“Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn’t guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.
Monday Monday, can’t trust that day,
Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be
Oh Monday Monday, how yould cou leave and not take me. ………..” The Mamas and The Papas
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon called for more cooperation during their summit in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe on Sunday. The presidents emphasized that the expansion of relations between regional countries helps efforts meant to resolve problems facing the region. They said that the four countries should step up their campaign against drugs and terrorism and increase their cooperation in all areas to help promote the welfare of the people of the region. During the summit, Ahmadinejad stated that enemies of the region are experiencing many problems and have reached an impasse and called for closer cooperation between the four countries………..”
Is it just my own impression or are the Iranians running out of friends? All I read is Ahmadinejad going to Kabul, Islamabad, Harare, Khartoum, Dushanbe (Dushanbe means ‘Monday’ in Farsi). I’ve got nothing against their great cities, especially in peacetime, but what else? I mean the Saudi king can fly to Paris or Berlin or Washington or even Chicago and get a warm (at least warm-looking) welcome from their leaders. Even Rahm Emanuel would roll out the red carpet. Even in New York, post 9/11.
As for Mahmoud Ahmadinejd, he probably can’t get a visa to visit Lichtenstein. You think the mullahs are wondering WTF is going on? You’d think they’ll start applying the charm, such as it is, and spreading the goodwill around. Imagine a day when Ahmadinejad or some ayatollah gets a friendly smile and a warm hug from Susan Rice? Cheers
mhg
“Pakistani officials confirmed Wednesday that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had withdrawn from plans to head a consortium that would finance the $1.6-billion Pakistani portion of the cross-border pipeline, apparently over concern that the bank could be excluded from the U.S. economy.
The move suggests that even Chinese companies, which have staunchly resisted U.S. and European efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear program, are beginning to bend to the sanctions on Tehran. China’s unwillingness to fully cooperate had been one of the greatest challenges to the international effort to put economic pressure on Iran. China’s decision is a setback for the Pakistani government, which fears that dire energy shortages could lead to civil unrest as well as economic strain. Pakistani officials said they would press ahead with the project, which would deliver more than 750 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from Iran’s South Pars field. They said they would find replacement financing.………….”
The United States administration has been trying to derail this gas pipeline project for some time now. Pressure on the Pakistanis and offers of a more expensive pipeline did not work, and the Chinese for a while seemed impervious to pressure as well. Blocking this pipeline will harm Pakistan much more than Iran, especially beyond the short term. That country is facing a deepening energy crisis and the vast Iranian gas fields are the closest and most efficient source for it. Iran has the largest reserves of natural gas in the world outside Russia, and it has no shortage of clients, especially beyond the short term. The Obama administration’s State Department is now firmly under the control of the Likud-niks; which means that administration foreign policy itself is under Likudnik control. The old Arabists are long gone from the corridors of power, replaced by Likud-niks. The term “Arabist” itself is now probably a suspect nearly derogatory term at Foggy Bottom and in Washington; in the U.S. Congress “Arabists” can get stoned these days. Cheers
mhg
“Pakistani authorities have begun to demolish the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that Osama Bin Laden used as a hideout until he was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in May 2011. “The action was taken to keep the compound from ever becoming a shrine for Bin Laden’s followers,” a Pakistani military official told CNN. “It’s a message that Pakistan doesn’t want to keep anything connected with this terrorist.” CNN affiliate GEO-TV showed video of dust flying into the air from the compound as troops stood andwatched from outside……….”
Santa Ana of Mexico never thought of destroying the Alamo after he subdued Texas (briefly). Maybe Sam Houston didn’t give him enough time. It survives in San Antonio de Béxar (now shortened by illegal Anglo immigrants to San Antonio).
