Sunday, September 13, 2015

The lives of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to Europe, part of the millions in the Middle East and Africa made uninhabitable by war stoked or created by the meddling of Western governments led by the United States

14 Years after 9/11, US, Israel Tempted to ally with Al-Qaeda in Syria



By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
The Jabhat al-Nusra or Support Front is one of the major rebel groups in Syria, holding extensive territory in the hinterland of cities like Homs and Aleppo and in the province of Idlib. The Support Front is just al-Qaeda. It has announced allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of . . . al-Qaeda and one of the figures who planned out and helped implement 9/11 (al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician from an elite family in Ma’adi, Cairo, was Bin Laden’s number 2 and is now number 1.)
The terrible thing is that the Support Front, unlike core al-Qaeda, has actually managed to take territory and is ruling parts of Syria as a mini-state.
So the Support Front of Syria would be America’s worst enemy, right? The US military and the CIA would be plotting its demise? Staunch American allies like Israel are joining in the effort to destroy it, correct?
Not so much.
The US is heavily and regularly bombing Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), itself an offshoot of al-Qaeda. But strikes against al-Qaeda in Syria are rare.
Israel appears to be de facto allied with the Support Front in the Golan Heights against Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbullah and against the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad. Israel has been bringing wounded al-Qaeda warriors over to Israeli hospitals for treatment, a policy that provoked a riot by Israeli Druze in the Occupied Golan (al-Qaeda has targeted Druze populations, which it considers heretics.)
In Idlib Province and around Aleppo, the far right but less radical Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of Syria) rebel militia has made some advances against al-Assad’s troops. Its representative argued in an NYT op-ed that the US should support the Free Men of Syria. But they don’t believe in democracy and would like to erect a Taliban-style state in Syria.
That set of values might give Washington pause about an alliance. But it gets worse. The Free Men of Syria are actively and genially allied with al-Qaeda.
Maybe I’m just funny that way, but I object to allying with allies of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans in a single day.
Amazingly, a US joint effort alongside al-Qaeda doesn’t seem out of the question. Former general and former CIA director David Petraeus advocates wooing the Support Front away from their allegiance to al-Zawahiri and then deploying them against Daesh. This policy would be a repeat of what Petraeus and other generals did in Baghdad and al-Anbar Province in 2007, getting Sunnis to turn on al-Qaeda and fight against it. But Iraq’s Shiite government never forgave the “Sons of Iraq” for having previously been al-Qaeda, and it prosecuted some of them after Petraeus left. Others it just left twisting in the wind, so that they were executed by their former al-Qaeda colleagues.
Nor would a US-al-Qaeda alliance on the ground be unprecedented.
The first American alliance with al-Qaeda came in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration deployed the Mujahidin or holy warriors of Afghanistan against the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and its Soviet patron. US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, supporting this anti-Communist jihad, released their radicals to Peshawar in Pakistan as support for the Mujahidin, a development that was fine with the United States.
The American support for radical Muslims against the left seems foolish for two reasons decades later. First of all, it was unnecessary. The Reagan jihad was launched on the eve of the collapse of the East Bloc and of the Soviet Union. Contrary to what right wing pundits allege, the Reagan covert war against the Soviets had nothing to do with the latter’s fall. Military spending in Moscow’s annual budget was flat in the 1980s. Reagan did not bankrupt the commissars via the Mujahidin. The other development that makes this strategy appear foolish in retrospect was the September 11, 2001, attacks themselves, carried out at the orders of Usama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders who previously had been allies of the US-backed Mujahidin. Encouraging Muslims to radicalize was foolish because it was like pulling the pin on a grenade and then just sitting on it.
It is heresy to say so in hyper-capitalist Trumpland, but everybody might have been better off if Reagan had just left the Communists in Afghanistan alone. We don’t usually hear dire things from Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan would likely have evolved in similar directions. Instead, the Mujahidin took over and then some morphed into Taliban, who hosted al-Qaeda. Kazakhstan is hardly paradise but compared to Afghanistan today it is a kind of heaven.
Because of the 3,000 dead, I can’t accept a US alliance with al-Qaeda in Syria or with groups like Ahrar al-Sham that in turn are allied with al-Qaeda. You can’t suck up to Ayman al-Zawahiri and then get close US air support in your battles. On the other hand, Bashar al-Assad has been dropping barrel bombs on kindergartens and has tortured thousands of political prisoners to death. He can’t be allowed to remain in power.
The US needs to work with Iran, Russia and China to convince the Baath Party high officials to dump Bashar al-Assad and then to go to national elections for a pluralist parliament and a new form of provincial federal decentralization. The Baath Party has already lost 60% of the land area of the country and over a third of the population. If it goes on like this with war criminality, it will lose everything, and al-Qaeda will pick up the pieces. If hard ball diplomacy and trading of horses has to be done, it should be done with Moscow and Tehran, not with al-Qaeda. Another 1980s style American jihad has the potential to create another 9/11, which I’m not sure our democracy can survive.
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Related video added by Juan Cole:

115 comments:

  1. WORTH REPEATING

    Another 1980s style American jihad has the potential to create another 9/11, which I’m not sure our democracy can survive.

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  2. BREAKING


    Agence France Press Arabic says that Cypriot officials are reporting that Russia has asked them to alter airline routes this coming week because it is planning naval military maneuvers off the Syrian coast near its leased naval base, Tartous.

    The maneuvers are called “routine” by Moscow but come at a time of heightened American, European and Israeli concern about increased Russian military backing and aid for the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

    Another Arabic news agency writes that the maneuvers will involve the firing of missiles.

    There are also reports that Russia is preparing to send a new anti-aircraft system to Syria, the SA-22, which will be operated by Russian troops.

    The necessity of such new weapons deliveries and Russian reinforcements has suggested to some, including President Obama, that Russia’s previous strategy in Syria is failing.

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    1. The developments come on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, to be attended by Russian president Vladimir Putin for the first time in many years. There is speculation that there may be some diplomacy over the Syria issue at the UNGA.

      The German government says it fears that Russia is doubling down on a military strategy to win in Syria, which cannot possibly succeed. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote in the NYT this week:
      “It would be folly to continue betting on a military solution . . . Now is the time to find a way to bring the parties to the negotiating table. This must include preparatory talks with and among crucial regional actors like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but also Iran.”
      Steinmeier had hoped that the UNSC nuclear deal with Iran would open the door to negotiations about Syria as well but fears that opportunity is receding.

      German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that while Germany needs to work with the US to resolve the Syrian crisis, it likewise needs to work with Russia.

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    2. Because of their generous welcome of Syrian asylum seekers, German officials appear to be alarmed at the prospect that Russian aid to the Baath regime in Syria will detract from its willingness to negotiate with the rebels and so will prolong the civil war, lengthening the refugee crisis as well.

      Among those worried about a Russian build-up in Syria are the Israelis. Here is Yediot Aharanot via BBC Monitoring:

      “While the USA has restricted its military involvement in Syria to aerial activities Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has confirmed that Moscow has been sending military equipment and not just humanitarian assistance. Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said on 10 September that Moscow is supplying the Syrian army with small arms, grenade launchers, advanced BTR-82A armoured personnel carriers and Kamaz military trucks.

      “A senior security source revealed yesterday that in addition to the Russian army forces coming to fight alongside Asad, Iran also has begun implementing its part of the deal. In the first stage a few hundred regular fighters of the Revolutionary Guard arrived in Syria to fight alongside Hezbollah against the rebels in the military camps area at Zabadani… The Russians and the Iranians claim that their military involvement in Syria is part of the effort to check ISIS. But the Russian army efforts in coordination with the Iranian Al-Quds force go much further and are directed in two channels. First, gathering the disintegrating Syrian units, arming them and putting them in training regime with the assistance of Russian and Iranian military advisers to enable them to fight effectively… Second, Russian aerial forces that would replace the Syrian air force and assist Asad’s land forces… While the Americans are content with talk and symbolic aerial activities, the Russians and the Iranians have decided to act and preserve by force their interests in the Middle East…” [From commentary by Alex Fishman in centrist, mass circulation Yediot Aharonot]”

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    3. BOTTOM LINE

      Both Germany and Israel appear worried that the Obama administration is not serious about ending the Syrian fighting.

      http://www.juancole.com/2015/09/conducts-maneuvers-tartous.html

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  3. The absurdity of the Israelis and US thinking that they can control al Qaeda and Isis groups is FUBAR. Take a look at the upper right photo of Reagan and his White House guests. That resulted in the 911 attack on the US.

    Russia, China and Iran are rational players. If you are interested in stability, you deal with them. If you are interested in empire and the preposterous notion that Israel is a useful ally, expect more of the same and worse.

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  4. Nothing has corroded US liberties and rotted our democracy more than our obsession with Israel, dependence on oil and meddling in the ME. Nothing else has come close. It has been a ruinous experience and has provided the average US citizen less than nothing. The worst part is that we have probably not seen the worse part.

