Street gangs are proliferating around the world. The United States has unwittingly spurred this phenomenon by deporting tens of thousands of immigrants with criminal records each year. But that only partly explains how gangs went global. Credit also goes to the Internet, where gangs are staking out turf and spreading their culture online. Gang members may have never heard of globalization, but it is making them stronger.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/05/2005 6:07:52 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ok, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/05/2005 18:17 Comments ||
Top||
#2
So, we are at fault for deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records that want to do crime within our borders. Of course, the internet is at fault to because it is an American invention filled with free speech and pr0n and the UN should have control of it.
Gee, I must be evil because I find that I rather like things the way they are and would like to see more illegals and imigrants with criminal records go bye-bye.
#3
The United States has unwittingly spurred this phenomenon by deporting tens of thousands of immigrants with criminal records each year.
Lemme get this straight.
People come to the US, and commit crimes. They get booted out, then commit crimes back where they come from.
Now, I think it's safe to say that MOST of the people booted out of the US for crimes are here illegally. So even if they never committed a crime back home, they committed crimes to get here. And, to me, that suggests that maybe their homeland didn't exactly instill a sense of law and order to them. So just how the hell is this our problem? Is the US supposed to be the world's penal colony?
(OK, since the UN is based here, I can see how people get that impression.)
Maybe what we should do, in order to save the world from its own criminals, is simply execute any illegal convicted of a crime within the US. And maybe we should simply bar Internet traffic from some countries from entering our borders, to keep the international gangs from "staking out turf".
Heck, let's take that a step further, and block traffic from countries that want to regulate what (legal content) gets posted on the 'net. China, Saudi Arabia, France, Canada -- sorry, you can't take part in the information economy anymore.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2005 19:03 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Okay, fine. We'll just have our cops shoot 'em instead. Works out for everybody...
#5
...and I'm sure if these folks that Andrew V. Papachristos is so concerned about came back to hang out in his neighborhood, he'd want the 101st Airborne called in to send them to hell.
April 5, 2005: The ancient division of Yemen, into a Shia and tribal north, and Sunni and urban south persists in creating friction. Fighting continues in the north, with another three soldiers and ten tribesmen killed in the last few days. The tribesmen under attack are Islamic conservatives, who believe Yemen should be more active is the war against Israel and infidels (non-Moslems) in general.
Further complicating the situation is the Yemeni president, who wants to start a dynasty. The 63 year old Yemeni president 'Ali' Abdallah Salih, is a former brigadier general, and has been in power since 1978. He got there through a series of coups, the presidency of the Yemeni Arab Republic (Northern Yemen ), and a united Yemen. In 1990 he presided over the unification of the tribalist north and the formerly Marxist South. There was some civil war action involved. Since then, popular "elections" (in the last he got 96.3% of the vote), have kept him in office. He's now trying to insure that his son succeeds him. Salih has some solid accomplishments, including settlement of the civil war, while adhering to a moderate religious line, promoting economic stability, and settling a border dispute with Saudi Arabia on favorable terms. But his government is rather authoritarian. Unfortunately, there's no real alternative, as the principal opposition movement, stemming from his native northern part of the country, favors a more traditional, tribalist society, while the minority opposition is Islamist. Another problem is that the northern tribes can muster a total of some 200,000 armed men, while the army only has 50,000 troops. The tribes have few heavy weapons, and are divided by dozens of clans and ancient feuds. The battles will go on, with neither side having much chance of winning.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/05/2005 9:09:07 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
I wonder if the story of the goose and the golden eggs translates into Arabic?
Oil soared to a record over $58 a barrel yesterday, adding pressure on producer group OPEC to hike supplies, before profit-taking by speculators eased prices into negative territory. US crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange peaked at $58.28 a barrel — the highest front-month oil futures price on record — before ending the day down 26 cents to $57.01 a barrel. London's Brent crude slipped 28 cents to $56.23 a barrel.
Prices have surged 5 percent since a forecast last week by Goldman Sachs bank that oil could eventually spike above $100 as global demand growth strains supply capacity. OPEC President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahd Al-Sabah said yesterday OPEC oil ministers had begun telephone consultations on possibly increasing production by a further 500,000 barrels per day to cool prices. "If there is a decision it should be in the next two weeks. For that, if there will be any new production, it should be in May," said Sheikh Ahmad, also Kuwait's energy minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The fundamental issue is world demand for oil increases each year and the price (at current prices) has little impact on demand. The long term trend is a 2% per annum increase in demand. In recent years that has accelerated. last year it was 3.4%. World oil consumption is 84 million barrels per day. At a 3.4% annual growth the world needs an extra 500,000 bpd EVERY NINE WEEKS. Given it takes 5 years or more to bring a typical major oil production online, OPEC even if it has the oil in the ground can't bring enough oil to market at any price. There are only 2 ways out of this. The price of oil rockets to the point where developed countries overcome their fear of nuclear power or we have a major recession we have not seen the like of since the 1930s. I personally think both will happen.
#2
There is NO surplus capacity. Stratfor has been harping on this for a while, and I believe 'em. If there were any surplus capacity, it would be producing due to the huge profits that are availible. So sayeth Stratfor, anyway.
#3
Noone wants to develop surplus capacity because everyone fears a repeat of 1986, when everyone in the US oilfield almost went out of business or went out of business.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
04/05/2005 6:09 Comments ||
Top||
#4
If there were any surplus capacity, it would be producing due to the huge profits that are availible.
Except that the "huge profits" wouldn't be so huge. You can't just multiply the CURRENT price per unit by the additional production and call that profit; each additional unit produced will drive the price down a bit.
I have no doubt that the Saudis have capacity they're not using, regardless of what Stratfor says. The Saudis know that the one thing they CAN'T let happen is sustained high prices. If prices are high enough for long enough, then wells in areas that are CURRENTLY unprofitable become attractive. At some point the US starts uncapping Oklahoma and Texas wells -- already happened, according to some reports -- and at a later point we start uncapping wells in Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.
That all serves to make Saudi oil, and its attendant jihadi ties, less attractive. Eventually the US could decide that, while we're pumping our own oil anyway, we may as well clean up that rat's nest known as Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2005 9:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Gromky
Problem is not the lack of surplus capacity but the fact Arab countries have most/all the oil who is cheap to extract. It goes like this: you notice that at 45$ a barrel Alaska oil becomes profitable so you spend a fortune drilling oil wells but just when your oil wells come into production the Saudis lower price to 35$ so you have to close your wells and you lose your investments. Then they raise price again waiting for the next sucker.
#6
Real bottleneck in capacity is refining, not pumping.
Posted by: too true ||
04/05/2005 13:53 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I'm afraid the Saudi reserves are overestimated. And the real problem will not be how high oil price must be in order to make pumping in Alaska or elsewhere profitable, but how much energy do you need to spend to extract a barrel.
The Saudis no longer control the prices. Asian demand does.
#9
As, too true, has mentioned, more refineries need to be built. The eco-bastards won't let it happen without throwing a sissy fit. A lack of power generating plants is one of the main also price gouging reasons for electricity problems in Cali-fornia. The electric de-regulation went very smooth in Texas because there are so many power generating plants in Texas, that close to half are put off-line for a period of time.
I apologize TGA, but I don't believe the increased Asian demand theory, for the high prices. I have been hearing this theory in the MSM for about a year now and my research doesn't show as a valid reason for the price increases. There is plenty of oil, refining is the problem.
#10
Rising demand for oil substantially from Asia is an incontravertable fact. And even if the Saudis have the 1.8m bpd spare capacity they say they have, it will be used up by rising demand sometime around the end of this year (on current trends).
#11
Poison Reverse, the sudden jump of prices may be exaggerated but Asian demand is a reality and it continues to rise. While a speculation bubble might burst and oil prices fall some, we'll NEVER see the 20s again, and probably not even the 30s (except for short spells maybe).
It might be better this way. We need to push alternatives, we've waited far too long.
As for China, they are building up a huge strategic reserve. They know why. They'll buy up every barrel they can get if prices go down. And with their huge trade surplus, they have the dollars to pay for it.
I'll bet my *** on the fact that the Saudis DONT have the reserves they claim.
Unfortunately Europe doesn't care much about a substantial strategic reserve. Will be a rude awakening.
We will have a major recession, if not depression, and an oil crisis bigger than 1973 in this decade.
Chechen officials and the public want to declare Wahhabism "the main ideology of the terrorists" in the North Caucasus and outlaw political and religious extremism in Chechnya, said delegates at a Monday conference in Grozny. Participants in the conference decided to set up an Islamic center "in ideological opposition to religious extremism, which will incorporate educational and cultural facilities." The conference called on the Chechen president to issue an ordinance "which will be considered by the future parliament as a Chechen law banning political and religious extremism."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/05/2005 1:00:45 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
That's a good start. Now to outlaw the actual Wahhabists in Chechnya.
2) Almost all "countries" today are absurd confabulations - mashed together by force - with only a thin public shell of the fabled "legitimacy". The only confederations that stand the reality test are those born of common cause, entered into voluntarily - by consent of the majority, and defended by the free choice of their citizens. They remain intact and are governed only with the consent of their citizens. All others are the tragic folly of power and empire - and will eventually dissolve... some peacefully, some in chaos.
#2
I'd like to add that the odds the US will remain united in its current form are rather a tossup, IMHO. There is a deep divide. A "Blue" or "Red" state is merely 50% of those who vote - plus one... And the margins were extremely thin in enough states that it should cause even the most jaded to think twice.
We've had one civil war to maintain the Union. We may have another. The majority speak clearly in the elections, whether people choose to be rational and accept them - or choose to reject reality and accept delusion as their norm.
What is the reasonable "granularity" of dissent deserving of "freedom" from the majority? It has been argued here, though it was tainted and disjointed by an individual who could not accept it wasn't really about him and his views. I don't pretend to know the answer, but the question looms ahead, methinks, and deserves some airtime.
#3
If it does (and this sounds like a call to rally round the Kremlin rather than a prediction) China will take the opportunity to grab Siberia and probably Mongolia as well.
#4
Does China really want Mongolia? I mean...it's full of Mongols.
There's a nifty story about the foreign forces that tried to aid the loyalists in Siberia the last time Russia collapsed. However, China wasn't in a position to do anything then.
#5
Damn Mongorians always try to tear down my sh*tty wall.
Posted by: Homer ||
04/05/2005 11:28 Comments ||
Top||
#6
.Com, I think you look at the numbers and get the opposite conclusion I do. If the divide is 50% plus one why split when you can hang around for the next election and take control again. It's when one side has zero chance of ever graining power that a divide becomes more likely.
Also the divide isn't as neat as it looks on some maps, even hard core blue states like California have an awful lot of red in them and the urban centers of red states tend towards blue. I just don't see a split happening at all.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2005 13:21 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Russia has almost always been on the brink of collapse. It is a hobby over there to see how far they can stretch things.
As for the "red-blue" divide, I only see it coming to blows if the judges continue to make law from the bench (especially using international law) and overriding the majority of voters along with the degration of the 1st amendment and 2nd amendment. As soon as someone comes knocking on my door and demanding I give up books that are wrong and some sites I view are bad and can't look at anymore and want my guns, they will catch a bullet in the forhead and I'll break out the declaration of independance.
We don't want any Chinese grabbing anything... They might get away with Mongolia, but if they go stornming into Siberia, brace for World War III...
Being married to a Russian, I hear what she says, and believe me, no fool Chinese wants to see Beijing glow in the dark...
The "dinintegration" to pull a Chineser takeover of Siberia is going to have to be so total that ALL the 89 provinces and two independent cities will declare themselves nations...
#11
The Chinese don't have to take over Siberia militarily and they're not foolish enough to try.
Their economic control will do the trick. Have you traveled on the Transsib lately or checked out what goes on on the banks of the river Amur? Trade, trade, trade.
The Chinese will not conquer Siberia, they will buy it.
MADRID-The all-parliamentary commission into events surrounding SpainÂŽs worst terrorist attack is to hear controversial evidence which will re-open bitter wounds over last yearÂŽs general election. The inquiry will see a controversial video made by the FAES foundation headed by former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, in which the Socialists were accused of stirring up trouble before their shock election victory three days after the 11 March bombings. This video had caused a political row last week reopening some of the bitter wounds caused by the SocialistsÂŽunexpected election victory.
The Popular Party(PP) had asked to hear militant socialist deputy Fernando Huarte give evidence before the inquiry about his alleged prison meetings with Islamic extremist Abdelkrim Benesmail, who is being held in custody. Huarte was said to have had secret jail meetings with Benesmail, who is said to be close to Allekema Lamari, one of the leaders of the group which launched the Madrid bombings.
Well, isn't that interesting
In the rush-hour bombings, 191 people were killed and 1,500 more injured. The PP has claimed that Huarte has been working for the Spanish secret service, the CNI, while visiting Benesmail in prison for so-called humanitarian reasons. A maverick, Huarte has been a former head of the Spanish Palestinian Support Association. The PP also asked for a number of high-ranking intelligence officers, including Jorge Dezcallar, ex-director general of the CNI, and his successor Alberto Saiz and two cabinet ministers to give evidence. The controversial commission, which has been criticised for political infighting, has rejected these requests. But they are to hear taped conversations between Huarte and the Islamic suspect when the commission sits again on 19 April.
This article starring:
ABDELKRIM BENESMAIL
al-Qaeda in Europe
ALLEKEMA LAMARI
al-Qaeda in Europe
Fernando Huarte
Jorge Dezcallar
Jose Maria Aznar
SPANISH PALESTINIAN SUPPORT ASOCIATION
al-Qaeda in Europe
Posted by: Steve ||
04/05/2005 2:06:40 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The video is going to be made vailbale world-wide. I think and hope it will be available in English since there are many, many interesting elements about how public opinion was manipulated, how info was handled by police to pro-socialist TV before it was given to governement (thus making it look like it was lying), about possible cooperation between ETA and the Islamists, about some proofs appearing in places who had benn previously searched or being found in far too miraculmous circumstances, and the most sinister is that socilaists could have known in advance about the bombings.
#2
This could be interesting. It sucks to find out "you've been had" - the backlash might bring Zappy down... And if Huarte had advance knowledge - the thin BS of working undercover is a laugh, given who and what he is - he might find out about the alternate use of lampposts. Perhaps this is where the Spanish people reverse course.
