Narco Wars: it's murder in Arizona

TWT: "EDITORIAL: Murder on the border - Americans are dying because of White House inaction"

Brian Terry died for President Obama's sins. Mr. Terry, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, was killed during operations against bandits near the southern Arizona town of Rio Rico, approximately 15 miles inside the U.S. border. Here and along other infiltration routes, gangsters prey on illegal aliens and drug smugglers or serve as private security forces for gangs engaged in illegal activities. Agent Terry was part of a four-man Border Patrol Tactical Unit sent to engage the bandits, and he was shot down in the resulting firefight. (...)

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano offered condolences to Mr. Terry's family but met a sharp rejoinder from his father, Kent, who said, "You gotta wake your man up in the White House." (...) Mr. Obama's most notable actions have been to unleash the Justice Department on Arizona for taking small steps to try to deal with the problem of illegals and to push the Dream Act, a backdoor amnesty nightmare that thankfully ended when the Senate woke up and defeated it. (...) >>>

Dec. 29, 2010
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Mexico's insurgency -

Pat Dollard: "Mexican Narco-Insurgents Adopt Iraq, Afghanistan Tactics, Use Car Bomb For First Time"

A drug cartel has used a car bomb for the first time in Mexico’s decades-long fight against traffickers, setting a deadly trap against federal police in a city across the border from Texas, the mayor of Ciudad Juarez said Friday. Mayor Jose Reyes said federal police have confirmed to him that a car bomb was used in the attack that killed three people Thursday. It was the first time a drug cartel has used a bomb to attack Mexican security forces, marking an escalation in the country’s already raging drug war.

Federal police and paramedics were lured to the scene by a phone call reporting that shots were fired at a major intersection and a municipal police officer lay wounded at a major intersection, Reyes told The Associated Press. As the paramedics were working on the wounded man, a parked car exploded, he said. Reyes said authorities later determined that the wounded man was not a policeman, although he was wearing a fake uniform. The man was among the three people who died in the attack. The others were a federal police officer and a medical technician. (...) >>>

Jul 18, 2010
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Hezbollah's back in business -

AP: "Renewed Lebanese drug trade hikes Mideast tensions", by Bassem Mroue

Dec. 23, 2009
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... but experts say war on drugs causes drug trafficking ... don't connect insidious Narco-Islamofascist dots Venezuela-Iran:

BBC: "Africa drug trade fuelling terrorism and crime, says UN"

The head of the UN drugs agency (UNODC) has warned that widespread drug trafficking is transforming Africa into a major crime hub. Antonio Maria Costa said huge amounts of heroin and cocaine were being traded by "terrorists and anti-government forces" to fund their operations. He called for a trans-Saharan network to be set up to tackle criminal groups.
Last month the wreckage of a Boeing 727 was found in Mali with up to 10 tonnes of cocaine from Venezuela on board. "It is scary that this new example of the links between drugs, crime and terrorism was discovered by chance," Mr Costa told the UN Security Council. (...)

He also warned that the continent was seeing "a dramatic increase in drug addiction", which was helping to spread Aids. (...) Alfred McCoy, an expert in the international drug trade, told the BBC's World Today programme (...) "The problem is not the traffickers or the traffic, the problem is the whole drug war - we're brining the blunt baton of repression down on a global commodity and the results have generally been negative." (...) >>>

Dec. 9, 2009
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Netherlands cracks down on grass growers in major liberal policy U-turn:

After decades of soft drugs liberalization the present center-left coalition believes it is time for a crack-down. It's not just that the quality of marijuana has increased ten-fold, they've also discovered (!) this form of crime goes hand-in-hand with other serious organized crime, such as terrorism and human trafficking ...

DutchNews: "'Organised' marijuana growers face crackdown"

Police and justice ministry officials are launching a major crack down on organised gangs who engage in large-scale marijuana growing, the public prosecution department said on Sunday.

In particular, police efforts will focus on international drugs gangs who oversee the entire process, from 'production to exports and laundering the criminal proceeds' the department said in a statement. (...) >>>

Nov. 30, 2009
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Fausta's Blog: "Islamic militants and the drug trade"

Image via Wikipedia

The sea lanes of the South Atlantic have become a favored route for drug traffickers carrying narcotics from Latin America to West and North Africa, where al Qaeda-related groups are increasingly involved in transporting the drugs to Europe, intelligence officials and counternarcotics specialists say. A Middle Eastern intelligence official said his agency has picked up “very worrisome reports” of rapidly growing cooperation between Islamic militants operating in North and West Africa and drug lords in Latin America. With U.S. attention focused on the Caribbean and Africans lacking the means to police their shores, the vast sea lanes of the South Atlantic are wide open to illegal navigation, the official said. “The South Atlantic has become a no-man’s sea,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity owing to the nature of his work. A spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) confirmed the new route. (...) >>>

Nov. 17, 2009
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Facts and illegal immigration

Pajamas TV/The Hicks File: "Why Are Some Illegals Going Home? NO JOBS!"

Sept. 30th, 2009
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"Border", the movie (includes trailer)

If you don't think the U.S. has a southern border problem, there is a reason that Phoenix had more kidnappings than any other city in the WORLD outside of Mexico City.

Change cannot come without debate. Chris Burgard's award winning documentary film BORDER takes an impartial look at the agonizing and complex issue of our southern U.S. border. This film goes a long way to fostering debate, discussion and, hopefully, a more balanced outlook towards a national problem that has polarized our nation.

As we face the demand for new taxes for increased social services, reformation of our healthcare system, an increasingly violent narco war with Mexican drug cartels, you need to see BORDER to understand how we got here. America is at a crossroads and has some serious problems to face and difficult decisions to make. These problems are fixable, but first we have to have the courage to honestly face and understand how we got here. BORDER takes the first step in this necessary process... you can make a difference!

Sept. 15, 2009
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WSJ: "U.S. Slams Caracas on Drugs", by Jose de Cordoba

Venezuela is fast becoming a major hub for cocaine trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, according to a report written by the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. The report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office is sure to raise tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. at a delicate moment in the two countries' often testy relations. The report, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, blames widespread government corruption for increases in cocaine transshipments through Venezuela. Such shipments have soared more than fourfold to 260 metric tons in 2007 from 60 metric tons in 2004 as the government of President Hugo Chávez has systematically slashed its antinarcotics cooperation efforts with the U.S., according to the report. (...)

Many of the drug shipments come from Colombian "illegal armed groups" such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the report says, which the Venezuelan government provides with "a lifeline" of support and a haven within Venezuela. FARC is a communist guerrilla group. (...) The biggest problem: corruption of Venezuelan officials at all levels (...) because the "Guard reports directly to President Chávez and controls Venezuela's airports, borders and ports." In some cases, the report says, drugs captured by the National Guard and Venezuela's Investigative Police, who are often themselves involved in drug trafficking, aren't destroyed, but are taken by the officials or returned to drug traffickers. (...)

