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Category Archives: Iran

FTAC: On the Habit of Partisan Demonizations

15 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Egypt, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology

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Intelligence and Perception, Partisan Demonizations

The Breitbart article featured up top on a Facebook page: “Joe Biden Delivered Egyptian Disinformation to Israel Ahead of Yom Kippur War and Later Lied About It” (Dec. 13, 2020). The slanted header, an appeal to emotion without examination, was in the same piece — and shortly — debunked: “However, Biden himself paints a very different picture of the meeting with Meir, one that puts into question the depiction of him as an unwitting tool who unknowingly passed on disinformation to Israel.”

Well, gosh golly — watch plumes of dust rising into the air over the neighboring state’s military exercises, report it, and make a decision about the enemies true near intentions.

Can’t do that?

Not enough to go on?

Intelligence people use terms like “estimate” and “mosaic” to describe both the uncertainty of perception and the many pieces needed to venture a guess — a good one, so one hopes — about what’s happening in the world as they see it displayed before their own eyes.

From the Awesome Conversation

This editor’s response to the continuing partisan presentation of political history and present states of affairs –>

Our politicians need to be working issues rather than demonizing one another.

The Brietbart piece makes clear that the conveyance of “intelligence” is often ambiguous and subject to broader analysis. Biden was apparently not happy with what he saw, and the Egyptian effort at deception would have in those years been taken as par for the Arab course in its enmity with Israel.

Times have changed. Moscow backing Tehran (and Damascus) has helped pushed the Sunni Arab world westward for modernization as well as security.

Americans and Israelis should know who their enemies are as well as persons or states neither positioned for nor temperamentally fit for enmity. Overall, Israel has some complicated trade relationships, including with China who purchases oil from Tehran in support of both its belligerence and existence (China has been notoriously insensitive to the character of many of its trading partners). Here’s a part of the deal going between China and Iran — https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/05/chinas-great-game-in-iran/ (9/5/2020).

President Trump, now in his lame duck phase, has most definitely lost his bid for a second term. More or less, he lost his race on character, essentially driving voters out of the Republican ranks to ensure his losing.

In the United States, we have experienced a period of brutal polarization driven by the absence of critical research and reasoning skills in much of the population, disinformation from foreign interlopers (look up “Internet Research Agency” as an example), and plain old hyped up Party-invented agitation and propaganda. With Trump’s now unquestionable loss of a second term, it may be time to pack away the kit of passionate but largely errant assumptions and beliefs about American and, in general, western conservatives and liberals and have a fresh look instead (and again together) at real issues stemming from the illiberal character and greed of the enemies of the west.

###

FTAC: Beijing, Moscow, Tehran & The Great Leap Into Stone

30 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Asia, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Iran, Political Psychology, Russia

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east-west competition, malignant narcissism, Old Illiberal Power, political psychology

With two critical Iranian leaders assassinated — Qasem Soleimani and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh — and an American President determined to blunt the tip of the spear aimed against the west, the prospect for “fireworks” appears that much closer. Ever big on packing the Big Picture into a small space, I’ve done that here with ramble and signal but not chaos. Old Communist and Islamist politics persist in the latest states of affairs although the old Communists have produced breathtakingly wealthy elites and the chief among Islamists has been long known as a thief enriched by the plundering of ordinary Iranians.

From the Awesome Conversation


Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran represent an anti-western alliance committed to political absolutism by all and any means necessary. At least two of the three, Moscow and Tehran, represent also kleptocracy (see Reuters’ “Assets of the Ayatollah”) or mafia-type power (reference Ben Judah or Luke Harding), and together they keep the west bothered. Tehran, in malign narcissistic fashion, has covered its own crimes with deflections and dogma–it’s not strength that propels its fantasies of nuclear annihilation but regime weakness expressed through medieval fantasy. The clinical, dispassionate, and modern and prudent west may be building down Tehran’s capability, confidence, and coordination for aggression.

The old “Red-Green Alliance” is in the mix too with some persistent communist cant woven into the Houthi challenge in Yemen. The World Peace Council persists — as do graduates of Patrice Lamumba University — and the pack may view Tehran as an alley in thuggish political fashion. More important than political dogma: an heroic image to be created by marching forward into glorious past while holding each fantasy in place by main force.

Stated by Trita Parsi in 2017 (yes, just a quick look-see on my part): “Another emerging threat comes from Iran’s domestic politics. Presidential elections next month may put Iran’s foreign policy back into the hands of the country’s hard-liners, who, much like Mr. Trump, define their country in opposition to the world” (“The Coming Crisis With Iran”, The New York Times, April 20, 2017).

“Malignant Narcissism” begins with “Narcissistic Mortification”, i.e., the humiliation of the “Great Leader” (somewhere in childhood). Why everyone else has to be made a part of the compensation (measured by the Great One’s estimation of his own “Narcissistic Supply”), I’ve no idea but that the worst of the worst needs must have both an adoring audience and a horrified one.


Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have bent themselves on feudal and medieval lusts for the conquest or control of their targets by any means necessary and all available, and then some, and each has demonstrated a remarkable political anomie in the handling of those affected by their strategies. Beijing has been making a name for itself as a culturally and politically predatory lender; Moscow: live fire “demonstrations” all over Syria to goose its defense industry sales; and Iran — just have a look at how it has treated the places in which it has chosen to facilitate aggression, especially in Yemen and Syria.

What to call the present Sino-Russo-Iranian cooperation against the west?

Tripartite Imperialism.

###

Threat Assessments Unthinkable, But They Are Here — and Sometimes Actionable

27 Thursday Feb 2020

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

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Biological Weapons Development, China, Iran

Two articles have caught my attention from the damnably nasty regions of Biological and Chemical Warfare:

Bob, Yonah Jeremy, Neville Teller. “Ex-CIA official warns of Iran, ISIS drones armed with chemical weapons.” The Jerusalem Post, February 10, 2020.

Kania, Elsa B. and Wilson Vorndick. “Weaponizing Biotech: How China’s Military is Preparing for a ‘New Domain of Warfare’.” Defense Once, August 14, 2019.

COVID-19?

It may be a taste of poison on the sophisticated tips of the arrows developing in radically different kinds of quivers.

One bullet point from the list included in the Defense One article:

In 2015, then-president of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences He Fuchu (贺福初) argued that biotechnology will become the new “strategic commanding heights” of national defense, from biomaterials to “brain control” weapons. Maj. Gen. He has since become the vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences, which leads China’s military science enterprise. 

What New Demons are these of formerly great Dynasties?

Totalitarian genius cannot be but evil.

Drone Bomb Swarms?

From The Jerusalem Post piece:

The greatest threat confronting the US and Israel may be swarms of drones armed with chemical weapons released by Iran or ISIS, an ex-CIA official has told The Jerusalem Post.The warning takes on greater meaning following a call on January 28 by ISIS’s new leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, to direct greater attention to attacking Israel and Jews, including using chemical weapons.

In relation to the latter piece, attack have been already thwarted but with the details withheld by the CIA.

–33–

On the Death of Soleimani and the Outlook for Iranian Power: Reading Recommended

07 Tuesday Jan 2020

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

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civilizational narcissism, Iranian Power, Iranian Regime Legitimacy, malignant narcissism, medieval v modern, middle east

And therefore it was Suleimani and his proxies — his “kingmakers” in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — who increasingly came to be seen, and hated, as imperial powers in the region, even more so than Trump’s America. This triggered popular, authentic, bottom-up democracy movements in Lebanon and Iraq that involved Sunnis and Shiites locking arms together to demand noncorrupt, nonsectarian democratic governance.

On Nov. 27, Iraqi Shiites — yes, Iraqi Shiites — burned down the Iranian consulate in Najaf, Iraq, removing the Iranian flag from the building and putting an Iraqi flag in its place. That was after Iraqi Shiites, in September 2018, set the Iranian consulate in Basra ablaze, shouting condemnations of Iran’s interference in Iraqi politics.

Friedman, Thomas L. “Trump Kills Iran’s Most Overrated Warrior”. The New York Times, January 3, 2010.

Ali Khamenei is a cagey leader who did not become one of the longest serving rulers in the Middle East by impetuously going to war with America. The clerical oligarchs respect American determination and understand the imbalance between a superpower and a struggling regional actor. They have never figured out Donald Trump, a U.S. president who offers unconditional talks while working to crater the Iranian economy. We should not expect Iran to take on a president who just ordered the killing of one of their famed commanders.

Takeyh, Ray. “Why the Death of an Iranian Commander Won’t Mean World War III.” Politico, January 3, 2020.

In Karbala – one of Shiism’s holiest cities, where a 7th-century battle resulted in Islam’s biggest schism between Sunnis and Shiites – the unthinkable has happened.

“The government doesn’t even rule any more. They’re Iran’s puppets. If Iran loosens its grip, then things can change,” explained a protester.

France 24. “In Shiite holy city of Karbala, Iraqis protest against Iranian ‘meddling'”. November 14, 2019.

Iran looks pale this morning.

The mullahs have within their body politic a severely contracting economy. Beyond it, they have inspired the limitless hate of Iraqi Shiite Muslims whom their ambitions have overrun and threaten to permanently subjugate in Iraq. Within their operations centers, they have greeted a dawn that has been deeply and strategically compromised by spies and with the extent of it unknown. Perhaps most lethal: their treatment of Earth herself: desertification, deforestation, severe pollution, etc.: corruption and mismanagement have helped produce not only a noxious politics, inside and out, but literally in some aspects a dying geophysical platform for the state’s existence.

