Category Archives: Regions

From Correspondence – A White House At Play With the Muslim Brotherhood?

15 Monday Sep 2014

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

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From correspondence:

Yours Truly: Obama has given MB plenty of room for operating and for being observed. As he is not a President for Life, the stronger elements that comprise our government will survive him and probably be able to use the knowledge gained during his tenure. I would fear as much a flip toward the extreme Right in America. We really need a central, progressive, and prudent politics, and the zealots in politics have really skewed the conversation away from the middle ranks. That needs fixing, so I am becoming a Passionate Moderate Liberal.

Correspondent: Unfortunately, your fears aren’t baseless. After the communist revolution in Russia in 1917 and many other countries 1919, 1920 where it failed, extreme right came to power, including Nazis in most devastated Germany. That’s why from the very beginning the idea of European Union was not to go separate ways, to keep together, thereby not allowing a fascist regime to surface in a singly taken country. Still, fascists raise their head in Hungary, Greece… I think drastic economic changes bring drastic political changes and false expectations… Only the ability to realistically analyze them, or rather inability, can bring extreme regimes into power. Once installed they cannot be peacefully removed, that has to be remembered. The main lesson of WWII perhaps should be that many countries that could do something to prevent the appetites of the Nazi Germany did simply nothing for wanting to be left in peace. Want to be left in peace, from many lazy western countries, isn’t that what helps bring all sort of criminals to power nowadays? If the progressive world media would together denounce Hamas and ISIS, what chance of survival would they have? Close to none, I think.

My correspondent had started here:

http://conservativetribune.com/hillary-obama-terrorists/ —

The Muslim Brotherhood, who took power in Egypt following the Arab Spring, were recently ousted by the Egyptian military and declared a terrorist organization.

Even still, they have been embraced by President Obama, invited into his administration, placed on a “hands off” list protecting them, and are even setting up their own official political party here in the United States.

I leave room for the Obama Administration to have been adventurous, curious, experimental, observing in attempting to integrate into the democratic process such as Mohamed Elibiary, who has been enjoying this week his share of “right-side” press for tweeting remarks about the inevitability of the global Islamic caliphate, for example:

Mohamed Elibiary was until last week a senior member of DHS’ Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). After years of controversy about his status at DHS, Elibiary announced his final day with the department on Twitter earlier this month and said he would remain close to the agency.

Media outlets have raised questions about the circumstances surrounding his departure, speculating that his provocative comments about the “inevitable” return of the Muslim “caliphate” may have played a role.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/controversial-dhs-adviser-let-go-amid-allegations-of-cover-up/ – 9/15/2014.

Although organizing Arab support in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria may amount to showbiz with an Administration and within an international political environment deeply invested in image — the wars for detectives and poets may turn out one day to have been wars for psychologists too, lol — the institutional memory Elibiary will leave behind will also inform this and successive governments in regard to the al-Qaeda-type assortment of Islamist challengers bent on acquiring power beneath the banners of Islam and with themselves conflated — by themselves — with God Almighty.

Related Reference

http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_36189.php – “OBAMA’S RADICAL MUSLIM AND PRO-MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISOR RESIGNS – 9/9/2014.

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FTAC – Syria – A Note on Beyond the Burning

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Syria

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The foundations of the invisible wall surrounding Assad start about here:

“In a gloomy interrogation room the children were beaten and bloodied, burned and had their fingernails pulled out by grown men working for a regime whose unchecked brutality appears increasingly to be sowing the seeds of its undoing.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/110423/syria-assad-protests-daraa

And then it builds to about here:

“But there is something legitimately scary about the weapon’s do-it-yourself ethos and its new systematic deployment against the neighborhoods of Aleppo. It speaks to the regime’s single-minded focus on finding new ways to kill, its narrow and obsessive pursuit of mayhem and destruction as seemingly official strategy in the conflict that has run for nearly three years now.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/12/24/what-makes-syrias-barrel-bombs-so-scary/

Being a merely “bloody dictator” in a conflict cauldron that has in it argument over despotism, democracy, egotism, goodness, God, morality, and narcissism (finally) is not merely a bad position.

The condemnation backed by astounding imagery and numbers to match may not be overcome with exigent maneuvering.

I know: faced with Hitler, one might be eager to bargain with Stalin.

Call that yesterday.

This day with Assad having produced a war that has brought al-Qaeda affiliates and such to his doorstep and that has incubated and loosed ISIS on the world, may be different.

How happy should one be to be led by Assad today?

That’s not my question to answer.  It’s a question for Syrians to answer for themselves in whatever condition and place the war now finds them.

If “Assad or Burn It” was the slogan, it has been working a long time, and once burned — in whatever portion — what then?

What now?

