Tag Archives: ISW

Pakistan – Drones Down, Jets Up!

24 Friday Jan 2014

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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FTAC – A Note on Perception and Political Topology

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

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

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The inspiration came from a Facebook status line note involving a Pakistani Muslim who found himself on the receiving end of conservative Australian vitriol targeting Muslims, never mind the person’s stance as anti-Wahhabi, pro-Zionist, and in multiple facets western.

One of us!  In other words — or one congenial in my own circles and with apparent attitudes congruent with my outlook, i.e., representing one among hundreds of Facebook relationships developed across the boundaries of culture and nation and based on discovered affinity as verbally signaled.

Here’s the note:

I have found within conservative circles and the “anti-Jihad” more investment in absolute attitudes toward Islam than accurate apperception and flexibility. Perhaps as one moves toward more centered and on to liberal circles, that may change. In may case, which is Englishy and romantic tempered by a few years of experience with empirical methods, I’ve certainly taken note of “shimmer” in the realpolitik — or there would not be Muslim refugees fleeing Muslim fighters — plus the presence of Islamic humanists, progressives, and reformers, plus then the underlying cultures overlaid by the sweep of the introduction of the religion, and so on.

Bigotry, even with a basis as evident as the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the hundreds to thousands of Islamist organizations, bands, and fighting units, seems to me always ignorant and vicious. Rescue or secure the good, says I, and take aim at true targets well known, well identified, and definitely not friendly.

Inherent fear or, if writ larger, paranoia in persons provides evil great leverage, and while we see that in play within Islam (or fear and loathing of the Jews would not be so endemic and nurtured), we may fail to see similar emotional mechanics in play in ourselves or more aligned circles.

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Political psychology would seem to me not a field for “black-and-white” thinkers.  Rather drift, spectrum, and trend may better define separable positions around what might be conceptualized as a mountain with central and core features, numerous dimensions radiating off that core, and, of course, no end of fringe and far out intellectual inventory.

As regards the Islamic Small Wars, I would predict the center-right a little more likely to want to look over the separable political and social divisions related to who is fighting, who is fleeing, who is enthused for their side, whatever that may be, and who has hunkered down in prayer to weather the storm with the least involvement possible.  The reasoning behind my guess is that conservatism may be associated also with the “business of business” and engineering, i.e., more aligned with the western zeitgeist as it relates to defense and war.  The reduction of the passion of war in favor of more clinically approaching a large problem then coincides with at least knowing who is NOT the enemy.  Such a manner of observation and empiricism works against large-label prejudice.

Addendum

I let my correspondents know that something they have said has inspired a note here, so in the note that followed this post, I went on a bit:

fyi — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/01/15/ftac-a-note-on-perception-and-political-topology/ Hi, X. — with conservative, so I presume, also Christian, I presume, Aussies — you face several dimensions involving prejudice.

At this point . . . I think I am just another “child of God” and like Q.A.: I like everyone who can be liked on the basis of a common and thoughtful good ethics.

I’ve got to mention this and hope you don’t mind.

In the Torah, as Adam and Eve become possessed of knowledge (having eaten the forbidden fruit), they cover their genitals (fig leaves). Christianity teaches that they do so for shame, but I would note — and I don’t know what Judaism teaches although I consider my reading close and alert — that they do so not for shame but to spare one the other too continuous an access and tease. Later, same chapter, God Himself sews skins for the two to wear as he prepares them to leave the Garden of Eden and walk out into human life.

Those who from Islam invoke the term “crusader west” have as their dearest wish the development of a truly crusading west.

Most, if not all, leading politicians to this point have refused that gambit.

There is no “crusading west”, really, and there hasn’t been one for centuries, and westerners don’t want one, most being out in the world and feeling free in their polyglot cultural and religious possibilities.

