Kuwaiti women's attempt to gain political rights took a new turn Monday when 10 MPs who had wanted Article 1 of the Elections Law to be referred to the Constitutional Court to determine its legality withdrew their request. At the same time a Cabinet proposal that a women suffrage bill be discussed at a special session next week failed to garner support and was referred to Parliament's Interior and Defense Committee. Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah told newsmen after the parliamentary session the Cabinet remains hopeful women will be enfranchised.
"We still have high hopes the law on women suffrage will be approved, Insha Allah," added the Premier. Sheikh Sabah also said the rejection of the Cabinet's amendments to Article 3 of the Kuwait Municipality Law has nothing do with full political rights for women. In response to a question about the possibility of dissolving parliament because it did not support women suffrage, he said "we have not thought about this issue ⊠and we hope it does not happen." An Amiri decree in 1999 granting political rights to women was rejected by parliament after it was put to a vote. Last month 10 liberal, independent and Shiite MPs proposed referring Article 1 of the Election Law that stipulates voting rights to Kuwaitis over 21 years of age without any reference to gender to the Constitutional Court.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Our friend, just back from a year on a construction brigade in Iraq, says that "inshallah" means "God willing, and if and when ever I get around to it."
Twelve extremists have been detained in Chechnya, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Monday. An official said they had served as a back-up for the group that seized a school in southern Russia in September. The militants were detained in the Achkhoi-Martan district of Chechnya on Sunday night, ITAR-Tass said, citing Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov. Their leader was killed as they were being taken into custody, Mr. Alkhanov said. The group was also to have taken part in the seizure of hostages, ITAR-Tass quoted Alkhanov as saying. After the terrorists seized the Beslan school on Sept. 1, the group departed the city, he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:12:56 AM ||
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I disapprove of torture beyond any point absolutely necessary to get vital information. In this case....I really don't care what they do to them.
Chechen separatists vowed to press on with their fight for independence after guerrilla leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed in what the Kremlin saw as a coup for President Vladimir Putin's hardline policies in the region.
"It is a very big loss but it is not a death blow to us, as Putin thinks," said Maskhadov's London-based envoy Akhmed Zakayev. He said a successor would be named within days.
Maskhadov, 53, one of Russia's two most wanted men, was killed on Tuesday in an operation by the FSB security service in a village north of the Chechen region's capital Grozny, officials said.
The Kremlin, which had accused Maskhadov of masterminding a series of deadly attacks on civilian targets, including last year's Beslan school siege, hailed his death as a success for its policies.
But some political analysts, who saw him as a moderate leader with whom the Kremlin could negotiate, said Maskhadov's death was a blow to any chance of peace in the region.
Zakayev, Maskhadov's main envoy in the West, signalled the killing could trigger revenge attacks.
"Aslan Maskhadov will be much more dangerous for the Kremlin leadership in death than he could have been even in life, when he was calling for peaceful dialogue," said Zakayev.
Maskhadov had repeatedly invited Moscow to hold talks with him but the Russian leadership refused, saying it did not negotiate with terrorists.
"Instead of the weak argument that (the Kremlin) has nothing to discuss with Maskhadov ... there is now an overwhelming conclusion: there really isn't anyone to negotiate with anymore," said the Izvestia newspaper.
Rebel field commanders Shamil Basayev and Doku Umarov were the most likely candidates to succeed Maskhadov as head of the self-proclaimed independent Chechen republic, said daily Kommersant.
"Both commanders, in contrast to Aslan Maskhadov's declared desire for talks with Moscow, are well-known for their uncompromising and aggressive position towards Moscow," the newspaper said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:00:00 AM ||
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the killing could trigger revenge attacks. Yes, but it will seriously cut down on other attacks.
He's more dangerous dead than when he was calling for peaceful dialog. That's probably a true statement, taken literally, though it's not saying much. Key word "when"
there is now an overwhelming conclusion: there really isnât anyone to negotiate with anymore," What about Count Dorko or Basayev? What are they? Cchopped liver? I mean, yet?
#3
What about Count Dorko or Basayev? What are they? chopped liver? I mean, yet?
The fact Maskhadov condemned terrorism and all attacks against civilians made him a person one could negotiate with, if one wanted to. He was also a Chechen president directly elected by the Chechen people without Moscow forcing the result.
I don't know anything about Doku, but Basayev is an unelected murderer and terrorist.
Many people have compared Maskhadov's death to the killing of Yassin -- I think a more accurate analogy would have been if both Arafat and Abbas had been killed, leaving Yassin and Rantissi alive to negotiate with.
#4
Maskhadov was elected. But ask yourself when, why and before what happened? Negotiate with Maskhadov for what? Prior to the second war(because it seems one wasn't enough)Maskhadov was the leader of the place and couldn't keep the gun toting thugs from doing what comes natural to them. So war #2 drags on and the gun toting thugtypes gain alot more power than Mackhadov can command. Maskhadov needed those thugs alot more than they did him! (Maskhadov and his talking head Zakayev did like to use Basayev and the other badboys to play good cop/bad cop to try to start negotiations from time to time) Remember the quote about bringing the perps behind Breslan to trial after the war? And what little sunni wahabbiewannabee took credit? How many no-name chechen rebels or civilians for that matter, got capped during war #2 without a trial for merely alleged criminal acts? None of them managed a personal best of 300 or so children killed on one day did they? Basayev, Khattab and most of the badboys didn't need Maskhadov, his money, or his blessing. Alot of the badboys have essentially said they are not going to play nice nice and negotiate with the russians, let alone negotiate in good faith with any intention of letting live and let live. So, really, what was Maskhadov going to offer and what could he have any chance of delivering? Given his lack of power negotiating with him over a solution to the war and underlying issues would have required a very well cultivated power of self-delusion.
EFL.
The prisoner holds a knife and waits for the assailant to enter the cell with orders to kill him. The door opens and the assailant, using only his bare hands, completes the brutal assignment within two minutes inside the small windowless room. At unit 695 in an elite North Korean spy school, killing is all in a day's training, says Ann Myeong-Jin, who graduated in 1993.
Ann spent six years at the school in the northern suburbs of Pyongyang, being trained for overseas espionage work, but months after graduating defected to capitalist South Korea, North Korea's rival since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Unit 695 of the North Korean People's Army, also known as liaison office 130, is known to spies the world over, says Ann.
"If you work in intelligence anywhere, you know about it," he says, sipping coffee in a Seoul suburb where he lives with his South Korean wife and daughter. Ann, who also speaks Japanese, now divides his time between his home in Seoul and a second home in Tokyo and says he earns his living partly through managing property in Seoul. He says he also lectures and writes and acts as a consultant on North Korea, mainly in Japan. But he admits he can never completely relax outside his communist homeland.
"I am always taking precautions for my safety here in Seoul," Ann said. "I heard the North Korean leadership has put my name on its list of people for assassination. The South Korean government know about it."
But Ann is worried that South Korea is being taken for a ride by a North Korean regime that is interested only in its own survival. "Defectors here are astonished to find that South Koreans are now trying to be friends with the communist North and are actually propping the regime up," he said. Some 6,000 North Koreans defectors live in South Korea, among them a small number of party, government and military officials as well as spies, although no figures are available on the breakdown. They face hardship in adapting to a capitalist way of life while many South Koreans tend to look down on them as backward and idle. Ann says the hardship takes a toll on the defectors' mental and physical wellbeing. "Nearly all of them have serious mental issues. Fewer than five percent really adapt," he says.
Now there is also a bitter sense of irony as Seoul courts the regime they risked their lives to flee from.
For Ann, defection from his homeland was the last thing on his mind during what he describes as a normal childhood that abruptly ended one day in 1987, just before his 19th birthday. That was the day he first entered unit 695. "My life changed that day," he said. "I was never the same again."
It was tough to get into spy school for a country boy from a rural province outside Pyongyang but it helped that he was robust and smart and his father was a career soldier who served for 30 years in the military. "There are thousands of candidates and fewer than 100 a year make the cut," said Ann. "They are looking for brains and brawn, but mostly brains."
The year Ann entered the school a Korean Air Boeing 747 blew up in midair over the Indian Ocean killing all 115 people on board. North Korean female spy Kim Hyon-Hee was convicted of the bombing in a South Korean court. "She is one of my school's graduates," said Ann.
Students at the school undergo classic training in infiltration techniques, bomb making and terrorism activities, psychological operations, weapons training, and methods of persuasion, he said. Learning to kill was among unit 695's less demanding courses, he says, though he refuses to say how he fared in the small room with orders to use his bare hands to kill a prisoner armed with a knife. "It is easy to do when you are trained to a certain level," he says.
The spy school never disclosed who the prisoners were, he says, simply letting it be known that they "deserved" to die. "We assumed they had already been condemned to death and were mostly political prisoners," says Ann. "Even with a knife they were up against the impossible. We had gone through harsh training. In most cases the killing was done inside one or two minutes."
Learning how to commit suicide in different ways was also an important course element. "We were taught that if we were caught we had to kill ourselves and we learned how to do it in any circumstances, even if we were tied up," he said.
As Ann's spy education progressed, he was selected to specialize in South Korea, the target of most of North Korea's espionage activities, he said. "We were taught to live like South Koreans," he said. "We had South Korean goods, even products like toothpaste, and we had South Korean money. I had to learn 60 South Korean pop songs by heart." His instructors were agents who had already worked in South Korea and had returned as teachers, or South Koreans who had been kidnapped and forced to work as spy trainers in the North, he said."We were taught about how good life was in South Korea. But to counter-balance that, we were also taught how corrupt the society was, how it was split between rich and poor with conflict between the classes and also that South Koreans were ruled by money," he said.
But in one of the unintended consequences of the spy school curriculum, Ann began to question long-held assumptions about his own country. "North Korean spies develop immunity to North Korea's own propaganda," he said. "I had a good feeling about South Korea. I knew I had been taught lies all my life and my despair was immense." Keeping a lid on such subversive thoughts Ann kept quiet after graduation and was sent to a spy unit, liaison bureau 712, near the border with China for training prior to his first infiltration mission into South Korea.
With three others he formed an infiltration unit whose mission was military surveillance inside South Korea. The first task was to cross over the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the four kilometre (2.5 mile) wide buffer zone that has divided the two Koreas since the Korean War. "Of course it is dangerous, but it is not that difficult," said Ann. "The main thing is by-passing or removing landmines." The team, wearing US military uniforms because they were going to an area teeming with US soldiers, he said, set off from the Northern side of the DMZ at 2:00 am on August 30, 1993. They were safely inside South Korea by dawn, digging themselves an underground shelter within 700 metres of the entrance to a South Korean army camp. They were due to return to North Korea by the same route on September 4 but Ann had other ideas. While the others slept or relaxed underground following night operations Ann slipped away from guard duty and surrendered to the South Korean army camp nearby. He said he walked up to the gate, pulled his North Korean AK-47 from beneath his jacket and held it above his head. Within minutes, he had been bound and placed aboard a helicopter headed for the Seoul headquarters of South Korea's main spy agency, then known as the National Security Planning Board. Interrogated at length by the South Korean security agencies following his defection, Ann has since been left to lead a normal life, including marrying his South Korean sweetheart in 1996. He is vague about his sources of income and about his employment record but says he manages to provide successfully for his family.
"I live well here," he said.
Lead Sept. 11 pilot Mohamed Atta may have been involved in the plot to attack the United States earlier than is widely believed, a U.S. investigator who helped write the 9/11 Commission Report said Tuesday at the retrial of a Moroccan accused of aiding the hijackers.
The testimony by Dietrich Snell could bolster prosecutors' contention that suicide hijackers Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah and their alleged accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh formed a terrorist organization in Germany before going to Afghanistan in 1999 to train at one of Osama bin Laden's camps.
Mounir el Motassadeq, 30, is accused of providing logistical support to the group. He risks 15 years in prison on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
He was attentive as Snell testified, taking notes and occasionally stroking his beard.
Snell, a New York prosecutor who led the team of investigators behind the U.S. Sept. 11 Commission's report to Congress last year, conceded he had no hard evidence to back up his suspicion.
"In the report, we did point out the possibility, due to the lack of evidence of the whereabouts of Mohamed Atta, that he may have traveled to Afghanistan previously," Snell told the six-judge panel.
"One fact that we thought was particularly important was the speed with which Atta was nominated to lead the conspiracy" in the 1999 trip.
El Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 on the same charges he faces now and handed the maximum sentence. An appeals court threw out the conviction last year, ruling he was unfairly denied testimony by key al-Qaida suspects in U.S. custody, including Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the al-Qaida No. 3 who is alleged to have played a leading role in planning the 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
The Hamburg state court called Snell as a witness to find out more about the interrogations of the two because the U.S. Justice Department has only provided summaries of the questioning - despite court requests for the two to testify in person.
Snell also said Tuesday that reports from interrogations of Binalshibh, who is being held in secret U.S. custody, indicate the group took precautions to distance themselves from other radical Muslims in Hamburg before the trip to Afghanistan.
"Binalshibh is reported to have said the group was already concerned about being identifiable," he testified.
Still, Snell said evidence indicates the overall Sept. 11 plan was developed by Mohammed and bin Laden between 1996 and 1999 in Afghanistan.
Outside court, el Motassadeq's defense lawyer said if the planning was done in Afghanistan, he could not have been part of it.
"This has always been our position, that the plan was set up in Afghanistan and not in Hamburg," Udo Jacob said. "He's completely innocent. There's no proof against him."
Proving the Sept. 11 plotters were a German-based terror group is critical for the government to convict el Motassadeq of belonging to a terrorist organization.
"It is important that they were prepared to take part in jihad," lead prosecutor Walter Hemberger told The Associated Press, using a word for holy war.
And Binalshibh made that plain, Snell testified.
"What is clear is Binalshibh recalled to his interrogators that the group wanted to pursue jihad in Chechnya," he told the court.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:09:48 AM ||
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An attorney for the Sept. 11 commission testified Tuesday that the conspiracy to fly hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was conceived and planned outside Germany, complicating prosecutors' efforts to convict a Moroccan man for aiding the Hamburg cell that carried out the attacks.
Dietrich Snell, who headed the commission's team that investigated the origins and role of the Hamburg cell, told a panel of five German judges hearing the case that the ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and the other Sept. 11 hijackers did not develop the idea for the plot on their own. Rather, Snell testified, they were recruited by al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden during a visit to militant training camps in Afghanistan.
"This is a subject that we spent considerable time investigating," Snell said. "Ultimately, we did not arrive at the conclusion that there was solid evidence of any contact" between Hamburg cell members and al Qaeda leaders about the plot before the Hamburg group's trip to Afghanistan.
The commission's findings contradict the heart of Germany's case against the Moroccan defendant, Mounir Motassadeq, who is accused of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
Prosecutors must prove that important elements of the conspiracy took place in Germany. Before Sept. 11, 2001, it was legal in Germany to belong to a foreign terrorist organization such as al Qaeda as long as it was not active in the country.
Motassadeq, a college student in Hamburg before the attacks, was a close friend of Atta's and others involved in the operation. Prosecutors say he traveled with them to Afghanistan, gave them financial assistance and helped cover for their absence when they left for the United States to prepare for the hijackings. But prosecutors have been unable to produce direct evidence that Motassadeq knew about the plot, another crucial point necessary for a conviction.
German authorities and the judges had pressed the Sept. 11 commission since last summer to send an emissary to Hamburg to testify about the commission's landmark report released last summer. But after the first of Snell's two days of scheduled testimony, it was the defense that seemed most pleased with what he had to say.
"Today's statements have been very good for us," said Udo Jacob, an attorney for Motassadeq. "Everything so far has been nice."
Motassadeq, 31, was convicted on the charges in 2003 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, the maximum under German law. But an appeals court overturned the verdict, ruling that the evidence did not justify the result.
The appeals court also said Motassadeq deserved access to statements made by al Qaeda leaders in U.S. custody, reasoning that they could be used to help his defense.
In response, the U.S. Justice Department provided the German court with summaries of interrogations of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two al Qaeda figures deeply involved in the hijacking plot. The statements were made public in August at the start of Motassadeq's retrial and largely supported the defendant's alibi -- that he was unaware of the plot and had been intentionally kept in the dark.
The judicial panel hearing the case has expressed frustration with what it considers a lack of cooperation from the United States. Requests to interview Binalshibh and Mohammed have been denied, as have petitions for more detailed investigative reports from the FBI and CIA.
On Tuesday, Ernst-Rainer Schudt, the presiding judge, repeatedly prodded Snell to provide background information about the commission's sources and findings. Snell declined for the most part, replying that such information was classified and that he was largely restricted to testifying about details in the commission's published report.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:05:53 AM ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 ||
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They were pretty damn brutal.
From the video I saw, they were members of some leftist group (they were all carrying red flags), and half of the demonstrators were men, but the Turkish cops were still a bit over enthusiastic in breaking things up.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/09/2005 0:15 Comments ||
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#2
It doesn't suprise me one bit. Erdogan is like Chavez and beholden to the Islamics.
(Other than the usual Euro-elite suspects, of course.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/09/2005 14:00 Comments ||
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It'd be great if someone had a link to that old rantburg thread on the percentage of Turkish women who expect men to beat them. That'd be a nice little eye-opener for the EU.
Hat tip: LGF Mr. Harald Doornbos is a veteran war reporter. He is no archetypical hawk nor a staunch supporter of the United States. In fact, he used to be a reporter for the communist newspaper 'De Waarheid' (The Truth, or Pravda, if you like) before it went bust. (This doesn't necessarily mean he was ever a communist, by the way. De Waarheid used to be a huge employer.) However, this doesn't make him overly sympathetic towards Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist who was held hostage by Iraqi insurgents. Some snippets from this article which was published today in a Dutch Christian broadsheet.
'Be careful not to get kidnapped,' I told the female Italian journalist sitting next to me in the small plane that was headed for Baghdad. 'Oh no,' she said. 'That won't happen. We are siding with the oppressed Iraqi people. No Iraqi would kidnap us.'
