To begin with, I'm still not entirely certain of what works and what doesn't with regards to the free stuff at Stratfor.

I hope this works ... you might have to fool around with something.

I've created a link from the photo below to Stratfor's latest article regarding Inspire Magazine, the al Qaeda english language jihadist magazine.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, "There's a magazine out there for everybody".

As I have also said before, I subscribe to Stratfor.

I don't even know what it costs anymore, mostly because I'm afraid to.

Still, as far as I'm concerned, Stratfor is the single best site in the world for a "news junkie".

 

 

 

The “Open Source Jihad” section contained a photograph of the U.S. Capitol building with a Christmas tree in the foreground on the first page.  

The “What to Expect in Jihad” section featured a graphic of a sticky note with a to-do listreading: buy handguns, make a bomb in mom’s kitchen, blow up Times Square and “pull off Mumbai near Whitehouse ‘till martyrdom.”  

This section also had a graphic of an envelope marked with the word “Anthrax.”

The photograph of the U.S. Capitol, followed by a reference to an armed assault directed against soft targets near the White House (and the anthrax envelope), will certainly raise some eyebrows in Washington — especially since the Open Source Jihad section of the second edition of Inspire had a photo of the Chicago skyline, and the subsequent plot involving explosive devices hidden in printer cartridges were in packages sent to Chicago.

 

Don't bother running out, I already checked Barnes and Noble ..... no luck.

Must've gone like hotcakes.

 

 

From Reuters Africa.

 

West pushes plan to remove Libya from UN rights body

* U.N. Council holds emergency session on Friday

* EU, U.S. and Latin Americans want Gaddafi condemned

* Developing countries resisting, say premature

By Robert Evans

 

 

GENEVA, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Western and Latin American countries on Thursday pushed to have Libya's membership of the U.N. Human Rights Council put under challenge when the body holds an emergency meeting on Friday.

 But the effort -- which falls short of demanding the strife-torn North African country's suspension from the 47-member council -- was strongly resisted by Arab and some Islamic states such as Pakistan as well as by Russia and Cuba.

 

OK, we have questions, "How is it possible that a country that sanctions the murder of 270 innocent people in the skies over Lockerbie Scotland, is even on something called the "Human Rights Council"?

Wait a minute ... of course ... the United Nations.

Which brings us to our second question, "Why the United Nations?"

 

 

 

 

I don't even know what to think about this one.

This six page article takes some time to read but could hardly be more ........... something.

From The New York Times.

Click the photo for the entire piece.

 

Afghan Boys Are Prized, So Girls Live the Part

 By JENNY NORDBERG September 20, 2010

 Mehran Rafaat, 6, left, and her twin sisters, Benafsha, center and Beheshta, near their home in Badghis Province, Afghanistan

 KABUL, Afghanistan — Six-year-old Mehran Rafaat is like many girls her age. She likes to be the center of attention. She is often frustrated when things do not go her way. Like her three older sisters, she is eager to discover the world outside the family’s apartment in their middle-class neighborhood of Kabul.

But when their mother, Azita Rafaat, a member of Parliament, dresses the children for school in the morning, there is one important difference. Mehran’s sisters put on black dresses and head scarves, tied tightly over their ponytails. For Mehran, it’s green pants, a white shirt and a necktie, then a pat from her mother over her spiky, short black hair. After that, her daughter is out the door — as an Afghan boy.

There are no statistics about how many Afghan girls masquerade as boys. But when asked, Afghans of several generations can often tell a story of a female relative, friend, neighbor or co-worker who grew up disguised as a boy. To those who know, these children are often referred to as neither “daughter” nor “son” in conversation, but as “bacha posh,” which literally means “dressed up as a boy” in Dari.

 

 

The following is a letter from Paul R. Wisgerhof to the Wall Street Journal dated 9/7/2010.

 

If burning the Qu'ran is bad in the United States, how does that square with the banning of the Christian and Jewish Bibles in Saudi Arabia and much of the rest of the Islamic world?

At least we have copies of the Qu'ran to burn; hard to find bibles to burn in most of Islam.

However, that is the fate prescribed for them by Islamic law.

We rightly tolerate the practice of religion in this country.

That includes the pastor in Florida.

What we should not tolerate is an attempt to subvert and overthrow the U.S. Constitution and our government by a "religion" which preaches world totalitarianism.

 

 

 

 

 

Click anywhere on the quote for a little history lesson.

 

 

My little editorial inspired pretty close to twenty emails, about that number again in calls, two face to face conversations, and not one lousy posted comment.

Damn!!!!!

Out of probably forty total responses, thirty nine disagreed (mostly strenuously) about that part having to do with returning our troops to our shores, and retiring from providing military for the rest of the world's defense.

My very, very long time friend Terry D. was my single supporter.

Which made me laugh out loud, as I had told my secretary not more than a month ago that I could think of only one issue in over 35 years where Terry and I had not been in complete agreement ..... that exception of course being his first wife.

