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Tag Archives: video

Mosul – A Video from Yesterday’s Fighting

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by commart in Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Iraq, Iraqi forces, ISIS, June 10, Mosul, video

Recorded: Ninawa Province, east of Mosul,

From the Vietnam Era’s evening newscasts from the killing fields of that war to this: having enough of a social network to be directed to a URL, one, however, that may raise more questions than can or will be answered: where was the above clip made?  What happened to the children the soldier was carrying?  What happened to military personnel assembled at that location?  How many were killed in that battle?  How many are missing in action today?  What was gained?  What was kept?  What was lost?


This blog has a correspondent in Iraq, and with a little bit of difficulty in the language, this, nonetheless, is what he has had to say about Mosul recently:

 . . . unfortunately I’m not sure about what happened to those kids but many of those who ran away got killed by those terrorists, but mainly the people of Mosul are happy and they are celebrating in the entry of ISIS and consider it a liberation, and the ISIS are really good with them now and I guess it will last untill the Iraqi and Kurdish armies try to enter the city and go deep , then they will kill many of those who welcomed them and film them to say that the Iraqis and Kurds killed them

It appears that the Sunni-Shiite division that runs through Iraqi society plus the exigencies of war half a million of Mosul’s residents to flee and left the remainder in place to be pleasant, genuinely so or not.

The paragraph’s a little garbled at the end but I’m not going to mess with it.


. . . . cause they are against them and most of them are Sunnis along to Christians and other minorities (since it’s a Sunni province) , and they hate them but Mosul is known in Iraq as a real hater for the Shiites (my mother studied at the University of Mosul and she saw that even though it was over 25 years ago and now they hate the Shiites more than ever… and let’s say that 1 million are just staying cause they are scares of running and think they are safe cause they are sunnis then that leaves us more half million aiding and supporting them and the Iraqi army had to keep its presence as minimum due to the hate of Mosul’s people against them, and the continues attacks by the people of Mosul more like the attacks that the IDF often have in the West Bank..

My distillation:  Mosul is predominantly Sunni and by that along partially aligned against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s perceived Shiite-friendlier government.  As happens often in politics, it may not be true, but if it’s believed, it’s treated as true.  Those politics play in the field to leave state forces exposed to Sunni extremists, i.e., not engaged positively with state forces.


The soldiers who ditched their uniforms are mostly cops from the city (sunnis) and they are 52,000 And the army had to ran away cause their leaders (the Sunnis that were put cause the Governor of Mosul asked to since he didn’t want a Shiite or Kurdish general in the city) Then the soldiers had to leave their spots and far more they didn’t even have ammunition and they fought in the road to secure the people of Mosul who ran away

If for western readers the image of the state’s resistance in flight has made out Iraqi military and paramilitary forces a paper tiger, the reality relayed to me would seem to describe a very practical decision process predicated on 1) Sunni identification with Sunni force come to town 2) an ambivalent military not completely welcomed in Mosul and running low on ammo.

Time to skedaddle.


Recorded today, June 11, 2014, probably by Sunni bystander today: Round Street, Tikrit, Iraq.  About that provenance, my correspondent says, ” . . . and at the end he said “exclusively for the Iraqi great revolution” which is a Sunni Iraqi term not ISIS way.”

We’re going to see a lot of this.

This one: yesterday, driving around:

My source: “They meant liberated by the ISIS and the police vehicles moving in the streets are in the hands of ISIS.”

# # #

 

Sixteen Minutes, Seventeen Seconds Inside Syria – The Destruction of Zabadani

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conflict, documentary, in-country, political, politics, Syria, video, war

War Damage Assessment Video: Damascus Countryside, Zabadani – Posted January 2, 2014.


“GHSR Syria Watch” has a Facebook page without a “Follow” button and a Twitter account with few followers.

“Global Studies & Research” appears to have no footprint online apart from its YouTube location.


“War Damages Assessment Damascus City Jobar Part 1” – Posted January 7, 2014.


Near history.

It could have happened yesterday.

It could have happened next door.

Anywhere.

Syrian attitudes toward Jews and Israel, also “the west” — all that hateful politics — may temper or discipline outsider reception, but that does not keep the spectacle of the aftermath — or in the second video around Jobar, the recording of combat footage — from being unutterably sad.

