Al-Sibaâi: The term âciviliansâ does not exist in Islamic religious law. Dr. Karmi is sitting here, and I am sitting here, and Iâm familiar with religious law. There is no such term as âciviliansâ in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar Al-Harb or not.
Then I guess when the west is finally forced to immolate a couple of your cities, you won't start crying about all the "innocent civilians" that got turned into radioactive ash, huh? Asshole. Dangerous asshole.
#1
This is from Reason.
Adel Smith, president of the Union of Italian Muslims, should know Italy has a law against vilifying religion. He has pressed charges against journalist Oriana Fallaci for her criticism of Islam. But Smith himself recently was sentenced to six months in prison, converted to a 6,000-euro fine, after calling the Roman Catholic Church a "criminal association" and calling Pope John Paul II an "able double crosser." He calls the sentence "political" and vows to appeal.
They want to be able to denigrate others but don't want the same laws applied to them. They are hopeless.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/12/2005 12:01 Comments ||
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#5
Two previous attempts by the Labor government to get the law passed since 2002 failed,..
Seems to me two failures would be reason enough not to even bother with it a third time. Unless, of course, the idea is to keep trying over and over until it passes.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 15:45 Comments ||
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#7
So would simply quoting passages from the Koran and other Islamic 'holy books' in order to show that Mohammand was a pedophile, liar, murderer, rapist, thief, robber, etc... be considered a 'hate crime'?
Would 'revealing' advertisments (i.e. victoria secret, Sports illustrated Swimsuit issue, etc..) be considered a hate crime?
#8
CF, I believe that in a recent trial in Australia the Judge would not allow the Prosecution to read passages fro The Book of Hate and Murder because he thought it would prejudice the Jury against the Muslim Defendant. These people go around with their fingers in their ears singing "A Foggy Day" so as to not hear what Islam is actually about.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/12/2005 16:32 Comments ||
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LONDON (AP) - The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday lifted an order barring personnel from visiting London because of safety fears following last week's bombings, a directive that had caused some indignation in the city after it was reported by a newspaper. The order had applied to Navy personnel as well as the 10,000 Air Force personnel at two major bases in eastern England; the Navy rescinded the order earlier, David Johnson, the embassy's charge d'affaires, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
In contrast, British officials urged Londoners after Thursday's subway and bus bombings to get on with their lives and not let themselves be overcome by fear. The Daily Mail newspaper said in an editorial: "We trust the 4 million Americans who come to London each year are made of sterner stuff than the U.S. Air Force." Ouch
The order had applied to the area inside the M25 highway encircling London, but travel on official business was permitted, said Matt Tulis, a spokesman at the Mildenhall Air Force base. "The main reason is for the security and safety of our military folks," he said. Staff Sgt. Jeff Hamm at Lakenheath said the Air Force wanted to "ensure its personnel are as vigilant and as safe as possible." "While it's important for some to carry on business as usual, the interests in keeping the Air Force out of harm's way until we have a bit more knowledge about what has happened is greater than the need to send them back into the city," Hamm said.
Reid told BBC radio that the original decision was "perfectly sensible."
He noted that the first call he received following confirmation of the attack was from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld offering "all possible assistance including people coming to London, and some people have done that." "So it isn't the case that Americans are somehow running away from this," Reid said.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 09:23 ||
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#1
"While it's important for some to carry on business as usual, the interests in keeping the Air Force out of harm's way...
Something the Air Force has specialized in since its inception. ;P
#2
Yeah, we send out the officers to fight, and keep the NCOs at home where they belong! (OK, do I really need the "seriously pulling your inter-service leg" tags here?)
#3
Pappy, I agree that we blue suiters don't go out of our way to be in danger, it's just common sense to stay away from an area that was just targeted by the bad guys. Would be a dream come true if the Jihadis could take a few off-duty servicemen into Valhalah with himself.
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers". The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments". Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say.
How does he talk with all that meal in his mouth? I'd say "terrorist" carries the meaning of four bombings of civilian targets in downtown London pretty daggone well, myself, regardless of the associated emotional and value judgments. Sometimes emotional and value judgments are valid.
Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of "institutionalised political correctness" in its coverage of British Muslims. A BBC spokesman said last night: "The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC."
"We sent it out for cleaning. It'll be ready again Thursday."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 00:38 ||
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#1
A BBC spokesman said last night: "The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC."
"Why just last week we used it in a story about the Israelis..."
#2
Do what I would do given the chance use phyical violence on any and all BBC employess. They don't get it. Islamo-fascism is not equal to or part of western civilization. Terrorists are terrorists, killers are killers, no excuses you bloody handed wankers.
#4
The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".
One would think the vicious slaughter of scores of innocent people-- and the wounding and maiming of hundreds-- by Muslim fanatics whose stated ambition is taking over our society and ruling us with shariah would be something about which anyone with a functioning brain could easily make a "value judgement": it's terrorism; it's murder; it's an act of unmitigated, absolute, pure evil.
This is cowardice. It is moral anesthesia and ethical abdication, and if we do not root it out we will never be able to defend ourselves against the evil of totalitarian Islam.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/12/2005 5:53 Comments ||
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#5
Isn't continued funding of tbe Beeb a 'value judgement'? Certainly don't want to make one now do we?
#6
accused him of political correctness? Give me an F'n break!!
We are we going to take bit closer look at the BBC? CNN was forced to admit they looked the other way in Baghdad - Jordan did it right after the fall of Baghdad, cause he knew one the files were opened, CNN would be exposed.
Has anyone ever looked at the bank accounts of BBC high ups, or who figured out who is paying the sexy beautiful women to tell the bureau chiefs they are hot? This has gone so far beyond political correctness. This is blatant propaganda. We need to start asking what the people at the BBC are getting in return and making it public knowledge.
#7
This is cowardice. It is moral anesthesia and ethical abdication, and if we do not root it out we will never be able to defend ourselves against the evil of totalitarian Islam.
That's it in a nutshell, Dave D. This is a war in which the home front morale, which is constantly being undermined by the MSM, is the most vulnerable point of our defense. And instead of trying to help plug the dike, the BBC et al are having at it with jackhammers and bulldozers.
Via Wretchard:
"the father of an Afghan Special Forces soldier wrote privately to say:
Mr. Bin Laden did not miscalculate, not if his calculation was based on things other than the professionalism of the US combat soldier. Neither the west's elected officials nor many of its citizens may be counted on to hold when all about them is falling apart. However, the US - and for that matter Australian - combat soldier is another matter entirely. During a phone conversation this weekend, my son noted a Navy SEAL has never surrendered. It will reassure him that such is still the case.
There was, in this deeply moving private email, the unstated fear that national leadership might not keep the faith -- or as Michael Ledeen suggests -- be imprisoned by myopia -- the tyranny of the soundbite, the goad of the public fixation du jour. The Jihad after all, does not seem similarly vulnerable to the vacillations of their leadership. Even if Osama Bin Laden were arrested today or were he to convert to evangelical Christianity the Jihad would be unlikely to die down. He could not "sell out" his cause in the same sense that Spain's Prime Minister Zapatero could."
And there you have it. All the bravery and sacrafice on the battlefront will count for nothing if the soldiers are undercut by a lethal combination of enemy-sympathist MSM coupled with clueless and/or spineless leadership.
#9
So the BBC does not think they are terrorists - they must think that the innocent people who were deliberately targetted and murdered weren't 'innocent' but somehow responsible....
#14
interesting that the concept of "terrorist" even occured to the writer, originally, in this report. It would never have dawned on that same bbc writer, if s/he were describing pali bombings of Israelis. In that case, it's "militants".....or, more despicably, "freedom fighters."
British investigators believe that the 10-pound bombs used in the coordinated terrorist attacks here contained "military quality" high-grade explosives, British and European counterterrorism officials said Monday.
Investigators said they still did not know whether the explosives contained plastic materials, or were made some other way. But they said the material used in the bombs was similar to the kind manufactured for military use or made for highly technical commercial purposes, such as dynamite used for precision explosions to demolish buildings or in mining.
Because of the small size of the bombs, some investigators initially said last week that they were relatively crude.
On Monday, a senior European-based counterterrorism official with access to intelligence reports said the new information on the material indicated that the bombs were "technically advanced." The official added: "There seems to be a mastery of the method of doing explosions. This was not rudimentary. It required great organization and was well put together."
Counterterrorism and law enforcement officials interviewed for this article said they would only speak on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the investigation. They said it was still unclear whether the attacks were carried out by local terrorists, a group from outside Britain or a combination of the two.
The quality of the explosives has led many investigators to theorize that the bombs were assembled by at least one technically savvy bomb maker, who might have come to Britain to build the devices for use by a local "sleeper cell," officials said.
"People assume you can look up a bomb-making design on the Internet and put one together without any training," said one senior counter terrorism official based in Europe. "But it's not that simple or easy."
Investigators say determining the physical origin of the explosives is crucial to helping them determine the origin of the bombs that tore apart three trains in the London Underground and the No. 30 bus in central London during the morning rush hour last Thursday. It was the worst terrorist attack in Britain since World War II.
British intelligence officials have asked their counterparts elsewhere in Europe to scour military stockpiles and commercial sites for missing explosives, three senior European-based intelligence officials said.
Senior counterterrorism officials are concerned that the cell that exploded the bombs might have a stockpile of more explosive material and could strike again, in Britain or in another European country.
"I really pity my British colleagues," a senior European intelligence official said. "It's a very difficult situation. Every hour that passes diminishes the probability to catch those people and increases the chances that this cell might try to strike again."
Britain's terrorism alert was raised immediately after the attacks to "severe specific," the second-highest level overall, and the highest that it has been since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. It has remained at that level since then, reflecting the continuing anxiety of the police and intelligence officials here that another attack may occur in London.
In the attack on commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, the industrial dynamite used for the bombs had been stolen from a quarry in northern Spain.
A month after the attack, investigators found the terrorist cell that was responsible. But the men blew themselves up in an apartment before the police moved in. Spanish officials said the members of the cell had obtained 230 kilograms (506 pounds) of Goma 2 Eco dynamite, and had intended to build more bombs for additional attacks.
A follow-up investigation last year determined that the police in Spain were informed in early 2003 that someone in northern Spain had been trying to sell a large quantity of explosives, but that the police had not done anything with the tip.
On Saturday, Andy Hayman, who is in charge of Scotland Yard's antiterrorism unit, announced that the four bombs set off in London each contained less than 10 pounds, or 4.5 kilograms, of explosive material. Mr. Hayman said that investigators had determined by the shape of the twisted metal that the bombs had most likely been placed on the floor of the trains, near doorways. He said it was unclear whether the bomb on the bus was on the floor or on a seat.
British investigators believe the London bombs were equipped with timers, but they have not determined if the bombs were set off by synchronized alarms on cellphones or some other timing device, officials said.
Initially, investigators contended that the bombs, outfitted with timers, had gone off at different times; they thought 26 minutes separated the first bomb to explode in the Underground from the third bomb. On Friday, some investigators said that they believed the bombs were crude devices, possibly even homemade.
But on Saturday, Scotland Yard said that a reassessment showed that the three bombs in the Underground blew up within 50 seconds, about 8:50 a.m. The synchronized explosions suggested that the plan might have been more sophisticated than investigators initially believed. Police officials also announced Saturday that the bombs were "high explosives," but they declined to elaborate.
Now, senior British and other European investigators say they are convinced that the cell responsible for the bombings had executed a well-thought-out plan. One official said the cell's attack plan was "highly sophisticated" and "meticulously planned."
Investigators said they had reached their conclusion in part because the devices were powerful enough to blow apart several coaches of the trains and rip the roof off a red double-decker bus in central London.
"The only concrete evidence is that these are not homemade," a European-based senior official said. "We don't know if they are civil industrial or military industrial explosives." Britain has one of Europe's best security systems for warehouses containing explosive materials, specialists say.
British investigators are being helped with the slow forensics work by a teams from the United States, Spain and France. But Britain has a lot of experience doing such work.
In the 1990's, the Irish Republican Army used Semtex B, a Czech-made substance that is often nearly impossible to detect. British antiterrorist police discovered that the bombing of London's Canary Wharf district used Semtex B, and it was enough for then to conclude the I.R.A. was behind the bombing.
A Spanish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied a Spanish press report that suggested that 80 pounds of bomb material was still missing from the dynamite used in the Madrid train bombings.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 00:32 ||
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#1
It worked, the wall is up.. here is your Canadian Passport and your wig..
