#2
And the world moves, as Obama fundraises and Golfs, and the State Dept goes on pretending that everyone will play nice and according to their genteel upper-crust rules.
#4
Greek historians considered democracy to be a transient phase---and human nature haven't really changed since then. Your own founding fathers, had a practical horror of democracy.
[DAWN] There are two operations being conducted in this country of ours. One is the much-heralded 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!)... , and beyond ISPR blurbs we really don't know much about it. The other is operation 'shoot ourselves in the foot' being conducted by none other than the PML-N government in full public view.
This was supposed to be a Nawaz who had become both wise and wizened; a Nawaz who, tempered by his exile, had learned the lessons of the past. He would do well, what with no coalition to cater to, Punjab in hand and a simple majority in the National Assembly.
A few months in, doubts began to rise when the same 'takht-e-Lahore', the same blatant, dynastic nepotism, the same policy of governance by inaction seemed to emerge.
Some counselled patience, and justifiably so. After all, one pillar of the state was controlled by the canny Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... and the other by the suo-motu-happy Iftikhar Chaudhry. Neither of them were people to trifle with. Let them leave, they argued, and you will see Nawaz shine.
Instead we saw a prime minister intent on enclosing himself in a cocoon of courtiers. He had indeed learned lessons in exile, but apparently the most important of them was to value loyalty over merit. And speaking of merit, the PML-N has even sabotaged its own talking points, has negated the strengths it sought to project.
Take this for example: they sold themselves on experience and governance. After all, they had been in power many times and had ruled Punjab, Pakistain's most populous and politically vital province for almost an entire term. And that province was headed by a Shahbaz Sharif ...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab... who would quite literally roll up his sleeves, don rubber boots and wade into the mire.
This is a man so thoroughly competent that he controlled several ministries himself and made babus shiver, all the while keeping an eagle eye on everything that happened in his province.
This is also a man who claims that he only learned of police deployment outside the PAT's model town headquarters on June 17 through the television. Take a moment to consider that. This wasn't Bhai Pheru, this was the heart and the seat of the Sharif power. If we are to accept his version of events, then we must also consider that his super chief minister status is simply an illusion. Let's not even talk about Joseph colony, Gujranwala and Rashid Rehman.
The loss of life on June 17 was avoidable; the attempts at damage control laughable, and victory went to Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... , whose previous revolution had been defused by a Zardari who knew how to play the game. Indeed, even as Qadri shouted his 'mubarak ho', all you had to do was see Kaira's smiling face to see who really won.
The second time around, despite the government guaranteeing him coverage by diverting his flight (again a move out of a failed playbook of the past), his movement would likely have withered without the shot in the arm the Punjab government, in its panic, so willingly provided.
And on Aug 8, when Qadri's charged supporters ran riot, the Sharifs laid siege to their own constituency, an overreaction that undoubtedly fed Qadri's megalomania. And the biggest joke is that it's not even Qadri who is the real threat, but Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... .
Here a saying of Napoleon's comes to mind: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." And, despite the public protestations of diehards, the 'azadi march' is a mistake. Privately, even dedicated PTI supporters question its timing and simple logic tells us that the energy to protest is not an unlimited resource, especially in country weary of turmoil.
But instead of letting it happen and letting it fizzle out (no one can sustain indefinite sit-ins), the government panics. It invokes Article 245, then imposes Section 144 and calls for a high-sounding national security conference. That move would have been laudable a few months ago, but now it reeks of desperation.
Consider also that they could not have asked for a more self-destructive foe than the PTI, whose leader has transformed from a symbol of hope and change to one of brinkmanship and intransigence.
In quick succession he threatened to hang coppers (if they attacked his supporters), and said he would shut down the country (if put under house arrest). This is stuff even PTI's internet trolls were hard pressed to defend.
Then his deputy information secretary accused Kayani, America, India, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and the UAE for having rigged the elections in one of the most ludicrous statements ever made. And the list of follies goes on. Yet, instead of handing them the rope to hang themselves with, the government hands them the initiative. Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... got power on a silver platter and still manages to conjure crisis out of thin air.