One may put a price on reconstruction — demolition, recovery of materials, regrading, pouring new platforms, setting in new infrastructure and roads, the redevelopment of some kind of society, and God please make it a better, more human, more modern one, even Jew-friendly — but one cannot account the lives that once animated every inch of space apparent in the above recordings.

Addendum

I don’t know who “SyrianResearch” is or may be, but as a search string, the same recovers this active organization: Syria Research and Evaluation Organization.

# # #

Classic Brigitte Gabriel – From 2010

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brigitte Gabriel, Christianity, Israel, Judaism, political, politics, radical Islam, video

The doctor treated my mother before the Israeli soldier laying next to her because her injury was more severe.

Brigitte Gabriel supports Israel as the vanguard against Islamism – YouTube

______

I saw this clip some time ago but am watching it now and appreciating it perhaps more than I did when first encountered.

* * *

FTAC composed while listening to the above:

Without Judaism — and I believe without Hillel the Elder (look him up if you are not familiar with the rabbi) — I believe there would have been no Christianity or Islam. Mohammad appears to borrow directly from Hillel, who said, ” whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” I suggest only that we are more bound by our common humanity than by our will to destroy those who disagree with us; and that the Jews have been working on ethical and psychological issues — start with Pharaoh, that great malignant narcissists, start with Cain, that jealous brother — for 5,000 years. I know how you feel about the “poor Palestinians” but it might surprise you to know that Jews feel about the same way, but not so much about the PLO, PFLP, Fatah, or Hamas who exploit or keep their own in ethnic identification captive to the world’s oldest hate.

# # #

Ukraine – “We Want To Be Free From Dictatorship”

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

conflict, coup, military, political, politics, protests, Revolution, Ukraine, video, violence

Fires burning on Independence Square, Kiev – YouTube – 2/19/2014.

* * *

Я УКРАИНА I Am a Ukrainian HD – YouTube – 2/14/2014. 0:25:

We want to be free from dictatorship.  We want to be free from the politicians who work only for themselves, who are ready to shoot, to beat, to injure people just for saving their money, just for saving their houses, just for saving their power.

I want these people who are here, who have dignity, who are brave: I want them to lead a normal life.  We are civilized people but our government are barbarians.

* * *

Deadly clashes between protesters and police in Kiev on Tuesday led to a fire-lit nighttime assault by Interior Ministry troops on the main protest encampment at Independence Square, in what may be a dramatic and irreversible turn in Ukraine’s months-long political crisis.

In violent turn, Ukraine fighting kills at least 25 – The Washington Post – 2/18-19/2014.

* * *

Kiev Ukraine Protest 2014 LIVE Explosions | Protesters Clashes With Police | 14 People Dead – YouTube – 2/18/2014.

* * *

EU foreign ministers have called an emergency meeting on Ukraine for Thursday.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said: “We have … made it clear that the EU will respond to any deterioration on the ground. We therefore expect that targeted measures against those responsible for violence and use of excessive force can be agreed by our member states as a matter of urgency.”

[Live updates] EU to discuss sanctions after Ukraine’s bloodiest day | euronews, – 2/18/2014.

* * *

In the middle east: Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

In eastern Europe: hard to say.

As the late Barry Rubin has pointed out in regard to the middle east, the revolution goes with the military.  Mubarak had a good run, but come time to set up dynasty, Egypt’s military countenanced the revolution (and a year later rescued the latent democracy from a fascist Islamic organization that maintained the Mubarak-era torture chambers, jailed progressive journalists, altered the constitution to consolidate power in what may well have been another “president for life”.

No dice.

With Assad’s unforgivable assaults on Syrian noncombatant constituents in mind, this news unfolding from Ukraine may well signal the end of an age of dictatorship.  It may turn out a second fall of the Soviet Union, a post-Soviet challenge to the continuance of state oligarchies forged in the shadows of the Cold War.

One hopes that it is not also the start of a new era of autocratic repression, but with armed state organizations brought to the barricades, one never knows.  Who is in those military and paramilitary forces?  Are their senior and junior officers dissenting from the projection of state power and the arrangement of regional power?

