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Bob has a stroke?
Today's Headlines
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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It’s Official: They Don’t Like Us......
From MEMRI:
AN EDITORIAL IN AL-QA’IDA’S NEW MAGAZINE ’THE VOICE OF JIHAD’ STATED: ’OUR BIGGEST ENEMIES ARE THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS [AND NOT THE SAUDI SECURITY FORCES]. WE SHOULD EMPLOY ALL EFFORTS UNTIL WE WIPE THEM OUT
 BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MAIN OBSTACLE IN THE WAY OF ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISLAM.’ (HTTP://WWW.CYBCITY.COM/SUONDMAG2/INDEX.HTM, 10/27/03)

But you left out the best part:
Squad Commander Muhammad bin Shazzaf Al-Shahri, also known as
And this week's winner of the most euphonious name contest is...
Abu Tareq Al-Asswad, said in his video:
Yes! Yes, brethren and sistern! Squad commander Asswad is hereby declared a Rantburg hero for choosing the most self-descriptive nom de guerre seen in the past three years...
"Brothers in Islam, Jihad is one of the commandments of Islam and a solid pillar of this religion
 You like me! You rilly like me!... Jihad, which has earned the label of 'the peak of Islam,' is the sign of the glory and grace of Islam and of the Muslims. I'm thrilled to accept this award, for which we've all worked so hard! No Muslim doubts that Jihad for the sake of Allah is one of the greatest commandments of our religion, a commandment that has preserved the existence, the glory, and the honor of the [Muslim] nation. I'd like to thank the little people who made all this possible... Similarly, it is no secret to any intelligent Muslims that one of the reasons for the defeat of the nation and its loss today is the disappearance of the banner of Jihad for the sake of Allah
 Wanna touch my turban?"
Give him a hand, folks! Take a bow, Asswad!
Posted by: mercutio || 10/28/2003 3:19:10 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Asswad - is that how Arabs consume Skoal & Red Man?
Posted by: Raj || 10/28/2003 15:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Al-Asswad... oh, that is sublime. Is he any relation to Sheikh Yerbouti?
Posted by: Dave D. || 10/28/2003 16:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Needs a "coffee alert."
Posted by: PBMcL || 10/28/2003 17:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Even tops the recent Abul QaQa.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 17:12 Comments || Top||

#5  mercutio!

A man with the fine eye for the details.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:09 Comments || Top||

#6  It's the jihadi "everyman" -- they're ALL named "Asswad" as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/28/2003 20:43 Comments || Top||

#7  Now that they've finally come out into the open and clearly defined the gap between Jihadis and people with brains, we can freely say "Kill them, kill them all". Starting with Asswad.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 10/28/2003 21:32 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Batten down the hatches, ye lubbers!
SEVERE SOLAR ACTIVITY: The most powerful solar flare in 14 years, a remarkable X18-category explosion, erupted from sunspot 486 this morning at approximately 1110 UT. A strong solar radiation storm is in progress. The explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection almost directly toward Earth, which could trigger bright auroras when it arrives on Oct 29th or 30th.
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 11:00:36 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They've just changed shifts on the ISS. Hope the new crew remembered to pack plenty of tinfoil...
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 12:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Didn't Bruce Willis do a movie about this sort of thing?
Posted by: Fred || 10/28/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Technically considerations:

1. If my head is covered by tinfoil, and somebody bombards me with microwave energy, will the foil start to spark causing my hair to catch on fire?
2. Wouldn't mu metal make a more protective skull cap and also look more stylish if worn with a rakish cant?
3. Can I use an unpopped bag of Orvil Redenbacker as an early warning system for cosmic rays?
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 13:48 Comments || Top||

#4  SH: If the popcorn in the bag pops without being put into a microwave oven, at least you don't have to worry about flossing the husks from your teeth...
Posted by: snellenr || 10/28/2003 13:53 Comments || Top||

#5  SH it's no use trying to lock youself in a Faraday Cage.

Damn I hope to see the extraordinarily rare Aurora Redneckus Dixiecupi
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 14:04 Comments || Top||

#6  Can't....type.....mmmmmmelting....
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 16:32 Comments || Top||

#7  SH, I ginned up a FAQ that I hope helps...

1. If my head is covered by tinfoil, and somebody bombards me with microwave energy, will the foil start to spark causing my hair to catch on fire?
A: A tinfoil hat with a built-in vent is the solution for this eventuality

2. Wouldn't mu metal make a more protective skull cap and also look more stylish if worn with a rakish cant?
A: This is a pricey solution and appropriate to a hipper urban milieu only.

3. Can I use an unpopped bag of Orvil Redenbacker as an early warning system for cosmic rays?
A: Yes. And it tastes great, too.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 10/28/2003 18:41 Comments || Top||

#8  Carl,
I have cut a vent in my chapeau. You saved me from installing a halon system and endangering the enviroment.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 19:13 Comments || Top||


A win(?) for the gipper! CBS to rethink series!
Tip to NewsMAX.
CBS’s Moonves: We’ll Make Reagan Film More Fair
Stung by a firestorm of criticism over CBS’s harsh portrayal of President Ronald Reagan, the network is backing down - with entertainment chief Les Moonves acknowledging that parts of the presidential biopic set for broadcast next month "go too far" and as a result will be chopped in the final edit.
(Translation: We OVERESTIMATED the strength of the Left Wing Agenda)
"We’ve looked at the rough cut, there are things we like ... there are things we don’t like ... there are things we think go too far," Moonves tells CNBC’s Tina Brown, in an interview set for broadcast Wednesday night.
(Translation: We are cutting out the BS and leaving in the truth)
"So there are some edits being made trying to present a more fair picture of the Reagans," the CBS honcho announced, in comments first reported by syndicated gossip maven Liz Smith. Before revealing his plan to make the presidential biopic more fair, Moonves bristled at some of the criticism, telling Brown, "Well, number one, nobody’s seen the film. So any criticism ... for a film that isn’t finished, is rather odd we think."
(But after I had a couple thousand hate mail/phone calls I decided to rethink the whole project.)
Not so odd, however, that it didn’t make CBS rethink their plans.
This ‘biopic’ was nothing more than a hit piece to malign President Reagan. It just drove the liberals nuts that Reagan was right on almost every policy decision (foreign and domestic). Also they think that by bringing down Reagan, Clinton will look better in comparison. I had intended to stop watching CBS if the aired the series as is. Trust me it would be painful to give up JAG, Yes Dear, Still Standing, etc.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 10/28/2003 10:36:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Drudge had a link to a part of the script where Reagan is second-guessing himself over Lebanon (which I'm sure he did) and telling Nancy he was the Antichrist (yeah, right.....). Nobody overheard this - it's just a CBS-created conversayion. Nope, no bias here....assholes!
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 10:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Gee, now what makes you think that CBS is biased?

One shock scene in the final production script for CBS's upcoming telefilm THE REAGANS captures the former president declaring he is the anti-Christ, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal!

REAGAN: It's Armageddon... that's what it is. Armageddon. The Leader from the West will be revealed as the anti-Christ, and then God will strike him down. That's me. I am the anti-Christ.

NANCY: No, Ronnie...

REAGAN (overriding): And the Lord will strike down all of civilization, in order to make way for the new order... a new Heaven and a new Earth...
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 10:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Bwahahaha! first! (albeit with typos....)
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 10:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Curse you Frank! You are the anti-Christ!
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 10:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Hmm, let's see, a CBS made-for-TV biopic versus Ronald Reagan's reputation. The image that brings to mind is a garbage scow engaging the USS New Jersey.
Posted by: Matt || 10/28/2003 12:13 Comments || Top||

#6  I hope they don't cut too much. I hear the woman who plays Nancy is hot.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 13:49 Comments || Top||

#7  I hope Dana Carvey plays Bush Sr !
I don't think calling Reagan the anti-Christ is very nice, besides--we all know Dick Cheney is the REAL ONE
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 10/28/2003 14:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Oh, so they're going to make it "fair"? What BS! How about just telling the truth? There is no way this thing is going to be fair - it's still going to be a hit piece. The only reason to watch would be to find out who the sponsors are in order to boycott them. Bastids!
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 10/28/2003 14:48 Comments || Top||

#9  As long as they leave in the part where Reagan calls a student at the Univ. of Tennessee to get the recipe for 'Puppy Smoothies' ...

:-)
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 18:25 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
2 CIA "Contractors" Die in Afghanistan
Two contractors working for the CIA were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan, the agency said Tuesday. William Carlson, 43, of Southern Pines, N.C., and Christopher Glenn Mueller, 32, of San Diego, were "tracking terrorists operating in the region" of Shkin, a village in eastern Afghanistan, when they were killed Saturday, the CIA said in a statement.
God Bless, R.I.P.
"William Carlson and Christopher Mueller were defined by dedication and courage," CIA Director George J. Tenet said in a statement. "Their sacrifice for the peoples of the United States and Afghanistan must never be forgotten." The pair was working for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, which conducts clandestine intelligence-gathering and covert operations. The CIA statement says the agency consulted with the dead officers’ families and decided their names could be released without compromising ongoing operations. They are the third and fourth CIA operatives that the agency has acknowledged have been killed in the line of duty since the Sept. 11 attacks. The first, paramilitary officer Johnny Micheal Spann, was killed during an uprising of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners in northern Afghanistan on Nov. 25, 2001. The second, Helge Boes, died in a training accident in eastern Afghanistan, on Feb. 5, 2003.

The region Carlson and Mueller were operating in is part of the remote mountainous region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding. It is also a stronghold for Al Qaeda, Taliban and other anti-U.S. fighters. The agency did not provide particulars on Saturday’s ambush or the two operatives’ mission, but it appeared connected to pitched battles in the same area that were described by Afghan and American military officials. In one fight, six U.S.-allied Afghan militiamen were wounded in a battle with 25 fighters. American attack jets and helicopters were summoned, and "approximately 18 enemy personnel" were killed, according to a statement from the U.S.-led coalition. The statement says no coalition personnel were killed, but it is unclear whether that would include operatives working for the CIA.
It most likely wouldn’t, normally no one would have ever heard about these two men. Nice that they will get some recognition.
Mohammed Ali Jalali, governor of Paktika province, said Tuesday that a separate battle Saturday in the same province’s Gomal district, about two miles from the Pakistan border, left 10 rebels dead — including four Arabs.
Good, but still not anywhere near enough.
Toldja they were talking about two different fights...
As contractors, Carlson and Mueller were not CIA staff employees. Agency officials declined to detail the nature of their employment.
Can you say "Phoenix"?
The CIA has its own unit that can conduct commando-style covert operations, called the Special Operations Group. It appears Carlson and Mueller were functioning in that capacity, but it was unclear how many such contractors the agency has hired.
Hopefully a lot of them.
Carlson was a veteran of Army special operations forces; Mueller had served in the Navy’s special operations forces, the CIA said.
Thank you.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 4:07:07 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don't know Chris Mueller, but as a San Diego boy, would appreciate any info on any contribution sites - we owe him
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 19:45 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan Weighs Use of Islamic Laws
EFL from Newsday
But in the two years since the Taliban were forced from power, Saddiqi, head of the Afghan Supreme Court’s judicial and criminal division, hasn’t yet ordered the knife to be used on any crooks.
Progrssive of him. I wonder if he pulls out the whetstone and runs the old bowie across it a few times to rattle the defendents cage some.
"If we implement Shariah correctly, there’s no need to cut off a hand we can pulverise the hand or we can dip the hand into a vat of ...," and rarely would an execution be handed down by the courts, said Saddiqi, whose thick black beard and swirling turban indicate his status as a mullah, a Muslim cleric who also leads prayers at a Kabul mosque. Judge Saddiqi thumbed a white paperback copy of the criminal code from 1976, when Afghanistan was ruled by King Mohammad Zaher Shah, that he still uses today — although he said Shariah law remains his first reference in tricky cases. He said the Taliban’s lightning-speed trials — sentencing a thief one week and having a doctor using anesthesia cut off his hand the next — bore no resemblance to real Shariah law. Instead, Saddiqi said courts observing Shariah must look at the circumstances surrounding the crime. "If this thief is stealing out of poverty, if his children are crying for bread, then we should consider this" in the verdict and consider more lenient measures, he said. Saddiqi said women should wear veils according to the Muslim faith, but that doesn’t mean they must be cloistered at home as the Taliban required.
Let’s mix in a little moral relativism to show the kafir that we how refined we are. Maybe we can take off the first two fingers or for a lighter offence just make offender play mercy with the Bubba the baliff.
"There’s a big difference between Taliban law and Shariah law," he said.
There’s a big difference between Seven Eleven and Food Lion but they both sell crackers.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 11:55:15 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He said the Taliban’s lightning-speed trials -- sentencing a thief one week and having a doctor using anesthesia cut off his hand the next -- bore no resemblance to real Shariah law.

"Real Shariah law forbids the use of anesthesia when we cut off people's hands!"
Posted by: Raj || 10/28/2003 12:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like the new "kinder, gentler" shariah...
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:31 Comments || Top||

#3  tu3031 - when are we getting together for a few cold ones?
Posted by: Raj || 10/28/2003 12:51 Comments || Top||

#4  "having a doctor using anesthesia cut off his hand"
What the Hell kinda doctor would do that!? Is there a Sharia med school class that teaches various amputations?
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 10/28/2003 14:15 Comments || Top||

#5  NMM, I posted an answer to your question on the Mousetrap Post from yesterday. BTW I have no technical degree or offical qualifications. It's often been implied that I am certifiable.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 15:09 Comments || Top||

#6  "There’s a big difference between Taliban law and Shariah law,"

There's also a big difference between a great white shark and a hammerhead shark.
Posted by: Atrus || 10/28/2003 15:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Thanx SH--thought I was having a senior moment!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 10/28/2003 15:50 Comments || Top||

#8  I Certify that SH is certifiable.
Posted by: Raptor || 10/28/2003 17:12 Comments || Top||

#9  "Saddiqi, whose thick black beard and swirling turban indicate his status as a mullah"
"saddiqi" means friend in Arabic. They call homebrew alcohol "sid" in Saudiland. I doubt that Mullah Friend is aptly named.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 17:29 Comments || Top||

#10  Grand Shariah

An excellent name for an SUV Band.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:19 Comments || Top||

#11  Sorry I was ear-worming "rice AH rona"
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:20 Comments || Top||


Down Under
BBC: Anger at Australian nuclear cargo
EFL from Worldwire
Australia has dispatched its first shipment of used nuclear fuel to Europe in two years despite furious protests.
No to globalism, keep our nuclear waste at home! And free that Mumia guy, we like his videos.
Five lorries crossed suburban Sydney in the dead of night to deliver 344 spent nuclear fuel rods to a French container ship, the Fret Moselle. Once loaded, the ship then quickly left port before dawn, bound for France where the rods will be reprocessed.
Isn’t the reprocessing center in NK closer?
Activists from the environmental group Greenpeace warily circled the ship in dinghies to condemn the shipment, saying it was fraught with danger.
"There is great danger!"
The shipment is fraught with danger because we are distracting the pilot. Watch how close we get. Look out Bob... that was close. Maybe this could be an X-game.
"These casks are vulnerable to attack by morons in xodiacs terrorist attack," said spokesman James Courtney. "I think that the federal government is downplaying the risk of terrorism when it suits them and playing it up when they want to use it to their advantage."
Whereas Greenpeace is continuously believes that security should be lighter for all installations that we are trying to attack.
Since the 11 September attacks on the US, all countries have stepped up security around the transport of radioactive materials. But activists condemned what they said was a huge security operation at the dock as a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Didn’t they just say that there wasn’t enough security? and that the shipment was in danger.
"Yes! Danger! Great danger!... Oh, hold me, Ethel!"
"There were 10 police launches protecting the vessel, including fast inflatable vessels with guys in black helmets and night-vision goggles... racing around the water," said one, Danny Kennedy.
Psst Danny, that was you guys.
"It is an obscene abuse of the public purse only necessary because of morons like us."
"That's money that could be better spent on subsidizing public interest groups, like... ummm... us."
Cogema is contracted to extract and retain enriched uranium and send intermediate-level radioactive waste back to Australia for long-term storage. However, Greenpeace alleges that because of summer, fall, winter and spring holidays technical problems in France, no Australian nuclear fuel has yet been reprocessed.
No luck here, boys. It’s on to Iran.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 2:24:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shades of the garbage scow that traveled for years looking for a place to take its crap.
I'm sure Kimmie would love to have the spent fuel - if the Aussies threw in a few bags of dog food rice.
Posted by: Spot || 10/28/2003 15:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Activists from the environmental group Greenpeace circled the ship in dinghies to condemn the shipment, saying it was fraught with danger.

"These casks are vulnerable to attack by morons in xodiacs terrorist attack," said spokesman James Courtney. "I think that the federal government is downplaying the risk of terrorism when it suits them and playing it up when they want to use it to their advantage."

Well would it be as big a security risk if these Greenpeace IDIOTS weren't going so far as to making it obvious which ship is carrying the damn nuclear cargo?????

Asswipes.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 15:47 Comments || Top||

#3  If you read down to the bottom of the article, you see that this is fuel from Australia's sole nuclear reactor, which is a research facility.

In December 2001, Greenpeace breached "security" at Lucas Heights, wandered around the place, and hung a giant banner saying "Nuclear: Never Safe".

I was thinking that if this had happened in the US, there'd be bullet-riddled corpses, and the lack of same might explain why nuclear was not safe in Australia.

(Of course, this is a research reactor. When I was an undergrad, back in the early '80s, we had a nuclear reactor on campus. If I recall correctly, they kept track of who was in the building because of exposure concerns, but I don't remember anyone being especially paranoid about sabotage. Ah, innocent days!)
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 10/28/2003 16:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Slightly off topic.

A Piece of the Green vessel was denied docking at the port of Miami. No link.... No name of vessel... but I believe it's an ex Soviet icebreaker. I assume the fitters are having much fun..
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:28 Comments || Top||


Australia to pull out of Solomons
Australian peacekeepers are to begin leaving the Solomon Islands having helped restore order there, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said. Canberra leads a force of more than 2,200 soldiers and police officers which arrived in July when the Pacific state appeared on the brink of civil war. Since then, nearly 4,000 weapons have been handed in and 15 police posts set up across the islands, said Mr Downer. A number of notorious ethnic militants have also been arrested.
Harold Keke and his thugs are on trial for murder.
Australia contributed 1,400 of its soldiers to the force and has now announced that 800 will be brought home by early December, leaving just 200 along with police and defence support staff. Of the four other nations currently involved in the peacekeeping force, New Zealand has also announced it is scaling down its current contingent of 230 personnel and four helicopters. However, Defence Minister Mark Burton said, 35 New Zealand police officers are expected to remain in the Solomons for up to two years. Australia and its neighbours decided to intervene in the Solomons over concern that the archipelago could become a haven for terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers. Along with Australia and New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga contributed forces, with Samoa pledging to send personnel at a later date.
Well done, mates!
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 8:29:56 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  could become a haven for terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers.

