Red Shirts Are Toast, Faisal The Pawn, Sarah Supports Demon Sheep

Abdel-Moneim Said
Matthew Yglesias

"We're all Arizonians now" - Sarah Palin

"Did you see Obama in Buffalo yesterday? He had a plate full of deep-fried Buffalo wings. Meanwhile, his wife is out there on this health food kick. I think half the reason he leaves the White House is to eat what he wants to eat." - Rush Limbaugh

I came across the essay by Abdel-Moneim Said on what it will take for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiatiations to be successful. Basically, he says what I have been saying in my numerous posts on the subject, yet put much more eloquently: "But negotiations, whether direct or indirect, do not succeed in order to please third parties. Until the principals are prepared to take the steps necessary to make peace, the other parties inclusive of superpowers can do no more than show their willingness to do their best to help.. What observers tend to forget is that there are limits to the amount of time great powers can dedicate to a conflict or dispute between other parties. There was a time when the whole world forgot the domestic conflict in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal. There were times when the world put the Arab-Israeli conflict out of mind because it was unsolvable. Few are paying attention these days to what is happening in Somalia. The world has not only learned how to disregard conflicts; it has also invented new ways for managing their side effects...


The opportunity presented by indirect negotiations, like all opportunities in history, is contingent upon those who are ready to take advantage of them. The Palestinians, the Arabs and Israel have forfeited countless opportunities and the result has always been more extremism, violence and chaos."


Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is threatening to orchestrate a public relations campaign against Saudi Arabia, whom he sees as being the country behind the curtain in all of the recent anti-Israeli sentiment. But the world already knows what a divided country Saudi Arabia is, and that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from there. We know about Wahabism, and bin Laden, and their financing of most of the world's islamic terrorism in the past. Nothing new, just the Israeli extreme right wing trying to threaten the world to do what it wants it to do, much the way the Bush administration tried to force its allies to go along into Iraq after those pesky WMD's...


thailand...

Now that the Red Shirt protesters are asking for negotiations to save their lives, surrounded by the military who have been given the green light on shooting to kill, the government is refusing. The government has rescinded all of the previous offers of early elections and amnesty now that they clearly have the upper hand. In the past, the King, who is seen as the head of the Buddhist Sangha, would say a few words in public to calm things down and indicate which direction both sides should take to resolve their conflict. But, no more.

The King, who was born in Boston and has ruled for 64 years, is in bad health and will die soon. He may be so full of drugs that he can't form a coherent thought, relegating all decisions he would make to a Privy Council. Which means that no-one will side with the poor and uneducated, so the Red Shirts are toast, as I indicated in an earlier post. The Saddest part is that the current military resolution indicates the failure of Buddhism in their society today, much like the misguided jihadists reflect a failure on Islam.

We may be entering a world state of spiritual failure, if all that will be left in this world for consumption are the Hindu Saddus with dung rubbed in their hair, and blithering evangelical Christians, both which tend to produce people who are crazy; the former from too much practice of bad yogas, the latter from not having any spiritual basis for their misinterpretations of the mystical states. Damn, that leaves us with Mr T and the World of Warcraft on the Internet...

imelda and faisal...

Let's see, Imelda Marcos is one happy lady for winning the Senate seat in her late husband's home district. She ran on the platform of restoring his legacy and not telling if they were the ones who found the lost Nazi gold that was sunk during WW11... The NY Times has a long background piece on the Times Square Wannabomber, Faisal Shahzad. It answers some of the questions I previously had, such as where his wife and kids went. Her father is an oil engineer and the family was living and working in Saudi Arabia. When Faisal's marriage was falling apart, he took a more American approach and basically abandoned his wife. He told her that he was moving back to Pakistan, and if she wanted to live like a conservative wife she could follow. Instead, she moved back home with mom and dad, where ironically, she is now living in a much more conservative society than if she had moved to Pakistan... He made the decision, whether to devote himself to being a good father to his two small children, or become a kitchen table jihadist. And we all know his choice, much to the sadness of his father...

The US is using Mr Shahzad as a pawn to get Pakistan committed to fighting in North Waziristan while the US military attacks  Kandahar province. Mr Obama doesn't want to engage in talks with the Taliban until after the Summer offensive, pressuring General McChrystal to produce results or else. Hamid Karzai, though, was given the green light by Obama to form his peace council.


sarah supports demon sheep...

Back home, Sarah Palin is creating some stir among her BFF's, the tea partyers. In California, she is backing Carly Fiorina instead of the local tea party candidate. She is picking other women candidates to back, in a pact of gender solidarity, causing John McCain to begin dressing in drag like Rudy Guliani used to do... The Arizona Immigration Bill has caused a generation gap in the McCain household, with his wife and daughter against it, and John is all for completing the damned fence... the poor man has become so pathetically craven that he really should lose his re-election. It's just that his Republican opponent is much worse and slimy that John looks like a hero for running again. Too bad none of the modern-day Goldwater clan will step up. They don't want to reveal how moderate and liberal-minded they have become, yes, Barry can be heard at nights tossing and turning in his grave...