Hectic debate was again triggered in the lower house of parliament on the fate of three ministers who have got less than 50 per cent votes but approved by the House on Saturday. The three included Communication Minister Amirzai Sangeen, Minister for Refugees' Affairs Ustad Akbar Akbar and Minister for Urban Development Yousuf Pashtun have got 120/244, 118/244 and 121/244 votes respectively. Some MPs objected their approval as minister arguing that they remained short of getting 50 per cent 'yes' votes; however, the imbroglio was resolved on Saturday when majority of legislators again approved them through show of hand.
The MPs on Sunday clashed over the issue whether to reverse the process in respect of the three ministers. However, the session was adjourned by the speaker without reaching a consensus. To untie the tangle, the legislators during their speeches, forwarded four suggestions: To hold voting afresh for the three people; to assign a commission of law-makers to amicably decide the issue; and to outrightly accept or reject them as ministers. Today's debate ended without defining the 'majority' by the parliamentarians. Many advocated only simple majority was enough to approve a nominated person as minister, while others argued that the hopeful must obtain 50 per cent votes.
I think they mean a "simple plurality" (assuming there were more than two candidates for the positions) rather than a "simple majority," which would still carry the idea of more than 50 percent of the vote. They're either hazy on the concept or hazy of defining what they actually mean.
Challenging the approval of the three ministers, MP from Kabul Kabir Ranjbar said majority meant more than 50 per cent votes for a candidate. He said he was ready to defend his stance even in the international court. "I'm not against the three individuals, but the decision is contrary to the constitution," said Ranjbar. Earlier, some 20 members of the parliament left the House to mark their protest against restarting debate on an issue, which they believed, had already been decided.
Since it's Afghanistan we're discussing, I consider it a great thing that nobody went for his guns or rocketed Kabul.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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The commander of NATO's operations insisted Monday that an increase in violence in southern Afghanistan did not indicate a resurgence of the Taliban, blaming much of the violence on drug gangs resisting efforts to cut opium production in the region. "It's tempting to label everything as Taliban, but I'm persuaded that is not the case," said U.S. Gen. James L. Jones.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Jones meet Mikhailov, Mikhailov meet Jones.
Top Russian Border Guard Urges Afghanistan to Combat Drugs
MosNews
Russia fears that it might take a long time to combat the drug industry in Afghanistan, where large quantities of drugs are still being produced. We do not feel that drug trafficking is falling, Lt.-Gen. Alexandr Mikhailov, a senior official with the Federal Service for Control over the Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, was quoted by Interfax.
Everything will depend on the how much effort the Afghan leaders make and stability in the region. If governments and the rules of the game continue to change constantly there, the fight against the production of drugs in Afghanistan will drag on for a very long time, he said.
According to the service, the main bulk of drugs, over 90 percent of it heroin, enters Russia from Afghanistan through Central Asia.
If the Afghan leaders manage to change the habits of peasants who profit from growing drugs and to make them switch to agricultural production, this will bring a positive outcome. But there is a danger that if one plantation is closed down, drugs will be grown and produced in a different place, the general said.
Mikhaylov stated earlier that because Russian border guards are leaving the Tajik-Afghan border, the law-enforcement bodies will have to set up a new system of anti-drug measures.
Last week the Tajik State Border Protection Committee finally took over the Afghan border region from Russian border guards.
We must set up a new system of measures which will allow us to compensate for the withdrawal of Russian border guards from the Tajik-Afghan border, Mikhaylov said, adding that this was a question, for instance, of anti-drug security belts around Afghanistan.
Of course, we are now aware that the batches of drugs coming into Russia are getting bigger. This is a worrying fact, the general said.
In his most recent audio taped message, Osama bin Laden succinctly restated his rationale for international terrorism. This is worth understanding for several reasons, not the least of which being that it provides a much-needed refutation to the often-stated argument that al Qaeda and its supporters are driven and strengthened only by the actions of the United States in general and, more narrowly speaking, the Bush administration.
As bin Laden makes clear, his grievances are by no means limited to the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or the now-familiar litany of the Israeli-Palestinian, Chechen, and Kashmiri insurgencies. Indeed, he includes accusations that Western nations were involved in "barring arms from the unarmed people in Bosnia and letting the Serb army to massacre Muslims and spill their blood for years under U.N. cover," that the United States "sought to reach southern Sudan, recruited an army of southerners, supported them with weapons and funding and directed them to seek separation from Sudan," and the bizarre charges that "a Zionist-Crusaders war" resulted in "the humiliation of Muslims in Somalia and killing 13,000 Muslims . . . along with torching Muslims' bodies."
Those who argue that bin Laden's complaints represent an honest assessment of international politics (as he sees it) will be hard-pressed to hold to this position. At some point, even the most adamant defenders of the view that bin Laden is a rational actor will have to acknowledge that someone with a sophisticated understanding of international politics would not believe that America deliberately allowed Serbia to carry out its massacres in the Balkans, while it was creating the Sudan People's Liberation Army and killing 13,000 Somalis. These are not the views of a rational actor.
THE LACK OF RATIONALITY ASIDE, the most notable change in bin Laden's rhetoric is a focus on Sudan, and in particular the Darfur region. While giving no indication that he intends to abandon his support for the Iraqi insurgency (indeed, he explicitly says that "The epicenter of these wars is Baghdad, the seat of the khalifate rule" and notes favorably that "They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the US, failure in Iraq the failure of the US"), bin Laden is now keen to side with Sudan when it comes to Darfur and is advising his followers to do this same. The message is simple: If there is any international intervention in Darfur, al Qaeda will be there waiting for them.
Bin Laden's relationship with the Sudanese government is best characterized as love-hate. He's eager to defend Sudan, despite its actions against the Muslim population of Darfur, but at the same time he chastises the Sudanese government for backtracking on its pledge to implement sharia throughout the country. But bin Laden has never been without allies--most notably the "pope of terror," Hassan Turabi--in Sudan, where al Qaeda was harbored from 1991 to 1996.
As Rohan Gunaratna noted in Inside Al Qaeda in 2002, "the threat posed by Islamists has not diminished in the Sudan and is likely to re-surface from time to time. Parallels are often drawn between Osama and his Sudanese precursor, the Mahdi, who fought a jihad against the British in the late nineteenth century." Indeed, as early as July 2004 a group calling itself Mohammed's Army distributed leaflets at a central mosque in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. They seemed to have been very much in tune with bin Laden's sentiments, saying "There is no doubt that this [international intervention in Darfur] is a Crusader war . . . we call upon you to speedily head toward Darfur and dig deep into the ground mass graves prepared for the Crusader army."
As Western and African governments weigh the costs and benefits of supporting international intervention in Darfur, they should not be deterred by bin Laden's threats, but neither should they view them as empty. Indeed, bin Laden's call to arms at the behest of Sudan is strikingly similar to his February 2003 statement in support of Iraq, even to the point of offering tactical advice for prospective Sudanese jihadis.
But should bin Laden's threat be seen as sufficient deterrence against international intervention--even if only temporarily--it will only serve to further raise his stock, both inside Sudan and throughout the Middle East. It would show that the core of bin Laden's message is fundamentally correct: that Western nations, while powerful, are easily intimidated and can be defeated.
This is why, contrary to the assertions of some academics, shifting policy decisions in an effort to deter violence is not only foolhardy, but, in the context of al Qaeda, might actually be chumming the water. In the case of Sudan, the issue of Darfur appears moot: violence is already occurring at the behest of the Sudanese government and its proxies, the issue at hand is whether or not the people of Darfur will have anyone to assist them in deterring the individuals perpetrating most of the violence.
Ultimately, bin Laden's wholehearted embrace of the Sudanese view of Darfur should not deter international intervention in the region. Instead, it reminds us of the longstanding relationship between the Sudanese government and international terrorism, in particular with regard to individuals
like Hassan Turabi. The humanitarian case for intervening in Darfur was already a strong one--all bin Laden has done is highlight the national security implications, as well.
Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/25/2006 01:16 ||
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IOW, the focii of Osama's efforts and zealotry is. among other things, more aimed at his fellow Muslims than against the alleged hated Crusader-Zionist enemy, specifically those Muslims whom refuse to accept Sharia-based Absolutism/
Totalitarianism. There is to be no moderation, no tolerance of non-Islamism or as against the literalist interpretation of the Sharia.
#8
Osama has a different view of the UN than most Rantburgans.
Osama's view is based on the relatively successful UN effort in E Timor (where a mostly non Moslem population gained independance from an oppressive Moslem govt.) and the completely ineffective UN effort in the Balkans in which many Moslems were killed.
Osama believes that the ineffectiveness in the Balkans was intentional (most Rantburgans assume that the UN is structurally incompetant and are not surprized by ineffectiveness) and thus the UN is not just an enemy but a potentially difficult enemy at that.
#9
Those who argue that bin Laden's complaints represent an honest assessment of international politics (as he sees it) will be hard-pressed to hold to this position. At some point, even the most adamant defenders of the view that bin Laden is a rational actor will have to acknowledge that someone with a sophisticated understanding of international politics would not believe that America deliberately allowed Serbia to carry out its massacres in the Balkans, while it was creating the Sudan People's Liberation Army and killing 13,000 Somalis. These are not the views of a rational actor.
Except that Zawahari's target audience isn't the secular West but al Qaeda's faithful and fellow travellers. And in that world, every word spoken by that organization's leadership is accepted as dogma. In their minds, we are the irrational ones, and our unbelief makes us the enemy of Allah.
The West places such a premium on reason - the reason of Man. Traditional faith (especially in Europe), has been under constant assault because a belief in God is considered unreasonable by the mainstream secularists that control the media and political systems. Those organs cannot honestly express the dangers of Islam facing them because they cannot admit that their intellects and world-views can be challenged (much less annihilated) by Islam's religious fanatics.
#10
mrp : yes, very well remarked; from the little I understand, the western "elites" worldview is shaped by Auguste Comte's thinking, and they have difficulties to assume the acts of leaders from other cultures may not conform to this.
#11
The only thing bin loosin' and most muslims understand is force. If you're stronger than they are, they're subservient. If they percieve a weakness, they treat you with contempt. I suggest once again that what we need to do is to take every aircraft in the US inventory, and any we can salvage from Davis-Monthan, load them up with iron bombs, and keep pounding Khartoum until there's nothing left but a lake on the Nile. I think that would send a clear picture of what America CAN do if you piss us off enough. It's a message that will become absolutely critical to the overall success of the war against intellectually challenged islam.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/25/2006 14:56 Comments ||
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#14
I hope things go well for ya 'Hawk. I don't mind seeing moozlims get killed, but I would like to see China lose a good customer. If they need killing after the genocide stops, there's always the Marines.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/25/2006 17:36 Comments ||
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#15
Let us know how the rally went, liberalhawk. With pictures, if you can.
#17
Osama's view is based on the relatively successful UN effort in E Timor (where a mostly non Moslem population gained independance from an oppressive Moslem govt.) and the completely ineffective UN effort in the Balkans in which many Moslems were killed.
Keep in mind that E. Timor was successful only because the Aussies were in charge.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/25/2006 18:55 Comments ||
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Sudan dismissed Osama bin Laden's renewed calls for jihad in its troubled Darfur region, saying on Monday that it will not harbor terrorists or allow foreign interference in the country.
But outside experts said the chaos in Sudan already spilling over to troubled neighbors like Chad is exactly the kind of place al-Qaeda has successfully exploited in the past and might again.
In a tape issuing more threats against the West on Sunday, bin Laden urged followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur. Muslims must get ready to conduct a long war against the crusader plunderers in western Sudan, he said in the audiotape, broadcast on Arab TV.
The call made headlines in most of Sudan's newspapers Monday, but Khartoum's leadership seemed eager to dissociate itself from bin Laden, who was based in the country through much of the 1990s but thrown out in 1996.
We are not concerned with such statements, or any other statement that comes from foreign quarters about the crisis in Darfur, Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Eldin Mohammad Ibrahim was quoted as saying by the Al Sahafa newspaper.
Sudan will cooperate with the international community to solve the ongoing humanitarian crisis and we will not host any terrorist, the spokesman said.
However, experts said that although Khartoum was trying to distance itself from al-Qaeda's leader, his words might nonetheless play into the government's hands.
Sudan's government has opposed the idea of shifting the peacekeeping mission in Darfur to the U.N. from the current African Union force, noted John Pendergast, a Sudan specialist with the International Crisis Group in Washington.
The statement by bin Laden greatly serves their interest in Darfur, he said, and would give a good pretext to those who are bent on preventing that from happening.
Yet few believe the government would deliberately allow al-Qaeda into Sudan again.
Instead, most experts said bin Laden's appeal was aimed at attracting the Muslim world's attention to his vision of a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. Few expected large numbers of fighters to take bin Laden up on the call.
