Saturday, April 30, 2011

Council

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

Honorable Mentions

 This week, The PostWest, The Grouch, Maggie’s Notebook and Capitalist Preservation took advantage of the Council's offer of link love and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too. Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply e-mail a link at rmill2k@msn.com with the subject heading‘Honorable mention’ no later than Monday 6PM PST to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

See you next week!
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Friday, April 29, 2011

Persians And Ottomans

Something kinda sad about recorded history of Araby. Seems the Persians and the Ottomans have yanked collective Arabic ying yang all around without mercy modesty or restraint since the days of the Assyrians and Hittites.

And now?

Now that Arab League may be shaking free their shackles (and quite possibly fitting themselves for newer - yet familiar despotic shackles)?

"...Both Iran and Turkey have a major stake in how the political landscape in North Africa and the Middle East is reshaped in the months ahead. Tehran and Ankara have developed their own separate narratives on regional events that take credit for providing the political inspiration for the Arab uprisings. Simultaneously, they have aimed to reinterpret reality on the ground to deflect attention away from their own domestic problems. While regional uprisings (with the possible exception of a resurgence of Kurdish separatism) do not necessarily threaten the stability of the Turkish state, Iran is experiencing its own waves of protests.

"...As European and American leaders formulate policies toward North Africa and the Middle East, Iran and Turkey will have to be factored in and engaged in very different ways. This commentary offers a snapshot of Iranian and Turkish perceptions and reactions to the democratic protests in the Arab world, and explores ways in which the United States and the European Union might interact with Tehran and Ankara in channeling the currents of change.

"...In Iran’s initial public commentary on the first uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Iranian leaders portrayed the protests as “Islamic awakenings” inspired by Iran’s 1979 revolution. As events in Libya unfolded, the Iranian narrative shifted away from the protests to criticize the United States and its allies for staging a military intervention, and for being motivated—according to Iranian leaders—primarily by oil interests. Tehran’s narrative on Libya pointedly ignored United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1973, and the endorsement of the Arab League for the intervention.




Pic - "As demand for regime change spreads, architects and leaders of these aspiring new democracies will face a host of pressing governance and constitutional challenges and questions.
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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Poll Dance!

Whoa! And shorty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low.

Tips are a womderful concept - a reward for desired behavior - or hard won brain bigger making tricks.

In an effort to reach out to GsGf's incredible array of formidable intelligentsia in Great Satan's and allied diplopolititary cats - check out this op to share expertise, ideas and hot gossip. Spare three mins and answer 11 questions in the Poll Dance about aQ's Future Plans and Possibilities from Clint at Selected Wisdom:

"...Since last time Courtney, I’ve invested a little money to make this easy survey automated. 

Visit and Vote.

 "...After taking the poll, I ask that you might forward the voting link to anyone that you think is knowledgeable or interested in terrorism & counterterrorism issues.  I need many responses in order to build insightful analysis.  I’m hoping to receive hundreds of responses.  Anyone is welcome; students, government, private sector, military, etc.

"...What do you get?  Hopefully the collective insights of the brightest minds in terrorism and an understanding of the key questions that need to be resolved to defeat al Qaeda in this critical upcoming period. 

 Should have some cool results in like the next ten days or so. Looks pretty cool - here's a  - uh - teasing sample :

 

"...Assuming:
1) AQ’s Senior Leaders (UBL and Zawahiri) still have some directional authority over AQ affiliates and,
2) AQ is designing a strategy to survive and flourish based on recent events,
what will be the primary focus of AQ’s strategy from the summer of 2011 through the end of 2012?

 
Pic - "Have you read the news? In the Soho tribune?"
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Ultimate Ally

Blowback, be otche!

The most dangerous cat in DC used FoPo Online to deliver a fully crunk op ed opus about the cool 'lationship betwixt Little and Great Satan and shot the asset end off the Little Satan Posse guy at Weenie Hut Juniors  in the process:

"...Rather than viewing Little Satan as a vital American asset, an increasingly vocal group of foreign-policy analysts insists that support for the J'ish state, including more than $3 billion in annual military aid, is a liability. Advocates of this "realist" school claim that the United States derives little strategic benefit from its association with Israel. 

"...The alliance, they assert, arises mainly from lobbyists who place Israel's interests before America's, rather than from a clearheaded assessment of national needs. Realists regard the relationship one-dimensionally -- America gives Little Satan aid and arms -- and view it as the primary source of m"Hammedist anger at the United States. American and Israeli policies toward the peace process, the realists say, are irreconcilable and incompatible with relations between true allies. 

Faster than one could say "Faith and Fantasy"  or "6 Days of War," the wickedly risible realist Lobby guy lobbed off a few boring assetted pages of incorrectly inappropriate l'raison celeb rounds about hating on Little Satan that will zonk you out faster than watching the Golf Channel or Canadian Parliament.   


"...Israel ought to be doing everything in its power to help create a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza before it is too late."

Uh - what, now?

"...First, increased popular sovereignty in Arab states gives heightened attention to the lack of popular sovereignty for Palestinian Arabs living under Israeli occupation. 

