Pew Global Attitudes Project
How others see Americans: Still not loved. Now not envied
Anti-Americanism is becoming entrenched, and getting more personal
Posted by: john ||
06/23/2005 17:46 ||
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#1
I don't care if America is or is not loved by other countries. If they do, fine. If not, fine. What I do expect is for other countries to piss their pants when we frown at them and flee in terror when we raise a fist.
I really think that to put the world in the proper mood, we need to lay a serious beat down on Iran or Syria. Pick one of them and totally destroy the country until you might manage to find a single rock that just happened to land on another when the last MOAB goes off.
#2
That's what the Ruskies used to do - until Afghanistan...
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2005 21:57 Comments ||
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#3
fine. No problem if we cut off all immigration then: legal and illegal? If nobody wants to come here(assume it's because it's too busy - paraphrasing Yogi Berra),then it shouldn't be a problem, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2005 22:30 Comments ||
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#4
Gotta agree with Frank. If you don't like America, you have no business being here.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/23/2005 22:45 Comments ||
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It's telling that others love to take these polls and trumpet the results. We all know that polling is easily manipulated, etc., but what gets me is the projection. They're worried and hung up about the opinions of others - So they presume we are, as well.
Wrong. Americans, at least those not on Kool Aid, are individualists. Why would we agree with this shit? If we thought we were wrong about how our society should be, we'd change it. We don't. We've got the best deal going - and only a toolfool would scrap it for the alternatives - all obviously failed and foolish. That they think we'll change because they want us to brings to mind the moronic alG attempt to interfere in our last Presidential election. They're idiots. Ineffectual, pathetic, and terminal.
MEXICO CITY, June 22 (Reuters) - A man arrested in Mexico and named as a key terrorism suspect with possible links to the Sept. 11 attackers, is in fact a tourist who poses no security risk, red-faced Mexican authorities said on Wednesday.
Oops!
The attorney general's office set bells ringing on Tuesday when it announced it had detained Lebanese-born British citizen Amer Haykel at a fire station in the state of Baja California Sur in cooperation with U.S. authorities. It said Haykel was wanted in the United States and was "linked to extremist groups presumably involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
But Mexican law enforcement backed down on Wednesday, saying U.S. authorities had recently cleared Haykel from suspicion but forgotten to take his name off a terrorism suspect blacklist. "They forgot to deactivate the red alert," said a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
Oops! We bad.
He said Haykel had raised suspicions when he crossed the border into the United States in May, but U.S. authorities soon found he had no apparent links to any terrorist group. Mexican immigration authorities, who had been questioning Haykel since his arrest, said they were authorizing his release.
Haykel, who speaks four languages, had been in Mexico for a month as a tourist, and is now free to stay in the country for several weeks more on a tourist visa, the national migration institute said. "It has now been confirmed that he poses no threat to national security. The information we have does not place him as a risky person," the institute's chief spokesman, Hermenegildo Castro, said.
Haykel's case is the latest false alarm of supposed terrorism suspects in Mexico or Central America, seen as a weak spot in the U.S. fight against terrorism. A security alert sparked in Nicaragua in May over the suspected presence of two al Qaeda operatives in Central America turned out to be a mistake. Often criticized by Washington for failing to halt border violence, Mexico announced triumphantly earlier on Wednesday that its arrest of Haykel in cooperation with U.S. authorities showed it was up to the task of securing the frontier.
A few more details: Before his arrest, Haykel spent several days in the tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas, sleeping in a local fire station, according to those who met him. He told acquaintances he was a pilot who was wandering the world on a tight budget.
A wandering pilot born in Lebanon, no wonder he was on the watch list
Haykel was arrested at the volunteer fire station of Todos Santos, a small town on the Pacific coast about 35 miles north-west of Cabo San Lucas that is known as a haven for US expatriates. The state office of the federal attorney general's office said Haykel had spent time in the Cancun area on the Caribbean coast before going to north-western Mexico, initially to the state of Sonora and then across the Gulf of California to Baja California Sur.
I believe the correct term is "beach bum"
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 09:43 ||
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#1
If he really is a tourist and the Mexican authorities picked him up, they would've taken him to the ATM station to empty his checking account.
I know of several tourists that this has happened to in Mexico.
Afghanistan is still home to terrorist-training camps and U.S.-led forces there are currently ineffective in battling insurgents, Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying on Thursday. "We are seriously worried that bases for preparing terrorists are currently functioning on Afghan territory, including with the direct involvement of certain (foreign) spy services," local news agencies quoted him as saying.
Russia has long said Chechen rebels train in Afghan insurgent camps, and has said repeatedly it will destroy militant training camps abroad without warning. Putin said he supported the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamist rebels and drug smugglers. "But we have to admit that the effectiveness of this force is still extremely low," he said after a meeting with fellow ex-Soviet presidents in Moscow.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/23/2005 11:53 ||
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#1
Brilliant deduction. That's why they pay him the big rubels.
#2
"direct involvement of certain (foreign) spy services"
hes fingering ISI, which is huge IF true. and i dont think there are supposed to be any TRAINING camps left. Nah, this isnt the obvious - this is fairly intense dig at Kharzai, the "friendly" Pashtun, and of course at Pakistan, Russias traditional rival for influence in afghan (paki taking over the historic Brit role) Russia prefers the Northern Alliance Dari speakers who in recent months have been sidelined by Kharzai. Of course in the last few days Kharzai and the Pakis have beent trading accusations, proving the Great Game is as complex as ever.
#4
With this... the stage is being set for possible surgical strikes abroad in places like Afghanistan and elsewhere. Puti can then always shrug and reply, "Hey... I warned everyone... we say what we mean and we mean what we say... da?".
#1
Those imperialistic capitalists really have no shame at all. Now they try to bribe the heroic Korean people.
Of course the bribes will be destroyed... by the upper Party members.
#2
Why are we doing this? It must be some bureaucrat trying to prop up Kimmie.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/23/2005 6:52 Comments ||
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#3
They forgot the other half of the story: Kimmie-boy transfers 50,000 Tons of food worth of funding to nuclear weapons / missle research
TGA - the problem is that Kimmie-boy will simply relabel the food (as being provide by Kim-the-savior) and use it to prop up his personallity cult. That is if it gets beyond the military.
#5
Who in the world authorized this one? Looks like Condi has some more cleaning up to do.
Posted by: BA ||
06/23/2005 8:44 Comments ||
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#6
WE can afford to play nice with the Norkies, as long as everyone realizes that its doubtful Dubya will tolerate the NK and Iran NucDev situations much longer.
#7
Given the current state of affairs and the history, I think this is a mistake. There is no future for lil Kim left to his own devices. The PDRK is a dismal economic and agricultural failure. That's not going to change anytime soon due to the nature of the government. He's not going to survive a military conflict if initiated and the best he can hope for with peaceful reunification (as if it could ever happen) would be an uneasy exile (not an option for somebody now enjoying near god status) or prison. Humanitarian aid is all fine and wonderful but is it really doing anybody much good to help Lil Kim keep his throne by buying him time, however limited. Does anybody really expect them to honor any material concessions given through talks?
#9
This is just more Bushitler unilateralism. The cowboy führer should give the money to the U.N. to disperse so that:
1.) The UN can claim credit.
2.) The EU can claim credit.
3.) The representatives of the above organizations will have the appropriate 5 star restaurant in Poyngyang to discuss how to solve the starvation problem and blame the White House cowboy for the problem.
North Korea's ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and it would have no use for nuclear weapons if the United States were friendly, Pyongyang's top delegate to inter-Korean talks said Wednesday. "The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the last will of (the late North Korean) president Kim Il-Sung and that's our ultimate goal," North Korean chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung was quoted as saying during the talks. "If the US becomes amicable towards North Korea, we will have no reason to have a single nuclear weapon," he was quoted as saying by South Korean spokesman Kim Chun-Shick. North Korea's founding father Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, two years after an inter-Korean accord on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula came into effect.
Worked well, didn't it?
Kwon was speaking at the first cabinet-level inter-Korean talks in more than a year taking place here in Seoul until Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I just heard on the radio driving home today that we're giving North Korea several 100 thousand dollars worth of aid in food.
I think that there are several other places on this earth that need our assistance of food alot more than North Korea.
Is this act making us more amicable?
I didn't see this one coming.
Posted by: Jan ||
06/23/2005 0:41 Comments ||
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As I understand it, from an article about a month ago, that has been delayed and, if not cancelled altogether, the soonest it would actually begin would be December. Can anyone back me up / correct me on this?
If the US doesn't donate the food, 2 million people will starve in NKorea. I just added that information link to Rantburg. It is for the people, not the leadership. I am sure the 2 million people will find out somehow where the food came from.
#5
North Koreaâs ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and it would have no use for nuclear weapons if the United States were friendly...
Can't get the song from Team America out of my head..."I'm so ronry..."
Posted by: Darth VAda ||
06/23/2005 6:41 Comments ||
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It's not as hard to ignore 2 million people as it is one nutter with a nuke. I'd trade everybody in North Korea for Kimmie gone and no nukes.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/23/2005 6:55 Comments ||
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#7
I propose ye olde thought experiment.
How would folks feel about 2 people starving? Not 2 million, just 2. If you know about it and can do something, how is this any different? Is it about the numbers -- or the people?
How about if they were not on the other side of the planet? What if they were in the neighborhood, say, Mexico? Any difference because of geography?
How about 2 homeless folks on the streets of any large city - your city? Any difference because they might be someone you once knew personally -- or easily could be?
The key is that Kim Jong Il created this debacle. Mugabe. Darfur. Slightly less insane, since less man-made, we have Ethiopia, et al. And an endless stream of et ceteras.
Do we save the North Koreans? Do we save the Mexicans? Do we save the street people in LA? If we feed them today, have they been saved? What about tomorrow? They'll be just as desperate then. Send more food aid?
Responsibility is a cause=>effect chain - traceable. Feelings of responsibility, likely born of the fact that we recognize we can do something - irrespective of any consideration of whether we should, are another thing entirely - a very quirky sombitch.
I reiterate a similar point I've made before:
When 6 people die everyday in some strife-torn locale - day in, day out - the human interest folks of the MSM pay a little lip service, but no more. But if 60 people die at once - whoa - our broadcast news anchors are on the scene the next night. Why is that suddenly newsworthy? It happened in Sarajevo - and to this day, I still don't "get" why.
