Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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NIGHTWATCH: Pakistan Speaks for Taliban, Leaves Karzai to Hang

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism

Pakistan-Afghanistan: The Chinese news service Xinhua published a report on the outcome of talks between Afghan President Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Excerpts follow.

“Pakistan said Tuesday that Afghan Taliban insurgents are unwilling to talk to Karzai government and its peace negotiators at least for now.“

“The statement came hours after Afghan President Hamid Karzai concluded a two-day visit to Pakistan that was focused on efforts to encourage Taliban to come to the negotiating table.“

“Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said in Islamabad that Karzai had pressed for Islamabad's help to bring Taliban leaders to the negotiating table.“

“Afghan government claims that leaders of Taliban are living in Pakistan and that Islamabad should use influence on them and facilitate direct talks between Taliban and Afghan High Peace Council.“

“Pakistan's Advisor to the Prime Minister on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said that Taliban are not willing to talk to Afghan government or Afghan High Peace Council.“

“However Pakistan will try its best to persuade them to hold dialogue so as to avert outbreak of civil war in post-conflict Afghanistan, Aziz told state radio.“

Comment: The message behind the message is twofold. First is that the Taliban expect to return to power which explains their disinterest in peace negotiations with Karzai. Second, Pakistani national security interests require stability in post-Karzai Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan will act to avoid another outbreak of civil war after US and NATO forces leave and the Taliban returns to power. That is the meaning of the last sentence quoted above. Pakistan will not act to help save Karzai.

The simple bluntness of the statements attributed by Sartaj Aziz confirms that senior Pakistani officials are in communication with the Afghan Taliban leaders in Quetta sufficiently to speak for them.

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Owl: Syrian False-Flag Gas Attacks Evidence Crucifies Saudi Arabia

03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Who? Who?
Who? Who?

Syrian False-Flag Gas Attacks Evidence

This page from the Alex Jones site is a must-see, offering a remarkable compilation of 7 separate videos from Arabic sources showing evidence of non-Syrian government entities involved on the gas attack of Syrian civilians.

“With the assistance of former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat, WND has assembled evidence from various Middle Eastern sources that cast doubt on Obama administration claims the Assad government is responsible for last week’s attack.”

“On Aug. 23, LiveLeak.com hosted an audio recording of a phone call broadcast on Syrian TV between a terrorist affiliated with the rebel civilian militia “Shuhada al-Bayada Battalion” in Homs, Syria, and his Saudi Arabian boss, identified as “Abulbasit.” The phone call indicates rebel-affiliated terrorists in Syria, not the Assad government, launched the chemical weapons attack in Deir Ballba in the Homs, Syria, countryside.

The terrorist said his group, which comprises 200 terrorists escaped from al-Bayadah to al-Daar al-Kabera through a tunnel, needed to buy weapons to attack Homs.

The Saudi financier, who was in Cairo, asked the Syrian terrorists to give details about his group and how it will receive the money. The Saudi admitted his support to terrorists in Daraa and the Damascus countryside. The Syrian terrorist told him that one of the achievements of his “battalion” was the use of chemical weapons in Deir Ballba.

The recorded phone call disclosed the cooperation between two terrorist groups in Syria to bring two bottles of Sarin Gas from the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus.

Russian media sources have consistently reported Syrian military have discovered rebel warehouses containing chemical weapons agents and have documented rebel chemical weapons attacks on the Syrian civilians the military.”

Evidence: Syria gas attack work of U.S. allies

http://www.prisonplanet.com/evidence-syria-gas-attack-work-of-u-s-allies.html

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Eagle: Charles Hugh Smith on Speculative Credit Bubbles and Human Misery Created by Complicity of Corrupt Governments and Central Banks

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Federal Reserve, Government, Idiocy, Law Enforcement, World Bank
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

The Immense (and Needless) Human Misery Caused by Speculative Credit Bubbles   (August 27, 2013)

Financialization and the Neocolonial Model of credit-based exploitation leave immense human suffering in their wake when speculative credit bubbles inevitably implode.

Discussions of the global financial crisis tend to be bloodless accounts of policy and “growth.” This detachment masks the immense and totally needless human misery created by financial engineering. A correspondent with first-hand knowledge of the situation in Cyprus filed this account:

“RE: the Cyprus economic crisis, the politicians are unbowed by the chaos they caused, still behaving as they have always done, preaching populist platitudes, corrupt as ever, unapologetic. A poll showed that 99% of Cypriots believe their government is corrupt.Yesterday, the former president, Demetris Christofias, appeared before a tribunal investigating the causes of the economic collapse. He tried to force the tribunal to do what he told them, saying, “I am not just any witness, I was the President of the Republic for 5 years”. They told him where to get off and he stormed out.