He did come around to my way of thinking on that one sometime after it was just too damn late.

His defense on this particular subject consists mostly of his accusation that all I had to say amounted to just a lot of "mumbling under my breath" and that had I felt that strongly about it, I should have just manned up and spoke out on the subject, and ..... in light of that fact that I didn't, I need to just shut up.

But I digress. 

My personal chef, Kelly doesn't want nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands as that could result in disaster.

Dougy F. wasn't totally disagreeing, but he did worry that if we scrapped out the offensive weaponry, "we will need it when the rest of the world falls into total chaos."  Then, "after a couple of years we can go in and clean up whatever is left and run it right".

T.G. finds the idea of "surrendering" to Islam to be unthinkable.

Tommy ? believes my plan would leave a vacuum, which as we all know nature abhors, that would likely be filled by the Chinese.

I mostly don't disagree with that one.

I also mostly don't care.

Japan, Russia and India have a lot of history with China.

All three of them will almost instantaneously start to rethink the way they go about their business.

Japan in particular will most likely get after developing a military that can deter Chinese aspirations.

Getting out of Europe is the best thing that can happen to us, if for no other reason than instead of supporting continental economies with American tax dollars, we will be supporting the local communities that are home to our military people.

You guys want a European Union?

Your gonna need to throw in the cost of defending it.

I'll admit to a twinge of guilt with regards to the British.

They are a great friend and ally (pretty much from the day they stopped attacking us).

Leaving them with the French seems cold.

But alas .....

What about Israel?

I'll cheerfully sell them missiles and warheads sufficient to roast anyone, anywhere that might think they want a go.

It's called "mutually assured destruction" and it's been working like a charm .............. so far.

 

Here's the issue as I see it.

We have within our capabilities the power to win any war we fight.

Including this war with Islam (not radical Islam) (or terror) that we are presently involved in.

The way to win it is to decide to win it.

I'll say it again.

 

The way to win this war is to decide to win it.

 

 

Understand now, this means going to war with the intent of killing everybody you can find and breaking everything you see until your enemy surrenders under your terms.

Wanna take Kandahar (Qandahar) Province?

Carpet bomb Kandahar (Qandahar) City.

Kill em all, break everything there (that's about 470,000 people, about 40 times that in sheep and goats), reduce it to rubble, then make that rubble bounce.

When you're finished there, move on up the road to Spin Bolduk.

Can you imagine the uproar?

The UN would be going nuts, people would be screaming about war crimes.

They'd spend hundreds of hours happily debating language for the non binding resolution condemning the action.

Now, just to make the point that you're no longer fooling around, move north to Khost (only about 160,000 people), continue the proceedure.

Every couple days, take the morning off from the bombs, and drop leaflets around the rest of Afghanistan which read as follows.

 

Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

 

Kidding ..... sort of.

Send copies to Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Mullah Ali Khamenei, the entire Iranian Parliment, Bashar al-Assaad (President of Syria), Hamas and Hezballah.

When the calls come in wanting to negotiate some peace, forget to return them for a couple of days.

Set up the appointment for sometime around the end of next month.

Then stay busy.

You've just won your war.

And here's the best part, not one American mother's son has been lost.

Seem harsh?

I offer a series of letters from the month of September 1864 between Generals Hood, Halleck and William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army and the Mayor and members of the Atlanta City Council prior to the destruction of Atlanta.

These letters should be read by every citizen of this country.

Hell, they should be read by every citizen of the world.

They are reasonably short, to the point and with regards to General Sherman's final reply to Mayor Calhoun (go ahead, just scroll to the end), contain extraordinary wisdom.

Click on the gears.

Do it now, you're not doing anything important.

 

 

Now, it is my strongly held opinion that we are unwilling to do any of that.

And I say, that if we are unwilling to do what's necessary to win, and by win I mean force an unconditional surrender on our enemy, completely on our terms, what the hell is it that we are sacrificing the lives of our children for?

Our thinking here is that by invading someone else's country and keeping our military there to enforce our will, our enemy will soon grow fond of us, and want to become just like us.

Dwell on that one for just a moment.

Let's say just for fun someone else had the military power to successfully invade America with the same thinking.

What would you likely do.

My opinion is that a mess of people would roll over in the beginning, but another group would make it their personal business to kill and/or maim every foreigner they stumbled across ..... and then hide.

That's called Guerilla War.

It works pretty good.

Then what happens is your foreigners start getting frustrated and start killing people indiscriminately.

Which of course would include and subsequently enrage them that had previously rolled over.

Which would ultimately cause unacceptable casualties among the invaders as the formerly rolled over, now join in.

Which would ultimately result in your foreigner's withdrawal after an enormous toll was extracted from everyone.

So .....

Whoa whoa whoa .... wait a minute, isn't that exactly what you're proposing above?

Aren't you advocating indiscriminate killing out of frustration?

