Category Archives: 21st Century Feudal

2012 Report – Watching the Horror Born

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Politics, Syria

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From recent correspondence — so recent, it hasn’t even been sent!

You may wish to wonder at the goodness of your country in its domestic ideals. China and Russia work differently, and what they do has probably long “leaked” into our own analyses and options.

With Iran, “War by Proxy” is obvious everywhere the regime sows chaos, death, and sorrow. This week: Yemen.

With Russia, those criminals make war and lie about it. As much has been the story of the invasion of Crimea from the start.

The Chinese: they have built islands on the sly!

Darned Earthworkers!

🙂

This news appeared on Fox nine days ago:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/18/military-intel-predicted-rise-isis-in-2012-detailed-arms-shipments/

Who OWNS that monster Out There in Syria-Iraq (“Syriaque”?*).

That it has served Putin-Assad-Khamenei, that person that has managed to pervert a a popular people’s protest into an ineffable tragedy one might title, “Assad vs The Terrorists” (mission accomplished), points to the forbearing of barrel bombing old terrorists positions when the districts of Homs proved so much more convenient and harmless and helpless for doing so.

This month (merry one of May) has brought an example of active observation but passive response to a challenge that has morphed from a negligible horror into a military and political scourge calling to mind the possibly more gentle manners of Attila the Hun.

The story released by Fox has been picked up on the Blogosphere, and the report itself may be located and downloaded as a PDF.

Additional Reference

Always on Watch.  “The DIA: ISIS “A Strategic Asset”?  May 26, 2015.

Hoff, Brad.  “2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State “in order to isolate the Syrian regime”.  Levant Report, May 19, 2015.

Judicial Watch.  “Pgs. 287-293 (291) JW v DOD and State 14-812”.  Download site for the report pdf file (uploaded May 18, 2015).

*“Syriac” is a language and “Syriaque” it’s French spelling.

While on the subject of the dismantling of Syria-Iraq boundary points, BackChannels has taken note of the strength of “nominal affiliation” and “sectarian teleology” in producing and sustaining brutal conflict in the region.  The gamble on the favor of God and related glory appears to overmatch the promise of social cooperation and cohesion across sectarian lines that would produce a more sound freedom, peace, and prosperity while intellectual and social habits related to the experiences of fear and security prevail: Our People vs Those People, Sunni vs Shiite, appears to remain primary across population to some extent.

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Link – Amnesty’s Latest on Hamas

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Links

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“Instead of upholding justice, the Hamas authorities and leadership have continuously encouraged and facilitated these appalling crimes against powerless individuals. Their failure to even condemn the unlawful killings, abduction and torture of perceived suspects leaves them effectively with blood on their hands,” said Philip Luther.

Lazareva, Inna.  “Hamas ‘tortured Palestinian collaborators’ in Gaza hospital: An Amnesty International report details ‘spine-chilling’ war crimes including summary executions and torture committed against Palestinians in Gaza during last summer’s war with Israel.”  The Telegraph, May 27, 2015.

From the PDF of the Amnesty International Report (p. 12):

Amnesty International is concerned that the bodies and mechanisms set up by the Hamas de facto administration to carry out law enforcement and the administration of justice lack the necessary skills, independence, oversight, and accountability to ensure that the rule of law is respected for both victims and accused; to protect individuals from human rights abuses against them; to ensure that victims have access to effective mechanisms to obtain redress; and that accused persons are afforded due process. On the contrary, it seems clear that perpetrators of human rights abuses continue to enjoy impunity, and that the Hamas de facto administration lacks the political will to hold perpetrators of such crimes to account, particularly Hamas members, and to respect fundamental human rights, including the rights to life and to be free from torture.

Amnesty International.  “Palestine (State of): ‘Strangling Necks’ Abductions, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict.” Link to PDF download page, May 26, 2015.

Additional Reference Having To Do With The Rule of No Law

Amnesty International.  “Gaza: Palestinians tortured, summarily killed by Hamas forces during 2014 conflict.”  May 27, 2015.

Hall, John.  “Now ISIS incurs the wrath of Hamas: Islamic State ransacks Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp and massacres residents – prompting vow of revenge from Palestinian fighters.”  Daily Mail, May 27, 2015.

Human Rights Watch.  “Gaza: Halt Executions: 25 Alleged Collaborators Summarily Executed in 72 Hours.”  August 25, 2014.

Lifson, Thomas.  “Palestinian Hamas leader reportedly beheaded by ISIS.”  American Thinker, April 5, 2015.

Masi, Alessandria.  “What is the Difference Between ISIS and Hamas?”  International Business Times, August 8, 2014.

Schachtel, Jordan.  “Hamas Worse Than Jews, Says ISIS in Gaza.”  Breitbart, May 5, 2015.