Sounds like LA.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 9:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "...and don't make us come back here!"
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:50 Comments || Top||

#3  You blokes ARE gonna kiss 'em before you pull out, right?
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 16:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Bet they leave about 81 folk quietly behind.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Yes... But what will become of the Cargo?

John Fromm will command the 81.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:53 Comments || Top||


What If...
Let’s imagine, for a moment there was an military state that had sized power after elections that didn’t go their way. This state is powerful, and well funded due to the natural resources of that country.
So what happened in Turkey now?... Or was it Pakistan?... Central African Republic?... Mauretania?... Did they kick Hugo out in Venezuela?... Has Argentina reverted to its old habits?
This state was determined to get rid of the politicians who had been legitimately elected. They arrested several of the main leaders on trumped up charges. Several other politicians have to flee the country.
That's not very specific. El Salvador? Guatamala?... Yeah. I know. I cheated. I read the link at the bottom. It's Algeria.
Overseas, these leaders worked to attract attention what had happened in their country. These politicians urged the people of their country not to resort to violence in frustration, but to work towards peaceful solution.
At the same time maintaining an armed wing that did exactly opposite. Algerians seem to take out their "frustrations" by slitting people's throats and sexually enslaving young girls, don't they? A cultural thing?
But the illegitimate military campaign has support within overseas countries — Billions of dollars will always bend morals. The military regime worked to discredit the politicians — through their intelligence connections, they spread rumours of terrorist links. They also spread these rumours through the internet and faked press releases. When the horrific tragedy of September 11 occurs, the military regime cynically exploits this event, and releases a list of names they say are linked with Al-Qaeda to the US intelligence services. This list inevitably names many of their political opponents. This list is not thoroughly checked, but circulated amongst the intelligence services of Western nations.
We seldom "thoroughly" check anything like that. We just toss them onto a "suspect" list. When there's a second hit, they go onto an "of interest" list. When there's a third hit, we tend to consider them Bad Guys...
In one case, the military regime managed to exert enough pressure to have 2 overseas countries convict one of the politicians. These are not real trials, both give only suspended sentences despite the seriousness of the charges.
"Overseas" refers to Europe, where such sentences are common for people who have real blood on their hands. The presumption is that the victims either aren't really dead or weren't really people. As the NZ Herald described this guy last year:
The name Ahmed Zaoui is linked to terrorist cells that have carried out bombings, beheadings and throat slitting from Algeria to France.

The name crops up in connection with Osama bin Laden's suspected Southeast Asian army, and a book published this year links the name indirectly to suspects in the assassination of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Ahmed Zaoui's terror activities appear to have begun in the bloody and brutal Algerian civil war, which began in the early 1990s and has claimed 100,000 lives.

The militant Muslim is listed in various internet articles as one of the leaders of the shadowy Armed Islamic Group (GIA), although a BBC report said he had denied being part of this organisation.
Other than that, I'm sure he's a nice fellow, but those are serious charges — charges that have to be investigated, and charges which, if true, would mitigate against allowing him to walk the streets of Wellington and risk his plotting and planning similar actions against New Zealanders.
The trials are widely criticized both in the media, and by other judicial bodies. This politician, although a passionate advocate for peace, is now on the run, with an unenviable record, courtesy of the vindictive military regime.
The 1995 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review said the trademark terror signatures of the [GIA] organisation were throat-slitting and beheading. Mass attacks were usually carried out by bombing.

It listed Abou Houdhaifa Ahmed Essaoui as a leader, and said his alias was Ahmed Zaoui.

He went into exile after an Algerian court condemned him to death for supplying weapons from Europe to guerrillas in Algeria.
If this man arrived in your country, what action would you want your country to take?
I'd want them to lock him up and throw away the key until he proved it was all just a misunderstanding, that it was somebody else with a similar name who was responsible for the throat slittings and beheadings. I wouldn't invite him to dinner, I wouldn't stage massed marches in his support...
Would you be happy just to pass him on? Or would you hope that your country has a sufficiently robust system to properly investigate this man’s background, and find the truth? And how would you feel, if even after the truth was found, the government refused to treat this man properly, and kept him locked up. If the government allowed the lies to win?
Does that mean the NZ government has come to the conclusion the charges are valid? They're only lies if they're not true, y'know, regardless of what you'd like to think...
Not everyone who opposes the government is a terrorist. Especially if that government is not democratically elected, and especially not if they refuse to use violence in their campaign.
People who oppose governments don't have to be terrorists, but they also shouldn't associate with terrorists, organize terrorist groups, or raise funds for terrorists. One can refuse to use violence oneself, but if one dispatches other people to do it, then one's guilty as sin, isn't one?
see www.freezaoui.org.nz
See also our collection on him...
Posted by: Alex Davidson || 10/28/2003 3:11:56 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is news??? Fred don't you have a policy against someone just making pure opinion and ranting like this?
Posted by: Val || 10/28/2003 3:45 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm confused. At first I thought this was about Moussaoui and the elections bit was about Florida '00. Apparently this is something about some Algerian Imam in En Zed.

Legitimate political refugee and his impassioned Kiwi supporters
- or -
Salafist Imam whack job and his Western apologists/enablers?

Anyone know anymore about this?
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 10/28/2003 4:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Ahmed Zaoui is supposed to be a big fish in Algeria's GIA, or Armed Islamic Group, arguably the most vicous Islamist group in the world. He arrived in NZ seeking assylum, and the Kiwi government doesn't seem sure what to do with him. He can't be sent to Algeria because of their human rights record.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 10/28/2003 6:03 Comments || Top||

#4  hey www.freezaoui.or.nz - if you've got something to say, say it. This lead in feels way too much like a come on by a child molestor or something. "come into my car...I have a puzzle for you...heh heh heh."
Posted by: B || 10/28/2003 8:12 Comments || Top||

#5  wake up, it's always about Bush
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 8:27 Comments || Top||

#6  ...and some bad people did some bad things because I say they're bad, and now I'm ANGRY. I'm angry and I'm MAD, too. Listen to me because I'm angry AND mad. Oh, and I'm somebody, too (Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, whimper, whimper)!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blogspace is a terrible thing to waste...
Posted by: hyper || 10/28/2003 8:33 Comments || Top||

#7  Looks like a Kiwi woke up. Go back to sleep, big fellah. Your lady dictator is watching over you.
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 10:51 Comments || Top||

#8  at least its on topic opinion. Algeria, the post election coup, whether there are (or ever were) genuine "moderate" Islamists there, how much of the nastiness was the govts fault, etc. If they guy they want to free is from GIA, though, .... Thanks for the info Paul.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 10/28/2003 11:09 Comments || Top||

#9  This guy is looking to a blog named, "Rantburg" for a sympathy vote. I think he needs to take Karma Camelian out of his mental eight-track. (did I get anybody with an earthworm?)
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 15:12 Comments || Top||

#10  Thanks SH. I do now. Bastard juche dog.... aheeee :) No wait! It's Leslie Gore Again!
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:33 Comments || Top||

#11  Not quite Mr.Davidson, this is an opinion piece, most of the stuff here is news, with editorials/viewpoints highlighted in yellow. BIG distinction. Until Fred got through with it you were just respouting an opinion piece word for word.
Posted by: Val || 10/29/2003 4:32 Comments || Top||

#12  Not respouting - the piece is mine (may well be similar thoughts out there). I would argue that seeing as the news is always interspersed with comments the site is really opinion focused.

No need to get PREdantic though - It's the issue, not the format, that concerns me.
Posted by: Alex Davidson || 10/29/2003 4:50 Comments || Top||


Europe
Islamic fighters trained near Paris
A suspected French Islamic militant deported from Australia this month used a site outside Paris to help train fighters for Afghanistan, a French law enforcement official said. Willie Virgile Brigitte, who was deported on October 18, remains in French custody during investigations into whether he belonged "to a criminal association in relation to a terrorist undertaking". A French official told AFP the exact role taken by the 35-year-old during the training in the Fontainbleau forest, near Paris, was not yet known.
Posted by: TS || 10/28/2003 5:02:31 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And nobody nixed it!? Sheesh
Posted by: Atrus || 10/28/2003 17:09 Comments || Top||

#2  What are the French holding him for? So they can give him a medal?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 10/28/2003 17:49 Comments || Top||

#3  And nobody nixed it!? Sheesh

It's one thing to identify a problem point, but yet another to actually tackle the problem. (Why remedy the problem when surrender is always an option?)
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 18:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Things are looking up! French-trained terrorists!
Quelle frommage!
Posted by: Mercutio || 10/28/2003 21:46 Comments || Top||

#5  I can't decide if the French are helping us or not. Training the terrorists in France could go either way!
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 21:51 Comments || Top||


Dutch asked to close Hamas website
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has called on the Dutch government to close a website which supports the Palestinian Hamas paramilitary organisation. The Jewish human rights group dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust says that the site www.hamasonline.com "venerates and promotes homicide bombers and the other terrorist goals of Hamas". The site is hosted on the servers of 357Hosting, an internet company based in Nieuwegein near Utrecht.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/28/2003 12:46:34 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It would be :Cheese Here: them.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:35 Comments || Top||


Money-transfer man jailed in Germany
An Iraqi exile who ran a "hawala" or money-transfer operation between Germany and Saddam Hussein-controlled southern Iraq was jailed this week for seven and a half years for defying UN trade sanctions against his homeland. A court in Munich convicted him of breaching German foreign- exchange laws. The man, 34, who had been living in Germany as an applicant for political asylum when he was arrested, transferred a total of EUR 2.25 million into Iraq between 2000 and 2003.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/28/2003 12:41:49 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Bonn Islamic school to stay open
German authorities are to allow a Saudi-funded private school suspected of attracting potential extremists to remain open, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa learned from reliable sources Tuesday. The decision has been taken by Cologne local education authorities following high-level talks which have also involved Saudi officials, sources said.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/28/2003 12:39:12 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Saudi Arabia: "We promise not to incite violence and teach intolerance. Honest!"
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 12:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Will the German's please forward DNA samples, fingerprint samples and recent pictures of all enrolled students to ICE. They want to update their watch list. Send the stuff on the parents too.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 15:14 Comments || Top||

#3  B-a-R -

Germany: "Hokay."
Posted by: Fred || 10/28/2003 15:21 Comments || Top||


France to scrap Pentecost holiday
Again, not really WoT, but more erosion of Christian influence in France. However, I do agree that the 15,000 deaths last August must be addressed, and perhaps this is one way to do it...
The French government on Tuesday appeared set to eliminate a public holiday to help finance a raft of measures aimed at helping the elderly, the primary victims of this summer’s deadly heat wave. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s press service said a final decision had not yet been taken, but a government source who requested anonymity said France’s work force, which is fiercely protective of its leisure time, would be asked to give up a day off. "It will be Pentecost Monday and it is indeed to cover overall spending (on programs) for the elderly and the handicapped," the source told AFP, confirming reports in the financial daily Les Echos and the popular newspaper Le Moniteur France Soir. The suppression of the Pentecost Monday bank holiday from next year is thus expected to finance a multi-year action plan to protect older people that is due to be unveiled at a cabinet meeting next week, the financial daily said. Raffarin’s press service said, however, that the "final decisions" on how to pay for the action plan had not yet been taken. "Several possibilities have been reviewed, including the idea of a ’national day of solidarity’, which was put forth by several associations.
Oh, that should do it. Take another day off and parade. Maybe trot out Marianne...
The final decisions have not been made," the press service said in a statement. Pentecost, also known as Whitsunday, is a Christian holiday that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles 49 days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, celebrated on Easter.
Pentecost by definition doesn't fall on a Monday...
If Pentecost Monday is indeed scrapped, France will then have 10 public holidays on the calendar. Among European Union countries, Spain has the most public holidays at 16, while the Netherlands has the fewest at seven, with one extra day every five years.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/28/2003 12:35:05 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Okay! What time does the strike start?!
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:39 Comments || Top||

#2  "When does the strike start?"

Exactly, the French will strike not because of the erosion of the Christian Influence but because of a lost Holiday that they will now have to work on.

What's the over/under for when the French Government folds?

2 days?
Posted by: Daniel King || 10/28/2003 12:47 Comments || Top||

#3  You know, I'm not at all clear on how this works. It's a paid holiday. Eliminating it doesn't save a dime that I can see.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 10/28/2003 13:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Without the holiday, they get another day of work and production, with the resulting revenue, without paying any more for it. That appears to be the theory anyway.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 14:31 Comments || Top||

#5  AC: This is FRANCE we're talking about. See the hole in your thesis?
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 14:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Why would they strike. Just because they are at work doesn't mean that they have to do anything productive. Here's an idea: complie an entire photo-album of xeros'd ass prints.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 19:26 Comments || Top||


New cola launched in France for Ramadan
MMMMMMMMMMMMMM... tastes like goat piss.
A new cola drink was launched in France -- but much of the target market will not be able to drink it during the daytime for the next month. The drink, named Salam Cola after the Arabic word for peace, was put on the market in time for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, during which observant Muslims do not eat, drink or smoke during the day.
They do, however, still blow shit up and shoot at people.
It is produced in bottles in the north of France and in cans in the Netherlands and has been on sale in Belgium for the last six weeks. "We are already falling behind demand," said Rabah Kechich, production manager. About 230,000 bottles and half a million cans had already been put on the market, he said. The new drink "is part of the emergence of new alternative products with an ethnic character which encourage useful and committed consumption", the manufacturers said in a statement.
If Allah was alive, he’d drink it too. So don’t be an Infidel. Drink Salam Cola Today!
It will face competition from another Islamic fizzy drink -- Mecca Cola -- which has been sold in France since the end of last year.
Does this mean they’ll be blowing up each others bottling plants like Shiites vs. Shias? Will there be fatwas?
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:27:37 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think the concept of "Cola Wars" is about to be updated.
Posted by: mjh || 10/28/2003 13:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Will Yassin perform a blind tast test?
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 13:55 Comments || Top||

#3  ...and maybe they can give out Hook Boy bottle openers.
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 14:01 Comments || Top||

#4  "Always Sharia-Cola"?
Posted by: Jarhead || 10/28/2003 15:45 Comments || Top||

#5  It is produced in bottles in the north of France and in cans in the Netherlands and has been on sale in Belgium for the last six weeks. "We are already falling behind demand," said Rabah Kechich, production manager. About 230,000 bottles and half a million cans had already been put on the market, he said.

Furniture refinishers in Europe have discovered a great new paint stipper. News at 11:00!!
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 10/28/2003 16:52 Comments || Top||

#6  So what the hell is "useful and committed consumption" ?!?!
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 10/28/2003 18:38 Comments || Top||

#7  I mean, I feel that way about the beer I drink, but don't feel the urge to brag about it...
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 10/28/2003 18:39 Comments || Top||

#8  think the concept of "Cola Wars" is about to be updated.

I've had homebrew like that.... every third bottle a Jihadi.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:41 Comments || Top||

#9  Shake the can and run at a Sharia-Cola Infidel! It not only explodes, it's good for melting Joos!
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 21:56 Comments || Top||

#10  Which company will start rumor the other cola has pureed pork as secret ingredient?
Posted by: Stephen || 10/28/2003 22:53 Comments || Top||


Scratching at relevance: France ’to aim nuclear arms at rogue states’
France is to enact a historic shift in military strategy by targeting its nuclear missiles on "rogue states" that have weapons of mass destruction, it was reported yesterday.
Speaking of rogue states, how many weapons do the US and UK havepointing in France’s general direction?
In the longer term, the strategy will "take into account" China as a potential threat, according to the newspaper Libération. It said the new doctrine - the fruit of several years of reflection by the defence ministry, will be announced in the next few weeks.
The French long-term strategy: don’t do anything that will prevent rogue states acquiring WMD, but wait to deal with them once they’re in a position to annihilate us, then negotiate/surrender. With luck, however, the contemptible Americans will have dealt with rogue states for us before that happens.
If confirmed, the move will overturn 40 years of French nuclear strategy founded on the principle of deterrence against declared nuclear powers and expose President Jacques Chirac to further attack from anti-nuclear protesters. He was condemned for briefly resuming French nuclear testing in the Pacific in 1996. Yesterday, the Elysee Palace said M Chirac’s nuclear doctrine had not shifted since 2001, when he declared that France would "maintain the credibility of its nuclear deterrent in the face of all new threats".
Got no cultural or political credibility left, so it’s time to put on the warrior’s ...um... hat thing, and make a brutish face.
At the time, he added: "Our nuclear forces are not directed towards any country. We have always refused that nuclear arms can be considered as a battle weapon within military strategy."
"In fact, we don’t believe in using weapons in battle, at all."
The new doctrine would reverse that by specifying particular targets and transforming France’s defensive nuclear arms into an active threat against its enemies.
Hope France has enough for all of the potential enemies it envisages having in its wonderful multipolar world.
Libération said the French military had been quietly revising its nuclear capability in recent years and developing new weapons. The cost of maintaining France’s nuclear capability absorbs 10 per cent of its £23 billion annual defence budget. Many in the military think the money would be better spent on conventional forces and equipment for a rising number of humanitarian tasks.
Or sticking to the eurozone public spending limits.
France’s Cold War goal was to prove its independence from America and Nato by having its own deterrent against Soviet attack.
Lookit me!
It is not clear how the new strategy would be received in Washington - as yet another French attempt to exclude the US from Europe’s defence or a welcome recognition of the continuing strategic value of nuclear arms and the dangers of rogue states.
It’s just the French cock strutting and clucking.
France is also looking at developing "mini-nukes" capable of destroying military installations without serious civilian casualties. In unveiling such a new strategy, M Chirac would bring France into line with America, which has said it might one day be necessary to use nuclear force against nations with weapons of mass destruction.
As France hasn’t got the balls to go to war with anyone, for any reason, this may all be just a tad irrelevant.
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 4:39:41 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Another nonsensical policy that does nothing but burn valuable treasure for nothing. France's quite public decline is a sad but valuable lesson for the rest of us. France pulled away from NATO once before, pursued a "rogue" state policy of above ground nuclear testing when everyone else was stopping. A real popular move that pissed off the world. They just do not get it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/28/2003 6:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Save Fifty For France

Secret Annex to Salt I.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 7:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Uh, guys, the French have commented that they believe the US is a rogue nation. Now they say they're gonna aim nukes at rogue nations.

Put two and two together, and it comes out as the French threatening us with nukes.

(I'd add a smiley, but I'm only half joking.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/28/2003 7:51 Comments || Top||

#4  They cite China as the major external threat. This could be interesting; the Phrench are noted for joining our side after they've f*cked us over and need to be bailed out (viz. Mitterand with missile deployments, etc.)
Posted by: Brian || 10/28/2003 9:20 Comments || Top||

#5  They wouldn't target NY, Woody lives there. He's probably French kissing his daughter wife right now.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 9:38 Comments || Top||

#6  If by "Woody" you mean the UN and "Wife" you mean the Paleos, then you're right SH.
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 9:56 Comments || Top||

#7  I'd be willing to bet that most, if not all, of the vaunted French nuke force is badly maintained and probably unusable. Them things are expensive, especially when you have so many retirements and month-long vacations to fund...
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 10:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Sorry, Charles. Here is an excerpt from ESPN 920:

Woody Allen Takes France
Jun 6 2003 9:30AM

Woody Allen is doing his part to heal relations between the United States and France.

