Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/09/2008 7:18 Comments ||
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#3
The results surprised me. I came out CENTRIST. ( how did that happen) because on the War I am MarineCorps and somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.
My son took it and he's Libertarian. He's also six five and works as a Bouncer. I dont even dare to sit in his chair.
My daughter took it and was a Conservative. But she's also a Carmelite Nun. I get to see her once a year and we talked on the phone about this Poll.
My wife was a Centrist but that's pretty good for her since her backround is Asian and all her family are a bit Fascist. Her brothers are all tatooed SAT(kill)CONG.
#4
ID card is a no-brainer for national security, anti-illegal-immigration, and anti-voter fraud. 80%/100%
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/09/2008 8:42 Comments ||
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#5
Libertarian. Don't like that poll. Although, I strongly support the Christian Zionist position on Israel, I oppose the religious right on most social issues. But, I am with Goldwater on security over liberty, in lifeboat ethics times.
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2008 9:42 Comments ||
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#10
Since it's a "Libertarian" website, maybe the questions/answers/data outputs are somewhat skewed. They may want you to believe you are more of the same philosophy than you might actually be.
Just saying......
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/09/2008 9:48 Comments ||
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#11
It scored me a Centerist (I was almost exactly in the middle) and I am the most Rightwing person I know.
Geez, 30% on personal issues and 100% on economic issues...that makes me a GASP!!!!...........closet conservative.........
Posted by: James Carville ||
06/09/2008 10:51 Comments ||
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#14
Centrist 60 40 for me, and I consider myself conservative. Chose 'maybe' on all but two questions, cut taxes (agree) and no national ID (disagree). Rest were mainly mushy or loaded questions. Likely biased, given how the questions are worded.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
06/09/2008 11:10 Comments ||
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#26
I redid the quiz and switched my response to the National ID question from agree to disagree and I became a Libertarian.
I happen to think ID is a topic that most Libertarians are dead wrong on. Security is a direct function of how good the IDs we use are (I use ID in a broad sense here, e.g. including for example a persons DNA).
There is a fundamental relationship between quality and security (including crime).
I used to debate this topic at length at the Libertarian site Samizdata.
I maintain that most people would unquestionably choose better IDs in exchange for better security.
And I predict they will. Wireless technology will make security similar to secure industrial locations feasible for homes and neighbourhoods. Its already happening.
And as a practical matter governments can produce much better IDs than any private organization (although the Internet/Google may change that)
I wouldn't bury Chavez just yet, but this is an encouraging appraisal.
On the same day Colombia said it had captured a Venezuelan national guard officer carrying 40,000 AK-47 assault rifle cartridges believed to be intended for leftist guerrillas, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said Saturday he would withdraw a decree overhauling intelligence policies that he had made earlier that week.
The rare reversal by Chávez came amid intensifying criticism in Venezuela from human rights groups.
The capture of the Venezuelan officer in eastern Colombia could reignite tensions between the neighboring countries over Venezuela's support for the rebel group FARC. Colombia's attorney general, Mario Iguarán, said Saturday that security forces had captured the national guard officer carrying cartridges that the Colombian authorities believe were intended for the FARC.
While Chávez's government did not immediately comment on the arrest of the Venezuelan officer, who was identified as Manuel Teobaldo Agudo Escalona, the episode suggests that pressure could mount in Washington to add Venezuela to the list of countries that are state sponsors of terrorism.
Colombian officials have recently said that Venezuela tried to provide arms and financing for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, basing their claims on references to such dealings in archives from computers obtained in an April raid on the rebels. The United States and the European Union classify the FARC as terrorists.
Venezuela, which expresses ideological solidarity with the Marxist-inspired FARC, has said that no further proof of such assistance has emerged. But that was before Colombia announced the arrest of the Venezuelan officer, captured in Puerto Nariño in eastern Colombia with another Venezuelan citizen and two Colombians.
The type of cartridges in the possession of the four men are used in assault rifles commonly employed by the FARC, which has been active in Colombia for more than four decades. Colombia, one of the largest recipients of American counterinsurgency aid outside the Middle East, has recently killed several senior FARC commanders.
Amid festering tension with Colombia, including claims that Colombian paramilitaries were fomenting destabilization plots, President Chávez quietly unveiled his intelligence law in late May, which would have abolished the DISIP secret police and DIM military intelligence, replacing them with new intelligence and counterintelligence agencies. But in a rare act of self-criticism on Saturday, Chávez acknowledged the ire that his intelligence overhaul had provoked among legal scholars and human rights groups, which said Chávez was attempting to introduce a police state by forcing judges to cooperate with intelligence services and criminalizing dissent.