As represented by Tehran, how long a lease has the feudal-medieval mode on earth?

God Almighty himself would not destroy his creation but in the greater natural processes to which Earth is heir — but for ambition, Iran’s Ayatollah would.

Also Related Online

McKay, Hollie. “Soleimani’s killing ignites Russia-vs.-Iran schism in Syria.” Fox News, January 6, 2020.

MEMRI. “New Qods Force Commander Esmail Ghaani: We will Remove American Presence from the Region and Bring About Global Rule of Hidden Imam.” January 6, 2020.

Orton, Kyle. “The Middle East After Qassem Sulaymani.” European Eye on Radicalization, January 6, 2020.

–33–

Soleimani’s Death and America’s Partisan Politics

03 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Iraq, United States of America

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Soleimani

— In his speech denouncing Mr. Trump, he was even less discreet — and openly mocking.

“We are near you, where you can’t even imagine,” he said. “We are ready. We are the man of this arena.” — https://t.co/DjEulLma4Z

Independent here. Let's drop the partisan politics. https://t.co/qUuC2CtNXc

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) January 3, 2020

After years of Iranian provocations directly and through proxies, America’s defense machinery returned fire in no uncertain terms. President Trump’s order was no subtle back alley “hit” involving a dimly lit peripheral figure among the state’s proxies or some obscure but critical figure engaged in rocketry and nuclear arms development. Qassim Soleimani was Tehran’s top general and (second) most vigorous master of the levers and tools of the state’s diplomacy and conflict-inducing and war-fighting capacity. His taunt as quoted by The New York Times, “We are near you, where you can’t even imagine. We are ready. We are the man of this arena” was his invitation to his kind of party.

Washington will wake up later this morning to . . . what? “Heightened tensions with Iran”?

Call it what the strike represented: war.

BackChannels, ever strident and stubbornly independent, suggests that Left / Far Left Democrats and Always Right / Far Right Republicans should both can their bitter and frequently counterproductive and surreal partisan sandbox fight and take a moment to consider together the many acts of terror sponsored by Tehran, including attacks on American forces, the harangues and threats against the Democratic Liberalism of the West — and nonstop threats promising the annihilation of Israel, the seizing over many years of British patrol and other sea craft, and most of all the barbarism — the inhumanity — meted to all within and beyond Iran who have been abused, murdered, and subjugated by the regime.

Related Online

Crowley, Michael, Falih Hassan, and Eric Schmitt. “Top Iranian General Qassim Suleimani is Killed on Trump’s Orders, Officials Say.” The New York Times, January 2, 2020.

Dehghanpisheh, Babak. “Soleimani was Iran’s celebrity soldier, spearhead in Middle East.” Reuters, January 3, 2020.

Reuters World News. “Pentagon says Iranian Commander Soleimani was developing plans to attack Americans.” January 2, 2020.

Stecklow, Steve, Babak Dehghanpisheh, and Yeganeh Torbati. “Assets of the Ayatollah: The economic empire behind Iran’s supreme leader — Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures.” Reuters Investigates, November 11, 2013.

Wikipedia. “General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper”.


Posted to YouTube by British Defence News, May 2, 2014.

–33–

Taliban Et Al – Absolute Control, Absolute Power

25 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Afghanistan, Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Iran, Pakistan, Political Psychology, Russia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Afghanistan, medieval v modern, post-Cold War History and Politics, Taliban

Toward the end, a hideous accident:

At least 40 civilians attending a wedding party were killed in a raid conducted by Afghan government forces and supported by US airstrikes on a Taliban hideout in southern Helmand province, Afghan officials said Monday.

Abdul Majed Akhund, deputy provincial councilman, said that the majority of the dead were women and children. Twelve civilians were also injured. 

DW. “Dozens killed as US-backed strike hits Afghan wedding.” September 25, 2019.

The Modern West has had little issue investigating and owning up to its own woeful atrocities, including the accidents it may sanitize with the term “collateral damage”.

In fact, it or the liberal democratic populations represented by EU/NATO and assorted coalitions of the willing, may be too good at wearing the mea culpa shawl of self-shaming, but that’s another matter.

For Afghanistan, and for the most part, the damage done has been much less accomplished by the “collateral damage” of the west than by the deliberate design, decision, and application of violence by the Taliban and similar actors bent on the absolute and comprehensive political and social control of targeted states and their resources.

Using Russian-supplied arms and material, Afghanistan’s Taliban have continued a program of bombings and related attacks designed to destroy Afghani civilians without discrimination, forestall peace, discourage and impede elections, and bring general ruin to local economies and lives while proving themselves handsome, protective, strong, and wise.

. . . .

True: a malign narcissism has a great deal to do with the absolute political and social control sought by the Taliban and so many others who at times conflate themselves with God and the work of God’s will on earth.

