September 7, 2005: In Saudi Arabia, the war on terror continues. A three day siege of a house in eastern Saudi Arabia ended on September 6th, with the death of three terrorists and two policemen. While the Islamic terrorists have a lot of supporters in the kingdom, there are an even larger number of Saudis opposed to terrorism in their neighborhoods (Islamic terrorism elsewhere, like in Iraq, is more likely to be tolerated). Thus the police have a regular supply of tips. However, many of the suspected terrorists turn out to be common criminals. Increasingly, however, some of the gangsters are, indeed, terrorists as well. Under increased police pressure, and deprived of monetary support from wealthy and pious (but now terrified) Saudis, the Islamic radicals have turned to crime to finance their operations. Smuggling, money laundering and drugs are the major sources.
Itâs not easy being a criminal in Saudi Arabia, especially if it involves drugs. Such crimes often result in death by beheading, which is usually preceded by âvigorous interrogationâ (torture). With those prospects, Saudi gangsters tend to be a tough and fatalistic lot. The roughest of them come from the south, along the Yemeni border. This is an area where the kingâs law was never strong, and the Shia tribes across the border in Yemen, long abused by Saudi Sunni religious radicals, did as they pleased. Or at least tried to. Between 2000 and 2004, Saudi police intercepted many smuggler shipments, which included 14.8 million rounds of ammunition, 16,300 firearms, 2,800 pounds of explosives, and other bomb making material.
The Saudi al Qaeda members, despite being fanatic Sunni religious bigots, work with the Yemeni Shia gangsters to get drugs and weapons into the kingdom. Some of the terrorists have been found to be using drugs (opium, hashish, heroin, and morphine being the most popular, but more varieties, like Ecstasy and meth, are showing up.) The religious radicals in the kingdom preach against drugs, but the young believers want a taste of paradise, and their leaders often just look the other way, or take a hit themselves.
The kingdom is down on drugs, as well as terrorism, and itâs become more difficult to get the drugs in via the northeastern ports. So the Yemeni route has become more important. The Yemeni smugglers are heavily armed, and apt to open fire if intercepted. The situation along the Yemeni border is similar to Iraq along the Syrian border. In both places, you have tribesmen who live on both sides of the border (most maps show the Saudi-Yemeni borders as a dotted line, to represent the disagreements between both nations as to exactly where the border is). You have tribesmen who see smuggling as an honorable and ancient profession, and who believe a man without a gun is no man at all. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the Saudi Islamic terrorists are accepted as allies. Itâs business.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/07/2005 10:02 ||
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You need to give a warning before posting pictures like that! The gestalt was fine, but the details as I read down... Oh dear me.
Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said here yesterday that the Kingdom was seeking UN endorsement of its proposal for an international center to combat terrorism. âSaudi Arabia has presented a proposal to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and governments who participated in the international anti-terrorism conference held in Riyadh last February calling for the General Assembly to issue a resolution endorsing the Riyadh Declaration,â Prince Saud said.
That's kinda like putting the John Calvin Appreciation Center in the Vatican...
The resolution would adopt the recommendations made by the conference, chiefly the proposal by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah who was then crown prince to set up an international center to combat terrorism, he said. Prince Saudâs remarks came ahead of the annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York next week. Crown Prince Sultan will leave for New York today at the head of a high-level Saudi delegation to attend the UN session, the Royal Court announced yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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The UN Wahabi Seal of Approval is emminent.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/07/2005 0:19 Comments ||
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That's kinda like putting the John Calvin Appreciation Center in the Vatican...
A man was shot five times in the head at close range in an "execution" plotted by a group who had failed to convert him to Islam, a jury has heard. Adrian Marriot's murder was a "swift and brutal response" to him falling out with the group, the Old Bailey heard. Marcus Archer, Aaron Irving-Simpson and Marlon Stubbs, all 24, deny conspiracy to murder the man from Brixton, London. Mr Stubbs and Mr Archer had said they had a "missionary zeal" for converting people to Islam, the prosecutor said.
Christopher Kinch QC told the jury Mr Marriot, of Swinford Gardens on the Angel Town Estate in Brixton, had told his brother David he had been threatened at gunpoint by Mr Stubbs and two other men and £500 demanded from him. Mr Marriot and another man had then "accosted" Mr Archer at Loughborough Junction train station, Mr Kinch said. Mr Archer "plainly felt himself threatened and at risk of something very bad happening to him", he added. "He made contact with the other defendants and we say that you will be able to conclude that the execution of Adrian Marriot was being planned from that moment on. It was likely other people were also involved in the "conspiracy, that is an agreement, to shoot Adrian Marriot dead", Mr Kinch said. Mr Kinch told the jury that after the station incident, Mr Stubbs rang Mr Marriot's sister Tara and said: "Your brother is a little tadpole. He just messed with a big shark, a whale."
Mr Marriot had known Mr Archer for several years before he and Mr Stubbs began visiting the house he shared with Tara, David and their mother, Ruth, Mr Kinch added. "They said they were interested in getting converts to Islam and among their targets for conversion were Adrian Marriot himself, his sister Tara and her friend Jade Okai. "Whether what they said was actually true, that they had a missionary zeal to convert people, or whether that was more of a front for getting people under their circle of influence, is a question you may have to consider as you hear the evidence." "There may have been some element of pressure brought to bear by the two men but in due course both Tara Marriot and her friend Jade Okai agreed to take the Shahadah, a declaration of faith."
The two women had then been given hijabs, or headscarves, Mr Kinch told the jury. And Mr Stubbs and Mr Irving-Simpson had brought round DVDs, Islamic books and copies of the Koran. Lucky girls! A tale of ornary South London scumbuckets... Sounds like the barbarous nature of Islam is forming another excuse for London's black community to keep on shooting each other. Aint that grand...
High in the hills of Chechnya, the father of two of the Beslan hostage-takers, including the only one captured alive, counts off on his fingers the fate of his sons.
"I had seven at the start of the war," says Aburkash Kulayev. "Now I have four. One died here fighting the Russians. Khanpashi died in Beslan. Nurpashi, the youngest, he went to Beslan and was captured."
Echoes of that grim arithmetic are heard across Chechnya, a tiny Muslim province in the Caucasus mountains. Russia's two wars to crush a separatist rebellion in Chechnya over the past decade have killed, by various estimates, at least 50,000 - possibly far more than 100,000 - of the 1 million people. Almost every Chechen family has suffered a loss, leaving the entire population traumatized.
The attack last year by 32 hostage-takers on School No. 1 in Beslan, just to the west of Chechnya, was the latest and most horrific evidence of radicalization among rebel groups that have been battling Russia's army for years, but are now turning increasingly to terrorism.
When Russian rescuers tried storming the school, 318 of the hostages held by the Chechen-led group in an explosives-rigged gymnasium were killed in the crossfire. More than half were children.
In his ramshackle cottage in the village of Engenoi, deep in Chechnya's mountainous, pro-rebel south, Kulayev, 70, expressed sorrow, but no remorse, for Beslan. "Whatever happened, happened. In Chechnya, thousands of children have died," said Kulayev, who has a thick white beard and wore threadbare clothes. "War above all destroys the weak and helpless."
Many Chechens feel the same way. They looked on the massacre at Beslan with horror - and deja vu. In the past decade, Russian aerial bombing and shelling, firefights and rebel killing of "collaborators" have devastated this small ethnic group, which fiercely resisted Russian colonization in the 19th century and was repressed en masse under Stalin.
