I'm going to quote FoxNews "security analyst" K.T. McFarland at length, with my comments, on her prescriptions for fighting violent Islamists... THINGS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS LARGELY ALREADY DOING:
KTM: "An economic component that bankrupts radical jihad by cutting off their oil revenues - attacking their oil fields, refineries and tankers -- while we also develop our own resources to be energy independent of Arab oil."
Me: The U.S. is already energy independent, thanks to Obama's relaxing rules on fracking. We have so much U.S. oil -- and that's a mixed blessing, if you read the WSJ or Bloomberg -- that Obama even ended the long-time ban on exporting U.S. oil. ISIS does control oil fields in Syria, but they sell it all on the black market, and we are already bombing them.
KTM: "A banking component that uses the US primacy in international banking and finance to freeze out any country or company that does business with radical Islamists from ISIS to Boko Haram."
Me: Ditto the above. I'm sure we could do more to root out the middle men trading ISIS's oil, (cough! Turkey!) but again, it's not like ISIS is trading oil on the world futures market.
KTM: "An alliance component that draws together moderate Muslims into an alliance against radical Islam. If they’re reluctant to join an anti-Islamist alliance, we should let them know they shouldn’t come running to us if things don’t work out. We should call them out if they have some in their inner circles that play both sides.
"And we may have to hold our noses and partner with countries we do not always approve of, as we did during World War II."
Me: Who are the moderate Muslim countries that have the capacity to fight ISIS? I can think of only one: Turkey. Saudi Arabia has the capacity but it is not a moderate Muslim country. The Kurds are everybody's favorite moderate Muslims but they don't have their own state; and moderate ally #1, Turkey, will not allow the Kurds to form their own state.
KTM: "An anti-hostage component – we will not negotiate, exchange prisoners with nor pay ransom to terrorists. If you take our people hostage, we will turn the tables on you and put a very large bounty on your heads. We promise to hunt down kill anyone who kills our citizens, no matter now long it takes."
Me: Who's the greatest terrorist hunter of all time? President Barack Obama. Indeed, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg just revealed that, "killing the so-called caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is one of the top goals of the American national-security apparatus in Obama’s last year."
And that's not an empty threat, coming from the guy who killed bin Laden and most of Al Qaeda's senior leadership during his term in office.
KTM: "A communications component which champions western values, like we had during WWII and the Cold War. Violent radical Jihad and western civilization are NOT morally equivalent. No apology tour, no comparing the Crusades to ISIS. Be proud of America or be quiet."
Me: Communications are a funny thing. Compel somebody to say something they don't believe -- good luck with that! -- and it comes across as lame. And when the U.S. tries to do it ourselves -- and we do, assiduously -- the results are mixed, because we're even lamer, and nobody there trusts our motives. The truth is that, in the age of social media and instant viral communication, it's very hard to shape the dialog, especially in a region we understand poorly. Putin's Russia does the best job of it, with an army of paid trolls and bloggers, but what they mainly accomplish is sowing doubt in the concept of objective truth of events itself to create cover for Putin's maneuvers, not creating a new accepted truth.
KTM: " An Internet component that blocks their online recruiting and training efforts and uses metadata to track and destroy terrorist leaders."
Me: This sounds a lot like more cyber spying. And who's the greatest cyber spy of all time? Again, President Obama.
KTM: "A religious and ideological component which applauds moderate Muslim leaders – like Egyptian President Sisi and the Grand Imam of Al Ahzar Mosque- who speak out against radical Islam."
Me: Ouch. Egyptian President Sisi is now widely regarded in Egypt and the region as a worse tyrant than President Mubarak. He doesn't "speak out" against radical Islam, he jails, tortures and kills anybody suspected of associations with such. That's not exactly clean and neat, and certainly not representative of traditional American values. Nevertheless... who is Sisi's greatest patron? Again, President Obama.
KTM: "And finally, a military component which does not, repeat does not, require thousands of American combat forces, but rather gives our allies every inducement and all the arm twisting necessary so they put their own boots on the ground. And which supplies them with whatever they need to do the job."
Me: This is the only semi-novel and impactful recommendation of McFarland. She's basically saying, arm the Saudis and the Turks to fight our battles for us, because nobody else has the capacity even to accept such help. Israel does but they don't want to get involved. (BTW, gee, isn't it funny that our bestest ally in the Mideast isn't helping us to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq? Why is that??) But we have problems with Turkey (see: Kurds); and with Saudi Arabia, which spends millions of dollars all over the world promoting a radical Wahhabist version of Sunni Islam; and which is still more concerned with Iran than ISIS or Al Qaeda.
So in summary, McFarland's prescriptions on how to fight "global jihad" boil down to a distinction without a difference vis-a-vis current U.S. policy. The truth is, there is only so much the U.S. can do in the world, especially in the fractious and conflicted Arab Middle East, and even less our "allies" are willing to do, no matter what bribes or inducements we throw at them.
