Contrary to the beliefs of nice people who believe The West, the United States, and Israel the chief repositories of evil in the world, dictatorship do not provide their people with stability: they provide themselves with the power to accumulate and indulge in excess and that especially of cruelty, power itself as the malignant embrace it becoming the power to visit suffering on others with impunity.
Note: the editor has added the URL to a BackChannels piece on ISIS as Assad’s preferred enemy or foil.
I used to say the same thing, especially in relation to the invasion of Iraq: ” . . . at least Saddam Hussein kept the lid on the pot.”
In retrospect, Hussein did not keep things under control. He leapt into a ruinous war with Iran when presented with weakness in the shadow of the Islamic Revolution, and produced infamous sport like this:
As regards Syria, I and my blog 🙂 have tried to float a too accurate message about barbarism, feudal and totalitarian politics, and their blending in KGB-style Political Theater. Assad had really to produce conditions favorable to the assembling of the “AQ-types”, the “jihadists”, and their sorting out into the most vicious of fighting elements, and then with ISIL / ISIS make certain that he would have the foil best suited to driving off (to Europe) his most troublesome noncombatant population.
Mission accomplished.
Where westerners believe themselves culpable for such a disaster — “if we hadn’t done this or done that” — the truth slips away without pursuit _except_ by a seemingly small cadre of academics and journalists (and retirees) who drill down beneath the convenient cant to drown themselves in the details of history.
Russian political culture has long displayed itself as medieval, ruthless, and ever paternally authoritarian.
In the near span of 100 years, 1917 to 2017, the experience of two upheavals by revolution and the appearance of three forms in government has not changed its historic character. Russians less connected to Moscow and St. Petersburg are missing out on all the fun with cash while the oligarchy could care less — and thus as it has ever been.
While Moscow often admires Europe and the west and adopts related aesthetic and cultural practices, it seems to resist deep political change, not to beg the point. The Obama Administration had indeed hoped to encourage a little bit of western liberal values in what remained of the Soviet axis of power in the middle east, and at that junction in 2011 defined by Bashar al-Assad’s response to a mild challenge to his absolute power, he would go on to say that Putin had reverted to “the KGB playbook” — and that’s the truth long forgotten at this point in the Syrian Tragedy, so I call it, and the more general and frightening “east-west rivalry”, so others call it.
BackChannels has adopted the term “paternally authoritarian” from the work of the recently late Richard Pipes. There are two volumes listed in “The Russian Section” of this blog’s library:
Blog editors may not have the collegial and financial defenses plus resources known to tenured scholars, so there may be other of Pipes’ works here, even bookmarked — there’s a box full of set-asides that has not been opened in ages — but the two mentioned by do for a start. Note also: flood by web-info, the editor has developed a short memory for which countermeasures are being installed, specifically, limited time on the web to much less “Facebooking” and blog posting in order to return to that world in which the companionship of a book — any long read — might be appreciated for a day or two without deflection or distraction.
. . . . used by the military to triangulate radio signals for radio navigation, intelligence gathering and search and rescue. Because its huge circular reflecting screen looks like a circular fence, the antenna has been colloquially referred to as the elephant cage. The term wullenwever was the World War II German cover term used to identify their secret CDAA research and development program; its name is unrelated to any person involved in the program.
Regarding the deployment of Russian fighter jets to its base in Sevastopal:
Of late, Russia has been playing up what appears to BackChannels as a false-flag operation — or perhaps just disinformation promoting an unsavory image — accusing Ukraine of chemical weapons preparation. While Moscow’s disinformation / propaganda campaign moves along on Twitter, here’s background on the matter from UNIAN:
Moscow’s persistence in claiming that Ukraine is plotting a chemical attack in the occupied Donbas raises serious concerns, says Ukrainian MP Dmytro Tymchuk, who is also a coordinator of the Information Resistance OSINT group. Even more worrying is the timing of Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova revisiting the issue on the eve of the two major events that will take place in December this year – the holding of the Unification Council for the creation of the United Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine and consideration by the UN General Assembly of the draft resolution on militarization of the occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as parts of the Black and Azov Seas, Tymchuk wrote on Facebook.
