The staff are eagerly awaiting a final head count so they know whether to stick us in a quiet corner or that other room with the door that really locks; the depleted uranium tankards have been approved by the latest Number Three manager, but are being shipped individually because of weight restrictions -- the Number Three figures it's a wise investment on general principles; however, it turns out someone used the linens for a toga party, so the laundry staff has been using their Marine sergeant vocabulary again. As for me, I'm eager to discover whether Chicago region Rantburgers party like the East Coast bunch, or if they get all serious and foodie when they get together.
Please join us for an evening of food, drink, and civil, well-reasoned discourse
Wednesday, September 16th
RSVP to Steve White (stevewhitemd1@mac.com) or trailing wife (jssawicki@gmail.com) for details of place and time, or leave a note in the comments.
Mr. Wife asked me last night who is coming -- shouldn't your name be on that list?
[Iran Press TV Latest] Four people have been killed after a demonstration was staged protesting the suspicious assassination of a regional cleric in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province.
Hundreds of people in the main city of the Ghazni province held a rally against the government and foreign troops protesting the murder of Shams al-Din who was believed to be an outspoken critic of the US-led forces in the war ravaged country, according to the Iran-based Fars News Agency.
The marchers were reportedly holding anti-US placards and were chanting slogans against the western backed Kabul government.
The influential cleric was kidnapped by unidentified men outside Abu Hanifa mosque Wednesday night and was found dead the next morning.
Witness told Fars that nearly twenty people were also injured after angry protesters blocked roads and fought with police near the governor office in the volatile city.
The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.
This is while the provincial officials in Ghazni have blamed the Taliban linked militants for the heinous crime.
Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman has rejected insurgents' involvement in the murder.
The insurgency has intensified in the eastern and southern provinces. The US-led forces in Afghanistan lost 77 more troops in August, setting a new monthly record since the war began eight years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
My Arabic is rusty, but doesn't that sign in the background say "Obama stole my dentures" or something like that?
[Al Arabiya Latest] Yemeni troops killed 17 Shiite Huthi rebels in overnight clashes in the rugged mountainous north as the army stepped up its all-out offensive, the official Saba news agency reported on Thursday.
Four other rebels, part of a group known as Huthis that is seeking an end to the current form of government, were arrested as they fled the battleground in Saada province, a local official told Saba. "The army and security forces have inflicted heavy losses upon the saboteurs and the rebels whether in terms of lives or equipment," the official said.
Jet fighters roared overhead, striking rebel posts as troops exchanged fire with Huthi fighters, who during the gunfight wounded two civilians, one of them severely, the official said.
The army, he added, also destroyed several vehicles that were carrying aid, ammunition and weaponry to the rebels, whom the government says are supported by Shiite Iran.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh said earlier this week that security authorities have put on trial members of two Yemeni cells who had admitted to receiving funding from an Iranian partner totaling up to $120,000 dollars.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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TOPIX/OTHER > VARIOUS > US MAY BECOME MILITARILY INVOLVED IN YEMEN CRISIS? + WILL THE US SEND TROOPS TO YEMEN?
Jihad Africa + future Nuclear Iran = BATTLE FOR ARABIA = A. PENINSULA???
#2
Just think, Joe, that if Congress and the Left (but I repeat myself) hadn't been so anti-Bush, anti-war, we'd probably have a secured central location to operate from, deep in the heart of the Islamic swamp.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/11/2009 12:07 Comments ||
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#3
We offered to help, JosephM. Check Rantburg for the last couple of days.
[Bangla Daily Star] Two alleged criminals, including a leader of an outlawed party, were shot dead in separate "shootouts" with the law enforcers in Rampura of the capital and Kushtia yesterday.
They are Bappi, 23, an accomplice of Jishan, one of 23 top listed criminals, in Rampura, and Sohel Hasan alias Tukun, 36, of Daulatpur upazila, in Kushtia.
A gang opened fire on Rab personnel when a team of Rab-1, after a tip-off, tried to enter an under-construction building on DIT Road at around 12:30am, Rampura police said. Bappi with his four to five gang members was staying there. As the Rab personnel retaliated, a gunfight ensued.
Both sides fired around 50 rounds, Rab sources said.