PARIS, April 5 (AFP) - Three more opinion polls Tuesday showed opponents of the EU's new constitution winning France's referendum on May 29. Over the last two weeks a total of nine surveys have put the "no" camp in front, at between 51 and 55 percent of voters. An Ipsos poll in Le Figaro newspaper Tuesday put opposition to the constitution at 52 percent; a CSA poll for France 3 television put it at 53 percent; and Louis Harris for Liberation newspaper gave the "no" 54 percent. The slim positive news for President Jacques Chirac and other supporters of the constitution was that in the first two polls the number of "no" voters fell by two points from similar surveys a week before. The polls also indicated that between a quarter and a third of people who intend to cast a vote are undecided - with a majority of these tending towards a "yes" vote.
Opposition to the EU's constitutional treaty spread across France with sudden rapidity in the second half of March, fed by a groundswell of anti-government feeling and unease about the country's future in the expanding bloc. The sharpest growth in "no" votes has been on the political left. According to Ipsos, 53 percent of Socialist party (PS) voters are planning to vote against the constitution, despite an official recommendation from the leadership to vote "yes". "The 'no' vote has become fashionable," said the left-wing Liberation newspaper Tuesday. "It is as if saying 'no' to the constitution is the best way to express one's fears over a future that appears more and more uncertain."
The constitution is intended to streamline decision-making in the 25-member union, but will not come into effect unless it is ratified in every country. A rejection in so important a country as France would stop it in its tracks. Chirac had intended to enter the fray on Thursday in a televised discussion with young people, but the appointment was pushed back by a week so the president can attend Pope John Paul II's funeral in Rome. On Tuesday the constitution was to be the subject of a debate in the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, where a large majority of deputies are in favour. Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) supports the constitution, with just a handful of dissidents, as does its ally the Union for French Democracy (UDF). The opposition PS is in favour - but has a substantial minority who are opposed - and so are the Greens. The only parliamentary group that rejects the constitution is the Communist party.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/05/2005 1:04:12 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The obvious solution is for Chirac to arrange for the full text of the constitution to be read on French television, so that the French people will be caught up in the majesty of its language, such as:
"After consulting the European Parliament and after discussion in the European Council, the
Council, on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt a European decision establishing which Member States with a derogation fulfil the necessary conditions on the basis of the criteria set out in paragraph 1, and shall abrogate the derogations of the Member States concerned."
Kind of gets you all teared up, doesn't it?
Posted by: Matt ||
04/05/2005 14:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Beautiful language. You just don't see much truly first-class gobledygook anymore...
#3
And don't forget to mention "access to free placement services" when reading the "Fundamental Human Rights" listed in the EU Constitution...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/05/2005 15:23 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The US should push France to give up its Security Council seat to the EU before this election. Come one Chiraq, let's see a gesture to "One Europe" here.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
04/05/2005 15:30 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"The 'no' vote has become fashionable," said the left-wing Liberation newspaper Tuesday.
#6
The stupid thing is: The Constitution isn't exactly a brilliant piece, but if it fails, Europe falls back to Nice.
France will try to embrace Germany even more.
God is it 2006 yet? Although Schroeder might still fall before that.
The issue of integration is an overriding priority for the Muslim minorities in Europe which should strike a balance between their identity and the cultures of their new societies, a leading European Muslim activist said. "Muslims in Europe cannot make a difference unless they wholeheartedly integrate into their new societies," Ahmad Al-Rawi, Chairman of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), told IslamOnline.net Monday, April 4, over the phone from London. "But they have to strike the right balance between their identity and their contributions to their society at all political, economic and cultural levels."
So far they haven't done a real good job of becoming Germans or Frenchies or Dutchmen or Danes. They've been concentrating real hard on being Moose limbs, though...
He said that the 15 million Muslims in Europe "are part and parcel of their societies," adding that the term "integration" has become the rallying cry for this juncture.
I'm sure that "integration" means something different to the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe than it does to us. I think that rather than implying that Mahmoud goes out and buys lederhosen and Fatima a dirndl, it has something to do with putting together a power bloc and changing the nature of their Eurohomelands.
Al-Rawi said the issue is high on the agenda of an FIOE delegation attending an EU interfaith committee meeting later in the day. "Brussels will also likely host a seminar on the recognition of Islam in Europe later this month," he added.
Yep. That'd be the place I'd expect it.
The prominent Muslim activist said Europe is no longer a "mono-cultural" continent. "Europe, though dominated by Christians and white complexions, has become increasingly multi-ethnic," he noted. "True that there are some countries that want Muslims to melt away into their pots, but there are others which boost positive integration."
I think the number of countries that are enthusiastic about that idea is declining. I note that my suspicions about the definition of integration are confirmed...
The Muslim activist, however, admitted that the integration process is not that easy and needs a great deal of persistence in view of incidents resurfacing every now and then, which tarnish the image of Islam.
Little things like explosions and the occasional headless body...
He said the Netherlands, for instance, was one of the most receptive European countries to Muslims and used to spend millions every year on their organizations. The government used to encourage Muslims to play a key role on the political spectrum, he added, recalling that 50 municipal members were Muslims. "But the killing of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh at the hands of a mad boy has changed every thing and made Muslims there back to square one," Rawi stressed.
That's because the mad boy is becoming much more typical than Mahmoud in lederhosen.
"No doubt that we all as Muslims feel jealous for our religion and our Prophet (PBUH), but there are legal channels through which we can protest and not by such a barbaric way that did more harm than good to Islam."
If you were to actually integrate there wouldn't be anything to protest against. "To each his own" is kind of the essence of individual liberty.
The Muslim activist offered a piece of advice to all Muslim minorities in the West: "Perform your duties before asking for your rights. Muslims who abide by their religion should, by the same token, abide by the laws of their European countries."
That'd be a step in the right direction. If you wanted shariah you should have stayed back home in Uglystan. The reason Europe works at all is precisely because it doesn't have shariah. Europe's attempts at religiously ruled states were as big failures as are those in the Islamic world. Ask anybody from the Papal States.
"Integrate positively into your society, keep you non-Muslim fellows acquainted with the precious values of your religion, and I guarantee that your society will, sooner or later, warmly welcome you."
"Oh, yeah. And don't kill nobody."
On problems facing some Muslims in the Netherlands over refusing to shake hands with women, Rawi said such issues should not be given priority. He said shaking women's hands "is by no means a major sin but rather a minor one and a controversial issue on which scholars are divided." The Muslim activist asserted that refraining from handshaking is interpreted differently in European countries.
Only in Islam, as far as I know, is elementary good manners a matter of religious controversy. If hand kissing ever makes a comeback I'm sure they'll riot.
"Some countries see it as a sign of disrespect for women, and others, like Britain, understand it," he said.
... but view it with the contempt it deserves.
Rawi continued: "We should not give heed to such issues and should focus rather on important issues on which we should make no compromise, and this is our approach at international conferences like the Le Bourget conference in France." He recalled that the European Council for Fatwa and Research has issued several statements guiding Muslims on how they can adapt to the values of their Western societies and overcome problems like this.
Had to look up what the Prophet (PTUI) would have done, huh?
Some Dutch Muslims have found themselves between a rock and a hard place over the issue of handshaking. The Hague Municipality deprived last month a Muslim citizen of government social assistance after he refused to shake hands with a female civil servant. The man tried in vain to justify his position as being purely religious and in no way derogatory. His lawyer defended him as a victim of racism, asserting that such a behavior was not deemed as disapproving before the November killing of Van Gogh.
That was before Theo was slaughtered like a sheep. Now it's viewed as ill-mannered and ignorant, which I consider an accurate interpretation...
Another Dutch Muslim, F. Aniat, could have faced the same punishment if it hand not been for the staunch defense of his non-Muslim work colleagues, Rotterdam newspaper reported on Friday, April 1. Aniat, who works for the council of social affairs in Rotterdam, was reprimanded by a legal committee for refusing to shake hands with two female members at Rotterdam municipality. In his defense, Aniat said that the council should understand the cultures of Dutch citizens of different backgrounds.
"Yeah. In our culture, we revile you guys as infidels and we cut your heads off when we get the chance. That's our culture, so youse gotta honor it."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This didn't appear in the news but my Dutch friend told me last weekend that a Muslim School In Uden that had been firebombed after the Theo Van Gogh murder was torched again last week sometime. This guy is just trying to direct attention to the problem. The problem is the religion. Nothing is going to change that unfortunate fact.
#2
That was before Theo was slaughtered like a sheep. Now it's viewed as ill-mannered and ignorant, which I consider an accurate interpretation...
I have inlaws who wont shake hands with a woman. None of em would have anything to do with bombs or AK-47's. Sorry to come off as a johny one note, and I dont think Islam is the same as Ultra-O Judaism, but when folks say things, I gotta let you know the facts.
Look, Im not saying the Euros could accept Muslims who are as unintegrated as chassidic jews. The numbers are too great in the case of muslims. But it also seems to me that most muslims ARE integrating. Learning languages. Wearing western dress. Look at all the muslim women who SUPPORTED the ban on hijans in France. Are you telling me THEY are not integrated?
As for looking up what the prophet would have done, what the hell is wrong with that? Modern Orthodox jews look to rabbis to interpret Jewish law, to determine how far you can go in adapting to modern life. Hell, even us Conservative Jews are supposed to do that, and sometimes do. Yes, I will shake a womans hand, but no, I wont share pork ribs with y'all. And i wont let my daughter dress up like britney Spears. Even if thats "modern". America, does NOT insist we drop our ways, or our faith, and allows us to refer to our religious law in determining how modern to be, as long as we follow civil law. I dont see why Euroland shouldnt be the same.
#3
Careful about the equivalencing, LH. I haven't noticed any chassidic folks flying planes into buildings nor, in the event, would I expect a failure to condemn those actions by the vast majority of Jewish adherents. So far the Islamic nutters seem a lot worse than the Jewish or Amish ones. They no longer get the benefit of my doubt and need to earn that back. They have done nothing to do so thus far.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/05/2005 10:57 Comments ||
Top||
#4
LH,
You raise several good points.
1. On the comparison between Islam and Judaism, ultimately the difference is that Islam has univeralist aspirations. Judaism, on the other hand, seems to pride itself on being an exclusive club.
2. When it comes to integration, I'm more of your mindset. Do as you please, but obey the law. You want to wear a sack on your head? Fine, but you've still go to mind the speed limit.
However, the concern for Europe comes down to numbers. You build up a large enough lump of unassimilated folks, they'll begin to exert their own political influence and make it difficult for those who wish to integrate to do so. After all, if 500 Muslims a day show up on your border, that's immigration. If 500,000 show up all at the same time, that's an invasion.
#2
Maybe the God of Israel can heal him since he ALWAYS was a staunch supporter of Israel over Arafish's Paleo's /SARCASM OFF
It's not my job to wish cancer on anybody but if someone like this anti-Israel idiot is going to get cancer, I am not going to shed any tears or give a care.
#6
Getting chemo, eh? That makes him a (minimum) stage 3A. Survival there isn't good: stage 3A is about 20% five year survival; stage 3B is about 10%, and stage 4 is < 5%.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/05/2005 17:15 Comments ||
Top||
#7
...Celebs tend to withhold info on illnesses until its so far gone that there's really not much that can be done. Having said that, I do truly wish all the best for Mister Jennings and his family. I want him around to argue with for a very long time.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/05/2005 19:07 Comments ||
Top||
HT Drudge - smack that asshole Carter around? Fine with me
BUSH PASSED OVER CARTER IN POPE FUNERAL PICK
President Bush selected his father and Bill Clinton over Jimmy Carter for the official delegation attending the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the Carter Center claimed Late Tuesday.
"President Carter expressed to the White House a desire to attend the Pope's funeral," an official said.
Carter "was informed that the official delegation would be limited to just five people, and there were also others who were eager to attend."
"The Carters always relish the memories of Pope John Paul II being a delightful personal guest at the White House in 1979, on a pope's only visit to our nation's capital city. Subsequently, they visited with His Holiness in the Vatican."
One senior GOP official said that Carter wanted to take his wife Rosalynn along, but was informed that would be impossible. It was unclear if Clinton asked to take along his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Developing...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/05/2005 6:02:09 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I am thrilled to see this. F**k Jimmah and the rabit he paddled away from. That scum deserves NO respect, especially from Pres. Bush. What a friggin whiner.
#4
Carter will be busy that day vouching for the honesty of the Zimbabwe elections.
Posted by: ed ||
04/05/2005 19:34 Comments ||
Top||
#5
IIUC all living Presidents , except Carter, will be attending
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/05/2005 20:20 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Bogus headline. When Carter was informed there was only room for 5 he decided to decline and allow someone else to go. I don't care for his politics but I always thought he was an honest man. He has been easily duped I think because he has an affinity for trusting people when he shouldn't. NPR reported this as he declined and not the Bush Administration shut him out. My opinion, more MSM Bush Bashing.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/05/2005 20:22 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Maybe there's still time for Jimmuh to join the Cuban delegation.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/05/2005 21:15 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Chavez has an opening, Lewinski turned him down.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/05/2005 21:17 Comments ||
Top||
#9
All living presidents except Carter and FORD.
Carter doesnt deserve to go. Bush and Clinton (for the most part) are playing by the tacit rules on how to be an ex-president.
Jimmuh on the other hand... North Korea, the fruadulent election in Venzuela, atc - he's been nothing but a f**kup at anything other than building houses for the poor.
Carter doesnt deserve to go. Bush and Clinton (for the most part) are playing by the tacit rules on how to be an ex-president.
Jimmuh on the other hand... North Korea, the fruadulent election in Venzuela, atc - he's been nothing but a f**kup at anything other than building houses for the poor.
Carter doesnt deserve to go. Bush and Clinton (for the most part) are playing by the tacit rules on how to be an ex-president.
Jimmuh on the other hand... North Korea, the fruadulent election in Venzuela, atc - he's been nothing but a f**kup at anything other than building houses for the poor.
U.S. troops in Iraq are provoking civilians and hampering rebuilding with an excessive use of force, British lawmakers said in a report Tuesday. The House Foreign Affairs Committee also found that the slow pace of reconstruction had fueled the insurgency in Iraq and suggested the country had replaced Afghanistan as a training ground for international terrorists.
"Excessive use by the U.S. forces of overwhelming firepower has also been counterproductive, provoking antagonism toward the coalition among ordinary Iraqis," the report said, echoing the concerns of British officials.
Some have complained that the U.S. military is too heavy-handed in Iraq, compared with British soldiers, who often patrol on foot and in berets instead of helmets in an effort to win the trust of local Iraqis. The committee of lawmakers, representing three parties, said foreign fighters had played a leading and deadly role in the insurgency.
"However, the evidence points to the greater part of the violence stemming from Iraqi groups and individuals, some motivated by religious extremism and others who have been dispossessed by policies adopted by the coalition since the war, such as de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi security forces," the report said. The committee said U.S.-led forces had clearly failed to stem the violence and suggested the new Iraqi government should try to negotiate with the insurgents.
