KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait has demanded the death penalty in its indictment against former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against the emirate, Justice Minister Ahmad Baqer said on Saturday. âYes, the indictment calls for Saddamâs death for a large number of crimes,â during the 1990-1991 Iraqi invasion of the oil-rich emirate, Baqer told reporters.
âOur (indictment) files are ready. It contains evidence and eye-witness accounts against more than 200 defendants ... We are seeking judicial cooperation with Iraqi authorities,â the minister said.
The indictment papers have been submitted to the foreign ministry which will forward them to the Iraqi authorities through diplomatic channels, he said. Kuwaitâs public prosecutor Hamed Al Othman said in May the indictments were against Saddam Hussein, eight of his top aides and 293 senior officials of the former regime.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/11/2005 00:00 ||
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One of the four London suicide bombers made numerous calls to a stolen mobile phone in Pakistan up to three days before the July 7 attacks.
Pakistani officials say they have traced the stolen phone after receiving requests from Britain's MI5 to investigate. They suspect that it was used by terrorists linked to the bombers, and then discarded after the London attacks.
The phone number was rung several times - as late as July 4 - by Shehzad Tanweer, one of the bombers who visited Pakistan more than six months ago along with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the cells's suspected ringleader. The disclosure has deepened suspicions that a "mastermind" based abroad was guiding the gang.
Pakistan is considered vital to the investigation into the London attacks, which killed 56 people. Last weekend The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that MI5 officers suspect that the video message of Sidique Khan was recorded in Pakistan, possibly with the assistance of al-Qaeda.
Security officers also suspect that Khan and Tanweer may have received advice on bomb making at a training camp in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Pakistani intelligence officers have discovered that the mobile phone's sim card microchip originally came from a phone used in Sukkur, in Sindh province, which is renowned as a militant city. It was originally owned by a tailor, but fell into criminals' hands. It has not been used since the London attacks.
It emerged on Friday that seven terrorist suspects wanted over possible involvement with the London bombings are facing extradition from Pakistan to Britain under a new agreement. One is thought to have met one or more of the suicide bombers.
Whitehall officials refused to confirm details of the MI5 request to Pakistan for "operational reasons", but conceded that mobile phone calls, including some made abroad, were now central to the investigation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:10 ||
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1-800-72virgins
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:26 Comments ||
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Khan and Tanweer may have received advice on bomb making at a training camp in Pakistan or Afghanistan
Why this muddying of the water?
Training camps in Afghanistan? With Afghan and American troops actively hunting jihadis?
The camps are in Pakistan and Perv won't shut them down.
Won't rather than can't.
Unless you believe that a country with a modern airforce, a half million man army and hundreds of thousands of paramilitary police cannot control its own territory.
Posted by: john ||
09/11/2005 9:00 Comments ||
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ADVISERS appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims. They want to replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognise the mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as people of other faiths. The draft proposals have been prepared by committees appointed by Blair to tackle extremism. He has promised to respond to the plans, but the threat to the Holocaust Day has provoked a fierce backlash from the Jewish community.
Holocaust Day was established by Blair in 2001 after a sustained campaign by Jewish leaders to create a lasting memorial to the 6m victims of Hitler. It is marked each year on January 27. The Queen is patron of the charity that organises the event and the Home Office pays £500,000 a year to fund it. The committees argue that the special status of Holocaust Memorial Day fuels extremistsâ sense of alienation because it âexcludesâ Muslims.
Seeing as the Muslims are sorta on the other side of this whole 'remembering the genocide of the Jews' thing ...
A member of one of the committees, made up of Muslims, said it gave the impression that âwestern lives have more value than non-western livesâ.
When all that matters, of course, is the ummah ...
That perception needed to be changed. âOne way of doing that is if the government were to sponsor a national Genocide Memorial Day. âThe very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many young Muslims. It sends out the wrong signals: that the lives of one people are to be remembered more than others. Itâs a grievance that extremists are able to exploit.â
The recommendation, drawn up by four committees including those dealing with imams and mosques, and Islamaphobia and policing, has the backing of Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Let's see if Tony retains the steely resolve or caves to the "moderate" muslims.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:28 Comments ||
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Well I'm sure the Imans could get behind changing it to "Final Solution Day" or "Death to the Jews and All Other Infidels Day".
#3
Sure. But we need to add a few more to the list.
And teach the muslim children...
(a) the Armenian genocide
(b) the ethnic cleansing of jewish tribes from the arabian peninsula.
(c) the genocide of hindus in the Indian subcontinent during a thousand years of muslim rule.
Uh..changed your mind Sacranie?
Posted by: john ||
09/11/2005 7:17 Comments ||
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If they are offended then they can go to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia where they belong.
Ever seen her picture? I think he's been waiting for an excuse.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/11/2005 12:31 Comments ||
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âThe very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many young Muslims. It sends out the wrong signals: that the lives of one people are to be remembered more than others. "
Uh-last time I heard, there has not been an explicit wartime campaign to wipe all Muslims off the face of the earth.
Well, yet, anyway. If 6,000,000 do get murdered in concentration camps, I guess we could have a Holocaust Day for them, too.
The phrase "offensive to Muslims" is the new "wolf" cry. Pretty soon, after so many false claims, you learn to just tune it out.
It's a scary thought, but scientists say the 40 percent of humanity living in South Asia and China could well be living with little drinking water within 50 years as global warming melts Himalayan glaciers, the region's main water source.
The glaciers supply 303.6 million cubic feet every year to Asian rivers, including the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, the Ganga in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh and Burma's Irrawaddy.
But as global warming increases, the glaciers have been rapidly retreating, with average temperatures in the Himalayas up 1 degree Celsius since the 1970s.
A World Wide Fund report published in March said a quarter of the world's glaciers could disappear by 2050 and half by 2100.
"If the current scenario continues, there will be very little water left in the Ganga and its tributaries," Prakash Rao, climate change and energy program coordinator with the fund in India told Reuters.
"The situation here is more critical because here they depend on glaciers for drinking water while in other areas there are other sources of drinking water, not just glacial." China can invest in nuclear-powered distillation at her coasts, but hard to do that inland.
Experts are alarmed.
About 67 percent of the nearly 12,124 square miles of Himalayan glaciers are receding and in the long run as the ice diminishes, glacial runoffs in summer and river flows will also go down, leading to severe water shortages in the region.
The Gangotri glacier, the source of the Ganga, India's holiest river, is retreating 75 feet a year. And the Khumbu Glacier in Nepal, where Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay began their ascent of Everest, has lost more than 3 miles since they climbed the mountain in 1953.
"The cry in the mountains is that water has gone down and springs have dried up," Jagdish Bahadur, an expert on Himalayan glaciers.
"Global climate change has had an effect, but water has also dried up because agriculture in the mountains has increased," he said.
In Nepal, there are more than 3,000 glaciers that work as reservoirs for fresh water and another 2,000 glacial lakes.
Experts estimate numerous rivers originating in Nepal's mountains contribute about 70 percent to the pre-monsoon flow of the Ganges that snakes through neighboring India and Bangladesh.
"The glaciers are shrinking due to global warming posing a risk to water availability not only in Nepal but also in parts of South Asia," said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, an expert on Himalayan glaciers at the government Hydrology and Meteorology Department.
