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Category Archives: Regions

Hungary’s UN Envoy Seeks to Clear National Conscience, Admits Hungarian Collusion in the Holocaust

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Hungary, Politics

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

anti-Semitism, culpability, Holocaust acceptance, Holocaust denial, Hungary, national conscience

“Hungarian state institutions at the time [shared responsibility] for the Holocaust. This apology today by the Hungarian state must become part of national memory and identity,” he added.

Hungary’s UN envoy makes country’s first-ever Holocaust apology – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz – 1/25/2014.

* * *

Hungary at UN apologizes for role in the Holocaust | JPost | Israel News – 1/25/2014.

* * *

He added: cowardly attempt to keep the attention of diverting the Horthy regime of Judaism destruction played a role, and confuse the Holocaust of Hungarian people with the “suffering” caused by the German occupation, while the latter historical facts prove that instead of resistance rather general received applause – wrote in the letter. wrote I understand that “due to various political and economic reasons, the Holocaust Memorial Center operating managers do not want or can not speak out against this impudent forger course of history.”

Mazsihisz.hu – 1/26/2-14.

______

Serious efforts are being made by Fidesz-Jobbik supporters to recreate the old Soviet/Russian friendship from which twenty-three years ago Hungarians were happy to escape.

Attack on the United States and friendship with “tolerant” Russia | Hungarian Spectrum – 1/23/2014.

Hungarian Ambassador Casba Körösi would seem to understand that the Jobbik Party, its affections, whatever the basis, for Iran, Russia, and Putin’s own nationalist “vertical of power”, and its disaffection with Jews and the open democracies of the west have put Hungary on a collision course with a 1933 all its own.

* * *

In admitting Hungary’s guilt he said institutions in the the Hungarian state of the 1940s were responsible for the Holocaust as they had been complicit in accepting incidents led to the genocide of Hungarian Jews.

Hungary apologises for its part in Holocaust | Denver Sun – 1/26/2014.

With whom — what what — shall Hungarians go?

* * *

Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s controversial leader during World War II, oversaw the deportation of some 18,000 Jews to the German-occupied Soviet Union in 1941 — more than 10,000 of whom were murdered — and is seen by many as complicit in the mass deportations to Nazi death camps in 1944 which resulted in the deaths of around 450,000 Hungarian Jews.

NewsDaily: US scholar returns Hungary award over Holocaust ‘whitewash’ – 1/26/2014.

* * *

“We know we are responsible for the Holocaust and we also know that Hungarian state institutions were responsible for the Holocaust,” Navracsics said in parliament. “Hungarians were the perpetrators and Hungarians were those who suffered. Hungarians did the shooting and Hungarians died.”

Jewish groups in Hungary oppose 1944 memorial – The Washington Post – 1/21/2014.

The statements may be subtle.  That above by Hungary’s standing Minister of Justice recognizes what happened and yet equates the suffering as general: for sure, Hungarians did the shooting, but where the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing are concerned, it was Hungarian Jews who were made to die, and while not alone in that for ethnic persecution — more on that in a moment — certainly the numbers overwhelm.

* * *

Some Gypsies were sterilized as early as 1933, though no Jews yet were; beginning in the same year, camps were being established by the Nazis to contain Gypsies at Vennhausen, Dieseistrasse, Mahrzan and Dachau, although at so early a date Jewish victims were not being sent en masse to any camps. It is a matter of singular disgrace that in 1936 the anti-Gypsy campaign became globalized, through the establishment of the international Centre for the Fight against the Gypsy Menace by Interpol in Vienna. Again, this did not happen for the Jews. In effect, the Nazi Party sought, and was given, the cooperation of other Euopean governments in its campaign to locate and identify Gypsies throughout Europe for its later plans for extermination.

Gypsies: A Persecuted Race : Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies : University of Minnesota – 1985.

“Jew Hate” is never confined to the Jews, but perhaps ever since Abraham’s failure to speak for Isaac when asked to make a sacrifice of him, Jews have been “speaking truth to power” for thousands of years and are a vocal people, so it is good today to learn of power in the person of an Hungarian ambassador speaking truth to the Jobbik Party and Prime Minister Viktor Mihály Orbán’s government.

