“You may have chosen us, but we utterly reject and condemn you”

15 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Australia, BCND - BackChannels News Day, New Zealand, Regions, South Pacific

Tags

Christchurch attack, extremism, New Zealand, terrorism, White Terrorism, White-On-Green Violence

1/9 Police continue to deal with what is an unprecedented event for New Zealand. The loss of life and the number of those who have been injured is tragic.
As the Prime Minister has stated, this has been designated a terrorist attack.
— New Zealand Police (@nzpolice) March 15, 2019

What changed the course of history on “9/11” and inspired the “New Nationalism” may have come full circle with today’s coordinated attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Forty-nine worshipers dead, 20 injured in hails of bullets by the will of a handful of white folk defending . . . what, exactly?

Once again, someone’s medieval worldview erupts from the past to bathe the modern world in fire and blood.

A few weeks ago, BackChannels counseled turning around together for a good look at the world as it once was with the intent of leaving that world to be read about by some future generation. While that may be on the way — it would be a good thing — today’s “White-On-Green” attack in New Zealand reminds that extremism is deeply cloistered, medieval, narrow-visioned, paranoid, and suffocating.

For live updates: https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/new-zealand-christchurch-shooting-intl/index.html

Suspected Christchurch terrorist Bernton Tarrant apparently vowed to kill Muslims a day before the attack – and was praised after the heinous act by his followers on social media.
An anonymous user thought to be Tarrant wrote on notorious right-wing blogging website 8Chan on Thursday: ‘I will carry out an attack against the invaders, and will even live stream the attack via Facebook.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6812241/I-carry-attack-against-invaders-Christchurch-shooters-social-media-post.html

To address how the world got to this ugly place in time, BackChannels suggests starting with Zawahiri’s visit to Russia. And then move on to about here with President Trump threatening democracy in the United States with intimidation.

In an interview with Breitbart News Trump said that his supporters are “tough” and that it would be “very bad” for people to cross them.

“I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay?” Trump said. “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/conservative-destroys-tyrant-trump-over-threats-of-violence-from-supporters/ – 3/14/2019

The President’s few words, unfortunately timed, already have been linked to the Christchurch attacks as the kind of rhetoric attending the motivation for them.

On the other hand —

Extremist talk may be the glowering chest bumping between medieval-minded throwbacks that needs must prove each their case for the medieval prize of subscription.

There’s nothing fake about the Israeli video covering anti-Semitic speech in mosques in the United States. The synagogues, however, aren’t going to play that game, nor will the vast body of American churches whose attractions rest on their contribution to the civility of their communities rather than their encouragement of barbarous will will.

–33–

FTAC: Overcoming the Once Communist Feudal Legacy Associated with Soviet-Aligned Dictatorships

24 Saturday Nov 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics

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absolutism v democratic distribution, feudal political absolutism, feudalism v democracy, Medieval Political Absolutism, medieval v modern, middle east conflict, middle east politics, Post-Apartheid South Africa, post-Cold War History and Politics, Soviet / post-Soviet history, State Sovereignty and Land Base, terrorism

On the Middle East Conflict

BackChannels believes that at the end of WWII, Stalin acquired some part of the middle east that Hitler and the Ottoman Empire had lost. There must have been Nazi agents waiting for arrest or work or both. There had been certainly Arab families or powers who had been aligned with Hitler through Amin al-Husseini, and with the big war over and a two-state offer for the Palestinians and Israel on the table, the same were presented with a choice: peace (and responsible governance) or war focused on the destruction of Israel.

Whether the Soviet Union believed its own rants about the Jews or just wanted to sell and increase its influence through the promotion of anti-Semitic invective pleasing to some Arab ears, BackChannels doesn’t know.

What BackChannels does know is that Soviet arms and diplomacy helped maneuver the Arab states into a disastrous war, after which it had to keep its hooks in the region. Pan-Arab Nationalism got its strong bump up (1950s) , and the dictatorships served to block the spread of democratic western liberalism into the region (as much advanced by Israel’s establishment). The KGB’s grooming of Arafat, the establishing of the PLO, and Arafat’s rise from within would follow in the 1960s as would the wholesale development of “state-sponsored terrorism” through the Andropov years.