From RFERL as cited in caption earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lists the following Russian Federation assets in the region of the so-far annexed Crimea:
80,000 troops
1,400 artillery and multiple rocket launch systems
900 tanks
2,300 armored combat vehicles
Hundreds of aircraft
The news may be warmed over but none can miss the portent: having invaded and annexed Crimea, Ukraine, Russia has moved to tighten its grip on its prize while preparing for “expansion” through intimidation and force. As is — and as visiting the liveuamap service tells, there have been no ceasefires in Ukraine: shelling, injury, and death have become part of daily life in what must be for Ukraine’s military a grinding lottery of evil.
For Russia, Crimea, Ukraine must also serve to leverage the west in the middle east, for what happens between Israel and the forces sponsored or supported by Moscow and Tehran may insult a degraded EU / NATO about to be pinched between the two fronts. By “degraded”, BackChannels refers to the following: a Germany dependent on Russia for energy supply; a Hungary that becomes more each week the feudal estate of the Orban family; a France too easily given to the “Active Measures” encouragement of Right Wing Populism; and a Turkey that has become for all intents an anti-democratic and illiberal sultanate whose highest purpose would seem to be the cultural annihilation of the Kurdish Community and the eventual destruction of Israel — the “leadership” in Ankara has more in common with Moscow and Tehran (specifically, the penchant for feudal political absolutism laced with anti-Semitism) than with London, Paris, and Washington. It both loves Moscow’s power and political prowess, and it fears it. It’s continued NATO status and (the latest Patriot Missile deal) has more to do with the latter than any set of heartily defended liberal ethics, principles, and values.
No. They would have been left to starve through Syria’s drought. No need to go on to global warming: the protests were motivated by economic suffering as much as or more than democratic sentiments.
Assad the Tyrant, using snipers to make his statement — and arresting school children to make it clear — turned a modest popular protest into possibly the most sadistic “civil war” on earth and in history. Unrivaled in its abuses of noncombatant Syrians, he managed to destroy his state, for all intents, and have it serve as a platform for Hezbollah, the Russian Army, and sundry attempts (impeded by Israel) at the manufacturing and delivery of advanced missiles for launching in southern Lebanon.
The Soviet Union collapsed in bankruptcy 26 years ago this December 25.
It turns out that Soviet / Post-Soviet Russia has become truly the “Mafia State” — Luke Harding’s term — and not the least reformed as an aggressive and barbarous monstrosity.
Prompt: the claim that had the west stayed out of Syria, Syrians would be happily alive and domiciled.
Bunk.
Screen capture, LiveUAMap, December 23, 2018 at 10:30 a.m. EST.
Trump’s governments — none of them — have held together for long. This latest with Mattis, a popular general, only serves to further undermine the public’s confidence in the Administration.
Crimea, Ukraine has become the front line of a deeply sabotaged NATO although it’s Ukraine that’s seeking accession.
Go figure.
Have a brief look at the political shape NATO’s in: France — rolling with the “Yellow Vest” Active Measures (most likely — time to man up, Macron); Germany — leveraged by energy dependence on Russia; Hungary — Putin bromancer Orban’s new feudal estate; Turkey — more sultanate than NATO state.
Ukraine’s SBU Security Service has reported on the arrest of three sabotage groups deployed by Russia’s military intelligence in eastern Ukraine. The SBU press service says the agency will provide details of the operation at a special briefing to be scheduled for the coming days. It is noted that the raid was carried out by Ukraine’s counterintelligence forces.
Editor’s tired . . . knows others read the news too . . . may turn to fiction . . . may also note that the loud and narcissistic Trump now appears the mirror opposite of “Jimmuh”: he’s been playing the tough guy — know the mob and the kind of company he has kept, admires dictators, takes no shit, etc. — but he’s pulling America’s troop presence out of Syria, leaving that space to America’s sworn enemies, while in Ukraine — no popular data (have a Google yourself) while Russia pushes “a big amount of military equipment to the North Crimea — and Ukrainian counterintelligence hunts down and arrests Russia Spetsnaz or similar from the sound of it.
Lebanon deserves better than the war sustaining and warmongering of Moscow and Tehran.