"But how soon or to what extent this problem will arise is difficult to say now."
Tulsi Maya, a farmer on the outskirts of Kathmandu, has never heard of global warming or its impact on the rivers in the Himalayan kingdom, but she does know that the flow of water has gone down.
"It used to overflow its banks and spill into the fields," the 85-year-old farmer said standing in her emerald green rice field as she looked at the Bishnumati river, which has ceased to be a reliable source of drinking water and irrigation.
"Maybe God is unkind and sends less water in the river. The flow of water is decreasing every year," she said standing by her grandson, Milan Dangol, who weeds the crop.
In the Indian Himalayas, there are already signs of water shortages in the summer: Tourists in the rugged mountains of Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh have to carry buckets of water while trekkers say temperatures are much warmer than a decade ago.
The effect can also be seen in the rest of the country.
During the summer, thousands of people in India's villages trek for miles in search of water and even in cities water is a precious commodity, sometimes leading to street fights.
Indian scientists studying Himalayan glaciers fear an acute shortage of natural drinking water in Himachal Pradesh state based on studies of the Beas and Baspa basins from 1962 to 2001.
Two scientists from India's Space and Research Organization using remote sensing satellites found a 23 percent drop in glacial water in 19 of 30 glaciers mapped in the region.
Already, the impact of climate change is evident in the soaring summer temperatures in South Asia, which go up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, and the erratic nature of the monsoon, one of the world's most widely watched phenomena.
"Our research indicates the economy of the region may be affected due to these conditions and investigations suggest that all glaciers are reducing which could create an acute scarcity of water," said Anil Kulkarni, who headed the team studying the Himachal Pradesh glaciers.
Posted by: too true ||
09/11/2005 19:25 ||
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This article is idiotic. Melting glaciers will increase river flow, and it rains in the himalayas in the summer monsoon, and the complete absence of glaciers will increase summer river flows and floods.
#3
This article is the worst kind of alarmist agenda-peddling claptrap written by people who are almost completely ignorant on the subject. River flows may be decreasing, but melting glaciers are not the cause, nor is global warming causing decreased rainfall, as all models say it will cause a more intense monsoon, i.e. higher rainfall across the himalayas and India (and anyone with an elementary knowledge of what causes the monsoon could tell you this).
That's all I need to hear. What experts? Who? Curricula? Standing in world bodies? Critical review? No. Then fuck off
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/11/2005 21:26 Comments ||
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Back in the early 90s I had the opportunity to talk with a very senior Turkish official. It was about the time that the end of the cold war was evident and we discussed, among other things, a shift in focus from the eastern Turkish airbases ringing the USSR to whatever the future might bring.
His comment: Turkey will rule the middle east because we can control the water flowing out of the mountains. Iran, Iraq, Syria ... all depend on it.
Turkey did, in fact, threaten to cut off water to any independent Kurdistan and has IIRC hinted at this WRT the Kurdish control of oilfields and repatriation to take back homes Saddam gave to arabs and turkmen.
Whatever the science, it certainly is true that a shift in water availability will present the Chinese with a severe challenge - and perhaps an excuse for aggression.
#7
especially *ahem*JDAM* methods of stopping that control? Hard to build a dam under aerial bombing?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/11/2005 22:12 Comments ||
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You can often get what you want by investing something else that you have. China is now building several more dams, not as grandiose as the Three Gorges, but still impressive. If that is not enough, and it won't be, their next effort will be insanely long canals over flat lands and pipelines over mountains.
A good example of both how this could work and how this could fail is the Central Arizona Project. A federal pipeline that delivers huge amounts of too-expensive water to Arizona. The water is then subsidized for agriculture, making it cheaper than local water. But this then saves local water for more development beyond the means of local water replenishment.
This means that for the time being, reality is defied through a huge subsidy from Washington. But when the money runs out, Arizona will pay handsomely for water it must have and cannot refuse, as the feds require Arizona to pay for it.
I can envision a similar situation developing in the heart of China, except even more short-sighted and even more expensive and ultimately fruitless.
CHINA used the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States to criticise Washington's "war on terror," saying the campaign faced a "gloomy future".
In a commentary issued by the official Xinhua news agency, China said although the "war on terror" helped President George W. Bush get re-elected, it had not achieved much progress.
"At present, the United States is suffering a rising number of casualties and facing more problems in Iraq and Afghanistan," said the editorial.
US troops were "increasingly bogged down" in the Iraqi and Afghan "quagmires" and the American people and their allies faced more threats of attacks from Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, Xinhua said.
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States blamed on Al-Qaeda resulted in Mr Bush launching the "war on terror".
In Afghanistan, the overthrown Taliban regime and Al-Qaeda were staging a comeback and recruiting worldwide, thus making it almost impossible to forestall every terrorist attack, Xinhua said.
Post-Saddam Iraq was witnessing an worsening security situation, a fierce power struggle among the political parties, and a difficult start to reconstruction of the country, according to Xinhua's assessment.
"After 9/11, the US government has gradually pushed ahead with a strategy characterised by unilateralism and pre-emptive strike, which has become both America's national security strategy and guidelines in the fight against terrorism," Xinhua said.
"However, the strategy has proved not feasible. Although it easily toppled the Saddam Hussein regime by means of war, the US administration later stumbled in the process of helping build a 'democratic and free Iraq'."
Xinhua blamed the problem on the US invading Iraq without strong support from the United Nations and the international community, or the understanding and cooperation of the Iraqi public.
"All this proves that in order to win the war against terrorism, it is not enough just to hunt down the terrorists," Xinhua said.
"To achieve its goal, the US administration needs to get to the root of terrorism to find the solution.
"It is obvious that the war on terror can be won only by relieving poverty, eliminating the political, economic and social conditions under which terrorism and extremism breed and cooperating closely with the rest of the international community under the UN leadership," said Xinhua.
Like the donks, they offer no tenable solutions themselves.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 13:42 ||
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My thinking is that China believes the GWOT faces a dark future and they got millions of bucks that say it will have a gloomy future.
And the Chinese are running the Kos playbook step by step.
#2
And they're working to cut off our supply lines to Afghanistan at the same time they're saying all of this and pretending everything that's happened just happened on its own.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/11/2005 14:25 Comments ||
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When China becomes a "Republic of China" instead of a "People's Republic of China", I'll take her news agencies' editorials seriously. Besides, what is wrong with a "fierce power struggle among the political parties"? China would be better off for one herself.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/11/2005 16:43 Comments ||
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The Chinese perspective is that the War on Terror involves a war on Chinese separatists. Because Taiwan remains independent, the WOT is being lost. Because separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang remain active, the WOT is being lost. From the Chinese standpoint, the WOT will never be won until they get what they want from Uncle Sam - the Chinese annexation of Taiwan and the dropping of American support for Tibetan and Uighur separatism.
#6
Jackal: What about Mongolia? Is that now a dead issue, or do they want that back, too?
At the popular level, they want a really large amount of territory back. Burma, Vietnam, Mongolia, Tibet and Korea used to be tributary states. Siberia used to be the domain of the Manchurian empire. Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state, is basically the southern part of Tibet that the British empire wrested from Tibetan rule. Sikkim was a Tibetan tributary state. It's a really, really long list. When the Chinese economy and military grow strong enough - China may make its move. This isn't a top-down thing - it's a bottom-up kind of sentiment - the Chinese view is that any territory wrested from Chinese rule during its period of weakness (after a series of military defeats) must be taken back.