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Orphaned Gaza

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions

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“In the end you are left with 1.7 million people in Gaza, and you don’t really want that.”

Responsibility.

Ehud Yaari‘s remark at The Washington Institute’s two-person panel “Sept. 11 – Gaza and Beyond: The Arab-Israeli Arena in the Wake of the Hamas War,” may tell how Israel’s latest response to Gaza rocket fire (and assault tunnel building) reached completion without changing much.

Indeed, Robert Satloff, the second speaker, would go on to characterize the incursion as “urgent, not very important.”

When asked in the Q&A that followed, “What does Israel want?”  Yaari suggested that what Israel wants is to “let Hamas rot in the Gaza Strip.”

Noting that Hamas had seen fail it’s “Gaza Fortress” approach to assaulting Israel, the journalist said the Hamas would “try to make a leap to the West Bank . . . a whole new opera” with the contemplation of its terrorism reaching everywhere in Israel.

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Not only Hamas may rot in Gaza, for no powerful or key element seems to want even to approach taking responsibility for 1.7 million Gazans.

Egypt, having with decision made the Muslim Brotherhood its problem, certainly does not want Gaza’s most egregious problem, except to keep the same exactly where it is.

Israel and Israelis: ditto, Egypt.

If there’s a transition plan for Gaza from Hamas sanctuary to, say, protectorate or suzerain in enthused and lasting peace (with the Jews and the Jewish State), I should like to hear of it.

The highly experienced and now octogenarian Mahmoud Abbas, who, anti-Semite that he may be, has been promoted as representing the Next Best Government, has looked over the nest and, so suggests Yaari, hasn’t the wish to run Gaza while Hamas, aspiring to ape Hezbollah, maintains its own army.  While Hamas planners in Turkey pass thoughts to the West Bank Committee in Gaza, with interest in unseating Abbas, Abbas would have to address the massive screening of old staff, the mustering of troops sufficient to overwhelm Hamas, and that’s not happening.

Gaza appears to be stuck with Hamas.

Even worse for Hamas, Hamas appears to be stuck with Gaza.

While Hamas stews over Gaza as well as in it, Israel and the Arab World, so suggests Satloff, may be experiencing some convergence of perception of regional states of affairs.

Perhaps such as ISIS helps with that.

While Hamas may be isolated in Gaza — imho, it sure looks that way — and both Egypt and Israel control the boundaries and crossings containing the same and the Global Jew-Hate Commune emphasizes hate over help (most often) and the UNRWA remains deeply compromised (as a Hamas helper), Gaza may have one partner for peace after all: Gazans.

It’s what we all have, isn’t it?

Ourselves when it’s us.

Themselves when it’s them.

Some friends convince me that Gazans love Hamas, vote for Hamas, die for Hamas.

Happily.

Proudly.

And some friends convince me otherwise.

Except through the Hamas filter — media controlling, politically intimidating, image obsessed — one cannot “see” Gazans (politically) otherwise, or, perhaps simply not yet.

Reference

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/gaza-and-beyond-the-arab-israeli-arena-in-the-wake-of-the-hamas-war – 9/11/2014

Blogger’s Note

It’s true I may now scribble notes at a desktop two hours away from the event location — but can I read them afterward?  🙂  And did I get words down right in the first place?  And can I do a better job of differentiating between what someone else said and what I happen to think?  Of course.  With practice.

Every day online brings with it a slightly updated dawn that changes even the most remote soul’s intellectual ecology.

Yesterday’s live event, which I watched, is now a recorded event at the URL noted in reference.  I may give it another listen, and if I must update here, I will.  Internally, there’s an art in play — listen, notate, reflect, report, opine — and each step is its own dimension.

Update

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/from-gaza-to-isis-a-trip-report-assessing-the-arab-israeli-arena — “From Gaza to ISIS: A Trip Report Assessing the Arab-Israeli Arena”, Robert Satloff, September 12, 2014

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NATO – ISIS – Turkey’s Weakened Stance

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Regions, Turkey

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Under perhaps the pretext of defending Turkey from ISIS, Turkish Prime Minister, now President Recept Tayyip Erdogan appears to have methodically trounced basic western values in the maintenance of open responsible and responsive governance.

When this past June ISIS took control of Turkey’s embassy in Mosul, Iraq, which site it today uses for its headquarters, and kept hostages, then Prime Minister Erdogan ordered coverage of the matter kept out of the state’s news: whatever was to happen, Turks would not be able to follow it in a free press.

When ISIS then “offered” (or ordered, for this matter also appears dark) ISIS oil in exchange for Turkish cash, it appears then Prime Minister Erdogan accepted the offer (which perhaps he could not refuse, either for defensive purposes or patently offensive ones — i.e., perhaps nothing beats hiding a venal intent behind one’s own hostages).