Between 3,000 and 5,000 people simply have "disappeared" - usually after being detained by Russian soldiers - in the past five years, the leading Russian human rights group Memorial says.
In three major battles for the capital Grozny, Russian bombing, rocketing and shelling targeted everything from hospitals to crowded streets and - in one case witnessed by this reporter - an orphanage. What was once a major industrial city now looks like post-World War II Stalingrad.
The human damage has been as extensive. A survey last year by the aid group Doctors Without Borders found that 90 percent of Chechens had lost someone close and that 16 percent had witnessed such a death. More than 65 percent said they never feel safe.
Although Moscow claims the war is over, several Russian servicemen, or their locally recruited police allies, are killed or wounded daily by Chechen guerrillas in small ambushes similar to those made by Iraqi insurgents against U.S.-led forces in Iraq. About 10,000 Russian soldiers have died in a decade, officials say; independent observers say the number is at least 20,000.
Many insurgents are young men seeking vengeance against Russia. Others have been seduced by extremist Islam, which is increasingly tapping into anti-Russian and anti-government sentiment in the North Caucasus region. Their most deadly commander, Shamil Basayev, claimed responsibility for Beslan. A year later, he remains at large, warning he will stop at nothing.
At an orphanage in Grozny run on foreign donations and the sheer willpower of its Chechen husband-and-wife directors, the children have distant, adult eyes.
One, Ben-Murad Mustiyev, 18, used to live with his mother in an apartment on the city's edge. One day in 1996, he says, "Mama came in and gave me and my sister ice cream, then went out to her job at the cafe. 'Tomorrow, we'll go out together,' she said. Those were her last words."
That day, soldiers raided the cafe, with no explanation, and dragged away several women, including Mustiyev's mother.
Her body, along with three others, was found several days later outside a nearby village. "My mama had been stabbed nine times in the chest and back," he said in an interview last week.
Today, Mustiyev and his sister Belkis, 17, are among about 40 children at the orphanage. They all refer to themselves as siblings and the directors as parents. Discussing his newfound talent for woodcarving, Mustiyev smiles shyly.
But his climb to recovery is steep. He didn't complete his first year of school until he was 11 and he's still too frightened to visit his mother's grave. "There are Russian soldiers" stationed nearby, he said, almost inaudibly.
"Almost all children who stayed [in Chechnya] during the war are mentally unbalanced. Even babies are born stressed," said the orphanage director, Khadizhat Gatayeva, 40. "They are the young who have paid and will keep paying for the sins of adults."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/07/2005 00:31 ||
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All in the name of the dreams of a sociopathic arab (Khattab, may he rot forever - recall jihadi videos of him mutilating corpses like a sick 12 year old with a wounded bird) and his child killing buddy Basayev's (may he and his family be dogged every single day by the memory of children and their parents in Beslan forever)who only wanted a caliphate to call their own from all-too-bellicose new Russian nationalists. Don't forget good Maskhadov the "moderate" (incompetent politician who evolved into the "straight man" face for the jihadi murder machine, may he rot forever as well as all his thieving, lying "govenment" officials who camped out in Turkey, Baku, the UK and alot of Europe) who sat back and let it all spin quickly out of control after the first war secured a measure of independence that could have been consolidated and formalized if there was a single chechen in power with half a phukin brain in their head and a teaspoon of common sense. The war lingers, people die or get mutilated physically or mentally, the chechens learn nothing, and the Russians learn even less and the jihadi hangers on don't know anything in this world save how to murder and destroy things. The old man quoted in the article is a very good example of why the chechens will continue to suffer like animals from violence, ignorance and material as well as moral poverty largely the making of their own people.
#2
I agree, Sham. After the first battle of Grozny, I had immense respect for the Chechens. Those were some brave SOBs. Now they rank slightly above the Pals in my view.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promises the rights of women will not be compromised if the province allows Muslims to use shariah â Islamic law â to settle civil and marital disputes. A report by former NDP attorney-general Marion Boyd recommends that Ontario allow Muslims to establish sharia-based tribunals similar to Jewish and Catholic arbitration bodies. Mr. McGuinty said the Liberal government is reviewing Ms. Boyd's report and will produce its own recommendations "at some point in time."
He says whatever the province does, "it will be in keeping with the values of Ontarians and Canadians." When asked what he meant by that, McGuinty said people will just have to be patient.
Marches to protest against the possibility of allowing shariah in Ontario are planned this week for cities around the world, including Toronto, Paris, London, Stockholm and DÃŒsseldorf, Germany. Opponents contend that the push for shariah is part of an extremist Islamic agenda, and they say it discriminates against women in basic matters such as divorce, inheritance rights and child custody.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promises the rights of women will not be compromised if the province allows Muslims to use shariah â Islamic law â to settle civil and marital disputes.
Chickens not endangered by letting foxes into hen house.
#3
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promises the rights of women will not be compromised if the province allows Muslims to use shariah â Islamic law â to settle civil and marital disputes.
Waitaminnit.
When this farce started, it was touted as being for civil disputes -- just as a contract stipulates any disagreements are to be settled by arbitration, a contract could stipulate it's to be settled by sharia (snort) law.
When did marital disputes get added to the purview?
I've never been in favor of this, but shouldn't this be setting off big, red sirens for people who don't have a beef with it?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/07/2005 9:45 Comments ||
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I think that leftists have a fungus in their brain that tells them that the ways of foreigners are by definition better than the ways of the people they grew up with. That is, he just *knows* that Sharia is better than Canadian law, because it's *not* Canadian law.
You see the effects of this fungus in US leftists a lot. They knew communism and fascism was better than democracy, and that eastern religions are better than western religions, and just everything that foreigners do is just generally better than anything the US does.
#7
I fancy the disorder an irreversible degenerative brain disorder that, unchecked, ultimately ends in high mortality rates preceeded by long periods of profound suffering, usually by others not actually afflicted with the disorder as it hollows out the brains of those infected like a dried squash leaving them immune to all forms of human suffering outside of irrational abstractions and myth.
#11
I have no objection to sharia being used for civil disputes, if both parties voluntarily consent and no laws are broken, but marital disputes? No Way! I'm with RC, when did this deal change?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/07/2005 19:17 Comments ||
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Ya know, Mrs. Davis, I have a feeling the "deal" never changed. We just weren't told the whole story.
If Canada allows sharia to be enforced -- especially in regards to family issues -- and passes some sort of "religious defamation" law, like the one in Australia, then we may as well move Canada to the "hostile" column.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/07/2005 21:54 Comments ||
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[September 02 2005] at 0200 UTC in position 06:05N - 003:24E, off Lagos, Nigeria. Four robbers in a wooden boat armed with long knives boarded a container ship drifting 19 nm off Lagos. Alarm was raised, crew mustered and robbers escaped.
[August 31 2005] at 0130 LT in position 15:01N - 041:53E, about 150 miles NW of Bab El Mandeb TSS, Southern Red Sea. Pirates in a boat attempted to board a bulk carrier underway from starboard side. Master took evasive manoeuvres; crew mustered, directed search lights and activated fire hoses. Pirates then tried to board from stern but aborted attempt at 0215 LT.
