Tag Archives: Pakistan

Low ball realisation

This happens and I am just as easily taken in on that funnel as anyone else. Before I go into that part it will be important to illuminate another side. This all started last night when I took notice of ‘Pakistan blocks Wikipedia for ‘blasphemous content’’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64523501). It is there we see “The move was announced on Saturday after the free online encyclopaedia was given a 48-hour deadline to remove some material. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said Wikipedia failed to comply with its ultimatum.” And if you think that it is set to “Blasphemy is a highly sensitive and incendiary issue in Pakistan.

Other platforms including Tinder, Facebook and YouTube were previously blocked in the Muslim-majority country” you would only be partially right. You see, later in the article we see “Facebook was blocked in 2010 following a row over an internet campaign inviting people to draw images of the Prophet Muhammad”, here we now have an issue. You see, Islam does not allow any image of the prophet and every Muslim knows this. This is done by people to push islamophobia. It was not an drawing competition to draw the image of Jesus of Nazareth, or even Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. It was an insult to Muslims and we need to start learning that some things are just not on. Why insult Islam? Islamophobia is a lot bigger today than it was in 1095, when the first Crusade was happening we we were all trying to kill one another. Something needs to be done and the drawing competition was my handle to write the script ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which was my script on the assassination of Dutch politician Geert Wilders. A movie that plays in part in Saudi Arabia and part in the Netherlands (the Hague). It was my response to these unacceptable acts of islamophobia. Yet in the latter settings it also enabled me to create a new IP that allows for 50 million subscriptions in phase one and growing a lot more after that. Now with this event in Pakistan it might be that my expectations might have been low balled. The numbers might turn out decently higher. Which would be good for me, but not so good for Google, Facebook and two other players. Amazon is still on the ramp to make a decent killing here, but there is one issue, I am not sure if Amazon is ready for it and in part I hope that the Kingdom Holding Company and in particular Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud as I hope to retire soon and leave this islamophobic world behind me. I honestly have had enough of the hatred and empty ego stages, aren’t you fed up with needless hatred?

Anyway, the stage of Pakistan works for me, but there are two parts that needs addressing. It is seen with “Wikipedia failed to respond to “repeated correspondence” over the removal of “blasphemous content”” and ““They did remove some of the material but not all,” he added, confirming that the website would remain blocked until “all the objectionable material” was removed” for the first part and “Details of the material in question have not been revealed” for the second part. For me there is an issue as I am not Muslim, I have no idea what goes and what is forbidden as blasphemous. That part too needs addressing and the BBC is not giving us anything on this at present. I cannot blame the BBC, because I do not know if they know, or if Wiki has been lacking in informing all parties. In addition we see “Free speech campaigners have raised concerns over the move, saying there seemed to be “a concerted effort to exert greater control over content on the internet”” yet I do not agree with them, not in this case. Islam has strict rules and for the most Muslims are pretty conservative when it comes to those rules. We need to accept this and bullshit wielding free speech campaigners need to accept that their notions are limiting and not the view of all, not even the view of most. Now that Christianity is a minority, these ‘evangelisers’ will have to put more and more water to their mass wine and accept that they are no longer in any kind of charge. We need to accept that we might have a say in OUR pond in our garden, but our voices are no longer accepted in lakes, rivers, seas and oceans. We need to learn to adhere to the rules in those places. I love free speech, but do we even have that? We are silenced by trolls and idiots who silence us whilst politicians remain silent and remain inactive on too many events. In other places these people are taken off the board and not in a nice way. We low ball our vision of self, whilst we over-exaggerate how much we can do. 

The world never ever worked that way. In the 90’s Netscape was told where to go by Microsoft and the stakeholders on the side of Microsoft, several other events took place, but in many cases, they were simply surpassed. AltaVista became part of Yahoo and they were surpassed by Google who thought things through and really made a killing. Not all events are ‘evil’ events, technology does evolve and no everyone adjusts and evolves with it, that is the part we overlook. Islam does not evolve easily or to a larger effect. Changes take a really long time and we either accept that or we become obsolete in their eyes. The second is likely to happen and we need to take heed. The larger problem is that plenty of technologists like me are not Muslim, some of us have no clue what is blasphemous and we are often never informed. As I read it Wiki was, as we were given “Wikipedia failed to respond to “repeated correspondence” over the removal of “blasphemous content”” but the BBC did not tell us what the blasphemy was. And that is the setting that islamophobes are pushing for with their drawing competition of Muhammed and I get it that Muslims take offence to such events, do you?