The report also comes as Mr. Chávez and the Obama administration have formed an unlikely alliance to restore Honduras's ousted President Manuel Zelaya, one of Mr. Chávez's closest regional allies, who was deposed last month. (...) But Mr. Chávez, who is funding Mr. Zelaya's efforts to make a comeback, has excoriated a U.S.-backed mediation effort to restore Mr. Zelaya, and angrily threatened to depose the interim government. (...) In the past few years, drug trafficking through Honduras has risen sharply, with many shipments of cocaine arriving in flights from Venezuela on their way to Mexico and the U.S., say officials in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. >>>

July 18, 2009
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Enter Stage Right: "The war on our southern border", by Alan Caruba

Among the latest news out of Mexico was the discovery of four U.S. citizens found in a van, strangled, beaten and stabbed in the border city of Tijuana. The victims, ages 19 to 21, were two men and two women from San Diego and Chula Vista areas. In 2008, 6,292 Mexicans were killed in the drug wars between the drug cartels. In the first eight weeks of 2009, there were already a thousand casualties, some of them beheaded. By way of comparison, in six years of war in Iraq, this exceeds U.S. losses by more than three thousand.

In mid-March, however, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, third in the line of succession to lead the nation, told a crowd of legal and illegal Hispanics that enforcement of federal or even local laws regarding immigration is "un-American." She called the illegal aliens in the audience, "very, very patriotic."No, Madame Speaker, the patriotic, indeed the constitutionally responsible thing to do is to enforce the laws of the nation. You even took an oath of office to do so. (...) >>>

May 19, 2009
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Education: objectivist versus subjectivist learning

The Training World: "Instructional Design Approaches"

Dec. 25, 2010
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'Global' indoctrination -

Read also, "Brave New Schools". From Chapter 1: "(...) this book will show some of the calculated steps toward total social transformation:

- Rewrite history to discredit nationalism and promote globalism.
- Teach thinking "skills" based on feelings and experience, not facts and reason.
- Encourage loyalty to peers and teachers, not family and churches.
- Immerse students in global beliefs and values.
- Condition students to serve a "greater whole".
- Block opposition to the new global paradigm (...)

Kjos: "The Nazi Model for Outcome-Based Education", by Berit Kjos

History keeps repeating itself, but few heed its warnings. If our leaders did, they would know that today's massive attempt to transform our culture by nationalizing education will bring repression, not freedom. They would see that the manipulative strategies of Mastery Learning will create human puppets, not independent thinkers.

In spite of the information explosion, America hasn't heard the message. Perhaps our leading change agents don't know what their deceptive strategies and dumbed-down curricula will do to our children. Maybe they haven't noticed the similarities between their educational strategies and former Nazi tactics for molding young minds and teaching group conformity.  (...) >>>

Sept. 18, 2010
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State education -

Brad Harrington’s Blog: "Getting Off Education's Assembly Line"

“Free education for all children in public schools.” - Karl Marx, Plank Ten, “The Communist Manifesto,” 1848 -

Imagine, if you will, that someone were to advocate the nationalization of the restaurant industry, on the basis of our need for food, and that state food dispensaries be placed into the business of producing the same meals for all, regardless of taste preferences or dietary requirements.

We would laugh, seeing the errors inherent in such a proposal and of its implications for the individualities of our digestion. Such a move would be the epitome of state collectivization and would negate the factor of choice that spawns the diverse array of culinary selections we take for granted. Here in America, the “land of the free”? Absurd. (...) >>>

Sept. 15, 2010
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Ccurioser and curiouser -

Dr Sanity: "SCHOOL DAZE"

Victor Davis Hanson , who has spent some time in academia, says that we are being "ruled by professors". He goes on to describe lessons he has learned from his association with the ivory tower (...) Like Hanson, I have spent much of my adult life in the bizarro world of academia. And, like Alice in Wonderland, I have noted over my years at various institutions that things have only gotten "curioser and curiouser" as the intellectuals in these citadels of supposed learning grew ever more out of touch with the real world. Yet I have chosen to remain in this environment because I love to teach. Perhaps I am a bit mad. (...) >>>

Sept. 9, 2010
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Subverting individualism since 1905 - It wasn't just the Frankfurt School subverting Western society since the post WWII era, but an entire subculture of collectivist intelligentsia since 1905.

The problem with the Infowars crowd is, they occasionally dig up gold and then continue to fly off into thin air as their imagination is getting the better of them. A pity, because the cold facts are often bad enough in themselves and the subject itself is left open for easy dismissal as "conspiracy theory".

A good example is this piece pertaining to education, Dewey and progressivism. By all means also click through to psychiatry (which has never cured anyone) and other worthy topics. We've seen the Tavistock and Rockefeller connections while on the subject of Common Purpose, an collectivist organization which is permeating British society on all levels. They've since wondered onto the continent and the US.

We've given two of our favorite correpondents - both active, or formerly active in the field of education - the SNTP item and this is what they came up with -

• Nourishing obscurity: "The hardwiring of unsound principles"

Hat Tip commenter James Wilson, who has this to add:

Philosophic systems that destroy human individuality will have secret attractions for men who live in a democracy. What concerns me in our democratic republics is not that mediocrity will become commonplace, but that it may be enforced.--Alexis De Tocqueville

• Dr Sam Holliday: "Postmodern Education in the United States", on postmodern education (socialization, rather than the transfer of knowledge).

Sept. 5, 2010
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Teaching climate heresy? -

The Dartboard: "Global Warming: This is Denialism?"

In March 2009, the Texas State Board of Education finalized its new standards for science education. Soon thereafter, in the Summer 2009 issue of the The Earth Scientist , the quarterly journal of the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA), Steven Newton, Public Information Project Director for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), took issue with the new standards.

Specifically, Newton singled out a handful of amendments which he said “weakened the standards” and “opened to door … to bring non-scientific ideas into the science classroom.” He took issue with minor changes to wording concerning teaching of, among other subjects, the age of the universe, changes in the earth’s atmosphere, and fossils. Referring to these amendments, Newton summed up his comments this way (...) >>>

Dec. 28, 2009
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Cover via Amazon

Dr Sanity: "EDUCATION IS A WEAPON"

“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” - Joseph Stalin

If you thought I was joking or too extreme in my discussions of the ongoing corruption of k-12 education; and how all the leftist "educational experts" like Bill Ayers intend to destroy the minds of your children in the era of hopenchange, then you need to read this. All of it. What is happening in Minnesota is the evolution of education into leftist political indoctrination.

The health of our educational system--from K-12 through college-- is absolutely essential to the long-term welfare and competitiveness of the United States. American education used to be the strongest on the globe, and to the extent that remains true, it is because the hard sciences in this country (e.g., math, engineering, computers etc.) have been largely resistant to the political taint that runs rampant in the humanities.

The latter subject areas, which include literature, philosophy, and history, have become unabashedly ideological over the last two decades; and the "social justice" advocates of today's collectivists have taken over our K-12 education system and are determinedly undermining American values with their politically correct, multicultural and anti-capitalist curriculum.

Make no mistake about it, what many teachers today are doing is indoctrinating their students minds into an unquestioning obedience to the collective. This they cannot do unless they also can manage to corrupt even the hard sciences with their dogma. (...) >>>

Nov. 28, 2009
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Fox/Glenn Beck Program 09-22-09 Seg 3 "Annie Leonard School Film: Government to Take Care of You"

Continued on Segment 4

Sept. 23, 2009
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Liberty Pen: "US Textbooks - Fractured History" (video)

Sept. 16, 2009
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Front Page: "One-Party Classroom", by John Ellis

One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indocrinate Students and Undermine our Democracy is the third recent book in which David Horowitz has documented and commented on the politicization of higher education. The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (2006) was a series of profiles of “political activists masquerading as scholars.” Indoctrination U. The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom (2007) made the case for the Academic Bill of Rights, Horowitz’s sample legislation designed to protect students from political indoctrination, and to recall the academy to the principles set out in 1915 by the American Association of University Professors—principles which the AAUP seems now to have abandoned. One-Party Classroom, written with Jacob Laksin, documents what happens in the college classroom. It takes twelve representative American campuses—large and small, public and private, but all prominent—and looks at course descriptions, departmental statements of purpose, course reading lists, and statements by instructors, to document the extent to which classroom instruction is corrupted by political agendas and dumbed down by the obsessions of radical instructors. Horowitz and Laksin look carefully at about a dozen courses in each institution. Many are from recently created departments such as Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies, but as many are from traditional departments: English, History, Politics, Sociology, and Anthropology. (...) >>>

Apr 24, 2009
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__________________________________________________________

"Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now... Parents and the general public must be reached also, otherwise, children and youth enrolled in globally oriented programs may find themselves in conflict with values assumed in the home. And then the educational institution frequently comes under scrutiny and must pull back."
--Professor John Goodlad, Foreword in Schooling for A Global Age - Hat Tip: Kjos, "Brave New Schools", chapter 1

Neototalitarianism: where's the outrage?

