Fighting between rival warlords — possibly over drugs — left one person dead in remote northern Afghanistan, a senior official said Saturday, confirming a renewed outbreak of the factional violence dogging efforts to stabilize the country. Clashes erupted Thursday evening near Orgo in Badakhshan province, Deputy Interior Minister Hilalludin Hillal told The Associated Press. Afghan television had reported that as many as 20 people were killed and another 40 wounded; Hillal said only one person was dead and five were injured. He said fighting had stopped, and a team of investigators from Kabul were trying to find out what happened, including whether lucrative drug-trafficking was the cause. The deputy interior minister said protagonists from the recent fighting were Orgoâs mayor, Musadeq, who like many Afghans uses only one name, and a local militia commander called Qari Ziauddin. Their forces have clashed repeatedly in the past. "As you know there is a lot of (opium) poppy cultivation in Badakhshan," Hillal said. "But we should wait for our team to return" before drawing conclusions.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:04:39 AM ||
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It's like a three ring circus.
"We've got bodies like cord wood!"
"One death of cardiac arrest, opium found at site of death."
An Afghan boy whose 14-month detention by US authorities as a terrorist suspect in Cuba prompted an outcry from human rights campaigners said yesterday that he enjoyed his time in the camp. Mohammed Ismail Agha, 15, who until last week was held at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, said that he was treated very well and particularly enjoyed learning to speak English. His words will disappoint critics of the US policy of detaining "illegal combatants" in south-east Cuba indefinitely and without trial.
They'll just ignore him and go on...
In a first interview with any of the three juveniles held by the US at Guantanamo Bay base, Mohammed said: "They gave me a good time in Cuba. They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons." Mohammed, an unemployed Afghan farmer, found the surroundings in Cuba at first baffling. After he settled in, however, he was left to enjoy stimulating school work, good food and prayer. "At first I was unhappy . . . For two or three days [after I arrived in Cuba] I was confused but later the Americans were so nice to me. They gave me good food with fruit and water for ablutions and prayer," he said yesterday in Naw Zad, a remote market town in southern Afghanistan close to his home village and 300 miles south-west of Kabul, the capital.
Saying stuff like that is a good way to get yourself killed, kid...
He said that the American soldiers taught him and his fellow child captives - aged 15 and 13 - to write and speak a little English. They supplied them with books in their native Pashto language. When the three boys left last week for Afghanistan, the soldiers looking after them gave them a send-off dinner and urged them to continue their studies. "They even took photographs of us all together before we left," he said. Mohammed, however, said he would have to disappoint his captors by not returning to his studies. "I am too poor for that. I will have to look for work," he said.
"I've been offered a position as a snuffy..."
Mohammed said his detention began in November 2002 when he and a friend, both unemployed, left their farming community for Lashkar Gah, a nearby town. He said that as they stood outside a shop they were detained by a group of armed men who accused them of being members of the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic movement formerly in power in Afghanistan.
"Yeah. We wuz just standin' around, doin' nuttin', an' these here guyz, see? They comes up to us..."
They were then handed over to US soldiers, who took them to the southern city of Kandahar, he claimed. They were taken to Bagram air base, where Mohammed was held in solitary confinement. "They were asking me if I was Taliban. I said, âNo, I am innocentâ. I thought they were going to release me but instead they put me on a plane," he said. "They asked me to wear a hood for part of the journey. When I got off the plane I was in Cuba."
Yep. Just whisked him off for no reason whatsoever...
While Mohammed praised the American soldiers who watched over him, he criticised the US authorities for failing to contact his parents for 10 months to let them know that he was alive. "They stole 14 months of my life, and my familyâs life. I was entirely innocent: just a poor boy looking for work," he said.
Yeah. We just needed a body to fill that Gitmo cell until we caught somebody important...
Mohammed and his fellow juvenile detainees returned to Afghanistan last week, after the intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross Thingy. His words of praise for the American soldiers in Guantanamo Bay echo those of Faiz Mohammed, an elderly Afghan farmer who was detained at the base for eight months before being released in October 2002. "They treated us well. We had enough food. I didnât mind [being detained] because they took my old clothes and gave me new clothes," said the farmer, who was partially deaf.
"What the hell? I was gettin' too old to heft a rod, anyway..."
The US authorities insist that age plays no role in deciding who constitutes a threat. "Age is not a determining factor in detention. We detain enemy combatants who engaged in armed conflict against our forces or provided support to those fighting against us," said a Pentagon spokesman.
It doesn't make any sense to just round them up off the streets...
Another US government official contradicted Mohammedâs claims that he was entirely innocent when detained. The official said last week that one of the three boys had told of being conscripted into an anti-American militia group; a second said that he was abducted by the Taliban and forced to train and fight; while the third was studying in an extremist mosque and captured while preparing to obtain weapons.
Just looking for work...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 12:58:39 AM ||
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#2
This is either very good, (the kid starts working for the SF back home) or very bad (the kid's smart, learned English, getting in a position to take dire revenge.)
#5
Its kind of sad to take a kid that was already on the road to learning english and dump him back into the same desperate situation that lead him to make a wrong decision in the first place, I would have placed the three kids in a private school like Exeter. If they really applied themselves, they could have ended up in an Ivy League school where they could have learned to hate America with much more passion thatn they seem to currently.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 12:29 Comments ||
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#6
Hello Muthuh
Hello Fathah
Here I am at Camp Grenada....
Sorry folks, I'm dating meself....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/08/2004 15:06 Comments ||
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#7
Shouldn't that have been:
Hello Mullah!
Hello Fatwah! ...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste ||
02/08/2004 17:24 Comments ||
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#8
Steven, I defer to da Mastuh. ROTFLMAO! We need to get that one posted on the RB Classics section.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/08/2004 17:58 Comments ||
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Registration reqâd, edited for length
As spring approaches, all is set for another bumper poppy crop in Afghanistan, already the worldâs largest opium producer with nearly three-quarters of the global opium production and catering to some 90 percent of Western Europeâs market demand. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), poppy production amounted to 3,600 tones in 2003 despite being banned officially by the Afghan government. Recent trends indicate poppy cultivation is spreading further into the countryâs remote areas. Around 1.7 million people, 7 percent of the population, are directly involved in poppy production.
Poppy is only produced on approximately 1 percent (around 160,000 acres in 2003) of the total arable land in the country. The bulk of poppy production takes place on irrigated land. The trade is worth an estimated US $2.5bn annually, roughly as much as the combined international aid effort and equivalent to half of Afghanistanâs legitimate gross national product. On present trends, future crops may be even bigger, if not more lucrative. According to a September 15 from New York Universityâs Centre on International Cooperation, the amount of land devoted to poppy cultivation will probably increase in 83 districts and decline in fewer than 20 districts. Opium is now produced in 28 of Afghanistanâs 32 provinces, as compared to just 18 in 1999. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that narcotics production is dominating Afghanistanâs economy. âA dangerous potential exists for Afghanistan to progressively slide into a ânarco-stateâ where all legitimate institutions become penetrated by the power and wealth of (drug) traffickers,â the Fund said in September. The British, who are supposed to play the lead role in dealing with drugs, have achieved little. Their programme to pay farmers to eradicate poppy fields has, unfortunately, led to increased poppy production. And the US military and coalition forces have maintained a hands-off policy, diligently avoiding involvement in battling narcotics.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 12:01:00 AM ||
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say: "bumper poppy crop" 3 times, fast
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/08/2004 0:17 Comments ||
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Hmmm. The US subsidizes US tobacco farmers, and happily supports export of American cigarettes ("nicotine delivery systems") to every country in the world. Nicotine is one of the more potent poisons - it makes opium or heroin look like tofu.
But - I guess US drugs killing millions of people are OK, becaues they are America's "traditional crop". But - we can go after tradional crops like coca plants and opium poppies elsewhere. Pathetic hypocrisy.
I guess we'll never see a US President spirited off in chains (ala Manueal Noreiga), and then tried, convicted and locked up somewhere (Bhutan?) as leader of a country that promotes a deadly drug culture. Too bad.
#3
Yawn. A Splodeytroll threw blew up all over this thread. All that's left of him is trite sound-byte-sized drivel. What a mess.
Posted by: Bone Stranger ||
02/08/2004 1:41 Comments ||
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#4
My Dad died of a heart attack due to nicotine. He was 68.
And that's way to young! I've known some to live well into their 80s and 90s. Lone Ranger takes the high road. Pathetic hypocrisy and shame. Yes deep shame. BTW I've never made a dime off of tabacco and that's why I'm not a millionair.
Oh and this country doesn't promote a deadly drug culture. It promotes cheesy sex and moronic sports. USC #1 quack, quack, quack!
#5
With Washington going to Kerry, methinks this is just another Deanie baby losing his cookies.
I think Robert Crawford should give a name / acronym to the phenomenon, since he brought it to our attention. Mebbe we should run a contest - and RC picks the winner.
#6
Lucky, a few years ago the oldest man in Canada smoked a pack a day for nearly a hundred years, and was still alive at 115. And here is a link to a 122 yo chain smoker - http://www.tobacco.org/news/141034.html
Go figure!
#7
Yeah I quit smoking 3 years ago on doctors orders.... asked him if I would live longer. Doctors said it was hard to say... but it would definitely seem longer.
#10
So the moral equivalent of smoking a cigarette, has become having your waking hours dominated by the seach for your next score of heroin, crack, amphetamine or something to sniff. Some of this stuff is just evil. Even need for oxicondine, a legally prescribed drug, lead a local guy on a 20 store hold-up binge. It turns my stomache to see poor waifs in Moscow hanging out around the train station procuring small baggies of model glue to sniff. Glad to see the UN is helping out by measuring the crop size and thereby the performance of individuals who care enough to actually do something to help people.
I guess it would do no good to point out to the cigarette nazi that we have never interrupted the trade in coffee, rum, khat chocolate and tea that vary in addictive capacity but are produced from crops grown developing nations. Tobacco is now grown heavily in Africa as well. They need any export dollars thay can get.
I am a reformed user of Copenhagen which I recommend to no one.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 12:50 Comments ||
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#11
I believe that 3,600 tons of opium gum = 36 tons of heroin.
#12
IIRC, Marco Polo mentions opium being grown in the Far East (including the area now known as Afghanistan) when he returned from his extended stay in Cathay (China). It's not a new phenomenon, introduced by the United States, or the result of our actions in the area. Archeologists have found stone pipes, used to smoke tobacco, that are over 2000 years old. Yet our little microtroll tries to point the finger (the one in the middle) at the United States, which is "the sole cause of all the trouble in the world".
No wonder Dean's in the toilet, with this kind of "support".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/08/2004 14:11 Comments ||
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#13
OP, the jews have been around for a long time. Maybe they were responsible.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 14:35 Comments ||
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The Lone Ranger's right - our nation's drug policies are totally hypocritical. Both Alcohol and Tobacco are more addictive and damaging than marijuana, but look which one is illegal here. The policy of prohibition is doomed to always be a failure. Legal controls, taxation, education, and treatment for addicts are a much better option.
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
02/08/2004 16:25 Comments ||
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#16
LOL! Everyone who is an exsmoker raise their hand.... now.. does anyone miss smoking? I do. I miss the easy conversation that came with the smoking ritual... Hell I miss the cheap rush... I'm glad I quit but I don't regret a single nail.
#17
Well when I was in NAM I used to love hearing the words "light em up"...Mary Jane isn't as addictive as tobacco or alcohol, but that is for another time and forum I suppose.
Osama bin-Ladenâs worldwide terrorist network, al-Qaida, has been attempting to recruit Arab fighter pilots to carry out terror attacks against Israeli targets. Channel 2 quoted Israel Air Force commander Gen. Dan Halutz as having told a gathering of security officials a short time ago that al-Qaida had actively been trying to recruit Arab pilots for suicide terror missions. Halutz told the officials that Saudi authorities had recently thwarted such a recruitment of a Saudi Arabian fighter pilot by making key arrests, according to the TV. According to Halutz, Israeli authorities have taken "the required steps" to guard against terror attacks from the air.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 7:01:02 PM ||
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#1
Interesting...ALQ involving itself in the Israel Paleo war. They have pretty much stayed out of this conflict. If so this marks a change for them.
#2
I think matrydom wouldn't be very attractive to fighter pilots. Most of them know how to take-off and land. I imagine that very few military pilots were recruited out of the maddrasses. The curriculum's don't match-up very well. Western trained intellectual malcontents don't usually find a home in the cockpit of a high performance aircraft. AQ might be able to take somebody's grandma hostage, though.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 21:06 Comments ||
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The purported leader of a Yemeni radical group known as âAden-Abyan Islamic Armyâ denied in remarks published yesterday that such an outfit even existed, charging the intelligence services had invented the name. âThe name âAden-Abyan Islamic Armyâ is a creature of the security and intelligence services. We never proclaimed this name,â Khaled Abdennabi told Al-Hayat newspaper in an interview. âWe practice violence (only) against those who practice violence against Muslims. We do not have any (animosity) toward Western interests or foreigners in Yemen,â he said.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Abdennabi, who was reported to have died in clashes with security forces in Abyan province last June before it turned out that he was alive and had been granted a pardon by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused Yemeni security forces of cracking down on Islamists at the behest of the United States. âRegrettably, Yemeni security is working full time on hunting bearded men at Americaâs request while allowing gangs to commit all sorts of crimes,â he said.
"Yeah! Why ain't you guys out catching burglars or somethin'?"
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army figures on a list of terrorist organizations issued by the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington. It is believed to be made up of a handful of diehard militants including veterans of the Afghan war against the former Soviet Union. Abdennabi was thought to have succeeded the groupâs leader Abu Bakr Al-Mehdar alias Abul Hassan, who was executed a year after the 1998 abduction of 16 Westerners in southern Yemen, four of whom were killed during a botched police raid. Sanaa later claimed to have wiped out the group, but its name surfaced again among suspects for the suicide attack against USS Cole in Aden port in October 2000 that killed 17 American sailors.
Perhaps the name was revived?
Two years later, a statement in the groupâs name claimed that it carried out a blast that struck a French supertanker off the Yemeni coast, but its authenticity could not be verified.
Kind of indicates its existence, though, doesn't it?
Washington attributed the Cole bombing to Al-Qaeda network. Abdennabi, who fought in Afghanistan in 1991, said he had no links with Al-Qaeda. Abdennabi, 37, accused the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP) members, which he said were present in the intelligence services and security forces despite being out of power, of inciting the government against Islamists. He said the socialists were seeking revenge for the Islamistsâ support for the Sanaa government in a 1994 civil war sparked by a YSP-led secession bid in south Yemen.
"Them guys just have it in for us Islamists! An' we din't do nuttin'!"
Abdennabi was reported to have been killed by security forces during clashes with gunmen from the two groups last June in Jabal Hatat, 120 km (75 miles) northwest of the southern port city of Aden. But authorities later said a charred body initially thought to be his was in fact that of a Saudi, and that Abdennabi had surrendered and been granted a pardon by Saleh.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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We practice violence (only) against those who practice violence against Muslims. We do not have any (animosity) toward Western interests or foreigners in Yemen .... [the group] claimed that it carried out a blast that struck a French supertanker off the Yemeni coast
I'm confused. Explain it to me again.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 9:12 Comments ||
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The next time Jimmy Carter decides to provides to Islamic "freedom fighters" I hope he goes heavy on the cigarettes, meats and dairy group offereing. Waiting around for these Afhgan vets to die of natural causes may take a long time. I also hope Yemen doesn't follow the Confederate tradition of passing military rank down through generations. I am partial to Coronel Sanders chicken, though, despite the fact that he never rode with Jeb Stuart.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 13:01 Comments ||
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doesn't follow the Confederate tradition of passing military rank down through generations
Heh heh mmmm My doubleG granddad was one of only 17 known privates in the ANV.
Saudi Arabia will not allow any foreign power to interfere in its internal or political, educational and economic affairs, Prince Abdul Rahman, deputy minister of defense and aviation, stated yesterday. Addressing armed forces personnel at King Fahd Military City here, the minister said Saudi forces must be ready to face any eventuality.
"We got millions o' enemies! Infidels to the left of us! Infidels to the right of us!"
Prince Abdul Rahman is on an inspection tour of the Eastern Province to convey Eid greetings from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, to the armed forces stationed in the region. He commended their efforts in defending the Kingdom. âAll Saudi citizens are proud of your committed service,â he told them.
"The wars you've fought, the invasions you've repulsed, by Gad, that's the stuff of legend!"
He said the government would do everything to meet the needs of the armed forces. âThere is no barrier between you and us,â he added. Speaking later at King Abdul Aziz Airbase in the province, the prince said that the development of the Saudi armed forces with its advanced training and modern weaponry was the envy of many other countries.
Which countries are sitting around saying "Gee, golly, gosh! I wish our army could be like the Soddies'"?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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#1
actually, the air conditioning, lack of mandatory training and opportunities for bribes are the envy of other countries
#3
Great. Yawn. This is when the "police" come out from under the overpasses. They go everywhere with their lights flashing, stand around in intersections trying to look menacing and, generally, create traffic jams and make a nuisance of themselves. Everyone in the Eastern Province will be glad to see Rahman's ass when he heads back to his fucking palace - somewhere else.
As for interfering in someone else's internal affairs, no one does it better than the Saudis - cuz no one else has so much disposable bribe money available (that should have been used to educate kids or teach basic healthcare to ignorant citizens).
As for the Saudi Military being the envy of anyone, heh, mhw and Lucky have these clowns covered!
#4
....the prince said .... the Saudi armed forces .... was the envy of many other countries.
For example:Ethiopia, Haiti, Sierra Leone,Somalia,Tanzania
#5
Saudi Arabia will not allow any foreign power to interfere in its internal or political, educational and economic affairs ....
... and as a reciprocal measure we today announce that Saudi Arabia will no longer bribe foreign officials, lobby foreign governments, fund terrorists operating abroad or export our stupid fundamentalist education.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 9:18 Comments ||
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The envy of many countries? I have spent the last 37 years waiting for the Sodies defying Israel for a one on one confrontation instead of hiding behind Jordania.
#7
Never in the field of human conflict has so much money been spent with so little to show for it...
In the 1990s SA's expenditure/soldier supposedly exceeded $200,000, so I could well imagine SA's brave boys being the envy of many a third world squadie. Take a Ugandan soldier for example, he gets paid a pitance to chase around after the LRA, the Saudi soldier gets paid good money to sit on his arse & drink sugar-saturated tea, so you bet the Ugandan soldier envies the Saudis!
Posted by: Dave ||
02/08/2004 17:27 Comments ||
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Kingdom âWill Not Tolerate Outside Interferenceâ
OK, no problem. We'll be glad to "interfere" from inside the "kingdom" - preferably with a large contingent of forces in Mecca, Medina, and Riyadh. (Don't know about Mecca or Medina, but Riyadh already has the infrastructure we need to support our forces.)
Glad to be of service. :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 20:26 Comments ||
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#9
Ya an occupation of Medina and Mecca ought to get their attention. If we hear of so much as one bomb or terrorist act anywhere we can start dismantling a few buildings.
#10
In the 1990s SA's expenditure/soldier supposedly exceeded $200,000....
I can't help but wonder how much of that went to equipping and sustaining the armed forces and how much went to foreign contractors and to "commissions" at various levels.
Pirates armed with shotguns tried to board a general cargo ship at a Yemeni oil terminal in the Gulf of Aden, where terrorists attacked the tanker Limburg in 2002, the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre said. The four robbers fled in speedboats after making several attempts to board the vessel at the Ash Shihr oil terminal on Jan 29, the IMB said. The incident was one of eight during the week ended Feb 4. 'This incident is worrying since it happened at the same place as the Limburg,' Jayant Abhyankar, the bureau's director, said in a telephone interview from London. The crude-oil tanker Limburg was rammed by a boat packed with explosives in October 2002. One crewmember was killed and several others injured in the attack.
Sounds more like a Jolly Roger operation than al-Qaeda...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:02 ||
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Judging by the article, the China Sea is still maintaining its reputation for deadly pirate attacks.
#2
Shotguns! Wow, these must be the pirate princes. Usually they just hijack ships with knives, or occasionally, with nothing more than their own rank body odor.
#3
If its terrorists, than the attack is based on their lack of recent paychecks.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 13:05 Comments ||
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#4
I still think that having a disguised squad of marines drive around a cargo ship that rides low in the water would be a good ruse.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 13:08 Comments ||
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#5
SH---I like your idea. Trolling for pirates. Depends though on keeping the ship's purpose sectet, and you will have to watch which ship and crew you pick. One loose lip on the crew and your cover is blown.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/08/2004 15:16 Comments ||
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#6
I think the bozo climbing over the rail with the machete in his teeth would be quite surprised at the greeting that Jarhead provided.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 21:09 Comments ||
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One person was killed and three others were injured when an explosion took place nearby the residence of the state minister, the capital Mayor Ahmed al-Kuhlani on Sunday evening 25 January. The real motives behind the incident were not discovered yet or the identity of those who had placed the explosive charge near the house of Mr al-Kuhlani. Mr al-Kuhlani had on Saturday 24 Jan. had supervised the fencing of a plot of land nearby Shumaila market in Sanaâa after security police who accompanied him had exchanged fire with some persons claiming their ownership of the land, but the clash did not cause any casualties. The mayor of the capital receives support from the president and many other circles for his efforts for improving and developing the capital Sanaâa.