    REALITY CHECK

    China, Russia and Iran are going to survive. The way things are moving in the ME, Saudi Arabia will not, nor in the long run will a belligerent fortress apartheid Israel. The Neocons thought it was in Israel’s interest to promote instability. The US government, controlled by the Neocons in the Bush Administration committed the US to the greatest diplomatic and military folly in our lifetime. The end results may even be worse. When you keep losing, decade after decade, you better check and revamp.

    Pragmatism dictates that ISIS must be destroyed and stability restored to the ME. An understanding between the US, EU, Russia, China and Iran has a chance of working where all else has failed. The increasingly moronic GOP believes that the answer is more of the same plus providing Israel with F35, B52 and bunker buster bomb systems. The experience of the past fifty years says otherwise.

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  5. NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE FAILURE

    Let’s take a moment to consider failure and its options in Washington. The U.S. has been warring with the Islamic State (IS) for more than a year now. The centerpiece of that war has been an ongoing campaign of bombings and air strikes in Syria and Iraq, thousands upon thousands of them. The military claims that these have resulted in death tolls high enough to stagger any movement. In Iraq, the Obama administration has also launched a major effort, involving at least 3,400 military personnel, to retrain the American-created Iraqi army that essentially collapsed in June 2014. Impending offensives to retake key IS-held cities are regularly announced. In addition, in Syria there is an ongoing $500 million Pentagon effort to find and train a force of “moderate” Syrian rebels to battle IS militants. Despite such efforts, reports now suggest that the Islamic State is at least as strong now as it was when the U.S. intervened in August 2014. If anything, from Turkish border areas to al-Anbar Province in Iraq, it has expanded its holdings. Only recently, its fighters even began to move into the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

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    1. In an era when there has been failure aplenty for the U.S. military, disappointing results like these have become the new norm across the Greater Middle East and Africa, which undoubtedly breeds frustration in Washington.

      There have been at least four types of responses to such failures. The first -- a more-of-the-same approach -- has involved simply stumbling along in Washington's fog of ignorance when it comes to strange peoples in far off lands. In recent weeks, for instance, an agreement was reached with Turkey to allow U.S. planes access to two key Turkish air bases to attack the Islamic State, while the government of President Recep Erdogan pledged to join the struggle as well. In reality, however, what the Obama administration evidently green-lighted were Turkish air strikes not against IS militants but their own Kurdish rebels with whom they had a fragile truce and who are linked to just about the only effective force the U.S. has found to fight IS, Syrian Kurds. In other words, an additional element of chaos was introduced to the region.

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    2. As one wag put it, by attacking the Kurds, the Turks provided the Islamic State with something it previously lacked: an air force.

      To add insult to injury: according to McClatchy, Turkish intelligence tipped off the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front that the U.S. was about to insert in Syria a tiny group of 54 “moderate” Syrians the Pentagon had vetted from 7,000 applicants and spent a fortune training. Al-Nusra's fighters essentially wiped the unit out on the spot. Talk about a cornucopia of failure!

      The Obama administration’s frustration over its inability to even dent the Islamic State has led to another version of more-of-the-same. It has now loosed drones from the CIA and U.S. special operations command in an assassination campaign against the IS leadership, the latest version of what Andrew Cockburn has dubbed “the kingpin strategy.” Elsewhere this approach has tended to strengthen, not weaken, extremist movements and make them even more brutal.

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    3. As for the second response to failure, call it the “more-plus” approach or finding something spectacularly dumb to do.

      The most recent example: former surge general, CIA director, and state secrets sharer David Petraeus, a man with a certain following in Washington, has been privately urging the administration that vetted 7,000 Syrians and could hardly find a “moderate” among them to cleave off and arm supposedly “moderate” elements in the al-Nusra Front to fight IS. This proposal instantly joins the ranks of Washington’s what-could-possibly-go-wrong schemes.

      And here's a third response to failure, reported just a couple of weeks ago: military officials moved to staunch the bad news from Syria in the simplest way possible. They evidently altered their intelligence assessments or pressured “terror analysts” under them to do the same in order to provide “a more optimistic account of progress” in the war against IS. The Pentagon’s inspector general is now investigating this possible good-news scam by officials of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the air campaign against the Islamic State. Consider this the equivalent of Senator George Aiken’s supposed suggestion during the Vietnam War that the U.S. should simply declare victory and go home. In this case, however, you establish success in the easiest way possible and then stick around to pursue responses one and two.

      A fourth response, as Nick Turse suggests today in his remarkable continuing coverage of the U.S. military’s “pivot” to Africa, is simply to embrace failure wholeheartedly. Counterintuitive as it might seem, this approach couldn’t be more sensible from the Pentagon's point of view. After all, in our present American world, military failures only ensure that, as things worsen eternally, the U.S. military will be called on ever more, not less, which means more, not less, of everything for you-know-who.

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    4. Our “most important ally” has no means, no incentive and no intention of helping the US settle this problem. Saying that Israel is useless is being kind. It is harmful to US interests and has been so for decades. What is an ally? Whatever it is, Israel isn’t.

      The US has grave responsibilities in the ME because of the disastrous consequences of our meddling and military catastrophic failures. Imagine an automobile manufacturer that produced model after model that crashed and burned or an airplane manufacturer that could not keep a plane in the sky. That is what has come out of Washington and the Pentagon.

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    5. And our very own WiO wrote that if the Iranians have sent forces in to fight ISIS that:

      "
      I hope that each and everyone of the Iranians are captured and executed by ISIS."

      WiO stands with ISIS

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  6. Great article on the Fed and monetary policy at nytimes.com. it'll make quirks head explode:

    "Instead, the Fed will pay banks tens of billions of dollars not to use the trillions it paid them previously."

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/business/economy/the-feds-policy-mechanics-retool-for-a-rise-in-interest-rates.html

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  7. Someone will have to explain to me why the Treasury does not allow states to issue federal currency in amounts equal to approved fee generating infrastructure projects. Pay the contractors and suppliers with that currency and over the depreciable life of the project withdraw the currency from circulation. It would create jobs, income and taxes without the debt.

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    1. Don't they call those bonds? Munii bonds are issued at the city level for infrastructure - don't US States do that as well?

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  8. Yes, but they sell the bonds and the bonds pay interest. I am proposing no bonds. I want the states to be given authority to issue currency to a specific project backed by the Treasury. ( No Gresham’s law problem) Only the serial numbering would identify the project. The “new money” is used to pay the contractors and suppliers of the project. Almost all of it would work its way into ordinary income for jobs. The money would be spent local and the multiplier effect would increase tax revenues. The discipline is that it cannot be used for debt payment, retirement programs, social spending, operating expenses or debt funding.

    For example: Ten states want to build a trucks only highway using driverless technology. The cost of the project is $50 billion and 5 years to complete (The New Jersey Turnpike was completed in less than 2 years). Assume level funding to contractors and suppliers or $10 billion per year, which would not be attached to a bond obligation. Assume there is a 20 year amortization of the completed project based on the free cash flow from fees from the trucking companies, $2.5 billion per year. The Treasury would withdraw that amount of currency from circulation every year until it was repaid.

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    1. I don' know, Deuce; what happens when you start trying to "withdraw" that money?


      talk about your "boom and bust" cycle :)

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    2. I will be tied into the depreciation of the asset. The residual value stays with the project owners but new investments should more than offset the withdrawn currency.

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    3. A hôpital is a prime example. They rarely ever stop investing.

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    4. Local economies and labor would benefit the most.

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    5. I see, print new money to pay for it. Rufus (why such an odd new name old boy?) has a good point regarding 'mopping up' though that article I linked above shows innovative thinking towards reversing the printing press.

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    6. The project must create fees that meet or exceed the cost of the project and the project must be in the state that issues the currency.

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    7. Unfortunately I am over my ten articles on the NY Times. That is one of the few papers that I still get at the office. Ill read it tomorrow.

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    8. My basketball team nicknamed me, "The Galloper."

      I'll leave it to you to guess, why. :)

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    9. Use a different browser for more articles deuce.

      Why abandon Rufus? Not the boobie syndrome I hope?

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    10. Ah, you are trying to shed your flawed past predictions. Good luck with that ;)

      Damn, 25k headcutters in pickup trucks are defying Rufus odds making.

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  9. Obviously, you cannot outstrip the production capacity of the supporting industry but there is a built in control mechanism in that the currency is only released as real activity and production is created by the project.

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    1. Which doubles down on the inflationary pressure.

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    2. Not necessarily, but there needs to be a mechanism that keeps the federal politicians out of it.

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    3. Bypassing the banks, Wall Street, foreign lenders, The Pentagon and federal lobbyists has its own merits. Wages will rise but financing costs will not.

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    4. We need decent paying jobs to adjust income to those that cannot live on what they make except by federal and state subsidies.
      Such a plan would distribute the demand to local communities. There could be a political agreement amongst the states as to the absolute number of projects per any period of time.

