It's still mostly a toy, but I've written a routine to strip out the names I've flagged in the course of a day, sort them, and give a list of who's been in the news that day. These are linked to the Rantburg search screen. I've been horribly remiss in keeping up Thugburg and the Organizations List, so this should help me get back on track with those projects, as long as I'm diligent with the editing. Next step will be to put a Google link next to it...
Let me know what you think.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 17:11 ||
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I appreciate all of it.
Posted by: Sharon in Boston ||
12/30/2003 22:21 Comments ||
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This is going way over the line! How can these people face themselves in the mirror? God have mercy on their souls, because if I EVER meet this person I WILL NOT!
#3
God have mercy on their souls, because if I EVER meet this person I WILL NOT!
Hard to say if you'd have the chance unless you're in Europe. It would appear that the domain that image is linked to resides there. Can't say where their contributors are located, but it's almost certain that a fair number of them can be found on U.S. soil.
#5
Only thing this says to me is that there will be mass suicides among the loony left when George Bush wins reelection next year. Guess someone could send 'em one of these:
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 19:04 Comments ||
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#8
Yeah, I just took a look myself Fred.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 19:24 Comments ||
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#9
The site (I refrain from linking to it as well) is clearly terrorist, obviously registered by an Austrian and hosted by an Austrian company.
In Germany this site would qualify as "inciting to murder and hate crime". Prosecution would be certain. This has nothing to do with free speech. I don't know how the law exactly is in Austria but I will find out and get an Austrian friend to file a complaint.
#16
No, asshelmet, we are all aware that American soldiers are directly following the orders of old Prescott, channeled no doubt by noted antisemite Paul Wolfowitz.
While you're demonizing people for their ancestors, you fucking hypocrite, are you aware that Ramsey Clark's father, Tom Clark, was the US Attorney in charge of rounding up Japanese-Americans during World War 2?
By your logic, this makes Ramsey a racist by association. At this point, you should abuse and reject anyone having any association with him, such as, say, A.N.S.W.E.R.
#17
Meanwhile, JoeDoe, you might want to check out how your fellow totalitarians in the Cuban gestapo deal with someone who portrays an actual fascist, your hero Fidel, as Hitler.
What? They donât care about saving the whales?
Causes singled out during the weekly Friday night marches by the Portland Peaceful Response Coalition included: the accidental Bhopal gas release; "Buy Nothing Day"; American and Iraqi casualties; Palestinian human rights; International Day of Solidarity with Women of Juarez and Chihuahua; the Portland City Council resolution against the Patriot Act; Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker; the World Trade Organization; the federal budget deficit; and the Korean War.
Quote of the year
"Yes, there are two bodies in my back yard, but thatâs all there is." This was how Ward Weaver explained why he expects to be acquitted of murder charges in the deaths of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis.
The Emily Litella âNever Mindâ award
Supporters of Intel Corp. engineer Maher "Mike" Hawash rallied around him after his arrest last March on federal terrorism charges, saying he was held only because heâs Muslim. Five months later, Hawash admitted the feds were right and entered the first of six guilty pleas from the Portland Seven. Hawash still is cooperating with prosecutors, with his sentencing scheduled for Feb. 9.
Rejecting W.C. Fieldsâ mantra: âAnyone who hates kids and dogs canât be all badâ
Oregon announced its new state slogan, "Oregon: We love dreamers."
Next state slogan: âThanks, Alaskaâ
Oregonâs unemployment rate finally slipped to second-worst in the country, after Alaska, when it hit 7.3 percent in November.
Worst wedding guests
The weekly brigade of anti-war protesters loudly drummed and chanted outside a Republican reception in downtown Portland last month until the mother of the bride at a wedding in the same building tearfully begged them to stop so the wedding could go on in peace. They did.
Longest, strangest trip
The online magazine Slate reported that an Oregon license plate bearing the "Pacific Wonderland" slogan used in the early â60s was found recently on the floor of a garage at Saddam Husseinâs main presidential palace in Baghdad. The plate was last registered in Oregon in 1983 to a 1960 DeSoto. Oregon officials have no clue as to how the plate wound up in Iraq.
Worst PR campaign
Accused killer Ward Weaver repeatedly called reporters from jail to blame the slayings of Miranda Gaddis and Ashley Pond on a complex conspiracy involving bikers, meth dealers and Russian gangsters. His publicity campaign prompted not one but two sets of defense attorneys to ask to be removed from the case.
No one replied -- they wrote the ad in English
The Multnomah County Department of Human Services advertised for a volunteer to interpret for mental patients who will converse only in Klingon.
Worst father
Beaverton softball coach Andrew Garver ran off with Michelle "Mimi" Smith, his teamâs 15-year-old catcher and a good friend of his teenage daughter. His daughter wrote a note to her father on a missing persons Web site: "You may have had a really hard time expressing your love for me, but this definitely has to be the weirdest way."
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 4:05:53 PM ||
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Ward Weaver explained why he expects to be acquitted of murder charges
You just knew Ward was gonna crack eventually. The question is... Is Eddie a victim or helper? This is gonna blow the Jackson case off Court TV.
#4
And they called me crazy when I started that fight between a Star Wars convention and a Star Trek convention. But now I am justified! Speaking Klingon is a mental defect, fools!
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 19:51 Comments ||
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#5
Chewy! Rip their arms off!
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 20:22 Comments ||
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The obscure nation of Belgium, often called "Europeâs forgotten country," was virtually destroyed by the impact of an asteroid — but incredibly, outsiders didnât notice for three weeks. Belgium is home to the EU bureaucracy, so naturally nobody would care if a meteor hit it. This probably also explains how the French were able to get through that non-PC headscarf ban.
And even after they found out, newspapers and TV stations in the United States didnât bother to report it! A concerned media critic is calling this the "most underreported story of 2003." Together with European gratitude and French humor.
"I conducted an Internet search and I found only two references in the American media to the catastrophe in Belgium. Yet for the same time period I found more than 6,500 stories about Kobe Bryant," blasts media critic John Blancing of New York. "We have to start getting our priorities straight as journalists. Belgium is a country of more than 10 million people, with a very rich history. To let its destruction go unreported is appalling and unforgivable." The oversight has been blamed on a number of factors, among them the fact that the asteroid struck on September 12, when media attention was largely focused on the deaths of singer Johnny Cash and actor John Ritter. Iâll stop complaining about the media not having their priorities straight.
Thereâs also the sad reality that no one, either in the United States or the rest of Europe, is particularly interested in what happens in Belgium. "Belgium hasnât made a major contribution to world history since the days of Flemish artists like Pieter Rubens in the 17th century," notes an expert. Not so, it was a convenient highway for the Germans a couple of times.
"No American vacations there — why would you, when thereâs London, Paris and Rome? To most outsiders, itâs as if Belgium doesnât exist. And of course now it doesnât." When astronomers first spotted the tiny, 460-square-foot "mini-asteroid," dubbed Appler 3710, late last year, it generated quite a stir, but interest died down after experts determined it would probably not hit Earth. That turned out to be a big miscalculation, however.
"Rogers! Did you remember to carry the 4?"
"Uhhh... No, professor. Sorry."
"No one was keeping an eye on Appler 3710. Against all expectations, it landed in the heart of Europe," Blancing says. The careening space rock spawned earthquakes across Belgium, which is about they size of Maryland, damaging concrete dikes and creating massive flooding in coastal areas. The death toll is believed to be at least 8,000, with millions more left homeless and hundreds of historical sites destroyed. The EUâs Waterloo (also in Belgium, oddly enough)
Extensive damage occurred in nine of the 10 provinces, with Antwerpen, Brabant and Wallon especially hard hit. Fiercely proud, King Albert II has refused to allow Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to reach out to fellow European nations for aid. And appealing to America for help was "out of the question," given Belgiumâs stubborn refusal to back Operation Iraqi Freedom earlier this year, Blancing notes. In neighboring Luxembourg, which experienced minor quake damage, reports of the disaster in Belgium first began to surface in early October. But newspapers in France and Germany, which also border the tiny country, ignored rumors of a catastrophe. Vacation time, no doubt.
"To put it bluntly, the Germans and French are concerned only with themselves," Blancing says. It was only when the media critic happened to interview the Belgian ambassador to the U.N. that he himself learned what had happened. "The ambassador didnât know about the asteroid until he phoned relatives back home," Blancing notes. A trickle of reports on the deepimpact tragedy are finally beginning to crop up in the U.S., but itâs too little, too late. Like Belgium itself.
"CNN and FOX News should have been on top of this," the expert says, "but apparently Britney Spearsâbosomhonkerstitties bare midriff or Eminemâs latest antics are more important." "On top of?" Nope, wonât go there. I love the Weekly World News. It is the only decent and honest American tabloid: no celebrity gossip, diet tips (unless they come from Mars), consumer tests, or other frivolity, just straightforward sensationalism and brazen fabrication. My favorite WWN story ran back in 1987. It claimed that a UFO with a Confederate flag painted on the bottom had overflown a bullfight in Mexico and played "Dixie" as it zoomed by. That should have been good for 8 or 10 conspiracy books: "Gettysburg and Area 51:Century of Deception" "Appamattox to Tau Ceti, the Rest of the Story". I donât know if itâs crazier than 9-11 conspiracy theories, but itâs sure a lot more fun.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
12/30/2003 1:40:39 AM ||
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My favorite WWN headline: "JFK aghast at Teddie sex romp." You read that say to yourself, hmmm, hey, wait a minute, isn't he ... wasn't he ....?
But WWN had that covered -- a small inset on the page showed ANOTHER, previous headline, "JFK Alive!"
No slouches, these guys.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 2:07 Comments ||
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If we just had a Zong Ray we could protect the Earth.
#3
My favorite WWN item was Saddam had a submarine in Lake Michigan. How it got through the Welland canal I don't know - those darn Canadians soft on terrorism again!
#4
Follow on to Spot:
Not only was there a sub in Lake Michigan, it was a Kursk class sub according to the photo on the front page. Wow ... it must have been underground caverns and streams.
Seriously though, there were subs built on the Great Lakes during WWII. A couple of them have been brought back and are on display in Muskegon, MI. and Manitowac, WI.
Posted by: Jim K ||
12/30/2003 10:04 Comments ||
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They also exposed North Korea's plan to invade and conquer the United States. Can the New York Times say that?
An Egyptian professor at Kuwait Universityâs College of Literature was arrested Sunday afternoon after being accused of tearing, desecrating and staining the pages of the Holy Quran with his stool. The professor has been identified as Al-Husaini Omar Mohammed. Case papers reveal, the Bangladeshi caretaker of the Farwaniya building, where Al-Husaini resides, saw him burning something near the back wall of the building. The caretaker later found torn and stained pages of the Holy Quran thrown in the yard of the building underneath the window of the apartment belonging to the professor. The guard reported the incident to Omariya Police Station. Lt Colonel Sultan Al-Jadei arrested the professor, who was brought to the police station where he confessed to his crime, saying he is possessed by a demon and has been suffering from severe psychological pressure since the theft of all the money he had saved while working in Kuwait.
Calling Father Guido! Calling Father Guido!
A reliable source at Kuwait University said, "Professor Al-Husaini called up the administration at the College of Literature asking for assistance but was told to face the consequences of desecrating the Holy Quran by himself."
"Y'r on your own, Buddy!"
Another Kuwait University source said the University had suspended the professor until completion of investigations. The same source said Mohammed Al-Tabtabaei, Dean of the Sharia Faculty at Kuwait University, had condemned the incident and said the suspect was âan infidel.â
#3
... he is possessed by a demon and has been suffering from severe psychological pressure since the theft of all the money he had saved while working in Kuwait.
Nigerian e-mail scam strikes again!
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 21:19 Comments ||
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Islamic militants in Saudi Arabia with links to Al Qaeda appear to be making a concerted new effort to destabilize the Saudi government by assassinating top security officials. "Security" in the Magic Kingdom being a relative term, of course.
A series of assassination attempts in the last month, including a failed car bombing in the Saudi capital on Monday, have also included a previously undisclosed shooting in early December of Maj. Gen. Abdelaziz al-Huweirini. As the No. 3 official in Saudi Arabiaâs Interior Ministry, he is the kingdomâs top counterterrorism official. General Huweirini, who has worked closely with American officials, was moderately wounded in that Dec. 4 attack, the American officials said. No one has been killed in the attacks, which continued despite major setbacks for Al Qaeda in a battle with Saudi security forces. One Saudi king, Faisal, was assassinated in 1975 by a militant who was also a relative, but assassination attempts against Saudi officials have otherwise been almost unknown. Until this year, most major attacks by suspected Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia have been directed against American or other Western targets. The Qaeda militants have carried out a wave of major suicide-bomb attacks in Riyadh, the capital, killing at least 50 people in the last seven months. But they have also been punished by a Saudi security crackdown in which hundreds of militants have been arrested and dozens more killed, and secret caches have been uncovered that contained tons of weapons and explosives. "The Saudis have done a good job of taking down a lot of their leadership," a senior American official said Monday of Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia. "But they continue to be very dangerous and to go after royal family-related targets."
The Soddies also tend to hold them for awhile, and the ones who aren't killed when the calaboose accidentally catches fire and burns to the ground with them in it get a good talking to and sent back to the mosque...
In the attack on Monday, another security official narrowly escaped when he climbed out of his luxury car just before a bomb exploded. An American official identified the target as a major from the Saudi Interior Ministry, which is known as the Mabahith and is similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At least one other car bomb was defused earlier this month after it was found inside a vehicle parked near the headquarters of a Saudi intelligence service, American officials said...
Backstage negotiations aren't going well, huh? Maybe they should offer the Danes more geld?
On Sunday, the British government warned that a terrorist attack could be in the final stages of preparation in Saudi Arabia. That warning amplified others issued this month by the United States, which on Dec. 17 authorized the voluntary withdrawal of family members and nonemergency personnel from the American Embassy and consulates in the kingdom. This month, a previously unknown group that identified itself as Al Haramain Brigades, or the Two Mosques Brigades, said in a statement on an Islamist Web site that it had tried to kill a senior official of the Saudi Interior Ministry. The ministry has not acknowledged that the attack took place, but senior American officials confirmed that it had and identified General Huweirini as the target of the assassination attempt. The generalâs brother was seriously wounded in the shooting, the American officials said. Al-Haramain Brigades arenât al-Qaeda though, they seem to be a wannabe group to fight the royal family while the real al-Qaeda preoccupy themselves with taking out the Great Satan. Itâs also a really great negotiating tool for al-Qaeda to have a rogue jihadi group running around whose actions they can disavow.
In the Monday attack, reports said the vehicle had exploded while parked in front of a building in the Salam residential district in eastern Riyadh. The site was quickly surrounded by the police, and security officials confirmed that the car belonged to a major from the Interior Ministry. A statement read on Saudi state television said firefighters had put out a blaze ignited by what was described as a small explosion.
Youssef al-Ayeri, a militant who was believed to have commanded Qaeda operations in Saudi Arabia, was killed in June in a shootout with Saudi security forces. But American and Saudi officials have said they believe that he has been replaced by Abdelaziz al-Miqrin, also known as Abu Hajir, who was trained at a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, fought in Bosnia and served previously in Algeria. I think that al-Ayyeri was more the ideologue than anything else, with the top al-Ghamdi being the nuts and bolts guy, though there are so many controllers in Soddy that itâs confusing sometime. My guess is that Louis replaced al-Ayyeri and that Abu Hajirâs taking over the nuts and bolts job from al-Ghamdi.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:32:10 AM ||
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you ride the Tiger, sometimes you get eaten....
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2003 9:52 Comments ||
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A statement read on Saudi state television said firefighters had put out a blaze ignited by what was described as a small explosion.
Last Wednesday, a serious violent incident took place near the presidential palace crossroads in Taiz City when Republic Guard members exchanged fires with soldiers belonging to the inspection department of the Public Works Authority. According to eyewitnesses, the incident started when soldiers from the Public Works Authority were intercepted by Republican Guard members and prevented from carrying out their work, which was to inspect buildings that were built without prior authorization. After a verbal dispute, both parties began using live ammunition to settle their differences, killing one of the guards, and injuring others. The vehicle of the Public Works team was also damaged in the shootout.
You guys read on. I'm still stuck trying to figure why the public works department has soldiers, much less why they had to shoot it out over nothing much...
An urgent meeting was held last Saturday to discuss the incident and take appropriate action.
Is that going to involve more shooting?
The incident has also resulted in a turbulent relationship between the two parties. Senior military and official representatives from both sides tried to bridge the gap in this particular issue and several others, but to no avail.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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The Public Works dept has to secure the perimeter when they go down the manholes. The Republican Guards say that is their jurisdiction. It is just a jurisdictional dispute. Maybe it will now go to the immams arbitrators.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 0:14 Comments ||
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#2
The elite Public Works Authority commandos prove their mettle once again.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/30/2003 0:43 Comments ||
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#3
The incident has also resulted in a turbulent relationship...
#4
Maybe some could help me out here. I strongly suspect that the Yemeni president (strong man) is a shiite and the shiites won the civil war but have been unable to confirm this. If so it would help make sense of what is going on in SA.
#5
I'm still stuck trying to figure why the public works department has soldiers
I was wondering that too, Fred, but then I remembered that the Dept. of Streets and Sanitation in Chicago has "soldiers", too (mostly for collecting votes, though!).
"Hey, Mahoud. You Public Works guys don't no chit!"
"What'd you say, Abdul?"
"I said you and your buddies don't know CHIT!!"
"Ja hear that guys? Abdul said we don't chit!"
(the sound of AK47s).
#9
Sounds more like a matter of Honorâ¢. The lowly Department of Public Works commandos probably had their Dignity⢠offended when they were Insulted⢠by the Elite Republican Guards.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 11:30 Comments ||
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#10
Okay.. come clean.. the post and all the comments are really part of the grand plan to gaslight Shipman... right?
#11
There was much insulting of mustaches and gnashing of teeth, followed by sliding of bolts and dancing of smoky, hot brass on steamy pavement, accompanied by the high-pitched shrieking of "Ow! Ow! Damn! Ow!"
Posted by: Dar ||
12/30/2003 12:01 Comments ||
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#12
Doesn't really matter now who said what to who and when. Blood has been spilled; we move to the next phase...Dire Revengeâ¢.
#13
I would recomment the works of Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, for anyone wishing to understand why a third world DPW might have armed troops and why they might have firefights with the Army. His The Mystery of Capital is a good place to start. In the first world, getting title to property and a building permit is taken for granted. In the third world, it is a means of control. I lent my copy to someone, but I believe there were over 700 steps involved in buying and improving property in Cairo. Only the priviledged few can own titled property since they are the only ones that can pay the bribes. The rest live in shanties or government controlled housing. In a third world country, when DPW sends out inspectors, that means that they are out to extort bribes or evict squatters from land someone wealthy wants. If the land is contested by two powerful factions, then there might very well be a fire fight.
Widespread inbreeding in Saudi Arabia has produced several genetic disorders, Saudi public health officials said, including the blood diseases of thalassemia, a potentially fatal hemoglobin deficiency, and sickle cell anemia. Spinal muscular atrophy and diabetes are also common, especially in the regions with the longest traditions of marriage between relatives. Dr. Sakati said she had also found links between inbreeding and deafness and muteness.
It is a great tragedy. There are similar testing programs in the United States for Jewish couples, though not with governmental coercion. A Jewish couple can get tested at a nominal cost for Tay-Sachs, Niemann-Pick, and cystic fibrosis. If both partners carry the same disease gene, they get counseling. I'm not sure they even tell the exact disease, so that they don't have trouble finding new partners.