Likely this one is indignant former property owners...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:02 ||
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EFL of a Telegraph Oped piece. Hattip to Belmont Club
... An even more striking example of disagreements, bearing directly on the current Iraq controversy, was over intelligence of German secret weapons. A strange leak, the Oslo report, had warned the British in 1940 that Hitler was developing pilotless aircraft and rockets. It was ignored until, in 1943, reports from inside occupied Europe referred to the subject again. A committee was set up, chaired by Duncan Sandys, Winston Churchillâs son-in-law. Its findings were reviewed by another committee, of which Lord Cherwell, Churchillâs scientific adviser, was the most important member. Cherwell absolutely denied the possibility of Germany having a rocket, and produced the scientific evidence to prove it. He persisted in his denial throughout 1943 until June 1944, when remains of a crashed V2 were brought to Britain from neutral Sweden. Shortly afterwards, the first operational V2 landed on London. Churchill was furious. "Weâve been caught napping," he burst out in Cabinet.
Worse than napping. More than 1,500 V2s landed on London, killing thousands, at a time when Hitler was also trying to develop a nuclear warhead. The whole pilotless weapons episode demonstrates that, even under threat of a supreme national crisis, and in the face of copious and convincing warnings, intelligence officers can disagree completely about the facts and some can be 100 per cent wrong... This piece reminds me of the Lifeâs post-WWII quagmire article that Jessicaâs Well broke.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 2:51:30 PM ||
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Itâs rap, jihad-style. A music video with blood-curdling images, fronted by a young British Muslim rapper brandishing a gun and a Koran is the latest hit in radical Islamic circles. The rap song is called âDirty Kuffarâ - Arabic for dirty non-believer - and it praises Osama bin Laden and the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. The video has recently been posted on the British website run by the Islamic extremist Mohammed al-Massari, the UK-based Saudi Arabian dissident who has lived in Britain since 1994. Al-Massari claims that the video has been selling in large quantities at mosques to the younger generation and is in heavy demand overseas.
Moe sounds like he should be a candidate for deportation...
The rapper fronting the video calls himself Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew - a take on the rap group So Solid Crew. âSalahâ is Arabic for faith. The video might at first be mistaken for an Ali G spoof, but the violent images quickly reveal it is no joke. The song starts with images of US marines in Iraq cheering as one of them shoots a wounded Iraqi lying on the floor. At the end of the video, it features shots of the hijacked planes flying into the Twin Towers with sounds of the rappers laughing. There is then a list of 56 countries they claim have been the âvictims of American aggressionâ since 1945. The four-minute rap is essentially a repeated diatribe against the âdirty non-believersâ Tony Blair and George Bush, urging listeners to âthrow them on the fireâ.
Y'mean, like, kill them? Tusk tusk. What ever happened to the Religion of Peace™?
One of the most brutal images shows a jihadist fighter in Chechnya riddling a captured Russian soldier with a Kalashnikov. Another image labels Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf a traitor and shows photographs of Colin Powell and Condeleezza Rice with the words âstill slavesâ superimposed across their bodies.
They just keep zeroing in on the skin color, as though something's supposed to happen when they do...
Labour MP Andrew Dismore said he was âdisgustedâ by the video and is to refer it to the Home Office and ask the police to investigate if any offence has been committed.
An offense like incitement to violence, perhaps?
Dismore said: âThese extremist are using music and video to prey on young and impressionable Muslim boys in order to attract them to their brand of lunacy and entice them to commit acts of terror. It is inexcusable.â
Then don't excuse it! It's your country! Toss the sons of bitches out!
The website on which the video was originally posted is run by the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights in Saudi Arabia, a group run by al-Massari who came to Britain in 1994 after being imprisoned by the Saudi regime. He said: âA boy came to me and showed me the video and I thought the content was good, although I am no expert on rap. I thought it was an excellent attempt to use modern methods to get a message across.â
The message being one of violence, death, and hatred. How noble.
Al-Massari did not see a problem in using Western music and MTV-like images to sell a message of jihad. He said that it was an effective way of attracting young Muslims who had been put off by other Islamic sects such as the Taliban, which banned music and dancing. âI do not know of any young Muslim who has not either seen or got this video. It is selling everywhere. Everyone I meet at the mosque is asking for it.â
Just asking for it...
Al-Massari denied that the messages in the video incited Muslims to take part in terrorist attacks against the West. He said: âI believe the lyrics are only metaphorical. It is not like this is a fatwa.â
Sophistry wears a turban, it seems...
In November 2002, al-Massari circulated a 4,000-word message allegedly from Osama bin Laden. In 2001, al-Massari was granted permanent residence in Britain, five years after Michael Howard, then Conservative Home Secretary, tried to deport him.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:08:02 AM ||
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I have to admit I found parts of it funny, and at first I thought it was a satire, with these guys with names like 'AK-47' acting like gangsta jihadis.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 1:18 Comments ||
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#2
FOX showed cuts of this. Pretty slickly done for thick skulls. The lines are being drawn.
#3
It can be downloaded from here, if you want to see it. It's about 45 MB.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 2:55 Comments ||
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#4
the enemy within
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 12:02 Comments ||
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#5
In 2001, al-Massari was granted permanent residence in Britain, five years after Michael Howard, then Conservative Home Secretary, tried to deport him.
If at first you don't succeed, Mr. Howard, try, try again...
#6
Don't deport him. Just record every email address, ISP code, and any other tracking data from everyone that visits his site. Then the next time anything bad happens in Britain, round 'em ALL up. Then you might have enough to charter the liner "France" to send 'em all back to SoddyRapia. And if the liner sinks enroute, no big deal.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/08/2004 14:18 Comments ||
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#7
Not surpising that the jihadis have invaded rap, an art a music genre that is consistently offensive, misogynistic, violent illiterate and anti-American enough. Adding amputation, honor killing and inherent psychosis to Snoop Dog's collective talent should sink his contribution to society. Glad they have so far left country alone.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 14:34 Comments ||
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#8
"Oh, Explosive Me!"
"Settin' the Dhimmis on Fire"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2004 16:05 Comments ||
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#9
There is then a list of 56 countries they claim have been the âvictims of American aggressionâ since 1945.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 16:35 Comments ||
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#10
Why, oh why, has no one organized a covert hit squad to cull people like this from our midst? It seems to me that it should be very easy to do.
-AR
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
02/08/2004 16:50 Comments ||
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#11
That was sickening, but informative. No quarter for these enemies of civilization--the worst part is they're in our midst gladly taking advantage of everything Western civilization provides (technology, music, open information, ease of travel, and even liquor and women) while plotting its demise.
Posted by: Dar ||
02/08/2004 18:33 Comments ||
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And almost as accurate as Howard Deanâs 2003 polls.
Just over half of Britons think Prime Minister Tony Blair should resign and 54 percent believe he lied to the nation about the threat from Iraq, a new poll showed Saturday. The survey highlights the political damage the Iraq war and its aftermath have done to Blair, President Bushâs staunchest ally overseas. Fifty-one percent of those questioned by polling firm NOP for the anti-war Independent newspaper said they agreed that "it is now time for Tony Blair to resign." Thirty-five percent disagreed. Your negatives accumulate, your positives never do.
The survey also found 54 percent believed Blair exaggerated the prewar threat from Iraq, while 31 percent did not. Sixty-eight percent of those questioned in The Left WingnutIndependent poll said they think the new investigation will be a "whitewash," as critics also have screeched about labeled Lord Huttonâs inquiry into scientist David Kellyâs death. Twenty-three percent thought the new investigation would be a "genuine attempt to find the truth," the poll found. 81% said they wouldnât believe any investigation that failed to demonstrate the existence of the Loch Ness monster.
Last week, opposition Conservative Party leader Michael Howard called for Blair to resign. Howardâs call came after Blair said he had been unaware that the dossierâs claim that Iraq could deploy unconventional weapons on 45 minutesâ notice referred to battlefield munitions, and not long-range missiles. The Conservatives appeared to be in a strong position, with the poll showing 36 percent supported them, compared to 35 percent who backed Blairâs Labour Party. Thatâll change when people see the Tories are kinda clueless right now.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 12:30:34 AM ||
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#1
In my unofficial but guaranteed mathematically accurate poll, half of Britons are below average, intellectually, too. Might be a bit of overlap, there... Blair's prolly a mixed bag, like every other politician on the planet. But I'll defer to JonShep, TonyUK, and bulldog (where's he been?) for the specifics.
#2
And my special scientifically accurate survey proves that 100% of all newspaper articles are biased.
Labour and the Conservatives are statistically equal whereas normally the party in power lags the opposition by a substantial margin mid-term in the UK.
Yawn! No news here! Just spin! And note my earlier post about the Left going into spin overdrive because of the spectacular intelligence and diplomatic successes over the last month or so. Backed up with the threat of an armoured division touring through your capital city.
Just over half of Britons think Prime Minister Tony Blair should resign
Which half would that be? The half who can vote, or the half who are Islamazoid freak nutjobs?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 13:14 Comments ||
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#4
Blair needs to open up some coal mines. Get the working class to work and let the government do it's job. The libs over there are the same as over here....drooling half wits who believe in Eden.
Iraqi refugee Guzin Najim thought sheâd be safe when she escaped to Australia after her diplomat husband was murdered by Saddam Husseinâs brutal secret police and sheâd been forced to live, with her children, for three years under house arrest. But the terror has reached Sydney. Religious fanatics faithful to the murderous tyrant have delivered death threats to her home in the cityâs south-western suburbs, forcing her once again to flee for her life. Now Ms Najim, 47, has moved to a secret location to hide from the men who have ordered that her throat be cut for speaking out publicly against Saddamâs brutal regime.
I hope that Australia has the capability of finding the people who're making those threats, politely explaining to them that things aren't done that way in Australia, and then deporting them to Antarctica.
"At first, I was very frightened," said Ms Najim at her new home. "I thought, âHow can this happen in Sydney, where life is so peaceful and everyone smiles?â But then I became angry, and I decided that these fanatics will not succeed in intimidating me. I will not be silenced. I lived in fear for so long over there. I cannot let that happen again in Australia."
The whole reason for going to Australia is to put that sort of thing behind you...
The threats started after the release of the book The Promise, in which author Sandra Lee told of Ms Najimâs terrible ordeal at the hands of the Iraqi secret police. Her husband Raad was taken away from their home in Baghdad by two men and was dumped back, paralysed, fevered and barely able to speak a few hours later. After four days of agony he died, at the age of 48. It was thought heâd been fed rat poison, Saddamâs favourite method of assassination. Ms Najim was held with her two children under house arrest for three years, during which time she was beaten regularly and had her hand broken by her captors. Finally, she escaped to Jordan but, after death threats from those loyal to the Iraqi dictator, she and her children were accepted as refugees by the United Nations and chose to come and live in the relative sanctity of Australia.
All this, of course, was Iraq's internal affair and we had no business meddling...
But when the book caught the countryâs attention and she was asked to appear on national TV and radio to talk about her ordeal, the cold chill of religious fanaticism suddenly arrived on her Sydney doorstep. She received two death threats over the intercom of her home, and another written death threat was slid under her front door. Bankstown police are investigating the threats and studying the letter. "They wrote that I am out of Islam and I must be killed," Ms Najim said. "It said that I support Americans."
You mean they're charging you with being on the winning side? That's a bad thing?
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 12:46:46 AM ||
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#1
As usual, the "journalist" cum author leaves their victims subjects to slowly twist in the wind. Mebbe some of the book profits should go to getting this woman some security.
C'mon Aussie Rantburgers (where's Anon1 these days?), kick some official Gov't ass.
#2
As an Aussie Rantburgers, I would love to help.
Sad to say I don't know how, other than let the "officials" do what they are supposed to do.
Australia is a "rule of law" country. No-one should have to feel threatened in Australia.
The preponderonce of Australians would back her to hilt. So Basically she should get out of the Muslim community and into the Aussie community.
A Pakistani terrorist group which may have recruited suspected French terrorist Willy Brigitte to attack Australian targets is operating a cell in Australia, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said yesterday. Mr Ruddock said Guantanamo Bay inmates and suspected Australian terrorists David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib had also allegedly been trained by the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. Thatâs interesting, I wonder if their recruiters were also LeT or just fellow travellers?
ASIO alerted the Government to the group late last year and it immediately rushed legislation through Parliament to outlaw the group. Mr Ruddock said the Government had received intelligence that the terrorist outfit was not just conducting training activities and other terrorism-related activities in Kashmir and Pakistan. "We came to a view on advice that it did have connections with Australia," he said. The emergence of the group and the possibility its Australian cell was planning to attack key Sydney installations could be confirmed by two current affairs programs within the next 48 hours. You can read a transcript of the Sunday report here, although itâs revelations have already been posted on Rantburg the past few days.
Channel Nineâs Sunday program is expected to name a 35-year-old Sydney man of Pakistani background as a key contact of Brigitte. The ABCâs Four Corners program has also conducted a long investigation into Brigitte and the terrorist network he allegedly worked with while visiting Sydney last year. The Lakemba man at the centre of the investigations is innocent, the manâs lawyer has said. Sydney lawyer Steven Hopper, who also represents Mamdouh Habib, said there was no evidence to link his client to terrorism.
"No, no! Certainly not!
For the sake of consistency, since we got Hambali, the effective head of JI; and we probably pulverized Binny, the head of Qaeda; and Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, is living out of the saddlebags on his motorcycle; and Mullah Krekar, putative head of Ansar al-Islam, is detained in Nørway; and Zarqawi, head of al-Tawhid, is being hunted in Iraq; shouldn't we be trying to take out Hafiz Saeed? I mean, we know where he lives and all...
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 12:10:09 AM ||
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#1
This is an excerpt from the show
"MOHAMMED SIFAOUI, JOURNALIST (TRANSLATION): I have always said Islamic fundamentalism is fascism. What I understood living with them, is that it really is fascism, the hatred they have for Jews, Christians, the hatred of everyone they call non-believers. I can find no equivalent in the recent history, except Nazism.
SARAH FERGUSON: Sifaoui should know. He's accompanied by two police bodyguards 24 hours every day since Islamic radicals, former associates of Willie Brigitte, threatened to kill him. Sifaoui befriended this man, Karim Bourti, who played a key role in Willie Brigitte's conversion to radical Islam. Sifaoui used hidden cameras to catch the group's unguarded comments.
KARIM BOURTI (TRANSLATION): I never buy Coca-Cola because 10, 20 per cent goes to the army of pigs and apes and monkeys. Who are the armies of pigs and apes? The Jews. Allah has turned them into pigs and apes who love tyrants. They kill our brothers, but we will kill them, God willing. Very soon we will kill them."
#2
tipper - This is the side that I finally began to see in unguarded moments with Saudi "friends" which turned me from an easy-going wide-eyed guy on his Arabian adventure into a hardcore committed anti-jihadi back in 92-93 on my first tour. It is, to say the least, chilling to see the utterly indoctrinated (and thus, utterly blind) hatred seep through the cracks of the standard-issue face shown to kafrs. This realization evolved into a clear understanding that Freedom and Islam simply cannot peacefully coexist.
The Jews ... we will kill them, God willing. Very soon we will kill them
These clowns have been saying that for more that a thousand years. When the hell is Allah going to be willing? Next Tuesday, perhaps? 2006?
How about never, you worthless bastards, because you're FULL OF SHIT.
/Rant (There. I feel much better now.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 13:03 Comments ||
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#4
These idiots need a full-time keeper. Unfortunately, there are just too many of them. The only way to deal with them is to slam them back down into their 7th century hole every time they stick their heads out, and isolate them in their own filth and stupidity. We not only need to end the "fast and friendly" visa process, we should end ALL visa processes with the whole damned area. I would love to discover an economically feasible replacement for petroleum, just to watch the fun as the power these turbanned nincompoops have exercised for the last fifty years bled away into nothing.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/08/2004 14:29 Comments ||
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#5
Barbara---What you say is true, but here, have come camomile tea.....*pours cup*
OP---The only way that these guys will be reformed is that they need the rug pulled out from underneath them and their funding dried up. They are just wired wrong. They need to bottom out first and then some long looks in the mirror time. Maybe they need to be like Truk island and Rabaul. Just go around them and let them rot on the vine.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/08/2004 15:28 Comments ||
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Challenger to Putin for Russian Presidency Is Missing
One of Vladimir Putinâs challengers in next monthâs presidential election is missing, and the police and security services announced today that they had begun a search for him. Ivan P. Rybkin, a former Parliament speaker and national security adviser under Boris N. Yeltsin, has not been seen or heard from since Thursday evening, raising fears among his family and campaign aides that something dire had happened to him. Emphasis on âformerâ.
"We are trying not to let such ideas come to mind," said Aleksandr V. Tukayev, a campaign official and the deputy chairman of Mr. Rybkinâs party, Liberal Russia, "but it is hard not to think about it." Well, he could be on an extended bender...
Mr. Rybkinâs whereabouts have added a bizarre drama to a torpid presidential campaign that is universally expected to end with Mr. Putinâs re-election on March 14. So why have Rybkin removed from circulation?
Mr. Rybkin, 57, has been one of the most unabashed critics of Mr. Putin and his policies, but like Mr. Putinâs five other challengers he has struggled to build political support and get his message heard, especially on state television. In polls, he has fared even worse than the others, receiving the support of fewer than 1 percent of voters. Given his lack of popularity, such a move on a rivalâs part doesnât make much sense.
Mr. Rybkinâs Liberal Russia has been at the center of political intrigue and violence ever since it was created in 2002. Its patron is Boris A. Berezovksy, a businessman and former Kremlin insider, who has become one of Mr. Putinâs fiercest critics after moving to London in self-exile to escape fraud charges he says are politically motivated. Mr. Berezovsky first raised concerns about Mr. Rybkinâs whereabouts in an interview on Friday. A connection to Berezovsly. That explains a lot...
Mr. Rybkin did not appear at a scheduled news conference on Friday, his aides said. Nor did he surface to make any statement on Saturday, as would be expected, when the countryâs election commission officially registered his candidacy in the election. Letâs hope he doesnât âsurfaceâ from a creek somewhere.
A spokesman for the Moscow police said that Mr. Rybkinâs wife, Albina, submitted an official statement today about his disappearance. She told the police that her husband had not been seen since he arrived at their apartment sometime after 7 P.M. on Thursday and let his bodyguards go home. He was not there when his wife arrived after 11, she said. No bodyguards and a 4 hour window to kidnap him. I think Rybkin screwed up in that regard.
Under Russian law, a person is not considered missing until three days have passed. Mr. Tukayev said that given Mr. Rybkinâs prominence, the authorities should have begun a search immediately. "In any civilized country, all the security services would be on their feet," he said. Color me skeptical.
In the last 18 months, two of the members of Mr. Rybkinâs party in the Parliament, Sergei N. Yushenkov, and Vladimir I. Golovlyov, have been shot to death on the streets of Moscow in murky circumstances. Any suspects in those murders yet?
Shortly before he was killed, Mr. Yushenkov split with Mr. Berezovksy and another party leader, Mikhail N. Kodanev, has since been charged with the murder. Party officials say he has been falsely accused. Thereâs another connection to Berezovksy. Someoneâs trying to send a not so subtle message.
While the election commission refused to let the party participate in last Decemberâs parliamentary elections, Mr. Rybkinâs supporters collected enough signatures to qualify him for a spot on the presidential ballot. On Saturday, however, the chairman of the election commission, Aleskandr A. Veshnyakov, said the commission had provided prosecutors with what he said was evidence that some of his qualifying petitions were fraudulent. If that is proven, prosecutors could still disqualify him as a candidate. Two other presidential challengers â Sergei Y. Glazyev, a leader of the nationalist Motherland Party, and Irina M. Khakamada of the liberal party Union of Right Forces â were also cleared today to run. But they too now face investigations into the veracity of some of the signatures they collected. All of Putinâs opponents are being âput on noticeâ. Classic KGB goon tactics. Kseniya Y. Ponomaryova, Mr. Rybkinâs campaign chairman, said in an interview tonight that another party official had spoken with him by telephone at 8:40 p.m. on Thursday. By 10 P.M., he was not answering his mobile telephone. Albina Rybkin said today that when she arrived home on Friday night, she found that her husband had taken off a shirt and left dishes in the kitchen, but there were no signs of a struggle or violence. His cars were still in the garage. Of course they were. Does that mobile phone have a GPS tracker?
She discounted the possibility he was aboard the subway train struck by a bomb on Friday morning, killing at least 39, since he does not routinely use the subway. She also discounted the possibility that he had left on his own. "It is absolutely not like him," she said. Mr. Rybkin, an agriculture specialist and former Communist Party member, has been a prominent political figure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, first as an opponent of Mr. Yeltsin and later as a security adviser to him. Mr. Rybkin participated in the peace talks that ended the first war in Chechnya in 1996 and remains an advocate of efforts to end the second Chechen war, now in its fifth year. As a candidate, he has criticized Mr. Putin, saying he was an authoritarian who is closely linked to the wealthy businessmen who wield disproportionate control of the countryâs economy, so long as they remain in the Kremlinâs good graces. Master of the obvious...
In an interview last month, Mr. Rybkin said he was concerned about the erosion of democratic freedoms in Russia and the continued economic hardship of ordinary Russians. "Russia," he said then, "is turning a new and very shameful leaf." Or turning back to a well-worn shameful leaf...
#3
Media that opposed Putin were shut own and made part of the state machine.
Anyone who opposes Putin ends up either arrested on phony charges or murdered.
Btw, did you know that the murdered Yushenkov was also one of the people who suggested that Moscow bombings which Putin blamed on Chechen terrorists may have in fact been commited by Russia's secret services themselves?
But ofcourse Western warhawks still love Putin because he has committed genocide against Muslims in Chechenya and being a murderer of Muslims gives people carte blanche for other crimes nowadays.
Or is there any other reason that some people here still love Putin?
EFL - looks as if Germany is not the only place that will see base closures.
The American navy said last night that it was considering moving its key, troubleshooting Sixth Fleet away from its base in Italy to Spain. The move would deal a huge blow to the local economy in the area between Rome and Naples, but is likely to be greeted by Italians with as much bafflement as dismay. They had for some time been braced for a decision by Washington to shift the fleetâs base port further eastwards, perhaps to Turkey. But no one had predicted a move that would send it several hundred miles in the opposite direction. It seems as if Spain is a country that we can count on. I doubt that there will be many more US bases opened in Turkey. I have only sailed in to Izmir which has a totally unacceptable channel for heavy traffic.
The Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported this week that officials in Madrid had been told the Pentagon wanted to move the fleetâs headquarters and supply facilities to Rota, near Cádiz, a joint US-Spanish base which is not even in the Mediterranean, the fleetâs traditional area of operations. Not in the Mediterranean but much more accessible by sea than Gaeta, closer to a large city than Gaeta and not as expensive. Gaeta is a sleepy resort town that is better off without load US Navy sailors looking for a good time in a town with some excellent pizzarias and shopping. American honeymooners would find the town quaint while sailors find it boring.
Though Rota is further from the hot spots of the Middle East, it has the advantage of being a combined naval and air facility, offering the sort of rapid deployment capability that the US military is now looking for. Spain and the US last year signed a $450m (£243m) deal that allows the Americans to increase their use of the base. In Naples the USN uses the public docks. Gaeta is not a port of any size.
A spokesman for US Naval Forces Europe, Lieutenant- Commander Terrence Dudley, said: "The move of the US Sixth Fleet to new facilities in Spain is only one of many initiatives currently under consideration."
It's not a done deal. But it makes strategic sense.
The Sixth Fleet comprises some 40 ships, 175 aircraft and 21,000 military and civilian personnel, all commanded from the aircraft carrier LaSalle, which is based at Gaeta, midway between Rome and Naples. Gaeta had the disadvantage of being close to Nato command facilities in Naples and, according to Nato sources, the alliance has no plans to move its own facilities. However, it is a tourist resort with relatively steep prices, which may have played a role in prompting the Pentagon to consider a move. The Nato base in Naples is an absolute nightmare to visit for visiting ships. Iâm sure that Sixth Fleet staff would just as soon telecommute to Naples.
It will also be interesting to see what becomes of this NATO story: Russia Seeks Access to NATO Facilities
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 2:23:32 PM ||
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I do wonder, however, about the commitment Spain has to us in the long-term. Azner has been great and his groomed favorite to succeed him looks as if he'll continue the same policies. But the Left in Spain is fairly strong, and I'm worried that if the Socialists ever come to power we'll find our facilities in Rota either hamstrung or closed.
Why can't we sub-lease Gibraltar?
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 15:53 Comments ||
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#2
Sub-lease Gibraltar? Yes that would really annoy the Spanish. Does Gibraltar have the required facilities?
Posted by: A ||
02/08/2004 16:10 Comments ||
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#3
Turkey refused to let us use Incirlik Air Base during the invasion of Iraq last year (idling nearly a hundred British and American strike aircraft IIRC). Because of that, I think the US would be foolish to make new plans to base large forces in Turkey. And at this point, I don't think it would make strategic sense to base the Sixth Fleet in the eastern Med.
I wonder whether part of the purpose of moving to Rota would be to put 6th Fleet in better position to work in the Atlantic both north and south, so that other Atlantic assets could be redeployed elsewhere (for instance to beef up the Fifth Fleet in the Gulf, or the Seventh Fleet in Malaysia). This would be consistent with the larger force redeployment in process, which is also reducing USAF and USArmy deployments in Europe and the Med so as to increase our strength in Asia.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste ||
02/08/2004 17:09 Comments ||
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#4
SDB, I remember the Southern nature of the through traffic lane through the Mediterranean making a stop off to Italy being inconvenient. Gaeta is not really a base for much more that the fleet flag ship.
The idea that the location of Cadiz allows for deployment towards Liberia an other hot-spots is a valid one. With the latest developments of nukes being proliferated through throughout the world, monitoring shipping throughout the Med has become more important. Rota could base P-3 or AWACS flights. Gilbraltar is also an excellent choke point for monitoring or intercepting surface traffic.
Basing at Gilbraltar or Malta would cause a logistical problems. For example, Gitmo makes an excellent jail but is a poor base to foward deploy through. I thought Roosevelt Roads was an excellent base to have. Others, who know more, thought differently.
It will be interesting to see whether Mumu offers up a naval base. I have heard tell that he is awfully impressed with the performacne of the F-14.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 19:22 Comments ||
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Russiaâs Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Friday that most mercenaries killed or captured in Chechnya were Turks, Russiaâs Itar-Tass news agency reported. Ivanov said among those killed or captured since Russia began military operations in Chechnya, there were "mercenaries from about 10 foreign countries, the majority of whom are Turkish citizens". I imagine that there also quite a few Saudis or Jordanians in the mix as well. And Pakistanis, as the LeT is reputed to have sent fighters to Chechnya.
"These circumstances will inevitably have a negative impact on the development of relations with Turkey," he said. He also said that the case of a Turkish mercenary who had entered Chechnya from Georgia showed the issue of strengthening Russiaâs borders with the Caucasus countries was "very acute and a state priority". But he said the problem should be depoliticised to the greatest possible extent. Paul brought up the Turksâ ties to the Chechens, which is going to be a problem here. Though from what we learned after the Istanbooms, at least some of the Turkish jihadis who returned home had a nasty way of exploding, so that may persuade the government to take a firmer hand in this regard.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:14:00 AM ||
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Upon a fellow blogger, no less ... only at the link do you see how bad it got.
Posted by: Lu Baihu ||
02/08/2004 9:45:27 PM ||
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#1
This makes me so angry I could spit! My 27 yr old daughter lives in Manhattan, isn't religious (and we're not Jewish), but I could see her telling those German guys off too. And maybe getting badly hurt.
Good for the guys who chased the 'Germans' down and drug them back! I wonder what the background - and what the problem - of the guy with the heavy black beard really is.
#2
God bless you little lady. I had a person at work who thought I was Jewish. I let him think it to hear his viewpoints and how hateful he was. He peridocially would talk about Hitler's half done job and the usual tripe. To this day when I talk to him about Iraq or the Paleos he regresses almost immediatley to the Jews. I truly believe his house could be blown up by ALQ and he would slough it off and resume his hatred of the Jews in the bat of an eye. God bless you and that Star of David!
#3
What kind of a dirtbag would punch a face like that? Quite apart from the dirtbaggery of hitting a woman in the first place, hitting a pretty one somehow makes it even worse.
I guess we know what kind of dirtbag he is.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2004 22:21 Comments ||
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#4
Too bad the guys who chased down the perps went to jail too. Oh well, you get involved in someone else's fight in the big city, you pay the consequences.
EFL
Time on-line
After anthrax-tainted letters began showing up in the wake of 9/11, authorities quickly suggested that this was probably a case of homegrown terrorism rather than Round 2 of al-Qaedaâs assault on the U.S. The likely perpetrator, many still believe, was a malevolent nerd with chemistry-lab expertise and a grudge against the government. But when traces of the biological toxin ricin showed up in Senator Bill Fristâs mail room last week, the FBI and other agencies declared there was no evidence pointing to either a foreign culprit or a mad scientist. One possibility under examination: a good ole boy who knows his way around 18-wheelers, weigh stations and CB radios... Investigators tell TIME that the powder found in Fristâs mail room was mostly paper dust, with traces of ricin so minute, they canât even be evaluated for particle size or purity. No envelope or note has been found, and no other piece of mail from the Senate has even a trace of ricin on it. Neither do any door sills, doorknobs, railings or surfaces anywhere in the building. Same goes for air filters, which should catch floating particles.
That leads to a couple of theories. Perhaps an envelope in Fristâs mail room contained a letter that was forwarded to the DOT, where Fallen Angelâs grudge is aimed. Or maybe the letter was simply sent by someone who had previously handled ricin. "Letâs say he didnât send us any product," says an investigator. "Heâs just sloppy. Itâs on his fingers, on his hands, or heâs using the same envelopes, same paper. That may be why we donât have anything."
Still, itâs worrisome to know that anyone is sending lethal substances through the U.S. mailâand getting away with it... Now officials have another bioweapons correspondent to worry aboutâor maybe more than one. Without a note or an envelope, itâs unclear whether this is related to the Fallen Angel incidents. If there was what the media are calling a "smoking letter," it may have long since gone out with the trash. Without even that much of a clue, the best that authorities can do is look for forwarded letters, reinterview Frist staff members, examine suspicious mail the Senator has got over the yearsâand hope that a tip or a slipup puts the latest mad mailer out of circulation.
Donating skins of sacrificed animals for charity is big in Pakistan, where over three million animals were sacrificed during the Islamic festival of Eid, but jehadi groups are cornering a large number of the hides and selling them to bankroll the "holy war." Despite a ban on seeking donations for jehad, several organizations display banners and posters across the country, asking citizens to donate hides so that the "holy war" in Kashmir and Afghanistan can continue. Many of the groups involved in the hides-for-money campaign are nongovernmental organizations and Islamic charities and at least two of them - the Al-Akhtar Trust and the Al-Rashid Trust - were recently designated terrorist groups by the US. Workers of several jehadi outfits, including banned groups such as the Tehrik-e-Khuddam-ul-Islam (formerly the Jaish-e-Muhammad), which is believed to have launched the suicide attacks on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, also collected skins from sympathizers on Eid... The Al-Rasheed Trust, a welfare organization not banned in Pakistan but on the US "terror list," collected about US $500,000 worth of hides last year. This year, the collection hasnât been bad at all, says an official.
Chennai man suspected of al-Qaeda links
A Chennai-based businessman, Abdul Haye Mohammed Illyas, has been catapulted into media spotlight after reports that the US and French intelligence agencies had him under surveillance during his visits abroad for nearly three weeks, suspecting him to be a Al-Qaeda activist... Interestingly, while reports said that Abdul Haye was a leather exporter, the official denied they were into leather. "We donât deal with leather products. We deal with knitted garments," he said. But when contacted as a buyer, a company executive said they dealt with knitted garments and leather garments. "Leather jackets cost $60 and above, depending on the design," he said. In Get It Yellow pages, the company was listed in the categories of âshipping agent, textile merchant, and garment exporter.â
Meanwhile, none of the leather exporters based in the city seem to know Abdul Haye. "I have not heard of him," said an exporter, who has been in the business for nearly 20 years. Leather exportersâ and tannery associations, too, were of little help. "We have no idea about this person," said an official at the Council for Leather Exports. The company, though, has been a member of Garment Exporters Association for the last three years. "The company representative is one Raphael Elango," a source in the Association said. The sources did not relate the name Abdul Haye Mohammed Illyas to the company. According to reports, Abdul Haye came to the notice of US intelligence agencies when he missed an Air France Paris Los-Angeles flight on Christmas Eve, last year... The issue cropped up one more time after Haye made a booking on January 7, on an Air France, Paris-Los Angeles flight, and failed to show up on the date of journey yet again.
Well, I'm certainly curious...
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 5:10:41 PM ||
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Insert Skins Game joke.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 21:20 Comments ||
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On his hospital bed last week, 16-year-old Abid Tanoli sat listless and alone, half of his body covered by burns that all but destroyed both his eyes and left his face horribly disfigured.The teenager talked, with difficulty, of how his life had been destroyed since the fateful day in June 2002 when he refused to have sex with his teacher at a religious school in Pakistan. The boy was horrifically injured in an acid attack after he rebuffed the Muslim clericâs sexual advances. Now, he has alarmed Pakistanâs powerful religious establishment by pressing charges against his alleged assailants.
Oh, that just isn't done! Not against a holy man! They're... ummm... horny... holy! They're holy!
A teacher at the school, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and two of his friends are in prison awaiting trial for attempted murder and rape. All three deny the charges. A fourth alleged attacker is still at large.
"No, no! Certainly not! Who? Me? Pshaw!"
It is the first such case to be brought against a Muslim cleric and threatens to expose a scandal of sex abuse within Pakistanâs secretive Islamic schools. Abid was blinded and maimed in the assault, which he says came shortly after he rejected sexual demands from the Islamic teacher at a madrassa in a crowded, lower middle-class district of Karachi. "He threatened to ruin me for life," Abid recalled, "but I didnât take him seriously. I just stopped going to the madrassa".
Should have stopped going to the madrassa and moved...
Abid, who was 14 at the time, told neither parents nor friends what had happened because, he said, he was ashamed. A few days later, as he played with his brothers and sister at home, he said that his religious teacher - accompanied by three associates - broke into the house, bolted the door and threw acid over him, screaming: "This should be a lesson for your life."
I guess Hell hath no fury like a holy man scorned...
Abid was taken to a public hospital, where doctors told him that he would be scarred for life. Lawyers and campaigners against sexual abuse of children say that it is not uncommon in Pakistan, especially in the segregated surroundings of the countryâs estimated 20,000 religious schools, but cases involving members of the clergy are rarely - if ever - exposed. "They are either hushed up and sorted out within the confines of school, or parents are pressurised not to report the incident to the media as it would give religion a bad name," said Zia Ahmed Awan, the president of Madadgaar, a joint project of LHRLA (Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid) and Unicef, the United Nations childrenâs fund.
Certainly wouldn't want to give Islam a bad name. So throw some acid on the kid...
Haroon Tanoli, Abidâs father, met strong resistance when he tried to take up his sonâs case with officials at the school. He says that they offered to help him secure a cash payment from the alleged attackers, provided that he did not involve the police. Since then, he has been threatened with harsh consequences for refusing to back down. "I despise hypocrites who sport huge beards in the name of religion and hinder the passage of justice in the name of Islam," said Mr Tanoli. "I had a beard, and all my four sons were studying in a madrassa. However, following this incident, the first thing I did was to pull my children out of the madrassa - and shave off my beard."
Have you considered becoming an agnostic? Agnostic holy men never throw acid on people. They never diddle young boys. They don't run madrassas...
Even as Abid was receiving treatment, the religious authorities pressed the hospital to discharge him. Mr Tanoli managed to get him admitted to a different hospital, where he is being treated free, although the family cannot afford an operation to save his sight. Mr Tanoli refuses to back down, despite being offered one million rupees (£12,000) by the teacherâs relations if he withdraws the charges. He has moved to a secret location for his own safety.
Which's probably a damned intelligent move...
Posted by: TS ||
02/08/2004 9:36:51 AM ||
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the Religion of Peace⢠my ass
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/08/2004 10:06 Comments ||
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While we've had or own sexual abuse cases in the US dealing with the clergy I have never heard of any priest breaking into a house and throwing acid on a boy who had rebuffed him. I'm willing to bet that this goes a lot deeper than even the article hints at. The surest way to get the public in the countries where these schools flourish to demand their closure is to reveal what is going on in them. Our childern are the single thing that is most precious to us. They more than anything else is how most of us leave our mark upon the world
#3
It's the boy's fault. He must have been immodest. He should have covered himself more.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 10:51 Comments ||
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When taken in tandem with the "Tribal Justice..." story in the Iraq section, one can see rather clearly just how depraved Islam is in practice. It doesn't much matter what is in the Qu'uran - this is how Islam is practiced in the Real World. Brutal, backward, barbaric, insane, implacable, ruthless, perverted, and twisted. Every Westerner apologist should have to take his / her family to live under it, not as a rich privileged Pasha, but as a common powerless everyman. I wonder how long they would keep singing the disingenuous and dishonest tune of apology and appeasement, then?
"Brutal, backward, barbaric, insane, implacable, ruthless, perverted, and twisted."
That's about sums it up, doesn't it? RoPMA.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/08/2004 12:25 Comments ||
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he heard Islam refered to as the religion of piece of ass
Never mention the word 'ass' in the same sentence with 'RoP'. It causes confusion and the results could be unpredictable.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/08/2004 12:31 Comments ||
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May allah give him 72 'gifted' men to rape him in hell paradise
Posted by: Charles ||
02/08/2004 12:32 Comments ||
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OK faisal why don't you comment here? Embarrassed? Had a similar experience............
goddamn goat abuser!
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 12:33 Comments ||
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admitted to a different hospital, where he is being treated free, although the family cannot afford an operation to save his sight
So it's possible the child's sight could be saved? Anyone know of a Christian group/charity who could pay for this?
It would be a double blessing - help the child while getting the mullahs' panties in a twist.
For that matter, where are the Saudis? They've got money to burn. Why aren't they helping this child who was gravely damaged by their own "wonderful, perfect" religion? The Arab's society is based on honor/shame; why aren't the Saudis shamed by this and honored to help? (Don't bother responding - I know the answer, and it's not pretty.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 12:55 Comments ||
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Muslims are warned, there are four types of people who "awake under God's anger": transvestite (man and woman), those who practice bestiality, and "men who have sex with men". See Sura 21:84. As for the homosexual, in the Hadith it says if he dies without repentance, he is changed to a pig in his grave.
The government has decided to launch an operation in the North Waziristan Agency to flush out Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants, official sources told Dawn.
There's something being hidden when the mere suggestion gets quick results...
The decision has come at a time when a tribal Lashkar in the neighbouring South Waziristan Agency is actively engaged in looking for tribesmen suspected of harbouring militants of Al Qaeda and Taliban. Talking to Dawn, a senior government official confirmed that political authorities in North Waziristan had been asked to launch an operation. "A go-ahead signal has been given to the authorities and they have begun the spade work and the operation would be launched soon," Brigadier Mehmood Shah, Secretary Security, Fata, told Dawn. "What we are trying to do is to launch an operation on the pattern of the campaign undertaken in the South. The outcome there had been pretty encouraging and we hope to be able to achieve similar results in the North as well."
The decision to launch an operation in the North has apparently been taken after a tribal Lashkar in Southern Waziristan motivated by the fear of a drastic government action rounded up those suspected of sheltering and supporting Al Qaeda elements. Officials said the Lashkar had handed over 44 suspected tribesmen out of a list of 72 drawn by intelligence agencies and tribal informers. The Lashkar has also destroyed houses in different parts of South Waziristan to punish tribesmen who refused to surrender to the authorities. Ahmadzai Wazir tribe that inhabits South Waziristan raised the Lashkar at a grand jirga to contemplate action following the death of four Pakistan Army soldiers in a rocket attack early last month. Government officials note with satisfaction that such attacks have dropped to almost zero following the operation in South Waziristan. "There has been a significant decline and the Americans have acknowledged the fact," said a senior official.
"So probably they won't come across the border and do something more substantial."
Brig Mehmood said that authorities in Miramshah, the regional headquarters of North Waziristan, had been asked to initiate action by convening jirgas of different tribes. Utmanzai, Wazir, Darpakhel and Dawar Wazir are the three main constituents of the tribe inhabiting North Waziristan. Brigadier Shah said the authorities would first convene separate jirgas of each of the three main tribal groups which would be followed by a grand collective jirga of all three tribes. The officials are also hoping to get support from local Ulema in North Waziristan, a crucial element in the successful clampdown in South Waziristan. The operation in the North, he said, would focus on groups that had been involved in activities detrimental to national interest, Brigadier Shah said. "We have reports that there are groups in the North involved in such activities. These are different groups," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 12:55:27 AM ||
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The council also finalised an operational plan for 2004 in a meeting held recently. MJC sources told Daily Times that the jihadi leaders discussed their meeting with President Pervez Musharraf held in January. The council leaders agreed that General Musharraf had his own limitations, but the MJC would speed up its operations against the Indian forces in Held Kashmir, the sources said. The meeting said that if Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Gillani formed a new party, all member organisations would support him. The meeting decided that no member organisation would either issue a press statement about their activities or talk to reporters. The meeting also resolved that the MJC would not issue any statement regarding the India-Pakistan talks.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:07 ||
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The United States is working with Pakistan to protect its nuclear technology from falling into the hands of extremists, a senior US official said on Friday.
I imagine that would be an "or else" situation...
âWe have had discussions with Pakistan on the need for Pakistan to safeguard its technology and its nuclear material. We are confident they are taking the necessary steps,â the official said. His comments came after NBC Televisionâs Nightly News programme reported that since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, American nuclear experts grouped as the US Liaison Committee have spent millions of dollars to safeguard over 40 weapons in Pakistanâs nuclear arsenal. âMeeting every two months, they are helping Pakistan develop state-of-the-art security, including secret authorisation codes for the arsenal,â the network reported. But the US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that US law and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) âprevent any direct involvement with (Pakistanâs) nuclear weapons. So weâve had discussions with them generally about how they safeguard nuclear material. We donât want their materials to get into the wrong hands but wonât go over the edge of our law and the NPT.â
I do hope we have precise locations for all 40+ of those nuclear weapons. And that they're hard-targetted.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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Is the United States planning to attack Al Qaeda remnants allegedly hiding in the northwest of Pakistan? A highly respected geopolitical and intelligence organisation believes that it is. In a recent analysis on US war on terror, STRATFOR claims that the question is when, not if, Washington will take on the Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. The organisation believes President Bush will launch the offensive after he gets re-elected. âUntil then,â STRATFOR maintains, âthe task of General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, will be to focus on developing a plan for moving into Al Qaedaâs homeland [Pakistan], if you will, and terminating the war by liquidating the final command centres [of the terrorist group]. Assuming that the preference is not to launch this campaign during the winter â not necessarily a fixed principle â the offensive would take place in Spring 2005.â
That'll be worth watching...
STRATFOR believes moving into Pakistan is one of the two steps that must logically follow the American âsuccessâ in Iraq. âHaving changed regime behaviour in Saudi Arabia, it is now in US interests to stabilise the situation there and prevent the fall of the Saudi government, or facilitate a shift to a more favourable regime,â says the analysis.
I'd go with the more favorable regime â or regimes. I still think Soddy Arabia would make a nice collection of feuding emirates...
â[Besides,] the United States must, at some point, liquidate the remnants of Al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistani theatre of operations. Ideally, the Pakistani army will bear the burden of moving into the tribal areas in the northwest and will do the job for the United States. In reality, it is extremely unlikely that the Pakistani military will have the ability or motivation to undertake that mission.
