Category: The MSM

May 20, 2008

Curious…

Something’s got me wondering. Big time.

As most of you likely know by now, Ezra Levant spilled the beans earlier today about the fact the it looks like the RCMP has begun a criminal investigation into the ongoing skulduggery being perpetrated by Canada’s so-called “Human Rights Commission” (a mind-numbingly hypocritical title if ever there was one).

Something like this is news. Big news. Big, big, big. Here’s a little tidbit for you:

Just how bad does it have to get before the government stops saying that the CHRC follows “procedures specified by the law”? We’ve got the Privacy Commissioner and the RCMP investigating now. What does it take to get the government’s attention — a NATO airstrike?

And how about the claim that the government is “monitoring” the CHRC to ensure that it “remains effective”. Effective at what? Hacking Internet accounts? Shredding their records and deleting their hard drives? Staying out of jail? What exactly about the CHRC’s conduct could be called “effective”?

Question: when the RCMP investigates CHRC staff, will the CHRC pay for their criminal lawyers? If so, is that an indication that those CHRC staff hacked the website in the course of their duties?

Like I said, Big News. Big, biggitty, big-big-big. So… why is it, then, that CBC the Ministry Of What You Should Think has diddly, CTV has squat, and when I type in “CHRC RCMP” into a Google news search, all I get is…

Your search – CHRC RCMP – did not match any documents.
Suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.
Try Google Blog Search.

Also, you can browse today’s headlines on the Google News homepage.

Très étrange, n’est-ce pas?

Well, I’ll Be Damned

Who’d have seen this coming? After all the eeks and awks from the surrender monkey crowd that we’ve all had to sit through for years now, things are still progressing such that even the Red Star has been painted into the corner of having to admit that we’re just plain winning the war. And don’t fool yourselves, either. No matter what the latest lingo is, it’s not a “NATO operation,” not a “UN mission,” and it’s sure as hell not “Dubya’s misadventure.” It’s a war. If you don’t believe me, just ask any soldier who’s been there.

It’s a war, and we… are… winning (I’m putting the whole thing here, with my emphasis added, in case it vanishes down some “subscription only” black hole later on):

Close callKABUL – In 2001, when the Taliban was abruptly toppled, there was no armistice.

No surrender was ever signed. No declaration of defeat conceded.

It seemed not to matter that much, then. It matters now.

The Taliban was ostensibly, and in fact, trashed, its command hierarchy skulking off to the frontier regions of northwest Pakistan to lick their wounds. And, with the passage of time, left largely unmolested in their foreign redoubts, to connive, to regroup.

Six years ago, after the capital’s liberation, the routed Taliban held not a single acre of Afghanistan soil.

Today, the roundly accepted estimate – not necessarily accurate but asserted as such by no less than the U.S. director of national intelligence – is that Taliban forces control 10 per cent of the country.

The government led by Western-backed President Hamid Karzai, its authority propped up by NATO and American troops, has purported control over 30 per cent of Afghanistan territory. Warlords, who may or may not align themselves with Kabul – depends on which way the wind is blowing – essentially lay claim to all the rest.

These are rule-of-thumb generalizations, often cited by critics who bemoan Afghanistan’s regression to patchwork fiefdom and lawlessness, the Taliban insurgency resurrected like a phoenix from the ashes of a vanquished, deranged regime.

“Those percentages of what the Taliban hold drive me crazy,” Christopher Alexander counters heatedly. “Because they don’t hold anything, really. There are some places where they hold out, where they’re holed up. And they’re able to do so because there isn’t an active challenge to their presence. None of that means that they’re in control.”

Alexander, a boyish 39, has been on the ground in Afghanistan for 4 years, first as Canada’s ambassador and latterly as deputy special representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations: The No. 2 guy for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

Few outsiders know the Byzantine intricacies of this godforsaken nation better.

At a time of international weariness over any practical resolutions for the chaotic dilemma that Afghanistan remains, Alexander is jarringly optimistic. He might be accused of blue-sky dreaminess, but he’s too well-informed to be dismissed as naïve or wilfully blind.

For one thing, he knows the Taliban. Quite a few of its commanders have, if furtively, come to this very office, sat in these comfortable chairs, and broached the subject of an honourable truce, if not necessarily for the entire insurgency, then at least for themselves.