NEW YORK: A long-awaited report on the corruption-tainted UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq has cleared UN Secretary General Kofi Annan of ethical misconduct, but has faulted him for serious management lapses, according to a preface made available on Tuesday. "The reality is that the secretary general has come to be viewed as the chief diplomatic and political agent of the United Nations," the preface of the study by an independent panel said. "In these turbulent times, those responsibilities tend to be all consuming. The record amply reflects consequent administrative failings."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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A long-awaited report on the corruption-tainted UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq has cleared UN Secretary General Kofi Annan of ethical misconduct,..
Looks like that little Kojo/Cotecna affair must not have counted for much, if anything....
THE Volcker inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal called for a significant overhaul of the UN yesterday as it prepared to reveal details of âserious instances of illicit, unethical and corrupt behaviourâ at the world body. The three-member committee, led by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, released the preface to a 1,000-page report that is to be presented today to the UN Security Council. âThe main conclusions are unambiguous,â the panel declared. âThe organisation requires stronger executive leadership, thoroughgoing administrative reform and more reliable controls and auditing.â
The five-page preface contained no details of the investigation into Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, and his predecessor, Boutros Boutros Ghali, or other UN officials. But its conclusion that stronger executive leadership is required will add to pressure on Mr Annan to stand down. âThe reality is that the Secretary-General has come to be viewed as chief diplomatic and political agent of the UN,â the panel said. âThe present Secretary-General is widely respected for precisely those qualities. In these turbulent times, those responsibilities tend to be all-consuming. The record amply reflects consequent administrative failings.â Mr Annan, who was in London yesterday for a meeting of the Global Fund on HIV/Aids, planned to fly to New York last night and has asked to address the Security Council after Mr Volcker presents his report today.
The preface confirmed that there were âinstances of corruption among senior staff as well as in the fieldâ. The panel noted that the Oil-for-Food programme, set up in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell oil and buy humanitarian supplies while under UN sanctions, did succeed in staving off a potential crisis. But it said that the programmeâs âreal accomplishmentsâ were marred by âwholesale corruptionâ by private companies, manipulated by Saddam Husseinâs Iraq.
It criticised UN member states that it said had âaided and abetted grievous weaknesses in administrative practices within the (UN) secretariat.â The âpoliticisation of decision-makingâ, âmanagerial weaknessâ and âethical lapsesâ were all symptomatic of systemic problems at the UN, it said. âWhen troublesome conflicts arose between political objectives and administrative effectiveness, decisions were delayed, bungled, or simply shunned.â
The Volcker committee, which spent more than $30 million (£16 million) of Iraqâs oil money on its investigation, proposed that the UN appoint a chief operating officer, nominated by the 15-nation Security Council and approved by the 191-state General Assembly.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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report should be called "Cover Up for Kofi"
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/07/2005 0:22 Comments ||
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THE Volcker inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal called for a significant overhaul of the UN yesterday as it prepared to reveal details of âserious instances of illicit, unethical and corrupt behaviourâ at the world body.
#3
I believe it was Claudia Rosett who pointed out that while Kofi's now whining that the UN should never have been involved in the first place, he was originally whining for the expansion of the program and had a personal hand in installing everyone who's been rousted for corruption so far.
And has anyone seen Mikey? Odd that he's not commenting on this stuff. I would have thought it would be important to him, considering the regard he has for the UN.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/07/2005 7:54 Comments ||
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Gee whiz, "serious instances of illicit, unethical and corrupt behaviourâ from the toadys and hangers-on of the world's kleptocrats? Wotta surprise! Quick, notify Inspector Gadget!
Then toss 'em all out and burn the buildings. It's the only way to sterilize the area. Even the rats in Manhattan have some standards...
Many could not hide their surprise upon learning that the southeast Asia director of the International Crisis Group (ICG), Sidney Jones, had returned to Indonesia and spoken at the Asian-European Editors' Forum last week: There had been no prior announcement about it. The event was also attended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who made the keynote address and personally welcomed Jones back.
"I arrived about a month ago," Jones told The Jakarta Post in the midst of her hectic schedule at ICG's Jakarta office on the 14th floor of Menara Thamrin, Central Jakarta. Jones jokingly said that she had made a stealthy comeback to the country after more than a year living in "exile" in Singapore, following her deportation from Indonesia. In June 2004, Jones and her colleague, Francesca Lawe-Davies, were expelled from the country by the administration of president Megawati Soekarnoputri.
The then State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief, A.M. Hendropriyono, said that the deportation was based on the grounds that Jones and her activities had tarnished the country's image by producing reports that were untrue. Prior to her deportation, Jones had written at length on the country's Islamist radical groups and the perceived threat they posed to society, as well as publishing reports on a number of communal conflicts that had plagued the country. Pundits and the media condemned the deportation, saying that it went against freedom of expression. Furthermore, ultimately, BIN itself stood to benefit from Jones' reports as they shed light on the activities of radical groups like Jemaah Islamiyah.
Before her departure, Jones realized that the move to prevent her from working here had started long before the actual deportation order was issued. "When we received the order it came as a real shock because I did not believe beforehand that we would be compelled to leave. When I went to the airport, said my goodbyes and boarded a plane it was devastating," she said. Jones was concerned that, after her departure, no harm would befall local ICG staff or its property. In the event, none of the ICG local staff were harmed and they continued with their work as though nothing had happened.
Following their deportation, Jones and Lawe-Davies opted to stay in Singapore where they also worked as visiting fellows at the Institute for South Asian Studies (ISEAS). From the city state, Jones continued working for ICG and managed to produce reports about a communal conflict in Mamasa, South Sulawesi, despite having no direct contact with resources in Indonesia. Lawe-Davies, for her part, wrote a report on an Islamic group in Southern Thailand. The deportation dealt a severe blow to Jones when the monstrous tsunami struck northern Sumatra in December last year. "Some people that I knew perished in the tsunami but I was helpless to do anything, even though I was close by. I just watched the tragedy unfold," she said.
Friends of Jones who were lost to the tragedy included former Aceh chairman of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Muharram M. Nur, lawyer of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Syarifah and Maimul Fidar of the Coalition of Human Rights Non-governmental Organizations. Uncertainty over whether she would be able to return to Indonesia also increased Jones' sense of desperation to the point where she made a proposal to the ICG HQ in Brussels about the possibility of doing research in other countries. "I told them that maybe I could help out in Bangladesh," she said. But before a response to her proposal was made by Brussels, a decision to give Jones a green light to come back and work in Indonesia had already been taken by the government here.
Jones said that she had no idea about how the decision came about; she knew only that people had been working behind the scenes to secure her return. "I'm grateful to everybody -- private citizens, government officials and members of the diplomatic community -- who worked for my return," she said.
As soon as the go-ahead was granted, Jones decided on a trip to Jakarta earlier last month. The most nerve-racking part of the journey was going through passport control at Soekarno-Hatta International airport. "I held my breath as I went through. I had my visa in my hand and had no problem, just as though nothing had ever happened," she said with a chuckle. Upon entering her office, nothing much had changed: The papers she had left on her desk last year were still in exactly the same place. Jones now lives in the same apartment building she vacated over a year ago; this time, her unit is six floors lower as her old room has already been relet.
