Candidates backed by conservative clerics dominated in the final stage of Saudi Arabia's landmark municipal elections, according to results announced Saturday.
In the kingdom's commercial capital of Jiddah, the seven winning candidates all were those whose names had appeared on what was dubbed the "golden list" — the picks of fundamentalist clerics. Five of the six winners in Buraydah, capital of ultraconservative Qaseem province, similarly had been given a clerical nod, and the holy city of Medina also saw Islamist candidates showing well.
Many Islamists had fared well in February and March voting for municipal councils elsewhere in the kingdom. Though they will have significant sway, the government can balance the councils by naming more liberal voices to the half of all council seats reserved for government appointees.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 8:51:16 AM ||
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With official results of the third and last phase of the Kingdom's first municipal elections expected today, the names of some winning candidates in Madinah and Tabuk constituencies were announced by the local election commission. In Jeddah, candidates endorsed by religious scholars looked set for victory, mirroring Islamist wins in other cities, candidates said. Official results from Thursday's final round of voting in several western and northern regions would be released today by the Municipal Election Commission after going into possible complaints or appeals filed by losing candidates.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Credit where credit is due. Golden List why didn't I think of that?
Posted by: The Mayor ||
04/23/2005 10:36 Comments ||
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Women's rights activists, academics, writers and political experts believe the National Assembly's decision Tuesday to give women right to participate in October's Municipal elections is a step toward enhancement of democracy in Kuwait. Nada Mutawa, professor of politics, Kuwait University, told the Arab Times Wednesday "I heard the Prime Minister saying "We got the majority of voices with us." He was referring to the issue of granting political rights to women. This is a major step toward women suffrage in Kuwait. We can vote in local council elections. A second round of voting is expected to pass the law, and I am optimistic about the outcome. The Prime Minister referred to the cause of women as "us." Now that is what I call a big step by the government toward political reform. The lobby for women's suffrage is strong."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Nada Mutawa? Oh brother, heh. I can only agree, nada mutawas would be a very good thing, lol!
No percentages or party games, just qualified people judged on their merits. Then they need to field some honest brokers and shit-can the demagogues. And then end the corruption and wasta. And... Oh, wait, sorry - I was thinking about our Legislators there.
#1
LOL! The Strangers are, um, strange, indeed! So much of what they're for (beating up Galloway, stopping Muzzies from voting, etc) actually pleases people who want to defend freedom from the Caliphate, lol!
Will wonders never cease? Will the Caliphatists ever buy a clue?
Heh, I hope not. Pssst - you can find Galloway cowering in his car, lol!
#2
Don't vote Mulsims! I support you 100% in this. Don't violate the fatwa and burn in hell (you will anyway.) Voting is un-Islamic and we can't have you acting un-Islamic. After all we have it on the word of a 22 year old expert on Islam you will burn in hells fires if you vote.
Just remember when your burning in hell, if you didn't vote don't bitch.
George looks as if you have gone a pissed youself again. How UK like.
The biggest university lecturers' union was accused of undermining academic freedom yesterday after voting to boycott two universities in Israel.
Its 40,000 members will be told not to co-operate with academics from Haifa and Bar Ilan universities, which could mean the scrapping of joint projects.
Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the Association of University Teachers (AUT), said members would be issued with guidance on how to conduct the boycott. Its ruling body will also be looking into calling a boycott of a third university, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
She said the union would also be circulating a statement from Palestinian organisations calling for an academic boycott of all Israeli institutions.
The decision at the union's annual conference in Eastbourne was described as "a dangerous path" by the Academic Friends of Israel. "If the sponsors of this boycotting campaign succeeded in something, it is only to undermine further progress, collaboration and peace in the Middle East," said Ronnie Fraser, its chairman.
The boycott was proposed by the Birmingham branch of the union, which represents around half of the lecturers in the traditional, pre-1992 universities.
Shereen Benjamin, a Jewish lecturer at Birmingham University, backed the action, saying: "Someone asked me what this has to do with the AUT. This has everything to do with the AUT.
''We are a global academic community and silence signifies approval."
John Bennett, from the Open University, said it was time for the union to respond to what was happening on the West Bank. "The Palestinian cry for help should be treated as if from Nottingham or Middlesex Universities."
The Israeli Embassy called the boycott "perverse". A spokesman said: "Israeli universities are beacons of academic freedom where Jews and Arabs alike study together.
''Academics should be at the forefront of international cooperation; by passing these resolutions, the AUT is doing exactly the opposite."
Posted by: tipper ||
04/23/2005 9:52:52 AM ||
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A BRITISH shoe-bomber was jailed for 13 years yesterday after an Old Bailey judge gave him credit for abandoning a plot to attack a transatlantic flight.
Saajid Badat, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to become a "courier of death", could have faced up to 50 years in prison if he had not withdrawn from the scheme with the shoe-bomber Richard Reid to carry out co-ordinated attacks on US aircraft.
Badat, 25, once told his parents: "I have a sincere desire to sell my soul to Allah in return for paradise."
But days before he was due to fly he backed out of the al-Qaeda plot, took the device apart and hid the detonator in a suitcase under his bed. The explosive was in a rolled-up sock.
For nearly two years Badat kept his life in Afghanistan training camps and the plot a secret until police searched his Gloucester home as part of an international operation.
Yesterday Mr Justice Fulford told Badat, a former grammar school boy with a clutch of A levels, that the aims of the plot had been "self-evidently appalling".
"In stark terms your objective was the murder of hundreds of unsuspecting men, women and children who happened by chance of bad luck to be travelling," he said. "Your intended victims were in no sense enemies of yours.
"They would simply have been a cross-section of the public, people going about their lives in ignorance of the violent end you had planned for them."
The judge said the lives of thousands of friends and relatives would have been shattered, economies threatened and fear and alarm would have been spread. "In my view, in the turbulent times in which we live . . . 50 years and possibly longer would be appropriate in such cases as this following a trial."
But Badat had pleaded guilty and Mr Justice Fulford said: "It would not be in the public interest to send out a message that if a would-be terrorist turned away from death and destruction before any lives are put at risk, the courts will not reflect in a significant and real way any such genuine change of heart in the sentence which is handed down." The judge told Badat, who was training to become an imam and planning to marry when he was arrested: "I accept your change of heart was wholly genuine and in April 2005 you no longer pose a grave risk to the public."
Earlier, Michael Mansfield, QC, on behalf of Badat, told the court that he had become a "courier of death" after being caught in the "vortex of global events" after the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. Mr Mansfield said: "He wants it to be known that the course of action he never went through with he thoroughly disapproves of.
"There can never be any justification, religious, political or otherwise, for jeopardising the lives of innocent civilians.
"He would suggest to those who at this moment might be contemplating planning similar acts that they should have the courage he has had to turn back, save lives. They should talk rather than fight or face a never-ending cycle of violence.
Mr Mansfield said that Badat did not suddenly decide to give up the plot "in a blinding shaft of light one morning" but had become gradually disaffected.
He had attended camps that were not linked to al-Qaeda, although one or two may have been associated with Osama bin Laden and later was manipulated and exploited into joining the plot.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2005 12:17:33 AM ||
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Like their Arab colleagues, British geo-science types sometimes come here to see such things as the Permian Basin and the Ogalala Aquifer, and to learn about our methods (which are the universally acknowledged cutting edge).
There is a good reason we can't hit back with a similar boycott of these National Socialists.
Here in the United States, this kind of boycott, refusing to work with organizations or individuals solely because of their national origin, is against the law, being considered equivalent to racism.
Nevertheless, it should be possible to inconvenience visiting AUT storm troopers in ways short of a declared boycott; many, many ways.
#3
Well, AC, if most of our faculty didn't actually support this evil, there is a simple way to counter this, and it has precedent.
Just like the law schools which take federal money but refuse to allow military recruiters because they "discriminate" against homosexuals, we could state that we refuse to deal with schools that discriminate against others based on their national origin.
#4
Actually I have a better idea ban any and all English university educators or researchers from traveling to the United States or transiting it's air space for any reason. ban the sharing of any information with them for any reason. See how they like playing that game when it's them on the end that gets the shaft.
#5
I've hatched another diabolical conspiracy created an outline for a plan of response to this action. I have posted this as an opinion piece here at Rantburg.
EUROPE'S biggest trial of al-Qaeda suspects allegedly linked to the attacks of September 11, 2001, opened yesterday in a specially built court in Madrid.
No one has been successfully prosecuted for a direct role in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. If convicted, Eddin Barakat Yarkas, the Syrian-born alleged ringleader of a Spanish cell, faces some 60,000 years in jail 25 for each person killed.
Mr Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, is said to have helped to fund the operation and set up a meeting at a Spanish resort attended by Mohammed Atta, the presumed leader of the hijackers, and couriers sent by Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader, to finalise plans for the US attacks.
More than a hundred armed police officers were deployed as the 24 accused were led handcuffed into the court in a park on the outskirts of the capital.
All but one defendant, Tayssir Alluni, sat behind bullet-proof glass. Mr Alluni, a journalist with al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based cable news channel, who interviewed Mr bin Laden after the attacks, is accused of being a member of the terrorist network.
The prosecution is expected to accuse some of the key figures of using trips to Britain to smuggle money to al-Qaeda agents across Europe. Mr Yarkas, 41, is alleged to have visited Britain more than 20 times, often bringing young recruits to meet leading militants, including Abu Qatada, the London-based radical cleric.
The alleged recruits included some of the men accused of planning and taking part in last year's bombing of four trains in Madrid. Baltasar Garzon, the prosecuting magistrate, is expected to give details of some of Mr Yarkas's visits, including one where he is alleged to have handed over $11,000 (£5,750) to Abu Qatada, who the Spanish judge described as "al-Qaeda's spiritual ambassador in the EU". The cleric is one of 12 suspected terrorists under house arrest in Britain.
Mr Yarkas is also said to have stayed at mosques and at the homes of other terrorist suspects, including that of Zacharias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker who pleaded guilty in an American court yesterday. Also in court in Madrid yesterday was Ghassub al Abrash Ghaylun, who is said to have taken detailed films of the twin towers and the Pentagon. The tapes were then allegedly passed on to "operative members of al-Qaeda and would become the preliminary information on the attacks against the twin towers", the indictment said.
Jose Luis Galän, the only Spanish-born defendant and a convert to Islam, was the first to be questioned by prosecutors. He is accused of undergoing terrorist training at a camp run by al-Qaeda but he denies having any links to the organisation. He described himself as peace-loving and said: "I absolutely condemn all terrorist acts, all violent acts, the spilling of blood of children, women and the elderly."
This trial is the culmination of an eight-year investigation by Señor Garzón, who reckoned that Muslim militants were leading quiet lives as businessmen, labourers or waiters. He said they had operated freely in Spain for years, recruiting men for terrorist training in Afghanistan, preaching holy war and laundering money for al-Qaeda.
All 24 defendants deny the charges against them. Bin Laden is charged with them, but Spain does not try suspects in their absence.
Prosecutors will attempt to prove that some of the accused are linked to the September 11 attacks and the Madrid train bombings. The trial is expected to last for two months and was adjourned until Monday.
As it was getting under way yesterday, another al-Qaeda suspect was being extradited from Switzerland to Spain. Mohamed Achraf's group of Spanish-based extremists is suspected of plotting to bomb the National Court in Madrid.
This article starring:
ABU DAHDAH
al-Qaeda in Europe
ABU QATADA
al-Qaeda in Europe
Baltasar Garzon, the prosecuting magistrate
EDIN BARAKAT YARKAS
al-Qaeda in Europe
GHASUB AL ABRASH GHAILUN
al-Qaeda in Europe
JOSE LUIS GALäN
al-Qaeda in Europe
MOHAMED ACHRAF
al-Qaeda in Europe
MOHAMED ATTA
al-Qaeda in Europe
TAISIR ALLUNI
al-Qaeda in Europe
ZACHARIAS MUSAUI
al-Qaeda in Europe
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2005 12:05:54 AM ||
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Encase Yarkas (Abu Dahdah) in radioactive glass. After 60,000 years, the radiation levels should have settled to acceptable levels.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 8:08 Comments ||
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#2
Isn't that cute? Like they actually care what happened on 9/11. Wonder if he's got Zappy's permission to do anything besides bend over?