#8
Jackal: Boy, that sure sounds like someone else, doesn't it?
These are the sentiments of big chunks of the Chinese populace. There's no real racial animus in the sense of the Nazi ideology - just an enduring sense of unavenged humiliations and a sense that these territories will be recovered when the time is ripe, at as little cost as possible. China's wars in the last 200 years have been an exception - it has used the grit of its fighting men and its numbers to make up for technological deficiencies. Prior to that, China typically had superior technology and has always been averse to losing men, for two reasons - (1) Chinese strategic thought has always emphasized economy of force, meaning victories with as few losses as possible and (2) men (typically conscripts) lost on the battlefield could have been working and generating tax revenues for the state.
#3
Hey Fred & fellow Rb'rs, had to use a thread w/Iraq in it to give you an update. I'm formerly known as "JH" by the way.
Been in country about 4 days. I'm going to be real careful as to what I say because I'm using gov mail right now & I'm not real sure yet about all the restrictions. Our internet cafe on base is down, I can use my personal email there and be a little more explicit - though I will never compromise future ops or troop movements.
That a side, I will give you a good feel for what life is like at a semi-REMF/Pogue base here in camel land, though everywhere is a frontline here.
Anyways, 113 degrees today, hot and windy. Our camp is nicknamed TQ. You all should be able to figure out where that is.
We're 8 hours ahead of EST. Down to brasstacks -The assholes threw IDF (indirect fire, i.e. rockets/mortars) at us twice today but our counter-battery was quick on them. I don't have any BDA's to give you unfortunately. Sounds like distant thunder and you can feel the earth shake a bit.
I was homesick real bad yesterday for the first time in my career, I got a little boy now I didn't have the last time I left home, he's hitting the terrible two's and giving Mrs.BH6 some fits. I miss them both but it's a lot harder having a kid. My wife and I have been through this enough to be solid. Thoughts of mylittle man really tugs on my heart strings though. I'm hoping to get through the initial blues real quick because my devil dogs here need me at 100% full tilt balls out. Which I am on the surface right now as far as they can tell. Just getting my head together on my own time has been harder then I'd thought it would.
My tour will be 7 months, no more. That's good but seems like a long time to April now. I pray it goes by swiftly but safely. I want to thank Trailing Wife for the thoughts about Mrs. BH6 last time. She's gonna need more support in the following months then me. I just need some encouraging words now and then to remind me of the big pic.
Other then that the chow is good but the living conditions suck ass- electricity & Phonecon is half-assed at best. Some Grunt bases have much better living conditions which is good and a reverse of the stereotype of pogue units.
My unit does a lot of convoys, but due to my rank and billet I'm not a normal guy to go on these anymore. Each night convoys find IED's, & the asshole terror-fucks are changing up their tactics but we adapt to them. I hate the islamonuts with an intensity I've not known before. I guess your first IDF experience will do that to ya. I hope we kill as many of them as possible.
Our young Marines are doing great things out there. Handling business like total professionals, don't let anyone bullshit you. I've seen young kids stepping up - and it makes me damn proud. Anyways, that's all for now, I'm rambling a bit and still a little jet lagged. Take care y'all and I'll get back soon. Out.
An American peace activist should may be deported because he is allegedly a threat to national security. Liz Thompson from the Anti-Deportation Alliance says Scott Parkin, who is a wanker teacher by profession, was arrested in Melbourne yesterday. Ms Thompson says Mr Parkin was told his visa was being revoked on the grounds of asshattery character, after he allegedly received an adverse security assessment.
"Get out and stay out...
...and BATHE, fergawdsake!"
Federal police have confirmed an American man was arrested on the orders of the Immigration Department (DIMIA) and is in custody. DIMIA has declined to comment on the case, but says anyone without a lawful right to remain in Australia must be removed as soon as possible. Ms Thompson says she is baffled by his arrest. "He's here you know, speaking about the US peace movement," she said.
I'm not baffled at all.
"The idea that someone who talks about non-violent methods of resistance to state violence can be considered a threat to national security is pretty concerning, particularly in the light of the new laws that are being proposed." She says Mr Parkin has done nothing wrong. "He's a weirdo hippy giving workshops on peace, non-violent direct action," she said. "We'd love to know what the secret stash of information on this guy is that makes him a threat to national security because everything that he's been working with to put these workshops together is pretty baffled by it."
[Sydney, 8/31/05] Anti-globalisation campaigners and demonstrators protesting the war in Iraq have clashed with police in central Sydney for a second day as international business leaders met amid tight security. After unsuccessfully attempting to disrupt the Forbes Global CEO Conference launch on Tuesday, the demonstrators changed tactics and organised a mobile protest of about 80 people who roamed the city streets, blockading businesses they alleged were profiteering from the US-led war in Iraq. The group, some of them wearing masks, initially protested outside KBR, a subsidiary of US firm Halliburton, which organiser Scott Parkin called "the poster child of war profiteering in Iraq". They then moved on to a branch of the ANZ bank, which is part of a consortium helping build the Iraqi banking system, pouring fake blood on the office's front step and forcing it to close temporarily. The protesters also held placards accusing Australian Prime Minister John Howard of being a war criminal for deploying troops to Iraq as part of the US-led coalition. The rally's flashpoint came when a number of protesters attempted to enter Martin Place, the centre of the city's financial district and home to the headquarters of a number of major Australian fiscal institutions.
#1
Now that Bob Denver is permanently retired, isn't there room on the island for Parkin?
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:30 Comments ||
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Sheesh. I google Ms. Liz Thompson, and found this page. I won't quote it, but encourage you to go look. It seems Miz Thompson is a loonbat Holocaust denier and also has some "Abu aliases" as well:
Elizabeth Thompson Khan
Zulaikha Thompson Khan
Zohra Thompson Khan
#5
I see the page has a reference to zundelsite.org, home of Mr.Hardhat Ernst Zundel. Even Canada could not stomach his line, deported him back to Germany.
Posted by: john ||
09/11/2005 13:24 Comments ||
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"The rally's flashpoint came when a number of protesters attempted to enter Martin Place, the centre of the city's financial district and home to the headquarters of a number of major Australian fiscal institutions."
The Amsterdam court, which sentenced the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme Abdul Qadeer Khan to four years in prison in 1983, has lost Khan's legal files and the court's vice-president suspects the CIA had a hand in the document's disappearance.
Fred, weren't you in Amsterdam a few weeks ago? Somebody check his socks.
Posted by: john ||
09/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Wudn't me.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/11/2005 0:57 Comments ||
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Fred, weren't you in Amsterdam a few weeks ago? Somebody check his socks.
Did you check under that Khyber Flyer hat?
Posted by: Red Dog ||
09/11/2005 1:13 Comments ||
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hi red dog. yoo minden if ima post yore post from wo dayz ago en me blog? (teh muck to german wun?)
Terrorists will always be terrorists, and neither time nor prison can temper their probable plots to kill civilians, Canada's spy service says.
"Individuals who have attended terrorist training camps or who have independently opted for radical Islam must be considered threats to Canadian public safety for the indefinite future," reads a court-filed CSIS report obtained by The Globe and Mail. "It is highly unlikely that they will cast off their views on jihad and justification for the use of violence.
