#Its the same as talking about war torn middle east because US or the terror that it exports to others but NEVER about the Yehzidi community

[fleetstreetpies]

TW: political talk, mentions of war crimes and genocide, mentions of terrorism.

Preface and addendum, added 11 December 2023: I’ve been watching this conflict off and on for years now and have been keeping an eye on this most deadly wave of violence. Israel should not fucking exist; it is an apartheid state based in colonialism and only able to maintain funding and any legitimacy by using pity and guilt tactics against European nations and the United States (based in guilt or fears from after WWII) and propaganda that biases these nations further against Arab people who have lived there for centuries, vs American and European Zionist Jews who have only had a politically-recognized “nation” there since 1948. Yes, there were Jews in the Middle East (i will make another post later about why I as an Arab Jew hate that descriptor personally), and there have been Jews there since the dawn of Judaism. And Israel, as a “nation”, was originally written in sacred text to be a large family and community that defended itself when needed and only to the extent needed and other than that left everyone the fuck alone. The Israeli apartheid regime as we know it today is very well and truly NOT founded in scriptural law. I feel as if my post pre-addendum made it sound as if i thought the apartheid nation should continue to exist. I have never once believed it should; the extreme racism and violence against Arab people regardless of religion that i have previously discussed should more than show what i believe. And while yes, i do support Judaism as a religion and Jewish people (and why wouldn’t i as a fellow Jew?), i refuse to support, tolerate, or otherwise allow a genocide against my fellow human beings in Palestine.

Furthermore, Israel is a notoriously homophobic political entity, and the fact that the IDF is spreading propaganda that they are more tolerant than Palestinians is honestly bullshit, and it is a disgusting way to attempt to cover their own crimes and aggressions toward another marginalized community in order to further delegitimize and attack Palestinians.

Palestinian people have no food, no power, no water, and no hope of humanitarian aid because of the increasingly dangerous situation caused by the IDF and its allies and supporters.

FTRTTS🇵🇸

UPDATE: turns out part of my family is actually Palestinian too. My great aunt did a little digging and found some old papers. This was really stressful to learn on the same day I learned about the fact that there are no more hospitals in Gaza. I’m kind of going through it.

End addendum; original post begins below.

—————————

I’m not gonna make any more fucking comments about politics except in the United States for a while because my heart is torn to pieces by the act of a certain nation using white phosphorus over populated areas, which is a war crime, and murdering, displacing, and injuring (over the course of several years) over 2.4 million mostly innocent people, or 1.5 times the amount of people killed and displaced in the Armenian Genocide. On top of that, they started attacking a THIRD country. Also with white phosphorus, a chemical known to be so flammable that it burns people, buildings, trees, infrastructure, crops, etc., ON CONTACT.

The second nation mentioned is allegedly the main origin of a terrorist organization that has taken over 800 people hostage (the real causes of the conflict as it is currently unfolding), but the first nation’s response is disproportionately affecting civilians and not having the intended effect on the actual source of the conflict.

My heart is torn in two because my mother’s family is from one nation. My father’s family is from another. Both are now wrapped up in this conflict. And I can’t help but be mad on behalf of the poor civilians on all sides caught in the crossfire and the chemical weapons residue on all sides.

This is not to say I condone a terrorist organization taking hostages and murdering people. I loathe terrorism. But I do believe that this is something way larger than we’re all making it out to be and that there are facts being buried because they don’t suit a narrative. A fourth nation, nowhere near the geographic proximity of the affected areas, promised the same parcel of land for two of the nations and colonized the SHIT outta that land for many years.

And yes, I will share my complicated and nuanced feelings about this, as this will be my ONLY post on the subject.

I am Jewish, and I am Arab simultaneously. My family is not Palestinian, but Lebanese. White phosphorus is being poured over my family’s original homeland. Another ancestral group is the group using the chemical weapons over populated areas and committing a war crime. I don’t condone the actions of Hamas (edit: some of what i have read may be propaganda and i am attempting to find better sources), as they do not speak for the majority of the people of Palestine. I also do not condone the Israeli genocide of Palestinians over the past several years. As I mentioned before, the total casualty count of this genocide (and I WILL call it that since it does meet the criteria even if it isn’t formally recognized as such yet) is currently at least 2.4 million people, probably more. This is, as I’ve said, 1.5 times the casualties of the (formally recognized) Armenian Genocide, and over 1/3 the total of people killed in the largest formally recognized systemic murder of a target group or set of groups in human history.

Atrocities are being committed by a terrorist organization, but the response disproportionately affects civilians. Especially children. Most cases being treated by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), are Palestinian children. Actually, scratch that, nearly one hundred percent of cases. They as an organization have confirmed that number.

ADDENDUM: Médecins Sans Frontières have also just confirmed, as of about three hours ago, that BOTH SIDES of this conflict have been beheading CHILDREN. So far at least ten beheadings of children have been attributed to Israeli forces. We also must not forget that Hamas has also been beheading children, in much greater number that has yet to be successfully totaled. My heart goes out to the grieving Israeli and Palestinian mothers and fathers and siblings today.

UPDATE: the above may have since been proven incorrect and i am locating all possible sources to re-evaluate this statement.

Furthermore the injured are currently at immediate risk. See below.

I don’t agree with Hamas and their policies of beheading and assault (edit: as previously stated, these may have been disproven), but I don’t agree with any of this shit that the Israeli government’s response has caused. This isn’t antisemitism, this is being against human rights violations. The Zionist movement’s governing body does not speak for all Jews. Hamas does not speak for all Palestinians.

There really is a colonial power to blame for a majority of conflict since 1918, and that is Britain. Everything got SIGNIFICANTLY worse when the British came in and promised the same parcel of land to two groups of people, and then worsened even more at a rapid rate when the British left.

And now Lebanon has been dragged into the crossfire; i will edit this post if I find evidence of direct involvement of the Lebanese government in these events.

EDIT: as confirmed by Al Jazeera news, at least two Lebanese people and a journalist in Lebanon have been killed by Israeli air strikes. Israel has infringed on Lebanese airspace more than 22000 times since 2007. Lebanese rockets or similar very rarely land over the border.

But for now, I’m really against Hamas but also against the Israeli government’s decision to arbitrarily hurt civilians in their efforts to stop Hamas.

[shut-up-rabert]

We all speak about the bad things that Nazis did and even the shit that went down in communist Russia to some extent but ig the hell that was Japanese Imperial Army gets a pass.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

World War Z was published in 2006, but takes place in 2009 at the earliest.  Late in the book, astronaut Terry Knox states that the International Space Station took over 10 years to complete; it started construction in November 1998, and Chief of Staff Karl Rove Grover Carlson says that the Republican party barely eked back into power after a disastrous 2-termer who started a “brush fire war” in the Middle East (George W. Bush).  He mentions an election year, but he doesn’t specify if it was the new president’s first or second term, so it’s either set right after 2008 or 2012.  This was written before the Nintendo Wii was announced, but one chapter mentions that people brought their GameCubes with them as they fled their homes in search of safety in the frozen Canadian wilderness.  This same chapter also mentions that they didn’t know how to pick survival gear; a park ranger finds a SpongeBob SquarePants sleeping bag frozen in the mud because its owner didn’t know the difference between a child’s indoor sleeping bag for slumber parties and a real insulated survival bag for camping.

The new president is never named, he’s just told be be pro-big business and anti-regulation, pushing a placebo zombie vaccine through the FDA to jumpstart the economy.  When shit hits the fan, he is “sedated” and his vice president takes power; we’re never told what happened to the president, whether he was bitten or had a stroke, just that he was “sedated.”  His Vice President is directly implied to be Colin Powell; he’s former military with family in Jamaica and black.  He appoints Howard Dean to be his vice president to form a bipartisan coalition; he is never referred to by name, but it is clearly supposed to be Howard Dean.  He was a rising star in the Democratic party from Vermont whose wife is a doctor and whose career imploded after he had a passionate outburst.  In 2004, Howard Dean gave a speech where he started passinately screaming about how he was gonna start sweeping state primaries and ride a wave into the White House, punctuating his point by going “HHEEUEAHHGH!!”  This was political suicide in 2004, and he was laughed out of the race.  In the book, he is referred to only as “the Whacko” because of this.  It is implied that he was Powell’s second choice for VP, his first being Barack Obama; the Whacko says that the Democrats wanted somebody else, somebody of the same skin color as the president, but that the country wasn’t ready for that.  In 2004, Obama was a candidate for senate in Illinois, so popular and so well spoken that he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention before he even won his seat; then and there, pundits already had him pegged as the first black president, they could see the writing on the walls.  The Whacko becomes president when Powell dies of stress, but he is consistently referred to only as the wartime Vice President, out of respect for his boss.

Also, the Attorney General is implied to be Rudy Giuliani; all that is said about him was that he was the mayor of New York and once tried to give himself emergency powers to stay in office after his term.  Giuliani did exactly that after 9/11.

Other real life figures mentioned in the book

Fidel Castro; a ton of Cuban Americans flee the continent and return to the island during the zombie war, and he jumpstarts the economy by putting them to work as cheap laborers and slowly integrating them back into Cuban society.  He rehabilitates his image by stepping down as dictator and democratizing the country, voting himself out of office before the “nortecubanos” could hang him for decades of war crimes.

Nelson Mendela, referred to by his birth name Rolihlahla, the father of modern South Africa, he personally invites Paul Redekker, a former apartheid era political analyst, to solve the zombie problem; in the 80s, Redekker created a plan for the white minority government in case the black majority ever rose up against them.  In real life, Mandela lowered the temperature when he was elected president, saying that revenge against the apartheid government would do more harm than good.  In the story, Mandela uses this as justification to reuse the apartheid era plan to handle the zombie outbreak instead.  Redekker is so overcome by his compassion and forgiveness that he has a mental episode and dissociates, believing himself to be a black South African.

Kim Jong-il, the dictator of North Korea, he withdraws all troops from the DMZ and shuts the entire country down.  After months of radio silence, it is revealed that the entire country’s population has vanished; all satellite imagery shows a desolate wasteland, no zombies, but no humans either. He presumably moved everyone into subterranean bunker systems where he not only control their lives as on the surface, but now their access to food, water, and air.  He presumably became the god emperor he always wanted to be; either that, or the entire tunnel complex has been overrun, turning every man woman and child in North Korea into zombies.  The South Korean government refuses to send a expedition into the North to figure out what happened, lest they open up one of the tunnels and unleash millions of zombies onto the surface.

Martin Scorsese, mentioned in passing only as “Marty,” a friend of world famous film director Roy Elliot, who himself is a thinly veiled pastiche of Steven Spielberg.  Interestingly enough, the audio book features Martin Scorsese doing the voice of the conartist who created the placebo vaccine

One chapter has a ton of vapid celebrities hole together in a fortified mansion on Long Island, and takes great care to show each of them getting torn apart not by zombies but by regular people who storm the facility because they were stupid enough to broadcast their location on reality television.  A redneck with a “Get’er Done” hat (Larry the Cable Guy) and some bald guy with diamond earrings (Howie Mandel) blow themselves up with a grenade.  Rival political commentators, an annoying guy who talks about feminization of western society and a leathery blonde (Bill Maher and Ann Coulter) have end-of-the-world viking sex as the facility burns to the ground.  A dumb starlet (Paris Hilton) is killed by one of her handlers and her little rat dog escapes on foot.  A radio shock jock (Howard Stern) actually survives the war and restarts his show.

Michael Stipe of REM joins the army to fight the zombies

Another war veteran mentions how his brother used to have a bunch of Mel Brooks’ old comedy skits on vinyl record, and how he and his squad acted out the “Boy meets Girl” puppet skit with some human skulls.  Mel Brooks is author and narrator Max Brooks’ father.