"...Second, continued (and even intensified) criticism of Israel from Arab states that are more responsive than before to popular sentiment belies the Israeli contention that animosity toward Israel is chiefly a device used by authoritarian rulers to distract attention from their own shortcomings. 

"...Third, the emergence of new Arab democracies in the Middle East will remove the single biggest rationale—that Israel is the only democracy in the region—for the extraordinary special relationship that Israel enjoys with the United States. 

LOLZ - Actually - that is NOT the biggest rationale!


Pic - "Distinguish it clearly from the country that has always been and will always be the Great Satan - the United States of America."
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Twilight Of Assad?

Gรถtterdammerung!

Panzers and snipers backed with thousands of soldiers seal off and attack the Syria city of Daraa

"...The offensive was meticulously planned: Electricity, water and mobile phone services were cut. Security agents armed with guns and knives conducted house-to-house sweeps, neighborhoods were sectioned off and checkpoints were erected before the sun rose. 

Only catch is - it's no foreign army attacking (at least just yet)  - these are Syrian troops deploying to crush rowdy protesters  ala a Hama Redux of Hitlerian proportions.

"...We need international intervention. We need countries to help us," shouted another witness in Daraa, who said he saw five corpses after security forces opened fire on a car. He spoke to the AP by telephone.

The pleas for divine intervention was followed with an incredible money shot -
“Let Obama come and take Syria. Let Israel come and take  Syria. Let the Jews come,” shouted one Daraa resident over the phone.  ”Anything is better than Bashar Assad,” he said, playing on Syria’s hatred for  Israel to highlight how much town residents despise their  leader.
 Whoa pretty hot stuff!

This may not mean the end of the al Assad Alawite Autocracy though.


Bashar has plenty of cities left to trash.

  Pic - "Damned if they do, and damned if they don’t"
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Monday, April 25, 2011

Decline And Fall Of Pakistan

Great Satan got claws! 

Delivering a Drones Gone Wild demarche'  and killing ISI's Haq fanboys by the metric tonne on Good Friday no less may mark the beginning of the end for Pakistan.

"...First, Islamabad is said to covet Afghanistan for “strategic depth.” Pakistan is geographically narrow and its major cities, positioned as they are near its eastern border with India, are vulnerable to attack in the event of a war with its rival. Thus, Pakistan’s military planners - for whom an Indian invasion is always imminent - yearn for the rugged Afghan terrain to the west, where a retreating army could regroup and coordinate a guerrilla war, if necessary.

"...Second, Pakistan is fearful of Indian influence in Afghanistan. Around every corner in Kabul, Pakistanis see Indian agents and behind every Afghan initiative, a nefarious Hindu plot. That India’s presence in Afghanistan has been benign, civilian and economic in nature has not stopped the ISI from backing brazen jihadi attacks on the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

"...This suggests that Pakistan’s perceived interests in Afghanistan are India-centric. However, the fear of ethnic (specifically Pashtun and Baluch) nationalism may play an even greater role in Pakistan’s strategy, penetrating to the heart of what constitutes Pakistani identity and the integrity of the Pakistani state.

"...There are roughly 40 million Pashtuns straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border, the notoriously autonomous “martial race,” with legendary fighting prowess (virtually all Taliban are Pashtun, but not all Pashtun are Taliban). The Af-Pak border that cuts this stateless nation in half was drawn by India’s colonial British overlords in 1893. Incorporating a sliver of the Afghan frontier into northwestern India, the Durand Line, as the border is called, was designed to create a buffer zone between India and the lawless hinterland beyond. But after partition in 1947, the new (West) Pakistani state inherited these Pashtun tribal areas.

"...Like their countrymen in the east, the Pashtuns - and the even more disaffected Baluch minority in the south - are Muslim, but they share little else in common in terms of culture, language, allegiance or history. So it comes as no surprise that they have periodically agitated for greater autonomy, independence or even incorporation into Afghanistan. As the saying goes, the Afghans have a terribly weak state but a cohesive national identity. In Pakistan, the strong, military-run state is in part compensation for its fragile national identity.

"...Consequently, Islamabad is hypersensitive to ethnic nationalism and separatism. Pakistan already lost nearly half its territory - East Pakistan - to another disgruntled ethnic minority in the 1971 war that created Bangladesh. To complicate matters further, successive Afghan governments, including the Pakistani-backed Taliban regime of the 1990s, have refused to recognize the Durand Line. 

"...Pakistan fears that a strong and independent Afghanistan - let alone one allied to India - could challenge their artificial border and agitate Pashtun or Baluch nationalists, undermining Pakistan from within. A friendly, Taliban-led regime in Kabul is thus seen by Islamabad as the best defense against this possibility and against Indian “encirclement.”

Why not advocate dissolving Pakistan as a nation state? Keep your friends close and your enemy closer perhaps. 

"...Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security.

