North Korea told a visiting U.S. congressional delegation that it would return to six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program and become a "friend" of the United States, hinting at a possible reversal of a decades-old policy of calling America its "sworn enemy." The overture on Friday — while requiring that Washington does not vilify totalitarian leader Kim Jong Il — was highly unusual. Pyongyang's anti-American propaganda has been whipped into a near-religious fervor, with banners in villages everywhere exhorting North Koreans to prepare for an inevitable war with the "U.S. imperialists."
"The DPRK side expressed its stand that the DPRK would not stand against the U.S. but respect and treat it as a friend unless the latter slanders the former's system and interferes in its internal affairs," said the North's official news agency, KCNA, using the country's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
Oceania was at war with Eurasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2005 4:01 Comments ||
Top||
U.S. troops could start moving from Cold War-era posts in Germany to new bases in Romania and Bulgaria this year as part of American efforts to create a more mobile overseas force, the top U.S. commander in Europe said Friday.
It's like he reads Rantburg.
Marine Gen. James L. Jones said the United States was looking at up to five facilities in each country for use by Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine units. "This is part and parcel of the transformation of our footprint in Europe, which has been in need of surgery for some time," he told reporters at NATO military headquarters in southern Belgium after a trip to Romania and Bulgaria. Plans for the bases are expected to be drawn up soon, and Jones said the move could start quickly if Congress and the two countries go along. "There's no reason why we could not start with deployment this year," said the general, also NATO's top operational commander.
The move east is part of an overhaul announced by President Bush last year that aims to withdraw 70,000 troops and 100,000 family members from bases in Germany and South Korea. Under the plans, the United States would move away from many of its big, permanent bases where troops are stationed long-term with families and large back-up infrastructures. Instead, it would use smaller, more austere facilities where troops would rotate in for shorter deployments. "These are purely military sites without family, without infrastructure changes," Jones said. "We're not talking about rebuilding Ramstein," he said in a reference to the sprawling U.S. base in western Germany.
The Pentagon says a network of smaller bases spread around the world will provide more flexibility in dealing with terrorism, regional crises and other emerging threats. Romania and Bulgaria, which joined NATO in April, are considered particularly suited to new U.S. bases because of their proximity to volatile regions in the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East. They also have Soviet-era facilities that could be adapted for American use, and both countries are keen to host U.S. troops. Jones said the United States has sought to calm Russian concerns about any eastern movement of U.S. forces. "We've kept our Russian friends fully apprised of our intentions," he said. "That has had a reassuring effect."
Heh, I'll bet.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2005 4:31:26 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Grrrr... Fuck the Russians and their sensibilities - they don't reciprocate in any venue on any issue. Do what needs doing and, other than the countries who will host new facilities, do it without regard for the squeamish horseshit about reassuring those who are blatant adversaries. No one else tip-toes around following their national interest. It's high fucking time we stopped doing so.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 17:25 Comments ||
Top||
#4
.com: âNo one else tip-toes around following their national interest. It's high fucking time we stopped doing so.â¦â
No other nation in the world has the power of the US. No alliance of nations has the power of the US. Even nations that are friendly toward the US fear that power. Every nation that negotiates with the US does so from a position of weakness.
The US has the big stick and can afford to speak quietly.
In my view the US government should publicly continue paying attention to world opinion. The US government should publicly treat foreign governments as equals. The US government should listen carefully to the UN and throw âem a few billion every year. If a pipsqueak nation slaps the US in the face, the US government should frown and politely ask for better behavior. (Thus other nations are reassured that the US is not a bully to be feared.)
In private, the US government should act for US national interests. The US government should privately communicate to other nations what is and is not acceptable. When US interests are thwarted by a nation, then that nation should suffer. (I hope France suffers for a long, long time.) If strongly provoked, the US enemy should disappear. (Many old enemies are gone.) When another nation supports the US that nation should receive favorable treatment.
In other words the US should continue following the same real world politics that it has for decades.
(Consider what might happen if the US pulled out of the UN and openly threatened any nation that opposed US interests. Instead of a farcical UN debating club a real alliance might form to oppose the US.)
#5
I can see your point, Anonymous5032, but in dealing with the UN, and France as well, to give 2 examples, we must be open and honest how we feel, and give appropriate backup. This diplomatic doublespeak is just time honored bull sh*t that ought to go away. I am not talking about total style of Harry Truman, but I am thinking about how I recall Jean Kirkpatrick held the diplos feet to the fire when she was US ambassador to the UN. We can quietly try to work it out first, then if that does not work, then more direct approaches need to be done.