ChannelNewAsia: "US builds vast domestic spying network, report says"

The US government is building a vast domestic spying network to collect information on Americans as part of expanding counter-terrorism efforts, the Washington Post reported Monday.

The unprecedented network involves local police, state and military authorities feeding a growing database on thousands of US citizens and residents, even though many have never been charged with breaking the law, the Post reported, citing numerous interviews and 1,000 documents.

The apparatus breaks new ground in the United States -- where domestic security measures traditionally have faced legal limits -- and raises questions about safeguards for privacy and civil liberties. (...) >>>

Dec. 21, 2010
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O'Govt Begin Seizure of Internet -

Here's more on the long awaited Government seizure and "19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet" and another, explaining why this is about censorship -

Natural News: "US Government seizure of the internet has begun; DHS takes over 76 websites"

As part of a new expansion of government power over information, the Department of Homeland Security has begun seizing and shutting down internet websites (web domains) without due process or a proper trial. DHS simply seizes web domains that it wants to and posts an ominous "Department of Justice" logo on the web site. See an example at http://torrent-finder.com

Over 75 websites were seized and shut down last week, and there is no indication that the government will stop such efforts. Right now, their focus is websites that they claim "violate copyrights," yet the torrent-finder.com website that was seized by DHS contained no copyrighted content whatsoever. It was merely a search engine website that linked to destinations where people could access copyrighted content. Google also links to copyrighted content -- does that mean the feds will soon seize Google, too? (...) >>>

Nov. 28, 2010
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Europe, sleep-walking into serfdom -

The West, Islam and Sharia: "Great Britain: March of the Euro police: The shocking powers of prosecution the EU has over all of us", by Mary Ellen Synon

The full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today. A Mail on Sunday investigation has uncovered an alarming array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public. These include:

- Europol, the £60 million-a-year European criminal intelligence agency, whose officers have diplomatic immunity.

- An 800-strong paramilitary police force called the European Gendarmerie Force.

- The European Arrest Warrant, which now allows British citizens to be seized in the UK and sent without appeal to foreign jails for months or years without bail while awaiting trial.

Europol now has more than 650 officials at its headquarters in The Hague, from where it directs investigations across Europe. (...) The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) can also be used to extradite Britons who have been tried and convicted in their absence by a foreign court.

Meanwhile, the European Commission plans to turn Eurojust – a judicial co-operation body set up in 2002 – into an EU prosecutor using powers given by the Lisbon Treaty.

Also new, the European Investigation Order (EIO) gives foreign police forces the power to compel British police to carry out investigations on their behalf. These may include interrogation of suspects, interception of communications and bank records, and the handing over of DNA samples and fingerprints. (...) >>>

Nov. 21, 2010
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More on the global, governing elite - more on the Greenism file, entry of Nov. 5, 2010 -

International Liberty: "Global Taxation: An Idea so Terrible that Even the Obama Administration Is Opposed", by Dan Mitchell

The old saying that “two wrongs don’t make a right” is especially true in the field of public policy. A good example is the crazy new proposal from the United Nations to collect billions of dollars by imposing global taxes on financial transactions and energy. That’s bad enough, but the international bureaucracy wants to impose these taxes in order to bribe developing nations into agreeing to cripple their economies with policies designed to fight global warming. So people in the real world would pay more money to support a misguided scheme, while a bunch of tax-free bureaucrats get more power. This is so absurd that even the Obama Administration is opposed – at least according to this Bloomberg story. (...) >>>

Nov. 7, 2010
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More on the global, governing elite -

Nourishing obscurity: "Them"

(...) The shifting political spectrum - The days of party politics, the two [or three] party shuffle are numbered.
It served its purpose but now the division comprises, on one side, Statists with their formerly left-liberal community support, good people taken in by talk of diversity, freedom, fairness et al, their natural altruism blinding them to how they are being played for saps – the politics of peace and love where those who genuinely believe in these things are unwittingly allying themselves with the very political elements who would take their freedoms away, to their inevitable dismay.

On the other side there are practical freedom lovers, the ones who can sound pitiless and unloving but who see right through the sham of the whole multi-cultural/diversity/ fairness scam, as presented by the polticians. We are held to be nasty pieces of work because of our tone and our anger, the way we go on and on about it, trying to warn people of what is going down. We’re called right wingnuts and kooks but we actually cross the old political spectrum and those old terms are largely meaningless now in the new politics [which is actually the old politics, now visible]. We use expressions such as “wake up and smell the coffee” which gets the backs up of people who think they themselves have it sussed.  (...)

Currency Wars and Coups d’Etat

I will not be surprised at all if in the next ten years certain US and UK officials, and those who claim that they were only acting on their government’s behalf, merely following orders, become fugitives from justice. But there may be some ’suicides’ and tragic airplane accidents among the weaker links first if things get dodgy. And of course the usual scapegoats, fall guys and patsies. (...) >>>

Jul 14, 2010
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SoroS: keep up Cloward-Piven rate spending!

After EU Chief Barroso has warned for the break down of the rule of law, we now have the Prince of Darkness hisself uttering dire words on the collapse of the euro and the EU itself if Germany is going ahead with austerity measures instead of Cloward-Piven rate Keynesian government spending - frankly, it's reaching ludicrous levels and it just goes to show what he's made of. Strangely not a word on the UK's LibCon austerity budget -

Daily Finance: "Soros Warns That Germany's Austerity Policy Endangers Europe", by Melly Alazraki

(...) Over the past couple of years, as the world has undergone a financial crisis and economic recession, Soros has often been quoted in the media. He added his share of gloomy predictions at the height of the crisis, but also quickly announced the turnaround, saying the worst was behind us ... only to warn us again not long ago that the next stage of the crisis had arrived.

Now, ahead of the G-20 summit in Toronto this weekend, his attention has turned to Germany. "The German policy is a danger for Europe, it could destroy the European project," Soros told German newspaper Die Zeit. Soros was quoted as saying the collapse of the euro cannot be ruled out. (...) >>>

Jun 23, 2010
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Why 'democratic' is newspeak -

The Anchoress: "The Privileged Call for Limited Dictatorships"

When I read last week that Woody Allen likes the idea of letting President Obama be a dictator for a “few years” I was repelled; but then I’ve found Allen to be a repellent individual for decades–since Manhattan, at least–so I just shrugged it off as the foghorn bleat of an over-privileged mediocrity looking for some attention. But then the equally mediocre Tom born-wealthy-high-carbon-footprint-lover-of-Chinese-Communist-Capitalism-I’ve-got-mine-you-should-not-have-yours Friedman let fly with this on Meet the Press:

I have fantasized–don’t get me wrong–but that what if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions, and I do think there is a sense of that, on, on everything from the economy to environment. I don’t want to be China for a second, OK, I want my democracy to work with the same authority, focus and stick-to-itiveness. But right now we have a system that can only produce suboptimal solutions.

