[NATION.PK] In the backdrop of the Badaber attack, which according to Pakistain intelligence sources was planned, executed and supervised from the Afghan soil, the Afghanistan's Caped PresidentAshraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. reportedly called Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... to condemn the attack and assure him that Afghan soil would not be allowed to be used for attacks against Pakistain. The call came after the Presidential front man in Kabul
Continued on Page 49
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09/27/2015 00:00 ||
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[SALON] American propaganda exaggerates the power and moral depravity of the Islamic enemy, in the service of our empire If your primary driver is hatred of the United States (and the rest of the civilized world not too far behind it) you can somehow morph Evil into something not so threatening at all.
Yeah, yeah. Whoopdy doo. It's all our fault. Tell it to the guys who don't have their heads anymore, and to the concubines that sell for the price of a pack of cigarettes. This guy is acting like neocons are calling the shots in dealing with Islamic terrorism. They're not.
His thesis for this article is that Islamic factions are totally different from one another because of American foreign policy needs, when the obverse is the case. American interests were buttressed by the most pro American faction in a given country,Islamic or not, "progressive or not, that would aid Americans aims in a given region. Why that is less than optimum when the Soviets of the 1960s - 1980s did essentially the same thing, he doesn't and probably can never speak to.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
any analysis that says the US is an empire has lost me already
it is not an empire. The US is not an imperial state.
the caliphate however was an empire and now a bunch of theocratic sadists are bringing it back
#2
The first line of commentary is spot on and I expect should a Republican win the next election we'll hear a lot more about this sort of thing as the left tries to absolve Obama for his part in the mess.
Reminds me of Norm Chomsky who describes American actions as if the Soviets didn't exist, or they were just looking for a hug and got the Yankee boot in the teeth in response.
It was as if John Boehner had a confession to make after all these years of troubled conscience. His recent resignation had the effect of suggesting the pro wrestling in Congress is fake. The Washington Republicans, dear fans are supposed to lose -- after making some effort to heighten the drama -- to the Capital Democrats. All those heart stopping moments toward the end lost due to some error or a sudden reversal of fortune -- well that was in the script.
...Boehner's depature is yet one more sign that the narrative is breaking down. Both in Europe and in America, the same old nostrums are having increasingly less effect. The problem is growing without an answer in sight. The players are still going through the motions, but they are only making things up as they go along.
#1
Another way to say this is: In both major US political parties - and evidently also in many European nations with (ostensibly)"competing" political parties - the electorate has become increasingly aware that all "traditional" candidates of the major parties are all simply competing to "ride the decline" of their respective nations - in the ground.
It is this complacent aspiration toward "it's my turn to ride the decline" that has finally caused electorates to turn to characters like Donald Trump. It isn't that he projects a particularly sensible and coherent platform - it is simply that he says "Let's do (something) to make America great again" - and this projects something other than "join me and hang on while I ride the decline."
Can a Presidency be built on just that one resonating concept? 'Hell if I know. But - if we are going to descend into third world chaos, let's at least go down fighting.
[NATION.PK] THE image of a mustachioed man with peaked cap and a chest full of medals is becoming hard to avoid in Pakistain. It is splashed across the posters of a politician competing in a by-election in the eastern city of Lahore. It looms large on giant billboards in the port city of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , apparently paid for by adoring citizens. And it is a rare day when Pakistain's chief of army staff is not pictured on a newspaper front page. He has even entered the colourful repertoire of artists who decorate the nation's trucks and rickshaws.
We did it! We the people. President Obama pushed for it, then-Mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg supported it, the media actively campaigned for it -- the elites in their increasingly fragile ivory towers stumped for the mosque.
But the people stood up and fought it and won.
Hey Obama, YES. WE. CAN.
Photo above: One of our rallies against the Ground Zero mega-mosque. Never give up. Never give in. Never surrender. Here's the Ground Zero mosque story. Watch this documentary, it tells the whole story. You can buy the DVD of this documentary here.
'Ground Zero mosque' officially scrapped 'Market-maker' skyscraper planned for controversial site The infamous "Ground Zero mosque" debate is officially over. A "market maker" 70-story skyscraper will soon break ground at lower Manhattan's 45 Park Place, ending any possibility of resurrecting plans for the religious building.Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's proposal four years ago to create a 15-story Islamic cultural center near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sparked a national uproar. Developer Sharif El-Gamal of Soho Properties, who was originally on board with the plan, rendered the whole debate moot by opting to build a 667-foot condominium tower for the property instead, Crain's New York Business reported Friday.