I agree that we must be very careful with our power. We are a country to be feared. We must also not be hypocritical. What we say should be how we should act. There is a lot of responsibility that goes with superpower status. However enemies should have the fear of the Wrath of God if they threaten us.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/15/2005 19:54 Comments ||
Top||
#6
In my view the US government should publicly continue paying attention to world opinion.
Only in the sense that we can hear them. Whether we're listening is a different story, depending on what's being said, and who's saying it.
The US government should listen carefully to the UN and throw âem a few billion every year.
Uhhh, no.
If a pipsqueak nation slaps the US in the face, the US government should frown and politely ask for better behavior.
Errr, no. There's no reason for someone else to have to do that. Civility is the expected manner in which to handle things. If some nations can't handle that and decide to go the rough route, then the least they should get in return is a really, REALLY rough ride.
Instead of a farcical UN debating club a real alliance might form to oppose the US.
At one time, there was, albeit assembled by force, an alliance that opposed the U.S. Look what happened to them.
Police on Friday arrested 21 illegal immigrants near the border between Greece and Turkey in north-eastern region of Thrace after finding them hidden inside two trucks heading for Athens. A police source said the illegal immigrants, the majority of whom came from Bangladesh and Pakistan, had crossed the border with the help of a Pakistani who was also arrested.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"There's something wrong with those peoples! Their noses are too small and their eyes are all squinty!"
"Yar, let's take 'em down!"
Canada's embattled immigration minister, who once called herself the "minister of hopes and dreams," resigned Friday amid allegations that she promised an Indian pizzeria owner asylum if he would feed her campaign workers. Judy Sgro denied the charges, calling them "ridiculously false," but said she had to quit her Cabinet post "to be able to defend myself vigorously." Sgro is the first Cabinet minister to resign since Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government came to power seven months ago on promises of transparency. The opposition has seized on the scandal, using it to blast Martin's leadership as weak and ethically challenged. Sgro's ministry already was contending with allegations that a Romanian stripper was fast-tracked for Canadian immigration after she and family members volunteered to work on Sgro's election campaign. Those allegations are currently being investigated by the federal ethics commissioner and have prompted conservative opposition leaders to demand Sgro's resignation. Sgro, 60, insisted the comments by Harjit Singh in a federal affidavit were lies made in an attempt to prevent his deportation.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'll have a pizza to go...
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/15/2005 1:28 Comments ||
Top||
#8
didn't she let enough jihadis in
We do a good job in that regard ourselves. Consider that 9/11 was not caused by jihadists from Canada.
Canada may have a liberal asylum policy but their gov't bureaucrats are not corrupt. I have more worries about jihadists coming across our southern border because of the corruption factor down there as well as the virulent anti-American sentiments felt by the general populations of Central and Southern Americas, who would not bat an eye about jihadists moving into their neighborhoods if the rent was paid up.
#9
Anti-Americans are OK, but not whiney Anti-Americans are not.
Once a whiner, always a whiner. Give 'em six months and they'll start whining how things aren't like 'back home'. Another six months and they'll be bitching out the way Ottowa does things. Who needs it?
Somebody has posted to Slashdot the CIA's "Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project" so get ready to see lots of quotes and misquotes from it.
Posted by: 3dc ||
01/15/2005 1:01:26 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association For Palestine, a group identified by two former FBI counter-terrorism chiefs as a U.S. front group for the terrorist group Hamas.
Since 9-11, CAIR has seen three of its former employees indicted on federal terrorism charges.
#2
This is IMHO what is wrong with the FBI's mentality. They value gaining information more than they value doing something with that information to stop the crimes they are observing.
It's like having complex weather model that just generates great information about all things weather and then using that information to even more complex weather models but having no way to do anything except share it among themselves. Hey look, it's a Giant Tsunami - quick - let's get some more data for research. Call someone? Call who?
I watched Blow, and it occurred to me that had they stopped the flow of cocaine early on, before the street/college campus distribution networks all got established and it became "popular" the cocaine rage probably would not have happened. But the FBI just watches the little guys for YEARS and YEARS, learning everything about The Big Fish(TM). But by the time they take down The Big Fish(TM) - the market and distribution channels are all there - so it's too late. There are now plenty of fish to take his place.
So to get back to my original point...why do we only hear from former FBI agents that CAIR is a terrorist organization? Why aren't they making this clear to all of us NOW!! Why don't they clean house NOW! But just like in the movie blow, Blow - and all other matters FBI - they will just keep collecting more and more information as the organizations they are watching grow right before their eyes. The key word being GROW.
It's just like observing a tumor for 5 years to see where it spreads.
The FBI is engaging in 'job security' just like all the politicians who claim to fight the 'war on drugs' but keep the borders open and dont do any thing because if they really did something, and won the war, they would not have such an easy political issue to wave around - people might become concerned about other things like political corruption or elections or real fiance reform.