Great Satan's only client new clear Army with a fake believe nation/state attached blinging the fastest sprouting new clear arsenal on the planet  is certainly aware another terrorist attack in America by anyone who has ever been within drone range of North Waziristan will have terrible consequences for Land of the Pure

"...Ten years of supporting America’s Islamist enemies has poisoned its reputation in America. Its once-mighty defenders in Washington are isolated and shrinking in number, while a younger generation of policymakers knows nothing of Pakistan but militancy, corruption and deception. 

"...When the United States inevitably departs Afghanistan, so too, will Pakistan’s “leverage” over America. Only then will Pakistan’s leadership realize the true cost of their double game.  

 Pic - "If the attack were carried out by members of one of the groups linked to the Pakistani military, such a response could be on a scale that would lead to the collapse of the Pakistani state.
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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Council Time!

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week
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Friday, April 22, 2011

The Next War

'Nshallah!

While everyone girds their loins (gotta keep those panties from wadding up) about Friday prayer time in Syria and all the attendant anti regime high jinkery that may, uh, bust out - don't forget those naughty non state actor outers!

Perhaps the single most hottest meme is all of Araby is Little Satan. 

Launching a D Day style invasion in 1948, seizing Arabic turf, using Palestinian chirrun blood (mmm, better than A 1 - nicht wahr?) on their culinary concoctions, deploying Willie P in combat environs, constructing shopping malls and 'illegit' apartment complexes (that so far have failed to, you know, kill anyone)  - and even worse - having a literacy rate off the charts in a UN sanctioned nation state where women are worshiped as arm candy and has the magical ability to hoodwink the world's only hyper puissant hyper power into doing her bidding anytime, anywhere.  

Whew.

Any wrought, the one thing that may disrupt and discombobulate Arab Spring is the Next War

"...Hezbollah has done its homework and believes it is ready to face its southern neighbor, come what may. For its part, Israel has done a thorough review of the Second Lebanon War and made traditional and untraditional military preparations for conflict. Policymakers and analysts alike in Washington, Paris, London, Beirut, and Jerusalem are beginning to brace themselves for the spark that will light up the eastern Mediterranean.


"...Israel pulled out of Lebanon in May 2000 after an occupation of almost 20 years, not as a result of a peace agreement, cease-fire, or informal understanding on the status of forces on the border, but as a unilateral move. Hezbollah and its supporters interpreted the withdrawal as a milestone in the organization’s development as a military and political force in Lebanon, and as a resounding victory in its struggle against the “Zionist entity.” The withdrawal was depicted as a great defeat for Israel, a sentiment shared by many Israelis. As Hezbollah often claims (with some truth), this was the “first Arab victory in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”


"...The summer of 2006 paid off for Hezbollah—and other sub-state actors across the region. Palestinians have adopted Hezbollah’s military tactics (believing they can get Israel to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank), including the use of short-range missiles and hit-and-run operations designed to draw the IDF into combat in populated areas. This has gradually forced the IDF—and coalition forces that have troops engaged in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen—to change their way of dealing with terrorist organizations.


"...Palestinians continue to believe that Israel withdrew in 2000 because of Hezbollah’s ongoing attacks and that they can achieve the same result in Gaza and the West Bank.


"...The bad news for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas is that while they can inflict a tremendous amount of political and economic pain on Israel, they cannot destroy the Little Satan. But the worst news of all is reserved for those living in places like Gaza and certain parts of Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Hamas have already implemented radical shari‘a-compliant regimes.


"...Hezbollah still maintains (though in muted tones) that it wishes to implement a mullatocracy modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Of course, Hezbollah’s founding charter is crystal clear, calling for the creation of an “Islamic government which, alone, is capable of guaranteeing justice and liberty for all."


"...For its part, Hamas has established the Islamist Republic of Gaza and runs it based on its founding charter, which calls for “the reinstitution of the Muslim state … Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the ca[u]se of Allah its most sublime belief.”[2]


"...Nasrallah has repeatedly used his group’s willingness to die as a strategic bulwark: “The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”


"...Politically, Hezbollah and Hamas essentially control their respective jurisdictions; Hezbollah has control over a third of the Lebanese parliament and veto power over the Lebanese cabinet, and Hamas has outright control of Gaza. Both are flush with cash from Iran, which funds them to the tune of close to a billion dollars per annum and provides arms galore.


"...Do people living in that part of the world wish to live under an Islamic regime, or would the vast majority prefer a liberal democracy? The answer can be found in the Western embassies throughout the Arab capitals that are packed with people trying to emigrate to places that offer a brighter future.


"...Many have come to the conclusion that, at the end of the day, organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas really care not about the people of the region, but about amassing power and implementing their world-vision. Ultimately, Hezbollah and Hamas are only paying lip service to destroying the State of Israel and fighting on behalf of the oppressed. Their raison d'รชtre is to create radical republics, and their primary tactic of getting there is to divert people’s attention to the “perfidy” of the Zionist entity.


"...Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Gaza have effectively become the front lines of not only the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also the low-intensity conflict between liberal democracy and those who wish to install Islamist-compliant regimes. We should be prepared for the battle to continue as both Hezbollah and Israel gear up for more hostilities. 

