One for the Putinistas (and Ballet Lovers)

23 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by commart in Philosophy, Politics, Russia, United States of America

Tags

19th Century Modern, aristocracy, NATO, Obama, politics, Putin, Russia, Syria

Nineteenth-century radicals loathed Russia above all other states because it had a quasi-religious mission to preserve autocracy at home and promote reactionary regimes abroad. To true believers, the “Third Rome” of Christian tsarism defended the divinely ordained old order against the threats of liberalism, socialism, nationalism and modernity.

Vladimir Putin is outflanking the west at every turn | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer – by Nick Cohen – 12/21/2013

After reading Nick Cohen’s relay of Pat Buchanan’s words about Vladimir Putin, it turns out that I am a part of a movement characterized as the “militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.”

* * *

Ya ha!

I have found my place.

You know my lowest common denominator standards:

— Compassion | Humility | INCLUSION | Integrity —

Buchanan, if he’s now enamored of Putinism, and Putin, who would seem by the show of affection proffered in weapons deliveries and benevolent shadowing, remains committed to Bashar (The Butcher) Assad may be counted on for the grossest callousness, pride, exclusion, and — no secret where so many secret and nepotist arrangements would seem to be involved — corruption.

The same as (gasp!) Al Qaeda.

OUR problem, me hearties, me droogies, me Facebook best buddies from Riyadh to Islamabad, is that whether having to do with Assad vs. the Islamist Edge or Putin vs. Obama, it would seem similar mentalities wish to occupy the same space or shine in the same lights — not exactly atypical of “malignant narcissists” — while driving everyone else into misery or just plain out of their mirrored spheres!

THEIR problem, Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin, may have to do with escaping their own glorious selves. Of the two, Obama, being of the Christian compassionate honest humble and generously inclusive democratic and open society west, may lay claim to having done less harm in the short term than his superpower counterweight; Putin, however, would do well to look over the Assad combat doctrine and its effects on once disinterested Syrians who have by the effects of extensive bombing and indiscriminate fire been turned out of their homes or cheated of their lives while the Al Qaeda affiliates’ advance seems to have remained out of range and sight of the same.

Post-Soviet Syria was post-Soviet Putin’s to influence and transform.

Well, some, I suppose, both milk the cow and starve it until it keels over.

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In Putin, the past fights mightily with the future.

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In my own recurring themes, Putin and I might share the appreciation of what I call “19th Century Modern”, an aristocratic and noble notion reinforced by the appearance of affluence and wealth. Living in the 19th Century with 21st Century appointments and appliances seems to me pretty cool, although I’ve had to stuff my mansion into a cabin (or cottage) based in about 1,000-sq.ft. of garden apartment walk-up, and things are not looking so good for drives in the country and claret before one or another of the ever glowing electronic hearths.

Still, the situation here is 19th Century (Modern), and it’s pretty good but for the worry.

For the narcissist, reparative or malignant (guilty, I confess, of one or the other or a bit of both), there’s much to recommend it and one may bet on the intelligentsia’s buy-in, Georgian brick, ivy, tweed, and elbow patches and all.

So is the fighting about castle and keep?

It could be so, at least symbolically.

It takes a castle, a manor, a very many of them to create and sustain a great language and culture. If perhaps in his mind, his peacock charm, ambition, dreams at night, and hail fellow well met — and now and then stabbed! — President Putin has had to step back a century, the same may serve to remind of the magic of that era as well.

* * *

It’s almost Christmas.

Winter returns tonight to my home in western Maryland — ice and snow, wool blankets and sweaters, steaming pots of tea (someone else in the family got the samovar) — so I may offer this bit of in-solidarity to my unknown Muscovy doppelganger, reasonably appointed and of good temper: let’s enjoy the show because, sooner or later, for Christianity or fashion designers, for the Jews who work harder for humanity than anyone else, and for humanity served, we’re going to have to do something about Syria and soon, and we don’t want it to be either of the two pariahs busying themselves this evening with the other’s destruction.

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From Saint Petersburg — and the 19th Century.

▶ Tchaikovsky – The Nutcracker – Mariinsky Theatre Gergiev – YouTube – Posted 10/18/2013.