Hungarians know what Hungarians have done.  Clear acknowledgment might cleanse a national conscience, that as opposed to covering it up, glossing it over, in successive acts of patronizing cant and shameful cowardice.

Addendum

Dear György és Szabolcs:

I am writing to request that you remove my name from the Téka és Információs Központ at the Holocaust at the Holokauszt Emlékközpont. I reached this decision with a heavy heart, having followed the recent developments in Hungary with great concern. The history-cleansing campaign of the past few years calculated to whitewash the historical record of the Horthy era, including the changes in the constitution that “legalized” the sinister measures that were subsequently taken to absolve Hungary from the active role it had played in the destruction of close to 600,000 of its citizens of the Jewish faith, have left me, and I assume many others, stunned.

Randolph L. Braham’s open letter | Hungarian Spectrum – 1/26/2014.

# # #

FTAC – Burma – Royhinga – Persecution – No Response

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Burma, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Burma, commentary, global, humanitarian interest, political, politics, Royhinga, security coordination, war

Burma is fascist more than Buddhist — it’s an odd twist but due in light of the crushing of the “Orange Revolution” led by Buddhist monks — and as such remains, despite dog-and-pony-show elections, an unconscionable dictatorship. The persecution of minority Muslims than fits the familiar pattern of nationalism in poor states: minorities are on the outs, no less than Roma or Jews in eastern Europe, and only the expression and scale of the hate differ.

The Rohingya have been left to fight or flee.

“Dark Space” would be sweeter in science fiction, but around the world it refers to informationally secluded areas — could be a mafia back room or a valley remote from a capital and difficult to police — and they are in all effects wild and ruled largely by fear in the face of ruthless force.

As regards political rhetoric, it hasn’t helped Islam to have credit for the destruction of Buddhas of Bamiyan. That criminal act may be ascribed to the Taliban, of course, but it reflects on Muslims in general where the discourse is pursued on general terms. To get anywhere with any of this, we have to dive beneath whatever impressions have been made by our separable ethnic, national, and religious labels and then approach each troubled region x area x population x political themes as an interesting challenge. While the UN may provide a platform for as much, it / we have no common experience, much less way, of coordinating force beyond “peace keepers” that would seem to work only in well organized situations, e.g., the defense of the airport at Mogadishu, the watch for border activity in southern Lebanon. The world has no police and Uncle Sam, who has done his share, wants to work of some war-related debt (and get back to watching television, I suppose).

Peeve of the moment: how come Buddhists are committing genocide against Muslims in Burma and no one says a thing?

It’s not true that no one says a thing: Rohingya may face another wave of genocide | Islam | World Bulletin – 1/23/2014.

However, as suggested, the UN plus China, Russia, and the United States, plus the Ummah in its largest aspect, and whoever’s left share no common conscience and few common humanitarian interests to the extent than any may care to band to depose the junta and impose contemporary open democratic civilization and harmonious relations or any vertical of power in Burma.

* * *

The situation is little different within Syria where the caring outside world has proven itself at providing food and tents and assorted other humanitarian aid outside the combat arena.

Within: you’re on your own!

* * *

It’s odds-even as to whether Iraqis will wake up this week and back the government regardless of clan, family, or sectarian allegiances to ensure the ejection of ISIS from Fallujah.  There it’s open war.  State forces have ringed the city.  Supplies have been moved in.  But Kerry says its not America’s fight — it’s Iraq’s.

Fallujah Has Fallen to Al-Qaeda | Video – ABC News – 1/23/2014.

Ditto, I’d say, for the Royhinga of Burma.

# # #

Pakistan – Drones Down, Jets Up!

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

air power, air strikes, conflict, drone program, drones, Islamic Small Wars, ISW, Pakistan, suppression, Taliban, war, war fighting

Pakistani jets started to bomb the militant hideouts on Monday, January 20.

Is Pakistan finally going after the Taliban? | Asia | DW.DE | 23.01.2014

Islamabad’s share of Washington’s anti-al-Qaeda-type-organization drone program seems to have been premised on the idea that it was the least the west could do in its efforts to diminish the plans of its deeply anti-western and devolutional old enemy.

While drone strikes would take innocents along with targets, they impact would be much, much less than that of any other war fighting method beyond the unfeasible one of sending out a Frontier Corps posse to collect a villain.