“That doesn’t mean reconciliation is happening. But it does mean the demand for it has grown,” Alexander says.

Such tentative overtures in the past two years – both to UNAMA and the Karzai government – is not being done from a position of strength. If the neo-Taliban were that hardy, none of its members would be seeking reintegration.

“Why are they making these approaches? First and foremost because they’re afraid for their life and limb. The commanders, in particular, feel that the Afghan forces, and ISAF, are zeroing in on them, as the command-and-control of the insurgency, much more successfully. The more they get promoted in the hierarchy, the more likely they are not going to survive.

“Secondly, a lot of these men, even though they’re still fighting, even though they’re still pretty angry with the government, can see that their cause is not leading anywhere.”

For all that the media focuses on ostensible Taliban achievements, they have not, in fact, taken or maintained control of any territory where forces – national and international – have been deployed to push back. Even in Helmand province, the insurgency’s heart, the Taliban are on their back foot with the recent arrival of aggressively on-the-offence U.S. Marines, driving insurgents downwards to the Pakistan border, whence most came.

A keyhole view is often favourable to the Taliban as the shadow-government in this district or that region. They get big splashes with increasing IED attacks and suicide bombings, especially now aimed at Kabul. That ratchets up the terror and discourages foreign investment but has not brought the Taliban any closer to regaining power. That, remember, is their objective – to drive out NATO, usurp or assassinate Karzai, shred the Constitution, dissolve Parliament and reimpose their puritanical dominion.

They are not remotely close to doing so.

If the situation often looks to the world as if Afghanistan is sliding back toward the insurgency’s clutches – it could happen but is hugely unlikely – that’s not a view shared by Taliban realists, who do not believe their own propaganda.

“They know what success looks like,” Alexander reminds.

This is a crucial point often forgotten in fretfulness over Afghanistan.

“Many of them were around the block in ’94, ’95, ’96, when they marched triumphantly to Herat and then to Kabul, when they cruised to victory, in a sense. This is very different. They are challenged from the moment they cross the border, let alone in the environs of Kabul or downtown Kandahar.

“Publicly, the Taliban set all these objectives: In 2006, Kandahar was going to fall. In 2007, Kabul would fall. None of that happened.

“The smarter ones, who are more realistic, see the writing on the wall. And the ideologues, the ones who want to die fighting, are a pretty small minority. They make the videos but they’re not setting foot in Afghanistan because it’s too dangerous for them. They’re back in Peshawar and Quetta.”

What Taliban commanders learned last year – when several key leaders were killed – is that NATO, the Afghan forces, and in particular the National Directorate of Security (the Afghan intelligence agency) has penetrated their communication network, the lifeline of command-and-control, and infiltrated their ranks, just as the Taliban and their sympathizers had successfully co-opted the Ministry of the Interior at a senior level and some vectors of the military.

“Even their high-profile guys can’t trust their own entourages, can’t use a cellphone or any other kind of communication . . . it’s too risky. And they have to communicate.”

From where Alexander sits – a perspective admittedly not shared by many outside the country, and assuredly not by most civilians in the volatile south – the insurgency has plateaued. It’s particularly reckless and a sign of desperation to turn that insurgency on Kabul.

“I’m not saying that this conflict is ending. Nor am I predicting that the going will be easy in Kandahar and Helmand. But within the borders of Afghanistan, the Taliban are losing momentum because they’re being challenged in more places, both politically and militarily.”

Also, crucially, there is just no stomach among the overwhelming majority of Afghans to be plunged back into that dark past.

“People are remarkably un-nostalgic about the Taliban days.”

It’s one of the oldest lessons in the book; one that every small-town boy learns while he’s growing up. Got a problem with a bully? The solution’s simple: start swinging and don’t stop until he cries like a girl. It’s real easy to push others around when they aren’t fighting back, but once you find that you’re going to have to take your lumps every damned time, you start to think twice. And all bullies are essentially cowards at the core.

Everything we set out to do in Afghanistan, we will do. And there’s not a God damned thing the Taliban or anyone else can do about it. The spin just isn’t working anymore. Sucks to be them, eh?

May 15, 2008

Meds Required, STAT!