As has taken place as part of doctrine in Syria — impossible to deny — not even hospitals are sacred as sanctuaries of the ill and injured.

The Taliban’s demonstrated and backfiring track record in lunacy — and that of other extremist organizations operating in Afghanistan — may finally be reaching them through the mirroring World Wide Web where high-integrity reportage faithfully conveys the character of consistently cruel, crude, and very nearly mindless violence that will in the end have changed nothing but perhaps themselves.


Most who have followed the Afghanistan story in its greater context will recall the story in which Mullah Omar took revenge on a Russian tank crew and its commander — hung from his own tank barrel — for the rape of local village girls. Omar would flee that heroic ending to raise an army to battle back the Soviet invasion of the state — and America’s CIA would step in with the delivery of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to the Mujaheddin for the comparatively cheap killing of the Soviet’s brutal and expensive helicopter gunships.

The Red Army — as has the Russian Army elsewhere and more recently — brutalized Afghanistan.

In cinema (and released before the Soviet was finished) —

As Soviet Russia’s army retreated from Afghanistan, America’s intervention may have been drawn back as well. Afghanistan had been returned to native power.

Ah, but there was that other theme: Islam.

Arab culture, fortune, and power — and two Sunni extremists.

Ayman al-Zawahiri may be read about here:

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

Osama bin Laden — here:

Swinford, Steven. “Osama bin Laden: the tale of a Saudi-born heir to a construction company who founded al-Qaeda.” The Telegraph, May 2, 2011.


One may tire — and perhaps should — of the medieval contests between too many “kingdoms of heaven” and the repeated conflations — Christian, Jewish, or Muslim — of men with God (although Judaism has been always adamant about the separation of the Divine from the mortal).

In any case, among my acquaintance, one stands out as expert on “civilizational narcissism” — his term — and the Taliban. Here is his book from 2010 —

Haider, Mobarak. Taliban: the Tip of a Holy Iceberg. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010. (BackChannels commented on it in 2012).

It may be said that all were warned but with one element missing: Soviet / post-Soviet Moscow / Moscow-Tehran.

The Soviet / post-Soviet Arc of Tears (Crimea, Syria, Yemen, for a start) hews to and encourages the despotism (“political absolutism”) so far expressed by the Taliban in Afghanistan but also well on display elsewhere in the world where the deepest and most criminal representatives of civilizational and political narcissism have either set themselves or prevailed.

BackChannels suggests the Taliban may have been taken in — duped — by Russia via al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden in the shadow of the Cold War and reshaped for revenge on the west with the intent of sustaining a blind and madding authoritarianism in the world, all the better to plunder it.


Related Online

Anna, Cara and Ahmad Seir. “Afghans fear Trump’s Taliban move means more civilians die.” AP, September 11, 2019:

President Donald Trump says the U.S.-Taliban talks on ending the fighting in Afghanistan are “dead,” deeply unfortunate wording for the Afghan civilians who have been killed by the tens of thousands over almost 18 years. Many fear his cancellation of negotiations will bring more carnage as the U.S. and Taliban, as well as Afghan forces, step up their offensives and everyday people die in the crossfire.


Arsali, Mohammed Harun. “For Afghanistan’s internally displaced people, going home is a risk long after the war ends.” Medium, September 22, 2019.

“We just want to go back to our homes. We don’t ask for much, but this war has made our lives impossible and has torn apart our community.” he says. “We cant go home due to the risk of drones, but after so many years of war, our community is now at war with itself – there doesn’t seem to be any end to bloodshed.”


Bapat, Navin and Rebecca Best. “Here’s why the Taliban might still want to negotiate with the U.S.” The Washington Post, September 12, 2019.

One could argue that the Taliban is increasingly in a position to outlast the United States and claim a decisive military victory. If today’s Taliban were as cohesive as the Taliban that managed to control Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, that might well be true. But it’s not.

Today’s Taliban includes a variety of factions, such as the prominent Quetta Shura and Pakistani-supported Haqqani network. Beyond these internal divisions lie further divisions among the broader Afghan insurgency, which includes the emerging Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K). Our research in the Journal of Global Security Studies argues that powerful insurgent factions may seek peace to forestall their own decline when rival insurgent factions are increasing in power.


BBC News. “Afghanistan war: Deadly Taliban attack ‘destroys’ hospital.” September 19, 2019.


Burr, Elise and Andrew Shaver. “Afghanistan’s election on Saturday could be bloodier than expected. This explains why.” The Washington Post, September 25, 2019.

This weekend, Afghanistan will hold its fourth presidential election since the Taliban government’s fall in 2001. Since the U.S. and Taliban’s recent breakdown in negotiations, the Taliban have killed more Afghan civilians than at almost any other point since the beginning of 2018, as you can see in the figure below. The Taliban has killed at least 58 civilians in the last eight days alone.