The purpose of the FBI, from the middle management up, is to stand before a bank of microphones and a throng of media and announce the breaking of a crime syndicate. Seizures (of whatever) are good - nice pictures with everything arranged to magnify the quantity - and street values, where applicable, always sound impressive. This is the dream moment. The career maker / breaker. Look determined, resolved, not necessarily tough. Look professional, competent, buttoned down, corporate. Use the Royal "we", but hey, baby, it's ME in front of the mikes, heh. Thank the little people, the ones who actually did whatever it is you're taking credit for, but don't dwell on it. Push the rope - credit your superiors, the Director, the Atty Gen'l, the President for their vision, with an unspoken but unmistakable conclusion that giving you this chance, this opportunity, this power, this authority, was wise, indeed.
The rest of the FBI solves crimes, after the fact, works hard and tries to coordinate with the locals - where their superiors haven't made that impossible by their sheer arrogance and historical shameless glory-hounding.
#8
Terrorists that want to blow us up are Muslims.
Sure there are other terror groups which exist and you will always have nutbags like Timothy Mcveigh. But the plain whole truth is Terrorists in the real world and Hollywood who hate us and want our total destruction (men, women, children)
are Muslim. The hell with CAIR. As far as Im concerned they need to take their unCAIRing asses
and go back where they came from. The truth hurts sometime and if they really CARED, they along with other so called caring Muslim groups would do more to rid the world of Muslim Fundamentalism which they claim give Muslims a bad name.
#9
"He also was reported to have said Islam is not in America to be equal to any other religion but to be dominant."
So much for tolerance.
Ooops toooo late. The alarm clock have struck and the current DOMINANT religion in the U.S is fully awake, NEVER to sleep again. In other words, we know your game. Also BTW, over my dead body, you bunch of terrorist pagan lowlifes.
If Fox can successfully send the CAIR propaganda pieces to affiliates for 3am airing, it opens the door to genuine reporting on CAIR's terrorist connections.
#12
Maybe the Council for American German Relations should protest whenever a movie about WW2 is aired -- those films and documentaries might cause somebody to have bad feelings about Germans.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Friday called for a new international standard for putting biometric data such as fingerprints on passports, and said the technology could play a vital role in combating terrorism. Ridge said in a speech at the London School of Economics and Political Science that the international community had made great strides in cooperating to tackle terrorism, but more needed to be done. "Common international standards of biometrics must be developed. In my view, the sooner, the better," he said. Biometrics include face-recognition technology and fingerprint and iris scanning.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But isn't fingerprinting a gross violation of human rights? CAIR sez so....
#2
Some of the guys I work with are into biometrics...
They say it doesn't work that well for picking some baddie out of the crowd, but it's pretty good at confirming an identity in a small population (like one).
#3
Depends on the technology being used. Facial recognition can be stymied in various ways, especially when done at a distance in crowds. Closer up (as in, say, an immigration queue where people can be told to remove hats and sunglasses) it works very well.
Fingerprint recognition can be foiled, but only remotely (i.e. if the bad guy has time to create a soft replica of the print in question and then uses that to authenticate a computer logon or a document).
Iris recognition is very accurate. Handwriting recognition is pretty decent, when done on an electronic pressure pad (even very good forgers seldom press the pen in the same way as the person whose signature they are copying).
There's some promising work on things like recognizing the characteristic walk and stances of people, not mature yet.
#4
Handwriting should be a last resort - I rarely write my name exactly the same way, especially on the raised electronic pads...it's tough. I always figured that was just so they had an electronic sig on file for a purchase, not verification
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 12:54 Comments ||
Top||
A senior Islamic leader warned foreign relief workers Friday of a serious backlash from Muslims if they bring Christian proselytizing to tsunami-struck Sumatra along with humanitarian help. At Friday prayers in the main mosque of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, a Muslim leader warned against any attempt by Christian aid workers to evangelize among tsunami survivors. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and Aceh is particularly conservative. "All non-governmental organizations, either domestic or international, with hidden agendas coming here with humanitarian purposes but instead proselytizing, this is what we do not like," said Dien Syamsuddin, secretary-general of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas, or religious scholars. He also condemned reports the U.S.-based welfare group WorldHelp had planned to adopt 300 Acehnese children orphaned by the disaster and raise them in a Christian children's home. The group told The Associated Press on Thursday it had dropped the idea. "This is a reminder. Do not do this in this kind of situation," Syamsuddin said. "The Muslim community will not remain quiet. This a clear statement, and it is serious."
