Visiting Jaffna Today in July 2018: Misconceptions and Issues

Jehan Perera in Island, 23 July 2018, where the title is “Coping With Nationalism In Jaffna Through Engagement”

Early in the morning as I walked down a street in Jaffna, I heard a cry “Annai, annai.” Initially, I took no notice and kept on walking, but the cry was persistent. So I looked back to see two small children behind the gate of their house. I smiled at them and recommenced my walk. But again the cry “Annai, annai” rent the air. This time I turned back and walked to the source of the sound. The elder one, a girl of about six years of age, ran away but the little one, a boy of no more than three stood his ground. Eyes gleaming and with a drippy nose he stood and smiled. I reached out through the chained gate and stroked the top of his head and he laughed happily and ran away.

Germany: Humanist Fundamentalism saves Al-Qaeda Fundamentalist from Deportation

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Soeren Kern, item from The Gatestone Institute , 18 April 2018, …. where the title is “Germany’s Dysfunctional Deportation System”

• Aidoudi’s asylum request was rejected in 2007 after allegations surfaced that he had undergone military training at an al-Qaeda jihadi camp in Afghanistan between 1999 and 2000. During his training, he had allegedly worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin-Laden.
• The government in North Rhine-Westphalia confirmed that for years Aidoudi had been receiving €1,168 ($1,400) each month in welfare and child support payments.
• “Salafists such as Sami A. have no business in Germany and should be deported. Germany should not be a retirement retreat for jihadists.” — Alexander Dobrindt, Member of the German Bundestag.
• Sami Aidoudi (left) lived in Germany since 1997, until he was deported to his homeland of Tunisia on July 13, 2018. He is alleged to have undergone military training at an al-Qaeda jihadi camp in Afghanistan between 1999 and 2000. He had allegedly worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin-Laden (right) during his training. (Image sources: Aidoudi – SpiegelTV video screenshot; Bin Laden – Wikimedia Commons)

Ramsay Centre’s Multi-Million Dollar Imperial Incursion into ANU Rejected

Robert Bolton, courtesy of Financial Review, 15 June 2018, where the title is “Why the ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt rejected the Ramsay Centre’s millions” … with highlighting being the imposition of The Editor, Thuppahi

At Tuesday’s meeting of Sydney University’s academic board vice-chancellor Michael Spence took the unusual step of requesting that a discussion about the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation be cut from the minutes. According to the student newspaper Honi Soit Dr Spence explained to those in the room, “there are some cultural warriors on the Ramsay Centre Board”.

The Many Shadows from Black Hawk Down

Daniel Klaidman, in The Daily Beast, 10 September 2013, where the title is “The Lost Lessons of Black Hawk Down, https://www.thedailybeast.com/black-hawk-down

Twenty years later, the battle still echoes in America’s top policy circles. As the U.S. sets foot in Somalia again, men who fought in 1993 tell Daniel Klaidman what still haunts them.

Danny McKnight’s trip began in a tiny New England cemetery on Saturday, September 28, 2013—a crisp, clear fall morning. He kneeled by the gravestone of Corporal James Cavaco and placed a rock on top of it. McKnight’s wife, Linda, had painted the rock black, and on it, he had written with a silver Sharpie, “An American Hero” and “RLTW”—Rangers Lead the Way, the elite infantry unit’s motto.

Piercing the LTTE’s Last Redoubt: THE HINDU Reportage, 21-30 April 2009

Michael Roberts

When the LTTE persuaded and/or forced their civilian population in Thamilīlam to retreat ahead of their defensive retreat in 2008, the grand strategy was to build up picture of “a humanitarian catastrophe” that would draw the Western nations and the HR lobbies in West and the island into the fray as active participant voices who would save the LTTE from total defeat – as I have argued from way back [i]

A Scene from Pokkanai in the Last redoubt , 9th March 2009 — Pic from TamilNet  SL Army Special Forces

  Schematic Map– from ICG

A Slashing Critique of Hillary Clinton and the HR Lobby in April-May 2009: Realities of War

Michael Roberts: reproducing an article drafted in late April 2009 and appearing in FRONTLINE Volume 26 – Issue 10 :: May. 09-22, 2009 **

	Volume 26 – Issue 10 :: May. 09-22, 2009 INDIA’S NATIONAL MAGAZINE from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents
	COVER STORY Realities of war MICHAEL ROBERTS A response challenging the calls for ceasefire as a solution to the hard realities around the LTTE’s endgame. SRI LANKA NAVY HANDOUT/REUTERS  IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH released by the Sri Lanka Navy on April 21, people flee a beach controlled by the LTTE in the north-east of the island nation.

Douma: Terror from Many Sides and Confusing Tales. Hypoxia not Gas?

Robert Fisk, in The Independent, 15 April 2018,  with this title “The search for truth in the rubble of Douma – and one doctor’s doubts over the chemical attack”

This is the story of a town called Douma, a ravaged, stinking place of smashed apartment blocks – and of an underground clinic whose images of suffering allowed three of the Western world’s most powerful nations to bomb Syria last week. There’s even a friendly doctor in a green coat who, when I track him down in the very same clinic, cheerfully tells me that the “gas” videotape which horrified the world – despite all the doubters – is perfectly genuine.

an image from another source -viz. The Guardian …

War stories, however, have a habit of growing darker. For the same 58-year old senior Syrian doctor then adds something profoundly uncomfortable: the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.