Queen Elizabeth II, refuses to evacuate England when the island is overrun by zombies.  She intends to remain in Buckingham Palace “for the duration,” mirroring the fact that her parents refused to evacuate to Canada during World War II.

Vladimir Putin declares himself Tsar of the Holy Russian Empire, an ultra-orthodox religious state that has armed priests execute political dissidents under the guise of mercy killing people who have been bitten by zombies.

Yang Liwei, the first “taikonaut” (Chinese astronaut) has a space station named after him

While the main conflict is about government responses to the zombie pandemic, we see glimpses of a greater war torn planet.

A major plot line involves a Chinese Civil War which sees the entire communist politburo nuked out of existence by a rebel sub commander, as well as an attempted “scorched space policy” where the government planned to blow up their space station with scuttling charges to cause a cascade of space debris to encircle the Earth and prevent any other countries from launching missions in the future (this is known as Kessler Syndrome in real life, and was featured as the inciting incident of the 2013 movie Gravity).  The People’s Republic becomes the United Federation.

Iran and Pakistan destroy each other in nuclear war; everyone thought it would be India and Pakistan, but they had very close diplomatic infrastructure in place to prevent such a catastrophe; Pakistan helped Iran build a nuclear arsenal, but as millions of refugees fled from India through Pakistan to the east, Iran had to blow up some Pakistani bridges to stem the flow of zombies, which led to a border war and eventually total nuclear retaliation.

Floridians flee to Cuba, Wisconsinites flee to Canada, the federal government flees to Hawaii.  Everything east of the Rockies is abandoned and ruled by warlords until the government sorts itself out and mounts an expedition to clear the continent of zombies by literally marching an unbroken line of soldiers stretching from Canada to Mexico across the wasteland to the Atlantic.

Israel withdraws from Gaza and the West Bank to become super isolationist, building a wall around the entire country to stop the zombies getting in (they were the first country to respond to the pandemic, and the most successful), but the religious right rebels against the secular left in a civil war that sees Jerusalem ceded to a unified Palestine.

It is an amazing, multifaceted story with so much going on that nobody recognizes.  It was written as a response to the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror.  It’s about a geopolitical shift, a change in the status quo, a disaster from which the world never recovers; America before 9/11 was a very different place than American after 9/11.  Iraq and Afghanistan changed everything, and we’re still feeling their effects to this day; the story uses the zombie apocalypse as the next big international disaster the world must adapt to.  World War Z is World War III with zombies, and I think it would do a lot better if it were published today, now that we’ve had several decades to respond to the fall of the Soviet Union and the endless wars in the Middle East and a global pandemic.

[ryttu3k]

could you post the ending where you side with the SI and Julian gets pissed off by your decision? I also noticed that Julian never really introduces himself to anyone or says a simple goodbye to the courier, like, ever. I mean even after ten years or so he just resumes the conversation as if nothing happened. Not even the courier calls him out on this. I wonder why that is lol

Heh, regarding Julian’s conversational patterns, there’s a really interesting post here on friendship degradation mechanisms with ADHD! And Julian absolutely has ADHD.

And for the SI ending, ooh, I haven't got that one written down. I do want it handy for reference, so time for a speedrun with my SI-affiliated Toreador! Here's all the dialogue from the SI attack onwards.

Before you can speak, Lettow jumps up.

"What?" Julian says.

Your phone chimes. You run, throwing yourself out the door just as the missile hits.

Fragments of stone and metal fly over your head. You get clear, reaching your Escalade, and look back at the blown-apart warehouse.

Flames are everywhere. Your Beast screams in wild terror and only the greatest exercise of Willpower keeps you under control, but your body shakes uncontrollably. You have only one clear thought—run! Still, you grit your teeth and force yourself to look around.

Only the vampires survived the blast, and they look badly hurt. Prince Lettow took a direct hit; his clothes hang in tatters, like a shroud, and his skin is blackened. Julian and his helmeted assistant, Z, are burned and stunned. Julian's servants are gone.

Hunters are inbound. You see Bearcats and Humvees, police cruisers and Buick Avenirs. The floodlights turn on, illuminating the burning warehouse and hiding almost a hundred hunters in the glare as they advance.

A bullet zips past your head as a hunter in militia gear opens fire. An FBI agent waves for him to stop—it looks like there are orders for you not to be harmed—but that's hardly a perfect defense. You duck behind the Sprinter van. It might be time to get out of here.

There's just one problem: Julian is standing between you and your Escalade, a karambit in both hands. He spins the little blades.

"You did this," he says. "You betrayed us all."

[The sight of so much fire means that you are now in a fear frenzy and cannot think clearly unless you focus your Willpower or escape.]

> "I tried to warn you! I told you we were monsters, and I told you I would stop you."

Another explosion obliterates the computer shop. Bricks and pieces of rebar rain down.

Julian screams and rushes you, quick as the wind. Then he breaks away before he gets into karambit range. Even as he moves, his silhouette breaks up, becoming a pixelated gray blur as he fades from sight and circles you, looking for a chance to strike.

> I need to talk him down. "You can still escape, Julian. Don't let them kill you here." [CHA/MAN+Persuasion]

"How could you do this?" Julian cries.

"To save people!" you say. "And I'm trying to save you. Run, before it's too late!"

He looks at the raging inferno all around him, the ruins of his project, then back at you. Then he fades away.

That's the last time you see him.

More gunfire arcs around you and hammers the Sprinter van. You duck, then get into your Escalade and get away from the burning warehouse.

So I thought that was it, but hey! Apparently Lettow wanted his say, too!

You slide into heavy traffic, scanning the late-night vehicles for signs of pursuit. No hunters, no cops. Good. You have a moment to think as you scan the streets.

Front, back, left, right. Nothing. If you breathed, you'd be breathing a little easier. You're just turning your thoughts to the next step of this desperate plan when a shadow passes over you.

You look up. Riga.

Then you crane your head out of your window.

Something like Riga, but with a wingspan like a light aircraft.

Lettow is following you, and it looks like he cares more about revenge for your "betrayal" than about preserving the Masquerade.

And here come the hunters: Buick SUVs close in on your location. Others are on a nearby bridge. They're tracking Lettow, trying to get close enough to open fire with rifles or even heavier munitions. You're not sure Donati cares about collateral damage anymore. The SI will blow holes in Tucson to take down its Prince.

This is it, you realize. The Eagle Prince plans to destroy you here and now. But with so many hunters around him, he'll only have one shot at you. If you can buy yourself a few seconds and slip out of his sight, he won't be able to try again.

But how?

> My supernaturally keen eyes will let me spot alleys, vacant lots, and other places where I can hide my SUV from Lettow. [Auspex]

You drive slowly, looking for little-used routes that Lettow won't be able to track from above.

Tucson is a low, flat city, but finally you spot a messy construction site next to a parking garage.

You turn hard, cutting off oncoming traffic and racing into the construction site as Lettow dives for you.

But just as you planned, he has to back off. Tarps cover most of the site, and he'd get tangled if he dove. You keep moving, weaving through narrow alleys, then blowing through a Chevron station—the covering over the pumps prevents Lettow from reaching you easily.

Then you reverse right into an unfinished apartment complex that you saw last week, going straight through the building itself.

And he's lost you.

You roll out with your lights off and look up. Lettow is on a nearby building, scanning the darkness with his golden eyes.

That's when the SI lights him up. Heedless that they're operating in the middle of Tucson, dozens of agents and soldiers open fire with rifles and truck-mounted weapons.

Lettow lurches in midair. But he's still an elder vampire. The huge eagle dives, scythes through a truck full of agents, killing five in a single pass, and then rises into the air, higher, higher, until he and Riga disappear into the clouds.

The last you see of Prince Lettow, he's flying east, away from Tucson, out of his fallen domain.

You disappear into traffic, getting away from the SI as quickly as you can.

An inescapable element of existing as a vampire is ignorance. The Masquerade is a shadow that swallows clarity and understanding. People suspect and imply, but they rarely know for certain.

Your final nights in Tucson are frightening but uninteresting. You check the news, divest from your real estate holdings, and listen to word on the street.

Over the next few nights, during which time the news reports a few strange acts of violence, a terrorist attack, and a zoo escape, you learn that Prince Lettow was almost certainly destroyed. Dove perished in a midday raid on her haven, and nothing remains of the Viper but a gutted heap.

The city's Kindred are scattered and leaderless, easy pickings for hunters that are now free to operate during the day, dragging vampires out of their havens and destroying them.

Despite the chaos in the shadow-world you inhabit, Tucson looks the same. The city's downtown is not ablaze, the national guard hasn't been mobilized. It's just another shadow-war for vampires to fight.

And it's time to leave.

Your plans to escape Tucson run into surprisingly little red tape as you sell your bungalow and liquidate your other assets.

You got what you could out of your deal with the SI, but now it's time to go.

Go where? Tucson never felt like home, but it was, at least, a base of operations. You can't just stick to the road forever; the highways are too dangerous right now, with the SI active and your bridges with the Camarilla burned. You see a few possible futures.

From what you hear, Seattle is a key city for the Camarilla's blood trade. You could head up north and, if you have enough venture capital, try to strike it rich, really establish yourself.

But maybe money isn't everything. Could you work with hunters to stop more Cainite depredations? From what you hear, Dallas/Fort Worth is now completely out of control, with open fighting in the streets among different vampire factions. If the SI trusts you enough, you could return there and try to protect humanity from the predators in their midst.

But you still feel the alien vitae inside of you: the 2100 Formula. You've heard that a scholar of the Blood dwells in Denver, someone who could answer a lot of your questions. With the briefcase full of Julian's Program research, you should be able to make inroads there. The only difficulty will be finding this scholar, and avoiding the hunters who suspect what kind of power you carry in your Blood. If you head for Denver, you'll have to hope that you've left the Masquerade intact enough here that you can reach Colorado without an army of hunters following you.

Finally…maybe you could just try to live a life. You're dead, of course, but you could try existing as a person, if only for a few years. You've heard that San Francisco is a good place for that sort of thing ever since the old Prince left for LA. Maybe you could cultivate your Humanity and try to live, instead of simply exist.

> I drive east to Dallas/Fort Worth. I'll use my Inquisition contacts to fight the vampires there. [Second Inquisition Hostility]

One month later...

Dallas is burning.

Not literally, not really. From your vantage atop this parking garage, you can't see any fires. But you know that the Inquisition has torn through the city, scattered its warring factions, dragged predators screaming into sunlight every day for the past two weeks. You know all this because you've commanded them from the shadows.

You finish your work tonight.

"We're the masters of this city," one of D'Espine's beautiful ghouls says through bloody teeth. "Even if you kill me, we'll always be here. Feeding and taking and ruling from the shadows. We are immortal! We—"

The other hunters have heard enough. They toss him off the roof and head to their van.

You get back in your SUV because your final target is on the move. D'Espine—the last Cainite of any real power in Dallas—has left the Cinderblock.

This is how you've succeeded in Dallas: not just through your network of hunters, but because you know how to move through a city. As the Cainites have crawled into their holes, believing themselves safe, you've never stopped moving, never stopped striking. And now you're almost done.

You roll out of the parking garage and point your Escalade at the Cinderblock. By tomorrow night you'll be done here, and you'll hit the road.

RIP Lettow and Dove. Julian did get out, though!

[creepingsharia]

Muslim Group Tells Writers Guild of America to Further Islamize Hollywood

As if Hollywood weren’t Islamophilic enough. The jihad is relentless. If we don’t portray more peaceful Muslims everywhere…there will be more jihad.

