Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
FTA:
In short, far from suppressing the violence, China’s war on terrorism appears to be inflaming it and broadening the terrorists’ base of supporters and sympathizers. By contrast, the violence committed by the Uyghurs appears to be highly targeted at Chinese authorities, Han Chinese, and Uyghurs that support Beijing. This is consistent with their goals of dissuading Han Chinese from living in Xinjiang province, as well as provoking China into an overreaction that will further alienate the Uyghur population.
Wikipedia states 10 million Uyghurs in the PRC, 1240 million Han Chinese in the same country. I wonder how this will turn out.
#3
provoking China into an overreaction that will further alienate the Uyghur population.
Getting someone to kick your ass seems to be a popular strategy nowadays. (see Gaza, for example). However, to work it relies on two things:
1) The Western press getting spin up about your issue
2) A nation-state that gives a flip about Western opinion.
Ima thinkern #2 is gonna be the issue with the Chicoms.
#6
In short, far from suppressing the violence, China's war on terrorism appears to be inflaming it and broadening the terrorists' base of supporters and sympathizers. By contrast, the violence committed by the Uyghurs appears to be highly targeted at Chinese authorities, Han Chinese, and Uyghurs that support Beijing. This is consistent with their goals of dissuading Han Chinese from living in Xinjiang province, as well as provoking China into an overreaction that will further alienate the Uyghur population.
#8
By contrast, the violence committed by the Uyghurs appears to be highly targeted at Chinese authorities, Han Chinese, and Uyghurs that support Beijing everyone else.
#9
China's concern about separatists, rebels and agitators goes back 2,000 years, maybe more. The old mandarin civil service exams would pose questions on how to manage these issues, that the candidate would have to answer in Classical Chinese verse, with quotations from Chinese classics. They were graded on everything from the quality of their thinking to that of their handwriting. Uyghurs being outnumbered 120:1 by the Han majority, won't be that much of a problem. If the Han majority gets upset, that WILL be a problem.
AFAIC just another Artic showing why PUTIN took over the Crimea.
Iff the OWG Globalists + Globalist Obama aren't careful, all of those OWG Co-Superpowers desired to be lead proposed future Global Fed Unions could very easily end up being conquered by Radical Islam - NUKES, TANKS, STRIKE AIR, + ALL!
[DAWN] The rise of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Indian politics was stunning. It upstaged both the ruling Congress and its arch rival BJP in Delhi's local elections just months after its formation. The elections were local and Delhi does not even enjoy the status of a state (province).
Yet, its success kindled hope among Indians. Finally, the much-awaited third option has arrived.
Just as in 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.... had become an emblem of hope for the desperate voters stuck between 'the devil and the deep sea', namely Pakistain People's Party and Moslem League Nawaz.
Hope turned into hype in India as the euphoria of the campaign for general elections hit the streets and TV screens weeks after AAP's first victory.
The AAP supporters were enthusiastic, motivated and sincerely believed in the party's 'ideology' that ending corruption is all that India needs and that this dream will only come true when the 'sadiq and amin' candidates will be elected by the people. This, not a tad bit different from the workers and supporters of PTI, who also think that raising the moral baseline for politicians is the solution to all of this country's ailments.
I compared the two parties last January in an article published in this space, when AAP was into around the 20th day of its rule of the Dehli area. Its performance, even though a minority government, was making headlines every day. Going one step further up on its high moral ladder, the party took a 'principled stand' when its proposed anti-corruption bill was blocked by others. It then resigned from the government after remaining in power for just 49 days.
Its resignation was timed too close to the campaign for general elections that started in early April. The party probably thought it had already hit all the right chords with the Indian voters and that it was now well-positioned to storm into the central corridors of power, or that at least its performance in Delhi, including its 'great act of sacrificing power', would give it a much stronger footing in the coming elections.
As it turned out, the AAP were completely wrong.
Its display of political chivalry is now considered the biggest blunder that a populist party could ever commit. It shot itself in the foot and its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, was slapped in the face, literally. The auto-rickshaw driver who did that during an election rally thought that Kejriwal had betrayed his community, which had supported the AAP only to have their votes wilfully trashed by the party.
"I committed a huge mistake. He is god for me. I did it because he left the government after some days," the frustrated driver said later. The AAP did forward a conspiracy theory to cover up the incident but admitted days later that it made a mistake by resigning from the Delhi government.
The bigger slap for the AAP, however, came on May 16 when election results were announced. The party failed miserably and did not come up to even the bleakest of the projections of its electoral performance. Only four of its 400 clean candidates won and the party got fewer votes than even the None of the Above (NOTA option) in most of the provinces.
