Super saavy cats at CTC give up the deets about how That Which Must Not Be Named is like in a Civil War: On February 2, 2014, al-Qa`ida released a statement declaring that “it has no connection” with the “group” called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The statement further highlighted that al-Qa`ida was not responsible for founding the ISIL and was not privy to the deliberations that led to its establishment. That is why, the statement continued, “The ISIL is not a branch of al-Qa`ida, the latter is not bound by organizational ties to it and is not responsible for the ISIL’s actions.”
This is not about “near enemy” or “far enemy,” but is equivalent to suicide or, in jihadist parlance, martyrdom in concert.
The statement marked the first time that al-Qa`ida publicly disowned a jihadist group. To be sure, the leadership of al-Qa`ida has on numerous occasions dissociated itself from attacks characterized by indiscriminate killings, particularly those that targeted Muslim civilians. Yet at no point did al-Qa`ida publicly rebuke a jihadist group by name.
The ISIL’s defiance of al-Qa`ida is not new, however, and although it was not made public, captured internal communiqués authored by al-Qa`ida leaders demonstrated the rift that the Iraq-based group has caused in the jihadist world. Disagreements began as early as 2005 when the group was still called “al-Qa`ida in Mesopotamia” and under the leadership of Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi. The latter’s relentless attacks against Shi`a in Iraq alarmed al-Qa`ida’s central leadership, prompting al-Zawahiri and `Atiyya al-Libi to send al-Zarqawi gentle reminders that it was not the general public, but the Americans and their Iraqi collaborators, who should be the target of his attacks.
Why did it take so long for al-Qa`ida to disown the ISI/ISIL publicly if the problems began in 2005 and worsened in 2006? To put this in a broader context, it is useful to remember that some jihadist groups, such as al-Qa`ida, are driven by strategic considerations, while others, such as the ISI/ISIL, are driven by sectarian differences and pedestrian disputes
To project a strong presence in the eyes of their enemies, strategically-driven groups are willing to present a unified front and avoid airing the dirty laundry of other groups in public. Those driven by sectarian or pedestrian differences are willing to sacrifice strategic objectives and rush to air their grievances with other groups for the sake of purifying the creed or upstaging their competitors. Yet it is evident that the ISI had long been testing the limits of al-Qa`ida’s leaders.
The broader jihadist reaction to the public dispute between al-Qa`ida and the ISIL initially translated into fierce debates and quarrels on jihadist forums, the likes of which have never been observed. Some, but not all,[18] pundits adopted a diplomatic approach. Some called on both sides to unite, but their language betrayed the group with which they sided; others attributed the schism to years of scheming by “the RAND Corporation” and similar think-tanks to create a “good” al-Qa`ida and a “bad” al-Qa`ida, a plot which time has now come to divide jihadists
Before long, what began as a public dispute in April 2013 has since developed into a bloody conflict that is tearing apart the ISIL and JN and their respective supporters
A coup is not what one would envisage happening in the jihadist world, but this is a new era for jihadism.
Pic - "Fallujah Parade!"
The Watchers Council- it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse. Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers Thus, sans further adieu (or a don't)Council Winners Non-Council Winners
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A recent Hello regarding American political chiz is/was foreign policy is not gon be worth very much to war weary Americans...Events can quickly overtake public opinionForeign policy may not register as a leading issue with voters right now, but if Russia continues to redraw Europe's borders, Iran successfully builds a nuclear weapon, and al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist groups establish themselves in Syria and Libya, bet on it being a major theme of the 2016 presidential campaign. Prospective presidential candidates may not believe the worst is yet to come, but they're certainly preparing for that possibility
Pic "Great Power FoPo"
PBUH!The Istanbul Process - A series of meetings, inaugurated under former madame secretary of state HRC, the Istanbul Process aims to bridge the gap between the West’s approach to fighting religious intolerance and the approach of the OIC. If the participants are serious about countering religious intolerance, their choice of venue is curious. Like Arab Guideline Law for the Prevention of Defamation of Religions, a model blasphemy law drafted by none other than the ministry of justice of Qatar. The text includes a broad prohibition against “defamation of religions.” According to an English translation, practices include, inter alia:
1. Blasphemy against the divine essence or questioning it or infringing on it.
2. Contempt or disrespect [for] or [offense to] any of the religions or by defaming them or insulting them or ridiculing them or infringing on them.
