New data from Pakistan published in the American Journal of Political Science suggests that the middle class there is more likely to support violent extremism than those who are less well off. The factor proposed for this difference is interesting:
the contextual factor that matters appears to be exposure to the externalities of militant violence. Leveraging a new dataset of violent incidents, we find first that violence is heavily concentrated in urban areas and second that dislike of militant groups is nearly three times stronger among the urban poor living in districts that have experienced violence than among the poor living in nonviolent districts. It is not that people are vulnerable to militants' appeals because they are poor and dissatisfied. Instead, it appears that the urban poor suffer most from militants' violent activities and so most intensely dislike them.
In other words, the people who have to deal with the consequences are those who don't like the violent extremism. It's not a surprising causal relationship, but it is emblematic of the habit among the better-off classes the world over to casually form hardened opinions over matters that have nothing whatsoever to do with them.
It took barely 24 hours for the troops-out-of-Afghanistan chorus to break into an outpouring of editorials demanding the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan now that Osama bin Laden is dead. Now you have your prize, they smugly hummed, so let's call it a day. Though there is sometimes an underlying resentment that bin Laden was taken from this world--like when Chris Hedges says his "stomach sank" upon hearing the news--the stoppist opportunists are seizing what they can from the moment anyways.
The "bin Laden's done, now let's desist" argument suffers from numerous fallacies, the first of which is an appalling historical amnesia. It's not in the very distant past that the US already once washed its hands of Afghanistan prematurely after some fairly significant covert meddling in Afghan affairs, in the interest of their own foreign policy objectives.
As Afghanistan turned to face a post-Soviet world at the dawn of the 1990s, it found America's back turned, and much of the rest of the international commmunity followed suit. Into the post-Najibullah void poured the competing muj factions who unleashed violence and chaos over a population in desperate need of a functioning state, rather than a...More >>
Courtesy of the Onion: An irresistibly cute photo of an adorable piglet was uploaded by Al Queda and forwarded millions of times before servers collapsed.
Indiscriminate insurgent attacks in Afghanistan have made that country a lethal place for civilians. The useful idiots who protest that Afghan civilians are in as much danger - if not more - from NATO as from the Taliban are not only equating the policeman with the thug he is sent in to arrest. They are also simply wrong; it seems that almost 90 percent of Afghan casualties were killed by the Taliban, not the international forces meant to stop them. From Counting the Dead in Afghanistan:
For the first time, those data are now publicly available. In January, ISAF provided Science with a database of civilian casualties called CIVCAS. It is the military's internal record of the death and injury of Afghan civilians, broken down by month, region, weaponry, and perpetrator. By its reckoning, 2537 civilians were killed and 5594 were wounded over the past 2 years, with 12% of those casualties attributed to ISAF forces and the rest to insurgents. The death toll is 93% identical to that in the WikiLeaks data, revealing
Throwing yourself into the middle of a forest fire or humanitarian crisis might not be the first thing that comes mind when one thinks of charity. And the hands-on approach to aid abroad can become infinitely grittier, and more dangerous, than most people might like. Certainly enough so that only someone dedicated to their cause would be crazy enough to do that kind of work.
Just ask the ZAKA organization, who began thusly, in its own words:
"In 1989, while studying in a yeshiva, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, the founder and chairman of ZAKA, and his fellow students were startled into reality by a thunderous boom, 2 minutes of silence and then scores of bloodcurdling screams. The number 405 bus was steered over the mountainside by a terrorist. The bus exploded and 17 people died and scores were injured. Yehuda and his colleagues rushed to the scene and began to care for the wounded and dead. It was chilling and horrifying chaos, Yehuda relates. For six years after this incident Meshi Zahav and a dedicated group of volunteers continued this
An Al Qaida-linked website has targeted Canadian Coptic Christians and has apparently provoked an unusual response from the police.
Instead of planning to protect Canadian Coptic Christians from violence, the RCMP has instead advised them that they may not be able to protect them from any violence planned against them. As a result, Canadian Coptics – who celebrate according the Julian calendar, placing Christmas on January 7 – will conclude their public celebrations with the reading of the liturgy. This means that several celebrations, including a Christmas dinner, will be cancelled.
According to the CBC, worries about possible attacks on Canadian Coptic Christians heightened after a recent bomb-related arrest in Ottawa. Many Canadians were hoping that this arrest was notrelated to radical Islamic terrorism, but the CBC’s report may give adequate reason to suspect otherwise.
Brian Lilley is far from the only Canadian wondering precisely how the RCMP’s A Division has influenced the decision to cancel these events. If they have, this is cause for a great deal of alarm
In The Kingdom, FBI Director James Grace (portrayed by...More >>
The Taliban are apparently increasingly sensitive to public relations, as shown by their recent irate response to a UN report showing that the psychopathic Islamo-fascist militia of demons is responsible for three quarters of civilian deaths in the Afghan conflict. In a statement released to the media, the Talibs professed that,
The Islamic Emirate considers the latest United Nations report as a self-fabricated figure and believes that this is also a propagandist effort for covering the American brutalities like the past nine years in Afghanistan.
After terrorizing the civilian population for five years in power followed by eight years as insurgents, the Taliban should hardly be surprised by these numbers. No one else is it seems.
In August 2010, Amnesty International called for the Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan to be prosecuted for war crimes on account of their systemic and deliberate targeting of civilians. At that time, Amnesty noted that,
Attacks by the Taleban and other anti-government forces accounted for more than 76% of civilian casualties and 72% of deaths.
Indiscriminate insurgent attacks in Afghanistan have made that country a lethal place for civilians. The useful idiots who protest that Afghan civilians are in as much danger - if not more - from NATO as from the Taliban are not only equating the policeman with the thug he is sent in to arrest. They are also simply wrong; it seems that almost 90 percent of Afghan casualties were killed by the Taliban, not the international forces meant to stop them. From 
Throwing yourself into the middle of a forest fire or humanitarian crisis might not be the first thing that comes mind when one thinks of charity. And the hands-on approach to aid abroad can become infinitely grittier, and more dangerous, than most people might like. Certainly enough so that only someone dedicated to their cause would be crazy enough to do that kind of work.
An Al Qaida-linked website has targeted Canadian Coptic Christians and has apparently provoked an unusual response from the police.