It doesn't sound very nice to be critical of a fellow reporter. But Sgrena's attitude is a disgrace for journalism. Or didn't she tell me back in the plane that 'common journalists such as yourself' simply do not support the Iraqi people? 'The Americans are the biggest enemies of mankind,' the three women behind me had told me, for Sgrena travelled to Iraq with two Italian colleagues who hated the Americans as well.
(Doornbos goes on to explain how the women demeaned him for travelling as an embedded reporter with the US military, for security reasons. They didn't want to hear about any safety concerns.)
'You don't understand the situation. We are anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, communists,' they said. The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers, the enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear.
(Doornbos tells them they're out of their mind.)
But they knew better. When we arrived at Baghdad Airport, I was waiting for a jeep from the American army to come pick me up. I saw one of the Italian women walking around crying. An Iraqi had stolen her computer and television equipment. They were standing outside shivering, waiting for a cab to take them to Baghdad.
With her bias Sgrena did not only jeopardize herself, but due to her behavior a security officer is now dead, and the Italian government (prime minister Berlusconi included) has had to spend millions of euros to save her life. It is to be hoped that Sgrena will decide to have a career change. Propagandist or MP perhaps. But she should give up journalism immediately.
Posted by: Sobiesky ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
For starters, the Italian government should bill her for reimbursment of her ransom and additional sums to cover a hefty death benefit for the security officer's family.
#2
Here in Arizona we have a "Stupid Motorist" law, where if you ignore signs and drive into a flooded wash, you have to pay the costs of the rescue effort.
Italy needs a "Stupid Journalist" law, in which if you go wandering into a war zone, or walk up to a terrorist group and get captured, you are responsible for the costs (life insurance payouts) of those who rescue you.
#3
And for their salaries, and for the toils and for the psyhological stress: "Yes, Your Honor it was so, traumatical that I spoke harshly to my dog and it ran away. I want ten million dollars in compensation".
Anyone knows a good ambulance-chaser lawyer? Is John Edwards available?
TORONTO (CP) - The military's intelligence arm has warned the federal government that avian influenza could be used as a weapon of bioterrorism, a heavily censored report suggests. Unlikely cos once a flu epidemic gets started, deliberately trying to spread it would be like turning on your sprinklers during a hurricane in order to increase flooding. It also reveals that military planners believe a naturally occurring flu pandemic may be imminent. The report, entitled Recent Human Outbreaks of Avian Influenza and Potential Biological Warfare Implications, was obtained under the Access to Information Act by The Canadian Press.
Beware! I have a duck, and I will use it!
It was prepared by the J2 Directorate of Strategic Intelligence, a secretive branch of National Defence charged with producing intelligence for the government. The report outlines in broad terms the methods that could be used to develop a manmade strain of influenza capable of triggering a human flu pandemic. Unlikely, developing a 'new' strain of flu that would spread easily is a difficult problem.
It notes a method called "passaging," while not entirely predictable, could be a "potentially highly effective" way to push a virus to develop virulence. "Such forced antigenic shifts could be attempted in a biological weapons program," says the 15-page report, dated Dec. 8, 2004. Passaging involves the repeated cycling of strains of a virus through generations of a species of animals or through cell culture. The process can be used to either ratchet up or dial down the virulence of a virus, depending on which of the ensuing offspring - the mild or the severe - are selected in each cycle for the next passage.
There is debate in the community of infectious disease experts whether influenza would make a good bioterrorism agent. For one thing, once released, the virus would not discriminate between friend or foe. Terrorists and their supporters would be as likely to fall ill and die as those they hoped to target. Just like car bombs.
But if the ultimate goal is panic, social disruption and economic losses, influenza would be a good choice, says Dr. Brian Ward, a virologist at McGill University in Montreal. "To me it's one of the most logical viruses to use. It doesn't have to be a really bad one to throw a huge wrench," Ward said. "I mean, if you want to hurt the world's economy, that's an awfully good way."
Canada estimates the direct and indirect health-care costs alone of a mild flu pandemic would range from $10 billion to $24 billion. That doesn't start to count societal costs such as lost productivity because of mass illness or the impact on vulnerable industries such as airlines and tourism or the insurance sector that would be hit with business losses and death claims.
But influenza expert Dr. Earl Brown suggests that while flu makes a good theoretical bioterror agent, the reality of these "delicate" viruses is that the task would be harder than it appears. "Flu is a wimpy virus, which I think is the one knock against it. It doesn't persist in the environment (outside a human) very long," says Brown, a University of Ottawa scientist who specializes in the evolution of influenza viruses. "You have to infect people sort of straight away, otherwise it's going to die sitting around the environment." Thats true of all/most viruses.
Brown, who has done expensive work on reassorting or mating flu viruses, says any virus bred to spread would have to meet several key criteria: it would need to jump the species barrier and have the ability both to transmit easily and cause severe disease if it did. "If you want to see chaos and mayhem and you're not concerned about the backlash, then you just have to get to the biology. And right now nobody can do it," Brown says. Ah, the real expert says it not possible. "There's a good chance that you'd make something that just would burn out. It just wouldn't spread very well." Some filler cut. I suspect the real risk has been censored out so all the journo had to work with was the uncensored stuff on the flu. I've mentioned before (so there is no real harm in repeating it) but if you want a bioweapon to devastate the West then go to China and bribe somone with access to the SARS virus (it would have been fairly easy 2 years ago, I understand much harder today) and infect a dozen people put them on separate planes to your target country and instruct them to ride up and down in elevators in department stores or whereever.
Posted by: phil_b ||
03/09/2005 6:38:33 AM ||
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Er... yeah, on chickens.
SARS is not that contaigious. It is about as contaigious as Ebola and far less contaigious than smallpox. You have to be exposed to infected body fluids to catch SARS. The bacteria claimed to cause SARS is common, worldwide.
#2
Chuck, the reason the reason a pandemic is predicted, is every time we get a new H variant of the flu we get a pandemic The bird flu is a new H variant.
Viruses evolve very rapidly for reasons that are only partly understood. In a very short period (days) you can get different strains that differ radically in both how infectious they are and how lethal they are. Even with the couple of thousand who got SARS some chains of infection killed a high proportion of those infected and some just gave mild flu like symptoms. Similarly with how infectious they are. One person in a Hong Kong elevator resulted in several hundred people being infected (many through casual contact) and scores of deaths.
Viruses are very different to bacteria. You can't make blanket statements about how infectious they are except in an after the fact statistical sense.
In my VHO opinion we were lucky that SARS never got into a population where effective disease control measures could not be used (like Africa and large parts of Asia). If it had then it would have been a very different story.
#3
I could paint an extremely scary scenario that has many thousands, perhaps millions on the move fleeing the disease and seeking treatment. These are well documented historical responses to epidemics. Where do you think they will head? Thats right the developed countries. Will border guards shoot to kill people who are just seeking medical help? Becuase that is what is needed. Within a week you would have thousands of sick people. The healthcare system is overwhelmed and shuts down. Within two weeks societies and global communications shutdown as people stay at home and wait for the epidemic to pass. Who knows what will happen then. China sees its opportunity to take back Taiwan?
#4
phil_b - China makes a move like that during such events and they will appear to be guilty of deliberately spreading the disease in order to take advantage of the chaos, especially if its an Asian strain virus.
Truly guilty or not, it would seem to me to be an awful risk on China's part. They wouldn't want to get blamed for the disease (and people will be looking for somebody to blame), especially if it is killing large numbers of Americans. Giving even the appearance of being behind an epidemic is a very dangerous thing.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
03/09/2005 16:32 Comments ||
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Phil, Phil, oh, Phil, the United States deals with epidemics every year. Influenza, 200,000 plus hospitializations. West Nile. Lyme Disease. Dengue fever. Plague. HIV. And so on and so on.
Smallpox didn't happen. Anthrax didn't kill hundreds. Swine Flu was a bust. Avain flu is the "panic du jour".
SARS is believed to be caused by a common bacteria.
21% of the deaths due to SARS were medical professionals. The MD that discovered SARS died of it. About half the Canadian cases were doctors or other medical professionals. If you get sputum in your face from a SARS patient, you stand a decent chance of catching it. Standard universal precautions will prevent this. Just like with Ebola. The region of China where SARS was first isolated is as Third World as anyplace. The Chinese claim 9% fatalities. In First World countries it was more like 14% IT ISN'T THAT CONTAIGIOUS! SARS Info
The last influenza pandemic was in the 1980's. About 36,000 died in the U.S., and the CDC believes about 34,000 Americans die of influenza in a typical year. The avain flu has been known since 1997 or so. The vast majority of people who catch it deal directly with chickens and ducks. The number of cases where human to human transmittal can be demonstrated is less than 15, probably less than 10. The vast majority of avain flu cases involve conjunctivitis, a minor eye infection.
I won't say never, but rarely does a disease mutate to a deadlier form. That's why syphilis, for example, is far, far less deadly than it was 300 years ago. The same for measles. In the eight years since we identified bird flu, it hasn't gotten deadlier, nor more contaigious.
I'd love to see your cite for the Hong Kong elevator story. The woman who was Patient Zero for Canada was sick during her entire trip by plane from China to Toronto and no one on her plane flight caught SARS. Most of the Hong Kong cases were due to a building construction problem where there was a connection between waste water and fresh water in two apartment buildings. It's against code in the U.S., for just that reason.
#7
Chuck, SARS is caused by a coronavirus. Viruses replicate by a completely different mechanism to bacteria. They change very quickly. Forget what you know about organisms evolving over long periods. It doesn't apply to Viruses.
The red flag is asymptomatic spread and I tend to agree with Dr. Niman that this is already occuring and it is too late to stop a pandemic. It remains to be seen if this of 1918/19 severity.
#8
Current thinking is the problem could escalate if two viruses infect the same host and interchange their DNA/proteins/whatever, thereby creating a new strain. Apparently, this is one way virals strains change and adapt.
On the other hand, the faster a virus kills (or even incapacitates) its host, the smaller the range of infection, as victims die off before they get a chance to spread it around.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 17:28 Comments ||
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#9
Here is a source for the HK elevator origin of SARS in Singapore. It also helps explain why asymptomatic spread is the real problem.
#10
I have been reading Dr. Niman for a while now and I don't understand his logic, other than he thinks a much more aggressive monitoring program is needed. If there are lots of asymptomatic cases, then it's true the virus has spread a lot farther than anyone realizes, but it also means the mortality rate is a lot lower than the 72% that has been publicized. I'm not a doctor, but wouldn't a preponderance of asymptomatic cases also mean that the human immune system has been exposed to the virus before and evolved an immune response to it?
#11
HV, there is no way to prevent flu infection - immunization/vaccines don't work becuase we can't develop them quickly enough to keep up with the rapidly changing virus. There is no cure for the flu. There is no reliable test that works quickly enough to be clinically useful.
So the main way to stop its spread is to isolate infected people. This is only effective when people present with recognizable symptoms. Dr Niman thinks that flu infections result in a wide range of symptoms that are not being recognized as flu and many people have only mild symptoms. I.e. both groups are not being identified and isolated and the virus spreads. Becuase the virus changes so rapidly at any time the relatively benign version changes into the killer version. If enough people are infected with the benign version and not isolated, you will get lethal cases occuring all over and far too many for the isolation regime to be implemented. It will then for all practical purposes infect everyone on the planet.
What many people fail to appreciate is fast this will spread. If it is infectious enough and the flu historically is very infectious, most places in the world will have major outbreaks within a matter of weeks. I am deeply sceptical that developed countries (except perhaps islands) can react quickly enough to stop it.
#14
My bad. Of course it's a coronavirus. Brain fart on my part.
However... there have only been three flu pandemics since 1900. I'm not at all certain that the cause of the Spanish Flu has been definitively demonstrated. All of the speculation about flu pandemics is based on three recorded occurances, hardly a large data set. I agree, and have said so on my blog, that a pandemic will happen. We just plain don't have enough data to say where or when. Avain flu is just as likely to be another Swine Flu as it is to be a Hong Kong flu.
The mortality rate for avain flu is far lower than 72%. As I point out in my blog entry, a 2003 outbreak in the Netherlands, of 89 cases, there were 78 cases of conjunctivitis. In 2004, a Canadian outbreak was limited to eye infections. Remember that mortality in this disease is primarily influenced by the health and economic status of the patient. Many of the people who are dying of this are members of a social and economic class that dies from a lot of diseases.
Dr. Niman raises some interesting points. However, we already know that most illnesses vary in the degree of their severity in patients. West Nile, for example, and smallpox. It is not a surprise to find family members testing positive but without reported symptoms. Having to rely on patients to accurately report mild symptoms days or weeks after they happened is one of the bugs in epidemiology.
Dr. Niman is correct in questioning the monitoring in non First World nations. I was very critical of the Chinese numbers during the SARS outbreak. Heck, even the American numbers. The problem with all monitoring programs, even the CDC's influenza program, is that it requires patients to be sick enough to need a doctor. Everything after that is an educated guess, but still a guess. For every patient that is identified, how many were not, and to what degree did their illness progress?
Another interesting question that Phil raises is the level of illness that causes social breakdown. We have records of the Black Death, and it would be tempting to draw conclusions from that era. In actuality, our society may be complex enough that an incapacitation rate of 10% might be enough to create social breakdown. Or, it could be as high as 50%. Or, depending on the circumstances, it could be the ten people who know how to keep the Northeast power grid up and running. .00000001%, but a vital %.
BTW, the SARS elevator thing isn't. The cite says the elevator lobby, and the CDC says:
Hong Kong. As of March 25, the Hong Kong Department of Health (DH) reported 290 suspected and probable SARS cases. Beginning on March 11, an increase in acute pneumonia cases among health-care workers (HCWs) at hospital 1 in Hong Kong was reported to DH. Epidemiologic investigation has linked these cases to an index patient (Patient J) who visited a friend in hotel M in late February, became ill a few days later, and was admitted to hospital 1 on March 4 (Figure 1). Patient J visited hotel M while patient A, an ill visitor from Guangdong province, was staying there.
As of March 25, a cluster of 13 persons with suspected/probable SARS are known to have stayed at hotel M (Figure 1). The index patient (patient A) had onset of symptoms on February 15. He traveled from Guangdong province to Hong Kong to visit family and stayed on the ninth floor of the hotel on February 21. He was admitted to hospital 2 on February 22 and died the next day. Four HCWs and two of his family members subsequently became ill; one family member died. Of the 12 other patients linked to hotel M, 10 were in the hotel the same day as the index patient; the other two patients (patients L and M) stayed in the hotel during the time that three other symptomatic patients were guests in the hotel. Nine of the 13 patients, including patient A, stayed on the ninth floor; one stayed on the 14th floor; one stayed on the 11th floor; and two stayed on both the ninth and 14th floors.
#15
Lift, Lift lobby, the point is it was casual contact in a public place.
At its peak there were perhaps 3 dozen active SARS cases in Singapore and two major hospitals were shutdown. It made me realize how easily a healthcare system could be overwhelmed. One major difference between now and 1918 is people have vastly better access to information. Some will stay away from work but I still think the big risk is from sick or worried migrants seeking better healthcare and government inertia in changing how it deals with them, which puts places where developed coutries border undeveloped countries at most risk.
FBI director Robert Mueller told Congress yesterday that people from countries with ties to Al Qaeda have crossed into the United States from Mexico, using false identities.
''We are concerned, homeland security is concerned about special interest aliens entering the United States," Mueller said, using a term for people from countries where Al Qaeda is active.
Under persistent questioning from Representative John Culberson, Republican of Texas, Mueller said he was aware of one route that takes people to Brazil, where they assume false identities, and then to Mexico before crossing the US border.
He also said that in some instances people with Middle Eastern names have adopted Hispanic last names before trying to get into the United States.
Mueller provided no estimate of the number of people who have entered the country in this manner.
Bush administration officials have previously said Al Qaeda could try to infiltrate the United States through the Mexican border.
In recent congressional testimony, Admiral James Loy, deputy Homeland Security secretary, said Al Qaeda operatives believe they can pay to get into the country through Mexico and that entering illegally is ''more advantageous than legal entry."
But Loy said there's no conclusive evidence that Al Qaeda operatives have entered the country via Mexico.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:01:08 AM ||
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Bush administration officials have previously said Al Qaeda could try to infiltrate the United States through the Mexican border.
SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT THEN. Start by shutting down the illegal immigrant flow, period. If no Mexicans are getting in, then it can be reasonably assumed that no terrorists are getting in either.
But Loy said thereâs no conclusive evidence that Al Qaeda operatives have entered the country via Mexico.
Are y'all willing to gamble the lives of American civilians on that?
#5
One WTC-like attack distributed through Mexico and Mexico can kiss NAFTA and a porous border goodbye. That "cheap labor" will suddenly consist solely of those Mexicans already here. Unfortunately, that's what it will take to close the border to all but legals.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 12:02 Comments ||
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#6
That "cheap labor" will suddenly consist solely of those Mexicans already here.
Not for long. There might not be formal round-ups, but there sure as heck would be some informal enforcement.
And the same goes for Canada, of course.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/09/2005 12:56 Comments ||
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#7
Round ups?I think not,seeing as Bush has proposed giving the 10 million wetbacks already here legal immigration status(for cheap labor and GOP votes).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/09/2005 13:57 Comments ||
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#9
If you factor for all (police/prisons/education/medical/infrastructure/border security etc.) the hidden-indirect costs of status-less illegal labor and add it to the direct price we pay for goods and services, the numbers are plain, its simple math>>> U.S. citizens have the most expensive farm products/fiber/building costs/restaurant/nannies/gardeners/ services etc. ever in our history.
..not to mention our language,culture,law,politics...????
#10
The USA can have cheap labor and only legal immigration and temporary workers on permits. The two are in no way incompatible. In fact I can put together a good argument that temporary workers would result in more and cheaper labor. Its similar to the reason illegal drugs are expensive.
#11
Under the original "Guest Worker" guidelines,over 40% of Mexican illegals would not be elligible for the program.
As far as infiltrators goes(Al Qaeda)the border CAN NOT be sealed just from our side.
Btw, one Fabrice Monti, french investigative journalist, made a documented book about this case called "La coke saoudienne" ('Saudi snow') that said that :
1) There was a massive cover up and denial by french authorities & intelligence (case classified from 1999 to 2002), in exchange for defence contracts ;
2) There is a link with islamonutz, as the money gathered on the saudi's side was possibly used to finance saudi embassy's secret activities in France.