 Pic - "The rise of Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon"
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Thursday, April 21, 2011

"Superabundance Of Crises"

Bountiful trouble!

Talking 'bout the booty of boundless superabundant crises busting out in every realm of the diplopolititary. 

"...Iraq and Afghanistan are headed in the wrong direction. As U.S. troops leave Iraq, violence and instability are far from quelled. The latest Iraqi government attacks on Camp Ashraf, which was established to safeguard the anti-Iranian MEK organization and whose safety was guaranteed by the United States, killed 34 last week, making a mockery of America's word and credibility.

"...While military operations in Afghanistan are punishing the Taliban, extending governance, broadly defined and development to Afghans lags so far behind as to question whether this strategy can ever work. Concurrently, U.S.-Pakistani relations have eroded to their worst level in memory. Whether both sets of negative trends can be reversed is far from certain.

"...The Arab Spring has likewise exposed large discrepancies in U.S. policy toward Egypt and Tunisia in support of regime change and its silence toward Bahrain and Sunni/Saudi armed repression against a Shiite majority.

"...The administration argues that its policies must balance "interests" and "values" meaning that maintaining good relations with Riyadh and counterbalancing Iranian influence trump our images of freedom, democracy and human rights. As a result, charges of hypocrisy flow and while the administration is correct that no single "template" fits each country, coming up with a rational and effective policy for the region is made difficult if not impossible.

"...The acute mix of these problems and absence of solutions congeal in Libya. The political goal of ousting Libya's Moammar Gadhafi by indirect means such as embargoes is detached from the military objective sanctioned by U.N. Resolutions 1970 and 1973 to protect innocent civilians.

"...The two aims are acting in parallel. No one knows if those aims will converge with the happy result of Gadhafi leaving or diverge leaving NATO and the coalition stuck in a conflict with an indeterminate outcome. The growing criticisms of NATO capabilities to protect innocent Libyans, combined with dissent within the alliance over military engagement in the first place, don't make solution easier.

"...In Iraq, the path of least resistance is to hope U.S. withdrawal will be obscured by other more newsworthy events. In Afghanistan, there is no alternative to another hope that Afghan security forces will be able to assume these responsibilities before 2014 ends or the time when the NATO coalition wearies of its commitment. In Pakistan, intransigence on the part of Washington and Islamabad suggests rougher and not smoother times lie ahead.

"...Libya and the Arab Spring are profoundly difficult matters. Leaving Gadhafi in power will be intolerable. At some point, the use or threat of ground forces to evict him must be considered, raising the stakes to even higher levels.

"...The key strategic centers of gravity remain Egypt and the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Progress there could offset damage elsewhere. But will 44 even think about further overloading its plate? Probably not. If this were a baseball game, the odds are 44 will strike out rather than hit the winning home run

Pic - "Exit-Strategy Fetishism"
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Persian Plan

Whoa! The Gay Free Republic of Preacher's Paradise  is at the peak of power!

"...For the first time in the history of m"Hammedism, Shia domination of Mecca is not unthinkable. Nor is an Iranian empire in the Middle East."

 Aside from the haj for Persian new clear status - Iran has hot plots to use her hegemonic hotness on a regional scale!

"...The Islamic Republic of Iran is today challenging the world. The Iranian leadership's appetite for power is growing, for they have become thoroughly convinced that no outside power-the U.S. included-will derail their rise to regional and even global prominence.

"Whether you like it or not," the Iranian cleric and politician Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, an influential figure and on-and-off mentor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly boasted to the U.S., "you have to regard Iran as a great power in the political sphere. The people of Iran have realized there is nothing you can do to us now or will be capable of doing [in the future]. So rather than using all your resources in failed attempts to oppose Iran, you should work with us."

 Check it out - Iran has quite a strategy she is pursuing to win friends and influence ppl - to get all hot and bothered as "...a great power in the political sphere" and bust out of her cocoon as a fully crunk hegemon.

Pic - "For a population still feeling the heartbreaks of the 1979 revolution and subsequent eight-year war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- which caused 500,000 Iranian casualties -- there is little appetite for violence and no romantic notions about a call to arms."  

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Freedom Online

BRB!

One of the weapons in the old despotry annihilation/marginalization (either way is totally fine) arsenals is the high tech savvylicious brain embiggening effects of l'net l'inter.

Twidder, Facebook, streaming vids, live vid - instant real time communications with cats all about the globe.

And that means despots, autocrats and the uncool who despise fun and free choice are getting hip to it

"...According to a new Freedom House report, (pdf) as internet usage has grown exponentially in the past five years, cyber attacks, politically motivated censorship, and government control over internet infrastructure are among the diverse and growing threats faced by internet users.

"...These encroachments on internet freedom come at a time of explosive growth in the number of internet users worldwide, which has doubled over the past five years. Governments are responding to the increased influence of the new medium by seeking to control online activity, restricting the free flow of information, and otherwise infringing on the rights of users. 

“...These detailed findings clearly show that internet freedom cannot be taken for granted. Nondemocratic regimes are devoting more attention and resources to censorship and other forms of interference with online expression.”

