Saudi Arabia is pretty much the Texas of the Middle East
I can't stress enough how much everyone hates Saudi Arabia. It is the "United States" of that region/Muslim world. If it were not for Mecca and Medina, no one would go to Saudi Arabia with the exception of the dirt poor and desperate expats who are willing to do the jobs Saudi men will not do.13/f/taiwan wrote:
Every non-Saudi Muslim/Arab despises Saudi Arabia.
Last edited by 13/f/taiwan (2013-06-11 05:05:09)
Pretty funny that Russia abolished the death penalty. Didn't know that. I guess it might have more to do with fascism and communism than anything else. I imagine SS or KGB officers disappearing people pretty much made them think "yeah, well even if we can't fix the justice system completely the least we can do is take away their right to execute people". The feelings and emotions of murdered victims families is not worth the risk of a nutty dictator running around with death squads.
Last edited by Spearhead (2013-06-11 08:56:49)
Another day, another Afghanistan storyA mob attacked an Afghan medical doctor and his female patient, stoning the doctor after the two were discovered in his private examining room without a chaperon, Afghan officials said on Thursday.
There were conflicting accounts that the doctor had been killed or that he had been severely injured and sent out of Afghanistan for treatment. The woman was initially feared missing, but was later reported to be at a women’s shelter, according to an official there.
The attack took place in Sar-i-Pul, a government-held town in the northern province of the same name, on Tuesday, but news was slow to leak out and officials initially denied that anyone had been hurt.
"this whole new idea of warfare is too dependant upon technology, we need to change it up to ww2 style warfare"
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/ … 10550.html
The United States is boosting military support to the main Syrian rebel group after determining that the government has used chemical weapons against the opposition, a top White House official has said.
"The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition, that will involve providing direct support to the [Supreme Military Council], that includes military support," Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters on a conference call on Thursday.
"This is going to be different in both scope and scale in terms of what we are providing to the SMC than what we have provided before."
The Supreme Military Council is the military wing of the main civilian opposition group.
'Syria used chemical weapons'
The US working with European allies concluded that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against the rebels killing up to 150 people.
The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition [Supreme Military Council], that includes military support
Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor
The White House said on Thursday that the casualty data was likely incomplete and that it had no reliable, corroborated information to suggest that the Syrian opposition in the country's civil war had acquired chemical weapons.
"Our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year," Rhodes said.
He said that the "intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date."
Rhodes said in a written statement that the Syrian government’s refusal to grant access to the United Nations to investigate credible allegations of chemical weapons use had prevented a comprehensive investigation as called for by the international community.
The White House said in a statement issued late on Thursday that the use of chemical weapons "violates international norms and crosses clear red lines".
Earlier, the United Nations said the number of those killed in the Syrian conflict had risen to more than 93,000 people.
'Game changer'
President Barack Obama has said repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and constitute a "game changer" for US policy on Syria, which until now has focused entirely on providing the opposition with nonlethal assistance and humanitarian aid.
Spotlight
In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria
"The president has been clear that the use of chemical weapons - or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups - is a red line for the United States," Rhodes noted.
"The president has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has."
Rhodes did not say if the United States was moving towards directly arming the rebels battling Assad but said Obama "will be consulting with Congress on these matters in the coming weeks."
"The United States and the international community have a number of other legal, financial, diplomatic, and military responses available. We are prepared for all contingencies, and we will make decisions on our own timeline," he said.
You Arabs are eventually going to have to let the whole Iraq thing go. It was 10 years ago. Lets move on.
This isn't even about Iraq, per se, but the overall hypocrisy and deceit by the US and the West, but mainly the US.. I know this has been repeated a million times over and it will sound like the same old "great satan/world police" rhetoric. Iraq wasn't the first time the government fabricated 'evidence' to justify a military intervention nor was it the last. Libya is now in shambles thanks to a NATO intervention(so the Europeans take the blame on this one as well) on behalf of Libyan rebels/Al-Qaeda. An ethnic cleansing of it's black population occurred and the country disappeared from the news right after Ghadaffi's death. 68% of American's don't even support intervention in Syria. The US lost it's credibility with Iraq on the issue of chemical weapons/WMD.
I know Europe(pretty much only the UK and France) are behind us on this subject. They're just following our lead because their leaders have no real balls. The rest of the EU gets screwed out of Iranian gas(less reliance on Russia's Gazprom) and any future business deals with Tehran.
I know Europe(pretty much only the UK and France) are behind us on this subject. They're just following our lead because their leaders have no real balls. The rest of the EU gets screwed out of Iranian gas(less reliance on Russia's Gazprom) and any future business deals with Tehran.
It's a good thing I'm learning Spanish. This is the day Dennis dreamed about for so long.For the first time, America's racial and ethnic minorities make up about half of the under-5 age group, the US government has said.