MIAMI -- Federal prosecutors are tying a Saudi prince with diplomatic immunity to a 2-ton Colombian cocaine smuggling run from Venezuela to Paris on his personal aircraft and $10 million in artwork seized by drug agents pursuing the prince's ex-girlfriend.
I thought Allan didn't like drugs.
In opening statements Tuesday, the defense responded that the government's case is built on the word of an enormously successful Colombian drug dealer who "duped" everyone by laundering drug money from behind bars while cooperating with federal agents.
Doris Mangeri Salazar, the ex-girlfriend and a Coral Gables real estate agent, and Ivan Lopez Vanegas, who was extradited from Colombia, are on trial on a drug conspiracy charge carrying a possible life sentence as the alleged brokers for Colombian traffickers and the prince who married into the Saudi royal family. The defense points the finger at Juan Gabriel Usuga Norena, who was indicted with Medellin cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa, as a storytelling liar.
"Wudn't us."
As Lopez attorney Alan Soven told it, Usuga's offer was simple. "I can get you the biggest fish in the world. How would you like a Saudi prince?" Soven said. "In their excitement to get the prince, they made a deal with the devil."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Selmore said there is plenty of physical evidence, such as passport stamps, hotel receipts and photos from a desert encampment, from 1998 meetings in Saudi Arabia, Aruba and Venezuela to plot the cocaine delivery to a stash house in suburban Paris in 1999. The interception of a cocaine courier at the Spanish border sent investigators backtracking to the French house, 1,769 pounds of cocaine and loads of suitcases used to smuggle the cocaine, Selmore said. "The facade of legitimacy that these two defendants have build around themselves began to crumble," she said.
Lopez had approached Usuga with a proposition for flying cocaine on the plane used by Saudi prince and Swiss banker Nayef bin Sultan bin Fawwaz Al-Shaalan, Selmore charged. After marrying a royal princess, he flew the world with an entourage of dozens and diplomatic immunity that avoided luggage inspections.
Co-defendants Al-Shaalan and Jose Maria Clemente, a Spaniard beyond the reach of U.S. extradition, agreed to evenly split their profits, Selmore said. The prince would pay a broker fee to Mangeri, his college sweetheart at the University of Miami, and Clemente owed Lopez. "It was a perfect fit," Selmore said. That is, until the bust on the trial run.
Netted in the wide-ranging Colombian drug crackdown dubbed Operation Millennium, Usuga started helping U.S. drug investigators in 2000 and told them about the prince. Mangeri was arrested in 2002 and Lopez was extradited in 2003. "Usuga is a brilliant man believing that he is the smartest drug dealer in the history of the world," Soven said. "He must have seen the 'Scarface' movie 20 times. He thought he was invincible."
Sentenced to less than three years in prison in the Ochoa indictment, which netted the kingpin more than 30 years, Usuga wanted even less time. From prison, he offered up the prince and his coterie but was running three money-laundering side deals that had him handling money in three drug investigations, Soven said.
Posted by: Anonymous5089 ||
03/09/2005 7:01:54 AM ||
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I thought Allan didn't like drugs.
Honestly, I thought it was baking soda, and she was going to make me a chocolate cake...
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that Pakistan had made the United States "more secure" by arresting more than 100 extremists across the country.
In a speech the White House described as an update on the war on terrorism, President Bush said repressive conditions in the Middle East gave rise to extremism. But he also said that he saw "hopeful signs" across the Muslim world. The 'authoritarian rule in the Middle East' and other parts of the Muslim world, said Mr Bush, were "the last gasp of a discredited past."
Mr Bush demanded anew that Syria pull its troops out of Lebanon and allow free elections. "All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for these elections to be free and fair."
In his speech, delivered at the National Defence University, Washington, Mr Bush said his successful campaign for forcing a Syrian withdrawal will bring freedom to Lebanon. "Freedom will prevail in Lebanon. The American people are on your side," he told the Lebanese people.
"The advance of hope in the Middle East requires new thinking in the region," the president said. "By now it should be clear that authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future. It is the last gasp of a discredited past."
Mr Bush said the entire world has "an urgent interest in the progress and hope and freedom in the broader Middle East," in which he also includes Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"Our duty is now clear," he said. "For the sake of our long-term security, all free nations must stand with the forces of democracy and justice that have begun to transform the Middle East."
Pakistan was among the few nations that he praised for its leading role in the fight against terrorism. "We're more secure because Pakistani forces captured more than 100 extremists across the country last year, including operatives who were plotting attacks against the United States," he said.
Mr Bush said Britain had arrested an Al Qaeda operative who had provided detailed reports on possible American targets to senior Al Qaeda leaders. Mr Bush also cited efforts by Germany, the Philippines and Poland for catching Al Qaeda suspects.
"In three and a half years, the United States and our allies have waged a campaign of global scale - from the mountains of Afghanistan, to the border regions of Pakistan, to the Horn of Africa, to the islands of the Philippines, to the plains of North Central Iraq." Mr Bush said the Al Qaeda terror network that attacked the US still has leaders, but many of its top commanders had been removed.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/09/2005 7:54:08 AM ||
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For the sake of our long-term security, all free nations must stand with the forces of democracy and justice that have begun to transform the Middle East."
Translation from Bush Speak: Get out or we will kick your a&&
07.03.2005 at 0755 LT in position 04:47S-114:14E, Indonesia. Pirates boarded a tanker underway and stole ship's equipment. Several fishing boats were in the area at the time.
04.03.2005 at 0315 LT at Casablanca port, Morocco. Twenty robbers armed with long knives boarded a general cargo ship at berth. D/O raised alarm and master called the police by VHF. Police arrived promptly and robbers fled after seeing the police car.
02.03.2005 at 2230 LT at Chittagong B anchorage, Bangladesh. Robbers armed with guns boarded a general cargo ship. They stole ship's stores and escaped. Port control and coast guard informed but no response was received.
02.03.2005 at 0110 LT at Tema roads, Ghana. Ten robbers in a motor boat attempted to board a refrigerated cargo ship. Alert crew activated fire hoses and directed searchlights. Robbers aborted attempt and fled. Port control informed who advised master to heave up anchor and move further offshore.
01.03.2005 at 0500 LT at Sebuku anchorage, Pulau Laut, Indonesia. Eight robbers armed with long knives and metal bars boarded a bulk carrier via hawse pipe. They hit one crewmember with metal bars causing injuries to his head and legs. They then tied him up and gagged his mouth with rags. Robbers stole ship's stores and escaped in their boat.
28.02.2005 at 2030 LT in position 05:01.10n - 099:32.38e, Malacca straits. Four armed pirates in a fishing boat fired upon a tug towing a barge. They boarded the tug and damaged all communication equipment and shot at c/e's [chief engineer's]legs causing serious bleeding. They took master and c/o as hostages and escaped with all ship's and crew documents. A Royal Malaysian naval ship arrived to assist and took c/e ashore for hospital treatment. Fate of the hostages is unknown.
Posted by: Pappy ||
03/09/2005 1:48:28 AM ||
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Chittagong B anchorage, Bangladesh. ... Port control and coast guard informed but no response was received.
Should have called RAB. We could have Pirates dead in "Crossfire".
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 10:10 Comments ||
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Either left-click to view, then use back to return to RB...
-or-
Right-click and select open in new window.
Copy the URL and manually paste into a browser and it fails. This is done on purpose to prevent huge bandwidth hits from external sites. Access from RB = Good. Access from DingDong Forum = Forbidden.
#6
I also get 403 from .com's site. Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /images/pirates.jpg on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
I am behind a firewall (ZoneAlarm). When I turn it off, the image loads without a problem.
Posted by: ed ||
03/09/2005 17:26 Comments ||
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#13
Glad you like it, Pappy - I've wanted to offer you one for awhile, but had to wait till I could grab the image set, heh. I loves UseNet, lol! There are some better - I may make a page of 'em for you to choose your favorite, heh - but just posting them helter-skelter might offend delicate sensibilities, lol!
Frank's just baiting you guys - we don't trade stuff via email. Nah. Not that, lol!
John Bolton , George W. Bush's undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, is the administration's designated treaty killer. Since his nomination (which was opposed by Secretary of State Colin Powell), Bolton's reputation as a rabid opponent of international agreements and loose-lipped critic of foreign regimes has become the stuff of legend, at times hampering the State Department's ability to undertake negotiations. In July 2003, during the run up to the six-nation talks with North Korea, Bolton described Korean head of state Kim Jong Il as a "tyrannical dictator" of a country where "life is a hellish nightmare." North Korea responded in kind, saying that "such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks. ... We have decided not to consider him as an official of the U.S. administration any longer nor to deal with." The State Department sent a replacement for Bolton to the talks. (5)
Bolton 's penchant for going off half-cocked extends well beyond North Korean issues. Some notable examples:
* At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association, Bolton claimed, "There's no such thing as the United Nations," saying that ''If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.'' (8)
* During the July 2001 global U.N. conference on small arms and light weapons, Bolton told delegates that the United States was not only opposed to any agreement restricting civilian possession of small arms, it also didn't appreciate "the promotion of international advocacy activity by international or non-governmental organizations." Bolton 's delegation was accompanied by that distinguished American NGO the National Rifle Association. (7)
* In 1998, when he was senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, Bolton described the International Criminal Court (ICC) as "a product of fuzzy-minded romanticism [that] is not just naïve, but dangerous." (6)
* Bolton told the Wall Street Journal that signing the letter informing the U.N. that Washington was renouncing the Rome Treaty to create the ICC "was the happiest moment of my government service." (6)
* Regarding efforts to add a verification proposal to the bioweapons convention, Bolton told colleagues in 2001, "It's dead, dead, dead, and I don't want it coming back from the dead." (6)
Posted by: tipper ||
03/09/2005 2:26:42 AM ||
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Have I mentioned today how perfect a choice this guy is? For a Yalie lawyer he didn't turn out half bad.
#7
President Bush has sent a strong message to the UN by nominating Bolton to the post of UN Ambassador. Are people offended by the blunt statements of Mr. Bolton, or are they offended by the truth? Heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2005 8:43 Comments ||
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#8
Karl Rove is probably working overtime to crank out press releases (on letterhead titled: Bush Haters United) exposing this Evil Bolton stuff, ... and the press is falling for it.
#9
The NYT's lead editorial is devoted to trashing Bolton, which shows to go you what a good choice Bush made. The editorial then mockingly suggests that maybe Bush's next appointment will be Rummy to negotiate a new set of Geneva Conventions. A capital idea, says I.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2005 11:25 Comments ||
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#10
Matt - I say go for it!
Too bad somebody won't ask Bush about this idea at a press conference.... :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/09/2005 14:23 Comments ||
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#11
A trackback to Medienkritik's take on this topic made reference to "Jacqhard Chiroeder". I got a good laugh out of that. :)
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 14:40 Comments ||
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#14
It's pretty funny - the leftist website that put out these quotes has a whole list of conservatives profiled, almost like the graduating classes of Soviet academies used to be profiled. You gotta love these guys - instead of going after our real enemies, they go after the people who are going after our real enemies. What a bunch of wankers.
#15
Mrs D - As to Condi's abilities as a bureaucratic manipulator, yes, shes proving better than I expected. I admit to underestimating her. She's certainly doing a better job at State so far, then she did at NSC.
#16
She was a very successful provost at Stanford. The stakes may not have been as big, but the egos were. The contrast with NSC shows me she is an executive, not a staffie. She should get Bush to talk Ahnuld into getting in the Senate and then she should run for Gvoernor. She needs the seasoning.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 15:25 Comments ||
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#17
Gotta disagree a bit Mrs. D. California's an absolute disaster and Dr. Rice would be well-advised to stay far away. On the other hand it's the perfect job for Arnold as his political upward mobility is limited.
#18
LH, remember that the National Security Advisor has very little staff and NO power over State, DOD etc. other than through the POTUS. At State you see Condi free to lead.
Posted by: too true ||
03/09/2005 20:24 Comments ||
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Anti-terror experts and heads of state are converging on Madrid to identify the causes of international terrorism and explore ways of reducing the threat.
I didn't get an invitation. Did you get an invitation, Dan? Steve? Em? Steve?
It would be a mighty short conference if they invited me ...
They asked, but that's my day to clean the litter box.
The gathering coincides with the anniversary of last year's Madrid train bombings that shocked Spain and brought the full impact of Islamic terrorism to Europe. It will tackle questions such as whether countries are cooperating enough, whether the flow of money can be stopped in today's interconnected world and what role does - or should - the media play. The conference will open today (Tuesday) with panel discussions, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is to make a policy statement on terrorism on Thursday. The meeting's date and place were chosen to commemorate last year's March 11 train bombing in downtown Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500.
Brilliant. You've got an international movement dedicated to the destruction of the West, and what do you do? Form a committee.
About two dozen presidents, prime ministers or kings are to join about 200 experts from 50 countries who will present their research on the causes and financing of extremism and religious-based violence. The meeting is to end on Friday with recommendations on how governments could work together to curtail the threat.
The recommendations will then be filed with all the previous recommendations from all the previous committees.
World leaders attending the conference will include Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, as well the head of Russia's National Security Council, Igor Ivanov, and US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Pakistan's President Gen Pervez Musharraf and former US President Bill Clinton might also attend, said Andrew Hazell, head of media relations for the conference.
Is Bono going to be there?
The conference brings together countries that have suffered major attacks, such as Spain and the US, and others where political violence is part of daily life. In Algeria, an Islamic insurgency has raged since 1992. Spanish conference participants said last week that governments must address the causes of terrorism in order to defeat it, rather than lashing out as the United States did in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in 2001. "The consensus is a 'soft' power approach based on prevention - not like the US has in mind, but (rather) with engagement with North African Muslim nations, economic development, assimilating and integrating immigrants into host nations," said Charles Powell, a history professor at San Pablo-CEU University in Madrid.
My reaction after due consideration is "Whoopdy doo."
This conference follows what Roger Ebert, in talking about movies, used to call an "idiot plot" -- that is, the only way for the movie in question to continue is if the major characters each acted like idiots. The first time any one of them did the first sensible thing you or I would do, the mystery would be solved and the movie would be over.
This is an "idiot conference" -- if they invited me, Fred, Em, Dan or Steve, the mysterious causes of international terrorism would be solved and the conference would be over before the seven-course lunch was served. Can't have that. Hence (ergo), no invitation.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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As a matter of fact, I did get the invitation a few weeks ago. Guess I forgot to let you know. It was tastefully engraved and embossed at the Quetta IdentiFactorium, and hand-delivered by diplomatic pouch to the Yemen consulate here in DC. The conference itinerary notes there will be a pot luck dinner and door prize raffle after the first plenary session. The hospitality committe asked me to bring some warm milk and cookies!
#2
Brilliant. You've got an international movement dedicated to the destruction of the West, and what do you do? Form a committee.
That is the brilliance of The Plan of the Islamists. They take the Peter Principle, amalgamate it with Parkenson's Law, and run with it, and you get a terrorism conference in Madrid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2005 0:23 Comments ||
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#3
Anti-terror experts and heads of state are converging on Madrid to identify the causes of international terrorism and explore ways of reducing the threat.
I didn't notice the category name "International-UN-NGOs" initially, but when I saw the first sentence about meeting in Madrid to identify causes and "explore ways" I thought, "that sounds so UN-ish". Sure enough...
#4
âThe consensus is a âsoftâ power approach based on prevention - not like the US has in mind, but (rather) with engagement with North African Muslim nations, economic development, assimilating and integrating immigrants into host nations,â
Let me get this straight:
Emmigration from North Africa and disengagement from those nations is a cause of terrorism. It sounds more like a cause for war
#7
Isn't the 'soft power approach' what Rome used when it itself had gone soft wrt the barbarian hordes in the years before Rome got sacked? That was successful - for a while...
PCism/multiculturalism/anti-Christianity is to today's Europe as Christianity was to Rome?
#8
More Information the meeting is organized by people from PRISA the leftist media group (Cadena SER, EL Pais, Canal + Spain) who brought down the right wing governemnt through a campaign of smearing, lies and manipulation after the 3/11 bombings
In fact most non left-wing right wing experts on terrorism like Daniel Pipes or Bat Yeor have cancelled their attendance when learning the restrictions they would have on speech. Plus on the case of Bat Yeor she would not be entitled to protection.
You will find more details (in Spanish) at
http://libertaddigital.com/opiniones/opi_desa_23630.html
#9
Are we sure this isn't the conference probing the safest and most rapid way to cave into terrorism? That is what "soft power" is regarding terrorism, a total caving into it. You give in, they win. You don't negotiate, you study them, you track them, you cut them off and, you kill them. That is the successful method to deal with terrorists. Screw these fools. The real method scares the hell out of these vapid pansies. All they are fit for is conferences.
#10
This is just so Euroweenian. I think the the EUros have forgotten that to do something means to act, not hold a conference. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, there's a great scene where Tuco says: If you have to shoot, shoot! Don't talk.
#13
All the Euroweenies can do IS talk. They have no credible military. Even the UK's is being cut to the bone. So they will try to figure out a way to bend over in such a way as to expose as little of the fruitbasket as possible.
A SELF-confessed member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) arrested last Friday has owned up to the bombing of a shopping mall in Mandaluyong City in 2000, which killed one and injured 20 others. During tactical interrogation, Rahid Buday, confessed that he coddled two other MILF members while they were preparing to attack the SM Megamall Cinema 6, Brigadier General Jose Angel Honrado told reporters.
According to Buday the attack was made to scare away investors and show that the government was "not in control of the situation," said Colonel Restituto Aguilar, commander of the Army brigade that arrested the MILF rebel.
Buday, wearing an orange shirt, was presented to media in Camp Aguinaldo. Honrado kept mum on Buday's alleged involvement in the Valentine's Day bus bombing in Makati City that killed four people and injured almost 100 others. "It's premature to say that," Honrado told reporters when asked to confirm claims of Major General Raul Relano, Army 6th Infantry Division commander, and Major Bartolome Bacarro, Army spokesman, that Buday was involved in the February 14 attack.