Finally, I've said it before, but comparing all of these people to the Nazis or the USSR, and saying we can copy-paste what we did in the 40's or the Cold War to defeat them is moronic, stupid, wrong, impractical...I just don't know how else to say it. Political correctness has nothing to do with this fight either. Whenever you hear somebody say any of this, know you're listening to an old fogey who doesn't understand "franchised" terrorism and the root of these many regional conflicts -- which have nothing to do with Islam, originally -- that create power vacuums and provide the perfect breeding ground for Islamist terrorism.
Yes, America, it's war. Here's how we can stop losing and start winning
By K.T. McFarland
March 22, 2016 | FoxNews
URL: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/03/22/yes-america-its-war-heres-how-can-stop-losing-and-start-winning.html?intcmp=hphz01
Showing posts with label Islamists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamists. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
ISIS is Islamic, but we should still shut up about them
Islam has never been united. For one thing, there is no Muslim pontiff who speaks for the world's 1.6 billion Muslims living on six continents. Yet even the Roman Catholic Pope speaks for only about half of the world's 2.2 billion Christians; and millions of those Catholics choose to disregard him on such crucial matters of the faith as birth control, premarital sex, divorce and gay relationships.
If we sat down and took a deep breath, we'd all admit that there is no perfect, ideal version of Catholicism, or Christianity for that matter, that exists separately from the people who call themselves Christians. Anybody who says he is Christian and practices some form of the faith, no matter how strange, is a Christian. Attempts to label practitioners on the margins of a faith as "heretics" or "not true believers" has been tried, will continue to be tried, in vain. It only comes with conflict, violent schisms, cults and new denominations.
The same is true of Islam, with its Sufi, Sunni, Shia branches... and a bunch of sects and sub-sects that I don't know or understand. It is diverse and always changing.
ISIS in particular, with upwards of 30,000 fighters, or about 0.00002 % of the world's Muslims, is Islamic, just as they claim. A dark and evil part, but a part of Islam nonetheless. Just as violent white supremacists in the KKK or Branch Davidians are indeed part of the Christian pageant, because they profess themselves to be so. You or I can stand aloof and say they're not, but Christianity is what Christians do; Islam is what Muslims do; including all the good and bad. These religions are not what some sacred texts say. We can't just define away the behaviors -- and the believers -- that we don't accept as pure or "mainstream." (Although millions of believers will continue to do just that, to the detriment of world peace and understanding....)
Likewise, the U.S. should not -- and I'm thinking of Barack Obama specifically but before him scores of prominent conservatives -- engage in pointless, unwinnable schismatic debates about who is or isn't Islamic. It's apparent why both sides are tempted to do so: conservatives want to stoke xenophobic fear among Americans that justifies, post facto, their wars of choice in the Mideast and continued spying and infringements on our civil and constitutional liberties; and President Obama, in response, wants to calm Americans' nerves, and avoid antagonizing one-fifth of the globe, including America's peaceful 2 million+ Muslims. Conservatives' anti-Islamic argument is mean and stupid on its face; Obama is stupid for engaging seriously with stupidity.
Just as our arguing that ISIS is not Islamic does not seem to affect their appeal to disaffected recruits from all over the world, nor does our paying so much attention to ISIS hurt their cause. Just the opposite. When the most powerful nation in the history of the world -- not to mention the "Great Satan" -- declares that ISIS is scary and powerful, it's the best possible endorsement for the Islamic State's recruitment and fundraising efforts.
Keeping a cool head and maintaining perspective on global threats are responsibilities of being a superpower. We must be serious when choosing our enemies, and more serious in how we fight them. That doesn't automatically mean all guns -- and mouths -- ablazing.
I've said it before: With all of its vast power, the U.S. shouldn't say that ISIS is an "existential threat," "clear and present danger," or anything of the kind. It's the equivalent of a well-armed huntsman hyperventilating at a swarm of mosquitoes.
Since 9/11, almost no leaders of any political stripe are willing to say the truth: We cannot defend ourselves against every attack on U.S. soil by extremists, especially by lone wolf terrorists inspired by the Internet and driven by deep personal resentments and/or violent mental illness. (ISIS's forte.) And especially against those attacks on U.S. soil that require very little coordination or preparation (that could tip off domestic spies), and make use of readily available weapons of mass terror: assault-type weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making ingredients.
In October 2002, I grasped this sad fact immediately and personally during the DC sniper attacks. The terrorists, who everyone was sure must be al Qaeda, ended up being a disgruntled, mentally disturbed Army vet (the sniper) and his impressionable teenage nephew (the spotter and getaway driver). They were armed only with a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle. They killed 17 people and wounded 10 others, and perhaps worse, caused widespread terror in several states before they were caught, by selecting victims at gas stations and shoppers in parking lots, two of the commonest places in American life. That's how easy terrorism is. And there's nothing stopping anybody today from doing exactly the same thing. Nothing. Nowadays we just have a few more cameras around that anyway wouldn't pick up snipers tucked away in the distance....