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    5. Economists could predict the existing capacity of various supporting industries. Likewise the project must support the currency withdrawal within the depreciation schedule of the project. The absolute values are not important. The sustainable fee and withdrawal schedule is the restricting force.

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    6. I like the idea of bypassing the private finance sector but I fail to see how federal politicians would be kept out. The whole process (I. E. What project gets funded) is necessarily political. I doubt state politicians are more virtuous than federal.

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  10. "Rufus (why such an odd new name old boy?) has a good point regarding 'mopping up' though that article I linked above shows innovative thinking towards reversing the printing press."

    Finally ! A comment of some interest, and by Ashit of all people.

    I have wondered the same.

    .......................

    Another view of the myth of the CIA overthrowing the duly elected leader of Iran back in the day......




    Latest Archive Account Myths of Mossadegh Share article on Facebook share Tweet article tweet Plus one article on Google Plus +1 Print Article Email article Adjust font size AA by Amir Taheri June 25, 2012, Issue Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup, by Christopher de Bellaigue (Harper, 300 pp., $27.99) For decades, the debate on Iran in the United States has been dominated by a legend in which an elderly aristocrat plays the central role. The legend is that in August 1953, a couple of CIA operatives organized a coup d’état that toppled a democratically elected government and paved the way for the seizure of power by the mullahs 26 years later. The hero of the legend is one Muhammad Mossadegh, who had been appointed prime minister by the shah for a second time in 1952. The legend was born almost a decade after the events, when the CIA, its reputation in tatters after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, was desperately looking for some success story. Since dozens of books have already been written on it, one might wonder why Christopher de Bellaigue, a British journalist, thought it necessary to offer yet another. The answer is that the legend fails to fade away. Right now, it is cited by Obama-administration officials to justify the policy of a “stretched hand of friendship” toward the mullahs in Tehran. De Bellaigue blames the “tragedy” on Republicans who were in power in Washington at the time of the coup: specifically, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers. Under the Republicans, “fair play had gone by the board at home, where Senator Joseph McCarthy was directing a persecution of suspected Communists,” and Eisenhower’s team had concluded that “it was a good moment for a muscular assertion of American values abroad.”

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    1. The president and the Dulles brothers not only plotted against Mossadegh but also organized a propaganda campaign in Iran “to blacken the [Tudeh’s] name by showing that it was a creature of the Soviets.” (The Tudeh was Iran’s Communist party, which, according to its own leaders, was founded by Moscow in 1941 and controlled by the KGB to the very end.) The point man for the coup was Kermit Roosevelt, who, if de Bellaigue is to be believed, was a genius in black arts: He arrived in Tehran on July 19 and overthrew Mossadegh just a month later. To assist him, the CIA had a few assets, including New York Times reporter Kenneth Love and an obscure UPI stringer of Iranian origin. De Bellaigue’s anger is not directed only at the Republicans in Washington: Mossadegh’s Iranian opponents also get a thorough thrashing. While Mossadegh’s supporters are described as “the people,” his opponents are labeled “slum-dwellers.” Our author simply cannot imagine that at least some ordinary Iranians might have disliked Mossadegh. Only “goons” and “mobsters” marched against him. When they burn buildings and shops, Mossadegh’s supporters are merely “showing popular anger.” But when Mossadegh’s opponents do the same thing, de Bellaigue calls their action “sedition.” But what about the underlying truth of the matter?

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    2. In fact, the Mossadegh legend is full of holes. Let’s start with the claim that, prior to the supposed CIA intervention, Iran had been a democracy. The truth is that Iran was not a democracy but a constitutional monarchy in which the king, known as the shah, wielded immense power, including the right to appoint and dismiss the prime minister. By 1953, the shah, who had acceded to the throne in 1941, had appointed and dismissed ten prime ministers, among them Mossadegh. Between 1953 and 1979, when he left for exile, he was to appoint twelve more. None of those changes of prime minister was described as a coup d’état, because, fully constitutional, they did not alter the substance or the form of Iran as a nation-state. Even Mossadegh himself never challenged the shah’s right to dismiss him as prime minister: During his trial, he claimed that he had initially doubted the authenticity of the shah’s edict dismissing him. Nor did Mossadegh himself claim that the Americans had played a role in ending his tenure as prime minister. De Bellaigue is at pains to portray Mossadegh as — in the words of the jacket copy — “one of the first liberals of the Middle East, a man whose conception of liberty was as sophisticated as any in Europe or America.” But the trouble is, there is nothing in Mossadegh’s career — spanning half a century, as provincial governor, cabinet minister, and finally prime minister — to portray him as even remotely a lover of liberty. De Bellaigue quotes Mossadegh as saying that a trusted leader is “that person whose every word is accepted and followed by the people.” To which de Bellaigue adds: “His understanding of democracy would always be coloured by traditional ideas of Muslim leadership, whereby the community chooses a man of outstanding virtue and follows him wherever he takes them.”

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    3. Word for word, that could have been the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s definition of a true leader. Mossadegh also made a habit of appearing in his street meetings with a copy of the Koran in hand. According to de Bellaigue, Mossadegh liked to say that “anyone forgetting Islam is base and dishonourable, and should be killed.” During his premiership, Mossadegh demonstrated his dictatorial tendency to the full: Not once did he hold a full meeting of the council of ministers, ignoring the constitutional rule of collective responsibility. He dissolved the senate, the second chamber of the Iranian parliament, and shut down the Majlis, the lower house. He suspended a general election before all the seats had been decided and chose to rule with absolute power. He disbanded the high council of national currency and dismissed the supreme court. During much of his tenure, Tehran lived under a curfew while hundreds of his opponents were imprisoned. Toward the end of his premiership, almost all of his friends and allies had broken with him. Some even wrote to the secretary general of the United Nations to intervene to end Mossadegh’s dictatorship. But was Mossadegh a man of the people, as de Bellaigue portrays him? Again, the author’s own account provides a different picture.

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    4. A landowning prince and the great-great-grandson of a Qajar king, Mossadegh belonged to the so-called thousand families who owned Iran. He and all his children were able to undertake expensive studies in Switzerland and France. The children had French nannies and, when they fell sick, were sent to Paris or Geneva for treatment. (De Bellaigue even insinuates that Mossadegh might have had a French sweetheart, although that is improbable.) On the one occasion when Mossadegh was sent to internal exile, he took with him a whole retinue, including his cook. Dean Acheson described Mossadegh as “a rich, reactionary, feudal-minded Persian inspired by a fanatical hatred of the British.” But even his supposed hatred of the British is open to question: His uncle Farmanfarma was Britain’s principal ally in Iran for almost four decades. In his memoirs, Mossadegh says that during his first posting, when he was governor of the province of Fars, he and the British consul “worked hand in hand like brothers.” As a model of patriotism, too, Mossadegh is unconvincing. According to his own memoirs, at the end of his law studies in Switzerland, he had decided to stay there and acquire Swiss citizenship. He changed his mind when he was told that he would have to wait ten years for that privilege. At the same time, Farmanfarma secured a “good post” for him in Iran, tempting him back home. De Bellaigue tries to portray the 1951–53 drama in Iran as a clash of British colonialism and Iranian nationalism. That claim, too, is hard to sustain. Iran was never a British colony. The Anglo-Iranian oil company was present in five remote localities, which did not amount to even half of 1 percent of the country’s territory, in one of Iran’s provinces. At its peak the company employed 118 British nationals. Thus the overwhelming majority of Iranians had never seen a single Brit in their lives. Sadly, de Bellaigue seems to know nothing of the hundreds of books and thousands of essays that provide the Iranian narrative of these events. The assumption is that, mere objects in their own history, Iranians cannot offer a valid narrative. It seems that, in the writing of history, scholarly imperialism comes in two versions. In the first, an arrogant “white world” boasts about its historic mission to civilize “the natives,” and takes credit for whatever is good in the world. In the second, the “guilt version,” the “white world” is portrayed as the aggressor and thus responsible for whatever disaster happens to “the natives.” Both of these versions assume that, on their own, “the natives” cannot accomplish anything, right or wrong. The imperialism of arrogance and de Bellaigue’s imperialism of guilt are two faces of the same coin. – Mr. Taheri is an Iranian-born journalist based in Europe and the author of The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution.

      Read more at: https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/302213/myths-mossadegh

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    5. 'The left' - represented on these pages best by Ash, Deuce, the ever present Juan Cole, the main contributor here, to some extent Quirk, and other useful idiots like Rufus - lives by myths and memes and a myth or meme that pleases ones own inner inclinations is very hard to overcome.



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    6. NATIONAL REVIEW

      Lowry joined William F. Buckley's National Review, after finishing second in the magazine's young writer's contest. In the summer of 1994, he became the articles editor for National Review and moved to Washington DC to cover Congress In November 1997, Lowry became editor of National Review at the age of 29, taking over from John O'Sullivan who succeeded Buckley in that position ten years earlier. At the time, Buckley said of Lowry, “I am very confident that I've got a very good person."

