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Category Archives: Islamic Small Wars

FTAC: For Conflicts, Middle East and Others, a Day for Denying Intractability and Embracing Optimism for a Much Better Global Tomorrow

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Modern, A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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21st Century Transition, A Modern Politics, Future Solving, Globally Forward Thinking, Medieval to Modern

Inspiration

My conversational partner, an Israeli, said, “Some problems don’t have solutions. That’s a concept that’s especially difficult for Americans to understand.”

From the Awesome Conversation


There are no intractable political challenges for any authentically modern and progressing democratic society and state.

Rawabi has been brought into existence by Palestinian wealth and is in business with western Fortune 500 companies, including Mellanox.

Here’s another project launched — i.e., off the draftsman’s board and under construction today — in an unlikely place:

https://www.neom.com/index.html

The world is neither hopeless nor helpless in light of its collective issues and future. It may be crime ridden, fractious, and violent, but the measurable qualities of evil may be diminished with time. We have not, thank God, had our World War III but while living perpetually in a state of competition or conflict with China and Russia — those may be considered the Orwellian two other powers — we have developed sustained lower-intensity conflicts and the transnational crime organizations that fuel their fires. Well, if we can develop greater conscience in some, temper greed, and deal with practical pressures, we might be able to draw those down.

If the Devil’s winning, Mark, it’s our own fault (for not understanding how the Damned Thing works).

For corrupt Palestinian leaders, the real primary incentive appears to be relationships with elites yielding money and personal security. Some at the top of that heap should try purchasing a less self-centered and parochial conscience.


From whence comes the broader consideration of others in the world by those who by way of their own wealthy and powerful circumstance have the wherewithal to lead it?

In casual talk, I’ve suggested evolution.

Why not?

Nature grows our minds.

In more serious psychology, altruism, caring, conscience, love, and the related apprehension of duties, obligations, and responsibilities toward others seem altogether healthier characteristics than fearful and compensating tendencies toward the meanest and smallest minded expressions of the will to survive as a will determined to destroy or dominate others.

For those with seriously Up There — Plutocratic — Clout, which is the better direction and why grind against it?

Why not formulate ideas and programs better fit for both a challenging global and personal future by simply enjoying what has characterized the past in dogma and politics — there’s no need to dishonor the past for anyone — while moving on to “well, we are all here on just this one marble of an island in space and time — and our first priority should be keeping our own conditions — environmental and broadly social — better than survivable”?

There are those with the power to drive forward of their own circumstances and life experiences, the present is always the place in time (and there is no better) where some cultural rivers and their ideas (and associated behaviors) needs must dissolve in their own delta while others — more fit for future time and space — flow from new wellsprings.

Related Online

Neom

Rawabi

Wherever we are in time — this moment! — we’re not going to be in the same place tomorrow. It may look that way on the outside — same writer here, same desktop: differently informed and perpetually gathering, recombining, reformulating ideas, information, plans.


Posted to YouTube by April 5, 2063, January 30, 2019.

–33–

FTAC: Pashtun Resistance to Chinese Imperialist CEPAK Projects, PakDef, and Taliban

28 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Afghanistan, Asia, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Regions, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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Chinese Expansion, Chinese Imperialism, CPEK, Political Anomie

This assassination campaign began in the aftermath of 9/11 when Pakistan allowed Taliban fighters and other allied fighters who were forced to flee Afghanistan to resettle in parts of former FATA. Over the years, these groups systematically eliminated tribal leaders and politicians who raised their voices against them. To this day, the Pakistani state has not solved any of these murders, perhaps because it has been tacitly using these unlawful groups to foment instability in Afghanistan and consolidate its influence over the region.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/6/12/pashtuns-struggle-for-rights-cannot-be-silenced-through-violence/
6/12/2020

Inspiration for this post: a conversation anchored in South Waziristan involving political chaos and violence believed supported by Pakistan’s military accused of supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan and paying thugs to upset tribal order in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Now it has so happened that Pakistan’s Defense suffered two casualties at a remote outpost last week, which may have given license to the state to increase the force of its containment of its complement of the indigenous Pashtun whose population spans the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The restiveness has been complicated lately by the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (see also https://www.brookings.edu/research/at-all-costs-how-pakistan-and-china-control-the-narrative-on-the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor/ – June 2020).