El-Gamal told Crain's his skyscraper will include 5 full-floor units of 3,200 to 3,700 square feet, and average prices higher than $3,000 a square foot.
"Every day that we've been waiting, the market has been getting stronger and showing incredible signs of resilience," Mr. El-Gamal said, the magazine reported. "The appreciation and absorption this market is showing is unprecedented."
El-Gamal put aside plans for the "Ground Zero Mosque" in 2011 after he had trouble finding financial backers, but until now was unsure what would take its place. Public records show he bought the lot in 2009 for $4.85 million, the magazine reported.
The developer expects to break ground on the project -- just two blocks from where the former World Trade Center towers stood -- in early 2016, Crain's reported.
#7
The roads are two-way roads so the Russians must be careful. Putin has the advantage of being able to be as brutal as his enemies without his own media getting all wobbley on him and I do believe the Islamic culture only really respects strength.
[Hurriyet Daily News] ISIL has de facto eroded the borders between Iraq and Syria. The Kurdistan region in northern Iraq is getting more and more independent from Baghdad. And Syria has been de facto split into three parts. On top of these, refugees have blurred the borders in this region further.
Therefore, frontiers are getting more and more meaningless. The borders in the Middle East, which were drawn by the Sykes-Picot Treaty signed by La Belle France and Britannia in 1916, are slowly eroding.
Yet while Syria is melting down, it seems to be giving birth to three new states; one Sunni, one Alevi and one Kurdish. Northern Iraq is on the same track too.
In short, states don't disappear. On the contrary, they multiply. The more blurred borders get, the stricter people embrace them.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... there is a huge challenge which states today are exposed to: Even if they maintain their existence and relevance, they are losing control over their territory. This is because they are not able to practice their main function anymore, which is protecting their people from external threats such a terror, war and radicalism.
Then how will they cope with this new reality?
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) between 2004 and 2014, suggested a "panacea" in his recent article for Turkish Policy Quarterly.
Accordingly, states in the Middle East should give up on trying to copy-paste the state system in Europe, which was formed in the 17th century after the Westphalia Agreement. "It is rather the agreements concluded after the Second World War among European countries that should be considered," he said, referring to the EU.
In other words, Ihsanoglu argued borders should be made more flexible rather than stronger. They should become lines of connection and cooperation rather than lines of separation and conflict. He underlined that integration not only brings economic development, but also prevents rivalry and conflicts.
The countries of the former Yugoslavia seem to have taken this lesson. In the 1990s, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which caused about 140,000 deaths, gave birth to seven new states. Now they are all trying to integrate under the EU's umbrella.
So it's crystal clear: Keep the border and carry on.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
The only thing surprising about Sykes–Picot ME was how long it actually lasted. Probably, because their hatred of Israel suppressed their hatred of each other for a time.
#3
Agree on the Kurds. Unfortunately Turkey fears their own Kurdish minority (soon to be a majority) and won't play ball. Still, unless the Turks go genocidal Anatolia might be the new Kurdistan in a few decades. That would be interesting.
A few quibbles I won't address here.
Russia’s incompetent bully of a leader, Vladimir Putin, has just committed his latest blunder. He’s decided to prop up the dying Assad regime with weapons and soldiers. Good luck! The USSR’s fiasco in Afghanistan and America’s in Iraq have clearly failed to deter the Kremlin’s serial bumbler from committing his latest strategic mistake.
The mortar shell that struck Russia’s embassy compound in Damascus on September 20th is a foretaste of things to come. As Russian troops intervene in greater numbers—as they surely will in order to prop up a doomed regime—Russian casualties will mount. Eventually, ISIS will engage in its usual barbarism and beheaded Russian soldiers will appear on television. At that point, Western commentators, who’ve mostly interpreted Putin’s intervention as a devilishly clever move, will start saying that Russia stumbled into a conflict it cannot win.
#2
I suspect the professor is more than a little biased against Putin. Every move the professor claims as 'stupid' seems to have worked in favor or Putin so far except the economy conversion bit which the professor makes sound as if it's an easy move.