Our leaders continue to lie to us that by eliminating (as in 100%!) the threat of Islamist extremism "over there," and oppressing the peaceful Muslims at home, we can keep ourselves safe "over here." In fact, by persecuting Muslims at home, and making stupid wars of choice over there, we make Americans less safe over here, in ways that we've witnessed numerous times. (In a word: blowback). And worse, we who usually refuse to trust our leaders, who know they tell us what we what we want to hear, choose to believe their lies. (The 240,000-employee strong Dept. of Homeland Security, which didn't exist prior to 9/11, the NSA, the Pentagon's top brass, and the military-intelligence contractors getting $285 billion a year certainly thank us for our choice!) We should know better.
When influential bloviators like Glenn Beck, and even conservatives that I know, say that radical Islam is one of America's most dire problems, nobody dares laugh at them. Yet if I said the KKK was something every U.S. Presidential candidate should propose a plan to fight, I'd be laughed out of town. Never mind that there are upwards of 3,000 Klan members in the U.S., in all 50 states, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, as opposed to 100 or fewer members of ISIS in the United States, according to the Pentagon.
Either way it's like arguing which is worse, the mosquito or the fly. The West, in particular the United States, has many more important problems to address.
Publicly, we should ignore ISIS; outside the public eye of cameras and journalists, we should fight ISIS seriously but in proportion to the threat they pose, in the time and manner of our own choosing, and not have our actions be driven by the release of disgusting YouTube videos.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Taibbi: MSM hypocrisy on Charlie Hebdo? 'Je ne suis pas Charlie!'
I'm gonna have to go ahead and kind of disagree with Taibbi on this one. And I'm gonna do it, first, by describing a Charlie Hebdo cartoon, not showing it to you, which is what annoys Taibbi in the first place:
So, imagine a cartoonish "congo" line of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (the latter depicted, quite humorously, I admit, as a Triangle with an All-Seeing Eye in it, a la the U.S. dollar), in that order, each sodomizing the one in front of Him. The cartoon was supposed to lampoon, I suppose, those Christians who were opposed to gay marriage.
Oh, OK, if you must see it, look here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/
Besides that, Charlie Hebdo seems fond of depicting Arabs as big-nosed, towel-headed oafs and Jews as, well, pretty much the same, except with black hats and squiggly sideburns. And black people as monkeys. This goes to show, says the lib'rul media, that CH are equal-opportunity offenders. Which not only gets them off the hook, but somehow exalts them. ... Wait, what?
My cultural bona fides: I am not a reverent person; and I possess an above-average sense of humor, even a love of dark and inappropriate jokes. But this stuff just isn't that funny. Still I doubt myself, because of cultural differences. Is it just me? Because all I keep hearing is how much of an institution this caricature magazine is in France; how it represents a quintessentially French irreverence that cuts across the political spectrum, class, education and age groups. It would be as if -- don't laugh! -- Mad Magazine were on every American's night stand.
OK, if that's really the case, then I call a no-call. A truce. I won't judge Charlie Hebdo out of ignorance. But I'm certainly not going to say, "Je Suis Charlie." Because I'm not. I don't get it. Je ne comprends pas! I don't get this irreverent brand of 14-year-old fart and dick humor that is, the media assures me, in fact very clever, and very French.
 |
| The medieval forebears of Charlie Hebdo? |
And now on to Taibbi's main argument, that the Western press were hypocritical pussies for not publishing some offending Charlie Hebdo cartoons for their readers to give them a flavor of what they publish.
First, it's important to note: We don't know exactly which cartoons offended the alleged terrorist murderers. That's not a small detail. Were western editors supposed to select and publish a bunch (and how many?) of anti-Muslim or -Arab cartoons to, like, give their readers context?
Second, related to that, the story here is not Charlie Hebdo's cartoons. If that were a story worthy of the Western press, we would have heard about them already. The story is how alleged Arab-Muslim terrorists allegedly murdered Charlie Hebdo staff and an Arab-Muslim police guard.
Third, Taibbi cries "hypocrisy" and "double standard" that some U.S. papers once published (and have maintained in their archives) photos of the offensive-to-Christians Piss Christ art installation, but not any anti-Muslim Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Taibbi's assumed reasoning being, the media isn't afraid to piss off prudish Christians, (and probably enjoys it, too), but it is scared to offend scary hard-line Muslims who might shoot them.
So here's the difference: Piss Christ was a legitimate national news story; and whatever some obscure French caricature magazine published one week (certainly more of the same) is not. (I've seen similar cartoons in British lads mags -- NYT, get the republishing rights, and don't skip the tits!) Back to point #2. The story is not the cartoons, it's the murders.