From the Awesome Conversation

What follows are thoughts from the lengthiest of observations having to do with the Pashtun’s natural position between state forces and processes having to do with international development and war much, much larger than themselves.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/14/were-peacefully-demanding-change-pakistan-military-says-were-traitors/ – 2/14/2020

https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/asim-bajwa-expose-underlines-the-corruption-linking-the-pakistan-army-and-cpec/ – 9/4/2020

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/11/27/a-short-note-on-chinas-contemporary-political-sins/ – 11/27/2020

When our President Nixon (a long time ago) initiated a new relationship with China, it was with hopes to offset Soviet Russian power and bring China closer to the normative behaviors of the modern world expressive of global compassion supported by international trade. On the topside, we do things for one another. Rather on the surface, well, we do things for money — and that makes “big picture” sense of Asian labor and western raw goods and Asian finished goods sold (for good profit — good markup — in western markets).

Mercantilism has been much the way of the world.

In the modern open democratic and liberal west, the abuses and excesses of business have been tempered through the actions of elected administrations, legislatures, and courts in the interests of electorates and justice. In the west, capitalists and wealthy have not gotten free rides from popularly elected governments even if seeding political careers and wins with their own money. There are just too many with too many differing motives for playing that game broadly.

In Asia, perhaps, money — and with China, now overwhelming wealth — does its work between elites and military behind closed door (“behind the curtains” goes the phrase fit to medieval politics) — and guess who’s in the way of the greater enrichment and glory of the disinterested or remote powerful?

*

It doesn’t help the Pashtun — and whoever and for whatever reason — to attack PakDef military posts (IF that is what has actually happened recently), for that gives the military excuse to bother or maraud the Pashtun community.

With regard to some Larger Forces — here, Chinese and Pakistani trade interests representing government, military, and private entities — “anomie” (worth the looking up) may be a real issue.

*

Don’t look to Russia for help — that state has minted defense sales using Syrians as targets for demonstration of its wares. In the AfPak region, its arms, however acquired, have helped sustain what looks to me an unfathomable misery borne of endless low-intensity conflict that has no end without financial, political, and religious insight plus political will and near immediate reconciliation.


Related Online

Aamir, Adnan. “Pakistan Belt and Road chief under pressure to resign: Corruption allegations spark rare criticism of point man in China relations.” Nikkei Asia, September 11, 2020.

China Pakistan Economic Corridor

Dawar, Mohsin. “Pashtun’s struggle for rights cannot be silence through violence.” Al Jazeera, June 12, 2020.

Pauley, Logan and Hamza Shad. “Gwadar: Emerging Port City or Chinese Colony: Pakistan must take care that Gwadar doesn’t become a Chinese “state within a state.” The Diplomat, October 5, 2018.


The draconian nature of the FCR lies in the concept of “collective punishment”, where a whole tribe can be punished for the crime of one member of the tribe. It is telling that even after British India got its independence in 1947, the people of ex FATA were still facing the same colonial legal injustice till the year 2018. And while things definitely have changed on paper, there still is a long way to go before there is a change in the situation on the ground.These draconian punishments have always served a purpose, whether it was British India of the 20thcentury or the Pakistan of the 21stcentury. These laws are meant to subdue a population into giving up their rights, so that they can be sacrificed on the altar of “greater good”. Goes without saying that this greater good, has never been good for us, the people of ex FATA.

Dawar, Mohsin. PDF. Hudson Institute Roundtable Presentation, Washington, D.C., October 19, 2018.

Launched in 2015, CPEC is a logical partnership for China and Pakistan—two close allies keen to cooperate on much-needed infrastructure projects in Pakistan, while contributing to China’s strategic goal of facilitating access to far-flung markets and expanding its global footprint.

However, when Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party took control in 2018, the Belt and Road Initiative was coming under increasingly sharp global criticism for a lack of transparency, for burdening host countries with high debts and for questionable investment practices that included excessive use of imported Chinese labor.

Kugelman, Michael. “Can Pakistan Reboot Its ‘Belt and Road’ Partnership with China?” World Politics Review, September 25, 2020.

Cryptic Impressions

Chinese Banking and Development Worldwide : flexes China’s financial muscle while leveraging infrastructure building expertise into a gateway for Chinese labor — which accompanies its projects — and through that mechanism Chinese cultural influence agents. As much would update the Cold War Era Soviet practice of sending thousands of Communist agents into the Middle East as embedded in the labor contingents attached to development contracts in targeted states.