The incidence of Tay-Sachs disease in the US has dropped by a lot since testing has become available. May this effort be successful in Saudi Arabia; Spinal Muscular Atrophy is a particularly horrible disease. Whatever justified grudges we may have against SA, we should only wish for good health for their children.
Of course, it would help if they didn't marry their cousins.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/30/2003 1:37 Comments ||
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Of course, it would help if they didn't marry their cousins
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2003 9:57 Comments ||
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#5
A colleague of mine once had a child diagnosed with severe SMA before birth. The child died before he was a month old. No possible treatment.
On the other hand, while Googling for the TYT story in my previous comment, I saw something that really lowered my sympathy level. Here is one Saudi's view of genetic diseases. This one really scares me.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/30/2003 10:53 Comments ||
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All this mandatory testing is sure to cause widespread seething and humiliation. Good thing I stocked up on C4 and video cassettes.
#8
Could be a virginity test (just for the gals, of course). I once worked for a plastic surgeon and we had numerous calls from Middle Eastern women requesting surgical restoration of their innocence. The story was always the same; they came to US for college, but it was time to go home to their arranged marriage, and...you can guess the rest. Unfortunately, no can do.
BTW, Eric, I checked out your link; made my skin crawl. Ick.
I couldn't finish that damned page. Hell, I could hardly start it. Does anyone here know what that Saudi Arabia News site is? Who puts it out?
Anyhow, I'm perfectly willing to believe that the genetic testing is precisely that, not a virginity test or other disease test.
The same cultural imperatives that causes the Saudis to arrange these consanguineous marriages also keeps them backward. I'd say the last is a good thing, except that the same attitudes inspire Saudis to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings, bomb dormitories, consign teenagers trying to escape a fire to death, and destroy everything they see.
Oh, and that was supposed to be NYT, not TYT. Damn typos. I was so angry I couldn't type straight.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/30/2003 12:30 Comments ||
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#10
If only we could sit down together and reason, and understand and bridge the gulf between us...
*reads Eric's link*
*sounds of vomiting*
Let's see, now where were we?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 14:20 Comments ||
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#11
Same as Eric, I just flicked through that page and found some revolting stuff.
How the hell are we supposed to reason with these people?
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/30/2003 15:43 Comments ||
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That explains the mass phsycosis.
made it less than a paragraph.
Bahrain is to regulate the collection of funds through charities and their eventual distribution but the move is not a response to foreign pressure, a Bahraini official told AFP on Sunday. Bahrain will âput in place regulations related to the collection of donationsâ the official said. But he added that âat the same time, these regulations come as part of efforts to complete the regulatory environment in Bahrain and are not a response to external pressures.â
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Bahrainâs Cabinet agreed on Sunday to regulate the collection of funds from charities and how they are dispersed. These regulations were put in place âto confirm their (charitiesâ) humanitarian objectives, for which they collect money,â BNA said. The official said that the new measures âaim to track money that is entering and leaving Bahrain,â and that âfighting terror and money launderingâ are also main objectives. The new regulations are, in general, part of a normal operation because we are completing the regulatory infrastructure and modernizing laws and regulations in order to complement the situation around us.â The official denied that there were any indications that money from Bahraini charities was going to terrorist groups. âWe donât doubt any of our charities,â he said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Polly Toynbee, The Guardian
Wednesday December 17, 2003
...How could anyone be so stupid? Easily. especially if you are an idiot
With embarrassment, feeling a fool, I admit I was a victim of a Nigerian fraud. Looking back now, I canât think why I was so easily taken in but I did make a reasonable check. A hand-written letter arrived from a Nigerian 14-year-old called Sandra.... So I sent a cheque for £200 and received another of Sandraâs letters, a bit too full of Godâs mercy and Jesusâs blessings for my taste.... probably any mention of God would have been distastefull for Polly
But it wasnât about the £200. Not long afterwards my bank received a letter with a perfect copy of my signature, giving my bank account numbers, does Polly send out Christmas or New Years cards; they would have her signature also
asking for £1,000 to be transferred at once to a bank in Osaka, Japan... We reap from the third world what we sow: if some Nigerians learned lessons in capitalism from global oil companies [actually all the Nigerians I know speak with a British accent]
that helped corrupt and despoil that land, it is hardly surpising they absorbed some of the Texan oil values [did she mean valves??]
that now rule the White House....
Posted by: mhw ||
12/30/2003 9:42:03 AM ||
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Tim Blair had this one last week. Still, it's ROTF funny!
#5
Honest to G*d people, how dumb can you be? For the last three years, I empty two or three of these a day out of my junk in-box! The instant I see the word "Nigeria", out it goes! This scam has been their most famous export since bloody forever, and Little Miss Toynbee is just now catching on? Sheesh, how clueless do you have to be to work at a newspaper these days?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 13:11 Comments ||
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What was Pollyâs reason for sending money in response to the Nigerian letter? Iâve received these letters and the ones that I have seen promise millions to the person who sends a token amount to the letter writer. It seems that oil companies arenât the only ones motivated my profit.
Posted by: Dan Canaveral ||
12/30/2003 15:04 Comments ||
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You have to read her article, the U.S. and in particular Presidient Bush are responsible for this. BTW I got these emails way back in the early 1990s, does that mean Al Gore invented Email fraud too? Polly blame your teachers, parents, or yourself for YOUR stupidity.
#10
Not only is she stupid, she's also an idiot. IIRC, most of the Nigerian oil exploration has been carried out by British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell. Have these companies also "absorbed some of the Texan oil values that now rule the White House"?
Even the Guardian should be able to do better than this.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2003 23:02 Comments ||
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OK -- even this librul Democrat will agree that this writer is a dumb bitch and deserved to get scammed--and I REALLY believe Bush wasn't to blame LOL Happy New Year!
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
12/31/2003 21:07 Comments ||
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The real story of this past year is not Saddam, but something deeper, symbolised by the bizarre persistence of the "anti-war" movement even after the war was over. For a significant chunk of the British establishment and for most of the governing class on the Continent, if itâs a choice between an America-led West or no West at all theyâll take the latter. Thatâs the trend to watch in the year ahead.
#1
"In my corner of New Hampshire in late March, if you could persuade 'em to take a five-minute break from chasing their sisters round the hayloft, guys with no teeth face down in the moonshine..."
Ouch, he knows us well... Millie, get back here ! And bring the corn likka with you !
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
12/30/2003 16:41 Comments ||
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Wolfowitz is a demonic figure to the anti-war types for little reason other than that his name begins with a big scary animal and ends Jewishly.
Must credit an excellent turn of the phrase here...His old english teacher would be proud.
One of the leading voices in Sunni Islam has defended France's right to ban Islamic headscarves in state schools. Before talks with French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday, al-Azhar shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi said Muslims living in non-Muslim countries had to obey the law.
"I know that's an unusual proposition, but if you try it a few times, you might get used to it..."
"If a Muslim woman is in a non-Muslim country, like France, for example, and the officials there want to pass laws which are contrary (to Islam) on the question of the headscarf as it relates to the Muslim woman, then that is their right which I cannot interfere with as a Muslim," he said. "In that case, if a Muslim woman observes the laws of a non-Muslim state, then from the point of view of Islamic law, she has the status of acting under coercion."
"Now, you may call that grounds for jihad, justification for invading them and stealing all their stuff and enslaving their women, but I ain't gonna call it that. I'm gonna shut up."
A committee of French experts has recommended banning "conspicuous" religious insignia - including the hijab, the Jewish kippa and large crucifixes - from state schools. The committee has said religious insignia are incompatible with France's secular identity. But Islamic groups around the world have been seething condemned the proposal, which was backed by French President Jacques Chirac. They say it is an attack on freedom of religion, and will alienate France's five million Muslims rather than integrate them.
"Yeah. The only way we could possibly integrate is to continue looking and acting different from everybody else in the country..."
Jafar Abd al-Salaam, a professor of International Law at al-Azhar, told Aljazeera that Tantawi's statement was a personal opinion that was not binding on other members of the institution.
"Yeah! What the hell does he know?"
He added that although the hijab is not one of the most crucial issues in Islamic law, no state has the right to interfere with religious freedom.
At which point demons appeared and carried off all the Soddies in the room...
As head of al-Azhar, shaikh Tantawi is one of the world's most influential Islamic leaders. However, he is also no stranger to controversy. Appointed to his position by President Mubarak in 1996, many view him as a political stooge charged with rubber stamping the government's domestic and foreign policies.
Muslims are kind of like Dummycrats. When the decision's in your favor, it's well-reasoned and logical. If it goes against you, then the guy's a political stooge.
In the past he has stoked controversy by condemning human bombings in Israel, which many Palestinians say is their most effective way of opposing Israeli occupation. He also criticised Saddam Hussein for not going into exile and sparing his country the trauma of invasion, and said the US-led war on Iraq was not a crusade against Islam. On the other hand, the cleric gave his blessing to any volunteers who wanted to help Iraqis fight the invaders, even potential human bombers.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 14:55 ||
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He added that although the hijab is not one of the most crucial issues in Islamic law, no state has the right to interfere with religious freedom.
kinda funny how christians have to celebrate christmas behind closed doors in many muslim countries. damn hypocrites
Posted by: Dan ||
12/30/2003 16:50 Comments ||
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German police and soldiers sealed off a military hospital in Hamburg on Tuesday after receiving information that Islamic militants planned a car bomb attack on the building. "We have firm indications pointing to individuals planning an attack on the hospital with a car bomb," a police spokesman said, adding that the suspects were believed to come from the "Islamic terrorist scene." A car bomb in a hospital, sounds holy to me.
About 100 police officers secured the German military hospital and police and troops cordoned off surrounding streets, searching parked cars and deploying two armored vehicles. Police sources said security services had information pointing to two Islamic militants with connections to the al Qaeda network, who were believed to have been planning suicide attacks in Hamburg and Frankfurt. The Germans have been arresting and putting turbans in jail, that makes them a target.
Hamburg came under the spotlight after September 11 because three of the 19 suicide hijackers had lived and studied for years in the northern city. Hamburg state Interior Minister Dirk Nockemann said those suspected of plotting car bombings were connected to the Ansar al-Islam group, which Washington says is active in fighting its troops in Iraq and has ties to al Qaeda. Car bombs are Ansarâs weapon of choice.
"We received indications that an attack could be planned, possibly over the New Year or in the following days," he said. Officials in Frankfurt said no special security measures were in place in addition to the already high security at airports and U.S. bases. Germans take security very seriously, theyâve had practice with their own groups.
German media said the Hamburg hospital treated U.S. soldiers who had served in Iraq but a U.S. military spokesman in Germany said he was unaware of any American servicemen at the facility. He also said it would be unusual for any to be treated in Hamburg, far to the north of the main U.S. bases in southern Germany. Any US wounded would be treated at Landstuhl General Hospital, next door to Ramstein AB.
A German defense ministry spokesman declined to comment on who was treated at the hospital. Maybe German wounded from Afghanistan? Theyâd be a target for that as well.
Nockemann said the warning was initially passed to German authorities by U.S. security services. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Berlin declined to comment. Nockemann said police were keeping in mind the possibility that militants could have infiltrated hospital services or suppliers and were conducting strict controls. Lots of immigrants doing manual labor, washing floors, laundry, etc. Iâd be checking those.
Germany has been especially vigilant for signs of extremism in its 3.2 million-strong Muslim population since the September 11 attacks. Aufenthaltalarm, Freunde. Verriegelung und Last.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 2:02:17 PM ||
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The warning came from the CIA. There are no Americans currently treated in that hospital.
We do take CIA warnings more seriously than the French.
Russia has removed all Soviet-built anti-aircraft missiles from its vast arms depots in a Moldova province to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. The missiles were flown from Trans-Dniester Province to the Moscow on Saturday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement released Monday. A spokesman for the ministry wouldnât say how many weapons were evacuated, but he said that no anti-aircraft missiles are left in Trans-Dniester. The Defense Ministry said in the statement that it had decided to remove the weapons to "minimize the potential danger of terrorists seizing the portable and other air defense missiles and using them for terror goals." Wonder if any of them found their way to Iraq?
About 2,000 Russian troops remain in Trans-Dniester, guarding giant Soviet-era ammunition depots and acting as peacekeepers. The Russian military was deployed in the separatist province to end a 1992 war that killed some 1,500 people and left Trans-Dniester de-facto under the Russian thumb independent.
Put the "independent" in non-BBC-style quotes and add "and not a part of Rumania."
Russia had earlier promised the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that it would withdraw the troops and ammunition by the end of this year, but later said it would be difficult to fulfill this obligation. It has since put forward a plan to extend its troopsâ presence in the region. They like the place. Claus Neukirch, the OSCE spokesman in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, said Monday that the Russian authorities hadnât given OSCE officials authorization to inspect the cargo planes. "So piss off!"
The OSCE and other international agencies have repeatedly expressed concern about allegations that Trans-Dniester has evolved into a center for major weapon smuggling rings. And this differentiates it from the rest of Russia how?
Moldova has a Rumanian-speaking majority but also has a substantial Russian-speaking minority that doesn't want to learn another alphabet. In '92, Aleksandr Lebed, who was to become Yeltsin's vice president briefly, was commander of the 14th Army. The Moldovans' leader was a guy named Snegur, which always struck me as something spelled backwards. The Russian-speakers, under a guy named Ivanov (not even sure if that was his real name; it's kind of like "Smith" or "Jones" in Russia) decided that rather than breaking off from Russia and uniting with Rumania, where Moldova logically fits, they'd form the Dniestr Republic. At the time in the general area the locals had developed the habit of driving up to Soviet installations and beating up any guards that didn't get out of the way, then stealing military equipment, like tanks or BMPs, which they'd then drive up and down the streets of rival ethnic neighborhoods, shooting them up until they ran out of ammunition or gas. This was pretty common in Azerbaijan and Armenia, and in some parts of southern Ukraine. Ivanov's clique was fairly indignant that Lebed didn't let this happen, and in fact stood his ground against them, even while preventing the Rumanian-speakers from beating/shooting up the Dniestr Russers. Moldova didn't become part of Rumania, but it also didn't become the Dneistr Republic.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 3:14:49 AM ||
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A leading Spanish anti-terrorism judge has called for the extradition of four prisoners held at the US base at Guantanamo in Cuba because they are suspected of links to an al-Qaida cell, court sources said on Monday. Judge Baltazar Garzon of Spain's highest criminal tribunal has applied to the Spanish government to seek the extradition of Hamid Abd al-Rahman, alias Hmido â the only Spanish national held at Guantanamo â Lahcen Ikassrien, alias Chej Hasan, Khamiel Abd al-Latif al-Banna, alias Abu Anas, and Umar Deghayes. The nationalities of the last three were not given. Spanish authorities wish to question the four in connection with being members of a terrorist organisation.
Why, sure. We were just finishing up with them...
The accused are being detained at the Guantanamo base, but since there is evidence against them in Spain "the Spanish government is legally required to seek their extradition without delay," Garzon said in his submission. He said Spanish jurisdiction applied because the offences with which the four are charged were committed at least partly in Spain, inside an organisation that had recruited and indoctrinated them for work with al-Qaida. The al-Qaida cell run by Imad al-din Barakat, alias Abu Dahdah, a Spaniard of Syrian origin, was smashed by Spanish police in November 2001, two months after the 11 September attacks in the US.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Garzon tried to extradite Pinochet a few years ago, didn't he? I thought he was a leftist activist sort; this looks like it's changed, maybe it was 9/11 related?
#2
Handing over Gitmo detainees to close allies (UK, Australia, Spain) would be a good move and defuse some of the leftist's posturing. I would assume they have been sucked dry by now.
Any Polish Gitmo detainees would be a good test of my suprise meter :-)
Packages containing explosive materials were intercepted separately at European Union agencies in Frankfurt and The Hague on Monday, two days after a booby-trapped parcel burst into flames in the home of Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission. Workers in the mailroom of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt handed over to the local police a package postmarked Bologna, Italy, and addressed to the bankâs president, Jean-Claude Trichet, according to news agencies. Trichet reportedly was in the office but never handled the parcel. In The Hague, employees at Europol, the European Unionâs law enforcement coordination agency, evacuated their offices at 4 p.m. while Dutch police officers defused an explosive device sent to the director of the agency, JÃŒrgen Storbeck.
"Someone is killing the great bureaucrats of Europe"
ââIt was a real letter bomb,ââ said Astrid Rijsdorp, a member of the Dutch prosecutorâs office investigating the incident. ââIt was the size of a package with a book in it,ââ she said by telephone from the Netherlands. Rijsdorp and other officials said it was too early to draw any links between the parcels in Bologna, The Hague and Frankfurt. The package opened by Prodi on Saturday contained a novel, ââThe Pleasureââ by the late Italian fascist sympathizer, Gabriele DâAnnunzio.
D'Annunzio was a bit more complicated than simply being a "fascist sympathizer." He was a poet and a playwright and a war hero, and at various times he was all over the political spectrum. On a personal note, he was my grandaddy's commander in 1919, when he occupied Fiume. That was when he declared war on Italy.
Earlier this month, two small bombs exploded outside Prodiâs home in Bologna. A group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation took responsibility for the attack, saying its targets were Prodi and the European Union. In a letter to the Italian daily La Repubblica, the group said it had ââhit at the apparatus of control that is repressive and leading the democratic show that is the new European order.ââ
Sounds like the Sacco and Vanzetti Martyrs' Brigades...
The attack outside Prodiâs house was carried out ââso the pig knows that the maneuvers have only begun to get close to him and others like him,ââ the letter said.
Yeah. Yeah. We're all impressed...
A spokesman for the European Commission in Brussels, Stefaan de Rynck, said security officials at the EU headquarters held meetings on Monday to discuss ââappropriate measuresââ in light of the attacks on Prodi. De Rynck said by telephone that it was ââup to relevant authoritiesââ to establish whether a link existed between the explosive package sent to Prodi and the ones sent to the central bank and the police agency. Yet it was unclear Monday how much coordination was occurring between police agencies across Europe. Europol is charged with fighting terrorism, drug trafficking and other pan-European criminal activities in Europe, but a spokeswoman contacted late Monday said the agency was not investigating the incidents.
"Were we supposed to?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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The source seems a bit dubious, but just thought iâd throw this out there,
Western-made terrorists motivated by Marxist, anarchist and neo-Nazi ideology are forming alliances with jihadists and are planning copycat-style attacks and others utilizing funding from Islamists, according to intelligence sources, reports Joseph FarahâsG2 Bulletin. While old-line non-Muslim terrorists seem to have been in hibernation, since Sept. 11, 2001, they are waking up to the need to act and the availability of funds from al-Qaida and other similar jihadist groups.
Ahah. There's money in it again. When the Soviets went under, so did the financing for Red Brigades and such...
Such groups dominated the terror scene in the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the resistance to globalization, xenophobic tendencies and anti-Semitism have all combined to pour oil on old flames, encouraging new alliances as a result.
But nothing would happen if the money wasn't flowing again...
Experts attempting to draft the profile of non-Islamic terrorism in the 21st century are turning their interest toward militant Muslimsâ efforts to recruit terror contractors and to use the services of European terrorists and anarchists. Of course in the 60âs and 70âs, leftist terrorists had the support of the Eastern bloc available to them, from which they got money, weapons, training and safe houses.
Jihad organizers are acquainted with the sleeper terror groups of Europe and North America, and they know these groups are in dire need of funds. These "underground" groups need to travel and change their identities frequently. Sleeper terror groups are careful not to deal directly with money laundering, drug dealing or organized crime. This is due in part to ideological beliefs, but more because of the need to keep a low profile, away from the eyes of law enforcement agencies.
It's entirely to stay "white." If there was no danger of going on a list, they'd be in it with both feet.