Logic fails to explain it for me - so it's gotta be something else. Propaganda? Disinformation? Selective sympathy?
This is insane. To save the NorKies is to hand those who created this unnecessary tragedy the power to repeat as desired. A one-trick pony. I've seen it, already. Hasn't everyone here? How will paying to see it again change anything? Isn't change the real answer? And what will change this situation for the better? Isn't THAT action the one we should pursue - even if it means not saving Kim Jong Il's people from Kim Jong Il?
In the here and now... Sometimes it can be a lousy world, but that's demonstrably only true, given available advances, because lousy people are allowed to live in it.
#9
Good questions, .com. But like Robin, I also find 2 mill starving people hard to ignore (I guess it's the Christian in me;) I realize that Kimmie is to blame, but that's a hell of a way to punish him.
On the other hand, can we be sure the food goes to needy civilians (young, old, sick) rather than the military? I'd like to have a hand in distributing it, not so much to get credit, but to assure it gets to the right people. Unfortunately, it looks like Kimmie's blackmail machine is working (the Talks-for-Food program).
#11
Spot, you're "spot on." It is VERY hard for me to ignore 2 million (maybe it is the large #), but like 2b, I've almost come to the point (even with the Christianity in me) of cutting 'em loose. Yes, I'd feel guilty, BUT it's NO ONE's fault but Kimmie's (not the U.S.'s fault)! If (and that's a BIG if) I knew the food was actually getting to those who really need it, I'd have NO problem with this, but we all know it doesn't (much like most of our foreign aid, it only props up the goons in power). I'm with 2b (on a personal level), give a man a fish.... BUT, in this case, I'm sure the citizen WANT to know how to fish, but aren't allowed by the goon in power.
Posted by: BA ||
06/23/2005 8:58 Comments ||
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North Koreaâs ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and it would have no use for nuclear weapons if the United States were friendly, Pyongyangâs top delegate to inter-Korean talks said Wednesday.
Honestly, does anyone take these guys seriously anymore?
If the US doesn't donate the food, 2 million people will starve in NKorea. I just added that information link to Rantburg. It is for the people, not the leadership.
[...]
On the other hand, can we be sure the food goes to needy civilians (young, old, sick) rather than the military?
Unless the NorkS are willing to allow outside parties to distribute aid (a very unlikely development), there is no guarantee whatsoever that whatever is sent is not going to be diverted from its intended destination.
#13
I agree BAR, there isn't a way to keep Kimmie's hands off the food. After all, he has a Songun, Army-first policy, which makes it even harder to watch the Nork people suffer.
#14
Maybe we can put something in the food, ya know, like the polio vaccine that was gonna make Muslim women sterile?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2005 13:06 Comments ||
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Guilt has always been a powerful motivator in the charity industry. Feed the starving children. Yet the starvation we see here is not caused by abject poverty or environmental catastrophe. The root cause is political.
Nobody in South Korea is starving.
Zimbabwie used to be the breadbasket of Africa.
Hard to raise a few goats and maize in Sudan when your village is burned and your women are raped.
If you feel bad about it, drop a few dollars in the box, but next week be prepared to drop a few more.
Posted by: john ||
06/23/2005 13:08 Comments ||
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What about the many more millions who've been starving for decades in Africa? Why are they less worthy? I have a real problem with this.
#17
Perspective. The fundamental question: Why is this the US's problem?
In the MSM & "Int'l community", it's because we can be counted on to feel guilty. For anything. For everything. And it's okay to bash us, screw us over, skim and relabel the aid, the worx. We're not The World Police - we're The World Suckers.
The logical answer:
Leave the issue of NorK's survival to it's parents to save or not, the Russians (standing in for the Soviets) and the ChiComms.
#18
This is a bad idea. If we feed these people while Little Nuclear Elvis is still in power we are helping to prop him up. How many millions will die if he puches his 'rittle red button? Not to be heartless but nothing causes revolutions quicker than starvation -- and revolution is what everybody needs in this situation.
The United States said Wednesday it was donating 50,000 tonnes of food aid to North Korea, but denied it was bait to lure Kim Jong-Il's regime back to stalled nuclear crisis talks. The new donation came in response to a World Food Program (WFP) warning that a new crisis could be looming similar to the famine which devastated North Korea in the 1990s. "The United States will be donating, in response to the WFP appeal, 50,000 metric tonnes of agricultural commodities for North Korea," said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.
The United Sates supplied 50,000 tonnes of food aid to North Korea in 2004 and 100,000 tonnes the year before -- shipments which made the United States one of the largest single providers of aid to the Stalinist state. Top US officials have always denied that aid is linked to the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program, insisting it is never used to entice the hermetic state back to the negotiating table. "It is not related to the six-party talks; our decisions are made on humanitarian considerations," Ereli said. "It is a humanitarian act based on need." White House spokesman Scott McClellan added: "The president has said, he does not believe food should be used as a diplomatic weapon."
The WFP had recently unveiled new procedures to ensure that food aid reaches those in most need, which if fully implemented could reduce the possibility of unauthorized diversion, a factor that contributed to the US offer, Ereli said. The United States has never had diplomatic relations with North Korea and has been locked in a prolonged standoff with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programs. The exact make-up of the aid shipment was being discussed with the WFP but in addition to food, could include tools and seeds, Ereli said.
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#2
The WFP had recently unveiled new procedures to ensure that food aid reaches those in most need, which if fully implemented could reduce the possibility of unauthorized diversion, a factor that contributed to the US offer, Ereli said.
Any details available? Or is this guy just blowing smoke outta his ass?
Who's funding the insurgents in Iraq? The list of suspects is long: ex-Baathists, foreign jihadists, and angry Sunnis, to name a few. Now add to that roster hard-core Euroleftists.
Turns out that far-left groups in western Europe are carrying on a campaign dubbed Ten Euros for the Resistance, offering aid and comfort to the car bombers, kidnappers, and snipers trying to destabilize the fledgling Iraq government. In the words of one Italian website, Iraq Libero (Free Iraq), the funds are meant for those fighting the occupanti imperialisti. The groups are an odd collection, made up largely of Marxists and Maoists, sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school fascists, according to Lorenzo Vidino, an analyst on European terrorism based at The Investigative Project in Washington, D.C. "It's the old anticapitalist, anti-U.S., anti-Israel crowd," says Vidino, who has been to their gatherings, where he saw activists from Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Italy. "The glue that binds them together is anti-Americanism." The groups are working on an October conference to further support "the Iraqi Resistance." A key goal is to expand backing for the insurgents from the fringe left to the broader antiwar and antiglobalization movements.
One conference sponsor, Campo Antiimperialista (the Anti-Imperialist Camp), credits the 10-euro campaign for buying 2 tons of medicine for Al Anbar province, a hotbed of resistance, to be distributed "completely independent from both the occupiers as well as their local puppets."
But some funds may be buying more deadly stuff; one leader boasted to Vidino that the campaign will send "everything it takes" for the resistance to win, including weaponry. Neither Iraq Libero nor Campo Antiimperialista responded to questions from U.S. News about where their funds end up. The groups' impact, though, may ultimately be limited. "They have a pretty big following, but we're not talking about big money," says Vidino. At one conference, he notes, many militants looked so ragged he doubted they even had 10 euros in their pockets.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/23/2005 12:06 ||
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#4
We need to tell the Europeans to put a stop to it. If they can't or won't, then American agents should start killing these people wherever they are, European/International "laws" be damned.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
06/23/2005 13:08 Comments ||
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Ten Euros for the Resistance
Time to start funding a resistance in Europe, then.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/23/2005 13:10 Comments ||
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Two tons of "medicine". Wonder if this is the same "medicine" that the shahids are doped to the gills with when they go wandering off to find a nice place to detonate.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/23/2005 14:29 Comments ||
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Cool! I just did a search for "Ten Euros for the Resistance", and probably found a bunch of new customers for my website! Thanks!
Trying to establish your media-cult cred by verbally defending the head-choppers is one thing, openly collecting money for them is something else again.
It is, in fact, an overt act of war and should be treated accordingly.
Anyone providing material assistance to an armed enemy, for the explicit purpose of waging war against the United States, is a legitimate target of the US armed forces.
Gideon-Phoenix now. What will the Euro dhimmis do if the hit teams are caught? Send a strongly worded protest?
#1
"You cannot survive if you do not know the past. We know why all the other civilizations have collapsed--from an excess of welfare, of richness, and from lack of morality, of spirituality." (She uses "welfare" here in the sense of well-being, so she is talking, really, of decadence.) "The moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period."
Words to remember.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2005 10:45 Comments ||
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She fought Nazis in the Italian Resistance, so she knows them when she sees them...
#5
Oriana used to be very anti American back in the 80s and 90s (as was Salmon Rushdie).
She rarely admits this and is rarely asked to comment on this. I think the change is do to accrueing knowledge of and familiarity with Islam (years of being under a death fatwa certainly changed Rushdie's mind).
Either of these two cases would make a good story for a newspaper. However, it would require some modest ability to do research and perform critical thinking and the supply of journalists who can do this is pretty limited.
An upcoming report claims the Pentagon violated medical ethics by using military doctors as part of the interrogation of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
What, did they do medical experiments on the "suspects"? Paging Dr. Mengele!
Gregg Bloche, a law professor at Georgetown University, and Jonathan Marks, a bioethics fellow at Georgetown University Law Center used previously undisclosed military documents to show doctors and mental health professionals were integrated into the interrogation process.
Sounds horrible, what did they do?
In their report, which will appear in the July 7 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, they also allege the healthcare providers were told detainees didn't enjoy medical confidentiality and to provide information on prisoners' physical or mental health to interrogators even if they weren't asked to do so.
Of course they don't have medical confidentiality, they're illegal combatants! They're lucky if they get a band-aid!
However, Pentagon officials deny the claims, the Wall Street Journal said. "To date, no investigation has produced credible evidence of military physician participation in the inhumane treatment of detainees," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.