Fourth, in this age of the Internet, does Taibbi actually think that readers of the New York Times really can't find, in about 2 seconds, examples of Charlie Hebdo cartoons if they really want to? This isn't 1975 anymore, when the NYT and Washington Post held the keys to the nation's information. The NYT Ed's. simply decided they weren't going to be one of the ones to show us this stuff. Is that really so cowardly and hypocritical?
Finally, I just don't agree that these cartoons are striking a blow against terrorism, or for freedom. Yes, Charlie Hebdo enjoys the right, the freedom to publish their puerile French fart humor... But an Aegis missile in the heart of global Islamism Charlie Hebdo is not. It's just not. I'm sorry.
On a personal note, even though he's wrong this time, it's good to see Taibbi back where he belongs, at Rolling Stone, after playing at media start-ups with dickhead billionaires.
By Matt Taibbi
January 8, 2015 | Rolling Stone
Friday, September 5, 2014
Zakaria: What's really wrong with the Middle East
This analysis by Zakaria is must-read stuff for everybody, but especially my dear conservative friends who are all ginned up for another open-ended U.S. troop engagement in the Middle East -- this time to fight ISIS.
On talk radio I am hearing supremely ignorant and stupid stuff that boils down to plain xenophobia anti-Muslim rhetoric. These conservative talking heads conflate ISIS, al Qaeda, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood as if they are all one organization working in cahoots with grand, global aims. They only get away with such balderdash because of Americans' ignorance and eagerness to believe the worst about all Arabs and Muslims.
By Fareed Zakaria
September 5, 2014 | Washington Post
Watching the gruesome execution videos, I felt some of the same emotions I did after 9/11. Barbarism is designed to provoke anger, and it succeeded. But in September 2001, it also made me ask, “Why do they hate us?” I tried to answer that question in an essay for Newsweek that struck a chord with readers. I reread it to see what I got right and wrong and what I’ve learned in the past 13 years.
It’s not just al-Qaeda. I began by noting that Islamic terrorism is not the isolated behavior of a handful of nihilists. There is a broader culture that has been complicit or at least unwilling to combat it. Things have changed on this front but not nearly enough.
It’s not an Islam problem but an Arab problem. In the early 2000s, Indonesia was our biggest concern because of a series of terrorist attacks there after 9/11. But over the past decade, jihad and even Islamic fundamentalism have not done well in Indonesia — the largest Muslim country in the world, larger in that sense than Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and the Gulf states put together. Or look at India, which is right next door to Ayman al-Zawahiri’s headquarters in Pakistan, but very few of its 165 million Muslims are members of al-Qaeda. Zawahiri has announced a bold effort to recruit Indian Muslims, but I suspect it will fail.
Arab political decay. The central point of the essay was that the reason the Arab world produces fanaticism and jihad is political stagnation. By 2001, almost every part of the world had seen significant political progress — Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, even Africa had held many free and fair elections. But the Arab world remained a desert. In 2001, most Arabs had fewer freedoms than they did in 1951.
The one aspect of life that Arab dictators could not ban was religion, so Islam had become the language of political opposition. As the Westernized, secular dictatorships of the Arab world failed — politically, economically and socially — the fundamentalists told the people, “Islam is the solution.”
The Arab world was left with dictatorships on one hand and deeply illiberal opposition groups on the other — Hosni Mubarak or al-Qaeda. The more extreme the regime, the more violent the opposition. This cancer was deeper and more destructive than I realized. Despite the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and despite the Arab Spring, this dynamic between dictators and jihadis has not been broken.
Look at Syria, where, until recently, Bashar al-Assad actually had been helping the Islamic State by buying oil and gas from it and shelling its opponents, the Free Syrian Army, when the two were battling each other. Assad was playing the old dictator’s game, giving his people a stark choice — it’s either me or the Islamic State. And many Syrians (the Christian minority, for example) have chosen him.
The greatest setback has been in Egypt, where a nonviolent Islamist movement took power and squandered its chance by overreaching. But not content to let the Muslim Brotherhood fail at the polls, the army displaced it by force and moved back into power. Egypt is now a more brutal police state than it was under Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned, many of its members killed or jailed, the rest driven underground. Let’s hope that ,10 years from now, we do not find ourselves discussing the causes of the rise of an Islamic State in Egypt.
What did I miss in that essay 13 years ago? The fragility of these countries. I didn’t recognize that if the dictatorships faltered, the state could collapse, and that beneath the state there was no civil society — nor, in fact, a real nation. Once chaos reigned across the Middle East, people reached not for their national identities — Iraqi, Syrian — but for much older ones: Shiite, Sunni, Kurd and Arab.