#3
this was not a homemade job. Well duh. 7 bombs going off at precisely the right time in the right place. Unlike other rantburg readers who know lots about this stuff, I know nothing about bombs, but even I knew this was no home made job. And they knew it too, they've been dealing with IRA bombs since the 70's.
I bet you $5 the quotes saying the bombs were homemade were unsourced or from the usual supsects, in order to get out the meme that even if we trounce AQ militarily, there is nothing we can do to stop them. It worked too, the networks have been chomping on that "homegrown" theme like dogs on a bone.
#4
The Times Online has a similar article, but this passage particularly grabbed my attention:
It is understood that the examination of the No 30 bus at Tavistock Square has yielded vital fragments that have sharpened the focus of the police inquiry. Forensic pathologists have been paying particular attention to the remains of two bodies found in the mangled wreckage of the double-decker. A senior police source said: âThere are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it. One of those might turn out to be the bomber.â A decapitated head was found at the bus scene which has been, in Israeli experience, the sign of a suicide bomber.
Posted by: Dar ||
07/12/2005 9:27 Comments ||
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AN Islamic academic who says suicide bombings are justified will preach to young Muslims in London at a conference funded by British taxpayers, The Sun can reveal. Egyptian-born Prof Tariq Ramadan has been banned from the US for endorsing terrorism. France has also barred him.
THE Muslim Brotherhood â founded by Ramadanâs grandfather â has been described as a forerunner of al-Qaeda and Hamas. Set up in Egypt in 1928 it is the worldâs oldest Islamic fundamentalist organisation. Members include Osama Bin Ladenâs deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and hate-filled cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed. Although it describes itself as ânon violentâ, it has spawned radical off-shoots, including al-Qaeda. Its leaders set up the group because of the âsicknessâ they believed was spreading through the Muslim world from the West. To combat this they set up a network of mosques and charities through which their message could be delivered. Their aim was to build up strength and support until they were ready to take on Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood has hundreds of thousands of followers across the Middle East. Its leader in Egypt, Mohammed Mahdi Akef has even warned of continuing violence until all Westerners leave the Middle East. Last year he declared: âThere can be no life for Americans and Zionists in the region.â
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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"Why here and why now?"
Because he wants to gloat in the wake of last week's bombings, and because a significant segment of British society is too irresolute to stop him.
What the hell has happened to Britain??? If Hitler had wanted to visit London during the Blitz to gloat over his handiwork and brag that he intended to bring Britain to its knees, would Britons of that era have wrung their hands with worry, fretting over whether it was "fair" to keep him out???
A civilized nation would shoot Tariq Ramadan on sight. An overcivilized nation not only lets him preach his evil, but pays him to do it with government funds.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/12/2005 6:23 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe we could have some spivs bounce him around, then claim it was "radical christian fundamentalists"...
#3
If you let the guys spew their hate you look like a good guy until finally these guys push things too far and the nations public opinion shifts and the politicans get all the political cover they need to start arresting and expelling people.
It will lead to more casualties, but it's the politically easy thing to do.
July 12, 2005: In Dagestan, next to Chechnya, Islamic terrorists calling themselves the Shariat Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan, said it would now murder the families of policemen, in revenge for the recent killing of their leader, Rasul Makasharipov. While Islamic terrorists are losing ground in Chechnya, where most Chechens are fed up with Islamic radicalism, there are still some enthusiastic Islamic radicals in Dagestan next door. Not many of them, but it only takes a few hundred armed and suicidal men to cause a lot of trouble.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 09:57 ||
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It's been there to varying degrees even before ol nasty pegleg basayev and khattab suffered from accute hydrocephalgia resulting in the attacks that guarantied Chechnya would enjoy an improved repeat of the special version of hell the first Chechen war brought.
A RADICAL Islamic convert with a long criminal history is running a halfway house for freed prisoners and the homeless. Helmut Kirsch, 48, who runs Arden Lodge in North Melbourne, said that ASIO and police suspected he was a terrorist. Kirsch, a former office-holder of the extreme Right-wing National Action, predicted Australia would soon pay a heavy price for its "overseas follies".
"Aaaarrr! You'll pay! You'll pay!"
"They'll deserve every bit of it. Let's hope they get the right people," he said. "I'm convinced change will be brought about in this state. I'd like to think it will be brought about by peaceful means." Kirsch, who was an accessory to murder,
... but it was carried out by peaceful means...
denied he was a terrorist but he thought ASIO believed he was. "When the first bomb explodes in the Melbourne CBD, I'd expect a visit within five minutes," he said. "I don't want to be part of Australia. My sympathies lie with the people of Afghanistan."
Sounds like the kind of fellow who'd really like Pol-i-Charki...
Kirsch claimed to know up to 75 Taliban supporters with Australian passports. "Don't worry about them sneaking in. They don't need to sneak people in," he said. Kirsch, who has more than 70 criminal convictions, was once described in State Parliament as a "social parasite and pariah who preys on vulnerable and at-risk young people". Police reports compiled before a raid on Arden Lodge in July, 2001, detailed their concerns about Kirsch, formerly known as Gregory Middap. "Middap is a violent, dangerous criminal and all intelligence indicates he has a known access to firearms. He is considered a high-risk arrest," the report said.
One of Australiaâs leading Islamic clerics says he doesnât believe Osama bin Laden directed the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes against America or that Muslims were involved in either that attack or last weekâs London bombings. âI dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden. I donât believe that even Sept. 11 ... was done by any Muslim at all, or any other activities,â said Sheik Mohammed Omran, echoing a point of view that has gained wide currency in the Islamic world since the attacks.
Can we whack him now?
Omran, head of the fundamentalist Ahl Sunnah wal Jamaah Association in Melbourne city, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television late Monday that he rejected allegations that bin Laden played a leading role in the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York. âWhen you look at the man (bin Laden), from some part of his life, yes he is (a great man),â Omran said.
"He can admit it on tape all he wants, his minions can admit it, he can preen over it, but we know it wudn't him."
He said he also did not accept that Islamic extremists were responsible for the London train bombings that killed at least 52 people last week. âNo one has proven that any Muslim (was involved),â Omran said. âHow could I believe any Muslim could think to help his religion by doing an evil act like this?â he added.
That was a rhetorical question, of course.
And even when it is proven, when the perps have been rounded up and jugged, he'll still deny it was them.
Omranâs statements drew sharp criticism on Tuesday from Attorney General Philip Ruddock.
"That sucker's crazy!"
âI donât think (Omran) speaks for Muslims generally and I think most Muslims in Australia regard what has happened as inexcusable and quite horrific,â he told ABC Radio. âI think his comments were disingenuous.â
Phil, pull your head out of the sand: Omran pretty much does speak for Muslims until Muslims specifically disavow him.
Ruddock, who is responsible for Australiaâs major spy agency and a raft of new counter-terrorism laws, said most Australian Muslims ârecognize that Osama bin Laden, by his public statements, has made it clear that he is about pursuing terrorist objectives.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
If stupidity was a crime, none of these Muslimutts would be walking our streets.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
07/12/2005 2:57 Comments ||
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#2
And Bill Clinton did NOT commit perjury because he really really believed he was telling the truth when he misled and lied to people, and did not have sex with that woman Monica but did have sex with her dress while she Monica was still wearing it, as honest injun as the Radical Islamists merely, simply, and only politely want America, etal. to get out of the ME so that the Islamists can establish a Global islamic State/Islamic OWG by violence , War andor diplomacy - you know, the USA obeying the UNO and world community whose mandates are NOT to be followed or obeyed if the POTUS is a Democrat!?
#3
That guy is baked. England and Australia must be heavily regretting having let those bastards in by now. How can muslims ever begin to change if they wont even admit they are the ones who did this shit?
Oh, and by the way Omran , you goddamned genius, OBL was on tv talking about how he was involved, bragging even. If someone turns up murdered and you are down at the local bar bragging about how you did it, what do you think would happen? If he didn't do it who did, George Bush?
#4
Can't someone arrange an accident for the Sheik, like slipping a funnelweb spider into his curly toed slippers?
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 8:31 Comments ||
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#5
âHow could I believe any Muslim could think to help his religion by doing an evil act like this?â
The Sheik must have flunked both Muslim History 101 and Koran 200.
Posted by: Neutron Tom ||
07/12/2005 10:16 Comments ||
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#6
Ha! I can do him one better!
Not only did Muslims not commit 9/11. It didn't even happen at all. It was all one of those big David Copperfield TV specials that never got shown.
Thanks to the war in Iraq, much of the world sees the British government as resolute and tough and the French one as appeasing and weak. But in another war, the one against terrorism and radical Islam, the reverse is true: France is the most stalwart nation in the West, even more so than America, while Britain is the most hapless.
British-based terrorists have carried out operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, Russia, Spain, and America. Many governments - Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Spanish, French, and American - have protested London's refusal to shut down its Islamist terrorist infrastructure or extradite wanted operatives. In frustration, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak publicly denounced Britain for "protecting killers." One American security group has called for Britain to be listed as a terrorism-sponsoring state.
Counterterrorism specialists disdain the British. Roger Cressey calls London "easily the most important jihadist hub in Western Europe." Steven Simon dismisses the British capital as "the Star Wars bar scene" of Islamic radicals. More brutally, an intelligence official said of last week's attacks: "The terrorists have come home. It is payback time for ⊠an irresponsible policy."
Harsh, but consider Britain's coddling of Captain Hook and his ilk....
A Saudi dissident exiled in London has warned Italy that it will be the next to be hit after London. "Italy should be very careful, al-Qaeda will strike it soon. Following its strategy, that is the most logical thing it will do," Saad al-Faqih, a surgeon the US believes has helped finance al-Qaeda, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
So the Sooodi surgeon threatens to create bomb victims, whilst the Joooo surgeon works to save their lives ...
"After Spain, Italy was the weakest link in the chain of allies in Iraq," he told the newspaper, pointing out that the country's relations with America have subsequently worsened. "Osama bin Laden will be well aware of that. He follows everything. The murder of your secret service agent in Baghdad [Nicola Calipari, who was shot dead by an American soldier at a checkpoint in March, as he took newly freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena to the airport] certainly won't have passed him by, or the anger of the Milan judge over the illegal kidnapping carried out in your country by the CIA. It could be that these diplomatic differences with Washington have convinced al-Qaeda to strike London before Rome or Milan, but it is only a question of time," he said.
Al-Faqih, a medical doctor who has lived in the British capital for many years, vehemently denies any links with Osama bin Laden's group and his supporters claim he is simply an advocate for peaceful reform in the Saudi kingdom. However, the US has indicated him as a suspected associate of al-Qaeda and has frozen the funds of his group, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA). He describes himself as "only an observer", even though he is said to have crossed paths with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, fighting the Soviets there, alongside the Mujahadeen.
He says he is so sure that Italy will be attacked "from observing al-Qaeda's behaviour and from a knowledge of the Koran. The London bombs are a message to the United Kingdom and the whole of Europe. Osama was explicit immediately after the Madrid attacks. He offered the Old Continent [Europe] a unilateral truce which was completely ignored. Now he has turned to other means of convincing them. Italy should brace itself." Al-Faqih also highlights a saying of the Prophet Muhammad as proof that Italy will be hit, saying, "Osama remembers the words of the Prophet: "You [Muslims] will make a truce with the Romans and will fight a common enemy." There are other versions of the same 'hadis' [a saying of the Prophet]: "You will force the Romans to a truce...". This is exactly what Bin Laden wants: to force Italy to abandon the alliance with America."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 12:42 ||
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"You will force the Romans to a truce...".
Julius Ceasar's been dead now for, what, 2500 years?
If it pans out like he says, this guy oughta be found dead in his garage the next day, with his car running and the door shut...
#2
Funny slipspeak from the dear doctor. Par for the course. I'd offer to help him heal himself. I know a sure cure for his sickness and it is fairly cheap as well as being easily applied.
#3
The Romans old Mo was speaking about were people of the the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire which the Muzzies called Rum. The western part had crumbled 200 years before. Idiot Muzzies don't know any history but the mutterings of Mo.
#4
The Romans need to bring back the old practice of decimation.
Posted by: ed ||
07/12/2005 18:12 Comments ||
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#5
He follows everything. Osama has this super-duper, untrackable satellite-based network and computer system, with advanced anti-porn filters so not even an ankle is seen, built by the leading Islamic high-tech manufacturing company, ACME of Gaza! Get yours now, effendi!