The people have themselves: what else do they have?  Who else do they have on board with them?

As Nero fiddled, so I’ve heard, Putin as host of the most expensive winter games in history, has been in his glory in Sochi.

Kiev, Ukraine Protests Are Vladimir Putin’s Worst Nightmare | New Republic – 2/18/2014.

* * *

Echoing Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Peskov told reporters that Russia saw the protests, during which deadly clashes erupted on Tuesday, as an attempted coup.

Putin, Ukraine’s Yanukovich spoke by telephone: Kremlin – Yahoo News – 2/19/2014.

“An attempted coup” seems the predictable spin.

We shall soon find out, I am sure, what Ukraine’s armed forces think about that, for protest in the streets is by itself a strong signal — ask Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan about that — but it is not a coup; it is, however, revolutionary.

Additional Reference

Washington Post: Ukraine rejects repression – 2/2/2014; Seizure of police stations in Lviv continues – 2/19/2014; Payatt: Yanukovych responsible for everything that happens in Ukraine – 2/19/2014; IM: Police probing 40 cases on mass riots in Ukraine – 2/19/2014; At least 25 reported dead, more than 1,000 injured in Feb. 18 clashes (VIDEO)

# # #

Quick Vids – Anbar Province

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Fallujah, fighting, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, ISW, video

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

* * *

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

* * *

 

”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.

# # #

Israel – Mudar Zahran – Jordan, A Palestinian State

01 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by commart in Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Israel, Jordan, Mudar Zahran, video

The Muslim Brotherhood if it takes control of Jordan will be much stronger than the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

▶ ‫כנס שתי מדינות לשני עמים משני עברי הירדן (חלק 11)‬‎ – YouTube

Mudar Zahran promoted the above via social networks about 50 minutes ago: whom he addressed, where, and when was not provided.

Addendum: Mudar Zahran speaking at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, “Two States for Two Peoples on Two Banks of the Jordan River,” Dr. Arieh Eldad, Chair, Jerusalem, August 25, 2013.

Palestinian State in Jordan ‘Inevitable’ – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 8/26/2013.

______

In reference, I’ve provided links to Zahrans writings and related material as well as items focusing on Jordanian stability.

In addition, Zahran has noted the landing of a shell in Ramtha, Jordan within the past three hours.  Such mortar shell “spillover” (who knows with what intent it traveled?) has been a regular occurrence in Ramtha this past year.

Displaced Syrians in Jordan: ‘Syria Smells of Death’ – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 7/17/2012

Stray shells from Syria causing ‘sleepless nights’ for Ramtha residents | The Jordan Times – 4/30/2013.

Ramtha residents ‘on edge’ as Syria war rages | The Jordan Times – 8/26/2013.

Gov’t protests Syrian shell inside Jordan | The Jordan Times – 9/29/2013.

Additional Reference

By Mudar Zahran

Jordan Is Palestinian :: Middle East Quarterly – by Mudar Zahran – Winter 2012.

The Jewish Press » » Mudar Zahran – 8/29/2013.

The Jewish Press » » Mudar Zahran on why Jordan is Already a Palestinian State – 9/2/2013.

Writings by Mudar Zahran :: Gatestone Institute

Having to do with Jordan’s Stability

The Modern King in the Arab Spring – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic – 3/18/2013:

The king was flying himself to Karak, which is one of the poorer cities in a distressingly poor country, to have lunch with the leaders of Jordan’s largest tribes, which form the spine of Jordan’s military and political elite. More than half of all Jordanians are of Palestinian origin, with roots on the West Bank of the Jordan River, but the tribal leaders are from the East Bank, and the Hashemite kings have depended on East Bankers to defend the throne since the Hashemites first came to what was then called Transjordan from Mecca almost 100 years ago.

Jordan’s king, Assad and Iran | JPost | Israel News – 4/3/2013.

In A Rough Neighborhood, Jordan Clings To Its Stability : Parallels : NPR – 7/1/2013:

Jordan shares the region’s troubles: a faltering economy; rampant unemployment, especially among the young; and a popular demand for a say in how the country is governed.