I should have paid greater attention to my mentor in graduate school, Samuel Huntington, who once explained that Americans never recognize that, in the developing world, the key is not the kind of government — communist, capitalist, democratic, dictatorial — but the degree of government. That absence of government is what we are watching these days, from Libya to Iraq to Syria.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
U.S. offers up 'war reserves' to rearm Israel's killing machine
From the standpoint of U.S. security against terrorism, this is the stupidest policy imaginable: supplying the Israelis with "emergency" munitions to help them finish their slaughter of Palestinian civilians (over 1,300 and counting... meanwhile Israel has lost 3 civilians).
The Arab-Muslim world sees Israel's crimes in Gaza and it outrages them. Meanwhile, the U.S. does not stand innocently apart from this killing; and we're not an honest broker. We are an accessory before the fact to Israel's murder and violation of international laws and norms (such as demolishing crowded schools and shelling street markets).
If my American friends -- especially conservatives -- could do the mental heavy-lifting to put themselves in an Arab's shoes for a minute, then perhaps they would understand why $ billions of U.S. military aid to Israel is nowadays an awfully dangerous (not to mention immoral) policy for America.
The blowback potential is enormous. Right now, Uncle Sam is recruiting hundreds if not thousands of soldiers for al Qaeda and other Islamist groups.
By Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle
July 30, 2014 | Reuters
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Ex-CIA chief: Russian action in Ukraine 'is a classic covert operation'
By Lorena O'Neil
May 20, 2014 | NPR
Keeping up with the battle in Ukraine? Then you must know of a man named Ramzan Kadyrov. No? Well, that's because he's the Instagram dictator staying in the background, behind the curtain, asking people to pay no mind to the Chechen military fighters he might be ordering over to fight for Russia.
Ramzan Kadyrov is the president of Chechnya, a Russian republic situated in the North Caucasus region. Multiple reports from Russia, Chechnya and Ukraine suggest that there is Chechen military involvement in the eastern part of Ukraine, fighting on the pro-Russia side. While the number of Chechens in Ukraine is hard to gauge and their existence difficult to prove, even a small number could have a deep significance.
To understand why this is important, one must first understand how Russia (and many of its supporters) plays ball. In a word? Subversively.
"What's going on with Ukraine is a classic covert operation," says OZY contributor and former deputy director of the CIA John McLaughlin. "The Russians probably won't have to go in militarily with special forces because they are gradually stirring it up, co-opting it." Multiple Russian experts assume that what we see on television from Ukraine has been influenced by Vladimir Putin's intervention.
"Everyone assumes this is not spontaneously generated by someone who woke up and said, 'Hey, I'd like to be a part of Russia,' " says McLaughlin. "They are doing this very indirectly. Involving the Chechens in that would be also kind of classic, to the extent that you can confuse the adversary." He explains that confusion makes it harder for those who oppose Russia to know what to do next, which is ultimately the aim of covert actions.
There are a host of reasons why Chechens in Ukraine could add confusion. It would mean introducing fighters of a different nationality with motives that seem to clash with Russia's. Chechnya itself fought a separatist war against Russia in 1994-1996, briefly winning until it lost a second war in 1999-2000.
The wars turned into an Islamic insurgency in response to the Kremlin's actions, geographically and politically. Kadyrov and his father, both Muslim, fought against Russia in the first war, but changed sides in the second. Given this recent history, it seems like many Chechens would be sympathetic to those fighting against Russia in Ukraine, and not willing to take up arms on behalf of Russia.
So what would motivate Chechens to fight for Russia?
"Kadyrov is a man who has survived by taking positions that are more pro-Russia than Russia," says Paul Goble, a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious issues in the post-Soviet world. He says the Chechen Republic is vastly more Islamic today than it ever was before, and Putin looks the other way because Kadyrov constantly expresses his undying love for Russia.
Additionally, deploying fighters works to Chechnya's advantage because it gives them military experience in the field, something the Russian government denies them by hesitating to draft North Caucasians in big numbers, Chechens in particular. The government is worried that if it trains Chechens to use its weapons, they may turn around and use their training against Russia.
Chechen forces in the Ukraine can also serve as an implied threat to Russia itself, proving [to Putin - J] how many able-bodied men Kadyrov has at his beck and call. "I find it a fascinating play by Kadyrov, a very evil man who is not stupid," says Goble.
Goble points out that it may be hard for observers to distinguish Chechen forces in the eastern regions of Ukraine from the Crimean Tatars, since both groups are Muslim. "They look similar. They could do something, and the Crimean Tatars could be blamed," says Goble. "Then there'd be more support for tough measures against the Tatars because they [would be seen as] dangerous Muslims, like the Chechens."
The introduction of foreign fighters would eerily resemble the events leading to the escalation of the ongoing Syrian civil war.