* * *

The purpose of this database is to provide as much information as possible about the covert U.S. drone program in Pakistan in the absence of any such transparency on the part of the American government. This data was collected from credible news reports and is presented here with the relevant sources. It was updated with information from the latest Pakistan strike, which occurred on December 25, 2013.

Drone Wars Pakistan: Analysis | The National Security Program – updated to 12/25/2013.

The above cited New America Foundation report notes a steep decline in drone strikes in Pakistan over the past four years, with about 125 operations launched in 2010 and fewer than about 30 in 2013.

The Top Story piece, with which this blog post has started, notes a part of the run-up to Pakistan’s deployment of air power in North Waziristan: “Pakistani officials say that some of those killed were involved in a January 19 attack on the country’s paramilitary troops in the northwestern city of Bannu, and a double suicide bombing on a Peshawar church in September last year, which killed more than 80 people.”

As such, the emerging war would seem to contain two dimensions of interest to most Pakistanis: reprisal for the deaths of innocents; defense and suppression of a force that would commit similar crimes repeatedly until it exclusively held the nation in subjugation.

Compared to this week’s developments, Washington’s drone war — a war vociferously criticized from the Far Left, and claimed it contribute to the growth in ranks of terrorists — starts to look in conflict terms like “lowest intensity conflict” (probably, mafia activity goes lower, but, bear with me, here are some headers from this week’s war in Pakistan):

 Blast kills 20 soldiers in Pakistan, military says – World News – NBC – 1/19/2014;  At least 13 killed, 24 hurt in bomb blast near Pakistan army HQ – World News – 1/19-20/2014 (the event appears to have taken place Monday morning in Pakistan but the story published in the west Sunday evening); More than 20 dead in Shi’ite pilgrim bus bomb in Pakistan | euronews, world news – 1/21/2014; Pakistan bombing is latest in wave of attacks on polio workers – latimes.com – 1/22/2014; Six Pakistani police officers are shot dead protecting Spanish cyclist | World news | theguardian.com – 1/22/2014.

What sovereign government charged with defending its people and the guests of its people would not rise to the occasion?

So: Pakistan bombs militant hideouts in North Waziristan for first time in years – World News – 1/21/2014.

* * *

Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said.

Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban – NYTimes.com – 7/29/2009!

Déjà vu.

Pakistan has a problem even as its military prowess improves: it may dampen the brush fires set by the Taliban, but it would seem constitutionally incapable of removing either the motivating variables, however we may parse them, or the intellectual component and cover from which the Taliban design their strategy and tactics.

Instead of solving a security problem, flying jets against caves merely cycles it down to where it may simmer, bubble, and boil over again.  Mix metaphors and call that a Sysiphean Hell.  The Taliban roll out their program; the state rolls it back; the Taliban regroup, revive, and the state has to fuel its jets again for strikes within its own writ.

Top Taliban leader Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, who briefly headed the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud last November, 33 Uzbek nationals and three Germans, were among those killed in the night- long air strikes in North Waziristan Agency since Monday.

Pakistan air strikes kill top Taliban leaders, 33 Uzbek fighters – The Hindu – 1/23/2014.

Islamabad will have to do more than remove immediate radical targets from the field as it seeks to secure the safety of the state’s woefully victimized and terrorized constituents.

Additional Reference

Drones: The West’s Best Ethical Response to Terrorism | Diane Weber Bederman – 10/31/2013.

Drones propel hate in Pakistan for the U.S. Israel News | Haaretz – 12/11/2012.

Voice of a native son: Drones may be a necessary evil – 10/15/2012.

BBC News – Drones in Pakistan traumatise civilians, US report says – 9/25/2012.

Articles: Understanding the Taliban Insurgency: The Cause, Motivation, and Culture of Resistance – 6/19/2011.

# # #

Syriamania – Rock and Roll!

20 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology, Syria

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

foreign fighters, rebel youth, rebels, Syria, teenage fighters, youth

About a dozen French adolescents have left for Syria to join jihadi groups or are trying to go, a phenomenon that’s accelerating, France’s interior minister said Sunday.