Interrogation of non-Muslim terrorists apprehended during the last two years in Europe and Asia, reveals a desire to become copy-cats of the Islamic jihad and a growing need to be placed once again on the international scene.
It takes a certain amount of ego to aspire to being an International Man of Mystery™.
Intelligence agencies are beginning to dust files of old-style terror organizations, which some agencies now describe as the "Red Jihad." There does seem to be a lot of rhetorical support for Islamists from some neo-Nazis, anarchists and other dregs, mostly from a shared hatred of western civilisation.
Al-Qaida, Jemaah Islamiah and Wahabbi groups see nothing wrong in using non-Muslims to further their cause.
It's like using a wrench to tighten a nut... Or maybe that should be vice versa? Anyway, the tool can be disposed of later.
As the origin of most anti-terror activities focuses mainly on the Middle East and Asia, it is clear a western terrorist could be more successful in penetrating a number of security and defense circles. In cases of a precision attack against individuals or institutions, European or American Caucasian terrorists will be more successful in disappearing from the radar screen.
Over the years, scores of Europeans, Americans and Asians, have been trained in Arab terror bases in Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Iraq. A number of those were later involved in attacks on international air traveling, including airports.
I suspect there are many more, waiting for a sign that the Islamists are going to be the winning team...
Western intelligence services have identified a number of warning signs as they emerged following 9/11:
The arrest and trial in Greece of 15 Marxists of the N-17 terror group. Expectations that a wave of arrests finished the group were premature. Lately Greece is once again the stage for renewed, low-intensity terrorist and anarchist activities, aimed mainly against U.S. and British targets. This may escalate towards the 2004 Olympic Games.
The re-surfacing of German and other west European sympathizers of ultra-left terror groups and their cooperation with Marxists of a specific ethnic background, such as the Kurds.
Germany is also involved in combating hate terror, specifically by armed neo-Nazi groups and nationalists.
Activity of left-wing terrorism is reported increasing in Turkey. Such terrorists pose a danger not only to Turkey, but also on a regional scale. This includes cooperation with Marxist Kurds and Arabs.
Reports are filtering out of Egypt about left-wing terrorism. These days a member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialist Group is facing a Cairo military court as three of his comrades are tried in absence.
The arrest of members of the Spanish First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group, or GRAPO, who were involved in two bank and armored car robberies, is another indication this group is in need of funds as part of an attempt to re-surface or to lease their services to whoever will pay, as long as the target is in the western industrialized world.
An Oregon based on-line paper, the Portland Independent Media Center, carried a headline on Dec. 1 calling readers "to send support letters for comrades facing trial in Egypt." The drive is supported by the Socialist Arab Coalition in North America. On the day Saddam Hussein was captured the organization flashed an Iraqi Baath flag saying: "Resistance will continue until victory!"
What happened to "Victory or death"? I think those were the actual choices...
Articles and pictures do not disguise the potential of such support. Together with slogans such as: "Long live the resistance, no turning back," and "Death to the imperialists, death to the collaborators," the site includes pictures of heavily armed comrades, their faces covered with Arab kefiyah headdresses, and stories such as "the tactics of resistance."
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/30/2003 12:09:18 AM ||
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"Beatings will continue until morale improves!"
#2
The Al Qaeda/Neo Nazi connection is not so far-fetched. Andreas Huber (sinister Nazi + Al Qaeda financier) has many documented connections with Jihadist organizations. Check out trackingthethreat.com
Posted by: danny ||
12/30/2003 13:41 Comments ||
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A Canadian citizen born in a Gaza refugee camp will have to stay in Israel to face charges of plotting to kill Jewish people in North America, an Israeli military court ruled Tuesday. Jamal Akkal, 23, is accused of having received weapons training from the Palestinian group Hamas with the goal of killing American and Canadian Jews, as well as an Israeli citizen visiting the U.S. Akkalâs lawyer, Jamil Khatib, had argued that because the alleged plot involved a crime that would take place outside Israel, and be carried out by a non-Israeli, Israel had no authority to prosecute. Israel authorities countered that the alleged training took place in Gaza, an area under the jurisdiction of Israeli military officials, and had the potential to endanger the lives and security of Gaza residents. Akkal, who lived in Windsor, Ont., after coming to Canada in 1999, has insisted he is innocent of all charges against him. He said he returned to Gaza only to become engaged to a 17-year-old cousin who still lives in the Nusseirat refugee camp where Akkal was born. He remains in high-security custody near the city of Ashkelon. No trial date has been set, pending an appeal of Tuesdayâs decision.
#3
Inbreeding is the the only way the extremists can get women. Since they're part of the family, they have no say. And you aren't going to buy into slavery convince another family to allow a marriage for the sole fact they have nothing to offer.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 23:45 Comments ||
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The mayor of Bangladeshâs second largest city organized a rally Monday in support of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Nearly 10,000 people took part in the rally, waving placards and shouting slogans demanding Saddamâs immediate release and withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition troops from Iraq. "They didnât find any weapons of mass destruction and that proves that the war was unjustified," said Mayor Mohiuddin Chowdhury. "Now they plan to put Saddam on trial - the world wonât accept such a farce," he said to cheers from the crowd at Laldighi Maidan, a public meeting place in this port city, 140 miles southeast of the national capital, Dhaka.
#1
Must be the arsenic in the well water. No weapons of mass destruction? What about the mass graves of hundreds of thousands? What about Billions in the public purse squandered by Sammy? Or does Sammy get a pass. These guys live in mental poverty, not just physical poverty.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 19:49 Comments ||
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AP, they would do the same if Saddam Hussein was a yellow eight-legged hippopotamus from Neptune. Anything to get the anti-American placards out. Very pathological and quite worrisome.
#5
Nearly 10,000 people took part in the rally, waving placards and shouting slogans demanding Saddamâs immediate release and withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition troops from Iraq.
The placards might as well have read: "We are nothing but ignorant Third World idiots".
A Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad was re-arrested from his residence in Srinagar. Kashmir Media Service reports that Sheikh Nazir Ahmad had been released last year after suffering 12 years in jail on fake charges. Wonder if they have new fake charges or something real?
According to details Border Security Force personnel raided his residence in Batamaloo locality of Srinagar and took him to an unknown place. That sounds rather ominous. Guess Unknown Place is down the road from Undisclosed Location.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 9:45:14 AM ||
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Pakistani parliamentarians have passed a constitutional bill in the National Assembly that gives vast powers to President Pervez Musharraf, including authority to sack the elected government. Thereby making Perv chief of state as well as head of state...
Members belonging to the ruling coalition and a conservative Islamist alliance joined hands on Monday to endorse a set of constitutional amendments that also allow Musharraf to hold the post of army chief for one more year. The bill, approved by 248 of the 342 house members needs to be passed by Pakistan's upper house, or Senate, where the ruling party and the Islamist alliance enjoy the required strength. The opposition, comprising the parties of two former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, boycotted the voting. The government struck a deal with Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) earlier this month to put the amendments to a vote in parliament, ending a year-long political impasse. I'm actually surprised the MMA bought off on this. My guess is that they envision a day when the occupant of the presidency is one of them. Though judging by Fazl's waistline in the foto, they'd better buy a bigger chair. And Jamali's even larger...
The deal will be sealed during a vote of confidence on Musharraf, which would keep him in power until 2007. "It will help end uncertainty and bring stability in the country," said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad. "The vote of confidence on President Musharraf is expected on 1 or 2 January." And that's greased, so it's just a formality, I'd think...
The main opposition Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) described the passage of the bill as a dark day in the country's history. That's because it allows the president â whomever he is, post-Perv â to throw crooked administrations out without having to wait for a coup d'etat. It'll be a new experience for Pakland...
"We condemn the indecent haste with which a constitutional amendment of far-reaching implications for democracy and civil society was bulldozed in the National Assembly today," said Farhat Allah Babar, the PPP spokesman. Ohfergawdsake. They've been arguing about it for a year.
The amendment bill was passed by the assembly in three days. Babar said the military "forcibly rewrote the constitution" with the help of its allies in the Islamist parties. The opposition says the amendments put too much power in the hands of Musharraf and condoning him as president in a military uniform for another year was against the spirit of democracy. "Democracy" in Pakland is a strange and wonderful beast. It pretty obviously needs some tinkering. I hate to think what'll happen when they get around to trying to introduce the concept of individual liberty, but my great-grandchildren will be long dead by then, hopefully of old age.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Nice picture, if the politics thing doesn't work out, they could become department store Santas.
I never had any doubt that the MMA and army would be able to reach an agreement on the LFO, I was just suprised that it took so long.
Fazl somewhat reminds me of Vladimir Zhironovsky, he is a buffon he makes all sorts of extremist statements, and scares (or used to scare) the west, but he tends to get on with whatever the government of the day is. He actually has little religous authority, he is only where he is because his father was an important Mullah.
IMO, the whole point of this exercise has been to safeguard the corporatist state that the Mullahs, Military and industrialists have set up. The sole reason that Perv is willing to work with the MMA, but absolutely opposed to anything involving the Pakistan People's Party or the PML-N is because the latter are anti-army, while the former is a natural ally of the army.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/30/2003 0:28 Comments ||
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Oh, Gawd! I just had a vision of Fazl in a Benny Hill routine, as a male model...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 13:14 Comments ||
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Looks like they've put all of that weight they lost during the Ramadan fast right back on. I hate when that happens. You gain back twice as much.
#6
Shipman---Jonathan Winters is very much alive, these guys above are the living dead....heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 18:06 Comments ||
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I read the headline Deputies give Musharraf vast powers and had visions of Perv flying through the air, leaping tall buildings, stopping bullets, and using X-ray vision. Too bad, could come in handy the next time Al-Qaeda tries to whack him.
Posted by: A Jackson ||
12/30/2003 18:16 Comments ||
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Jeebus! Whatta picture that is.
"Lookit! When I rub his belly like this, his hind leg starts kicking!"
Posted by: Les Nessman ||
12/30/2003 20:28 Comments ||
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AP what fine news! Is he uh... out of the quiet place?
"I said that I was John Q from outer space. I left the mother ship and they got me. Then I spent time in the zoo........ I learned a few things in there. Had to cool it. I also learned that we must never land just one at a time."
Brought down the house!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 21:31 Comments ||
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The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) on Monday staged a demonstration at Daulat Gate Chowk to protest the arrests and investigation of nuclear scientists. Local ARD leader Habibullah Shakir said the alliance condemns the harassment of the scientists thorough foreign agencies and described such acts as hostile to the sovereignty and solidarity of Pakistan. The ARD, while chanting anti-government slogans, set a camp to mobilise public opinion against the government for letting foreigners investigate Pakistani scientists.
Selling state secrets isn't hostile to the sovereignty and solidarity of Pakistan?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Selling state secrets isn't hostile to the sovereignty and solidarity of Pakistan?
When you sell them to other holy men, it's a religious duty. Sez so in the book.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 8:43 Comments ||
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Iraqi Center for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS) recently published another survey of the Iraqi people. According to the survey, most Iraqis are glad that Saddam was captured, agree that he was a criminal, and think that he should be tried and executed for his crimes. Iraqis worry about security and think that Saddamâs capture will improve the security situation.
On all issues surveyed, such as the Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait, mass graves, and so on, Iraqis think that these actions by Saddam were criminal and not justified. The only exception is the 1991 unprovoked Iraqi attack on Israel. 82% of Iraqis think that the attack was justified.
This little piece of information, in my view, reflects the Iraqâs Khilafi culture. Iraqis see Saddam as criminal for attacking other Arabs or Muslims, who are seen as at least potential Khilafi. But his attacks on Free Worlders are seen as fully justified.
Today, the stated goal of the American government is to build a democratic Iraq. But we must not confuse democracy with freedom. Freedom is a praiseworthy goal. Democracy is a tool that is often used to achieve this goal, but, in my opinion, is not a goal in and of itself. To achieve freedom, in addition to democracy, the people of a country must respect the basic rights of all human beings. Ultimately, a people with a slave mentality cannot be free. If Iraqis do not change their attitudes, and I hope they do, Iraq will continue being another third world backwater, even if it is nominally a democracy.
Posted by: Alex ||
12/30/2003 7:29:00 PM ||
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So, tell me again why "liberating" Iraq was a good thing? So these Joooo-haters can be free? Why should I care about them?
Posted by: Seymour Paine ||
12/30/2003 19:41 Comments ||
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Mainly because people don't change their ideas overnight. They've been fed that sort of crap for 40 years. If we're lucky, it won't take 40 years to overcome it.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 20:18 Comments ||
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If we're lucky, it won't take 40 years to overcome it.
I wouldn't count on that kind of luck. Iraq is surrounded on its borders and beyond by way too many Jew-haters.
#5
And this means....what? How are these two nations going to exorcise the Jew-hating tendencies of the Iraqis when numerous others will surely try keeping them alive?
An unmanned, remotely control observation airplane, known as a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), was on patrol in Samarra at approximately 12:30 a.m. Dec. 28 when the operator of the aircraft noticed something odd happening at a gas station. A tanker truck was parked at the station with hoses running from the tanker to the stationâs fuel storage cells. The operator of the UAV knew the station was closed so he monitored the truck from the air and notified his supervisor, who then alerted a 4th Infantry Division unit assigned to the area in Samarra. This is SO cool.
A 3rd Brigade Combat Team reconnaissance team responded and established a roadblock and stopped the fleeing truck. Two people in the truck were captured without incident and the truck, now full of gasoline, was confiscated.
Hope it was painful!
The chief suspect in the striking of a DHL air carrier here last month died in US custody after soldiers wounded him in a firefight, US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters. "Ziad Sahid, a former director of military intelligence ... suspected of responsibility for attacks on coalition forces to include the downing of the DHL jetliner, died in a coalition medical facility of wounds received during a targeted raid on his complex," Kimmitt said. Sahid died Saturday, he said. But it was not clear when troops raided his house in the course of its week-old Operation Iron Grip, a mission combining heavy weapons fire on suspected rebel positions and sweeps for top suspects around Baghdad. More names from Sammyâs Suitcase oâSecrets...
#3
Yeah, probably just dead... but kinda vague about some stuff, reminds me of the dead General who was last seen leading the life of Riley outside Boise.
#5
a situation comedy where new rich Jihadi meets old money Mafia in suburban Peoria is a natural.
"Witness Potection", coming this summer on Fox. Watch the zany antics of a young federal agent (Jenny McCarthy) as she jiggles juggles the many different ex-thugs being hidden in the town she grew up in.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 14:38 Comments ||
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I'm worried Steve....
It's sounds like an early pick up to me.
#8
Any word on whether they got the French film crew accompanying him?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/30/2003 15:33 Comments ||
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Robert Crawford
"Paris Match" is people and sensationalistic press not a loony leftist or ideological paper. If they can get an interview with Georges W Bush they will gladly publish it In fact it is the only French paper I can think who would do that.
During the last 24 hours, the 82nd Airborne Division and subordinate elements conducted 193 patrols, 33 of which were joint patrols with Iraqis, and carried out two offensive operations. These operations resulted in the capture of four enemy personnel. Entry was denied to 170 personnel at the border crossing in Trebil â all due to insufficient documentation. No one was turned away at Tanif, Husaybah, or Ar Ar.
Last night, 3rd Brigade paratroopers were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and small arms fire by 10 enemy personnel southeast of Taqqaddum Airfield, near Habbaniyah. The paratroopers were moving toward three stationary, suspicious vehicles when the enemy initiated fire. The paratroopers immediately returned fire with small arms, but the enemy broke contact. The response team discovered four RPGs, three 120-millimeter mortar rounds, a car battery and 500-feet of wire when they searched the area.
This afternoon, soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment discovered a cache north of Ar Ramadi. The cache consisted of improvised explosive device (IED) making materials and included 46 mortar charges, 22 blasting caps, IED metal cases, explosive primers, three RPG launchers, three RPGs, and two AK-47s.
Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) conducted cordon-and-search operations in northern Iraq Dec. 29, capturing two people wanted on suspicion of anti-Coalition activities and confiscating numerous weapons.
During three such missions in and around the city of Al Qayyarah, the divisionâs 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) searched for people suspected of carjacking and rocket attacks. The brigade found two AK-47 rifles, 43 magazines, more than 1,000 rounds of 7.62-millimeter ammunition, and one 16-round linked belt for a machine gun. Later that day, one of the carjacking suspects turned himself in to Iraqi police after learning his house had been searched.
In Mosul, the 2nd BCT searched a house, detained an individual and confiscated weapons and U.S. property. A patrol conducted the search after spotting empty U.S. Mail packages in the vicinity of the manâs house; the unit found High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle parts, two AK-47 rifles, and hundreds of pounds of artillery propellant powder.
Also that day, 2nd Brigade detained an individual suspected of transporting weapons for use against Coalition Forces when he turned himself in at a U.S. compound.
Task Force Ironhorse Second Infantryâs Arrowhead Brigade soldiers discovered a significant weapons cache southeast of Samarra in the morning of Dec. 29. Some of the items located were found in a false wall.
The cache consisted of 43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 79 rocket-propelled grenades, 19 AK-47 assault rifles, one machine gun, one 40mm grenade launcher, six 60mm mortar tubes with base plates, 7,920 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, more than 160 mortar rounds, 34 100mm BMP rounds, six rifle grenades, 40 82mm fuses, two 40mm grenades, 25 fragmentary grenades, five pounds of artillery propellant, 16 mortar primers, a significant amount of C4 and TNT, one assembled improvised explosive device and materials to make additional devices.
Al Qaeda literature and videotapes were also found as well as a British made ceramic body armor plate with a bullet hole. This is an indication that the enemy faction was testing the personal protection plateâs ability to withstand expended anti-personnel ammunition. This is not a good thing.
#1
"This is an indication that the enemy faction was testing the personal protection plateâs ability to withstand expended anti-personnel ammunition."
Anybody got a clue what this sentence really means? Particularly the "expended" part? Anti-personnel ammo is the so-called ball ammo, which is unlikely to make it through the composite body armor available. There are a variety of armor piercing (AP) rounds that will penetrate ceramic plate, but it usually takes a .50 cal class round to reliably make it through the combination kevlar/ceramic/steel body armor. Are the brits just using kevlar/ceramic? Any insights?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/30/2003 14:22 Comments ||
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EXPENDED in mil-speak means used, fired. I'm thinking the writer was trying to say; "the bad guys were testing the flak vest's ability to take hits." He's been writing too many press releases.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 16:29 Comments ||
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#4
I know expended means used/fired. What I was thinking about was if they were playing around with expended DU rounds - just the cores - and trying to find a way to use them.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/30/2003 18:05 Comments ||
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Sure he does. As Fred said, weâll try him fair, and then hang him fair.
Even Saddam Hussein has legal options. The deposed Iraqi leader could harken back to the trials of Nazi leaders and Japanese commanders after World War II to fight expected charges of genocide and war crimes, claiming he never personally killed anyone or that he had no control over atrocities committed in his name, U.S. defense lawyers and scholars say. The Nazis got executed, most of âem. Sammie might want to reconsider a Nuremburg style trial.
Saddam also might look to the present, and adopt the tactics of deposed Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. On trial now before a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Milosevic has essentially thumbed his nose at the prosecutors and judges and uses the sessions to make windy speeches. After which heâll be convicted and sent to a French spa.
Any trial for Saddam may be a long time off, and it is not clear where or how he will be called to answer for alleged crimes dating back decades. But when the expected trial comes, Saddam can choose from a few basic legal strategies. All of which will be dismissed pretty quickly if heâs tried in an Iraqi court.
The first step for Saddamâs defense team will be a challenge to the authority of whatever body puts him on trial. That attack will be easier to make if Americans are involved in organizing or underwriting the trial, but a smart defense lawyer would use the same tactic to challenge even a trial conducted wholly by Iraqis, lawyers say. "Denied, Mr. Clark. Next!"