The Tatars were deported from their homeland of Crimea by Stalin in 1944, but have returned en masse since 1989. They make up about 12.1 percent of the Crimean population and have been consistent allies of the Ukrainian government against Russia. Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of their mass expulsion, and thousands gathered in commemoration.
Adding Chechens to the mix could intensify instability yet have minimal consequences for Russia. Goble explains that Chechens have a reputation for being brutal fighters. Kadyrov himself has been suspected of horrific human rights abuses and runs an intensely thuggish regime. (He tries to counterbalance this reputation with pictures of fluffy kittens on Instagram.) However,Moscow could easily deny any responsibility for actions taken by Chechens, as nothing has been officially ordered by Putin.
In fact, Kadyrov himself is denying official Chechen military involvement. When acting Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Chechens were fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in Slovyansk, a town in east Ukraine, Kadyrov took to his Instagram to call this allegation "absurd." As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Liz Fuller points out, Kadyrov was careful to say "Chechen battalions" are not currently deployed in Ukraine, which does not really touch on the issue of informal military units.
Right now there is no definitive proof that Chechens are in Ukraine, just hearsay and YouTube videos. Kavkazcenter, the official website of the North Caucasus Islamic insurgency, posted a letter from a man who claims he was sent to Crimea and then to Slovyansk as part of a Chechen security force. Reuters spoke with a soldier who says he went to Crimea ahead of its voter referendum.
Recruitment centers in Grozny were reportedly asking for volunteer soldiers to fight in Ukraine, but the offices suddenly closed after stories about them were published. A Chechen student in Grozny alleges, via Russian blogger Oleg Leusenko, that residents were reluctant to volunteer, and recruiters called those people cowards and violently beat a man who refused to sign up.
Of course, this is not the world according to Kadyrov. "There are tens of thousands of volunteers in Chechnya who are ready to help those who are being abused by fascistic thugs, whose blood is being shed by the unlawful government of Kiev," writes Kadyrov, who can't resist a not-at-all-veiled threat even in a denial. "And if the Chechens really go to Slavyansk and other cities, you will see how people like Avakov flee from there, and will not stop even at the Western border of Ukraine."
Translation: We're not there — but if we were, you would know because you would be fleeing in terror. How thoughtful of the totally trustworthy Kadyrov to provide such ... reassurance.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Lib'rul media remembers Hasan, forgets F.E.A.R.
Well you know me, always out to expose the dastardly lib'rul media.
Seriously though, I can't understand why my liberal co-conspirators in the media pay so little attention to this crazy story about a shadowy, murderous, drug-dealing, anti-government militia group operating inside the U.S. Military?
I mean, we still see stories about the Fort Hood shooter, including the saga of his beard... and I'm sure it has nothing to do with his being Muslim, no sirree.
Conservative bloviators like Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn have done their best to keep three-year-old Nidal Hasan story alive and stir up fear that he is just the tip of the Islamist iceberg in the military. Yet the right-wing as well as MSM media (whatever that is) both ignore F.E.A.R.
Could it be that my fellow liberals ensconced in their corporate media fronts for left-wing brainwashing operations are napping on the job, or.... (gasp!) could it be that there is no liberal media at all?
By Don Terry
August 29, 2013 | Southern Poverty Law Center
SPLC Intelligence Report | Fall 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
Gingrich: Neocons may now be non-interventionist
Gee, whaddya know? Maybe old neocons can learn new tricks!
I wonder though if Newt's change of mind could have anything to do with shifting political winds on the Far Right -- Newt's political provenance and final refuge -- towards libertarian isolationism?
I do have a bone to pick with Gingrich's aside that, "[W]e really need a discussion on what is an effective policy against radical Islam, since it’s hard to argue that our policies of the last 12 years have [sic] effective."
How does one measure our effectiveness? No more 9/11s? Number of Americans killed? Number of attacks by Islamists, period? Number of Islamist terrorists killed? What's the metric? Whatever it is, I'd argue we've been doing pretty well. (You can find a data base of 40 years of terror attacks against the U.S. here.)
One could certainly argue that America's means of fighting terrorism -- drone strikes, domestic spying, sanctioned murders, renditions and torture in secret prisons, etc. -- exceed the scale of the threat we face, and do more harm than good.
But more important, we non-interventionist liberals must part ways with the Gingrichs, Pauls and Cruzes when they continue to state, all too casually, that the U.S. is at war with Islam. We are not even "at war" with radical Islam. We're not at war with anybody, constitutionally or operationally speaking. It's possible to argue we're not even fighting al Qaeda anymore. Needless to say, we must continue to seek out, thwart and kill or arrest those who threaten to attack, or attempt to attack and kill us. Period.
Declaring war on a whole religion or a religious sect is stupid and self-defeating. Four hundred years of Christian Crusades against Muslims followed by 120 years of war between Catholics and Protestants should have taught the West as much.