3. Any infringement on the heavenly books, through abuse or alteration or desecration or prejudice.
4. Making fun of one of the prophets or the messengers or sacred symbols of these religions or their wives or their families or their companions or insulting or ridiculing them or infringing on them.
This sweeping definition would likely entail a ban on atheism and even agnosticism, which clearly questions “divine essence.” Moreover, the concepts “contempt,” “prejudice,” “ridicule,” “insult,” and “infringement” are not defined and would seem to encompass anything from mild satire to serious criticism to outright hostility toward protected religions. Proscribed offenses may take the form of “audio or visual [content] or written [content], or [content delivered through] electronic [media] or via the Internet or communications networks, or industrial materials, whether through [spoken] words or [in] writing, or [through] expressionist [illustration] or cartoon or symbolic drawing, or [through] photography or singing or acting or mime or electronic data or other forms [of communication,] and in any language.”
Accordingly, any expression, however vague or symbolic, may violate the law, which explicitly bars invoking “freedom of expression and opinion” as a defense. The law includes a sweeping definition of complicity and criminalizes the mere possession of “blasphemous” material for the purpose of “informing others.” But the most drastic measure is found in article 16, which states that the law covers acts “perpetrated wholly or partly within or outside the territory of the State and even if the perpetrator is a non-national.”
In other words, if you share the supposedly “blasphemous” Katy Perry video “Dark Horse” on Facebook in Illinois, organize an atheist conference in Geneva, or mime The Satanic Verses on the streets of London, you may be prosecuted in any of the Arab member states that choose to enact this law. The Qatari draft and its endorsement by the Arab League members of the OIC raises the question of how serious these states’ commitment to tolerance really is.
Pic - "Collision! Free Speech and Religion"
So...old Europe finally realises daemoneoconic bona fides were totally correct after all!Oh Snap!!European powers in recent years have shelved entire divisions and weapons systems. The British Royal Navy doesn't operate a proper aircraft carrier. The Netherlands in 2012 disbanded its heavy-armor division, and France and the U.K. each now field a mere 200 main battle tanks. France has cut its orders of Rafale combat jets to six a year from 11. This isn't even a Maginot Line.
Most alliance members are also dangerously demobilized: Germany last year announced plans to cut its troops to no more than 180,000 from 545,000 at the end of the Cold War. The French military has shrunk to 213,000 from 548,000 in 1990. The U.K. now has 174,000 armed forces, down from 308,000 in 1990.
NATO countries have also been deferring maintenance of major equipment and cutting back weapons inventories. Such neglect, normally hidden, became apparent in 2011 when Britain and France ran out of precision-guided munitions during NATO's Libya campaign.
Russia takes military matters seriously. The Putin regime has increased defense spending 79% over the past decade, according to a Brookings study. Defense expenditures amounted to 4.5% of Russian GDP in 2012, the World Bank reports. After a period of post-Cold War neglect, Moscow has been closing its capability gaps, including the upgrade of its Soviet-era fleet of military-transport aircraft and interceptor jets. Russia's state-run media celebrated these developments a few weeks before Mr. Putin's Crimean incursion.
Justifying cuts to Germany's military budget, then-German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere predicted in May 2013 that "it is more likely the Bundeswehr will in future be employed in areas of crisis and conflict around the world than in defending the country."
Such thinking warms Mr. Putin's heart—and may increase his territorial appetite.
Pic - "And then there's 44's nonserious chiz"
70 years ago today - 3rd Reich awoke to the stunning realization an additional front had been opened up in the Fatherland itself!76 RAF POW's busted out of Luft Stalag III in occupied Poland. With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade tools, they sank shafts, forged passports, faked weapons, and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes. They developed a fantastic security system to protect themselves from German surveillance. It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men—every one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and night for more than a year.