Filed under: Moonbattery,The MSM,USA,Video — Dennis @ 2:55 pm

This has got to be, without any doubt, the worst damned case of BDS I’ve ever seen. But then, I’m not an American, so I might not see it as often.

This dude though, and I’ll freely admit that I don’t have a clue in hell as to who he actually is — I don’t watch MSNBC and I don’t think I’m likely to if this is the quality of programming they offer — totally kooks out over the American President in a way that I thought was usually reserved for lifelong Gritlets wailing about the Impending Doom Under The Evil Government Of Scary Stephen Harper®. Ah, hell, just take a look at this idiot and see for yourself.

I recommend antipsychotics. Strong ones. In bigass doses…

May 8, 2008

Steyn On The Agenda

I’d been looking for this for a day or so now and finally managed to find it on YouTube, thanks to SDAMatt (nice job, mate). Mark Steyn was on TVO’s The Agenda the other day, having a go at Mohamed Elmasry’s SP3. As you can likely imagine, ol’ Mark comes out of the gate, practically barking his head off at the end of his chain, wanting to get right to it.

I have to admit that I felt kind of sorry for Steve Paikin at several points throughout the show — the poor bugger must have felt like he was trying to herd feral cats on angel dust at some points — but overall, especially under the circumstances, I think he did rather well. The sock puppets, as you can imagine, were outdone from the start. What I can’t quite figure out, though, is Steyn. He’s nowhere near in full form in this little fracas, apparently going deliberately easy on them at some points? Maybe he just figured that they were just a bunch of kids, being used as shills — the general tone of his post-show post would seem to support this — who had no idea what they were really stirring up (which is clearly what they are, particularly the sputtering Khurrum).

At any rate, have a look and see for yourselves. The whole thing’s chopped up into six chunks of about 10 minutes each, with a little tie-up at the end. Grab a cuppa joe and enjoy… (more…)

April 26, 2008

The Way It Is

Filed under: Alberta,Crime & Punishment,The MSM — Dennis @ 9:58 am

Well, my Saturday’s off to a satisfactory start; how about yours? What with all the warm, fuzzy un-language that we get rammed down our throats in the media these days — whores are “sex trade workers,” terrorists are “insurgents,” no-go zones in Paris are “culturally sensitive areas,” rape is “sexual assault,” blah blah blah, ee-eye-ee-eye-oh — it’s nice to see, even if it’s only every now and then, a reporter that decides to just say “screw it, a spade’s a spade,” and hit the nail on the head.

Out in Edmonton, Tony Blais managed to find that nail and give it a good smack…

Crackhead jailed for abduction, rape

An Edmonton crackhead was sentenced to nearly eight years in prison yesterday for the “frightening” and “horrifying” armed abduction and rape of a city teen.

Edward Wayne Belter, 46, put his head in his hands upon hearing the sentence and then looked angrily towards the victim, cursing under his breath.

While Tony seems to have the idea, the judge, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Graesser, doesn’t quite seem to get it. Granted, he gave this scumbag 8 years (not enough IMO, but better than some other asshat judges have done) but then he goes and decides to lay on the fuzzy…

Graesser told Belter, a former construction manager, he accepted the Sept. 5, 2006, attack was “drug-fuelled” and appeared out of character for him and said it was another case of a person having their life “ravaged” by drugs.

So WHAT??? Nobody put a gun to this asshole’s head and rammed a crackpipe in his gob…

April 23, 2008

Sh*t Floats

Filed under: Blogosphere,Canada,Corruption,CPC,Grits,Politics,The MSM — Dennis @ 11:29 pm

Not so gone as we thought...Indeed, it does. And as the turd that is the Grit-beholden Elections Canada bobs to the surface, more and more people are beginning not only to despise the stink, but also have some very uneasy feelings about what may yet be lurking below the surface of the fetid pool that is a public service sector. Thew deck that the Librano$ have had decades to stack in their favour as a failsafe against being given the boot by the unwashed masses.

In light of the skulduggery that we’ve seen in the last few days, all that deck-stacking seems to be bearing fruit, even if it’s not in the way that the HypoGrits were hoping that it would.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time today to shoot my mouth off about this as much as I’d like to, so instead, I’ll just put up a bunch of links and stuff and let you do some poking around yourselves… (more…)

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