Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday urged the deployment of more U.S. troops to combat the growing Taliban threat in Afghanistan ...
'growing Taliban threat'? Is that the dreaded fall Taliban offensive?
... while accusing the administration of trying to salvage its congressional majorities by playing on public fears of future terrorist attacks rather than fixing what he said is a disastrous policy in Iraq.
Because future terrorist attacks don't matter, until they happen, then they do ...
As the nation prepares to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Kerry offered a pointed rejoinder to President Bush's recent rhetorical offensive on terrorism. He said Bush's policies have turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground, ...
... unlike what it was before, when Sammy was giving shelter and aid to terrorists ...
... unleashed dangerous forces elsewhere in the Middle East ...
... that's callled 'democracy' and 'personal liberty' ...
... and diverted resources from the battle against terrorism at home and in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan we have almost all of what we need, and we have NATO partners who are supposed to pony up the rest. And John's complaint about resources at home goes back to the 'perfect defense' strategy that would have us inspect every shipping container and leaving overseas terrorists alone.
"We have a Katrina foreign policy, a succession of blunders and failures that have betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it," Kerry said in a speech at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall.
Nice sound-bite for the six o'clock news but empty of content.
A copy of the prepared text was distributed by Kerry's office.
Using tongs.
The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee also accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who recently spoke of "moral confusion" in the debate about how best to fight the radical Islamic terrorist threat, of smearing those who dissent from the administration's policies by suggesting they are similar to Nazi appeasers in the 1930s.
The '1938 argument' is striking home.
"It is immoral for old men to send young Americans to fight and die in a conflict without a strategy that can work," he said. "It is immoral to lie about progress in that war to get through a news cycle or an election. It is immoral to treat 9/11 as a political pawn."
So why don't you Dhimmicrats stop using it as one?
Speaking a day after a suicide bomber killed 16 people, including two U.S. soldiers, in Afghanistan, Kerry accused the administration of pursuing "a policy of cut-and-run" in that country and said the Pentagon should deploy at least 5,000 more troops to help suppress the Taliban insurgency. He said allied forces there need more helicopters, drones, heavy equipment and reconstruction funds to help prop up the government in Kabul.
We removed forces when NATO agreed to step up. NATO commanders have said they'd like more forces, but it's hardly 'cut and run' for us to let NATO do what they agreed to do. Note that the Canadians just this week decided to send 20 Leopard tanks to Afghanistan to help bolster their forces. That's exactly what should happen. John wants our 'traditional allies' to be a part of the WoT. Afghanistan's as good a place to start, and they're doing it.
Kerry restated his call for the withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Iraq by next July, a recommendation that most of his fellow Democratic senators have already rejected.
He keeps moving the date back. Pretty soon he'll be in 'agreement' with GWB, at which point he'll take all the credit.
He also urged new policies to free the United States from its dependence on Middle East oil, which he described as the "great treasury of jihadist terrorism."
So you'll support drilling in ANWR and off the coast of California, right? Right John?
"There is simply no way to overstate how Iraq has subverted our efforts to free the world from global terror," Kerry said, according to the prepared text. "It has overstretched our military. It has served as an essential recruitment tool for terrorists. It has divided and pushed away our pretty much worthless traditional allies. It has diverted critical billions of dollars from the real front lines against terrorism and from homeland security."
Kerry, in a rhetorical twist that invoked one of the worst moments of his 2004 campaign, also took note of Bush's speech this week about the treatment of terrorist suspects who have been held at secret CIA prisons abroad. "Let me say it plainly," he said. "No American president should be for torture before he's against it."
A Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Tara Wall, called Kerry's criticism ill-timed on the eve of the commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks and charged that Kerry's blueprint would embolden terrorists and diminish domestic efforts to prevent future attacks.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/10/2006 12:57 ||
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Operation "TOUGH ON TERRORISM", Sep 10 through Nov 7, 2006 brought to you by the power hungry Dehimmicrats. That ploy is easier to see through than lingerie from Frederick's of Hollywood.
#2
Such a sad sack. Still trying to position himself as a military expert and foreign policy wonk. Pulled this nit out of his Lucky Hat, no doubt. Recently someone used a word here I haven't heard in an age of ages, but it fits perfectly...
#5
I can hardly wait for the Gore vs Kerry battle of the blowhard retreads in '08. Greenhouse gas control will be set back 20 years
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 15:38 Comments ||
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Let's toss Kerry into the same list as Clinton, Albright, and Berger: unpunished criminals. Kerry went to Paris (naturally) and "negotiated" with the North Vietnamese. Most likely, he was coordinating the efforts of the anti-war effort with its patrons.
Hell, how many of the Democrats *should* be in prison? Kennedy -- manslaughter. Byrd -- domestic terrorism. How many of them kiss Castro's ass at every opportunity?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/10/2006 15:38 Comments ||
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I wondered where my favorite crypto facist went. Day late and dollar short as usual. NATO has the Taliban cornered. They will be almost completely decimated in less than 4 months time.
What a tiny tiny world view these Dhimmicrats have.I guess this is what happens when you are completely out of ideas and vision.
#8
He also urged new policies to free the United States from its dependence on Middle East oil, which he described as the "great treasury of jihadist terrorism."
And wind farms off Cape Cod, right, Johnny?
Thanks to Salmon Steve for taking the time to provide context. It's great!
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/10/2006 16:34 Comments ||
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#7 newc: "They will be almost completely decimated in less than 4 months time."
At the risk of picking nits, I hope they're much worse off that that.
"Decimated" means they've lost 1/10th of their forces.
/tiresome pedantic ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 17:03 Comments ||
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in lieu of decimated, I would propose: Cleansed
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 17:14 Comments ||
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No wind farms, they'll obstruct the view from his house.
A SUICIDE bomber assassinated an Afghani provincial governor, as NATO said it killed almost 100 more Taliban fighters in its biggest offensive against the resurgent Islamist group.
Governor Hakim Taniwal, a former mines minister who once lectured in an Australian university, is the first provincial chief killed since the Taliban fell five years ago, although there have been many assassinations attempts around the country.
His driver also died when the bomber threw himself on the governor of Paktia province, bordering Pakistan, as he was entering his car, police said.
The killing came as NATO said its forces and Afghani soldiers killed 94 Taliban insurgents in a battle in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban's heartland, in its biggest offensive against the rejuvenated Islamist movement.
Backed by close air support, the militants were killed in two areas of Kandahar in four encounters that started on Saturday, NATO said in a statement.
NATO did not say if there were any casualties among NATO or Afghani forces in the fighting in Zari and Panjwai districts.
NATO has encountered heavier-than-expected fighting since taking over southern Afghanistan from US-led troops on July 31 to allow Washington to reduce its forces.
If true, the latest casualties would bring to more than 400 the number of Taliban killed since NATO launched Operation Medusa just over a week ago.
NATO said the 94 militants were killed in Kandahar province's Panjwayi and neighboring Zhari districts late Saturday and early Sunday, pushing the toll from a nine-day counterinsurgency operation there past 420. Six NATO soldiers and 14 British crew of a reconnaissance plane have also died... 30,240 virgins.
#3
Most are probably what you could call FFPs, Fools From Pakistan. Sent to Afghanistan straight from their madrassas, with little or no training, they are being depleted at a rate indicative of a "more where that comes from" attitude. Such efforts are not sustainable, as even in Pakistan, there is a finite supply of imbeciles.
your premise, taken to its logical conclusion would require us to eliminate pak and saudiland
it seems to me that if the Pak leadership was more actively confronting the local problem jihadis, there wouldn't be as much input from Pak land to cause trouble in Afghanland
and if oil dropped to 60, it would reduce the Saudi money going to the jihadis
and of course if the govt burned the Talib poppy fields, it would dry up the local financing a bit
The Canadians are proving to be as effective and stalwart as we knew them to be.
Insurgent fighters in a Taliban stronghold are being pounded by NATO forces and are on the verge of collapse, said the commander of Canadian forces in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.
Backed by U.S. and British air power, Canadian and Afghan troops took turns moving through former insurgent outposts in the Panjwaii region, where Taliban are engaging in a "last stand," according to Lt.-Col. Omer Lavoie. Lavoie told The Canadian Press that advances by Canadian-led international troops from the north of the Taliban stronghold, along with a firm stand to the south, are punishing the insurgents.
"There's good indication that they are on the brink of collapse in a number of different areas," Lavoie said. "Like most insurgents, they don't have the sustainment ability to have long, protracted engagements. What we see is mostly hit-and-run tactics."
NATO's commander in southern Afghanistan, meanwhile, said allied forces have no intention of allowing the Taliban to escape, despite reports from local officials of an escape route to the west. "We've got the Taliban surrounded," said Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser after a tour near the frontlines Saturday.
And we don't mean that in the Saoodi way.
"We don't want to squeeze them out. We're around them, and they've got choices to make."
On Friday, Canadian foot soldiers were sent scrambling for cover under a bridge as rocket-propelled grenades flew past overhead and landed a short distance away, reports CP. Small groups of Taliban fighters were testing the troops, triggering fiery exchanges and heavy bombardment. "As you can tell, we are answering back with authority," said Lieut. Jeff Bell, a platoon commander with the Royal Canadian Regiment based in Petawawa, Ont., who was among the first wave of soldiers to move ahead.
Military officials are revealing little about the operation. Many details cannot be reported by The Canadian Press under the embedding agreement that allows reporters to accompany Canadian troops on the front lines.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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I hold the grim suspicion that this particular campaign is intended to drive those not killed into North Wazoo. To make it easy for them to flee there, expecting safety from the Pak army.
This both clears them out of very difficult terrain, and lets the good guyz set up an 'anvil' at the border. Then, when and if the Pak army decided to 'hammer' North Wazoo, there will be no escape, and the command of the Taliban will be annihilated.
It is a technique to put a definitive end to things.
#3
LOL, just read Peter Bergen's commentary at the Washington Post. Peter's piece, "The Taliban, Regrouped and Rearmed" is another exercise in hand wringing.
I bet the closest Bergen has been to combat was a food fight in college.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 1:15 Comments ||
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Mooses, the Panjwaii area is a 'friendly suburb area' just west of Kandahar, southern A-stan.
