By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer
A German man who worked as a caterer for Saudi Arabiaâs national airline was shot and killed Saturday by unknown assailants, an Interior Ministry official said. Authorities are investigating whether the attack was a terrorist or a criminal one, the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. The man, who worked for Saudi Arabian Airlines, was shot at a shopping mall on Prince Abdullah Highway, a popular shopping thoroughfare in eastern Riyadh. Police cordoned off the mall and would not let journalists approach. Arab news network Al-Jazeera said the man was shot in the head and body while leaving a shop. It said the attacker, an "unidentified militant," ran away.
The attack came two days after Saudi security forces killed four militants in a shootout north of the capital following a raid in which weapons and explosives-making material were seized. Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a high-profile crackdown on terrorists following attacks in the capital last year. The government says it has foiled dozens of terror attacks in the kingdom since the campaign began. Most of the attacks were blamed on al-Qaida. The most recent terrorist attack in the kingdom, on May 1, targeted the offices of an American energy company in the western city of Yanbu, killing six Westerners and a Saudi.
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The fact he was a german makes me want to say...ALRIGHT!! Nonetheless, he's one of God's children, so I say, AWWW! what a shame.
The saudis are fighting nobody but us, the U.S.A. It's as simple as the nod of a head for prince bandar al dickhead, to have a neighborhood blown up, in a phony terrorist attack, and have some homeless asshole muslim bastard shot all to hell by saudi "security forces" as a supposed, "terrorist mastermind", trying to test the will of the saudi royal assholes.
saudis haven't "foiled" a goddamn thing. They've spawned it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Halfass Pete ||
05/22/2004 17:00 Comments ||
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"Plainclothes policemen were inspecting the victimâs dark 1988 Lincoln Town Car.
According to bystanders, the German was a sympathizer with the Arab cause. As the body was taken away in a Red Crescent ambulance around 8.30 p.m., one witness noticed a tattoo on Benglerâs arm proclaiming, âAl-Quds is freeâ.
No motive for the attack has been established."
Expecto to read tomorrow that the German was killed by the CIA or the Mossad. Notice how they (saudis) are already dropping "clues."
A Linconl Car = American
Tatoo saying free Al-Quds = he sympathized with the arabs so the Israeli (Mossad backed by the CIA, of course) wanted to kill him.
No motive has been established = they are fine-tuning the lie.
Two people were injured when police and armed guards protecting an Islamic leader exchanged fire in the southern Yemeni province of Abayn yesterday, witnesses said. The firefight erupted when security forces tried to storm the house of Sheikh Tariq Al Fadhli, an influential Islamic leader and member of the ruling GPC party, to arrest fugitives believed to be hiding there, the witness said. The shooting continued for over 30 minutes, a witness told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. He said two people were injured and rushed to hospital. Residents said security forces cordoned the house and called on armed men to surrender.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/22/2004 10:34:55 AM ||
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Bahrainis protest against US; set police car afire
From Hemu Gorde (Our correspondent)
22 May 2004
MANAMA - "More than 10,000 people took part here yesterday in an anti-US, anti-Israel demonstration in Seef area that took violent turn, injuring people and the police as well causing a wide-ranging damages to government and private properties.
The police were forced to fire tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the unruly crowd that shouted slogans such as "Death to the US", "Death to Israel" and "With our blood we will protect the people of Iraq and Palestine".
The Arab News and the Gulf Daily say that the crowd was about 5000. 5000 or 10,000 it does not matter. They are all assholes and I am sick of all their bullshit. I wish, they will really start attacking in full force so we can retaliate and finish them all, once and for all.
Yeah, Unger's a lefty with an axe to grind. But this just goes to show you that the Wahhabi lobby is by no means inactive on the other side of the pond.
"House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties" (Scribner), Craig Unger's book about the tangled connections between President Bush and his circle and Saudi Arabia's royal family, became a best seller in the United States this spring, and is now being published in Germany, Spain and Brazil, among other places. But it is not for sale in Britain. Earlier this year, Mr. Unger's book became the latest casualty of Britain's tough libel laws when his British publisher, Secker & Warburg, canceled publication, saying that it was afraid of being sued. British publishing has long been notoriously hamstrung by the country's libel laws, which place the burden of proof on the defendant and often make it prohibitively difficult for authors to win their cases if they are sued. But what is causing particular consternation in publishing and legal circles now is that Mr. Unger's case may be yet another example of how wealthy Saudis are increasingly using British laws to intimidate critics. "Some Saudis appear to be using the U.K. as a back door to silence their critics and repress free speech by threatening litigation, persuading publishers to back down rather then face years of expensive litigation â even if what they're publishing might in fact be true," said Trevor Asserson, who specializes in defamation in the London law office of Morgan Lewis & Bockius.
One of Mr. Asserson's clients, Rachel Ehrenfeld, had a British deal to distribute her new book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It" (Bonus Books), canceled because of a legal threat by one of the Saudis she wrote about. Mr. Asserson declined to reveal who that person was. In the mid-1990's, Charles Glass, an ABC reporter who spent a decade as the network's chief Middle East correspondent, tried to interest British publishers in a book about Saudi Arabia and the corrupting influence of its royal family, but was turned down on libel grounds. "One publisher called me later, very embarrassed, and said that the legal people would not take the risk," Mr. Glass said in an interview.
With Mr. Unger's book, the publishers admitted they were worried about a possible lawsuit from one of the deep-pocketed Saudis who were mentioned, even though none explicitly made such threats. Lawyers say these plaintiffs are doing what is called in the libel business "forum shopping" â bringing their cases in Britain because they know they will be unlikely to win in the United States or other more media-friendly jurisdictions. That is not the case, say lawyers who have represented Saudis. Regardless, the Saudis have had good results lately in British courts. Several months ago, the High Court ruled against the European edition of The Wall Street Journal in a case involving a 2002 article reporting that Saudi authorities were monitoring some 150 bank accounts for possible links to terrorism. Two of the suspect accounts, The Journal reported, were maintained by Mohammed Jameel, a prominent Saudi businessman, based in Jedda. Mr. Jameel sued and won.
Less than a month later, The Mail on Sunday, in London, settled a libel case with another Saudi businessman, Khalid bin Mahfouz, whom it had accused in a 2002 article of helping finance terrorist activities. The newspaper agreed not only to print an abject apology saying that most of the claims in its article were completely wrong, but also to pay a substantial sum to a charity chosen by Mr. Bin Mahfouz. "Mr. Bin Mahfouz is a well-known libel plaintiff in Britain â he has successfully concluded two libel suits in recent years and is currently involved in two more â and is mentioned in Mr. Unger's book, among a host of other people. Official allegations against him are well known. In Oct. 2001, for instance, the United States Treasury Department described a charity controlled by him as "an Al Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen." Mr. Bin Mahfouz's litigiousness is seen by people familiar with the discussions around Mr. Unger's book as a chief reason why Secker & Warburg decided not to publish it.
In an interview, Mr. Unger mentioned Mr. Bin Mahfouz as someone whose tendency to sue may have had a chilling effect on Secker & Warburg, but he defended his reporting. "It's not as if I'm going after Mr. Bin Mahfouz in any particular way," Mr. Unger said. "There are specific allegations that have been made against him by the American authorities." Laurence Harris, a partner at Kendall Freeman, which represents Mr. Bin Mahfouz in Britain, said that his client had sued in British courts because of his ties to the country. "There is a substantial connection between my client and his family and this country," Mr. Harris said. "They have homes and businesses here, and their reputation is very important to them." He rejected claims that Mr. Bin Mahfouz was opportunistically taking advantage of the British libel laws. "It's wrong to categorize my client as someone who's lying in wait for any unsuspecting publisher to slip his name into a book so he can sue," Mr. Harris said. "But it's perfectly true that we've been active here in making sure that when people write things that aren't fair, we've worked to get them corrected or to bring legal proceedings." He also said that Mr. Bin Mahfouz had never threatened to sue Mr. Unger and that "House of Saud," in fact, quotes Cherif Sedky, Mr. Bin Mahfouz's chief legal adviser, at length as denying any connection to terrorism. "The publications we've brought proceedings against are all ones where we were not consulted before publication," he said.
Libel laws in the United States and Britain are almost mirror images. In the United States, the person bringing the case has to prove not only that what was reported was false, but also that the publisher was at fault. In Britain, the burden falls the other way. The published statements are presumed to be false, and to win, the defendant has to prove that what was said is true. People accused of having ties to Irish Republican terrorism used to sue quite readily, and quite successfully, because witnesses were so unwilling to come forward, said Martin Soames, a media litigation lawyer at the British firm DLA. "You wouldn't get a line of men in balaclavas saying, `Yes, I was with him when he planted the bomb,' " he said. The same holds true for the Saudis, he added. "The hot allegation at the moment is the connection to Al Qaeda funding," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:17:37 AM ||
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*Tap . . . tap . . .*
Still broken. Fred, know any good surprise meter repairmen?
Posted by: The Doctor ||
05/22/2004 18:42 Comments ||
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North Korea agreed Saturday to release the family members of Japanese citizens kidnapped by Northern agents, and Japan pledged aid to the impoverished country at a summit between the two nationsâ leaders. Kim and Koizumi greeted each other in front of the summit room with a simple handshake. "I believe it is a good thing that you have returned and I welcome you," Kim said as they met. Koizumi bowed slightly and answered "I am fine," when Kim inquired about his health.
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Fred. Sorry about that. I haven't quite figured out how to paste in pictures. For those who are interested, the picture can be found at http://marmot.blogs.com/korea/
A Phillipino alleged to be an international terrorist "lying low" when arrested in Belfast last January was refused bail in the High Court yesterday. Jaybe Ofrasio, 31, was alleged to have sent e-mails from Falls Road library about the funding of terrorist training camps in the Philippines. His e-mail username `Moroblade` was detected on a computer in Indonesia after the arrest of Mohammed Nasir bin Abbas, a leader of Jemaah Islamiya - a paramilitary organisation said to be linked to Al-Qaeda. Ofrasio has been in custody since his arrest at Hawthorn Street, Falls Road, Belfast. He is accused of making money and property available to terrorists. His bail application had been adjourned until yesterday so that his lawyers could inspect - but not copy - secret CIA intelligence documents, now in the hands of the PSNI.
Barry Macdonald, QC, said while they had seen the documents on Wednesday the prosecution did not appear to have permission to use them as evidence. It could take months before the American authorities gave permission, he said, and in the meantime Ofrasio was being held in custody when there was no evidence against him. Mr Macdonald said that even if the court came to the conclusion that Ofrasio was `Moroblade` he was still entitled to bail pending his trial. Stephen Fowler, for the Crown, said steps were being taken to get permission from the American authorities and added: "We have been informed that the documents will be made available." He said the documents related to various financial transactions between Ofrasio and Abbas "as a result of which money would be available to terrorists and for terrorist training camps."
Mr Fowler said another e-mail indicated that Ofrasio was aware that his property in Cotabato City in the Philippines was being used by terrorists. He said Ofrasio had received an e-mail instructing him how to avoid detection by not drawing attention to himself in the locality where he was staying and telling him "how to disappear." "He was an Islamic radical lying low in Belfast when he was arrested," it was alleged at a previous hearing. Mr Fowler said Ofrasio got married in 2001 to a nurse working in Belfast`s Royal Victoria Hospital but subsequently spent two years in Saudi Arabia without her. "There is very serious concern about him turning up for his trial if he was released on bail," said Mr Fowler. Mr Justice Weatherup said he could not be satisfied that Ofrasio would not abscond and refused bail.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/22/2004 12:35:20 AM ||
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As someone who has more than a passing familiarity with the IRA and their methods. I constantly struck by what incompetent fuckwits the Islamozoids are. Looks to me like Ofrasio was recruiting 'foreign talent'.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/22/2004 6:02 Comments ||
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Yes Phil B. Belfast seems to have taken on a different international flavor since I was there in the 80s and early 90s.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 13:24 Comments ||
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Spanish police have named an Algerian they suspect of taking part in commuter train attacks that killed 191 people in Madrid on 11 March. Police on Thursday identified the man as Uhnane Daud and said he was not in custody. They said they had found fingerprints on a plastic bag containing seven detonators found in a van outside a station where the bombers were believed to have boarded the trains. A police spokeswoman said the Algerian had legal residency in Spain and therefore would have given his fingerprints to authorities when he was applying for it. She said his record showed three past offences under immigration law.
Meanwhile, one of the prime suspects has been charged with belonging to al-Qaida's Spanish cell. The suspect, Said Berraj, from Morocco, was previously identified by another judge as a central figure in the Madrid train blasts. Spanish police say their train bombing investigation points to a group of mostly Moroccan Islamists, operating in the name of al-Qaida.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:29:41 AM ||
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.... Testifying for the defense Wednesday, Rodney Johnson told jurors that moments before the bombing he had to swerve his catering truck to avoid hitting two men who hurried together away from the building. He identified one of them as McVeigh. But John Hippard, a retired FBI agent who interviewed Johnson two days after the April 19, 1995, bombing, said Johnson could not positively identify either of the figures at the time. His descriptions of their clothing also differed from his testimony, he said.
Three days after the bombing, Hippard also interviewed Dena Hunt, a service technician for the Oklahoma City Police Department who said she saw McVeigh and one or two other people in a Ryder truck a few blocks from the federal building about 30 minutes before the explosion. At the time, Hippard said, she could not positively identify McVeigh but said the man she saw resembled him.
William Franklin Holdson testified he drove a Ryder truck through downtown Oklahoma City and parked it just one block away from the federal building on the morning of the deadly blast. Holdson, who managed a production crew for a merchandising company at the time, was questioned to help explain why defense witnesses reported seeing a Ryder truck in various parts of the city on the morning of the bombing.
Prosecutors also called a defense witness, Joan Rairden, back to the witness stand. Rairden, an assistant manager at a McDonaldâs restaurant in Junction City, Kan., in 1995, testified two weeks ago that McVeigh came into the restaurant on April 13 or 14, 1995, with a group of other people, including a dark-skinned man with slicked-back black hair. On Thursday, Rairden said McVeigh does not appear on security videotapes of the restaurant on those dates, but that she still believes he was there. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 8:52:59 AM ||
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Are we going to see more evidence of the third bomber? Most likely a member of Saddam's Unit 999, which was tasked with foreign espionage activities.
Most of this evidence was suppressed or ignored, because Slick WIlly wanted to blame the militia movement, talk radio, republicans, gun owners and other people who the Clintons did not like.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono ||
05/22/2004 11:34 Comments ||
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Not sure what to make of this
Shortly after moving to Washington from Rome â weâre talking late Seventies â I did a long interview with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan about the Carter administrationâs foreign policy. At a certain point, Moynihan elegantly summarized what had happened to us: "being unable to distinguish between our friends and our enemies," he said, "Carter has adopted our enemiesâ view of the world." So, it seems have many of our policymakers in their panicky and incoherent decisions regarding Iraq.
First, the matter of the "abuses" of the prisoners. Maybe the temperature of the rhetoric has cooled enough for us to address the most important aspect of the debacle: Torture and abuse are not only wrong and disgusting. They are stupid and counterproductive. A person under torture will provide whatever statements he believes will end the pain. Therefore, the "information" he provides is fundamentally unreliable. He is not responding to questions; 99 percent of the time, heâs just trying to figure out what he has to say in order to end his suffering. All those who approved these methods should be fired, above all because they are incompetent to collect intelligence.
Torture, and the belief in its efficacy, are the way our enemies think. And remember that our enemies, the tyrants of the 20th century, and the jihadis we are fighting now, are the representatives of failed cultures. Our greatness derives from the superiority of our culture, and we should, as the sports metaphor goes, stick with what got us here.
Second, our defeat in Fallujah. I had hoped that the tactic of enlisting Sunni leaders to assist in the defeat of the jihadis would accelerate the terroristsâ defeat and enable us to round them up and clean out the city. But it turns out that it wasnât a tactic at all; it was a strategic retreat. Today, throughout the region, everybody knows that the bad guys outlasted us. We were forced out. The Sunni generals (the first of which, unforgivably, was one of Saddamâs henchmen) just told everyone to cool it for a while, and the bad guys are now reorganizing for the next assault. Instead of smashing the terrorists, we set ourselves up for more casualties.
Worse yet, some of the crackpot realists in our military and their exhausted civilian commanders in State and Defense, have convinced themselves that this is the way to go, and they are now whispering to one another that we should adopt "the Fallujah model" in future engagements.
If that holds, then we have lost. Because it means that we have surrendered the initiative to the terrorists and will not destroy them in future engagements. That adds up to actively encouraging the enemy to attack us.
Third, is the decision to launch a preemptive strike against Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Our enemies â religious fanatics and other advocates of tyranny â have long dreaded the emergence of an Iraqi leader with unquestioned democratic convictions, someone at once deeply religious and yet committed to the separation of mosque and state. Yet the State Departmentâs and the CIAâs Middle East gangs have hated him and fought him for more than a decade, because he is independent and while he is happy to work with them, he will not work for them. Moreover, he has often proved more knowledgeable, as when, in the mid-Nineties, he informed CIA that one of their fatuous little coup plots had been infiltrated by Saddamâs agents. They laughed at him, but not for long. Soon thereafter an Iraqi intelligence officer called the CIA man in charge of the operation on his "secret" cell-phone number to say "listen carefully and youâll hear the final screams of your coup leader."
I am not sure if CPA â including State and CIA officials â has spent more man hours fighting Chalabi than fighting Moqtada al Sadr, but itâs probably pretty close, and in any event somebody should ask Viceroy Bremer why he massed so much firepower to break into Chalabiâs house and Kanan Makiyaâs house, and the offices of the INC, instead of doing the same to Moqtada, who at last account was still free to mobilize the masses of his faithful to kill us. Is this not proof positive of the total inversion of sound judgment of which Moynihan spoke so elegantly a quarter-century ago?
Now the usual unnamed intelligence sources are whispering to their favorite journalists that they have a "rock-solid case" showing that Chalabi was in cahoots with the Iranians. This, coming the same crowd that told President Bush they had a "slam-dunk case" on Iraqi WMDs, should arouse skepticism from any experienced journalist, but it doesnât (another grim sign that confusion reigns supreme in Washington these days). Itâs a truly paradoxically accusation, since the refusal of the American government to provide Chalabi with support and protection for the past decade is what drove him to find a modus vivendi with Tehran in the first place. And Chalabi is not alone in dealing with the Iranians and their representatives in Iraq; it is hard to find any serious organization or any serious leader of any stripe â Kurdish, Shiite or Sunni, imam, mullah, or Ayatollah â who doesnât work with the Iranians. How could it be otherwise? We have shown no capacity to defend them against Iranian-supported terrorists. And terror works. Finally, itâs hilarious to see this crowd of diplomats and intelligence officers attacking an Iraqi for talking too much to Iranians, when Powellâs State Department and Tenetâs CIA has been meeting with Iranians for years.
As I once wrote, the war against Saddam is nothing compared to the war against Ahmed Chalabi.
All of this is the inevitable result of the fundamental misunderstanding of the war against the terror masters. It is a regional war, not a war limited to a single country. Since we refuse to admit this, we are unable to design an effective strategy to win. Deceiving ourselves, we lie to the mirror, saying that defeats are really victories, that Baathists are our friends and independent minded Shiites are our enemies, and that appeasement of the mullahs will end their long war against the United States.
