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Category Archives: Links

Link – Iran – Afghanistan – Al Qaeda (All Together Now)

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Links

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Iran, Taliban

The 2005–06 documents reveal that Iran offered bounties for the murder of NATO soldiers and members of the elected Afghan government. Later reports indicated that this policy continued into 2009, when Iran was working in tandem with al-Qaeda to spread the Taliban’s reach in southern Afghanistan. This should hardly come as a surprise: The 9/11 Commission reported that Iran began training al-Qaeda jihadists through Hezbollah in 1992 and collaborated with al-Qaeda on the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996. To this day Iran maintains an al-Qaeda network on its territory, which supplies weapons, money, and fighters to Jabhat an-Nusra in Syria.

Orton, Kyle.  “The supposed rivals are working together — and working with the Taliban.”  National Review, August 26, 2015.

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Link – World Food Program – On the Other Side of Conflict – Peace and Development

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by commart in International Development, Links

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aid, global affairs, Nepal, peace and development, WFP

Posted to YouTube 8/17/2015.


After so many years of conflict watching where the behavior on exhibit in the field seems only to become more depraved and the surrounding politics more duplicitous, sadistic, and twisted, it may help to remind that the greater world, perhaps with the help of a greater God, goes around so many disasters of human and natural origin to deliver critical aid and services to those in need.

“Peace and development” means many things, takes many forms, and in the life of our own wild species has limitless potential in design.

I’m not going to pull down the volumes by Lester Brown, George McRobie, and E.F. Shumacher and others that grace my library shelves, at least not right now, but it’s good to check every now and then this other side of conflict.

Additional Reference

World Food Programme: Nepal

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Link – Iran – Origin – Rule of the Jurispudents

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links

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Iran, Safavid

” . . . the Safavid dynasty was not Iranian, it was a Turkish tribe from Lebanon who conquered Iran in 1499. Until then, Iran had no national religion dating back to the human rights proclamation of the Cyrus the Great and freedom of the Jews from Babylonian slavery, in 539 BCE. The Safavids were Shia, and upon their occupation they imported a group of Shia clerics, olima, from Lebanon — hence the connection of Iranian Shia establishment with the Hizb’allah — including the infamous Mohammad Baghir Madjlesi, the author of the rule of Jurisprudents, meaning the god-given rule of clerics, that Khomeini adopted 300 years later and implemented in Iran again in 1979.

The imported Shiite establishment overrode the Iranian culture and civilization of human rights, equal rights of women, freedom of worship and respect for all, dismissing it as pagan and enforcing a new culture of Islamic Sharia laws written by Madjlesi.”

Ervin, Manda Zand.  “The Mullahs and the Real Iran.”  American Thinker, April 30, 2015.

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Link – A Modern Intercultural Experience – Qanta Ahmed – Technion Chat With Peretz Lavie

28 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by commart in Islamic Small Wars, Links, Philosophy, Politics

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cultural evolution, modern, modernity, Qanta Ahmed, Technion

Posted to YouTube July 26, 2015.


Above : Modern

Below : Feudal


Posted to YouTube July 27, 2015.


Should I have resisted juxtaposing these two images, the Janus coin that is one side modern (and good) and the other deeply medieval (and heartbreakingly evil)?

“Shimmer” — a term of art on this blog — has not changed, but one hopes the numbers of those arrested in yesterday have diminished while those who come forward, who have stepped forward into their own next world, have grown.

Where are the political and social scientists on change?

I don’t know where they or their numbers — observable, measurable cultural and political topology — are today.

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Link — A Real Corker! – National Review

19 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links, North America, Politics, United States of America

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arrogance, Iran, nuclear deal

Of course, you may have been under the impression – perhaps from reading our quaint Constitution from those dark pre-Fundamental Transformation days – that We the People are sovereign, that our government must take its marching orders from us. To the contrary, President Obama is claiming in his Iran deal that he – unilaterally and without congressional advice, consent, or legislation – may huddle with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, the Chinese Communist government, some European leaders, and our Iranian enemies to devise enforceable law. We and our elected representatives are expected meekly to submit.

We must not submit.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421349/congress-must-ditch-corker-bill-and-treat-iran-deal-either-treaty-or-proposed


H.R.1191 – Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015

Charen, Mona.  “Obama: Witting or Witless?”  National Review, July 17, 2015.

Smith-Spark, Laura.  “Iran’s Supreme Leader vows no change in relations with ‘arrogant’ United States.”  CNN, July 19, 2015.

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Links – From Defense One – Pakistan’s Potemkin War

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Links

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With increasing annoyance, I exclaimed “Who would want their celestial virgins cleaning their clothes and doing their laundry? Is it their mothers they want in heaven, or vixens?” Clearly these women were not painted on these walls to lure the young men to the gates of paradise. Other paintings suggested a more plausible explanation: this partially bombed out building had probably been a guesthouse.