"Where we made mistakes we must accept that and not defend the indefensible," Chávez said at a campaign rally in Zulia State for gubernatorial and mayoral candidates from his Socialist party. "There is no dictatorship here," he continued. "No one here is coerced into saying more than they want to say."
Reeling from the defeat of a constitutional reform in December that would have expanded his powers, Chávez, in his 10th year in power, is facing multiple challenges as a reinvigorated opposition fields candidates in regional elections this year and Venezuela's economic growth slows despite record oil prices.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Meanwhile, back in America, essentially the entire population of a small Southern town turned out to honor a fallen son who believed in what he was doing.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/09/2008 22:19 Comments ||
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#2
Holy Cow - he's still going, and going after Ken Blackwell (conveniently overlooking facts such as local boards of elections, individual polling places, poll workers, and generally rules and procedures on how to conduct elections).
If he keeps up this chain logic, we may yet identify and bring charges against those responsible for sinking the Maine!
She was as gracious as she could be. I mean that literally. It was the closest she could come to grace. It was all about her I, me, me, I and not about the man who needs her support. When she referred to Obama it was all poker-face and passive-voice. . . .
. . . When she got to the parts of the speech in which she endorsed Obama, she seemed to be making a point of reading.
She lowered her eyes to the text and read with a comparatively flattened voice, and with little expression.
When she spoke of her own campaign, her own "challenges", her own supporters there her voice warmed. It glowed. There was also an overall flatness to her argument in favor of Obama: she is endorsing him because he supports her issues. They're hers, not his.
When she spoke of him as a person, as a man, she merely recited the facts everyone knows: he comes from a particular place and has a particular history with regard to public service.
It was all so fully amped and so very tepid. It was more kabuki: "I'll support him and I'll say all the words I have to so you can't accuse me of being grudging, but watch my face and voice and tone: I'm the one I've been waiting for."
Something revealing: When you are conceding that you have lost a political race, you know the people you're speaking to will boo when you ask them to support your rival. That's how fervent supporters are; it's how the people who bother to go to concession speeches are. So you have your people spread word in advance: No booing.
If they boo anyway, you put up your hand and say, "No booing here, my friends, we are together as a party and if you support me you support him. Do you support me?" Yay!, they will say. "Then together we will go forward and support our nominee."
I noticed the absence of this. There were boos, and Mrs. Clinton did not try to stop them.
She didn't look like someone who thinks she's going to be his vice presidential nominee. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
06/09/2008 08:05 ||
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Iff one draws the same allusions for nascent US-centric/domin OWG-NWO versus [likely]PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION, etc. ala 2008-2012, METHINKS THE CLINTONS PER SE ARE SIMILARLY JUST IN BEGINNING MODE.
ITS JUST STARTING, PEOPLE, NOT ENDING > OSAMA BIN LADEN + JOHN "I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO WAGE [NUCLEAR] JIHAD" PAUL JONES!
Every once in a while the NYT brings home an interesting analysis piece. This is one of those.
WASHINGTON A bitter personal struggle between two powerful figures in the world of terrorism has broken out, forcing their followers to choose sides. This battle is not being fought in the rugged no mans land on the Pakistan-Afghan border. It is a contest reverberating inside the Beltway between two of Americas leading theorists on terrorism and how to fight it, two men who hold opposing views on the very nature of the threat.
On one side is Bruce Hoffman, a cerebral 53-year-old Georgetown University historian and author of the highly respected 1998 book Inside Terrorism. He argues that Al Qaeda is alive, well, resurgent and more dangerous than it has been in several years. In his corner, he said, is a battalion of mainstream academics and a National Intelligence Estimate issued last summer warning that Al Qaeda had reconstituted in Pakistan.
On the other side is Marc Sageman, an iconoclastic 55-year-old Polish-born psychiatrist, sociologist, former C.I.A. case officer and scholar-in-residence with the New York Police Department. His new book, Leaderless Jihad, argues that the main threat no longer comes from the organization called Al Qaeda, but from the bottom up from radicalized individuals and groups who meet and plot in their neighborhoods and on the Internet. In his camp, he said, are agents and analysts in highly classified positions at the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
If Dr. Hoffman gets inside organizations focusing on command structures Dr. Sageman gets inside heads, analyzing the terrorist mind-set. But this is more important than just a battle of ideas. It is the latest twist in the contest for influence and resources in Washington that has been a central feature of the struggle against terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
Officials from the White House to the C.I.A. acknowledge the importance of the debate of the two men as the government assesses the nature of the threat. Looking forward, it is certain to be used to win bureaucratic turf wars over what programs will be emphasized in the next administration.
