to restraint in terms of the armed struggle against Israel from the Strip, and they are trying to fill the void by initiating and guiding from Gazoo terror activities committed in Judea and Samaria by individuals and small local cells. This is the origin of the term "terrorism of individuals," which many in the Israeli defense establishment have been using recently.
Many signs indicate that the terror attack in Bat Yam was also executed by a small local group operating from Judea and Samaria, inspired by terror activists from Gazoo. The word "inspiration" in this case is important, because it explains the fact that the security forces had no early warning about an organization to carry out the bus attack in Bat Yam.
It's possible that the difficulties in locating the terrorist who placed the explosive bag on the bus, as well as locating those who helped prepare the device and transfer it to Israeli territory, stem from the fact that this is an attack "inspired" by elements which gave the gunnies general guidance, but did not really command the operation.
The Bat Yam attack should serve, therefore, as a warning sign not only to Israel but also to Abbas. He must also be aware of the fact that the "popular uprising" he initiated is getting out of control and may even jeopardize the survival of the Paleostinian Authority.
Moreover, senior security sources in Israel are saying in private conversations (likely to the Americans too) that if Abbas and his spokespeople don't stop the incitement on the media and if his security organizations fail to operate firmly against the gangs in the refugee camps, he may indirectly lead to the collapse of the peace negotiations even before April 2014 and lose the fourth round of the prisoner release.
It's reasonable to assume that Abbas is not interested in escalation, at least until the conclusion of the US-brokered negotiations. But the Paleostinian street may prove t that he is incapable of controlling the intensity of the flames and direct them as he pleases.
The frustrating thing is that there is not much the IDF and Shin Bet can do to calm things down in the current situation. Any reinforcement of the thwarting activity, beyond what is already being done, may lead to an increase in the number of Paleostinian casualties, which may escalate the Paleostinian violence, and so on and so forth
One of the only things Israel can do to help calm things down is that the political echelon, the prime minister and the ministers, will avoid making declarations about boosting construction in the territories or other acts of showing off, which are like sticking a finger in the Paleostinians' eye.
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.