Buday was arrested in his safehouse in barangay (village) Layug, Pagalungan town, Maguindanao province last Friday. Recounting the events prior to the mall bombing, Buday confessed that sometime in 2000, Panayaman asked him to accommodate Ambo and Moisan in his home at the Maharlika Village in Taguig City, Honrado said. In May that year, while inside Buday's house, Panayaman gave Boisan and Ambo the explosives, encased in a shoebox. Panayaman told the two to strap the explosives to their bodies and assemble the bomb inside the cinema's comfort room.
With Buday's arrest, only one more suspect in the Megamall bombing, a certain Ustadz Nabel Panayaman, has remained at large, Honrado said. Dante Matu Ambo and Danny Buday Boisan were arrested on August 5, 2003. "In the next few days we will corner the remaining suspect," Honrado said, withholding additional details because "operations were still ongoing."
Honrado refused to point to the MILF leadership as the mastermind of the attack. "In every organization, there are bad eggs. The MILF is cleansing itself of lost commands," he said. The MILF is set to resume peace talks with the government in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in March.
This article starring:
Brigadier General Jose Angel Honrado
Colonel Restituto Aguilar
DANNY BUDAI BOISAN
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
DANTE MATU AMBO
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
Major Bartolome Bacarro
Major General Raul Relano, Army 6th Infantry Division
PANAIAMAN
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
RAHID BUDAI
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
USTADZ NABEL PANAIAMAN
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:20:01 AM ||
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Philippine military intelligence agents have been deployed in Muslim communities around Manila to ferret out "sleeper cells" of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf militants, an official said Tuesday.
Lieutenant General Allan Cabalquinto, head of a military unit guarding Manila, said agents were now monitoring certain groups in Maharlika village and in Culiat, home to large Muslim communities. Muslims in the old shopping district of Quiapo meanwhile were "under the watch of the police."
"We are monitoring the Maharlika village, that is the ready hideout of the Abu Sayyaf," Cabalquinto told reporters. "Terrorists depend a lot on sleeper cells. They cannot bring a new face here."
The man who supplied the explosives used in the bombing of a bus in Manila's Makati financial district last month and his accomplice allegedly hid in Maharlika village to elude arrest.
They were later captured by the authorities and are now in tight military detention. Both men were linked to the Abu Sayyaf, which said the attacks were in retaliation for the government's anti-insurgency campaign.
Two other bombs also exploded on the same day in the southern Philippines and up to 12 people were killed in the three bombings.
Authorities earlier said that an Abu Sayyaf cell with at least 10 members were still at large in Manila and were being hunted down.
"The recent arrests (of their accomplices) have caused them to disperse," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2005 3:02:45 AM ||
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Syria has published an updated version of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an anti-Semitic story that claims Jews run the world by proxy, adding to it Islamic extremist ideology and dedicating the work to Palestinian suicide bombers, WorldNetDaily has learned.
The new edition of the Protocols was introduced at February's Egyptian International Book Fair, considered the most important event in the Arab literary world, and was published by a Syrian company, Dar al-Awael, which credits Syria's Ministry of Information with approving the text of the book... Lots more interesting Joo facts in the article.
JERUSALEM — The giant Hezbollah rally that drew nearly half a million purported supporters of Syria's occupation of Lebanon actually was a staged hoax with non-Lebanese citizens, Syrian workers, students and municipal employees coerced into joining the protest, former Lebanese Prime Minister Michel Aoun told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview this morning. "Yesterday's huge protest calling for Syria to stay made it look to the world like a large segment of the Lebanese population actually wants to live under Syrian occupation," said Aoun, speaking to WND from Paris. "But the protest wasn't what it appeared to be. It was an elaborately staged affair."
Hundreds of thousands packed into a central Beirut meeting square yesterday, chanting support for Syrian troops to maintain positions in Lebanon and denouncing America in what has been called a massive show of strength by Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Protestors held signs, in English, reading "Thank you Syria'' and "No to foreign interference," a reference to American intervention. The crowd sang the national anthem and many waved red-and-white Lebanese flags, some holding posters with pictures of pro-Damascus Lebanese and Syrian presidents. Attendance at the rally greatly outnumbered recent demonstrations led by opposition figures against Syria's presence in Lebanon and was billed by Hezbollah speakers as a sign Syria enjoys popular support among the people of Lebanon and should therefore keep their nearly 20,000 troops inside the country. Damascus has been under daily fire from the U.S., Europe and many Arab countries demanding an end to its occupation of Lebanon.
But Aoun told WND Hezbollah and Syrian officials used deceptive and coercive techniques to orchestrate the protest. "This was not a Lebanese showing, and many of those who actually were Lebanese were not there because they support Syria. We know that at least three Palestinian camps were present. And there are 700,000 Syrian workers inside Lebanon, many of whom are not even supposed to be there. They were urged by Syria to attend so it looks like many Lebanese are protesting. Plus Syria bused in their own citizens from Syria through the border into Lebanon to join the rally."
The former prime minister also accused Hezbollah and pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence forces of coercing students and municipal workers to attend.
"They shut down the schools and all the government and public buildings and pressured students and workers to get to the rally," he said.
Taking a page from the Democrats playbook
Similar charges were made to WND this morning by a spokesperson for Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party.
Aoun said Hezbollah was able to legitimately bring some of its own followers. The Lebanese militant group maintains a sizable constituency of the Shia population, to which it provides social welfare services ranging from education to medical care. In the outlying heavily Shiite regions of the Bekaa Valley and the south, Aoun says, Hezbollah "drove through the streets with loudspeakers urging followers to get to Beirut for the protest." "In all, it was a real multinational rally," joked Aoun. "Even watching protestors being interviewed, you hear they had Palestinian and Syrian accents. This was not the Lebanese people expressing their will."
Aoun compared yesterday's rally to the opposition events held almost daily. "Yesterday was not a spontaneous outpouring; it was planned and orchestrated," he said. "You see in the opposition rallies that they happen every day. People are going because they want to, and they are going regularly."
Officials have been speculating the past few weeks how Hezbollah will react to the growing international pressure on Damascus to immediately withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and to what degree the group enjoys support from the Lebanese people. Hezbollah's weak response to former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's assassination, for which Syria has been blamed, and its refusal to join the opposition's push to get Damascus out of Lebanon has brought many Lebanese to question Hezbollah's ultimate allegiances, analysts say.
Some experts contend a growing number of Lebanese believe Hezbollah's armed wing has not been needed since Israel withdrew from South Lebanon in 2000, and many see the group's resistance as, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, a pariah. But Hezbollah boasts the largest Shia party in Lebanon, supported by a third of the Shiite Muslim population. With parliament almost evenly split between pro-Syrian loyalists and the opposition, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, with 12 seats, may hold the deciding votes.
In recent remarks, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a major force of the anti-Syrian opposition, has gone out of his way to praise Hezbollah's head, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, as a "great leader," and repeatedly has called on him to join the opposition. But yesterday's rally served to solidify Hezbollah's union with Syria, explained Aoun.
Aoun also said recent information has shown Syrian and Lebanese forces have been trying to stir up violence with the opposition in hopes of precipitating a confrontation that may delay Syria's announced withdrawal of troops. "There have been shootings in residential areas yesterday and the day before by Syrian backed forces to try to provoke violence with the opposition," said Aoun.
Syrian officials announced last week troops would withdraw from mountain and coastal areas in Lebanon in line with a 1989 agreement signed while Aoun was in office, but there has been no sign of such a redeployment. U.S. President George W. Bush said the time for delaying tactics by Damasacus has passed and set a May deadline for Syria's full withdrawal from Lebanon. "We are not expecting much from Syria," said Aoun. "They are considering the American pressure very seriously, but we haven't seen clear signs Syria will withdraw now."
Aoun is no stranger to revolt against Syria. While prime minister in 1989, he launched a "war of liberation" against Syrian military forces which earlier had invaded Lebanon. The war was highly popular with Lebanese citizens but failed to garner the international opposition needed to successfully oust Syrian troops. It ended in a cease-fire and the signing of the American and Saudi backed Ta'if accord, which required Syria to redeploy its troops to the Bekaa valley and confer with Lebanon on further redeployments. Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the American government garnered Syria's participation in the U.S.-led coalition against Baghdad, and critics charge in return the previous Bush administration gave Damascus a green light to complete its conquest of Lebanon, allowing it to launch an invasion of East Beirut and the surrounding areas controlled by Aoun's government, forcing Aoun into exile in France.
Despite his exile, Auon has remained a highly popular leader in Lebanon, considered by many to be the country's most prominent opposition figure. There have been calls throughout the decade, both from the Christian community and from a significant portion of the Lebanese Muslim population, for his return to power.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/09/2005 11:33:02 AM ||
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#1
There may have been a few thousand Syrians at the rally; there may have been a few thousand govt workers; but the vast majority of attendees were lower income Shiites.
I do like the comment,
"..Hezbollah "drove through the streets with loudspeakers urging followers to get to Beirut for the protest."
500,000 day after tomorrow. Beirut. I've got you down for our Premium Seething Option. We're having a special on Giant Puppets today: Buy a George Bush and Don Rumsfeld, you get a Condi Rice for half-off. No? Okay. We'll just stick to American flags to burn. Why, yes, we can pre-soak them in gasoline for you. Thanks for placing your order."
#3
Please - No one photoshop Howard Dean's head onto one of the "Head-Bowler" protestors. No one would believe it.
Begala, OK, we'd all accept that But not Dean - no one would believe it. He was seen in the US yesterday. Begala is MIA since the cancellation of Crossfire...
#5
ive seen references to lebanese paper saying the crowds were heavily Syrian, but no citations. If any has such a citation, please post it here, as it would be helpful in an argument im having elsewhere. Or a quote from the western press but (other than the Wash Times, which does say so, but wont be considered credible to my target audience)
#6
Did CNN happen to put a young man on camera proclaiming, "Saddam Hussein Bashar Assad; a very good man"?
Maybe someone should tell Goofy Kofi that
Hezbollah may not be the force he reckoned it to be.
Bleached Hair, Tight sweater and designer blue jeans...Looks like Iranian-Backed Hezbulla's kinda gal!!!
YES - This is the ppro-Syrian Demonstration-Please note Assad's Picture in the background...
And! This is picture #1 on BBC's slide show, we know how they are...Also note slide #2
Nope-No foreigners here. Schools closed and children bussed to the demonstration... Naah... Not a forced demonstration... How could that be?
Where other protests have been a showcase for Beirut's appetite for Western fashion, this crowd was replete with women in traditional headscarves, overwhelmingly drawn from the 1.2 million Lebanese Shiites who make up a plurality of the country's 4 million people.
Compared with the caption by the BBC for the above photo...
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, for a rally backing Syria's role in the country.
Again I can see the "traditional dress" of the gal riding on the fellow's shoulders...which is also against Islamic rules...
#14
Why bother with them, then? They've already decided to reject evidence that doesn't suit their prejudices
Its like water melting a rock, but it does happen. I managed to get one member of the French Communist party to accept that Ariel Sharon is basically a pragmatist (although said Frenchman is half Jewish by birth, and so may have been an easier target than some)
BTW if you really think that anyone who rejects the credibility of the Wash Times is too far gone to be worth it, well .....
#15
big ed - its at least conceivable that parts of the rally were mainly shrouded Shiites, while others were non-Shiites, or at least non-fundies. Doesnt prove the modern dress people were Syrian,and if they were how many.
Lebanon Daily Star says there were some Syrians, but most were Lebanese. Thats the best ive been able to find.
#16
BTW if you really think that anyone who rejects the credibility of the Wash Times is too far gone to be worth it, well .....
If their sole basis for the rejection is the source, yes, they are too far gone. If the NYT reports something that fits the pattern of events, then I'll trust their reporting unless and until contradictory information comes along; I don't disbelieve simply because it comes from the Paper of Distort.
Also, I submit that someone who needs to be convinced that dictators stage demonstrations is also probably too far around the bend to be salvagable.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/09/2005 14:28 Comments ||
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#17
Er, sorry, RC. I read and enjoy the Wash Times, but I really can see why someone would discount their articles, the way I discount articles from say, Robin Wright or Dana Milbank at the WaPo.
as for dictators and demos, the fact that dictators stage demos doesnt show that that every demo favorable to a dictator was staged by them (answer demos in DC, as a case in point) Heck its not even a question of it being staged - that Hezb bussed in thousands of Lebanese Shiites is beyond doubt - whats at issue is the presence of SYRIANS.
Mind you I think there WERE plenty of Syrians there - but i understand the standards of evidence i need in a place that isnt an ideological hothouse.
#20
No -- but even if you found one, whats to stop the person you're trying to convince from saying "Oh, well, those are the LEBANESE papers" and dismissing them?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/09/2005 15:44 Comments ||
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations must recognize Hezbollah as a force to be reckoned with in implementing the U.N. resolution calling for the withdrawal of all Syrian forces from Lebanon and the disarmament of the country's militias, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday.
In a technical, military sense I suppose that's true, as the Division S-2 will have to generate a plan.
He was responding to a question about the disarmament of Hezbollah. Annan said the world needs to accept that in every society different groups may hold different views. "Of course, we need to be careful of the forces at work in Lebanese society as we move forward," he said.
Remind me, Kofi, what part of Lebanon Hezbollah represents.
"But even the Hezbollah - if I read the message on the placards they are using - they are talking about non-interference by outsiders ... which is not entirely at odds with the Security Council resolution, that there should be withdrawal of Syrian troops," Annan told reporters. "But that having been said, we need to recognize that they are a force in society that one will have to factor in as we implement the resolution," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2005 12:25:49 AM ||
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#1
Annan always misses the best opportunities to STFU - especially when he has nothing intelligent or of consequence to say. This is a classic example.
#2
Really? Hizbullah? Local boys yes, puppets of Syria and Iran YES. They should be required to turn over ever last bullet and weapon and lay bare the sources of their funding.
#3
Couldn't quit catch what was said(little hawk was running his mouth),but from what I could see/hear on Fox there were about 500k pro-Syria Hizb demonstrators in Lebenon yesterday.That was a hell of a big turn-out,caught me by surprise.
Poor Shiites mainly - the same group that Sadr appeals to in Iraq. Except these guys aint suffered under a Saddam for 30 years, but at various points have lived uncomfortably under Israeli occupation and under a Maronite dominated govt. So dont expect them to be as friendly to the West as Iraqi, or Iranian, Shiites.
Hezb clearly remains an important force in that community - even if they pressured folks to show up, that shows how strong they are in shiite locales there. OTOH Shiites are a minority, albeit the largest in Lebanon (about 38% ive seen) and I doubt theyre completely united, despite the demo. Still, Im glad it wont be US troops going in there.
#6
I don't know, Kofi. Better convene a meeting at Tavern on the Green and try to figure out your next move. Actually, make that a conference...or maybe even a seminar.
#9
"...as we move forward..."
"...as we implement the resolution..."
We? How is Kofi moving forward on this? Just what exactly is he leading on this? The resolution demands the disarming of militias. What is he doing to implement the resolution? Anyone?
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 10:52 Comments ||
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#10
I think the UN should have to move it's offices to the area where the Secretary General is from. Not just stay in New York. It would help the economy of every country it is set up in. Also we could amke sure we elect someone from the Middle East. See how they like Hezbullahs notion of justice, where blowing up places and maybe killing a diplomat is just collateral damage.
Or the Basque region, who have been fighting at least as long as Hezullah, should be reconized.
Kofi needs to wake up.
#12
Hezbollah is all about dacing around and talking tough, but when confronted by even minimum force they scurry like the pig-dogs they are. They are nothing more than armes thugs on par with the Sicialian Mafia at the turn of the century. They have fear, no true loyalty from the population. Just look how they showed in the recent polls in Gaza and they have had huge rallies there too.
#14
The Alawites are an offshoot of Shiia. Syria is currently the only shiia controlled Arab state despite its Sunni majority. This is mostly about Sunni/Shiia rivalry.
JERUSALEM — Palestinian officials will travel to Beirut in the next two days to tell the Lebanese leadership that the Palestinian Authority will not interfere in internal Lebanese politics and will also try to keep Palestinian refugees in Lebanon on the sidelines, a senior Cabinet minister said on Monday.
Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath said the delegation of officials from Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah movement will also meet with Palestinian leaders from the refugee camps to deliver a message: stay clear of any internal Lebanese or Syrian disputes. "The aim is to stress our clear position as Palestinians, that we are not a party to any Lebanese-Lebanese struggle or any Lebanese-Syrian issue," Shaath said.
"Besides, we can't tell which way the wind is blowing!" he added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Probably the one idea which all Lebanese groups(including Hizbollah and Amal) agreed on is that they want the Paleos to stay in their refugee areas and not become citizens.
This is a legacy of the Paleo oppression from the early 1970s.
#2
while in the long run it would be better for paleos to integrate into lebanon society, for now this is probably a helpful things. Leaves Hezb more or less isolated in the pro-Syrian camp.
#3
Agreed, but until the encamped Palestinians are civilized, they will continue to be a danger to themselves and to Lebanon. They've been left to the tender mercies of Arab propaganda and the UNWRA for too long. If the Lebanese want their independence to succeed, they are going to have to take actually fix their Palestinian problem.
#5
The Palis are waiting for that key moment when by doing the pali thing they can f**k up Lebannon, Syria and Jordan and of course themselves for another 30 years.
Hundreds of thousands filled the streets of Beirut to hear the leader of the Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah warn the United States to stop interfering in Lebanon and denounce a UN resolution demanding the withdrawal of Syria's army and the disarming of militant groups. In what was widely labelled a "pro-Syrian" demonstration, Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah thanked Syria for its sacrifices in Lebanon, and firmly rejected UN Resolution 1559, which he said was Israeli-inspired. But he pointedly failed to say that Syrian troops should remain on Lebanese soil in a move that many observers interpreted as a concession to Lebanese opposition demands for their withdrawal.