"We conclude that to date the counterinsurgency strategy has not succeeded. This may reflect an overriding focus on a military approach to the detriment of political engagement ... While negotiations with al-Qaida and foreign fighters are out of the question, it might be possible to address some of the Iraqi insurgents' grievances through political negotiations," the report added. The findings are similar to those of other parliamentary committees that have criticized the coalition's poor post conflict planning in Iraq.
The committee, which scrutinizes Britain's foreign policy, also was critical of the British government. It said ministers had failed to state clearly whether Britain had used intelligence extracted under torture from suspects in other countries. "We find it surprising and unsettling that the government has twice failed to answer our specific question on whether or not the United Kingdom receives or acts upon information extracted under torture by a third country," said the report.
The committee said ministers also should speak out against the detention of terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there was a "lack of due process and oppressive conditions."
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/05/2005 2:59:00 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh man, what a load...
We have only had to pull europe's butt out of the fire 3 times last century. Violence is going down in Iraq and democracy is spreading. I take great pride in not being "european" enough.
#2
"... compared with British soldiers, who often patrol on foot and in berets instead of helmets in an effort to win the trust of local Iraqis."
It sure helps when you do that in Basra as opposed to the Sunni Triangle. IIRC some Marine units took very few casualties while doing occupation duty in the Shia south - all that changed when they took over some Sunni Triangle areas.
#4
You have to remember that the Brits have pulled out of every single one of the possessions won with British blood in the past 200 years. Uncle Sam still has most of his. If there's one thing the Brits know, it's how to govern a place so that it becomes an ex-possession in a minimum amount of time. They even lost Ireland. How the heck does one do that? Given their disastrous record at keeping their empire, I don't think they should presume to tell us how it's done.
#5
Criticize, criticize, criticize - until we get it perfect! That's the job of the press. Ask them what they'd do, and they'll tell you what you did wrong. I'll bet this study was comissioned by Al Guardian!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/05/2005 16:35 Comments ||
Top||
#6
This propaganda is what, six months old at best?
Geez, these clowns aren't even competent. Pathetic. Truly pathetic. Is Howard backing this BS?
WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans will need passports to re-enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, Panama and Bermuda by 2008, part of a tightening of U.S. border controls in an era of terrorist threat, three administration officials said Tuesday. Similarly, Canadians will also have to present a passport to enter the United States, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Canadians have been the only foreigners allowed to enter the United States with just a driver's license.
An announcement, expected later Tuesday at the State Department, will specify that a passport or another valid travel document will have to be shown by U.S. citizens, the officials said.
The guvernment is requiring passports for returning U.S. citizens and Canucks, but WHAT ABOUT THE PROBLEM ALONG THE MEXICAN BORDER? WHAT ABOUT ALL THE ILLEGALS ALREADY ON U.S. SOIL???
The Minuteman Project is set up and running, and officials complain that sensors are being set off by volunteers. Well since certain areas are now being patrolled by volunteers, HOW ABOUT IGNORING ALERTS THAT ORIGINATE FROM SENSORS IN THOSE AFFECTED AREAS?
Sometimes I wonder just what the deal is with government employees and politicians. It's almost as if they're incapable of reasoning and tailoring their actions accordingly.
#3
Well, spegum, given the laxity of the Canadians about passports this was inevitable. What was it, 20,000 blank ones unaccounted for? and just how many people with close ties to jihadi groups granted citizenship and protection there?
As far as returning into the US, that is an outgrowth of the situation in Canada. I wonder why you would object to the idea that everyone entering the US should show a serious ID. Or do you think we should just take peoples' word for it that they are Americans and like us ....
Posted by: too true ||
04/05/2005 14:55 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Empirical tests: kick a sensor and see how long it takes for La Migra to show up...
#6
This is classical government behavior. Its a repeat of gun control. Making the law abiding citizen go through paperwork and process while making no dent into those operating unlawfully. With an open border to the south, this is one big joke. Or, the State Department has figured a way to make a profit on passport processing fees and is now looking to make as many Americans as possible pay.
#8
Zhang Fei: I have to disagree. Since government is unable and unwilling to enforce its existing law against those that violate it, it applies that law increasignly savagely against those who obey the law. Overall, its effect is the same as a police officer who sees two big guys fighting, and doesn't want to get involved, so he hits an innocent bystander with his nightstick over and over again to show that he still has authority. It is unjust, unfair, and irrational. It makes no more sense than pat searches at the entrance to supermarkets to prevent "supermarket terrorism"--a terrible thing, were some terrorist to ever do it.
#9
Anonymoose: Overall, its effect is the same as a police officer who sees two big guys fighting, and doesn't want to get involved, so he hits an innocent bystander with his nightstick over and over again to show that he still has authority. It is unjust, unfair, and irrational.
Asking to see someone's passport at the border is not the same as hitting someone over the head with a nightstick. I understand that to some people, having to get a passport is (to use a Carterism) the moral equivalent of war. But the reality is that the simplest of all security measures is to ask people for their passports at the border.
#10
Or, the State Department has figured a way to make a profit on passport processing fees and is now looking to make as many Americans as possible pay.
Well, a passport now costs around eighty bucks or so, but there's no law that says each U.S. citizen must buy one. At least not yet...
#12
To a point, I agree with you, TGA, but how likely is it for terrorists to use false documentation to come through a border checkpoint vs. get a coyote to sneak them across (and kill him afterwards)?
If the only way to cross were through checkpoints, this would be helpful to security. But since you can simply walk or swim across 3000 miles of uncontrolled terrain, what good would it do?
#14
jackal, in that case, why do we need passport controls at all at airports, with fingerprinting and photography? What's the point for biometric passports?
For Christ sakes, when you show a highway cop your driver's license, you prove that you are fit to drive.
If you show an immigration officer your passport, you prove that you are American. Jeez, I had a valid US driver's license for years!
#15
It should be simple: enter another country or come back to your own---have your passport ready. A terrorist entering by plane or car or ferry is still entering. When I fly my plane into the Yukon, they want my passport, even when I land in Beaver Creek, Yukon (across from Alaska on the Alcan highway), and WALK over to the highway customs post. If you are too stupid to get a passport, then who wants you in their country in the first place.
Problems can be overcome. My ex-wife needed a passport, but she had a delayed birth certificate at age 7 (not good enough for the Dept of State). She was born upriver and settled in a village to attend school. We got 4 people to make affidavits stamped by the postmaster (only notary) stating that she was born at this certain place on such and such a day to, blah blah blah. The passport came through a few weeks later.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/05/2005 23:53 Comments ||
Top||
Islamic spiritual leader Ali Al-Timimi's pen is mightier than his sword, prosecutors contend. It's not so much his actions but his words that make him so dangerous, they say. Less than a week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Timimi told a group of Northern Virginia Muslims that it should train for violent jihad abroad and wage war on the United States, prosecutors say. In 2003, he celebrated the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in a message that prosecutors say reflected his view that the United States itself should be destroyed._
The government says the statements of Timimi -- who goes on trial today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria -- constitute nothing short of treason. But some Muslims, who are rallying to Timimi's side through a Web site and other expressions of support, see a respected religious leader being prosecuted for his words. "He is not accused of anything except talking. It's all about him saying something," said Shaker Elsayed, a member of the executive committee of Dar Al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church. "If this isn't a First Amendment issue, I don't know what is."
Although legal experts are as divided on the case as the two sides are, some said that the case reflects the power of words in the post-Sept. 11 climate -- and that it poses an important test of the free-speech rights Americans have come to expect since the First Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1791. "This is a troubling case with very significant First Amendment concerns," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor with experience in national security cases.
If Timimi "encouraged people to go kill Americans, it comes very close to the criminal line, if not passing over it," Turley said. But historically, he said, "Courts have been uneasy with a criminal allegation based solely on words alone."
Victoria Toensing, a Washington lawyer who created the Justice Department's terrorism unit during the Reagan administration, said Timimi's words could send him to prison. "If he said, 'I want you to go join the movement in Afghanistan and here is where you get the training,' that's no different from saying, 'Go join a murder club,' " Toensing said.
Whether Timimi will go to prison probably will depend on whether he expected his listeners to act on what he told them, legal experts said. Although free-speech rights have been interpreted differently in different eras, the current standard derives from the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court opinion Brandenburg v. Ohio, they said. That opinion says the government cannot forbid "advocacy of the use of force" unless that advocacy is intended or likely to produce "imminent lawless action.''
Timimi is charged with 10 counts, which include attempting to contribute services to the Taliban and soliciting or inducing others to commit a variety of crimes, such as conspiring to levy war on the United States, using firearms and carrying explosives. One charge involving war is drawn from a section of federal law headed "treason.'' If convicted on all counts, Timimi, 41, of Fairfax County, would face up to life in prison. Jury selection began last Monday, and opening statements are scheduled for today. The trial, before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, is expected to last as long as three weeks.
This article starring:
ALI AL TIMIMI
Learned Elders of Islam
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor
Rebecca Glenberg, legal director for the ACLU of Virginia
Posted by: Steve ||
04/05/2005 2:19:29 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Goo-fi could do a world of good by just resigning. Unfortunately, Mr. Granite Head doesn't seem to understand that staying on and persevering doesn't do him or the organization any good.
#3
Does this bring to mind the image of the captain of the Titanic giving a pep talk to the crew and last of the passangers after all the lifeboats have launched or is it just me?
#1
Thanks, but I already know all I need to know about the UN.
It's WORTHLESS.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2005 13:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The article, despite knowing of so many of the UN's unmitigated and relentless failures and fatal flaws, still makes you shake your head and wonder what sort of people, aware of even only the tip of the iceberg, would fail to act, to publicly raise serious concern, to demand cleaning out the entire management structure - firing the lot en masse - and charging them with every available form of misfeasance and malfeasance available. It just boggles when ANYONE is brazen enough to try to defend this DISASTER IN PROGRESS.
Thai authorities have imposed extra security measures amid fears that unrest in the Muslim far south is spreading after bombs hit an airport, hotel and supermarket just outside the violence-hit region.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the almost simultaneous Sunday evening blasts, which security officials blamed on Islamic militants, had raised concern across the Buddhist country.
The bombs, which police said consisted of dynamite and fertilizer and which were detonated by mobile phone, killed two people and wounded 60, seven critically, health officials said.
"This doesn't only worry me. It worries the whole nation," Thaksin told reporters on Monday.
The government reacted with an array of security measures first imposed during an Asia-Pacific regional summit two years ago attended by U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"To restore people's confidence, we have raised our security measures to the level during the APEC summit," Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya told reporters after a special national security meeting.
Fears that militants might take their campaign to the capital, Bangkok, weakened the Thai currency, the baht, in early trade, dealers said.
The blast in the departure lounge of Hat Yai international airport, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Bangkok, in Songkhla province was the first bomb attack on a Thai airport, and comes two weeks before the Buddhist "Water Festival" celebrations.
But until Sunday's blasts the violence had rarely spread beyond these three provinces, where most people speak a Malay dialect and have greater emotional ties to neighbouring Malaysia.
The British Embassy in Bangkok revised its travel advice, saying there was "a high threat from terrorism throughout Thailand, particularly in the four southern provinces."
In Washington, the U.S. State Department urged Americans to avoid travelling to Thailand's southernmost provinces except in emergency situations.
"American citizens who must travel to these areas are urged to exercise special caution," the U.S. agency said.
Small bombs or shootings, normally targeting police or government officials, have become daily occurrences in the three southernmost provinces since violence erupted in January 2004.
The southern Thai tourist havens of Phuket and Krabi, popular with European holidaymakers, have avoided the trouble.
Thaksin vowed to keep up military pressure on perpetrators of violence, but said police and army would act within the law, in keeping with last week's policy U-turn to scale back the military presence in the area.
"We will continue our intensive prevention and suppression measures, but we will not abandon our non-violent means," he said before leaving on a trip to the northern city of Chiang Mai.
Flights had resumed at Hat Yai airport, where mobile phone signals had been turned off at random as a measure to prevent remote-controlled bombs, Deputy Transport Minister Phumtham Vechayachai told reporters.
Other security measures would also be adopted at all airports, officials said.
"From now on, whoever leaves a bag unattended will be stopped and ordered to carry it with them," said Air Force chief Kongsak Wantana.
On Monday, another bomb exploded at a technical college in Yala, wounding five people, hours ahead of a sports event to be witnessed by top regional military chiefs, police said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/05/2005 12:26:13 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
The European Union will not sign a much-delayed trade and aid pact with Syria unless Damascus pulls all forces out of Lebanon, the EU ambassador has said. Frank Hesske on Monday said the EU was unlikely to sign the Association Agreement, which will widen Syrian access to its markets, until Syria complies with a UN resolution demanding an end to foreign meddling in Lebanon. "I don't see how we could consider signature earlier thanâŠfulfillment of these two conditions: withdrawal of troops and intelligence services and the issue of what we really see on the ground free transparent elections or not," Hesske said. The EU precondition came despite a Syrian pledge to the United Nations to end its 29-year military and intelligence presence in Lebanon by the end of April.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
France and the US have introduced a draft UN resolution that would authorise an independent investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Rejecting Lebanon's call for major involvement in the inquiry, the draft given to the 15 Security Council members calls for the international investigating commission to complete its work within six months. But China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya, the current council president, said there was still a debate over the probe's duration, and diplomats said it could be reduced to three months.
The US-French draft did not include many amendments sought by the Lebanese government, which wanted the investigators to cooperate closely with the government, to be based in Lebanon, and to limit the probe to 12 weeks. Instead, it would allow Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recruit "impartial and experienced staff" without getting agreement from the Lebanese government, and give the commission authority to determine its own procedures.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
They trot out Khatami when they want to seem somewhat reasonable...
Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has said that Tehran hoped to strike a deal with the European Union on its peaceful use of nuclear energy. On a visit to Vienna, Khatami said Iran and the EU were working "to find a solution to the right of our land for the peaceful development of nuclear energy and also to overcome the worries of our European colleagues". The Iranian president said his country opposed, as other nations do, "the gross misuse of nuclear technology, which is the development of fearsome atomic weapons". But he said that even oil-rich Iran needs peaceful nuclear technology. Iran "does not want anything other than what law and the international community agree to," Khatami said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Neverending Story.