For Israel, Moscow has had to be delicately handled, but BackChannels has over many years relayed some sense of Moscow’s endemic and deeply entrenched history of animus toward the Jews. Credit Stalin with picking up the relationships that Hitler and the Nazis could not hold at the end of World War II; credit Yuri Andropov with the airline hijacking of the 1970s beneath the banner of communist revolution on behalf of the Palestinian Cause; credit successive Soviet Era regimes with the abuse and captivity of Russia’s Jews yearning by the tens of thousands for freedom beyond Russia’s borders; credit Moscow today with the continuing diplomatic defense of Hamas and Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among others, that appear intent on bringing chaos and death to their own people as well as sustained impoverishment and political repression.
Tehran’s role in the stoking of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist hate needs little introduction. It’s deadly political rhetoric keeps spilling into related “field operations”. Not only Hamas has been building “terror tunnels”.
Posted to YouTube December 6, 2018.
Posted to YouTube December 18, 2018.
However, he said, “the fact that the Lebanese army is doing nothing means that they are either unable, or unwilling, or both. It doesn’t absolve Lebanon’s culpability. Their territory is being used to attack our territory. Therefore, we hold Lebanon accountable.”
Netanyahu spoke immediately after IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus announced the discovery of another tunnel.
“There is a clear line of communication between LAF elements and the terrorist organization; those elements help Hezbollah destabilize the region,” Danon said on Tuesday. “Under the Lebanese government’s watch, Hezbollah has created an entire network of tunnels and factories for precision-guided missiles; this is a brazen violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution but also endangers the lives of the residents of southern Lebanon, who are being used as human shields.” Danon vowed that “Israel will act with force against Hezbollah and any other entity that tries to undermine its sovereignty.”
An examination of Security Council Resolution 1701 twelve years later indicates that the key paragraphs, whose objective was to give full sovereignty over the country to the Lebanese government and to prevent the reconstruction of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, were not enforced by the Lebanese government and army. To replace the infrastructure damaged during the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah has constructed an upgraded, improved, more extensive infrastructure, centering around an arsenal of more than 130,000 rockets and dozens of precise missiles. Hezbollah’s arsenal threatens Israeli population centers and strategic sites. Hezbollah built its military infrastructure in the region south of the Litani River, embedded within the local Shi’ite population. Hezbollah’s weapons were smuggled from Iran through Syria to Lebanon, in direct violation of Security Council Resolution 1701.
Pressure from supporters of a boycott against Israel led organizers of an academic conference in December 2018 on “Recognition, Reparation, Reconciliation: The Light and Shadow of Historical Trauma” at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University to disinvite seven professors from three universities in Israel. One of the participants was a Palestinian, Mohammed Dajani, who founded ‘Wasatia’ which aims to bring both Israeli and Palestinian public opinion closer “to having more faith in negotiations and dialogue with each realising that the cake needs to be shared not trampled on.”
In an exclusive article for Lay Of The Land(LOTL), Prof. Mohammed Dajani explains his position why it was so important for him and the six Israelis to participate and how wrong the South African organisations were to oppose their participation.
When I started my journey around the world Online (In English), I had never even heard of “Partition”.
While I forget much or what I read, I’ve had the wisdom to keep my reading — my books — close by and may rapidly access what I’ve read.
I have 2,000+ close by reading options and could do my own in-house “Great Books” education, languages included, but I have to match age and mission sense with available resources. ??
As a species, our issues on Earth are profound, and that includes not only our search of political reconciliation and the diminishing of war, God willing, but the greater taking up of the stewardship of our planet, so that we may enjoy the image of our survival much farther into the future than the end of, say, Epoch of Oil.
We can and should open our eyes more widely than we do today:
Do you believe in the existence of conscience? Empathy?
God also may be described as an “inter-consciousness” between man and nature across the universe.
Thomas Berry has promoted “earth consciousness” with our species as stewards.
I’d go the extra light year and may — or not as Internet publishing appears to promoted promote abbreviation and compression of thought.
Many years ago, I played with Heinrich Böll’s “Murk’s Collected Silences“, a short story about revisionism involving a radio host and his indecision about the invocation of that singular and most Proper Noun, “God”. At the end of his career and interested in shaping the memory of himself, he decided to hedge, and instead of the recorded invocations of “God”, he had his technician cut out the world and replace it with “thou higher being whom we revere”. Murk, the technician, then cut even the resulting moments of silence for splicing together.
Here on BackChannels, this editor has been using as a trope, similarly hedging but advancing a concept at the same time, “God, Nature, and the Universe”.