      As a political commentator, he regularly appears on the Fox News Channel and has guest-hosted on Hannity.


      Lowry has written two non-fiction books. His New York Times best-selling book, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years[is a polemic about President Bill Clinton, whom he deprecates as "Navel-Gazer-in-Chief. In 2009, Lowry and Keith Korman wrote Banquo's Ghosts, a political thriller. The plot revolves around a nuclear-armed Iran and an inebriated leftist journalist.

      Lowry frequently speaks on the topics of American exceptionalism and the future of the Republican Party. He lives in New York City.

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  11. After this it's work time for me, a never retired, but tired guy, and on a Sunday too (Boosting the Vandals is exhausting) -

    September 13, 2015
    The Real Purpose of the Nuclear Deal: Support Iran and Stick It to Israel
    By Ira Brodsky

    The purpose of the Iran nuclear deal isn't to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons technology – it's to assist Iran and prevent an Israeli military attack. The deal promises to help Iran modernize and protect its nuclear program while making it harder for Israel to disrupt the program through military means or sabotage.

    This isn't a "bad deal," as many keep saying -- it's a dramatic shift in U.S. policy in favor of totalitarian Iran at the expense of democratic Israel. Leftists love authoritarian regimes that are virulently anti-American.

    Far from restraining Iran, the deal cooked up by Barack Obama, John Kerry, and the U.S. negotiating team may be everything the ayatollah could have wished for. By the White House's own admission, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action merely extends Iran's "breakout time" to a bomb from the current 2-3 months to at least 12 months. However, that's assuming that Iran does not cheat.

    The deal creates real obstacles to an Israeli military strike. After months of arduous negotiations, any Israeli military strike against Iran now would be seen as an act in defiance of the so-called P5+1 nations: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. Israel would be condemned as a rogue state while Iran would be praised for cooperating. At a minimum, the P5+1 nations would respond to an attack by helping Iran rebuild and by considering retaliatory sanctions against Israel.

    Clearly, the Iran nuclear deal's architects trust Iran. The deal calls for the P5+1 to help Iran modernize its nuclear facilities, improve its processes and procedures, and train its personnel. For example, Annex I specifies the creation of a working group to help Iran redesign and rebuild the Arak reactor and "subsidiary laboratories." This will no doubt require P5+1 scientists and technicians to make frequent visits and even work onsite for extended periods, another element of the deal that will deter Israel from attacking. In fact, the deal practically transforms Iran's rogue nuclear program into a joint development project.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Iran nuclear deal also calls for helping Iran enhance its nuclear research and development capabilities and defend its nuclear program against security threats such as sabotage. This includes helping to train what could be the next generation of Iranian nuclear experts.

      Section 10.2 of Annex III could not be more explicit:

      Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran's ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.

      Clearly, the Iran nuclear deal's architects do not trust Israel.

      Why they support Iran

      To understand how a U.S. administration could engineer a nuclear deal that rewards Iran and punishes Israel, it helps to understand the mindset of arms control experts. Most identify themselves as progressives. They tend to believe that all wars are avoidable: you just need really smart leaders who are sympathetic to the other side's grievances, are willing to consider any compromise, and believe that the right words on paper can turn any foreign adversary into an ally.

      Likewise, many arms control experts believe that Iran – the very same country that supports terrorism, denies the Holocaust, intervenes in other nations through armed proxies, and leads crowds in chants of "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" – can be enticed by the right deal to rejoin the community nations.

      Meanwhile, the deal's supporters ignore the fact that the Iranian regime has imprisoned three U.S. citizens and a Washington Post journalist with dual American-Iranian citizenship on trumped up charges. Iran knows that it has only to accuse prisoners of espionage to win the sympathy of leftists in the U.S. and Europe. That charge resonates with people who promote the myth that the U.S. overthrew Iran's popular government in the early 1950s.

      Many progressives believe that Iran's hostility to the U.S. is totally justified. They cite the alleged CIA-engineered coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953. However, they have their facts wrong, as explained here by Iranian journalist Amir Taheri. Iran was a constitutional monarchy at the time, and Mosaddegh was appointed Prime Minister in 1951 by the Shah, who came to power ten years earlier. Among other things, Mosaddegh dissolved one chamber of the Iranian parliament, shut down the other, and halted an election. He was dismissed from office by the Shah – not overthrown in a coup.

      Contempt for anyone who opposes the deal

      Delete
    2. Supporters of the Iran nuclear deal have little if any sympathy for Israel. Some arms control experts politely argue that Israel's refusal to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) makes it harder to stop Iran from acquiring nukes. Others join with Israel's enemies in demanding that Israel be forced to submit to anytime-anywhere nuclear inspections.

      Supporters of the deal are quick to dismiss reports that Iran is being allowed to conduct self-inspections. And yet Max Fisher's article in Vox World, "The AP's controversial and badly flawed Iran inspections story, explained," does nothing to disprove the accusation. In fact, Fisher's real gripe seems to be that the AP disclosed something that he and other supporters of the deal would rather hush up:

      … this is all over a mild and widely anticipated compromise on a single set of inspections to a single, long-dormant site. The AP, deliberately or not, has distorted that into something that sounds much worse, but actually isn't. The whole incident is a fascinating, if disturbing, example of how misleading reporting on technical issues can play into the politics of foreign policy.

      If you trudge through the entire article, you will find that the deal does in fact allow Iran to conduct self-inspections, but Fisher insists that it's nothing to worry about, because it's only one site (that we know of), no one has actually seen the final secret agreement, and both the IAEA and three people whom Fisher reverently refers to as "arms control experts" say it's OK. Fisher admits that the details might seem alarming to a layperson, but he reminds readers that "[n]o country likes foreign inspectors sniffing around a sensitive military complex."

      It's hard not to notice that while many of the deal's supporters are reluctant to criticize either Iran or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, they exhibit no such restraint toward opponents of the deal. For example, "arms control expert" Jeffrey Lewis begins his article, "Chuck Schumer's Disingenuous Iran Deal Argument" in Foreign Policy, with a series of childish ad hominem attacks. First, he dismisses the U.S. Constitution's requirement that all foreign treaties be approved by the Senate with a gratuitous shot at Dick Cheney:

      Delete
    3. At the risk of out-Dicking former Vice President Cheney himself on the subject of executive authority, Congress is a "branch of government" in precisely the same way that college basketball fans are a "sixth man." We don't let fans call plays, other than as some kind of preseason stunt. I am not particularly interested in congressional views about the Iran deal.

      He then unloads on Schumer for opposing the Iran deal:

      Schumer is one of the most powerful members of the Senate, which is not quite the same thing as saying he's dignified. Back in the 1990s, when he was a congressman, his House colleagues had a phrase for waking up to find he'd upstaged them in the media: to be "Schumed."

      Next he quotes Jon Corzine on Schumer just to add a touch of vulgarity:

      Sharing a media market with Chuck Schumer is like sharing a banana with a monkey. Take a little bite of it, and he will throw his own feces at you.

      When Lewis finally gets around to discussing the Iran deal, he takes Schumer to task for saying, "[T]he 24-day delay before we can inspect is troubling." Lewis explains that there isn't a mandatory 24-day delay before inspections start, but Iran has the option of delaying an inspection up to 24 days. Lewis suggests we should be grateful that the deal's framers had the wisdom to place limits on Iranian stalling. "This arrangement is much, much stronger than the normal safeguards agreement."

      President Obama is also reluctant to criticize Iran – but is happy to level false charges against the deal's opponents. When Iranians took to the streets to protest fraudulent elections in 2009, President Obama resisted pressure for several days to criticize Iran's government. When he finally did criticize Iran, he quickly reassured the Iranian regime that he had no intention of meddling in their affairs. And yet he has the audacity to accuse others of making common cause with Iran's "hardliners."

      The Obama administration has been eager from the start to make friends with the dictators in Iran and Cuba. And the administration couldn't care less about where that leaves millions of Israelis.

      Ira Brodsky is a writer and technology consultant based in the Midwest.


      Delete
    4. Ira Brodsky - American Thinker. Case closed.

      Delete
    5. SO if you don't like the messenger you ignore the message?

      Delete
  12. AshSun Sep 13, 08:09:00 AM EDT
    And our very own WiO wrote that if the Iranians have sent forces in to fight ISIS that:

    "
    I hope that each and everyone of the Iranians are captured and executed by ISIS."

    WiO stands with ISIS

    Love the cut and paste ash.


    I want isis to kill the iranians. I want the iranians to kill isis..


    Can you now renounce Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran?

    Ash don't take my positions out of context, it makes you look smaller than you are, which is quite tiny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I stand for dead jihadists, do you Ash?

      Can you say clearly that you do not support terrorists that Canada and the USA id?

      We are listening and waiting for your response...

      Delete
    2. You said nothing about Iranians killing ISIS you solidly stood with ISIS only. Have you changed your stance now?