Forget giant flags, this is what the Guinness World Record people should take note of.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... wants to be Prime Minister and he wants it really, really bad. All elections till, if and whenever that time will be "rigged".
There is a lot of hubris by Mr. Khan and his enthusiastic cadre about facts and exposes. Sadly, none of it is completely rational. Sadder still is the fact that it does not matter. "Reason" is the distinctive casualty this protest season.
Dr Qadri, now, wants blood. He wants "action", chaos and perhaps most significantly he wants deaders. His holiness is playing an extremely dangerous game. We should expect nothing less or more from Shaiky-ul-Islam. It is his willing playmates, the Mian brothers, which stumps one at the sheer masochism and desire for political suicide. It is almost poetic; all three of them deserve each other.
What does Mian Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... want? Mian Sahib wants to survive. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... the battle is significantly already lost, and Mian Brothers have no one to blame except for themselves and the loyalists. There probably will not be a coup. Yet, Mian Nawaz Sharif, the businessman has squandered political and moral capital spectacularly fast and with breathtaking recklessness. The best case scenario is that Mian Sahib "survives" and does just that, survive, nothing more, with the possibility of quite a lot less always looming. All the plans, if there were any, sacrificed, the price of survival, subsisting. We know the "not best" case scenario, all too well.
The moral and indeed political authority erodes as Lahore is a battleground. Not quite the incredible hyperbole of his holiness Qadri of absurd comparisons with Gazoo, yet quite bad, worse than it was on the worst day of the lawyers' movement against the Commando. Tear gas shelling, lathis, arrests, petrol stations closed, mobile phone services tipped to shut down anytime, the Metro Bus model of good governance at peak levels.
Dr Qadri provokes and incites, that is just what he does. He exaggerates, threatens and blackmails, today Model Town is Gazoo, last year the elected government was the "Yazids". He is a vacationer and has no stake in the system. His business is hate and fear. In the Mian brothers, he has struck gold. Mian Nawaz Sharif is nothing right now, if not very, very afraid. Those asking Mian Nawaz Sharif to retire are hammering on an open door. Mian, the elder has in fact retired. Mian, the younger takes a sledgehammer to every nail.
The PML-N government is not to be judged in comparison with the egoistic Mr. Khan and or the maniacal, Dr. Qadri. It has to stand on its own merits, and it does not. Mr. Khan and His holiness do set the bar very low, and being better than them might not mean all that much in any objective or perhaps final analysis.
Excessive force is being used. Qadri wants deaders, and Mian Sahib is here to oblige. His holiness was all this last time around and yet the country did not descend into chaos. Mr. Khan threatened dharnas every week, and Mian Shahbaz Sharif ...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab... lead marches against the President, yet calm, albeit, a tense one prevailed. What is different this time around? Firstly, it is the Mian government, and they do not like dissent, particularly when the heaviness of the mandate bears upon them. Secondly, Punjab and Lahore is where the line is drawn, in this case by blood. Zaman Park and Model Town versus Model Town and Raiwind.
This is just not done. You mess with Punjab, it is personal.
Tahirul-Qadri has an entire city hostage, and worse he did not have to work very hard for it. Mian Shahbaz Sharif handed it to him on a platter, with ribbons and all that jazz. The fear demonstrated by the brothers is unbelievable, from the blockades and arrests, to the astounding absurdity by Rana Mashood and Co (where in God's name does the PML-N find these gems, a secret mystery garden in Raiwand, perhaps).
One shudders to think how of all of this will play out when Mr. Khan embarks on his march of destruction, and the same tactics will be used, since, these tactics apparently is what the entire skill set of the government is composed of. There is collective punishment for the entire city, and most of the province for the sins of Qadri, and much more awaits us for the silliness of Mr. Khan. Our fundamental rights are suspended since Qadri and Khan do not respect law?
This fight has no heroes, only varying degree of villainy. The violent versus the vicious. The dumb versus the dumber. Yet, there is a heavier onus on Mian Nawaz Sharif, and he seems both unwilling and unable to discharge it. One has to resist the very real temptation of not letting the thoroughly unappealing and undemocratic politics of Mr. Khan and Dr. Qadri not obscure the arrogance and inefficiency at display by the Sharif government.
