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Monthly Archives: April 2013

FTAC – Syria – A Perfect System of War

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Tags

kill zone, NATO, Russia, Syria

Compelling the note: the story of missiles launched at a Russian charter jet.

There’s a lot of confusion and skirmishing in and around the Syrian slaughterhouse. Neither of the superpowers can redress state or humanitarian issues, but they can use the situation to shape other issues, including running an enthused Al Qaeda into a state’s army while reducing Iran’s power to draw on an important security alliance. We are watching archaic and weakened powers in Syria and drawn from the world burn themselves, such is the hypnotic ferocity of their beliefs coupled with their desire for God’s blessings exclusively and determination to do away with the phantoms of the western future.

I generally don’t invent conspiracies, lol, but the above might fit with why, whether deliberately or fated, there has been no compelled large “force majeure” intervention in Syria’s agony. Whatever story Assad concocts about America and Israel being against him, he may more truly be suffering with his world — the one he and his family have constructed in mind and sold to or forced on Syria — running into enabled partial Islamist forces, and the two, much to the convenience of Russia and the United States are consequently busy destroying one another.

Syria would seem to represent at the moment a perfect system of war.

An attempt to hit a civilian aircraft would seem to up the ante between surface Russian and NATO interests.  At the very least, the alleged and now mysterious attack (did it really happen?  who really launched those missiles?) reinforces the idea that Syria may be treated as the blasting cap for WWIII, and that in turn drives consideration away from the possibility of collusion between NATO and Russia.

While awaiting confirmation or denial of recent Israeli activity involving a strike on a Syrian chemical weapons facility (reported yesterday by the Jewish Press), as much would make some sense: let the independent small state (which Putin seems to like as much as Washington) take care of the fringe rough stuff (“exceeding limits” Muhammad himself may have said of chemical weapons).

Elsewhere on this blog, I’ve suggested with regard to Syria that there seem to be “no good dogs in the fight”.  In the early phase of what is now Syria’s civil war, Maher Al-Assad loosed his army against civilian targets seemingly without rules of engagement, and the rest, from one side or the other, false flag or real, has been about wanton destruction and the butchering of countless hapless civilians.

Related: “Redlines and the Problems of Intervention in Syria.” Stratfor Global Intelligence Report, April 30, 2013. Stratfor provides the more straightforward cause for leaving Syria in the deeps of misery, i.e., the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished results of noble intervention!

# # #

Reading Completed; Reading Started: Good People and Snoops

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Books

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

19th Century Modern, books, journal

One book read:

Press, Eyal.  Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times.  New York: Picador, 2013.

Another begun:

Soldatov, Andrei and Irina Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB.  New York: Public Affairs Books, 2010.

Online publisher blurbs plus abundant media and reader reviews would seem to make adding my own voice redundant.

My inclination is to wean myself away from the World Wide Web and my own exuberant but increasingly pointless networking, Facebook “chatyping”, and self-promotion, but not even a writer’s (musician’s, photographer’s) retreat comes easily as I’ve built and invested in quite a world online.

Of course I’ve learned that one might starve online as well as anywhere else.

My library continues to grow, and despite my owning a Kindle, I still prefer hardcovers for shelf reference and permanence with the thin possibility of seeing the collection developed as a specialized kernel or, more modestly, as a home’s central library-and-theater location.  In a small apartment, the whole thing IS a library, theater, studio, office, bar, garden, grill, kitchen, and lounge.

🙂

Lucky enough to own my time today, not comfortably but just the way it is, I wonder if I have misspent it.  Working on that, of course, is a part of what retreat (to the slower pace of real space plus the enjoyment of real space relationships) might be about.

It’s hard telling about that, though, the online habits have been so extensively and thoroughly developed.

# # #

FNS – Ayatollah Sells Fancy Cars! :)

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Fast News Share

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Tags

2013, Ayatollah, BMW

The official dealership of BMW in Iran is Persia Khodro, a company owned by Rey investment group, which is under control of the Shah Abdol Azim shrine (in the city of Rey) whose director is personally appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader. This religious foundation is part of a vast financial empire directly under control of Iran’s supreme leader. The conglomerate and those who run it pay no taxes and effectively function independently from the state.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/khamennei-supreme-leader-supreme-dealer/

Blogger Saeed Gasseminejad goes on to make this point: “A good question to ask is why BMW is cooperating with this dangerous gang of intelligence officers and with a company that without a doubt is part of Ayatollah Khamenei’s financial empire. While ordinary Iranian people are under huge economic pressure, BMW is providing luxury cars for the scions of the corrupt Mullahs, IRGC officers and IRI officials.”