However, and it’s unavoidable that along the spines of the anti-Jihad, the Muslims vs. Christian axis cannot be quelled for sheer numbers subscribed to each religion.  Add to that Muhammad’s prescription against too bonded and sincere a friendship with Christians, which admonishment, of course, festers in the Christian world while it in fact — this is how it works — assures the self-destruction of Muslims who a) believe it and b) press it.  It — Surat 5:51, Al-Mā’idah — will be one that reformers will have to consider as they wrestle with the message, which has proven arguable to the extent that Muslim-on-Muslim violence has been the primary social conflict produced in relation to civil and other internecine conflicts within Muslim-majority states.

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FTAC – A Note on Children in the Islamic Small Wars

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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I have mixed feelings about the story. These “Islamic Small Wars” all involve children in every facet, from indoctrination and training for Jihad to making live weapons of the same (as we saw yesterday with the 8-year-old whose brother put a suicide vest on her) and then children as the recipients of violence, including, beheading. Bombs, whether delivered by drones or on two legs, go off where they go off and do not discriminate against anything in their blast zone. Powers and people who lob bombs do so against the potential and failings of other methods. The drone programs, for example, offset “boots on the ground” and note the failure of paramilitary force or clandestine operations to get at dangerous people: no one wants a wider combat zone and the police are not sufficient for making arrests in some regions. Consequently, family and friends in the vicinity of targets catch the same death. With the Jihad suicide bomber routines, those not involved are perceived as having no value for other than killing for use of the death as a goad for obtaining state concessions.

More than 11,000 children have died in Syria’s Civil War, most from bombing by the Assad regime, but also substantial numbers from snipers on the state’s side. The beheading mentioned, involving eight-year-old, so I recall, involved an al-Qaeda affiliate. Aping Kissinger’s statement, one may hope that both sides will lose. While they’re busy doing that, discriminating between combatants and non-combatants in the conflict areas applies some on the western side (drones often don’t fire given who appears in the target area) and apparently not at all on the jihad side.

The story forming the thread topic: BBC News – Aitzaz Hasan: Tributes to Pakistan teenager killed when he stopped a bomber – 1/9/2014.  A fifteen-year-old boy confronted a fellow wearing a suicide vest and saved untold lives while losing his own when the wearer detonated the vest.

I got the zone and age wrong on the beheading of children — it appears the story dates from June last year, involves a 10-year-old and 16-year-old in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.

Related Reference

11,420 Children Dead In Syria’s Civil War, So Far : NPR – 12/19/2013.

U.N. Suspends Counting Deaths In Syria’s Civil War : The Two-Way : NPR – 1/7/2014.

Stolen Futures: The Hidden Toll of Child Casualties in Syria | Oxford Research Group – 11/24/2013.

SYRIA: Latest beheading of a civilian by Obama-backed FSA jihadist rebels (WARNING: Graphic Images) | BARE NAKED ISLAM – 12/14/2014.

Taliban behead boy, 10, and his friend, 16, ‘for spying’ after catching them scavenging for food for their families | Mail Online – 6/10/2013.

Afghanistan: Taliban Behead 10-year-old Boy Foraging for Food – 6/10/2014.

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Quick Vids – Anbar Province

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

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▶ Iraqi Troops Battle Against Al Qaida Fighters Near Baghdad – Iraq Actual 2014 – YouTube – 1/7/2014 (AP)

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▶ Iraqi Sunnis flee Anbar turmoil for Shiite Karbala – YouTube – 1/7/2014.

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”The ISIS elements and al-Qaeda terrorists withdrew from Fallujah to the suburbs, specifically towards the international road that links Baghdad to Fallujah.”

Urgent – ISIS withdraws from Fallujah city to suburbs – IraqiNews.com – 1/7/2014.

Related: BBC News – Profile: Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) – 1/6/2014.

Elements of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) appear to move around according to its own pressure inclines.  The above BBC links provides a map representing the zones of conflict and control or strength in the affected areas of Syria.  It shows Abu Kamal near the Iraq border as an ISIS primary site.

Related: ISIS practicing statehood in Raqqa – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/6/2013.