Watch out, Spain. The jihadis don't like it when their dhimmis get uppity.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2005 10:41 Comments ||
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A Spanish man facing terror charges scolded prosecutors and judges from the witness chair Friday as Europe's biggest al Qaeda trial opened in a heavily guarded courtroom here following eight years of investigation.
Luis Jose Galan, one of 24 defendants, all of whom are being tried together, declared his innocence and repeatedly contested questions put to him as inappropriate or impossible to answer.
Prosecutors say the defendants were part of a Spain-based cell of the global terror network that raised money and recruited fighters for radical Islamic causes in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Indonesia. Most face charges of financing terrorism and belonging to a terrorist organization, but three are specifically accused of assisting two of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by organizing a rendezvous in a Spanish coastal town two months prior to the hijackings in the United States.
Spanish authorities imposed extra security for the trial, which is being conducted in a courthouse retrofitted especially for cases. Police helicopters and guards with automatic weapons patrolled the grounds. In the courtroom, all but one of the defendants sat on benches inside a large, bulletproof glass cage that isolated them from their attorneys, prosecutors and the three-judge panel hearing the case.
Spanish investigators amassed 300 boxes of evidence and an estimated 100,000 pages of documents, which were stacked along one wall. Much of the evidence in the case is circumstantial, and each defendant has asserted his innocence.
As is common practice in Spanish criminal trials, there were no opening statements. Instead, the proceedings began with a court clerk reading out the charges. Then, defendant Galan was called as the first witness. With questions, prosecutors laid out pieces of their case against him and sought his response.
A convert to Islam, Galan faces up to 18 years in prison for allegedly belonging to al Qaeda and illegally possessing weapons.
In an often feisty exchange with prosecutors and the presiding judge, he acknowledged owning guns and said he knew most of the other defendants. But he said he had permits for his weapons and had merely met his fellow suspects at a mosque. He insisted that none of his conduct was illegal.
Galan parried questions about a trip he took to Indonesia in the summer of 2001, shortly after the alleged leader of the cell, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, visited that country in what prosecutors charge was part of a recruiting effort for Islamic fighters. While acknowledging that he traveled to Indonesia to pursue "business opportunities," he said was unable to recall many other details, including how he got there, how long he stayed and which parts of the country he visited. "I'm not very good with dates, but you have 300 volumes of paperwork over there, I'm sure you could find out when I went," he snapped at the lead prosecutor, Pedro Rubira.
When prosecutors asked him if he thought Yarkas, the alleged ringleader, had "radical" beliefs, Galan rolled his eyes in disdain and suggested that the judge rule the question as inappropriate. "Judge, please, I'm having difficulty here," he said. "The term 'radical' -- what does that mean?"
Yarkas is scheduled to testify next week. Prosecutors are expected to ask him about his alleged ties to the lead Sept. 11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta, and co-conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh. Yarkas is accused of helping to arrange a meeting between Atta and Binalshibh in Tarragona, Spain on July 16, 2001.
Court officials predict the trial will last at least four months.
This article starring:
IMAD EDIN BARAKAT YARKAS
al-Qaeda in Europe
LUIS JOSE GALAN
al-Qaeda in Europe
MOHAMED ATTA
al-Qaeda in Europe
RAMZI BINALSHIBH
al-Qaeda in Europe
the lead prosecutor, Pedro Rubira
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2005 12:13:40 AM ||
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#1
"He who represents himself has a fool for a client."
#2
Done. Italy's Berlusconi Forms New Government Conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi formed a new government on Saturday, presenting a list of ministers to Italy's president. He was to be sworn in later in the day.
Well, that was a complete waste of 2 days.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 8:48 Comments ||
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think of the costs for stationary every change in gov't
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 10:25 Comments ||
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Economic development Frank. A a few special tile orders too.
Posted by: The Mayor ||
04/23/2005 10:39 Comments ||
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Since past names like Park and such are coming up it time for ancient history lessons for the younger folk.
These links are some easy ones from a Google of:
Burt Lance BCCI
Be creative in your research - take the names from the current oil for food and canada gov scandals and cross search with
BCCI, Burt Lance, Jackson Stephens, savings and loan crash, koreagate, ricegate, mena, opium, cocaine, Afganistan, atomic, Pakwakiland, islamic bomb, jimmy carter, Warren Christopher, Clark Clifford, Studio 54, Pierre and Margaret Trudeau,
Thanks to google - BTW these links are all biased one way or another..
BCCI - CIA Murky network
The body of investigative reporter Joseph Casolaro was found in Martinsburg, West Virginia, with his wrists slashed on August 10, 1991. Near the body was a six-word suicide note: "I'm sorry, especially to my son," reported London's Daily Telegraph. denver post praising kerry for standing up to BCCI
Jackson Stevens who first introduced Hassan Abedi, the founder of BCCI, to Clark Clifford and Burt Lance.
Free Republic: "Clinton Timeline"
It also ties into all that Mena Ark stuff...
My guess it all goes back to Carter and the RoseGarden!
Have fun doing your research and tying it into our current mess!
Posted by: 3dc ||
04/23/2005 1:55:46 AM ||
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On the desk of Gen. Peter Pace is a photograph of the first Marine who died following Pace's orders: Lance Cpl. Guido Farinaro, killed in combat in Vietnam in 1968 when the general was a lieutenant.
snip
"He's been such a faithful executor and supporter of Rumsfeld's priorities," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank. "He is a thoughtful but loyal subordinate."
Pace is described by subordinates as warm and sincere, with a humble charisma and sense of humor. In conversation, he drives home a point by putting it in terms of the common soldier, describing things "from Pfc. Pace's point of view."
Read the rest
My kinda guy. . .
Semper Fi
Posted by: Doc8404 ||
04/23/2005 10:40:09 AM ||
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"Heâs been such a faithful executor and supporter of Rumsfeldâs priorities,"
The Army has cleared four top officers — including the three-star general who commanded all U.S. forces in Iraq — of all allegations of wrongdoing in connection with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, officials said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who became the senior commander in Iraq in June 2003, two months after the fall of Baghdad, had been faulted in earlier investigations for leadership lapses that may have contributed to prisoner abuse. He is the highest ranking officer to face official allegations of leadership failures in Iraq, but he has not been accused of criminal violations.
After assessing the allegations against Sanchez and taking sworn statements from 37 people involved in Iraq, the Army's inspector general, Lt. Gen. Stanley E. Green, concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated, said the officials who were familiar with the details of Green's probe.
Green reached the same conclusion in the cases of two generals and a colonel who worked for Sanchez.
The officials who disclosed the findings spoke only on condition of anonymity because Congress has not yet been fully briefed on Green's findings and the information has not yet been publicly released. Green had scrutinized the actions of Sanchez and 11 other officers.
Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were physically abused and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence soldiers in the fall of 2003. Photos of some of the abuse created a firestorm of criticism worldwide.
Congress has hotly debated the question of accountability among senior Army and Defense Department officials who were in positions of responsibility on Iraq detention and interrogation policy. Some Democrats have accused the Pentagon of foisting all the blame onto low-ranking soldiers.
In a statement Friday that did not mention specific cases, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said that as soon as all Pentagon assessments of accountability are complete he will hold a hearing "to examine the adequacy of those reviews" and to hear senior civilian and military officials address the issue.
Warner said he strongly agrees with one investigation report that concluded last year that commanders should be held accountable for their action or inaction and that military as well as civilian leaders in the Pentagon "share this burden of responsibility."
The office of Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, declined to comment on the matter.
Some have said the blame should rest with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, although none of the 10 investigations done so far has concluded that he was directly at fault.
Asked about public expectations of punishment for senior officers associated with Abu Ghraib, the Army's chief public affairs officer, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, said the Army went to great lengths to make its investigations thorough and fair, with no preconceived judgments.
"The thoroughness of the investigative process preserves the rights of all individuals involved while ensuring that the presumption of innocence must be disproved by facts before any allegation is determined to be substantiated," Brooks said.
In an interview Friday, three senior defense officials associated with the Green investigations cited mitigating circumstances in the Sanchez case, including the fact that his organization in Iraq, known as Combined Joint Task Force 7, initially was short of the senior officers it required. They also cited other complicating factors, including the upsurge in insurgent violence shortly after Sanchez took command and the intense pressure the military faced in hunting down Saddam Hussein, who was in hiding and thought to have a hand in the insurgency.
The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sanchez has been at the center of the Abu Ghraib controversy from its start.
He issued a policy on acceptable interrogation techniques on Sept. 14, 2003, then revised it on Oct. 12, about the time the abuses were happening. The Army inspector general found in an investigation last year that the policies were ambiguous and subject to misinterpretation by soldiers.
A separate investigation by a panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger concluded that Sanchez should have taken stronger action in November 2003 when he realized the extent of problems among military intelligence and military police units running Abu Ghraib.
A subsequent Army investigation, made public last summer in what was called the Kern-Fay-Jones report, concluded that although Sanchez and his most senior deputies were not directly involved in the bases at Abu Ghraib, their "action and inaction did indirectly contribute" to some abuses.
Sanchez remains commander of the Army's 5th Corps, based in Germany. It is unclear whether he will be promoted to four-star ranking and given another assignment after he finishes with 5th Corps.
Sanchez and his former top deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, were cited in the Kern-Fay-Jones report for failure to "ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations" in Iraq, specifically at the Abu Ghraib prison.
It was left to Green, the Army inspector general, to weigh the gravity of the various allegations against Sanchez and other senior officers and determine whether they could be substantiated. In only one case — that of Janis Karpinski, an Army Reserve brigadier general who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib — did Green decide that the allegations were substantiated. She has been suspended from her command and given a written reprimand.
In addition to clearing Sanchez, the Army inspector general has determined that there should be no punishment given to Wojdakowski or to Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who was Sanchez's intelligence chief in Baghdad, or to Col. Mark Warren, Sanchez's top legal adviser at the time.
In addition to those five cases, which have been the main focus of attention by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Green examined allegations against seven other senior officers, all at or above the rank of colonel. The names of the seven have not been disclosed, and it is not yet known how many — if any — will be punished. One of the seven cases is not yet closed.
Those seven others do not include two accused officers whose cases are being considered by field commanders rather than by the Army inspector general because they face possible criminal charges. Those two are Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib, and Lt. Col. Stephen Jordan, who directed the prison's interrogation center.
Fast was promoted to two-star general and given command of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and its Army Intelligence Center.
After her change-of-command ceremony at Huachuca last month, Fast said of the Abu Ghraib debacle, "Could I have done something to prevent this? I think we all ask ourselves that question."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2005 12:16:15 AM ||
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General Karpinski got off lightly.
I understand that this issue alone caused a lot of grief in Rantburg.
Karpinski did not play for the same team as everyone else in this matter and saw fit to denounce the army publicly in the international press.
Oh, well. At least she finally figured out to STFU and live with the consequences.
#2
Dems wanted Rumsfeld and W to be held responsible, nothing else would suffice. I call the Democrats in this action enemies of America for the damage they did to the U.S. in foreign affairs for partisan gain...yeah, you, Levin, Rangel, Hildabeast, et al
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 12:58 Comments ||
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#3
The Moonbats a the BBC have your say are speaking forth. I left a rude comment it was unfortunate no BBC staff had been abused. It's clear no person in the media gets it at all. The perps are being prosecuted.
That the commander directly responsible for them hasn't been handed thier ass is nothing new. SOSDD.
Known for his own acerbic style, Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday came to the defense of John R. Bolton, who is struggling to survive blistering criticism and win confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee set May 12 to vote on the nominee, Cheney tried to turn around accusations that Bolton was not fit for the sensitive diplomatic post because of his blunt — and, according to some critics, berating — style.
"If being occasionally tough and aggressive and abrasive were a problem," Cheney said, "a lot of members of the United States Senate wouldn't qualify."
"In this time and place, it's extraordinarily important for us to have a tough advocate at the U.N., and I think John is that advocate," Cheney said. "I've looked at all the charges that have been made. I don't think any of them stand up to scrutiny."
Even so, senators' staffers held another day of interviews with critics of Bolton. Among them was Thomas Hubbard, who was President Bush's ambassador to South Korea until he retired last year. details in article
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, has talked to two fence-sitting Republican senators, Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, at their invitation.
