December 20, 2004: Britain has decided to copy the United States and create a battalion of rangers.
They get all the best toys. Plus, chicks dig Rangers.
Britain wants to use the rangers for the same purposes; to provide some mobile and well trained muscle to back up commando operations. Currently, Britain uses parachute or marine battalions for these tasks. But, as the United States has discovered, it's much more effective to create an elite infantry unit just for this purpose. Britain will take one battalion of their paratroopers and retrain them for this purpose. Britain will call the unit rangers. The original rangers, after which the American rangers are named, were actually a British unit. The first rangers (long range scouts, or "ranging men"), were American colonists, led by American Major Robert Rogers, fighting for Britain during the French & Indian war (1750s). When the American Revolution came along (1776), the rangers fought for the British, not against them (as one of many loyalist units). The rangers were revived during World War II as American versions of the British commandos. However, the American "commandos", while they had some successes, did not do well enough to be kept on after World War II. They were revived during the Korean war as long range scouts and commandos, but then disbanded. Same thing was going to happen during and after the Vietnam war. But instead, in 1974, the first battalion of modern (as they are now) rangers were created. So the rangers have come full circle, beginning in British service, and now returning to British service. The United States has three battalions of rangers.
I thought the SAS regiment was the British equivilant of the Rangers?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 10:32:24 AM ||
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#1
I think the SAS would maybe be more like our special forces ... green berets, seals, delta force, etc.
#3
I was under the impression that the SAS came in two flavors; the regular territorial SAS regiment, which operated openly like our Rangers, and the special operations SAS, which specialized in the black arts.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 11:51 Comments ||
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#4
SAS/SBS is more like our SEAL teams than anything else.
#6
So it took the Brits over 250 years to figure out that Robert Rogers was right. I wonder what happens when they discover those miracle workers, Sheridan, Sherman and George H. Thomas?
#7
OK, this is what I was thinking about: TA SAS and R Squadron In 1947 the Artists Rifles was combined with 21 SAS to form 21 SAS (Artists) Vounteers.The 2 and one in 21 stood for 1 and 2 SAS (in reversed order). In 1959 23 SAS was born, a unit made up of the former MI-9 escape experts of World War II. The two Territorial Army SAS Regiments are still 21 and 23 SAS. These Regiments train to the limits like their sister unit, 22 SAS. They are made up of Territorial volunteers. A civilian can attempt to join the ranks of either 21 or 23 SAS. The two Regiments war time role is long range recon. Each squadron also has a member of 22 SAS attached to it. In early 1990's the TA SAS sent some of it's men to Bosnia to act as peacekeepers to help relieve the SAS of such tasks. This was done so 22 SAS could continue with missions, such as hunting down war criminals and performing reconnaissance(1). The team was a mixed group of volunteers from 21 and 23 SAS.
21 SAS is based in London. It does however have squadrons spread over much of England including: Dulwich, Hitchin, Bramley, and Newport. 23 SAS is based in Birmingham with other squadrons in Manchester,Leeds, Newcastle, Dundee, and Glasgow. The two regiments were cut from 5 squadrons a piece to only three in 1994.
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Although the wartime role of the TA SAS is long range reconnaissance, TA SAS soldiers have been known to train in CQB as well.23 SAS is also tasked with CSAR. The soldiers are taught about foreign weapons and explosives. They are also given extensive medical and communications training. These last to skills are essential for LRR patrols to master, since they would usually be operating deep behind enemy lines with little or no support. TA soldiers have recently been allowed to go to Jungle Warfare school in Belize, a school which is thought to also except TA SAS soldiers. Training in winter warfare is also taught to TA SAS soldiers; either in Norway or in the highlands of Scotland. The TA SAS used to send its troops to the International Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol School in Weingarten, Germany. However it is believed that this school is now closed.
That's why I thought that the TA SAS Regiment was the British version of the Rangers.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 14:35 Comments ||
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#8
SAS/SBS is more like our SEAL teams than anything else.
Charles Clarke faces his first real test as home secretary on Monday with a possible backbench rebellion over the controversial ID cards bill. Up to 30 Labour MPs could oppose the scheme during a Commons debate. Mr Clarke, who took on the post on Thursday after David Blunkett quit, has rejected calls to "pause" on the bill. Conservative leader Michael Howard also faces a challenge to his authority as he fights a shadow cabinet battle to get his party to back the measures. ...
Posted by: .com ||
12/20/2004 12:39:39 AM ||
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#1
Conservative leader Michael Howard also faces a challenge to his authority as he fights a shadow cabinet battle to get his party to back the measures. ...
Why would any party that calls itself "Conservative" back a measure to institute a national ID card?
Posted by: Jonathan ||
12/20/2004 12:03 Comments ||
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North Korea, which insists it needs a nuclear deterrent against a U.S. invasion, threatened Monday to strengthen its "deterrent force" if the United States pursues policies the communist state deems hostile. "If the United States more desperately pursues its hostile policy to isolate and stifle (North Korea) under the pretext of the 'nuclear issue' and 'human rights issue' ... the latter will react to it by further increasing its self-defensive deterrent force," an unnamed spokesman for the North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Yeah, yeah, sea of fire, all that, heard it before.
The spokesman condemned the North Korean Human Rights Act, a recent U.S. law aimed at improving human rights in the country. North Korea has repeatedly cited that law as an example of what it claims is Washington's hostile policy toward it. "By nature the U.S. is the worst human rights graveyard in the world," the spokesman said. "This is clearly proved by what happened in Iraq."
It's that liberation and democracy thing.
Efforts are under way to persuade North Korea to return to six-party nuclear talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions. However, the North has repeatedly insisted it won't return to the negotiating table until the United States abandons its "hostile" policy toward the country. Some U.S. intelligence analysts say North Korea may have up to six nuclear weapons instead of the one or two the Central Intelligence Agency estimates. North Korea says it has several plutonium-based nuclear weapons and denies U.S. allegations it has a secret uranium-based nuclear weapons program.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/20/2004 12:34:14 AM ||
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#1
Will they now make an even deeper crater when they blow themselves up to stop the imagined "invasion"?
#4
We are just talking about rearranging the furniture, not taking over the house, Mr. Kimmie.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/20/2004 2:01 Comments ||
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#5
I'm not sure it's all hot air. I'm not entirely sure what this phenomenon is, but it's remarkably similar to an incident (or incidents) in Australia in the early '90s. In the same area, Aum Shinrikyo was found to have purchased large acreages.
Posted by: Iron Pyrite ||
12/20/2004 4:34 Comments ||
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An Australian state tribunal's finding that two pastors had vilified Muslims looks set to widen the divide in the country's Christian community between liberal mainstream church representatives who lauded the ruling and evangelicals who argued that it constituted a dangerous threat to free speech and freedom to evangelize. Critics of the tribunal decision in the state of Victoria called for the repeal of the controversial legislation that made it possible. In the first case of its kind under Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act -- introduced three years ago by the state's Labor Party government -- pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot were found Friday to have incited "hatred against, serious contempt for or revulsion or severe ridicule of" Muslims.
The complaints arose from a 2002 seminar addressed by Scot, a newsletter article by Nalliah and an article posted on the website of Nalliah's organization, Catch the Fire Ministries. The case was brought against them by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV). The two defended their actions, saying they had merely informed Christians about Islamic teachings, based on the Koran and other Islamic texts. ... Australian Christian Lobby head Jim Wallace also slammed Higgins' finding, saying it presumably meant that Australians would be unable to quote from another religion's texts and discuss them without legal repercussions. People have always been free to publicly debate the Bible, but this decision seems to indicate that this same freedom does not extend to other religious texts," Wallace said. "This decision means that a person can not hold a view of the Koran that is contrary to the 'official view' -- however one determines that."
... The religious ideas and interpretations raised during the hearing had been in the public domain for years, he said. "They have been documented in books, on the Internet, discussed in the academic world, and in churches and mosques since time immemorial. Since religions make claims to truth and morality, they should be subject to scrutiny and challenge." ... Critics pointed to what they saw as several ironies in the case. One was the fact that the Pakistan-born Scot was one of the early victims of his homeland's notorious blasphemy laws in the mid-1980s. He fled Pakistan under threat of prosecution for allegedly insulting the Islamic prophet, Mohammed, and made a new home in Australia, a Western democracy with a strong Christian heritage. Another irony was seen when Scot during the tribunal hearing quoted references from the Koran and other texts about the inferior status of women in Islam, he was asked by the female lawyer acting for the ICV to give only the references, because reading the verses out aloud in the courtroom constituted vilification. "How can it be vilifying to Muslims in the [court]room when I am just reading from the Koran?" Scot asked the tribunal -- a question observers said basically could have applied to the entire case.
Posted by: ed ||
12/20/2004 2:25:21 PM ||
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#1
Another irony was seen when Scot during the tribunal hearing quoted references from the Koran and other texts about the inferior status of women in Islam, he was asked by the female lawyer acting for the ICV to give only the references, because reading the verses out aloud in the courtroom constituted vilification.
"How can it be vilifying to Muslims in the [court]room when I am just reading from the Koran?" Scot asked the tribunal -- a question observers said basically could have applied to the entire case.
This is exactly how the P.C./Thought police are going to sell us ALL out to the Islamofascists! I can't believe that Australia's heading down this path first and so quickly though. Get ready for dhimmi status! I know who I'm more pissed at in this case, but it's hard to know who to be angrier at: the Islamofascists for crying "I'm offended," or the P.C. politicos for caving in and passing such a law in the first place.
Posted by: BA ||
12/20/2004 15:36 Comments ||
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#2
The "thoughtcrime" and one-sidedness of these "laws" in OZ land are so stupid as to almsot defy speaking about them.
First they trump up charges, then they refuse to let the person fully defend thier position by limiting his speech in revealing the bigoty built into fundamentalis "literal" Islam.
#3
And this wasn't speech that was out in the public square. Muslims deliberately attended the meetings at the church in order to "catch" these guys breaking the law.
How is this fact not at all a point of law in the case? How can there be a case when the muslims went out of their way to attend the meeting with the intention of bringing a case against the group? If they had not attended they would not have been offended. Who made them go? How are these people victims?
#4
Does anyone know the flowpath of judicial appeals in Australia?
I typically don't get too concerned about local court rulings because there's always some moonbat judge hitting the hooch too hard. It's once the appeals and supreme courts weigh in that you get the true flavor of what direction a society is drifting.
A former Australian diplomat has called on his country to assassinate radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Baasyir, the alleged spiritual leader of regional terrorism network Jemaah Islamiyah. Duncan Campbell, a former Australian ambassador to Rome and Vienna, says Baasyir would be a legitimate target for a state-sanctioned but "deniable" poisoning.
... or even a simple case of "heart failure."
I can suggest one poison they shouldn't use ...
"Can you imagine how easy it ought to be in a prison such as the one Baasyir is in, to persuade someone for a lump of money to doctor his rice? That wouldn't involve Australian hands at all, except perhaps the passing by someone to someone of a little lump of chemicals of some sort," Campbell was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald daily on Saturday. Baasyir is currently on trial in Jakarta on charges of plotting and/or inciting terrorist attacks. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and even claimed Jemaah Islamiyah does not exist. Campbell said Australia should adopt a policy to assassinate key members of regional terrorist networks, because killing them would be more effective and cost fewer lives than going to war.