Chapter 9,842: "We Want A Deal"
Chapter 9,843: "Get Stuffed"
Chapter 9,844: "Mom, America's Looking At Us Funny"
Chapter 9,845: "We Will Bury You"
Chapter 9,846: "We Are Not Afraid Of You, You, You Bad Guy, You"
Chapter 9,847: "We Will Fight To The Last Drop Of (Somebody Else's) Blood"
Chapter 9,848: "We Want A Deal"
The Muslim Brotherhood, banned in Syria on pain of death since 1980, called Monday for an end to the ruling Baath party's 42-year grip on power and for the organization of free and fair elections. The movement, which was behind an armed uprising in the 1980s that marked the biggest challenge to the Damascus regime to date, called for a national congress of all political parties to ward off what it said was a "threat of invasion", an allusion to growing US pressure on the government. "The Muslim Brotherhood urges the organization of an inclusive national congress that would represent all political tendencies and religious and ethnic groups, whether based inside Syria or in exile, to form a national force capable of facing the challenges," said the statement. "The Muslim Brotherhood calls for an end to the state of emergency (in force ever since the Baath party seized power in 1963) and the winding up of the courts of exception which have been the instruments of injustice."
The banned party called for the "adoption of a law on political parties and the organization of free and fair elections for a national assembly that would draw up a new constitution to deal with the needs of the moment and usher in a democratic republic." The Islamist group warned of the "huge earthquake ... on our borders which threatens to invade," an allusion to US-led force that overthrew the Baath party regime in neighbouring Iraq in April 2003. "The Baath party, which has led the country for 42 years, bears the sole responsibility for the destruction it will cause if it insists on continuing its policies and ignoring honest appeals." The group said it was acting "not out of fear that the regime might fall but out of concern for the losses to the country if it slides into anarchy."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Hizbullah "will not disarm even if the Israelis withdraw from Shebaa Farms," the party's political bureau member Ghaleb Abu Zeinab said Monday. Abu Zeinab said: "Shebaa Farms do not define the resistance's arms. Even if Shebaa Farms are liberated, Hizbullah's arms are here to protect Lebanon from any Israeli attack and create a balance of terror in the face of Israel." He added: "This matter will be discussed between all Lebanese parties to find the best solution for it. Hizbullah feels that it is a national matter that has to be agreed upon between the Lebanese themselves."
Abu Zeinab said Hizbullah constitutes a line of protection for Lebanon, along with the Lebanese Army and the state. On Monday, Shebaa mayor Omar Zouheiri and Hasbaya's mukhtar asserted that Shebaa Farms are Lebanese, in response to comments by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen Sunday. Larsen had said from Damascus Sunday that the UN regarded the disputed land as Syrian territory, while Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa had no comment. Larsen added: "This issue has been behind us for five years now, and it was decided and resolved by the UN Security Council five years ago in a unanimous decision. I have nothing further to comment on."
Zouheiri said: "Larsen's statement doesn't have any certified basis ... Shebaa Farms are Lebanese because the Israelis didn't occupy it in 1967 as they say, but occupied it in 1985. The owners of the farms still have their deeds to the lands." He added: "There are also Lebanese judiciary rulings as to the ownership of these lands between some Lebanese citizens which date back to Nov. 30, 1944."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
The formation of the new government is expected to be announced by the end of the week, with the noticeable absence of outgoing Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh.
Good riddance.
In a statement issued by Franjieh's press office, the minister said he will not be taking part in the new government.
"I'm fired? Whaddya mean, 'I'm fired'?"
According to the statement, "While we wish Prime Minister-designate Omar Karami luck in forming his new Cabinet, we would like to explain that Franjieh will not be taking part in the new government." Franjieh's statement came as Karami announced consultations for the new Cabinet will kick off as soon as the mourning period for the death of Pope John Paul II ends. Karami added: "The formation of the new government will have to wait until Saturday. We cannot form the government while the country is in a state of mourning for the death of the pope." Karami also said the opposition would not be taking part in the Cabinet. He said: "We waited 20 days for them to take part, but they didn't want to. But we are holding talks with them to see who they deem appropriate candidates to represent them in the new Cabinet."
Ever since his re-appointment as premier, Karami has insisted that if he cannot form a government with opposition participation, he will resign. But following a meeting of the loyalist Ain al-Tineh Gathering last Friday, Karami announced he would go on with forming the government despite earlier statements he would step down. During the meeting Speaker Nabih Berri had added the gathering would not accept any form of electoral law except that based on the mohafaza (medium-sized electoral district).
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
TEHRAN: Iran's high-profile and popular national police chief, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, has quit his post amid widespread expectations he intends to stand in this year's presidential election, reports said on Monday. According to Iranian newspapers, Qalibaf handed in his resignation to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sunday - in line with a general understanding that serving members of the security forces cannot directly enter politics.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen called Monday for "timely" elections in Lebanon following Syria's troop withdrawal which Damascus has promised to complete in less than four weeks. On the ground, the Syrian pullout continued in what Roed-Larsen termed a "speedy process" while the Lebanese and Syrian army commands agreed on a withdrawal plan for the next phase running from April 7-30. The special envoy held talks with Lebanese leaders on Syria's troop withdrawal under international supervision, a day after Damascus promised its last soldier would be out by the end of this month. Roed-Larsen also insisted on "timely" elections as he started a three-day mission by meeting President Emile Lahoud and Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammoud. The talks focused on the sending of a team of UN experts to verify the full withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence assets. "We are discussing now the practical modalities on how to do this," the envoy said. Roed-Larsen said he and Lahoud also agreed on holding elections "in a timely fashion" for the sake of Lebanon's security.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
There is a golden opportunity for the Lebs to rid themselves forever of both the Hezbollah murderers and the Socialist vultures hoping to swoop in and swallow up a vulnerable state.
It will be hard and demand much, but it's there. I have no idea where the UN and its failed fools fit into the picture. Perhaps that's the answer, they don't. Larsen should go back to Palestine and pretend he's accomplishing something there, after all - his performance there was so singular - rather than dragging his failed Tranzi Cookbook into a new fragile situation.
#2
the UN guys fit in by advancing the implementation of UNSC 1559. Theyre paid staff, and ultimately do what the UNSC tells them, WHEN the UNSC can unite. Which it DID here. Cause, as we've been over many times, the French have a stake in getting the Syrians out, that exceeds their inclination to trip up the US. And, BTW, the House of Saud apparently found the Hariri killing over the line as well. The Chinese and Russians have other fish to fry, and arent going to oppose a US-UK-France consensus on the UNSC.
Nothing to do with Tranzis, or "socialism". Like i gotta keep telling the leftie loons, NOT everything is about Bush, Cheney, capitalism, etc.
#3
Lol! So I gather that you're saying I'm a rightie loon. Thanks.
Yeah, the UN is a peach of a an org - worth every penny, the French Govt is really an ally (today. in Leb.), and you're a centrist. Got it. Thanks, Lh.
#4
Lol! So I gather that you're saying I'm a rightie loon.
Well I never said that, now did I? :) The UN aint a peach, its a bureaucracy, with a lot of problems. But it aint the tranzi conspiracy aspiring to rule the world either. Its a lotta guys looking to get pensions, and serving time. And reporting to their boss, who is, ultimately, the UNSC, NOT the US, so naturally they say and do things we dont like from time to time. Whether its worth every penny or not is another matter.
The French govt IS an ally today in Lebanon, AFAICT. An ally is somebody whos advancing the same side as you in a particular conflict, for their OWN ends, which may lead them to oppose you elsewhere. Its NOT someone who loves you, or is advancing the same side as you in a particular conflict out of love for your leadership of the world. The standards you guys set for what is an "ally" would mean that there really arent any allies anywhere in the world.
Im a centrist? I dunno. I call myself a liberal here, but thats mainly based on the local context. Id say most folks would call me a centrist, and most liberals would call me a conservative. But I guess to folks who think that John McCain and Lincoln Chafee and Arlen Spector are flaming liberals, Im a radical of sorts :)
Mauritania, the vast desert refuge of the Arab/Berber Moors in northwest Africa, may seem a distant front in the war on terrorism. Yet the pro-Israel/U.S. policies of its President, Maaouya Ould Taya, have sparked an Islamic revival in this traditionally moderate nation, a country that takes pride in being the world's first Islamic Republic. Mauritania has experienced no domestic acts of terrorism or known al-Qaeda activity, but the President claims Islamists with foreign connections guided three recent coup attempts. The unexpected outcome of the just-completed trial of 181 alleged insurgents helps shed some light on the nature of the Islamist threat in Mauritania.
The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) is currently engaged in a violent jihadist insurgency against the Algerian government with the goal of replacing the secular regime with an Islamic state. The GSPC splintered from a rival Algerian organization, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in 1998 over a disagreement on whether civilians constitute legitimate targets. Since its inception in 1992, the GIA has killed thousands of Algerian civilians, including women and children, in targeted massacres. Consequently, the GIA came to be viewed as contaminated and as a result, Hassan Hattab, a former GIA leader and founder of the GSPC, was able to take many GIA defectors with him when he left. The GSPC was also able to attract new members through its stated focus on attacking exclusively government targets and security forces. The group got an additional boost after Algerian President Bouteflika instituted a widespread amnesty program for Islamic militants in 1998, and the GSPC was one of the few groups that declined to participate.
Al-Qaeda which maintained a loose relationship with the GIA through individual combatants that had fought in Afghanistan also separated itself from the GIA over the civilian massacres, and allegedly encouraged Hattab to defect, providing him with funding to establish the GSPC. Since 1998, the GSPC has grown in strength and visibility to become the most effective terrorist group in Algeria, consequently co-opting most of the GIA's well-established overseas networks.
Early in its campaign, the GSPC successfully attacked Algerian security forces and other government targets. However, the group eventually returned to killing civilians probably when it began suffering more significant losses but not on the same scale as the GIA. Since 2002, the group has had some major setbacks, primarily due to infighting, the loss of two emirs and the steadily improving skills of the Algerian police and security forces.
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
Algerian President Bouteflika
HASAN HATTAB
Armed Islamic Group
HASAN HATTAB
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
Armed Islamic Group
Salafist Group for Call and Combat
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/05/2005 8:35:19 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
The United States, until recently, had a tendency to see Libya's Muammar Qadhafi and Osama bin Laden as ideological soul mates. While bin Laden aspired to cleanse Arabia and the Middle East of the infidel Christian and Jewish influence, Qadhafi aspired to be seen as a great revolutionary leader with a global audience. Far from being soul-mates, Qadhafi and bin Laden have long been at odds; it was Qadhafi who, in March 1998, issued the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden, a fact little known in the West. The warrant was issued in connection with the March 1994 murders of German anti-terrorism agents Silvan and Vera Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. Western intelligence agencies for a number of reasons chose to downplay and ignore the warrant; five months later the U.S. embassies in East Africa were bombed.
Qadhafi's rehabilitation over the past year has been extraordinary, with Libya becoming the Bush administration's shining example of a country renouncing weapons of mass destruction. In the process, the West has chosen to overlook Qadhafi's past misdeeds. In 1979, the U.S. listed Libya as a state sponsoring terrorism, while in 1984 Britain broke diplomatic relations with Libya after a policewoman was shot to death outside the Libyan embassy in London. Two years later, the Reagan administration ordered strikes against Tripoli to avenge a Libyan bombing of a disco in Berlin frequented by U.S. servicemen. The event that really etched the image of Qadhafi into the Western consciousness as a master terrorist was the December 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Ironically, the common thread running through Libya, bin Laden and the U.S. is the 1979-1988 Afghan war. Among the Arab volunteers were several thousand Libyans and in the early 1990s Libyan "Afghan vets" formed the shadowy Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG,) whose purpose was to overthrow Qadhafi and establish an Islamic state based on sharia law. The following year, they attempted to assassinate Qadhafi when an LIFG group led by Wadi al-Shateh threw a bomb beneath his motorcade. Qadhafi cracked down and many LIFG members fled to Europe and the Middle East. Another LIFG assassination attempt occurred in 1998 when Qadhafi's motorcade was attacked. The West's "master terrorist" was himself under terrorist attack.
Created in February 1998, Osama bin Laden's "World Islamic Front Against Crusaders and Jews" is the vehicle bin Laden uses to build working relationships between al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups. The number of groups now under the WIF is small: al-Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group from Pakistan and one from Bangladesh, Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization. Because bin Laden clearly attaches importance to the coalition, it is worth asking how he views and what he expects from it. Does he see it as a unified, coordinated alliance, taking direction from himself and other al-Qaeda's leaders? Does he want more than a paper alliance? What impact does he want and expect from the coalition's contribution to the anti-U.S. war? We will answer these questions in this article by analyzing al-Qaeda's doctrine for managing coalition warfare. In part two of this article, to appear in the next Terrorism Focus, we will examine the al-Qaeda-Zarqawi relationship to see how the doctrine works in practice.
As with most al-Qaeda-related issues, bin Laden, his lieutenants, and the organization's Internet journals provide the basis for understanding their doctrine. A review of these materials shows three discernible tenets of coalition warfare for al-Qaeda:
- Command: Bin Laden is the inciter-in-chief, not commander-in-chief.
- Management: Impose only a few clear and simple rules.
- Goals: Disrupt U.S. leaders' focus; disperse U.S. military/intelligence forces.
From his first public words in 1996, bin Laden has rejected the idea that he was -- or would become -- the commander-in-chief of all Sunni militant groups in their war against the United States and the West. Bin Ladin clearly commands al-Qaeda, but he has not sought the same control of other groups. He has insisted, rather, that his role and al-Qaeda's is that of "inciter" or "instigator" of jihad in the Muslim world. In an interview bin Laden made on September 28, 2001, posted on the Ummat website, he said "I must say that my duty is just to awaken the Muslims, to tell them as to what is good for them." He made similar comments on his role which appeared on al-Jazeera in June 1999, "...to instigate the nation [ummah] to get up and liberate its land, to fight for the sake of God, and to make Islamic law, the highest law, and the word of God the highest word of all."
The comments reflect a serious ideological hemorrhage and collapse of morale in the GSPC. At the end of January the militant preacher Omar Abdelhakim, alias Abu Musab al-Suri, published his Memoirs of the Jihad in Algeria, in which he categorically withdrew his support for the current leadership and issued trenchant criticisms of their actions. Just over a week later the current GSPC leader Abdelwahab Droukdel, alias Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud, issued a fatwa posted on the GSPC website [www.jihad-algeria.com] against his predecessor Hassan Hattab, accusing him of high treason. On February 17 came the reply in the Arabic daily El-Khabar, in which Hattab accused the current official GSPC of policies reminiscent of the GIA. Droukdel himself is criticized "for attacking civilian targets, like some common Djamel Zitouni or uncouth Antar Zouabri [former GIA leaders]". Hattab also indicated that since the death of the last GSPC emir Nabil Sahraoui, remnants of the GIA have been infiltrating the leadership of the GSPC [www.elkhabar.com].