They're also not noted for winning wars...
âTherefore, it is likely that the United States will try to close out the war with a final offensive into northwestern Pakistan, preferably with the approval of a stable Pakistani government, but if that is impossible, then on its own.â
The very thought makes my Liddle-Hart go pitty-pat...
STRATFOR points out that Al Qaeda will do everything to prevent this âend gameâ by intensifying operations in Saudi Arabia which may cause the US intervention in that country. It may also try to destabilise Pakistan and launch extreme operations in the United States of America, possibly using mass destruction weapons.
Which will move up the timetable and make our presence somewhat less humanitarian...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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Much as I like the prospect of this operation, any timing which depends on GWB's re-election concerns me greatly. Faster please.
#3
Anonymous - If you aren't a troll, you need to pick and use a posting nym and then read the StratFor Weekly for 30 January in which they summarize their view of the US - Saudi situation. If you are a troll, well, you know the routine...
If you don't have access, here's the section that seems to answer your question. Just remember that what you know is never the full story - much happens behind the scenes and much is never reported anywhere - so none of us ever has the full picture...
But as the Saudi government tries to balance its international relations and maintain internal cohesion, Washington continues to remind the regime of U.S. goals in the war against terrorism, and the desired assistance from Riyadh. In a clear message to Riyadh, Washington revoked the diplomatic status of 16 Saudis and asked them to leave the United States. The Saudis reportedly were not working on the embassy grounds, but instead "teaching Islam outside the embassy and therefore not entitled to diplomatic status," a U.S. State Department official told AFP on Jan. 28. In the past, such issues would be quietly ignored or quietly discussed. Instead, Washington publicized the issue, complete with declaring the 16 Saudis persona non grata.
The message from Washington is that the window of acceptable activity by the Saudi government is narrowing, and previously overlooked infractions are now inexcusable. While this was a minor diplomatic incident, it clearly has deeper significance given the current state of relations between the two nations. As Iraq nears a state of nominal stability, Washington will begin to set its sights farther afield to maintain the offensive in the fight against al Qaeda. Already there is talk of a new offensive in Afghanistan, perhaps to pre-empt an expected offensive by the Taliban and keep the militants on the defensive during the upcoming elections. But other locations, from the Horn of Africa to Syria to Saudi Arabia could fall under U.S. sights, and Riyadh will carefully gauge its reaction to the diplomatic dustup to remain just outside the U.S. area of operations.
It's carefully couched in neutral terms, but there are serious threats and implications here. In Saudi diplomacy, nuance is the norm - this is full of blunt-trauma, relatively speaking. FWIW, I don't believe everything StratFor peddles, but this strikes me as farily accurate.
#4
#1 Much as I like the prospect of this operation, any timing which depends on GWB's re-election concerns me greatly. Faster please.
Posted by: PBMcL
Yes I to would like to see this now - but we must understand the realities of american politics. Its makes perfect sense to wait.
The average american is not as well informed as the lot that rants here.
Just look at the current situation in regards to wmd. The dems are taking this issue full tilt and at the same time doing great harm to American security. The syrians, sods, nkor's and especially the goddam mulla's in iran here this debate and know perfectly well that the heat will be off till november is history.
It is sad that american security takes a back seat to democratic politics but that is what is happening. This issue of wmd is being used as tool to the white house is a disgrace, regardless of the damage the democrats are causing. It is destroying our diplomatic crediblity, but as long as Bush is in office countries will thick three times before confronting us.
These regimes do hope that Bush is defeated so they can carry on their war agaisnt the US.
Just remember what we did in iraq was not all about wmd - it was about changing mentallity. The mentallity that you could hit the US and have no fear of retribution. Remember all roads in the Middle East go through Bagdad, and it was a good place to start our process of reshaping the Middle East. Right in the middle of our enemies!
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 11:45 Comments ||
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Dan---you point about the Dems harming national security with their WMD fixation has been bugging me ever since they decided to play with this little dagger. Will the people of the US need another hit to realize the seriousness of the 9-11 attacks? I hope not.
Our bringing the war to the enemy has been like good preventative maintenance: there are an absence of breakdowns so it looks like things are running themselves and every thing is cool---chill out and coast. People are just too complacent now.
The thing that really disturbs me is democratic leaders are willing to put the lives of our citizens in harms way in order to attempt to defeat George Bush due to this all consuming hatred of the man. It is totally irrational.
The republicans can have the country in their hands if the JUST LEAD, but no, they act like a bunch of spineless pussies that pander and dump money on everything like DEMS. So where do we get the leadership in the country to set a moral course?
*sips camomile tea* *feels better*
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/08/2004 15:55 Comments ||
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What this country needs is a good third party - one that will choose a strong leader, provide an outline on what they will do in Washington, and how they will handle foreign affairs. That agenda needs to include cutting the size and scope of the federal government, securing the borders, continuing to wage strong war against terrorism and all its sponsors, ending "subsidies" to EVERYONE, pushing truly free trade - as long as BOTH parties get the "free" part, dismissing the United Nations as a worthless debating society that the United States will no longer support, and strengthening the dollar, both here and abroad. It should call things as they are - that the entire "global warming" debate is strictly an underhanded attack on the United States and its productivity, that "conservation" that results in millions of acres of land burned to cinders is stupidity, and that trial lawyers, judges, and the entire legal system is broken and needs fixing badly. We need a party that calls for a 2-million man army, a 500 ship fleet, and sufficient aircraft, tanks, trucks, and rifles to arm that military with the best equipment in the world. That third party would have to provide candidates for every public office in every district in the United States, and stand by its guns. Anyone failing to live up to the requirements of the party would be dumped.
Unfortunately, politics in the United States is no longer "service to the people", but bought and paid for by special interests, such as the trial lawyers, the welfare plantation, the education and other unions, and the just plain sick, lame, and lazy of the world. It'll take more than just another kick in the face by the islamonuts to get us to wake up - we'll have to suffer some really NASTY hurt before we're willing to give up the gravy train and do what's right.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/08/2004 17:51 Comments ||
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The author of this piece was formerly a member of Pakistani Military Intelligence, before becoming a journalist who works for the Washington Post. He seems to have a lot of contacts with his former employer, and has broke much of what we have read about Abdul Qadir Khan in the last week. As to the motive of those giving him this information, who can say?
Pakistan was left with no option but to institute a swift and thorough investigation into the alleged connections between a few Pakistani nuclear scientists headed by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan with the nuclear black market, when it was provided âmind bogglingâ evidence by the top United States government officials, who arrived in Islamabad to meet top military leadership in the first week of October last year, informed officials said. "The US government, in order to emphasise the importance of the evidence of nuclear proliferation against Pakistani scientists, used the usual diplomatic channels and at the same time the military channel was used at the highest level," an informed official said.
"The jig's up, Perv. This's what we've got. You can do something with it, or we will. It's your choice..."
October 6, 2003 was the crucial day on the subject. On this day the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Assistant Secretary of State (South Asia) Christina Rocca, loaded with intelligence information against Dr A Q Khan and a few other nuclear scientists, called on President Pervez Musharraf at the Army House in Rawalpindi and requested an independent verification, followed by a stern action against the scientists named in the report, an official said. "We were told that Pakistanâs failure to take action will most certainly jeopardise ties of the country with the US and other important nations," an official said. "Nuclear proliferation has taken place either you as a country take the responsibility or let the world know if it was an act of some individuals," said the official summarising the message carried by the Armitage-Rocca team.
So Armitage and Rocca suggested how to save face? Kewl. They've started giving the Paks lessons in being Byzantine...
Underlining the importance and severity of the issue, the US Central Command chief Lt-Gen John Abizaid also arrived in Islamabad for an October 6 meeting with President Musharraf, also at the Army House. "This was the most important development for us since 9/11," a senior official said. "For one more time the ball was in the court of General Musharraf."
That's actually a correct statement. It folds the entire issue of nuclear proliferation into the antiterrorism picture, and it exposes the nuclear black market in the process.
Officials said that the âincredible evidenceâ collected by the US intelligence services detailed almost all foreign travels of Dr A Q Khan, particularly to the UAE, Malaysia, Libya, Iran and North Korea in the previous few years. Minute details of his meetings with active nuclear black marketers were provided, and documents were given to prove the sale of nuclear hardware and designs to many countries. Bank accounts establishing the profits made through this sale were also handed to Pakistan authorities. "It seemed that the Americans had a tracker planted on Dr A Q Khanâs body," said a Pakistani official. "They had perfect information on Dr Khanâs abortive attempt to sell nuclear secrets to Saddam Hussain in 1992 and for his travel to Beirut in mid-1990s for a clandestine meeting with a top Syrian government official. They know much more than us about Dr Khanâs wealth spread all over the globe," he said. On the one hand it is good that the CIA has such vast knowledge about what was going on, but on the other hand it is depressing that something wasnât done about it years ago.
Without being politically partisan, it should have been jumped on at some point during the 90's, though we weren't in a position to bring pressure at the time. International relations, and relations with South Asia in particular, were in a much different state under Clinton-Albright. 9-11-01 untied the Gordian knot. Bush and his team are doing things that weren't possible under Clinton.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 12:03:07 AM ||
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Think about the description of the intel on Khan. We - not the Paks - tracked his every move. We knew more about him than the Paks did, though part of that is because they didn't want to know. He was pegged as a person of interest at least as far back as 1992, and probably at the time Pak popped its nuke. My guess would be that he got on the list when he was on trial for his activities at Urenco.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2004 11:54 Comments ||
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These nuggets are culled from the Urdu press. They are summarised here without comment. Absurd or ridiculous, TFT takes no responsibility for them
General Beg had tried to sell bomb to Iran
Quoted in Khabrain, PML(N) leader Ishaq Dar said that army chief Aslam Beg had first tried to sell Pakistanâs nuclear technology to Iran for $12 billion but was rejected by prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He said General Beg had brought the offer from Tehran and that he was making it public for the first time.
Nawaz, unlike Beg, seems to have had enough imagination to understand that selling nuclear weapons to a state that was a potential, if not actual, rival could turn out to be a very bad move somewhere down the road.
Coca Cola is not Jewish
According to Khabrain, the Coca Cola company informed an audience in Lahore that Coca Cola was not a Jewish organisation. It was registered on the New York stock exchange and anyone could be a shareholder in it. It was producing in Palestine under the law of the Palestinian Authority and all its workers were Arabs. Its chief executive was an Australian and its sales were growing at 10 percent in Saudi Arabia. It was number one in Pakistan.
Lahore will be drunk
According to Khabrain wine worth Rs 20 million had already come into Lahore a week before the New Yearâs Eve. It predicted that kalashnikovs would be fired and women would be drunk with alcohol. About 30 thousand people had left Pakistan to celebrate the New Year abroad. Many Lahore actresses would be showing their body abroad. The posh areas of Lahore were ready to show decadence.
Sending othersâ sons to jihad
Columnist Raja Anwar reproduced in Khabrain the letter of a poor girl from Bahawalpur who stated that her hafiz Quran brother was taken by a jihadi organisation to jihad in Kashmir where he was killed. The columnist asks the makers of jihad, Hamid Gul, Aslam Beg and Ziaul Haq, how they would compensate the poor sons they had sent into the fire of jihad while their own sons were being educated in America and the West? The girl had appealed for help to prevent her family from starving to death. The columnist wondered how in Pakistan alms were available for the clergy but not for the deserving poor?
Make Pakistanis Allahâs army
Appealing to the Pakistan army, Major (Retd) Amir Afzal wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt magazine that it should apologise for its misdeeds and make itself into Hizbullah (party of Allah) and then convert the population of Pakistan into Hizbullah and use the big weapons with great care. All the foot-soldiers should be converted into shroud-wearing mujahideen ready to make night raids against the enemy. The entire nation should have one gun each and become a great flood of warriors to make Pakistan a castle of Islam.
Ehsan Elahi Zaheer and Saddam Hussein
Columnist Chaudhry Asghar Ali Kausar Waraich quoted Maulana Ibadur Rehman Ashrafi in Nawa-e-Waqt on an incident that took place after a Pakistani delegation went to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. During the meeting with Saddam, Jamiat Ahle Hadith leader Allama Ehsan Elahi Zaheer made a speech in Arabic which was so effective that Saddam started crying and requested for another speech from him in favour of Islamic brotherhood so that he could cry more.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 12:02:49 AM ||
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Sounds like a rockin' New Years in Lahore. Prolly empty out Vegas, unless those Lahore actresses come here to show their bodies. And yumm, posh decadence. The author of this piece is drunk on his best dramatic inner voice...
#3
drunk on his best dramatic inner voice...
I don't have a clue about the syntax of Urdu but perhaps this is the language's normal inflection...dramatic... or perhaps that's how the Urdu translator thinks English sounds... Dramtic.
#4
Major (Retd) Amir Afzal wrote .... that it should ... convert the population of Pakistan into Hizbullah and use the big weapons with great care. All the foot-soldiers should be converted into shroud-wearing mujahideen ready to make night raids against the enemy. The entire nation should have one gun each and become a great flood of warriors to make Pakistan a castle of Islam
How come this guy retired as only a major. He's a strategy genius!
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 12:15 Comments ||
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The reason he wasn't promoted to general is because he fails to state the obvious: in the name of what Pakistan should spend life and treasure in order to get more suckers travelling to Mecca and making the Saudis richer?
EFL,much more about the hand off at the link. This lead in is about the Army of Steve.
As the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle was heating up last fall, Lt. Col. Steve Russell was dealing with a new wave of attacks in which bombers were using the transmitters from radio-controlled toy cars: They would take the electronic guts of the cars, wrap them in C-4 plastic explosive and attach a blasting cap, then detonate them by remote control. So Russell, who commands an infantry battalion in deposed president Saddam Husseinâs home town of Tikrit, mounted one of the toy-car controllers on the dashboard of his Humvee and taped down the levers. Because all the toy cars operated on the same frequency, this would detonate any similar bomb about 100 yards before his Humvee got to the spot. This "poor manâs anti-explosive device" was "risky perhaps," Russell writes in a 58-page summary of his unitâs time in Iraq but better than leaving the detonation to the bombers. Suspicions confirmed
As one of the biggest troop rotations in U.S. history gets underway in Iraq, with almost 250,000 soldiers coming or going, the seasoned units that are leaving are doing their best to pass on such hard-won knowledge to their successors, in e-mails, in essays, in PowerPoint presentations and rambling memoirs posted on Web sites or sent to rear detachments. And in the process, these veterans of Iraq have provided an alternate history of the Armyâs experience there over the past nine months -- one that is far more personal than the images offered by the media and often grimmer than the official accounts of steady progress.
Posted by: GK ||
02/08/2004 3:28:29 AM ||
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I hope they have had the idea to make more powerful versions of teh transmitter and then patrol with them. With luck it would trigger the device while the bastard was assembling it or positionning it. :-)
#3
Articles like this one are tough for me to read: my youngest son's NG unit leaves for Iraq on Tuesday, and yesterday the family gathered to say goodbye.
It's a toss-up which troubles me more, the danger my son is going into over there, or the danger that here in America we'll soon be having an election whose outcome could completely nullify- and even mock- all our soldiers' hard work and sacrifices.
I'm becoming very dissatisfied with George Bush: not that he's having us do the wrong thing, but that he's done a truly horrible job of making clear to the American people exactly why we are doing the right thing in Iraq, and the connections between our mission there and the WoT, resolution to the Arab/Israeli conflict, and preventing/reversing nuclear proliferation among aggressive and corrupt regimes.
These connections are quite obvious to me, but Bush has done little or nothing to explain them to the American people. We need better than this, because if a Democrat is elected this autumn we will end up handing this conflict over to our grandchildren, who will likely face an ugly choice: submit to sharia, or incinerate a billion and a half Muslims in a nuclear holocaust.
I don't want my grandchildren to have to make that choice.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/08/2004 10:02 Comments ||
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#4
"we'll soon be having an election whose outcome could completely nullify- and even mock- all our soldiers' hard work and sacrifices..."
Certainly not completely -- there are tens of millions of Americans and Iraqis who are never going to forget what your son and other brave people like him have done and are doing.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/08/2004 10:56 Comments ||
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You're right, but I wasn't talking about recognition or appreciation; I'm concerned that the election could take us back to the policies of appeasement, timidity and fussy legalism that marked our earlier efforts to deal with Islamic extremism, making all that we have accomplished so far a futile exercise.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/08/2004 11:24 Comments ||
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i agree. A hypothetical Bush defeat would also re-teach our political class the idea that when confronted with a crisis, the best thing to do is nothing (or worse yet, bring it to the UN, where you can be assured that nothing will be done.)
Posted by: Matt ||
02/08/2004 11:46 Comments ||
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Bush will lose this election precisely for the reasons that Dave D. mentioned.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/08/2004 12:17 Comments ||
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Unfortunetly it is already happening. With the dems pushisg the WMD issue our enemies our taking a cue.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 12:27 Comments ||
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Dave, he can' tell US what we're up against, because that would be telling the world. Do we really want 1 bil muslims angr at us now? This has to be fed in small doses. My nephew's going to Afghanistan, I believe, very soon.
#10
A2U, I've thought of that, and indeed there is much that simply can't be said aloud because it would alert our enemies. But I can't help but think there's a lot Bush could say, but isn't, to lay out the rationale for what we're doing and solidify support among the American people.
And the vacuum of his silence is being filled by dimwitted nonsense from the opposition, such as the "Bush lied about WMD" idiocy. On that issue, as far as I can tell, Bush has made absolutely no claims about Iraq, Saddam, and WMD that hadn't already been made- many times before- by Bill Clinton, Sandy Burger, Madeleine Allbright, and a host of Democratic congressmen, as well as the intelligence apparatus of every country on the planet: Saddam had WMD, no question about it. Yet Bush has allowed the Democrats to put him on the defensive and puts up almost no resistance. What gives?
Best of luck to your nephew. I hope all these guys come home safe and whole, with mission accomplished.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/08/2004 13:24 Comments ||
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What gets me is that it seems before the war nobody in the Bush admin prepared for the event that WMD evidence would not be found. Now they're on the defensive and everything they come up with before the election will be seen as a ploy and back-peddling. Somebody screwed up big time.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/08/2004 14:48 Comments ||
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Come on guys, have you not been watching this political game for the last few years. I remember being at this low point numerous times. The Dem's do not have complete control of the Media anymore. They are able to get traction for awhile on these issues but eventually our side comes out. And if you remember the last few years we have won in the end every time.
The mid-terms was the perfect example. The dems were running around yelling from the rooftops that a bad economy hurts the president. Well they said this so much that I believe it became apparent they wanted a bad economy. Their votes against the Tax cut sealed it and for the first time I believe ever the presidents party gained in his first mid-term election.
Well they are at it again with the war. How far can they go before it becomes apparent that they are sabatoging U.S. foreign policy for polical gain? They are going to have to come up with a policy, and it cannot be "It won't be Bush". Focusing on the WMD issue will not hold up. Bush never stated that was the only reason and the evidence will support that. Right now the press is focused entirely on this and we just have to wait until they get bored. One only has to ask if there were no WMD's then why was there Sanctions? Many people (like france and germany) were pushing for a lifting of sanctions. One just has to follow out the Dem policy. A) put inspectors in. b) they find no WMD's c) Santions must be lifted (remember how many children were dying in Iraq because of the sanctions) d) we now have to get out of Saudi Arabia e) Iraq starts revives programs with help from Pakistan and North Koria f) Now we have a HUGE problem. This was part of a larger policy and the WMD arguements have been taken out of context. The only REASON we really argued this was to ATTEMPT to get U.N. support. Why not argue review why we have sanctions and that it is time to put up or shut up? It was not up to us to prove he had them but for Saddam to prove to us he did not. I believe 12 years of sanctions showed that he was unable to prove it. We just said enough was enough.
I believe the stragety here is to allow the Dems to use up their ammo early. Allow them to go too far down this road (feeling they are getting somewhere) and then pull the rug out from under them. I do not see anyway their position can be sustained for 8 months.
Posted by: Patrick Payne ||
02/08/2004 16:49 Comments ||
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#13
face an ugly choice: submit to sharia, or incinerate a billion and a half Muslims in a nuclear holocaust.
I say we cut to the chase, let's incinerate them now!
-AR
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
02/08/2004 18:16 Comments ||
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I'm becoming very dissatisfied with George Bush: not that he's having us do the wrong thing, but that he's done a truly horrible job of making clear to the American people exactly why we are doing the right thing in Iraq
This ex-fervent Gore supporter (who originally thought GWB stole the election) begs to differ. The unfair charges by the Democrats and the Democratic media aren't sticking, except with the easily impressionable, who can just as easily be swayed by a last-minute barrage of counter-propaganda. (That crowd literally believes the last thing it hears, so it's pointless to say anything except in the last days before the election). My feeling is that it is best to leave any compelling arguments close to the elections, so that the Democrats and the Democratic media have no time to put these arguments through their reality distortion machine.* I happen to think GWB has done an outstanding job in standing his ground and advancing his goals within the limits of the politically feasible.
* Recall that in the fall of 2002, Bush was held to be vulnerable and sagging under a hail of Democratic arrows. And then he unleashed his initiatives and buried the Democrats in the Congressional races, winning seats in both Houses of Congress for the first time in living memory.
The source is a rather dubious one given their track record, but what the hell?
