Category Archives: Islamic fundamentalism

October 4, 2021 · 11:30 pm

Melathi Saldin’s Essay ….. and a Sharp Denunciation ….

A  NOTE: The engine ACADEMIA sends me copies of articles relating to my Sri Lankan interests. The item presented below is a new phenomenon seeking to stimulate discussion directed towards cross-ethnic harmony. Whether such objectives can be served in the midst of the cut-and-thrust and slashing of throats by dedicated advocates of THIS or THAT cause is a question one must address when reading the commentary that follows. The HIGHLIGHTED EMPHASIS is my imposition. 

Dear Michael,

Reminder: You’ve been invited to join the Discussion of Melathi Saldin‘s paper “Pushing Boundaries Heritage resilience of minority communities in post war Sri Lanka”.You have been invited either because you are following Melathi Saldin or because Academia thinks you’d be interested based on the overlap between this paper and what you read and write on Academia. Since the Discussion started 4 days ago, there have been 12 comments and 22 participants.

 Melathi

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September 16, 2021 · 9:16 pm

Pyrrhic Defeat: Seven Days which shattered the Great Game of Smashing Afghanistan

Jolly Somasundaram

            “Truth is like the Sun, one can shut it off for sometime, but it will not go away.” …. Elvis Presley                  

Afghanistan has done it again! A country, where her geography was her destiny, made her push towards repeated trysts with history- Alexander’s Greeks, Mongols, Mughals, the Brits, Russians, Americans. She, redoubtable to foreign invaders, specialised in making her country, micro- Kanattestans for these invading hordes. These done-in foreign forces now out-done, were not small fry but superpowers.

Troops from Britain- the Rotweiller in her time slot of Empire building- were decimated three times, bleaching this arid landscape. Undaunted, Sysyphean Britain ventured on the fourth, though now a metamorphosed American poodle: same wipe-out. Russia, in her own time slot of imperial hope, was similarly sent scurrying home. Smaller European countries- Australia, Germany, France Italy, Canada, wishing to taste Petite Gloire but lacking oomph, hitch hiked on the NATO bandwagon: the same degrading exit.

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September 12, 2021 · 1:18 pm

September 11: Back to Square One 20 Years After

David Kilcullen, in The Weekend Australian, 11-12 September 2021

Twenty years after 9/11 the terrorism threat is larger and more widespread, the Western alliance is weaker, and the US is in sharp ­decline relative to its rivals. Democratic societies are less free, stunted by “safetyism”, less resilient and more divided.

The abandonment of Afghans amid the return of an unreformed triumphant Taliban just in time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, underlines the failure of the global war on terror and the need for a radical rethink. This is particularly true for Australia, which faces the most threatening geopolitical environment in a century.

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September 12, 2021 · 1:14 am

Indelible. Unforgetable. 9/11 in Pictures

We Shall Remember.

Fire and smoke billows from the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/David Karp)

 A person falls from the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center as another clings to the outside, left, while smoke and fire billow from the building, Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

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September 4, 2021 · 12:18 am

Revealing Headlines & Videos from Afghanistan

  • Anthony Loyd  in The Weekend Australian, 3 September 2021:  “Battle is joined for Afghanistan’s never-conquered guerrilla heartland,”

  • Rodger Shanahan: in The Weekend Australian, 3 September 2021: “Impacts on Western security of Afghanistan withdrawal far from settled”

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September 1, 2021 · 7:36 pm

Western Imperialism in Retreat …. and in Vain

Well ! What do you know!

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August 29, 2021 · 3:23 pm

Sherlock Holmes & Churchill: Their Lessons on Afghanistan

David Von Drehle, in Washington Post, 8 August 2021, with this title … “Sherlock holmes & Winston Churchill: Cautionary tales on Afghanistan”

   

I learned of a place called Afghanistan as many Americans used to do: by reading one of the most famous opening chapters in literary history. I was 11 years old, and my new book introduced a young English doctor. Sent to an outpost of the Empire, he was hurried ahead to the front lines of a persistent war. He united with his assigned unit in Kandahar, and nearly died in combat when his shoulder was shattered by a bullet. Recuperating back in London, seeking an affordable apartment, he met a potential roommate — a strange fellow among whose first words to him were:

“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

Thus Dr. Watson met Sherlock Holmes.

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August 28, 2021 · 9:26 pm

John Pilger’s Overview of the Deeper History of Western Intervention in Afghanistan

John Pilger  in Consortium News, Volume 26, Number 240, 28 August 2021, with this title ““The Great Game of Smashing Nations”

More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the U.S., Britain and their “allies” destroyed.

Outside the gate of the Arg, the presidential palace, in Kabul, the day after the Saur revolution on April 28, 1978. (Cleric77, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

As a tsunami of crocodile tears engulfs Western politicians, history is suppressed. More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” [then] destroyed.

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August 25, 2021 · 9:07 pm

Taliban’s Rise as Major Setback for India: A Lament exposing Power-Plays in Asia

  Sunil Sharan in New Delhi, 22 August 2021 where his chosen title is “The Lonesomeness of Defeat” **

Afghanistan has been a debacle for the Americans, but no less so for the Indians. The great generals of the modern era, the Guderians, the Rommels, the MacArthurs, and Without doubt the greatest of them all, Napoleon, always saw things clearly. They recognized Victory to be victory and defeat to be defeat and did not confuse between the two. A superb German army opened two fronts in World War II, which led to its downfall. The Americans did the same in Iraq and Afghanistan, meeting humiliation in both places.

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August 22, 2021 · 7:21 pm

USA’s Bungling-Programmes in Afghanistan

“Double Eagle’s” Serial Commentary 

ONE

Even as the Vice-President with Obama, Biden was opposed to keeping US troops in Afghanistan. When Obama supported the Army’s request for a troop surge in 2009, VP Biden strongly opposed it. It is also known that most Americans did not want their soldiers and airmen to remain in that country after Bin Laden was taken out.

Biden made the announcement in May this year, that he will pull out all US troops by the end of August. His desire was to complete the withdrawal before Sep 2021 (the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 attacks on the USA).

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