World Affairs

[LexusInfernus 908]

I don't understand why the USA government is going to such great lengths to waste borrowed money on "Foreign Aid" to undemocratic governments. Egypt is undergoing a coup d'etat so all funding should be discontinued. We should not be arming any factions in dangerous civil wars around the world (but particularly the South Mediterranean).

--Ocram

The (false) presumption is that if you give them enough money, which should help stabilize the government and give them some more money so they can set up a free market, democracy will magically kick in. 

 

Or in some cases (I know the EU does this) they fund a number of democratization projects, such as training judges, police officers and government officials on how to be not corrupt, help set up local businesses, fund education projects for women, etc. I'm not sure if the US does that though. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egypt: The unrest continues.

 

Now we are getting reports of the usual "Muslim" atrocities against other religions.  Rather a classic (see the Ikhnaton revolution), with the usual rioting in the streets. 

 

The time for religious oppression has past, and the Muslim Brotherhood wants to live in the 16th century.  They forget that under those conditions life is short, dark and ugly.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egypt: Armed MB supporters in a mosque?

 

Arms in a place of worship, and used them too.  What kind of Muslims are these?

[LexusInfernus 908]

 What kind of Muslims are these?

The kind that is going to get squashed when the army and police roll in. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egyptian security forces clear Mosque of provocateurs.

 

^ Some people are very good at predicting the obvious.

 

The buzz now is that the MB will likely be outlawed as a terrorist organization (again!).  Pay attention, U.S. State department.

 

For the MB their spring is leading directly into the winter of their discontent.  If it can be shown that they have ties to Al Qaeda, they will be anathema.

 

Islam is a religion of peace.  These people are not true Muslims, but high-jacking fundamentalists who are really in the class of unbelievers.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egyptian military finally gets around to using the T-word.

 

There is some question about the Muslim Brotherhood being against equal Sisterhood.

 

Meanwhile in Arabia ...

 

Evidently the Saudis have little patience with fundamentalist pseudo-Muslims.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Murder in the desert.

 

Cop killings are a bad thing, especially in a country like this.  Press calls this unrest, but let's be frank and call it a civil war.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Meh, extremists have been clashing with state security forces for a while now in the Sinai desert. And I wouldn't call the whole situation a civil war yet. Syria is a civil war, these are just out of control protests. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Religious head of MB arrested.

 

On a warrant of incitement to violence and murder.  Considering the number of people who have died, if this is proven he doesn't deserve anything short of a life-time in a small windowless cell.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Well certainly it's a good thing he's detained and not able to continue his war against reason and science.

 

Strikes me as odd nobody's mentioned the Heathrow situation and the Guardian yet

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Mubarak out on bail.

 

"He was sentenced to life in jail last year, but a retrial was later ordered after his appeal was upheld.  That retrial opened in May but Mr Mubarak has now served the maximum amount of pre-trial detention permitted in the case."

[timmie 988]

Something I found today. Not that I'm particularly fond of Nasser, but I thought this fragment was rather remarkable.

Nasser about the Muslim Brotherhood and the scarf.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Nasser died in office and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat.  Sadat was assassinated in 1981 when his vice-president, Hosni Mubarak succeeded him.  If you look up all this history you'll find that various Muslim organizations were at the root of a lot of trouble in Egypt.  The outfit that arranged the assassination of Sadat seems to have become Al Qaeda and/or the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

Seems the MB have had their day in the sun, and that this sun has now set, never to rise again.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

More MB cleanup by the Egyptian state.

 

Yet another rabble rouser off to jail.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Muzzling the MB media outlets.

 

So what will the generals do next?  To silence the Muslim Brotherhood entirely without attacking the Internet is impossible.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Iraq: How do the Shi'a and the Sunni differ from the Hatfields and the 'Coys?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egypt: Step by step to outlawry.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egypt: Extermination of the rats in the Sinai.

 

In a way, it is too bad that Assad couldn't have done this two years ago.  His rats have turned into something larger now.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Egypt: Extermination of the rats in the Sinai.