Instead Nasrallah said Hizbullah supported the Taif Accord, which provides a framework for Syrian withdrawal. He said: "The troop withdrawal must happen according to the mechanism of the Taif Accord. The governments of the two countries alone have the right to set the suitable timetable for the troops' withdrawal." He added: "The Taif Accord is our only salvage to ensure the unity of the country and people. We must not only support the part of Taif that deal with the Syrian troops final withdrawal." He added that Syria's physical departure from Lebanon would not remove it from the "hearts and souls" of the Lebanese people. He said: "It was God's wish that Syria and Lebanon are natural neighboring countries. We must understand the implications of the geopolitics that what happens in one country would influence the other." The crowds swarmed into Beirut's Riad Solh Square coming from all parts of Lebanon waving Lebanese flags and and chanting anti American and pro-Syrian slogans.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Too bad none of the Iowa-class battleships weren't still active. A 16 inch shell landing on Nasrallah's residence while he was inside would solve quite a few problems.
#2
BAR-The equivalent of a 16 inch shell can be delivered much more cheaply than with an Iowa-class battleship. A JDAM or even a hellfire from an Apache could do the job as well. Just as long as Nasrallah ends up a grease stain on the rubble.
#3
UN Resolution 1559 was adopted by nine votes in favor (Angola, Benin, Chile, France, Germany, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom, United States) to no votes against, with six abstentions (Algeria, Brazil, China, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia). So he rejects it as Israeli-inspired. Heck, even Muslim Pakistan, Muslim Algeria, and Syria-lovin', Iran-lovin' Russia didn't object.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 11:02 Comments ||
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#4
A JDAM or even a hellfire from an Apache could do the job as well.
Yeah, but that's low-key. The effect of visibly bringing in the big club, brandishing it, then whacking the intended victim over the head with it is priceless. :)
#7
I'm fairly certain that something coming down at 12,000 fps which is Mach 10+ will make some kind of sound and leave a lovely trail of smoke as it scorches in. And so will the impact when it hits whatever it's aimed at. Plus, imagine the morale effect of seeing 50 or 100 of these ripping down into say, Iran's nuclear facilities. Maybe if they're buried deep enough, they could build a MOAB version of a THOR projectile, the kind that leaves geologically significant impact craters.
#8
Oooooooooooooooohhhhh. Too bad. I am unable to paste in the phot *I* titled, "Two JDAM's, one target." Shows the explosion and a second JDAM about 40 feet above the explosion! And I don't remember where I found it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 23:37 Comments ||
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Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's fiery speech received muted international reaction with few voices renewing calls for an "immediate" pullout of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Seeing all those Hezbodies in the streets toned down the euphoria among the timid, as it was supposed to...
Washington shrugged off a massive pro-Syria rally in Beirut and instead reiterated its insistence that Damascus end its presence in Lebanon "as quickly as possible." Downplaying the demonstration in Beirut which attracted hundreds of thousands of people, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "We welcome peaceful demonstrations by the Lebanese people." He added: "We believe the Lebanese people aspire to live in freedom and aspire to control their own future, and I think you've seen that from recent demonstrations." In a clear message to Damascus, McClellan said: "The Syrian government needs to respond to the aspirations of the Lebanese people and the demands of the international community."
Bush isn't going to lose sight of the main objective. That's expected...
Commenting on the demonstration UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said: "It's normal in every society to have differing viewpoints." But he said: "The resolution is quite clear, they must withdraw. That is why I'm sending my envoy to sit with them and discuss the full withdrawal."
It would have been a surprising statement just a couple months ago, before Kofi came under real pressure with the Oil-for-Food scandal and calls for his resignation.
France did not react to Nasrallah's speech despite a specific request by the Shiite leader to French President Jaques Chirac to reconsider his position on UN Resolution 1559, which calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon and respect for its sovereignty.
That probably came as a surprise to Nasrallah. He probably thought Jacques was in his back pocket. Keep an eye on the Frenchies for the next few days, though, to see which way they jump. If they decide the wind's blowing our way, Lebanon could be a cheap place to flex the Francomuscle. The Lebanese army's negligible and would probably side with them anyway, and the Syrian army's no great shakes. Hezbollah's a terrorist organization, not an army.
Yep, the French could collect themselves a squirrel pelt here ...
Siding with the United States, senior officials from Germany, Israel and the European Union retorted calls for Syria to comply with 1559 After a meeting with Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said: "We want a Lebanon that has good relations with its neighbors but can decide on its own fate on a democratic basis." German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Chirac issued a joint declaration Monday urging Syria to completely withdraw its forces from Lebanon as soon as possible.
There's the real surprise. Both Syria and Iran will now attempt to cause the Eurofront to wobble, as is its wont...
Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said: ""We believe that the Syrians should implement Resolution 1559 - and the sooner, the better." Meanwhile, EU Deputy Foreign Minister Nicolas Schmit called on the international community to maintain "pressure on all sides with the aim of a complete and immediate implementation of Resolution 1559."
Ah, yes. That desire to be "even-handed." What were the sides again? Only one has to implement 1559. The other's waiting to see it done.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
is it possible that French cooperativeness is partly out of a desire not to take a pro-Syrian stand that would lead to a break with Germany? My sense is that the pro-Hezb position of the past was a uniquely French one, that Germany was not wild about.
#2
Losing Syrian control of Lebanon causes problems for the MMs of Iran because their client Hizb'Allah may get restrained or muzzled, and MM influence would wane. Does anyone think that the MMs will be even more intransigent toward the EU-3 in the nuke negotiations because of Syrian events? The MMs losing their Syrian outpost would make them even more isolated.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2005 9:08 Comments ||
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#3
One place where the reaction to Nazrallah's speech was unrestrained was Syria.
The govt. and its followers, lackeys, etc. were very, very, very happy. The demo and speech may have saved the Baathist regime from a military coup. At least for the moment.
Amid a tense political scene and one day before the parliamentary consultations to name the next premier, President Emile Lahoud sent out a last call for the Lebanese to unite under one Cabinet and face international pressure.
The people don't want you to 'face' international pressure, they want you to 'respond' to it.
In a statement issued Tuesday from the Presidential Palace, Lahoud said: "The Lebanese have a new opportunity to form a national consensus Cabinet that includes all groups capable of facing international pressures." He added: "I renew my invitation to all parties to participate in an open dialogue to build a sovereign, free, independent and united country."
The president's call was seconded by Hizbullah Secretary General Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who rejected on Tuesday a "neutral" Cabinet, describing it as "meaningless" in the country's current situation. At a rally in central Beirut attended by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, Nasrallah said the country needs a national consensus government, ready to manage the political and economic crisis.
But, amid the invitations, a determined opposition is still refusing to name the next premier or any ministers, saying it will only collaborate with the government if the latter adopts its tough demands. Opposition member and Aley MP Akram Chehayeb told The Daily Star Tuesday: "We refuse to join any government or to even participate in the vote of confidence session in Parliament" necessary to officially name the prime minister and his government. Around 45 out of 128 MPs will not participate in the parliamentary consultations. Chehayeb said that if the opposition's demands are not part of the next Cabinet's policy, no understanding will occur with the loyalists.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#3
Why do all the Tin Pots feel the need for so many slashes and medals? I kind of hate any extra weight on my clothes and lots of those look downright unconfortable.
#4
Sashes, 3dc, 'slashes' they have reserved for anyone else. ;-)
Why, I dunno... Illusion of self-importance? Display of difference between the feudal and the peasants, signifying who's the boss? Crowns are not in anymore, but sashes and big spiky medals would do? Hmmm, medals... especially over the central-left side of thorax... protection against assassination?
Kesrouan MP Neamatallah Abi Nasr urged the conference of the International Organization of Democratic-Christian Parties on Terrorism and Human Rights to assert the full and immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops, the disarming of Palestinian camps, and revealing who assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Abi Nasr, who has recently joined the opposition, spoke Monday at the conference that was held in Brussels in his capacity as the president of the Lebanese Democratic Christian Union. Abi Nasr attended the conference with Aley MP Fouad Saad and Minyeh MP Ahmed Fatfat and spoke on their behalf.
Abi Nasr warned that Lebanon was drifting gradually toward the police state at the hands of Lebanese and Syrian security apparatuses at a time when other countries are moving toward democracy and freedom. He expressed fears the interference of security apparatuses would reflect on the upcoming parliamentary polls and deprive it of transparency and integrity. Abi Nasr also called for considering the jailed leader of the disbanded Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, a political prisoner; and former commander General Michel Aoun, exiled for political reasons, which is contradictory with human rights. He also called for considering Lebanese detainees in Israeli and Syrian prisons as political prisons and releasing them according to the UN Charter and international laws related to freedom of expression.
Participants in the conference unanimously adopted the Lebanese delegation's recommendations and decided to include the issue of human rights violations in Lebanon on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Commission, which will convene in Geneva in April.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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WASHINGTON — The Iranian author Taqi Rahmani, who is spending his 17th year in prison, received an award and grant for persecuted writers, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday. Rahmani, 45, was chosen for the Hellman/Hammett award given every year to writers who suffer reprisals for expressing views that a government opposes.
Rahmani's writings on religious modernism and the political history of Iran have criticised the 'relationship between religion and politics' in Iran and its 'adverse effects' on democratic development, Human Rights Watch said.
Rahmani has been in and out of prison for a total of 17 years.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Somehow, I hardly believe that an award does anything for someone who's been sitting in a jail cell for seventeen years. If HRW was really serious about rights, they'd be supporting the masses in Iran that wish to be freed from the yoke of the Mullahs.
We are Eurocats if you please
We are Eurocats if you don't please
We are from a residence of the Rhine
There is no finer Euro than I am
Do you see that thing flying round and round
Maybe we can reach on up and make it down
If we sneaking up upon it carefully
There will be head for you and a tail for me
We are Eurocats if you please
We are Eurocats if you don't please
Now we're looking over our Lebanon
If we like we stay for maybe quite a while
Meow.......here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty
Do you hear what I hear Assad cry
Where we finding Assad there's bribes near by
And if we look in Beiruit City there could be
Plenty of cash for you and also some for me
We are Eurocats if you please
We are Eurocats if you don't please
Now we're looking over our Lebanon
If we like we stay for maybe quite a while
We are Siamese if you please
We are Siamese if you don't please
We are from a residence of EU
There is no finer Euro than I am
#3
Do you see that thing flying round and round
Maybe we can reach on up and make it down
If we sneaking up upon it carefully
There will be head for you and a tail for me
Sorry-not clear. It's rather cryptic. W is riding high. The Eurocats are jealous and would like to undermine him, and "knock him down". (Not likely)
A Republican Congressman from President George Bush's home state was caught on tape telling a group that he told Bush at a White House meeting that nuking Syria would solve the problem and that he would carry out the attack himself. Congressman Sam Johnson, a retired pilot, later called his remarks a 'joke'. According to Capitol Hill newspaper 'Roll Call' that claimed to have an audio tape of the conversation, Congressman Johnson told a group at a church meeting on February 19 in Washington that he was talking to President Bush and Rep Kay Granger (Republican-Texas) at the White House about the weapons of mass destruction US troops had failed to find in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Pfeh. Sam Johnson is a man. The real deal, unlike McCain - who got preferential treatment, for instance. The reporter who hopes to profit by this, is a cockroach. Johnson is an accomplished and honored legislator, as well, unlike parasites like Skeery.
A delegation of opposition MPs headed to Brussels on Tuesday to seek international support for demands of a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The delegation, also expected to visit Paris later in the week, includes Chouf MP Marwan Hamade, Tripoli MP Mosbah Ahdab, Beirut MPs Ghattas Khoury and Mohammed Qabbani, Zghorta MP Nayla Mouawad, Koura MP Farid Makari, Kesrouan MP Neamatallah Abi Nasr and Minnieh MP Ahmed Fatfat. Leading opposition member Metn MP Nassib Lahoud headed to France Tuesday morning.
This trip comes as opposition leader Walid Jumblatt - who met with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Berlin on Tuesday - is on a tour that has already taken him to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He is expected to travel to Russia by the end of the week. Before departing, Khoury said that the opposition will present their vision to solve the current crisis in Lebanon."We want to convince the international public opinion that the Lebanese people can govern themselves and live in peace without any foreign interference."
As to whether the delegation's initiative could be viewed as a search for foreign backup, Khoury said: "The world has become a global village and the Lebanese cause has become part of people's discussions around the world." "Let's remember that the initial decision for Syrian troops to enter Lebanon [in 1976] was international."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Wow. The EU will send the whole Belgian rusting submarine fleet to help Lebanon.
While we are it:
How do you sink a Belgian submarine? You knock on the door.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 9:14 Comments ||
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Going to the EU for help.
Poor bastards really are clueless, aren't they?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/09/2005 14:14 Comments ||
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not clueless at all. The EU is nearby. And is important to Syria as a trading partner (as the US is NOT) France at least, has a traditional involvement in Lebanon, and has troops available who could intervene (the US OTOH is basically stretched thin - although things may be looking up in a few months, as Iraqi forces take a more direct role) Heck, it was due to Euro support that UNSC Res 1559 was passed, and the pressure from that is probably what "provoked" the Syrians to murder Hariri, the trigger to the whole situation now. No, not clueless at all.
Registration Required
Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday that the killing of an Italian intelligence agent and wounding of an Italian journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq was an accident, but he demanded that the United States conduct a thorough investigation and punish those at fault.
In a somber speech to Parliament, Gianfranco Fini disputed the U.S. military's version of the events that led to Friday night's shooting near Baghdad International Airport. The car carrying journalist Giuliani Sgrena to the airport -- less than an hour after her release by insurgents who had held her hostage -- was coming to a halt when it was riddled by gunfire at a U.S. checkpoint, Fini said. He also said the slain intelligence agent, Nicola Calipari, had made a series of phone calls in an effort to alert Italian and U.S. authorities.
In Washington, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq, said an investigation of the shooting had been ordered. But Casey said he had been unaware Friday that Italian officials had entered Iraq to rescue Sgrena and said he had heard nothing since to indicate the Italians had informed U.S. forces of the route her car would take.
Casey told reporters at the Pentagon that a member of his staff, Brig. Gen. Peter Vangjel, would head the investigation. He said that "modalities" of the probe were still being discussed with the Italians but that he expected it to be conducted jointly.
Casey, in Washington this week for consultations, said that before he left Baghdad on Friday he had made "preliminary inquiries" into what went wrong. He declined to provide his own account, citing the probe.
The shooting has caused outrage in Italy, where 20,000 people turned out for Calipari's funeral Monday. Sgrena, a reporter for the Communist daily newspaper Il Manifesto, has fueled anti-American sentiment by suggesting that U.S. forces may have targeted the car because the United States opposes negotiating with hostage-takers.
Fini said there were no grounds to believe the shooting was deliberate, and he dismissed calls by opposition parties for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government to withdraw the 2,700 Italian troops serving in the U.S.-led force in Iraq.
But he said the government's conclusion that the shooting was an accident resulting from a series of "fatal coincidences" did not mean it should drop the matter. "This does not prevent us -- in fact, it obliges us -- to demand clarification, to ask that light be shed on points that are still murky, to identify who is responsible . . . and to obtain the punishment of the guilty," Fini said.
In an initial statement after the shooting last week, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad said the Italians' car was "traveling at high speeds" and refused to halt at a checkpoint despite attempts by U.S. soldiers to warn the driver to stop "by hand and arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots in front of the car."
A senior military officer in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that soldiers at the checkpoint reported that Sgrena's car was traveling about 60 mph and had been signaled with a spotlight to stop when it was about 125 yards from the checkpoint.
Fini's detailed description of the incident -- based on testimony by the driver, an unidentified Italian intelligence agent -- contained no mention of warning shots or hand signals. Fini said the car was traveling at no more than 25 mph on a wet road as the driver steered around cement blocks. Fini said the driver was already braking when the car was hit by a burst of automatic gunfire lasting 10 to 15 seconds.
U.S. soldiers ordered the driver to his knees outside the car, then repeatedly apologized once they realized who was in the car, Fini said.
Casey, asked about statements by Italian officials that the U.S. military had been informed of Sgrena's release and the plan to transport her to the airport, said he knew of nothing confirming that such communication took place. "I personally do not have any indication of that, even on a preliminary basis," he said.
The incident has focused attention on U.S. checkpoint procedures, a contentious topic among some Iraqis who regard U.S. forces as sometimes too quick on the trigger. A number of civilians have been killed after failing to stop or committing some other error on approaching checkpoints.
Casey said he had asked a subordinate to review all checkpoint incidents in the past six months to determine what lessons could be drawn. He said a separate checkpoint incident Friday, which resulted in the death of a Bulgarian soldier, had deepened his concern about procedures. "Obviously, the timing gave me cause for discomfort," Casey said. "It was troublesome."
[Early Wednesday in Baghdad, a suicide bomber driving a garbage truck detonated explosives near a hotel used by Iraqi police and their foreign instructors, killing at least one person and wounding at least six, the Reuters news agency reported, citing police.]
Posted by: ed ||
03/09/2005 3:18:37 PM ||
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Seems a lot of the puffery out of Berlusconi's government is for domestic consumption, and that if we do due dillegence, and determine as I suspect, the driver had the brains of a turnip under the circumstances, time will heal any wounds...
#2
Sure, we'll punish our soldiers, the moment Italy hands over everyone involved in this ransom payment for supporting terrorists so they can be tried and executed. If Italy refuses, kick them out of Nato, blockade their ports and use interdiction strikes to shut down their borders.
#3
Italyâs foreign minister said Tuesday that the killing of an Italian intelligence agent and wounding of an Italian journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq was an accident, but he demanded that the United States conduct a thorough investigation and punish those at fault.
If it's an "accident", why are they so worried about fault?
#4
Yes, we will conduct a thorough investigation and yes we will punish those at fault. Unfortunately for the Italians, it appears that they guy at fault is already dead, so consider him punished enough.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2005 23:05 Comments ||
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ROME - The Italian intelligence officer killed by US troops in a friendly fire incident last week had not told US authorities why he was in Iraq, Italy's Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said Wednesday. Fini's comment is the first admission from the Italian government there might have been communication gaps between the Italians and their US allies on the ground prior to the shooting the claimed the life of Nicola Calipari last Friday.
Took you long enough, I'll wager he had to pry the info out of the Italian Intelligence service.
