A statement purportedly from the top al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday praised gunmen who killed five Westerners last week but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack. "I look proudly on the Yanbu martyrs. The four heroes prepared, planned and executed their operation with precision," said the statement which claimed to be from Abdulaziz al-Muqrin. "They kept their promise to us and chose their target well because it was the site of many Western oil firms occupying our land economically and stealing its wealth," said the statement published on Islamist Web site Sawt al-Jihad. "They cased senior employees of infidel Americans and their allies...and inflicted the greatest pain on the enemies of God. I call on the nation's youth to emulate these heroes and wage jihad with courage. But I urge them to prepare well, be organised and choose their target and timing carefully to avoid shedding Muslim blood which is sacred."
Guess al-Muqrin's not surrounded anymore, huh?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:16:44 AM ||
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#1
I thought the Saudis had this guy cornered in the desert? Can't be that cornered if he's got access to pen, paper and the postal services, obviously.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 4:06 Comments ||
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#2
It depends on how you define the term "surrounded" - which was used extensively in "news" reporting sourced from Nayef's Security Forces. Once again, we should keep Pravda in mind when reading "news" from Saudi sources.
Defining "is" confounded a US President, so we must allow leeway to the Magic Kingdom's Nayef when he can't quite come to clear terms with "surrounded", heh. Nayef's "challenged" in so many ways, poor boy.
#3
'Cornered' in the same way Zawahiri was, then. 'Cornered' probably has a dozen alternate meanings of varying degree in Arabic/Urdu.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 7:30 Comments ||
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#4
Aha! So you were, in your devious fashion, attempting to redefine the situation by using an alternative word! Woooo, that's dicey, bro, I don't think Nayef would approve of 'cornered' cuz it's more definitive and clearer than merely being "surrounded' which, on a large enough scale (conveniently left out of the press release) would always be 'true' after a fashion. Methinks you've got Nayef pegged, nailed, boxed in, enveloped, invested, and encircled, lol! Now if only the same could be said, definitively, of Al Mucky! Lol! What fun, Howard! ;-)
#5
"Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif blamed Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. There has been no claim for the shooting."
Reuters omits that "blame" (rhymes with "claim") has been attributed to the work of Zionists; by none other than Princes Abdullah and Saud Feisal. Why doesn't the news agency do a little triangulation investigation? I sent it an e-mail to that effect.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/06/2004 11:44 Comments ||
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#6
I love this one:
"They kept their promise to us and chose their target well because it was the site of many Western oil firms occupying our land economically and stealing its wealth,"
So when we give you $ in exchange for oil, that's called theft? If lying was an Olympic sport the Saudis would finally win a gold medal (and the silver and the bronze).
Speaking of the Olympics, I have a question for Aris...
SEOUL -- North Korea is set to test engines for a new ballistic missile with a range of up to 6,000 kilometers (3,600 miles) capable of hitting US territory, a newspaper reported here Thursday. The Stalinist country has restored facilities for missile engine testing destroyed by an explosion in December 2002, the JoongAng newspaper said, citing South Korean diplomatic and defense sources. The range would bring Hawaii, Alaska and the western fringes of the United States within the missileâs scope. Not for too long, though.
The United States has accused North Korea of being a leading global proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. But the cash-strapped country has refused to stop missile exports, a major source of hard currency earnings. The United States and South Korea stepped up surveillance of the test site following intelligence reports that North Korea was resuming development of Taepodong-2 missiles, the newspaper said. Pyongyang stunned the world in August 1998 by test-launching over Japan a Taepodong-1 missile with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers, claiming it was a satellite launch. A 30-meter (33-foot) launching pad was restored late last year in the Musudan missile complex in North Hangyong province, JoongAng said. The Taepodong-2 missiles use Chinese liquid fuel engines as a first stage rocket and a Rodong missile as a second stage, it said. Thanks, China. Weâll remember this.
"We have confirmed that they have moved the crane that would hoist the oxidizer -- the liquid fuel of the missile -- and the rocket," an unnamed official was quoted as saying. He said North Korea was pushing ahead with its missile development to increase its negotiating leverage with the United States. Kimâs gonna lever himself right into coffin corner.
US and South Korean intelligence have determined the capability and range of a missile by measuring the flame of its rocket when North Korea undertakes engine combustion testing, the newspaper said. North Korea has already deployed short-range Scuds and Rodongs with a range of 1,300 kilometers, while actively developing longer-range missiles. US intelligence reports say North Korea has developed ballistic missiles with a range of up to 4,000 kilometers. And thatâs 3,999 kilometers too many.
South Koreaâs defense ministry estimates North Korea has about 600 Scuds and 100 Rodong missiles. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher urged the impoverished country to stop selling arms overseas and put economic energies into helping its people. "North Korea has been a problem in terms of proliferation ... We donât think itâs right for North Korea to become a source of proliferation and, therefore, a danger to the rest of the world," he said at a press briefing Wednesday. Someone needs to tell Kim that the biggest danger is to themselves.
The comment followed a claim by North Koreaâs number two, Kim Yong-Nam, that Pyongyang is "entitled to sell missiles to earn foreign exchange." And weâre entitled to starve your sorry @ss into submission.
Kim, however, ruled out exports of nuclear technology or material, the London-based Financial Times said Tuesday, adding his remarks were made in an interview with Selig Harrison, a US expert on North Korea. "Weâll continue our very strong nonproliferation policies because that is dangerous -- proliferation is a danger to us all," Boucher said. How about we just "rule out" Kim instead?
Pyongyang sold 60 million dollarsâ worth of missiles and parts to Iraq, Iran, Syria and Yemen in 2002, according to South Korean defense data. Tell ya what, Kim. Thatâs 60 million dollars youâre just gonna have to do without. Itâs time to close up your homebrew fireworks stand before some irate neighbor lobs in a few torches. Wouldnât want that to happen, now would you? Guess no one learned a d@mned thing from that little train accident. Maybe itâs time for a string of catastrophic boost phase launch failures. Looks like a great chance to test our flight based laser platforms.
Hereâs a little peek at a fusion application laser diode slab (scroll down to Figure #3). Methinks this may be similar to what they might use for optical DEWs.
Posted by: Zenster ||
05/06/2004 5:25:03 AM ||
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From al-Muhajiroun, Followers of Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaaâah
How do we judge if someone is kaafir? Can we judge someoneâs heart, to see if he is kaafir? Is that possible? .... When we see someone who is clearly in kufr and Shirk, or we see people competing with Allah (swt), i.e. that they are Taghout, there is no need for us to check his heart, we must make Takfeer on him - that is the Haq of Allah (swt). .....
Usama bin Zaid was sent in an expedition, he spoke about one man in the battlefield, he said: "⊠I saw one of them, he said "laa ilaaha illallah". I stabbed him, and after that I felt bad .... The Prophet (saw) asked: "did he say laa ilaha illallah, and you killed him? ... He (saw) asked "did you check his heart to see if he believed it?" he kept on repeating that question .... "
Furthermore, Al Mikhdaad ibn Aswad asked: "If I found someone who came to me and he fought me, and he cut off my hand, then he went to a tree and I overpower him, and he said âlaa ilaaha illallah,â shouldnât I kill him?" the Prophet (saw) said: "do not kill him ..."
we find ourselves in a very strange situation, we are all surrounded by kufr and shirk, and we find false prophets and false gods all around us, calling for Democracy, for freedom, for capitalism. .... we find many Taghout like Musailamah. If we are silent against these tawagheet, .... then we would fall in the same hole and would be in the same situation as Mujaâa. Imam Shafiâi explained that the silence of Mujaâa was enough for Khalid bin Waleed to declare him kafir. Without a doubt we must protect ourselves from this kufr and forbid this munkar - the greatest of all munkars - i.e. Al Shirk. Furthermore, if the silence of Mujaâah is enough kufr, then what of those people who support and vote for the Musailamah of today...? ]
Allah (swt) revealed to Muhammad (saw) that he did not commit Muwalaat Al Kubra, but that he committed Muwalaat Al Sughra i.e. kufr duna kufr. .... Despite this, Muhammad (saw) did NOT condemn Umar for making takfir, nor defend Haatib from Umarâs takfir, rather he just said: "I have been informed that Haatib did not say it out of Muwalaat." .... Furthermore, Muhammad (saw) consented to the takfeer of Umar ibn Khattab here, and only excused Haatib because Allah (swt) made excuse for him via the Wahi, however the Wahi stopped after Muhammad (saw). Furthermore, this is specific to Haatib .....
Furthermore, it is reported that, "Muslims chased a man with ghanima, the man turned and said âAssalamu âAlaikumâ they killed him. Allah (swt) revealed, "do not say to the one who says assalamu Alaikum, that you are not muâmin." and after that those Muslims never stopped paying kafarah." However this is not so simple, the Tatarians used to say, laa ilaaha illallah, and pray, and give zakah. Yet because they referred to the Qurâan .... fattawa were given to kill them even if they were praying in the masjid. .....
The Prophet (saw) said: "There cannot be two things in the heart of the muâmin, kufr and imaan, if they meet he is kaafir."
If there is Imaan and Kufr, the kufr overrides and takes over, so we call him kafir. .... We cannot excuse this Shirk in Allah (swt), .... Whether they say âlaa ilaha illallahâ or not, whether they pray five times a day or not, or whether they fast in Ramadhan or not, they are Murtad Kafir ... so we judge the kufr actions of the taghout rulers to be in accordance to their kufr intentions, not to claim that they commit kufr with a good Islamic intention - this is both ridiculous and contradictory to the Shariâah.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/06/2004 11:52:40 PM ||
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#1
It's official - these clowns are nuts.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/06/2004 23:57 Comments ||
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Lol! Ummah gumma, ooga booga, phi-slama-jama, rama-lama-ding-dong, ka'a'aaaa'aa'fir, heh. My intentions are contradictory to the Shari'ah, too! And bad. Very very bad. Sukr'an.
Posted by: Ned ||
05/07/2004 2:19 Comments ||
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#4
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe (SWT):
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock (SAW), my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird (SWT), and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch (SAW)!"
Frisnit frisnit hatstand. More tea anyone?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/07/2004 5:01 Comments ||
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Jailed terrorist Carlos the Jackal is on a hunger strike to protest being transferred to solitary confinement at a high-security French prison, his lawyer said Wednesday. STOP, STOP ... Youâre ripping my heart out!
The Venezuelan, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, stopped eating and drinking Tuesday after prison authorities tried to move him from his cell, said his lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. Put the guy on a battery acid IV drip.
After refusing the transfer, Ramirez was put in a special disciplinary section, prison officials said. Ramirez was apprehended in 1994 and convicted for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informer. He is serving a life sentence. Wouldnât want it to end too soon, now would we?
Ramirez gained international notoriety during the Cold War for staging a string of deadly bombings, assassinations and hostage seizures. He is also suspected in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking of a French jetliner in flight to Entebbe, Uganda. Gee, one of terrorismâs founding fathers. It couldnât happen to a nicer guy.
Posted by: Zenster ||
05/06/2004 4:28:00 AM ||
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#1
He was always sort of a tubby terrorist in former days as a playboy, commie, swine.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/06/2004 5:30 Comments ||
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#2
Lol! Read the title and wondered, "And this is bad because ???" He "refused" to be moved? Uh, excuse me, but who's running the show in Phrench prisons? Sadly, I guess sealing his anal sphincter with a hot poker won't do much good, now with him throwing a temper tantrum.
On second thought: why, pray tell, is he still alive?
#3
This is truly heartbreaking. I recommend that Mr. Ramirez be immediately pardoned and set free. That is obviously what is called for here. The processing should should only take six weeks or so. I'm sure he can hold out that long.
#4
If I ran the prison i'd say to the press: Our prisons food is not haut cuisine but Carlos eats enough for two and we were forced to cut him back to a normal sized meal from time to time. I think he's posturing, hoping to get a Big Mac, and this will not happen under my watch.
But the big question I have, normally they feed them intreveniously once they've hungered long enough. Why? Let them go. Its their dignity, their choice, etc. Put the food in front of them day after day. Take it away if they don't eat it within an hour. If they die of hunger its their choice.
#11
That would be funny, to get tasty, nice smelling foods in order to tempt him off his hunger strike. Then when he eats you film it and talk about what a week will he has. Then the next hunger strike you simply ignore and if he dies you say you assumed he would be weak again. Sacra bleu?
#13
As I remember, Carlos came from money had a taste for the good life. I also remember him being one fat load, so he could run this thing out for at least a couple of months before anybody noticed. Or cared.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/06/2004 22:16 Comments ||
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#15
Since his old roommate is very very high in the German government... Why doesn't he just call him up and ask him to get the world court to order his release.
Revealing his identity could put him at risk, so he asked to be called Ahmed, instead of his real name. His resume includes a stint in an al Qaeda training camp.
And what kind of things did he learn there?
"I learned there is many ways to kill someone," he says. "You can kill someone with a pen, you can kill someone with a credit card," he told CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.
Ahmed is 29-years-old.
He grew up in what he calls a ghetto of Algerian immigrants in the suburbs of Paris, and French authorities say the story of his enlistment in the cause of Islamic militants here is a modern classic.
Muslim, but not devout, he'd been selling drugs and stealing cars when he was jailed. Alone and scared, Ahmed was an easy target for a recruitment process he calls smart and irresistible.
In his case, he was approached by men he calls his "Muslim brothers." He was told, he recounts: "Look at the way the French people making us living. Look, your father is working like a dog. You have no money. You have no respect."
The favorite enemies are the U.S. government and also the U.S. people and the Jews.
On the day he got out of jail, his "Muslim brothers" led him to an apartment and a job in a bakery.
And soon after, they had other work for him too: as a bagman, smuggling money and jewelry out of France into Belgium and Switzerland, and traveling by car and truck, eventually to Chechnya.
"Probably some money that I carried was involved in something bad too," he says.
When asked if that something might be a bombing, Ahmed says, "it's almost certain."
He made no secret of his ambition for a bigger role in the movement that had become his family, and in January 2000, he says, that ambition was rewarded.
He was sent from Paris to Ankara, then on to the Turkish city of Sansom to collect a forged passport that would foil government efforts to track a terrorist's travel. Ahmed went overland by bus through Iran into Afghanistan, to a mountain camp where scores of men were training.
He says he spent six weeks in physical training, handling weapons, learning self-defense and how to kill. But it was hardly the picture portrayed in propaganda videos. There was little camaraderie. All that united the men was a notion they were part of what they called, "the movement.'"
He says there was never a sign saying, "Welcome to camp al Qaeda.''
"My problem with al Qaeda ... I think it's like a brand," he says. "I think that al Qaeda is just an easy word to englobe very different movements."
Back at work in Paris though, Ahmed began to have some doubt about where he was headed with his new training. It put him on a dangerous collision course with the men controlling him.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:23:27 AM ||
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#1
"you can kill someone with a credit card"
My, now, ex-wife taught me this about 30 yrs ago.
This does, indeed, ring true as a classic case. The cultists have long preyed upon this sort of person and the story adds yet another case confirming a pet theory that Islam is the classic bottom-feeder - and succeeds often by simply giving acceptance and direction to the lost and disillusioned.
The equation is deceptively simple: those societies which are not inclusive, which do not actively promote assimilation as opposed to the cancerous policies of multiculturalism, are the most fertile grounds for creating such potential recruits. In the case of Izzoids who peddle hatred of Amerika and Jooos, these societies are, effectively, our enemies.
That "Ahmed" didn't find fulfillment is the surprise here - indicating he didn't belong on the bottom with the losers. With different social policies, those that promote assimilation, "Ahmed" would never have been in the position to become fodder.
France put him there, yet he initially bought into the hate the US / Joos BS... The need for approval, acceptance, and belonging overwhelmed his intellectual ability to discriminate between the rational and irrational. That it appears to have been a temporary insanity is the exception and notable aspect of this story.
#3
I read the original, but I don't get the context of the story. Has Ahmed renounced terrorism? Is he helping authorities point out the baddies? CBS leaves us in limbo, which is why I just now change the channel when one of the big networks (plus BBC) start giving us stories that portray the "root causes" line. I remember the great ones like Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, HK Smith.
Today's Arab press, which is cited so often by the US media as a reliable gauge of the level of Anti-US feeling out there, would have no problem editorializing to its viewership if an Arab version of Roth were to follow around some luny American Nazi nut-case. Contemplation of one's navel can only get one so far.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/06/2004 12:01 Comments ||
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All right. Admit it. How many saw the headline and just had to check this out?
Debate in Canadaâs parliament degenerated into shouts and catcalls on Wednesday when an opposition legislator committed what others saw as the sin of mispronouncing an Italian movie starâs name. Good to see that Canadaâs in such good shape that this is all they have to worry about.
The disturbance erupted when Jason Kenney of the Conservatives claimed that a former government minister had been "rubbing shoulders with aging Italian sex kitten Gina Lollobreegeeda" -- whose name is in fact Gina Lollobrigida. Politicians from the ruling Liberals, anxious not to annoy Canadaâs large Italian community in the run-up to an election, argued that the mangled pronunciation of her name was an affront and an insult. Proving, once again, that liberals around the world know whatâs important.
"Itâs Gina Lollobrigida, idiot!" bellowed Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe, prompting Kenney to say he was sorry for "offending the aging sex kitten community." Itâs probably in Florida.
Speaking afterward, Volpe made an apology of his own. "Iâm sorry I called him an idiot. I should have referred to him as an imbecile," he told reporters. Ba-dum-bump. Volpeâs here all week.
Lollobrigida, nicknamed "La Lollo," is 76 years old and was at the height of her fame in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in dozens of movies including "Trapeze" and "Beat the Devil." Classics all.
The minute I heard Biden refer to Rumsfeld with the magic words - âwhat did he know, and when did he know it?â - I knew that the Iraqi POW story had jumped the shark. Or rather jumped a pyramid of blindfolded, homoerotic sharks. Itâs not the question, itâs the words: use of the Vietnam and Watergate era terms are like an incarnation that will topple the current administration. I almost expect someone to ask whether there is a cancer on the presidency, a chancre, or a weeping mole. Stop it! STOP LIVING IN THE PAST!
What really bastes my brisket (did I just write that? I need a beer.) is the constant desire to return us to the nadir of the post-war era. They want us to think: quagmire. They want us to think: Nixonian scandal. How inspirational. How Churchillian. I have nothing to offer the American people but blood, sweat and Billy Beer.
But worst of all is the suggestion that Rumsfeld should resign. Stupid for two reasons: 1. He doesnât have a bogeyman rep with the general electorate. In fact Iâd guess that your average swing voter likes the guy â he doesnât deal in Beltway blatherations, for starters. Some people liked to make fun of his foray into epistemology â âThere are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.â Makes perfect sense to me. Iâm serious. I like a guy whoâs smart enough to entertain the concept of unknown unknowns, because it means heâs thinking (all together now!) out of the box. Or out of the Pentagon.
He also handles the press well, which irritates the inner party of the Beltway media but amuses the red states. And he grins. He has that flinty-dad vibe. Heâs the guy flipping burgers at the grill who overhears something you say and makes an interesting remark that might be a compliment, and might be an insult â might be both. That grin doesnât tell you much. Itâs the sort of persona that would make you gulp hard if you were picking up his daughter for a date, but if you passed the test youâd feel as though youâd earned some rare respect.
But more importantly, 2. Heâs the guy whoâs attempting to reform the Pentagon, and make it limber enough to meet the challenges of The War. Does Joe Biden have a better plan for the Pentagon? Would Joe Biden be a better SecDef in the Kerry Administration? If so: evidence, please. If not, then his calls for Rumsfeld to consider stepping down might be - gasp â partisan positioning. That Biden would float the idea of axing Rumsfeld in the middle of this confliict over this tells you how seriously he takes the war. He knows what he says wonât bring victory next year. But it will get him on TV tonight, and perhaps in the Times tomorrow.
Priorities, donât you know. Priorities.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/06/2004 10:12:40 AM ||
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#1
Biden totally disgusts me - he should've dropped from public eye when he was caught plagiarizing Neil Kinnock's bio in a presidential campaign speech - when was that, '88? He hasn't gotten any smarter or developed better ethics since, apparently.
Hewitt calls him: "the attention-starved, dense-as-cement statesman from Delaware"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2004 11:00 Comments ||
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#2
A friend of mine for over 30 years lives in Delaware. And even he, a Liberal Democrat, considers Biden "comic releif".