Personally, I've come to the conclusion that it should be unlawful, punishable by death by rioting, for any Muslim to proselytize outside the Muslim world. If you can't play well with others, don't expect others to play well with you.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yep, Fred. What applies to the goose should apply to the gander. But the clerics have mental check valves: the thoughts go one way but they do not flow back. Pretty amazing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/15/2005 2:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Some religion they got there. They are afraid it can't even stand up to a few months of proselytizing, from an so called inferior religion.
Islam is full of cowardice. From death to apostates to hiding their women to clitorectomies to allowing no other religion on "Islamic soil". Pure cowardice, indeed.
#6
If the Muslim world just wanted to be isolated, that might be workable. All they have to do is have their governments seal their borders. No more visitors, no more travel, no more exiting, no more trade. Eliminate phones, radios, TVs. Prescribe acceptable dress, hairstyles. Hey, sounds like they should all just move to North Korea!
Posted by: Tom ||
01/15/2005 11:51 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Are you really stupid enough to expect to find intelligence in Islamic ranters whether they are CAIR types in America, or Indonesian, Iranian or Arabic killers?
#8
Who are you hollering at, leaddog2? When are you going to quit leaning on the keyboard and bolding everything, not just some important tidbit? Easy there, I doubt anyone here, at least the regulars, is either stupid or finding intelligence in anything said by CAIR, et al. Deep breaths, buddy. :-)
#9
How dare you evangelists peach a culture of life to our culture of death.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/15/2005 18:53 Comments ||
Top||
#10
peach preach
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/15/2005 18:55 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Terrorism building and brainwashing needs isolation, Christian Evangelism puts a monkey wrench into the Imam brainwashing methods.
BTW, If I ever jeer Benny Hillnn when I am on the phone with my mom, she just about hangs up on me. She has been brainwashed by Benny Hillnn and there is no recovery.
MANILA: Hundreds of Filipino Muslims and their Christian supporters marched near the presidential palace on Friday to protest a police raid on an Islamic center, where authorities claimed terror suspects were hiding. Seventeen people were taken into custody during last week's raid in Manila's Muslim enclave of Quiapo, but only two were charged and later released on bail. Police claimed to have recovered homemade bombs and weapons, and that five of the 17 people detained allegedly belonged to a terrorist group called "Hukbong Khalid Trinidad," or "Khalid Trinidad Army," part of a clandestine movement seeking to convert Christians to Islam and use them to carry out terror attacks. Some of those detained and later released accused police of planting the evidence, but national police chief Edgar Aglipay told reporters there was "strong evidence" against two of the suspects.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Police claimed to have recovered homemade bombs and weapons, and that five of the 17 people detained allegedly belonged to a terrorist group called âHukbong Khalid Trinidad,â or âKhalid Trinidad Army,â part of a clandestine movement seeking to convert Christians to Islam and use them to carry out terror attacks.
And yet only 2 were arrested? The Muslims are laughing at the Filipinos.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2005 3:56 Comments ||
Top||
Tamil Tiger rebels have forcibly enlisted more than 1,000 child soldiers since agreeing in 2003 to release and rehabilitate child fighters already among their ranks, the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said Friday. The report came a day after the U.N. Children's Fund said the rebels forcibly recruited three tsunami-affected girls living in camps after the Dec. 26 disaster, although two of the three were later reunited with their parents.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
Taliban fighters could abandon their insurgency in Afghanistan as a result of peace talks under way between local commanders and President Hamid Karzai's government, a provincial governor has said.
Some of the could, I suppose. I doubt those in Peshawar and Quetta will...
Three years after US-led forces invaded Afghanistan, Karzai and his US backers hope to coax lower-level Taliban fighters back to normal life, leaving senior commanders and al-Qaida leaders isolated. Tribal leaders and regional commanders are acting as intermediaries between the Taliban and Karzai's government in the southeastern provinces of Paktia, Khost and Paktika, said Paktia governor Assad Allah Wafa. "We have more than hundreds of Taliban who want to return to their normal lives in Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces," Wafa said. In return, the tribal chiefs and local officials want the US ambassador in Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, to urge US forces not to harass Taliban members who quit the insurgency, he said. "The government is talking to them through tribal leaders and we are demanding Khalilzad use his influence and propose to the American military not to detain or harass those Taliban who plan to stop fighting the government," Wafa said. No Taliban official could immediately be contacted for comment, but Taliban spokesman Abdul Latifi Hakimi said earlier this week the group was committed to resisting Karzai's government and US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 1:30:25 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"The government is talking to them through tribal leaders and we are demanding Khalilzad use his influence and propose to the American military not to detain or harass those Taliban who plan to stop fighting the government," Wafa said.