Fly over all that history, and we’re here today with the same “gift” from Russia, the Soviet Era and once Soviet-engineered “Middle East Conflict” that has for remnant the wreckage of old middle east dictatorships — Iraq and Libya at least — and the horror of what has been left — Syria in flames and ruins, ALL of it at the hands of its own leader; Iran environmentally damaged (it did that itself) and economically crippled by way of its own aggression and medieval barbarism.

So this morning started with a comment about moderate and peace-seeking Israelis and Palestinians approaching these issues but with the politically repressive elements born in the Soviet Era or conveyed by it through time armed, entrenched, and powerfully intimidating. The conversational partner noted that for the many participating in the talk, ” . . . place and time are all wrong . . . .”

The morning’s first response:

One may recognize “too soon” but those with casualties may be more sensitive to “too late”.
So, forward in this conversation.
Given the so many Jews involved in middle east peace activities, the onlooking Palestinian Diaspora of the west, the truth about the Moscow business plainly spreading across the web (the story of Russian Influence through Disinformation is just moving across the web these days), you would think someone would figure out that “the west” was not quite the enemy as promoted in the imagination).
Three things make us feel better — basic income; close family — and if not the one in which we’re born, then the friends we make; and general and personal security. Perhaps the Israelis and Palestinians who understand that have mutual regard and a few old problems in common.

On Medieval Divisions and Modern Multicultural Democracies

Next: a rhetoric assertion to the effect that multiculturalism has died (in South Africa) and with the implication that the medieval divisions having to do with race and religion — and by extension clans, tribes, and states — were resurgent and, by inference, all that the world has to look forward to is the greater chaos and misery of war already too well known.

Response:

The “Rainbow Dream” that Mandela had has NOT died in South Africa!
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/08/27/unfiltered-south-african-president-ramaphosa-on-land-reform-parliament-on-the-same-earlier-this-year/
White South Africa left a legacy of now archaic land ownership arrangements, and some are upset about the state’s update or reforms to allow the state to implement policies beneficial to all South Africans.
The state’s related economics — there are too many poor! — and extended state security resources have produced conditions for brigandage — theft and murder — at least, and the aggrieved cast that in racial terms.
To better manage its issues, the people of South Africa recently ejected another corrupt communist aristocrat — the kind that take money from their people and immensely aggrandize themselves in the manners known to dictators.
From The Guardian, here’s a glimpse into how Jacob Zuma “managed” South Africa:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/zuma
Cheer up: South Africa may avoid the Zimbabwean meltdown at the hands of a nominally communist narcissist (Robert Mugabe, who has been deposed in the past year or so by his own military) and continue its independent development as a modern multi-racial, multi-tribal democracy.

Humankind may never see an end to war, but it may see it diminished. The drawing down would be a real gift to Israelis and Palestinians alike.

This coming December 25 will mark the 26th year out from the dissolving of the Soviet Union (1991) toward a feudal and perhaps Orwellian politics (i.e., continuous war between three nuclear-armed giants and proxies within their spheres of influence all the way down — or, alternatively, the day may be closer to the end of the end of a long argument between the medieval world habituated to “absolute power” — power unquestionable with its brutality — especially toward the innocent — exercised with impunity — and the modern one in which democratic power is so for being checked, subject to criticism, distributed and balanced structurally (Administrations; Courts, Legislatures) and popularly (via free and fair elections).

–33–

Homegrown Terror Plot Thwarted: Cleveland, Ohio — FBI Arrest Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts AKA Abdur Raheem Rafiq for “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.”

02 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, United States of America

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Al Qaeda, Cleveland, counterterrorism, Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts arrest, FBI, Fourth of July, material support, news conference, Ohio, terrorism

Arrested: Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts AKA Abdur Raheem Rafiq , Cleveland, Ohio for “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization”. Pitts appears to have a related record online: http://www.bustedmugshots.com/ohio/columbus/demetrius-nathaniel-pitts/17357991. A similar al-Qaeda related story broke in 2003 with the arrest of Ohio-based trucker Lyman Faris, then 34 years old, in New York City for the same thing — and with the same M.O.