#4
Everytime I see Biden yapping away, I also think back to the plagiarizing of Kinnock. What do the professionals call it? Projecting? "I screwed up and to make sure I pay back in spades, EVERYBODY had to follow MY advice in not making the same transgression"
Biden ought to be asking for Mueller's and Tenet's heads. Rummy and DOD are the only ones thinking out of the box. But of course, Tenet and Mueller are not part of the NeoCon Cabal.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/06/2004 12:34 Comments ||
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#5
I saw Rockefeller (D) speaking immediately after the broadcast and I thought he was even more disgusting. He basically had the same talking points, trying to connect Bush to this through Rummey and Wolfewitz. Instead of saying something like, this is not America - Moslem's should know that the president is right - he basically tried to fire up Moslem outrage and then prostituted his countrymen for a couple of votes. I'm going to ask the FCC to fine the station for showing this disgusting act of public prostitution on prime time TV.
I know this plays to their Democratic base, and I know it has an impact - but I think they are playing a dangerous game that, in the end, they will lose.
Posted by: Anny Emous ||
05/06/2004 12:40 Comments ||
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#6
Oh yeah, dragging up old Watergate-era slogans is REALLY gonna get the Gen X and Y vote.
Just like trotting out ol' Teddy Kennedy.
Good Lord, who the hell does the Democrats' marketing, anyway? I'm a liberal arts grad and I could do better than that!
Fox News. EFL. Headline is a paraphrase of a comment by another wartime President when faced with similar attacks on his best general.
WASHINGTON â Donald Rumsfeld "absolutely" will stay on as President Bushâs Defense secretary so long as he wants the job, despite calls from some losers congressional Democrats for his replacement, White House officials said Thursday.
He is doing a great job," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters amid questions as to the Pentagon officialâs future as controversy continued to swirl around photographs depicting a few U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. . . .
Earlier in the day, there were reports that Bush chastised Rumsfeld for failing to tell him about pictures of prisoner mistreatment in Iraq, White House aides said. Two Bush advisers, however, said that Bush stood firmly behind Rumsfeld despite what one called the "mild rebuke."
These people are professionals. Bush can tell Rummy that he thinks Rummy screwed up, and Rummy can accept his bossâ criticism, without wrecking their working relationship.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 2:46:42 PM ||
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Quote from Abraham Lincoln, referring to general Ulysess S Grant.
Posted by: Charles ||
05/06/2004 14:52 Comments ||
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#2
Charles wins the trivia contest (. . . not that there was one to begin with) :-)
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 14:54 Comments ||
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#3
Send all my generals a barrel of the whiskey that Grant uses (or something like that).....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/06/2004 15:08 Comments ||
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#4
Good man, not much of a student but a fine and persistent killer.
Posted by: Bobby Lee ||
05/06/2004 16:51 Comments ||
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#5
Would make a formidable President, I reckon... maybe even better than me!
Posted by: G. B. McClellan ||
05/06/2004 17:49 Comments ||
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Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 17:55 Comments ||
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#7
Why would the dems demand the GW cash the Sec Def without demanding the firing of all the non-civilian personnel in the perpetrators chain-of-command? This episode was an operational incident, being used by hacks to do damage to the Administration.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/07/2004 3:50 Comments ||
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#2
"I was under the impression that in the first month after 9/11, the enemy was all going to quit and join the Hare Krishnas; this hasn't happened, and I blame Rumsfeld..."
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
05/06/2004 14:24 Comments ||
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#3
I hearby call for the resignation of everyone who's called for Rumsfeld's resignation. They're clearly ill-informed, and having let themselves become ill-informed, they're clearly not serious about the defense of the United States.
That means they're not taking their jobs seriously, and should yield them to people who WILL.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/06/2004 14:30 Comments ||
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#4
Robert, Right on!
(Rummy resign....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Left and our Enemy wishes!)
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 14:32 Comments ||
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#5
I think Rummy's Friday appearance before Congress is going to go a lot differently than the Dems expect...
#9
yea and let's replace him with a dem - maybe bryd - uh forgot he was part of KKK ..ok then how about teddy -- that is just silly... ok then how about daschelle..uh forgot about his remarks in support of bryd...
Posted by: Dan ||
05/06/2004 15:07 Comments ||
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#10
From the desk of Sen Tom Harkin
Today, I am announcing formation of the American branch of "Axis of Weasels". I have received favorable responses from Senator Kerry, and House Minority Leader Pelosi.
With encouragement from the French President, the German Chancellor, and the new Spanish Prime Minister, I undertook this endeavor, because my hate for the man in the white house is so great.
#11
I'm beginning to really, really dislike the members of one political party, represented appropriately by the symbol of an ass. I'd call them a pack of swine, but that would be an insult to swine.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/06/2004 22:50 Comments ||
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#12
Hey! An Ass is a hard working and respectable beast -- unlike a certain political party I could name....
#13
I'd call them a pack of swine, but that would be an insult to swine. Amen to that! OP, great to see a post from you. Were you off in Vegas, or am I just blind?
EFL - Iâm just posting the end of the filing - most of this is legal boilerplate
...Mr. Whitehead [anti CAIR] was insulted, humiliated, and offended by CAIRâs statement, and is entitled to compensatory and punitive damages.
WHEREFORE, having fully answered, Defendant prays that the Court dismiss Plaintiffâs Motion for Judgment and enter judgment on behalf of Defendant on its counterclaims in the amount of One Million Dollars in compensatory damages, and One Million Dollars in punitive damages, plus its costs, expenses and reasonable attorneyâs fees in this behalf expended.
Dated: April 30, 2004
Washington, D.C.
GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP
- I think he will have to supplement his filing to show a better basis for computing the compensatory damages but other than that his lawyers seem to have done a good job -
#1
Is this anything like matter and anti-matter . . . like, if this guy and someone from Cair shake hands, they mutually annihalate and give off energy?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 14:52 Comments ||
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. â Not long ago in my little mosque around the corner from a McDonaldâs, a student from the university here delivered a sermon. To love the Prophet Muhammad, he said, "is to hate those who hate him." He railed against man-made doctrines that replace Islamic law, and excoriated the "enemies of Islam" who deny strict adherence to Sunnah, or the ways of Muhammad. While he wasnât espousing violence, his words echoed the extremist vocabulary of Wahhabism, used by some followers to breed militant attitudes. Like others who listened that day, I was stung by the sermon. It stands in chilling contrast to reforms taking place within Muslim communities nationwide. ...
Like many small mosques, mine does not have an imam. Instead, a governing board â which appoints its own members â sets policy. An elected executive committee is supposed to decide who will lead prayers and deliver sermons. With infighting, that committee disintegrated over the last year, and went vacant after the board failed to hold elections in November. The board took over managing the mosque. A month before the studentâs speech, he and about 10 other men staged the equivalent of a coup. They appointed five in their ranks as the "temporary executive committee" and usurped the boardâs power to choose who will lead prayers, preach and make management decisions.
These men rally around strict interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah, which last week entailed a sermon that criticized women working outside the home and called women who have lost their chastity worthless. The group has packed the mosqueâs bookcases with fundamentalist publications. Even though a majority of the mosqueâs membership, which is largely made up of West Virginia University students and staff members, is moderate, passivity by it and the board has allowed extremism to take hold. One board leader told me that the board doesnât want to "get aggressive." .... continues
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/06/2004 7:51:59 AM ||
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#1
A coup - much cheaper than building your own moskkk and with a ready-made congregation, to boot.
What will these "moderates" do? Take back the moskkk? Contend with and defeat the extremists? Boycott attending and contributing? Form a new, moderate, moskkk?
Prolly none of the above. A few might stop attending, but not many - it is a requirement of the religion. No, this little coup - prolly repeated in almost the same manner tens of thousands of times all over the world for the last 35 years, since Wahhabism put on its dancing shoes, is a classic.
People are predictable and odd ducks. One of my favorite aspects is that of habituation. Even a Princess can learn to tolerate the pea under her mattresses - eventually. Why, in time, methinks she can tolerate a few dozen AK-47's.
In this moskkk, 5 years on, no one will remember what passes for "moderate" today. Then, a "moderate" will prolly be someone who doesn't donate his children to the cause until they are at least 15 or 16. In other words, a slacker.
#3
This fundamentalism is clearly in fashion worldwide, and doesn't necessarily need a centrally controlled conspiracy to keep it spreading. For some reason a mindset just takes over, like a virus, or a mass hallucination.
Our main coincern in the UK - I didn't notice many supposedly moderate Muslims at Regent's Park Mosque preventing Hamza burning the Union Jack. (Saying that, neither did the police...)
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 9:21 Comments ||
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#5
From the CPA Briefing 5-5-04: "Yesterday coalition forces conducted a cordon and search in the vicinity of the Ali Mohammed mosque in northwest Baghdad for five individuals believed to responsible for an IED that killed coalition soldiers on 2 May. Forces detained five individuals, of which all tested positive with a vapor tracer for both TNT and TNB. Coalition forces also reported that anti-coalition propaganda continues to be broadcast at the mosque -- propaganda urging Iraqis to engage coalition forces."
The bin Ladens of the world want the WoT to be seen as a War on Islam. It is part of their plan. It has infiltrated deeply into Islam and the question remains - how deeply? How can the supposed vast majority of Muslims sit back and allow their religion to be characterized the "child bomber" mentality? This little story about the W.Va. mosque is a little example of what is happening, and unfortunately, how "moderate" Muslims world wide are responding. They are losing their religion to a fanatical philosophy that has no future for its adherents or for the world.
#6
It stands in chilling contrast to reforms taking place within Muslim communities nationwide.
I don't have a registration for NYT. Does he explain just what reforms are taking place within Muz communities? This is the first I've heard of it.
Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar ||
05/06/2004 10:08 Comments ||
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#7
any of you ever been involved in an battle for control inside a church or synagogue? I have, and I can tell you it gets pretty nasty. I belonged to a synagogue that was unaffiliated, but was effectively in between Reform and Conservative. The Reform faction out maneuvered us, and took over. I kept attending till I moved from the city, though I also started attending some other synagogues. I certainly didnt go and attempt to start another new synagogue - helping found this one was hard enough, and it was very disappointing what happened. I moved to another city shortly thereafter anyway.
I wonder if any of you are members of the Episcopal Church - the battles there are only beginning I think.
Probably only one mosque in Morgantown, as opposed to say London :-)
I assume starting a new mosque is as much a hassle as starting a new church. Passivity is natural on the part of people with jobs and family responsibilities
"The worst are full of passionate intensity, while the best lack all conviction"
#8
The reason is simple. Moderate Islam is a chimera, a pretty fiction that some believe in order to salvage Islam. It has no power in itself, therefore it is powerless to stop agressors. Moderate Islam is toothless because it is a contradiction in terms. When a person renounces Islam's inherant agressiveness, there isn't much left with which to deal decisively with tough intractable problems.
#9
LH, OT, but ever since 9/11/2001 I have that on my desktop:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Yeats has the perfect tone for our world.
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 11:56 Comments ||
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#12
Right, Lucky--very astute, and thanks peggy--also very astute.
Infiltration of mosques all over the civilized world is one of the stated goals of radical Islam (some give money, some blow things up, some recruit and run money, some work on the internet, and some radicalize mosques--all are considered to be doing the work of "Allah" for the jihad). They leverage against the complacency and normalcy of the moderates in their midst, condemn them and then simply shove them out. It's not that hard, because to battle the "Islamioidz from Hell," the moderates would have to have a grip on the whole situation regarding the WOT, which, unfortunately, most do not have.
Next, the "brand," if you will, of the Islam the terrorists ascribe to, glorifies aggression of any kind, at any cost, in order to meet their fascist objectives. The moderates would have to be just as aggressive in order to give them the boot. They could do it, but they'd have to organize (difficult for them) and have a pretty clear line on a common ideology regarding what Islam is or isn't in their estimation (almost impossible for them, considering that Islam is a labyrinth of cult logic).
And if they did put up a fuss, the bad guys would let them have it--with no remorse. They know that's what would happen if they spoke up, and that's one reason I think a lot of them are silent.
There's just no policing the bad guys--if the Islamoidz don't like what one mullah is saying, they'll just go to one who agrees with them, and continue on the same track--easy to do since Islam, itself, is rife with confusion and condones evil-deed-doing.
Islam is a bizzare, psychotic patchwork of ideas and rules, which change depending on who's in control. Islam is textually inconsistent and morally inferior--what better place for criminals to find refuge.
To do otherwise would be to stop being moderate. Moderates are passive by their very nature. To ask why moderate Moslems don't decry anything is pointless. Moderates don't really decry anything. They stroke their beards. They say, "Hmm... there's an interesting alternative viewpoint. I wonder what I feeeeeeel about that..."
#14
Carl in N.H - well done mate - Idon't know if you're pro or anti 'all this' but that poem keeps coming into my head as well.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 17:31 Comments ||
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#15
I know what happened that day and what that wahhabi boy said. He didn't say in the manner presented by Noumani. Asra Noumani is really a talented woman to manipulate words and give other meanings. Thanks God she is not a lawyer.
NEW YORK (AP) - Developers of the Freedom Tower will break ground on the 1,776-foot skyscraper at the World Trade Center site on July 4, Gov. George Pataki said Wednesday. "On July 4, as we commemorate the founding of our nation, we lay the foundation for our resurgence," Pataki said. "On July 4, as fireworks burst in the sky, ephemeral reminders of our liberty, we will begin to reclaim our skyline with a permanent symbol of our freedom."
The July 4 date is well ahead of Pataki's stated goal of breaking ground by late summer. "America and the world will witness as our plans go from paper to steel," he said.
Freedom Tower is expected to be finished in 2009, and the full trade center site by 2013. Organizers say the tower will be the world's tallest building, with its height including a spire meant to evoke images of the Statue of Liberty. It will be built on the northwest part of the trade center site, not the footprints of the vanished twin towers. The plan calls for a cable suspension structure that creates an open area above the building's 70 floors of office space, and houses windmills to generate energy.
Pataki announced several other dates in the redevelopment timetable, including that a complete design of the Sept. 11 victims memorial, "Reflecting Absence," would be finished by the end of the year and construction starting in 2006. Private donors will need to raise money to build the memorial, which is budgeted for at least $350 million.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2004 1:10:49 AM ||
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#1
It would have been nice to see the towers replaced, that would have been the ultimate 4Q to the Islamists.
As this generations Pearl Harbor, I hope there is a quiet dignity to it and not a bunch of PC mumbo-jumbo that these knuckleheads around here seem to like so much.
#3
I thought that the recent ruling that 9-11 was only one attack instead of two for insurance purposes had put the financing of this project at risk by reducing the insurance payout by something like $3.5B. Is this just optimism or did they get the additional funding from somewhere?
Al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah terror suspects in U.S. custody have told interrogators they financed operations in the Philippines through a money trail that has been uncovered with the recent arrest of a local militant, officials said Thursday. Hambali, the suspected operations chief captured last August in Thailand, disclosed that about $25,000 was sent to a terror cell in the Philippines last year through a man identified only as Zulkipli, security officials told reporters. Al-Qaida's operations chief, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the suspected architects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States, also told interrogators that his group has funneled funds for terrorist operations in Southeast Asia through Jemaah Islamiyah, they said. "You can imagine the kind of activities that that money can support," Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita told a news conference. The money was apparently used for planning exercises but there was no immediate evidence it had financed actual attacks.
What a stupid statement that is...
The Philippine military has said that about 30 Jemaah Islamiyah operatives may be hiding on the main southern island of Mindanao to train Filipino militants. Hambali and Mohammed are both in U.S. custody in undisclosed locations. National police chief Hermogenes Ebdane said that U.S. authorities helped the Philippine government uncover the financial network. They also provided information from the debriefing and interrogation of Hambali and Mohammed, he said. Senior Supt. Romeo Ricardo, who heads a police anti-terror unit, said Zulkipli asked a Filipino accomplice who worked as a moneychanger, Jordan Abdullah, to convert the dollars into pesos, the local currency. The money was deposited in Abdullah's local bank account last July and some was later transferred to Zulkipli's bank account. In the following weeks, some of the money was given to a Jemaah Islamiyah bomb expert identified only as Marwan. Another chunk was used to buy a safe house in southern Cotabato city, where Zulkipli stayed. The money was also used for Abdullah's foreign currency exchange business, Ricardo said.
... which helped it turn into more money...
Police officials have asked a government anti-money laundering agency to freeze the suspected terror funds remaining in the two bank accounts. Other accounts linked to Jemaah Islamiyah funds were being investigated, Ricardo said. Zulkipli was arrested in Malaysia late last year and the Philippines is seeking permission to interrogate him, he said. Abdullah was arrested April 3 in Cotabato and has provided details that helped Philippine authorities unravel Jemaah Islamiyah's money trail and the bank accounts used to hide funds intended for attacks and training. A handcuffed Abdullah was presented to reporters at the Department of National Defense Thursday. As he was being led away, he was asked whether the charges were true, and replied: "No."
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2004 11:37:03 AM ||
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Today, gunmen travelling in a speedboat shot and killed two villagers on Buru island â an 11 month-old baby and a 38 year-old Christian fisherman. Three other people were wounded. Yesterday morning, gunmen also in a speedboat shot a boy dead and injured a girl in the same island. There are fears of a return to recurrent clashes between Muslims and Christians, who signed a peace deal in 2002, which controlled but didnât end the violence. That conflict which began in 1999 caused the death of at least 5,000 people, and left half a million refugees. Police have not yet captured any of the mysterious snipers. Instead they have arrested a number of separatists â those who want to constitute a Republic of the Molucca of the South (RMS) - accused of participating in the Ambon clashes of the past week. âCurrently we are dealing with the RMS. But I canât say the snipers are its members. They could be from another group.â Gen. Bambang Sutrisno, Chief of the Malucca Police said, declining any further information as no sniper is yet in custody, though they have operated in open areas.
Endro Prasetyo, spokesman for the Molucca police, said that the paramilitary police (Brimod), sent to Jakarta on 25 April to anticipate new attacks, searched the area and fired at some snipers. âSeveral snipers have been shot, but their identities remain unknown because they were immediately rescued by their accomplices,â he told The Jakarta Post today. Meanwhile, the argument continues of whether or not any members of the army are involved in the conflict. The head of the Indonesian Army (TNI) Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, said he would deal severely with any soldiers found to be cooperating in the conflict. âIf people can provide reliable evidence that shows the involvement of soldiers in the crashes, I will arrest the soldiers and they will stand trial.â At the same time, he threatened to sue anyone who blames the TNI for the violence that broke out on April 25th, saying that the military had no âpolitical agendaâ in view of the July 5th presidential election.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2004 10:50:24 AM ||
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#1
Chief Moose: "look for a white man - rightwing Gun nut - in a white van"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2004 10:57 Comments ||
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#2
I expect they have the perps like ducks in a noose.
Police have collected traces of the same high explosive used in the 2002 Bali bombing in debris at the site of Pekanbaruâs fresh blast that killed two people. A bomb rocked a grocery house-store in the capital province of oil-rich Riau Tuesday afternoon, May 4, in the Delima sub district in front of the Tampan market, about one kilometer south of downtown Pekanbaru. The explosion took the lives of Dewi Sriyati (20) and Sipon (18)âa housemaid and a shop assistant. The shopâs owner Along, a Chinese descendant, his wife Yuliana, and their son Stephen were also injured. A badly burned unknown victim was also found after the explosion, some 30 meters from the spot. According to Riau police spokesman Pandiangan, the mysterious victim cannot be identified since he is still in a critical condition, though it is not likely that he is linked with the bombing. Tuesdayâs blast in Riau also another injured four people. The serial bombings in Riau have killed in total five people and injured 21 others.
Police refused to determine immediately if there is a connection between Baliâs bombing 2 years ago, and the latest one in Riau. âWe found residue of a high explosive RDX nitrate at the site. The blast was the biggest to hit the city,â said Riau chief detective Syarizal Ahiyar today. According to police, it is too early to connect this most recent violence to the al Qaeda-linked militants blamed for the previous bombings in Bali and Jakartaâs Marriott. Ahiyar said his team questioned 11 witnesses, and is investigating whether the Riau blast is linked to the trial of Zulfius bin Yunus, a suspect charged with the bombing of a church on Christmas Eve in 2000.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2004 10:47:46 AM ||
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EFL:
An insurgency by Islamist separatists in southern Thailand who have links to the Indonesian Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya (JI) and Al-Qaeda has opened a new bloody front in Southeast Asia's war on terror, and has the makings of a full-blown uprising. The unprecedented violence, which escalated last week with the gunning down of more than 100 Islamists as they prepared to attack army posts, has become Bangkok's biggest domestic security challenge since the early 1980s, when the government saw off a 15-year, pro-Chinese communist insurgency.
