By Janet Daley at the Telegraph, h/t RCP. This hits the nail on the head as well as any article I have read this year. She''s getting trashed in the comments. of course, which are going to hit 1,000 in a bit.
This campaign is going to consist of the debate that all Western democratic countries should be engaging in, but which only the United States has the nerve to undertake. Our system looks so broken some days that a bit of praise is refreshing, especially from the UK.
The question that will demand an answer lies at the heart of the economic crisis from which the West seems unable to recover. It is so profoundly threatening to the governing consensus of Britain and Europe as to be virtually unutterable here I''m sure uttering it is a death-penalty offense in Brussels.
so we shall have to rely on the robustness of the US political class to make the running.
What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre I do so wish the Brits would learn how to spell basic English words.
ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes Way too many letters in there, Janet.
which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, Krugman''s head just exploded.
until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union. Or in other words, let''s do the math on this, shall we?
Posted by: Matt ||
09/02/2012 13:54 ||
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#1
The Daley article from across the pond was a good catch Matt. Her Rubio quote was right on the money:
Obama is trying ideas that people came to America to get away from.
A subject on which Dr. Kissinger was so egregiously wrong that President Nixon had to actually go around him. Why did the State Department decide that these documents needed suddenly to be released now?
#1
Champ has had a low-level psychological operations campaign running (US taxpayer being the target audience) for quite a while. The numerous classified releases, movies, and leaks are certainly no accident.
#2
Trying to convince US Jews that Republicans are not necessarily better friends to Israel than Democrats.
(a) Nobody in Washington is really a friend of Israel---they just bow to popular will (which, incidentally, doesn't come from American Jews but from American Americans). At least, with any other POTUS---due to their respect for the above popular will, Israel is safe from an out and out hostile acts by USA (like intercepting IAF strike on Iran). But Obama's entire record in office is that of contempt for the popular will.
(b) Most American Jews who voted for Obama don't really like Israel---they feel Israel makes them look bad (the idea that "anti-Zionists" are really anti-Semites with a good sense of priorities just doesn't occur to them).
In any case, American Jews should vote against Obama because his reelection will lead to either.
(i) A civil war (not necessarily along North/South lines this time)---and Jews are almost always major targets in civil wars.
(ii) Totalitarian regime in USA---and Jews, eventually, always become a target in totalitarian states.
#1
"Mr. Obama promised Russian leaders he would have more flexibility after the election..."
R2 needs to hammer "0" with this statement as often as possible....pretty sure it will come up in one of the Presidential debates....it would be popcorn-worthy to watch Biden attempt to explain it, but doubt the opportunity will present itself......
#3
Since the liberal media "moderators" will set the agenda for the debates, the questions for Romney will be more like: "Yes or no, Mr. Romney: Have you stopped beating your wife? Have you apologized to the husband of the woman you killed?"
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/02/2012 17:16 Comments ||
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#4
As a side note, I would LOVE to see John Bolton as Secretary of State in a Romney administration.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/02/2012 17:17 Comments ||
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Pakistain seems to want to get rid of a community that backed Jinnah in the struggle for independence and contributed significantly to the country's progress
On 25 August, 2012 former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani attended the Khatm-e-Nabuwat Conference in Golra in Islamabad. Talking to news hounds after the conference, the former prime minister said the mission of Pir Mehar Ali Shah, the patron saint of Golra, came to its fruition in 1974. It was a reference to the excommunication of Ahmadis by the Parliament. The community was declared nonMoslem through a constitutional amendment by the Pakistain People's Party government in 1974. The PPP views the amendment as a feather in its cap and many of its first rank leaders are known to proudly state that their party did Islam a favour.
Things evidently were not always like this for Ahmadis. Having supported the All India Moslem League in the 1940s, Ahmadis - being an educated and enterprising community - contributed significantly to the development of the new state. There was always opposition to them but the state was forthright in putting down disturbances as it did in 1953.
The Munir Report is an early example of state institutions fairly carrying out their responsibilities undeterred by religious extremism.
But 1974 was a different story. The 2nd Amendment to the 1973 constitution, most legal scholars agree, introduced sectarian partisanship into the constitutional and legal framework which was further cemented in 1984 through the infamous Ordinance XX, which seeks to criminalise Ahmadis' self identification as Moslems.