"Calipari duly advised (the US authorities) that he was in Baghdad, and he didn't advise what he had gone to Iraq to do, because we are a sovereign country," Fini told RAI state television during a programme dedicated to the shooting. Fini explained that Italy, in its dealings with its American allies in Iraq, had "a relationship of absolute loyalty but not of subservience". Fini has previously dismissed Washington's view that a lack of communication was responsible for the death of Calipari, Rome's top intelligence officer in Iraq, and demanded that the United States "identify and punish" those responsible for the shooting.
Calipari died in a hail of gunfire from US troops as he escorted a freed Italian hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport on Friday. Sgrena, released unharmed by her kidnappers, was wounded in the shoulder. An internal Pentagon memo published by US media on Tuesday said the Italians had failed to make arrangements for their safe passage to the airport, were travelling at high speed and failed to respond to "numerous warnings".
The United States and Italy, its staunchest European ally, are to hold a joint inquiry into the incident, which is to report its findings within a month. The incident has fanned anti-American sentiment in Italy and prompted renewed calls for a withdrawal of Italy's 3,000-strong military contingent from Iraq.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/09/2005 3:00:19 PM ||
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The IDF has revealed a revolutionary new protective shield system for its armored vehicles that intercepts and destroys missiles and rockets with a shotgun-like blast just before they hit. The system is called Trophy and was shown in public for the first time during this week's arms fair at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds during a conference on Low Intensity Conflict sponsored by the IDF's Ground Forces Services. The Trophy was developed by RAFAEL together and Israel Aircraft Industries' Elta Group and General Dynamics.
OUR Rafael? You scoundrel!
Known as an "active protective system" (APS), it is seen as a major milestone in weapons design since it in theory reduces the need for heavy armor for vehicles.
"Until recently, APS systems such as Trophy were considered science fiction," said Eitan Yudilevich, corporate VP Marketing and Business Development for RAFAEL. "We've made them a reality. "We've made them a reality. Armored fighting vehicles equipped with Trophy will benefit from improved survivability and overall effectiveness."
According to RAFAEL, the system works against all types of guided anti-tank missiles and rockets, including the ubiquitous rocket propelled grenades. The company said the system includes four flat-panel antennas and a search radar that are mounted on the armored vehicle. They can detect incoming projectiles from 360 degrees and calculate their approach. Its computer then determines the exact moment and angle to fire its neutralizers (small metal pellets like a shotgun blast). They declined to give more detailed information on its neutralizing components. But an official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that personnel around the vehicle would not be harmed by the process. The company said Trophy also works while the vehicle is in motion and is particularly effective against short-range and also simultaneous threats. One of the far-reaching advantages of the new protective system is the possibility of reducing the heavy armor now required to defend vehicles. This means much lighter tanks and battle taxis that could be air lifted to future battlefields. It also opens the way to greater use of armored vehicles inside urban areas where bridges and buildings often don't support the weight of today's heavy main battle tanks. The IDF hopes to introduce them into its armored vehicles within 18 months. The cost of the system was not released. Other new weapon systems unveiled at the arms show include an unmanned turret developed by Elbit Systems. One can be armed with a 25-30 mm cannon and the other is for a 7.62 heavy machine gun.
Posted by: wonderer ||
03/09/2005 10:59:55 AM ||
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Now all the IDF needs is music to go with the video of the weaponn in action. Scare the poop out of the retrobates that surround them...
Ever since 9/11, Muslim leaders who have access to the national media have told us that Islam is the religion of peace and that violence does not represent the essence of Muhammadââ¬s religion.
Even President Bush and Britainââ¬s Prime Minister Blair have repeated this assertion, saying that Islam has been ''hijacked'' by a few violent fanatics. Is this true?
Sadly it is not, for empirical, observable facts demonstrate beyond doubt that Islam at its founding is filled with violenceââ¬"in the life of Muhammad himself and in the Quran itself.
Hence, these Muslim apologists must stop misleading unsuspecting Westerners, and they must be honest about the heart of their religion, for once and for all.
Here are ten clear, verifiable reasons that explain why Islam is not the religion of peace.
Clear? In order to prevent the standard, reflexive ''out of context'' defense from Muslim apologists, the context of each verse in the Quran is explained either in this article or in the links provided within each of the ten reasons. No verse is taken out of context, and Muslim translators are used.
Verifiable? The readers are invited to look up each verse in the Quran in multiple translations, by visiting this website and typing in references, like so: 61:10-12. (61 is the chapter or sura, and 10-12 are the verses). Once at the site, they should ignore request for the transliterated Arabic titles of the chapters in the Quran, and just type in the numbers.
10. Muhammad nicknames his weapons.
9. Muhammad commands in his Quran that adulterers and adulteresses should receive a hundred lashes.
8. Muhammad in his Quran permits husbands to beat their wives.
7. Muhammad in his Quran commands that the hands of male or female thieves should be cut off.
6. Muhammad assassinates poets and poetesses.
5. Muhammad commands death or the cutting off of hands and feet for fighting and corrupting the land.
4. Muhammad aggressively attacks Meccan caravans.
3. Muhammad in his Quran promises sensuous Gardens for martyrs dying in a military holy war.
2. Muhammad unjustly executes around 600 male Jews and enslaves the women and children.
1. Muhammad launches his own Crusades.
Hit the link to read the back-up
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 10:53:52 AM ||
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#1
An excellent article, Mrs. Davis. Thank you!
"Islam" properly translates as "submission", not "peace". Jesus practiced and preached love; Muhammad practiced violence and preached submission.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 11:12 Comments ||
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10. Muhammad nicknames his weapons.
Muhammad nicknames three swords that he took from the Jewish tribe Qaynuqa after he banished them from Medina in April 624: âPluck Out,â âVery Sharp,â and âDeath.â ...
After his..., immigration to Mecca he owned two swords called âSharpâ and âHaving the vertebrae of the back.â
Name 10 swords/daggers from the works of Tolkien:
1. Anduril
2. Narsil
3. Sting
4. Aeglos (gil galad's spear, does it count?)
5. Anglachel (iron flame, sword forged by Eol)
6. Glamdring (the sword of gandalf)
7.Orcrist (Sword of thorin)
8. Angrist (knife made by Telchar of Nogrod)
9. Anguirel (Sword forged by Eol, Anglachel's mate)
10.Aranrúth (sword of Elwe of Doriath)
#4
BigEd, you forgot Ringul. Fegolfin's (sorry abt spelling - dont have my books w/me) sword with which he stabbed Morgoth 7 times during their duel. Also Anduril and Narsil are the same sword - Anduril is Narsil reforged.
#5
CF thanks- I got the info from a Tolkien Blog website. Tolkien was up to his ears in Dark Ages mythos, even Islamic, and was probably aware of all of this stuff, even though named swords in history include Excalibur of "The" King Arthur (c475-c542) which pre-dates Mohammed by 100+ years.
8. Muhammad in his Quran permits husbands to beat their wives.
and 3. Muhammad in his Quran promises sensuous Gardens for martyrs dying in a military holy war.
This is bound together in Mrs.D's piece by one left out from Qu'ran 2:223, Dawood Trans
"Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields whence you please."
I am no scholar, I just now found this via Googling on the subject..."Quran Beat wives"
I guess to avoid overharvesting...that's why they wear black tents in Saudi, and the Talibanishitz did the blue tent thing in Afghanistan. Of course that can produce odd fantasies, which is probably quite unhealthy...causes people to get excited about vaporizing one's self by flying airplanes into buildings, "Allah Akhbar, baby...I like my virgins blonde..."
#10
Ahmed, why don't you back that up with a few well-known, unambiguous quotes from the Quran? Especially as regards non-Muslims, women, and anything on "peace" itself. We'll be waiting.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 12:59 Comments ||
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C'mon, Ahmed. Give some evidence.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/09/2005 13:07 Comments ||
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#12
I can't quote from the Quran, but Christians believe we should live the example of Christ, yes? In the short time I was in Morocco, some of the best Christians I ever met were Muslim. Despite Christ's teachings of love, some devout religious folks have acted not-so-lovingly to others (think the crusades). Then there's the David Koresh's of the world.... (Waco?Janet Reno?)
More recently, I have worked with Muslims and asked several questions of several of them. They didn't consider me an infidel and were not interested in converting me to Islam, just as many Christians are not interested in evangelizing others. Maybe I'm dumb and/or they were all clever liars.
The problem is not with the religion, IMHO, but the teaching of hate of people-not-like-us. I have no use for those trying to destroy us, but I believe there are a great many out there who only wish to live their lives in peace.
There. So ban me from Rantburg.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 14:52 Comments ||
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#13
Bobby, the problem IS with the religion. I have met many Muslims as well and they were very friendly. I think most would be this way, however, if their Imam tells them they will not get into heaven if they don't obey the Imam's edicts they will do what the Imam says. I have found many who follow their Christian preachers teachings to the letter as well. It is my personal belief that "Christianity" today does not resemble what the Jewish Proffet Yeshua taught. Any group can take a "religion" and twist it around but Islam started out twisted.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/09/2005 15:09 Comments ||
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#14
bobby & deacon blues,
add me to the list of people who work with, live nearby, etc. muslims
It so happens that, in the US, criminology types believe (based on a variety of data sources) that muslims are arrested, indicted and convicted less often (as a percent of population) than almost any other ethnic group.
However, as Ibn Warraq says, there are many muslims who are good people; however, that is because they are not good muslims.
As authoritative translations of the Quran have become more available, this has had two important effects:
- kafr and muslim alike can see that violent islam is more authentic than peaceful islam
- when muslims realize this, some peaceful muslims get violent; others leave islam
- when kafr realize this, some spin webs of self deceipt; others come to grips with it
#15
Deacon, Interesting comment. How does Chirstianity today diverge from what Yeshua taught?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 15:31 Comments ||
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#16
Yah, BIg Mo got power in Arabia by fighting with various and sundry folks in and around Medina, and the quran reflects that, by making a big deal out of force in certain instances. Which you can either A. Declare to be literally relevant in his time only, and allegorize for later times (the choice of moderate liberal muslims) or B. Make it something done at the convenience of rulers only, hence boiling down to little more than permission for realpolitik (what Islam ACTUALLY did with the doctrine from Big Mos death till at least the end of the Ottoman Empire) or C. Decide it really means you should have an ongoing war against Christians and Jews - basically the pet interpretation of the Salafi-Jihadists - going against Muslim practice of almost 1200 years, an occasional Jihadi loony aside.
Kinda like how most Jews think the injunction to enter the holy land and wipe out or enslave the inhabitants was something specific to that time, and nothing to do with policy of modern Israel, but a handful of Kahanist loonies disagree.
a helluva lot more salafi-jihadis than Kahanists, but still no reason to tar the entire religion.
And id be damned angry with ANY non-Jew who had the nerve to tell ME that Kahanism is more authentic than the Judaism I practice. Look, if you dont accept the truth of Judaism, HOW can you say one or the other is more Authentic? Ditto for Islam?
Why would you attempt to gauge the truth of Judaism by looking at its texts devoid of the normative commentary? To do so is to DENY the truth of all traditional Judaism, which affirms the semi-cannonical quality of the traditional commentaries, legal decisions, etc. My understanding is the same holds true for both mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam.
Now there IS a religion that insists its original ancient holy texts be interpreted "literally" and without tradition. That religion is Christianity, more specifically Protestant Christianity. "The Bible Alone" IIUC. It does NOT make sense to look at non-Christian religions through that lens. Whether it even makes sense to look at Christianity through that lens, I will leave it to my Catholic friends to debate with the Protestants.
#17
BigEd> Also "Dagmor", Beren's sword... Quoting from memory: tales they would tell of Beren's bow / of Dagmor, his sword, how he would go / silent to camps and slay the chief / or trapped in his hiding past belief / would slip away and in the night / with moon or star or the open light / of day he would return again / of hunters hunted, slayers slain / of Gorgol the Butcher hewn / of war in Ladros, fire in Drun / of thirty in one battle dead / of wolves that yelped like cubs and fled / yeah, Sauron himself with wound in hand! / Thus one alone filled all the land / with fear and death for Morgoth's folk...
#20
2x4, I think what libewralhawk is referring to is, and I come from a Protestant tradition, that "the only way to heaven is but through Jesus..."
As I have said in the past, that is one of the reasons I am not a regular church attender. To me one's position in the afterlife depends on how one lives their life not how they follow certain biblical passages multi-re-translated 100 times.
It is what Jesus told us about living our lives that is important. Too often some well meaning but overanxious clergy lose Jesus' message, and get bogged down on Jesus' personae.
But all that said, in the 21st century, 99.99% of Protestant clergy would never incite, promote violence, or act against a non-believer unless, as many of the Islamofacist Moslems have done, physically threaten and attacked someone innocent solely because they don't accept Islamic belief... This would be simple self-defence. And that's what seperates Fundamentalist Protestantism from Islamofacism.
#21
one's position in the afterlife depends on how one lives their life not how they follow certain biblical passages multi-re-translated 100 times
Do Muslims believe the same? (That is: if you don't do things perfectly in this life, you won't stand much chance in the next?) An honest question, since I don't know the answer. It would make sense given the devout Muslim's many daily rituals.
#22
Do Muslims believe the same?
(That is: if you don't do things perfectly in this life, you won't stand much chance in the next?)
Based on the equivocation of most of the Imams since 9/11, I think probably so.
Only in the case of Islam, a natural extension of this beleif is advocacy of violent conversions, in response to resistance to an offer of conversion by the clergy.
One does not see that with the Fundamentalist Protestantism. They just seem to feel sorry for you that you don't see the would the way they do.
Posted by: Johnson ||
03/09/2005 18:19 Comments ||
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#29
eLarson
With respect to Moslems going to heaven and hell, there is a rich literature.
The Quran itself has many verses describing hell and many describing heaven. As you might expect, the descriptions have contradictions in them (sometimes there is ice cold water in hell, sometimes its all heat). The Quran also describes Allah's attitude on salvation. Basically, Allah's attitude is like St Augustine on steroids. Allah says he could save everyone if he wanted to, but, well I guess he just doesn't want to. There is very little in the Quran about what will guarantee heaven but a lot about what will doom you to hell. All the pagaens are going there. Once you get to the hadiths, its even nastier. Virtually all women are going to hell apparently.
and a good muslim will shake with fear and joy when hearing the Quran describe this stuff.
#30
Sounds a little like Divine Comedy/Paradise Lost or something. Mebbe I'll pick up a copy.
There, too, was a book advertised in my spam this week about the subject. It was written by a missionary to India (I think). It wouldn't be quite the same as delving into it myself, obviously.
#31
to #28 - go ahead, drop the other shoe... your full monicker is E. Normous Johnson. I've seen your posts in the a.b.m.e. group. Pretty good stuff, heh.
#32
Mrs. Davis: I wish I could talk with you directly . A little background on me: I was raised Southern Baptist in South Central Alabama. My Father was an ordained minister. I was taught that to be a true Christian I had to believe in an absolute, literal, Baptist interpretation of the Bible. Jesus (Yeshua) said, "Belive on me and thou shalt be saved". He didn't say I had to follow every edict of the Baptist Church. I don't believe the Earth is only around 8,000 years old and I don't believe the Earth was created in only 6 days. I believe the ammount of time it took to create the Earth and everything in it is totally irrelevant to wheather or not I belive in God. I don't believe God created Man in a flash and a boom but maybe it took millions of years. There again, how God created mankind is irrelevant. When I asked where Adam and Eve's son's got their wives I was told God provided them. That makes me believe God created more than one man and one woman. I'm told by the hierarchy that I am not a true Christian because I question these things. I think Jesus would be as angry with modern religious leaders as he was with his contemperaries. I hear religious leaders condem "sinners" ie, homosexuals etc,and blame mankind's troubles on them. Jesus condemned sinners but offered his compassion. A lot of religious leaders today do not. I posted a while back I actually heard a "preacher" in Columbus, Georgia in 1978 or 79 (I was at Benning) say "Thank God for AIDS. It will rid us of all these godless homosexuals". I realize this is not an opinion held by every religious person but it is held by quite a lot. I think Jesus would be apalled at this. This is also why I abhor Islam, Islam teaches killing and hate. Religion of Peace? BULLSHIT. Sorry about the long Rant, I needed to get some things off my chest.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/09/2005 20:56 Comments ||
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#33
Deacon, I'll guarantee you that you didn't hear a "preacher" in Columbus, Georgia in 1978 or '79 say "Thank God for AIDS". Maybe '88 or '89, but not '78 or '79.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 21:20 Comments ||
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#34
first publicized cases in 80's, DB
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2005 21:34 Comments ||
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#35
I was at Benning in 78-79. This was on television. I could be wrong but that's when I remember it. In 88, 89 I was back in Birmingham and out of the Military for 10 years. I don't think I did that many drugs but the memory does play tricks on us. The basic comment holds true, I don't much like these types of "Evangelists" any more than I like the Islamofacists. The difference between the two is the "Evlangelists" don't go around booming people.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/09/2005 21:40 Comments ||
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#36
IMNSHO Anyone who preaches that they have the one true way to reach God, heaven - doesn't. I'm a RC, but I also believe whatever religion (or not) you choose to follow, your life is saved by the good works you do and the way you treat others. More karma than Catholic, I guess. I also believe God has a sense of humor (probably self-rationalization/justification?)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2005 21:47 Comments ||
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#37
Deacon - I agree with much/most of what you say in #32. Please make an effort to befriend a muslim sometime. Even if your interpretations of their teachings are correct, some of them turn out all right! Look for people that set a good example! I'm trying right now!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 22:06 Comments ||
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#38
DB. Glad to hear your thoughts. Hope it helped to get it off your chest.
You sort of threw me using Christianity instead of Christians. I sort of think Christianity still stands for what Yeshua said as best we know it, but Christians don't do such a good job of living it. Can't quarrel with that, knowing myself as I do.
Frank, our preacher spoke on Jesus' sense of humor last week. It was a pretty good sermon. And funny.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 22:16 Comments ||
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#39
Been there and done that Bobby. Try telling your muslims friends you are a Jew (whether true or not) and then sit back and see how fast they can screw you. And then remind yourself that the muslims in the US are the best, brightest, and most moderate.