The civil war to oust President Bashir Assad has attracted more French, and Westerners, than other battlegrounds like Afghanistan ever did. Thousands of Europeans are fighting in Syria and nearly 700 French citizens or residents are in some way involved, Manual Valls said. But teenagers drawn to jihadi organizations fighting there is a “particular phenomenon.”

Minister: French Teens Go to Syria for Jihad – ABC News – 1/19/2014.


“He was killed fighting, he was killed in Syria,” he said.

Irish Teen Shamseddin Gaidan Who Joined Syria Rebels Killed – 2/23/2013.


Norwegian police have issued international alerts for two teenage sisters believed to have travelled to Syria to join the civil war.

Norwegian sisters, 16 and 19, ‘travel to Syria to help Muslims’ | Mail Online – 10/21/2013.


Brian was raised Catholic and rarely got into trouble.

The Belgian Teen Who Went to Fight in Syria: The Brian De Mulder Story | TIME.com – 3/22/2013.


A criminal complaint accused Tounisi of making online contact in March with a person he thought was a recruiter for Jabhat al-Nusrah, the militant Islamist Syrian group that the U.S. government calls a foreign terrorist organization operating as a wing of al Qaeda in Iraq.

US teen accused of seeking to join al Qaeda-linked Syrian group – U.S. News – 4/20/2013.

Well, he tried.


It is estimated that at least 100 Canadians — mainly in their 20s and coming from Ontario and Alberta — have left for Syria in the past year, joining a steady march of foreigners drawn to the conflict, security sources say.

Canadians hurrying to Syria in record numbers to join rebels | Toronto Star – 8/23/2013.


By the time of his death in Syria, Andre Poulin from Timmins, Ont., had become a battle-hardened jihadi known as Abu Muslim.

Andre Poulin, jihadi from Timmins, Ont., confirmed dead in Syria – CBC News – Latest Canada, World, Entertainment and Business News – 1/16/2014.


A 22-year-old Canadian-born Muslim convert who left Calgary for Syria in November 2012 has been killed by Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces during rebel infighting, CBC News has confirmed.

Damian Clairmont killed fighting with al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria – World – CBC News – 1/15/2014.


Germany’s domestic security agency has recorded what experts regard as an alarming trend. A growing number of young Germans are traveling to Syria to aid the opposition, potentially getting “radicalized” along the way.

German Muslims leaving to fight jihad in Syria – 9/8/2013.


A former Germany youth international was killed in the Syrian civil war last month, it has emerged.

German media reported that Burak Karan, 26, was killed in action on Oct. 11, and the nation’s intelligence agencies confirmed the news of his death on Monday.

Former Germany youth international Burak Karan killed in Syria – ESPN FC – 11/19/2013.


I thought the conflict in Syria was a civil war.

It turns out it’s a youth movement.

Screw the cars and guitars, man — get a real instrument of destruction:

French Nationale FNC automatic rifle most prevalent among Syria's revolutionary forces.  Credit Path: Wikimedia Commons back to CeCILL freeware distribution license.

French Nationale FNC automatic rifle most prevalent among Syria’s revolutionary forces. Credit Path: Wikimedia Commons back to CeCILL freeware distribution license.

Referring Page: Guns of Syria


Not to knock the youth too much, the zeal to get the raging hormones to the war raging would seem inseparable from the adoption of the script set out to snag them and reel them into an abattoir that appears to them authentic, glorious, large, and obligatory.

The latest in Angry Young Men, by and large, has not been left entirely lopsided.

Editor’s note June 19:

Saudi sheikh Muhammad al-‘Arifi denied issuing a fatwa which purportedly sanctioned the rape of Syrian women, saying that “no sane person” would issue such an edict. We regret not including that information when this column originally was published.

Guest Column: The ‘Sex Jihad’ :: The Investigative Project on Terrorism – 6/18-19/2013.

Raymond Ibrahim posts always with integrity to outlets, but the story and associated denials have developed something of a life online, which includes a Wikileaks piece more validating the prostitution than scrubbing it.


The once-sleepy smugglers’ nest on the Turkish border has become a mecca for jihad tourists from around the world.

Foreign Jihadists in Syria Favor Liberal Transit Towns over Front – SPIEGEL ONLINE – 9/27/2013.

The posted header on the above article reads, “Video Games and Cigarettes: Syria’s Disneyland for Jihadists.”

