I have no idea if Republicans will end their circular firing squad and unite sufficiently to right our country, but one thing seems abundantly clear from the events of the last weeks, including Tuesdays election in which Terry McAuliffe barely eked out a victory over the unexciting Ken Cuccinelli. Liberalism in our country is in a more precarious position than ever. It may not even really exist.
Liberalism as practiced in todays America is a chimera, not actually an ideology but an alliance of interest groups controlled by elites for the preservation of their (the elites) wealth and power. The interest groups often seem to be working against their own advantage by being so affiliated (e. g. African-Americans are in the worst shape in years under Obama), but not the elites who have been able to thrive. These elites are also able to appear altruistic to themselves and others while behaving in manners that are hideously selfish and atrocious to the common good. Liberalism is not so much an ideology in our society as it is a shield, a defense mechanism for a lifestyle.
#1
Its all about creating sufficient illusion to loot public and private coffers? No ideology? Just illusion by big time larcenous thugs? Why don't the folks bring out the tar and feathers and pitchforks if all this is true?
#3
Considering that the state of Virginia has a democrat governor and two democrat senators I would think the liberal cancer has begun to spread south. With the RINO GOP as the disease carrier.
#4
Lots of people believe in the illusion. Hopefully the "fixing" of a health insurance system that wasn't broken will shatter the illusion for enough of them to nudge things back in the right direction.
[Dawn] THE death of a man who waged war against the Pak state and was responsible for the slaughtering of thousands of innocent men, women and kiddies should have come as a great relief to this strife-torn nation.
Instead, our politicians are mourning the death of Hakeemullah Mehsud in a US drone strike describing the incident as an "attack on peace".
From being public enemy No.1, the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) has virtually been turned into a hero after his inglorious death. A mass murderer who ordered the beheading of our soldiers and grabbed credit for killing a Pak general just a few months ago, is now being elevated to the status of a martyr.
Instead of seizing this moment of opportunity to dismantle a fragmented terrorist network, a frightened politicianship has shamelessly prostrated itself before the myrmidons. As a result, the gunnies and their allies are now dominating the public narrative despite their crimes against the people of Pakistain. It is an extremely dangerous situation for a country facing the existential threat of spiralling violent extremism. A narrow self-serving leadership is taking the entire country towards a suicidal path.
With few exceptions, all political parties have joined the chorus that the fatal drone strike on Hakeemullah was a conspiracy to scuttle an illusory grinding of the peace processor. While the interior minister has called for reviewing relations with the US, an agitated 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 threatened to block the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... supply line in protest. The bravado may just be public posturing, but the irresponsible rhetoric could lead to some unintentional consequences, plunging the country into more dire straits.
It is a pity that even the killing of young women and kiddies in a suicide kaboom in a crowded Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. bazaar or the massacre of Christian worshippers in the church bombing has not shaken the great Khan as much as the death of the leader of the myrmidon outfit that perpetrated those heinous attacks. He even refuses to accept that the Taliban were behind those bombings despite their endorsement of the attack.
Seemingly, all the tumult is about the timing of the US action and the violation of Pakistain's illusory sovereignty once again. According to the interior minister, the attack was carried out hours before a three-member delegation was to meet the TTP leadership and extend to them a formal invitation from the government for talks.
Notwithstanding the questionable legality of America's drone strikes on Pak soil, it is hard to believe that the targeting of the TTP chief was part of a plan to sabotage the talks as alleged by our politicians.
One should not forget that the TTP leader was on the US's most wanted list with a bounty of up to $5m on his head. He came on the US radar after a video showed him talking to Hummam Khalil Abu-Mulal al Balawi, a Jordanian doctor with Al Qaeda connections who went kaboom! inside a CIA operating base in Afghanistan's Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... , killing seven intelligence operatives in 2009. The incident also confirmed his close ties with Al Qaeda.
Soon after, Hakeemullah claimed to have trained Faisal Shehzad, an American of Pak origin who was involved in a failed attempt Curses! Foiled again! to detonate a boom-mobile in New York's Times Square.