The historic shift, announced on Thursday, shows how young people are at the forefront of sweeping changes by race and class.
The new census estimates, a snapshot of the US population as of July 2012, come a year after the Census Bureau reported that whites had fallen to a minority among babies.
The population younger than 5 stood at 49.9 percent minority in 2012.
"More so than ever, we need to recognise the importance of young minorities for the growth and vitality of our labour force and economy," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analysed the census data.
Fuelled by immigration and high rates of birth, particularly among Hispanics, racial and ethnic minorities are now growing more rapidly in numbers than whites.
Based on current rates of growth, whites in the under-5 group are expected to tip to a minority this year or next, said Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau's acting director.
The government also projects that in five years, minorities will make up more than half of children under 18.
Widening gap
Not long after that, the total US white population will begin a decline in absolute numbers, due to aging baby boomers.
The nation's demographic changes are already stirring discussion as to whether some civil rights-era programmes, such as affirmative action in college admissions, should be retooled to focus more on income rather than race and ethnicity.
The Supreme Court will rule on the issue this month.
The gap between rich and poor in the US has now stretched to its widest since 1970, making opportunities to reach the middle class increasingly difficult.
Longer-term changes in family structure, such as a decline in marriage, have led to a rise in single-mother households across all racial groups, with the fastest growth now occurring among whites.
More than 40 percent of newborns are now born out of wedlock, in families more likely to be low income.
As a whole, the nonwhite population increased by 1.9 percent to 116 million, or 37 percent of the U.S. The fastest percentage growth is among multiracial Americans, followed by Asians and Hispanics. Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the U.S.; Hispanics, 17 percent; blacks, 12.3 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and multiracial Americans, 2.4 percent.
Among the under-5 age group, 22 percent live in poverty. Black toddlers were most likely to be poor, at 41 percent, followed by Hispanics at 32 percent and whites at 13 percent. Asian toddlers had a poverty rate of 11 percent.
Fuck Spanish, language doesn't sound good to my ears.
The irony of guns, is that they can save lives.
This is horrible. Blacks and Hispanics can't run the country. We can barely hold together our own communities. It would really be better for everyone if white people were still making babies and running things.
There I said it. You all know you have been thinking it.
There I said it. You all know you have been thinking it.
Come on guys, we barely fell for it the last time.13/f/taiwan wrote:
Fuck Israel
I'm not really sure how fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq, and aiding Al Qaeda in Libya and Syria is really a coherent strategy.13/f/taiwan wrote:
This isn't even about Iraq, per se, but the overall hypocrisy and deceit by the US and the West, but mainly the US.. I know this has been repeated a million times over and it will sound like the same old "great satan/world police" rhetoric. Iraq wasn't the first time the government fabricated 'evidence' to justify a military intervention nor was it the last. Libya is now in shambles thanks to a NATO intervention(so the Europeans take the blame on this one as well) on behalf of Libyan rebels/Al-Qaeda. An ethnic cleansing of it's black population occurred and the country disappeared from the news right after Ghadaffi's death. 68% of American's don't even support intervention in Syria. The US lost it's credibility with Iraq on the issue of chemical weapons/WMD.
I know Europe(pretty much only the UK and France) are behind us on this subject. They're just following our lead because their leaders have no real balls. The rest of the EU gets screwed out of Iranian gas(less reliance on Russia's Gazprom) and any future business deals with Tehran.
It seems to me more like the US is really trying to destabilise the whole region, so no major ME power can rise to a level to be able to threaten Israel.
I don't see why Britain and Australia should be helping in this enterprise.
Fuck Israel
everything in the middle-east is about navigating the scylla and charybdis of iran/israel. everything else is secondary. it's just a crazy brand of high-stake pragmatism after that. keep 'em away from iran, keep israel in the seat. that's pretty much the guiding principle.
Although oddly Iran has never really had much to do with Israel.
In the meantime Pakistan, a muslim country and current home of Al Qaeda, really does have nuclear weapons.
Its both funny and scary that he makes this stuff up, even the Israeli media is getting tired of it.Netanyahu wrote:
"This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose to annihilate Israel's six million Jews," he said. "We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust."
In the meantime Pakistan, a muslim country and current home of Al Qaeda, really does have nuclear weapons.
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-06-14 02:52:43)
Fuck Israel
How much do you want to bet that they had this chemical weapons report ready to disclose and they decided to do it now to get the NSA story out of the headlines? I believe the UK and France said months ago that there were chemical weapons being used in Syria....
when did i say they were involved? why is that necessary? it's about the ideologies and geopolitical weight they each represent. not about separating some essential conflict or 'problem' between israel and iran.Dilbert_X wrote:
Although oddly Iran has never really had much to do with Israel.Its both funny and scary that he makes this stuff up, even the Israeli media is getting tired of it.Netanyahu wrote:
"This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose to annihilate Israel's six million Jews," he said. "We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust."