There is never a valid, justifiable excuse for the "boys" to come in. Messers Khan and Qadri have not put forth compelling arguments for a midterm. Yet, the threat lies within. Model Town episode 1 and 2 are signature bureaucratic solutions, the sort that Mian Nawaz and Shahbaz love.
Mian Nawaz Sharif, it seems has no real appetite left for hands on politics. That's too bad. The task at hand requires lot more than Turkish and Chinese solutions, whiz kids and wily bureaucrats. Where was the address to the nation on rigging allegations, Khan and Qadri threat? Where the all parties' conference was when it was needed (would have at least saved a lot of pleading and desperate wooing being attempted now)?
Policy making was never PML-N's strong point. Marketing and optics were all they had; after Article 245, section 144, Model town and Islamabad, not anymore. Sticks and stones should not be all it takes to bring down the mighty Punjab Police.
With the feeling of futility, one can still volunteer advice. Let them do their thing; just enforce the law, not repression, respect dissent (even if unsubstantiated and vicious). Tire them out, exhaust them, have a dialogue with them and the rest of the politicianship, a real one, not the superficial sort going on now.
Once all of this is over, it soon will be, and if there is still time, the battered Mian Sahib has to begin the long process of consolidating and actually doing some democratic governance and slowly regain the lost political capital.
All of that will require doing some real, serious politics. It seems, it is simply too much to ask.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] Determined to quell the protests of Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, and would-be dictator, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran and Pakistain Awami Tehrik. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... and his supporters, the Punjab government — with, surely, the backing of the prime minister — has raised the stakes alarmingly.
A siege mentality combined with a reckless willingness to use the coercive power of the state against political opponents left the placid provincial capital, Lahore, in a state of virtual lockdown over the weekend and disrupted the transport infrastructure in many parts of the province. To be sure, neither are Mr Qadri's demands legitimate nor have his supporters been entirely peaceful during various run-ins with the provincial law-enforcement authorities.
Yet, this is the same Mr Qadri and the same set of supporters who a year and a half ago set out for Islamabad from Lahore, camped on the streets of Islamabad for days to press their unlawful and unconstitutional demands, and then disbanded — with little to no violence.
So it is clearly more than a little disingenuous for the PML-N leadership to claim that Mr Qadri and his supporters are now some great threat to the public peace and so, implicitly, responsible for whatever actions the PML-N government has decided to take against them.
Perhaps the larger tragedy here is that a political party that has been in power in Punjab for over six years, has an overwhelming mandate in the province and faces absolutely no threat of being toppled by Mr Qadri's antics is showing itself to be so undemocratic in its actions.
Using the police and the administrative apparatus of the province in such a partisan manner, denying the citizenry its right to free movement and creating an artificial shortage of basic necessities — this is truly the stuff of undemocratic regimes.
Elected — legitimately — and twice in a row by the voters of Punjab, the PML-N is proving yet again why genuine and meaningful reform of the police and bureaucracy is so difficult regardless of who is in power.
Were there a more independent and rules-bound police and public administration in Punjab — something surely six years of being in charge would have made possible if there had been the political will — the PML-N would be unable to try and crush its political opponents.
And so long as that is the basic approach to power (crush or be crushed), the necessary institutional reforms will be resisted by civilian, elected leaders too.
Yet, the problems for the PML-N, predictably, have only increased thanks to the events in Lahore over the weekend.
Mr Qadri has announced he and his supporters will join the PTI's Aug 14 rally in Islamabad — signalling an expected convergence of anti-PML-N forces.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk.
Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how to drive one of these things?
Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles.
No, he said. Do you?... the PML-N's strong-arm tactics will have alienated a few more potential political allies and surely left sections of the public unhappy as well.
Political isolation is never a winning political strategy — but it appears to be where the PML-N is headed at the moment.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
...This new Thirty Years War has its origins in a demographic peak and an economic trough. There are nearly 30 million young men aged 15 to 24 in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, a bulge generation produced by pre-modern fertility rates that prevailed a generation ago. But the regions economies cannot support them. Syria does not have enough water to support an agricultural population, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of farmers into tent cities preceded its civil war. The West mistook the death spasms of a civilization for an Arab Spring, and its blunders channeled the youth bulge into a regional war.