The Islamic world has a knack for destroying monuments, especially the parts of the Islamic world that are Salafi Wahhabi or are influenced by that barbaric ideology. From Mecca and Madina to Bamiyan to Abbottabad, monuments to the Prophet and to ancient leaders and to modern terrorist leaders are destroyed. If the Pyramids were in Saudi Arabia, they’d be torn down by the greedy princes to make room for luxury hotels. If they were in Afghanistan or Pakistan, they’d be torn down to make room for a goat herd. If they were in a certain place on my Gulf, they’d be torn down to make room for some jakhoor (look it up or ask some schmuck from the outskirts of my hometown, but it is related to goats and such things). Cheers
mhg
BFF “The case of a woman who is facing deportation for reporting an attempted rape while being intoxicated in the United Arab Emirates highlights the ongoing struggle for women to have justice when faced with sexual violence in the ultra-wealthy Gulf country. According to reports, when the 26-year-old Kyrgyz woman arrived at a local police station following a taxi driver attempting to rape her, police officers told her she would face charges of drinking alcohol. Instead of acquiescing to the officers threats, she insisted on filing charges against the taxi driver for attempted rape………. “In November last year, two Saudi Arabian men were sentenced to two months in prison for “having sex with a minor” during a New Year’s holiday in the United Arab Emirates. According to local reports, both men were convicted of having consensual sex with a minor, despite the 15-year-old girl’s claims that she was forced to have sex with them in a hotel room. She is to be deported as part of her crime, court officials said……… In early October, two Pakistani men were charged with raping a Filipina waitress. Activists say they are unlikely to face harsh sentences and that the woman will be the one who faces the worst penalty………”
There are many other such cases in the UAE. Rape is reported routinely in the local newspapers. As are the “strange” Taliban-style sentences that focus on the female victims as guilty. The treatment of victims as suspects is a purely local thing, but it is also common in other ‘nominally’ Muslim countries, like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Remember the Qatif girl in Saudi Arabia who was initially punished while her male rapists were barely touched about two years ago? Then there are many cases in Pakistan where women who dare file rape complaints (a rarity) are sentenced to stoning or life in prison for adultery. The guilty males are usually left alone. There was a case once when the woman filed a rape case while the rapist denied it. She was considered to have confessed to adultery (by filing a complaint) and sentenced for adultery, but not the man who denied the charge. By some twisted local logic in the UAE, a woman who files a rape complaint is sometimes seen by some as exposing her “dirty” laundry. Then there is the local costume in the region of identifying certain single foreign women as being of “easy virtue” or even hookers. Especially if these single foreign women are from certain foreign (Asian) or Arab countries, like those mentioned in this item. Anyway, this phenomenon is becoming common in the United Arab Emirates, especially in Abu Dhabi and ‘cosmopolitan’ Dubai. Cheers
mhg
BFF “In the peculiar American system of legalized bribery, AIPAC has bought most US congressmen by organizing thousands of Jewish and Christian Zionist groups to give money to Congressional campaigns. AIPAC ought to have to register as an agent of a foreign country, but is allowed to so function without any let or hindrance, by the FBI, which really ought to intervene here. The hypocrisy is so thick you could drown in it. The Israel lobbies have managed to configure the Hizbullah party-militia of Lebanon as a “terrorist” organization, when Hizbullah’s major military operations were defensive, aimed at expelling occupying, aggressive Israeli troops from Lebanese territory on which they had unlawfully squatted. But when Mossad (pretending to be Americans) buys Baluchi agents to blow up innocent worshippers in mosques in Zahedan, that is defined away as not terrorism…………”
Also sprach Juan Cole, not unreasonably; in fact quite reasonably. All these revelations only reinforce deeply ingrained Iranian suspicions that go back almost six decades. Jundullah have committed some gruesome murders against Iranian civilians, like beheadings and slitting throats, Salafi al-Qaeda style crimes. It is not clear yet if it was the CIA that recruited the Salafi terrorists or the friendly Israelis in American disguise (nice friends, no?). But it all reminds the mullahs and ordinary Iranians of the American-British plot that ended their democracy in August 1953. That plot, Operation Ajax, handed absolute power first to the shah, then it lay the seeds for the 1979 revolution, the embassy hostage-taking, and the ongoing crisis. As for the Israelis, if they were behind it, they certainly will not be punished, not even reprimanded. Not when they have the American Knesset running the show in Washington DC, and a terrified Democrat administration turning a blind eye in a way George W. Bush would never have allowed. This is truly the most pro-Israeli administration in American history. Unfortunately, pro-Israeli also means extreme pro-right-wing Likud. Cheers
mhg
“An exhaustive government survey of rape and domestic violence released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence against women remains endemic in the United States and in some instances may be far more common than previously thought. Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point, and one in four reported being beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women have been stalked, according to the report. “That almost one in five women have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people,” said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey. “I don’t think we’ve really known that it was this prevalent…………”
Shocking statistics. Who would have thunk it. Most people think the things happen in places like the Congo or Pakistan or maybe parts of Sweden Cheers
mhg
“And we keep forgetting the inconvenient fact that, even if the regime changed, the nuclear program — which is popular as an expression of Iranian nationalism and power — will continue. The leaders of the Green movement strongly support that program and have repeatedly criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making too-generous offers to the West. (All Iranian officials repeat constantly that they would never develop nuclear weapons. And in a recent interview with Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he had never “seen a shred of evidence that Iran has been weaponizing, in terms of building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.”…………“
This is another dilemma that the West will continue to face from Iran, something I and a few others have written about. What they don’t seem to understand is that no matter who is in power in Tehran, be it the mullahs, the Mujahideen Khalq, the Greens, the Communists, or the American Tea Party, they all want to keep the nuclear program going.They all claim they have no intention of developing nuclear weapons, but they know that an independent nuclear program, of the sort the Israelis and the Pakistanis have, is a matter of national pride.Regime change in Iran is desirable by the West and very likely by many Iranians, but that does not mean an acceptance of the loss of independent decision-making. Cheers
mhg
“Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, President Obama announced tonight……..”