Police recovered Bappi's body lying on the spot after the shootout and sent it to Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.
They arrested Abid Hossain Saikat, 30, an accomplice of Bappi, Rab sources said.
Rab personnel ASI Rukan Uddin sustained bullet injury in the incident.
A revolver, a shot gun and three bullets were recovered from the spot.
Officer in-charge of Rampura Police Station Ali Ahmed Hashmi said Bappi was accused in 10 cases filed with different police stations in the city.
In Kushtia, Tukun, a regional leader of Janajuddho faction of outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party, was killed at Khalishakundi village in Daulatpur upazila.
On information, a joint team of Daulatpur police and Rab-12 raided Khalishakundi bazaar at around 4:00am. The outlaws were holding a meeting there. Sensing the presence of law enforcers, the criminals opened fire on them triggering a gunfight.
Tukun was found dead after his accomplices managed to flee the scene.
With this, the death toll of the operatives of different outlawed parties in the district from "crossfire" reaches 18 in last 15 days.
Police recovered one LG, five bullets and a sword from the spot.
He was accused in six cases including four for murder filed with Daulatpur and Mirpur police stations.
A total of 683 "crossfire" incidents took place in 10 southwestern districts since 2004.
Kushtia tops the list with 239 incidents alone.
GOVT TO GO TOUGH ON OUTLAWS
State Minister for Home Shamsul Haque Tuku yesterday said the government would go tough against the outlaws in the southwest if they don't return to normal life.
"They should grab the opportunity of the present democratic system. If not, the government will intensify the ongoing crackdown in the region to capture them," Tuku added.
He said this while talking to reporters at his secretariat office after a meeting with US Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Michael S Owen.
Tuku said they had a discussion on a wide range of issues. The US official offered training and technical assistance to the police and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), he added.
Owen also met Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque at his office at the secretariat and discussed how to combat the impacts of climate change in Bangladesh and build food security.
Owen, who came to Dhaka on Wednesday on a two-day visit, concluded his visit to Bangladesh yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] At least two Turkish soldiers have been killed and seven others sustained injuries after a remote-controlled mine blew off in the eastern province of Van.
The soldiers died Wednesday when a land mine, believed to have been planted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists, blew up, according to Dogan news agency. No information concerning conditions of the wounded troops was disclosed.
The report came a day after eight Turkish troops and six PKK militants were killed at clashes in southeastern Turkey.
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, including Turkey, Iran, the US and the European Union's member states.
More than 40,000 people have lost their lives since PKK launched its armed campaign against Ankara in 1984 as part of a quest to establish a socialist Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey.
The Turkish fighter jets frequently shell Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) strongholds in the jagged mountains of northern Iraq -- a haven of tranquility for the insurgents who launch attacks against Turkish soil.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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Fox news reporting Reuters flash... No details... The Reuters flash...
(Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard fired on a suspicious boat in the Potomac River in central Washington, D.C., amid high security while September 11 memorial ceremonies were being held nearby at the Pentagon, CNN reported on Friday.
The CNN story...
(CNN) -- The U.S. Coast Guard tried to prevent a boat from entering a security zone on the Potomac River not far from the Pentagon Friday, where President Obama had been at an event commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks.
There were reports on police scanners that the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds of ammunition, but those reports could not immediately be confirmed. It was not immediately clear from the reports whether they referred to warning shots.
The incident took place between the Memorial and 14th Street bridges, in a zone that had been blocked off because of the ceremonies. The timing of the incident was not immediately clear, but President Obama had departed the Pentagon shortly after 10 a.m. ET. Reports of the incident came in shortly after 10 a.m. ET. When contacted by CNN, the Coast Guard Command Center said it had no immediate information.
