Lives in a Shoe

Too Good to Check

The photograph of King Faisal and the Star Wars character ended up in a history textbook

• Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice. – Yoda

A Brief Guide to Understanding the Kurds

Stratfor: A Brief Guide to Understanding the Kurds

The Kurds had no choice but to assimilate, for the country most of them would prefer to call home — Kurdistan — does not exist and probably never will.

Countless other ethnic groups have lobbied for independence, but this is the story of the Kurds, who for more than a century have tried and failed to create a state of their own. ...

Middle Eastern Reaction to Immigration Halt -- A Way of Thinking About It

Why Middle Eastern Nations Support Trump's Immigration Halt (Spengler, in Asia Times).

Western pundits who protest the supposed inhumanity of Trump’s temporary immigration halt said not a word while the Obama administration steered the region towards disaster and half a million Syrians died in their country’s civil war. Their objections should be read as politically-motivated hypocrisy.

Worth thinking about the whole thing, but here's a bit:

Critics of President Trump’s temporary travel ban on seven Muslim nations should remember the Chinese proverb, “Kill the chicken and let the monkey watch.”

The much-criticized measure was a warning to the governments of the Gulf States, Turkey and Pakistan, who walk a fine line between support for Western counter-terrorism efforts and concessions to jihadists. It has had precisely the result that the White House intended..

Counter-terrorism officials in Muslim countries contending with a jihadist minority view Trump as an ally against their domestic enemies...

Although Pakistan has said nothing about the immigration ban, its actions suggest that it got the message from the White House. After years of prevaricating, Pakistani authorities finally arrested the radical Muslim cleric Hafiz Saeed, accused of planning the 2008 Mumbai massacre carried out by Pakistani jihadists.

 

 

The Coming Collapse of Saudi Arabia

Since the thirties the Saudis have done nothing, nothing at all, to diversify and help their citizens to earn a better life apart from royal largess based largely on slave labor. The ruling family should be afraid since with economic uncertainty will come fraying of the ties that keep the Wahabi fundamentalists in check.

From ZeroHedge:

The Saudis have damaged the U.S. shale oil industry. And they’ll continue to cause more damage. But they won’t bankrupt every producer.

The shale industry has more staying power than Saudi Arabia. Some producers now say they’re profitable with $40 oil. And their pace of innovation will drive that even lower. The industry will survive.

All the Saudis have done is create an existential crisis for themselves.

If the Saudis don’t stop flooding the market—and there are no signs they will—they won’t be shooting themselves in the foot... but in the head. Saudi Arabia will either collapse or surrender—and stop flooding the market.

Either way, oil will eventually go a lot higher.

 

Iraq. Again.

Roundup here, with links: 

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/218998/

 

Why?

U.S. builds two air bases in Kurdish-controlled north Syria: Kurdish report

Lest We Forget

 

 

NARRATIVE:  Chris Wallace Presses Cheney on Iran: Didn’t You ‘Leave President Obama with a Mess’?

Why no, no he didn’t. In fact, things were going so well as late as 2010 that the Obama Administration was bragging about Iraq as one of its big foreign policy successes.

In the interest of historical accuracy, I think I’ll repeat this post again:

BOB WOODWARD:  Bush Didn’t Lie About WMD, And Obama Sure Screwed Up Iraq In 2011.

[Y]ou certainly can make a persuasive argument it was a mistake. But there is a time that line going along that Bush and the other people lied about this. I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq. And lots of mistakes, but it was Bush telling George Tenet, the CIA director, don’t let anyone stretch the case on WMD. And he was the one who was skeptical. And if you try to summarize why we went into Iraq, it was momentum. The war plan kept getting better and easier, and finally at the end, people were saying, hey, look, it will only take a week or two. And early on it looked like it was going to take a year or 18 months. And so Bush pulled the trigger. A mistake certainly can be argued, and there is an abundance of evidence. But there was no lying in this that I could find.

Plus:

Woodward was also asked if it was a mistake to withdraw in 2011. Wallace points out that Obama has said that he tried to negotiate a status of forces agreement but did not succeed, but “A lot of people think he really didn’t want to keep any troops there.” Woodward agrees that Obama didn’t want to keep troops there and elaborates:

Look, Obama does not like war. But as you look back on this, the argument from the military was, let’s keep 10,000, 15,000 troops there as an insurance policy. And we all know insurance policies make sense. We have 30,000 troops or more in South Korea still 65 years or so after the war. When you are a superpower, you have to buy these insurance policies. And he didn’t in this case. I don’t think you can say everything is because of that decision, but clearly a factor.

We had some woeful laughs about the insurance policies metaphor. Everyone knows they make sense, but it’s still hard to get people to buy them. They want to think things might just work out, so why pay for the insurance? It’s the old “young invincibles” problem that underlies Obamcare.

Obama blew it in Iraq, which is in chaos, and in Syria, which is in chaos, and in Libya, which is in chaos. A little history:

As late as 2010, things were going so well in Iraq that Obama and Biden were bragging. Now, after Obama’s politically-motivated pullout and disengagement, the whole thing’s fallen apart. This is near-criminal neglect and incompetence, and an awful lot of people will pay a steep price for the Obama Administration’s fecklessness.

Related:  National Journal: The World Will Blame Obama If Iraq Falls.

Related:  What Kind Of Iraq Did Obama Inherit?

Plus, I’m just going to keep running this video of what the Democrats, including Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton, were saying on Iraq before the invasion:

Because I expect a lot of revisionist history over the next few months.

Plus:  2008 Flashback: Obama Says Preventing Genocide Not A Reason To Stay In Iraq. He was warned. He didn’t care. 

And who can forget this?

Barack Obama 

 

✔@BarackObama

FACT: President Obama kept his promise to end the war in Iraq. Romney called the decision to bring our troops home “tragic.”

 

 

Yes, I keep repeating this stuff. Because it bears repeating. In Iraq, Obama took a war that we had won at a considerable expense in lives and treasure, and threw it away for the callowest of political reasons. In Syria and Libya, he involved us in wars of choice without Congressional authorization, and proceeded to hand victories to the Islamists. Obama’s policy here has been a debacle of the first order, and the press wants to talk about Bush as a way of protecting him. Whenever you see anyone in the media bringing up 2003, you will know that they are serving as palace guard, not as press.

Related:  Obama’s Betrayal Of The Iraqis.

Courage: Sara Bahayi

"One day they will kill you..."

Despite a belief Islam forbids women to drive men...

Every day, she plies her trade in a business ruled by conservative men. She endures condescending looks, outright jeers, even threats to her life. Most men will not enter her taxi, believing that a woman should never drive for a man.

Yet she earns $10 (£6.50) to $20 a day, enough to provide for her 15 relatives, including her ailing mother. She relies on ferrying women shackled by traditions and fear, who vicariously live their dreams of freedom through her.

 

 

Admit It: ISIS is an Islamic Death Cult

From the Daily Beast:

Wood argues the Islamic State views itself as “a key agent of the coming Apocalypse.” He is absolutely right, and we have been seeing the symbols for months. After spending about 200 hours combined over the last few weeks, analyzing every word and symbol in the burning video of the Jordanian Air Force pilot and the execution video of the Coptic Christians, we can tell you that both videos reveal Islamic State strategists, propagandists and recruiters are very much grounded in a logical interpretation of the Quran, the hadith, or sayings and traditions of the prophet Muhammad, and fatwa, or religious rulings.

They are also hell-bent on one mission: Chasing the apocalypse, according to Islamic eschatology—the study of the end of the world.

 Read the whole thing.

Fierce Moral Urgency