A group calling itself the al-Qaeda of Jihad in Europe has claimed responsibility for the July 7 attacks on the London transport system that left at least 37 dead and hundreds wounded, according to a statement posted on the Internet.
The group called its attacks "a blessed raid", adding: "We have repeatedly warned the British government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid."
The statement warned the governments of Italy and Denmark "and all the crusader governments" that they would be punished if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The attacks may be retaliation for a crackdown by European states, including the United Kingdom, in recent months against Islamic militants.
The attacks are reminiscent of the Madrid train bombings carried out by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group on March 11, 2004 in retaliation for Spain's participation in coalition forces in Iraq. Those attacks left 191 people dead and prompted Spain to pull out of Iraq.
'Homegrown' terrorist networks
The extent of the presence of al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups in Europe has come to light in recent months after a series of arrests and investigations in Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The success of such networks lies in the fact that they are "homegrown", operated by Muslims living in European states who know the terrain and possess European passports that enable them to move easily throughout Europe and the Middle East. A number of jihadi websites supporting al-Qaeda have reportedly boasted about the group's European martyrs in Iraq in recent weeks, and Iraq-based terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has appealed to Muslims in Europe to join al-Qaeda.
Many of the suspected terrorist leaders in Europe gained experience in Afghanistan in the 1990s, while others may be new recruits bent on seeking what they see as justice against the United States and its allies for a whole range of transgressions - be they economic or political - but most notably for the multinational operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Terrorist networks across Europe that were reportedly dormant have been reactivated in the past six months, making Europe a major center for recruiting suicide bombers - ahead of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, London's The Observer reported on June 19.
The report cited unidentified intelligence sources as saying that up to 21 networks were active in Europe, some of which were linked to over 60 groups in North Africa - not surprising since the majority of Muslim immigrants to Europe come from the North African states of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The networks are responsible for training and recruiting volunteers, particularly for jihadi operations in Iraq, the report contended.
A May 17 statement by German Interior Minister Otto Schily cited Islamist extremism and terrorism as the "greatest threat" to national security. Schily cited the 2004 "Protection of the Constitution Report" as saying the number of "members and followers" of Islamist organizations in Germany was 31,800, with the number of "potentially extremist foreigners" in Germany at approximately 57,500. The statement did not allude to the classification guidelines that produced those numbers.
Schily added in his statement that 171 preliminary proceedings had been initiated in Germany against suspected Islamist militants, including one person arrested on January 24 who was suspected of taking part in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan "on several occasions". That person admitted to having been instructed by al-Qaeda to recruit suicide assassins in Europe.
Since December, at least 30 people have been arrested in Germany for their alleged role in Islamist terror networks, including at least six members of Ansar al-Islam, the Iraq-based group that grew into the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which is affiliated with Zarqawi's Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn. Ansar al-Islam's founder and spiritual leader, Mullah Krekar, has been living in Norway since 1991.
Members of Ansar al-Islam-affiliated groups have also been arrested in France in recent weeks. Seven people were arrested on June 21 as part of a French judicial investigation into networks that recruit and provide logistical support to al-Qaeda in Iraq. The arrests marked the fourth operation this year by French intelligence against Islamist networks operating in support of militants in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Algerian Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat has reportedly formed an alliance with Zarqawi's group to target French nationals in Iraq and worldwide, London's al-Sharq al-Awsat reported on July 3. The Algerian group was targeting France for "supporting the Algerian regime", the newspaper reported.
In one recent UK operation against homegrown terror, police arrested a man in Manchester in late June on suspicion that he was recruiting suicide bombers in Britain to attack multinational forces in Iraq. The threat to Britain was well-known after September 11, when intelligence indicated the presence of a number of radical groups in the country who recruited British Muslims through various means, including English-language propaganda and the establishment of "study cells" on university campuses, Jane's Intelligence Digest noted.
Britain is also home to a number of Islamist publications and websites, including Islamic Renewal Organization - a website forum run by Saudi national Muhammad al-Ma'sari, which regularly posts statements for al-Qaeda.
Failure to anticipate new groups
European governments largely ignored the threat of terrorism on their soil before the Madrid attacks, and security analysts have said that European laws and outdated intelligence-gathering procedures have worked to the detriment of law-enforcement agencies, which operate under guidelines different from those in the United States.
For example, European law-enforcement, security and intelligence services after September 11 continued to target only known terrorist cells. The intelligence apparatuses in Europe failed, however, to address the growing number of associated groups or support cells that provided assistance to al-Qaeda in terms of recruitment and financial transfers. It was considered politically incorrect to revise the legislative framework to target several hundred terrorist-support cells active on European soil.
In addition, European states in the post-September 11 environment did not take the terrorism threat seriously. In the two-and-a-half years since September 11, al-Qaeda had carried out only one terrorist attack a year, while groups associated with al-Qaeda had carried out four times that number - on average, one attack every three months.
Lack of law-enforcement tools
Security analysts have said that Europe will continue to be hindered in its fight on terror as long as insufficient laws remain in place that inhibit the investigation of terrorist activities. France's top antiterrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, told BBC Radio 4 in a May 31 interview that practices such as wire-tapping needed to be legalized in Britain. "We have a lot of legal means you [Great Britain] don't have and these legal means allow us to control and possibly prevent terrorist activities," he said.
He added that terrorists could easily enter the UK from France or continental Europe with false papers. "If you don't have this possibility to have a database, to know exactly and to control individuals who would be suspected to use false papers in terrorist activities, you miss things," he said, suggesting France's compulsory identification-card system has helped stem attacks there.
A purge! A purge! This one's for you, Fred. Fred loves purges.
The Basque terrorist organization ETA has expelled six members who called for peace talks with the government.
"Pack up your crinolines and watch those elevator shafts, ladies. Terrorizin' is for manly folk."
The six are serving prisoners including ex-leader Francisco Múgica Garmendia, alias 'Pakito', who said in a statement the armed struggle was "contradictory" to the movement's aims. The explusion has been seen as the work of ETA's hardline faction which appears to be opposed to dialogue with the government.
"No! Never! Too much talkin', not near enough killin'. We need more target practice to improve the aims of the movement."
#1
So now they have gone from a resistance group to just plain old terrorists. Not that they ever got any sympathy from me, but if you have political demands it helps to at least tell people what they are. Otherwise it gets to be like Iraq, nobody knows exactly why you are killing people.
Spanish officials have downplayed British press reports that a Syrian-born Spaniard -- Mustafa Setmarian Nasar -- who is linked to al Qaeda activities and the Madrid train bombings, was also behind the London bombings last week.
"That is not a fact that has been even minimally confirmed," Spain's secretary of state for security, Antonio Camacho, said at a public appearance in the town of El Escorial, near Madrid, on Monday.
"The English authorities have not transmitted that to us," added Camacho, whose rank is equivalent to a deputy minister of interior.
Setmarian was indicted in 2003 by Judge Baltasar Garzon and is wanted on a Spanish arrest warrant. Garzon accused Setmarian of helping to organize one of the first al Qaeda type cells in Spain in the middle 1990s. Setmarian has not been in Spain for about a decade.
He later spent time in London, where he was director of an Islamic extremist magazine, Al Ansar, and has also been in direct contact with Osama bin Laden and spent time in Afghanistan in terrorist training camps, according to Spanish court documents.
Setmarian is linked to some of the 24 al Qaeda suspects currently on trial in Madrid. The group includes three charged with helping to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
The suspected leader of the cell, a Syrian-born Spaniard, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarakas, testified during the trial that he knew Setmarian.
Setmarian has not been charged in the separate investigation into the Madrid train bombings last year that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. But late last year, the prosecutor in the train bombings asked the investigating magistrate to include information about Setmarian in that case.
A National Police spokesman told CNN on Monday that British press reports regarding Setmarian were unfounded.
Setmarian's name may have emerged, the spokesman indicated, because Spanish police attended a meeting on Saturday with London police -- as did police from various other nations -- and a starting point was to compare information on known terrorists suspects.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 00:18 ||
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yeah, that's right. How could it be that they were attacked because Aznar supported Bush in Iraq if the attacks in London, Italy and France were planned in 1998?
Spaniards who lived through a similar attack in Madrid last year view London's phlegmatic return to normality with a mixture of admiration, incomprehension and outrage. While the Madrid train bombings brought millions of mourners on to the streets of Spanish cities and provoked angry demonstrations, political rows and a change of government, Spaniards have found Londoners' stiff upper lip almost unintelligible. Nowhere was this more so than in Madrid, where comparisons were made between Thursday's attacks and the train bombings that killed 191 people in March last year.
"The British have been exemplary on their day of pain and chaos, but in Madrid people reacted as well, or better," Pilar Cernuda, an ABC news paper columnist, claimed. Spanish journalists in London have looked in vain for the communal mourning, group solidarity or mass indignation that filled Madrid's streets in the days after the attacks. "The feeling that people had reacted in an orderly manner was a point of pride in people's conversations in a country where the word 'emotional' is used to indicate a personality defect," El Correo's London correspondent told readers. "In continental Europe, and especially in the south, cathartic ceremonies are needed to stave off panic: demonstrations, shows of unity and collective hugs of consolation," said Enric González in El PaÃs. "London buries its dead as it has always done: simulating relative indifference and displaying normality."
Most of all, however, there has been admiration. "In the midst of commotion and anguish for the cruel blow received, the response has been of civic maturity and democratic responsibility," said El Mundo's editor, Pedro RamÃrez.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
You think they'd have learned this at the hands of Sir Francis Drake.
#7
I was watching the ML Baseball All-Star game and they opened up with the British Anthem, although many Yanks probably thought the band was playing My Country Tis of Thee. I'm sure that some Canadians will grouse that their anthem was left out eventhough there is still one Canadian team in the AL. My brother pointed out that the Dominican Republic would have had a bigger beef.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/12/2005 23:29 Comments ||
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Early last year, as Tony Blair struggled through the long and bitter political aftermath of the Iraq war, yet another bit of disturbing news turned up in his red boxes. A discussion paper prepared by senior civil servants, it raised a subject that last week came back to haunt him.
"The home secretary and the foreign secretary," he read, "have commissioned [this] paper for the prime minister on how to prevent British Muslims, especially young Muslims, from becoming attracted to extremist movements and terrorist activity."
#1
Simple answer: Muslims out now, including those born in Britain. They won't assimilate and their quick recourse to violence makes them unacceptable to the host country. Britain, as will probably most of the West, is going to have to run the lot of them back to the hellholes they seem to be so fond of. It will put a hell of a dent in civil liberties but it beats the idea of mass extermination. As Thomas Sowell said, for some problems there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
Posted by: mac ||
07/12/2005 5:58 Comments ||
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#2
The word to the younger generation needs to be, "Get a job or get out." If they didn't have Mummy and Daddy and the dole to support them, they wouldn't have the time or energy to seethe and plot like the spoiled brats that they are.
#3
Muslims Out, now. They go to England, but dont want to be English. They come to America, but wont be Americans, they are still muslims, like it is a nationality or something. The day of the reconquista is upon them, one more good terrorist attack on U.S. soil and I think we will be ready to take some real action against anyone who is not a loyal american.
#1
In spite of his good points - like his support of Bnai Br'th - Joe Farah is a moon howler. I remember his 2-bit Y2K pseudo-prophecies that could have got him committed.
Both WND and the Muslim menace make a good case for taxing the clergy.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
07/12/2005 2:54 Comments ||
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#2
More PC Left-speak for taking out, wiping out Dubya, his Admin., and the GOP-Right and the Congress. Impeachment of Dubya + International Quagmire(s) + Tacnuke Wars + new 9-11's ....@ = POTUS Hillary and USA under Global Socialism and OWG. Impeachment, Assassination, andor casualty-intens anti-US Nuke War(s)- the USSA/USR must return to the isolationism of yesteryears so America's first female and second Commie POTUS can be a prim-and-proper modern Socialist Woman and achieve Media-alleged "everything" while doing nothing.
#3
He seems to be using the panic button on this border issue. Believe me I would love to se a 2000 mile long wall or something, but this was a little over the top. To say al qaida has from 12 to 70 nukes is a bold statement. If they had one nuke they would have used it already, methinks.
#5
How do people like Farah and Steve Qualye and Stratfor find anyone dense enough to pay money for stuff like this?
