Tag Archives: political

FNS – Seattle Nightclub Fire Arrest – Mentality

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

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

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The Crime of Being Gay (Boy George) – YouTube – Posted by “firstonethrough” – 12/12/2013

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“I feel that the streets are a little bit safer tonight,” said Neighbours Spokesman Shaun Knittel. “Why do 750 people have to potentially pay for your ideals, your beliefs, your anger?”

Muslim Torches Iconic Gay Night Club in Seattle | Atlas Shrugs – 2/3/2014.

Incident:New Year’s Eve Fire At Seattle Gay Bar Neighbours Investigated As Arson –  video included – 1/2/2014.

Suspect arrested: Musab Masmari.

A Muslim charged with and videotaped pouring gasoline on a gay club and setting it on fire was an “Arab Cultural Ambassador” for the State Department when it hosted visiting Iraqi “journalists” in Seattle.

Musab Mohamed Masmari EXCLUSIVE: Muslim Arsonist of Gay Club Was Obama State Dept Arab Cultural Ambassador! Feds: Terrorism – 1/2/2014.

Masmari was scheduled to appear in court Monday for a hearing following his conviction and jail sentence on an assault charge stemming from an incident last summer. Municipal court officials told CHS the hearing was planned to discuss the probation office’s monitoring of Masmari while he received court-ordered mental health treatment.

SEATTLE: The Muslim arrested for the New Year’s Eve arson attack on a Gay nightclub was also a U.S. State Department ‘cultural ambassador’ | BARE NAKED ISLAM – 1/3/2014.

Nothing is simple.

It appears the suspect now associated with a Seattle gay nightclub fire had a presence in the business district and a record with the courts pointing to aggressive and unstable behavior.

Contempt for the infidel?

Mental illness?

A little bit of both?

Seattle resident Musab Masmari, a Libyan/US citizen, was also in attendance to act as a cultural ambassador on behalf of 911 Media Arts Center for the Arabic speaking visitors.

Iraqi Journalists visit 911 Media Arts Center | 911 seattle media arts center – appears to have been published around 6/1/2011 – as viewed – 2/4/2014.

How off the wall could Masmari, who evidently participated in civic activities (or, say, played nice with other) in 2001, have been?

Still, this combination of apparent psychological trouble, attempted or successful mass murder, and motives associated with Islamic Jihad would seem to form a motif for investigators and watchers.

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Muhammad’s lawyers had argued he was “innocent by reason of mental disease or defect”. But on Monday afternoon, Muhammad, who faced capital punishment for Pvt. Long’s slaying, stood before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Hubert Wright and pled guilty to more than a dozen charges in connection with shootings.

Little Rock Jihadist Sentenced to Life :: The Investigative Project on Terrorism – 7/25/2011

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“Put it this way,” says one official familiar with the conversations that took place. “Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole.”

Walter Reed Officials Asked: Was Hasan Psychotic? : NPR – 11/11/2009

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“I was immediately struck by how bizarre he looked.”

The Shoe Bomber’s World – TIME – 1/6/2002

The intimation may be of mental illness, but the machinery would seem to run deliberately and logically enough.  “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid’s story has that Twilight Zone aspect to it no less than the stories of others who have latched themselves to a now familiar motivation — and in the name of God too — for committing horrendous crimes.

We’ll see what comes out in court for alleged arsonist Musab Mohamed Masmari, but if experience now has a track record, we may expect some combination of the appearance of nuttiness — not to be too formal on this blog that may have well cited DSM-V (probably second-hand from the web too) — along with a chilling recounting concerning the purchase of a gasoline can, filling it, securing matches, walking the assembly to the top of a staircase, pouring out the gasoline, walking back down, and striking a match.

Related Reference

Police Arrest Musab Mohamed Masmari in Neighbours Arson Case | Slog – 2/1/2014.

FBI investigating Neighbours arson suspect | www.kirotv.com – 1/3/2014.

