[conspire] CIA chief Brennan hints new gov't initiative against crypto

[Ruben Safir]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 03:52:31PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):
> 
> > Increasingly it is obvious that these attacks on Frances were a
> > political blunder and no amount of surveillance would have prevented them.
> > 
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/world/europe/its-capital-frozen-belgium-surveys-past-failures-and-squabbles.html
> 
> I read that article; it was quite interesting.
> 
> Most of the piece is about the inherent, structural reasons why Belgium 
> is a deliberately decentralised country, and why Belgians in the main
> greatly prefer it that way. 
> 
> Unlike, say, Monty Python, I've always had a soft spot for Belgium, an
> appealing little country.  Belgium held against the entire might of
> Imperial Germany's invasion in 1914[1], the government retreating until 
> it held the last 10% of Belgium next to France (the 'Yser Front'), dug
> in, and wouldn't surrender.  My dad spent time during his WWII military
> service in the U.S. Army Air Corps in company with Belgian officers,
> which is why Dad learned French with a Belgian accent.
> 

I'm aware of much of Belgiums history, going back to the massacres of Duke Alva, and I think I have less love for the Belgium then the Dutch, but regardless,

this is not your fathers Belgium any more, and certainly not your grandfathers.

The divisions of that section of Europe are fasinating history, from Luxenbourg,
the  Duchy of Limburg,  Graafschap Vlaanderen, and even far flung Munster...
but this article is not telling the whole story.  The fact is, it is likely that
the Belgium will not be able to regain control of swarths of Belgium territory
from Islamic fundementalists without resorting to civil war and occupation be
an external armed force.

It is at a point where Anterwerp is like its own citystate and the only safe
refuge in the country, especially if you where a back hat and long coat with a 
gertle.


> Anyhow, Belgium as a nation-state has excellent reasons to distrust
> strong central authority, so they don't have much of that, or want it.
> And this created a lack of sufficiently focussed, sufficiently funded,
> and politically empowered police attention in Brussels.
> 
> All of language and culture is politicised in Belgium, even down to the 
> names of the two main languages:  Don't say the Flemish are speaking
> Dutch, even though they are.  They prefer to call it Flemish.  Don't say
> the Walloons are speaking French.  They'd say they're speaking Walloon
> or Picard or Gaumais.  The language divisions reflect deep ethnic
> divisions that go with them, and nobody wants any of the other guys in
> charge.
> 
> 
> [1] One of the reasons the famous Schlieffen-Moltke Plan failed on
> account of missed timetables, and bogged down into four years of brutal
> trench warfare is that the Belgians failed to roll over as planned.
> Despite being massively outgunned and outnumbered, the Belgians managed
> to delay seizing of its key railroad junctions for almost 20 days, where
> the plan required they be seized in five -- and never were fully
> defeated at all.  This was fatal to the invasion timetable.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,                                  "If you see a snake, just kill it. 
> Rick Moen                                Don't appoint a committee on snakes."
> rick at linuxmafia.com                                         -- H. Ross Perot
> McQ! (4x80)
> 
> _______________________________________________
> conspire mailing list
> conspire at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire

-- 
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com 

DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive 
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com 

Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps, 
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013