False alarm... Coast Guard sez it was a training exercise. If so, it was just about the worst of all possible timings...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 10:14 ||
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#1
Training event??? good story. Either an Accidental Discharge by a jumpy coastie, or a real event. I dont believe there is a live fire range near the 14th street bridge...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/11/2009 11:00 Comments ||
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#2
be a good day for a low-level flyover in NYC by Air Force One, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/11/2009 11:14 Comments ||
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Daniel J. Hill converted to Islam as a young U.S. Army paratrooper stationed in Beirut in 1958. It was Hill who learned fluent Arabic. It was Hill who joined the Mujahedeen Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan and fought the Soviet invasion there in the 1980s. It was Hill who personally met Osama bin Laden. It was Hill who used information from Islamic extremists to warn Rescorla that terrorists would use the underground parking garage for a car bomb attack on the World Trade Center. It was Hill who asked the U.S. government to assist him in an assassination attempt on bin Laden in 1998 (the request was rejected). And it was Hill who warned the FBI just weeks before Sept. 11, 2001, that his Mideast contacts told him "something big" was about to happen in the United States, in New York, Washington, D.C., or Philadelphia — maybe all three.
He didn't want to talk about the past. He wanted to talk about the future. The very near future.
The man who predicted 9/11 is worried that its sequel is imminent.
"Muslims that I talk to say things like, 'America thinks they're safe now. They've forgotten about 9/11. But watch, Daniel. Stay near your TV. It's going to be bigger than 9/11,' " he said.
Hill said the next terrorist attack will involve suitcase nuclear bombs that will be detonated in small, low-flying two-seater private airplanes.
He is not alone in suggesting such a scenario. A 2007 book, "The Day of Islam," spells out the details, as do any number of Internet sites about a plot called "American Hiroshima."
The nukes, he said, will be detonated over New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Miami, Houston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
"Ramadan started two weeks ago Saturday," he said, referring to the Muslim holy month of fasting. "It always hits around Ramadan."
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/11/2009 11:26 Comments ||
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"Muslims that I talk to say things like, 'America thinks they're safe now. They've forgotten about 9/11. But watch, Daniel. Stay near your TV. It's going to be bigger than 9/11,' " he said..... "It always hits around Ramadan."
Sounds like hysteria...I've been waiting since 2002. I'll just stay in the now and be alert.
#5
Somehow I just have a hard time believing that extremists have suitcase nukes in their possession. It would be much easier to transport a few full-size nukes in the back of a Ryder truck.
#7
...USCG says that there was NO weapons discharge - apparently a local news organization was monitoring the USCG channels and heard PART of an exercise message involving gunfire.
Ya know, I can believe it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/11/2009 12:24 Comments ||
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#8
Mike, now that sounds more like the truth. Thx.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/11/2009 12:36 Comments ||
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I am still astounded when I think of the MARINA about 2 miles from the capitol building, accessible from Chesapeake Bay and the ocean. Who cares about suitcase nukes or a measly Ryder truck? I sure hope the Coast Guard is ready for any infiltration attempts by sea to that vulnerable point.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
09/11/2009 13:51 Comments ||
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#12
This may be redirection - focusing on one type of event in one set of cities, when a different type of event happens elsewhere. I hope the Muslims aren't stupid enough to pull something like this. Even "President" Obumble won't be able to keep the US from slagging a dozen countries in the Muddled East.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/11/2009 18:41 Comments ||
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#13
No way obama would respond nuclear - unless they get him too.
#14
The MILITS-TERRS need the strategic NUC, WMD KNOWLEDGE-TECHS TRANSFER before risking full-sclae terror inside the USA - until then, they ned to be highly selective in using what scarce WMD tacdevices they have [ e.g. MSM-NET > those 100-or-so "suitcase" nukes repor missing since the 1990's].
[Dawn] Eighteen religious seminaries in the federal capital have refused to register with the government, claiming that they will cooperate only if they are contacted through the madrassah body, known as the Tanzeemul Madaris.
Official sources told DawnNews that 122 madaris or religious schools have been registered with the capital's district administration. However, these eighteen have refused registration.
The Deputy Commissioner of Islamabad, Amir Ali Khan said he has directed the Auqaf department to invite representatives of those eighteen religious schools for a meeting to persuade them to register, since there is no existing law through which the government can force religious schools to do so.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Raze them to the ground.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/11/2009 20:44 Comments ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] A suicide truck bomber hit a residential area of a Kurdish village in northern Iraq before dawn Thursday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 30 others, officials said, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of ethnic attacks in the region. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.
A police officer and health official in Mosul said the bomb went off around 12:30 a.m. in the village of Wardek, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of the city -- a region where U.S. commanders have warned that insurgents appear to be trying to stoke an Arab-Kurdish conflict.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The blast took down a number of houses and the casualty toll was expected to rise because many people are still missing in the rubble, the officials said.