Has anyone told the president?
Posted by: tipper ||
05/22/2004 8:16:51 AM ||
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Bremer and the CPA have a Keystone Kops side that shows itself more as the June 30 date approaches. They have been fairly good in the reconstruction work but mostly inept at political understanding. Sounds like they need to be pulled out and a fresh hand dealt.
Posted by: Billy Hank ||
05/23/2004 8:27 Comments ||
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No link yet, so posting it all Summary
Al Qaeda likely has a number of sleeper cells still embedded in the United States, and logic dictates that Houston, Texas, is high on their target list.
Analysis
In our last Terrorism Intelligence Weekly, Stratfor discussed improvements in intelligence-gathering efforts that have aided the ability of Western governments to predict or pre-empt attacks. At the same time, however, the threat within the continental United States -- where al Qaeda is likely to attempt a major strike before the presidential elections -- also has intensified. Logic dictates that Washington, New York, Dallas, Houston or Austin, Texas, could be targeted in an attack that quite possibly would involve a "dirty bomb." Continuing with this line of reasoning, Houston appears to be the most likely target.
Sleeper Cell Tactics
Concerns over the safety of U.S. citizens are legitimate. Well- placed U.S. government counterterrorism sources have confirmed the presence of al Qaeda "sleeper cells" within the country. Although it is not known how many cells could be in place, intelligence indicates that militant operatives are in place, to be deployed for the next Sept. 11- or Madrid-style attacks. Analysis leads us to believe that a cell could be in place in Houston.
Sleeper cells are difficult to ferret out -- with profiles that do not differ greatly from those of the rest of the public. Like the Sept. 11 attackers, militant operatives do not hesitate to violate Islamic custom by shaving, dressing and behaving so as to blend into their temporary communities. As a group, they are overwhelmingly male, they are typically physically fit, and they often practice martial arts -- sometimes in formal school settings. Their identities may be false, but not always. However, it is their actions -- not their appearance, ethnicity or religion -- that can expose sleeper cells and help intelligence and law enforcement agencies to disrupt attacks.
First, these militant units are not totally independent: Courier services are used to send money and orders to operatives, whose leaders frequently have had contact with members of other cells. If one operative is arrested, pocket litter and phone records can lead authorities to other cells. And there certainly are opportunities for arrests. Sleeper cells fund some of their activities through credit card and financial fraud, and members often use false identification documents. Elements of these crimes are much easier than terrorism charges to prove in court, which gives police and federal officials some traction in disrupting attack planning. Other activities also provide clues: The premier example, of course, is that the Sept. 11 team had to learn how to fly airplanes -- but more universally, virtually all terrorist attacks follow a period of eyes-on surveillance of the target.
At the tactical level, counterterrorism experts have observed that members of al Qaedaâs sleeper cells carry out many duties within their units -- which increases the chances that an arrest could throw off a planned attack. For example, analysis of past attacks has revealed that the same members tasked with carrying out preoperational surveillance for a strike also work on the logistics and attack teams. Operationally, this places them at greater risk than groups who use highly trained, specialized cells for each function. Moreover, a study of past al Qaeda attacks and training manuals reveals that the group carries out extensive preoperational surveillance. This renders militants vulnerable to detection by countersurveillance teams, who could trail them back to the rest of their cells -- the bomb-makers and attack teams. For intelligence and law enforcement agencies, this is the best time to pre-empt a terrorist attack: If one militant can be caught conducting preoperational surveillance, the entire cell can be uncovered and destroyed. In the two-and-a-half years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the efforts of the FBI and CIA to root out these cells have paid dividends. FBI Director Robert Mueller asserts that federal officials have disrupted dozens of planned attacks, and sleeper agents have been uncovered and deported. However, we do not believe that all of al Qaedaâs sleeper cells have been identified or crippled. In addition to pre-existing cells, al Qaeda also has had plenty of time to infiltrate more operatives into the United States.
In the span since Sept. 11, al Qaeda also has had opportunities to conduct surveillance of its next target, plan out the attack and fine-tune operational details. In the past, al Qaeda attacks have occurred at a particular pace: Stratfor on several occasions has noted a two- to three-year span between major actions by "al Qaeda prime," interspersed with numerous, smaller strikes that likely are carried out by affiliated groups, with or without al Qaedaâs support. Within those operations, there also are predictable patterns of activity. The pre-operational surveillance period is the most effective phase in which to interrupt an attack -- but few law enforcement and corporate security agencies have the expertise to take advantage of this weakness.
Why Houston -- and How?
For the next major al Qaeda strike, preoperational surveillance is likely under way. The timing for an attack within the United States is nearly perfect: while Americans are engrossed with Iraq, presidential politics and the rising price of oil. Logic dictates that cells are in place and awaiting a signal to act; as in the recent attack in the Saudi city of Yanbu, operatives could have had time to infiltrate the potential target, observing the lay of the land and the routines of security forces. Although Stratfor believes that strikes could be carried out against multiple targets of opportunity, certain factors -- including time and al Qaedaâs targeting criteria -- lead us to conclude that Houston, Texas, is near the top of the list. Not only is it home to much of the nationâs oil infrastructure, which carries significant economic implications, but it also is a city of 5 million people -- and the home of former President George H.W. Bush. A strike here would lend a personal nature to the attack that would send a clear message across the desk of President George W. Bush.
In our view, the strike would be sophisticated and spectacular. It likely would involve either a dirty bomb deployed within the city, or a conventional attack against oil infrastructure, carried out on the scale of Sept. 11. In this case, we believe a truck bomb is the most likely delivery mechanism -- perhaps a stolen delivery van, helping to mask the driverâs intentions. This scenario was discussed by a sleeper cell in New York City before the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, and al Qaeda has shown a tendency to return to previous attack plans. The assailants might use a ramming car to break through perimeter fences while either shooting or running over security guards. However, it also is feasible that they could use legitimate company identification cards in order to slip past the guards. Once near the target, the explosive would be detonated, killing the attack team. A truck bombing would succeed in taking out only a small portion of an oil complex, whereas a stolen or hijacked airplane could cause much greater damage. At an oil processing facility, this type of strike would have a psychological impact on the American public -- creating a smoky explosion that would be broadcast far and wide.
Strikes against supertankers also are plausible. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden recognize that oil drives the U.S. economy. Returning again to proven tactics, they could choose to strike at platforms in the Houston Ship Channel -- much like the successful strikes against the French tanker Limburg and the USS Cole, and the failed attempt against the USS The Sullivans. This scenario is a classic asymmetrical operation: The sleeper cell, roused to activity, will operate as a military unit and will overcome the immediate response by police or security forces. A short time is all the militants will need. Because it is asymmetrical, the strike will target and overcome security forces at their weakest point. It would be over before a strong response could be mounted.
This forecast is not cheerful, but if corporate security forces can learn new skills -- quickly -- that allow them to disrupt attacks early in the surveillance stage, this outcome could be thwarted.
Posted by: tipper ||
05/22/2004 2:49:05 AM ||
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3 questions for the knowledgeable and/or pundits (that's meant as a compliment):
- Does anyone has the slightest idea of how the USA would/should respond to a non-conventionnal attack such as a dirty bomb?
- In case of an attack on Us soil, especially if major or non-conventionnal, how would that affect US political life? (ie would that be the deathblow to GWB, would that force Kerry to change his approcach on WOT, etc, etc...?)
- How would the international community (Tm) react to such an attack, especially EU, given the level of anti-americanism going on here? (And subsidiary question : would you care?) Just to indicate the level on hatred & resentment toward the US in genral and GWB in particular, it suffices to say that Moore's "Farenheit 911" is one of the favorites for la palme d'or at the Cannes film festival.
Posted by: Evert V. in NL ||
05/22/2004 7:51 Comments ||
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The lefties and Mike Moores of this earth would be so keen too see this happen they'd probably openly celebrate such an attack. I can see the headlines on the next days copy of Al Gaurdian now 'George Bush Caused this', watch them revell over the death totaliser.Its gonna be another one of those excuses too set up commisions and inquirys and all sorts of other crap after too to try and pin the blame on someone while all the time the media ignore those who actually carried out the attack,we will also of course see Arab media personalitys trying to explain to us westerners that we have to alter our ways if we want to stop this sort of thing happening again. Esentially its all our fault. :(
Posted by: Shep UK ||
05/22/2004 7:59 Comments ||
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1) Off comes the gloves, here and in Iraq and elsewhere.
2) No idea.
3) As they always have -- The USA had it coming since it reacted to the first attack militarily and 'unilaterally.' No.
#6
Not to suggest there's no risk of such an attack, but . . . has Stratfor ever been right about anything since 9/11?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/22/2004 8:18 Comments ||
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#7
1) I agree, the gloves are off at that point but the source of the material used in the attack would dictate the available responses. For example, if the source were a Russian criminal enterprise you might well see increased cooperation between the US and Russia as political showmanship is pushed to the back burner in favor of a more direct reseponse to Islamistfascist terrorism. On the other hand, if the source were Iranian you might well see a non-conventional response against portions of that nation's nuclear program. The options are simply too wide and varied to account for completely here.
2) We're split almost evenly as a nation right now. Any attack on US soil will push political dialogue and the electorate to the right. The Democrats lost the majority's confidence on national defense during the Viet Nam era and have never recovered. A hypothetical large pre-election attack puts Bush back in the White House in a landslide.
3) I don't care what the international community's opinion is today and I won't care in the future. The goal of the Islamofascists is the destruction of western civilization. They began the war, they are continuing the war, and they will escalate the war until either we, or they, perish. The international community seeks to maintain an unacceptable status quo in which the borders of nation states that sponsor ever-more-violent Islamofascist terrorism are sacrosanct, thus their opinion is irrelevant. If the international community wishes to become relevant to US opinion again, they need to stop mouthing platitudes and proceed with action against nation states that sponsor Islamoascist terrorism.
#8
AzCat saved me the trouble of writing out my thoughts.
One prediction: If/when there is another attack within the U.S., CAIR and the Arab community both here and abroad will immediately begin whining about their fears of retribution and their loss of freedom before the dust even settles AND before we even confirm who did it.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 10:20 Comments ||
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#9
has Stratfor ever been right about anything since 9/11?
Yes. They correctly assessed idiot market in the US.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/22/2004 10:31 Comments ||
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#11
I hate to say this but maybe an attack is what is going to save the country. America has a very large Muslim-American fifth (americans by birth and naturalized ones) column that, if it is not taken care of soon, it will destroy the country from within. Here in Saudi Arabia, we have hundreds of muslims who carry american passports who will like nothing better than to see the US destroyed, even if it means their own destruction. These people stupidity is bottomless!
#12
In the case of a dirty bomb, it's possible not many people would die, depending on the size of the conventional explosive used, you would just have lots of people evacuating the affected area. The initial shock wouldn't be as great as 9/11, and the realization of what had happened would only set in slowly as people realized that no one was going to be allowed back to the evacuated area, as happened in Chernobyl area. It is unlikely that anyone other than Al Qaeda or its affiliates would do something like this, and we are already pursuing those folks at a high tempo, so I am not sure what more could be done by way of retaliation. There would probably be increased pressure on the Prez to step up the tempo in the WoT. I think it would affect Kerry's campaign negatively more than Bush's. Nothing would change in the Europeans' generally negative view of us. I was in Europe shortly after 9/11, and heard lots of whining about Bush even then, long before the Iraq war. The European attitude is a longstanding psychosis, going back decades, as I observed first hand over there in the early 60's.
#13
If the Oleolympics gets seriously attacked this summer, and the EU does not hit the problem head on, then Madrid-sytle capitulation will accellerate and Europe is lost. It will be an interesting summer and fall. The civilized world better watch its collective six.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 13:34 Comments ||
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#14
One measley bomb at a chemical plant ain't shit. There was a huge explosion down there a few months ago & nobody blinked an eye.
#16
My gut instinct is that if Al Queda could have attacked the US they would have long ago. They've made big noises about attacks and then nothing happens. I think what they have managed to do is determine how to up the chatter levels and lay false clues to spread terror where they cannot.
#17
- Does anyone has the slightest idea of how the USA would/should respond to a non-conventionnal attack such as a dirty bomb?
The US would attack to a non-conventional attack the same as we would to a conventional attack. We wouldn't go nuclear but we would see a sudden stop to the harrassment of the President as he tries to fight the war. You might see war bonds appearing to help pay for the war and you might see some serious pressure applied by the American street upon Bush to do something about Saudis, and immigration, and oil in general. I would also expect formal declarations of war against Syria and Iran. - In case of an attack on Us soil, especially if major or non-conventionnal, how would that affect US political life? (ie would that be the deathblow to GWB, would that force Kerry to change his approcach on WOT, etc, etc...?)
GWB would win in a landslide after an attack on US soil and most blame would be placed on those that have tried to hamper the war effort in one way or another. - How would the international community (Tm) react to such an attack, especially EU, given the level of anti-americanism going on here? (And subsidiary question : would you care?) Just to indicate the level on hatred & resentment toward the US in genral and GWB in particular, it suffices to say that Moore's "Farenheit 911" is one of the favorites for la palme d'or at the Cannes film festival.
Those in charge of Europe have helped America's war on terror from an intel and police point of view, that would continue. Europe wouldn't help us militarily but they would help us politically in the UN, and by sanctions on anyone that was found to be supporting whomever planned the attack which is really all we ask. They may help out in Iraq with peacekeepers if things are quiet there by then.
#19
If they really want to cause serious trouble, the attack will come on West Coast harbors. You can count the number of good harbors on the Pacific coast on one hand and have fingers left over. Blow up a tanker and shut down shipping in LA or the Bay for a month or two and watch the economy tank.
#20
Yeah. This one is pretty simple. Islam is going to attack us again on the homeland. We will begin eviscerating muslim cities until Islam is beyond any doubt, standing down/made completely incapable of functioning let alone making war. It is sad, but the muslim suicide murder-bomber is but a microcosm to the macro muslim death spiral. Islam seems to be wearing a bomb vest, and the #11 bus is pulling up. I hope the bus isn't packed when islam blows.
We know conclusively that the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal is as phony as a Bill Clinton sex denial because there are no calls for the resignation of the one individual most responsible for the abuses. That would be the officer in charge of Abu Ghraib and all U.S. military prisons in Iraq, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski. And why have there been no calls for her resignation? Letâs be honest. It is because she is a woman. Thus the frightening lesson of the abuse scandal: Political correctness trumps national security, even in wartime.
Yes, Democratic demagogues are willing to sacrifice Americaâs national security, to trash the morale and honor of American soldiers risking their lives in Iraq and lose the war on terrorism in order to defeat President Bush in November, so they use the abuse scandal as an excuse to go after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. But be assured that if Gen. Karpinski was a man, demands for his accountability would be loud and clear. It would be expected that if Gen. Karpinski were a man, he would have taken those demands like a man. But Gen. Karpinski is not and so has not. She has taken them like a woman â whining, making excuses and complaining that itâs not her fault, that sheâs being "scapegoated." I am waiting for feminists, or any woman who is simply proud of being female, to denounce Janis Karpinski as reinforcing the negative stereotype of women unable to accept responsibility and humiliating her gender worse than were the Abu Ghraib prisoners under her jurisdiction.
In fact, we owe the entire Abu Ghraib scandal to the leadership failure and gross incompetence of Janis Karpinski and to her superiorsâ fear of doing anything about her ineptitude because she is a woman. She should have been relieved of her command last summer but was not. Near the town of Mahawil in southern Iraq, U.S. Marines uncovered a mass gravesite holding the remains of some 15,000 Iraqis. They were slaughtered for taking part in the Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s. Saddamâs agent responsible for conducting the mass killings was Mohammed Jawad Anayfas; the grave site is on land owned by him. In July 2003, Mr. Anayfas was captured by U.S. forces and turned over to the Military Police Brigade under Gen. Karpinskiâs command. The Brigade Headquarters managed to lose his paperwork. So instead of contacting her superiors, Gen. Karpinski ordered Mr. Anayfas set free. Soon thereafter, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz came to Iraq and visited the Mahawil gravesite, where he was informed by Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway how outraged the local Iraqis were over Mr. Anayfasâ release. Visibly upset, Mr. Wolfowitz vowed Mr. Anayfas would be recaptured and tried as a war criminal. Mr. Anayfas is still at large, and Gen. Karpinski received no reprimand.
When confronted by the Iraqi public outcry for Mr. Anayfas â only one of several war criminals whose paperwork was lost that she released â Gen. Karpinski proceeded to evade responsibility and fabricated an entire string of deceptive excuses â just like she is doing now. Mr. Wolfowitz knew of Gen. Karpinskiâs incompetence and evasion of responsibility last summer â and did nothing. Even he lacks the courage to question the political correctness of feminizing the American military. Such feminization is epitomized by Lynndie "they told me to hold the leash" England, the Army private happily smiling in the infamous photos and pointing to a prisonerâs exposed genitals. She, too, has hired lawyers who loudly declare sheâs just an innocent "farm girl" and nothing but a "scapegoat." No more than Gen. Karpinski is she willing to accept responsibility for her actions. In his investigation of the abuses, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba recommended that Gen. Karpinski be relieved of her command. Even though she received a letter of admonishment from Joint Task Force-7 Commander Ricardo Sanchez, she has only been suspended from her command, not relieved.
The true scandal of Abu Ghraib is the unwillingness of the female military personnel involved to do a mea culpa. If there is any vast conspiracy on the part of their superior officers, it is not to "scapegoat" them, but to refuse to treat them as men, as accountable and responsible as men. Mr. Rumsfeld stood straight up to the world and accepted responsibility for Abu Ghraib. He took it like a man. War is not womanâs work. It is manâs work â not because men are more brutal or stronger, but because they can endure the stresses of combat and be accountable for the failures those stresses inevitably create. They donât whine, deviously evade, blame others, make up excuses and whimper, "Itâs not my fault!" If they do, they are despised and looked upon with contempt by their male comrades. Gen. Janis Karpinksi deserves Americaâs contempt. She deserves to be court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. If she wishes to regain some small measure of respect from her fellow citizens â and her own self-respect â she needs to stand up, accept her responsibility and take it like a man.
Posted by: tipper ||
05/22/2004 2:42:18 AM ||
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Amen..
Posted by: Halfass Pete ||
05/22/2004 3:04 Comments ||
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#2
I'll second that.
Posted by: Evert V. in NL ||
05/22/2004 3:56 Comments ||
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#3
I am a former Infantry Company Comander in the US Army. I agree that some "green tab" officer heads should roll.
But - in everything I have read and seen about this mess, I have yet to EVER hear a call for holding accountable the two people that I would expect to see raked over the coals - the Company First Sergeant, and the Battalion CSM. These individuals were either lazy beyond belief -"retired on active duty", or totally gutless NCO's who should have been summarily busted.
Commanders are responsible for everything -including mission accomplishement and discipline. The senior NCO's are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to maintaining discipline - and for ensuring that troops down to the snuffy level are trained.
I am continually flabbergasted that the low end - up to maybe Staff Sergeant - and the high end -all the way up to General Officers and the Secretary of Defense - are being hounded ruthlessly, and NO ONE is mentioning the responsibilities that were digracefully abrogated by the 1SG and CSM in this scenario.