He's trading on the prominence that Darfur has regained to push his own agenda and prove he's still around, said Eric Reeves, a Sudan specialist and a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the RAND think tank in Washington, said the prospect of Western troops in another Muslim country is an issue he can exploit. It proves his point about the West's war against Islam.
Al-Qaeda has targeted Western forces in Africa before including its attacks against U.S. troops trying to bring peace to Somalia in 1993.
On the streets of Khartoum, feelings ranged from scorn to angst.
Eating lunch at an open-air market in the Sudanese capital, Muhammadain Salih called bin Laden's call nonsense.
I don't think his people can do anything in Darfur, said the 32-year merchant, himself from the western region. The place is so remote, if (outside) Arabs went there, they'd be spotted straight away ... It's not like Iraq.
But Said Muhammad, a 35-year-old electrician, said people should take what this guy says very seriously. Look at what he did in America.
Bin Laden was thrown out of Sudan by the authorities in 1996, under U.S. pressure, and Pendergast said he doubted authorities would let his group in again and give up the benefits of cooperation in the U.S.-led war on terror.
Furthermore, although Sudan's hardline Muslim government could be perceived as a potential ideological ally of al-Qaeda and bin Laden may still have contacts he could take advantage of the terrorist group has little clout with the population, he said.
Bin Laden, in his tape, said the goal of his new call for jihad is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people.
The fighting in Darfur began when rebels from black African tribes took up arms in February 2003, complaining of discrimination by Sudan's Arab-dominated government.
The government has been accused of unleashing Arab tribal militia known as the Janjaweed against civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson a charge it denies.
The United Nations has described the conflict as the world's gravest humanitarian crisis. The United States has described it as genocide.
At least 180,000 people have died many from hunger and disease and 2 million people have been displaced in the vast, arid region of western Sudan, some fleeing as refugees to neighboring Chad.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/25/2006 01:07 ||
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For a man considered by some as yesterday's Islamist, Hassan al-Turabi shows little inclination towards a quiet retirement.
The 74-year-old former eminence grise of the Sudan regime and one-time host of Osama bin Laden has been infuriating Muslim traditionalists worldwide, earning accusations of apostasy on Sunday by Sudan government-approved clerics. He has provoked their anger by championing equal rights for women, including the right of Muslim women to marry outside their religion, pray alongside men and adopt a more liberal attitude to the veil. Mr Turabi also managed to cast a shadow over last month's annual summit of Arab leaders in Khartoum with the suggestion that highly placed officials in the host regime were implicated in a 1995 assassination attempt on Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak.
In an interview at his Khartoum residence, where the foyer still has enough chairs to host a parliament of America's enemies, Mr Turabi preaches freedom of expression and women's rights. His efforts in the 1990s to unite the US and Israel's enemies by bringing together Arab nationalists, leftists and radical Islamists from both Sunni and Shia Islam, earned him a reference in the report on September 11 as a precursor to al-Qaeda's global jihad. But today, he plays the pragmatic ally of globalisation and supporter of the moderating influence of democracy. "If you allow freedom, anyone who appears with a very exceptional, extreme view, his views will not sell actually. He would realise he is isolating himself so he has to integrate into society by moderating his programmes and his attitudes. That is better for us and better for humanity," he says.
Last year, Mr Turabi emerged from jail, where he has spent a good part of the last five years since losing out in a power struggle with Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, his former ally and understudy in political Islam. But while he may now be on the receiving end of the autocratic methods he, as the regime's chief ideologue, helped institutionalise in Khartoum, he senses he is on the right side of history in the wider region.
In 2000, Mr Turabi's project to Islamise Sudan under Shariah law and unite radical Islamists from across the Muslim world in opposition to the west had lost much of its allure. As one of only two Islamist movements to win power by force in the Sunni Muslim world, Mr Turabi's National Islamic Front along with the Taliban in Afghanistan had muddied political Islam by association with intolerance and dictatorship. Mr Turabi shows little remorse and blames the oppression and tyranny of other governments in the region, with the complicity of the US, for fuelling the violent manifestations of political Islam.
As Sudan's foremost theologian, whose political career has dazzled at times with Machiavellian brilliance, many Sudanese still see Mr Turabi's hand in every conspiracy - from the Darfur rebellion to the revolt in Sudan's east - and believe it is too soon to write him off.
U.N. diplomats brushed aside on Monday a call by Osama bin Laden for Muslims to rise up against the West in Sudan, and vowed to go ahead with plans to send peacekeepers to the embattled Darfur region. "The comments made by this guy (are) always, always negative. We should not be influenced by whatever comments he made," said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, the Security Council president for April.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said: "That's a mark of bin Laden's desperation and certainly won't affect our planning."
The al Qaeda leader, in an audio tape broadcast on Al Jazeera television, said the United States and Britain, by pushing for a U.N. force in Darfur, were plotting to dismember Sudan. He urged his followers to rise up against them. "I call on the mujahideen and their supporters in Sudan ... and the Arabian peninsula to prepare all that is necessary to wage a long-term war against the Crusaders in western Sudan," bin Laden said.
He called the United Nations an "infidel body" and "a tool to implement Crusader-Zionist resolutions" including measures aimed at dividing and occupying Muslim lands.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
"The comments made by this guy (are) always, always negative. We should not be influenced by whatever comments he made," said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, the Security Council president for April."
Hmmm. Chinese cant hardly afford to look like theyre caving (pardon the expression) to OBL. Given their own issues in "east turkestan". OTOH they still want to run interference for their friends in Khartoum.
Sinai, or more precisely, the Gulf of Aqaba coastline, is becoming Egypt's weak spot, which is being hit by terrorists who adhere to the ideal of global jihad.
Within some 18 months, the Sinai Peninsula has been struck by three terror attacks: The attack on the Taba Hilton was the first, in October 2004; then came the bombing in Sharm el-Sheikh, in July 2005; and Monday, it was Dahab's turn.
Sinai, and the coastal area in particular, has become a preferred target for the terrorists for a number of reasons: The area is an extensive and sparsely populated one in which there are many hiding places; it is located close to countries in which al-Qaida cells operate - Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq; and its border with the Gaza Strip is relatively easy to breach.
Access to Sinai is relatively easy, and the area can be reached by means of ferries that cross the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba. Security checks on the ferries are not very meticulous, and infiltrations into the area can also be made using small boats that can land on the deserted beaches and escape the infrequent and sparse presence of the Egyptian Coast Guard. Terrorists and explosives can be smuggled into Sinai relatively easily - either by boat or in vehicles that cross the Suez Canal or the gulf.
Sinai itself is also full of explosives. It is relatively easy to dismantle the thousands of abandoned mines laid by both Israel and Egypt during past wars.
The Bedouin population of Sinai is not very sympathetic toward Egypt; and for their part, the Egyptian authorities appear to have contempt for the Bedouin.
The various development programs that have been implemented in Sinai have intensified the Bedouin opposition and heightened the local population's readiness to cooperate with foreign elements.
This has been very evident in the previous attacks, after which thousands of Sinai residents were arrested in violation of their human rights. This process, in the main, sows the seeds of readiness to cooperate in the next terror attack.
While the Egyptian authorities have been successful over the past decade in eradicating the terror infrastructure on the continent itself, it appears that the Egyptian security forces and intelligence have been far less successful in Sinai.
The terrorists' targets remain the same targets, however - Western tourists. And in doing so, the jihad-motivated terror is achieving a three-pronged goal: It kills foreigners and Westerners who Osama bin Laden has termed "crusaders;" it harms the Egyptian economy; and it destabilizes President Hosni Mubarak's regime.
As far as the terrorists are concerned, if their attacks manage also to kill Israelis and Jews, all the better.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/25/2006 01:05 ||
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Israel's security services routinely issue warning for Israelis not to go there. Whose who chose to disregard these warnings, how does the saying goes "Think of it as Evolution in Action."
Just one day after Osama bin Laden issued another chilling message, last night's bombings in Egypt will inevitably revive the suspicions voiced by Washington that al-Qaida tapes sometimes contain coded instructions for terrorists.
However, it is easy to see why local militants, of their own accord, might have decided to strike in Egypt last night. It was holiday time - the Coptic Christian Easter - when many enjoy a seaside break in Sinai. It was also the eve of Sinai Liberation Day, which marks the return of lands captured by Israel: returned under the peace treaty for which former president Anwar Sadat paid with his life.
If the timing was obvious, so was the target. For years, terrorists in Egypt have sought to attack the tourism industry on which the country depends for much of its foreign earnings.
In the latest wave of bombings the Egyptian authorities have tended to make reassuring noises, though their general approach suggests a lack of precise intelligence. In the wake of the Taba incident they rounded up thousands of people for questioning. Four months later, according to Human Rights Watch, as many as 2,400 detainees were still being held.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/25/2006 01:04 ||
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British security chiefs are studying a novel Saudi approach to combating terror - using clerics to debate "jihad" with jailed militants and convert them to more moderate beliefs.
Seeking to fight Islamic extremism with Islamic theologians, the Saudi authorities say they successfully re-educated some 400 out of 700 extremists and released them from prison.
The Islamic "counselling" programme is part of what British experts regard as Saudi Arabia's "model counter-terrorism campaign".
Senior officials, including the MI5 chief, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, have visited the kingdom to devise a similar "counter-radicalisation" strategy for Britain.
Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where the fight against terrorism has yielded real success with a softer approach.
Al-Qa'eda's campaign in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden's birthplace, started spectacularly with suicide bombings against western compounds in Riyadh three years ago but has now abated.
Saudi security forces say they have killed or captured 25 out of 26 people on their original 2003 list of "most wanted" terrorists, including successive local leaders of al-Qa'eda.
Similarly, only four people on a follow-up list of 36 wanted militants are believed to be still at large in the kingdom. The rest have been killed, captured or fled, mainly to Iraq.
"Every day their numbers and capability and resources are less and less," said Gen Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi ministry of interior, "We feel that terrorism in Saudi Arabia has been degraded.
"We are helped by the fact that our response to attacks is very fast. Every cell that carries out a terrorist attack does not get to plan another."
The government has sacked about 1,000 hardline clerics, prevented Saudis from going to fight in Iraq and invested heavily in technology, such as a new control room for security forces in Riyadh.
Now more than 100 Muslim clerics, psychiatrists and psychologists are involved in counselling inmates around the country.
This is offered only to militants who have not been directly involved in terrorist acts but are believed to sympathise with or provide support to extremists.
After a psychological assessment, they have one-on-one sessions with clerics to debate radical ideology - including the meaning of "jihad" or "holy war" and the doctrine of "takfir" - declaring Muslims who disagree with them to be infidels.
Prisoners in the programme are given more access to their family, who sometimes have transport and accommodation paid for by the government.
If deemed suitable for release, they are then offered more help, for instance in finding work.
"These people are very isolated in their cells. They are encouraged not to deal with anybody outside the cells. That is how their minds are controlled," said Gen al-Turki.
"When they are arrested, we give them a chance to think for themselves, and most of them realise they had chosen the wrong path."
Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security adviser, said: "None of those who have been released are known to have gone back to terrorism.
"These young men are up against people who have years of experience in religious theology. They sit with the Koran and go through each of the verses. I have met two or three of them and very much doubt they will go back to terrorism."
Government-sponsored Saudi clerics have also taken on the jihadi ideologists on the internet.
These "soft" tactics have impressed British experts. "The Saudis are doing a great deal to deal with terrorism and the cause of terrorism," said Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, during a visit to Riyadh last week.
But an attempt by suicide bombers last February to blow up the oil processing plant in Abqaiq - the world's largest - was only narrowly averted when guards opened fire on explosive-laden cars that tried to ram the gates.
Saudi officials are deeply worried about the impact of the insurgency in Iraq. So far the attacks in Saudi Arabia have been led by veterans of the wars in Afghanistan. That could change.
Gen al-Turki said most Saudis who go to Iraq, estimated to be in their hundreds, go on a "one-way trip to death" as suicide bombers.
#1
Senior officials, including the MI5 chief, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, have visited the kingdom to devise a similar "counter-radicalisation" strategy for Britain.
Here madam Buller, take this sword with you, it may do you more good than all the chatting. I call it Excalibur.
Posted by: HRH King Richard ||
04/25/2006 8:21 Comments ||
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#2
Actually, I think this was already tried, and found wanting: the subjects merely practiced taqquiya against their teachers in order to get out early and resume the fight. No numbers of the recidivism rate, but we're talking about arabs here.
#7
Actually, I think this was already tried, and found wanting: the subjects merely practiced taqquiya against their teachers in order to get out early and resume the fight. No numbers of the recidivism rate, but we're talking about arabs here.