Inconvenient facts - that the author of the Lahore Resolution was an Ahmadi or that Pakistain's only Nobel laureate is an Ahmadi - are swept under the carpet
The constitutional amendment had created no fetters on Ahmadis' self identification and the subsequent law sought to give the constitutional amendment teeth. The said law survived a constitutional challenge under Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistain, with the judiciary ruling in Zaheeruddin v the State that it was but natural for Moslems to get offended at the sight of an Ahmadi posing as a Moslem.
Since the introduction of the said law, Ahmadis have been at the receiving end of what is called an unparalleled persecution in the modern era. Hardly a week goes by without some incident somewhere in which Ahmadis are harassed, persecuted and even murdered.
This past Eid, in the E Sector of Rawalpindi's Satellite Town, the Police stopped Ahmadis from offering Eid prayers at their place of worship called Eiwan-e-Tauheed. Only days earlier, Hafizabad police raided an Ahmadi cemetery in Mangat Ucha village and desecrated the tombstones by erasing the Kalima from the graves.
On the independence day, police in Kot Abdul Malik entered the home of an Ahmadi citizen and besides desecrating the Koranic verses at his house, they also removed the his father's name "Muhammad Ali". For good measure, the police also ransacked his shop to ensure compliance with Ordinance XX of 1984. Earlier on in the month, a jeweler in Sargodha was jugged Book 'im, Mahmoud! for displaying the verse "Oh ye people of faith, always tell the truth". The said Koranic verse was also desecrated by the Police.
Ahmadi places of worship are routinely ransacked and vandalized not just by agitators but by the police and state law enforcement agencies as in the case of an Ahmadi place of worship in Kharian last month.
Historians caution that the fetters imposed on Ahmadiyya community are reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremburg Laws and are certainly much worse than the Jim Crow Laws of the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Earlier this year, an Ahmadi man, employed as a teacher in a public school, was jugged Book 'im, Mahmoud! on a false charge and subsequently tortured to death by the police in Chenabnagar/Rabwah area. Last year in Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... , an organization patronized by the Auqaaf Department of the Punjab government distributed pamphlets calling upon Moslems to kill Ahmadis everywhere indiscriminately. Consequently, several Ahmadis were killed or kidnapped. Many government offices in Lahore and other cities of Punjab have posters containing inflammatory rhetoric and hate speech. One such poster at the Lahore's Customs House reads "Jo Qadiani ka yaar hai, Ghaddar hai Ghaddar hai" (he who is a friend to Ahmadis is a traitor). Another poster in Lahore's Banking Courts reads "when a Moslem befriends a Qadiani, he causes anguish to the spirit of the Holy Prophet ((PTUI!))". It is not clear if the concerned authorities are responsible for these posters but they are certainly unwilling to remove them.
Leaders of the Anti-Ahmaddiya Movement openly state that Ahmadis do not deserve to live. One prominent activist of the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Lawyers Forum told this writer that "by the grace of God, Mirzais had been reduced to the level of chooras (Christian sweepers) and soon they will be cleaned up altogether."
This kind of thinking is not limited to religious activists- Pakistain's infamous Dr AQ Khan, who is seen by some as a national hero, made plain the hate he feels for Ahmadis in a show on Geo TV when he stated that he was proud of hailing from Bhopal (a princely state in pre-partition India) because "Bhopal did not produce any Qadianis". The host of the said show Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain had conducted a show a few years ago where a religious scholar incited the public on the lam to kill Ahmadis at will, leading to the murder of two Ahmadis within the next forty eight hours. Imran Aslam, the boss at Geo TV, stated on a radio show with NPR that Aamir Liaqat Hussain had been rehired only on the condition that "he behaves himself". Arguably that condition has been breached, but no action has been taken against him.
Inconvenient facts such as that the author of the Lahore Resolution was an Ahmadi or that Pakistain's only Nobel laureate is an Ahmadi are swept under the carpet. Last month when the world celebrated the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle at CERN - in large part due to the standard model formulation of Ahmadi Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam - Pakistain was completely silent.
No official mention of Salam's extraordinary achievement was made. The prime minister or the president did not issue a statement highlighting Pakistain's superb contribution to this most extraordinary human discovery which will have an impact on how we view the world and answer the fundamental questions about the universe.
"What did Salam do for us? Did he make the nuclear bomb?" is the standard refrain from those who dispute Salam's status as a national hero. Others describe Salam's great achievement as a Jewish attempt to bolster the Ahmadis in Pakistain. Wonders never cease.