"The general considers the discussions private," said his spokeswoman, Peggy Cifrino.
Powell was the only living former Republican secretary of state who did not sign a letter of support for Bolton that was sent to the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on April 5. When Powell ran the State Department his views were often at odds with Bolton's. Powell was inclined to take a moderate position on world issues while Bolton, like Bush, hewed to a hard line.
The president showed no sign of wavering. "John's distinguished career and service to our nation demonstrates that he is the right man at the right time for this important assignment," Bush said.
Dan Bartlett, the president's counselor, vowed to "do everything we can to get him confirmed."
During a tense, 50-minute hearing in federal court here Friday, al-Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui admitted that he was part of a broad, radical Islamist conspiracy to fly planes into U.S. buildings.
But Moussaoui, 36, who faces a possible death sentence, insisted that he was not part of the 9/11 hijacking plotand dared prosecutors to show him where, in the confession he signed, it says that he was part of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Everybody knows that I am not 9/11 material," Moussaoui said in French-accented English. "That's not my conspiracy."
Instead, Moussaoui, defiant as ever in his first public court appearance in several months, said, "I am guilty of a broad conspiracy to use planes as weapons of mass destruction to strike the White House" as part of another plot, planned for another day during a second wave of attacks after 9/11. "My conspiracy," Moussaoui said in deliberate, loud voice, called for him to hijack a 747 jet and fly it into the White House if the U.S. government refused to free Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.
Rahman, who is known as "the Blind Sheikh," is an Egyptian cleric who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for crimes related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 plots against New York landmarks.
Asked by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema whether anyone had promised that he would receive a lighter sentence in exchange for his guilty pleas, Moussaoui said, "Not at all. I can't expect leniency from the Americans."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said they did not dispute Moussaoui's account. "In a chilling admission of guilt, Moussaoui confessed to his participation," Gonzales said. "Moussaoui and his co-conspirators were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents each one a son or daughter, father or mother, husband or wife."
Moussaoui's guilty pleas to all six conspiracy chargesmade over the objections of his court-appointed defense attorneysdoes not end the case that Bush administration officials had hailed as the only prosecution in the United States for the 9/11 conspiracy.
In the coming months, a jury likely will be selected to decide whether Moussaoui should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison. The so-called "death phase" will be a mini-trial, where prosecutors will call survivors and relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks to testify.
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, vowed "to fight every inch against the death penalty," by arguing to the jury that he played no role, not even a "minor" one, in the 9/11 plot. Earlier this week, when he met with Brinkema in a secret hearing, he said he had told her that he wanted to bypass the death trial and be sentenced immediately. But he said Friday that he had changed his mind. "I will not apply for death," he said.
For the past two years, Moussaoui's case has been bogged down in a legal battle that pitted national security against a defendant's right to a fair trial. Moussaoui had sought access to three captured al-Qaeda operatives whom he said could exonerate him of the 9/11 plot. When then-Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to provide the access, citing national security reasons, Brinkema ruled that prosecutors could not seek the death penalty.
But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond reinstated the death penalty and ordered Brinkema to craft summaries of what the three witnesses would say about Moussaoui's role, if any, in the 9/11 attacks to present to a jury.
Moussaoui has been in U.S. custody since August 2001, when he raised suspicions of a Minnesota flight school instructor by insisting on learning only how to take off and land commercial jets and by expressing unusual interest in the operations of doors on the planes. His visa expired, Moussaoui was taken into custody by the then Immigration and Naturalization Service, while FBI agents in Minneapolis tried unsuccessfully to convince their supervisors in Washington that the flight student with radical Islamist views might be part of a terrorist plot. To the independent commission that was created to investigate the 9/11 attacks, Moussaoui was "an al-Qaeda mistake" and "a missed opportunity" for the FBI to unravel and prevent the deadly plot.
But to Brinkema, Moussaoui has been an eageralthough difficult at timesstudent of American law. Describing him as "extremely intelligent," the judge said, "He has a better understanding of the legal system than some lawyers who have appeared in this court."
In hundreds of hand-written motions, Moussaoui was vicious in his criticism of Brinkema, prosecutors and especially his own defense attorneys, whom he accused Friday of "ineffective assistance of counsel." When he entered Brinkema's courtroom Friday, Moussaoui stared at spectators as he walked slowly to the defense table in the heavily guarded, packed courtroom. A half-dozen relatives of 9/11 victims stared back. He took nearly five minutes to re-read and sign a five-page, 23-paragraph "statement of facts" prepared by the government that he said he had already read "10 times." And when he exited the courtroom, Moussaoui shouted, "God curse America."
Moussaoui also gave the 9/11 plot's mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a difficult time, according to the 9/11 Commission's report. After Mohammed sent Moussaoui to Malaysia for flight training, Moussaoui balked at the schools there, saying he was unable to find one he liked, the report said. Instead, the commission said, Moussaoui worked on other terrorist schemes, such as buying four tons of ammonium nitrate for bombs that he wanted to plant on cargo planes bound for the United States. When Mohammed found out, he recalled Moussaoui to Pakistan and told him to go to the United States for flight training, according to the report.
Mohammed has denied during interrogations that he ever considered Moussaoui for the 9/11 plot, the report said. Instead, he claimed that Moussaoui was supposed to have participated in a "second wave" of attacks that faltered because Mohammed was too busy with the 9/11 plot and because two other operatives slated to participate with Moussaoui had backed out. But Mohammed may have felt he had no choice but to consider including Moussaoui "as another possible pilot" in the 9/11 plot, the 9/11 Commission said.
Two hijacker-pilotsMohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah weren't getting along in the months before 9/11. Jarrah had a girlfriend in Germany and had refused to cease contact with her or his family, angering Atta, the lead hijacker. And, the report said, Moussaoui had special status, having been hand-picked by Osama Bin Laden himself. But Mohammed was not enamored of Moussaoui, whom he called "Sally" in coded messages to another al-Qaeda operative, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni cleric who tried but failed four times to get into the United States to participate in the 9/11 plot, the report said.
As a result of his uneasiness about Moussaoui, Mohammed kept the fiery operative apart from the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, and the 9/11 Commission said there is no evidence of any contact between Moussaoui and Atta. Ultimately, Jarrah and Atta resolved their differences and Moussaoui was not needed on 9/11. Jarrah was the pilot of United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted against the hijackers. Atta was the pilot on American Flight 11, the first plane to strike the World Trade Center in New York. Bin al-Shibh told U.S. interrogators that Mohammed did not learn of Moussaoui's August 2001 arrest until after 9/11. Had Mohammed and Bin Laden known of the arrest, Bin al-Shibh said, they might have cancelled the operation.
This article starring:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General John Ashcroft
KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMED
al-Qaeda
MOHAMED ATTA
al-Qaeda
RAMZI BIN AL SHIBH
al-Qaeda
SHEIKH OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN
al-Qaeda
U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema
ZACARIAS MUSAUI
al-Qaeda
ZIAD JARRAH
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2005 12:08:28 AM ||
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#1
Death. Take him out and shoot him. On national TV.
#3
He wants execution. He gets to be a martyr then and has a quick and humane exit to his 71 virgins.
Instead, he should be kept alive, and served bacon every single day. He should be served by menstruating, naked women. His prison warders and handlers should all be gay men or females. He should have to take orders from them.
He should have his beard shaved off, in fact every hair of his body.
He should be paraded naked before women and gay men every day.
This hits him where it hurts: at his core beliefs. This is worse than death for this prick, this risks his very soul and makes him unclean before Allan.
Recently a Senate Judiciary subcommittee of which I am chairman held a hearing on a major threat to the American people, one that could come not only from terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda but from rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea.
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies -- terrorist or otherwise. And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years.
Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order.
American society has grown so dependent on computer and other electrical systems that we have created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability, ironically much greater than those of other, less developed nations. When deprived of power, we are in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment.
Transformers for regional substations, for example, are massive pieces of equipment that are no longer manufactured in the United States and typically take more than a year to build. In the words of another witness at the hearing, "The longer the basic outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery of any [infrastructure system] will be. It is possible -- indeed, seemingly likely -- for sufficiently severe functional outages to become mutually reinforcing, until a point at which the degradation . . . could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support any large fraction of its present human population." Those who survived, he said, would find themselves transported back to the United States of the 1880s.
This threat may sound straight out of Hollywood, but it is very real. CIA Director Porter Goss recently testified before Congress about nuclear material missing from storage sites in Russia that may have found its way into terrorist hands, and FBI Director Robert Mueller has confirmed new intelligence that suggests al Qaeda is trying to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful" tests. North Korea exports missile technology around the world; Scuds can easily be purchased on the open market for about $100,000 apiece.
A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead "on target" with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere. No need for the risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters -- al Qaeda is believed to own about 80 such vessels -- and make sure to get it a few miles in the air.
Fortunately, hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and -- compared with the threat -- relatively inexpensive, according to a comprehensive report on the EMP threat by a commission of prominent experts. But it will take leadership by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, and other federal agencies, along with support from Congress, all of which have yet to materialize.
The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of "imagination." No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond.
The writer, Jon Kyl, is a Republican senator from Arizona and chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.
Posted by: Sobiesky ||
04/23/2005 2:01:05 AM ||
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#1
And oh, dear lord! They might scoop meteorites up and propel them toward the United States at enormous speed, with the resulting destructive force of a THOUSAND NUCLEAR BOMBS! Therefore we need to spend money before IT'S TOO LATE! EMP, phooey.
#5
Kyl is a serious guy. I think he understates the difficulty of a comprehensive EMP attack, but it's something to consider. Hardening infrastructure is something that can be done as items are replaced and it's something civilians can do to help in preparedness while the military takes the battle to the enemy. Clausowitz's admonishment is not 100% applicable here.
#6
I was under the impression that military hardware is all EMP hardened? I keep some vaccum tube operated amateur radio equipment around just for such an occurance. Unlike transistors, vaccum tubes don't suffer from EMP damage.
#7
a nuke scud over the US is a obvious declaration of war and would bring about massive retaliation - power grid down would be the least of the worries...just how would this SCUD reach us? Sub launched would indicate China/Russia, of which China would be the obvious suspect....Kyl's a serious guy, but the scenario is low on the likelihood scale IMHO
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 12:45 Comments ||
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#8
Anonymouse, are you really THAT stupid?
EMP from a small nuclear warhead, detonated at the right altitude, would fry a huge porotion of our economy. Think about how many micro[processors are embedded in jsut about everything, from cars to power and water distribution systems.
These are not hardened. Experimentation with high energy RF radiation has shown them to be immensely vulnerable if not hardened. It woudl be a prudent step to require hardening of the microcontrollers that are vital to the infrastructure. To do otherwise woudl be to expose a region of the US to economic devastation by a Jihadi in a lear jet with a small crude fission bomb.
I've seen parts of the analysis of what could be done, and the results. Hospitals without power or any of their modern instruments, police without radios or functional cars (fried chips in the cicuitry that controls the fuel injection), supermarkets unable to obtain or distribute food beyond canned good and emergency rations trucked in from outside the pulsed zone. Several million people displaced because without the modern supply grid of shipping, electricity and communications, their home area will be uninhabitable.
Imagine the impact of that on the entire US economy. Even better - Imagine it at 50,000 feet over Manhattan.
Cost effective measures can and should be taken to at least protect the distribution grid for electricity and communications.
Read up and learn, before you make more of an idiot of yourself by being blindly and stupidly dismissive, like those analsyst were pre-9/11 who went "Hijack a plane and fly it into a building? Phooey" You willing to join that club you moron?
#9
Anonymouse - OS is right on this one. If you don't realize the vulnerability, that suggests you're just ignorant on the topic in which case it's best to stay silent.
And if you do realize the vulnerability but refuse to discuss countermeasures with any degree of seriousness then you're an ignorant fool.
Posted by: too true ||
04/23/2005 13:46 Comments ||
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#10
The outer walls of hospitals and other critical buildings should be well-grounded Faraday cages. That would have the secondary benefit of killing cell-phome use inside as well.
#11
I don't think the event horizon of anything exploded at 50,000 ft is all that great. Bad news, but hardly nation ending. A lot more hand wringing, screeching and whinning prior to a nation ending retaliation by 1 maybe 2 US subs.