The insanity is a way of life for those who would call themselves followers of the Taliban, so it will never be more than taqiyya for dummies. Based upon experience and observation, I'd say they will have to continue dying until there are no more. Amnesties and good intentions are usually repaid with deadly perfidy. Sorry there, Wafa, I know you mean to spout political bullshit well.
#2
.com: Amnesties and good intentions are usually repaid with deadly perfidy.
Not always. It depends on the number of true-blue holy warriors vs those who were along for the ride. Accepting surrenders is nothing new - many territories and leaders throughout history have surrendered and served their new political masters without complaint unless they were specifically mistreated. This is one of those trust but verify situations, where their surrenders must be accepted only if they include good faith gestures such as information about other guerrillas, weapons caches and funding sources.
#3
Hmmmm, I'll accept a miniscule measure of that logic, thanks. Along for the ride is a very interesting way of putting it, heh.
The unacceptable part, of course, is that you do not know if the good faith gesture will be repaid in kind until it's too late. Sorry, but a good Afghan soldier or a NATO soldier (presumption: good) is worth more than the whole lot that would follow the Taliban, especially if taking up arms in their cause, IMHO. No lower or more insane and barbaric organization has ever existed on the face of this planet, IMHO, so I have no regard for them, their lives, or their proffered "plans" - which is a load of shit until it becomes reality, no?
#4
.com: Along for the ride is a very interesting way of putting it, heh.
Not everyone's a true-blue holy warrior. Getting on the bandwagon is something with an ancient history - the idea is to go with a winner, which some of these people thought, wrongly, would be the Taliban. They believed their own propaganda - and the Western media, which held that Uncle Sam would run at even the hint of deaths in combat. Now that they've taken their licks, they're no longer as convinced of their invincibility. If they can be re-integrated into the community, it's best for the Afghan military and our boys if they hand in their weapons - the fewer enemies we have to fight, the less of our people will have to die.
Overseen by Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, and Mayor Daley and duly certified...
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Forty-six members of the Palestinian election commission, including top managers, resigned Saturday, saying they were pressured by Mahmoud Abbas' campaign and intelligence officials to abruptly change voting procedures during the Jan. 9 presidential poll. John Conyers asks for an investigation?
Two senior members of the commission, Ammar Dwaik and Baha al-Bakri, resigned early Saturday, and officials later said 44 more members resigned. Six top election officials were among those who resigned.
The resignations raised questions about Sunday's vote giving Abbas an overwhelming victory with 62.3 percent, though the officials who quit said the alleged irregularities did not fundamentally affect the final vote tally. "We knew how they wuz gonna vote, even if they didn't exactly show up, so it's all the same in the end"
"This proves that what happened is very serious and it must not happen again," said Dwaik, the commission's deputy chairman. "These pressures and threats lessened the degree of the integrity of the election, even though overall it was free and fair."
Abbas was sworn in as Palestinian Authority president Saturday.
During the presidential election, polls were to have stayed open for 12 hours until 7 p.m. However, several hours after polls opened, turnout was light, a cause of concern for Abbas, who was the front-runner but needed a decisive victory to win a mandate for peace talks with Israel.
"We were visited by senior officials from Abu Mazen's campaign, and we were pressured to change procedures on election day," al-Bakri said. Abbas is widely known as Abu Mazen.
During the meeting, shots were fired at the panel's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Electoral officials said they recognized at least one gunman as a member of Palestinian intelligence services. Happens all the time in Palm Beach election meetings...ceiling's riddled with bullet holes
The commission eventually extended voting by two hours and allowed voters to cast their ballots in any location, not just their hometowns.
The change enabled thousands of security force members, most of them Abbas supporters, to cast ballots near their posts rather than travel back to their hometowns, some of them far away.
Dwaik and al-Bakri said Saturday those decisions were made under pressure from Abbas' campaign, Fatah and the intelligence service.
"I was personally threatened and pressured," Dwaik said. "I am therefore announcing my resignation publicly, so that everyone knows that in the upcoming legislative election, this could happen again."
Al-Bakri said voting hours are extended only when there are long lines at the polling stations.
"This was not the case on election day," he said. "These (changes in) procedures had two goals: first to increase the turnout and second to increase the percentage of Fatah voters."
HT to Polipundit
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 1:08:37 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/15/2005 16:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
So now what's the deal here? What about all those "monitors" that were supposed to watch what was going on? They got anything to say about whether this "election" was legit or not?
By LTC Tim Ryan, CO, 2/12 Cav, 1st Cav Div
At Blackfive.net
This is a must read letter from Iraq.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2005 2:58:18 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Good catch, ed. I just emailed this out to 25+ people.
LTC Ryan calls a spade a spade - and backs it up.