The world and economy are taking a sharp turn in another direction, I foresaw that and created new IP because of it. Will it work? I hope so, yet I cannot tell. Amazon is my best hope as Google walked away from that field, a field with a maximum of 1,800,000,000 subscribers. Time will tell, but as I see it Pakistan is now adding oil to that fire, which seemingly works for me, I personally hope so and that is as good as it gets for me (at present).

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Success of terrorism

That is the shout and plenty of you will not agree, I get that but lets look at the stage that we ourselves created. 25 years ago the Taliban was small, insignificant, just another wannabe party. Then Osama Bin Laden made a failed attempt on the US. The action was successful, the outcome less so. You see, he wanted the Twin towers to burn throughout the day and night. At night billions would see the twin towers burn and like torches illuminate New Yorkers, it would have been some sight. In one strike a demoralised America. The outcome was different, the towers collapsed and America got angry, really angry and you know what happened next. On May 2nd 2011 he was killed. One martyr and now the Taliban are in charge in Afghanistan. NATO and America lost. They got beat. The one word that got them there was ‘indecisiveness’, when they acted they did not. Actions I saw coming a mile away on 2005 onwards were ignored and the Taliban went largely asleep, only to awaken when America pulled out and within a week the Taliban had control of over 80% of all hardware, they took the country in less than a week. This you can look up, this is all there for the reading and now we are about to face the same setting again. The Taliban (via the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan) will do this again, now they are going for Pakistan. So what will be the epitaph of the west? “If only we acted” that is today’s lesson. The first part we get from ‘Pakistan mosque bombing survivors traumatised but undeterred’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/31/never-imagined-pakistans-blast-victims-mourned) we see all the grandstanding as we are told that “At least 100 people killed and more than 225 wounded in a suicide attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar” a mere 150 kilometres from Islamabad. We also get “The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable, This is no less than an attack on Pakistan.” We get this from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and we get his answer, we really do. But the USA and NATO showed the Taliban the path to success the last time around, as such this time around the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan knows what to do. They are willing to fight 25 years to get the job done. And there is a clear setting. For whatever reason Pakistan has been left weaker through years of sanctions and other actions. Now that there is a path to success the 

Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan are grabbing their options. So, as we also are given ‘What is behind the rising violent attacks in Pakistan?’ (At https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/2/what-is-behind-the-rising-attacks-in-pakistan) we need to realise that the quote “Pakistan decided to cooperate with the US when it invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. US forces targeted armed groups, including TTP, along the Pakistan-Afghan border for decades. Washington-Islamabad ties have remained cold since 2011, when al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. The US accused Pakistan of sheltering the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.” And all that could be true, but the aftermath was not properly taken care of and now that these forces are reinvigorated in part by the success that the Taliban has by governing Afghanistan these two players are ready to tackle a much larger target. They are ready to take the war for governing to Pakistan, which will also have larger impacts in India as well. The Ukrainian situation merely works FOR the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan as both the US forces and NATO forces and their equipment is spread too thin all over the theatres of action. We see the news of actions intensifying in Al Jazeera but the other places do not mention it as much, it is not sexy enough. But I reckon that this changes when the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan makes one successful blast in Islamabad. That will wake people up, but depending on the damage there it might be too late. I reckon that if Pakistan is left without serious resources the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan has a decent chance of changing governments by 2030, perhaps in time to attend festivities in Riyadh, that is the jackpot for them and if you say, this is one event, you would be right, but the setting is that TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani has been blamed for more than 100 attacks since walking out of a ceasefire with the Pakistani government last November. 100 attacks in three months. That shows that they have resources, equipment and a mindset to resolve the issue with that plenty of people willing to be a martyr. Pakistan is in serious troubles and we need to take heed, because Afghanistan was merely one nation. Pakistan is the 23rd-largest worldwide in terms of GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP). According to a 2021 estimate, the country has a population of 227 million people (5th-largest worldwide). That is not merely a nation that is the jackpot price that the Taliban awaits getting. And make no mistake, this time around the indecisiveness of the USA and NATO will have a long lasting global impact. That is what we face. Feel free to check data, feel free to check the papers, but also realise that any new day of inactions merely helps the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) to get closer to THEIR goals and they are not YOUR goals. 

Enjoy the weekend!