"Given the long planning periods typical of terrorist acts, extremists can remain 'under the radar' for months or years before engaging in operations," the report says. "Incarceration is certainly not a guarantee that the extremist will soften his or her attitudes over time: quite the contrary."
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is expressing a hard line on people with terrorist ties as one Afghanistan-trained mujahed garners sympathy for being detained in Syria and Egypt, months after U.S. border guards discovered him with a map that aroused their suspicions.
The Globe reported that the document was actually a Canadian government handout, and now the truck driver's case is being questioned along with those of several other men deemed national-security risks. But in the report, CSIS, which watches hundreds of terrorist targets it has identified, rejects the notion that trained mujahedeen and other extremists can be rehabilitated.
The spy service says it must always be remembered that Islamic extremists believe "it is actually moral to commit acts of violence to fill one's religious obligation and the highest morality is that of a martyr."
These assertions appear in CSIS's June, 2005, report titled Islamic Extremists and Detention: How Long does the Threat Last?, which is now being filed in several deportation cases.
CSIS says yes, pointing to the cases of Afghan, Pakistani, Egyptian and Algerian terrorists who have spent years in prison only to launch new attacks once freed.
The Canadian government is trying to kick out five alleged Islamic extremists who sought refugee protection here during the 1990s. Fears that they will be tortured have confounded efforts to send them home.
This means that the men, locked up under Canada's security-certificate procedure, are spending years in provincial jails meant to hold prisoners for only a few months.
Defence lawyers say this is cruel and unusual punishment and that long detentions would make any terrorist activity difficult or impossible. A Moroccan who denies allegations that he attended Afghan training camps was recently granted bail for this reason in a highly unusual ruling.
"If there was an imminent danger, it has been neutralized," a Federal Court judge found in the case of Adil Charkaoui, who spent two years in custody.
Now the other detainees are making the same argument. Hassan Almrei -- a Syrian who travelled with the Afghan mujahedeen in the early 1990s, but says he led prayer groups and never fought -- is seeking bail after four years in custody.
So too is Mahmoud Jaballah, who has been in custody even longer, always denying allegations that he planned attacks for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
CSIS says such suspects will never cease to be a danger. "Violent beliefs of Islamic extremists will not fade with time, rendering these individuals a threat to public safety for years to come," the report says. It adds: "The service assesses that extremists will rejoin their network upon release."
Lawyers for Mr. Jaballah grilled a CSIS analyst this week about the report's conclusions. The spy said that at least 10 Guantanamo Bay detainees are known to have rejoined combat in Afghanistan after being released, but defence lawyer John Norris argued that dozens have been freed without apparently returning to violent activity.
Mr. Norris gave the CSIS analyst -- a PhD linguist who was identified as P.G. during the hearing -- recent Globe and Mail articles concerning a Toronto truck driver who was jailed for two years in Syria and Egypt.
Ahmad El Maati said he attended Afghan training camps and travelled with mujahedeen warriors in the 1990s, but the Kuwaiti-born Canadian insists he is no threat because his faction was never aligned with al-Qaeda.
The Globe account illustrated how the map found in Mr. El Maati's rig in 2001 fuelled bomb-plot concerns even though it came from the Canadian government. "It turns out there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for the map," Mr. Norris said. "Yes, there could be," P.G. said.
Mr. Norris is trying to poke holes in CSIS's credibility and prove that its targets are treated in highly different ways depending on whether they are citizens or non-citizens.
He argues that while Mr. El Maati was apparently a target of security agencies, his Canadian citizenship insulated him from the security-certificate procedure. The procedure, which can be used only to jail non-citizens, uses the low threshold of "probable grounds" to identify terrorists.
While the Criminal Code can be used to prosecute Canadians for terrorism, such prosecutions require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and evidence heard in open court -- unlike security certificate cases.
CSIS officials testified this year that the number of their terrorist targets is "in the triple digits" -- consistent with a CSIS claim a few years earlier that it is tracking more than 300 potential terrorists.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:21 ||
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"Terrorists will always be terrorists, and neither time nor prison can temper their probable plots to kill civilians, Canada's spy service says."
Agreed. So why in the hell are we playing Russian Roulette with these terrs by deporting them to other countries?
Administer the final solution.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:33 Comments ||
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Terrorists will always be terrorists, and neither time nor prison can temper their probable plots to kill civilians, Canada's spy service says.
Well, d'uh!
How do you stop a 'perpetual threat'? (A) give in to what they want or (B) remove the threat. There are many ways of doing option (B), ranging from quarantine to outright destruction.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/11/2005 5:28 Comments ||
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"Individuals who have attended terrorist training camps or who have independently opted for radical Islam must be considered threats to Canadian public safety for the indefinite future," reads a court-filed CSIS report obtained by The Globe and Mail. "It is highly unlikely that they will cast off their views on jihad and justification for the use of violence.
#1
Shame. All this imaginative playtime won't result in an '08 win.
Won't she be pissed when she loses, her whole life has been geared towards her presidency.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:38 Comments ||
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Quote from the article
The house will be Mrs Clinton's stage from which she will amass a war chest for her Senate re-election campaign next year and a likely White House bid in 2008
Unquote
I can only hope that the Repubs have the sense to field a highly overqualified Senatoral Challenger, defeat her ignomiously, and wipe the Miz Prez ambitions out of Hilly's future forever.
The way the Dems are currently imploding, that defeat alone will hopefuly shame them into rethinking the policies they currently slither around so pointedly.
Or in "Southern" a good ass-whupin is long overdue.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/11/2005 1:40 Comments ||
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#3
ABC is sure behind Hillary with their newest wet dream cum TV: Commander in Chief with Geena Davis playing a woman president.
I think that the left has as good as chance as they have in ten years for 2006 to make some gains in Congress, large gains with the aid of a foreign policy crisis for Bush, aka Chinese sabre rattling over China in 2006.
In such a case, if Clinton plays it right, she can energize the left to get behind her if events go south. The WOT in going swimmingly and I think that left no longer really believes it will get much traction out of their antiwat stances.
But a Chinese "event" in 2006, say starting in March Hillary can make herself look like a statesment and showing such a contrast to Bush, could do the trick.
Just quarterbacking and role playing this thing. I believe the Clinton's are in the Chinese pockets and the Chinese intend to collect in 2008.
#4
ABC is sure behind Hillary with their newest wet dream cum TV: Commander in Chief with Geena Davis playing a woman president.
I think that the left has as good as chance as they have had in ten years for 2006 to make some gains in Congress, large gains with the aid of a foreign policy crisis for Bush, aka Chinese sabre rattling over Taiwan in 2006.
In such a case, if Clinton plays it right, she can energize the left to get behind her if events go south. The WOT is going swimmingly and I think that left no longer really believes it will get much traction out of their antiwar stances.
But a Chinese "event" in 2006, say starting in March Hillary can make herself look like a statesment and showing such a contrast to Bush, could do the trick.
Just quarterbacking and role playing this thing. I believe the Clinton's are in the Chinese pockets and the Chinese intend to collect in 2008, but the collection process begins this coming March.
#5
If "wishes" and "wants" were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas.