You might be asking, do these guys have a agenda? Here is what Google has to say:
Maxwell Gregg Bloche
Professor of Law; Co-Director, Georgetown-Johns Hopkins Joint Program in Law and Public Health. Dr. Bloche received his M.D. and J.D. from Yale University and his B.A. from Columbia University. Before joining Georgetown's faculty in 1989, he completed his residency in psychiatry at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He received several awards for research and scholarship as a resident physician and law student, and he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Between college and medical school, Dr. Bloche spent a year as a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald. More recently, he has contributed commentaries to the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, other newspapers, and National Public Radio's Morning Edition.
Combination Lawyer/Doctor/Journalist
Jonathan Marks
Jonathan's practice encompasses international law, EU law, environmental law, human rights law (particularly privacy and data protection), healthcare and commercial law (including both financial services and pharmaceutical regulation). Over the last decade, his practice has involved commercial litigation (at both trial and appellate levels), judicial review and hearings before both the ECJ and CFI. Jonathan is also a CEDR-accredited Mediator and has experience of mediation in both the UK and the US. Before coming to the Bar, Jonathan taught at Worcester College, Oxford, King's College, London and in Australia. After 11 September 2001, he developed a course on terrorism and the law, which he has taught in Europe and the USA (including the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and UNC Chapel Hill Law School). In addition, Jonathan has participated in conference panels in the USA on international law and has lectured on topics including the Pinochet case, universal jurisdiction and the lawfulness of counter-terrorism measures after September 11. He has also been retained as an international law expert on the legality of the war in Iraq in criminal proceedings in the USA.
International law expert, nope, no agenda there.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 12:44 ||
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the healthcare providers were told detainees didn't enjoy medical confidentiality
Oh gee....the humanity. If this is the best the idiots can come up with, we should lock them up in Gitmo too. Their stupidity is a danger to themselves and others.
#3
"...the healthcare providers were told detainees didn't enjoy medical confidentiality..."
Now these people probably won't get that great AETNA of AlQueda insurance package because AETNA will be able to claim they had a pre-existing condition. Oh the humanity.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2005 13:56 Comments ||
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#5
Prediction: The headlines for this story -- and it will make headlines -- will read "MEDICS INVOLVED IN ABUSE AT GITMO".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/23/2005 14:00 Comments ||
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#6
So true, RC! And the Demos will call for universal health care for everyone, including the detainees at Gitmo/Bagram/Abu Gharib in addition to their hot chicken and rice meals, their individual cells w/ prayer rug and star signifying the way to Mecca, etc.!
Democrats are not distancing themselves from Sen. Dick Durbin. The Illinois Democrat, fresh from a tearful apology on the Senate floor, is now circulating a fund-raising letter on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "Dear Friend," the email message begins, "On June 30, the DSCC faces its first big test."
Durbin explained that June 30 is when the books close on second-quarter fundraising, and he said it's important for Democrats to be competitive with Republicans in the fund-raising sweepstakes. If not in actual influence on anything. Durbin says journalists and political insiders are waiting to "declare the first winners of the election cycle" based on fund-raising totals, and so far, Republicans are well ahead of Democrats.
"I want the story on the front page to be that the Democrats are matching the Republicans dollar for dollar and that we have them on the run. You been eatin' too many Dreamsicles, boy! That story won't be written unless we meet our goal to raise $500,000 online this quarter," Durbin's message says. He says Democrats are "halfway there, but we're all going to have to dig a little deeper if we're going to make it. Please make a contribution today and help us put a stop to George Bush's center-wing right wing agenda."
In the DSCC fund-raising pitch sent out Wednesday afternoon, Durbin said he's been serving as Senate Democratic Whip for six months now, and he's "learned one very important thing in that short time: We need more Democrats in the United States Senate in order to put a permanent stop to the right wing agenda supported by George Bush, Bill Frist, and Tom DeLay." Durbin called Republican priorities "way outside the mainstream," and he said a Democrat-dominated Senate would "shift the nation's focus to issues that truly matter: restoring our nation's honor abroad..." Like last weeks remarks helped "boost" our nations "honor".
Money raised by the DSCC goes directly to Democratic Senate candidates.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2005 10:31 ||
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#1
What does the Arabic version say?
Posted by: Matt ||
06/23/2005 11:51 Comments ||
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Durbin says journalists and political insiders are waiting to "declare the first winners of the election cycle" based on fund-raising totals, and so far, Republicans are well ahead of Democrats.
Jeez, Dick, did ya ever wonder why that is? Any mirrors in your house?
They still don't.
NEW YORK - Speaking in a ballroom just a few miles north of ground zero, Karl Rove said the Democratic party did not understand the consequences of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said Wednesday night. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."
Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, spoke at the state Conservative Party's annual dinner. He praised the conservative movement's success, calling it "the guiding philosophy for the White House, the Senate, the House."
Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for "moderation and restraint" after the terrorist attacks.
"Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."
Rove also denounced Sen. Dick Durbin's comments comparing interrogation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to the methods of Nazis and other repressive regimes. He said the statements have been broadcast throughout the Middle East, putting American troops in greater danger. Durbin has since apologized for the remarks.
"No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals," Rove said.
#1
No, they still don't TU. They would rather bend over, appease the terrorists and give them their daughters and say, "Please don't hurt us. We understand you!"
Fuck them, fuck the terrorists and kill the mouth-breathing swine! Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
#3
Their biggest problem is the misguided belief that we can somehow be friends with everyone if only we change to suit them. They just don't get that there are people out there who don't want to hold hands and sing Kumbayah with us--they just want us dead!
Posted by: Dar ||
06/23/2005 11:32 Comments ||
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#4
And now the Democrats are demanding an apology from the White House.
To which I hope the White House responds with a hearty "fuck you".
We need more of this criticism of Democrats, not less. And it should be louder and much, MUCH more in their faces. Stop playing nice with the Democrats, Bush, and start calling them what they are: traitors.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/23/2005 12:30 Comments ||
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#5
Sure, give 'em an apology... using the same format as Senator Dick.
Rove: "I'm sorry if my stating the glaringly obvious has caused anybody pain."
#6
Do the Dems remind you of the Sunni? Everything always has to be about them, and they throw dreadful (sometimes explosive) tantrums if they don't get their way.
#9
pretty much all americans do not realize the implications of 9/11. they've been too coddled for too long to really truely "care" past a media controlled blitz of "God bless America". This society has gotten so comfortable that they choose not to face the reality of War. In a war you need to conserve your rescources so that you are leaner and have the extra capacity to sustain yourself for an extended seige. This is NOT what is happening.
These Arabs are not stupid and they whittled away at the soviets until they forced them into bankruptcy. Americans need to keep that in mind.
Posted by: bk ||
06/23/2005 13:10 Comments ||
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#10
These Arabs are not stupid and they whittled away at the soviets until they forced them into bankruptcy
er..rigghhhttt. Those brave arab armies that dispatched the soviets with....um....American weapons and American money and....
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2005 13:29 Comments ||
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#11
I'm not sure, but didn't Reagan have something to do with bankrupting the Soviets into extinction?
#12
Gee, this is already part of the top-of-the-hour news on (I think) CBS radio. Anyone know if Durbin's slander made it into the network cycle this quickly?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/23/2005 13:57 Comments ||
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#13
RC, I know without even looking up facts. I think we all know how quickly Turban's comments made it into the MSM.
Posted by: BA ||
06/23/2005 14:09 Comments ||
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#14
That's right -- they still haven't (accurately) reported on them, have they?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/23/2005 14:31 Comments ||
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#15
Nope! And his "I'm sorry if you misunderstood me" cr@p has gotta go! I'm almost ready to break out the popcorn for the next round of Congressional elections.
Posted by: BA ||
06/23/2005 14:41 Comments ||
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#16
Fuck moderation, kick there ass, step on their neck, and choke them to death. Of course I am talking about the terrorists and not the Dhimicraps. ;-)
#18
"Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
You almost got it right; its: "Better to live on your feet than die on your knees" (apologies to Joseph Heller) ;-)
Posted by: Mark E. ||
06/23/2005 17:36 Comments ||
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#19
In 10 years, the Soviets lost 15,000 dead. About 1.5 million Afghans were killed (about 100K muj, rest civilians). That was something the Soviet Empire of 350 million could have sustained forever w/o even noticing. They left because there was little for them to gain in Afghanistan, and it was killing their paramount political, economic, and military relations with the west.
The Soviets killed most of the Afghans by bombing the towns and villages to rubble. Come to think of it, that sounds like a great idea if applied to the Arabian peninsula. And $200 billion a year in oil revenues will buy a lot of bombs.
Posted by: ed ||
06/23/2005 17:54 Comments ||
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#20
For those who care Hugh Hewitt has listed some of the Dems actions/comments with respect to 9/11. It's all there for them to refute but they can't run away from their own words and actions. Rove really ought just send them that list and ask where he misspoke.
(SACRAMENTO) — The non-profit group that supports our troops and the war against terrorism, Move America Forward (website: http://www.moveamericaforward.org/), has launched a campaign to rally public support for the Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The "I LOVE GITMO" campaign will take to the airwaves in the form of paid commercials urging Americans to support the men and women operating the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
The commercials will target those individuals who have put forth false charges about the operations at the facility so that their constituents can know about their "Blame America First" antics. One example is Illinois Senator, Dick Durbin who said GITMO and those running it had created an environment akin to the "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others."
"GITMO is a key arsenal in the fight against terrorism, and Americans must stand behind the heroic men and women of the Armed Forces who serve proudly there," said Howard Kaloogian, Co-Chair of Move America Forward. The campaign to support GITMO was launched on Thursday with the release of the "I LOVE GITMO" bumper sticker. Thousands of these bumper stickers have been sold in the first 24 hours they were available online at http://www.moveamericaforward.org/
"These terrorists detained are not common criminals; they are enemy combatants in our war against terrorism. They are not entitled to all of the rights that someone arrested in this country gets. Just like we held German and Japanese prisoners of war during World War II, we have to confine enemy combatants so they stop killing Americans serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan," Kaloogian added.
