Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 1, 2015


Tim Fernholz, Quartz: It’s not the poverty in the Middle East that’s driving terrorism—it’s the politics

Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose data on worsening inequality in advanced economies has captivated the public, makes a compelling—if not original—argument that economic disparities in the Middle East are a key motivation for terror attacks, including the recent ISIL murders in Paris.

“It is obvious that terrorism feeds on the Middle Eastern powder keg of inequality we have largely contributed to create,” Piketty wrote in Le Monde on Nov. 24, building on his research into inequality in the region.

His thinking wouldn’t be out of line with what then-US president George W. Bush told the United Nations in 2002, that “we fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror.”

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 1, 2015

Why Syria is the canary in the coal mine for a new era of world conflict -- Michael Renner, Reuters

Viewpoints: How to defeat Islamic State -- BBC

Why defeating the Islamic State won't bring stability to Iraq -- Ali Mamouri, Al-Monitor

Will Congress Finally Declare War on ISIS? -- Nora Kelly, The Atlantic

The Sultan of Turkey -- Christopher de Bellaigue, New York Review Of Books

Putin Takes Ineffectual Aim at Turkey -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

What Putin is really after -- Emmanuel Karagiannis, Al Jazeera

‘Nothing is real, anything is possible': How Putin’s propaganda machine works -- Jason Fields, Reuters

For Chinese leader Xi Jinping, it's all about the Communist Party -- Peter Ford, CSM

Chinese bomber exercise affirms air-defence identification zone, penetrates Second Island Chain -- Richard D Fisher Jr, IHS Jane's Defence Weekly

Poverty, corruption fuel Boko Haram in Nigeria -- PBS

Ukrainian refugees in Russia: Did Moscow fumble a valuable resource? -- Fred Weir, CSM

Does Europe Even Matter? -- Anne Applebaum, Foreign Policy

Saving Honduras -- Richard W. Rahn, Washington Times

Argentina Elections, A Wake-Up Call For Latin American Left -- Arlene B. Tickner, Worldcrunch

Does the Paris Climate Summit Matter? -- Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

People constantly search for the true causes of Middle East, Arab and Muslim violence. They always find an answer that does not include an unfortunate culture of hate, violence, and religious bigotry. This is enough to explain a lot of actions and attitudes we see from this part of the world. Not really a mystery.

My wife and I hosted a female colleague from Egypt at our professional office. We offered her friendship. All went fine until her husband, a general in the secret police, showed up to make sure that her time in our city was proper. He saw my wife's last name and concluded she was Jewish. Nope, not even close. New England Christian. One of the founding families of this country. He became hostile and threatening. Apparently he was on the wrong side in too many wars. He forbid his wife to work with us or socialize with us. I told him to leave their hate and bigotry at the Customs gate. They just did not get the fact that we, as Americans, welcome all people and don't judge them on where they are from. He could not comprehend that concept. The foreign exchange opportunity for our colleague did not go well after that point. Too bad. She could have learned a lot from our office.

In our city, the other day, an adult Muslim male in a school physically attacked a child for not being properly covered up. He was arrested. From there to here. What a shame.

Anonymous said...

This article is awful. The timing of its release is alarming as well. Be warned.


PLO terrorists castrated Israeli hostage in 1972 Munich Olympic attack.
Other athletes were beaten, had bones broken.
Widows of victims say weightlifter Yossef Romano was shot, dismembered and left to die in front of other hostages.
By JTA December 1, 2015, 8:16 pm
http://www.timesofisrael.com/plo-terrorists-castrated-israeli-hostage-in-1972-olympic-attack/

Family members of the victims of the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympians during the 1972 Games in Munich only learned the horrifying details of how they were treated 20 years later, including physical abuse and a castration, according to a Tuesday report.

The Israelis — athletes and coaches — were beaten during the 20 hours that they were held by members of the Palestinian terror group Black September, The New York Times reported.

Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, widows of two of the Olympians, discussed the details of the cruelty of the treatment in interviews with the Times that were published Tuesday.

They first viewed photos taken during the hostage siege in September 1992, at the home of their lawyer. At the time, they said, they agreed never to discuss them publicly.

Prior to that viewing, German authorities had denied the existence of photos and hundreds of pages of reports on the attack and the failed rescue attempt.

Other hostages were beaten and sustained serious injuries, including broken bones, Spitzer told the newspaper.

Her husband, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, and another hostage died during the siege in the Olympic Village; the rest were killed during a rescue attempt at the airport.

After decades of failed attempts to have the murdered Israeli athletes recognized during the games, the new International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, has agreed to a moment of remembrance during the 2016 Olympics in Rio for all athletes who have died at the Olympics.

Spitzer and Romano are lobbying to have the Munich athletes remembered separately, since their deaths were as a result of a terror attack.

The IOC reportedly has also agreed to help finance a permanent memorial to the murdered athletes in Munich.

Anonymous said...

inequality? economic instability? poverty? as key motivating factors?...
unfortunately "compelling and original arguments" when not backed by facts/reality are meaningless.
simply: the ideological focus and fundamental pillars of Islam are built around a rigid set of laws/unforgiving god/prophet that command, codify, and promote violence upon those that believe contrary to their own.