Sherwood, Harriet.  “Hamas accused of routine torture of detainees in Gaza Strip: Human Rights Watch report says three Palestinians have been executed after ‘confessions’ apparently obtained under coercion.”  The Guardian, October 3, 2012.

UN Watch (blog).  “Hamas’ Human Shield Tactic as Reported by Foreign Journalists.”  July 22, 2014.

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Excerpts – Two Journeys Across New Worlds

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Religion, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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As a soldier, I felt like a real master. I drove tanks in the desert and I carried a big assault rifle when in the city. One day, as I walked the streets of Jerusalem, believing myself to be the biblical King David, my eyes met those of a young Arab lady in a long white dress standing on the rooftop of her house. There she stood, erect and proud. She stared at me, and then sang lovely Arabic tunes that captured my mind and heart. I stared back at her, a gorgeous beauty with the voice of an angel, and fell in love on the spot. Her song, I promptly concluded, was far more piercing than any of my bullets.

Tenenbom, Tuvia.  “Why European NGO’s and the Red Cross Are Real Enemies in Israel.”  Forward, May 24, 2015.

At this point Captain Swan stunned his men with his own innovative plan.  He argued that their voyaging along the Mexican coast had brought nothing but disappointment and it was pointless continuing.  Instead, they would cross the Pacific and “go into the East-Indies.”  He conjured the glory days of Drake and Cavendish, who successfully passed that way, but even so he had a struggle.  Two-thirds of his men did not believe it possible.  “Such was their ignorance,” wrote Dampier, that they were convinced “he would carry them out of the world.”

Preston, Diana and Michael.  A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier.  New York: Walker & Company, 2004.

These two wildly different accounts of voyages through time have between them one theme in common: the temporary ascent of assumptions and guesses over real knowledge.

William Dampier, who set out in life a sailor, precedes James Cook, Charles Darwin, and others in his gourmandizing, navigating, observing, suffering, swashbuckling, writing triple circumnavigation of the earth under 17th Century sail.

In the life movie, as it were, Tuvia Tenenbom appears to have embarked upon his life’s journey as one who might have believed a superstitious misstep would have carried him out of the world:

But then, on one wintry cold day, I got my hands on all kinds of books and pictures and found out that I’ve been lied to. Our “Jewish” black clothes made me look frighteningly similar to the non-Jewish Polish nobles and Austrian bourgeois of a century or two ago; our community’s glorification of virgins was more in line with the thinking in Islamic societies; and the way my rabbis prevented me from engaging with sexuality in any capacity — “Thou shalt never look at females,” they always reminded me — seemed more rooted in Catholicism than in Judaism.

True to my nature as a representative of God, I consulted with heaven and left the ultra-Orthodox fold.

By the time Tenenbom publishes in today’s Forward, he has become a much more cognizant and sophisticated navigator, rather like Dampier in his day, but in this age, he has stumbled across a similar ignorance and misguidance.  However, where Dampier’s men could be called “out of the loop” and innocent of emerging knowledge about the world and the mapping of continents, islands, currents, and winds, Tenenbom’s anti-Semitic and Israel-hating acquaintance appear to have been corralled, lied to, programmed, and seduced: they have lost their clues to what is real and what is not and would appear today to be made to live in Orwell’s worst nightmare: intellectually poisoned and too easily maneuvered, they have been “carried out of the world” — the world that includes worlds with authentic histories, including their own ethnolinguistic legacies — as cognizant and knowledgeable free agents in their own right.

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Link – Among those In the Endless Lists – Pakistan’s Ismaili Community

17 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Links, Pakistan, Politics

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It was left to one of the wounded to drive the pink community bus full of the dead and dying to the nearest hospital.

Ismaelis are an international community of Muslims who, like other Shia, revere the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali but also the Imam Ismaeli, and ­believe in a more allegorical, mystical interpretation of the Koran.

Muslims of all sects benefit from the philanthropy of their spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, whose charitable foundations ­finance schools, hospitals and the revival of classical Islamic culture and architecture throughout the Muslim world.

Hodge, Amanda.  “Ismaeli community in Pakistan mourns: For whom does bell toll?” The Australian, May 16, 2015.

Four days ago:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32717321 – “Pakistan gunmen kill 45 on Karachi Ismaili bus.”

Three days ago:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/14/opinions/moghul-bus-attack-pakistan/ – “Pakistan at turning point on terror?” — “Extremists have a modus operandi: They destroy any and every evidence of pluralism, tolerance, and openness — which is why they focus on minorities, history, and scholarship, saving a special ire for Muslims who disagree. In Karachi, they targeted a group of Muslims — Ismaili Shia — who played a critical role in Pakistan’s formation. Don’t think that wasn’t deliberate.”  (Op-ed by Haroon Mohgul).