Source: Muslim Writers Call for More Film, TV Inclusion in WGAE, MPAC Panel | Hollywood Reporter

‘Man With a Plan’ and ‘America Inside Out With Katie Couric’ staffers were among those who spoke Monday at a panel hosted by the Writers Guild of America East in Lower Manhattan in collaboration with the Hollywood Bureau at the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

There has never been a more important time for positive, nuanced and authentic portrays of Muslims on television and in film and digital media. That was the message, at least, on Monday evening at a panel discussion with Muslim writers and creators Negin Farsad (The Muslims Are Coming!), Farhan Arshad (CBS’ Man With a Plan), Amber Fares (America Inside Out With Katie Couric) and Maysoon Zayid, a disability advocate and founder of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival.

Hosted by the Writers Guild of America East in Lower Manhattan in collaboration with the Hollywood bureau at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the 90-minute panel shed light on current bright spots of Muslim representation in media, emphasized the need for improvement and offered insight for the audience of aspiring writers and industry peers on the next steps necessary to accomplish those goals.

“There’s some wonderful representation that’s happening in the industry, but the little that we are seeing is not nearly enough,” director of MPAC’s Hollywood bureau Sue Obeidi told The Hollywood Reporter prior to the panel, citing series that MPAC has consulted on like Grey’s Anatomy, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, The Affair and The Looming Tower. “We are excited about the momentum that’s happening in the industry, and we don’t want this to be a fleeting moment but a movement towards not only inclusion but respect and appreciation of the Muslim community.”

Right out the gate at the panel, there was mention of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand earlier this month and such instances’ correlation to problematic, stereotypical portrayals of Muslims as terrorists and violent extremists. Arshad, citing Americans’ shifting opinions on same-sex marriage in the wake of programs like Will & Grace and Modern Family, said that he believes continued and expanded positive portrayals of his community will similarly lead to changed sentiment.

[Ironic, because Muslim countries are moving in the opposite direction. See Brunei: Muslim nation to implement sharia law; whip or stone people to death for same-sex activity]

“Any time I’ve had a preconceived notion about someone, it’s always gone away once I’ve gotten to know that person,” he said. “TV is the way you get to know people if you don’t know them in your own life.”

Each panelist offered several ways in which that goal can be realized. One of the first is to know your audience. Fares explained, for instance, how when working with Katie Couric, she had to acknowledge that not all viewers are as well versed in the cultural issues she wanted to tackle. An education was in order.

“I wanted to be talking about issues that felt a lot more relevant to me, but they weren’t relevant to other people because they weren’t at that level,” Fares said. “They didn’t understand that nuance yet, and we still had to sort of bring them up.”

Another is to build narratives involving Muslim characters without the story being exclusively about their Muslim experience. “I think the other thing that we can do as writers and performers is not put a pressure on ourselves to write stories where the point of the story is that we’re Muslim and the point of the story is that we’re Middle Eastern,” Farsad said. “That’s the other thing that I would love to see, where we’re not fetishizing the fact that we are Muslim.”

Zayid expressed concern for what she’s seen as a pattern of “lack of knowledge, lack of curiosity” in the writers room from non-Muslim creatives and how she’s often needed to stand up against that lack of curiosity. Arshad agreed that as a minority voice — even the room’s token minority voice — it is in part Muslim writers’ job to fight for non-stereotypical portrayals of all minorities.

“I fight every single fight whether it’s for Muslims or Pakistanis or African-Americans,” he said. “And it’s such a hard burden to carry when you have to be those things because then you become that person — the person who becomes offended.”

In the end, fighting that fight is worthwhile if it means greater representation across the board.

“I say this about disabled people, and it applies to Muslims, too: Nothing about us without us,” Zayid said. “We’re having our stories told by people who don’t know it, so we need people behind the cameras to tell the story.”

The stand-up comedian and writer went on to echo the larger real-world impact such representations can have for the better, underscoring the urgent necessity for such portrayals while, true to her comedic form, making the room laugh.

“We have to take seriously the fact that the Muslim community is physically and violently under siege in this country,” she said. “One of the things that’s going to protect our safety is having positive, accessible images of Muslims on TV that instead of otherizing us, make us the person you wanna bang.”

Since when has television and movies been the place for authentic portrayals of anything? Muslims just want more Islam in your face.

And if we check The History of MPAC – the group behind this sharia push – we know where these infiltrators came from and are trying to take America:

Established in 1988 by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood and admirers of Hezbollah…MPAC is yet another Islamist wolf in the “social justice” clothing of the hard Left. Its founders include Hassan Hathout, the former MPAC president who has described himself as “a close disciple” of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Hathout’s brother Maher, a senior MPAC adviser, is lavish in his praise of both Hezbollah’s “freedom fighting” and the social-justice pioneering of Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of Sudan’s National Islamic Front — the genocidal junta that gave safe haven to al-Qaeda in the early 1990s while imposing sharia on that war-torn east African nation.

Now they are imposing sharia in America. Hollywood was sanitized by the Islamic supremacists long ago:

Muslims recruit screenwriters to spread Islam in Hollywood

Islamic group helps Hollywood sanitize Islam in movies, television

Muslims recruit screenwriters to spread Islam in Hollywood

Sharia compliant: No Islamic landmarks harmed in “Independence Day” sequel

Islam a Taboo Topic on TV and in Hollywood

85% of media stories on Ft. Hood didn’t mention “terror”

Comedy Central afraid to even say Muhammid, to mock Jesus in new show

Muslim Villain Scratched from Ron Howard’s ‘Angels & Demons’ Film Adaptation

Hollywood’s Weinstein caves – deletes honor killing from movie

Viacom’s Comedy Central enforcing sharia: Can’t say Muhammad on South Park or view episode online

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[fastworldnews1]

Pakistan speaking to TTP groups 'from position of strength': PM Imran

Pakistan is speaking to various groups of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from a position of strength, said Prime Minister Imran Khan in an interview with Middle East Eye.

PM Imran Khan said Islamabad is trying to speak to elements within the TTP who can be reconciled "because it’s from a position of strength".

"I always believed all insurgencies eventually end up on the dialogue table, like the IRA [Irish Republican Army] for instance," he explained.

"We now have to talk to those we can reconcile with [and persuade] to give up their arms and live as normal citizens," he added.

He spoke about the sacrifices rendered by Pakistan in the War on Terror, saying that Pakistan had lost 80,000 citizens and its economy had been left devastated.

The prime minister said the Taliban had assured Islamabad that the TTP would not launch attacks into Pakistan. He accused India of instigating terrorism in Pakistan via Afghanistan, during the Ashraf Ghani-led government.

"Events in Afghanistan are still evolving, people like us still don't know where it will go," he said. "The US vacating the region will create a vacuum," he acknowledged.

The prime minister said Afghanistan is a trade corridor that connects Pakistan to the Central Asian countries. "And so, it is a very important country that way," he said.

"It should not be a 'US vs China' camp. Now, it should be about economic ties, economic connectivity. That's what we are looking for," he added.

PM Imran Khan said the Taliban had people among its leadership who had given a lot of sacrifices in blood. These people, he said, would now want to be a part of the government.

"And yet the government [in Afghanistan] is looking for international acceptability," he explained. "So it wants an inclusive government. It talks about human rights and not wanting its soil to be used for terrorism."

PM Imran Khan said it is a "critical point in Afghanistan" and called on the world to engage with the country.

The prime minister spoke about US President Joe Biden, saying that he is yet to speak to arguably the most powerful person in the world.

"Well, you know, it's up to him. It's [US] a superpower," he said.

When the interviewer told him he found that "absolutely astonishing" that the two heads of states had not yet spoken, PM Khan said:

"Well, our security chiefs have spoken. Our foreign minister has been in touch with the US foreign secretary. But no, we haven't spoken, but we are in touch," he added.

The premier spoke about his visit to the US back in 2008, adding that he had spoken to Biden, John Kerry and Harry Reid – then all senators - warning them that they were creating a problem for themselves in war-torn Afghanistan.

Khan said he had warned the three that there was no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, however, he added that they did not listen to him.

He said a couple of years later, then Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, delivered the same message to US President Barack Obama.

"But unfortunately, they were led by their generals. And do you know what generals always say: give us more troops and more time," he added.

When asked about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the cricketer-turned-politician said Islamabad was "relieved" as it expected a bloodbath when the Taliban were about to take over the capital a couple of months ago.

"We have been so relieved because we expected a bloodbath but what happened was a peaceful transfer of power. But we also felt we were blamed for this," he noted.

The prime minister said the Afghanistan Army, numbering around 300,000 troops, had surrendered without a fight to the Taliban. "So clearly we did not tell them to surrender."

When asked whether the Taliban had formed an inclusive government in the country, Khan admitted it was not one. However, he said the current Afghan government, as per the Taliban itself, was a transitional one.

He said Pakistan was working with regional countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, who had more sizable ethnic populations, to ensure the Taliban agreed to a more diverse representation in its government.

A longtime critic of America's drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries, PM Imran Khan lashed out at Washington's strategy to counter terrorism through drone attacks.

"It is the most insane way of fighting terrorism. Doing a drone attack on a village mud hut and expecting there will not be casualties. And a lot of time the drones targeted the wrong people," he stressed.

When asked whether Pakistan will allow the US to launch strikes into Afghanistan, targeting Daesh, the prime minister said: "They don’t need a base here because we do not need to be part of a conflict again."

When the prime minister was asked to speak his mind on the England and Wales Cricket Board's (ECB) decision to pull out of the Pakistan tour against the British High Commission's advice, PM Imran Khan said "I think England let itself down".

The prime minister said that he had seen the evolution of Pakistan-England cricket ties over the years.

"I think that there is still this feeling in England that they do a great favour to play countries like Pakistan," he added. "One of the reasons is that, obviously, the money."

The prime minister said that the BCCI is the richest cricket board in the world, adding that no other country would dare to do to India what England had done to Pakistan.

"Money is a big player now," he said. "For the players, as well as for the cricket boards. The money lies in India, so basically India controls world cricket now. I mean, they do, whatever they say goes. No one would dare do that to India because they know that the sums involved, India can sort of produce much more money," he added.