British intelligence took its eyes off Saddam Husseinâs weapons programmes because it had been duped into believing a military coup would leave Sunni Muslims in power in Iraq. Sources in the country say what they missed was a push to convert chemical and biological organisms into dry agents that could be hidden until pressure on the regime was lifted. âFrom the second half of 2000, the focus of the British was not on finding weapons,â says a member of Iraqâs Governing Council. âThey wanted to avoid war by making a coup. M16 went out of their way to make a coup.â
Once-exiled leaders now back in Baghdad say M16 and the CIA were led to believe that the head of the Mukhabarat, the most powerful of Iraqâs three intelligence agencies, would lead a coup against Saddam that would safeguard Sunni power and keep Iraqâs Shia majority on the political sidelines. The link men were two Lebanese from the Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik - Issam abu Darwish and Imad el Hajj. âAbu Darwish and El Hajj went to Baghdad to contact and turn the head of the Mukhabarat, Tahir Jalil al Habbush,â says one source. âThey told M16 and the CIA they made contact with Habbush. M16 thought they could penetrate Saddam Husseinâs intelligence at the highest level. They were stupid on Iraq.â Thatâs quite interesting because itâs Habbush whose name keeps on popping up in relation to such things as destroying WMDs in 2000, the alleged letter to Saddam Hussein referencing Mohammed Atta, and the faux peace deal before the war. From the sounds of this, it looks as though that peace deal was nothing more than El Hajj (who also runs guns in Liberia, but al-Guardian wonât mention that) and Habbush acting on their own accord than any kind of concerted effort on Saddam Husseinâs part to avoid war. Which, incidentally, squares perfectly with Tariq Azizâs characterization of Saddam as being someone who had fallen victim to his own megalomania and was convinced that France and Russia would keep the US from hurting him. Habbush was also trained by the Soviet Bloc and there were rumors that Russia was trying for a coup against Sammy before the war, so one might want to factor that into this whole mess.
Days before American and British forces invaded Iraq, as Habbush remained loyal to the regime, El Hajj brokered an eleventh-hour attempt by Saddam to avert war without stepping down. Washington rejected the overture. Habbush, a member of Saddamâs Tikriti clan and sixteenth in the United Statesâs pack of 55 most wanted Baathists, is still at large. Abu Darwishâs son, Mohammed, now enjoys a lucrative contract as head of security at Baghdad airport.
I'd call that a bad thing...
M16 does not comment on its undercover activities. A Foreign Office spokesman says encouraging coups âwould be just one of a range of things they would be looking atâ, then added: âItâs nothing we would want to comment on.â Iraqis who were cultivated by the intelligence community say interest in Saddamâs weapons programmes only returned to centre stage in April 2002 - as President Bush began planning for war in Iraq after failing to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. M16âs first port of call was the Iraqi National Accord, a London-based group funded by the CIA. The INAâs leader, Ayad Allawi, has acknowledged passing a number of reports to M16 âin the spring and summer of 2002â - among them, the claim that Saddam Hussein had battlefield WMD that could be fired in less than 45 minutes. âM16 went on a fishing expedition for weapons,â says one of Allawiâs colleagues. âTheir political bosses wanted justification for war. Ayad said M16 was knocking at his door all the time. They were clearly under pressure to get information.â
So they dropped trou, squatted, and produced information? Tell me again how we need more HUMINT...
Iraqis say that what M16 missed in seeking information that would justify an invasion were efforts to convert VX and anthrax, Saddamâs biological and chemical agents of choice, into stable, dry forms that could be concealed until Iraqâs WMD capability was rebuilt and work on weaponisation could continue unhindered. (Before UN inspections destroyed it, Iraqâs main chemical and biological weapons facility covered 25 sq km. Such establishments are not rebuilt overnight.) At the same time, Iraqâs refusal to admit UN inspectors between December 1998 and November 2002, and the decision by some exile groups to encourage the overthrow of the regime in the framework of âthe war against terrorâ, shut down past information flows about weapons activity. Iraqis who interacted with Western governments are reluctant to talk publicly about weapons today. Accused for years of passing on self-serving and incorrect information, they do not want to be accused now of withholding information that might have undercut the argument that Iraq was, as Tony Blair put it, a âpresentâ threat. âWe wanted the Americans to remove Saddam,â says one. âWe had no interest in making an inspections regime work. The worse it got, the better it was for us.â
Speaking on condition of anonymity, however, one source says the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors in December 1998, and the establishment of a new inspection regime a year later, prompted feverish efforts to make and store VX salt and powdered anthrax - forms that are much safer to keep and easier to hide. âSaddam was trying to dry anthrax and aerosolise it for delivery as a terrorist weapon,â he says, citing scientists who were involved in weapons programmes after UN inspectors were expelled in 1998. âThere were plans to disseminate it from crop-dusters and from canisters placed on top of high buildings in an American city.â After 9/11, he adds: âSaddam hid everything in anticipation of being hit.â
Western experts doubt that Iraq succeeded in weaponising VX salt. âThe chemistry for VX is incredibly difficult,â says Ron Manley, a British inspector. âTransferring it to a weapon and making it would be very difficult. But I can quite believe Iraq would have tried it because thatâs their nature. It was a "suck it and see" culture.â But experts say Saddamâs reported attempts to weaponise powdered anthrax confirm existing concerns. âIn 2002, 25 metric tons of aerosil were ordered for, allegedly, the Samarra Drug Industries - far in excess to what SDI could use,â says Richard Spertzel, head of Unscomâs biological weapons section from 1994-99. âSDI was involved in CW and BW activities in the 1980s. Aerosil is used by the pharmaceutical industry for inhalant medication, but can also be used in powdered BW products and in "dusty" chemical agents that will penetrate many protective suits. Where is it now?â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:32:51 AM ||
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--âIn 2002, 25 metric tons of aerosil were ordered for,...Where is it now?â
Oh, this breeds confidence.
Is Spertzel now a contractor instead of an employee of UNSCOM?
#2
Its going to be open season on the intelligence community, especially in light of the Libyan coup and the exposure of the WMD proliferation network based in Pakland. Huge intelligence successes! The Left loathes the whole idea of covert intelligence.
Itâs from the Beeb, so all the usual caveats apply ...
As Iraqis wait for the establishment of a new constitution and judicial framework, so-called "tribal courts" are already administering rough justice in the south. On the side of a road in a ramshackle tent tribal elders have gathered for a court case, but it is not an ordinary law court, itâs a tribal court. Shoes are strewn outside and, inside, the elders sit resplendent in traditional garb. The case defies logic - one brother has killed another, but the tribe they belonged to is blaming a rival tribe for the killing. Their argument is that if there had not been a feud with the other tribe, the killing would not have taken place; they are now demanding $20,000 in blood money. Over copious glasses of sugary tea it is all sorted out. As one of the elders, Atahiya Barah Sajid al-Okeli, explains, generally the idea is that the cost of the settlement will ensure the offender wonât offend again. "If we make a decision nobody will dare do anything. We have a tribal system that says once thereâs a deal no tribe fights another," he says. "If a criminal is fined he will not do it again; the fine is his punishment." While he defends the tribal court, Sheikh Atahiya still wants the judicial system as a counterbalance, fearing that stronger tribes will always get the upper hand. "Because there is no law and order the tribes have become very strong and so people take their rights through the tribal courts. We want law and government and justice. We donât want this to continue, because some tribes are stronger than others", he told BBC News Online.
In central Basra the authorities are reconstructing the old courthouse. It was looted and burned in the aftermath of the war last year. Now along with fixing the courthouse the impetus is to set up a modern legal framework. Sir Hilary Synott the head of the coalition authority here in the south says both the tribal and regular systems have to be carefully balanced and both must lead to justice. "People can choose for themselves [and I] donât necessarily see them as incompatible. The key word is âjusticeâ," Sir Hilary explains. "If the result is justice and promotes security, law and order then thatâs fine".
But tribal justice [is] a world away from the regular system. Here before the daily round of trials law officers set out plastic chairs for a makeshift court. At the moment the venue is a meeting room in the temporary law courts. In direct contrast to the tribal system there are only three judges and no jury. Judge Khazal Daboal Kassam is adamant that tribal justice can only undermine the rule of law. He laughs at the notion that blood money can possibly buy justice. "[It is] difficult to put these two things together, justice is more than the money, because justice is for all the people the money is just for one person", Judge Kassam says. At the tribal court, the discussion is heated, but not about guilt or innocence. Through a complex network of tribal support, both sides know where they stand, now it is just a matter of agreeing the money. Eventually the price is knocked down to $4,000 and a woman, her value to be determined in later negotiations. For many Iraqis itâs a system that works, and in a violent region recompense appears much more practical than locking someone away.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 12:50:15 AM ||
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OK Fine. You'd be messing with deep culture on this stuff.
#2
Eventually the price is knocked down to $4,000 and a woman, her value to be determined in later negotiations.
The woman is chattel to settle the debt. Isn't that slavery? I guess the value will depend on which woman (female child?) is selected.
#3
As usual, the Beeb misses the point. The fact that Saddam is gone and no longer imposing his own form of "justice" means that, until a new system is imposed upon them, the Iraquis have reverted to their time-honored Islamic / barbaric tribal roots.
Additionally, and typically, the Beeb reporter (as instructed) is trying to satisfy the editorial agenda: 1) the wogs are naturally brutal and barbaric ("Oh how romantic, and perfectly disgusting, Geoffrey! Can we see more?") -- and 2) the war in Iraq has failed to bring (insert several Hyde Park Ranger 'sniff' sounds here) civility.
Only a twit would figure it would be otherwise in a tribal culture which practices Islam and where a power vaccuum exists, even temporarily - because life goes on. The education of Iraq to civility will be long. Were they anything but Islamic, I would be confident of some success. But with Islam in the mix it's clear it will be steeply uphill. Islam truly sucks (them backward). GK's comment certainly nails one insane aspect of it.
The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is threatening the Iraqi and regional stability by empowering Kurdish and Shiite Muslim groups, according to an Arab League report. The report, drawn up by an Arab League delegation that visited Iraq in December, is circulating among the 22 members of the Cairo-based Arab League but has not been made public. It reflects concerns among Arab countries that changes in the sharing of power in a post-Saddam Hussein government could give too much authority to the Kurdish and Shiite Muslim groups, inspiring those minority groups in neighboring countries to rise up and demand more power.
Kurds in Syria, Turkey, and Iran, Shiites in Soddy Arabia and the Gulf States...
Arab states are predominantly Sunni, but Sunnis in Iraq have dominated politics — even though the Shiites make up 60 percent of the population. The only other places where Shiites dominate in population and political power is non-Arab Iran. The Saudi leadership have long feared unrest among its minority Shiite community. "Iraqis find geographical and ethnic federalism a prelude to division of the country," said the report, which does not name the country's Shiites but uses the term "sectarianism" to refer to Shiite and Kurdish political aspirations.
Think of it as one of several possible alternatives...
The Shiites are pushing for majority representation in the government. Kurds, who have gained authority in the north of Iraq, seek federal autonomy from the government in Baghdad.
A hiite-controlled state would result in an even larger Shiite majority when the Kurds broke off. I suspect the Sunnis would do the same.
The leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Jalal Talabani, rejected the report. The PUK is one of two main Kurdish parties controlling Kurdish northern Iraq. "Those chauvinists are trying to demonize federalism to scare simple-minded people and poison their minds," Talabani wrote in an article published Saturday in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.
That's why they call themselves the Arab League, rather than something a little more inclusive...
The Arab League delegation, headed by Assistant Secretary-General Ahmed Bin Heli, spent 10 days in Iraq meeting with members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, the Cabinet, religious leaders, tribal chiefs and trade union representatives. Its findings will be formally submitted to a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in March and later to an Arab summit.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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...inspiring those minority groups in neighboring countries to rise up and demand more power.
Gosh, that'd be ... be ... terrible! Wudn't it?
Let's see:
Republic of Eastern Arabia -- 40 km wide on the Gulf
Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia -- controls the holy sites
Hashemite Kingdom of Central Iraq -- version 2
Federated Republic of Kurdistan -- Iraqi + Iranian + Syrian parts
Republic of Southern Iraq -- friendly Shi'as, wotta change
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 0:21 Comments ||
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And most important:
Wahabistan: location central Arabia. Main source of income: export of camel dung
#3
The next thing you know, the Turkmen in Iraq will get to vote too!
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 12:27 Comments ||
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LOL! Dr Steve, I certainly like your map of the ME better than the Sykes-Picot confabulation!
JFM's take is spot-on, too, since the US would hold the REA as a permanent protectorate and retain all proceeds therefrom.
I would add to the list a new entity: the RWP, Republic of Western Persia, which would contain all of the oil assets of Iran - situated in a conveniently narrow strip along their western border. This entity would also be a permanent US protectorate.
The proceeds from this entity would be held in trust for the Iranian people. Funds would be released as long as their Gov't was truly a representative democratic Republic - in actuality, not just in name as is the currently fashionable practice in the world. [Hmmm... Is there a dictatorship or thugocracy in the world which doesn't use some form of 'democratic' or 'republic' in it's name?] Absolute constitutional requirements would include 1) the total separation of church and state -- and 2) potent and vigorously enforced laws against discrimination for race, gender, religion, ethnicity, and age - otherwise all funds are withheld. The US would be responsible for any repairs needed to restore the oil industry. The first 6 months proceeds would repay the US for the cost of tipping over the Mad Mullahs and their sycophant thugs. One month's proceeds would be withheld each year for maintenance and upgrades to oil industry plant facilities and equipment. The US would be sole contractor to mine and sole buyer, at market value, of all uranium resources present in Iran and the RWP.
#5
So the Arab League has their knickers in a twist about what we're doing in the Middle East?
Yesss! We must be doing something right!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 13:53 Comments ||
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Wahabistan: location central Arabia. Main source of income: export of camel dung
No! Rashidistan, just to really rub the Sa'udi's faces in the crap. According to Arab News (so it must be true) there are still a few members of clan-Rashid knocking about - maybe it's time they were allowed to get in some Dire Revenge for that unpleasant business back in the 1920s? IMO Rashidistan should have a few public holidays celebrating:
1. The razing of Diriyah (Old Sa'udi capital) to the ground by Mehmet Ali's people,
2. The decapitation of King Abdullah as-Sa'ud by the Ottomans,
3. The capture of Riyadh by the Rashidis & the flight of the Sa'udi clan to Kuwait.
4. The decline & fall of the 3rd Sa'udi Empire?
That should be humilating enough for now, if the bayt as-Sa'ud don't seeth enough just establish a few Shi'a seminaries in Riyadh...
Posted by: Dave ||
02/08/2004 15:29 Comments ||
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Hopefully to go with the agnostic seminaries we'll establish. I'll submit my resume as soon as they're set up. I'd like to teach skepticism.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2004 16:26 Comments ||
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I just love hearing about these people squirm. Tells the status quo is over and things are changing.
Just thank god we have Bush in office. Right man at the right time in history.
Could you imagine a clinton or gore admin when were attacked.
Clinton - lob a few cruise missles into abandoned camps and asking for forgiveness from the corrupt arab leaders.
Gore - probably doing the same except he would run to the supreme court to verify his actions were legal.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 16:31 Comments ||
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Fred, the agnostic seminaries'll be a medium/long term thing, for short term 'extreme humiliation' only Shi'a ones will do. True Believers tend to find heretics even more obnoxious than infidels - the Ottomans treated the Qizilbash (Turkish Shi'as) far more brutally than they treated their Christian subjects & ISTR mediaeval Sunni's regarded shedding the blood of Ism'ailis as far more meritorious than killing mere kaffirs.
Re teaching skepticism, you may find a work by the late & lamented Mufti ibn Baz useful in exposing the idiocy of Wahhabi clergymen, IIRC it's called 'Jarayan ash-Shams wa'l Qamar wa sukoun al-'Ard' - The motion of the Sun & the Moon & the Stationarity of the Earth. After all everyone knows what an appalling kaffir Copernicus was...
Posted by: Dave ||
02/08/2004 17:48 Comments ||
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Muslim leaders from the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat jointly declared the policy of noncooperation in reaction to last weekâs search of the house of Waedueramae Maminchi, chairman of the Islamic Council of Pattani, said a spokesman for the three provincesâ Islamic councils. The councils comprise prominent members of the Muslim community. "The Muslim leaders...who have been cooperating with Thai authorities to help resolve the spate of violence and other problems in the three southern provinces have declared they are temporarily stopping cooperation and all action in helping the Thai authorities until the situation is changed," spokesman Abdurrahman Jaesae told The Associated Press.
The search was part of an ongoing government campaign to catch the perpetrators of recent violence, especially a raid in early January on an army base in which four soldiers were killed and more than 100 assault weapons were stolen. The attack coincided with the torching of 21 state schools. "Waedueramae Maminchi is the head of Muslims in Pattani - searching the house of a prominent Muslim leader is regarded as the act of insulting Muslims, so this is the last straw," Abdurrahman said. "We Muslims see the acts of the authorities as the means to discredit Muslim leaders who are well-respected by the people."
Posted by: TS ||
02/08/2004 11:45:03 AM ||
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Iâm not making this up.
A play that mentions the German car maker Volkswagen has been banned in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. âElection Dayâ had been performed in the city four years ago but this time it did not meet the approval of a new committee set up to vet all shows. The committee can remove any reference to sensitive racial matters, religious beliefs, royalty, the law, public policy or anything considered vulgar. Any mention of the real world or any person alive or dead is also forbidden. That figures
It is the first time the committee has refused a performance a permit. âElection Dayâ, which follows three friends during Malaysiaâs 1999 polls, failed six of the committeeâs eight guidelines. The script was returned to its director with the names of the car maker Volkswagen, a local chain of pharmacies and various Malaysian politicians all struck out. One leading member of Malaysiaâs arts community told the BBCâs correspondent in Kuala Lumpur, Jonathan Kent, that the only safe subject now left to write about was food. As neighbouring Singapore tries to establish itself as the regionâs arts capital, Malaysiaâs official sponsorship of cultural events is largely confined to staging dances by models wearing traditional costumes. I can guarantee that statement.
Several high-profile American films have also been outlawed or censored on moral or religious grounds in the predominately Muslim country. The award-winning film The Hours saw several scenes cut that depicted kissing between two women to protect the "interests of the country and people from bad influences and negative elements shown in films". And the big screen adaptation of the comic book hero Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck, was also outlawed because of "excessive violence". The cartoon Prince of Egypt, an animated epic about the life of Moses, was deemed "insensitive for religious reasons", while Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me featured too much sexual innuendo for Malaysian censors.
This is the end result of "sensitivity to the feelings of the [fill in the blank] community."
Posted by: tipper ||
02/08/2004 10:42:44 AM ||
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Why don't they just forego the formalities and go straight to a Taliban government.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/08/2004 12:10 Comments ||
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I may be mistaken, but IIRC, Malaysia also banned "The Schindler list" because it was too "favorable to the jews".
#3
As I don't see Something About Mary listed, the censors obviously didn't get the hair gel gag.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 12:18 Comments ||
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Just guessing, of course, but: "Why don't they just forego the formalities and go straight to a Taliban government."
Perhaps they think their soccer football team has a chance in the World Cup?
(If so, they'd have to build an abbatoir some new facilities for public executions...)
The ceasefire committees of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have included in the agenda in todayâs joint meeting, the reported Jemaah Islamiyah training activities in Mindanao but mainly because they want to jointly come up with âcategorical answersâ on the âperplexing questionsâ repeatedly raised by the foreign press. Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, the Armed Forces vice chief of staff and chair of the governmentâs Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH), noted that the news of JI training in MILF-held areas mostly came from the foreign press. âI donât know where the foreign media is getting these reports,â he told a press conference during a break in the 15th Joint CCCH meeting at the Tower Inn today.
I dunno. I usually get it from the Manila Times or Jakarta Post...
But Garcia said media reports on the JI are âcertainly an important issueâ that the joint government-MILF CCCH has to tackle âbecause it has a way of affecting the peace process.â The JI issue was raised in the press conference by a visiting foreigner, the deputy bureau chief of Reuters in Manila. âWe need to exchange notes and also get responses from the government and from the MILF side pertaining to Jemaah Islamiyah and be able to come up with some definitive and categorical answers to some perplexing questions that have been raised particularly by the foreign media,â Garcia said.
Garcia noted that the latest of the string of foreign media reports on the JI is that 15 trainees recently graduated from training sites in Maguindanao province. âIt is in this ceasefire committee that matters like this (reported graduation of 15 JI trainees) are also taken up to be able to get from our MILF counterparts assurances or actions that have been done, confirmatory or not, as they continue to come,â Garcia said.
Previous CCCH meetings have also tabled the JI issue and that members of the joint committees have initiated fact finding missions, along with some members of civil society groups, to verify these reports, Garcia said. Benjie Midtimbang, MILF CCCH chair, said allegations linking the MILF to the JI which had been linked to the series of bombing operations in Mindanao, Metro Manila and other parts of Southeast Asia, have come mainly from different media organizations. He said the matter has also been tabled by the CCCH in its past meetings based on media reports and that they had agreed to jointly conduct investigations in areas where the JI trainings were reportedly done in consonance with the MILF policy of helping the government solve the series of bombings in Mindanao and even in the neighboring countries.
He said members of the joint CCCH visited last December, Cararao, a mountain in the borders of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, where JI recruits have reportedly trained. âI am proud to inform you, brother, that no one was found as a member of the Jemaah Islamiyahâ he said.
I think Dan predicted that when the name first came up...