In the matter of NATO radar defense arrangements in Turkey, then Prime Minister Erdogan whined across months that the same not be used to protect Israel (“the only democracy in the”  yada-yada and once robust trading and defense partner with Turkey).

Finally, and with unmistakable reference to anti-Semitism, now President Erdogan has refused Israel an oil pipeline westward.

Back in May: “At least 10 firms bid for Israel-Turkey gas pipeline: Report.”

Yesterday: “Turkey nixes energy partnerships with Israel.”

While Turkey may wish to look strong as a Muslim-majority state and reliable as a NATO partner, anti-Semitism itself has a reputation as a great deflector of attention away from mediocrity and weakness.

Additional Reference

Turkey’s discomfort with NATO and its pro-Semitic western stance comes through its lax border control, which it is now being asked to address, its battering relationship with the Jewish State, and its perhaps compliant position with the Islamic State — and saying it ain’t so won’t prove it ain’t so as now President Erdogan perhaps walks down both a familiar and increasingly lonely road.  He may feel enlarged, as autocrats do, by the “narcissistic supply” arranged through deflection and cultivated with pandering,  but as that story grows large too in the chaos and disruption it engenders, it never ends well for the host.

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When ISIS took Turkish photojournalist Bunyamin Aygun hostage in 2013, he said the militants repeatedly told him “Turkey is next.” After the first few weeks of his detainment, he was transferred to an ISIS brigade made up of mostly Turks. “They rained curses on Erdogan, and Davutoglu, saying they were ‘infidels,’” Aygun told al-Monitor. “They claimed that if Turkey sealed the border gates that were under IS control they would hit one Turkish village after the other and trigger a civil war inside Turkey.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/nato-coalition-against-isis-turkey-role-mostly-symbolic-1680708 – 9/7/2014.

Since Turkey’s 49 consulate staff and their family members were taken hostage in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on June 11, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has taken all measures to keep the public in the dark on the issue.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/daloglu-mosul-hostage-crisis-erdogan-isis-iraq-turkey.html#ixzz3Cv1ThPsZ – 6/25/2014.

Mahmut Tanal, a lawmaker from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told The Daily Beast he was trying to get an official government comment on reports saying that ISIS was exporting up to 4,000 tons of fuel to Turkey every day and earning $15 million every month from the trade. “I am expecting some answers here,” he said.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/08/is-nato-ally-turkey-tacitly-fueling-the-isis-war-machine.html – 9/8/2014.

“For energy projects to proceed, the human tragedy in Gaza will have to be stopped and Israel will have to instate a permanent peace there with all elements,” Yildiz told reporters in Ankara, referring to the recent counter-terror Operation Protective Edge.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184930#.VBBOQcJdV8E -“Turkey Refuses to Transfer ‘Inhumane’ Israeli Gas to Europe” – 9/9/2014.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/zaman-isis-turkeys-mosul-consulate-headquarter-iraq.html – 7/17/2014

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/turkey-tomb-suleiman-shah-syrian-territory-pretext-incursion.html# – 3/27/2014.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/turkey-syria-borders-smuggling-guns-conflict-kurds-pkk-isis.html##ixzz3Cv7wzwGu – 4/30/2014.

An 18-vehicle convoy was dispatched to the Tomb of Suleiman Shah to rotate the troops and resupply. The convoy entered Syria from the YPG-controlled Kobani and returned via ISIS-controlled Jarablus. A Syrian Kurdish source told Al-Monitor that, as per the accord reached with the officials of the “Kobani canton” who recently visited Turkey, the YPG provided security to the Turkish army convoy while passing through Kurdish-controlled area. According to this source, the convoy was stopped by ISIS in Cadde village, three kilometers [two miles] from the tomb, after it left the Kurdish area. Since official sources kept mum on what transpired at Cadde and along the way, speculation grew.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/turkey-usa-syria-iraq-isis-coalition.html##ixzz3CvAeBuNa – 9/8/2014.

Needless to say, if Obama would find an enthusiastic NATO ally in his quest to construct a coalition to deal with IS, his attitude toward his Turkish counterpart might be different. Yet, Turkey’s reluctance in taking part in the efforts led by the United States against IS is also confirmed by Turkey’s media outlets following the Erdogan-Obama meeting.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/15/us-nato-turkey-israel-idUSBREA0E0NZ20140115 – 1/15/2014.

(Reuters) – Turkey has accepted assurances a planned NATO missile defense system in which it is playing a part is not designed to protect Israel as well, the alliance’s deputy secretary-general said on Wednesday.

Alexander Vershbow said objections by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government had resulted in part from confusion about a Turkish-hosted NATO radar. Ankara had been further assuaged by alliance Patriot anti-missile batteries assigned to protect its territory from Syria.