Odds & Ends

Putinism – An Ideology? | – 2/20/2013.

What English words employ the Spanish suffix ‘-ista’? – English Language & Usage Stack Exchange – I generally like my clevers but am not happy with the overtones, so I’m unlikely to employ “Putinista” again.

What WILL they talk about? Vladimir Putin buys £15m Marbella mansion, with Rod Stewart as a neighbour | Mail Online – 10/18/2012. I would live there. 🙂 And jam with Rod. It would be awesome.

From Pussy Riot to Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Putin has been underrated | Geoffrey Wheatcroft | Comment is free | The Guardian – 12/20/2013.

Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively cancels Christmas in Sochi ahead of 2014 Olympics | National Post – 11/29/2013

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Photos: Fighting intensifies in Aleppo, Syria | Al Jazeera America – 12/23/2013.

Syria: Refugee Babies In ‘Terrible’ Conditions – 12/23/2013.

Syrian civil war creating refugee crisis in Lebanon – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – 12/23/2013.

BBC News – Syria war: Many dead as Assad helicopters pound Aleppo – 12/22/2013.

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19th Century Modern | A blend of 19th Century interests in a Modern Day life

Oppenheim Arts & Letters: 19th Century Modern & 19th Century Modern | J. S. Oppenheim — All Together 😉

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The Great Leader’s Grandiose Delusion

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, North America, Politics, Psychology, Regions, United States of America

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The event in the year 1358 was a counterattack. Our courageous and religious youth attacked the U.S. embassy and discovered the truth and identity of this embassy, which was the Den of Espionage, and presented this fact to people throughout the world.

In those days, our youth called the U.S. embassy the “Den of Espionage”. Today, after the passage of 30-plus years since that day, the name of U.S. embassies in countries which have the closest relationship with America – that is to say, European countries – has become the den of espionage. This means that our youth are 30 years ahead of the rest of the world. This event was related to America as well. These three events were related, in different ways, to the government of the United States of America and its relations with Iran. Therefore, the 13th of Aban – which is tomorrow – was named “Day of Fighting Against Arrogance”.

The Office of the Supreme Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei – 11/3/2013

* * *

This same regime supplies its terrorist proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with thousands of rockets, rockets that are aimed at Israeli civilians, rockets that are precision-guided munitions that are increasingly lethal and deadly. This is a regime committed to our destruction. And I believe there must be an unequivocal demand alongside the negotiations in Geneva for a change in Iranian policy. This must be part and parcel of the negotiations. In other words, I’m saying that what is required is not merely a shift and a diminution of Iran’s capability and elimination of its capability to produce nuclear weapons, but also a demand to change its genocidal policy. That is the minimal thing that the international community must do when it’s negotiating with Iran.

PM Netanyahu’s address to the Saban Forum 8 ec 2013

For once, the bold section is a part of the copy at the source — i.e., not mine.

This form in conflict isn’t about wealth or resources: it’s about the character of the next generation’s humanity.

* * *

And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.

Exodus 12:38.

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The Jews and all who would travel with them have been defying the “malignant narcissist” from the first pages.

Even before Exodus, God himself in Genesis arranges for Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, share it with Adam, and become the two of them — this I regard as the most important part — aware, self-aware, and possessed of conscience.

Whatever animals may be left to do, the First Couple have ascended from that base existence, covered and signaled consideration for the other, and been prepared — read carefully: God himself sews the first protective clothing — to live like human beings.

* * *

In contemporary political life there seem to be a thousand pharaohs holding captive and suffocating millions of souls. In their own heads, the lives of others pale before their own, and the control of others in the cause of their own adoration takes precedence over every other consideration.

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▶ Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei : Israeli regime shaky, doomed to collapse – YouTube – Posted by PressTV 11/20/2013.

Related from this blog: Paranoid Delusional Narcissist Reflection of Motivation

* * *

▶ Mordechai Kedar: Rouhani threat? Is Obama setting-up Israel to confront Iran on nukes? [46] – YouTube – Posted 10/3/2013.

* * *

In the next breath, however, the ayatollah spoke harshly of France’s stand with the United States in opposition of much of the nuclear deal being forged in Geneva, vowing that Iran would “slap aggressors in the face in such a way they will never forget it,” Ynet News reported.