      One thing is abundantly clear WiO - you have a perverted lust for seeing people killed, by the thousands. You are one sick puppy.

      Delete
    3. Ash, once again you punt and don't answer the query.

      I again, repeat, I hope the Iranian Storm Troopers are captured and killed by ISIS.

      As I have often said.

      ISIS are savages as are the Assad's forces and Hezbollah.

      May they both die.

      "One thing is abundantly clear WiO - you have a perverted lust for seeing people killed, by the thousands. You are one sick puppy.'"


      Hardly, seeing your friends, the jew hating murderers, die is not a perverted lust.


      Now what is interesting is you never called out Rufus for his daily cheerleading of USA airstrikes as "perverted lust"


      As again, ash, do you denounce hamas, hezbollah, syria's assad's troops and iran's revolutionary guards all as terrorists as both the USA and the Canadian governments have?


      Delete
    4. ash?

      hamas?


      hezbollah?

      assad's barrel bombs?

      iran's al quds force?

      Delete
    5. Ash to you condemn the NAZIS of Germany?

      Delete
    6. Sure, I have no problem condemning the actions of those groups you mention. The Middle East is a cess pool of nefarious groups killing each other and innocents. I don't take pleasure, as you do, in all that death.

      Delete
    7. I also condemned the IDF and Netanyahu for the slaughter in Gaza and the U.S. For needless slaughter in Iraq. By any rational measure, George Bush created more death and destruction than all the jihadis put together and Bush has yet to catch up with Lyndon Johnson for terror, mass murder and treachery.

      Delete
  13. .

    I answered your question yesterday, WiO, though I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't bother to read it.

    In return, I asked you a question which you failed to answer,

    Do you feel that your views are representative of the views of the average Israeli Jew, or at least, of a significant portion of the Jewish population there?

    Inquiring minds want to know.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looks like he is chicken and has slunk away with his tail between his legs, again.

      Delete
    2. Hardly ash, At a baseball game

      Do u know what that is, u being a deserter of America and all?

      Delete
    3. Toronto blue Jays are a Canadian team dude.

      Delete
    4. .

      Your view on Arabs/Muslims as you have expressed them here numerous times.

      .

      Delete
    5. Still not specific enough.

      Are you referring to the arabs and muslims that seek the murder of jews?

      The arabs or muslims of Israel?

      The arabs and muslims that are engaged in Jihad.

      Ask a specific question. Not a loaded broad brush.

      Delete
  14. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump run essentially evenly among registered voters in a head-tohead
    matchup for president in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, testament to the strength
    of party loyalty as well as to Trump’s anti-establishment profile and anti-immigration views.
    The hypothetical contest stands at 46-43 percent, Clinton-Trump, a gap that’s within the survey’s
    margin of sampling error. That compares to a clear Clinton lead among all adults, 51-39 percent,
    indicating her broad support in groups that are less apt to be registered to vote, such as young
    adults and racial and ethnic minorities.

    The close result in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, says as much
    about partisanship as it does about the candidates. Registered voters divide 45-40 percent
    between identifying themselves as Democrats, or leaning that way, vs. Republicans or GOP
    leaners. And 82 percent of leaned Democrats say they’d support Clinton, while 76 percent of
    leaned Republicans say they’d back Trump, were they the party nominees.

    That said, Trump also is tapping factors including discontent with the political system, antiimmigration
    attitudes and dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. He leads Clinton by a
    broad 64-25 percent among registered voters who prefer a candidate from outside the political
    establishment and by 49-38 percent among those who strongly distrust politicians.
    Trump also leads Clinton by 73-14 percent among those who favor his controversial views on
    immigration, 74-13 percent among those who disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance,
    68-22 percent among political conservatives and 52-36 percent among whites, a broadly proGOP
    group in recent years. (They favored Mitt Romney over Obama by 20 percentage points in
    2012.) Among evangelical white Protestants, a core GOP group, Trump leads Clinton by 67-22
    percent.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This analysis is the first slice of a new ABC/Post poll on the 2016 election. More detailed results
      on the primaries, views of candidate attributes and attitudes about the political system overall
      will be released Monday morning.
      There are some important provisos in evaluating these results. Early polls are not predictive.
      They seek to measure preferences if the election were today, but the election is not today, and if
      it were, voters would have had a full campaign’s worth of information on which to base their
      choices – including whether to vote in the first place. Campaigns clearly do matter; front-runners
      have failed in past elections and single-digit candidates have surged to victory. Polls at this stage,
      then, are best used to understand attitude formation, not eventual election choices.

      Delete
    2. Statistical analysis shows which factors best predict Clinton vs. Trump preferences, holding all
      else equal. The biggest by far is whether or not registered voters support Trump’s positions on
      immigration. That’s followed by partisanship, preferring experience vs. a political outsider,
      ideology, race and gender.
      GROUPS – Notably, in the general election matchup, Trump leads by 52-37 percent among men,
      while Clinton leads by 55-34 percent among women. Fifty-three percent of women in this survey
      say they’re Democrats or lean that way, compared with 36 percent of men.
      The results produce a vast 36-point gender gap – Trump +15 points among men, Clinton +21
      among women. The average in general election exit polls since 1976 has been 13 points; the
      biggest was 22 points in the Gore-Bush contest of 2000. The Clinton-Trump gender gap is more
      than twice as big as the Clinton-Jeb Bush gender gap in an ABC/Post poll in July, presumably
      reflecting Trump’s controversial remarks about women.
      Clinton’s support among women is based on her overwhelming backing from college-educated
      women, 68-20 percent. By contrast, Trump leads Clinton by a broad 55-34 percent among men
      who aren’t college graduates. He runs about evenly with Clinton among women without a
      college degree and among men who’ve graduated from college.

      Delete
    3. The education gap, like the gender gap, is outsized. In exit polls since 1980, there has been little
      difference in candidate support among those with a college degree vs. non-graduates, an average
      of just 2 points; the biggest gap was 11 points in 1996, when Bill Clinton's support was higher among non-grads (+14 points) than among college graduates (+3 points). In the Clinton-Trump
      matchup, there's a vast 35-point gap; it’s 57-31 percent, Clinton-Trump, among those with a
      college degree, vs. 49-40 percent, Trump-Clinton, among those without one. Indeed, even among
      college-educated leaned Republicans, Trump’s support slips to 67 percent, vs. 80 percent among
      those without a degree.
      This reflects a challenge in Trump’s support profile; while he does much better with lesseducated
      registered voters, they’re less likely actually to vote.
      At the same time, Trump has a 20-point lead over Clinton among senior citizens, 55-35 percent,
      while Clinton has an even broader advantage among adults under 30, 63-27 percent. In this case
      it’s Trump’s group that has a higher propensity to vote.
      Clinton also does vastly better than Trump among nonwhites, 72-19 percent; they’re a core
      Democratic group and a growing share of the electorate. And there’s a strong regional effect,
      with much better results for Clinton in the Northeast and West, with Trump ahead in the
      Midwest and South. Again, it’s largely partisanship that leads the way.

      Delete
    4. Hillary Clinton may be under indictment sooner than I had thought possible.

      In the recent CNN survey of support across the nation in a general election, Dr. Ben Carson beat Hillary 51% to 46%, Trump beat her somewhat less so, and IIRC Bush beat her too by a little less.

      Hillary is toast.

      Delete

    5. CBSNEWS SHOCK POLL: SANDERS TOPS CLINTON BY 22 POINTS IN NH!.............Drudge

      This is shocking to me as I hadn't dreamt that Sanders would be doing so well......

      Delete
  15. .

    You Get What You Pay For?


    Egypt said to renew diplomatic relations with Assad
    Shared enemies Islamic State, Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey drive Cairo, Damascus closer together
    By Times of Israel staff September 13, 2015, 12:55 pm 3


    Egypt is renewing diplomatic relations with the Assad regime, Arab world media has reported.

    The move comes as Russian troops rush to Syria to aid embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad in what the US and other Western powers fear could mean a further escalation of the country’s civil war, which has claimed over 250,000 lives in 4.5 years.

    Gen. Ali Mamlouk, a top security adviser to Assad, was in Cairo two weeks ago for meetings with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and senior security officials, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, which cited Arab reports.

    The Assad regime and Cairo share a fight against Islamic State, a major element in the anti-Assad rebellion since 2014 and a growing presence in the Sinai Peninsula, where an ongoing battle between Egyptian security forces and an Islamic State affiliate has claimed the lives of dozens of troops in recent months.

    Mamlouk and his Egyptian counterparts reportedly discussed the fight against Islamic State, and against other Islamist factions, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which controlled Egypt’s government until it was ousted by Sissi in June 2013.

    Both sides also see Turkey’s Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an opponent.

    Egyptian sources told Haaretz that the country’s military echelons have always seen the Assad government as a partner, and that relations between the capitals soured under the Muslim Brotherhood government...


    .