It may be that we humans merely process chemicals faster than rocks, and that is all that differentiates our species and all else that lives from stardust.
Indeed, one may see pools of blood where spilled become flakes the color of rust (for the same reason) and drops of it diminish to powder dissolving in air.
Corruption and hypocrisy are part of the evil of the world, doubtless every nation, every religious institution . . . .
F.,
I am much a secular and “sex positive” American — I appreciate the body, nature, sensuality and considerate and moderate indulgence in the everyday palette of western vice — wine, women, and song (although I haven’t seen much of women lately and don’t care for men).
Not only are corrupt generals monsters but the more criminal of the nouveau riche have become so — and I have been naive as regards the interface between good and evil. Lately, I’ve gotten curious about Genesis 3 and that “Tree of the Knowledge of Good AND Evil”.
I had thought God had in mind for his children thorns (and “lions and tigers and bears, oh my”) — not Adam and Eve themselves . . . and all their generations universally.
A rabbi I spoke to on Sunday noted that there was no good without evil, but then I asked him in what proportion?
Maybe I didn’t ask him, but whatever the answer, where is the balance, the equilibrium?
We’re part of the good.
Regarding porn and prostitution in general, I would counsel the approach of some European states to vice where emphasis has been place on “Harm Reduction”. The truth, however, may be that the customers and consumers — and most purveyors — need changing.
They need conscience.
And the economies need to account for the lost, the thrown away, the wandering, the sad, and, perhaps with the young (18+ young), the brave.
The generals who have done and continue to do as they please without boundaries, without limits: bastards!
Inspiration for the above comments and republished here with permission: Waseem Altaf’s observations regarding the general of “East Pakistan” (today’s Bangladesh). Altaf initially published the piece in “viewpointsonline.net” in 2011. BackChannels has only very lightly edited the old piece for ease of reading (via paragraph separation) and for easy copy catches. The first paragraph sets the atmosphere and the point of the argument:
Brigade Major Munawar Khan testified before the Hamood-ur -Rahman Commission (The Commission) that the Commander Brigadier Hayatullah had brought some girls for entertainment in his bunker on the night of 11 & 12 December 1971 in Maqbulpur sector while enemy shells were falling on his troops.
The Nights of the Generals By Waseem Altaf
Brigade Major Munawar Khan testified before the Hamood-ur -Rahman Commission (The Commission) that the Commander Brigadier Hayatullah had brought some girls for entertainment in his bunker on the night of 11 & 12 December 1971 in Maqbulpur sector while enemy shells were falling on his troops.
Brigadier Jahanzeb Arbab (later Lieut. General) as SMLA Multan had demanded 100,000 as bribery from a PCS officer who was chairman of Multan Municipal Committee. The PCS officer committed suicide while leaving a note behind which read that he had only earned rupees 15000 while the SMLA was asking for rupees 100,000, informed Brigadier Abbas Beg to the Commission.
The same Jahanzeb Arbab as Commander 57 brigade in former East Pakistan had looted rupees 13.5 million from the National bank treasury in Siraj Ganj.
The Commission concluded that Major General Khudadad Khan Adjutant General Pakistan Army had illicit relations with General Aqleem Akhter Rani whom he helped in suppressing some martial law cases.
He also minted money in a number of business deals during martial law.
General A.A K Niazi had amorous relations with Ms Saeeda Bukhari of Gulberg Lahore who used to run a brothel house by the name of Sinorita Home. She also worked as a tout for “Tiger” Niazi for receiving money and getting things done when he was GOC and later Corps Commander at Lahore.
Saeeda Bukhari also colluded with Niazi in the smuggling of paan from East Pakistan.
Shamim Firdaus was another notorious character from Sialkot who did the same job as Saeeda Bukhari but at a different location.
Major Sajjad-ul-Haq of 604 field intelligence unit told the Commission that dancing girls were frequently brought to a house in Dacca where they would entertain the generals. He further informed that ‘Tiger’ Niazi would even visit some dancing girls in his staff car bearing three stars and the corps flag.
Lt. Colonel Aziz Ahmad Khan told the Commission that the troops said “When the commander himself was a rapist, how could they be stopped”?
General Niazi also shamelessly defended the rapists by declaring that: ‘You cannot expect a man to live, fight and die in East Pakistan and [not] go to Jhelum for sex; would you?’
