Colin Powell om håbløse Irak

Colin Powell on the Bush Administration’s Iraq War Mistakes

May 13, 2012 – Colin Powell

Chaos in Baghdad

On the evening of Aug. 5, 2002, President Bush and I met in his residence at the White House to discuss the pros and cons of the Iraq crisis. Momentum within the administration was building toward military action, and the president was increasingly inclined in that direction.

I had no doubt that our military would easily crush a smaller Iraqi army, much weakened by Desert Storm and the sanctions and other actions that came afterward. But I was concerned about the unpredictable consequences of war. According to plans being confidently put forward, Iraq was expected to somehow transform itself into a stable country with democratic leaders 90 days after we took Baghdad. I believed such hopes were unrealistic. I was sure we would be in for a longer struggle. Colin Powell reflects on lessons from the battlefield to the halls of power—including the mistakes of the Iraq War, his infamous U.N. speech, and the crimes at Abu Ghraib.

Mere HER i The Daily Beast.

Stoned to death for being an emo: NINETY Iraqi students killed for having ‘strange hair and tight clothes’

• Number of deaths could be even higher
• Cleric calls the stonings ‘an act of terrorism’
• Ministry of Interior ‘complicit’ in the killings

10 March 2012

Youngsters in Iraq are being stoned to death for having haircuts and wearing clothes that emulate the ‘emo’ style popular among western teenagers.

At least 14 youths have been killed in the capital Baghdad in the past three weeks in what appears to be a campaign by Shia militants.

Militants in Shia neighbourhoods, where the stonings have taken place, circulated lists yesterday naming more youths targeted to be killed if they do not change the way they dress.

Mere HER i The Daily Mail.

Look at the big picture on Iraqi deaths

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – February 27, 2012

Since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, one of the most frequently recurring talking points has been speculation as to whether there will be a sectarian civil war in the country. Throughout this winter, the media at large and numerous analysts have been quick to note incidents of mass casualty attacks, pointing to an upsurge in fatalities, particularly in the month of January.

In addition, there has been a tendency to tie the increase in violence to the U.S. withdrawal and the subsequent political crisis that entailed the issuing of an arrest warrant against Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice-president of Iraq, on allegations of involvement in terrorism, as well as a boycott of the Iraqi parliament by the main opposition bloc al-Iraqiya, which has now decided to end its boycott.

Mere HER i Middle East Forum.

Demografi & Homo Islamicus

Sære udviklinger:

The Myth Of Soaring Muslim Fertility Rates

It is considered common wisdom among Western analysts that Muslim countries are plagued with large families and ever-swelling masses of young people are a threat to stability. Only problem is all the hard evidence to the contrary.

By Anna Lietti – March 31st, 2012

This story starts with a myth. It is the myth that the Muslim world is uniformly dedicated to making many (too many) babies, and that this has gone on for centuries.

This mythology also has its very own Bible:  “Factors Affecting Muslim Natality,” by Dudley Kirk, an American professor of Population Studies. Published in 1965, this study embodied, scientifically speaking, the notion of a demography unique to Muslim countries that won’t transition to a family model with two children, as it did in the Western world.

Kirk’s theories have influenced this debate in a lasting way. Thirty years later, they were still inspiring Samuel Huntington in his work “The Clash of Civilizations,” where he presents his theory of an eternal conflict between the West and Islam. The demographic threat plays a central role in his thesis.

Mere HER i Worldcrunch.

Demography Is Destiny in Syria

By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi & Oskar Svadkovsky on February 6, 2012

The “peripheralism” and Malthusian underpinnings of an unexpected uprising.

Among the second wave of Arab Spring uprisings that followed Tunisia, Syria was the most spectacular “out of the blue” that suddenly arose in the face of the media and analytic community. Just days before Deraa exploded with protests last March, some analysts were still scrutinizing Syria’s circumstances and declaring the country to be immune from the Arab Spring. Nor did reporters who visited the country spot signs of a brewing storm.

In fact, throughout the Arab Spring, the media and experts repeatedly fell into the same trap of confusing the capital city with the whole country. On the eve of the Islamist landslide in Egypt’s elections various polls and informed individuals were putting the popularity of radical Salafis at between 5% and 10%. The Salafis have indeed won about 10% of the vote… but only in Cairo. Nationwide they took almost 30%, beating even those unrepentant pessimists who were betting on a Muslim Brotherhood spring. In some provinces they grabbed all of 50%.