To me, that makes perfect sense. There are those who say there's something wrong with the concept, but their number is decreasing daily, as we kill them off one by one...
Campbell criticized Australia for willingly joining military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan that have claimed the lives of innocent civilians, but being reluctant to assassinate known terrorists.
Give it time. It'll come.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2004 11:14:29 AM ||
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#1
His ideas aren't wacky or wrong, IMHO - we should repeal such Church Committee turds - but talking to any sort of reporter about them?
Now, if anything happens to poor little old Bashir (typical - there are 5-6 different spellings of this shithead's name) - well now, Mr Campbell has pointed a finger already, hasn't he?
He may be an ace in 100 different ways, but he's a fool in this one.
#3
I have been pushing this Gideon/Phoenix approach for some time, usually in response to "nuke 'em all" ravings at LGF. A few hundred well-aimed pistol bullets, combined with such ad hoc methods as telephone bombs and things as simple as a well-timed push down the stairs, could do as much good as all the firepower we have unleashed so far.
In fact, I think it could win the war and revive human progress if leaders were willing to think far enough outside the box.
Imagine:
A terrorist banker/bagman falls down the stairs in Rome.
A notorious propagandist is killed when his Bentley unaccountably leaves a British motorway at 100 mph.
A safehouse in rural France burns down, together with the collaborators inside.
A Saudi-registered Gulfstream vanishes over the Indian Ocean, taking a prince of the realm with it.
A revisionist professo-liar is found hanging from a tree on an American campus; an apparent suicide, but there is no note.
Heinous? Unlawful? Cruel? Sure, but is it really worse than endless war with the real enemy exempt from attack? If the dull, docile, stupid masses of jihad volunteers can be slaughtered till hell won't have it, and justly so, should those who incite and exploit them continue to live in luxury?
#4
He may be an ace in 100 different ways, but he's a fool in this one.
Agreed. While it also is fully agreed that âthose who incite and exploit [the dull, docile, stupid masses of jihad volunteers] . . . [should not be allowed to] continue to live in luxury,â broadcasting these sentiments only serves to inflame the âthe dull, docile, stupid masses of jihad volunteersâ to further violence and mayhem should anything befall the inciters and exploiters. A few months back, I think, there was a thread discussing the need for black ops to stay black . . .
Edited for brevity.
Austrian security forces foiled an attempt to assassinate a son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during a European trip in November, Yonhap News reported on Sunday, but Austrian authorities denied any incident.
"Of course we didn't foil the plot against him! He's dead, isn't he?"
The report of the plot against Kim Jong-nam came amid persistent rumors of internal political strife in the reclusive communist state and within the nation's first family itself.
"Not so's you'd notice."
"Oh. Well. Maybe we did, then."
Citing a source familiar with North Korean affairs, the South Korean news agency said the failed plot had been planned by North Koreans favoring other of Kim Jong-il's sons as his eventual successor.
"Hrarrr! T'other lad's a milksop! We must have the young prince!"
"Kim ran into an attempt to assassinate him during his visit to Europe in mid-November, but the Austrian intelligence agency had received a tip in advance and protected him," Yonhap quoted the source as saying.
"Dück, sein Hochness!"
"The attempt was made by anti-Kim (Jong-nam) groups in North Korea."
"Here, yer highness! Behind this car!"
"Thanks! Where are they firing from?"
"Pyongyang, I think!"
Austria's Interior Ministry confirmed Kim Jong-nam was in Vienna for two days about two weeks ago and said he was guarded during his stay by state anti-terrorism agents, but added this was routine for foreign dignitaries. "There were no incidents. We are not aware of anything like this reported plot," spokesman Rudolf Gollia said. "Nope. Wasn't us. And there's no truth to the rumors that we broke any codes or monitored any transmissions. Nope. Nope. Nope."
Posted by: Dar ||
12/20/2004 12:57:00 PM ||
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A savage double murder in the psychiatric wing of a French hospital, in which a nurse's decapitated head was left on top of a television in the patients' day room, stunned France and left hospital staff terrified of returning to work. Staff at the 460-bed Pyrenees Hospital Centre near the south-western town of Pau discovered the bodies of two nurses - both in their 40s, and mothers of young children - at 6.45am on Saturday, police said. One had been stabbed and slashed several times in the body, neck and throat, and was lying in a corridor in a pool of blood. The beheaded body of the second was lying at the foot of a fire door. ...
Posted by: .com ||
12/20/2004 12:13:32 AM ||
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#1
What happened to the big, strong orderlies psychiatric hospitals are supposed to keep on staff for just such contingencies?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2004 10:13 Comments ||
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#6
anon: I don't think Tom was implying that this was done by an islamonaut, rather that France should get used to this style of score-settling due to their advanced state of islamization.
#1
Tipper, Thanks but I don't need to read the article. There is no reason what so ever for Bush to dump Rummy. So Bush will not dump him. Not matter what a the left and a few Republicans say.
#2
Asia times is run by pro-bin ladenist paks and malaysians and various other anti-american south asians. Its funny how anything the US says, the Asia times says its bad. When a few US politians say Rumfeld should go, they now say he must stay, thinking it will hurt the US. Asia times is sh*t.
#5
Hagel, Warner and Lott are some of the biggest grandstanding empty suits in the Republican Party. They have devoted their energies to slamming Bush and Rumsfeld instead of making any useful proposals. Bill Kristol and some of the people at the Weekly Standard who are stomping on Rumsfeld are a bunch of ivory tower eggheads who unnecessarily raised expectations and are partially responsible for the public relations debacle in Iraq. (Militarily, it is a minor guerrilla war, but PR-wise, it is Vietnam-like, even though the military intensity of the war is far below Vietnam's levels).
#6
Those of you who are predisposed to dislike Rummy, like I used to be, you should take note of the fact that the MSM is in an all out PR push to cut him to death with a thousand small and insignificant cuts.
For those of you who missed the up-armoring discussion at Powerlineblog, it was revealing in that it was, in fact a bogus issue. The real story was that the MSM ignored the fact that the military had already addressed the issue of uparmoring, with 784 out of 804 of the vehicles having ALREADY received the kits. Remember that the kids that cheered were in Kuwait, and were probably unaware that this had been accomplished. Did Rummy blow the question? Yes, but he was set up by the reporter to do so, and the MSM perpetuated the falsehood by refusing to disclose the real facts.
So the lasting story was not that the vehicles were up-armored, or that Rumsfeld stumbled on the question, but that the MSM refused to disclose that the Army had ALREADY uparmored those vehicles. Typical.
Then, yesterday, there was the media PR blitz abou the fact that the sympathy cards were autosigned instead of personally signed by Rumsfeld. As if that hasn't always been done in war.
One thing after another, after another. If the MSM is out to get Rumsfeld, then he must be doing something very, very, right.
I just looked at Asia times, geez their articles are horribily anti-us. Don't be fooled but check out some of their articles...including
The US's failure in Fallujah
Neo-cons on the road to Damascus
Bin Laden: An open letter
How Iran will fight back
Odds even in 'info' war
Fallujah, Iraq's Tora Bora
Beware al-Qaeda watchers
Twelve years of CIA discontent
Al-Qaeda on the march
Evildoers, here we come
#8
True the reporter set up the soldier and fed off the troops worries. Rumsfeld is the guy who will always serve his country the best he can. I remember 9/11 where he was pulling fellow workers out of the pentagon. He'll give his life for America, and we shouldn't turn our backs on someone so easily. He's as deadly to the enemy as a billion suicide bomber, but not as stupid.
#10
I am reminded of what Lincoln said when his advisors criticized US Grant: "I need this man because he fights." This is why the MSM and the LLL's hate him.
#13
I only read Spengler (and just noticed his most recent article posted here) and find him interesting. Otherwise, Asia Times is only good for wiping, not reading.
#14
How about Pepe Lopez and Nir Shultz, definality not a Hispanic or a Jew, as their alias suggest, unless they converted to Islam because they spit fire at the US in each article..
Very sickning how Nir Shutlz got embedded by the 3rd Cavelry and then tore them apart in a 6 piece essay. It's all about bringing our moral down with bullshit.
#15
1. Its not about armored humvees. Its about whether we have the overall resources in Iraq that we need.
2. A minor guerilla war? With over 1000 US combat deaths, DESPITE body armor and improved medical care? Read the pro-US iraqi blogs, about what life is like in Baghdad now. 150,000 US troops. This may not be ww2, but its hardly minor.
3. Lott, Hagel, Warner, Lugar, McCain, Collins are ALL untrue GOPs???!!!!thats over 10% of the GOP Senators right there. !!!!
See Belgravia Dispatch
"Recall, Rumsfeld is not an Irving Kristol style neo-con (think Wolfowitz) or, alternately, a "national greatness" conservative (think McCain). He's pretty much an American nationalist of Jacksonian stripe and, deep down I suspect, he doesn't really care whether a true democracy takes root in Iraq. Indeed, his stewardship of the Pentagon is, increasingly, manifestly showing that."
He'll be left in till after the Iraqi elections at a minimum. Maybe till mid or late 2005.
#16
I suspect it will depend on how the elections go. If they go well, Rummy stays as long as he likes. If they go poorly, Rummy and the JCS will agree the military needs to be expanded. The minority and their RINO coleagues in the Senate will demand Rummy's head and get it as the price of expansion. It will be unfortunate becasue Rummy is doing a god job of transformation and I doubt any nominee will do better. But if the elections are a blood bath, he's the scapegoat.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 15:29 Comments ||
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#17
But if the elections are a blood bath, he's the scapegoat.
We shouldn't be silent about or tolerant of letting ANYBODY be a scapegoat.
#18
good analysis Mrs D, though i think its more than the Senate dems and "RINOs" (Warner? Lott?) - its ALSO most of the senior officers in the US Army, IIUC. And a growing body of neocons.
'At least the topic of those conversations in the Pentagon isn't boring. Indeed, Rumsfeld assured the troops who have been cobbling together their own armor, "It's interesting." In fact, "if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up." Good point. Why have armor at all? Incidentally, can you imagine if John Kerry had made such a statement a couple of months ago? It would have been (rightly) a topic of scorn and derision among my fellow conservatives, and not just among conservatives.
Perhaps Rumsfeld simply had a bad day. But then, what about his statement earlier last week, when asked about troop levels? "The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that's really out of my control." Really? Well, "the number of troops we had for the invasion was the number of troops that General Franks and General Abizaid wanted."
Leave aside the fact that the issue is not "the number of troops we had for the invasion" but rather the number of troops we have had for postwar stabilization. Leave aside the fact that Gen. Tommy Franks had projected that he would need a quarter-million troops on the ground for that task--and that his civilian superiors had mistakenly promised him that tens of thousands of international troops would be available. Leave aside the fact that Rumsfeld has only grudgingly and belatedly been willing to adjust even a little bit to realities on the ground since April 2003. And leave aside the fact that if our generals have been under pressure not to request more troops in Iraq for fear of stretching the military too thin, this is a consequence of Rumsfeld's refusal to increase the size of the military after Sept. 11.'