–33–

Nigeria: Circular Control: Death or Surrender — Or Continue

24 Thursday May 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Nigeria

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Boko Haram, continuous conflict, defense sales, frozen conflict, Fulani, Nigeria, raiders, terrorism, terrorists

Posted to YouTube May 4, 2016.
Miyetti Allah

In the little more than two years since the above was posted, Fulani-associated attacks on Nigerian farming villages have skyrocketed, bringing to play suspicions about a Muslim dominated government and security apparatus. One BackChannels source has suggested that all the top military and police officers have Arab names and Islamic affiliation, and, therefore, so may go the reasoning, the same have turned a blind eye to attacks in the making. Add to that, the state’s confiscation of old unregistered firearms from villagers, leaving the same completely bared to the whims of AK-47 equipped rape-and-rapine “Fulani Land Pirates”.

Not surprisingly, the complaint of Islamic Jihad and the ethnic cleansing of Christians has surfaced in more recent news.

Governor Ortom in his speech, stated that what was happening in the state was ethnic cleansing and Jihad. Ortom said, “this is not a hidden agenda, it’s known and those people who are perpetrating it did say it. They’re not hidden. They held press conferences, they came out and said they were going to resist our law, that they were going to do ethnic cleansing, it’s about Jihad, it’s about taking over the land, it’s not about herders and farmers clashes.

Duru, Peter. “Seek int’l help to end killings in Benue, Nigeria — Professor
Wole Soyinka.” Vanguard, May 24, 2018.

Related in Vanguard on this day: an editorial critical of “The probe on Army ‘partiality'”; and another, finally, on the shooting of armed herdsman in the “Gwer, Logo and Guma Local Government Areas of Benue State” — and in use: Russian Mi-35 helicopter gunships.

BackChannels has been curious about where “the bandits” have been obtaining their arms — and the mention of such curiosity alone should raise knowing and cynical smiles in West Africa: “Firearms Trafficking in West Africa” n.d., PDF.

The Boko Haram back story in relation to arms and equipage has been poked at:

Campbell, John. “Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Heavy Weapons.” Council on Foreign Relations, 2014.

However, the “tank” in the photo appears to be a Panhard ERC-90 Sagaie, a wheeled armored fighting vehicle of French manufacture. Chad and Cote d’Voire each have a few of these vehicles, and, according to one commentator, the Nigerian military has forty-two of them. If that is accurate, then it is likely that the tank and the armored fighting vehicle were stolen from a Nigerian military armory and did not come from Libya.

Reuters Staff. “Military graft undermines Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram: Transparency International.” Reuters, May 17, 2017.

At least one arms shipment originating in Turkey has been interdicted; there appears at least one report of bandits armed to military standards:

Last year the police carried out a dawn raid on Orilowo-Ejigbo, a Lagos suburb, and arrested three men after seizing a cache of arms that was sufficient to outfit a 20-man army. In another incident last year, at the border town of Seme, bandits overwhelmed the huge security presence at the border post, laid in wait for traders and robbed them. Many lives were lost. As an officer testified after the incident, it wasn’t the effrontery of the robbers that unnerved him and his colleagues, but the sophistication
of the arms they used.

Ojudu, Babafemi. “Gun Smuggling in the Niger Delta.” World Press Review, n.d.

However acquired — and whatever the true (cultural, communal, economic, personal religious, social, tribal) motivations of Boko Haram or Fulani Land Pirates — the violence targeting the state’s peaceful (and disarmed) Christian communities has brought into view the possibilities for deep mistrust across the Christian-Muslim discriminator and forced the state to defend its integrity with greater military power, skill, and resolve, which, of course, requires heightened military spending.

Distilled: violent rogue organizations promote defense spending, i.e., they’re good for business!

Affected states, perhaps especially today Nigeria, have no choice but to heighten integrity in their ranks and push back or, over time, disintegrate down into feudal squabbles that might presage — for lack of decency in governance — meltdown into the modern dark ages of failed states.