#4
This article is stupid from these sentences forward:
We know conclusively that the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal is as phony as a Bill Clinton sex denial because there are no calls for the resignation of the one individual most responsible for the abuses. That would be the officer in charge of Abu Ghraib and all U.S. military prisons in Iraq, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 8:18 Comments ||
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#5
Lone Ranger, let me give you an Amen! And from there to the company commanders, and on up--from all reports the entire BN was hosed up. Karpinski was incompetent on an entirely different level, probably had clue until the CID showed up at her door, and that is unforgiveable in a facility commander.
#6
I guess I must differ in opinion on what to do with Karpinski.
Karpinski's crime was one of incompetence. She allowed a military unit to get out of control. That is a bad deal in a war zone regardless of whether you are commanding a combat unit or not. Allegations of abuse notwithstanding, losing control of your unit is the most serious element of this entire story.
Karpinski's commanders removed her from her command, as they should have, and unless it can be shown she knew about the abuses and did nothing, that should be the end of the matter for her and for the USA.
#7
She was removed from her post, wasn't she? Hard for her to resign from a position she doesn't hold.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/22/2004 8:57 Comments ||
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#8
The greater offense, as had been noted, is that her unit was "out of control." Her subordinate officers were disobeying her commands--it MUST be determined whether in acts of 'commission', 'omission', or both--and were doing so with the excuse that she was a woman.
She should be relieved for not cutting their heads off at the first inkling of this, and they should be relieved for what amounts to "mutiny" at worst, or "dereliction" at best.
In other words, she suffered from the same problem as Captain Bligh.
#9
Reading this and the comments, I have become more and more convinced that we had a rogue situation encouraged by peer pressure and the idiot Graner trying to impress the G2's and their ilk. I can see that sadistic little butthole now - all of you guys can. We have all had a nutcase like him in our units and we would just roll eyes or have him wedged up in the latrine. This is a phony two-bit episode being milked to death (probably our country's) by the spongemouth press. God help us all from the Graner's of the world -FUBAR!
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/22/2004 10:27 Comments ||
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#10
LR, I did hear that the SNCOs and Officers got LORs and Article 15s. Not jail time but definitely career ending for most. I think this included Karpinski and you know that she is out for sure. I don't think that anything would have been served by dragging their names out and vilifying them.
#11
CS: Career ending in the RA is not the same thing as career ending in the reserves or National Guard. The officers might get passed over for promotion (unless they can get some GO to pull their letters of reprimand from their fiche), but my guess is that the NCOs could transfer to other units and get their 20.
I would like to see Karpinski in front of a court martial. Without proving general or specific intent, she won't end up there. My question about her would be "is she still drilling?" She needs to be off the govt. payroll. She's a disgrace to the officer corps, active and reserve.
The US House Aviation Subcommittee yesterday heard how congressional investigators used false IDs to gain access to a series of federal buildings and two commercial airports, and how a copy of the report detailing their success was later found in an al-Qaida cave in Afghanistan. The investigators were 100 per cent successful in getting past security, but apparently less so in the case of their own report's security. Subcommittee Chairman John Mica told a hearing on biometric ID in aviation that the deployment of more secure ID needed to be accelerated, given that terrorists are interested in gaining access to restricted airport areas. The congressional investigators had made their fake IDs using software downloaded from the Internet, and apparently this passed muster.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:27:27 AM ||
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I'm shocked! (NOT)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 0:38 Comments ||
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#2
When the Khalifate rules the world, all IDs will be fake.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 8:23 Comments ||
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The United States faced growing opposition Friday to a new exemption for American peacekeepers from international prosecution for war crimes, with human rights groups arguing that it is unjustified in the face of the prisoner abuse scandal. The Bush administration argues that the International Criminal Court - which was established on July 1, 2002 and started operating last year - could be used for frivolous or politically motivated prosecution of American troops.
Correctamundo.
When the court was established, the United States threatened to end far-flung peacekeeping operations established or authorized by the United Nations if it didn't get an exemption for American peacekeepers. After contentious negotiations, the council approved a one-year extension. Last year, the resolution to exempt U.S. peacekeepers was renewed for another year by a vote of 12-0 with three abstentions - our friends and allies France, Germany and Syria. The U.N. Security Council had planned to hold an open meeting Friday to give member states a chance to express their views on the U.S. demand for a new exemption, and then immediately vote on a resolution that would authorize it. But China said it didn't have instructions so the meeting was put off until Monday. This year, France, Germany, Spain and Brazil have said they will abstain on a new extension - and Romania and Benin are possibilities. That would still give the United States the minimum nine "yes" votes for adoption, and Romania indicated it would not allow the resolution to be defeated. "At this moment there is an inclination that we might abstain," said Romania's U.N. Ambassador Mihnea Motoc. "If the adoption of the resolution is at risk, we might look again at this position."
Okay, don't pass it. Watch what we do.
Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch, said Friday he expects the resolution to pass, but he told a news conference that the growing number of abstentions should send a strong message to Washington that much of the international community opposes immunity for U.S. troops. He said the reports of "sexual humiliation and savage beatings" of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad highlight the importance of an international court of last resort to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Except for the fact that we're prosecuting the offenders ourselves, you mean.
The International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over the events in Iraq, first because neither the United States nor Iraq have ratified the Rome Treaty establishing the tribunal, and second because of the exemption, he said. Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said Thursday that the U.S. concern about the court "in no way reflects any lack of determination to ensure that perpetrators of crimes are fully prosecuted." Besides seeking another year's exemption from arrest or prosecution of U.S. peacekeepers, Washington has signed bilateral agreements with 89 countries that bar any prosecution of American officials by the court and is seeking more such treaties. The 94 countries that have ratified the 1998 Rome Treaty - including all 15 European Union members - maintain it contains enough safeguards to prevent frivolous prosecutions.
They're wrong, of course.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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#1
I guess the USA is just supposed to ignore its pesky old constitution and learn to behave like a good little euroweenie.
#2
I say we tell the UN to go F themselves. I dont know of a more useless organization -- even the Department of Social and Health Services does something useful.
#4
The Euros are always prattling on about peace, so they should be the "peacekeepers."
We'll be the war keepers, since they're too goddam lazy and wussy to be. But the wars will be to protect our country and people - along with REAL allies like Britain and Australia. The "peace-loving" dhimmis Euros can go hang.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 0:35 Comments ||
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#5
I don't understand this. Since the U.S. hasn't ratified the treaty that established the ICC, why is an "exemption" being sought from something we're not bound to?
#6
So much hand-wringing, buzzing off to 5-star hotels to convene countless pointless meetings - all wasted noise and motion in an obviously futile pretense that the UN and ICC are either viable or worthy institutions. Pfeh. Withdraw and rethink, redesign workable rational systems, learning from the mistakes of the past - both of these are not just fatally flawed, they are already dead. Full stop.
#8
Nobody says it like Dotcom, do they?!
I love it!
Posted by: Jen ||
05/22/2004 1:18 Comments ||
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#9
I hate it because of the people that like it. Aris loves it. That's enough for me.
Nothing like having the asshatted Eastern European version of "social justice" crammed down ones throat.
#10
abaddon, Screw Aris.
Do what everybody here does most of the time--Ignore him.
Whatever he's saying, it's all Greek to us! LOL
Posted by: Jen ||
05/22/2004 3:55 Comments ||
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#11
Bomb-a-rama - We seek exemptions via treaties with nations that are members of the ICC because when US citizens leave US soil they are subject to the laws and courts of the lands they visit. This gives rise to a couple of reasons for the bilateral agreements: 1) to prevent ICC jurisdiction being exercised over US troops by the nations in which we operate, and 2) to prevent ICC jurisdiction being exercised over US troops on foreign soil by other foreign entities who are also present there. Thus three components are necessary to completely insulate US troops from this little fiasco: 1) non-ratification of the ICC treaty by the Senate; 2) bi-lateral agreements with all nations in which we might operate; and 3) bi-lateral agreements with all nations with whom we might operate. Even then that might not be enough when we operate in areas officially designated as a UN protectorates that are actively administered by the UN and not a local government.
#12
war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Which category does the Abu Ghraib abuse go under? I can't seem to figure it out.
Posted by: Rafael ||
05/22/2004 7:42 Comments ||
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#13
There are many reasons for rejectying the ICC like
1) A court who is basically making its own law instead of abiding by it.
2) No appeal
3) No trial by jury. For grievous offences it has been a constant to make them judge not by mere magistrates looking for precedents and hair splitting laws but by the entire nation personificated by a jury, by people judging according to their consciences not by mee judges.
4) Jurys and judges are selected in a way who tries to guarantee their fairness. Here they are slected by states, states who have interests and who will nominate judges likely to defend them or harm their opponents. Nietzche said: "States are the coldest of the cold monsters". And states will not hesitate to have someone jailed life if it can harm a rival state.
#14
"I hate it because of the people that like it. Aris loves it. "
Actually I don't remember ever saying that I love the ICC either. Is that yet another one of your LIES about me?
Though I do remember once noting the hypocrisy that the USA urged other countries (e.g. Serbia, Croatia so forth) to send their own citizens to be judged there.
#15
Courts and laws only have meaning if there exists the means to enforce them. Anybody seriously believe an "international court" can pass judgement on the US and "enforce" a penalty. This whole exercise is just more mental masturbation by a bunch of impotent fools.
#16
If we in the US run into the situation such as developed in Abu Graib, we work to fix it and make it right, despite having gobs of excrement heaped upon us by everyone and their mother. When Sammy was doing his HEAVY DUTY thing in Abu Graib, only a few specialized organizations were making a yap. This is hypocracy by the so-called world communityâ¢.
We do not make deals with ANYONE that will result in the subjugation of our Constitution. It is what makes us who we are. I think that bilateral agreements are the way to go. And that applies to most of the present functions and relationships with the UN. There are important agencies that set standards, such as ICAO for worldwide aviation that should exist. They should be self-standing and funded by member countries. They should not be a part of the totally corrupt and wasteful UN. It is just another Leage of Nations that went bad long ago.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 13:49 Comments ||
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A policeman has been killed and an explosion has ripped through a village road in Thailandâs troubled Muslim south where Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said the security situation was getting better.
Indonesiaâs president was greeted by hundreds of Muslim protesters as she made her first visit to the city of Ambon since 38 people died in sectarian violence last month. About 500 students urged President Megawati Sukarnoputri to take action against a mainly Christian separatist movement as she held talks with religious and Maluku provincial officials during the brief visit, which lasted several hours. Megawati, who is seeking another term in the July 5 presidential election, later travelled on to Ternate in North Maluku. Thirty-eight people died and over 100 were injured during more than a week of communal violence in Ambon, which was sparked by a parade by the separatists on April 25. An international think-tank this week said both national and local governments responded poorly to the Ambon strife. Ambon was ravaged by three years of Muslim-Christian clashes which left more than 5,000 dead before a February 2002 peace pact ended the violence.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/22/2004 10:24:19 AM ||
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protest turns to violence in 5,4,3,2,1...
Posted by: Shep UK ||
05/22/2004 10:32 Comments ||
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EFL
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 did not come as a surprise to the Iranian intelligence community, primarily because they had been engaged in their own covert war against the Taliban and its international Islamist allies for many years. Indeed, under different political circumstances, Iranian intelligence could have provided valuable help to the U.S. in the war against Salafi Islamist terrorism. Iranâs Ministry of Intelligence & National Security (VEVAK) and the intelligence directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) arguably have a better understanding of Wahhabi/Salafi terrorist networks and their institutional and ideological roots in Saudi Arabia than most other major intelligence organizations. They have gained such knowledge through the penetration of Wahhabi missionary/terror groups in Pakistan, which has been a priority for Iranian intelligence over the past 20 years. This priority stems not only from Iranâs self-perceived responsibility to protect Pakistanâs Shiâa community, but more importantly from a desire to pre-empt Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi subversion amongst Iranâs tiny Sunni minority. I hadnât heard about their infiltration about Pak Jihadis before, but I have read that the Indians and the British have had much in similar efforts, and it probably isnât too hard to find Jihadis willing to be bought off..
Iranâs most formidable adversary is the Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan, a murderous Wahhabi-Deobandi organization that has received logistical and financial help both from Saudi intelligence and sympathetic elements in Pakistanâs Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). After the assassination of its leader, Maulana Azzam Tariq, in October 2003, Sipahe Sahaba pointed the finger of blame at Pakistanâ Interior Minister, Faisal Saleh Hayyat (who happens to be a Shiâa Muslim) and Iranian intelligence operatives. [1] This bloody feuding between Iranian intelligence and hardline Pakistani Sunni groups dates back to the early 1990s, and until very recently was an important feature of urban strife in cities like Karachi, Lahore and Quetta. Many of these hardline Sunni groups were later co-opted into al-Qaeda or formed constituent parts of its broad satellite networks. The Jaish-e-Mohammad basically served as the Deobandis external Jihad arm, while the Sipah waged an internal Jihad against the Shiaâs. There is a big overlap of membership and leadership between the two groups.
More broadly, Iranian intelligence was alarmed by the growing power of the Taliban and the crucial support given to it by Pakistanâs ISI and Saudi Arabiaâs Istikhbarat al-`Amm-with the tacit approval of the United States. Through well-established channels of communication, they warned several Western intelligence agencies of the potential disaster arising from an alliance between the Taliban and the network coalescing around Osama bin Laden. The tensions between Iran and the Taliban culminated in September 1998 with the slaying of 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist by Pakistani members of the Taliban inside the compounds of the Iranian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif. The diplomats were mostly officers of the intelligence directorate of the IRGC. Iran even considered military action against the Taliban in retaliation, but eventually backed off from a confrontation. Itâs true that the Iranians were supporting the Northern Alliance throughout the nineties, I can remember news footage of the standoff back in 1998, when the Iranians stationed tens of thousands of soldiers on the Afghan border, literally walking distance from an invasion. Sadly nothing happened.
Yet even before the emergence of the Taliban, the VEVAK designated Salafi/Wahhabi terrorism as the primary threat to Iranian national security in 1994 and, contrary to unsubstantiated reports in Arab and western media, has never had any friendly contacts with al-Qaeda. [2] Indeed, any suggestion of friendly contacts has to grapple with credible evidence pointing to bitter acrimony between the two sides. It is interesting to note, that Iranian intelligence has long been suspected by pro al-Qaeda Saudi security circles of masterminding the assassination of Abdullah Azzam in November 1989. Yes, but who hasnât been suspected of wacking Azzam?
While it is possible that other Iranian intelligence agencies-in particular the Qods force of the IRGC-may have facilitated the escape of al-Qaeda elements from Afghanistan in the closing stages of the war in October-December 2001, there is no reliable, publicly-available evidence to validate this. Furthermore, it is unlikely given the ideological vision and geo-strategic ambitions of the IRGC and al-Qaeda are hugely divergent, despite sharing an enemy in the U.S. There have been plenty of leaked intelligence reports to the press, from American and European sources. It remains to be seen how accurate they all are. Iâve found that people like Woolsey remain stuck in a cold war mindset, railing against the support given to al Qaeda by Iran, Syria and Iraq (all former Soviet clients), while casting a much more sympathetic eye on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (US allies for decades). Of course there is no reason that all of them canât be involved to different extents and for different reasons.
Iraq
More recent accusations that Iranian intelligence is fostering instability in occupied Iraq are also questionable for a simple reason: Iran has no interest in destabilizing Iraq. On the contrary, it has every reason to ensure that Iraq emerges from its current trauma as a stable and unitary state. The United States may have limited interests in Iraq-after all it will sooner or later depart the arena-but Iran has to contend with a volatile neighbor that invaded it in September 1980. Thus, reports in western and Arab media regarding Iranian intelligence activity in Iraq are not only grossly exaggerated but completely miss the essence of Iranian involvement in the country. A case in point is an ideologically-charged article by a former CPA official accusing Iranian intelligence of promoting instability in Iraq. [3] âŠIn the final analysis, Iranâs interests in Iraq do not diverge from its interests in post-war Afghanistan. In both cases, Iran desires peaceful and stable neighbors who do not export subversion inside its own borders. It is now widely acknowledged that Iranâs involvement in Afghanistan is not only benign, but positively helpful. In due course similar assessments may be made of Iranâs involvement in Iraq. Furthermore, the Iranians abandoned exporting their "Islamic revolution" to neighboring countries many years ago, and Iranâs allies in Iraq have little desire to recreate the Iranian experience. [4] That seems a pretty shaky argument
Wider Issues
Aside from the war on terror and the American led occupation of Iraq, broader misunderstandings of the Iranian intelligence community also exist. Major western intelligence agencies-including those in the U.S.-failed to grasp the institutional and ideological complexities that underpinned the evolution of the post-revolutionary Iranian intelligence community in the period 1980-84. The core event during this time was an intense rivalry between the nascent Intelligence Directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the skeleton structure of the old SAVAK. The result was a compromise in the form of the creation of a Ministry of Intelligence & National Security (VEVAK) in 1984 that signified, first and foremost, a constitutional revolution in intelligence/security organization in Iran. The SAVAK was an "organization" largely outside the orbit of government control, whereas its post-revolutionary successor was positioned into the mainstream of the Iranian civil service in the form of a "ministry." Another feature of the compromise arrived at in 1984 was the powers granted to the IRGC to maintain its own separate intelligence directorate. [5] The VEVAK has around 15,000 officers and support staff, who, unlike the former SAVAK, are all civilians. The Ministryâs foreign intelligence directorate boasts around 2,000 officers whose top priority is intelligence gathering in Central Asia, Pakistan, Iraq, the Sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Although VEVAK officers are vetted for ideological conformity, very few of them can be considered "Islamists". Thus the loyalty of the individual VEVAK officer to the ruling clergy is, at best, haphazard. Broadly speaking, VEVAK officers subscribe to a civic-based Iranian nationalism accentuated by mild undertones of Shiâa Islam.
U.S. intelligence officials are well aware of the professional qualities of the VEVAK and the ideological gulf that separates the Ministry from its clerical political masters. The implications of this ideological gulf are far-reaching, insofar as there is likely to be non-interference by the VEVAK in the evolutionary political transformation that is eroding the grips of the ruling clergy on the levers of power. The broadest implication is that, whatever consensual political system eventually succeeds the theocratic regime, it will be able to retain the countryâs impressive security/intelligence system largely in its current form. From a wider geo-strategic perspective, it is likely that the priorities of the intelligence community of post-Islamic Iran will broadly resemble that of pre-Islamic Iran. This will involve terminating the countryâs extremist pro-Arab stance and re-orientating intelligence cooperation in the region within an Iran-Israel-Turkey axis. This will truly transform the face of the Middle East and might even decisively turn the tide against Salafi Islamism and its Saudi patrons.
NOTES:
1. Sipahe Sahaba made similar allegations in September 1998, after its then deputy secretary general Allama Shoaib Nadim and three of his companions were assassinated in Islamabad.
2. In June 1994, a huge bomb detonated inside the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, killing more than 20 worshippers. Initially Iranian authorities blamed the Iraqi-based Mojahedin-e-Khalq, but a report produced by the Ministry of Intelligence in October 1994 identified the culprits as operatives of Pakistanâs "Lashkare Jhangvi"-the sister organization of Sepahe Sahaba.
3. Bad Neighbor, The New Republic, 26 April 2004.
4. Refer to authorâs interview with Dr. Hamid Bayati, European representative of SCIRI in the May 2003 edition of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.
