h/t Spengler
[SundayTimes] ...No truly global world order has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised nearly 400 years ago at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia after a century of conflict across central Europe. It relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference in one anothers domestic affairs and checking one anothers ambitions through an equilibrium of power.
The Westphalian system spread round the world as the framework for a state-based international order spanning multiple civilisations and regions, because as the European nations expanded they carried its blueprint with them. At the end, it was an equilibrium between two superpowers---and then, one of them collapsed, whiletheother...
....The Arab Spring started as a new generations uprising for liberal democracy. It was soon shouldered aside, disrupted or crushed. Exhilaration turned into paralysis. The existing political forces, embedded in the military and in religion in the countryside, proved stronger and better organised than the middle-class element demonstrating for democratic principles in Tahrir Square.
...The conflict in Syria and Iraq and the surrounding areas has thus become the symbol of an ominous new trend: the disintegration of statehood into tribal and sectarian units, some of them cutting across existing borders, in violent conflict with one another and manipulated by competing outside factions, observing no common rules other than the law of superior force.
...As America called on the world to honour aspirations to democracy and enforce the international legal ban on chemical weapons, other great powers such as Russia and China resisted by invoking the principle of non-interference.
They had viewed the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Bahrain and Syria principally through the lens of their own regional stability and the attitudes of their own restive Muslim populations. Aware that the most skilled and dedicated Sunni fighters were avowed jihadists, they were wary of an outright victory by Assads opponents.
...Syria and Iraq once beacons of nationalism for Arab countries may prove unable to reconstitute themselves as unified sovereign states. As their warring factions seek support from affiliates across the region and beyond, their strife jeopardises the coherence of all neighbouring countries.
The conflict in Syria and Iraq and the surrounding areas has thus become the symbol of an ominous new trend: the disintegration of statehood into tribal and sectarian units, some of them cutting across existing borders, in violent conflict with one another and manipulated by competing outside factions, observing no common rules other than the law of superior force.
...Zones of non-governance or jihad now stretch across the Muslim world, affecting Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan and Somalia. When one also takes into account the agonies of central Africa where a generations-long Congolese civil war has drawn in all neighbouring states, and conflicts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan threaten to metastasise similarly a significant portion of the worlds territory and population is on the verge of falling out of the international state system altogether.
As this void looms, the Middle East is caught in a confrontation akin to but broader than Europes 17th-century wars of religion. Domestic and international conflicts reinforce each other. Political, sectarian, tribal, territorial, ideological and traditional national- interest disputes merge. Religion is weaponised in the service of geopolitical objectives; civilians are marked for extermination based on their sectarian affiliation.
Where states are able to preserve their authority, they consider their authority without limits, justified by the necessities of survival; where states disintegrate, they become fields for the contests of surrounding powers in which authority too often is achieved through total disregard for human wellbeing and dignity.
...If order cannot be established, vast areas risk being opened to anarchy and to forms of extremism that will spread organically into other regions. From this stark pattern the world awaits the distillation of a new regional order by America and other countries in a position to take a global view. Henry, Henry, still haven't grasped who's important in the Middle East, and who's yesterday's news.
#1
"Syria and Iraq, once beacons of nationalism for Arab countries"...
The only reason these two were ever mistaken for states is that the USSR provided them with weapons on a scale that made the thought of rebellion ludicrous. As long as there's strong hand on the leash, the dog goes where he's told.
(See also Yugoslavia.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/05/2014 7:22 Comments ||
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#2
The conflict in Syria and Iraq and the surrounding areas has thus become the symbol of an ominous new trend:
Oblivious to events in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 60 years is he? Can't we just settle for wobbly, geriatric comments from Castro from time to time and be done with it ?
#3
What passes for order in our time was devised nearly 400 years ago at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia after a century of conflict across central Europe.
Except that the Westphalian concept of order seems to have had a limited effect on the development of the U.S. We were formed in rebellion against an English king and that system. We were escaping tyranny. The English order had been formed independently and before the Westphalian Peace Conference. The point is the Westphalian "New World Order" of Kissinger seems over inflated. Maybe it's his Austrian background.
The Islamics have always been tribal and probably will always be so long as they believe in Islam.