At the same time, BackChannels fears the Orwellian possibility of state-based manipulation of bandits, jihadists, and raiders in the producing the sustained chaos and conflict profitable to two kinds of markets: 1) the black markets known to “failed states” and “frozen conflicts” in which authorities have been so compromised, corrupted, or otherwise weakened (absented in force) that anything goes and EVERYTHING illicit moves through the territory; and 2) the state-to-state business markets invested in defense economies nurtured for expansion.

Appreciate the contemplation: the truth really is Out There where ships stop in the night far out at sea and hours later smuggled arms move across the land toward the money that makes it all seem worthwhile.

What will happen if the seemingly limitless tide of young men recruited in the wild become supplied with shoulder-launched rockets?

Someone’s business will grow.

Related to Nigeria’s acquisition of A29 Aircraft

Aziken, Emmanuel. “Cost of A29 aircraft: Ask Nigerian govt — US Mission.” Vanguard, May 8, 2018.

Akinwotu, Emmanuel and Aurelien Breeden. “‘Shocked’ by Attack on Mosque, Nigeria Tightens Security in Northeast.” The New York Times, May 2, 2018.

–33–

Fulani Herdsman Rampage Through Dundu Village, Kwall District, Bassa, Plateau State, Nigeria

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism, Nigeria

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Bassa, Dundu Village, Fulani, Fulani Herdsman, Islamic Small Wars, Kwall District, Nigeria, Plateau State, small wars, terrorism

BackChannels’ source has reported nineteen men, three women, and three children killed by Fulani herdsman Monday night (March 12, 2018) in Dundu Village, Kwall District, Bassa Governate, Plateu State, Nigeria. The attack follows by three days the burning of 50 homes and the killing of two children, twins, and 9 adults in Jos, the capital of Plateau State.

Source claims Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari “has been paying lip service to the atrocities committed by Fulani terrorists.”

President Buhari has urged patience on the part of the Nigerian public:

Once again I sympathize with the people of Benue State, and the families of all those who‘ve lost their lives in these attacks. The security agencies will continue to work to protect all Nigerians. And we will not allow anyone who takes the life of a Nigerian to evade justice. pic.twitter.com/eqKp3YSJoa

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) March 12, 2018

Nigeria’s issues with the nomadic Fulani, pressured by drought and motivated some by Islamic supremacist egotism, has been a developing conflict issue in Nigeria for some time. Herewith a smattering of related reports and news news reports and fair use excerpts from them.

Fast Reference

All excerpts are partial (there’s more to be read at the source) and dated either in the address line or short after the URL.

https://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/fulani-herdsmen-nigeria – 2014

Fulani herdsmen and farmers conflict in Nigeria is a land resource based conflict in north-eastern Nigeria. According to a Human Rights Watch report of December 2013 violence between Fulani herdsmen, farmers and local communities had killed 3,000 people since 2010.

http://dailypost.ng/2018/01/11/declare-fulani-herdsmen-terrorists-now-southern-middle-belt-leaders-charge-buhari/

Attributed to Chief Adebanjo:

On herdsmen, Adebanjo said he had no trust on the ability of the police to quell the activities of the group as the police hierarchy had already described the killings as communal clashes.

He further lambasted President Buhari over his handling of the killings, stressing that “even when someone in the caliber of Falae was kidnapped, he didn’t utter a word. He has also refused to identify Fulani herdsmen as terrorists.

http://punchng.com/herdsmen-kill-11-torch-50-houses-in-plateau/ – 3/10/2018

President Muhammadu Buhari had barely left Plateau State when the attacks were launched on Ganda village of Daffo District in Bokkos Local Government Area and Miango village in Bassa Local Government Area. The communities were attacked few hours after the inauguration of Plateau State Peace Building Agency by the President, who was in Jos, the state capital, on a working visit.

https://newtelegraphonline.com/2018/03/herdsmen-kill-25-raze-houses-plateau/

He said: “Twenty-five people lost their lives in a fresh attack on Dundu village of Kwall District of Bassa Local Government Area. The incident occurred just as the Irigwe community had planned a mass burial for four of the five earlier killed in a similar attack on Nzhauvo village.