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Abbas Zaidi on the Masking of Sunni Persecution of Shiite Muslims in Pakistan

03 Monday Feb 2014

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

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Pakistan – Abbas Zaidi on the Masking of Sunni Persecution of Shiite Muslims

“Dawn’s obfuscation of the Shia genocide in the aftermath of Mastung massacre”, Let Us Build Pakistan – 2/2/2014.

FTAC – Syria’s Displaced Middle Temperament

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

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The UN is an incredibly conservative organization: it wants things returned to the way they were three years ago or more than six decades ago.

Fortunately, Syria is done.

Assad will never get it back; Islamic Jihad will never get it.

Someone needs to wake up to the idea that Syria’s six to eight million internally displaced and refugee have an inherent right to regain their land, and should that include the development of a peaceful buffer with Israel . . . . 🙂 It’s not so easy, I know, but it would make more sense if the greater of the fighting ranks, state military and revolutionary forces, were to draw (had drawn, would now draw) from the middle of the society displaced or trapped between similarly malignant and anachronistic powers.

Toward the end of last week, I suggested a re-think on the part of President Bashar al-Assad’s “coup proof” military: if there’s any humanity left in, it alone could negotiate a strategy with General Idris, whom it knows well, depose the dictator, fend off the al-Qaeda affiliates, reform or update (in a good way) Hezbollah, tell Putin and the Ayatollah both how the New Syria is going to be, make peace with Israel, now that Israel has provided more than 700 Syrians with emergency medical services (and returned them incognito to Syria), and forge a genuinely new path into the global future.

Wishful thinking.

The inspiration for it: Israel enmeshed in complex Syrian refugee crisis | JPost | Israel News – 2/2/2014.

If there world worked right, some kind of refugee region and buffer would form along Israel’s defense line under — this is the hard part — Israeli suzerainty while the Syrian Civil War continues.  The population would then become a de factor protectorate with extraordinary benefits.

The fact of the matter is that everything about the Syrian Civil War, from the collapse into chaos and sadism of the old Soviet political architecture, now post-Soviet, to the incursion by the al-Qaeda affiliates and seduced adolescent and early post-adolescent boys and girls, is indeed anachronistic and malignant.

Not one inch of either is working for good and legitimate ends, nor will they.

It seems like only yesterday that Syrians dared complain to the Assad regime about the state of their economy.

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FTAC – A Comment on Yarmouk Camp and Turkish Airstrike Against ISIS

30 Thursday Jan 2014

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

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You have asked a difficult question. The sentimental guidance offered by Hillel the Elder seems insufficient in the face of immense suffering, not only in Syria, but in Burma (genocide targeting a tribal Muslim people), in Congo (the land of child slaves and child soldiers), and a thousand other places (probably fewer, but still, it’s pretty bad): “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I?”

What is our humanity? What is our obligation as regards the humanity of others?

Gaza officialdom may bleat, hate, and whine about Zionists, but Gaza business and labor and basic service providers work every day with Israel in the interests of commerce and development.

Jews go everywhere — even to the other side, lol — where need exists.

With everyone else, we / Jews / Israel are helping Syrians with emergency medicine and supplies — not leading the pack (I don’t know who is) but there even with a minimum of recognition.

The remaining residents of the Yarmouk Camp, kept separated from Syrian, used as tools for some future Arab war of annihilation to erase Jewry and Judaism (the better to claim originality for Islam, I guess), are starving — being made to starve — between armies. What did they — now women, children, and old men — do to deserve or bring on that fate?

No one has intervened militarily in Yarmouk Camp because no one outside of the Syrian conflict knows how to play a rescue operation, much less coordinate one with so many parties ringside.