Pic - "Send me a copy of your last three tax returns and a copy of your credit report no less than 10 days old"
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Monday, April 18, 2011

Syria Delirious

LOLZ!

Here's a quiz - anyone 'member Syria's Dr General President For Life Bashar Bay Bee recently loling any possibility of anti regime high jinkery busting out in his particular pocket despotry? 

Time to medicate for what poppa defines as the afflicting disability to daydream and conjure illusionary allusions - disorientation, hallucinations, anxiety, often confusing the fake believe with real life.

Recent events have mockingly mocked the easily mockable (and nearly 2 meters tall - Wookie sized) hereditary illegit Allawite autocrat. That kind of Zeelow Heights - Fรผhrer Bunker mentality prett much means survival at all costs -as the myraid Allawite support groups for Bashar fight to the (hopefully) bitter end.

And if Syria is teeter tottering on edge - why not give it a poke or three to send the nasty thing  crashing down and out - all the way out?

There are tons of reasons why the Lion of Syria and all his precious assets should be express laned smoldering to the same flamed out junk heap of the dead, defeated and discredited as Waffen Ss, Confederacy, 3rd Soviet Shock Army, kamikazes or Mahdi Army (v1.0 - 3.0). And to hop on the activity train right now.

Right?

Hold up!

Syria's illegit, Dr General President For Life (New! Now with Reform!) has acquired a fan club of sorts - an entire posse of Axis of Evil fanboys that are twisting the already twisted ancient corrupt short term cult of stability beyond repair!

Like the ex C.I. told you so guy so hubrisly hubrises

"...The end of Mubarak regime’s has made the Egypt-Gaza border more porous, and the elimination of Assad’s Baathist regime would weaken Syria’s willingness—and perhaps ability—to control its border with Israel. This would leave only Jordan, which is a far weaker regime than those in Egypt or Syria.

Aside from blaming the cool kids for future probs that may or may not come to pass - (and when did he get so hot for Little Satan anyway?) a realpolitikisch laissez-faire counter to overtly covert chiz is also available.

GsGf's Zachilicious colleague at McGill's prestigious centre right cyber PAH site suggests some kind of hope for the best type stance and buys into the factually suspect myth of Syria's quest to be a cool partner in regional stability:

"...So why not attempt to topple an enemy regime? Two reasons. One is the relationship of mutual deterrence established between Little Satan and the Syrian regimes in the 1970s. The second is the containment of the Syrian regime by Iran and Hiz'B'Allah.

"...In essence, Syria’s actions under the Assad regime are predictable. The regime has adopted a reactive foreign policy since the 1970s, tied to the Arab-Israeli peace process and to developments in Lebanon. A new Syrian regime, which is bound to be influenced or controlled by Islamists, would be much less predictable and possibly less rational. That’s reason number one for keeping the Ba’Athist regime alive.

 "...Reason number two flows from reason number one. There has been little to no movement on the Israeli-Syrian peace process since 2000, when Hafez al-Assad turned down an Israeli offer of 99% withdrawal from the territory to which he laid claim. Furthermore, Syria’s occupation of Lebanon ended in 2005, following the assassination of then-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the outbreak of the Cedar Revolution.

"...Otherwise put, Syria has no hope of regaining the territory it lost in 1967. As well, Iran is now calling the shots in Lebanon more than ever, not Syria, especially now that Hiz'B'Allah has taken over Lebanon’s government at the expense of Syria’s attempts to establish closer ties with the pro-West March 14th bloc.

Conclusion? Staus Quo - natch!

"...Maintaining the current equilibrium allows Israel to counter the threats from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas more directly and more effectively. Israel’s message to Syria should be clear: “So long as it doesn’t pose a threat to us, whatever goes on within your borders is your business.”
 
 "And why realpolitik comes into play"

Oh.

Really? 

al Assad's Syria as a source of stability? 

Cheese and rice! 

al Assad's Syria is a source of instability.

Syria - like Little Satan - punches far above her weight class in diplopolititary deals. Instead of cool stuff like Hooters, literacy rates off the charts or creating advanced avionics - Bashar Bay Bee follows poppa Assad's script utilizing asymmetrical assets creating a slave trading Syria, abusing Palestinians as a strategic minority resource, literally bombing an Arab sister's political cadre out of existence, fiddling about with new clear WMD witchcraft, hanging with the most wanted terrorists in the world while maybe or maybe not enabling official enemies like Hiz'B'Allah with wmd delivery systems and frightened of Facebook. 

Maintaining the status quo's equilibrium is simply unrealistic (no pun intended). All despotries are on borrowed time. 

The same cats braving secular machine guns demanding what Uncle Tony psychically predicted eons ago will also brave holy machine guns. The Strip, Hiz'B'Allahland and Persia have totally proven that preachers can preach ok but suck at statecraft, while Iraq's skirt flirt with the more 'pure' elements of a crazy intolerant m'Hammedist fiefdom prove the charming self destructiveness of such self destructive memes as well.

If (and that is a semi big 'if' there kids) knocking out the Allawite gang - all the way out - in Basharopolis creates a giant sucking machine for the Qutbah Kids - so what?