There is a Twain quote which comes to mind when I read the MSM that cuts to the bone:
"I find that, as a rule, when a thing is a wonder to us it is not because of what we see in it, but because of what others have seen in it. We get almost all our wonders at second hand... By and by you sober down, and then you perceive that you have been drunk on the smell of somebody else's cork."
As I said in my email to friends...
That rather neatly sums up the MSM (MainStream Media) offerings - since the advent of the "professional" media in all its forms. For several decades they have told us what is going on, what is important about it, and what we should think or do about it. With the rise of the Internet, communication has become so simple, so prolific, and so timely as to make a hash of the MSM monopoly. This is a remarkable opportunity... though there is great confusions about source credibility, that sorts itself out over time and you see who is credible - and who is not. Much of the MSM has been shown lacking in neutrality, surprisingly short on expertise, and desperately pushing various editorial agendas. Not exactly awe or confidence inspiring, to say the least. And Twain nailed them a hundred years ago.
#2
Dan Rather and Peter Jennings, along with a U.S. Marine assigned to protect them, were hiking through the Iraqi desert one day when they were captured by terrorists. They were tied up, led to a village, and brought before the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq.
Zarqawi said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish; so, before we kill and dismember you, do you have any last requests?"
Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili." Zarqawi nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."
Peter Jennings said, "I am Canadian, so I'd like to hear the song 'O Canada' one last time." Zarqawi nodded to a terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag musicians and played the anthem. Jennings sighed and declared he could now die peacefully.
Zarqawi turned and said, "And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?"
"Kick me in the ass," said the Marine.
"What?" asked Zarqawi. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"
"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Marine. So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.
The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled out a 9mm pistol hidden in his cammies, and shot Zarqawi dead.
In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M4 carbine, and sprayed the remaining terrorists with gunfire. In a flash, they were either dead or fleeing for their lives.
As the Marine was untying Rather and Jennings, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"
"What," replied the Marine, "and have you assholes call me the aggressor?"
Israel should freeze settlement activity while Palestinians carry out long-delayed security and administrative reforms to help revive the Middle East peace process, a senior UN official said on Thursday. Election of a new Palestinian president has created new hope for progress in resolving the Middle East crisis, but "both parties have important steps to take," Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary-general for political affairs, told the UN Security Council.
The road map to peace set out by the "quartet" of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations requires both sides to start out taking simultaneous steps. The Israelis are to freeze settlement activity and withdraw their troops from occupied areas, while the Palestinian Authority is to reform its security services and crack down on militants attacking Israelis. President-elect Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday in the West Bank town of Ramallah that Palestinians intended to start carrying out their security commitments under the road map.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The UN again urges Israel to roll over and expose their bellies return to the peace process after terrorist bombings. Will the UN urge urge the Palestinians to return to the Road Kill if the Israelis unleash an artillery barrage into Gaza?
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2005 4:03 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Does anybody here think that Abbas has the capability to crack down on militants attacking Israelis? I don't.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/15/2005 16:53 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Will US dep of state?
I don't think you should wonder about that. Obviously, Condi Rice will be pressing the road map on both Abbas and Sharon. The second term of an American presidency is for establishing legacies and GWB is no different in that regard. Bush ( not just State Dept.) wants an Israel-Palestine 2 nation state penned in the history books before he ends his term in 2008, no if's or maybe's.
#5
Tom - capability less than you'd think. Will even more less
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 17:08 Comments ||
Top||
#6
think that Abbas has the capability to crack down on militants attacking Israelis
Once the wall is finished that will help Israel's security immensely and give Abbas the time to defuse the power of the Palestinian anti-Israel leadership. Our best hope is that Abbas is not corrupt and that he will use all the $ showered on him by the US and the EU to build a future for Palestinians by sharing the spoils with them. I don't think he can afford to come out too strongly with Palestinian police action or his life will end very quickly. But if he can share the foreign aid money with the common ordinary Palestinians and direct their attention to a future that does not entail giving up their kids to earn $25,ooo to blow up Israeli innocent civilians he might make the 2 nation state concept work. Israel's wall is just as important for Abbas as it is for Sharon actually. Wasn't it Abbas who resigned from Arafat's "cabinet" because of the rampant corruption?
I know some of you are pessimestic about Abbas because when he was younger he was a Holocaust denier. I'm not saying Abbas will make the Palestinians love Israelis. He only needs to make them act in a civil fashion to Israelis. People change with age and experience. If you looked at Sharon's past as closely as you looked at Abbas's, you'd find that he has said and done nasty things to non-Jews when he was younger as well. Big deal. If Israel waits for the perfect Palestinian leader, he will never come. Abbas seems like a good bet if given the proper support and enough time to undo Arafat's legacy of theft from the Palestinians and Arafat's focus on educating Palestinians to fault Jews for their poverty and not his own corrupt leadership.