Hakeemullah had narrowly escaped several drone strikes in the past three years. He was also reportedly injured in one of them that kept him out of action for several months. Significantly, the fatal attack on Friday came a couple of weeks after the US forces had snatched from the Afghan intelligence agencies Latif Mehsud, a close confidant of the TTP leader.
It is quite plausible that the information gleaned from Latif might have led the CIA to Hakeemullah's hideout. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has confirmed that American officials had informed him that the TTP leader would not be spared if tracked down.
For sure, the drone campaign has remained a major irritant in the troubled relations between Islamabad and Washington. 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... also raised the issue during his meeting with President Barack Obama We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us... in Washington last month. Indeed, Pakistain's objection to the violation of the country's illusory sovereignty is fully justified on legal and ethical grounds. There are no two views about the negative political impact of the collateral damage caused by the drone attacks.
But it is also a fact, that the drones have eliminated many high-value Pak faceless myrmidons running their terrorist operations from North Wazoo. Prominent among those killed in the last two years are Waliur Rehman, who was deputy chief of the TTP, Ilyas Kashmiri, Qari Hussain, Qari Zafar and Badar Mansoor. They were all criminal masterminds of attacks on Pak security installations.
Pakistain has also decided to contact the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on the killing of Hakeemullah in the latest drone strike. The move will certainly make Pakistain a laughing stock and only weaken the country's case on the drone issue.
Leave aside other countries, Islamabad cannot even convince its closest ally China on the matter. The myrmidon sanctuaries in North Waziristan are a cause for concern to the entire international community. It is certain that the way Pakistain is dealing with the issue of terrorism will find no takers.
It was questionable from the outset whether the government's peace efforts could succeed given the uncompromising attitude of the TTP. In his last interview to the BBC, Hakeemullah had rejected any dialogue under the Pak Constitution, saying that it envisioned a secular democratic system.
Now with his death that may lead to further fragmentation of the TTP, the possibility of any purposeful negotiations has become even more remote. But the danger is that the current state of policy disarray may provide a conducive environment in which the faceless myrmidons can revitalise their activities. It is perhaps, the most critical point in the country's struggle against the rising myrmidon threat.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/06/2013 00:00 ||
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Dawn] CONFUSION once again reigns in Islamabad and, by extension, across the country. The federal government is unhappy about the drone strike that killed Hakeemullah Mehsud last week, this much the country has learned from the bombastic response of Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan. But unhappiness or even outrage is not policy. And it's on the policy front that the government seems beset by confusion and uncertainty. The things that are known about the PML-N government's app-roach are as follows: the government believes that there is a serious internal security threat; it first wants to try the dialogue route with the TTP; it wants to keep ties with the US relatively stable; and it wants unilateral drone strikes to end in Fata. But those objectives can and will clash, as they did last weekend when an American drone killed the TTP chief. Surely, the government ought to have been prepared for just such an eventuality. And even if it wasn't -- preparedness not being a part of the Pak condition generally and certainly not of the present government -- the focus in the immediate aftermath should have been on presenting a sensible and coherent message.
Instead, the government's response has fit a depressingly familiar pattern: angry rhetoric with little promise of substantive action, a combination that only ends up ceding further ground to Taliban-friendly elements in an already skewed public discourse. Now that 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... has finally weighed in with sensible words emphasising his government's policy on talks without lashing out at external powers or eulogising Hakeemullah Mehsud, the question is whether the overheated remarks of some in his party were simply designed to publicly ingratiate the government with the TTP (or perhaps to avoid incurring the TTP's wrath) while quietly sending more sensible signals to the US about pushing forward with the tense though necessary relationship.
If so, it would be a tragic repetition of a game that the country's politicianship has played with the public for decades. What the country needs is an honest reckoning with the past and present. Mr Sharif has been sensible for the most part in his public comments, but he is guilty of being too timid and speaking out far too infrequently. In fact, too often it has seemed as if the running of the government has been wholly delegated by the prime minister to his cabinet. If not interested in the minutiae, the prime minister should at least give a firm and clear direction on major policy matters. The country deserves more from its prime minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/06/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
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
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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.
[Dawn] THE death of a man who waged war against the Pak state and was responsible for the slaughtering of thousands of innocent men, 
Nawaz Sharif
Wazoo