Posted by: Mike ||
07/12/2005 9:48 Comments ||
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#6
The Al Queda has backpack nukes story has been circulating on the internet since Sept 12. Only a moron would still give it credence even if rewrapped and reheated somewhat.
One does not just get a dozen nukes and sit on them while your enemy is rolling up your operations all over the place. If you got 'em, you use 'em. And despite Al Queda's hate for the US it would be a lot easier to use one in Europe, a fact that will probably rapidly change after the London Attacks.
#7
How do people like Farah and Steve Qualye and Stratfor find anyone dense enough to pay money for stuff like this?
Well, I suspect they get a lot of free advertising from the conspiracy people. You know, the same people who think it's a conspiracy that the government hasn't stopped _everything_, but who would also be disturbed if the government started arresting people for "learning to fly while Arab."
A strange contradiction, if you ask me.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
07/12/2005 23:36 Comments ||
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BY CLAUDIA ROSETT The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, the DA's office has just confirmed for the first time to The New York Sun. The probe, apparently well advanced, involves allegations of commercial bribery related to Mr. Sevan's role as executive director from 1997-2003 of the oil-for-food relief program for Iraq, then under U.N. sanctions against the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sevan was picked for the job by Secretary-General Annan.
News of the criminal probe raises prospects that at least one U.N. official may yet face criminal prosecution over activities related to the more than $110 billion worth of Saddam's oil sales and relief purchases that the United Nations oversaw in Iraq from 1996-2003. The probe into Mr. Sevan comes on top of oil-for-food-related indictments of a number of private businessmen issued April 14 by federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, along with a federal complaint alleging bribery involving unnamed "high-ranking United Nations officials" - described in circumstances that suggest these are individuals other than Mr. Sevan.
A source close to the criminal investigation into Mr. Sevan says that the office of the Manhattan DA, Robert Morgenthau, is working in cooperation with the United Nations-authorized inquiry led by a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker, and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota.
Mr. Annan has said he is prepared to lift the U.N.-conferred immunity of any staff member, should the facts support criminal charges. He has largely stood behind Mr. Sevan, approving U.N. payment of his legal fees from mid-2004 until February of this year. Mr. Annan revoked that perquisite when the first of two Volcker committee interim reports found that Mr. Sevan, in soliciting lucrative oil allocations from Saddam's regime on behalf of a Panama-registered private company, African Middle East Petroleum, had engaged in "a grave and continuing conflict of interest." But Mr. Annan has kept Mr. Sevan on the U.N. staff, listed as an "adviser," with a U.N. office and phone number, and a U.N. salary of $1 a year. The U.N. rationale is that this status allows Mr. Sevan to be on hand to assist in the investigation. But it also allows Mr. Sevan to retain immunity from prosecution. Mr. Sevan has declared throughout that he is innocent, but could not be reached to comment on this latest news that he is the subject of a criminal probe. Messages left on his U.N. voicemail got no response.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Cyprus is beautiful this time of year.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/12/2005 0:16 Comments ||
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#2
My current impression of Cyprus at this time of year is that the heat and humidity are good for one thing. Reducing the amount of clothing worn by attractive tourists...make that two...they tend to drink more.
#4
That would be nice, HotD, but there needs to be something to make sure all the unattractive tourists keep their clothes on. I'm sure .com can provide examples.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has no plans to bolster maritime security in the Straits of Melaka in the wake of the bombings in London but will maintain the current arrangement to monitor the busy waterway, according to the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN).
[RMN Assistant Chief of Staff (Plans, Strategy and Operation) First Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman Badaruddin] was asked to comment whether Malaysia would tighten maritime security in the wake of the terrorist bombings in London which killed at least 50 people and injured about 700 last Thursday. Ahmad Kamarulzaman said maritime security was a complex issue given the 900-km stretch of the straits... He also said that Malaysia and the RMN were committed to ensuring that security was well managed along the busiest waterway where a quarter of the world's trade and half of its oil pass through.
"This is to provide assurance to our international users that the straits is safe... In fact, if you look at statistics, the Straits of Melaka is one of the safest straits in the world; the incidences (of threats) are small (in number) and relatively the risk factor is very small," said Ahmad Kamarulzaman.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy said "business is usual" when asked whether the government will heighten security along the straits following the London tragedy... However, he said the government would not tolerate any form of security threat in Malaysian waters, be it small-scale robbery or piracy.
Speaking at the same press conference, MIMA Chairman Vice-Admiral (Rtd) Datuk Seri Ahmad Ramli Mohd Nor said the straits was still the safest sea lane. He also dismissed a newspaper report today that said the straits was a terrorism-risk area.
"It is over-reaction and dramatised (the threats). If you compare (piracy) statistics, the Straits of Melaka is one of the safest straits in the world," he said.
At the height of piracy attacks in 2000, only 37 cases, including theft on boats and fishing vessels, were reported, he added.
Newly-appointed Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Al-Sanioura said on Monday that a new government would be formed within the next 24 hours. Al-Sanioura, speaking to journalists after a meeting with the secretary general of the supreme Syrian-Lebanese council, Nasri Al-Khouri, for discussing the stranding of trucks at a Syrian-Lebanese border checkpoint, indicated that he was taking his time in the formation of the executive council to ensure that the government members would be qualified to handle the country's issues and thorny problems. The premier said he would visit Syria after formation of the cabinet. "We are proud of this approach and such a gesture bolsters the ties between the Syrian and Lebanese peoples," he said.
Al-Sanioura indicated that many trucks, loaded with commodities, have been stranded at the Syrian-Lebanese Al-Masnaa checkpoint due to security precautions. The new premier, who hails from the southern port city of Sidon, was picked up by majority of members of the 128-seat parliament, succeeding a care-taking government of Neguib Mikati, from the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city. The Lebanese media and press have been reporting squabbles among some the country's mainstream political trends and coalitions over distribution of the government seats, with much of the disputes focusing on the justice and foreign affairs posts.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Fred, I've long wondered: is that a likeness of dear Anna Comnena (spelling?)?
MASNAA, Lebanon - Hundreds of Lebanese truckers ferrying agricultural goods are being held for days at the Syrian border, bringing huge losses to farmers, Lebanese agricultural unions and truckers said on Monday.
In the latest sign of growing tension between Syria and Lebanon since Damascus ended its 29-year military presence here in April, some 500 trucks, most of them carrying vegetables from the Bekaa Valley for export to Arab countries, have been stranded for days at Syrian border checkpoints.
Lebanese agricultural syndicates are estimating losses of $300,000 per day since Syrian customs officials began security inspections of Lebanese trucks more than two weeks ago. Damascus, which pulled its troops from its tiny neighbour under Lebanese and international pressure, said the inspections are needed to prevent weapons from entering the country.
Won't work, the Syrian Kurds get all their weapons from ... oh, shouldn't talk about that, now should we?
âThe situation is extremely dangerous because Lebanon exports all of its products through Syria to other Arab countries, especially to the Gulf region,â Waddah Fakri, head of the Southern Farmers Association told the Daily Star daily.
Remind me, Lebanon sits on a body of water and has a port or two, right?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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Iran's ultra-conservative president elect said last night that he wants "fair" relations with the entire world, but warned western nations not to issue demands to his country, which the US accuses of wanting to build nuclear weapons. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech came during an exclusive interview with state-run Iranian television and indicated the new Iranian leader's apparent determination to not bow to US demands to curtail his country's nuclear programme. "We are urging fair relations with the world, but people are being blocked by some who claim they promote democracy and freedom but act vice versa when they deal with Iranians," Mr Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the US.
Mr Ahmadinejad also said that his surprise landslide election win last month was a message from Iranians to "the world that they want to be independent". "They [the west] still think like landlords of a century ago," he said."Landlords expected their peasants just to listen to their words. But the period of one-sided decision-making is over. Our nation does not accept imposed relations."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#2
Landlords in Persia a century ago were the Mullah's.
The revolted against the Shah, in the main, because he practiced land reform giving the Mullah's land to the peasants.
#3
Personally I think every country should close their embassy -- simply for safety since this asshole has proven that he does not respect their status.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, has said in a statement that his terrorist group targeted Shia Muslims only after they had first attacked Sunnis.
"They (the Shias) began wiping out Sunnis, making them homeless and attacking (Sunni) mosques and homes," said in the statement that appeared on an Islamist website Tuesday.
Zarqawi also denied that his group has attacked religious minorities including Christians.
"It doesn't seem to us that they (Iraqis from religious minorities) participated with the crusaders (the US military) in killing the mujahideen and they didn't play the despicable role that the Shias played."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 15:41 ||
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#1
"But, hey, maybe I'm just a psychopath who enjoys killing people."
Posted by: Matt ||
07/12/2005 16:43 Comments ||
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#2
Don't often agree with the Z man, but Sadr's role was pretty despicable.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/12/2005 17:08 Comments ||
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#3
Making people homeless? Whoa! That's a damn heavy charge.
The first time Bono and Madonna got together to save Africa, the unintended consequence was the death of perhaps as many as 100,000 people. That's aid expert David Rieff's conclusion in the July 2005 issue of the resolutely liberal American Prospect magazine regarding the end result of Live Aid in 1985. Billed as "The Greatest Show on Earth," Live Aid was a multi-venue rock concert held on July 13, 1985 in London and Philadelphia in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. With an estimated 1.5 billion viewers watching the live broadcast in 100 countries, the event reportedly raised $250 million.
The money was supposed to go towards relieving hunger. In reality, argues Rieff, the rock stars and well-intentioned donors became unwilling participants in a civil war and unwitting supporters of a Soviet-style resettlement project that vastly increased the severity of the famine.
Humm, African resettlement program, now why does that sound familiar?
Rieff points to three causes of Ethiopia's famine, one natural, a two-year long drought, and two "entirely man-made." The man-made contributing factors were, first, "the dislocation imposed by the wars being waged by the central government" against rebel groups in the north of the country, and, second, "by far the most serious, the forced agricultural collectivization policy pursued with seemingly limitless ruthlessness by Mengistu Haile Mariam and his colleagues who had overthrown emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and officially adopted communism as their creed in 1984." The impact of this government-mandated collectivization, contends Rieff, was "every bit the equal in its radicalism to the policies Stalin pursued in the Ukraine in the 1930s, where, as in Ethiopia, the result was inevitable famine."
As Francois Jean of the medical aid organization Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) described it at the time, the Mengistu regime was employing "shock treatment in order to transform Ethiopian rural society." Comparing the Ethiopian resettlement policy to its Chinese and Soviet predecessors, Francois Jean wrote that all three terror famines "proceeded from the same approach to reality, the same vision of the future, the same extreme commitment to radical social transformation." This famine-inducing resettlement policy in Ethiopia, the movement of 600,000 people from the north and the "villagization" of millions of others, was "at least in part a military campaign, masquerading as a humanitarian effort," concludes Rieff. "And it was assisted by Western aid money."
Initially, few people came forward when the authorities in Ethiopia called for volunteers for the resettlement plan. "The response was swift," explains Rieff. "A campaign of systemic round-ups in towns and villages across three targeted provinces began. Those caught up in these sweeps were either airlifted south or transferred by land, sometimes in vehicles the authorities had requisitioned from international relief agencies -- vehicles that were there to transport foodstuffs. The trip usually took five or six days. To this day, no one knows how many people died in route. The conservative estimate is 50,000. MSF's estimate is double that." "We are witnessing the biggest deportation since the Khmer Rouge genocide," charged MSF's president, Claude Malhuret, in late 1985. In an exercise of deadly compassion, humanitarian "aid to victims was unwittingly transformed into support to their executioners."
Seems like I've read about that happening again somewhere. Nah, no one would be that stupid.
In other words, Madonna sang, activists bemoaned the self-absorption of life in the rich world, Bono felt good about himself, and music fans phoned in the money that would buy the trucks that would deliver the bodies to the Marxist murderers in the Mengistu regime.
When asked about these unintended consequences, concert organizer Bob Geldof seemed to have few second thoughts. "The organizations that are participating in the resettlement program should not be criticized," he told the Irish Times on November 4, 1985. "In my opinion, we've got to give aid without worrying about population transfers."
"Pay no attention to those people being forced into trucks, we've got a show to put on!"
This time around, Chris Martin, the frontman of Coldplay and a former student in World Studies at London's University College, told the Live 8 audience that the July 2, 2005 concerts were "the greatest thing that's ever been organized, probably, in the history of the world."