#12
US GMD> the US will able to destroy enemy missles at launch or very soon after launch. Watch the USAF-USDOD air. missle and laser tests over WESTPAC to see, ergo the Commies are focusing on Underwater Warfare, i.e. subs with LR pop-up underwater capability, plus arsenal ships/air disguised as ordinary freighters, plus fast sealift/airlift, .......etc. lest we forget, the Clintons for POTUS, from within!? Good Clintonian Amerikans of the USSA, the CPUSA, and the People's Soviet Waffen SS Red Army of Amerika demand to be ruled under OWG and anyone except Americans.
#14
Wrong, #11 Shipman. High altitude EMPs are potentially the most dangerous for us - above 100,000 ft and up is the worst, but a lot can happen at 50,000 ft as well. It's not an 'event horizon' issue at all. At the higher level it's the gamma rays that ionize the air until they interact with earth mag fields, from that height. This cascades to promulgate via (among other things) metal girders, railroad tracks, metal bridges, wires, pipes etc. High altitude = wide deposition region of the ions generated as the gamma particles travel through the air -- hundreds of miles or as much as 1000 miles in diameter from the upper heights. At 50,000 ft down to the height of commercial airlines and below, you get a more localized and less circular pattern, still with the ionization, this time more intense but much more localized.
Since it doesn't take a huge pulse to destroy most of our unshielded systems including the digital plcs that run many factories, water pumping stations etc. as well as comms and other more obvious electronics, emp from above ground is a serious threat.
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 20:00 Comments ||
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#15
true, but who can deliver it anonymously? otherwise it's time for a multi-rad exposure
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 20:06 Comments ||
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#16
Yeah, yeah ... big talk, but you're not taking seriously the incredible suffering here. go nuke a country you THINK sponsored this. meanwhile, by day 3 people are seriously hungry, fires have broken out, water purification has ended and no food is moving in a 1000 mile radius section of the country. By day 7 disease starts to be a serious issue as does hunger in cities; panic, looting. Mil systems might be hardened, but police, fire, ems, national guard stuff isn't. Who the hell do you think will keep order?
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 20:15 Comments ||
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#17
tks "wired in" -Mr "Big Talk" reminded me of my ex LOL - point taken, but I think the American level of humor might chg, a la 9/12/01 escalated to the "OK to Nuke back" level
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 20:22 Comments ||
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#18
maybe. or morale might collapse when the extent of the damage hits. in any case we're talking really serious effects here - probably a collapse of civil order in a major part of the country, maybe martial law and certainly a serious collapse of the economy nationwide .... don't kid yourself, this could be crippling and very long lasting.
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 20:28 Comments ||
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#19
like, say, Pearl Harbor?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 20:48 Comments ||
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#20
Sheesh. C'mon. Frank hits a solid point - we will know who launched. Period. Full Fucking Stop. We have the detection systems for it, and have had for a looong time. The only issue might be getting that information distributed if an EMP hit disables parts of the comms network involved.
If you don't know this, as an absolute fact, then you're no more "wired in" than some college kid whose hormones rule his life.
So, "wired in", got any more you'd like to add that poopoo Frank's assertion that we'd know and we'd respond? Personally, since that's precisely what the system was designed for, I'd wager there's a specific protocol and the response would, indeed, be delivered.
BTW, lol, I'm pretty fucking wired, myself, but I'm sure each of us has something different in mind.
#21
like nothing we've ever had here CONUS. like, things getting so bad in one part of the country that survivors are turned back by the area that remains intact. sound impossible? it's not.
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 20:52 Comments ||
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#22
of course we have the systems, the command lines and the doctrine that would allow retaliation. we might even have the political will.
so what? it does zip, nada, zilch about the damage and collapse here.
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 20:54 Comments ||
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#23
Well, how about taking it down before it can do the damage and since we would know where it came from, respond? I like win-win scenarios.
#24
Sheesh. Think that we don't "get it" and you're like the only one who does? This is an ancient SciFi plotline. Of course we get it - look at OS's (and others) replies. We get it.
We've known about this for decades. The Peace Dividend from the "end" of the Cold War was squandered, instead of preparing us for anything. If you want to hold people to account - well, lol, it's the usual suspects: the funders in the US House. That someone in a position to elevate the issue finally sees it is great. If something comes of this, then we can all sit back and laugh (h/t Peter Sinfield, King Crimson lyricist).
If not, I promise I'll remember you and, as I shoot the first 5 looters, recite the litany: "wired in told us so." K?
#25
Sobiesky, sounds good to me. Of course, don't forget to be able to identify and shoot down that private jet that OS mentioned carrying the crude device.
ah, jaded .com .... read ALL the old sci fi plots.
Well of course you have and - seriously now - you're dead on about squandering the peace dividend.
what bugs me about the kneejerk "we'll just nuke em" response is that the threat of retaliation won't deter the jihadis and it won't prevent the potentially catastrophic damage.
badanov nails the problem in #2 - hardening everything is not affordable or practical - so we'd better do the ole defense in depth thing. and that will be expensive, controversial and probably ain't gonna happen.
I'm not optimistic about this, just hope we get lucky and do what we can.
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 21:14 Comments ||
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#26
"Wired In", thats a viable scenario. Not one of the more probable ones, but a considered one none-the-less. THere is pre-planning for all these things, but much of it had not been reviewd since the end of the Cold War, unless you're in a hurricane or earthquake zone. Ironically, Miami and San Francisco might be better set to deal with this sort of thing than would be Chicago or NY.
The 2 largest problems areas would be a densely populated (human and exonomically) area like NYC. The number of displaced persons and the loss to GNP would be staggering. The blessing here is that the area around them is very rich in terms of "sustainment grid" outside of the affected area, and able to sustain a combined relief-in-place with an orderly evacuation.
The other one is an isolated but fairly large city, like Seattle, Phoenix, Denver or Las Vegas. There is simply no place nearby to relocate the million+ that would need to be moved out of the unsustainable area, and they are all far away from other major metro areas. The "sustainment grid" they are a nexus of is very thin outside of the potentially affected areas.
The biggest impact would be GNP loss, and a loss of key economic components that are primarily existent in the EMP'd area. That loss would be enough to crumble the international economy - at a minimum it would devastate the dollar and the US government's ability to sustain itself via the bond/treasury functions due to loss of confidence in US Dollars and the damages done to the US financial markets.
The multibillion dolalr dislocations resulting from just the WTC hits were a drop in the bucket compared to what an EMP would have done.
Hardening this kind of control circuity is not all that expensive - we are not talking about armoring transformers, just the little black boxes on the sides of them. Same goes for police/emergency communications circuitry, and water/sewage pumping and processing controllers. We already have a pretty good inventory accounting of them left from the Y2K scares. Time to require that they be serviced at least onece in the next 4 years, and when serviced, must be shielded. For most, that would be an install of a shielded grounded box around them.
The key is to be able to get 4 things protected and restored VERY quickly: Electricity, Water/Sewage, Communications and Transportation.
Electricity is key because it critical for the other 3 elements (transportation needs electricity to function - especially railroad control elements for the largest bulk-movers that would be needed).
#27
Well, we're on the same wavelength. We are at war with the Wahhabis and their ilk, and have been since the '73 oil embargo. That we are so PC-ized is our greatest weakness and vulnerability. We could spend a LOT less on trying to shore up defenses if we got offensive, and I mean more so than knocking off the Taleban and Saddam. The Black Hats in Iran and the House of Saud are the keys. I don't know how long you've been frequenting the 'Burg, but some of us have advocated some strong offensive tactics.
We all know that the majority of the individuals in the jihadi movement are mercs, even if they don't quite realize it. The fun would go right out of it if they had to row across the Atlantic to hit us. The money is the key and it comes from oil. Decap the Mad Mullahs (and zap every nuke & missile related facility, of course) and take the eastern shore of the Gulf away from the Wahhabis and almost everything ends, and damned fast.
I'm not being snotty, honest, but these ideas are years old around here. I would welcome any ideas you have along those lines (defunding the shitheads), for that is where the rubber really meets the road - not waiting around to get plastered.
#28
How long have I been around RB? Oh, 2 yrs or so ;-).
OS and I have a little different take on what's required for mission-critical shielding in the civ sector. All that fiber we've pulled in the last decade will help some, but I've dealt w/ local/regional/state police & emergency agencies and let's just say it aint' gonna happen according to OS' sensible suggestion unless the Feds ram it down their throats along with money ... most likely by requiring a national standard for the systems, which has been proposed many times and shot down by senators and govs each time.
agree, .com - we've been at war since 73. The challenge is to take down the Kingdom and the MM without crashing the world economy. That's going to be tricky ... means decapitating the leadership without destabilizing the oil production. Not that I'm particularly fond of the EuroWeasels, but the reality is that we trade a lot with them and will continue to do so for a good while before they sink entirely into irrelevancy. And their economies are incredibly fragile.
So it's a balancing act and my own take is that special ops work - actual and figurative - will be most of what we do.
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 21:41 Comments ||
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#29
Hardening isn't any mysterious process. But just tossing a shield around everthing doesn't do it. You also have to isolate every connection going in and out of the box and, condition the power it runs on as well. Not inpossible, but filddly work that has to be done right. If it's wrong, the EMP gets through and, you have a door stop not a working device.
Beyond "defunding the shitheads" make the oil they sell worthless. Someting newer and better that replaces it for less. Build a better mouse trap. Smash anyone or group that gets in the way of doing it. Wean the world off of the the shitheads oil and let them try and eat it if they think they can.
I have kept gear that will work even after an EMP event. I used to make sure I had transportation that would too. Now thats harder to do. Being proactive instead of reactive cost more but your way ahead.
#30
Don't have a vacuum tube radio. We do keep an emergency kit and food and water, and guns and ammo. Need to add a good sized generator and fuel for it when we can afford to.
Posted by: too true ||
04/23/2005 21:51 Comments ||
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#31
Don't go to a certain Schaumburg IL communications company for your hardened electronics. They offshore almost everything to China or India. You couldn't trust it! I say this from the biased point of view but stand by it. They can't be trusted.
Pretty aware that when there is a will there is a way. That goes both ways. We must anticipate all potential delivery modes, and figure out how to prevent them.
#33
One last comment on all this. OS is correct that the worst-case scenario is not the most likely one. A 1000 mi deposition area would most likely mean a fusion device at 75,000-100,000 feet, exploded south of NYC, to catch as much of the midAtlantic region as possible, down to DC and up to Boston at the edges.
That's not likely to be something picked up by amateurs. That would be state sponsored. Which is not an impossible scenario in the next 10 years or so. Not likely, but not impossible.
Re: plans, sure there are some. But if they aren't recent they may be unrealistic. Think about how many more things are dependent on electronics and embedded computer chips today vs. the end of the Cold War. For certain many of the communications switching points are more vulnerable to the edges of a pulse than they were in the late 80s / early 90s. Cars, police/fire/ems radios, all the other things that have been mentioned before.
I know there are people who know this. The question is, can we assemble a sober populace who also understands it and supports the measures needed to defend against it?
Posted by: wired in ||
04/23/2005 22:49 Comments ||
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#34
The E-Bomb
The E-Bomb
In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for next to nothing.
The Next Pearl Harbor
The next Pearl Harbor will not announce itself with a searing flash of nuclear light or with the plaintive wails of those dying of Ebola or its genetically engineered twin. You will hear a sharp crack in the distance. By the time you mistakenly identify this sound as an innocent clap of thunder, the civilized world will have become unhinged. Fluorescent lights and television sets will glow eerily bright, despite being turned off. The aroma of ozone mixed with smoldering plastic will seep from outlet covers as electric wires arc and telephone lines melt. Your Palm Pilot and MP3 player will feel warm to the touch, their batteries overloaded. Your computer, and every bit of data on it, will be toast. And then you will notice that the world sounds different too. The background music of civilization, the whirl of internal-combustion engines, will have stopped. Save a few diesels, engines will never start again. You, however, will remain unharmed, as you find yourself thrust backward 200 years, to a time when electricity meant a lightning bolt fracturing the night sky. This is not a hypothetical, son-of-Y2K scenario. It is a realistic assessment of the damage the Pentagon believes could be inflicted by a new generation of weapons--E-bombs.