To which Andrea even-more-privileged-than-you-Tom Mitchell chimed in (...) >>>

May 25, 2010
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The Chavezization of the United States -

Image by talkradionews via Flickr - SEN. CHRIS DODD UNVEILS FINANCIAL regulatory REFORM PACKAGE

The Hill: "Obama’s terrible powers", by Dick Morris

If the financial regulation bill that passed the House last year becomes law, President Obama and his Treasury Secretary will acquire the right to take over any financial institution they wish to, provided that, in their sole opinion, it is both “too big to fail” and on the brink of insolvency. The House bill provides for no judicial review and does not require any objective evidence of imminent failure to trigger the takeover provisions. Once the government takes over such a company, it will acquire the right to replace the entire board of directors, fire the management of the company, wipe out stockholder equity and even sell off divisions of the company.

Essentially, this bill permits the government to launch an unfriendly takeover of any financial institution it wishes without risk and with no poison pill or other counter-measures possible. This legislation, essentially, confers on the federal government police powers that, under our system, are the exclusive preserve of state and local government. The blank check the bill gives the feds to take over any financial institution is really more of an exercise of eminent domain than it is an extension of traditional federal regulatory power. This grant of power to the executive branch is unprecedented and potentially totalitarian. Consider: (...) >>>

Apr 14, 2010
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Obama filling his admin with pocket potentates -

ADR: "EEOC Nominee Chai Feldblum: Society Should Not Tolerate Private Beliefs"

President Obama’s nomination for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission head is Chai R. Feldblum, a law professor at Georgetown University Law School. She wrote in 2006 that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, that may negatively affect homosexual “equality.”

Feldblum’s “radical” beliefs fit in lockstep (or should I say “goose-step”) with Obama’s school safety czar, and gay pedophile, Kevin Jennings. The view these people have is based on a “zero-sum game” between religion and homosexuality that ultimately provides that “a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.”

I suppose this explains liberal Tom’s proclamation that “our movement will bury you.” It is an all or nothing game for the gay agenda, and their militant thuggery is because of the “winner take all” attitude of the agenda. (...)  >>>

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Apr 7, 2010
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Another radical crawls out of the woodwork -

Assault on Glenn Beck and TalkRadio is now headed by another radical under the Orwellian banner, Free Press, an organization that proposes Stalinist measures to silence the enemy of the revolution (gee, where have we heard all that before?) ...

RedState: "A Tangled Web of Socialists Targets Glenn Beck and Talk Radio"

Josh Silver, the Executive Director of Free Press, a media reform group, wrote a piece at the Huffington Post a few days ago urging Glenn Beck to “Stop the Insanity” (...) In Silver’s Huffington Post article, he argues that Beck launched a smear campaign against Van Jones, and calls Van Jones “one of the great, principled leaders of our time” (...) Silver also offers a video of Van Jones speaking to Free Press’s 2008 media reform conference that ends with “join the fight for real journalism”.

Van Jones also spoke the year before here. At 5:30 Van Jones calls 2007 the tipping point of the “media justice movement”. Jones is also on the board of Free Press, and Free Press defended him and attacked Beck in a statement saying that “our leaders have a responsibility to condemn fear-mongering … and support a more diverse media system that provides alternative voices to the likes of Glenn Beck” and “calls on [the] Obama administration to resist extremism in the media” (...) >>>

Sept. 15, 2009
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No, Mr Blumenthal, you don't need to see "present-day American life through the lens of World War II Europe" and an "upbringing in the Soviet republic of Moldova" to understand we are but steps away from whole new form of totalitarianism. It's a matter of common sense. And if it's that hard to imagine the existence of new Brown Shirts, why don't you listen to Lucia Whalen for a while - the woman who did her civic duty and reported a break in (ingoramuses!):

The Daily Beast: "Queen of the Birthers", by Max Blumenthal

A new poll finds 58 percent of Republicans doubt Obama is American. Orly Taitz, the mastermind behind the Obama birth-certificate controversy, tells The Daily Beast’s Max Blumenthal why the president should be jailed and why Lou Dobbs is her biggest fan.

Almost as soon as Orly Taitz answered her cellphone, before I could even ask a single question, the leader of the movement determined to disprove President Obama’s American citizenship breathlessly told me the president was “connected” to 39 bogus Social Security numbers, including one for a deceased person born in 1890. “If Obama is not stopped, we will be in Nazi Germany!” Taitz, who has a thick Russian accent, shrieked. “Forgery is a criminal matter and he committed it. Obama should be in the Big House, not the White House!” (...) >>>

Aug. 1,2009
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(...) political Messianism in the sense that it postulates a preordained, harmonious and perfect scheme of things, to which men are irresistibly driven, and at which they are bound to arrive (...) is often refered to in these pages as Hegel's Legacy: nominally democracy subordinated to the state, the latter embodying a vehicle in which Providence expresses itself, culminating in an ethical Utopia - an event on the scale of the Second Coming. In short: progressivism.

American Thinker: "America's Descent Into Totalitarian Democracy", by Lee Cary

Over fifty years ago, Jacob Leib Talmon defined the battle now underway for America's soul by comparing liberal democracy with totalitarian democracy.

Talmon (1916-1960), Professor of Modern History at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, wrote The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (foreword dated 1951, published in English in 1960). His notion of "liberal" democracy was founded on liberty, rather than collectivism. Talmon was a devout anti-Marxist.

In our search for language to describe what then candidate Barack Obama meant when he said, shortly before the election, that, "five days from now we will fundamentally change America," Talmon offers another option. Fundamental change meant the transition into totalitarian democracy. (Michael Barone introduced a tactic of totalitarian democracy with his concept of Obama thugocracy.)

"The essential difference between the two schools of democratic thought as they have evolved is not, as is often alleged, in the affirmation of the value of liberty by one, and its denial by the other. It is in their different attitudes to politics. The liberal assumes politics to be a matter of trial and error, and regards political systems as pragmatic contrivances of human ingenuity and spontaneity. It also recognizes a variety of levels of personal and collective endeavor, which are altogether outside the sphere of politics.

The totalitarian democratic school, on the other hand, is based upon the assumption of a sole and exclusive truth in politics. It may be called political Messianism in the sense that it postulates a preordained, harmonious and perfect scheme of things, to which men are irresistibly driven, and at which they are bound to arrive. (...) >>>

July 27, 2009
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Two bad, very bad news items today:

Fausta's reporting that on the Honduras "coup" some EU countries are acting true to principle and are recalling ambassadors (Spain (of course) but disappointingly also Italy and France). But perhaps even worse, Mere Rhetoric has the story that the O admin is increasing aid to Arab and Muslim regimes, while zeroing out funding for Iranian And Egyptian democracy movements. ( (...) It's not a good day for the world.


July 2, 2009
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PJM: "If the Terrorists Misinterpret Islam ...", 

(...) Forbes’ 2009 survey of the world’s most dangerous countries is out, and the list is comprised almost entirely of Islamic-dominated lands. A second list, of the world’s active conflicts, is essentially a checklist of current Islamic aggression (and describes an entirely related point — the few non-Islamic conflicts have communist/socialist or other totalitarian participants). Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Pakistan, West Bank/Gaza Strip, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Algeria, Nigeria, Georgia — that’s Forbes‘ top 15.