Two days ago:

Pakistani police say they have arrested 145 people over an attack on a bus carrying Ismaili Shia Muslims that killed at least 45 in Karachi.

Those arrested are thought to include 90 students from a madrassa, or religious school.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32751457

Yesterday:

Sources further said it is expected that investigators will evaluate evidence regarding the connection of Indian spy agency ‘RAW’ in the attack.

There was no intelligence report present of such an attack, sources added.

http://www.geo.tv/article-184984-No-evidence-of-Daesh-involvement-in-Karachi-bus-attack-Sources

With reference to Geo’s non-reporting reportage: Huh?

Today:

The terrorists did not attack and fire randomly. They put in single bullets to the head — a hallmark of executions — as if the murder was in response to a conviction, a crime. And these enemies of the state made it clear that in their eyes our Ismaili brethren, among others, are guilty by virtue of their faith.

http://tns.thenews.com.pk/43-pakistanis-died-bus/#.VVieLblVhBc Op-ed in The Sunday News section of the The International News by Waqqas Mir.

Waqqas Mir, a lawyer, goes on in his condensed and lucid opinion to note the following:

No number of laws could have saved those 43 Pakistanis who died on that bus. No number of military courts will deter such murderous violence. But effective state action, driven by the political will to counter religious bigotry at its inception could have gone a long way. Groups like the ISIS and their partners are out to destroy our states as they exist. And the state must overcome its shortcomings. Religion is a constantly available sledgehammer that everyone can use in this country. Despite repeated failure, the state has been apologetic about coming up with a pluralist discourse. It is high time that this changes.

Pakistan is a country of ghosts. They are everywhere, the victims and the perpetrators both. On Wednesday morning, six gunmen wearing police uniforms stopped an Al Azhar Garden bus carrying 60 Ismaili Muslims in Karachi. The bus picked up Ismailies from the housing society dedicated to their community on the outskirts of the city and drove them to work. It was a journey the passengers made every day.

The gunmen boarded the bus. Sub ko mar dalo, one of them is reported to have said. Kill them all. By the time the gunmen got back on their motorcycles and fled, they had murdered 43 people.

Bhutto, Fatima.  “‘In Pakistan, anyone and everyone can be a target'”.  The Hindu, May 15, 2015.

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Link – Iranian Provocation – Persian Gulf

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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The incident began with the Iranians ordering the ship into Iranian waters. When the ships master refused, the Iranians began to fire in a way to try to disable the ship, not just as warning shots, the U.S. official said.

Several shots hit the cargo ship, but did not disable it. The ship went into UAE waters and the Iranians followed it into those territorial waters, continuing to fire, before breaking off.

Starr, Barbara.  “First on CNN: Five Iranian boats fire shots in the Persian Gulf.”  CNN Politics, May 14, 2015.

The Khamenei style makes for a bad movie, but, nonetheless, a movie in the making appears to be what the chest-thumper script follows.  Repeatedly.  Recall the 2007 header, “Iran seizes 15 British marines and sailors” (Aref Mohammed, Reuters, March 23); drift back to 2004 (thanks, Wikipedia): “2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel”; and more recently in the news: Maersk Tigris, a cargo ship (the incident took place between April and May this year), Maersk Kensington (CNN URL dated April 29).

A senior Iranian military official warned that any effort to board a Yemen-bound ship – supposedly filled with aid supplies – would “spark a fire,” amid speculation that Tehran is using the shipment to try to provoke an incident.

One U.S. official told Fox News the Iranian ship has media aboard.

“Iran is begging for us to board the ship. This is all for show,” he said.

Fox News.  ‘All for show’? Iran warns against boarding Yemen-bound ship, US questions motives.”  May 13, 2015.

From the same piece: “”I bluntly declare that the self-restraint of Islamic Republic of Iran is not limitless,” Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of staff, told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam state TV late Tuesday.”

There should be no question about the defects in personality involved in Iranian belligerence and its version of military and political reality testing in service to extraordinary kleptocracy and political manipulation in turn associated with an equally ambitious and piratical expansionism.

Connect the dots:

The Ayatollah appears incapable of restraint except when confronted with the prospect of main force — and the smaller parts of “main force” — “diplomacy”, sanctions, excoriations — appear of little concern given the regime’s comfortability with its criminality, limitless ambitions, and largely unimpeded operating style.

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Link – Operating in the Good Old Red (Brown)

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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In reacting to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine in early 2014, the US government did not call the Sixth Fleet into action; it did not ban all exports to Russia; it did not stop all cultural and educational exchanges. Rather, key elites close to “a senior Russian government official”—President Vladimir Putin—were targeted with asset seizures and visa bans.