The chaos, cross purposes, that a sudden, violent departure of the regime in Syria might bestow on the region are actually more better for both Satans in the short and long run. With myriad groups with competing  goals, style and substance slugging it out - while periodically interdicted with especial ops from allied militaries.  

Simply put - such Syrian delirium would give little time for rival forces to worry much about Lebanon, Golan the ancient Suriya al- Kubra, Palestine, Hiz'B'Allah or West Bank apartment complexes - granting Little Satan both time and opportunities to covertly turn the guns on the ever stretched Iranian energies and resources in an Axis of Evil quagmire of risible proportions 

Aiding the overthrow of Bashar Bay Bee also funnily enough - grants an amoral tenet that wicked realpolitik fans should love in it's purest form -  “So long as it doesn’t pose a threat to us, whatever goes on within your borders is your business.” 

Pic - "Get used to it. We are taking control"
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Sunday, April 17, 2011

L'artillerie De La Nuit

Hot gossip and dossiers!

From Michael Korda's "Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia"

"...In every way the opposite of Sir Lawrence of Arabia, Captain BH Liddell - Hart was tall, elegant, stork like, fond of the good things of life, and so fascinated by women that  he oversaw the smallest details of the lingerie for both his wives, was exacting and deeply involved in the design of their corsets, and regularly measured the waists of his two daughters. 

"...He was in fact a walking encyclopedia on the subject of  lingerie - or as one of his biographers, Alex Danchev referred to it wittily, "l'artillerie de la nuit" - as knowledgeable about bras and merry widows and garter belts as he was about war. A perfectionist in all things he was obsessed by the ideal of the feminine wasp waist, which was the Schwerpunkt (to borrow a phrase from German strategic thinking) of his sexual desire.


"...Despite these differences, he and Sir Lawrence got along very well; and Lawrence, in his many letters to Liddel Hart and in his lenghty written commentaries on the text, is perhaps franker about himself than with anyone else except Charlotte Shaw. He respected Liddell Hart as a scholar, and was pleased to be taken seriously as a strategic thinker. Their admiration and friendship were genuine.


"...Liddell Hart made contact with Lawrence as early as 1927 under one of his many guises as military editor of Encyclopedia Britannica - it was part of his strategy to command as many positions in the field of military commentary and journalism as he could - proposing Lawrence should write the article on "Guerrilla Warfare."

Imperial Albion! Kinda makes you wonder what JCF Fuller's passions were...

Pic - "Pretty Wreckless!"
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Saturday, April 16, 2011

WoW Time

Council Winners


Non-Council Winners

See you next week!
at No comments:

Friday, April 15, 2011

Painting The UN

Multilateral!

In ancient texts and codex's - like the essential "End To Evil" and l'Stache Grande's  ginormous massive tome - a concept about Great Satan's Diplopolititary estab keeps like the creepy guy that follows your posse all over the mall.

Often time bureaucrats get totally fubar'd in their positions at State or the UN and confuse their gigs from repping Great Satan to the world as to rep whatever nation/state they handle to America.

Bassackwards is another term.

Kindred spirit and the equally pretty Canadian ex pat comte d'guerr' en semb Professor Anne Bayefsky  shares just how tarded cats can be - getting all confused in foreign interests and multilateralism - the unnatural departure from the Straussian "Which one of these things is not like the other thing?" As if  Nippon and Syria were exactly alike.

44's feisty UN Ambassador Susan Rice recent unplugged gig at House's Foreign Affairs Committee features an underwhelming segue of siren tunage that white washes  UN from a sad collective of despots, tyrants and girl haters into a magical place where only good things happen"


"...Rice’s oral and written testimony offers the most detailed defense yet of the central foreign-policy plank of the Obama administration, known as “engagement.” In short, the Obama doctrine has outfitted American interests with U.N.-made cement shoes. Rice’s apologia, therefore, hands Republican presidential hopefuls a cornucopia of opportunities to articulate a plan to reverse President Obama’s abdication of leadership and responsibility to the United Nations.


"...Rice’s case had two prongs. The first was a series of unsubstantiated claims of “dramatic” success. The second placed the democratic state of Israel in Obama’s crosshairs, regardless of anything else that has taken, is taking, or will take place across the democratically challenged Arab and Muslim world.


Ultimately, according to Rice, “the United Nations is so important to our national security . . . [that] when we meet our financial obligations to the U.N., we make Americans safer,” and “the U.N. promotes universal values Americans hold dear.” Both of these assertions are demonstrably false.


"...Rice boasted that “the U.N. helps halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons” and that “strong and sustained U.N. action makes crystal clear to governments that defy their international nuclear obligations that they will face isolation and significant consequences.” In fact, U.N. action on Iran has amounted to a two-decades-long cover-up by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its former chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, followed by years of dithering over feeble U.N. resolutions. The only thing crystal clear is that subcontracting American national security to the U.N. has made the Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons inevitable, barring direct non-U.N. intervention in the very near future.