Are you thinking of the Yemen program?
In that case, it turned out that the imam in charge of the program was involved in helping the jihadis escape. At least, the tunnel dug from his mosque into the jihadis' prison cells indicated that.
Jihad is intrinsic to Islam. You cannot argue someone out of it by arguing Islam; as well claim to argue against confession while claiming to be Catholic.
The reason this crap keeps being tried is because western governments buy into it. It's a dog-and-pony show, and if it has ANY results, the result is to funnel money to supposedly moderate imams in the west. It's just a way to fund jihad by convincing the kaffir they're funding anti-jihad.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/25/2006 19:01 Comments ||
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MANAMA (Reuters) - Pakistan took command on Monday of a multi-national naval force patrolling waters around the Arabian Peninsula to stop terrorism and piracy, and search vessels suspected of smuggling arms or material used for making nuclear weapons. Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) is one of several naval units operating within a U.S.-led coalition that are policing one of the globe's tensest regions.
"We feel that the fight against terrorism in any of its forms is a noble act and we consider it our moral obligation to continue this war," Vice Admiral Muhammad Haroon, Vice Chief of the Pakistan Navy, said at a ceremony in Bahrain to mark the transfer of the mission from Dutch command.
The mission oversees the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which almost a quarter of the world's oil is transported from the Gulf. While two other units handle the Gulf itself, CTF-150's 15 vessels also patrol all the waters west as far as the Red Sea and as far south as the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. "It's like searching a needle in a haystack -- we watch out for what ships are in the areas based on intelligence received from shore," Commodore Hank Ort of Royal Netherlands Navy said as he passed the command to Pakistan's Rear Admiral Shahid Iqbal.
The Pakistan Navy has assigned a destroyer, PNS Babur, to the task force. The United States, Britain, France, Italy Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Pakistan all contribute to the maritime component of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:31 ||
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"The Pakistan Navy has assigned a destroyer, PNS Babur, to the task force."
I suddenly have an image of an elephant, wearing a crown, in a balloon, assisting the task force.
#2
Babur is the name of an Afghan king who invaded and looted parts of India.
Posted by: john ||
04/25/2006 17:56 Comments ||
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#3
More specifically, he was the founder of the Mogul Empire in India.
Babur was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane.
He defeated the Sultan of Delhi in the battle of Panipat in 1525 and took the title of Badshah-e-Hind (Emperor of India)
Posted by: john ||
04/25/2006 18:22 Comments ||
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#4
Being an Afghan invader who killed many hindus as sport, he is particularly loved by Pakistanis.
Posted by: john ||
04/25/2006 18:23 Comments ||
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#5
BTW, the eldest direct male descendent of the last Mogul Emperor worked as a cook in someone's kitchen in Delhi until another descendent of Badur Shah took pity on him and took him to the UAE.
His mother, a Mogul Begum, was last heard about in the Indian newspapers, begging Sonia Gandhi to increase her small pension.
Posted by: john ||
04/25/2006 18:27 Comments ||
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#6
To stop terrorism and piracy, or to help terrorism and piracy?
#8
: BTW, the eldest direct male descendent of the last Mogul Emperor worked as a cook in someone's kitchen in Delhi until another descendent of Badur Shah took pity on him and took him to the UAE.
See? Be of good cheer, things work out in time.
Iranian Shura Council speaker Ghulam Ali Haddad said here Monday that Kuwait and the other Gulf states should not worry about Iran's nuclear program. He said the Boushehr nuclear reactor that overlooks the eastern bank of Gulf is managed according to the best security and safety systems. Speaking to Kuna after a meeting with visiting Head and members of the Kuwait-Iran Parliamentary Friendship Group, Haddad said "we tell the government and people of Kuwait and the other Gulf states, that utmost precision was observed when constructing the Boushehr nuclear reactor, with the aim of securing health and environment safety. There is no reason for concern in this regard." He said this will not be the last nuclear reactor in Iran.
As the first official response to violence and arson attacks on a number of mosques in Riyadh, the minister of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Dawaa and Guidance, Salah Al Sheikh, revealed the identity of the perpetrators who committed the crimes last December.
And the perpetrators were...?
The Minister's announcement came with the launching of a new system that monitors Saudi mosques electronically through a network based on the Geographical Information System (GIS). The minister also revealed that those behind the arson of mosques were are mentally disturbed.
"They're all crazy, I tell yez! Their names were..."
He pointed out that the matter was personally followed up by the Governor of Riyadh as well as by the security institutions. Last December, attacks were carried out on a number of mosques in Riyadh in which they were vandalized and some burnt.
I don't recall hearing about this one. Did I miss something?
The minister refuted the statements that imams and preachers in Saudi Arabia were not doing enough to combat terrorist ideas as he said, "there were no shortcomings on behalf of imams and preachers as they have carried out their responsibilities but the matter deserves more time."
That's a nice self-serving statement. Nothing happened, all is well, but they need more time.
As the GIS system was launched, the Minister said the project aimed at creating a program to monitor all mosques and to set up monitoring systems inside. The minister clarified that this would enable the Ministry to be acquainted with the mosques everyday through modern technology. The project has already been implemented in the mosques of Al Malaz quarter, east of Riyadh. By mid 2007, monitors would have been set up in other mosques of Riyadh. By mid 2008, the ministry hopes to have included all of the kingdom's mosques in the project.
Okay. I'm thoroughly confused. The mosques aren't moving, so I can't see what use the GIS is. Maybe to track the paddy wagons as they're sent to arrest miscreants? Or did a silver-tongued salesman show up, give them a nice presentation, and sell them something with dozens of dials and guages and blinky lites that they have no idea what it does? And the miscreants are nuts, but they don't have names or any kind of affiliation. Were they escapees from nut houses? Or the usual Zionist conspirators, only looning out?
If the plan involves putting ankle transponders on the holy men, I'm fer it.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
As I see it, they're audio bugging the Mosques, listening to what the Imams are saying/preaching.
Won't make a damn bit of difference, bugging only works when the buggees don't know they're being listened to.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/25/2006 8:12 Comments ||
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#3
It looks like they are using GIS for geographic profiling. I found a description and 'modified' it to fit the end user.
What is a GIS?
A GIS is a computer system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced information; that is, data identified according to location. Practitioners also define a GIS as including the procedures, operating personnel, and spatial data that go into the system.
How does a GIS work?
Relating information from different sources
The power of a GIS comes from the ability to relate different information in a spatial context and to reach a conclusion about this relationship. Most of the information we have about our world contains a location reference, placing that information at some point on the globe. When seething information is collected, it is important to know where the seething is located. This is done by using a location reference system, such as longitude and latitude, and perhaps elevation. Comparing the seething information with other information, such as the location of mosques across the landscape, may show that certain mosques receive little seething funding. This fact may indicate that these mosques are likely to dry up, and this inference can help us make the most appropriate decisions about how humans should interact with the mosque. A GIS, therefore, can reveal important new information that leads to better decisionmaking.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2006 8:21 Comments ||
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Bangladesh has been brought to a virtual standstill by the second general strike in a week. There have been clashes in the capital, Dhaka.
The strike was called by the Awami League and 13 allies in the opposition. They are pressing the government to reform the electoral system ahead of polls due to be held in January. An unelected interim administration is due to supervise the elections. The opposition says it will be full of government supporters.
Reeeeeaallly? Golly gosh, is that how it's done?
There were few buses and cars on the streets of Dhaka at rush hour and shopkeepers kept their shutters down. Some tried to do business out of back doors, watching for signs of trouble.
Police used batons and fired teargas shells to disperse hundreds of protesters trying to march in the capital. At least 50 people were injured. Sporadic violence also took place in several other cities and towns.
The government is due to hand over to an unelected interim administration in October that will run the polls that are expected to take place in January. The opposition says the ruling alliance, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is preparing to pack the caretaker government with its supporters. It wants the interim administration appointed on the basis of consensus.
Like 'consensus' will happen in B'desh.
The BBC's Roland Buerk in Dhaka says that, with no sign of an agreement between the government and the opposition, Bangladesh seems set for months of political uncertainty.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:10 ||
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Two faces, two converts - two Muslim extremists in Britain
A NEO-NAZI whose ideas were said to be the inspiration for the man who let off a nail bomb in Central London in 1999 has converted to an extremist form of Islam. David Myatt, a founder of the hardline British National Socialist Movement (NSM) who has been jailed for racist attacks, has changed his name to Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt. David Copeland, who is serving six life sentences after three people died in his Soho bomb attacks, was a member of the NSM.
Myatt is reportedly the author of a fascist terrorist handbook and a former leader of the violent far-right group Combat 18. But now in his mid-50s and sporting a red, bushy beard he subscribes to radical Islamist views.
In an internet essay entitled From Neo-Nazi to Muslim, Myatt asks: How was it that I, a Westerner with a history of over 25 years of political involvement in extreme right-wing organisations, a former leader of the political wing of the neo-Nazi group Combat 18, came to be standing outside a mosque with a sincere desire to go inside and convert to Islam? These were the people who I had been fighting on the streets, I had swore (sic) at and had used violence against indeed, one of my terms of imprisonment was a result of me leading a gang of skinheads in a fight against Pakis.
In a later interview, Myatt supports the killing of any Muslim who breaks his oath of loyalty to Islam, and the setting up of a Muslim superstate. He describes himself as having been staunchly opposed to non-white immigration into Britain and twice jailed for violence in pursuit of my political aims.
He added: I spent several decades of my life fighting for what I regarded as my people, my race and my nation, and endured two terms of imprisonment arising out of my political activities.
But his belief is now that: The pure authentic Islam of the revival, which recognises practical jihad (holy war) as a duty, is the only force that is capable of fighting and destroying the dishonour, the arrogance, the materialism of the West . . . For the West, nothing is sacred, except perhaps Zionists, Zionism, the hoax of the so-called Holocaust, and the idols which the West and its lackeys worship, or pretend to worship, such as democracy.
They want, and demand, that we abandon the purity of authentic Islam and either bow down before them and their idols, or accept the tame, secularised, so-called Islam which they and their apostate lackeys have created.
This may well be a long war, of decades or more and we Muslims have to plan accordingly. We must affirm practical jihad to take part in the fight to free our lands from the kuffar (unbelievers). Jihad is our duty.
Myatt, who briefly became a monk after his second spell in prison, said that he became a Muslim while working long hours alone on a farm. He grew up in Africa, moved to Britain in 1967 and spent time living in Worcestershire. In July 2000 Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, described him as the most ideologically-driven Nazi in Britain, preaching race war and terrorism.
Myatt was the architect of the NSM and was involved in the leadership of Combat 18. He issued a statement in response to the Soho nail bombings saying: Neither myself nor anyone else connected to the NSM can be held responsible for these bombs in any way. That responsibility lies with the person who constructed them, planted them and caused them to explode. Only that person, and God, know the motive behind the attacks.
Myatt said that all bombs are terrible and barbaric, whether detonated by lone bombers, Western governments in Iraq or Zionists in Palestine.
The NSM considered the creation of a revolutionary situation in this country as necessary since it wished to build an entirely new society, based upon personal honour, and believed this could only be done by destroying the dishonourable and corrupt society of the present.
However, the NSM neither preached, nor sought to incite, what is called racial hatred. Instead, it strove to propagate the warrior values of honour, loyalty and duty, and make the British people aware of, and come to value, their ancestral warrior culture and warrior heritage.
Myatt said recently that he had given up hope of a breakthrough by the far Right and believed that Muslims were the best hope for combating Zionism and the West. There will not be an uprising, a revolution, in any Western nation, by nationalists, racial nationalists, or National Socialists because these people lack the desire, the motivation, the ethos, to do this and because they do not have the support of even a large minority of their own folk, he said.
If these nationalists, or some of them, desire to aid us, to help us . . . they can do the right thing, the honourable thing, and convert, revert, to Islam accepting the superiority of Islam over and above each and every way of the West.
#1
I'd say he's figured out that if you are a Nazi raving anti-semite you get thrown in jail, If you are a Islamic raving anti-semite you won't get thrown in jail.
#4
has changed his name to Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt ..... is sporting new tatoos and has signed an contract with the Boston Celtics for an undisclosed amount thought to exceed $27m over 3 years.
Amnesty International on Monday criticized Britain's desire to deport security suspects to Algeria, citing alleged torture techniques used by military intelligence in the north African nation.
Did they mention anything about the explosives techniques of the guys the Brits want to deport?... I thought not.
The London-based human rights group spoke out the day before an Algerian security suspect identified as "Y" was to launch his appeal to overturn British attempts to send him back to his homeland. "We are very concerned that the United Kingdom government is seeking to send people back to Algeria, where they would be at serious risk of torture," Amnesty's U.K. director Kate Allen said.