Midtimbang said a television media crew who went with them can attest and show other members of the media the result of this fact-finding mission. Midtimbang also said that the MILF has enforced a long-standing policy that âany member of the MILF must never link with any group who are suspected to be members of criminal elements.â
âWe are not criminal people, we are Muslims who always want to protect lives and properties be he a Christian or a Muslim. It is not within the vocabulary of the MILF to have links with these groups,â he said. Midtimbang said they have made assurances to their counterparts in the government CCCH that they will not allow criminal or suspected terrorists to use any part of the areas held by the MILF.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:17:11 AM ||
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Though many feared that the bulk of the 400 prisoners Israel released in the prisoner exchange with the Hezbollah terror group would return to their murderous ways, few expected televised declarations of such intentions. Steven Smyrek, a 32-year-old German terrorist who converted to Islam gave an alarming interview to a German television station almost immediately following the affixation of his signature to a document promising to renounce violence and terrorism. Before he even left Israel for Germany, Smyrek gave an interview to Eric Friedler, a German documentary maker. âItâs an honor to die for Islam and for Allah,â he said. âWhen the order comes you have to carry it out and thereâs no time to ask if there is a God or not, or to think what will happen after youâre dead, without feeling you simply have to lay down your life as Allah decreed.â
Smyrek was arrested by the General Security Service in 1997 after arriving in Israel in order to carry out a suicide attack on Israeli Jews. He was convicted and sentenced to ten years in jail. He expressed no remorse in court and declined an offer to serve his time in a German prison. He now speaks fluent Arabic after living with convicted Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists for more than six years and is as determined as ever to turn himself into a human bomb. His own family in London reacted with concern to news of his release. Karin Wood, his mother, told Britainâs Sunday Times, âIâm just terrified to think what he might do, not just to himself but to other innocent people.â Smyrek was born in Germany, moving to England when his mother married an officer in the British Army. He attended military school and even joined the German military briefly before being sent to jail for dealing drugs.
After his release from prison, Smyrek learned about Islam while working at a Turkish kebab shop and was encouraged to join a local mosque. There he met two Hezbollah agents who facilitated his planned terror attack in Israel. Fortunately, two Israeli air marshals were seated to either side of Smyrek as he flew to Israel due to intelligence information suggested he intended to hijack the airplane. He was arrested upon arrival at Ben-Gurion airport. Smyrek, now a free man, is again able to pass himself off as either British or German as he moves around the Middle East freely with his European Union passport. German authorities announced last week that Smyrek was one of three prisoners who had opted to remain in Germany rather than continue on to Lebanon.
#2
Steven, Allah created you to deal drugs, and that's what you should go back to doing.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 19:45 Comments ||
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TGA - How is this playing out in Germany? Germany was central with this swap. Just wanted your take on it from the debate / headlines in Germany.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 19:54 Comments ||
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Itâs an honor to die for Islam and for Allah
Be glad to help you with that, asshole.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 20:16 Comments ||
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One of the best ways to cool things down in Iraq maybe to take Lebanon, which will become a new roll of fly paper. One of the differences between the Coalition presence in Afghanistan versus the Soviet occupation was that Iraq was soon annointed as the new Disneyland for kooks looking for death. While the Soviets were in town, Afghanistan was the only game in town and attracted nearly 100% of jihadi kooks and money. It may be time to provide a new destination for Steven and fellow members of the Bizarro Army of Steve.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 21:17 Comments ||
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Al-Qaida has obtained tactical nuclear explosive devices that can fit inside a suitcase, Israel Radio reported Sunday night citing the Al-Hayat newspaper. According to the Arabic daily based in London, the devices are not intended for use, except in the event that the existence of the organization is threatened. The report said that members of Osama bin Ladenâs group purchased the devices from Ukrainian scientists who sell them to anyone willing to pay the price.
I'd assign this one a very low "possible" assessment. I'd also, if I were running things, scrub the Uke mad scientist community very thoroughly and arrange as many "unfortunate accidents" as necessary.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 7:02:17 PM ||
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#1
Nuclear blackmail at even the hint of possession of a Nuke will guide foreign and domestic policies for terrorist orgs into the long foreseeable future. The Geni has been let out. Sugarcoat it as some may one day, somewhere one is going to go off. God help us all then.
#3
well ok, if your suitcase is named Fatman or little boy....I guess one of the rolling luggage types might work ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/08/2004 20:35 Comments ||
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Man portable nukes were designed for combat demolition (bridges...etc) and pack a considerable punch for its size. Properly placed, the casualities in a city could reach or exceed 9-11 proportions. More importantly, the hysteria and resulting chaos from a Nuclear Strike would exceed the real damage from the actual blast. This is a terror weapon. I hope they are blowing smoke out of their asses (again).
#5
Unfortunately, it will probably take something as horrific as an actual nuclear terrorist attack to make people realize just how serious the WoT is. Apparently crashing four planes and killing 3,000 people wasn't enough to convince some people (and to think we mobilized the entire nation and fought for four years losing nearly 300,000 good men and women the last time we were that viciously sucker-punched).
Posted by: Dar ||
02/08/2004 22:07 Comments ||
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If we are struck again, I hope we kill them all next time. No quarter, No mercy.
#7
When we get attacked again we had better hope Bush is in the Whitehouse. Kerry will need to check and get a consensus from his contributors to his campaign before he acts. Mr Peacenik incarnated.
The Arab League turned a blind eye condemned yesterday the two attacks, occurred on Sunday in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, which resulted in the killing of 67 people, hoping asserting that they aim at affecting the unity of the Iraqi people. âya think?-perhaps if they didnât foster terrorism and changed ALJâs programming a little, nah that would be asking too muchâ The Arab League spokesman, Hussam Zaki, said in a statement issued yesterday that such acts which aim to kill and intimidate civilians must be met with the strongest financial support statements of condemnation and denunciation. "Condemned-strong message= now boys that wasnât very nice of youâ
#1
Your formatting goes against normal conventions in this board as I've perceived them -- you should be striking out *your own* text, which would make it clear which words were added by you as commentary versus all the ones that were present in the original text.
Thousands of Palestinians joined the funeral on Friday of a local military leader of Hamas, which vowed vengeance against Israel for his death in an explosion in the Gaza Strip. âoh boy another funeralâŠletâs riotâ
An Israeli military spokeswoman denied that any Israeli soldiers were in the region at the time of the blast on Thursday at the man`s home in al-Bureij refugee camp. âarenât missiles greatâ
Medical and Palestinian security sources said Abdul Nasser Abu Shoqa, aged 37 (eds: correct), a leader of Hamas` armed wing Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, was killed by an explosion whose cause was unknown. "An IDF death ray maybe?"
The Brigades accused Israel of killing him. âYa the Israelisâ yep they did it"
The enemy assassinated Abdul Nasser Abu Shoqa. An Israeli aircraft fired a rocket at his house, fatally hitting him," it said in a statement seen by AFP. âgive that pilot a cigar- great shotâ
"The enemy, which knows only the language of blood, will pay very dearly for its crime," it said. "We will enter their houses and destroy them over their heads. In attacking us in our houses, the enemy has shown its cowardice and that it cannot confront us on the battlefield." âYadda yadda yadda-battlefield? yes the Paleos would do great on a battlefield. Iâd give em say 15 minutesâ
Hundreds of Hamas members joined the thousands following the funeral cortege. Gunmen fired periodically in the air as the procession âno doubt killing a few more by arcing rounds shot high in the airâ
made its way from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah camp towards neighbouring al-Bureij camp where the damage to Abu Shoqa`s home showed the force of the blast. âyep they blasted the heck out of that placeâ
Abu Shoqa`s friends and relatives paid their final respects before burial in the "martyrs" ceremony. In contrast to many funerals where the face of the corpse is left visible, that of Abu Shoqa was covered "because his body was blown to pieces by the explosion," one mourner said. âthey couldnât find all the pieces eh?"
Hamas claimed the suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem on January 29 in which 11 people and the bomber died. The movement described that attack as a ripost to an Israeli army operation in Gaza the day earlier in which eight Palestinians were killed. âno doubt plans are in place to blow up a school busâ
A SAUDI Islamic militant based in the breakaway republic of Chechnya is suspected of being behind the bomb attack on the Moscow metro that killed 39 people and wounded more than 130. Abu-al-Walid al-Ghamdi, 36, has been identified by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, as one of the most powerful figures in the Chechen rebel leadership. As the commander of several hundred Arabs fighting alongside the rebels, he is thought to have been responsible for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that have killed more than 200 people in just over a year. He is also believed to have been one of the masterminds of the October 2002 Moscow theatre siege, which ended with the deaths of 40 Chechen terrorists and 129 of their hostages.
Walid, a follower of the Wahhabi sect that dominates worship in Saudi Arabia, signalled the determination of Chechen extremists to take their war against the Kremlin to Russian soil when he broadcast a statement from the republic last year on the Arab television network Al-Jazeera. "If operations in Chechnya continue they will harm Chechen people, so we have decided to export operations inside Russia," declared Walid, a bearded man with long black hair who wore a uniform and spoke against the backdrop of a Chechen flag. "We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people. God willing they will pay for their fight with their blood and their sons."
Fugitive Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov yesterday denied responsibility for Fridayâs metro bombing, the worst of its kind in Moscow. However, he does not speak for more radical rebel commanders such as Walid and Shamil Basayev, the militant Chechen with whom the Saudi is said to have plotted the theatre siege.
Despite the ferocity of the blast, there was an unexpected air of normality yesterday at the Avtozavodskaya metro station, which is lined with white marble and Stalinist mosaics glorifying Soviet workers. Trains were running to schedule and there was no obvious police presence. A bucket filled with red roses and carnations at the entrance to the station and a lingering smell of burnt bodies were the only reminders of the carnage of 24 hours earlier. Police were questioning survivors and studying footage from a surveillance camera of two women suspected of being suicide bombers and a man believed to have been their accomplice, standing on the platform with two suitcases. Shortly before the explosion, the man had apparently approached a member of staff and said: "Youâll have a party on your hands."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 5:58:14 PM ||
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#1
We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people.
Well, what a coincidence! The Russian people consider all the Chechen people to be warriors too.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
02/08/2004 19:51 Comments ||
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Though I don't wish it on them, ah what the heck I do, I wonder when ALQ is going to do something nasty in Paris or Berlin? I wonder if a mind set change would be in order for our "allies" then. Can you see the French if their beloved Eiffel tower goes down in a pile of twisted steel?
After nightfall, Palestinians opened fire on an Israeli vehicle at the entrance to the settlement of Talmon, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, killing Roi Arbel from Talmon and wounding two others. Arbel, a 28-year-old father of five whose wife gave birth to triplets two months ago, was the first Israeli to be killed in a Palestinian attack this year. The Al-Aqsa Martyrsâ Brigades, a militant group with links to Yasser Arafatâs Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the shooting attack.
In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian who opened fire on them, while in the West Bank, Israeli troops conducted house-to-house searches in the Tulkarem refugee camp for a second day. Palestinian witnesses said about 200 residents were rounded up for questioning. The Israeli military said it arrested six suspects, including one man who allegedly planned to carry out a suicide bombing in Israel. The operation ended at nightfall and Israeli forces withdrew, lifting a curfew, the military said.
Also Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hinted that Israel might pull out of the Gaza Strip. His comments came as he is pushing mostly undisclosed plans for unilateral pullbacks from the West Bank and Gaza Strip if peace talks fail. A day earlier, Sharon pledged to bring such moves to a parliament vote after consulting his coalition partners and international allies -- a way of giving hard-line parties a possible veto over evacuating Jewish settlements. Visiting the town of Segev Shalom in the Negev desert, Sharon welcomed Bedouin soldiers who had served in the Gaza Strip. "I hope that the day will come when we wonât have to be in the (Gaza) Strip and you will really be free to do things that are more important." About 7,000 Israelis live in 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip among more than 1 million Palestinians. Several of the settlements are isolated in heavily populated areas and are considered prime objects for removal under any redeployment plan. Sharon has said that if talks on the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan do not progress in the coming months, he would order unilateral steps to disengage from the Palestinians, including imposing a temporary border with the West Bank and moving some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. However, Sharon has not given specific details of his plan, saying it is still being prepared. He appointed Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, the incoming head of his security council, to direct the planning.
EFL - couldnât resist offering this OpEd of Don King. Some will like it but for others it will merely be more trickeration.
When Bill Fletcher, a member of the Board of TransAfrica Forum visited Venezuela at the invitation of the government, he felt so enthusiastic about the Chávez revolution that he gave a speech suggesting that Chávez and Martin Luther King Jr. belonged in the same group, that both men had cultivated the same ideals. This did not sound right to many people in Venezuela, as King was a leader who fought for the brotherhood of men while Chávez has been fighting to exclude 75% of the Venezuelan population from his illusory revolution. A few weeks after Fletcherâs disgraceful comparison, Don King, a King that should more accurately be compared to Chávez, visited Venezuela and quickly shouted "Viva Chávez" (In reality, he confused the Spanish words of the shout and ended up shouting "Chávez se va," Chávez goes, before the terrified translator put him back on track).
In Spanish we have a saying: "Dios los cria y ellos se juntan." Roughly translated, "God creates them and they get together," to illustrate how kindred spirits come closer, embrace and start to call themselves brothers. Martin Luther King would have never visited Venezuela to support Chávez, seeing the manner in which the Venezuelan politician has used race to divide his country and to promote social hate. He would have denounced these maneuvers as a criminal act. Don King, on the other hand, was ready and willing to visit Chávez because, as he says, "Power is everything and you have to get close to power." This is why he defines himself, in politics, as a "republicrat," or, in baseball terms, as a switch hitter. He was a Clinton man and now he is "1000% behind George Bush," whom he recently called "a creative, innovative and decisive leader." This suggests that his approximation to Chávez is based on reasons more materialistic than idealistic. He might be thinking of staging a championship fight in Venezuela, all expenses paid by the revolution. This is the way he operates.
Don King, like Chávez, is a highly controversial figure. He has killed two men, one in 1954 and another in 1966, while Chávez promoted and led, in 1992, a bloody and unsuccessful coup which caused the death of more than one hundred innocent persons. They have both been in prison after being tried and have served shortened sentences. Both are shrewd and ruthless operators. King says that he agrees with Machiavelli about being feared as the most important thing for a man. Chávez is a bully who threatens his adversaries, at every possible opportunity, with strong retaliation. Both hide behind racism to further their objectives. King has been successful at avoiding trials claiming that juries are racially charged against him. Chávez often accuses his political adversaries of opposing him because he is a zambo (of mixed Black and Indian blood).
It would be fair to say that King is much more of an unsavory character while Chávez is more an autocratic and egocentric political leader. King has been accused of tax evasion, money laundering and of stealing money from his fighters but, so far, he has not been convicted of any of these charges. He once claimed the protection of the Fifth Amendment to refuse answering the questions about his connections to mobster John Gotti. Chávez has not been accused of similar crimes but he has been accused of ordering the massacre of Puente Llaguno, in April 2002, where Venezuelans died at the hands of killers and of pilfering the nationâs money in ill planned and populist social programs. He has been criticized for using the taxpayerâs money in expensive suits, expensive watches and incessant traveling in a very expensive presidential aircraft all so he can fulfill his ambition of being a world leader.
Snip
A note about the title: I am currently reading the second volume of George R.R. Martinâs magnificent saga "A song of ice and fire," titled precisely "A clash of Kings." I could not help borrowing it.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 3:07:33 PM ||
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Up to 7,200 young followers of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez could be training in Cuba in preparation for an upcoming referendum Chávez may be facing as early as next April.
Polishing their bludgeon skills, are they?
According to a source in Cubaâs educational system who asked to remain anonymous, the youths are receiving "political and ideological" training at four sites around the island. 1,200 are reportedly lodged in the school for social workers in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, and 2,000 each are in similar facilities in Santiago de Cuba, HolguÃn, and Havana. More are expected to follow this first group, said the source.
Takes more than 1200 brownshirts to make sure the referendumb goes the right way...
Students at the nearby Provincial School of Art Instructors report that the Venezuelans are not allowed to mix with the locals, and only venture out of the facility in planned, escorted visits. Some of the students also expressed resentment at the Venezuelansâ privileges, saying they receive better food and medical care and even have available digital audio visual equipment, whereas they have to rent such equipment when needed.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 2:56:48 PM ||
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(...) On Friday, Dean left open the possibility he would accept a vice presidential nomination on a Democratic presidential ticket, a move that is unusual for candidates seeking to appear presidential. His comments came during a campaign interview for the February 17 Wisconsin primary with a Milwaukee radio station on Friday. Asked by radio station WMCS whether he would accept the vice presidential slot, Dean replied, "I would, to the extent, do anything I could to get rid of President Bush. Iâll do whatever is best for the party. Obviously, Iâm running for president, but whateverâs best is what Iâll do. Anything." "Really. Anything!! Iâll do anything!! ANYTHING!!! Pleeeeeeease let me be relevant in this election!!
"Weâve just got to change presidents," he said. "Iâm Weâre really hurting right now." On Saturday, he told NBCâs Today Show that he is still running for the presidential nomination but will do whatever is necessary to beat George Bush. Dean also said he would run with John Kerry, if Kerry becomes the nominee, but thinks that would be poor strategy. "Let me say that if John Kerry is the nominee Iâm going to support him," Dean said. "Second of all, if John Kerry were the nominee, Iâd advise him not to pick me because you donât need two people from New England on the ticket. I will do whatever I can to beat George Bush." "So please pick me!!"
Deanâs comments separate him from fellow presidential hopefuls Sen. John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, both of whom have said they would not run as vice president. (...) But that may soon change.
Posted by: Rafael ||
02/08/2004 1:17:28 PM ||
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#1
sure hope so - the dems will not have a chance with that loudmouth!
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 13:19 Comments ||
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I think this match is wishfull thinking on our part. I expect that the DNC is aware that Kerry/Edwards looks like a more formitable match than Kerry/Dean. Dean also dissed Kerry too many times to be included in a Kerry administration. Clark might be the VP if that's what it takes to secure Clinton fundraising services. I doubt the Clinton's will want to participate in this election anyway.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 13:31 Comments ||
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#3
Kerry/Edwards: Probably... Kerry/Gephardt: Possibly... Kerry/Dean: Even the Democrats are not THAT stupid!!!
Posted by: Jack Deth ||
02/08/2004 14:35 Comments ||
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#4
Kerry/Sharpton?
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 15:54 Comments ||
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#5
There is no way that Kerry (Massachusetts) would choose Dean (Vermont)as a VP. I saw in one of the tabloids that Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild back in 93. If Kerry picks Morgan as VP, he has my vote (of course he would lose his wife vote if he did that).
#6
I smell a cracker Graham.... Kerry/Graham... too bad Graham's already lost his clout at home due to his less than inspired run to the left presidential bid.
#7
Dean is NOT going away. The ventriloquist dummy will team up with the ventriloquist -- Al Gore -- and run as an alternative left-wing party. GORE/DEAN -- that is the ticket for two delusional, messianic LOSERS who believe they are the CHOSEN ONES.
#8
You Bastards you're just jealous of the sweeping change that Dr. Dean is bring to the "democratic" process. You're angry that you can't have a part in the never ending fund raising and house parties, your're jealous because you can't see the wisdom of pure ass tom foolery anymore, in short you're out of dope!
#10
I love the dems I really do. Heck some of their voter base consists of people who think that war is not neccesary and that we should put daisy's in guns and Unicorns romp in the fields and the birds tweet tweet.
(I borrowed the Unicorn from someone else but it's worth repeating). Bush answered the false AWOL charge great today. I wonder how Kerry will expalin away his activities after Vietnam. This is one Nam vet who hasn't fogot.
#11
Unlikely anyone in the dominant left-wing media who will incessantly extol the virtues of Comrade Kerry the war hero will also give mention to Kerry's role as the radical left's anti-war, anti-American, pro-communist posterboy. Comrade Kerry's shameful exploits will make no more of a splash than Comrade Clinton's meeting with every Communist from London to Moscow during the Viet Nam War.
Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. Hundreds of men sat cross-legged before him in the main prayer hall. Women filled the basement, listening over a loudspeaker. All but the youngest girls wore head scarves. When Sheik Jamal lowered his request to $2,000, more hands shot into the air. The crowd declared, "Allahu Akbar". $1,000? More hands. $500? Even more. In less than five minutes, he raised $50,000.
While religious leaders often mine congregations for charity, this scene at the Mosque Foundation in suburban Bridgeview stands out for two reasons. The recipient of the worshipersâ generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leaderâs passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying on hundreds of documents and dozens of interviews, the Tribune has pieced together the details of a bitter fight in Bridgeview that saw religious fundamentalists prevail over moderates...
Posted by: TS ||
02/08/2004 11:56:52 AM ||
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#1
the enemy within.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 12:35 Comments ||
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"Please register or log in. The story you requested is available only to registered members."
Please provide necessary usernames and passwords when linking to protected sites. Thank you.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 16:22 Comments ||
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#5
Hmm..that's the name and password I use.
Usually on subscription sites I just type in anonymous for name and password and alot of times it works.
Maybe they are trying to stop multiple people using anonymous now?
Wish I could help more.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Nearly 400 members of Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)âs ruling Fatah (news - web sites) Party resigned Saturday to protest what they call corruption and bad leadership within the group. better late than never. guess theyâre slow learners. but educable.
The mass resignation is the latest example of long-standing friction between the younger members of the Palestiniansâ main political force and the old arafat cronies guard who honed the art of terror accompanied Arafat back to the West Bank and Gaza Strip from exile in the early 1990s. The 400 ex-Fatah members were from the partyâs lower ranks, and none were prominent officials in the movement.
The former members, in a letter to Arafat and other movement leaders, said they were angry over corruption, mismanagement and a lack of direction in how the party handles the Israeli conflict. probâly pissed they werenât getting their cut
At the fore of the dispute are elections for the partyâs governing bodies and charges that leaders have ignored calls to hold a vote for fear of losing power. Party procedure calls for elections every five years, but none has taken place since 1989. democracy is such a relative concept
While there are hundreds of thousands of Fatah members, the resignation of almost 400 needs to be taken seriously, said Hatem Abdul Khader, a prominent young Fatah lawmaker.
"Most of the signatories are unknown, but this document should indicate to the leadership about how much we need reform," he said. I give them 3 days. these 400 will show up dead. or "remorseful". and will shout "Death to Israel"
Fatahâs current leaders have repeatedly put off holding elections. Fatahâs young activists say veteran leaders are merely afraid of losing their privileged positions.
"Fatah, as it stands today, is leading us toward tribalism, internal conflict and a bottomless pit," the statement said. this is only news to them, apparently. weâve known it for years.