Historians caution that the fetters imposed on Ahmadiyya community are reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremburg Laws and are certainly much worse than the Jim Crow Laws of the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The growing violence and hate against Ahmadis along with the general decline of the Pak state is creating a situation very similar to Germany between the two World Wars of the last century, and many fear a brutal extermination of this community from Pakistain.
#2
...I wonder what would happen if we *only* allowed Ahmadis to emmigrate as our quota of Muslims? Say what you will about how annoying then can be (and I've met some), their version of Islam prohibits conversion through violence, and encourages conversion through choice.
[Dawn] DUMPED bodies, missing people, sectarian killings: most headlines about the law and order situation in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... focus on these events. But what is perhaps just as disruptive to the fabric of life in that province, and gets far less attention, is how the machinery that runs Balochistan is under attack. The liquidation of a district and sessions judge in Quetta on Thursday may have been carried out for any of a number of reasons: because he was a settler, for sectarian reasons, or simply to undermine the state. Whatever the motives, it highlighted how lack of security in Balochistan is making it near-impossible in certain areas to carry out the daily work of administration that keeps a society going. Reports are emerging from Dera Bugti, for example, that many if not most government officials posted there, including doctors, teachers, engineers and other civil servants, stay away from the area; the deputy commissioner and district police chief live in Sui, not in the district headquarters. Some of this might be driven by dishonesty within the system, especially at the lower levels, because institutions lack even the will or capacity to enforce rules. But sections of Dera Bugti also remain no-go areas, despite denials by Balochistan government officials. In parts of the province, civil servants are making the choice between doing their jobs and saving their lives.
A report by the HRCP indicates what a complex nexus of disruptive actors is holding life in the province at a standstill: from our own security establishment and a government lacking political will to bad turban groups of various stripes and foreign hands exploiting the grievances Pakistain's own policies have fostered. The result is a province in which the state has, in parts, effectively ceased to function. But it is also a place where NGOs fear to tread, driven away by threats, kidnappings and killings. Without a functioning state to provide basic services, private organizations to fill the gap or politicians committed to development, the people of Balochistan are effectively on their own.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Alamo, Davy was counting their remaining cannon balls and not liking the results... the disappearances and killings continue. On Thursday, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the HRCP announced that 450 dead bodies have been discovered and over 1,300 people have gone missing in the province during the current government's tenure. These figures may be lower according to some estimates, but the scale of this problem is only one aspect of it. Through a combination of indifference, wrongheaded policies and sheer fear, the state continues to create a mess in Balochistan while leaving its people to suffer the consequences on their own.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The scene in front of the court of Additional District and Session Judge Chakwal on Wednesday captured the divides that blasphemy cases bring with them.
Squatting under a tree on the premises of the district courts, Fauzia, 14, could hardly control her tears. Misery, fear and distress were written large on her face. Nearby her mother and grandmother wept silently as her 10-year-old brother Aon spoke with their father, a blasphemy accused, sitting in the lock-up. Another group of six men in the veranda were desperately discussing the case, trying to find a ray of hope.
Far away in a distant lawn, the mood was the exact opposite: a crowd of 25-30 men, most of them religious holy men were in high spirits.
Fauzia's father had worked as a primary school teacher in tehsil Talagang of Chakwal district before he was booked on the charges of blasphemy under sections 295-C and 298-A of the Pakistain Penal Code on November 17, 2011. The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Raja Pervez Akhtar adjourned the hearing till September 4 after getting the witnesses' account. The court has also summoned SP Yahiya Virk who conducted the inquiry.
The primary school teacher life changed forever when he went out to refuel his cycle of violence on November 2, 2011.
On his arrival at a local filling station, he was inadvertently drawn into a debate on the interpretation of conjugal rights granted under Islam. Little did he know that his differing interpretation on the matter would irk those present. Just two weeks later Naseer Ahmad, a villager, had moved an application against him for committing blasphemy before Saddar Police Station of Talagang.
The local clergy too picked up the matter and started instigating the public against him: the teacher was declared a "malaun" (the condemned) and a fatwa was issued against him. He was eventually locked away Please don't kill me! by the police and sent to a lock-up in Jhelum Prison.