Local security forces intercepted a second suicide truck bomber, killing the driver and defusing the bomb before it could be detonated, they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] At least four people have lost their lives and 30 have sustained injuries after two consecutive bomb explosions ripped through a popular market south of Baghdad.
An Iraqi police source who requested anonymity told the Voices of Iraq news agency that Thursday's twin blasts struck the town of Mahmoudiya -- some 32 km (20 miles) south of the Iraqi capital.
Security forces cordoned off the area after the lethal attacks and launched an investigation into the motive behind the terrorist moves. Meanwhile, ambulances rushed the wounded to a nearby hospital.
Mahmoudiya witnessed a horrendous war crime in March 2006 when five active duty US soldiers broke into the family home of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, raped the girl and then shot her dead along with three members of her family. The soldiers then burned the bodies to conceal evidence of the crime.
The atrocity generated public outrage within and outside Iraq. It is viewed as an expression of destruction and terror unleashed by the United States government on the people of Iraq.
It was also viewed as an expression of both the brutalization and demoralization of the US forces who are seeking to subjugate a population determined to resist foreign occupation.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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Ma'an/Agencies - A British woman and her two sons were held overnight in Egyptian custody after being stopped by Egyptian border control officers following a two-week family holiday, the Telegraph reported Tuesday.
Since their detention Egypt's Daily News and local British paper the Coventry Telegraph both ran the stories, and a Coventry councilor began rallying citizens to "to contact the Egyptian embassy to demand the release of a mum and her two teenage sons," the local paper said. The family was told they could not leave the country via any airport, media sources said.
Papers say the Norwegian national, naturalized resident of Britain and restaurant owner Manal Timraz was held in Egyptian custody as a "matter of national security," and according to the Telegraph, her case is "the third in a series of similar incidents involving individuals stopped at Cairo Airport who have participated in pro-Gaza activity." The paper noted Ms Timraz was born in Cairo and has family in Palestine.
Coventry city councillor Dave Nellist vouched for the restaurateur, the Coventry Telegraph quoted the official as saying, "I worked with Manal earlier this year when she put in hundreds of hours of fundraising for basic humanitarian aid.
"When she took the donated lorry-loads to Gaza they wouldn't let her through, claiming the candles she was taking could be used as munitions. But that was Israel. For Egypt to detain her at the end of a family holiday is appalling.
"The more people who call the Egyptian embassy or send them an email demanding to know the reasons why she and her boys have been detained, the better the chance the embassy in London will phone the powers-that-be in Egypt."
According to the Telegraph, Norwegian ambassador in Cairo, Thomas Hauf has asked Egyptian authorities for an explanation over the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Norwegian national, naturalized resident of Britan Manal Timraz... was born in Cairo and has family in Palestine.
British? I don't think so. And there is no nation of 'Palestine'
Terrorists Suspected Islamic militants shot dead two Muslim men after evening prayers during the holy month of Ramadan in Thailand's insurgency-hit south, police said Friday.
A village defence volunteer was killed in a drive-by shooting in Yala, the main town in the province of the same name, as he returned home from a mosque on Thursday night, said police. Separately around five gunmen ambushed and shot dead a village chief in Narathiwat province, also as he was leaving evening prayers on Thursday, they said.
Thailand's Muslim-majority provinces bordering Malaysia have suffered a spike in violence during Ramadan, Islam's traditional month of fasting and worship.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad al-Hariri said on Thursday he was stepping down after the opposition rejected a team he proposed earlier this week after more than 10 weeks of trying to form a unity government.
"Given that my commitment to forming a government of national unity has run up against difficulties that everyone now knows about, I announce that I have informed the president of the republic that I have abandoned trying to form a government," he told journalists in Beirut. "I will step down from forming a government, in the hope that this decision will be for the benefit of Lebanon." "I am going to Texas and you can go to Hell!"
The Syria- and Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies rejected a draft government proposed by Hariri this week. Hariri, a Saudi- and U.S.-backed billionaire, said he had held "rounds and rounds of consultations which always ended in obstruction."