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One issue, more to come

The first issue is known. I wrote about it on January 23rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/23/a-national-consequence/) it was ‘A national consequence’ where we see the events unfold between Turkey and Sweden. I want to side with Sweden, but this time they broke their own windows and now we see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64457233) ‘Swedish flag burnt in Jakarta amid Turkey Nato row’ it took a few days but now the anti-Sweden issues start rising and that is before Egypt and Pakistan wake up to the issues that Sweden allowed to be mainstream issues. As I personally see it Rasmus Paludan started this and is not only cause to Sweden being halted from entering NATO, Swedish tourists will do well to stay out of Islamic nations for a while. You all it freedom of expression, most others will call it targeted racism, but the Swedes will get all time to ponder that stage. As we get “Other anti-Sweden protests have also taken place in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Lebanon this month.” We see that Pakistan is awake, not sure about Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but that cannot be far away. Even as we are given “We urge the Indonesian government to not just condemn this, but to also join in boycotting everything Swedish,” said one protester in Jakarta, Wati Salam. What they [the Swedes] did was an insult to our holy scripture,” said another, Junaedi Abdilla.” We recognise the Swedish defence with “the burning does not reflect the government’s opinion” which came from their embassy in Djakarta, but the truth is that they allowed the extremist to start the fire and now it is an international problem. Rasmus Paludan played you and you let it escalate. For me it does not matter, at some point one of the Arabic nations will consider my script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and that works well or me. It was designed with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in mind, but it can be easily reset to Denmark (or Sweden) with Rasmus Paludan being the target. There is a consequence of insulting Islam and we need to accept that these consequences have far reaching consequences. Drawing the image of Muhammad, burning Qurans. These are mere two events and the far right keeps on going to these two places. They have been doing it for years and at some point something will have to give. So what happens when Iran and Saudi Arabia stops delivering oil? Will Europe pay premium for American oil, or will they consider Venezuela as a supplier? Something has to give and in this day and age, the available options are not out there in numbers. You did realise that, did you not?

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Dopey to some

Yes, Dopey, a name I cloak myself in frequently, that loveable dwarf not right in the mind and that is me to a fault. I just saw Matrix resurrections. I did not really like it, that is not the fault of the actors, they all played their hearts out and you can see that. The story was clever, really clever but the WOW factor was missing. I saw the first three as a complete story and I was fine with it. There was nothing missing. It had the elements of a Greek Tragedy, it had action (a lot of that) and several other sides. I was happy. So when the 4th movie came out, I was not really on par with my thoughts, and it had been close to 2 decades. I still remember the trailer that I saw in Chicago, it blew me away, I saw the movie 8 weeks later in Europe and I saw it more than once. Then the DVD came. I reckon that plenty of people got a DVD player just for this movie and that is saying something. There was a WOW factor that numbers 2 and 3 continued. It was missing here, but it made it not a bad movie, it merely made me less interested and I was not alone in this, but it does not matter. The storyteller in me woke up. I had my own movie considerations. It is called ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and the story was made for the Arab world (Egypt, UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) in this I personally believe it would be a hit, but that I my view. Then my mind created ‘Another Furlong’ after the whole 9 yards with Matthew Perry. Just now I saw the Hulu Trailer of Hellraiser, it might be a hit. Especially if they resurrect the Nightbreed franchise as well, in the comics there have been several interaction between these two and there would be enough materials for either movies of mini series. The mind does not sit still, so as I was contemplating ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’, more important the other books. Not sure if Tim Burton is considering to make the others into movies, but if he is not any of the streamers should consider it. There are so many options, but we get to see (for the most) a newly resurrected version of Death Wish, Robocop, Firestarter or Flatliners. I have nothing against any of these movies. Yet where is thee good stuff? Where is the original stuff? Now, lets be clear Matrix resurrections is original, based on a franchise, but an original story. Yet where are the titans? Another Lord or the Rings? OK, this is the prequel, the rings of power. I grant you that, but we are so about seeing more of the same that we merely endure repetition, this was one of the reasons why I came up with ‘How to assassinate a politician’, not the most important reason, but a reason none the less. I wonder what more I could make. I started to pencil season two on the grandson of Hades (still no title come to mind), I made one on the stage of the past with Kenos Diastima and Residuam Vitam. And past that a few small parts that require evolution. Perhaps it is a dopey thought, but is this what most of us have resorted to? Repetition? I am uncertain but overall I see less awesome movies. I reckon that Maverick is the most overwhelming movie I have seen this year and that is not a good thing. Consider, how many truly good movies have You seen in the last 6 month? If you need more than a minute to name 5, you will be able to see my point of view. With Netflix, Hulu, Disney we see so many more works, but the overall quality is falling down, that is not a good thing. You might have another idea regarding this and that I fine, but I worry what we will get in 2023, 2024 and 2025. That might just be me though.

