Category Archives: Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology

FTAC – Short Note on News Evaluation in the New Age of “Active Measures”

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Political Psychology

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Whatever the motivation, the demonizing of Obama formed a part of the ugly polarizing of American politics and, perhaps, clouded the ability of most Americans to develop a more data-rich and reasoned analysis of states of affairs. “Framing” serves the passions, but it’s framing and practically by definition skewed from the surface and into the mix that sustains what we call “attitudes” — a collection of beliefs, their primacy and valence (good thing / bad thing, how much so?) that feed up to our conclusions. As we accumulate information, both beliefs and attitudes may be adjusted to suit what we also believe to be — and may prod and test ourselves — valid and reliable new data.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/category/regions/eurasia/russia/

Putin’s Administration today represents a complete KGB revanche but with the banner of “State Capitalism” in place of “Communism” and in place of socialist equality a new ultra-nationalist and neo-imperial ambition for dominating and looting others under the cover of “protection”.

Perhaps up to this now tense time in history — see “Cold War?  Cold Struggle” — the western public, by and large, has been spared the necessity of revisiting history lessons, learning about state-sponsored evil (start that with state-controlled press), and summoning the energy to apply research and critical thinking skills to a thorough evaluation of information for its integrity in the delivery of both factual data and in reasoning.

BackChannels has worked for some time now collecting, analyzing, compressing, and telegraphing observations in the region of foreign affairs.  It knows it may not surprise the specialists, those hands who have embraced an appropriate enthusiasm in their teen years, picked up one or more languages, majored in a relevant field, and sallied forth for decades as policy makers and scholars.  However, that community forms a lofty and healthy choir.  What about those becoming involved in such events as the Syrian Conflict and Tragedy or the “Euromaidan” and the effort to produce a modern democracy in Ukraine?  For that, BackChannels pieces provide numerous portals into related fields and topics.

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Also in Media: “Putin’s Real Long Game” – POLITICO Magazine | Molly K. McKew | January 1, 2017

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.

Those on the Russian frontier, like my friends from Ukraine and Estonia, have already seen the Kremlin’s new toolkit at work.

Reading highly recommended: Putin’s Real Long Game – POLITICO Magazine – 1/2/2017.

Related in Media

4. Don’t listen to “realists.” Self-described “realists” have suggested that Russia be given a free hand in the former Soviet republics in return for cooperation on issues that are vital to U.S. and Western security. This call to make a “deal,” in addition to its blatant immorality, ignores the fact that it makes sense to reach an understanding only with those who will keep their side of the bargain. The fact that the Russians are seeking to deny the former Soviet republics their rights as sovereign nations is all the indication one needs that an unenforceable “gentleman’s agreement” to cooperate with the West will be violated the minute it ceases to be to Russia’s advantage. The rejection of a moral framework for relations, meanwhile, will set the stage and help provide the justification for new and more outrageous Russian demands in the future.

Satter, David. “Obama and Russia.”  Forbes, November 24, 2008.

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FTAC – Deranged Power

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Psychology

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The chat began with comment on the infamous Dr. Mengele and his demonic practices, but then it slipped a little sideways to talk about an inherent evil in procedures unrelated to the Nazi’s bent.

Again (again, again): the kind of power embraced by the despotic is the power to visit suffering on others with impunity and without conscience.

It may not be the procedure — e.g., abortion, sex change — that is evil but rather the removal of choice in its imposition.

Where abortion arguments are batted back and forth, the concern is not with procedure but the precedence of the “right” to choice on the mother’s part or advocacy for the fetus in its earliest phase.

Mengele and other famous sadists given the power to maim, torture, and murder with impunity do as the disturbed people they either were before their empowerment or have become as a consequence of it.

Much of this blog — perhaps all of it — has been concerned with the nature of political power in its most basic regions — “conflict, culture, language, and psychology” — and here it addresses the kind of extremist and vacuous force that gives way to wholesale theft and murder all the up the imaginable scale and beyond.

How could an ophthalmologist have created so much horror absent of conscience and shame?

Posted to YouTube by Muhammad Al Mousa on September 4, 2016.

How could the privileged and wealthy of Moscow — or Russia — have escaped the opprobrium associated with the most heinous irredeemable of war crimes?

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/18/syria-russias-barbarism-the-hospitals/
11/18/2016

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FTAC – Short Note – Cultural Existence and Language

30 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Political Psychology, Religion

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Language is a cultural invention and tool in which the world’s separated populations suspend themselves each as a unique enterprise. Perhaps in the densely populated complex societies, the aggregation of multiple cultures in political space require stronger tools for accommodation and integration.

The subjects of language, language history, linguistics, etc. are immense, but where we have the tools for our own demise, nature demands we find a common enough cultural and social code to keep everyone — and their languages — in existence

There are presently about 7,000 living languages extant, but the actual number is less and we lose several annually to natural discarding (if not through cultural annihilation). It’s for that reason I’ve taken the tack that a People possessed of a language, practically by definition invented in the space, small or large, on which they have been marooned, need their land and may be “updated” to civil standards of a sort and otherwise left to evolve.