“When we reacted to a claim by the Miyetti Allah group in January of missing cattle, we told you it was a ploy to justify another round of killings. True to this, the Fulani militia, which the Federal Government has refused to brand a terrorist organisation to the dismay of Nigerians, have continued to visit our villages with orchestrated and unwarranted carnage.

https://naijanewsandevents.com/fulani-herdsmen-attack-dundu-village-in-plateau-kill-25/ – 3/14/2018

Daily Sun gathered that the attack, which occurred at about 7pm, left several houses burnt and scores injured.

It was learnt that the attackers took the villagers unawares when they were preparing to take their dinner and the entire village was enveloped by gunfire from the attackers, leaving children, women and the aged scampering for safety.

A youth leader, Lawrence Timothy, said 25 corpses have been found, while more were still being recovered from the bush

http://punchng.com/herdsmen-kill-26-torch-11-houses-in-fresh-plateau-attacks/ – 3/14/2018

Attributed to Lawrence Zongo, spokesman, Miango Youth Development Association:

“Others, including two women are now receiving treatment in a nearby hospital in the community. One girl later died in the hospital, making it 26 victims. This is too bad as we are planning for a mass burial of the last attack. So far, we have more than 500 in Internally Displaced Persons camp. The international organisations should please come to our aid.”

gtd-fulani-chart

Source and Search:

http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?search=Fulani&sa.x=38&sa.y=9&sa=Search

Notice the spike on the chart from 2010 into 2016.

START. “Annex of Statistical Information: Country Reports on Terrorism 2016.” Page 12. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. July 2017.

Information about perpetrator groups was reported for 77% of terrorist attacks in Nigeria in 2016. Due to a 63% decrease in the number of attacks carried out by Boko Haram and a 62% increase in the number of attacks carried out by Fulani militants, Fulani militants were responsible for the most terrorist attacks in Nigeria in 2016.

https://jamestown.org/program/alleged-connection-between-boko-haram-and-nigerias-fulani-herdsmen-could-spark-a-nigerian-civil-war/ – March 16, 2014.

In recent weeks, Nigerian security forces have claimed that some groups of semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen engaged in bitter and bloody conflicts with farmers in several Nigerian states are actually composed of members of Boko Haram. A statement from Nigerian Director of Defense Information Major General Chris Olukolade claimed the potentially dangerous identification came during the interrogation of Fulani herdsmen arrested after a series of killings and arson attacks in Taraba State (Vanguard [Lagos], April 23; Leadership [Abuja], April 24; Nigerian Tribune, April 24). Reports of Boko Haram members (who are mostly members of the Kanuri ethno-cultural group) disguising themselves as Fulani herdsmen while carrying out attacks in rural Nigeria are common. Though many of these reports may be attempts to deflect responsibility from Fulani herders for attacks on sedentary farming communities throughout north and central Nigeria, even the perception that the Fulani herdsmen have joined forces with Boko Haram could propel Nigeria into a new and devastating civil war.

Note: because Russia has been cited as arming the Taliban in Afghanistan in its war against liberal and democratic modernity in that state, BackChannels may suggest searching for similar connection in the “handling” of both Boko Haram and the portion of Fulani Herdsmen engaged in creating chaos, dispossession, and ruin in Nigeria.

It should be evident worldwide that Soviet / post-Soviet Moscow works to weaken states: Syria has been half destroyed in association with Moscow, Crimea invaded and today badgered daily by related military and terrorist-type elements, and so one may ask — or must ask — where else? And for whose benefit?

For more immediate Nigerian and practical realpolitik, the response to Fulani “softening” for incursion may turn out the state’s army and armed local militia.

–33–

FTAC: Putin, Terrorism, Autocracy, and the New Nationalism

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Hungary, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Turkey, United States of America

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authoritarianism, autocracy, autocrats, creation of political chaos, dictatorship, Erdogan, i24, malignant narcissism, New Nationalism, Orban, political narcissism, Putin, Reflexive Control, Ryan Mauro, terrorism, Trump

When Russian jets first overflew Turkish airspace in 2015, Erdogan stood fast in his refusal of apology.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/26/middleeast/syria-turkey-russia-warplane-shot-down/index.html

Six months later, he did what Netanyahu had done in relation to the Mavi Marmara: he apologized.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/kremlin-says-erdogan-apologises-russian-jet-turkish

Setting aside the Israeli story a moment, points of leverage may have involved the “Turkish Stream” energy project, a piece of “realpolitik”, and an appeal to the narcissistic concept of cultural leadership and state in which the “Great Leader” is the embodiment of the living state concept _and entitled_ to aggrandizement and glory without limit (or, clinically, “unlimited narcissistic supply). Putin’s vision appears to me to be that of the medieval world sustained with raw power put in place of democracy.

