Day: December 11, 2015

US Aid: The Sick Game

Many Americans including myself have bitched about the aid we give to some countries….not all….just the ones we have some sort of problem with for whatever imagined reason…..

Recently I was having an exchange with my friend over at Lines By Liming on aid that we have sent to Africa over the years…..while I did not agree with him on his responses I did start to think about that aid and did some checking….especially the exports we send to Africa in the form of food aid.

The US exports food and grain to those countries in Africa…..this aid is genetically modified so that the seeds cannot be used to raise their own crops…in other words the seeds are sterile.  This aid sits in receiving yards undistributed because the governments will not give this aid out because the grain may somehow be fed to hungry livestock and that livestock has a large market in the EU….the problem is the EU has a strict policy against genetically modified anything….so the farmers cannot sell their meat and in turn they need more aid to exist.

Basically, the US is making it impossible for the aid to get to the people that needs it….all because of wanting to eliminate the competition…..agri-business is playing a sick game.  So some of this aid goes to waste….to guarantee that more aid will be needed and bought by governments that have trade deals with the US.

This could lead to many misunderstandings when the reports flood in about the aid that the US has given has gone undelivered…..but the story will be that the natives are too lazy to even use the aid they are given….a great story….but completely false.

News You Will Never Hear

In the western world there is news and then there is NEWS……the first is what you get on cable TV and the other is what the rest of the world gets to read and hear….

For months now I have had a running debate about Muslims and most of their argument is boiled down to…..you never hear any imans condemning terrorism”…..I believe that everyone is acquainted with that argument…..

Well I know this will go NO where because it does not fit the BS that some want to pass off as intellectual thought……but at least I know they are wrong and now….you do to……

Every year in northern India, Muslims gather in Ajmer for the Urs festival to remember the death of Moinuddin Chishti, a Sufi Islamic cleric and scholar. This year, around 70,000 clerics who attended issued a fatwa condemning terrorism, but you’ll never hear about this from the conservative media or politicians who are trying to whip up hatred toward Muslims.

Source: 70,000 Muslim Clerics Issue Fatwa Condemning Terrorism

Like I said I do not expect to see this anywhere on the Right wing blogosphere because those people would rather spread their hatred than get to the truth….

Period!

 

‘Lil Kim’ Thumps His Chest

Remember awhile back when some in Congress made an ass of themselves over the nuke deal with Iran?  We heard every scenario possible of what will happen when they get the bomb…..we only have a very limited life expectancy according to some….

I heard some news yesterday that is a bit scary…..but I have not heard any other of these doom and gloom Congresspeople on a subject that is far more in the here and now than some perception of what could happen if…….

I know….what the hell is the old professor going on about, right?

North Korea is known for talking tough when it comes to its nukes, and remarks made by Kim Jong Un Thursday fanned the flames. While touring a museum dedicated to his father and grandfather, the self-proclaimed Supreme Leader suggested that North Korea now has a hydrogen bomb. Grandfather Kim Il Sung “turned [North Korea] into a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate a self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation,” said Kim, per the government’s state news agency, via the CBC. What’s worrisome, if true, is that hydrogen bombs are a much more powerful weapon than atomic bombs, the Washington Post notes.

But, as the CBC reports, it’s difficult to parse truth from fiction when it comes to North Korea: Previous assertions that remain unverified include claims that it has fired a missile from a sub and that it’s able to make mini nukes, per the Post. So not everyone’s convinced that Kim’s words are much more than rhetorical swagger. “It’s hard to regard North Korea as possessing an H-bomb,” a research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute notes to CNN. “I think it seems to be developing it.” A weapons expert at Romania’s Babes-Bolyai University is more straightforward: “I think that’s virtually impossible,” he tells the Post.

We know already that North Korea has the nuke and now he, Lil Kim, is bragging about an H-bomb…….maybe that should be a bigger worry than a “maybe”….of course we could pass it off as him thumping his chest and making stuff up….but do we want to chance that?

Will the Neocons go batcrap crazy?  Or will this just fall through the cracks because it is not a threat to Israel?  My guess it will be shrugged off as no big deal…….What should we do?

Is There A Fundamental Flaw In Iraq?

All the news is about those damn “terrorists” and when that is not being taunted in the media it is Syria and the battle against ISIS……Iraq has slipped from the headlines (for now) for it is considered not as important as Trump trying to eliminate Muslims from our shore to chest thumping about some wacko killing people to protect babies…..but there is still a war being fought in Iraq and people are still dying…..

The problem there is that NO one has any idea what the hell is going on….are the militias fighting for freedom…..are the Kurds fighting for Iraq……is Iran fighting Sunnis……is Turkey trying to expand its territory?  No one has any idea of what is happening in Iraq…..but they all know what must be done….problem is that no one knows who is who or what is what……..

I read an op-ed by Michael Knights that is a good summation of the situation in Iraq…..(the only thing I disliked about the piece was the use of the term “boots on the ground”…..these are humans being sent to their possible death at least we can do is call them “troops” and not compare them to footware)……

The commotion over sovereignty shows that many of the factions in Iraq have more urgent priorities than defeating ISIL.

Source: Playing politics with boots on the ground – Al Jazeera English

The Assassins Strike Again?

First this is NOT some review of some vid game.  Second, it is my chance for yet another of my historical perspectives (is that a heavy sigh I hear?)

Assassins…..when the word is mentioned most people think about the Ninja of Japan……but the original Assassins came out of Persia……I have seen that some have compared the barbarity of ISIS with the assassins of old…..but who are the assassins?

In the modern world, the word “assassin” denotes a mysterious figure in the shadows, bent on murder for purely political reasons rather than for love or money. Amazingly enough, that usage hasn’t changed too much since the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the Assassins of Persia struck fear (and daggers) into the hearts of the region’s political and religious leaders.

However, we know that the Assassins were a branch of the Islamaili sect of Shia Islam. The founder of the Assassins was a Nizari Ismaili missionary called Hasan-i Sabbah, who infiltrated the castle at Alamut with his followers, and bloodlessly ousted the resident king of Daylam in 1090.

For the most part, the Assassins’ victims were Seljuk Turks or their allies. The first and one of the best-known was Nizam al-Mulk, a Persian who served as vizier to the Seljuk court. He was killed in October of 1092 by an Assassin disguised as a Sufi mystic.

A Sunni caliph, Mustarshid, fell to Assassin daggers in 1131 during a succession dispute.

In 1213, the sharif of the holy city of Mecca lost his cousin to an Assassin. He was particularly upset about the attack because this cousin closely resembled him. Convinced that he was the real target, he took all Persian and Syrian pilgrims hostage until a rich lady from Alamut paid their ransom.

Why did the Assassins attack the Seljuks? As Shi’ites, many Persians had long felt mistreated by the Arabic Sunni Muslims who controlled the Caliphate for centuries. When the power of the caliphs faltered in the 10th-11th centuries, and Christian Crusaders began to harry them in the eastern Mediterranean, the Shi’a thought their moment had come.

The Assassins started their decline after the Mongol invasion and conquest of most of the region in which the Assassins operated…..

There is the quick history of the Assassins…..today’s debate about them being the modern day assassin is sad……the Assassins were Shi’a….ISIS is Sunni….this alone makes the argument over…..but I have seen and read that some people want to compare the two…..

Since the latest attack in Paris I have seen so many comparisons to past events and the comparisons of the Assassins to ISIS were inevitable.  A very good piece on this comparison…..

Source: ISIL fighters are not the new Assassins – Al Jazeera English

All I can say is thank you for letting me once again enlighten your life with some historical perspective……