#10
You can be sure that the traitors in the MSM will not cover this story. To them even on the eve of 9-11, we are all victims of Bush, not of the pedophile for profit's Islamic hordes.
#11
Memories are painfully short. The muzzies have been boinking us for decades and our.... "leadership" has pretty much permitted it to continue rather than face off with the culprits. The 9/11 attack was the climax of ....."it's only a question of when, not if." Reality has now arrived and the question is what are we to do about it.
NATO-led troops in a major offensive in southern Afghanistan have killed around 60 insurgents in the last 24 hours, said officials. The offensive, Medusa, has used air power, artillery and ground troops. It was launched a week ago to drive militants out of a stronghold in Kandahar. Later in the morning, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) lost one soldier in action, the alliance said in a statement. Afghan and NATO forces also destroyed three insurgent positions, a bomb-making factory and a weapons cache, the statement said.
Meanwhile police in Qalat said they had foiled an attempt to detonate a car bomb by seizing the vehicle. Police received intelligence reports that a suicide car bomb attacker was planning to target Afghan or foreign troops on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, said Zabul Police Chief Noor Mohammad Pakteen. The information led police to the vehicle, he added. We found the explosives-laden vehicle close to Qalat, but the suicide attacker fled. Police defused the car bomb, said Pakteen.
Also on Saturday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide blast in Kabul on Friday that killed two US soldiers and 14 Afghans. In Nuristan, 10 trucks supplying a US base were torched by men who appeared to belong to the Taliban, said witnesses.
The militants also attacked a border post in Khost late on Friday. One Taliban body was left at the site after an hour-long battle but blood stained turbans and Afghan caps, called pakols, littered the site, indicating the militants had suffered several casualties, a border police commander said. Three policemen were wounded in the battle as well, health officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Strange how the body count is always in multiples of 20. Makes it hard to tell one day's report from another. We should get out of the body count business
1. Too much like Viet Nam
2. Provides no meaningful information for the home front.
3. Potentially provides meaningful information for the enemy.
However, considering that the media fauns over every American death, regardless of cause [combat, accident, health - yes, they even have heart attacks like everyone else], it might give some perspective since the media has apparently never heard of things like WWII or the American Civil War where one day of combat exceed what's accumulated over many years.
#4
Oh, goody. We have another 'Beltway Defense Expert' in the form of Uliter Glosh6909.
It's a no-win situation.
If reports on Taliban dead aren't made, we only get the US/NATO body counts and charges that the forces there aren't accomplishing anything but getting killed.
As a result,we also get uncountered reports from the WaPo et al, that the Taliban are lean, mean, armed up the Wazoo, and winning the war.
If reports are made, then it's "Oh dear, it's Vietnam all over again".
#5
Oh, goody. We have another 'Beltway Defense Expert' in the form of Uliter Glosh6909.
No, we have another taxpayer who thinks the original policy of not being sucked into the body count game was a good idea and who doesn't understand why the Pentagon got suckered into the body count game by the WaPo, at least according to you, oh Outside the Beltway Defense Expert.
#6
I don't think the reporting is a sign of desperation nor do I think it is avoidable.
15 months ago I was in a conference session on milblogging. We had LIVE VIDEO FEED from an officer in Anbar province.
Think about that for a moment. Absorb the leadership challenges our new technologies create. And then tell me how the military can prevent information from flowing out about casualties in an age when most cheap cell phones capture video -- as they did during the 7/7 attacks in London.
Yes, with the arrival of Gen. Schoomaker as Chief of Staff of the Army, there has been an increased emphasis on opsec and that session from a year+ ago wouldn't happen quite that way today. But the fact remains the information flow can no longer be controlled the way it was during WWII. All that can be done is to put unbiased, accurate information out so that biased or incomplete claims can be countered.
Nor is this all bad. We at Rantburg have come to some conclusions that the MSM would rather we didn't, and we came to them based on information we got outside of their filtered reports. When I go to work my colleagues in uniform just shake their heads over the reporting about Taliban victories. They can add up the numbers for themselves.
#7
Uliter Glosh6909 = if you believe that so strongly, choose a nym, stick with it, and defend your ideas. Until then, I say you're wrong, an anonymous coward, and good day to you
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 17:07 Comments ||
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Uliter Glosh6909, I started to write a long response to you early this morning, but it got too long, so I didn't bother to post it. However, you stuck around to argue your position, and I do understand being frustrated at what's reported in the newspapers and on television. At any rate, here's what I've learnt about the intermittant reporting of enemy casualties:
First of all, by not reporting daily tallies, events in Afghanistan have been pretty much flying under the international media radar, thus freeing up not only American armed forces, but also our NATO allies to do pretty much as they please without public outcry. Nonetheless, by occasionally mentioning that bad guyz are being killed, the media cannot fuss that things are being hidden from them, denying them a desirable scandal.
Second, we know from comments made by Rantburg correspondents currently or previously posted Over There and Elsewhere, that actually Our Guys and the Afghanis are killing/wounding/capturing lots and lots of bad guyz; considerably more, in fact, and waaay more often than is reported. Multiples and orders of magnitude are what I apply to any report I happen to see.
Thirdly, take the reports as indicative of trends. Originally Our Guys killed the Taliban in large numbers, because they were there in large numbers, and because they were trying to fight like an army. Then the Taliban were killed in small numbers, as they tried to sneak small groups into position, and because those capable of commanding large groups had been killed off. Now we're back to large groups, because the leadership back in Pakistan is trying for a big push, only they haven't enough leadership for the numbers of cannon fodder creamed off the madrassahs, so they are sending out brigades headed by patrol leaders; which naturally enough are being wiped out to the last man or so.
Of course, I'm just a little Midwestern civilian housewife, so my understanding may be incomplete.
#9
#8 tw: "Of course, I'm just a little Midwestern civilian housewife, so my understanding may be incomplete."
Uh-huh.
Stick to your story, TW. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 22:33 Comments ||
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No, we have another taxpayer who thinks the original policy of not being sucked into the body count game was a good idea and who doesn't understand why the Pentagon got suckered into the body count game by the WaPo, at least according to you, oh Outside the Beltway Defense Expert.
Oh goody. And a 'taxpayer' to boot.
Yes, the original policy was a good idea. However, again, it's a damned if you do or damned if you don't don't. In this case, NATO and the US decided it's 'do'.
The former is playing to a bigger and much more leery audience than the US is.
The latter is dealing with a media and a political party that can't deal with Afghanistan anymore, and want to get involved with domestic stuff again.
Finally, I wouldn't call myself an Expert. But I have been involved with Defense, the media, and their Democrat allies ever since Carter decided to pull the Persian rug from under the Shah.
That makes it what - 18 years of dealing with this shit?
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday night that he had no intention of running for the presidency in the 2008 elections. Putin said that he would advise his successor to take action to reduce poverty and to ensure the growth of the Russian economy.
Yeah, that's what Saleh said in Yemen, too...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Who ever succeeds Putin will have mighty small shoes to fill.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 1:17 Comments ||
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Meet the new boss, worse than same as the old boss....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 1:19 Comments ||
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Putin announces intention to quit in 2008
That should give him more than enough time to cripple Russia permanently.
Putin said that he would advise his successor to take action to reduce poverty and to ensure the growth of the Russian economy.
Unlike himself. And supplying terrorist nations with nuclear technology cannot be defined as a "growth" industry.
hey...give pootie a break, he just wants to retire to his KGB Dacha meet his neighbor's little grand kids...
pootie "He seemed to me very independent, very serious, but at the same time a boy is always vulnerable. He was very sweet. I'll be honest, I felt an urge to squeeze him like a kitten and that led to the gesture that I made, there was nothing behind it....really"
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 3:47 Comments ||
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I don't buy it. Putin has complete control of the Duma with his Unity Party. They could very easily decry the lack of candidates, change the constitution to allow him another term, and "draft" him.
I'll believe it when he walks out of the Kremlin.
Something about this story makes me think "dipsy doodle." I'm not sure what, but the smell's wrong...
A U.S. Air Force officer who went missing for three days says someone stuffed an object in her jeans pocket with a note saying it was bomb and telling her to go to a site in Bishkek, where kidnappers grabbed her, Kyrgyz authorities said Saturday.
Ah yes, Kyrgyz authorities. The very essence of probity. If you can't trust the ex-Soviet officials in the 'Stans, who CAN you trust???
They said Maj. Jill Metzger reported feeling as if she were in a trance as she followed the instructions.
U.S. officials said the 33-year-old officer was in "stable condition" after she turned up Friday night and had been moved to another American base in the region. Metzger disappeared Tuesday in Bishkek, capital of this former Soviet state in Central Asia, while shopping at the TsUM department store for souvenirs before a scheduled departure from the country on Friday. Her disappearance touched off an extensive search by Kyrgyz police and by U.S. military personnel, including 22 special agents. But no trace was found until late Friday when Metzger knocked on the door of a house in Kant, a town about 22 miles from Bishkek, and told its residents she had been abducted, Kyrgyz Deputy Interior Minister Omurbek Suvanaliyev said.
Military officials said Metzger was a newlywed and had been scheduled to travel with her husband to Jamaica for a belated 10-day honeymoon in the Caribbean. (The Kyrgyz insist that) Metzger told Kyrgyz police she had been abducted by three young men and a woman in a minibus and held in a rural area about 30 miles from the capital, Suvanaliyev told The Associated Press. Kemilbek Kiyazov, chief of the Chuysk regional police department, said, "Her first testimony was that when she split up with her group in the department store, someone put a hard object and a note saying it was an explosive in a back pocket of her jeans. "In the note there were also detailed instructions about where to go and what to do. Metzger says it was as if she were in a trance and fulfilling someone else's wishes."
Read the rest of the article -- US officials are telling a very different story.
#5
The hair dye on her own hands does make her story a wee smidgen suspect, but I'm not there so I'll leave any conclusions to the local military investigators.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 2:48 Comments ||
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Psychotic break?
Posted by: ST ||
09/10/2006 2:52 Comments ||
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The truth will come out... it always does in silly stories like this.
#8
Yeesh. I wonder also.
Normaly, I'd be glad to get her back, but from the description....
Something does not add up.