According to the New York Daily News, Allen, along with Wynton Marsalis, George Plimpton and Robert DeNiro, will star in a new short film, called, "Let's FallIn Love Again," which tries to lure American tourists back to France.

Allen says in the ad that he doesn't want to call his french fries, "freedom fries," and doesn't want to "freedom kiss" his daughter wife.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 11:11 Comments || Top||

#9  Canada could make the list, if the voters succeed in expelling the FROG (Franco-Red Occupation Government) from Ottawa.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 11:51 Comments || Top||

#10  www.fuckfrance.com
Posted by: Greg || 10/28/2003 12:14 Comments || Top||

#11 
According to the New York Daily News, Allen, along with Wynton Marsalis, George Plimpton and Robert DeNiro, will star in a new short film, called, "Let's FallIn Love Again," which tries to lure American tourists back to France.

Remarkable actor, that George Plimpton. Imagine! Making a film from beyond the grave!
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 13:02 Comments || Top||

#12  Mojo, George may need a Ouji Board if its a spoken part. If Jack Palance can play Fidel Catro and John Wayne can play Gengis Khan, George Plimpton shall not be denied.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 13:58 Comments || Top||

#13  3 possible reasons for France to openly announce this new policy:
1)desperately trying to justify keeping its nukes.
2)French Intelligance heard something that scared the s--- out of leadership.
3)The specific naming of China makes no sense-unless we remember France's continuing efforts to
establish a relationship w/Russia.Russia does worry about China.This could be attempt by France
to tell Russia if we reach an understanding/alliance,France will cover your back while Russia modernizes w/French help.(Basically recreating pre-1914 Entente w/US taking place of Germany for France and China taking place of Austro-Hungarian Empire for Russia.)
Posted by: Stephen || 10/28/2003 22:31 Comments || Top||

#14  3 possible reasons for France to openly announce this new policy:
1)desperately trying to justify keeping its nukes.
2)French Intelligance heard something that scared the s--- out of leadership.
3)The specific naming of China makes no sense-unless we remember France's continuing efforts to
establish a relationship w/Russia.Russia does worry about China.This could be attempt by France
to tell Russia if we reach an understanding/alliance,France will cover your back while Russia modernizes w/French help.(Basically recreating pre-1914 Entente w/US taking place of Germany for France and China taking place of Austro-Hungarian Empire for Russia.)
Posted by: Stephen || 10/28/2003 22:42 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Protest Security Personnel/Counter-Protesters Clash in Washington
From Johnny P News - Free Use
Counter-protesters were harassed, threatened, and some including a pregnant woman assaulted by security personnel of the anti-Iraq Occupation rally (International A.N.S.W.E.R.) before police appeared and relocated the counter-protesters in Washington D.C. today. No arrests were reported, but there was one female counter-protester was repeatedly shoved in the fracas. The counter-protesters, consisting of members of the web-based ProtestWarrior.com and FreeRepublic.com (see correction below), arrived at the protest at approximately 1:30PM carrying pro-America signs and positioned themselves just north of the stage area on Constitution Avenue, N.W. They had no permit to organize as a group. The counter-protesters stood quietly holding their signs aloft. The signs, attempts at humor, had slogans such as; "Communism has only killed 100-million people, let’s give it another chance, " and "Screw the Kurds, No war in Iraq."
See the link for pics.
Anna, at Belligerent Bunny, also has pix...
Within 10 minutes of their arrival, security members from International A.N.S.W.E.R., organizers of today’s Anti-U.S. policy protest, appeared and began to cordon-off the area occupied by the counter-protesters using yellow tape. Within moments, members of the International A.N.S.W.E.R. security team began grabbing and destroying the counter-protester’s signs, and aggressively shoving counter-protesters. A Johnny P News reporter was assaulted while trying to capture the event on camera. The reporter was struck in the head and his camera knocked to the ground and then kicked by a man standing with the International A.N.S.W.E.R. security personnel. The assailant refused to give his name or answer any questions. Observing the altercation, some of those attending the event to protest the U.S. Government’s Iraq policy challenged the International A.N.S.W.E.R. security people on their treatment of the counter-protesters, who responded by calling the counter-protesters "Nazis" and saying that the counter-protesters were disrupting the rally; "I am a college professor and have a Phd and you cannot tell me that these signs disrupt our rally or are pro-nazi, show me where these signs say they are Nazis" yelled one woman, who positioned herself between the International A.N.S.W.E.R. people and the counter-protesters.
Good for her. I wonder if she knew that A.N.S.W.E.R. is a communist organization.
Members of the counter-protest group began saying that a woman 5-months pregnant with the counter-protesters was injured in the scuffle. Her husband, David Fields, has made the following statement:
"My wife (who is 5 months pregnant) and I joined about 50 other Protest Warriors on Saturday in D.C. to infiltrate the anti-war rally sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R., and they were apparently expecting us. As soon as we began making our way into the crowd, we had one person after another attempting to block our progress, telling us that we weren’t allowed to be there, and within minutes, several rally "marshals" in yellow vests began trying to rope us off into a little "pen." We continuously asked them why they weren’t being tolerant of our free speech rights, but the best responses they could come up with was a "f--- you!"
Typical anti-war dialogue
We attempted to engage them in a healthy debate, but they wouldn’t have any of it, and it wasn’t long before they began trying to shove many of us out of the rally by force. I expected some resistance, and so I remained calm and just stood my ground, not wanting the face-off to escalate into anything violent. But when a couple of the "marshals" began shoving my pregnant wife around, I came VERY close to physically attacking them in her defense.
I would have come a lot more then very close.
But I settled for stepping in front of them and letting them know, in no uncertain terms, that she is pregnant, and if they didn’t stop man-handling her, I would defend her with extreme force. In response to that, they would step back (but only for a minute or two), and say that in order for her not to be physically assaulted, I would have to get her out of there.
This, boys and girls is known as extortion.
This scene was repeated several times, and each time the same people became a little more rough with my wife, who, to her credit, didn’t back down from their assault and stood her ground, questioning their purported "tolerance" and "peacefulness" with every one of their shoves.
Good for her!
Eventually, one of the "marshals," who my wife believes was under the influence of drugs, physically charged into me and attempted to rip up the two-sided sign I was carrying. After tearing down one side of my sign, this "peace-lover" returned and practically climbed on top of me to rip off the other side. My only resistance to his physical attacks was to point out his infringement of my free-speech rights, and to try to shield my sign from his prying fingers. Unfortunately, he succeeded in destroying my property, with the aid of several other "marshals," some of whom were still trying to rope us off. Even some of the anti-war rally attenders tried to intervene, telling the "marshals" that we were allowed to be there, and that they shouldn’t try to silence us or make us leave."
These are ’peace lovers’... Can you say Hypocrisy? I knew you could...
"And "bully boys"? Comes tripping off the tongue, doesn't it?

-- snip -- See link for entire article.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 4:55:35 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anyone know where these ANSWER goons hang out? Just curious mind you.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 10/28/2003 18:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Good for these people. Still, don't bring your pregnant wife to a anti-globo/pro-totalitarian protest. You can't trust those pimply faced, trust-fund anarchists to act decently.
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 10/28/2003 18:30 Comments || Top||

#3  "Screw the Kurds, no War in Iraq"?

Hell, I'd expect Murat to carry that and be serious about it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/28/2003 18:31 Comments || Top||

#4  FYI - According to the 'protestwarrior.com' site the pushing down of the pregnant woman (she had to be treated btw) was caught on video and I guess the couple are going to file charges. As far as I know they have not posted the video.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 19:13 Comments || Top||

#5  International ANSWER
39 West 14 St., #206, NY, NY 10011
(212) 633-6646 
Posted by: pill || 10/28/2003 20:34 Comments || Top||


American Friends of Saddam Committee
By William R. Hawkins FrontPageMagazine.com
Feed the oppressed, barbecue a sacred cow:
The detonation of several suicide car bombs in Baghdad on the first day of Ramadan, the most holy days of the Islamic faith, provided violent and bloody examples of one way religion and politics can interact when used by radicals. It is not, however, the only way religion can be twisted to further a barbaric cause. American also has devout activists who are just as anxious to see America fail as any fedayeen. Take, for example, the American Friends Service Committee. It claims on its website to be "a practical expression of the faith of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Committed to the principles of nonviolence and justice, it seeks in its work and witness to draw on the transforming power of love, human and divine." Certainly, when one thinks of pacifism, the image of the pious Quaker comes readily to mind.
Theologically, the Quakers are a fundamentalist cult on the same level as Appalachian snake-handlers, though this is couched in PC language that gives them immunity to the usual academic and media demonization of such beliefs.
But based on a mailing I recently received from the AFSC, it’s clear that this creed of pacifism can no longer be accorded the moral high ground in policy debates. Love, justice and divine inspiration do no comport well with the embrace of bloody dictators or the opposing of those who would seek to transform tyranny into freedom.
That could have been worded better, but let us move on.
I did not even have to open the letter to get my first taste of the AFSC’s uncharitable venom. Emblazoned across the front of the envelop was the claim that America was in "a more dangerous time for peace and justice than even the McCarthy era."
Ah, the Horrors of McCarthyism™; every undergrad knows them: the midnight raids on peaceful Greenwich Village communes, the thousands machine-gunned in the streets, the millions packed away in cattle-cars to the Rocky Mountain Gulag.....
On the inside, the lead complaint is that the Bush Administration has on eleven occasions broken "promises" to support "serious, written down [sic], legally binding agreements" in international affairs. Only six examples are specifically mentioned, however, and only one—the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was ever actually ratified. The ABM treaty was not, however, "tossed aside." The United States used the process established in the treaty to withdraw from an agreement that was no longer useful or relevant. Archives around the world are full of such documents rendered obsolete by events and now of interest only to historians. The other agreements AFSC mentions, the Conventions on Small Arms, the conventions on Chemical and Biological weapons, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the treaty to set up the International Criminal Court, have not been ratified by the United States and thus have no "legally binding" affect on American policy. Though the AFSC proclaims on the first page that it "is not a political organization" it poses to the reader the question, "Can you trust a leadership that so casually discards the provisions that defend our peace, safety and liberty?" The question hangs in the air because no argument is presented in behalf of any of the international agreements to show how they would "defend" the United States. The history of arms control agreements provides strong evidence that they do more harm than good.
Let’s not jump to conclusions here. The statement is more than reasonable if "our" refers to totalitarians, power-seekers, and violent authoritarians.
The first international arms control conference was held in The Hague in 1899. It accomplished little, nor was the second Hague conference of 1907 any better. A third meeting scheduled for 1915 had to be canceled due to the outbreak of World War I. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, named after the U.S. Secretary of State and the French Foreign Minister, "outlawed" war. All the major powers that would fight in World War II signed this agreement, pledging to "condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy." The years between the world wars also saw the size of navies limited by treaty. The principle result of these arms control schemes was to constrain the superior industrial strength of the United States so that a much weaker Japan could build a fleet capable of obtaining regional superiority and launching aggression.
Historically, the primary achievement of the peace movement has been to weaken resistance to dictatorships. In recent years, this has become a concious goal. In the 80s, Quacker/Menno-nut activists campaigned to make the West helpless against the Soviet nuclear threat. Today, their target du jour is "aerial bombing", especially cluster bombs, an effort that serves to level the playing field for totalitarian, terrorist, and narco-guerrilla forces.
The progressive power of democratic capitalism is such that only by hobbling the United States in some manner can rival ideologies hope to close the gap sufficiently to pose a threat. Forging hobbles for American leadership is the apparent goal of AFSC activism. The AFSC claims in its letter that it was among the first to recognize the "worst excesses of the Third Reich" and "to confront the Nazi government."
This did not, however, extend so far as to support the war effort against the Nazis. The Quackers of the time in fact did everything possible and legal, and some things that weren’t, to undermine the war effort and materially assist Nazi forces.
But in the abbreviated history of the organization presented, this would seem to be the last time the AFSC recognized or confronted any evil outside the United States. As the group states in its online history, "recognizing that most conflicts have their roots in injustice, the Quaker organization has been long concerned with eliminating injustice at home in the United States."
The unjustice of car bombing, execution by shredder, and state-sponsored rape seems to have escaped their notice.
Though the AFSC mentions the "hysteria and mob mentality of the McCarthy era" it does not mention the Cold War or even the Korean War which gave context to that era.
Medieval moonbat religious debate: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Quaker moonbat religious debate: How many fifth-columnists can hide behind the whisky-sodden ghost of Joe McCarthy?
There is no mention of the "excesses" of Soviet Communism, nor the continuing threat from a North Korean regime that talks incessantly of aggressive war and nuclear weapons. The AFSC is proud of its role as "an early critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam" and brags of its role, after the Communist victories, in rebuilding "lives and communities" in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It fails to mention that this effort was in concert with brutal Marxist dictatorships which killed millions. And then, of course, there is Iraq, where the AFSC "did everything it could to put the brakes on the headlong rush to war." If the AFSC had been successful, would have kept the extremely violent and sadistic regime of Saddam Hussein in power.
Same in World War 2, when Quaker peace-mongering helped give the Gestapo precious time to consolidate its pursuit of "justice" in Poland, Russia, France, etc.
The letter ends with a prayer for "integrity" in government based on "truth, compassion and honest behavior."
Love, faith and guitar recitals will stay the hand of terrorists, if we only believe.
The AFSC would be well advised to apply this standard to its own behavior over the last half century. The AFSC has held the bloody hands of the worst tyrants on the planet and attempted to shelter them from true justice behind a plea for "peace" that would perpetuate their crimes and keep them in power. Conservatives often want to give some leeway to those who wrap their politics in Christian rhetoric, even when they disagree. No such consideration is due the American Friends Service Committee. The only friends it has served of late have been Satanic in the extent of their evil.
I understand the actual relationship between real Quakers and the AFSC is actually tenuous. I believe it was one of those movements that was grabbed off by leftists, who eased the actual religious people out. I could be wrong, though. Maybe the people who told me that just didn't want to admit that a large proportion of their coreligionists is made up of moonbats...
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 11:15:25 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the AFSC has been actively encouraging illegal immigration here in the San Diego region. Every time there's an illegal's death - either by weather exposure or trying to run a checkpoint, you can count on teh usual suspects making news appearances
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  My personal faith and most people I know believe that non support of your own government in everything when they are morally right including war is unChristian and unlawful this also pertains to the jehovah's witenesses and others besides the Quakers but that is our opinion so take it or leave it however none of us beleive in going after them considering it is their own problem to deal with exept if they deal directlly with dictatorships
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 11:48 Comments || Top||

#3  I think I am going to change brands of oatmeal as well as write run-on sentnces without any punctuation so I sound like a fifteen year old discussing pro wrestling in a chatroom because that would be lots of fun
Posted by: OminousWhatever || 10/28/2003 11:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, semi-literate Anonymous person, I don't share your religious beliefs, so I don't believe that groups that act in the public arena have some kind of immunity to criticism or opposition. Asserting that it is improper to "go after them" is an endorsement of censorship, like the idiot who suggested that I be jailed for violating the Dixie Chicks' rights when I dared to speak against them on my radio show.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 12:10 Comments || Top||

#5  OminousWhatever - that was delicious - I hope I never piss you off, lol
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 12:25 Comments || Top||

#6  First to AC My statement above includes everybody in non interference in thought and beliefs i was not talking about if they broke civil law which is morally wrong however I am still against forcing people to think a certain way Next to OW I type this way in the web because it is more convinent however if you want a literate statement of mine tell me where I can send one
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 12:36 Comments || Top||

#7  Anonymous? What the hell was that?
Has Rodung defected?
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:37 Comments || Top||

#8  Anonymous:
How is anyone being "forced to think a certain way"?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 12:40 Comments || Top||

#9  The first international arms control conference was held in The Hague in 1899. It accomplished little, nor was the second Hague conference of 1907 any better. A third meeting scheduled for 1915 had to be canceled due to the outbreak of World War I. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, named after the U.S. Secretary of State and the French Foreign Minister, "outlawed" war.

To quote Ann Coulter, "Anybody sense a pattern here?"
Posted by: Raj || 10/28/2003 12:49 Comments || Top||

#10  To AC again being forced think a certain way is being attacked on a statement of belief rather than actions of individual people however I should have said to 'try to force different beliefs' like the spainish did to the Jews and Moors To Tu3031 my beliefs are based on the majority of statements of Soveriegn and Reformed Baptists with My own personal application
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 12:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Thanks, Anonymous. I'm glad we cleared that up.
Right.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:56 Comments || Top||

#12  I should have put the word Grace following Soveriegn
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 12:59 Comments || Top||

#13  There is no right to immunity from criticism, of belief or anything else.
This kind of criticism is not "force," and it is obscene and dishonest for you to compare it to the actions of the Spanish Inquisition. If you have a problem with free speech; fine, that is your right. Just don't try to enforce it.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 13:02 Comments || Top||

#14  If You truly read My statements It cleary points out I am for freedom of speach and how is it obscene when considering the Spainish Inquisition started when people in general attacked other groups of people for being different in beliefs
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 13:11 Comments || Top||

#15  The Spanish Inquisition started when somebody asserted that it was unlawful to question certain beliefs, as you are doing now.
Criticism is not force, it is not torture, and it is not oppression. Pretending that they are is a direct attack on free speech.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 13:22 Comments || Top||

#16  Quakers are not "fundamentalists". Fundamentalist has a specific theological meaning, especially when referring to a Christian sect, and Quakers don't remotely qualify. Their pacifism is bad Christian doctrine in my opinion, and just a first example of why they can't be considered fundamentalist. I wouldn't argue with "cult", though.