That’s my proposed modern ethic.

Where we witness barbarism, what we may perceive as an absence of conscience may be instead a different set of cultural rules (desperately in need of adjustment). When ISIS idiots mass rape Yazidi women, they do so with language that has pandered to them and given them permit for extraordinary cruelty. Of course, some ISIS members flee ISIS for such reasons: the behavior on exhibit goes against the grain of their humanity.

Within Islam, the same may be noted of Muslims victimized by the Taliban: the Army School in Peshawar represented a Muslim community defending and raising its children, and the “Talibandits” attack, which must have seemed a virtuous undertaking to themselves, proved only to further destroy their image while encouraging more of the Ummah to shun their presentation of what Muslims should be.

BackChannels produced a page pointing to linguist Daniel Everett some years back, and it might be useful for any just starting on their journey into philology.

A “zeitgeist” is an expression of language in its totality and care must be taken — artists and poets may consider their responsibilities to man and God — or man and nature if that better suits — before encouraging the worship of chaos and death.

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Diplomatic Harassment – Short Compilation

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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

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Start with the rules.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries. It specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. This forms the legal basis for diplomatic immunity. Its articles are considered a cornerstone of modern international relations. As of April 2014, it has been ratified by 190 states.[1]

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

Then proceed (bolds, colors, and italics added):

STATEMENT BY MARK TONER, DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON

December 29, 2016

Department of State Actions in Response to Russian Harassment

The State Department today declared persona non grata 35 Russian officials operating in the United States who were acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic or consular status. The Department also informed the Russian Government that it would deny Russian personnel access to two recreational compounds in the United States owned by the Russian Government.

The Department took these actions as part of a comprehensive response to Russia’s interference in the U.S. election and to a pattern of harassment of our diplomats overseas that has increased over the last four years, including a significant increase in the last 12 months. This harassment has involved arbitrary police stops, physical assault, and the broadcast on State TV of personal details about our personnel that put them at risk. In addition, the Russian Government has impeded our diplomatic operations by, among other actions: forcing the closure of 28 American corners which hosted cultural programs and English-language teaching; blocking our efforts to begin the construction of a new, safer facility for our Consulate General in St. Petersburg; and rejecting requests to improve perimeter security at the current, outdated facility in St. Petersburg.

Today’s actions send a clear message that such behavior is unacceptable and will have consequences.

From Out of the Past (Moscow Has Played Rough)

“Family members have been the victims of psychologically terrifying assertions that their USG (U.S. government) employee spouses had met accidental deaths,” the embassy reported. “Home intrusions have become far more commonplace and bold, and activity against our locally engaged Russian staff continues at a record pace.

“We have no doubt that this activity originates in the FSB. Counterintelligence challenges remain a hallmark of service at Embassy Moscow.”

http://www.jpost.com/International/The-curious-case-of-a-diplomat-Wikileaks-reveals-all – 12/8/2010.

The British and American governments are acutely aware of the FSB’s campaign of intimidation. But neither has publicly complained about these demonstrative “counter-intelligence” measures, for fear of further straining already difficult relations with Vladmir Putin’s resurgent regime. Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, was head of the FSB.

British sources admit they have files “five or six inches thick” detailing FSB break-ins and other incidents of harassment against Moscow embassy staff. “Generally we don’t make a fuss about it,” one said. So pervasive is the FSB’s campaign that the British government is unable to staff fully its Moscow embassy. The intrusions are designed to “short-tour” diplomats so they leave their posts early, the source said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/23/russia-targeting-western-diplomats – 9/23/2011.

But many of the recent acts of intimidation by Russian security services have crossed the line into apparent criminality. In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to me by several current and former U.S. officials who have written or read them, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/russia-is-harassing-us-diplomats-all-over-europe/2016/06/26/968d1a5a-3bdf-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html – 6/27/2016

In Wikipedia

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

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung (East German Psy-Ops)

From the Russian Section

Harding, Luke. Expelled: A Journalist’s Descent Into the Russian Mafia State. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Related Reference

Duncan, Ian and John Fritze.  “Obama administration shutters Russian retreat on Eastern Shore in Maryland.”  The Baltimore Sun, December 29, 2016.

Price, Ned.  “The Administration’s Response to Russia: What you Need to Know.”  The White House, December 29, 2016.

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FTAC – Opinion on the UN Vote Hostile to Israel (Resolution 2334 / 2016)

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, United States of America

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The fingers were erect and wagging at Obama as anti-Semite and turncoat, which I found a bit radical.

Of course, other analyst-pundits have been weighing in on the UN’s latest gang-up on the world’s One Jewish State and the Administration’s dithering abstention, and that cacophony doubtless includes similar charges (or language) from Right side of the aisle.

Be that as it may, the chorus was heard with the original poster’s complaint that no dissent had been heard.

Well, at least let there be an argument.