In 2007, Lebanese Defense Forces managed to evacuate Nahr al-Bared, another refugee “camp”, by checking through residents at one gate and busing them away to another camp. By agreement with other Arab states, they were forbidden to enter Nahr al-Bared, so they got the residents out, left the foreign fighters in, and using tanks razed the entire city, once of 30,000 souls, to the ground — and then they bombed what was left of resistance in tunnels.

Yarmouk? It’s like watching people drown and no one can get through the sharks surrounding them to save them.

Since day one of live fire, Syrians on the receiving end — now millions either dead, maimed, displaced, or refugee — have begged the world for help, and the great politicians surrounding have played like gamblers at a felt table: one wants things to be as they were, primarily because the money was very good with the way things were — and it’s still very good with the way things are; another wants a moderate messianic miracle, i.e., an Arab democracy, capitalist, open, and in love with Israel.

Some 130,000 casualties later plus six million souls robbed of their former lives and their businesses, jobs, and homes, business seems to be booming around the care of the victims of war, not that it’s making money, but it seems easier delivering tents, clothing, food, and water, and some medicine to those bereft than it does producing sufficient international cooperation to remove Assad, shut down the al-Qaeda affiliates, and freeze Syria (no pun intended) into a state (of existence) approachable for constitutional and physical reconstruction.

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In an unprecedented incident yesterday, Wednesday, Turkish jets attacked a Jihadist convoy on Syrian soil after 2 of their own military vehicles had been fired upon near the Turkish/Syrian border.

The incident happened near the Cobanbey border crossing in the south of Turkey. The jets reportedly destroyed a pick-up, a truck and a bus all belonging to the extreme Jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There were no casualties on the Turkish side.

IN UNPRECEDENTED MOVE TURKISH JETS DESTROY ISIS CONVOY IN SYRIA AFTER ITS MILITARY COMES UNDER FIRE | altahrir, news of Islam, Muslims, Arab Spring and special Palestine; SYRIA NEWS | Peter Clifford Online – 1/30/2014.

I don’t know whose using money to sew so much chaos in the middle east, but now pressured by an immense refugee challenge, the want to get at its sources all around may be quite high.

It appears yesterday’s strike by Turkey involved a clear tit-for-tat exchange of fire, but the Turkish military, which has traded with Israel for its hardware, more a while ago, I’m sure less today, and has NATO cooperation in the region, is the more formidable power.

Perhaps the Turks have also had enough of “spillover” from Syria’s civil war.

Additional Reference

Israel ‘cuts arms sales to Turkey’ – UPI.com – 4/26/2010.

Israel supplies Turkey with military equipment for first time since Gaza flotilla – Diplomacy & Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 2/18/2013.

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Yarmouk Camp – Played for Human Shields and Siege

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

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

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‫ weeping parents, and anger. Yarmouk refugee camp in the funeral of the martyrs of hunger. 11-1-2014 ‬ – YouTube

On YouTube, “TeachESL” noted (two days ago), “the man at 0:53 says: “We do not want Palestine or something. We want them to get us out here. We ask for Israeli citizenship, we do not want the right of return, we have sold Palestine. We do not even know anything about Palestine! We do not want Mahmoud Abbas. There are 1 billion and 300 million Muslims and they can do nothing! If there were even a single Israeli child in the Yarmuk camp, the problem would have been solved a long time ago.”

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So what may the Jews do, whether of Israel or the Diaspora?

I know: these are the sworn enemies of Israel, determined to overlook the defeat of Arab armies in a war of annihilation (of the Jews, period) in 1948; brainwashed to believe the Land of Israel magically, innately Arab when the ground itself tells of the continuance presence of Jewry on the land for more than 3,000 years and beyond; and trained by anti-Semitic image, lies (like “The Protocols”), by bombastic and narcissistic and manipulative power to hate Jews and erase Judaism, which is more a world to discover than extinguish, and a good and great world at that.  And yet there they are, the residents of Yarmouk Camp, trapped between a tyrant and his equally tyrannical opponents.

