“…Trump, appears open to the clash-of-civilizations idea…” Steve Bannon, who has ascended in just months from relative obscurity to become one of President Trump’s most influential advisors, has said that Islam is “the most radical” religion in the world and the U.S. is engaged in a civilizational struggle potentially leading to “a major shooting war in the Middle East again.”http://www.usatoday.com/..
Huntington argues that states belonging to different civilizations will have a higher propensity to be involved in international conflict. This effect should be more prominent in the post-Cold War period. The civilization factor should also interact with membership in different Cold War blocs, border contiguity, regime type, and levels of modernization, magnifying or depressing the basic effects of these variables.
This study shows that state interactions across the civilizational divide are not more conflict prone.
The first eight years of the post-Cold War era also fail to give support to Huntington’s thesis. Moreover, while the civilization factor modifies the effects of border contiguity and regime type, this is not sufficient to generate conditions under which differences in civilizational heritage are associated with greater risks of conflict. www.hks.harvard.edu/…
Not if … when … will the preconditions for rationalizing war occur since leaked transcripts indicate that Lord Dampnut threatened Mexico with a military invasion to arrest drug criminals.
Or if he can ever recover from his pooch-screwing in Yemen in the first week due to desperate over-compensating for the embarrassment of his 2011 WHCD call-out while PBO was 11-dimensionally killing Osama bin Laden.
Happy Mayday Lofo Mofo.
Unnamed military officials told Reuters that “Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support, or adequate backup preparations.”
“I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul…”
Michael Anton, who served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, joined President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this year as a staffer on the National Security Council. But in the year leading up to the 2016 election, Anton operated as an anonymous booster of then-candidate Trump. Using the pen name Publius Decius Mus (the name of a self-sacrificing Roman consul), Anton promoted Trump’s anti-Islam, anti-immigration platform on fringe websites. The Weekly Standard revealed Publius to be Anton last week.
As Publius, Anton is best-known for his September 2016 article, “The Flight 93 Election,” which argued that, like the passengers on the aircraft hijacked by al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans in 2016 needed to “charge the cockpit” and prevent Hillary Clinton from winning the election — or die. The article, which ran in the Claremont Review of Books, was circulated widely on conservative and white nationalist websites. The New Yorker declared it “the most cogent argument for electing Trump” but cited the responses by Ross Douthat of The New York Times that he’d “rather risk defeat at my enemies’ hands than turn my own cause over to a incompetent tyrant” and by Jonah Goldberg of National Review that its central metaphor is “grotesquely irresponsible.”
President Trump signed an executive order on January 27 that banned entry into the US by anyone from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days, and banned nearly all refugees for 120 days. Over the week that it was in effect, it caused chaos at airports, heartbreak to families inside and outside the US, and confusion throughout the US government. After several temporary or localized court rulings protecting individual people, the order was put on hold February 3 by a federal judge, and is currently being considered in court. Democrats and progressives call it a “Muslim ban,” to call attention to the policy’s roots in Trump’s Islamophobic campaign and to make the case that it’s unconstitutional discrimination. The White House goes back and forth over whether to call it a “ban” at all — it prefers the phrase “extreme vetting.” Most press outlets, trying to split the difference, call it a “travel ban.” (Rudy Giuliani) So when [Trump] first announced it he said “Muslim ban.” www.vox.com/…
Bannon hired Thomas Williams, an American former priest, as Breitbart’s Rome correspondent. Williams belonged to the conservative Legion of Christ, which was roiled by scandal when it was revealed its founder had been a pedophile.
Williams recently told his own story on an Italian TV talk show: In 2003, he fathered a child, but he kept it secret until he was outed by a news report. He then left the priesthood and married the child’s mother — who is the daughter of the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon.
In other news…. Fallout from the ban on the seven countries:
Yesterday at the Post Office I was in line behind a woman slightly younger than myself. She was trying to send a new cell phone to her grandson – a US soldier assigned in Syria. She was told that the ban included sending mail or packages there. She said the package was for her grandson, a soldier stationed there. They said no. It could not go.
She was in the parking lot as I left the building. I spoke with her to see if I could offer any assistance, as when I was in Vietnam, my parents used an APO address to send me packages. I asked her if they refused the APO address for Syria. She said no, she was sending the package to a mail broker – a civilian contractor who delivers the mail to the US forces. I suggested to her that mailing to a civilian in Syria was the problem, and that she should send it via the military postal system using an APO address.
I do not know if the 1960s APO system is still in use – it dates back to WWII. If the military is using civilian contractors with a Syrian address, there will be problems. Cell phones – untraceable – to a Syrian civilian would arouse my suspicion as they can be used to trigger IEDs.
Anyone know if APO addresses are used by US forces in combat zones?
She didn’t have the APO number. I advised her to text her grandson (She said she could text but not talk to him) and get the APO number. She said using the civilian contractor was expensive – $138 for a small hand-sized box. Must be a left over Halburton company or one of tRump’s enterprises…..
That would run into the same security problems as the USPS with regard to sending stuff like cell phones. I also have an idea those private carriers don’t go to combat zones.
I believe they go into the safer areas as a government contractor. Remember the 747 carrying government vehicles in Afghanistan that crashed due to a shifting load.
Steve Bannon, who has ascended in just months from relative obscurity to become one of President Trump’s most influential advisors, has said that Islam is “the most radical” religion in the world and the U.S. is engaged in a civilizational struggle potentially leading to “a major shooting war in the Middle East again.” http://www.usatoday.com/..
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Chuck Stanley
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Flowers For Socrates 
In other news…. Fallout from the ban on the seven countries:
Yesterday at the Post Office I was in line behind a woman slightly younger than myself. She was trying to send a new cell phone to her grandson – a US soldier assigned in Syria. She was told that the ban included sending mail or packages there. She said the package was for her grandson, a soldier stationed there. They said no. It could not go.
She was in the parking lot as I left the building. I spoke with her to see if I could offer any assistance, as when I was in Vietnam, my parents used an APO address to send me packages. I asked her if they refused the APO address for Syria. She said no, she was sending the package to a mail broker – a civilian contractor who delivers the mail to the US forces. I suggested to her that mailing to a civilian in Syria was the problem, and that she should send it via the military postal system using an APO address.
I do not know if the 1960s APO system is still in use – it dates back to WWII. If the military is using civilian contractors with a Syrian address, there will be problems. Cell phones – untraceable – to a Syrian civilian would arouse my suspicion as they can be used to trigger IEDs.
Anyone know if APO addresses are used by US forces in combat zones?
Apparently, APO works for combat zones. Here is some information from stamps.com which give approximate transit times.
https://stamps.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/406/~/what-are-my-options-when-mailing-to-an-apo-or-fpo-address%3F
This USPS page may also be helpful.
https://www.usps.com/ship/apo-fpo-dpo.htm
She didn’t have the APO number. I advised her to text her grandson (She said she could text but not talk to him) and get the APO number. She said using the civilian contractor was expensive – $138 for a small hand-sized box. Must be a left over Halburton company or one of tRump’s enterprises…..
worst case would be DHL /FedEx?
That would run into the same security problems as the USPS with regard to sending stuff like cell phones. I also have an idea those private carriers don’t go to combat zones.
I believe they go into the safer areas as a government contractor. Remember the 747 carrying government vehicles in Afghanistan that crashed due to a shifting load.
“These are the best of times and the worst of times.” Somebody said it, not me.
Yes, Lord Dampnut, has No conflicts. He’s in reality a really, really great business petson. IN HIS MIND.