Bangkok initially dismissed the raiders as "bandits and criminals," and steadfastly rejected the theory that "international terrorist groups" were behind the violence. However, it had no choice but to later acknowledge and confront head-on the reality of a more complex separatist threat after it found that at least seven of the dead Islamist insurgents last week were not Thai nationals, and one had the letters JI stitched onto his jacket. JI seeks to establish a pan-Southeast Asian Islamic state from southern Thailand, through Malaysia, Singapore, across Indonesia and into the southern Philippines.
In addition, regional leaders from JI, Al-Qaeda and the Free Aceh Movement are known to have visited southern Thailand, taking advantage of its lax security and porous borders to recruit volunteers from the disenfranchised local population and to organize arms purchases. JI militants sought by Malaysia and Singapore fled to southern Thailand in 2002, and in June last year Thai police broke up a JI cell and foiled a plot to bomb embassies in Bangkok. Arifin bin Ali, a Singaporean alleged to be a senior member of the terror group, was also arrested in the capital. Al-Qaeda's operational leader in Southeast Asia, Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, was no stranger to southern Thailand before he was arrested in February north of Bangkok. And after the January raid on the army camp, local officials said one of the suspects was believed to be an Indonesian relative of Hambali.
According to Eric Teo Chu Cheow of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, JI elements met twice in southern Thailand to plan the Bali bomb blasts, and possibly other bomb attacks in Indonesia. Muslims in southern Thailand could have been discreetly plugged into the JI network, he says, and reportedly have close links to the two Muslim rebel groups in the southern Philippines, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the more deadly Abu Sayyaf group. Independent estimates put JI membership in southern Thailand at as high as 10,000, and the military now says that following the recent violence, it is hunting down at least 5,000 armed separatists.
In 1998, Bangkok adopted a radical five-year plan for the south, the renewal of which is now stalled in Parliament. This included a partial military withdrawal, a crackdown on notoriously corrupt Thai officials (often dumped in the south as punishment) and the gradual Islamization of the area. The plan was drawn up with the guiding principle that security for Thailand would be achieved only if Thai Muslims themselves felt secure.
Bad idea, they'll only feel secure when they're in charge of everything. Of course, then they'll start worrying about each other.
----------snip----------
Indeed, violence subsided in the early 1990s in the southern provinces, historically part of the Muslim kingdom of Pattani, which was annexed by Thailand in 1902. Recreating the lost, idealized Muslim homeland of old has remained a key goal of separatist parties. Lukman B. Lima, the deputy president of the banned Pattani United Liberation Organization, has said that Bangkok "illegally incorporated" the south into Thailand 100 years ago, and continues to rule it with "colonial" repression while "committing crimes against humanity."
"We need our own state so we can repress people!"
Buddhist Thai nationalists have fears of their own. In 2002, nationalists played up the "Arab influence" threat following the arrest of some two dozen Middle Eastern suspects for forging travel documents, visas and passports for Al-Qaeda operatives. They were given further ammunition when separatists began targeting government-run secular schools. They are also disturbed that southern Thailand is home to the Yala Islamic College, which is run by a hard-line Wahhabi cleric, Ismail Lutfi. He has an estimated 8,000 followers installed throughout the south in key Islamic posts, and the college, which like most Islamic institutions in southern Thailand is funded by Saudi money, has about 800 students who are reportedly taught hard-core Wahhabi doctrine.
Saudi money and Wahhabi's always seem to show up, don't they?
Other Thai Muslims, however, are displeased with these developments. Vairoj Phiphitpakdee, a Muslim member of Parliament for Pattani, has said some Thai Muslims mistakenly believe that Islam is just about adopting Arab customs. "They're taken to the Middle East and they're brainwashed," he said.
That's what happens when the Master Race pays for your education.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/06/2004 9:09:47 AM ||
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Among the 107 militant Muslim suspects killed in the past week by Thai police, 7 were foreign. The fact gives proof that Islamic fundamentalists from other nations have participated in the new wave of violence in the primarily Buddhist country. General Lieutenant Pisarn Wattanawongkiri refused to give further details, but other representatives of the army said that they are verifying the possibility of Indonesian Muslims being among the youth who organized the attacks. In Muslim tradition, the dead should be buried within 24 hours; since no one claimed the bodies of the 7 unknown youth, they are most likely said to be of foreigners. Immigration authorities stated that last month 7 Indonesians entered Thailand from the Malaysian border, across the province of Narathiwat, but there is no record that they had left the country. Immediately after the attacks of April 28th, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra â who visited the southern provinces - excluded the involvement of any foreigners.
Philippine security forces have uncovered a cell of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) regional terror group linked to al Qaeda and have arrested a suspected member, Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita said on Thursday.
In a statement, the government said the anti-terror task force was "able to trace the trail of a $25,000 remittance to JI operatives in the Philippines from the international terrorist group, the al Qaeda."
A 46-year-old Muslim man arrested on the southern island of Mindanao is believed to have received the $25,000 from Osama bin Laden's network, Ermita told reporters.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:22:05 AM ||
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WITHIN the next week or so, the United Nationsâ special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected to unveil his plan for handling the transition in Baghdad. How America and its Coalition allies react to that plan could determine not only the future of democracy in Iraq but also the fate of President Bushâs strategy for a new Middle East.
Judging by his statements so far, Brahimi is expected to ask that the United Nations be recognized as the brain of the Iraq project, while the U.S.-led Coalition provides the muscle, and the money.
The United Nations would not only pick the members of the transition government but would also dictate their mission. And, again, it would be the U.N., not the Coalition, that would decide the modalities of the general election planned for next year. The U.N. would also dicate the principles around which a new constitution is written.
For weeks, Brahimi and his aides have talked about the need for a "broadly based" authority in Baghdad to represent the restoration of Iraqi national sovereignty.
That is based on two false assumptions. The first is that the Iraq Governing Council is not representative enough.
In fact, the council is a broadly based authority that, with the exception of the Baâath, includes all political forces - from Communists to Monarchists, with liberals, democrats, social democrats and Islamists. The council has been endorsed by virtually all of Iraqâs religious, tribal, social and community leaders. The only way that the United Nations can pro- duce a more broadly based authority is by including the Saddamites.
The United Nations has always resented the fact that it was not consulted in the Governing Councilâs formation. Later, the council made itself even less popular with the U.N. crowd by leaking information about alleged U.N. involvement in corrupt practices linked to the Oil-for-Food program. Last year, the United Nations instructed its staff in Iraq to keep their contacts with the Governing Council (whose members were branded "quislings" working for "the occupying powers") to a minimum.
The second false assumption behind the United Nationsâ position on Iraq is that the country has somehow lost its sovereignty, which must now be restored by Annan and Brahimi.
That is a strange view, especially coming from the United Nations - under whose rules a nation, even if occupied by foreign powers, does not lose its sovereignty. The United Nationsâ Security Council reiterated that fact in Resolution 1511, unanimously passed earlier this year.
The issue, therefore, is not Iraqi sovereignty but the powers needed to exercise it in an effective way. Right now those powers are mainly exercised by the Coalition Provisional Authority and not the Governing Council. To transfer those powers to the United Nations, rather than an effective Iraqi transitional authority, would not change the reality on the ground.
In normal life, he who pays the piper sets the tune.
Now, however, the United Nations is demanding that America and its allies should bear the cost of rebuilding Iraq (both in terms of lives lost in combating insurgents and terrorists, and taxpayersâ money to the tune of over $100 billion), but have virtually no say in deciding the direction the Iraqi transition should take.
The talk at the United Nations is that Kofi (Annan) is getting Dubya off the Iraqi hook on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, and that all America should do is show gratitude.
Bringing in the United Nations has become something of a refrain for all those, from Franceâs President Jacques Chirac to U.S. presidential hopeful John Kerry, who have no clue on Iraq, and little interest in that nationâs future.
But giving the U.N. the leading role in Baghdad could be a recipe for disaster for all concerned, starting with the Iraqi people.
There is no guarantee that, once Iraq becomes a U.N. "problem," the American public would have any incentive in accepting further sacrifices in rebuilding a distant nation whose people would be regarded as ungrateful, if not downright unfriendly.
And without a massive American political, military and financial commitment, Iraq would have little chance of building a stable political system as part of a broader, long-term democratization program. The country could fall apart, be plunged into sectarian violence or, worse still, see another despotic regime emerge in Baghdad.
The impact of failure in Iraq on the region cannot be overestimated. Democratic aspirations throughout the Middle East would suffer a strategic setback, while a new era of instability could threaten energy resources vital to the global economy.
Failure in Iraq could encourage the mood of radicalism that has generated the most deadly forms of terrorism the world has witnessed. It could also trigger a new race towards the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms, throughout the region.
Iraq needs wholehearted American commitment at all levels for years to come. Building democracy in the Middle East, starting with Iraq, is neither a luxury nor a form of do-goodism. The stakes are high and the investment of political energy and money, not to speak of lives, in Iraq is worth making from the point of view of U.S. national security.
This is what President Bush said last November: "The establishment of a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed for the global democratic revolution." How true.
To succeed in Iraq, America must stay in the driverâs seat, not as an occupying power but as an ally working closely with a representative transitional authority until a freely elected government is in place. Even then, such a government would still need U.S. support for years to come, just as did the governments of liberated Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War.
All this does not mean that the United Nations has no role to play. It can help organize and supervise the elections, and provide a range of services through specialized agencies such as UNICEF and WHO. A new Security Council resolution, committing the U.N. to rebuilding Iraq as a democratic state, could also be useful in diplomatic and political terms.
If Iraq is abandoned to the United Nations, be sure that the United States will have to return and fight another war in the Middle East within just a few years. The 2003 Iraq war of liberation had to be fought because America and its allies shrunk from finishing the 1991 war once theyâd liberated Kuwait. Had the U.S.-led coalition marched on Baghdad in 1991 to depose Saddam Hussein and install a pluralist regime, the 2003 war would not have been necessary.
With strategic success in Iraq within grasp, it would be dangerous for America to let tactical fears dictate policy, and thus allow history to repeat itself.
#1
The UN can call their role whatever they wish. It is highly doubtful that the UN will be allowed to administer US funds or give orders to US forces. Any initiative that the UN takes and wishes us to back up will be negotiable.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/06/2004 22:57 Comments ||
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#2
Judging by his statements so far, Brahimi is expected to ask that the United Nations be recognized as the brain of the Iraq project,..
Given the revelations so far with the oil-for-food UN scandal, entrusting the UN to run the show can't be a very reassuring thought.
#4
Brahimi and Fallujah and Sadr and Shitstani. I have no access so I do not know what's going on. What I do know is that the handling of these situations, all qualifying as true pivot point issues, make little or no sense from my POV. I'm sure there are wheels within wheels, where the Mad Mullahs and others enter overriding equations, but I see precious little to be happy about. Having been properly upbraided by Hank earlier today, I'll let it go at that. We'll see.
#6
Letting the UN into Iraq will be like letting the buzzards in on the wounded. They cut and run at the first signs of trouble, then they come back for the spoils when it is safe for them to do so.
This whole UN thing sickens me to the core. We went to them in the beginning and France and Co blew us out of the water, because they were at the trough and they had their hands in the till. We may not shoot at them, but the UN and France are not our friends, they are enemies to us, and to Iraq. Do not forget Iraq in this.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/06/2004 23:44 Comments ||
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#7
President Bush has already said that the UN will have no control of nor say in the disposition of American taxpayers' money. Further, since Brahimi is an Sunni antiSemite and the UN is desperate to try and bury the Oil for Food investigation, there is no doubt that anything he offers other than advice on elections will be flawed. Hopefully President Bush will thank him for his advice and do what needs to be done anyway.
At some point the State Department needs to be told to go away until the military has made the place secure. Most of the difficulties we've encountered over there could have been, if not prevented, at least ameliorated by a unity of purpose in the command structure. The striped pants boys are just a little too nuanced, too "it depends on what the meaning of is is", to deal with the hard boys in an effective fashion.
I found an attempted post by AF Lady in the sink trap.
It linked to iraqthemodelâs Thursday post and contains some interesting letters regarding GWâs interview on Arab TV. Note the Iraqisâ attitude on the situation. Itâs worth attempting to re-post. (Lady what did you do to Fred to deserve the drain?)
#1
GK, my guess is that AF Ladyâs IP, or other address info must be close to that of the Man Bites Dog TROLL (MBD being a vicious creature, thatâs for sure). I see the same thing happening with posts from MS, SOT, and SH -- I imagine an automated script is zapping one and all.
I agree with you about the profound nature of the response of the âArab Street.â It bears repeating that President Bush is a gentleman, and quintessential statesman. The âArab Streetâ quite clearly realized his comments in the Arab TV interview were an apology -- even if that point was missed by the Dimmy wits. The reaction of the âArab Streetâ (also missed by American media?) is telling, as reported by IRAQ THE MODEL blogspot. An excerpt:
here we have the president of the greatest nation on earth apologizes for what a small group of pervert soldiers did. And here, the American press proves that it's free to show the truth. We lived with similar pictures for years until they became the basics of every prison's daily life and we never heard an Arabic paper point them out. These are lessons from the western culture entering the hearts of Arabs, whether the Arab leaders liked or not.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 20:47 Comments ||
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#4
I don't remember attempting to post an article, but then its the end of the semester and all those papers to grade are beginning to merge into one, so its possible I did and can't remember it. I hope I didn't do anything to deserve the drain!
Posted by: AF Lady ||
05/06/2004 20:56 Comments ||
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#6
Okay, now I'm concerned. I never attempted to post from iraqthemodel. (Things may be somewhat hazy at this point, but I definitely don't remember reading it). I read the blog but haven't seen the post. It is worth reading though. My boss was lamenting yesterday about how the Iraqi's would just hate us more. I told her that the Iraqi bloggers I read were not echoing her words. She, of course, didn't believe me...after all I'm not a liberal.
Posted by: AF Lady ||
05/06/2004 21:29 Comments ||
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#7
AF Lady, an alternate explanation (although a bit conspiratorial) is that the MBD TROLL was trying to post with your handle, and got zapped into the sink trap based on his true IP âidentityâ . . . I wouldnât worry about it. In any case, arenât those some cool comments posted by Arabs over at iraqthemodel?
#8
If I am the SH from the Sink Trap, I don't mind. Usually it's just a delay in the posting and works out in the end. It's actually helpful in some cases when the trap gets cleaned out just after midnight so a post is on the board for a longer period.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/06/2004 23:03 Comments ||
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#9
I just got back on after losing power at the house for over an hour! I just wish that more people would read the blogs from Iraq. I'd rather hear from them than what the media is telling us. The comments were absolutely great. I think I'll direct my boss to them. Of course, since I send her Kerry jokes constantly she'll probably take them as a joke.
Posted by: AF Lady ||
05/06/2004 23:17 Comments ||
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#10
Yeap,AF.I gave-up on the Main Stream news a long time ago.
A statement attributed to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) offered rewards in gold valued at nearly $136,000 Thursday for the killing of top U.S. and U.N. officials in Iraq (news - web sites).
The transcript of an audio recording dated Thursday appeared on two Web sites known for militant Islamic messages. The Web sites gave links to hear the statement, but none were working. The authenticity of the statement could not immediately be verified.
Bin Laden had never been known to offer rewards for missions he had described as followers' religious duty to carry out.
"You know that America promised big rewards for those who kill mujahedeen (holy warriors)," the transcript read. "We in al-Qaida organization will guarantee, God willing, 10,000 grams of gold to whoever kills the occupier Bremer, or the American chief commander or his deputy in Iraq."
"For security reasons, the rewards will be given as soon as conditions permit, God willing," the transcript read. "As for those who die while killing an occupying solider, the great prize will be for us and for him when God grants him martyrdom, and the smaller prize (the gold) will be for his family."
The statement also promised the same reward for the deaths of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) and his envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi.
"The United Nations (news - web sites) is nothing but a Zionists' tool, even if it worked under the cover of providing humanitarian aid," the statement said. "... Whoever kills Kofi Annan or the head of his commission in Iraq or a representative like Lakhdar Brahimi, he will be awarded the same prize of 10,000 grams of gold."
The statement promised a lesser prize â 1,000 grams of gold â to anyone killing a citizen of countries it called "the masters of the veto like Americans and Britons" â a reference to nations with veto power on the U.N. Security Council.
And it offered 500 grams of gold to anyone killing citizens of countries it called "slaves of the Security Council who are in Iraq, like Japan and Italy."
With gold selling Thursday on London exchanges for $387.60 an ounce, 10,000 grams of gold was valued at $135,660, 1,000 grams at $13,566, and 500 grams at $6,783.
The statement appeared on two Web sites, the Ansar Islam Forum and the Islamic Research Center. Both are clearing-houses for statements by al-Qaida and other Islamic militant groups.
The transcript also denounced U.S. plans to hand sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, calling them a trick to end the resistance that has killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers.
"The so-called handing sovereignty over to Iraqis is an overt trick, to anesthetize the people and abort the militant resistance, and (such a trick) will not deceive the true mujahedeen of the sons of Iraq," the statement said.
"There is no sovereignty for Iraq as long as a crusader solider remains in its land, and no sovereignty for Iraq as long as it is not ruled by Islam."
It urged Iraqis to fight a holy war against their U.S.-appointed Governing Council, which it called a "puppet" of the U.S.-led coalition and "a tool to pass their plans to the people and a way to show their hatred of religion."
"Therefore, jihad (holy war) is obligatory for all Muslims in Iraq," the statement read.
The statement was titled: "A Word from the emir of the Islamic armies, Osama, to the nation and especially to brotherly Muslims in Iraq." It used language similar to previous bin Laden statements, laden with Quranic verse.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 5:27:42 PM ||
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#1
WOOHOO!
Sign Numero Uno that we're getting to the rat bastard!
USA! USA! USA!
(And so much for that whine from the Left that Iraq's "not connected with the 9/11 attacks or the WOT!")
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 17:33 Comments ||
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#2
$136,000? That's all you can come up with?
Cheapskate.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 17:36 Comments ||
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#3
£1.50 for your cojones, raghead.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 17:47 Comments ||
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#4
So martyrdom and the glory of Allah does not seem to be so marketable as they used to be. That is good. We are making some headway.
Also Kofi is on Binny's sh-t list. Well Kofi! Congradulations! Come over to the White House and have some coffee with GWB. We all have something significant in common now. We have 10 kilogram gold prices on our heads. Oh, the imagery!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/06/2004 17:51 Comments ||
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#5
You know you're pathetic when the reward for your death is the same as a UN bureaucrat...
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 17:53 Comments ||
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#6
Only $136,000? That's cause the rest of Osama's fortune is buried by bunker-busters in Afghanistan.
Of course if these folks don't understand money, so we are told, then why is OBL making such an offer? I guess they are listening to our "propoganda" broadcasts, and have learned what money is.
If so, they are going to laugh at OBL, and take us up on the $50,000,000 for his head.
#8
I'm offering up $50 for Kofi's nuts in a plastic bag. Him and the rest of the worthless UN-a-crats.
Posted by: LC Matthew ||
05/06/2004 18:46 Comments ||
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#9
$136,000 thousand in grams of gold. Why not $140.000? $150.000? There must be some sick lunar reasoning behind this set figure of numbers by 'ULB' (if this is not another phoney statement)
What will ULB do, hold a press conference for the payoff? What a lot of baloney from terrorist losers!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/06/2004 18:47 Comments ||
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#10
The question is, assuming the target gets blown away, how someone collects on an offer like this. How does one get paid by bin Laden if you don't know where to find him? Especially when looking for him could bring unwanted attention upon the seekers?
#11
LC Matthew, I wouldn't go a penney over $1.00 on that.
Posted by: Lil Dhimmi ||
05/06/2004 18:50 Comments ||
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#12
Inquiring minds want to know, for the 500 gram offer, is it limited to nationals in Iraq or does it extend to nationals in their own country? Are the Spanish included until June 30? Is there a sweetner for Zippy? Are there quantity discounts? Is payment fob Pakistan?
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/06/2004 18:57 Comments ||
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#13
"The United Nations is nothing but a Zionists' tool." Hmm, I hadn't noticed that myself.
The statement promised a lesser prize â 1,000 grams of gold â to anyone killing a citizen of countries it called "the masters of the veto like Americans and Britons" â a reference to nations with veto power on the U.N. Security Council.
Lessee, (1) Kofi needs a cap in his ass because the UN is a Zionist tool that must be stopped, and (2) countries that interfere with the UN by vetoing its actions are Zionist tools that must be stopped. Sensible, persuasive, and logical--clearly this is the will of Allan.