I really don’t like scraping, so will slow down; however, as the hot spots of the Islamic Small Wars move around, the generalist encounters them as comparatively new.

Of course, Iraq suffered all last year with a rising tide of sectarian violence.  That combat involving the army should erupt in Fallujah as the fighting in neighboring Syria spills back into Iraq would seem to come as little surprise to closer watching specialists.

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Ho Hum – Islamists Burning Libraries

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Politics

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However, Ashraf Rifi, former head of the Internal Security Forces, told AP the attack had nothing to do with a pamphlet and was, in fact, triggered by speculation that Father Surouj had written a study on the internet that insulted Islam.

Thousands of books, manuscripts torched in fire at historic Lebanese library (PHOTOS) — RT News – 1/4/2014.

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Speaking by phone, city mayor Ousmane Halle said: ‘They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people.’

Timbuktu treasures destroyed by Islamists as French move in | Mail Online – 1/28/2013.

▶ Islamist Fighters Destroy Timbuktu Tombs – YouTube – Posted 7/1/2012

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Reports from Afghanistan Reveal Kabul Libraries Devastated | American Libraries Magazine 2/4/2002

The burning of libraries – Irish atheist (liberal-right, anti-jihad, pro-west, pro-Israel) writer Mark Humphrys gores everyone’s ox, not only Muslim, but the page is worth a look in light of today’s expansion of the Syrian Civil War and Jihad  into Lebanon.

Libya Islamists destroy Sufi shrines, library: military | Reuters – 8/25/2012.  I looked for libraries on this fast glance, but cultural artifacts may be brought down too.  The destructive point is not to redress grievance but to annihilate and subdue all cultures foreign in space or time itself.  Antiquities are of no value before the delusional onslaught of Islamozombies.

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▶ LIBYA Sufi Sites Razed By Heavily Armed Salafis, Cops Attacked, Burn Library, Destroy Graves 8.26.12 – YouTube – Posted 9/17/2012

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The Description of Egypt is likely burned beyond repair. Its home, the two-story historic institute near Tahrir Square, is now in danger of collapsing after the roof caved in.

“The burning of such a rich building means a large part of Egyptian history has ended,” the director of the institute, Mohammed al-Sharbouni, told state television over the weekend. The building was managed by a local non-governmental organization.

Thousands Of Rare Books, Journals, Writings Burned At Institute d’Egypt In Cairo – 12/19/2011.

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Egypt’s richest library goes up in smoke (VIDEO, PHOTOS) — RT Art & culture – 12/20/2011.

▶ Egyptian Institute – YouTube – Posted 12/18/2011

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There seem too complaints of underhanded reconstruction underwritten by the Saudi state. To address the repair of Balkan Islamic monuments, Jolyon Naegele suggests the wholesale bulldozing of the same has been to replace that heritage with architecture more favoring the Saudi Wahhabi vision.

Annihilation, One Cultural Artifact, One Memory, At a Time – Oppenheim Arts & Letters – 9/8/2008.

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FTAC – Islam vs. Islam vs. (Yawn) Everyone Else – A Note

22 Friday Nov 2013

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

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“However, you all know the answer to the above questions. The painful truth is that much of the world is largely insensitive to the oppression and sufferings of Muslims” — the statement is not true, or I and so many others would not be engaged here at all. Every Muslim death matters! That the carnage involves Muslim-on-Muslim violence, however, makes every form of cooperation, criticism, and intervention difficult and problematic.

Just back of Harun Yahya’s statement lays a hidden grammatical rule involving the concept of loyalty that is true to the speaker but perhaps not every reader. The statement sides with Muslims on a familiar but provocative and timeless note: “it is more important, more safe, more good or good-feeling, to be with one’s own (on the basis of a single noun) than to be uncertain among others however decent and noble they may appear.” As much echoes the notion that it may be better to believe or tell a loyal lie than to live with an uncomfortable reality and truth.