#3
Magdeburg was a 'one of'. Check up on the number of cities sacked and razed by Tamerlane (Muslim), who was indiscriminate in whether those feeling his wrath were non-Muslim or not.
"Very temporary," Army Lieut. General William Mayville, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said later in the day at the Pentagon.
The conflicting signals were a sign of an Administration determined to do just enough to avert a humanitarian catastrophe without launching a third U.S.-Iraq war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... , or ISIL).
While F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s dropped 500-pound bombs on targets like artillery pieces, mortars and armored vehicles, aided by MQ-1 Predators and their 20-pound warheads, they didn't appear to do much to change the situation on the ground. The U.S. Air Force and Navy are flying up to 100 attack, reconnaissance and support missions a day over Iraq.
Mayville's briefing was as perplexing and unsatisfying as the 19 Arclight airstrikes the U.S. military carried out in Iraq through Aug. 11.
"I'm very concerned about the threat posed by ISIL in Iraq and in the region," he said. "They're very well-organized. They are very well equipped. They coordinate their operations. And they have thus far shown the ability to attack on multiple axes. This is not insignificant."
So what is the U.S. military prepared to do to deal with this threat?
"There are no plans," Mayville said, "to expand the current air campaign beyond the current self-defense activities."
The U.S. military can only do what it is told to do, but the disconnect between threat and response seems especially wide right now. The goals are limited to rescuing the thousands (or tens of thousands; the Pentagon isn't sure) of Yazidis trapped on, in and around Sinjar Mountain in northwestern Iraq, and to protect the Kurdish city of Erbil, where a small number of U.S. personnel, including about 40 recently-dispatched military advisers, are based. Warplanes launching the strikes come from air bases in Kuwait and Qatar and from the USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf, a carrier named for the President who launched the first U.S. war against Iraq in 1991.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 11:21 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Timidity in foreign affairs and military operations brings more war, not peace.
#2
The difference maker in the North is the supply and continuous resupply of heavy weapons and ammunition to the Kurds.
The difference in the south? Nothing will happen as long as the Shia continue to deceive themselves that their corruption and nepotism are proper ways to do things, and they continue freezing out the Sunnis and abusing them in the name of payback for Saddam/Baathists.
#3
The Shi'a are more than willing to fight. They have militias that are of some minimum quality. They don't have the logistics, training or leadership to go up against the ISIS right now. That comes with time and desperation.
Hate to say it but I think Iraq is lost. Not sure if/how the Kurds survive. They might need official Turkish protection. The Shi'a will get official Iranian protection.
Champ will then spend two years telling us all how it was someone else's fault. Maybe he'll fire Hagel.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2014 13:34 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Shia aren't willing to fight anything other than Sunni, at least in Iraq. That much was learned over there years ago. They've had training, and discarded it. Their Arab+Shia "culture" promotes nepotism, corruption, and tribalism, as well as cowardice. The Shia Arabs in Iraq are for the most part paper tigers, and useless. They will ultimately need Persians to rescue them from the Sunni.
The Kurds, if logistics can be figured out, are in some pretty difficult terrain, very tightly secured, and are sort-of a "Switzerland" in that they are armed to the teeth, in tough terrain, and motivated & trained to defend it to the last man. Taking Kurdistan is far more trouble than its worth, as ISIS is finding out: when they break thru the buffer areas and run up to the actual Kurdish zones, the Kurds don't retreat from there and they get stopped hard.
#5
Obviously, no one in the State Department or DoD ever read Machiavelli.
They avoided discord and now the enemy has picked the time and the place of the war.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
08/12/2014 18:43 Comments ||
Top||
#6
As a OWG Globalist, the Bammer is doing his actions intentionally, wid a larger pciture or agenda in mind.
Again, GLOBALISM = HOW MUCH CAN THE "SOLE" SUPERPOWER USA GIVE UP, OR FAR CAN THE US GEOPOL OR MILPOL FALL BACK OR RETREAT, ETC, WIDOUT BEING EIXSTENIALLY THREATENED BY WANNABES, OR EVEN BY FELLOW, GLOBALIST-DESIRED, FUTURE OWG CO-SUPERPOWERS.
