Author Archive

Nine Children

Monday, March 12th, 2012

Nazim Shah returned to his home in Panjwai district from a trip to Kandahar to find his entire family killed. Sobbing into the phone, he told The Independent: “All my family is dead … We will get revenge on those who killed my family. We won’t let this rest easily.” The attack comes at a crucial time, as President Hamid Karzai and US officials, under strained relations, negotiate a future role for foreign forces after Nato troops hand over security to Afghan forces in 2014.

Witnesses and officials gave differing accounts of yesterday’s events, but it appears that the soldier, as yet unnamed, left the joint US-Afghan Zangebad base at about 3am. He walked to the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, about a kilometre away, and began the killings which left nine children, three women and four men dead. Five more were wounded.

“The US soldier attacked three different houses, killing 11 people in the first house, four in the second house and one in the third house,” said Mahammad, a tribal elder in Panjwai. “The 11 people who were first shot dead were brought together in one home and the soldier put pillows, sticks and blankets on them and burnt them.” Photographs of the victims showed burn injuries.

Check out the atrocity timeline.
Heres my atrocity timeline.
collateral murder, garani massacre, fallujah massacre, haditha massacre, Iraqi Rape Squad, Afghan Kill Squad.
things are getting worse.
In the battle for hearts and minds America just got its ass handed to it.

update:  Immediate US exit?

Why Syria Is Not Like Libya

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Syrian has a border with Israel.
Libya does not.

Escape From Distributed Jesusland

Monday, December 5th, 2011

razib, murtaad fitri links a post by our one-time mutual friend Jim Manzi. The Paradox of Libertarianism.  This is the post that inspired my description of liberty-as-means libertarianism as “localized mob rule”, and the catch phrase I used to describe that was Distributed Jesusland, which made Dr. Manzi laugh.
But Distributed Jesusland is real, it is just the Jesusland map minus the cities.
Can Distributed Jesusland still win elections? Only local ones I think– like the 2010 midterms. I do not think Distributed Jesusland can win a general election ever again.
I have lost a great deal of respect for my onetime conservative comrades as they devolve deeper into the reactionary madness that is the contemporary GOP.
But like Nate Silver says, demographics is destiny, and 2012 will be the year we will end our long national nightmare and begin our escape from Distributed Jesusland.

REAMDE

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

Guess what Neal Stephenson has doing since Anathem?
Playing Warcrack.

I wish knew what server, and what toons.
:)

OrtegaSeason Wuz Right

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Courtney Messerschmidt turns out to be another Hot Abercrombie Chick.

Searching for the Magdalene.

Advantage, OrtegaSeason.

:)

Meanwhile, Back in Iraq

Monday, September 5th, 2011

Friday, September 02, 2011 13:48 GMT
Al Iraqiya List MP Talal Al Zawbaai said on Thursday that his list and members of the National Alliance and Kurdistan Alliance will support Sdarist Bloc if it calls to conduct a censure motion. Zawbaai added that more than 180 MP are ready to outrun the heads of their blocs and to “destroy the idols that ripped the unity of the country.
Al Iraqiya MP Talal Al Zawbaai told Alsumarianews that more than 180 MP have their own plans and bid to surpass their blocs leaders and are ready to destroy the idols that ripped Iraqis and harmed Iraq unity. He also called members of the parliament to destroy these icons that are suffocating Iraqis and don’t want Iraqis to embrace light and freedom.
Zawbaai hailed Sadrist bloc call for a demonstration after the Eid in order to ask for better services in the country, stressing that Al Iraqiya will support Sadrist Bloc f it calls to conduct a censure motion. He added that not only Sadrist Bloc and, Al Iraqiya List will be voting but also Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and a part of Kurdistan Alliance are not satisfied with the performance of the current government.
“All these blocs can make Maliki government lose the confidence motion and establish a new majority government far from the existing sectarian and political apportionment, a government that would encompass all the Iraqis. Zawbaai called MPs to constitute a strong and comprehensive bloc that would be capable of changing governments and answering the needs of the Iraqis.
In August 27, Sadrist Bloc said that censure motion is linked to which extent the government responds to the huge demonstrations to which Moqtada Al Sadr called in all Iraqi Provinces and towns after the end of Fitr Eid vacation and that in order to call for improving the services as the 6 months timeline the movement gave to the government ended.
Non-Governmental Organizations called in August 24, 2011 to crowded demonstrations in Tahrir Square and the provinces in September 9 in order to call Maliki government to resign. Sadr Movement stressed that the call to organize these demonstrations came after the end of the timeline that was given to Maliki government to resign and apologize for repressing the demonstrators. It also threatened that if the government doesn’t answer the demands the demonstrations will become a permanent sit in until their demands are met.