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A pitfall named success

That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the BBC article a few days ago. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62736126) titled ‘Saudi Arabia seizes record 46 million amphetamine pills hidden in flour’ passed my eyes. This is not a negative setting (well perhaps to some extent) on the situation. So when we see “Security forces tracked the shipment as it arrived at the Riyadh Dry Port and was taken to a warehouse, the General Directorate of Narcotics Control said. Six Syrians and two Pakistanis were arrested in a raid on the warehouse.” Some will see the success as is, but not me. This was about something else. That is not a negative setting on the security forces. 

Consider that the population of Saudi Arabia is a little below 35 million, and any nation has a drug problem, some nations have a larger setting, lets say that it is perhaps a maximum of 1% of the Saudi Arabian population. That implies that 350,000 people will consider trying any drug. As such 46 million pills is over-drowning Saudi Arabia. And if we know that a little could be spotted, there was no way that 46 million pills would ever work. When we consider this, there is a larger play in motion.

This was about something else, what is was really about is unknown to me. But if a shipment like this will get spotted in Germany, who has a speculative drug problem decently higher than Saudi Arabia, why push a solution in an area where it will be spotted? this question comes to my mind. What was this really about? What was the intended result? Would any drug dealer ship to a place the amount that has 100% chance of being spotted? I ask you this because it is important to realise that this is optionally the beginning of something else. If you know that all resources are required in one place for a drug shipment larger than anything that nations has ever faced. Then there is a chance that another shipment of another kind might pass through, the question is what was the other shipment and yes that is highly speculative, yet time has shown that criminals are getting more intelligent and shipping 1000% of something that might have some interest in a nation is an act less intelligent. Consider that if my numbers (speculative ones) are to some degree correct. They could have flooded the market with 1-2 million pills. To bring well over 2000% of this is folly (and near impossible to hide). This was about something else. What it was remains unknown and highly speculative, but I have no doubt that the pills were about something else or for something else. As I se it Saudi Intelligence (General Intelligence Presidency) better figure that out fast, because 46 million pills make for one hell of a decoy. I hope they figure out what the decoy was for, I really do.

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The other currency

This is one of these articles that had to be written. Some will take offence, I get that, but it is essential to speak truthful, to speak my mind. Some will agree, some will not. The bigger the issue, the larger the polarisation, that has always been the case. Yet in this case I need to say upfront that this is not an attack on the media, this is not an attack on the writers of the articles that I will oppose. This needs to be said upfront, not after the event. In addition, some will agree with the article, that is fine. Be not afraid to have a point of view, be not afraid to oppose me (or others), your point of view is not invalid, it is merely differs from some. 

The setting started with the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/shamima-begum-justin-trudeau-to-follow-up-canadian-spy-claim). There we see ‘Shamima Begum: Justin Trudeau to ‘follow up’ Canadian spy claim’ and in addition we see “Canada’s PM defends need for ‘flexible and creative’ intelligence work by CSIS after claim operative delivered 15-year-old to Islamic State” with the added “were met at Istanbul bus station for their onward journey to Syria by a man called Mohammed al-Rashed. Rashed was also an informant for Canadian intelligence, who told the Met police of their connection with him in March 2015” Here we see the first problem. We are ‘informed’ to focus on ‘were met at Istanbul bus station’, but there was a lot before that. The recruiter/lover-boy who initiated contact, The fact that the girls thought they were grown up by keeping silent to their family, the people around them. They ignored it all and they became TERRORISTS. Canada did the right thing, they kept quiet and documented as much as they could for as long as they could. The fact that these girls arrived in Istanbul unopposed, unquestioned and no red flags were raised until then. That opens a lot of questions on this issue right from the start and I see nothing of that. 

And now we get to the important bit “Her family’s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, argues that Begum was trafficked out of the country. The suggestion that a western intelligence asset may have been involved, including organising bus tickets for her, will reignite the debate over the removal of her British citizenship.” You see, as I personally see it, ‘trafficked’ implied ‘against their wishes, or optionally under false pretences. This was not the case. These girls KNEW that they would be going to Islamic State, more important. The stage of ‘a western intelligence asset’ was not the case until Istanbul, a little over 3000 Km. We do not get to see that either. There needs to be a price for assisting terrorists and now she is paying. 