President Michel Suleiman is expected to call for a new round of consultations with lawmakers to nominate a new prime minister. It is widely expected that Hariri will be selected once again by members of his majority coalition.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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I sometimes stop what I'm doing and wonder what Gary Condit's doing these days.
I don't particularly care, mind you, but Gary Condit epitomized the 9/10 mentality, lo, those eight long years ago. Those were the days when The Gray Davis was running Caliphornia into the ground -- not quite as deeply as today, but continuing a process that had been under way for years and years. Caliphornia then was what Caliphornia looked like going under. Caliphornia today is what Caliphornia looks like when it's bankrupt.
There had been a spate of shark attacks in the water, and on land Terry McAuliff was about to go on the offensive against the young administration of G.W. Bush. But The Case Of The Missing Mistress was kind of the synopsis of the first eight months of 2001. And Condit, despite his statement that his wife had no thumbs, turned out not to be the one that dunnit.
It's a "post-9/11" world now. The anger, the fury, the desire for the murderers' blood has long since subsided, not by that very November as Mickey Kaus had predicted, but by the next November in fact. The usual suspects rallied their forces with demonstrations and propaganda and charges of "permanent war." Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussein ejected in an attempt to bring a stable democratic state to the heart of the Muddle East that may pay off years from now or never. Cindy Sheehan rose and fell. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi rose and fell. Shamil Basayev fell. Michael Moore remains, as large as ever.
Larger, I think, and the increase doesn't appear to be slowing.
Fidel Castro -- approximately 186 years old -- remains. Charlie Rangel remains.
The bravery of the men of Flight 93 has been forgotten. The gallantry of NYPD and FDNY have been misplaced. They were an aberration in a world where little boys are to be turned into little girls so they won't be threatening when they grow up.
At least in the view of those who get paid to tell us what to think.
G.W. Bush has retired to Crawford. Karl Rove can sometimes be seen on Fox News and writes op-ed pieces for the Wall Street Journal. Dick Cheney keeps up the good fight even as the new president's minions try to find some way to run show trials with him playing the part of Louis XVI. Guantanamo is in the process of closing. The al-Qaeda prisoners have been dusted off and sent back to their countries of origin, a hefty percentage of them returning to the fight. Missile defense is being traded away for a mess of pottage.
We haven't won the war on terror. The Obama administration tries to pretend it's not there anymore. His Excellency was against the Iraq war, wanting to shut it down, pointing to Afghanistan as "the good war" that he'd pursue to the bitter end, "going after" al-Qaeda. Now the calls are coming for withdrawal, since we've come up with some convoluted rules of engagement, a "surge" that's not
yet...
working the way the Iraqi surge was, and the casualties are going up as our troops engage more closely under worse conditions with the enemy.
Osama bin Laden's still there. He has a base, probably in scenic Chitral, that he goes to when he's not traveling to more civilized parts. Ayman al-Zawahiri's still there. He lives in North Wazoo. Mullah Omar's still there. He lives in Quetta and operates in Kandahar and adjacent areas. Jalaluddin Haqqani's still there. He lives in South Wazoo and operates in Paktika. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's still there. He lives in the Pak tribal area in comfortable circumstances and every once in awhile he rockets Kabul, just like in the old days.
A few days ago Binny promised a "gift to the Muslims." That sort of thing usually involves corpses in Islamic parlance.
Today's 9/11. It's also the anniversary of 9/11/2001. It's the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna where the Grand Turk was sent packing in the wake of the largest cavalry charge in history. Jan Sobieski zhil, zhivet, budet zhit'.
(translation, please, for those of us who don't speak Russian... or Polish.)
Sorry. It's a play on a Communist party slogan, maybe first spun by Mayakovsky: "Lenin lived, lives, will live." 3000 died in the attack eight years ago, the combined casualties of New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. We've lost about 5000 dead in Iraq and Afghanistan: 4337 in Iraq, 716 in Afghanistan, the figures current as of about a week ago. In 1683 the Turks lost 15,000 dead and wounded at the Gates of Vienna, plus 5,000 captured, compared to 4,500 dead and wounded for the Habsburg-Polish forces. There are those who would tell us today that 4500 dead and wounded is too high a price to pay for freedom. They're the same ones who'll tell us that 5000 dead is too high a price.