The militia members, in response, chanted “Death to America.”

Iran’s ayatollah: Israel’s ‘doomed to extinction’ – Washington Times – 11/20/2013.

* * *

“Iran’s policy of constructive interaction with the world states has forced the world to see the realities of Iran’s capabilities,” Rouhani said during a meeting with Bushehr’s MPs on Monday.

“You see that those powers which were thinking of destroying Iran’s enrichment capability, have now admitted that they cannot stop Iran’s industrial progress and enrichment due to the indigenization of this industry and its expansion,” he added.

President Rouhani: World powers admit failure in stopping Iran’s N. progress – 12/9/2013.

* * *

“In our region there’s been a wound for years on the body of the Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the beloved al-Quds (Jerusalem),” Rouhani said, according to a translation by the Reuters news agency.

The earlier quote, which came from ISNA, was most notable for its inclusion of the call for the “wound” to be “removed”:

“The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for years and the wound should be removed,” ISNA quoted Rouhani as saying.

New Iran president Hasan Rouhani calls Israel an “old wound” – CBS News – 8/2/2013.

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In the Iranian regime’s relationship with the greater world, the encouragement of trust by way of sweet words would seem matched by an idée fixe — Islamic succession, perhaps — accompanied by a reputation for treachery.

As with others of similar mien, what the public knows and is told leaves the swallowing black shadow of things less divulged or not divulged at all.

* * *

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls a business empire worth around $95 billion (£59 billion) – a sum exceeding the value of his oil-rich nation’s current annual petroleum exports, a six-month Reuters investigation shows.

The little-known organization, called Setad, is one of the keys to the Iranian leader’s enduring power and now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.

Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei revealed to run £60 BILLION business empire covering everything from oil to ostrich farming | Mail Online – 11/11/2013; first source: Exclusive: Reuters investigates business empire of Iran’s supreme leader | Reuters – 11/11/2013.

* * *

The 82-year-old Iranian woman keeps the documents that upended her life in an old suitcase near her bed. She removes them carefully and peers at the tiny Persian script.

There’s the court order authorizing the takeover of her children’s three Tehran apartments in a multi-story building the family had owned for years. There’s the letter announcing the sale of one of the units. And there’s the notice demanding she pay rent on her own apartment on the top floor

Reuters Investigates – Assets of the Ayatollah: “Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures“: – 11/11/2013.

There is an old saw regarding the mentality of the power behind a medieval narrative: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law!”

The malignant create laws to exclude, persecute, and thieve from others, and oh my the things that may be taken from any person subject to a monster: family, identity, labor, property, reputation, and wealth.

And life.

If Ayatollah Khamenei’s ambition and methods as an empire builder seem grandiose and rife with injustice to outsiders, there is nothing delusional about them: what you have read, what you have seen, what you have heard in relation to the aims of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, all of that is true as well.

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After al-Quds University Students Raise the Black Flag and Do the Hitler Salute

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, North America, Politics, Psychology, Regions, United States of America

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Tags

al-Quds, anti-Semitism, bigotry, fascism, political programming

Demonstrators at the Palestinian school paraded in paramilitary gear, with massed black flags, mock assault weapons, and arms extended in Nazi-style salutes. There were banners lionizing suicide bombers, and hand-drawn Israeli flags on which students trod. Islamic Jihad — long identified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union — posted photos of the rally on its website. In one, students representing dead Israelis sprawl on the ground as black-clad jihadists brandishing weapons stride past.

Rally shows pervasive Palestinian anti-Semitism – Opinion – The Boston Globe – 11/24/2013.

* * *

“Even universities like Al Quds university are established especially in Jerusalem, in order to show that Arabs and Muslims are the masters of this place and not the Jews, because in their view, if Judaism will control Jerusalem it will mean that Judaism came back to life after Islam came to replace it.

“This is why the basis of the struggle over Jerusalem and over the whole land of Israel is a religious struggle – not between Israel and the Arabs but between Judaism and Islam. This is the essence of th struggle, and everything stems from this archimedic point of the struggle.”