You see you people need to learn that there is no option for terrorists. If you give them one you get to learn a very hard lesson, one with hundreds if not thousands of cadavers. There is a much larger issue. You see the bigger enemies of Islamic State are not the people you expect. It is Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Islamic nations all. This is not some islamic debate, Islamic State is a collection of wannabe tyrants, all wanting their own nation where they rule with iron hand. So where is that land? It is in every nation and it was for some time a large chunk of Iraq. I reckon I will be around when I get to put the ‘protectors’ of Shamima Begum in the limelight as co-conspirators towards the dead that we will undoubtedly see. At that point they will all hide, they will all demand silence and they will all shun and the media will let them. It was unfortunate, but it happens. That is where we are heading and as far as I can tell, Canada and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) did whatever they needed to to keep Canada safe. These are not thieves, not bank-robbers and they were certainly not innocent. They are terrorists and that takes a whole different approach to keeping a nation and its citizens safe. And lets be clear, there are close to zero nations that condone Islamic State and we need to realise that if Islamic governments will not deal with them, how far have we strayed from the path by giving them leeway and listening to some crocodile tear approach? That path will lead to a lot of innocent deaths.

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It is more than a pool full

I got a nice surprise this morning from the BBC. They had an interesting article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62717599), in this article named ‘Undeclared pools in France uncovered by AI technology’ we see an article on something different. It is not a pool on which girl has the loveliest lingerie. No it is a large tub of water. In Franco they however have the rule that “Pools can lead to higher property taxes because they boost property value, and must be declared under French law.” And as such we get to “The software, developed by Google and French consulting firm Capgemini, spotted the pools on aerial images of nine French regions during a trial in October 2021.” This led to finding well over 20,000 undeclared swimming pools with the number leading to “some €10m (£8.5m) in revenue, French media is reporting” As far as I can tell it is the first time a revenue service got to be clever about the tools available in this. A novel and lovely way to find something. This is a case of deeper learning taking a dive into the photo’s that aids the tax office. To be honest, I never knew swimming pols had to be declared and as such there is the added fact that I never lived in France. And as we are given “According to Le Parisien newspaper, an average pool of 30 sq m (322 sq ft) is taxed at €200 (£170) a year.” If that is true, the finding of 20,000 undeclared pools will add to the French coffers in a nice way. So it sucks to be the non declaring swimming pool owner. But that is not the real deal. It is about something more and we get that when we see “His comments come as France tackles its worst recorded drought that has left more than 100 municipalities short of drinking water. In July, France had just 9.7mm (0.38in) of rain, making it the driest month since March 1961, the national weather service Meteo-France said. Irrigation has been banned in much of the north-west and south-east of France to conserve water.” And still some see global warming as a nuisance, something that is not real. Last week I saw an image of the largest sweet water lake in China, now completely dry, now we see images like the image below. 

I have nothing against people with a pool and for the most people are not hindered by drought, not in Europe, but the fact that France now has the driest month since March 1961, before I was even born gives a much larger stage, one that we cannot deny. It is not about the pools, it is about water and we need to figure out how we can unite all the data on water and find a common factor. I know, it will be people. But consider that the Seine took care of a few hundred in 800AD, and went from 1960 with 46.62 m to 2021 with 67.50 m people. This is a growth of 44.8% in 61 years, now they do not all spot by the Seine, but it gives a rather large stage when we consider that In 1600, there were roughly 220,000 Parisians; in 1650, approximately 450,000 in 1700, Paris had about 550,000 inhabitants. Now Paris is a city that houses 2.161 million, that shows a growth of 390%, now we have a different picture. And here deeper learning might give organisations a better view and we need to do this, not next week or next year. We need to start looking at the facts now, something needs to be done now. And it has nothing to do with pools, that is merely taxation fun for some. The question becomes have we hit a larger point in our evolution? How long until we have drunk all the non salt water? You think I am kidding, but we need to consider that the population of this planet was 2 billion in 1900, in 122 years time we went to 8 billion. 8,000,000,000 people needing 400% more than the population in 1900. I am not kidding, we might have hit a point of no return in the population. The planet can no longer support this population. Consider that we need 16 billion – 24 billion litres of water EVERY DAY to support this population. And that is before we look at what they need for the washing machine, the shower and so on. I am not putting the pools on that list, but someone will and now the need for deeper learning towards water, water consumption and water levels becomes a little more clear, does it not? This planet had a water cycle, it was a natural order, but we disrupted it and we pretty much destroyed it. Water does not get replenished, it merely recycles in different ways, but 8 billion people consume water too making the cycle smaller every day and soon there will be no water. I do at least have an escape plan that allows me to live out my life without the danger of running out of water, but it would help if Amazon or Google (or Elon Musk) buys my IP, sooner rather than later mind you. So when you consider the issues in Pakistan (see below), consider that nature has a massively strange way to seek balance, but is it really balance, or is it something else, something we did by keeping silent to appease the greed driven?