Mere HER i The American Spectator. The Middle East Forum her. AINA her.

America’s Demographic Future

by Joel Kotkin and Erica Ozuna – January 28, 2012

Perhaps nothing has more defined America and its promise than immigration. In the future, immigration and the consequent development of what Walt Whitman (1855: iv) called “a race of races” will remain one of the country’s greatest assets in the decades to come.

At a time when anti-immigrant fervor has been building, a number of states—including Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama—have enacted draconian laws aimed at apprehending undocumented immigrants. Those laws are widely seen even among legal immigrants and long-term residents as hostile to immigrants. Indeed, newcomers are already leaving those states. This Latino exodus has been happening in once-thriving neighborhoods in Gwinnett and Cobb counties in Georgia—as shown in business closures, arrest statistics, and declining church attendance—caused both by the economy and the increased immigration enforcement (Simmons 2010). Nationwide, there has been a declining number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, a decrease of 1 million from 2007 (Hoefer, Rytina, and Baker 2011).

Mere HER i New Geography eller her i The Cato Journal.

Muslim demographics: Pull and push factors

by Nicolai Sennels on April 1, 2012

In Denmark, 89.1 percent of Muslims vote on the Left. In France the number is 95 percent. And certainly this tendency is the same all over the West. Thus Muslim immigration is in fact the importation of votes for the Left. Therefore it is not surprising that Leftist parties are the ones that work hardest to open our borders to more non-Western immigration. They burden their own countries with weak immigrants from a less civilized culture in order to secure their own reelection. They invite people to our part of the world who have many children and are only able to manage few kinds of jobs, and who will therefore always vote for the socialists.

While our states and municipalities spend billions of Euros, Kroners and Pounds on immigrants, the rest of us have to pay more and more in taxes.

Mere HER hos Jihad Watch.

Re-Engineering Humans: An Old Solution to Climate Change

March 29, 2012 – by Ed Driscoll

It’s no coincidence that global warming took off as an issue just as the Soviet Union fell; it’s top-down centralized government’s last best hope of controlling the masses. And like other forms of totalitarian worldviews, it doubles as a religion as well, as Czech President Vaclav Klaus noted late last year:

“I’m convinced that after years of studying the phenomenon, global warming is not the real issue of temperature,” said Klaus, an economist by training. “That is the issue of a new ideology or a new religion. A religion of climate change or a religion of global warming. This is a religion which tells us that the people are responsible for the current, very small increase in temperatures. And they should be punished.”

Mere HER hos PJ Media.

Andre kilder: Time Magazine,

Oversigt over konflikter mellem shia ~ sunni

Glimrende initiativ:

Overviewing Shi’a-Sunni Conflicts

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – December 2, 2011

As we approach the end of the first year of what has been called the “Arab Spring,” it is worth examining the nature of Shi’a (Shiite) -Sunni relations in the Middle East. Indeed, commentators such as Patrick Cockburn have been warning that “since the start of the Arab uprisings this year, Shi’a-Sunni hostility has deepened again wherever the two communities seek to live side by side.”

To discuss this issue, a country-by-country survey is useful wherever there are significant Shi’a-Sunni divides in the population.

Mere HER hos Middle East Forum. Kan også læses her hos Arutz Sheva, - også kaldet Israel National News.

Video & artikel: Sudan & Sydsudan – jihad

Halalslagteri for fuld styrke. Sand islamisk “fred”:

Sudan in Crisis

By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi on November 1, 2011

South Sudan is now independent, but its northern neighbor continues to press in an Islamist direction.

Three months after the birth of South Sudan, how is the northern neighbor of the world’s newest nation faring?

The country, witnessing minor demonstrations, generally managed to escape the large-scale protests that have swept across the Middle East and North Africa since last winter, but as the Financial Times reports, Sudan’s economy has been hit severely by the secession of the south, which was by far Khartoum’s largest source of oil revenues.