"...On terrorism, Rice contended that “the U.N. helps isolate terrorists.” In fact, to this day the United Nations has no definition of terrorism because Arab and Islamic states believe murdering Israelis, American “occupiers,” or anyone else standing in the way of their idea of “self-determination” doesn’t count. The United Nations Security Council currently has the representative of a terrorist organization as a full member, namely, Hiz'B'allah -controlled Lebanon. The U.N.’s central Counter-Terrorism Committee, created as its response to 9/11, has never named a single terrorist, terrorist organization, or state sponsor of terrorism. And this week, a U.N. General Assembly committee charged back in 1996 with drafting a comprehensive anti-terrorism convention reconvened to keep blathering about what the U.N. itself describes as “the long-stalled draft text.”


"...On human rights, Rice claimed: “While no U.N. body can expect to have only countries with perfect records on it, we are focused on keeping the most egregious and disruptive human-rights abusers off the [Human Rights] Council, as we did last year when Iran sought a seat. . . . We succeeded in getting Iran to withdraw its candidacy last year.” What Rice means by “not perfect” Council members are at least a dozen states that Freedom House places in the lowest echelons of its freedom scale — including Angola, China, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. And the only reason Iran withdrew its candidacy for the U.N.’s top human-rights body was that the Obama administration agreed not to make a fuss about giving Iran a seat on the U.N.’s top women’s-rights body, where it is now firmly ensconced.

Pic - "We need to have a robust financial support from the United States”
 
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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bizzy!

Genau!

Been a crazy bleeding week so far - heck what day is it, you know?

Yours truly has been night gigging over at Starbuck's Wings Over Iraq (check it out - it ain't paw paws WoI!) and a few other spots (oh! it's true! Courtney don't kiss and tale)!

Also getting suckered into babysitting a 1/2 squad's worth of rowdy asseted little boys always wanting to 'rassle' (here's a tip - don't get cornered in the kitchen after tormenting them they are more like the Pink Power Ranger instead of the guy Power Rangers).

They grow up fast tho! The big thing now is to watch tv shows where '...girls have that line on their chest..." betwixt bouts of noise making and energetic outbursts of violence.

Czech out the hot collective of mindcandy to get all voted on today at WoW and make your brain more bigger with FPI's hot deet sheet too.

Any wrought, tons of stuff coming up, including a lo down ho down knock down drag out with some Axis of Evil fanboys - so, stay tuned, stay blond and never. Give. In.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Battlefield Intell

Great Satan's field grade Surge Expert and Combat Rock Star - highly decorated Major Few, editor of Small Wars Journal (he's also kinda hot) is simply one of the best warrior writers to hit the hood since the statue got yanked down in al Firdos Square.

The ability to share, shape and shoot straight with facts, theory and expertise in an incredible clarity born of desperate heartbreaking hard fought multi engagements - like walking down a trash sewer strewn street rallying troops after an IED detonated - in a buzzsaw of (thankfully inaccurate) sniper fire - is something Great Satan's Warcraft Academy should be proud of.

Evidenced by amazing articles like "Love and Hate," and the essential "Break Point: al Qaeda estabs in Zaganiyah" has left the cool cliquish cadre of counter insurgency enablers and actualizers totally hot for more.

Way more.

"The Pacification of Zaganiyah - Fighting for Intelligence to Overcome the Information Gap"

"... Much debate surrounds perfecting the proper mixture of gentle influence and violent coercion required as an external intervention force. In the beginning, this mixture is irrelevant. 

"...Instead, the most difficult problem facing the commander is one of information. How does one discover and define the current situation on the ground? This understanding is the critical foundation of all other planning and actions." (GsGf Editorial Note - italics - mine)

One American Army recon unit in the Diyala River Valley - during the dark, desperate days of the Iraq Surge - led by then Captain Few brought the 'Hate' - annihilating and breaking up the larger enemy creep cells and brought the "Love"- turning insurgents and fence sitters, protected the innocent, each other and convinced everyone through a super savvy combination of skill, guts and almost reckless bravery that Great Satan was the Strongest Tribe.

And it all comes down to battlefield intelligence.  

"...The purpose is two-fold: 1. inform policy makers on the costs, requirements, and time needed for such GPF interventions, and 2. provide young leaders with an example of applying theory to practice.

Pic - "Oh - they come to kill the Rooster? Whoa! He ain't gonna die. No!"
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Little Poppa

I was just 21 when I went to work for Muammar Gaddafi. Like the other young women he hired as nurses, I had grown up in Ukraine. I didn’t speak a word of Arabic, didn’t even know the difference between Lebanon and Libya. But “Papik,” as we nicknamed him—it means “little father” in Russian—was always more than generous to us. I had everything I could dream of: a furnished two-bedroom apartment, a driver who appeared whenever I called. But my apartment was bugged, and my personal life was watched closely.

For the first three months I wasn't allowed to go to the palace. I think Papik was afraid that his wife, Safia, would get jealous. But soon I began to attend to him regularly. The job of the nurses was to see that our employer stayed in great shape-in fact, he had the heart rate and blood pressure of a much younger man. We insisted that he wear gloves on visits to Chad and Mali to protect him against tropical diseases. We made sure that he took his daily walks around the paths of his residence, got his vaccinations, and had his blood pressure checked on time.


