[Jpost] President Donald Trump is scheduled to release a new US national security strategy on Monday.
This past Tuesday Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster gave a speech laying out some of its components in a speech in Washington.
McMaster’s speech was notable because in it he laid out a host of policies that McMaster himself has reportedly opposed since he was appointed to his position in February.
McMaster for instance has been open in his opposition to linking terrorism with Islam. He has also reportedly insisted on limiting US actions in Syria and Iraq to defeating Islamic State. McMaster reportedly fired his deputy for Middle East policy Derek Harvey last summer due to Harvey’s advocacy of combating Iran’s consolidation of control over Syria through its proxies President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah.
In his speech on Tuesday, McMaster embraced the policies he has reportedly opposed. He discussed at length the threat of what he referred to as "radical Islamist ideology."
That ideology, which the US had previously interpreted "myopically," constitutes "a grave threat to all civilized people," he said.
McMaster regretted US myopia noting, "We didn’t pay enough attention to how it’s being advanced through charities, madrassas and other social organizations."
McMaster fingered Turkey and Qatar, two ostensible US allies, as the main sponsors and sources of funding for Islamist ideology that targets Western interests.
He noted that in the past Saudi Arabia had served as a major sponsor of radical Islam. But Riyadh has been replaced by Qatar and by Turkey, he said.
...The problem with McMaster’s speech and the policy paper it set the stage for is that it is hard to know if they reflect an actual change in policy. Certainly his position and general drift haven’t been reflected in US actions in several key countries this week.
The day after McMaster’s speech the US Embassy in Beirut announced delivery of another $120 million in military assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
As Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has repeatedly stated, the LAF is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps controlled directly by Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy army.
The Hezbollah-controlled LAF is the fifth-largest recipient of US military assistance worldwide.
According to Ambassador Elizabeth Richard, the LAF has received in excess of $1.5 billion in military aid over the past decade.
...It isn’t surprising, and to a degree it is reasonable, that the US is of two minds about its Middle East policy. For decades the US has both opposed and appeased its Middle Eastern enemies, and supported and turned on its allies.
Under Obama, the two-faced policy was driven by Obama’s ideological conviction that the US must align its Middle East policy with Iran and away from its traditional allies led by Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Under other presidents ‐ including Trump ‐ the US’s double-dealing has been more a testament to the US’s inability to tell its friends from its foes.
Over the years, the US has been unable to tell its allies from its enemies because they were fluid.
As McMaster rightly recalled, for years the Saudis behaved like the Qataris. And they also served as the anchor of the US alliance system with the Sunni Arab world.
Even today, as Crown Prince Muhammad and Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in Egypt make unprecedented steps to fight both jihadist forces and the ideology of jihad, the US cannot know whether either leader will be alive tomorrow or if they will have a sudden change of heart and leave the US high and dry.
...The significant positions McMaster set out on Tuesday will in all likelihood be reflected in the document Trump will release on Monday. But as the arms transfer to Lebanon, Tillerson’s remarks in Paris, and the administration’s incoherent position on Qatar make clear, even the best national security strategies are not worth the paper they are written on unless they are translated into real policies implemented on the ground. Me, the more time goes by, the more I become convinced that the Don read not just Rand, but Heinlein as well.
[DAWN] THE DG Sindh Rangers, Maj Gen Muhammad Saeed, has executed an almost perfect illustration of the saying ’to crack a nut with a sledgehammer’. Addressing a news conference in 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... on Wednesday, the head of the paramilitary force said that robbers and street criminals should be tried as turbans under the Anti Terrorism Act and suggested that the home department was considering such a step. He went on to dilate upon the success of the Rangers-led operation in the city that he said had resulted in a steep decline in crimes such as assassination, kidnapping for ransom and extortion. Street crime, however, remained a concern, one that neither the Rangers nor the police had been able to curb.
When a law-enforcement agency drafted in ostensibly to tackle the most serious crimes is tacitly given licence to use unbridled force ‐ including torture and extra judicial killings ‐ to achieve its objectives, it leaves both the law-enforcement apparatus and society brutalised. All nuance is lost: the ends justify the means. The DG Rangers’ statement is certain to have struck a chord with many people, especially those who have fallen prey to street crime. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... it is for good reason that vigilante ’justice’ lies outside the pale of the law; crime must be prosecuted according to a dispassionate rationale. Every act of criminality does not rise to the level of terrorism, which does not mean that certain types of crime should be condoned, but that perspective is important. Equating someone who, for instance, steals mobile phones, with a button man is overstating matters, particularly when there are several privileged individuals in our society who get away with actions that seem to constitute the legal definition of terrorism. Conflating street crime with terrorism also trivialises the crimes that attract the application of the ATA. Moreover, the DG Rangers is surely aware of how the ATCs are already clogged with cases. Adding to the bottleneck is hardly the answer.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] THE strength of the Afghan Taliban ...Arabic for students... mainly rests with their territorial control in Afghanistan and a ’religious’ narrative of the struggle against the ’foreign occupation’ of Afghanistan. Kabul believes they can be delegitimised if Pak religious scholars issue a fatwa, or religious decree, against the Taliban’s armed resistance.
