Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

psychopaths and sadists can be enormously useful to those aiming to achieve political ends by force, cf Chris Kyle

― walid foster dulles (man alive), Wednesday, 4 February 2015 15:48 (26 minutes ago)

topical social commentary ;)

even as I wrote that post I thought "this might be a little...trenchant"

A former operative for Al Qaeda testified that members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family were major donors in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy.

This is a surprise to who now...?

this is so sad and awful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/shaimaa-el-sabbagh-tahrir-square-killing-angers-egyptians.html

seems pertinent:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/31/terrorism-spectacle-how-states-respond-yuval-noah-harari-sapiens?utm_content=buffer38676&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

it's interesting bc this terrorism calculus only really makes sense in the modern world where things like "mistakes are made, atrocities are committed, public opinion wavers, questions are asked, neutrals change their stance and the balance of power shifts," are attenuated in their impact. in a time where overwhelming military response or atrocities are the status quo, or where you don't have the nature of war weariness / resistance found in democracies, etc, many of these things are defused. i think in one sense this is how terrorism exploits western ideals - it tries to force us to be untrue to our own ideals and expose our hypocrisies (that all predate that particular attack). i think this is also behind a lot of my skepticism about the value of terrorism. obv if you can pull a country like the US into a long protracted and expensive war (like Iraq) you can deal actual damage to their system (though still probably far less than conventional destruction of military assets). but for the most part terrorism victories, like that piece says, are theatrical, or ideological victories. but i'm not sure that theater or ideology translate substantially into actual victories. like you can get the US public to demand we pull out of Iraq, but you can't get the president to stop drone bombing yemen. you can increase US debt, but you can't destroy natural resources, trade affiliations, production, etc.

AMMAN, Jordan — There was one feeling that many of the Middle East’s fractious clerics, competing ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State’s latest excess, its video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive inside a cage.

In Syria, the government denounced the group that has been fighting it for months, but so did Qaeda fighters who oppose both the government and the Islamic State. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government for once agreed on something, the barbarity of the militant group for the way it murdered the Jordanian, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh. Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Cairo’s thousand-year-old Al Azhar institute and a leading Sunni scholar, was so angered that he called for the Islamic State’s extremists to be “killed, or crucified, or their hands and legs cut off.”

Never known as a charismatic leader, King Abdullah got rave reviews at home for his tough talk in Washington, where in a meeting with congressional leaders he said his retribution would remind people of the Clint Eastwood movie “Unforgiven.”

He is considered to be one of the most moderate Sunni clerics in Egypt.[1]

El-Tayeb spoke at the rally, saying "the al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews" and "we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds [Jerusalem]". He also alleged that Jews around the world were trying to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.[6][7] The rally was criticized by the New York Daily News as antisemitic.[8]

where in a meeting with congressional leaders he said his retribution would remind people of the Clint Eastwood movie “Unforgiven.”

i feel like we've closed a circle here

the uk needed some more calls do more in the middle east, and thankfully it has now got calls to do more to combat isis

principally from the lord stewart of khartoum, the uk's senior adviser on mohammedan affairs

not clear that there are any identifiable targets in otherwise uninhabited locations that haven't already been bombed, or that can't promptly be bombed by the world's premier air force, but it would be good to see some british ordnance casings on the ground for old time's sake

remember the falklands

thing that makes me IA, but not innocuous: friends on facebook citing RT (Russian state media) or even worse Press TV (Iranian state media) as a source for anything middle-east related.

suggest for new phrase 'burning the pilot' to describe when a movement oversteps and alienates even its own supporters cf the old cartoon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot

shit, totally burned the pilot here and they're going to sister souljah us

Psyched for some RAF/Saudi 30th anniversary Al-Yamamah tandem raids, tbh.

Jordan wants to do more too.

One of Mordy's fave writers (said sarcastically) Juan Cole is comparing this to the George Bush Shock and Awe campaign

http://www.juancole.com/2015/02/shock-because-victim.html

While others are analysing Islamic writing for an explanation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/04/the-chilling-reason-the-islamic-state-burned-a-jordanian-pilot-alive/

One point that has bothered me in the Lawrence Wright book so far is the portrayal of Begin as though he almost single-handedly invented modern terrorism. Seems dangerously close to an anti-semitic canard.

Koplow asks if Turkey is on the precipice of a presidential takeover

He's referencing Stephen A. Cook on that who has been critical of Turkey since 2010. Some folks online don't seem to trust Cook. I dunno.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/jordan-airstrikes-isis_n_6620844.html

Jordan air strikes...

that'll learn 'em

who knew jordan had fighter jets

is that a ref to this shakey classic

I agree, Shakey. Though I don't think Israel should do it. I think if they're so hot to invade {Syria}, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and France should do it.