#21
ship WW2 wasnt a guerilla war. Like I said, this aint WW2. By historical US standards this is a major insurgency. Yes, we're finally getting it under control. Thats good. Its taken 130000 US troops to do it, and we needed Brit back up in the triangle of death at that. Despite a much better friendly Iraqi force than we had in April.
#22
a different Weekly Standard article from an AEI guy (another nest of RINOs, I suppose)
'Nor is it Donald Rumsfeld's war, or at least not the war he wants. Even longtime supporters and transformation advocates have begun to recognize that Rumsfeld is now a large part of the problem. Loren Thompson, head of the Lexington Institute, a defense think-tank long supportive of the secretary, told the Washington Post on Monday that Rumsfeld won't face reality: "He knows what the situation is, but he has been unready to change his plans." '
#23
The only General who spoke out against troop levels that I recall was Shinseki and he had knives out for Rummy before the war. So where are you geting "most of the sentior oficers in the Armmy" being ready to push Rummy out because of conduct of the war? The BIG lesson of the Vietnam war was that the military has to follow civilian direction of the war only so long as it makes sense. If generals had serious reservations about the way the war was fought and did not resign, they are fools, cowards and wastrels of the lives of the GIs they sent in danger's way. I don't believe that's true, but it is the implication inherent in your statement.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 15:58 Comments ||
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#24
64 dead yesterday. No, it's not WW2 with tens of thousands of casualties, but we don't have six million under arms, either. OBTW, by simple math, 60+ civilian casulties in a country of 23 million is the equivalent of 780 dead here. That's a rather bad day. It's coming under control? Do you think that's air you're breathing?
Posted by: Weird Al ||
12/20/2004 16:02 Comments ||
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#25
Weird Al, This isn't about body counts, it's about election turn out. Lotas people are going to die between now and January 30, that's a given. The question is how much the Iraqis want responsibility for running their own country. That's what we're going to find out.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 16:06 Comments ||
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#26
...his civilian superiors had mistakenly promised him that tens of thousands of international troops would be available.
Hmmm...most arguments seem to eventually circle back around to "allies" who didn't give a shi*t about mass graves or psychotic, sanctions-defying, weapons seeking maniacs before the war and wouldn't do a thing to stop them--many of them the same "allies" who don't give a sh*t about lots of dead people in the war now, Iraqi or American. Oh those empathetic, altruistic French, Spanish, Russians, Germans-what models of humanity. As long as their self-serving hides are safe, they are content to let Americans put out fires all over the earth and die doing so.
Besides, there haven't been enough dead Americans chalked up on their justice scorecard yet TM.
#27
Where do i get that from - just about everyone informed on military affairs in the MSM, in blogs, etc says that Rummy is disliked in the Army, most of whom liked Shinseki and shared his opinions on the size of the army.
Resign - its not up to officers to resign when someone above them has made a call, its up to them to do the best with what they have. Look Im not saying that they were all up in arms about the size of the force, but it certainly wasnt their call. It was Rummys call, and they went along. Doesnt mean they didnt want a larger force. And, BTW, you will not that Franks said he was promised international forces to make up the difference. That wasnt his job to dispute. And it certainly isnt up to officers to resign when they think their service hasnt been given enough resources, or we'd have had massive resignations for decades. Do you think the officer corps (and not just the army) wasnt unhappy with Clinton? Do you fault officers who didnt resign then? Thats just not the way things work at the Pentagon.
#28
Jules - yeah the french etc were shits. But we KNEW that in March 2003. It was Rummys decision to go with the force he did, and to tell Franks the international troops would make it up. The implication is he KNEW there werent going to be many foreign troops, but said otherwise to Franks
#30
Lots in the Army dislike Rummy because he has pushed them so hard for transformation, cancelling Crusader, supposedly favoring the AF.
Size of the Army was not an issue with Shinseki, size of the invasion and occupation force was. I know of no others who disagreed nor have I read anything that leads me to believe there was widespread disention prior to the invasion about force size.
The Nuremburg defence is not operative for U. S. military. If they are in the chain of command and give the order, it is indeed their call. If Tommy Franks did not have the soldiers he needed, he should have resigned. Generals never think they have enough resources and never will. But there's a point where there's too little. That's the charge that's being made against Rummy and you are enlisting the generals as part of the cabal. I'm saying if they want to come out now and claim the force sent was smaller than they thought prudent then they should have said so and resigned then, not stab the guy in the back now.
I don't recall military personnel having to make decisions about sending military troops into combat after Mogadishu. I suspect there was a discusion with Mr. Clinton about exactly that topic and that is why he was so adamant about bombing the Serbs into submission instead of using ground troops.
If the Generals are such wusses they can't stand up to "bullies" like Rummy and Bush then we are unlikely to prevail in the war on terror.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 16:25 Comments ||
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#31
Liberalhawk, busy beating himself over woulda coulda shoulda's and saying "everyone in the know" thinks like he does. Yawn. So boring.
#32
Body counts and the upcoming elections are intertwined beyond any hope of our separating them. Tet was a military disaster, but a PR coup for the NVA. The american civilians perceived it as showing the North could fight when and where it wanted. The violence in Iraq is indeed at a lower level, but we make a mistake if we think it is meant to demoralise us. The Iraqis are also civilians. It is meant at this point to demoralize them, to show violence has the potential to go on more less indefinitely. Will it work? We shall see. So it goes.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
12/20/2004 16:36 Comments ||
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#33
How much psychic ability should we expect in SoD?
Is it a best judgment (estimate) or an exact judgment (prescience) that we are measuring him by?
Either we gave it our best and most logical estimate but were wrong on some things, or, with foreknowlege of little allied support and hostile Iraqi reception (which has been the argument of the "you-shouldn't have-gone-in-without-allies" folks), we knowingly proceeded with insufficient forces to succeed. Are you saying there was willful ignorance or duplicity on the part of Rumsfeld?
"#6 Those of you who are predisposed to dislike Rummy, like I used to be, you should take note of the fact that the MSM is in an all out PR push to cut him to death with a thousand small and insignificant cuts."
Like you, I was also on the "rid Rummy" bandwagon. I couldn't find a one stop shopping location to get to the truth. Your detailed thread has convinced me to abandon the wagon. There is good information in this thread as a whole. Sorry, LH.
#36
Well, that settles it then. Due to an overwhelmingly favorable opinion of Rummy (as expressed by us Ranters) I will tell President Bush to retain the services of one SoD Donald Rumsfeld.
Did anyone see how Brit Hume on Fox New Sunday nailed the incoherent Billy Kristol? It was truly outstanding.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/20/2004 17:34 Comments ||
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#37
Could it be that there are two (or more) groups of military officers leaking to the press: Pentagon brass and brass at various commands, bases, and in the field? Likely each would see Rummy from a different POV, depending upon how responsive they deem DoD to be to their particular concerns, issues, and needs. And no, I do not claim to know who's for or against, why, or if it is legitimate praise / beefing.
Rummy has done what was asked of him, I presume, or Bush would fire him. He is not an independent operator, though I'm sure Bush's style is to give orders in the form of a desired outcome - and do it with what you have or is in your power... or I'll find someone else who can and will.
EFL. For a great WSJ ink dot picture of the evil Kofi, click on the link.
A debate currently rages about whether Kofi Annan enjoys the moral authority to lead the United Nations because the Oil for Food scandal happened under his command. That debate is 10 years too late and addresses the wrong subject. The salient indictment of Mr. Annan's leadership is lethal cowardice, not corruption; the evidence is genocide, not oil.
As the controversy roiled over the past several weeks, I was on a research trip to the two ground-zeros of Mr. Annan's failed leadership while he was head of the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations--Rwanda and Bosnia. We have heard from too many conservative commentators and Republican politicians recently--most of whom reject multilateralism anyway--about Mr. Annan's qualifications to lead. But we have not heard from enough Rwandans or Bosnians. I thought I'd talk to a few. snip
"Do you think the U.N. was at fault?" I asked. Not the soldiers, she said, but the leaders. "If they had done their job, and were responsible, this would not have happened." I asked if she'd heard about the current controversy over Mr. Annan's leadership. Yes she had. So I asked if she thought he should resign. It was not oil that fueled her angry answer, but genocide: "Yes," she said, waving her hand, "all the U.N. leaders. They could have reacted if they wanted to. If the U.N. goes somewhere now, how can the people there believe or trust that the U.N. will save them?"
Liberal multilateralists on the left, like me, are often skittish about offering too pungent a critique of Mr. Annan, because it offers aid and comfort to the "enemy" on the conservative unilateralist right. But if anyone's values have been betrayed at the U.N. over the past decade it is those of us who believe most deeply in the organization's ideals. Just ask the men and women of Rwanda and Srebrenica.
Mr. Cain served in U.N. peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Liberia.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 8:55:11 AM ||
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So who is going to take over the UN and make things all moral and right? It will not be a US leader. The only one acceptable to the thugocracies and kleptocracies would be Bill Clinton. Any other leader from another country that would lead with moral authority would never be allowed in. The UN is dead, only it just doesn't know it yet. You don't breathe life into the dead except in Frankenstein movies, and we all know what happens there.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/20/2004 10:14 Comments ||
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#2
quick Mikey, give us some fact to deflect from this genocide. Can you do it for us, Mikey? We count on you. Don't let us down.
#3
Were these people asked whether they also thought the USA, the Europeans or anyone else was at fault too?
Were these people asked whether they thought the solution of the problem was that the USA should withdraw from the UN? Did they think that their situation would have turned out better if that had been done?
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/20/2004 10:35 Comments ||
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#4
nice riposte Kofi-boy
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2004 10:37 Comments ||
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#5
Thanks, Mike. You never disappoint, you pathetic excuse for a human being, you. Tell me, Mike, I'm curious. What exactly is it that you get for your defending or deflecting from the most evil among us? 30 Shekels? A sense of importance?
#6
Americans and Europeans at fault--for what, Mike? Making other people carry out genocides? Are you on medication? So, all the those Hutus were possessed by American and European demons and their hands forced to do what they didn't want to do? And all those Serbs killing Bosnians-same thing? It was America and Europe who made them kill all those innocents, right? The neurosis has fully implanted itself in your head-if something goes wrong in the world-America is to blame.
#7
Belleview? Hmm...did anyone check's Mikey's ISP to see if he's located in a French psyc ward?? Nahh..he seems more of just a cheer-leader to terror, rape, murder and genocide than an actual perpetuator himself. Too chicken to do the deeds, but gets off on condoning them.
#8
There's a certain point here: we COULD have prevented Rwanda. One brigade of airborne infantry -- hell, a couple of battalions -- could have stopped the murders dead in their tracks.
American airborne, of course.
One of Bill Clinton's best moves, and I mean this seriously, was recognizing that 1) Bosnia was a slow-motion genocide and 2) the Euros would never stop it. So he did. He came late, and he did too much hand-wringing, but he stopped it. Good, that's one for him.