If the guy was Samoan or Vietnamese or Polish, I'd be concerned, too. But sending an Algerian back to Algeria has a sort of intellectual symmetry to it.
Let's see, he doesn't want to go home to Algeria since he values his fingernails. At the same time, he wants to subvert and destroy the country that gave him refuge. I'm sure AI has a word for that; I know I do.
Amnesty sent Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika an official memorandum last week detailing 12 cases of alleged torture, secret detention and ill-treatment by the Department for Information and Security (DRS). "It is particularly those alleged to be involved with terrorism who are at risk in Algeria, where the powerful DRS military intelligence service continues to operate with impunity - secretly detaining and torturing those whom it suspects," Allen said.
On the other hand, GAI is defunct, and GSPC hasn't been doing that well lately. Perhaps that bit of ruthlessness on the part of the gummint had something to do with it?
"The UK government is trying to negotiate a deal that would deliver people into the hands of a government with a long record of torture and which still allows the DRS free rein to hold people in secret and torture them."
Strange. My sympathy meter simply refuses to move at all.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Just chain him together with the AI crowd and send 'em all...
Our missile engineers have finally come to the fore once again. On Saturday an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Kapustin Yar test-site in the Astrakhan region, and just a few minutes later successfully hit its target at the Sary-Shagan test-site in Kazakhstan.
It would have been impossible to tell whether this was a new or old missile from its flight, because the very latest warhead for the Bulava sea-based missile complex had been placed on an old K65M-P carrier produced in the 1960s. It was this new head that was the subject of the tests carried out by missile engineers. The launch of this missile can be seen as our reply to the Americans who have started to afford themselves statements along the lines that there is no nuclear parity anymore, and Russia can be written off on a strategic level. They wish .
The commanding officer for Strategic Missile Troops General-Colonel Nikolay Solovtsov said the following about the significance of Saturdays launch: The USA is planning to develop its articulated ballistic missile defense on such a scale that it could disturb strategic stability. The main task of this launch was to test a single fighting block for both land and sea-based ballistic missiles and a series of elements which have been developed to overcome ballistic missile defense systems.
They prepared especially thoroughly for this launch nowadays the military unfortunately does not often need to test new warheads. In addition the high command was in charge of the launch: before the tests got underway two helicopters landed on the test site, out of which came the Deputy Minister of Defense Aleksandr Belousov, Commanding officer for Strategic Missile Troops General-Colonel Nikolay Solovtsov and even the head financial coordinator for the Minsitry of Defense Lyubov Kudelina (money apparently played a major role in these tests).
Admittedly the honourable guests did not see the colourful lift-off because of the vagaries of the weather it had to put back by almost a day. The superiors could not wait around for it.
In reality, the bad weather would not have been a problem for either the missile or its new head. But the quite unique, very accurate measuring equipment which only exists on this test-site could be struck blind in stormy conditions. For that reason they decided not to risk it and possibly waste money. Furthermore they had to wait until they could be sure that during the launch and flight of the missile, no American surveillance satellites, which fly over Kapustin Yar several times a day, happened to be in the area, where they could observe the tests.
In the end, when all these conditions coincided (this happened by Saturday evening), the missile-carrier launched successfully. The measuring equipment precisely recorded that the new warhead successfully broke through the nominal anti-missile defense of the enemy.
Incidentally, for reference: from this test site the first Soviet ballistic missile R-1 was launched in October 1947,. the dogs Dezik and Gypsy flew into space in 1951 and now we have the latest innovation in the Russian Bulava nuclear shield.
#5
...The Soviets Russians have had a positively LOUSY record of test fires over the last few years, including two failures in front of President Putin. Good on them they got this one off the ground - but the hyperbolic clod who wrote this better not be holding his breath for the next one.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/25/2006 8:11 Comments ||
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Oh, we noticed Russia. We just don't give a shit.
Any complaints may be made at that reindeer over there.
#9
lol, Mojo! I was thinkin' the same thing. We're supposed to be scared because they (finally) successfully launched a missile and it hit it's target. Heck, we did that on an hourly basis back during GWI. And, their monitoring field doesn't work during bad weather? Good grief. Makes me almost feel sorry for the lads in the Russian military...it's fallin' apart, for all intents and purposes.
Posted by: BA ||
04/25/2006 14:11 Comments ||
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A Cologne brothel touting for clients with a World Cup-themed banner has blacked out the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia after threats from Muslims.
The giant banner on a high-rise building shows a semi-naked woman and the flags of the 32 countries in the World Cup, which kicks off in June.
The Pascha brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advert.
He said they had accused the brothel of insulting Islam by using the flags.
First there were telephone threats of violence, then about 30 hooded protesters armed with knives and sticks turned up outside Pascha on Friday, the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported.
"The situation was explosive," Mr Lobscheid told the paper.
"Some of the people compared our ad to the Danish Mohammed cartoons," he said, referring to cartoons which sparked violent protests in several Muslim countries in February.
The Tunisian flag - bearing the Muslim crescent symbol - remains on the ad, however.
'Overlooked'
The slogan on the ad reads: "The world is a guest of female friends" - a variant of the official World Cup slogan: "The world is a guest of friends".
Mr Lobscheid said the banner had been commissioned in a normal business deal and "we certainly didn't intend to insult anyone".
He said the significance of the flags' symbols had been overlooked.
Prostitution is legal in Germany, where the authorities are preparing for a possible boom in the sex trade during the World Cup.
#4
Mullahs pissed about not getting a pimping muta'a cut.
Posted by: ed ||
04/25/2006 17:23 Comments ||
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the official World Cup slogan: "The world is a guest of friends".
The world is a guest of friends? I can only hope that sounds better in it's original language than it does in English. I don't even know what that means.
Maybe the islamonauts were offended by the weird grammar and not the T&A?
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, set to visit Ankara today, will try to persuade Turkey's leaders to challenge a surge in anti-Americanism and do more to help neighboring Iraq.
Relations with the Muslim ally have been strained since the Turkish parliament refused to permit U.S. ground troops to invade Iraq from Turkey in 2003. Turkish officials and business executives now are concerned that the U.S. is letting Kurdish rebels operate with impunity against Turkey from northern Iraq.
Fresh irritants have complicated the picture. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's February invitation to the violent Palestinian group Hamas to visit the Turkish capital irked U.S. officials, as did a blockbuster anti-American, anti-Semitic Turkish film, ``Valley of the Wolves: Iraq.''
``There is a lot of disappointment'' in Washington over the Hamas visit and the movie, said Soner Cagaptay, who directs the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The movie, the most-watched Turkish film ever, depicts U.S. soldiers in Iraq as brutish and shows a Jewish doctor harvesting Iraqis' organs for sale. ``The film is absolutely magnificent,'' Turkey's parliamentary speaker, Bulent Arinc, said after watching it, according to the London-based Times newspaper.
The new Turkish ambassador to the U.S., Nabi Sensoy, defined the spats over the film and the hosting of Hamas as ``hiccups'' in the relationship at a lecture at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington last week.
Overhaul Sought
Other prominent Turks say there are deeper troubles. Mustafa Koc, the chairman of Turkey's biggest industrial company, Koc Holding AS, told a Washington audience last month that the U.S.- Turkish relationship needs an overhaul. ``Concrete steps'' are required to confront the Kurdish rebels, known as the PKK, and the U.S. must engage in ``constructive dialogue'' rather than ``imposition'' to settle policy differences, said Koc, whose conglomerate builds cars with Ford Motor Co.
From the perspective of Turkish companies, friendlier ties with the U.S. should translate into dollars. While Turkish executives point to such transactions as General Electric Co.'s $1.56 billion purchase last year of a stake in Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS, a consumer bank, Koc said at a Washington conference that U.S. investment overall is ``very minimal.''
Democracy `Anchor'
Turkey's value to the U.S. often comes down to geography and democracy, say observers of the country. Turkey borders Iraq and is a conduit for goods and construction services; Turkish companies have long-standing trade ties with Iraq. What's more, the U.S. points to Turkey and its 73 million people as an example of a stable Muslim democracy.
``I think Turkey sees itself very much -- and we see Turkey -- as having a strong anchor in democracy, a strong anchor in European traditions, but also having a great deal to say to the future of the Middle East and to be a part of that future,'' Rice told reporters yesterday en route to the region.
Iraq's prime minister-designate, Jawad al-Maliki, is trying to finish shaping a government that can secure the country and rebuild its oil-based economy.
Rice will encourage Turkish officials to back sanctions on Iran to thwart its suspected efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon, U.S. officials and analysts said.
Turkey has urged Iran to clarify the objectives of its nuclear program while stopping short of supporting sanctions.
``The best way to get a message across to the Turkish elite is in closed, high-level meetings,'' Cagaptay said of Rice's visit. ``What she's going to tell them is we are concerned about Turkey's place in the Western world.''
Anti-Americanism
A Bush administration official described Turkish anti- Americanism as shallow and predicted it would dissipate if violence subsides in Iraq. A survey of Turkish public opinion sponsored by the German Marshall Fund last year showed 73 percent of Turks say U.S. leadership in the world is undesirable.
Animating the anti-U.S. opinion is the existence of an enclave inside Iraq near Turkey's border with an estimated 4,000 members of the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, a group labeled by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.
``We need to work with the Turks, and with the coalition, to do what we can to deal with the PKK problem,'' Rice said yesterday, without committing to any military action. ``But we want to do it in a way that does not cause greater instability in the north.''
Arab Summit
Even with U.S. pressure to tilt westward, a prominent view in Turkey at the moment is that the country can only be a regional power by developing good ties with its Arab neighbors, analysts say. Erdogan demonstrated this when he attended the Arab League Summit in Khartoum, Sudan, last month and was made an observer.
As for Turkey's decision to host Hamas officials, Rice yesterday said the Turkish government had used the opportunity to ``send a very strong message'' that the group, now running the Palestinian government, must recognize Israel's existence.
Rice was due to stop in Greece on the way to Turkey and is set to visit Sofia, Bulgaria, on April 27 for informal NATO discussions on the agenda for the November summit of the alliance in Riga, Latvia.
#1
the most-watched Turkish film ever, depicts U.S. soldiers in Iraq as brutish and shows a Jewish doctor harvesting Iraqis' organs for sale. ``The film is absolutely magnificent,'' Turkey's parliamentary speaker, Bulent Arinc, said after watching it, according to the London-based Times newspaper.
My thanks to Hollywoodistan for providing willing "American" actors.
#2
thanks to Hollywoodistan for providing willing "American" actors.
Well, dumb actors at least. The evil American officer is played by Billy Zane, famous for being evil dude on Titanic. The doctor who harvests the organs of iraqis for sale is Gary Busey, whose career has nose dived since the Buddy Holly movie. At the best, they're B-list actors in B-list movies. Most likely they'll do any part if the check clears. I'll bet they had no idea that Turkish audiences would think it was a true-to-life story.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2006 12:39 Comments ||
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#3
"I'll bet they had no idea that Turkish audiences would think it was a true-to-life story." I'll bet they don't care one way or 'tother.
Aug 2017, Ankara, Today Turkey turned down an offer of membership in the Eurabian Union (ER). The Turkish PM reiterated concerns about allowing Islamists 'activists' from the EU to have open access to Turkey.
French President Jacques Chirac will hold talks Wednesday with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, official sources at Chiracs office announced Monday. The talks, which will take place on the sidelines of a colloquium Moussa is attending at the Arab World Institute, will cover a number of regional and international flashpoints, mainly the worsening crisis with Iran, the ongoing violence in Iraq, the developments with the Hamas-led Palestinian government and Israel and the Syria-Lebanon issue. Moussa, who is also expected to meet with other senior French officials, will inaugurate a one-day forum destined to examine "Euro-Arab" dialogue with a view to developing a "strategic partnership" between the two sides. The forum is being held under the patronage of Chirac and will include participation by the EU Special Envoy for Foreign Affairs, Javier Solana among other senior officials.
Sheikh Mohamed Al-Moayyad and his loverniece aide Mohamed Zayed, detained in a U.S. jail for alleged terrorism links, have been on a hunger strike for more than two weeks for alleged mistreatment by the U.S.
I think they've been convicted fair and square, so they're not "alleged" links anymore...
Al-Moayyads son, Ibrahim, told media that his father and his companion began a hunger strike more than 13 days ago to protest against harsh treatment they face while in prison.
The National Committee to Defend Al-Moayyad and Zayed, headed by Islah Party leader Sheikh Hamoud Hashem Al-Dharihi, holds the U.S. Administration accountable for the pairs health, as the two are subjected to abuses inside its jails. In a statement, the committee said Al-Moayyad and his aide suffer bad treatment and U.S. authorities impose hard work on them, compelling them to go on hunger strike.