The world’s current conflicts: an Islamic revolt in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq; an Islamic butchery in Sudan; an Islamic civil war in Somalia; an Islamist civil war in Sri Lanka; an Islamic invasion into Chad (perpetrated by the Sudanese butchers); an Islamic insurgency in Thailand; an Islamist insurgency across all of Northeast Africa (the Maghreb); an Islamic separatist movement in Kashmir; an Islamist insurgency in the Philippines; and a sustained Islamic belligerency against Israel involving Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.Besides those, the Earth is pained with a few conflicts involving Islamic, Communist, and other totalitarian movements, most of which are among the long-simmering variety and primarily feature constant human rights abuses rather than open war. And that’s it.  That’s all of the fighting. (...) >>>

May 25, 2009
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The measure in which the Cohn-Bendits of Europe are spitting bile is in direct proportion to their neotot mind-set. Read Libertas founder, Declan Ganley's Wiki: the innuendo expressed by the author is palpable! In following FT article Ganley's criticism of the European Parliament's decision to "go ahead with building a €9m gym and pool in Brussels which only MEPs and parliament staff can access" (reminiscent of the opulence enjoyed by Russian Communist Party cadres) is presented as a measure of the 'populism' that can be expected of the Libertas election campaign.

Update: It has now become known (June 23) that the Ganley/Libertas campaigns imploded because he and his family got "offers they couldn't refuse", in other words they were threatened/intimidated ...

FT: "Fiendish Declan Ganley prepares to spoil another EU party"

Short of giving him a pair of horns and a forked tail, it’s hard to see how you could make the people who run institutional Europe dislike Declan Ganley more than they do now. Ganley is the British-born, multimillionaire Irish businessman who spoiled the European Union’s party last June by spearheading a successful campaign to persuade Irish voters to reject the EU’s Lisbon treaty. The Irish vote threw the EU into a state of organisational confusion from which it has not recovered to this day. (...) >>>

Mar 20, 2009
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To archive >>>

"The invention of democracy is a crying shame (...) A majority can never replace the Man."
- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

“The people have forfeited the confidence of the government.”
- Secretary of the East German Writers’ Union, following the 1953 anti-Communist riots

Related:

- "Building the State of Europe"
- "The Treaty of Lisbon"

The Wild Fires of Pyro Terrorism: two more Arabs in jail

Israel Matzav: "Two more 'Israeli Arabs' arrested and charged with arson"

Two more 'Israeli Arabs' have been arrested and charged with arson in responses to what was apparently a coordinated effort to set additional fires while fire fighters were responding to the massive Carmel forest fire outside of Haifa last week. (...) >>>

Dec. 9, 2010
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Carmel in Israel -

FoxNews: "Fire Kills Dozens in North Israel"

A huge bushfire is raging across the Carmel Mountains near Haifa for the past 6 hours. 40 people are believed to be dead and hundreds wounded. Hundreds of people were evacuated from areas around the Carmel Forest with the help of a large force of rescue workers who were called to the scene to evacuate dozens of homes and close off traffic on neighboring roads.

The 40 casualties are believed to be prisoners and prison guards that were evacuated from the Damon prison. (...) 12,000 people have already been evacuated from their homes tonight and still no sign of fire getting under control. Many countries are already sending help: Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Russia and France. Even Turkey which relationship with Israel have been very tense lately offered to send help.

This is the worst forest fires Israel has ever seen. (...) >>>

Dec. 3, 2010
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Justification for mass murder -

Fox News: "Australian Wildfires Could Fuel 'Forest Jihad' Terrorists, Experts Say"

(...) Terrorism experts suspect Muslim extremists are watching closely, too — and taking note of the devastation. While Australian authorities have revealed no evidence linking the wildfires to extremists, terrorism experts say the large death toll, the huge swath of destruction and the massive financial blow to the country are proving to Islamic terrorists that arson can be a highly effective — and simple — tool of holy war. In November, an extremist Web site called on Muslims to launch a "forest jihad" in Australia, Europe, Russia and the United States. The posting, which quoted imprisoned Al Qaeda terrorist Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, said setting forest fires was legal under "eye-for-an-eye" Islamic law.

"Scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands," the posting read. The author of the posting indicated that Nasar — also known as Abu Musab Al-Suri — was urging terrorists to use sulfuric acid or gasoline to start the fires. "Forest fires track well with the latest discussion trends seen in the Al Qaeda forums — easy to do, big impact, low security risk, high media coverage," said Al Qaeda expert Jarret Brachman.


"We've seen these kinds of appeals for action, be it setting fire to forests in Australia, to creating oil slicks on mountain roads in Europe, to poisoning water supplies and driving buses off bridges in the United States. "The fact is that the Al Qaeda ideology is starting to branch out to more of an 'anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow' approach." Brachman, author of "Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice," said "forest jihad" fits well in the growing interest among terrorists to establish "Al Qaeda armies of one." "Could [militants] do this? Yes," said Steve Emerson, executive director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism. "It wouldn't be difficult, in the same way that terrorists could poison stored food supplies."

Perhaps more troubling, Emerson said, is that there is very little authorities can do to prevent terrorists from setting deadly wildfires. "It would be absolutely impossible to protect against," he said. (...) >>>

Feb 11, 2009
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Sources tell us that in addition 3,700 rounds of ammunition, equivalent to 26,000 bullets, as well as explosives were found in the hideout, all imported from Albania ... (see also "Mapping Terrorism in Greece")

Southeast European Times: "Two arrested in Greece for allegedly starting forest fires"

Police announced on Sunday (August 24th) the arrests of two men suspected of starting forest fires in central Greece. One, an Albanian national, was apprehended in the region of Nafpaktos. Police think he had an accomplice. Separately, a 17-year-old Greek national suspected of starting forest fires over a two month period was detained in the Thesprotia region. (...) >>>

Updated: 24th Aug. 2008
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Politeia: "Progress Report: Balkan Irredentism Unabated"

(...) Reverting to Michaletos' update we'll quote only the general developments. The entire 19th June article "Alert level rises for Jihadi attacks in the Balkans" can be accessed on the site of the International Analyst Network: (...) Moreover sources related to the Homeland Security in the USA, have already reported that the 2007 catastrophic wildfires in Greece were probably a form of “pyro-terrorism” by Jihadists, whilst Greek press often reports that up to 2,000 Muslims are being monitored 24/7 for extremist behavior and connections, mostly in the Athens region. Bulgaria last year unraveled its own Jihadi network, which was composed by proselytes and Serbia has managed to break up a radical group in the Sanjak Eparchy. (...) >>>

Updated: 8th July 2008
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Politeia: " Pyro Terrorism Goes America"

Further to our post on 26th October "The Wild Fires of Pyro Terrorism", with respect to the now infamous Pakistani secret service (ISI) developed remote bomb triggering devices, we have been informed that since 2004 the NATO forces in Afghanistan have noted the Taliban began using mobile phones to detonate car bombs and booby traps.