PakDef | ISI –> Taliban encouragement : goad to Kabul : encouragement of “Islamism” within : further marginalizing of the Pashtun as a coherent and cohesive political force.

The above two paragraphs represent my thinking in cryptic fashion. If the world were practical and less inclined to fear and threat — as well as deeply dependent on international arms sales that support manufacturing bases and untold wealth in related Research & Development competitions — the promotion of dogma into violence — or “extremist dogma” — would be less attractive. As it is, “The Terrorists” (wherever “who” has become both ambiguous and ubiquitous) have turned out handy for some elites in the world’s more corrupt and cynical circles of military and political power.


Posted to YouTube by Caspian Reports, January 10, 2019.

Posted to YouTube by New China TV, May 15, 2018.

###

Afghanistan’s Violence-Stalling Peace-Encouraging Doha Agreement

29 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Afghanistan, International Development, Islamic Small Wars

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Afghanistan, Doha Agreement, east-west conflict, Phantoms of the Soviet, Taliban

Left: Diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, U.S. Department of State; right: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Chief of Taliban’s Diplomatic Office, Doha, Qatar. Screen capture, February 29, 2020.

Where it may have begun —

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

How it may have been sustained —

Gibbons-Neff, Thomas. “Russia is sending weapons to Taliban, top U.S. general confirms.” The Washington Post, April 24, 2017.

Where it may have ended this day —

George, Susannah and Dan Lamothe. “U.S. signs peace deal with Taliban, a turning point in the 18-year war in Afghanistan. The Washington Post, February 29, 2020.

Related on BackChannels

Civilizational Narcissism

Related Online

Bellis, Charlotte. “US-Taliban talks: Who is Mullah Baradar? Taliban Cofounder turned political chief, Abdul Ghani Baradar has wored in the shadows his entire life.” Al Jazeera, May 2, 2019.

–33–

FTAC: Encouragement for Palestinian Democracy

22 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia

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Palestinian Democracy

Inspiration: the claim that Palestinians are struggling to end the occupation and establish peace and democracy.


From the (Still) Awesome Conversation

Fatah and Hamas should then establish peace and democracy where they live and govern by holding fair and free elections with regularity; by eliminating political repression for ordinary Palestinians who question policy; by addressing widespread corruption and related thuggery; by policing and neutralizing invasive terrorist organizations with agendas of their own; by working as hard for Christian and other faith communities as has been done for Muslim ones; by investing in Palestinian entrepreneurship — I, of all people, have been approached for that (Rx. given: international “crowd funding”, and it worked); and perhaps by encouraging an open public discussion about image, power, and wealth and what it means to look powerful while leveraging others and what it means to be powerful by being authentically good, noble, and virtuous; and, finally, by keeping earmarked Palestinian funding at home in the Palestinian Territories, Principalities, or Unified State rather than parked abroad.


The litany of keyword searches seems seldom good: “Palestinian Corruption”; “Palestinian Human Rights”; Palestinian Political Repression”; etc. Is it so strange to think that all of that might be reversed by Palestinian popular insistence on democratic governance, free and fair elections, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, Palestinian internal investment and development?


Further on in the conversation, and from BC’s side of it:

Israel in no way bars Palestinians in the Preoccupied Territories from enjoying the benefits of democracy, rule of law, and responsible and responsive governance. Palestinian “leaders” — or related personalities and organizations — do.


The conversation moves along, and I am fully standing on my boards in this part of the world’s virtual open mall —

Then let US address the “Eastern” side of the “East-West Conflict” to which any nascent Palestinian polity has to refuse further power to be itself authentically liberated — and from what? A) the Palestinian role in serving as a block and goad to the West, its faith in mankind, and its consequent and related civilizational liberalism; B) some propensity in Arab and other feudal realms to dominate and plunder the politically weak by evading law (all but one’s own) and aggrandizing one’s self — the leader’s self – at the expense of all.

I’ve been able to visit a certain surface in history — the Roman anchorage and expansion far into Europe from the south of the continent x the Norse — the Viking — push from the north bearing south and raiding and trading east at least to Baghdad. It’s a helluva story even in outline — but fast-forward to this day, and it turns out the Palestinians that have borne the weight and press of the same / similar civilizational tectonics.

The truth is the “Middle East Conflict” has been engineered and milked for all it has been worth, and the base of the Palestinian Community has paid the price for being on the border between the FOUR distinctly different worlds — the Medieval and the Modern; the Arab and the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian West — but with the exception of some who have gotten a good deal of money (plus ersatz political family and cachet) out of it.