Syria: ah, just another Teen Paradise, one for Muslim “reverts” from Catholicism — or modern Muslim families — and for adolescents and post-adolescent adolescents who are not from Syria.

For Syrian teens, however, the experience of the Syrian Civil War may have another cast altogether.

Related Reference

Syria: teens living in the conflict zone – British Red Cross blog – 11/23/2012.

Addendum

My Friend, the Aspiring Suicide Bomber | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 3/12/2013: “Al-Qaeda are good!” he told me, with a smile and a double thumbs up. “I hope that they’ll accept me and that one day I can set off a suicide bomb in a regime area.”

This, I swear, was not premeditated.  I simply wanted to look up the writer of the above quoted piece and found her web site:

A message flashed up on my phone just before 10 o’clock tonight: “Molham died today.”

On the death of another Syrian | Stuff from my notebook – 12/20/2013.

Hannah, if you glance at this blog, I’m sorry to hear of the loss and was not in the least expecting it up top on your blog.

Readers note the date: 12/20/2013, and if you click through you will find the bomb-on-two-legs wannabe didn’t die that way but as a war photographer.

Young photographer killed in Syria conflict – PhotoBlog – 12/20/2013.


Not too long ago and in relation to the music side of my life, I thought to look up old rockers and find out how many of the “they all do drugs” crowd had actually died along the way.  Rather few, it turns out, but that in light of the size the 1960s and 1970s cohort of entertainers in the field.  What occurred to me while revisiting, say, the Rolling Stones saga is that the bands and the myths they created about themselves may have been harder on the fans than on the musicians.  Keith Richards, for example, remains among the living: countless music fans, not exclusively but living the rock-and-roll life in their various ways, don’t.  The degree of direct influence cannot be measured small or large, but the atmosphere, the teen spirit of its day, created its own culture, and that culture was not squeaky clean and all nice-nice.

That’s why we loved it.

Postscript

Joining Syrian ranks of al-Qaeda ‘in vogue’ for young British Muslims – Telegraph – 3/3/2014.

LA Gang Members in Syria: Organized Crime, Terrorism ‘Converge’ – ABC News – 3/4/2014.


“It’s not about ideals – 90% of them never subscribe to the ideals,” former radical Alyas Karmani, now a peace activist, says in the film. “It’s other factors that are a draw. This is the new rock-and-roll; jihad is sexy. The kid who was not very good-looking now looks good holding a gun. He can get a bride now, he’s powerful. The ISIS gun is as much a penis extension as the stockbroker with his Ferrari.”

Balofsky, Ahuva.  “ISIS Marketing Itself as ‘Sexy’ to Youth, Says Former Radical.”  Breaking Israel News, August 6, 2015


As innocent and maternal as that may sound, it may also reveal the extent of her commitment: ISIS propaganda has featured children executing prisoners in the style of a video game, and refers to boys groomed to be fighters as “cubs.” There were signs that Jaelyn understood the horrific violence of the group she longed to join. After a sailor and four Marines were murdered in July in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she celebrated. Praise be to God, she said, “the numbers of supporters are growing.”

Green, Emma.  “How Two Mississippi College Students Fell in Love and Decided to Join a Terrorist Group.”  The Atlantic, May 1, 2017.

# # #

FTAC – Syria’s Agony and Related Misperception

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

commentary, Jordan, Lebanon, middle east, Palestinian refugees, political psychology, politics, relief, starvation, Syria, Yarmouk

No. It’s a mess. Back in 2007, by prior agreement with the Arab League, Lebanese Defense Forces were denied entry into the Nahr al-Bared camp to suppress the presence of an independent but al-Qaeda-minded force that had infiltrated the camp. Instead, it bombarded the camp with tank fire, corralled the entire residential population through the main gates, and the bused them to other camps. The LDF then razed Nahr al-Bared. Toward the very end, a handful of family members surrendered, and escaped, and the remnant fighters holed up in tunnels were, finally, bombed from the air.