He's a Koran scholar, so he's not used to hard work. Moveover, I wasn't aware that the U.S. is answerable to Yemen's Islah Party or to anyone else outside the U.S., other than as set forth in internatinoal treaties.
According to the statement, such mistreatment caused the mens health to deteriorate amid lack of prison health care.
I'm not aware of many people's health deteriorating in U.S. jails. The conditions might not be pleasant, but they're fed, housed, and exercised periodically, and they have access to all sorts of things they wouldn't have access to in Yemeni jugs.
The committee appealed to President Ali Abdullah Saleh to pursue the cases procedures and intervene to secure the two Yemenis release.
Which is the real objective, of course.
Lawyer Khalid Al-Anisi, Secretary-General of the National Committee for Defending Rights and Freedoms (HOOD), stated, The two victims suffer from bad health, complain of mistreatment by jail officials and are deprived of good food, health care and medical treatment. President Saleh authorized me to travel to the U.S. to follow up case procedures, which was transferred to the tribunal, Al-Anisi added. The U.S. accepted granting a visa to enter the country to appear for Al-Moayyad and his companion in the tribunal.
Did the visa say anything about him not being allowed to talk to anyone in the US besides the defendants? No dawa on the side for you, preacher man.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
and they have access to all sorts of things they wouldn't have access to in Yemeni jugs.
Access to all sorts of thing not available to those in Yemen outside the hoosegow as well.
Muslim clerics in Orissa say a young couple who decided to reunite after their controversial divorce would be expelled from the community.
The Supreme Court allowed them to live together after Sheikh Sher Mohammad declared 'talaaq' to his wife Najma Bibi in a drunken condition but retracted later.
Clerics of the Jamiat-ul-Ulama said the couple should ignore the court's decision or face a social ban.
The court also suggested that the government in Orissa provide security for the couple.
"The government is free to offer them security and protection but we will not allow them to stay together, if forced, we will expel them from the Muslim society," said Maulana SS Sajideen Quasmi, President Jamiat Ulama in Orissa.
"This is a religious issue and their [court] verdict is against Islam".
But Bibi has said she is determined to fight efforts by the clerics to separate the couple.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States on Monday ordered all nonemergency embassy workers and their families to leave Nepal and urged American citizens to postpone travel to the Himalayan kingdom wracked by weeks of pro-democracy protests.
The State Department made the announcement shortly before embattled King Gyanendra, hoping to avoid a bloody showdown between his security forces and demonstrators, reinstated the lower house of Parliament and offered solace for those killed in the demonstrations.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters at a daily briefing that nonemergency workers and their families would begin leaving the country whenever possible. The U.S. ambassador determines which workers are considered "nonemergency." Ereli said the embassy would continue to "handle the business that needs to be taken care of, whether that involves servicing American citizens or working with the local authorities to deal with a crisis that they confront themselves."
He said Americans are not targets of the unrest. But, he said, the large, sometimes violent demonstrations made it "important to advise Americans of the situation and to give them the kind of information that they need to take precautions for their safety." Ereli estimated that there are hundreds of Americans in the Nepal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:27 ||
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Several civil society organisations have taken notice of religious hate speech and textbook content and urged the government to take the issue seriously.
I'm sure they simply weren't aware of the noxious content, otherwise they'd have been taking the issue seriously before now. No doubt they'll hop right on it, now that it's been pointed out to them...
According to a recent report by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a Catholic Church body, the commission monitored four major national Urdu dailies from August to October 2005 and found extremely provocative news reports, statements and editorials against religious minorities including Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis and even Jews (hate in absentia).
Never, without extensive travel, having seen an actual Jew in the flesh, they still feel called upon to hate them...
A common hate speech method is the use of derogatory terms for minorities. Ahmedis are called Qadiani or Mirzai while Christians are called Isai. Until some years ago, these terms were not even considered derogatory. MP Bhandara, a minority National Assembly member, wrote a letter of protest to an editor of a national daily on September 13, 2005, but if had no effect on the newspapers policy.
That's because infidels' opinions are beneath notice...
Religiously motivated hate speech: Speakers in a rally organised by Khatam-e-Nabuwat on November 14, 2005 in Badin made provocative speeches against Ahmedis. Rallies and seminars were organised in various cities to commemorate September 7, 1974, when Ahmadis were declared non-Muslim. Khatam-e-Nabuwat leaders then held a conference on September 29 and 30 in Ahmadi-majority town Rabwa, where the audience were provoked against Ahmadis. On October 1, Amjad Shakoor, a teacher at Jamia Ashrafia mosque, told students that whoever murdered an Ahmadi went to paradise. Following teachers instruction, some children beat up an Ahmadi child the next day. Local residents informed the police but no legal action was taken.
Just a little schoolyard jihad, nothing to get excited about. I'm sure Maw and Paw were just proud as... uhhh... punch.
Hatred in Urdu press: Sar-e-Rahe, a column in an Urdu daily criticised Pope Benedict XVI for encouraging Catholics to have more children and called it a preparation of raw material for crusades. The columnist said the Pope should allow nuns and priests to follow the same direction and made an offensive remark about children born out of wedlock in the West.
The Catholics are no doubt devastated by such withering criticism coming from the land of acid flinging, vani, and karo kiri. The College of Cardinals is no doubt in the throes of dhinga mushti even as we speak blog...
A national Urdu daily wrote in its October 20 editorial that a Christian Pastor Peter Robertson associated with a correspondent school was converting Pakistanis to Christianity and operating from Mianwali since 1995, he had converted 17,000 Muslims all over Pakistan. The paper said he used good looking young boys and girls for the purpose and urged clerics to wake up to the threat.
Good for Pastor Peter. What inducements does Tablighi Jamaat use?
Within 22 days of the printing of this editorial, Churches and Christian property were burnt at Sangla Hill on the pretext of desecration of the holy Quran. Liberal Muslims remained silent and there was no protest or condemnation by Muslims at large. After the incident, Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, secretary of Tanzimat Madaris-e-Deeniya said the Christian clergy had set the churches on fire after the alleged desecration, like they did in Shantinagar (a Christian majority village that was burnt by Muslims because of an alleged desecration of the Holy Quran).
Oh, of course. It couldn't be Moose limbs.
Another newspaper reported that six groups consisting of young and beautiful girls and boys were on a mission to convert Muslims to Christianity by entrapping them in fake love affairs. Muslims were provoked that they should take steps in order to prove Christian priests liars.
By out-lying them?
A national daily published opinions of clerics who said the Pakistani government should not celebrate minorities religious festivals and said the government was giving minorities more importance than the majority. On Christmas eve, Dr Israr Ahmad said in a national daily newspaper that Christians were wrong when they said that Jesus Christ was crucified and quoted the Gospel of Barnabas as proof.
I missed that one in my reading of the Lost Gospels, I think...
According to the NCJP report, Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya had pointed out about 1,379 hate news reports in the national press during 2005.
Without any personal knowledge, I'd guess that's a low count, not including the jihadi press...
Hate content in textbooks: According to the report, the Social Studies curriculum in Pakistan, as the product and propagator of the Ideology of Pakistan, derives its legitimacy from a narrow set of directives. The textbooks authored and altered during the 11 years of General Ziaul Haqs military rule, are still being taught in schools. They are decidedly anti-democratic and inclined to dogmatic tirades, the report said. It said the Pakistani education system had nurtured a cadre of religiously conservative youth as the Pakistan Studies curriculum employed a narrow, politicised definition of Islam in the construction of Pakistani nationalism. Pakistan Studies textbooks in Pakistan have been used to articulate the hatred that Pakistani policy-makers have attempted to inculcate towards the Hindus. Vituperative animosities legitimise military and autocratic rule, nurturing a siege mentality, the report said.
Government-issued textbooks teach students that Hindus are backward and superstitious, and given a chance, they would assert their power over the weak, especially, Muslims, depriving them of education by pouring molten lead in their ears. Pakistan Studies textbooks are an active site to represent India as a hostile neighbour, the report stated. The story of Pakistans past is intentionally written to be distinct from, and often in direct contrast with, interpretations of history found in India. From the government-issued textbooks, students are taught that Hindus are backward and superstitious.
The report added that students were taught that Islam brought peace, equality, and justice to the subcontinent, to check the sinister ways of Hindus. In Pakistani textbooks Hindus rarely appears in a sentence without adjective such as politically astute, sly, or manipulative, the report says. Textbooks reflect intentional obfuscation. Todays students, citizens of Pakistan and its future leaders are the victims of these partial truths, the report quoted a news article.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
How can Pakistani students read textbooks if their ears are full of molten lead?
If education halts with lack of hearing, seems the students aren't reading anything - just listening to what they are told. Those wiley Hindus!
King Gyanendra announced on Monday that he would reinstate Nepal's dissolved parliament, prompting political parties to say that they might call off the mass protests that have paralysed the country.
The parties had vowed to stage a major rally led by two former prime ministers on Tuesday, which had been expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people. "The government, through this proclamation, reinstates the House of Representatives which was dissolved on May 22, 2002," the king said on national television, adding the first session would be held on Friday. "We call upon the seven-party alliance to bear the responsibility of taking the nation on the path to national unity and prosperity, while ensuring permanent peace and safeguarding multi-party democracy."
I'm afraid ye kynge is still toast, along with Nepal...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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April 25, 2006: For the last three years, troops in Iraq have been using the Warlock electronic jammer to prevent the enemy from setting off IEDs. The Warlock has gone through many revisions, to add more frequencies and better software. Rolling along in a convoy, with one or more Warlocks broadcasting, the troops had an electronic "bubble" that made them safe from an IED they had not spotted. Several times, the vehicles have had an IED go off behind them, the result of the IED detonation crew continuing to send the signal, believing that there might be something wrong with their equipment. In those cases, the patrol often turned around and went looking for the enemy team.
In addition to Warlock, several of the U.S. Air Force and Navy electronic warfare aircraft were able to perform the same function as the Warlock, but over a wider area. This was often used when American troops were in action against the enemy, shutting down IED detonation over the entire combat area, as U.S. troops moved around seeking out and fighting the enemy.
One problem with the jamming was that it killed cell phone operation, as well as use of many other remote electronic devices Iraqi civilians in the area might be trying to use. The Iraqis complain to each other, but asking the U.S. troops to shut it off would be futile, so they don't.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2006 09:58 ||
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#1
For the last three years,
.....we've missed an opportunity to send tons 155mm HE or MK-82's raining down on the fuc*ing signals.
In those cases, the patrol often turned around and went looking for the enemy team.
A needless expenditure of valuable infantry. What a pisser.
#2
.....we've missed an opportunity to send tons 155mm HE or MK-82's raining down on the fuc*ing signals.
A cheerful idea! However, to locate a signal you need at least two separate directional fixes and often a little time. Most likely, the signal here is only on for a short time.
In addition, I suspect in most cases the trigger man is quite nearby so he can observe the action and push the button at the proper time. This means you are calling down arty strikes on a neighborhood or near your own (moving) position.
#5
we've missed an opportunity to send tons 155mm HE or MK-82's raining down on the fuc*ing signals.
Aren't they often triggered by cell phones or other potentially innocent devices? Probably not a good idea to blow up every remote garage door user in the neighborhood.
#6
Several times, the vehicles have had an IED go off behind them,
Signal,if picked up by Warlock or other system, plus accompanying delayed IED detonation... should be sufficient justification. These things are "command detonated." After a few hammering counter-strikes.... the indiginous population will have long since E&E'd from any potential IED ambush site. It's all about ROE and I don't buy the current ROE.
#7
Whenever there's shooting (or even a patrol) in an area of Iraq, the whole cellular system should be switched off. Peaceful areas will have continuous cell service, terrorist areas don't. What's not to like about this?
#9
One problem with turning the cell phones off is that these are used by friendly locals to call in tips to the coalition forces. Lots of thos goes on.
US and Iraqi inspectors say they have found new evidence of abuse in detention centres run by Iraq's interior ministry. In November, US soldiers said they found 173 incarcerated men in a secret interior ministry bunker, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture.
Bayan Baqir Solagh Jabir, the Iraqi interior minister, played down the findings at the time, saying a handful of people had merely been beaten. Since then, at least six joint US-Iraqi inspections have found abused detainees in several other detention centres, the Washington Post reported on Monday. A US official involved in the inspections said the Iraqi detainees had "numerous bruises on the arms, legs and feet".
"A lot of the Iraqis had separated shoulders and problems with their hands and fingers too. You could also see strap marks on some of their backs," he said. The abused captives found during the November 13 raid were transferred to a separate detention centre to protect them from further harm, but most detainees at centres subsequently inspected were not.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Hamas' popularity soared to heights unseen since its founding, according to a poll conducted by the non-partisan Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR). Hamas approval ratings are higher than they were at its founding in 1987, and higher than the percentage it received at the recent elections. Meanwhile, Fatah's approval ratings have been sliding to lower levels.