5. The Intelligence Directorate of the IRGC is relatively small, boasting no more than 2,000 officers. Its officers are heavily vetted for ideological conformity, and unlike the VEVAK, their loyalty to the Islamic regime is beyond doubt. The IRGCâs intelligence organs are primarily involved in intelligence gathering in the Muslim world. The IRGCâs Sepahe Qods (Jerusalem Corps) is controlled by its Intelligence Directorate and caries out covert operations in countries as far afield as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Bosnia. The Qods forceâs national HQ is in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and it is headed by Qasem Soleimani.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/22/2004 2:22:06 AM ||
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#1
This post is angelic at best.
The present iranian goverment has a great interest in seeing US bogged down in irak and divert its attention from regime change in IRAN.
Furthemore there's a religious background of rivalry between holy cities of najaf(irak) and qom (iran).
For thoses interested check amir taheri writings at www.benadorassociates.com
[Iran] had been engaged in their own covert war against the Taliban and its international Islamist allies for many years
Uh-huh. Sure they were.
Pull the other one.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 10:22 Comments ||
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Yeah like Egypt has no role in Arafat's terrorism. They turn a blind eye to arms smuggling to terror groups defined as such by the US, but worse permit the movement of operatives of Hizbollah to use the same route. In short they co-operate with Iran.
Let's play with words and sing kumbaya!
Who controls Hizbollah and has a say in Syrian activities? Who and what crosses the Syrian border into Iraq?
So they do it by proxy.
#4
Which nation originated the modem era's international movement for jihad? Iran beginning in 1979-80. It's first target was Lebanon, which Iran still controls though the fanatical Shi'ite terrorist group, also plays a part in the official Lebanese government.
Syria, Iran's ally maintains some 30.000 troops in Lebanon making sure the old image Lebanon once relished as being the safe 'Switzerland of the Near-East' (banking capitol & tourist destination for European travellers) is never allowed again.
Until Iran, Syria-Lebanon are confronted the war on Islamic terrorism will be stuck in neutral at best.
This not taking on the source of jihad is a travesty of justice for our American troops serving in Iraq & Afghanistan countering suicidal jihadic zealots.
Negotiations can never be fruitful with those dedicated to death as a so-called religion.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/22/2004 19:22 Comments ||
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Some definite caveats here. The author of this piece is currently under investigation regarding a leak related to the Valerie Plame story.
The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents. The Information Collection Program also "kept the Iranians informed about what we were doing" by passing classified U.S. documents and other sensitive information, he said. The program has received millions of dollars from the U.S. government over several years.
An administration official confirmed that "highly classified information had been provided [to the Iranians] through that channel." Intelligence sources say Chalabi himself has passed on sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians. Patrick Lang, former director of the intelligence agency's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues in the intelligence community that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. "They [the Iranians] knew exactly what we were up to," he said. He described it as "one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history. I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work."
Next caveat. According to Michael Rubin, Patrick Lang evidently believes that the Likud party controls the United States.
An intelligence agency spokesman would not discuss questions about his agency's internal conclusions about the alleged Iranian operation. But he said some of its information had been helpful to the U.S. "Some of the information was great, especially as it pertained to arresting high value targets and on force protection issues," he said. "And some of the information wasn't so great."
At the center of the alleged Iranian intelligence operation, according to administration officials and intelligence sources, is Aras Karim Habib, a 47-year-old Shia Kurd who was named in an arrest warrant issued during a raid on Chalabi's home and offices in Baghdad Thursday. He eluded arrest. Karim, who sometimes goes by the last name of Habib, is in charge of the information collection program. The intelligence source briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions said that Karim's "fingerprints are all over it." "There was an ongoing intelligence relationship between Karim and the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, all funded by the U.S. government, inadvertently," he said.
The Iraqi National Congress has received about $40 million in U.S. funds over the past four years, including $33 million from the State Department and $6 million from the Defense Intelligence Agency. In Baghdad after the war, Karim's operation was run out of the fourth floor of a secure intelligence headquarters building, while the intelligence agency was on the floor above, according to an Iraqi source who knows Karim well. The links between the INC and U.S. intelligence go back to at least 1992, when Karim was picked by Chalabi to run his security and military operations. Indications that Iran, which fought a bloody war against Iraq during the 1980s, was trying to lure the U.S. into action against Saddam Hussein appeared many years before the Bush administration decided in 2001 that ousting Hussein was a national priority. In 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq's nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave UN nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about Iraq's program. Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, teamed up with Chalabi after his escape. The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched uranium in the bomb's core, were almost flawless, according to Andrew Cockburn's recent account of the event in the political newsletter CounterPunch. But the inspectors were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the techinical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic. And the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents were fraudulent.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:06:37 AM ||
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Former Iranian president, Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday condemned the American policies in Iraq and said the US measures and policies are detrimental to the international community. Speaking in Tehran, Rafsanjani said the United States erroneously thinks it can achieve its aims and objectives by following up false policies in Iraq. He said supporting the Israeli regime is another mistake committed by the United States. He went on to say that Al-Qaeda and Taliban which have created so many problems for the modern world have been created by the United States. According to IRIB, Rafsanjani said the United States has paid a heavy cost for its mistakes in creating Taliban and Al-Qaeda while noting that it created them to encounter with the Iranian system.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:02:09 AM ||
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The Israeli regime, AQ, Talibani! The guy speakes to children.
Some overprivileged Muslims support a culture of death, while impoverished Tibetans celebrate life
As suicide bombings increase in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, and in Israel, more and more people have come to believe that this tactic is a result of desperation. They see a direct link between oppression, occupation, poverty, and humiliation on the one hand, and a willingness to blow oneself up for the cause on the other hand. It follows from this premise that the obvious remedy for suicide bombing is to address its root cause - namely, our oppression of the terrorists. But the underlying premise is demonstrably false: There is no such link as a matter of fact or history. Suicide bombing is a tactic that is selected by privileged, educated, and wealthy elitists because it has proven successful.
Moreover, even some of the suicide bombers themselves defy the stereotype of the impoverished victims of occupation driven to desperate measures by American or Israeli oppression. Remember the 9/11 bombers, several of whom were university students and none of whom were oppressed by the US. They were dispatched by a Saudi millionaire named Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden has now become the hero of many other upper-class Saudis who are volunteering to become shahids (martyrs) in Iraq, Israel, and other parts of the globe. Majid al-Enezi, a Saudi student training to become a computer technician, recently changed career plans and decided to become a martyr; he crossed over into Iraq, where he died. His brother Abdullah celebrated that decision. "People are calling all the time to congratulate us, crying from happiness and envy. There are many young men who wish they could cross over into Iraq, but they canât. Thank God he was able to."
These rich kids glorify the culture of suicide, even in distant places. As Tufful al-Oqbi, a student at the elite King Saud University, described this situation, young people are wearing T-shirts with bin Ladenâs picture on them just the way people used to wear pictures of Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary. According to a recent news account, wealthy women students sport Osama bin Laden T-shirts under their enveloping abayas to show their approval for his calls to resist the United States. Why do these overprivileged and well-educated young men and women support this culture of death, while impoverished and oppressed Tibetans continue to celebrate life despite their occupation by China for half a century?
WHY HAVE other oppressed people throughout history not resorted to suicide bombings and terrorism? The answer lies in differences among the elite leadership of various groups and causes. The leaders of Islamic radical causes, especially the Wahhabis, advocate and incite suicide terrorism, while the leaders of other causes advocate different means. Recall Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose people were truly oppressed but who advocated non-violent means of resistance. It is the leaders who send suicide bombers to blow themselves up. No suicide bomber ever sent himself to be blown up. The bombers accept death because they have been incited into a frenzy of hatred by imams preaching "Kill the infidels." Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the leading Islamic scholar at the elite Al-Azhar University in Cairo (which is not occupied), has declared that martyrdom operations - which means suicide bombings - are the highest form of jihad and an Islamic commandment.
Even more mainstream role models, such as Yasser Arafatâs wife, who lives in a multimillion-dollar residence in Paris, has said that if she had a son, she would want him to become a suicide bomber because there is no greater honor than to become a martyr. Young children, some as young as 12 and 13, are incited and seduced into strapping bombs around themselves by these older and better-educated elitist leaders. The children are promised virgins in heaven, praise and money for their families here on Earth, and posters portraying them as rock stars. It is an irresistible combination for some, and the blame lies squarely at the feet of the elitists who exploit them, use them, and eventually kill them.
There is absolutely no evidence to support the claim of a direct relationship between occupation and suicide bombing. If anything, occupation makes it more difficult to launch successful terrorist attacks. This is not to argue for occupation; it is to separate the arguments regarding occupation from the claim that it is the fact of occupation, and the oppression it brings, that causes suicide bombing. Indeed, were Israel to end its occupation of Gaza and most of the West Bank (as I have long believed it should), it is likely that terrorism would actually increase as terrorist commanders secure more freedom to plan and implement terrorist actions. The same might well be true in Iraq, were the United States to pick up and run.
The time has come to address the real root cause of suicide bombing: elitist incitement by certain religious and political leaders who are creating a culture of death and exploiting the ambiguous teachings of an important religion. Abu Hamza - the cleric who tutored Richard Reid, the convicted shoe bomber - recently urged a large crowd to embrace death. Islamic young people are in love with death, claim some influential imams; but it is these leaders who are arranging the marriages between the children and the bomb belts. Perhaps, now that suicide bombers have attacked Saudi Arabia, responsible Islamic leaders will better understand that it is their people who will be the ultimate victims of this tactically imposed culture of death. I aint holding my breath!
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/22/2004 5:56:35 AM ||
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It seems that some of the bombers were sidelined by their peer groups or society in general for being promiscuous, somewhat slow on the uptake etc.
Like the mother of several who blew up at the Erez checkpoint. She was unfaithful.
A few were apparently under the influence of drugs.
And then there may have been "Honor killings" among the women bombers. Who knows?
National police were investigating a news report that a veteran Al Qaeda operative under arrest in Europe had been based in Japan for more than a year, possibly to establish a terrorist cell, a police spokesman said Wednesday. Investigators had no information on the man â identified by Kyodo News service as Frenchman Lionel Dumont â and could not confirm his links to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, a National Police Agency spokesman said on condition of anonymity. The report cited unidentified investigative sources. It previously was reported in France that Dumont had been hiding in Indonesia. Kyodo said Dumont provided money and equipment to the network.
Dumont, 33, was in contact with about 10 other foreign residents of Japan, and investigators suspect he may have been trying to set up a terrorist cell. National newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported in Wednesday's afternoon edition that Dumont worked as a used-car dealer in the northern city of Niigata. The report, which cited unidentified police sources, said his bank account records showed that he received remittances ranging from $900 to $8,850 on 10 occasions. Dumont arrived in Tokyo from Singapore, and made several visits to Germany and Malaysia before leaving Japan, public broadcaster NHK said. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan was stepping up checks at airports and shipping ports to foil would-be visitors using fake passports. "I am ordering authorities to boost security and be on the lookout in many areas, including immigration," Koizumi told reporters Wednesday.
In 1997, Dumont was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Bosnia for involvement in terrorist acts there, including the murder of a police officer. But he escaped from Bosnian custody in 1999. Dumont was arrested Dec. 13 at a Munich hotel and extradited to France on Tuesday. Prosecutor Joachim Ettenhofer, who handled the case, said the French extradition request cited the robbery accusations but no political crimes. Nonetheless, police in Europe are investigating his suspected ties to Andrew Rowe, an accused British Al Qaeda operative who is believed to have provided explosives training to terrorists involved in last year's suicide bombings in Casablanca. British police arrested Rowe in October.
In other action related to the investigations of terrorism, a Spanish judge Wednesday accused three Algerians of belonging to Al Qaeda and forming part of a network that recruited Islamists across Europe to go to Iraq to fight the U.S.-led occupation. Magistrate Baltasar Garzon said the mobilizing of insurgents was directed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whose group has claimed responsibility for the beheading of a U.S. hostage in Iraq and the assassination of the president of the Iraqi Governing Council. Zarqawi allegedly deployed operatives of Ansar al Islam, a Kurdish radical group, in Europe before the Iraq war to recruit fighters to be trained at Ansar camps in northern Iraq. The recruitment has continued since the fall of Saddam Hussein, mainly in Italy and Germany, European investigators say The operation described by Garzon was linked to an Iraq recruiting network broken up by Italy in November, and two of the men involved were brothers. The three Algerians, along with a Spaniard accused of collaborating with them, were arrested Friday in Spain and jailed pending further investigation. The judge also drew links between the Algerians and the Hamburg cell that plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. Several leading figures in the recruiting network that was disrupted in Italy were peripheral members of the Hamburg cell, including an Algerian, Abderrazak Mahdjoub, now facing trial in Milan.
Garzon accused one of Mahdjoub's brothers, Samir, of helping others "distribute money to finance the sending of mujahedin to Iraq," using the infrastructure of Ansar al Islam in other countries including Italy and Syria. The investigation did not detect any recruitment of fighters in Spain, however. The judge accused Samir Mahdjoub and the other two Algerians, Redouane Zenimi and Mohamed Ayat, of forming part of a Spanish Al Qaeda cell. Their main task was "lending economic financing to the rest of the European network," Garzon said. Their cell also included a Zarqawi operative jailed in Britain on charges of plotting an attack with ricin poison in late 2002, according to the indictment.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:40:10 AM ||
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Margaret and Grauchos love child went bad... who'd a thunk it.
Fighters loyal to the radical Shia cleric, Moqtada Sadr, have agreed to withdraw from the centre of Karbala. The holy Iraqi city has seen heavy fighting between the militia and coalition forces over the past month. US troops began pulling out on Friday and there has been intense pressure for Mr Sadrâs fighters to follow suit. In Karbala the streets are reported to be quiet, with little sign of the fighters. A senior member of Mr Sadrâs Mehdi Army, Ali al-Kazali, told the AFP news agency that the fighters had laid down their arms, following weeks of efforts by Iraqi tribal and religious leaders to negotiate a truce with the militia. The US-led coalition has refused to negotiate directly with Mr Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the murder of a rival Shia cleric last year.
Brig Gen Mark Kimmit denied any reports of a truce. He repeated that the confrontation could only be resolved peacefully if Mr Sadr handed himself in and disbanded his army. On Friday more than 2,000 Iraqis demonstrated demanding that Mr Sadrâs men leave the city. And on Tuesday Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraqâs most senior Shia cleric, said all armed forces should be withdrawn from the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Karbala, which is 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, is home to the shrine of Imam Hussein - one of the holiest places for the worldâs Shia Muslims. The area next to the shrine is in ruins after weeks of clashes with the US-led forces.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/22/2004 7:32:17 PM ||
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that's what happens when you help 70 martyrs to their goal in 24 hours - lack of confidence and a rethinking of purpose......
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 22:47 Comments ||
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#2
Reports from the scene indicate that the Mahdi army has vanished from Karbala, US troops have not withdrawn and everything is "quiet as a mouse." I think the truce story is disinformation designed to conceal a disastrous defeat for the media's mahdist allies.
In other news, Pope and Bear ... tape at 11:00
The two-day Arab summit here condemns the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and underlines commitment to the Arab peace initiative as the Arab project to achieve just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region. ... Hailing the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people and their legitimate national leadership under Yasser Arafat, the draft supports the Palestinian struggle against the continued and escalating Israeli aggression to restore their legitimate national rights to self determination and setting up the Palestinian state. The siege imposed on the Palestinian people and President Yasser Arafat does not serve the peace process at a time when the Palestinian leadership has agreed to positively move towards peace and commitment to the quartet-approved roadmap peace plan, says the document. Do they actually believe the horsesh!t they spew? They must be breathing their own exhaust.
The draft statement condemns all Israeli military operations in the Palestinian and Arab territories, operations targeting civilians without discrimination and operations targeting Palestinian leaders, saying this only trigger violence and counter violence and do not lead to establishing peace needed by the region. Of course, Arafatâs continued blockade of any roadmap progress goes entirely without mention. Oh wait, heâs one of the keynote speakers!
It demands the Quartet, the US administration and the European Union to press Israel into allowing the Palestinian president to move freely. Only in a wooden box.
The US should commit to its vision of establishing a viable Palestinian state side by side with Israel and the terms of reference of the peace process, represented in the related UN resolutions and the principles of land-for-peace, it added. The US has done exactly that for some time now. By ensuring Israeli military might, no awkward Arab supremacy has been allowed to cause another Holocaust.
Any amendment to the terms of reference of the peace process is considered an unacceptable prejudging of the outcome of negotiations, a violation of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people and an impediment to efforts to reach a just solution to be agreed on the issue of the return of refugees to their homeland in accordance with UN resolution No. 194 of 1948, it stresses. Still no mention of Jewish "right of return" or compensation. No parity, no dice.
The draft statement underlines that any Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories should be comprehensive to end the occupation under international supervision and in coordination with the Palestinian National Authority. Israel has made substantial efforts to work constructively with the Palestinian Authority. The PAâs direct complicity with terror activity and their sheltering of major terrorist figures has made a mockery of such attempts.
The draft statement calls upon the quartet to resume serious action to achieve just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East on the basis of the Arab peace plan and the roadmap plan. Arafat must be eliminated first, either by Palestinian consensus or Israeli intervention, take your pick.
In the statement, Arab leaders emphasize their countriesâ continued support for the Palestinian National Authority and urge other countries not to "recognize or deal with" any promises that infringe the Palestinian peopleâs legitimate rights. What form of equanimous diplomacy is there that will not humiliate "infringe" upon the Palestinian people?
The statement condemns Israeli "state terrorism" against the Palestinians, including cold-blooded killings, massive detentions and destruction of the infrastructure facilities in the Palestinian territory. Yet makes no mention of terrorist mass murders within Israelâs borders.
Meanwhile, the statement calls on the world, especially the UN Security Council, to endeavour for an international supervised ceasefire and provide an international protection for the Palestinians. The Israeli fence is all the "protection" they deserve.
Reiterating their opposition of Israeli measures to annex and Judaise Jerusalem, it condemns Israelâs "racist barrier" and its excavations for posing threats to holy sites in Jerusalem. While neglecting to mention how the "Wailing Wall" was turned into a urinal under their own watch.
The document calls for a fair solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees conforming to UN resolutions and voice opposition to re-settle the refugees in Arab countries and rejection of Israelâs measures aimed at "changing the legal, natural and demographic status" of the occupied Golan Heights. Too late. Constant aggression has made any return of the Golan Heights" a non-issue.
... On Iraq, the statement confirms Arab leadersâ keenness on the war-torn countryâs territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence, calling on the UN Security Council to take necessary measures to end occupation of Iraq and help the Iraqis to regain their complete sovereignty over their lands. If regaining "sovereignty" includes the institutionalization of wife beating and rigid religious theocracy, donât hold your breath.
It stresses UNâs "central and ineffective" role in Iraqâs political process, noting that the Arab League chief is tasked with enhancing cooperation with Iraqi agencies and the UN to facilitate the transfer of power to the Iraqis by June 30. And a big "thank you" to Chalabi for subversive collaboration with Iran.
"The Arab leaders strongly condemn the inhuman and immoral practices committed by the occupation troops against Iraqi detainees and demand wrongdoers be brought to justice," said the draft. What, no mention of Saddam and his little picnics?