I'd be interest in some support for the contention that the "The Quackers [sic] of the time in fact did everything possible and legal, and some things that weren’t, to undermine the war effort and materially assist Nazi forces." My understanding is that Quakers were permitted CO status but that many served as medics and in other legal alternative service. Leaving aside the debate about whether a CO was "objectively pro-Nazi", what else is supposed to have happened?
Posted by: VAMark || 10/28/2003 13:30 Comments || Top||

#17  Once again We are in agreement in Your statement about freedom of speach and also about your opinion of the quaker group in question however i never stated above that I am against You stating Your opinion but all opinions including mine have a tendecy to being taken out of context and used improperly so both of us should be careful of what we say and do with the empthasis on me not you
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 13:33 Comments || Top||

#18  And to clear up cofusion I was talking about governments going after them not individuals in voicing their oppostion to them
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 13:46 Comments || Top||

#19  I don't care where the Quakers tand politically because, damn it, they make a hell of a good cereal.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 13:59 Comments || Top||

#20  This is a small "f" fundamentalism, Mark. By the strict definition, as used in theology, Muslim fundamentalism is no such thing either. In terms of relying on religious doctrine in defiance of objective experience, I think that Quaker beliefs share important characteristics with those of certain groups who are often characterized as fundamentalist. In their case, this doctrine is not Biblical, but it is fundamental to their belief system.
Before the US entry into World War 2, Quakers were very active in the Isolationist movement, which indisputably delayed US entry into the war. Whether this was justified is debatable, but there is no doubt at all that it materially assisted the early Nazi conquests and prolonged the war.
I don't know who said that COs were objectively pro-Nazi, but I am not willing to extend this to individual COs who accepted alternate service, since this service did in fact assist the war effort and contribute to the defeat of the Nazi regime. Some Quakers were jailed for refusing even alternate service on this basis and it is hard to argue with their doctrinal consistency in that respect.
"What else is supposed to have happened?"
Why is anything else supposed to have happened? Our system requires us to accommodate religious dissidence to a reasonable extent.
I have not suggested changing that but if Quakers trumpet their opposition to Nazism, it is only fair and reasonable for me to point out that this opposition was ineffective and counter-productive, especially in comparison to the efforts they did their best to oppose.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 14:22 Comments || Top||

#21  To AC if I offended you inadvertantly I appoligize and I ask for your forgivness brother I call you brother because we seem to be of the same Flock spiritually speaking along with VAMark who I also sense the same from even if we differ slightly in doctrine and political view
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 14:25 Comments || Top||

#22  Thank you, Anonymous, and please accept my apology for the strident tone that is sometimes the norm here.
Feel free to e-mail me with information on this Baptist group to which you belong. I am sorry to say that I am not familiar with it.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 14:37 Comments || Top||

#23  AC, OW & others,

PLEASE, do NOT feed the trolls!

Thank you.

-Analog
Posted by: Analog Roam || 10/28/2003 15:16 Comments || Top||

#24  I haven't. I just changed brands of Oatmeal because I'm feeling petty.
Posted by: OminousWhatever || 10/28/2003 15:36 Comments || Top||

#25  I wont get into whether Quakers are good christians or what not (as long as christians here dont presume to comment on the propriety of say, driving on shabbos) I will note that it is my impression that the AFSC has a considerable independence from the Society of Friends, and that while Quakers do tend to be liberal, not all share the positions of the AFSC.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 10/28/2003 16:20 Comments || Top||

#26  To AC I sent an E-mail but If you do not recieve it just look up sovereign grace baptist in the World Wide Web I apolgize in advance for any incovienance
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 17:10 Comments || Top||

#27  Dammit Bastian! Is that you?

Thanks for letting me borrow the cart. Sorry about the lettuce.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 20:00 Comments || Top||

#28  To AC forgot the number 80 after the word sun in my e-mail adress if you want to send any message to me
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 20:53 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
36 civilians hurt in Kashmir grenade attack
A day after Pak-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba threatened to step up attacks during the holy month of Ramzan, terrorists attacked a Central Reserve Police Force picket at the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd office here injuring at least 40 people. The grenade, thrown on the roof of the building, rolled down and exploded near the billing counter. "Some 36 civilians who had come to pay their telephone bills have been injured," an police spokesman said.
Yup. Sounds like a vital military target...
The state-owned telegraph office is in the heart of Srinagar, which is adjacent to the Valley’s main telecommunication exchange. A little-known group, the Kashmir Freedom Forum, has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to local news agency Current News Service.
"Mahmoud, does this false nose and moustache make me look fat?"
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 10/28/2003 6:53:17 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, looks like they finally got the over-hand toss figured out. Next step is the push-petal-car bomb. The research should take about 2 months, give or take a Joooo or two.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:49 Comments || Top||


Hizb commander, 15 others killed in Kashmir
The operations chief of Indian-administered Kashmir’s largest rebel group, the Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed in a gun battle in Srinagar, police chief K Rajindra said on Monday.
Hurrah!
Elsewhere 15 people including 10 militants, four civilians and a soldier were killed in gun battles and an explosion across the state since Sunday evening. It said 12 people had also been wounded in rebel attacks during the same period. Hizbul Mujahideen commander Saiful Rahman was killed by security forces in a gun battle Sunday evening in Srinagar’s Palpora district, said Mr Rajindra. A police statement said Mr Rahman was a Pakistani from Rahim Yar Khan and served as Hizb’s chief operations commander and chief military adviser.
Comes as a surprise, huh?
It said police, after killing Mr Rahman, searched his hideout and found an automatic rifle and 73 rounds along with one hand grenade and a wireless set.
Only one hand grenade? He was travelling light...
Indian troops killed three militants in a gun battle near a bridge at the town of Akhnoor, about 25 kilometres west of Jammu. The militants allegedly used explosives to derail a train on Sunday night. Police said the attackers then fled in a vehicle but were stopped at a security force checkpoint on the bridge. When ordered to halt they tried to speed away, but troops shot out the tyres of the vehicle and they were forced to flee on foot, killing an Indian soldier on the way. The militants forced their way into a nearby army auditorium, police said. The army cordoned off the building and soldiers exchanged fire with the militants holed up inside for nearly eight hours, ending with the killing of the three guerrillas. A second soldier was killed in the gunbattle, a police official said.
I think we heard about this yesterday, before they were bumped off...
In another incident, Indian troops assisted by police on Monday shot dead a suspected rebel in the Qamarwari area of Srinagar. In another attack, masked suspected militants forced their way into government official Assadullah Dar’s house and shot him dead late Sunday in the Kreeri area of northern Baramulla district, police said.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 10/28/2003 12:45:49 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
British Soldiers raid Iraqi political centre
British soldiers stormed the headquarters of Iraqi Amal-ol Islami Organisation in Basra, IRIB correspondent in Basra reported Tuesday.
OK by me.
The soldiers searched through the place and seized the whole documents and files they found. They also arrested Ali Raed, a member of the organisation.
Guess somebody was up to something.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 12:49:24 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Breaking up the Bingo game at the Basra chapter of the AARP.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 15:20 Comments || Top||


U.S. deploys Iraqi force along Syrian border
The United States has formed and deployed an Iraqi security force to patrol the border with Syria. U.S. officials said the Iraqi border force was formed to halt the smuggling of weapons and Islamic insurgents from Syria. They said thousands of Arab nationals from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have entered Iraq to join the Sunni insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition. The Iraqi force along the Syrian border contains more than 1,500 troops, officials said. The force was deployed in September in an attempt to bolster counter-insurgency operations. "We saw the level of enthusiasm of the security forces that have been put in place, over 1,500 people to act as border guards along the Syrian-Iraqi border," House terrorism subcommittee chairman Rep. James Saxton, who returned from Iraq last week, said. "And to see these men and women stand up and tell us how proud they are to be able to do something for their country for the first time in their lives because they volunteered to do it, not because they had to do it, was very uplifting to us."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/28/2003 12:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They might want to consider a similar force for the border with the Soddies, an equally untrustworthy neighbor.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 12:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like the Iraqis get it. This is a good start...we need more. When the reports start coming in about Iraqi security forces helping to toe-tag the foreign boomers at the border, we'll know we really have something going - and so will the terrorists.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 10/28/2003 12:42 Comments || Top||

#3  The Jordan border may be even more important than the Saudi border. The road capacity is almost as great as Syria and even if the King of Jordan isn't a terrorist, a lot of his subjects are and even more guests of his subjects are terrorists.
Posted by: mhw || 10/28/2003 12:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Look at OP's comment on this yesterday. Rantburg is ahead of the news once again.
Posted by: Matt || 10/28/2003 13:15 Comments || Top||

#5  Also, if anyone wants to see what a rant looks like, check out the Healing Iraq post today on the attacks yesterday:

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Matt || 10/28/2003 13:38 Comments || Top||

#6  I would like to see the MOAB and the high tech rifle I saw on the Discovery tried out in this enviroment. You can shoot exploding rounds to knock out jihadis that are hiding behind walls.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 15:23 Comments || Top||

#7  Maybe we should sub-contract these guys when things straighten out over there. The Yuma border-area sure could use 'em.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/28/2003 17:18 Comments || Top||

#8  They might want to consider a similar force for the United States border with Mexico.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 17:41 Comments || Top||


Wolfowitz’s wakeup call in Baghdad
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s weekend tour of Iraq appeared to be going splendidly: everywhere he went - even in Saddam Hussein’s former stronghold of Tikrit - Iraqis greeted him with smiles and warm handshakes, no doubt adding to his conviction that the war really was for "liberation" rather than "occupation". Until Sunday morning, that is, when the Pentagon’s chief Iraq hawk was rudely awakened by an unprecedented missile barrage fired from a home-made rocket launcher less than half a kilometer - and well within the capital’s heavily-patrolled "green zone" - from the al-Rashid hotel where he was sleeping. A US colonel on a floor just below Wolfowitz’s was killed in an attack that wounded at least 16 others and proved to be a mere foretaste of a much more devastating series of coordinated car bombings carried out early on Monday on four police stations and the headquarters of the International Red Cross in Baghdad.
Smart move Paul to switch chamber with the colonel
At least 40 people were killed and well over 200 more injured in the blasts, making it the worst day of violence in the capital since US forces captured Baghdad in early April. President George W Bush, meeting with Coalition Provisional Authority chief L Paul Bremer, insisted that the attacks were merely signs of "desperation" on the part of "terrorists" opposed to the US presence in Iraq, who were motivated by anger over the progress made by occupation authorities in restoring normal life and creating a free society. "There are terrorists in Iraq who are willing to kill anybody in order to stop our progress," Bush said. "The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react."

But to more impartial analysts, the one-two punch by anti-US forces suggested that, if anything, resistance to the occupation is growing and becoming more coordinated and sophisticated. Until now, US officials have contended that resistance is confined to die-hard loyalists - or what the Pentagon often refers to as "deadenders" - of ousted President Saddam Hussein, foreign jihadis inspired by or associated with al-Qaeda and common criminals, several thousand of whom were released from prison in a general amnesty just before the US-led invasion.

Such a characterization naturally suggests that the resistance lacks any legitimacy. But this description appears increasingly at odds with accounts by journalists who have interviewed men identified as resistance fighters, very few of whom have had good words to say about Saddam, as well as recent statements by US military officers on the ground. They maintain that troops either do not really know who is behind the attacks or that they suspect resistance is much more broadly based than the official rhetoric suggests. "The attacks are being committed by three broad categories of guerrillas, none with close ties to Saddam," wrote Hassan Fattah, a Baghdad-based journalist, for The New Republic. In addition to former lower-ranking Baathists, the two major groups, according to Fattah and other reporters, include conservative predominantly Sunni tribesmen, increasingly angry at disrespectful behavior by US troops, and an indigenous Islamist group, the best-known arm of which is Mohammed’s Army [Jaish Mohammad]. All of them are opposed to US occupation, and their ranks appear to be growing as the larger population becomes increasingly disaffected by the US presence, according to recent reports. Indeed, despite arrests and round-ups of thousands of suspected fighters over the past several months, the number of attacks on US forces has doubled over the past two months, to well over 20 a day. And, after a relatively peaceful September, the toll they are taking in US lives has surged over the past two weeks to an average of just about one a day. "It is my impression that the guerrilla campaign against us is spreading and intensifying, and the other side does not seem to be losing enough people in the process," the former Middle East analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency during the first Gulf War of 1991, Walter Lang, told the New York Times recently.

Already in August, indications were worrisome, according to John Zogby, whose polling group conducted a major door-to-door survey in four major Iraqi cities. Three in five Iraqis said they wanted to be left alone to work out a future government, while one-half predicted the US will hurt Iraq over the next five years, compared to 36 percent who said it will help. Earlier this month, just under one-half of some 1,620 representative Iraqis around the country said they considered coalition forces to be liberators or peacekeepers when they first arrived. Now, according to the survey, which was commissioned by the International Republican Institute, that percentage has fallen to 19, with 10 percent willing to tell pollsters that they "strongly opposed" the coalition’s presence. Worse, the perception of US troops as occupiers has grown most sharply in Shi’ite and Kurdish cities, which, in contrast to the so-called Sunni triangle, have been seen as the most pro-coalition areas of the country. Those statistics are contributing to the notion that Washington now faces a real insurgency - even one that has no explicit political ideology other than being anti-occupation - as opposed to a terrorism campaign carried out by a small and ever-diminishing group of diehards and foreign Islamists.

The rhetoric around the resistance is already changing, as even neo-conservative war-boosters who predicted US forces would be greeted as "liberators" by the Iraqi population and did not conceive of an active post-war resistance have begun recognizing that opposition to occupation has a broader popular base than they anticipated. Tom Donnelly of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute and Garry Schmitt, director of the Project for the New American Century, have now called on Washington to launch a major counter-insurgency campaign based on the experience of US Marines in the Caribbean Basin and the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century. Instead of using big-unit search-and-destroy missions as in Vietnam, they said, the military should "swamp a given area in order to root out insurgents and their supporting infrastructure". Such operations could require increasing overall US troop levels in Iraq. But if, as a growing number of military analysts believe, Washington now faces a real insurgency, fighting it effectively might simply be too costly, both financially and politically, according to retired army Colonel Andrew Bacevich of Boston University. He has called instead for the administration to reduce its expectations of installing democracy in Iraq and the Middle East, give greater authority to the United Nations for administering the occupation if it will accept the mission, and to begin reducing US troop numbers according to a schedule that will make clear "this is not a neo-colonial occupation of indefinite duration".
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 9:46:21 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What Colonel Andrew Bacevich is saying is that leaving Iraq is the best thing to do (which I agree with)
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 9:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Murat, You may think it's the best thing, but have you actually asked the Iraqi's how they feel? And I don't mean a news service, I mean actually go out and ask several Iraqi's in Bahgdad if the want us to drop everything and leave?

Of course not. So until your country either has troops on the ground, or you have been to Iraq and asked the peoples opinion, then shut up!

( Forlone hope, I know, but there is always hope. )
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 10:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Murat - with every post you drive my opinion of you lower - good work
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 10:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Waitaminnit. I thought Murat claimed to be opposed to the terrorists. Why's he want Iraq handed back to them?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/28/2003 10:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Still can't figure out that link/title thing, eh Mu-Rat? I thought you were supposed to be smart.

By the way, do you have a sister named Murine by any chance?
Posted by: Parabellum || 10/28/2003 10:24 Comments || Top||

#6  Col. Bacevich's goal of making it clear our occupation of Iraq is not 'neo-colonialism' and the Donnelly view that we need intensified counterinsurgency operations in the 'Sunni Triangle' are not inherrently contradictory, though he is definitely coming from a more skeptical viewpoint. Rumsfeld himself explained in a WaPo Oped last month that the goal has always been to maximize self sufficiency among the Iraqis precisely because we want them to be independent rather than dependent on a colonial type administrator. Acting more aggressively in the short term to stem the growing insurgency in the Baathist areas can be seen as increasing our ability to reduce our profile in the intermediate term.
Posted by: JAB || 10/28/2003 10:25 Comments || Top||

#7  I still am against it Robert, but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair.
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 10:32 Comments || Top||

#8  The US military spokesman just revealed the number of US casualties now on 114 with the latest rpg attack in Baghdad.
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#9  Murat could have said:

I am still against it, but to call those Kurdish insurgents terrorist just for resisting Turkish occupation is not that fair, even if many of them are Georgian, Syrian and Armenian.

Still agree in principle, Murat? And if not, why not? (Not necessarily a factual analogy. EOE.)
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#10  "to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair." Murat are you blind, stupid, or both? People who bomb a Red Crescent building are by definition TERRORISTS. The fact that they are suicide bombers, suggest that they might be Pals or Lebanese. Only these whack jobs would do such a despicable act. Would you call them ‘Freedom Fighters’ heck MOST of them aren't even Iraqis. They are Islamofacists looking for a prom date to Valhalla nothing more. (I borrowed that from Dennis Miller)
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 10/28/2003 10:44 Comments || Top||

#11  No Bulldog, there is no Kurdistan we occupy, in fact there is no country which is called Kurdistan at all, you should blame your grandpa for that while he was creating all those Arab states he forgot to create a Kurdistan :)
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 10:56 Comments || Top||

#12  Ah,Murat,I know you have a hard time doing your own thinking,but why don't you try surfing some of the Iragi blog sites instead of looking at a bunch of skewed,badly written opinion polls.

Murat could have said: I am still against it, but to call those Kurdish insurgents terrorist just for resisting Turkish occupation is not that fair, even if many of them are Georgian, Syrian and Armenian. Still agree in principle, Murat? And if not, why not? (Not necessarily a factual analogy. EOE.)
Posted by: Bulldog 2003-10-28 10:43:33 AM

Come on muRat lets hear your answer to Bulldogs supposition.
Could it possably be that you only belive that it is only terrorisiam when Turks are slaughtered, but when Iragi civilians are muredered"Why that is perfectly understandable,legitamate resistance".Get a clue dumb-ass.
Posted by: Raptor || 10/28/2003 10:59 Comments || Top||

#13  Cyber Sarge,
So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide.
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 10:59 Comments || Top||

#14  There is evidence that some at least, are foreigners, including a Syrian recently arrested in Baghad. That many in Fallujah and elsewhere are tribesmen does not prove that their resistance is unrelated to the former regime, or to outside Islamists. The old regime frequently cut deals with local sunnin arab tribes. It is a mistake to identify the former regime solely with its most brutal arms. It is also reported that Baathists hire locals to fight.


All evidence is that the Kurdish North and Shiite South remain generally quiet, and the "resistance" remains confined to the so-called Sunni triangle (including Sunni areas of Baghdad, but generally excluding Mosul) Even within that area, there is considerable cooperation with the coalition. The number of attacks has increased, but their effectiveness for the most part has not - the coalition casualty rate goes up and down, high in July and August, low in September, back up in October, etc. It remains sustainable. Dramatic suicide attacks are launched, almost certainly by AQ affiliated Islamists, with little broad support in Iraq.

the events of the last few days have been dreadful, to be sure. Turning Iraq over to the UN (which would still rely on US troops) will not stop such acts, however.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 10/28/2003 11:03 Comments || Top||

#15  About the Japanese kamikazes yes they were terrorists becuase the Japanese Goverment back then was the ones who started the war in the Pacific during which time their military butchered millions
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 11:14 Comments || Top||

#16  but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair.

-Murat, if they we're targeting purely military targets I might be able to agree w/you as a military man. However, when one targets civilians, police forces, journalists, and care giving facilities they no longer rate even the title "guerilla" or insurgent, they are simply terrorists and should be given no quarter.

So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide.

-Murat, I know you have better logic then to make such a silly question. We were in an officially declared state of hostilities w/the japs at the time. If say after the war, the Japanese had whackos who we're blowing themselves up in downtown Tokyo and taking other Japanese w/them - then yes, they would be a terrorist.
Posted by: Jarhead || 10/28/2003 11:20 Comments || Top||

#17  Did I mention "Kurdistan", Murat? I didn't, so why did you bring up that name? Guilty conscience? There's no Sunnistan in Iraq either. So what?

There may be no Kurdistan in Turkey (yet - though It's likely that one day there will be), but may I remind you that Kurds have been engaged in various acts of insurgency in Turkey for decades. By your logic these aren't terrorists either. So next time Turks are blown to bits in Ankara, we'll meet back here and give credit to the hard-working insurgents. OK?
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 11:20 Comments || Top||

#18  I still am against it Robert, but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair.