I was in India on a four-week visit to cover the general elections for Dawn in April-May this year and met many AAP workers and voters, besides of course others, across this vast country's five cities.
The AAP dominated every discussion, be it with the Punjabis fed up of their ruling Sikh party (Shiromani Akali Dal), the ghettoised Moslems of Ahamadabad, the easy going businessmen of Bangalore or the arm chair intellectuals of Delhi; every discussion swung between two extremes.
While everyone sung praises for the new party for its ability to have mainstreamed their anger against corrupt bureaucracy and polity into the political discourse, they would curse it in the same breath saying the party was a non-starter.
"They are not practical."
"They are good in street protests only and not in governance."
"They are too immature and emotional."
"They are unreliable adventurers."
These were the kind of comments that I heard repeatedly. The most sympathetic commentators gave the party some leeway by saying "it did commit a blunder but then they are still too young for such decisions."
The lesson to bring home was clear: chanting slogans of change can be good for your political health but you also need to demonstrate the resolve and the capacity to deliver on promises. Your performance in the streets can serve as a 'warm up' but if you start considering that as the actual game, you are seriously mistaken.
The prevalent conditions in the country are what they are. You have to start your work from within these limits and if you tend to blame the conditions, that you have promised to change, as an excuse for your inability to deliver, your incapability will lie exposed.
Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... has made known that his party can dissolve the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... assembly and resign from the National Assembly as its 'principled' demands on correcting the wrongs of the May 2013 elections are not being met.
Where would this 'manly' politics take his party?
The PTI lost a good number of supporters, when in 2013 it backtracked on its main promise of never allowing corrupt politicians into its ranks. It is now brimming with old stalwarts known for their opportunist politics. (The AAP, however, stayed true to their word and did not accept any known corrupt politician in its ranks, howsoever electable he/she might have seemed to be.)
The PTI's performance in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa can only be judged by the electors come next elections. It's no use fighting over whether a development indicator has moved up or down a few decimal points as numbers are cooked by master chefs among the politicised bureaucracy and a little garnish is all it takes to change the looks of a course. So, it's better to stay neutral on that count and wait for the people's judgment.
But there is one glaring deficiency in the PTI's performance in KP that remains undeniable: its reluctance, and practical refusal, to hold local government elections in its province. The PTI has not only missed a great opportunity to dig its roots deep into the province, it has also proved that the party is no bigger a 'democrat' than the parties ruling elsewhere in the country.
It could have trumped others by taking a lead in organising local elections that were all within its powers. The party, however, prefers to see the glass as half empty, while conveniently ignoring the other half.
Meanwhile, ...back at the saloon, Butch got the bill for the damage caused by the fist fight, the mirror broken in the shootout, and drinks for everyone...... after the massive drubbing, the AAP has decided to start again from the point where it had erred — the local government elections of Delhi. It lost all of the seven national assembly seats of Delhi to the BJP. But the AAP is in court now, not to challenge those elections but to force the government to not drag its feet over the local elections and guess who is hesitant, if not afraid, of the emergence of a new grass root level verdict — the super powerful BJP.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Glenn, political commentator from Idaho, about hundreds of thousands of members of the Shabak minority group in northern Iraq being forced out of their homes by ISIL Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... Lion of Islams.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Mr. Glenn, first of all how far is the ISIL terrorist group advancing in Iraq?
Glenn: Well if we are to believe in these reports and I think that they probably are accurate, they are advancing rather quickly. The question mark in all of this is how quickly would they be advancing were it not for the direct assistance both in terms of material and in training logistics that this group has gotten from United States, Israel and other Western powers?
This is the big unspoken thing that has to be registered in the minds of people of the world, particularly people of the West is that this thing did not just spring up out of nowhere. These wild dogs are creation of Western and Israeli intelligence and so when we look at the destruction that they are [wreaking] on the lives of all of these people as if Iraq had not endured enough after 20 years of war by the hands of the United States and other Western powers, we have to remember that this is an American operation despite whatever Barack Obama Ready to Rule from Day One... may do with his empty words and empty promises or even his empty actions with regards to military action against them.
Press TV: And of course speaking of America, I mean why has the US decided to take limited action now, and of course as a result how genuine is Washington's intentions?
Glenn: Well we have to always assume that Washington's intentions are never genuine. Whenever she is holding out her hand offering something you know that she is planning to take something from you.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Funking stupid. Look to Qatar for the money, Saudi for the Salafist/Wahabbi bullshit, and some Turks for the initial logistics. With AQI and Sunni morons in the region and Gulf for initial manpower, bolstered by Chechens et Al.