Fatah was a cult of personality. No personality, no cult.
The poll showed that the pressure being placed by the West and Israel on Hamas is only adding to the Palestinian public opinion's approval of the movement. It is also believed that Fatah is conspiring to undermine the Hamas government. Palestinians are more willing to accept moderate solutions than any time before, even as they oppose the notion that Hamas' recognize Israel. According to PSR's poll, most Palestinians want Hamas to negotiate with Israel and implement the roadmap. Two-thirds of the surveyed population accepts a two-state solution with a mutual recognition of the states.
#2
Most Palestinians want the roadmap to continue + accept the two-state solution and mutual recognition, ergo the rockets barrages, suicide bombings, and latent threats by HAMAS to attack or destroy Israel goes on.
#5
Or, Glenmore, as long as the state of Israel is created in Europe. This is what the carefully-crafted, coming language will really mean. They will not "cede" one acre of land between the river and the sea to Jews whose families lived there for thousands of years.
"Sure, we accept that the state of Israel has a right to exist. But since the holocaust happened in Europe [more "we didn't do nothing to Jews before" from Muslims], the state should built from European lands."
This will be the Ahmedinejad offer. This also means that we can anticipate every place holy to Christianity and Judaism claimed by Muslims as their holy places.
#11
Near unanimous support for their terrorist government makes the bloody lot of them terrorists. May they all suffer the same fate due any terrorist.
#12
Zenster, you've got to remember that for the thinkers among the Lions Of Islam(tm), the western people can and must be "punished" for their leaders actions, for they elect them and are thus complicit. Seems like a perfect time to apply their own standards to themselves... but that wouldn't be right, would it? After all, they're the Master Religion(tm) and rules don't apply to them.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/25/2006 14:09 Comments ||
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#14
Like many "polls" (especially this one, run by the Paleos), I find it's timing very interesting. What, with Abbas and crew begging travelling for funds at the same time people are supposedly pleased with Hamas?
Posted by: BA ||
04/25/2006 14:16 Comments ||
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#15
"..Shows Explosive Growth"
Interesting choice of words here.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/25/2006 14:36 Comments ||
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ANKARA - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas warned here Monday against a social and economic catastrophe in the Palestinian territories if economic assistance does not resume soon. The loss of financial aid is the main problem, because it threatens to provoke a social end economic crisis in our country, he told reporters before meeting National Assembly speaker Bulent Arinc.
Abbas told CNN-Turk television earlier that there is a threat of possible famine in the territories. Abbas hopes to convince Ankara to use its good relations with Israel, the United States and the European Union to find a compromise that will allow the resumption of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.
'cause the Turks have such influence over us right now.
Both the EU -- the Palestinians main donor with some 500 million euros (about 620 million dollars) a year -- and the United States suspended their assistance after the arrival to power in March of a government led by the radical group Hamas. The West wants Hamas to renounce its armed struggle, accept the principle of a negotiated settlement with Israel and recognize past Israeli-Palestinian agreements; the radical group has so far rejected all three demands.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Eat your Kalashnikovs and RPG's, then give us a call.
#6
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas warned here Monday against a social and economic catastrophe in the Palestinian territories if economic assistance does not resume soon. The loss of financial aid is the main problem, because it threatens to provoke a social end economic crisis in our country,
#7
I try not to be one of the "kill them all" crowd, but when I read about a possible mass death of the Paleos, I'm cool with it. I know that the babies have done nothing wrong, but I don't care about them any more than I would have the babies of Hamburg or Tokyo in WWII.
GAZA: Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya on Monday called for calm and vowed that his Hamas government would restore order following clashes between his faction and Fatah activists. "I call on the Palestinian people for calm and to respect the law," Haniya told a news conference at the health ministry in Gaza City, where clashes between Hamas and Fatah gunmen on Sunday left four people wounded. "The government intends to restore order, the law and end all acts that give the Palestinians a bad image and which target public sector employees," the Hamas premier added. Long-running political tensions between Hamas and the former ruling Fatah faction descended into violence in the Palestinian territories at the weekend.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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The Palestinian president has arrived in Turkey and the foreign minister in Kuwait on fund-raising tours. Mahmoud Abbas was on Sunday on the first leg of a European tour, which will include Norway, Finland and France, to discuss stalled talks for Middle East peace and aid to his cash-strapped people.
Of course he travels first class.
Abbas will meet Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, and Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, on Tuesday.
Abbas is hoping his tour will convince donor countries to resume sending aid to the Palestinian people to overcome a long-standing financial crisis. On arrival, Abbas said: "We will tell our Turkish brothers what is happening in the Palestinian territories.
Brothers? I think he means, former rulers.
"We will talk about political problems and the difficult economic conditions there. We will talk about what Turkey can do."
The crisis has been aggravated since the European Union and the US suspended direct aid after the new Palestinian government, led by Hamas, was sworn in last month.
During his two-day stay, Abbas will discuss Ankara's contribution to peace in the Middle East. Turkey has close relations with both Israel and the Palestinians and has often offered to mediate in their conflict.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Turn around, go back to Paleostine and think again, Abbas. Pal problems are of their own making and the solution lies with them as well. Clearly stated. Work on that and shut up.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/25/2006 9:13 Comments ||
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#4
Why does this make me think of kids going around the neighborhood selling stuff for their school club? (Of course, the people ponying up the cash aren't getting anything, unlike the kids' customers, but still...)
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/25/2006 10:22 Comments ||
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#6
Wait I feel a tear welling up in my eye....uh no it was just an eye booger. Mahmoud there is an old Arab saying that "if you lay down with dogs you are bound to get fleas." Enjoy the fleas it is about all you are going to get.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent a sharp reminder to Hamas on Monday that he had the power to dissolve the new government, but said he did not want to do so and would give the group more time to embrace peacemaking. Reacting to Abbas' remarks, Hamas threatened to scrap a truce with Israel if the moderate leader removes its month-old government.
Long-running political tensions between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement descended into violence in the Occupied Territories over the weekend in shootouts that left more than 30 people wounded.
In an interview broadcast Monday on CNN-Turk, Abbas said Hamas must recognize Israel and talk peace to avert an economic catastrophe because of Western sanctions.
"Hamas is still acting as if it were in opposition, not in government. It has to face realities, it has to be in contact with Israel to meet the daily needs of the Palestinian people," said Abbas, who is visiting Turkey at the start of a European fundraising tour.
"The Constitution gives me clear and definite authority to remove a government from power, but I don't want to use this authority. Everyone should know that by law this power is in my hands," Abbas said. "Hamas has to change some of its political attitudes. Let's wait a while and see if it will change," Abbas told Turkish CNN.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Abbas is still stuck in that "pretend to be a real gov't" mentality. Hamas has no such pretensions.
IRAN is ready to share its nuclear technology with other countries, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said after talks with the visiting Sudanese president, state television reported.
Iran is embroiled in a nuclear standoff with the West, which fears Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons which could be transferred to terrorist groups or spark an arms race in the Middle East.
Iran insists it only wants nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, such as producing electricity.
"The nuclear strength of the Iranian scientists is an example of several scientific currents in Iran that are going ahead, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to transfer the experience, science and technology of its scientists," state television quoted Mr Khamenei as saying.
He was speaking after talks with visiting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Iranian lawmaker Kamal Daneshyar, head of Parliament's energy committee, was also quoted in the daily Aftab-e Yazd as saying Iran was prepared to train other Islamic states in skills, such as enriching uranium.
"Iranian nuclear scientists can easily train other Islamic countries in uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel production," he was quoted as saying.
The United Nations has demanded that the Tehran halt uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for power stations or, if uranium is enriched to far higher level, material for bombs.
Iran says it will continue its enrichment work and will pursue industrial-scale production.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is due to report to the UN Security Council by Friday on whether Iran is complying with UN demands.
#3
This is great so much for the last UN defense of Iran that they would be responsible non-proliferating nuclear nation.
Also is it just me or does anyone else find it rather coincidental that right after Bin Ladens call for Jihadis to support Sudan that Iran as the terrorist supporter number one role offered that support? I know Sunni radicals and Shia radicals would never ever help each other all that my enemies enemy is my friend logic is just primitive neo-con babble right right?
Iran believes their hype about US just way too much. They maybe should go ask some of the former dictators that made the same mistakes believing their own hype about the US, Japan WW2, Saddam, Bin Laden, Hitler, ect
#5
Uh, why is everyone making me the next target. D@mn you, binny and Khamenei. Now, that cowboy Bush is gonna have to bomb Khartoum after Tehran. I mean, good grief, I'll implement Sharia for gawd's sake.
A senior Tehran official accused the United States of using the territory of Irans neighbor, Azerbaijan, against the Islamic republic, the Regnum news agency reported. Reconnaissance units are operating in Azerbaijan, and their activity is directed against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Secretary of Iranian Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani told the Egyptian Al Ahram newspaper.
Larijani claimed that U.S. special services were using the territories of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan against Iran. According to him, if a military operation is launched, Iran may respond with an attack on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and oil facilities in Azerbaijan.
Chief spokesman for Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry, Tair Tagizade, played down the threat. Azerbaijan and Iran maintain peaceful neighborly relations: Such statements are aimed at breaching bilateral relations between the countries and aggravate tensions.
Larijanis statement came shortly after Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Muhammad Najjar visited Azerbaijan. Najjar told reporters: My visit to Azerbaijan is aimed at expanding cooperation on the basis of treaties already signed. Tehran can assist Azerbaijan in developing its defense industry. We can exchange experience in this field. I am going to raise this issue in my talks with the Azerbaijani Minister of Defense.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is scheduled to make a three-day visit to the United States beginning Wednesday. Aliyevs visit is a major coup for Azerbaijani diplomacy, as it emphasizes the nations geostrategic importance in Washington, since it shares a common border with Iran, UPI reported. Aliyevs talks will undoubtedly include high-level discussions on Iran, especially since the last day of Aliyevs visit coincides with the International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammad ElBaradei presenting his report on Irans nuclear activities to the United Nations Security Council.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2006 09:31 ||
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#3
If Iran is going to destabilize any of its neighbors, Azerbaijan is the obvious candidate. Iran will likely infitrate teams of terrorists/revolutionary guards charged with blowing up the pipeline. A scenario explored in my novel Autonomous Operation
Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it will refuse to answer questions about a second, secret uranium-enrichment program, according to European and American diplomats. The existence of the program was disclosed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this month.
The diplomats said Iran had also refused to answer questions about other elements of its nuclear program that international inspectors had focused on because they could indicate a program to produce nuclear weapons. The diplomats insisted on not being identified because of the delicacy of continuing negotiations between Iran and the West.
Separately, Mr. Ahmadinejad said he saw no need for Iran to hold talks with the United States about Iraq now that a new government had been formed, declaring at a rare news conference that with the formation of a government "the occupiers should leave and allow Iraqi people to run their country."
Together, the actions seem to show Iran's determination to move ahead with a confrontation with the West when the United Nations Security Council meets, probably next week, to debate its next steps.
Iran's decision not to answer the I.A.E.A.'s questions was conveyed last week to Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the nuclear monitoring agency. He is required to send a report on Iran to the Council by Friday.
As a result, the diplomats said, Dr. ElBaradei decided to cancel a trip to Iran by top officials of the agency that had been scheduled for late last week, a trip intended to resolve as many of the questions as possible before the report is submitted.
Diplomats involved in the tense dialogue with Iran said that, barring a last-minute change, Dr. ElBaradei's report would declare, in what one European official called "a series of understatements," that Iran had done nothing to resolve the questions that the Council late last month gave it 30 days to answer.
R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said Monday evening, "We are very confident that the report is going to be negative concerning Iran's refusal to meet the conditions set down by the United Nations Security Council and the I.A.E.A." He added that Iran was in "outright violation" of the Council request.
Some of the most important questions concerned an advanced technology, the P-2 centrifuge, for enriching uranium. International inspectors believe that Iran obtained designs for the P-2 from the Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan in the 1990's.
Iran long denied that it was doing anything with the technology, until Mr. Ahmadinejad declared 10 days ago that the country was "presently conducting research" on the P-2, which he said could increase fourfold the amount of uranium the country is able to enrich.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement took the inspectors and American officials by surprise. But they seized on his boasts about Iran's programs to press the question of whether the country has a separate set of nuclear facilities, apart from the giant enrichment center at Natanz, that it has not previously revealed. Dr. ElBaradei was told when he visited Tehran, the Iranian capital, two weeks ago that the country would try to answer questions about the P-2 program, its dealings with Mr. Khan in the 1980's and 90's and a series of other issues.