“Jordan is stable, but you feel what is so unstable,” says Labib Kamhawi, describing the contradictions. He is the head of the National Front for Reform, a coalition of political groups and civil society organizations. “The decision-making process is without any input from the people.”

US military to boost Jordan defences amid Syria unrest – MIDDLE EAST – FRANCE 24 6/4/2013.

Jordan’s Stability Threatened by Syrian Refugee Crisis – US News and World Report – 7/16/2013:

Almost 2 million people have fled Syria since the civil war began in early 2011, according to U.N. numbers. By some estimates 800,000 of these poured into neighboring Jordan, a traditional safe haven for refugees from previously war-stricken regions such as Iraq and Palestine. This influx is taking a heavy toll on the Arab nation which by the end of the year may host as many as a million refugees.

Jordanian jihadists in Syria ‘could challenge Jordan’s stability’ | The Jordan Times – 9/10/2013:

Hassan Abu Hanieh, political analyst and expert on Islamic groups, said earlier this week that Jordanians are considered among the most prominent foreign nationalities fighting alongside Islamist forces in the anti-Assad rebellion, as hundreds have allegedly joined the radical and ultraconservative Salafist jihadist groups of Jabhat Al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both Al Qaeda-affiliated, he said.

___

Rural poverty in Jordan – Rural Poverty Portal, n.d.

www.ifad.org/pub/other/jordan.pdf

___

Should Jordan Be a Palestinian State? :: Gatestone Institute – 3/19/2012.

Jordan is Palestine: Arieh Eldad’s Two-State Solution | FrontPage Magazine – 9/30/2011.

___

Other YouTube Clips Featuring Mudar Zahran

Interview by Michael Cohen – “Mudar Zahran – Peace Process Predictions – Posted to YouTube by ClipsNBlips, August 26, 2013.

“Mudar Zahran on Michael Coren” – Posted by JordanIsPalestine – April 27, 2012.

Conference Chair Aryeh Eldad

Related: “Professor Eldad: ‘There is a Third Way'”.  American for a Safe Israel, August 28, 2013.

# # #

Egypt – Recent MEMRI Videos Back to Back, July 3 and 7, 2013

07 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Egypt, Fast News Share, Middle East, Politics, Regions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Egypt, MEMRI, politics, video

I am not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or anything. I am just a religious Egyptian woman. I just want to say one thing to the Christians. You are our neighbors. We will set you on fire!

Posted to YouTube July 3, 2013

Posted to YouTube July 7, 2013

At 1:45 in the above:

“I am not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or anything.  I am just a religious Egyptian woman.  I just want to say one thing to the Christians.  You are our neighbors.  We will set you on fire.”

Also note in the second clip the separation in the allocations of responsibility and control and the implacable black-and-white patterns in through expressed.  When some analysts and military pitch a case for an economic explanation for hostility, they may be missing a far more prevalent and powerful variable in basic social grammar, i.e., base rules controlling and shaping the generation of expression within a language culture.

****

Obviously, MEMRI videos are selected, translated, and presented to leave an impression.  However, even so, the compilers seems to have no problem coming up with recordings of authentic recent and relevant hate speech.

# # #

From Martin Himel’s Oeuvre – Abe Foxman — “It’s An Illness; it’s a Disease; It’s a Need to Hate Somebody” –

16 Thursday May 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bigotry, Canadian, Christians, documentary, Jews, Martin Himel, persecution, television, video

Television host, director, and correspondent Martin Himel has produced a body of work on bigotry.

I haven’t been methodical about selecting these clips from Mr. Himel’s YouTube page but to see these themes broadly collected and presented in one place in video should open eyes and hearts to the character of racist and religious hate.

&

&

&

Amazon lists two documentaries by Martin Himel available on DVD (however, I think I may have just snagged the last available copy of Jenin: Massacring Truth): Jenin: Massacring Truth; Confrontation at Concordia.

Himel’s work has been airing this month on the Canadian television station Vision TV: Jew Bashing (May 6 to May 27); Persecuted Christians aired on May 6 and may be viewed in Canada in its entirety on the site linked (the message I got in western Maryland: “The channel owner has prohibited viewing from this location).

Bummer, dude.

# # #

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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