Fair, C. Christine.  “I Play Make-Believe With the Pakistani Military.”  Defense One, July 2, 2015.

In the above cited article, far more provocative paragraphs await!


The French government will continue to fund a militantly anti-Israel NGO, despite its involvement in last month’s flotilla to break the Israeli army’s blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza, France’s Embassy in Israel as well as the French Foreign Ministry told Arutz Sheva.

As revealed by an Arutz Sheva investigation in June, one of the leading sponsors of the Freedom Flotilla III – the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine (Plateforme des ONG françaises pour la Palestine) – has received more than half a million euros in grants from the French government since 2010.

Soffer, Ari.  “French Gov’t Will Continue Funding Radical Gaza Flotilla, NGO.”  Israel National News, July 5, 2015.

Oy vey!


“They have high tech; they have drones; they have so many things,” said Jama. “We are really benefiting.”

McCormick, Ty.  “Exclusive: U.S. Operates Drones From Secret Bases in Somalia
Two decades after “Black Hawk Down,” U.S. special operations forces are back in East Africa’s most troubled nation. FP provides a rare window into their shadowy operations.”  Foreign Policy (blog), July 2, 2015.


Ukraine says it is not as reliant on Russian gas as it once was. Its representatives at the Vienna talks said it has imported no more than one-third of its gas from Gazprom so far this year because it has found less expensive gas from other countries in Europe.

That gas, in fact, was originally supplied to these nations by Russia, and the customers were reselling it to Ukraine. Moscow, however, says it is illegal for its customers to sell these “reverse supplies,” as they are called.

Tully, Andy.  “EU Pushes Russia and Ukraine to Resolve Gas Dispute.”  Oil Price, July 5, 2015.


Posted to YouTube 6/30/2015.

Related: Wiser, Daniel.  “Drone Captures Video of Russian Base Inside Ukraine.”  Washington Free Beacon, July 1, 2015.


There is this idea that the Greeks got themselves into this current mess because they paid themselves too much for doing too little. Well, maybe. But it’s not the complete picture. For the Greeks also got themselves into debt for the oldest reason in the book – one might even argue, for the very reason that public debt itself was first invented – to raise and support an army.

Fraser, Giles.  “Throughout history, debt and war have been constant partners.”  The Guardian, July 3, 2015.

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Link – MEF – Summer – ” . . . that death is not death . . . .”

18 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links, Political Psychology, Psychology, Religion

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martyrdom, political psychology, rhetoric, suicide bombing

Suicide terrorism has become so commonplace that it is easy to overlook how relatively new and suddenly popular the phenomenon is. Between the end of World War II and the Iranian revolution, there were no suicide attacks in the world. Yet only months after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini solidified power and formed the Pasdaran and Basij, suicide attacks began to appear in conflicts involving Shiites (Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war) and then took root among Palestinian Sunni groups.[3] It eventually became the preferred tactic of Islamist terror organizations.

Khomeini selected specific passages from the Qur’an and hadith (canonical collections of Muhammad’s alleged sayings and actions) to craft his suicidal version of radical Islam. His two-part rhetorical plan necessitated convincing Muslims that suicide is not suicide and that death is not death.

Caschetta, A. J.  “Does Islam Have a Role in Suicide Bombings?” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2015.

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Link – On the Magna Carta

31 Sunday May 2015

Posted by commart in Links, Politics

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dignity, freedom, injustice, liberty

Eight hundred years ago next month, on a reedy stretch of riverbank in southern England, the most important bargain in the history of the human race was struck. I realize that’s a big claim, but in this case, only superlatives will do. As Lord Denning, the most celebrated modern British jurist put it, Magna Carta was “the greatest constitutional document of all time, the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”

Hannan, Daniel.  “Magna Carta: Eight Centuries of Liberty.”  The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2015.


‘No free man shall be arrested, imprisoned,
dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or in any
way victimised, or attacked except by the
lawful judgement of his peers or by the
law of the land’

This right is most famously contained in the American Bill of Rights embodied in the constitution of the United States of America.

Hereford Cathedral.  “Magna Carta: An Introduction”.


Posted to YouTube – 6/19/2015.

Posted on this page with permission.

Additional Reference

British Library.  “Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy”.

United Nations.  “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.

United States Bill of Rights.  Wikipedia.

United States Constitution.  Wikipedia.

United States.  Bill of Rights.  1789.  National Archives.

United States.  Constitution.  Authenticated.  PDF.  Government Printing Office, July 25, 2007.

United States.  Constitution.  Transcript of original.  National Archives.

United States. Declaration of Independence.  July 4, 1776.

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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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