Deutschland - fighting in Italy, the Eastern Front and in the air - had to allocate resources and the general population for a massive man huntOf 76 escapees, 73 were captured. Hitler initially wanted the escapers to be shot as an example to other prisoners, as well as Commandant von Lindeiner, the architect who designed the camp, the camp's security officer and the guards on duty at the time. Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, Field Marshal Keitel, Major-General Westhoff and Major-General von Graevenitz, who was head of the department in charge of prisoners of war, all argued against any executions as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Hitler eventually relented and instead ordered SS head Himmler to execute more than half of the escapees. Himmler passed the selection on to General Arthur Nebe.Fifty were executed singly or in pairs. Roger Bushell, the leader of the escape, was shot by Gestapo official Emil Schulz just outside Saarbrücken, Germany.3 cats, Bergsland and Müller made it to neutral Sweden first, by boat, while Van der Stok travelled through France before finding safety at a British consulate in SpainThe British government learned of the deaths from a routine visit to the camp by the Swiss authorities as the Protecting power in May; the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden announced the news to the House of Commons on 19 May 1944. Shortly after the announcement the Senior British Officer of the camp, Group Captain Herbert Massey, was repatriated to England due to ill health. Upon his return, he informed the Government about the circumstances of the escape and the reality of the murder of the recaptured escapees. Eden updated Parliament on 23 June, promising that, at the end of the war, those responsible would be brought to exemplary justice. When the war ended, a large manhunt was carried out by the Royal Air Force Police (RAFP) investigative branch.American Colonel Telford Taylor was the U.S. prosecutor in the High Command case at the Nuremberg Trials. The indictment in this case called for the General Staff of the Army and the High Command of the German Armed Forces to be considered criminal organizations; the witnesses were several of the surviving German field marshals and their staff officers. One of the crimes charged was of the murder of the 50. Colonel of the Luftwaffe Bernd von Brauchitsch, who served on the staff of Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, was interrogated by Captain Horace Hahn about the murders.Several Gestapo officers responsible for the executions of the escapees were executed or imprisoned.Pic - "Tom, Dick and Harry"
Captain Caroline Glick unleashes a tour de hello about the Middle East's Forever Quest.The reigning consensus in elite and academic circles is that Great Satan must seek to resolve the Palestinians' conflict with Little Satan by implementing the so-called two-state solution. Establishing a Palestinian state, so the thinking goes, would be a panacea for all the region’s ills. It would end the Arab world’s conflict with Israel, because the reason the Arab world is anti-Little Satan is that there is no Palestinian state. It would also nearly erase the principal cause of the violent extremism in the rest of the Middle East. In a time when American politics are marked by partisan gridlock, the two-state solution stands out for its ability to attract supporters from both sides of the ideological divide. But the great irony is that it is one of the most irrational and failed policies Great Satan has ever adopted.Between 1970 and 2013, Great Satan presented nine different peace plans for Little Satan and the Palestinians, and for the past twenty years, the two state solution has been the centerpiece of Middle East policy. But despite this laser focus, American efforts to implement a two-state peace deal have failed—and with each new attempt, the Middle East has become less stable, more violent, more radicalized, and more inimical to democratic values and interests. K Lo chatted up Caroline at NRO and it is intense!The two-state-solution policy assumes not only that guilt for the 65-year Arab war on Israel lies solely or predominantly on Little Satan ’s shoulders but that all Arab-related conflict too can be ascribed to the actions of Little Satan . The idea behind the policy model is that the root cause of instability in the region is the absence of a Palestinian state, and that the absence of a Palestinian state is Little Satan’s fault
Everything regionally and internationally will be better if Little Satan just straightens up and flies right. This is a shocking negation of Arab agency and humanity. If Little Satan is to blame, then why think about the treatment of women and girls in Arab societies? Why think about the endemic poverty, the illiteracy? Why think about jihad, and Islamic doctrines that preach it?
In other words, the two-state-solution policy, which places most of the blame for the pathologies of the Arab world on Little Satan, also ignores the Arab world, and so only harms the Arabs — and Great Satan, which is basing its Middle East policy on pure nonsense.
First of all, because it is hard to convince allies like Pakistan to combat terrorism when it is busy telling the world that anti-Israel terrorists should be accommodated and appeased.
Why should Pakistan pay the price of capturing or neutralizing terrorists when the U.S. presses Israel to release Palestinian terrorists? Why should European states freeze funds supporting terrorist organizations when Little Satan is pressed to release funds that flow to Palestinian terrorist organizations? Why should countries treat al-Qaeda terrorists as criminals when Palestinian terrorists are expressing legitimate grievances and should be forgiven their bloody pasts?
The unquestioning commitment to the two-state myth leads American policymakers to embrace Palestinian terrorists who they hope will form the core leadership of a future Palestinian state.
Pic - "The 3 No's of Khartoum bear a heavy price!"