Note: I hit enter inadvertently, but it’s about right. The Big Picture bears down on the small one. 😦 IMHO, the Palestinians should pursue a course independent of the concerns of so many powerful global players. Eject old polemic and everyone might ask, what would be cautious, prudent, and good today for peace, for work with dignity, for trade, and most of all a modern, responsive, and responsible governing culture?

We should have a new conversation.


–33–

FTAC: How Israel Reclaimed Israel

22 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, United States of America

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Ilhan Omar, MEC, middle east conflict, Palestinian Integrity and Liberation, The Palestinians

Inspiration

Bachner, Michael and Agencies. “Omar says US should halt aid to Israel until it gives Palestinians ‘full rights’.” The Times of Israel, August 20, 2019.

On Facebook, frequent Time of Israel columnist Fred Maroun wrote in light of the above cited article:

“Stop the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land, and ensure full rights for Palestinians”. One may not agree with Ilan Omar on everything, but she’s right on that point. And if Israel won’t give West Bank Palestinians equal rights within the state of Israel, it should let them run their own state in which Palestinians would be citizens. The current state of limbo — no equality and no Palestinian state — is not acceptable and is not worthy of the great democracy that Israel is.

Fred Maroun, Facebook, August 20, 2019

This editor’s riposte has picked up more than a dozen FB “Likes” and “Loves” since it was added to the conversation. Here it is as part of the assault on the “Middle East Conflict” itself, not on the Palestinians who have been made to suffer through 70+ years of Arab Apartheid and Soviet/Post-Soviet disinformation, manipulation, and political repression by their own corrupt and kleptocratic “leaders”.


Palestinians do run their own “territories”, which would be states if their leadership were not in the end murderous!

Omar’s ploy is to eliminate Israel as a Jewish-Majority state. She either conveniently or ignorantly forgets that Israel is 20 percent Arab Muslim enfranchised.

Who is stealing from whom in this conflict?

How Israel obtained Israel —

http://www.badil.org/en/publication/periodicals/al-majdal/item/1055-land-ownership-in-palestine/israel-1920-2000.html

http://www.beki.org/dvartorah/landlaw/

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

1948 – https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war

1967 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

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

Who and what does Ilhan Omar now represent?

One more online reference: http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/


Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2019/02/24/shuafat-on-the-edge-between-good-and-evil/

To this point, the Palestinian leaders have appeared to prefer lying to their people — and taking their money for themselves — to buckling down into clearly responsive and responsible governance. If ever there were a place to being building a New Palestinian Society, it would be Shuafat!

–33–

The Burden of Memory — From Pakistan, the Story of One Story

04 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Afghanistan, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Regions

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Pakistan Army, Pashtun Internally Displaced, Taliban, War Anecdote

As told to BackChannels —


Tirah Valley, Khyber Agency, Pakistan, Around 2013-2015 — The operation had started against so-called militants in the valley. The army had only a little bit earlier ordered a general evacuation in advance of the fighting, so all who were not Taliban were still leaving their animals, businesses, and homes in a hurry.

The Taliban were there and would stay to fight the army.

I don’t know how many Taliban or army soldiers died in that fight, but there was an old man above 70, older than usual for the region, who told me that most were strong enough to cross the mountain but due to having less energy or power, he had thought he might be unable to cross the mountains with his daughter who could not walk. Still, he would try. He would carry her on his back.

The old man continued, “I took her on my back and started climbing the mountain, but after reaching some height, I had to stop.

“She knew what was happening — or what was going to happen — and she started to cry.

“– Baba, don’t you know what the army or Taliban will do to me?

“What do you want me to do?

“–Shoot me.”

The old man started crying.

“I buried her in the mountain.”

It was cold the day the old man told me his story. He had no jacket or socks.


Tirah Valley, Khyber Agency, Google Earth Screen Capture, August 3, 2019.

BackChannels would suggest that memories live in aural and visual and other sense-based impressions, i.e., what we most remember are moments, not the day and hour of their making or what we had for breakfast in proximity to them — and then what makes a “moment” a long-term memory may be its elevated emotional aspects, and that made so by ethical, moral, or sensual experience.

