Why Libya?

Seven years ago all Hell broke loose in Libya…..Libya was one of the most prosperous nations in Africa and yet it had to be destroyed ….why?

I understand that some had a hard-on for Qaddafi over his “terrorist” past….but he had tried to make amends for some of the past “bad behavior”……it was not enough that he renounced terrorism, gave up his nukes aspirations and turned over any WMDs that he had to the UN for destruction…

I seemed that no matter what Libya did they were going to be chastised……

Beginning March of 2011 the systematic destruction of Libya began…..

For seven months the warplanes flew tens of thousands of sorties over Libya, at the time the most prosperous state in Africa. Nearly ten thousand bombs were reportedly dropped inside the country resulting in an estimated 50,000-100,000 dead, many more injuries and the dislocation of several million people.

On October 20, longtime Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi, was driving in a convoy leaving his home area of Sirte when the vehicles were struck. Gaddafi was later captured and brutally executed by counter-revolutionary forces which were led, armed and financed by the U.S., NATO and its allies.

France played an instrumental role in the destruction of Libya as a nation-state. The then President Nicolas Sarkozy praised the overthrow of the Jamahiriya political system and the execution of Gaddafi.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/another-reason-why-imperialism-wanted-libya-overthrown/5632870

The West destroyed Libya and nothing it attempts will fix the problem they have created…..while they search for an answer the killings, the violence and the destruction continue.

Closing Thought–28Mar18

Let the debate begin!

I read an op-ed today that fits with a debate that we have been having here on IST and thought I would let it continue……

I thought I would enclose this post as my “Closing Thought” because more people seem to go here and not the body of the day.

An ex-Supreme Court justice appointed by Gerald Ford has offerd up his opinion on the gun debate (not gonna make too many happy)…..

Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.

That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.

With that call then ask how hard would it be to repeal the second?

Repealing the amendment, Stevens said, would effectively overturn the controversial 2008 Supreme Court ruling D.C. v. Heller, which found that the Second Amendment protected “an individual right to possess a firearm” for the purpose of self-defense.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-difficult-would-it-be-to-repeal-the-second-amendment

Because I like being fair to all sides of a debate I want to include another op-ed that disagrees with Stevens………(written several years ago…..)

THE TRAGEDY at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control.

So far, not many prominent Americans have tried to use the college rampage as an argument for gun control. One reason is that we are in the midst of a presidential race in which leading Democratic candidates are aware that endorsing gun control can cost them votes.

This concern has not prevented the New York Times from editorializing in favor of “stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage.” Nor has it stopped the European press from beating up on us unmercifully.

http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-wilson20apr20-story.html

One more op-ed for you to consider……

FOR more than 80 years, the United States has enforced a tough and effective gun control law that most Americans have never heard of. It’s a 1934 measure called the National Firearms Act, and it stands as a stark rebuke to the most sacred precepts of the gun lobby and provides a model we should build on.

Leaders of the National Rifle Association rarely talk about the firearms act, and that’s probably because it imposes precisely the kinds of practical — and constitutional — limits on gun ownership, such as registration and background checks, that the N.R.A. regularly insists will lead to the demise of the Second Amendment.

In CLOSING: I am NOT advocating the repealing of the 2nd….I enjoy a spirited debate and included below in case you want to voice your opinion then I suggest you check out this site…..

http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-the-2nd-amendment-be-repealed

Time to go and see what the rest of the internet is up to today…..TTFN…..chuq

The Saffron Curtain

It is time for the old professor to throw some history in your direction….you may fall asleep if you like but your grade will reflect the nap…..

During the Cold War many techniques were used by the US to counter the expansion of communism around the world…..psyops was one of these tactics….we even went so far as to try and weaponize religion….

Of the world’s major faiths, Buddhism is often characterized as being a religion of peace, tolerance, and compassion. The Western encounter with Buddhism has largely been distilled through yoga, the beatniks, Hollywood, and Dalai Lama quotes shared on Facebook. But even a cursory glance at the news that emanates from the Buddhist world reveals a more sanguinary state of affairs.

In Myanmar, ultra-nationalist monks have fueled a genocidal crusade against the country’s Rohingya Muslim population. In Thailand, the government has responded to a long-running Malay Muslim insurgency in its southern provinces by fostering a Buddhist militarism, encouraging monks in local temples to ally with the armed forces. And in Sri Lanka, the Buddhist-majority Sinhalese were engaged in a bitter civil war against the Hindu-minority Tamils for decades. More recently, Buddhist nationalists there have stoked anti-Muslim riots.

https://newrepublic.com/article/147623/saffron-curtain-buddhism-weaponized-cold-warpolicies

Some of the policies that resulted in violence have not subsided with the death of the USSR…..lingering hatred has endured.