So when Mike asks what these folks might think of us or the Euros and the blame to be apportioned, let's remember that we could have stopped certain genocides and didn't. Hell, the whole reason most all of us are ready to put American troops (or special forces at least) into Darfur is because we Rantburgers see another genocide occurring, and we want it stopped. Now. Today.
Jules notes that the Hutus swung the machetes. Yep, they did. One brigade of airborne infantry and the machetes would 1) have been put down carefully or 2) fallen out of their hands after we blew their heads off. Make a choice, Mr. Hutu-man, 'cause my boys are dialed in on your forehead.
The Canadian officer in charge of the UN mission in Rwanda wanted to fight, and was prevented from doing so. The Dutch troops at Srebenica wanted to fight, but their government wouldn't let them. They knew.
We know.
Mike has a point. Maybe withdrawing from the UN is right. I don't know, but I see the Security Council and General Assembly as being rather useless precisely because they won't take a stand in favor of the things that need to be done. The UN has become a trade association for thugs and dictators, and trade associations never go after their own.
But even if we did withdraw from the UN, we'd still have to face the responsibility of doing something when confronted with genocide. And if we don't, those people asking questions, as Mike notes, will be right to accuse us.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/20/2004 11:35 Comments ||
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#9
Trimble: General Ewell, I said to him, "Sir, give me one division and I will take that hill." And he said nothing at all, he stood there, he stared at me. I said, "General Ewell, give me one brigade, and I will take that hill." And General Ewell put his arms behind him and blinked. So I said, "General, give me one regiment, and I will take that hill!" And he said nothing! He just stood there! I threw down my sword in front of him! We could have done it, sir. A blind man should have seen it.
But Mike is still scum in my book. Too busy deflecting from the stoning of 9 year old prostitutes to be of any worth in my book.
#10
Call me selfish, but I fail to see the confronting of any genocide more important than the ones being planned by Iran and North Korea. And the useless U.N. is getting nowhere with those either. Mikey, would you like to leave that nuclear bomb/missile genocide issue to the U.N. too?
The truth is that it's the U.S. that goes in and cleans up the messes in this world, either under the U.N. banner or independently. I don't see Mikey pushing for the Chinese or Indians to go rushing in to clean up these genocides. Why not? They certainly outnumber us.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/20/2004 11:50 Comments ||
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#11
But even if we did withdraw from the UN, we'd still have to face the responsibility of doing something when confronted with genocide.
That is exactly the point. Now everybody can say "Intervening in the affairs of another nation to prevent genocide is a UN decision, not a national one." If there were no UN the U. S. would have to take responsibility for allowing genocides to happen without the luxury of being able to palm the responsibility off on the UN.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 12:09 Comments ||
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#12
My take is over on the Kooksville article in #1.
#14
Uh, Mike, the question was, "Do you blame the leadership of the UN?", not "Do you blame the membership of the UN?" Don't play those bullshit word games with this one.
#15
If there were no UN the U. S. would have to take responsibility for allowing genocides to happen without the luxury of being able to palm the responsibility off on the UN.
WITH the UN the same can be said, at least in terms of whom the world holds responsible for these crimes. (See Mike's comment.) I'd like to know what day it was that the US took on the burden for the whole world to save it from itself? Why do we have an absolute burden/obligation to help whereas only have to talk and then castigate the US for not lifting more, sacrificing more? That is where Americans are balking-if the world wants help, we provide blood, sweat and money, while they pontificate on what we haven't done.
...if we did withdraw from the UN, we'd still have to face the responsibility of doing something when confronted with genocide.
No more than any other country who has the ability and does nothing.
#18
The Hutus were assisted by Phrance because the Tutsis were from a former Brit colony and the Phrench can NEVER lose a Phrancophone country, especially to English speakers.
#19
Replacing Kofi is the right thing to do, but it won't make much difference. The UN is flawed by design. The problem is that its structure gives equal weight to democracies and thugocracies, and allows the latter to block any attempt to end genocide or to overthrow murderous kleptocrats if such actions in any way impinge on the economic or political interests of the non-democracies. For instance anytime genocide occurs within a 300-mile radius of significant oilfields, you can bet that China will block efforts to end the genocide.
#23
Not mine, but it might make Kofi sing soprano again. Actually, a great place for Rummy, if he looses DoD would be as Danforth's replacement at the UN. That would be the best thing since Moynihan was in the job.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 15:31 Comments ||
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"I often discuss business matters in the nude, you know!"
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei said on Sunday any U.S. monitoring of his telephone calls would be a violation of his privacy but that he had nothing to hide. Commenting on reports that U.S. officials had tapped his phone conversations with Iranian officials, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief told Al Arabiya television that he had no secrets to conceal. "Unfortunately if this is true, this is a breach of individual freedoms and rights of privacy and, more importantly, the right of international organizations to work independently," ElBaradei told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television. "However ... if anyone wants to listen in, then listen in. I don't have anything to hide," he added.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that U.S. officials had been listening in on phone calls between ElBaradei and Iranian officials for evidence of mistakes that could be used to force his ouster. Ignoring Washington's opposition, ElBaradei recently announced he would run for a third term as director-general of the IAEA. He has held the post since 1997 and is up for re-election next year. "I decided to continue my work because countries came up to me asking that I continue. This means they agree with my policies which are based on neutrality and independence," he told the popular Arab satellite channel. Some U.S. and other countries' officials have privately complained that ElBaradei was not only soft on Iraq and Iran, but had also withheld information from the IAEA board of governors that could boost the U.S. campaign to refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council for economic sanctions. ElBaradei says there is no clear proof that Washington is right and Iran is seeking the bomb -- an allegation that Tehran denies. But he has repeatedly said the jury was still out.
Posted by: .com ||
12/20/2004 5:29:48 AM ||
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"However ... if anyone wants to listen in, then listen in. I donât have anything to hide," he added.
Police in South Sumatra province have formed a 14-member firing squad to execute convicted murderer Jurit bin Abdullah, but the date of his execution remains a secret. Jurit (38) was in 1997 sentenced to death by Sekayu District Court for two murders. His first clemency appeal was rejected in February 2003. The Supreme Court recently rejected his final plea for a judicial review. "We have received word from the National Police chief to carry out the execution, but we don't yet know the date or location," chief of the South Sumatra Mobile Brigade (Brimob) Police, Sukamso, was quoted as saying Saturday by detikcom online news portal.
Under Indonesian law, police conduct executions in secret in isolated locations. Several of the weapons used contain blanks so the officers will not know who fired the fatal shots. Sukamso said a team of 14 Brimob officers has been training over the past month for the execution of Jurit. Authorities earlier this year executed three foreigners for smuggling 12.29 kilograms of heroin into the country. Indian national citizen Ayodhya Prasad Chaubey was executed at a golf course on the outskirts of Medan, North Sumatra, on August 5. His two accomplices, Thai citizens Saelow Praseart and Namsong Sirilak, were executed on October 1.
"Caddy! Is that a corpse on the 11th hole?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Hmmm... I'd guess I'll need the 6-iron, then..."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2004 11:09:17 AM ||
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Police in South Sumatra province have formed a 14-member firing squad to execute convicted murderer Jurit bin Abdullah, but the date of his execution remains a secret.
If only California would start whacking some of its death row occupants on a more timely basis....
Jakarta Monday called on Thailand's premier to explain his allegations that Indonesian radical groups were behind unrest in the south of his country that has left more than 560 people dead this year.
"Yeah! 'Splain' yourself, Ricky!"
Indonesian Defence Minister Yuwono Sudarsono said Jakarta would lodge an objection to comments by Thaksin Shinawatra unless he could substantiate claims that hardline Indonesians had incited violence in Thailand's Muslim south. "If it is just the manifestation of his worries of terrorism based or using facilities here, we can understand it, but if he is only mentioning Indonesia or Malaysia, I think we object," Juwono told reporters. The Thai premier has already angered neighbouring Malaysia by charging that some Islamic militants involved in the insurgency were trained across the border in Malaysia.
I guess we're still pretending none of this stuff is connected and that Lutherans are as likely to slaughter people as Moose limbs...
"The problem is that the legal proof should be strong. Intelligence action can be quick, but that would not be adequate as a legal evidence. To take an action, as a state, there should be a legal evidence," Juwono said.
Your own intel should confirm or deny the accusation. Then, you can either take them to court if the evidence is suitable, or have Unfortunate Things happen to them if it's not. "Suitable," by the way, refers to suitable for presentation in a court of law, which most evidence gathered by intel isn't, though it may establish the facts better than the legally admissible stuff.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2004 11:01:25 AM ||
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This is probably a tourist wars kind of thing. If Thailand is getting boomed, itâs bad for the tourist business, as long as other locations seem more stable. If the booming is publicized as coming from Indonesia and Malaysia (e.g., Malaysia is where Penang is), then maybe the tourists can be corralled back to Thailand.
I donât doubt that much of Thailandâs problems are coming from Malaysia, with indirect trickles from the deadenders in Indonesia. Indonesia just doesnât want it publicized âcause theyâre working real hard on killing all the deadenders and donât want the fall-out of tourists staying away.
A Syrian MP said Monday that he had been refused entry to the United States upon arrival in Washington earlier this month. On December 13, Mohammed Habash flew into Dulles International Airport, where US airport authorities refused to accept his entrance visa, which he said was valid until 2006 and issued by the US embassy in Damascus. Habash said he was informed that new regulations for Syrians travelling to the United States require "authorisation from the US Secretary of State". Bwahahaha!!
As director of the Islamic centre of studies in Damascus, which supports dialogue with the West, Habash is a frequent visitor to the United States. He criticised his treatment as "inappropriate" for an MP. "They seem to completely ignore diverse schools of thought. We represent an open Islamist current, we reject violence and we do not justify the terrorist acts happening in Iraq," he said. In May, Washington slapped sanctions against Damascus, accusing Syria of bank-rolling terrorism and trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.
A little diplomatic arm twisting going on?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 1:00:17 PM ||
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Bet he's got some nervous operatives.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 13:16 Comments ||
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#2
ROTFL Glad you've arrived, Mrs. D.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/20/2004 13:33 Comments ||
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#6
that Lebanese passport you've got won't help ya either, asshole
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2004 15:17 Comments ||
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#7
What about Syrian people in general visiting the US? Are they restricted at all yet?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/20/2004 16:04 Comments ||
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#8
I think they should have to apply for the Visa through the Galactic Council office - the notice was posted on the bulletin board there for anyone to see months before this clown took his flight over - and they should be required to use Vogon Transports, too.
EFL.Kurdish students living in Iraq's neighbours are flocking to universities in the Kurdish areas to escape repression at home and to benefit from the opportunities they say the region offers. The University of Sulaimaniyah alone has so far accepted more than 110 Kurdish students from neighbouring countries, mainly Iran and Syria, under a programme that reserves five per cent of all places at Iraqi Kurdish universities for high school graduates educated elsewhere. The foreign students receive free tuition and accommodation and a 100 US dollar allowance each term...