FYI mark Glenn is a Jew-Hating internet nutcase who believes in supporting Islamic fundamentalists as a way of ridding the world of Jews. Lives near the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho.
#2
OldSpook, was answering some friends' questions about the festivities in northern Iraq and I told them I assumed - not having been close to any actual "official" info for some time - that ISIS was probably benefitting from the services of hired old Iraqi Army sorts and Chechens. Naturally the Chechens thing mystified everyone so I explained how they'd been pretty much the best-of-class jihadi talent for hire since the late 90s, and that the US had retired a not insignificant number during our time in Iraq.
I still think ISIS is headed for implosion and disintegration in the longer run, but for now I don't see how their (comparative) military prowess can be explained without Chechens and old Saddam hard boyz.
#3
Think cadre. Think about how that affected the quality of WW2 German units, even when reconstituted with a lot of trainees. Cadre means a lot for cohesion and effectiveness. Which is why AQI fell apart after we started taking out their core experienced and trained people.
When I was in Iraq, I had numerous Colonels, etc., tell me they were killing very few Iraqis in "insurgent" fighting. They were killing A LOT of Iranians and Chechians. The problems in Iraq began as proxy war between the US and Iran.
Recently the Iranians have recognized the Frankenstein they created and are now actively working against it, almost in an alliance with the US.
When the Iranians AND the KSA say an Islamic radical group is BAD. Sit up, listen carefully and act accordingly.
The empty suit is in reality an arm chair liberal who would not fight for anything. He could have pulled the trigger on the airstrikes WEEKS ago and now he has waited too long...should have bombed them before they hit the jackpot with equipment and weaponry.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
08/11/2014 12:50 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Thank you, 746. You do have interesting bits of information to share. ;-)
[ARABNEWS] The US decision to bomb targets of the Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq, announced by a visibly unhappy President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... on Thursday night, was the right thing to do. But will it be enough, or is it too little, too late?
With the terrible war between Israel and the Paleostinians in the Gazoo Strip over the past four weeks, the world's attention turned away from the civil war in Syria and the alarming advance of the IS turbans in Iraq.
With that came the news this week that about 10,000 to 40,000 members of the minority Yazidi sect were trapped on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, surrounded by IS fighters who want to kill them because they consider them apostates and devil worshippers.
Reports say that without food and water, and facing daily summer temperatures of 37 degrees, dozens of adults and children are dying every day on the mountain. The Iraqi government tried to drop bottled water to them from planes, but was unsuccessful.
Residents of the town of Sinjar started fleeing there last Sunday when IS took control of the city. The UN estimates that 200,000 people have fled the city, and that 147,000 have managed to reach the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, filling refugee camps. The armed forces of the Kurds, the peshmergas, are trying to open a land route between the mountain and the town of Rabia, which straddles the border with Syria, in order to give safe passage to trapped Yazidis on the mountain, but are facing difficulties as they have to go through six villages with populations sympathetic to IS.
The IS is extremely brutal, constantly posting pictures of themselves on social networks proudly displaying the chopped off heads of their victims in Iraq and Syria, which are generally Syrian and Iraqi soldiers. Their level of barbarity is such that there is no possibility of dialogue with them.
Since its control of the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... in June, the IS turbans have plotted their expansion in Iraq. On Aug. 3 they took control of the Mosul dam on the Tigris River, the largest hydroelectric power supplying Iraq Mosul with electricity. It is also battling Iraqi forces 350 km south of Mosul in an attempt to take control of the Haditha Dam on the Euphrates River. Experts warn that the IS could, in an act of terror, open the gates of Mosul dam and release a wall of water about five meters high that would flood the city of Mosul and possibly reach the outskirts of Baghdad.
President B.O. said that he had authorized the Arclight airstrikes to protect a small contingent of American officials in Irbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region and to avoid a massacre of the Yazidis. He also ordered the airdrop of food and water good enough for 8,000 on the mountain where the refugees are trapped.
It is clear that Obama does not want to commit any ground troops to another military foray in Iraq. He ran for office in part on a pledge to get US troops out of Iraq, and that he has managed to do. But after the US invasion in 2003 and subsequent occupation for 10 years, it is unfair and selfish to believe that the US can just leave and allow Iraq to crumble upon itself. The US owes it to the Iraqis to help them stop the advance of the IS.