Little hope for this country. Money leaving. Best talent leaving. Foreign investment in a planned energy hub has been hijacked by the politicians. Cyprus is returning back to what it always was: a tourist destination run by shopkeepers and farmers.Sad days. Most people feel betrayed by the politicians and big powers.”

This report highlights a key dynamic of speculative credit/banking bubbles: they require the complicity of central banks and the state. Speculative bubbles based solely on cash have very short lifespans, as the bubble bursts violently as soon as the gamblers' cash has been sucked into the vortex.

Read full report

 

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Berto Jongman: Accessing Terrorism Literature in the Digital Age Plus 230 Online Sites for Terrorism Research

09 Terrorism, Articles & Chapters
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

ENHANCING SECURITY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

Perspectives on Terrorism is  a journal of the Terrorism Research Initiative and the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies

Volume 7, Issue 3, pp. 84-98

The Art of Searching: How to Find Terrorism Literature in the Digital Age

Judith Tinnes

Abstract

This guide provides an overview on information retrieval techniques for locating high-quality literature on terrorism and counter-terrorism. Starting from general considerations on conducting a literature search – taking into account the specifics of terrorism studies – instructions are provided on how to find particular literature types by using different search methods and information retrieval systems, followed by information on how to refine a search by employing focused search strategies. The explanations are enriched with numerous links to recommendable resources. The included examples are focused on terrorism studies, but the general search mechanics can be applied to other research domains as well.

Full Text: PDF HTML

III. Resources

230 Websites and Blogs for Terrorism Research

Compiled and selected by Judith Tinnes

Abstract

This resource collection lists 230 websites and blogs which are deemed to be valuable information sources for serious researchers in the field of (counter-) terrorism studies. The first part lists websites run by academic, governmental, non-governmental, and private institutes, organisations, companies, as well as individual experts. The second part of the collection comprises blogs, many of them containing analyses of primary source materials as well as up-to-date news.

Access the Index (Live Links)

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Bruce Reidel: Pakistan Beats USA 12 Years In a Row

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, Officers Call
Bruce Reidel
Bruce Reidel

Pakistan, Taliban and the Afghan Quagmire

By: Bruce Riedel

With American and NATO combat troops scheduled to depart Afghanistan next year, the relationship between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan has become more important than ever. It is a complex and complicated nexus. Without doubt, Pakistan and its intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of the army (ISI), have more influence over the Taliban than any other country or intelligence service. It provides critical safe haven and sanctuary to the groups’ leadership, advice on military and diplomatic issues, and assistance with fund raising. But its influence is not complete, and whether it could persuade the Taliban to settle for a political settlement in Afghanistan, is unclear at best.

Pakistan’s Support for Survival and Revival of the Taliban

Continue reading “Bruce Reidel: Pakistan Beats USA 12 Years In a Row”

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Chuck Spinney: Robert Parry on CIA within CIA Coup Against Jimmy Carler

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

Below is a very important report (all of it below the line), written by Robert Parry, one of the best investigative journalists in what is left of the news business.

As I explained here, the most powerful form of conflict is the M&M strategy waged a the moral level of conflict. The M&M or Motherhood and Mismatch Strategy was conceived by the American strategist, Col. John R. Boyd.

The basic goal of an M&M strategy is to build support for and attract the uncommitted to your cause by framing a “motherhood” position — i.e., a position no one can object to, like the mythical American way of ‘freedom' and ‘democracy' — and then inviting  your opponent in to repeatedly attack it and, in so doing, smash himself to pieces at the mental and the even more decisive moral level of conflict.  Self-destruction will result inevitably, if you can successfully induce your adversary into attacking your motherhood position in a way that exposes mismatches among the three poles of his moral triangle, defined by (1) What your opponent says he is; (2) What he really is as defined by his actions; and (3) the World he has to deal with.

As Parry shows below, American political and bureaucratic elites are folding the M&M strategy back in on themselves, by fomenting partisan politics, including presidential election politics, that eat away at America's moral triangle from within.  The corruption implicit in these politics makes a mockery of the most sacred moral values, including especially those universal ideals we claim apply to the world (and increasingly export via the barrel of a gun).

Left unchecked,  an M&M strategy that turns on itself leads inevitably to dissolution and chaos; the only question being its form — perhaps the emergence of a full blown police state from above or a violent revolution from below or some kind of chaotic combination of both.

A CIA Hand in an American ‘Coup'?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News

26 August 13

Special Report: The U.S. government decries leaks, but the other side of the story is that key chapters of American history are hidden from the public for decades and maybe forever. The CIA has just admitted its 1953 Iran coup and may never acknowledge a role in ousting Jimmy Carter in 1980, Robert Parry reports.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Robert Parry on CIA within CIA Coup Against Jimmy Carler”

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