Not surprisingly, demand for university places from Kurdish students living outside Iraq look set to continue growing. "I want to study in Kurdish, to live freely as a Kurd and stay here," said one Iranian student.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
12/20/2004 10:02:01 AM ||
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KHIAM, Lebanon -- Yellow Hezbollah banners flutter throughout the hilltop villages of southern Lebanon where Mohammed Ghosen, a portly 32-year-old, has helped build the party into a political and military authority over the years. Hezbollah-funded schools and hospitals serve thousands of the region's mostly poor residents, who revere the party and its still active armed wing for ending the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon more than four years ago. The national government has only a token presence here, with a few army checkpoints. "We have ideology and support," said Ghosen, a Hezbollah activist for more than half his life. "Our success can be seen in the peaceful existence between the Lebanese army and the military wing of Hezbollah."
But relations between Hezbollah and many Lebanese are growing more strained by the day. A debate over the nature of Hezbollah and its long-term goals in Lebanon has been reignited in the past few weeks. Dormant since the end of the country's civil war 15 years ago, the debate is now bringing pressure on the party to give up the arsenal that once made it a heroic symbol in the Arab world. The outcome could determine whether Hezbollah remains one sectarian party among many, or realizes its early leaders' vision of creating an Islamic state.
Leaders of Hezbollah -- which emerged during the Lebanese war and played key roles in the kidnapping of Americans and the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 for which they should die -- have said they are committed to achieving their populist political agenda through democratic means. But a growing number of Lebanese politicians said they feared three factors -- the party's demographic clout, a potent arsenal that includes guns, rockets and a new drone spy plane, and authority to operate largely as an independent government in southern Lebanon -- were fueling broader ambitions.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/20/2004 12:45:58 AM ||
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Sounds like Manal needs to say adios to that hellhole country and go to someplace in the real world. I wonder where she got her Master's in Psych. May not help her much if it's a marginal school.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/20/2004 2:17 Comments ||
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I would like to thank Ehud Barak for stabbing the Lebanese Christinans in the back by pulling out of the Golan Heights. Job well done. I won't forget.
Tribes in the Sinai Peninsula have renewed their allegiance to Egypt's president and pledged to cooperate with security, in a move which could be aimed at easing a security crackdown. Rights activists reported last month that Egyptian police had detained 2500 people in Sinai and tortured many of them in the hunt for those behind the 7 October bombings targeting Israeli tourists in Taba and two other resorts, which killed at least 34 people.
Egypt's official Middle East News Agency reported the news from Sinai on Monday. It said the tribes signed a letter affirming "their complete commitment not to shelter any person wanted by security", and said they would cooperate by reporting anyone under suspicion. The security pledges were in a letter signed by tribal shaikhs and other notables at a meeting in Ras al-Sudr in Sinai. Although it is not uncommon for tribal and community leaders to vow allegiance to President Husni Mubarak, activists say such acts are usually associated with events such as new terms of political office and rarely include pledges to help security.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2004 9:51:07 PM ||
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Zach Lee, Al Johnson, and Josh Weiman are very lucky young men. It doesn't take long to figure that out. All you have to do is take the time to talk to their moms. Terri Lee, Sharon Johnson, and Joleen Wieman are doing something no government, charity or military unit can do for their sons and the members of their sons' units: sending love and support by the bucketful to the guys in harm's way.
Members of the Minnesota National Guard, Josh and Al are stationed in Iraq and Zach will probably be there by the time you read this. For Terri, Joleen and Sharon, this will be their first Christmas without their sons at home. It's going to be hard, but they're not taking it lying down.
Terri and her husband Dave live in Zimmerman, Minnesota. Zach, about 21, is one of seven children. He joined the National Guard two years ago (and then told his mom about it). Zach's wife, Tina, is only 19. Just before Zach deployed to Iraq a couple of days ago, Tina went by herself to see him off because Terri wanted them to have some time alone. Zach had a tough time saying goodbye to his sisters and brothers, and it was hard on them as well. Andy, age 11, idolizes Zach. When Andy found out Zach was going to Iraq, Terri overheard him asking Zach, "Why are you doing this to Mom?" Zach's answer is etched in Terri's mind: "Andy, you have to know I'm not doing this to Mom, I'm doing this for Mom, and you have to remember that." Terri told me, "Andy now says Zach is doing this for all of us," and plans to go into the military when he's old enough. (Andy: your mom told me you were thinking about going Air Force. Do it, dude. Aim high.)
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/20/2004 5:50:38 PM ||
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Israeli and U.S. agents were behind bombings in Iraq's Shi'ite holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, Iran's Supreme Leader said Monday, accusing Tehran's arch-foes of trying to rig Iraq's elections for their own ends. Shi'ite Muslim Iran was quick to condemn Sunday's car bombings in Najaf and Kerbala, which killed 66 people. "I am sure Israeli and American spy services were behind these events. This is a plot which aims at keeping the Iraqis so busy that they will miss the exceptional chance to participate in the January 30 elections," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, speaking to Mecca pilgrimage organizers on state TV.
"Make sure you repeat this message many many times to the little people when they join the pilgrimage. Many many times."
"The British and Americans want to hold elections on the surface but in reality they want to bring their own agents to power by holding superficial elections," added the Supreme Leader, who has the last word on all state matters. Officials from oil-rich Iran have called for fully democratic elections next year in Iraq, where the majority of people are their Shi'ite coreligionists. President Bush and Iraq's interim Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan have accused Iran of aiding al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and former agents of Saddam Hussein in inflaming pre-election violence. Many analysts are hoping believe that the simmering violence in Iraq distracts Washington's gaze from Tehran.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
12/20/2004 11:05:48 AM ||
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Ya mean like how we rig them in Iran? Oh yeah, well actually we don't need to rig them since we override the results anyway.
#2
There's almost nothing more irritating than having bona fide democratic elections criticized by a "Supreme Leader" -- except possibly Mikey and that caps-heavy fruitcake whose name I can't remember. Aris and PR are close seconds.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/20/2004 11:37 Comments ||
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Israel? Geeez, more "The Jooos did it!" insanity from the World of Insanity Islam.
When it comes to Jooo-Hating, there is no difference I can detect between the Sunnis and the Shi'a - they're equally moronic and disconnected from reality.
No, Nurse Ratched, stay away from my keyboard and keep your Haldol to yourself! I'm a member of the reality-based community, and I have to warn everyone before itr's too late.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/20/2004 12:28 Comments ||
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The deal is that the Iranian MMs probably believe their own sh**te. We can guess that the boomings in Najaf and Karbala are probably Zarqawi's handiwork. However, not to be a conspiracy theorist, but I would not put it past the Iranians to do a thing like this, just to wreak havoc. The Iranians will be blaming the Jooooos for everything going wrong in their stinking lives until their dying day. It is their carefully cultivated disconnect that they treasure above all else, especially the trut.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/20/2004 12:35 Comments ||
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#6
The Iranian rant sounds eerily like the crap coming out of the Democratic Party these days...especially in Ohio! Coincidence?
WTF do they care? Furthermore, WTF is Khamenei the Supreme Hypocrite Weasel to be concerned with rigging of elections elsewhere when there's little doubt that any elections in his own country conform to the dictates of him and/or his cronies?
#8
Call me a nutty optimist (just don't call me late for dinner), but this sounds like one of those subtle admissions by the Iranians that they know that the elections are going to: 1. happen as scheduled; and 2. not go as they would like.
Winners don't need conspiracy theories or lawyers.
#9
Perhaps the Iranians should hire the King County Washington elections commissioner to act as its consultant for the iraqi elections, perhaps in Sadr City.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 13:20 Comments ||
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#10
Iran: Israel, U.S. Rigging Iraq Election
and/or
Iran: Israel, U.S. Planning/Rigging Iran Reactor Demolition post Iraq Election
#14
Actually, it was al- Guardian that rigged the elections in Ohio.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/20/2004 14:26 Comments ||
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#15
Actually, it was al- Guardian that rigged the elections in Ohio.
Yeah, but they couldn't figure out left from right again, and totally bollixed the results. If that's the kind of interference we get from Syria and Iran, I'm willing to take it! 8^)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/20/2004 14:48 Comments ||
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#16
How dare Israel and America interfere with Iraq's election! Only Iran is entitled to interfere with Iraq's election.
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/20/2004 17:10 Comments ||
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The deadly pattern of violence was all too familiar: another round of suicide attacks, aimed not at U.S. forces or the interim government but at the country's majority Shia population. [Y]esterday's co-ordinated attacks in Najaf and Karbala bore all the hallmarks of the latest trend in bloodletting. The victims were almost all Shiites, Iraq's long-oppressed majority, and the suspected perpetrators were Sunnis.
One of the remarkable features of the spiral of violence in the lead-up to the Jan. 30 vote is that the powerful and well armed Shia militias have not struck back, even though U.S. and Iraqi forces have made little progress in stopping the sectarian attacks. Yesterday, Shia leaders appealed for restraint, as they have after previous provocations, insisting they won't be drawn into a civil conflict. "They are trying to ignite a sectarian civil war and prevent elections from going ahead on time," said Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, one of Iraq's most respected Shia clerics. "They have failed before and they will fail again. The Shiites are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to violence. We are determined on elections and [top Shia cleric] Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has made this clear."
Perhaps no one has more to win in the election than Ayatollah al-Sistani. After initially defying the U.S. occupation, he has embraced the political process, sponsoring the creation of a powerful Shia political coalition that analysts expect to emerge victorious. Even Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric tolerated feared by U.S. authorities, has held his fire in the face of the obvious incitement. Mr. al-Sadr himself was told to shut his piehole has declared his neutrality in the election.
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Posted by: tipper ||
12/20/2004 10:38:28 AM ||
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After the elections, Ali, let's go north and kick some ass!
Hat Tip: LGF. Note that the causes of terrorism are not rooted in poverty and under-privileged conditions. Q.E.D. Marc Sageman, a newly appointed FPRI Senior Fellow, was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 198789 and is now a forensic psychiatrist. This essay is based on his FPRI BookTalk on October 6, 2004, which doubled as one of our regular Situation Reports on the War on Terrorism, held every two months. His book, Understanding Terror Networks, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press earlier this year.
After leaving the CIA, I was happy in my naive belief that I had left all that behind me. But after 9-11, like everyone, I wanted to do something. What people were saying about the perpetrators shortly after the attacks was simply not consistent with my own experience. I began to apply the principles of evidence-based medicine to terrorism research, because there really was no data on the perpetrators. There were theories, opinions, and anecdotal evidence, but there was no systematic gathering of data.
I started gathering terrorist biographies from various sources, mostly from the records of trials. The trial that took place in New York in 2001 in connection with the 1998 embassy bombing, for instance, was 72 days long and had a wealth of information, 9,000 pages of it. I wanted to collect this information to test the conventional wisdom about terrorism. With some 400 biographies, all in a matrix, I began social-network analysis of this group.
Background
We all know that Al Qaeda is a violent, Islamist, revivalist social movement, held together by a common vision of a Salafi state. Al Qaeda proper is just a small organization within this larger social movement. We often mistake the social movement for Al Qaeda and vice versa because for about five years, Al Qaeda had more or less control of the social movement.
The segment that poses a threat to the United States came out of Egypt. Most of the leadership and the whole ideology of Al Qaeda derives from Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb (190666) and his progeny, who killed Anwar Sadat and were arrested in October 1981. President Mubarak generously allowed them to be released in 1984.