Sorry to tell you this (well, not really), but using the favorite tactic of known terrorists and killing more civilian lives than "occupation" forces means that the label inevitably follows.

So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide.

It would appear that Murat doesn't (or doesn't want to) understand what terrorism in the modern sense is.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 11:28 Comments || Top||

#19  So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide.

At least the Kamakaze targetted MILITARY TARGETS and not CIVILIAN TARGETS.

You cant get it into your head that they are called terrorists because they deliberately target civilians. Not because they comitted Suicide.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 11:53 Comments || Top||

#20  So they are terrorist suicide bombers. The japanese targeted military targets because that was all they could get at. Accepted. How do you stop them, given that many of them are coming over the open borders from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. That open borders question agaiin. The only way I see is to chase them back to their home bases outside Iraq. Anyone have the guts to do it. Realisticly, I mean, not just grandstanding for the crowd.
Posted by: Slumming || 10/28/2003 12:15 Comments || Top||

#21  slumming - Nope. Nobody does. It's a quagmire, I tell ya. Gonna drone for awhile again tonight?

Y'know, after I went to bed waiting for you to say something of value (it was 6:00 AM my time here in Thailand), I decided that you are just a droll troll. You come bopping into Rantburg, claiming that you visit often but haven't been moved to post, yet now you've posted 2 days in a row cuz someone was stupid enough to waste time on you - that was me - and I'm still sleepy cuz of it.

I have a question for you:
Why, pray tell, do you expect to be met with anything except either apathy or derision? You chose a nym, slumming, that I found offensive yesterday - and still find offensive today. This is Rantburg - and it is anything but the slums, son.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:02 Comments || Top||

#22  Murat your own comments defeat your argument:
"So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide." No they were not terrorists because we were at war with Japan. This was also the last desparate attempt by the empire to stave off defeat. But the suicide bombers in Iraq are not Iraqis at least that is my understanding. So yes if a Pal be bops accross the Iraqi border for the purpose of bombing a civillian target they are a TERORISTS. Also when we catch them they are NOT accorded any rights under the geneva convention and we can (and should) dispatch them to Allah right there.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 10/28/2003 13:31 Comments || Top||

#23  I still am against it Robert, but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair.

So it's perfectly OK to attack "occupation" forces consisting of schools, hospitals, local police, etc?

I seem to remember you whining about the PKK earlier. Why the sudden change in heart?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/28/2003 14:03 Comments || Top||

#24  a Baghdad-based journalist, for The New Republic

Yawn..sooo the New Republic thinks it's a quagmire. They were sure it was before the war even started.

"But this description appears increasingly at odds with accounts by journalists who have interviewed men identified as resistance fighters, very few of whom have had good words to say about Saddam, as well as recent statements by US military officers on the ground".

Ok...so we have ONE New Republic (scoff) reporter and vague reference to other reporters reporting (shock) "You've already lost the war, go home." Just like that scene in 12:00 High.

Who, except wanna-belivers, actually falls for this stuff. Kim Ill writes better crap than this.
Posted by: B || 10/28/2003 15:10 Comments || Top||

#25  Hey, .com! My man! Glad to see you back! Still whining like mad about me, I see. Why am I back? You do love attacking people with sarcastic personal comments, so I figured this would be the perfect post to find you and aggravate you some more. I see you're from Thailand. I guess that decreases the chance that you're married to Ann Coulter. You just don't have anything worthwhile to say, so I thought I'd give you a reason to live by carrying on about me It's almost too easy. OBTW, it's a whole lot easier to avoid awfull situations in the first place by thinking things through than by digging your way out afterwards. Speaking of which, I haven't heard any words of wisdom from you other than the bad guys are going to get discouraged and stop being bad. Once again, if you're thaqt afraid of people who disagree with you, just say so and I'll leave youall alone. Wouldn't want to give you a case of shingles or anything. Offended by "Slumming"? Thin skinned, aren't we? How about Krishna instead?
Posted by: Slumming || 10/28/2003 15:28 Comments || Top||

#26  LOL! You are a trip.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 15:33 Comments || Top||

#27  This is all just another milestone on the exit to the partition of Iraq.
Posted by: Hiryu || 10/28/2003 15:35 Comments || Top||

#28  Cyber Sarge >> Clarification of your "Freedom Fighters" statement.

As George Carlin once said, (I paraphrase)...

"If Crime Fighters fight CRIME, and Fire Fighters fight FIRES, then just what exactly do Freedom Fighters fight?"

Murat >> It really takes a big bad brave man to blow up a Red Cross organization. Woo hoo.I'm sure Allah is really impressed by their bravery.

Allah: "So Achmed, what did you do to deserve a place in heaven."

Achmed: (boasting) Well, let me tell you A, I ran in to a school yard and blew away 5 six-year old kids and then stabbed a woman in a wheelchair!"

Allah: "Here Achmed, take this fire extinguisher and burn cream, you'll need it for your next assignment."

Bulldog >> Excellent point. Murat's lack of response makes me think he's sweating like Mike Tyson at a Spelling Bee trying to find a spin for that one.
Posted by: Paul || 10/28/2003 15:39 Comments || Top||

#29  To .com: pleased to be of service. Who knows, maybe some day we'll agree on something. AIn the mean time, I think we need to concentrate on training Iraqi police and military forces as fast as possible. The police are needed for internal security, and a standing army of some modest size to secure their admittedly unfriendly borders. Otherwise Hiryu will be right, and that really would be a shame, another political disaster after a military that did what we asked them to do.
Posted by: Slumming || 10/28/2003 15:54 Comments || Top||

#30  But to more impartial analysts, the one-two punch by anti-US forces suggested that, if anything, resistance to the occupation is growing and becoming more coordinated and sophisticated.

But wouldn't that exclude anti-American sources like Asia Times, which posted up this article? (Asia Times is owned by an ethnic Chinese Thai national with significant business interests in China).
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/28/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#31  "The police are needed for internal security, and a standing army of some modest size to secure their admittedly unfriendly borders."

-Slumming, check out the other article posted here about the 1,500 man Iraqi border force. I think they are doing what you've mentioned, albeit they're only on the Syrian border right now but it's a good start.
Posted by: Jarhead || 10/28/2003 16:11 Comments || Top||

#32  slumming: Once again, if you're thaqt afraid of people who disagree with you, just say so and I'll leave youall alone.

Actually, it's slumming who's afraid of people who disagree with him - when they attack him, he cries intolerance. When he attacks them, it's par for the course. Like his liberal brethren, he can dish it out, but can't take it.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/28/2003 17:03 Comments || Top||

#33  Zhang Fei: I'm trying to respond to you, but your post doesn't even make sense. I didn't cry intolerance, I honestly offered to leave .com alone if he doesn't wnat me to post here. I haven't attacked anyone (OK, I made a little fun of .com, but a lot less than he did). I'm about as far from the liberal left wing as you can get, but that doesn't mean I can't question things that don't make good sense to me. I can take it just fine, thank you very much, or I wouldn't be foolish enough to try posting questions at a site where I know full well 99% of the respondents will be hostile to me for the mere fact of questioning. We got into this situation, and I'm interested in hearing some concrete factual ideas on how we're to get out. Not "nuke them back into the stone age", but things that can work. I t does appear that some people here can answer the questions I ask. For instance, the comment about the 1500 man Iraqi force is of value. How do you suppose our forces are going to recognise and interdict infiltrators when we can't even talk to them? Plus if we don't create a semi-modest Iraqi army, the whole country will be overrun by the Iranians three months after we leave. So, I like to ask questions about what people believe and why they believe it. I may even share some of their beliefs. That's not the point. I like to see how people think. Not, I'm not some pointy-headed professor, I work for a living like every body else. If you think that everyone who questions you is some liberal freak, then so be it. But you're wrong. If you feel that no one has the right to question you on this site, then stop calling me names and say so. I've read things on this site for a long time without writing anything. I can do it again.
Posted by: Slumming || 10/28/2003 17:23 Comments || Top||

#34  We got into this situation, and I'm interested in hearing some concrete factual ideas on how we're to get out.

I don't really see us getting out for decades. Iraq, like Germany and Japan, is about to become an American protectorate, whether the so-called Muslim world likes it or not. The thrust of Bush's approach, which is about intimidating Muslim countries into not harboring anti-American terrorists, appears to be working. The US is a no-go zone for al Qaeda terrorists, despite two facts (1) there are many anti-American Muslims - citizens or otherwise - on US soil and (2) weapons are more readily available in the US than in Iraq.

Nitpicking by liberals is fine and dandy, but the fact is that Iraq will take at least two years to stabilize - a lot of what we see today will seem like chaos, but that's largely the impact of a biased press, which focuses exclusively on terrorist attacks. The interesting thing is that since the end of large scale combat in Iraq, about as many Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian terrorist attacks as Iraqis, but no one says that Israel is in a state of chaos, or that the Palestinians are winning. The president is responsible for the direction of America's anti-terror policy, not the day-to-day tactics of suppressing terrorist attacks. If commanders are found wanting, they will be replaced. Are some military commanders in over their heads? Perhaps. But it's not within the competence of journalists to make that judgment - more importantly, journalists, having picked the side of the terrorists, are morally incompetent to judge.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/28/2003 19:34 Comments || Top||

#35  Zhang Fei. Thanks for the answer. This is what I meant. I admit the "reality" of Iraq seems very elusive. Truth is indeed in the eye of the beholder. ABC news will say the whole country is falling apart, then FoxNews will say things are going swimmingly. The days of newsmen/women actually reporting events and leaving their own biases at the door seems long gone. Now people seem to just scream at each other. We as a country should realise that helping people out doesn't necessarily make them gratefull, nor should we do it for that reason. We have traditionally helped people out who really needed it, put them back on their feet, and let them go their own way. This has usually paid us big dividends in the long run (except of course for the French, but you can't win them all). Hopefully we will do the same with Iraq, but this going to be a tough one, sort of like liberating Nazi Germany and then realising the Soviets are now next door neighbors. We need realistic plans to do the same in Iraq, understanding that lots and lots of people have a vested interest in seeing us go down. Building up Iraq to take care of itself is essential. If we do that and they ask up to stay as a backup like Germany in the cold war, more the better. But eventually they need the option to be able to ask
Posted by: Slumming || 10/28/2003 20:17 Comments || Top||


Another suicide attack in Iraq
The original BBC title was "Fresh suicide attack in Iraq". Charmingly descriptive.
A suicide bomber has blown up a car in the flashpoint Iraqi town of Falluja, killing himself and at least four civilians, witnesses have said. The attack took place near the main police station in the town, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad. Witnesses say the Falluja attack took place close to a power station and a boys’ school. The Associated Press news agency said the school was closed at the time of the attack.
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 8:35:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don't panic, Bush says everything is under control
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 8:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Of course it's under control, Murat, the Turks are going to help! BTW, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you...
Posted by: Spot || 10/28/2003 8:49 Comments || Top||

#3  I am glad you are a Marxist, Murat, because frankly I wouldn't want you on my team. I have detected your glee over the loss of innocent life.
Posted by: badanov || 10/28/2003 8:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Whoopdeedooo Badanov, I've detected your state is responsible and the creator of the cause for those loss of innocent life. What team do you mean, Texaco oil drilling team number 4?

And Spot,

Murat, the Turks are going to help!
That's not for sure yet, according to the last info the US was proposing Turkish 'Peacekeepers' an area between West of Baghdad and the Syrian border beneath the Euprhates river the Iraqi marshlands, a swamp area where even the M1A2 has difficulties and get stuck in the mud. Turkey rejected and offered its troops being stationed in the Sallahadin province instead, now it looks like if the Turkish/US negotiations are stalled, with a bit luck the Turkish troop deployment won't take place. :)
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 9:20 Comments || Top||

#5  I am in favor of the Turkish troop deployment. If we want an army capable of horrific atrocities and a proven track record of mass murder against innocent civilians, both within their borders and abroad, we have to use Turkey.
Posted by: Brian || 10/28/2003 9:25 Comments || Top||

#6  ...the Iraqi marshlands, a swamp area where even the M1A2 has difficulties...

Why is that, guys?! All it needs is a couple of fans driven by the gas turbine, and a skirt...
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 9:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Don't panic, Bush says everything is under control

Well, apart from Syrian infiltrators killing innocent Iraqi's because they can't kill us, yeah. You should really take a trip too Iraq, Murat.
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 9:43 Comments || Top||

#8  The depressed guys in Iraq are very impolite. In the US the suicide cases usually off themselves in the garage with the motor running. The exhibitionists usually go out on a ledge in a building so that all the NY pedestrians can crowd aound and yell jump. Finally the real psychopaths take hostages so that the police have to shoot them.
Can't these guys off themselves without taking civilians with them?
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 9:46 Comments || Top||

#9  To Murat a course the Baathists and Islamists have turned to bombings because they no longer have the luxury of just walking in any house and killing everyone there.Like they did when Saddam was in power and then it was a higher death rate so yes things are better in Iraq contrary to your ramblings but I've heard ignorance of reality is bliss
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 9:55 Comments || Top||

#10  The only shame, Murat, is that they aren't killing Turkomen civilians. When they do, though, I'll be the first to cheer them on! It's "resistance" you see! And you can come on Rantburg and cry all you want about the evil Kurds, Islamists, etc...but really, don't they deserve it, Murat? I encourage them to bomb hospitals in your city, as well!
Posted by: BMN || 10/28/2003 9:56 Comments || Top||

#11  To Anonymous,

Do you believe the crap you are uttering yourself?
read the topic: Wolfowitz’s wakeup call in Baghdad
Posted by: Murat || 10/28/2003 10:07 Comments || Top||

#12  Do you believe the crap you are uttering yourself?

Do you, Murat? Do you really think the Iraqis would be better off if the US pulled out?

Who do you hate more? Iraqis or Americans?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 10/28/2003 10:25 Comments || Top||

#13  Suicide is an act of desperation, ask any psychologists. But maybe it’s the weapon of choice for Islamofacists? Bombing civilian targets will not make you popular with the locals. Look for the iraqis to start a campaign AGAINST these insurgents.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 10/28/2003 10:50 Comments || Top||

#14  Whoopdeedooo Badanov, I've detected your state is responsible and the creator of the cause for those loss of innocent life.

Well lah-dee-dah, four people die at the hands of a suicide bomber and you're outraged? What about the THOUSANDS more that died at the hands of Saddam and/or his henchmen? Ever think about that? Or are those mass graves no big deal to you simply because those people died at the hands of Saddam's henchmen, and Saddam Hussein is just an okay guy?

The Middle East being as fucked up as it is comes as little surprise to me.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 11:05 Comments || Top||

#15  To Murat again Saddam's forces routinely murdered raped and tortured thousands each year while they were in power without nobody realy trying to stop them so yes the majority of Iraq is better. Your argument about it being worse is by comparison saying that the people that were slaves of the gulags in the Soviet Union were better of then compared to how they live in present day Russia
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 11:06 Comments || Top||

#16  fresh attacks? They guy was sent by the mentos brigade?
Posted by: flash91 || 10/28/2003 11:41 Comments || Top||

#17  "Fresh suicide attack..."
Sometimes Beeb copywriters just can't restrain themselves when there's good news...
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 10/28/2003 11:43 Comments || Top||

#18  I suppose many in Turkey thought saddam was a pop star. Turkey did squat while saddam ran a murderstan. There's plenty of cake Murat, here have some. Turks like their neighbors in turmoil, Turks want to be european. Sure, Europe needs peasants, Turks do that really well. But don't ask Turks to show leadership. Oh hell no, Backstabistans follow and whine. Bush stopped the major combat to soon, thats to bad. So now we can play tit-for-tat. Turkey, Iraq, the whole ME, what a pisshole.
Posted by: Lucky || 10/28/2003 12:07 Comments || Top||

#19  Spot-on, Lucky - on all points. Sunni Triangle... Never forgive, never forget: No Northern Front.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:31 Comments || Top||

#20  Murat is just jealous because Iraq has the potential to become the economic tiger of the middle east (sort of like the Asian-Tigers).
Posted by: Rafael || 10/28/2003 15:35 Comments || Top||

#21  ...Iraq could be heaven on earth (again). It's not impossible, theough Eden's a little parched.
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 19:12 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Thai Muslims Struggle For Liberation
From Islam Online, detailing the struggle to free occupied Thailand. No, really!
A police officer in Pattani, and a civil guard in Narathiwat, majority Muslim areas were shot dead Saturday signaling non-stop struggle for Mujahideen fighters despite the start of Ramadan, according to news reports Sunday.
Has anyone ever stopped struggling during Ramadan?
In Narathiwat, a group of seven to eight gunmen fired at seven civil guards while they were having dinner at their base, killing the police officer and wounding two others. Fifteen minutes later in Pattani, two gunmen killed a policeman sitting in front of his checkpoint in Ma-Yor district. They fled on a motorcycle. Police are carrying out searches for the suspects whom locals believe are members of the obscure group that calls itself the “Mujahideen”, whose mission is to attack official targets of the Thai regime in the south.
Everybody wants to be a Mujahideen.
Ramadan starts Monday for Thai Muslims, most of them living in the Malay belt regions stretching over four states rich with Muslim culture. “However the struggle continues for an obscure group of young Thai Muslims, angered by the ‘colonialization’ of the land of their ancestors by the Thais continues,” a Thai businessman on a visit to Malaysia told IOL.
I see, so their muslim ancestors were peacefully living here until those war-mongering Thai Buddhist’s arrived and took their land.
Since the disbanding of the Pattani United Liberation Front (PULO) and tight security in the southern provinces, Muslims in the region have attempted to revert to cooperation with the authorities in order to safeguard their culture and history. “Yet some of us are not happy with the imposition of Thai culture and language and all the tight security around us, they react and they formed a group called the Mujahideen to show their anger,” said the businessman, who wanted to remain incognito.
... since there are penalties for financing that sort of thing...
He added that the Mujahideen were young Muslim elements of 20 to 35 of age, ready to fight the authorities in armed resistance due to the level of crime committed by police and army officials against Muslims in the south.
Brutal occupation forces, keeping the muslims down, sounds familiar.
“Ramadan or not, they will continue the attacks until this sap the morals of the officials in the South,” said the businessman. The Mujahideen are mostly engaged in low-level violence against the government, attacking soft targets and killing police and military officers and their agents as a means of retaliation. They use automatic weapons in most cases and at times plants bomb devices at police stations or near police cars. “We Muslims can’t condemn the Mujahideen altogether. In the south, the Thais (Buddhists in general) want to gradually impose their ways of living, allowing discos and other entertainment centers to be opened near to Muslim areas,” he added.
The horror, being exposed to people having fun! Any good muslim would be outraged.
He also said that the Muslims want their own lifestyle and faith to be respected and warned that if the entertainment centers were not closed during Ramadan, “there might be more serious incidents, who knows?”
Oh, we know all too well.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 9:16:36 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "war-mongering Thai Buddhist’s" - now there is a contradiction in terms....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 9:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Once upon a time in Japan, that wasn't a contradiction at all ...