The speaker is the well-known scholar Mordechai Kedar and the source this one: Footage: More Nazi-Style Rallies at Al-Quds U. – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 11/28/2013.

* * *

During his press conference in Jerusalem today on the “peace process,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Israel again, but did not place any emphasis at all on the fact that the Palestinian Authority tolerates (and in many cases actively encourages) incitement to kill Jews.

Mideast Dispatch Archive: Scenes yesterday afternoon from a “moderate” Palestinian university – 11/6/2013

In the final reference of the above block, Sari Nusseibeh, president of al-Quds University may have through the subtext of his response made it clear how difficult it was — and remains — to stand up to and condemn the anti-Semitic bigotry and hate paraded by Islamic Jihad on campus. While defending his actions on the matter, which I believe he did well, he appears (in words) not to have gone so far as to lead his campus in recognizing and condemning with certainty its own deeply fascist elements and tendencies.

The Jewish press at once defensive and active –in this instance David Horovitz writing for the Times of Israel — hammers home the telling nail: “In his statement issued to al-Quds students Sunday, Nusseibeh had said that “Jewish extremists” were using the demonstration to “capitalize on events in ways that misrepresent the university as promoting inhumane, anti-Semitic, fascist, and Nazi ideologies.”

No extremists, Jewish or otherwise, would seem needed to recognize the deeper structure in argument having to do with choosing between a loyalty that pacifies, placates, and patronizes its children when they are wrong, and an integrity in matters that risks upsetting their malign narcissistic souls.

* * *

“We are very disappointed and saddened to have learned of these recent events at Al-Quds University,” said Kevin Quinn, Syracuse’s senior vice president for public affairs, in an email to The Jerusalem Post.

He said Syracuse’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism would end its ties with Al-Quds. The decision by Syracuse came three days after Brandeis University severed its relationship.

Syracuse follows Brandeis in halting ties with Al-Quds | JPost | Israel News – 11/22/2013.

When something stinks, people who don’t stink back away from it.

* * *

DEARBORN — Dozens of Arab Americans across southeast Michigan converged on Dearborn Friday to mark National Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, condemning Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands.

The protest was held at Dearborn City Hall, the designated “free speech zone” in the city.

Muslims Mark Al-Quds Day in Support of Palestinians – Around Town – Dearborn, MI Patch – 8/4/2013.

Should you click on the Dearborn Patch link, you will see a photo of a young lady holding a post with blocked and black letters on a white field: “Israel: No Right To Exist.”

Scroll down some and learn that “Abir Safa of Dearborn read a poem during the rally, and said that the event serves as a wake up call for all Muslims to take a stand against global Zionism and global hegemony and aggression regardless of race, religion or creed.”

Good idea — start with the saluting black shirts of al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Israel.

But wait — that would be off the point, which might fit a little more with observations similar to this one by Andrew Kirell writing for Mediaite:

It’s a match made in hate-filled heaven: former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Louisiana legislator David Duke endorsed, via video, Charles Barron, the controversial anti-Israel Democrat from Brooklyn, New York, who currently seeks the party’s nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Former Black Panther Barron has a long history of controversial remarks, some of which have been interpreted as anti-Semitic. He once called Israel the “biggest terrorist in the world,” and likened the Gaza Strip to “a virtual death camp, the same kind of conditions the Nazis imposed on the Jews.” At one point, he praised the late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi as a “freedom fighter.”

United In Hate? Fmr. KKK Leader David Duke Endorses Black Anti-Zionist For Congress | Mediaite – 6/22/2012.

Readers of this blog should by now well recognize the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” involved in the concoction, unconsciously or by way of deliberate and venal conceit, of “against global Zionaism . . . hegemony . . . aggression” especially when it links directly back to jack-booted, black shirt wearing, rigidly parading and Nazi-emulating thugs associating themselves with other Palestinians, among them some or many — who knows absent of free speech and unblemished elections? — who may finally wish to think twice — independently and off their own research and reflection — about who it is, or what it is, that has been purporting to represent them.

* * *

A little bit of “Never Forget!” by way of the 1930s, Facebook, and Harry’s Place (reference provided).

Harry’s Place » Old Hatred In New Words? – 9/2/2008.