#4
Britain and France seem to be stumbling toward this lesson being learned: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2743136/Hundreds-migrants-storm-P-O-ferry-Calais-bid-Britain.html
US has a long way to go.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/05/2014 9:32 Comments ||
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#5
Darth Vader. I disagree over the international waters thing. I prefer "deporting" them to place where they can fall over abd guy and jill him.
#9
Tsarnaev will probably never be tried during this administration's tenure. A trial could reveal far too much about what Federal Law Enforcement and the U.S. Intelligence community knew about these two punks prior to the Boston bombing.
[DAWN] PAKISTAN'S 'unsettled questions' are on full display, playing out on the streets of Islamabad and inside the hallowed halls of parliament. The witches' cookbook has been taken out and dusted off, and another potion is brewing. A handful of protesters and their alleged sponsors are trying to wrest the centre of gravity back from the civilians, who have since 2008 managed to re-wire the system to ensure the perpetuation of their rule and the continuation of benefits accruing from the 'system of spoils'.
An increasingly unaccountable and collusive elected kleptocracy is being challenged, albeit unconstitutionally, by those who have not shown any inclination to clean the stables when they had numerous chances in the past. In fact, the establishment's book of potions follows a well-tested recipe, which has invariably left an unwanted toxic residue each time in the past.
It begins by a sprinkling of the most compromised politicians, who are coerced and cajoled to shape a 'coalition of the willing'. The members of this alliance are promised a share of the power loot -- but more importantly, and most damagingly from Pakistain's perspective, an exemption from accountability and a clean 'bill of health' in terms of their past misdeeds. Malleable judges are the next required ingredient. The threat of across-the-board accountability is the next move on the chess board, after which all the pieces fall in place.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] AFTER a considerable silence, the military has spoken about the ongoing operation against TTP holy warriors in North Wazoo. Going by the statistics released by the army on Wednesday, it appears that a significant number of holy warriors have been killed in Operation Zarb-e-Azb ..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)... , while the terrorist infrastructure has also been neutralised. The army says 910 suspected holy warriors have been killed since the operation commenced in June while 27 'factories' used to produce IEDs and other munitions have been destroyed. Over 80 troops have also died in the line of duty. The army says it has carried out over 2,200 counterterrorism operations countrywide in the wake of the action in the tribal belt, which is why, it believes, there has been minimal backlash. Indeed, the latter observation is valid -- before the operation was launched there were fears that there would be a vicious terrorist backlash against any state action deemed hostile by the krazed killers. Thankfully, the only major terrorist attack witnessed since Zarb-e-Azb began was the assault on two airbases in Quetta last month. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the operation will only be judged a success in the long term if the krazed killer infrastructure is permanently dismantled and those with blood on their hands brought to justice. Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... the banned TTP has contested the military's claims, saying only 25 to 30 of its fighters have been killed, adding that its bomb factories had been shifted to 'safe places'. The holy warriors may be on the run, but a clear victory against them can only be achieved if they are put out of business altogether. For example, despite counterterrorism operations conducted in Bajaur and Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... in the past, these areas have yet to return to complete normality.
In a related vein, the US military leadership has offered its own view of the operation in North Waziristan. Senior US generals have said it is "too soon" to evaluate the action in the tribal areas. They have observed that Pakistain will have to "clear, hold and build" the territory that has been taken back from krazed killers. They have a point. But what the Americans in Afghanistan and the government in Kabul can do on their part is to prevent holy warriors on the run from taking refuge in the areas bordering Pakistain, while the latter must challenge those using its territory to fight Kabul. Most importantly, the US can help Pakistain rebuild North Waziristan in order to help bring the troubled area into the national mainstream.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] WOMEN young and old, some with heads bare and others covered, swaying to the music, singing, cheering or with eyes moist with emotion, the definitive female presence at the PTI and PAT protests in Islamabad has been quite remarkable, and life-affirming. After all, this is a country where grotesque depredations against women to deprive them of their agency make regular headlines. Moreover, these women -- particularly those who have arrived from other cities -- have persevered through the daily discomforts and indignities that are inevitable in a society where the norms of public space are geared to men's convenience. It was perhaps inevitable then, that the bogey of 'vulgarity', which is conveniently dredged up not only to shame women but also the men associated with them, would be repeatedly raised during the course of the protests by some of the august personalities that populate our political sphere.
