RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian teenagers who came one after another into the True Love gift and music shop on a recent afternoon all had the same request: nationalistic songs — the new ones.
The proprietor quickly handed over the CDs that he had just started keeping at the checkout counter, like “Jerusalem Is Bleeding,” featuring the track “It’an, It’an” — “Stab, stab” — with its ominous backbeat.
“When I listen to these songs it makes me boil inside,” said one customer, Khader Abu Leil, 15, explaining that the thrumming score has helped pump him up for near-daily demonstrations where he hurls stones at Israeli soldiers.
Inspired by this month’s wave of Palestinian attacks against Israeli Jews and deadly clashes with Israeli security forces, musicians in the occupied West Bank and beyond have produced scores of militaristic, often violent tunes. Published and shared on YouTube and Facebook, they form something of an intifada soundtrack, illustrated by videos that include gritty clips from fresh events.
European immigration problems approach critical mass
European immigration problems make ours look like a walk in the park. According to the Washington Post:
BRUSSELS — Thousands of refugees, most fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been snaking northward through the Balkans in recent days, confronting a Europe woefully unprepared to deal with them at every step.
Most endured a perilous crossing to Greece aboard rafts and boats, some barely fit to sail. They traversed Greece, a nation paralyzed by economic crisis and too poor to handle a flow of people that in July hit a record high. At the border with Macedonia late last week, they trudged through a wall of riot police, who fought them back with tear gas before relenting. Now, the asylum-seekers, thousands a day, are racing into Hungary, which is rushing to complete a barbed-wire border fence by the end of the month to force them to seek other routes.
It is a long parade of misery unparalleled in Europe in recent years. But the continent has so far failed to agree how to respond. Amid a refugee crisis that by some measures is the worst since World War II, individual nations are being left to improvise their own measures. In Hungary, that is taking the form of 108 miles of barbed wire and fencing.
The crisis is shaking fundamental tenets of European life, including the principle of free movement between most of the nations of the European Union. It is fueling a surge of anti-migrant sentiment in the countries that are housing the bulk of the asylum-seekers, Germany and Sweden. And it is straining the weakest countries, such as Greece, that are on migration’s front lines.
“Unless we do something, we will become a lifeboat sinking under the weight of people holding on to it and drowning everybody, both those seeking help and those offering help,” said Janos Lazar, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, at a ceremony last week celebrating the founding of Hungary.
Netanyahu: Should he be speaking before Congress?
Too late now. Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before Congress at 11 a.m. today. Many Democrats will not be in attendance. President Obama will not meet with the Israeli prime minister while he is here.
Many Americans feel he broke protocol by accepting an invitation from Congress to speak. In fact, many Israelis want him to cancel also. The chart above gives the break down.
At the heart of the matter is talks with Iran. Netanyahu doesn’t like our stance. Perhaps there are two sides. Who knows. The issue has gotten all tangled up in American politics and probably in Israeli politics also. Israel has elections in 2 weeks. Could this visit have any bearing on those elections?
Kerry denounces chicken-sh*t remark
Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday decried a reported comment from a senior Obama administration official that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was “a chickensh—,” saying the remark was “disgraceful.”
Appearing at The Atlantic’s Ideas Forum in Washington, the top U.S. diplomat condemned the attack from an unnamed administration official and said it didn’t reflect President Barack Obama or his values.
“We condemn anybody who uses language such as was used in this article,” Kerry said, in response to the report in The Atlantic. “That does not reflect the president, it does not reflect me. It is disgraceful, unacceptable, damaging. And I think neither President Obama, nor I — I’ve never heard that word around me in the White House, or anywhere.”
Middle East conflict becomes a war on children
A day after a dramatic video surfaced apparently showing the abduction of a Palestinian teenager who was later killed, another video has been released that appears to show Israeli police beating a youth. His family says the youth is a 15-year-old American who is the slain teen’s second cousin.
Read More
Abu Khattala: The video that just keeps on resurfacing….
The New York Times reported Tuesday:
What he did in the period just before the attack has remained unclear. But Mr. Abu Khattala told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.
An earlier demonstration venting anger over the video outside the American Embassy in Cairo had culminated in a breach of its walls, and it dominated Arab news coverage. Mr. Abu Khattala told both fellow Islamist fighters and others that the attack in Benghazi was retaliation for the same insulting video, according to people who heard him.
In an interview days after the attack, he pointedly declined to say whether he believed an offense such as the anti-Islamic video might indeed warrant the destruction of the diplomatic mission or the killing of the ambassador. “From a religious point of view, it is hard to say whether it is good or bad,” he said.