Returning to Indonesia has meant a great deal for someone like Jones, who has had a deep involvement with the country for almost three decades. Soon after she had earned her degrees in oriental studies and international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, Jones was sent in 1977 by the Ford Foundation, her first employer, to Jakarta to examine Islamic education. After completing a stint with the Ford Foundation in 1980, Jones embarked on research into Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization, in Kediri, East Java, for a year. Jones later worked with Amnesty International before joining the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
She joined ICG in 2002 and started working on a project that resulted in a report titled Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia: The Case of the Ngruki Network in Indonesia. Ngruki is the Islamic boarding school in Surakarta, Central Java, once led by cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
Now, after what she refers to as 14 months of "enforced relaxation" in Singapore, Jones says she is ready to face all the stresses that are an inevitable aspect of living in Jakarta. "Despite the traffic and pollution, I'd rather live in Jakarta than anywhere else in the world. Maybe it's because I have more friends here," she mused.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/07/2005 00:17 ||
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The government has refused to make a deal with the European Union (EU) on the matter of Iranian nuclear weapons. The government is calling the Europeans bluff, believing that the EU will eventually fold, and revive economic ties with Iran (including the sale of weapons and military technology.) It's believed that Iran could master the technology for building nuclear weapons in five years, or less. Nuclear weapons technology is believed to still be available on the black market, from North Korean and Pakistani sources. If some of this stuff was obtained by Iran, nuclear weapons could be had in as little as two or three years (with another year or two required to build reliable ones for combat use). Meanwhile, Iran is building better relations with India, to provide a trading partner in case things go south with the EU. However, the Iranians believe that the EU's threats are empty and that EU attempts to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons will quietly fade away.
Posted by: ed ||
09/07/2005 11:25 ||
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Iranians believe that the EU's threats are empty and that EU attempts to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons will quietly fade away.
I agree. I think at this point that Iran will get the bomb no matter what (unless we invade and/or bomb the crap out of them and I don't see that happening). Perfect anti-ballistic missile technology, deploy it to the gulf and share it with Israel and let Iran know in no uncertain terms that a terrorist attack with nukes would be considared a nuclear attack from Iran and we would respond in kind (aka the cuban missile crisis).
#3
The world in general, with a few notable exceptions, appeases and ignores Iran's threats to use nuclear weapons against Israel. Ballistic missile systems are defensive, and represent a tremendous quantity of expended national treasure to develop and construct, and are not perfect walls of the fortress. Countries like Iran that make threats with nuclear weapons need to be addressed, both above and below the table.
The deal is that when they get nuclear weapons, they WILL give some to proxies to do their dirty little business. And the nukes will not be mounted on missiles. For example, what about bringing a nuke into Gaza? That could be done. If they cannot lob it over the wall, they should be able to set it off near the fence on a breezy day, with the breeze heading toward Israel. Lose some Paleos? BFD. Israel would be uninhabitable in places from the fallout.
We are facing an extremely serious threat and we cannot ignore it. Something will have to be done, and it will have to involve more than defensive missiles. This will be an eleventh hour operation on Armageddon Street, folks.
Posted by: Al-Aska Paul ||
09/07/2005 16:52 Comments ||
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The only purpose for Iran to possess atomic weapon is for their use. They are not intended for defense. The plan is to use them against the Great Satan and the Zionist entity in any way they can.
Iran has been at war with the US and Israel from the day the current state of Iran has existed. They declared the war and up to this point have been winning it.
We must deal with the problem sooner or later. No other Nation States will assist us. They feel they have nothing to fear. What they need to fear is a global nuclear exchange. Once this kind of thing starts all bets of restraint is off. Would China not be tempted to sucker punch us if Iran managed to deliver weapons to the US and set them off?
#5
Remember that Israel is only one of several possible Iranian targets. Others include a US fleet in the Med, Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea, which is their best chance for deniability; an attack against US forces in Iraq; and a missile attack against the Saudi oilfields or even Europe.
Carrying a weapon overland is too risky. Their choices against Israel would be either a ship off their coast, either as a launch pad or for fallout, or a missile. Either would carry a substantial risk of being shot down or sunk before its mission or target range could be completed or attained.
The primary target in Israel would most likely not be Tev Aviv, it would be the Jericho II missile installation, to try and neutralize much of Israel's retaliatory capability. This could only be done by missile.
This then, moves their strategy to being one of salvos: firing waves of missiles, some nuclear, some dummy or conventional. Possibly saving an attack from an unexpected direction, most likely out at sea.
Even if some weapons were not missile carried, it would be a missile and anti-missile intensive conflict. There is also a good chance that their efforts would be in tandem with some other power, say Nork.
If the US does has significant anti-missile energy weapon and SAM capability in a theater defense, then the US would own Iran.
#8
If memeory serves I believe it was Saddam's boyz that allegedly fired a few Chicom [dual/nuke-capable SILKWORMS] at US or Allied ships in the Straits, all of which were quickly shot down and struck nothing. I believe it was reported that the SILKWORMS were likely armed only with conventional warheads. In any case, since I believe its evident that 9-11 is about forcing Socialism on the USA, where "justified" = forced upon, we Amers may as well presume that Iran already has a nuke or nuke(s), as the Lefties and their Spetzlamists want US milfors to invade Iran and North Korea, etal. while looking bad in the process. NO MATTER WHAT DUBYA, THE GOP, ANDOR CONSERVATIVES DO, AMERICA IS GOING TO BE CRITICIZED FOR NOT HAVING "PERFECT" OR "ABSOLUTE" INTEL - THE LEFT IS GOING TO CRITICIZE AND POLITICIZE NO MATTER WHETHER THE ROGUES, ONE OR ALL OF THEM, HAVE ONE NUKE OR 1000 NUKES. America must take at worst MINIMALIST MIL ACTIONS WHILE EXPANDING THE SIZE AND REACH OF GOVERNMENT AND UNCONDITIONAL INTERNATIONAL SUBSIDATION.
Lebanon's Cabinet passed legislation in consensus last night to transform the Internal Security Forces headquarters into a prison for three of the four security heads accused of complicity in the assassination of late Premier Rafik Hariri. The session was convened in an extraordinary session at Baabda Presidential Palace following a closed-door meeting between President Emile Lahoud and Premier Fouad Siniora, which might have facilitated the legislation to be passed in consensus.
Following the session, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters the former director general of the ISF will be transferred to a military barrack in the Defense Ministry, saying it is inappropriate to detain him at the institution he formerly ran. According to an official Cabinet statement, Siniora said that "due to the fact that the detainees are some of the highest military and security chiefs in the country, and in order to regulate the situation in a proper fashion, we saw that it would be more convenient that the suspects should not be detained in an institution they used to head." In his own statement, Lahoud reasserted his previous position regarding the suspects, stressing that all "the accused are innocent until proven guilty."
"If they are innocent, they will return to their positions. Otherwise, they will be held accountable for their crimes," he added. The Cabinet decision came after Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa, one of Beirut MP Saad Hariri's closest allies, reported during Monday's regular session that three of the four security chiefs were receiving visits from non-family members, particularly officers loyal to the pro-Syrian regime. Justice Minister Charles Rizk, a Lahoud loyalist, rejected Sabaa's charge, saying that the visits which were allowed to the three generals were legal and had no adverse bearing on the progress of the international or domestic investigation into Hariri's murder. The decision to convene the emergency Cabinet session under Lahoud's chairmanship was reached after the president threatened to abstain from signing a decree to legalize the Surete Generale's prison.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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An Army reservist was acquitted Wednesday of charges that he beat a detainee in Afghanistan.