Among those who have voiced their outrage that our culture is being 'undermined' by the women's assertive visibility in the public domain and that 'indecency' is being promoted by those 'dancing' to music, are Hamza Sharif and, at the joint session of parliament currently under way, 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 ... as well as --surprisingly -- Aftab Sherpao. The topic has also agitated the minds of many a participant at television talk shows and generated debate on social media. It is extremely unfortunate that despite the political discourse having broadened considerably over the course of democracy taking root in Pakistain, a process in which the extent of women's participation is an important marker of success, the urge to define their behavioural parameters in the political sphere remains as robust as ever. It springs from the same mindset that prevents women from casting their vote in some parts of the country on the excuse of 'cultural constraints'. Pakistain is not a homogenous society with a uniform culture, and the attempt to score political points through specious arguments suggesting otherwise is an affront to all women in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Really shouldn't blame the ladies. We men have not evolved that much.
[Ynet] Despite trail of horrors it is leaving behind, jihadist group is operating hundreds of kilometers away from our border, and even if it were closer, it would unlikely be able to strike at Israeli residents.
The additional brutal murder of an American journalist on Tuesday by ISIS is inflaming the general panic this terror organization has spread in Israel, among other places -- but this panic must end.
Despite the trail of horrors it is leaving behind, ISIS is operating hundreds of kilometers away from our border, and even if it were closer, it would unlikely be able to harm Israel and its residents.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The immediate danger to Israel from ISIS is that the attention in Israel and in the world would be diverted from the Iranian nuclear program
#2
"Existential" is one of those words the press loves to overuse to the point where it has little meaning. It adds nothing to the word threat.
It is doubtful ISIS would survive in a direct confrontation with Israel. However, it is more likely they would infiltrate across borders and cause trouble such as suicide bombings and the shooting of citizens. More like the Mumbai attacks.
Two words: Golan Heights -Is not hundreds of kilometers away. An errant mortar has already maimed an Israeli civilian and have been prevented from farming their fields along the border.
Jihadies aren't existential threat to UN Peace Keepers either.
[IsraelTimes] If it wasn't so disturbing, it probably could have been entertaining: an army in 4×4 Toyota pickup trucks, managing to terrorize not only Middle Eastern Shiites, but also Western and Israeli media.
If an outsider read the newspaper and internet headlines over the past few months, he would think that the Islamic State, and its counterpart/rival in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, were planning a mass invasion of tens of thousands of jihadis into Israel, and from there into Europe and the United States.
Everyone can calm down. IS and al-Nusra are not military forces that can present an actual threat to a functioning conventional army. The IDF, or the Jordanian army for that matter, are not expecting any difficulty dealing with these rising Islamist forces on the battlefield. The big problem with these two groups is that they can cause significant damage through terror attacks. And as is always the case with terrorism, the focus is the fear it engenders among the public.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
If it wasn't so disturbing, it probably could have been entertaining
#2
Urban leftists have always had a fear of people with guns and pickup trucks.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/05/2014 7:37 Comments ||
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#3
I'm sure the richly anointed in the capital of the Heavenly Kingdom thought the same of a bunch of pony riders from the north. Corruption, egotism, and servility of their culture and masses allowed those pony riders to build the largest empire in the history of the world. The same attitude the richly anointed in Constantinople had about another group of rag tag marauders that appeared first out of Arabia a couple hundred years earlier that would occupy much of what was once known as the Roman Empire in Africa (and Spain), the Sassanid Persian Empire, and on to Central Asia. Scares the britches off of those who's world is basically byzantine games of power to see people motivated by something beyond themselves. Double scarey to those who've reduced their own population to dependents by power games of playing one group against another and now lacking a citizenry that can match that elan in defense of such a corrupt political culture.
#4
So why hasn't more been done, earlier? You would need to ask US President Barack Obama
that question, as he seeks to find a strategy against IS and build an international coalition -- as though he is dealing with a conflict with Russia.
It offends his Muslim sensitivities to do anything? Unfortunately, we have a president who is "like a penny trying to make change." His being an empty suit is becoming very apparent--even to his supporters and fellow travelers of the Donk Party. Must be what he meant by "transparency."