The effects of the rift are becoming apparent. Despite the official manifesto 'no truce, no dialogue, no conciliation, no security agreement and no covenant of protection, but destruction, ruin, assassination and devastation' the Algerian daily L'Expression reported on February 23 from a military source that up to 60 GSPC militants were preparing to accept the amnesty [www.lexpressiondz.com]. Meanwhile the military is preparing the ground for an acceleration of surrenders, by setting up areas of 'non-aggression' in the Sid-Ali-Bounab forest on the border of the Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou regions. This is where the GSPC and allied groups have lately been most active, and also where Hattab is believed to be campaigning for the adoption of the amnesty.
Hat tip: Lance in Iraq. Edited for brevity.
FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq — It's a place that still terrifies the Iraqi people. Now home to the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, this base in eastern Baghdad was once the site of Iraq's General Security National Headquarters, an intelligence nerve center used with chilling effect by the Saddam Hussein regime.
[US Army MAJ Steve] Rosson said Chinese laborers built all the facilities, including the prison. After construction, Saddam charged them with espionage and they became its first occupants. Cantonese is scribbled on the walls of many cells. "We have no idea when that took place and it's uncertain how many Chinese there were. It's believed they spent many years there and died in the prison," Rosson said. "Apparently, they knew too much to go back home."
[Iraqi] Hayder Abdul-Nabi said two of his brothers were inmates. One spent seven years and then did 10 more at Abu Ghraib. His crime? He lost a pistol while serving in the Iraqi security forces. "We didn't know anything about [what happened to] him for seven years," Abdul-Nabi said, conceding he was hesitant to even go inside the prison during a recent tour. "The Iraqi people are very scared of this place. They'd kill people here by pouring acid on them."
Posted by: Dar ||
04/05/2005 2:15:19 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
what are you trying to do, Dar?...embarrass the MSM.
#2
Article: Cantonese is scribbled on the walls of many cells.
This writer is embellishing - trying to show off his (probably non-existent) expertise about both Iraq and China. The written forms of Cantonese, Mandarin and all of the spoken Chinese languages are identical in appearance. There is *no* way of differentiating between them. (There is such a thing as the distinction between "simplified" vs "traditional" characters, but either Cantonese or Mandarin can be written in either character set). As regards to the laborers being Cantonese (i.e. from the Chinese province of Guangdong - formerly anglicized as Canton), that is also unlikely given that Canton is the richest province in China, and construction workers are typically recruited from areas outside Canton, typically from central China.
The US military is planning to win the hearts of young people in the Middle East by publishing a new comic. The army comic may encounter competition from Arab superheroes created by an Egyptian publisher. An advertisement on the US government's Federal Business Opportunities website is inviting applications for someone to develop an "original comic book series".
"In order to achieve long-term peace and stability in the Middle East, the youth need to be reached," the ad says. "A series of comic books provides the opportunity for youth to learn lessons, develop role models and improve their education."
The comic is to be a collaborative effort with the US Army, which says it has already done initial character and plot development. It will be based on "the security forces, military and police, in the near future in the Middle East" and is being produced by US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Fort Bragg is home to the army's 4th Psychological Operations Group, known as "psy-op warriors", whose weaponry includes radio transmitters, loudspeakers and leaflets. The unit, whose slogans include Win the Mind - Win the Day and Verbum Vincet (The Word Conquers), is schooled in marketing and advertising techniques. In the past few years, its soldiers have been deployed during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan dropping leaflets and cartoons urging surrender and broadcasting pro-American messages via radio and television.
A spokesman at Fort Bragg told BBC News website that the initiative for the comic-book project came from the US Department of Defense's Central Command, which is responsible for US security interests in 25 Middle Eastern and Arab nations.
According to the advertisement, the successful applicant will ideally need to have experience of law enforcement and "small unit military operations" - along with a knowledge of Arab language and cultures. The aim is to involve the ministries of interior of some of Middle East countries. The army is aiming to test initial comics on focus groups and based on their success or otherwise, will either be developed further or dropped completely.
The US army's comic could see competition from a new Egyptian publishing venture which has created what it bills as the first Arab superheroes: Zein aka the Last Pharaoh, Rakan, a hairy medieval warrior in Mesopotamia, Jalila, a brainy Levantine scientist and fighter for justice and Aya, a North African described as a "vixen who roams the region on her supercharged motorbike confronting crime wherever it rears its ugly head". AK Comics says its goal is "to fill the cultural gap created over the years by providing essentially Arab role models, in our case, Arab superheroes to become a source of pride to our young generations."
Wasn't Simon LeGree (?) from the Dudley Doright thingy a French / Quebecois villain? Always tying up poor Polly Pureheart and putting her on the RR tracks... And the train's a-coming!
#13
.com -- You might also have been thinking of Simon Bar Sinister, a villain from the Underdog show. He had an assistant named Chad (or maybe Tad), who bore a spooky resemblance to Ted Danson. When I got a little older, I learned that "bar sinister" is a heraldric term denoting that the arms belong to a bastard (except that's the wrong term).
Most energy analysts on Wall Street expect oil prices to remain high for the foreseeable future because of strong demand and limited supply.
Then there is Tim Evans, a contrarian who says today's crude oil prices above $50 a barrel reflect nothing more than a market bubble fed by speculation and unwarranted fear. Evans, a senior analyst at IFR Energy Services in New York, believes oil prices could plummet to $28 a barrel as early as this summer.
"I guess that makes me the lunatic fringe," Evans said, followed up by a burst of laughter.
Evans' basic message is that the world's oil supply is sufficient to meet demand, that motorists will soon show that they're not willing to pay any price for gasoline and that the market is unreasonably receptive to worst-case-scenario thinking.
The 45-year-old analyst, who earned his bachelor's degree in mineral economics from Pennsylvania State University, has led energy research at IFR, a division of Thomson Financial, for the past 10 years, following stints as a copper trader and an analyst at a mining concern. Evans writes a twice-daily technical analysis of the petroleum markets that costs $395 a month and is read by institutional investors, major oil companies, fuel distributors, traders and journalists.
Oil prices began rising above historical norms a few months before the U.S. invaded Iraq and have maintained their upward momentum since then due to rising demand, a shrinking supply cushion and market worries about everything from a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico to pipeline sabotage in Iraq. The declining value of the dollar and increased hedge fund activity on futures markets have magnified the runup.
Rapid economic growth has largely masked the negative impact of high oil prices in the U.S., analysts say, though the airline industry has been stung, as have low-income families and those living on fixed incomes. Gasoline demand is about 2 percent higher than a year ago in spite of pump prices averaging $2.15 a gallon.
Veteran oil market analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover Inc. said Evans' outlook is not as crazy as his willingness to publicly stick out his neck.
"I don't disagree oil prices are going to drop precipitously at some point," Beutel said. "But, boy oh boy, they tell analysts to pick a time or pick a price, but don't do both. I certainly honor his bravery."
When pressed to do just that, Beutel said he could envision $28 a barrel, too - in 2008.
Most oil analysts have steadily raised their oil price forecasts over the past two years, keeping themselves in sync with the market's upward momentum.
They back up their upward revisions with data pointing to a limited global supply cushion at a time of rising demand, particularly in the United States and China. They also cite the declining value of the dollar and they voice fears about possible supply disruptions all around the world: from labor strife in Nigeria to refinery snags in America.
Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti last week raised his forecast for 2005 from $41 a barrel to $50 a barrel. The report said the market may be in the early stage of a "super spike" that sends prices as high as $105 a barrel - the price Goldman Sachs said may be necessary to significantly curb energy consumption.
The report has contributed to a recent rise in crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where oil for May delivery settled Monday at $57.01 a barrel. Nymex futures closed at a record $57.27 a barrel on Friday.
Evans scoffed at the Goldman Sachs report, saying "the probability of reaching that price level is so small it's, like, laughable."
"Yes, $105 could happen. Texas could slide into the Gulf of Mexico. There could be a nuclear war with Iran. But you know that in a scenario like that I somehow don't think the world economy is going to be screaming for more oil."
Evans is not the only contrarian - there are still a handful of analysts forecasting prices below $40 a barrel in the second half of the year - but he may be the most blunt voice of opposition to the bullish market consensus. He sums up the group-think this way: "Greed makes you stupid."
Some of Evans' main arguments are as follows:
- There is no worrisome lack of supply. With 1.8 million barrels a day of excess production capacity, Saudi Arabia can quickly pump enough oil to offset any disruptions, short of the most catastrophic scenarios.
"Oil prices have been rising for the last 18 months on hypothetical supply disruptions," Evans said. "Every time we come up with a new 'what if?', the oil price manages to go $5 higher."
- Higher prices will eventually cause gasoline demand, which is now about 2 percent higher than a year ago, to taper off. And higher prices will lead producers, including Saudi Arabia, to pump more oil.
- The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which the Bush administration has been filling at an average rate of nearly 250,000 barrels a day, is nearly full. By August, the market should have that much more supply of light, sweet crude available to it.
All of these factors have been ignored, Evans said, by the growing number of hedge funds and other speculators betting on crude futures, proving only that there is demand at any price for "paper barrels."
When asked why the market would ignore what he considers to be an adequate supply situation and instead focus on everything that could wrong to disrupt it, Evans answered with a question.
"Why did people chase Internet stocks in the late 1990s, and why did they shift from looking at earnings to looking at revenues and from looking at revenues to looking at the number of hits on a Web site as a method of valuation?"
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
04/05/2005 1:57:45 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
... oil prices could plummet to $28 a barrel ....
Regardless of the accuracy of the prediction this is a key statement. He seems to be talking about $28/bbl oil as a floor whereas a few years ago my folks were receiving approximately half that amount as the market price for their production. Given demand growth I can easily imagine another doubling of the floor by the end of the decade or just after, it's only a matter of time.
#5
- The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which the Bush administration has been filling at an average rate of nearly 250,000 barrels a day, is nearly full.
Thank God--I was so damn sick of Clinton using this for his short-term political gain! Of course, everything was expendable or for sale during his administration if it could give him an assist--strategic oil reserve, nuclear missile technology, Lincoln's bedroom...
Posted by: Dar ||
04/05/2005 10:26 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Now if only the housing bubble here would burst....
#9
bleh. this is stupid. Bush and Cheney are oil men, wtf are they doing buying high? sell the dang reserve and lower prices. They could do it easily. They start dumping oil and puttiing that money towards the deficit, and oil prices will fall. When they fall enough, buy more.
After a while the idiot speculators will have been buned for billions, and cashed out.
We do not need a huge reserve anymore. Fill it when oil is cheap, sell it when the arabs get uppity. This will cause the Arabs no end of pain.
Why do you need a big reserve? If you never use it to hit back economically then what good is it? Dont give some cold war scenario crapola.
In a war situation you all know dang well we could seize venezuela and Mexicos oil supplies overnight, heck Saudi oil fields would be easier.
If you sell the oil, you aren't guaranteed to get what you paid for it - you will, as you note, depress the price.
Buy again and the price goes up while you do so.
The reserves aren't there to hit back economically. Do you have any idea how long it would take to invade Venezuela and Mexico even if we wanted to and could justify that? And how much sabotage could shut down their production? And how long it will be before ANWR and other fields are brought online?
The bloody reserve is there to be used if necessary - and I don't mean for your summer vacation or my own.
#11
Baloney. If you start selling a little bit a day you will get money for it. and it will be more then you paid for it on average.
they are not there to hit back economically? why? because we have never used them like that before?
And no it would not take long to invade and seize another countries oil supplies if you truely wanted to. you would just have to be brutal about it. But again Saudi oil fields are isolated, meaning no way to sabotage them unless you plan on walking across the desert witout being seen.
Point is the reserve is useless if you never use it. If the price goes up too high, it makes no sense to buy, sell for a while. Make some dough. then buy again when the price is more to your liking. In the short term there is nothing anyone can do to offset you. Opec cant cut production everytime you sell oil.
Basically the Pres could set the upper price of oil if he wanted to.
No need to invade anyone, just sell into the price hikes. This alone make people less twitchy about speculating oil prices way up. Because you can bet money someone is making a ton of cash controlling it all. Throw in some chaos buy making it impossible to know when the US will start selling.
#12
Basically the Pres could set the upper price of oil if he wanted to.
Complete and total BS. Clinton's stunt with the strategic reserve had essentially no impact on oil prices or the price of gasoline, it was clearly a pure political play. There's little reason to believe that another round of the same would fare any better, even a massive drawdown is unlikely to have more than a minimal transient effect (analysts say a moderate drawdown would reduce gasoline prices by no more than a few cents per gallon).
I think you're grossly overestimating the size of the US strategic reserve. Any drawdown large enough to have a noticeable impact on crude prices can last no more than a few weeks. After that you've got to start refilling the reserve and you'll drive the price right back up.
If you really want to see prices impacted try declaring high oil prices a national security matter and using that hammer to open every square inch of the nation to exploration while simultaneously exempting oil producers from environmental regulation and associated litigation.
#13
LOL the Martian equatorial fields will soon drive down the price of oil to 11teen cents a quart. Jesus! Let the President set the price at negative numbers! LOL! NitWits.
#14
Oh and buy Gold, keep a good food supply handy and whine.
Posted by: The Militia Needs You ||
04/05/2005 17:44 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Anyone who thinks the government can buy low and sell high in an open market is a fool. Any increase in uncertainty merely increases the risk premium i.e. the price.
What the government can do is reduce the risk of high cost producers who can produce at less than the current market price by commiting to buy from those high cost sources at a fixed price on long term contracts.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
04/05/2005 19:38 Comments ||
Top||
#17
"Anyone who thinks the government can buy low and sell high in an open market is a fool."
I dunno. After all, California was very successful in its takeover of the electricity market in 2001, boosting the presidential aspirations of Governor Dav...
#18
Don't confuse the cost of oil and the cost of gasoline. Until somebody starts building a heap o' refineries, the supply of oil is not directly related to the supply of gasoline. Especially if you're counting on that nasty stuff the Saudis call oil these days.
#19
Jimbo--Dammit, man! The strategic reserve is for a national emergency! If Iran and Israel decide to go nuclear, or China invades Taiwan and starts sinking tankers in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, or the "super-volcano" under Yellowstone blows, or a large meteorite hits the Earth, etc., we're gonna need something to live on for a while!
Thank you, Slick Willie, for dipping into it and sticking the next prez with the trouble of re-filling it. Of course, you got your second term and your blow jobs, so what do you care?
Posted by: Dar ||
04/05/2005 21:21 Comments ||
Top||
Iran's hard-line leaders are setting up a "secret government" in Iraq, according to a prominent Arabic language news outlet.
The Saudi-affiliated Elaph website wrote in its Friday issue, "The Iranian Intelligence Ministry is creating a secret government in Iraq".
"Mobs have attacked Iraq which is recovering (following the U.S.-led war) and are trying to tear the country apart as much as they can", it said, referring to Iranian Intelligence agents which have infiltrated Iraq mainly from the south.