Imagine that! Getting Bono and Madonna together for another afternoon shot at saving Africa is bigger than D-Day, a bigger and greater achievement in organization than the putting together of the invading force of 11,000 airplanes, 5,000 ships, and over 150,000 troops that broke Germany's grip on western Europe and foreshadowed the end of Hitler's dream of turning the planet into a Nazi hellhole.
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University and a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 14:58 ||
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#1
the July 2, 2005 concerts were "the greatest thing that's ever been organized, probably, in the history of the world."
Maybe Normandy, but before there was Normandy there was the wholesale converstion of the US consumer economy in 3 years.
#3
..I remember reading somewhere some years ago that every major famine since the mid 1800s has had its roots in political or military conflict of some sort, and I'm beginning to think that's the case.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/12/2005 20:52 Comments ||
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#4
Poverty exists in many places. Natural disasters can occur anywhere. Starvation however is an intentional political acivity: North Korea, Zimbabwie, Ethiopia, Sudan, Cambodia, Ukraine.....
Posted by: john ||
07/12/2005 21:41 Comments ||
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From The Space Review, an interview by Sam Dinkin; I'm bypassing the parts on the pitfalls of space tourism and excerpting the parts on reconnaisance satellites.
TSR: You are going after popping upâ
Renaud: Suborbital.
TSR: Take some pictures, or do some science and come back down.
Renaud: We found a lot of people in the DoD who have a need for that mission.
TSR: You are accessing a new market?
Renaud: Nobody does imagery right now from a suborbital vehicleâvery little.
TSR: For a while they had the SR-71 Blackbird going because they decided the Keyhole spy satellites werenât enough. Youâre saying, âHey, you need real time imagery.â
Renaud: Well, letâs do it: When you want overhead imagery right now, if itâs over denied territory, the only way to get that today, is with a satellite. A satellite costs $1 billion. Itâs a $200-million Delta launch. Itâs a couple hundred million dollars of satellite development minimum. Plus the insurance.
TSR: You need a bunch of satellites.
Renaud: Just figure one. Itâs $500 million to $1 billion to launch one imagery satellite to get you sub-meter imagery resolution on the ground. You put that thing up in space. It goes around the planet. It circles a planet thatâs covered in 70% ocean, 40% is in cloud cover, and 70% of the land mass is absolutely uninhabited. Only about 2% of the time is that satellite ever over something even remotely interestingâitâs a very, very low yieldâand you only come over that spot with a satellite once a day if itâs in a polar orbit. Combine that with the fact that anybody with a laptop can get on the Internet and download the ephemeris [a table giving the coordinates of a celestial object at a number of specific times during a given period] for our entire constellation. They know exactly when the satellites are coming overhead. Denial and deception is a real problem.
TSR: Even thirty years ago people knew how to do that.
Renaud: Itâs no big shock that people would like a better way to get imagery. Something that doesnât cost $1 billion and doesnât have a very low yield.
TSR: Yours would have a high yield.
Renaud: A high percentage yield. You only fly a suborbital imagery mission when you can get the pictures, when you want the pictures, and where you want the pictures. So your yield is 100%.
TSR: Itâs also a lot cheaper so the interest on your billion dollars will pay for one of these suborbital flights whenever you need one. What is NROâs budget anyway?
Renaud: Thatâs a classified number, but itâs a big number.
TSR: So there are a lot of satellitesâ
Renaud: In fact there are very few. When thereâs a regional conflict that we are about to be involved in, we retask all the satellites: we move them around in their orbits. We have coverage, almost continuous coverage or high percentage coverage over one place, but that means you have very low coverage over every place else. So itâs no surprise that while we retasked all our satellites to look at Kosovo and the Balkans, thatâs when North Korea restarted their nuclear program. They knew nobody was watching. Theyâre not dummies. What we have is national assets that are conflicted. They are at least at the theater level. Low intensity, theater-level operations are generally shortchanged on the national assets.
TSR: You are saying something different, too: âEven if they got all the assets, that still would not be as good,â as your product.
Renaud: During the Gulf War, how many Scuds did we get on the ground? How many Scud launchers did we get after they launched one? After we did photoreconnaissance of the area, they were gone! Because thereâs a huge amount of latency, even if you could get the satellite overhead, the satellite imagery is not beamed down to the guy on the ground. The satellite takes the imagery and stores it, and then it passes over a digital download place, like Guam or White Sands or something. It goes to Chantilly [Virginia] and is printed on these giant printers, driven out to Dover [Air Force Base in Delaware], then put on a C-5 and flown to the theater.
TSR: So you can find out what happened last week.
Renaud: Youâre not getting stuff that is minutes old. Even if you can improve it to where there is network connectivity, gigabit over the long haul is lot of bandwidth. You are suffering a bandwidth choke. It is very tough to get that in a timely mannerâand I am talking minutesâinto a theater commanderâs hands.
TSR: Suppose instead you had suborbital over the theater. You could just have an optical link to headquarters or just burn a DVD while you are up there.
Renaud: Itâs a ten-minute mission, bring it back and hand it to the guy. You slide it into the jacket and hand it directly to the analyst. Ten minutes. We are talking a ten-minute latency.
TSR: Once you get the optical link going, you can have real-time data. You can launch your next strike before you land your suborbital rocket.
Renaud: So that is something that a theater-level commander would love to get his hands on.
TSR: So we are spending what, $50 billion, $500 billion in Iraq?
Renaud: Oh God, we just spent⊠isnât the supplemental for $82 billion? And thatâs just for this year.
TSR: If you took $2 billion to spend on this kind of intelligence, how many flights would it be?
Renaud: A lot. Thousands, tens of thousands.
TSR: So you could have snapshots every ten minutes during every critical mission. Tora Bora, looking straight down at the mountains.
Renaud: You donât really need imagery that often. When something changes, you need imagery of it. When somebody is going to mass troops and do an attack, you need imagery of it. If you fly a strike and drop weapons on somebody, you want to be able do rapid battle damage assessment so you know whether you have to send more pilots back into harmâs way. That kind of stuff where itâs not really intelligence that the strategic people need to worry about. Itâs purely tactical. The theater-level commander has a need for local reconnaissance that he has a tough time filling.
TSR: You say theater, but we are spending a lot on theater this year.
Renaud: Thereâs more theaters than just Iraq. Donât you think that PACOM [US Pacific Command] would like to have some imagery of North Korea?
TSR: It would certainly be nice to send one of those once a month.
Renaud: From 80 kilometers up, you can see almost 1,600 km, which means from Taiwan you could see the majority of the populated areas of China. Donât you think the Taiwainese would really like to know whatâs going on in China right now?
TSR: What youâre saying is that the guys who did these orbital satellites had this low tech low cost option that they just could have taken their X-15 or their sounding rockets, and made something reusable out of it and done this instead of the national fleet of satellites? Wouldnât that be cheaper for all the theater support?
Renaud: Not really. Thereâs a problem with glass. To get decent sub-meter resolution imagery from 80 kilometers up you are not talking about something the size of a coffee can. A Black Brant can launch a coffee can. Youâre talking about something the size of your desk or two desks. Youâre talking about a meter aperture piece of glassâhigh gain optics. A large sized CCD, solid-state storage, powerâ
TSR: You are basically lofting an observatory.
Renaud: You are lofting a ton of stuff, literally a ton of material.
Renaud: There isnât anything that will launch that in a cost-effective manner to 80 kilometers. There wasâit was called the DC-X. The DC-X did not have inflight restart capability and was limited to about 45 kilometers. So you tend to get a little more performance with that capability.
Funding challenges
TSR: This is really exciting and the DoD should really be pushing you hard. They have given you some startup money?
Renaud: We are funded through detailed design review. That takes us out into some time in the middle of â06 and weâre trying to build up the money to build the vehicles. The manufacturing, the piece parts, thatâs a bigger challenge. If you look at government funding, thereâs the color of money issue. People who do operational work in the military canât fund research and development.
TSR: Right, it has to come from the R&D people.
Renaud: The R&D people look at this and go âwhereâs the R?â I am sure you have heard the term âDARPA hardâ. Thatâs the new buzz phrase: DARPA hard. If you donât have enough science, new science and technology that is not risky enough, they donât want to talk to you. They see their vision, their mission, as âdo the hard stuffâ.
TSR: Itâs like the A-10 Warthog. The stuff that actually gets the job done has no friends.
Renaud: The C-130, you are aware they turned it into a gunship. They put a whole bunch of high-caliber weapons on it and they fly in a circle and saturate an area with fire. The only way they could get that funded was through the Congressional add. It would never survive the budget process.
TSR: Itâs too boring.
Renaud: Exactly: thereâs no technology there. Getting things through the military budget is a hard thing to do. Obviously we are working that. Right now thatâs been a hard thing.
...
TSR: Can you tell me about your design philosophy?
Renaud: We try to do everything with off-the-shelf technology, off-the-shelf components. Major suppliers, not SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] shops. People who actually have done what we want to do before. If I go to somebody and describe a partâ
TSR: They donât say, âWeâve discovered unobtainium and all you have to do is give us $100,000 and we will give it to you.â
Renaud: I get calls all the time from entrepreneurs who have discovered anti-gravity or you know. And I go, âThatâs great. Sorry, bye.â But if I go to somebody and I need a part thatâs not in their catalog and they say, âWell gee, we think we can make that, but weâre not sure.â I stop. Well obviously what weâre going to do isnât going to work. We need to rethink that. If they say, âWeâve never made that before, but thatâs within our design space. We have to redo the engineering, but we know we can get there. You just have to pay for us to redo the design.â Then I say, âOK.â and I pay the money. But absolutely no technology development. That leads us back to that, âWell, gee, our system is boring and stupid.â
TSR: So no R and now youâre telling me, âno D.â
Renaud: As little D as possible. No parts D, just the integration. We are not willing to do wild extrapolation.
TSR: Obviously you are building a new spacecraft so thereâs going to be some new stuff on it. So itâs not going to be 100% off-the-shelf parts. Are you trying to make it 90% and the parts as close to being as off-the-shelf as possible?
Renaud: Thereâs no parts in there that are technology development. Letâs put it that way. No new materials. No new technology. No new design techniques. No novel weird moulds.
TSR: That sounds like Wozniak and Jobs [of Apple Computer]. Basically, you are taking catalog items and finally putting them together to do something useful.
Renaud: We are building that first eight-bit processor. Yes. Itâs going to do something dumb. Itâs not going to be optimized for performance. In fact, its performance is gonna suck. Itâs not gonna go to orbit. Thereâs no way I can make it go to orbit. With a straight face, I cannot say this system grows into a single stage to orbit system.
TSR: You would have to start doing what you said you donât want to do. which is asking for the biggest one of these ever.
Renaud: What I can do is, once I am flying, I can revisit each of those things I said I didnât want to do any new technology on. Once Iâve got a system that works, and itâs bringing in revenue, I can say, âOK. Now that Iâve got some revenue coming in, letâs start one of those science projects.â Letâs try to make conformal composite tanks for this. If they work, weâll take our old stupid heavy metal tank and weâll stick this in. And weâll make it plug compatible. One of the things we did right from the beginning is we designed a vehicle that is a very loosely coupled design. Itâs a modular design.
If you think about a fighter aircraft, a fighter aircraft is a very closely coupled design. The engine controls and the avionics are all over the place. The aero surfaces and the primary flight control are actually load-bearing structure. Everything is all tied together and if you try to make one little change to a component somewhere, it ripples through the entire design.
TSR: Most people think spacecraft have to be that way.
Renaud: Well, because theyâre optimized for performance.
TSR: Exactly.
Renaud: Weâre designing a system that is very loosely coupled.
TSR: Optimized for money?
Renaud: No, itâs optimized for operations.
The interview continues next week.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
07/12/2005 12:51 ||
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As worthwhile as Renaud's proposal is, he is being less than honest in this passage:
TSR: What youâre saying is that the guys who did these orbital satellites had this low tech low cost option that they just could have taken their X-15 or their sounding rockets, and made something reusable out of it and done this instead of the national fleet of satellites? Wouldnât that be cheaper for all the theater support?
Renaud: Not really. Thereâs a problem with glass. To get decent sub-meter resolution imagery from 80 kilometers up you are not talking about something the size of a coffee can. A Black Brant can launch a coffee can. Youâre talking about something the size of your desk or two desks. Youâre talking about a meter aperture piece of glassâhigh gain optics. A large sized CCD, solid-state storage, powerâ
TSR: You are basically lofting an observatory.