Another strategy would be for Saddam to plead insanity or infirmity to try to head off a trial altogether, although lawyers say that seems unlikely. His teeth seemed to be pretty healthy on that video.
Assuming there is a trial, Saddam could claim he committed no crimes, or that his actions were justified to put down insurrection or defend his country. Or, as in the trials arising from World War II, Saddam could try to shift the blame or turn the tables on his accusers. In Saddamâs case, he could claim Western countries including the United States willingly sold him weaponry and chemicals, and turned a blind eye to the consequences. We sold him about 0.4% of what he bought. USSR/Russia sold him about 57%. He doesnât want to go there.
Saddam might head off some charges, or at least make pursuing them uncomfortable, by pointing fingers at U.S. government figures or companies that had dealings with Iraq, said Douglass Cassel, director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law. ``His lawyer could say, âWe were the U.S. ally against Iran, and Secretary Rumsfeld himself came here to make friends,âââ Cassel said, referring to meetings in 1983 and 1984 between then-White House Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld and Iraqi officials. ``âWeâre going to have to subpoena Rumsfeld.âââ Go ahead. Iâd love to see Rummy gouge his eyeballs out right there.
Saddam also could challenge the evidence against him, arguing that the paper trail showing his culpability is weak and witnesses unreliable, lawyers said. He could exploit any forensic lapses in the documentation of mass graves or other evidence of murder. Other than the 300,000 or so skeletal remains, they mean.
``Then, there is everything from denial that these things happened to âI didnât know my underlings were performing these atrocities,âââ said Donna E. Arzt, a Syracuse University law professor who assisted the prosecutor in a special war crimes court in Sierra Leone. Some top Japanese military leaders pleaded ignorance after World War II. Notably, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, charged with wartime crimes in the Philippines, testified that he never ordered atrocities and that if crimes occurred he was powerless to stop them. He still was convicted and sentenced to death. Ah, somebody noticed!
``One very reasonable possibility for Saddam is the I-wasnât-really-in-charge defense,ââ said Paul Rosenzweig, a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has written about past war crimes trials. ``That was rejected on both factual and philosophical levels,ââ in Yamashitaâs case, and Saddam would probably have no luck with it either, Rosenzweig said. Still, Saddam has nothing to lose by putting on a vigorous defense. Heâs not likely to win his freedom, but he could save his life. Only if Euros try him. If the US or Iraq tries him heâs going to swing from a rope.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 3:01:09 AM ||
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I predict that Saddam will be tried in Iraq, by Iraqis, and will be a rather brief and simple affair compared to our own elaborate, fussy rituals.
His crimes against the Iraqi people will be enumerated; he will be confronted by surviving victims and relatives of those he killed, and offered a chance to apologize for his wrongdoing; then he will be taken out and shot.
Simple, straightforward, effective, and in his particular case, not the least bit unjust.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/30/2003 6:01 Comments ||
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Douglass Cassel, director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law..
Uh, Dougie? Any prior comments on the lack of human rights shown by Sammy, Uday, Qusay, and their merry band of thugs? Didn't think so....so STFU
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2003 11:23 Comments ||
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#4
In Saddamâs case, he could claim Western countries including the United States willingly sold him weaponry and chemicals, and turned a blind eye to the consequences.
Uhhhh, yeah. Civilian-use helicopters appropriated for military use really gives the U.S a black eye? I don't think so.
#5
I like the idea of hanging him from those crossed swords on the military parade grounds. Can you picture his lifeless body way up there? Let the Iraqis take pot shots at his body.
Japan is ready to write off âthe vast majorityâ of its Iraqi debt if other creditors do the same, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told special US envoy James Baker at a meeting on Monday. A foreign ministry statement released after the hour-long meeting between the two men said Tokyo was prepared to forgive the bulk of debts owed to it by the Iraqi government provided other Paris Club creditor nations followed suit. The Iraqi government owes Tokyo around seven billion dollars, the most out of 19 members of the Paris Club, with the principal accounting for 4.1 billion dollars of it. Details about the scale of the debt reduction will be decided within the Paris Club framework, a diplomat told a news briefing later.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Boy, ol' Jimmie's really bringin' home the bacon. Now back to Europe for some more semi-genteel arm-twisting?
#2
Nah, back to Kuwait and Saudi-controlled Arabia -- big chunk of debt there. We need to remind the Kuwaitis about their gratitude to us, and gently suggest to Crown Prince Abdullah that the eastern province would be especially easy to break off with a small, elite military force something foreign to the Saudis.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 2:22 Comments ||
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Iraqi police arrested four foreigners in Kirkuk suspected of having links to a radical Islamist group and of planning attacks, a police general said. âAccording to preliminary information these people are members of the radical Islamist group Ansar-al-Islam who have been wanted for the past three months in connection with a planned attack against the governorâs office,â said the general. âThe suspects were in possession of false identity cards, passports and foreign currency.â
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Five suspects were being held in connection with deadly attacks in Karbala, said Major Dezso Kiss, spokesman for the coalitionâs multinational forces. âWe have captured five people and the investigation is ongoing,â he said. âWe are not in a position to tell you their nationalities.â
I'll bet they're not Iraqis, though...
The suspects were captured on Saturday after the attacks when troops with the division conducted house searches, patrols and set up mobile checkpoints.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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âWe have captured five people and the investigation is ongoing,â he said. âWe are not in a position to tell you their nationalities.â
Kill them, drop their dead bodies in the street and leave them to decompose, then put up a big sign above them that says "THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU COMMIT TERRORIST ACTS".
Premier Wen Jiabao said on Monday that China âwill considerâ reducing debts owed to it by Iraq, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Wen made the comment after meeting with US envoy James A. Baker, Xinhua said. Wen said âChina will consider reducing the debts owned to it by Iraq out of humanitarian concern,â Xinhua said. It paraphrased the premier as saying Beijing âfully understands the difficulties of reconstruction in Iraq and the situation of the Iraqi people.â The report gave no indication by how much China might reduce Iraqâs debts. China says the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein owed it some US$1.1 billion in 1990 before the first Gulf War, but the size of the current figure was not clear. Baker, who arrived Monday from Tokyo, described his talks with Wen and Chinese President Hu Jintao as âvery goodâ but didnât immediately give any details. Iraq owes about US$40 billion, including interest, to members of the Paris Club.
Baker is tearing them up. The diplomatic front is looking better than the military front at the moment, and the military front isn't looking bad.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Wouldn't we all just love to have a peek into Baker's briefcase?
#3
Thousands of captured documents....saddam captured and singing....countrys all over the place forgiving Iraqi debt....(while scracthing chin)HMmm,I wonder...?
#4
Raptor: I do believe you and I are wondering the same thing.
PBMcL: yes, I'd love to peek into that briefcase.
I have a sneaky suspicion that Baker is having a wonderful time on this trip.
Posted by: Kathy K ||
12/30/2003 12:47 Comments ||
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#5
Actually considering the refrigeration gear necessary to chill 24 sets of parts (the French set is carried in a insulated wallet) it's amazing he can carry it himself.
A former Khmer Rouge leader expected to face a U.N. tribunal acknowledged Tuesday there is ``no more doubt leftââ that his regime committed genocide, the first admission of the communist groupâs collective guilt. A little late for the victims, though. Khieu Samphanâs surprising statement in an interview with The Associated Press is a major step in the long overdue effort to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the ultra-leftist groupâs 1975-79 rule. Many of the victims were executed; the rest died of starvation, disease and overwork in the Khmer Rougeâs attempt to create an agrarian utopia. Now, with an agreement on a tribunal earlier this month between U.N. and Cambodian officials, ex-Khmer Rouge leaders should soon face charges for the first time. What a rush to judgment by an international tribunal!
A former head of state and one of the few top Khmer Rouge leaders still alive, Khieu Samphan, 72, is certain to be indicted. Speaking by telephone from his home, he apparently hoped to begin giving his version of Cambodiaâs bloody history before his likely prosecution for genocide and crimes against humanity. He insisted he never ordered any killings - and claimed he only learned from a documentary two months ago about the extent of the Khmer Rougeâs crimes. "I knew nothing! Nothing!"
``Everything has to go the trialâs way now, and thereâs no other way,ââ he said. ``I have to prepare myself not to let the time pass away. But I also want the public to understand about me, too. I was not involved in any killings.ââ No, no! Certainly not!"
Until Tuesday, none of the Khmer Rougeâs top leaders had publicly accepted that the government committed genocide. But Khieu Samphan said he realized he could no longer ignore the Khmer Rougeâs atrocities after he saw a documentary about the notorious S-21 prison, presented to him by a Cambodian-French filmmaker, Rithy Pan. ``When I saw the film, it was hard for me to deny (the killings). Thereâs no more doubt left,ââ said Khieu Samphan, who lives in Pailin, 175 miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh. Was it the field of skulls that gave it away?
``I was surprised, because I never thought it (the regime) went to that extent in its policies. S-21 was in the middle of Phnom Penh. It was clearly a state institution. It was part of the regime.ââ "We committed all sorts of other atrocities, but never anything like that!"
As many as 16,000 people are believed to have passed through the gates of the infamous prison but only 14 are thought to have survived. The prison is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. None of the Khmer Rougeâs surviving leadership has faced justice. Many are infirm but - like Khieu Samphan - live and move freely in the country. Pol Pot, the regimeâs supremo, died in 1998. Only about 25 years too late.
After five years of negotiations, U.N. and Cambodian officials tentatively agreed this month on steps to set up the tribunal. But the courtâs creation has been delayed by a lack of funds and by political instability after Cambodiaâs inconclusive general elections left three parties jostling to create a coalition. These are the guys who want to try Saddam, just as soon as theyâre done in Cambodia, Rawanda and Bosnia.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan plans to launch an appeal in early February for contributions toward the tribunalâs $40 million operating budget. Sok An, the Cambodian governmentâs chief negotiator for setting up the court, has said its formalization will be ``addressed immediatelyââ once a new legislature is formed. The other senior leader expected to face trial is Nuon Chea, the former Khmer Rougeâs ideologue, who also lives in Pailin. He and Khieu Samphan surrendered to the government in December 1998, just a few months before the capture of Ta Mok, the former Khmer Rouge army chief, which capped the final collapse of the movement. Ta Mok and Kaing Khek Iev, the S-21 prisonâs chief, are now in prison. But not in S-21. Wotta shame.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 4:49:12 PM ||
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For information concerning the S-21 prison (it once was a high school) see this site on the Tuol Sleng Museum. Very Gruesome and not for the faint of heart. I wonder of any of this will be shown as evidence....
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 20:39 Comments ||
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U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan plans to launch an appeal in early February for contributions toward the tribunalâs $40 million operating budget.
Well what a surprise! Here's a buck, Kofi. Go buy a bullet and put it in the back of the fucker's head.
Police in a southern Thai town on Tuesday discovered and defused a powerful bomb hidden in a motorcycle parked in a police yard. The bomb made up of five steel pipes was packed with eight sticks of dynamite and military plastic explosive C-4, said police Colonel Pote Suyasuwan. That would have gotten their attention.
It was placed under the passenger seat of a motorcycle parked among dozens of other vehicles at the main police station of Pattani town, a predominantly Muslim area about 1 050km south of Bangkok. Shouldnât that read "the holy city of Pattani" in "occupied Thailand"?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 9:58:52 AM ||
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Philippine authorities said Tuesday they were set to deport two American brothers arrested for suspected links to terrorism and for allegedly meeting charity groups believed to be al-Qaida fronts in the country. One of the men, Michael Ray Stubbs, worked as a heating and air conditioning technician at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory â a major nuclear weapons lab outside San Francisco â for about 10 years ending in 2000. Officials said the FBI was looking into whether he had access to sensitive information.
I think I'll go lie down. But first I'll cut my wrists...
Michael Ray Stubbs, 55, and his brother James, 56, a convert to Islam, were arrested on immigration violation charges Dec. 13 in the town of Tanza in Cavite province, 21 miles southwest of Manila, the Bureau of Immigration said. The brothers denied any wrongdoing when they appeared at a news conference in handcuffs. Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo told reporters Tuesday that James Stubbs met with members of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group, as well as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front separatist movement, two groups loosely linked by Philippine officials to al-Qaida. "These are all fabricated lies," James Stubbs shouted as Domingo addressed the news conference.
"Lies! All lies! Fabricated lies!"
An irritated Domingo responded: "This is the Philippine government. Theyâre violating immigration laws and theyâre being charged and they are going through immigration proceedings." The brothers, born in Missouri, would be deported to the United States as "undesirable aliens ... based on intelligence reports that they were seen meeting with known leaders of various terrorist cells in the country with links to al-Qaida," the immigration bureau said. Domingo said they were under surveillance before their arrest.
"An' the pictures are fabricated, too!"
The two had tourist visas but also carried documents indicating they were soliciting funds for the construction of Muslim schools and mosques, Domingo said. She said there was no evidence linking the two to any past or planned terrorist plots, but said James Stubbs allegedly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government in statements to local authorities. James Stubbs said he has a Filipino wife and was in the Philippines because she was pregnant.
"Yeah. I wuz tryin' to figger out how she got that way."
A naval intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. officials were concerned that Michael Ray Stubbs may have passed sensitive information from Livermore to his brother. Susan Houghton, a spokeswoman for the Livermore lab, confirmed that Michael Ray Stubbs used to work there for about 10 years until 2000. "We are aware of what the Philippines officials did," she said. "We have been working closely with the FBI on this issue since he was arrested in the Philippines a few weeks ago." She said Stubbsâ clearance was terminated after he left on medical leave in March 2000. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Karen Kelley said she understood the brothers retained legal council to address the charges.
Or "counsel." Whatever.
According to Philippine military intelligence reports, James Stubbs left his job as a teacher in California to study Arabic in Sudan. He met in May with several charity groups suspected of being al-Qaida fronts and founded by Mahmoud Afif Abdeljalil â believed to be a close associate of Osama bin Ladenâs brother-in-law. Abdeljalil was arrested in September in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga on charges of having an expired visa. After he was beaten up interrogated, he was ordered deported.
"Get the hell out and don't come back!"
The charities were not immediately identified, but the immigration bureau said they were used to channel funds to al-Qaida cells in the Philippines.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/30/2003 9:38:46 AM ||
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Bet its unwelcome news in Berkeley that Livermore Labs is a nuclear weapons lab. I thought the city is a "nuclear-free zone".
Posted by: Chris Smith ||
12/30/2003 13:05 Comments ||
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Bet its unwelcome news in Berkeley that Livermore Labs is a nuclear weapons lab.
Actually, UC runs the place in partnership with the DOE. Everybody in Berkeley probably knows this.
I thought the city is a "nuclear-free zone".
LLNL (as it's called on the signs around the place) is in Livermore, which is about a little more than 30 minutes away from Berkeley.
A grenade exploded at a public market in the southern Philippines, injuring one person, a military spokesman said on Tuesday. The blast damaged several wooden stalls selling rice at the public market in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, on Monday afternoon. Colonel Fredesvindo Covarrubias said authorities were still investigating the attack, which occured despite tightened security for the Christmas holidays. âWe still donât know who was behind the explosion,â he said, adding that no individual or group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Philippine military has been on alert during the holidays to prevent terrorist attacks. Jolo is a stronghold of the Al Qaeda-linked Moslem Abu Sayyaf rebel group, which is blamed for numerous bombings, killings and kidnappings. Earlier in the month, a top leader of the rebel group was captured when he was seriously wounded on both legs during a clash with government soldiers on Jolo. Philippine security forces have been on red alert against possible retaliatory attacks for the capture of Abu Sayyaf leader Ghalib Andang, alias StumpyCommander Robot. Intelligence reports have also warned that some 31 operatives of the Jakarta-based terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, were training in the country and could launch test missions soon.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:57:11 AM ||
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Two Americans will be deported from the Philippines after being arrested on suspicion of involvement with groups with alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network. Brothers Jamil Daud Mujahid, 56 and Michael Ray Stubbs, 55, were presented to the media at the Philippine Navy headquarters where Mujahid angrily rejected the allegations of links with local allies of al-Qaeda.
Then why'd you name yourself "Mujahid"? It's kind of a "kick me here" name if you're not a wannabe krazed killer...
"Itâs not true. Weâre Americans. I have a wife, I have a kid. These are all fabricated lies.
"The wife and kid are fabricated, too!"
"I donât know any Muslims in the Philippines," Mujahid said. Mujahid, formerly known as James Stubbs, acknowledged that he was a Muslim convert but insisted his brother was a Christian.
"Well, he used to be a Christian, anyway. But he's an Episcopalian, so now he might be a homosexual. I haven't checked."
The two were whisked out of the navy headquarters room before they could say more.
"They can say no more!"
"Mmmph!"
The two were detained in Tanza town, south of Manila, on December 13 following intelligence reports that they had met with "known leaders of various terrorist cells in the country with links to al-Qaeda," the immigration bureau said. Immigration chief Andrea Domingo said that the two had shown support for "terrorist activities" by meeting with members of the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping group and the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Maybe they just came to attend one of the camps?
To work on their macrame skills, and make a few potholders...
However she declined to elaborate on the contacts with these two groups, saying this might jeopardize the continuing operations against suspected terror groups.
"I can say no more, either."
Philippine Marine commander, Major General Manuel Teodosio said that Navy intelligence had monitored communications between the two and the Abu Sayyaf and MILF. The two Americans had been in and out of the country since February 2002 and Mujahid had married a local woman, the navy said. Domingo said it was up to the US government to take any action against the brothers after they are deported. She did not say when they would leave the country. US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli confirmed in Washington that the two had been arrested, saying they were "currently being detained on immigration violations."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:55:09 AM ||
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Additional: One of the men, Michael Ray Stubbs, worked as a heating and air conditioning technician at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory â a major nuclear weapons lab outside San Francisco â for about 10 years ending in 2000. Officials said the FBI was looking into whether he had access to sensitive information.
If Lawrence Livermore has the same security procedures as Los Alamos, I wouldn't be surprised if they found a nuke in his toolbox.
The two had tourist visas but also carried documents indicating they were soliciting funds for the construction of Muslim schools and mosques, Domingo said. She said there was no evidence linking the two to any past or planned terrorist plots, but said James Stubbs allegedly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government in statements to local authorities.
So he's a Howard Dean supporter?
James Stubbs said he has a Filipino wife and was in the Philippines because she was pregnant.
Visiting the folks to share the happy news or because of the good pre-natal care?
A naval intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. officials were concerned that Michael Ray Stubbs may have passed sensitive information from Livermore to his brother. Susan Houghton, a spokeswoman for the Livermore lab, confirmed that Michael Ray Stubbs used to work there for about 10 years until 2000.
"We are aware of what the Philippines officials did," she said. "We have been working closely with the FBI on this issue since he was arrested in the Philippines a few weeks ago." She said Stubbs' clearance was terminated after he left on medical leave in March 2000.
Ok, Livermore is in full CYA mode.
The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the allegations. Spokeswoman Karen Kelley said she understood the brothers retained legal council to address the charges. According to Philippine military intelligence reports, James Stubbs left his job as a teacher in California to study Arabic in Sudan.
Sudan being well known for its Arabic studies program.
He met in May with several charity groups suspected of being al-Qaida fronts and founded by Mahmoud Afif Abdeljalil â believed to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. The charities were not immediately identified, but the immigration bureau said they were used to channel funds to al-Qaida cells in the Philippines.
Sounds like they have some explaining to do.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 10:32 Comments ||
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deport em to Bagram. We don't want this trash back
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2003 10:52 Comments ||
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I expect they were trying to get decent quality Buri furniture at a rock bottom price.... or perhaps it was the lure of the monkey-pod accessories. I doubt we'll ever know.