My impression is the wealthy enjoy extraordinary wealth in the middle east and the equivalent of fellaheen live primarily at the mercy of the powerful. The common thread of “malignant narcissism” that binds both despot and mad revolutionaries into one recognizable category applies well to the tragedy unfolding in the Yarmouk camp. If anyone has ever been sickened by the historic photographs of starving Nazi concentration camp residents, the same outrage should apply in light of starvation in the Palestinian camp, even thought in their confined minds they may blame the Jews for what’s being done to them by Assad’s army and the infiltration and partial control of the opposed al-Qaeda affiliates. To the warring parties, the humanity trapped in the camp is but a useful poker chip. These kids may one day understand that it hasn’t been the Jews of the west that has been killing them but rather the divided powers most identified with them but equally callous toward them and careless of them.

The prompt for the comment had to do with the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp and its being made to starve between armies.

There has been some relief: Besieged Yarmouk camp in Syria finally gets some food – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 1/18/2014: “The delivery was made possible after an agreement was reached on Friday between representatives of Palestinian factions and Syrian rebels in the camp.”

One may imagine the leverage involved in those negotiations.

In the surface rhetoric, the rebels may claim having been merciful, but the public would do well to keep in mind that get to this point, they had had to have been unmerciful, and that neither better nor worse than Assad’s forces attempting to subdue the infiltration within the camp by starvation in the first place.

* * *

To another correspondent asking about the fate of Hamas in Gaza given the mixed ambitions and messages carried forward by its membership, some, I hear, who have joined the rebels against Assad, I suggested the perception of the axis needs to shift in the middle east, maintaining that the fighting-minded on several sides are more similar to one another in their ambitions and expectations — in their essential psychology — than those who have had the misfortune of being caught between armies or of having been trapped in time by regional powers who, indeed, manipulate and treat them primarily as servants unto themselves.

Related Reference

Iran cuts Hamas’ funding for backing Syrian opposition – Washington Times – 6/2/2013.

Egypt to Hamas: We’re Coming for You – Israel Today | Israel News – 1/19/2014.

# # #

From Australia – Drawn to Syria’s War – Plus a Note on Conscience

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

aid, conflict, conscience, Syria

An uncle, who did not want his name published, said Ms Ali was desperate to help people . . . After initially posting about buying Prada sunglasses and working night shifts at the Sea World resort in her late teens, the aspiring graphic designer was fund-raising for families in Syria and writing posts such as ”the blood of a martyr does not dry” in the past year.

Syria deaths: Family despairs after couple killed in rebel infighting – 1/14/2014.

It’s a good story about a good woman who with her husband appears to have intended to do some humanitarian good in Syria.

* * *

Another Australian man killed in Syria fighting for Al Qaeda-linked group – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – 1/17/2014.

Two Sydney men arrested by AFP for allegedly attempting to join fighting in Syria – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – 12/3/2013.

The headers tell the story.

Some, apparently, are stopped at the Turkish-Syrian border.

Others, apparently jet jump, more or less, from Down Under to Denmark to Aleppo.

* * *

At 2:31 below: “We have no money to pay for food!  We have nothing to do with either side!  We just want something to eat!”

Palestinian refugees starve in Syria – YouTube

I first saw that portion of the clip (2:31) here: Rights groups: Palestinian refugees starving to death in Syrian camp – CNN.com – 1/16/2014.  From the same piece: ” . . . aid trucks had to retreat after the Syrian government told the convoy to enter from the camp’s southern entrance, where heavy gunfire prevented it from proceeding.”

The lack of access to conscience, simple decency, on the part of the combatants and their enablers and sponsors tells what needs to be told of the Syrian Civil War. Even for the generations of the refugees of 1948, the cause célèbre for 66 of anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist vitriol, it appears neither side will cease fire even to allow the same access to food.

Human Rights Watch has called for aid donors to Syria to “push the Syrian government to eliminate obstacles to effective aid distribution, and increase their contributions.”

Push with what?

Where good is concerned, the possession of conscience is the push.  Conscience looks around at what has happened, and embarks upon repair.

Addendum

Contacts pass links to me after I’ve published a piece, and some so fit the topic area, such as may be on any post on this blog, that I would feel remiss for not sharing what’s brought to my attention for a few hours to days after publication.

Ironically, for the UN humanitarian appeal for Syria, held in Kuwait earlier this week, both Saudi Arabia and Qatar pledged a combined total of $120 million.