* * *

While before a person had to be personally exposed, through people or perhaps a book, to vile characterizations of Jews, today anti-Semitism is prominently available everywhere anytime — to those seeking it out or to the innocent person just looking for information. Typing “Jew” into Google or Bing returns a top site (sometimes No. 2) called JewWatch, which is a vast emporium of anti-Semitic accusations and hatred claiming 1.5 billion pages in support of its mission to defame and eliminate Jews and their supposed power. This is but one of tens of thousands of anti-Semitic hate sites, which include a growing alternative to Wikipedia, called Metapedia, which seeks to create (currently in 18 languages) an anti-Semitic informational universe.

Opinion: How the Web spreads anti-Semitism – CNN.com – 10/18/2013.

With the democratic open society concept, a lot of people write and publish — and a lot more read and respond through the manner in which they conduct their lives — but to create a pervasive information atmosphere, one infused with anti-Semitic vitriol, takes some pile of sleazy cash: one wonders about who has been putting up the Big Bucks to inflame and incite yet another generation to wanton murder.

Additional Reference

Brandeis president will reach out to Al-Quds University | j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California – 11/27/2013.

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Scholastic Deletes Israel from New Textbook — Retracts . . . .

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, North America, Politics, United States of America

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Tags

printing, proofreading, propaganda, publishing, Scholastic Magazine

Scholastic Deletes Israel from New Textbook — Retracts . . . .

Scholastic Magazine — http://magazines.scholastic.com/ — left or removed the entire State of Israel on a an American publication gone to press.

Biggest children’s book publisher erases Israel from map | The Times of Israel – 11/13/2013.

I wonder how that happened.

To the publisher’s credit, the run was retrieved and corrected.

Both following and defying what I’ll call “Black Swan Theory”, one really does wish to know how Scholastic’s graphic artists and proofreaders missed this egregious error.

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FTAC – “How Do You Deal With These White Supremacists?”

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Religion, United States of America

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Tags

detective work, domestic security, equal application of the law, freedom of speech, hate groups, intelligence, religion, social tolerance

My correspondent in Pakistan sent me the link to an anti-Semitic (anti-Black, anti-Muslim, etc.) hate page and asked “How do you deal with these white supremists?

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Nice people . . . .

We let them talk all they want.

The timbre of the surrounding culture is such that when they’re found out, individually, their business and social prospects may be minimized by natural normative social processes. They’re sickness — and that’s most American, not only Jews but most Christians as well, view it — is such that they’re liable to gravitate to their own intellectual kind.

If the group has any history in crime or violence, the police will monitor minimally through ex-con or probation relationships with individuals (not with the group), and if more attention is needed, the old joke about FBI COINTELPRO applies: “How do you get to meet an FBI agent?” — “Attend a KKK meeting!”

If the organization commits a crime, the whole law enforcement community will be up its ass pretty damn quick to make arrests on the crime and conspiracy to commit it.

If the organization has developed a criminal history, then even reformed, it’s probably infiltrated and tracked. The old “COINTELPRO” — a term that may be looked up — involved some dirty tricks bordering on entrapment but always inspiring mistrust and paranoia within the targeted group.

Oddly enough and relevant here, it’s unknown to what extent the still new Federal intelligence and security communities have going on with the Muslim Brotherhood in America (incidentally, there are no holds reading Chechnya’s Kavkaz Center or Al Qaeda’s Inspire feeds). On the surface, it appears that the Administration has hired and integrated into its departments key Brotherhood figures like Mohamed Elibiary — http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/09/muslim-brotherhood-supporter-gets-homeland-security-promotion.html — and given out promotions. I think the intent was to elevate, integrate, and surround with the greater polygot American culture the mentality involved. That too seems not to be going so well and the conservative right press harps on these Obama decisions quite a bit.

I’ve been convinced for a while that the Obama Administration has been playing a deeply deceptive politics abroad and at home, so it hasn’t endorsed the Saudis — and their being upset about that has been in the news this week — nor has it abandoned Israel, but we are worried about Iran’s steps toward failproof defense of its nuclear war making capability, which it may do by acquiring a civilian reactor too dangerous when active for destruction or dismantling. The workaround, since Russia wants to sell the Ayatollah on its part of the nuclear business, Chernobyl notwithstanding, has been to mess with the intellectual capacity in human talent and machinery involved in the pursuit of those aims. There Israel and the U.S. may diverge, for the Israelis feel that an endless policy of half measures will lead to their own destruction.