The Tirah Valley has seen more than its portion — however God may determine these things — of conflict violence. Because the day and hour were indefinite in the memory of the blog’s source, BackChannels may place it (as a suggestion) around March 25, 2015 in light of The New York Times headline, “Pakistani Army Begins Offensive to Drive Militants from Tirah Valley” (Ismail Khan). However, Pakistan Armed Forces fighting with the Taliban in association with the Tirah Valley predates the 2015 offensive.

Shinwari, Wali Khan. “In Pictures: Pakistan’s troubled Tirah Valley.” Al Jazeera, July 9, 2014.

The New Humanitarian. “Fighting in Pakistan’s Tirah Valley displaces 40,000 people.” April 1, 2013.

For those living with peace, security, and perhaps some prosperity, there may be “good war stories”, ever courageous, inspiring, and noble, but, really, there are no good war stories that are not also deeply tragic and frequently disturbing — but that’s why we read them and, perhaps, choose to evolve.

–33–

FTAC: A Comment on Colonel President Emperor Putin’s Course

28 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Russia, Syria

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Absolute Power v Democratic Distribution, bashar al assad, Fathers and Daughters, Idlib, medieval v modern, Political Elites, psychology of dictatorship, The Political Memory of the Future, Vladimir Putin, Yarmouk

It’s a wrap, all of it.


https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/malignant-narcissism/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/paranoid-delusional-narcissistic-reflection-of-motivation/

Putin was once a brave KGB man in service to the Soviet while in East Germany. He stood off a maddened crowd with a bluff and bought time for the further destruction of KGB records in that Soviet satellite. He may be admired for his extraordinary bravado, courage, and wiles.

When he moved Russia off the pro-democracy track, he inherited an effectively lawless state, one that had transferred the wealth of the Soviet to the Soviet nomenklatura in a fire sale of state assets. Opposition like Khoderkovsky came out of that transfer that had been planned in the mid-1980s (reference: Karen Dawisha, RIP). In effect, Putin inherited the challenges posed by the Vory and assorted gangsterism on a scale unknown to the west (and western naivette about that helped waste billions (I think) in capital that would never be recovered. The mafia state was born.

The Capo de capos, the Boss of bosses, has now to look inward and consider the future of the now old Viking state that he has looted. He could retire to Spain, where he has a house, and watch the cocaine traffic moving up from Africa — just look out his window and know the ships and smile — or he could turn around — this would be a good time — and address Russia’s under-development outside of the Agricultural, Defense, and Energy sectors. He could revert to rule-of-law in Ukraine and apologize, at least, for the bombing of so many hospitals –he’s leveled him — in Syria.

Judging from his behavior, he appears to believe his mission has been to revive the glories of the medieval world and the idolatry associated with political absolutism, i.e., unquestionable authority.

I, not alone, believe he should reconsider that mission.

He has produce what he has promised the world: a “New Nobility”.

But he should look around at what now lies at the feet of that circle: atrocity, mayhem, murder, and the self-inflicted wounding of the image and global acceptance of Mother Russia.

A change of course would be more helpful to him than his staying with old habits past their expiry.


Has one party or personality or other to always play the “bag guy”? The Bond villain? The head of the worst of the worst?

Vladimir Putin has children who will one day and in the natural course of living will look back on their father with an accuracy and perception beyond the public’s ken and the best of the world’s intelligence agencies. When he’s gone, whatever he was, they will know in ways beyond knowing.

For a glimpse at what his state has done at his behest: Idlib today. Here is some recent background involving Russian participation — missile strikes (got to about 7:15 on that)– in Assad’s scorched earth pursuits.

Published to YouTube by The Docterr, July 28, 2019.

Al Jazeera English, July 28, 2019.

Aside: what the Assad Regime did to the Yarmouk Palestinian Camp —

Channel 4 News, May 29, 2018

Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, and much of the world of analysts and journalists know how “Assad v The Terrorists” took off.

Now you do too.

Fathers must wonder right to the end how their children will remember them.


VOA, Suppression of protests associated with Putin rival Navalny’s hospitalization with strange symptoms. Posted to YouTube July 28, 2019.

–33–

FTAC: MEC: A Comment on Palestinian Intellectual Liberation

26 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Palestinia, Political Psychology

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KGB and PLO History, MEC, middle east conflict, Palestinian Liberation, Soviet / post-Sovied Middle East

Fred Maroun, a frequent blogger for The Times of Israel as well as a writer for the Gatestone Institute (2016), stated within the confines of The Awesome Conversation (on Facebook) that the Palestinians ” . . . saw the Jewish state as a colonialist invasion.”