Former president Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ...A product, probably the sole product, of the Southern Alliance... tried hard to pursue the Pak government and religious scholars from KP, including Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... and Maulana Samiul Haq ...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time... , but all attempts proved futile. However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... Kabul is still confident as army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa reportedly promised the Afghan government in October that he would try to obtain a fatwa from Pak religious scholars.
To what extent a fatwa can affect a resistance movement such as that of the Afghan Taliban is debatable; it is not certain who will issue and support such a decree, as Pak religious scholars have in many instances declared the Afghan Taliban’s resistance a jihad. It is no secret that most leaders of the Afghan Taliban studied in Pakistain’s madressahs and that sectarian affinity still exists between the two. Nevertheless, as part of a Pak media delegation that recently visited Kabul, this writer felt that Afghan officials were hopeful that an anti-Taliban fatwa would come from Pakistain soon.
As Pakistain’s media is busy covering internal political crisis, Afghanistan is rarely discussed at public forums; the Foreign Office and ISPR have also not issued any substantive statement on the issue of Afghans anticipating a fatwa. In connection with the army chief’s visit to Kabul in October, the media only reported on the establishment of high-level contacts between the two countries and formation of working groups to increase military, intelligence and economic cooperation, apart from evolving a joint mechanism for the return of Afghan refugees from Pakistain. These were positive developments and will, indeed, help reduce the trust deficit between the two countries. Nevertheless, the reported fatwa component has not been highlighted in the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2017 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
The writer expends many words to demand resurrecting the PLO.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Speaking at an emergency summit in Istanbul, Paleostinian Authority (PA) President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... attempted to recast his role in a defunct 'grinding of the peace processor'.
He declared before the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference on December 13 that his authority will no longer accept US mediation in the Middle East grinding of the peace processor.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2017 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
Do you have any idea what will happen to you all when I say Enough?
It's in the Bible.
Read it so you won't be the only one standing when I remove your chair.
#2
Sorry to inject some reality, Mahmoud, but in that corner of the world, Israel is the Strong Horse.
And don't blather about how the United States equips Israel militarily, because y'all were equipped lavishly from the Soviet/Communist war machine, and STILL LOST.
#3
Soon after Arafat chose to rebel against US-Israel diktats, he was holed in his office in Ramallah and taunted by Israeli soldiers, until he was flown to Gay Paree for treatment where he died, in 2004.
Good times. Good. Times
anyone ever find the Dread Red Binder™?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2017 8:24 Comments ||
Top||
Babylon Bee, so it's satire...I think
WASHINGTON, D.C. - All 535 members of Congress announced Friday that they would resign from office, effective immediately, over a vast array of sexual improprieties yet to be named.
"In light of allegations that may come out about each of us at some point in the future; allegations which we simultaneously deny and deeply, sincerely apologize for; we have decided to resign from our offices at once," members of the Senate and House of Representatives said in a joint statement released to the public.
"We hope and trust that any foolish mistakes that might be revealed about us will not tarnish our individual legacies of being champions of women, steadfast defenders of moral values, and people who went to bed at night and woke up in the morning‐wherever we may have been at the time - ;thinking about how we could best serve our constituents."
With that, the government officials thanked the public for their support, and announced that they would be taking some time to rest at their lake houses and country clubs and spend some time with their families.
At publishing time, salacious and compromising information had been revealed about each member's chosen replacement, causing a total shutdown of the American legislature.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2017 10:10 ||
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Top|| File under:
#1
Well, they've all been screwing us for years.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2017 11:05 Comments ||
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#2
(rimshot)
Posted by: Matt ||
12/17/2017 11:47 Comments ||
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#3
Thanks for linking to the Babylon Bee. They are a treasure--and somehow manage still to write satire in a time when it is increasingly difficult to satirize what is actually happening.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/17/2017 14:51 Comments ||
Top||
#4
We have a revolution in this Country every two years by election. However, this little ditty will help US all make it come to fruition.
It would be nice to see new faces in the crusty halls of the House.
I'm sure there will be turds that are harder to wipe away but maybe Joe Black can depose the hangers on.