Posted by: N guard ||
09/10/2006 6:50 Comments ||
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Maybe she's scamming.
But Kyrgyzstan used to be Soviet and the Soviets used a lot of psychotropic drugs in their police & KGB activities. It was a favored tactic, in fact. And Kyrgyzstan is one of the 'Stans where Putin has been trying hard to undo our recent presence. The new government is more pro-Moscow than the one that allowed us to set up an airbase there.
Reports are that she was beaten. She probably had no sleep for those 3 days, which plays havoc with the mind even if she was not drugged. Almost certainly she was gangraped - something we understandably play down, but it happens (and not just to females either). And the beatings may have risen to systematic torture.
I'm betting the USAF is taking time to sort this out before coming to conclusions.
#10
...This has without question been handed over to USAF Office Of Special Investigations (USAF equivalent to Army CID or Navy NCIS), and having seen what happens whan they get suspicious, I can guarantee they will get to the bottom of this. I hope and pray that this is indeed one of the weird things that happens in that part of the world - but there are just too many off-notes in the story.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/10/2006 9:13 Comments ||
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Re-reading the article I can see that the claims about a bomb, "trance" etc. came from the Kyrgyz officials
The US officials are still saying she was abducted, found by the road with her head shaved and had been beaten badly.
Somehow I take the Kyrgyz account with a truckload of salt .... This reads to me like an attempt to discredit a truthful account of an attack on a US officer by Kyrgyz locals -- or officials. You know, "the woman's crazy!!!".
#12
Military officials said Metzger was a newlywed and had been scheduled to travel with her husband to Jamaica for a belated 10-day honeymoon in the Caribbean
.....planced into a department store trance and then kidnapped by a Mexican....headed to Vegas on a Greyhound? It all began back at Jack's Valley at the Academy with those 3 guys that lonely nite, I never said anything about it until now.
#16
B your out of line on this one. Air Force will run this out to the truth. She was beten, her head shaved, probably sexually assualted, and dumped on the roadside. I know you have a distain for the officer corps but lighten up on this a bit.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/10/2006 16:59 Comments ||
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I hope I am wrong, and IF I am I'll retract. But I'm getting a very strong whiff of MOONBAT.
Because if you're wrong -- if the statement by the US military that she was abducted, beaten badly, shaved and dumped by the side of the road is true -- then your snark is a slur on a woman who is serving in OUR name for OUR safety.
Russian diplomats believe it is now "highly probable" that North Korea will officially join the nuclear club by carrying out its first underground test of an atomic device.
Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, is said to have made clear his intention to explode a device during recent talks with Russian and Chinese officials in Pyongyang.
Although he was pressed to resume six-party talks over his nuclear programme, the Russians concluded that he was serious in his desire to demonstrate that his scientists have successfully built a nuclear weapon.
Their fears appear to bolster American suspicions that a test is being prepared, after intelligence reports last month of unusual vehicle movements in the area believed to be the test site. Any such test would be an escalation of tension in the region and would raise the stakes in the stand-off with the United States.
During talks at the Russian and Chinese embassies, Kim was warned that such a move would alienate even Moscow and Beijing regarded as North Korea's closest friends who were infuriated by the country's long-range missile tests earlier this summer.
"If North Korea conducts an underground nuclear test, it will face severe punishment," said one Russian diplomat.
"It would pose a very serious threat to world peace."
He said Kim Jong Il was "irritated" by financial sanctions imposed last year by the US, including the blocking of bank accounts abroad believed to have been used for money laundering and other illegal deals, including arms and drugs trading.
Kim is said to have threatened "to use all necessary means" including further development of the nuclear deterrent to make Washington change its position. Six-party talks with China, America, South Korea, Japan and Russia, aimed at persuading Kim to abandon his nuclear ambitions were suspended last November.
In Washington, the State Department's spokesman, Sean McCormack, said last week that a North Korean nuclear test would be "a deeply provocative act".
Kim disappeared from the public eye the day before large scale missile tests on July 5, prompting speculation that he had gone into hiding in case there was a military response to the tests.
A book by the North Korean leader's former sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto, says that Kim has had a bunker built near Pyongyang to shelter from a nuclear attack.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2006 17:32 ||
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Diplomatically, some time ago we probably approached China with an offer. Neither of us wants either Korea to go nuclear. We will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea, and neither, probably, will Japan.
Since you (China) want to keep your nuclear monopoly in the region, *and* you sure as hell don't want a nuclear Japan, *and* you don't want the US Air Force pounding the hell out of the Norks on your doorstep, we make you the following proposition.
If the Norks test a nuclear weapon, *you* punish them, to *our* satisfaction. This means decapitating their government and replacing it with one more satisfactory.
But wait! There's more!
If that government is more peaceful than this one, even conducive to reunification talks, you, China could make billions in the deal. A Korea unified with your help would be ever so grateful, it would also be a huge trading partner, and it would definitely be in *your* sphere of influence.
You would no longer be deluged by illegal immigrants, you would no longer have the US on your doorstep, and you would have a powerful ally that also doesn't care much for Japan.
By now, you've found your comfort level with a modestly-still-democratic Hong Kong; and in most ways, a unified Korea would be much the same.
And most of all, they do things the Chinese "way" in Korea, your acid test for compatibility.
So all you have to do is retire Kim, and you're in clover in all sorts of ways.
#4
Nice try, 'moose, but the Mandarins would rather sh!t a porcupine backwards than ever see a unified democratic Korea on their doorstep. Big trading partner, the Chinese "way", no starving refugees, none of them mean spit compared to maintaining a continued counterweight to American military might in Northeast Asia. Kim effectively provides an overt nuclear threat that China can otherwise only tacitly maintain.
#5
Ah, but if Korea unifies and is friendly with China, the US can finally leave. We have already wound it down with them, and having bases there seems to be pretty much zilch to us.
Remember the circumstances I gave, of China taking out Kim and installing a government who would bargain into reunification. The Skors would be so friggin grateful to China that their already good relations would get a lot better.
Of course China would keep a heavily fortified border for fear of democracy leaking in. But if the US suggested the idea in the first place, China would take a long, hard look at it. And remember what the alternative is, something about as pleasant as having that porcupine shoved up there, backwards, in the first place.
Document ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf (link) dated July 25 2000 is a report from an Iraqi Intelligence officer to different Iraqi Intelligence Directorates talking about information provided to them from a trusted source that works in the Associated Press (AP).
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The information is about the formation a newly formed UN weapons inspectors team called UNMOVIC. Translation of page 4 and 5 of ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf
Republic of Iraq
The Presidency of the Republic
The Intelligence Service
Date: 25/7/2000
Number: 6146
Secret
To: 5th / 4th / 13th Directorates
We were informed from one of our sources (the degree of trust in him is good) who works in the American Associated Press Agency [emphasis added] that the agency broadcasted to through computer to its branches worldwide the following:
1. The new agency for inspecting the Iraqi weapons (UNMOVIC) started on 11/7/2000 a training program for 4 weeks which includes historical, legal, administrative, and political subjects that are related to the weapons inspection in Iraq.
2. The training include lectures about the ballistic missiles and the biological and chemical weapons and the import and export of weapons in addition to a session in security arrangements prepared by the American government.
3. Hans Blix who head the new team mentioned that he will send a smaller team to Iraq in late August 2000 and the inspections operations will focus on choosing the locations that was under the control of the UNSCOM committee
4. The agency adds that Iraq prevented the old committee from returning to Iraq and that high Iraq officials said they will not accept new inspectors from the new committee but some other left the possibility of negotiations open.
5. The agency ends its article by saying that the sanctions against Iraq will not be lifted unless Iraq cooperate with the new inspectors and after it is decided that Iraq is free from weapons of mass destructions.
The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world -- no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image -- has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. But not because the MSM keeps leaking the methods of gathering intelligence, no; the genius terrs figger it out all by their lonesomes.
"The handful of assets we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence" that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has gone "stone cold."
But in the last three months, following a request from President Bush to "flood the zone," the CIA has sharply increased the number of intelligence officers and assets devoted to the pursuit of bin Laden. What about all the screaming that the evil Buh$hitler had 'disbanded' the Binny Boyz?
The intelligence officers will team with the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and with more resources from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.
The problem, former and current counterterrorism officials say, is that no one is certain where the "zone" is. "Here you've got a guy who's gone off the net and is hiding in some of the most formidable terrain in one of the most remote parts of the world surrounded by people he trusts implicitly," said T. McCreary, spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center. "And he stays off the net and is probably not mobile. That's an extremely difficult problem." Rest at link, including it's Bush's fault for pulling folks to go to the bad war in Iraq, (because, "It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that.") and what a petty man Rumsfeld is.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/10/2006 13:03 ||
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Have we seen a video of him that can be positively dated since 2002?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 14:08 Comments ||
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Not sure, Frank. I've seen lots of footage of discolored rocks in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/10/2006 14:34 Comments ||
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That should be "Hand-Wringing".
I do catch most of my typos. Usually.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/10/2006 15:58 Comments ||
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A man was jailed on $500,000 bail Saturday after authorities alleged he tried to board a plane bound for his native Yemen with a knife hidden in a book.
Mohammed Ghanem, 21, of Hamtramck, was arrested Thursday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after Transportation Security Administration officers detected the knife "artfully concealed" in the book, airport spokesman Michael Conway said.
Ghanem was arraigned Saturday on a state charge of possessing a weapon in the sterile area of an airport, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Someone had carved out the inside of the book and placed the knife inside it, said Ghanem's attorney, Nabih Ayad.
"He said he didn't know where the knife came from," Ayad told the Detroit Free Press
#2
Lock him up. 10 years hard time. Then pull any citizenship or green card and ship him and his family out
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 9:43 Comments ||
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Ya know, I poo-poo'd a report over at JunkyardBlog that imams are encouraging this kind of thing because the source has a hinky history. But it keeps happening, and, frankly, appears to happen most frequently with Muslims.
"Explosive residues" that we're told is just perfume residues -- yet millions of people wearing millions of fragrances make it through airports every day. An "unbalanced woman" rants, raves, makes threats, and acts nuts on an airplane -- and it turns out she's probably a convert with a Pakistani lover. Then there were the fellows on the British plane in Spain.
Now this.
