Word: blowback
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Afghanistan, such successes are undermined by resentment of U.S. military activity and civilian casualties--and the blowback empowers the extremists. Al-Shabaab (Arabic for Youth) now controls much of the south of the country, in the manner of the Taliban: on Oct. 27, 1,000 spectators gathered at a sports stadium in the port of Kismayo to watch al-Shabaab stone to death a 13-year-old girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow. Amnesty International says al-Shabaab arrested her and convicted her of adultery after she complained she had been gang-raped...
...Damascus in which a number of militants were killed and arrested. Syrian troops have also deployed along the northern border of neighboring Lebanon in what Damascus says is an attempt to block jihadists from slipping into Syria. These recent developments have raised speculation that Syria is threatened by a blowback from jihadist militants who no longer have easy access to cross the border into Iraq and instead are turning their attention to the secular regime in Damascus. "We assumed the Syrians were chucking people in jail, which they could be doing, but it could also be that the foreign fighters...
...Clinton, and McCain for that matter, are going to use these comments to cast Obama as an arrogant elitist, they better be prepared to deal with the blowback. As Jamal Simmons, a Democratic consultant and Obama supporter, put it in an email exchange with TIME, "Hillary Clinton calls Barack Obama elitist? Really? Hillary Clinton was a corporate lawyer who sat on the Wal-Mart board before becoming First Lady and is now worth over $100 million. Barack Obama is the child of a single mother raised in part by his grandparents who went to school on a scholarship...
...religious tone deafness. Witness his campaign's recent enthusiastic reaction to the endorsement from Christian Zionist John Hagee. The Texas pastor has alluded to the Catholic Church as "the great whore" and has linked it to Hitler. It seems no one in McCain's camp was prepared for angry blowback from Catholics. The conservative Catholic League says McCain "has shown horrendous judgment in buddying up to this bigot." McCain will only say, "I obviously do not" agree with "all of Pastor Hagee's views...
...gain from this," says Anthony Zinni, a retired four-star Marine general who served as chief of the U.S. Central Command - responsible for Pakistan - from 1997 to 2000. Zinni rattled off reasons for al-Qaeda's wanting Bhutto dead, including her commitment to democracy, her secular views, the blowback it will create for Musharraf, and her gender. Beyond that, Zinni says al-Qaeda - making marginal progress in Afghanistan, backsliding in Iraq, and rebuffed in Somalia - is looking for a new battlefield. "I really think they're trying to ignite Pakistan into the kind of chaos they need to survive," Zinni...