Dr. ElBaradei's inspectors were pressing other issues as well, many related to suspicions that Iran has been researching or developing ways to produce warheads or delivery systems for weapons which Iran has denied. So far, Iran has answered few questions about a document in Tehran, apparently obtained from the Khan network, that shows how to form uranium metal into two spheres. Metal in that form can be used to create a basic nuclear device.
I.A.E.A. reports show there are also questions about plutonium enrichment, and a secret entity known as the Green Salt Project, which seemed to suggest that there were what the agency has called "administrative interconnections" between Iran's uranium processing, high explosives and missile design programs.
If Iran continues to refuse to answer the questions, it could bolster the American argument that the Security Council should take action under Article 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could pave the way for sanctions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in Shannon, Ireland, said Monday that the credibility of the Council would be in doubt if it does not take clear-cut actions against Iran.
But China and Russia have both expressed deep reservations about any measures meant to coerce Iran, and Mr. Ahmadinejad vaguely suggested Monday, as he has before, that he would consider pulling his country out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if membership was no longer in Iran's interests. North Korea did that in 1993, expelling all inspectors, and they have not been allowed to return.
"Our current policy is to work within the framework of the NPT and I.A.E.A., but if we feel that there is no benefit in it for us, we will review our policy," he said. "We must see what the benefits of cooperating with the I.A.E.A. are after 30 years."
Mr. Ahmadinejad rejected the United Nations deadline of Friday for Iran to suspend its nuclear program. He brushed off threats of economic sanctions, saying that sanctions would hurt Western nations more than Iran.
He also rejected a proposal by Moscow to enrich uranium on Russian soil. The proposal was aimed at easing international concern over Iran's nuclear program. While some Iranian officials rejected the proposal in the past, others suggested that Iran might accept it under certain conditions.
There were signs of dissent within his government, however. The former chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, urged the government in a speech on Thursday to return to talks with Europe over the nuclear program, the daily newspaper Shargh reported.
Syrian Assistant Minister of Irrigation Sulaiman Rammah said Monday that Israel steals 400 million cubic meters of water annually from Golan Heights and deprives locals from drinking water. Rammah told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that Israel steals water to attract new Jewish settlers and increase farms, asserting the importance of an international law that regulates water division between the source and countries using this source. He added that Israel controls four rivers and steals most of their waters, considered as the main source of the Jordan River waters, noting that Israel has been stealing Golan waters since 1967.
I hear the Zionists even boil the water down and skim off all the tiny Syrian flags, then rehydrate the water and use it to bake their matzo...
On Tigris and Euphrates waters, the official said that relationships between Syria and Turkey and Iraq are good and there are meetings between Syrian Minister of Irrigation Nadir Al-Buni and his Iraqi and Turkish counterparts to discuss division of water of the two rivers. On water issues between Syria and Jordan, Rammah said the two countries are establishing a water dam on Yarmouk River, noting that the two countries have been holding periodical meetings to complete the project. The two countries signed the water dam agreement in 1987 but it was not executed before February 2004 due to some obstacles that hindered the project, such as the Israeli threats to bomb the project,
I could see where that might cause a problem
and financial issues with the World Bank. The agreement states that Jordan benefits from most of the waters for drinking and irrigation, while the Syrian side benefits from electric power generated by the power plants in the dam. The Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the Abu Dhabi Fund will finance 18 percent of the water dam project as loans, while the Jordanian government covers the remaining costs.
Water is even more critical than oil, and there are absolutely no alternatives. Water, or certain death.
#1
One of the few criticisms of Israel that actually has some merit. The Golan Heights were originally captured in some of the toughest fighting of the '67 war. They are vital to Israel's military security because they command the approach from Syria. They are also the only significant source of natural fresh water for most of Israel. This was true even before the '67 war, but when Syria held them the risk was always that Syria would 'steal' all the water from them (by now they probably would have.) International law would not even try to protect Israeli rights so Israel ignores such law when it goes the other way.
London, Apr. 24 Turkey has rejected a visit by Irans top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani to Ankara. Irans official news agency said in a dispatch that the Turkish Foreign Ministry had described the timing of such a visit as inappropriate.
Independent Turkish dailies reported that by refusing to accept Larijani, Ankara was reacting to Tehrans decision to commence uranium enrichment despite repeated requests by the International Atomic Energy Agency to refrain from doing so.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Tehran, Iran, Apr. 24 Irans radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that Jews living in Israel should go back to Europe. Let them return to their own lands, Ahmadinejad told foreign and domestic reporters at a press conference in Tehran.
Israel being one of those lands, as I recall.
The hard-line president shocked the international community previously when he called for Israel to be wiped off the map and described the Holocaust as a myth. They say that no one must speak about or research that event. Why shouldnt they? If it is real, you must allow scientists to research it so that the reality becomes clearer every day. Why do you not allow it? he said during Mondays conference.
Bring him over to the museum.
You have created a problem in Palestine and must solve it yourselves, he added.
We did, we created a Partition Line. As I recall, one side wasn't willing to live with it.
Ahmadinejad also said that Germany should no longer have to pay war reparations from World War II since more than 60 years had passed since the end of the war. The money was going to a bunch of Zionists to suppress the Palestinian people, he added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I wonder why the effort to "nazify" the MM's, from an international PR point of view, isn't further along.
Iran's leaders are sounding more and more like "Best of Berlin- 1937" day by day. Time to label them as such.
#2
I wonder why the effort to "nazify" the MM's, from an international PR point of view, isn't further along.
I wonder about this a lot too. When this world finaly equates the mullahs with Hitler, the fight against terror will assume proper perspective. One is obliged to think that, just maybe, anti-semitism is still a bit more prevalent than it should be. The coddling of Islamists by so many other countries certainly points to this.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea described President Emile Lahoud over the weekend as a "mine planted by the Syrian tutelage." "Lahoud is not the biggest and most threatening mine, but he is the passage to defuse other mines," Geagea said during a speech Saturday to mark the 12th anniversary of his arrest. "Those who are trying to keep the president in power must bear responsibility before God and history," he warned, "for the continuation of the political crisis that has gripped the country since Syrian troops withdrew last April."
The LF leader, speaking to hundreds of supporters at the BIEL exhibition center in Downtown Beirut over the weekend, added that "a weak president who does not represent the Lebanese people should not be allowed to remain in power."
"Although the Lebanese Forces and their allies in the March 14 coalition have achieved independence and sovereignty, a lot more work remains to be done," he said, warning that "the road ahead is long." Geagea assured the gathering, however, that there would be "no return to the bygone era of Syrian domination over its small neighbor."
"There is no fear for the future," he declared. "We will continue despite the obstacles in our way."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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A 42-year-old French man of Lebanese origin has filed suit in the French courts claiming he was kidnapped and tortured for 11 days last year by the Syrian authorities. Charles Farhat, a shopkeeper of Lebanese origin from the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers, told AFP that he was arrested at the border between Lebanon and Syria in September and taken to a prison in Damascus. "They told me: Forget about France. We're taking you to Centre 235. It's serious," he said.
Farhat said he was forced to share a cell of a few meters square with around 40 other prisoners, and that he suffered beatings and interrogations. "They kept asking me about my previous visits to Syria - even though it was my first time there. They also wanted to know how I got my French passport," he said.
Farhat was freed without explanation after 11 days. He has filed suit "against persons unknown" in the French courts for "breach of individual freedom, kidnap and imprisonment, torture and acts of barbarity."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"They told me: Forget about France."
Not a bad tip, but I'd "forget about" Syrian holidays as well.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah denied Monday that Hizbullah had ever put forth a name for Lebanon's presidency, dismissing speculation that his party had "rejected" Michel Aoun as a candidate. "I urge the March 14 Forces to properly put forth Aoun's name on the national dialogue table as a candidate, and only then they will get a proper answer from me," Nasrallah declared during a ceremony commemorating the 28th anniversary of Samir Kantar's abduction by Israel.
"If I said 'yes' to Aoun outside the dialogue, he would become part of a media circus and be burned on the international scene as a candidate sponsored by 'a terrorist group,' and if I said 'no' to Aoun, they would use it as a fire to ignite problems between the Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah-Amal's paper of understanding," he argued. Nasrallah said Hizbullah would not be putting forth names as candidates, "and will listen and either disagree or agree with the names put forth."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora said in remarks published Monday that the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Shebaa Farms could lead to Hizbullah's disarmament. "If the U.S. and friendly countries help us achieve the withdrawal of Israel from Shebaa Farms, it would be possible for the Lebanese forces to be the sole owner of weapons and arms in the country," Siniora said in an interview with The Washington Post.
The small, mountainous Shebaa Farms territory lies at the intersection where Lebanon, Syria and Israel meet.
Siniora said that although Hizbullah has a connection to Syria and Iran, it is a Lebanese party with national objectives, namely that Israel release Lebanese detainees, provide Lebanon with maps of the land mines it planted in the South and put an end to violations of Lebanese airspace and waters.
Siniora said he had discussed his proposal concerning the Shebaa Farms with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington last week. "Let me put it this way, concerning my request for Shebaa Farms, the president and his aides showed great support, but they did not really commit themselves," he said. The premier said Lebanon will normalize relations with Israel "upon the finalization of the peace process."
Siniora's comments were made from the U.S. on Friday during a four-day trip to the American capital in which he met with Bush and other top officials and diplomats.
A brief, useful history of Syrian and Lebanese skullduggery over the Shebaa farms can be found here.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Ah, the old Arab vs. USA game. "If you want us to cooperate, force Israel to comit another act of self-mutilation.
The United Nations has detailed the shipment of rockets from Syria to the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in Lebanon. UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen has completed a report for secretary-general Kofi Annan that detailed Iranian and Syrian military support for Hizbullah. The semi-annual report, relayed to a panel of 15 member-states in late April, said rockets and other weapons have reached Hizbullah despite the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon a year ago. "There has not yet been any noticeable change in the operational status and capabilities of Hizbullah," the report said.
The UN has urged Hizbullah to surrender its weapons or integrate in the Lebanese Army. So far, Hizbullah has rejected both options.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2006 00:00 ||
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President Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil for the government's emergency reserve.
The moves came as political pressure intensified on Bush to do something about gasoline prices that are expected to stay high throughout the summer.
Bush said the nation's strategic petroleum reserve had enough fuel to guard against any major supply disruption over the next few months.
``So, by deferring deposits until the fall, we'll leave a little more oil on the market. Every little bit helps,'' he said.
Wholesale gasoline futures prices for June delivery dropped 8 cents a gallon to $2.10 on the New York Mercantile Exchange immediately upon Bush's remarks.
Easing the environment rules will allow refiners greater flexibility in providing oil supplies since they will not have to use certain additives such as ethanol to meet clean air standards. The suspension of oil purchases for the federal emergency oil reserve is likely to have only modest impact since relative little extra oil will be involved.
The high cost at the pump has turned into a major political issue, with Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for a problem that is largely out of Congress' control. Republicans are worried that voters paying more than $3 per gallon would punish the party in power. Democrats want to make that happen.
#1
Both parties should be punished. They have done nothing but make the problem worse since 1973. Bunch of rat bastards. We have no leadership.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/25/2006 17:07 Comments ||
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#2
In my area we have to use one of the Botique Blends and it causes fuel consumption to go up. Last week end I went out of town for a funeral and when I filled up on the real stuff my milage went up close to 20%. And I don't drive like an idiot either.
#3
I agree completely. Nobody has wants to take the lead on this for any longer than it takes to get some headlines.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/25/2006 17:14 Comments ||
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#4
Here's a thought - how 'bout EXPLORING FOR SOME MORE FRICKIN OIL!!!! How come the GOP doesn't have a bill in Congress today to explore in ANWR, off both coasts and in the Gulf off Florida? Alaskans want exploration. It's not a coincidence that they get a cut of the oil revenue. Offer the same deal to the coastal states. Watch even the blue state politicos salivate at the thought of all that 'free' cash. Bush and the GOP are missing an opportunity. And we're not making good use of our natural resources. But I guess it's better to just send cash to our good 'friends' the Saudis.
#5
Wanna see gas prices drop by almost -- if not over -- a dollar? End the botique fuels and suspend (or end!) state and federal taxes.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/25/2006 18:51 Comments ||
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#6
I don't care about Alaska too much, but Florida ia another question entirely. Much of our economy is based on $7/hr service staffing the tourists. All hell would break loose if oil production jobs destroyed tourism.
#8
There should be one national formulation for fuel. It is ridiculous that reqional or even municipal formulations exist. Obviously there is little or no ability to generate volume savings with the boutique approach.
There is no way that the states are going to give up on the per-gallon tax. I do like the idea of the states getting additional revenue from new drilling in their state. I'm surprised that the greedy bastards haven't figured that out yet.