#40
Bobby, I do count Muslims among my friends. Frank G. you have to be right. The AIDS epidemic wasn't really identified until the '80s. Bobby,I have worked here in the 'States with Muslims who were very decent people. What worries me is, and this applies to more than one religion, what happens when one's religious teachings tell that it is OK to murder or you don't get the rewards of Heaven. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials are examples of "Christian" extremism. We see today the examples of Islamic extremism. When people believe their Spritual Life to be in jepardy, they will go to extremes. People HALVE to believe in a "Life after Death", or there is no justification for life.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/09/2005 22:28 Comments ||
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#41
Congratulations, Deacon, on figuring out your own way. The problem is that too many people "believe" as a matter of upbringing and habit, without as a result really believing anything at all, except that their parents and pastor were right -- a very shaky foundation upon which to build the world. I imagine your poor father feared you would pollute your Sunday School class with your questions... and he was probably right. ;-)
As for the Muslims of the world, the problem is those enclaves where they are taught that it is necessary to murder non-believers in order to get into Paradise, and the massive funding to support the result. As has been said so often here and elsewhere, until the Muslims themselves reject the violent ones in their midst, Islam will not be cured.
And Bobby, before you tell your Muslim friends that you are Jewish (per Ark. CSI), ask them about Israel, and see how many consider blowing up Jewish schoolchildren and teenagers at the disco to be unacceptable. Of course, the same test holds for any self labelled Progressives, academics, etc.
#42
Frank, beautifully succinct. Thanks for saying what I would have meant had I had your brain on loan. As of the sense of humor thingy, I think sex proves it, don't you? Not to mention noses.
#43
One last thought.... people are individulas, of course, and not all members of a group are the 'same'
I had read that the Israel problem would never be resolved because it was about religion. My Moroccan friend said, "Oh, no, Monsieur (Bobby), it's not about religion, it's about LAND. We lived with the Jews for 1200 years without a problem." Now, I grant you the Jews might have had another opinion! But I will try the Jew question. I did have a couple of (recent) Muslims agree with me that both Jews and Christians were "of the book" - the Bible.... Good night, and may God bless!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 23:01 Comments ||
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#44
thanks TW - I'm pretty basic, but like where I am in the world. Noses? yep, among other daily personal "humiliations"...lol
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2005 23:03 Comments ||
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#45
nite Bobby
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2005 23:04 Comments ||
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#46
Bobby, the Koran/Qu'ran/Qur'an defines Jews and Christians as "People of the Book". In some verses this is to be respected, in others this means they corrupted the original Word of God as revealed once again to Mohammed, and therefore must be tormented by all true Muslims until they admit their mistake and convert to the one true religion. Torments to include special dhimmi taxes -- both individual and community, having their orphans taken away to be forcibly converted, never being allowed to have their heads higher than a Muslim's, or being allowed to witness in court against a Muslim, holding their property with the permission of the Muslim government -- but only so long as that permission continues to be given, and so forth along this theme.
You might want to ask your Muslim friends about this, too.
#47
What happened in Beshen (that russian school) and the completely NON-reaction of the 'moderate muslims' (except for some dancing in the streets) to the raping of children and bayonetting of babies convinced me that Islam was evil.
When those IRA christian terrorist bombed that catholic girls school you heard condemnation from just about every christian organization. When Islam does it there is dancing in the streets and silence from the alledged 'moderates'.
Bobby, yes they lived with Jews --- as long as the Jews are completely supressed and humiliated:
Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.
The dhimmi attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today.
#48
Mrs Davis, Jesus did indeed have a sense of humor. "You strain at a nat and swallow a camel" comes to mind. Trailing wife, My Father actually incouraged my questioning of Baptist dogma. He was considered very progressive for a Baptist Minister in that he supported the Civil Rights legislation and he doesn't believe the Earth was created in 6 days, etc. I owe a lot of my beliefs to his encourging me to find my own way. Mrs. Davis, I find it hard to differentiate between Christians and modern Christianity. I am not a Catholic and maybe I am speaking out of turn here but I find it very hard to reconcile Jesus' teachings with the Catholic Church, or for that matter the Baptist Church. Strict adherance to Religious Law without adherance to the Spirit of the law is doomed to failure. If you don't believe something in your heart but do it because it is required is pointless, as far as religion is concerned. That is why I oppose structured prayer public in schools. Public schools have no business teaching ANY religious beliefs and certainly have no business forcing students to "pray" to a God. I believe this is the fundamental difference between Christianity, and to some extent Judaism, from Islam. Christianity and Judaism involve freedom of choice. Islam doesn't. In Christianity and modern Judaism God will exact his punishment. In Islam the religious leaders will enact God's punishment. A person has no choice in Islam, it's either follow Mohammed's "teachings" and the Imam's interpretations or you die. Also in Islam, there is never any personal responsibilty. EVERYTING is Allah's will.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/09/2005 23:22 Comments ||
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#49
I shall pay more attention in the future.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 23:24 Comments ||
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#50
I suggest that anyone who believes they have a Muslim "friend" take some care. It would depend, rather greatly, on both which "flavor" of Islam and whether or not they were born into it - although, as we all know, sometimes converts are the more zealous - think of ex-smokers, for instance.
Anyway, it might be a real surprise. Muslim First is not an empty phrase. Try this: hang outside your "friend's" moskkk on a Friday - around 1:00 PM and wait for them to come out. Go up to your friend and greet him. The reaction will tell you everything you need to know.
When I see the 104th Moderate Muslim Brigade wipe out some jihadi group, say Ansar al Islam or Hamas, then I'll be a believer. Until then, no.
#51
Good point, .com. I guess I didn't state one of my points quite right but you did. Most religions teach that one cannot question religious dogma. Don't think for yourself. I was taught that men have one less rib than women because God took one of Adam's ribs to make Eve. When I took human biology in college I found out different and tried to correct some of the Old Line Baptists and was told I had been taken over by the Devil. For some, questioning the "Religious" beliefs is grounds for eternal damnation.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/10/2005 0:02 Comments ||
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SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - The lack of direct communication between Bulgarian and U.S. troops was the probable cause of last week's killing of a Bulgarian soldier in Iraq in a suspected "friendly fire" incident, a top military official said Wednesday. Army chief of staff Gen. Nikola Kolev said the two forces had not yet agreed on how to communicate with each other when Pvt. Gardi Gardev was fatally shot near the Iraqi city of Diwaniya on Friday. The Bulgarian investigation found that Gardev was killed by U.S. troops guarding a military communications site, who opened fire on his patrol after it fired warning shots to stop an Iraqi civilian car.
"On March 2, all U.S. military sites were marked on the Bulgarian patrols' maps, but the issue for establishing means of direct communication with the U.S. troops was left to be decided in the next few days," Kolev said. OopsThe incident happened after dark, and the situation was aggravated by the fact that the Bulgarian patrol had lost GPS orientation and contact with their base, Kolev said.
Murphy's Law in action
Kolev said the Bulgarian investigation had "no legal force," and any final conclusions should be based on the U.S. inquiry. The results of that probe will be made public Friday in Baghdad, Kolev told a news conference. Gardev was the eighth Bulgarian soldier killed in Iraq. The Balkan country has a 460-member infantry battalion in Diwaniya.
The troops' mandate ends in mid-2005 and the government is to decide by the end of the month whether to keep troops there past July. Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov has said he sees no reason for a pullout.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/09/2005 9:21:37 AM ||
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That the Bulgarians fired AKs after dark did not help the situation. In addition to secure communications, all coalition soldiers should have night and thermal vision ID patches on their uniforms. And ditch the AKs for a .223 assault rifle. Still, it was the US guards responsibility to positively ID their target, especially if there was the possibility of troops using AKs were in the vicinity, and that the shots were incoming. They failed. Finally, the US should take responsiblity and provide compensation for Gardev's family.
Posted by: ed ||
03/09/2005 12:58 Comments ||
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Well, in the alternate universe that is the middle east anyway...
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 9 (UPI) -- A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated. Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.
"Former" Marine, "ex-Sgt" of Lebanese descent, yeah, that's a reliable source.
"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said. "We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said. He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting." Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said. Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon.
Wonder if he was at the pro-Syria rally yesterday?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/09/2005 9:01:54 AM ||
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#1
And the name of the KIA "Sudanese" Marine?
That would be a quick first-pass test of this story.
#4
It was an Army guy on Day 2, but it was a Marine on Day 1. The Army's superior public relations machine rode over the Marine Corps effort to garner the glory.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 9:49 Comments ||
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#5
Groluck Ulutle8634, since you interviewed him perhaps you know the answer. Is the name pronounced Gang-is Khan, or Jen-gis Khan?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 10:44 Comments ||
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#8
Shipman says:
The Army's superior public relations machine WTF? :) The greenies are light years ahead in PR machinery, ask Harry Truman, who swore the Marines Divisions had mobile press release batallions.
Try this: think in a single image about American Armed Forces. What will you think about? Not an image about Omaha Beach, Bastogne or Korea. Ten to one you will think about that photo. The one at Iwo Jima.
An American politician (Truman?) who was a proponent of dissolving the USMC into the Army said bitterly: that photo ensures there will still be a Marine Corps two centuries from now.
#9
i think it was a marine general who said that JFM.
actually what must have happened is that the USMC, First Arab Detachment captured Saddam. Then dug the hole and buried him, cause well, theyre Marines, and they didnt know what else to do with him. Then the Army found him and figured that sending him to Baghdad made sense.
No?
Of course we shouldnt forget that it was the Army Air Force that won the battle of Midway:)
#12
Jules - I'd be flabbergasted, first. I, for one, didn't care whether he fought "courageously", like his stupid sons, or hid out in a well, like a "coward". He's caught, period. I could see where some might want to add a bit of humiliation, but how owuld it be worth the effort? And HOW would you keep all the people that actually were there quiet? I'm not a big fan of conspiricies, because so few people can keep their mouths shut!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 15:00 Comments ||
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#13
Sorry, I wanted to go back and correct the spelling of would (be worth the effort) and conspiracy. Wrong button.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/09/2005 15:02 Comments ||
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#14
[5]>rjschwarz
GANGA-Khan on his moody/bad hair days (uknow,meth-fuled-rape-pillage and wasting tour days) but otherwise his intimantes (inner circle) called him Jenny-Khan. He was a pussy cat.
#16
Jules, if this was a hoax (like many other conspiracy theories) it was a well kept secret. Do I think that our goverment is capable of deception? Hell yes, but what was gained by the way he was captured and where is the all-Arab Marine detachment? Maybe I am 'racists' but I would believe it more if some SpecOps guy from Tennessee came forward and said it was a hoax. no offense but I don't think the Arabs have a good track record on telling the truth (see Jihad unspun, Al Arabia, Al Jezeria, etc.).
Being on a terrorism watch list does not mean you really are a terrorist -- and therefore, your right to buy or own a gun should not be infringed, Second Amendment supporters say. But FBI Director Robert Mueller, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and gun control groups disagree. In testimony before Congress on Tuesday, Mueller said lawmakers "ought to look at what can be done" to prevent people on the government's terrorism watch list from buying guns.
His comments followed the release of a government report showing that more than 40 people included on a terrorism watch list were allowed to buy guns last year.
According to the audit by the Government Accountability Office, 35 people on the government's terrorist watch list legally bought guns in the United States between Feb. 3 and June 20, 2004. Twelve more people on the list were allowed to buy guns between July 1 and Oct. 31 of last year. But none of those people had been charged with, or convicted of, any crime, said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
By law, convicted felons, illegal aliens and people declared mentally ill are not allowed to buy guns. Being included on a terrorism watch list may invite more scrutiny, but it does not automatically disqualify someone from legally buying a gun. "How does somebody's name get on one of those lists? How is it removed?" asked CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. The government does not discuss details of its terrorism watch list, which reportedly includes some 50,000 names.
But Sen. Frank Lautenberg believes anyone included on the government's terrorism watch list should be treated differently when it comes to gun purchases. The New Jersey Democrat says he will introduce a bill requiring the National Instant Check System (NICS) to retain records of gun purchases by "watch-listed" people for at least ten years. Current law requires the FBI to destroy gun-purchase applications within 24 hours of approval. But current law is "aiding and abetting terrorists," Lautenberg was quoted as saying on Tuesday. "Lots of times you can't uncover the data you need in 24 hours."
CCRKBA said Lautenberg is using the GAO report -- which he requested -- in an attempt to advance his gun control agenda. "In Sen. Lautenberg's warped view, anyone who buys a gun is a suspected terrorist," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. He believes Lautenberg is looking for a way to "justify a back-door gun registration scheme." That way, if he ever gets his gun control bills through Congress, "he will know where to go to collect" all the guns, Gottlieb said.
According to CCRKBA, the GAO report shows that the NICS system works, but Sen. Lautenberg is trying to say it doesn't -- "so he can demand that we keep records on people who may have broken no laws." CCRKBA said the American Civil Liberties Union would be in "hysterics" if Lautenberg's proposal to keep records on law-abiding Americans involved anything other than gun purchases.
CRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron said no system is completely fool-proof: "Even if we adopted all of the gun controls Frank Lautenberg has ever advocated, we would only disarm honest citizens, not criminals or potential terrorists, and he knows it." According to USA Today, the terrorism watch list officially is known as the Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File, and it includes everyone from actual terrorist suspects to their relatives, neighbors and co-workers.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/09/2005 8:56:23 AM ||
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"Sorry, dude. I can't sell you this gun because yer a terrorist. But if you want, I know a guy who can sell you some fake ID cards so you won't be a terrorist no more."
Six photos of the car Sgrena and Calipari were shot in from La Republica. Notice the 400 bullet holes ... or not.
Link via http://michellemalkin.com
Posted by: ed ||
03/09/2005 1:54:09 AM ||
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#1
Nano weapons...yeah, that's it! Nano bullets tore the car to shreds without doing any apparent damage.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/09/2005 8:50 Comments ||
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#2
Hell, we have parked cars at the Butte in Mat-Su valley that look like swiss cheese compared to this rig. This car may have a few strategic rounds through the grille, my guess. When that so-called Italian hostage chick uses the 400 bullets hyperbole trick, it dilutes her credibility big time. People are not buying this propaganda BS like they used to. Even al Jazz's stuff is starting to produce a strong "Ho Humm."
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2005 8:59 Comments ||
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#3
I've bought cars in worse shape than this.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2005 10:33 Comments ||
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#4
This is the second picture I've seen. This photo is so obscured that you can almost see whatever it is you want to see.
But, what's great about this photo is that it confirms it is the same car that was pictured more clearly on rantburg (and elsewhere). I thought the tin-foil crowd would just deny that car was the actual one. It's like the Rather fakes - seeing for yourself, you really get a sense of just how deranged Sgrena is.
Give that girl a shovel. When the Italians get off their anti-American bender, they gonna wake up to be embarrassed by their behavior.
#5
Aside from the meager damage compared to the shots-fired claims, why are they pointing out damage to the side of the car when the car was approaching a checkpoint? Wouldn't that be mostly frontal damage?
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2005 11:17 Comments ||
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#6
Gee... The windshield is intact (except for one hole). How did those 'handfuls of bullets' get in the car?
She is a liar. This brings the whole 'kidnapping' into question.
#7
It wasn't a kidnapping, it was a cover to funnel funds to the butchers of innocent women and children in Iraq, the terrorist. Her buddies and fellow hate-America allies.
#8
With respect to posts 2 & 3, is this car for sale? I am looking for cheap beater to give to my son and I think this one will be very cheap. Not to diminish the big lie that the Commie Sgrena is spreading, but counting bullets while they are fired at you is very hard. The Guys at the checkpoint should have an exact number because they would have turned in the spent magazines over to investigators. You may noticed from all the imbed footage during the war, there are few times that people fire their weapons at full auto. If they had fired at full auto there would be bullet holes all over the front end of the car and not just a broken windshield and Ms Sgrena would probably be dead.
#9
In one version of her story that I've seen (sorry, I don't have a link) Ms. Sgrena picked bullets "by the handful" up off the seat. That's a neat trick if you can do it.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2005 12:29 Comments ||
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#10
Story is here: PIER SCOLARI (translated): I have heard it said that the Americans signalled many times to the car to stop, but Giuliana told me she didn't see anything. They were driving calmly. They had already passed many checkpoints, therefore everybody had been informed. They phoned and warned that they were going to the airport.
Suddenly as they were talking to each other without any signal a flashlight was switched on and three or four hundred bullets were shot towards the car. Giuliana told me she collected handfuls of bullets on the seats.
They must have all come in through the open window and landed on the seat.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/09/2005 13:13 Comments ||
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#13
"handfuls of bullets" Did one of the Italian agents drop a box of cartridges?
Posted by: James ||
03/09/2005 13:55 Comments ||
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#14
Well, the "handfuls of bullets" must have come through the window or (I guess) they would have been fragments instead of bullets. What I can't work out is how they came through the open window, lost all their energy, dropped onto the seats next to Ms. Sgrena, and immediately cooled down so that Ms. Sgrena could pick them up. How do nano-bullets work?
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2005 14:46 Comments ||
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#15
The US soldiers must have thrown them at them (by hand)...... aka the movie Hot Shots
The treasury members tabled on Tuesday two bills on honour-killing in the National Assembly during lacklustre proceedings on a private members day.
The bills, moved by Pakistan Muslim League members Kashmala Tariq and M.P. Bhandara, were clubbed by the speaker on the request of the movers due to their similar nature. However, the speaker deferred further discussion on principles of the bills for the next private members day after members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal opposed the introduction of the bills through voting.
The ruling party members have called for declaring the honour killing as Qatal-i-Amd (intentional murder). Ms Tariq, in her bill, has also suggested punishment for those who abet, encourage and conspire or validate the commissioning of honour killing.
Unlike previous private members day when the treasury members had joined hands with the MMA and the PML-N members in opposing a similar bill of Ms Tariq, Minister of State for Law Shahid Bhinder did not oppose the bill and supported the movers' proposal that the bills be clubbed.