Back to other hate groups, Islamic Jihad in America, and “homeland security” — I think the aim of responsible government, such as it may be (some voters believe it absent and the country already “sold down the river”, a colloquial phrase having to do with shipping slaves from pleasant Kentucky to the markets of New Orleans) — is to treat political threat and violence engineered by Muslims no differently than it does Christian ideologues and any number of cults and gangs similarly involved with their own weird tribal politics and the posture taken against the rest of the world. If there’s a problem with that, it may be that the Muslim Brotherhood is latched to a major religion, has decades of organizational history behind it, and has a vision for mankind to rival the Nazis in its supremacist aspect.

Shimmer applies. If the scale and tempo of violence — any group or cause — American politicians and the government will ramp up the pressure to suppress that form of political exuberance. Apparently, an annual atrocity or two may not produce sufficient cause to, for example, revisit laws on sedition. The concern remains that what we do for one mob and its cause, we must do for all. For the most part, instead of criminalizing the politics, we wait for the politics to become criminal, and then we take apart the organizations.

In national religious politics: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/10/17/richardson-texas-imam-leaves-dallas-central-mosque-quietly/ The imam has been noted as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, so there’s an intelligence story in there that I’m unlikely to pry apart. Maybe the crackdown on the Brotherhood in Egypt involved information that impugned the imam; maybe the Wahhabi thrust in the politics unseated the stance he represented, and he was forced from power; perhaps some other aspect in politics or state needs, including Erdogan’s interest in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, call him back to Istanbul; perhaps he really did take an early and quiet retirement, all the better to avoid hoopla and the long crediting in speech in public of mentors and associates along the way.

The true topic is a combine of national mission — egalitarian secular democracy here — and national security, so whether white dudes in basements talking about The Jew over their beer or the leader of the largest mosque in Texas, we’re trying to look at them the same way, guaranty the freedom of the law abiding, including the most hateful of the law abiding or the most contemptuous of others, if that, and keep our radars hot, as it were, for criminal activity.

And that’s how we deal with all of that! 🙂

Whew.

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I credit the same correspondent with awakening me to the politics 101 phrase “behind the curtains,” and with that in mind and much impression garnered from years of blogging feel confident about President Obama’s dividing political surface from political real story.

I’m equally confident about the conservative right’s beyond-the-pale demonizing of the American President and note that not with an overabundance of respect for the office — that would be other than American too — but with numerous second looks into the rationale for moving figures like Elibiary into the Administration’s ranks. The far right cries “Infiltration!” I happen to think such moves make for closer looks and for a look at administrative integration as a potentially culturally transforming process.

What doesn’t work only teaches us more than we knew when we started.

Were it not for greed — and that may be a subject for other writing on this blog — the American political system would be a greater joy for working, but even so, it’s very good at what it does, and what it does, by and large, is produce an Awesome Discourse (a little more important than merely the Awesome Conversation, lol) sustaining a productive domestic tranquility.

In America, so far and far past the Civil War, we’re still much inclined to reach for our quills rather than our quivers when it comes to domestic politics.

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Syria – Ain’t No Iraq

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Syria, United States of America

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Tags

chemical weapons, civil war, conflict, CW, debate, political, politics, Syria, war

Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence community was united in believing Assad was responsible.

John Kerry gives Syria week to hand over chemical weapons or face attack | World news | theguardian.com 9/9/2013

John Kerry calls Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad “a man without credibility”

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Syria: Syrian President Bashar al Assad Charlie Rose Interview September 9, 2013

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In state-level affairs, the sovereign or government-in-power may be held accountable for what takes place within its purview. So right off the bat this week, the nit of The Guardian headline, “Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press” has a disingenuous cant to it.

If not Bashar, what about Maher?

If not Maher, what about an officer in charge under his command?

Note Simon Tisdall and Josie Le Blond in Berlin in writing for The Guardian:

The German intelligence findings concerning Assad’s personal role may complicate US-led efforts to persuade the international community that punitive military action is justified. They could also strengthen suspicions that Assad no longer fully controls the country’s security apparatus.