-- (Dandy) Don Meredith - one time Monday Night Football broadcaster
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 2:51 Comments ||
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#6
She's been so wrapped up in her bid she missed the part where her own party now expects any President to be the Second Coming incarnate based upon the standards of performance they have demanded of the current occupant. And she certainly doesn't fit that bill.
#7
She's been so wrapped up in her bid she missed the part where her own party now expects any President to be the Second Coming incarnate based upon the standards of performance they have demanded of the current occupant. And she certainly doesn't fit that bill.
Sign that sister UP ..... I live in the Hildebeast's state - it's a life of agonizing restrictions. Here only because the GWOT brings us here. The thought that there might be no place to escape her ... makes me glad I have my pistol permit all legal and stuff.
#10
ABC is prescient, the only thing they got wrong is that she'll be Republican and African-American.
Condi? I'll vote for her in a heartbeat, not only is she a class act, she's got brains and is a Native Southerner as well. (Birmingham)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/11/2005 13:00 Comments ||
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Condi Rice isn't a politician, she is a brain. I cannot blame her for not wanting to step down and join the nastiness of pure politics.
However, that being said, I am just itching for the day when Dick Cheney announces he is stepping down "for health reasons", and President Bush appoints her as Vice President.
George Bush has already proven himself capable at rattling enormous hornets' nests, but by that single act, he could rattle the entire planet.
Nationally, it would tear the democrats apart in the two remaining years of his Presidency. By stating early on that she had no intention or desire to run for the Presidency, she would join the greatest of beloved icons of the republicans. No harsh words could be found for her from any quarter of the right.
African-Americans would be forced to see the truth. No longer could they pretend otherwise. The white and black villains of the left would unmask themselves fully as racists and sexists, leaving all pretense behind.
Internationally, her appointment would cause a woman's revolt in the majority of nations in the world. The very idea of a woman, not as wife, mistress, or concubine, but as second in command to the greatest power on Earth; a woman who rules over the most powerful of generals; would overnight destroy a thousand years of traditions of servitude and inferiority.
And a black woman at that. So race cannot mitigate this destruction. A dark-skinned person, whose "kind" are derided throughout the world as inferior. Lacking intelligence and motivation. Only capable of slavery in their own right.
To the great majority of the world, nothing is lower than a black woman. They are despised, mistreated and abused like none other. Having one elevated by her own wit and strength far above any man would be intolerable. Intolerable for the men used to domineering and deriding women, and more than intolerable for women told all their lives that they are chattal and of no more value than animals. That men are spiritually pure and beloved by God, and that women are dirty and sinful. Whose only purpose is to make male children and cook dinner.
Intolerable also to those just as dark-skinned, who now have a perfect role model of what could be.
And therein lies a great truism: a slave remains a slave only so long as they accept their slavery.
When their eyes are opened and they see that they do not have to live as a slave, their servitude is destroyed. This is because that without the cooperation of the slave, being a slaver is exhausting. The slaver can no longer sleep in peace, eat in peace, or ever rest, for he knows that his slave will forever plot his downfall, his undoing.
Few men can live under such stress. It will be just easier to give up and no longer try to dominate women. To instead treat them fairly and justly. And while many peoples will still despise blacks, or the darker-skinned, their confidence will have been rattled. No longer will they be able to rationalize to themselves that they are superior because of their race. That they are special because of their race. That they deserve more.
#12
Oh Gawd, I'm sitting here simply boggled, Hillary Vs, Condi for Pres in 2008, may the best Woman win (Only one "Lady" here, Condi Rice, Hilly doesn't qualify)
Gawd, wouldn't that be so humiliating, Hilly defeated by the very person (Black, Female) that the Dems have Drumbeat into Brainwashing "You CAN NOT succede without our help.)
I'm having trouble keeping my thoughts straight, wouldn't this have the same effect as a Nuke going off inside Dem Headquarters?
Would the Dems then attain all the political status of the Tories or Whigs? A huge political joke?
Condi Rice for President.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/11/2005 13:13 Comments ||
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#13
Congrats Anonymoose, you said it so much better than I, and while I was still Boggled you got it clearer to boot.
Condi for Veep, is such a better idea.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/11/2005 13:17 Comments ||
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#14
Not to be a downer, but what if Osama and Zawahiri are captured/confirmed dead in a year or two and the electorate decides that it's once again "safe" to vote for Dems, ala '92 after the Cold War?
I loathe the Hildebeest as much as anyone, but I think it's unwise to assume her cause is hopeless.Complacency is a killer.
(2005-09-10) -- As Americans reacted in shock to the proposed 'Crescent of Embrace' memorial to Flight 93, which resembles the crescent trademark of Islam, President George Bush today unveiled a proposal of his own.
"The people who died in Pennsylvania fighting for control of United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, don't need a new memorial," said Mr. Bush. "In very real sense, they already have two memorials: We call them The White House and the Capitol Building."
Mr. Bush explained that since one of those two buildings was the likely target for the Muslim terrorists who hijacked the plane, "the fact that they're both still standing is a lasting tribute to the people who gave their lives fighting evil."
"Every time you see those white pillars or that gleaming dome," the president said, "remember the 40 Americans who volunteered in a moment to defend freedom with their own blood. Remember the ones who looked fear in the face and said, 'Let's Roll.'"
#1
I know it's scrappleface - but I really like this idea.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/11/2005 15:46 Comments ||
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Hear, hear.
I sure wish Mr. Bush would actually say this.
The leftist moonbats' heads would explode. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/11/2005 16:53 Comments ||
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#3
i'm writing to scott ott, author of scrappleface, to suggest an idea for one of his patented news articles. i'm going to suggest that he write an article noting that once the paul murdoch designed memorial to flight 93 is built that the noble imams of islam will declare the site to be the 3rd holiest site in all of islam.
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
09/11/2005 17:55 Comments ||
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Bush needs to hire Ott (Scrappleface). HE's saying all the things Bush needs to say.
the fourth anniversary of the start of the war. That is, if you believe it's a ''war'' A lot of people didn't want to, even in those first days.
About a week after, one of my local radio stations held a fund-raiser and this is how their trailer for it opened. Cue the terminal-illness-movie-of-the-week soupy piano. Then:
''After the tragic events of Sept. 11 . . .''
And, by the time I'd heard it half-a-dozen times, I retuned the dial and never listened to the station again.
It wasn't a "tragic event" or even one of a series of unfortunate events. It was an "attack," an "act of war." I sat at the lunch counter with a guy who'd tuned out the same station on the grounds that "I never heard my grampa talk about 'the tragedy of Pearl Harbor.' " But, consciously or otherwise, a serious effort was under way to transform the nature of the event, to soften it into a touchy-feely, huggy-weepy one-off. As I wrote last year: "The president believes there's a war on. The Dems think 9/11 is like the 1998 ice storm or a Florida hurricane -- just one of those things."
I didn't know the half of it. If an act of war is like a hurricane -- freak of nature, get over it -- it's evidently no great leap to believe that a hurricane is an act of war. Katrina was thus "allowed" to happen because Bush "hates black people." The Army Corps of Engineers was instructed to blow up New Orleans' 17th Street levee so that the flood would kill the poor people rather than destroy the valuable tourist real estate.