#16
The statement also promised the same reward for the deaths of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) and his envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi.
The ol' secretary general can't catch a break. Everybody wants a piece of his behind.
He USED to appeal to allah, etc., to get his unwashed masses (and I DO MEAN "unwashed!") to do his dirtywork. Now he has to resort to a few bucks! Hilarious!
And the irony is, he'll probably get more takers for $136K than for those skanky virgins in the hereafter!
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi former general entrusted with pacifying volatile Falluja said on Thursday U.S. Marines must withdraw quickly from around the troubled town and go home so graft stability can be restored.
"I want the American soldier to return to his camp. What I want more is that he returns to the United States," General Muhammad "Queen" Latifa told Reuters in an interview. "They should leave very quickly, very quickly or there will be problems. If they stay it will hurt the confidence and we have built confidence. They should leave so that there will be more calm." "They should leave very quickly, very quickly or there will be problems." Gee, that almost sounds like a threat. Even if itâs a promise, heâs still off base.
Latif and a group of generals offered to tame Falluja with their Falluja Brigade after the town was subject to a month-long siege in which hundreds of Iraqis died as U.S. air strikes and guerrilla mortars rocked the town. Life has been calm over the last few days, but Marines are still on the edge of the Golan area of Falluja, where the heaviest fighting took place, manning checkpoints with Iraqi security forces under Latifâs command. And Marines should remain there until all heavy weapons have been surrendered or confiscated. Anything less is playing into the insurgentsâ hands.
Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marines Division, said on Thursday after meeting Latif the Marines would maintain a presence around Falluja until certain security requirements were met. "At some point, I am sure we will pull back if the foreign fighters are confirmed and turned over to us, the heavy weapons are turned over to the Iraqi army and then we get them. It is event driven," he said. At least someone is clear on the concept.
But Latif said there was no need for them to stay because Falluja was peaceful. "I am confident they will leave in a few days," he said. Wearing a European-style suit and tie, Latif has been meeting top Marine commanders to discuss ways of imposing security in Iraqâs most rebellious city. On Thursday, he appeared with four other Iraqi former generals, pointing out that one of them was a Shiâite, a suggestion that his force in mostly Sunni Falluja would be mixed. "But Latif said there was no need for them to stay because Falluja was peaceful." Methinks some brain damage occured during the below-mentioned torture. TORTURED UNDER SADDAM
Latif denied reports he had worked for Saddam Husseinâs intelligence service. While debatable, this may be true in light of how little intelligence this idiot displays.
"I never worked for the Mukhabarat at all. Saddam threw me in jail the first day he came to power for a period of seven years. I had two hands broken by Saddam. My arm and shoulder were broken due to torture under Saddam," he said. "I was innocent except for the fact that I stood against a dictatorship. When I served in the special forces I had some information on Saddam, his brother and family. They hated me very much." So prove your determination to defeat those who oppose a free Iraq by apprehending or killing them. Enough of the ratchet-jaw action.
Saddam is gone but Iraqâs problems are multiplying and Latif faces the daunting task of taming a combustible mix of tribes, Islamic militants, guerrillas, suspected foreign fighters and fierce anti-American sentiment on the streets of Falluja. Latif dismissed the possibility that guerrillas lying low after the fighting could return with their rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assalt rifles. And thereby dismisses his own credibility. This is the wrong person for the job.
"There are no insurgents. There are kind people," said Latif, who said he studied in Britain. The Americans have said repeatedly that foreign fighters played a big role in the violence. But thatâs another subject Latif brushes aside. "We have underground mujahideen. I believe 37 corpses are buried in the graveyard. I saw it with my own eyes," he said. "There are no insurgents. There are kind people," Tell it to the families of those who dangled from that bridge (preferrably, in a closed room). This guy is one huge retrenchment of existing problems just waiting to happen.
#1
I think Latif's comments make pretty clear that this thought of using Saddam's army to keep the peace in Iraq was just wishful thinking. Saddam's former generals don't have a problem with the US toppling Saddam - they just want themselves in power.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/06/2004 15:13 Comments ||
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#3
Saddam's former generals don't have a problem with the US toppling Saddam - they just want themselves in power.
Incisive as usual, Zhang Fei. This pretty much sums up the entire insurgency and any obstacles to Iraq's reconstruction, be it Sadr or Latif. I can only hope a majority of the world sees this for the flat-out thuggery it is. Quite sadly, this concept seems to be entirely lost on much of the mainstream media.
Pardon me for being a cynic, but I'd like to see some X-rays. And it doesn't matter anyway, because this guy's clearly not the one we want in charge of taking over Fallujah.
Lots of wannabes who looked at Saddam and thought - hey, I could do that job, were arrested and tortured under Saddam. These were the people who actually threatened Saddam, the people he had good reason to dispose of, as opposed to the ordinary people who were picked up and tortured for random anti-Saddam comments. That is why this business of looking for an ex-Baathist we can live with is just ludicrous.
Some may think of this parade of ex-Baathist flops as a disaster in public relations, which indicates rank incompetence among the military's decisionmakers. I don't think so. I think the Marines are in the process of showing the American people that those who argue for putting former regime figures in positions of responsibility do not know what they are talking about. Whether we are talking about former regime figures, religious figures or exiles like Ahmad Chalabi, they are all tainted by personal or sectarian interests - there is no George Washington among them.
#6
Prediction : sad as it may be,I fully expect Marines will be fighting the "Fallujah Brigade" the next go-around.And there will be one.Bush should have taken the heat and killed the SOBs.Now they'll be better armed and trained.If you have'nt noticed,loyalty to the paymaster is nt a strong suit with these guys.
Posted by: Jason ||
05/06/2004 15:55 Comments ||
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#7
First rule for a general: Don't talk to the press. Especially don't talk to a hostile foreign press. If this fellow said these things, either he doesn't have a good grasp of English or he was very, very good during the vetting process. Everything he said is antithetical to American objectives and the facts, at least the facts as the Marines perceive them, on the ground. He's either incredibly stupid or he's already been bought off.
#8
Actually, I wonder how long Fallujah will remain peaceful after it becomes apparent that Latif can't make the Marines "go away." He might find out up close and personal that there ARE foreign fighters in Fallujah and that, surprise, they don't like him much better than the Americans.
#9
I've read contradictory reports on whether the siege has been lifted or not -- if it *has* been lifted, then I can't see the placement of a Baathist general in charge of Baathist Fallujah as anything other than complete surrender on the part of the US army on the Fallujah front. A siege lifted without the besieged either surrendering or being destroyed -- wouldn't that means that the besieged were victorious? By what criteria would that *not* the case?
If there's a strategy at work here (rather than complete confusion and surrender) then the only one I can imagine is that US promised the Fallujahns independence or atleast autonomy, dejure or defacto, a nice little realm to plunder at will under their own command, as long as they don't bother the rest of Iraq.
It's the only halfway-sane reason I can imagine for the US forces to do what they did. Which doesn't mean I consider it a workable solution in the long term, ofcourse.
#10
Aris Katsaris: If there's a strategy at work here (rather than complete confusion and surrender) then the only one I can imagine is that US promised the Fallujahns independence or atleast autonomy, dejure or defacto, a nice little realm to plunder at will under their own command, as long as they don't bother the rest of Iraq.
I think it's a test to see if there are any local worthies that can be relied upon to take care of the problem. There are factions in both the State Department and the Pentagon who have said that the best way to pacify Iraq is to reactivate the former Iraqi armed forces. The Marines are in the process of finding out if this strategy is workable. If it is, it may spare a lot of bloodshed. If not, then the Marines will merely have postponed what they set out to do earlier.
The enemy gets weaker, not stronger, with time. It takes money, weaponry and ammunition to keep a guerrilla army in the field. Guerrillas need to put food on the table for their families. Unless they are paid by the guerrilla chiefs' stash of dwindling funds, they will revert to their normal occupations, which may involve robbery and organized crime, but definitely don't involve confronting American troops in the field.
#14
Here is a case to apply Lincoln's approach to finding competent generals: keep trying until you find one.
Next ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 18:06 Comments ||
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#15
From some of these stuff these ex-Saddam staffers are saying, it is clear that Saddam had a wide and deep bench of ... losers. All these guys had to do was hold their tongues for a few years, before the US left them to their own devices. But they had to open their mouths and completely destroy their own credibility. It's now becoming clear how Iraq almost managed to lose to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980's despite having more and better equipment than the Iranians - lousy generalship.
#16
What do you do with the losers (i.e. Sammy's boyz) when you are trying to rebuild the country. There are thousands and thousands of them that have to be remachined, reprogrammed, or dumped. If they are dumped then they will reincarnate as thugs and criminals. We better get this one right, because we have the whole ME to reprogram.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/06/2004 19:32 Comments ||
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#17
What do you do with the losers (i.e. Sammy's boyz) when you are trying to rebuild the country.
Try them for their crimes under Saddam's regime, and execute the ones that are convicted. The way I see it, that should clear out 80-90% of them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/06/2004 20:02 Comments ||
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#19
Quite sadly, this concept seems to be entirely lost on much of the mainstream media.
No, I think they grasp the concept quite clearly. They just don't care. They are on the other side.
-AR
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
05/06/2004 21:17 Comments ||
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#20
One possibility: this guy is either trying to establish his street creds ("see, I told off the Americans") or he is trying to make sure he gets NO blame when the inevitable violence breaks out ("if they had only left when I told them to, none of this would have happened").
Armed with a 9mm handgun and grit, Haidar is trying to do what the U.S. military camped nearby hasn't done: Drive the gunmen of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from this holy city.
Since mid-April, Haidar and scores of other men from An-Najaf have gathered nightly in the city's sprawling cemetery to attack members of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. Only a few gunmen are targeted each time to prevent big firefights that might injure civilians, said Haidar, who spoke with Knight Ridder on the condition that his last name not be used.
``If we capture them and they swear on the holy Koran they will leave Najaf and never come back, we let them go,'' the 20-year-old furniture maker said. ``If they resist, they are killed.''
The group claimed to have killed at least a half-dozen Mahdi gunmen and chased off more than 20.
This is the first known homebred movement against Sadr, and it illustrates the animosity toward the radical cleric within Iraq's Shiite community, which makes up the majority of Iraq's population.
Many Shiites in An-Najaf say only a small number of Iraqi Shiites support Sadr. But the grand ayatollahs who guide the Shiites are withholding support from Haidar and his band of vigilantes, fearing a civil war among their followers.
U.S. authorities have expressed hope that the Shiite community will take care of Sadr and have yet to condemn the vigilante attacks, leaving the impression that they endorse them. U.S. forces have sought to arrest the cleric and disband the Mahdi Army, but they don't want to risk a public backlash that would follow a military incursion into An-Najaf.
An-Najaf business leaders, some of whom Haidar and others say are financing the resistance movement, say there's no choice but to fight back. Sadr ``is just a child and he's running everything,'' complained one shop owner, Mohammed Hassan, 45, who sells women's sundries in the main bazaar. ``We haven't been able to get our goods from Baghdad since his men took over our city. They stop the trucks at checkpoints and steal everything.''
Like the Mahdi Army, which Sadr named after a Shiite messianic figure to portray his fight against U.S. occupation as God-driven, the countermilitia has adopted a religious name. The group is called Thul Fiqar al-Battar, named after the double-edged sword carried by Grand Imam Ali, recognized by this Muslim sect as the successor to the Prophet Muhammad.
Haidar says the name is particularly relevant because his colleagues are targeting a group that commandeered the holy An-Najaf shrine where Grand Imam Ali is buried. But unlike Mahdi militiamen, who often dress in black and carry Kalashnikovs or rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Thul Fiqar fighters try to remain invisible.
They carry only handguns, because they can be hidden in their street clothes. They use the common checkered keffiyeh, or Arab headdress, to cover their faces when they go on raids. Many lack military training.
Before joining Thul Fiqar, Haidar said he had shot his 9mm handgun only once and that was into the air to celebrate the capture of Saddam.
Yet the men have a major tactical advantage over Mahdi members, many of whom are from nearby Al-Kufah, Baghdad and other southern towns. Thul Fiqar fighters are hometown boys who know every inch of An-Najaf, including the hundreds of pathways in the cemetery, which is the largest Muslim burial ground in the world. This cemetery is where they have concentrated their attacks against Sadr's gunmen, who go there at night to monitor U.S. troop movements in the distance.
The immediate impact is negligible, Haidar admitted. Mahdi Army numbers in and around An-Najaf are estimated in the thousands, compared with the 250 claimed by the Thul Fiqar. Their quest also comes at a high price. Four members of the new group have been killed in firefights with the Mahdi Army, said Hashim, 27, a Thul Fiqar leader who refused to give his last name.
``The Americans made us happy when they got rid of Saddam Hussein,'' Haidar said. ``We're happy to return the favor by getting rid of the Mahdi Army.''
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:29:07 PM ||
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#1
Iraq's 93rd Volunteer Infantry in action!
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 14:14 Comments ||
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#2
``If we capture them and they swear on the holy Koran they will leave Najaf and never come back, we let them go,'' the 20-year-old furniture maker said. ``If they resist, they are killed.''
Yeah, like their oaths are worth spit.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/06/2004 14:20 Comments ||
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#3
I forwarded this article as soon as it was up to Sullivan, Instapundit, WSJ, and LGF. The only bad thing is the photo of the Thulfiqar soldier was not included online.
I should scan it and post it on Rantburg. It would put a face to all the Iraqis pissed off at Sadr.
#4
"We haven't been able to get our goods from Baghdad since his men took over our city. They stop the trucks at checkpoints and steal everything."
It's nice to hear the truth spoken so plainly about these thugs. I have long maintained that the insurgency has nothing to do with religion. It is about raw, naked political (and, by extension, economic) power.
By STEVEN ZAK
Special to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To judge from the endless expressions of American penitence, one might think weâd finally seen evil and it is us.
The incidents at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have, as one might expect, provided grist for the leftâs endless America-bashing mill. Thus, for instance, the Los Angeles Timesâ Robert Scheer concluded that "Americans too can be âevildoersâ" and argued further that the nonlethal humiliation of a few terrorists compares with Saddam Husseinâs decades of "torture chambers and rape rooms." Likewise, self-described "human rights" activist Leonard S. Rubenstein in The Washington Post said that the incident "shamed every American," and then went on to fret that the Geneva Convention hasnât been deemed applicable by the Bush administration to the al-Qaida terrorists at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Actually, the Geneva Convention does not and ought not apply to unlawful combatants who donât themselves honor them. Iraqi "insurgents" are terrorists, many foreign. Iraqi "cleric" Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers are open allies of Hezbollah and Hamas, which alone would disqualify them from any legal entitlement to humane consideration.
Itâs no great surprise that a shame-filled leftist wouldnât buy that, but one might expect otherwise from conservatives. Alas, the usually level-headed Jed Babbin in National Review Online worried too about the Geneva Convention, not to mention "common decency." Ralph Peters in the New York Post did likewise and upped the ante by calling the accused American MPs the "thugs of Abu Gharaib." A strong word, "thugs," better applied to, say, mass murderers such as Saddam or former Hamas terrorists Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. One can only describe as alarming this new brand of self-flagellating moral equivalence, and the way Americans have finally come together -- to bash ourselves.
I suppose everyone is entitled to his own threshold of revulsion. But some might find such an outpouring of loathing and rage more appropriately occasioned by, say, terrorist hatefests where Americans are burned alive and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates. Or by the cold-blooded murders of a pregnant 34-year-old Israeli mother and her four daughters â the youngest age 2 â gunned down point blank by the Islamic allies of our enemies in Iraq. None of this is to argue that Americans ought to torment even irredeemably evil captives, but only to suggest that the incidents at Abu Ghraib may better be explained not by reference to sadism but to frustration. Weâre at war with an evil not seen since the Third Reich, yet we canât seem to wage it without an attitude of remorse. Letâs be clear: Weâre there because Iraqis, collectively, have created a hellhole that threatens the world, not to mention a nightmare for themselves. Nearly 800 Americans have died trying to clean up their mess, and for that we owe no apologies â not for damaged mosques that house terrorists, not for occupied "holy" cities, not for anything weâre trying to accomplish. If the contrite way we wage war makes you apoplectic, imagine what it feels like to the troops on the front lines. Imagine, even, that you were in custody of enemy combatants who would happily burn you alive if the situation were reversed. Do you think you might, just might, be tempted to do a little venting? Steven Zak is an attorney and writer in California.
The geopolitical aspects of all this are way above my level of competency. I'm not smart enough to sort out all the implications of it, though I can see the damage inflicted on the U.S. military, both in the view of the Muslim world and the self-estimation of what's at its core a professional and well-disciplined fighting force.
But I have to disagree that it can "better be explained not by reference to sadism but to frustration." The pictures show a kind of barracks-room grab-ass sadism that I thought was the Army had left behind 30 years ago at least. It's not frustration, it is petty sadism. It's not something that's sanctioned by the system, or that's a natural outgrowth of the system. It's the sort of thing kids do when left unsupervised. With Congress (or at least one end of it) trying to hang responsibility on the highest levels of command, it's actually the sort of thing that's can be found only at the lowest levels. There's a lieutenant and some sergeants who weren't doing their jobs keeping control of their troops, maybe at the highest level a captain and a first sergeant who wasn't paying attention. And because of that, the entire Army's damaged.
The military's not the place for psychosexual games. It's a place where mission is supposed to come first. Obviously in this case the mission wasn't at the top of somebody's mind.
Posted by: Steven Zak ||
05/06/2004 12:41:47 PM ||
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#1
There's a lieutenant and some sergeants who weren't doing their jobs keeping control of their troops, maybe at the highest level a captain and a first sergeant who wasn't paying attention. And because of that, the entire Army's damaged.
Two things:
1.) All troops sent to Iraq must have gone through orientation of some sort that made explicit mention of how their actions would be under intense global, and especially Arab, scrutiny. This sort of misconduct was more than likely in flagrant opposition to direct orders.
2.) A report mentioned how one of the accused wrongdoers is a "wheeled vehicle specialist." With the vast amount of money being spent on this conflict, I do not care if it cost us TRIPLE, but trained MPs should have been imported regardless of expense.
What appears to have happened is essentially treason against America's stated aims in Iraq. If there is proof of willful abuse on the part of our troops, those found guilty should be busted back to Private, thrown in the stockade, sentenced to hard labor and dishonorably discharged upon release. Nothing else will suffice. The damage done by this is incalculable.
#3
I concur with Zak's article: the hysterical hand-wringing over this matter has gone beyond absurd, in my opinion.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/06/2004 14:13 Comments ||
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#4
What we have to realize is that this incident has drawn so much attention because it offers an excuse for airing the truly satanic view the left and the Arabs have of the US. But it's an excuse, no more; without this one they've fabricated other excuses in the past and will more in the future. Those open to reason aren't buying the hysteria, and for them we needn't buy in either.
What we do have to do is undermine the insane satanic fantasy of the US. That means going through procedures, giving the soldiers the proper punishment for their screw-up, etc., as Bush has made quite clear he'll do. It does not mean hand-wringing, the rhetorical excess Zak decries above, calling for a Pentagon purge, or any other sort of pandering to anti-Americanism. We have to make clear not that we respect the irrational outpourings of the Arab world -- something that would only strengthen the grip nonsense has on them, if only for its evident efficacy -- but, on the contrary, that these have simply nothing to do with our reality, where justice punishes the guards not as appeasement, atonement, or cover-up, but because our system recognizes the legitimate claims against them, and only to that extent.
#5
someone, Thanks a million for that link to Omar at Iraq the Model!
That was the most awesome thing I've read in days.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 14:57 Comments ||
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#6
What appears to have happened is essentially treason against America's stated aims in Iraq. If there is proof of willful abuse on the part of our troops, those found guilty should be busted back to Private, thrown in the stockade, sentenced to hard labor and dishonorably discharged upon release. Nothing else will suffice.
BS posturing, Zenster.
The core of our judicial system, military or civilian, is fairness. What will SUFFICE and is NECESSARY is for a careful investigation, to be followed by PROPORTIONATE punishment.
I'll be damned if I'll let poseurs turn this into a witchhunt.
Posted by: Thinking this through amid uniformed troops all around me ||
05/06/2004 16:28 Comments ||
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#7
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A bipartisan group of senators is urging the Pentagon to demolish the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in order to exorcise a symbol of both Saddam Hussein's torture chambers and an embarrassing episode for the U.S. military.