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[turkiyeecom]

U.S.-Iran Crisis: What and Who's Behind Trump's 'Maximum Pressure' Amid Gulf Attacks

President Donald Trump's decision to blame Iran for recent attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman came amid a concerted effort by his administration to portray the Islamic Republic as a rogue state—a campaign bolstered by hawkish hard-liners with influential positions in both countries. While declassified footage released by the U.S. military on Friday purporting to show Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards removing a limpet mine from the side of one of two foreign commercial vessels less than 100 miles from the Strait of Hormuz was difficult to discern, Trump told Fox News that it was irrefutable evidence of Tehran's involvement. "And you know they did it because you saw the boat," he claimed. His top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, had already blamed Iran the day before, just hours after the attack, calling it the result of Tehran wanting the U.S.' "successful maximum pressure campaign lifted." The term has been applied to the Trump administration's efforts to isolate Iran diplomatically and economically, and especially so since the U.S. pulled out last year of a 2015 nuclear deal still supported by China, the European Union, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. With the U.S. and Iran doubling down on their rhetoric against one another, an EU foreign affairs spokesperson took an opposite route from the Trump administration, calling for "maximum restraint" on Friday, according to Reuters. While this phrase more closely echoed reactions out of Russia, China, Japan and others, it may fall on deaf ears in the Trump administration, where two men—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House national security adviser John Bolton—have shaped the White House's approach to foreign policy, especially in regards to stated U.S. adversaries. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks to the media at the State Department in Washington, June 13. Pompeo accused Iran of being behind attacks on two tanks in the Gulf of Oman and the Pentagon produced footage the following day purporting to prove it amid Iranian denials. AFP/Getty Images/ERIC BARADAT Trump's decision to leave the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran came just weeks after Pompeo and Bolton's respective appointments in a government shake-up. Both men had a history of aggressive statements toward the Islamic Republic, whose supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei explained earlier this year that his country's infamous "Death to America" chant actually "means 'Death to Trump, Bolton and Pompeo.'" Trump, too, was a longtime opponent of the Iran deal, but he has also advocated against costly, "endless wars" in the Middle East and beyond. Pompeo's and Bolton's appointments came shortly after Trump first suggested he may begin winding down the U.S. military presence in Syria, which ultimately never came to fruition as Washington's policy in the war-torn country became increasingly focused on Iran's presence there. "I think we need to take into account what these individuals have said in the past in regard to Iran," Ned Price, a fellow at the New America Foundation and former CIA official who served on former President Barack Obama's National Security Council, told Newsweek. He pointed out that both Bolton and Pompeo "have called for regime change in Iran" and was skeptical as to whether they had truly renounced this position. But whether "maximum pressure" was actually weakening the Iranian government was up for debate. Perhaps one of the biggest miscalculations of the campaign, as explained by political analyst Alireza Sarfarazi, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Antwerp, is its tendency to target all sectors of Iranian society, which has suffered under U.S. sanctions restricting access to critical fields such as education and healthcare. He explained that "Iran, like other political environments, is not a simple, monolithic and flat field" and "there are different forces battling for power inside the country." Iran has its own hardliners who Sarfarazi said, prior to January 2017, "saw Trump as a guy like themselves" and, "frequently quoted his campaign messages in both positive and negative ways, especially highlighting the dark image he was portraying about the situation in the United States in 2016." Now, the non-democratically elected forces within the government such as the Revolutionary Guards "and other institutions related to the Supreme Leader are the happiest as they were the main opposing forces against the deal." It appeared that, at the same time, the proponents of the most aggressive policies were running the show. As for Pompeo and Bolton, Sarfarazi said, "It's hard to find experts who do not blame these two for the situation we are in now." When Trump publicly announced his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria in December, Bolton and Pompeo immediately set out on Middle East tours set to reassure allies of Washington's continued regional commitments, which had already largely shifted from simply defeating the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) to also ensuring Iran's containment. The timeline for U.S. military involvement in Syria was—once again—drawn out indefinitely and experts told Newsweek at the time that Pompeo and Bolton had largely been behind his decision to stay. One major development that did result from the announcement, however, was Defense Secretary James Mattis' resignation. Mattis, once himself seen as a top anti-Iran figure, had come to be viewed as something of a moderate by the end of his tenure in the Trump administration. His slated replacement, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, has yet to be officiated, casting doubts on his authority in closed-door meetings with the likes of Pompeo and Bolton. White House national security adviser John Bolton warns Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that his days are numbered in a video shared by the White House to coincide with celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, February 11. "So Ayatollah Khamenei, for all your boasts, for all your threats to the life of the American president, you are responsible for terrorizing your own people and terrorizing the world as a whole, I don't think you'll have many more anniversaries left to enjoy."" The White House When Shanahan laid out both offensive and retaliatory military options against Iran at a National Security Council meeting last month, he did so at the behest of Bolton. Pentagon officials described the prospective defense chief to Newsweek at the time as a "yes-man" for Trump, though sources also indicated the classified meeting was not unusual in and of itself. Just days before Bolton announced the early deployment of a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings," both Bolton and Pompeo had dealt with the fallout of an abortive uprising against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S.-recognized, self-declared acting head of state Juan Guaidó. Bolton and his aides reportedly pushed for military options at a time when defense officials themselves may be struggling to assert themselves. "The other big implication of this is that the Pentagon, which tends to be prudent in matters of use of force, doesn't really seem to have a voice at the table," Price told Newsweek, expressing concern at the potential absence of the "words of caution that the administration should be hearing" at such gatherings. "I do think Trump's instincts, to use a broken clock analogy, may be right twice a day in not wanting another disastrous war in the Middle East," Price said. But as seen when Bolton and Pompeo took the helm in talking him out of withdrawing from Syria, he added, "those around him could have every intention of doing otherwise." Read More Read the full article

[frozenartscapes]

Strike for Love, Strike for Fear - Chiralities AU

Hey! It’s been a while since I wrote anything fic-related, and now I’m back to this AU! It probably won’t be for a while since I write anything else... The only reason this one exists is because it had been sitting in my drafts forever and I only just got the motivation to finish it. I’m actually working on an original piece right now, and that’s so far been sucking up all my creativity.

But anyway, enjoy!

Being an Avenger wasn’t the same as being a soldier, as Elsa was steadily learning with each new mission they sent her on. There was something very distinct about having to fight supernatural enemies, bad guys with over-powered suits straight out of the future, or mega-organizations of pure evil that came vastly different from fighting people forced to the front lines by their own nations. But this particular mission felt a lot closer to home.

War-torn countries carry the unfortunate circumstance of being hiding places for members of some of those evil mega-corporations. Despite their best efforts, the Avengers and other good-natured forces of the world were still having difficulty weeding out former members of Hydra that have since run off to the most inhospitable places of the world to seek shelter and regroup. The fall may have taken out most of the heads, but the interesting thing about a hydra is that for every head that gets chopped off, two more grow in its place. And most of those heads have gravitated toward the Middle East and Africa.

Elsa navigated the streets of a small town in Northern Syria, an area that had fallen to bombs and bullets as a war raged on between rebels, government, and terrorists. It was perfect for defected Hydra agents, and despite the numerous times she reminded Ross and her other superiors just how little she desired to be sent back into an active war zone, they continued to send her to these horrible places because she was “one of their best”.

God, how she hated hearing that. Hydra used to say that about her. She even had a distinct memory of the United States Army in World War Two saying that about her. Both times it served to remind her that she was being used, desired for her powers and abilities and not who she was as a person. Even now, as an Avenger and Captain America’s sister, she was seen less as a hero and more as someone perfect to send to do the dirty work - the kind of stuff that would be a PR nightmare should one of the more well-known heroes on the team have to do it.

But she still had a job. She was following a lead on a defected Hydra agent, and that had led her here: in a small town that had practically been cooked by the desert sun before being ripped apart by mortar shells and sub machine guns. Despite that, however, there were still plenty of signs of life, as people moved about their days as best they could, walking through the streets with quick paces and distinct looks of fear and dread on their faces. Her long time spent as the Winter Soldier had made it difficult to link a feeling to their actions, but slowly she was getting the ability back. And while the empathy might be hindered, being the Soldier had trained her to be hyper-aware of people making quick, nervous movements, or of people flinching at the sound of an airplane high above them in the sky. The Soldier witnessed these things, and Elsa connected the emotions.

Most people paid her no mind, and the odd person who did often made sure to keep their distance. She wasn’t outwardly trying to show off who she was, but she had been told on many occasions (mostly by Anna or Romanoff) that she had a very terrifying walk when she was on a mission, appropriately dubbed “the Winter Soldier Walk”. And as much as she was annoyed by the name, the walk certainly was effective in getting people out of her way by doing nothing but glaring at them.

However, the Walk came to an abrupt end when, as she went past the opening of a small alley, a beat up and slightly deflated soccer ball rolled to a stop at her feet. Elsa paused to stare down at the ball inquisitively, before turning to spot a group of children - three boys and two girls of varying ages - all watching her intently. One had stepped forward slightly in an attempt to retrieve the ball, but he had stopped to stare at her with panic and uncertainty on his face.

Elsa smiled, and kicked the ball back into the alley for them to continue playing their game. The boy received the pass and shot her a grateful grin in return, then turned back to his companions. Elsa chuckled to herself, amused if not slightly amazed in a child’s ability to still find enjoyment despite how terrible life could be, and continued on her way.

She made it about a couple blocks away when another plane flew overhead, this one much lower in the sky. Seconds later, an explosion ripped through the busy streets, sending debris flying and a wall of hazy yellow smoke into the air. Elsa whipped around to spot the epicentre of the blast seemed to be that alley she had just passed.

Her shaky hands quickly yanked out a breathing mask from a pocket and strapped it hastily onto her face, all while she sprinted full-speed into the horrid cloud of toxic chemicals. Using her magic, she called on a wind to sweep through the streets and up into the sky in an attempt to push as much of the chemical away from those still alive and running in terror through the streets.

She made it to the alley, and came to an abrupt stop when she saw what had become of it.

France, near the German Border, 1943

She would always envy how children were always so good at making light of situations. But then, she distinctly remembered how her and Anna used to be able to play, carefree and happily, in the small parks and narrow streets of their neighbourhood in Brooklyn despite going home to measly dinners. Perhaps it was that innocence at that age, where adults don’t tell you about the bad stuff that’s going on, or if they did, they did so in a way that didn’t force the reality to break you. Looking back, Elsa could remember how her mother seemed to get thinner, especially in the winter, and would go with very little on her plate. Looking back, Elsa could see the struggle, but as a child she had been so blissfully blind to it.

This little girl she was talking to seemed to have the same issue— or was it a gift? Her patrol had taken a small side trip to a tiny village in France, one that consisted of only a few families and most of them were farmers. It had been spared from the war for the most part due to its small size, but the battle was closing in on the helpless town fast. The Americans had chosen to use it as a strategic base, offering the town their protection in return for shelter and food. The presence of war was all around, yet here was this little girl who was so fascinated by seeing a pretty, blonde woman in an army uniform that she had boldly broke away from her mother to tug on the soldier’s pant leg.

“You’re a woman,” the girl squeaked with both confusion and awe, playing slightly with the scrappy doll in her hands.

Elsa laughed softly and bent down to the girl’s height. “Yes, I am,” she replied in French, surprising herself in how well she had picked up the language.

“But you’re not a nurse,” the girl observed.

“No, I’m not,” Elsa returned.

The girl looked her over for a moment, appearing as though she was deep in thought. “I’m Joanne,” she said after a pause, very sure and confident.

Elsa’s smile grew at Joanne’s upfront greeting. “I’m Elsa,” she said warmly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Joanne.”

Joanne beamed. “You must be really brave,” she said, “And you’re also really pretty.”

“Well,” Elsa told her, “I’d say you are very pretty yourself.”

“Marie too?” Joanne asked, holding out her tattered, but very obviously loved, doll.

“Yes, Marie too,” Elsa assured her, only brightening that infectious smile even more.

“Joanne? Joanne!”

The pair then turned to spot a woman frantically running through the crowd. “Mama!” Joanne called, catching the woman’s attention and bringing her over to them.

“Joanne, my dear, what have I told you about running off like that?” she scolded, before turning to Elsa, “I’m sorry, Madame, she…she’s difficult to keep track of sometimes.”

Elsa rose to her feet. “It’s ok,” she said, “Believe me, I know the feeling.”

“Mama, she’s a soldier!” Joanne said as her mother bent down to scoop her child up, “And she’s really nice!”

“Thank you, for watching her,” Joanne’s mother sighed, “And I’m sorry if she was any trouble.”

“None at all,” Elsa assured her gently, “But I had best be going. Take care, ok?”

The young woman nodded. “Bye, Elsa,” Joanne said, waving a little over her mother’s shoulder.

Elsa smiled one last time at Joanne, and waved back. “Goodbye, Joanne.” To herself, she added quietly, “Hang in there.”