(See the ikko-ikki and Zen Buddhism of the Warring States period - VERY militant, the "original" jihadis, until Oda Nobunaga bloodily put them down and permanently - by slaughtering man, woman and child alike as well as razing their holy places to the ground.)
Posted by: Lu Baihu || 10/28/2003 10:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Oddly enough, whenever someone uses a phrase like "rich with Muslim culture", I think of yeast.
Posted by: BH || 10/28/2003 10:30 Comments || Top||

#4  If they're smart, the Thais will stomp this out RIGHT NOW.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 11:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Buddisiam is centurys older than Islam.
Demands respect for Muslem tradition,but will not respect the rights of others.
Not allowing danceing or entertainment to be around"Muslim areas,” thus imposing his beliefs on others.

Yeap sounds like the average,devoted Muslem to me.
Posted by: Raptor || 10/28/2003 11:13 Comments || Top||

#6  BH: Priceless, but it makes me think of gongarea
Posted by: Apopkatom || 10/28/2003 12:05 Comments || Top||

#7  In the south, the Thais (Buddhists in general) want to gradually impose their ways of living, allowing discos and other entertainment centers to be opened near to Muslim areas,” he added.

Who says Muslims have to patronize these places if they don't conform to their beliefs? Nobody's forcing people to dance, are they? Sheesh.

He also said that the Muslims want their own lifestyle and faith to be respected and warned that if the entertainment centers were not closed during Ramadan, “there might be more serious incidents, who knows?”

NOW who's imposing their way of living on others?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 12:58 Comments || Top||

#8  "If them dang Muslims don't shut down that Mosque during the big Boogaloo Contest, there'll be trouble! Mark my words!"

Nope. Makes no sense that way either...
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 13:09 Comments || Top||

#9  But Islam is so tolerant! RoPMA.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:13 Comments || Top||

#10  OMG mojo--almost inhaled my Diet Coke LOL!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 10/28/2003 15:17 Comments || Top||

#11  "Hey isn't that Mahmoud and Fatima?"
"Yeah, let's grab them and force them onto the dance floor while it's still daylight! And after that on to the video game arcade!"
Posted by: OminousWhatever || 10/28/2003 15:50 Comments || Top||

#12  I used to smoke
I used to drink
I used to smoke, drink and dance the hootchie-koo
I used to smoke and drink, smoke and drink and dance the hootchie-koo
It's true
Now i'm standing on this corner
Praying for me and you

That's why i'm saved
I am saved
People, let me tell you about kingdom come
You know i'm saved
Saved
I said i'm gonna preach it 'til you're deaf and dumb

I used to cuss
I used to fuss
I used to cuss, fuss and boogie all night long
I used to cuss and fuss, cuss and fuss and boogie all night long
Now i'm standing on this corner
I know right from wrong

Because i'm saved
I am saved
People, let me tell you about kingdom come
You know i'm saved
Saved
I said i'm gonna preach it 'til you're deaf and dumb

I used to lie
I used to cheat
I used to lie, cheat and step on people's feet
I used to lie and cheat, lie and cheat and step on people's feet
Now i'm standing on this corner
Salvation is my beat

That's why i'm saved
I am saved
People, let me tell you about kingdom comin'
You know i'm saved
Saved
I said i'm gonna preach it 'til you're deaf and dumb
I'm in the soul-savin' Army, beatin' on a big bass drum
-- The Band
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 16:20 Comments || Top||

#13  mojo - LOL!

--
[Approximate quotation]

"I once came down with the consumption. I went to the doctor to get a cure. He told me I needed to give up smokin' and drinkin' and swearin' - for two whole weeks. Damned near killed me, but I did it and sure enough, I was cured. So I took to these delicacies again.

Then I heard that an elderly ladyfriend of mine had come down with consumption so I went to see her. She was in a bad way and told me she was going to see the doctor that very same day. I told her she needn't bother, I knew the cure..."

"Just give up smokin' and drinkin' and swearin' for two weeks and you'll be right as rain", I told her.

"But I don't do any of those things", she said.

I said, "Well there you have it. You're a sinking ship with no freight to throw overboard."

-Twain
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 16:59 Comments || Top||


Hostages killed in Philippines
Police in the southern Philippines say five hostages kidnapped from Malaysia three weeks ago have been killed and one rescued, in a shoot-out with a kidnapping gang.
Bummer
The captives, seized from a resort in the Malaysian province of Sabah, had been traced to Tawi-Tawi province in the Philippines after a tip-off from Malaysian police. An unknown number of casualties were inflicted on the kidnappers. One hostage was found alive after the shootout. He was identified by police as Nonoy Arkusil, an Indonesian. There were conflicting reports about how the other hostages were killed. Arkusil told a local radio station that the captives were gunned down on Monday night because no ransom had been paid. He said he had managed to run away. But the regional police commander, Chief Superintendent Akmad Omar, said: "the hostages were said to be used as human shields by the Abu Sayyaf rebels during the clash. There was a bloody firefight."
Wonder who’s telling the truth?
The six workers - three Indonesians and three Filipinos - were abducted on 5 October from the beach resort in Sabah. Malaysian police say the captors were bandits from Sabah, but there has been speculation that the hostage-takers were members of Abu Sayyaf.
Bandits or Abu Sayyaf, what’s the difference?
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 8:36:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Abu Sayyaf are known for hiding behind the skirts of women and children. They did it before - literally using women and children as 'human shields' and cowering behind them. So it is believable that they would employ them as literal shields. They are more like bandits.

On the other hand you would think the hostage would know what happened - but if he ran away how would he know they were gunned down?

BTW: These are not 'Real Men' either but a pack of rabit dogs.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 9:35 Comments || Top||


Mahathir rejects Islamic law
From al Jazeera. Slightly EFL
The Malaysian prime minister has rejected Islamic criminal laws introduced by an opposition-ruled state because of their "cruel punishments". Mahathir Muhammad was quoted by The Star newspaper on Tuesday as saying he did not consider Terengganu’s Islamic criminal legislation as true Sharia laws. His comments came after the state, controlled by the Islamic Party (PAS), announced a Sharia act to criminalise illicit sex, drinking alcohol and the renunciation of Islam. For those renouncing Islam, offenders have three days to repent, failing which the punishment is death and confiscation of property.
The confiscation’s redundant - what do you need a TV for when your pop-eyed renunciatin’ head’s stuck on a pole?
"It is PAS’s law," said the veteran moonbat premier, who retires on Friday after 22 years in office. "They can implement it but if they do something which is inconsistent with the country’s laws, we will take legal action." Legal experts say PAS has no right to impose criminal laws, which come under the federal government’s jurisdiction, but the party insists these are religious matters which come under the state’s purview.
And Islam always respects the state.
PAS has consistently criticised Mahathir’s government for following a western, secular model at the expense of a traditional Islamic system which is popular with Malaysia’s Muslims. In a recent interview, Terengganu’s Chief Minister Abd al-Hadi Awang defended the Sharia code. "Although our penalties are harsh and terrifying, we must realise that these offences and sins... are truly evil and despicable," he said. Muslims make up 60% of Malaysia’s 23 million people, but Sharia law has been opposed by members of the large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.
"I mean, it’s not as though they’re going to renounce Islam..."
Proponents of Sharia law often criticise its opponents, and even some of its advocates, for over-emphasising its penal aspects, thus making a mockery of Islam.
"We don’t want to talk about it, cos we’ll only end up looking stupid."
They argue the punishments only become applicable in the context of an equitable Islamic society. Therefore, amputations or death sentences cannot be carried out if there is widespread poverty or a ramshackle education system.
"Yeah, it can only happen a lot in wealthy Islamic utopias like Afghanistan and Nigeria. And rich, educated Saudi miscreants get their bits lopped off all the time.
At present Sharia law covers civil matters such as divorce for Malaysian Muslims, but is not part of the criminal code under Mahathir’s government. PAS, which also rules neighbouring Kelantan state and holds 27 of Malaysia’s 193 federal parliament seats, is the only significant threat to Mahathir’s United Malays National Organisation.
So it’s not only the Joooos who’re threatening the mighty Mahathir.
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 7:00:33 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Malaysian prime minister has rejected Islamic criminal laws introduced by an opposition-ruled state because of their "cruel punishments".

I'd laugh if at some point in time, Mahathir dies at the hands of some Islamic extremists.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 11:44 Comments || Top||

#2  I believe that Dr Moonbat is definitely one of them, but he has "pet" Izzoids, natives who do his bidding or cooperate - and the "bad" Izzoids over whom he has no control. When he gets nasty, it's over activities that are not approved by him. Since they have begun to take a dump on their own living room floor (e.g. Bali) he may just get bitten by them. And it would be rather sweet!
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:38 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Operation Holy Tuesday
Der Spiegel, via the NY Times, has the most authoritative look at how the September plot came together that I have seen, it’s too long to post here, go to the link if you want to check it out, but you’ll have to register.
The two chief planners of September 11th have confessed, and the records of their interrogations can now be used to paint a precise picture of the events leading up to the terrorist attack. Their statements also reveal how Osama Bin Laden personally selected the suicide pilots from Hamburg.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 10/28/2003 1:31:48 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Let's hope some of the significant minority of Germans who believe that the US government was behind 9/11 read this article. The conspiracy theorists probably won't though, as it demands an attention span of more than ten seconds...
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 5:21 Comments || Top||

#2  And remember, Bulldog, that one must not be confused with the facts when one's mind is already made up.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/28/2003 7:08 Comments || Top||

#3  "But it was the JOOOOOOS! Why? Uh, Mossad planned 9/11!"

This artical would make most Germans head spin.
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 9:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Where are you TGA? Haven't seen many posts lately - bizzy? Your take on the original would be welcomed! Besides, I'm not going to register with the NYT - period.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:33 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
Bob Death Watch Continues
The health of President Robert Mugabe is tanking failing and he is positioning his favourite, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to take over, according to sources in Zim-Bob-We. The 79-year-old president’s health is said to have been deteriorating for several months, but speculation increased after reports that he collapsed at the weekend after attending a relative’s wedding in southern Zimbabwe.
Got the death ray set just right...
Senior sources in Zanu-PF and his spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) admitted that Mr Mugabe had recently suffered a minor stroke but said he had recovered after being treated by Chinese doctors. They said the president regularly showed signs of stress and symptoms of instability epilepsy, which had caused him to collapse several times before. "If it had been easy for him to impose Mnangagwa as his successor, I believe he might already have left," said one source in the ruling Zanu-PF party. "His greatest headache at the moment is to prepare the groundwork for the whole party to accept Mnangagwa before he quits."
Bob wants him to cover his back as he leaves town.
A senior Zanu-PF official who asked not to be named said: "I don’t think anyone, perhaps with the exception of his wife, can specify his exact medical problem, because I don’t believe he shows his medical records to anyone. But he regularly shows signs that he is nibbling the dust not well."
Hurry, please.
The sources said the president accepted that his age and poor health prevented him functioning carrying on, and that his efforts were now concentrated on ensuring the succession of Mr Mnangagwa, who is the Speaker in Zimbabwe’s parliament. Mr Mugabe regards Mr Mnangagwa as his best insurance policy against future prosecution.
What's he have to worry about prosecution for? He's gonna be dead!
As minister in charge of the CIO, he was a central figure when the regime eliminated an estimated 30,000 opponents in the early 1980s.
"eliminated", such a PC friendly word for murder.
The president saved the hugely unpopular Mr Mnangagwa from political obscurity after he lost his parliamentary seat to an unknown opposition candidate in the June 2000 elections.
Ah, yes. The "Anybody but Emerson" vote...
After another seat was found for him, he was appointed parliamentary Speaker and elevated to the powerful post of Zanu-PF’s secretary of administration, which in effect put him in charge of the day-to-day running of the party. Mr Mnangagwa has been using the two positions to try to improve his standing in the party and entrench his status as "heir apparent" by purging opponents. "No one wants to cross his path at the moment," said a party official.
Bob better not wait too long, when E.M. feels ready, Bob may have one of those "I’ve fallen and I can’t get up" moments.
Wonder if that's what happened over the weekend?
Reports that Mr Mugabe had been flown to South Africa for medical treatment have been denied by sources in Zimbabwe, which pointed out that the president was deeply suspicious of white South Africans in general and Zimbabwean exiles in particular.
"Emerson! Don't let them get me!"
One of his main criticisms of his South African counterpart, Thabo Mbeki, they said, was that he was "too soft" on white people, allowing them too much sway in state institutions and in the running of the economy.
I hear Mbeki is working on that.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 4:42:26 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's the "chinese doctors" that interests me...
Posted by: Pappy || 10/28/2003 17:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Is Mnangagwa a worse character than Bad Bob?
Posted by: Atrus || 10/28/2003 17:12 Comments || Top||

#3  "he collapsed at the weekend after attending a relative’s wedding in southern Zimbabwe"

Something about invoking God's love and trust and benificence caused it? I feel like lighting a couple candles tomorrow at my Church :-)
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 18:41 Comments || Top||

#4  I shall have him inserted in the Prayers of the People that he might see the light.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 19:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Has Spike Lee begun filming his life story?
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 19:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Is Mnangagwa a worse character than Bad Bob?

Oh, yeah. He was Mugabe's hatchet-man.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/28/2003 21:40 Comments || Top||

#7  I'd hate to see Mugabe have a stroke. I'd much rather have him succumb to a flesh-eating virus and malignant breast cancer.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 10/28/2003 21:42 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Terror Defendant Iyman Faris Sentenced to 20 Years
A terror defendant accused of plotting to cut through the cables that support New York’s Brooklyn Bridge was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday by a judge who refused to let him withdraw his guilty plea.
I hate it when that happens.
Iyman Faris was sentenced to 15 years for aiding and abetting terrorism, plus five years for conspiracy. According to prosecutors, Faris, 34, traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, carrying out low level missions for terrorists. He provided sleeping bags, cellular telephones and cash to members of Al Qaeda and met with Osama bin Laden in 2000 at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He also was accused of providing the terror group with information about possible U.S. targets. Although he is alleged to have investigated the possibility of using a gas cutter to burn through the Brooklyn Bridge’s suspension cables, Faris ultimately recommended through e-mail messages to his contacts against pursuing that option, which he described as "unlikely to succeed."
"What are you, stupid? Have you seen the size of this thing?"
Authorities said Faris received attack instructions from top terrorist leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for what they suggested might have been a second wave planned for New York and Washington to follow the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Faris pleaded guilty in May, but last month asked to withdraw the plea. U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema would not allow him to, saying she accepted the plea based on what Faris said at the time. However, she preserved his right to appeal the withdrawal attempt.
Appeal away.
Faris was born in Pakistan and became a U.S. citizen in 1999.
Tap....nope
Since his arrival in the United States in 1994, his primary occupation has been truck driver. Faris, formerly a resident of Columbus, Ohio, also has used the name Mohammad Rauf.
Wonder what name he’ll go by in the slammer?
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 4:26:53 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sweet Cheeks maybe
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 10/28/2003 16:54 Comments || Top||

#2  He prolly saw that he could pull a moussaoui (new verb) by demanding KSM testimony (the probable source of info about him - and knowing we're not about to give away his whereabouts)... same judge, after all.

Thx, Judge. Take some Ex Lax between cases?
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 17:10 Comments || Top||

#3  So what have we here? Another "mastermind"?
My vote for prison name: Veronica.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 17:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Name in the slammer: "Ibin Asswad."
Posted by: Steve White || 10/29/2003 0:37 Comments || Top||


Iran
Khatami hails Basij’s role
President Mohammad Khatami said on Tuesday that the Basij belongs to the Islamic establishment, the people and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, stressing that it should not be used for pushing forward factional bickering. Khatami, addressing a meeting of student basijis, said the basij must strongly resist any effort by the factions to misuse it for promoting their own agenda.
Now who would do a thing like that?
He hailed the struggles of the basijis in different arenas of the country, particularly during the 1979 Islamic revolution, the sacred suicidal human wave attacks into iraqi minefields defense of 1980-88 and the post-war reconstruction era. "The basij must defend itself and the basijis must not let this great heritage of the Islamic revolution be destroyed in political infighting," the president said.
Worried, is he?
Khatami stressed that the game of power must be left to the powerful.
"So stay in your place and listen to your elders, we know what’s good for you."
"We must advocate unity, solidarity, faith, independence, freedom and the progress of the country and the basiji must be the torch-bearer of these areas," he said.
"And don’t forget to keep those torches ready, you never know when we’ll need to burn some witches!"
"In today’s world, we advocate an ethical and progressive system and the basijis must be the forerunners of this thought."
"Keep those motorcycles running over anyone who thinks differently."
Khatami called basij as the symbol of resistance and perseverance in the sacred defense, stressing that the basijis must become a model for the youth.
As the Hitler Youth was.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 1:19:04 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Khatami stressed that the game of power must be left to the powerful.

Well, doesn't that just sum it up.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 13:35 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Zionist forces arrest Hamas activist
Zionist occupation forces stormed the Ras Al-Ein suburb in the West Bank city of Nablus at dawn today and broke into citizens’ houses. A Zionist army unit backed by armored vehicles stormed the suburb and besieged the house of Amer Ghazal, 28, who was arrested after the soldiers broke into his home and searched it thoroughly turning things upside down in the process and destroying furniture and belongings. Ghazal was taken hands cuffed to an unknown destination. Occupation troops also broke into a number of other houses and assaulted citizens forcing them out of their houses at a time when they were preparing for eating their Suhhour or the dawn meal before start of fasting in the holy month of Ramadan.
"An' they wudn't doin' nothin'! Nothin', I tell yez!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/28/2003 13:07 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Did the Zionist occupation forces kick the dog too?
Jeez, and it's Ramadan too, for crissakes!
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 16:30 Comments || Top||

#2  A suburb of Nablus? I guess the shacks are further apart or something. Bet the bus service seriously sucks, though...
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 16:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Agreed - Hell, I thought it was leveled in the massacre.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 17:02 Comments || Top||


PA premier to discuss new Hudna with Hamas
"Keep working on it. I'm sure we can get them to bite again..."
from IslamicBlock.orgPalestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said on Monday he would soon hold talks with the Islamic Resistance group, Hamas, for the purpose of reaching a new hudna or ceasefire with the Zionist regime. “We will hold talks with all Palestinian national and Islamic forces in order to reach a general consensus on a our course of action,” Qurei said during a television interview. Qurei said he would under no circumstances allow inter-Palestinian fighting to take place, saying “the shedding of Palestinian blood by Palestinian hands is unthinkable and forbidden.”
"We prefer killing everybody else to killing each other. Besides, they'd win."
However, the PA premier said he was willing and ready to enter immediately into talks with the Zionists on condition they put an end to their onslaught of murder and terror against the Palestinians.
"Only onslaughts of murder and terror against Jews are permissible..."
Qurei also praised Hamas leadership for “displaying national responsibility.” Earlier, Hamas satrap spokesman in Gaza Abdul Aziz al Rantissi said his movement was not seeking talks with the Qurei government over a new ceasefire with the Zionists. Rantissi, who escaped a Zionist assassination attempt on his life in June, argued that reaching a ceasefire with the Zionists at this time would amount to an outright surrender. He suggested that the Zionists would have to stop all attacks on the Palestinians, including assassinations of Palestinian activists and political leaders as well as the destruction of Palestinian homes and apartment buildings, as a precondition for any future truce. Rantissi said though Hamas would not oppose the Palestinian government even though it had no intention to join it. The term of the present emergency Palestinian government is due on 5 November. Palestinian sources expect PA chairman Yasser Arafat to ask Qurei to form a new broad-based government whose main priority would be reach a cease fire with the Zionist regime and implement the nearly moribund American-backed so-called peace plan known as the roadmap.
The one Hamas scuttled. Remember the bus bomb?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/28/2003 12:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I always thought those arches were just an unraveled Star of David. Another Zionist Conspiracy exposed!
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 13:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Hamas has said it would 'unlock the gates of hell' at least 45 times after successful IDF action. Their credibility is now so low they have to meet with Qurei, a known stooge, just to get some favorable publicity.
Posted by: mhw || 10/28/2003 13:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Translation: Israel would have to surrender before the PA will even consider a cease fire. Oh and ByTheWay Hamas would continue murdering innocent civilians and would not be bound by any cease fire even if one is reached.