Radical Islam, whether home-grown or foreign, is not a threat to America, a priori or sine exceptione. And terrorism is not an enemy that we can fight a war against.
We Democrats and liberals must not sanction stupid bumper-sticker generalizations about the world that lead America into trouble.
By Ralph Z. Hallow
August 4, 2013 | Washington Times
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a leading neoconservative hawk and staunch supporter of Israel, says the U.S. military interventions he has long supported to promote democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere have backfired and need to be re-evaluated.
“I am a neoconservative. But at some point, even if you are a neoconservative, you need to take a deep breath to ask if our strategies in the Middle East have succeeded,” the 2012 Republican presidential hopeful said in an interview.
Mr. Gingrich supported the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, but he said he has increasingly doubted the strategy of attempting to export democracy by force to countries where the religion and culture are not hospitable to Western values.
“It may be that our capacity to export democracy is a lot more limited than we thought,” he said.
Mr. Gingrich at times has expressed doubts about the U.S. capacity for nation-building, but he said he now has formed his own conclusions about their failures in light of the experiences of the past decade.
“My worry about all this is not new,” Mr. Gingrich said. “But my willingness to reach a conclusion is new.”
Mr. Gingrich said it is time for Republicans to heed some of the anti-interventionist ideas offered by the libertarian-minded Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, tea party favorite and foreign policy skeptic.
“I think it would be healthy to go back and war-game what alternative strategies would have been better, and I like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul because they are talking about this,” Mr. Gingrich said.
Mr. Paul, a longtime critic of neoconservatives on foreign policy, argues that war must be a last resort and never should be used for nation-building.
In a June 24 column in The Washington Times, Mr. Paul wrote that Americans were told for many years that the radical Taliban would return to power quickly unless U.S. forces remained in Afghanistan.
“Well, guess what, after 12 years, trillions of dollars, more than 2,200 Americans killed, and perhaps more than 50,000 dead Afghan civilians and fighters, the Taliban is coming back anyway!” Mr. Paul wrote.
He noted a similar pattern of radical resurgence in Iraq after American forces withdrew.
As far back as December 2003, Mr. Gingrich was questioning the follow-up for the successful U.S. invasion.
“I am very proud of what [Operation Iraqi Freedom commander Gen.] Tommy Franks did — up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then we go off a cliff,” he told Newsweek magazine. He said the point should have been “not ‘How many enemy do I kill?’, [but] ‘How many allies do I grow?’”
He also noted his past wariness about U.S. military interventions, often telling audiences that “we could directly guarantee democracy in Iraq and not stay a day longer than needed in Korea.” “Korea has been a 63-year engagement,” he added with a laugh.
Mr. Gingrich argued less than two years ago that President Obama should have “quietly tried to push” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak out of office.
But he now questions whether even U.S. indirect intervention in Egypt to back the overthrow of the longtime Egyptian leader and U.S. ally might have been a mistake. “Here’s a simple question: ‘Is Egypt really better off than going back to Mubarak since it’s hard to argue that the Muslim Brotherhood’s dictatorship is better than Mubarak?’” Mr. Gingrich said.
The former speaker added that U.S. military action in Syria would risk a repeat of interventionist foreign policy mistakes.
“I explicitly would not go into Syria,” he said. “I would look at the whole question of how we think of the governments in other countries,” he said.
He said the result may be another military dictatorship in Egypt and that would be better than rule by the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood.
“It’s hard to argue the chaos in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Lebanon make for a better future,” Mr. Gingrich said.
The fear of many in the United States and Israel is that the Arab Spring is bringing not Western-style democracy but simply replacing secular authoritarians with militantly Islamic religious governments that are hostile to Israel and the U.S., he said.
“I certainly would have allied myself in the 1970s and 1980s with the strategy of intervention and defeating the Soviet Union, but there is definitely a reflection point for conservatives and Republican Party leaders on how we have approached our major national security questions,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I am not alone in asking the question: ‘Are we making progress after the Arab Spring?’”
A top official in the George W. Bush administration, which oversaw the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns and occupations, offered partial agreement with Mr. Gingrich.
“People want to know if Gingrich has really changed his opinion — his point of view — because if he has it will make an impact,” said former Bush political director Matt Schlapp.
“There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans who think that those decisions to go into Afghanistan and Iraq were overly aggressive,” said Mr. Schlapp. “But I believe the vast majority of Republicans are hoping these life-and-death decisions we made in Afghanistan and Iraq were the right decisions to combat terrorism.”
Mr. Gingrich said the U.S. “should begin to focus narrowly on American interests” rather than on attempting to change systems of governance abroad to our liking.
“I think we really need a discussion on what is an effective policy against radical Islam, since it’s hard to argue that our policies of the last 12 years have effective,” he said.