Indeed, the oil boom in the early 2000s made Sudan one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. Yet owing to a 75 percent drop in oil revenues since July, the Sudanese pound — Khartoum’s currency — has dropped by up to 60 percent on the black market, while annual inflation reached 21 percent last month, with the price of meat now reaching $10 per kilogram. Of course, these developments could well re-ignite popular protests.

Mere HER i The American Spectator. Kan også læses her hos Middle East Forum.

Fra 2. september 2011 - The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN om jihad:

Sudan Christians Suffering Ethnic Cleansing

The Nuba Mountains are home to one of Sudan’s largest Christian communities. And they are being tormented by daily by the nation’s Islamic regime.

Se eventuelt også:

• Jihad i Sydsudan?

Andre kilder: Google News, CBN News, BCNN1, Middle East Forum, Middle East Online, San Francisco Chronicle, AINA, Barnabas Fund, Barnabas Fund, BosNewsLife, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Compass Direct News, ReliefWeb, AllAfrica, Worthy News, Voice of America, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, WorldNetDaily, WorldNetDaily, BBC, BBC, BBC, BBC, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Yahoo News, Yahoo News, Reuters, Satellite Sentinel Project, Sudan Tribune, B.T., B.T., Jyllands-Posten,

Pundits om Iran, terror etc.

Mord, vold, terror, død og ødelæggelse. Had. Muslimer. The usual stuff:

Bombing Iran a ‘Bad Idea’? Probably. But It’s the ONLY Idea

October 24, 2011 – by David P. Goldman

Dalia Dassa Kaye at the Foreign Policy website argues that bombing Iran is a “bad idea.” She’s absolutely right. It’s a bad idea, except all the others are worse. As Prof. Kaye observes,

The aftermath of an attack could be devastating militarily and politically. It could unleash a wave of Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces, allies, and interests. Iran maintains a wide array of levers across the region, including militia groups it has trained and funded, that it could employ to retaliate against U.S. forces or diplomatic personnel, particularly in countries like Iraq. Iranian missiles have ranges that can reach Israel and all its Gulf Arab neighbors, including those hosting U.S. military forces.

Mere HER hos Pajamas Media.

Don’t Just Blame Iran for the Terror Plot, Blame WikiLeaks

Ryan Mauro – October 25, 2011

The U.S., Saudi Arabia and the international community are debating how to respond to Iran’s planned assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C., but there is another party that shares responsibility: Wikileaks, the anti-censorship organization that recklessly published confidential diplomatic cables that prompted Iran to target the ambassador.

Last November, Wikileaks published a series of documents exposing private communications between international government officials. One of the most explosive documents was a State Department cable dated April, 20, 2008. It quoted the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, as secretly telling General David Petraeus, “He [the Saudi king] told you to cut off the head of the snake,” referring to the Iranian regime.

Mere HER hos Family Security Matters.

What Will They Think of Next?

Why the crazy Iranian plot to pay Mexicans to kill the Saudi ambassador isn’t so implausible.

By Christopher Hitchens | Oct. 24, 2011

There may conceivably be a reason to doubt the truth of the Obama administration’s claim that the “Quds Force” of the Islamic Republic of Iran went into the free market for murder in order to suborn the killing of the Saudi ambassador to the United States. But neither the apparently surreal nor the apparently flagrant nature of the thing would constitute such reasons. We have been here before, as a splendid recent book reminds us, and have learned that no allegation made against the goon squads in Tehran can be thought of as prima-facie implausible.

Mere HER i Slate. The National Post her.

A Pattern of Appeasement and Retreat

October 24, 2011 – by Michael Ledeen

Take two headlines, one about Iraq, the other about Afghanistan.  The Iraqis told us to honor our signed agreement, and pull out all our troops by year’s end.  Over in Kabul, Karzai said he’d go to war against us if we attacked his neighbor, Pakistan.  It’s the same story in both places, but the real headline is the thirty-year-old one:  U.S. fails to come up with an Iran strategy.

It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?  You’re a Middle Eastern leader, and you’ve been working and fighting alongside the Americans.  The United States was magnificent on the battlefield, and you either won (as in Iraq) or were winning (Afghanistan) when the Americans announced they were leaving.  And they even set a date for their departure.  Where does that leave you?

Mere HER i Pajamas Media. Family Security Matters her.