Sgt. Christopher W. Greatorex was accused of abusing a man named Habibullah, who died days after being detained by U.S. forces in December 2002. A military report said Habibullah died of a pulmonary embolism apparently caused by blood clots formed in his legs from beatings.
A military jury of two officers and an enlisted soldier voted for acquittal of Greatorex on charges of abuse, maltreatment and making false official statements. The trial of another soldier charged with beating the same detainee is to start Thursday.
Greatorex served with the Cincinnati-based 377th Military Police Company.
A witness, Army Sgt. Keri Patterson, testified Tuesday that she was positive she saw Greatorex and Sgt. Darin Broady repeatedly use knee strikes on Habibullah as he stood in an isolation cell with his hands chained to the ceiling.
Prosecutors said her testimony was all the jury needed to convict Greatorex, while defense attorneys said she was mistaking him for another soldier.
Broady's court-martial is scheduled next. Nine soldiers were charged with abusing Habibullah and another detainee at Bagram Airfield, and several have been convicted or pleaded guilty to abuse and other charges.
Charges were dropped against another Ohio reservist, who received a letter of reprimand.
For years, they gathered in hidden training camps, mosques, and madrassahs, learning how to use weapons and build bombs. In their diaries they scrawled slogans of political alienation. On Aug. 17, their ideology culminated in a series of nearly 500 bomb blasts that shook the nation and killed three people.
In the aftermath of the attacks, Bangladesh is confronting a realization long suspected but consistently overlooked: Islamist militant groups have taken firm root here, demonstrating a widespread, highly coordinated, and well-funded network. The government, after consistently denying the threat, recently blamed Jama'atul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB), for the attack.
Bangladesh is not supposed to be a breeding ground of extremism. Although one of the world's poorest countries, it is often lauded as a development success story. Poverty rates have declined, life expectancy is up, and the economy has consistently grown by 5 percent annually for years - above average for most developing nations.
But remarkable development and extremism are not mutually exclusive. The rise of JMB, observers say, shows how homegrown militancy, invigorated by foreign funds and leadership radicalized in Afghanistan, has flourished here because of growing economic inequalities and acrimonious politics that have crippled the functioning of democracy.
"Because [Bangladesh] is seen as this development success story, it's fallen under the radar," says Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "There's too much at stake here. Until now, we could say this is a really good example of Islam and democracy coexisting."
Since the Aug. 17 attacks, police have arrested more than 300 people and begun to understand more about the JMB. The group was banned in February after members confessed to bombing 'un-Islamic' targets, including theater shows and the offices of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Abdur Rahman, the spiritual head of the organization, told the press last year that he admired the Taliban and had traveled to Afghanistan. He claimed his organization had been operating underground since 1998, with the aim of founding an Islamic state. His network was active across the country, he said, with 10,000 trained full-time operatives, and 100,000 part-time activists, funded with a payroll of more than $10,000 a month, a huge sum by Bangladeshi standards.
The government is now following the money trail and working with the country's banks to identify suspicious accounts and transactions, some possibly originating abroad. "They've received monetary help from Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Pakistan," says a retired police investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They first started in 1989 during the Afghan war."
Another JMB leader, Muhammad Asadullah Al-Galib, who was arrested after the February crackdown, is alleged by intelligence agencies to have received large funding from the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), a Kuwait-based organization. In 2002, the US State Department blacklisted some RIHS offices, citing their support of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. RIHS and Galib's organization have reportedly constructed over 1,000 mosques across Bangladesh and 10 madrassahs.
But analysts say foreign support is only part of the equation, arguing that extremism has found room to flourish because Islamist politics are gaining ground here. The ruling BNP party, they point out, came to power in 2001 by forming a coalition with two Islamist parties, Jamaat-e-Islami and Islamic Oikye Jote, which together hold 20 seats in parliament.
"The rise of Islamist parties creates a permissive environment, making it difficult to crackdown on militants when the people in power are aligned with Islamist politics," says Ms. Fair.
There is no proof linking terrorist activities to the Jamaat Party, but militants arrested over the past two years have claimed links to local-level Jamaat members, while police have described others as former members of Jamaat's student wing.
The Jamaat Party, however, denies these allegations. "The number is very low. It's not proof that Jamaat-e-Islami was involved in terrorist activities," says Mr. Kamaruzzaman.
Critics of Jamaat are not convinced. Abul Barkat, an economist at Dhaka University, says he's spent the past seven years tracing Jamaat's growing financial power. What he discovered frightened him. "Their central vision is to capture state power," he says, adding the party generates almost $200 million in annual profit, according to his analysis of Jamaat-owned businesses, which he says runs the gamut from banks and insurance companies to technology and media concerns. "They are an economy within the economy - a state within a state," he says, with some profits used to fund militant organizations like JMB.
Kamaruzzaman denies that Jamaat sponsors or patronizes any violent activities: "We have no secret agenda."
Critics like Mr. Barkat see the rise of Islamism as a failure of the democratic process here. Democratic institutions, they say, have been paralyzed by corruption and the enmity between the ruling BNP and the opposition Awami League. Both parties, when not in power, boycott parliamentary sessions and implement nationwide strikes.
"Democracy has gone far downhill since it came in 1991," says William Milam, a former US ambassador to Bangladesh. "Bangladesh is really not a democracy because the government which is elected freely and fairly cannot govern - and that applies to both parties."
Bangladeshi political observers agree, noting that the two parties immediately accused each other after the Aug. 17 attacks, instead of uniting to condemn it, as many had hoped.
Economic inequalities are rising against the backdrop of declining governance, adding fuel to the extremist fire. "Although we have reduced poverty over the last few years by about a percentage a year, inequality is still increasing," says Mustafizur Rahman, research director of the Center for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka. He points out that many of the militants arrested in the wake of Aug. 17 have been from the lowest class of society.
Arresting the culprits, say security experts, now requires the cooperation of the mainstream parties. "This blaming game always demoralizes the investigators," says A.S.M. Shahjahan, a former chief of the national police. "Consensus is a must for the people to come together as a bulwark against this. That is the need of the hour."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/07/2005 00:23 ||
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"The government is now following the money trail ... Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Pakistan..."
The Soddies have built mosque after mosque and madrassa after madrassa (which the Soddies call Foreign Aid in their propaganda). This might have something to do with the increase in terrorism.
A new book just published in France seeks to cast light on the terrorist logic of al-Qaeda by turning to the original texts that have inspired many of the Islamist attacks of recent years.
In Al-Qaeda in the text a team of academics and specialists led by Professor Gilles Keppel sets out translations of speeches, letters and other tracts from the organisation's key leaders alongside explanatory notes.
"These are texts that researchers have been looking at for a number of years," said Keppel, one of France's best-known experts in the Islamic world.
"It seemed a good idea to put them together, translate them and give a commentary.
"When it comes to analysing the al-Qaeda phenomenon, we are over-dependent on the element of spectacle - the attacks and their televisualised repercussions.
"People don't have access to the underlying ideology.
"The public feels helpless faced with these repeated terrorist acts, whose logic seems beyond understanding.
"But there is a logic.
"And it is only by trying to enter it that we can understand how this shadowy group works," Keppel said.
The book is divided into sections under the names of different figureheads, including Osama bin Laden, his Egyptian number two Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - who is being hunted by the US in Iraq.
Also included is Abdallah Azzam - a Palestinian religious leader killed in 1989, who the authors say "had a central place in the history of Islamic radicalism as a theoretician, inspirer and organiser of Arab participation in the Afghanistan war of the 1980s".