Anyone wanna net that Muslims are being encouraged to "test security"? That it's being touted as being part of jihad, of "striking terror into the hearts of the enemies of Islam"?
Call me Islamophobic, or a bigot, whatever you want. The supposed moderates have spent decades accepting, cheering, and fundint terrorism; I think they've made their positions quite clear. There's no effort among Muslims to distance themselves from the jihadis because jihad is part of their faith, too. They approve. They support it.
They're part of the problem, not a source of the solution.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/10/2006 11:33 Comments ||
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This bastard needs some aging in Guantanamo. Not too bright if he thinks they can't find anything metallic nowadays.
#7
Let me get this straight, his lawer claims he didn't know that his book had been carved out and a knife was inside it?
How many books do you know would not feel different in such a condition? Wouldn't the knife rattle? Wouldn't the cut-out pages be weaker?
A second's thought makes the lawyer's statement ludicrous. He should loose his law license for making such an idiotic statement.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/10/2006 13:42 Comments ||
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It's such a stupid thing to even try to do that I wonder if perhaps Mohammed is actually telling the truth; perhaps he was being used to test security. Or perhaps he was being set up by some redneck as a joke.
Then again, given his apparant religion, maybe he really is that stupid.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/10/2006 17:35 Comments ||
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Simple common sense - an illiterate and a book? He should rather carry a roll of toilet paper...
Posted by: Matt K. ||
09/10/2006 17:38 Comments ||
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"He said he didn't know where the knife came from,"
Fine. Let's go on with that explanation, for the nonce. Anyone who accepts any sort of "gift" from someone to take aboard a plane flight without thoroughly examining it beforehand is worse than stupid. In these days of airline bombings, they may as well be suicidal.
Continuing along with this Muslim's putative reasoning, then who gave the hollowed out book to him? His Imam? A fellow Muslim? Perhaps either one of which were big fans of violent jihad? Same thing applies. You are way beyond stupid to not closely scrutinize whatever you've been given before accepting anything from some jihadist acquaintance or friend to then carry aboard a plane flight
This person has zero excuse. What's worse is that his story doesn't hold even a single molecule of water. Convict him of intentionally concealing a deadly weapon for transport aboard an aircraft. Add on terrorism charges if he comes from a Wahabbist mosque.
Lock him up. 10 years hard time. Then pull any citizenship or green card and ship him and his family out.
What Frank said.
Call me Islamophobic, or a bigot, whatever you want. The supposed moderates have spent decades accepting, cheering, and fundint terrorism; I think they've made their positions quite clear. There's no effort among Muslims to distance themselves from the jihadis because jihad is part of their faith, too. They approve. They support it.
Never forget the heroism of ordinary Americans on 9/11. Thank you Sgt. Thomas.
(CBS/AP) NEW YORK Aug. 14, 2006. For years, authorities wondered about the identity of a U.S. Marine who appeared at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, helped find a pair of police officers buried in the rubble, then vanished.
Even the producers of the new film chronicling the rescue, "World Trade Center," couldn't locate the mystery serviceman. The only name he'd given at the scene was "Sgt. Thomas."
The puzzle was finally solved when one Jason Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, happened to catch a TV commercial for the new movie a few weeks ago as he relaxed on his couch. His eyes widened as he saw two Marines with flashlights, hunting for survivors atop the smoldering ruins. "That's us. That's me!" thought the New York native, now working as a court officer in Ohio's Supreme Court.
Thomas, 32, hesitantly re-emerged last week to recount the role he played in the rescue of Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.
Now a father of five, Thomas had been out of the Marine Corps for about a year when the terrorists struck. He was dropping a daughter off at his mother's Long Island home when she delivered the news. "My mother insisted it must be an accident," he said. Thomas believed differently.
Rushing to his car, he dug in his trunk, retrieved his Marine uniform and put it on.
Minutes later, he was speeding toward Manhattan, eventually finding himself on the West Side Highway following a convoy of police cars. He had just parked when one of the towers collapsed. "All I saw was ash. Ash coming in my direction," Thomas said.
As it billowed around him, he knelt by the side of his car and pulled his shirt up over his mouth. Then, he got up and ran at the center of the cloud. "Someone needed help. It didn't matter who," he said. "I didn't even have a plan. But I have all this training as a Marine, and all I could think was, 'My city is in need."'
Thomas spent hours putting people on stretchers and setting up triage stations before bumping into another ex-Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes. Like him, Karnes had also grabbed his fatigues and headed into Manhattan when he learned of the attacks.
Acting on their own, the pair decided to search for survivors. Carrying little more than flashlights and an infantryman's shovel, they climbed the mountain of debris and began an hours-long hunt, skirting dangerous crevasses and shards of red-hot metal, calling out "Is anyone down there? United States Marines!"
It was dark before they finally heard a response. The two crawled into a deep pit to find McLoughlin and Jimeno, injured but alive. Even then, getting help wasn't easy. Thomas clambered back to the surface and feverishly tried to flag down other rescuers in the dark. Karnes phoned his sister in Pennsylvania and had her relay their location to 911 dispatchers.
Jimeno would spend 13 hours in the pit before he was pulled free. Thomas stayed long enough to see him come up, but couldn't find the strength to wait for McLoughlin, who remained pinned for another nine hours. "I was completely exhausted. I just had to get out of that hole," Thomas said.
He stumbled away and drove home, stopping to hose himself off in his backyard. "I knew my wife would kill me if I went in to the house with all that ash," he said.
Thomas said he returned to ground zero every day for another 2 1/2 weeks to pitch in, then walked away and tried to forget. "I didn't want to relive what took place that day," he said.
As for his story, Thomas said he is gradually becoming more comfortable telling it. "It's been like therapy," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/10/2006 10:47 ||
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Out of the many come the few, the proud, the Marines.
Never forget the heroism of ordinary Americans on 9/11. Thank you Sgt. Karnes.
USMC, Okinawa , Japan , Sept. 12, 2003 During his 20-plus years in service to the Marine Corps, Staff Sgt. David W. Karnes wanted nothing more than to find the warfront, seeking a chance to defend our nation, its citizens and their way of life.
On Sept. 11, 2001 , three years after he last served the Corps, 43-year-old Karnes had his opportunity to demonstrate what Marines do. It came to him in the form of one of the most devastating attacks in U.S. history.
Working as a senior accountant at the time with Deloitte & Touche's national headquarters in Wilton, Conn., Karnes received a phone call that once again ignited his warrior spirit. It was early that morning at work when I received a phone call from my sister in Pittsburgh who told me that a small plane had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers, Karnes recalled. I looked outside and saw that it was a clear day, I knew that planes just don't fly into buildings that tall on such a day. I suspected right off that terrorists had flown a skyjacked commercial airliner into the building.
Karnes' nightmare soon came to reality as the morning events unfolded. Shortly after the first plane crashed, a second commercial airliner slammed into the second tower. After seeing the reports of a confirmed terrorist attack on television, Karnes knew that a call to duty had once again been sent to him. I told people at my office you guys may not realize it, but we're at war right now,' Karnes stated. After staying at my desk for a few hours praying and asking God what I should do, I left the office to go to the WTC site.
What Karnes did next would likely seem strange to anyone other than a Marine. I stopped to get a high-and-tight haircut at the local barbershop, then traveled toward my home in Wilton to throw on a pair of starched cammies I had hanging in my closet. I then stopped at my storage unit on Long Island to grab some basic 782 and rappelling gear, and then started on what is normally a 45-minute drive toward the World Trade Center.
I was traveling down the closed parkway in my car at a very aggressive speed, Karnes explained. Funny thing is that two weeks prior to the attack, I bought a used car ironically, it was a Porsche 911. The cops that had checkpoints all up that route waved me through because I had the top down on my car and they could see that I was a Marine with intentions to get to the site.
Upon arriving at the site where the towers once stood, Karnes immediately noticed a group of fireman as well as a handful of military service members like himself. Karnes found a search-and-rescue buddy in another Marine on the scene whom he knows only as Sgt. Thomas. I asked Thomas and the others if anyone has been in the center of the collapse area where the two towers stood, Karnes admitted. He said no because the authorities won't let anyone near that area, so I asked him if he would take a walk over there with me.
Karnes and his new friend Thomas walked to the rubble that was once The World Trade Center complex. After charging into the wall of smoke in front of them, they executed a hasty patrol route through the debris field. As we were walking we were yelling at the top of our lungs United States Marines, can anyone hear us?' Karnes described. As we approached the depression of the south tower I thought I heard something. Indeed it was some muffled call for help, I ensured them that Thomas and I were both looking for them so keep yelling so we can find you.
Karnes instructed Thomas to position himself on some high rubble for visibility and to guide any responding rescuers to the trapped men.
After calling his wife and sister on his cell phone with instructions to relay to the authorities his whereabouts, Karnes was able to find two survivors. Port Authority Police Officers William Jimeno and John McLoughlin, were trapped 20 feet below the surface in a dark and smoky cavern made by the debris that was once the World Trade Center.
When I made it to the bottom of the void, I saw that Jimeno had an encroaching fire at his feet, if we had arrived about 20 minutes later than we did, the fire would have started burning him alive, Karnes said. About 15 minutes after reaching both officers, Chuck Sereika, a paramedic operating that day with expired credentials, showed up and started performing first aid on them.
After Sereika arrived, two Emergency Service Unit officers from the New York Police Department heeded the call for help followed shortly after by a New York City fireman. Together, the five men compiled what tools they had to dig the two officers out of the rubble. Discussions even arose about amputating Jimeno's leg to free him, but the only tool in their inventory capable of that was Karnes' K-bar knife, thankfully it did not come to that, Karnes said.
It took the men three hours to dig out Jimeno. By that time a human chain of rescuers had formed across the pile to Liberty Street to pass along the gear necessary for the nine-hour effort it took to free McLoughlin from his crypt.
The day ended for Karnes as he found a place to sleep for a few hours at Bellevue Hospital. He then spent the next eight days conducting search-and-rescue operations at the site.
When Karnes returned to Wilton the next week, he eagerly rushed to re-enlist in the Marine Corps Reserve. He is assigned [N.B.: as of the date of this article] to Company A, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/10/2006 00:05 ||
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Wonder if it would take an entire spine transplant to put a little back into ex-Marine Murtha or if the backbone would reject the body?