“Deal Of The Century”

I am a foreign policy wonk. My life after my military service has been dedicated to international relations bot in government and academia and thus after retirement I have found blogging……after 12 years now and counting. I worked for 3 years in the Middle East and North Africa so write about what little expertise I have……

During Pres. Trump’s campaign he talked about the Middle East and it would be the “Deal of the Century”…..I was not sure what he meant….was there going to be a peaceful settlement between Israel and Palestine….or smething else completely?

I then read an article in The American Conservative…….

Donald Trump’s promise of “a deal of the century” to end the conflict between Israel and the Arabs is getting legs. After a year of discussions led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the main elements of the president’s design are coming into view. But it’s not exactly what the Palestinians want to see.

It would be an exaggeration to call the ideas and suggestions raised by Trump’s intimates a bona fide plan. In the first case, the assembly of government experts and intimates thinking about the issue this past year have yet to demonstrate an ability to conceptualize an agreed upon and coherent view of a successful diplomatic engagement worthy of the definition. And second, there is no evidence to suggest that the Trump team is capable of successfully translating such a plan, if it exists, into a successful diplomatic engagement.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trumps-middle-east-deal-of-the-century-coming-into-focus/

Mr. Trump used the Saudis to deliver his “deal of the century” to the Palestinians….after the embassy decision it was not embraced at all……

Saudi officials delivered a copy of US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but he has refused to open the document or play any role in the process, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Details of Trump’s deal have not yet been officially released, but armed with the 35-page document from the Saudis, the Palestinian Authority already knows every single article in the proposed plan and say the Americans will “not find any Palestinian to accept such a deal”.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trumps-deal-century-leaves-palestinians-feeling-angry-and-abandoned-824850253

So any “deal” that was foreseen will not be happening……there needs to be a reversal of the Trump policies before any “Deal” has a chance of success and that is not in the wind these days.

Indo-Pacific

The region that does not get much ink these days is the region around the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean….this region is now called “Indo-Pacific…….

This region needs more attention here in the US so I had to turn to the Australians……

Security dynamics are changing rapidly in the Indo-Pacific. The region is home not only to the world’s fastest-growing economies, but also to the fastest-increasing military expenditures and naval capabilities, the fiercest competition over natural resources, and the most dangerous strategic hot spots. One might even say that it holds the key to global security.

The increasing use of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’—which refers to all countries bordering the Indian and Pacific oceans—rather than ‘Asia–Pacific’, underscores the maritime dimension of today’s tensions. Asia’s oceans have increasingly become an arena of competition for resources and influence. It now seems likely that future regional crises will be triggered and/or settled at sea.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/new-order-indo-pacific/

I would like to thank the Australians this was a good report…..hopefully someone in the new State Department is paying attention….but I kinda doubt it.

Closing Thought–27Mar18

By now we all have been told about the so-called tampering into elections by the US and to the US….all this is just the weaponization of social media……the new battleground….Russia is doing it….the US is doing it….China is doing it and North Korea is doing it…..but what do we really know about this new field of attack on another?

Now openly admitted, governments and militaries around the world employ armies of keyboard warriors to spread propaganda and disrupt their online opposition. Their goal? To shape public discourse around global events in a way favourable to their standing military and geopolitical objectives. Their method? The weaponization of social media.

It didn’t take long from the birth of the world wide web for the public to start using this new medium to transmit, collect and analyze information in ways never before imagined. The first message boards and clunky “Web 1.0” websites soon gave way to “the blogosphere.” The arrival of social media was the next step in this evolution, allowing for the formation of communities of interest to share information in real time about events happening anywhere on the globe.

http://theantimedia.org/weaponization-of-social-media/

How about Artificial Intelligence (AI)…..will it threaten our National Security in the future?

As policymakers debate the government’s role in developing artificial intelligence, a House bill aims to shed light on the emerging technology’s role in strengthening national security.

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Act would create an independent panel to explore recent advancements in artificial intelligence and assess the economic and national security impacts of the budding technology.

http://www.nextgov.com/policy/2018/03/how-much-does-artificial-intelligence-threaten-national-security/146844/

Do you think AI will be a threat?

That is it for the day on my part…look forward to seeing you guys tomorrow….chuq

Israel: “Okay We Did It”!