It is a serious question and most governments were part of this all, so they do not get to lecture, but deeper learning could give us numbers on the global aftermath of water shortages and we need to start now, not tomorrow. Data collection needs to start the moment we can, not when it suits some. That time has passed and is gone forever.

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Vindaloo on the side

It started two days ago. I honestly do not remember who the source was, but it stuck in the back of my mind. It also stuck how the large media trivialised (BBC excepted) the matters at hand. So I decided to take a gander. I first stopped at Arab News who gave us (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2097311/saudi-arabia) ‘Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and Muslim institutions denounce Indian official’s insults against Prophet Muhammad’, so not the western news, not the Italian daily prophet (Vatican News), no merely the Gulf States and Islamic Institutions. So as we are given “Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and Muslim institutions on Sunday condemned the remarks against Prophet Muhammad by a top official in India’s ruling party, with some demanding concrete action to end such acts of Islamophobia.” So whilst the Washington Post gives us “Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University gives us “At home, a lynching takes place and Modi remains deafeningly silent. Now, he feels compelled to act because he realises the damage abroad could be extensive. When it comes to foreign policy, the stakes are high.”” Yes and there is the problem, an act merely because the international stakes are too high. It is time to get to part 2, that is the part given to us by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-61701908) where we see ‘Nupur Sharma: Prophet Muhammad row deepens India’s diplomatic woes’, and the power is given to us by “Ms Sharma’s – angered the country’s minority Muslim community, leading to sporadic protests in some states. The BBC is not repeating Ms Sharma’s remarks as they are offensive in nature”, the statement was SO offensive, to the degree that the BBC will not comment by quoting the statement. What we do see is “Analysts say that the top leadership of the party and the government may have to make public statements on the issue. Not doing so, they say, runs the risk of damaging India’s ties with the Arab world and Iran.” As I personally see it India has pissed off Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia all at the same time, a decent achievement if I do say so myself. And the setting of this is not whether thee are acts, the acts are too slow in a nation that has had its long term issues with Muslim communities. The lack of direct action against discrimination. I am a little on the fence. If others (christians) have to adhere to Muslim rules in Saudi Arabia, there would be the setting that Muslims have to adhere to India’s (Hindu) rules. But to allow blatant insults against ones religion is a dangerous step, not merely national, yet in this there is the international stage too and as I personally see it the (far too) slow reactions by its Indian government and Narendra Modi will have (or is that should have) repercussions and not merely in India. It is NDTV (New Delhi Television) gives an interesting view. They give us ‘PM Modi, The Djinn Is Out Of The Bottle And Out Of Control’ it shows that there is way too much support for the discriminatory views of Nupur Sharma, lets not forget here that she was until recently the spokesperson of the BJP, as such, how did she get there?

The Islamic community might be forced to dump all Indian goods and services and this now gives a massive handle to the US and the EU. If they get the $15,000,000,000 of crude oil that usually goes to India its nation will face a massive recession. India lives on cars, petrol and a mobile industry. If even over 25% falls away the Indian government will face a situation they never faced before, not to this degree. A setting where India faces more hardship as it deals in oil with Iran and Russia or see the average quality of life in India fall for well over 20%, how much it falls? I honestly cannot tell and my 20% might be overly optimistic. 

So even as the BBC gives us “Experts said the controversy could overshadow some of India’s recent diplomatic successes with the UAE and other nations.” I reckon it is nothing compared to the internal mess that could happen when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia decides to move the oil tap from India to the US and Europe. Their worries will be over to a much larger degree, but at that point it will suck to be in India. When 300 million cars can no longer run because fuel prices went from 96.35 ₹/L to 396.50 ₹/L that is when panic and utter chaos will rule India and I reckon Pakistan will not be overly upset about that setting either. As such the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Narendra Modi will need another option, another direction and it seems to me that they re stuck in the mud with no one around to help them. Some will state that it was her right to speak, but is open discrimination a right? Nupur Sharma might have started something that she was unable to contain or adjust for and we will see what happens next because something has to give in this equation and your guess is just as good as mine. There is too much I do not know on the interactions in India, but I do know that tapping a tiger on the balls was not the way to go, especially if there is no fence separating the tiger from the tapper, but that might just be me.