Renaud: You are lofting a ton of stuff, literally a ton of material.
As part of the background for one of my alternate history projects, I researched this very possibility; eg sub-orbital reconnaisance vehicles at a comparatively early date.
During the Second World War, German A-4 ("V-2") rockets routinely lifted their 1 ton payloads of explosive to 100 km altitude and could have bettered this if trajectories had been optimized for altitude rather than range. During research flights after the war, captured A-4s did in fact reach much higher altitudes.
The Redstone rockets that launched the first 2 American astronauts on their suborbital flights were advanced derivatives of the A-4. The Mercury capsule used on these flights weighed not one, but two tons. Redstone itself was an Army MRBM, designed for mobile field operation, and was succesfully deployed as such.
The first US reconnaisance satellite, Discoverer (actually KH 1-5) had nothing like the kind of optics that Reynaud descrives as necessary for this kind of operation. The system was quite successful in terms of its optical performance and was within the payload capacity of a Redstone.
The X-15 was probably not flexible enough for recce missions, but its successor, the X-20 Dyan-Soar, definitely was. It was intended for orbital flight, with a very large booster, the Titan 3C. A much enhanced Discoverer optical package was one of the intended payloads. In a suborbital mode, the X-20 would have required only the addition of a reusable engine (already available) and relatively modest jettisonable propellant tanks similar to those used on some X-15 flights. This would have been a modest re-arrangement from the orbital configuration (engine and tanks in a throw-away stage) shown at the links.
Sub-orbital missions would have been air-launched from a B-52, though ground launch was possible with a solid propellant booster of fairly modest dimensions. On steep trajectory oblique imaging missions, recovery would have been by a standard re-entry, followed by a spiraling glide back to the original launch point.
Black Brant is a Canadian sounding rocket and its maximum payload is much greater than what a coffee can would hold, even if the can were filled with plutonium: 136 kg to 430 km or 408 kg to 230 km.
The first US reconnaisance satellite, Discoverer (actually KH 1-5) had nothing like the kind of optics that Reynaud descrives as necessary for this kind of operation. The system was quite successful in terms of its optical performance and was within the payload capacity of a Redstone.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect this is because "Michelle" is meant to look fairly "off track" according to the article.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
07/12/2005 23:14 Comments ||
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I'm involved in the overhead imaging business myself.
A friend of mine is a professional photog and takes pictures of construction sites and the like. He uses a Grumman Lynx for this. We fly to the designated point at the specified altitude (ususally 1200 AGL), then he opens the canopy, leans out, and takes the pictures with a really fancy 35mm professional camera of some sort. My job is to fly the plane while he is doing this. It's a lot of fun and involves some pretty decent flying, to hold the needed altitude and bank angle while avoiding those annoying broadcast towers that seem to litter the ground around here like so many giant punji stakes.
Yesterday, this led to an encounter with probably the most careless Lubbock driver I have yet seen, and that's saying a lot.
A truck pulled onto the runway just as we were on final at the little country airstrip that serves as our base. We were a few hundred feet downwind and about 60 feet high when the truck careened off a taxiway and drove right into the middle of the active. I hit the throttle and went around. I think we cleared the heedless fool by about 30 feet. The canopy was closed or I would have given him the finger as we went by. I am sure we got his attention anyway. He had disappeared entirely by the time we came back around a couple of minutes later.
Not quite KH-12 stuff.
July 12, 2005: One of the strengths of Islamic radicals is their influence, or outright control, over primary education in their home countries. Most Moslem countries donât spend much on education to begin with, partly because, historically, the clergy took care of basic education. There's also the problem of who controls most Moslem countries. It tends to be a feudal collection of families, that own most of the land, and political power. A better educated population would only create more troublemakers. In countries that have produced a lot of young Islamic terrorists, there has been a pattern of low government spending on education, and lots more by religious organizations. For example, Pakistan spends only 1.7 percent of GPD on education. The United States spends five percent, and India, not a wealthy nation, spends 4.3 percent. But religious schools, run by Islamic clergy, and largely paid for by Saudi Arabian charities, provide parents with another option. These schools, called madrassas, spend about 40 percent of their time teaching religious subjects, with the rest being devoted to things like, grammar, rhetoric, public speaking, logic, philosophy, Arabic literature, Islamic law, theology, medicine, mathematics, polemics, and so on. This is, to Westerners, an old fashioned curriculum. It is, and this is intentional. A madrassa attempts to educate their students to be observant and capable Moslems.
Madrassas have been around for over a thousand years, and underwent a revival, and renewal, in the 19th century, when the current curriculum was developed. In many Islamic countries, the madrassas are supported by local contributions, and are expected to give the kids a good basic education (something between primary and high school.) But the Saudi charities have put much of their money into madrassas that teach in the style of conservative Islamic madrassas found in Saudi Arabia. This means a lot of emphasis on how evil non-Moslems are, and how good a thing it is for Moslems to fight against all those evil infidels (non-Moslems). This curriculum includes a large dose of âkill the Jews.â This is where al Qaeda came from. This is where many of the recruits for Islamic terrorism come from. Countries with a lot of these âletâs go kill infidelsâ madrassas have been trying to shut them down. Pakistan has over half a million students in madrassas, and many of them spend more time teaching religion and hate, rather than practical subjects. The government has had some success in getting the madrassas to improve their teaching, and adhering to standards. But, in general, the Pakistani madrassas continue to churn out the hate. Saudi Arabia has more control over education, but faces resistance from the religious establishment when attempts are made to tinker with the curriculum.
The United States, recognizing the crucial role madrassas in indoctrinating young men (hardly any girls go to madrassas), has offered educational assistance to Moslem countries. But the need is so great, and the madrassas so numerous (weâre talking over 100,000 schools throughout the Moslem world), that it would take more money (tens of billions of dollars a year) than Congress would approve, to have a serious impact. The problem has more to do with corruption in Moslems countries, and disregard for the importance of useful education. Thus we always come back to the need for fundamental reforms in Moslem countries, which many citizens of those countries want. But ancient tradition, and resourceful dictators, make it difficult to carry out those reforms. Not impossible, look at Iraq, but difficult. Look at Iraq again.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 10:12 ||
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Oh. From the title I thought this was an article about the Ivy League.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/12/2005 11:14 Comments ||
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July 12, 2005: There arenât too many women in the armed forces of Arab nations, much less female generals. One exception is Jordanian brigadier general Aisha Bint Al Hussein. Actually, sheâs a sister of the current king, which makes her other title Her Royal Highness Princess Aisha Bint Al Hussein. That explains part of it, but the 37 year old general al Hussein, as a teenager, persuaded her father, who she took after in many ways, to let her undergo military training. She excelled at it, especially marksmanship and commando exercises. The late king Hussein survived so many years by having trusted family members in military and police positions, so Princess Aisha was allowed to remain in the army. Aishaâs mother was the kings second wife, and the daughter of a British army officer. Aisha got the military interests from both sides of the family. Aisha went to school in the United States for ten years (from when she was eight years old) and completed military parachute training while still a high school student. She married at age 22 and had two children, but returned to the military when the kids were old enough for school. General Aisha has been instrumental in getting more women into the Jordanian armed forces. Combat training for everyone is actually something of a Bedouin tradition (the Hussein family are considered Bedouins), and for a long time, Bedouin women learned to ride horses and camels, and use weapons. In the 19th century, when firearms became common among the Bedouin, women became even more lethal as warriors, because firing a rifle did not require the muscle of the older weapons (swords, spears and bows.) In Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive a car, the older women still remember the freedom women had as recently as the 1950s. During that time, Islamic conservatives began imposing more restrictions on women as the Bedouin nomads settled down. But in Jordan, the women still have much freedom, in the ancient Bedouin tradition. This causes some friction, as the urban and rural Arabs adopted a much more restrictive attitude towards women. However, the old ways are remembered, and are increasingly being seen as the future for women in the Middle East. Picture of the lovely princess here.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 10:03 ||
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More armed, trained women means fewer of their menfolk running amok. I hope her story is widely trumpeted amongst her Beduin sisters.
Iraqi Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi has denied part of an agreement with Iran struck last week includes assistance in training the country's new military. At a Baghdad news conference, Dulaimi denied Iranian Defense Minister Adm. Ali Shamkhani's claim Iran would provide training as part of a five-point memorandum of understanding. He said the agreement did call for Iran to give $1 billion in reconstruction aid to the Iraqi government, some of which would go to the Defense Ministry. Dulaimi said the new, year-old Iraqi army was satisfied with the training provided by the U.S. military, the Washington Post reported. "When Iraqis are able to establish security, I will ask the multinational forces to leave," he said.
I thought that original report sounded goofular. Logic tells me:
1. Iran fights Iraq to a draw over eight years, with thousands of casualties.
2. U.S. throws Iraq out of Kuwait in 100 hours with 100 dead.
3. In a rematch, U.S. stomps Iraq flat and chases Sammy out of town in about two weeks.
So Iraq wants Iran to train its troops? To do what?
Posted by: Steve ||
07/12/2005 09:39 ||
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NPR the other day, Diane Rehm is pontificating on the Iran military training, that this is "yet another unintended effect of the invasion of Iraq" I dont think she'll mention this rebuff, however.
Iraq's defense minister said Monday that a military agreement reached with Iran last week does not include any provision for the Iranian armed forces to help train Iraqi troops, contradicting reported assertions by his Iranian counterpart.
Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi said during a news conference here that the five-point memorandum of understanding that he and Iran's defense minister, Adm. Ali Shamkhani, signed Thursday in Tehran contained "no agreement" on military training.
Asked whether Shamkhani had misrepresented the content of the accord, Dulaimi said only that "he has the right to mention what he wants. We, as Iraqis, are not responsible for that."
The training of Iraq's armed forces, which are being built from scratch after American occupation officials ordered the country's military disbanded in May 2003, has been one of the primary tasks undertaken by U.S. forces here.
With insurgents continuing to carry out car bombings, ambushes, mortar attacks, kidnappings and other violence in much of central and northern Iraq, U.S. officials have identified the Iraqi army's capacity for establishing security as a key indicator of when American troops might begin to withdraw from the country.
Iraqi troops at a checkpoint in the town of Khalis, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, were struck in a two-pronged attack near dawn Monday that left 10 soldiers dead. Insurgents first pounded the checkpoint with gunfire and mortar shells, killing eight soldiers, police Col. Mahdi Saleh told the Associated Press. Then they exploded a car bomb next to an army patrol, killing two more soldiers.
Less than 15 miles away, in Buhriz, a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army headquarters building, killing one soldier and wounding another, said Nouri Ahmed, a physician at a hospital in nearby Baqubah.
The U.S. military announced that two Marines were killed in combat Sunday in the western town of Hit. A Marine spokesman attributed the deaths to "indirect fire," which typically refers to a mortar or rocket attack.
Iraq's police forces, meanwhile, were again accused of abusing prisoners. The Association of Muslim Scholars, one of the most influential groups among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, charged Monday that nine construction workers died in Baghdad when police arrested them Sunday on suspicion of being insurgents and locked them in a shipping container for 14 hours in the searing summer heat. Three other men survived.
The association said in a statement that the men, who were all Sunnis, had been tortured before they were locked away. Government officials did not comment on the allegations.
In his news conference, Dulaimi hailed the military agreement with Iran as a crucial step toward repairing relations between two countries that were at war from 1980 to 1988. "What we lost by war," he said, "we will win by peace and dialogue. We have no option but to live peacefully with each other."
Reacting to anger among some Iraqis that he had apologized to Iran for the massive loss of life it suffered in the conflict, Dulaimi maintained that the war had been the fault of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. "Before God, we are free from Saddam's actions, and we apologize for all the victims," he said.
Dulaimi also said that the eight-day visit by his Defense Ministry delegation established that there were no surviving Iraqi prisoners of war still in Iran. "Those who are thought to be prisoners of war are only missing, but we are going to look for their bodies so their families can be comforted," he said.
While asserting that training of troops was not covered under the agreement, Dulaimi said it did call for Iran to give $1 billion in reconstruction aid to the Iraqi government, some of which would go to the Defense Ministry. But the Iraqi army was satisfied with the training provided by the U.S. military, he said, and Iraq was dependent on the protection provided by American troops.