“Same US military unit that got Osama bin laden killed Anwar al-Awlaki. Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born al-Qaeda leader linked to terrorist plots in the UK and US, has been killed in a drone strike in central Yemen, the country’s military has announced…….”
“A senior leader of the militant Haqqani network, Haji Mali Khan, has been captured in Afghanistan, the Nato-led international force Isaf has said. He was detained during an operation by Afghan and coalition forces in Paktia province on Tuesday, Isaf said. He was heavily armed but did not resist, it added……”
So this “Manchurian” American president with a Jewish-sounding first name, an African last name, and a decidedly Muslim middle name has bested Dick Cheney in the war against al-Qaeda. I wonder what the Cheneys are up to these days. Cheers
mhg
BFF “Shi’ites, who make up over a quarter of Pakistan’s population, are deemed “apostates” by many extremist sectarian Sunni groups. Responsibility for the attack on the long-suffering Hazaras of Baluchistan was claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — a group also suspected of a devastating attack earlier in the week on the home of a senior police officer in Karachi who has a record of taking on the militants. Though little known in the West, LeJ, a sectarian extremist outfit linked to al-Qaeda and to the Pakistani Taliban, is now widely considered Pakistan’s most dangerous terrorist group…….. The army is reluctant to confront its bases with force; the police have failed to protect those it threatens; the judiciary is unable to successfully prosecute its leading members; and some politicians have sought to appease it with shady deals. While al-Qaeda has suffered a series of setbacks after CIA drone strikes killed successive leaders based in Pakistan’s tribal areas, its local affiliate remains unimpeded. LeJ began life as a particularly vicious offshoot of the banned anti-Shi’ite Sipah-e-Sahaba organization. The sectarian group, with its cells seeded throughout the country, held both doctrinal and organizational appeal for al-Qaeda, which used LeJ’s deep and pervasive network to expand its own presence into Pakistan. While al-Qaeda had operational command, LeJ supplied foot soldiers to carry out attacks…………..”
“Admiral Mullen accuses Pakistan’s ISI of treachery, but says let’s keep talking…….The chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff said to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that Pakistan’s
intelligence agency was in the background of the recent attack on our embassy,
as well as a bunch of other assaults. But he seems happy to keep on chatting
with them……….”Media (Sept 23, 2011)
What was all the ‘Western” talk about the dangers of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands through “extremist” states? Cheers
mhg
“Gunmen in the southwestern province of Baluchistan attacked a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims to Iran on Tuesday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 6 more, local police officials said. The bus driver said that 8 to 10 attackers ordered the pilgrims off the bus and opened fire on them, the police said. Hours later, the extremist Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jangvi claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, which the authorities say carried out previous attacks against Shiites in Baluchistan, is believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda. ……… Attacks on Shiite pilgrims traveling to Iran through Baluchistan have been frequent over the last decade. Two such attacks occurred last month. A year ago, 57 people at a Shiite rally in Quetta were killed by a suicide bomber. Shiites are a minority in mainly Sunni Pakistan. Most of the Shiites in Baluchistan belong to the Hazara ethnic group ….….”
I see that the Pakistani Salafis, like their Salafi brothers on my Gulf, are still busy spreading the message of brotherhood and love. Just like their imported virgin-inspired suicidal brothers are still doing in Iraq. If these horny fellows can’t get to their allotted ‘untouched’ virgins by killing Americans, then there are others, more vulnerable fellow Pakistanis or Iraqis or others.The execution of their shaikh of the hashasheen, the master terrorist in Abbottabad has not slowed this bunch down. Cheers
mhg
Rattlesnake Ridge 