Mr. Gingrich repeated comments he expressed in an interview on Laura Ingraham’s radio show supporting Mr. Paul in his extended contretemps with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a fellow Republican. Mr. Christie sharply criticized what he called the “esoteric, intellectual debates” he said Mr. Paul and his allies were staging in the face of the need for stronger security polices in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“I consistently have been on the side of having the courage that Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have, and I think it’s sad to watch the establishment grow hysterical, but, frankly, they’re hysterical because they have no answers,” Mr. Gingrich said on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”
Mr. Gingrich predicted that Mr. Christie’s attack was the “first sign” of more to come from the party’s foreign policy establishment.
“The establishment will grow more and more hysterical the more powerful Rand Paul and Ted Cruz become,” Mr. Gingrich said. “They will gain strength as it’s obvious that they are among the few people willing to raise the right questions.”
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Lib'rul media hawks squawk for war with Syria
Not one but two op-eds today in the "liberal" Washington Post urge the U.S. to get involved militarily in Syria. Wow.
Columnist Richard Cohen's calling liberals against military intervention in Syria "cold-hearted" is like Charles Krauthammer calling conservatives a bunch of "bleeding hearts." That landed below the belt.
Well, now we see once again how the good ole' lib'rul media ain't so liberal when it comes to sending U.S. troops and weapons into Arab-Muslim countries. Then they're all blood & guts, John McCain style.
Let me repeat: Syria is not our country, it is a sovereign state. It hasn't attacked us. There are no UN resolutions allowing us to take military action there, legally. The U.S. Congress has not declared war on Syria. And it's a country filled with nasty people on all sides. Oh, and if we arm the other side, the first thing that will happen is the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists will kill the other "liberal" rebels. Or they'll do so immediately after they (we) topple Assad.
Moreover, Russia really cares about Syria. They have a naval base there. It's their last position of power in the Mideast. They are willing to fight hard to keep Assad in power. Are we? Are we ready for a proxy war with Russia? What's in it for us? Nothing. This is not to mention Turkey, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and other regional countries' interests there. The spillover potential is immense.
Significantly, Israel is taking a cautious approach to Syria in their own back yard. Although Assad is aligned with Iran and Iran-backed Hizballah, many Israelis favor Assad as "the devil we know," and according to Time, "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered government officials to keep mum about Syria." Of course Israel may just be waiting for the U.S. to make up its mind....
Don't let the media wear you down on Assad and Syria like they did with Saddam and Iraq! All this talk by liberal hawks about the U.S. "squandering its leadership" is just that -- talk. This is all France and Britain's fault, high off the toppling of Qaddafi in Libya, they thought they could make the same thing happen in Libya. Now it's their problem. Obama is absolutely right not to make it ours.
And finally, remember the "Pottery Barn rule:" the same chickenhawks typing at their Macs in Washington, DC today that we have no choice but to get involved in a war in Syria will be the same ones typing tomorrow that we have no choice but to take responsibility for Syria's nation-building, peacekeeping and anti-terrorist operations after Assad has been "taken out." I guaran-fucking-tee it. We've been there, done that, folks. Forget it!
If we really want to help, we can continue to aid Syrian refugees and send food, medicine and flak jackets to Syrians stuck inside.
By Richard Cohen
June 4, 2013 | Washington Post
By Michael Gerson
June 4, 2013 | Washington Post
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Vanden Heuvel: Afghanistan, Iraq...Syria?
Vanden Heuvel draws the parallels between Syria and Afghanistan-Iraq:
The lessons of those previous wars are particularly relevant here. Syria has, as Syria specialist Joshua Landis has argued, many parallels to Iraq. It is a nation rife with religious, sectarian and class divisions. A minority — Shiite in Syria — in alliance with urban Sunnis, Christians and other minorities, has used a dictatorship to rule over the Sunni majority. The uprising has quickly turned sectarian — in part because of the outside influences of Turkey and the Gulf monarchies who seek to weaken the Iranian-Shiite alliance.Despite U.S. efforts to cobble together a united and more secular opposition, the rebels are divided, with Islamists — many espousing open allegiance to al-Qaeda — providing the fiercest fighters. The violence will not end when the brutal regime falls. Already chaos, criminality, local militias and warlords beset “liberated”areas.
There is also that pesky consideration, international law:
Nor does the United States have any legal basis for waging war on Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad does not pose a terrorist or national security threat to the United States, nor a threat to international security. There is no United Nations resolution that can be stretched to provide even a transparent cover for intervention, as there was in Libya.
Finally, let's remember "taking out the bad guy" is the easy part:
The last thing the president should do is commit the United States militarily to the overthrow of the regime. As in Iraq, we can win that war, but we will surely lose in its violent aftermath — and we will bear responsibility for deepening the humanitarian disaster with our “humanitarian” intervention.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
May 7, 2013 | Washington Post
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