#4
Here's a few more tidbits from the Indystar: The men were reared in Indianapolis, where they attended high school before moving to California in the early 1980s, said their sister, Pamela Thornton, who lives in Indianapolis. Thornton said her brother James has radical political ideas, but neither of the brothers is a terrorist.
"He's a good boy, just a little wild."
They were in the Philippines visiting their wives, who are Filipino, she said.
My wife likes me to live in the same country that she does, she's old-fashioned about things like that.
A convert to Islam, James Stubbs, 56, was previously questioned by the FBI in the 1960s, when he was a Black Panther, Thornton said.
Now what was that story about how old terrorists are new again?
Thornton said her brother Michael, 55, worked as a heating and air conditioning technician at a major nuclear weapons lab near San Francisco.
FBI officials are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information.
Bet he could walk into any lab with a step ladder and a toolbox and nobody would even see him. Maintenance troops blend into the woodwork.
Thornton said she also worked at the lab.
Isn't that "interesting"? Expect a visit from the men in black.
She said her brother is aware that the activity at the lab is top secret and would not divulge information if he had any.
Now where have I heard that one before?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 15:22 Comments ||
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During the Clinton Administration, national energy policy took a backseat to political correctness. Clintonâs first DOE Secretary, Hazel OâLeary, was certainly no shining light for the Clinton Legacy. One of her first moves was to question why some DOE security badges were blue, whereas others were brown. Security men tried to explain the difference between high-level clearances that allowed scientistsâ access to top-secret facilities, versus low-level staffers or custodians whose presence represented a threat to national security. She would have none of it. According to my sources, Ms. OâLeary issued orders to make all building passes the same color so that some employees would not feel badly about their âlesserâ status.
Note that the end of Stubbs' employment roughly coincided with the end of the Clinton administration.
For more on Clinton's energy policy, see this link.
Christopher Suazo was in the jungle, wearing torn jogging pants and cradling an M-1 rifle. At 18, he had managed only three years of schooling when he joined the Communist Party three months ago. Like many others, Suazo was motivated by a perceived injustice. His father and uncle, both farmers, were killed in March — gunned down, he said, by the hired hands of a town mayor whom the military protects. Since September, Suazo has been moving around in the mountains here on the southern island of Mindanao, alert for enemies who lurk in the jungles below, but happy with his decision to join. "I can only be safe here with the New Peopleâs Army," he said.
The Communist rebellion in the Philippines began 35 years ago. It foundered but has regained strength and, according to military estimates, now counts 10,000 fighters in its armed wing, the New Peopleâs Army. The Communists "are our utmost security concern at present," even though they have been overshadowed by Muslim insurgents, said Col. Daniel Lucero, a military spokesman. "We consider them a much bigger threat than the Abu Sayyaf, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or the Jemaah Islamiyah," he said.
In their foggy camp high in the mountains of Compostela Valley Province, the Communists go about their business: training cadres in military tactics and martial arts, organizing the residents below and studying what they call the "evils of U.S. imperialism."
"The U.S. is a brutal enemy," a guerrilla leader known as Richard told a dozen rebels during a class about the invasion of Iraq. "It will not hesitate to use or kill its own people."
Rubi del Mundo, a guerrilla spokeswoman, said: "U.S. interventionism is even more blatant nowadays. It used to just influence the passing of Philippine laws to benefit the business interests of American companies here. Now the U.S. is directly involved in counterrevolutionary activities" in the Philippines.
The number of rebels peaked at more than 25,000 in the 1980s, according to military estimates, but government spies began to penetrate the ranks of the New Peopleâs Army. Party officials purged the movement, killing hundreds of suspected spies.
"The NPA is a brutal enemy," a blogger known as Fred told a dozen readers during a discussion about the Philippines. "It will not hesitate to use or kill its own people."
The purges nearly destroyed the movement, but it began to creep back once the Communists sent guerrillas in the cities back to the countryside. In many remote parts of the country, the party functions as the government, providing services and a basic livelihood. Hardly a week goes by without two or three gun battles, and the military has responded with tough measures that have been roundly criticized. Philippine analysts say it would be wrong to assume that Communist ideology is the main force driving the movement.
Of course it's not. Guns and ammunition are the main force driving the movement.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:52:18 AM ||
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Paybackâs a bitch Deptartment #1:
December 30, 2003
FOLLOWING THE ATTACK ON EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER AHMAD MAHER IN AL-AQSA MOSQUE IN JERUSALEM, PALESTINIANS ARRIVING AT CAIRO AIRPORT ARE RECEIVING HARSH TREATMENT OR BEING DENIED ENTRY TO EGYPT ALTOGETHER. (AL-QUDS AL-ARABI, LONDON, 12/30/03)
Whereâs the money?:
December 30, 2003
ISLAMIST SOURCES IN LONDON SAY EGYPTIAN ISLAMIST LEADER ABDALLAH MUHAMMAD RAJAB ABD AL-RAHMAN, AKA AHMAD HASSAN ABU AL-KHIR, WHO IS IN CHARGE OF AL-QAâIDA FINANCES AND THE RIGHT HAND MAN OF AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI, HAS BEEN ARRESTED. ABU AL-KHIR WAS PREVIOUSLY SENTENCED TO DEATH IN ABSENTIA IN EGYPT. (AL-SHARQ AL-AWSAT, LONDON, 12/29/03)
#3
ABDALLAH MUHAMMAD RAJAB ABD AL-RAHMAN, AKA AHMAD HASSAN ABU AL-KHIR, WHO IS IN CHARGE OF AL-QAâIDA FINANCES AND THE RIGHT HAND MAN OF AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI, HAS BEEN ARRESTED.
One gallon of giggle juice, please!
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 15:23 Comments ||
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#4
Let Egypt have Gaza back, and then they can truly mess with the Pals, at least some of them. It would send a strong message to the West Bank since the Jordanian monarchy isn't exactly fond of Arafat either.
Osama bin Ladenâs al Qaeda network is deeply "involved" in international drug trafficking and is using the money to buy arms, and possibly radioactive material for use in a "dirty" nuclear bomb, according to senior US officials. "Bin Laden does not mind trafficking in drugs, even though it is against the teaching of Islam, because it is being used to kill Westerners," said a Defence official. "He has allies and associates who are not members per se but who move products for him and take drugs and buy arms and give the arms to al Qaeda," the official said. Al Qaedaâs drug operation came to the surface earlier this year when three boats operated by al Qaeda linked persons and carrying two tons of hashish, 85 pounds of heroin and 150 pounds of methamphetamines were seized, the officials were quoted as saying by âThe Washington Timesâ. Though the intelligence community still does not have a firm grasp on the scope of al Qaedaâs drug operations and how much money it raises, estimates are in the millions of dollars. Bin Laden, officials said, reaps the profits in two ways. His allies regulate smuggling routes out of Afghanistan into Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and other countries, essentially placing a tax on each shipment to let it pass. Or, alternatively, al Qaeda takes the drugs as payment and uses them to buy arms. The officials said that there are also unconfirmed intelligence reports that al Qaeda has bought radioactive material for use in a "dirty bomb"--a conventional bomb packed with radioactive material.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/30/2003 9:47:39 AM ||
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#1
One might think that legalizing drugs would shut off this source of financing. However, in light of today's FDA ruling, al Qaeda could simply finance their terror operations by shifting to ephedra.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
12/30/2003 13:07 Comments ||
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II. Countdown to an Imminent Attack
Following the many reports in the American media about Operation Cave of Darkness, Islamist forums began posting follow-up reports. One of the more prominent of these was the countdown to an upcoming attack titled "End U.S." which appeared on the Islamist www.khayma.com. It read as follows:
"In the name of Allah, the all-merciful and compassionate, [this is] the countdown for the biggest event, the defeat and collapse of America, the Hubal of this generation. According to the predictions [on the Web site] Al-Sayf Al-âAasim, 36 days, 13 hours, and 23 seconds at most remain [as of time of publication] until the prediction is fulfilled. God willing, the collapse of America is nigh."
Members of Islamist forums such as Al-Qalâa determined that this countdown referred to Operation Cave of Darkness. An examination of the text of this posting reveals that:
The warning is based on the Al-Sayf Al-âAasim Web site, which features a Nostradamus-style compilation of prophesies and futuristic predictions. Recently, this site was hacked and replaced by a pornography site.
This warning contains no Islamist discourse, no Qurâanic quotes, no reference to the Prophetâs conduct, etc.
A video clip depicting Americaâs end that accompanies the posting is comprised of segments of Hollywood disaster films, particularly one about a meteor striking the Earth.
Based on the above, this threat is not credible.
III. Threats of Attacks in an Ongoing Battle
In late December, another type of threat appeared, on the Global Islamic Media site. It is authored by Abu Abd Al-Rahman Al-Turkemani (most likely an alias). This posting is aimed at reinforcing the morale of Islamist activists in their ongoing struggle. Al-Turkemani threatens attacks â but unlike the other threats, he sets no target date, explaining that perhaps the attacks will take a long time to prepare, and perhaps they will not take the form of military clashes. The following are the main elements of this posting, which was titled "The Final Blows in the Decisive Battles Are At Hand:"
"The final blows in the crucial battles are at hand. We are now living in crucial days and we are seeing how the government of the idol of this age [i.e. the U.S.] is filled with fear and dread, dreaming of obtaining security and calm, and spending a billion dollars every week in order to protect itself from the imminent unknown danger coming from the direction [of the enemy] that they claimed to have completely destroyed years agoâŠ
"We are seeing that they have [finally] understood the oath of the commander of the Jihad army [bin Laden] and they now know that he meant exactly what he said [when he was valiantly facing the armies of the new Crusade]: We are now engaged in Jihad between the armies of faith, truth, and goodness as opposed to the armies of unbelief, falsehood, and evilâŠ
"The crucial battle is about to begin. The swords have been drawn from their scabbards, and the fingers are on the triggers. Happy are those who choose [to join] the camp of the believers and choose the profitable deal [i.e., to sacrifice themselves in Jihad], and woe to those who join the losers [the armies of unbelief] who are in the lowest compartment of Hell.
"This is a crucial issue in a crucial battle in crucial days. The great harvest [of the enemies of Allah] is at the gates. And who knows â it may be imminentâŠ
"On the other hand, who knows, perhaps it is not imminent. There may be blows not by firearms to weaken the great serpent [i.e. the U.S.] as silent blows which do not require military skirmishes and without threateningâŠ
"Those who ask, "When will the crucial battle and the final blows come?" and keeps waiting for the event to come, without carrying out his own duties to prepare for it â are not of the armies of truth. They are merely onlookers, who have failed to join the Jihad â which is a personal duty for all MuslimsâŠ
"The war between us and unbelief and the people of unbelief is a war between two unequal forces. They surpass us in material preparedness, and we surpass them with the preparedness of belief, and courageous resolveâŠ
"The crucial battle is at hand, and the fruits of the great harvest are ripe, and the column of the men who are faithful to their promise to God [i.e. the Jihad warriors] continues on its way to destroy the idol of the present age and its valuesâŠ
"This continuing column of the Jihad warriors shall not stop, but it may sometimes weaken, [even] for years, and sometimes become stronger⊠But the crucial battle is undoubtedly coming, God willing."
An examination of this posting reveals that:
Unlike the other postings, it uses the style commonly used by known Al-Qaâida supporters.
It includes Qurâanic verses and even direct references to bin Ladenâs speeches.
As is common in bin Ladenâs addresses to Muslims, the posting calls on Muslims to remember their religious duty to wage Jihad, and not to wait to watch it on television as onlookers.
Based on all the above, the credibility of this posting is much greater than that of the others.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:50:43 AM ||
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#1
A video clip depicting Americaâs end that accompanies the posting is comprised of segments of Hollywood disaster films, particularly one about a meteor striking the Earth.
#2
blah blah blah......STFU and do it already - if you can.
That would give the U.S. an excuse to bomb the bejaisus out of your sh*tty little mud huts.
Tim Bueler recently received some unusual advice: His principal and a campus police officer suggested that he stay home from his California high school for a few days. Well... so much for his right of free speech.... oh Iâm sorry I forgot he was conservative and free speech does not apply....
They feared for his safety because Tim, the founder of Rancho Cotate High Schoolâs new Conservative Club, said he had received threats from other students after writing an article for the club newsletter calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration.
The 17-year-old junior says that stance inspired threats from which teachers have refused to protect him. Some faculty members even started a public campaign against his group, which seeks to promote "the pillars of the Bible, patriotism and conservative beliefs as balance to the mostly liberal viewpoints of teachers," according to its newsletter, "The Conservative Agenda."
In a telephone interview, Tim said heâs been threatened at least three times by Hispanic students who call him "white boy" and "racist." Of course calling someone âwhite boyâ isnât racism at all....
One boy said he was going to "find someone" to beat up Tim.
In two of those instances, Tim said two faculty members stood by and did nothing to help him. Most recently, Tim said, he was confronted by a dozen Hispanic boys, who blocked him from walking down the hallway.
"They said, âYouâre a racist,â and I said, âAre you guys going to let me through?â " Tim said. "So I ducked into a classroom and told the teacher what was happening, and said, âCan you help me?â And she said, âNo. Get out of here.â "
Earlier, he said he was eating lunch in a classroom when about seven Hispanic students surrounded him. Worried for Timâs safety, his father, Dennis Bueler, said he asked for help from a teacher who was also in the room.
"The teacher told him, âWhen you say things like that, youâve got to expect that things like this are going to happen. Why donât you go out the back door?â " Mr. Bueler said in recounting the incident. Nope! Only liberals are entitled to assistance....
Tim said teachers have also joined in the name-calling. One called Tim a Nazi, while another described the club as "a bunch of bigots." In a parody of the newsletter, biology teacher Mark Alton called on students to "take a stand against the neoconservative wing-nuts who call themselves Americans."
Tim thought about leaving the school, located in Rohnert Park about an hour north of San Francisco, and then made his decision: No way.
"They said, âItâs in your best interest not to go to school,â " Tim said. "I said, âWell, why? What have I done wrong?â "
The club has invited students to call its "liberal assault hot line" to report whether theyâve been "verbally assaulted for being conservative."
With about 50 members, the club has hosted speakers from the Eagle Forum and National Rifle Association.
Forty school staff members signed a letter to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat calling on the Conservative Club to back up its accusations that students are being indoctrinated.
"Theyâve made all these sweeping statements about liberal teachers warping the curriculum, but as a science teacher, Iâd like to see some evidence," said Mr. Alton, who co-authored the letter. This is the same guy telling people to "take a stand against the neoconservative wing-nuts who call themselves Americans."
Mr. Alton said he was also disturbed by Timâs article on illegal immigration, which says, "Liberals welcome every Muhammad, Jamul and Jose who wishes to leave his Third World state and come to America."
"No one at the high school opposes the formation of the Conservative Club," Mr. Alton lied through his teeth said. "What bothers me is the extreme views that border on racism or homophobia, the negative tone, and the hot line that calls teachers âtraitors.â " OK. lets see... enforcing federal immigration laws (which are applied equally to all races) is âracismâ and âhomophobiaâ and negative (while threating people
with bodily harm isnât) and a hotline to report verbal abuse is calling teachers âtraitorsâ. On and calling someone a ânaziâ isnât racism or hate speech either.
Tim admitted that his zeal sometimes gets the best of him. He apologized for the "Muhammad" remark, saying, "I made a mistake, but Iâm not racist." Club adviser Bernadette Tucker stepped down after Tim printed the newsletter without allowing her to edit it first.
Rancho Cotate Principal Mitchell Carter and district officials did not return several phone calls. I can say no more! (not without making a further ass of myself....)
Mr. Bueler said heâs ready to bring in lawyers if the school cannot protect his son. "The police donât think they were real threats, but I disagree. He shouldnât have to be threatened every day," the father said.
I find it interesting that the students and teachers, instead of challanging his article with logic and discourse have reacted by threatening him with bodily harm, calling him racist names (white-boy, nazi) and refusing to protect him from abuse.
Of course the students and teachers cannot challenge with logic and discourse because they donât have a leg to stand on.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A retired Army general will oversee military tribunals for suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including approving charges, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Chosen for the job was John D. Altenburg, Jr., who retired as a two-star general in 2002. His last military assignment was assistant judge advocate general for the Department of the Army.
None of the 660 suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay has been charged, and although the Pentagon has not said when it expects to begin military trials, the first is expected soon. It would be the United Statesâ first use of military tribunals since World War II.
Human rights organizations have called on the United States to put on trial or release all the prisoners - or at least say what is planned for them. The groups complain that the open-ended, indefinite detentions have led to a deterioration in mental health, and dozens of suicide attempts, at the prison set up shortly after the start of the war in Afghanistan in October 2001. Wonder if these same HROâs complain about the speed of UN tribunals?
The Pentagon on Tuesday also named four members of a review panel that would hear appeals of cases decided by military tribunals, and said they will be commissioned as Army major generals for their two-year term on the panel.
The four are:
- Griffin B. Bell, the former U.S. attorney general in the Carter administration and former U.S. circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
- Edward G. Biester, a Court of Common Pleas judge in Bucks County, Pa. He also is a former Pennsylvania attorney general and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
- William T. Coleman, Jr., a former secretary of transportation.
- Frank Williams, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
One or more additional review panel members may be named later, officials said.
In a related move, the Defense Departmentâs top lawyer, William J. Haynes II, issued Military Commission Instruction No. 9, spelling out the procedures for appeals of tribunal decisions.
Altenburg, who served for 28 years as an Army lawyer, will serve as "appointing authority" for the military tribunals in a civilian capacity. He takes over for Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, who had been overseeing the tribunal process.
The Pentagon also announced that Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway will be Altenburgâs legal adviser. Hemingway retired from the Air Force in 1996 and was recalled to active duty last summer. He has served as a staff judge advocate at several levels in the Air Force and was a senior judge on the Air Force Court of Military Review as well as director of the Air Force Judiciary.
The steps announced by the Pentagon on Tuesday were the last major procedural steps planned before one or more of the terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station is charged and brought to trial. Sounds like weâre getting cranked up and ready to roll at Gitmo.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 9:15:27 PM ||
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in a U of C professor, via Bros. Judd, usual blather from a well-paid tenured useful idiot: University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings is the leftâs leading scholar of Korean history. In addition to contributing to documentary films on Korean life, Cumings has written a massive and highly critical multi-volume account of the Korean War and published a general history of Korea, titled Koreaâs Place in the Sun. And he is not shy about his opinions... But it is Korea that is Cumingsâs main focus, and in his new book, North Korea: Another Country, he sets for himself one basic goal. Cumings wants to convince Americans to abandon what he considers to be George Bushâs simplistic and dangerous Korean policy... Cumings is apologetic on behalf of the DPRK. For America, he has nothing but scorn. American attitudes towards Korea are racist. The Korean War, in turn, was a U.S. war of aggression that amounted to a holocaust for the Korean people. The U.S., he contends, had no right to interfere in Korea because the war was "a civil war, a war fought by Koreans, for Korean goals." Equally important, after the war, the U.S. supported a corrupt and dictatorial South Korean government. ...Cumings is so filled with Chomskyian anti-Americanism that he places almost all the blame for whatever problems the North Koreans face on Americaâs shoulders. Moreover, he insists the U.S., not North Korea, must compromise on negotiations over nuclear weapons. For Americans to think otherwise is hypocritical. After all, North Korea would simply "like to have nuclear weapons like those that the United States amasses by the thousands." ... On and on w/the usual nonsense, and of course, when the house of cards collapses, reality will not hit this man in the head. These people are eating the dead for $()%&*()#$*% Sake!