What will it mean if the Maliki government falls on the anniversary of 9/11?
Will it mean the terrorists have won?

Frank Rich says they have.
In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past ten years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq War but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street. This was happening in plain sight—or so we can now see from a distance. At the time, we were so caught up in Al Qaeda’s external threat to America that we didn’t pay proper attention to the more prosaic threats within.
In such an alternative telling of the decade’s history, the key move Bush made after 9/11 had nothing to do with military strategy or national-security policy. It was instead his considered decision to rule out shared sacrifice as a governing principle for the fight ahead. Sacrifice was high among the unifying ideals that many Americans hoped would emerge from the rubble of ground zero, where so many Good Samaritans had practiced it. But the president scuttled the notion on the first weekend after the attack, telling Americans that it was his “hope” that “they make no sacrifice whatsoever” beyond, perhaps, tolerating enhanced airline security. Few leaders in either party contradicted him. Bush would soon implore us to “get down to Disney World in Florida” and would even lend his image to a travel-industry ad promoting tourism. Our marching orders were to go shopping.

The Awfullness of Andrew Sullivan

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

Andrew Sullivan muses….was MLK a christianist?
No, dummie, christianists are universally NHC white.
Non-hispanic Caucasian Christian nativists.

The Norwegian EDL

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

Christian conservative and white supremacist wingnut Anders Breivik wanted to establish an EDL clone in Norway.

In the Dihliz

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

I agree with this so much.

“Just as every policymaker needs to know the ABCs of diplomacy, they need to understand the ABCs of culture. And a deep knowledge of the culture is the knowledge of religion. Lacking that, there can be all kinds of faux pas. Important military divisions and wings of our government [have shown] that there is a tremendous knowledge deficit.”

So I asked Dr. Moosa my question, is Islam incompatible with freedom of speech?
Perhaps he will answer me.

No one else has.

who can say.

Lies and Spin from the Secular Right

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

David Hume aka Razib, murtaad fitri says.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is privately telling American officials that it wants their army to stay here after this year.

Source plz?  or i call bulshytt.  Link or it didnt happen, Razib.
Maliki’s Dawa party is part of the State of Law bloc, and both State of Law and al-Iraqiya have PUBLICALLY come out AGAINST the American Occupiers staying.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party joined Shiite Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sadr Movement in rejecting calls for extending the stay of U.S. troops on Iraq after their scheduled withdrawal at the end of 2011, pan-Arab daily AL HAYAT reported on Wednesday. Justifying its position, the Dawa Party released a statement saying that its position “ensures the cohesion of the government which is confronting a crisis of confidence with the Iraqiya bloc and is confronting “political blackmail.”

Iraqiya bloc has also called for the enforcement of the SOFA.

Baghdad, July 6 (AKnews) – An MP from the al-Iraqiya bloc said today that his party supports the Sadrist’s in their strident opposition to an extension of the U.S. troop stay.
Itab al-Dawri told AKnews that al-Iraqiya, headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi, not only demands the departure of U.S. troops but it also calls for financial compensation and an official apology.
“The U.S. forces displaced 7 million Iraqis and left 5 million orphans and 2 million widows, according to international reports, and all MPs of the Iraqiya list agreed on refusing the extension of the presence of the troops,” she said.

President Obama says US forces will leave Iraq in December.