If there is no looming main Qaeda threat just bunches of guys, as Dr. Sageman calls them then it would be easier for a new president to think he could save money or redirect efforts within the huge counterterrorism machine, which costs the United States billions of dollars and has created armies of independent security consultants and counterterrorism experts in the last seven years.
Preventing attacks planned by small bands of zealots in the garages and basements just off Main Street or the alleys behind Islamic madrasas is more a job for the local police and the F.B.I., working with undercover informants and with authorities abroad. If its a leaderless jihad, then I can find something else to do because the threat is over, said Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, who puts himself in Dr. Hoffmans camp. Leaderless things dont produce big outcomes.
But it doesn't take very much to provide leadership, as Osama bin Laden demonstrated. A charismatic man, or small group of men, with some kind of funding can bring together a fair number of leaderless men seeking jihad and provide the direction required to create a 9/11, a 3/11, or a Bali. One of the major lessons of modern terrorism is that it can be surprisingly low tech and remain off the radar screens of local and national police. It's what you can do with a small cadre of committed people. Given the bureauocratic, officious nature of police and the inability of many analysts to find dots, let alone connect them, the complacency Mr. Bergen advocates seems fatally misplaced.
On the other hand, if the main task can be seen as thwarting plots or smiting Al Qaedas leaders abroad, then attention and resources should continue to flow to the C.I.A., the State Department, the military and terror-financing sleuths.
The NYT presents this as an 'either/or' scenario, when what is needed is, of course, both, but without the hidebound structures that spend more time in empire-building than they do in rooting out problems.
One way to enhance your budget is to frame it in terms of terrorism, said Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But the problem is that Al Qaedatry is more art than science and people project onto the subject a lot of their own preconceptions.
The divide over the nature of the threat turned nasty, even by the rough standards of academia, when Dr. Hoffman reviewed Dr. Sagemans book this spring for Foreign Affairs in an essay, The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism: Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters. He accused Dr. Sageman of a fundamental misreading of the Al Qaeda threat, adding that his historical ignorance is surpassed only by his cursory treatment of social-networking theory.
In the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Sageman returns fire, accusing Dr. Hoffman of gross misrepresentation. In an interview, Dr. Sageman said he was at a loss to explain his rivals critique: Maybe hes mad that Im the go-to guy now.
Some terrorism experts find the argument silly and dangerous. Sometimes it seems like this entire field is stepping into a boys-with-toys conversation, said Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of New York Universitys Center on Law and Security. Here are two guys, both of them respected, saying that there is only one truth and only one occupant of the sandbox. Thats ridiculous. Both of them are valuable.
And both would spend more time at each other's throats than they would dealing with the major problem at hand.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a former director of central intelligence, sees merit in both sides, too; he said in Singapore last week that Al Qaeda is training European, and possibly American, recruits. But, he added, You also have the development of violent, extremist networks.
One argument for playing down Al Qaedas importance Dr. Sagemans point has been the public declarations of some prominent Sunni clerics who have criticized Al Qaeda for its indiscriminate killing of Muslim civilians.
A leading Syrian-born militant theorist believed to be in American custody, known by the nom de guerre Abu Musab al-Suri, also has argued in favor of leaderless jihad. In his 1,600-page life work, he advises jihadists to create decentralized networks of individuals and local cells bound by belief, instead of hierarchical structures that could be targets of attack. He has referred to Mr. bin Laden as a pharaoh.
Dr. Hoffmans principal argument relies on the re-emergence of Al Qaeda, starting in 2005 and 2006, along the Afghan-Pakistan border. There is empirical evidence, he says, that from that base, Al Qaeda has been again actively directing and initiating international terrorist operations on a grand scale.
The al-Qaeda model has been to find a faraway place that can be used for a base of operations, so that young men can be trained for terrorist or paramilitary operations. It's what Binny did in Afghanistan in the late 90s and what he was seeking to do in the Sudan and in Somalia before that. In turn that came from his experiences during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Binny wants a hierarchy with himself as director; that hierarchy needs a physical location. The other type of model, what al-Suri advocates, is a decentralized network that needs little if any physical plant. A look at al-Suri's life demonstrates why he favors this model; he's never had the opportunity to slip a leash and build a terrorist structure for himself.
