North Wazoo is more like an American shooting gallery, where hundreds of key Taliban leaders have been dispatched by UAVs armed with missiles, than a sanctuary.
The Afghan Taliban leadership in Quetta (southwest Pakistan) is growing out of touch with the young leaders on the ground in Afghanistan. Knocking heads leads to more Taliban-on-Taliban violence.
Allegiance to a tribe or clan comes first in Afghanistan. "Increasingly, tribal disputes are being settled by Taliban factions from opposing tribes. Mixing tribal and Taliban politics has been very destructive for the Taliban."
"Finally, there's the realization by a growing number of Taliban leaders, especially those inside Afghanistan, that most Afghans hate the Taliban. This hurts, and has caused many lower level Taliban to reconsider their career choices."
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
01/27/2012 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
And B.O wants to cut and run placing these cutthroat drug runners in charge. Grrrrr.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
01/27/2012 12:49 Comments ||
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#2
We've trained enough of them by now that they should be quite capable of killing each other in quantity. We should get out and let them do it. If they insist on directing their efforts at US again --- nuke 'em from orbit.
#3
"Now listen to me you benighted muckers. We're going to teach you soldiering. The world's noblest profession. When we're done with you, you'll be able to slaughter your enemies like civilized men."
#1
The difference being they'll shut down the universities and open madrassahs instead. But the number of people with educations they can't use will remain the same. It purely stinks to belongs to an unsuccessful culture.
#1
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helgas bar.
In real life, the dollar is massively devalued.
The referenced post is an opinion piece. It is not a secret agreement; you can download a PDF file of the agreement here. There is nothing at other major news sites about Obama 'ratifying' ACTA. He signed it October 1, 2011 (when representatives of other countries did the same) as an 'executive agreement' that does not require a Senate vote. However, because of that it does not have the force of law. Congress has to write and pass laws that implement the specific provisions of ACTA, and that hasn't happened. Obama can't implement an executive order on issues that are given to the control of Congress.
I've applied the salt shaker to this; it's important to know about the issue but the writer of this piece is a bit ... hysterical.
Obama has ratified the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA. President Obama had signed the first binding draft of ACTA last October 1, 2011, also in secret.
ACTA is much more dangerous than SOPA, PIPA or OPEN, because it is the accord that legalizes internet censorship on a global basis. That is why presidents and prime ministers around the world have signed the agreement without any review from their congresses, parliaments, or review by their people.
As explained by senator Joe Lieberman, the United States president will have the power to shut down portions of the Internet in order to protect corporate intellectual property. This power has been labeled the Internet "kill switch"; and with good reason, because in reality, the president will be able to prevent Americans' access to anything he doesn't want them to see.
The global agreement surrenders Internet sovereignty to the multinational corporations and Internet service providers that will be in charge of monitoring Internet user activity in order to censor anything deemed as an illegal transfer of information anywhere along the information pipeline under their control.
ACTA has been known publicly since 2008, when the secret meetings creating it were leaked to the press, despite efforts to arrest those responsible for the leaks.
"ACTA is legislation laundering on an international level of what would be very difficult to get through most Parliaments," said Stravros Lambrinidis, Member of the European Parliament.
Neither the US congress nor the European Parliament has had representation in ACTA negotiations.
"It is extremely regrettable that democratic debate has been eliminated from talks that could have a major impact on such a fundamental freedom as free expression," said Reporters without Borders.
"We can only assume that the final text could do great harm in developing countries and undermine the balance between the protection of intellectual property and the need to provide affordable medicines for poor people," added Rohit Malpani, OXFAM, from a press release criticising possible impact of ACTA. "We are in danger of ending up with the worst of both worlds, pushing IP rules, which are very effective at stopping access to life-saving drugs but are very bad at stopping or preventing fake drugs," warns Michelle Childs of Médecins Sans Frontières.
Among all of the things ACTA will help control is the free circulation of medical information. Parts of ACTA mirror legislation introduced in the United States, which could ban the publication of health oriented websites. ACTA will oversee issues such as generic drugs and food patents.
It is also vital to the implementation of the United Nations radical environmentalist program, Agenda 21.
With ACTA, Internet Service Providers will be obligated to use invasive procedures to make sure no user infringes what corporations say is a violation of copyright laws. Failure to detect and denounce such breach will result in the IP and Internet user receiving massive fines, and after three warnings, individuals who are considered repetitive offenders will be sent to jail and banned from the Internet.
The IP that fails to stop the supposed violation of corporate interests will be taken off the air. The outrageous part of this is that the party -corporation- whose property was supposedly used without permission doesn't even have to prove that the user or the IP violated its intellectual property. It is enough to make three accusations.