# # #

Q&A – A Comment on Iraq by Abdelwahab Al Jaza’iri In Dubai

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Middle East

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Tags

conflict, internecine, Iraq, politics, regional, rivalry, sectarian, Shiite, Sunni

Q: Setting aside Iranian and other outside influence, do you view Shiite-Sunni rivalry and cultural-political organization of Iraqi society as modifiable or irreparably fixed?

A: It wasn’t much of a problem in the past – there was a time when Sunni and Shia Islamists cooperated against the influence of Sunni and Shia Arab nationalists. The problem of authoritarianism inevitably exposed that Sunnis controlled the top, and the rise of Islamism region wide pushed the Shiite protesters of the 1970’s to clash with the Sunni security apparatus. (The first major clash was in 1936 during which a Shiite revolt was brutally put down). The rise of Shiite Islamism in neighbouring Iran created a collusion between Arab nationalism and Sunni Islamism that persists today. Even Lebanese and Syrian Shiites and Alawis are publicly vilified as Persians in all kinds of derogatory language. 

It is absolutely modifiable. But given the damage that’s been done, and the resilience of the forces driving it, it may well last for decades more.

Source note: I asked the question on a closed Facebook group, and the respondent, Abdelwahab Al Jaza’iri in Dubai, provided what I’ve accepted as a very good and distilled answer providing background for recent events in Iraq, and it is with his permission that I post the same here.

# # #

Ninety Minutes, 92nd Street Y, NYC, 10-05-2010, Christopher Hitchens Debates Tariq Ramadan

28 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2010, Christopher Hitchens, debate, Islam, October, Tariq Ramada

I’m sure the clip is well known — it dates from October 5, 2010 —  but it’s a rainy early evening here, and I’ve just come back from the new used book bookstore in town, and I am helpless before bookcases.

# # #

Rocking In the Free World — Not So Freely in Pakistan

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech

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Baygairat Brigade, commentary, Dhinak Dhinak, free speech, Pakistan

Sources inform me that the above at its Vimeo location — http://vimeo.com/64414932 — by Pakistan’s popular Baygairat Brigade has been sketchily suppressed through ISP system in Pakistan.  Queried for cause, one corresponded responded cryptically (txtng language expanded): “Private disagreement and is not banned by government.  Banned by military privately.”

Authoritatively true / not true?

With the link distributed to viewers in-country, one responded earlier today, “Blocked on PTCL” — and another, “Not blocked on Nayatel.”

As second language teachers know, humor, especially satire, may be the most difficult frontier for comprehending: one has to know the culture and its history to “get the joke”.  However, with Pakistan’s records of disappeared persons, military coup, internal meddling to control elections, one may take the hints and research them.

Or just enjoy their showing up in the culture’s (and the world’s) media mirror with such universal notes as, “When a free car is the gift / An analyst’s tone shifts.”

Everyone understands that.

Revisiting “Little Rock” and Carlos Bledsoe’s Story

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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On my old Typepad site, I picked up on the 2009 Little Rock murders perpetrated by Carlos Bledsoe, and so this afternoon was surprised to find the above video on YouTube featuring his father, Melvin.

Others who followed up on Little Rock found information relevant today to the Boston Marathon Bombing.  Here’s a gem from Pipeline News:

In a series of notes sent to the Memphis based newspaper, Commercial Appeal and also to Judge Herbert W. Wright, a Pulaski County Circuit Court judge, Muhammad provided great insight into his motivation for his rampage, which he claimed was Islamic law:

Below from these letters:

“…how I became Muslim. I don’t believe in the word “convert.” What I use “revert” because we Muslims believe that all mankind are born into Islam…I went to Yemen to learn, meaning more about Islam…Yemen is quoted from our beloved Prophet…as a place of faith and wisdom…it is one of the few places left in the Islamic world where people are actually still Muslims…[speaking of his source of income in Yemen]…I felt uncomfortable teaching the language of the Enemy to my brothers and sisters…my wife’s [he was married in Yemen] family is from Abyan…which was bombed by American drones…by O’l Uncle Sam…they claimed they targeted a meeting of the Mujahedeen…I read a statement from our Shaykh “Anwar Al Awlaki,” and he said that they killed 17 women and 23 kids…We want revenge…They kill our soldiers, we kill theirs, but if they bomb our women, children and elders Guess what? We’ll bomb theirs..the apostates of Yemeni government are true dogs. I wish I had some of their blood on my hands…”

From National Public Radio (NPR): “Islamic extremists preyed on his son and programmed him to hate Americans, Bledsoe said.”

