Detailed Abstractions

Responding to a recent increase in self-immolation (suicide by setting oneself on fire in protest) among Muslims, Muslim scholars in Egypt spoke out (here via Jordan Times):

CAIRO — Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the most prestigious centre of religious learning in the Sunni Muslim world, said on Tuesday that Islam bans suicide for any reason.

“Sharia law states that Islam categorically forbids suicide for any reason and does not accept the separation of souls from bodies as an expression of stress, anger or protest,” said Al-Azhar’s spokesman Mohammed Rifa al-Tahtawi in a statement on state news agency MENA.

“Al-Azhar cannot comment on the cases of people who had burned themselves, as these may be suffering from a mental or psychological condition that forced them to do so,” he said.

It might seem odd to some, but the Muslim scholars are actively pushing an idea which devalues the Islamic terrorists’ main weapon, suicide bombings.  & they do so in a very definitive way.  Even though the escape hatch of narrowly aiming their critiques to only self-immolation is obvious, they still don’t speak in political terms or try to limit themselves to suicide by fire.

Instead of taking the easy path; they took the moral one and stated directly that suicide in any form is forbidden under Islam and recent attacks may well involve psychological issues.

Which interestingly enough, brings us back to the Arizona shooting debate (DA post here) where I argue that rhetoric or guns can’t cause a free and moral people to suddenly and irrationally take up arms.  Indeed by proffering so, people are ignoring the fact that America, as well as many other semi-free countries, has a culture whereby the vast majority agree that killing is not an appropriate reaction to someone else exercising their free speech (agree vocally & through our legal system).

I juxtaposed American culture against some religious fundamentalist examples.  One, the Muslim online magazine (Inspire), which in mid-2010 was still pushing for revenge against Danish media for daring to print Mohammed cartoons.  Not only pushing, but the cleric writing the article stated (paraphrased) assassinations, bombings, killings, etc, are all valid responses to religious “slander”.  Additionally, I used the recent assassination of a provincial governor in Pakistan in which clerics (500+) issued decrees that anyone caught grieving for the slain governor can be punished.

The governor’s sin?  Agreeing with the national government of Pakistan that blasphemy laws currently on the books should be repealed.

Both are examples of a different a culture where killing in response to slander or blasphemy (both forms of speech) is acceptable.  Therefore, a culture in which vitriol about the blood of patriots or having to get your pitchforks out means something entirely different than it means in America.

So much in the same way that America isn’t culturally like a lot of Pakistan when it comes to the belief that violence is a respectable tool in almost any case, neither is Egypt.  As Egypt also has a societal belief, proven in their laws and willingness to prosecute terrorists (more…)

Zimbabwe: Agree with us or we’ll steal your capital investments (here)

Wired reports on Darpa – that agency which built the internet, now wants a new mathematical language to describe everything (here):

The very first step? Create a unified mathematical language for everything the military sees or hears.

The armed forces are overwhelmed by all the data its various sensors are sniffing out. They want a single data stream that combines drone video feeds, cell phone intercepts, and targeting radar. Darpa’s solution, found in the brand-new Mathematics of Sensing, Exploitation, and Execution program is to design an algorithm that teaches the sensors how to interpret the world — how to think, how to learn and what data, accordingly to collect.

The Economist debates: This house believes that restricting the growth of cities will improve quality of life (here).  An interesting topic, with the debate revolving around whether size is a problem and if so, forcing a certain size or giving individuals freedom to choose.  Research, not (yet at least) discussed,  has been attempted in the past to find the perfect size for a city; meaning how large does a city get before standard city services such as garbage collection or policing become less effective with the addition or each new citizen.

Either way, I’m still for free choice.

SCOTUS Blog on an upcoming Supreme Court arguments about corporate “person hood” (here):

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Court will hear one hour of oral argument on a government appeal arguing that business corporations do not have a right of of “personal privacy” that shields from compelled public disclosure the records they turn over to federal agencies.

From Stratfor, especially needed in light of gun control regulation based upon a single incident, Separating Terror from Terrorism. The piece concludes with this:

Recognizing that terrorist attacks, like car crashes and cancer and natural disasters, are a part of the human condition permits individuals and families to practice situational awareness and take prudent measures to prepare for such contingencies without becoming vicarious victims. This separation will help deny the practitioners of terrorism and terror the ability to magnify their reach and power.

After some political arguing about who stands to gain what, why ratify a treaty in a lame duck session, the START Treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), was ratified in the Senate last week.  & now with praise from Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev and movement in the Russian Parliament, it’s likely only a matter of time before the treaty between Russia & the United States is in full effect.

With all the rhetoric being pushed around however, true analysis tends to get lost in the noise…. which is where Stratfor enters; not only asking pertinent questions and attempting to answer them, but in giving the treaty the full historical context it deserves.

First, what is the START Treaty (whole thing here)?

….The original START was signed July 31, 1991, and reductions were completed in 2001. The treaty put a cap on the number of nuclear warheads that could be deployed. In addition to limiting the number of land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and strategic bombers, it capped the number of warheads that were available to launch at 6,000…. START I lapsed in 2009, and the new treaty is essentially designed to reinstate it….

What Sratfor notes however, is the difference in geopolitical relationships from START I to New START, mainly that the original treaty began in a very different climate in the 1980′s (article con’t):

…The political relationship that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s is not the same as the relationship that exists today. Starting in the 1950s, the United States and Soviet Union were in a state of near-war….

In what was basically a balancing act by the two major global powers at the time, conventional and nuclear weapons, were built and deployed as the United States & Russia tried to gain an advantage (article con’t):

…The differences between them were geopolitically profound. The United States was afraid that the Soviets would seize Western Europe in an attack in order to change the global balance of power. Given that the balance of power ran against the Soviet Union, it was seen as possible that they would try to rectify it by war.