It's a question I've asked here myself, but they're asking it the wrong way. It's not the west, by and large, that has lost civilizational confidence. What it has lost are elites that are on its side. Anywhere, in any country, you find the people quite sure they... better than any other people in the world. This is stupid, wrongheaded and absolutely right.
Humans are tribal creatures, and who should they identify with but their own tribe? It is easier to negotiate relationships between tribes and try to find what's best in an imperfect world than to make humans non tribal. But our leaders don't get that, and even when the "tribe" is mostly a consensual one of belief, our elites think this must be broken up in various ways, so as not to let the people on the street think they're better.
Apparently the labor party in England engineered mass immigration so as to "rub conservative noses in diversity"- because in their minds these "conservatives" are those of the nineteenth century who believed color of skin was a marker and not those of the twentieth century trying to keep a culture in which women aren't treated as chattel. The difference between -- and here we chance wording, because the British system is different but these underlying groups are the same -- vile progs and sane people who live in the sane world, is that sane people would never encourage more Rotherhams in order to rub the vile progs nose in it.
Which is why the west is losing the narrative, and its elites are in the end completely cut off from reality, free to do things like tell the rubes there is a human-life-threatening crisis which they ignore in their every-day behavior.
...It's time for the rest of us to start the alarm clock. It's time to stop discounting people just because they don't fit the credentialism which picks mostly for ideology. This means, yes, respect indie writers, read to blogs, and maybe consider politicians who didn't go to the best universities -- or to university at all.
In a world where the past keeps changing, all an "excellent education" signals is an ability to either be gullible or double think.
That we can't afford. Stop the lullaby. Read, think, create, make yourself heard. For a century we could afford to let our elites go emo and wallow in their own self-blame and the hatred of their own nations. We were that rich and that insulated. And there were enough even in the elites that retained a modicum of sanity.
That safety margin is gone. It's time to wake up. The question, it turns out, is not whether the future is queer. The question is whether the future is medieval.
[SLATE] The home-cooked meal has long been romanticized, from '50s-era sitcoms to the work of star food writer Michael Pollan, who once wrote, "far from oppressing them, the work of cooking approached in the proper spirit offered a kind of fulfillment and deserved an intelligent woman's attention." I have a son who does all the cooking. His wife works long hours in an executive job and he runs his business from home. I make two out of three meals in our household, always have. My wife does all the baking.
I cook and bake because I enjoy it. Mr. Wife cleans up because he's better at it than I am. He also cuts things up when I ask, though I have to be specific. The trailing daughters helped me bake as soon as they could talk in three word sentences -- it's an easy way to teach nouns, verbs, counting and measuring -- and they therefore loved everything they'd been involved in making. My mother hated everything done in the kitchen except designing it, but she did the same with the four of us kids.
In recent years, the home-cooked meal has increasingly been offered up as the solution to our country's burgeoning nutrition-related health problems of heart disease and diabetes. But while home-cooked meals are typically healthier than restaurant food, sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton from North Carolina State University argue that the stress that cooking puts on people, particularly women, may not be worth the trade-off. To hell with it. Call out for pizza.
The researchers interviewed 150 mothers from all walks of life and spent 250 hours observing 12 families in-depth, and they found "that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The author needs a lesson in reality. So do lots of sniveling kids.
#6
I have seen this time and time again amongst feminists.
They have an aversion to cooking, and the reason they give others they for this aversion is that they "aren't very good at it" or they "have enough money to pay a restaurant chef to cook for them, and that amounts to the same as cooking for myself".
The reality is that they are so brainwashed by feminist propaganda about the horrors of being a "traditional" woman, and are frankly just plain lazy (why is cooking a "burden"?) that they would farm out this essential task to someone else.
You will notice amongst these types a simultaneous aversion to any sorts of crafts, particularly anything that involves sewing. For the same reasons.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/05/2014 5:39 Comments ||
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#11
If we want women—or gosh, men, too—to see cooking as fun, then these obstacles need to be fixed first. And whatever burden is left needs to be shared.