The response to that statement by this blog’s editor follows:


That has been the power of Soviet / post-Soviet propaganda and one of the more basic features of misguidance on the Left. “Colonialism” — horrific and true enough in the age of the Grand Game — lost its legitimacy as the empires got the native boot and, with time, local political forces reestablished their claims and writs to the point, which one might suggest is about now, where the finger cannot be pointed at other than themselves. British power and European kingdoms have not gone missing, but they are not what they once were.

The Soviet engaged in two egregious behaviors throughout its tenure: it whipped resentments into small conflicts that it could then manage to its own advantage; and through the this-and-that “liberation” movements, it produced piratical dictatorships that would become centers for the promotion of ideology and the worst kinds of mischief.

Here’s a BBC report on how the Soviet urged Somali militia to war against Ethiopia, and just as they were winning back their land turned and sold arms to their enemy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03pk9c1 – “The Ogaden War” (aired April 7, 2016).

For how Cuba and Venezuela turned out, I would recommend looking up both at the InSight Crime website.

The creation of Arafat and the PLO (along with the courting of Arab power) follows the Soviet / KGB template, and the fact that the movement persists with the Soviet long gone only to be replaced by an autocratic mafia-type (and mafia-associated) regime tells of a modern take on the thuggish history of mankind — but it also leaves the Palestinians trapped between a defunct political era and a more cooperative, idealistic, and higher-integrity modernity.

Why should the Palestinians now be kept from authentic critical historical scholarship?

The Soviet duped everyone.

The KGB would use the term “framing” to describe how it positioned events and persons psychologically. Indeed, the propaganda became the perception but because of its baseless qualities — and in the way of Potemkin — the Palestinians may stand up and look brave (which they do) but there’s nothing really beneath them and there won’t be until they acquire the power to pursue independent inquiry with integrity in their own right.


Related Online

Regarding post-Soviet Cuba and Venezuela

With regard to Soviet / post-Soviet influence, BackChannels had the following in mind in relation to its suggestion to have a look at Cuba and Venezuela via the information window provided by InSight Crime.

Dickey, Christopher. “How Cuba Helped Make Venezuela a Mafia State.” Daily Beast, June 2, 2019.

Having checked the look-see, things look a little different (and more complex) for Cuba at that location.

Regarding Venezuela

InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Seven-part series, May 16, 2018 to May 25, 2018. Full report: InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Report (PDF): 1) “7 Reasons for Describing Venezuela as a ‘Mafia State’”, Mary 16, 2018; 2) “Drug Trafficking Within the Venezuelan Regime: The ‘Cartel of the Suns’”, May 17, 2018; 3) “The Devolution of State Power: The ‘Colectivos’”, May 18, 2018; 4) “The Devolution of State Power: ‘The Pranes’,” May 20, 2018; 5) “Colombia and Venezuela: Criminal Siamese Twins,” May 21, 2018; 6) “Honduras and Venezuela: Coup and Cocaine Air Bridge,” May 23, 2018; 7) “Dominican Republic and Venezuela: Cocaine Across the Caribbean,” May 24, 2018; 8) “Venezuela and El Salvador: Exporting Aid and Corruption,” May 25, 2018.

Regarding the Shenanigans of the Soviet KGB

BackChannels. “A Short Page Referencing Works by or Associated with Ion Mihai Pacepa”. November 26, 2016.

BackChannels. “Palestinian KGB”. October 3, 2016.

BackChannels has long featured a get-you-started (got the editor started) library page titled, “Russian Section“. It’s a worth a look (but ageing right along with the editor who may wish to start over with that focus).

Regarding the KGB and the Palestinians

Bergman, Ronen. “The KGB’s Middle East Files: Palestinians in the service of Mother Russia.” YNet News, November 4, 2016.

Intellectual Re-Basing

One among many Soviet cartoons distributed in the Middle East (this one from the 1970s) to leverage “the masses” into the Soviet camp.

What if one awakes from a dream or nightmare one morning with the knowledge that much of what one has been taught to believe has turned out simply . . . not true?

The Earth has been proven round, not flat.

Does one go on as before without change in aspirations, beliefs, routines?

One may.

Or one may have a fresh look around at a world wildly different from that which one had for so long imagined on the basis of falsehoods and deliberate misguidance fashioned by the powerful and powerfully corrupt.

–33–

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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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