Whatever. As part of their ongoing post-9/11 convergence, the left now talks about Bush the way the wackier Islamists talk about Jews. I thought the Australian imam who warned Muslims the other week to lay off the bananas because the Zionists are putting poison in them was pretty loopy. But is he really any more bananas than folks who think Bush is behind the hurricane? Bush is apparently no longer the citizen-president of a functioning republic, but a 21st century King Canute expected to go sit by the shore and repel the waters as they attempt to make landfall. Instead, he and Cheney hatched up the whole hurricane thing in the Halliburton research labs to distract attention from their right-wing Supreme Court nominee . . .
On this fourth anniversary we are in a bizarre situation: The war is being won -- in Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader Middle East and many other places where America has changed the conditions on the ground in its favor. But at home the war about the war is being lost. When the media look at those Bush approval ratings -- currently hovering around 40 percent -- they carelessly assume the 60 percent is some unified Kerry-Hillary-Cindy bloc. It's not. It undoubtedly includes people who are enthusiastic for whacking America's enemies, but who don't quite get the point of this somewhat desultory listless phase. If the "war" is now a push for democratization and liberalization in Middle East dictatorships, that's a worthy cause but not one sufficiently primal to keep the attention of the American people. You'd have had the same problem in the Second World War if four years after Pearl Harbor we were postponing D-Day in order to nation-build in the Solomon Islands.
Four years ago, I thought the "war on terror" was a viable concept. To those on the right who scoffed that you can't declare war on a technique, I pointed out that Britain's Royal Navy fought wars against slavery and piracy and were largely successful. Of course, since then we've had the shabby habit of presidents declaring a "war on drugs" and a "war on poverty" and, with hindsight, that corruption of language has allowed Americans to slip the war on terror into the same category -- not a war in the sense that a war on Fiji or Belgium is a war, but just one of those vaguely ineffectual aspirational things that don't really impinge on you that much except for the odd pointless gesture -- like the shoe-removing ritual before you board a flight at Poughkeepsie. The "war on terror" label has outlived whatever usefulness it had.
And, as the years go by, it becomes clearer that the war aspects -- the attacks in New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, London -- are really spasmodic flashes of a much more elusive enemy. Although Islamism is the first truly global terrorist insurgency, it shares more similarities with conventional terror movements -- the IRA or the Basque separatists -- than many of us thought four years ago. Terror groups persist because of a lack of confidence on the part of their targets: the IRA, for example, calculated correctly that the British had the capability to smash them totally but not the will. So they knew that while they could never win militarily, they also could never be defeated. That's what the Islamists have bet.
Only a tiny minority of Muslims want to be suicide bombers, and only a slightly larger minority want actively to provide support networks for suicide bombers, but big majorities of Muslims support almost all the terrorists' strategic goals: For example, according to a recent poll, over 60 percent of British Muslims want to live under sharia in the United Kingdom. That's a "moderate" Westernized Muslim: He wants stoning for adultery to be introduced in Liverpool, but he's a "moderate" because it's not such a priority that he's prepared to fly a plane into a skyscraper.
As with IRA killers and the broader Irish nationalist population, these shared aims provide a large comfort zone in which terror networks can operate. And it enables the non-violent lobby groups to use the terrorists -- or the threat of terrorists -- as part of a good cop/bad cop routine. Thus, the Islamic lobby groups pressure governments to make concessions to them rather than to the terrorists -- even though both elements share the same aims. You can pluck out news items at random: In London, a religious "hate crimes" law that makes honest discussion of Islam even more difficult; in Ontario, the moves toward sharia courts for Muslim community disputes; in Seattle, the introduction of gender-separate, Muslim-only swimming sessions in municipal pools. The 9/11 terrorists were in favor of all these things.
So four years on we're winning in the Middle East and Central Asia, floundering in Europe and North America. War is hell, but a war that half the country refuses to recognize as such staggers on as a very contemporary kind of purgatory.
Four years on it remains the case, as we've said on past anniversaries, that the same fundamental decency that won't allow us to use the horrible images of 9-11 dulls the anger we should still feel afresh and inhibits our determination to pursue Islamicism with the fury we ought. However, it is likewise true that it is because of the kind of society we are that we are Reforming the Middle East far faster and more thoroughly than most dreamed possible those four years ago.
It is the great irony of 9-11 that what rose from the ashes that our fellow citizens fell into was not just a better, more serious, America but a better, more liberal, represenative, and hopeful Middle East as well. One would not wish ever to seem to be referring to the attacks as "worthwhile," but the ascent of liberty that has followed them at least means that none died in vain that day. Correction: 19 actually did die in vain, their evil actions producing exactly the opposite effect they'd planned on. Those 72 raisins must taste damned bitter.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/11/2005 08:45 ||
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IN the four years since the Sept. 11 attacks, Islamist terrorists have struck repeatedly around the world: Bali, Riyadh, Casablanca, Jakarta, Istanbul, Madrid, London. But not a single attack has occurred in the United States.
Does American intelligence, so routinely paired with "failure" in recent years, earn some credit? Are tighter immigration controls screening out the jihadists?
Was the threat from sleeper cells never as great as it seemed when the twin towers fell? Or is Al Qaeda, bloodied but undefeated, patiently plotting the next large attack?
The answer may well be all of the above - a mix of factors not subject to proof, only informed speculation. "No one really can know for sure," said Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar in the Clinton and Bush administrations. He, like other experts in the field, emphasizes the absence of a home-grown affiliate of Al Qaeda in the United States.
After Sept. 11, 2001, few would have predicted that in 2005, experts would be ruminating about why no additional attacks had taken place. In a Gallup poll a month after 9/11, 85 percent of Americans said another strike in the United States was somewhat or very likely "over the next several weeks."
No wonder, considering that new threats - some with how-to instructions - seemed to pop up every day: Chemical plants were ticking bombs; crop dusters could spew a deadly trail of microbes; a dirty bomb could make Manhattan uninhabitable.
Before the second anniversary of 9/11, Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary, said he considered writing a newspaper opinion piece mulling the inaction of Al Qaeda in the United States. But the trauma of Sept. 11 was too fresh: "I felt kind of queasy about writing it down," Mr. Danzig said.
Now, the absence of an attack seems less like pure luck and more like an achievement. In interviews, a dozen people who track terrorism offered several likely, if partly contradictory, explanations:
A strong offense. All agree that by rousting Osama bin Laden from his Afghanistan base, and detaining or killing many top aides, the United States disrupted Al Qaeda, which had grown so strong in the 1990's.
Partly as a result, Al Qaeda has become decentralized, Mr. Clarke said, its goals shared by some 14 affiliated groups around the globe. The major attacks since 2001 have been carried out by home-grown jihadist groups - and unlike Britain or Spain, officials say, the United States does not appear to have found a significant jihadist network.
A strong defense. Tighter immigration controls since 2001 have carried substantial political and social costs, barring innocent foreign students and a few distinguished foreign professors and prominent artists.
But suspicious border guards have also turned away potential terrorists. A Jordanian man denied entry to the United States in 2003 when he landed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, for example, is believed to have carried out a suicide bombing 20 months later in Hilla, Iraq, killing 125 people, according to a memo by the Homeland Security Department published last month by The Associated Press.
Terrorism displacement. Many experts believe that the Iraq war, while recruiting many more young Muslim men to the jihadist cause, has also diverted them from United States soil by providing a more accessible target: American soldiers in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq.