The Elaph site claimed that following the 2003 war, the Iranian regime launched its biggest recruitment operation through agents of its Ministry of Intelligence who had infiltrated into Iraq. The number of recruits the regime had gathered, using religious propaganda, was well in the thousands, the news source claimed.
In recent week a number of top Iraqi and U.S. officials have accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs. Those include Porter Goss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who on March 17 told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in a presentation on worldwide threats to U.S. national security, "I think it's fair to say that just about everybody who's been watching understands that Iran has been meddling in the affairs of Iraq".
In late February Simaye Azadi, a Persian-language satellite television network close to the opposition National Council of Resistance, said it had obtained documents from Fajr Garrison of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which showed that the Islamic republic was running a vast underground network in Iraq with 40,000 agents on its payroll.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/05/2005 1:06:31 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So start rooting out all the agents and bump them off. That'll put a damper on the mullahs' plans.
According to a remarkable article by Scott Macleod in the April 4 issue of Time Magazine, the suicide bomber who carried off the worst atrocity in Iraq since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime was a 32-year-old Jordanian who had lived for two years in California. Raed Mansour al-Banna was born in Jordan in 1973 and grew up in a religious, economically prosperous merchant family. He studied law at the university, graduating in 1996, and then started his own law practice in the Jordanian capital of Amman. After three years, he gave it up and in 1999 he worked a half year without pay for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Amman, helping Iraqis who fled Saddam Hussein's tyranny.
In 2001, sometime before 9/11, Banna received a visa and moved to the United States, where he apparently lived in California for nearly two years, moving from one unskilled job to another factory worker, bus driver, and pizza maker. According to his father, Raed even worked "in one of the Californian airports." If Ra'ed did not make it economically, he seemed to fit in well, traveling to such destinations as the Golden Gate Bridge and the World Trade Center, growing his hair long, and taking up American popular music. Photographs sent to his family in Jordan show Banna eating a crab dinner, walking on a beach in California, mounted on a motorcycle, and standing in front of a military helicopter while holding an American flag. He even planned to marry a Christian woman until her parents demanded that the wedding take place in a church.
Banna apparently loved America, reporting back to his family about the people's honesty and kindness; "They respect anybody who is sincere." Talal Naser, a young man engaged to one of Ra'ed's sisters, explained how Ra'ed "loved life in America, compared to Arab countries. He wanted to stay there." His father, Mansour, recounted that, despite the September 11 attacks, Ra'ed "faced no problems with his American workmates, who liked him."
Banna visited home in 2003 but on his return to the United States he was denied entry, accused of falsifying details on a visa application. He returned to Jordan and became withdrawn, holing up in a makeshift studio apartment, sleeping late, and displaying a new interest in religion. He began praying five times a day and listening to the Koran. In November 2004, he went on pilgrimage to Mecca, returning to Saudi Arabia in January 2005. On Jan. 27, Banna crossed into Syria, presumably on the way to Iraq. He apparently spent February with Sunni jihadis in Iraq, during which time he called home several times, with the last call on about Feb. 28. Feb. 28 also happens to be the date when Banna suited up as a suicide bomber and blew himself up at a health clinic in Al-Hilla, killing 132 people and injuring 120, the worst such attack of the 136 suicide bombings that have taken place since May 2003. On March 3, the family received a call informing them of Ra'ed's fate. "Congratulations, your brother has fallen a martyr."
A friend revealed that Banna became politically radicalized against American policies in the Muslim world while living in the United States. He was especially distraught about developments in Iraq. A neighbor, Nassib Jazzar, recalled Banna upset with the coalition occupation. "He felt that the Arabs didn't have honor and freedom.'"
The father notes that Ra'ed wore Western-style clothing, rarely went to mosque, and was ignorant of the names of local sheikhs. "I am shocked by all of this because my son was a very quiet man, not very religious and more interested in pursuing his law profession and building a future for himself."
As Time cautiously concludes from this tale, On the basis of accounts given by his family, friends and neighbors, Ra'ed apparently led a double life, professing affection for America while secretly preparing to join the holy war against the U.S. in Iraq. "Something went wrong with Ra'ed, and it is a deep mystery," says his father Mansour, 56. "What happened to my son?"
Ra'ed al-Banna's biography inspires several observations:
(1) When it comes to Islamist terrorists, appearances often deceive. That Banna was said to "love life in America," be "not very religious," and be interested in "building a future for himself" obviously indicated nothing about his real thinking and purposes. The same pattern recurs in the biographies of many other jihadis.
(2) Moving to the West often spurs Muslims to despise the West more than they did before they got there. This appears to be what happened with Banna.
(3) Taking up the Islamist cause, even to the point of sacrificing one's life for it, usually happens in a discreet manner, quite unobservable even to a person's closest relatives.
In brief, Banna's evolution confirms the point I have made repeatedly about the regrettable but urgent need to keep an eye on all potential Islamists and jihadis, which is to say Muslims.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
This article starring:
RAED MANSUR AL BANNA
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Posted by: ed ||
04/05/2005 6:49:54 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
What a friggin loser. I think this relates to the jihadis' inability to deal with western women. Turns them into homicidial maniacs willing to commit despicable sex crimes (kill many innocents, get your 72 doe eyed virgins).
#2
Wait just a friggin second! We don't need to import any Jihadis from Arab countries, we have our own homegrown whack jobs here in California. The connection to California was a miniscule part of Banna's life (sounds like the best part). He was probably pre-disposed to be a Jihadist or maybe he was one waiting for the best time to strike here in California.
#3
I still think most, if not all of these jihadiis are acting out sexual abuse trauma--I keep reading how "quiet" they are, how "soft spoken," how "emotional" and how "focused" on their future they are, but underneath is the rage and the desire to lash out at an enemy they think they can control through reliance on the tenets of an exacting religion promising utopia and the restoration of "honor." Structure and restoration are a powerful duo in the lives of those who have been humiliated and shattered.
"Moving to the West often spurs Muslims to despise the West more than they did before they got there."
Wonder why that is. Perhaps America is oriented toward the individual compared with their countries, which are generally oriented toward social groups, that they feel more isolated and unimportant than ever, which translate into further "humiliation." Fuel for the fire . . .
#5
I have an anecdote which applies. I knew a Saudi guy who had lived in America for almost 15 years. He loved talking to me and other expats because he was "so American" that the other Saudis almost shunned him. He was in his mid-twenties, his parents were obviously well-connected Saudis (to get such a long stay / assignment) and he had just returned to Saudi -- to get married.
It seems he wasn't very attractive to American femalians - who resented his hyper-authoritarian Saudi Wahhabi Muzzy approach. So his Daddy had arranged a marriage for him with a good Saudi girl he could own and utterly dominate. I can't remember specific phrases, probably because it was waay over the top, but it was clear she was going to be his pet and slave. He giggled, described his planned exploits - leaving nothing to the imagination, and I gasped - yeah, me, gasping... who'da thunk it? I was appalled and realized, over time, that everything he was saying was pretty common stuff for the Saudi men - it's just that he felt comfortable telling me in detail where others would only imply. BTW, he was amused by my disdain and discomfort with his gleeful hand-rubbing (yes, he did - with a twinkle and a giggle) over how he would dominate her. Luckily, I soon relocated to another part of Aramco and did not run into him but once or twice afterwards.
It's bad. That they can't do the same with American femalians unless they can sucker them into going to their homeland as their wife, where she will immediately be relieved of her separate US Passport, you can bet, is likely very frustrating. I picture this guy when I read these articles and get nauseated all over again.
#6
(2) Moving to the West often spurs Muslims to despise the West more than they did before they got there. This appears to be what happened with Banna.
#7
"Moving to the West often spurs Muslims to despise the West more than they did before they got there."
The West is about choice and discipline to avoid the bad ones. Islam is about lack of choices so that discipline is not even needed, a fact that makes them ill prepared for the West. That is why Atta and company got lap dances, and it is also why so many Muslim men cannot stand to see a woman uncovered.
I think many communists have a similar problem. You here many complain about too many choices or the lies and duplicity of ads because they have trouble making the commercial decisions themselves and would like someone else to do so for them so they can avoid making the wrong one.
#8
I can think of several reasons why visiting the West would make a Muslim despise us more than before.
We reject the "True Faith" and yet are apparently successful, and this gets rubbed in daily. Either God isn't doing His job or the devil is supporting us: the faithful Muslim had best get cracking fighting for the True Way.
We not only support Israel, when we think about the MidEast at all, but until recently we pretty much ignored the rest of the countries. It is bad enough to be hated, but to be ignored as irrelevant?
We're abundant in vices he's not used to seeing displayed so prominently, and a bit short on some virtues he's used to expecting (like looking out for your family). We shock him. He doesn't realize how shocking his country is to us.
I wonder, .com: did you like the Saudis more before you actually knew some? :-)
Posted by: James ||
04/05/2005 13:36 Comments ||
Top||
#9
I dunno. Sounds like another queer jihadi. Eating crabs in California? Probably before his hajj to Mecca, he went on hajj to Castro street in SF.
Couldn't get a visa to get back to to his lover in time for Gavin Newsome to officiate at their wedding, so he decided to go to Iraq and murder people for Allah.
The dude was a friggin' lawyer. He could have had a good life in Jordan.
#10
These Saudis need Jesus in their Wahhabi lives, can I say that on Rantburg?
Posted by: Adam ||
04/05/2005 15:50 Comments ||
Top||
#11
James - Well, I know no one will believe it, lol!, but I was once a romantic. I actually went over the first time thinking neutrally and considering it my very own Arabian Adventure. Sheesh! That lasted about an hour - I arrived in the early afternoon during Ramadan that first trip. Man, if you smoke, Ramadan sucks the big one, heh. I was quickly disabused of all my other silly ideas in very short order. It's the same old story - one on one you think you're talking to a regular Joe / Yagoub. Over time you realize they are not your friends. Period. Never were. Never will be. And there goes the last of the delusions.
#12
PD are you telling me you didn't try on a sheet? I mean that's brought over thousands to the true faith. Think about Toole O'toole prancing on the dunes..... and what did happened to Larry in that train station anyway?
#14
Thanks .com for both posts. "Arabia" is better left to the imagination, cuz the real thing is nothing anybody would like to experience, it sounds like. Everybody should listen to .com. Americans can be naive when associating with Arabs, and it's good to be forewarned.
About the "vices" in America (the sleeze factor)--it was my experience that most Arab/Moslem males think EVERYBODY in America is participating in these things, when really, it's a small percentage. Most people are plugged into their families and are just trying to pay the mortgage. . . . At least in the red states!
"The West is about choice and discipline to avoid the bad ones. Islam is about lack of choices so that discipline is not even needed, a fact that makes them ill prepared for the West."
Great comment, rjschwarz. They can't navigate our society and it pisses them off. Poor babies.
In the skies over Iraq, the number of remotely piloted aircraft - increasingly crucial tools in tracking insurgents, foiling roadside bombings, protecting convoys and launching missile attacks - has shot up to more than 700 now from just a handful four years ago, military officials say.
As the American military continues to shift its emphasis to counterinsurgency and antiterrorism missions, the aircraft are in such demand that the Pentagon is poised to spend more than $13 billion on them through the end of the decade.
The aircraft are being put into service so quickly that the various military and intelligence branches are struggling to keep pace with the increased number of operators required and with the lack of common policy and strategy on how to use them.
There are nearly a dozen varieties in service now, from the 4.5-pound Ravens that patrol 100 feet off the ground to the giant Global Hawks that can soar at 60,000 feet and take on sophisticated reconnaissance missions. And while much of the appeal of the aircraft is that they keep aircrews out of the line of fire, there are now so many of them buzzing around combat zones that, in fact, the airspace can get dangerously crowded.
In November, for example, a tiny Army Raven surveillance aircraft plowed into a Kiowa scout helicopter, causing no injuries or serious damage, but raising safety concerns.
Army officials insist that it was an isolated case, and cite tighter flight procedures and the addition of strobe lights to smaller aircraft since then. But other military officials have noted several near misses.
"What it shows is we've got to make sure the lack of control of the airspace and the separation of these things doesn't contribute to disasters of these things hitting one another," Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, said about the November accident in an interview.
Never before has the American military used so many remotely piloted aircraft in such diverse missions, and many officers call them the wave of the future.
At a command hub spread among a half dozen dimly lit trailers at this air base just off the Las Vegas Strip, the future is now. Small teams of remote-control warriors nudge joysticks to fly armed Predator aircraft 7,500 miles away. Once the Predators take off in Iraq or Afghanistan for missions, the air crews here take over.
The Predator, which can carry Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, is the best-known of the remotely piloted fleet. It is an ungainly, propeller-driven craft that flies as slowly as 80 miles per hour, and can loiter continuously for 24 hours or more at 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the battlefield.
In each trailer, a pilot and co-pilot , who operate the Predator's zoom lens, radar and infrared sensors, sit side-by-side before an array of consoles and computer screens that let them see what the Predator sees while they talk to troops on the ground by radio or e-mail. Soldiers and ground spotters can receive live video images from the Predator on specially equipped laptop computers.
"I can watch the rear of a building for a bad guy escaping when troops go in the front, and flash an infrared beam on the guy that our troops can see with their night-vision goggles," said Maj. John Erickson, 33, an F-16 fighter pilot who has spent 18 months in a stationary cockpit here.
Commanders say the aircraft have played a pivotal role recently by attacking insurgent mortar positions and warning convoys of suspicious roadblocks that could be ambushes. To bury roadside bombs, insurgents often douse the street with gasoline, ignite it, and dig up the heat-softened asphalt to lay the explosive. The Predator heat sensors detect the hot strips, and warn nearby troops, military officials said.
With every commander clamoring for a bird's-eye view of the battlefield, the 24-hour operations are putting strains on the aircraft and their operators. In just the past week, two $5 million Predators crashed near their base north of Baghdad, bringing to 25 the number that have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan to storms, pilot error, enemy fire or mechanical failure since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Air Force said.
The Air Force is steadily training new Predator pilots and sensor operators at a desert base 45 miles northwest of here. But Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Goldfein, the air warfare center commander here, said he has only about half the Predator pilots he needs, and he worries about the stresses that the eight-hour-a-day, six-day-a week job puts on them.
Moreover, the Air Force announced last month that it was adding 15 new Predator squadrons to the three existing ones.
In Washington, a fierce competition has erupted among the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force over which will take the lead in coordinating the military's policy and strategy involving unmanned aircraft. The Joint Chiefs of Staff met twice in the last week to discuss these sensitive decisions and to underscore the need to set aside rivalries and streamline the flow of information to troops.