Thu May 6, 2004 12:11 PM ET
By Khaled Farhan and Suleiman al-Khalidi
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces battled militia loyal to radical Shiâite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr near the holy city of Najaf Thursday, seizing the governorâs mansion and killing 41 militia fighters in a lightning operation.
Witnesses said seven or eight U.S. tanks surrounded the governorâs house, about five km (three miles) from the sensitive religious sites in the city center, and troops took occasional fire from militiamen holed up in the area using AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades. U.S. tanks also moved into nearby Kerbala, another city holy to Shiâite Muslims, about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Baghdad.. The tanks took up positions close to the main shrines after destroying Sadr offices with machinegun fire. Najaf locals said some fleeing militiamen had taken refuge in their homes, raising fears U.S. forces could be drawn into urban fighting if they decided to flush out militia in the area. Doctors at a local hospital said they had received three dead from the area -- two women and a nine-year-old child -- and were also treating at least nine wounded, some of them women. The troops retook the governorâs office as Paul Bremer, the U.S.-appointed administrator of Iraq, named a new governor for the city and again denounced Sadr as an outlaw. A senior coalition military official said the governorâs office had been taken largely without a fight.
But east of the city, across the Euphrates River, U.S. forces drew out fighters of Sadrâs Mehdi Army, and killed 41 of them in fierce fighting, the official said. He gave no details about any U.S. casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Pat White, head of the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armored Brigade around the governorâs mansion, said his force was still taking fire from areas around the building. "In order to secure the governorâs compound we are getting contact from all sides and we are dealing with it now. Looks like the enemy is now breaking contact," he told CNN. As he was being interviewed, his voice was drowned out by gunfire, which he identified as being from a heavy machine gun on one of the tanks guarding the compound.
"If you gonna go down in there, youâd better be prepared for it because there are a lot of them," he said, adding that his battalion had killed about 20 Mehdi Army fighters. In Kerbala, witnesses said about eight heavy armored vehicles and six lighter vehicles were positioned in the city center, about 500 meters (yards) from the Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas shrines. Witnesses earlier said U.S. troops were engaging Mehdi Army fighters firing RPGs, AK-47s and mortar rounds near the cityâs center. Italian troops also clashed with Sadrâs militiamen, engaging in a short gunbattle south of Nassiriya, Italian officials said. U.S.-led forces in Iraq are trying to crush Sadrâs militia before a scheduled June 30 hand over of sovereignty to Iraqis. They have said they will refrain from entering Shiâite shrines in Najaf and Kerbala, which would incite widespread fury.
Mainstream Iraqi Shiâite leaders urged Sadr this week to disarm and allow a political end to his nearly month-long standoff with occupying troops in and around Najaf. Earlier, as the operation was launched, witnesses reported seeing plumes of smoke rising from a cemetery on the fringes of the city as U.S. helicopters swooped low over the area. Bremer, speaking to reporters as he appointed the new governor for Najaf, denounced Sadr, saying he had used the holy sites of the region -- which are deeply sacred to Iraqâs 60 percent Shiâite majority -- to launch his rebellion. "These armed bands have fired mortars from the mosque of Kufa, they have stored arms and munitions in the mosques of Iraqâs holy cities," Bremer said as he installed Adnan Zurfi as Najafâs governor. The Shiâite leaders called on Sadr to pull out of mosques in the area and Bremer suggested the U.S.-led occupation would help them reassert control over Najaf and other cities held by rebels, without specifying how. Bremer called on Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the murder of another Shiâite cleric last year, to surrender.
#1
It sure is funny that the hospitals never report any men of military age as being wounded. I guess they think we are really that stupid too believe all that gets killed by the US are women and children.
This is excerpted from a posting by blogger Tacitus. Iâve not seen a similar suggestion anywhere else to date, and I think the ideas have some merit.
. . . Something must still be done, and done swiftly. The wheels of justice, such as they are, will turn at their own rate, and far be it for me to speed them. But this being the military, there are things that can be done which will impart some measure of justice while not being of the judicial process. Many of these things will not be fair, but the Army, as I was endlessly reminded by various persons in authority over several years in uniform, is also not fair. Not being fair, though, is not the same thing as not being right.
The first act that is entirely within the Armyâs power is the immediate relief from duty -- or reassignment to menial tasks -- of all officers and NCOs in the chain of command of the offending unit, which, from press accounts, appears to be the 372nd Military Police Company. I do not speak merely of leadership within the company: I mean through the brigade level at minimum, and division if possible. Responsibility equating to culpability is an age-old military principle, and it ought to be applied with rigor here.
A second act within the Armyâs power is the immediate dismissal from service of, and the loss of all contracts by, CACI, whose employees are alleged to be involved in the prisonersâ maltreatment. Concurrent to this, United States or military courts could, I would think, certainly discover appropriate jurisdiction over the relevant civilian personnel and proceed accordingly (should they reject it, the clarifying option of Iraqi jurisdiction might be offered).
The third and final act that is within the Armyâs power is to disband the 372nd Military Police Company. Dissolve it entirely; never resurrect the unit designation; strip it of its citations; bury the guidon in disgrace in front of all its soldiers and an Iraqi delegation in Iraq; scatter its alumni to the four corners of the Army. Cruel? Yes. Harsh? You bet. Salutary? Absolutely. The Army is a closed society that treasures its hierarchy and its heritage: institutional oblivion is therefore among its most dreaded fates. This ought to be the fate of the 372nd, with all the public humiliation and display that can be mustered. To the soldiers, it will say that there will be little mercy and no mitigation for crimes in Americaâs service; to Iraqis, it will say that we have excised our cancer and are moving decisively forward. To Americans, it will say that we have the courage to be the best, not by comparison, but as an end in itself.
There is precedent for this: almost a decade ago, soldiers of the Canadian Airborne Regiment tortured and murdered a Somali prisoner in their custody. After extensive investigation revealing a culture of impunity, brutality, and hazing within the Regiment, the Canadian government disbanded the unit in disgrace. In its execution it was, to my mind, something of an overreaction on Canadaâs part -- they do, after all, have precious little infantry to spare -- but the principle behind the decision was sound, and right. Iâm not so sure Canada can do without its Airborne Regiment in the long run. I am quite sure we can do without the 372nd Military Police Company.
Hat tip to Sgt. Stryker, who favors the idea. What say you, fellow Ranters?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 12:01:03 PM ||
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"What say you, fellow Ranters?"
I say it's time to stop this hysterical self-flagellation and hand-wringing.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/06/2004 12:10 Comments ||
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I agree. Those soldiers gave the most honorable, moral and professional military to ever walk the earth a black eye. An example must be made.
#3
[rant]
If these recommendations are followed, will everyone STFU about it? Since this has been public since January, sans photos - they are all that's actually "new", it is particularly odd / silly / disingenuous / asinine / fucking stupid to hear the parade of Congressmen and Senators who say that they knew nothing of it. Jerkoffs. The lot of them are ambulance-chasing twits - as transparent as Al Jizz. Leave it. As for the Arabs, they seethe because it's phreakin' Tuesday - so FUCK THEM. As for the Izzoids - every single one we can ID, that goes double... with HE, frags, and napalm, preferably.
[/rant]
Thanks for the link - Tacitus gets pretty fluffy sometimes, but he's taken this issue to the woodshed and nailed down an action plan. I'm for it.
When something extreme happens, there's a natural tendency to go to the opposite extreme in response. But that doesn't fix the situation.
What is needed here is patient and relentless uncovering of the facts ... all of the facts, including who knew what when.
Then, methodical punishment in proportion to the offense.
Just for starters, it would help if people got facts and insights right. A US reserve MP unit doesn't have the identity and tradition of a regiment founded on the British model, and dissolving it won't have the psychological impact wanted -- at least it won't have all that much of an impact on soldiers who might not identify with it much.
I understand the emotional desire to strike out and wipe out any blot on us.
Not gonna work. Steady, disciplined investigation followed by appropriate punishment is the way to go.
Posted by: Thinking this through amid uniformed troops all around me ||
05/06/2004 12:20 Comments ||
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I'm all for punishing the individiuals involved, including superior officers, according to current USCMJ and other relevant law, BUT
Drastic measures like Tacitus proposes are overkill, because this would mean nothing to the folks around the world currently (gleefully) frothing over this.
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 12:28 Comments ||
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I don't think this is necessary, but I agree it would send the appropriate message. This debacle forced the President of the US to go on arab television to denounce the actions of some service members as abhorrent. In other words, this was an incredible f-up, and heads deserve to roll. I'm encouraged by the response by Bush so far, and am steamed by the reaction of (most of) the press and democrat legislators trying to politicize the situation. Also, I think McCain has not handled it well (surprisingly). He seems to think the main problem is that Rumsfeld did not inform congress earlier. That may be a problem, but I think McCain is missing the larger point a bit, and twisting the facts a bit (Congress knew, they just hadn't seen the pictures).
#7
Letter of reprimand for some, Article 15 for others and releif of command to others. Not for what they did. I think what they did was called for, those fuck!#& murdering scum would have slit the throats of the guards if things were opposite, but for getting caught on film and letting that film get out. Thats a deriliction of duty. This is a hot war and people are in it up to their eyeballs.
But the enemy could care less what we do. We are not the shinning light of the world. We are us. And I'd rather be us, warts and all, than be anything else. I want to win this war.
Also, Who took the photos! How did they get out! This is a national security question morphing to a Mi Lie massacre. The nation needs to know who leaked this and that person needs to be prosecuted and after 20 years as somebodies butt buddy deported to France. They have good food there.
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/06/2004 13:56 Comments ||
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#9
[Troll droppings deleted]
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/06/2004 13:56 Comments ||
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I agree with Tacitus.
There are two problems here.
The first is the actions or lack of actions of the individuals involved. They should be dealt with through the proscribed means of the UCMJ. They are also stupid. Photographing these events and releasing the photographs is at a minimum just plain dumb and indicates an incredible lack of judgement, if it is not treasonous. They all should get whatever non-judical response is indicated for stupidity.
The second problem is, frankly, PR. The military has won a brilliant military victory that needs to be turned into a political success as well. A political success both domesticly and internationally. For better or worse, political success involves changing people's minds. This is not the way to change people's minds in the direction we wish.
If we are not to be a shining light for the world, then is our only reason for invading Iraq possession of the power to do so? I hope not. We are still the last best hope for mankind. Whether exactly the steps Tacitus prescribes are the correct ones is subject to debate. But that something of the magnitude he proposes should be done, and promptly, is necessary for the military and political effort we have undertaken.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/06/2004 14:03 Comments ||
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With all due respect to Tacitus, whose blog I like, I am satisfied as a tax-paying citizen, that everything that needs to be done about this is already being done.
This was already going through the proper channels when the Partisan Media⢠and their Leftist Democrat masters decided that it was a "story" because they had lurid pictures and thought they had the "My Lai massacre" for their new Vietnam.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 14:17 Comments ||
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#12
To Man Bites Dog: Do you really believe the bullshit you write or are you just trying to yank everyone's chain? Give me some examples of President Bush's pathological lies. Right off hand I can't think of any.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/06/2004 14:19 Comments ||
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#13
United States or military courts could, I would think, certainly discover appropriate jurisdiction over the relevant civilian personnel and proceed accordingly (should they reject it, the clarifying option of Iraqi jurisdiction might be offered).
Unfortunately, the civilians, in legal jeopardy, could agree to a military solution until they got back here in the US, withdraw their agreement, hire an ACLU attorney to go judge-shopping, and that would be that. They would compplain coersion, and some judge would probably agree.
However, any of the military not in Leavenworth, or dishonorably discharged, or both might be finishing their terms of service in Northwest Alaska. A chilling effect of future behavior such as this.
#14
IMO, the history of past posting shows that Man Bites Dog is a fake -- he pretends to be a gung ho, pro-military, âknock down the bad guysâ kind of guy -- and then proceeds to dump all over the Bush administration, essentially calling them all criminals without any proof to back up the slander. Man Bites Dog, just because you sound pro-military doesnât mean youâre not just a DU operative (or equivalent) out to slam Bush. Itâs not like you ever offer alternative, realistic solutions, do you?
#15
Man Bites Dog Dong - man your out there -- ok we got it you do not like Bush..plus from your posts you wouldn't like skerry...your posts are extreme...just who do you want for president?
and just what did Bush lie about? if your answer is WMD you trully do not understand what is going on and the american war on terror.
Posted by: Dan ||
05/06/2004 14:22 Comments ||
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#16
Folks, if you've bothered following the news, the civilians involved have been referred to the DOJ for investigation and prosecution.
Personally, I think Tacitus needs a pack of Depends. We were doing the right thing about this long before the damned press turned it into their lead story, and we're still doing the right thing. Going overboard will do more harm than good.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/06/2004 14:27 Comments ||
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#17
This just came over my e-mail from CNN. "President Bush says he's sorry for the humiliation suffered by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U. S. troops." I read the transcropt of his interview with Al Aribaya but I can't see where he says "I'm sorry". What he did say is that the investigation is continuing and if wrong-doing is found the perpetrators will be brought to justice.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/06/2004 14:30 Comments ||
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#18
"Refuses to admit that GWB is a pathological liar, crook and Saudi puppet, who has never earned an honest dollar in his spoiled rich kid life. "
Let's see your voluminous proof of these allegations because let's face it, you don't have any.
And about earning money, I know he earned what he put into the Texas Rangers, because he took a losing, second-rate team and turned them into a successful ball club and got a new stadium built for them in Arlington.
(Before that, he lost a lot of money in the oil bidness trying to drill in West Texas.)
I know FOR A FACT that he earned his keep as my Governor here in Texas.
And I know FOR A FACT that he's one of the hardest working, busiest Presidents I've ever seen who's accomplished much, so he's earned that money, too.
Even when he's supposedly "on vacation" in Crawford, he has very little leisure and lots of "working" vacation.
MBD, bite me.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 14:30 Comments ||
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#19
Deacon, he said it in a statement to "King" Abdullah of Jordan today.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 14:42 Comments ||
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#20
My thoughts on this thread. Tacitus is dead wrong -- what he proposes would be a massive PR defeat. Showing a willingness to deal out injustice to our own for appeasement's sake would have terrible effect.
#21
Troll: human doormat, who swallows spin like bees gather honey. Refuses to admit that Kerry is a pathological liar, crook and Saudi puppet*, who has never earned an honest dollar in his spoiled rich kid life.
* Kerry's calling for a UN (meaning an Arab League - i.e. Saudi) role in Iraq. Who's the Saudi puppet, now? Note that many of Kerry's supporters, including the State Department people who criticized Bush, are on the Saudi payroll via their thinktanks.
You might say that Bush is a Zionist puppet, but that doesn't work either, since 80% of Jews vote Democratic and the major figures funding non-profits like moveon.org are Jewish, including the billionaires Soros and Lewis.
#23
Large parts of the Arab world are probably laughing their arses off at the stupidity of the Americans working themselves into a frenzy over some fairly minor incidents that under all Arab regimes would get the perps fired for dereliction of duty, i.e. for being far too soft on the prisoners.
#24
I would really like to know how the media got ahold of those photos. Why has nothing been said about this.
Posted by: Lil Dhimmi ||
05/06/2004 19:11 Comments ||
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#25
President Bush is a gentleman, and quintessential statesman. The âArab Streetâ quite clearly realized his comments in the Arab TV interview were an apology -- even if that point was missed by the Dimmy wits. Their reaction (missed by American media?) is telling, as reported by IRAQ THE MODEL blogspot. An excerpt:
here we have the president of the greatest nation on earth apologizes for what a small group of pervert soldiers did. And here, the American press proves that it's free to show the truth. We lived with similar pictures for years until they became the basics of every prison's daily life and we never heard an Arabic paper point them out. These are lessons from the western culture entering the hearts of Arabs, whether the Arab leaders liked or not".
The Arab media made much of the brutality of American interrogators, but said little about Saddamâs decades of interrogations in the Arab style. Apparently if Arabs are brutal to Arabs, it isnât news. But if non-Arabs do it, itâs a war crime, or worse.
#28
I'm with RC/Badanov/Phil B on this one. Listened to 4 different Arab journalists on this one today and they pretty much said what I've felt all along. They can't quite understand the U.S. media frenzy & didn't expect an apology from Bush (even though are media again made a big deal about him technically not saying sorry). The Arabs did appreciate his explanation overall even if it was confusing to most that the most powerful man in the world was answering the mail on a few derelicts.
The big losers in all of this are the Arab regimes who have condoned torture on their own folks for decades - this sets a new precedent and has too make them take notice - as their citizens certainly have. Most of the Arabs who are pissed are basically the same ones who don't like us anyhow according to the men I heard today.
#29
During the Somali intervention, Belgian soldiers caught a Somali thief within their base. In order to deter further intrusions, they killed him, hacked off his head, and mounted it on the gate. And who gives a flying F*&%?
Troll: human doormat, who swallows spin like bees gather honey. Refuses to admit that GWB is a pathological liar, crook and Saudi puppet, who has never earned an honest dollar in his spoiled rich kid life.
Jefferson: "The price of liberty is: eternal vigilance."
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/06/2004 13:56 Comments ||
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#30
During the Somali intervention, Belgian soldiers caught a Somali thief within their base. In order to deter further intrusions, they killed him, hacked off his head, and mounted it on the gate. And who gives a flying F*&%?
Troll: human doormat, who swallows spin like bees gather honey. Refuses to admit that GWB is a pathological liar, crook and Saudi puppet, who has never earned an honest dollar in his spoiled rich kid life.
Jefferson: "The price of liberty is: eternal vigilance."
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/06/2004 13:56 Comments ||
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Norwegian soldiers guarding Gardermoen military airport during the Iraq war relaxed with beer and pizza while on duty. Newspaper VG presented a photo taken by one of the soldiers on watch, showing four colleagues ignoring monitoring equipment in favor of other distractions. The photographer and former soldier posted the picture on a web site, saying that he wanted to give people a glimpse of what really goes on in the Norwegian defense. The photograph shows four soldiers, drinking beer, eating pizza and potato chips, playing chess and talking on the phone while paying no attention to surveillance equipment in the room. Base chief Kjell Belbo told VG that the men in the picture, as well as the photographer, have violated Defense security statutes. The incident has been reported to military police and Belbo has informed Air Defense staff and the Defense security administration. The picture was taken during heightened security at the military airport, which is also the nearest neighbor to Osloâs Gardermoen International Airport.
Posted by: gromky ||
05/06/2004 11:53:29 AM ||
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#1
Before I get too perturbed about this, I have to consider these guys are descendents of the real Vikings. These guys can be real nasty if need be. Again, why would someone be taking photos? A lot of monitoring places have multiple monitors of the same shot. I used to work for the late lamented Westec Security. There may have been others off camera who were monioring the SAME areas as were pictured as being unmanned on camera.
#7
Scandanavians have different strength beers for different occasions. In an earlier life, I worked with both the Royal Swedish Air Force and the Danish Air Force. Both allowed the drinking of relatively low alcohol content beer with meals while on duty. The Swedish brew (Three Crowns) in particular would compare favorably with a lot of the near beer (e.g. O'Douls) served in the states. This seems to be just another reporter with no clue about the real world.
#11
Norwegians have an odd attitude to Alcohol. Access to alcohol is probably more restricted in Norway than any other place in the Western world, but Norwegians given the opportunity can REALLY drink. I knew some at my Irish university, and the Irish were completely in awe of the amount those guys could drink. This is a Norwegian newspaper and the article reflects Norwegian social attitudes to alcohol.
#12
Phil_B This is what I humbly call:
THE PENNSALVANIA PARADOX!
Beer is/was difficult to come by in PA unless you want to by it buy the case or keg. Else go into restaurant and buy six pack. Weird for redneck me. Please correct me if times have changed. And do they still liquor control card? Wife from Reading.
#13
They need a drink staioned in that terrorist infested rat hole
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/06/2004 20:14 Comments ||
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#14
Irish tend to be catholic, Norwegians tend to be Lutheran. Explains a lot about attitudes toward drinking.
Doesn't exactly explain much about their behavior in Iraq.
Crew members detained a Pakistani national who tried to enter the cockpit of a plane traveling to Pakistan from the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, a day after the prime minister revealed a hijacking plot against commercial flights on the route, officials said.
Dumbass. Doesn't he read the papers? They don't have that kind of information in the Koran, y'know...
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said crew members arrested one Pakistani man on a flight from Dubai to Islamabad, but could not confirm whether the man was intending to hijack the plane. "The man told investigators that he wanted to tell the pilot he should increase the speed of the plane as it was going too slow," Ahmed told The Associated Press. He said authorities were still investigating.
