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l"stache grand - who by hap hap happy happenstance also has like the most moustache giganteus ever - pens a killer critique of the ME and Great Satan"s 44 driven dimenishment
Strategic security for Great Satan and her key Middle East allies has deteriorated significantly. Little Satan and friendly Arab states feel increasingly pressured, yet see little leadership from 44.
This is not a question of a new threat here or there, but a confluence of adversity fundamentally altering Middle Eastern reality. Inevitably, whoever wins the presidency will face urgent international threats to Great Satan"s interests. Indeed, oil prices are so important to global economic recovery that instability and conflict in the Levant could well contribute to another recession.
Most immediately, in Aegypt, Sunday’s forced “retirement” of top military officials, including Defense Minister Mohammed Tantawi, epitomizes the shift. Egypt’s new Ikwhan president, Mohammed Morsi, also purportedly rescinded a military decree that had sought to restrict his powers.
How this unfolding struggle will play out is unclear, but the stakes are enormous. Already, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has descended into anarchy since Hosni Mubarak’s fall last year, and is now a terrorist thoroughfare and Hamas missile-testing ground. Little Satan had earlier consented to Egyptian troops moving into the Sinai, but the situation only deteriorated. On Aug. 5, for example, Bedouins attacked an Egyptian base, killing 15 soldiers, and then tried but failed to infiltrate into Little Satan.
While increasing Egypt’s Sinai deployments seemed sensible in the near-term, what happens when and if the terrorist threat is eliminated? Will Egypt’s forces largely return to the Suez Canal’s west bank, or will “land for peace” (the Camp David Accord’s central element) be gutted? If the increasingly assertive Morsi government grows stronger and more radical, Little Satan may find she has traded land for nothing. (GsGf Editorial note - Again!! Little Satan gave up turf in the Strip and in Leb Leb Lebanon and thus far - has only rec"v"d heartache for the deal)
While terrorist threats from the Sinai are palpable risks, a large Egyptian military presence, especially under amean m"Hammedist government, would reprise the dangerous era before the Six Day War.
Chaos is also evident on Israel’s northern flank. Syria’s civil war is now largely a surrogate conflict pitting Russia and Iran against the Sunni Arab world. (Turkey's position is complicated, with visions of a role reminiscent of Ottoman days, in competition with both Iranian and Saudi interests. Certainly Ankara wants a friendly regime in Damascus, and does not want hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding its territory.)
While Assad’s defeat would be welcome, what kind of regime would follow — one dominated by radical you know whatists even more devoted to Little Satan’s destruction?
Then there’s the risk that Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile will fall into the wrong hands. Lebanon’s Hiz"B"Allah, for example, could well gain access to these weapons, with frightening implications.
In Libya, the assassination of officials who defected from Khadafy’s regime continues apace, most recently on Aug. 10 in Benghazi. This hardly signals stability in Libya’s new government, or that more conflict can be avoided.
The news from Iran remains uniformly grim, as neither sanctions nor diplomacy slow its headlong rush toward nuclear weapons. Dangerous as a nuclear Tehran would be in the best of times, the threat becomes more acute as the entire region dissolves into acrimony and uncertainty.
This is why leadership and character are so important in assessing
presidential candidates. No one can foresee all the international crises
ahead in the next four years. But we can certainly decide who has the
judgment and resolve to make hard choices on America’s behalf.
Pic - "Wide Awake"
Aegypt!
Been a prett bizzy week for the newly, freely and fairly elected Ikwhan Prez too - sacking Generals for failing to uphold Writ of State and thusly consolidating the Ikwhan"s grip on power spark a righteous quiz -
Less than a week after sacking several major security chiefs, the first elected President in Egypt’s history has moved on to tackle the big guns. On Sunday, Morsy fired Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the country’s Defense Minister and powerful chief of Egypt’s military council, with whom the President has been locked in a power struggle since he took office at the end of June.
Perhaps no more?
That mighty mighty Aegyptian Army on paper( lol) just got twisted around a bit. Changes look like this here:
- Defense Minister and SCAF head Hussein Tantawi, who will be replaced by Head of Military Intelligence AbdelLatif El-Sissi
- Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Sami Enan.
- Both Tantawi and Enan have been named presidential advisors, and were recently awarded the Order of the Nile medal. It appears they will be protected from punishment for their actions during the transitional period.
- The heads of every service of the Armed Forces (Air Force, Air Defenses, Navy) were also retired but were given golden parachutes (one is now head of the Suez Canal Authority, another the new Minister of Military Production, etc.) It appears they will be replaced by their deputies.
- There seems to be more personnel changes and shuffles — but mostly within the logic of promotion typical of the Egyptian military (i.e. no people were suddenly dropped into the senior ranks from lower ranks or outside the senior staff).
Is Aegypt"s style of the freshly pop pop popular Polislam taking on the field jacket of unfun, unfree fascism?
Only Mursi remains and Egypt is now at his mercy.