Al-Qaeda hasn't folded its tent. They want to kill as many of us as possible. There will be another attack. Probably Binny and Ayman will try to outdo their last attack. We'll see if those dead and wounded are a high enough price to pay for freedom.
There will be another attack indeed. And it may well come across the border with Venezuelan passports handed out in Teheran. Or not. The opportunities are many.
Meanwhile the One is going to the UN to propose we disarm, starting with our nuclear arsenal, right about the time the Iranian program hits the tipping point. I've buried a few friends and colleagues these last 8 years who were wearing uniforms when they died. And I wonder if there is enough left of the center of our country to be worth their sacrifices.
I know the principles they protected are - but principles alone do not a country make. It takes citizens who uphold and defend them to make a country. And to do that they have to turn off Britney and Michael and stop drinking the Kool Aid ... or ingesting the pap dished out by the media. How many are left? Enough, perhaps, but only if we rouse ourselves.
I wonder sometimes if we have fallen victim to our own successes. We've had some. We helped the Northern Alliance take back Afghanistan from the Taliban with only a few casualties to our Special Forces. We threw Saddam Hussein out in a campaign that, despite the loss of 4337 of our finest, has cost us in lives less than a tenth of what the Progressive Left claimed -- and hoped -- it would. Even today in Afghanistan we use a fraction of our available military power.
We've thwarted terrorist attacks around the world, many times very quietly. We haven't issued press releases on some of our most notable successes. If you only read the New York Times the only news you'd read would be the failures and the leaks. But the men and women who take security very seriously, and there are still many, have done their jobs.
We're safe. We're secure. For now. We've forgotten the hollow feeling in our guts that we had on 9/12, wondering when -- not if -- the terrorists would strike again. Wondering how many more of our own people would jump out of burning buildings. How much we'd have to change our society and forsake both comfort and freedom to stop a remorseless enemy.
Truth is, we haven't sacrificed much as a nation. For all the howling of the Progressive Left, the average American is as free and comfortable today as he was on 9/10. The TSA is an annoyance. The blabbermouths on cable news are an annoyance. We're right back to worrying about health care, the usual political corruption and Jocko. We're as free and satisfied as ever.
We're victims of our own success. I suppose that guarantees that we'll be victims of another kind again someday.
May Providence watch over us all, so long as that man remains in the White House.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
There is still hope Fred. As a youth, Gaius was also sent to live with his grandmother.
#3
We don't want Obama assassinated. He would be another JFK and put on a pedestal and his corrupt and destructive policies could never be questioned again. He would be the left's rallying call.
We want him humiliated, broken and proven to be worse than Carter. We want him leaving the White House with his tail between his legs. We want want his theories to be proven to be naive and dangerous. We want him rendered politically null and void.
I can only hope that the CIA and the military keep the terrorists too damaged to mount any threat in the next 3 1/2 years. Bambi keeping the strikes up in Pakistan helps.
Eight years ago 3000 Americans died because of our leader's and our nativity about the ruthlessness of the world. Most of us learned our lesson. Some did not. Those that didn't are in power now and I pray that the lesson isn't reapplied.
#4
"We want him humiliated, broken and proven to be worse than Carter. We want him leaving the White House with his tail between his legs. We want want his theories to be proven to be naive and dangerous. We want him rendered politically null and void..."
I want him to be a laughing-stock - I want to hear people giggling whenever his name is mentioned - or any lines from his speeches or his memoirs quoted. And I want that to go on for a long, long, long time, to the very end of his natural days.
As I hoped that George W Bush would have a successful presidency.
As I hoped the Bill Clinton would have a successful presidency.
As I hope George Herbert Walker Bush and Ronald Reagan would have successful presidencies.
I want safe,strong,prosperous, just and sustainable United States more than I want the success of any political party.
I do not see that the benefits of a "bad" party failing are ever close to the costs of harm to the republic from a failed presidency.
I would hope, that while we disagree about the benefits of particular policies, we can all agree on that.