Illusttation by Edwin Herder
The first major test of an American electromagnetic bomb is scheduled for next year. Ultimately, the Army hopes to use E-bomb technology to explode artillery shells in midflight. The Navy wants to use the E-bomb's high-power microwave pulses to neutralize antiship missiles. And, the Air Force plans to equip its bombers, strike fighters, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles with E-bomb capabilities. When fielded, these will be among the most technologically sophisticated weapons the U.S. military establishment has ever built.
There is, however, another part to the E-bomb story, one that military planners are reluctant to discuss. While American versions of these weapons are based on advanced technologies, terrorists could use a less expensive, low-tech approach to create the same destructive power. "Any nation with even a 1940s technology base could make them," says Carlo Kopp, an Australian-based expert on high-tech warfare. "The threat of E-bomb proliferation is very real." POPULAR MECHANICS estimates a basic weapon could be built for $400.
An Old Idea Made New
The theory behind the E-bomb was proposed in 1925 by physicist Arthur H. Compton--not to build weapons, but to study atoms. Compton demonstrated that firing a stream of highly energetic photons into atoms that have a low atomic number causes them to eject a stream of electrons. Physics students know this phenomenon as the Compton Effect. It became a key tool in unlocking the secrets of the atom.
Ironically, this nuclear research led to an unexpected demonstration of the power of the Compton Effect, and spawned a new type of weapon. In 1958, nuclear weapons designers ignited hydrogen bombs high over the Pacific Ocean. The detonations created bursts of gamma rays that, upon striking the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, released a tsunami of electrons that spread for hundreds of miles. Street lights were blown out in Hawaii and radio navigation was disrupted for 18 hours, as far away as Australia. The United States set out to learn how to "harden" electronics against this electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and develop EMP weapons.
America has remained at the forefront of EMP weapons development. Although much of this work is classified, it's believed that current efforts are based on using high-temperature superconductors to create intense magnetic fields. What worries terrorism experts is an idea the United States studied but discarded--the Flux Compression Generator (FCG).
A Poor Man's E-Bomb
An FCG is an astoundingly simple weapon. It consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger copper coil, as shown below. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," says Kopp. "The result is that FCGs will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks before the final disintegration of the device. Published results suggest ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of millions of amps." The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like a flashbulb by comparison.
An Air Force spokesman, who describes this effect as similar to a lightning strike, points out that electronics systems can be protected by placing them in metal enclosures called Faraday Cages that divert any impinging electromagnetic energy directly to the ground. Foreign military analysts say this reassuring explanation is incomplete.
The India Connection
The Indian military has studied FCG devices in detail because it fears that Pakistan, with which it has ongoing conflicts, might use E-bombs against the city of Bangalore, a sort of Indian Silicon Valley. An Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis study of E-bombs points to two problems that have been largely overlooked by the West. The first is that very-high-frequency pulses, in the microwave range, can worm their way around vents in Faraday Cages. The second concern is known as the "late-time EMP effect," and may be the most worrisome aspect of FCG devices. It occurs in the 15 minutes after detonation. During this period, the EMP that surged through electrical systems creates localized magnetic fields. When these magnetic fields collapse, they cause electric surges to travel through the power and telecommunication infrastructure. This string-of-firecrackers effect means that terrorists would not have to drop their homemade E-bombs directly on the targets they wish to destroy. Heavily guarded sites, such as telephone switching centers and electronic funds-transfer exchanges, could be attacked through their electric and telecommunication connections.
Knock out electric power, computers and telecommunication and you've destroyed the foundation of modern society. In the age of Third World-sponsored terrorism, the E-bomb is the great equalizer.
First published in Popular Mechanics September 2001
Illustration by John Batchalor
To ignite an E-bomb, a starter current energizes the stator coil, creating a magnetic field. The explosion expands the tube, sort-circuiting the coil and compressing the magnetic field forward. The pulse is emitted at high frequencies that defeat protective devices like Faraday Cages.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/military/2001/9/e-bomb/print.phtml
Last updated 04/11/2002
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2005 22:53 Comments ||
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#35
Okay, john, good post. Now we have to kill you. ;-)
#36
John posted unclassified versions of part of the High Energy Radio Frequency things I was talking about.
Telephone exchanges are a bit less vulnerable to this sort of damage, at least on a permanent basis. Same goes for the breaker based gear in the power distribution system - its designed to kick out and handle the late surges that come in over the lines. Thats why airburst EMP is such a threat to it - its NOT designed to handle an ionized air-based surge.
The problem is that the pulses of this stuff, being coil based, tends to be linear/directional, instead of omni like a nuclear based EMP is. Secondly, the "worming around" is crap - the higher the frequency, the more linear it tends to be IIRC, thus the folded venting will not allow mWave to "worm" unless its constructed liek a waveguide.
Studying that stuff is part of the weaponization research that one can find on this sort of weaponry, if one knows where to look.
Hat tip LGF, EFL.
No criminal charges will be filed against an Army reservist who held seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint this month at an Arizona rest stop.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Thursday that Sgt. Patrick Haab had the legal right to make a citizen's arrest because the man smuggling the immigrants into the country was committing a felony and the immigrants themselves were conspiring with the coyote to commit a felony. Arizona law allows a private citizen to make a legal arrest if a felony has been committed and the citizen believes that the person he is arresting committed the felony.
The 24-year-old Haab was arrested April 10 by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on seven counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and spent four nights in jail. He said Thursday that he was "grateful" for the outcome.
Haab has said he did not know the men were undocumented immigrants. He said he drew his pistol because he feared for his life when seven men rushed out of the darkness of a rest stop on Interstate 8, where he had stopped to relieve his dog.
Haab said he was clearly justified in pulling his gun that evening. But he gave several reasons as to exactly why he pursued the men to their vehicle, ordered them out at gunpoint and then detained them for authorities. His explanation included a claim that he still viewed them as assailants, he was following his dog, and he realized they were undocumented immigrants who should be taken into custody.
All of those who were detained now face charges in federal court.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/23/2005 4:01:17 AM ||
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#1
An outbreak of common sense in Arizona? Let's hope it's virulent...
Five Muslim-Americans who were fingerprinted, searched and held up to 6 1/2 hours by US border agents upon their return from a religious conference in Canada are suing the Department of Homeland Security. The suit filed Wednesday in US District Court in Brooklyn charges the government violated their constitutional rights to practice religion and against unlawful searches. Plaintiff Karema Atassi, 22, of Williamsville, was among at least three dozen Muslim-American men and women who were stopped at two western New York border crossings in December. They had been attending an annual "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" conference in Toronto. The suit was brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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#1
That they're referred to as Muslim-Americans tells me all I need to know . . . and a few things I didn't wish to.
Posted by: The Doctor ||
04/23/2005 0:03 Comments ||
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#3
Good. Let this become a media circus so that Americans are exposed what US based muslims go to Canada to get inspiration from. Top Saudi cleric to visit Canada (05/2004)
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 0:36 Comments ||
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#4
What constitutional rights got violated? The right to pass US borders uninspected? Fuck that. These a-pholes were at a terrorist planning conference, plain and simple.
The conclusion of a biography of Strong through 1997 well worth reading.
Maurice Strong has demonstrated an uncanny ability to manipulate people, institutions, governments, and events to achieve the outcome he desires. Through his published writings and public presentations he has declared his desire to empower the U.N. as the global authority to manage a new era of global governance. He has positioned his NGO triumvirite, the IUCN, WWF, and the WRI, to varnish U.N. activity with the perception of "civil society" respectability. And now he has been appointed Senior Advisor to the U.N. Secretary General and assigned the responsibility of reforming the United Nations bureaucracy. The fox has been given the assignment, and all the tools necessary, to repair the henhouse to his liking.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/23/2005 10:28:06 AM ||
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UN Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday told ministers and senior officials from Asia and Africa the world body had lost its way.
Most spectacularly on his watch, but he doesn't dwell on that...
Expect some underlings to be tossed overboard real soon now ...
Annan called on members to support sweeping reforms.
... but not to support booting him...
The time had come for an enlargement of the Security Council to loosen the grip of large powers and give the developing world a say, Annan said, seeking to lobby representatives from two continents that make up three quarters of the world's population.
The UNSC's an unwieldy body that's susceptible to deadlock because five of its members wield a veto power. Making it larger, and handing out more veto powers will therefore make it better. That's logic. Of a sort.
He said in all areas of its work, from human rights, to tackling poverty, hunger and conflict, the United Nations was not living up to the ideals of its member nations.
It's living down to the ideals of some of them, however...
"The multilateral system is not delivering for its member states the results that it should," Annan told foreign ministers and officials from 100 African and Asian countries gathered in Jakarta.
"I mean, us African and Asian countries should have a much larger share of the boodle!"
Heads of state at the Asian-African Summit are due to meet in the Indonesian capital today and tomorrow, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung. The secretary general released a 63-page report on reform in March, proposing the most wide-ranging shake-up of the UN since its creation in 1945.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Disingenuous and cowardly to the bloody bitter end.
#2
The UN has failed to live up to US expectations. But it has lived up exactly to the expectations of most of its members states where corruption, graft and oppression is endemic. We should just be thankful the Arabian UN delegation doesn't go around with neutered Nubian slaves in tow.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 0:49 Comments ||
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#3
The time had come for an enlargement of the Security Council to loosen the grip of large powers and give the developing world a say...
Similar to giving a 14-year old boy the keys to the Ferrari, the liquor cabinet, and the gun rack.
#5
Pappy - But most kids would feel a sense of shame if they misbehaved and acted wantonly with another's property. These assclowns know no shame and even demand percentages of another's property - lying about what they will do with the funds and the effect and transformation it will bring, For The Childrenâ¢, doncha know - and all with a straight face. Then their collaborators report it in hushed tones and measured awe.
#6
Disgusting maggot of a man indeed .
When developing countries have control over their population , economy and have security and respect from nations that have acheived this , then maybe a change like he wants should happen , until then .... F*** OFF !
I cant believe this dog is still in charge . Under his watch , I have not been impressed once . He's the sort of person you would invite round for dinner , just so you can throw him out half way through for being a complete wanker ..
"thankful the Arabian UN delegation doesn't go around with neutered Nubian slaves in tow" - nah they leave em at home , so after they come back from free lunchs and 5 star accomodation they have something to beat up and rape to alleviate the stress of it all .
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
04/23/2005 8:36 Comments ||
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These assclowns know no shame and even demand percentages of another's property...
I firmly believe that Karl Marx has done more to destroy human progress than anybody else. It's unfortunate that this parasitic mindset will live well past our lifetimes.
Government troops yesterday rescued 13 students and villagers hours after they were abducted in the southern Philippines. At least two kidnappers were killed in a jungle clash that also left one police officer dead, military officials said. The freed captives, shaken and bruised after they were forced to hike at gunpoint through a mountainous rain forest near Piagapo town in Lanao del Sur province, were escorted to a military camp, where they were given snacks and a place to rest, Marine Brig Gen Ben Dolorfino said. Troops were pursuing at least eight other kidnappers.
The captives, mostly female university students, were travelling in a jeep in nearby Saguiran town, when armed men took control of the vehicle and herded them into a hinterland area while being chased by troops and guerrillas, Marine Col Arman Melo said. The gunmen, who were also Muslims, picked out and immediately released eight veiled Muslim women among the 22 passengers. The rest of the captives were taken away in the jeep and forced to hike in a mountain jungle, said a freed student, Angelique Arellano. An old man, who could no longer walk because of exhaustion and injuries, was beaten by the kidnappers and left in a shallow ravine, from where troops rescued him, she said.
"They were pointing their gun at us while ordering us to walk faster because the troops were catching up on us. They threatened to kill all of us if the troops got near," Arellano said by telephone from a military camp. "I prayed and prayed. I thought I wouldn't make it. I saw some of them carrying long knives and I was afraid they would use that to chop off my head," she said. Marines and police caught up with the kidnappers, triggering a firefight that forced the abductors to flee and leave their captives behind. "The soldiers yelled at us to drop to the ground and calm down as gunshots rang out," Arellano said.