In one of Azzam's key texts, he wrote that the "Afghan jihad is an individual obligation for Muslims the world over," according to researcher Thomas Hegghammer.
In another tract, Azzam said that Christian monks "can be killed if they live among other people. If they live alone to carry out their devotions, they are not to be killed."
Extracts from Osama bin Laden include reminiscences of the beginnings of his experience in Afghanistan, some of his fatwas or religious pronouncements, and interviews given to CNN television in 1997 and to Al-Jazeera the following year.
In "Message to the American people" in 2000, the al-Qaeda chief said that it was "while looking at towers destroyed in Lebanon (the Murr and Holiday Inn towers in Beirut) that the idea came to me to return the favour to the executioner and destroy the towers of America."
Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's alleged chief ideologue, is quoted via extracts from his Knights under the banner of the prophet which was published first in an Arab newspaper in December 2001.
In it he says: "One can always follow an American or a Jew in the street and then kill him with a revolver or a knife or an iron-bar."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/07/2005 00:14 ||
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Kill infidels -- no book required
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/07/2005 0:24 Comments ||
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Article: In "Message to the American people" in 2000, the al-Qaeda chief said that it was "while looking at towers destroyed in Lebanon (the Murr and Holiday Inn towers in Beirut) that the idea came to me to return the favour to the executioner and destroy the towers of America."
Bin Laden has weird ideas about what Uncle Sam is responsible for. This is why I think if we ever get around to executing him, we need to do it with a cold cut machine over the course of a decade, combined with a generous supply of hydrogen peroxide. Here's a bit of background about one of the Lebanese towers from Time magazine, circa 1975:
From the top of the unfinished 30-story Murr Tower, Beirut's tallest building, leftist Moslems fired a lethal .50 cal. Chinese machine gun at anything that moved in the center of the city. Some five blocks north, in the gilded Corniche area on the Mediterranean, right-wing Christian Phalangist forces occupied the Holiday Inn and other hotels and began firing from the luxury bedrooms in a desperate effort to hold ground. Answering rocket blasts tore apart the Inn's top two floors. Banks, shops and business offices were shuttered, few besides gunmen ventured onto the streets and about the only traffic along the once thronged boulevards consisted of armored cars and ambulances. After seven months of continual outbursts of violence across Lebanon, Beirut last week was a dying city.
Real Panic
Once sleek and salacious, the "Paris of the Middle East" is a wasteland. Since April, 75% of the national carnage has been in Beirut; at least 3,000 people have been killed, 6,000 wounded, in a city of 1,500,000. Those who managed to reach hospitals last week could rarely find an empty bed. They may have been better off on the floors, since continual sniper fire raked some wards. Water, food, medical supplies, gasoline and electricity were running low. Estimated property damage and revenue loss passed the $2 billion mark. Most international businesses and banks whose headquarters are in Beirut have now left to settle elsewhere. By the end of last week 4,000 of the 5,000 Americans living in the city had made their way to the airport in armed caravans and filled outgoing flights to anywhere. U.S. Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley ordered all families of American officials to leave. U.S. embassy Marines shifted to battle fatigues; stray small -arms fire ripped the building.
Stubbornly, Beirutis had continued to hope that somehow the madness would pass, that maybe the next ceasefire would not be shot down by the armed fanatics whose number seemed to be growing. Last week, reports TIME Correspondent William Marmon, "real panic gripped the city for the first time as the pattern of fighting changed abruptly and the remaining hopes were shattered. Previously, rival factions shot and shelled each other from fixed positions. The result was stalemate. Now leftist Moslem forces, spearheaded by a group called the Independent Nasserites, have launched an offensive to win a clear victory. Moving out of their base area in southwest Beirut, the Nasserites intend to cut through the city up to the sea, thereby flanking some Phalangist positions and driving other rightist forces into the eastern part of the city."
The battle was fought house by house and street by street. One car filled with Moslems managed to reach the Parliament building in Christian-controlled territory. "You do not represent the people. You do not represent anyone," they shouted over a loudspeaker, then opened fire, killing one of the bodyguards of Phalangist Leader Pierre Gemayel. When retreating Phalangists took up positions in the hotel district, the conflict took on an added symbolic intensity."I'm going to sleep in the Holiday Inn tonight," pledged one strutting Moslem fighter as he prepared for an assault on the Christian outpost. By week's end the Phalangists still held what became known as the "hotel front."
No Census
The Moslem strike into the bastion of moneyed power has roots that go back at least to the creation of independent Lebanon. As France was quitting the area in 1943, an unwritten but carefully wrought National Covenant was adopted by Lebanese leaders in an effort to accommodate the new country's's volatile religious mix of Christians and Moslems. With Christians in a slight majority according to a 1932 census, the Covenant provided that the country's President and the armed forces commander would always be from the dominant Maronite Christian sect, the Prime Minister always a Sunni Moslem and the legislative assembly always in a 6-5 balance favoring Christians. This slight but significant power edge reflected not only the population figures but also the fact that Christians controlled the professions and business. Despite simmering eruptions, notably in 1958 when the U.S. sent in troops to prevent a leftist takeover, Lebanon thrived for decades as a result of its compromise -- and of a Swiss-style neutrality that helped to make it the trading, banking and communications hub of the Arab world.
In recent years a higher birth rate has pushed the Moslem portion of Lebanon's population to an estimated 60% of the 3.2 million total. Christians responded by making it all but an article of faith to block any census that might change the original 1932 figures. Such friction might well have been enough to spark violence, but the present explosion has defied control because of still other complicating factors. Christians and Moslems alike are subdivided into sects, each headed by bosses (zu'ama) who have used patronage to build iron loyalty, as well as personal militias.
Outside Forces
The arrival since 1948 of 320,000 Palestinian refugees has added immeasurably to Christian-Moslem tensions. At first the Palestinians stayed out of the current fighting; Palestine Liberation Organization Leader Yasser Arafat continues to call for a peaceful solution. But last week Palestinians from Arafat's Fatah and the Syrian-backed Saiqa were clearly aiding the leftists with arms, equipment and artillery support. Indeed the real strategic commander of the Moslem offensive in Beirut was rumored to be the infamous fedayeen leader Abu Daoud, who nearly succeeded in assassinating Jordan's King Hussein in 1970. Last week at his command headquarters in the center of Beirut, he boasted with a confident smile, "We are doing well.'
The open role of the Palestinians quickly caught the attention of neighboring Syria and Israel. Damascus is now known to be aiding the leftist Moslem forces there through its Saiqa fedayeen. Should Syrian assistance -- or, less likely, outright intervention -- threaten to tip the balance toward a Lebanon dominated by radical Arabs, the Israelis might respond with force because, said Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, such a situation would be "a real threat to Israel's security."
Though the country was coming apart, Lebanon's political leaders seemed utterly incapable of finding a solution. In fact they were part of the problem . Many are zu'ama who solemnly discuss cease-fires even as their troops are shooting away. President Suleiman Franjieh, whose base is a virtually feudal Christian hill village outside Tripoli, so thoroughly detests Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Moslem, that they can barely work together. Though Karami began seeking a solution in Parliament last week, so many of its 99 deputies refused to venture out in the line of fire that a 50-member quorum was never mustered. Karami then invited nine key factional leaders to join him in his office and lock themselves in until something had been hammered out. Only two accepted the invitation; in desperation Karami threatened to resign, was talked out of it and began calling in leaders for private sessions.