A new report by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, warns that planning in the Defense Department has failed to keep pace with the rapid development and fielding of remotely piloted aircraft.
"D.O.D. still lacks a viable strategic plan and oversight body to guide U.A.V. development efforts and related investment decisions," said the report, issued on March 9. It said a Pentagon task force created to address these issues has limited authority and no enforcement power over programs.
Between 750 and 800 remotely piloted aircraft are operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a vast majority in Iraq, two military officials said. About two dozen of the Air Force's 58 Predators are flying in the two countries, officials said. In the battle of Falluja and surrounding areas last November, Predators fired about 40 Hellfire missiles. One Global Hawk operates in the Persian Gulf region.
In addition to these aircraft, the Marine Corps is flying 100 aerial vehicles in Iraq, including Pioneers and Dragon Eyes. The Army is flying hundreds of Ravens, as well as larger Shadow, Hunter and I-Gnat aircraft. "We're flying the wings off it," Lt. Col. Stephen K. Iwicki, a senior Army intelligence officer, said of the Hunter, which will soon be armed with a small, laster-guided explosive called viper strike.
While some pilots in Iraq express concern over sharing airspace with the remotely piloted aircraft, they are proving popular with ground troops. Sgt. Rowe Stayton, who just finished a stint as an infantry fire-team leader in northern Baghdad, is a booster for the Raven, in particular. He recalled one incident where the aircraft tracked some suspected insurgents after they had dug up something and put it into a vehicle. Troops later seized the vehicle and found it full of mortar tubes and rounds.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/05/2005 12:28:42 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Goldfein, the air warfare center commander here, said he has only about half the Predator pilots he needs, and he worries about the stresses that the eight-hour-a-day, six-day-a week job puts on them.
Only in the Air Force.... When it gets to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week I'll start to worry. Next they'll be asking for comp time (at time and a half).
#5
A4385: Only in the Air Force.... When it gets to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week I'll start to worry. Next they'll be asking for comp time (at time and a half).
Piloting aircraft is extremely stressful. I believe civilian pilots get a day off for every day that they work. Given that these guys are piloting drones and not aircraft filled with civilians, the stakes are somewhat lower. But these drones are still $5m planes.
#6
What a great way of war. Clock in, check your email, Kill a few jihadis, clock out, go to the MGM Grand for the buffet dinner, then head over to downtown to play some Texas Hold 'Em.
I feel bad for the guys at Indian Springs. There is no entertainment out there except the Cherry Patch 2, the most sorry assed brothel in the whole state of Nevada.
And as far as the eight hours a day, hell, I spend more time than that on the Internet.
#8
Zhang Fei is absolutely right. anonymous4385 hasn't a clue re: how hard it is to fly one of these things. The pilots come out of the chairs exhausted - you do that for 8 hours straight, 6 days a week, one day off and back into it again, with your family right there wanting their husband/wife and dad/mom as soon as you get home ....
#11
IBB: And as far as the eight hours a day, hell, I spend more time than that on the Internet.
Unfortunately, this isn't a Shockwave game, where at the end, you hit reset and start all over again. Crash a few $5m planes, and your career is over. There's not a lot of demand in the civilian world for either pilots who fly planes via joystick or pilots who crash them.
During their years in a Jordanian prison, inmates remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in his Afghan dress weeping uncontrollably in the courtyard whenever he knelt to pray.
"Abu Musab cried constantly. He was very emotional, almost like a child," said 35-year-old Yousef Rababaa as he recalled the young militant.
Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born one-time street thug who is now the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, is remembered as a gentle man obsessed with Islam's past glory.
His intense loyalty, his former cellmates say, went hand in hand with a fanatical adherence to his religion.
He dreamed of an Islamic utopia where people would relive the puritanical lifestyle of the faith's early founders.
The Arab Bedouin whose fanaticism condones the killing of fellow Muslims and is blamed by Washington for the beheading of foreign captives and suicide bombings that have maimed and killed hundreds, was a gentle almost stoic figure, his cellmates remember.
They say his ability to mesmerize the closest people around him was another facet of a shadowy elusive character who has so far evaded capture.
Rababaa who left prison with Zarqawi after an amnesty in April 1999 recollects how Zarqawi stood out among his peers for his piety.
"Abu Musab would be as preoccupied with writing letter after letter to his old mother as spending long hours reciting the Koran," said Rababaa.
It was piety of an extreme nature that molded Zarqawi's militancy, according to Islamists and experts who follow many of the young adherents of the Salafi brand of Islamist jihadis.
"Emotions for militants like Zarqawi shape much of their behavior and mentality and drive them to wreak revenge for perceived injustices without thinking of the consequences," said Mohammed Najjar, a Jordanian scholar who follows radical Islamist political movements.
Another cellmate, Khaled Abu Doma, 36, recalled the young Zarqawi's long days spent kneeling with another inmate on a mat in the prison courtyard as he patiently helped him memorize verse after verse from the Koran.
Zarqawi would also wash other prisoners' clothes and scrub prison lavatories, chores which other prisoners usually shunned, Abu Doma said.
APOSTATES VERSUS BELIEVERS
But Zarqawi's commitment to a purist brand of Islam put both Muslim and non-believers at odds with his ideology, said Laith Shubailat, an prominent Islamist dissident who spent years in prison for his opposition to Jordan's pro-western monarchy.
Shubailat, an advocate of non-violence and a parliamentary democracy to limit the Jordanian monarchy's extensive powers, recalled that the young militant's view of the world made him reject moderates like him.
"Zarqawi may be more faithful to the tenets of Islam, but he and his followers have gone astray in their search for the truth," Shubailat said as he recollected a morning when Zarqawi invited him for breakfast.
"I was an apostate for them. They have no gray. You have to be white completely. They put difficult conditions," said Shubailat, whose belief in reform from within the establishment made it impossible for him to find common ground with Zarqawi.
SOLACE IN RELIGION
Prison inmates and associates say Zarqawi found solace in an austere brand of Islam that gave him spiritual comfort from the social alienation he endured in a deprived upbringing.
The childhood of Zarqawi, the son of an elder Bani Hassan tribesman, was shaped by poverty and the politics of the bleak industrial city of Zarqa, a melting pot of downtrodden Palestinian refugees and Bedouin tribes.
Influenced by radical mosque preachers whom he encountered in the city, Zarqawi then in his late teens left in early 1989 for Afghanistan where his fellow Islamists were then fighting the "great infidels" -- the Soviet army.
Zarqawi was among the last of the thousands of Arab volunteers who went to wage jihad (holy war) in Afghanistan, the most prominent of whom was Saudi born militant Osama Bin Laden.
The alienated Muslim zealot who returned to Jordan in 1992 found a country going through rapid social change and could not come to terms with Westernizing influences.
Within three years he had fallen foul of the establishment. He was arrested and charged for concealing explosives in a plot to destabilize the country.
Zarqawi's four years in Jordanian prisons until his release in 1999 further distanced him from mainstream society but prepared him ideologically for his future endeavors, his prison comrades say.
"Those prison years were critical in shaping Zarqawi's leadership qualities among his circle of followers that prepared him for his future role in Afghanistan and later Iraq," said Najjar.
In September 1999 Zarqawi went back to Afghanistan before moving to Iraq where he is still thought to operate.
Posted by: tipper ||
04/05/2005 12:00:40 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
No offense, tipper - you post awesome articles and I appreciate your efforts!
But I'm beginning to think it would be best if any further analysis and delving into the motivations and psyche of Zarqawi were done posthumously.
The next story should be about how utterly horribly painfully the gutless little coward died.
#4
.com wrote "The next story should be about how utterly horribly painfully the gutless little coward died."
I wait everyday for that justly deserved event to happen.
However, in the meantime, as a disciple of Sun Tsu, we should heed his saying when he says;
"If you know the enemy
and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a
hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will
succumb in every battle."
In other words, the more we know about the mongrel, the sooner we should be able to eliminate him.
#6
True AA9225, but it's important to know the facts, not blind ourselves with speculation based on questionable methodology (95% of psychiatry). If I see some "analyst" say that the Jihadis are violent because they lack Self Esteem, so help Me, I'll go blow someone up.
Posted by: BA ||
04/05/2005 13:33 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Oh great, another guy who can't cut the apron strings to mom - wasn't bin Laden calling mom just before 9-11 to say he'd be tied up for a while?
Posted by: Adam ||
04/05/2005 16:06 Comments ||
Top||
#11
#477 in a list of 18443
You know you've spent too much time on RB when on the obligatory .com download the responser is rrrrrr.jpg already exists, replace, ignore sell to the Spembles.
Maoist rebel leaders here said yesterday they had given up on efforts to make peace, blaming local police for mounting violence since a truce collapsed more than three months ago. Maoist emissaries P. Vavavara Rao and G. Kalyan Rao have withdrawn from the peace efforts in protest against the repression let loose by Andhra Pradesh government and the killing of 80 Maoists and other naxalites in alleged encounters by the police in the last 13 weeks. Explaining the reason for their decision, Vavavara Rao said: "Attempts to create tribal Greyhound (anti-extremist elite commando) force, impart training through the military to the Greyhound commandos, create joint command force by the Naxalite-affected states and, finally, the move to ban the CPI-Maoist not only in Andhra Pradesh but all over India under the Central Act indicate that the state and central governments are busy with the conspiracy to suppress the revolutionary movement through repressive measures."
Peace talks between the Maoists and the Andhra Pradesh state government collapsed in January after 12 rebels were killed in clashes with police. The rebels had since set fresh conditions for talks including an end to all police action against them and the suspension of four district police chiefs. They accused the four of staging gun battles to kill captured rebels.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Monday ruled out dealing with President Pervez Musharraf, saying the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would not break the principles laid down by its founding father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by reconciling with a soldier. "The PPP had never made deals with generals nor will it do so in future. We believe there should be no role for the army in politics and will continue struggling for freeing the country from military intervention to ensure true civilian rule in Pakistan," Benazir told a gathering organised in her father's hometown on his 26th death anniversary by a videotape recording.
She said the "Musharraf-led government" had failed to address the socio-economic problems of the common man, who was finding it nearly impossible to manage his/her monthly budgets due to increasing prices of consumer goods and petroleum and energy products. She said her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, would return to Pakistan on April 16. "Zardari sahib's return will be a rehearsal for my return. I will come back soon to restore genuine democracy," she added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
"If they don't have a religion column they're useless! Useless! Burn them!"
The Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs asked the government on Monday to withdraw all passports issued without the religion column and replace them with fresh ones that include the column. The committee also asked the government to abolish the balloting system for people wanting to perform Haj and adopt a "first come first serve" policy and form a committee to supervise arrangements for Haj so that problems faced by Pakistani pilgrims could be resolved immediately instead of departmental inquiries later.
The standing committee, which met at Parliament House and was chaired by Senator Maulana Samiul Haq, praised the government's decision to reinsert the religion column in the new passports since it was "what the majority of Pakistanis wanted". The standing committee members also felt that many people had slammed the balloting system for Haj visas and had accused the Religious Affairs Ministry of favouritism, which was why it asked the government to adopt a "first come first serve" system.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wonder if they have a provision for "None" in their "religion column"?
Not that I was planning on going over there anyway....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2005 13:23 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Why don't you all go on Haj, and take your army along with you. Then, when you get to Soddy-land, you can toss the nutjob Wahabbi Imams out on their ears and rescue the Holiest Sites in Islam!
Somehow my sympathy meter's not pegging over this...
Iraq's Human Rights Ministry is investigating allegations of abuse in the making of a popular television series that shows insurgents confessing to crimes including rape, kidnapping and execution. Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said the probe focused on evidence of verbal abuse of suspects, but could be extended to include physical abuse and torture, accusations that have been leveled at Iraq's security forces. "Individuals have raised concerns after seeing verbal abuse of suspects as well as bruises on their bodies and that sort of thing," Amin told Reuters in an interview on Monday. "We are looking at all these television shows right now and we are studying them from a human rights point of view. Things should be done in accordance with human rights standards and principles and we are going to make sure that those norms are respected." Amin said a report would be made to the interior and justice ministries after the investigation. The television series, called "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice," airs almost nightly on Iraqiya, Iraq's U.S.-funded national network, and shows men sitting before an interrogator, whose face is not shown, confessing to crimes.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Comes as a surprise, huh? I know, it's totally out of character for them...
Leading militant groups in Palestinian territories vowed Monday to defy President Mahmoud Abbas's bid to disarm hundreds of gunmen wanted by Israel. Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rejected Abbas's efforts outright while Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, part of his own Fatah movement, appeared divided on how to respond.
Abbas, elected in January to succeed the late Yasser Arafat, took action after a group of militants fired at his West Bank compound and went on a shooting rampage in Ramallah last week. He is not only under pressure from Israel and the United States to fulfill pledges made at a February cease-fire summit but also fears Palestinian voters, fed up with lawlessness, will punish his ruling Fatah group in a July parliamentary election. Abbas issued a decree on Sunday giving committees of officials in the West Bank and Gaza two weeks "to resolve the issue of the fugitives," referring to about 530 militants on Israel's wanted list for alleged involvement in attacks. Under the decree, the wanted men would voluntarily disarm and be recruited into the Palestinian Authority, a security source said. Israel would no longer pursue them under a deal Abbas reached with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It was unclear what, if any, action Abbas would take if militants refused to comply. He has tried to use dialogue rather than force despite Israel's demands for a crackdown.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Under the decree, the wanted men would voluntarily disarm and be recruited into the Palestinian Authority, a security source said.
If it isn't one kind of stupidity (Yasser), then it's another (Mazen). These Paleo idiots are absolutely hopeless.
My guess would be that he needs to do that to maintain his own political balance within Israel. He's got to know that substantial settlements are going to be roadmapped eventually.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I look at it this way: had Mazen taken decisive steps against the thugs operating in his territory instead of trying to "recruit" them into the PA, Sharon would have no justification whatsoever to expand any settlements.
It's almost incomprehensible that these basket-case Paleos don't seem to realize that they'd have more support behind them if only they would simply live up to their agreements...
By Mubasher Bukhari An unseemly row over the mixed 'marathon' in Gujranwala that Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal workers disrupted on Sunday dominated yesterday's Punjab Assembly session. The verbal brawl began soon after the house started proceedings at 3.40 pm and essentially consisted of legislators hurling abuses and threatening each other.
Sounds like a typical day in the Pak legislature...
The MMA legislators argued that the mixed race in Gujranwala had nothing to do with the idea of a moderate Pakistan, but was an attempt to Westernise Pakistani women, something that was a blot on the national and religious identity of the people of Punjab.
Yeah. That's the way I'd Westernize Pak women: have them get out and run three kilometers in their burkas...