Guerrillas belonging to the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is engaged in peace talks with the government, helped pursue the kidnappers and blocked their path, Melo said. Dolorfino said Marines and police quickly traced the kidnappers' path based on objects, including pens and water bottles, that were dropped by the captives. The freed captives told military officers that the kidnappers were young bandits, Melo said. The abductors were apparently not affiliated with any prominent crime group, and authorities initially worried that they may turn over their victims to one of the notorious criminal gangs or other guerrillas in exchange for cash, he added. Those rescued included 11 women, some of whom were en route to take a college entrance exam at the state-run Mindanao State University in Lanao del Sur, an impoverished region where kidnappings for ransom has been a concern in recent years.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Prior to the Advent of the Hidden Imam, Arrogance and Colonialism Rule the World
Fars news agency: Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, discussing [Shi'ite] religious texts, said: 'One should fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam be met.' According to the Fars news agency's report, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani met with members of the Mahdaviyat Studies Institute. He praised the institute's work and demanded that the religious seminaries in Qom also do more to research religious texts and hadith concerning the Hidden Imam... Nouri-Hamedani said that the texts concerning the end of days are rife with allusions and hidden meanings. He asked the researchers to devote their efforts to elucidating these texts. He noted: 'In the texts it is told that the Hidden Imam will remove the yoke of humiliation from mankind's neck. Therefore it is clear that prior to the advent of the Hidden Imam, Arrogance [a common epithet for Western powers, especially the U.S.A.] and colonialism rule the world.'
The Jews Have Hoarded All the Wealth in One Place
According to this religious authority, 'at present the Jews' policies threaten us. One should explain in the clearest terms the danger the Jews pose to the [Iranian] people and to the Muslims. Ever since Islam's appearance, the group that expressed fierce opposition to Islam — and still acts in this fashion — were the Jews... He added: 'Already from the beginning the Jews wanted to hoard the world's goods in [their] greed and voracity. They always worked in important professions and now they have hoarded all of the wealth in one place. And all of the world, especially America and Europe, are their slaves.'
Crazy Ideas Such as Secularism, Liberalism, and Humanism are Part of Our Enemies' Plans to Sow Disunity
In another statement from last year, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, on the occasion of his visit to the cities of Khoramshahr and Shalamche, said: "World Arrogance [i.e., the U.S. and the Western powers] is creating a trinity of evil: heresy, divisiveness, and Zionism, in order to weaken the [Iranian] people's spirit and to create division and disagreement with respect to our regime. [Therefore] all of the senior officials and the public must be on their guard more than ever⊠The spreading of prostitution and evil things, the creation of a mentality of inferiority, and the propagation of crazy ideas such as secularism, liberalism, and humanism are [all] part of our enemies' plans to sow disunity in [our] society... The revelation of the culture of Jihad and martyrdom in the country [Iran] struck world Arrogance [i.e., the U.S. and the Western powers] with dread⊠The existence of such a spirit among our youth led to world Arrogance's not daring to infringe on our borders... History shows that every people that lost the culture of Jihad and martyrdom were brought down.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Those %#$@& Jooos, objecting to being wiped out. Wotta nuisance.
"History shows that every people that lost the culture of Jihad and martyrdom were brought down."
Okay by me.
Gosh, I wonder what the MM's will do if they acquire a complete deliverable nuke.
#2
I wonder where this shite is originally coming from.
History shows that every people that lost the culture of Jihad and martyrdom were brought down.
Well, then, mad mullahs should all stand up like one man and martyr themselves promptly. I would be inclined to think that would help Iranian culture tremendously.
#3
I am insisting anyone who calls for martyrdom should go first. This is the principle of leading by example. This is why islam has always failed and muslims are oppressed.
Posted by: Shiek al Heb Rue ||
04/23/2005 1:16 Comments ||
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#4
Should it ever get real bad the short target list must include Qom in addition to Mecca and Medina.
#9
"Nouri-Hamedani said that the texts concerning the end of days are rife with allusions and hidden meanings."
Mr. Hamedani must be rather cocky about his own fate in this coming "end".
Nothing bucks up my spine quite like the glint in the eye of a religious zealot talking about the end of the world. Don't be too happy, fellah--the picture of the people you know and love squirming in anguish for your sick and twisted vision of God's end of the world? Nothing to be happy about there if you love your neighbor.
In significant moves that met key demands of the Lebanese opposition and the international community, Lebanon's new Prime Minister Najib Mikati pledged yesterday to hold parliamentary elections by May 29 and two powerful pro-Syrian security chiefs stepped down from their posts. The separate announcements were certain to ease political tensions, which have been running high since the Feb. 14 bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Mikati promised parliamentary elections by May 29, two days before the current Parliament's term ends. It was the first time a government leader has given a specific date for the vote — a key demand of the opposition, which is confident it will win.
The two top pro-Syrian security chiefs who stepped down yesterday were Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, director-general of the Interior Ministry's General Security Department, and Maj. Gen. Ali Hajj, commander of Internal Security Forces, or police. Mikati immediately welcomed the move, which comes a few weeks before a UN team investigating Hariri's assassination was expected to travel to Lebanon. Sayyed, a former army general, is considered the most powerful security chief in Lebanon. Both said they were placing themselves "at the disposal" of the prime minister, a formula that means they are stepping aside and will have no executive power but stops short of an outright resignation. Hajj told The Associated Press that he was taking the step "to facilitate the work of the international investigation commission until the end of its mission." He said it was up to the Cabinet to decide whether to reinstate him later.
Meanwhile yesterday, thousands of Beirutis bid farewell to lawmaker and former Economy Minister Bassel Fleihan, who died in a French hospital Monday from wounds sustained in the same bombing. Mourners showered the flag-covered casket with rose petals as it snaked through city streets in a hearse then on an open horse-drawn carriage before the funeral at a downtown church. The crowd waved Lebanese flags and carried pictures of Hariri and Fleihan as well as black placards that read "The Truth" — referring to the opposition demand for answers as to who killed Hariri. Shouts of "Allahu Fubar Akbar," the Islamic cry of God is Great, rang out from the crowd as Christian clergy prayed outside Fleihan's residence. The slain man's widow and young children were joined by Prime Minister Mikati, Hariri's son and political heir, Saad, and opposition members at the funeral. Fleihan was later buried at the Anglo-American cemetery.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Thousands of people marched for peace in southwest Iran yesterday one week after bloody ethnic unrest in which at least five people were killed and more than 300 arrested, state media reported. State television showed images of thousands of men and women marching through the city of Ahvaz in Khuzestan province where just days ago groups of Arab-Iranians attacked and set fire to cars and buildings and clashed with security forces. Officials say the protests were sparked by circulation of a forged letter, supposedly written by a senior government official, which suggested ways to dilute Arab influence in southwest Iran — the heartland of the country's oil industry. Only about three percent of Iran's 67 million population is Arab but in some parts of the southwest they are in a majority.
Those taking part in the Grand Solidarity rally in Ahvaz yesterday carried banners and chanted slogans in both Farsi and Arabic condemning the unrest and attacking the Islamic state's chief enemies. Many officials and politicians have accused Iran's foreign enemies and exile opposition groups of stirring up the recent unrest. Authorities have temporarily closed down the Tehran bureau of Qatar-based Arabic language news network Al-Jazeera, saying its role in encouraging the violence was being investigated.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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I wonder how many in attendance worked for the gubment.
KABUL - Afghan authorities have banned motorcycle riding and the sale of petrol in a restive southern province to help in the fight against Taleban insurgents, a security official said on Saturday.
"Can they do that, Sonny?"
Taleban guerrillas frequently use motorcycles for raids in Zabul province, scene of a wave of attacks on Afghan government and US-led international forces in the past two weeks. So authorities have banned motorcycles from the roads, and petrol sales as well, until all motorcycle owners can be issued with special cards.
"These will be known as 'drivers' licenses.' It's a new concept but we think it will work."
"Arrr! Sounds un-Islamic to me!"
"Once the special cards are introduced, then anyone riding a motorcycle without one will be arrested, because then it will only be Taleban and the Hells Angels who won't have registered," said Shereen Shah, a senior army officer in the province. The ban on petrol sales was imposed to reinforce the motorbike ban, he said. It was expected to take two weeks for all motorbikes in the province to be registered and only then would the bans be lifted, Shah said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2005 9:28:18 AM ||
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SRINAGAR, India - Indian Kashmir's main rebel group said on Saturday it would "seriously consider" any ceasefire offer by New Delhi to end the bloodshed in the region. The statement by a top Hizbul Mujahedin leader to a local news agency followed a pledge this week by India and Pakistan to reach a "final settlement" on Kashmir, spark of two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
"If they (the Indians) are serious about it (a ceasefire), Hizbul would seriously consider it," Gazi Misbahudin, chief operational commander of Hizbul Mujahedin, told the Kashmir News Service.
Indian security forces must be kicking their butts.
So far, India has made no ceasefire proposal. But some Indian commentators have suggested it should make such a gesture in the wake of recent talks between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in New Delhi where they said the peace drive was "irreversible."
Hizbul Mujahedin, based in Pakistan-held Kashmir, wants the divided territory reunited and joined with Pakistan, and is the key Islamic rebel group battling New Delhi's rule since a revolt erupted in the Indian zone in 1989.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2005 9:26:11 AM ||
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#1
Indian security forces must be kicking their butts. Yes indeedy, that's what hudnas are for.
BAGHDAD - Outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's list announced on Friday it would not join a new Iraqi government without four cabinet posts and a slot of deputy premier, said the head of Allawi's negotiating team. "These are our demands and if they are not satisfied, we cannot participate in the government," Rasem Awady said at a news conference with other negotiators from the Iraqiya list.
Oh well, see you in the loyal opposition.
The list has 40 seats in the parliament elected in January 30 elections, since when prime minister-designate Ibrahim Al Jaafari has struggled for weeks to form a government.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2005 9:24:52 AM ||
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Three kidnapped Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American translator say in a video that they will be killed by their Iraqi captors if Romania does not withdraw its troops within four days, Al-Jazeera reported Friday.
In the video shown by the Arab satellite station, the Romanians — two men and a woman — sit cross-legged against a black background with their hands chained. A hand is seen on the right pointing a pistol at the hostages.
Reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, sitting between her two colleagues, is seen talking and gesturing with her hands to the camera. Prima TV cameraman Sorin Miscoci appears upset, possibly crying.
Al-Jazeera did not play the audio, but it quoted Ion as saying the Iraqi militants holding them had given the Romanian government four days from the date of the tape's broadcast to remove its 800 soldiers in Iraq. Otherwise, the captives will be killed, Al-Jazeera quoted her as saying. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 7:05:09 AM ||
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Just a few hundred people picketed the latest IMF-World Bank spring meetings - a far cry from a few years ago when it seemed no summit of world financial institutions was complete without thousands of protestors on the streets. And the giant puppets! Don't forget the puppets!
Over the next couple of years, protests and policing dominated the headlines at a string of major summits - in Prague, Davos, London and Quebec City. The complaints of myriad groups - loosely arraigned against unaccountable, corporate-led aspects of globalisation - came to the fore.
But what has happened - where did all the protests go?
Outside the World Bank building in DC, activist Sue Frankel-Streit, 41, prepared to take part in a public temper tantrum street theatre show with the Cardboard Chaos group. At least it wasn't a barf fest...
Some police officers were redeployed after their commanders noticed there were more cops than protesters fewer than expected protesters showed up. "What happened in the wake of Seattle was that many people went into the community and organised from home," she said. "It isn't that the movement has got smaller, people are just taking action in their communities - which is where they are making the most difference." Uh, right, Sunflower Moonbeam.
So why are you out here today, Sunflower?
Another reason protests have gone off the boil is that some protesters graduated and had to get a J-O-B believe that while the problem have not been fixed, the international community is moving towards addressing the big issues.
Yessir, Senator, Kofi's right on it.
In January, protests planned for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, were called off. Many who may have attended were at a rival event: the World Social Forum in Brazil's Porto Alegre. "Switzerland is too cold, man! Can't do a nude protest in the snow, dude!"
Also marching in Washington on Saturday was Preston Duncan, 21, unemployed slacker looking for the hot chicks part of the DC poetry insurgency collective. Some unsoliticed advice, kid....keep it off the resume. No one will be impressed. Not even Soros.