HOW MUCH IS "TOO MUCH", HOW FAR IS "TOO FAR", ETC. FOR THE SUPERPOWER US TO WILFULLY + UNILATERALLY, WEIRDLY-N-MYSTERIOUSLY BUT OF COURSE ONLY COINCIDENTALLY + PCORRECTLY-DENIABLY, GIVE UP OR TURN OVER TO OWG GLOBAL FEDERAL UNION-LEADING CO-SUPERPOWERS???
The ordinary Militant = Field Forces of the ISIS + similar MilTerr Groups have known only perennial poverty, Madrassa-led schooling in Islamic Fundamentalism-Radicalism since their pre-teens or childhood, + ABOVE ALL SURVIVAL BY BRUTE FORCE + VIOLENCE - THEY KNOW OR CARE LITTLE, NOTHING? ABOUT MARXISM OR IVY LEAGUE POLITICAL INTELLECTALISM-SCIENTIFISM.
* WORLD NEWS > [Ria Novosti] US AIRSTRIKES TO AGGRAVATE RADICLA ISLAMISM - NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST [Ivan Eland], whom also argues that US Airstrikes could poten foment the rise of a much more violent or dsangerous Islamist MilTerr group than the ISIS/ISIL.
ISIS is approaching Baghdad from the south as the city struggles to maintain order. Prime Minister Maliki is scheduled to be replaced with Haider al-Abadi and last night Maliki's special forces were deployed as he refused to step down from power and announced plans to sue Iraqi President Fuad Masum.
[Iran Press TV] People around the world are "fed up" with the United States' increasingly "militaristic and imperialistic" policies, a "reckless and irresponsible" strategy that will bring about the "demise" of the American empire, a former US Senate candidate says.
"It's abundantly clear that the world is fed up with all this American empire expansionism," Mark Dankof, a political commentator and broadcaster in San Antonio, Texas told Press TV on Monday.
Dankof strongly criticized the B.O. regime's policies in Ukraine and Gazoo in particular, which he said is mainly the result of "American militarism on behalf of the Zionism and international banks and Western energy consortiums."
US sanctions against Russia will cause the US dollar to "nosedive" in value, setting the stage for the "ultimate demise of the American empire," he stated.
"It's clear that American policies around the world are increasingly militaristic, increasingly imperialistic and absolutely irresponsible," the former Senate candidate noted. "We are literally witnessing a transition of power in world history where the American empire is coming to a close."
In an article published on Sunday, former US Congressman and presidential nominee Ron Paul wrote, "The US government's decision to apply more sanctions on Russia is a grave mistake and will only escalate an already tense situation, ultimately harming the US economy itself."
"While the effect of sanctions on the dollar may not be appreciated in the short term, in the long run these sanctions are just another step toward the dollar's eventual demise as the world's reserve currency," he argued.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
The US is not an imperialist nation. Or it would have held on to Europe and Japan, defeated nations during WWII.
A Chinese proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names”
The US has been the worlds super power of good in the 24/7/365 war between good and evil. But with the most recent leadership, they just don't give a damn about good anymore.
#3
And yet when the Yasidis are facing a massacre no one says "The Brazilians/Russians/Indians/Chinese must do something!"
Posted by: Matt ||
08/12/2014 9:07 Comments ||
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#4
When you throw the doors open, do people run in or run out?
That's still a good metric to measure the "demise" of the empire.
Why do we need to dominate the entire world in every aspect, bar none, to still be considered an empire?
Try living the American Dream in Russia if its so damned great.
#5
Not to be difficult but we were an imperialist nation:
Philippines
Cuba (Wood Act)
Puerto Rico
Guam
Banana Republics
The Old West
The Cold War
Let's not refuse to acknowledge history. In most ways we were better than the Germans and (certainly) the Belgians. But you could ask the Filipinos of 1905 or the Sioux of the same date whether or not we were imperialist.