― Mordy , Tuesday, 27 August 2013 18:11 (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol Saudi Arabia do they even have an army

― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 27 August 2013 18:12 (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heh heh

but seriously has saudi arabia ever deployed their American-gifted military might against anybody? I guess they did some shit in Gulf War I iirc. SA's all about proxy warfare afaict.

according to wiki SA spends 60 billion a year on its military, three times as much as Israel, which seems incredible

SA is a good deal richer than Israel

i thought the CW was that the saudi military is (to some degree) an operation in prince-busying and contractor-enriching

i need to sell them an aircraft carrier

i mean, more than what any other country's military is i guess

SA is a good deal richer than Israel a good reminder when we talk about regional hegemonies

that juan cole piece is otm

really? i didn't see anything of value in it, or even get his point. was it just doing another "we're just as bad as them" post?

yeah well maybe we are. to some.

anyway i'm gonna need a liiitle more corroboration for this, juan:

The Iraqi military turned guerrilla and harried US troops for 8 1/2 years, then many of the ex-Baath officers and trained soldiers deserted secular nationalism, turned to al-Qaeda-type ideologies, formed Daesh and took over western and northern Iraq and eastern Syria.

The ex-Baath officers learned from seeing their colleagues and troops burned up by the Bush fireworks.

i mean, that's fine as an argument, but what makes it different from like every other article he has written?

also, i feel like he gets so close to Stalin's statistics quote but just can't quite cross the rubicon

didn't u know the natives weren't smart enough to learn about burning ppl themselves - they had to be taught by the decadent west ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They knew only peace until the white man came with his thunder stick

http://www.timesofisrael.com/unesco-head-nixes-offensive-unacceptable-palestine-poster-collection/

The head of UNESCO vetoed the inclusion of a vast collection of Palestine-themed posters in a register of world heritage, arguing that the posters fuel hatred and anti-Semitism, The Times of Israel has learned.

The decision by Irina Bokova to block the Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters from being accepted into UNESCO’s Memory of the World program marks the first time such a nomination has been vetoed.

The collection was initially accepted by an advisory board but then blocked by Bokova, who said some of the posters were “totally unacceptable” and “run counter to the values of UNESCO,” the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Besides universal themes of occupation and the motifs depicting the struggle for liberation and peace — such as barbed wire and white doves — many of the posters feature machine guns and hand grenades, extolling armed resistance and terrorism. Some of the posters glorify Palestinian suicide attacks and other murderous missions against Israeli civilians, including a 1978 massacre known in Israel as the bloodiest terror attack in the country’s history.

Just wow, good for UNESCO. I would not have expected this (if I had known that this archive was up for inclusion).

according to wiki SA spends 60 billion a year on its military, three times as much as Israel, which seems incredible

If they didn't spend that the UK would be a whole lot poorer.

Well, Juan Cole is not the only one bugging people with comparisons re ISIS:

President Obama may have thought he was giving a straightforward history lesson at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday when he compared the atrocities of the Islamic State to the bloodshed committed in the name of Christianity in centuries past.

But that is not how many of his longtime critics saw it.

“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,” said Jim Gilmore, the former Republican governor of Virginia. “He has offended every believing Christian in the United States.”

Rush Limbaugh devoted a segment of his show to what he said were the president’s insults to the “whole gamut of Christians” and Twitter’s right wing piled on. Guests on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show spent 15 minutes airing objections to the president’s comments.

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Mr. Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/us/politics/obama-national-prayer-breakfast-terrorism-islam.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

T. Coates is tweeting about the KKK and its use of fire too

gotta be honest that the argument "well they're only just as bad as european christianity + american slavery" is not so persuasive to me

"before we get on our high horses let's remember that the de facto leader of the EU was running gas chambers less than a decade ago"

I kinda enjoy seeing high-horse types saying dumb things when confronted with history. Whether you can persuade anyone that their religion has been used as cover for immoral actions, is not easy.

Meanwhile, the neo-cons (of various faiths) on the Washington Post editorial page are grumbling that because Obama wants a nuclear treaty with Iran, he is going easy on Iran's client state Syria, and is not providing enough weapons and support to the 'moderate rebels' in Syria who can overthrow Assad, and is not putting enough US special-op folks on the ground to spot ISIS movements so the alliance can take the fight to them more efficiently

obv i meant century not decade too early sorry xp

I also find it a not very effective or persuasive line of argument but it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. It just seems like the endgame of it is no one should ever criticize anyone lest they be hypocrites, and that's not a very productive stance in global politics.