Unfortunately, the Iraqis currently cannot do much themselves to stop the advance of the forces of Evil because of the political disarray in Baghdad due to differences over the successor to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, which has left the government paralyzed. The US has sent 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi government, but the long delays in deliveries of American fighter jets, now only expected to begin in December, has left the Iraqi air force hamstrung in attacking targets.
The effects of the IS advancement is already causing spillovers in Leb, where fighting between the Lebanese Army and rebels in the town of Arsal on the border with Syria, has left 16 soldiers dead, 85 injured and dozens of rebels killed. The former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. had recently flown to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and got an additional donation of $1 billion from King of the Arabians, Sheikh of the Burning Sands, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to help Lebanese Army fight bully boys.
With chaos of war and instability in Syria and Gazoo, the IS took opportunity to expand its control over Iraq, spreading their reign of terror and bloodshed, and destroying the rule of law in Iraq and Syria. This is danger not only to the Middle East, but to the whole world. Obama would do well to sit down and discuss a ground military strategy with the Iraqi government, the Kurds, Turkey and other regional allies on how to stop IS once and for all. Bombing them won't ever be enough, even if it does keep Obama out of hot water with US voters and Republicans.
American leadership is needed now more than ever. Sadly for Obama, isolationism is not really an option.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
With Iraq sitting between the two powder kegs of Syria and Iran, the potential consequences of a failed Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was surely studied and war-gamed extensively. I will not accept the usual default of U.S. Intelligence failure ["eyes off militants"] as a cause for these tragic events. Responsibility resides with those charged with monitoring events and decision making. Iraq and Al-Maliki were written off and fail Al-Maliki's failure has taken place before the current residents of the White House could pack bags and check out.
#2
We elected Obama. Got the thrill up our leg and then we bent over.
The American People elected the clown. Eat your Wheaties.
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
08/11/2014 9:01 Comments ||
Top||
#3
American leadership is needed now more than ever.
Hmmmm, “Now More Than Ever” Amazing. (Read the Washington Times Retrospective) Remembering a visionary 40 years after his fall from grace
Almost 40 years and Nixon is being channeled into the 21st century.
Now more than ever, to the left he might have seemed a b*stard, but you need a tough guy in the office of the president; not what we have now, a back bench, barely a senator, an inexperienced narcissist, who pees a puddle every time a crisis hits and the red phone rings.
May he meet the same fate as RMN, but you know it ain't going to happen any time soon.
#4
Obama is so insecure that he has surrounded himself with toadies, sycophants, and ciphers who agree with him. If he says it was an intelligence failure, they say it is an intelligence failure.
#6
Unfortunately intelligence wonks don't make policy. They provide information. The information was there and it was on the front page of every newspaper in the ME.
The intelligence failure was the failure to act on actionable information in a timely manner.
It took him THREE weeks to make a decision on bombing ISIL, hell, even freaking sissy boy Carter would have pulled the trigger sooner...even Bubba would have acted sooner. Dammit, Neville Freakingchamberlain would have bombed them sooner.
Geez, I have to say that back bench pissing a puddle is a much better description of what we have than "the empty suit hiding under his desk in the oval office."
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
08/11/2014 12:55 Comments ||
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According to the definition given by a kibbutznik turned billionaire, Israel is a villa in the jungle.
Israel is an oasis surrounded by barbarians, beheaders, suicide bombers, mothers happy to send their own children to kill Jews - Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Salafists, Hezbollah, Islamic State, Iranian revolutionary guards... The list of the jihadist scum is long.
But Israels most powerful enemy is the West itself.
Israels wars to defend itself are always the chance to see an incredible eruption of hatred in the Western democracies and their élite.
Think about what has happened in the last few days.
Because Israel apostasy to the Left religion.
When Israel didn't follow Moscow, worse allied itself with Great Satan and the kibbutz weren't enforced on everyone the left started to despise Israel.
Like all totalitarian religions, the apostates are worse than the infidels.
#3
Zorba: crudely put but true. The 50's kibbutzniks were idealized by the Marxists. As Israel distanced itself from socialism the Left turned against them.
#4
There's also that nagging issue of 'success'. Successful economy, successful representative government, successful development of the land...
If there's anything the Left hates, it's success as it simply blames the success of one for the failures of others, rather than look into the underlying causes of those failures within the communities, which includes themselves. Someone else has to be to blame.
[Ynet] Analysis: Israel seems prepared to accept passage of goods, people between Gazoo, West Bank; diplomats considering release of prisoners withheld during peace talks.
Egypt's intelligence chief, Major General Mohammed Ahmed Fareed Al-Tuhami, is taking action at ceasefire talks in Cairo to consolidate an initial agreement focused on a ceasefire and humanitarian relief.