On the website Move America Forward notes that the food served to the terrorist detainees and terrorist suspects held at GITMO is better in many cases than the food being served to our troops in the Armed Services. Congressional decree prevents the military from serving MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat — vacuum packed sealed food bags served to U.S. troops) to detainees because it would be considered "abuse." Instead, in the past week the anti-American terrorists and terrorist suspects held at GITMO have been served:
In addition, on Ramadan the terrorists held at GITMO are served lamb, dates and honey as part of their religious observance. GITMO detainees also are provided prayer mats and prayer oils and are allowed to pray five times per day — something that even U.S. schoolchildren are forbidden from doing. "In recent days we've seen certain liberal politicians have the audacity to undermine American troops by falsely accusing them of torture and misconduct, including bogus charges of desecrating the Koran" said Melanie Morgan, Co-Chair of Move America Forward.
"These shameless individuals, interested in selling magazines or rallying their leftist political followers, are willing to denigrate the important mission being conducted by our troops in Guantanamo Bay.
"By falsely provoking anti-American sentiment overseas, these domestic enemies who have fanned the flames of a 'Gulag at Guantanamo' are jeopardizing the lives and well being of our servicemen and women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Morgan.
#1
I love it! I need to buy one of those bumper stickers. See the poll about gitmo on page 3 of rantburg too and we see just how "well" the propaganda effort of the left is doing.
#9
I love Move America Forward! They are raising cane about the UN, border issues and now this. Excellent. I sent a nasty-gram to that nut Pelosi yesterday telling her that she is way off base on her criticisms of Gitmo. I am getting one of these bumper stickers if for no other reason than to piss of all the liberals I have to live with in Marin county.
#10
That 70% approval is a more realistic assessment of American sentiment toward the WoT as a whole than that stupid news poll that so upset Fred and his coworkers last week. Americans in general are a pragmatic and sensible bunch, unlike their journalist wannabe-overlords. I wonder how many of the bumper stickers will show up here in the Midwest? Probably 75% of cars have a "Support the troops" magnet...
Congressional Democrats are engaged in a "growing pattern" of demoralizing American troops, according to House Republican leaders who Wednesday showed no willingness to let the controversial comments of Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin die. "While our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line each day to defend our safety and to protect our freedoms, I am sure the least they expect is the backing and the support of their leaders at home," said Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Republican Conference. "To the contrary," Pryce added, "what we've seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops, bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military's honored reputation through the mud."
Pryce was reacting to recent comments made by Durbin, the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, about the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Durbin initially compared the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the way Nazis, the Stalin-led Soviet Union and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia handled prisoners. Following much criticism, including from members of his own party, Durbin apologized on the floor of the Senate Tuesday. Wednesday, Pryce slammed both Durbin and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for their handling of the Guantanamo Bay issue. "For Leader Pelosi and Senator Durbin, if prison-camp detainees are given anything other than pillow-top mattresses or lean-cut filet mignon, they're being treated inhumanely and our military is to blame," Pryce said.
Jennifer Crider, press secretary to Pelosi, told Cybercast News Service that Pryce's remarks amounted to "a ridiculous statement, completely not based on fact." Pelosi on Tuesday had joined with one of her California Democrat colleagues, Rep. Henry Waxman, in introducing legislation aimed at establishing an independent commission to investigate the alleged abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who joined Pryce at the press conference, told Cybercast News Service that it "is just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops. He also labeled the Pelosi/Waxman proposal for an independent commission "simply another example of some Democrat leaders trusting the words of terrorists over the proven decency of U.S. troops. The American taxpayer is already providing accommodations for detainees, who are currently more comfortable than most of our men and women in uniform."
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 08:45 ||
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#1
The political atmosphere is about to become even more hot and volatile. Some Republicans are finally starting to reply to the actions of the Dems with the same Rules of Engagement the Dems have been using for decades. As power slips away from their grasp the Dems are providing more and more opportunities to be exploited.
#2
I'm just glad the Republican party is getting some backbone and standing up to these morons for a change. We also need to get rid of McCain. Make him a dem or throw his ass out or something.
#5
This is just the beginning of what I call the "public bitch-slap of the radical left". When such people, not just their leaders, take it upon themselves to attack the US, deride others for some P.C. violation, whine about "fairness" for criminals and terrorists, and infringe on the rights of others while demanding special rights for themselves, they will get punched on the nose. Either figuratively or literally, people will yell at them to "Shut the F*** up!", or will, without warning, give them a punch to the face. Since they are so dense, so bull-headed and oppressive, subtlety is of no use. They must be taught in a pavlovian manner that expressing their repugnant views, demanding special privilege, or insulting what others hold dear has consequences. That attacking the US because you are a leftist is as morally repugnant as doing so because you are a neo-Nazi. That infringing on others' life, liberty, or property is a violation that can be met with defensive force. And that to attack another's personal and private beliefs, cherished values, and respected symbols is tantamount to an attack on their person. Lies and empty apologies are just that. That they cannot take back what they say, so they had better not make grievous attacks in the first place, unless they are willing to accept responsibility for their words. And responsibility cannot be shunted aside, ignored, delegated, or parsed. They must be prepared to have their words attached to them, personally, for the rest of their life, whether they like it or not.
Gitmo is the gulag equivalent of a Ben Affleck movie: no one's seen it, but everyone has an opinion about it. Given all the rhetoric that's been spilled about this sorta-kinda-not-really Death Camp, it's time we re-examine the facts, and remind ourselves what's really at stake. Herewith a summation.
Q: What is Gitmo?
A: Contrary to what some suggest, it does not stand for "Git mo' Peking chicken for Muhammad, he wants a second portion." It stands for "Guantanamo," a facility the United States built to see if the left would ever care about human rights abuses in Cuba. The experiment has apparently been successful.
Q: Who's in Gitmo?
A: Operation Scoop Up The Little Lost Lambs plucked men from distant countries and brought them to Gitmo to beat them deaf for no apparent reason. There are between 400 and 30 million people at Gitmo, and somewhere between zero and 15 million people have died there.
Q: That's quite the range. Do we have precise figures?
A: Well, technically, no one has died at Gitmo. Metaphorically, millions have perished, since Gitmo is the spiritual heir to assorted thug regimes -- except Saddam's, of course. Think Nazi death camps. Did you know one of the Nazis' Middle East allies was the grand mufti of Jerusalem, a Hitler admirer who was a mentor to Yasser Arafat? Funny how history works. Not ha-ha funny, but Seinfeld-ironic funny.
Q: History is boring. C'mon. Why do they hate us?
A: Because our women wear thongs, our media are naughty, our homosexuals walk around unstoned, and we refuse to let them finish Hitler's plans for the Jews. Because we are the infidel sons of monkeys and pigs who do not believe that most holy of books, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Also because we had something to do with Afghanistan.
Q: Afghana-what?
A: Afghanistan is a large, mountainous country that suffered an unimaginable geographical calamity a few years ago, when the entire nation slid off the front pages of the newspapers. Poor country: not a single runaway Caucasian bride to interest the media.
Q: Why can't the prisoners be given trials?
A: Because civil libertarians might injure themselves as they race to defend the "terrorist suspects" and collide in the airport jetways. Because the left seems to think the detainees were arrested for the crime of "being swarthy in Afghanistan," and there are no such specific charges in the U.S. criminal code. Finally, if convicted, the "terrorists" would go into the U.S. federal pens, where the food is worse and they are subject to brutal rape. We reserve that for recidivist marijuana wholesalers.
Q: What forms of torture do they use in Gitmo?
A: The interrogators make a point of handling the Quran with gloves, to indicate they accept the prisoners' definition of infidels as "unclean." But the guards occasionally suggest that the gloves are not only washed with the general laundry that might include the socks of Jews, but that sometimes the anti-static cling sheets are deliberately left out.
Q: It might all be worth it if we learned something. Have we learned anything?
A: Who knows? We have to err on the side of self-castigating doubt, reflexive suspicion of the military, and a churlish institutional bias against reporting anything other than bad news that might sap the national will. So let's assume the interrogators learned nothing.
Q: Wow. This is bad.
A: It is. It's worse than Waco, because at least those people aren't suffering anymore.
Q: When did they build this place?
A: After Sept. 11, 2001.
Q: That date seems familiar for some reason. Did something happen?
A: Not really. You can roll over and go back to sleep.
Q: Isn't it our role as citizens to be wary of government?
A: Sure. But take this quote: "I call on those who question the motives of the president and his national security advisers to join with the rest of America in presenting a united front to our enemies abroad." That was Sen. Dick Durbin in 1998, when Bill Clinton attacked Iraq. But that was then, and this is George W. Bush.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 10:44 ||
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#1
Lileks is a gifted writer to be sure. He gets lots of pokes in at everyone, including the defeatist media.
Poor country: not a single runaway Caucasian bride to interest the media.
That's why we really don't require 24 hour cable or satellite TV news.
#3
"A: Contrary to what some suggest, it does not stand for "Git mo' Peking chicken for Muhammad, he wants a second portion." It stands for "Guantanamo," a facility the United States built to see if the left would ever care about human rights abuses in Cuba. The experiment has apparently been successful.
Perhaps ol' turbanDustbin should have said something such as "I made a horrible mistake, I got the location, Cuba, correct, I just got the prison camp facility dead rongwrong. You see, Castros comunist regime in Cuba is a concentration camp, just like those of the National Socialist Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Sobibor, etc. And like the gulags of Soviet Union, political prisoners are incarcerated there to rot and die. And not just political dissidents, but homosexuals, or anyone with aids, or tuberculosis are quarantined on an adjacent island in the most squalid conditions to be found in any totalitarian regime in this world today. Not just the prison camps, but the much lied about health care facilties, should also be classified as death factories, where you can find more cockroaches in a single ward than patients in the entire country. Oh sure, the Castro elite get the best health care, but if you are among the proletariat, you just better hope you don't sick, and end up as all the other nameless thousands who go to the hospital, and never get out, alive that is, Its an atrocity! Where is Damnasty international? Its an atrocity I say!
Posted by: an dalusian dog ||
06/23/2005 13:28 Comments ||
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GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators on Thursday accused the United States of stalling on their request to visit foreign terror suspects at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.
They said they had had no reply to their year-old request to probe "serious allegations of torture," arbitrary detention and violations of the right to health and due process at Guantanamo. Tell you what, you allow full transparency to your records, especially on the OFF program, and we will let you into see the prisons! Hello? Hello? Kofi hung up on me!
"We deeply regret that the government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Guantanamo Bay naval base," the four anti-american rights investigators said in a statement.