In the eyes of the jihadists, the troops' presence confirms Mr. bin Laden's decade-old claims that the United States is at war with the Muslim world.
An exaggerated threat. After Pearl Harbor, the military ringed the coasts with watchtowers, many of which still stand. But though war raged four years, there was no other surprise attack on the United States.
At least a few scholars believe something similar is happening now, that despite the shock of Sept. 11, the menace to the United States was never as great as supposed. "In the public debate about terrorism, there is almost no one to say the threat is not so great, or that September 11 could have been terrorism's high-water mark," said Benjamin H. Friedman, who wrote a provocative piece in the journal Foreign Policy in July making that case.
Or, maybe a big attack is coming after all. Loch Johnson, a University of Georgia political scientist who studies terrorism, points out that eight years passed between the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and the toppling of the towers in 2001. The quiet was an illusion; the Sept. 11 attacks were being systematically plotted.
"Al Qaeda seems to like major events against the U.S. and has demonstrated a capacity for patience in the planning of such events," Mr. Johnson said.
In Iraq, or even in Europe, Al Qaeda or like-minded groups may have enough adherents to afford to use them in modest attacks, said Stephen E. Flynn, a homeland security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. But if only a few dedicated jihadists are in the United States, as is likely, they will be used for maximum impact, he said.
"The terrorists here would be a carefully husbanded resource," he said. "I believe in the U.S. we'll see few attacks, spread farther apart, but catastrophic in nature."
Mr. Flynn and others said they fear that the lessons jihadists learn in Iraq - in urban combat, the use of explosives and especially attacks on strategic sites - may one day threaten the United States.
Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Flynn said, illustrates the alarming vulnerability of the nation's infrastructure. Had terrorists used explosives to breach the levees in New Orleans, he argued, the same catastrophic flooding would have occurred, and without the warning from the National Weather Service.
Such an attack would have been hard to pull off, but the results would have rivaled the Sept. 11 attacks. "Hundreds dead and $200 billion damage," he said. "Not a bad day's work for a couple of fertilizer bombs."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:12 ||
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#1
NY Slimes theories...BAHAAAHHAAAAA
That's all they rely on is cornball conspiracy theories.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:40 Comments ||
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#2
There's one obvious theory that the NYT is ignoring - perhaps the Bush administration has made it known, surreptitously, that *any* attack on the US will be met with bottled sunshine, and that they're not going to be too discriminating about who gets some. Perhaps they've already said what the targets are going to be, although that is showing too many cards perhaps...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/11/2005 2:53 Comments ||
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#3
Any theories on why the NY Slimes is still in business?
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 2:55 Comments ||
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#4
Hmmm...maybe the same reason the Japanese didn't show back in Hawaii after Dec. 7th. We took the fight to them and isolated the pool of potential agents [50 years later now that the classified Japanese diplomatic code traffic intercepts have been released, we know their consulates were reporting cells and contacts in place - not that anyone cares today].
The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified national security directives.
At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.
The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically against threats from weapons of mass destruction.
Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon Web site. A "summary of changes" included in the draft identifies differences from the 1995 doctrine, and says the new document "revises the discussion of nuclear weapons use across the range of military operations."
The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations. Another scenario for a possible nuclear preemptive strike is in case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."
A common sense, sober document that recognizes the terrible power that pissant countries and terrorist groups can bring to bear on us, and the need to make sure said countries understand the stakes. The rest of the article has the usual WaPo political spin.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Make it so....
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 2:52 Comments ||
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#2
First order of business; have everybody involved, sit and watch 'Dr. Strangelove'!!!
All during the Cold War, commanders and officers down to second lieutenants with access to the devices. It only would take two like minded individuals to activate a device. Never, outside Hollywood fantasy, in all those decades did we have a Dr. Strangelove scenario. Maybe because the armed forces had a zero tolerence for behaviors and attitude when it came to nukes. When it came to nukes, they had no sense of humor. Under the personnel programs, just taking commonly prescribed medications removed you from duty till you were cleared by the med personnel.
A Palestinian official said the Palestinian Authority wouldn't take part in a ceremony on Sunday marking the handover [of Gaza to PA], in part to protest Israel's failure to conclude a critical agreement on the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which Israel shut down temporarily this week. "The Palestinians have decided not to participate in the so-called handover ceremony," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the matter with the media.
"They said if I said any more, they'd kill me. So I will say no more. Are you writing down the part about me not saying any more? You tell them I ain't said nuttin'!"
The crossing is the Palestinians' main gateway to the outside world, and the Palestinians are afraid that its closure â coupled with existing restrictions on entry to Israel, and the lack of a harbor or airport â would lock up Gaza's 1.4 million residents. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was expected in Gaza soon to try to wrap up a deal between Israel and the Palestinians on the crossing. Israel, concerned about security, has agreed in principle to have foreign inspectors deployed at the Rafah crossing when it reopens, refurbished, for passenger traffic. But it says a final deal depends on how effectively the Palestinians rein in militants. Two hundred Egyptian border guards took up position along the volatile Gaza border Saturday to prevent arms smuggling and illicit crossings after the Israelis end their 38-year occupation of the coastal area. An additional 550 Egyptian soldiers are to be assigned to the desert frontier during the coming week, officials said.
I'm long on seething futures at the Egypto borders...
The Israeli military said it had no information about a Palestinian boycott and the ceremony would take place as planned.
"We'll have balloons and sweets for the kiddies, and we'll try to keep a straight face the whole time. Really, we will."
As Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt prepared for the transfer of power in Gaza, the power of armed gangs there remained unchecked. Masked gunmen abducted Italian journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi of the Corriere della Sera daily in the Gaza town of Deir El-Balah but released him unharmed about four hours later, Palestinian officials said. Palestinian security officials said the kidnappers were among the 60 armed Palestinians who earlier in the day occupied the local governor's headquarters and Interior Ministry offices in the town, demanding jobs with the Palestinian Authority. They took Cremonesi in an attempt to bolster their claims, the officials said. In Gaza City, three gunmen opened fire from their car at the Interior Ministry press office, touching off a brief gunbattle with the building's guards. No one was injured and the gunmen escaped, the ministry said in a statement.
"There are many elements and many parties who are interested in preserving the chaos, because they cannot live under law and order," ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said in the statement. "But this situation is not going to continue after the end of the Israeli occupation," he added, promising laws will be enforced.
Palestinian officials have said that after Israel's military pullout, they would prevent Palestinians from entering the evacuated territory for at least three days so police could secure the area. But so far they haven't been able to control crowds that have gathered outside the settlements Israel emptied two weeks ago. Hundreds of Palestinians turned out Saturday in Khan Younis to station themselves to watch Israeli soldiers withdraw from what was once the main settlement bloc, Gush Katif. Dozens of youths hurled rocks at four Israeli tanks positioned there while Palestinian policemen struggled to chase them away. Nearby, dozens of gunmen from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party marched to the Tuffah crossing between Khan Younis and Gush Katif, ignoring orders from Palestinian police to stay back and fired shots in the air. An Israeli tank was stationed 100 yards away.