Note that in the American Civil War, both sides held The Bible high in defense of their positions; perhaps similar ambiguity and ambivalence attends philosophy over the Qur’an; and it may be noted that Judaism involves itself eagerly in schismatic argument, but in Judaism, that’s part of the charm (look up “Hillel and Shammai”).

Values associated with the greater dignity of man, ennoblement — “One scholar is worth more against the devil . . . .” — may persist through the Ummah’s internal fighting and its interfaces, and I hope they do — but Islam’s travail ties to language behaviors and concepts largely irrelevant to others developed and engaged in living in other ways, largely nullifying the legitimacy of messianic intention, the mighty spark of “political Islam”.

My words.

The inspirational source (apart From the Awesome Conversation): Muslims must be valued as they deserve | The Jakarta Post – by Harun Yahya, Istanbul – 11/22/2013.

“Bigotry” is a loyalty-related issue bound up in the social grammar of one talking head or another within some population.  Reasonable and reasoning human beings contain themselves; nasty people may bait and provoke the reasonable; and nasty bigoted people cannot help themselves: with those, it’s “garbage in-garbage out” and the garbage probably gets in very, very early in the development of their verbal cognitive style to form the basis for the subsequent content and manners that erupt in their speech.

(For diversion, visit the old blog — “N-Word Metonymy – Richards, Schlessinger in Context”).

As of this moment, the Islamic Small Wars (ISWs) have nothing to do with how Jews think about Muslims, how Americans think about Muslims, how Buddhists and Hindus and Sudanese animists think about Muslims, or how Islamic Humanists think about Muslims, or even how Muslims think about Muslims.  The ISWs have to do with assumptive thinking seeded into the mind at a very early age and bending adult thought in a rule-based way for a long time to come.

Without a language update, without the fresh breeze of free, considerate, and empathetic thought, without the good and sweet rest of imagination and heart and preparation, perhaps, for something a little different and much, much better, the Muslim-on-Muslim destruction and self-destruction (in myriad ways, much including the drugs-for-guns criminality of the Taliban) will continue.

Relentlessly.

Let it stop sooner rather than later.

Now would not be too soon.

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FNS – ISW – War Fighting and Politics

17 Thursday Oct 2013

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Using these sources and methods, the Small Arms Survey has calculated that, worldwide, state militaries hold roughly 200 million small arms, out of a total of some 875 million firearms of all kinds.

Key findings of the Research Note include:

Just two countries (China and Russia) hold almost 25 per cent of the global total; and the top 20 countries hold 50 per cent;
Globally, military procurement of newly manufactured weapons outstrips destruction of surplus firearms;
A standardized international reporting system would be a great advance for global transparency and policy-making.

Small Arms Survey – Highlight: Research Note 34 – 9/2013

The organic qualities attending contemporary warfare may be underplayed by the mainstream press.  In swimming in the politics daily, it seems to me rare to see pieces on arms routing and supply.

Not too long ago and with Viktor Bout out in the wild, some interest seemed reflected in the press and in film (e.g., Lord of War, Blood Diamonds), but the etiology for the popular mind seems to have been let to go by the wayside, so here it may be refreshing as well as scary to NYT piece by former U.S. Navy Ordnance Disposal Officer John Ismay.

Apart from that, a fast tour of the war news looks about as usual — another bombing in Pakistan, a piece indirectly on the level of cooperation between anarchic Somalia and the Untied States, and some input on the field politics taking place in Syria between rebel forces less interested in theocracy and those hell bent on establishing just that.

Iraq

Al-Qaida surges back in Iraq, reviving old fears – Las Vegas Sun News – 10/17/2013.

Insight Into How Insurgents Fought in Iraq – NYTimes.com – 10/17/2013.

Report Examines MANPADS Threat and International Efforts to Address It – The FAS Blog – 10/11/2013.

This chart shows that the Iraq war was worse than we think – 10/16/2013.

Pakistan

Pakistani official killed in suicide bombing – Central & South Asia – Al Jazeera English 10/16/2013.