[DavidWarrenOnline] Hell, from what I hear, must be a paradise for interior designers, as there are so many special places in it. There is a special place for people who prey on children, according to the theologian, Ivanka Trump; and another special place for Republicans who didn’t support Roy Moore, according to Steve Bannon. I am more with Ivanka on this one; though I did want Moore to win, for reasons quite unrelated to his sex life in the 1970s, whatever that was. (I am partial to his sort of lunatic.)
On the other hand, I should like to point to the special place in Hell reserved for women who falsely accuse men of "rape," or "sexual assault," or "sexual harassment" (terms now used almost interchangeably) ‐ even if the man were guilty of some drunk and blundering lubricious act. (That’s when you slap his face, to sober him.) And then another special place, for men and women alike, who fail to speak up when they know that the facts of some case are being misrepresented. And these in addition to the special places for actual rapists, and psychopathic goons ‐ accessible by noose under our auld arrangements.
...I’m prepared to believe almost anything said about the denizens of Hollywood, on the evidence of their movies. I haven’t watched one in a long time, but I’ve seen a few trailers. (They show them on the Internet, whether or not you ask.) These are stewing in sex and violence (have you noticed, gentle reader?) and when the makers affect to be prim, I cannot help chortling.
I have further noticed that a lot of movie stars are content to be packaged as tarts. I find it especially amusing when a woman who puts her "sexiness" on aggressive display ‐ in the absence of any other memorable quality ‐ whines for being taken as a "sex object." (It is an old adage that those who do not want lodgers should not advertise for them.) ... Or, for that matter, when an utter sleaze of a don-juan poses as upholder of women’s rights. (Surely hypocrisy could be better concealed.)
...Some of these special places must be here on Earth, for police departments in all the big towns are getting cloyed with sex investigations of the rich and famous. (Useful tip: avoid "success" and you will never be sued.) As the feminist rage swells, we will need prison camps, whole Gulags and Guantanamos, to house all the accused. And nine in ten of these will be the formerly self-adoring progressive types.
That’s the good news. The sexual revolution has now progressed to the stage when it eats its own. Thousands of scorpions in that "special place" bottle, but every day a few less.
Continuing the theme of gift books, let us not forget the kiddos.
For the very young:
The Adventures of Frog and Toad
Arnold Lobel
Barnes and Nobel, 2009
Short, whimsical stories about two friends, Frog and Toad. My children just adore these stories; even today my oldest will stop what she is doing to hear me read to my youngest. Sometimes she will even read the dialogue of one of the characters while I do the other.
Other than one part where Toad says, 'Shutup!' during the story “The Dream”, the dialogue is totally kid safe, and the stories teach good moral lessons.
This edition is a collection of three different books, sort of a Lord of the Rings for entry readers: Frog and Toad are Friends, Frog and Toad Together, and Days with Frog and Toad.
Page 14 of Frog and Toad Together:
"Hurry!" said Frog.
"We will run and catch it."
"No!" shouted Toad.
"I cannot do that."
"Why not?" asked Frog.
"Because," wailed Toad,
"running after my list
is not one of the things
that I wrote
on my list of things to do!"
The print is large and easy to read, and the picture whimsical and well done.
For those who are comfortable readers:
The Story of the World
Volume 1: Ancient Times - From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor
Susan Wise Bauer
Peach Hill Press, 2006
I am usually skeptical of the History of Everything genre. They tend to be sweeping, skipping some events and over-slanting others. This 4 Volume set pleasantly surprised me. With the youngster in mind, there are simple maps, excellent pencil drawings and plenty of examples concerning the current topic, such as stories about Anansi the Spider, and excerpt from The Epic of Gilgamesh, introduction to Greek and Chinese letters, Ganga and Shiva, and much more.
What also impressed me was the scope Mrs. Bauer attains. From Meso-America to China and Japan, and from pre-agriculture through Rome, the flow is neat, concise, well organized, and fair. There is a Judeo-Christian lean to the content, but Mrs. Bauer is completely fair to every culture and epoch discussed.
Page 124-125, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon:
Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon, sat on his throne and worried. He had a great empire - but what if another country attacked him? He wasn't sure that his army could defend Babylon from invaders. And he was very worried about Persia, a country to the east of Babylon. The Persians were expanding their own country. Their army was strong. He had heard frightening stories about Persian soldiers!
"I know what I'll do," he thought to himself. "I will ask the king of Persia if I can marry his daughter. Then he will be my father-in-law, and he won't attack me!"
Nebuchadnezzar had never seen the daughter of the Persian king. But that didn't matter to him. He was willing to marry a stranger to keep Babylon safe. So he sent messages to the king of Persia, offering to marry the princess.
There a map on page 125 to help locate the subjects of this chapter. Also available are work books for each volume which have questions and crafts concerning each chapter. Great intro to history.