This video keeps resurfacing in conversation after conversation. Funny, how Muslims throughout the middle east were all pissed off except for those in Libya. go figure.
Cut the crap about Iraq
Huffingtonpost.com:
WASHINGTON — The argument for going to war in Iraq was clearly made. Over and over again, Saddam Hussein was said to be a turn-of-the-millennium Hitler, a madman bent on destroying America with his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, that turned out to be false, but at the time, the justification was no mystery. The word “weapons” shows up 1,107 times in the Congressional Record during the period when the House and Senate were voting to grant President George W. Bush the authority to use force against Iraq. The more specific “weapons of mass [destruction or murder]” comes up 368 times.
Islamic factions 101: Why they fight?
Surely there is more to it than this. More people have been killed in the name of God or whatever people choose to call their supreme being deity than for any other reason. This one seems stranger than all the others. It is all over the successors to Allah. Surely all the conflict can’t be over this?
Where do riches, water rights in a desert country, haves over have-nots come in to play? Afraid I will never understand the stupidity of all this killing, regardless of what is written. I don’t understand the extremism or the willingness to annihilate.
I expect western culture probably is the real cause. Had we left things alone and not tried to carve up the middle east after WWI, perhaps things would be different and that includes Palestine and Israel.
Then there is the notion, as far as Iraq is concerned, that if you go in and bust up someone else’s country over something that isn’t really there, then you reap what you sow. Yea, Saddam Hussein was a brutal monster. So was Tito. However, there is something to be said for someone who goes in and says, if you fight, I will kill you. They do, he does, and point made.
Where is the Big “O”? The Faux OUTRAGE
The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,
Faux News is going to beat this to death. How on earth does an intelligence failure turn in to such outrage? Were they outraged over that big intelligence failure, 9-11? How about the mission accomplished fanfare? How about the weapons of mass destruction intelligence failure that was just a flat out lie? How about the outing of Valerie Plame that ruined a woman’s career?
Not much outrage there. Faux News has to stir up their base and the old people. What’s a good day without working up the base?
How odd that there were protests all around the world over a video but in Benghazi, no one had seen or heard of said video. It was just all terrorist attack? Stupid Obama! Stupid Susan Rice. Stupid Hillary Clinton! Get on over there and fix the problem.
They begat themselves blind…almost
Islam is but a teenager still. John and Jon remind each other of the teenage years of the 3 Abrahamic religions.
They hate us because they hate us?
Every since 9-11 people have asked the question why? All sorts of platitudes have been give: “They” are jealous of our freedoms, our material wealth, our material possessions. None of these answers made the least bit of sense to me. Why would any of those things make 11 grown men get in an aircraft and drive it into a building as a soaring speed, killing themselves and others? It doesn’t make sense. Who is “they?”
Morning Joe, aka Joe Scarborugh seems to think he has the answer. He say regardless of who he speaks with in the intelligence community, he gets told the same thing when he asks the question, why do they hate us:
1. their religion
2. their culture
3. peer pressure
They hate us because they hate us. No other reason. Everything else is just an excuse.
I am not sure I agree with that and I am not sure I want to go to war over it if it is true. Who is “they?” Are we talking Middle Easterners? Muslims?
Is Morning Joe right or is he full of it?
Florida Minister Endangers the Troops
Several weeks ago we put up a thread about a minister in Florida who planned to burn copies of the Quran on 9/11. To date, there seems to be mo change in his misguided plans.
CNN reports:
CNN) — The U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Monday criticized a Florida church’s plan to burn copies of the Quran on September 11, warning the demonstration “could cause significant problems” for American troops overseas.
“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan,” Gen. David Petraeus said in a statement issued Monday.
The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, plans to mark the anniversary of al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by burning copies of the Muslim holy book. The church insists the event is “neither an act of love nor of hate,” but a warning against what it calls the threats posed by Islam.
Good for General Petraeus. Its time someone called out this arrogant man. Who better than the commander of all US troops in Afghanistan.
More from CNN:
With about 120,000 U.S. and NATO-led troops still battling al Qaeda and its allies in the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement, Petraeus warned that burning Qurans “is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems — not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”
And one of his deputies, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, told CNN’s “The Situation Room” that event “has already stirred up a lot of discussion and concern” among Afghans.
“We very much feel that this can jeopardize the safety of our men and women that are serving over here in the country,” said Caldwell, the head of NATO efforts to train Afghan security forces.