In other words, these two Persian Gulf monarchies have spent 75 times more on fueling conflict and destruction in Syria than what they are now pledging in “humanitarian assistance”.

Syria’s ‘shameful betrayal’ for Palestinians | nsnbc international – 1/18/2014.

* * *

Wounded Syrian woman: “We hesitated coming to Israel, because we were taught to hate it. We were taught this is a brutal enemy state, but we learned that reality is different. People here have a conscience. Our enemy is in Syria, not in Israel.”

Israel Hayom | Wounded Syrian couple treated in Israel – 1/19/2014.

# # #

FTAC – Pakistan – Synopsis – Two Countries

17 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cultural divide, Pakistan, struggle

Dear _____,

You are living today in two Pakistans.

One country has joined the world with sufficient affluence or capital for accessing the Internet, developing relationships, participating in global media, and enjoying, for better or worse, the world in English, good and bad, and expanded worlds in other languages. The people living in that country have climbed a great mountain that somewhere started with work or power and developed enough infrastructure and technology to do what it now does online.

The other country has found itself clinging to what it knows and believes, including what it believes it knows about itself and its civilizational and national mission. That world too has accessed the web but it has taken positions opposite the enthusiasms and values that produced its modern capabilities. That world wants to continue living in a perpetuated yesterday.

The two countries in tentative formation are skirmishing with one another in every way imaginable, from the bureaucracies of the state’s military down to deadly activity — assassins on motorbikes, suicide bombers, etc. — in remote precincts.

My correspondent had asked for help on a piece probably appearing soon in the Daily Times (Pakistan).

So I wrote the above and said, “quote me.”

That should make his endeavor a little easier.

* * *

We use the nation-state as our unit of interest in international politics, but in the real politics tying together across any region its host of leaders in business and investment, culture and religion, and then politics, it’s really quite weak in the areas in which Islamic Small War conflict has a presence.  Clan, family, and tribal relations prove more powerful than state presence in many locales — and that’s true in remote areas or “dark space” outside of Islam as well.

Basically, the world just isn’t as organized and tidy as seemingly advanced, organized, and tidy states might prefer.

In the more anarchic regions, confusion and conflict travel together, and the process of reaching agreements and accommodations through other than fear and force seems a long process.  However, it’s an unavoidable process where better functioning states and their values have an interface with more troubled regions.

# # #

FTAC – On Syria — Mirrored Sides

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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

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civil war, malignant narcissism, personality, political psychology, Syria

It’s not sinking in but I keep asserting this: the same personalities — different talk; same walk — occupy both sides of the combat. There is no winning, and they are proving that by mutually losing, not only treasure but also respect and self-respect. I noted earlier this morning that more than 11,000 children have died in the Syrian Civil War, most beneath the bombing on the state’s side and some at the hands of snipers aligned with the state. That doesn’t shift the black/white, good guy/bad guy thinking at all considering what the global jihad does to children. That both sides do similarly unrestrained things — they exceed limits — tells about the “malignant narcissism” of the characters driving the war. Neither care about people. The care about control, power, subjugation, and self-aggrandizement and they use fear and force to get their share of “narcissistic supply”. There’s nothing actually in the predominant warring parties — not God; not humanity — over which to bargain and make peace. In the end, they will be seen as killers and nothing else.

The key: “different talk — same walk.”

The dictator and the revolutionary have the same self-aggrandizing drive, and God above and humanity at their feet are of no real account: they have already bent words to clothe themselves and provide to themselves the exclusive privilege of determining the fates of others.

God works through both — the blood bespattered dictator and opposed zealot alike — does He not?

So they themselves might say.

The humanity of humanity may beg to differ.

Sideways Related Reference

OCHA | Coordination Saves Lives – Second International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria | OCHA

As UN prepares for mammoth Syria aid conference, Assad regime keeps relief from the suffering | Fox News – 1/7/2014.

Snowmen and suffering: A bleak winter for young Syrian refugees – CNN.com – 12/21/2013.

Aid sought for Syrian refugees facing harsh winter | GulfNews.com – 1/8/2014.

Sharjah’s Sheikha Jawaher’s plea to UAE residents help Syrians as winter conditions turn ‘catastrophic’ | The National – 1/8/2014.

Champion the #childrenofsyria

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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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