#2
Hmm... if he is no knowledgeable about Korea then he must know about the prison system and death camps and outright murder of newborn babies simply because they might be of 'mixed korean-chinese' race. Not to mention the mass starvation so that kimmie-the-baby-murderer can maintain his armies to oppress his own people.
In short this person seems to be nothing more then an knowing accessory to kimmie-boys crimes against his own people.
A Brazilian judge furious at U.S. plans to fingerprint and photograph Brazilians entering the United States has ordered Brazil to do the same to U.S. citizens, police said on Tuesday.
Fair's fair. What's the beef?
The order, set to go into effect on Jan. 1, came after a government office filed a complaint in federal court over the U.S. measure aimed at millions of foreign travelers. "Unless the court order is contested in the justice system, it will be complied with," said a spokesman for Brazilâs Federal Police, the agency overseeing immigration. Starting Jan. 5, citizens of countries such as Brazil who need a visa to enter the United States will be fingerprinted and photographed when they pass through immigration at major U.S. airports and seaports. The procedure is meant to identify people who have violated immigration controls, have a criminal record or belong to groups the U.S. government lists as terrorist organizations. The checks will not be carried out against citizens of 27 nations who do not need a visa to enter the United States. "I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis," said Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva in the court order released on Tuesday.
Why do you say that, judge? How does it violate human rights to have your picture and your fingerprints taken? How does that compare with slaughtering millions based on their DNA, starving them and whacking them with rifle butts? Where do the ovens come in? The tattoos? Could we have some of that ganja? It sounds like it's pretty good stuff.
Brazil currently requires U.S. citizens to have a visa when entering the country.
#2
I know that I've been in at least one country (I think it was Australia???) where I had to put my thumb on the glass plate for a fingerprint. Who cares?
EFL and registration required so magic URL.
President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washingtonâs hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites. The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies. The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington. In the battle for the presidentâs ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.
That's making the assumption there's such a thing as "post-Iraq doldrums." Somebody who writes for a newspaper to making such an assumption shows they don't really read the papers they write for...
Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawksâ enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state. Though on leave recovering from a prostate cancer operation, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to hail "encouraging" signs of a "new attitude" in Iran and call for the United States to keep open the prospect of dialogue with the Teheran authorities.
That's what he's supposed to do. If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that we've had significant diplomatic victories in the past month. They don't come without wagging jaws at each other. If the ayatollahs can be induced to do a Khadaffy, then we don't have to spend the money to send the military there, do we?
Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents.
I suspect the book's part of the diplo offensive. I'll bet it doesn't come as a surprise to Powell.
Such officials prevailed over invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but have been seen as on the back foot since the autumn as their post-war visions of building a secular, free-market Iraq were scaled back in favour of compromise and a swift handover of power next June.
I think we're on a schedule here. Somebody's got a PERT chart, with all the dependencies worked out on a timetable. The military's got to come out of Iraq for rest, relaxation, and refitting. Otherwise, we have no credible tool to whack whomever's next on the list. Whacking the next candidate on the list feeds back to Iraq and Afghanistan, making reform and restructure easier. Expect to see us making some serious faces at somebody next September — not because of the elections, but because the timetable says to up the pressure around then, for possible hostilities sometime early- to mid-2005.
The book demands that any talks with North Korea require the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear programme. As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations for war, including the rapid pullback of US forces from the inter-Korean border so that they move out of range of North Korean artillery. Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.
Thereby saving us a passle of money, by the way...
The authoritarian rule of Syriaâs leader, Bashar Assad, should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into Syria to hunt terrorists.
I think Syria might be the weak link in the Axis of Almost as Evil, or have taken Iraq's place on the big list...
The authors urge Mr Bush to "tell the truth about Saudi Arabia". Wealthy Saudis, some of them royal princes, fund al-Qaâeda, they write. The Saudi government backs "terror-tainted Islamic organisations" as part of a larger campaign to "spread its extremist version of Islam throughout the Muslim world and into Europe and North America".
We can do that, to push them into reforming and taking its consequences, or we can declare war on the Islamic world as we invade them. Which is preferable?
The book calls for tough action against France and its dreams of offsetting US power. "We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington," it states. Britainâs independence from Europe should be preserved, perhaps with open access for British arms to American defence markets. All good stuff! Definitely gets my vote. I disagree that rapid transition to a new Iraqi government is a sign of failure. We should hand over running Iraq to an elected government as soon as possible and leave enough troops to stop a military coup. Sure they will make mistakes, but i think a return to dictatorship is very unlikely, especially after Saddamâs trial.
#1
Typical British papers -- reading the Washington Post and constructing the most soap operatic narrative to tie together the day's stories.
One good point: Regardless of what State would prefer, it's likely we'll be in a more confrontational posture with respect to the Soddies by mid next year, if for no other reason than that Bush is politically vulnerable for his family links to the House of Sod.
#2
One Roman historian wrote "There are many paths to Rome, but all end at the same place." This is also true of working toward the solution of the Middle East. David Frum hasn't impressed me with any of his writing. I don't know Richard Perle. Most of what is quoted here sounds like armchair quarterbacking - making lofty decisions without any consequences for being wrong. There are things that could have been done better, and why Bush hasn't declared the "Roadmap" dead is beyond me, but the rest of this article is hog droppings.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2003 23:41 Comments ||
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German Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the German government was considering sending civil experts and peacekeeping troops to the east African nation of Sudan, which is inching closer to a peace deal after nearly 20 years of civil war. "For the first time thereâs a very good chance for peace there, " deputy Foreign Minister Kerstin Mueller said in an interview with German daily "Berliner Zeitung."
I wouldn't get my hopes up too far. I hope they haven't packed up their toothbrushes yet...
"We must support it and fight the roots of terrorism. The region around the Horn of Africa after all has proved to be a breeding ground for terror." The deputy minister stressed she was in favor of participating in the peace process provided the United Nations agreed to set up a peacekeeping mandate in the Sudan. "Weâll probably first send our civilian experts there," Mueller said. "But we must also examine how far we can contribute to a Sudan mission, not just in the civilian aspect, but also possibly on the military front within a small framework," she added.
Shhhh. Hear that? Can you make out what heâs saying? Me neither. Must be someone from the UN... carry on.
United Nations inspectors donât want American help in dismantling Libyaâs nuclear program, the UNâs chief inspector said Tuesday. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said his agency plans to work alone despite the recent decision by the U.S. to send its own inspectors to Libya to help dismantle the countryâs weapons program. Returning from a trip to the North African country where he inspected four nuclear sites, ElBaradei said on Monday that Libya was still years away from developing nuclear weapons. Washington believes the UN nuclear agency has underestimated the sophistication of Libyaâs nuclear program. During ElBaradeiâs trip, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi assured the UN inspection team his country would co-operate fully with inspections and would dismantle its nuclear program. From the headline I expected some major banging of heads. But alas...âtwas nothing.
#1
Our own inspections of the weapons program of Libya will be very informative in determining the sophistication, origin, and capabilities of Libya's suppliers and equipment developers. This will help us in the WoT, which ElBaradei conveniently leaves out in his inspections. In short, we do not want Mo ElBaradei a critical link in our nation's security.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 16:43 Comments ||
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#2
I think it started when ElBaradei said his team was inspecting ?four? sites and the U.S./UK intel has 11 site that need to be inspected.
#3
Probably the UN's pissed that the US is actually serious about stopping proliferation. After all, the UN's program has been to cover up arms dealing and proliferation as much as they can.
(Evidence? See Iraq, North Korea, Iran, and now Libya.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/30/2003 20:25 Comments ||
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United Nations inspectors donât want American help in dismantling Libyaâs nuclear program
Seeing how the Libyans seem to be doing this voluntarily and on their own, why would it surprise anybody that the UN would want a nice tit job like this for themselves? No heavy lifting, no real need for them. The perfect UN job.
#5
Someone should compare the centrifuges in Libya and Iran. Libya may have manufactured for them for the mullahs and phoned GWB after the order was completed and shipped.
Btw, more at this link...
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20031230_2448.html
.....ElBaradei described the equipment he saw as, "nothing really special," calling them, "components which had not been assembled .... mothballed and in containers."
"It was much more modest in comparison with the Iranian program, which is much more ambitious, large-scale industrial production" of enriching uranium, he said.
Suspicions about Iran's nuclear activities prompted ElBaradei to tour Iran's nuclear facilities last February, including an incomplete plant in Natanz, nearly 300 miles south of Tehran. Diplomats said he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project using thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
Iran insists its program aims only to produce energy and signed an agreement in December allowing snap IAEA inspections of its facilities.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Libya seemed to posses far fewer centrifuges than Iran. While a few dozen were assembled, most were still in their original shipping crates and lined up along warehouse walls, as were crated uranium conversion units that were opened only for the visiting IAEA team, he said.....
Posted by: Nick ||
12/30/2003 22:47 Comments ||
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Anyone want to bet the return addresses on this stuff leads to France and Germany?
EFL
The Nation of Islam, the African-American Muslim movement led by Louis Farrakhan, has denied having an official relationship with Michael Jackson ...
-but maybe it depends on what the definition of biz is -
"The Nation of Islam, in response to several inquiries, has said today that it has no official business or professional relationship with Mr. Michael Jackson," according to a statement posted on the groupâs Web site on Monday... On Monday, chief Jackson spokesman - well the pay was good but having to tell kids that Michael was âjust dancing with them, you know, like a dogâ probably took its toll - Stuart Backerman resigned, citing differences with other members of Jacksonâs team over the handling of child molestation charges. The New York Times on Tuesday cited an unidentified colleague saying Backerman resigned to protest the Nation of Islamâs influence.... The Indiana-born Jackson claimed to be a practicing Jehovahâs Witness in a 2001 interview with TV Guide....
Despite the Iranian presidentâs bold pledge to rebuild the devastated earthquake-hit city of Bam in two years, experts fear Tehran will do nothing to take proper precautions to avert such tragedy in the future. "The earthquake that destroyed Bam is the last warning for officials to force construction workers to conform to quake-resistant standards," said an official at Tehranâs city hall. "In Bam the problem was different. Most of the buildings were ancient, but obviously not even the new ones were built to anti-quake standards," Iranian architect Ahmad Behnam told AFP. The southeastern city was decimated in Fridayâs earthquake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale. Old and new, private homes and state buildings, including new hospitals, were pulverised in the massive tremblor, killing at least 40,000. Newest estimate is up to 50,000.
President Mohammad Khatami has said that architects of Bamâs newly-built public edifices, supposed to have complied with quake-resistant regulations, must face the music. If I remember correctly, one of the oldest legal decrees ever found (Babylon?) covered this subject: "If a man build a house, and it falls and crushes the people inside, then he shall be put to death".
Since a 1991 earthquake killed 37,000 people and injured more than 100,000 in Iranâs northwestern provinces of Ghilan and Zandjan, Tehran decreed that all new buildings must be built to withstand tremors measuring eight degrees on the Richter scale. "The problem is that it is not very clear who should oversee the implementation of these laws," said Khatami. "Unfortunately, many inspectors responsible for checking (their) application donât do their job or shut their eyes after getting a little backhander," said Behnam. Building inspectors are running for the hills.
In the capital as well as provincial towns, most new buildings are knocked up with blatant disregard for the law. "The other problem is the quality of materials. Very often the cement and the steel used is not the required quality to withstand a powerful earthquake," added Behnam. "Sometimes Iâve seen steel and concrete buildings collapse more quickly than an old home, simply because of bad quality materials," he said. Not built to code, more bribes.
Even if the government was able to force quake-resistant regulations into practice, it would still leave almost 70 percent of Iranian property out in the cold. Aside from Tehran, 30 percent of Iranâs buildings are old. For the vast majority, it is impossible to do anything but fling gigantic sums at overhauling urban and rural planning. "These homes canât even support their own weight, they crumble under the slightest pressure," said the city hall official. Wonder if this could be the trigger for a revolution? Could be if the mullahs are seen spending money on other things while the little people are dying.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 3:00:21 PM ||
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Who knows, Steve. I would imagine that if anything this would cause the downfall of the Mullahs. This old Japanese saying might sum it up the best though.
" Wash your neck and wait for me. "
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 15:21 Comments ||
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#2
Wonder if this could be the trigger for a revolution? Could be if the mullahs are seen spending money on other things while the little people are dying.
Steve---this situation and its origins is just too big to cover up. As word gets out about the poor construction, materials, mullah moolah greasing the skids, there will be outrage. And people will look around at the vertical piles of s--t they call their own homes and they will be scared. And they will become angry. And then---s--t will hit the spinning black turban. Speaking of which, what have they been doing? Why building reactors and uranium processors, of course. Things are gonna start moving in Iran.
Maybe Bush can visit Iran after Lybia. I can dream, can't I?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 15:57 Comments ||
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Who would have figured it: Iran has a 6.5 magnitude earthquake and all the modern buildings fall down, even though Allah is with them. California has a 6.5 magnitude earthquake the week before and all the modern buildings remain standing, even though Michael Moore assures us that capitalists are so greedy that they'll always ignore public safety in search of a buck.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 16:26 Comments ||
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"In Bam the problem was different. Most of the buildings were ancient, but obviously not even the new ones were built to anti-quake standards," Iranian architect Ahmad Behnam told AFP.
It's that evil Western technology. Yeah, that's it.
#7
50,000 dead is a catastrophe. I sincerely hope that people in Iran come to the realization that this level of death and destruction due to a seismic event is not necessary and that there are a bunch of well fed fanatical leaders that should be accountable for this disaster. I would not wish this loss on anybody.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 18:57 Comments ||
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#8
Just saw the local news where it was reported that the "president" of Iran (video of Khatami was on the screen) thanked the U.S for its aid but said that it wasn't going to warm the frosty relations between both nations.
Well, that's gratitude for you, no? Anyway, it's no problem. It would behoove the mullahs then, not to ask for and not to expect any help from the U.S. the next time some sort of natural disaster happens. Let them take care of things on their own and see how they fare.
At least eleven Palestinians have been wounded after an Israeli helicopter gunship fired missiles at a car in the Gaza Strip in an assassination attempt. One member of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, who was inside the vehicle, was wounded in the attack, the second missile strike in Gaza in less than a week. Two missiles slammed into the vehicle in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood. Bystanders were wounded by flying glass and shrapnel. "I saw a flame hit a small car and people trying to escape from the car," said Rauf Musalam, a business owner who witnessed the attack, reported an Israeli newspaper. "Apaches (helicopters) were overhead as people rushed to help the wounded". The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the attack.
"IDF Customer Service. How may I help you?...
A U.S.-made Apache helicopter, you say?...
Zapped them, did it?...
Uhuh... How many puppies and kittens?...
I'm sorry. My records don't show an Apache in that area at that time. Are you sure it was ours?...
Yes, I know, but it could have been Egyptian, y'know? Mi-24's look kind of like Apaches from the ground..."
Last Thursday, an Israeli helicopter missile attack in Gaza City killed the commander of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, a top deputy and three civilians. Minutes after that attack, the first such air strike in two months of relative calm in the territories, a bomber killed four Israelis at a bus stop outside of Tel Aviv.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 14:43 ||
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I saw a flame hit a small car and people trying to escape from the car
Were they wearing anti-missle charms?
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 15:27 Comments ||
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Hmmm... That's odd. Usually people take their wives, kiddies, and/or girlfriends...
An 18-year-old man was arrested after officials said he was found with a homemade bomb at a Tampa Burger King. So where does the "allegedly" part come in?
Hillsborough sheriffâs officials said Anthony Richard Pawlisz Jr. told a co-worker at the restaurant that he had a napalm bomb. The co-worker notified authorities, who found Pawlisz with a mason jar containing gasoline and other items, the St. Petersburg Times reported. If he was trying to make homemade napalm, the other items could have been soap or disolved styrofoam. Why I used to, err.......never mind.
Officials said Pawlisz told them he intended to detonate the bomb in a field. He made no threats and no one was injured. Pawlisz was charged with possession of a firebomb. Would have given a whole new meaning to that "Flame Broiled" advertising.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 1:24:29 PM ||
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Somebody is taking "have it your way" just a bit too far.
Posted by: Dar ||
12/30/2003 13:48 Comments ||
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As a promotions manager for Burger King, I would think there might be some potential here for "Jahadi Happy Meals" To bad we missed the lucrative Rammaden holiday period. Do the Palistinians have any holidays coming up???
#6
Guess they'd have REALLY been angry with me and my homemade ammonium nitrate fertilizer leached with a diluted solution of nitric acid, caught in a wad of freshly-picked cotton...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2003 23:20 Comments ||
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We knew this...
Libya is preparing for defense cooperation talks with the United States, leading to a visit by President Bush early next year. Be a good kickoff for the 2004 campaign.
Libyan officials said the United States has agreed to review Tripoliâs defense requirements in wake of an agreement by Col. Muammar Khaddafy to eliminate his nationâs medium-range missile and weapons of mass destruction arsenal. The officials said the two countries plan to begin formal talks on Libyaâs defense and security requirements over the next few months. The officials said Britain and the United States will lift sanctions from Libya by April 2004. They said this would pave the way for a visit by U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Tripoli during the first half of next year. So far this talk all seems to be coming from the Libyan side.
"The United States has promised to protect us from any attack," Khaddafyâs son, Seif Al Islam, said in an interview with the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily on Dec. 24. Aside from your internal terrorist groups, who are we defending you against?
Mexico. They've had it in for Libya all along...
Al Islam, who is being groomed to succeed his father as Libyaâs ruler, said Tripoli and Washington have held defense cooperation talks, including the prospect of joint exercises. But he denied immediate plans to renew such efforts. Boy, wouldnât those exercises spin up a few turbans.
In the interview, Al Islam said Libya will end the development program of a medium-range missile that can fly 800 kilometers. He said that in 1986 Tripoli canceled a plan to attack a U.S. military base in an island off Greece. That would have been either Iraklion or Souda Bay, Crete.
"Mahmoud? Y'know that idea you had for an attack on Iraklion?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think it's a good idea."
"Me, neither. Let's see if we can get next to some of Il Duce's bodyguards, instead."
The plan was to retaliate for a U.S. air strike earlier that year that he said killed more than 200 Libyans. If they had attacked Crete, we would have added about three zeros to that number.
U.S. industry sources said Libya has discussed a range of projects with at least one American defense contractor. The sources said Tripoli has expressed interest in upgrading and replacing many of the aging U.S. military platforms procured in the 1970s. They include aircraft, helicopters and artillery. They still have some of those?
Yeah, but it's hard to fly them after they've been bronzed...
Libyan officials, in an assertion echoed by Al Islam, said the Bush administration planned to send a U.S. military team to Tripoli to review Libyaâs defense needs. Al Islam said such a visit would take place soon. "There will be a joint military and security cooperation agreement with the United States," Al Islam said. I guess Fred can begin plans for that reunion at Wheelus.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 1:06:50 PM ||
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Bet the Secret Service detail's looking forward to it. They'll get to checkout Mo's all-girl bodyguard unit.
#2
The Libyans used to buy Soviet Hardware but the quality is a bit lacking. After the fall and coupled with the sanctions, it has been hard for the them to buy more equipment. The PRC has offered to sell them stuff, but NOBODY wants to buy that stuff. If we 'guarantee' security, look for us to reopen Wheelus or some other base there. I can't wait for the first Sixth Fleet ship to visit Tripoli.
#3
Jesus... Qaddafy isn't just singing a new song, he's working out of a whole new songbook. Obviously we've offered him a king-sized carrot of some sort; but we must have let him get a glimpse of an awfully BIG stick, too.