This is a coup. Mursi is bound by no constitution. He can do as he pleases unless someone is going to stop him. And the only candidate–the military–is fading fast, far faster than even we pessimists would have predicted.
The You Know What Brotherhood President al-Mursi has also just named the editors of the top Egyptian newspaper and other media outlets. They are state-owned, and there are a half-dozen good little independent newspapers.
One of them, al-Destour (ironically meaning “The Constitution”), has just had a full issue seized on charges of “fueling sedition” and “harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law.” We know this through a report in the Middle East News Agency, the state-owned monopoly.
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! And what all was this hurtfully unhelpful sedition petrol tabloid journoing??
That the Ikwhan was going to seize power and that liberals and the army should join together to stop the country from being turned into an m"Hammedist regime.
Pic - "Morsi cancelled the 17 June constitutional addendum, which was issued by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and amended the SCAF-issued 30 March 2011 Constitutional Declaration."
"Karma"s a B!tch!!"
Actually - that commonly used meme is actually incorrect.
See, as best understood in those mysteriously misunderstood eastern philosophies, karma - often meant as a sort of payback for chicanery - good or bad - in life that visits itself on the heads of the perps. Not in this life mind ye - but in the next life as the karmic wheel keeps clanking along.
Instant Karma is what they really mean. When payback for deeds in this life revisit lol
And in a delightfully delish diss - the Posse of Allah appears to be suffering from some Instant Karma right now!
Led by the
overtly robust (n xtra girthy) creepy Body Part Collector General, the resistance Posse of Allah (seemingly way more adept at 'resisting' the legit gov of Lebanon than foreign bizzy bodies) has been engaging and indulging in a Forever War of sorts that has made the Posse the most powerful source of militancy in the Middle East.
Lebanon’s Syrian- and Iranian-sponsored Party of Allah is the most formidable non-state army in the world
and by far the deadliest and most effective fighting force ever fielded
against Little Satan.
So it's kinda LOLable to see the Body Part Collector General of the Posse that pioneered kidnapping into an asymmetrical art form decry such tactics when they are successfully aimed at his peeps!
“Religiously, this is forbidden. Morally, this is a very disgraceful
crime. Kidnapping the innocent does
harm to you and all what you claim or say you are seeking.”
Yessir Sayid! What a dang shame!!
Coming from the longtime leader of Hezbollah, the anti-kidnapping
messaging is not particularly credible. After all, in the 1980s
kidnapping Westerners in Lebanon was an essential element of the
organization’s modus operandi . Even today, Hezbollah still favors the
tactic, now prizing Israeli civilian and military targets. Needless to
say, Hezbollah has not suddenly reformed and decided to reject
kidnapping. The organization merely opposes the abduction of its
members.
Regardless of exactly who these alleged “pilgrims” are—and we may never
know—there is some poetic justice in Nasrallah suffering the frustration
of vulnerability in the face of kidnapping. At the same time, by
supporting the massacres over the past 16 months, Nasrallah and
Hezbollah engendered the hatred of millions of Sunnis next door who
almost assuredly will hold a grudge after Assad. Ultimately, this
dynamic is likely to exacerbate sectarian tensions along the
Lebanese/Syrian border, exposing Lebanon’s Shiites to violence on a
scale not seen in decades.
Pic - "Instant Karma"s gonna get you - knock you right on the head"
As best understood - the ancient Westphalian concept can often be dumbed down to mean only l'etat has the monopoly on violence ( and you know THAT means lol ). In the new millennium voltiguer, conscript and professional armies, police and militaries are the nation/state's instrument of choice in full filling certain statecraft crafts.
Writ of State they calls it. It's also semi understood that in the sunny sunny climes betwixt Suez and Indus - Writ of State is more like a fakebelieve concern than anything with real meaning.
And failure to maintain Writ of State means a low intensity conflict may very well xform into a high intensity conflict.
Ev since the Undying Pharaoh Hosni got the heave ho and Ikwhan has won the reins of power fair and square in Pyramidland"s rowdy electile dysfunc func functional elections - Aegypt has been unable to enforce Writ of State in the peninsula looking peninsula called the Sinai peninsula.
Eager to open up a 4th front against Little Satan - certain 7th century minded elements made the Haj to the AO and have plotted, prepped and perp"d unspectacular terrorist attacks.
Til now!
On Sunday, a team of Sinai-based creeps launched an attack on the border crossing post into Gaza at Rafah, in conjunction with their brethren from inside the HAMAS Strip. Killing 16 Egyptian border guards and commandeered an armoured car and a truck. Suicide bombers in the truck blew an opening in the border defenses. The up armored car - with another team of suicide bombers - gate crashed into Little Satan where it was sweetly vaporized by a Little Satan combat jet.
Aegypt's mighty mighty Army has decided to uphold Writ of State (finally!! LOL!!) using combat choppers to strike intolerant camps and bring paradise - the shadow of the blade - to cats who, for whatever reason have chosen top race off to the next life instead of prepping for this one.