The contraptions have now surfaced in the US, while terrorist related websites apparently are calling for ' Forest Jihad': "Jihad is an art just like poetry, music, and the fine arts. There are people that draw and there are others that are jihadists. They both act upon inspiration.” Hm, reminds me of the perverted Postmodern aesthetics of blood, death and revolution ... reverting.1389 Blog is reporting as follows (...) >>>

Updated: 28th Jan. 2008
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CNN: "Fire chief: 25,000-acre blaze was set" (includes video)

One of the larger fires in Southern California was deliberately started by someone with apparent knowledge of arson, a fire official said Thursday (...) >>>

Updated 26th Oct. 2007, 14:10
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Atlas Shrugs: "Setting Fires in California"

... The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States. Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it.

The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver office were reported Friday by The Arizona Republic. Davis declined to share a copy of the memo and an FBI spokeswoman in Denver didn't immediately return a telephone call. The Republic reported that the detainee, who was not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country. >>>

Updated 25th Oct. 2007
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The Lighthouse: "An Unholy Alliance of Another Kind: Terror, Crime and Gags"

... the all-pervading criminal networks have gained a lot of strength over the past decade due to the opportunities the globalization process provides for their communication, transfer of funds and recruitment. A combination of political aims, ill-aimed business strategies, and abundance of 'executive personnel', is a first clue of what might have caused the current situation and what lies ahead, not just for Greece but for the whole world.

The only organizations having the logistics in place for the series of arson attacks are international criminal networks. "... only an internationally networked factor could have organized the whole scheme, preferably associated with illegal industries such as narcotics, trafficking and weapons smuggling.

... the idea behind pyro terrorism is "why take the trouble of resorting to dirty bombing when you've got perfectly good, unconventional, asymmetric, large scale arson at your disposal? >>>

Updated 12th Sept. 2007
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The Lighthouse: "Greece Disaster Relief Night"

Tom Hanks has just contributed 100,000 Euros towards the Greek disaster relief fund. Thanks from the heart, Tom!

Related:
- 2nd September - "The War Against the Greek State"
- 28th August - "Greece: The Political Fall-Out Begins"
- 27th August - "No Let up: Devastating Wildfires, Earthquakes and ...!"
- 26th August - "Burning Our History"
- 26th August - "Who's Burning Greece?"

Updated 5th Sept. 2007

Related: "Mapping Terrorism in Greece"

The Afghan Front: Iran's payroll

The Guardian: "WikiLeaks: Afghan MPs and religious scholars 'on Iran payroll'"

US embassy cables reveal Tehran's alleged efforts to influence Afghan politicians, religious scholars and Taliban militants (...) >>>

Dec. 3, 2010
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The Taliban imposter -

Asia Times: "Oops ... wrong man!"

Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the "senior Taliban leader" flown secretly to Kabul and paid a large amount of money to open negotiations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and President Hamid Karzai's administration, was not who he claimed to be.

The man was probably a shopkeeper from the Pakistani city of Quetta in Balochistan province and may have been planted by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Afghan officials now say. The ISI has dismissed the accusation as "preposterous". (...) >>>

Nov. 27, 2010
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UN-approved, NATO-backed, EU-compliant -

FEATURE -MacLeans.CA: "Where ‘nice’ Obama has got us", vintage Mark Steyn

(...) After 2003, Afghanistan became the good war, the one everyone claimed to have supported all along, if mostly retrospectively and for the purposes of justifying their “principled moral opposition” to Bush’s illegal adventuring against Saddam. Afghanistan was everything Iraq wasn’t: UN-approved, NATO-backed, EU-compliant. It’d be tough for even the easiest nickel ’n’ dime military incursion to survive that big an overdose of multilateral hogwash, and the Afghan campaign didn’t. Instead of being an operation to kill one of the planet’s most concentrated populations of jihadist terrorists, it decayed into half-hearted nation-building in which a handful of real allies took the casualties while the rest showed up for the group photo. (...) >>>

Jul 4, 2010
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Obama is demanding respect - Paraphrasing Obama's own clarification: we can't accept that there might be a perception that the military is not under firm control of the civil authorities. I.e. Obama had to show authority. What Obama doesn't understand, is that only men with natural authority can afford to pardon. The war effort is now subordinated and suffers because the President feels the need to prove that he is a figure of authority. Rather like, demanding respect. It's becoming a pattern. The Washingon Times take it like this:

A commander in chief whose leadership was less in doubt could have made a quip about the article and moved on, but Mr. Obama is exceptionally image-conscious. So, rather than dismiss the article, he dramatically summoned Gen. McChrystal from the battlefront and took his resignation while sympathetic bloggers peddled analogies to Truman and Lincoln and their incorrigible generals that do not bear close scrutiny. (...) >>>

The following are the comments on the matter of our regular commentator on all things military, retired US Army Colonel, Dr Sam Holliday of the Armiger Cromwell Center -

There is universal agreement that it was a good decision to have General David Petraeus taking over in Afghanistan. Yet this change will not insure success. The opportunity must be seized. Two other changes are needed.

As President Obama said, we must have a united team. Since the major weakness has been with the civilian part of the team, success will require the replacement of Karl Eikenberry and Richard Holbrooke with a single person who will work effectively with General Petraeus to achieve stability in the region.

Henry Kissinger has identified the other change needed. To date the counterinsurgency strategy has attempted to work through the central government in Kabul. However, as Kissinger noted in the Washington Post on 24 June: "The attainable outcome is likely to be a confederation of semi-autonomous, regions configured largely on the basis of ethnicity, dealing with each other by tacit or explicit understanding." The counterinsurgency strategy is flexible; it can--and must--be adjusted to this reality.

For more on this issue see Withdrawl Strategy for Afghanistan, 21 Nov 2009

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Enduring America: "The Politics Behind McChrystal’s Removal — and Why It’s Bad for the War"

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is in charge no more. After two days of intense talks about his departure, he tendered his resignation as the man in charge of NATO troops in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama –– angered by remarks about the White House and the US ambassador in Kabul made by the general and his aides to Rolling Stone magazine— graciously accepted the resignation. He immediately Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the US troop surge policy in Iraq in 2008 that likely salvaged the war there, in his stead. Has a crisis been averted? Probably not.

Even though President Obama saved face and probably made small gains with the hawkish portion of the US electorate — just in time for the November mid-term elections, I might add –– the decision will have dire consequences for Obama’s war plan in Afghanistan. The reason is quite simple; nothing was actually done in the past days to understand the reasons why Gen. McChrystal made his remarks or to address the issues.

The situation with McChrystal and the White House is a by-product of two distinct but interrelated issues. The first is Gen. McChrystal’s relationship with President Obama, the Commander-in-Chief. The second is his relationship with the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ret. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who was largely ignored in this fiasco by US media. (...) >>>

Jun 24, 2010
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The McChrystal plot is thickening - Item rooted in prior entries on April 5 and 11 (scroll down) -

The US Report: "MICHAEL YON’S CRITICISM OF MCCHRYSTAL DEEMED PROPHETIC", by Kay B. Day

Rolling Stone’s advance of an article with controversial remarks by Gen. Stanley McChrystal about President Barack Obama’s prosecution of the war will be on the screen for days to come. Apparently the general opened up to a freelancer and held little back when it came to deriding vice-president Joe Biden and ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry. Eikenberry retired from the US Army as a Lieutenant General.* But war correspondent Michael Yon had begun to ask questions about the leadership in Afghanistan weeks ago.