But ... but ... but ... he was democratically elected!
Thousands of Palestinians marched in the streets of Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in what they described as a victory march. The Friday march followed the killing of the Israelis by fighters who mounted their strongest challenge yet to Abbas and his call for resistance groups to lay down their arms. The march was organised by resistance groups and was seen as a sign of grassroots support for their defiance of Abbas and the battle against occupying Israel.
Three Palestinians were also killed during the bombing and shooting assault at al-Mintar (Karni), the main cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza, late on Thursday. Three groups claimed they carried out the attack: Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Abbas' Fatah movement. Israel signalled it would weigh its response to the bombing carefully to avoid weakening Abbas.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Israel signalled it would weigh its response to the bombing carefully to avoid weakening Abbas.
#4
Would his demise be a good thing?
I suppose it's actually two questions, depending on cause...
He could be taken out by Hamas, or by natural causes (aka the Russian Cold).
#5
[ranty-rant]
It won't matter one whit whether he lives or dies. Same goes for all of the others in Paleoland - every fucking one of them. Until the indoctrination, The Hate Machineâ¢, is turned off and stays off for at least 1.5 generations - and this indoctrination is systemic: at home, at school, at the grocery, on TV, in every speech, in the street names, and everywhere else that they can put it, it won't make any difference what-so-ever.
Once it's turned on and allowed to run for a full generation, it's over. Too late. Paleoland is fucked. The only short circuit is to take their children away from them at birth. Period. Full stop.
[/ranty-rant]
#6
This crap will continue another five - ten years, and Israel will finally do what it should have done in 1967 - expel all the Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza, build a huge, booby-trapped fence, threaten to nuke any country that argues with them or attacks them, and get on with living in peace. There will be no peace as long as the Arabs can get away with sniping at Israeli men, women, children, small dogs and baby ducks. Send 'em packing, and tell the rest of the world to screw off when they complain.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/15/2005 15:44 Comments ||
Top||
Some 59 percent of Israelis support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip this year, according to a public opinion poll published on Friday. Thirty-two percent oppose the plan, ratified in October by the Israeli parliament, while the remaining nine percent expressed no view, according to the poll published in the daily Haaretz newspaper. Israelis, however, were less certain about the ability of the new Sharon government, sworn in on Monday, to implement the plan in the face of opposition from Jewish settlers, all of whose settlements in the Gaza Strip are to be closed, along with four isolated ones in the north of the West Bank.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Maybe it's me, but when does 59% become 'most'?
#3
Its O'k Pappy. I'm sure our Pali "partners for peace" will manage to prevent this pullout, and, eventually, will asure pushout in the oposite direction.
#5
of course Pappy , they will , but give them 20 years and they just might understand the democratic process and how it benefits us all .. ho-fooking-ho :P
PESHAWAR: Maulana Fazlur Rehman, opposition leader in the National Assembly, on Friday asked the people to make sacrifices for the restoration of the country's constitution which, he said, had been "trampled by generals."
"We will have to save the constitution which ensures the implementation of Islamic teachings and protects the democratic, parliamentary and federal system in the country," he told Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) activists who were protesting General Pervez Musharraf's decision to continue holding two offices and the removal of the religion column from passports. He said the constitution wanted the masses to rule the country but the "army generals had deprived the people of their fundamental right".
"It is time to begin a united struggle against the military rulers and such an effort demands sacrifices by the masses," he said. He said that the army actions in Wana and Balochistan were a conspiracy to dismember the country. However, he said, the MMA was fighting for the solidarity of the country. Mr Rehman said a uniformed person could not hold the office of the president, which he added, was the highest seat of moderation and tolerance. "How can a uniformed person trained for war and extremism hold the office of the president," he asked. "That is why we ask Gen Musharraf to shed his uniform and become a civilian president," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"These damn Yankees are denyin' us the right to our property!"
The religious and sectarian identity in official documents is a source to fan religious intolerance and sectarian violence, said the Commission for Peace and Human Development, a non-government organisation representing religious minorities. A press release issue by the commission on Friday said that religious and sectarian identity in official documents was not required for a citizen anywhere in the world. "Instead the inclusion of these identities in official documents has promoted religious disharmony and national disintegration in Pakistan," the statement read.