 

In a way, it is too bad that Assad couldn't have done this two years ago.  His rats have turned into something larger now.

We fed those rats to become bigger by giving them aid, while at the same time preventing Assad from doing what he needs to do. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Yes, and now we object if he resorts to rat poison.

[Haljackey 17,271]

Rex Murphy: World Terrified "Amateurish American Leadership" Will Cause World War III

 

 

Never really like this guy, but he does raise some interesting points here.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I watched that last night.  Rex wasn't pulling any punches, and you must admit the Americans were caught with their pants down.  Now we can see the spin doctors pulling them up, inch by inch.  Vlad I trumped all their aces.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Egypt: Intolerance is not tolerated by the generals.

 

This behaviour by members of the Muslim Brotherhood or their adherents are a pretty good indication of the way a Morsi government would have continued.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Greece: Financial crisis, people becoming disaffected, pattern is clear.

 

The rise of the neo-NAZI Golden Dawn party is using the violent tactics of Adolf the Aryan to gain attention.  Here's hoping the Greeks are stronger than that.  How many of them remember the NAZI occupation?

[AkemiAzula 280]

I hate rappers. I'm glad he's dead lol. Another rubbish modern musician out of this rubbish modern world. lol.

 

Seriously though I doubt any party with fascist tendencies is likely to ever gain momentum in this day and age of the internet. Any idiot (and most humans are idiots) can look up Nazism or Hitler's rise to power and any idiot who reads an unbiased timeline of that era will see that failure was inevitable. They could never have won because they were a minority opinion among a mass of enemy opinions, and however barbaric or powerful their methods, their enemies outweighed them by sheer numbers alone.

 

Mind you I don't care if Greece becomes fascist. I reckon it's a member of the Union we could gladly sweep under the carpet and pretend never existed. Same with Spain. Don't need weak nations weighing down economic progress innit. I don't want to be on jobseekers all my life, and until we crush resistance to weakness in the Union we shall see continued weakness and stupidity.

 

Personally I'd advise people to vote for me so I can burn democracy like that pile of wood at work. Then we'd see some real progress. I played Simcity after all, and I doubt the same can be said of the morons in Brussels who probably don't know how to use computers lol.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Nigeria:  Seems the Islamists are at it there too.

 

This movement is like the 13th century Crusades.  The basic difference is they don't have some idiot in power yelling 'Deus vult'.  Instead they have a bunch of radical imams who wouldn't know a jihad if it fell on them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Pakistan/Afghanistan and the Taliban.

 

I think it can truly be said that that part of the world is a conundrum wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Switzerland: Keeps compulsory conscription.

 

The entire country is an armed camp.  No insurgent problems there, eh?  It is not broken, so don't fix it.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Compulsory military service would be a great way in peacetime to build infrastructure that otherwise would cost a lot in employee wages. I believe the Romans made use of soldiers to construct road networks. 

[flatron 83]

I for my behalf was quite lucky when Germany abolished compulsory military service, as this means that I don't have to serve (or doing the alternative, civil service, things like working at retirement homes, etc.).

 

More important though: The results of the german elections:

CDU/CSU: 41.5%  SPD 25.7% FDP: 4.8%(below the 5%-hurdle and therefore not in the Bundestag) Greens: 8.4% The Left: 8.6%. The eurosceptic(and right-wing affiliate) AfD  failed the 5%-hurdle with 4./% which is still an enormous success, given that this party did not exist 7 months before.

Merkel's CDU/CSU did (luckily) not get the absolute majority of seats in the Parliament, which would have meant that she could reign alone. Now she has to form a coalition with either the greens or the SPD, of which I would prefer Black-Green, as Red-Green would have a 2/3-majority and could change the constitution. Given that neither the Greens nor the SPD want to coalide with the Left, a three-party-coalition in red-red-green is not very likely.

This result will make Mutti overtake the iron lady in the run for the title "longest serving female head of government in europe", which is propably one of only a few things the two have in common, given that Thatcher was a total market addict.