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Wonder if it would take an entire spine transplant to put a little back into ex-Marine Murtha
You might be able to transport the bone, but that doesn't necessarily translate into transplanting the COURAGE these two men demonstrated. I don't think many Marines consider Murtha "one of theirs" any more.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/10/2006 13:38 Comments ||
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Malegaon: The police on Sunday released sketches of two suspects in the Malegaon bomb blasts case. As many as 31 people were killed and many injured in three blasts that shook the city on Friday.
Police zeroed in on two shops from where the attackers allegedly bought bicycles that were used to plant the bombs at the Bada Kabrastan (cemetery) and Mushaira Chowk.
Information provided by the shop-owners and other witnesses was used to prepare sketches of the men who bought the bicycles, Inspector General of Police (Nashik range) P K Jain, who released the sketches, said.
Jain said police were also working on "two to three concrete clues" they had uncovered, without giving details.
CNN-IBN correspondent Shilpa Dhamija spoke with P K Jain. Here are excerpts from the interview:
Shilpa Dhamija: How did this investigation lead you towards the shops?
PK Jain: Since these cycles were found to be new, we enquired if anybody had purchased new cycles in the area. There were some cycle numbers that we had and their frames were intact. In the process of our inquiry, we found that two cycles had been purchased.
Shilpa Dhamija: Can we connect this incident with any other blast that has happened in the past? Have you been able to know the modus operandi?
PK Jain: Normally, in such cases we find out the content of the explosives. The proportion of the explosives used gives us some indication about the technique used. Until we get that, we will not be able to find out as to which particular blast can we associate with. Each explosive device has a different composition. So, it will all probably depend on the composition of the material used.
Shilpa Dhamija: You have released the sketches of the suspects. Could you tell us as to how many persons were involved and what were their details?
PK Jain: There were only two persons, one each at each of the shops. We are holding back other details for the time being. We will show the sketches to the witnesses in case we can get some leads. If that does not happen, then we will come out will other details.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2006 15:13 ||
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Looks like both of them fell for the "ink-stained binoculars" trick.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/10/2006 15:39 Comments ||
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What probably pissed off the Malegaon Muslims more than anything is how these blasts took out a couple of their finest bomb builders. This sort of richly deserved retribution poetic justice really rips out my heartstrings. Fortunately, it's nothing that a bloody Mary can't cure. Aren't paybacks a b!tch?
I can only speculate as to how many of this mosque's attendees secretly gloated to themselves at any of the endless Muslim perpetrated bombings that wrack India so constantly. Live by the sword bomb and die by the sword bomb, you bloodthirsty maggots.
For years now, the Indian army and infiltrators from across the border have been playing a cat and mouse game over the border.
It has been a constant battle for India, who not only has to protect and serve in some of the world's most hostile terrain, but also has to constantly innovate and integrate new machines and systems to stay one step ahead of terrorists.
From the old methods of defence like landmines and electrified fences to the latest laser technology and night vision, NDTV has a special report on the fight against infiltration.
Just before the last light Captain Raja Sherpa briefs soldiers of his patrol party, which will spend the next 12 hours guarding the Line of Control.
A few moments later Captain Sherpa gives a new mission to his soldiers of eliminating a group of heavily armed terrorists who have managed to cut across the fence.
The men get divided into pairs and lay a cordon before the final assault.
After 20 minutes of a gunbattle their mission is accomplished but this was just a mock exercise to keep the troops in fighting fit, helping them is some hi-technology.
"These are sensors. This is basically a PIR sensor what you call Passive Infrared sensor. It is basically changing the thermal heat, which comes between them and the change in the background it works. Basically we have got four types of sensors," said Captain Sherpa.
Area close to LC is all littered with landmines and if an intruder somehow manages to clear the mines fields there are chances that he will be caught on the sensors.
But if he is lucky enough and still manages to cross all these hurdles then there is an electrified fence, which has the alarm system, fitted on it and the next hurdle is the ambush parties and the quick reaction team.
Then there are some infiltrations who manage to cross all these hurdles.
As the night progresses Captain Sherpa is on high alert. He is in charge of a Quick reaction team or Ghatak team and he's in constant touch with the control room.
Control room is the place where the sensors that have been planted send signals and warn of an intrusion.
There are different sensors Stand-alone ground sensors, which are of different types.
Apart from thermal and night vision devices there is Battlefield Surveillance Radar, which can detect movement for as far as three kms.
Long reconnaissance and surveillance devices, sophisticated hand held thermal devices, night vision devices and even the electrified fence has an alarm system.
Day in an day out Lt Santosh monitors every sensor and in turn alerts Captain Sherpa and others guarding the LoC.
"First step is a UGS from which we get a beep on this equipment then we go and check the area at the same time for broader areas covering more areas. We have BFSR which covers a larger area which is specially deployed in places where we expect some movement," said Lt Santosh Singh, BG Brigade.
"BFSR is Battle Field Surveillance Radar it can detect man moving up to three kms at any area where fence has been shorted there are wires in front of the fence in which there is electricity whenever the wire touches the fence there is an alarm we have an alarm and a bulb here, which keeps glowing unless we switch it off manually," he added.
It is not just the sensors and radars, which are being used to check infiltration but even modern weaponry has been inducted.
As far as infiltration is concerned, night is the most crucial time. Now guns fitted with night vision devices and laser pointers are being used more often to enhance the accuracy at night.
"We are in the process of fully exploiting these capabilities and they have enhanced our capabilities no doubt about it. We are in the process of having more and more of these, in fact we have fair number we have good number of these weapons," said Major General Rameshwar Roy, 25 Infantry Division.
In spite of all these measures infiltration is still on. The Army admits that in difficult terrains like Rajouri and Poonch infiltration can be only be checked to an extent and not completely.
Worse, militants in Pak-based training camps are being taught how to cut across the electrified fence and cheat the sensors. So, the army has to be one step ahead.
"In their training camps they are created mock ups of this LoC fence and they are training them to cross over as also find places where portion of the wire may not be energized. Then they are using insulators in terms of gloves, rubber pads or ladders etc. This is a question of evolving, once they have found that this is the place they have not able to cross they are evolving methods and we are also evolving our drills to counter that," said Brigadier I S Singha, BG Brigade.
And better detection has meant that patrols who actually stop militants have had to be strengthened.
"Now terrorists have adopted means to go across the fence which they are training on in their training camps. So, we have to go beyond this and that is why we put ambushes ahead of the fence. We have to put ambushes and mobile patrols which are close to the fence and likely approaches to this fence area," said Colonel Kalyan Singh, BG.
For the moment there is peace on the border but with an increasing number of militants said to be infiltrating the fight on the border is a battle not just between humans but advanced technology.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2006 08:39 ||
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this will all be unnecessary when Pakland and the ISI are smoking radioactive holes in the ground
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 9:26 Comments ||
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Army troops will remain in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan despite a recent peace accord with local militants allied to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, government officials said Saturday. "Nobody has talked about withdrawal of troops from Waziristan," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. Her comments echoed ones by Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, governor of North West Frontier Province, who also said the peace deal did not envisage any troop pullout.
This past week's peace agreement between the government and local militants raised concerns in Afghanistan and some European capitals that the region could become a de facto sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan, where they are engaged in escalating guerrilla warfare against US and NATO troops. Most of the 80,000 Pakistani troops - mainly light infantrymen - deployed along the border with Afghanistan are based in Waziristan, and their withdrawal or confinement to barracks or designated checkpoints would leave the fiercely independent region open for infiltration to and from Afghanistan. "NATO's concern should be on the Afghan side (of the border)," Aslam said in an interview. "They should have no concern about any area in Pakistan."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Are they doin' a trust but verify here?
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 1:19 Comments ||
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Pakistani security forces arrested on Saturday an Islamist militant suspect who is wanted for several attacks, and smuggling explosives used in bombings in the country's biggest city, said a security force spokesman. The suspect, Mohammad Rizwan, was a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, said Captain Fazal Mehmood, a spokesman for Pakistan Rangers.
Rizwan was arrested in a shantytown on the outskirts of Karachi after a tip-off, Mehmood said. "Rizwan was affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammad and was involved in sectarian terrorism. The provincial government had him on their most wanted list," he added. he said that Rizwan had also been involved in smuggling weapons and explosives from the Afghan border to Karachi.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Taliban leader Mulla Omar, who heads the religious militia fighting US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is in Pakistan, although not in the same area where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is thought to be, according to a US intelligence source quoted by CNN on Saturday. The source said that the Taliban leader was believed to be in Quetta or its surroundings. The source said of Mulla Omar's location, "At one point we had it down to a particular section of Quetta."
President Pervez Musharraf did not address specifically the question on his visit to Kabul on Thursday, but said, "Please understand the Pakistani government is not behind anything that is happening in Afghanistan".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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So One-Eye is in Balochistan Province, where the MMA and Mushy's PML-Q share power and there is a local revolt against Punjabi control. The only way he and Binny could hide is if Mushy is playing the strategic while card, while maintaining a tactical WOT alliance with the US.
MIRANSHAH: A 70-year-old tribesman has been shot dead by suspected militants for allegedly spying for the Americans, a local administration official said on Saturday. This is the first target killing in North Waziristan since the government and militants struck a peace deal on Tuesday. Under the deal, local militants or Taliban had agreed to stop target killings in the tribal area.
And here it is Sunday. Lasted longer than I expected.
A paramilitary patrol found Rahim Jan's bullet-ridden body with two letters on it near a tableeghi market west of Miranshah, the official said. One letters said Jan had "confessed to spying for the Americans", while the other was on his personal contacts. Both letters had been written in Urdu.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Prolly a CIA plot to undermine the peace in WARstan.
This news is not part of the recent executions at Abu Ghraib, none of these was sentenced to death
38 convicted in Iraq insurgency [on 25 Aug 2006]...Six people were sentenced to life imprisonment -- three for kidnapping, two for "joining armed groups to unsettle the stability and security of Iraq" and one for shooting and killing a coalition armed forces member
Comments, anyone?
life imprisonment in a middle eastern jail does not strike me as a light sentence if (a big IF) he serves it.