According to the emerging agreement, Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... and his Paleostinian Authority (PA) will have control over the Philadelphi Route to prevent further construction of smuggling tunnels beneath the border between Egypt and Gazoo.
By following this plan, Abbas and forces under the PA would be responsible for monitoring or destroying entrances to smuggling tunnels on the Paleostinian side and the Egyptians would do the same from Sinai as they have done up till now.
These plans for the Philadelphi Route are all part of the Egyptian ceasefire plan which would include the opening of the Rafah border crossing under control of the PA and which Abbas' negotiators seem ready to accept within the framework of their reconciliation government with Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, restoring some form of control and status to the PA in the Gazoo Strip.
In accordance with the current outlines drawn up by the Egyptians, Israel is required to facilitate the movement of goods at the Kerem Shalom border crossing as well as the movement of people between Gazoo and the West Bank through the Erez border crossing. Israel is prepared to agree to such a deal.
The Israelis have also signaled that they are prepared to grant the Paleostinians expanded fishing rights off the Gazoo coast, but demand that Israeli forces will be able to monitor a security parameter from the west to the fence surrounding the Strip in order to make sure that Paleostinian organizations aren't digging new smuggling tunnels.
It's not completely clear if the Israelis are demanding a permanent presence in the security parameter or simply the right to enter the area when there is suspicion of a tunnel being dug and about to emerge in Israeli territory.
According to the Egyptian initiative, besides having control of the Philidelphi Route and the Rafah border crossing, the PA will act as a middle man, passing funds from Qatar to Hamas in the amount required to pay some 43,000 government officials who have not been paid for quite some time.
The efforts to reach an agreement are being held mainly in Cairo, but are also taking place by telephone between the Israelis, Egypt, the PA, the US, and a few countries representing EU interests. The UN envoy Robert Serry is also involved in these efforts.
These efforts are complex, but can be easily separated into two different political fronts or goals to be achieved.
1. The involved parties are working to achieve an immediate ceasefire that will allow for humanitarian relief to reach Paleostinians in the Gazoo Strip.
2. The general consensus is also that a long-term agreement needs to be reached that will include an international declaration to prevent Hamas' military build up under either Paleostinian or international supervision, and a large aid package to rebuild the Gazoo Strip.
The Israeli delegation is not currently present in Cairo, mostly because their presence isn't necessary for talks to continue. The envoy that returned to Israel on Friday already gave the Egyptians their stance on the initial agreement.
So far, Egyptian mediators have not phoned and asked the Israelis to change or reconsider any of their terms. Therefore, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can say without hesitation that he is not negotiating with Hamas while Israel remains under fire. At least for the time being, the Israeli envoy doesn't seem to be preparing to return to Cairo, but such action is possible.
Israel, Egypt, and the PA all have mutual interests in the Egyptian initiative which intelligence chief Al-Tuhami is currently trying to sell to the Paleostinians. At the moment, Hamas is standing by its demands, but according to assessments in Cairo and Jerusalem, the group will eventually agree to a ceasefire and the terms of the initial agreement. The sides will then sit and talk out the main diplomatic truce.
Prisoner release
Israel will most likely agree to release Paleostinian prisoners that were denied their freedom during the last round of peace talks. This move will strengthen PA leader Abbas and at least partially meet Hamas' demands to release certain prisoners. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... right-wing politicians in Israel deny reports regarding the possible release of prisoners who were released in the deal for Gilad Shalit and re-captured during Operation Brother's keeper in the West Bank.
Bassam as-Salhi, a member of the Paleostinian envoy to Cairo, said Saturday that the Paleostinians have postponed Israel's suggestion to release prisoners in exchange for the bodies of Israeli soldiers.
As-Salhi spoke to Ma'an News Agency on Saturday saying that the Paleostinians are refusing to discuss the subject of the soldiers in the framework of the ceasefire talks. He said that the delegates would be ready to raise the issue after their other demands were met.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk.
Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how to drive one of these things?
Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles.
No, he said. Do you?... in the international arena, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is pushing for an agreement that will finance the rehabilitation of the Gazoo Strip with funds from the US, EU and possibly even the UN while making sure to enforce strict inspection to prevent the military build up of Hamas and other Paleostinian organizations in the Gazoo Strip.
Hamas proactively continues to fire rockets at Israel in relatively small amounts. Even Hamas doesn't want to anger the Egyptians and lose points in international and Paleostinian opinion. Therefore, they are simply allowing 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... to fire the rockets while seemingly putting limits on them.