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Mason, Sailor, Prosy, Spy

Yes, it is a reference, and if you do not see the reference in the first second, this blog is not for you (no judgement). The BBC alerted me to two events playing at this very moment and in light of the Al Jabri situation, I wonder how stupid people have become. Or better stated, how on earth did essential skills get lost this fast and this complete?

Article 1
The first article is ‘London ‘hitman’ on trial over plot to kill Pakistani activist in Netherlands’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59988413) a mere two hours ago. There we see “Kingston Crown Court heard that Mr Goraya, who was living in Rotterdam at the time, “was known for speaking out against the activities of the Pakistani government and appears to have been targeted for that reason”.” This gives me a few issues on the matter. In the first on what planetary scale is any activist worth £100,000? In the second, if this was a proper operation, there would be little or no intel on the matter before the deed was done. I am disputing the abilities of MI-5, MI-6 and the AIVD, but to have such a complete picture implies that the stage was not about removal, but about visibility. Basically the person known as Muhammad Gohir Khan was a dead spy from the start, the numbers were excessive because there was every chance he would fail, but colour me happy, there are a dozen Pakistani minded people in Rotterdam who will give it a try for €10,000. That is my thought on the matter. As I see it and as I see the information pass me by, I am reminded of the 70’s with Russians dressed in weird raincoats like they are Humphrey Bogart on route to a renaissance movie fair. So when we see “the prosecution alleging he reacted “enthusiastically” to a proposal by a man named only as “MudZ””, I see a setting where MudZ is leaving a message to Pakistani entrepreneurs in the Netherlands that there is a decent bag of cash waiting for them. No matter how we judge them, the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan knows what its been doing, they have been sharpening their teeth on Indian operations for well over a decade, as such the weird amount and the visibility that we see implies that Muhammad Gohir Khan was always intended to be a dead spy. The problem is that both sides (Dutch and United Kingdom) took the bait and now the contract is firmly on Dutch soil, no contact, a mere contractor needs to do the deed, send the image of accomplishment and the transfer (most likely via Western Union) will be in effect. And in this Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmad Anjum will be enjoying a lovely cup of tea looking and the chaos that two or three agencies caused for him, the bast spy in all this is the one who does not realise what he or she caters to, if the unknown is a cadaver, it will be a John or Jane Doe that does not realise what they were until the message that “Ahmad Waqass Goraya has been dealt with” is out in the open. Intelligence at its (almost) finest.

Article 2
The second article, which was also from the BBC is one that hit the wires 12 hours ago (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59977916), there we see ‘Israel says it broke up Iranian spy network that recruited women’, now the news is not that staggering, it is out in the open that the state of Israel has a excellent record in stopping Iran and with the retirement of General Soleimani their work became increasingly more easy. So when I see “The Iranian handler, who called himself Rambod Namdar, allegedly approached the women on Facebook and then kept in contact with them for several years via the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp”, so at what point is Facebook a secure connection? And when I see “four Jewish women of Iranian descent, who the Shin Bet said were recruited by a handler claiming to be a Jewish man living in Iran”, as well as “Shin Bet said this was a “serious case” in which there was a plan to establish an Iranian spy network inside Israel, and that the women faced “severe charges”” I wonder if any of the women considered walking into Mossad HQ stating that something weird was going on and asking Mossad for directions. The idea that anyone from Iran trusts Facebook to hold a candle for them is ludicrous in a few ways and from there the pot stirs a little louder and a little less sincere. A stage that Shin Bet saw and prevented, hopefully in time to stop Iran causing any havoc. The weird part is that all this logically speaking should have had close to zero chance of success, so why did it? Did we forget to activate the common sense in our brains? Did we switch off critical thinking? I do not presume to know, because I wonder how this could have continued to this degree, on both fronts I might add. If people are that gullible, I do not envy the work Shin Bet has ahead of them, things are a mess. And people who cultivate such activities without vetting the intelligence are doomed to be a tool, optionally a dead tool. So whilst Shin Bet wonders where this Rambod Namdar is at present, I reckon that he (or whoever he/she is) needs to stay under the radar in Iran for some time, because Mossad is looking for that individual now. 

Two cases in a day and that is when we consider the previous issues with Al Jabri, I merely wonder what on earth is going on with global intelligence and illegal operations, it boggles the mind. Did Facebook make everyone stupid?