Caldwell said American troops “are over here to defend the rights of American citizens, and we’re not debating the First Amendment rights that people have.” But he added, “What I will tell you is that their very actions will in fact jeopardize the safety of the young men and women who are serving in uniform over here and also undermine the very mission that we’re trying to accomplish.”
“I would hope they would understand that there are second- and third-order effects that will occur that will affect that young man and woman who’s out there on point for America, serving their nation today, because of their actions back in the United States,” he said
The stupidity and arrogance of this minister is almost unspeakable. When the U.S. Commander tells you that you are endangering the troops, you should listen. If even one of our men or women is killed because of this ignoramous, his entire ministry should be held responsible. How sad that Americans would involve themselves with book burning. Sounds Third Reich to me. I would have no problem with the press being ordered to stay away and the minister barred from his bonfire on 9/11, as a matter of national security. The first amendment is not without some limitations.
Meanwhile, we can only hope that our troops will be safe.
Senators demand investigating BP’s oil deal with Libya
Remember the dude who was released from Scottish prison back in August of 2009 and sent home to Libya? He wasn’t just your run of the mill thug. Megrahi had received a life sentence for his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. 189 Americans lost their life on Pan Am Flight 103. 290 lives were lost in all.
The public was told that Megrahi had only weeks to live and he was being released for humanitarian reasons. Americans were outraged at the time, but this guy just seemed to float off the radar. Did I mention that Megrahi is still alive? So much for days, weeks, or months left.
Pentagon Says at Least a Trillion in Mineral Deposits in Afghanistan
From the NY Times:
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.
“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.
We have already know about the Afghanistan lapis lazuli, better known as just lapis. It has become increasingly more costly since the Afghanistan war, mainly because it is harder to get the mineral. Afghan miners go far up into the mountains where the vast lapis deposits are and bring out the rough on mules and human packs. The best lapis in the world comes out of Afghanistan. I got my stash from a friend’s husband who has a good eye for jewelry.
Now what about all this lithium, iron, copper, cobalt, gold, etc? Supposedly trillions of dollars worth. How would a primitive country like Afghanistan ever develop to the point where some of these riches could be mined and distributed world wide? What would keep the Taliban and Al Quada from taking control of the wealth?
It sounds to me like if anything is done with these riches, the Americans out to put on their ugly American hat and simply be the big, bad watch dog. Besides, that war has cost us a small fortune. Pay backs are expensive. Royalties are expensive.
Helen Thomas and the Thought Police
Well, in her case, Helen Thomas, White House reporter for years, put her foot in her mouth.
Ok. While we might not agree with her words, there is something bothering me about the hue and cry over her remarks. For starters, she offered an opinion. She said she felt that Palestine was occupied by Israel. I never heard her utter the word ‘Jews.’ There are an awful lot of people in the world who believe that. Why is Helen Thomas, daughter of Lebanese immigrants, not allowed her opinion? Additionally, she said that those occupying needed to go home. Good grief, that is said every day towards Latinos here in this county.
Helen Thomas is almost 90 years old. She apologized. Many news agencies have said her apologies were not good enough because she didn’t really mean it. This is where the thought police come into play. There is just something about that kind of mind control that bothers me a great deal. Who are we to tell others how to think? While we can be held accountable for what comes out of our mouths, how can anyone hold us accountable for what they think we should think.
On June 4, Helen Thomas issued the following apology:
“I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.” (June 4, 2010)
To her credit, Ellen Ratner of Fox News issued the following:
Helen Thomas has apologized. What more do people want?
If I had a dollar for every American who has said something in private about a racial, ethnic, or sexual minority in this county I would be a multimillionaire many times over.
Let’s face it we all have said things — or thought things — about “other” groups of people, things that we would not want to see in print or on video. Anyone who denies it is a liar.
Helen is three months short of ninety and her brain’s filters might not work as well as a forty year old’s. Give her a break.
Ellen Ratner is Washington bureau chief for Talk Radio News Service and a Fox News contributor.
Helen Thomas has resigned. Her resignation was announced around noon. I think the greater tragedy is that a 90 year old woman can’t be allowed to retract her statements, especially a lady of her stature.
She is a very remarkable woman. I can’t image being her age and doing the job she is still doing. Many of us who grew up with Helen Thomas will miss her. The good news is, now she is a free agent, she can also speak freely. I expect she will, knowing Helen Thomas and I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that acerbic tongue.
[disclaimer: This post does not imply agreement with Helen Thomas]