The change in the attitude of the treasury benches seemed to be an attempt to improve the international image of the government with reference to President Gen Pervez Musharraf's stress on enlightened moderation.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/09/2005 7:48:26 AM ||
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US lawmakers have reacted with concern to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's claim that she personally brought missile blueprints from North Korea while she was prime minister. Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, said Ms Bhutto's disclosure pointed the need for a stricter regime of international controls governing the spread of nuclear and missile technology. "These reports underscore the profound implications for global security if and when rogue regimes like North Korea sell such blueprints or even nuclear devices to terrorist groups," Senator Brown back told the UPI. "What we've done with Afghanistan and Iraq is crucial and an important step," Mr Brownback continued, labelling Ms Bhutto's disclosure as evidence of the need for closer cooperation between the United States and "all interested parties" around the world to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California and a member of the House International Relations Committee, labelled the statement a demonstration of "both the arrogance and insanity of Pakistani leaders who wasted money pursuing rocket and nuclear technology while their own people go hungry and are denied adequate healthcare and education. The more serious question is where did North Korea obtain the technology that was passed on to Pakistan? The real villain," he said, "is China, which continues to play its normal, despicable role."
Ms Bhutto told a news conference in Washington that Pakistan purchased the designs for the short- and medium-range missiles for cash and that no transfer of nuclear technology was involved. But she said that after her ouster, Pakistani representatives might have engineered the exchange of nuclear technology for missiles in the period after international sanctions were placed on Pakistan following its 1998 nuclear tests. She said Dr A. Q. Khan indirectly admitted to the exchange in his televised confession.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/09/2005 7:43:31 AM ||
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Norman Geras, Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester, UK and an old-school leftie, presents a five-part series on why the intervention in Iraq was the right thing to do from a liberal standpoint. I provide a link to part 5, but Norm provides the other links at the top of his piece. VERY long but precisely argued, superbly supported, and profound in its implications. Norm gets it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2005 12:41:08 AM ||
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The more of this that makes it to the MSM, the better. The next step will be, assuming the Bush Doctrine isn't sidetracked domestically, the transformation by the intelligent Socialists and Tranzis to the point where they begin to write and speak as if they predicted this outcome - implying it was obvious, etc. - it just didn't have to be done this way - using the Skeery campaign BS tactic. It could have been achieved by other means, Socialist / Tranzi means, peacefully. Yadda3.
Meanwhile, this needs exposure - Norm does get it.
Gee, think AlG will pick up on these essays and run with them? Well, yeah, I think they will run with something like this -- once they figure out how to spin it.
I have a pet peeve with these crow pie fests. Ok....I won't read it and someone tell me if I'm right or wrong.
Norm has written an excessively long, blathering, explanation as to why he's changed his mind. His past "wisdom" has been crushed by the heel of reality - and it's past the point where he can reconcile his old views without looking like an old fool.
So rather than just saying..."hey you know what I was wrong"....he makes us suffer through excruciating detail as to why he was was really just so smart to have been just so wrong.
We don't need the transcript of your counseling session Norm. Bottom line is you aren't as brilliant as you thought you were.
#6
Lots of verbiage, but I find it fascinating that this old time Marxist professor has argued all along that the Bush/neocon position is the only morally correct choice in the post-Holocaust world, and that the anti-war people are either deliberately or tacitly choosing to support evil. But he does give point by point why the antis were and continue to be wrong, both morally and practically.
Edited for length and split into two
Contrary to the General Pervez Musharraf-led Government's much-touted claims of having taken concrete measures to uproot the extremist jehadi mafia and its terror network in Pakistan, a cursory glance over the activities of four 'banned' militant organizations in the country shows they are once again back in business, with changed names and identities, operating freely and advocating jehad against infidels to defend Islam. While banning six leading jehadi and sectarian groups in two phases - on January 12, 2002, and November 15, 2003 - General Musharraf had declared that no organization or person would be allowed to indulge in terrorism to further its cause. However, after the initial crackdown, the four major jehadi outfits operating from Pakistan - Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), resurfaced and regrouped effectively to run their respective networks as openly as before, though under different names. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil and Syed Salahuddin - the respective leaders of these organizations - are again on the loose. The pattern of treatment being meted out to these leading lights of jehad by the Musharraf-led administration shows that they are being kept on the leash, ostensibly to wage a controlled jehad in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
After the 9/11 terror attacks, the four jehadi leaders were placed under house arrests in their respective home towns in Punjab, since they were becoming increasingly vocal in their condemnation of General Musharraf's policy of 'slavery to the Americans'. Groaning under American pressure, Islamabad also had to temporarily stop cross-border infiltration into J&K, which eventually reduced violence levels in the Valley. Though most of the jehadi groups accepted the establishment's advice and adopted a 'lie low and wait and see' policy, the fact remains that no concrete step was taken by the authorities to dismantle the jehadi infrastructure. This was chiefly due to the fact that the unholy alliance between the state agencies and the jehadi groups was quite old and had an ideological basis.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
Although the ongoing peace talks between India and Pakistan are being taken as a bad news by most of the militant outfits waging armed struggle against the Indian forces in J&K, the leadership of one of the most feared jehadi groups, the LeT and its parent organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, are keeping their fingers crossed. Sources close to the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, say he has been persuaded by the establishment to go low key and to abstain from issuing statements criticizing the Indo-Pak peace parleys. In return, however, Saeed has been given assurance that no action would be taken against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its militant wing, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and no restrictions on activities including collection of funds, holding of public rallies or the recruitment of jehadi cadres and their training. The result is that, after a year of hibernation under official pressure, Saeed, who founded the Lashkar in 1988, is again activate and making fiery speeches across Punjab. Saeed's close associates claim that young jehadis from various parts of the country continue to throng the Lashkar camps at Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir before being pushed into J&K, though at a limited scale now.
The Lashkar is the only jehadi group operating from Azad Kashmir that still keeps a comparatively large group of activists at its Khairati Bagh camp in the Lipa Valley. Another Lashkar camp is functional at Nala Shui in Muzaffarabad from where young militants are launched after being given initial training at the Jamaat-ud-Dawa's Muridke headquarters in Punjab. Unlike the past strategy of launching large groups comprising of 25 to 50 militants on a regular basis from the camps located on the LoC, Lashkar sources disclose, it has now been decided to keep training militants in limited numbers to launch smaller groups of not more than five to fifteen people, that too, at intervals. Despite the official ban, banners can easily be seen in the urban and rural areas of Punjab, urging young boys to enroll with the Lashkar for jehad. These banners usually carry telephone numbers of the area offices. Similarly, Lashkar and Dawa activists can be seen outside mosques after Friday prayers distributing pamphlets and periodicals preaching the virtues of jehad in Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya, Kosovo and Eritrea, besides vowing that the Lashkar would plant the flag of Islam in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi. The donation boxes of the Lashkar and the Dawa, which had initially disappeared after the January 2002 ban, have reappeared on public places as well as mosques all over the Punjab.
Over the past two years, Hafiz Saeed has taken a number of steps to camouflage his jehadi agenda and to assume a role for the Dawa which could help evade the category of terrorism. The Dawa has increasingly shifted its focus on khidmat-e-khalq (social welfare) which is part of its dawat (Islamic mission) just like jehad. While giving more importance to taking its dawat to all sections of the populace, it has considerably expanded the base of its operations. Giving greater importance to college students as well, the Dawa leadership recently launched Tulaba Jamaatul Dawa, its student wing, which is working aggressively to take its dawat to youngsters across Punjab. Saeed's close circles say the changing focus of the Dawa activities coupled with the caution exercised by him have helped their organization survive the fresh ban Musharraf imposed on several extremist outfits in November 2003. However, explaining Musharraf's decision to spare Saeed's organization, well-informed intelligence sources say the Dawa chief was more amenable to the establishment's control than the leaders of any other jehadi outfit, as he can readily agree to wage a controlled jehad in the Valley whenever required to do so. Further, his vulnerability has increased manifold after a split in Jamaat-ud-Dawa over distribution of the group's assets, that gave birth to a breakaway faction - Khairun Naas (Peoples' Welfare), led by Professor Zafar Iqbal. The ISI have invested a lot of time and money in developing the Lashkar's skills. Given the organizations obedience and the presence of its cells all over the world, it represents an extremely useful striking arm for deniable operations.
This article starring:
HAFIZ MOHAMAD SAID
Jamaat-ud-Dawa
HAFIZ MOHAMAD SAID
Lashkar-e-Taiba
MAULANA FAZALUR REHMAN KHALIL
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
MAULANA MASUD AZHAR
Jaish-e-Mohammad
PROFESOR ZAFAR IQBAL
Khairun Naas
SYED SALAHUDIN
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
Jaish-e-Mohammad
Jamaat-ud-Dawa
Khairun Naas
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Tulaba Jamaatul Dawa
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/09/2005 12:07:51 AM ||
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A recent fatwa (edict) by former mufti of Egypt, Nasr Farid Wasel, stating that women cannot run for presidential elections has prompted angry responses from human rights activists and public figures in the country. "It is not allowed in Islam that a woman can become a president of a state," said Farid Wasel. "All the great Islamic scholars had agreed on that ...women are not fit for this tough, magnificent task."
Ali Gomaa, mufti of Egypt and head of Dar Al-Iftaa — the body responsible for overseeing interpretations and fatwas at Al Azhar — said Wasel's statement should not be considered an official fatwa because official fatwas are only issued by Dar Al-Iftaa. However, Gomaa who is well-known for being outspoken, and a sheikh with a secular education, said he supported Wasel's viewpoint, saying "women cannot perform that role because of some physical considerations." He added "for instance, the woman finds some difficulties to pursue her work ... the woman also has her family and children that she has to take care of. These are big responsibilities."
Human rights activists have greeted Gomaa's statement with protests, saying gender should not be taken as a measure of deciding who is fit and who is not fit for presidency. "The issue is not about who is a male and who is a female; we should decide on the abilities, experience, morals, talents and the psychological abilities to take right decisions in the right time," said activist Muhammad Al-Ghazali. "Our Arab history shows that there were some women who were more capable to rule than men and who had great abilities to make decisions that benefited their countries," Ghazali told Arab News. Ghazali added that ruling a country does not depend now on a single person. "Now we have advisers, supervisors and assistants for any president in the world so the woman will not rule the country on her own," he added.
Women's groups and Socialist activists said the latest statements by both Wasel and Gomaa stand an obstacle before the government's campaign to grant Egyptian women all their political and social rights. Egypt has previously appointed the country's first female judge, Tahani Al-Gibali, suggesting that more women judges could be soon appointed.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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jeez...talk about setting up and pounding a straw man. First things first. Let's get free elections. Once that is accomplished, then the issue of women will take care of itself.
CAIRO — Egyptian authorities yesterday blocked distribution of the first edition of detained opposition leader Ayman Nur's newspaper in which he announces his intention to run for president, his wife said. The weekly newspaper Al Ghad (Tomorrow) "was printed but even as the copies were in the cars on their way to being distributed, they were recalled," Gamila Ismail told AFP.
Nur was arrested in January on charges of "falsifying official documents" in a case that has raised concern among international human rights groups and within the US administration. His detention comes amid intense political upheaval in Egypt, and the 40-year-old lawyer has become for some a symbol of the movement for democratic reform.
Nur's party lawyer Amir Salem said the paper had a deal with the government daily Al Ahram for printing and distribution "but the workers there were told last night (Monday) by state security people to stop the distribution.
Meanwhile, The Egyptian opposition has expressed fears that the People's Assembly (parliament), which is dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party, would impose 'impossible conditions', making the proposed amendment of the country's constitution vague.
In other news from Egypt, dead people were found buried in pryamids ...
The People's Assembly's General Committee agreed in principle at its meeting yesterday, presided over by Ahmed Fathi Sorour on President Mubarak's request for amending Article 76 of the Constitution on the election of the President of the Republic through secret and direct ballot. It was agreed in principle that a presidential candidate should be approved by a specific percentage of the elected members of the people's Assembly and the Shura Council (620 members together) besides a percentage of the number of the elected members of the local councils at the level of Governorates.
And the 'Al Wafd' opposition party has said that they should not nominate a rival runner for presidency without providing satisfactory conditions for free candidacy, appropriate polling and appropriate counting. President Mubarak has addressed Shura and People's Assembly (two houses of parliament) announcing a proposal for amending the constitution to allow for race of more than one runner to the post of President scheduled for next September.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The government has recovered Rs 4.6 million of embezzled Zakat funds from three provinces over the last five years, disclosed religious affairs minister Ijazul Haq in response to a question from Mian Mohammad Aslam of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in the National Assembly on Monday. This amount has been recovered from three provinces in 367 cases of embezzlement reported during the last five years. According to the break-up, Rs 3 million was recovered in 226 cases in Punjab, Rs 1.36 million in 85 different cases in Sindh and Rs 0.24 million was recovered in 56 cases in the NWFP. There were no cases of embezzlement reported in Balochistan and the Islamabad Capital Territory during the period.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 ||
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There were no cases of embezzlement reported in Balochistan and the Islamabad Capital Territory during the period.
They don't keep books there because they can't read or write. Makes auditing a bit more challenging.
Halting aid for Nepal as some European countries did after the king's recent power grab will fuel terrorism in the insurgency-wracked nation, the finance minister said Monday. Nepal relies heavily on foreign aid for development projects and for its nine-year fight against Maoist insurgents who want to replace the monarchy with a communist state. The conflict with the Maoists - called terrorists by the government - has claimed more than 10,500 lives. Nepal told donor nations at a meeting in Paris that suspending aid will help terrorists gain ground in this impoverished Himalayan country, Finance Minister Madhukar Shamsher Rana said. "We told them if you arrest development in Nepal, you help terrorism that feeds on poverty," Rana told The Associated Press upon his return from France. "They have to choose between supporting us and helping the terrorists."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2005 00:00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Kuwaiti women's attempt to gain political rights took a new turn Monday when 10 MPs who had wanted Article 1 of the Elections Law to be referred to the Constitutional Court to determine its legality withdrew their request. At the same time a Cabinet proposal that a women suffrage bill be discussed at a special session next week failed to garner support and was referred to Parliament's Interior and Defense Committee. Prime Minister Sheikh 
Twelve extremists have been detained in Chechnya, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Monday. An official said they had served as a back-up for the group that seized a school in southern Russia in September. The militants were detained in the Achkhoi-Martan district of Chechnya on Sunday night, ITAR-Tass said, citing Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov. Their leader was killed as they were being taken into custody, Mr. Alkhanov said. The group was also to have taken part in the seizure of hostages, ITAR-Tass quoted Alkhanov as saying. After the terrorists seized the Beslan school on Sept. 1, the group departed the city, he said.
Mr. Harald Doornbos is a veteran war reporter. He is no archetypical hawk nor a staunch supporter of the United States. In fact, he used to be a reporter for the communist newspaper 'De Waarheid' (The Truth, or Pravda, if you like) before it went bust. (This doesn't necessarily mean he was ever a communist, by the way. De Waarheid used to be a huge employer.) However, this doesn't make him overly sympathetic towards 
Hundreds of thousands filled the streets of Beirut to hear the leader of the Lebanese resistance group 
Amid a tense political scene and one day before the parliamentary consultations to name the next premier, President 
Kesrouan MP Neamatallah Abi Nasr urged the conference of the International Organization of Democratic-Christian Parties on Terrorism and Human Rights to assert the full and immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops, the disarming of Palestinian camps, and revealing who assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Abi Nasr, who has recently joined the opposition, spoke Monday at the conference that was held in Brussels in his capacity as the president of the Lebanese Democratic Christian Union. Abi Nasr attended the conference with Aley MP Fouad Saad and Minyeh MP Ahmed Fatfat and spoke on their behalf.
A Republican Congressman from President George Bush's home state was caught on tape telling a group that he told Bush at a White House meeting that nuking Syria would solve the problem and that he would carry out the attack himself. Congressman Sam Johnson, a retired pilot, later called his remarks a 'joke'. According to Capitol Hill newspaper 'Roll Call' that claimed to have an audio tape of the conversation, Congressman Johnson told a group at a church meeting on February 19 in Washington that he was talking to President Bush and Rep Kay Granger (Republican-Texas) at the White House about the weapons of mass destruction US troops had failed to find in Iraq.
A delegation of opposition MPs headed to Brussels on Tuesday to seek international support for demands of a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The delegation, also expected to visit Paris later in the week, includes Chouf MP 
The IDF has revealed a revolutionary new protective shield system for its armored vehicles that intercepts and destroys missiles and rockets with a shotgun-like blast just before they hit. The system is called Trophy and was shown in public for the first time during this week's arms fair at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds during a conference on Low Intensity Conflict sponsored by the IDF's Ground Forces Services. The Trophy was developed by RAFAEL together and Israel Aircraft Industries' Elta Group and General Dynamics.
He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting." Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said. Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon. 
US lawmakers have reacted with concern to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's claim that she personally brought missile blueprints from North Korea while she was prime minister. Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, said Ms Bhutto's disclosure pointed the need for a stricter regime of international controls governing the spread of nuclear and missile technology. "These reports underscore the profound implications for global security if and when rogue regimes like North Korea sell such blueprints or even nuclear devices to terrorist groups," Senator Brown back told the UPI. "What we've done with Afghanistan and Iraq is crucial and an important step," Mr Brownback continued, labelling Ms Bhutto's disclosure as evidence of the need for closer cooperation between the United States and "all interested parties" around the world to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies.
A recent fatwa (edict) by former mufti of Egypt, 
The government has recovered Rs 4.6 million of embezzled Zakat funds from three provinces over the last five years, disclosed religious affairs minister 
Halting aid for Nepal as some European countries did after the king's recent power grab will fuel terrorism in the insurgency-wracked nation, the finance minister said Monday. Nepal relies heavily on foreign aid for development projects and for its nine-year fight against Maoist insurgents who want to replace the monarchy with a communist state. The conflict with the Maoists - called terrorists by the government - has claimed more than 10,500 lives. Nepal told donor nations at a meeting in Paris that suspending aid will help terrorists gain ground in this impoverished Himalayan country, Finance Minister Madhukar Shamsher Rana said. "We told them if you arrest development in Nepal, you help terrorism that feeds on poverty," Rana told The Associated Press upon his return from France. "They have to choose between supporting us and helping the terrorists."