For the last 10 months, the blasphemy accused has seen a stormy trial. Every time his case would be heard by the Additional District and Session Judge Talagang Rana Zahoor, a swarm of holy men would descend on the court premises. Eventually, his attorney Azad Hussain had to request the judge to transfer the case to Chakwal.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Esquimeau village our hero was receiving a quick lesson in aeronautics...... his two children, wife, mother and other family members live in severe trauma. In fact, the local holy mans find them guilty by association.
The blasphemy accused brothers were barred from pursuing the case and threatened with dire consequences. It was only when another community member, Azad Hussain, stepped in that the accused found himself an attorney.
Later, Qari Banaras, the Imam of the village mosque, in his Friday sermons urged the villagers to boycott the family. "We are not allowed to speak to any villager neither are we allowed to attend the funerals and marriages of other villagers even of our close relatives," lamented Ghulam Ali Qasim, the younger brother of the primary school teacher.
A couple of weeks ago when the father-in-law of another brother passed away, Qasim claims he was not allowed to offer the funeral prayers. "My brother went to attend the funeral prayer but he was thrown out of the row on the order of the imam," revealed Qasim.
"We are spending a highly miserable life fraught with panic and fear as we are being given life threats by the holy men," moaned Kalsoom, the blasphemy accused's wife.
She further told Dawn that she had sold her goat and a cow, the only two animals at the house, to fight for her husband. "I'm not even allowed to meet my parents in the village," Kalsoom narrated as tears flowed down her eyes.
Fauzia recently passed her ninth grade exams, but told Dawn that her friends have stopped talking to her because of the holy men. "I want to be a doctor but now I'm unable to read due to misery and panic caused by the arrest of my father," she said.
When contacted, the complainant Naseer Ahmad said that he did not want to give any comment as the matter was in the court.
On the other hand, Qari Banaras had an interesting reply when his attention was drawn to the plight of the blasphemy accused's family. "His wife should live with her parents as she lost the authority to live with her husband after he committed blasphemy," he maintained.
It may be mentioned here that in Talagang, the counsel of every complainant in every case of blasphemy is Advocate Tariq Mehmood. "Allah has chosen me to fight such cases against the condemned people," he told Dawn.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2012 00:00 ||
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Two recent events suggest that the American strategy of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is not yet working. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that Iran has "more than doubled" its development of centrifuges in an effort to accelerate its capacity to develop nuclear weapons.
And the recent meeting of the nonaligned nations in Tehran shows that Iran is today stronger diplomatically than it has been in years. Iran is neither isolated nor alone in a world in which nonaligned nations form a majority at the United Nations.
The sanctions, while hurting the Iranian economy and making life more difficult for the average Iranian, are having zero impact on the Iranian nuclear program, which according to objective intelligence reports, is gathering steam and moving even more quickly toward its ultimate goal of a nuclear weapon that will be a game changer.
An Iranian nuclear weapon will end any dream of non proliferation. It will protect Iran's surrogate terrorists, such as Hezbollah, under a formidable nuclear umbrella. And it will make an eventual nuclear war more likely. That is why President Obama rightfully took the containment option off the table and put the preventive military option squarely on it.
Although I support President Obama's policy with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat, I think he must take one further step if the combination of diplomacy and sanctions are ever to work. That step is to communicate to Iran -- unequivocally and without any room for misunderstanding -- that the Obama Administration will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
President Obama has already made this point, but not in a way that the Iranians understand and believe. Language matters, and President Obama must now use language that commits him, in the eyes of the Iranians, to keep his promise that he will, if necessary, use military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Only if the Iranians truly believe that they will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons will the combination of diplomacy and sanctions work. The message has to be this: Look, sanctions hurt. Diplomatic isolation from first world powers is costly. So why incur this pain and cost if you know you will never be able to achieve your goal?
Not only must the Iranians believe that the United States will, as a last resort, use its overwhelming air power to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program, but the Israeli leadership must also believe that the Iranians believe it. Only then will Israel forbear from taking preventive self-defense actions on its own.
If the Iranians and the Israelis were to believe President Obama's assurances that, as he put it, "I don't bluff," there would be a real possibility that Iran would abandon its nuclear weapons program. But even if the mullahs were foolishly to challenge the United States, and continue with the weapons program, the Israelis would have an enhanced degree of confidence that Obama would keep his word and stop Iran before it reached its deadly goal.