Fatah Cabinet minister Qadoura Fares downplayed the resignations. "The issues that were brought up in the statement are not new," he said.
But Abdul Khader, the young lawmaker, said the petition â which some view as a direct challenge to Arafat â forces Fatah to take the accusations seriously.
"The whispers for reform have become a shout," he said. "Fatah cannot ignore this anymore."
Posted by: PlanetDan ||
02/08/2004 10:58:00 AM ||
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I wonder whether this has anything to do with the fact that they haven't been paid for a while.
Why doesnât the US just pull out of Korea, and let the "sunshine policy" just take itâs course. Dependancy is a hard addiction to break. The sooner they face reality the better.
When South Korea and North Korea ended their ministerial meeting yesterday, the Seoul government hailed the latest inter-Korean talks as a success. This was because the Northâs agreement to hold high-level military talks and its pledge to make sincere efforts at future six-party talks about its nuclear program were the Southâs top priorities for the 13th ministerial meeting. But the agreement may be overshadowed by Seoulâs under-the-table promise to provide Pyongyang with 1 million tons of rice this year. The promise of rice aid came less than an hour before the two Koreas closed the four-day meeting, according to government sources. The South also promised to provide 200,000 tons of fertilizer for the spring seeding season. Both sides were scheduled to hold a closing plenary session and conclude a joint statement Friday afternoon but it was delayed until yesterday morning as they struggled over the nuclear problem and other thorny issues. Seoulâs last-ditch promise of rice and fertilizer aid gave impetus to the belated agreement, the prospects of which had seemed gloomy, officials suggested.
Critics have accused Seoul of giving in to the impoverished stateâs demands for economic assistance at almost every inter-Korean meeting. Pyongyang has long been suspected of using brinkmanship tactics, such as threatening a breakdown of inter-Korean talks, to win economic aid. Public frustration at such secret deals increased dramatically last year after the North resumed its nuclear activities in late 2002. Right-wing political parties and conservative civic groups in Seoul said economic assistance was only propping up the brutal communist regime of Kim Jong-il. In return, the North satisfied most of the Southâs demands during last-minute negotiations to work out a joint agreement. In addition to the nuclear problem and military talks, they reached agreement on several other critical issues. Neither side could risk thwarting the talks by refusing to make concessions, political observers said.
Expectations were particularly high for the Cabinet-level talks as the North announced its agreement to a second round of six-nation negotiations just hours before the inter-Korean talks opened Tuesday. But the good atmosphere quickly turned sour after the North strongly criticized the South for siding with Washington to stifle inter-Korean economic cooperation. While Seoul delegates wanted to link the pace of joint business projects to the nuclear issue, their Northern counterparts demanded the ventures go forward without delay in spite of the nuclear dispute. South Korea strived for a promise from the North to take concrete steps to resolve the nuclear crisis in the upcoming six-party talks in Beijing. But the communist neighbor turned a deaf ear, only reiterating its demand for an inter-Korean coalition against the United States.
Some experts believe Pyongyang has hardened its negotiation stance. Its unilateral announcement of the date for a next round of six-party talks was a clear message that it was not willing to discuss the issue during the inter-Korean meeting, they said. Seoulâs generous promise of food aid may have bridged the huge gulf between the two Koreas, at least temporarily. But differences are almost certain to resurface when they move to act on the agreement.
Posted by: tipper ||
02/08/2004 9:24:45 AM ||
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1 millions tons of rice.... sheeesh...what's that 100 lbs per NORK?
#2
That's a lot of rice. Pure carbs. What would Dr Atkins say?
"Neither side could risk thwarting the talks by refusing to make concessions, political observers said."
I love these unidentified / unproven twit comments hanging out there as if unassailable fact. Regards the NorKs, the Bush Admin has done it exactly right, which is to say precisely what this comment sez must not happen: ignore the tantrums of Prick Soviet / Bitch China's Brat. When the little shit runs out of steam, we might, might decide to talk seriously with it about how it will disarm if it wants to survive. Stupid unilateral SKor cave-ins to every tantrum make a hash of any coordinated strategy.
"...Pyongyang has hardened its negotiation stance."
Of course. When you get what you want by throwing a fit, then why behave? Shit, this is Parenting 101. F**kin Duh.
The SKors deserve the grief and repeated double-crosses for being such insatiable Pollyanna dupes. If they don't want a coordinated strategy, then fine - they can deal with Dear Leader alone. If they do, then they must learn to STFU and stop giving away the game. Pfeh. Pfuck this SKor regime - he's a complete nimrod and pfool.
More on how the palestinian terrortories (mis-spelling deliberate) are economical completely f***k. Iâm going to enjoy the vast outpourings of hypocrasy from the UN and the EU about a situation they created. EFL
During the Palestinian Authorityâs very first years of existence (1994-97), it failed to invest any effort in creating sources of employment in the West Bank and Gaza, meaning Palestinian dependence on the Israeli labor market had to continue. This is the principal conclusion of a study by Ziyonit Fattal Kuperwasser of Bar-Ilan Universityâs Middle East studies department. Around 45,000 Palestinians presently work in Israel, 30,000 of them illegally. Prime Minister Ariel Sharonâs disengagement plan will sharply cut this number - and also the amount of work that factories in the territories do for Israeli companies. All this spells another serious blow to the Palestinian Authority after those years of failure to reduce economic dependence on Israel. This period was noteworthy for the complete freedom of movement for West Bank and Gaza residents throughout Israel and the territories. Israel did the right thing until the suicide bombers.
In the second period, which began with the first intifada (1987-1991), the first signs of separation between Israel and the territories emerged. That intifada was characterized by repeated strikes and curfews in the West Bank and Gaza that seriously disrupted the regular flow of workers from the territories to their jobs in Israel. These disruptions worsened during the Gulf War - the winter of 1990-91. That was when the first closures were imposed on the territories, ending the freedom of movement of the Arab residents. It was also when the groundwork was laid for importing foreign workers to Israel to replace Palestinian laborers.
From the beginning, it was clear that separation and restrictions on the entry of Palestinian workers into Israel would hurt the Palestinian economy far more than it would the Israeli one. During the period in which there was freedom of movement from the territories into Israel, about one-third of the Palestinian labor force worked in Israel - and since detailed records of entries into Israel were not kept at that time, some estimates put the figure as high as 50 percent. Thus job places in Israel played a decisive role in the territoriesâ economy. Palestinian workers, however, played a relatively minor role in Israelâs economy. Even when Palestinian employment in Israel was at its peak, residents of the territories were only about 6 percent of all workers in Israel. And when they stopped coming, foreigners soon replaced them.
The Palestinian economy on the other hand had no replacement for job places lost in Israel. The unemployment rate in the territories, which had been low in the 1980s, began to rise in the 1990s. Unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza stood at about 15 percent in 1992 and 18 percent in 1995 - today, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate is about 30 percent. The PAâs establishment created substantial job opportunities for educated residents of the West Bank and Gaza. The PA set up government agencies and public institutions that provided employment for college and university graduates, who had previously had no options other than manual labor in Israel. During the years when Israel governed the territories, the public administration numbered less than 40,000 workers. Following the PAâs establishment, this figure skyrocketed. By 1997, it had reached 82,000, and today, 140,000 people are employed by the PA bureaucracy.
The studyâs main criticism of the PA is that the Palestinian leadership lacked an economic strategy focused on developing sources of employment. The industrial parks that were planned were never built; the legal and organizational infrastructure for organizing the labor market was never laid; measures needed to encourage investments were never implemented. One sometimes gets the impression that the PAâs economic leadership devoted its principal efforts to organizing economic monopolies, which controlled, among other things, gasoline, flour, sugar, cigarettes, cement and steel. These monopolies made money for the PA and people affiliated with it. Its the muslim model of development, government = kleptocracy
In addition, the PAâs economic leadership devoted great efforts to pleasing donor states so that it would be able to milk them for more money for projects that were not always properly planned and thought out. The PA preferred projects that involved symbols of sovereignty and prestige, such as the airport, power plant and a port in Gaza, which was never completed. In other words, the Palestinian economy, and especially its labor market that has remained dependent on Israel, is liable to be dealt another severe blow by the Israeli disengagement. Itâs a blow it might not be able to absorb. As I have repeatably stated the Paleo terrororities are not viable unless Israel trades with them. The complete absence of trade and investment with their Arab neighbours is striking. What will happen? I suspect that the UN and the EU will be embarassed by how abysmal their policy failure is and the residents of the WB and Gaza will drift off to the slums of Cairo and where-ever when the money dries up as it definitely will.
Posted by: phil_b ||
02/08/2004 9:05:07 AM ||
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I wouldn't call the PA a kleptocracy. Its more of a kleptothugracy.
the Palestinian economy, and especially its labor market that has remained dependent on Israel, is liable to be dealt another severe blow by the Israeli disengagement. Itâs a blow it might not be able to absorb.
All because of those wacky homicide bombers the Pals revere so much. Who'da thunk it?
Action, meet consequence.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 13:12 Comments ||
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#3
since 9-11 i really do not give a damn! the paleos have chosen their lot - now reap what you sow!
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 13:24 Comments ||
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OK, I know I shouldnât be ululating
Hit by waning support from fatigued donor nations, the Palestinian Authority has been forced to borrow from banks to pay salaries to its 125,000 employees and may be unable to meet its February payroll, the economy minister said Tuesday. With unemployment rampant outside the public payroll, Palestinians could be facing unprecedented economic collapse after three years of conflict with Israel. "We took loans from the bank for the past couple of months to pay salaries," Palestinian Economy Minister Maher Masri told The Associated Press. "If this situation continues ... we will not be able to provide salaries next month." Masri did not disclose the size of the loans, but figures are likely to be made public when Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad presents the 2004 budget to parliament next week. Palestinians say Israeli travel restrictions and frequent military operations have ruined their economy.
None of that had anything to do with their own actions, which were models of sweet reason, meticulously equating cause with effect...
Israel says the restrictions are necessary to prevent terror attacks, pointing to frequent charges of corruption in the Palestinian leadership as a reason for the malaise. World Bank figures show about 40 percent of the Palestinian work force is unemployed and 60 percent of the population live on less than $2 per person per day. Masri said the Palestinian Authority has a monthly income of about $20 million and expenditures of at least $85 million. The World Bank says donors have grown weary at the lack of progress toward peace, while the Palestinians are facing a $400 million shortfall. "They are facing a crisis and itâs getting worse," Norwegian Mideast envoy Jakken Biorn Lian said by phone from Oslo. "They need extra contributions."
Maybe the fat boys at the top should stop raking it off as it comes in...
Masri said that Arab declarations of support for the Palestinians were not being matched by remittances, with only Saudi Arabia and Libya agreeing to send money. "The Palestinian cause is not the worldâs highest priority these days," he said.
Posted by: tipper ||
02/08/2004 6:15:13 AM ||
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I wonder who is guaranteeing those bank loans. No banker in his right mind would make an unsecured loan to the paleos.
#3
economic collapse? Arafat alone could pay those salaries from the graft he's skimmed off - this needs to be brought up every time the Paleos blame the Joooooos, who, of course, run the international banks that won't give them loans.
I, for one, would give them a crisp $5 bill for each Hamas, IJ, A-AMB snuffie they arrest and execute....deal?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/08/2004 9:09 Comments ||
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#4
Well, they can always go to Saddam for the money....oh, never mind.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/08/2004 10:48 Comments ||
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#5
1. Lay off part of their bloated bureaucracy )125,000? They aren't THAT big.)
2. Raid Arafat's French and Swiss bank accounts to pay the rest. He should have enough money not-so-secretly stashed away to pay them for years to come.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 12:16 Comments ||
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the eurotrash are the ones underwriting these loans.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 12:29 Comments ||
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#7
Now comes part two: ensuring the PA lacks the funds for "military" operations and splodeydopes.
#8
I think those bank loans (from banks operating in Palestinian areas) were more like protection money. "Got a nice bank here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it, eh?"
Posted by: Steven Den Beste ||
02/08/2004 17:17 Comments ||
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#9
Maybe the tourist rade will turn around for them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 19:42 Comments ||
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AP photo by Enric Marti
Photographers take pictures of a Palestinian woman as she cries next to the 8-meter-tall wall part of the barrier Israel is building to separate the outskirts of Jerusalem from the West Bank in the village of Abu Dis Saturday Feb. 7, 2004. Academy award time.
Around a thousand Israeli and Palestinians and media swine collaborators
rallied against the controversial security barrier that is meant, according to Israel, to keep suicide bombers out. We Zionist co-conspirators, otoh, all know that it is really meant to keep Israelis from escaping.
Others condemn the barrier, which dips deep into the West Bank in some areas, as a land grab and a hindrance to Jew eradication. Hat tip:LGF
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
02/08/2004 2:38:21 AM ||
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See the IDF (spit on them) and the settler pussies in action here
#5
#2 and #3. Oh yeah. Don't you know what all photographers in the middle east do? They wait for Israeli soldiers to get in action and then they take the wrong pictures ... forge them and put them on the web right?. Anonymous you qualify as a top notch asshole... there are others but you definitely are one dumb asshole. But I think there's definitely a tie between you and Frank G for this position.
#6
They wait for Israeli soldiers to get in action and then they take the wrong pictures ... forge them and put them on the web right?
Correct.
Faisal, we just don't care what happens to the Palestinians any more--we stopped caring on 9/11 when they had their little party. Nor do we care what whiny closet cases like you think about that, or us. If you can't take it, get off Rantburg.
#7
Convenient how she stopped to "cry" in front of the ONLY ENGLISH on the wall.
What a crock.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/08/2004 12:17 Comments ||
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#8
No Faisal you qualify as a top notch asshole. So have you taken on any of those IDF pussies yet?
You are pathetic - the Paleos cannot win the war they have started. They have chosen their lot and must suffer the consquences of their honorable leaders decision (at least honorable as far as a lazy, corrupt muslim minds thinks).
You and the rest of the muslim world need get into the 20th century.
The muslims need to look inward and discover their own shortcomings and maybe then they can develop, instead of trying to blame others for their own failings. As long as the mindset is in the 7th century you are doomed.
Ever since the turks failed , twice, to take europe they have had a chip on their shoulder and have slid further down the road of obscurity. The west just got stronger and the muslims, well we know history.
If it wasn't for oil the muslim arabs would be on par with the pigmies of africa on the world stage.
They have nothing to contribute to modern society.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 12:19 Comments ||
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#9
The Faisals of the world do not yet comprehend that they are living on borrowed time, or that they are being given one last chance to reform their sick, dysfunctional societies and their hateful "religion": because if there is ever another 9/11, we will abandon our efforts to reform Islamic society from the outside, and simply exterminate them all.
I don't want to have to do that, nor do I want my children or grandchildren to have to; but Faisal and his barbaric friends had better understand that they're on the brink of an abyss.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/08/2004 12:36 Comments ||
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#10
Fizzle - you're a treasure! LOL! You posit no intelligent arguments or anything resembling reason, just bigoted Joooo-hatred. You're a credit to your indoctrination - no matter what your heritage.
BTW, when will you respond to JFM's challenge? You certainly have the behavioral hallmarks of an Arab, but I will await your response to JFM.
If you are an Arab I offer this, a paraphrasing of something Mark Twain wrote: I am safe with the likes of a thousand of you - as long as it's daylight and you are in front of me.
Please don't leave Rantburg, Fizzle! You are our most prolific comic-relief 'tard poster. Thx.
#11
#6 #8: Dan, don't babble too much. You need to wake up. You are OCCUPYING the land of the Palestinians. Do you understand that.... i guess you don't. Cuz if you don't, the paleos will keep blowing themselves up your ass like bombs. Imagine driving a human being to the level of frustation and hopelessness where he/she (wrongly) feels that it is right to take his/her own life. What happens to the zionists is just a taste of your own medicine. So just get the hell out of land that isn't yours. Or is THAT written in your manual talmud as well?
#12
Faisal thinks we should wake up, as though he isn't a fantasy-ridden Jew-hating loser. Faisal I'll type this so even you can understand it: the Palestinians are alive because the Israelis let them live. A poodle-like closet case like you doesn't threaten the Israelis at all. Neither will the Palestinians when they are walled off--but if they continue their "resistance," they will be destroyed. The same goes for the rest of the Islamic world.
I'm confused by your logic. What exact claim do the palestinians have to that land? The jews have been there for 5000 years starting with Judea and Samaria. There never was such a thing as a palestinian until the British/UN tried to make a Palestine and got turned down because the arabs couldn't accept Israel getting some of the land that was majority Jewish. So they proceeded to declare war on them failed and eventually an Egyption (Arafat) somehow took over the palestinian movement and spent the rest of his life as a terrorist who drive the palestinian people into destitue living standards and continued to lose more of the land promised to them in 1948 they turned down. Now they're left begging for a much smaller piece of land yet regard this terrorist, Egyptian who failed them so miserable, who stole billions of dollars from them, who's wife and children are living it up in Paris as a hero. So instead of looking inward and throwing out the people that failed them and robbed them and used them they blow themselves up targetting children on schoolbuses and pizza restaurants. And you expect us to listen when you claim they have no responsablity for their actions and instead blame it on a few million Jews who are surrounded by hundreds of millions arabs and persians who want them dead and can't find it in themselves to even allow the Palestinians to work in their countries?
#14
Faisal - learn your history! And I am an american so we would be occuppying Iraq not palestine.
The Paleos are used as tools by your arab brethern.
The paleos were hopeless when the turks occupied them , when the brits occupied them, when the eygptians occupied, when the jordanians occupied them and now they are still hopeless with the israel occuppying them.
Bombing by pathetic jihadis will not crush the will of a strong people!
You need to wake up before you and your brethern are destroyed.
From 1991 till 1999 the paleos enjoyed the best times they have ever had. Hell even the jordanians nor eygptians would allow the paleos to cross their borders but the israel did. And what did they get? Once they unilaterly pulled out of southern lebannon the paleos smelled blood and stopped negotiating and started booominng!
They had 94% of the west bank / gaza from these negotiations (more than they could of even imagined under and a jordanian or eygtian occupation) and it was squandered. Now they are paying the price. It comes back to the muslim mindset. Only blunt power swayes these assholes.
So Fasil you should go and read some history (and make sure it was not printed in ryahd) and post arguments with merit.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 13:39 Comments ||
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Oh and Faisal (i like the fizzle noted above) - expain to us all just how palestine historically belongs to the paleos? Many civilizations have lived and conqured this. Just how do the paleos deserve this land? They have never had a functioning govt./civilization here, only by the graces of the countires that have occuppied this land have the paleos come close to this. And fizzle tell me which occupires allowed this to happen? The turks? the arabs?
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 13:48 Comments ||
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#16
Faisal
I have repeatedly said I doubt you are an Arab. This time I will add a little incentive to my challenge.
There is a wonderful lebanese restaurant in Paris, one day I invited a friend to it and we ordered two coffees (in French), the waitress then yelled to the cook: "ONE coffee" (in Arabic).
If you ever come to Paris I will invite you be my guest to this restaurant if you are able to answer what the girl said, what she should have said and what she should have said if we had ordered three coffees?
You jsut have to reply to this post and do it before I raise tomorrow morning.
#17
I am with JFM - where you from Faisal? You sound more like a wannabe sitting in his apartment in London.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 14:09 Comments ||
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Faisal
In the spring 1967, the Palestinians were hailing their leaders when they were telling their intention to completely exterminate the Israelis. No shipping them back to Europe. Complete extermination. Babies included.
Now I invite you to meditate this haddith quoted by Al Hindi in his book on military matters: "Don't kill children. Aren't the the best of you sons of polytheists?"
And that sentence of the Koran where it tells that if Muslims become unworthy Allah will drop them
Perhaps, perhaps it was the monstruosity of what they intended to do who had attracted divine wrath upon the Palestinians, don't you think?
#19
On May 15, 1947 Azzam Pasha said this regarding the jews in what became Israel "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, agreed with Pasha adding "I declare a holy war, my muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!"
These are the people we're supposeed to feel sorry for? If the jews in Israel thought like the palestinian leaders do there would be no such thing as a palestinian today. They'd be a footnote in history.
It's amazing to me how leftist subscribe to the belief that when psychotic terrorists say something they don't really mean it, it's just that they're oppressed (like Hamas decaring that they will not rest until all the Jews are driven into the sea). Ask a leftist and they will tell you that Hamas doesn't really mean that and they are just frustrated by their "oppression" and if Israel would just stop attacking terrorists and open up their borders Hamas wouldn't send in suicide bombers by the truckload, instead it would all be peace and love. But at the same time when and Israeli leader says we want peace, the leftist don't believe them and instead believe the Israelis want to exterminate the palestinians... very strange belief system they got muddled up in their heads... maybe the Israelis should call for the extermination of all palestinians and the leftists will all the sudden be on their side?
#20
the reason I enjoy rantburg is because there tends to be less kneejerk partisanship and more considered opinion. so I need not pile on Weasel faisal, because the rest of you have been articulate, rational and compelling in your arguments.
However, I think one thing Faisal says talks to the depravity of the paleos more than anything: Faisal says:
Imagine driving a human being to the level of frustation and hopelessness where he/she (wrongly) feels that it is right to take his/her own life.
First, there have been many societies in which the people have been driven to deep levels of "frustration and hopelessness." Even in their despair they have not acted out in such a barbaric manner. The society is morally, intellectually and culturally bankrupt. Disparate organizations (Hamas, Jihad, Al Aqsa) compete to see who will be more barbaric. They support a man who is objectively corrupt and an abject failure as a leader.
No. They did are not so frustrated and hopeless. There are pitiful pawns and dupes, used by the Euroweenies and Arabs. How stupid they are, and how stupid is anyone, including Faisal, for falling for it.