Any reason why we can't evacuate all the women and leave the men to the Punjab in pieces?
The women treasury members defended the mixed race and condemned the MMA activists who tried to stop women athletes from participating in. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supported the MMA's stand and they walked out of the house when Law Minister Raja Basharat moved a resolution condemning the incident.
Walked out, did they? Are you sure it was them? Has anybody actually ever seen them from the front?
The MMA's Arshad Mehmood Bagoo said the religious alliance supported women's role in society and their participation in indoor sports, but would not tolerate them running in the open in front of leering men. The alliance Mr Bagoo is part of strongly supported the Taliban in Afghanistan. Perhaps he has forgotten that the Taliban used to whip veiled women who were caught working in offices before hundreds of male spectators in the markets of Kabul. The self-styled Islamists once punished a men's football team from Chamman, Pakistan, for the sin of wearing shorts during a match with a local Afghan team.
Yeah, but this is different. Somehow.
The silence of the treasury's men in response to the MMA legislators was conspicuous, indicating that many of them agree with the MMA. Only the women on the treasury benches tried to counter the MMA leaders' arguments. The MMA legislators also vowed not to allow another 'mini marathon' with both male and female athletes in what was an open challenge to the government.
To the government? Or to the turbans?
Regardless of whether the MMA is right or wrong about mixed races being against societal norms, surely attacking women with clubs and throwing stones at them, which is what MMA workers did on Sunday, does not fit into our national and religious identity.
Uhhh... Actually it sounds kind of typically Pak. I realize there's a certain segment of society that's actually embarrassed about such antics, but they're methodically being gunned down or run out of the country, aren't they?
Rana Sanaullah, parliamentary leader of the PML-N, was his usual fiery self on the floor. He also opposed the mixed race, raising an interesting point. He said the government had forced girls from school and colleges to participate in the race. He said Rukhsana Nayyer, principal of Government Girls College Gujranawala, ordered all the students in the college to attend the race. The government accuses the MMA of imposing Islam forcibly. This is an example of how the government tries to enforce 'moderate Islam'. If the attitude of the MMA can be called religious extremism, the government attitude can rightly be labelled moderate extremism.
Ouch. The English language has just been bruised again.
Mr Sanaullah ended his speech by saying that no such race should take place unless the daughters and sisters of ministers also took part. Such a remark would normally be met with outrage from the treasury benches, but the ministers remained mum, re-enforcing the impression that they agree with the MMA and PML-N. It appears as if the treasury, the MMA and the PML-N are all hardliners in a way. But at least they were able to show, by contrast, who the real moderates in the assembly are. The Pakistan People's Party lawmakers didn't walk out with the MMA or PML-N, nor did they support the government resolution. It goes to show, once again, who President Gen Pervez Musharraf's real "moderate friends" are.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 10:27:24 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
an entire country with a majority population of societally-stunted emotional children. Whackos abound, and Perv is riding the tiger
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/05/2005 9:12 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Any reason why we can't evacuate all the women and leave the men to the Punjab in pieces?
I imagine quite a few of the women support the nutjobbery around them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2005 9:34 Comments ||
Top||
#4
help me - i though PML-N was being cultivated by Perv - that they go with MMA on an issue that is provoking the moderates, seems an open defiance of Perv. PPP, despite earlier support for the Taliban, is again acting as polar opposite to the MMA, and willing to defend the moderates and secularists in Pak society. It really seems Perv and PPP together could take a stand against MMA, esp. with MMA making mistakes, and with the global tide turning. Can they overcome Perv objections to PPP corruption, and PPP objections to Pervs militarism?
Also - IIUC - Punjab is less Islamist nutjobby than NWFP, Baluchistan, or perhaps even than Sind. Punjab is where the moderates and secularists can take a stand, I think.
BTW, treasury benches here means the govt supporters, does it not?
#6
The PML is the main conservative party in Pakistan, and it's various factions have generally always been sympathetic to the Islamists aims. Before Musharraf came to power in his coup, the PML Prime Minister was going to introduce Shariah laws based on what the Taliban were doing in Afghanistan, and most Pakistan Muslim Leaguers were just as supportive as the Islamists.
Also, the Punjab is probably the second strongest bastion of Islamism in Pakistan, after the NWFP. The average Sindhi and Baluchi has never supported the Islamists to a great extent, the only votes that the Islamists get in those provinces are from (mostly Pashtun) immigrants. Some Punjabi cities like Gujranwala have become quite extremist over the years, and most of them are governed by members of the ostensibly moderate Pakistan Muslim League.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/05/2005 23:46 Comments ||
Top||
LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly (PA) has asked the government to take action against all fundamentalist organisations under the Anti-Terrorist Act (ATA) for violence against women. In a resolution, the house condemned the attack on female participants of a marathon by MMA activists in Gujranwala, saying it was terrorism and against the basic constitutional rights of women. PML-N and MMA boycotted the proceeding when the resolution was presented while the PPPP supported the resolution.
That's because the guys throwing the stones and swinging the sticks were PML-N and MMA thugs...
Punjab Law and Local Bodies Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja moved the resolution in which he stated that the government, by giving 33 percent representation to women in legislative institutions, had tried its best to ensure the participation of women in Pakistan's development and prosperity. He said the government should declare the incident an act of terrorism and take all steps to stop such incidents. Also, the opposition benches in the PA condemned the government for the firing incident on MMA activists in Leiah while the treasury benches shouted slogans against the opposition for disturbing the law and order in Gujranwala by attacking the marathon. The legislators from both sides also made allegations against each other's party leaders.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
I'm kind of hoping that the turbans went too far with their stoopid riot at the fun run, though I know in my heart that in Pakland there's no such thing as "too far."
Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Monday criticised individuals who do not allow women to take part in games like the marathon race.
"Wotta bunch o' maroons!"
Addressing a public gathering at Shafqat Shaheed ground, Mr Elahi slammed those against the participation of women in games and said such individuals exploited women when they needed votes and even sent their women to parliament and the provincial assemblies for their vested interests. Women constitute 50 percent of the country's population and it is their basic right to participate in games, said the Punjab chief minister. He said Islam ensured the safety and security of all sections of society.
As long as there aren't any beardos around, anyway...
Eulogising President General Pervez Musharraf, Mr Elahi said the president's policies had put Pakistan on the road to progress and prosperity. He rejected the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal's politics of agitation and said the general public had denounced the alliance's call for protests. He said that traders and shopkeepers were happy with the government's policies but the opposition was creating anarchy to achieve their selfish interests.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
That caught my eye,to.LH.
Saw good docu on women's rights in Isalm on Discovery Times.Surprised me the number of women who do not have a problem with the oppresion.
#3
When it's defined as "this is what ladies do/don't," women with such aspirations will modify natural behaviour quite a bit. You'll have noticed, f'r instance, that I don't often use strong language. ;-) Or the Victorians, who stayed pure, dosing themselves with laudanum if needed, while the menfolk tomcatted all over the landscape. Or English Common Law, which allowed wife-beating, so long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to transmit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) tomorrow a sealed list of 51 names of people blamed for war crimes and crimes under international law in the conflict between the Sudanese Government, allied militia and rebels in the country's western Darfur region. The handing over of the list to ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo at UN Headquarters in New York follows last Thursday's Security Council's vote to refer the matter to the tribunal as recommended by the UN-appointed International Commission of Inquiry into whether genocide had occurred in the fighting.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million others driven from their homes since rebels took up arms in early 2003, partly in protest at the distribution of economic resources. In its report the five-member Commission found that while the Government had not pursued a policy of genocide, Government forces and militias "conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million others driven from their homes
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.
April 5, 2005: The ancient division of Yemen, into a Shia and tribal north, and Sunni and urban south persists in creating friction. Fighting continues in the north, with another three soldiers and ten tribesmen killed in the last few days. The tribesmen under attack are Islamic conservatives, who believe Yemen should be more active is the war against Israel and infidels (non-Moslems) in general. 
Oil soared to a record over $58 a barrel yesterday, adding pressure on producer group OPEC to hike supplies, before profit-taking by speculators eased prices into negative territory. US crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange peaked at $58.28 a barrel — the highest front-month oil futures price on record — before ending the day down 26 cents to $57.01 a barrel. London's Brent crude slipped 28 cents to $56.23 a barrel.
Chechen officials and the public want to declare Wahhabism "the main ideology of the terrorists" in the North Caucasus and outlaw political and religious extremism in Chechnya, said delegates at a Monday conference in Grozny. Participants in the conference decided to set up an Islamic center "in ideological opposition to religious extremism, which will incorporate educational and cultural facilities." The conference called on the Chechen president to issue an ordinance "which will be considered by the future parliament as a Chechen law banning political and religious extremism."
MADRID-The all-parliamentary commission into events surrounding SpainÂŽs worst terrorist attack is to hear controversial evidence which will re-open bitter wounds over last yearÂŽs general election. The inquiry will see a controversial video made by the FAES foundation headed by former prime minister 
PARIS, April 5 (AFP) - Three more opinion polls Tuesday showed opponents of the EU's new constitution winning France's referendum on May 29. Over the last two weeks a total of nine surveys have put the "no" camp in front, at between 51 and 55 percent of voters. An Ipsos poll in Le Figaro newspaper Tuesday put opposition to the constitution at 52 percent; a CSA poll for France 3 television put it at 53 percent; and Louis Harris for Liberation newspaper gave the "no" 54 percent. The slim positive news for President Jacques Chirac and other supporters of the constitution was that in the first two polls the number of "no" voters fell by two points from similar surveys a week before. The polls also indicated that between a quarter and a third of people who intend to cast a vote are undecided - with a majority of these tending towards a "yes" vote. 
The issue of integration is an overriding priority for the Muslim minorities in Europe which should strike a balance between their identity and the cultures of their new societies, a leading European Muslim activist said. "Muslims in Europe cannot make a difference unless they wholeheartedly integrate into their new societies," 
The prominent Muslim activist said Europe is no longer a "mono-cultural" continent. "Europe, though dominated by Christians and white complexions, has become increasingly multi-ethnic," he noted. "True that there are some countries that want Muslims to melt away into their pots, but there are others which boost positive integration."
The European Union will not sign a much-delayed trade and aid pact with Syria unless Damascus pulls all forces out of Lebanon, the EU ambassador has said. Frank Hesske on Monday said the EU was unlikely to sign the Association Agreement, which will widen Syrian access to its markets, until Syria complies with a UN resolution demanding an end to foreign meddling in Lebanon. "I don't see how we could consider signature earlier thanâŠfulfillment of these two conditions: withdrawal of troops and intelligence services and the issue of what we really see on the ground free transparent elections or not," Hesske said. The EU precondition came despite a Syrian pledge to the United Nations to end its 29-year military and intelligence presence in Lebanon by the end of April.
France and the US have introduced a draft UN resolution that would authorise an independent investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Rejecting Lebanon's call for major involvement in the inquiry, the draft given to the 15 Security Council members calls for the international investigating commission to complete its work within six months. But China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya, the current council president, said there was still a debate over the probe's duration, and diplomats said it could be reduced to three months. 
Iranian President 
The 
The formation of the new government is expected to be announced by the end of the week, with the noticeable absence of outgoing Interior Minister 
TEHRAN: Iran's high-profile and popular national police chief, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, has quit his post amid widespread expectations he intends to stand in this year's presidential election, reports said on Monday. According to Iranian newspapers, Qalibaf handed in his resignation to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sunday - in line with a general understanding that serving members of the security forces cannot directly enter politics.
UN envoy 
Maoist rebel leaders here said yesterday they had given up on efforts to make peace, blaming local police for mounting violence since a truce collapsed more than three months ago. Maoist emissaries P. Vavavara Rao and G. Kalyan Rao have withdrawn from the peace efforts in protest against the repression let loose by Andhra Pradesh government and the killing of 80 Maoists and other naxalites in alleged encounters by the police in the last 13 weeks. Explaining the reason for their decision, Vavavara Rao said: "Attempts to create tribal Greyhound (anti-extremist elite commando) force, impart training through the military to the Greyhound commandos, create joint command force by the Naxalite-affected states and, finally, the move to ban the CPI-Maoist not only in Andhra Pradesh but all over India under the Central Act indicate that the state and central governments are busy with the conspiracy to suppress the revolutionary movement through repressive measures."
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Monday ruled out dealing with President Pervez Musharraf, saying the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would not break the principles laid down by its founding father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by reconciling with a soldier. "The PPP had never made deals with generals nor will it do so in future. We believe there should be no role for the army in politics and will continue struggling for freeing the country from military intervention to ensure true civilian rule in Pakistan," Benazir told a gathering organised in her father's hometown on his 26th death anniversary by a videotape recording.
The Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs asked the government on Monday to withdraw all passports issued without the religion column and replace them with fresh ones that include the column. The committee also asked the government to abolish the balloting system for people wanting to perform Haj and adopt a "first come first serve" policy and form a committee to supervise arrangements for Haj so that problems faced by Pakistani pilgrims could be resolved immediately instead of departmental inquiries later.
Iraq's Human Rights Ministry is investigating allegations of abuse in the making of a popular television series that shows insurgents confessing to crimes including rape, kidnapping and execution. Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said the probe focused on evidence of verbal abuse of suspects, but could be extended to include physical abuse and torture, accusations that have been leveled at Iraq's security forces. "Individuals have raised concerns after seeing verbal abuse of suspects as well as bruises on their bodies and that sort of thing," Amin told Reuters in an interview on Monday. "We are looking at all these television shows right now and we are studying them from a human rights point of view. Things should be done in accordance with human rights standards and principles and we are going to make sure that those norms are respected." Amin said a report would be made to the interior and justice ministries after the investigation. The television series, called "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice," airs almost nightly on Iraqiya, Iraq's U.S.-funded national network, and shows men sitting before an interrogator, whose face is not shown, confessing to crimes.
Leading militant groups in Palestinian territories vowed Monday to defy President Mahmoud Abbas's bid to disarm hundreds of gunmen wanted by Israel. Leaders of 
An unseemly row over the mixed 'marathon' in Gujranwala that 
LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly (PA) has asked the government to take action against all fundamentalist organisations under the Anti-Terrorist Act (ATA) for violence against women. In a resolution, the house condemned the attack on female participants of a marathon by MMA activists in 
Punjab Chief Minister 
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to transmit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) tomorrow a sealed list of 51 names of people blamed for war crimes and crimes under international law in the conflict between the Sudanese Government, allied militia and rebels in the country's western Darfur region. The handing over of the list to ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo at UN Headquarters in New York follows last Thursday's Security Council's vote to refer the matter to the tribunal as recommended by the UN-appointed International Commission of Inquiry into whether genocide had occurred in the fighting.