Yahiya Khan was extremely fond of women and wine. Some of his girl friends were wife of an IG Police, Begum Shamim K.N Hussain, Begum Junagadh, Madam Noor Jehan, Aqleem Akhtar Rani, wife of a Karachi-based businessman Mansoor Heerji, wife of a junior police officer, Nazli Begum, ex wife of Major General (retd) Latif Khan Mst Zainub, ex-wife of Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana with the same name i.e. Zainub, Anwara Begum, an industrialist from Dacca, Lilly khan and Laila Muzammil from Dacca. In addition, there were actors Shabnam, Shagufta, Naghma, Tarana and countless others. A number of generals and other army officers would accompany their wives and other female relations to presidency and then leave while the ladies would remain behind.
The report contains names of more than 500 women who spent time with the most licentious ruler of this country and in return extracted countless material benefits at the expense of the State. The wives of Generals Naseem, Hameed, Latif, khudad, Shahid, Yaqoob, Riaz, Peerzada, Mian and several others were Yahiya’s regular visitors.
Even when the situation in East Pakistan was degenerating Yahiya Khan used to visit Lahore and stay at the Governor House where the aphrodisiac Madam Noor Jehan used to meet him at least twice or thrice a day- in different dresses, makeover, and hairdo. At night, she made sure that she was there. General Rani told ex-IG Prison’s Hafiz Qasim that once she herself saw General Yahiya pouring liquor over the body of Malika-e -Tarannum Noor Jehan and then licking it, while both were sitting naked on the bed.
This was happening when East Pakistan was burning.
Begum Shamim K N Hussain would come to see Yahiya at night and would leave early morning.
Later, Shamim was appointed ambassador to Austria while her husband was sent as Pakistan’s ambassador to Switzerland. Both husband and wife were not from Foreign Service with no experience of diplomacy.
The father of Shamim, Justice (retd) Amin Ahmad was appointed Director National Shipping Corporation when he was 70 years of age.
Similarly, when Noor Jehan went to Tokyo to take part in a music festival, she got hefty allowances in foreign exchange in violation of rules while many of her family members were sent to Japan on state expense. When Nazli Begum, one of Yahiya’s mistresses was not sanctioned loan by the MD PICIC, Yahiya dismissed the officer.
The address 61 Harley Street, Rawalpindi, a house owned by Yahiya was built and decorated with funds obtained from Standard Bank.
Yahiya and his Chief of staff General Abdul Hamid Khan used to have fun with their mistresses in the guarded premises of this house. General Rani in one of her rare interviews described Yahiya’s idiosyncratic behavior ‘One night Agha Jani came to visit me and was somewhat agitated. The moment he entered, he inquired if I had heard the song ‘cheeche da chala’ from the film ‘Dhee Rani’. ‘I smiled and stated that I had no time to listen to songs’. He then called the military secretary and ordered him to have a copy of the song delivered to my house at once. It was two o’ clock in the morning and the MS had to specially have an audio shop opened up in order to obtain the album. Nevertheless, the command was obeyed and within an hour, Agha Jani was blissfully listening to the song, informed Noor Jehan.
Another widely circulated anecdote during the regime of the philanderer General Yahiya Khan was about actor Tarana.
One evening a woman arrived at the presidential palace and demanded admission, ‘I am actor Tarana,’ she told the security guards. ‘I don’t care what Tarana you are, ’replied the guard, ‘you have to have a pass to go in.’
The woman was incensed and demanded to speak to the ADC to the President.
The guard rang up the ADC and was told to let the woman in. Two hours later when she was leaving, the same guard sprang to attention and saluted her. ‘What change in your behavior!’ remarked the woman very sarcastically.
’Honorable ma’am, when you came, you were the actor Tarana; now you are leaving you are Qaumi Tarana (national anthem), and so I must salute you.’ replied the guard.
General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan continued to live a peaceful and happy life at 61 Harley Street, Rawalpindi while drawing full retirement benefits including pensions as Army Chief and as President. When he died on August 10, 1980, he was honored with a full military burial. Sources:
Supplementary Hamood-ur-Rahman Commission Report completed in 1974
General Aqleem Akhtar Rani’s interview published in the Newsline of May 2002
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1971 Indo Pak War – RARE VIDEO – Bangladesh Liberation
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