About a day later, she would return to that same town. Only this time it was to sift through the pieces of destroyed stone and charred timber after a bombing raid had completely levelled it.

Elsa found Marie, but not Joanne.

Elsa heaved giant boulders away, but the buildings on either side of the alley had completely collapsed. But still she tried, digging through the rubble in a vain attempt to locate those kids. But the longer she dug, the more she realized that it was hopeless. She couldn’t save them. And it made her so angry.

She hadn’t realized frost was steadily leaking from her hands, coating the crumbling cinderblocks with thick and spiky hoarfrost as she pitched them effortlessly out of her way. She hadn’t noticed how her frantic breathing was growing slower, steadier, and much more controlled. She wasn’t even aware of how her consciousness was fading, how her decisions and thoughts were becoming less and less hers — how Elsa was slipping away into the background as someone far more dangerous fed off her anger and took control.

She could hear another plane coming. Sharp, frigid eyes looked to the sky. She gave up her search, and with one, powerful leap aided by a spike of ice forming under her feet, she launched herself up into the air and onto what was left of a nearby building.

She remembered making visual contact with the plane, and feeling a surge of energy in her hands. Then nothing.

“You do realize that this is going to be incredibly difficult to fix,” Ross growled angrily as he paced back and forth.

Elsa said nothing, instead studying the various screens behind him all depicting different angles of what had happened. Apparently, the plane didn’t make it. That much she could guess. But then the snowstorm, the whirlwind of air sucking the poisonous chemical high into the atmosphere and away from the town, and the thick icy dome covering the whole area to protect it from anything else were all surprises.

“You were supposed to be on recon, Barnes,” Ross reminded her in annoyance, “That means not getting noticed.”

“There was an attack,” Elsa said simply, slowly drawing out each word so he could understand the severity of what happened.

“And we did not send you there to—”

“People died,” Elsa continued, her tone never faltering and her eyes never leaving his, “Children died.”

“Yes, we know, but—”

“It would have been worse had I done nothing.”

“But how you did things is the issue,” Ross insisted, “You took out a foreign fighter jet.”

“That was bombing its own people with chemical weapons. I had to do something,” Elsa fired back angrily.

Ross pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a heavy breath. “It’s not that simple, Barnes,” he said with exhaustion, “We have to play these things carefully, and we certainly can’t have you losing control like that.”

“Then why put me there in the first place?” Elsa shouted, rising to her full height from her chair to stand over him, “I can’t even tell you how many times I asked not to be sent back to a place that was going to dredge up bad memories.”

“Then why are you here?” he demanded, holding his ground despite the height and strength difference, “Why even bother with any of this if you don’t want to go where we need you?”

Elsa glowered at him. “Because I want to help,” she stated firmly, “I want to protect people, and that certainly doesn’t mean taking advantage of a chemical attack to hide my cover.”

“The best way you can protect people is by following the orders we give you, Barnes,” Ross said, “The international community is still on edge having learned who you are, and we’ve had to assure them time and time again that you won’t be an issue. But that only works when you do as you’re told.”

There was a pause. Ross’ words hung in the air. Elsa broke eye contact with him, but her heavy breaths gave away her emotion. The sound of metal plating scraping against more metal broke the silence as she slowly clenched her fists. “People. Would have. Died,” she said again.

“You really are just like your sister,” Ross commented with a sigh, “You, without much thought, attacked an enemy jet without clearance and created a powerful show of force and strength all while wearing a face mask. We’re trying to eliminate your Winter Soldier reputation, but what you just pulled put us back almost to square one to some countries.”

Elsa looked at him again, and this time the severity of her glare made him take half a step back. “Forgive me if I can’t help what has been programmed into my brain,” she said dangerously, “But the fact that the Soldier came back to protect innocent people should say a lot. I’m sorry I failed to listen to orders but at least I did what was right.”

“As an Avenger and a soldier, in accordance to the Sokovia Accords, you have to listen to the orders given to you at the start of your mission.”

“Even if those orders are to stand around and do nothing?”

“Yes.”

The air around them dropped so much in temperature that Elsa could see his breath. Realizing her control was slipping, she turned and took a few steps away, drawing in deep breaths and releasing them slowly in an attempt to calm down. But she couldn’t remember the last time she was this angry.

“I know it seems counterproductive,” Ross told her, his voice less hard and a little less authoritative, “But things need to be handled carefully. Simply throwing our weight around isn’t going to help anything. In fact, it might make it worse. I thought you understood that.”

“But at the expense of innocent people?” Elsa challenged in a low voice, not wanting to look at him.

“Unfortunately, yes. But the more control we have, the less threat there is to innocent people. And right now the only thing we know for sure that we can control, is our soldiers,” he replied.

Elsa heaved a deep sigh, but her unrest was still obvious in her tense shoulders and clenched fists. “I’m guessing I’m receiving a suspension?” she asked dryly, still with her back turned to him.

“Yes,” Ross informed her, “For three weeks. You are also required to see a specialist to deal with any trauma you may have faced, along with keeping up your regular therapy sessions. Any failure to comply will—”

“Will result in severe consequences,” Elsa finished bitterly.

There was another pause, this one not quite as intense as the one earlier. It was broken by Ross, who sighed, “I’m sorry you went through with that, Elsa. I personally think what you did was extraordinary, and heroic. But it’s my job to reflect what the international community has decided, and unfortunately what they decided is… Well, power is a thing to be feared. It is wise not to abuse it.”

Elsa finally looked at him again. She held his gaze for a moment, before heading out of the room without a word.

Anna was waiting for her. Elsa caught her taking a step back, meaning she had likely been standing with her ear to the door for the duration of that meeting. Elsa chose not to mention it and simply started walking down the hall.

“Hey,” Anna said as she hurried to catch up with her sister, “How’d it go?”

“You tell me,” Elsa sighed as she continued walking toward the helipad, where a chopper was waiting to take them both back to Washington.

“Well… You didn’t kill him, so I’d say that’s good!” Anna said optimistically, though her attempt to be upbeat fell apart pretty fast as she spotted her sister’s face. She reached out and grabbed Elsa’s hand, stopping her in her tracks. “Elsa,” she said quietly, “Talk to me. Please.”

Elsa made an attempt to pull her hand away. “There’s nothing to talk about, Anna,” she replied, in a tone that sounded like there very much was something to talk about.

Anna only tightened her grip on her sister’s hand, before dragging her into a nearby, empty conference room. With the door closed, she turned and said simply, “We’re alone. You can tell me.”

At first, Elsa’s stony face remained unchanged, and it looked as though she was going to walk around her sister and out the door. But after a moment her mask began to break away, and her standoffish mood was replaced with one of complete sorrow and misery. Anna rushed forward without hesitation and wrapped her arms around her sister’s trembling body. Elsa immediately hugged her sister back, burying her face in Anna’s shoulder to muffle her sobs.

It was a few minutes later when Anna’s heart completely broke, upon hearing her poor sister utter helplessly, “I tried.”

“Oh Elsa,” Anna replied in comfort, only hugging her sister tighter, “I know you did.”

“They were so young. They didn’t even know… They were playing, Anna.”

Anna swallowed the lump in her throat with difficulty. “You did all you could, Elsa,” she told her softly, “Sometimes we…we can’t save them all.”

Elsa tensed before pulling away slowly. Using her good hand she wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks. “I know,” said weakly. Then her expression shifted, turning darker and more reflective of her anger. She clenched her metal fist tight and repeated, “I know.”

“Elsa…”

“I…I hate this, Anna,” Elsa stated.

“You… hate what, exactly?” Anna asked nervously, unsure as to where her sister was going and a little afraid of the answer.

The anger in Elsa’s face broke, a little, giving way to an expression Anna could only describe as grief. “Why am I like this?” Elsa uttered quietly, almost to herself, “Why can’t I be normal?”

Anna frowned with concern and gently squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “What’s going on, Elsa?” she questioned simply.

Elsa drew a deep breath. “I failed. I failed so many times, Anna,” she said, her voice shaky and worn, “Even when I try to do the right thing… I end up making things worse. Or what I do doesn’t matter. Or…” She paused to take another trembling gulp of air, squeezing her eyes shut tight in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. “It’s like Death follows me wherever I go. People always die when they see me. I…I remember each one of their faces…before they die. I bring so much bad… But I still want to do good.”

Anna said nothing at first, instead opting to pull her tired sister back into a hug. She opened her mouth a few times, but closed it when words failed her. Eventually, however, she found something: “You are doing good, Elsa. Look at where you are, and how far you’ve come. No bad person would ever get this far.”

She heard Elsa sniffle, and felt her tighten her grip on her arms. “I just…want to protect them,” Elsa breathed. Anna felt her eyes stinging with tears upon hearing just how small and desperate her sister sounded.

The serum does things. It turns people into near-indestructible, super-powered soldiers, yes. It takes someone from being scrawny and weak to the picture of perfect health, absolutely. But it does things — to the mind. It took a while for Anna to notice it in herself, because to her, that feeling of trying to do the right thing had always been incredibly strong, especially for someone her initial size. But it wasn’t until she was thrown into a scenario where she had to choose the Right Thing for Everybody over the Right Thing for her Sister that she suddenly has an epiphany. The serum had altered her mind, making it both harder to find logic and also incredibly easy — it just depended on which side the logic was on. It was hard, sometimes, to force herself to see the other side of difficult discussions where the Right Thing wasn’t black and white but more of a grey area, because to her the answer was so obviously one way while everyone else said otherwise. It was hard, but she was trying to work through it.

She had no doubt in her mind that the thing the serum had latched onto in her sister’s brain was that need to protect. Elsa had always had it. She always was the good big sister who was at Anna’s side whenever she needed her — whether she knew it or not. She, too, would always try and do the Right Thing, but on a much smaller, more individual scale. She was the one who rescued caterpillars off sidewalks, or instead of killing spiders would catch them in a cup and release them outside. Anna remembered this one time they had found a small bird that had fallen out of its nest and while Anna chased away the cat about to attack it, Elsa was the one who gently took it and returned it home, safe and sound. Elsa just had this soft, incredibly caring soul who didn’t want to see anybody hurt. She never wanted to fight, but if she had to, it was to protect another.

That’s what the army had to tell her: she was there to protect her country. That’s what Hydra had to tell her: she was there to protect a glorious new world. That’s what the Avengers had to tell her: she was there to protect the planet and all its people. That’s what she has to tell herself: she’s here to protect.

And it’s hard for her to understand that sometimes…you just can’t protect everybody.

Anna worried about her sister on a near constant basis, but the one thing she absolutely wasn’t concerned about was whether or not her sister would ever hurt someone innocent with intent. Now, after a few years of being away from Hydra’s influence, Anna wasn’t even worried about the Soldier doing so as well. Because both halves of her sister’s soul were devoted so deeply to keeping people safe that it practically tore her apart when she wasn’t able to do so completely.

“And you did,” Anna reminded her gently, pulling back so she could meet her sister’s gaze, “You protected so many people today.”

“But not all…” Elsa said sadly.

“No…Not all. But still so many,” Anna told her, “Elsa: what you did was incredible. To hell with the people who disagreed! So many people would have been dead or injured had it not been for you. So many more, anyway. You can’t have known that attack was going to happen, and I have no doubt that if you had, you would have stopped it. But you still fought to reduce the damage, and I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

Anna took her sister’s hands in hers and held them tight. “You are like this because you love, Elsa. You love so, so much. No bad person would ever have a heart as big as yours. Do you understand?”

Elsa sniffled and nodded, a small smile gracing her lips.

“Now let’s head home,” Anna added, “Let’s just…go back, order some pizza, change into something comfy, and watch a movie tonight. No news or anything else depressing. Sound good?”