As for why we have had no further attacks, I suggest a piece on Slate today outlining ten very different possibilities, from 9/11 being dumb luck, to AQ and other radical islamists refocusing on the "near enemy" to the notion that AQ is waiting till they can do something bigger (with WMD) to the notion that we blew them away in October/November 2001, to Iraqi flypaper, to our loyal American Muslim community helping, etc, etc. I think there is SOME truth to all of those.
We SHOULD be debating health care, Jocko, whatever. After all, isnt the functioning of our democracy, and of our free and sometimes trivial culture, exactly what the Salifist-Jihadists were trying to destroy?
I would quibble with considering all our sacrifices in terms only of liberty losses (which I agree, have been very limited) Our sacrifices include the economic expenditures on two wars AND on homeland security (even if we have tried to avoid paying those costs). The biggest sacrifices have been borne by the men and women of our armed forces - killed, wounded, handicapped, or just deployed in horrible conditions for long times away from their families. The sacrifice has been too concentrated on too few - that doesn't mean it has not been all too real.
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
09/11/2009 11:06 Comments ||
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#9
"We've thwarted terrorist attacks around the world, many times very quietly. We haven't issued press releases on some of our most notable successes. If you only read the New York Times the only news you'd read would be the failures and the leaks. But the men and women who take security very seriously, and there are still many, have done their jobs."
Yes, and that includes everyone from the CIA, FBI, CTC, DHS down to local police. But lets also recall that it very much includes MI6 and MI5, the French and German and Dutch and Italian security services. And, yes, the Indonesian and Saudi and Egyptian and Algerian and Turkish and Bosnian security services as well.
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
09/11/2009 11:08 Comments ||
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#10
Well said, as always. Thank you Fred, and the Rantburg community.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2009 11:11 Comments ||
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#11
My thoughts are with everyone past and present on this meaningful and thought provoking day, just as on 11th November.
I pray that lives lost are not lives wasted and eventually we can overcome the dark cloud that descended on 11th September 2001
Posted by: Oscar ||
09/11/2009 11:15 Comments ||
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#12
May Providence watch over us all, so long as that man remains in the White House.
May providenec watch over us all. Period.
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
09/11/2009 11:17 Comments ||
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#13
LH, we do NOT want a "successful" Obama presidency. It sets far too many policies in stone that are harmful to this nation. Obama must fail if our nation is to remain strong. We see the type of government Obama wants to foist on the United States, and it's the same dreary crap that is killing Europe.
What I want is a nation that turns back to its roots, that cuts the fraud, waste, and abuse of Congress to a trickle, that offers the opportunity for success without Government constantly looking over our shoulders. I want a government that recognizes and PROTECTS the rights of its citizens, both those enumerated in the Bill of Rights and those that exist, sometimes recognized, sometimes not, in common law. I DON'T want a nation where the Government runs one-third or more of the economy, not on sound economic principles, but upon the false belief that it's necessary to "establish stability". The only stability that exists in this world is the stability of the grave - everything else is constantly changing.
I certainly don't want a nation that is defanged, hobbled, and crippled by a legal culture that wants to force everyone to be "equal", not in opportunity, but in results. That's the world of Barrack Hussein Obama, and it's a disaster for everyone. The events of 9/11 show us there's a definite external threat, based upon the most extreme interpretations of Islam. Barrack Obama and his cohorts are an equally dangerous internal threat. Wishing them success means wishing the destruction of our individual liberty. I think you need to rethink your desires for a "successful" Obama presidency. HIS success is not in our best interest as a nation.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/11/2009 11:57 Comments ||
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#14
We could redefine success to mean that he kept us safe abroad and at home, and otherwise did not achieve any of his objectives... It is starting to look like President Obama may have run out of steam on the domestic side -- the tea partiers have caught everyone's attention, no matter how much the interested parties are fussing, but those charged with keeping us safe keep beavering away at the task, as do those liberal hawk listed above in other countries.
#15
-- I still switch on my TV every morning in the hope that something like 9/11 has not just occurred again.
--- I have gotten a whole lot better at scanning the internet for relevant news whether or not the MSM sees fit to publish it, many thanks to Rantburg.
---- I don't think average Americans are as comfortable as they were on 9/10 -- the economic downtown's pain is spreading and intensifying.
--- This is increasing dissatisfaction & distrust of our political authorities. Rep. Wilson's recent outburst during O's speech to Congress probably served as a valuable safety valve to relieve some of that pressure.