"The lack of a definitive answer despite repeated requests suggests that the United States is not willing to cooperate with the United Nations human rights machinery on this issue," they added.Little surprise given your anti-american stances and your lack of willingness to work with us on ANY issue.
Their request to visit followed the scandal sparked by photographs taken in the U.S.-run prison of Abu Ghraib in Iraq, showing inmates, some in hoods, being sexually humiliated by soldiers and intimidated with dogs. Phear our non-painful humiliation!
The investigators have global U.N. mandates to probe allegations of torture and arbitrary detention as well as ensuring that rights to health and judicial independence are upheld.
Activists have expressed alarm that many people arrested since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States have been held for more than three years without charges being laid, often incommunicado, in a legal blackhole facilitating mistreatment. They are right. We don't need a legal blackhole. Just a hole in the ground to bury these morons.
The Pentagon says it is holding 520 men in Guantanamo, mainly detained in Afghanistan. Only four have been charged.
#1
We're not stalling, we're just making sure that their accomodations are ready. "Sir, you'll never understand what it's like until I lock the door, like this *click*."
Posted by: Matt ||
06/23/2005 11:02 Comments ||
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#2
Hmmmmmmmmmm. If they haven't been down there yet, how can the AP scream this:
#5
"Uh, yeah, Kofi. This is the cowboy here. When you get back to me about our POWs, and human rights in ZimBOBwe/Sudan/Somalia/Libya/Iran/Saudi/Syria, etc., AND when you kick Libya/Syria/China off the Human Rights commission, then we'll talk. And, oh yeah, the chicken and rice is mighty fine down at Gitmo, but I know you don't dine on less than lobster and fois gras!"
The United States is certain that Syrian military intelligence operatives remain in Lebanon (search) in defiance of international demands to withdraw all forces and agents, two senior U.S. officials said Thursday.
Syria (search) claims all its forces quit Lebanon in April after some three decades as the dominant political and military force there.
"There is no question that Syrian military intelligence agents have stayed behind, and that they are exerting a highly negative influence on the situation," one senior State Department official said on condition of anonymity.
The United Nations (search) plans to send a verification team back to Lebanon to investigate whether intelligence forces remain, but the U.S. official, who requested anonymity because sensitive intelligence is involved, said the answer is already in.
"We're certain," the official said.
Until now the United States has only strongly suggested the continued presence of Syrian intelligence agents, a claim made openly by opposition politicians in Lebanon.
A second U.S. official said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (search) heard no quarrel on the Syria assertion among European diplomats meeting in London on Wednesday and Thursday.
Neither official offered specific evidence for the claim, an estimate of the number of Syrians who may be in Lebanon or an accounting of the alleged agents' activities.
Syria says it has complied with a U.N. resolution demanding full withdrawal. The United States and France sponsored that resolution last fall, and Lebanon was a main topic of a meeting Thursday between Rice and her French counterpart, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.
As she has done before, Rice hinted that holdover Syrian agents were behind recent political assassinations in Lebanon but offered no specifics.
"We expressed concerns about the assassinations that have been going on in Lebanon, and also about the need to Syria to make certain that all of its forces are withdrawn," Rice said after her meeting.
Rice is in London to help prepare for next month's Group of Eight (search) economic summit in Scotland, which President Bush plans to attend. The day's meetings complete a week of hopscotch foreign travel for Rice in the Middle East and Europe.
The Bush administration has turned up the heat on Syria since completion of national elections in Lebanon last weekend.
Politicians opposed to the current Syrian-allied government in Damascus won the election and will soon try to form a government. The harsher U.S. allegations appear timed to draw international attention to Lebanon at a moment when Syrian influence could either wither or regenerate.
None of the allegations are specific and the Bush administration has offered no public evidence for them.
On Wednesday, Rice accused Syria of exporting terrorism over its border with Iraq. A day earlier she linked Syria to the latest assassination of an anti-Syrian politician but said she cannot be certain who is behind the killing.
"I do not know who was responsible for this and I don't want to say that I know who was responsible, because I don't," Rice said then. "But there is a context and an atmosphere of instability. Syria's activities are a part of that context and that atmosphere and they need to knock it off."
Former Lebanese Communist Party leader George Hawi (search) was the second anti-Syrian figure killed this month and the third this year.
"These are not random killings," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said then. "These are targeted assassinations of political figures. It is clearly an attempt to intimidate the people of Lebanon and to undermine progress toward a free and democratic future."
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw condemned the assassination of Hawi. "Since we know that Syria continues to exercise a great deal of influence within Lebanon we look to the Syrian government to do all that it can to ensure that those who are committing these outrageous assassinations stop and finish," he said during a break in talks with his G-8 colleagues.
Syria held political and military sway in tiny neighboring Lebanon for some three decades. In addition to the armed troops on Beirut streets, Syrian intelligence forces were often a shadowy but pervasive force in Lebanese daily life.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/23/2005 12:07 ||
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U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney told an Arab newspaper Thursday that Washington did not see the Iraq model as being applicable in Syria. The United Arab Emirates' al-Khaleej daily quoted Cheney as saying the United States was interested in supporting the "forces that work for democracy inside Syria." She told the pro-government daily there were "restrictions on our movements to finance the Syrian opposition" due to U.S. sanctions on the country, but said the State Department continues to meet with Syrian opposition leaders. She said that Washington presented a "clear list of demands" to Damascus and accused Syria of "supporting terrorism." The U.S. official called on Syria to close its airport to Iranian support for the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group. She also said Washington did not believe a civil war would erupt in Lebanon as a result of a series of assassinations of political leaders there.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 09:04 ||
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#1
So if it isn't the Iraq model, does that mean we will invade and conquer, kill bad people and break their things, but not rebuild Syria afterward?
Syria's state-run radio yesterday lashed out at US accusations of Syrian involvement in a Lebanese politician's murder and said Washington's designs to reshape the Middle East were no longer a secret. "The American-Israeli objective is no longer a secret," said Damascus Radio. "All the countries and peoples, Arabs and foreigners, have found out the scope of the plan drawn up for the region," it said. "The statements made by US officials, especially those of (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice making accusations against Syria ... no longer fool anyone," the radio said in its daily commentary. The United States angrily linked Syria's "long and continued presence" in Lebanon to the killing of George Hawi in a Beirut bomb blast on Tuesday. Damascus Radio said "the plan which was launched with the US war in Iraq is continuing today in Lebanon. The US-Israeli aim is to provoke trouble and sow discord among the Arabs, especially Syria and Lebanon."
Meanwhile, fears mounted in Lebanon yesterday of a new cycle of political murders after the slaying of an anti-Damascus critic in what Washington said was a bid to intimidate Lebanese as they seek to break free of Syria's grip. The killing of veteran former Communist Party leader Hawi came at a crucial time for Lebanon, which has yet to form a new government following elections won by an anti-Syrian alliance. "Who's next?" asked leading An-Nahar newspaper ominously, recounting the list of political figures killed or injured in attacks over the past months, the most prominent being ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, who was blown up in a February bombing. "These attacks are aimed at destabilizing Lebanon," said political analyst Joe Bahout. "It's a way of paralyzing the political classes and intellectuals."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2005 00:00 ||
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Secret? Lol! It was in the Inauguration Address, you twit.
#2
âItâs a way of paralyzing the political classes and intellectuals.â
lol! Shhh! The secret is out! We are promoting democracy and freedom for the masses! The political and intellectual classes are paralyzed by the thought!
#3
Secret? Lol! It was in the Inauguration Address, you twit.
Heh. Using his reputation as dumb hick cowboy, our evil Bushitler(tm) has developed the secret power to cloud the minds of his enemies by telling them exactly what he is going to do. He then further confuses them by doing just that.
You would think they could catch on after a while that he means what he says, but I guess they are just too smart for him.
#4
Wait, Steve! You mean the cowboy actually means what he says? You sure this isn't some grand plot by the REAL brains behing Bushitler...ya know, Karl Rove? (/sarcasm off/)
Posted by: BA ||
06/23/2005 8:50 Comments ||
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#5
And we are looking at you Syria. Yes, you. Quake you pathetic excuse for a country! BRUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Iran could take delivery of Russian nuclear fuel to fire up its first nuclear power station within months, a senior atomic energy official said Wednesday. "The site is 84 percent finished and will be completed towards the end of 2006," Assadollah Sabouri, the deputy head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, told reporters taken on a visit of the site. "The fuel is in Russia and ready to be transported, and it will be delivered soon but the exact date will remain confidential," he added. Asked if it would arrive before the end of 2005, he replied: "God Willing, in a few months!"
Earlier this year Iran and Russia signed a landmark fuel accord that paves the way for the firing up of the station in southern Iran, a project the United States alleges is part of a cover for weapons development. Under the deal, which capped an 800-million-dollar contract to build and bring the Bushehr plant on line, Russia will fuel the reactor on condition that Iran sends back spent fuel, which could potentially be upgraded to weapons use. Sabouri asserted the arrangement left no room for Iran diverting the fuel to military purposes. "Bushehr is entirely under the supervision of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). The fuel will be verified before it is sent to Iran and the IAEA inspectors will be here to open the seals," he explained. But the plant in southern Iran was still not yet ready to host the fuel, Sabouri added.
#1
Russian brinksmanship right up there with the old Soviets. The assumptions that the Mad Mullahs will abide by the contract are, of course, idiotic - on the part of anyone but the Russians. They know that the deal is a bad joke, that the IAEA is an even worse joke, and that neither the US nor the Israelis can allow this to go unchecked. Somewhere down the road, Putty will pay for this - and at a far higher price than he's getting from the Mad Mullahs.
Over the past year, essentially since the Madrid train bombings on March 11, 2004, U.S. intelligence and policy-makers have had a changed view of al-Qaida. Instead of the hierarchical organization portrayed by the president with his scorecard of how many leaders have been killed or captured those closest to the counterterrorism effort see a network that while less capable of mega-attacks like Sept. 11 is more capable of a long-lasting war against the United States and the West.
The capture or killing of Osama bin Laden would be a major event in the war on terrorism, one with positive and even some negative consequences for the United States and its allies, but it would not signal the end of al-Qaida, the end of Islamic terrorism or even the reconfiguring of the network. "Certainly, the al-Qaida organization represents the embodiment of some kind of a network of global terrorism," Porter Goss, the CIA director, recently told NBC News. "And it's dangerous. It's dangerous in a lot of places. But we think in sort of an organized Western mind about what a network would look like. It's not. It's very amorphous. Some of it is self-starting. There are cells here and cells there that are loosely related. There are associations."