This policy allows Hamas to keep its stockpile of rockets for another day. Israel is responding to rocket fire by hitting targets picked out by intelligence efforts during the fighting including operation and control centers which were already attacked but which Hamas is trying to reoccupy.
Israel is also attacking with comparative restraint in order not to upset Egyptian efforts to reach a stable ceasefire.
[BLOGS.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A beautiful mosaic of ancient religions, cultures and languages in the Middle East is being systematically destroyed. Until now, the world has watched mutely. When Moslems were threatened with genocide in Bosnia, the international community acted in concert to prevent the campaign against them developing into a full-scale pogrom. I went there myself, as part of an effort to bring relief supplies to all those who were affected. I was also present when millions of Afghan refugees poured into Pakistain after the Soviet invasion of that country. Once again, Western countries, Christian, Islamic and secular organizations were at the forefront of bringing relief to these people.
For years now the Christian, Mandaean, Yazidi and other ancient communities of Iraq, have been harried, bombed, exiled and massacred without anyone batting so much as an eyelid. Churches have been bombed, clergy kidnapped and murdered, shops and homes attacked and destroyed. This persecution has now been elevated to genocide by the advent of Isis. People are being beheaded, crucified, shot in cold blood and exiled to a waterless desert simply because of their religious beliefs.
What began in Iraq, continued in Syria. Here the West's ill-advised backing of an Islamist uprising (largely funded by Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and Qatar) against the Assad regime has turned into a nightmare which has given birth to ultra-extremist organizations like Isis. Once again, religious and ethnic minorities, whether Christian, Alawite or Druze, have been the victims, alongside ordinary people of all kinds. Isis, now armed to the teeth with weaponry originally intended by the suppliers for "moderate" Islamist groups, has arrived in Iraq with a vengeance beyond anything that unfortunate country has so far experienced.
Next door in Iran, the Baha'i have been reduced to being a non-people: their marriages are not recognised, their children cannot be educated, their leaders have been executed or are in prison and even their graveyards have been desecrated. Christians, similarly, are not allowed to worship in Farsi, or to hold meetings in their homes. Churches have either been closed or can open only under tightly-controlled conditions. Any violation of these orders brings arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. Zoroastrians, belonging to the indigenous religion of Iran, are now so reduced in numbers that there are more of them outside Iran than remain in the country. Jews, likewise, are in daily danger of being associated with Zionism and having their property confiscated as "enemy property", even if they have never set foot in Israel.
In Pakistain, Christians are being cowed by the draconian blasphemy laws, systematic discrimination and terrorist attacks on churches, schools and social organizations. The Ahmadiyya (a heterodox group), also, suffer legal discrimination, restrictions on the practice of their religion and recurrent mob violence. Only in Egypt can we say that the large Coptic minority has a breathing space as they await the emergence, perhaps, of a new order.
So will the world just stand by and watch this unprecedented onslaught on freedom or will we do something beyond airdropping food and medicines and protecting our own personnel who may be caught up in the conflict?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2014 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
However, first we must deal with the war crimes committed by the Zionist Entity in Gaza.
#3
The religion of tolerance and peace (also known for domination, destruction, maming and killing) is on the move. Evil may have revealed itself, but there are those who still insist on keeping their eyes closed. There are those who still would rather report on the latest Kardashian goings on rather than this evil.
#4
Thanks Fred unfortunately the Sauron oops Saudis have recycled 100years of oil money into ... Harrods. Goldman Sachs, NewsLtd etc. so when the oil runs out they will own us and we will pay rent
We just have to end multiculturalism and outlaw islam.
We can start by not allowing the leftard idiots to conflate religion and race
Islam is a religion and people can change their minds, unlike their skin colour
We in Australia are set to lose the rule of law over the intelligence agencies because of jihadis beheading people in Syria
Outlaw Islam, tear down the mosques, put muslims in containment camps until the war is over or they give up their faith or they emigrate to muslim lands
Religious freedom: over.
That is what i would like to see before i see the rule of law suspended. The Bill is even now before the house of reps.
Read the whole thing. It's long, but compelling.
I should say that this subject is very personal for me. Like so many kids today, I went off to college like a sleepwalker. You chose the most prestigious place that let you in; up ahead were vaguely understood objectives: status, wealth -- success. What it meant to actually get an education and why you might want one -- all this was off the table. It was only after 24 years in the Ivy League -- college and a Ph.D. at Columbia, 10 years on the faculty at Yale -- that I started to think about what this system does to kids and how they can escape from it, what it does to our society and how we can dismantle it. Dismantle it? Not with our current crop of Congress Critters.