Many of the released men, harassed by the Egyptian police, migrated to Afghanistan. With the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, they continued on to jihad. These Arab outsiders actually did not fight in the Soviet-Afghan War except for one small battle at Jaji/Ali Kheyl, which was really defensive: the Arabs had put their camp on the main logistic supply line, and in the spring of 1987 the Soviets tried to destroy it. So they were really more the recipient of a Soviet offensive, but they really did not fight in that war and thus the U.S. had absolutely no contact with them. I heard about the battle of Jaji at the time, and it never dawned on me to ask the Afghans I debriefed who the Arabs were. They turned out to be bin Laden and his men at the Al-Masada (Lion's Den) camp.
After the war, a lot of these foreigners returned to their countries. Those who could not return because they were terrorists remained in Afghanistan. In 1991, Algeria and Egypt complained to Pakistan that it was harboring terrorists, so Pakistan expelled them. Thus the most militant of these terrorists made their way to Khartoum, where they were invited by Hassan al-Turabi of the National Islamic Front in Khartoum.
The Khartoum period is critical, because what these violent Salafists basically want to do is to create a Salafi state in a core Arab country. Salafi (from Salaf, "ancient ones" or "predecessors" in Arabic) is an emulation, an imitation of the mythical Muslim community that existed at the time of Mohammed and his companion, which Salafists believe was the only fair and just society that ever existed. A very small subset of Salafis, the disciples of Qutb, believe they cannot create this state peacefully through the ballot-box but have to use violence. The utopia they strive for is similar to most utopias in European thought of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, such as the communist classless society.
In Khartoum, the Salafists theorized that the reason they had been unable to overthrow their own government (the "near enemy") was because it was propped up by the "far enemy" the United States. So they decided to redirect their efforts and, instead of going after their own government, to attack the "far-enemy." In 1996, for many reasons, Hassan al- Bashir, the President of Sudan, had to expel Al Qaeda after the imposition of international sanctions, because the Sudanese Government was implicated in the attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995. In August 1996, within two months of returning to Afghanistan, bin Laden issued a fatwa declaring war on the United States.
The fatwa clearly articulated the new goals of this movement, which were to get the U.S. out of the Middle East so they would be free to overthrow the Saudi monarchy or the Egyptian regime and establish a Salafi state. This remains their goal and is why 9-11 happened. This is why the embassy bombing happened. It's really not so much to destroy the United States, something they know they cannot do right now. This is all why I put the start of the threat against us at 1996.
The Data
The 400 terrorists on whom I've collected data were the ones who actually targeted the "far enemy," the U.S., as opposed to their own governments. I wanted to limit myself for analytical purity to that group, to see if I could identify anything different from other terrorist movements, which were far more nationalistic.
Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they're just plain evil.
Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority90 percentcame from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that's usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.
Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority90 percentcame from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that's usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.
Al Qaeda's members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect; and a few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.
Far from having no family or job responsibilities, 73 percent were married and the vast majority had children. Those who were not married were usually too young to be married. Only 13 percent were madrassa-trained and most of them come from what I call the Southeast Asian sample, the Jemaah Islamiyya (JI). They had gone to schools headed by Sungkar and Bashir. Sungkar was the head of JI; he died in 1999. His successor, Bashir, is the cleric who is being tried for the Jakarta Marriott bombing of August 2003; he is also suspected of planning the October 2002 Bali bombing.
As a psychiatrist, originally I was looking for any characteristic common to these men. But only four of the 400 men had any hint of a disorder. This is below the worldwide base rate for thought disorders. So they are as healthy as the general population. I didn't find many personality disorders, which makes sense in that people who are antisocial usually don't cooperate well enough with others to join groups. This is a well-organized type of terrorism: these men are not like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, loners off planning in the woods. Loners are weeded out early on. Of the nineteen 9-11 terrorists, none had a criminal record. You could almost say that those least likely to cause harm individually are most likely to do so collectively.
At the time they joined jihad, the terrorists were not very religious. They only became religious once they joined the jihad. Seventy percent of my sample joined the jihad while they were living in another country from where they grew up. So someone from country A is living in country B and going after country Cthe United States. This is very different from the usual terrorist of the past, someone from country A, living in country A, going after country A's government. I want to remind that I'm addressing my sample of those who attacked the U.S., not Palestinians, Chechens, Kashmiris, etc.
France happened to generate a lot of my sample, fourth behind Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco. Eighty percent were, in some way, totally excluded from the society they lived in. Sixty-eight percent either had preexisting friendships with people already in the jihad or were part of a group of friends who collectively joined the jihad together: this is typical of the Hamburg group that did 9- 11, the Montreal group that included Ahmed Ressam, the millennial bomber. Another 20 percent had close family bonds to the jihad. The Khadr family from Toronto is typical: the father, Ahmed Saeed Khadr, who had a computer engineering degree from Ottawa and was killed in Pakistan in October 2003, got his five sons involved: all of them trained in al Qaeda camps and one has been held for killing a U.S. medic. Their mother is involved in financing the group.
So between the two, you have 88 percent with friendship/family bonds to the jihad; the rest are usually disciples of Bashir and Sungkar. But that's not the whole story. They also seem to have clustered around ten mosques worldwide that generated about 50 percent of my sample.
If you add the two institutions in Indonesia, twelve institutions generated 60 percent of my sample. So, you're talking about a very select, small group of people. This is not as widespread as people think.
If you add the two institutions in Indonesia, twelve institutions generated 60 percent of my sample. So, you're talking about a very select, small group of people. This is not as widespread as people think.
So what's in common? There's really no profile, just similar trajectories to joining the jihad and that most of these men were upwardly and geographically mobile. Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They're skilled in computer technology. They spoke three, four, five, six languages. Most Americans don't know Arabic; these men know two or three Western languages: German, French, English.
When they became homesick, they did what anyone would and tried to congregate with people like themselves, whom they would find at mosques. So they drifted towards the mosque, not because they were religious, but because they were seeking friends. They moved in together in apartments, in order to share the rent and also to eat together - they were mostly halal, those who observed the Muslim dietary laws, similar in some respects to the kosher laws of Judaism. Some argue that such laws help to bind a group together since observing them is something very difficult and more easily done in a group. A micro-culture develops that strengthens and absorbs the participants as a unit. This is a halal theory of terrorism, if you like.
These cliques, often in the vicinity of mosques that had a militant script advocating violence to overthrow the corrupt regimes, transformed alienated young Muslims into terrorists. It's all really group dynamics. You cannot understand the 9/11 type of terrorism from individual characteristics. The suicide bombers in Spain are another perfect example. Seven terrorists sharing an apartment and one saying "Tonight we're all going to go, guys." You can't betray your friends, and so you go along. Individually, they probably would not have done it.
There are potentially a lot of groups of guys around the world, who want to do something but just don't know how to do it. After 9-11, the whole network changed completely. There is no recruitment, really. In my sample, I have found no case of a recruiter. They're all volunteers. Before 9-11, a group like the Lackawanna Six would go to Afghanistan to fight a jihad. When they got to Afghanistan, they heard all this propaganda against the United States. They realized they were in the wrong place, got scared, and wanted to get outthey had no intention of becoming terrorists afterwards. Even the prosecution never suggested that they would have become terrorists. They had broken the law by going to a terrorist organization, so they pled guilty to aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, but there was no hint that they would have become terrorists.
Indeed, there are not that many terrorists in America. There have never been any sleeper cells. All the terrorists are fairly obvious. The FBI cases we see in the press tend to unravel. The Detroit group has been exonerated, and the prosecutor is now being prosecuted for malfeasance on the planted evidence. He allegedly knew exculpatory facts that he did not present to the defense. The only sleeper America has ever had in a century was Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel, who was arrested in the late 1950s and exchanged for Gary Powers, the U2 pilot. Eastern European countries did send sleepers to this country, men fully trained who "go to sleep"lead normal livesand then are activated to become fully operational. But they all became Americans.
In order to really sustain your motivation to do terrorism, you need the reinforcement of group dynamics. You need reinforcement from your family, your friends. This social movement was dependent on volunteers, and there are huge gaps worldwide on those volunteers. One of the gaps is the United States. This is one of two reasons we have not had a major terrorist operation in the United States since 9/11. The other is that we are far more vigilant. We have actually made coming to the U.S. far more difficult for potential terrorists since 2001.
Until late 2001, the terror network was the project of al- Turabi, who in the early 1990s had invited all the Muslim terrorists to Khartoum. That's how Al Qaeda learned about truck bombing from Hezbollah. Then when they were expelled from Khartoum, bin Laden had a deal with Mullah Omar where he actually had a monopoly of sanctuaries in Afghanistan the training camp, housing, funding. Instead of raising their own money, it was much easier to go to bin Laden for it. And so, by his control of training camps, sanctuaries, and funding for five years, bin Laden was able to dominate this movement
But after 2001, when the U.S. destroyed the camps and housing and turned off the funding, bin Laden was left with little control. The movement has now degenerated into something like the internet. Spontaneous groups of friends, as in Madrid and Casablanca, who have few links to any central leadership, are generating sometimes very dangerous terrorist operations, notwithstanding their frequent errors and poor training. What tipped the Madrid group to operation was probably the arrest of some of their friends after the Casablanca bombing. Most of them were Moroccans and the Moroccan government asked the Spaniards to arrest several militants. So the group was activated, wanting to do something. Their inspirationthe document "Jihad al-Iraq" probably was found on the Web. Six of its 42 pages argued that if there were bombings right before Spanish election, it could effect a change of government and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, the expulsion of the "far enemy" from a core Arab state. From conception to execution, the operation took about five weeks.
We hear that Al Qaeda plans its attacks for years and years. It may have before 9-11, but not anymore. Operatives in caves simply cannot communicate with people in the field. The network has been fairly well broken by our intelligence services. The network is now self-organized from the bottom up, and is very decentralized. With local initiative and flexibility, it's very robust. True, two-thirds to three- quarters of the old leaders have been taken out, but that doesn't mean that we're home free. The network grows organically, like the Internet. We couldn't have identified the Madrid culprits, because we wouldn't have known of them until the first bomb exploded.
So in 2004, Al Qaeda has new leadership. In a way today's operatives are far more aggressive and senseless than the earlier leaders. The whole network is held together by the vision of creating the Salafi state. A fuzzy, idea-based network really requires an idea-based solution. The war of ideas is very important and this is one we haven't really started to engage yet.
Posted by: .com ||
12/20/2004 5:57:28 AM ||
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wow! Interesting.
His analysis of group dynamics rings absolutely true. But I would still suggest that the similarities to the pathology of a serial killer exist. But rather than to one lone individual, it manifested itself in group think.
One characteristic that these terrorists all have in common is that they were the best and the brightest, who went to foreign lands and because they were turban wearing muslims, they were not greeted with the respect and honor they felt they deserved or would have received in their native lands.
If you look at serial killers, they all have in common that they are very bright, but because they are not successful in life, they do not get the respect they believe they deserve. They drive old cars, live with their mothers, etc. But because they are bright, they see themselves as superior to those around them and resent their station in life.
This would be true for the people that the author profiles. Despite their own belief (with truth to it) of being "superior", the inferior locals looked down upon them.