"Driver? Driver? Peddle faster, wouldja? I got a meeting to go to!"
Perhaps the toilets weren't working ...
An intelligence official in the southern city of Karachi said on condition of anonymity that the man was unarmed and was overpowered by crew members on Aeroasia flight E4553, which landed safely in Islamabad.
So he was more likely a nut than a really, truly, hijacker...
The man was handed over to the Airport Security Force there and was being beaten with sticks questioned, the official said. The arrest came a day after the Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali revealed that Pakistani intelligence agents had uncovered a plot by a small band of terrorists to hijack and possibly blow up a plane bound for the UAE from Pakistan. The threat prompted Pakistan to put its airports on "red alert." Jamali told AP that authorities believe there was a group of about four to six people who wanted to hijack a plane.
But this guy wasn't one of them.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2004 11:45:20 AM ||
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Yow! Is this legit or a DOS attack. I'm thinking legit.
Shipman
Posted by: 456 members on line ||
05/06/2004 17:10 Comments ||
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#2
"Pilot Mahmood, can't you go any faster?"
"Yes sir, I can go much faster, but I am not allowed to leave the plane!"
Iraqi prisoner abuse is anything but systemic, according to a former 800th Military Police Brigade surgeon. Retired Lt. Col. Bill Dunaway, who now works as a BYU clinician, served with the brigade from April to July 2003 at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, the largest POW camp in Iraq at the time. "To me, there just wasnât abuse going on," said Dunaway. "A lot of prisoners would come in already beat up from being captured, but as for being tortured or anything, I didnât see it." Six members of his brigade faced court martial last month for allegedly abusing prisoners last year at another prison, Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad. Dunaway oversaw medical services at Camp Bucca and said prisoners had the option of seeing medical personnel daily, if they requested it. "If prisoners were beaten up or whatever, I would have known," he said. "There was a small group of high Baâath Party and special interest people, not very many of them, who were isolated. Military intelligence and the CIA were interviewing them, as well as the British. I kind of took that group on, and they were never mistreated."...
Dunaway thinks the U.S. Armyâs reputation is being attacked because of the actions of a few. "My point is that, on the whole, I just donât feel that it was widespread, and I do feel that itâs become a political issue," he said. "I think itâs been blown out of proportion, and will continue to be. I do not think it was systemic. I do think you had individual cases of it, like the MPs in our camp." There were times, he said, that Iraqi prisoners lashed out to provoke soldiers. Some military police officers, he said, responded to the provocations â and a few responded with what some would say was too much force. Dunaway said the conditions soldiers lived in contributed to an already tense situation â but that is not an excuse. "Itâs all extremely complicated, because youâre in a wartime setting, trying to set up a civilian system," he said..."Politicians make it sound easy," he said. "Weâre the only penal system over there, and weâre shorthanded. The Army had no tolerance for soldiers who abused prisoners, according to Dunaway. "There was a colonel in charge of the whole camp who lectured the whole staff of officers multiple times that if a GI mistreated a prisoner, that GI was going to jail," he said. "Whether that filtered down, who knows. The Army was very harsh on it; was not tolerating it." As a rule, Dunaway said, the Army tried to treat prisoners "very well." A believable, down-to-earth perspective. Ergo, this articulate military physician will not be interviewed by the tick, tick, 60 minutes gang.
Posted by: rex ||
05/06/2004 11:34:57 AM ||
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Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat fortified his headquarters with dozens of rusty, wrecked cars and blue barrels of concrete Thursday, fearing an imminent Israeli attack.
"They'll never take me alive! They're comin' to get me! I'm toast!"
Hilarious picture, all the Paleos are doing is providing more cover for the Israeli snipers.
Arafat told visitors he would not go down without a fight, but his aides acknowledged that the obstacles placed around the compound, meant to slow down tanks, would not hold back Israel's powerful military for long. "I am going to enter this battle with my gun by my side," a visitor quoted Arafat as saying Thursday. "I will resist until I become a martyr."
Yasser's waved his gun around a lot more than he's actually shot it...
Israeli officials said there was no immediate plan to raid Arafat's compound. "We are not going to carry out any operation, but they are hysterical," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said of Arafat and his aides.
"Of course, that's the way we want them to be, isn't it?..."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2004 11:14:56 AM ||
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I am going to enter this battle with my gun by my side. I will resist until I become a martyr.
Sounds like a plan! When it is over, and after you've got acquainted with those virgins, why don't you get together with Sheik Yassin, and ask him how his resistance to the IDF worked out?
#3
first the dreaded red binder, now blue barrels - it's a primary colors defense
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2004 11:39 Comments ||
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Methinks Yashole Arafat has more to fear from Hamas than the Israelies.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/06/2004 11:44 Comments ||
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All he managed to do is cut back on his field of fire and provide cover for the Israelies when they attack. Dumbass.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
05/06/2004 11:49 Comments ||
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Just do it, Israel!
My ululators's getting rusty.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 11:52 Comments ||
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There's no overhead cover. (Hint: JDAMs aren't ground weapons.)
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 12:05 Comments ||
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So, is it correct that Arafat's "compound" is that pile of rubble in the middle distance, between the paleo-redneck parking lot and the ghetto in the back ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 12:19 Comments ||
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The more I think about it, the more I think, "Barnes Wallis 'Tallboy.'"
There are two flyable Avro Lancasters left. Could we borrow one?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/06/2004 14:11 Comments ||
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just cannot wait until this guy is dusted...but then again according to kerry he is a great statesmen...
Posted by: Dan ||
05/06/2004 14:28 Comments ||
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A couple of JDAMs and the compound will look like the pile of red earth and rubble in front of the compound. I do not know what the neighboring real estate situation is around the compound, but a MOAB would give Ramallah a fresh start with little dozing after the deed is done.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/06/2004 15:15 Comments ||
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Arafat Fortifies Compound Fearing Attack
It depends on what the meaning of "fortifies" is.
When the IDF is about to close in, he'd better do a sponge bath if possible, and put on some cologne. Those 72 virgins may object to the natural aroma he probably projects after all that time in his compound.
#15
This seems like a job for a giant catapult or a heavy lift chopper. What do you think the result might be if Israel started lobbing or dropping dozens of other wrecked cars into the compound? Yasser's got a bad ticker you know...
Did you ever ponder whenever the âHate America Firstâ types speak out on the subject of the Middle-East, they NEVER, EVER, take the initial step in condemning Muslim suicide (homicide) bombers as in the May 6th, 2004 news item printed below.)
U.S. military officials say a suicide car bomb exploded Thursday at a checkpoint to the zone that houses U.S administrative offices in central Baghdad, killing six Iraqi civilians and one U.S. soldier and injuring 25 people. Authorities say the injured include two U.S. soldiers and three Iraqi policemen. The bomb, hidden inside an orange-and-white Baghdad taxi, exploded outside of a three-foot-high concrete blast wall. The wall shields cars driving up to a checkpoint just before a bridge spanning the Tigris River that leads into the so-called Green Zone, a sprawling area that houses the U.S.-led coalition and is walled off from the rest of Baghdad. "At 7:26 a.m., what appeared to be a suicide bomber in a car pulled up to the checkpoint, and then three cars back from the checkpoint, detonated his bomb," said Col. John Murray of the U.S. Armyâs 1st Cavalry Division.
About 10 Iraqi cars were lined up inside of the blast barriers when the car bomb exploded. "There was a long line of cars. Fortunately, the blast barriers worked in this case," Murray said. The blast incinerated three cars, reducing them to hulks of twisted, charred metal. Another five cars were badly damaged, some turned on their side from the force of the blast. The explosion was so strong that it hurled the engine of the car carrying the bomb some 15 feet from the site of the blast. Shattered glass from nearby shops littered the area. A column of thick black smoke rose from the blast site and drifted across Baghdad. The force of the blast shattered windows in homes nearby and in some cases, threw doors right off their hinges. The car that held the bomb burned after the blast and it took several firemen to put out the flames.
On Jan. 17, an Arab suicide truck bombing at a Green Zone gate in central Baghdad killed 24 people and wounded about 120. Three U.S. civilians and three American soldiers were among the injured in the bombing at what U.S. soldiers call the "Assassinsâ Gate," an ornate gate leading to Saddam Husseinâs former Republican Palace compound, now the headquarters of the U.S.-led anti-terrorist Coalition forces. (Think, just one member jihadâs international Death Cult was able to make his dreams come true by blowing himself to Hell plus he murders & severely scares scores of innocent people just walking & driving by....the majority are of course Muslims...they donât care, because when your hook on a death wish nothing matters. Maybe when some of the terrorist supporting leftwing radicals are blown into liberal portions, some of their comrades might wake up and grasp whom the enemy of world freedom really is .......the Death Cultists. One bright spot, recall that Arab/Muslim suicide bomber only strike ONCE! Too bad these demented things could not âpracticeâ on each other, 10 at a time. The war would be finished real soon.)
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/06/2004 6:15:29 AM ||
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A statement purportedly by an Iraqi group headed by leading al Qaeda-linked figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for Thursday's suicide attack outside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad. "At dawn on Thursday the heroic fighter Abu Mitab from the land of the Haramain (Saudi Arabia) went out in a car laden with 600 kg of TNT toward the headquarters of the occupying forces and their tails, the apostates...and the operation was a success," said a statement by Jamaat al-Tawhid and Jihad which the United States has said is headed by Zarqawi.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the Arabic-language statement published on Muntada al-Ansar Islamist Web site. A suicide bomber killed five Iraqis and an American soldier and wounded 23 Iraqi civilians and at least three U.S. soldiers at the so-called Green Zone which used to be Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. "The enemy often claims that the mujahideen target innocent people but those killed today belong to the secret police and intelligence who were waiting for their masters' permission to enter the palace," the statement added. It said efforts by the United States and its allies to protect their strategic interests "have all gone with the wind." "The mujahideen...are still capable of striking the enemies' strategic sites and at the suitable time and place."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 9:52:57 AM ||
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They are able to strike at strategic sites because we haven't struck their SA money men and our true enemy Iran.
June 30 should be a date for a releasing of the hounds.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/06/2004 06:38 ||
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The Washington Post, in a continuing attempt to promote the candidacy of John Kerry, continued with their planned trickle of photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by a small handful of MPs.
"This is an outrage", cried the editors, "and we want to make sure the American public has the whole story.", But, at a slow as possible pace in order to lengthen the effect, and hopefully boost the bumbling Massachusetts senator's chances.
It seems to be working for now, as in todays CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, show the two candidates tied, where two weeks ago President Bush had a six-point lead.
"We are gratified our plan is having the desired effect, and hope to keep up the pressure as long as possible."
US soldiers backed by tanks and armoured fighting vehicles today seized control of the governor's office from Shiite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf. Heavy shooting could be heard and plumes of smoke rose over the city. Soldiers moved into the area in four directions to take control of the building. There appeared to be few if any militiamen in the building, which was taken without a fight. Afterward, however, gunfire could be heard, and US helicopters were seen flying low over parts of the city. "I think we are going to gain momentum from now on," said Lieutenant Michael Watson, a platoon leader with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The governor's office is some 4 kilometres from the Shrine of Imam Ali, the holiest shrine in Shiite Islam. Meanwhile, across from the nearby town of Kufa, where al-Sadr's militia is also powerful, US soldiers fought a gunbattle with insurgents, killing 28 militiamen.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 9:51:43 AM ||
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Reports now say 41 militianmen killed.
Looks like rapid progress in both Karbala and Najaf. Things are happening quickly.
A vigilante group vowing to fight outlawed Maoist rebels in northern Bangladesh is imposing strict Islamic codes, including forcing Muslim women to wear veils and men to keep beards, newspapers reported Thursday. Muslim-majority Bangladesh is a democracy with secular laws and wearing veils or beards is not compulsory, even though many Bangladeshis voluntarily do so. But the Jagrota Muslim Janata - or Vigilant Muslim Citizens - has ordered Muslims to strictly follow Islamic codes and have punished those who donât, the Daily Star and Prothom Alo newspapers reported. "The groupâs operatives are painting women with exposed navels black, forcing others to wear burka and men to wear beards," according to the English-language Daily Star.
Taliban South
The Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo said the group "is terrorizing ordinary people." The vigilante group, formed last month, operates in remote villages in the northern districts of Rajshahi, Natore and Naogaon and has vowed to fight outlawed Maoist rebels seeking to turn Bangladesh into a communist state. The vigilante group has allegedly caught and killed seven suspected Maoist rebels and assaulted hundreds since last month, according to the newspapers. "Our goal is to end corruption, seize illegal weapons and establish the ideals of Prophet Muhammad," Daily Star quoted the groupâs leader Azizul Islam as saying. He claimed to have several thousand activists in the region. Islam denied that his men harass women but did not comment on the other accusations. Police have reportedly backed the vigilante groupâs campaign against the rebels and done little to stop them from imposing Islamic laws on the population. "We have asked police to support them (vigilantes) whenever they catch outlaws," Noor Mohammad, a senior police official in the region, told Daily Star. Mohammad said he has reports that group sometimes force women to wear veils or men to say their prayers.
Maoist thugs vs Islamic thugs, time for another batch of popcorn.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/06/2004 9:10:05 AM ||
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Wonderful.
The unbelievable versus the unspeakable...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/06/2004 10:28 Comments ||
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Evil attacks evil ...let them fight it out privatly. The less in the world the better!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/06/2004 21:02 Comments ||
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Today Ambassador Bremer joined Iraqâs agriculture minister, Dr. Abdul-Ameer Abboud, to mark the official transfer of sovereignty to the Ministry of Agriculture. This is the sixth ministry to be handed over to the control of the Iraqi people.
coalition forces conducted a cordon and search in Balaji (ph) yesterday targeting weapons dealers. Two primary targets and an additional suspect were detained and a large cache of ammunition was seized. Coalition forces also conducted a cordon and search in Hammam al Alil, targeting three anti-coalition cell members and they were detained without incident.
In the north-central zone of operations, a coalition force patrol observed a suspicious male carrying a bag near al Duluiyah. The patrol pursued the man into a house and conducted a hasty raid where three males were seized. The combat patrol seized four AK-47s and the bag, which had a rocket-propelled grenade sight assembly, two blocks of TNT and firing instructions for rocket-propelled grenades.
Yesterday coalition forces conducted a cordon and search in the vicinity of the Ali Mohammed mosque in northwest Baghdad for five individuals believed to responsible for an IED that killed coalition soldiers on 2 May. Forces detained five individuals, of which all tested positive with a vapor tracer for both TNT and TNB. Coalition forces also reported that anti-coalition propaganda continues to be broadcast at the mosque -- propaganda urging Iraqis to engage coalition forces.
In the western zone of operations, yesterday was a relatively quiet day in the area of operations in general; in Fallujah in particular, where there were no cease-fire violations. The cooperation with the Iraqi forces in town was encouraging as the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps troops assumed joint responsibility alongside the Marines for the northern cordon. The ICDC has grown to 1,190 soldiers and the 1st Battalion Fallujah Brigade to 1,200 troops, while 750 Iraqi police are on duty. Preparations continue for the upcoming joint patrols into the city that should demonstrate the Fallujah Brigadeâs true effectiveness.
Yesterday in Multinational Division Central South, the coalition patrol on the east side of the Euphrates, near Kufa, observed five individuals unloading weapons from a van on the west side of the river. Tanks engaged and destroyed the van, and killing an estimated five personnel.
Last night coalition forces conducted a raid into Karbala against Muqtadaâs militia storing weapons and operating in three locations: a hotel suspected of being a militia safe house, the former Baâath Party building and the former government -- governorâs building. The hotel and Baâath Party building were cleared without incident, and upon arrival at the governorâs building, coalition forces found the building on fire and taking small-arms fire from the vicinity of the building. After a prolonged firefight, coalition forces took control of the building, and results from the operation were an estimated 10 enemy killed and 21 suspects detained, of which three were wounded.
In Diwaniyah last night, coalition forces conducted offensive operations against the Sadr bureau, to reduce the militia influence in the city and establish conditions for the return of Iraqi security forces. As coalition forces approached the objective, a vehicle engaged the unit with small-arms fire, wounding one coalition soldier. Forces returned fire, destroying the vehicle and its occupants.
Coalition forces continued the mission, engaging the building with precision fires. Forces then cleared the building, resulting in one Sadr militia member detained. Coalition forces and Iraqi people will remain in the building and will continue the process of reestablishing police presence in that area of Diwaniyah.
In a follow-on mission, coalition forces conducted a cordon-and- search of a school located across from the Sadr building, suspected of having a weapons cache on its grounds. Coalition forces confiscated one 60-millimeter mortar, 10 rocket-propelled grenades and 20 60- millimeter rounds found hidden within a makeshift wall in the school.
My Armyâs been embarrassed by this. My Armyâs been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens. It was reprehensible and it was unacceptable. And it is more than just words, that we have to take those words into action and ensure that never happens again. And we will make a full- faith effort to ensure that never happens again.
The -- they will be tried. At present, the expectation is, if taken to a court martial, those trials will be held here in Iraq.
With regards to ultimately if they serve time in a penitentiary, I would not expect that to be here in Iraq.
The 32s are nearly complete. I know at least three are finished, possibly four. And I think all of us certainly would like to see this process move on from the 32 to whatever the final resolution is going to be, whether it is court martial or any other form of disposition. So Iâd expect that to be fairly soon.
But hereâs the important thing to understand; that all those forces operating in the vicinity of Fallujah, whether theyâre Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, whether they are the 1st Battalion of the Fallujah brigade, whether theyâre the Iraqi police, or whether they are the United States Marine Corps supported by the United State Army, all those forces are operating under the command and control of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. All of them have one simple goal and that is to protect the people of Fallujah and achieve the objectives that we set out over a month ago, which is to get rid of the foreign fighters out of Fallujah, to get rid of the heavy weapons out of Fallujah, to get Iraqi forces and Iraqi governmental control back in Fallujah and bring justice inside Fallujah.
Six Iraqis and a US soldier have been killed in a car bomb explosion outside an entrance to the compound of the US administration in Baghdad. Several people were injured, including two US soldiers who were said to be in a "very serious condition". A military officer said the suicide bomber pulled up two or three vehicles away from the checkpoint on the 14 July bridge before detonating explosives. This is the first bomb to target the coalition offices for several weeks. Several cars were queuing for checks before entering the heavily-fortified headquarters - the so called Green Zone - when the blast went off. A black column of smoke rose into the air as sirens howled at the scene. "We saw a car on fire," Mohammed Talum, who lives close to the bridge, told AFP news agency after the 0700 blast. A local bakery owner, Qays Mohamed, told Reuters he had heard a "very big explosion". "We went outside and we saw one of the cars waiting to be checked on fire," he said. Colonel John Murray said at least 10 vehicles had been affected by the blast. The 14 July suspension bridge is used only by coalition forces and employees of the US administration. The BBCâs Caroline Hawley notes that a car bomb outside another entrance in January killed at least 20 Iraqi workers waiting to get into the compound. Looks like Fallujahâs no longer under siege, then...
UPDATE: Qaeda sez they dun it.
A statement purportedly by an Iraqi group headed by leading al Qaeda-linked figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for Thursday's suicide attack outside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad. "At dawn on Thursday the heroic fighter Abu Mitab from the land of the Haramain (Saudi Arabia) went out in a car laden with 600 kg of TNT toward the headquarters of the occupying forces and their tails, the apostates... and the operation was a success," said a statement by Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad which the United States has said is headed by Zarqawi. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the Arabic-language statement published on Muntada al-Ansar Islamist Web site. A suicide bomber killed five Iraqis and an American soldier and wounded 23 Iraqi civilians and at least three U.S. soldiers at the so-called Green Zone which used to be Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. "The enemy often claims that the mujahideen target innocent people but those killed today belong to the secret police and intelligence who were waiting for their masters' permission to enter the palace," the statement added. It said efforts by the United States and its allies to protect their strategic interests "have all gone with the wind. The mujahideen...are still capable of striking the enemies' strategic sites and at the suitable time and place."
[Meanwhile, witnesses say two bombs destroyed the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. At least four people were reportedly wounded in the attack on offices of the party headed by Jalal Talabani, a member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.]
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 4:02:10 AM ||
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every major website is reporting iraq prisioner abuse. this headline about this bombing is third or fourth down. america should protest the news websites as our boys are in a very dangerous situation.whatis more important?
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/06/2004 9:57 Comments ||
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heh attacking america is more important you mean.
it's like those fellas who demand reperations for slavery, they don't give a shit about slavery, if they did they would be fighting slavery in africa where it _still_ continues today, all they care about is "sticking it to the man" damn hippies.
Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say they have killed a commander of the militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen. They say Abdul Rashid, alias Gazi Shahabuddin, was killed in a fire-fight after the police raided his hide-out in the Maharajganj area of Srinagar. Another high-ranking Hizbul Mujahideen figure, Gazi Nasiruddin, was killed by Indian troops in January. There has been no word from the Hizbul Mujahideen about the latest police reports over the killing. The raid on the man police describe as Hizbul Mujahideen's top commander comes against the backdrop of the Indian elections which militant groups in Kashmir have been threatening to disrupt. The Associated Press news agency reports that the killing of Abdul Rashid has been confirmed by Indian Border Security Force spokesman Neeraj Sharma. The raid on the house in Srinigar, summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, prompted a gun battle in which the police say Abdul Rashid was killed - and later identified by papers found on him. Inspector General of Police K. Rajindra Kumar was quoted by the AFP press agency: "We had sealed off a house in downtown Srinagar on a tip-off and once we ringed the house an encounter broke out in which the chief commander of Hizbul Mujahideen was killed." The Indian news agency, PTI, says that police, acting on "local intelligence", had surrounded a house and that Abdul Rashid had been killed in an "exchange of fire".
And now he's "dead".
Posted by: Steve ||
05/06/2004 8:48:51 AM ||
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Contingency planning for sending more British troops to Iraq is at an advanced stage, the BBC has learned. An estimated extra 800 members of 40 Commando could be deployed in June or July with an official announcement next week, defence sources say.
Top brass from the UK military were in Iraq last week and it is understood they were examining Britainâs options. These could include expanding the UK presence in the Iraqi provinces of Najaf and Qadifiyah. Commenting on the move, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said the extra troops might find themselves serving alongside US forces whom he said had a "different culture" to their British counterparts. "My anxiety would be that if British forces were sent to Baghdad and were under the direct operational command of an American commander, then they might find themselves in the position of having to decide whether or not to accept an order or whether to rely on their own instincts and training," he said.
Mmmmmm... what do our American cousins make of Menzies Campbellâs opinions?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 7:59:04 AM ||
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I don't share such "anxieties" with Sir Menzies (BTW, whence comes his Knighthood? I'll have to google that...), all troops in Western militaries have similar training that dictates, to some degree, that they should not follow orders contrary to the Geneva Conventions. I'm sure someone will expound on that, but I wager that is sufficient to mollify most differences. I don't recall any serious problems in this area with non-American forces in Viet Nam, with the exception of some South VN troops who were loathe to leave reinforced positions. Patrol Flu was occasionally a problem with them. Others, such as Ozzies and Koreans would just put on their game face and saddle up. I'll be curious to read opinions of others - especially those whose service is current / more contemporary.
#2
The British have had interoprability with US forces as a major operational objective for a long time. Lots of joint training and exercises. The Liberal Democrats are the most Eurocentric party in the UK and consequently tend most towards anti-Americanism.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/06/2004 9:44 Comments ||
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I wonder if "Sir" Menses Campbell has any friggin' idea of how the modern Brit and US militaries operate.
.com, how's the Googling going ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 12:05 Comments ||
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I think he's talking about prisoner abuse. If a Brit was ordered to do something to a prisoner that the British would never do, should he obey the American or not?
Jerk. As though all American units routinely order their men to abuse prisoners.
#6
Anonymous4750: I think he's talking about prisoner abuse. If a Brit was ordered to do something to a prisoner that the British would never do, should he obey the American or not?
Actually, Brits have been known to get pretty physical with IRA detainees, and I'm not talking about ordering them to do pushups.
Israel Defense Forces soldiers stationed on Har Dov, on the Israel-Lebanon border, encountered two groups of potential infiltrators approaching from Lebanon in the early hours of Thursday morning. At around 5 A.M., an IDF soldier observed a group of five individuals wearing flak jackets approaching the post, from Lebanese territory. The group did not cross the international border into Israeli territory, but did come very close to the IDF post, causing the soldiers there to open fire in order to deter the group. The five did not return fire. A short time later, troops identified a second group, which is apparently still in the area. Troops also opened fire on the second group; it is unclear whether any of the two groups has been hit. Military sources confirmed that troops had opened fire at "suspicious figures carrying equipment," Israel Radio said. But the sources could not provide further details, saying an investigation into the incident was still underway. There were no casualties on the Israeli side.
The incident comes the day after Israel Air Force planes hit two Hezbollah artillery positions in southern Lebanon, after they fired at targets in northern Israel. No casualties were reported on either side. This is the first time the IDF hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since January. The Hezbollah anti-aircraft shells, the first in several weeks, fell in Kibbutz Achziv, close to the northern border. The shells were fired in two volleys, and their explosions echoed loudly in the areas of Shlomi and Nahariya. Shrapnel from one shell fell west of moshav Betzet, causing a small fire, but fire fighters from the Western Galilee put it out swiftly, preventing its spreading to the communityâs houses. An IDF spokesman said the shells were launched "in the guise of anti-aircraft fire," but instead of being aimed at air force planes they were intended to explode over Israel. Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah declined Wednesday to say if it had fired anti-aircraft rounds at Israel, but the Lebanese army said it fired anti-aircraft rounds earlier in the day at IAF planes flying over the country. Looks like Hezbollah wants to share the joy. I guess they must be jealous of how Hamas gets all the shrapnel glory.
Posted by: Zenster ||
05/06/2004 5:03:12 AM ||
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NAJAF, IRAQ -- U.S.-led forces launched their biggest assault yet against militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric, raiding hideouts in several cities yesterday and clashing with gunmen in the worldâs biggest cemetery. At least 15 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier were killed. Moderate Shiites tried to persuade anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to back away from his confrontation with the United States -- a reflection of their growing concern.
Skirmishes between U.S. troops and al-Sadrâs al-Mahdi Army militia have grown deadlier recently as the military steps up pressure on the cleric while trying to avoid an offensive in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. "The operation will continue until the goal of eliminating and disarming al-Sadrâs militia is met," Polish forces representative Lt.-Col. Robert Strzelecki said. "I think that will take place soon."
The heaviest fighting in the south -- part of the militaryâs Operation Iron Saber -- came in the holy city of Karbala, where coalition forces raided a hotel, the local former Baath party headquarters and the regional governorâs office, where al-Sadr fighters had been stockpiling weapons, U.S. Brig.-Gen. Mark Kimmitt said.
In the overnight raid on the governorâs office, troops came under fire, Kimmitt said in Baghdad. He said 10 al-Sadr followers were killed. The U.S. soldier died when a dump truck tried to ram a checkpoint in Karbala, the military said. He was the 20th U.S. serviceman killed in Iraq in May.
Outside the city of Kufa, U.S. forces saw Iraqis unloading weapons from a van. The vehicle was destroyed and five Iraqis killed, Kimmitt said. In Najaf, U.S. troops battled al-Mahdi Army fighters outside a cemetery near the Imam Ali Shrine, Iraqâs holiest Shiite site. The soldiers opened fire with machine-guns on militiamen who had ambushed them.
More than 50 militiamen took part in the fighting in Najafâs sprawling cemetery, ambushing three U.S. Humvees. As the Americans returned fire, mourners burying their dead ran for safety.
Posted by: Zenster ||
05/06/2004 4:03:02 AM ||
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More than 50 militiamen took part in the fighting in Najafâs sprawling cemetery, ambushing three U.S. Humvees. As the Americans returned fire, mourners burying their dead ran for safety.
I'll take insurgency for 300, Alec.
The answer is: a firefight in an Islamic cemetary.
buzzzzzzzz
Alec, what is the definition of convenience?
That is correct. It is still you're board.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/06/2004 4:31 Comments ||
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After all the furor last month, the Hamtramack city council surrendered to the siren sound of the Islamic call to prayer
"My main objection is simple," she said. "I donât want to be told that Allah is the true and only God five times a day, 365 days a year. Itâs against my constitutional rights to have to listen to another religion evangelize in my ear." At City Hall last week, before the final vote on the loudspeaker, a crowd of more than 100 crammed into a room, with dozens more listening or arguing in the hallway outside.
Chuck Schultz, 49, a computer programmer from nearby Grosse Pointe, spoke against the measure. "Everyone talks about their rights," Schultz said. "The rights of Christians have been stripped from them. Last week, there were Muslims praying downstairs, in a public building. If Christians tried to do that, the ACLU would shut us down."
Council members emphasized that there was nothing technically preventing the mosque from amplifying its call to prayer, even without amending the cityâs noise ordinance, and compared the amplification to the chiming of church bells. The amendment just gave government officials leverage to limit the volume and hours of the broadcasts, said Councilman Scott Klein.
Motlib said the mosque had applied for approval "because we want to be good neighbors." Paradoxically, the call to prayer is one that even most of the Muslims at al-Islah mosque cannot understand, because they speak Bengali rather than Arabic, said Khan, the mosque secretary
Posted by: RWV ||
05/06/2004 1:31:48 AM ||
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My hope is that, a lot of the non-muslim residents will make life impossible for the muslims and the latter will decide to leave or learn to keep their religious rites private.
#2
I would think that the town/city will geographically polarize over time so that there are Islamic neighborhoods and communities.
Have you ever noticed how well that Koreans have assimmilated into teh United States? Is there such a thing as a Koreatown in any city?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/06/2004 4:36 Comments ||
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#3
If it were near my house I would not hear it for long! A pair of wire cutters and all would be quiet! This is prime example of 'diversity' run amok.
#7
There's a Koreatown here in NYC. The lower 30s between Fifth and Broadway. Dozens of Korean restaurants, banks, bars, stores, etc.
Also, many many delis/bodegas are Korean-owned and -operated. There's a long history of newcomer Koreans getting loans from Korean groups so they can start their stores. Then, once they've paid the loan back, they are part of the group that loans money to newcomer Koreans.
#8
Hamtramck used to be affectionately known as "pollack town". We'd go down there about once a month for great Polish chow and pastries. Lots of serbs/yugos started moving in during the 80s and muslims soon after. The mosque prayer call has actually been going on in other parts of Detroit ever since I can remember from the 70s, especially in Dearborn area. No surprise the ACLU hasn't touched this one.
#9
LA has a Koreatown, and Westminster is "Little Saigon"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2004 11:19 Comments ||
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#10
The typical urban immigrant neighborhood starts to break up once the kids start college and they want to get a house in the suburbs. Maybe the Hamtramck Muslims will end up the same. However, in the meantime, there is nothing wrong with the natives there objecting to the noise factor. I've been awakened thousands of times by the dawn prayer call, al-fajr, while in Morocco, Egypt, and M Kingdom. It was always dreamy and at times downright beautiful. But it never really bothered me since I usually used the time to take a pee, so I would have gotten up anyway. Luckily, then back to sleep with no problem as I can go to sleep in the wink of an eye. OTOH, other kaffur would moan and bitch about it. I'd tell them they were only a plane ticket away from home if they couldn't cope.
So I don't discount that some of the unquoted speakers at the hall meeting might have cited not being able to get back to sleep and NOT religion as a reason to object. If enough residents said this, then, as the fictional board, I'd tell the Muslims to use the telephone to inform the faithful it was time to get up. Or alarm clock. What's so difficult about that?
Actually what I see coming down the line as a bigger problem is when Muslims go down to city hall for marriage licenses to tie the knot(s) with second, third, or fourth wives. Then what will the PCer's and same-sex advocates say to that?
Posted by: Michael ||
05/06/2004 12:25 Comments ||
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#11
Next up... "The Church of Rock and Roll".
There will be an amplified "Call to Rock Out" five times daily -- the first call occurs at 7am to the classic tune "Black Dog"... the last call is to the tune "Stairway to Heaven".
#15
We should all encourage our local Temples of Cthulhu to emulate this assertion of the fundamental right to annoy one's neighbors.
I've noticed some Cthulhu fans among the Rantburgists. Do you guys have any ideas for an appropriate prayer call, to be broadcast at 140db, say, 10 times a day?
#16
I think I'll start a church - prolly have to move to Laficornia first - and we'll play this at Prayer Times (for Sammy Dago - every location has different times, y'know - or did ya?) I think I'll call it Gone to the Moon Church, Please Leave a Message.
Interior troops have arrested in a special operation field commander Zubair Visingiriyev in Chechnyaâs settlement of Sernovodskaya. A spokesman at the regional interior ministry told Itar-Tass on Wednesday that Visingiriyev and a group he led resisted arrest. Khusain Visingiriyev, 33, a resident of Sernovodskaya, and Ibragim Badayev from the village of Samashki, who was suspected of killing police Colonel Chersi Gatayev, were killed in a shootout. Interior troops found in the building where the gang was trapped a Shmel flame thrower, a grenade-launcher, a machine-gun and seven rounds for a grenade-launcher.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:26:17 AM ||
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Nearly all 8,080 prisoners being held by U.S. authorities in Iraq are considered security threats: insurgents linked to attacks on coalition forces, and terrorists and former officials of Saddam Hussein's regime suspected of having useful intelligence, military officials say.
"The goal is to gain intelligence," said a coalition spokesman in Iraq. "Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, those in detention can be exploited for intelligence."
Additionally, the U.S. Army has a small number of Iraqi criminals in custody, a couple hundred arrested for breaking local laws. Up to 7,000 criminals, who until March were kept with security detainees, already have been turned over to the new Iraqi government ministry.
"Security detainees are those who are considered an imperative threat to security," said the spokesman, who spoke on condition he not be identified by name. "These are people who have been identified through means such as intelligence and reconnaissance as being a threat to coalition forces or Iraqis, or people living and working in Iraq legally."
The approximately 7,800 security detainees make up about 95 percent of the prison population, and are the category of prisoners photographed nude and being abused at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, where about 4,000 prisoners are being held, U.S. officials said.
"These are people who have been captured as a consequence of anticoalition or anti-Iraqi activity," the coalition spokesman said.
"High-value detainees" are held at a prison located at Baghdad International Airport, about 10 miles west of the capital, and are intensely interrogated, which involves regular questioning and psychological and physical pressure designed to make them reveal information.
Saddam Hussein, who was captured in December, is believed to be at this prison, called Camp Cropper, along with about 100 high-ranking prisoners. Officials have said that interrogations of the Iraqi leader have not produced any good intelligence information.
Interrogations are performed by military intelligence personnel and a small group of CIA officers.
According to an Army report on prisoner abuses made public last week, the CIA also kept a small number of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison that were handled secretly and outside of formal prison administration. The CIA prisoners were called "ghost detainees" by the Army because of the secrecy surrounding their detention.
At one point, the ghost prisoners were moved around the facility "to hide them from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) survey team," according to the Army report.
The CIA detainees numbered less than 20 and their registration at the prison was delayed for intelligence operational reasons.
Most of the other prisoners are held at a facility known as Camp Bucca at Umm Qasr, south of Basra.
The spokesman said many of the security detainees are picked up during raids and other engagements, such as counterambushes, and are screened at local holding points and then taken to one of three prisons based on what kind of information they may have.
"For example, you might come upon insurgents in an ambush and then people who are caught in a counterambush. Those insurgents would become security detainees," he said.
"And in the course of that, we find a person who could be anyone from a bombmaker to a financier of the insurgents or a terrorist," the spokesman said.
Military raids on buildings or residences in Iraq also produce evidence that lead to arrests of insurgents or terrorists who then become prisoners, the spokesman said. Other prisoners have been have been arrested at checkpoints in Iraq with weapons or bomb-making equipment, he said.
Additionally, the coalition is detaining fewer than 30 Iraqis as enemy prisoners of war captured during the period of major combat operation, the spokesman said. All other POWs have been released.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:17:54 AM ||
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Next we shall be informed by the Kerry camp, Arab terrorists caught prior to blowing themselves up while driving in their death car, murdering dozens of addidtional victims, are only 'misunderstood' lads, because they not able vote for John Forbes Kerry.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/06/2004 6:28 Comments ||
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Two Britons and an Afghan interpreter working for UK-based Global Risk Strategies on a programme to support the country's elections were killed yesterday in the eastern province of Nuristan, the company said. The three men, whose names were not released, were on a field mission to check the feasibility of setting up sites to register voters. The Taliban yesterday claimed responsibility for the killings, according to Reuters news agency. Global, which provides security and logistics support, said it would not be discouraged from continuing its work, but the attack will shake confidence in the ability of non-governmental organisations to help protect the electoral process. Jean Arnault, UN envoy, condemned the killings.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2004 1:14:10 AM ||
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I'm sure Mssr. Arnault's condemnation will make the difference and Nuristan Province will soon become a stable Afghan paradise.
Global Risk Strategies is the UK's largest private security firm, according some Googling. Al Guardian sez: "...Has more than 1,000 personnel, including 500 Gurkhas, in Iraq providing security for the coalition provisional authority, the US defence department, USAID and the UN. Its use of former Fijian soldiers to distribute the new Iraqi currency has been attacked as improper by human rights groups."
Since AlG doesn't much like them, I guess they're prolly doing some good work. Condolences to the familes of these three men.
#2
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two British election workers killed in eastern Afghanistan in an attack claimed by the Taliban had refused an armed escort, a local police chief said Thursday.
Ghulam Ullah Nuristani said the Britons were gunned down Wednesday on their way back from a remote clinic with their Afghan translator. Security forces found their bodies in a deep, forested valley of Nuristan province, some 100 miles east of the capital, Kabul.
It's difficult to intervene when people are really determined to win a Darwin award.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia reclaimed control of the breakaway region of Ajaria on Thursday, making a dramatic announcement in the middle of the night that its rebellious leader had fled the country after months of threatening a civil war. Just hours earlier, Aslan Abashidze had vowed on television not to leave his post. But he relented after a negotiating session at his residence with a Russian envoy who was dispatched to defuse the crisis, according to accounts from Georgia.
"Lookee here, Aslan: You gave a war and nobody came. Y'remember Ceaucescu?"
"Ceaucescu?... Ceaucescu?... Hmmm... Romanian guy, right?"
"Dead Romanian guy."
"I'll start packing now."
By 2:30 a.m. Thursday, Abashidze had left Ajaria without making a public statement, after thousands of opponents turned out on the streets of Batumi, the regional capital, and some members of his police and military joined their side. "Georgians: Aslan has fled! Ajaria is free!" Saakashvili said on Georgian television, according to reports from Tbilisi, the national capital. "I congratulate everyone on this victory, on the beginning of Georgia's unification," he said, alluding to two other breakaway regions he has pledged to take back under his control.
What does the well-dressed warlord wear into exile these days?
Leftist dictator --> green military fatigues.
South American dictator --> dress military uniform with lots of gold braid.
East Asian dictator --> beige military fatigues with funny-looking collar.
Arab dictator --> Seville Row suit.
African dictator --> Seville Row suit.
Russian dictator --> Seville Row suit.
The standoff over Ajaria began as soon as Saakashvili came to power last fall in a peaceful street revolution and vowed to regain control over the autonomous region on the Black Sea coast. In recent days, the dispute escalated sharply when Abashidze's forces blew up bridges connecting Ajaria to the rest of Georgia and thousands of anti-Abashidze protesters took to the streets in Ajaria hoping to repeat Saakashvili's revolution in their province. Both sides had troops near their border, but there were no armed clashes. Saakashvili did not wait for Abashidze's exit before declaring victory. As Russia's national security council chief, Igor Ivanov, was en route to Ajaria on Wednesday, Saakashvili announced on television that evening that he was introducing direct presidential rule in the province until elections could be held. Saakashvili also said that he had offered Abashidze and his family safe passage out of the country if he would quit.
"And if I don't?"
"Remember Ceaucescu?"
"There are only a few hours to go until our final victory arrives," Saakashvili said at the time. He also exultantly compared the street protests in Batumi to the mass rallies he led in November that resulted in the toppling of Eduard Shevardnadze, who had been in power nearly since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. "The world is amazed by the accomplishment of two bloodless revolutions in Georgia," he said in footage aired on Russian television. Earlier Wednesday, other Georgian officials were more belligerent, warning Abashidze that he had just a few hours left to resign or face a bloody end like that Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator executed in 1989 after a street uprising. "Abashidze has the right to choose: He can share the fate of Ceausescu or Shevardnadze," the Georgian prosecutor general, Irakli Okruashvili, said in televised remarks.
"He can count muzzle blasts or he can get out with an unperforated skin and maybe a few bucks..."