Regime blames assassination plot on its enemies

By Reza Kahlili – October 21, 2011

Iran panicked after the United States accused it of hatching a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, immediately denying the allegations, which included plans to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies and labeling the plot’s organizer an enemy of the state.

We should have seen it coming.

Iranian officials warned Saudi officials months ago of repercussions because of the Saudi monarchy’s intervention in Bahrain and Yemen, where Iran is pushing for the overthrow of U.S.-friendly governments to establish Shiite rule. Some Revolutionary Guard commanders and parliament deputies even called for a military response to the Saudis’ action in the region.

Mere HER i The Washington Times.

Explaining Iran’s Approach Towards the Middle East

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – October 25, 2011

What drives Iran’s ambition to become the dominant power in the Middle East at the expense of the Sunni Arab Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)? Is it solely an issue of Iran’s Shi’ite Islamist ideology?

To begin with, it is worth recalling that many of the Iranian regime’s assertive and expansionist policies today predate Khomeini’s revolution and rise to power in 1979. For example, Iran’s claim to Bahrain goes back to the secular Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s resolution in November 1957, declaring the island to be Iran’s fourteenth province. Eventually, the Shah let go of Bahrain for the time being, much to the chagrin of Iranian nationalists.

Mere HER i Middle East Forum. The Jerusalem Post her.

73% of Iraqis: Iran Is Likely to Act Aggressively When U.S. Troops Leave

By Terence P. Jeffrey – October 24, 2011

About 73 percent of Iraqis said they believe it is likely Iran will act aggressively toward their country after U.S. troops leave in December.

Fifty-one percent said they believe the security situation within Iraq will get worse when the U.S. forces leave.

Mere HER hos CNS News. Jeg har blogget en hel del om Iran her i oktober. Se for eksempel:

• Det islamo-nazistiske Iran er ekstremt farligt
• Video: Robert Spencer og Ezra Levant om terrorplaner Iran ~ USA & Saudi Arabien
• Video: Iran er overalt i Sydamerika
• Video: Iran, Venezuela, USA, terror, muslimer og mere

Andre kilder: Tablet Magazine, Fox News, Family Security Matters, Townhall,

Mellemøstens kristne både svigter og svigtes

Middle Eastern Christians and anti-Semitism

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – August 2, 2011

I was recently told by my aunt in Baghdad that there was a widespread belief among Iraqis that some external force was behind the protests and uprisings across the Middle East. What outside conspiracy, I wondered, could be responsible for the Arab Spring? Not to worry, however; George Saliba – the Syriac Orthodox Church’s bishop in Lebanon – offers us a simple answer. In an interview with Al-Dunya TV on July 24, Saliba declared that “the source… behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils” in the Arab world is nothing other than Zionism, “deeply rooted in Judaism.” The Jews, he says, are responsible for financing and inciting the turmoil in accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

These remarks are not an isolated case among Middle Eastern Christians. The anti-Semitic trend has become especially apparent in the aftermath of Iraq’s assault last October on the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, leaving 58 dead and 67 wounded in the worst attack on the Iraqi Christian community since 2003.

Mere HER i The Jerusalem Post eller her i Middle East Forum.

Ratko Mladić: The verdict is already written…

Lidt artikler:

Christopher Hitchens: Don’t forget what a monster Ratko Mladic is

Christopher Hitchens – May 31, 2011

I suppose it is possible that the arrest of General Ratko Mladic is as undramatic and uncomplicated as it seems and that in recent years he had been off the active list and gradually became a mumbling old derelict with a rather nasty line in veterans’ reminiscences. His demands would probably have been modest and few: the odd glass of slivovitz in company with a sympathetic priest (it’s usually the Serbian Orthodox Church that operates the support and counseling network for burned-out or wanted war criminals) and an occasional hunting or skiing trip. Though there is something faintly satisfying about this clichéd outcome — the figure of energetic evil reduced to a husk of exhausted banality — there is also something repellent about it.

Mere HER i National Post. Kan også læses her hos Slate.