But it has been easy for intelligence agencies to get the analysis wrong when faced with piecemeal and contradictory evidence.
One example is the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people. Declarations by several Spanish officials and experts of such a link were undermined by evidence that the group was self-motivated, self-trained and self-financed, and that the explosives were bought locally.
Other examples are provided by the 2004 plot to attack the London area with fertilizer bombs, and the July 7, 2005, transit bombings in London. At first, both were thought to support the home-grown terrorist thesis: British citizens, most of Pakistani descent, had carried out attacks with homemade bombs. Only later did evidence surface that in both cases, at least some had trained in Pakistan at military camps suspected of links to Qaeda operatives.
So a question remains: Was Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the suicide bombers in the 2005 attacks, a local kid gone wrong, a full-fledged Qaeda operative, or both?
You can argue that if you subtract his travel to Pakistan, theres no 7/7, said Samuel J. Rascoff, an assistant professor of law at New York University and a former intelligence official with the New York City police. You can also argue that if you subtract his radicalization in Northern England, theres no 7/7.
Dr. Sagemans critics argue that his more local focus plays to a weak point in gauging threats: People tend to feel the threat nearest to home is the most urgent. In April, for example, the Kansas City office of the F.B.I. met with state and local authorities from Kansas and Missouri to analyze agroterrorism, a big issue in Americas heartland. The discussion was about the possibility of terrorists causing an outbreak of diseases that could poison cattle or crops, crippling the economies of farm states.
Terrorism-weary prosecuting judges and police investigators in Europe listen to the debate on the other side of the Atlantic and tend to find it empty. They say it is hard to know where radicalization starts among groups of friends, in an imams sermon in Europe or at home on the Internet and when operational training by Al Qaeda is a factor. They prefer a blended approach.
France, Spain and Italy, for example, pour resources and manpower into investigations at home from studying radicalization and wiretapping suspicious individuals to infiltrating mosques and community centers. These countries also track movements of suspicious individuals abroad and networks with both local and foreign connections. Terrorist-related cases fall under the authority of special investigative superjudges who have access to all classified intelligence, and can use much of the information in trials.
The Europeans say that for them, the argument is not theoretical. Somewhere in Europe, just about every week, a terrorist plot is uncovered and arrests are made.
We at the Burg sometimes forget that the Euro anti-terror organizations are very, very good at what they do, even if their courts and their politicans don't back them up.
The danger of this either-or argument could lead us to the mistakes of the past, said Baltasar Garzón, Spains leading antiterror investigatory magistrate. In the 90s, we saw atomized cells as everything, and then Al Qaeda came along. And now we look at Al Qaeda and say its no longer the threat. Were making the same mistake again.
So for America, a suggested perscription is 1) vigorous prosecution of home-grown threats 2) continued surveillance at home without stomping on our civil liberties, as bureaucracies tend to do over time 3) cooperation with competent anti-terror units around the world 4) revising our national and international legal structures to be more effective against terrorism and, important, to prevent terrorists from using those legal structures against us 5) treating countries that harbor terrorists, or who can't police their own countries, as pariahs subject to removal (with or without UN blessing) and 6) treating regions of the world that lack sovereign governments as free-fire zones.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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I agree that the terrorism is a bottom up concept. Where I quibble is that terrorism is only one component of jihad. One that is effective because of our division, weakness and aversion to respond in force and with permanent consequences. The leadership of jihad doesn't come from bin Laden or Zawahiri. It comes from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, all the mosques and each muslim who is taught and believes "Jihad is incumbent upon you."
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2008 10:33 Comments ||
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#2
It must be in the stars. America has no leadership today either. We are not dead or defeated, but a few wrong moves by our leaders elites and we could hemorrhage.
#4
Leaderless Jihad, argues that the main threat no longer comes from the organization called Al Qaeda, but from the bottom up from radicalized individuals and groups who meet and plot in their neighborhoods and on the Internet.
So, am I to now believe that state sponsored terrorism has ended?
#5
...This may very well be the next big threat, and announced by President Obama: "We beat al-Q! Now we can divert all that money to global warming research..."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/09/2008 21:53 Comments ||
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KABUL, Afghanistan: Pakistani intelligence agents and paramilitary forces have helped train Taliban insurgents and have given them information about American troop movements in Afghanistan, said a report published Monday by a U.S. think tank.
The study by the RAND Corp. also warned that the U.S. will face "crippling, long-term consequences" in Afghanistan if Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan are not eliminated.