From Huff Post College: ”

“This is a story that needs to get out. It’s here,” Long told the Associated Press. “Melvin didn’t raise his son to kill my son.”

The documentary has proved controversial however, because it places the blame for the attack squarely on radical Islam.

How did I miss this!?

The story has produced a documentary with a web presence: Losing Our Sons: An American Tragedy.

Here is the trailer:

From The Investigative Project on Journalism:

During an interrogation session, Muhammad told Little Rock police and the FBI that the shooting was a holy war and that he was not guilty of murder. “It’s an act of retaliation,” he said. “There’s a war going on,” he said.

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad pleaded guilty in the murder of an Army recruit, the attempted murder of another, and numerous weapons violations in a Little Rock, Arkansas shopping center in 2009 and in return received the sentence of life in prison.

——

Reference

Long, Daris.  “President Obama has a history of refusing to acknowledge terrorism.”  The Daily Caller, September 10, 2012.

Statement by Melvin Bledsoe, Father of Carlos Leon Bledsoe (aka) Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad: “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.”  Committee on Homeland Security, US House of Representatives, Washington DC, March 10, 2011.

Wikipedia.  “2009 Little Rock recruiting office shooting”.

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FBI – Bledsoe – Leaking the Story

ABC News has learned that Muhammad had been under investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen. The investigation was in its preliminary stages, authorities said, and was based on the suspect’s …

Posted on June 02, 2009 at 11:25 AM in Conflict Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Bledsoe – In His Own Words

“Yes, I did tell the police upon my arrest that this was an act of retaliation, and not a reaction on the soldiers personally,” Muhammad said. He called it “a act, for the sake of God, for the sake of Allah, the Lord of all the world…

Posted on June 10, 2009 at 03:23 PM in Conflict Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Little Rock — A Story Grows Through Its Details

Two hundred rounds of ammunition; SKS rifle; Two pistols; Two military books. Source: KATV7. “Suspect Pleads Not Guilty in Soldier’s Death.” June 2, 2009: http://cfc.katv.com/videoondemand.cfm?id=41763. In western th…

Posted on June 02, 2009 at 10:20 PM in Conflict Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Little Rock Muhammad

At the Monday-afternoon briefing, Thomas said investigators believe Muhammad acted alone, and likely carried “political and religious motives.” Thomas said the gunman targeted the military but was not believed to be part of a broader…

Posted on June 01, 2009 at 09:55 PM in Conflict Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

FTAC – Who is What on What Basis?

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

I have got to tell you that from the post-Bar Mitzvah 40 years wandering in the American Wildness, I had no idea!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments

Hitler’s racist lunatic standard was one-quarter inheritance (one Jewish grandparent of either gender) of “Jewish blood” for a train ticket.

Jews remain “other defined” as well as self defined.

Christians: shall we revisit Henry vs. The Pope? Or Luther’s “95” and his excommunication?

Perhaps when Muhammad placed himself in judgement of others — whether he did so autonomously, as an atheist would have it, or within the design of the Abrahamic God, or in relation to the vast storehouse of surprises given to our species by nature and the nature o the universe — he invited the judgment of others as well PLUS the judging of his followers by way of their attitudes toward others and their actions.

Some, I believe, are sensitive to this social mirroring system and adjust and embrace the normative values that lend themselves to modernity and the appearance of ambitious and kind educators and physicians and so many others that construct the favorable aspects of a modern society.

Some may be not so sensitive — or responsive — to their global social feedback, and those I have been happy to refer to as “narcissistic sociopaths”.

It’s why the two idiots from Columbine (Colorado school mass shooting by two students) well resemble the two Boston bombers, but with a big difference: the latter had reference to a program — the sword of Islam — seemingly designed for them, easily accessed (see Kavkaz Center or Inspire and numerous related productions), and, yes, in the mosques and throughout the Wahhabi reach casually reinforced.

Is this MEMRI-conveyed snapshot of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah the sole manner and voice of Islam?

I know it is not, but it far overshadows other signal.

The above relates to “shimmer”.

Between the vociferous conservatives of the anti-Jihad and the liberals wearing rose-colored glasses, the character of the assault on the west (impossible to deny with so many organizations stating that as their purpose) seems perceived as either total and indicative of the pervasive will of all (1.2 billion or so) Muslims or, worse, I think, merely anomalous, merely a tragic addition to the atmosphere and texture of quality of life in the west and elsewhere.

The Islamic Small Wars comprise a large and sapping phenomenon in the life of the world.

Increased funding and related empowerment of state security services comprise part of the cost of this nuttiness as do military asset and organizational reconfiguration.

Add the costs of cultural distraction to the impact.

Does God or do generals want always a little war around?

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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