#1
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of three-fifths majority of the United States Senate.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
01/27/2012 13:40 Comments ||
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#2
When I read stuff like this, I actually start thinking there may be a world Illuminati.
#4
Remember the executions in Texas of 'foreigners'. Per another 'protocol', the home nation is 'suppose' to get first shot at notification of arrest, arraignment, in put during trial etc. Appeals have been made to shut down the execution because all the i's weren't dotted and t's crossed in that process. Fortunately, SCOTUS has opined that since Congress has failed to pass implementing laws of the agreement, it is not a basis of appeal. Texas continues to carry out said executions.
Via Subscription Debka, but reproduced in full, with edits for brevity.
Obama has secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands -- Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Socotra is situated 80 kilometers east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers southeast of the Yemeni coastline. It lies athwart the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A military base there is in a position to oversee the shipping moving in and out of those strategic naval waterways.
Lushly verdant, Socotra is approximately 120 kilometers long by 40 kilometers wide. Its population of 55,000 has its own distinct language and culture. Since 2010, the US has been quietly building giant air force and naval bases on Socotra with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for flying stealth drones, as part of a linked chain of strategic US military facilities in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
The Socotra facilities are so secret that they are never mentioned in any catalogue listing US military facilities in this part of the world, which include Jebel Ali and Al Dahfra in the United Arab Emirates; Arifjan in Kuwait; and Al Udeid in Qatar -- all within short flying distances from Iran.
Additional US forces are also being poured into Camp Justice on the barren, 70-kilometer long Omani island of Masirah, just south of the Hormuz entry point to the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea.
US military facilities were established there after the signing of an access agreement with Oman in 1980.
Up to 100,000 US troops present by early March
For the new buildup on Socotra, Washington had to negotiate a new deal with Yemen's ousted ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Injured in an assassination attempt last year, Saleh demanded permission to travel to the United States for medical treatment. The Obama administration first refused, then relented when Saleh made it his condition for consenting to additional troops landing on the island.
Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands tell that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
Then, 100,000 American troops were massed in Kuwait ahead of the invasion. Today, those sources estimate from the current pace of arrivals on the two island bases, that 50,000 US troops will have accumulated on Socotra and Masirah by mid-February.
They will top up the 50,000 military already present in the Persian Gulf region, so that in less than a month, Washington will have some 100,000 military personnel on the spot and available for any contingency.
US air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra and Masirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America's biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away.
The US military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
A fourth US carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days' sailing time from the water off Iran's coast.
Our military sources have also picked up reports of British and French air, naval and special forces landings this month in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
#2
I don't know about the rest of this, but putting 100K troops on Socotra is a stretch.
I looked at the island on Google Maps. One small airport with a single landing strip. The nearby towns are small. The land is rugged. No port, not even a long dock at the major town of Hadiboh (Hadibu). No port handling facilities. And we're going to put twice as many personnel on it as the island has people?
Masirah has a larger airfield and, by the map, some ability to handle container ships, all at the northern end. But it's a stretch to think that we'd put a lot of troops, aircraft, etc in there without the rest of the world figuring it out.
Definite salt time.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2012 17:39 Comments ||
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#3
It's like Guam: they'll tilt the islands over when the flare goes up and bada bing- there are all the bases.
#7
Doesn't Iran occupy some islands nearby, on the Arabian side near Hormuz?
Posted by: Grunter in Sydney ||
01/27/2012 20:40 Comments ||
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#8
"Enormous caves" is it just me, or is anyone else suddenly getting images of MACARTHUR, BATAAN + CORREGIDOR???
* ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [US] PENTAGON TO SEND FOURTH AIRCRAFT CARRIER TO GULF.
Meanwhile, the IRGC = Iran suddenly wants to hold a MILEX.
Again, MULLAHS = made it clear many Yarns ago that nothing less than de facto foreign conquest of Iran will stop it from doing what it wants to do. AS LONG AS US-ALLIED WARSHIPS STAY OFFSHORE, PATROLLING UP-N-DOWN, + NO ENEMY GROUND ARMIES ATTACK + OCCUPY IRAN, IRAN WILL GO ON WID ITS NUCPROGS.
* SAME > OIL INDUSTRY SEES CHINA [+ Russia] WINNING, WEST LOSING FROM IRAN SANCTIONS.
Beijing + Moscow poten stand to benefit from receipt of lots of Iranian oil at preferred/discounted rates.
#9
OTOH CHINA DAILY FORUM > CUBA MAY BE BOMBED [anti-Gaddafi = "Libyuh-style"] UNDER GINGRICH, in support of any simil popular uprising breaking out there.