President Bush on Tuesday ordered a tempory halt to deposits to the nation's strategic petroleum reserve to make more oil available for consumer needs and relieve pressure on pump prices. Bush also announced steps to ease environmental standards governing fuel grades. Bush said the nation's strategic petroleum reserve had enough fuel to guard against any major supply disruption over the next few months. "So, by deferring deposits until the fall, we'll leave a little more oil on the market. Every little bit helps," he said
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/25/2006 11:16 ||
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An Islamic rights group on Monday urged Michigan State University to discipline an engineering professor for disparaging Muslims in an e-mail he sent to the school's Muslim Students' Association.
Indrek Wichman, a mechanical engineering professor, sent an e-mail to the student group Feb. 28 apparently in response to its protests of controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The students had labeled the cartoons as hate speech, not free speech.
Wichman, 50, wrote that he was protesting their protest and said he was not offended by cartoons but rather Muslims who commit suicide bombings, behead civilians, attack public buildings, burn Christian churches, kill Catholic priests in Turkey, rape Scandinavian girls and riot in France.
Wichman referred to Muslims as "dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems" and the protests as "infantile" in the e-mail. "If you do not like the values of the West . . . you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option."
Wichman declined to comment when contacted Monday by The Associated Press.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Michigan State officials should publicly denounce Wichman's statements and conduct an investigation. The results of the probe should be made public, and Wichman should at least have a letter of reprimand placed in his file, Walid said.
The group also wants Wichman and other faculty to receive sensitivity training before the fall semester.
University spokesman Terry Denbow said the school would not publicly condemn Wichman's statements because they were private and did not represent the school in any way. But he added that Wichman has been advised to be careful in the future.
#1
The group also wants Wichman and other faculty to receive sensitivity training before the fall semester.
Hmmm. That's a western, post-modern solution, not an Islamic solution. Off with their heads!
#7
Agreed, SR-71. And, it raises an interesting question. Who would the ACLU favor in this case? Free speech for Professors (who are typically moonbattish and have tenure), or the "poor, downtrodden minorities" (Muslim students)? It could be fun to watch for these type fights in the future and see where the ACLU lines up. Of course, in this case, I think we all know where the ACLU would've gone (against "Hate speech").
Posted by: BA ||
04/25/2006 14:25 Comments ||
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#8
If you do not like the values of the West . . . you are free to leave.
Three cheers for the engineering prof!
This is something I have never quite understood: say your an immigrant and you've left your homeland because it, not to put too fine a point on it, is a shit hole. (no offense to your impoverished, disease-ridden, oppressed homeland or the rat-bag dictator that runs it). Now you want to make your new home just like your old home. So what was the point of leaving?
NEW YORK (AP) - The Defense Department is violating the privacy of millions of high school students nationwide with a detailed database it uses for military recruitment, a federal lawsuit filed Monday alleges claims.
The New York Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of six high schoolers, saying the department is ignoring privacy rules set by Congress regarding the collection and distribution of students' personal information.
Military officials have said they have about 30 million names in the database. The Pentagon said last year the list includes high school students ages 16-18 and college students, and includes such information as the students' Social Security numbers, gender and race.
Hope Reichbach, a 17-year-old senior at Hunter College High School in Manhattan and a plaintiff, said she contacted the NYCLU after she had tried unsuccessfully to get her name removed from lists and databases that she said subjected her to repeated phone calls from military recruiters."I want them to leave me and other students alone," Reichbach said.
You don't speak for the other students.
The department allegedly is flouting a 1982 military recruitment law that specifies that it refrain from collecting information on students under 17, that it store the information for no more than three years and that the information be kept private, the lawsuit said. The current database includes information on 16-year-olds, is storing the information for five years and is being shared with law enforcement and other agencies, the lawsuit said.
Megan Gaffney, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday.
"Criminy, the ACLU again? Go away."
The plaintiffs are six 16- and 17-year-old students who don't know if they are included in the database, but who object to it, lawyers said. "Our clients don't wish to join the military," said Corey Stoughton, NYCLU attorney.
Okay, so don't. It's a volunteer service.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 00:22 ||
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#1
...Okay, reality check: The 'database' is no more and no less than the student rosters for each school. The overwhelming majority of schools in each state kick 'em out every summer for the recruiters. A lot of school systems wouldn't give them to us except for one dirty little secret:
They sell the lists to advertisers. Guessing you won't see that mentioned much though.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/25/2006 6:39 Comments ||
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#2
Schools do more than sell lists to advertisers. My wife was Puerto Rican so my daughters are considered Hispanic by the school systems here. In her Senior year my youngest started getting solicitations in the mail from Hispanic magazines and Hispanic organizations wanting her to join. The only way they could have got her information was from the school system. I confronted them and they did admit they sell lists to a lot of organizations. I blew up. They sell the names, addresses, and racial make-up of their students. In my view a very sordid practice. She never got phone calls from military recruiters but did get mail, which I don't mind. I would not like a phone call. I don't know any recruiters who make phone calls unless the potential enlistee has previously contacted a recruiter. I don't think that is a common practice. Does somebody know for certain?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/25/2006 7:49 Comments ||
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#3
A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. --John F. Kennedy--
#4
Deacon,
USAF recruiting procedure is that you cold call EVERY name on every list, and woe unto the poor SOB who doesn't. I worked what was at the time the largest single recruiting zone in the largest flight in the largest recruiting squadron in the USAF, and I was expected to make roughly 200-300 calls per day. Things have probably changed considerably with the advent of the net and some major changes in the way the USAF advertises (at the time, they REFUSED to buy TV or radio time - policy was that the stations should do their patriotic duty and PSA it. This resulted in recruiting commercials at 0330 local.)and there may be less emphasis on calls, but it will still be one of the pillars.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/25/2006 8:01 Comments ||
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#5
Thanks, Mike.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/25/2006 8:17 Comments ||
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#6
NYCLU = New York Commie Lawyers for the Ummah
Posted by: DanNY ||
04/25/2006 8:41 Comments ||
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#7
was expected to make roughly 200-300 calls per day
Jeebus, how long does that tour last?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2006 10:01 Comments ||
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#9
When I was a junior, the mail spam started rolling in. The only way they could have gotten my info was from the school. Just throw the crap away, don't sue. Morons. This is nothing more than an anti-military bash by loons.
My tour ran from Sept.9, 1989 to Sept 17, 1993, and every bit of it was a nightmare. Seventy hour weeks were the rule, and the leadership was a disgrace to the USAF. Recruiting duty is so miserable that a few years ago when some NCOs with 10-12 years in were ordered to recruiting posts (it is normally a voluntary slot in the AF), they left the service rather than do the time.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/25/2006 12:49 Comments ||
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#11
Wow, I figured it was a 2 year deal. That's crazy.
#12
trailing daughter #1 did pretty well on her PSATs last autumn. University seduction letters (including several of the military programs) and invitations to various expensive youth leadership conferences started arriving in the mail box about two weeks later, long before we or the high school were informed of her scores. Which implies that informing the seducers is a higher priority for the SAT/ACT people than is informing the test takers. *shrug* It's all part of the game.
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.
Hectic debate was again triggered in the lower house of parliament on the fate of three ministers who have got less than 50 per cent votes but approved by the House on Saturday. The three included Communication Minister Amirzai Sangeen, Minister for Refugees' Affairs Ustad Akbar Akbar and Minister for Urban Development Yousuf Pashtun have got 120/244, 118/244 and 121/244 votes respectively. Some MPs objected their approval as minister arguing that they remained short of getting 50 per cent 'yes' votes; however, the imbroglio was resolved on Saturday when majority of legislators again approved them through show of hand.
U.S. Ambassador 
British security chiefs are studying a novel Saudi approach to combating terror - using clerics to debate "jihad" with jailed militants and convert them to more moderate beliefs.
MANAMA (Reuters) - Pakistan took command on Monday of a multi-national naval force patrolling waters around the Arabian Peninsula to stop terrorism and piracy, and search vessels suspected of smuggling arms or material used for making nuclear weapons. Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) is one of several naval units operating within a U.S.-led coalition that are policing one of the globe's tensest regions.
Iranian Shura Council speaker Ghulam Ali Haddad said here Monday that Kuwait and the other Gulf states should not worry about Iran's nuclear program. He said the Boushehr nuclear reactor that overlooks the eastern bank of Gulf is managed according to the best security and safety systems. Speaking to Kuna after a meeting with visiting Head and members of the Kuwait-Iran Parliamentary Friendship Group, Haddad said "we tell the government and people of Kuwait and the other Gulf states, that utmost precision was observed when constructing the Boushehr nuclear reactor, with the aim of securing health and environment safety. There is no reason for concern in this regard." He said this will not be the last nuclear reactor in Iran.
As the first official response to violence and arson attacks on a number of mosques in Riyadh, the minister of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Dawaa and Guidance, 
A NEO-NAZI whose ideas were said to be the inspiration for the man who let off a nail bomb in Central London in 1999 has converted to an extremist form of Islam. David Myatt, a founder of the hardline British National Socialist Movement (NSM) who has been jailed for racist attacks, has changed his name to Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt. David Copeland, who is serving six life sentences after three people died in his Soho bomb attacks, was a member of the NSM. 
A Cologne brothel touting for clients with a World Cup-themed banner has blacked out the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia after threats from Muslims.
French President 
Sheikh 
Several civil society organisations have taken notice of religious hate speech and textbook content and urged the government to take the issue seriously.
King Gyanendra announced on Monday that he would reinstate Nepal's dissolved parliament, prompting political parties to say that they might call off the mass protests that have paralysed the country.
US and Iraqi inspectors say they have found new evidence of abuse in detention centres run by Iraq's interior ministry. In November, US soldiers said they found 173 incarcerated men in a secret interior ministry bunker, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture.
ANKARA - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas warned here Monday against a social and economic catastrophe in the Palestinian territories if economic assistance does not resume soon. The loss of financial aid is the main problem, because it threatens to provoke a social end economic crisis in our country, he told reporters before meeting National Assembly speaker Bulent Arinc.
The Palestinian president has arrived in Turkey and the foreign minister in Kuwait on fund-raising tours. Mahmoud Abbas was on Sunday on the first leg of a European tour, which will include Norway, Finland and France, to discuss stalled talks for Middle East peace and aid to his cash-strapped people.
Syrian Assistant Minister of Irrigation Sulaiman Rammah said Monday that Israel steals 400 million cubic meters of water annually from Golan Heights and deprives locals from drinking water. Rammah told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that Israel steals water to attract new Jewish settlers and increase farms, asserting the importance of an international law that regulates water division between the source and countries using this source. He added that Israel controls four rivers and steals most of their waters, considered as the main source of the Jordan River waters, noting that Israel has been stealing Golan waters since 1967.
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 24 Irans radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that Jews living in Israel should go back to Europe. Let them return to their own lands, Ahmadinejad told foreign and domestic reporters at a press conference in Tehran.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea described President Emile Lahoud over the weekend as a "mine planted by the Syrian tutelage." "Lahoud is not the biggest and most threatening mine, but he is the passage to defuse other mines," Geagea said during a speech Saturday to mark the 12th anniversary of his arrest. "Those who are trying to keep the president in power must bear responsibility before God and history," he warned, "for the continuation of the political crisis that has gripped the country since Syrian troops withdrew last April." 
A 42-year-old French man of Lebanese origin has filed suit in the French courts claiming he was kidnapped and tortured for 11 days last year by the Syrian authorities. Charles Farhat, a shopkeeper of Lebanese origin from the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers, told AFP that he was arrested at the border between Lebanon and Syria in September and taken to a prison in Damascus. "They told me: Forget about France. We're taking you to Centre 235. It's serious," he said.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah denied Monday that Hizbullah had ever put forth a name for Lebanon's presidency, dismissing speculation that his party had "rejected" Michel Aoun as a candidate. "I urge the March 14 Forces to properly put forth Aoun's name on the national dialogue table as a candidate, and only then they will get a proper answer from me," Nasrallah declared during a ceremony commemorating the 28th anniversary of Samir Kantar's abduction by Israel.
President Bush on Tuesday ordered a tempory halt to deposits to the nation's strategic petroleum reserve to make more oil available for consumer needs and relieve pressure on pump prices. Bush also announced steps to ease environmental standards governing fuel grades. Bush said the nation's strategic petroleum reserve had enough fuel to guard against any major supply disruption over the next few months. "So, by deferring deposits until the fall, we'll leave a little more oil on the market. Every little bit helps," he said
NEW YORK (AP) - The Defense Department is violating the privacy of millions of high school students nationwide with a detailed database it uses for military recruitment, a federal lawsuit filed Monday 
