Archive for the ‘Pakistan’ tag
Countdown to Jamie destroying Citizen Radio, Rehtaeh Parsons’ death and who failed her
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Countdown to Jamie destroying Citizen Radio, Rehtaeh Parsons’ death and who failed her, the CIA’s secret drone deal with Pakistan, Plan B, Kermit Gosnell, Mayor Bloomberg’s paternalistic, condescending bullshit, and how not to be a creep around women.
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The UN & federal government are closed, but here’s a new Citizen Radio on election time stupidity & drones
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Allison and Jamie discuss how some of your fellow liberals turn into idiots come election time, an activist charged with “inciting racial hatred” for unfurling a Palestinian flag, Imran Khan detained and interrogated over drone views, and many, many stories about drones, and one more about why the NYPD is terrible.
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Obama and Romney agree: drones, sanctions, Israel = GOOD, Iran= BAD
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There were very few substinative disagreements between the candidates in the last presidential debate, and certain issues like the home foreclosures epidemic, were completely ignored. Time’s Joe Klein goes on a pro-drone strike rant on MSNBC.
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CIA seeks to expand drone strikes to ‘trouble spots’, Detroit Water Dept worker declares strike a victory
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Allison and Jamie discuss the expanding drone strikes, AFSCME 207′s Recording Secretary Sue Ryan joins the show to discuss Detroit’s Water Department strike, and the union’s subsequent victory.
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“Muslim rage” and other generalizations, Egyptian atheist jailed
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Allison and Jamie discuss the “Muslim rage” and how the media is conflating Egypt with Yemen and Pakistan and Libya. Independent journalist Austin G. Mackell (@austingmackell) joins the show to discuss S17, Libya, the anti-Muslim Youtube video, and the imprisonment of Egyptian blogger Alber Saber.
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Allison steals Mitten’s face, cyberstalking, Afghanistan, and Arizona
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Allison shares various shenanigans instigated while doing Melissa Harris Perry’s show, Jamie discusses Kickstarter’s crappy policy about cyberstalking, plus talk about Afghanistan, Pakistan, drones, and Arizona’s part in the War on Women.
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Georgia murders Troy Davis, Romney thinks he’s middle class, CR runs for president
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The state of Georgia murdered Troy Davis last night, CR reads your emails and thoughts about the execution, Ohio prepares to pass the most radical anti-choice legislation in the country, Mitt Romney is under the impression he’s middle class, CR announces they’re running for president, major networks fail to have economists on…to discuss the economy, and the U.S. heightens rhetoric with Pakistan.
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Toronto: Dark Comedy Festival September 29 & 30 @ 8PM and October 1 @ 10:30PM.
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Osama’s dead! Time to bring home the troops! (..Oh…oh, really?)
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Osama’s dead, but will anything change when it comes to the US policy in the Middle East? And what was with that bloodthirsty response from even the “good liberals?” Also, an explanation of what’s going on with Citizen Radio merch (spoiler: Jamie and Allison got epically screwed,) and torture still doesn’t work.
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But the air base is safe, right?
For some reason, the locals are getting angry.
The Pakistani military, angered by the inept handling of the country’s devastating floods and alarmed by a collapse of the economy, is pushing for a shake-up of the elected government, and in the longer term, even the removal of President Asif Ali Zardari and his top lieutenants.
The military, preoccupied by a war against militants and reluctant to assume direct responsibility for the economic crisis, has made clear it is not eager to take over the government, as it has many times before, military officials and politicians said.
But the government’s performance since the floods, which have left 20 million people homeless and the nation dependent on handouts from skeptical foreign donors, has laid bare the deep underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders.
Alternative phrasing: A fifth of Pakistan is under water, and while Zardari schmoozed with world leaders in France, the Pakistan military busied itself accommodating U.S. air strikes instead of helping flood victims.
This war-over-survival prioritizing seems so unusual to sane observers that a former Pakistani prime minister has called for an inquiry into an incident at Shahbaz air base. Allegedly, flood waters were diverted to save Shahbaz, which houses fighter aircrafts, and some groups allege is used by the US to launch drone strikes. (The Chief of the Air Staff denies that the air base is under U.S. control.)
Diverting the flood waters displaced half a million people. I guess “inept” is one way to describe this handling of a national tragedy. “Criminal” is another good word.
American leaders are reportedly “increasingly disillusioned” with Zardari I’m sure in the same way they were shocked — simply shocked! — that the bipolar Don Karzai ended up being a disaster for Afghanistan. Like Karzai, Zardari is a spectacularly corrupt autocrat (the man bans books…in 2010!) who ascended to power via pity vote following his wife’s assassination.
Ineptitude and corruption don’t really concern U.S. officials. What concerns them is that Zardari cannot bring stability to a region that is the newest playground for the U.S.’s ever-evolving War On Terror.
Zardari has certainly played the dutiful puppet thus far. He even said “Collateralal damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me” during a discussion about drones. But without the support of Pakistanis (76 percent viewed him unfavorably in July,) and now declining support of the military, even the bestest puppet cannot maintain power long.
For Zardari, the gig won’t be up because of the 21 million injured or homeless people that continue to roam the barren wasteland of their former homes, contracting cholera and other waterborne illnesses, but if any of those shiny aircrafts get wet. They’re expensive, you know.
Bombing the Pakistan flood victims into submission
Pakistani flood survivors move to safe areas in Muzaffargarh near Multan, Pakistan on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010
Now, this doesn’t seem to make a lick of sense.
ISLAMABAD, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) – A total of 13 suspected militants were killed during a U.S. drone attack launched Saturday night in northwest Pakistan, reported local media Express on Sunday.
According to the report, the U.S. drone fired three missiles at a village near Mirali in Pakistan’s northwest tribal area of North Waziristan late Saturday night.
Initial reports said that the drone strikes killed eight people and injured five others, and one of the missiles fired hit a house of a tribal man.
Saturday’s U.S. drone strikes coincided with Pakistan’s Independence Day and this could seriously hurt the feelings of the Pakistani people as many of the people killed in the past drone attacks are reportedly innocent civilians.
Read: “Suspected militants” until reports inevitably come out that civilians were mixed into the baddy pool. Then those irrational leftist Pakistanis will get shouty and probably burn President Obama in effigy. Oh, the strange, exotic mystery of the East.
The fasting month of Ramadan began yesterday in sorrow for 14 million Pakistanis, as one fifth of the nation is underwater from the worst monsoon-related floods in living memory.
And the only entity willing to stick around and offer aid to citizens appears to be the Taliban. The corrupt President Zardari (appointed via nepotistic assassination) was too busy gallivanting around Europe to bother with his underwater constituents. The second richest man in the country, who exists as president only because of his western allies, really could give two shits about drowned poor people. In that sense, these “undesirables” in Pakistan have a lot in common with the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, although Dubya was never officially charged with murder.
When I was watching the teevee this morning, I overheard Savannah Guthrie gnashing her teeth on MSNBC, fretting over the risk of TERRORISTS getting their hands on a NUCLEAR WEAPON. The majority of Pakistan’s civilians, Tariq Ali writes, are “poor, illiterate or semi-literate.” That is the true threat to stability in the region. Mix in a climate catastrophe and a wildly inept, corrupt, unfeeling leader, and the Taliban has a wide window of opportunity to step in and play the roles of benevolent saviors.