It echoes recent statements by American generals, who have increased their warnings that militant safe havens in Pakistan are threatening efforts in Afghanistan. The study was funded by the U.S. Defense Department.
"Every successful insurgency in Afghanistan since 1979 enjoyed safe haven in neighboring countries, and the current insurgency is no different," said the report's author, Seth Jones. "Right now, the Taliban and other groups are getting help from individuals within Pakistan's government, and until that ends, the region's long-term security is in jeopardy."
Pakistan's top military spokesman rejected the findings.
[..]
#1
It's how the military arm of Islam works isn't it. Say one thing do another. That is Islam, they are only being true to their religion, nothing else matters.
Humayun Gauhar is the ghost writer of Pervez Musharraf's 2006 biography 'In The Line of Fire'. He is the son of Altaf Gauhar, the ghost writer of Pak Dictator Ayub Khans 1968 biography 'Friends not Masters'
Double standards have screwed up the world - one rule for you and another for us. Muslims are as guilty of this duality as non-Muslims are, calling all and sundry "infidels" with great abandon, even twisting the intent of God if they have to. In the tears over the Danish embassy bomb last Monday, let the context not be lost. Our latest foreign secretary said that Pakistanis are "ashamed" of this incident. But can the same be said about the Danish people? They allowed their media to print and reprint and go on printing the blasphemous cartoons with great abandon too. I use the word "allowed" because public pressure can stop most things. I hope that they will now learn something from this horrible incident, that while all freedoms are highly desirable, they too have limits.
It's not a question of "freedom is indivisible" - sound-bytes that stick in the gullet are plain humbug that mean little and only mislead. The limits of freedom begin where the freedoms of others start getting transgressed. You have the right to express anything you like as long as it doesn't hurt others.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/09/2008 00:00 ||
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"Blasphemy" is a religious concept.
Secular constitutions seperate church and state.
Free people may attack religions as falsities.
I don't believe that ALL Muslims are capable of committing terror, in some context, because of intolerance. My copy of ibn Ishaq's 8th century biography of the self-appointed "prophet," records 59 seperate military operations in which he participated. Further, the Yemen conquest was effected because those people recognized their own "prophet." The campaign against Byzantines - Tabuk - was founded on naked aggression. Same with the wars against: Oman, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, the Maghreb. The koran is the only religious text to include a full chapter on "division of the spoils" (anfal). Take a freaking hint.
Why do Muslims immigrate to the West? Even those who say they seek a better economic life, soon embrace the purpose of advancing islam. And if the first generation doesn't do it; the next will. The Muslim is a demographic threat to Western liberty. Prediction: once they achieve majority status in cities of the old European states - as will they in Malmo, Sweden next year - they will make sharia demands. The first opponents will find their homes burned to the ground. Then there will be murder. Muslim leaders will act to reduce the slaughter, but they manage a piecemeal advance of Islam. Muslim cities will be constituted on sharia; Western freedoms will be obliterated. At long last, the self-loathing that allowed this viral enemy to penetrate the Free World will be recognized, and Free People will react in national revolutions.
The Pakistan writer is well aware that post-Partition, 20% of Pakistanis were Hindu; ethnic cleansing reduced that number to 1%. In stark contrast the Muslim population of India has doubled in the same time. Muslims are inherently aggressive and intolerant, if not always as individuals then as followers. They are a threat. We don't need lectures from those savages; we need to put them under ICBM oppression, and dictate THEIR social policies to them. It is us v them; take sides.
#5
Malmo will be telling. So will the Swedish reaction. The Euros are being struck when they are weak spiritually and demographically. The American reaction will be interesting.
#6
Jews have most control and influence over the global media. Jews virtually control world financial institutions and the ability to move capital across borders instantaneously, including over the central bank of the most powerful country in the world.
#9
I have observed throughout my life that city people are tolerant and adopt a stay-out-of-it attitude. Because of this, cities are easily changed by waves of immigrants and fail to hold traditions. Country folk, on the other hand, are individuals of action who are not cowed and resist changing to please newcomers. I predict that cities will fall to the Muslim scum, but war in the streets if they stray into the country. This is what faces this spineless liberalism. The liberals will be first to disappear. City life will be masters and slaves loosely tied with fear. Not a plan for success.
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.
It was all so fully amped and so very tepid. It was more kabuki: "I'll support him and I'll say all the words I have to so you can't accuse me of being grudging, but watch my face and voice and tone: I'm the one I've been waiting for."