The commission criticised the government for what it called 'keeping double standards' like printing the word 'Pakistan' in English on the cover of new passports to globally portray the country as moderate and mentioning the religious identity in Urdu to appease the religious elements inside the country. The statement said the government had failed to take a firm stand on the religion column in passports. "The government should adopt a rational policy and observe international and human standards, " it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) on Friday observed a countrywide black day against President General Pervez Musharraf for not shedding his military uniform and the government's decision to eliminate the religious column from the passport. MMA leaders vowed that no one would be allowed to take the country towards secularism. They warned the government of tough resistance if it did not add religion column in machine-readable passports.
In Lahore, the Jamat-e-Islami, a component party of the religious alliance, staged a demonstration outside Mansoora under the leadership of Qazi Hussain Ahmad. The protestors chanted slogans against the government. They said that the government was bringing changes to the education system to please its "foreign masters". They said that they would not allow the government to secularise the education system and omit the religious column from the passport. Addressing the protestors, Qazi said the MMA would not accept the army's involvement in the presidency and politics. "We will not accept the supremacy of Army over the Constitution, parliament and democracy," he said, adding that Musharraf had become controversial both as the president and the chief of Army staff after he violated his earlier pledge to step down as the army chief by December 31, 2004. He said the MMA would launch a street-to-street anti-Musharraf campaign after Eidul Azha.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
North Korea told a visiting U.S. congressional delegation that it would return to six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program and become a "friend" of the United States, hinting at a possible reversal of a decades-old policy of calling America its "sworn enemy." The overture on Friday — while requiring that Washington does not vilify totalitarian leader Kim Jong Il — was highly unusual. Pyongyang's anti-American propaganda has been whipped into a near-religious fervor, with banners in villages everywhere exhorting North Koreans to prepare for an inevitable war with the "U.S. imperialists."
Police on Friday arrested 21 illegal immigrants near the border between Greece and Turkey in north-eastern region of Thrace after finding them hidden inside two trucks heading for Athens. A police source said the illegal immigrants, the majority of whom came from Bangladesh and Pakistan, had crossed the border with the help of a Pakistani who was also arrested.
Canada's embattled immigration minister, who once called herself the "minister of hopes and dreams," resigned Friday amid allegations that she promised an Indian pizzeria owner asylum if he would feed her campaign workers. 
Homeland Security Secretary 
A senior Islamic leader warned foreign relief workers Friday of a serious backlash from Muslims if they bring Christian proselytizing to tsunami-struck Sumatra along with humanitarian help. At Friday prayers in the main mosque of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, a Muslim leader warned against any attempt by Christian aid workers to evangelize among tsunami survivors. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and Aceh is particularly conservative. "All non-governmental organizations, either domestic or international, with hidden agendas coming here with humanitarian purposes but instead proselytizing, this is what we do not like," said 
MANILA: Hundreds of Filipino Muslims and their Christian supporters marched near the presidential palace on Friday to protest a police raid on an Islamic center, where authorities claimed terror suspects were hiding. Seventeen people were taken into custody during last week's raid in Manila's Muslim enclave of Quiapo, but only two were charged and later released on bail. Police claimed to have recovered homemade bombs and weapons, and that five of the 17 people detained allegedly belonged to a terrorist group called "Hukbong Khalid Trinidad," or "Khalid Trinidad Army," part of a clandestine movement seeking to convert Christians to Islam and use them to carry out terror attacks. Some of those detained and later released accused police of planting the evidence, but national police chief Edgar Aglipay told reporters there was "strong evidence" against two of the suspects.
Taliban fighters could abandon their insurgency in Afghanistan as a result of peace talks under way between local commanders and President Hamid Karzai's government, a provincial governor has said. 
Israel should freeze settlement activity while Palestinians carry out long-delayed security and administrative reforms to help revive the Middle East peace process, a senior UN official said on Thursday. Election of a new Palestinian president has created new hope for progress in resolving the Middle East crisis, but "both parties have important steps to take," 
Some 59 percent of Israelis support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip this year, according to a public opinion poll published on Friday. Thirty-two percent oppose the plan, ratified in October by the Israeli parliament, while the remaining nine percent expressed no view, according to the poll published in the daily Haaretz newspaper. Israelis, however, were less certain about the ability of the new Sharon government, sworn in on Monday, to implement the plan in the face of opposition from Jewish settlers, all of whose settlements in the Gaza Strip are to be closed, along with four isolated ones in the north of the West Bank.
PESHAWAR: Maulana 
The religious and sectarian identity in official documents is a source to fan religious intolerance and sectarian violence, said the Commission for Peace and Human Development, a non-government organisation representing religious minorities. A press release issue by the commission on Friday said that religious and sectarian identity in official documents was not required for a citizen anywhere in the world. "Instead the inclusion of these identities in official documents has promoted religious disharmony and national disintegration in Pakistan," the statement read. 
The 