And that may be about to get worse. In earlier presidential elections, the Taliban has tried not to kill civilians when they go to vote. That may change this weekend.


CBS This Morning. “U.S. envoy unexpectedly resumes talks with Taliban after bomb kills American troop.” September 6, 2019:

The U.S. envoy’s team would not elaborate Friday on the nature of the resumed discussions in Doha, but they come after a series of deadly Taliban attacks across Afghanistan. As CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reports, while the Taliban may be talking peace with the U.S., they’re still waging a brutal war on Afghan soil.

A security camera captured dramatic video of a car bomb attack in Kabul on Thursday. The blast near the U.S. Embassy killed one American service member and another NATO soldier, as well as at least 10 civilians.


Cunningham, Erin. “While the U.S. wasn’t looking, Russia and Iran began carving out a bigger role in Afghanistan.” The Washington Post, April 13, 2017.

KABUL — Iran and Russia have stepped up challenges to U.S. power in Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials say, seizing on the uncertainty of future U.S. policy to expand ties with the Taliban and weaken the country’s Western-backed government.

The moves come as tensions have flared between the United States, Iran and Russia over the conflict in Syria, and officials worry that the fallout could hurt Afghanistan’s chances for peace. For years, Iran and Russia have pushed for a U.S. withdrawal.


Dawisha, Karen.  Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.


DW. “Dozens killed as US-backed strike hits Afghan wedding.” September 25, 2019.


Faiez, Rahim. “Amid Peace Talks, Taliban Launch “Massive Attack’ on Afghan City of Kunduz.” Time, August 31, 2019.


Faizi, Fatima and Mujib Mashal. “For Afghans Scarred by War, ‘Peace Can’t Bring My Love Back’.” The New York Times, September 16, 2019.

I am tired of the people, the area, the district and the province. When I go to Wardak, I feel so tired. But what to do? I have to go there and visit their graves. It is not only one person — it is 12 family members. My four daughters, three sons, my wife, and four cousins. I lost all in one day when my house was bombed by the Americans.

I can never forgive the Taliban, but if the peace deal can stop the bloodshed, I can accept them to the country. I don’t want other families to go through what I have.


Gaouette, Nicole. “US and Taliban reach agreement ‘in principle’ on Afghanistan, envoy says.” CNN, September 9, 2019.

“Yes, we have reached an agreement in principle,” Khalilzad said, according to TOLOnews. “Of course, it is not final until the US president (Donald Trump) agrees on it. So, at the moment, we are at that stage.”

News of the agreement comes as violence has spiked in Afghanistan, with the latest attack occurring just hours after Khalilzad’s interview. A car bomb targeted an Afghan police station in the capital Kabul on Monday, in an area close to the heavily fortified compound where many foreign embassies and international organizations are based,


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


Kelemen, Michele. “Zalmay Khalilzad Appointed to U.S. Special Adviser to Afghanistan.” NPR, September 5, 2018.

“He became known for his ability to weave through warring tribal factions and his ability to quickly get senior Afghan officials on the phone or to summon them to his office, including President Hamid Karzai,” The New York Times reported during Khalilzad’s stint as ambassador to Afghanistan — the country of his birth — from 2003 to 2005.

Robin Raphel, a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia, says Khalilzad’s appointment is a sign that the Trump administration is getting serious about a political solution to America’s longest war.


Lawrence, J. P. “Soldier killed in Afghanistan was compassionate leader, say those who knew him.” Stars and Stripes, September 7, 2019.

The U.S. soldier who died Thursday in Afghanistan from wounds in a bomb blast was a compassionate leader whose troops say he always encouraged people who are struggling to ask for help.

Now those soldiers are grappling with the loss of Sgt. 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Morovis, Puerto Rico, who left behind a wife, two sons and a daughter.


Lynch, Colum, Lara Seligman, Robbie Gramer. “Khalilzad Edges Closer to Pact with Taliban.” Foreign Policy, August 28, 2019.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghan reconciliation, is on the verge of an agreement with the Taliban that would pave the way for the withdrawal of some 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in exchange for guarantees that the war-wracked nation would not be used as a haven for international terrorism, according to diplomatic sources.


Mashal, Mujib. “A Young Life Ends After 4 Steps on video, and Afghans Can’t Stop Watching.” The New York Times, September 21, 2019.

KABUL, Afghanistan — At first, the man was just walking across the street. Then he was running for his life. He managed four steps before the blast from the car bomb caught him.

Since then, the last few seconds of Akbar Fazelyar’s life, captured on video during a Taliban attack on Sept. 5, have become one of the most scrutinized moments in Afghanistan, slowed down and watched frame by frame on countless mobile phones and computer screens.


Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.