Elsa nodded again, this time with a little more conviction. “Thank you, Anna,” she said quietly, relief present in her tone, “I…I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Anna beamed at her. “I’m just glad I could help,” she replied, “Now let’s go. Chopper’s waiting!”

Several hours later, and things had relaxed a little. Elsa was still a little tense, and every now and then Anna noticed her staring off at the wall instead of the television. But she had stopped shaking, and managed to eat something. So it was a small win.

It was strange, really. Somehow seeing her in casual civilian clothes made Anna just a little more uneasy than in her tactical gear. It wasn’t a bad kind of uneasy, per se, but… There was something about everything seeming normal —what with soft, grey sweatpants and a loose white tank top, hair in a carefree braid and even bare feet — but then normalcy stopping abruptly upon spotting her left arm. It was just…a reminder. A reminder of a lot of bad things but also a reminder that, in a strange and twisted kind of way, without all that bad Elsa would never be here in the first place.

They would work through this, all of the bad, together. And one day maybe things that seem normal will finally be normal.

A knock on the door interrupted the movie. They shared a glance before Anna made a move to get up. “Wait, I’ll go,” Elsa said, stopping Anna with a hand on her knee, “I’ve barely been paying attention anyway. Plus I want another drink.”

“You sure?” Anna asked, “What if it’s one of those Jehovah’s Witness guys? You always hate getting stuck with them.”

“I think I’ll be ok,” Elsa remarked with a reassuring smile, “I doubt it’ll be anyone trying to get me to join anything at this time of night.”

And with that, she headed to the door. Upon opening it, she was met with the sight of a tall, dark haired woman dressed in a spotless red peacoat, loose skirt, and high heels. “Are you Elsa Barnes?” the woman asked, speaking with an accent Elsa couldn’t quite place.

“Yes…” Elsa replied hesitantly, feeling her powers flare instinctively, “Do I know you?”

“Not yet,” the woman replied calmly, seemingly unfazed by Elsa’s grip on the door slowly cracking the wood.

“Then who are you?” Elsa demanded, keeping her voice level but it was obvious her guard was coming up fast.

“I am Diana Prince,” the woman told her.

“Diana Prince?” Elsa looked the woman over once more, this time scrutinizing every detail, “That…that sounds familiar.”

Diana nodded. “It…might be,” she responded, “But I’m more interested in you, Elsa. I think there’s a lot for us to talk about.”

Ok, I admit it: the only reason I got enough motivation to finish this is because of Wonder Woman.

Look, I know they’re two different comic universes. But I figured if this AU already has a Disney Princess getting subbed in for Captain America, and Disney’s most lovable and least-likely-to-intentionally-harm-anybody Queen of Ice and Snow as the Winter Soldier then anything is possible.

And I’m totally not thinking up a headcanon for this universe now where surviving soldiers from WWI who watched Diana kick German ass on the front lines went back to their respective nations to regale the story of a fierce warrior-woman with the strength of a hundred men and a seemingly indestructible body, sparking massive interest in developing some sort of, oh I don’t know, serum to try and reproduce the results in normal humans. Totally not thinking about that...

Anyway, all I’m saying is that I strongly think Winter Soldier!Elsa and Diana would get along. Might be a bit of a rocky relationship at first, but would eventually become something very strong. Hell, maybe they even meet each other in passing during WWII and don’t even realize it until years later.

Aaand now I’m thinking about it. Damn, do I have time for this? Maybe...

[courtneytincher]