#22
Faisal I have repeatedly said I doubt you are an Arab. This time I will add a little incentive to my challenge. There is a wonderful lebanese restaurant in Paris, one day I invited a friend to it and we ordered two coffees (in French), the waitress then yelled to the cook: "ONE coffee" (in Arabic).
Faisal's from a small town in the midwest.. he moved to North Carolina about 4 years ago. He's works late he usually posts after midnight except for the weekends or when he is laid off.... so lay off.
#23
My 2 cents. The Paleos and most of the Arab world that holds terrorism as a means to an end are base scum of the earth. I would have no problem in supporting anything or anyone which would rid the world of them. Allah is not great Allah is the devil himself.
Too late for the restaurant. I cannot extend the offer indefinitely until you find someone to give you the answers or someone else decides to have a free lunch.
#25
Well, I suppose that for those who want to believe..... the fact that she is conveniently standing in front of the english translation AND the little baby jihad appears to be their next photo op AND the smiling boy on the right allows us see the real gravity of the mood....these do not prove that the photo is a fraud.
But even a Faisal type has to admit that by focusing only on the woman, and not including laughing boy or baby Jihad...it's clear that the reporters are a knowing telling a lie about what IS going on. The only reporter who is putting this woman in her true context is the one who snapped this picture, which shows us that she's crying for the cameras..with a child laughing and a baby dressed for a photo op of his own.
Thank goodness for the blogs..so that these blatant media lies can be exposed.
Posted by: B ||
02/10/2004 12:31 Comments ||
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#26
oops..should be knowingly telling a lie...or something like that.
Hmm..maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions. Perhaps the other reporters zoomed in so they could show the onion in her hand.
Posted by: B ||
02/10/2004 12:34 Comments ||
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The rapidly expanding probe into a Pakistani-led nuclear trafficking network extended to at least seven nations Saturday as investigators said they had traced businesses from Africa, Asia and Europe to the smuggling ring controlled by Pakistani mad scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Three days after Khan confessed on television to selling his countryâs nuclear secrets, Western diplomats and intelligence officials said they were just beginning to understand the scale of the network, a global enterprise that supplied nuclear technology and parts to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly others. "Dr. Khan was not working alone. Dr. Khan was part of a process," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. agency that is conducting the probe along with U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies.
And that somehow overlooked the international nuclear black market for all these years. Perhaps an investigation is in order?
"There were items that were manufactured in other countries. There were items that were assembled in a different country."
That must be how they missed it, no matter how diligently they searched. Oh, how they searched! They searched high, they searched low. They looked under beds and in closets...
Meanwhile, Pakistani officials disclosed that they had launched their own probe of Khanâs activities in October after the Bush administration presented what one senior official described as "mind-boggling" evidence that Khan was peddling nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and had attempted to do the same with Iraq and Syria.
Syria didn't need it because they'd get it from Iran. Iraq didn't need it because they had their own program.
The evidence included detailed records of Khanâs travels to Libya, Iran, North Korea and other nations, along with intercepted phone conversations, financial documents and accounts of meetings with foreign businessmen involved in illicit nuclear sales. Pakistanâs president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was personally briefed on the evidence on Oct. 6 by a U.S. delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, made a similar presentation to Pakistani political and military leaders, the officials said. "This was the most important development for us since 9/11," one of the Pakistani officials said. "One more time, the ball was in the court of General Pervez Musharraf."
And the ball was on fire. In his lap.
U.S. and U.N. investigators say Khanâs nuclear trading network represents one of the most egregious cases of nuclear proliferation ever discovered. Using suppliers and middlemen scattered across three continents, the network delivered a variety of machines and technology for enriching uranium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. In the case of Libya, at least, it provided blueprints for the bombs themselves. Khanâs network provided "one-stop shopping" for nuclear technology and parts, said a senior U.S. official, who described how supply met demand in what amounted to a centralized ordering system. "If I want to buy an IBM computer, I donât have to go to every single element of IBM," the official said, by way of analogy. "I can go to their salesman, and he fixes me up just fine."
Likewise, you want to buy a bomb that can kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, you go to a Pak mad scientist...
Diplomats familiar with the Pakistan operation say Khan and his closest associates were the "salesmen" who filled orders for Libya and other customers. In the case of Libya, representatives of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi contacted the Pakistanis, who relayed the requests to middlemen. The middlemen, in turn, found suppliers to produce the necessary components. Finished parts were then shipped to a firm in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, which arranged for delivery to Libya. The interception of a significant shipment of components in Italy last fall led to Gaddafiâs decision to eliminate his nonconventional weapons programs. Companies or individuals in at least seven countries, including Pakistan, were involved. Among the countries known to be involved are Malaysia, South Africa, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Germany. A company in another European country was also involved, two diplomats said.
That doesn't guarantee guilt on the part of all the companies. Most probably only saw a part of the picture, with the whole thing being managed by the Khan group...
The commodities produced for Libya ranged from electronics and vacuum systems to high-strength metals used in manufacturing gas centrifuges, which are used in making enriched uranium. "It was a remarkable network that was able in the end to provide a turn-key gas centrifuge facility and the wherewithal to make more centrifuges," said former IAEA inspector David Albright, a physicist who has studied the nuclear procurement networks of Iran and Libya. "The technology holder was always Khan. Suppliers came and went, but Khan was always there."
The project manager...
Libya and Iran have already given investigators the names of many of the companies and middlemen involved, and are continuing to offer more, according to Western diplomats familiar with the investigation. Two German businessmen identified by Libya as alleged suppliers of centrifuge technology -- Otto Heilingbrunner and Gotthard Lerch -- have been interviewed by IAEA investigators but not charged with any crimes, according to two officials close to the investigation. A third German named by Libya, Heinz Mebus, is now deceased. All were formerly employed by companies that manufacture equipment used in gas centrifuges. Heilingbrunner, reached by phone at his home in southern Germany, said he tried to sell aircraft parts to Iran in the 1980s, but said he never sold nuclear technology to anyone. "I never did business with this junk," said Heilingbrunner. "I do not know how they came up with me."
"Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!"
"Hokay."
A senior Bush administration official said the Khan connection may have provided everything Libya acquired for its nascent nuclear program, including weapons designs. The designs were later handed to U.S., British and IAEA officials in Tripoli and are now being studied in the United States.
That was when toilet paper consumption in Pakland spiked. There were shortages, people lined up for miles, just waiting for their ration...
The disclosure of Armitageâs October visit by Pakistani officials provides new details of a claim made this week in a speech by CIA Director George J. Tenet. Tenet said the intelligence agency had successfully penetrated Khanâs network long before the IAEA went to Pakistan in November with evidence of illicit technology transfers to Iran. Two Pakistani officials said Armitage presented the case against Khan and several other associates during a meeting with Musharraf at his official army residence in the city of Rawalpindi. The Americans asked Pakistan to verify the information independently and to take action against those involved, the officials said. "We were told that Pakistanâs failure to take action will most certainly jeopardize its ties with the United States and other important nations," one of the Pakistani officials said.
... wiping the sweat from his face with the end of his turban.
The U.S. officials warned Pakistan that failure to act on the information could lead to sanctions by the United States and the United Nations. Musharraf was said to be stunned by the detailed evidence against Khan and his associates. "It seemed that the Americans had a tracker planted on Khanâs body," a Pakistani official said. "They know much more than us about Dr. Khanâs wealth spread all over the globe." Among other things, he added, the U.S. officials presented evidence of Khanâs alleged attempts to sell nuclear secrets to Saddam Hussein when he was president of Iraq and reported that Khan had traveled to Beirut for a clandestine meeting with a top Syrian official in the mid-1990s. During the second week in November, an Iranian delegation led by a deputy foreign minister, Gholam Ali Khoshru, arrived in Islamabad, according to a third senior Pakistani official. "They used a very careful formulation," the official recalled of the visit. "They said they had acquired components and designs in â87 from the black market -- they mentioned Dubai -- and said two of the individuals involved were of South Asian origin, though not from the same country. They hinted they were under scrutiny from the IAEA and would have to make these declarations" about who had supplied the technology. Shortly afterward, the IAEA delivered its findings on Iran in a two-page letter, and Pakistanâs investigation began in earnest. Musharraf ordered the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and Strategic Planning and Development Cell to check out the evidence that had been provided by the United States and the U.N. agency, the officials said. ISI officials traveled to Malaysia, Dubai, Iran and Libya and "found that evidence against Dr. Khan was accurate," one of the officials said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 2:17:06 AM ||
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I've come to the conclussion that not only does the Islamic World seek to live in the 7th Century butfor our own sake we should make sure that they do. And with a 7th Century level of technology to boot
Many Somali factional leaders say they now reject a landmark agreement on the formation of a new parliament they signed a few days ago.
"Yeah. We signed it. That don't mean we're gonna abide by it..."
Factional leader Mohammed Said Hersi, known as General Morgan, says the agreement that 30 warlords, politicians, and civil representatives signed in front of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on January 29 is not the same as the document they had agreed to just three days earlier.
"I mean, somebody changed it when we wudn't lookin'!"
He says there were significant changes made in the formal agreement that the signatories discovered only after last Thursdayâs signing ceremony. He says they assumed the wording of the document they okayed, and the one they signed were the same. "If you see the document, a lot of mistakes are there," he said. "This document legally is not valid. The political leaders feel that until this mistakes [will] be corrected, we are not going to be a part of the process. But that does not mean that we are pulling out, but we are waiting from the facilitation committee just to correct those mistakes."
"Y'see, they inserted the word 'not' in front of every verb! That wudn't fair!"
So far, more than a dozen factional leaders have disavowed the document and have taken the matter to I-GAD, the seven-nation regional grouping that is sponsoring the peace talks. General Morgan says the formal agreement left out key people and political positions, and political groupings were not accurately described.
Seems the allocation of the spoils was all hosed...
His main objection, he says, is that the final text recognizes Somaliaâs political leaders as being only those who attended the Nairobi meeting where the agreement was drawn up.
Why's that surprising? If you don't come to the party, you don't get a hat...
The Kenyan mediator of the Somali peace process, Bethuel Kiplagat, says negotiators and factional leaders have since proposed to amend the text to include more people, a solution he says everyone would accept. Mr. Kiplagat says this situation is not unusual and does not mean the end of the peace process. "Somebody, somewhere, sometime after signing will come back and say, look, I am not too comfortable here," he said. "That does not mean they are abandoning the process or the process is stalled."
It just means they want a bigger piece of the pie, usually somebody else's piece...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:21:39 AM ||
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Many Somali factional leaders say they now reject a landmark agreement on the formation of a new parliament they signed a few days ago.
Horrors! Oh the humanity! Hold me Fatima!
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 15:34 Comments ||
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I guess that means the check cleared ...
A German U.N. worker who was kidnapped more than a week ago by gunmen in Somalia was released on Saturday, a militia chief said. Mohamed Jimale, the military head of the Juba Valley Alliance militia that was trying to secure his release, said Rolf Helmrich had been taken to the Somali town of Kismayo. "He was released an hour ago," Jimale told Reuters in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:19:56 AM ||
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As a result of special operations carried out in Chechnya on Friday, federal forces killed three gunmen, as well as found three bases and five caches with arms and ammunition belonging to gunmen. According to the headquarters, the success of the operations is explained by local residentsâ help. In particular, thanks to their information the military made several ambushes in the Shali region en routes of gunmenâs possible movements. As the headquarters said, one of the bases found in the Kurchaloisky region which was used by illegal armed groups had five dugouts containing a food store, as well as arms and ammunition. All the bases and ammunition were destroyed. A base found in the village of Makhketa of the Vedeno region contained 15 kilograms of explosives and three homemade explosive devices. A lot of explosives - 19 kilograms of TNT and plastique were discovered in four caches situated in the Shelkovskoy, Shali and Vedeno regions of the republic. Besides, federal forces detained two gunmen in the Kurchaloyevsky region on Friday.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/08/2004 1:10:28 AM ||
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The United States was justified in going to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was capable of producing weapons of mass destruction, Vice President Dick Cheney told backers of GOP candidates Saturday. Cheney also called on Congress to renew the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism bill that critics say has curbed civil liberties but that Cheney defended as allowing federal law enforcement to share more intelligence information. "We use these tools to catch embezzlers and drug traffickers and we need these tools as well to hunt terrorists," he said of the billâs provisions. Bad political move. Offer instead to work with Congress to keep the good parts of the PA and jettison a few questionable parts. That would defuse an issue the Dems otherwise could use in the election.
Speaking to nearly 200 people at a $1,500-a-plate luncheon benefiting Republican U.S. House candidates, Cheney said that while inspectors have failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the regime did have the scientists and the technology needed to produce them. "We know that Saddam Hussein had the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein had something else - he had a record of using weapons of mass destruction against his enemies and against his own people," he said. Weak argument, Dick. Rantburg understands but we arenât a majority (yet). Cut your losses, stress the human rights issue and get moving.
Cheney continued to press the message in St. Louis Saturday night at an event that raised more than $500,000 for the Missouri Republican Party. The Missouri crowd gave him a standing ovation when he declared, "There is no question that America did the right thing in Iraq." Thatâs what we need more of.
In Illinois, Cheney also praised U.S. intelligence officers for discovering terrorist plots that he said authorities were able to prevent. He did not give any specifics. "Americans can be grateful every day for the skillful and daring service of our nationâs intelligence professionals," Cheney said. Yep.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 12:38:18 AM ||
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It may be a weak argument, but he was preaching to the choir.
#2
The US should just stop pussyfooting around with this issue. A declaration of war is needed:
Syria and Iran
This would take this issue away from the left and the eurotrash when we take on these regimes.
We were attacked, but Bush wants to fight this war on the cheap. I am a full supporter of Bush but we , as a nation, need to stand tall and finish off our enemies.
As it stands now we are taking them on one by one, no draft needed for this, but it gives the illusion to the american people that all is well with these nations.
Posted by: Dan ||
02/08/2004 13:15 Comments ||
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It does you no good to win the war if you botch the aftermath.
President Bush said Saturday that CIA Director George Tenetâs job is not in jeopardy despite election-year questions about the accuracy of prewar intelligence on Iraq. "I strongly believe the CIA is ably led by George Tenet," Bush said in an Oval Office interview to be broadcast Sunday on NBCâs "Meet the Press." Asked whether Tenetâs job was in jeopardy, Bush answered: "No, not at all, not at all," according to an excerpt of the interview provided by the network. Tough call: CIA completely punted 9/11 and was bamboozeled (with everyone else) on the WMD issue, but it stepped up well in Afghanistan and has done good work on the nukes issue.
Bush pledged to cooperate with the commission he set up last week to examine intelligence on Iraq and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. "I will be glad to visit with them," the president said. "I will be glad to share with them knowledge. I will be glad to make recommendations, if they ask for some." "I will be glad to get out in front of this issue at last."
Bush also responded to concerns the commission was not required to complete its review until after the presidential election in November. He said the panel needs time to do its work. "There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made ... good calls - whether I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power," Bush said. "I look forward to that debate." So do I. I think Bush can whack Kerry in a debate.
The interview, Bushâs first appearance on the news show, comes as his approval rating has dipped to 47 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken in early February; that compares with 56 percent just a month ago. Bush also has been fending off criticism over the inability of U.S. inspectors to uncover banned weapons in Iraq that intelligence experts said existed when U.S.-led troops invaded in March. Yep. Shoulda just admitted it. "Yeah, we missed it. Too bad. Now then, how many innocent Iraqis have we saved so far?"
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 12:34:40 AM ||
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I don't know that the CIA had a chance against AQ in the condition is was left after years of handcuffing policies. The new commission might be able to look at that effectively. I don't think that they are going to get too far on tracking down what the President knew unless access is given to White House records that has never been available to any investigation with the exception of Watergate.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 13:26 Comments ||
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Three Pakistanis have been caught red-handed in Jordan trying to pass on 20 million dollars worth of counterfeit US banknotes, the al-Rai newspaper said on Saturday. One of the Pakistanis, who were identified only by their initials, had contacted a Jordanian who promised to handle the 20 million dollars, the pro-government paper said. The trio was arrested with the fake cash in a sting set up by the kingdomâs anti-corruption squad following a tip-off from their Jordanian contact. The Pakistanis, aged 26, 27 and 36, are to appear before the state security court.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:10 ||
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"Mahmoud, you idiot! Those weren't passports!"
"Apologies, Faisal, I was just trying to grow the business!"
"I tells yas once, I tells yas a t'ousand times. Stick ta what yas knows!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/08/2004 0:22 Comments ||
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Nearly 400 members of Yasser Arafat's ruling Fatah Party resigned Saturday to protest what they call corruption and bad leadership within the group.
Doesn't that come as a surprise?
The mass resignation is the latest example of long-standing friction between the younger members of the Palestinians' main political force and the old guard who accompanied Arafat back to the West Bank and Gaza Strip from exile in the early 1990s. The 400 ex-Fatah members were from the party's lower ranks, and none were prominent officials in the movement.
Nor will they be. They might be its successor, though...
The former members, in a letter to Arafat and other movement leaders, said they were angry over corruption, mismanagement and a lack of direction in how the party handles the Israeli conflict. At the fore of the dispute are elections for the party's governing bodies and charges that leaders have ignored calls to hold a vote for fear of losing power. Party procedure calls for elections every five years, but none has taken place since 1989.
"We have salaries. Why do we need elections?"
While there are hundreds of thousands of Fatah members, the resignation of almost 400 needs to be taken seriously, said Hatem Abdul Khader, a prominent young Fatah lawmaker. "Most of the signatories are unknown, but this document should indicate to the leadership about how much we need reform," he said.
I imagine Yasser will ignore it.
Fatah's current leaders have repeatedly put off holding elections. Fatah's young activists say veteran leaders are merely afraid of losing their privileged positions. "Fatah, as it stands today, is leading us toward tribalism, internal conflict and a bottomless pit," the statement said.
That sounds about right...
Fatah Cabinet minister Qadoura Farespooh-poohed downplayed the resignations. "The issues that were brought up in the statement are not new," he said.
"And we intend to let them get a lot older..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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They might be against all the corruption in the PA, but they probably also have no problem with coninuing the Intifada either.
Things will get interesting after Arafat finally departs
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/08/2004 0:17 Comments ||
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wanna bet the 400 form the next line of boomers? Now Arafat has plausible deniability...Call me a cynic
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/08/2004 0:19 Comments ||
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Maybe these people were angry that they hadn't been bribed lately.
#5
The younger Fatah members see the handwriting on the wall. As it stands now, their corrupt and ineffective group will end up on the short end of things when civil war breaks into the open.
As for the Intifada, that's become a deadly PR campaign for all the groups. Paul's right - things will get interesting when Arafat departs.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has protested to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over a conservative vetting bodyâs failure to reinstate hundreds of disqualified election candidates, state media said Saturday. But the reformist president stopped short of calling for the postponement of the key February 20 parliamentary poll, the official IRNA news agency said.
He'd rather have his salary...
Khatami and Mehdi Karubi, the pro-reform speaker of the legislature, wrote to Khamenei to complain that only a few hundred candidates had been reinstated by the Guardians Council in response to his call for a second review of the blacklist, IRNA said, citing an âinformed sourceâ. But they vowed that they would nonetheless âorganize the elections on the planned date,â in line with Khameneiâs orders, the news agency said.
"Hokay, boss. We'll shut up and do as we're told..."
IRNAâs source said that the pro-reform government had submitted a list of 380 candidates it wanted reinstated, following Khamaneiâs intervention, but the Guardians Council had approved only 200 of them. âMost of those reinstated are not leading figures,â the source added. Khatami and Karubi also complained that the Guardiansâ obduracy would âmake the elections less competitive and reduce the peopleâs interest in voting.â The reformists have seen the Guardians Council bar thousands of their candidates from the poll, including some 80 sitting MPs. They accuse the conservatives of mounting a âcoupâ to regain control of government and parliament and had called for the elections to be postponed, which Khamenei rejected. Some 120 MPs, who held a sit-in in parliament, have resigned, along with provincial governors and some ministers and deputy ministers, sparking threats of prosecution from hardliners.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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He'd rather have his salary...
and his head. RE: resignations sparked threats of prosecution
"You can't quit I'll fry you."
Police reinforcements fought bloody battles with gunmen as they tried to retake Haiti's fourth-largest city Saturday from rebels who seized it two days earlier in a challenge to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
I imagine the cops will eventually succeed, at the cost of piles of corpses. It's kind of Haitian tradition...
At least three police were killed, and crowds mutilated the corpses. One body was dragged through the street as a man swung at it with a machete. A woman cut off the officer's ear. Another policeman was lynched and stripped to his shorts, and residents dropped a large rock on his corpse. Rebels said they killed 14 police officers, Haitian radio stations reported; but the claim could not be confirmed. The uprising appeared to be spreading. Armed Aristide opponents seized the police station in the west coast town of St. Marc on Saturday, firing into the air and chasing police away, private Radio Kiskeya reported.
That sounds like a hopeful development...
Militants also have attacked police stations and forced out police in at least five small towns near Gonaives, Haitian radio reports said. Judge Walter Pierre told private Radio Ginen that armed men were occupying the police station in the town of Anse Rouge on Saturday and had confiscated weapons. The rebellion had not yet reached Port-au-Prince, the capital, where throngs of government supporters marched Saturday to mark the third anniversary of Aristide's second inauguration.
"Jean-Bertrand, we will defend you with our blood!"
Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000.
"Flawed" is the same thing as "crooked" in this case...
The opposition refuses to join in any new vote unless Aristide resigns, which he refuses to do before his term ends in 2006.
If then...
At least 61 people have been killed in the Caribbean country since mid-September in festivities clashes between police, government opponents and Aristide supporters.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/08/2004 00:03 ||
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Maybe Idi Amin's Saudi Arabian hacienda is still unoccupied.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/08/2004 13:16 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
