Terrorism

UBL and the African elephant

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[ cross-posted from Zenpundit — UBL, global warming, elephants, and Al-Shabaab ]
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“Natives with ivory tusks, Dar Es Salaam, Tanganyika” ca 1900, LOC

I’d like to quietly propose a few dots or data points…

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Alex Shoumatoff has a fine article titled “Agony and Ivory”, in Vanity Fair:

The riverbank is littered with elephant dung. Andrea kicks apart one of the boluses, and it is full of big, hard-shelled seeds — Pandanus, Drypetes, and Gambeya. A new study has found that forest elephants are essential to central Africa’s forests for tree-seed dispersal. They can carry heavy seeds like these (which wouldn’t get very far on their own) in their gut for 50 miles before voiding them. Another study measures the rapid, prodigious growth of the forest trees and concludes that central Africa is the second-most-important equatorial sink for atmospheric carbon after the Amazon, so elephants are important for controlling global warming, on top of everything else.

Here is Shaykh Usama bin Laden, in his radio message “The Way to Save the Earth” from As-Sahab Media:

This is a message to the whole world about those who cause climate change and its dangers — intentionally or unintentionally — and what we must do. Talk of climate change isn’t extravagant speculation: it is a tangible fact which is not diminished by its being muddled by some greedy heads of major corporations. The effects of global warming have spread to all continents of the world. Drought, desertification and sands are advancing on one front, while on another front, torrential floods and huge storms the likes of which only used to be seen once every few decades now reoccur every few years.

From UBL’s perspective, this is clearly a moral issue:

First, the corruption of the climate stems from the corruption of hearts and deeds, and there is a close relationship between the two types of corruption.

And here’s Shoumatoff again, on the situation in Kenya:

A few weeks ago, two poachers were killed and a ranger was wounded in a firefight in Meru National Park. Al-Shabaab, the Islamist youth militia which is in league with al-Qaeda and controls most of Somalia, has been coming over the border and killing elephants in Arawale National Reserve. Ivory, like the blood diamonds of other African conflicts, is funding many rebel groups in Africa, and Kenya, K.W.S. director Julius Kipng’etich told me, “is in the unenviable position of sharing over 1,700 kilometers of border with three countries with civil wars that are awash with firearms: Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan.” Nothing less than a full-scale military operation is going to stop the poaching in the north.

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Now, as EM Forster suggested, Only connect!


Beware the Attrition Mill

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There is a type of machine called an attrition mill. It consists of two steel discs which rotate at high speed in opposite directions, crushing the grain or other substance being milled between them. In earlier posts, I have used the metaphor that our civilization is now caught in a gigantic attrition mill, with one disc being the Islamic terrorist enemy and the other disc being the “progressive” Left within our own societies.

Recently, David Solway wrote an important post on the Leftist-Islamist nexus. Solway’s post is more than a bit over the top, IMO: while it is certainly true that there are signficant parallels between modern “progressivism” on the one hand, and Naziism/Fascism on the other…and even stronger parallels between radical-militant Islam and Fascism…I don’t think it is helpful to use terms like “Fourth Reich.” Still, many of the concerns he raises are valid ones, such as the extent to which prestigious American universities “are actively colluding with Islamic foreign governments” in their aim to criminalize (a non-existent) “Islamophobia,” thus putting them “in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections.” Definitely read the whole thing.

For a current example of the kind of thing that Solway is talking about, see this post from Pam Geller.

Humanity among Monsters: The Descent of Mexico

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[Cross-posted at zenpundit.com]

From Boing Boing:

A kindergarten teacher in Mexico seeks to protect her students and calm their fears as narco-cartel fighters conduct a raging gun battle outside the window of her school. The woman has nerves of iron.

 

But hey…..Mexico can’t have an “insurgency” because the narcos don’t have “political” goals. Or a unified political goal. Or because there are still good vacation deals there at all-inclusive resorts. Or….Or…Or…. whatever flimsy rationale helps policy makers continue to punt the war next door.

TSA Patdowns

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Took a flight recently and in my security line they were putting everyone through the scanner. I didn’t want to be scanned so I asked for a patdown instead. Interesting experience. I don’t recommend it except that I sort of do (keep reading). It’s no fun having some gruff fellow with a shaved head run his hands up your legs and under your waistband. My impression is that the screeners do not enjoy this work, and that their attitude is that if you are dumb enough to ask for a hand search they are going to take some satisfaction in giving you what you asked for, good and hard. Or maybe they just don’t like it when passengers make work for them. Much easier to run everyone through scanners.

Perhaps more travelers should ask for patdowns, to slow down the system and pressure Congress to junk it or at least eliminate its worst features.

A while ago I traveled to Israel. On the way back an American guy in the security line started taking off his shoes, and a screener told him to keep them on because this isn’t America (unspoken: and here we do things rationally). Why is it so institutionally and politically difficult for us to treat airport security (and other issues) rationally?

Trucking: AQAP and the Zetas

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[ corss-posted from Zenpundit — the talk & the walk, vehicles as weapons, Islamist and “narco” terror ]
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Compare and contrast:

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Hell, a Colombian cartel was fielding narco-subs a while back, as I recall..