Oh gosh! Oh gee. More academic warmed-over tripe for lefty consumption. Making problems where they don't exist. Next, there will be a huge government program to solve this problem. Leave us alone. People can figure this out for themselves. Similar to Mooochell's group-think offal forced upon schools. These leftists just can't keep themselves from meddling in inconsequential things while ignoring or screwing things up of great consequence. Their life's work is being annoying?
#12
1) Cooking is 'satisfying' - an actual task of value, that requires a degree of skill, accomplished with your own hands and mind.
2) Home-cooked meals can (should) be far cheaper and more nutritious than 'prepared' food (either grocery store prepared or restaurant.) With a little planning, it doesn't even take all that much more time.
#17
When your family is the obsticle to you feeding your family, there are other problems at large rather than how to make an orange-ganache.
the stress that cooking puts on people, particularly women, may not be worth the trade-off.
Arrrgh! Sexists!
I can't keep the kids out of the kitchen. My most vivid childhood Thanksgiving/Christmas memories revolved around the kitchen, second was the dinner table. I was inspired to cook when the pizza money ran out and nobody was there to feed me. I found a bag of flour and a dozen eggs could make meals of pasta. Put a game or some music on, roll it out, saved money by not going out, and in the long run saved time because I didn't have to drive out of my way to stand in line for iffy mediocre food, cooking time was boil water + 5 minutes, and the variations endless. Don't need a fridge to store it. Can cook it in a microwave. Eventually I learned that for the same price as a box of tacos I could have breaded pan fried trout and lentils.
Culture problem indeed. In Leftistland, good things just fall from the sky, like whales and daffadilles, no work involved. Do I love eating out, hell yeah. Only one person cooks eggs exactly like I like them, and that is me.
Now if you excuse me, I'm off to make some high-plains hummus and, looking at the weather forecast, inventory for gumbo futures.
#18
Sometimes Mrs. Uluque gets tired so she orders me into the kitchen. Standing in the kitchen with a glass of whiskey, throwing stuff together and applying heat to it really is kinda fun. It's even better when I don't burn it and other people can actually eat it. I'll admit it, I watched the movie The Help. You know, the one about the white ladies in a southern state who couldn't get by without the colored help. Probably a leftist movie but there was one part where the black lady was showing the white lady how to fry chicken. I was inspired, went home and did it myself in a big cast iron skillet. Fun and tasty.
#19
saved money by not going out, and in the long run saved time because I didn't have to drive out of my way to stand in line
Urbanists generally don't drive. They walk down a block or two, or hail a taxi, or jump on the subway/tube a couple minutes from their door. They have no comprehension beyond their little life bubble. That's until a Katrina shows up, then its beyond their abilities to cope and demand someone do all that messy stuff for them.
#21
Among her many other talents, Mrs. Ret is a genius in the kitchen, and I majored in Messcookery in the Nav, so it works nicely for us.
About the only thing I make for dinner is reservations....
#22
Leftists like this Twit and Feminazis abhor the Family Unit. Both my parents cooked meals and as soon as we were old enough us kids did too. Sitting down to a meal without the television on, or nowdays the smartphone, gave us time to talk about the day's events and enjoy a good meal. Everyone helped clean up afterword. Oppression? How? In what way? Bugwit.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/05/2014 15:12 Comments ||
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#23
How-to: Bake a socialist cake!
Bellyache and take more than you make.
Add state power, one cup,
Then shake everyone up.
Serve the people. Enjoy a nice steak.
#26
Amanda Marcotte - feminist hero - said Kirsten Gillibrand should not name her Democrat sexual harrassment offenders - "take one for the party, hon", basically. A truly atrocious woman
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/05/2014 22:26 Comments ||
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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.
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Wazoo
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
[Ynet] Despite trail of horrors it is leaving behind, jihadist group is operating hundreds of kilometers away from our border, and even if it were closer, it would unlikely be able to strike at Israeli residents.
[IsraelTimes] If it wasn't so disturbing, it probably could have been entertaining: an army in 4×4 Toyota pickup trucks, managing to terrorize not only Middle Eastern Shiites, but also Western and Israeli media.
[SLATE] The home-cooked meal has long been romanticized, from '50s-era sitcoms to the work of star food writer Michael Pollan, who once wrote, "far from oppressing them, the work of cooking approached in the proper spirit offered a kind of fulfillment and deserved an intelligent woman's attention." 