Ten years ago someone attacked an alleged nuclear power plant in Syria…of course the world pointed at Israel as the attacker….but as usual Israel said that it was not them that attack the plant…..well Israel has decided to let the world know the rest of the story…..

In September of 2007, Israeli warplanes carried out a major attack against a site in the Syrian desert. A few months later, US officials commented, claiming the site to be an in-construction Syrian nuclear reactor, which the Bush Administration accused North Korea of being behind.

On Wednesday, Israel ended a decade-long silence on the attack with a report, confirming it was in keeping with Israel’s policy of destroying foreign nuclear facilities in the region. This was presented in the context of threatening to attack Iran.

It’s not clear what the impact of this admission will be, as everyone knew Israel carried out the attack long ago. That attack, according to former IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei, was in violation of international law. It also made it really hard to prove Syria had a secret, illegal reactor, since Israel blew it up and didn’t tell anybody until it was already a smoldering hole in the ground.

Nowadays, Israel attacks Syria so often that such a strike hardly matters anymore from the perspective of their bilateral relations. It is, however, fueling new allegations of secret Syrian nuclear facilities elsewhere in the country, with the same lack of evidence surrounding the 2007 site.

(antiwar.com)

After they admitted to the attack they then turned on Iraq and informed them that they could be next…….

“(He) made it clear that we were very happy that events had eliminated this threat and that if there were any threats to Israel that would emerge from this situation, the United States would stand with Israel, period,” Jeffrey said Wednesday.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday used the admission to threaten the entire region.

Another minister, Israel Katz, also tweeted out a not-so-veiled threat: “The courageous decision of the Israeli government almost 11 years ago to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria and the successful operation following it sends a clear message: Israel will never allow nuclear weapons to countries like Iran who threaten its existence.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has continues to argue without proof that Iran is on its way to producing nuclear bombs, said: “The Government of Israel, the IDF, and the Mossad prevented Syria from developing a nuclear capability. For this they are deserving of all praise. Israel’s policy has been and remains consistent—to prevent our enemies from arming themselves with nuclear weapons.”

This is the same argument that Israel has made against Iran for at least 40 years and yet it has not achieved a bomb……

Let say that Israel attacks Iran then the US will be on the hook to help our “ally”….after all they have paid for out help through the buying of Congresspeople……

Oh goody yet another conflict that we Americans must fight and to die for another “ally” that could care less about our troops…..

When will Americans learn that Israel is NO friend?

Remember ISIS or Al-Qaeda?

Just two years ago you could not sling a dead cat and not hit stories and blogs about those bastards in terrorism…..and yet today few have nothing to say….the terrorists have been replace by porn stars and lawyers…..and that is why I am here to remind my readers that these bastards have not gone away.

According to most uninformed people ISIS has been defeated……not really accurate…

Nearly three years on from the Islamic State’s high water mark in the summer of 2015, there are several lessons that the United States and its allies can discern from the terrorist group’s meteoric rise to control large parts of Iraq and Syria to the loss of its physical caliphate late last year. The steady decline in ISIL’s fortunes is striking given the palpable fear its rise in the summer of 2014 sparked across Washington, when a common question circulating within the policy community was whether Baghdad itself might fall. Many of these takeaways will be relevant to U.S. policymakers as they attempt to prevent the group from reconstituting itself in the coming months.

https://warontherocks.com/2018/03/10-takeaways-from-the-fight-against-the-islamic-state/

The thing to keep in mind is that ISIS is not a global force….they have tentacles in many places but that does not mean they are a global force……

The killing of three people in the south of France by a man claiming allegiance to Isis will make people doubt if this murderous cult is as dead as governments had announced and people had hoped. The answer is that the attack in the Carcassonne region by a single gunman, said to be a Moroccan petty criminal from the area, proves very little about the strength of Isis as a continuing threat.

It will always be easy for a single killer, who in this case has been named as 36-year-old Redouane Lakdim, to shoot down passers-by chosen at random or trapped in a supermarket. Lakdim demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam, a survivor of the Isis gang which killed 130 people in Paris on 13 November 2015, but there is no evidence so far that the killer, who has been shot dead by police, was part of a cell or that this was an attack organised from above or from outside the country.

http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/isis-inspired-terrorism-gives-impression-its-a-global-force-its-not/

ISIS is licking its wounds but that does not mean it has been defeated or eliminated.

Eyes wide open!

Then there is a term we do not hear much for a couple of years now….Al-Qaeda…

Many people thought that with the death of their leader Osama bin Laden that the group had lost the head of the snake and it would fade away.