I’ll dissent.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/24/ftac-moscows-presence-in-the-middle-east-conflict/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

If there is, has been, or will be a contest between “medieval political absolutism” and the “modern democratic and checked distribution of power”, the same involves meeting the challenges posed by the “Phantoms of the Soviet” (the Union died 25 years, Dec. 25, 1991).

I think the west too quick to march on in post-Cold War glory — and the rush to do business with the reforming new Russia — and it got taken in by Moscow while Moscow, as represented by “Vertical-of-Power” Putin has gently but firmly twisted the state’s narrative from “Glasnost” all the way back to proto-fascist ultra-nationalism and neo-imperialism — backed by the demonstration of barbarism (in Syria), aggression (in Ukraine), and the possession of nuclear arms and updated weapons systems.

Is anyone feeling lucky?

While it’s true the Obama Administration has avoided direct confrontation with Moscow (how unseemly that would look! And I say that as cynically as any here), it has weakened Moscow’s ability to project and sustain military aggression in the near abroad. It will then be left to President Trump to address Putin and either abet, contain, or push back against what the Moscow Revival presents to western interests.

The UN resolution was execrable in every dimension!

https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm

However, the true target in east-west relations and in the middle east conflict remains a recalcitrant Moscow. A dangerous Moscow. A dictator’s Moscow (and check out the alignments on the voting).

Between Trump (Manafort, Millian, Kilimnik) and Putin, let’s hope the superficial media-relayed “bromance” is over — or it will be our lives more organized along more feudal principles in conflict with modern (democratic) ones.

Loosely related but from another conversation —

I wanted to suggest to you that a working “secular democracy” actually enables the full expression of religious passion as a private and private community matter. The system supports boundaries and a common agreement on the prudence and sensibility of good law, i.e., law that sustains a free and vibrant social order.

Jihad, provocation, and terrorism mean to upset civil order — and they can do it!

When will the west again push back against criminal, fascist, and proto-fascist aggression, I don’t know but know that as it loses its principles and values, if it does, it will have to respond to absolutism.

 

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Triple Vision – Iran – From Nazanin Fatehi to Nazanin Afshin-Jam to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe- 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2016

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Iran

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Nazanin Fatehi appears to have committed a murder in self-defense as a 17-year-old girl in 2005.  The regime initially found her guilty of murder and sentenced her to death by hanging.  The human rights community took up her cause and the lunatic processes of what passes for justice in Iran released her (with financial obligations) in 2012.  She has disappeared.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-Canadian possessed of gorgeous looks and multiple talents took up Fatehi’s cause on top of the cause of freedom in Iran and became part of the run-up to the 2009 challenge to the regime. As an advocate for Nazanin Fatehi, she published a book, The Tale of Two Nazanins (2012).

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is today a British citizen held by the regime on secret charges — an affront to British Power, a potential casus belli — and part of an absurd diplomacy involving provocative behaviors (e.g., seizing patrol boats in open waters) that appears to play out between Iran and its western marks with fair regularity.

Posted to YouTube December 22, 2006.

Posted to YouTube April 27, 2007.

Posted to YouTube June 21, 2009.

Posted to YouTube June 3, 2012 (22-minute interview).

Posted to YouTube May 10, 2016.

Posted to YouTube December 19, 2016.

As of July 2012, the whereabouts of Fatehi, age approx. 25, were reported as unknown by individuals in the West with whom she had prior contact, with current contact being only the most sporadic.[2][6][10] A book from Canadian supporter and activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam appeared in 2012 chronicling the divergent lives of these two Iranian Nazanins, whose lives intersected during the period of Fatehi’s trial;[11] media responses to the book were generally positive

Nazanin Fatehi — the “Nazanin” referred to in the 2012 interview with Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Canadian Human Rights Activist

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, British Citizen capriciously and currently imprisoned by the Iranian Regime

Related ‘Fast-Link” Reference

http://news.sky.com/video/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-is-serving-five-years-in-prison-for-charges-that-remain-secret-10667803 – 11/22/2016.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/22/british-woman-jailed-iran-must-take-two-year-old-daughter-prison/ – 12/22/2016.

Change.org Petition

https://www.change.org/p/free-nazanin-ratcliffe

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Also in Media: “Putin Using All Means Against The West – Including Islamist Terrorism – Piontkovsky Says” | December 12, 2016

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

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

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“There is a mass of evidence about the strategic cooperation of the Kremlin and ‘the Islamic State,’ about the conscious dispatch by the FSB of Caucasus militants into its ranks, about the use by Moscow of terrorists as an instrument for weakening and destroying the West” and also about Putin’s use of terrorism to build his increasingly vicious state at home.

Source: Putin Using All Means Against The West – Including Islamist Terrorism – Piontkovsky Says 12/12/2016

BackChannels has seen a related reference online recently:

Satter, David.  “Putin is No Partner on Terrorism: It’s a Mistake for Washington to Count Moscow an Ally.”  Foreign Affairs, December 22, 2016.

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