"Some people break windows, we use the emotional appeal of what we are doing 'cause chicks really dig sensitive guys - I think that's more likely to make people want to rally round."
Inevitably, the post-9/11 war on terror has also shifted the focus. Some say it has led to more effective oppressive policing of protests. When leaders from the G8 group of industrialised nations met for their annual summit in 2004, they did so on a secure island off Georgia. The first protest took place more than 100km (62 miles) away. Well, at least it was closer than Porto Alegre... Longtime underemployed and former hot chick Activist Theresa Reuter, 64, a veteran of scores of protests since the 1960s ain't that a shocker!, told the BBC: "It has been scary this weekend - there are a lot of police officers around, they have closed off the streets. You, know, a lot of my friends are not here because they couldn't get the day off at the Quickie Mart do not want to end up on some list as a suspected terrorist."
Posted by: Desert Blondie ||
04/23/2005 1:23:25 AM ||
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#1
Just about the only poetry I like are things like"El Cid" and"Charge of the Light Brigade"(the rest is just too damn whiny).Does that make me a barbarian?
#2
But what has happened - where did all the protests go?
The Mayor loves good lyrics. Perhaps Big Mary Travers could lend a hand with the melody.
Posted by: The Mayor ||
04/23/2005 10:42 Comments ||
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#3
The Mayor should point out right now that he's a visiting Mayor not The RB Mayor, I'm here to share and lern from the Master.
Posted by: The Visiting Mayor ||
04/23/2005 10:43 Comments ||
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#4
Probably, raptor.
Or maybe you're just smart. ;-p
[Though it sounds like you haven't read much Frost, Sandburg, or Robinson. No whine there.]
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2005 10:46 Comments ||
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#5
Milton, Tennyson, and Masefield are all great, too - though Tennyson tops them all. Although I think "Light Brigade" might be above these absent idiots . . . it contains themes of war and bravery in the face of death . . .
Posted by: The Doctor ||
04/23/2005 11:35 Comments ||
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#6
In the interviews on teevee, the protesters solemnly swore The Movement was growing, real soon now. My personal opinion is that they spent a LOT of dough and energy last year trying to defeat Bush, and that this is basically a time of hudna.
#8
My thinking is more practical. After getting the Italian treatment, very few of these professional protesters are willing to travel to get the shit beat out of them or run the risk of getting shot.
#9
a far cry from a few years ago when it seemed no summit of world financial institutions was complete without thousands of protestors on the streets
Here's what happened: the majority of protestors graduated, got jobs and moved on. And the cause is too "been there, done that" for the next generation to adopt. Plus, the gloom and doom predicted 10 years ago has, surprise surprise, not come to pass. So the "few hundred people" left are just the hangers-on.
#12
Thanks, Angie. I was wondering why those two spectacularly fine poets hadn't come up yet. Kipling is my all-time favorite poet, closely followed by Service.
Posted by: mac ||
04/23/2005 13:32 Comments ||
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#15
Seafarious raises a good point. Organizing large protests costs money. Soros and his ilk poured alot of money into the 2004 campaign,there's been a crackdown on charities(Islamic ones esp.),and the Tsunami sucked up a huge amount of charity money that might have otherwise gone to lefty umbrella groups that organize protests. There is also the fact Saddam is no longer in power-we know he was bribing governments and reporters,how much anyone want to bet aginst him funding the anti-war,anti-US,anti-capitalist ptotests?
Posted by: Stephen ||
04/23/2005 15:47 Comments ||
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#16
Stephen - IIRC Saddam was funding anti-US/anti-war groups, including the nimrods that went as human shields. You are right...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 16:00 Comments ||
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#17
I'm really gonna miss the pink tanks. *sniff*
If Sea is right, we should dedicate satellite time to search for where they will be rebuilding and rearming. I'm thinking NSA experts will prolly recognize a farm field full of pink tanks fairly quickly... Of course, they may employ some of the doper tactics, since so many of these addled tools are stoners, and put up netting to shield their army from observation. Shhhh, nobody tell them that the netting shouldn't be a gazillion pair of used pantyhose... both visual and olfactory sensors will pick it up, methinks.
#20
T.S. Eliot as well.... for weirdness, if nothing else
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 16:16 Comments ||
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#21
After they got the shit beat out of them in England and Italy I'd say most of them figure it just ain't worth it. Sod of, Swampy. Best line of the year.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/23/2005 21:09 Comments ||
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Recently, on an al-Qaeda affiliated message board, several members entered into a discourse concerning the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). The discussion was followed by a question posted by a member of the message board stating: "Why do you not leave the mountains and go to the cities and start gang war targeting the American and Zionist interests everywhere in Algeria?"
"Why do you not come out where the Americans and Zionists can find you?"
The GSPC, an outgrowth of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (AIG), in recent years has become the preeminent jihadist organization in Algeria and overseas and is considered responsible for most of the over 900 individuals killed within Algeria by Jihadist violence. On March 11, 2005, as reported by the SITE Institute, the GSPC issued a fatwah justifying the murder of "the Jews and the Christians and all other nonbelievers" in Algeria.
Besides chastising those brothers for improper questioning of the mujahideen, the members affirm support of the GSPC and agree that "their home is the mountain where it is difficult for the devil to attack," while one in particular avers "there are no American or Zionist interests actually seen because they are afraid of the people and more so of the mujahideen."
Responding directly to the issue of gang warfare versus classical direct warfare, one brother describes the dichotomy between the two in terms of their strategies: "The gang wars have basics like fast movement and familiarity with the circumstances, using the battle fields and the natural covers as a helping factor," while mountain fighting relies on "ambushes, raids, and cutting supply lines." However, he maintains that both strive to crush "the enemy after he is tired and paralyzed."
Further, the member states: "The Algerian situation today looks very similar to jihad in Chechnya, where the mujahideen concentrated at one time on city wars in Grozny, Shali, and Vedeno, but after each of those cities were flattened the mujahideen went to the mountains and they are fighting from there."
Another member believes that "[t]he media plays a good part to minimize the operation of the Salafi Group [GSPC] in spite there are manyâŠ" and urges the group to report on their news.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2005 12:32:46 AM ||
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#1
Keep an eye peeled for the United States Marine Gang.
Church website moderator James Hutchins apologizes to Jews for sect's "functional antisemitism." Check out the website -- Hutchins has lots of interesting articles.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/23/2005 4:19:53 AM ||
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The UCC ad campaign was one of the more ridiculous things I've seen on TV these days. It's bad for Whitey---and that means me.
If the divestment proposals go through it'll be just one more Christian sect for me to scorn, sneer at, and refuse to associate with. It's absolutely disgusting that the UCC even feels they have to discuss the issue. The Presbyterians were bad enough.
#2
FYI, the UCC is the same bunch that siad "Jesus would want women to have full choice and control of their reproductive functions, to include abortion" and "Jesus would have supported abortion".
#5
You gotta love it - a church that tells people that the Bible is anything they want it to be, but on matters of politics, tells its followers that they have to toe the church leadership's line.
As the countdown begins for the presidential and parliamentary elections in Egypt this fall, judges are upping the ante with the country's executive authority by withholding their agreement to supervise the polls. The latest chapter in the tiff with the government came when several judges said the Ministry of Justice asked heads of low-level courts to give written support for the idea of judicial supervision of elections, the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yaum reported yesterday.
The response was mixed, said the paper, with some judges granting their assent and others refusing. The ministry's move came on the heels of a meeting last week by some 1,500 judges in the coastal city of Alexandria where they announced that they would supervise elections only if granted control over the entire process and the full independence of the judiciary. One judge said the ministry's request underlined the need for greater independence. "What happened confirms what we've said previously about the executive authority intervening and pressuring heads of specific courts," Mahmoud Mekki of the Court of Cassation (the highest court of appeals) told Al-Masry Al-Yaum. "The measure underlines the fairness of our demands," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The National Assembly yesterday denounced the European Parliament's refusal to meet a delegation of Pakistani senators because it included a pro-Taliban Islamic party leader. The presence of Maulana Samiul Haq, head of his faction of Jamiat Ulema Islam party, in the delegation sparked the row when the team arrived on Wednesday at the airport in Brussels. Senator Haq, who also runs a large seminary in Pakistan, was also held up at the airport for an hour and finally allowed to enter the city after hectic contacts with the Belgian Government, official sources said. "The House strongly condemns the incident and the indecent attitude of the Belgian authorities towards the Pakistan Senate delegation," the assembly said in a unanimous resolution.
"Just because Sami's one of our most prominent terrorist enablers doesn't mean he shouldn't be accorded the same respect the Euros would extend to somebody civilized!"
The resolution demanded that the government lodge an official protest with Belgium and the European Union so that no parliamentary delegation faces "such an embarrassing situation in future".
"I mean, can you imagine what they woulda done if we'd sent Osama bin Laden?"
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khusro Bakhtiar told the assembly in the house that the envoys of Belgium and the European Union were summoned by the Foreign Office to convey Pakistan's deep concern and protest over the incident. Lawmakers from both the government and opposition flayed the discriminatory behaviour of the European Parliament and termed it an insult to Pakistan and its parliament. They pointed out that the members of the delegation, which was led by senator and ruling party secretary-general Mushahid Hussain Sayed, had travelled to Brussels after completing all formalities. "The discriminatory attitude of the European Parliament is in sharp contrast to its professed commitment to democratic norms and respect for human rights. It sends a negative signal to developing countries," said Liaquat Baloch of Muttahida Majlis Amal religious alliance.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Ironic,isn't.All hugs and kisses for thier sweethearts the Paleo's,but refuse to meet with a Taliban butt boy.
Esam Sohail from USA Are the lives and honor of Muslims more precious than those of Christians, Hindus, and Jews? Are Muslim clerics ready to condemn now and forever the insidious theory of the 'dhimmi' whereby a non-Muslim in a Muslim society was protected but at the sufferance of a distinctly second-class citizenship?
Nope. Unless it maintains its illusion of superiority, Islam is merely the religion of some of the least-developed and most corrupt regions of the world.
It is a peaceful religion that has given unprecedented rights to women and minorities. The social tenets of the faith encourage democratic consultation, discourage slavery, and promote learning. All that is true of Islam-provided you are talking about the seventh century through the Renaissance. Indeed, in relation to much of Christendom, many Islamic societies did provide a degree of tolerance for religious minorities and a degree of rights for women that would have been blasphemous in Western Europe. In its relations with the polities of the non-Muslim world, the Muslim Orient was no more given to warring and plundering than its contemporaries of the Occident.
I can accept the fact that the Islamic world remained culturally competetive with the Western world up until about the time of the Siege of Vienna — with the reservation that I wouldn't have wanted to live under either society then, and I've got the option to live under only one of them now.
That was then. This is now. The standards of humanity have evolved beyond the enlightened chivalry set in the sixth century. Repeating ad nauseum that Islam is a religion of peace and moderation is simply a cry of desperation that has lost the moorings of time.
We can see the peace and moderation in the daily corpse counts and the occasional video of unarmed prisoners being slaughtered. Like yesterday.
For mere tolerance of religious minorities is not enough and nor is the proposition that some rights are 'given' to women: a civilization worthy of the name must accept, rather than merely tolerate, the diversity of worship styles and rigorously uphold the idea that men and women are both endowed with certain equal and unalienable rights. That acceptance of human diversity and of the inviolability of human rights leads to the negation of the theory that the tenets of one religious faith are superior enough to other traditions so as to allow blatant discrimination and suppression of individual liberties.
Not to mention forcible conversions or despoiling them of their property and their women...
An Islam that cannot thus accept the idea that all individuals are created equal by the Creator and blessed inherently with certain basic and unalienable rights is then to be condemned as a religion of war, intolerance, and bigotry. When referring to that kind of Islam, let us then not be mealy mouthed.
We're not, here at Rantburg. Nor are the muftis and mullahs when speaking among themselves...
There is no reason to use mitigating phrases like 'it has been hijacked by extremists' or 'it gives rights to Jews and Christians'. Muslims who rightly criticize the harassment of their co-religionists in Europe and the United States must be asked about their total silence at the severe persecution of Christians in Pakistan, Jews in Iran, and animists in the Sudan. Are the lives and honor of Muslims more precious than those of Christians, Hindus, and Jews? Are Muslim clerics ready to condemn now and forever the insidious theory of the 'dhimmi' whereby a non-Muslim in a Muslim society was protected but at the sufferance of a distinctly second-class citizenship?