On development and modernization course in the Arab world, the draft statement says, "We, Arab leaders conferring here in Tunis on May 22, 2004, expressing our countriesâ willingness to achieve an all-out development." Without the least whiff of protest regarding Arafatâs willingness to let murderous thugs like Hamas [& Islamic] Jihad attend [the] Tunis Arab Summit.
#1
In another equally shocking developement,NASA announced that the Earth revolved along its axis yesterday.
Posted by: Stephen ||
05/22/2004 20:04 Comments ||
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Arab Summit upset? Paleos and CAIR outraged? Sounds like something's going right
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 20:07 Comments ||
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Okay, that drop last week must have really screwed up my surprise meter. Serves me right for shopping at a bargain place. Didn't twitch when I saw the article, went wild when I read Stephen's comment. Dammit, man, you can't go around making stuff up like that!
As for that "all-out development," that's technological only. Human rights and freedom and logic will go hang.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
05/22/2004 20:09 Comments ||
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#4
Arab peace initiative: Kill all the Jews and then make peace with the bomb shrapnel and corpses.
#5
In another equally shocking developement,NASA announced that the Earth revolved along its axis yesterday.
While this momentous news has indeed sent intense shock waves throughout the entire Arab world, it in no way changes the fact that they continue to perceive the Earth's surface as flat. Much like countless centuries of their social and cultural "development."
#6
Actually, this was the very first time the Arab League has condemned attacks on Jews and Israelis so it's a semi-big deal and it's a start.
(Only Zipperhead would ignore the significance and go off on another "Kill them all and let Allan sort them out." rant.)
Posted by: Jen ||
05/23/2004 4:16 Comments ||
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A suicide car bomber killed four people and slightly wounded a deputy interior minister on Saturday in the second such attack on a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad this week — both claimed by the same al-Qaida-linked group. A statement by the group posted on the Internet said the bomber Saturday came from Syria, bolstering long-standing U.S. claims that foreign fighters are involved in insurgent attacks in Iraq. Saturday's suicide blast outside the home of Abdul-Jabbar Youssef al-Sheikhli, the deputy interior minister in charge of security, hurled two cars onto the front lawn of his house. Police fired warning shots to disperse distraught bystanders who scuffled with them after the attack. Al-Sheikhli was injured in the forehead and right arm, said Hassan Hadi, a Health Ministry official. Bodyguards fired on the bomber's car as it approached, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. Three bodyguards and a woman were killed as well as the bomber, he said. Earlier, Iraqi authorities said four police died.
Al-Sheikhli belongs to the Shiite Muslim Dawa party, which lost a prominent member in another fatal car bombing on Monday. The president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Dawa member Izzadine Saleem, was killed along with at least six other people near the headquarters of the U.S.-run coalition in the capital. The Monotheism and Jihad Group, which claimed responsibility for Saleem's death, said it carried out the attack Saturday as a warning to the United States and its allies. "They will not be safe from the hand of God's retaliation, then the mujahedeen's, and that they should be ready," said the statement, posted on an Islamic Web site. It said "martyr" Ahmed el-Shami Aby Abdel Rahman, from Qamishli, Syria, "drove a car bomb to take (al-Sheikhli) to hell." The group's leader is believed to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted by the United States for organizing al-Qaida operations in Iraq and suspected of beheading American civilian Nicholas Berg.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2004 7:17:34 PM ||
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Coalition officials in Iraq are investigating yesterdayâs car bomb attack on the home of a senior Iraqi official as an Islamic group claims responsibility for the blast which killed five people. The car bomb exploded outside the home of Iraqâs Deputy Interior Minister, Abdel Jabar Yussef. Mr Yussef was injured and four security guards and a female neighbour were killed in the blast. A group linked to Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Brotherhood of Unification and Holy War says the suicide bomber was one of its Syrian members. US and Iraqi security officials are also investigating a separate attack in central Baghdad where up to seven mortars were fired. Two US soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were injured when the mortars exploded near the coalition compound known as the Green Zone.
This isnât even close to passing the laugh test...
The militia of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will end their armed presence in Najaf and Kerbala as soon as it is clear that U.S. troops have withdrawn from the holy Iraqi cities, a top aide to Sadr said on Saturday. "We are prepared to end our armed presence the moment the occupation forces leave the holy cities and give guarantees of that," Qais al-Khazali told reporters. "There are no guarantees up to now that the occupying forces will not go back to the holy shrines." ...and I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. Any takers?
On Friday, U.S. troops pulled back from the center of Kerbala after days of heavy fighting with militiamen. U.S. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said on Saturday the troops were repositioning and not withdrawing. Moving in, perhaps?
Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led administration, said there had been no contact with Sadr, who the authorities want in connection with the murder of another Shiâite cleric. "There is not any...truce to my knowledge," he said. "If he is prepared to submit himself to justice and if he is prepared to disband and disarm his illegal militia, we are prepared to reach a peaceful resolution to this." Earlier in the week Iraqâs most revered Shiâite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on both U.S. forces and Sadrâs Mehdi Army to withdraw from the holy cities. The U.S. military has repeatedly said it will not negotiate with Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the murder of a rival cleric in Najaf last year. Guess that means ânoâ, Sadr.
#2
This is the Arab shame and honor dynamic at work again. We've got him beaten and he doesn't want to admit it He's giving us one last chance to surrender before he destroys us utterly.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
05/22/2004 18:51 Comments ||
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#3
Fox reports:
"KARBALA, Iraq  â Officials with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani (search) and anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (search) said Saturday that militiamen and U.S. forces had agreed to stop fighting in Karbala, a holy city where the two adversaries have engaged in intense battles in recent days.
The clericsâ representatives of al-Sadr and al-Sistani declined to give their names, and there was no immediate comment from the U.S. military. But witnesses said there were no combatants on the streets of Karbala on Saturday.
Smells like Bremer haqs forced brussel sprouts down the Marine's throats again.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/22/2004 19:01 Comments ||
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#4
"Okay, here's the deal: you marines quit killing 80 of us a day withdraw first, then we'll beat feet with our asses and turbans safe to regroup withdraw too. Deal?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 19:22 Comments ||
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#5
If a strong example is not forthcoming concerning this thug terrorist ringleader, Sadr, i.e. taking this little creep out, Coalition troops will begin to lose credibility as a viable counter force against terrorists in Iraq.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/22/2004 19:27 Comments ||
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#6
Fox News reports that the Mahdists have disappeared from Karbala but US troops have not withdrawn and everything is "quiet as a mouse. Iraqi police and Civil Defense Corps are apparently in control again, which is what we wanted in the first place.
I have a source on the scene who confirms that this is true. I think the truce story is disinformation designed to cover up an ignominious defeat and withdrawal for the tater-heads. Of course, their media allies have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
US says no evidence that forces struck wedding party in Iraq Of course there is nothing regarding this any place else on the web. But are we not surprised!!
The US military Saturday displayed photographs of military equipment, medical supplies and "dormitory" style accommodation at the site of a US airstrike that some people claim had hit a wedding party in Iraq. US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt showed the images at a press conference in Baghdad in response to repeated questions over the incident, in which some media organisations have reported more than 40 people were killed at a wedding. Kimmitt said US forces which scoured the area of the combined ground and air attack in the western Iraqi desert had found "no evidence of a wedding". Instead they discovered items such as "terrorist training manuals", military binoculars, foreign passports, medical equipment and possible narcotics, and dormitory-style accommodation for 300 people. He repeated that the attack on Wednesday was based on intelligence that armed insurgents were gathering in the remote desert near the Syrian border and that US ground forces were fired upon before calling in the air strike. The Arab satellite news channel Al-Arabiya aired footage of bodies wrapped in blankets and loaded on trucks, and quoted witnesses as saying that aircraft also destroyed other houses apart from the venue of the wedding party. It was a good effort by the US Military to stop terrorist breeding tho
Posted by: Long Hair Republican ||
05/22/2004 3:08:21 PM ||
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#1
It was supposed to be a wedding. They'd even registered at "Bloodbath and Beyond"*.
But the bride got cold feet while walking the "rat line" in from Syria! She was told to wear socks, the desert gets chilly at night.
That left one of her bridesmaids to carry all the ammo she had with her. Pity really because the caterer won't refund and the "guests" stood at the open bar and had too many shots.
By the end of the reception, they were all wiped out.
__________________
*from "The Simpsons"
#2
Hey, it's a different culture! Maybe the families of the bride and groom stay in the dorm facilities before the wedding. And the terrorist training manuals and military equipment were wedding gifts. And the narcotics were for the celebration. And it's traditional to shoot at US helicopters after the wedding. And the bride had a beard. And ...
Posted by: A Jackson ||
05/22/2004 19:03 Comments ||
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EFL
Pashtun said the biggest catch in Tuesdayâs operation was Mullah Shahzada, the Talibanâs provincial commander, who was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay a year ago. The other commanders were named as Mullah Haji Amir and Tohr Mullah Maqid.
Itâs the catch, release, catch program.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2004 5:45:35 AM ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 19:27 Comments ||
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#3
Like I said in a much earlier post, catch and then release at FL250. The Russians took care of the Chechen terrorists that hit the theater on the spot. These hard cases never learn. They are permanently bad and can never be rewired.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 23:00 Comments ||
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The Defense Department said Friday that the military had undertaken 33 criminal investigations of deaths of detainees held by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, eight more cases than it had reported two weeks ago. Although the number of cases was 33, they included at least 37 people who had been killed, officials said. Eight pending cases have been classified as homicides involving suspected assaults of detainees before or during interrogation sessions, a senior military official said on condition of anonymity. Of the total number of cases, 30 were inside U.S.-run detention facilities, and three were outside. Fifteen of the 30 cases were declared by U.S. authorities to be deaths by natural cause or of undetermined cause, the senior official said. Of the 15 other cases that happened inside detention facilities, four were categorized as justifiable homicides and two as homicides, and nine were still under active investigation, the official said.
Eight of those nine have been classified as homicides involving suspected assaults on detainees before or during questioning. Six of the nine unresolved cases happened in Iraq, including two at Abu Ghraib prison, and three were in Afghanistan. The 33 total cases date from December 2002 to the present. Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said members of Congress were briefed on the 33 cases Friday.
#1
Aris' link in the previous day's discussion about deaths at Abu Graib was unhelpful, so when I found this one, I decided to post it. As usual, our military does all the footwork and puts it out into the open. I'm more than mildly irritated at our news media for concentrating on the sex escapades of the guards, and not enough on really serious stuff like deaths in prisons.
#4
Except when *I* am supporting truth ofcourse. In those cases I'm just revealing my anti-American goatfucking commie bigotry, plus my Greek nationalistic prejudice and asshat trollery.
#5
AK, you're almost right...
We've seen no evidence of your "Greek nationalism."
Posted by: Jen ||
05/22/2004 18:19 Comments ||
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#6
Sure about that? There was a huge post Ptah made yesterday accusing me of that. It was multi-pointed.
None of the points even approached reality ofcourse, but truth seems to not be so much above everything, when people just need to find random things to insult me with/accuse me of in a hurry.
#7
AK, what's troubling about your posts is that you act as if this is all about you, which is incorrect.
This blog is about the war, America's WOT and if it's about a person, Fred.
If you want a blog that's all about you, go to Blogger and start one. It's still free.
Spare us your inner breakdown, please.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/22/2004 18:49 Comments ||
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#8
There's nothing random about attacking you Aris. Yesterday you condemned the entire US army and you got called on it. Live with it.
Posted by: Rafael ||
05/22/2004 18:59 Comments ||
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#9
"AK, what's troubling about your posts is that you act as if this is all about you, which is incorrect. "
Well, somehow I very much doubt that it was not about me when you called me an America-hating communist troll. And a goatfucker ofcourse. Let's not forget the goatfucking.
If you don't want it to be personal, don't make it so. Or be prepared to defend the rabid insults and attacks.
But as for now, I have been proven right and you idiotic bastards have been proven wrong. And one of the good things about not being a Christian is that I'm under no obligation to forgive.
#10
Aris, truth is truth. Fact is, we don't know what's going on there. You seem to assume this is evidence of America's evil (at least, from the way you go on about it), and go to great lengths to shout us down when we protest and give our own interpretation, and then things just degenerate into an insult match. Admittedly, we don't want to believe that's the norm over there - but despite the picture the media's trying to paint, we haven't seen evidence that it is. And I'll grant that it is hard to believe that things which might be facts may indeed not be anti-American propaganda. And maybe, just maybe, that is something of a failing on our part. But it's an understandable one: we need to believe in our nation, we need to believe in what we're doing, or else there isn't any point.
And step back for a second. Are we arguing with you over the fact that the actions taken in that prison are bad? That the people in charge need to be punished? Hell, no! We're calling for their heads, man! What we don't agree with is the way this is used to attack America, to attack what we're doing there, which is something we believe is right. And we get angry when people do that. And when we get angry, we're not happy, and when that happens we start to insult. Maybe some people are more sensitive than others; I don't know. But remember, somewhere between you, and me, and Ptah, and Jen, and .com, and Fred, the Army of Steves, and everyone else here, is the truth. Finding it can be painful for all of us, but as Ptah said, it is the highest thing out there. It's worth it.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
05/22/2004 19:06 Comments ||
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#11
"Yesterday you condemned the entire US army and you got called on it."
No I didn't. You lie, yet again. I never condemned it, I only said I didn't trust it.
There's pretty much no institution that I can trust unchecked and uncontrolled with the lives of people.
#12
Thank you, Doctor.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/22/2004 19:08 Comments ||
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#13
And what have you been proven right about? That some questionable things have gone on in Iraq? While surprising, I don't think it's possible to not have expected something, if for no other reason than, to quote the great Scott Adams, "People are idiots."
Posted by: The Doctor ||
05/22/2004 19:08 Comments ||
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#14
"You seem to assume this is evidence of America's evil"
Oh, what pure bullshit. No, *you* assume it of me. All of you assume it so strongly that I then have to repeatedly protest that I never EVER condemned the whole of America.
But as I said my actual posts are never considered when people have their own fictional anti-American me that they can attack for things I never actually said.
Goodbye all. I'm not posting in Rantburg again. The rampant fanatical idiocy has become way too prevalent and frustrating. This was my last post.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/22/2004 19:13 Comments ||
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#16
I never condemned it, I only said I didn't trust it.
Yeah, so you think all American soldiers are untrustworthy. Yesterday you advocated handing over control of prisons to Germany (in Afghanistan). What's next on your agenda?
Posted by: Rafael ||
05/22/2004 19:23 Comments ||
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#17
I suppose that if people keep drawing the same conclusions, there must be a miscommunication somewhere along the line, Aris. Please think about that. And you never answered my question, though that admittedly might have led to another debate . . .
Posted by: The Doctor ||
05/22/2004 19:26 Comments ||
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#18
Doctor> Since you asked it before I made my last post, and since you don't give an email I could reply to in private, I'll make this one exception of posting -- the thing I was proven right about was that it wasn't just the humiliation or even the sodomy claims, but that there were suspicious deaths in detention facilities. Aka this pic I provided yesterday of a man that is certificated to have died in his sleep - and ofcourse I was attacked for doing so. As usual
No more questions, no more answers, no more posts, no exceptions. You people have my email and my livejournal if you are interested in continuing any discussion.
#20
Once AGAIN, I shall have to state why I found his link in the previous day's post inadequate: The link is to an HTML page holding the photo and a bare comment, in german. No surrounding article, no pedigree, no link from the article to the supporting document. Der Spiegel, being German and Euro, would stand out if it had been pro-American. We know of two papers who rushed to publish "incriminating" photos that were later proved to be fakes, and this could be a third paper making false claims about a photo. The supposed claim that he "died in his sleep" would represent a cover-up, so why skip a link to the report, or discuss the circumstances of the report? Certainly, the "E25" ("E28"? )that appears looks genuine, but the text underneath looks very strange, like sort of a half script instead of normal block letters. For all we know, this could be one of Saddam's last victims, to be picked up and photographed by American forces as evidence, picked out of its context and pressed into lying service. C'mon, I'm supposed to trust Aris' "say so", blind, with no other support?
My problem is with the context. Or, to be more precise, the lack of context. Let's get real. This is a killer photo. Without a doubt it is damning and compelling, but certainly there's more context than just, what, a single sentence? I mean, wouldn't this be on the front page of every paper in the country if it was true? Why mince words? Why not assume there'd be doubt and write an article establishing its bonafides? My good opinion of American Military Justice rests on the internal checks and balances it has, and the (so far) stellar performance of the investigators. (Far from being "unchecked and uncontrolled") So far, THEY haven't minced words. IF this is a photo of a real victim of american military incarceration, then somebody needs to be hanged, and I believe that my fellow Rantburgers would agree with me. IF this photo is a photo of a real victim of American military incarceration, AND the investigators called it "dying in one's sleep from natural causes", then the INVESTIGATORS need to be seriously questioned, investigated, and punished if they were part of a cover-up. Its the failure of the "checks and balances" that would lend credence to the fear that our military forces are uncontrolled and unchecked. I don't pay my taxes to let my military run amok, but I want REAL evidence, not the assertion of known anti-americans who, unchecked and uncontrolled by Christianity, are not obligated to tell the truth.
#21
Dear Lord, please let the phony picture be his last post.
(Do NOT tell me Katsaris lies even about posting his last!)
Posted by: Jen ||
05/23/2004 0:34 Comments ||
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#22
Actually, Aris was lurking, saw my comment, and sent an e-mail to me pointing out that the links pointed back to the article, along with a link HE SHOULD HAVE POSTED that pointed directly to the article. Didn't mention it HERE, of course. How unhelpful.
#23
Look back at comments #2 and #4 -- Aris is the one who picked this fight. Then he gets all holier-than-thou and "insulted", posts a photo from Der Speigel as "evidence", then leaves in a huff. Typical passive-aggressive horseshit.
Hey Aris, don't let the door hit your thin-skinned ass on the way out.
Member of the Fatah movementâs Central Committee Hani Al-Hassan said that the Palestinian delegation to the Arab summit due to be held on Saturday in Tunis will comprise of representatives of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Al-Hassan stated that the Palestinian delegation to the Arab Summit is headed by chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) political bureau Farouq Qadoumi.
Al-Hassan added that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP movements will also be part of the delegation. "The delegation will call on the Arab summit to send a presidential delegation to US President George W. Bush in order to present the Palestinian demands," Al-Hassan said. He noted that Palestinians do not seek resolutions from the Arab summit but will seek financial support, adding that any resolutions issued will not be applied by the Arab countries. Al-Hassan also hailed the European Unionâs position regarding the Palestinian issue, saying "the EU presented 3 million US dollars but we still havenât received this amount." He stressed "the EU presents financial support according to our needs and requirements."
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/22/2004 10:28:35 AM ||
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#1
why not - bother murdering terrorist thug/gangs DO represent Paleostinians, perfectly
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 13:08 Comments ||
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#2
He noted that Palestinians do not seek resolutions from the Arab summit but will seek financial support
The bottom line. They are broke and everyone else with half a brain considers them a bad risk. See ya in the funnypapers, Paleos.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 14:11 Comments ||
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Spec. Joseph M. Darby told investigators that he returned to Abu Ghraib from leave in November and heard about a shooting at the prisonâs "hard site," which contains Tier 1A. He said that he asked the MP in charge of the tierâs night shift, Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., if he had any photographs of the cell where the shooting took place. Darby said Graner handed him two CDs of photographs. "I thought the discs just had pictures of Iraq, the cell where the shooting occurred," Darby told investigators. Instead, Darby viewed hundreds of photographs showing naked detainees being abused by U.S. soldiers. ....