Somalia

We were informed of U.S. raid: Somali President – The Hindu – 10/14/2013:

“In the case of Barawe, we were informed. The way it happened, and the way it was planned was okay with us,” President Mahmoud said, describing Barawe as a target for further military action as the port had emerged as a safe haven and financial centre for Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliated militia that took responsibility for last month’s attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi.

Syria

BBC News – Syria crisis: Who is fighting in the conflict? 10/17/2013.

Blast in Southern Syria Kills 21, Activists Say – ABC News – 10/15/2013.

Yemen

The Weekly Wonk | Drones Exposed & Wearable Galaxies – 10/17/2013.

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Islamic Small Wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, Etc.

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Islamic Small Wars

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How is the weather today where you are?

Cold or hot?

Cold is cool.

Hot — you have to get away from it or keep very still.

Or put out the fire.

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Afghanistan

A New Season of Fighting in Afghanistan – Video – TIME.com – 8/30/2013

Freed Taliban commander now leads the fight in northern Afghan province – Threat Matrix – 9/18/2013.

Egypt

Egypt continues fighting terrorism: 9 militants killed in Sinai – Israel News, Ynetnews – 9/10/2013.

Egyptian court bans Muslim Brotherhood | Reuters – 9/23/2013.

In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood’s social work returns to the shadows – The Washington Post – 9/27/2013.

Iraq

Wave of car bombs in Iraq heightens fears of increased sectarian violence | euronews, world news – 9/30/2013.

Lebanon

Lebanese fighting in Syria urged to return home – UPI.com

Mali

Mali says Sahel needs rapid reaction force to fight Islamists – Africa – Angola Press – ANGOP – 9/27/2013.

Suicide bombers attack Mali’s Timbuktu – Africa – Al Jazeera English – 9/29/2013.

Fighting Flares Between Mali Army, Rebels in Kidal – ABC News – 9/30/2013.

Nigeria

Islamist insurgents kill 40 students in Nigeria college dorm | Inquirer News – 9/30/2013.

Pakistan

Sunday morning bomb at Christian church in Pakistan kills at least 75 – World News – 9/22/2013

At least 33 killed as car bomb hits market in Pakistan – World News – 9/28/2013.

Sudan

Sudan Revolts: Internet Blackouts and Dead Protesters on the Streets | VICE United States – 9/28/2013.

Meanwhile in Sudan: Fuel riots, a hiring spree of ex-Soviet air mercenaries and preparations for war | World Tribune – 9/30/2013.

Sudan’s Government Isn’t Going Down Without a Fight | VICE United States – 9/30/2013

Syria

Al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda branch, and the Free Syrian Army jointly seize border crossing – Washington Times – 8/30/2013.

Islamist fighters in Syria shove US-friendly rebels aside (+video) – CSMonitor.com – 9/26/2013.

Yemen

AQAP fighters storm Yemen Army base in east – Threat Matrix – 9/30/2013.

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Including Sudan in the briefest survey of an “Islamic Small Wars” campus may be a little unfair.

Although the white on black, Arab Muslim on animist warfare of the Darfur Genocide seems to have faded from immediate presence, the eruption and then simmering of revolution in this most Arab Muslim of African states seems in line with other states in the sweep of the Arab Spring.  As with those others too, internal cultural, economic, and political behavior have brought their response from powerfully governing global elements, in this instance the International Monetary Fund and its encouragement of “austerity measures” to address Sudan’s reduced cash flow, a consequence partially of the liberation of South Sudan from Khartoum’s yoke and the transfer or related oil wealth.

The man on the street may not get all of the connections; the man on the street in South Sudan has got problems too: Over 300 killed, thousands uprooted in bout of South Sudan fighting | Reuters – 8/8/2013.

State subsidizing of essentials is also a complex subject that seems to have contributed to the string of breakdowns in Arab states struggling with economic and social issues as well as “Islamism” and the phenomenon associated with Al Qaeda and equally murderous affiliates and related organizations.