Obviously, the facts are racist, too! In his State of the Union response the other night, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels neatly summed up Mitt Romney's (who has a roughly 90 percent chance of being the GOP nominee according to Intrade) economic case against President Barack Obama: "The president did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight, but he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse."
In other words, the Obama Recovery stinks. Even if today's GDP report -- for the fourth quarter of 2011 -- shows 3 percent growth or better, it would be just the fourth time that has happened since the economy began turning up in June 2009: 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2010, and 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2010. But no 3 percent-plus quarters since then.
The first nine quarters of the Reagan Recovery, by contrast, looked like this: 5.1 percent, 9.3 percent, 8.1 percent, 8.5 percent, 8.0 percent, 7.1 percent, 3.9 percent, 3.3 percent, 3.8, percent, 3.4 percent. In fact, the Reagan Boom went from the first quarter of 1983 until the second quarter of 1986 without notching a sub-3 percent GDP quarter.
So while the Reagan Recovery quickly made up for lost years of growth, not so much for the Obama Recovery, as [a] chart in today's Wall Street Journal makes clear:
And few economists are expecting the Obama Recovery to take off anytime soon. The IMF predicts just 1.8 percent growth for 2012 (and that's assuming no EU sovereign debt meltdown). And the Federal Reserve sees growth in the 2.2 percent to 2.7 percent range with unemployment around 8.2 percent to 8.5 percent. Ugh!
The WSJ offers two explanations for the anemic rebound:
Economists say the nature of the recession helps explain the slow recovery. Aftershocks from the financial crisis have left banks reluctant to lend, making it hard for companies, and especially start-ups, to get access to capital. The housing market, which has historically helped lead the economy out of recession, remains deeply depressed.
Many business leaders say they are also being held back by policy-related uncertainty, everything from the threat of new regulations and higher taxes to the fear that political gridlock could hamper the government's ability to respond to a new crisis. Recent economic research has given some weight to those complaints. A study by a trio of academic economists found that policy uncertainty has risen in recent years, and that periods of uncertainty have in the past corresponded with rising unemployment and slowing growth.
Whichever explanation holds more weight with voters may go a long way toward deciding who'll be America's next president. At this rate, the "recovery" will never be able to pay for the debt he has accumulated before we slide into the next depression. Even if it did, China would have a ton of their money back and we'd have another recession to push through.
#3
My friend, who majored in business/accounting, is found of stating that in a choice between good news, bad news, and uncertainty, uncertainty is by far the worse. Businesses can deal with bad news. They can shut down factories and shift money into raising stars.
But when faced with uncertainty, business leaders become paralyzed. I heard the CEO of Government Motors GM on CSPAN recently and in answering a question about a closed plant he said that if he knew how many units he could sell next year, he would know how many plants that he could bring back on line. But he is uncertain so he is looking at how to make a profit at the minimum number of units.
A change in the White House could lead to a president who sets a clear course for the nations economy. Reducing uncertainty will be job one.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
01/27/2012 12:46 Comments ||
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#4
Yup, uncertainty. Add in the uncertainty on environmental regulation, energy regulation, health care costs and labor regulation and you have a perfect storm that locks business down.
Which I think is precisely the intent.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2012 14:00 Comments ||
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#5
I'm no fan of Obama, but you can't blame him for the state/pace of the recovery. Our economy had and has deep structural issues that could not be rectified to the satisfaction of the electorate in 4 years no matter who was at the helm.
#6
Our economy had and has deep structural issues that could not be rectified to the satisfaction of the electorate in 4 years no matter who was at the helm.
True for the last 4 years & will be true for the next four. Mitch Daniels is still right: Obama has done nothing to improve the situation and has done many things to worsen the situation. In addition, it does matter who presides.
#7
you can't blame him (Obama) for the state/pace of the recovery.
Yes, you can. As stated by Dr. White, it is the uncertainty that is preventing any economic recovery, and a great deal of the uncertainty IS Obama's responsibility.
#8
Agreed, Glenmore. Pre-existing structural problems cannot be laid at BHO's feet. But the broader "policy of uncertainty" since 2009 has definitely stifled nearly every avenue to begin climbing out.
Steve White: IMHO, it gives BHO and Congressional Dems far too much credit to say their intent is to lock down business. Rather, I think it is just the "unintended, unexpected, unforeseen" natural consequence of their ignorant, misguided, magical thinking.
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.
Taliban-on-Taliban violence is on the upswing.
In his State of the Union response the other night, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels neatly summed up Mitt Romney's (who has a roughly 90 percent chance of being the GOP nominee according to Intrade) economic case against President Barack Obama: "The president did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight, but he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse."