[Sgt. Javal S.] Davis said that civilian and military intelligence personnel frequently visited Tier 1A and took detainees to a wood hut outside for interrogations. .... There were different rules and procedures on Tier 1A, he said. ... He said he was asked by [Spec. Charles A.] Graner to help prepare the detainees for interrogation. MPs or their attorneys have said that Graner served as the liaison on the cellblock between the MPs and the intelligence officers, who had taken control of Tier 1A by the fall of 2003. Davis said Graner told him "the agents and MI soldiers would ask him to do things, but nothing was ever in writing, he would complain." Special visitors frequented the wing at night, Davis said. They included representatives from the militaryâs Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and other government agencies (OGA), a common expression for the CIA. "On the night shift, FBI, OGA, CID, MI would be in and out of the wing interrogating prisoners, bringing them in, or taking them away to the wood hut behind the hard site or away period," Davis said. "Someone was always there from the other agencies or military personnel, it seemed. .... the wing belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse. .... The MI staffs, to my understanding, have been giving Graner compliments on the way he has been handling the MI holds. ...."
Davis said the intelligence officers told Graner and [Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip"] Frederick: "Loosen this guy up for us. Make sure he has a bad night. Make sure he gets the treatment."
"What is the name of the MI staff member who made the previously stated comments?" investigators asked.
"I donât know the name because they often donât wear uniforms, and if they do they donât have name tapes," Davis said. .....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 9:51:35 AM ||
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And the point of all the boldface is, what, exactly?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/22/2004 9:58 Comments ||
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#2
"I donât know the name because they often donât wear uniforms, and if they do they donât have name tapes," Davis said. ..
Hint:
1) Not wearing uniforms is your first clue you probably shouldn't be following their orders.
2) You proably shouldn't be following directives of people not in your chain of command.
Posted by: Col Flagg ||
05/22/2004 10:17 Comments ||
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#4
Read the boldface and look for a pattern.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 10:31 Comments ||
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#5
This should be in the Iraq section.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 10:33 Comments ||
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#6
Mike, you really should start cross referencing news coverage of this story to the Taguba report.
Darby was the whistleblower; he handed the CDs full of photos over to the MPs.
Davis, on the other hand, is facing charges. Like all the other defendants except Sivits, he's playing the Nuremberg defense. The claims he makes to the press are suspect at best.
I'm not saying the MI staff wasn't involved; I just think you're reading way too much into the flailing of a man caught red-handed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/22/2004 13:03 Comments ||
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#7
You might be more right about that, Robert, than I have been. We'll see. I have been watching the Senate hearings, on C-span, of the military commanders and theater JAG. I was very positively impressed by all the participants. I feel confident that the truth will be established and that there will be no whitewash of the interrogators, if they were culpable.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 14:20 Comments ||
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David Makovsky has just completed a monograph for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in which he analyzes the fence as it is actually being constructed. Heâs found that the fence is generally following the route Bill Clinton had proposed as a possible border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. Makovsky counted the populations of all the villages and settlements on each side of the fence. He found that "fewer than 13,000 Palestinians â that is, less than 1 percent of the West Bank total â will actually be stranded on the Israeli side of the barrier." About 54,000 Israeli settlers, a quarter of the settler population, will be on the Palestinian side.
In other words, the fence leaves 99 percent of the West Bank Palestinians on a contiguous 87.5 percent chunk of West Bank land. That is a reasonably fair provisional border, which the two sides can modify if they ever get around to cooperating. The Israelis initially planned a much more intrusive fence. But skillful diplomacy by Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, Elliot Abrams and other U.S. officials led to modifications. For example, the Israelis initially wanted to build a series of secondary fences that would have enclosed Palestinians. One of those deeper fences would have encircled 65,000 Arabs just east of the Tel Aviv airport. The U.S. prevailed on Israel to abandon those plans.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 9:34:30 AM ||
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#1
Facts don't matter. The Joooos are always wrong - and Nazis to boot - and the saintly "Palestinians" are always right.
/wanker Euro/lefty mode
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 10:28 Comments ||
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#3
AntiThought I realize you are particularly dense, but it doesn't matter that they are Jews. As I have pointed out before, the residents of Israel could be Moldavians for all we care. What matters is they are Zionists - practitioners of civil society, rule of law, concern for individual rights. Now what was your point?
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/22/2004 11:51 Comments ||
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#4
Anti-Brain: Let me spell it out for you. I was being SARCASTIC and "channelling" the left-wing idiots' position.
You must not have read any history, since you obviously have no clue what a Nazi is. Call me back when the Bush administration starts building concentration camps with crematoriums and we'll chat.
Judaism is a religion. Zionism is defined as "a political movement among Jews holding that the Jewish people constitute a nation and are entitled to a national homeland. Formally founded in 1897, Zionism embraced a variety of opinions in its early years on where that homeland might be established. From 1917 it focussed on the establishment of a Jewish homeland or state in Palestine, the location of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Since 1948, Zionism has been a movement to support the development and defence of the State of Israel, and to encourage Jews to settle there." (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Zionism)
You're defined as a troll.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 11:56 Comments ||
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#6
Palestinians are an artifact of 55 years of UN bureaucracy that conducted an experiment. The UN bureaucrats wanted to see how many generations it would take before being raised in a "refugee" camp with food, clothing, shelter, etc. provided by the UN and other well-meaning organizations and education centered around the Koran could render a people totally useless, unable to do anything except consume, seethe, reproduce, and try to kill Jews. I think that the Palestinians are beyond salvage. They cannot be self-supporting. They have no concept of humanity. They have no future. They should be cut loose and left to starve alongside the road.
#7
Antiwar has a point?
Peshwar!
Anti,I would think that the Paleos are desendants of the Cannanites,Mendenites,etc.Bascially anyone living in the Promised land,who was not on the Exodus from Egypt.
#8
Antithought any argument requires an initial premise, followed by logic, reaching a conclusion.
As an example Jews have always lived in the Middle East = premise, Jews were persecuted and expelled in the hundreds of thousands consequently that had to have somewhere to go = argument, therefore they should have a homeland where they are not persecuted and can organize their own affairs (like having a civil society society free from Arab corruption, incompetance and rampnat racism) = conclusion. You see it is really quite simple. All you need is some practice.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/22/2004 12:23 Comments ||
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#10
Many of the Palestinians who were living there when the Jews arrived in force after WWII were tenant farmers. They *rented* the land from its owners, most of whom lived in Syria and Lebanon.
(Granted, some had been renting for generations.)
They scraped out a meagre living, unchanged and with no intention of ever working hard enough to improve themselves.
To the credit of the Jews, they *bought* large parcels of land in Palestine on which to live, not rented, not stolen.
From that point on, it was Palestinians and Israeli Jews shouldering each other, until the Arabs decided to conquer the Jews militarily in 1949. Which didn't work.
After that conflict settled down, the Jews began to rapidly develop *their* land, and the Palestinians went into a permanent funk, trying to figure out how to get what the Israelis had, without working like the Israelis did. With the help of their Arab brothers, in 1967, they tried to steal what the Jews had, again, and again unsuccessfully, losing even more of the empty and undeveloped desert they had owned and not improved.
A recent scientific study concluded that it is more effective for a species to reproduce with fewer, but high quality, offspring, than to try to survive with numerous, but low-quality offspring.
Darwinism in action.
#11
Do you get out much Anti, and like talk to people? I get this idea that you grew up and live in what is called a "gated community" here in the States. Have you ever been truly challenged spiritually or morally? You appear to have reached adulthood and are still a blank slate.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 13:23 Comments ||
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#13
Anonymoose - Good summary but let's go back a bit farther. The historical area of Palestine (Israel + Jordan) was a nearly unpopulated wasteland for centuries until Jewish immigration began en masse in the late 19th century. The Jews bought land, often at extremely steep prices, from absentee (often Arab) landlords and founded many successful agricultural communities. Arab immigrants flooded in from the surrounding failed Arab societies to partake in the Jews' successes in rehabilitating the region and things proceeded apace until WWI. The Brits gained control of the area when the Ottoman Empire fell and having made vague informal wartime promises to the Arabs, more concrete formal promises to the Zionists and secret promises to the French punted the matter to the League of Nations who punted Palestine back to Britain along with a mandate from the international community to create a Jewish homeland there. The Arabs, quite unhappy with this state of affairs, immediately began killing Jews (and Arabs who dared to side with the Jews). Almost immediately the Brits partitioned nearly 80% of the lands included in the Jewish mandate and gave them over exclusively to the Arabs, prohibiting Jews from living in that area at all. Unhappy with the level of appeasement given them by the Brits, the Arabs continued killing Jews. The Brits responded by lowering the allowable Jewish immigration quotas, enforcing no quotas on Arab/Muslim immigration, and enacting a policy that dictated that under no circumstances should the Jewish population in the area of the Jewish mandate not be allowed to exceed 33% of the total population. Enter Hitler and his pre-Holocaust attempts to remove the Jews from Europe - but the Brits wouldn't budge on allowing Jews to actually immigrate to the Jewish mandate, instead they virtually cut off all Jewish immigration and declared that henceforth the Arab/Muslim majority would be allowed to set quotas on Jewish immigration into the Jewish mandate. As a direct result of their inability to immigrate to the Jewish homeland (or at least the tiny fraction of it that had not already been ceded by the Brits to the Arabs) created by the international community, millions of European Jews instead wound up in Hitler's ovens and gas chambers (cheered on by the main Arab nationalist figure of the Middle East, the Muslim Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who relocated to Berlin for the balance of the war and is said to have toured Hitler's extermination camps). After the war the Brits unilaterally granted independence to the Arab state of Jordan which comprised the nearly 80% of the original Jewish mandate in which Jews had been forbidden to settle. They then punted the small remainder of the Jewish mandate to the newly formed United Nations who did what Britain should have done decades earlier: formed the Jewish state of Israel on what little land remained - but not before carving significant portions of it off and giving them to Syria and Egypt. Unhappy with this turn of events the Arabs again resorted to doing what Arabs do: killing Jews. Wash, rinse, repeat. The Arabs won't stop until the Jews are dead and Israel lays in ruin, no peaceful settlement is possible.
#14
AzCat, it's hard to read such long paragraphs.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/22/2004 14:12 Comments ||
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#15
True, Mike, but it's an excellent summary.
AzCat, you might want to hit the "enter" key occasionally and create paragraphs. It makes for easier reading. ;-)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2004 15:07 Comments ||
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#16
Sorry, I'm usually at least a bit more coherent but rampant ignorance like that displayed by anti-brain above brings out the worst in me.
BTW anti-brain: as mentioned above the Nazi sympathizers in the Middle East were the Muslims who openly advocated killing Jews during WW II, not Zionists. The Mufti of Jerusalem who moved to Berlin to join in the Nazi crussade against the Jews was none other than Yasser Arafat's uncle Muhammed Amin al-Husseini. At the Nuremburg Trials Dieter Wisliceny, a deputy of Adolf Eichmann said, "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan." So if you must persist in looking for modern Nazi sympathizers in the Middle East, I suggest you begin your search with those who both share their ideals and have real and demonstrable ties to the Third Reich. At minimum learn a little history before throwing accusations around.
#17
Anti-Wise -- A little Wikipedia Timeline for the area. Note the Arabs don't show up until 636 AD when the Byzantines are defeated in the Battle of Yarmuk - part of the militant spread of Islam. You know, the RoP.
Also note that Abraham, the guy who created this One God mess and "invented" Judaism, married Sarah and dragged his clan to Canaan (a.k.a Israel) about 1800 BC - that's, um, 23 or 24 CENTURIES before the Arabs poke their (also semitic) noses into the area.
Note that his grandson, Jacob (later renamed Israel) was hanging out there in Israel about 1750 BC (grandfather - granson ~ 50 yrs) - you know: the guy with the 12 kids / 12 tribes, etc. etc. etc.
Get the picture, AntiWise?
Hey, only Alley Oop has a stronger claim than those Israelites guys. And, as Phil B points out, it is precisely because of their Zionism (a.k.a. Modern Democratic Tolerant Civility) that we should (and do) support their security and existence. If only a tiny fraction of their good traits were to be found among the Blame Society Morons, your guys AW, that wishes to wipe them out. Sigh. But we must deal in reality, not your half-wit phantasy. Run along, now, kindergarten is over.
#18
You freeper bastards are trying to gang logic
a non reasoner. It's not right. Dammit
dont't you understand that their culture
is different and allows for non-linear,
non-rational thinking. What wrong with you? Have you no shame?
#19
Just because their culture "allows for non-linear, non-rational thinking" doesn't mean that we should accept genocide under the guise of "cultural tolerance". Understanding a person's culture does not mean accepting it blindly- if I know someone's being illogical, I-and many others-are going to point it out.
#22
Barbara Jews (notice the spelling no o's)are not always wrong however I think you mean Zionists when you say Jews;who ARE like Nazis. I presume your "wanker euro/lefty mode" is off and you are back to your Nazi Right-wing/Dubya fan mode. Remember Judaism and Zionism are opposites.
#23
Barbara, the descendants of the ancient Kingdom of Israel are the Palestinians who have lived there for thousands of years. They had been Jews then Christians,then Muslims. Jews have always lived in the Middle East.
#24
Palestinians lived in what is now Israel for thousands of years. When Abraham who came from Mesopotamia(Iraq)the people of Palestine followed him they later followed Jesus when He came and many later converted to Islam.
Only one? Damn.
SUKKUR: Bloodshed between the Maher, Almani, Korai and other tribes has intensified, with more violent incidents taking place overnight and Friday morning. A Maher man was killed, two other men were kidnapped and two houses set on fire last night.
"Yarrr! Where're da babes?"
Ghotki police succeeded in recovering all the seven kidnapped women belonging to the Maher and Korai tribes and returned them to their relatives. Meanwhile, a group of armed Maher tribesmen attacked village Gulzar Korai near Mirpur Mathelo Thursday night, and burned ten houses of the Korai tribesmen. No loss of life was reported. According to the DPO of Ghotki, Aftab Halepoto, more than 100 people from different tribes have been arrested and lodged at police stations. Heavy police contingents were summoned from Sukkur, Naushahro Feroze and Khairpur on Friday. The Rangers had already been deployed in the disturbed areas. Ghotki police raided the area of Suhanjro near Mirpur Mathelo and recovered Maher woman Allah Bachaee and her teenage daughter Shahnaz Friday morning. Later, five women of Korai tribe, who were kept at the Kot of Sardar Ali Gauhar Maher, were returned to their relatives. But an elder of the Korai tribe said only one woman had been returned.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2004 2:11:23 AM ||
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It's not just the Pashtun and Baluch tribesmen who spend all day killing each other, the Sindhis don't want to be left out either.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/22/2004 2:23 Comments ||
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KARACHI: The SITE town police seized a big quantity of explosive materials, including detonators, on Friday and arrested two men. The town police officer (TPO) of SITE town, Imran Shaukat, speaking at a press conference in his office, said the total quantity of the explosive materials recovered was 180kg. He said the police raided a house in Saeed Goth in Saeedabad police limits at 3:30pm on Friday and arrested two men, Wasif, aged 32, and Gul Rahim, aged 33, and recovered 180 kgs of explosives, including plastic explosives weighing 28kg in plate shapes to be strapped to jackets used in suicide bombing, ammonium nitrate weighing 150kg, 10 detonators and 150 metres of fuse wire. The TPO said the men arrested were Pakhtoons from Balochistan. âThey sold explosives and arms to various organisations, including banned religious outfits and terrorist groups. They had been doing this business in Karachi for the past 3-4 years and it is likely they sold the explosives that were used in some high-profile cases,â he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2004 2:10:04 AM ||
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Ah, the chaps had the entrepeneurial spirit, they just went astray somewhere along the line. Some one-on-one education will show them the error of their ways (and may uncover some interesting facts, too).
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 12:44 Comments ||
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More than 3,000 militants are ready to slip into Indian-held Kashmir from Pakistan, the Indian Army chief said on Friday. âAs per our information, about 3,000 to 3,500 people in the various camps across the border are ready to infiltrate,â Indian Army chief General NC Vij told a news conference. âThere are about 85 to 95 (militant training) camps, as per the information. Theyâre still there.â Gen Vij said the Indian army had stepped up efforts to build a fence across the border to halt incursions. âThe number of terrorists inside Jammu and Kashmir has dropped to nearly 55-60 percent of what it was last year.â But a senior Pakistani army officer rejected the charges. âThis is totally ludicrous,â Major-General Shaukat Sultan said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2004 2:01:49 AM ||
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"Lies, all lies!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 7:39 Comments ||
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#2
So much for India and Pakland working together to rid Kashmir of terrorists. Pakistan will not clean up its terrorist infestation until either:
1. Saudis fall, thus ending the funding;
2. Something really bad happens to Pak, forcing the govt to declare war on the jihadis;
3. Pak becomes a Roentgen soupbowl⢠from a nuclear exchange with India;
4. Hell freezes over.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 12:50 Comments ||
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Seven rockets hit Gwadar early on Friday but there were no reports of casualties, only minimal damage, officials said. Police officials said they found six empty cases of rocket propelled grenades and 37 submachine guns and Kalashnikovs from west of the city airport. Seven rockets were fired at the residential area of the airport, said Sher Jan Baloch, provincial minister for the Gwadar Development Authority (GDA). âFour unidentified people came on a pick-up and fired the rockets. They targeted the residential area but the rockets hit a deserted area,â he said, adding that a driver of an oil tanker was injured when a bullet struck the windscreen. Mr Baloch said the involvement of foreign elements could not be ruled out as the Gwadar Port threatened other countries with its viable economic position. He added that internally, some groups also had reservations about the developmental scheme in Gwadar. âWe are investigating the cause of the attack and those found responsible will be not be spared,â he said. Balochistan Inspector General Police Shoaib Saddle said that investigations were underway and efforts were being made to apprehended the mastermind behind the attack. Some influential people had differences over land in the area as the prices of the land in Gwadar shot up after the beginning of the development work on the Gwadar Port.
An unidentified person informed the police and that the Baloch Liberation Army and Baloch Liberation Front had claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier this month, three Chinese engineers were killed and nine others were wounded near the Gwadar seaport project on May 4 when an explosive-laden car blew up.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2004 1:59:15 AM ||
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dunno why, it just sounds right to me to say:
"Wockets hit Gwadar"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 7:40 Comments ||
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#2
LOL!
Posted by: Col Flagg ||
05/22/2004 10:17 Comments ||
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#3
That was an impostor. I say Preshwar!
Posted by: Col Flagg ||
05/22/2004 10:18 Comments ||
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A meeting chaired by President General Pervez Musharraf on Friday decided to take stern action against those harbouring foreign elements in the tribal areas, our correspondent reported. âPakistan will not compromise on the fight against terrorism and foreign elements hiding in the tribal areas have no place. If they do not surrender, they will be eliminated,â an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press release quoted him as saying. The meeting was attended among others by NWFP Governor Lt Gen (r) Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, Vice Chief of Army Staff General Muhammad Yousaf Khan, Peshawar Corps Commander Lt General Syed Safdar Hussain and senior officials.