General Mladić: The Facts

by Srdja Trifkovic • June 1st, 2011

The circumstances surrounding the arrest of the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, General Ratko Mladić, seem puzzling. On May 26 he was captured in the house of a close relative with the same surname in a village north of Belgrade. Prima facie this means either that Mladić was entirely left to his own devices and had to seek shelter with people certain to be under police surveillance, or else that the Serbian authorities had been conniving in his hiding. The former is unlikely in view of the effectiveness of Mladić’s concealment after he finally went underground in 2002. The latter is even less likely in view of President Boris Tadić’s constant desire to please his mentors in Brussels and Washington and get Serbia a step closer to the ever-elusive EU membership.

According to our reliable sources in Belgrade, Mladić would not have been discovered had he not decided to give himself up in return for a substantial financial reward for his family. He is a very sick man and unlikely to live much longer. In addition to a chronic kidney ailment and high blood pressure, he has suffered several minor strokes over the past decade. Two years ago he was treated—under an assumed name—for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at a clinic in Belgrade. Aware that his wife Bosiljka and son Darko had been living in penury since the authorities stopped paying his pension in 2005, Mladić decided to offer the government a deal. The final settlement is well below the $10m previously offered for Mladić’s capture, but sufficient to enable his wife and son to live in comfort for many years to come.

Mere HER i Chronicles Magazine. Kan også læses her hos Serbianna.

Ratko Mladić and Myths of the Bosnian War

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – June 1, 2011

The recent arrest of the Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić should mark the end of a dark chapter in the Balkans’ history. The military leader is charged with fifteen counts of genocide and crimes against humanity, including accusations of involvement in the Srebrenica massacre that witnessed the slaughter of 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys.

The capture itself is the culmination of a long period of international pressure — particularly by NATO — on Serbia, rather than an attempt to press for the resolution of a manhunt for a suspected war criminals residing in Serbia. The international community feared that a manhunt might jeopardize the fragile, tottering post-war ceasefire. Instead, it was made clear to Serbia that the country could not hope to attain EU membership while wanted individuals were sheltered within its territory.

Mere HER hos Hudson New York.

Kommentar: Serberne vidste hele tiden, hvor Mladic var

Af Ota Tiefenböck

Var arrestationen af general Ratko Mladic en tilfældighed? Nej. Den var timet og tilrettelagt. Det var derfor, den kom så belejligt, netop som: 1. De nationalistiske tendenser i Serbien er aftagende, 2. Der er snart parlamentsvalg, hvor fangsten af Mladic styrker præsident Boris Tadic, 3. Hovedparten af serberne ønsker EU-medlemskab og ved, at de ikke får det, hvis Mladic er på fri fod.

Mere HER i Ræson.

Note: Christopher Hitchens har endnu en artikel i National Post – om spredning af a-våben:

• Want to stop nuclear proliferation? Support democracy

Andre kilder: National Post, Serbianna,

Opdatering 3. juni 2011 – tip fra Magnus A:

Mladic’s Arrest and Corrosive Bosnian Myths

Ted Galen Carpenter | June 2, 2011

The arrest of accused war criminal Ratko Mladic, the commander of Serb forces during Bosnia’s civil war in the 1990s, creates an opportunity to correct the historical record and provide a more balanced treatment of that episode.

One hopes that the media coverage of Mladic’s arrest and forthcoming trial will not be a repetition of the simplistic mythology about the Bosnian conflict that was so pervasive when it occurred. U.S. and European officials, the Western news media, ethnic lobbies, and much of the foreign policy community spun a Manichean melodrama. In that melodrama, the Serbs were almost entirely responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia and for the violence that followed, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Serbs became arch villains, while Croats and Bosnian Muslims became innocent victims.

Mere HER i The National Interest.

Opdatering 14. juni 2011:

Ratko Mladic, killing 3,500 Christians near Srebrenica and Islamic jihad.

By Lee Jay Walker

After all, from enslaving Orthodox Christians during their brotherly love with the Turkish slave masters of the Ottoman Empire to having Muslim SS units who supported Adolf Hitler; then “victimhood” is needed in order to justify their history and culture.

Of course the wishy-washy brigade will tell us that the Ottoman period was enlightened and that the system of taking the eldest Christian boy (devshirme system) in the Balkans and converting them to Islam was noble. Yes, slavery in the modern era being justified and not mere slavery because the system meant that they would kill their own people in the name of Islam after being indoctrinated by Islamists in the Ottoman Empire.

Mere HER i Pakistan Christian Post eller her hos The Orthodox Church.