#16
They hate us. No amount of apologist foreign policy will change that.
They have hated us for almost 900 years. They hated us before the Vienna Woods, they hated us before we sack Jerusalem.
They hated us before they saddled their first camel and sacked their first village on the Arabian peninsula.
We are infidels and apostates. We are to be either converted or massacred. Plain and simple, we are hated by their theology.
I turn on the television everyday expecting to find out that one of our cities has disappeared. And when that happens, BO will wring his hands, lecture us about how it is Bush's fault that they hate us and then he will declare martial law and take away everything resimbling a civil right.
I think he wants us to be hit again so he can turn us into a monarchy.
Posted by: James Carville ||
09/11/2009 13:55 Comments ||
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#17
Not a monarchy, Mr. Carville. I think what Obama has in mind is more like the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I think DV's vision of Obama leaving the White House with his tail between his legs is the best possible outcome...that includes the hope that he doesn't demoralize and defang the military and other security services to the point where we do get hit again.
Many thanks to Fred and the other mods for maintaining Rantburg. I'm afraid there's a lot of darkness out there so it's nice to have a few lights on.
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.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Four people have been killed after a demonstration was staged protesting the suspicious assassination of a regional cleric in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Yemeni troops killed 17 Shiite Huthi rebels in overnight clashes in the rugged mountainous north as the army stepped up its all-out offensive, the official Saba news agency reported on Thursday.
[Bangla Daily Star] Two alleged criminals, including a leader of an outlawed party, were shot dead in separate "shootouts" with the law enforcers in Rampura of the capital and Kushtia yesterday. 
[Iran Press TV Latest] At least two Turkish soldiers have been killed and seven others sustained injuries after a remote-controlled mine blew off in the eastern province of Van. 
[Dawn] Eighteen religious seminaries in the federal capital have refused to register with the government, claiming that they will cooperate only if they are contacted through the madrassah body, known as the Tanzeemul Madaris.
[Asharq al-Aswat] A suicide truck bomber hit a residential area of a Kurdish village in northern Iraq before dawn Thursday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 30 others, officials said, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of ethnic attacks in the region. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.
[Iran Press TV Latest] At least four people have lost their lives and 30 have sustained injuries after two consecutive bomb explosions ripped through a popular market south of Baghdad. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad al-Hariri said on Thursday he was stepping down after the opposition rejected a team he proposed earlier this week after more than 10 weeks of trying to form a unity government.
I sometimes stop what I'm doing and wonder what Gary Condit's doing these days. 
It's a "post-9/11" world now. The anger, the fury, the desire for the murderers' blood has long since subsided, not by that very November as Mickey Kaus had predicted, but by the next November in fact. The usual suspects rallied their forces with demonstrations and propaganda and charges of "permanent war." Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussein ejected in an attempt to bring a stable democratic state to the heart of the Muddle East that may pay off years from now or never. Cindy Sheehan rose and fell. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi rose and fell. Shamil Basayev fell. Michael Moore remains, as large as ever. 
G.W. Bush has retired to Crawford. Karl Rove can sometimes be seen on Fox News and writes 
Osama bin Laden's still there. He has a base, probably in scenic Chitral, that he goes to when he's not traveling to more civilized parts. Ayman al-Zawahiri's still there. He lives in North Wazoo. Mullah Omar's still there. He lives in Quetta and operates in Kandahar and adjacent areas. Jalaluddin Haqqani's still there. He lives in South Wazoo and operates in Paktika. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's still there. He lives in the Pak tribal area in comfortable circumstances and every once in awhile he rockets Kabul, just like in the old days.
3000 died in the attack eight years ago, the combined casualties of New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. We've lost about 5000 dead in Iraq and Afghanistan: 4337 in Iraq, 716 in Afghanistan, the figures current as of about a week ago. In 1683 the Turks lost 15,000 dead and wounded at the Gates of Vienna, plus 5,000 captured, compared to 4,500 dead and wounded for the Habsburg-Polish forces. There are those who would tell us today that 4500 dead and wounded is too high a price to pay for freedom. They're the same ones who'll tell us that 5000 dead is too high a price.