"What is the alternative to them? Zarqawi?" Dulaimi said, referring to insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi. Noting that the new Iraqi armed forces were scarcely a year old, he added: "When Iraqis are able to establish security, I will ask the multinational forces to leave."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 09:26 ||
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MEMRI. Again, a sophisticated, nuanced muslim scholar explains his views on terror and Iraq war; note how in the second interview he piously naively falls for the much-debunked "Iraq gangrapes" porn pics... kept him awake all night very excited, poor thing...
#1
Sounds like he has taken the same Moral Midgets 101 class Ward Chuchill did. 3 types of people to the learned scum: 1)them we kill now; 2)those we agree to kill later; and 3) those innocents we have not told you were placed in category number one arbitrarily through a fiction of vicarious liability. Scum. Wonder how he'd feel about the semantics when he and his family got lumped into category number 1 or 3? Much ironic crying and lamentation methinks.
The Muslim Brotherhood said it would nominate a secular politician as a candidate for Egyptâs presidential election scheduled for September. âThe group has decided to field former Defense Minister Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala as its candidate,â said a Brotherhood official. âThis will enable the Muslim Brotherhood to take part in the elections as a secular political group and the former minister has accepted to represent us,â the official told Arab News.
The official said Abu Ghazala would be the best choice for presidency and that his political experience would enable him to strengthen Egyptâs position in the region. Abu Ghazala will officially announce his candidature next week, the official said. Supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mahi Akef said the Brotherhood presidential campaign stresses a ârepublican, parliamentary and democratic systemâ that envisages term limits, with presidents serving a maximum of two consecutive terms in office; peaceful transfer of power; and an outward-looking, diversified economy, governed by Islamic law and in compliance with World Trade Organization norms.
He can't be "chairman of the Moose limb Brotherhood." He can't be "president" of same. He's gotta be Supreme™...
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:22 ||
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Akef said the Brotherhood presidential campaign stresses a ârepublican, parliamentary and democratic systemâ that envisages term limits, with presidents serving a maximum of two consecutive terms in office; peaceful transfer of power; and an outward-looking, diversified economy, governed by Islamic law and in compliance with World Trade Organization norms...
...until such time when they gain power and can safely dispose of anything else than sharia.
Commies did precisely the same 1948 in Czechoslovakia, albeit their sharia was marxo-stalinist religious codex, with worship of quatriune deity Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin.
Hopefully, Egyptians would not have to learn the lesson Czech and Slovaks did, but I would not bet on it.
#2
an outward-looking, diversified economy, governed by Islamic law and in compliance with World Trade Organization norms
Lol, sorry, but Islamic law does not allow an outward-looking, diversified economy in compliance with WTO norms. Try again. How about an inward-looking, pastoral economy not in compliance with any norms? Yeah, that'll work!
"Mahmoud! Shoot him!"
"He's in jug, boss!"
"Then blow up the calaboose!"
Iraq's al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi reproached his spiritual mentor for criticising suicide attacks in Iraq, saying this only weakened the jihad, according to an internet statement attributed to him on Monday. Issam Baraqi, better known as Sheik Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, last week told Al-Jazeera television that random suicide bombings in Iraq were not valid and that it was wrong to "declare Shiites infidels or make them equal to Jews or Christians".
Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq, led by Zarqawi, has carried out some of the deadliest attacks against US forces, the Iraqi Government and forces and Shiite Muslims. "This [criticism] does not harm me as much as it harms this jihad ... the blessings of which are apparent to anyone who has eyes," said the statement apparently signed by Zarqawi. "Do not follow in the devil's footsteps or you shall perish, and beware, our virtuous sheik, from the cunning of God's enemies and from being lured into dividing the mujahideen [holy fighters]," said the statement posted on an Islamist website.
Zarqawi said he shared some of Maqdisi's beliefs but did not "follow him blindly". The Sunni Muslim militant has in the past defended the killing of innocent Muslims in suicide bombings, saying it was permitted by Islam for the sake of jihad. Last Tuesday, Jordan rearrested Maqdisi, who says he remains committed to Sunni orthodoxy, for alleged contact with terror groups. The arrest came a week after he was freed from six months behind bars. Sources said the authorities were upset the cleric did not disavow Zarqawi although he criticised some of his methods. Muslim scholars say Maqdisi's teachings have influenced Zarqawi's mindset since they were lovers shared a jail cell in Jordan. Both were freed in 1999 under a general amnesty, but Maqdisi was later detained in another case and Zarqawi went to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 00:16 ||
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Few are as holie as al-Zark, it seems. Maybe he'll start wacking the wackos who are not wacky enough. How's that for sectarian strife?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/12/2005 7:46 Comments ||
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Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Arab countries hosting Palestinian refugees to give them citizenship, insisting such a move would not compromise their right of return.
"Yasss! We deserve to have our cake and eat it, too!"
"I call upon every Arab government wishing to give citizenship (to Palestinian refugees) to do so. What is wrong with that?" he said in an interview with Dubai Television late Sunday. But the Palestinian Authority president insisted that obtaining citizenship in a host-country should not compromise the right to return to their homeland of which many Palestinian refugees dream. "This does not mean resettlement (of refugees). A Palestinian would return to his homeland whenever he is allowed, whether he carried an Arab or non-Arab citizenship," he said. "A fifth-generation Palestinian living in Chile also wishes to return when allowed ... It is an emotional matter, not related to citizenship," he added.
So lemme get this straight: You demand the right of return. You demand your own state. You demand citizenship in everybody else's state. You retain the right to explode without warning if you don't get your way.
I'd try and demand something similar for myself, but I can't think of anything that's quite that outlandish.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:16 ||
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"Legitimize the infection existing condition" - Vicente Fox Abu Mazen
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/12/2005 0:19 Comments ||
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#2
I think that's fair, actually. The "Palestinian refugees" have been kept in limbo since 1948, unable to own property, get jobs, or vote. That is a major reason why they continue seething in their hellhole camps. If they are allowed to actually do something useful, a lot of that energy will be transformed, as it is with the educated Palestinian ex-pats who support their extended families back home.
#3
I agree this is a good thing. Abbas can deny it, but it makes if it makes it easier for Pals to assimilate where they are, it means less pressure for them to "return".
#4
Clearly, he thinks he has enough headaches already in-country, and despite the rhetoric about "right of return", doesn't need more nutters, steeped in sixty years of claustrophobic lunacy, on his hands.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/12/2005 10:06 Comments ||
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#5
He knows about Ein-El-Hellhole....
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/12/2005 10:29 Comments ||
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#6
It's small-time blackmail. The Arab "hosts" are going to have to do something as penance once it's clear that there is no way in Hell that they'll give the Paleos citizenship.
Posted by: Neutron Tom ||
07/12/2005 10:35 Comments ||
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#7
I have no problem with Paleos getting citizenship in the countries they're in. This is something those countries should have been making available since about 1948, and we've often remarked on the cynicism of the politix behind it. My problem's with wanting it all.
If you're a citizen of one country, drop your claim to the other. Dual citizenship doesn't work and should be abolished. Make your choice: if your new country isn't worth renouncing your old one, you probably didn't want to come to the new country in the first place. If you can't go back to the Olde Countrie, find another one that's better than where you landed.
If your grampaw got tossed from the family farm 50 or 60 years ago, the claim's probably lapsed by now. Get over it and get a job. What happened to my Grandaddy doesn't give me the right to beat up the descendants of the people he disagreed with, even if he did have a good time beating up their ancestors.
If you have your own state, which has been one of the harping points since 1967, that would seem to indicate you don't need somebody else's. A Paleostinian state would negate the right of return, even if the claim hadn't lapsed due to a. abandonment, and b. hostilities against Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 11:13 Comments ||
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#8
Has any Arab state ever shown any interest in allowing the Paleos to settle there permanently? I don't get the feeling that they're particularly welcome, and I can't say I'm surprised by that.
The palis are to a large extent, simply pawns used by the arab states to deflect criticism from their own conditions by their own people, and more recently, by the left in the west. In many ways, the last thing they'd want is a peaceful settlement between the palis and Israel.
Arab states dislike palis about as much as the Israelis dislike them.
#13
Sorry to disagree with Lib"hawk" yet again (as almost always, LOL), but I would venture that Jordan has NOT offered the Paleos citizenship;
in fact, I think "Crown Prince" Abdullah must definitely refused to take back any Paleos if they went back to their original homes.
Never forget that it was Jordan that kicked out Yasser and the Paleos in the first place back in the early '70s.
In point of fact, if Jordan would take these people back and they'd go, we wouldn't have this problem right now--virtually all of them are Jordanian.
#14
Jennie's right on this one, Liberalhawk. If Jordan had offered citizenship, why are all those Palestinians still in UN refugee camps in Jordan (Ein el hellhole) and the West Bank, which was Jordanian territory until they lost it in 1967?
Thinking it over, I suspect Neutron Tom nailed it: blackmail.
#15
King Hussein of Jordan booted out the Paleos (the Arafish Gang) because they tried to overthrow his government. The PLO and Black September were and are a bunch of thugs that destabilize any place they set up shop in. Remember Beruit when they arrived there after the debacle with King Hussein. Throwing money to the PA is a waste until they show something positive. So far it is just talk and booms. Their MO for negotiations is to demand demand demand. There is no give and take. A proletariat pox upon them.
Posted by: Al-Aska Paul ||
07/12/2005 21:28 Comments ||
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#16
Those living in the West Bank before the 1967 war were already Jordanian citizens. There were two waves of refugees into Jordan, after the 1948 and '67 wars. Many were housed in refugee camps, but are now mostly integrated into Jordan. Zarqa was one of those refugee camps, and Abu Musab Zarqawi's is considered to be Jordanian-Palestinian, so I assume part of his came to Jordan proper in 1948.
The above does not apply to other Arab countries.
Posted by: ed ||
07/12/2005 21:57 Comments ||
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LAST week's London bombings show a new wave of small al-Qaeda-linked cells now pose the largest terrorist threat, experts have warned.
IT is believed al-Qaeda-linked groups were responsible for the London carnage and last year's deadly blasts in Madrid.
Many say Osama bin Laden's leadership has dwindled since Afghanistan's Taliban leadership was forced from power by US-led forces, hindering police efforts to understand the organisation's mindset.
Professor Paul Wilkinson, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said: "Al-Qaeda has morphed, though that doesn't mean that Osama bin Laden has been pushed into oblivion.
"The core leadership is suffering from setbacks from when the Taliban was moved from power. But he still represents ideological leadership for them."
Prof Wilkinson said attacks such as the London bombings and the March 2004 Madrid train blasts were likely to have been organised and financed by local branches loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda.
"There is a global dispersion of groups who are not confined to one country," he said, calling it "a new kind of terrorism".
"These people want a lot of people dead as well as a lot of people watching," Prof Wilkinson said.
"We must recognise the need for a global strategy to unravel the cells."
The new terrorist front in London was hugely significant, Nadim Shehadi, head of the Middle East Program at UK think-tank Chatham House, said.
"London is a capital of the Muslim world. It is probably the only city in the world where the various parts of the Islamic world interact," Mr Shehadi said.
It was important to find out if the bombers were "home-grown", the newly-retired head of London's Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, has said.
Sir Stevens said he believed "up to 3000 British-born or British-based people have passed through Osama bin Laden's training camps over the years".
Overall, it was too early to determine if the London bombers had interacted with their Madrid counterparts or whether they were British-based, Prof Wilkinson said.
"I think there is a possible combination of home-grown people with experts who have come in and brought their expertise with them," he said.
"These people have never regarded Europe as off-limits. They are bitterly opposed to the values we stand for as allies of the United States, which they love to hate."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 00:13 ||
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It is likely that the London bombings caught Osama bin Laden by surprise as much as they did British intelligence.
For he does not know the cells that make up the new al-Qaeda in Europe and have little in common with the old al-Qaeda.
Whether the bombers were British Muslims who had hidden their identity so well that they were unknown to the intelligence services, or a more seasoned group based on the Continent, they constitute the thinking and practice of a new al-Qaeda that has developed since September 11, 2001.
Its members have not trained in Afghanistan or Iraq and are unlikely to have travelled to any of the world's trouble spots. They have never met any of the old al-Qaeda leaders. Their cells are small and highly secretive and some of them will carry British passports.
