Category Archives: Middle East

Body-Parts Porn Again

Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, Military, War

OOPS, GI JOE’S BEEN BAD, AGAIN. Corpse desecration and other crimes against the occupied were said to be the purview of a “few bad apples” in an otherwise stellar American military. For a rarity, the body-parts pornography appears to be quite common. Naturally, every rational individual knows (NOT!) that blame lies with … the L.A. Times for exposing the latest incident of beastly behavior. All the better to deflect from the perps and the King’s comitatus that keeps them in blighted and benighted Afghanistan.

So what exactly are we talking about? Over to the LA Times:

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs. …

As was remarked upon in “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question,” “…the truth about the people we are pissing on and pissing off in Afghanistan is quite simple. America’s indisputably brave soldiers have been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population. These Pashtuns disdain the central government we desperately want them to obey. So it goes: We help local groups believed to be patriotic, but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate they despise.”

Murder as Respected Policy

Democrats, Foreign Policy, Gender, Middle East, Russia, War

Today, on the MSNBC show of Andrea Mitchell (wife to former chief counterfeiter Alan Greenspan), an ideological member of Hillary Clinton’s posse, Jane Harman, the “Democrat who represented California’s 36th District in the U.S. House, and is president and chief executive of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,” said the following, and I paraphrase:

Assad should leave Syria [his home]. Maybe his Russian pals can save his family members of whom he seems fond.

The gorgon also recommended that, “Newly ‘elected’ President Vladimir Putin could use the crisis in Syria to ‘reset’ world perceptions of his country. Negotiating Assad’s exit would go a long way toward restoring Russia’s image as a responsible and crucial global player.”

This is what passes for scholarship at the fittingly named Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and on MSM.

UPDATED: Nothing Like A Peace Proposal to Out Warmakers (Like The Wicked Witch Of The East)

Feminism, Foreign Policy, Gender, Hillary Clinton, Middle East, War

In Libya, our murderous efforts brought the National Transitional Council to power, under whose rule massacres are a daily occurrence. (147 people dead today. “Inter-tribal clashes” is how the West is finessing the carnage.)

The West’s Libyan learning curve is about to crest in Syria, as the Us and its conniving (far smarter) Saudi pals are considering assistance to the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).

As RT reported, “Damascus has accepted Kofi Annan’s six-point plan to stop bloodshed in the country, a spokesman for the UN envoy to Syria announced… the Syrian government was willing to cooperate with Koffi Annan’s peace plan to ‘remove all excuses’ for possible international intervention.”

On the other hand, “the Syrian opposition refuse to accept any resolution that does not stipulate Assad’s removal, claiming that his acceptance of Annan’s 6-point proposal is merely an attempt to draw out the conflict.”

Meantime, at the “Friends of Syria” summit, which should be more honestly tagged “Friends of Syrian Rebels Summit (Allah bless their bonny heads),” The Hildebeest and her Saudi handlers debated the ultimatums to be presented to the Assad regime before overthrowal.

UPDATE (April 3): “THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST,” writes says Michael S. Rozeff, at LRC.COM, “has signaled the policy shift of the U.S. to bring down the current Syrian government by saying ‘We believe Assad must go…’ What is she brewing up to bring this about? This is a now familiar pattern. It was after Obama said the same thing about Gaddafi that the Empire went into high gear to remove him.”

The complete CBS quote of the Hildebeest’s words:

“We believe Assad must go, that the killing must stop. The sooner we get into a process that ends up there, the better.”

Clinton seems to have a major obsession about bringing the sufferers of the world under her “healing” ministrations. Another “War of the Womb.”

Jacqueline Kennedy was so smart; she said women should not be in politics. They are too emotional. (Later on she was forced to retract, as revealed in the audio recordings of Mrs. Kennedy’s historic 1964 conversations with historian Arthur Schlesinger, on life with John F. Kennedy. I am currently listening to the tapes—and to her mesmerizing voice—in the car.)

UPDATED: Putin Saves Us From Ourselves

Foreign Policy, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Ron Paul, Russia, The West, War

“Putin Saves Us From Ourselves” is my new column (front page on RT, the column was buried at the bottom of WND’s second page, where two-day-old columns go to die, so is unlikely to edify the few who might have been amenable to edification). Here’s an excerpt:

“He vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling on President Bashar Assad to step down. Such a resolution, he argued, would serve as a ruse for the US to do a Libya in Syria.

He made the case that the “Syrian crisis would be better resolved by Syrians themselves,” and that the West should confine itself to brokering a ceasefire in that country, and encouraging dialogue between the feuding factions.

And, “Six months ago,” by the Daily Star’s telling, he “vetoed an earlier draft resolution threatening Damascus with sanctions.”

He is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president elect. And he has done nothing that Ron Paul, president of America’s libertarians, would not have done: work to avert another ill-conceived, idiotic American intervention in a country in which it has no business, advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and oppose economic sanctions, which always and everywhere do more damage than good.

A just course of action is a just course of action irrespective of the actor.

The Sino-Russian alliance has been promoting the idea of an accord, involving “all the Syrians, the government and all opposition groups,” or so the Washington Post framed their side. NATO (nee the US) was champing at the bit to take the battle for Syria away from the Syrians and put it where they believe it belongs: the US military and its proxies.

Now, out of the blue, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pretending that the United States and its Arab and European allies have always supported such a civilized solution in Syria, and were merely waiting on the Russians to get with the peace program. This is the same woman who came close to squatting on Gadhafi’s corpse, in honor of her country’s custom of peeing on its dead enemies.

Yes, one minute the Obama Administration and its UN and Arab-League lickspittles had been itching to oust Assad. The next, the same coalition was dusting Kofi Annan off and dispatching him, as a UN envoy, to mediate a resolution to Syria’s civil war.

What’s going on here? …

The complete column is “Putin Saves Us From Ourselves.”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper pr pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT and “Return To Reason” on WND.

UPDATE: So true, Stephen Hayes. This is why I keep at my readers to post their responses to what they read here far and wide; post them to where my columns are featured, at RT (a new audience), and WND (which buried this column on the second page, where 2-day-old columns are posted), on Amazon (where is your Cannibal review, Stephen?), and other forums. Here on BAB, you are preaching to the converted.