    ReplyDelete
  16. Here are a couple of gals any true dirt farmer can fully love -

    WATCH: “I’m My Own Prophet”, Topless Feminists Storm Stage At Muslim Conference
    12156
    891
    feminists
    RT

    by Breitbart London13 Sep 20154,154
    Two topless feminists have stormed the stage at a Muslim conference in France. The activists, from hard-line feminist outfit Femen jumped on stage, with “Nobody makes me submit” scrawled across their bare chests. The most prominent protester shouted, “Nobody makes me submit, me nobody owns me, I’m my own prophet!” before being dragged and kicked off the stage by angered Muslims.

    The video, below, shows the incident that took place at the Muslim Salon in Pontoise, France, a town just outside of Paris, which ended “violently” according to one eyewitness.

    The activists stormed the stage, leading to two embarrassed looking Muslim men shuffling off stage smirking while clearly trying to get an eye-full, before more violent men took to the stage to shove them over, eventually kicking the women off the side of the stage.

    Femen protesters are best known for their targeting of Christian iconography and representatives, such as the desecration of crucifixes in St. Peter’s Square, or baring their chests in churches.

    The group was founded in Ukraine in 2008, but has since become a Europe-wide phenomenon.

    In 2013 the group burned the ISIS flag in front of the Great Mosque in Paris.

    WARNING – EXPLICIT CONTENT:

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/09/13/watch-im-my-own-prophet-topless-feminist-storms-stage-at-muslim-conference/


    My hat is off to these two true young Ladies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (though they ought to think a little harder about the influence Jesus has had in liberating women around the world)

      Delete
  17. Thousands flock to anti-migrant demos in Europe...

    'Abandon plans to welcome Muslims'...

    'Islam will be death'...

    New Rift Emerges as East Resists Quotas...

    Hungary threatens mass arrests...

    Doctors warn of disease risk at refugee camp...

    Germany to reintroduce border controls...

    Berlin says refugees can not choose where to live...

    Munich overwhelmed..............Drudge

    While in USA Trump rides an overwhelming wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, though our Host wishes to import 4 MILLION Syrians.......

    ReplyDelete
  18. LAT California poll: Trump 24, Carson 18, Bush 6, Cruz 6

    ReplyDelete
  19. September 13, 2015
    Syrian refugees: 'Trust not the horse'
    By Jeannie DeAngelis

    If one were to ask your everyday educationally challenged American what a Trojan horse is, the answer would probably include at least one reference to an equine-sized condom.

    Conversely, on the Syrian-Turkish border, where ISIS militants are more interested in world domination than they are safe sex, soldiers of the Islamic State are well aware of the Trojan horse concept and are totally prepared to reprise the mythological scheme as a way to infiltrate enemy terrain.

    In Greek mythology, the Trojan horse was introduced after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. During the legendary war that ensued, hidden inside a horse that was constructed by a master carpenter/warrior named Epeius, Greek soldiers were able to enter and overtake the city of Troy.

    The Greeks deceived the Trojans by persuading them that the huge stallion was an offering to Athena and that by accepting an offering to the goddess of war, Troy would become impregnable.

    Although the oracle Laocoon warned, "I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts…trust not the horse," the Trojans chose to disregard wise counsel, fell for the ruse, and allowed the huge wooden structure inside the city gates.

    During the night, the Greek warriors hidden in the belly of the beast crept out, opened the gates, and provided entry to the Greek army the Trojans falsely believed had abandoned the battle.

    Brilliant plan! Persuade the enemy that something is taking place other than what is actually taking place. Then, after successfully using the ploy to storm the city gates, proceed to conquer, assault, and obliterate as many gullible Trojans as humanly possible – which is precisely the tactic that ISIS has publicly disclosed is part of its world domination strategy.

    Sort of like a mythological deception involving Greeks and Trojans, one year ago, almost to the day, ISIS announced that they planned to smuggle fighters into Western Europe disguised as Syrian refugees.

    The Trojan horse/troop infiltration stratagem may be the only thing that explains why, unlike any other refugee crises, 72 percent of the hard-to-determine-from-Middle Eastern "Syrian refugees" are male, while only 13 percent are women and 15 percent children.

    Moreover, from a battle strategy point of view, the reason this sort of subversion may be necessary is because, according to U.S. intelligence sources, ISIS is fearful of tight security at airports. Thus, the idea is to abandon hijacking planes and switch to ground-based terrorist attacks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Funny: inciting chaos for an ulterior motive sounds a lot like Alinsky-style community organizing.

      ISIS foments a crisis. Then, militants cleverly fake being victims of a war they're advancing by assuming the guise of refugees, thereby ensuring transportation directly onto a battlefield that would otherwise be inaccessible. Hence, ISIS secures safe entry into the midst of the very people they plan to massacre.

      Last year military intelligence sources also warned that if interspersed within a wave of refugees, it would be nearly impossible to catch ISIS terrorists.

      That's why a master carpenter need not build ISIS a fancy but deceptive form of transportation and why it won't be necessary for representatives of the Islamic State to stow away in the gut of a wooden horse. Instead, disguised as downtrodden victims of a bloody war, all ISIS soldiers have to do is look sad and mingle with Syrian-Kurds seeking European refuge.

      Relaxed Syrian-Turkish border controls and a frenzied refugee crisis are a modern-day Trojan horse perfectly suited to accommodate ISIS. According to encoded messages U.S. intelligence intercepted and unraveled, once inside Europe, soldiers of the Islamic state traveling around Europe with fake passports will be free to decapitate, blow up, and wreak holy havoc on those falsely persuaded that liberal-style benevolence somehow ensures domestic security.

      Worse yet, despite ISIS publicly announcing plans to ride a Trojan horse all the way from Syria to Europe, and despite Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper's "huge concern" that ISIS militants will infiltrate the U.S., Barack Obama still felt that the eve of September 11 was the perfect time to announce his plans to fly in 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement.

      Then, adding insult to injury, after wolves in sheep's clothing stream out of the belly of a U.S. military cargo plane, sort of like Sharon Tate being forced to feed and care for Charles Manson before he had his minions carve her up, Obama will likely require that American taxpayers provide a safety net for ISIS soldiers while they devise a game plan to remove our heads.

      That's right! Barack Obama, who can always be counted on to do the opposite of what is best for America, actually plans to transport, deliver, and sustain unknown numbers of the very individuals who've made it quite clear that once they arrive in America, they'll "drown all of [us] in blood."

      Scary as it is, this is not Greek mythology; this is reality. For that reason, while there's still time, secure the gates and the borders – and above all, "trust not the horse."

      Jeannie also hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.


      Delete
    2. The Trojan horse/troop infiltration stratagem may be the only thing that explains why, unlike any other refugee crises, 72 percent of the hard-to-determine-from-Middle Eastern "Syrian refugees" are male, while only 13 percent are women and 15 percent children..............

      ..........
      Worse yet, despite ISIS publicly announcing plans to ride a Trojan horse all the way from Syria to Europe, and despite Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper's "huge concern" that ISIS militants will infiltrate the U.S., Barack Obama still felt that the eve of September 11 was the perfect time to announce his plans to fly in 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement.
      ..........................

      Obama is a piker with his 10,000 compared to our Host, who wishes 4 MILLION Syrians let into our gates.

      Delete

    3. "Scary as it is, this is not Greek mythology; this is reality."

      Course I'd throw in;

      mythology is reality.....

      ;)

      Delete
  20. AshSun Sep 13, 01:24:00 PM EDT
    Looks like he is chicken and has slunk away with his tail between his legs, again.


    Is that why it took me to ask you at least 5 times to renounce Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad's Syrian troops and Iranian Al quds?


    Cause you look like a chicken with your tail between your legs?

    But notice what you said:

    AshSun Sep 13, 12:36:00 PM EDT
    Sure, I have no problem condemning the actions of those groups you mention. The Middle East is a cess pool of nefarious groups killing each other and innocents. I don't take pleasure, as you do, in all that death.

    And yet you still can't condemn those terror groups outright....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ash is such a pure befuddled young feller, it's hard not to laugh....

      Delete
    2. Ya, that was funny - you posted the five questions within 1 min. And were all anxious when I didn't respond immediately. Lol

      Delete
  21. Has The Imperial Wizard of Neocon Nation, Dick Cheney, slithered back under his rock yet?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Better an Imperial Neocon Wizard than a Neo-ConArtist-Traitor like Obama, who even you once said was born in Kenya.

      Delete
  22. Quit wasting keystrokes Ash. I threw him a real softball, slow and right over the plate and his bat never got off his shoulder:

    Name one positive thing of significance that our “greatest ally ever” did for the US and I promise to come back ten serious major big time jaundiced festering liabilities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are the first line of defense, the first blocking agent against all these Moslem hordes who have it in their hearts and minds and entire history to kill people just like YOU. And ME too.

      This means a lot to me, though nothing to you.

      Delete
    2. KHAMENEI Threatens AMERICA in NEW Video...

      Bombs on US Navy...

      OBAMA STRUGGLES TO REGAIN ISRAEL'S TRUST... (!)