Neither Bashar al-Assad nor al-Nusra could give a flying crap about what they — no one else, not Israelis, not Russians, not Americans, God forbid — are doing to the humanity they have overrun and subjugated for the amusement of their own immense and unbridled egos.

Jews have stood against that kind of tyranny since the Exodus from Egypt, and whether in fact or in our heads makes no difference.

Jewish ethical universalism, whether joined by hand-wringing Christians or forward-looking Islamic Humanists, cannot today — and as too many among the powerful may do — look away from Yarmouk Camp.

The twisted rhetoric of The Palestine Chronicle (the fulcrum for that in language behavior splits loyalty away from integrity) notes the following:

There is no doubt that the Yarmoukian Palestinians are in Syria because of a historic injustice imposed upon them by a settler-colonial enemy that does not spare any effort to exacerbate their suffering and prolong their exile. However, this indisputable historic occurrence should not blind us from the fact that independent of what Israel has planned to increase Palestinian suffering, the party responsible for the current crisis (and here I must reiterate my emphasis on the word ‘current’) is the brutal and inhuman Syrian regime and its leader Bashar El-Assad.

How Not to Be in Solidarity with Palestinian Refugees in Yarmouk? | Palestine Chronicle – 1/17/2014.

It’s good to see someone wising up.

It’s late in the day but welcomed, if with a grain of salt, nonetheless.

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In the Yarmouk camp, more than 55 people have died from hunger and the majority of children are suffering from malnutrition, according to Abdullah al-Khatib, a Palestinian activist living there. Most people are consuming soup made from water and spices, Khatib said, and some are reportedly eating grass for survival.

Starving to death in Syria’s Yarmouk camp – Features – Al Jazeera English – 1/29/2014.

Reminder: Russian President Vladimir Putin means to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in business (possibly unless or until he runs out of money or his sponsor in Tehran, that kindly smiling white bearded sower of sorrows, does — and that’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future).

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I have long believed that that I’d engage Gideon Levy’s discourse in its disingenuous Israel-bashing facet, and so I might do so here with suggestion that the IDF — who else? — magically and miraculously transport the Yarmouk Camp to someplace peaceful like Judea and Samaria.

Bar’el was restrained as he referred to Yarmouk as resembling a World War II ghetto, and even this description fell on deaf ears. Only 20,000 people remain in the camp, where 150,000 lived before the civil war. Only the weak and helpless remain – to live in destruction under siege. The rest have suffered their second expulsion . . . . After the terror of Yarmouk, Israel should show a measure of humanity. It should try to save the 20,000 besieged residents – natives of this land, remember – and declare that its gates are open to them to reunite with their families.

Israel, save the Palestinians in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp – Opinion Israel News | Haaretz – 1/22/2014.

Nonetheless, disagree though we may — and as may the Yarmouk Camp resident quoted — we are all standing by watching a war crime in the making.

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What is remarkable is that the save Yarmouk initiative has infiltrated all fields and has been adopted and picked up by political groups that have not seen eye to eye.

Crisis in Yarmouk camp in Syria unites Palestinians – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 1/27/2014.

I’ll say!

Although the Al-Monitor article confines itself to telling of the in-solidarity feelings inspired between Fatah and Hamas and pro-Palestinian groups, that I’ve played up this story tells that our barriers may not be as strong as we believe.

Crime is crime.

Yarmouk surviving off stray animals: resident | Al Akhbar English – 1/29/2014.

20,000 people in Yarmouk camp face starvation | GulfNews.com – 1/29/2014.

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Syria – al-Qaeda – Putin – Obama – American Isolationism – Foreign Constituent Independence

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

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

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The United States has picked up where it left off more than a month ago and started shipping nonlethal aid to Syria in hopes that al Qaeda won’t seize it and keep it from reaching its intended rebel fighting recipients.

U.S. restarts aid to Syria, hoping al Qaeda won’t seize it again – Washington Times – 1/28/2014.