âPresident Musharraf was briefed on the current situation,â ISPR Director General Major General Shaukat Sultan said, without disclosing details of the meeting. However, he said the decision to take military action against foreign militants would be taken by the NWFP governor. The press release said that the meeting was informed about the on-going political process. âThey were told that the tribal people were law-abiding, peace-loving and loyal Pakistanis and the president hoped that the political process would bring about positive results,â it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2004 1:52:28 AM ||
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Heh - looks like all those dead batteries in the GPS units of US forces along the Afghan border are paying dividends.
The press release said that the meeting was informed about the on-going political process. âThey were told that the tribal people were law-abiding, peace-loving and loyal Pakistanis and the president hoped that the political process would bring about positive results,â it said.
Anyone want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 12:55 Comments ||
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Perv to Bad Guyz: Surrender or die!
Seems I've heard this somewhere before. Doesn't Perv have this statement taped into a loop through his fax machine? I think he's going to wear out the "send" button soon.
At some point either he himself or some home grown Pakistani terrorist is going to make his @ss cash the rubber checks his mouth's been writing since for-f&%king-ever.
The U.S. military said 454 prisoners were released Friday from the Abu Ghraib prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people are still believed held at the prison. The military is still sending detainees considered security risks to Abu Ghraib. A convoy of at least six buses, accompanied by U.S. troops in armored vehicles and jeeps, took detainees to several areas, including Tikrit and Baqouba, north of the capital. Some of those who were freed Friday told of beatings and psychological abuse. They kissed the ground and kneeled to pray after walking out of the police compound in Baqouba.
Abdul Salam Hussain Jassim, 18, said he was held for three months after an explosion. "Don't even talk about torture. They destroyed me," Jassim said. He said a family of five brothers and sisters was detained in the same block and that one of the men was beaten so badly he died two days later. Another freed prisoner from Abu Ghraib, Maher Saeed, said he was tied to a car and dragged through the sand for several hundred yards.
A man who identified himself as Ghazwan said he was held with his brother and father for nine months. He spent six in isolation. "They were psychologically torturing us especially in the heavy quarantines, they were abusing us inside these quarantines by beating us and forcing us to take off all our clothes," he said. "They were forcing detained women to distribute food to us while we were naked."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 1:07:47 AM ||
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I think we should steel ourselves for a flood of bogus abuse complaints that will approach Biblical proportions. So far as I can tell, Arabs excel at only two things: lying, and playing the poor, helpless victim.
We need to stay the course in Iraq and put maximum effort into achieving a peaceful society there, at least so we can honestly say, "Well, we tried."
But let's not do this again. The next time some band of Wahhabist fanatics manages to pull off a mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil, we should retaliate promptly-- within hours, not months-- and brutally.
Go for pure punishment. This "addressing root causes" stuff is bullshit.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2004 8:23 Comments ||
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Two Afghan militants were arrested and a large quantity of explosives seized in a raid on their Karachi home yesterday, police said. The two had been supplying weapons and explosives to a banned group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, local police officer Imran Shaukat told reporters. âWe have arrested two men linked to banned Harkat ul-Mujahedeen Al-Alaami,â he said, adding that 178 kgs of explosives were recovered.
Al-Alaami is a splinter group of a militant outfit known as Harkatul Mujahedeen. The latest arrest came a day after police captured a leader of the group, which is also linked to a plot to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf in Karachi two years ago. Shaukat said police also seized 10 detonators, 150 meters of water-proof fuse wire and dozens of plates which suicide bombers use to fix explosives to their jackets. The suspects were identified as Wasif, who is known by only one name, and Ghulam Rahim.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/22/2004 12:47:20 AM ||
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It was hardly a surprise that a bomb killed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov. After all, he had been the target of at least 17 previous attempts on his life, most recently by three female suicide bombers. The real surprise came with the Kremlin's bizarre public embrace of his son. Hours after the assassination, there was Ramzan Kadyrov on national television being consoled by President Vladimir Putin. A day later, he was promoted to first deputy prime minister of Chechnya, making him the highest-ranking Chechen in the war-ravaged republic. Will the Kremlin next appoint him to take over from his father? If so, most experts agree, it will be a testament to how badly Putin's policies in Chechnya have failed.
Even in a land where people are numb from a decade of chaotic violence, Ramzan Kadyrov is an unusually repugnant figure. His horrific record as the head of a 1,500-man private army includes kidnapping, extortion and torture, according to the Russian human-rights group Memorial. One victim, in an affidavit sent to the General Prosecutor's Office in Moscow but never acted upon, tells of being tortured into organizing a bomb attack on a political rival of Akhmad Kadyrov's. In another incident, the younger Kadyrov is said to have extorted $50,000 from the republic's Education minister. When the minister complained to the father, Ramzan Kadyrov's men beat the minister "to within an inch of his life," recounts a Moscow-based Chechen leader. The son consistently denies doing anything more than serving as head of the republic's presidential security force.
Why would the Kremlin even hint at supporting such an allegedly brutal figure? With Kadyrov Jr. as president, the Kremlin could keep intact the complicated clan-based power structure that his father erected and ruled by. Kadyrov rivals theorize âthat some factions in Moscow would actually prefer a weak and inexperienced leader, someone unlikely to end the current lawlessness. Disorder and confusion make it easier to siphon off aid money. And, in an especially cynical view, "chaos is good for the Russian military. They can say, 'Look what's going on in Chechnya. We need more money,' " says Ruslan Khasbulatov, a former speaker of the Russian Parliament.
Khasbulatov, a Chechen-born economics professor in Moscow, would like to be Chechnya's next president. So would Malik Saidullayev, a wealthy Chechen businessman popular in the republic for his humanitarian largesse. But the Kremlin seems to have other ideas. Last year, when Khasbulatov was mulling a run for president in Chechnya's October elections, he says a Putin aide visited him twice to dissuade him. Khasbulatov eventually opted out because he doubted the election's fairness. Saidullayev, too, says he was intensely lobbied by another top Kremlin official, Vladislav Surkov, to drop out of the race. When Saidullayev refused, a court took him off the ballot on technical grounds. This time around, convinced that the new presidential election set for late summer will be just as fraudulent as last October's, Saidullayev says he won't compete. "We need one-man rule in Chechnya," he says, "but that man must be chosen in a free and fair election."
Yet Kadyrov's candidacy advances. Last Thursday the republic's top government leaders sent an appeal to Putin "to help Ramzan become president." (Only 27, he is by law too young to hold officeâwithout an amendment to the Constitution or, possibly, an edict by the Russian president.) That same day, about 3,000 heavily armed Chechen paramilitaries stood in formation in the capital, Grozny, and held a pro-Ramzan rally.
If Kadyrov Jr. doesn't get the Kremlin's blessing, two other ethnic Chechens are options: former KGB man Said Peshkhoyev and Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a Putin adviser respected in Chechnya for speaking out against human-rights abuses. Whoever the Kremlin chooses, though, will probably not favor the only possible solution for ending the war: negotiations with the rebels. That would be anathema to Putin, who is determined to make no concessions to those he considers terrorists. Whatever happens, Chechnya's misery is likely to continue.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:37:06 AM ||
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Newsweek sez Chechnya's a quagmire
They're right.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/22/2004 2:04 Comments ||
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Newsweek sez Chechnya's a quagmire
Which I've learned based on their coverage of Iraq in Newsweekspeak must mean the Russians are beating the living crap out of the Chechnya.
#9
While we're at it, when will the armored divisions stationed at Ft. Hood launch their long-awaited offensive to liberate Austin from the entrenched hippy occupation force?
American AC-130 gunships and tanks battled militiamen near shrines in this Shiite holy city Friday, and fighting was heavy in two other towns south of Baghdad. In Karbala, the U.S. military said it killed 18 fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who launched an uprising against the American-led coalition in early April and is wanted in the murder of a rival moderate cleric last year. Hospital officials reported 12 deaths, including two Iranian pilgrims. A driver for the Arab television network Al-Jazeera was also killed. Much of the fighting was near the city's Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas shrines, which U.S. forces say are being used by militiamen as firing positions or protective cover. At least six people were killed and 56 were injured in fighting in Najaf and neighboring Kufa, where al-Sadr delivered a defiant sermon to 15,000 worshippers in which he urged his supporters to resist the coalition. At a checkpoint in Kufa, American forces shot at a car carrying a close aide of al-Sadr, Mohammed al-Tabtabaei, injuring him and killing his driver, al-Sadr's office in Najaf said. Al-Tabtabaei was taken into custody.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:34:07 AM ||
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they seem to get it - don't let these mooks travel. Every other friggin day it seems Al-Sadr is in Najaf, then Kufa, then Najaf. Shoot.Him.Now
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2004 7:47 Comments ||
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There is another section of this article that is more promising. I don't think that the bombings are having quite the effect that the jihadis intended.
Police and U.S. military officers at the scene said the dead included four Iraqi policemen and a female neighbor who died in her home....the blast occurred at about 8:05 a.m. was caused by a "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device."...It was unclear whether the bomb was detonated by a suicide attacker.
Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi visited the site and was mobbed by distraught neighbors who screamed at him to "come and see what happened to our homes."
"God does not accept this," one man shouted.
"It would seem that the criminals do not want the law to prevail or the security men to implement it," he told reporters. "I want every honorable man in this country to condemn this crime."
#3
I've mentioned it before and I'll bring it up again:
Isn't there some way to prompt a massive release of CO2 or N2 that will nondestructively suffocate all occupants of these shrines? We need to evacuate the entire perimeter and release a oxygen deprivation cloud that will permanently pacify these sites. I'll once more go so far as to advocate holding the shrines hostage against a cessation of all further inssurection. No better message could be sent to Iran's Shiites as to just how thin the ice is that they are skating upon.
That Sadr remains mobile (not to mention breathing) remains a total mystery. This mutt should have experienced fast onset lead poisoning a long time ago.
Alone among the nations of North Africa, Tunisia appears to have found the formula for terrorism prevention. In the 1980s President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali reached out to an Islamist political party, al-Nahda, in an effort to include the group in the Tunisian political system. He was met with terrorism. The group placed bombs in tourist hotels and in the ruling party headquarters. Authorities also discovered a plot to overthrow the government and to make Tunisia an Islamic state. Ben Ali reacted swiftly and with force. He declared the party illegal and jailed its leaders and most adherents. Since that time Tunisia's proactive anti-terrorist policy has effectively safeguarded the country from Islamic extremist terrorism.
The country, however, received a scare in 2002 when a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders into the front of a synagogue in Djerba, a Tunisian tourist island. In the attack on the synagogue, the oldest in Africa, 16 people died. The subsequent investigation revealed the suicide bomber was a Tunisian citizen who grew up in France. Two accomplices, a Polish convert to Islam and a Moroccan, were arrested in Paris. A group connected with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack with letters to Arabic newspapers in London.
Islamic extremists, however, have not surrendered totally. A band calling itself the Tunisian Combatant Group and connected to al-Qaeda operates mostly in Western Europe, particularly in Italy. It functions mostly as a recruiter for Muslim fighters and a false document facility. The group had plans to attack the Tunisian and United States Embassies in Rome, but they were found out and the attacks prevented.
President Ben Ali has waged a persistent, forceful and effective campaign on a number of fronts to forestall the formation of terrorist groups in Tunisia. As head of an avowedly secular state, Ben Ali early on recognized the threat of Islamic extremism. He, first of all, undercut the extremists by making religious affair the business of the state through the establishment of a Religious Affairs Ministry. He also set up the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), which convened in April 2004, producing a ringing repudiation of terrorism. The concluding document of the conference emphasized that Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance. Recognizing that extremism and terrorism are also the products of social and economic forces, Ben Ali has waged a campaign to improve the Tunisian quality of life. Throughout his long term in office, he has pursued policies of national reconciliation, including a progressive program of rights for women.
Ben Ali has found much success on the economic front. In the 1990s Tunisia was the most powerful economy in North Africa, with a growth rate of 5 percent. It has the highest per capita income in North Africa, a significant accomplishment in a North African country without oil resources. The country has high education standards and high home ownership rates and is the second most computerized country in Africa after South Africa. The country has also benefited from a tough anti-terrorism law enforcement regime. In April four high school students, a university student and a university teacher ran afoul of a December 2003 anti terrorist law and received long prison sentences. The group was planning a terrorist attack on a coast guard post, after their arrest, authorities discovered arms and explosives training manuals in their possession.
Some Tunisians, however, have escaped the reach of Ben Ali's anti-terrorism policies. The identification of a Tunisian as the mastermind of the Madrid train bombings is a case in point. In Italy a Tunisian was said to have been the head of an al-Qeada European network. Also in Italy, a Tunisian, a defector from al-Qaeda, provided Italian authorities with important information on the plans and activities of al-Qeada cells in that country.
Interesting. Al-Qaeda defectors generally don't live too long. Hope he's got somebody else starting his car.
Ben Ali has also used international fora in an attempt to strengthen cooperation among countries. In a 2003 meeting in Tunis often countries of the western Mediterranean, Ben Ali's diplomatic efforts produced a strong condemnation of terrorism, complementing his specific proposal on anti terrorist initiatives. Ben Ali maintains that cooperation is indispensable in the fight against terrorism and that the battle should be fought at the local, regional and international levels.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:23:49 AM ||
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Many of the worst abuses that have come to light from the Abu Ghraib prison happened on a single November day amid a flare of insurgent violence in Iraq, the deaths of many U.S. soldiers and a breakdown of the American guards' command structure. Nov. 8 was the day U.S. guards took most of the infamous photographs: soldiers mugging in front of a pile of naked, hooded Iraqis, prisoners forced to perform or simulate sex acts, a hooded prisoner in a scarecrow-like pose with wires attached to him. It was unclear Friday whether most or all of the new pictures and video published by The Washington Post depicted events on Nov. 8. At least one photo, showing Spc. Charles Graner Jr. with his arm cocked as if to punch a prisoner, is described in military court documents as having been taken that day.
When Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits tearfully pleaded guilty Wednesday to abusing prisoners, he described fellow soldiers committing an escalating series of abuses on eight prisoners that included stamping on their toes and fingers and punching one man hard enough to knock him out. Sivits is likely to testify about the events of Nov. 8 at courts-martial for other soldiers charged with abuse. Three of them declined to enter pleas at hearings Wednesday: Sgt. Javal Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II and Graner. The abuse came during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and reflection. The abused Iraqis, Sivits said, had been suspected of taking part in a prison riot that day. They were held at Abu Ghraib on suspicion of common crimes, not attacks on U.S. forces, said Col. Marc Warren, the top legal adviser to Iraqi commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.
The day of abuse â a Saturday â capped what had been the worst week for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. Nearly three dozen had been killed in a surge of attacks that left some other soldiers frustrated and frightened. Insurgents had attacked the Abu Ghraib prison and other U.S. bases in the area with mortars several times in previous weeks. The day before, insurgents had downed a Black Hawk helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing six. Sixteen soldiers had died five days earlier when a shoulder-fired missile destroyed a Chinook transport helicopter near the flashpoint city of Fallujah. The International Red Cross temporarily pulled out of Iraq on Nov. 8 because of the violence, which also had included a deadly car bomb outside the aid group's Baghdad headquarters on Oct. 27. Three Iraqi prisoners escaped in the four days before Nov. 8 â and an additional half-dozen detainees escaped on that day, according to the military's internal report prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
The pressure was on to get information from prisoners to help stop the attacks. "We've been working very hard to increase our intelligence capacity here," Sanchez told reporters in Iraq on Nov. 11. "We are not where we want to be yet." Several accused soldiers have told investigators that military and civilian intelligence officers asked them to scare and humiliate the prisoners before they were questioned. "The orders came directly from the intelligence community, to soften up the detainees so that intelligence information could be gathered to save the lives of soldiers in the field," said Paul Bergrin, a lawyer for Davis.
Using guards to help interrogators "set the conditions" for questioning had been one tactic recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller in September. Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorism suspects, toured U.S. prisons in Iraq and recommended several changes in tactics to Sanchez. Troops in Iraq adopted many of Miller's suggested approaches, military officials have said, after toning them down because some would have violated the Geneva Conventions, which apply to prisoners in Iraq. U.S. officials have said those rules did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo. Sanchez told a Senate panel Wednesday that he never approved any tactics harsher than keeping prisoners in isolation. And Miller testified that he never meant for military guards to abuse detainees, only to tell interrogators their observations of the prisoners. Miller now oversees the military detention facilities in Iraq. Sanchez announced last week that he would no longer even consider requests for harsh treatment of detainees other than isolation or segregation.
After Miller's visit in September, the military brought in Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder in October to survey prison camps and make more suggestions. Ryder issued his report and left Iraq just three days before Nov. 8. Ryder opposed Miller's recommendation that military police be used to help set the stage for interrogations. He also urged officers to give more training to prison guards, which was never done. Lack of training was one of many leadership problems with the Army Reserve unit that provided the guards at Abu Ghraib, according to the report by Gen. Taguba. He described a unit in which discipline had broken down to the point that soldiers were writing poems on their helmets and wandering around in civilian clothes carrying weapons. Two days after the Nov. 8 spasm of abuse, the general in charge of the MPs gave written reprimands to two of the unit's leaders for failing to correct security lapses at Abu Ghraib. Taguba recommended further disciplinary action against the two officers â Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum and Maj. David DiNenna. It is unclear if that has happened; they have not been criminally charged.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:14:49 AM ||
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Blah...Blah...Blah. We are engaged in a war and bad things happen sometimes. I care a lot more about sarin fill munitions being used against our guys and American citizens being butchered than I do about prisoner humiliation.
This is a monumental waste of time and resources.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono ||
05/22/2004 10:03 Comments ||
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Most Iraqi prisoner abuse occurred on one day
When is the following headline ever going to appear?
MORE Iraqi prisoner abuse occurred IN one day OF SADDAM'S REGIME THAN DURING THE ENTIRE IRAQ CAMPAIGN.
Members of the political organization headed by Ahmed Chalabi are suspected of providing information to Iran on U.S. troop positions in Iraq and of kidnapping a prominent physician from his home, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials familiar with three investigations into a group the Bush administration once favored to run postwar Iraq. Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council, of which Chalabi is a member, met Friday in an emergency session to discuss how to respond to the raid, which many of its members linked to U.S. occupation officials. In interviews Friday, INC members, senior officers of the Iraqi police force and U.S. officials outlined three distinct investigations into the INC, which in addition to Defense Department funding received $33 million from the State Department over the past four years. The inquiries are focusing on allegations of corruption, kidnapping and robbery, and on a U.S. suspicion that one of Chalabi's closest advisers is a paid agent of the Iranian intelligence service, according to U.S., INC and Iraqi police officials. The adviser, Aras Habib, has a long working relationship with the Defense Intelligence Agency and is now a fugitive. Chalabi is not wanted for arrest. One of Chalabi's advisers said Friday that INC officials received advance notice of U.S. plans to search the INC intelligence building and removed their computers weeks ago. The adviser, Francis Brooke, said "nothing of any intelligence value" was recovered in the raids.
With the United States preparing to transfer limited power to an interim Iraqi government in a little more than a month, the move against the INC has been portrayed by Chalabi as a U.S. effort to isolate him before the new government is named. At a hearing on Capitol Hill, some Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee expressed puzzlement over the latest turn of events regarding Chalabi. "We support our troops, and we support you gentlemen -- it's your civilian bosses in the Pentagon I'm increasingly worried about," Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said to Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and two other senior officers testifying before the panel. "This seems to be a substantial development in the war, when one of the most highly paid and trusted advisers may have deliberately misled our nation for months and years and some of our officials may have swallowed it hook, line and sinker."