Nope, I'm just sayin' that if you want to win this thing, you're gonna have to get brutal.

If you're unwilling to get brutal, your gonna lose, and a bunch of your own will have been sacrificed for nothing.

My idea with regards to war is simple.

I'm disinterested in my enemy learning to like me, admiring me, or wanting to grow up to be just like me.

In this particular instance, I have little interest in walking off into the sunset arm in arm with my Muslim brother.

I think the entire concept of "nation building" is stupid.

After this is over, I'll be glad to do some business if he wants ... and there's a profit in it.

My idea is simply to make sure that everybody understands, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you attack America, we're gonna come by for a visit, f&#$ you up real bad, and then leave.

Here's my ......

Whoa Whoa aren't you gonna piss off them that would have rolled over anyway?

Yup.

The difference here is that there aren't any Americans hanging around town waiting to be killed in retribution.

If I go, I'm "raining death and destruction" and then going somewhere real double tough for my enemy to get at me .... home.

The only guys hanging around to vent on will be the very guys that started the whole mess in the first place.

Poetic, ain't it.

Hey, they're just gonna attack us here.

Maybe, but they're doing that now.

And if/when they do, whether they are successful or thwarted, I would spend some time looking into who's responsible, and/or profited, and when my list is complete, go ape-shit crazy on everything they know.

The notion of "proportional response" should become, as they say, "another casualty of war".

 

The only real edge Islam has is the fact that everybody is pretty damn sure they're crazy.

Print a cartoon, they cut off your head.

Proportional doesn't register in the Islamic mind.

And for that reason, pretty much everybody is scared of em.

I believe it's a good thing when your enemy thinks you're crazy.

Makes em think twice ..... if not thrice.

 

My clear preference is to have my enemy think I'm crazy.

And the best part is, I'm going to have almost all my guys here at home where they belong, playing defense and helping out with thwartation.

 

You get only two choices with any chance of success in this kind of business.

Go to win, or don't even start.

Unfortunately we have attempted the "third way".

Just ask yourself here. "What do we really want?"

What I really want is for Islam to stop attacking the World Trade Center and killing innocent people.

I'd prefer it if Islam would play nice with Israel, but if Islam doesn't want to, the consequences are theirs.

If Israel chooses to make certain of it's survival as a jewish state?

(Should jewish be capitalized?)

Well ..... I can certainly understand that one.

Our decisions up to now have only resulted in the tragic destruction of our very best young people and a colossal waste of our resources.

If you're gonna fight the damn war, the idea is to effect the tragic demise and colossal waste on your enemy, and his resources.

If you're not up to it, leave it alone.

Apologies for the very long post, I'm well rested.

 

 

 

 

Charles Sizemore in the HS Dent Forecast offers the following thought:

 

Steven Rosefielde and D.Quinn Mills in their book, Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the Media Age analyze what they call the “conflict of moralities.”

They see history as a continuous cycle of conflict between “puritanism”

(defined as being patriarchical, religious, and moralistic)

and “cosmopolitanism”

(defined as being egalitarian, tolerant, and amoral).

 

In the authors’ opinion:

 

Abraham was puritan; the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians were cosmopolitan.

The Hebrews were puritan; the Philistines were cosmopolitan.

The Persians were puritan; the Babylonians were cosmopolitan.

The Persians became cosmopolitan; the Greeks were puritan.

The Greeks became cosmopolitan; the Romans were puritan.

The Romans became cosmopolitan; the Germanic tribes were puritan.

The Byzantines were cosmopolitan; the Arabs were puritan.

The Chinese were cosmopolitan; the Mongols were puritan.

The Catholic Church was cosmopolitan; the Protestants were puritan.

The Cavaliers were cosmopolitan; the Roundheads were puritan.

The English were cosmopolitan; the Americans were puritan.

Today, America is cosmopolitan; its Islamic radical antagonists are puritan.

 

He goes on to say that he's not all that concerned about Islam, it's them no-good Russians that have him worried.

 

"To the authors’ list, I add that the West was cosmopolitan during the Cold War and the Communist bloc was puritan.

It appears that all successful puritan societies evolve into cosmopolitan societies. The key here is “successful.” 

The Communists were not successful and never evolved into cosmopolitans.

They simply disintegrated, as in Russia, or rebranded themselves as capitalists, as in China.

So, the puritans do not always win, and I certainly would not expect to see the Islamic radicals win this time.

They might make our lives difficult, but as I wrote earlier, they present no existential threat to America or the West.

As the authors tell us, America’s most immediate challenge is the war on terror, but it is by no stretch the most important.

The biggest threat and most important challenge remains what it has been for more than 60 years: to avoid a nuclear exchange between great powers.

With the nuclear weapons antiproliferation regime in tatters, Russia desperately trying to hold on to its past glories, and China rapidly expanding its military and economic might, this threat is as significant now as at any time in history."