V checks to torment girls, sitting on their hands at the shiny shiny M1 panzer factory within blitz range of Khartoum during the Dar Fur horrors, continuing Arab League talent for tolerating inhumanity crises like an inability to sortee a reinforced mechanized brigade right next door to Libya to protect their own near kin with the same dialect, customs, bloodlines, 'ligion and traditions. - Aegypt"s military is finally doing their real gig - enforcing Writ of State
Sweet!
On this issue there is some limited convergence of interest between Egypt, Little Satan and Hamas, the terrorist organisation which rules Gaza. Little Satan cannot operate inside Sinai because for strategic reasons it needs the 'cold peace' with Egypt to continue.
As a smaller branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which now rules Egypt, Hamas cannot afford for lunatic jihadists in Gaza to mow down dozens of Egyptian soldiers. If nothing else, Egyptians are a patriotic people. President Morsi cannot fail to act.
Hence this morning, Egyptian army helicopters struck at jihadist encampments inside Sinai, reportedly killing twenty of them. The Egyptians and Hamas have also sealed off the network of tunnels connecting Sinai with Gaza, through which cheap fuel and goods routinely flow.
The alternative to robust and stern action by Cairo is that Little Satan will deal with threats to its security from Sinai itself, which would immediately turn what's left of the 'cold peace' into a 'hot war'. Judging from today's strikes by the Egyptian army, the Ikwhan regime in Cairo has decided that Egyptian national security trumps sympathy for jihadist extremists.
That is a sign of progress, of a sort.
Pic - "Drones Over Sinai"
"Surrender - or be destroyed"
Prett righteous declaration from the Potsdam Declaration, nicht wahr?
Das Dritten Reich lay totally defeated in a pool of blood - kicking and screaming til she was - well - pretty much destroyed. The victorious VE Day cats turned their full attention to the Greater Far East Co - Prosperity Sphere.
Imperial Nippon.
Doing a Iwo Jima/Okinawa style invasion of the Japanese Homeland would take like two Invasion Ops - Operation Down Fall consisted of Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet
Operation Olympic was the sub-plan that targeted the Japanese home island of Kyushu. It was scheduled to take place on 1 Nov 1945, code named X-Day, with Okinawa acting as the primary staging area. The invasion fleet was to include 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and over 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. The fleet would escort 14 American divisions, both Army and Marine Corps, that would form the initial assault force. The American forces were to conquer and hold the southern third of Kyushu. A deceptive operation, Operation Pastel, was to be launched against cities on the Chinese coast and Taiwan in support of Operation Olympic.
Operation Coronet was to take place on 1 Mar 1946, code named Y-Day, assuming Operation Olympic had successfully secured airfields so that additional land-based air support would be available. It was to be the largest amphibious operation in history, with 25 divisions participating in the initial invasion, including those in floating reserve; the great invasion force was to include those transferred from the recently-concluded European War. The invasion beaches were to be at Kujikuri on the Boso Peninsula and Hiratsuka at Sagami Bay, and the forces would work their way north across the Kanto plain toward Tokyo.
Naturally, the American plan considered Japanese resistance. It noted the possibility that the invasion "will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population", which would result in high casualties.
In a study done by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in Apr 1945, at least 456,000 casualties were to be expected for Operation Olympic alone. Some other evaluations were also done, and their casualty estimates ranged anywhere from 30,000 to 1,000,000. In preparation, the United States manufactured 500,000 Purple Heart medals to award to those injured in combat.
See, the recent bloody slugfests at Iwo Jima and Okinawa pretty much guaranteed that doing Nippon would rival the horrific casualty rates of the 3rd Reich/Soviet Union battles - sump Americans were hot to avoid.
Thus - Great Satan went new clear.
Her choice targets were Hiroshima and Nagasaki
These cities were largely untouched during the nightly bombing raids and the Army Air Force agreed to leave them off the target list so accurate assessment of the weapon could be made. Hiroshima was described as "an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target."
Great Satan had previously dropped leaflets warning civilians of air raids on 35 Japanese cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
70,000–80,000 people, or some 30% of the population of Hiroshima were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm, and another 70,000 injured.
"Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death"
"If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware"
Japan"s Military Gov made plans to impose martial law and prevent anyone from making peace.
Nagasaki was hit today in 1945. Guestimates for immediate deaths range from 40,000 to 75,000
Until 9 August the war council had still insisted on its four conditions for surrender. On that day Hirohito ordered Kido to "quickly control the situation ... because the Soviet Union has declared war against us." He then held an Imperial conference during which he authorized minister Tōgō to notify the Allies that Japan would accept their terms on one condition, that the declaration "does not compromise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign ruler."
On 12 August the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, Prince Asaka, then asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai could not be preserved. Hirohito simply replied "Of course."
As the Allied terms seemed to leave intact the principle of the preservation of the Throne, Hirohito recorded on 14 August his capitulation announcement which was broadcast to the Japanese nation the next day despite a short rebellion by militarists opposed to the surrender.
Imperial Nippon formally gave up the ghost on board USS Missourion VJ Day
Pic - "Instrument of Surrender"