Myers said he knew very little about Chalabi, despite the Iraqi's close relationship with the Pentagon. "If this man was on the U.S. payroll until last week, what has changed in the last few days to make him the subject of a raid of this type?" Cooper asked.
"That I can't tell you," Myers responded. "What I can tell you is that the organization that he is associated with has provided intelligence to our intelligence unit there in Baghdad that has saved soldiers' lives."
Myers was pressed again on the issue by Rep. Timothy J. Ryan (D-Ohio), who asked, "Have we been duped by a con man?"
"I don't have the information that can allow me to make that judgment," Myers said. "I think that remains to be seen, probably. But I just don't know."
Sometime in the past few weeks, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, referred the results of an Iraqi police investigation of the INC to the U.S.-created Central Criminal Court of Iraq. An Iraqi judge outlined charges Thursday that included kidnapping and torture, fraud and "associated matters." "Ambassador Bremer doesn't intervene in these respective cases, he just handles the procedural matter of referring it," said Daniel Senor, Bremer's spokesman.
A senior Iraqi police officer involved in the case said most of the eight suspects the police sought Thursday were involved in an armed robbery and kidnapping last month that was allegedly carried out by INC members. The officer said his office had received complaints for months about INC members impersonating police officers, breaking into homes and carrying out robberies. He said police officers had warned the INC offices several times about the allegations. In the past three weeks, he said, police have arrested four INC officials on robbery charges. "They knew all about this," the officer said. "It was not the first time."
In April, a respected cardiologist from Baghdad Medical City filed a criminal complaint alleging that he was kidnapped by men he identified as INC members. The men visited his home one night, accused him of harboring terrorists and asked to search his house, according to the officer who took the complaint. They stole $20,000 in cash and a computer, then they took him away in an SUV, the officer said. The doctor said he was hooded and driven to a building where he was interrogated, according to the officer. When the men removed the hood, the doctor said, he recognized four of them as INC members. The men were among the eight suspects whom police officers were seeking Thursday.
The officer, who participated in the raid at Chalabi's house, said Chalabi challenged them politely at his door. "He asked, 'Why are you guys working with the Americans? You are the major crimes unit?' " the officer recalled. "I said, 'We aren't. We're the police. We have a warrant and we are executing it.' "
Brooke, the INC adviser, said the raids were likely related in part to the investigation of Sabah Nouri, a German national whom Chalabi picked to be the Iraqi Finance Ministry's anti-corruption officer. Nouri was arrested in April after auditors discovered a $22 million shortfall in the program overseeing Iraq's transition to a new currency this year. Brooke called him "a low-level" INC official. Brooke said Habib, the INC's longtime intelligence chief, was the primary target of the investigation. A U.S. official in Washington said Habib was being investigated on suspicion of being a paid agent of the Iranian intelligence service and that the allegations stemmed from current activity with foreign governments. According to Brooke, a former subcontractor on a CIA program in northern Iraq who has a 10-year association with Chalabi, Habib had been at odds with the CIA for a decade. When a CIA officer asked Habib in the mid-1990s to use an INC intelligence network in northern Iraq to gather intelligence against Iran, Habib "told him to stick it in his ear," Brooke said.
In October 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency took over a State Department program that paid the INC $335,000 a month to gather intelligence. To qualify, Habib and other INC figures were required to take polygraph tests that focused almost entirely on his connections with foreign intelligence agencies. "He passed," said Brooke. He said Habib acknowledged during the screening he had connections with intelligence services in Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Brooke's account could not be independently verified.
While stirring anger among Iraqi political leaders, Chalabi's plight appears to have generated little fresh support among ordinary Iraqis who never embraced the longtime exile as a potential leader. A small protest gathered Friday in front of the Green Zone, as the compound housing occupation headquarters is known, to protest U.S. treatment of Chalabi and its failure to prevent the assassination Tuesday of the Governing Council's acting leader Izzedine Salim. But the demonstration dissipated quickly. "It took them four years to discover he was a liar," said Ali Hashem Ali, 46, a mechanical engineer. "And it took us two days to discover he was a thief and a liar."
But Brooke said the fallout has had political benefits, particularly in galvanizing council support for Chalabi. "This has been good for us," Brooke said. "We got what we wanted. Saddam Hussein is gone."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:10:21 AM ||
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Ever wonder if women and children are actually getting shot in Iraq, and if so, why? Hereâs an account from a soldier engaged in convoy protection in the Sunni Triangle (courtesy of Don Sensingâs website):
We were in the middle of Baghdad on a main highway being attacked; there were buildings all around us, and people in the buildings firing weapons at us. I looked off to the left at a frontage road and I saw nine cars in rows of three. There was a line of women in front of all the cars, and some of them had children with them. I thought they were just watching us get attacked, and then men started popping up behind them firing at us - they were using the women as shields!! It took me a second to realize that. They were standing on the hoods of the cars behind the women and children; it shocked the hell out of me. Then we started getting hit with small arms fire, which sounded like golf balls hitting metal. I started firing back at them but I couldnât get passed the women; they were all I could hit, and they started falling down. The men turned around and ran back behind the cars to fire...
I looked over and saw the two little kids that were on the bridge earlier, they were firing at me again. The older one, who had shot me earlier, was firing at the trailer and the semi, and the younger kid was firing two to three rounds at a time directly at me. I fired another round over their heads but they didnât budge, and apparently they were not about to. Then I aimed at the younger kidâs chest and fired the round. It went into his throat and out the other side, and he dropped to the ground dead.
The older kid looked down at him, then up at me, and started laying into it; firing twenty to thirty rounds at a time at me. I rolled over, trying not to get hit, then I aimed at his head and shot, but I missed and it went over his head and hit the wall. Luckily it knocked enough debris down on him to drop him. I knew he wasnât dead, but he was down on the ground and that was good enough for me.
These terrorists are really something - using their own people (probably not their family members or friends) to shield themselves from attack. This is Muslim honor? The only problem I see with Abu Ghraib is that our boys arenât tough enough on captured terrorists. There are innocent civilians getting killed because of these Baathist/Islamist thugs. The only way our boys will be able to stop them is by finding out who they are, where they are and where they hide their weapons. Getting information from terrorists without coercion is a lost cause.
Posted by: Zhang Fei ||
05/22/2004 12:04:12 AM ||
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#1
The CIA has metal detectors at the entrances to their 'secret prisons' they are not going to allow pictures to get out. The photgs at Abu Graib should have been shot for treason. And another thing, mark my words; if Sadre lives through this handover, we will regret it 3 years from now! He will align with Iran having won the civil war in Iraq, and a Super State of Iran will emerge.
#2
Shoot to kill boys. Until the word gets out that these tactics don't work and that it only gets your girl friends and their little brothers killed, it wont stop. Shoot to kill.
Swarthy men hiding behind kids. Arabs, whats not to like.
I've been saying this all along. Basically, capturing insurgents/terrorists will result in being stuck with feeding them, clothing them, and maintaining their health, wasting money and resources that are best expended on more worthy individuals.
#4
Before my son went over there earlier this year, he told me his #1 fear-- above getting killed, even-- was of being caught in one of these situations where the jihadis would force him to shoot at civilians, especially kids, in a gun battle.
These "honorable" Arabs certainly know how to exploit our fears.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2004 7:04 Comments ||
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#5
I thought this was a tactic used only in Somalia.
Posted by: Rafael ||
05/22/2004 7:32 Comments ||
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#6
The jihadis use anything as a tool against us. Our humanity is considered a weakness. When Sammy was criticized for his cruelty and torture, etc., he killed his opposition, ignored them, or told them to screw off.
Americans in the Pacific war in WW2 tried to get the Japanese to surrender. They got shot or booby trapped. The Americans hardened up and then took no quarter. The same goes for Iraq and the rest of the WoT (WoI). The decisions on the part of the Jihadis to include women and children as combatants will backfire when the Allies harden up and take them out as combatants. The Israelis had to deal with the same thing. It is just the way this war will go.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 14:02 Comments ||
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#7
sad isn't it,we are going to have to kill women and children because of cowards
#8
Well if our leaders would get some BRAINS and start exposing the cowards on video (or even pictures) instead of bending over and allowing Al-Jitzz/ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/BBC/... to sodomize us with the prison abuses by a few.
If we were to show such videos then the public backlash against Sadr and the 'insurgants' might cause them to stop using civilian human shields or young boys.
The mystery of who killed Nick Berg, the freelance contractor beheaded on video, took a new twist last night when Iraqi police claimed they had arrested four suspects with links to Saddam Hussein's family. Iraqi security officials said Berg's alleged killers were part of a group led by a close relative of Saddam - his nephew Yasser al-Sabawi. The men were seized a week ago after a tip-off, they said. All were former members of the Fedayeen Saddam, the paramilitary group notorious for its loyalty to Iraq's ex-president.
But last night the US military spokesman, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said American forces had arrested four men linked to the Berg case after a raid in Baghdad. Two had been released and two were still being questioned. He said: '"I don't know their prior affiliations or prior organisations. We have some intelligence that would suggest they have knowledge, perhaps some culpability."
It was not clear whether the two raids were related. The contradictory revelations add to the confusion in the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and execution of Berg, who disappeared after checking out of his Baghdad hotel on April 10. Yesterday, however, the trail appeared to lead instead to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. Iraqi officials said the men had been arrested in Salaheddin province, which includes Tikrit, shortly after Berg's headless body was dumped last week near a Baghdad flyover. Al-Sabawi was not among those arrested, the Iraqi official said. Police intelligence agents seized the men as they arrived to "plot other major operations", the officer told the Associated Press, without elaborating.
Four suspects had arrived early for the 7pm meeting and were inside the house, waiting for a fifth associate who escaped arrest, he said. The Iraqi police appear to have done a poor job of protecting their informant, who was killed by unidentified gunmen the following day, the official admitted. Police seized weapons and explosives at the scene. Last night the suspects were believed to be still in Iraqi hands.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 12:04:07 AM ||
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#1
Dan, I know you don't trust John Loftus much, but he was talking tonight about a report that al Douri has been holed up in Eastern Saudi Arabia with the knowledge of at least some members of the Saudi royal family (but not Bandar). He reports that President Bush is apoplectic and has read the riot act to Bandar, who blamed right-wingers in the royal family. Also, Bandar apparently gave a cryptic answer when asked by Bush if al Douri was directing the Iraqi insurgency. Have you heard about this anywhere?
Posted by: Tibor ||
05/22/2004 0:29 Comments ||
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#2
Last I heard, al-Douri was probably holed up in Mosul and there was some suspicion that he has contact with the Syrian border tribes. Al-Douri's ties to the Baathist Party predate the Iraqi/Syrian schism and he seems to have formed at least a tacit accomodation w/ Ansar al-Islam and the Syrian Baathists since OIF. If there's a text report of what Loftus said, e-mail it my way and I'll be able to get back to you in a day or so after I run it by some of the folks I know here on base.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 0:32 Comments ||
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#3
This is from the St. Petersburg Times from March 2002:
"In a setback to U.S. efforts to rally support for ousting Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia's crown prince kissed an Iraqi representative in greeting at an Arab summit Thursday, signaling a reconciliation for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War.
...
"The highlight of Iraq's day came when Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, head of the Iraqi delegation, and Abdullah embraced and kissed each other's cheeks in front of television cameras.
"Al-Douri made a further traditional gesture to Abdullah by wearing a black abaya, a flowing cloak with embroidered gold trim, just like the Saudi crown prince wears. Such abayas are worn often by Gulf leaders, but al-Douri typically wears a military uniform or business suit."
I don't know if this has any significance, but it seems interesting in light of Loftus's story.
Posted by: Tibor ||
05/22/2004 1:17 Comments ||
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#4
One other thing to note is that I believe that al-Douri's a practicing Sufi and was far more of a secular nationalist type than an Islamonut. While I'm not so idiotic as to believe that cooperation between the two is impossible (al-Douri has coordinated ops for Ansar, for example), one would think that such a thing would make him staying in Saudi rather difficult. IIRC, al-Douri was also one of the architects of Saddam's whole idea of conquering Saudi back in 1991, which might also ceate problems for him in the Magic Kingdom.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2004 1:28 Comments ||
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IT WAS a carefully crafted show of tribal unity, complete with music and dancing, staged against the backdrop of a murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing. Protected by a heavy security entourage, Sudanâs president, Omar el-Bashir, arrived in Darfurâs second largest city on Wednesday to show the attending group of western diplomats and United Nations officials that calm is returning to the region since a ceasefire reached last month. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the main square and along the road to the airport. Horsemen from Arab and African tribes paraded in supposed harmony. "In our company we have eyewitnesses from outside Sudan to see for themselves what they have heard about Darfur, about ethnic cleansing, genocide and about the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at present: We are telling them these are the people of Darfur, let them tell us if they can now differentiate between who is Arab and who is not Arab?" the president told the crowd.
The performance would have been farcical if it were not so tragic. For in truth, a decade after the world recoiled with horror from Rwandaâs genocide, government-backed Arab militias have killed tens of thousands of black Africans in the region and driven others from their homes. Kofi Annan, the United Nationsâ secretary general, warned seven weeks ago that an international force might be necessary to prevent a repeat of Rwandaâs tragedy in Darfur, an arid area the size of France that is home to both black and Arab tribes. "The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real," Mr Annan said.
And who would know better than the UN's chief enabler of genocide?
Just as Rwandaâs former government gave weapons to Hutu militias to massacre Tutsi tribespeople, so Sudanâs National Islamic Front (NIF) regime has armed an Arab militia so it can kill, rape and pillage non-Arabic-speaking black Africans. But the international community has done little to help the people, other than to debate whether events there should be described as "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing". Mr Annan said he felt a deep sense of foreboding over the situation. He added: "Whatever terms it uses to describe the situation, the international community cannot stand idly by." However, the international community is probably already too late to save many of the people. More than one million people have been driven from their homes, to become internal refugees. Another 120,000 have fled into Chad, a country even poorer than Sudan. Khartoum has refused entry to Jan Egeland, the UNâs emergency relief coordinator, to Darfur in a bid to help people herded into concentration camp-like settlements. However assistants have made clandestine trips there. He said: "I have colleagues from my office seeing, in desperation, people getting killed, gang-raped, abused and not being able to do anything to help." The ethnic cleansing/genocide is an attempt by the NIF to replace the black population of the comparatively fertile Jebel Marra area with Arab settlers, humanitarian groups say.
Being good Muslims wasn't enough, they weren't members of the Master Race.
"The aim is to kill as many people as possible and drive the remainder from their lands, destroying the fabric of rural society," reports the specialist journal Africa Confidential. "Proxy militias torch villages and exterminate villagers, slaughtering livestock and poisoning wells with corpses to prevent residents returning. Gang rape of women (often branded afterwards) and children reinforces the terror and helps to produce an âArabâ next generation. Abduction is widespread in Darfur, with groups of women flown away by helicopter."
The spearhead of Khartoumâs assault is a 20,000-strong Arab militia called the Janjaweed (Men on Horseback). The Janjaweed frequently attacks after Sudanese MiG fighters and helicopter gunships have softened up the targets. Janjaweed fighters are paid an initial $100 (£56) and given licence to loot. "Hundreds and hundreds of villages have been destroyed, usually burned, with all property looted," says the international rights group Human Rights Watch, in a report called Darfur Destroyed: Ethnic Cleansing by Government and Militia Forces in Western Sudan. "Key village assets, such as wells and water containers, have been destroyed in an apparent effort to render the villages uninhabitable." The Human Rights Watch document is a remarkable and terrifying work of reporting, compiled in the most difficult of circumstances. It is particularly important because the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, has suppressed a report by his officials on Darfur that has described a "reign of terror" by Sudanâs government.
And the condemnation of the world rolls in ... [crickets chirping]
The slaughter in Darfur is entirely racist, as the blacks of Darfur are Sunni Muslims, the same branch of Islam as Sudanâs Arabs. In one attack recorded by Human Rights Watch, Sudanese army soldiers and militiamen attacked the black village of Kondoli, pulling Korans from the small mosque and defecating on them before executing the imam, Ibrahim Durra, his deputy and the muezzin. Imam Abdullah, 65, the imam from the neighbouring village of Jalanga Kudumi, told Human Rights Watch: "We do not know why the government burns our mosques and kills our imams."
Is it okay to defecate on a Qu'ran if you're sufficiently holy?
In the wake of the Arab militias come the shadowy and powerful Jellaba, the northern Arab Sudanese merchant class with international links as extractors and sellers of raw materials. Cattle seized by the Janjaweed from black tribes are being exported by the Jellaba to Libya, Syria and Jordan. The International Crisis Group says Darfur represents the "potential horror story in 2004". Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister who is the ICGâs president, said: "Even if the war were to stop immediately, as many as 100,000 people will probably die in Darfur in the coming months because of the desperate humanitarian situation. Aid workers on the Chad/Sudan border are almost as cynical as Rantburgers cynical about ceasefires, which have more reality in the airwaves than on the ground. Simon Salimini, who co-ordinates food distribution in five World Food Programme refugee camps in eastern Chad, said: "The government gave the Janjaweed carte blanche to murder and rape at will. " Foreign governments, firmly fixed on prolonged peace talks between Khartoum and southern black rebels in Kenya, have resolutely turned a blind eye to the slaughter in Darfur. The prize at the Kenya talks is a peace of sorts between north and south and access to Sudanâs newly discovered rich oil reserves. The US president, George Bush, wants a Sudan accord before Novemberâs election to offer to the Christian Right, a powerful Bush constituency that lobbies for the southern Sudan, where many US missionaries work. In these circumstances, the people of Darfur might be expendable to Sudan and to the outside world.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/22/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Sudan is not entirely forgotten here at Rantburg even if the media ignores the murder in their wild quest to hate Bush. (ok... I'll get off that topic).
I think other non-arab muslims should watch this carefully (Indonesia? Malaysia?). This is what they can look forward too under Islamic rule. Under Islam 'Arab' muslims always are 'first' or 'holier' then muslims of other races -- I think that is even in the Qu'ran that they are.
#4
I had a friend flying DeHaviland Twin Otters in the Sudan for Chevron. He said that some guy died in front of his hotel in the 115F heat. They did not pick up the body for 3 days. One day when flying he glanced over his shoulder and saw a SAM coming at him. He shut off the engines and the SAM went by. During engine restart, he got down to 400 ft above the ground, where he took small arms fire. When they got back to Khartoum, they had 25 bullet holes in the fuselage, but nothing vital hit and nobody aboard hurt. After that, and other incidents, Chevron decided to pull the plug on Sudan.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 13:06 Comments ||
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#5
Sounds realy homey like.
Losta room in the fuselage in Twin Otters?
Thats a lot of bullets anywhere in a
lightweight aircraft.
#6
The Muslim drive southward in the Sudan should be a warning to the rest of non-Muslim Africa to wake up and counter the invading forces while there is still time.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
05/22/2004 19:29 Comments ||
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#7
Shipman---The DHC-3 seats about 18 or so. Twin high wing turboprop. More room for stray bullets than, say, my 172. Fuel is in bladders in the belly, though.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2004 23:05 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