The look of the mode — big palaces, nepotism on a royal scale, confusion in relation to the boundaries of person and state (and the state’s treasury) — marks the medieval mind and related revanche.

Men like Putin, Assad, Khamenei, Erdogan, Orban may consider true popular democratic government as impeding their own authority, sovereignty, and will. While the term “autocrat” sounds quite bureaucratic, similar concepts — caliph, emperor, king, sultan — fit these guys.

Because we know of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and that Russia has been arming the Taliban in Afghanistan — and there’s more back there with Zawahiri and others — it may not be too far fetched to suggest that Moscow has manipulated terrorism to induce in struck targets a predictable patriotic new nationalism and that “the terrorists” — ISIS or PKK — now provide a platform for conflict, all against all, and without end. Where Putin has held sway, he has turned back history’s clock.

Our President Trump has had no issues bearing and wearing the mantle of authority, but it would be facile to say he hasn’t had some issues with the “Estates” of a matured democracy. In that regard, he may fit the world to which Putin has wished to return the world.

Inspiration for the above note:

–33–

Excerpt: “. . . First Political Terrorist Organization in History . . .”

16 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia, United States of America

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

absolute power, conscience in politics, dictatorship, medieval v modern, origin of modern political terrorism, People's Will, political absolutism, political history, Putin's Game, revolutionaries, Richard Pipes, Russia, terrorism

Pipes, Richard. The Russian Revolution. P. 142. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1990.

Below: bold type added.

The author noted with dismay the effects of radical propaganda on the peasants:

How curiously our speeches, our concepts were interpreted by the peasant mind! . . . their conclusions and comparisons utterly astonished me. “We have it better under the Tsar.” Something struck me in the head, as if a nail had been driven into it . . . . There, I said, are the fruits of propaganda! We do not destroy illusions but reinforce them. We reinforce the old faith of the people in the Tsar.”

The disillusionment with the people pushed the most determined radicals to terrorism. While many of the disappointed Socialists-Revolutionaries abandoned the movement and a handful adopted the doctrines of German Social-Democracy, a dedicated minority formed a secret organization called the People’s Will (Narodnaia Volia). The mission of its thirty full-time members, banded in an Executive Committee, was to fight the tsarist regime by means of systematic terror: on its founding, it passed a “sentence” of death on Alexander II. It was the first political terrorist organization in history and the model for all subsequent organizations of this kind in Russia and elsewhere. Resort to terror was an admission of isolation: as one of the leaders of the People’s Will would later concede, terror

requires neither the support nor the sympathy of the country. It is enough to have one’s convictions, to feel one’s despair, to be determined to perish. The less a country wants revolution, the more naturally will they turn to terror who want, no matter what, to remain revolutionaries, to cling to their cult of revolutionary destruction.

The stated mission of the People’s Will was to assassinate government officials, for the twin goal of demoralizing the government and breaking down the awe in which the masses held the Tsar. In the words of the Executive Committee:

Terrorist activity . . . has as its objective undermining the fascination with the government’s might, providing an uninterrupted demonstration of the possibility of struggling against the government, in this manner lifting the revolutionary spirit of the people and its faith in the success of the cause, and finally, organizing the forces capable of combat.

The ultimate political goal of the People’s Will was the convocation of a National Assembly through which the nation would express its wishes. The People’s Will was a highly centralized organization, the decisions of the Executive Committee being binding on all followers, known as “vassals.” Members were expected to dedicate themselves totally to the revolutionary cause, and if called upon, to sacrifice to it their properties and even their lives.

I have for months spent a good deal of time each day passing along the “Hey, Martha’s” of breaking or recent news, primarily using the BackChannels reader page on Facebook to do it.