Several times on television before his exit, Abashidze exhorted his backers to defend him. But early Thursday morning, the Reuters news agency reported from Batumi that his plane had left the airport and that protesters were attempting to enter his empty residence. It was unclear whether Abashidze would seek asylum in Russia or elsewhere.
I think Chuck Taylor has a spare bedroom...
Abashidze, a former Soviet official whose family claims to have ruled Ajaria since the 15th century, had run the province as an independent fiefdom for more than a decade, relying on his close ties to Russia and the weakness of the Georgian central government under Shevardnadze to secure his autonomy. During the revolution that brought Saakashvili to power last fall, he bet on the losing side, and Saakashvili has since made reestablishing control of Ajaria a key test of his new administration. "Abashidze was ruling his fiefdom and creating problems for this country, and he was nurtured by the Russians always," said Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. "Now our relationship with Russia is better, and they understand now he is finished." In Batumi, television crews captured scenes of celebrations reminiscent of the Georgian revolution, as thousands of people took to the streets, dancing, brandishing Georgian and U.S. flags and urging Abashidze to go. Roses, the symbol of the uprising that Saakashvili led, were also much in evidence, and several of the Georgian president's allies, including his prime minister, Zurab Zhvania, traveled to Batumi and addressed the protesters Wednesday night as Abashidze huddled in his residence with Ivanov. "This is a moment to solve everything, bloodlessly," Katiya Dekaniodze, an aide to the Georgian national security adviser, said by phone from Tbilisi. "We'll not make any provocations."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/06/2004 1:14:27 AM ||
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Impressive start for Saakashvili. A whole lotta problems to go though.
From the NYT, so it must be true.
The American military has begun its first major assault against Shiite insurgents, striking at their enclaves in Karbala and in Diwaniya in an effort to regain control in southern Iraq. The operation began at 11 p.m. on Tuesday and took place in two waves. The first assault began late Tuesday here and in Diwaniya, and ended at dawn on Wednesday. The second unfolded just after midnight Thursday in this city, when more than 450 soldiers in armored vehicles rumbled into a neighborhood amusement park where Mr. Sadrâs militiamen, known as the Mahdi Army, were storing heavy weapons near a ferris wheel and bumper car ride. At 12:30 a.m., soldiers were drawn into an intense firefight, killing an Iraqi who had been lobbing grenades from the area of the pirate ship ride.
Yaaarrr! BANG aaaaarrrrrrrrr
Really, we don't make this stuff up...
Posted by: RWV ||
05/06/2004 1:07:56 AM ||
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Hey, there is something very strange about this article. I read most of what was being said already this morning from a totally different news source. NYT, I would not trust as far as I could spit on a lefty...
I can not remember the news source tho. Anybody else?
#3
FoxNews later reported the Iraqi threw 5 grenades and, after being shot dead, documents on his person showed he was a paid employee of the CPA. I don't think they specified what his "occupation" was, but implied he was employed as a policeman or other security-related job.
#4
If you cap three ragheads can you claim a prize? Goldfish in a bag for me, please.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/06/2004 8:01 Comments ||
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#5
This has all the components for a great screwball comedy. There could be a scene where a Humvee chases a bunch of jihadis stuffed into a bumper car like the Keystone Kops.
And a scene where an Apache hovers near the Ferris wheel, taking potshots at some jihadis as they go round and round on the wheel.
Should I get an agent ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 12:11 Comments ||
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#6
No Carl. It's not an agent you need. Drop by and visit sometime.
Posted by: Stanley Freedman ||
05/06/2004 19:23 Comments ||
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#8
It's true...I was there...looked like something out of Tampa Bay...(ship) and the grenade chunking security guard was a bad guy...pulling security for the other bad guys...
18 hours after I pulled my M1A1 tank into position...we blew the crap out of tons...TONS of weapons, bombs, etc. They love to hide stuff near the kids.
The U.S. Embassy demanded a retraction Wednesday for photographs published in the Egyptian press that it said were faked pictures of American soldiers sexually abusing female prisoners in Iraq. But editors of two of the three publications involved said Wednesday they saw no grounds for a retraction. The editor-in-chief of the third publication, Al-Wafd, was not available. "We have done a thorough investigation of the origin of these photos and have conclusive evidence that they originated on a pornographic Web site," the embassy said in a statement. "They are clearly staged photos, done by actors, as the site itself states."
But try convincing people now.
"Their publication needlessly inflames an already heated atmosphere," the statement added, referring to Arab outrage over the revelation last weekend that U.S. soldiers had sexually humiliated male prisoners in Iraq. U.S. authorities have condemned the soldiers' actions and promised to bring them to justice. The editor of the Egyptian weekly Al-Osboa, Mustafa Bakri, dismissed the U.S. Embassy's complaint. His newspaper published at least one photograph of a man, purportedly an American soldier, taking sexual advantage of a woman as one of a series run across three pages on May 3. "We have published, maybe, one picture from the Internet, which was one of several pictures published by the media," Bakri told The Associated Press. "The kind of pictures on CBS made us believe that any other picture is authentic. Now the U.S. Embassy is speaking about pictures that were published only on the Internet. OK, let us agree on what CBS published, aren't they enough?"
If that's so, why use the fake ones?
The editor of Al-Mussawar, Makram Mohammed Ahmed, said he was not aware of the U.S. Embassy complaint. This week, his magazine published a picture of a partially naked woman with parts of her body blacked out. Ahmed said he would not rule out that fake pictures were circulating.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2004 12:59:40 AM ||
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Why bother? These people will believe anything and everything about the US, as long as it is bad. 99% believe 9/11 was a Mosad plot. Enough said.
Posted by: Rafael ||
05/06/2004 2:46 Comments ||
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#2
Egypt shopuld receive squat from us in foreign aid. Send them a copy of that paper, and call it next year's payment in advance
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2004 10:10 Comments ||
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#3
There are other strings to pull in Egypt. We need to come down on Mubarak to come down hard on those papers.
Posted by: Carl in N.H ||
05/06/2004 12:15 Comments ||
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#4
[Troll droppings deleted]
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/06/2004 3:57 Comments ||
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#5
Didn't you guys read in the Egyptian press how Diana and dear Dodi were victims of Mossad? Or was it Queen Elizabeth? Or was it the Rothchild's? Or the Queen and the anit-Saudi Royal family factions based in London that are on the payroll of Mossad? Yeah, that's what I think I read.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/06/2004 13:50 Comments ||
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#6
Michael - Egyptian Press? I thought you were talking about Lyndon LaRouche.
Text of President Bush's interview Wednesday with Al-Arabiya television at the link.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2004 12:58:29 AM ||
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I like what he said especially about Iraq being a unique case for military intervention into Arab countries. He didn't really address non-Arab countries - like Persian countries.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/06/2004 22:52 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Acknowledging mistakes but stopping short of an apology, President Bush told the Arab world on Wednesday that Americans are appalled by the abuse and deaths of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers. He promised that "justice will be delivered." "The people in the Middle East must understand that this was horrible," Bush said, trying to calm international outrage. He went on two Arabic-language television networks to take charge of the administration's damage-control efforts.
Bush said he retained confidence in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, but White House aides said the president let the secretary know he was not satisfied with the way he was informed about the unfolding controversy. In particular, Bush was unhappy he was not told about incriminating pictures before they were shown on television or about a 2-month-old Pentagon report before it turned up in the news. Rumsfeld did not know about the images until CBS aired them last Wednesday, a senior White House official said.
As Glenn Reynolds points out, Army CID started its investigation back in December/January. Rummy and GWB should have been told then, I think.
Bush also said he learned of the photographs of the alleged abuse when the rest of the world did. "First time I saw or heard about pictures was on TV," Bush told the Al-Hurra television network.
The difficulty of Bush's task became clear in the first question of a television interviewer who said the evidence of torture made many Arabs believe that the United States was no better than Saddam Hussein's government, notorious for torture and murder. The president murmured under his breath at the comparison.
Bush said the abuses were "terrible" for America's image abroad. "I think people in the Middle East who want to dislike America will use this as an excuse to remind people about their dislike," he told Al-Arabiya television, a satellite channel based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that is popular around the Arab world.
The Washington Post, in an article on its Web site Wednesday night, said it had obtained a new batch of more than 1,000 digital photos from Iraq. The newspaper said the photos ranged from snapshots depicting everyday military life to graphic images of what appeared to be naked prisoners sprawled on top of one another with soldiers standing nearby.
Angry lawmakers called Rumsfeld to Capitol Hill to testify on Friday while Senate leaders - Republicans and Democrats alike - discussed a Senate resolution to condemn the abuses. The number of prisoner deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan known to be under U.S. investigation or already blamed on Americans rose to as many as 14.
Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic rival, said the president's remarks were not enough. "The president of the United States needs to offer the world an explanation and needs to take appropriate responsibility," he said. "And if that includes apologizing for the behavior of those soldiers and what happened, they ought to do that."
Apology is meaningless now. Investigate, get the facts, punish the guilty. That will make a better impression in Iraq.
Interviewed on the U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra television network, Bush said that Iraqis "must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent. They must also understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know." Most U.S. soldiers are "good, honorable citizens that are helping the Iraqis every day," Bush said."It's also important for the people of Iraq to know that in a democracy, everything is not perfect, that mistakes are made," the president said. Drawing a distinction with Saddam's government, he told Al-Arabiya, "A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this."
As Prof. Reynolds said, CNN has had more airtime on this in the past two weeks than they had on all of Saddam's tortures put together.
While Bush did not offer an apology, Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, had said Tuesday that "we are deeply sorry for what has happened," and the commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, apologized Wednesday for the "illegal or unauthorized acts" of U.S. soldiers. "We've already said that we're sorry for what occurred and we're deeply sorry to the families and what they must be feeling and going through as well," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The president is sorry for what occurred and the pain it has caused."
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2004 12:50:34 AM ||
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This is the beginning of the end, we are going to lose the war overseas because of this, abuses that were thoroughly investigated and uncompromisingly dealt with before they ever became public.
All this is lost in the reckless feeding frenzy of the media and the insane screaming monkey-rage of the Islamos.
The whole world has gone mad, berserk, stark-staring, shoot-it-the-street-before-it-bites-you crazy.
It is the end of our effort to enforce sanity and defend ourselves in the Middle East, but the killing time has only begun.
To paraphrase Churchill, the Battle of Iraq is over, the Battle of America is about to begin.
#2
AC, that how I felt a couple of days ago, but now I think it will blow over. I find Brahimi's manouvering to dump anyone they percieve as anti-UN much more ominous.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/06/2004 4:35 Comments ||
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#3
My we are willing to give up quickly, aren't we? This isn't Mogadishu or the Khobar Towers. We have no choice. We must fight. And we will.
#4
Guys, I heard Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the budget already $160bln and Bush is asking for aditional $25bln (which according to experts is not enough)
Guess stealing oil is not that cheap eyh?
Posted by: Murat ||
05/06/2004 5:42 Comments ||
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#5
muRat - Lol! Your jealousy is showing! What a 'tard. There is an old old joke in the US - sourced to Al-Gore's father-in-law, Sen Everett Dirksen back in the 70's, I think, who said, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money."
You see, little one, our economy is measured in $Trillions, sonny. When your country pulls its collective Muslim head out of its ass and fully realizes what Attaturk was really hinting at ("Islam is a giant fucking anchor! We ain't going anywhere till we toss this Turkey!"), you might actually get somewhere, lol! Now run along, sonny.
#6
As wars go, we haven't begun to spend/fight. Was watching a program on WWII last night which mentioned that 16 million men went into military training. How much you think an army that size costs in today's dollars? And we were nowhere near as wealthy then as we are now. The religious killer clique better not wake the sleeping giant.
#7
Don't get too down AC, this thing ain't done yet. and Murat how much are you paying for a tank of gas? My neighbors and I can afford $40 to fill our gas tanks and we live in a poor redneck town in the back woods. How do your economic, cultural and religious system/beliefs fulfill your life and needs? You sound pretty angry to me.
BTW, guys, over at Mudville Gazette there's a timeline of the abuse investigation, and the first comment posts a link to the January 16th press release announcing the investigation.
I'm amazed how many people are upset they didn't know about something that was publicly announced.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/06/2004 8:26 Comments ||
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#9
I love it when the Rat pops his head out of his hole and gets it pounded back in.
He must like it, though. He keeps coming back for more.
almost every day, my neighbour next over is Armenian, so what.
Posted by: Murat ||
05/06/2004 11:01 Comments ||
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#11
hi murat! the way coversation is going it sound like you live in another country. just wonder what country that may be? im liking murat. he always make me laugh. :)
#14
Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic rival, said the president's remarks were not enough. "The president of the United States needs to offer the world an explanation and needs to take appropriate responsibility," he said. "And if that includes apologizing for the behavior of those soldiers and what happened, they ought to do that."
Sorry for the length, but John F Kerry is a man of many, many words.
If I can paraphrase: "George W Bush owes me a soundbite I can use in a campaign ad!"
#15
You guys cheer me up and give me that fighting spirit back!
(I am SO SICK of the Leftist media cluster f*ck over this I could scream...and have! LOL)
Rummy resign? They wish!
And I love our trolls..."murtadd4doo!" ROFL!
Posted by: Jen ||
05/06/2004 11:49 Comments ||
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#16
The Dems and antiwar/antiBush press is about ready to sel-destruct with their overplaying of this. Let them rant, most Americans will acknowledge a couple idiots did wrong, should be punished, but will resent those trying for political advantage using innocent soldiers, marines. Let Kerry, Biden, Hildabeast cry their shrill accusations and demands for pullouts and apologies
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2004 11:57 Comments ||
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#17
The unfortunate thing about Kerry is : Soundbites are rare. The "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." Is lengthwise out of character. Usually, he'll wax verbose, which may be a defense against soundbite cherry-picking. I'd hate to be behind him at a busy Quizno's waiting for him to order a sandwich.
Now with this prisoner thing, he is in extasy with the opportunity to show the world what a vocabulary he has and how long a sentence he can make over sanctimonious pronouncements. He is hoping no one reminds him of his "I am a war criminal" statements in 1971. But, in that case he can accuse the asker of being on the payroll of the RNC.
#18
I guess I am going to be the idiot that says this:
The only benefit to pursuing this matter beyond cashiering the commander and disciplining the troops is Jag officers get to go to bars and claim they prosecuted the bastards that did these horific deeds, so they can get a blowjob from a pushover in DC.
Outside of that, no other purpose can be served.
Doesn't it matter this took place in a war zone and that the commander who lost control of her troops was relieved of command? Iffin' it doesn't it sure as hell should.
Rumsfeld and Bush should tread carefully in pursuing this matter else they will appear as micromanaging as Johnson and MacNamara.
Rumsf
#19
I think President Bushâs approach to handling this fiasco is perfect, and is paying off handsomely on the âArab Street.â Check out the underreported reaction of the Joe Averages of the âArab Street,â as reported by IRAQ THE MODEL blogspot. A severely EFL excerpt:
here we have the president of the greatest nation on earth apologizes for what a small group of pervert soldiers did. . . . These are lessons from the western culture entering the hearts of Arabs, whether the Arab leaders liked or not.
This site shows a picture of George Bush quietly keeping a promise to a wounded soldier. Picture the media circus surrounding Kerry doing this. Character counts
Staff Sergeant Mike McNaughton, Louisiana National Guard, stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan Christmas 2002. President Bush came to visit the wounded in the hospital. He told Mike that when he could run a mile, that they would go on a run together. True to his word, he called Mike every month or so to see how he was doing. Well, last week they went on the run, 1 mile with the president. Not something youâll see in the news, but seeing the president taking the time to say thank you to the wounded and to give hope to one of my best friends was one of the greatest/best things I have seen in my life. It almost sounds like a corny email chain letter, but God bless him.
CPT Justin P. Dodge, MD
Flight Surgeon, 1-2 AVN RGT
Medical Corps, U.S. Army
Posted by: RWV ||
05/06/2004 12:51:50 AM ||
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#1
Win or lose in the fall, I'm going to keep that picture in mind when I think of GWB in the next 10 - 20 years.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2004 1:02 Comments ||
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#2
To a dwindling few, keeping your word actually means something. An even smaller percentage knows when to give it, understanding what is important in this world. In another way, most live down to the lowest common denominator - a few choose their own values, tough-choice values, and then live up to them. Dubya is, indeed, such a man.
The elitists and LLL are so benumbed by their own determined efforts to rip every last shred of decency and "corny" values from the body politic, they will never even see, much less comprehend, the difference.
#3
.Com - you are a pessimist. Folks round here would say worry wart. This here adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan is to spread freedom and some of the ole down home values that made us what we are. It aint done for profit. It's an optimistic adventure to spread freedom, and it aint been done before. In the process, it'll help us here too. Keep your chin up.
#6
Hank is a neo-con but explains things in a down home nutshell.
Posted by: Sam ||
05/06/2004 11:52 Comments ||
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#7
Hank - Yeah, you're right. I definitely know what a worry wart is - lived in Texas about 30 yrs! At the moment I'm not as confident as I was a couple of weeks ago - Fallujah. We'll see how it goes, but I feel very strongly that they have made a serious mistake, there. Najaf, Karbala, Kut, etc - dealing with the Madhi stupidity and Shitstani's constipation - is now looking more encouraging. "Firebrand cleric Al Sadr" - yeah, right, wotta load of shit, eh? I have a saying I think applies to how we conduct ourselves in the WoT in general, but most certainly in how we deal with Arabs: "If you walk around with your hat in your hand, somebody will put your head in it." Corny, just like me... but accurate.
Frank G - Thanx - that's one I'll pass along to the reality-challenged people I know.
Those are two of the best reasons that I'm backing that man, and will be voting for him come November. Economy is important, war on terrorism is important, domestic issues are important. What is more important to me is that the man in those photos is at the front.
This is a man, a father, a husband, a Christian - who happens to be president of the United States. Please tell the cynical media that I don't care if he, "ummm..."s a lot when he's speaking. When it comes time for action, even spontaneous moments like the one that Frank linked us to, there are no "ummm"s in sight. There may be slicker, better coiffed, men out there, but none of them could make the face as genuine as the ones in those photos. They could make the most eloquent public proclamations, but when president Bush was adressing the workers at the world trade center and said that the "ones who did this are going to hear from you also" it sounded like a man who meant it. That's not a president - that's a Leader.
May G-d bless our leader, George W. Bush.
Posted by: Ken ||
05/06/2004 12:16 Comments ||
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EFL. Most of itâs on Chalabi, but first a Lakhdar Brahimi nugget:
[Brahimi] has said that he will do away with the de-Baathification procedures Mr. Chalabi has pushed in the Governing Council. Mr. Brahimi is bargaining with the coalition provisional authority for the right to replace the directors of about 50% of the ministries established in the last year, a request American diplomatic sources say is intended to ice out those ministers and officials loyal to Mr. Chalabi. So Brahimiâll have a free hand to put his--and Stateâs--cocktail party cronies in half the ministries...
Give him a few weeks ...
Meanwhile, on the Chalabi allegations:
A former senior counterterrorism adviser to this White House, General Wayne Downing, said charges that Mr. Chalabi shared secrets with Iran were âpreposterous.â One former administration official familiar with the National Security Council reports told the Sun the reports were an example of âcherry picking.â âAny of the information they are accusing Chalabi of sharing with the Iranians is the kind of stuff they could read in a lot of American newspapers.â this source said. Or Rantburg. OTOH,
Another administration official also familiar with the charges said âChalabi is a schmoozer, he does say things maybe he should not. He knows more than others. I get nervous there." A recently departed adviser to the Pentagon and the Coalition Provisional Authority, Michael Rubin, also dismissed the charges. âThe fact that he is discussing his idea of American strategy with the Iranians is not a big deal,â Mr. Rubin said, adding that that a Sunni member of the council, Adnan Pachachi âhas this kind of discussion with the emirates,and lots of people have this discussion with the Saudis and the Jordanians. Politicians tend to discuss things with their neighbors.â So, pretty much noone on the GC can keep his mouth shut.
Congress has also begun to ask questions about something called the âinformation collection program,â through which the INC receives $340,000 a month for intelligence assistance to the military. While administration officials said the program will likely end this summer, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said three Pentagon officials have evaluated the program and generally the reports were positive.
Posted by: someone ||
05/06/2004 12:49:00 am ||
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Freedom for Iraqis should mean: liberty to act within the confines of American security interests. Otherwise, they can go to hell.
Posted by: Man Bites Dog ||
05/06/2004 3:07 Comments ||
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#2
Troll Sucks Dog - Onanist extraordinare. Use your own sock, sonny, RB isn't the place.
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.
Palestinian leader 