Finally, for our older readers:
Starship Troopers
Robert A. Heinlein
Ace, 1987
I really think a person could spend a lot of time considering the content in this book, and it will get its own post later. Besides the content, it is an excellent reminder that movies do not always match books, and usually are not even close to being better. For those of you who have read Starship Troopers, you can imagine my surprise at how much not like the movie this book is. I could see where the movie got some its parts and then totally missed the point, intentionally, as I understand the movie was supposed to be a parody of sorts.
Page 117-118
"If you can't listen, perhaps you can tell the class whether 'value' is a relative, or an absolute?"
I had been listening; I just didn't see any reason not to listen with eyes closed and spine relaxed. But his question caught me out; I hadn't read that day's assignment. "An absolute," I answered, guessing.
"Wrong," he said coldly. "'Value' has no meaning other than in relation to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human - 'market value' is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible." (I had wondered what Father would have said if he had heard "market value" called a "fiction" - snort in disgust, probably.)
"This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what can he do with a thing, its use to him...and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.
"Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain." He had been still looking at me and added, "If you boys and girls had to sweat for your toys the way a newly born baby has to struggle to live you would be happier...and much richer. As it is, with some of you, I pity the poverty of your wealth. You! I've just awarded you the prize for the hundred-meter dash. Does it make you happy?"
The whole book is like this, other than the action parts. The reader is invited to go as deep as one wants or can; a young me would have thought 'bad-ass dialogue'; me today could take this short passage to the campfire and discuss it until dawn. That said, a younger me talking about this passage with an older me would have allowed myself to be led to the deeper end of the pool, learning to swim where I could not touch.
Oh, Lawdog Files - Africa Stories is now in print.
Link is to the Africa Stories.
This Week in Emergency Preparedness
Looking at the next couple of weekends, and my availability, this is my last post for 2017 so let's talk travel.
Regionally, there is a story about a traveler whose routing devices failed and he ended up in Kansas instead of New Mexico. Someone asked me, "Why didn't he just look at his map?" I replied, "Probably because nobody carries maps anymore, especially the youngers. When was the last time you went into a gas station and saw a rotary of maps?" I have a Road Atlas which has all 50 states and major metros. Used it a couple times when a routine trip hit closed roads. The electronic stuff is nice, and becoming ever more reliable, but out in the middle of bumbug Kansas, or which ramp St. Louis, always seem to be when electronics fail and we have to switch to manual.
Have you checked to see if your Kidd fire extinguisher is a dud, and if so replaced it yet? Good time to check.
See you all sometime in 2018. If you are traveling, travel safe. If you are hosting, enjoy the gathering. Going to be by yourself, rock it.
#1
I need to stop by Barnes & Noble to pick up the Frog and Toad collection. I remember liking it when I was young, and the trailing daughters did in their turn. Startship Troopers needs no comment — I grew up reading him, and that one is in my re-read cycle.
The comments about the history book (and series) on Amazon are interesting. Apparently Mrs. Bauer wrote them to be a home schooling series, which explains additional workbooks. But volume 1 is intended for first grade, volume 2 for second grade and so forth, to build a solid foundation of historical knowledge before going into depth on individual periods in the higher grades. Unlike swksvolFF I do like broad sweep of history books, as they put more particulate knowledge into perspective. I wish I’d had these or something like it when the trailing daughters were young — I would have added it to our bedtime story list, to be read a chapter at a time.
There was a book which just ruined that genre for me called 'A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. Maybe it is good, and if so I hope someone urges me to give it another try, but I didn't match with the tone, I already knew the content, and it was a thing so the people who thought I should read it kept hounding me until I set the book down and told them no more.
The problem I had with 'Shutup!' in The Dream was not that it is inappropriate, but very appropriate as, my take on it, Toad was telling his ego to take a hike, as his ego was becoming so self absorbed his best friend was being chased away. I just switched to 'Be Quiet!' or 'Go Away!' as my prudish self did not want my pre-teen going around the classroom telling people to shutup.
Wife and I had a hard talk about education and we decided we would at least supplement the kids' education. Among other subjects, I was handed History. We would read a chapter or two each night, and hit the workbooks, which are fun.
My parents were academics, so supplementation was a way of life when I was growing up. Questions they didn’t have answers to merited an immediate exploration of the Encyclopedia Britannica or my mother’s college textbooks. Nowadays my cell phone gets more exercise looking things up on the internet than making phone calls. ;-)
I continued the family tradition — and drove trailing daughter #2 a bit crazy because I insisted she work to meet my standards rather than the lower standard required by her teachers to get an A. Td #1 strove always for mastery, so it wasn’t an issue.
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.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
the 