With serial killers, this results in a desire to gain control, to overpower those that have shunned them. With the sex serial killer, it is women. The women they believe they are worthy of, aren't interested in them. Women, even the ones they feel they are better than, mock them and turn away. As the serial killer gets older and realizes his chances for success in life have passed him by, he becomes terrified of women, whose snubs expose his failure. By grabbing one and showing her that he alone has absolute control over her, he fills his need. Then he gets even more of a sense of power as the police, FBI and other symbols of power, are powerless to stop him.
With these terrorists - it wasn't women, but the countries that did not accept them, mocked them and didn't acknowledge their worth. It terrified them as they realized they were powerless to change it, and thus...they wanted to gain control over the situation by bringing down the countries.
It's the same mindset, but it required the stars to align, for a group to offer them the control that they needed.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2004 9:50 Comments ||
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That's a good piece of analysis. The only fault I find with it is that it's limited in scope -- it only concentrates on the al-Qaeda management stratum. The 12 mosques worldwide find is very significant, and when we start the project of hunting down and bumping off the vermin in their nests these'll be the places to start.
The lack of recruiters fits in with what we've seen here: the "legit" organizations are the funnels, the providers of cannon fodder that can be sifted to find the comers for management positions and that can otherwise be expended as required. He references the 15-year-old Hamas gunnies, and they're representative of this group, which would fall out as mostly the 16-24-year-olds. We can also lump the Pak muscle, much of it from the sectarian groups, with them, along with assorted Bugtis and Ahmedzai and Mehsuds, who're in it because their underlying cultures are nutz.
The other strata that have to be examined are the money boys -- the princes and businessmen within Arabia who're keeping things going with the green; and the ideologues -- the holy men and (I suspect behind them and over them) the actual members of the Council of Boskone, at the very top of the pyrmamid. These are the guys who actually expect to wear the jewelled turban.
Even though I have no evidence, I have the feeling the actual Mr. Big (or plural Bigs) lives in Brussels or Paris and likely isn't even a Moose limb. I'm not sure if it's Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Dr. Fu Manchu. Or Gharlane of Eddore.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2004 13:54 Comments ||
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2b, I would sumrise that it's closer to a gang-culture than a serial killer mentality. The recruitment pitch (and why a gang is joined) is very similar. And like the well-organised and financed gangs, the leadership tends be somewhat fire-walled.
Fred, I've a feeling you may be partially right re 'the Bigs'. It may be more a matter of two parties thinking each is using the other.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/20/2004 17:09 Comments ||
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2b wrote:
With these terrorists - it wasn't women, but the countries that did not accept them, mocked them and didn't acknowledge their worth. It terrified them as they realized they were powerless to change it, and thus...they wanted to gain control over the situation by bringing down the countries.
I wouldn't rule out inability to get laid (via non-coercive means) by western gals as a motivator for some of these asshats.
Get Sageman's book of the same title. It's a worthwhile read.
The late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto projected to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya Pakistan's project for an atomic bomb as a project for an Islamic bomb to counter what he used to call the Christian, Jewish and Hindu bombs and persuaded them to share the cost of the project. While the exact amounts paid by these countries are not available, the major share came from Saudi Arabia and Libya and a smaller amount from Iran. While the flow of funds for the Islamic bomb project was substantial and regular from Saudi Arabia and Libya, it was sporadic from Iran. It was regular till 1979 when the Shah of Iran was in power. After the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the US and some other Western countries imposed economic sanctions against Teheran. The US froze all Iranian assets in US banks. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s aggravated Iran's economic difficulties. Saudi Arabia, a Wahabi State, was extremely suspicious of the Shia revolutionaries of Iran. Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, who overthrew Z.A. Bhutto in 1977 and seized power, was himself worried over the radicalisation of the Shias of Pakistan, who constitute about 20 per cent of the population, following the success of the Shia revolution in Iran. The US was interested in the success of Iraq in its war against Iran and would have viewed adversely Pakistan hobnobbing with Teheran and adding to its military muscle. All these factors slowed down the flow of money from Iran, but not Iran's interest in benefiting from Pakistan's experience and military nuclear technology. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran's economic position once again improved and the flow of money to the Pakistan project increased and continued.
[...]
Was Pakistan's assistance to Iran and Libya confined to the setting-up of an uranium enrichment facility or did it go beyond to helping them to militarise their capability? Pakistan's own atomic bomb was based on a Chinese model with the help of drawings clandestinely given by China to Islamabad to counter India's perceived nuclear capability. Reliable sources in Pakistan have reported that when Pakistan carried out its nuclear tests at Chagai in May, 1998, nuclear scientists from Saudi Arabia and North Korea were present and that one of the devices tested was of North Korean origin. Past reports had spoken of the presence of only North Korean scientists at Chagai, but recent reports speak of the presence of Saudi scientists too in their capacity as the major financiers of the project. They also say that Pakistan shared the Chinese drawings definitely with Iran and Libya.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/20/2004 5:39:34 AM ||
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Saudi Arabia,....., enjoys a privileged position in the Pakistani nuclear establishment,
The Saudis outsourced their nuclear program to Pakistan. Pakistan takes the heat, and the Saudis were hoping to quietly get a warhead for their chinese missiles.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 8:38 Comments ||
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"...A.Q.Khan and other scientists involved have to be taken out of Pakistan and interrogated..."
You've got about as much chance of that as taking the bombs out.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/20/2004 8:49 Comments ||
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"to counter the Christian, Jewish and Hindu bombs" - somehow that just sums it up for me.
Well then, welcome to the club. It's a select club, and it has certain dues that need to be paid. Mainly that all your population centres, industrial areas, ports and dams are now being targetted by other countries bombs - and bearing in mind the people you've been selling them too, I think you'll find that it's more than one country that's targetting those areas.
The way things are going, Pakistan is likely to have a very short life for a country (not even 60 years old).
Damnit! - did none of these morons watch Dr Strangelove? - black humour yes, but all those phrases 'we lose 10-20 million tops' are based on real work by the RAND corporation and other thinktanks. Mega-death was not always the name of a metal band...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/20/2004 11:14 Comments ||
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black humour yes,
You needed black humor to survive a tour on a SAC base. Waking up every day with the sure knowledge you were a first strike target. Counting the number of alert tankers that scrambled, knowing anything over three (not counting ORI's) meant it was for real. Knowing those crews would not be coming back, not that there would have been a base to come back to.
Keeping one eye on the flat Kansas horizon, watching for the rising plumes of the Titans that meant you had 30 minutes before the incoming missiles hit. Knowing that while the Titan force was past it's prime, they still carried the big city busters. The USSR knew it too, that's why the silos would have received a massive counter-strike. That's why the AF kept them for so long, as a RV sink. Every one that was assigned to them was one less for another target.
There's another bit of black humor, RV - meaning re-entry vehicle. Official AF policy, we never confirm or deny that there are nuclear warheads on the missiles, just "re-entry vehicles".
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 14:14 Comments ||
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Steve, Tony: Tim Blair's site seems to be down right now (I think he got Instaswamped), but he has a very interesting link to a story about a Russian missile controller who "saved the world" in 1984. His computer told him "for sure" that the US had launched an attack, but he was able to think through the facts, decide that the US wouldn't launch a mere five missiles, and overrode the command for the Soviet counter-attack.
#8
that smells like dog food or so it is said.
Yup, of course the next sentence in that safety briefing goes something like "..of course, if it reaches a high enough level that you can smell it, your eyeballs will melt and your lungs dissolve, so don't worry about it.."
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 16:12 Comments ||
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Steve, that's a very interesting comment, it certainly puts things into perspective. Which is what your comment does as well Seafarious. By that I mean that by reading them, you get an understanding for the fact that although the US and the USSR had huge numbers of missiles pointed at each other, there was a certain 'scorpion dance' going on that both sides knew the rules to.
The difference with todays 'religiously motivated' bomb owners is that they're just looking at simple outcomes, eg "we've got a bomb now, aren't we cool - let's give one to our friends in Hezbollah. They can kill the Zionists and we'll deny it!" and aren't looking at what the consequences would be.
Basically, they're playing a very dangerous game - and the people they've started playing with, play for keeps.
Wretchard's "The Three Conjectures" is a good dissection of what might happen if Iran (or indeed any Islamic state) starts dishing out bombs...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/20/2004 18:23 Comments ||
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What Tony said. Soviet marxism was not a death cult. There was no place in soviet doctrine for self-slaughter.
However, suicide is an essential part of military success in the eyes of the islamist totalitarians. The logic of MAD does not apply here.
A happy ending (I think).
A man has apologized for setting fire to the van driven by a team of Marines who had come to his house to tell him his son was killed in Iraq....
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/20/2004 2:59:23 AM ||
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He was celebrating his birthday and waiting for his son to call. Instead he gets the word he's been killed. Arredondo grabbed a propane torch and a gasoline can from his garage, yelled at the Marines to leave, smashed a window of their van with a hammer, poured gasoline in the vehicle and climbed inside. As his mother tried to pull him out, he said, he accidentally turned on the torch.
The Marines put out the flames on his body. Jackson Memorial Hospital has given him an extended payment plan to pay his $43,000 bill for burns that covered 26 percent of his body.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/20/2004 15:04 Comments ||
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I still hate this story. I'd have done the same stupid thing, maybe worse, burn down the house, shoot the canary, flush the fish. Jeeezus what an unhappy story. Is there a donation site? Burns are their own punishment.
Several months ago, I heard radio host Michael Savage refer to liberalism as a "mental disorder." As odd as this concept might seem, I think I actually agree with him. I've seen liberalism turn some of the most intelligent people I know into propaganda-spewing robots who care only about the message, not the inaccuracies behind the message. Emotion always trumps logic for them, regardless of the blatantly obvious.
Given the difficulty in bringing liberals into the light, I thought it might be helpful to provide them with a 12-step program that could make it easier for a successful transition into reality. As conservatives, we have to remember that we can only be supportive to liberals in this program. They cannot do it alone, but we also cannot do it for them.
The Program:
Step 1: Admitting that you're a liberal
This is the first step for every liberal on the way to recovery. It is important to understand that you're not "progressive," "moderate," or "enlightened." You're a liberal, and you need to be honest with yourself about that fact.
Step 2: Pledge to support your beliefs with facts
Realize that truth is more important than moral superiority and is the only way to come over to reality. You must research beyond propaganda from the Sierra Club, Hillary Clinton, and CNN (the Communist News Network) to understand things as they really exist in the world. You can no longer argue based on "feelings" or emotion. You will actually need to back up your arguments with real information. This is a difficult step, because it means you can't be lazy any more.
Step 3: Love America
This may be the most difficult step for those of you who are hippies and peaceniks. Admitting that the country you hate actually stands as a beacon to defend freedom throughout the world can make some of you physically ill. You might want to make a visit to a military cemetery to better understand that these men and women gave their lives so that you could spew hatred. Otherwise, you would currently be living in a police state that would never let you wear that nasty patchouli oil, let alone speak out against your government.