The Washington Post said McChrystal “is quoted in an upcoming profile in Rolling Stone magazine as saying that Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, had ‘betrayed’ him by sending a diplomatic cable to Washington last fall dismissing Karzai as ‘not an adequate strategic partner.’ The cable came as McChrystal was recommending that President Obama increase U.S. forces and ties with the Afghan government.” (...) >>>
~

The mineral 'ruse' - the Left is spinning this release of information calculated to prolongue US 'occupation' of Afghanistan -

Cato: "Are Afghan Riches a Curse?", by Nita Ghei

Afghanistan may have mineral deposits worth more than $900 billion, according to a recent report — a fortune for the poverty-stricken nation. It is a fortune that is unlikely to be extracted to the benefit of the Afghan people. Without the rule of law and effective government institutions, the country will not see the massive investments in infrastructure and mining necessary to extract this mineral wealth.

As economists from Milton Friedman to Mancur Olson have pointed out, the difference between rich and poor countries is not a matter of resources; it's a matter of institutions. Countries ruled by laws that respect property rights, and with institutions that augment and facilitate free exchange, tend to prosper. Countries where property rights are precarious, and where the risk of appropriation of property by the state is high, tend to remain poor.

If the state is likely to seize your investment or profit, why would you invest in a business in hopes of a long-term payoff? On the other hand, the higher the probability that you will be able to keep your profit and income, the greater the incentive to invest and work hard. (...) >>>

Jun 22, 2010
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Image via Wikipedia

Something's brewing in Kabul? - What to make of the news the last couple of days? First we here a Clintonian buddy of Richard Holbrooke's in the State Dept., Peter Gailbraith, has delivered a dead fish to Hamid Karzai (the two have been exchanging mutual allegations of election fraud); then we hear Karzai's brother has been outed by the O regime as a CIA agent, followed by rumors that the regime has also threatened to uninvite Karzai to the White House "as a warning"; and now the Times has it that Karzai is pondering to delay or even cancel NATO's Kandahar offensive — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province. See also the preceding entry of Karzai going rogue. Something's brewing ... probably the O Team looking for an excuse to drop the Afghan NATO project. The Times article's wrap up is telling:

“President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner,” General Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan wrote in a telegram that was later leaked.

Related articles by Zemanta

• U.S. uses softer hand in relations with Karzai (ctv.ca)

Apr 11, 2010
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Karzai going rogue -

BlackListedNews: "No joke: Karzai threatens to join the Taliban"

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has slammed Western backers for the second time in a week, accusing the United States of interference, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. In a private meeting with up to 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday, Karzai also warned that the Taliban insurgency could become a legitimate resistance movement if foreign meddling in Afghan affairs continues, the Journal said, citing participants in the talks. During the talks, Karzai, whose government is supported by billions of dollars of Western aid and 126,000 foreign troops fighting the Taliban, said he would be compelled to join the insurgency himself if the parliament does not back his bid to take over Afghanistan's electoral watchdog.

His comments came less than a day after Karzai sought to defuse tensions over his earlier anti-foreigner outburst by assuring US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton he was committed to working with the United States. Kabul and Washington said they were putting behind them the incident which saw Karzai publicly claim last week that foreigners orchestrated election fraud. The latest remarks were sure to further erode an already fragile relationship. During a brief, unannounced visit to Kabul on Monday, Obama urged Karzai to rid his government of its pervasive corruption. (...) >>>

Related articles by Zemanta

• Karzai: US, UN pushing me towards the Taliban (hotair.com)

Apr 5, 2010
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Commentary Magazine: "Taking Tea with the Taliban", by Michael Rubin

Feb. 1, 2010
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A promising approach: Although this might not be a perfect solution, it does show some movement towards stability in some districts which can become ink spots to achieve stability in provinces, and than maybe even expanded to all of Afghanistan. It just might provide the security shield needed. It is certainly better than wasting blood and treasure on "economic and political development" through the central government. Just wondering how long before this effort is undermined by foreign policy establishment and the advocates of "soft power".

NYT: "Afghans Answering the Call to Fight"

Jan. 3, 2010
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Is NATO repeating the mistakes of Bosnia? In the Bosnia campaign the UN was included in the command and control structure and it was an unmitigated disaster, culminating in the sacking of "safe haven" Srebrenica. But this post sounds eerily familiar:

Belmont Club: "Blood red tape"

The NYT featured a guest editorial from a former US Army officer who described possibly the next revolutionary doctrine in military affairs: counterbureaucracy. (...) During Desert Storm, the Air Force had a 72-48 hour OODA Loop. But in the cut and thrust war against terrorism, where targets are fleeting and minutes matter, forty eight hours is no longer a fast enough reaction time for anything. Minutes count.

But minutes are elusive because the campaign in Afghanistan is managed through the convoluted lines of authority of a multinational coalition campaign fought on a joint basis. Here authorizations must cross international, interservice and cross-cultural boundaries with legal processes layered over everything. The wonder isn’t that the Army couldn’t catch this Taliban commander. The wonder is how they can catch anyone at all. (...) >>>
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Politeia: "Road to Nationhood" - Part II: ""On Development Aid, Stability and Unification", by Dr Sam Holliday

The visit of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Afghanistan on 8 December 2009, unfortunately suggests that US policy will not basically change. Or if there is to be a change toward decentralization of power, it was well hidden.

Gates spoke of continued support for Harmid Karzai and the building, training and retention of the security forces controlled by the central government, Afghan Army and the Afghan "National" Police. (...) >>>

Dec. 18, 2009
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Politeia: "Road to Nationhood" - Part I: "Losing the war is not an option", by Arend Jan Boekestijn (original article in Dutch)

Pundits are fond to cite George Orwell lately: the fastest way to end a war is to lose it. Afghanistan has divided the West. We have acted so recklessly that it appeared at times as if losing the war was indeed the object. But it would have dire consequences for Western security.

For those who are taking pleasure in debunking Obama: losing the war in Afghanistan is no option. As long as Europe seeks strength in diversity, appeasement and cashing in on peace divident we shall have to settle for Obama. Defeat is nothing less than an affirmation of the jihadists' view that the decadent West has no staying power. (...) >>>

Dec. 11, 2009
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FEATURE - Der Spiegel is throwing another light in the situation in Afghanistan. Diplomacy is in tatters and Karzai is treated like a governor of an imperial eparchy. The author sees the parties condemned to each other, but in the perspective of deliberate destruction of the war, it makes perfect sense.

Spiegel: "Why America Is Stuck With Karzai", by Susanne Koelbl

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his ally, the United States, are hopelessly at odds, and yet they are condemned to the mutual pursuit of success in Afghanistan. (...) >>>
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The strategy to lose a war: J.D. Longstreet trumps my cynicism. Sad, but here it is. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton put it: "We're no longer in the business of spreading democracy" (as an antidote to terrorism, that vile Neocon doctrine!):

Faultline USA: "Obama Dithers. US Troops Die - “Broken Arrow” for US Troops in Afghanistan?"

Pay close attention over the next few months for you are about to see how Democrats lose a war. History will be made as the world’s only super power, led by a socialist President and a socialist controlled Congress, feed our soldiers into a meat-grinder in order to turn public opinion against the war. As soon as a sufficient percentage of Americans declare their distaste for the war in Afghanistan, Obama will declare the war cannot be won – thus -- creating an excuse to bring US troops home from Afghanistan in defeat and disgrace. So far, Obama has rejected every single option placed before him by the military. (...) >>>

Nov. 16, 2009
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American Diplomacy: "Afghan Federation", by Sam Holliday

Our country needs a strategy for Afghanistan; even though there is no certainty any specific strategy will insure stability in South Asia. Whether General McChrystal gets all or only some of the troops he requested, it may be necessary to modify his counterinsurgency strategy. Therefore, a shift to a federation for Afghanistan should be considered seriously.