      29% of Americans think President is Muslim........Drudge
      ..............................

      I wonder, if Israel were in total chaos, would you be advocating letting in 4 MILLION Israelis ?

      Delete
    3. I would because:

      1) Our cultures are so similar

      and

      2) Because they would never represent a threat to my way of life

      Delete
    4. heck bob, when the arabs and moslems drove 850,000 jews from their historic homes in the arab moslem occupied middle east in 1948 deuce and cohorts were silent.

      They cannot even bring themselves today to admit that almost 1/2 of all the Israelis come form arab lands...

      Deuce and his cohorts have no mercy for any israeli or jew, unless that jew accepts their "dhimmi" status.

      Delete
    5. The real tragedy of the recent millions of refugees is that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia are to blame.

      Isis is a reaction to the shia sword...

      Isis sucks... but the others suck more.

      Ash tries to lie and say i stand with ISIS, nonsense.

      I stand against Iran and Isis.

      Delete
    6. I guess your understanding and use of the English language is rudimentary because you wrote:

      "I hope that each and everyone of the Iranians are captured and executed by ISIS."

      Delete
    7. "They are the first line of defense, the first blocking agent against all these Moslem hordes who have it in their hearts and minds and entire history to kill people just like YOU. And ME too.”

      Give one example where Israel held backs hordes trying to keep you and you safe. Time and place. Perhaps there were other US ships other than the US Liberty that they did not attack and kill and wounded US servicemen. Were the attackers of the US Liberty Moslim hordes?

      Delete
  23. OUR GREATEST ALLY EVER

    Report: Israel Passes U.S. Military Technology to China

    by BRYANT JORDAN on DECEMBER 24, 2013

    mq1_predatorSecret U.S. missile and electro-optics technology was transferred to China recently by Israel, prompting anger from the U.S. and causing a senior Israeli defense official to resign.

    The head of defense exports for the Israeli Defense Ministry resigned after a U.S. investigation concluded that technology, including a miniature refrigeration system manufactured by Ricor and used for missiles and in electro-optic equipment, was sent to China, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv.

    Another Israeli news site, Aretz Sheva, reports the U.S. is concerned the technology could ultimately find its way to Iran, which last year sought to buy military equipment from China for its nuclear program.

    Ricor, on its company website, identifies a number of defense programs using its miniature cryo-coolers, including UAVs, airborne enhanced vision systems, missile warning systems, hand-held thermal imagers and thermal weapons sights.

    The Maariv report identified the Israeli defense official as Meir Shalit, and said he apologized to U.S. officials on a recent visit.

    Israel has a long record of getting U.S. military technology to China.

    In the early 1990s then-CIA Director James Woolsey told a Senate Government Affairs Committee that Israel had been selling U.S. secrets to China for about a decade. More than 12 years ago the U.S. demanded Israel cancel a contract to supply China with Python III missiles, which included technology developed by the U.S. for its Sidewinder missiles, The Associated Press reported in 2002.

    December 24th, 2013



    Read more: http://defensetech.org/2013/12/24/report-israel-passes-u-s-military-technology-to-china/#ixzz3lfi5bWKx
    Defense.org

    ReplyDelete
  24. MORE FROM OUR GREATEST ALLY ISRAEL

    ISRAEL SELLS ARMS TO CHINA, U.S. SAYS
    By MICHAEL R. GORDON,
    Published: October 13, 1993

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 12— Israel has sold advanced military technology to China for more than a decade and is moving to expand its cooperation with Beijing, says R. James Woolsey, the Director of Central Intelligence.

    The C.I.A. assessment was provided in written responses to questions by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee made the assessment public last week as part of a report on recent hearings it conducted on "proliferation threats of the 1990's," a committee aide said on Monday.

    There have been many news reports about the sale of Israeli military technology to China, which did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until 1992, and the Rand Corporation has made similar assessments. The C.I.A.'s response to the committee was reported on Monday by NBC News and confirmed by the aide. Jets, Missiles and Tanks

    The C.I.A. says China has been acquiring advanced military technology from Israel for more than a decade on programs for jet fighters, air-to-air missiles and tanks. The agency said the sale of Israeli military technology to China "may be several billion dollars."

    Despite the previous reports, the bluntness of the C.I.A. assessment surprised Congressional specialists and appears to reflect a growing concern among American intelligence experts that China is seeking to use Israel to obtain the sort of advanced military technology that the United States and other Western nations have refused to sell to Beijing.

    China's acquisition of military technology -- and re-export to Pakistan, Iran and other countries -- is a major challenge to Western efforts to stem the spread of dangerous weapons.

    Explaining its assessment, the agency noted that Beijing and Tel Aviv recently signed an agreement to cooperate in sharing technology in a number of areas, including electronics and space. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel was visiting China today to discuss the broadening of ties. Israelis Open Offices in China

    In addition, an increasing number of Israeli military companies have opened offices in China to sell their products.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/13/world/israel-sells-arms-to-china-us-says.html

    ReplyDelete
  25. Now, we're going to give them the F35. We're nuts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Israel and billionaire Zionists own the US Congress.

      Delete
  26. TWENTY YEARS OF ISRAEL SCREWING THE US WITH ARMS TRANSFERS TO CHINA

    Think a moment - What did that cost the US taxpayer to counter the technology Israel stole from the US and sent to China?


    Israel accused of selling US secrets to China

    PATRICK COCKBURN IN WASHINGTON Wednesday 13 October 1993


    ISRAEL has sold at least dollars 2bn ( pounds 1.3bn) to dollars 3bn of hi-tech military equipment to China, seriously undermining US efforts to limit the sale of advanced weapons to the Chinese. A Senate report due out later this week says the Israeli exports include military technology developed by the US, and which Washington expressly forbids from being exported to China.
    Officials accompanying Israel's Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, on a visit to China confirmed that Israel had done deals but would not elaborate. The CIA told the committee the Chinese were seeking from Israel technologies that Western firms were unwilling to provide.

    Those sold by Israel are said by specialists to include technology for the Python - the Israeli version of the US Sparrow air-to-air missile - and technology developed for the US-financed Lavi jet, which the Israelis cancelled some years ago.

    The US is also concerned that Israel may have passed on technology for the Arrow anti-missile missile, a joint US-Israel project, which is based on the Patriot missile used in the Gulf war.

    The Israeli Defence Ministry director-general, David Ivri, accompanying Mr Rabin in China, said in response to the Senate report: 'There are security relations (between Israel and China) but I cannot relate either to numbers or the substance of deals themselves.' Morton Miller, a former state department analyst, said the real figure for sale of Israeli arms to China was between dollars 8bn and dollars 10bn.

    James Woolsey, the director of the CIA, told the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs: 'Peking probably hopes to tap Israeli expertise for co-operative development of military technologies - such as advanced tank power plants and airborne radar systems - that the Chinese would have difficulty in producing on their own.' He said the Chinese wanted to interest the Israelis in using Chinese facilities for launching satellites

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/israel-accused-of-selling-us-secrets-to-china-1510406.html

      Delete
  27. 2005 OUR GREATEST ALLY GOT ITS FINGERS CRACKED IN THE US COOKIE JAR AGAIN

    China Scolds U.S. for Blocking Israeli Arms Sale

    Washington Post Foreign Service
    Tuesday, June 28, 2005
    BEIJING, June 27 -- Accusing the Bush administration of "carping" and "outside interference," China issued a sharp complaint Monday after Israel cancelled a controversial Israeli-Chinese arms deal under pressure from the United States.

    The Israeli decision halted the sale of drone aircraft capable of seeking out radar installations. It was the result of a U.S. campaign to block China from obtaining advanced military technology that could be used against Taiwan and U.S. forces supporting the island in any confrontation.

    As part of the campaign, the Bush administration also pressured European countries against lifting their arms embargo on China, winning at least a delay in a decision to do so. The Israeli government's decision is similar to its cancellation in 2000 of a $1 billion deal to sell Phalcon early warning radar planes to China.

    The Israeli cancellation caused irritation in Beijing, where the government has been pushing a military modernization program to bring the People's Liberation Army into the high-tech age and strengthen its ability to dissuade Taiwan from declaring formal independence.

    Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing visited Jerusalem last week when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was also there to discuss, among other things, the Bush administration's argument against the arms deal. While the content of Li's discussions with Israeli officials was not revealed, he was believed to be urging completion of the sale.

    The Chinese Foreign Ministry, reacting Monday to reports of the cancellation, said cooperation "in every respect" between Israel and China was good not only for the two countries involved, but also for the prospect of peace and stability in the Middle East. Such contact will not harm other countries, the ministry added, referring to the United States.

    "Therefore, other countries should not be carping about this," a statement said. “We believe both sides, in developing their bilateral ties, should support the principles of independence and sovereignty and overcome the factor of outside interference."