The Ukrainian press called us Gaddafi’s harem. That’s nonsense. None of us nurses was ever his lover; the only time we ever touched him was to take his blood pressure. The truth is that Papik was much more discreet than his friend, the womanizer Silvio Berlusconi. Gaddafi chose to hire only attractive Ukrainian women, most probably for our looks. He just liked to be surrounded by beautiful things and people. He had first picked me from a line of candidates after shaking my hand and looking me in the eye. Later I learned he made all his decisions about people at the first handshake. He is a great psychologist.


Papik had some odd habits. He liked to listen to Arab music on an old cassette player, and he would change his clothes several times a day. He was so obsessive about his outfits that he reminded me of a rock star from the 1980s. Sometimes when his guests were already waiting for him, he would go back to his room and change his clothes again, perhaps into his favorite white suit. When we drove around poor African countries he would fling money and candy out the widow of his armored limousine to children who ran after our motorcade; he didn’t want them close for fear of catching diseases from them. He never slept in a tent, though! That’s just a myth. He only used the tent for official meetings.

We traveled in great style. I accompanied Papik to the United States, Italy, Portugal, and Venezuela, and whenever he was in a good mood, he asked us if we had everything we needed. We would get bonuses to go shopping. And -every year Papik gave all his staff gold watches with his picture on them. Just showing that watch in Libya would open any door, solve any problem that we had.


I got the impression that at least half the population of Libya disliked Papik. The local medical staff was jealous of us because we made three times more than they did—over $3,000 a month. It was obvious that Papik made all the decisions in his country. He is like Stalin; he has all the power and all the luxury, all for himself. When I first saw television pictures of the Egyptian revolution I thought, nobody would ever dare to rise against our Papik. But there was a chain reaction after Tunisia and Egypt. If Papik had passed his throne to his son Saif when he still had a chance, I believe that everything would have been all right. People would not be dying right now.


I got out of Tripoli at the beginning of February, just in time. Two of my friends stayed behind, and now they can’t leave. I had a very personal reason for wanting to get out: I was four months pregnant, and I was beginning to show. I feared that Papik would not approve of my Serbian boyfriend.


Papik will probably never forgive me my betrayal. But I realize I did the right thing to flee Libya. My friends all told me I should think of my future baby and run. Now Papik’s closest partners are also running from him. And he is forcing his children and our two remaining Ukrainian colleagues to stay and die by his side.

By Oksana Balinskaya 
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Monday, April 11, 2011

Good Wars Gone Bad

Kinetic!

All wars, conflicts and assorted accoutrements are tricky and risky. Chock full of funintended consequence or as vClausewitz could have written - 'foggy frictions'. Wars to rescue the tormented or genocide'd doubly so.

Perhaps the most essential volume in any interventionists library is the incredible "Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Interventions"

Stuff like exit strategies, force constraints, time limits, multi and unilateralism or ROE's go way back to the mid 1800's when the Concert of Europa rocked out and launched a military humanitarian intervention to save Syrian Xians from slaughter in the Ottoman Empire.

That mission and others are pregnant with lessons for today too:

"...What seemingly counted most in Libya was that civilians in Benghazi might, as 44 said last month, “suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.”

"...This raises the first inevitable problem: Since the goal is the defense of humanity, and there are humans facing violence in many places, how do you intervene in one spot and not another without drawing accusations of hypocrisy?

"...And if the threat to innocent human life in Libya was so great that it justified emergency violations of national sovereignty, then why settle for half-measures such as a no-fly zone? 

"...A major reason for limiting the number of interventions — and for giving each intervention a limited mission — stems from a second classic problem: Western democratic leaders have powerful political incentives to do humanitarianism on the cheap. Sarkozy, spectacularly unpopular at home and facing a presidential election next year, may score political gains for his leadership, but there is more for politicians to lose if the intervention goes badly than there is to gain if it goes well.  

Indeed, the very success of a humanitarian intervention can undermine its rationale and public support. 

"...100,000 people might have been slaughtered in Benghazi. But since those kinds of gruesome headlines have been forestalled, all anyone can see are the problems of an ongoing war. And once a one-sided slaughter becomes a two-sided war, it is easier for butchers to try to imply a moral equivalence — as when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic complained that NATO leaders were the real war criminals for bombing Belgrade in 1999.

"...The result is a third recurring quandary: Humanitarian interventions tend to use limited means, while flirting with maximalist goals.
 
"...This leads to a fourth perennial problem: Humanitarian wars, like all wars, tend to escalate. In Libya, the shared original objective might have been to protect civilians, not to overthrow the regime, but what if Colonel Khadaffy retaliates against outside intervention with terrorism or by killing more civilians, after the U.N. Security Council has approved action precisely because he was killing civilians?

Pic - "And this struggle we face now cannot be won by staying out; but by sticking in, abiding by our values, not retreating from them"
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