Never happen. They're trying their utmost to bring back those golden days of yesteryear, when the Faithful could take their ease, supported by the dhimmi tax...
Unfortunately, however, raising these issues with most educated Muslims yields but bland responses that have been fed to them from childhood. A 'dhimmi' is supposedly an honored Jew or Christian who has all the freedom to practice his religion in a benevolent Islamic state (as if that freedom is a gift rather than a right!). Or that Muslim women are actually protected by the restrictions placed on them and the polygamy sometimes foisted on them. Is Islam so weak that it cannot face the possibility of non-Muslims and women participating as equal members of society?
Yes, it is. Islam simply doesn't thrive with competition. The entire religion's oriented toward eliminating it.
The choice before Islam's clerical elite is simple. Either they can conduct ijtihaad (wide ranging consultations) and help bring to their contemporary tradition the spiritualism of reflection and personal piety that was envisaged by Sufi saints like Rumi, Hafiz, and Mansour Hallaj. Or they can continue defending obscurantism with nonsense like how good Islam is to women or how much it promotes peace and human rights. In the former instance, they should be helped with understanding, support, and patience. In the latter, the civilized world can have no option but to contain a religious system whose contemporary tenets fly in the face of the most fundamental concepts of humanity, decency, liberty. Tolerance of religious minorities and allowing women to choose their own husbands were good revolutionary ideas in the sixth century. Harping on these medieval achievements does not and must not absolve the apologists of Islamic fundamentalism from the severe deficit of human rights and the propagation of a superiority complex that Islam has presided over from Morocco to Malaysia. (The author is a corporate trainer and former college lecturer of international affairs. He writes from the safety of a civilized nation Kansas, USA.)
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Mansour Hallaj was judicially murdered by competent Islamic authorities in 922 for blasphemy/heresy/(insert one of the commonly used Islamic reasons to kill someone).
Organisations in Bangladesh run by Muslim fundamentalists make a yearly net profit of around Tk 12 billion, said a leading economist yesterday based on a heuristic study. At least 10 percent of the profit the fundamentalist forces use for organisational purposes like carrying out regular party activities, providing remuneration and allowances for party cadres, and running military training centres, said Abul Barakat, a professor of economics at Dhaka University (DU). With this money the fundamentalists have the ability to, and they do, maintain about 500,000 party cadres, said Barakat, also general secretary of Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA), in a memorial speech titled 'The Economy of Fundamentalism in Bangladesh'. "They are well aware of their political goal, which is to grab the state power through implementing their economic model," he noted.
I wonder what the "maintenance" of a half million party cadres entails. I doubt the muscle's all salaried...
The Samaj, Arthonity o Rashtra (society, economy and state), a research journal, organised the lecture in memory of former BEA president Dr Abdul Gafur at the DU Business Studies Faculty auditorium. The profit was calculated in heuristic method, which according to dictionaries is a method of study using reasoning and past experience -- in this case, opinions of experts in sectors concerned, Barakat explained, adding it's an approximate figure, the real one might be a bit more or less. He also mentioned that, "In many cases, audit reports of the institutions run by fundamentalists were found to be either incomplete or false."
In other words, they're actually guessing...
The study found the economy of fundamentalists to have grown by 7.5 to 9 percent a year compared to the 4.5 percent national economic growth. Barakat said of the Tk 12 billion annual net profit financial institutions account for about 27 percent, or Tk 3.25 billion, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) controlled by fundamentalists about 21 percent, or Tk 2.5 billion. Apart from financial institutions and NGOs, the fundamentalist forces have businesses in at least a dozen sectors including pharmaceuticals, diagnostic centres, education, transport, real estate and media. He however did not name the fundamentalist organisations linked with the business and NGO bodies. "All of these bodies are not profit-oriented. So, the fundamentalists give cross-subsidy to the non-profit organisations," the professor of economics said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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What is the exchange rate?tk 2.5 billion/12.32US?
Human rights activists on Thursday demanded proper investigation into repression and atrocities on the Ahmadiya community at Jatindranagar and punishment to offenders, reports UNB. A group of Durbor, a combine of nine human rights organisations, after visiting Jatindranagar told newsmen that the followers of Khatme Nabuat Movement have pulled down the signboard of the Ahmadiya mosque. They said residents claimed of plundering their houses while some women alleged of physical assault by the followers of the Movement on April 17. The repression on the community continued till April 20. Abdul Majid, a resident of Jatindranagar reached by cellphone Thursday afternoon said peace has largely restored in the area following deployment of police. A joint press release issued by the deputy commissioner and police supper have strongly refuted reports published by some national dailies about repression on the Ahmadiya community, which they said are not based on facts. "No incident of looting of houses, sexual assault on young girls or women took place. Nor anyone left the area as reported by the dailies," said the press release.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened. Trust us on this..."
It said five platoon police were deployed in the troubled area to ensure peace. Besides, a committee was formed with representatives of Khatme Nabuat Movement and local people to ensure peace and harmony in the area. Several thousand followers of Khatme Nabuat Movement had launched a crusade on April 17 against the Ahmadiyas asking the community to discard its claim that they are Muslim.
That makes sense, of an Islamic sort.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Several thousand followers of Khatme Nabuat Movement had launched a crusade on April 17 against the Ahmadiyas
The term is Jihad.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/23/2005 4:58 Comments ||
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Iraqi militias linked to mainstream political parties are breaking the law by refusing to disarm or join the official security services, Gulf News can reveal. Under rules drawn up for the interim government, all political groups are supposed to have surrendered control of their armed wings either shutting them down or incorporating them into the police, army and National Guard.
The law was agreed in an attempt to prevent factional warring and create a unified Iraqi military, one strong enough to battle a powerful insurgency. But tens of thousands of fighters are still reporting to commanders who have not been brought under Baghdad's control, despite their parties signing up to the electoral system. Gulf News has been told while some groups had apparently dissolved, they are in fact on stand-by, ready to be called upon should politics fail and civil war erupt. Under this worst-case scenario, the fighters would give on-street muscle to their leaders, and protect their own communities. In the meantime, the background promise of armed support gives politicians added leverage as they jockey for position.
A source at the British Foreign office said: "The Transitional Administrative Law calls for militias to be incorporated into conventional forces, and the groups are working to that. But it's true that weapons and men are still available, any militia could be quickly reconstituted and back up to strength if their leaders so decide." He insisted problems surrounding these political armies would be tackled by negotiation, although he warned in the short term it will "look a little messy".
Iraqi sources contacted by Gulf News claimed fighters linked to banned militia groups had been conducting an underground war, kidnapping, killing and arresting opponents. One source, a Sunni living in the capital who asked not to be named, said fighters associated with the Shiite Badr Corps had drawn up a secret target list of former Baathists, and were now "settling old scores". He claimed the fighters had joined the Iraqi National Guard and were using their legitimate job to cloak politically-motivated attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Iraqi militias linked to mainstream political parties are breaking the law by refusing to disarm or join the official security services, Gulf News can reveal.
What's the problem? When these militia members are found, especially if they are engaged in terrorist activity, shoot them.
Tens of PA police officers who were forced to take early retirement are protesting at the way they were sacked. In the meantime security circles warned of mutiny in Gaza. The protesting officers gathered at the (Saraya) government building Thursday afternoon to protest what they called the insulting method used by the PA ministry of interior to announce the names of officers to be sacked.
The ministry published the names in lists that were posted on walls of government buildings in Gaza city, an act which angered the officers. One of the officers commented saying: "This was not the way to deal with the first soldiers who lit the Palestinian revolution and were disbursed all over the world carrying their souls on the palms of their hands to defend the Palestinian dignity." Even General Majaydeh heard of his sacking from the newspapers after spending fifty years in his uniform, the officers retort angrily.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Uh, oh. Sounds like they're seething - at the PA, for a change. Prolly demands jihad or vendetta or something. What's the Honor Law for being publicly emasculated? I'd hope think it would be very very dire, indeed.
Is this one of the phases where popcorn is in order?
#2
The first thing I associate withpolice work is: first soldiers who lit the Palestinian revolution and were disbursed all over the world carrying their souls on the palms of their hands to defend the Palestinian dignity
Throw them a prison fire retirement party.
Posted by: ed ||
04/23/2005 0:55 Comments ||
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#3
Even General Majaydeh heard of his sacking from the newspapers after spending fifty years in his uniform, I wonder what the qualifications are to be promoted to the level of Palestinian General...
off topic: .com, we still have time. The kids came home early last night to watch an Al Yankovic video and play bad chess. ;-)
#5
If they were"sacked"then how could it be considered"mutiny"?I would think mutiny involves active-duty or reserve personel.However"Kanli"(Dune's version of blood feud)is certainly possable.
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.
With official results of the third and last phase of the Kingdom's first municipal elections expected today, the names of some winning candidates in Madinah and Tabuk constituencies were announced by the local election commission. In Jeddah, candidates endorsed by religious scholars looked set for victory, mirroring Islamist wins in other cities, candidates said. Official results from Thursday's final round of voting in several western and northern regions would be released today by the Municipal Election Commission after going into possible complaints or appeals filed by losing candidates.
Women's rights activists, academics, writers and political experts believe the National Assembly's decision Tuesday to give women right to participate in October's Municipal elections is a step toward enhancement of democracy in Kuwait. Nada Mutawa, professor of politics, Kuwait University, told the Arab Times Wednesday "I heard the Prime Minister saying "We got the majority of voices with us." He was referring to the issue of granting political rights to women. This is a major step toward women suffrage in Kuwait. We can vote in local council elections. A second round of voting is expected to pass the law, and I am optimistic about the outcome. The Prime Minister referred to the cause of women as "us." Now that is what I call a big step by the government toward political reform. The lobby for women's suffrage is strong."
Five Muslim-Americans who were fingerprinted, searched and held up to 6 1/2 hours by US border agents upon their return from a religious conference in Canada are suing the 
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday told ministers and senior officials from Asia and Africa the world body had lost its way. 
Government troops yesterday rescued 13 students and villagers hours after they were abducted in the southern Philippines. At least two kidnappers were killed in a jungle clash that also left one police officer dead, military officials said. The freed captives, shaken and bruised after they were forced to hike at gunpoint through a mountainous rain forest near Piagapo town in 
Prior to the Advent of the Hidden Imam, Arrogance and Colonialism Rule the World 
In significant moves that met key demands of the Lebanese opposition and the international community, Lebanon's new Prime Minister 
The National Assembly yesterday denounced the European Parliament's refusal to meet a delegation of Pakistani senators because it included a pro-Taliban Islamic party leader. The presence of Maulana 
Are the lives and honor of Muslims more precious than those of Christians, Hindus, and Jews? Are Muslim clerics ready to condemn now and forever the insidious theory of the 'dhimmi' whereby a non-Muslim in a Muslim society was protected but at the sufferance of a distinctly second-class citizenship?
Organisations in Bangladesh run by Muslim fundamentalists make a yearly net profit of around Tk 12 billion, said a leading economist yesterday based on a heuristic study. At least 10 percent of the profit the fundamentalist forces use for organisational purposes like carrying out regular party activities, providing remuneration and allowances for party cadres, and running military training centres, said Abul Barakat, a professor of economics at Dhaka University (DU). With this money the fundamentalists have the ability to, and they do, maintain about 500,000 party cadres, said Barakat, also general secretary of Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA), in a memorial speech titled 'The Economy of Fundamentalism in Bangladesh'. "They are well aware of their political goal, which is to grab the state power through implementing their economic model," he noted.
Human rights activists on Thursday demanded proper investigation into repression and atrocities on the 
Iraqi militias linked to mainstream political parties are breaking the law by refusing to disarm or join the official security services, Gulf News can reveal. Under rules drawn up for the interim government, all political groups are supposed to have surrendered control of their armed wings either shutting them down or incorporating them into the police, army and National Guard. 
Tens of PA police officers who were forced to take early retirement are protesting at the way they were sacked. In the meantime security circles warned of mutiny in Gaza. The protesting officers gathered at the (Saraya) government building Thursday afternoon to protest what they called the insulting method used by the PA ministry of interior to announce the names of officers to be sacked. 