Officials may have strengthened the chain of custody by winnowing down the trustworthy to “Free Syrian Army Supreme Military Council members”.

Last night’s State of the Union Address by President Obama emphasized domestic economic progress and de-emphasized foreign policy, and that to the extent that American involvement in the Islamic Small Wars appears to have been pared back to the 12-year-presence in Afghanistan and the diminishing of Islamist strength in that theater with but a nod to the whack-a-mole games played with drones and special forces and familiar to Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

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The number of al-Qaeda linked fighters active in Syria has mushroomed from 2,000 to more than 30,000 in just two years, a senior Israeli intelligence official has warned . . . .

Over 30,000 al-Qaeda linked fighters’ in Syria, Israeli official claims – Telegraph – 1/25/2014.

Syrians, ordinary Syrians, Syrians who bake bread or lay brick, Syrians who were hungry three years ago at the hands of their kleptocrat government and sought a better deal for themselves, have been suffering mightily between the malignancies of their regime and a now strong portion of the regime’s challengers.

Where’s Putin now?

Not a word.

Web search “Syria Putin al-Qaeda” and the top page list comes back with the mud slung in early September: it’s the Americans that have backed al-Qaeda.

We know it’s not true.

Americans have backed the above mentioned “Free Syrian Army” led, nominally, at least, by General Salim Idris.  That army has found itself forked between the brutal dictator — this is one who flew jets against large noncombatant populations — and the equally unconstrained primitives of the al-Qaeda affiliates.

Read the still recent headlines:

FSA chief: Free National Army is a pipe dream « ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 1/16/2014.

‘We don’t have long,’ say Syrian rebels locked in battle with Al Qaeda, Assad | Fox News – 1/17/2014.

President Obama turned up the populist card last night with brags about progress in the American system within its borders, from energy independence to health care, and while he proffered continued support for nascent democracies in war torn space, he made clear that American troops were staying at home.

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“Dozens of Antonov 124s (Russian transport planes) have been bringing in armored vehicles, surveillance equipment, radars, electronic warfare systems, spare parts for helicopters, and various weapons including guided bombs for planes,” a Middle East security source said.

“Russian advisers and intelligence experts have been running observation UAVs around the clock to help Syrian forces track rebel positions, analyze their capabilities, and carry out precision artillery and air force strikes against them,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

Report: Russia stepping up military aid to Syria’s Assad | JPost | Israel News – 1/17/2014.

Perhaps in Putin’s cold political calculus, Syria will be held in The Bear’s paw at any price to Syria’s humanity.

President Bashar Assad’s military and the Free Syrian Army may wake up to realize that their enmity may be misdirected, for the true axis is not, has never been, Assad vs al-Qaeda but rather The People vs Assad.  Forget about that old rusty post-Soviet chain: Russia – Syria – Iran | Saudi Arabia – NATO – America.

Syria is.

Syria exists for Syrians.

Syrians internally displaced or made refugee by war — about nine million souls (6.5 million IDPs; 2.1 million refugees) —  need peace and home for themselves, and all they have for getting that are two armies, in body, and their differential in leaderships, that should be the last to be at their own throats.

As much hell comes from misguidance and propaganda helped along by a surrounding sea of greed.

Obama’s America with NATO returned to a defensive posture would seem to have zero interest in intervention in Syria apart from keep General Idris’s enterprise in sufficient weaponry for maintaining the three-way stalemate while talk-talk-talk fills time.

Putin’s Russia, which well may view Syria as part of its post-Soviet inheritance, seems immune to humanitarian overtures apart from bending, twisting, and spinning it some around Bashar al-Assad, who in state propaganda and RT has been made to look like a blameless angel.

So far as may be gleaned from the news online, Putin’s in it for the money and to maintain an anti-western post in a client buffer.

Compared to Putin’s glory — and how glorious that glory will be at the $50 billion Winter Olympics in Sochi — the depth and expanse of civilian Syrian suffering, in state and splayed out in the refugee camps of hosting neighbors, would seem by comparison invisible.