Probably the most serious international crisis since the end of the Cold War, and the White House targets individuals? It seemed an odd response to some observers. But it made sense. At last, after 14 years of dealing with Putin as a legitimate head of state, the US government has finally acknowledged that he has built a system based on massive predation on a level not seen in Russia since the czars. Transparency International estimates the annual cost of bribery in Russia at $300 billion, roughly equal to the entire gross domestic product of Denmark, or many times higher than the Russian budgetary allocations for health and education. Capital flight totaled $335 billion from 2005 to 2013, or about 5 percent of GDP. But then in 2014, with the ruble and oil prices tumbling, it reached more than $150 billion—a figure that has swollen Western bank coffers but made Russia the most unequal of all economies, in which, according to Credit Suisse, 110 billionaires control 35 percent of the country’s wealth.

Dawisha, Karen.  “The Putin Principle: How it Came to Rule Russia.”  World Affairs, May/June 2015.

Red.  Brown.  Green.

Fascist.

Lawless.

Thieving.

And getting away with it!

There’s now plenty of BackChannels opinion on “Syndicate Red Brown Green”, a clever collection of books (in the “The Russian Section” of the library), but no prescriptions and not much hope for those in the Russian oppositions being ground away or controlled for irrelevance by the “Vertical of Power”.   The states of affairs may be ascertained swiftly with a glance at the web sites of well known critics.

Alexey Navalny

Gary Kasparov

Mikhail Kodorkovsky

Let BackChannels know when the outlook of each brightens.

The report, titled Putin. War, asserts that at least 150 Russian military personnel were killed during a Ukrainian offensive in August 2014. A further 70 — including 17 paratroopers from the city of Ivanovo — were reportedly killed during fighting near the bitterly contested town of Debaltseve in January and February.

Families of those killed in 2014 were given 2 million rubles ($39,000) by the government in exchange for signing a promise not to discuss the matter publicly, the report claims.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.  “Nemtsov Reports Says More Than 200 Russian Soldiers Killed in Ukraine.”  May 14, 2015.

Gratuitous.

Posted to YouTube July 2013.

The great forces today are not in the “masses” or the “voting public” but in the construction and intentions of “adventurous governments” and otherwise integrated and stable ones.  Among the “adventurous”: Putin, Assad, Khamenei, Orban, Erdogan, among others; “integrated and stable”: the classically liberal democracies of the world.  The figure of “Everyman” shrugs before, sometimes beneath, these altogether large forces.

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Link Plus a Note on Intellectual Battlespace

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Thanks to UC Berkeley and surrounding colleges like San Francisco State (where Bazian did his undergraduate studies and led a Palestinian takeover of that campus as class president), Bazian’s campaign keeps gaining legitimacy as it aids the endless war against both the United States and Israel by militant Islamists including those who are fighting U.S. troops abroad.

Kaplan, Lee.  “Taxpayers Made to Pay for Islamic Indoctrination in US University.” Shoebat.com, May 4, 2015.

BackChannels intends to continue navigating the center of the political channels, but the above from the vigilant of the anti-Jihad brings up the greater issue that is the infiltration of American intellectual assets by supports of such as Hamas.  This blog locates this kind of incursion in the great “Syndicate Red Brown Green” effort to obtain more resource through political mafia means and in the process weaken the United States and NATO and related circles of influence and power as arbiters of the lawful.

That’s a lot to say in a very short space, but basically, the politically lawless and most venal of the world — that “Khamenei-Putin” thing — have extraordinary access to cultural centers throughout North America and the world, and if they’re going to be confined by opposition and resistance, it will be through the methods of the lawful, from blogs to journals to tenure committees . . . .

Addendum – May 9, 2015

In his introduction to a timely volume of essays, The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, Paul Berman provides a witty summary of the efforts by university boycotters to frame their campaigns as “modern and progressive” when in fact they are “disgraceful and retrograde.” But the truth is that anti-Semitism never needed a sophisticated veneer in order to win susceptible recruits among the educated and the allegedly enlightened.

Wisse, Ruth.  “Anti-Semitism Goes to School.”  Mosaic, May 4, 2015.

From The Awesome Conversation (May 9, 2015): “We’re going to be battling these forces back a long time. For that, there’s not better forum and place than the United States where free speech lives and malicious speech becomes recognized and known for the intellectual barbarism it represents.”

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Link – The Projected Phantom – Anti-Semitism

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Links, Political Psychology, Religion

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As deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party in Hungary, Szegedi co-founded the Hungarian Guard – a paramilitary formation which marched in uniform through Roma neighbourhoods.

And he blamed the Jews, as well as the Roma, for the ills of Hungarian society – until he found out that he himself was one. After several months of hesitation, during which the party leader even considered keeping him as the party’s “tame Jew” as a riposte to accusations of anti-Semitism, he walked out.

Thorpe, Nick.  “What happened when an anti-Semite found he was Jewish?”  BBC News, May 4, 2015.

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