Fool me once.. shame on you...
Fool me twice... shame on me...

Lets see which organizations will be fooled twice...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 13:46 Comments || Top||

#4  I keep trying to read Qurei's statement but a breaker repeatedly trips in my head. I have the same problem at home whenthe kids watch Sponge Bob Square Pants.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 14:06 Comments || Top||

#5  The recent terrorist acts by Arafat's organization are drawing too much heat to him personally. Arafat needs a revived Hamas so that large-scale terror attacks against Israelis can resume - without him getting blamed directly.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 10/28/2003 16:01 Comments || Top||


I'm so popular...
The good people at Islamic Awakening — or their Zionist spoofers, since the lsanca2.dsl-verizon.net address is in these headers, too — saw fit to send me this very same e-mail 495 times this morning.
From: "IslamicAwakening.com"
To: ghurbaa@islamicawakening.com
Subject: Zionists Attack IslamicAwakening.Com
Message-ID:
Reply-To: ghurbaa@islamicawakening.com

Zionists Attack IslamicAwakening.Com
(However, they all fail to cause any disruption)

The Zionists recently attacked IslamicAwakening.Com by spam mailing thousands of users, with false information in the headers, which makes the email appear to have been sent by IslamicAwakening.Com.

However, upon a close look in the header, one finds that the e-mails are being generated from:

lsanca2-ar26-4-46-87-027.lsanca2.ds1-verizon.net [4.46.87.27]

and not as-sahwah.com or islamicawakening.com.

This domain was responsible for spam mailing a yahoo group last year in the same manner.

If you have been on the receiving end of this spam campaign by the Zionists, then please report this spam e-mail to SpamCop.Net by visiting the following URL:

http://www.spancop.net/anonsignup.shtml ...
Thank you.

IslamicAwakening.Com
Charles at LGF was just pointing to their site yesterday, mentioning that they had called for jihad during Ramadan. All that's on their site now is the same message. Wonder how many other people were subjected to the same spew?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 10/28/2003 11:47 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I found 287 in my Inbox today, Fred.

Guess they're still mad at me for pointing out their role in the DOS hit on Hosting Matters. Ain't life grand?
Posted by: Dan Darling || 10/28/2003 13:57 Comments || Top||

#2  I think the attention whores did it themselves....

Look at me! I'm relevant enough to be spammed!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/28/2003 14:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Charles says he didn't get any. Go figure.
Posted by: Fred || 10/28/2003 15:13 Comments || Top||

#4  (sniff)me neither.why don't they like me(said in an irrating,whiney voice)
Posted by: Raptor || 10/28/2003 17:06 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Israeli Troops Kill al-Aqsa Thug
Israeli commandos killed a militant linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement outside a West Bank refugee camp on Tuesday, witnesses and the army said. Witnesses said Ibrahim Nanish of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group within Fatah, was shot dead at the entrance to Tulkarm refugee camp by troops who drove up to him in an unmarked car.
"Suprise!"
A military spokesman said troops tried to arrest Nanish but opened fire when he and a second gunman shot at them.
"You’ll never take me...BANG...Ouch!"
"Nice shooting, Ari."
Witnesses said the Israeli shooting was unprovoked and that a second man was wounded. The military spokesman said troops shot at a second gunman at the scene who got away.
I’m hoping for a painful gut shot, something fatal.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 11:14:19 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Witnesses said the Israeli shooting was unprovoked and that a second man was wounded.

I'd venture to say that all those suicide/murder bombings that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for were provocation enough.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 11:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Witnesses said the Israeli shooting was unprovoked...

I think the word "credible" and the phrase "Palestinian witness" have gone their separate ways..
Posted by: snellenr || 10/28/2003 13:57 Comments || Top||

#3  the phrase "Palestinian witness" have gone their separate ways..

Indeedy.

Get some more Jew Boys!
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 20:03 Comments || Top||


Iran
Iranian Prosecutor Blamed for Murder
EFL:
Iran’s reformist-dominated parliament on Tuesday accused hard-line Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi of illegally detaining a Canadian photojournalist and then covering up facts surrounding her death in custody in July. Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian of Iranian origin, died July 10, about three weeks after being detained for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the ruling Islamic establishment. An intelligence agent charged with her alleged beating death has pleaded innocent. In Tuesday’s report, the parliament held Mortazavi responsible, as the highest authority in the Tehran prosecutor’s office. The report will be sent to the judiciary, Parliamentary Speaker Mahdi Karroubi said - likely meaning Mortazavi will be summoned for questioning in the trial of the intelligence agent. It is too early to tell if charges would be filed against Mortazavi.
I won’t hold my breath.
"The detention of Kazemi ... was unjustified ... and against legal procedures," the parliament said in its report on the death, read out in an open session and broadcast live on state-run Tehran radio. The parliament accused Mortazavi - who said Kazemi died of a stroke - of covering up facts about her death and having no evidence when he accused her of spying for foreign intelligence agencies and having no permission to work. The report said Kazemi carried an official press card to work authorized by Culture Ministry officials.
Oops!
The report, citing police and intelligence reports, said Kazemi was first severely beaten by judiciary officials in Evin prison, north of Tehran. It said 20 guards who witnessed and reported the beating were later forced to change their reports. The prison books have also been tampered with, the parliamentary report said.
Tap, tap, nope
A committee appointed by the president concluded that Kazemi died of head injuries sustained while in custody. The report also condemned Mortazavi for failing to respond to questions justifying Kazemi’s detention and refusing to attend parliamentary sessions to offer explanations.
Guess he doesn’t think much of them
Tehran’s deputy prosecutor general last month charged Intelligence Ministry agent Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi with "semi premeditated murder" in Kazemi’s death. The prosecutor said Ahmadi was the only interrogator who spent long periods of time alone with Kazemi and that the agent refused to answer some questions about Kazemi’s treatment and gave contradictory statements. The Intelligence Ministry, which is loosely controlled by reformists, rejected Ahmadi’s indictment, claiming a judicial official assaulted Kazemi.
The intel troops apparently were not happy at being picked as the fall guy.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 11:03:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Scapegoat alert.

You may now continue whatever it is you were doing.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 11:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Bomb-a-rama, I think this is bigger than that. I think we're going to see reform and restructuring of the Iranian torture apparatus. I expect to see them move to a more involved check-in system simular to what you see in a hospital ER.

In the current system an interrogator would have no idea what type of allergies or previous surgeries a subject might have. I think the Iranians will start using a device simular to a patient chart so that the 2nd shift interrogator can know whether last shift used the thumbscrews of not.

The check-in interrogator can either be an interrogator in training or maybe a interrogator that doesn't have the raw personal skills and bedside manner to be a quality interrogator. The personal will have to have some basic interrogation skils to ensure that teh information collected is of the highest quality.

I provide a sample entry for clarification: Subject holds a dual Canadian citizenship. Don't brutally cave her head in.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 11:29 Comments || Top||

#3  "Let me see that chart.......ok, the last session employed a whip, so thumbscrews are all right for the next round."
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 12:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Bomb, you get the idea. "Are you allergic to petroleum prducts? We use Vaseline on our genital electrodes, but we have KY availble."
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 15:19 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Radical Islam: Outspoken cleric, jailed activist tied to new Hub mosque
Front page: Boston Herald. Thank God it’s a Religion of Peace or I’d be worried.
First of two parts.
I’ll post the second part tomorrow.
The Islamic organization poised to build the largest mosque in the Northeast on a site in Roxbury has long-standing ties to an Egyptian cleric who praises suicide bombings and a Muslim activist indicted last week in a terrorism financing probe.
A "cleric" hooked up with terrorists... can you beat that.
The Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to build a sprawling $22 million Islamic cultural center and mosque on Malcolm X Boulevard, has had a long association with Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, whose vocal support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas prompted the State Department to bar him from entering the U.S. four years ago. The local religious organization, now headquartered on Prospect Street in Cambridge, was founded by Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi - a high-profile Washington, D.C. activist who has publicly supported Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. Alamoudi was arrested Sept. 28 at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and charged with making illegal trips to Libya and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Libyan government in violation of U.S. law. Last Thursday, Alamoudi was indicted for his dealings with Libya and portrayed by prosecutors as a key financier for militant Islamic groups and terrorist organizations. In that case, the U.S. government alleges Alamoudi funneled more than $230,000 to two front organizations for terrorist Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, as well as more than $100,000 to groups funding Hamas.
Looks like the doctor’s got those "Muslim scholar" credentials...
A lawyer representing the Islamic Society of Boston said the local group is not militant or extremist, and is in no way connected to Islamic terrorism.
They never are. Until they get caught. Or exposed.
However, public records indicate Al-Qaradawi and Alamoudi have both held leadership positions with the Islamic Society of Boston. Alamoudi, of Falls Church, Va., founded the Islamic Society of Boston in Massachusetts in 1982 and was the group’s first president, according to incorporation records in the Secretary of State’s office. Al-Qaradawi, who is based in Doha, Qatar, was listed as a member of the Islamic Society of Boston’s board of directors from at least 1998 until sometime in 2001. In 1993, when the Islamic Society of Boston set up a real estate trust, it identified al-Qaradawi as a ``proposed additional trustee,’’ records show.
Gonna let him wet his beak, huh?
The cleric never became a trustee of that real estate trust, which now holds title to the land on Malcolm X Boulevard where the new Islamic center is to be built. The Islamic Society of Boston identified al-Qaradawi as one of its four directors in its income tax return filed two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In July 2002, when the group filed its 2001 income tax return, however, al-Qaradawi’s name no longer appeared on the list of directors.
Wonder why that happened? No use putting up a red flag for the feds...
A leading voice of the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect of Islam, al-Qaradawi is also a high-ranking member of the oldest radical Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. He was banned from his native Egypt in 1962 and moved to Doha, where he now hosts one of the most popular television shows in the Middle East on the al-Jazeera television network.
Another big surprise...
On his show and in speeches and interviews, al-Qaradawi praises Palestinian suicide bombers, declaring they are martyrs, not terrorists. He also regularly denounces U.S. support of Israel and encourages Muslims to either join the Jihad as combatants or contribute money to finance it.
Give til it hurts. Or else...
One alleged terrorism financier recently convicted of violating immigration laws in Virginia, Soliman S. Biheiri, described al-Qaradawi as a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood who is ``virulently anti-American,’’ according to a Sept. 11 court affidavit by senior special agent David Kane of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Al-Qaradawi is also involved in Bank al-Taqwa, which the U.S. Treasury Department says has financed numerous Islamic terrorist groups, including Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. In testimony before Congress last year, international terrorism expert Steven Emerson said that as of Dec. 31, 1999, al-Qaradawi was one of the largest shareholders in Bank al-Taqwa. The cleric is also a member of the bank’s Shariah Board, which oversees al-Taqwa’s transactions to make sure they conform to Islamic law, Emerson said.
I think I have an idea what that means. Will it be used in some way to kill infidels and Jews? Approved.
I think it also means that Qaradawi is whatcha might call a well-to-do holy man...
Youssef M. Nada, chairman of al-Taqwa, told the Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat in December 1997 that since its inception, al-Taqwa has ``placed all its transactions under the control of Sheik Yussef al-Qardawi.’’ Al-Qaradawi and Alamoudi could not be reached for comment.
Might’ve been interesting to hear their reactions . Would’ve been bullshit, but probably interesting.
A lawyer for the Islamic Society of Boston, Albert Farrah, downplayed al-Qaradawi’s involvement in the organization. ``He’s not a director of the Islamic Society,’’ Farrah said. ``I know the trustees and have known them since 1993 and I’ve never met him. He has nothing to do with this project to my knowledge.’’
Nothing to see here. Move it along...
In a statement released to the Herald yesterday, the group said the following: ``The ISB has a policy of disallowing groups or individuals with extremist views from having any forum for their divisive and destructive rhetoric at the Society’s mosque in Cambridge. Dr. Yousef al-Quaradawi has never played any role in the ISB. In 1993, before any controversy surrounded Dr. al-Quaradawi, the ISB considered inviting him to serve as an honorary member of our Board of Trustees. However, in the end he was not invited to serve on the ISB board, but due to an administrative oversight, was listed on our tax returns until 2000.
Yeah, it was an ...oversight. That’s it!
``Abdulrahman Alamoudi was one of the founding members of the ISB. He has had no role in, or affiliation with, the ISB for approximately 20 years.’’
He just set it up... and moved on to the next target.
The Islamic Society has been attempting to raise the money necessary to build the Islamic center for the last several years, and according to several sources most, if not all of the project’s financing has come from the Middle East.
Boy, this article’s full of shockers, isn’t it?
I wonder what part of the Middle East?... Actually, I don't.
A project update in the Islamic Society of Boston’s May 2000 newsletter reported that in the previous month alone, the group raised $2 million in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.
...and there’s another one!
One source familiar with the project who spoke on the condition he not be named said the leaders of the Islamic society have made it clear that virtually all the financing for the cultural center is coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf states. Many mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S. are funded by wealthy individuals and foundations in Saudi Arabia. Those financiers are almost without exception followers of Wahhabism, a harsh Saudi-based fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, and they make sure the American mosques they bankroll adhere to the sect’s anti-Western ideology.
...and ANOTHER one!
``Saudis and Gulf financiers are strongly nationalistic and therefore will not give money to those who do not support their line of reasoning,’’ said Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, an assistant professor of religious studies at San Diego State University who studied for eight years in Saudi Arabia and taught at Brandeis University. The result, said some Muslim activists, is that many mosques in the U.S. are disconnected from the majority of the American Muslims they supposedly serve.
You don’t say? Sounds like they’re almost "beach heads" maybe?
``It has created this phenomenon of Muslims without mosques, and I would say the Islamic Society (of Boston) is no exception,’’ said one Muslim activist who declined to be identified. ``The mosque is being paid for with money from the Middle East and it’s connected to a larger agenda. That agenda is ``fundamental Islamist politics, anti-Semitic and anti-American in many ways,’’ the Muslim activist said.
Someone actually admits it. That’s actually refreshing.
Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, president of the Islamic Council of New England and an Afro-American Muslim, said he knows the leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston and said that while most of them are from overseas, he does not view them as radicals or fundamentalists, but ``traditional Muslims’’ like himself. ``I see them as a very balanced group trying to find their way in America,’’ Faaruuq said. ``The ISB is doing good work. They are not a threat to me or my country.’’
They probably pay well, too.
Faaruuq said he was not aware that al-Qaradawi was listed as a director of the Islamic Society of Boston. He added, however, that last year he attended a fund-raiser for the Islamic Society of Boston’s cultural center project at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston at which al-Qaradawi, who is barred from entering the U.S., delivered a videotaped message to the attendees encouraging them to support the project.
I’d like to see what was on that tape.
Farrah said he has no knowledge of the al-Qaradawi videotape, but confirmed the Islamic Society of Boston held a fund-raiser for the new cultural center at the Sheraton in November 2002, a few hours after the project’s ceremonial groundbreaking in Roxbury.
Tape? What tape? Who?
This is the part I like best...
The Boston Redevelopment Authority granted the Islamic Society of Boston final designation as developer of the Islamic Center in August 2000 and at the groundbreaking in November last year the project was hailed by Massachusetts politicians as a bridge between Islam and Boston’s other religions. ``Boston is now and always has been a city of vibrant faith communities,’’ Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a prepared statement. ``By creating a space for inter-faith dialog, this center will bring both the Muslim community and the community at large closer together.’’
Look for Tommy to be exposed to the nation for the embarrassment he is next summer when the Democratic convention comes to town.
U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Somerville) also attended the ceremony. He said the new Islamic cultural center will ``help to create a dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims so we may learn more about each others’ traditions.’’
Spout that PC crap, Mike. Cambridge is in the district and it’ll play well there.
In May, the BRA sold the 1.9-acre lot to the group for the bargain price of $175,000, but construction has yet to begin. The Islamic Society of Boston’s own newsletter said the land is worth $2 million.
Let’s sell a 2M piece of land for 175G’s and never get to collect taxes on it. Sounds about right for Boston. I’d like to hear the behind the scenes on how that deal got worked out.
Farrah said the ambitious project has been in the works for a decade. Now, he said, the Islamic Society of Boston has all the necessary building permits from the city and the start of work on the site is imminent. ``It’s a wonderful project and has a lot of support,’’ Farrah said. ``That support is citywide, from the mayor, the BRA and from other religious organizations, particularly after (the terrorist attacks of) 9/11.’’
Yes, Muslims killed 3000 Americans on 9/11. Let’s build them a nice Mosque in thanks.
In its statement yesterday, the Islamic Society of Boston said: ``The ISB has a proven history of being an open organization, eager to work with people of all backgrounds. As part of our ten year effort to build the new Cultural Center in Roxbury, we have worked to establish solid relationships with the community and city leaders. We are proud of the contributions our organization has made to the community.’’ Farrah praised the group’s current leadership. ``I see these people as gentle, kind, religious, peaceful, educated, and wanting to be part of the community,’’ he said. ``That’s the way the city of Boston sees them and other religious groups see them that way.’’
No. No links to those bad people. Nothing to see here...
Tomorrow: A current trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston has been named in a federal Islamic terrorism financing investigation.
Stay tuned.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 9:31:25 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How about we let them build their moskkk, and then we fly a plane into the building. I'd like to see that. We can get the plane and pilots from Egypt Air. Two birds with one allah blessed stone. Ha! Would that be like getting blood from a stone?

How perfect would that be? US and coalition spooks could set up a fake jihadi ring in the mideast, recruit a few muslim murderbots, train them for their martyr mission, tell them they will be flying a plane into an FBI building, but oops, at the very last moment, as the plane is screaming toward the facility, they recognize the arabic writing on the sign out front (which they can't read because the are illiterate) and realize that we have sent them to bomb a moskkk. By then it would be too late. That would be fucking hilarious!