Here’s another cycle in headers:

Russia And China Provide Practically No Aid To Syrian Refugees | ThinkProgress – 9/3/2013.

Russia Provides $10M to Syrian Refugees | World | RIA Novosti – 10/1/2013.

Russia to Send Additional Humanitarian Aid for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon — Naharnet – 11/25/2013.

Donors Offer $2.4 Billion to Aid Syrian Civilians, but U.N. Says More Is Needed – NYTimes.com – 1/15/2014.

Get the picture?

Perhaps this will help: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s $50-billion Olympic Games | Toronto Star – 6/25/2014.

Disclaimer: I confess I now write with a “nice pen”, acknowledged as such by an expert.  It’s best feature is its 21 karat gold medium-fine nib, so I know a little bit about fine things too!  But my fine things would seem fit to living in a cabin, which is more or less how I live (but I can dream).

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I have seen the face of suffering and hate online in many faces.  Someone has been lied to or manipulated; someone has a mind confined to state media or a wallet meagerly fattened by the patronage of a despot, a shameful situation where conscience and ethics have not been entirely extinguished.  What may be done to repair that person?  Or, collectively, such people captive to closed information (remember: mouth – ear – mind – heart) systems?

I don’t know.

I do know the world online is larger than the space in which I live and the freedom to speak has its complement in the freedom to read, listen, or watch widely with great curiosity and with some ambition and discipline as regards discerning the nature of things.

Additional Reference

Syria talks face immediate hurdle of Assad’s refusal to step down | World news | The Guardian – 1/19/2014

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CAIR, Spencer, Narcissism, Universalism

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Political Spychology, Psychology

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It is more likely that the NSA has placed everyone under surveillance in order to avoid singling out the Muslim community, so as to avoid appearing “Islamophobic.”

Hamas-linked CAIR staff attorney: Spying and surveillance “disproportionately affecting the Muslim community” : Jihad Watch – 1/27/2014.

In the above cited article, Robert Spencer catalogs criminals, crimes, and attempted crimes, all connected to Islamic Jihad, and he goes on to document incendiary speech by Muslim notables.

Related and highly recommended: The Threat from Within: What Is the Scope of Homegrown Terrorism? – 7/1/2012.  Posted by the ABA Journal, the abstract at the top read, “Gordon Lederman, chief counsel for national security and investigations of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Kate Martin, director of the nonprofit Center for National Security Studies, ponder how we should weigh security against liberty.

Wikipedia’s brief and nonpartisan historic overview of terrorism in the United States: Terrorism in the United States – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

We’ve a long way to go as regards the self-destructive “specialness” in play within at least a part of Islam’s advocacy community in the U.S., not to mention elsewhere militant Islamist organizations — the al-Qaeda affiliates — active in the fields of the Islamic Small Wars from Afghanistan to Somalia, but in the American way, principles developed to address such conflict have to be conceived for universal applicability.

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As an aside, sometimes in unrelated conversation, the matter of having to deal with an aggressive, evil, and large force in life, say, for example, a bullying father or an abusive husband or a sadistic employer, and so on, comes up, and what I suggest goes like this: to the Jew, the Nazi is a problem; however, the character of the Nazi is not the Jew’s problem — it’s the Nazi’s problem.

For Nazi, substitute “asshole”, “bully”, “dictator”, and so on.

What the overbearing asshole (bully, dictator, malignant narcissist) flying under the Jolly Rodger of his kind has for a problem is himself as reinforced and made inescapable by his own bombast accompanied or followed by criminal or malicious and irretrievable, and irreversible action.  Such personalities talk themselves, their admirers, and their cronies into an evil corner, and there they live with their bigotry, contempt, and crimes, including war crimes for those who come to own and drive their own states, until other forces, sadly including natural death, come to dispossess them.

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