They are not innovators. They wish to emulate the attacks of the old al-Qaeda and they are motivated by more recent perceived symbols of Muslim humiliation: the occupation of Iraq and the American-run jails of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
Organisationally, new al-Qaeda is so different from the fanatics who carried out the attack on the World Trade Centre and fought the Americans in Afghanistan that it may not even warrant being called al-Qaeda any longer.
Al-Qaeda, which means "the base" in Arabic, has always encouraged diffusion as long as the basis of its anti-Western ideology is not displaced. Its tactical brilliance has been its ability to change its characteristics, recruitment patterns and mode of operations more swiftly than any other terrorist group in history. New al-Qaeda learns rapidly from the failures of past operations.
Europe's intelligence agencies have been busy tracking down old al-Qaeda. Since September 11, more than 4000 suspects have been arrested around the world.
MI5 has monitored every group of politically active Muslims and activists arriving in Britain since September 11, while MI6 has closely watched British Muslims travelling to terrorist-prone countries such as Pakistan or Iraq. Dozens of people have been arrested under the stiff anti-terrorism laws and others are being held in foreign jails.
However, just as war plans are often drawn up on the basis of the last war, British intelligence will have to throw away its old files and start anew to understand the new al-Qaeda.
Unlike the old ones, the new groups do not gather in London's mosques on a Friday afternoon and attack the West for its policies while their speeches and conversation are bugged. The new al-Qaeda does not divulge its activities to even its closest family members.
It is made up of individuals who have been friends for a long time, making any leak or penetration by intelligence agencies less likely.
The old al-Qaeda's hero is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who planned the September 11 attacks, recruited the personnel and arranged the logistics while travelling around the world with false passports, in multiple disguises and womanising in bars. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 while trying to rebuild the organisation from its by then scattered members.
The new al-Qaeda's hero is Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a British Muslim educated at the London School of Economics who is facing a death sentence in a Karachi jail for murdering the American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Even from behind bars, he is still believed to be in touch with militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Britain.
Just as bin Laden no longer uses any form of electronic communication, it is more than likely that in planning the London bombings the group avoided use of telephones or email in favour of direct meetings.
The perpetrators of the Madrid bombings were undone by their extensive mobile telephone calls.
The London group will have avoided the same mistake, making catching its members that much more difficult.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
07/12/2005 00:06 ||
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*snicker* Oooooh, it's so frightening, Al Qaeda is getting smaller and more highly secretive. I'm just terrified that someday they to get SOO small and SOO secretive - that nobody will even know they are there anymore. The horror!
Opposition Islamic leader Hassan Al-Turabi hit out yesterday at Sudanâs new power-sharing arrangement that put a final seal on a north-south peace deal, saying it fails to represent the countryâs political forces. âI am not objecting to southern representation. They deserve it because they have been disadvantaged for so long, it is the other 52 percent,â Turabi told AFP in an interview.
Sudanâs President Omar Bashir promulgated a new constitution on Saturday in accordance with a January peace agreement with former southern rebel group Sudan Peoplesâ Liberation Movement (SPLM). The deal, which was later enshrined in the constitution, grants Bashirâs ruling National Congress Party (NCP) 52 percent of executive posts and legislative seats and the SPLM 28 percent. âNo constitution in the world ever wrote in letter a majority for a party,â said Turabi who was Bashirâs one-time mentor and has been on the offensive since he was freed from 15 months in detention on July 30.
Fourteen out of the remaining 20 percent will go to northern opposition parties, with the remaining six percent to be split among other southern groups. Turabi argued that was not fair. âThe two major parties that have governed Sudan ... are misrepresented,â he said, referring to the countryâs two largest traditional parties - the Ummah Party of former Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi and the Democratic Unionist Party of Mohammed Osman Al-Mirghani. Both Turabiâs Popular Congress and Mahdiâs Ummah Party have already announced they would not participate in Sudanâs new national unity government whose formation is under way.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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Hamas movement denied Monday that its leadership abroad has an intention to return to Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal which is scheduled for mid-August. Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zahri told reporters here that this issue is not being debated by the movement at the current time, stressing that it is the right of every Palestinian to return to their homeland. Press reports indicated recently that Hamas leaders residing in Damascus are studying the possibility of the return of leading figures to Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, and making sure that the Israeli security control along the passageways between Egypt and Gaza has ended.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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LONDON - India has said terrorist camps are still operating in Pakistan and has photographic evidence to prove it.
I have told the Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz that the terrorist camps have not been dismantled. We have the photographs and I have told him that we can provide photographic evidence, Indiaâs External Affairs Minister K.Natwar Singh told the BBC here on Sunday night.
Natwar Singh, who was here to attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the G4 countries, hoped the peace process with Pakistan would continue unimpeded, unless there is a terrorist attack like the one witnessed in London. He said several countries in Indiaâs neighbourhood shared his views on the question of terrorist camps.
He said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government (Indiaâs ruling coalition) led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is committed to the peace process but regretted that every now and then new statements kept emanating from Pakistan. Every week a new statement comes out. Some time it is the Foreign Minister, the Prime Minister or even the President of Pakistan. We are not saying anything. The prime minister has made it clear that we are committed to finding a solution to all outstanding issues but a 52-year-old problem cannot be resolved overnight, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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Well then, India, take 'em out. The Paks couldn't complain that something that didn't exist was destroyed.
KATHMANDU - Nepalâs communist rebels asked the United Nations and the countryâs seven major political parties on Monday to sit down for talks on ending the Himalayan countryâs separatist conflict.
Getting your asses kicked, eh?
The appeal comes during a five-day visit to Nepal by Lakhdar Brahimi, a special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, aimed at helping to find a peaceful resolution to the 9-year Maoist rebellion. Brahimi, who arrived Sunday, is scheduled to meet King Gyanendra, senior government officials and leaders of political parties. âOur party is ready for talks with United Nations for peace, progress and democracy of the Nepalese people,â said Maoist rebel leader Prachanda in a statement that gave no other details.
But since they don't believe in any of those things it's going to be a real short session.
The rebels have asked the UN in the past to observe any peace negotiations with the government, which has repeatedly rejected the guerrillasâ offers of talks. The UN had no immediate reaction.
And that's unusual, how?
Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also appealed for talks with Nepalâs political parties, which have organized street protests against King Gyanendra, who sacked the elected government and took power in February. The move appeared to be intended to form an alliance against the monarch. However, the seven parties have said they will not form any partnership with the separatists unless they renounce violence. âThe Maoists have not given any proof that they have given up violence against civilians. We will have to discuss the latest offer with other parties before we decide on a response,â said Ram Sharan Mahat of Nepali Congress, the largest party.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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"Nepalâs communist rebels asked to sit down for talks on ending the Himalayan countryâs separatist conflict."
Translation: Hey Kofi - help us get some breathing time to reload and retool.
Sounds like it's time for Nepal to redouble their Maoist rebel (what a bad fucking joke) kill quota.
BAGHDAD - Iraqâs parliament will this month debate a bill to reorganise the special court created by the previous US occupation authority to try Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, the deputy speaker said on Monday.
Deputy speaker Hussein Shahristani told deputies that the first reading of the draft legislation will take place July 20. âThe proposed legislation will be really comprehensive,â Mariam al-Rayes, a Shiite deputy sitting on parliamentâs judicial committee, told AFP. âWe want to speed up the date of Saddamâs trial, we hope it can be held before the referendum on the new constitution in October.â
Rayes said the new legislation deals with potential loopholes in the tribunalâs bylaws or elements that may contradict Iraqi law, but gave no further details.
Let's do make sure the loopholes are closed. I want to watch Ramsey Clark sputter.
Many Kurdish and Shiite MPs who dominate the national assembly have charged that the Iraqi Special Tribunal is controlled by the Americans, saying this has slowed up the process of bringing Saddam to trial.
You want to try him today and hang him tomorrow, no skin off my fore.
The MPs from communities long-oppressed under Saddamâs Sunni Arab-dominated regime also want all judges sitting on the tribunal vetted for links to Saddamâs former ruling Baath party.
According to Reyes, the bill is aimed at silencing those questioning the authority of the court which was first set up by former US administrator Paul Bremer before the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis in June 2004. âThe tribunal needs to derive its legitimacy from the ultimate legislative authority, which is parliament,â she said.
Agree with that.
She said the credentials of the tribunalâs 30 investigative judges need to be reexamined for any affiliation to Saddamâs banned Baath party.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite who fought Saddamâs regime for years, has blamed the judges for the delay in starting the trial. The tribunal hit back recently saying it was solely responsible for setting a date for Saddamâs trial and it released several videotapes showing the former dictator and more than a dozen of his deputies being questioned by judges as proof that progress was being made in building up the cases against them.
A senior Kurdish deputy hoped the new legislation would be a prelude to speeding up the trial of Saddam and his lieutenants. âAt the moment, itâs all in the hands of America. We look at them as criminals who committed crimes against the Iraqi people, while America looks at them as a source of intelligence,â Mahmud Othman said.
It's both. We'll continue to pump them until you try and hang them. How's that?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
They are never going to get past this sectarian violence shit unless they quit identifying everyone as "shiite deputy" this, and "Sunni representative" that.
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.
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers". The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments". Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say.
A RADICAL Islamic convert with a long criminal history is running a halfway house for freed prisoners and the homeless. Helmut Kirsch, 48, who runs Arden Lodge in North Melbourne, said that ASIO and police suspected he was a terrorist. Kirsch, a former office-holder of the extreme Right-wing National Action, predicted Australia would soon pay a heavy price for its "overseas follies". 
One of Australiaâs leading Islamic clerics says he doesnât believe Osama bin Laden directed the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes against America or that Muslims were involved in either that attack or last weekâs London bombings. âI dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden. I donât believe that even Sept. 11 ... was done by any Muslim at all, or any other activities,â said 
A Saudi dissident exiled in London has warned Italy that it will be the next to be hit after London. "Italy should be very careful, al-Qaeda will strike it soon. Following its strategy, that is the most logical thing it will do," 
Spaniards who lived through a similar attack in Madrid last year view London's phlegmatic return to normality with a mixture of admiration, incomprehension and outrage. While the Madrid train bombings brought millions of mourners on to the streets of Spanish cities and provoked angry demonstrations, political rows and a change of government, Spaniards have found Londoners' stiff upper lip almost unintelligible. Nowhere was this more so than in Madrid, where comparisons were made between Thursday's attacks and the train bombings that killed 191 people in March last year.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, the DA's office has just confirmed for the first time to The New York Sun. The probe, apparently well advanced, involves allegations of commercial bribery related to Mr. Sevan's role as executive director from 1997-2003 of the oil-for-food relief program for Iraq, then under U.N. sanctions against the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sevan was picked for the job by Secretary-General Annan.
Newly-appointed Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Al-Sanioura said on Monday that a new government would be formed within the next 24 hours. Al-Sanioura, speaking to journalists after a meeting with the secretary general of the supreme Syrian-Lebanese council, Nasri Al-Khouri, for discussing the stranding of trucks at a Syrian-Lebanese border checkpoint, indicated that he was taking his time in the formation of the executive council to ensure that the government members would be qualified to handle the country's issues and thorny problems. The premier said he would visit Syria after formation of the cabinet. "We are proud of this approach and such a gesture bolsters the ties between the Syrian and Lebanese peoples," he said.
Iran's ultra-conservative president elect said last night that he wants "fair" relations with the entire world, but warned western nations not to issue demands to his country, which the US accuses of wanting to build nuclear weapons. 
Iraq's al-Qaeda leader 
Palestinian leader 
Opposition Islamic leader Hassan Al-Turabi hit out yesterday at Sudanâs new power-sharing arrangement that put a final seal on a north-south peace deal, saying it fails to represent the countryâs political forces. âI am not objecting to southern representation. They deserve it because they have been disadvantaged for so long, it is the other 52 percent,â Turabi told AFP in an interview.
Hamas movement denied Monday that its leadership abroad has an intention to return to Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal which is scheduled for mid-August. Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zahri told reporters here that this issue is not being debated by the movement at the current time, stressing that it is the right of every Palestinian to return to their homeland. Press reports indicated recently that Hamas leaders residing in Damascus are studying the possibility of the return of leading figures to Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, and making sure that the Israeli security control along the passageways between Egypt and Gaza has ended.
LONDON - India has said terrorist camps are still operating in Pakistan and has photographic evidence to prove it.
KATHMANDU - Nepalâs communist rebels asked the United Nations and the countryâs seven major political parties on Monday to sit down for talks on ending the Himalayan countryâs separatist conflict. 