The way I see it Russia has three issues (1) They have a large number of Muslims in Central Asia to think about that the West often forgets (2) They like to sell their military hardware and feel they need pseudo-client states to secure those sales (3) They are/were a Great Power and aren't willing to just accept decline the way the West has so Putin would rather be damned for trying even if something doesn't work.
Which leads us to Syria. A loyal client beset by crazy Muslim and a hostile but mostly indifferent US. If Putin can save Syria he shows all his other clients (and potential clients) that doing business with the Russian bear comes with certain guarantees. It also puts Russia against the craziest muslims before their zealotry can infects those Central Asian states. Thirdly by backing up the guarantee to client states he is acting like a Great Power and the world cannot help but compare/contrast what happened with the US client in Iraq who was abandoned.
Personally I think Putin's move is very wise as long as he doesn't put a lot of feet on the ground but instead provides support for Syrians fighters.
If I was Putin my next step would be a regional alliance with Israel, Iraqi-Kurdistan, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon and Iran to secure current land, destroy Isis, and dismember Iraq.
Lastly I'd support the Hashimite claim to Mecca, or at least threaten the Saudi's with that potentiality.
I'm not saying any of this is necessarily good for the West, but it would be good for Putin. The West should be fracking the hell out of the ground (short term) and building nuclear power plants (long term) to get off foreign oil as best possible.
#3
I have to disagree wid the Artic, as I highly doubt that struggling Putinist Russia will be able to handle both CHINA + ISIS/ISIL THREATS TO CENTRAL ASIA = CENTRAL RUSSIA, + RUSSIAN FAR EAST, + EAST ASIA [read, China + India] IN GENERAL, NOT counting historically suspicious Mama Russia's fear of a Neo-Ottoman or Hard-Boy controlled Nuke-armed Turkey, + return of any aggressive Nuke-armed Germany to the world stage.
Lest also NOT fergit the ISIS/ISIL threat to already Nuke-armed Pakistan vee poten takeover of alleged PAK ISI-controlled, Pak or AFPAK-centric PAK Talibunnies.
AS EX-KGB, DARTH VLAD/VLADVEDEV WILL PREPARE FOR THE WORST-CASE SCENARIOS AS PER ALL THE ABOVE.
RUSSIA HAS A LOT TO FEAR BUT DOES NOT HAVE THE STABLE ECON TO HANDLE IT ALL.
[NATIONALREVIEW] Americans are under no obligation to figure out what is “intrinsic” in Islam — to divine the “true” Islam, if there actually is one. There are sundry interpretations of Islam.
Yet, for our limited national-security and liberty-preserving purposes, it is undeniable — except to those who are in terminal denial — that a mainstream interpretation of Islam rejects the foundations of our Constitution, beginning with our core premise that the people are sovereign and may govern themselves irrespective of the totalitarian dictates of sharia.
It makes no difference to us whether this mainstream interpretation of Islam is a faithful rendering — much less the faithful rendering. For our purposes, what matters is that many millions of Muslims, rightly or wrongly, adhere to this construction.
One need not fancy himself an Islamic scholar to see that it derives from Islamic scripture, although Dr. Krauthammer must know that there is no shortage of globally influential Islamic scholars who vouch for this literalist fundamentalism — see, e.g., Reliance of the Traveller, the classic sharia manual endorsed by the faculty at Cairo’s al-Azhar University (the seat of Islamic learning since the tenth century) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (the Muslim Brotherhood’s American think tank, whose self-proclaimed mission is “the Islamization of knowledge”).
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
A religion is not the word they believe but the actions of the believers. By their actions (and the overt or tacit approval) Islam should be judged.
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.
[NATION.PK] In the backdrop of the Badaber attack, which according to Pakistain intelligence sources was planned, executed and supervised from the Afghan soil, the 
[SALON] American propaganda exaggerates the power and moral depravity of the Islamic enemy, in the service of our empire
[NATION.PK] THE image of a mustachioed man with peaked cap and a chest full of medals is becoming hard to avoid in Pakistain. It is splashed across the posters of a politician competing in a by-election in the eastern city of Lahore. It looms large on giant billboards in the port city of 