In interview after interview with officials of the U.S., French, Spanish, British and Saudi counterterrorism efforts, that is now the accepted wisdom. No one is optimistic the death or capture of bin Laden would significantly change the landscape of terrorism, although on a positive note, no one is complacent either. As one British diplomat put it, "The U.S. is winning the war on al-Qaida but losing the war on terrorism and the reason is Iraq."
Roger Cressey, who was the National Security Council's deputy director of counterterrorism in the Clinton and Bush administrations, agrees. "Al-Qaida, as we knew it, is pretty much on its death bed now. I mean, we've had real successes in attriting its capability, so the organization that attacked us on 9/11 no longer poses the same type of threat," said Cressey, now an NBC News consultant. "That's the good news. The bad news is we've seen a growth in this global Sunni extremist movement, partly driven by Iraq, but also by other events, which is much more difficult to track, follow and ultimately disrupt. So as we're doing really well against what was al-Qaida, we've got a new threat this movement, which is much more of a challenge."
Madrid is cited as the key turning point in the evolution of Islamic terror. Initially, Spanish and U.S. counterterrorism officials sought links between al-Qaida (or, as the CIA now describes it, "al-Qaida Central"). But quickly they realized there weren't any. The attack was put together in eight weeks, using stolen explosives and cell phone detonators put together by one of the conspirators. It required no central direction from the mountains of Pakistan, simply a charismatic leader with links to men trained in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. For motivation, though, they had Spanish help for the U.S. war in Iraq, and for inspiration they had bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. The Madrid bombings killed 191 people, the third-largest death toll from Islamic terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
And Spain is not alone. There is no evidence to suggest that attacks that killed dozens of Westerners in Casablanca, Morocco, for example, were carried out with the knowledge of al-Qaida leadership. And while earlier attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were ordered by al-Qaida Central, the later ones were not. Al-Qaida is becoming what its earliest architects had hoped it would be: a support "base" for Islamic radicals around the world. Even al-Qaida in Iraq, the new name for Abu Musab al Zarqawi's forces, does not take orders from bin Laden or his No. 2, Ayman al Zawahiri, rather just inspiration, technical support and military guidance.
It is this change in strategy that is now driving intelligence-gathering by the United States and its Western allies, requiring a switch in both intelligence-gathering and analysis. Phil Mudd, the deputy director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center and the man Goss most relies on for his analysis of the al-Qaida threat, agrees that things are changing and that tracking Islamic terrorism as a general threat, rather than as al-Qaida specifically, can make it harder to find out what's really going on out there. "I think in some ways it does," he said. "One of the few advantages of operating against an organization as capable as al-Qaida was we had a hierarchy, a central unit that we could go against. What we now have is a sense of localization of groups, of the threat so in some ways, so it does make it more difficult to chase the target. In other ways, though, the advantage that it gives us is, we're fighting groups that don't have the strategic capabilities of al-Qaida, so advantages in some areas, disadvantages in others."
Now, Mudd notes that more important than lists of top people in the hierarchy are the "influence nets" derived from interrogations and the detritus left behind by or found with terrorists: the laptops, jump drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, notebooks and phone books. It is this gold mine of information that shows who in the Islamist movement knows whom, who trained whom, who fought with whom, who likes or doesn't like whom. It was no accident that al-Qaida's No. 3, Abu Farraj al-Libbi, was trying to destroy a paper notebook when captured in the Pakistani city of Mardan in early May.
What is retrieved from interrogation now approaches or surpasses any other intelligence on the subject of al-Qaida and the construction of the network, say senior U.S. intelligence analysts. And while rarely operational intelligence al-Qaida is now too compartmentalized, too diffuse for that it becomes the basic building blocks for the influence nets. And that in turn is crucial to breaking the networks.
Also critical is cooperation among the nations fighting al-Qaida, whether they be European, Arabic, other Islamic or otherwise. France, for example, has been America's most effective partner in counterterrorism, according to several U.S. officials in spite of disagreements over the war with Iraq. "We have a very, very good relationship and very good cooperation between United States and France in intelligence as well as law enforcement, you know," said Jean Louis Brugiere, France's chief counterterrorism judge, who describes the United States as his "best partner." "Even before Sept. 11 and of course after, we have reinforced this cooperation."
But Brugiere also admits that Iraq remains a major, if not the major problem now for the United States in combating terrorism. "We think the level of threat is very high right now," he declared. "And for many, many reasons, but especially Iraq. The problem has a direct law of attraction for the loose conglomeration of Islamic cells and groups scattered in Europe."
The CIA has a new name as well for the Iraqi effect on public opinion and terrorist recruiting in Islamic nations: "bleed back." This unartistic term is meant to capture the anger Muslims, particularly young Muslims, have about the war in Iraq and the United States. Goss, a Bush appointee, admitted as much in recent Senate Intelligence Committee testimony, saying, "Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries."
Is bin Laden likely to have been upset by this turn of events? No, says a senior U.S. intelligence analyst. "It was his plan all along to have al-Qaida as a base of broader operations. Al-Qaida, after all, means 'the base.'"
Al-Qaida's evolution began in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, according to several Western intelligence and counterterrorism officials. Al-Qaida first realized that it had underestimated the attack's chances for success. "They didn't expect the buildings to come down," said a U.S. analyst. "They didn't anticipate the economic effects." Moreover, he says, most of al-Qaida's leadership did not expect the U.S. response to be as fulsome and as effective as it was. "They had seen what we had done in Beirut and Mogadishu. We pulled out. They expected that at worst, we would go into Afghanistan, where they would bleed us as they had the Soviets."
But things moved too quickly. As the Taliban regime collapsed, bin Laden made a tactical decision that would ultimately result in a strategic change in direction. The leadership of the group was sent to Pakistani cities to hide. The management was sent to Iran. Cells around the world found themselves trying to get direction from both centers.
Al-Qaida leaders suddenly found themselves bundled onto a CIA Gulfstream V or Boeing 737 jet headed for long months of interrogation. Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaida's "dean of students," who directed training and placement for the group, was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in February 2002, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, the organizer of the Hamburg, Germany, cell that formed the core of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, on the first anniversary of the attacks, leading ultimately to the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of Sept. 11 and the financier of the first World Trade Center attack, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in March 2003 and Tawfiq Attash Kallad, the mastermind of the USS Cole attack, a month later in Karachi.
In the midst of this, says Spanish counterterrorism judge Baltasar Garzon, al-Qaida convened a strategic summit in northern Iran in November 2002. Without bin Laden present, but with many of the top leaders, the group's "shura," or consultative council, met secretly to decide how to operate within the new restraints and confinements. Leading the discussion was a Syrian, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar. He looked unlike most Arabs, being fair-skinned and red-haired, and carried a Spanish passport, having married a Spanish woman in 1987. Setmariam Nasar, derisively called a "pen jihadist" by some at the CIA but a "strategist" by Spanish counterterrorism officials, said it was time for al-Qaida to carry out the February 1998 fatwa bin Laden wrote and transmitted widely across the Arab and Muslim world. "He told the shura that al-Qaida could no longer exist as a hierarchy, an organization, but instead would have to become a network and move its operations out over the entire world," said Garzon, the prosecuting judge who investigated the role of Spanish citizens in Sept. 11 as well as the Madrid attacks. "He pointed to the Feb. 23, 1998, fatwa for inspiration."
The 1998 fatwa was in the words of the 9/11 commission "a declaration of war" on the United States. But more important, in the context of Setmariam Nasar's argument, it set down the parameters of what the new al-Qaida needed. It was signed by bin Laden and Zawahiri, as well as the leader of another Egyptian terrorist group and Bangladeshi and Pakistani terrorists. In the document, bin Laden called for a worldwide jihad on Americans, whether man, woman or child, military or civilian. Killing Americans became an individual duty of all Muslims everywhere, he wrote. "We with Allah's help call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it," bin Laden declared. "We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson."
The fatwa, with its call for individual, not organizational, responsibility, should be the driving force behind the new al-Qaida, it was decided. Al-Qaida had provided $80,000 to Indonesian terrorists to carry out the Bali nightclub bombings in Indonesia the month before. Now, a similar amount would be sent to Turkish terrorists who went after British and Jewish targets in two Istanbul attacks a year later. Other experienced fighters, working without orders from al-Qaida Central, planned and carried out al-Qaida-style multiple, simultaneous attacks on Western targets in Casablanca, killing 33 in May 2003. That attack, in turn, became the inspiration, again without direction from al-Qaida leaders, for the Madrid attack 10 months later.
It also did its best to help the remnants of the Taliban regain Afghanistan, as one U.S. counterterrorism official noted. "Home base is still very important for them." Top al-Qaida leaders operated in small cells, attacking Afghan National Army and U.S. troops. Abu Laith al Libbi and Abu Hadi al Iraqi, two top bin Laden lieutenants, have been seen in recent months in Afghan combat videos distributed to Arab satellite TV channels to emphasize its importance.
Another home base is Saudi Arabia. British intelligence picked up a lively debate between "al-Qaida in south Waziristan [Pakistan] and al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia" on the value of carrying out attacks on bin Laden's native land, said a senior British counterterrorism official. "Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia feared attacks would foul their own nest and that the Saudi government would react aggressively," said the official. Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia lost the debate, and attacks against Western and Saudi targets began in Riyadh in May. The predicted response quickly followed, and al-Qaida lost most of its top leadership in Saudi Arabia and, more important, others who were responsible for bombings elsewhere. In April 2005, Saudi officials discovered among the bodies of those killed in a shootout with their security forces the remains of Karim al Mojjati, the mastermind of the Casablanca attacks.
But the biggest success of the new strategy has been in Iraq. Abu Musab al Zarqawi has created a mini-al-Qaida using all the hallmarks of bin Laden's operations: the preference for multiple, simultaneous attacks, often using suicide bombers; high body counts; assassinations of "collaborators"; disregard for distinctions between military and civilian targets. After initially failing to make the connections with Zarqawi in the months after the November 2002 shura, al-Qaida succeeded in early 2004, leading to eight months of negotiations and then in October 2004, Zarqawi's "announcement of good tidings" his alliance with bin Laden.
