Archive for the ‘middle east’ Category

A Pair of Pet Peeves of Mine Concerning War

Posted: April 4, 2024 by datechguy in culture, Israel, Israel vs Hamas
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Hacom: Reger, these are young men. They are not old enough to be excused.
Reger: They’re visitors.
Hacom: Well, have they no Lawgivers in the Valley? Why be they not at the Festival?
Captain Kirk [in local dress]: We heard that you might have rooms for us.
Reger: There. You see, Hacom? They’ve merely come looking for a place to rest afterwards.
Hacom: The Red Hour has already struck.
Tamar: Hacom, these be strangers. The Valley has different ways.
Hacom: Do you say that Landru is not everywhere?
Tamar: No, of course not. It’s simply they may have different ways.

Star Trek The Return of the Archons 1967

We all have pet peeves in our life, my wife hates when I leave lights on (I like to see) and I hate pans left inside of pans on stoves while DaWife is all for it. But this article title hit a serious Pet Peeve of mine concerning war:

I Am Furious About the Relentless Anti-Israel Propaganda

Now the article itself by David Strom is better than the title. It talks about the relentless propaganda by the left, and by universities and by Hamas attacking Israel and he expresses his disgust thus:

But the truth is that very little of the criticism aimed at Israel is even remotely rational or motivated by anything but anti-Western or antisemitic hate, and I am sick and tired of it. And I am just as disturbed by the media’s spreading of that propaganda with far too little skepticism. 

Words have meaning. Actions have context. Hamas is objectively evil. 

While I share Mr. Strom’s support of Israel and his analysis of Hamas I’ve got to say none of this infuriates me.

Why? Two basic reasons.

First Hamas and the Arab World have been spreading propaganda about Israel from almost the moment of its creation, in fact there is a rather famous intercept from the 1967 War with Nasser pretty much blackmailing Jordan into joining the war and discussing how to spin the destruction of the Arab air forces. Falsehoods and lies are a basic tactic in Muslim Arab culture even to their own people (There are generations of Egyptians who have been taught since their birth that the 1973 war with Israel was a resounding victory).

Second and most importantly: This is war.

Right now Hamas is fighting for it’s very survival, they had no idea that Israel would respond in the way that they did and the people who cheered on Hamas on October 7th and rushed into Israel to steal what they could had no idea that they would be reduced to living in tents because of these actions.

The Qataris and the Iranians who are financing Hamas didn’t see this coming either. They’re happy to fund proxy efforts (Iran with the help of Obama’s pallets of Cash and Biden’s moves to push up oil prices) but don’t dare let the war touch themselves. If Israel decided to strike Qatar they would last about 30 seconds and Iran understands that a direct assault on Israel could give them the casus belli for a counterstrike that could contain a nuclear component to end the Mullahs once and for all.

So naturally they use the best cards they have in their hand which are playable.

For Iran and Qatar it’s money and that money is wisely spent on buying academics and media who are easily bought and pushing a narrative. There are plenty of Muslims in Europe and the US who don’t like Jews and would be happy to see them dead but without the ability or strength to legally slaughter the Jews in their midst they’ll settle for intimidation and vandalism and the spreading of propaganda across regular and social media until such a time in the future when their numbers grow to the point when they can can openly slaughter them.

For the far left which has been aborting and neutering their own children and encouraging other to do the same, they’ll welcome the additional number sure in the idea that it will be a generation or more before they are strong enough to take action against the gays, transgenders and libertines which the Arabs despise. (And if it means some Jewish leftists are demoted from Useful idiots to simply idiots to be discarded so be it).

For Hamas it’s the hostages. As long as Hamas holds them or can be thought of as holding them they have a card they can use to delay and disrupt Israel both in the field and on the home front, so no matter how much understandable outrage one might hold over the barbarity of holding hostages, especially women & children I’m not phased or shocked over their doing so because for them that’s the best card they have.

This is war, a game of life and death that is played to win, I’m not outraged about the Arabs playing the game in the way they see fit nor am I outraged over them saying one thing in Arabic to their own people and another to people in the west with different customs and standards. That’s what drives me nuts. This is not our culture, it’s not our standards. This is what the Arab/Muslim world is, it’s what it’s always been, it’s what they’ve been doing for decades and what people like Pam Geller and Robert Spencer and Brigitte Gabriel have warned the west repeatedly about. It’s not a secret and we should not be shocked and outraged that they act as they do.

If you want to be outraged, be outraged about the people who either through ignorance or expedience fall for or pretend to fall for it for cash, or fame or acceptance or even fear.

That’s something to be outraged about.

Instead think of how to counter it and act accordingly.

Four years ago, in Fact even 1 Year ago this would have been considered an April Fools Post…

Posted: April 1, 2024 by datechguy in culture, middle east, official oppression
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…alas this is reality in the west in 2024:

This is an example of actual “islamophobia” that exists is among governments like England and colleges in the US who are terrified that if they stand up to those who support the mass murder of Jews, people that they’ve lionized and protected as “oppressed” they would face violence themselves from those very same people.