This system is exacerbating inequality, retarding social mobility, perpetuating privilege, and creating an elite that is isolated from the society that it's supposed to lead. He says that like it's a bad thing! And who says they are "supposed to" lead us peons?
The numbers are undeniable. In 1985, 46 percent of incoming freshmen at the 250 most selective colleges came from the top quarter of the income distribution. By 2000, it was 55 percent. As of 2006, only about 15 percent of students at the most competitive schools came from the bottom half. The more prestigious the school, the more unequal its student body is apt to be. And yet, the Smartest Man in the Room managed to get in. And out.
The major reason is clear. Not increasing tuition, though that is a factor, but the ever-growing cost of manufacturing children who are fit to compete in the college admissions game. The more hurdles there are, the more expensive it is to catapult your kid across them. Wealthy families start buying their children's way into elite colleges almost from the moment they are born: music lessons, sports equipment, foreign travel (enrichment programs, to use the all-too-perfect term) -- most important, of course, private-school tuition or the costs of living in a place with top-tier public schools. And in the case of our current Secretary of State, Military "service".
The problem isn't that there aren't more qualified lower-income kids from which to choose. Elite private colleges will never allow their students' economic profile to mirror that of society as a whole. They can't afford to -- they need a critical mass of full payers and they need to tend to their donor base -- and it's not even clear that they'd want to.
And so it is hardly a coincidence that income inequality is higher than it has been since before the Great Depression, or that social mobility is lower in the United States than in almost every other developed country. Elite colleges are not just powerless to reverse the movement toward a more unequal society; their policies actively promote it.
Is there anything that I can do, a lot of young people have written to ask me, to avoid becoming out of touch and entitled? Get off the government dole?
I don't have a satisfying answer, short of telling them to transfer to a public university. You cannot cogitate your way to sympathy with people of different backgrounds. You need to interact with them directly, and it has to be on an equal footing: not in the context of service, and not in the spirit of making an effort, either -- swooping down on a member of the college support staff and offering to "buy them a coffee," as a former Yalie once suggested, in order to "ask them about themselves." Just another chore for the enlightened - to interact with their inferiors.
Instead of service, how about service work? That'll really give you insight into other people. How about waiting tables so that you can see how hard it is, physically and mentally? You really aren't as smart as everyone has been telling you; you're only smarter in a certain way.
The education system has to act to mitigate the class system, not reproduce it. Affirmative action should be based on class instead of race, a change that many have been advocating for years. Preferences for legacies and athletes ought to be discarded. SAT scores should be weighted to account for socioeconomic factors. Colleges should put an end to résumé-stuffing by imposing a limit on the number of extracurriculars that kids can list on their applications. They ought to place more value on the kind of service jobs that lower-income students often take in high school and that high achievers almost never do. They should refuse to be impressed by any opportunity that was enabled by parental wealth.
The changes must go deeper, though, than reforming the admissions process. The problem is the Ivy League itself. We have contracted the training of our leadership class to a set of private institutions. However much they claim to act for the common good, they will always place their interests first. The arrangement is great for the schools, but is Harvard's desire for alumni donations a sufficient reason to perpetuate the class system?
I used to think that we needed to create a world where every child had an equal chance to get to the Ivy League. I've come to see that what we really need is to create one where you don't have to go to the Ivy League, or any private college, to get a first-rate education. Perhaps the Ivy-League educated author forgets that not everyone needs or wants a collage education? William Deresiewicz is the author of "Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life", coming out Aug. 19. He taught at Yale from 1998 to 2008. He is also the winner of the Dallas Institute. A longer version of this essay was originally published in The New Republic.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2014 07:55 ||
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#1
Don't worry, All is well, the problem is going away....
#2
Most people don't send their kids to an Ivy League school because it takes too long to de-program them after they get out? And it's a waste of good money?
#3
We have contracted the training of our leadership class to a set of private institutions
Which is not a whole lot different than the French, Japanese, or the Germans. Unfortunately, we have ended up with the efficiency of the first, the group-think of the second, and the mentality of the third.
#4
Over rated. Running on their name. Only current currency is the 'good old boy' network they offer. If the collapse of the 'ruling' caste occurs, will be a deficit rather than an asset on a resume.
how we can dismantle it
Ask GM. In the 50s, how would 'I was an executive at GM' play versus the 10s 'I was an executive at GM' as value in the job market? Let an open market place do its job. The problem ultimately isn't the institution as much as the 'good old boy' network.
