A Russian Orthodox Mission in Pakistan

Post by Orthodoxy and the World.

How true a representation?

VFR: An Indian immigrant on Indian anti-white animus and America’s suicide

Indian children and parents in the classroom are usually friendly; the same can't be said of those who are actually living nearby.

Lawrence Auster writes: "Thank you very much for this. I don’t think white Americans know much about Indian anti-whiteness. Chinese anti-whiteness, for example, is a more familiar phenomenon. If you would like to give some examples of this, that would be helpful."

Is it the case that every group is chauvinistic? Even the SWPLs are, though they base it on liberalism instead of ethnic identity. For the Chinese, ethnic identity and culture are tied together. Chinese people may believe themselves to be superior to white people with respect to culture and morals, but I don't see the same sort of animosity that they reserve for other groups.

Related:
The Uniforms Came in One Color by Adnan Sarwar

Can we declare victory and bring the troops home now?

White House
Political Punch

I'm too ignorant to speak of the long-term consequences of his death (if it really happened) on the Global War on Terror. But I do think that smart terrorists who really wanted to cripple the United States would not have so much invested in one leader. What I wanted to draw attention to was the parts of Obama's speech that put forth various nationalist myths, especially that one line about unity and indivisibility. In another part he talked about community -- as if the living arrangements for many of us really embody that. These are the lies we are told and that we tell ourselves to make us feel better, even though we sometimes recognize that all is not right with our country and our way of life. And then there was the conclusion -- citing the killing of Osama Bin Laden as an example of American can do-ism, which is not due to wealth or power, but to our being American. What the hell does that really mean?
Inflated American pride? Some form of American exceptionalism? What exactly makes us American? Belief in the proposition nation -- but this isn't enough if it is going to give any substance to Obama's claims about our abilities. What sort of character do Americans really have?

No, we were able to get Osama (if we really did so) because we could violate another country's sovereignty at will and borrow money from others to finance our war-making. Let's be clear about that. If we didn't have our power and status, we wouldn't be able to do any of this, and who could describe the use of that power and status as being just, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iraq? Only someone adhering to the Washington Rules, like President Obama.

A reaction to the news at Fabius Maximus.

More from Gareth Porter on Pakistan

Pakistan Objects
Curb the Drones, Kick Out the Spies

Items of Interest, 22 March 2010

Shaukat Qadir, How the Pentagon Supervised Raymond Davis' Release and How the CIA Took Its Revenge


Gregory Button, Downplaying Disaster: Informational Uncertainty in the Wake of Japan's Nuclear Crisis

Hirose Takashi and Douglas Lummis, What They're Covering Up at Fukushima

Anatomy of a nuclear crisis: A chronology of Fukushima
David Biello, Yale Environment 360
Even now, 10 days after the crisis began, the situation at Fukushima is still not under control. The disaster is clearly worse than the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, yet not as grave as the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which spread radioactive material over large portions of Europe. A chronology of how the Fukushima crisis has unfolded demonstrates that even a country as advanced as Japan — and as practiced in dealing with natural disasters — was unprepared for an earthquake of this magnitude, the largest in Japan in 1,200 years.



Won’t Innovation, Substitution, and Efficiency Keep Us Growing?
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute

An ecology of building: Making a house in a world without frontiers
Jim Bannon, An Ecology of Home

Permaculture: Deconstructing a Definition
Lisa Fernandes, Resilient Homes blog
Nobody knows how to define "permaculture." Everyone thinks they should be doing it. Lisa Fernandes starts the process of deconstructing one of the most common definitions for a system that thousands are touting as a response to peak oil and climate change.

Foundation Concepts: Thinking Resilience
William Rees, Post Carbon Institute
"Resilience thinking” is one response to the foregoing questions. “The bottom line for sustainability is that any proposal for sustainable development that does not explicitly acknowledge a system’s resilience is simply not going to keep delivering the goods (or services)." Resilience science is based on the simple premise that change is inevitable and that attempts to resist change or control it in any strict sense are doomed to failure. Resilience science is also systems science.

American military air power

It doesn't take much to strafe and drop bombs on people who can't effectively fight back. When they're innocent civilians, shouldn't we be expecting some sort of blowback?

Tom Engelhardt, What US Air Power Actually Does

An update on the Raymond Davis affair:
Raymond Davis Walks
By DAVE LINDORFF

Counterpunch: Blowback From the Arrest of the CIA's Raymond Davis
By DAVE LINDORFF

Daniel Larison on Egypt

Daniel Larison, The Egyptian Military Regime and On Pessimism Concerning Egypt

(Philip Giraldi on the Raymond Davis Affair: Perils in Pakistan.)

Items of Interest, 21 June 2010

Fabius Maximus, How Obama failed in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the most common indictments of him are wrong, and overlook his biggest errors.

Energy Bulletin:
Deepwater Horizon: the worst-case scenario

Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute

Already Deepwater Horizon is the not only the worst oil spill, but the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Multiplying the scale of this existing catastrophe multiple times sends us into truly uncharted territory. ... The consequences for the oil industry as a whole would also be dire. More regulations, soaring insurance rates, and drilling moratoria would lead to oil price spikes and shortages.

Counterpunch:
Ralph Nader, Festering Corruption
Ronnie Cummins, Generation Monsanto
Thomas H. Naylor, Vermont and Israel: Silence of the Liberals
Joshua Brollier/Kathy Kelly, Is Pakistan Unraveling?

Selection from today's Counterpunch

Pam Martens, The Big Plunge: SEC Admits to Inadequate Tools to Conduct Investigation

Franklin C. Spinney, The Arrogance of Ignorance: a Roadmap to Folly in Afghanistan

Patrick Cockburn, Tunnel Darkens for Obama's Afghan War

Ralph Nader, Getting to Know Elena Kagan

Kathy Kelly/Joshua Brollier, Pressured From All Sides in Pakistan's Swat Valley

Asia Times: The suicide mission that went all wrong
The al-Qaeda financed suicide mission on the United States consulate in Pershawar in Pakistan on April 5 was meticulously planned for over a month. When the six militants set off in their mini-van they knew exactly how to break through the security cordons to reach the American spies they were to take hostage. Then things went horribly wrong. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Apr 14, '10)