Clarity on a strategy is long overdue. It was thought that a strategy for Afghanistan had been determined in March when General McChrystal was selected to be Obama’s military commander in Afghanistan. It was assumed that the president would support Generals McChrystal and Petraeus in their efforts to win what the president had repeatedly called a “war of necessity”.

Yet recent events show there is no clear policy or strategy for Afghanistan. While the White House states that it is still committed to disrupting al-Quada and denying that terrorist organization safe haven in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is confusion on how this is to be accomplished. This confusion has many negative consequences. (...) >>>

Oct. 26, 2009
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"The good war" may soon be the abandoned war ...

Obama interpretes his winning the Nobel Peace Prize as "call to action" ... It fits the Tranzie One World paradigm perfectly to abandon the Afghanistan war. The following narrative is under construction: "we're not fighting Islamic zealots, but freedom fighters; the Taliban is not the main enemy ... Let's go home".

Commentary Magazine Blog: "E.J. Dionne, Then & Now", by Peter Wehner

In his most recent column, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr. reports that at a White House dinner with a group of historians at the beginning of summer, Robert Dallek offered a “chilling comment” to President Obama:

“In my judgment,” he recalls saying, “war kills off great reform movements.” The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that “Dr. New Deal” had given way to “Dr. Win the War.” Korea ended Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to an abrupt halt. . . . Dallek’s point helps explain why Obama is right to have grave qualms about an extended commitment of many more American troops to Afghanistan . Obama was elected not to escalate a war but to end one. The change and hope he promised did not involve a vast new campaign to transform Afghanistan

Dionne goes on to argue against the war not because it will prevent nationalized health care from getting through but because the Afghanistan war might come to define his presidency “more than any victory he wins on health care.” So you can now add Mr. Dionne to the pundits who once thought Afghanistan was the “good war” but now view it as the Inconvenient War. (...) >>>

Oct. 9, 2009
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The dispensible mission: In the last entry in this dossier we concluded that Afghanistan is no longer a priority for the Obama administration. We now know that Gen. McChrystal's report has been gathering dust since August. In the Netherlands a national debate has just concluded that they'll be pulling the plug on the ISAF Uruzgan mission next year, but may be willing to take on another, minor role if Pres. Obama requested it; this much against the wishes of the Left who always deemed the Afghanistan mission as "unethical" as the Iraq War. Obama meanwhile had other priorities. In the following video Roger L. Simon talks to indep. journalist Michael Yon: we're on the brink and the war is now as good as lost.

Update: Just a few days after jotting down this note Dutch Parliament voted to break up camp in Uruzgan at the end of current mission.

PJM: "Michael Yon's Afghanistan Report Card: "We're on the brink..."

Oct. 3, 2009
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No longer a priority ...

Der Spiegel: "'This Is No Longer a War of Necessity'"

Richard Haass, the president of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, talks to SPIEGEL about new approaches to the Afghanistan war, the country's decreasing significance in the war on terror and why Pakistan is more important to American interests. (...) It is fine for generals and civilians to ask for more resources. One of their responsibilities is to speak truth to power if they think they need more resources to accomplish the mission. To do that in public is not appropriate, though. The president deserves to have these issues debated in private.

Whoever leaked General McChrystal's memorandum, acted unfairly and unprofessionally (...) we need to be more confident that doing more militarily in Afghanistan will produce more results. It is not clear that will be the case. Secondly, we need to challenge the assumption that what happens in Afghanistan is critical for the global effort against terrorism. (...) That is not clear either. Even if terrorists were to be denied Afghanistan, they could operate out of other countries. We should also reconsider whether what happens in Afghanistan is essential for the future in Pakistan which, frankly, matters more to the United States. Pakistan's internal dynamics will count for more when it comes to determining Pakistan's trajectory. I believe the president is right to slow down the decision process. (...) >>>

Sept. 28, 2009
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Strategy Page: "Here Is The Plan"

One vital Taliban goal is to convince the rest of the world that Afghanistan is an unsafe place for foreigners. That's nothing new. The region has always been awash in outlaws and bandits. The only law, in most of the country, is tribal custom. And that can change at the whim of whatever strongman is running things in an area you are travelling through.

Running Afghanistan has always been all about getting the tribes to get along. That isn't happening now because several back the Taliban (which draw their manpower from all over the south), and several more back drug lords (and the enormous wealth that goes with that). Most of the tribes are content to back the government, as long as they have something to show for it. Everyone wants to get paid (...) >>>

Sept. 25, 2009
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The comprehensive, 'regional' Afghanistan Conference is kicking off in The Hague. In attendance are over 70 countries (including Iran) and NGOs. According to the Dutch Foreign Minister the idea is to shift the responsibility from the US to the UN. The strategy: parley with the 'moderate Taliban'. That's right! Throw the victims under the bus ...

World Security Network: "White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan"

It is our pleasure to provide you with the new White Paper of the White House Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, presented by U.S. President Barack Obama on March 27, 2009 with a fresh new approach towards Afghanistan and Pakistan - now called AfPak - which is in line with many of the recommendations of the World Security Network Foundation for FATA, Pakistan and Afghanistan as promoted for many years (see our newsletters below). (...) >>>

Mar 30, 2009

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Weekly Std: "Yes, We Can - In the 'graveyard of empires,' we are fighting a war we can win", by Max Boot, Frederick Kagan, and Kimberly Kagan

If you believe the headlines, Afghanistan is "the graveyard of empires," a "quagmire" and a "fiasco," the place where President Barack Obama will meet his "Vietnam." In the media's imagination, the Taliban are on the march, and Kabul is on the verge of falling to a resurgent insurgency that already controls much of the countryside. Increasing numbers of voices, on both the left and the right, counsel that the war is unwinnable and that we need to radically "downsize" our objectives in order to salvage something from a failing war effort lest we go the way of the Russians or British, previous conquerors who foundered in this merciless land of violence and fanaticism. (...) >>>

Mar 17, 2009
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Nat'l Review: "Planning Victory in Afghanistan - Nine principles the Obama administration should follow", by Frederick W. Kagan - FEATURE

(...) Afghanistan is in many respects harder to understand than Iraq was. Even with a good strategy and sufficient resources, success will almost certainly come much more slowly. But as a great man said two years ago, hard is not hopeless. The keys to finding the right approach lie in nine fundamental principles. (...)

1. UNDERSTAND WHY WE’RE THERE
2. KNOW WHAT WE HAVE TO ACHIEVE
3. UNDERSTAND OUR ENEMIES AND FRIENDS

Read it all >>>

Feb 10, 2009
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Times Online: "Obama puts brake on Afghan surge"
President Barack Obama has demanded that American defence chiefs review their strategy in Afghanistan before going ahead with a troop surge. T here is concern among senior Democrats that the military is preparing to send up to 30,000 extra troops without a coherent plan or exit strategy. (...) Obama promised an extra 7,000-10,000 troops during the election campaign but the military has inflated its demands. Leading Democrats fear Afghanistan could become Obama’s “Vietnam quagmire”. If the surge goes ahead the military intend to limit the mission to fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and leave democracy building and reconstruction to Nato allies and civilians from the State Department and other agencies. The United States has been pushing Britain to send several thousand more troops but there is just as much disagreement and confusion among British defence chiefs over the long-term aim. Gordon Brown is set to receive a full briefing this week.(...) >>>

Feb 8, 2009
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Related:

- Steven Pressfield Blog: "War and Reality in Afghanistan"

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