"There have been contacts between Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may Allah protect him with the brothers in al-Qaida for 8 months. After an [initial] exchange of viewpoints took place, a catastrophic dispute occurred," said the statement, sounding much like a diplomatic discussion of an exchange of frank and candid views. "However, Allah has been benevolent to us in resuming those contacts, and now our noble brothers from Al-Qaida understand the strategy of the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement in Mesopotamia - and their hearts are pleased by the methods we have used." Bin Laden, he said, was his "commander." He swore "bayat," or personal fealty, to him and added a recruiting pitch to join "the leading unified brigade of the mujahideen."
[What was the catastrophic dispute? U.S. intelligence won't say, but one official hinted at "bad blood" that developed between Zarqawi and, ironically, Setmariam Nasar, the architect of the new al-Qaida. "They don't like each other," said one official.]
Bin Laden was soon providing money and other help to Zarqawi. When Zarqawi left behind communications gear in an escape from American troops six months later, the U.S. military was not surprised to find a bagful of jump drives, small computer drives that can be hidden in shoes or passed by handshakes and yet contain tens of thousands of pages of documents or thousands of maps or hundreds of short videos. They are an al-Qaida trademark. Zarqawi, for two years in the top ranks of terrorists worldwide, was now joining the top leadership of al-Qaida as well. "He is ambitious," said the senior U.S. intelligence analyst. "He wants a presence in the larger Middle East and Europe and he is very good."
What's next if bin Laden is killed or, less likely, captured? Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's No. 2, is his designated successor, but he too appears to be out of the operational loop. Other top leaders, Abu Laith al Libbi or Abu Hadi, who brokered the deal with Zarqawi, might step up. Al-Qaida as an entity might morph further, with its leadership shifting to Zarqawi and its base of operations to Iraq. Jemaah Islamiya, the Indonesian group, might rise to be the main Islamic terrorist group. Most intelligence services see it as the most dangerous group after al-Qaida or the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. "We are also starting to see al-Qaida operations in West Africa, particularly Nigeria, among indigenous Muslims in South Africa, and in Western Europe. The record shows that the recruits for al-Qaida in Western Europe are not immigrants but among second and third generation, like those captured in Britain and those captured in Spain.
Cressey also believes the next attack on the United States may come not from a central al-Qaida plan, but one formed by those who are fighting U.S. troops in Iraq. "One of the greatest unintended consequences of the war is the development of the new generation of jihadis who have developed their training inside Iraq," he said. "And [they] are now looking for new targets. So as this new cadre grows and becomes more capable, they may look at the United States as the next target for them. So we're not going to know the answer to that question for several years. But they could become a very important threat to us."
No matter what, however, said the senior U.S. intelligence official, "al-Qaida the group is in decline, but al-Qaida the movement the like-mindeds and affiliates is on the rise. The lines crossed that morning in Madrid. Everything changed that day. Whether we can stop the movement is something that is beyond our military or intelligence capabilities, and we are at the beginning. This struggle will be with us for a generation or more."
This article starring:
ABU FARRAJ AL LIBI
al-Qaeda
ABU HADI AL IRAQI
al-Qaeda
ABU LAITH AL LIBI
al-Qaeda
ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI
al-Qaeda
ABU ZUBAIDAH
al-Qaeda
AIMAN AL ZAWAHIRI
al-Qaeda
Jean Louis Brugiere, France's chief counterterrorism judge
KARIM AL MOJJATI
al-Qaeda
KHALID SHEIK MOHAMED
al-Qaeda
MUSTAFA SETMARIAM NASAR
al-Qaeda
Phil Mudd, the deputy director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center
Porter Goss, the CIA director
RAMZI BIN AL SHIBH
al-Qaeda
Roger Cressey
Spanish counterterrorism judge Baltasar Garzon
TAWFIQ ATTASH KALLAD
al-Qaeda
Jemaah Islamiya
Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/23/2005 12:13 ||
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So instead of a formal planner and his executioners, what they are is drinking buddies and a couple of ideas drawn on bar napkins?
#2
if it becomes decentralized and diffuse, then they CANT plan grand strategy, focus resources where they can do the most damage, etc. They just do there own thing wherever they are, wherever their impulses move them to go. Its like replacing a fight against Gambino family, with a fight against muggers. The muggers will always be an annoyance, and will always soak up resources, but wont threaten to take over society (well not that the mafia really threatened that, but you get the idea)
Money from the sale of stolen artifacts in Iraq is being used to fund terrorists there, the director of Iraq's National Museum (search) said Thursday.
Donny George told cultural experts at a UNESCO (search) meeting that 15,000 objects had been stolen from the museum and only 4,000 had been returned.
"Rich people are buying stolen material. ... Money is going to Iraq and they're buying weapons to use against Iraqi police and U.S. forces," George said during a meeting to assess the state of Iraq's cultural heritage.
Experts at the meeting said it was impossible to assess the scale of theft from archaeological sites outside Baghdad (search).
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/23/2005 12:09 ||
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Omar,
How much can we get for this painting of camels playing poker?
#3
Gee whiz, you mean the looting of Baghdad wasn't due to the negligence of US war planners, but was instead part of a systematic plan by the Former Regime Elements? Who'd a thunk it?
June 22, 2005--A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 20% of Americans believe prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been treated unfairly. Seven-out-of-ten adults believe the prisoners are being treated "better than they deserve" (36%) or "about right" (34%).
The survey also found that just 14% agree with people who say that prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay is similar to Nazi tactics. Sixty-nine percent disagree with that comparison. This helps explain why Illinois Senator Dick Durbin apologized for making such a comparison.
Partisan differences concerning prisoner treatment are huge. Only 7% of Republicans believe Guantanamo prisoners are treated unfairly. Thirty percent (30%) of Democrats hold that view along with 22% of those not affiliated with either major party.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Republicans say the prisoners are treated better than they deserve. That view is shared by 28% of Democrats.
Seventeen percent (17%) of men say that the prisoners are treated unfairly along with 22% of women. Eighteen percent (18%) of married Americans hold that view along with 22% of those who are not married.
Among white Americans, 18% believe the prisoners are treated unfairly, a view shared by 23% of other Americans.
HAHA! F00k you dems and your worthless propaganda! It ain't working!
More weird logic from Strategypage:
June 23, 2005: Actually, there is no al Qaeda operating in Iraq. There are two Islamic terrorist organizations in Iraq, largely composed of foreigners, that have pledged their allegiance to al Qaeda, and several smaller ones that have not.
Ok, if they have pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, and they are in Iraq, doesn't that mean al-Qaeda is in Iraq? What do you want them to do, show you their secret handshake?
The largest Islamic terrorist operation in Iraq is Jamaat Al-Tawhid Waal-Jihad (JTJ), which is run by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and is otherwise known as the al Zarqawi network, or "al Qaeda in Iraq." There are only a few hundred active members of JTJ, at any one time. Casualties have been high, but there are plenty of foreign volunteers, coming mostly from Saudi Arabia, and moving in across the Syrian border.
Zarqawi is a 39 year old Jordanian, who went to fight the Russians in Afghanistan during the 1980s. He came home in the late 1980s, plotted to overthrow the monarchy, got arrested and spent seven years in jail. In 2000, he went back to Afghanistan, which was now being run by the Taliban. There, Zarqawi hooked up with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Zarqawi was running a terrorist training camp in Herat when American cruise missiles hit the place in October, 2001, injuring one of his legs. Zarqawi fled to Iran, and by May, 2002, was in Iraq, where his leg was amputated. Zarqawi went to northern Iraq, and worked with the newly formed Ansar al Islam. He also helped plan the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan in late 2002. Zarqawi was still in northern Iraq when Kurdish troops, and American Special Forces, attacked the Ansar camps in early 2003, Zarqawi fled to Iran, and then showed up in southern Iraq again. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Zarqawi gathered the foreign Islamic militants hiding out in Iraq, many of them al Qaeda trained, and formed JTJ. Aided by Sunni Arab nationalists, who refused to give up, JTJ began carrying out terrorist attacks. The first notable one was the August 19, 2003 car bomb attack against the UN headquarters in Baghdad. More attacks followed, along with videos showing Zarqawi, and other terrorists, beheading captives.
The other major terrorist operation in Iraq is Ansar al Islam. This outfit was formed in September, 2001, by merging several smaller Islamic radical organizations and taking control of several Kurdish villages in northern Iraq, on the Iranian border, and began imposing strict Islamic law on the inhabitants. Ansar wanted to turn Kurdish areas in northern Iraq and western Turkey into an Islamic republic. Ansar had some 700 armed members in that area, and Iran allowed them to receive supplies from the Iranian side of the border. Saddam Hussein also provided weapons and money. This was an odd arrangement, but Ansar al Islam served the needs both of Iran and Saddam, for Ansar was making life difficult for the Kurds up north, who had been independent, under the protection of American and British warplanes, for the last ten years. Both Iraq and Iran were opposed to independence minded Kurds, and had cooperated in the past against the Kurds. Ansar al Islam gets some of its recruits, and money, from among the million Kurds living in Europe.
Just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Kurds up north attacked the Ansar held villages and drove the surviving Ansar members into Iran. Over the next year, Ansar al Islam members sneaked back into northern Iraq, and began carrying out terrorist attacks. Ansar has been far less active than JTJ, because fewer Kurds are Islamic conservatives, and even fewer are willing to support terrorism. By early 2004, both JTJ and Ansar had made deals with Sunni Arabs, who wanted to regain power in Iraq. The Sunni Arabs would supply money, weapons and technical support. JTJ and Ansar would carry out terrorists attacks (mainly suicide bombings) against Americans and the new Iraqi government. Meanwhile, Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. This appears to be mainly for propaganda purposes, to steal some of bin Ladens popularity in the Moslem world. Zarqawi's goal appears to be establishing an Islamic republic throughout the Arab world. Ansar wants to do the same thing among the Kurds.
By late 2004, the Islamic terrorists and their Sunni Arab supporters began to argue over strategy. The Sunni Arabs wanted fewer suicide bombings that killed Iraqi civilians. These deaths were making the Sunni Arab "insurgency" against "American occupation" unpopular with Iraqis. JTJ and Ansar are on a mission from God, so they rejected these Sunni Arab complaints. By early 2005, Islamic terrorists and Sunni Arab gunmen were seen shooting at each other, although Sunni Arab support for JTJ was still being provided. There were many Sunni Arab factions, and not all of them were ready to go to war with JTJ over the violence.