These sessions may prove to be last rites. Beirut, already ruined as a commercial center, seems doomed to continuing violence. The rest of Lebanon can only wonder what the outcome will be. At one of the private meetings held by Karami late last week, Ibrahim Koleilat, who heads the Nasserites, explained his intentions politely but forcefully. His Moslem fighters will press on until they have defeated the Phalangists once and~ for all, said Koleilat. "We have had ten cease-fires and ten violations. Let's get this over with and have one cease-fire that means something."
#4
Those who managed to reach hospitals last week could rarely find an empty bed. They may have been better off on the floors, since continual sniper fire raked some wards. Water, food, medical supplies, gasoline and electricity were running low. Estimated property damage and revenue loss passed the $2 billion mark.
Plagiarism alert, this sounds word-for-word like the reports coming out of N'awleens
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/07/2005 14:33 Comments ||
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Voters in Pakistan have dealt a surprising blow to religious extremists, bucking the rise in recent years of radical Islam in politics here.
Countrywide elections for local governments, which were held on August 18 and 25 in over 100 districts, reversed the gains made by radical Islamists who came to power in two out of the country's four provinces in 2002. They had played a strong opposition role in the federal parliament and posed a formidable challenge to President Pervez Musharraf's vow to bring "enlightened moderation" to Pakistani society.
The absence of full elections at the federal level has enhanced the importance of Pakistan's local and city government as a political bellwether. Observers here point to a number of reasons for the poor showing for the religious parties, including internal divisions; changes to the ballot; as well as a cooling off of tensions caused by the government's reorientation following Sept. 11, 2001.
"It apparently seems that the establishment has laid their hands off the Islamists and radicals' influence has faded all over the country," says Jaffer Ahmed, chairman of the Pakistan Study Centre at the University of Karachi. "But we can't say that their downfall has started," he hastened to add.
President Musharraf was jubilant the day after the polls closed. "Local body elections have resulted in the victory of moderates and defeat of extremists everywhere in Pakistan," he said.
The unexpected defeat of the Islamists came in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), which neighbors
Afghanistan. The province had been ruled since 2002 by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an umbrella group of six religious parties, including the vanguard radical party Jamaat-e-Islami.
The MMA had emerged as a powerful political force in the October 2002 national elections, riding popular anger at Pakistan's support for the US ouster of the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. The alliance also used a book as its symbol on the ballot, telling voters that the book represented the Koran, and that a vote for the MMA was a vote for Islam.
Once in office, the religious alliance continued to defy Musharraf's war on terror at home and abroad. Police began waging a Talibanesque antivice drive that included bans on music and attacks on billboard advertisements depicting women.
However, heading into the August vote, differences cropped up in the MMA and the alliance subsequently broke down on the local government level. With some distance from Sept. 11 and without the benefit of the book as its ballot symbol, the religious parties lost their majority to the Awami National Party (ANP), a secular Pashtun party.
"I am more than 100 percent satisfied, says Asfandyar Wali, chief of the ANP, which emerged as the single largest party in the province according to informal results. "We are very much able to head governments in all major cities including Peshawar [the provincial capital]."
When the MMA splintered, intriguing and odd political alliances came to the fore to win over the city governments. Jamaat-e-Islami chose to join hands with ANP, though they have diametrically opposed ideological positions with the ANP, a party formed in 1986 by the merger of several left-leaning parties.
"These are the dynamics of the politics and these are only election alliances not an ideological merger," says Mr. Wali, who pledged to carry on a secular vision of government in the cities.
Waning influence of Islamists, who have given way to secular and moderate parties, makes many believe the wave of fundamentalism could be forestalled effectively in the frontier province and at the polls in the next national elections in 2007.
But the MMA could yet regroup, especially if outside engagement with Pakistan wanes, says Mr. Ahmed. "It would all depend on the US and Western countries' attitude towards Pakistan, whose role seems to be diminishing now for them," he says.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/07/2005 00:11 ||
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More vindication for the Bush Doctrine. Has there ever been a president who was so successful who has been so reviled? Lincoln before Atlanta and Savannah?
#2
I don't see what it has to do with Bush. The Islamists have never been popular in Pakistan. The elections before last was the best ever showing, and even then they only got 11% of the vote - meaning they came equal forth. And this was immediately after the invasion of Afghanistan and all the anger in Pakistan that went along with it.
It was only due to careful rigging that the Islamists were able to do as well as they did, and since the Musharraf regime did not rig in their favour this time, the Islamists received their usual crushing defeat.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/07/2005 1:39 Comments ||
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Makes a lot of sense. A party whose platform is all sharia all the time is not one that can improve living conditions. And in this world, being able to deliver material improvements is what wins votes.
#4
The Muslim parties seem to poll around the same level as the Greens in the West and the similarities don't end there. There is a law of political behaviour here - In any population, 10% will support an extremist ideology promising future salvation through current sacrifice.
#6
The Islamists have never been popular in Pakistan.
Nope. Never popular in the "land of the pure", in which after the constitution was revoked by one of the juntas, they immediately restored the bits making sharia and Islam the law of the land.
Never popular at all.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/07/2005 9:41 Comments ||
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11A5S is right to a large degree. Most arabs back the winner, who is usually the strongest and badest. This pattern dates back from Alexander's time for self survival. Osama was huge, until he lost Afganistan and hasn't launched a large successful attack on the west since then. Sadam was huge, until he lost Iraq and was videoed cowering like a dog. Sadar was popular, until his forces got their asses kicked and bowed to US pressure. Arafat was hudge, because he stood up to the west and his successor is on crumbling ground since he doesn't. Al-Qada was big, until it lost Falluja and keeps getting its own people killed and it attacks the civilian population.
The arab man on the street is watching the previously powerful getting stomped, on a regular basis and is looking at the new powerhouse in the region. Plus, now that free thought is coming into vogue in the arab world, who really wants to be ruled over and told what to think and do anyway?
So how many elections have the Islamists won in Pakistan? Are they not usually the forth of fifth most popular party even when they are in an alliance that crosses sectarian divides?
Don't their rallies usually gather a few hundred or a few thousand people, whereas other political parties like the MQM and PPP can summon hundreds of thousands of supporters?
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/07/2005 17:31 Comments ||
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RC: Nope. Never popular in the "land of the pure", in which after the constitution was revoked by one of the juntas, they immediately restored the bits making sharia and Islam the law of the land. Never popular at all.
It's not clear that this is an indicator of national-level popularity. Islamists are determined, well-armed and violent. A military dictatorship may reflexively move to appease a minority of potentially violent rebels. Or it may choose to completely crush them. Pakistan's military leadership may have felt that the Islamists' influence was beyond their capability to crush. They may have sympathized personally with the Islamists. But the primary indicator of the Islamists' popularity is not what generals do, for reasons of survival or sympathy, but the number of votes the Islamists get. And that has generally fallen short of a majority.
#10
Folks, it's called Pakistan -- "land of the pure" -- because it was founded as an Islamist state, not because it's peopled by virgins. How many people were murdered to make it the "land of the pure"?
We're talking about a country in which "holy men" decree women should be gang-raped because they were seen with the wrong neighbor. A country that hands out the death penalty for saying Mo's momma and poppa weren't born Muslim. Where mobs attack a house cleaner because of a rumor she tossed a page from the Koran in the trash!