#1
There is no likelihood that that convict will die in prison. He will be set free when the Iraqi government (or its successor) grants a pardon/parole/or whatever, similar to what has happened in Indonesia with the Bali bombers. This sentence illustrates Iraqi government holds the lives of the Westerners protecting it to be of little value. I would like to know the name of the trooper killed.
#2
No way a muzzie serves a life sentence for killing an infidel. That'd be unislamic and contravene sharia.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
09/10/2006 18:27 Comments ||
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Whether or not Iraq adopts the Saudi Arabian "revolving door" policy for its convicted terrorists will be the litmus test of their resolve to join the modern world.
If this is to happen, it will most likely be while we are still in Iraq. Should that occur, our own troops must hunt down such "catch and release" filth and summarily dispatch them.
#4
It also depends on the circumstances of the killing. For example, if it was a "fair fight" in which both he and the soldier were shooting at each other as part of a battle, it would be seen as different than if he just did a "cheap shot" assassination on his own, against a soldier not threatening him.
It's fine line stuff like that that matters when you are deciding the noose or life.
Remember, too, it matters when it happened. Before a particular point, it was part of the "insurgency". But after a date certain, the same act became a criminal one. That is, native Iraqis can claim they were fighting "invaders" for "patriotic" reasons up to that date. Afterwards, they were clearly fighting the Iraqi government and their fellow citizens.
Me, I'm a firm believer in the theraputic value of hemp. But at the same time, you need to deliver a criminal justice system that the public wants.
#5
That's the toughest sentence I have read to date. Others have been sentenced to single digit years for killing an American and is starkly illustrated by press releases showing punishment differences for killing Iraqis and Americans. Muslims place little value on our lives and the sentences reflect that.
Posted by: ed ||
09/10/2006 23:02 Comments ||
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#6
I like a "light" sentence. Jam a 1000 watt light up his a** and turn it on.
HT to Drudge - Note Obligatory Lynndie England leash photo in post....kinda puts things in perspective.
The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors.
Staff at the jail say the Iraqi authorities have moved dozens of terrorist suspects into Abu Ghraib from the controversial Interior Ministry detention centre in Jadriyah, where United States troops last year discovered 169 prisoners who had been tortured and starved.
An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Conditions in the rest of the jail were grim, with an overwhelming stench of excrement, prisoners crammed into cells for all but 20 minutes a day, food rations cut to just rice and water and no air conditioning.
Some of the small number of prisoners who remained in the jail after the Americans left said they had pleaded to go with their departing captors, rather than be left in the hands of Iraqi guards.
"The Americans were better than the Iraqis. They treated us better," said Khalid Alaani, who was held on suspicion of involvement in Sunni terrorism.
Abu Ghraib became synonymous with abuse after shocking pictures were published in 2004 showing prisoners being tortured and humiliated, galvanising opposition to the US presence in Iraq.
The witness gained access to the prison just days after the Americans formally handed over control to the Iraqi authorities on Sept 1.
Inside the 100-yard long cell block the smell of excrement was overpowering. Four to six prisoners shared each of the 12ft by 15ft cells along either side and the walls were smeared with filth. The cell block was patrolled by guards who carried long batons and shouted angrily at the prisoners to stand up.
Access to the part of the prison containing terrorism suspects was denied, but from that block came the sound of screaming. The screaming continued for a long time.
"I am sure someone was being beaten, they were screaming like they were being hit," the witness reported. "I felt scared, I was asking what was happening in the terrorist section.
"I heard shouting, like someone had a hot iron on their body, screams. The officer said they were just screaming by themselves. I was hearing the screams throughout the visit."
The witness said that even in the thieves' section prisoners were being treated badly. "Someone was shouting 'Please help us, we want the human rights officers, we want the Americans to come back'," he said.
Prisoners interviewed in the presence of their jailers said they were frightened for their safety. They complained that chicken and milk had been cut from their rations, leaving them on rice and water. They also complained about the oppressive heat.
Outside the prison, relatives of some of the inmates said they were being tortured by their captors. One woman, who gave her name as Omsaad, said: "My son Saad [who was arrested in Fallujah as a suspected insurgent] said he is being tortured by the Iraqis to confess the name of his leader. I met my son and he told me they were being treated badly by the Iraqis."
Haleem Aleulami, who was released from the jail last week, three weeks after being arrested in Ramadi for carrying a pistol in his car, said the Americans had treated him better when they ran the jail. He claimed that visits from the International Red Cross staff had dried up and accused local human rights workers of being members of Shia groups who turned a blind eye to problems in the jail.
"The people are Iraqis and they are members of the Sciri and al Dawa parties. They have a good relationship with the leaders of the jail and they keep quiet," he said. The guards swore at the ordinary prisoners, he said, but those in the terrorist section were treated more brutally.
"The guards were swearing at us, but in the terrorist section they were beating them. I heard it all the time. Everyone knows what is happening."
And Khalid Alaani, who was also picked up in Ramadi suspected of involvement in Sunni terrorism, said: "We preferred the Americans. We asked to move with them to Baghdad airport because we knew the treatment would be changed because we know what the Iraqis are. When the Americans left everything changed."
Staff at the jail said that the prisoners were allowed out from their cells for only 15 to 20 minutes a day because of the danger from the regular mortar attacks. They are no longer allowed access to the main hall where the Americans had allowed them to watch television and the room is now reserved for the use of officers and guards. Staff explained that the air conditioning in the cell blocks had broken, although it was working in their quarters.
One officer, Capt Ali Abdelzaher, said: "We have a problem with the financing for the food, not like the Americans, and there is a technical problem with the air conditioning."
Capt Abdelzaher also confirmed that a number of inmates had been transferred from the Jadriyah detention centre, along with their guards and interrogators.
Graphic stories of abuse at that previously secret facility emerged after US soldiers found 169 prisoners showing signs of torture last November.
Most of the prisoners held by the Americans at Abu Ghraib were either released in recent months or transferred to a new £32 million detention centre at Camp Cropper near Baghdad International Airport.
Yesterday, the International Red Cross confirmed that its visits to the prison had been suspended since January 2005 on security grounds.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 11:54 ||
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and there is a technical problem with the air conditioning." .... fuzes keep blowing when we flip on the interrogation chairs.
#2
Article: Prisoners interviewed in the presence of their jailers said they were frightened for their safety.
This is really silly. Prisoners whose safety is in danger do not complain to journalists. That can mean a one-way ticket to a shallow grave. People in Saddam's Iraq certainly avoided saying anything bad about the government.
#5
I find the squeals of "insurgents" to be guarded by the awful infidel Americans particularly ironic. I have no doubt awful things are happening to people who wantonly massacred other Iraqis, Brits, and Americans. Somehow, I'll still be able to watch a full Sunday of NFL, drink beer and snark RB without shedding a tear. Call me cynical
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 12:22 Comments ||
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"watch a full Sunday of NFL."
You've confirmed my thoughts about you Frank, whahahhaa.
#7
No one seemed to mind Abu Ghraib much when Saddam ran the place. But I'm sure back then all the prisoners sat around eating cucumber sandwiches with the crust cut off.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 12:31 Comments ||
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My only objection would be that if they are torturing prisoners, it obviously indicates that their judicial system has an acute shortage of hemp rope.
Were they to match that 27 hung on a bi-weekly basis, in little as a year, their society would be much improved.
#10
Whatever happens in Iraq, no matter who does it, will be reported as bad news for the next 20 years. By contrast nothing that happens in places like Iran, Syria, Cuba or other left wing paradises will ever be news.
#13
As my dad would of said to the prisioners and the leftwingers about Abu Ghraib, "Becareful what you wish for, you just might get it"
Just looks like Iraq's taking over, just like they all wanted.
#17
Pretty grisly but this kind of thing will take some steam out of the insurgency. Your average terrorist sympathizer or helper isn't going to want any part of "Abu Grab your ..."
#18
"Abu Ghraib became synonymous with abuse after shocking pictures were published in 2004 showing prisoners being tortured and humiliated, galvanising opposition to the US presence in Iraq."
And this from the Telegraph, not even the Grauniad. That such outrageous, and patently inaccurate, crap can be put into any serious newspaper indicates little hope for western media.
The brutal excesses of Saddam Hussein's regime were relived yesterday as Iraq's new government announced that it had hanged 27 prisoners convicted of terror and criminal charges...The government's media office later confirmed that the sentences had been carried out on Wednesday. It also called the prisoners "terrorists", a name normally reserved for insurgents...The death penalty is overwhelmingly supported by the Iraqi public, particularly as punishment for those who commit insurgent atrocities.
The article put no stress on the truly massive numbers of kidnappings and murders happening in Iraq daily.
#21
The tin foil hatters can't hear 'em screams now even if they live next doors while they can hear the same across oceans previouly when AG was under US control.
#22
"Abu Ghraib became synonymous with abuse after shocking pictures were published in 2004 showing prisoners being tortured and humiliated, galvanising opposition to the US presence in Iraq."
No, what's happening now is torture and humiliation.
#23
Some of the small number of prisoners who remained in the jail after the Americans left said they had pleaded to go with their departing captors, rather than be left in the hands of Iraqi guards.
"The Americans were better than the Iraqis. They treated us better," said Khalid Alaani, who was held on suspicion of involvement in Sunni terrorism.
How many of these suddenly pro-American prisoners were the ones screaming about abuse when they were being given panty-hats? How many of them were fabricating abuse stories for the media to make America look bad?
Suffer you d@mn fools and suffer like you never have before! You cannot kill each other fast enough. What do you think would happen if you brought to an end all American oversight of the prison? That every cell would be unlocked and the front gates left standing open?
These wastes of skin truly are beyond salvation. Even if the inmates were running the asylum, the results would be the exact same and this says it all. FOAD, morons.
Insurgents killed at least 13 people across Iraq on Saturday, while police found the bodies of 11 men shot dead in apparent sectarian killings, said security officials. The US military also announced that three of its soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack in Baghdad. A string of explosions rocked the capital early on Saturday, killing at least four people and wounding dozens, said security officials.
Most of the attacks appeared to have targeted security forces, including a large car bomb in Zayuna that went off as a US patrol passed, but killed only two Iraqi passers-by, said Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Karim Khalaf.