It’s is that fear that illustrates they know the actual reality and are too cowed to deal with it.

As a person who enjoys the study of history it’s rather fascinating to watch a society decaying and falling due to suicide which is the cause of the fall of every republic in history.

It’s in fact a lot less interesting when you are watching it happen while living within it.

Five AM Thoughts Under the Fedora Chicago on the Potomac What are they Hiding? , War involves killing? Who wouda thunk it! ,Get on With it, Adjusting the Schedule

Posted: March 25, 2024 by datechguy in Israel vs Hamas, News/opinion, under the fedora
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During the Obama years when his administration was young I pointed out repeatedly that he was basically a cheap Chicago Machine Pol.

It’s apparently much worse in the sense that his administration and the Biden admin that his people control have basically brought Chicago politics to the national level, where every part of government is used to quell & destroy opposition on one hand and the levers of power simply exist to enrich friends and perpetuate the machine, even down to the lowest civil service level.

They have remade the courts, the civil service and even the military in their image and the consequences of this are likely to destroy America or drive it toward Civil War and worst of all they’ve done it at the behest of our enemies.

I really don’t have words to describe what I think of the people who have allowed it to happen for the sake of power, status and greed but that’s a post Christian society for you.

A couple of days ago I saw it theorized that the reason Gallagher is resigning in a way to prevent his +15 GOP seat from being filled is to help the Democrats get the House long enough to declare Trump an “insurrectionist” and try to disqualify him per the SCOTUS ruling that killed the cases in Colorado etc.

There was a time when I would have laughed such a theory out the door but the incredible irrational fear and obsession the deep state and the left has of Trump has demonstrated that no tactic is beyond them.

This type of fear suggests that however bad and whatever illegalities and unconstitutional acts I might suspect have been going on during the Biden/Obama years, it’s much worse and they’re totally afraid of being exposed.

I must confess that I’m completely confused by how some people react to events in Ukraine and Russia

They are at war with each other and now have been for over two years. During war both sides try to attack the other, try to destroy infrastructure and target the other side. This tends to lead to death and destruction the scale of which depends on the size of the parties involved and the state of their military. This is how war actually works. It’s why it’s something to be avoided if at all possible.

So will people PLEASE stop having fits when Ukraine hits Russia and when Russia hits Ukraine and acting all shocked when it happens and concentrate on finding ways of ending the war instead. Surely there are easier ways of acquiring graft then this and frankly for those worried about the Russian Bear the lessons of this war would seem to be that the bear is not what people think it is.

Speaking of Military Confusion I’m a tad confused by Israel’s delay in moving into that final big Hamas City. I understand there might be logistical issues that they may be working out and given what we’ve seen there is plenty of mopping up to do farther north but I suspect if anything is going to move Hamas to made a deal for those hostages it’s the impending fall of that final safe haven.

Of course I’m still shocked they haven’t gone all General Sherman or more General Lemay on Gaza but that’s their call not mine.

Finally day one of up at five off to work at 6am, mass at 6 pm and home maybe 7-8 has gone without incident. It’s been 20 years since I’ve done 10 hour days so the real test isn’t the easy Sunday, it will be the Monday facing rush hour traffic and the Wednesday when I’ve done four straight.

Given the Biden economy & and the debt it’s helped me accrue combined with the empty tip jar I’m thinking of picking up a part time job on that now free day I have but I’m going to wait till I’ve done this a month or so to see how this sixty something body handles 10 hour days over the long haul first.

Where did those Pallets of Cash to Iran Go? Try the ANC or Why South Africa is Targeting Israel

Posted: March 23, 2024 by datechguy in Israel, Israel vs Hamas
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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

W.H. Auden

During one of my “Under the Fedora” roundups last year I wrote this about the “African Peace Mission” to Ukraine:

I didn’t give much attention to the African Peace Mission to Russia/Ukraine because it had no hope of success but there is one aspect I’d like to note. One of the delegates is President Ramaphosa of South Africa whose country you would call a basket case, if you wanted to insult basket cases that is.

Given the issues of violence, crime, electricity, infrastructure, and an inability of basic services in his country that he either can’t or won’t address it makes perfect sense for him to fly half way around the world to earn brownie points. It’s sort of like Gavin Newsome going after Florida. Much easier than solving problems at home.

Lately South Africa has been in a news a lot, for leading the charge against Israel and claiming it is committing Geocide in Gaza. They’ve gone to the international criminal court and continue to lead the international charge against the Jewish state.

Of course the reality is if Israel wanted to commit Genocide in Gaza they would have left their troops and home and completely flattened the place after Oct 7th (or any of the previous times Hamas was hitting them) rather than after 8 months of war deciding to deport Cancer patients that they were treating for free:

But that still leaves the question why is South Africa, a state that isn’t Muslim or Arab making such a fuss about Gaza when they have no state in it at all.

