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POPSWPost and the Great Disconnect “The most urgent need is to see clearly what is taking place,” the Post opined. Yet, what truly is taking place is a dangerous disconnect from reality in which Washington’s media and political elites see offenses that others commit (often cast in the harshest light) while averting their eyes from their own equally bad or worse behavior. In judging American actions, evenhandedness is a sin; double standards are a virtue. Up is down; objectivity is a crime.
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POPSPlucky little Georgia? No, the cold war reading won't wash All is not what is what it looks like.... Cont: Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: "Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies." Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not.
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POPSWhy I am a Catholic Democrat The greatest benefit to true conservatism in the US would be a strong and intellectually honest liberal movement. Folks speak of conservatives and liberals, but the decades since Reagan have been dominated by party politics, not by ideology. The battle has merely been over which party controls the spoils. The GOP is as bereft of conservative conviction as is the Dems of liberal sincerity. The best thing that could happen to this nation would be for a Goldwater or Reagan to be pitted against a JFK or FDR. Only through such a clash and resolution would the nation once again gain her focus.
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POPSHow Karadzic stirred global Islamic terror
After the Dayton Accords, which in 1995 brought an end to the fighting - and to Karadzic's career - foreign mujahideen were meant to leave. But having obtained Bosnian citizenship, most eluded the requirement. Under US pressure, some of the most suspect were later removed, but many have stayed. Islamist hopes of a quick conversion of Bosnia's Muslims to extremism have so far been frustrated. But the conditions exist for it. Huge sums of Saudi money have financed the building of new mosques, many of whose future imams are receiving training abroad, subject to radicalising Wahhabist influences. Within Bosnia, a network of foreign-based Islamic relief and educational foundations, charities and NGOs operates in the social space left by ineffective, corrupt government. Elsewhere, these have proved conducive for Islamist extremism and al-Qaeda. In any case, it is not necessary for most Bosnian Muslims to radicalise in order for Bosnia to become a base or gateway for terrorists.
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POPS"Put a Kibosh to this Insane Plan" Ominously, these “ideas” hark back to Operation Northwoods, the JSC plan to stage a false flag terror event — or a number of events — designed to provide a pretext to invade Cuba and take out Fidel Castro. Such “ideas” included “friendly Cubans” attacking the U.S. base at Guantanamo, shooting down a drone disguised as a chartered civil airliner and blaming it on Cuba, inciting riots and staging terror attacks in Miami, and other terrorist acts. Fortunately, then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, put a kibosh to this insane plan. More recently, in January, 2003, in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion George Bush and Tony Blair discussed painting planes in United Nations colors “in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach” and thus set in motion an invasion, according to Philippe Sands, a leading British human rights lawyer.
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POPSKaradzic's Nation of Murderers It is tempting, in a world supposedly caught in a clash of civilizations, to think that the only way to survive is to have the Kardzics in your corner, fighting to protect people who look like you, talk like you, pray like you. That is certainly what the young Serbian men who burned flags and threw bottles in defense of Karadzic believe. The logic essentially goes like this: “He’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch. And in a world of sons-of-bitches, you better have the toughest son-of-a-bitch in your corner.” That’s misdirected rage talking, not reason. Misdirected rage applauds “our” murderers, believes they are necessary. It not only thinks the clash of civilizations is real, it needs the clash of civilizations to justify support of its murderers.
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POPSThe clash of Tocquevillians and Gramscians "While economic Marxism appears to be dead, the Hegelian variety articulated by Gramsci and others has not only survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also gone on to challenge the American republic at the level of its most cherished ideas. For more than two centuries America has been an "exceptional" nation, one whose restless entrepreneurial dynamism has been tempered by patriotism and a strong religious-cultural core. The ultimate triumph of Gramscianism would mean the end of this very "exceptionalism." America would at last become Europeanized: statist, thoroughly secular, post-patriotic, and concerned with group hierarchies and group rights in which the idea of equality before the law as traditionally understood by Americans would finally be abandoned. Beneath the surface of our seemingly placid times, the ideological, political, and historical stakes are enormous."
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POPSA clash of cultures on Dubai's beaches First offenders may be issued a warning, but if caught twice, tourists could be referred to the public prosecutor and face the possibility of criminal charges, authorities said.
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POPSCold War The Cold War pertains to the period of tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Discover the motives, the unspoken competition, and the clash of beliefs.
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POPSAhmadinejad on War and Oil Prices The truth is that Ahmadinejad is right on several accounts here, and mainly that war-mongering propaganda is driving up oil prices and devaluing the dollar. He knows that US and Israel are trying to provoke war through propaganda and drills (and covert ops), and is laughing at the game being played while preparing to defend just in case. What he says further on gas and oil prices is interesting: Ahmadinejad said the high oil prices are the result of a weak dollar and a deliberate decision by the United States and some European countries to profit from high fuel taxes. In some European countries, 70 percent of the fuel cost goes to governments as tax, he said. "So it is very clear and obvious that the market does not have a role in raising prices. There are some others that are determining the oil price for the benefit of the few, very rich people of the world,"
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