That ain’t writing, and even with highlighting and juxtaposing stories (“Related:” appears in the first one or two comments pointing to additional reading), it’s not really opining either. At best, the method shares this blog’s editor’s interests and outlook of the day. Much on the web becomes media passing along other media. With that in mind, both internal reflection and weather — and aesthetic charm — seemed to point toward 19th Century time and the luxury of long reading.

Well, lookee up there — and into the pages wrought by the extraordinary historian Richard Pipes.

Fair use?

Fair advertising and advisement:

Having delved into other of Pipes’ work a short while ago with Russia Under the Old Regime, I felt the present volume its companion – and what a rich companion it is turning out (with 684 pages left to read).

To be fair, one cannot share the whole book, technically, at least, except by recommending it or joining others in classroom or colloquy to discuss it.

As much characterizes a process in democratic and responsible governance in which the general public may follow good advice — buy the book or take it out of the library — but what portion does becomes no longer the “general public” but an enlightened public cleaving away from former peers.

Putin’s game with election hacking favoring our President Trump?

While collusion would seem a possibility that the most determined of ongoing investigations may well dredge up and beat into reality, one might consider the alternative of interpreting Moscow as cynically narcissistic and malign in using methods still related to the “People’s Will” to disparage our noble democracy by seeing elected to head it a bullying businessman and entirely inexperienced politician.

With that interpretation for a base, Moscow (and Tehran) would seem to believe they have figured out how to divide us and undermine our confidence in our democratic integrity and the related institutions and processes that guaranty American justice (truly for all) and robust internal as well as external security. However, now that that possibility may be seen — 🙂 — BackChannels is starting to like this latest in Presidents of the United States of America.

Go Trump!

And tackle Putin in his nasty dash back to Russia’s imperial glory and apparent future without the benefit of conscience.

Make America Great Again.

–33–

FTAC: The PLO Remembered

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Palestinia, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

middle east conflict, PLO, Soviet Disinformation, Soviet Era, Soviet Political Manipulation, terrorism, Yasser Arafat

Source of inspiration:

Younis, Rami. “Looted from Beirut 35 years ago, now on display in Tel Aviv.” +972 Magazine, December 4, 2017.

“Similar to the destruction of Palestinian urbanization in 1948, the theft of Palestinian visual culture is another attempt by Israel to control the historical narrative and erase Palestinian history. “

And yet the authors of both the documentary and the gushing +972 promotion launch their criticisms from Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University with the help, frankly, of the IDF that could as well have kept its information out of the public sphere.

Palestinians may wish to revisit the real history behind Yasser Arafat —
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/ — who survived his repeatedly defeated troops and impoverished people to die himself with upwards of $100 million in loot (and about the same may be said of the living Abbas who has also built a remarkable system of patronage on the suffering of the Palestinian main base).

A few reminders about the PLO and perhaps the principle of evil.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/asia-and-africa/middle-eastern-history/black-september-group

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer119/dilemma-plo

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=795&x_context=7

For more on the Soviet role in the weaponizing of the Palestinian mind:

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/103576/the-cold-wars-arab-spring

Referenced

Berlinski, Claire. “The Cold War’s Arab Spring: How the Soviet’s Created Today’s Middle East.” Tablet, June 20, 2012:

Two of Bukovsky’s documents appear in English for the first time in Behind the Desert Storm. The first is Yuri Andropov’s memo to Leonid Brezhnev in 1974 detailing a KGB meeting with Palestinian terrorist Wadie Haddad. It recommends that the Soviet government provide material support to Haddad’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The second is the transcript of a 1984 Politburo meeting approving the shipment of 15 million rubles’ worth of weapons and ammunition to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in exchange for a collection of ancient art. The invention of modern terrorism: All credit is due to the Kremlin.

Borden, Sam. “Long-Hidden Details Reveal Cruelty of 1972 Munich Attackers.” The New York Times, December 1, 2015.

CAMERA. “Yasir Arafat’s Timeline of Terror.” November 13, 2004.

Cobban, Helena. “The Dilemma of the PLO”. Middle East Research and Information Project, Winter 2016.

Encyclopedia.com. “Black September”.