I wonder what we threatened him with?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/30/2003 13:26 Comments ||
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Pleez, pleez, pleez, let Air Force One land at Wheelus. Actually the President is going to Libya to lay claim to the whole mess and make sure it starts out as a Republican (oil) state. I figure its good for 2 Senators and 1 Rep.
#5
Wonder if he got the second opinion back from the doctors, knows he isn't gonna last long. He's been trying to set up his son Seif to take over, but there were reports of family in-fighting over that. If he gets rid of the weapons himself, he can take the blame from the islamic fundies for doing that to his grave. Gets a promise from the US to rebuild a kinder, gentler Libyan military under his son. Notice all the nice words coming from Seif. He gets the throne, we get another partner along the lines of Jordan.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 14:14 Comments ||
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#6
Boys, before you get all excited about this story, I have 2 words for you:
World Tribune.
They make DEBKAfile look like the Voice of America.
They got it from al-Jizzers, just like we did originally.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 15:11 Comments ||
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#9
Well, Fred, it is your site and I don't mean to be contentious, but I've yet to see a World Tribune story be true, even though Drudge will happily post them,too.
As for Al-Jazeera, well...we shan't speak of them.
But as I said, it is your blog and I defer to your judgement here, Oh Great One!
#11
So Khaddafy gets to remain a dictator, because it's in the US interest--whatever happened to a new, democratic Middle East we were promised by Condi & co? Oh I forgot--any despot that sucks up to the Bushies gets a pass....
Debka alert EFL - salt to taste, but this one rings true
Last weekend, Ahmed Qureia aka Abu Ala became the second Palestinian prime minister to warn Yasser Arafat he was about to resign. He determined to throw in the sponge towel?
Turban?
after discovering that the Palestinian Authorityâs coffers were bare. There was nothing left to meet the January 1 payroll for 80,000 public workers and security personnel. In fact the PA has no operating funds at all. Arafat, according to DEBKAfileâs Palestinian sources, greeted the threat in stony silence. comatose
If Abu Ala quits now, he will have lasted a month and-a-half, compared with the four months his processor survived on the job before being driven out. Abu Mazen now spends most of his time in Amman and rarely ventures into the West Bank.
He wears a false nose and moustache. He travels only at night, surrounded by a bodyguard of six, whose aged parents he has hidden in a cellar and whose testicles he keeps in a bottle...
Abu Ala accused Arafat of exploiting the attention focused on fruitless discussions about a truce for an underhand move to help himself to the PAâs funds and whisk its financial system out of the hands of the pro-American Palestinian finance minister, Salem Fayed. The evicted minister is left with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs at home.
... keeping the windows closed and the shades drawn. Poor people in the neighborhood rent him their disposable children to start his car.
DEBKAfileâs sources note that Washington and Jerusalem would prefer to keep this development under their hats because, by removing Fayed, Arafat has put paid to the last remnant of the Palestinian reforms that were to have presaged the Middle East roadkill roadmap to peace. Those reforms, instituted by the Bush Administration, the Abu Mazen government and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, were designed to block the flow of PA funds for terrorist use. This crucial step was solemnized at the tripartite Aqaba summit last June. President George W. Bush has been lavish in his praise of Fayedâs efforts to regulate Palestinian finances and make them transparent. With the approach of January 1, a number of Palestinian officials appealed urgently to Americans, Europeans and Saudis for urgent handouts to pay out wages. Nothing has been forthcoming. The prime ministerâs planned trip to Riyadh to plea for help has not so far come off.
He's still going from relative to relative, trying to raise busfare...
The PAâs straitened finances were not Abu Alaâs only motive for threatening to resign â nor even Arafatâs control of Palestinian security forces and negotiating tactics, which made his job as prime minister no better than a sinecure. Arafatâs stolen soooo much thereâs no willingness to aid from the usual sources
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2003 10:36:36 AM ||
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I'm still waiting for an EU politician to wake up to the fact that billions of their tax money have basically gone down the Arafathole while, at least for the past few months, they could have been spending it to help Iraq.
#4
mhw, a recent accounting report stated that the EU can only account for 10% of the $120B it spent last year. Arafat is a small time crook compared to the EU MASTERS. If I were an EU member I would not be sending any more 'Dues' to the EU until they cleared up this mess. Ditto for the PA, let them get the money out of Arafats accounts.
#6
an excerpt from the 60 Minutes piece that detailed arafat's wealth. This is why arafat booted him (they call Fayed "Fayyad"):
"Our whole point is to bring it out of control of any one person," [US accountant Jim] Prince says.
That's what happened with the portfolio money, which is now under the control of Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank official who Arafat was forced to appoint finance minister last year after crowds began protesting his corrupt regime.
According to Fayyad, "There is corruption out there. There is abuse. There is impropriety, and that's what had to be fixed."
Statements like that have earned Fayyad, a bookish technocrat who spent 20 years in the U.S., a reputation for courage - which was enhanced when he immediately posted the details of Arafat's secret portfolio on the Internet.
Fayyad's investigators are treading softly, well aware that their probe may become too embarrassing for Arafat.
Has he tried to stop them? "We run into obstacles in a number of places, particularly among the old PLO types," Prince says, adding one might draw their own conclusions as to whether his statement includes Arafat himself.
Iâm not making this up
The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 9 will discuss whether to hear arguments in a case in which a Muslim sued Mississippi over the Confederate battle emblem in the state flag. Lower federal courts had rejected John Ellis Briggsâ argument that the Mississippi flag contains a Christian symbol - the St. Andrewâs Cross - and that the symbol represents state endorsement of a particular religion. Briggsâ lawsuit seeks punitive damages of up to $77.77 million. It also seeks to have the symbol "removed from display in public places."
He's gonna sue the Brits next, so you better watch out, Tony and Bulldog...
Since 1894, Mississippiâs flag has contained the Confederate battle emblem, a blue X with 13 whites stars over a field of red. Experts differ on whether the X in the Confederate battle emblem is the St. Andrewâs Cross.
It could also be an X, but that doesn't matter. John Ellis Briggs is gonna sue Campbell's because of that alphabet soup...
David Sansing, professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi, said Monday what people have claimed for years is the St. Andrewâs Cross is not.
"They just think it is, but I know better..."
"What is in the Confederate battle flag is a blue saltier. The St. Andrewâs Cross is a white diagonal cross on a blue field," Sansing said. "The man who designed the (Confederate battle) flag makes no reference to the St. Andrewâs Cross." Sansing said the designer of the flag described it to Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard as a blue saltier on a red field with one star for each of the 13 Southern states.
"So what's a blue saltier, perfessor?"
"Its' a... ummm... St. Andrew's cross."
Sansing said the St. Andrewâs Cross dates back to the Middle Ages and represents the X-shaped cross on which the apostle Andrew was crucified. Andrew was the patron saint of Scotland. The St. Andrewâs Cross is Scotlandâs national flag. "So, heâs (Briggs) wrong to begin with. Itâs not a Christian symbol," Sansing said.
"St. Andrew, and this is not generally known, was actually a Buddhist..."
Briggs filed suit in federal court in Gulfport in 2001. A federal judge squirted coffee out his nose and then dismissed the lawsuit in 2002. Briggs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had him beaten with a stick and thrown out of their courtoom ruled against him in June. The 5th Circuit said it could not accept that "every X, or every X the straight-line connection of whose four points would form a square, is predominantly a religious symbol." Appeals Judge Will Garwood, writing for himself and Judges E. Grady Jolly and Jerry E. Smith, said it was clear that a communityâs display of the flag was not an endorsement of religion. Garwood said the debate over the flying of the Confederate battle flag, or its being a part of a state flag, has centered on its symbolism of the Confederacy and to what extent the symbol extolled or excused slavery. "None of this concerns any religious symbolism related to any presence of the St. Andrews Cross in the flag," Garwood wrote.
"Bailiff! Beat him up and throw him out!"
Garwood said that in 1894 - and in 2001, when voters declined to change the flag - the Mississippi flag included the canton corner of identical design that was created by Confederate generals in 1861. He said the design was used by Confederate forces throughout the Civil War and became well known, at least throughout the South. Garwood said those decisions had no religious intent.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/30/2003 9:58:05 AM ||
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Don't you wish we had a 'loser pays' tort system?
#3
Somehow this culture of whining hypersensitivity- what I call "the tyranny of the thin-skinned"- has got to be eradicated; but I honestly don't know how it can be done, short of vigilante justice.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/30/2003 10:36 Comments ||
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#4
If they're really that sensitive, the solution's to point the finger at them and call them names until they blubber themselves to death.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 10:44 Comments ||
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#5
vigilante justice? hmmmmmmm
how about they have to have their home phone and address published....
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2003 10:50 Comments ||
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#6
Bet that Briggs wouldn't object to the flag in Figure 4 at this site...
#9
Raj has a good point, loser pays. That would eliminate a TON of lawsuits and might curtail new frivolous ones. I also like the part of publishing the names of the plaintiffs and their lawyers. I think mandatory prison time for frivolous lawsuits is a good thing too (lawyers and plaintiffs).
#10
There used to be an action under tort law, called barratry and maintenance, which would retrieve damages from bringers of frivolous lawsuits. I haven't ever heard of it actually being used in the past hundred years or so, though.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 17:25 Comments ||
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#12
Mankind has known for thousands of years that there is a finite limit on the number of idiots the world can possibly sustain without dire consequences. We are currently well above that limit. I propose we open a special hunting season for idiots, in order to thin the herd and maintain a healthy population, eliminate inbreeding, and reduce the chances of devastating outbreaks of deadly disease such as lunacy and registering as a Democratic presidential candidate. Said season should run until the number of idiots has been reduced to a level that can be sustained without damage to the environment or threat to the sanity of normal people. No bag or possession limits should be imposed, and any ordinary person should be granted a license after reading Rantburg (or Little Green Footballs, for those unable to get into the really HARD stuff) for six weeks.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2003 23:31 Comments ||
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A Syrian firm, headed by a cousin of that countryâs leader, Bashar Assad, signed contracts to supply millions of dollars in arms and equipment to Iraq before the United States invaded in March, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. In the first of a two-part series written from Damascus, The Times reported that "1,000 heavy machine guns and up to 20 million bullets for assault rifles," supplied by SES International Corp., "helped Baghdadâs ill-equipped army grow stronger before the war began in March. Some supplies may now be aiding the insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation." Files cited by the Times were taken from the abandoned office of Al Bashair Trading Co., by a reporter for the German magazine Stern shortly after U.S. troops entered Baghdad. The newspaper said it had the 800 signed contracts translated from Arabic and sought confirmation internationally during a three-month investigation. Since neither Stern or the LA Times can be considered part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy(tm), this will be hard for the left to deny.
Among the findings The Times reported:
-- A Polish company shipped up to 380 surface-to-air missile engines to Baghdad through Syria. Bad, Poland, Bad.
-- A South Korean firm shipped $8 million in telecommunications equipment for "air defense." Naughty, naughty.
-- A Slovenian firm shipped 20 battle tank barrels to the Syrian firm early in 2002. Tap, tap..nope
-- Two North Korean officials went to Damascus to discuss an Iraqi payment of $10 million for components for ballistic missiles. If I remember correctly, Sammy paid and NK didnât deliver.
According to the newspaper, a confidential U.N. report identifies Al Bashair as the biggest of 13 companies used to evade the U.N. arms embargo and other sanctions. Al Bashair made deals for as much as $1 billion a year in the 90s. Really? Funny I havenât heard anything from the UN on this.
Following Iraqâs invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations imposed a full arms embargo, a trade ban and a freeze on Iraqâs assets and international deal-making. All were violated, including the freeze on assets, when Iraq used false sugar purchases to launder money and divert it to foreign banks. The LA Times is saying they have proof Iraq violated United Nations sanctions? Damm, that pegged the surprise meter!
War's over. If the war hadn't happened yet, there would be all sorts of reasons for the info to be suspect.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry did not respond to Times requests for explanations of SES activities. SES sent the newspaper an e-mail saying it was not involved in illicit trade but refusing to address specific cases. "No comment, infidel."
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 9:23:50 AM ||
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Sammy should have invested in coffins for the insurgency.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 12:12 Comments ||
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That's enough to justify invading Syria right there. Remember: Dead people can't supply weapons for our enemies to use to kill our soldiers.
We ran this yesterday. Adds detail...
Gunmen killed the popeâs ambassador in Burundi on Monday, firing on his car as he was returning from a funeral, and the countryâs president said the envoy was deliberately targeted. "Watson! From the nature of the shooting, the spray pattern of the bullets, the prior shooting and the physical evidence, I conclude that the victim was deliberately targeted!"
"Brilliant, Holmes, brilliant!"
Archbishop Michael Courtney was shot in the head, shoulder and a limb and died during surgery at Prince Louis Rwagasore Hospital, a hospital official said. President Domitien Ndayizeye said the 58-year-old Courtney was deliberately targeted. "It was not an accident; he was killed," Ndayizeye told reporters. He and other officials, however, did not say what the motive for the killing might be. The gunmen had killed a soldier at the site just before the car arrived. And they didnât stop traffic?
The shooting took place in an area about 30 miles south of the capital, Bujumbura, on Lake Tanganyika that is a stronghold of rebels of the National Liberation Forces, or FLN, the only group that has not signed a peace deal with the transitional government. The FLN denied responsibility in the killing. "Lies! All lies!"
"The assailants had planned to kill him," Annicet Skywalker Niyongabo, governor of Bururi province, said. "They first fired into the tires and then approached to execute him. They could not mistake the car for another one because it was flying the Vatican flag." The "kick me" note on the envoyâs back.
"Monsignor Courtney was transported with great difficulty to the closest hospital in Bujumbura, but never regained consciousness due to his grave wounds," according to a Vatican statement. "The extensive hemorrhaging, operated on after the ambush, could not be stopped," and Courtney died during emergency surgery. The attack occurred just outside Minago in Bururi province on the main road north toward Bujumbura. Courtney was returning from farther south in the province where he had attended the funeral of a Burundian priest whose body had been repatriated from Rome two days earlier, Emile Hicintuka, a local official said. Pasteur Habimana, an FNL spokesman, denied charges that the group was responsible for Courtneyâs death. "We knew where he lived ... We could have killed him if we wished. We strongly condemn those who killed him," he said. Nod nod, nudge nudge, wink wink.
Maj. Kandeke, the army commander in the region where the shooting occurred, said the FNL had attacked the market in Minago on Saturday. "We are still fighting them," he said. Evidently stopping innocents from entering a combat operations zone isnât a high priority.
Courtney was one of the churchâs most experienced diplomats with over 30 years of work in the church. Born in 1945 in Nenagh, 85 miles southwest of Dublin, Courtney was ordained in 1968. Beginning in 1980, he was a papal representative in South Africa, then in Zimbabwe, Senegal, India, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Egypt, the 2000 announcement said. Prior to going to Burundi, he worked for five years as special envoy in Strasbourg, France, monitoring the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 3:10:28 AM ||
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Obviously the Vatican must look deeply into the mirror and ask itself "Why do they hate us?"
#2
Wonder what the vactican is going to do about it?
Now we are hearing(rumors)threats directly aginst Vatican City itself is this justification for declareing a Holy War.
Anybody remember the Mary Knoll Nuns,killed in Sth.America.
The Cuban authorities have launched an inquiry into how the official newspaper of the Communist party ran a front page photograph of Fidel Castro which appeared to have been doctored to make him look like Adolf Hitler. An inquiry? Castroâs Western apologists and fans delight in comparing Bush to Hitler with constitutionally guaranteed impunity, while the brave soul who made the comparison about their hero is tracked down by the Cuban gestapo.
When the edition of Granma hit the streets this month party officials began to retrieve as many copies as they could, an operation which appears to have deterred foreign journalists based on the island from reporting the story. "Granma" is the name of the decrepit yacht that Fidel and his gang used for their 1953 landing in Batistaâs Cuba. This is the official beginning of the Revolution in Cuban hagiography and the boat itself has iconic status. Cuban Marines (such as they are) are known as "Embarcaderos de Granma" (roughly "those who land from the Granma"). The name itself is what it looks like, an English slang version of "grandmother"
The picture appeared above a story which reported President Fidel Castroâs meeting with North American fifth columnists, saboteurs, and useful idiots students. Close examination of the photograph shows that the image of the Cuban leader has been subtly altered to make him look like the Nazi leader. Underneath banners proclaiming Cubaâs opposition to war and terrorism, President Castro is seen in full military uniform, but the worldâs most famous beard has been replaced by historyâs most striking moustache, while his grey hair now has the faint hint of a black comb-over. Although details of what happened remain unclear, what is known is that someone or some group at the newspaper appears to have risked all in the name of political satire. Yesterday a spokesman for the newspaper confirmed that an investigation was under way, but that the photographer who took the picture was not responsible. "I know nothing, nothing!"
Now the talk of Havana is not just of what the image was supposed to mean, but of what has happened to those under suspicion. Rumours have spread, not least because the local offices of the Communist party went to work as soon as the change was noticed, ensuring that fewer copies than normal made it on to the streets. A familiar tactic in other commie strongholds, such as Berkeley, where student newspapers with anti-Left material are routinely vandalized and stolen.
Many people did not receive their daily delivery, while those sent to offices were subsequently recalled. Just like the FBI does with Mother Jones here in the evil land of AshKKKroft and Bushitler?
Some say that those seated in the background of the photograph, which was published on December 4, have had their glasses darkened, to make them look like mafiosi, or that they have had white lines superimposed on their lips, suggesting that they dare not speak out against President Castroâs wishes. The guy at the very back looks like Jesus.
Others argue that the whole thing is nothing more than a trick of the light. But the Cuban authorities are treating the matter far more seriously than that. There is no official word on what has happened to the suspected culprits, (Hope theyâre on the next raft to Florida.)
but rumours of arrests and a large-scale investigation have hit the Havana grapevine.
"Hernandez! Round up everybody with a copy of Photoshop!"
"Si, Compañero Capitan!"
Yesterday the newspaper tried to play down the significance of the investigation. A spokesman dismissed rumours about the number of those arrested as "lies", saying that there was a single suspect. "We have only one cell waiting in the Green Gulag. What do you think we are, totalitarians?"
The government has as yet made no official statement, and no story has appeared in the foreign press, leading many Cubans to question the purpose of foreign journalists based on the island. Same as their counterparts here: promoting socialism.
This latest dissent highlights what some see as a changing mood in Havana. In October dissident members of the Proyecto Varela, led by Oswaldo Payá, delivered a petition to parliament in Havana calling for a referendum on human and democratic rights. This was the second petition to be presented in the past two years and carried the signatures of more than 14,000 future inmates Cubans. The petition has been refused by the Cuban authorities. How many others privately agree with Mr Payá is impossible to gauge, but this most recent example of dissent against President Castro suggests a new mood. In April the president provoked international criticism in his most brutal crackdown on dissent since the early years of the revolution in the 1950s. More than 80 journalists, economists and librarians were arrested and hastily tried, with some of the leading voices of dissent among those sentenced to prison for up to 30 years. The brief trials saw former colleagues and aides used as witnesses, accusing them of "activities against the integrity and sovereignty of the state" and of having worked as infiltrators on behalf of the US. Did the prosecution bring in outside experts? Fisk and Pilger would have done it cheap.