In the central Baghdad neighbourhood of Waziriyah, a man attempted to ram his car into a police station and was shot, but not before he detonated the explosives in the vehicle, killing a policeman and wounding 10 other people.
Smaller blasts in other parts of the capital wounded another half dozen civilians, Khalaf added. A security official said that gunmen fired at two employees of the state-owned Sabah newspaper as they drove to work, killing one and wounding the other.
The military said that insurgents also set off a bomb against a US Humvee jeep in Baghdads eastern Jadida neighbourhood, in which three soldiers were wounded.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, twin blasts killed four people and injured 16. The bombers detonated the second device as a police patrol arrived at the site of the first blast, killing one officer and injuring two, said Lt Col Akram Abdullah of Kirkuk police.
In Tikrit, one civilian was killed by gunmen, police said. In the flashpoint province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, four civilians were shot dead in separate attacks. Provincial police said they had found a severed head from the roadside in the town of Khalis.
South of Baghdad, authorities discovered bodies of 11 people who had been shot dead, four of them in the town of Suwayrah and six in Mahmudiyah.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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And in New Orleans there were 7 shootings and 2 murders in the last 24 hours. Being kind to New Orleans, our population is only about 1% that of Iraq, so to match our rate Iraq needs 200 killings and 700 shootings per day. But at least we aren't shooting the National Guardsmen who are here.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 1:22 Comments ||
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Dallas, Texas, a city of just under one million in the mid-1990's, had a record year when just under 1,000 were murdered. (That might have been before the concealed-carry law went into effect?)
If I am doing the math correctly, that's one murder per thousand population. Lotta gangs, tho. Sectarian violence, y'know.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/10/2006 9:03 Comments ||
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Syria said on Saturday it did not accept the deployment of European guards on the Lebanese side of the two countries' border to help prevent alleged arms shipments to Hizbullah.
The official news agency SANA said "there is no truth to news reports of Syria's acceptance of European border guards to monitor the border from Lebanon."
Earlier, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to allow European troops to enforce an embargo along the border between his country and Lebanon,
"The Syrian president has welcomed my proposal to send border guards from the European Union to control the passage of weapons between Syria and Lebanon," Prodi said in the southern Italian city of Bari.
These border guards "will not be armed and will not be in uniform but will have all the necessary equipment to control the passage of weapons toward southern Lebanon," said Prodi, who had spoken with the Syrian president by telephone several times "in the last few days".
The guards would number "several hundred", according to Prodi.
The prime minister said he had informed the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan of the plan.
"Our main European partners have received this proposal with great interest," he said, adding that he hoped the matter would be taken up by EU foreign ministers when they meet in Brussels next week.
Italy has already deployed armed forces in southern Lebanon, joining a bolstered multinational UN force currently commanded by France.
The force polices a truce which ended a month of Israeli military strikes against Hizbullah gunmen in the country and rocket attacks by the Shiite group against Israel.
Syria, a staunch backer of Hizbullah, has been accused along with Iran of supplying weapons to the Shiite group, and its cooperation is deemed essential in ensuring a lasting truce in Lebanon.
Prodi said Assad had also agreed to send 500 extra Syrian guards to police Syria's side of the Lebanese border and that Damascus was showing a strong readiness to cooperate with the international community.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 03:40 ||
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Syria is a separate sovereign country and should be told to f*ck off - they have no part in the decision. Letting them think they have one is a step back, continuing their meddling
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 9:28 Comments ||
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Absurdly silly EU idiots. You don't ASK this pencil necked Asshole. You tell him. There will be fully armed troops on the border with shoot to kill orders. Any Syrians who approach are dead meat. No trucks will cross anything. What a pack of useless fools.
#4
Whahahahaha..... I'm for staying the phuech out of it, but wouldn't a USAF air cap over the border be a delightful response. Maybe the IDF will assume the mission.
A Palestinian was killed Saturday morning by IDF shelling in a village near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses reported. The witnesses said the man was an Islamic Jihad operative and had been in a firefight with IDF forces. Palestinians said the IDF has been operating in the village for the past few days.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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operative inoperable
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 1:22 Comments ||
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Swatting mosquitoes instead of draining the swamp.
Gaza's too small to nuke. All the fallout would land either in Israel (most probable) or Egypt. Better to line up tanks and artillery at the north, and start a rolling barrage toward the south. Keep it up for a week to ten days, then move forward and start it again. Pretty soon, all the paleos are either stains on the ground or living in Egypt. Either is acceptable to me.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/10/2006 15:43 Comments ||
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A Palestinian threw a Molotov cocktail towards IDF troops east of Tulkarm overnight Saturday. None of the soldiers were wounded and no damage was reported. In response, the troops shot at the attacker, hitting him in the lower section of his body. His condition was unclear.
"Truth to tell, we don't much care."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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hitting him in the lower section of his body.
I interpret that as either his groin or his gluteus maximus. Or possibly, if it was a really well placed shot, both. If I'm right, "unclear" is the best condition he'll be in for the rest of his life.
COLOMBO - At least 26 troops were killed and over 125 wounded on Saturday in new fighting as Tamil rebels resisted an army advance into guerrilla-held territory in northern Sri Lanka, military sources said. Hundreds of Sri Lankan troops were involved in the offensive along the de facto border between government- and rebel-held areas in the Jaffna peninsula, the sources said.
The operation, launched from three locations along the front lines, sparked clashes with the rebels, the sources said, adding troops had moved almost a kilometer (half-mile) into territory previously held by the Tigers. There was heavy resistance initially, a military source said. Casualties are mainly due to artillery long-range weapons fired by the Tamil Tigers. The operation was launched to secure the armys forward defence lines.
At least one officer and 25 soldiers were killed and about 125 were wounded, and most of them were listed as walking wounded, said another military source, declining to be named. There was no immediate word from the Tigers about the latest clashes or about any possible casualties on their side.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Where's the UNSC urgent meeting? Or, forgot, we only have those when Jews are winning.
The United States will arm and train the Lebanese army so that it can deal with Hizbullah and elements supported by Syria . Israel has agreed in principle to the plan, it was reported.
The Lebanse army is expected to undergo a significant change in the coming months. Moreover, the American government has decided to offer the Lebanese government headed by Fouad Siniora an overall military aid program.
As part of the plan, instructors from the US army will arrive in Lebanon in order to train Lebanese army units.
The American plan includes a number of stages: At the first stage, military equipment worth USD 30 million will be sent to Lebanon , including military vehicles and communication devices.
The plan was presented last week by the White House's National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert 's envoys, Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Turjeman, who visited Washington.
The Americans explained to the Israelis that efforts must be exerted to strengthen Siniora's government opposite Hizbullah and other elements in Lebanon supported by Syria.
The Israelis expressed their agreement in principle to the US plan to equip and train the Lebanese army, but requested that the Americans guarantee that the weapons do not reach Hizbullah.
Another issue which was discussed by the prime minister's representatives in the American capital was related to the attitude toward Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The Americans rejected out of hand the possibility that Israel would hold talks of any kind with Assad, who according to senior US officials "has been completely taken hostage by the Iranians."
US government officials claimed that Syria was serving as a front base for Iran to carry out terror attacks against American targets in Iran and against moderate elements in Lebanon.
In addition, according to the Americans, Syria is encouraging and assisting Palestinian terror organizations operating from Damascus.
The Israelis calmed their interlocutors down and told them that Olmert had no plans to signal Syria that he would like to enter negotiations.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 03:43 ||
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Possibility of Bracketing Syria = Very Good
Potential Leakage of Technology or Weapons = Very Bad
This one is a real crap shoot. I'm very concerned that such a venture could drain off resources needed to cripple Iran. If we are given free license to hunt and kill Hezbollah in our spare time, that's all well and fine. If Lebanon is going to fold Hezbollah into their military regulars just before we arrive, all bets are off.
#2
I echo the "crap shoot" take. I know there are a lot of wheels within wheels and they're all in motion, but this gives me a bad feeling. The Lebs have not, in any way, convinced me they are worthy of US diplomatic support or aid of any kind, much less the trust implied with this move. I don't like it at all.
#6
Maybe. But I can see a couple potential upsides if this is done right.
1) Right now we have no presence in Lebanon and the Israeli spy networks are being rolled up by Hezb'allah. This gives us presence and quite possibly some of those "trainers" will be special ops guys.
2) We will not and cannot be part of a UN force there. But having a foot on the ground might give us a base from which to restrain arms smuggling and attacks. Probably not, but possibly.
3) Most importantly, Hezb' is building a strong infrastructure of support. They have infiltrated the Lebanese army, as witness the use of army radars in the attack on the Israeli ship.
Historically, we have done well when we've built relationships with the armies in marginally friendly / hostile countries. Our relationship with the French army is sound (and its small core of professionals is quite good) despite the whole Chirac etc. thing. Ditto with the German army.
Armies in the middle east are ... different. The chances that the Lebanese will adopt our degree of efficiency, truthtelling, officers caring for troops first and their own comfort second etc etc. is very low. But some we train will bond with our officers and provide us a support base in Lebanon. And we aren't likely to give them really advanced equipment -- unlike the UK giving Iran the latest in night vision gear.
#8
For phuechs sake! Lets just cut out the middle man and issue the weapons directly to the Hizbullah. USD 30 million? And they wonder why people don't support POTUS and the administration.
#10
If the purpose is to penetrate the Leb-Heb Army, and to have a presence on the ground for Round 2, well and good. But if the purpose is train the Army in some naive belief that they are like us, they just don't know any better, then we are stuck on stupid. No wonder the ass hats don't take us seriously.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/10/2006 16:20 Comments ||
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There won't be any leak of technology. The countries we share Night Vision equipment with is smaller than the Nuclear club. We certainly won't outfit them with the capability of fighting at night. This will give us access as well as begin relations at the military level. Always good.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/10/2006 17:28 Comments ||
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This just proves that the people that run our government are idiots.
Not that I ever have before, but the fact remains that it is increasingly difficult to argue against you, Texas Redneck.
Like I said, bracketing Syria is a jim dandy concept. However, if this interferes one stinking iota with bouncing Iranian rubble, then we are doing the wrong thing.