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I’m not making the call, but the single case for pointing to a rebel false flags seems to stand on an accident involving the mishandling of chemical weapons stocks.

Or a recording — edited, underscored, produced, disseminated — showing a successful launch of a “blue bonnet” style rocket (using what looks like a launch vehicle matched to the purpose).

One case: two stories . . . .

That leaves the public with a spy story in a world waiting for the journalists to get into what I’m going to call “Political Spychology” — the massive, multinational industry devoted to capturing, listening, sniffing, stealing, interpreting signal for military as well as industrial purposes.

By vicinity x chatter x who x impact:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/israeli-intelligence-intercepted-syria-chemical-talk

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I am of the mind that the Syrian Civil War has degraded the central power of the Assad regime but neither installed nor shifted the same toward any coherent and responsible party: instead, it has drawn the state toward gross political anarchy and with a look in many places not dissimilar to Mogadishu’s: hard destruction around and through which shifting tides of suffering humanity amid armed gangs, loosely aligned at best, state or rebel, make their way.

Their situation will worsen as the lack of honesty and integrity across the field and the presence of grandiose ambitions in some ensures greater anarchy, brutality, and political dissolution.

To get the chemical weapons off the field is not to solve the war: it’s to make it a little more discerning (at least between combatant and noncombatant targets), humane, and secure because while other weapons projectiles explode or hit something with finite effect, poisonous gasses drift and are indiscriminate even on the gentlest of their lethal breezes.

To solve the war is to address the poetry of the mind of the warrior romantics involved in imagining themselves “God’s darlings” — Haider Mobarak’s phrase related to the narcissism involved — and striving to prove as much so through the intimidation, murder, and subjugation of all presumably less admirable and beloved-by-God others.

Fast Reference

Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press | World news | The Guardian 9/9/2013

Obama, his team sharpen Syria pitch as Congress prepares to vote | Fox News 9/9/2013

Obama’s Syrian chemical attack “proof” relies solely on Israeli intelligence | Intrepid Report.com 9/3/2013

Syria chemical attack analysis — CNN 9/7/2013

Syria | The White House (viewed: 9/9/2013)

Live today at 12:30 PM ET, White House National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice. Ambassador Rice will discuss the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, the longstanding international norm against the use of chemical weapons, and the need for action to deter the Assad regime from future use of chemical weapons.

Time isn’t on the White House’s side on Syria resolution 9/9/2013

What if Syria’s Assad didn’t personally order the chemical weapons attack? – The Week 9/9/2013

White House Intensifies Efforts to Make the Case for Syria Military Strikes – ABC News 9/8/2013

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Syria – Define Your World

01 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, North America, Politics, Regions, Syria, United States of America

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chemical weapons, conflict, ethics, good society, law, morals, political science, politics, rules of engagement, rules of war, Syria, war

Chemical and biological weapons are absolutely prohibited under international humanitarian law. Debates and questions surrounding the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria are not fading away. Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s head of operations for the Near and Middle East, explains the organization’s position.

ICRC. “Chemical weapons: An absolute prohibition under international humanitarian law”. July 18, 2013.

Tell me about the world in which you would like to live.

Will it be a world that holds itself to time honored ethical and moral standards?

Will it be a world in which self-awareness and the awareness of others inspires an integrating compassion and consideration for the humanity shared?

Will it be a world in which the most notable and powerful of public speakers may be trusted to keep their own laws, to restrain themselves from excessive or unbridled appetites, and to tell the truth whether it becomes them or not?

If you should wish to live in some other world, don’t bother with this blog.

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Unknown to Syrian officials, U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged chemical attack, from the extensive preparations to the launching of rockets to the after-action assessments by Syrian officials. Those records and intercepts would become the core of the Obama administration’s evidentiary case linking the Syrian government to what one official called an “indiscriminate, inconceivable horror” — the use of outlawed toxins to kill nearly 1,500 civilians, including at least 426 children.

Warrick, Joby. “More than 1,400 killed in Syrian chemical weapons attack, U.S. says.” The Washington Post, August 30, 2013.