Maybe the Islamists can't win at the ballot box, but, damn, maybe that's because they already won in the culture. Why vote for an Islamist when you effectively already have an Islamist government?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/07/2005 21:50 Comments ||
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I know of everything you mentioned, and dispute none of it, however the article I was commenting on was about the reversal in fortunes of the MMA and political Islamists in Pakistan - which I stated was no suprise given the lack of success the Jamaat-e-Islami, JUI and other groups have met with.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/07/2005 21:57 Comments ||
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#12
I trust PM's take - he's not disagreeing with youze guys. But....I'd like to see a Perv crackdown on the assholes if they really are so weak.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/07/2005 22:32 Comments ||
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Iraq's main Shiite and Sunni Muslim sects abandoned efforts to amend a draft constitution yesterday and a version rejected by many Sunnis will be printed. "The talks have ended. We did not reach any agreement on making changes to the draft. It will be printed in the form it was read to the National Assembly last week," Bahaa Al-Araji, a member of the parliamentary drafting committee, told Reuters.
"No changes will be made," he said, adding that five million copies will be printed, starting tomorrow. The constitution, due to be voted on in a referendum by Oct. 15, has been a source of tension in Iraq as Sunnis, long the dominant political force, fear losing influence to majority Shiites, who were oppressed under Saddam Hussein. The government is largely composed of southern Shiites and Kurds from the north, and, backed by US troops, faces a Sunni insurgency. The Sunni minority could also kill the constitutional draft at the referendum if it can muster a two-thirds majority of no votes in three of Iraq's 18 provinces.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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India and Britain will sign an anti-terror during Prime Minister Tony Blair's two-day visit to India. With Britain currently holding the rotating presidency of the European Union, Blair will represent the EU in the sixth India-European Union summit here today. Joining him in the talks will be European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lead the Indian delegation. During his visit, Blair will also focus on strengthening India-UK ties. Blair and Manmohan will hold bilateral talks today at Simla, the hill resort built by the British to escape the summer heat when they ruled India.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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JEDDAH â Bahrainâs top diplomat told the Gulf Cooperation Council yesterday that the Arab and Islamic identity of Iraq needed to be preserved, in his opening address to a meeting of GCC foreign ministers. Sheikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, foreign minister of current GCC president Bahrain, pointed out that Iraqâs draft constitution âresponds to the aspirations of all the Iraqi people and safeguards its Arabic-Islamic identity so that Iraq can remain an active member of the Arab and Islamic environment.â
"Join the rest of us as we walk through life with the newly created sign of Arab identity", he said as a large, red 'L' was stenciled on his forehead.
Sheikh Mohammed also exhorted Iraqis to âwork with a spirit of harmony to safeguard the unity, independence and territorial integrity of Iraq and to check the partisans of division and dismemberment of this Arab country that is so dear to us, by exploiting (current) conditions.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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Bahrainâs top diplomat told the Gulf Cooperation Council yesterday that the Arab and Islamic identity of Iraq needed to be preserved
Members of the National Assembly (MNA) from Karachi on Tuesday criticised the governments of Punjab and Sindh for allegedly rigging the local elections, demanding that the elections in both provinces be declared null. Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal MNA's Muhammad Hussain Mehnati, Laiq Khan and Abdus Satar Khan Afghani claimed that the government had rigged the elections only to strengthen the rule of President Pervez Musharraf in Sindh and Punjab.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
September 7, 2005: In Saudi Arabia, the war on terror continues. A three day siege of a house in eastern Saudi Arabia ended on September 6th, with the death of three terrorists and two policemen. While the Islamic terrorists have a lot of supporters in the kingdom, there are an even larger number of Saudis opposed to terrorism in their neighborhoods (Islamic terrorism elsewhere, like in Iraq, is more likely to be tolerated). Thus the police have a regular supply of tips. However, many of the suspected terrorists turn out to be common criminals. Increasingly, however, some of the gangsters are, indeed, terrorists as well. Under increased police pressure, and deprived of monetary support from wealthy and pious (but now terrified) Saudis, the Islamic radicals have turned to crime to finance their operations. Smuggling, money laundering and drugs are the major sources. 
Foreign Minister 
A man was shot five times in the head at close range in an "execution" plotted by a group who had failed to convert him to Islam, a jury has heard. Adrian Marriot's murder was a "swift and brutal response" to him falling out with the group, the Old Bailey heard. Marcus Archer, Aaron Irving-Simpson and Marlon Stubbs, all 24, deny conspiracy to murder the man from Brixton, London. Mr Stubbs and Mr Archer had said they had a "missionary zeal" for converting people to Islam, the prosecutor said. 
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promises the rights of women will not be compromised if the province allows Muslims to use shariah â Islamic law â to settle civil and marital disputes. A report by former NDP attorney-general Marion Boyd recommends that Ontario allow Muslims to establish sharia-based tribunals similar to Jewish and Catholic arbitration bodies. Mr. McGuinty said the Liberal government is reviewing Ms. Boyd's report and will produce its own recommendations "at some point in time."
[September 02 2005] at 0200 UTC in position 06:05N - 003:24E, off Lagos, Nigeria. Four robbers in a wooden boat armed with long knives boarded a container ship drifting 19 nm off Lagos. Alarm was raised, crew mustered and robbers escaped.
NEW YORK: A long-awaited report on the corruption-tainted UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq has cleared UN Secretary General Kofi Annan of ethical misconduct, but has faulted him for serious management lapses, according to a preface made available on Tuesday. "The reality is that the secretary general has come to be viewed as the chief diplomatic and political agent of the United Nations," the preface of the study by an independent panel said. "In these turbulent times, those responsibilities tend to be all consuming. The record amply reflects consequent administrative failings."
THE Volcker inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal called for a significant overhaul of the UN yesterday as it prepared to reveal details of âserious instances of illicit, unethical and corrupt behaviourâ at the world body. The three-member committee, led by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, released the preface to a 1,000-page report that is to be presented today to the UN Security Council. âThe main conclusions are unambiguous,â the panel declared. âThe organisation requires stronger executive leadership, thoroughgoing administrative reform and more reliable controls and auditing.â 
Many could not hide their surprise upon learning that the southeast Asia director of the 
Lebanon's Cabinet passed legislation in consensus last night to transform the Internal Security Forces headquarters into a prison for three of the four security heads accused of complicity in the assassination of late Premier 
Iraq's main Shiite and Sunni Muslim sects abandoned efforts to amend a draft constitution yesterday and a version rejected by many Sunnis will be printed. "The talks have ended. We did not reach any agreement on making changes to the draft. It will be printed in the form it was read to the National Assembly last week," Bahaa Al-Araji, a member of the parliamentary drafting committee, told Reuters.
India and Britain will sign an anti-terror during Prime Minister Tony Blair's two-day visit to India. With Britain currently holding the rotating presidency of the European Union, Blair will represent the EU in the sixth India-European Union summit here today. Joining him in the talks will be European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lead the Indian delegation. During his visit, Blair will also focus on strengthening India-UK ties. Blair and Manmohan will hold bilateral talks today at Simla, the hill resort built by the British to escape the summer heat when they ruled India.
Members of the National Assembly (MNA) from Karachi on Tuesday criticised the governments of Punjab and Sindh for allegedly rigging the local elections, demanding that the elections in both provinces be declared null. 