Qazi, Shereena. “Afghanistan’s presidential election: All you need to know.” Al Jazeera, September 25, 2019.

The vote, the fourth since the Taliban’s removal from power by a United States-led coalition in 2001, comes as heavy fighting between the armed group and government forces has led to a spike in the number of civilians killed.

The Taliban has already threatened to target election rallies and polling stations, while in recent weeks the US-backed Afghan forces have stepped up air and ground attacks, raising fears of further casualties. 

Last week alone, more than 150 people were killed, according to Al Jazeera tally, in Taliban attacks, US drone strikes and raids by Afghan government forces.


RFE/RL. “At Least 50 People Killed in Air Strike, Car Bombing in Afghanistan.” September 19, 2019.

The air strike was aimed at destroying a hideout used by Islamic State militants, but it accidentally targeted farmers near a field, Afghan officials were quoted as saying.

“On yet another deadly day in Afghanistan, once again it is civilians who bear the brunt of the violence involving armed groups, the Afghan government, and their backers in the U.S. military,” Amnesty International said in statement.


Ricks, Thomas E. “Khalilzad: Here’s what I think went wrong in Afghanistan after I left there.” Foreign Policy, March 24, 2016.

Our principal failure, in my view, was our refusal to deal with Pakistan’s double game. Even the accelerated drone attacks in western Pakistan under the Obama administration, which were somewhat effective in the fight against al Qaeda, failed to a large extent to target the Taliban, the Haqqani Group, or Hezbe Islami.

The United States also signaled a lack of military resolve. The Pentagon made incautious public statements about the reduction of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan. At one point, the combat power of the United States dropped to a single brigade, even as the insurgent threat was rising. The evident lack of U.S. commitment gave Pakistan a green light to step up the Taliban and insurgent offensive in late 2005 and early 2006.


Stecklow, Steve, Babak Dehghampisheh, and Yeganeh Torbati. “Assets of the Ayatollah: The economic empire behind Iran’s supreme leaders (“Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures”). Reuters Investigates, November 11, 2013.

Yusufzai, Mushtaq and Linda Givetash. “Taliban forces attack Afghan city amid peace talks with U.S.” NBC News, August 31, 2019.

The militants had taken hospital patients as hostages, officials said, while electricity and most telephone services were cut and residents were sheltering in their houses.

The “large scale” attack was “progressing smoothly,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed in a series of posts on Twitter.


Wikipedia. “2 and 5 September 2019 Kabul bombings”.


Wikipedia. “17 September 2019 Afghanistan bombings”.

On 17 September 2019, two suicide bombings killed over 48 people in Charikar and Kabul, Afghanistan. The first attack occurred at a rally for presidentAshraf Ghani which killed over 26 and wounded over 42.[1] Ghani was unharmed in the incident.[2] The second bombing occurred in Kabul near the US embassy. In this incident 22 were killed and another 38 were injured in the explosion.[3] Children and women are among the dead and wounded in both attacks, also multiple soldiers were killed.[4] The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, and said they will commit more attacks to discourage people from voting in the upcoming presidential elections.[5][6]


Wikipedia. “Track II Diplomacy”.


Wikipedia. “Zalmay Khalilzad” (U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation).


Watch our video to know how @RahilaFDN has empowered needy Afghan youths, & how powerfully it has effected change in the community. This is how we are building on #Rahila's legacy & words of wisdom: “Education is the only solution!”

Watch full video here: https://t.co/724Gh5XelT pic.twitter.com/W3ONCg0iHV

— Rahila Foundation (@RahilaFDN) September 23, 2019

CBS News, Posted to YouTube August 23, 2019.

–33–

PKK – A Few Impressions and Notes on the Kurdish Struggle for Autonomy and Unification

25 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, International Development, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Middle East, Syria, Turkey

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

medieval v modern, PKK, political transformation, Soviet / post-Soviet politics

Kurdish defense elements may represent an amalgam of Kurdish interests largely beneath the authoritarian semi-socialist umbrella of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Conceived in the Far Left zeitgeist of the 1970s, an era saturated in and partially shaped by agent provocateur, disinformation, and money pouring off of Russia’s “Active Measures” programs, the PKK appears to have followed the pattern known to other Soviet-associated “liberation fronts” in relation to ruthless consolidations of power, funding through criminal means, and the launching of violent revolutionary actions against forces impeding organizational ambitions, concepts, and ends.