By the Summer of 2005, more and more Sunni Arab factions were turning against the Islamic terrorists. Ansar al Islam was under continued pressure up north, But the terror attacks continued, and would go on as long as some of the Sunni Arabs provided shelter and support for the JTJ terrorist bombing teams, and the foreign volunteers continued to get into the country.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 09:15 ||
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Too bad we can't attack the one and blame the other... Or the next best thing, which is to play up the terr-on-terr violence.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2005 9:52 Comments ||
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Don't they call themselves "al'Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers"?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
06/23/2005 9:57 Comments ||
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It's a good article. I can't tell if the author wants a sensational headline to grab attention, or if it satisfies some sort mental gymnastics regarding previous claims that Saddam wasn't supporting "al-Qaeda". Or maybe it's just a technical wot purist kind of thing.
Regardless, it is still an interesting read and shows how successful the WOT has been against the Muslim extremists, no matter how you want to define them.
Cameroon has accused Nigeria of launching a series of attacks in the disputed oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. One Cameroon soldier was killed, another wounded and "material damage" caused by the four attacks this month, a government statement said. Nigeria has denied the claims, saying the clashes involved local heavily armed fishermen. The International Court of Justice has awarded the peninsula to Cameroon, but Nigerian forces did not withdraw, as planned last September. Cameroon President Paul Biya on Monday received an envoy from Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, who handed him a sealed message.
"Dear Paul. I'm keeping the land. Regards to the wife. Olusegun."
Mr Biya is set to lodge a formal complaint with the United Nations, the statement said. "The brutal and unilateral nature of the attacks and provocations by the Nigerian army obliged the Cameroonian army, in a situation of legitimate self-defence, to riposte," it said. Most of the inhabitants of Bakassi are Nigerian and do not want the handover to take place. Some have asked the courts to prevent the Nigerian government from giving Bakassi to Cameroon. The two countries began marking out their common border earlier this year. Bakassi juts into the Gulf of Guinea - which it is thought could contain up to 10% of the world's oil and gas reserves - south of the border between the two countries. It is also rich in fish.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 08:25 ||
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Dear Paul,
Nigeria has had the good fortune of receiving the entire country of Gabon, complete with its oil industry. For complex legal reasons, we are unable to keep it, and would like to hand it over to Cameroun. However in order to do so, you must pass sovereingty over the Cameroun to our lawyer, whose address in Lagos is included below. We assure you this will be only temporary.
Your name was given to me from a mutual business acquaintence who assured me that you would deal with the proposition I have with the utmost confidence. I have vouchers for delivery of 50 million barrels of Nigerian oil that I am unable to negotiate directly because of the current media situation It is imperative that I sell these now while the market is hot. If you will assist in procesing this transaction you may retain 10% of the gross proceeds. 10% will also go to Obasanjo, who will be allowed to take over the rest of your country if you do not cooperate. If you are interested in this opportunity, please reply to me at United Nations Procurement Service, 304 East 45th Street, FF Building, 2nd Floor, New York, New York.
Your humble servant,
Kojo
Posted by: Kojo Annan ||
06/23/2005 14:55 Comments ||
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Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said on Wednesday that instead of talking to the media, former US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad should have shared information on Osama and Mulla Omar with Pakistan.
Maybe he didn't want it to get out?
Sherpao told reporters, "There is a tripartite forum where such information can be shared." Sherpao also said Afghanistan had not officially given Pakistan any details about the three suspects it claimed were Pakistanis who planned to assassinate Zalmay Khalilzad.
"Nope. Nothing official. If it don't come through official channels we can't look at it, y'know..."
Separately, Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Safdar Hussain ruled out the organised movement of militants into Afghanistan, saying Khalilzad's statement about infiltration from Pakistan was 'baseless'.
"Oh, yasss! Really, it's quite disorganized!"
Talking to reporters on Wednesday, Gen Safdar said the border was well checked to stop "illegal crossing" into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2005 00:00 ||
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Was this guy separated at birth from Peter Sellers?
Pakistan will free 17 of its nationals who have been in detention since their repatriation from the US Guantanamo Bay detention centre nearly one year ago, officials said on Wednesday.
"They've suffered enough..."
After their release next week the government also intends to free some 210 Pakistanis from jails in the central Punjab province who were returned from Afghanistan in batches last year, said the officials. "We have decided to release all these prisoners after securing surety bonds on good behaviour from their families," said Religious Affairs Adviser Tahir Ashrafi, adding, "Surety bonds are being furnished to make sure that these people would not be involved in any violence in the country."
I feel so much more secure now. I'm still trying to figure out why the Religious Affairs Advisor's in on it, since as we've been told many times terrorism has nothing to do with Islam...
Hundreds of Pakistanis were arrested in Afghanistan after the collapse of Taliban regime and nearly 600 have returned home since 2003. The US has also released the bulk of some 60 Pakistanis who were kept as "enemy combatants".
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2005 00:00 ||
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Well of course terrorism does have plenty to do with Allenism. Why else would Religious Affairs Adviser Tahir Ashrafi be saying anything at all?
#2
Does anyone have a clue what a "surety bond" is? Is it a Pak thing? Is it like bail, but using your little sister a collateral? Or is it a little-used Islamic thing, like real bail?
#3
Does anyone have a clue what a "surety bond" is?
"Do you promise not to get caught doing violence?"
"Sure"
"Ok, you're free to go"
Posted by: Steve ||
06/23/2005 8:16 Comments ||
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"I feel so much more secure now. I'm still trying to figure out why the Religious Affairs Advisor's in on it, "
probably cause they were all Madrassah "students" (i use the scare quotes honestly, i really dont know how many, if any were or were not genuine students)
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2005 00:00 ||
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The rare unmolested protest occurred two days after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Egypt and called for the Mubarak government to allow his opposition freedom of expression.
Police remained in their trucks Wednesday, out of sight, while more than 300 hundred protesters, shouting "Down with Mubarak," walked for two hours down a main street of the crowded working-class district of Shoubra.
A group of fewer than 100 Mubarak supporters nearby shouted back, "Gamal tell your father 70 million Egyptians love you." Some took their shoes off, a sign of contempt, and made obscene gestures. There was no violence.
A nice little sign of weakness on Mubarek's part. Although 400 people total isn't much in a neighborhood of 7 million.
Iraq will begin restoring full diplomatic relations with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, officials said Wednesday — ending more than a decade of frozen ties with its Arab neighbors. Many Arab countries withdrew their ambassadors from Iraq shortly after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, causing a deep rift between Iraq and its neighbors. Iraqi Prime Minster Ibrahim al-Jaafari, speaking at an international conference on his nation's reconstruction, urged other countries to upgrade their ties.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2005 00:00 ||
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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.
Afghanistan is still home to terrorist-training camps and U.S.-led forces there are currently ineffective in battling insurgents, Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying on Thursday. "We are seriously worried that bases for preparing terrorists are currently functioning on Afghan territory, including with the direct involvement of certain (foreign) spy services," local news agencies quoted him as saying.
North Korea's ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and it would have no use for nuclear weapons if the United States were friendly, Pyongyang's top delegate to inter-Korean talks said Wednesday. "The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the last will of (the late North Korean) president 
The United States said Wednesday it was donating 50,000 tonnes of food aid to North Korea, but denied it was bait to lure Kim Jong-Il's regime back to stalled nuclear crisis talks. The new donation came in response to a World Food Program (WFP) warning that a new crisis could be looming similar to the famine which devastated North Korea in the 1990s. "The United States will be donating, in response to the WFP appeal, 50,000 metric tonnes of agricultural commodities for North Korea," said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.
An upcoming report claims the Pentagon violated medical ethics by using military doctors as part of the interrogation of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. 
Congressional Democrats are engaged in a "growing pattern" of demoralizing American troops, according to House Republican leaders who Wednesday showed no willingness to let the controversial comments of Illinois Sen. 
Pryce was reacting to recent comments made by Durbin, the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, about the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Durbin initially compared the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the way Nazis, the Stalin-led Soviet Union and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia handled prisoners. Following much criticism, including from members of his own party, Durbin apologized on the floor of the Senate Tuesday. Wednesday, Pryce slammed both Durbin and House Minority Leader 
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney told an Arab newspaper Thursday that Washington did not see the Iraq model as being applicable in Syria. The United Arab Emirates' al-Khaleej daily quoted Cheney as saying the United States was interested in supporting the "forces that work for democracy inside Syria." She told the pro-government daily there were "restrictions on our movements to finance the Syrian opposition" due to U.S. sanctions on the country, but said the State Department continues to meet with Syrian opposition leaders. She said that Washington presented a "clear list of demands" to Damascus and accused Syria of "supporting terrorism." The U.S. official called on Syria to close its airport to Iranian support for the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group. She also said Washington did not believe a civil war would erupt in Lebanon as a result of a series of assassinations of political leaders there.
Syria's state-run radio yesterday lashed out at US accusations of Syrian involvement in a Lebanese politician's murder and said Washington's designs to reshape the Middle East were no longer a secret. "The American-Israeli objective is no longer a secret," said Damascus Radio. "All the countries and peoples, Arabs and foreigners, have found out the scope of the plan drawn up for the region," it said. "The statements made by US officials, especially those of (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice making accusations against Syria ... no longer fool anyone," the radio said in its daily commentary. The United States angrily linked Syria's "long and continued presence" in Lebanon to the killing of George Hawi in a Beirut bomb blast on Tuesday. Damascus Radio said "the plan which was launched with the US war in Iraq is continuing today in Lebanon. The US-Israeli aim is to provoke trouble and sow discord among the Arabs, especially Syria and Lebanon."
The International Court of Justice has awarded the peninsula to Cameroon, but Nigerian forces did not withdraw, as planned last September. Cameroon President Paul Biya on Monday received an envoy from Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, who handed him a sealed message. 
Interior Minister 
Pakistan will free 17 of its nationals who have been in detention since their repatriation from the US Guantanamo Bay detention centre nearly one year ago, officials said on Wednesday. 