In the meantime Pakistan, a muslim country and current home of Al Qaeda, really does have nuclear weapons.
There are ~100 AQ members in Afghanistan. Most of them moved into Yemen/Syria/Iraq after the US invaded Iraq. The "terrorist" we're fighting are people who are sick of having their neighborhood bombed, houses raided at 4am, family and friends pointlessly being kidnapped/tortured/killed and still don't know about 9/11.Dilbert_X wrote:
I'm not really sure how fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq, and aiding Al Qaeda in Libya and Syria is really a coherent strategy.13/f/taiwan wrote:
This isn't even about Iraq, per se, but the overall hypocrisy and deceit by the US and the West, but mainly the US.. I know this has been repeated a million times over and it will sound like the same old "great satan/world police" rhetoric. Iraq wasn't the first time the government fabricated 'evidence' to justify a military intervention nor was it the last. Libya is now in shambles thanks to a NATO intervention(so the Europeans take the blame on this one as well) on behalf of Libyan rebels/Al-Qaeda. An ethnic cleansing of it's black population occurred and the country disappeared from the news right after Ghadaffi's death. 68% of American's don't even support intervention in Syria. The US lost it's credibility with Iraq on the issue of chemical weapons/WMD.
I know Europe(pretty much only the UK and France) are behind us on this subject. They're just following our lead because their leaders have no real balls. The rest of the EU gets screwed out of Iranian gas(less reliance on Russia's Gazprom) and any future business deals with Tehran.
It seems to me more like the US is really trying to destabilise the whole region, so no major ME power can rise to a level to be able to threaten Israel.
I don't see why Britain and Australia should be helping in this enterprise.
The US wants Syria destabilized, at minimal, primarily so no Iranian oil/gas can pass through. They worked relentlessly at making sure no pipelines go through Iran/Russia even if it is inefficient and defies conventional business practices. Just check out the Baku-Tblisi-Cehyan pipeline. It's one of the main reasons why Turkey wants to help the rebels and change stances on its official foreign policy.
Bush and Obama didn't want to leave Iraq and were essentially kicked out by Maliki for this exact reason. They knew Iran would inherit the title as the regional superpower once they left and ultimately become a world superpower. I'm still skeptical about the 'withdraw' from Afghanistan next year. China is hurt both short and long-term as they try to find a way to allocate enough resources so they can sustain their growth.
Note: Assad used Hezbollah since this was made.
Meanwhile, Iranian election polls have closed. Expect someone worse than Ahmadinejad and more involvement in Syria.Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has declared the Lebanese armed group will keep fighting for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after it spearheaded the recapture of the strategic city of Qusayr last week.
In a televised speech on Friday, Nasrallah said Hezbollah was aware of the cost of military engagement in Syria's civil war and would not be deflected from its goal.
"We will not change our position," Nasrallah said. "After Qusayr is the same as before Qusayr".
Hezbollah, a staunch ally of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has become increasingly embroiled in the conflict in neighbouring Syria that is now in its third year.
"Wherever we need to be, we will be," said the Hezbollah leader. "What we assumed responsibility for, we will continue to be responsible for, and there is no need to give details," he said during an event honouring fighters wounded in Hezbollah's military campaigns including a 2006 war with Israel.
The Shia Muslim movement's open military cooperation with the Assad regime to seize back Qusayr, from mainly Sunni rebels, has escalated tensions in Lebanon between supporters and opponents of Assad.
The Assad regime has said it plans to build on that victory in Qusayr, by trying to retake large parts of the northern city of Aleppo and its surrounding province, but it is unclear whether Hezbollah will also join that operation.
"The details will depend on the requirements on the ground," Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah urged his supporters to exercise restraint and maintain stability in Lebanon, after rocket fire hit both Sunni and Shia towns in the Bekaa Valley and dozens of people were killed in street fighting in the northern city of Tripoli.
I think the greatest irony would be if Assad is democratically elected by a majority of Syrians in 2014 because they prefer him over the rebels. This is under the condition that he host free and fair elections and Syrians are willing to come out of whatever is left of their homes.. They might actually legitimize the rule of a dictator.
And yes, I will keep you all updated.
And yes, I will keep you all updated.
You know what really grinds my gears? People on the internet who hate and want to shoot poachers. They are trying to feed their families. If you care so much about the animals then put your money where your mouth is and donate to the locals.
I don't know how the poacher demographics break down, but I reckon people see more of a problem with the sort of rhino horn/elephant tusk poacher who are just looking to make a cheap buck at the expense of an animal.
I am willing to bet the people ripping out elephant tusks aren't doing it because it is an easier paycheck than sitting in an office.
no, they're doing it because there is no office or easy job. there are only hard jobs, and illegal jobs. the law is still the law, though. it's not the endangered/valuable species' fault that their local economy sucks.