We're much more good than bad, a point the progressives fail to acknowledge. BigJim's acid test is the correct one.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2014 13:41 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Steve, I refuse to acknowledge facts that confuse my already madeup mind.
[PJ Media] "Tell me, doc. Why do all these bad things keep happening to me?" Rhetorical question of course, everyone knows as a half-black I've been racially targeted. Thanks doc.
Everything that Champ touches seems to turn to dross. Think of it for a minute. He inherited a quiet Iraq (no American combat deaths at all in December 2009). Joe Biden bragged of the calm that it would be the administration's "greatest achievement." But by pulling out all U.S. peacekeepers -- mostly for a 2012 reelection talking point -- Obama ensured an ISIS wasteland. He put his promised eye on Afghanistan at last, and we have lost more soldiers there than during the Bush administration and a Taliban victory seems likely after more than a decade of lost American blood and treasure. The message seems to be that it is better for Obama to have his eye off something than on it.
Remember those threats to Syria? After the U.S. threatened and backed off, the violence only escalated and spilled into Iraq.
Libya was no paradise under Gadhafi, but it is now Mogadishu on the Mediterranean. Not even the president's supporters believe that he told the truth about Benghazi. Reset with Russia green-lighted Putin, as he sized up Champ as a pussy lamb waiting to be eaten. The Bowe Bergdahl-for-five-terrorists swap (likely illegal) is not headline news only because dozens of scandals since have eclipsed it, and the likely deserter is apparently still kept incommunicado, lest he speak in the fashion of his father at the earlier White House press conference. I don't think Bergdahl is a model for future negotiations with the Taliban.
Israel? We never have been more estranged from the Jewish state. Open mic outbursts against Netanyahu define our true policies. The terrorist state run by Hamas is now a partner for peace -- tunnels, missiles, syringes, handcuffs and all. Did outreach to Hamas lessen or spike violence?
Did the "special relationship" with the Islamist Recep Erdogan lead to regional calm, and does it still exist?
The war on terror? Champ has derided most anti-terrorism protocols, even as he kept some Bush-Darth Cheney policies -- to the incoherent point that no one has any idea what the U.S. is doing. Jihad a personal odyssey? Muslim Brotherhood largely secular? Major Hasan's murdering mere workplace violence? Outreach to Islam NASA's primary mission? Remember overseas contingency operations and man-caused disasters? In the Champ's war on terror, waterboarding three architects of 9/11 is our "folks" torturing their "folks"; but judge/jury/executioner drone strikes that blow up 2,000-plus suspected (not confessed) terrorists -- and anyone in the general vicinity when the missile hits -- are far more moral. Out of sight, out of mind.
When CIA Director John Brennan speaks, we all quite correctly assume he is not telling the truth, as in the past. Whatever the DC dictate is at the present, Brennan makes the necessary immoral adjustments. Ditto for the DNI and with the exception of General Mike Flynn and his former deputy at DIA, nearly everyone else in intelligence community senior positions.
Past cabinet heads? No one knows exactly the circumstances under which Lisa Jackson, Hilda Solis -- and even David Petraeus -- left their offices. No one knows? How about their utility as throne sniffing, 'useful idiots' had expired ?
#2
The electorate became so risk-averse, so obsessed with comfort and living anxiety-free and status-obsessed, that it believed electing someone like this was at best harmless but in most cases really awesome. Too many have e had it too good for too long not on skill and hard work but on borrowed money and promises of crappy politicians, educators, and entertainers that they started believing in the proverbial never-melting, self-licking ice cream cone. Damned fools.
Obama is a symptom, not a cause, of the malady that affects the U.S. and really the West in general.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/12/2014 5:23 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 ||
08/12/2014 6:26 Comments ||
Top||
#4
no mo uro, I'm not sure I agree.
The electorate feels very similar to what we had during Carter. Oil prices are worse but we are better positioned. Our international enemies are crazier but patheticaly weak compared to the Soviets. If we had another Reagan this whole thing could be turned around for another couple of decades until the folks forgot and the rot accumulated again.
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.
What does Mian 
Dr Qadri provokes and incites, that is just what he does. He exaggerates, threatens and blackmails, today Model Town is 
[DAWN]