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Reprieve the explosives

The Guardian woke me up this morning with ‘MI5 policy allowing agents to commit crimes was legal, say judges’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/09/mi5-policy-agents-take-part-crimes-lawful-appeal-court-judges). Here we are told that Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve is challenging the case that “The idea that the government can authorise undercover agents to commit the most serious crimes, including torture and murder, is deeply troubling and must be challenged”, now, I agree that this is probably an ideological approach to the matter, but this is not some scuffle with the local constabulary, when you are active enough for MI5 to look into the matter, you are an actual optional problem (read: danger) to the British people. 

We look at the example “Home Office sources cited the case of Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, who was jailed for life in 2018 for plotting to kill the former prime minister Theresa May. He was caught following an undercover operation in which he was provided with what he thought was a jacket and rucksack packed with explosives.”, or as one might say, he went to the target holding a block of grey putty, 5 wires and an egg timer. The issue is not what they do, the issue is for MI5 agents to get into the fold and those folds are extremely paranoid of the people they allow in but do not know, they tend to demand extreme examples of their commitment. Some sources in the political field give us “Ayman al-Zawahiri isn’t trying to plan another 9/11 attack—because he doesn’t need to.” Yet in this MI5, if not all the people in the UK cannot take that lacks a standing, What if the next time it is not the World Trade Centre, what if it becomes the Shard? That building is visible to the largest part of London, right in front of a train station. The chaos would be visible for months, and it is for that reason that players like MI5 need as large as possible a leeway to get their job done. We will never hear of their successes, but any failure will be front page news for years to come and the stakes are only getting higher. OK, I admit by creating IP that could sink the Iranian fleet, I did not help any, but I am not some Reprievalist, I created a solution to get things done (that’s how I roll).

Yet the article is not all ‘problems’, there is validity in “a limit to what criminality may be authorised”, I get it, there should be some form of limit, but that also means that the players will go that far in finding a solution to weed out any legal interference brought to them by MI5 (and like minded opposition) and that is definitely not a good thing. We might think that this is ‘common’ ground, but the Dutch AIVD, French DGSE and let’s not forget the American bringers of fairy tails, the CIA. They are all wielding their limited bat because of similar restrictions. In opposition to the FSB, GRU, the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, Iranian VEVAK (now VAJA), as well as the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), aka Guoanbu. These 5 players do not have such restrictions. The best way to lose a war is to state that you can only play soldier with a M1 Garand, a rifle with a range of no more than 500 metres. All whilst the rest have the equivalent of a Druganov, or the Chinese QBU-88 both have an effective range well over twice the distance, as such it is like sending your own troops to get slaughtered. Yes, there is appeal in the moral high ground, but how high is that moral ground when you worship your convictions like a golden calf? A stage where we say, this is how it is and this is what our troops (read: intelligence operatives) need to adhere to, isn’t that just another form of targeted killing (in the most negative way)? And the politicians waving it away with ‘Our people are just so much more intelligent’ they are required to put their own children in the field, in harm’s way so to speak. I wonder how long it takes for them to get off that high moral horse. So when we see a person like Maya Foa take the limelight with a big eyed smiley face, consider who she is willing to lead to the slaughter in this. 

And that is when we consider state actors, Terrorists have access to much of the needed hardware and none of the governmental restriction and that is what MI5 faces. She is not alone, we are seeing the CAAT now limiting British economy (a setting I am happily willing to take advantage of). We see more and more of these moral high ground settings, all whilst the people around us have no such restrictions and they are all helping the abyss creep up closer to our way of life, in a time when no one can afford such changes. Even now (read: two weeks ago) as we were told “Salini Impregilo has won a contract in Saudi Arabia: a project worth about $1.3 billion in Riyadh with the Saudi Arabia National Guard”, the setting not mentioned is that the project was a lot larger and other construction players (read: Rusian/Chinese) are getting a slice of that. The size of that slice is not known, but as they become more and more adept in negotiating, the slices of WeBuild (Salini Impregilo) will get smaller and smaller in an economic setting that the EU cannot afford. WeBuild is now facing increased competition from China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), as well as the Russian PIK group. Even as Russia has a few issues to work from, the Chinese side has a diminishing threshold to deal with and over the next few years it could cost the EU billions. One group, one industry and that much damage, is the Reprieve danger sinking in? The stage is a lot larger than we think because any action here by terrorists will have larger repercussions on the international stage and all whilst we give some moral high ground against terrorists. It’s like telling Ken McCallum that he can only kill the nasty troll with a butterknife. How screwed up is that setting?

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