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062700351.html

    ReplyDelete
  28. THE TECHNOLOGY OUR GREATEST ALLY WAS TRYING TO TRANSFER:

    The Israeli decision halted the sale of drone aircraft capable of seeking out radar installations. It was the result of a U.S. campaign to block China from obtaining advanced military technology that could be used against Taiwan and U.S. forces supporting the island in any confrontation.

    ReplyDelete
  29. WAIT, THERE IS MORE FROM OUR INVALUABLE RELIABLE ALLY

    Israel Second Only To Russia
    In Providing Arms To China
    By Carol Giacomo
    Diplomatic Correspondent
    8-31-2

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China and Russia have faced repeated U.S. sanctions for their arms sales, but a largely unheralded player in what Washington considers the troubling proliferation game is Israel, one of the closest U.S. allies.

    The Jewish state, recipient annually of $3 billion in U.S. aid, is second only to Russia as a weapons provider to China, U.S. congressional investigators say.

    Some experts fear sensitive U.S. technology may show up via Israel in systems sold by China to Iran and North Korea, which President Bush termed "axis of evil" states after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

    "Israel ranks second only to Russia as a weapons system provider to China and as a conduit for sophisticated military technology, followed by France and Germany," according to a recent report by the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, a panel established by Congress to examine security and economic relations between the two countries.

    "Recent upgrades in target acquisition and fire control, probably provided by Israeli weapons specialists, have enhanced the capabilities of the older guided missile destroyers and frigates" in the Chinese navy's inventory, it said.

    The commission, which holds hard-line views on China, cited Israel as a supplier to Beijing of radar systems, optical and telecommunications equipment, drones and flight simulators.

    "Israel has established itself as an important exporter of high-technology niche weapons containing more sophisticated technology than what is provided by Russia," it said.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Please tell us oh stalwarts, standing with Israel:

    What has Israel ever done for the US that it did not get paid for?

    I’ll be happy to respond in kind, facts, dates and links.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How about a million times a day, every day, when a Moslem is concerned about killing Jews he is not concerned about killing YOU.

      "First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People"

      Then, YOU.

      Give us all a break about the Liberty.

      You don't know what happened any more than I.

      The Liberty seems more important to you than 9/11.

      Delete
    2. Even though Israel formally apologized, though not admitting guilt, paid damages.....

      Some kind of command and control fuck up is my guess.

      It's your bugaboo...every one else moved on long ago.....

      Delete
  31. .

    WiO, I asked what I thought was a straight forward question,

    Do you feel that your views are representative of the views of the average Israeli Jew, or at least, of a significant portion of the Jewish population there?

    You have purported to be knowledgeable about Israel and the Israeli public, their views and there values. I just asked a general question trying to determine your basis for that knowledge. Is it because you are representative of the same views or are you just offering an opinion? I thought it was a simple question but evidently not simple enough or perhaps I didn't offer enough explanation.

    You asked that I get more specific so I did. At least, on a pertinent aspect I was trying to get to.

    Your view on Arabs/Muslims as you have expressed them here numerous times.

    Your response was that it was still not specific enough.

    I've explained the first question so I assume you can answer it now.

    If you still insist on a more specific question answer this,

    Do you feel that your views on the Palestinians are representative of the views of the average Israeli Jew, or at least, of a significant portion of the Jewish population there?

    If that is still too complex, let's forget it. Not worth the effort.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  32. .

    Why Russians Hate America. Again

    In some ways, it was for the better. People were wealthier — despite the recent decline in the ruble and jump in inflation — and better traveled. The kindhearted woman who hosted me when I first moved to Moscow in 1997 said it best: “We don’t have to wash out our plastic bags anymore.” Her tiny salary had quadrupled since I’d last seen her. She had taken her first trip abroad — a package tour to Tunisia.

    But there was a darker side. Society had grown more defensive, and self-conscious, like a teenager constantly looking at herself in the mirror. Oligarchs had always had exit ramps — a house in London and a second passport — but now my own friends were looking for escape routes.

    Intellectuals pointed me to books on Berlin in the 1920s and the concept of “ressentiment,’’ a philosophical term that describes a simmering resentment and sense of victimization arising out of envy of a perceived enemy. It often has its roots in a culture’s feeling of impotence. In Berlin in the early 20th century, it helped explain the rise of German fascism. In Russia in August, it seemed to have many targets: Ukraine, gay people, European dairy products and above all the United States...


    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It'd help if the Rooskies would get off the bottle. They are literary drinking themselves to death. They are not replacing themselves.

      A nice Russian girl has a real problem in finding some man, any man, that's not on the bottle, jobless, and all fucked up.

      Like the Greek in a Hemingway story - "Like all Greeks he wanted to come to America" - all the Russian girls long for is a sober man......in AMERICA !!

      Delete
  33. Couple rays of light in an otherwise dark moonscape of the Middle-East, Israel the exceptioin -



    The Arab Press Reacts to the European Refugee Crisis
    "We are a nauseating nation."

    Charles Paul Freund | September 12, 2015

    "We are a nauseating nation," wrote the Saudi journalist 'Ali Sa'd Al-Moussa in Al-Watan on September 5, in reaction to images of Syrians and other refugees fleeing to Europe. The "nation" he was angrily condemning was not only Saudi Arabia, but the greater Arab world. It is a world, he lamented, "that kills people for their opinions or affiliation. Compare [this] to the parallel image: in the central train station in Munich, dozens of German citizens gather to welcome the first train arriving from Budapest carrying hundreds of immigrants...

    "We should feel some sense of shame for being victims of an education [based on] curses, which has been adopted by all the circles, schools, speeches and platforms—from the pan-Arabists and the Nasserites to the Ba'thists and the Islamic extremists. After all these curses and inculcation of hatred, we discover that the [norms of] tolerance and acceptance [that characterize] European society have become a goal worth risking our lives for[.] Europe is now home to 11 million Arab immigrants... who have attained rights and have a prospect of receiving citizenship, equality and justice under the law—all the things whose absence drove them to flee their Arab countries of origin..."

    "Stop talking about the hypocrisy of [Western] morals and values, because reality exposes nothing but our own ugly countenance."

    Al-Moussa's furious diatribe is one of many in the Arab press occasioned both by the pictures of Arab refugees seeking haven in Europe, and especially by the images of Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy whose body washed up on the shores of Turkey. The Middle East Media Research Institute has collected and translated several of these remarkable reactions, many of them expressing shame over what the images of desperation and death imply about the region the refugees have been fleeing. (It has also reprinted many political cartoons from the region expressing the same revulsion.) Although some commenters have trained their anger on European and American policies that have contributed to the crisis, many of the pieces are remarkable not for maligning the West, but for fulsomely praising its virtues, if not romanticizing its culture. The excoriation is largely reserved for the Middle East itself........

    https://reason.com/archives/2015/09/12/the-arab-press-reacts-to-the-european-re


    Also see:

    News

    / Church Growth
    Home > The Magazine > 2015 > September
    Why Christianity Is Surging in the Heart of Islam
    Medical missions and market dynamics lead to millions of believers in the Arabian Peninsula.
    Jayson Casper in the United Arab Emirates/ September 11, 2015

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/september/christianity-islam-saudi-arabia-uae-migrant-workers.html


    In Kurdistan, too, some are turning away from Islam, even to Zoroastrianism, once a big deal there, certainly a much better than the deal they got now, as most anything is -

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

    ReplyDelete
  34. What is "Occupation"Sun Sep 13, 08:39:00 PM EDT

    heck bob, when the arabs and moslems drove 850,000 jews from their historic homes in the arab moslem occupied middle east in 1948 deuce and cohorts were silent.

    They cannot even bring themselves today to admit that almost 1/2 of all the Israelis come form arab lands...

    Deuce and his cohorts have no mercy for any israeli or jew, unless that jew accepts their "dhimmi" status.

    ...............

    You got it spot on, WiO.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You'd think they'd someday wake up and wonder - why are there almost no Jews in Moslem lands, while 20% of Israel is composed of Moslems ?........

      All we'll hear endlessly about is the Liberty.....

      Delete
  35. Trouble09.13.1512:01 AM ET
    Why Are Women Ditching Hillary?
    Earlier this year Hillary Clinton seemed to have the female vote locked down, so why is she now having to work so hard to convince them to support with her campaign?

    The Clinton campaign went into overdrive this week to shore up support among voters most assumed would have been locked in as Clinton backers from the start—Democratic women.

    From last Saturday’s kickoff of “New Hampshire Women for Hillary,” to Clinton’s appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show last Thursday where she pitched, “If you vote for somebody on the merits, one of my merits is that I’m a woman,” to an online campaign store newly stocked with lady-friendly merch (official “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” tote, anyone?) the not-at-all subtle message is this: Hey ladies, vote for Hillary!

    The female hard sell is coming as a series of local and national polls show that Clinton’s strength among Democratic women voters has continued to steadily , and in some cases, precipitously erode........

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/13/why-are-women-ditching-hillary.html



    OOooooo.....I LOVE the smell of toasted Hillary in the morning !

    ReplyDelete