Right now, despite President Obama's best efforts, neither the Iranians nor the Israelis are sufficiently confident that he would carry out his threat. They know that there are those within the administration and among President Obama's supporters who will discourage him from making an unequivocal statement or carrying out a threat, because they believe that sanctions and diplomacy alone will work, without the need for "saber rattling."
There are also those who prefer a policy of containment to the threat of military action. The Iranians are aware of this faction and are counting on them to prevail, if it comes down to a choice between allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons and stopping them by military action. President Obama must make it clear that he has rejected this view and that he will employ military action if that is the only option other than a nuclear Iran.
This is not a debate between peaceniks and warmongers. Every Israeli and American that I know wants peace. Everyone would love to see Iran stop developing nuclear weapons without a rocket being fired or a bomb being dropped.
The dispute is about tactics and strategy. President Obama believes that the best way to avoid having to use the military option is to make Iran understand that he will in fact use it as a last alternative to Iran developing the bomb.
Those on the other side of this debate believe that making such an unequivocal threat would constitute saber rattling, and that such rattling actually decreases the chance for a peaceful resolution of this difficult issue.
President Obama is right and those who are opposed to his rattling some sabers are wrong. So let President Obama look the mullahs in the eye and persuade them that they simply do not have the option of developing nuclear weapons.
The only two options they have are to stop or be stopped. Only if they believe this, is there any realistic likelihood that they will stop.
The only problem, dear Professor Dershowitz, is that at this point in his history, the only thing our beloved president could do to convey the unequivocalness of his message is to actually bomb Iran. This, as all parties involved and all watchers except you have come to realize, is not going to happen of the president's free will.
There will be no [indigenous] NucWeaps because Iran's desired "Japan/Egypt" Model = stockpiling POTENTIALLY NucWeaps-grade INDIGENOUS NUCMATS, not actually producing any NucWeaps per se. Unlike Iran, Nippon constitutionallly forbades Militarism + any local or indigenous dev, produc of NucWeaps.
> Iran officially has no NucWeaps of any sort.
> Iran is not blocking the SoH, nor AFAIK any major overland trade routes - IRAN THUS DOES NOT PRESENT ANY IMMEDIATE OR NEAR-TERM THREAT TO REGIONAL, WORLD TRADE.
> There is no empirical evidence that Iran had or intends to transfer, overtly or covertly any dangerous Nuctechs or MilTechs to violent Militant-Terror Groups, IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY US-ISRAEL MILSTRIKE AGZ ITS NUCPROGS.
In short, in Iran's mind neither POTUS Obama nor a POTUS Romney has any REAL OR LEGAL REASON TO ATTACK IT OR ITS NUCPROGS, SHORT OF SUBJECTIVE OR DEBATABLE "POSSIBLE", NOT REAL, THREAT.
Alleged "Neo-Persianits, pro-OWG Shia Caliphate Islamist Iran has every reason to stay on the Media, Diplomatic strategic defensive AMAP ALAP, + let the US-Israel initiate war + justify or validate Iran dev NucWeaps, + sponsoring
"defensive" international terror agz Same + Allied.
American racism is starting to remind me of American alcoholism. At the founding of the republic, in the days when beer was thought of as liquid bread and a healthy nutritional breakfast, Americans drank about three to four times as much as they do now. Today the United States has a lower per capita rate of alcohol consumption than almost any other developed nation, but it has more alcoholism support groups than any other developed nation around 164 groups per million people. France, which drinks about 50 percent more per capita than America, has one-twentieth the number of support groups. The French and Italians enjoy drinking, the English and Irish enjoy getting drunk, and Americans enjoy getting drunk on ever more absurd stigmatizatory excess.
...And so it goes with American racism: The less there is, the more extravagantly the racism-awareness lobby patrols its beat.
#1
And strangely enough where you find binge drinking you find the heavy indoctrination of the evils of American racism - academia, which, of course, daily practices overt reverse racial discrimination.
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.
Pakistain seems to want to get rid of a community that backed Jinnah in the struggle for independence and contributed significantly to the country's progress
The scene in front of the court of Additional District and Session Judge Chakwal on Wednesday captured the divides that blasphemy cases bring with them.
cycle of violence
Two recent events suggest that the American strategy of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is not yet working. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that Iran has "more than doubled" its development of centrifuges in an effort to accelerate its capacity to develop nuclear weapons. 