To Win Re-Election, Bibi Netanyahu Is Waging ‘Wars’ at Home and Abroad

Oded Balilty/GettyTEL AVIV—Benjamin Netanyahu is firing in all directions these days. Facing a tight re-election bid next Tuesday, the long-serving Israeli prime minister has just in the last two weeks launched air strikes against multiple neighboring Middle Eastern countries, pushed back against a potential U.S.-Iran détente, attacked the local media and his own Arab citizens, and called into question the legitimacy of the entire electoral process.After the Netanyahu Fail, What Is Trump’s Israel-Palestine Solution? Let Others Pick Up the PiecesIn a bid for every last right-wing vote, on Monday Netanyahu again promised to annex wide swaths of the West Bank if he were re-elected—a move that if implemented could spell the end of any two-state solution with the Palestinians and, with it, the end of Israel as both a democratic and Jewish state.The impression is either of a master strategist in complete control, pulling multiple political, military and diplomatic strings both here and abroad; or, alternatively, a hysterical politician in the twilight of his reign doing everything within his ample powers to maintain a grip on power. There is, of course, the likelihood that it’s both.  The military dimension to Netanyahu’s recent offensive is arguably the most consequential precisely because it’s so out of character. Despite his hardline international reputation, Netanyahu is extremely cautious when it comes to the use of force. Yet, in the span of 24 hours late last month, Israeli aircraft reportedly struck Iranian-affiliated targets in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In recent years Israel has admitted openly to launching hundreds of strikes inside Syria to forestall what officials here call Iran’s “military entrenchment” in its war-torn neighbor: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel, Shiite militia fighters, and advanced weaponry like precision guided missiles. Such Israeli military action—officially termed the “campaign between wars,” since it’s intended to shear Iranian power ahead of any wider conflict—has now extended into Lebanon and Iraq. How do we know this? Because Netanyahu confirmed it. “I’m doing everything to protect the security of our country from all directions—from the north against Lebanon and [the pro-Iranian militia] Hezbollah, in Syria against Iran and Hezbollah, and unfortunately also in Iraq against Iran,” Netanyahu said on August 30 during a Facebook live chat with supporters, days after the reported strikes in those three countries.A “senior Israeli defense source,” likely Netanyahu himself (who currently also doubles as defense minister), repeated similar claims a few days later to local military reporters. Indeed, the Israeli military has been extremely expansive in recent weeks detailing Iran’s efforts to arm Hezbollah with precision guided missiles on Lebanese soil. A drone attack in Beirut, in the heart of Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold, reportedly targeted high-value equipment meant to upgrade the Lebanese militia’s arsenal. Here, too, the military briefed reporters on the exact details of what allegedly was hit. This was all a sharp break from Israel’s usual policy of “purposeful ambiguity,” wherein it declines to take responsibility when something mysteriously blows up across the border—thus sparing its enemies’ blushes so as to avoid pushing them towards a response. (A limited response ultimately did come on September 1 in the form of a cross-border Hezbollah attack on an Israeli army jeep.)  To be clear: not even Netanyahu’s harshest domestic critics allege that, mere weeks before an election, he’s purposefully pushing the country into war. As The Daily Beast reported in February, there is widespread consensus that Iranian proxies armed with upgraded precision guided missiles are a severe threat to the country’s security, now deemed second only to Iran’s possible pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Most Netanyahu critics even accept the official position that the timing for these strikes was due to Iran’s escalating efforts in this area (primarily recent inroads in Iraq and Lebanon). What they do take issue with, however, is Netanyahu’s non-stop public rhetoric after the fact—verging on a Middle Eastern “end zone dance” in the face of Iran and Hezbollah—that could lead to deadlier follow-up attacks and a wider conflagration. Israel until recently used to speak softly and carry a big stick, which it deployed to great effect against Iran and its regional proxies. Netanyahu is now publicly trading insults with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who have vowed to respond in kind. Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White party, has strongly supported the government’s regional policy against Iran. Yet even he called into question the increasing “talk and breaking of the [prior] ambiguity,” saying Netanyahu is trying to “score political points” off of the national security debate.Ron Ben-Yishai, the dean of Israel’s military correspondents going back five decades, told The Daily Beast that even a prime minister-cum-defense minister doesn’t plan operations, the motivating force for which is usually the military and Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. Netanyahu, Ben-Yishai said, “wouldn’t launch an operation because of an election, and the army chief of staff isn’t a servant of any prime minister… but the talk [surrounding it] is without doubt political.” The danger of all this talk, Ben-Yishai added, is that it’s like “poking [Iran in] the eye. Especially in the Middle East, the issue of honor could lead to a response.” Nevertheless, after years burnishing his reputation as Israel’s “Mr. Security,” an election campaign dominated by military crises could help Netanyahu with his base and the many undecided voters. But part of the audience for all this mounting “blather,” as some have termed it, may in fact be farther afield. The same weekend that Israel was bombing across the Levant, President Donald Trump was at the G-7 summit in France, where he indicated a willingness to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to resolve the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program. A short while after Trump made positive comments about Iran, Netanyahu issued a video where he reminded the world (including, presumably, the U.S. president) of where he stood on the issue.    “Iran is working on a broad front to carry out murderous terrorist attacks against the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “Israel will continue to defend its security however that may be necessary. I call on the international community to act immediately so that Iran halts these attacks.”As Axios reported, Netanyahu was unable to reach Trump by telephone during the G-7 summit. In the following days the Israeli prime minister had calls with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence – but tellingly not with Trump.A snap visit to London last week, primarily to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, likely failed to console the Israeli leader.“Iran,” Esper said, “was inching toward that place where we could have talks.” Senior British officials with whom Netanyahu met were also inclined to support a French-led diplomatic process. Israeli defense officials reportedly are convinced that a Trump-Rouhani summit is now a “done deal.” Trump on Monday reiterated his openness to meeting with the Iranian leader, despite Netanyahu just hours earlier revealing what he claimed was a secret Iranian nuclear weapons facility (another cynical use, many Israeli analysts observed, of sensitive intelligence for political gain.) Earlier on Monday, Trump fired his ultra-hawkish national security advisor, John Bolton, saying he “disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions.”  A lot is riding on whether Netanyahu can maintain U.S. support for his hard line against Iran and its proxies—not least his own political future. Israelis will again go to the polls on September 17 after Netanyahu failed to form a government in the wake of the original April ballot. According to the polls, Netanyahu is once more in a very tight race for re-election. He has in recent weeks seemingly stopped at nothing to ensure that his now 10-year reign (thirteen overall dating back to the 1990s) continues. Massive banners of Netanyahu and Trump shaking hands adorn tall office buildings and billboards across the country, underlining the premier’s close relationship with the U.S. president and his overall image as a global statesman (including taking credit for the American withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear deal). Both points would be severely undercut if there were, in fact, a U.S.-Iran rapprochement. Just as he’s attacked Iran across the region, Netanyahu with equal vigor has gone after his perceived domestic enemies. He has called for a boycott of the country’s most popular television station—Channel 12—because it has deigned to publish extensive leaks from inside the myriad investigations of Netanyahu’s alleged corruption. “A terror attack against democracy,” the prime minister termed it. The channel’s legal correspondent, Guy Peleg, now travels with bodyguards.More perniciously, in a Trumpian twist, Netanyahu in the last week has railed constantly against voter fraud among Israel’s Arab minority, alleging that irregularities in this demographic cost him and his right-wing allies victory in April. “The problem of fraud and theft of the elections is real. We will not allow the coming elections to be stolen,” Netanyahu said, priming his supporters to reject the outcome of next week’s poll if it doesn’t go their way. No matter that the Central Elections Committee, police, attorney general, and other neutral observers say no such fraud actually took place and reject Netanyahu’s demand that cameras be placed in polling stations. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called the allegations “unsubstantiated and even irresponsible political attacks” intended to “undermine public trust in these [electoral] bodies.”It seems that Netanyahu is willing to attack the very foundations of Israeli democracy, and again incite against the country’s Arab minority in order to galvanize his nationalist base. It’s a well-worn tactic Netanyahu has deployed in the past—the so-called Gevalt campaign, Yiddish for “alarm.” “Gevalt is always real and Netanyahu is a panicker to begin with, which is probably what makes him so effective [as a politician],” Tal Shalev, Walla News’ chief political correspondent, told The Daily Beast. “He’s never calm.” Yet Shalev, a keen Netanyahu-watcher who traveled with him to London, said that despite the public hysteria purposefully sown, the prime minister seemed calm, confident and in a good mood in recent days. There’s a contrast between what he’s broadcasting to those around him and what he’s saying publicly, she added. “But he’s acting a bit more ruthless than usual now, and breaking all the rules, due to the situation he’s in. It’s a battle for the rest of his life.” Without his right-wing bloc of parties winning an outright majority of 61 seats in the Knesset, Netanyahu could be finished politically—and then there are his looming corruption indictments, with a pre-trial hearing set for early next month. A former ally on the right, Avigdor Lieberman, has turned against him, forcing the repeat election in the first place and now demanding a national unity government with Blue and White—which the latter refuse to countenance so long as the legally compromised Netanyahu still heads the Likud party. The political machinations after September 17 could be even more extreme than the election campaign itself. Yet there’s another possibility, perhaps even more likely, that against all the odds, and all these enemies—some real, most manufactured—Netanyahu actually wins outright. The polls aren’t looking favorable, but it’s important to recall that in the April ballot, a small right-wing faction was only 1400 votes short (out of 4 million cast) of entering parliament and thereby giving Netanyahu his majority. Last time, too, the right-wing essentially threw away six to eight seats via parties that didn’t pass the electoral threshold, a scenario now mitigated by a recent Netanyahu pact with a far-right faction that pulled out of the election.Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Barred From Israel—But a Conflagration Is ComingA source in Blue and White told The Daily Beast that the current polls, both public and internal, were very consistent—a Netanyahu victory isn’t a done deal. “This is going to be close, and will come down to the last few days,” he vowed. With the margins so fine, Netanyahu is pushing Israel to the very edge. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Oded Balilty/GettyTEL AVIV—Benjamin Netanyahu is firing in all directions these days. Facing a tight re-election bid next Tuesday, the long-serving Israeli prime minister has just in the last two weeks launched air strikes against multiple neighboring Middle Eastern countries, pushed back against a potential U.S.-Iran détente, attacked the local media and his own Arab citizens, and called into question the legitimacy of the entire electoral process.After the Netanyahu Fail, What Is Trump’s Israel-Palestine Solution? Let Others Pick Up the PiecesIn a bid for every last right-wing vote, on Monday Netanyahu again promised to annex wide swaths of the West Bank if he were re-elected—a move that if implemented could spell the end of any two-state solution with the Palestinians and, with it, the end of Israel as both a democratic and Jewish state.The impression is either of a master strategist in complete control, pulling multiple political, military and diplomatic strings both here and abroad; or, alternatively, a hysterical politician in the twilight of his reign doing everything within his ample powers to maintain a grip on power. There is, of course, the likelihood that it’s both.  The military dimension to Netanyahu’s recent offensive is arguably the most consequential precisely because it’s so out of character. Despite his hardline international reputation, Netanyahu is extremely cautious when it comes to the use of force. Yet, in the span of 24 hours late last month, Israeli aircraft reportedly struck Iranian-affiliated targets in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In recent years Israel has admitted openly to launching hundreds of strikes inside Syria to forestall what officials here call Iran’s “military entrenchment” in its war-torn neighbor: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel, Shiite militia fighters, and advanced weaponry like precision guided missiles. Such Israeli military action—officially termed the “campaign between wars,” since it’s intended to shear Iranian power ahead of any wider conflict—has now extended into Lebanon and Iraq. How do we know this? Because Netanyahu confirmed it. “I’m doing everything to protect the security of our country from all directions—from the north against Lebanon and [the pro-Iranian militia] Hezbollah, in Syria against Iran and Hezbollah, and unfortunately also in Iraq against Iran,” Netanyahu said on August 30 during a Facebook live chat with supporters, days after the reported strikes in those three countries.A “senior Israeli defense source,” likely Netanyahu himself (who currently also doubles as defense minister), repeated similar claims a few days later to local military reporters. Indeed, the Israeli military has been extremely expansive in recent weeks detailing Iran’s efforts to arm Hezbollah with precision guided missiles on Lebanese soil. A drone attack in Beirut, in the heart of Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold, reportedly targeted high-value equipment meant to upgrade the Lebanese militia’s arsenal. Here, too, the military briefed reporters on the exact details of what allegedly was hit. This was all a sharp break from Israel’s usual policy of “purposeful ambiguity,” wherein it declines to take responsibility when something mysteriously blows up across the border—thus sparing its enemies’ blushes so as to avoid pushing them towards a response. (A limited response ultimately did come on September 1 in the form of a cross-border Hezbollah attack on an Israeli army jeep.)  To be clear: not even Netanyahu’s harshest domestic critics allege that, mere weeks before an election, he’s purposefully pushing the country into war. As The Daily Beast reported in February, there is widespread consensus that Iranian proxies armed with upgraded precision guided missiles are a severe threat to the country’s security, now deemed second only to Iran’s possible pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Most Netanyahu critics even accept the official position that the timing for these strikes was due to Iran’s escalating efforts in this area (primarily recent inroads in Iraq and Lebanon). What they do take issue with, however, is Netanyahu’s non-stop public rhetoric after the fact—verging on a Middle Eastern “end zone dance” in the face of Iran and Hezbollah—that could lead to deadlier follow-up attacks and a wider conflagration. Israel until recently used to speak softly and carry a big stick, which it deployed to great effect against Iran and its regional proxies. Netanyahu is now publicly trading insults with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who have vowed to respond in kind. Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White party, has strongly supported the government’s regional policy against Iran. Yet even he called into question the increasing “talk and breaking of the [prior] ambiguity,” saying Netanyahu is trying to “score political points” off of the national security debate.Ron Ben-Yishai, the dean of Israel’s military correspondents going back five decades, told The Daily Beast that even a prime minister-cum-defense minister doesn’t plan operations, the motivating force for which is usually the military and Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. Netanyahu, Ben-Yishai said, “wouldn’t launch an operation because of an election, and the army chief of staff isn’t a servant of any prime minister… but the talk [surrounding it] is without doubt political.” The danger of all this talk, Ben-Yishai added, is that it’s like “poking [Iran in] the eye. Especially in the Middle East, the issue of honor could lead to a response.” Nevertheless, after years burnishing his reputation as Israel’s “Mr. Security,” an election campaign dominated by military crises could help Netanyahu with his base and the many undecided voters. But part of the audience for all this mounting “blather,” as some have termed it, may in fact be farther afield. The same weekend that Israel was bombing across the Levant, President Donald Trump was at the G-7 summit in France, where he indicated a willingness to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to resolve the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program. A short while after Trump made positive comments about Iran, Netanyahu issued a video where he reminded the world (including, presumably, the U.S. president) of where he stood on the issue.    “Iran is working on a broad front to carry out murderous terrorist attacks against the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “Israel will continue to defend its security however that may be necessary. I call on the international community to act immediately so that Iran halts these attacks.”As Axios reported, Netanyahu was unable to reach Trump by telephone during the G-7 summit. In the following days the Israeli prime minister had calls with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence – but tellingly not with Trump.A snap visit to London last week, primarily to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, likely failed to console the Israeli leader.“Iran,” Esper said, “was inching toward that place where we could have talks.” Senior British officials with whom Netanyahu met were also inclined to support a French-led diplomatic process. Israeli defense officials reportedly are convinced that a Trump-Rouhani summit is now a “done deal.” Trump on Monday reiterated his openness to meeting with the Iranian leader, despite Netanyahu just hours earlier revealing what he claimed was a secret Iranian nuclear weapons facility (another cynical use, many Israeli analysts observed, of sensitive intelligence for political gain.) Earlier on Monday, Trump fired his ultra-hawkish national security advisor, John Bolton, saying he “disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions.”  A lot is riding on whether Netanyahu can maintain U.S. support for his hard line against Iran and its proxies—not least his own political future. Israelis will again go to the polls on September 17 after Netanyahu failed to form a government in the wake of the original April ballot. According to the polls, Netanyahu is once more in a very tight race for re-election. He has in recent weeks seemingly stopped at nothing to ensure that his now 10-year reign (thirteen overall dating back to the 1990s) continues. Massive banners of Netanyahu and Trump shaking hands adorn tall office buildings and billboards across the country, underlining the premier’s close relationship with the U.S. president and his overall image as a global statesman (including taking credit for the American withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear deal). Both points would be severely undercut if there were, in fact, a U.S.-Iran rapprochement. Just as he’s attacked Iran across the region, Netanyahu with equal vigor has gone after his perceived domestic enemies. He has called for a boycott of the country’s most popular television station—Channel 12—because it has deigned to publish extensive leaks from inside the myriad investigations of Netanyahu’s alleged corruption. “A terror attack against democracy,” the prime minister termed it. The channel’s legal correspondent, Guy Peleg, now travels with bodyguards.More perniciously, in a Trumpian twist, Netanyahu in the last week has railed constantly against voter fraud among Israel’s Arab minority, alleging that irregularities in this demographic cost him and his right-wing allies victory in April. “The problem of fraud and theft of the elections is real. We will not allow the coming elections to be stolen,” Netanyahu said, priming his supporters to reject the outcome of next week’s poll if it doesn’t go their way. No matter that the Central Elections Committee, police, attorney general, and other neutral observers say no such fraud actually took place and reject Netanyahu’s demand that cameras be placed in polling stations. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called the allegations “unsubstantiated and even irresponsible political attacks” intended to “undermine public trust in these [electoral] bodies.”It seems that Netanyahu is willing to attack the very foundations of Israeli democracy, and again incite against the country’s Arab minority in order to galvanize his nationalist base. It’s a well-worn tactic Netanyahu has deployed in the past—the so-called Gevalt campaign, Yiddish for “alarm.” “Gevalt is always real and Netanyahu is a panicker to begin with, which is probably what makes him so effective [as a politician],” Tal Shalev, Walla News’ chief political correspondent, told The Daily Beast. “He’s never calm.” Yet Shalev, a keen Netanyahu-watcher who traveled with him to London, said that despite the public hysteria purposefully sown, the prime minister seemed calm, confident and in a good mood in recent days. There’s a contrast between what he’s broadcasting to those around him and what he’s saying publicly, she added. “But he’s acting a bit more ruthless than usual now, and breaking all the rules, due to the situation he’s in. It’s a battle for the rest of his life.” Without his right-wing bloc of parties winning an outright majority of 61 seats in the Knesset, Netanyahu could be finished politically—and then there are his looming corruption indictments, with a pre-trial hearing set for early next month. A former ally on the right, Avigdor Lieberman, has turned against him, forcing the repeat election in the first place and now demanding a national unity government with Blue and White—which the latter refuse to countenance so long as the legally compromised Netanyahu still heads the Likud party. The political machinations after September 17 could be even more extreme than the election campaign itself. Yet there’s another possibility, perhaps even more likely, that against all the odds, and all these enemies—some real, most manufactured—Netanyahu actually wins outright. The polls aren’t looking favorable, but it’s important to recall that in the April ballot, a small right-wing faction was only 1400 votes short (out of 4 million cast) of entering parliament and thereby giving Netanyahu his majority. Last time, too, the right-wing essentially threw away six to eight seats via parties that didn’t pass the electoral threshold, a scenario now mitigated by a recent Netanyahu pact with a far-right faction that pulled out of the election.Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Barred From Israel—But a Conflagration Is ComingA source in Blue and White told The Daily Beast that the current polls, both public and internal, were very consistent—a Netanyahu victory isn’t a done deal. “This is going to be close, and will come down to the last few days,” he vowed. With the margins so fine, Netanyahu is pushing Israel to the very edge. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

September 10, 2019 at 06:38PM via IFTTT

[senviorg-blog]

(via PLEASE SHARE!! #SOMALIABOMBED #USTroops #Somalia #Famine #SomaliaStarving #US...) PLEASE SHARE!! #SOMALIABOMBED #USTroops #Somalia #Famine #SomaliaStarving #USADeath #ManufacturedFamine #NoFlyList #HumanitarianAid #WarCrimesSomalia #AlShabaab #Mogadishu#PrayersForSomalia #SomaliaIsBombed**The Empire of Chaos on the march in Africa "Another US war the mainstream media will not talk about. BP is interested in Somalia’s vast oil deposits off the Somalia coast in the Indian Ocean."The United States notes that it is ramping military activity in the poor African nation because of the need to fight Al Qaeda – ISIS “affiliated” Al Shabaab."http://theduran.com/president-trump-now-bombing-somalia-can-guess/Somalia President signs oil exploration deal with China. So it's boots on the ground for US troops to fight "terrorism". Same old song again and again."http://www.garoweonline.com/en/news/puntland/somalia-president-ali-signs-deals-with-chinese-companiesH/T Rebecca Chan #21SilkRdPolitics ------------------ Trump administration announces new military operation in Somalia By Eddie Haywood18 April 2017

"The Pentagon announced the deployment of dozens of US troops to Somalia last week, the first deployment of regular infantry since 1994, to assist the Somali military in the fight against Al Shabaab militants. Coincident with the announcement of the US deployment, a combat contingent from Uganda arrived in Somalia’s capital city Mogadishu on the weekend.