Since the United States had guaranteed Europe’s security with troops and the promise that it would use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union to block the conquest of Europe, it followed that the Soviet Union would initiate war by attempting to neutralize the American nuclear capability. This would require a surprise attack on the United States with Soviet missiles. It also followed that the United States, in order to protect Europe, might launch a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet military capability in order to protect the United States and the balance of power….

This process of seeking global influence, resulted in many things, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Star-Wars (BMD), a build up in both strategic and tactical nuclear arsenals, and basically a stable, but highly tense situation of mutually assured destruction.

Then in 1991, the need for this policy was diminished for both sides with the implosion of the Soviet Union.   Even at that time one could argue the need for such a treaty was minimal, but when the process started during higher tensions in the 1980s, and given the level of fear around the world, going forward with the pact seemed reasonable.

Which brings us forward to today (article con’t): (more…)

Update:  Yesterday in a DA post, F*$k North Korea, I noted from Stratfor about North Korea’s attacks on a South Korean island that:

…the sustained shelling of a populated island by North Korea would mark a deliberate and noteworthy escalation…

For those unfamiliar with Stratfor, they are a professional intelligence gathering organization and not simply another media outlet for international news.  With that in mind, phrases like “deliberate and noteworthy escalation” are very serious (unlike standard TV media where everything will kill you and everything is horrendously worse than it ever has been).

DA further noted, that while there were open questions, the facts….. are not open:

…A soverign and free nation, was just attacked and had its citizens murdered by a bully,a terrorist sponsor, an illegal weapons supplier, a despotic and opressive human rights abuser, all run run by an idiot who propagandizes others in his divinity….

Now there has been an increase in the level of rhetoric and threat response from the US (here).  Speaking of normal media’s rethoric, the title: Obama sends U.S. warship to Yellow Sea in show of strength as two Koreas teeter on the brink of all-out war is instructive.

Either way the US response has gotten better:

…Mr Obama earlier issued a statement condemning the ‘outrageous’ assault and underlining America’s close ties with Seoul.

…The White House called on North Korea to end ‘its belligerent action.’…

And:

…President Obama has ordered a U.S. warship to Korea in a shetow of strength to prevent an escalation of one of the most serious confrontations in the region for decades….

I say gotten better, because we should stand by our allies and in cases like these, even stand with countries who aren’t necessarily strong allies if they are a free people being attacked by a despotic country.

The open question however is: Will this matter?

As North Korea is just bully and a coward, there’s reason to think this isn’t the end.  Stratfor noted in an update on the situation today, that North Korea does indeed (more…)

Early yesterday afternoon (local time in South Korea), North Korea began shelling a South Korean controlled island with artillery (from Stratfor here):

…Though details are still sketchy, South Korean news reports indicate that around 2:30 p.m. local time, North Korean artillery shells began landing in the waters around Yeonpyeongdo, one of the South Korean-controlled islands just south of the NLL. North Korea has reportedly fired as many as 200 rounds, some of which struck the island, injuring at least 10 South Korean soldiers, damaging buildings and setting fire to a mountainside. South Korea responded by firing some 80 shells of its own toward North Korea, dispatching F-16 fighter jets to the area and raising the military alert to its highest level….

What’s interesting to note, is that North Korea has murdered South Koreans before, such as the recent sinking of the ChonAn, but as Stratfor puts it (emphasis added):

…While the South Korean reprisals — both artillery fire in response by self-propelled K-9 artillery and the scrambling of aircraft — thus far appear perfectly consistent with South Korean standard operating procedures, the sustained shelling of a populated island by North Korea would mark a deliberate and noteworthy escalation…

(more…)

Mexico is and has been in trouble for a long time.  The drug laws, combined with government corruption, poverty, and a seemingly unlimited demand for illegal narcotics from their neighbor, Mexico is fast becoming a place you don’t want to visit.  The following is but a minor example in Mexico’s ongoing dramas…

Via Stratfor (membership required – full post here):

Around 9:50 a.m. on June 14, during the daily guard shift change, 18 inmates at the Center for the Execution of Crime’s Legal Consequences in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, allegedly tried to break out of the facility. The 18 men, whom some reports linked to Los Zetas, were housed in special security block 21 and were reportedly armed with three large-caliber handguns, an AK-47-type automatic assault rifle and a sledgehammer to force their way through the facility’s exits…..

Fortunately, this prison break was prevented, but with the combination of massive state corruption and very powerful organized criminal organizations (some whose intelligence & military capabilities rival nations), this isn’t always the case:

In May 2009, members of Los Zetas arrived outside the Center of Social Rehabilitation of Cienguillas in Zacatecas state in several buses with an armed SUV escort. A total of 53 inmates filed out of the prison and onto the buses in an orderly manner without a shot being fired. Surveillance video footage showed guards simply standing by watching the inmates walk out of the prison and onto the buses. Several prison officials have since been arrested on corruption charges….

& this:

More recently, 41 inmates at the Matamoros municipal prison, known as CEDES Matamoros, were freed after an assault by armed men between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on March 26….

& least you think this is just a prison problem in Mexico:

Jesus Manuel Lara Rodriguez, the mayor of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, Chihuahua state, was assassinated by a group of gunmen in Ciudad Juarez at about 1 p.m. on June 19, inside his home….

DA asked about a month ago whether  Mexico’s President should be scolding Arizona for a state law (here) considering their current predicament; this is just an update on that predicament.

To read the full analysis, you will likely need to register and possibly pay, but Stratfor just announced A Possible Bin Laden Sighting:

A blurry image of a person resembling Osama bin Laden appeared in Abu Yahya al-Libi’s video sermon commemorating the end of Ramadan.