Be that as it may, the PKK has had also unquestionably repressive or even genocidal foes in the states in which the Kurdish community had been divided and politically diminished in power, but none were perhaps as awful in their intent to destroy Kurdish culture as Turkey (reference, for example: Wikipedia: “Human rights of Kurdish people in Turkey”). In the recruitment of Kurdish forces to fight ISIS, that issue has been well recognized —

In 2013, Erdogan promised to recognize Kurdish identity and language, and increase Kurdish liberties. A truce followed, but hostilities resumed in 2015. Erdogan said he was responding to PKK terrorism. The PKK claimed Erdogan destroyed the ceasefire by building dams and security stations in Kurdish regions. In either case, a war was on. Erdogan attacked with helicopter gunships, artillery and armored divisions, murdering thousands and displacing 335,000 mainly Kurdish citizens. A UN report described destroyed villages as moonscapes.

https://www.newsweek.com/turkeys-erdogan-kurds-opinion-1050039 – 7/31/2018 – Wachtel, Jonathan and Albert Wachtel. “Turkey’s Erdogan Wants to Crush the Kurds and Recreate the Ottoman world | Opinion.” Newsweek, July 31, 2018.

The recruitment of mixed Kurdish forces to fight ISIS necessarily involved diplomatic magic as some best trained and experienced in the business of fighting were to become those fighting Assad’s idea of “The Terrorists” — ISIS.

Here’s a section representing one starting point — the American State Department’s continuing designation of the PKK as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” — and both the required finesse to shift popular impression plus an expression of America’s intent to defend its Kurdish allies (and front line) in the effort to defeat Islamic State —


The Department of State has reviewed and maintained the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended (8 U.S.C. § 1189). The PKK was originally designated as an FTO in 1997.

. . . .

Today’s actions notify the U.S. public and the international community that the PKK remains a terrorist organization. In addition to its continued status as an FTO, the PKK has also been designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 since 2001.

https://www.state.gov/state-department-maintains-foreign-terrorist-organization-fto-designation-of-the-kurdistan-workers-party-pkk/ – 3/1/2019 – U.S. Department of State. “State Department Maintains Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Designation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, March 1, 2019.
Posted to YouTube by R&U Video January 25, 2017.

BackChannels refers often to the “Phantoms of the Soviet”, a mixture of KGB-Era ideas, methods, personalities, and relationships that have for about 26 years outlived the Soviet Union. Wherever cultivated, the same have fairly suspended geopolitical space in the barbarism and political repression best associated with feudal / medieval political absolutism.

The PKK’s role in potential Turkish-Russian escalation should be viewed through the lens of Moscow’s deep historic ties with the group — and with Damascus. In the 1970s, the PKK was established with Soviet support in the Beqa Valley of Syrian-occupied Lebanon. As one of two NATO countries boasting a land border with the Soviet Union, Turkey was considered Moscow’s soft underbelly during the Cold War, providing Washington with numerous assets such as listening bases capable of intercepting communications across the Black Sea. The Russians saw the PKK as a means of undercutting a key U.S. ally.

The PKK also enjoyed support from Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafiz, who cast his regime as the champion of Turkish Kurds despite oppressing Syria’s own Kurdish community. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan lived in Damascus while his group ran training camps in Lebanon and used Syrian territory to attack Turkey.

Moscow’s support for the PKK eventually dissipated with the end of the Cold War and the emergence of pressing political and economic problems at home. Syria ended its own support in 1998, after Ankara threatened Damascus with war for supporting what had become a terribly destructive PKK campaign throughout Turkey. As part of this abrupt shift, Hafiz al-Assad expelled Ocalan.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-pkk-could-spark-turkish-russian-military-escalation – 5/25/2016 – Tabler, Andrew J. and Soner Cagaptay. “The PKK Could Spark Turkish-Russian Military Escalation.” The Washington Institute, May 25, 2016.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) emerged from the radical ferment that swept the Western world in the 1960s. It was founded in 1978 as a Marxist-Leninist organisation infused with Kurdish nationalism and a cult of personality around its leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The PKK spent much of this period attacking other Kurdish and left-wing groups, and its own dissidents – hundreds of whom would be killed over the years – in an attempt to monopolise the support base for its ideas.

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/3053-PYD-Foreign-Fighter-Project-1.pdf – 2017 – Orton, Kyle. “The Forgotten Foreign Fighters: The PKK in Syria.” PDF. P. 5. The Henry Jackson Society, 2017.

While BackChannels happily and humbly defers to The Henry Jackson Society’s wizard of political science, Kyle Orton, it recognizes inherent value in the Kurdish community as singular among the world’s ethnic and tribal cohorts and with that equally inherent rights to autonomous self-determination and dignity — in defense terms: freedom from cultural and religious persecution.

BackChannels, being neither international organization or potent state, however may best demur to an analyst closer to the issues and altogether more experienced — in this instance, Michael Rubin of The American Enterprise Institute:

More importantly, PKK tactics have changed: There remains low-level military insurgency, but gone are the days when the PKK targets Turkish civilians (alas, the reverse is not true with regard to Turkish forces and Kurdish civilians, as the residents of Cizre, Nusaybin, and Sur can attest). Certainly, breakaway factions of the PKK such as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) have claimed attacks, but such factionalism is common when former terrorists come in from the cold. That was the case with the “ Real IRA ” which emerged after the IRA entered into a peace process in Northern Ireland.

http://www.aei.org/publication/its-time-to-acknowledge-the-pkks-evolution/ – 1/25/2019 – Rubin, Michael. “It’s time to acknowledge the PKK’s evolution”. American Enterprise Institute (AEI), January 25, 2019.