The Ugandan military contingent, which is one part of a multi-country cooperative offensive, replaces a group of Ugandan forces after that group’s one-year tour of duty ended. The Ugandan troops are to augment the US-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) against the Islamist militants.

The Ugandan troops are culled from the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), that country’s military, and are largely funded by Washington, which has funneled billions of dollars to regional governments in its imperialist effort to secure the installation of a puppet government in Mogadishu.

Uganda, along with several East African countries including Ethiopia and Kenya, are key allies in Washington’s efforts.AMISOM, the multi-country military force operating in Somalia and administered by the African Union with the full backing of the United Nations, is made up of combat forces from Kenya, Burundi, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Djibouti, Nigeria, Zambia, and Sierra Leone. The bulk of its troops come from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Sierra Leone.

More than 22,000 combat forces are currently deployed to the war-torn Horn of Africa nation. Additionally, the US already has a contingent of Special Forces personnel operating within Somalia.The increased military offensive in Somalia is being carried out with the aim of supporting the government of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and its Transitional Federal Government, and neutralizing Al Shabaab, the Somali Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militia.

The US eyes the Horn of Africa as a geopolitical prize due to its strategic importance fronting the waterway for the world’s oil traffic through the Gulf of Aden from the Red Sea in the Middle East.Al Shabaab, perceived by Washington as a roadblock for its imperialist objectives in dominating Somalia, has vowed to “double its response” to the increased US military offensive in a statement by the militant organization’s news agency Shahada.On April 9, Somalia’s military chief General Mohamed Ahmed Jimale survived a car bomb attack, for which Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility.

The attack came after the newly sworn-in military chief’s recent declaration he would “launch a new offensive” in cooperation with Washington targeting the militia. Fifteen people were killed in the attack, including several civilian passengers on a minibus in the vicinity.A day later, the militant group bombed a military academy in Mogadishu, killing five Somali soldiers.

The increased US offensive follows a sordid and bloody history of Washington’s involvement in the severely impoverished nation, most notably the infamous 1993 US operation on Mogadishu to neutralize Islamist militants which resulted in a debacle for the Clinton administration and culminated in the shooting down of two US helicopters in Mogadishu.

Eighteen US Special Forces personnel and hundreds of Somalis were killed in the 15-hour offensive.Since its rout in 1993, Washington has largely relied on drone and missile attacks on the country, resulting in scores of deaths of civilians, including women and children.

The humiliating 1993 defeat came in the aftermath of the violent US-backed overthrow of the Mohammed Siad Barre government in 1991, which was aligned with the former Soviet Union. Consequently, Somalia fell into complete disarray, with no central government, and the country fractured into various tribal factions.Washington was irked by the formation of the Islamic Courts Union in 1991, set up in the chaotic aftermath of Siad Barre’s overthrow as a rival to the US-backed Transitional National Government.

The Islamic Courts Union controlled much of Southern Somalia and Mogadishu until 2006, with its defeat following years of bloody conflict with tribal warlords and US-backed forces supporting the Transitional Federal Government which replaced the Transitional National Government. Al Shabaab grew out of this chaotic stew.

The Transitional Federal Government formed in 2004 and based in Mogadishu is packed with US-backed technocrats and protected by a coterie of East African US-allied military forces. It has never had any popular support in the country.Since the fall of the Siad Barre government in 1991, the social conditions in the country have deteriorated dramatically, Somalia is today one of the most impoverished nations in the world.

In a country which 70 percent of the population is aged 30 and under, youth unemployment is at 67 percent, according to UN figures. The poverty rate for the Somalian masses is at a shocking 73 percent, and life expectancy is 55 years. More than half the population does not have access to clean water sources, resulting in elevated levels of disease.Decades of war and conflict stoked by US imperialism have taken its toll on the Somalian masses, with thousands left maimed.

Escalating military operations in Somalia also come amidst a devastating famine currently sweeping across Somalia and Eastern Africa, which is expected to afflict tens of millions.

The US-backed imperialist violence will only exacerbate the intolerable social crisis afflicted on the Somalian masses and the surrounding region.The US troop deployment to Somalia follows Washington’s increasing turn to the use of its massive military power to solve the crisis of the capitalist system, not only in Africa, but across the globe.

From the standpoint of the ruling class, they will be satisfied with nothing less than the complete subjugation of the African continent’s economies under the total hegemonic control of US corporate and banking interests.

With the election of a nationalist figure in Donald Trump to the White House, the US ruling class is turning to ever more aggressive and reckless means to hold onto the massive amounts of wealth it has accumulated at the expense of the world’s working class.

Rivals to US domination across the globe such as China and Russia, and increasingly, France and Germany, constitute the ultimate targets in Washington’s drive for global domination of economic resources and markets in order to rid itself of the crisis of capitalism."H/T Bischara AliCopyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[newstfionline]

In Syria and Nigeria, Trump Faces the Limits of American Power

By Max Fisher, NY Times, April 11, 2017

WASHINGTON--President Trump, inspired by TV images of faraway suffering to launch missile strikes against Syria, may be about to discover a lesson that has confounded presidents for 25 years: American power can only do so much.

That truth is also embedded in another set of disturbing images that Mr. Trump has not cited publicly: those from Nigeria’s conflict-torn northeast, where a very different crisis is drawing different American action toward different ends.

Those two conflicts, in both their contrasts and commonalities, reveal something of the role that Mr. Trump has taken on and its limitation.

Both are humanitarian disasters whose ground-level stories horrify and enrage. And they are both crises of a sort that the United States, since emerging from the Cold War as the world’s policeman, has repeatedly tried but often failed to resolve.

The range of American intervention efforts, as well as their often modest success, can be seen in those two crises that Mr. Trump inherited: Syria, whose civil war has become a global issue, and Nigeria, where fighting with Boko Haram rebels has killed tens of thousands and displaced an estimated three million people.

The two wars could hardly be more different, as are the American responses. Yet they may still share the fundamental dynamics that make conflict-driven crises so resistant to outside resolution.

In Syria, the United States has sought to either mediate between the warring parties or tip the military balance through force, whether by the Obama administration’s efforts to arm certain rebels or Mr. Trump’s missile strikes. The scope of the United States’ involvement has been extensive and highly visible.

In Nigeria, American action appears more modest. There, the United States is emphasizing political tools, pressuring the government to improve practices in the affected parts of the country and supporting any reforms. It has helped to coordinate a multinational force from surrounding countries. It is also providing military advisers, intelligence and other forms of military support, which Mr. Trump this week extended in the form of warplane sales, but nothing comparable to action in Syria.

The difference between the two approaches is partly explained by the scale of the suffering, which is more severe in Syria, and perhaps by an even wider gap in attention received.

It is also explained by Syria’s wider geopolitical stakes--its conflict touches on the European refugee crisis, Russia’s resurgence, global terrorism and Middle Eastern power struggles--whereas Nigeria’s is contained to a region that is less central to American interests.

But the difference is also caused by the contrasting nature of the crises. Syria’s problem is seen, in part, as a deadlocked military imbalance that American force is meant to overturn. Nigeria’s problems are driven more by crises in governing.

Because the goal is restoring government control and local faith in it, military power plays a smaller role in American strategy.

Still, Americans sometimes see the degree of military intervention as a function of political will--if the president cared, he would intervene. This reveals a deeper assumption: that American power can solve any crisis.

But while the United States has exerted far more effort in Syria than in Nigeria, and has used different tools, the outcomes have been similar to what it often finds in such efforts: disappointment.

The conflicts in Syria and Nigeria, in their breadth of difference, reveal the common factors that make conflict-driven humanitarian crises so hard to solve: simultaneous breakdowns in governing and in the social contract by which a population agrees to exist in harmony.

Once these have collapsed, segments of society, whether divided by demographic tribe or political affiliation, come to see one another as locked in a zero-sum contest for survival and control. The result is chaos, a self-perpetuating cycle of violence with entire communities caught in the middle.

Syria and Nigeria also illustrate a common American response: intervention, military or otherwise, to resolve the underlying political breakdown that compels the fighting.

Since the early 1990s, when the United States took on the mantle of global leadership, it has acted in Somalia, in Afghanistan, in two different parts of Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Liberia and Sierra Leone’s overlapping conflicts, in East Timor and twice in the former Yugoslavia.

It has tried diplomacy and foreign aid, imposed political reforms and peacekeepers, launched cruise missiles and outright occupations. Sometimes the variance in policy was because of differing temperaments or worldviews of key American officials, or the amount of attention those crises received on TV, but the outcomes were consistently modest.

Jeremy Shapiro, the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, has argued that the United States is driven by what he calls “the American omnipotence problem.”

A string of military victories in the early 1990s, Mr. Shapiro told The New York Times in October, established an assumption “that any problem in the world is basically solvable by American power if there is sufficient political will.”

As a result, when a crisis emerges, and Americans are confronted with images like those Mr. Trump saw from Syria, the question raised is often not whether the United States is capable of imposing a solution, but why it hasn’t.

The United States has long tried to impose such shifts from the outside. If success were primarily a matter of American will or commitment, it would have come in mid-2000s Baghdad.

The United States, responsible for a crisis largely of its making and driven by a president whose legacy hung in the balance, committed the full force of its might and diplomacy to resolving the city’s sectarian bloodletting.

It imposed block-by-block order through blast walls, patrols and checkpoints. It held high-level peace talks and local neighborhood meetings. It won relative calm, but even proponents said this served only to create space for Iraqis to resolve the deeper issues that divided them, which many tried to do.

Once American troops drew down, it became clear that outside force could restore order to a neighborhood. But it could not resolve the social and political breakdowns that had made it dangerous in the first place, and would do so again once the vacuum reopened.

Syria and Nigeria, in their own ways, carry this same dilemma. American policy options are aimed at alleviating the suffering and violence that are symptoms of deeper problems. But resolution can come only when the war’s participants once again see peaceful coexistence as worth the compromises and risks--a task harder than any American mission.