It faded but not away.

After the deaths of Osama bin Laden and several other leaders in 2011 and 2012, followed by the rise of Islamic State, many considered al-Qaeda ‘a spent force’. But in an important brief, (with an expanded version for the Lowy Institute), leading terrorism scholar Bruce Hoffman argues that Ayman al-Zawahiri has used the past seven years to rebuild al-Qaeda. So while counterterrorism specialists have celebrated the rolling up of Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’, al-Qaeda’s resurgence shows that much work remains to be done.

Zawahiri cut his teeth in Egypt’s jihadi culture—he was arrested at 15, joined the Muslim Brotherhood and later led Egyptian Islamic Jihad—but he’s no charismatic leader. Following the death of Osama bin Laden and the rise of the Islamic State, Zawahiri opted to focus on three key objectives.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/03/22/al-qaeda_3_turning_to_face_the_near_enemy_113237.html

There…you, my reader, have been caught up as best I can without top secret clearance……please do not think this fight is over…..far from.

Closing Thought–26Mar18

Into A Stormy Night!

The much anticipated interview with Stormy Daniels has come and gone…..the of a tell-all was not the case……

In her much-anticipated interview with 60 Minutes, Stormy Daniels recounts a threat she received in 2011 about staying quiet regarding her alleged affair with Donald Trump. Daniels told Anderson Cooper that the threat occurred in the parking lot of a fitness center in Las Vegas, a few weeks after Daniels had for the first time agreed to tell her story to a gossip magazine for $15,000, per CBS News. “A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’ ” Daniels said. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.” The magazine, a sister publication of In Touch, never ran the story because Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue.

Daniels says the matter largely ended there until Trump won the presidential nomination five years later, and media sites began approaching her. That’s when she says she accepted $130,000 from Trump attorney Michael Cohen to sign a non-disclosure agreement. “They made it sound like I had no choice,” Daniels said. She added that there was no threat of physical violence. “The exact sentence used was, ‘They can make your life hell in many different ways.'” Anderson asked who she meant by “they,” and she replied, “I’m not exactly sure who they were. I believe it to be Michael Cohen.” She said she agreed to the deal “because I was concerned for my family and their safety.”

I think this interview fell to the floor with a very loud “thud”…..Daniels answers to the soft ball questions were generalized and not as telling as the interview had been billed. Cooper missed several opportunities to expand this conversation and he was shooting blanks. What did we learn?

Photos and messages? Daniels declined to confirm whether photos or text messages that back up her account of the affair exist, the Washington Post reports in its list of five takeaways from the interview. She said her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, recommended she not discuss such things. When Cooper told Avenatti he could be bluffing, the attorney said: “You should ask some of the other people in my career when they’ve bet on me bluffing.”

he wasn’t attracted to Trump. Unlike former Playmate Karen McDougal, Daniels said she wasn’t physically attracted to Trump, who was 33 years older than her at the time of the alleged encounter in 2006, USA Today reports. She added, however, that the sex was consensual and she wasn’t “a victim.” The adult film star told Cooper she had sex with Trump once, without protection, in 2006 after he told her he might be able to get her on The Apprentice. She said when she asked about Melania Trump, who had given birth to Barron a few months earlier, Trump told her they had “separate rooms and stuff.”

The spanking. Daniels said she spanked Trump with a magazine that had his face on it, but it was more playful than erotic. She said that when she joked about spanking him with the magazine he had been boasting about, “he turned around and pulled his pants down a little—you know, had underwear on and stuff, and I just gave him a couple swats.”

A cease-and-desist letter. After the interview aired Sunday, Brent Blakely, a lawyer for Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Avenatti, complaining that he had been linked to the alleged threat, the New York Times reports. Cohen “had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred,” the letter stated.

“You remind me of my daughter.” Daniels told Cooper that Trump told her she reminded him of his daughter, the AP reports. “He was like, ‘Wow, you—you are special. You remind me of my daughter,'” she said. “You know—he was like, ‘You’re smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.” (This is just creepy)

Silence from Trump. The president has remained silent about the interview on Twitter and in person, ignoring shouted questions from reporters as he returned to the White House from Mar-a-Lago Sunday night. The Hill notes Melania Trump has decided to stay in Florida “for spring break” instead of returning to Washington.

Is she telling the truth? That is not for me to decide….that is going to be a legal decision….but the flames are being fanned……

I’m guessing that this situation is far from over and will be used for awhile until they find something else they can milk for speculation and sensationalism…..

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Month: March 2018