Also, I can only concur with all of the other suspicious types here. The Lebanese are nothing but the same old sh!t with respect to any other Arab Middle Eastern army. How we can expect them to do anything but stab us in the back at the first opportunity is beyond me.
Bush has too often gone limp right when all circumstances called for the strongest response. Moqtada Sadr's militia and the burned bodies of American contractors should have seen Fallujah evacuated and razed with all fighting-age males left inside. Demanding that Israel back down from its dismantling of Hezbollah was simply outrageous.
It is all too easy to see this collaboration participation with the Lebanese as America, once again, being played for nothing but a chump by the Arab Middle East. Thinking that it's somehow possible to ensure our weapons will never be turned against Israel is nothing short of delusional.
As Oldspook once said, "PUT DOWN THE CRACK PIPE, GEORGE!"
#15
If the only thing we accomplish is going in and capping Omar Bakri, it all might be worth it. Just don't leave behind anything more technologically sophisticated than a hammer when we leave.
[Suicide bomber praising] Brooks is also a leader of the now banned al Ghurabaa group (an offshoot of the banned Al Mujahiroun group, led by Omar Bakri an Islamic radical who fled Britain when he was about to get arrested and now lives in Beirut, Lebanon.
A ship carrying 200 French troops docked Saturday morning at Beirut's port as the soldiers prepared to head to south Lebanon. The ship also brought some 100 armored personnel carriers, trucks and weaponry. France has so far contributed 250 troops to the UN peacekeeping force. France's contribution is to include tanks, surface-to-surface artillery, short-range anti-aircraft missiles and radar.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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If they're not going to disarm Hizbollah (and the French are not about the disarm an ally) - it's all simply a farce.
Radical Muslim Trevor Brooks Apparently in Hiding
Jeremy Reynalds - 9/11/2006
With the fifth anniversary of 9/11 just around the corner, you need to be concerned about what happened to Trevor Brooks. Why? Because hes the former Jamaican electrician Trevor Brooks (also known as Omar Brooks, Abu Izzadeen and Abu Baraa) who hates those of us who dont share his radical Islamic belief system. Let me explain. Brooks was the man who in a July 7 anniversary meeting of the British terror bombings, held in a community center in the city of Birmingham, dubbed the 7/7 bombers as being completely praiseworthy.
The bombings killed 52 people and injured more than 770.
Brooks has also glorified the horrifying events of 9/11 and openly admitted he wishes to die as a suicide bomber. On other occasions he has arrogantly mocked non-Islamics and mimicked the dying Kim il Sun (the Korean who was beheaded in Iraq by al Zarqawi). Perhaps worst of all, he was the man who referred to a 7/11 attack a week before the Mumbai 7/11 terror bombings killed 207 and injured over 700.
Brooks is also a leader of the now banned al Ghurabaa group (an offshoot of the banned Al Mujahiroun group, led by Omar Bakri an Islamic radical who fled Britain when he was about to get arrested and now lives in Beirut, Lebanon.
Brooks also regrets having spent 17 years as a Christian before converting to Islam, as, like his fellow followers, he looks down on the kuffar (non-believers) as pigs and sheep.
The Followers of Ahl Sunnah Wal Jamaah, (ASWJ) one of the new names for these banned UK-based banned groups, has met regularly online in a chatroom belonging to the New York-based Paltalk network.
Before my last article, Brooks was the groups most regular speaker and ranted about how it was every Muslims duty to kill the Queen of England, as well as breaking British anti-terror laws by preaching to listeners verbiage like this.
...(Regarding) the jihad fought by al Qaeda, fought by OBL (Osama bin Laden), fought by Sheikh Abu Musaab Zarqawi we are obliged to support them in every single way however we can physically, financially and verbally those who are prevented to fight physically they must continue to support that war against kuffar financially with their money and this is a fard (obligation) its not a favor ...they must do it...
Tomorrow will be five years since the Twin Towers were attacked. A day after the attack, Mickey Kaus opined that terrorism would be off the front pages by that November. He was wrong, but only by a few months. The public doesn't have a long attention span, and the Bush administration has been remiss in not reminding us, over and over again. Gradually, inexorably, the headlines turned to other things. Politics became politix as usual. The doings of Hollywood regained their former prominence. The fifth column spoke with more confidence, if less coherence.
How different are we today from the way we were on September 10th, 2001?
Jon Benet is still dead, and now we know at least one person who didn't kill her. So are the victims in a long series of mini-Jon Benet stories in the past five years.
Gary Condit hasn't been heard from lately. Chandra Levy's body was found in a park in D.C. and it was a small paragraph in the metro section of the Post. There have been enough other seedy politiciansto take his place, however. We never seem to run out.
No one's been chewed up by a shark yet this year, at least that we've heard of, though Steve Erwin was killed in a freak stingray accident and we've had goofy animal stories involving every kind of critter you can think of, to include giant squid.
The price of a gallon of gas has peaked and now seems to be slowly receding, though it'll go back up. The Democrats are making noises about taking back Congress this year, though it's probable they won't quite do it. Britney's preggers with her second baby, and posed nekkid on the front cover of Harper's to prove it. Tom Cruise and his beloved had their baby's first poop bronzed.
By the measure of the content of our news, 9-11 five years later never happened. The public hasn't forgotten about it, but those who regard themselves as the public's handlers don't let them dwell on it. Images are rare, stories even moreso, usually tearjerkers about those left behind. The Clinton administration, past and in waiting, are busily and blatantly trying to kill an ABC docudrama on the subject. Two movies have been made on the WTC, one by Oliver Stone. The WTC memorial bogged down in political correctitude, with the Opinion Police demanding that the image of three firefighters raising the flag in the ruins be modified to show an approved racial and gender mix.
We've done lots, accomplished lots, since 9-11-01. This isn't it.
Today's 9-10.
All over again.
Rantburg's ace reporter, D.J. Wu, contributed to this article.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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One thing that has happened as a result of 9/11 is the reoccurring public appearance of individuals like Kristen Brietweiser. It seems that every anniversary of 9/11, we see the return of the same victims.
Don't get me wrong, I (like many others) have lost a loved one to cowardly terrorists. But the vast majority of us don't subscribe to victimhood, don't use the loss of a loved one in order to publicly endorse a presidental candidate, don't show up on Chris Matthews to attack the president, don't go on Larry King (is he still alive) in order to wallow in our grief.
Losing a loved one to terrorist is like no other loss I've experienced. The grief returns each time we learn of other victims of terrorists. But to publicly portray our grief only enboldens the enemy, who relishes in our grief.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 1:10 Comments ||
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Because of the way the MSM reports things, it's very easy to get pessimistic. But consider:
-- Two of the world's worst tyrranies are out of business, permanently.
-- The Taliban are being systematically hunted to extinction.
-- Osama, if he is still alive at all, is living in a cave and can't show his face.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/10/2006 8:55 Comments ||
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#3
nice thing is, Fred, your RB probably has more viewers than Keith Olbermann
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 9:45 Comments ||
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#4
That mention of Keith Olberman really put me off my feed this morning. He and Mathews are a real pair of douuuuuuuuuuuuuuchebags.
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.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday urged the deployment of more U.S. troops to combat the growing Taliban threat in Afghanistan ...
NATO-led troops in a major offensive in southern Afghanistan have killed around 60 insurgents in the last 24 hours, said officials. The offensive, Medusa, has used air power, artillery and ground troops. It was launched a week ago to drive militants out of a stronghold in Kandahar. Later in the morning, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) lost one soldier in action, the alliance said in a statement. Afghan and NATO forces also destroyed three insurgent positions, a bomb-making factory and a weapons cache, the statement said. 
A U.S. Air Force officer who went missing for three days says someone stuffed an object in her jeans pocket with a note saying it was bomb and telling her to go to a site in Bishkek, where kidnappers grabbed her, Kyrgyz authorities said Saturday. 
Captured document:: AP employee spied for Saddam
Army troops will remain in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan despite a recent peace accord with local militants allied to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, government officials said Saturday. "Nobody has talked about withdrawal of troops from Waziristan," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. Her comments echoed ones by Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, governor of North West Frontier Province, who also said the peace deal did not envisage any troop pullout.
Pakistani security forces arrested on Saturday an Islamist militant suspect who is wanted for several attacks, and smuggling explosives used in bombings in the country's biggest city, said a security force spokesman. The suspect, Mohammad Rizwan, was a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, said Captain Fazal Mehmood, a spokesman for Pakistan Rangers. 
Taliban leader Mulla Omar, who heads the religious militia fighting US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is in Pakistan, although not in the same area where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is thought to be, according to a US intelligence source quoted by CNN on Saturday. The source said that the Taliban leader was believed to be in Quetta or its surroundings. The source said of Mulla Omar's location, "At one point we had it down to a particular section of Quetta." 
MIRANSHAH: A 70-year-old tribesman has been shot dead by suspected militants for allegedly spying for the Americans, a local administration official said on Saturday. This is the first target killing in North Waziristan since the government and militants struck a peace deal on Tuesday. Under the deal, local militants or Taliban had agreed to stop target killings in the tribal area. 
Insurgents killed at least 13 people across Iraq on Saturday, while police found the bodies of 11 men shot dead in apparent sectarian killings, said security officials. The US military also announced that three of its soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack in Baghdad. A string of explosions rocked the capital early on Saturday, killing at least four people and wounding dozens, said security officials. 
A Palestinian was killed Saturday morning by IDF shelling in a village near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses reported. The witnesses said the man was an Islamic Jihad operative and had been in a firefight with IDF forces. Palestinians said the IDF has been operating in the village for the past few days.
COLOMBO - At least 26 troops were killed and over 125 wounded on Saturday in new fighting as Tamil rebels resisted an army advance into guerrilla-held territory in northern Sri Lanka, military sources said. Hundreds of Sri Lankan troops were involved in the offensive along the de facto border between government- and rebel-held areas in the Jaffna peninsula, the sources said.
A ship carrying 200 French troops docked Saturday morning at Beirut's port as the soldiers prepared to head to south Lebanon. The ship also brought some 100 armored personnel carriers, trucks and weaponry. France has so far contributed 250 troops to the UN peacekeeping force. France's contribution is to include tanks, surface-to-surface artillery, short-range anti-aircraft missiles and radar.
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