Well two things come to mind quickly, the first and most important is Iranian money:

The same week that the ANC got its finances in a better state, South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, according to South Africa’s Daily Maverick news outlet.

High-profile South African activists such as former Institute of Race Relations CEO Frans Cronje and Accountability Now Director Paul Hoffman both said earlier this month that reports are emerging that Iran fixed the ANC’s finance problem.

“The South African government is the same thing as Hamas. It’s an Iranian proxy, and its role in the war is to fight the ideological and ideas war to stigmatize Jews around the world,” Cronje during an interview on Chai FM Radio.

Iran has been cultivating SA for a while, apparently they’ve been putting those pallets of cash to use.

But the 2nd reason can be found it a story linked by Don Surber today about South Africa that isn’t getting a whole lot of play internationally:

Residents rich and poor have never seen a shortage of this severity. While hot weather has shrunk reservoirs, crumbling infrastructure after decades of neglect is also largely to blame. The public’s frustration is a danger sign for the ruling African National Congress, whose comfortable hold on power since the end of apartheid in the 1990s faces its most serious challenge in an election this year.

A country already famous for its hourslong electricity shortages is now adopting a term called “watershedding” — the practice of going without water, from the term loadshedding, or the practice of going without power.

I’ve been writing about the basket case that is South Africa for years:

In 1990 the year that Nelson Mandela was released South Africa’s unemployment rate was at 18.78% doubling the 1980 rate of 9.24%.  By the first year of free elections (1994) it was up to 22.89%.  There was a sudden drop in the rate in 1995 to 16.71% but by 1997 the rate was back over 20% (20.95%) and since h left office in 1999 through 2010 the rate has averaged 25.76%  from a high of 30.41% in (2002) and a low of 22.23% (2007).

The current rate in the 3rd quarter of 2013 according to government stats is 24.7%

That piece was from ten years after I wrote that article the rate is over 32%

Last year linked a piece about the electricidal situation

Besides no airlines, no postal service and no trains, there is a dwindling electricity supply. They have rolling blackouts, euphemistically called “load shedding” which can last as much as 10 hours per day in Cape Town. Johannesburg is worse. People survive by always keeping their thermos flasks filled with hot water, using small gas camping stoves and using rechargeable lanterns for light and a healthy supply of batteries and candles at all times. Food rots in refrigerators so one needs to purchase small amounts of groceries just for a day. Few people can afford to have a generator, let alone the exorbitant cost of diesel fuel. Without electricity there is no viable economy. Retail stores, restaurants, businesses and factories cannot operate. The employees are idle and cannot do their job. As a result they are unable to earn a livelihood. The lack of electricity is a complex topic. In a nutshell, a history of huge financial losses, mismanagement, sabotage and corruption is evident.

Well at least there is equality…of misery:

There have always been people begging on the streets; mostly blacks. Now however, they are joined by ever-increasing white beggars. I did see an entire family including small blond haired children with crude cardboard signs saying “Please help – God bless you” .

According to some reports, over 50% of South Africans live in poverty on less than $2.00 a day. Some have no access to sanitation, water or electricity.

Well yeah sure South Africa has been known as the rape capital of the world for years and doesn’t have electricity in their capital city and now can’t even provide water to it’s people half of whom live on under $2 a day but at least with Iran’s help the ANC is doing OK.

The bottom line is really simple. To solve the problems of Electricity, infrastructure, food and water in South Africa involve having the will to take on the problem of ANC which has been using South Africa as their personal plaything since Mandela left power and perhaps before.

It’s actually the same dynamic that you see today in US cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, DC where you have Democrat/Marxist rule for decades. The actual problems of the cities involve ending the gravy train for the connected and that’s just not to be done, much easier to pass a resolution against Israel in Gaza. Keeps the activists happy and the money to the connected flowing.

That’s South Africa who cares if the people starve or die of thirst if the ANC can keep getting Iranian money for going after Israel. That’s what counts to those who rule exploit South Africa

Closing thought: These topics are generally considered VERBOTEN in the MSM because in their mind to speak the truth about South Africa post apartheid is to suggest white minority rule was better. I’ll leave Glenn Reynolds to answer that:

It’s not black rule. Botswana next door is well-run. It’s rule by leftists, which always makes everything suck. And they always use race as an excuse for their failures. You can see that in the deep-Blue parts of the United States.

UPDATE: via Elder of Ziyon Great quote from Douglas Murray on the subject

Murray blasted South Africa, saying, “I always think that for voters in any country, first order of priorities: getting the water clean; getting the roads running; getting the infrastructure working; getting healthcare; getting education. I do think that quite often, in my observation — I’ve covered a lot of countries around the world — quite often in my observation, those first-order priorities, if the government fails at that, it does distraction kinds of things. … I don’t think it’s something of primary importance to the people of South Africa; I don’t think it’s first order priorities for the voters, and I’m suspicious when governments pull international tricks.”

The words you’re looking for are: “NAILED IT”!

You really need to see the full interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flggg8Fyzu8
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