#5
Poor Professor, socialist drinking his own kool aid. Ivy League College is not a right. It is a luxury, and with most luxuries it is expensive. It is reserved for those that can pay, life is not fair, again, we are not socialist. In an attempt to make college level education available to those that are willing to work hard for it, our nation built land grant schools in every state. For undergraduate degrees some state provide a much better education. For example: your kid is a top 5% brain and you can afford to get him into MIT. Compare the education. At MIT he will be a middle of the road student, he will go so far in debt he will not be able to afford a masters. He will graduate with an MIT degree, that's prestigious, and his education will be all that he puts into it. His classes will be taught by grad students, not professors. He will be, for MIT, an average student. Or, send him to a good Land grant school, ASU for example. He will go to the Advanced Placement school called Barret college. He will have a personal adviser, he will take AP classes, get special attention, and a far better education. He will also be able to afford, or his parents will, to go after his masters. This is my view on undergraduate degrees. Masters and PHD are another story.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/11/2014 11:13 Comments ||
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#6
Congratulation Americans, you have achieved Mandarinate.
#8
How much influence do you have over your child at 2? At 5? At 11? At 17?
So why do these ivory tower toffs think they have any lasting influence over an 18 year old? By the time they are 30, exposure to the real world has erased whatever influence the toffs had. I speak from personal knowledge.
#9
The basic problem here is the notion that this nation has a "leadership class" at all. Those who like to fancy themselves as the "best and the brightest" tend to cluster together & now they are self-perpetuating. The entire world is now in the process of learning that the "best and the brightest" -- ain't.
#10
Student debt in the Ivies isn't much of an issue: Despite the hefty sticker price associated with all Ivy League institutions, estimated yearly costs are actually quite affordable. In fact, Ivy Leaguers graduate with less debt than their peers who attended less prestigious schools. How? Turns out healthy endowment funds play a huge role in aiding low-income, middle-income and even upper-income students with tuition costs. Score!
According to statistics from U.S. News & World Report, many of the best colleges in the county are relative steals for the lucky few who earn admission. For example, Princeton University students graduate with about $5,096 of debt for all four years – the lowest sum for alumni leaving a national university with debt. Amy Laitinen, a former White House education adviser now at the New America Foundation, said, "Folks look at the sticker price and assume that's what everyone is paying. The truth is that the more elite schools have more resources." Resources -- i.e, scholarship funds and outright grants to students who don't have their own access to funds.
#11
"a lot of young people have written to ask me, to avoid becoming out of touch and entitled? "
Seriously?? College students who are concerned about becoming "out of touch and entitled" - why would they bother applying to Ivies anyway? Are they that clueless?
#12
Perhaps the author is unaware that a first-rate education can be gotten at a good many state schools and other non-Ivies, just by getting into the school's honours program. Many of the professors teaching those classes are Ivy-credentialed, just as he is, and many are leaders in their fields, which he may or may not be. And many of the students in the honours program are on partial or full academic scholarship, so that first rate education may actually be free to the student. Finally, these are the students who could have gone to Ivy schools, with high school and college resumes about as interesting as their Ivy competitors. See ya at HBS, suckas!
#14
Really, this is news to the poor benighted author? It's about what my parents were telling me when I was looking at going to college. All the Ivies and their west-coast equivalents were good for was the prestige of having gone to them, and access to the grad network. You'd have a better change of getting a solid education at a community college and a state school, assuming you were going to seriously apply yourself.
And they were right - I had a couple of wonderful teachers at the local community college. One was so riveting a lecturer that people who weren't actually in the class sat outside his classroom (which was always jammed) just to listen. And for Cal State Northridge, IIRC, every class was taught by a full professor, and none of them stand out for being one of those huge lecture hall affairs with a body count in the hundreds.
Nope, the classes that I remember best usually had about about 20-35 students, day to day. (More at midterms and finals, though.)I certainly can't claim to have had a prestigious education, but it certainly served me well, AND without a smidgeon of student debt. I can't recall ever feeling intellectually unequal in any company or social occasion ever since - on-line or in meatspace.
#16
I can't recall ever feeling intellectually unequal in any company or social occasion ever since - on-line or in meatspace.
Sometimes it's not what you know, but who you know. This explains a lot about our "leadership class".
#18
One thing I have learned from my readings of history -- how many of the "leading class", the best and the brightest, wind up failing their followers and leading the whole kit and kaboodle right off cliffs to their mutual destruction. If it weren't such a regular and tragic occurrence, it would be -- almost humorous.
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[Iran Press TV] Press TV has conducted an interview with 