Step 4: Take a college level economics class
I've always defined a Socialist as someone who's never taken an economics class. Most Socialists I've spoke with would have a hard time balancing their checkbooks, let alone explaining the simple concept of supply-and-demand. It's time to flush your complete ignorance of basic economics down the toilet and understand how the world actually functions. This concept will be very important for the next steps that involve communism, facts about corporations, and the inefficiencies of government.
Step 5: Say "no" to Communism and Socialism
While this concept is obvious to most of the free world, it is an important step in your recovery process. If you have difficulty with this step, spend a week living and working in Cuba.
Step 6: Corporations are not evil
If you're reading this article online or in an e-mail, it's thanks to corporations. If you get some kind of paycheck, you can thank corporations. If you work for a non-profit or the government, you still have to thank corporations. The non-profit sector and the government wouldn't have any money to pay you without corporations. It is also important that you understand that making a profit doesn't equate to "greed" or exploitation. Capitalism has created the greatest society in our world's history. Even communist countries need corporations to survive, so enjoy a nice, hot cup of reality.
Step 7: The government is inefficient
If you are one of those liberals who believe the government should tax us more in order to take care of society, you need to pay special attention to this step. You need to realize that government bureaucracy will waste most of your tax dollars, while the private sector will put your money to much better use. Even most Democrat politicians understand this to some degree, which is why Hillary's socialist healthcare proposal was voted down by a majority of both Democrats and Republicans. Go to your local post office or call the IRS to ask a tax question if you need a reminder about government inefficiency.
Step 8: The earth is not your "mother," and she's not dying
The time has now come to stop your donations to Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, and every other EnviroNazi organization to which you belong. Face the reality that the earth, society, and our environment are better off today than ever in recorded history and that they are continuing to improve. I realize that many of you tree huggers will have a very difficult time letting go of the Douglas Fir on this one. I would suggest reading The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. Mr. Lomborg is a former member of Greenpeace and is currently a statistics professor at a university in Denmark. He set out to prove the world was in bad shape and ended up surprising himself by proving the exact opposite.
Step 9: Stop smoking the wacky tobaccy
Okay, some of you might need to enter another 12-step program to complete this step. Marijuana is distorting your sense of reality, and you need to stop using it. Besides, you'll save a fortune on snacks.
Step 10: Eat a hamburger
If God didn't intend for us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat. You can put your sprouts and tofu on the hamburger, but get some meat into you. You'll look and feel better than you ever imagined. You can always remind yourself that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian to get you through this step.
Step 11: Stop re-writing political history
It's now time to admit that Bill Clinton is a lying-cheating-sexist-racist-rapist jackass, Hillary Clinton is one of the worst role models for women in this country, Al Gore really did lose the 2000 election by every vote tabulation you attempt, Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War and didn't create the homeless problem, John McCain is not a typical Republican, and Jimmy Carter is a nice man but has one of the worst presidential records of anyone in history.
Step 12: Be a missionary
Once you have completed the previous steps to overcoming liberalism, it's time for you to share this awakening with others who are not as fortunate. Go out amongst the liberal sheep and spread the good word of your freedom from the chains of ignorance that once bound you. Congratulations, and welcome to reality.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/20/2004 12:35:27 AM ||
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#1
Over in the liberal arts department at [NAME_here] Univerity there is a series of loud pops as heads explode from trying steps 3 thru 7.
Posted by: N Guard ||
12/20/2004 0:57 Comments ||
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#2
I think it's actually a dietary problem that stems from inadequate protein. Does anyone know any liberals (modern kind) that are serious meat eaters?
#3
ROFL!!! What a great list, lol! I'll bet it would've been funny listening in as Robb tried out potential list items on others. Hell, I'd like to see the list that didn't make the cut... imagine how un-PC that one is, lol!
#4
CL - Lol! Triglycerides waay below the "limit", heh. It's people like them that made something utterly unthinkable 100 years ago, Assertiveness Training, a modern necessity, lol!
[Sensitive people should not read the remainder of this comment.]
I have the opposite problem, according to the Doc that administered my last blood test, lol! He got really snippy about my Tri-G levels and started pontificating about how he felt it his moral duty to add some commentary blah, blah, blah. After I let go of his lapels and lowered him to the floor, he agreed to sign my fucking paperwork so I could go to fucking Saudi Arabia and fucking work. All they cared about was whether or not I had fucking AIDS - so my skyhigh Tri-G's were none of their fucking business - nor his, as I explained to him in absolutely clear language, lol! True story, heh.
#5
Hot dang, that's great! Let's see... I've got a laser printer and plenty of paper. The students aren't back until next Tuesday, and I've got Monday off. This broadside will find itself stapled and taped all over campus.
Just wait for the MSM to air reports of political "assault" at WWU!
#9
.com, I know you aren't the type that needs validation, but if you want some well founded support for your views on Tri-G, pick up a copy of The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskof.
#10
Beer reduces the levels of "bad" cholesterol and tri-glycerides. That's why I make all I can. MMM, beer.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/20/2004 14:49 Comments ||
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#11
CL - Thanx! Interesting reading... hmmmm. [In your best Elmer Fudd] We have to be vewy vewy quiet, though, cuz Dw Steve be luwking somewhewe and he's bound to jump out and put the Feaw of the AMA into us, lol! Thx, again...
AMMAN, Jordan - From his prison cell, ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein urged his compatriots to remain united against the US occupation and warned of the potential dangers of the upcoming elections, his lawyers said.
Since he and his pals have everything to lose in the elections.
Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Duleimi met for more than four hours with Saddam on Thursday, the first meeting Saddam had with legal counsel since he was captured a year ago. Al-Duleimi, who came to Jordan to brief the legal team on his meeting, did not speak to reporters before he returned to Iraq on Sunday. "Our representative in Iraq told us that the president warned the people of Iraq and the Arabs to beware of the American scheme aimed at splitting Iraq into sectarian and religious divisions and weakening the (Arab) nation," said Bushra Khalil, a Lebanese member of the defense team.
"This democracy thing the Americans push is dangerous. Why, people might start thinking for themselves!"
"The president sent recommendations to the Iraqi people to remain united and not fall in the trap of America's slogans," she said Sunday. "He said Kurds, Arabs, Shiites, Sunnis and Christians are all Iraqis who all have to stand united against the American plot."
Since Sammy has been so good to the Kurds, Shiites and Christians, ya know.
Pakistan's opposition religious alliance yesterday vowed to observe New Year's Day as a 'black day' across the country if President Pervez Musharraf did not quit as army chief by December 31. The six-party Muttahida Majlise Amal (MMA) may also call for a sit-in protest in Islamabad, the alliance's chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad told thousands of supporters here in the garrison city near the capital Islamabad. The demonstrators put up with heavy rain and police searches before the rally got underway. The rally was held after President Musharraf categorically declared he would remain the army chief despite his pledge to abdicate the military post by the end of the year. "If Musharraf did not abide by his pledge to doff his military uniform by December 31, we will observe a countrywide black day of protest on 1st January," Qazi Hussain told the crowd, many of whom carried umbrellas. "We will then consider giving a call to the people to march up to Islamabad for a sit-in protest," he said. "People are fed up with Musharraf's (army) uniform," protesters chanted.
It was the fourth rally staged by the MMA in major Pakistani cities over the past one month to muster support against President Musharraf. Cricket hero-turned politician Imran Khan and local leaders of Pakistan People's Party of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan Muslim League of ex-premier Nawaz Sharif also attended the MMA rally, joining in criticism of Musharraf's economic and foreign policies and blaming his government for rising prices. The Liaquat Bagh venue was bedecked with banners reading 'Friendship with America is treachery with the country', 'Inflation is Musharraf's gift to the nation', and 'Solution of problems lies in Islamic system'. Gen Musharraf in an interview with domestic Sindhi language television channel KTN on Friday said: "I will remain in uniform." President Musharraf said that his decision was in the interests of political stability and national solidarity.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/20/2004 12:19:10 AM ||
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Shia Muslim leaders have warned against revenge attacks following two bombings in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala that killed at least 60 people. The two powerful car bomb blasts are believed to have been carried out by Sunni Muslim insurgents. Respected Shia cleric Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum said Shias - the majority in Iraq - were committed to peaceful participation in next month's election. Officials have warned of an increase in violence ahead of the 30 January poll. ...
Posted by: .com ||
12/20/2004 12:19:41 AM ||
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#2
The people making things difficult for Sharon's pullout plan are needlessly exposing Israel to unnecessary criticism. Once Israeli forces are yanked and most of the settlements vacated, any further complaint about Israeli "occupation" will carry little weight.
#3
"Once Israeli forces are yanked and most of the settlements vacated, any further complaint about Israeli "occupation" will carry little weight" THIS COMMENTS IS BOGUS. EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT AFTER GIVING ALL THE SO CALLED"TERRITORIES" THE ARABS WILL ASK FOR THE "RETURN OF THE REFUGES BY THE MILLIONS" IN OTHER WORDS TO TRANSFORM THE ONLY JEWISH STATE INTO ANOTHER MUSLIN STATE (THEIR NUMBER ARE IN THE DOZENS AND NONE OF THEM HAVE A REAL DEMOCRACY). BY THE WAY THE MEANING OF "RETURNING THE TERRITORIES" IS NOTHING LESS THAT ETHNIC CLEASING, OTHERWISE WHAT IS THE PROBLEM TO LET A FEW THOUSAND OF JEWS TO LIVE WITH OVER A MILLION OF ARABS. IN ISRAEL "PROPER" THERE ARE OVER A MILLION ARABS LIVING WITHOUT ANY FEAR WITH MILLIONS OF JEWS.
Posted by: LENA ||
12/20/2004 15:25 Comments ||
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#4
They will swarm like the cap locks even unto the middle lake and they will abhor proportional spacing even until the 3rd generation of their true type fonts.
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.
North Korea, which insists it needs a nuclear deterrent against a U.S. invasion, threatened Monday to strengthen its "deterrent force" if the United States pursues policies the communist state deems hostile. "If the United States more desperately pursues its hostile policy to isolate and stifle (North Korea) under the pretext of the 'nuclear issue' and 'human rights issue' ... the latter will react to it by further increasing its self-defensive deterrent force," an unnamed spokesman for the North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
AMMAN, Jordan - From his prison cell, ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein urged his compatriots to remain united against the US occupation and warned of the potential dangers of the upcoming elections, his lawyers said.
Pakistan's opposition religious alliance yesterday vowed to observe New Year's Day as a 'black day' across the country if President Pervez Musharraf did not quit as army chief by December 31. The six-party Muttahida Majlise Amal (MMA) may also call for a sit-in protest in Islamabad, the alliance's chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad told thousands of supporters here in the garrison city near the capital Islamabad. The demonstrators put up with heavy rain and police searches before the rally got underway. The rally was held after President Musharraf categorically declared he would remain the army chief despite his pledge to abdicate the military post by the end of the year. "If Musharraf did not abide by his pledge to doff his military uniform by December 31, we will observe a countrywide black day of protest on 1st January," Qazi Hussain told the crowd, many of whom carried umbrellas. "We will then consider giving a call to the people to march up to Islamabad for a sit-in protest," he said. "People are fed up with Musharraf's (army) uniform," protesters chanted.