Related:

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-based-nato-radars-israel-protection-in-question.aspx?pageID=238&nID=69424&NewsCatID=483 – 7/22/2014.

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http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/08/04/nato-commander-u-s-radar-turkey-wont-used-help-israel/ – 8/4/2014.

Turkey has opposed Israel’s participation in NATO exercises. Officials said Ankara was abandoning plans to improve relations with Israel.
“Normalization with Israel is a fantasy,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/umut-ozkirimli/stoking-the-fire-antisemi_b_5779302.html – 9/8/2014.

Yet something was different this time around.   Something to do with the intensity and audacity of displays of anti-semitism, and the not so covert official backing they received, which was one of the talking points of the recent meeting between U.S. President Obama and Turkish President Erdoğan who discussed, according to the statement by the NSC Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden “the importance of … combating the scourge of anti-Semitism,” among other things.

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http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703279704575335043894776482 – 6/29/2010.

Brothers in Arms

Some major Israeli arms contracts with Turkey

1997: $632 million order for Israel to outfit Turkish F4E Phantom aircraft with advanced avionics.

1998: $90 million order for Israel to provide AGM-1 and Popeye-1 missiles for the upgraded Phantoms.

2002: $687.5 million deal to upgrade Turkey’s M60-A1 tanks to Israeli Sabra-3 version, the last of which was delivered in April.

2005: $183 million deal to provide 10 Heron drones.

Note: All contracts completed except drones, which are being delivered. Source: Serdar Erdurmaz, Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies

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http://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2014/09/10/over-40-states-combine-forces-against-isis – 9/10/2014.

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Ach! About “Mariupol Under Fire”

04 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ukraine

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Earlier today, I slugged a post — the “link” that follows this — “Mariupol Under Fire”, which related articles I went a seeking.  I wasn’t too far off the mark:

http://www.france24.com/en/20140904-russia-ukraine-donetsk-mariupol-ceasefire/ – 9/04/2014.

However, what I ended up doing was scraping and posting news clips, and “Mariupol” was forgotten, except in the slugged title and on Twitter.  My apologies then to those who today had been seeking similar data on the appearance of Russian military assets in the Ukrainian battle space.

Now, the slug that Twitter treated as a header as turned true!

Or more true than was suggested earlier.  The following is about an hour old from the Los Angeles Times:

“It is a totally new game,” said Oleg Odnorozhenko, deputy commander of the volunteer Azov Battalion, adding that the city’s fighters are now certain they are being attacked by regular Russian army troops, not just mercenaries and homegrown separatists.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-russia-mariupol-20140904-story.html – “Russian troops attacking Mariupol, Ukrainian militia leader says.’  – 9/4/2014.

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A Note Indicating Interest in Russian Post-Soviet Soviet Influence

01 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Regions

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?

Khamenei –> Putin –> Assad

?

Putin (-Yanukovych : Ukraine | +Orban : Hungary)

?

For a long time now, I have quipped about “the dictator Putin-Assad-Khamenei: together they are defending political absolutism.”

With the Russian foray into Ukraine, it appears that intuition may have steered me straight; however, taking that same intuition a step further, I wonder if the top theokleptocrat in Iran may not be holding the greater hand in global sway.

BackChannels may try to tease out of vast global web soup more of the state-driven meddling promoting the cultivation of socialist-nationalist movements such as that of Hungary’s Orban, but I’m not certain the web will yield to such a line of inquiry.

 Additional Reference

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america#y01zgl – 6/2/2014.

(5/27/2014)

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http://geopoli.info/?p=596 – “Ukraine – Terrorist recruitment, marketing & geopolitics.”  6/25/2014.

*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc

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Link

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Regions

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Using the UK as a case study, Ms. Phillips addressed the prejudiced attitudes towards Israel from both Muslims and left-wingers and so-called liberals before criticizing the UK Jewish community for failing to respond adequately and preferring to keep their heads down.

She also criticized Israel’s failure “to grasp that information is a strategy of war on the battleground of the mind, and a strategy that has been used to enormous effect against Israel, and against which it doesn’t even seem to know that it is fighting.”

http://honestreporting.com/melanie-phillips-calls-for-new-strategy-to-present-israels-case/ – 8/31/2014.

Link

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Canada, North America, United States of America

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Temple is a major university in the USA, home of the brave, land of the free-where Lady Liberty holds her light high inviting all who are in need to her shores. And yet, and yet, a Jewish student, Daniel Vessal, was physically and verbally attacked-for being Jewish, at this place of higher learning.

It isn’t that he was sucker-punched and verbally abused. It was that it was treated… lightly.

Bederman, Diane Weber.  “The Normalization of Jew-hatred at Temple University and Around the World.”  Times of Israel, August 31, 2014.

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