Has the PKK evolved?

The Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy published this in 2016 on a related organization active in Turkey: https://ctc.usma.edu/the-kurdistan-freedom-falcons-a-profile-of-the-arms-length-proxy-of-the-kurdistan-workers-party/ .


A little more than six months ago, BackChannels published “Moscow as Medusa with All the Snakes Attached” (January 2, 2019), and what it had had in mind was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leveraging of arrangements involving leadership in several EU / NATO states fit for the flattering of an emperor. He had President Erdogan apologizing to him for shooting down two MIGs overflying Turkish air space (and, lo and behold, the “Turkish Stream” energy project got back on its feet) and, later (about now), purchasing Russian air defense technology suited to knocking NATO air power out of the sky . . . .

Elsewhere in EU / NATO, the “New Nationalism” responded to what BackChannels believes to have been manipulated “Islamic Terrorism” and — most certainly forced — mass migration from the Syrian Civil War: Viktor Orban (and family) had their premise for handling Hungary as an increasingly family-based enterprise; in France, Marine Le Pen had a (Moscow-sponsored) mission (she lost her run at the Presidency — and later the “Yellow Vests” appeared); and in the United States, an autocratic and reactionary conservative Donald Trump rose to power above a cloud of innuendos, lies, and improprieties involving foreign interference in the 2016 elections (for an introduction, see the film Active Measures) as well as an assortment of other and frequently sordid business.

So here with the above in mind is reference to “east-west” and “medieval v modern” conflict that continues to validate the idea of the presence of the “Phantoms of the Soviet” and their generally impeding progress toward modern governance in the near and middle east:

The Kurds have historically played an important role in Russian efforts to exert its influence in the Middle East. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union used the Kurds to bypass America’s containment strategy in the region.

Shortly after World War II, Moscow supported the creation of the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan to increase its influence in the region. After the Iranian army crushed the Kurdish forces, the fighters led by Mustafa Barzani took refuge in the Soviet Union.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/why-is-turkey-silent-on-russias-cooperation-with-the-syrian-kurds/ – 12/19/2017 – Tol, Gonul. “Why is Turkey Silent on Russia’s Cooperation with the Syrian Kurds?” War on the Rocks, December 19, 2017.

Political analyst Gonul Tol appears in the third video featured in the next section, which presents another set of impressions having to do with the Kurdish struggle for Kurdish autonomy and unification.


Posted to YouTube by i24NEWS English December 26, 2018.

Posted to YouTube by Vox, March 12, 2018.

Posted to YouTube by the Middle East Institute, January 22, 2018.

Related Online

BBC. “Who are Kurdistan’s Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels?” November 4, 2016.

Cagaptay, Soner. “Syria and Turkey: The PKK Dimension.” The Washington Institute, April 5, 2012.

CNN Library. “Kurdish People Fast Facts”.

Orton, Kyle. “The Forgotten Foreign Fighters: The PKK in Syria.” PDF. The Henry Jackson Society, 2017.

Orton, Kyle. “The PKK Roots of America’s Ally in Syria.” Terrorism Monitor, 17:12, The Jamestown Foundation, June 14, 2019.

Orton, Kyle. “The Problems With the West’s Partners Against the Islamic State.” Kyle Orton’s Blog, May 10, 2017.

Rational Wiki. “Communalism”.

Rubin, Michael. “It’s time to acknowledge the PKK’s evolution”. American Enterprise Institute (AEI), January 25, 2019.

The Kurdish Project (Web Site) | The Kurdish Project (Facebook)

Tol, Gonul. “Why is Turkey Silent on Russia’s Cooperation with the Syrian Kurds?” War on the Rocks, December 19, 2017.

Wikipedia. “Democratic Confederalism”.

–33–

Khamenei: Israel – “A Malignant Cancerous Tumor” | Israel: “Why Are You So Obsessed With Me?”

04 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

grand kleptocracy, Iran, Israel, Khameini, malignant narcissism, middle east conflict, political obsession, politically absolute nuttiness, Soviet / post-Soviet politics

Kham-dest-Israel

Tweet Source:

The true face of Iran. The true face of Hamas. The true face of the “Great March of Return." https://t.co/QTzoMPvH73

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) June 4, 2018

Related Online

Reuters on the “Assets of the Ayatollah”:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1

From 2016, Gatestone Institute: Colonel Richard Kemp:

–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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