Young Cubans, particularly in Havana, have failed to immerse themselves in the revolutionary ideals to the same extent as those born before 1959 and President Castroâs triumph over the former rightwing dictator Fulgencio Batista. With the collapse in 1989 of the Soviet Union - Cubaâs main international source of financial and political support - the island has been forced to turn into a Euro-whorehouse to tourism. Although this has brought in much needed dollars, and helped to fund education and healthcare, it has also been the source of discontent. Vacationing Euro-swine Wealthy foreigners parade along the streets of the capital, carrying digital cameras, mobile phones and wearing the kind of expensive sportswear of which the average Habañero can only dream. It is no surprise then that young Cubans look on enviously, while turning their backs on the Communist ideology that preaches against western consumerism. But, with the regime as vigorous as ever in clamping down on opposition, they may yet have to wait for change. While Western journalists and lefty professo-liars sip free daiquiris in their special hotels and Ted Turner, Jimmy Carter, and a veritable galaxy of Hollywood stars hobnob with Castro.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
12/30/2003 1:02:17 AM ||
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AC great post!
I've been to Cuba (i'm not an American) and there is a real time-warp quality to the place. Its not just the antique American cars, its also the racial segregation which is quite striking. Once in a while a left wing American black comes back from Cuba and denounces the place, but otherwise its taboo on the left and you never hear about it in the mainstream media.
I met a Russian girl Irina when I was there and had a wild time. She may have been a plant but more likely I was just a westerner with money who didn't give a sh**. Those were the days!
#2
Irina! She must have been saucy. A slinky number with silken hair. Eyes like twinkling stars in a milky heaven. Skin so soft and tan. Of course she was 21 but with the charm of a school girl. The laughter, tell us about the laughter.
#3
I've always wanted to be seduced by a beautiful Russian spy. I'd pretend to smitten and give her classified information when really I was working for MI-5 and just wanted the encryption machine in the embassy....oh wait, that was "From Russia With Love".
Posted by: Steve ||
12/30/2003 11:07 Comments ||
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#4
Ah yes Lucky, there was laughter. A little tickle then a gigle. Laughing, yes! We'd laugh all night.
#10
You have this all wrong! They are not stifiling dissent, they are CORRECTING a glaring error in a magazine. And to ensure that this error never happens again, we are sending those responsible to special camps.
#11
Kathy, you're kidding: this is what the fuss is about? I'm a hell of a lot better with Photoshop than the guy who did this. Let me have the original and I'll turn Fidel into Barney Fife. No seams, no lines.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2003 16:33 Comments ||
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#12
Don't event think about it SW. No jelly sandwiches for you.
In a special operation, ten hard boyzturbans militants have been killed in the highlands of Dagestan, the press service of the Russian Defence Ministry reported on Monday. "On December 28 a clash happened between a special operations unit of the Main Reconnaissance Board of the General Staff and the group of militants. After a fierce shootout ten militants were eliminated," says the press service in a communique. Combat reconnaissance groups were withdrawn from the area and army aviation delivered air strikes. Search operations are continuing, says the communique.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:47:17 AM ||
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Kill everybody in sight, withdraw, then bomb. I like it.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 11:40 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe they hope to catch the nasties trying to recover the bodies - or more likely, the weapons those bodies used to carry. Hey, if it makes life harder for those that want to force everyone to be a mooslum, I'm all for it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2003 23:04 Comments ||
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And these are the fabled peacekeepers who are supposed to shore up our GIs in Iraq ...
UN peacekeeping troops set up their first base within territory controlled by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel group at the weekend without meeting resistance after being barred from entering LURD territory on Christmas Day.
"You can't come in now. We're washing our hair."
"Uhhh... Hokay. We'll come back Tuesday."
A detachment of 125 Pakistani troops drove in a convoy of armoured vehicles to Kley Junction 35 km north of the capital Monrovia, on Saturday, the United Nations in Liberia (UNMIL) said in a statement. Kley Junction is a strategic crossroads, controlling access to the Sierra Leone border at Bo Waterside and the town of Tubmanburg, which hosts LURDâs military headquarters. Last Thursday, LURD fighters had stopped a larger contingent of Pakistani troops heading for Tubmanburg from crossing the Po River Bridge. The bridge marks the frontline between UN-controlled Monrovia and the rebel-occupied northwest of the country. Military sources said that following Saturdayâs deployment to Kley Junction, LURD fighters and fighters loyal to the former government of Charles Taylor began clearing checkpoints in western and northern Liberia ahead of a larger deployment of UN peacekeepers to other parts of the country. Pro-Taylor commanders in north central Liberia told IRIN by satellite phone on Sunday that almost all checkpoints in Nimba county had been dismantled to prepare for UNMILâs deployment there. "Government forces here in Nimba are out for peace, we are aware that the war is over, so there is no need for unnecessary checkpoints. That is why we have removed checkpoints in Kahnplay, Saclepea and Ganta towns. We have UNMIL to deploy here quickly", one commander, who identified himself as General Mehn, said.
"Chuck's gone, the money's all gone, we've looted everything we can find. We can stand down for a few months until something else comes along..."
LURDâs deputy military chief of staff, General Oforie Diah, told IRIN on Monday that his forces were also starting to remove checkpoints in rural Liberia to allow for what he called "unhindered deployment of UN troops". Diah said he would personally accompany an UNMIL delegation to the LURD-held town of Gbarnga, 150 km northeast of Monrovia to brief his fighters to clear checkpoints and allow UN troops to establish a base there. "We are preparing to turn over everything to UNMIL, our checkpoints and guns, because the Liberian people are tired of war. We too are tired of war", he said. LURD fighters rejoiced and set fire at checkpoints they formerly guarded as the first column of UN troops rolled down the road to Kley Junction on Saturday, accompanied by General Daniel Opande of Kenya, the UNMIL Force Commander. Both LURD fighters and villagers lined the route chanting, "we want peace, no more war, we want UNMIL."
"Hurrah! Let these guys earn some money so we can steal it!"
Until recently, UNMIL lacked the troop strength to deploy much beyond Monrovia and its immediate surroundings. But the recent arrival of 2,000 more troops, including contingents from Pakistan and Ethiopia, has lifted the force to more than 7,000 men, enabling to become more adventurous. UNMIL is due to reach its full strength of 15,000 men in late February or March. Opande told a group of war-weary LURD fighters after arriving at Kley Junction: "Today deployment in Bomi County begins the long road in reuniting the whole country together. We will move in Tubmanburg, all the way to Lofa and all other parts of the country."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:46:01 AM ||
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The leaders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen on Monday lambasted their neighbour Eritrea, terming it a destabilising force in the Horn of Africa region. Ethiopiaâs Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Sudanâs President Omar al-Beshir and his Yemeni counterpart Ali Abdallah Saleh took turns to criticise Eritrea during a break in the course of their tripartite summit. "It is not a secret Eritreaâs desire is to destabilise Sudan by arming and training rebels and sending them into Sudan," Beshir told a news conference. I think that thereâs a slight problem of geography here if theyâre supposed to just march to Darfur.
He said Eritrea "was providing provisions, armaments and was taking care of wounded rebel soldiers" in the Darfur region of Sudan where rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) are fighting against government troops. "It is a fact that Eritrea has problems with all its neighbours," Meles said on the sidelines of the summit convened to discuss and sign a co-operation treaty between the three states.
Responding to a question, Meles said Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen had not formed an alliance against Eritrea. "To form a coalition against a tiny state is unthinkable. All the members of the forum are capable of facing Eritrea individually," Meles added. Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea are tense because of disagreements over the delineation of their shared frontier in the wake of a border war they fought between 1998 and 2000. "Eritrea has problems with neighbouring countries, and the only way out is for it to have dialogue and not confrontation," Saleh said.
In Khartoum, newspapers quoted national security chief Major General Salah Abdallah accusing Eritrea, Sudanâs main rebel movement and the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) of backing rebels in Darfur. Abdallah told newspaper editors on Sunday that Asmara had moved arms through airports held by the rebel Sudan Peopleâs Liberation Army (SPLA) in south Sudan to an airport held by the Darfur rebels in West Darfur State.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:43:16 AM ||
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Sudanâs four-year-old state of emergency could end if a peace deal is signed to end two decades of civil war in the south, the official Sudan News Agency SUNA reported yesterday. President Omar Hassan Bashir imposed a state of emergency in Africaâs largest country in December 1999. SUNA quoted Chairman of the Justice and Legislation Committee Ismail Al-Haj Musa as saying the president had sent a letter to Parliament asking that the emergency law be extended for a fifth year. âWhen a comprehensive cease-fire agreement is signed within the framework of a peace agreement, reasons for the state of emergency will cease to exist,â Musa quoted Bashir as saying in the letter. The state of emergency gives Bashir and the security authorities unlimited powers to arrest people, detain them indefinitely, close newspapers and dissolve parliament.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:41:06 AM ||
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Maxiumum Leader? How do you get a job like that? Do they list on Monster? I'll have to tweak my search agent.
The Sudan Liberation Movement demanded that a ceasefire agreement, under negotiation during collapsed peace talks last November, be observed by a neutral country. The Sudanese dictatorship rejected the idea of a ceasefire on Sunday, dismissing the demand and others as "unrealistic". The state-run Sudan News agency (SUNA) disclosed that the SLM demanded the cease-fire agreement be observed by a neutral country, under the auspices of the Federal States of Nigeria, the European Union and the Arab League group. No mention was made of the African Union. SLM demands also called for the dictatorship to recognize the SLM as the sole representative of the people of Sudanâs Darfur region and the hand-over of the military garrison of western Sudan to the rebels.
The Sudanese dictatorshipâs army announced Saturday that its troops had been attacked twice by the rebels in Darfur within 24 hours. Following intensive rebel operations the government dissolved the local cabinet of Darfur as the opposition to the dictatorship in Darfur had even reached to the hand picked members of the state government.
Darfur is Sudanâs largest state making up roughly one third of the total area of Sudan which is itself Africaâs largest state. About half the terroritory of Sudan is under uprising and armed resistance to the dictatorship, including most of the south and west of Sudan as well as sporadic uprisings and rebellions in the east. Sudan has Africaâs longest running conflict, with the latest round of war against the Arab dictatorship having started in 1983. Over the past 20 years of conflict some six million civilians have lost their lives. The dictatorship is currenty in peace negotiations with the main rebel group from the south, the SPLA, with talks taking place in Kenya under American pressure. President George W. Bush has indicated in a telephone call to the Sudanese military dictator Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir and the SPLA leader Colonel John Garang, that the American President would like the peace treaty to be signed in Washington. A deadline for December 31 had been set, but is now likely to be moved to early 2004. The peace talks do not involve the Sudanese people, civil society nor any of the many other rebel groups around the country such as JEM and SLM in Darfur and a host of rebel movements in southern Sudan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:39:48 AM ||
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The Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Othman Ismael has expected that Presidents of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Yemen will officially sign a treaty for the foundation of "Sanaa coalition" during their meeting in Addis Ababa. Ismael told journalists in a statement on Saturday that leaders of the three countries will discuss the treaty, which provides for establishing the coalition, and will sign it on Monday if approved. Ismael explained that the presidency of the coalition will be transferred during the meeting from Yemen to Ethiopia, and the leaders will review a report from the ministerial council of the coalition for the foreign ministers of the three countries, during their meeting on Sunday over tripartite relations and regional security. On the other hand, Sudanâs ambassador in Sanaa, Othman al-Sayed, denied that the Sanaa coalition will be directed against any country or group, noting that it rather aims to strengthen relations among the three countries. This came in retaliation to press reports indicating that this coalition is a sort of alliance in challenge of Eritrea, a country in tension with the three said countries. Sudanâs denying it, a good sign that they may plan on gobbling up a piece of Eritrea to make up for their losses in the south as a result of the SPLA deal. Eritrea is the #1 enemy of Ethiopia too, so that fits. Iâm not sure what Yemen gets out of the deal. One thing to keep in mind is that the Sudanese-backed al-Qaeda affiliate Eritrean Islamic Jihad has been up and running in Eritreaâs northern areas (i.e. the ones that Bashir likely plans to annex if it comes to that) for awhile now.
The Ethiopian foreign ministry announced that the prime minister, Meles Zenawi, and the Sudanese President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and his Yemeni counterpart, Ali Abdullah Saleh, will discuss means of strengthening political, economic and social relations among their countries. The Ministry added that talks during the summit which will start on Monday, and last for two days, and will deal with means of strengthening peace and security in the African horn.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/30/2003 12:38:16 AM ||
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--An internal memo within the Army of Danâ¢--
Yemen's beef with Eritrea concerns a handful of barren but strategically located rocks in the Red Sea called the Hanish archipelago.
#2
D'oh - just realized that I linked to a geoshitties page. We should exceed the site's bandwith after, say, five hits. In summary, Eritrea grabbed these islands back in '95/'96, and everyone else is pissed off.
#5
I don't know Hiryu. I'm sure they can save themselves through diplomacy. Afterall, they have, uh, sand to bargain with.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/30/2003 11:57 Comments ||
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#6
Has anybody developed a "Africa For Dummies". I get lost on who is who (outside the idiotic Mugabe and Qaddaffffffffiiiiii?). Something that neatly identifies the countries (and part there of), factions (and fractions there of), armies, rebel "freedom" fighters, etc. It would be especially helpful to describe the 1000 year old axes that the warring groups are grinding.
After awhile, I lose interest, because I just can;t keep up with it all.
#8
Hirua and Charles: Eritrea fought Ethiopia to a standstill in their last couple of conflict. Their country and their tribe / clan happen to be the same, unlike most of Africa. Gives them a little more morale.
Ethiopia's always been mostly independent. Too far away for the classical world to get to it, too isolated for the Muslim world to get to it - they had to go through Sudan, which is still animist/Christian. Ethiopia was one of the earliest Christian countries, since Christianity didn't have to invade people to impose itself.
Eritrea used to be part of Ethiopia, or tributary to it (before it was absorbed as a province in the early 1950s), and broke off when the Ethiopians kicked out the commies. Without Eritrea, Ethiopia is land-locked, not that Ethiopians have ever been mighty sailormen.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2003 20:30 Comments ||
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About 100 Palestinians have demonstrated in the West Bank city of Bethlehem against the Palestinian Authority's military intelligence service, blasting it for handing over a "collaborator". The protestors accused the service and its Bethlehem chief Tariq al-Wahidi of protecting a Palestinian who gave Israel information, which led to the killing of two resistance fighters last April.
They do tend to seethe when the al-Aqsa thugs don't get to leave people's bullet-riddled carcasses lying around on the streets...
Ziyad Shahin was transferred to Israel last week after four months in Palestinian detention. The two Palestinians killed last spring were the local head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs BrigadesMahmud Salah and one of his lieutenants, Anan Jawarish. The group issued a statement on the fringes of the demonstration, accusing Wahidi of having "sold the two martyrs" by handing over the alleged collaborator. "Soon after his arrival in the governorate, he became a landowner, accumulating palaces and capital.
Oh, no! Not capital!
"It is the retribution of his betrayal, his allegiance to his masters and the protection he grants to collaborators," it said of Wahidi. Bethlehem Governor Zuhayr Manasra met the demonstrators, mobilised by Fatah, and promised to open an investigation into the allegations.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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The headquarters of an independent Georgian television station which played a part in the downfall of veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze came under grenade attack yesterday. The attack heightened tension ahead of a January 4 presidential election in which Mikhail Saakashvili, who led street protests that brought down Shevardnadze, is widely expected to triumph. A grenade fired from a shoulder-held launcher hit the studio of Rustavi-2 in the capital Tbilisi in the early morning, damaging the stationâs editing suites, security officials said. No one was injured. âThis was a real terrorist attack,â said State Minister Zurab Zhvania. He said the culprits were people opposed to stability in the volatile ex-Soviet state on the southern fringes of Russia. âIt (the grenade) struck concrete between floors. If it had gone into the building, the results would have been much more serious,â State Security Minister Valery Khaburdzania told reporters at the scene. âI think this was not just to frighten, like before, because there could have been casualties,â said the stationâs owner Erosi Kitsmarishvili. Rustavi-2 has been the target of intimidation in the past. Founded privately 10 years ago, the station became sharply critical of Shevardnadze during his years in power and at one point was shut down for 18 months. It played a part in toppling Shevardnadze in November by rallying people to turn out in support of street protests against a parliamentary election said to have been rigged in favour of Shevardnadzeâs supporters.
Dire Revenge™ on the part of Shevardnadze die-hards? Seems kind of pointless, but I'm sure they'll be running a surrogate. Kitsmarishvili is probably on somebody's hit list.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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Was it WTBS?
Well, I certainly think that doofus Ted Turner had it coming if this is true.
Oops, wrong Georgia.
Never mind.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday any negotiations with Syria must start from scratch as he pushed ahead with a controversial plan to disengage from the peace process with the Palestinians. Questioned about the possibility of a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981, Sharon said any negotiations with Damascus âwill start from zeroâ.
"We're done making offers. It's their turn to make offers. We'll consider them, if we feel like it."
Sharon refused to go back to the position adopted by his Labour Party predecessor Ehud Barak envisaging a retreat from nearly all of the Golan.
That was the proposal the Syrians used for toilet paper...
Barak had, however, insisted maintaining control over Lake Tiberias with a presence on a narrow strip of land on the eastern bank. Syria has been demanding a resumption of negotiations âat the point where they were stoppedâ in January 2000.
"We've... ummm... reconsidered."
At the beginning of December, Syrian President Bashir Al Assad called on the United States to support renewed negotiations with Israel so as to normalise the two neighboursâ relations. âNegotiations should be resumed from the point at which they had stopped simply because we have achieved a great deal in these negotiations,â Assad told the New York Times. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said in the aftermath of Assadâs interview that the offer to revive talks was encouraging but insufficient and set several preconditions.
"We're tired of preconditions. We're tired of making one-sided compromises. I know it sounds drastic, but we're going to hold these bastards to the standards we'd expect of a civilized state."
Sharon, meanwhile, was pushing forward with his controversial âdisengagement planâ from the Palestinians by holding first talks with the general he has tasked with its execution. The prime minister was expected to meet with General Giora Eiland, from the militaryâs general command, after yesterdayâs weekly cabinet meeting, public radio reported. Eiland is being placed in charge of a special department of planning from January 15 that would be directly answerable to Sharonâs office. He will preside over a special commission which would also comprise representatives from the army, defence ministry, foreign ministry and the justice ministry. No date has yet been fixed for the commission to start its work. Sharonâs disengagement plan has been widely criticised, with the Americans warning that any unilateral measures must not impede the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
He's tired of the carrot, so he'll whack them with the stick for awhile. Good idea. I just hope they don't stop too soon.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/30/2003 00:03 ||
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#1
I think that Sharon's doing the move that someone on RB conjectured about recently:
1. Build the wall. Keep the Paleos out.
2. Secure the settlements with the wall that are defendable.
3. Write off the indefensible settlements.
4. Initiate deadly counterbattery fire to any rocket attacks from the Paleo side of the wall.
5. Let the Paleos live in their sick little ghettos according to whatever laws they decide to govern themselves with.
Sounds like a sound plan. Good fences make good neighbors.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/30/2003 0:11 Comments ||
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#2
How ironic life is. We had one wall (Berlin) to keep people in, now another one to keep them out.
#3
There are many walls designed to keep people out for example the border of the US and Mexico and the EU built a beauty to keep the North Africans out.
#5
not much of a wall on the us-mexican border. only walls, really chain-link fences , are located in populated areas of the border (with many,many holes). Outside of the cities, if you can ruff the desert for a hundred miles or so, it is mainly electronic surveillance.
what walls did the eu build to keep out north africans? just curious since i have not heard of one.
Posted by: Dan ||
12/30/2003 14:33 Comments ||
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#6
what walls did the eu build to keep out north africans? just curious since i have not heard of one.
I'm pretty sure they dug a trench instead.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/30/2003 15:39 Comments ||
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#7
Yes, the Royal & Ancient Atlas Dredging Co. had the contract... mostly subbed to Haliburon tho.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Pakistani parliamentarians have passed a constitutional bill in the National Assembly that gives vast powers to President 