Of course will have to notify all of the Joooos so that they aren't in the area on the day of the attack, just like all those phone calls to the Jooos who worked in the WTC. But this time, I hope we get some auto dialers. Dialing thousands of numbers manually can be hell on your fingers.
Posted by: Dr J || 10/28/2003 10:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Glad they saved on the land. Recent history (see Big Dig) would lead me to believe that the project will be plagued by "cost overruns." Let's just say that Boston didn't help the US score with the Transparency Institute.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 11:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Great post. More wahabi cash greasing the skids. Dialogue my ass, they just smile, genteel like.
Posted by: Lucky || 10/28/2003 11:17 Comments || Top||

#4  A Saudi-funded mosque on Malcolm X Boulevard. How...circular.
Posted by: Seafarious || 10/28/2003 11:58 Comments || Top||

#5  "How...circular."
LOL!
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:18 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Poverty in Palestinian Territories slows Ramadan celebrations
Transcript from ABC (Australia, that is) "The World Today." Delicious.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Staying in the Middle East, and as we’ve already heard today, the holy Muslim month of Ramadan has begun in the Palestinian Territories, and for the fourth year running it’s a time of gloom. With Palestinian cities under Israeli Army blockade, and three-quarters of Palestinian families living in poverty, this year’s fasting period is a reminder of ongoing hardship.
How ’bout telling your listeners why that might be, Libbie?
Our Middle East Correspondent, Mark Willacy, reports from Jerusalem.

(car bomb exploding horn and Paleos scooping remains from bombed car market selling)

MARK WILLACY: Preparing for the daily fast and the nightly feast, Palestinians have been stocking up on nice meats and sweet lollies, traditionally consumed after sunset. But again this year, many families simply can’t afford to splash out on fancy food.
Farm life ain’t what it used to be.
In the West Bank, unemployment is running at about 50 per cent, and three-quarters of families live on less than AU$4 a day.
And instead of telling everyone why that might be, we get ...
In his Ramallah bakery, Hatim Ahmed is making the traditional Ramadan sweets. But again, this year business is poor.

HATIM AHMED: Actually, this Ramadan we are not optimistic about it because of the closures and the people, the works, all the businesses slow down and most of the workers doesn’t go to their works, they don’t have any money. I hope and we pray for God to kill them Joooos!!!!! to ease everything and to smooth for the people just to make their living.

MARK WILLACY: Ramallah, like other Palestinian cities in the West Bank, is under Israeli Army blockade. This mean people can’t travel outside for work or to join family in surrounding villages for the nightly feast. The situation is even worse in Hebron.

(noises from explosions in busy city centre)

In Hebron, Palestinians find it difficult moving around the city centre, let alone outside. The reason is that 400 Jewish settler families live here and they need the protection of Israeli Army units. So the more than 100,000 Palestinian residents are restricted in where they can go to shop.
’cause they have a tendency to explode without warning.
HATIM AHMED: But in these recent days, because people are suffering from a lot of problems, most of them is economical problems, they are not exactly ready to receive Ramadan with the same excitement and the same, let’s say, happiness.
And do we get an explanation of "cause and effect" from ABC? No-o-o-o, instead we get ...
MARK WILLACY: The World Bank estimates that even if the violence stops and things get back to normal, then it will still take at least two years for the Palestinian economy to recover to pre-Intifada levels.
Remember, "normal" in this context means that the whole West Bank would be just your average third-world shithole, instead of the extra-special shithole that it is.
This is Mark Willacy in Jerusalem for The World Today.
You could have filed this report from Sydney.
Posted by: Steve White || 10/28/2003 12:59:07 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, cause and effect will get you every time.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 10/28/2003 2:43 Comments || Top||

#2  You could have filed this report from Sydney.

I secretly suspect that he did. Jason Blair anyone? Whenever I hear those "horn honking" noises and the other overused background sound-tracks like, cooking noises, babies crying, sheep bleating, oh...and always the one that sounds like someone is digging.... I envision those 1940's radio guys - walking the shoes with their hands and making squeaking door sounds.

If NPR etc. reporters ever bothered to do any real reporting, they wouldn't need those phony background noises to keep our attention and convince us that they are on scene.
Posted by: B || 10/28/2003 3:03 Comments || Top||

#3  I once cried because I had no shoes. Then I watched a news cast that had no credibility... oh well, back to sponge bob!
Posted by: FlungDung || 10/28/2003 9:43 Comments || Top||

#4  ABC: Absolute Bull Crap.
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 9:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Boo-freakin'-hoo. Tough shitskies, comrade.
Posted by: mojo || 10/28/2003 10:54 Comments || Top||

#6  "But in these recent days, because people are suffering from a lot of problems, most of them is economical problems"

Bart Simpson: "Me fail English? That are impossible!"
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 11:14 Comments || Top||

#7  Nooooo! Frank G, that was Ralph Wiggum:

"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

And you can hear it here (english.wav)

PS Glad to hear you're OK, after the incident at your home.
Posted by: Bulldog || 10/28/2003 11:40 Comments || Top||

#8  I stand corrected, and thanks Bulldog!
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 11:42 Comments || Top||

#9  "This might be the saddest Ramadan ever."

-Little Mamood

boo frickin' hoo

(How come we always had to refrain from going to war in the middle east during Ramadan, but its perfectly ok for arab insurgents to fight/bomb us durind this happy time?)
Posted by: ---------<<<<-- || 10/28/2003 12:52 Comments || Top||

#10  If this is supposed to make me feel bad it.....doesn't.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 12:53 Comments || Top||

#11  Big damn deal. So Palestinians' celebration of Ramadan is being sullied by poverty. Think that Arafart is going to get the blame (as he should) for this? I doubt it.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 10/28/2003 12:54 Comments || Top||

#12  Poverty may be hurting their Ramadam celebration but Islam is really their most horrible persecutor.
Posted by: mhw || 10/28/2003 13:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Arafish, since he's skimmed off so much of the cash "meant for the Palestinian people" (whoever they are), could certainly afford to order up some fruit baskets or something, doncha think?
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:43 Comments || Top||

#14  Oh, I forgot. Today I spent awhile hanging out at the Chiang Mai moskkk (I like that spelling!). I had my lunch, Bacon Double Cheese Whopper & large Freedom Fries & large Coke, and when the loudspeaker fired up to call 'em to prayers, I made myself comfortable on the corner next to the entrance and had my lunch. I made lots of yummy-nummy noises and enjoyed it thoroughly. I don't think the Mooslims did, though... I'd imagine that 3:00 PM during Ramaphrickindan is just about the low point of the day. Think I'll do it again tomorrow - only pizza. Italian sausage is my favorite.
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 14:09 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
Mugabe ’flown to South Africa after collapse’
Going, going ...
President Robert Mugabe collapsed yesterday and was flown to South Africa for emergency medical treatment, sources in Zimbabwe said last night.
Funny how the local medical system isn’t quite up to taking care of the glorious big guy.
Supporters of Mr Mugabe, 79, were setting up barricades in the capital, Harare, manned by well-armed riot police. It was reported that senior members of the "Green Bombers", the notorious youth brigades created by Mr Mugabe and responsible for rape, murder and political thuggery, were being flown to the city.
Flown to the city? I thought they didn’t have fuel!
Any transition of power in Zimbabwe would probably be violent as Mr Mugabe’s successors in the ruling Zanu-PF party would clash with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Ya think?
Sources in Zimbabwe said Mr Mugabe was taken ill late on Sunday and vomited throughout the night, then collapsed yesterday. He was flown by military aircraft to the Waterkloof air base, a South African military airport near Pretoria, and driven to a clinic for treatment, they said. If he been treated in Zimbabwe, he would be dead by now news would have leaked out quickly, prompting popular unrest. By moving him to South Africa his own people won’t tear him limb from limb the situation can be better managed by his supporters until the extent of his dementia health problems can be assessed.
Perhaps Nelson Mandela can whisper in his ear.
Mr Mugabe’s illness is expected to intensify jockeying in the Zanu-PF for the succession. The death last month of Vice-President, Simon Muzenda, 81, a staunch Mugabe supporter, has already sparked attempts by various factions in the party to secure the vice-presidency.
81? Old codger wouldn’t have lasted long enough to steal the keys from Grace anyways.
Supporters of the regime sought to play down the seriousness of Mr Mugabe’s mental medical problems, saying he would be in Harare today for photographs with the state-run media.
Just like Arafat. Maybe there’s been an epidemic of ’gallstones’.
Rumours of ill-health, strokes and death have been part of Mugabe’s regime in recent years. After 23 years in power, he has appeared increasingly frail in recent months, although he has also shown remarkable stamina.
That sentence makes no sense. He’s 79 and he has to step on a banana peel at some point. Why not today?
Posted by: Steve White || 10/28/2003 12:49:45 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If this POS cops it, I'll raise a glass to send him on his journeys through hell. I did the same for Idi Amin as well (waiting for Arafat, Kimmie and a few others though).
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 10/28/2003 2:41 Comments || Top||

#2  May all the pain he has caused be visited on him in his final days.
Posted by: badanov || 10/28/2003 5:13 Comments || Top||

#3  We pray for a speedy dispatch for this ogre -- but regret he did not get the ending he deserves, swinging at the end of a rope!
Posted by: Nik Karanikos || 10/28/2003 6:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Remove the feeding tube.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/28/2003 7:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Life for him should be a terminal disease. I wish him a speedy cure.

dorf
Posted by: Anonymous || 10/28/2003 7:49 Comments || Top||

#6  ...and there was much rejoicing.
Posted by: Hiryu || 10/28/2003 7:52 Comments || Top||

#7  makes my day - I'm baaaacccckkk

home still standing, reeks of smoke, and power just went on at 5AM after being out since sunday - being evacuated sucks, but you learn th eimportant things in life: family, home, photos,
and Bob Mugabe suffering a long painful spiral to hell
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 9:14 Comments || Top||

#8  update:
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - It is all "wishful thinking", in the words of one senior Zimbabwean diplomat.

South African and British media reports on Tuesday said Zimbabwe's 79-year-old President Robert Mugabe had been secretly flown to South Africa for treatment after suffering either a stroke or a bad fall.

Diplomats reported hearing that he was in a military hospital. Security analysts said they had been told he was flown in by South African air force pilots. South Africa fuelled the speculation by initially saying only that it was "unaware" of Mugabe's whereabouts.

On Tuesday, officials from both countries acted to quash suggestions that the leader of Zimbabwe -- itself in grave economic and political decline -- was at death's door.

"These rumours are all wishful thinking," Zimbabwe's envoy to South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo, told Reuters. "President Mugabe is in good health and he is attending to his official engagements, including chairing today's cabinet meeting."

nothing to see here - go about your starving to death with no money or fuel business
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 9:34 Comments || Top||

#9  Glad to hear the good news about your home Frank G. As for Mugabe...

" Turn up the Death Ray to 4! "
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 9:36 Comments || Top||

#10  Music to our ears! Wifey and I have very good friends in Zim - could leave if they wanted to but its their country and they stand by it through Mugabe and his ilk. This may be the end but I doubt it - according to our friends their are dozens even sicker who will take over only if the strong outside powers give the other guys a weak signal of support.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 10/28/2003 9:37 Comments || Top||

#11  There seems to be more than a little confusion as to exactly what's up with Bob:
According to media reports in South Africa, Mugabe is in a ward in a hospital in Gauteng, coalenscing after a stroke. According to the Zimbabwean government, their president is at work in Harare, where he this morning chaired a cabinet meeting. However, no one could confirm that they had actually seen the president. 702 Talk Radio reported yesterday that Mugabe was in South Africa for treatment, reports Sapa. A reporter at 702 said that the story originated from a source, and that it was not known at which hospital Mugabe was supposed to be. Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa told Sapa last night: "At this stage we have no knowledge of this development. In our interaction with the Zimbabwean authorities, they denied any knowledge thereof." In Harare, the speculation seems to be fuelled by the fact that Mugabe has not been seen in public for some time.
However senior SA government officials today again denied knowledge that Mugabe was here and Zimbabwe's High Commissioner to SA, Simon Moyo, said the reports were "absolute hogwash". This morning, Independent Foreign Service correspondent Brian Latham said from Harare that the regular, weekly Zimbabwe cabinet meeting was due to start at 10.30 am. Reporters would monitor it to see if Mugabe appeared. Phoning back just after 10.30am, Latham said he had seen Mugabe's motorcade arrive outside the offices in central Harare where the meeting would be held. Unfortunately his view was restricted and he had not been able to see who got out of the vehicles.
Soon after this, Sapa reported that Zimbabwe High Commissioner Moyo said Mugabe was in good health and was chairing the cabinet meeting in Harare this morning. Media reports that the president was admitted to a South African hospital for medical treatment were nothing but "wishful thinking", he told Sapa in Pretoria. "He (Mugabe) is chairing a cabinet meeting as we speak," Moyo said. "There is nothing wrong with his health."
Asked where he got this information from, the high commissioner said: "I am his representative here. I am in touch with home every minute".

This morning, Deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad, deputy director for Africa in the Department of Foreign Affairs Kingsley Mamabolo, presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo and Defence Ministry spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi all said they did not know of Mugabe being in a South African hospital.
Mkhwanazi said Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota also knew nothing about the reports. He said he had spoken to Lekota yesterday when the reports first surfaced. The speculation in Harare was that Mugabe was being treated in a South African military hospital but today Major Niko Allie, spokesperson for SA Military Health Services, said Mugabe was not being treated in any military hospital in South Africa. Some observers believe speculation may have been prompted by the fact that former Zimbabwean cabinet minister Edison Zvobgo, who is still a member of the ruling Zanu PF central committee member but now sidelined by Mugabe, is seriously ill in a hospital in Cape Town. The Star's reporters checked airports and hospitals to see if they could find any trace of Mugabe in South Africa this morning.

The short story is that every airport and hospital in South Africa say they haven't seen Bob. But nobody that can be trusted has seen him either. As they say, developing.
Posted by: Steve || 10/28/2003 9:42 Comments || Top||

#12  ...and everybody thought "tyrant" was such an easy gig.
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/28/2003 9:48 Comments || Top||

#13  I hope this fuck dies in a slow and very painful way. I wish agony upon him. So painful that he can't even muster the strength to wail. Do I sound angry and fed up with these dictators?
Posted by: Dr J || 10/28/2003 10:15 Comments || Top||

#14  "These rumours are all wishful thinking," Zimbabwe's envoy to South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo, told Reuters.

Soem very odd phrasing for an envoy.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 11:06 Comments || Top||

#15  ..Actually, the nicest way for me to imagine Bob shuffling off this mortal coil is him being just alert enough to realize when Gracie and the boys come in to put a pillow over his face....but not being able to do anything about it.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 10/28/2003 12:24 Comments || Top||

#16  FrankG - Congrats!!! Glad to hear you weathered the firestorm successfully!!! Hard to picture Sammy Dago hills denuded by fire...
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:15 Comments || Top||

#17  it's pretty bad, still - 208,000 acres burned and 800 homes
Posted by: Frank G || 10/28/2003 13:32 Comments || Top||

#18  800? Holy shit! How did Santee fare? I know folks there and up in San Marcos and in another area well east from the coast in the mountains - dunno what it's called in that vicinity - horse farm country.

[sorry for asking personal questions, folks]
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:59 Comments || Top||

#19  so bobby is MIA. heh heh.
Posted by: B || 10/28/2003 15:13 Comments || Top||

#20  The short story is that every airport and hospital in South Africa say they haven't seen Bob.

The S.A. Gov't isn't going to say squat about Mugabe, partly because they're concerned about refugees if and when a civil war comes, and partly because the ANC still runs the S.A. government. They aren't going to abandon a fellow 'African nationalist' and his movement, no matter how odious.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/28/2003 21:59 Comments || Top||


Korea
North Korea has delivered 400 ballistic missile to Mideast
The South Korean Defense Ministry told parliament in a report that Pyongyang delivered 400 Scud-class missiles to a range of Middle East countries since 1985. The report said the missile export constituted the largest source of hard currency for the Stalinist regime.
"But they’re our friends, honest! They’re just misunderstood. If we were more conciliatory I’m sure we could get along!"
The report said the best clients of North Korea were Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The report did not say how much Pyongyang earned from the exports. But the Yonhap News Agency said the figure was $110 million.
Yep, the Yemenis needs Scuds. Right missile for their situation: their putative enemies have nothing for hundreds of miles around them, and the Scud is perfect for hitting nothing.
In 2002, North Korea sold $60 million worth of Scud missiles and missile parts to Iraq, Iran, Syria and Yemen, Middle East Newsline reported. The report said Pyongyang also sold Pakistan, Syria and Yemen $30 million worth of missile technology in 1999. The combined figure for 2001 was $20 million in 2001. "Since the middle of the 1980s, North Korea has exported 400-odd Scud missiles along with missile-related parts to the Middle East region," Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Ki-Beom, quoting the report, said.
Most of those 400 were odd, too. Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week.
Analysts said the North Korean delivery of 15 Scud B and Scud C missile systems in December 2002 was a major reason for the sharp increase in revenues for Pyongyang. The missile shipment was seized by a Spanish war vessel and after Yemeni threats was ordered released by the United States.
Wonder if the Yemenis would have had to pay if the Spanish had sunk that ship instead?
North Korean missile revenues for 2003, the analysts said, were expected to match or exceed those reported for last year. The analysts cited increased North Korean missile cooperation with Iran. The report did not seem to reveal significant additional information already found in previous South Korean studies on the North’s missile exports. In 2002, a South Korean report asserted that Pyongyang sold $500 million worth of missiles to Middle East clients since the mid-1980s. North Korea has exported such missiles as the Scud B and C to Syria and Yemen as well as the No-Dong medium-range missile to Iran. Pyongyang was also said by South Korea to have transferred missile technology to Egypt and Libya.
[whistling] "Oh I’m making a list, checking it twice ..."
Posted by: Steve White || 10/28/2003 12:27:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I expect that we'll find that Yemen is just retailing the scuds.
Posted by: Super Hose || 10/28/2003 9:49 Comments || Top||

#2  They sold SCUDS to Iraq? Somebody broke the UN embargo.
Posted by: Charles || 10/28/2003 10:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Nice to see that someone in the SKor Govt isn't asleep at the wheel and "torn" by internal doubt.

So, now I guess the whole world wants to know:
What's the Pfrench position on this? Dominique?
Posted by: .com || 10/28/2003 13:25 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2003-10-28
  Bob has a stroke?
Mon 2003-10-27
  Red Cross rocketed in Baghdad
Sun 2003-10-26
  Wolfowitz hotel rocketed in Baghdad
Sat 2003-10-25
  Jordan charges 108 with terrorism
Fri 2003-10-24
  Residents foil bomb plot in Baghdad burb
Thu 2003-10-23
  Sudan refuses to close down Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices
Wed 2003-10-22
  1 killed, 2 critical in premature Nablus car boom
Tue 2003-10-21
  Iran agrees to UN nuke inspectors
Mon 2003-10-20
  Five helizaps in Gaza
Sun 2003-10-19
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Sat 2003-10-18
  Army kills Hamas man, two other Paleos in Gaza
Fri 2003-10-17
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