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Afghanistan contributed its “A” to the above alphabetized list, but seems quiet today.  As suggest by linked content, the fall drifts into “fall back” for the Taliban and so the direct expression of their Islamist pique falls off for the winter.

With Iraq, however, today’s bombing report seems indicative of activity every bit as barbaric as last week’s attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.  Less personal, perhaps, each explosion nonetheless belies death and maiming in an instant without abetting change of any kind.

All of that remains plain murder in the first degree and nothing more.

That it goes on and on as it does is insensate, accounted for perhaps by only “social grammar” — earliest learned attitudes and beliefs about others established in infancy’s language acquisition phase as a base for subsequent social knowledge and values — and deeply malignant narcissism preceded, probably, by traumatic narcissistic mortification.

All of that’s nice to know, but it doesn’t ease the mind short of suggesting that the natural impulse to invent language as well as live with it may produce a countervailing progressive cultural evolution.

Poetry matters.

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Mali’s roiling today from state weakness resulting in coup and both contested and ungoverned space.  It’s fighting too is not particularly shaded by the Islamist political bent that had invaded its northern tier earlier this year in the form of Boko Haram, drawing in French forces to expel them.  Nonetheless, Mali’s shifting political sands seems to sustain an atmosphere conducive to the Al Qaeda minded (Africa desert helps breed radicals, from Al Shabab to Boko Haram to Mr. Marlboro – CSMonitor.com – 9/29/2013).

Related: U.S. Reaches Deal With Niger to Fight Africa Extremists – Bloomberg – 2/29/2013.

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For sheer wear-you-down, Pakistan’s suffering seems the most profound.

I have witnessed through online media the suffering of Pakistanis at the hands of assassins and bombers, radicalized students — the curtain rose for me on Lal Masjic in 2007 — and Taliban and Al Qaeda brigades for about six years:

The assault took place at the Crime Investigation Department headquarters in a highly secured area of Karachi in Sindh province. Two vehicles, and not one as initially reported, were used in the assault, according to witness statements and closed circuit television footage analyzed by Pakistani investigators.

The first team of attackers dismounted from a jeep and attacked the guards at the front gate, killing them and clearing the path so that the second truck, which was packed with an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of explosives, could enter the compound.

Brigade 313 and Taliban team up for Karachi assault – The Long War Journal – 11/12/2010.

More recent (15 days ago): Roadside bomb death of Pakistan Major General could derail Taliban peace talks – Asia – World – The Independent – 9/15/2013.

Wait a day or two, seldom more than one week, and there will be another atrocious attack to report out of Pakistan.

Imran Khan’s overtures toward the Taliban combined with Nawaz Sharif’s responsible approach to relations with India have signaled combined weakness with aversion to the Taliban’s purposes.  Those are not coming hither to Islamabad, and Pakistanis themselves may be turning to face their own Taliban persecutors.

Blasts erode support for peace overtures – thenews.com.pk – 1/30/2013

One would expect as much, but one reading only in English publications serving Pakistan’s cultural elite, whatever its numbers and strengths may be, may not tell a whole story.

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If the “Islamic Small Wars” — my coinage, and I’ve been digging on it a while — were an acknowledged word war ( instead of “oh my, that place too?”), it would not look good today from the western perspective.  The sub-state transnational spread of Islamist violence continues with weak or unprepared regions yielding innocent victims and their defenders to it while more secure parties seem unable to shut down movements and their drift with finality.

If the numbers hold up, over this week and the next, another 100 or so less involved and wholly unsuspecting Pakistanis or Iraqis (if combined, set the figure above 200) will die by way of an attack or explosion set in motion or set off in association with Islam.

Whether that association is misguided or nominal, cynical or sincere doesn’t matter because it is all so wrong, it stinks so badly, it fails so miserably in the care of humanity and reverence for God that no righteous Muslim can stand it who — turning out less than righteous — is not directly of the God Mob or, alternatively, not convinced that he might not identity with it himself and benefit from the exhibition of barbarism and any related means of acquiring thereby superficial power over others in the cause of glory unto himself.

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