Israel threatened on Saturday to deliver an unprecedentedly harsh response to any attacks from Gaza after Israeli troops quit the territory. "An hour after we leave the field, there will be a strategic change...in the nature of our response to even an attempt at terror," Maj.-Gen. Yisrael Ziv, the military's chief of operations, told Israel Radio. "The gloves are off We shall have a far more extreme reaction to any attempt." He didn't elaborate.
#2
the kidnappers were among the 60 armed Palestinians who earlier in the day occupied the local governor's headquarters and Interior Ministry offices in the town, demanding jobs with the Palestinian Authority. They took Cremonesi in an attempt to bolster their claims, the officials said.
Only in Paleostan does kidnapping seem like a resume builder.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
09/11/2005 4:49 Comments ||
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Good one Baba Tutu!
I would recommend that the Paleos pay close attention to what Maj.-Gen. Ziv has said
"An hour after we leave the field, there will be a strategic change...in the nature of our response to even an attempt at terror," Maj.-Gen. Yisrael Ziv, the military's chief of operations, told Israel Radio. "We shall have a far more extreme reaction to any attempt."
Think they'll take notice? ...nah, me neither...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/11/2005 6:25 Comments ||
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The crossing is the Palestinians' main gateway to the outside world, and the Palestinians are afraid that its closure â coupled with existing restrictions on entry to Israel, and the lack of a harbor or airport â would lock up Gaza's 1.4 million residents.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Correct!
"Alex, I'll take Paleo-stupidity for $200.
#5
Palestinians are afraid that its closure â coupled with existing restrictions on entry to Israel, and the lack of a harbor or airport â would lock up Gaza's 1.4 million residents.
I'm sure your Eyptian brothers will allow you free entry to their country.
#6
Palestinian security officials said the kidnappers were among the 60 armed Palestinians who earlier in the day occupied the local governor's headquarters and Interior Ministry offices in the town, demanding jobs with the Palestinian Authority.
"We know who they are, but we're not gonna do shit."
#7
I fail to see any grasping of Cause/Effect in this article. They have not even noticed that with Isreali citizens gone they now live in a free fire zone.
raq's president today thanked "all the brave American Army" for its sacrifices and losses in liberating Iraq and said his country mourns the loss of American lives in exchange for Iraq's freedom.
"We owe to those American heroes who came to liberate us from the worst kind of dictatorship," Jalal Talabani said at the Pentagon after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and other officials.
"Thanks to your brave Army, now Iraqi people (are free)," he said, adding that for the first time Iraqis have freedom of expression, political parties, media -- "of everything."
He said "the glorious American people" have paid the price for others' freedom throughout history. "You in the United States have paid hundreds of thousands of your sons and your boys in fighting against fascism and in liberating Asian people," Talabani said. "Thanks to you, you liberated Afghanistan from the worst kind of reactionary regime; you liberated Iraq from the worst kind of dictatorship."
Talabani described progress in Iraq's economy and reconstruction, but said that unfortunately the media prefers to cover negative events instead.
"The situation in Iraq is not only black or negative," he said. "I am sorry to say that media was reluctant to reflect the real picture of Iraq."
Rumsfeld said he was pleased with Iraq's progress in drafting a new constitution. "That is difficult work," he said. "It has been watched with great interest, and I want to congratulate you on that progress and on the fact that it protects the rights and the opportunities of all people in Iraq."
Both men expressed optimism in progress being made by the Iraqi security forces.
"The skill of the Iraqi security forces is improving every week," Rumsfeld said.
Talabani said he believes Iraqi security forces will largely be able to provide for the country's security within two years. He surmised that in two years his country will need only small numbers of American troops "to prevent others from interfering in our internal affairs."
Both also vowed to fight terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere.
"The president of the United States and the government of the United States are absolutely determined to see this through to victory and success and to see the Iraqi people off on a path towards a democratic future and a successful future," Rumsfeld said.
Talabani said Iraq is determined to be America's partner in the "fight against tyranny (and) terrorism."
"We are supporting you in your policy in the Middle East; we are proud to be your friends," the president said. "We are proud to be your partners in fighting against terrorism, and we are grateful to you."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:42 ||
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Can't say I've ever seen Rummy at a loss for words, but his joint presser with Talabani was a first.
Talabani advocates three permanent US bases in Iraq after troop reduction, to keep the neighbors in check. Rummy demurred.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 3:03 Comments ||
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#2
He should call it the 'Bonn Plan' after the commitment of US Forces to Germany to keep the Soviets [and their nukes at bay]. Or do we treat the little brown skin people different than the [late] master race? Knowing the deep racism of the left, I know what their response will be.
(Q) What is your assessment of the current situation in Iraq?
(A) The Iraqi situation is worrisome and among the main dangers that Iraq is going through at present are the cracks in national unity, the absence of the state's institutions, and the economic stagnation and even recession. There is no vision of how to proceed forward. Consequently, the hostile forces, whether inside or abroad, are trying to stop the cycle of development. We find today an absence of even the institutions we had built during our government's short period in office and by this; I mean the judicial, security, police, intelligence, and army institutions. There is a very dangerous vacuum in these fields.
(Q) Let us talk about the most imperative issues, that of public services. How do you rate the services offered to the Iraqis today?
(A) I remember in this matter that we were able when we were in government to achieve for example a high degree of providing electricity to the citizens for three hours and a one-hour cut off. The cut off now is more than 12 hours and the current is received for only one hour. The other services are deteriorating. Let us take for example the health services, which are extremely important. Just imagine that 1,000 Iraqi doctors have disappeared since the elections (at the end of January) to this day, either they were assassinated or kidnapped while the others left the country in fear for their lives. This has an impact on the provision of health services and the protection of the citizen and the homeland. The services are almost nonexistent, especially the security ones. We all saw the tragedy on Al-A'imma bridge. Everything is regressing, both resources and performance. This is further rupturing the social fabric. What makes the situations more dangerous is the start of this talk of Sunnis and Shiites at the official and popular levels. The issue of sectarian quotas was prominent during the discussion of the constitution. This does not serve the interest of Iraq or Iraqis and does not serve the country. Another danger is the expanding presence of the armed militias and their control. This is a double danger to national unity in Iraq. This situation is likely to deteriorate further. It will be lethal for Iraq and a danger to the entire region even if it does not get worse.
(Q) What is the solution?
(A) A serious and quick action and a total awareness of what is happening are needed so that we can place Iraq on the road to recovery in the upcoming elections. There are several solutions. The elections are important in themselves. I say in my talks with Iraqi, Arab, and Western leaders that the constitution is not the Iraqis' worry at present but it is security, daily bread, medicine, and work that are their concerns. We have armies of unemployed people. Those who were sacked and the ones whose departments were closed after the former regime's downfall joined those who became jobless because of the wars, the problems, and the blockade under the former regime. Iraq needs to have through elections a fundamental review about establishing a national unity government; a government that expresses the Iraqis, secures their unity, and is capable of taking the decisions that serve the people's interest. This is the only solution and should happen by having the national forces that believe in national unity, Iraq's unity, and the Iraqi citizen's dignity rise to the challenge and by having Arab and Islamic backing for these forces.
(Q) Do you believe that the United States has any role in complicating things in Iraq?
(A) The Americans made many mistakes, including the disbanding of the army, the debathification, and the dissolution of the state's institutions. This disabled the Iraqi state and brought about a state of chaos, part of which we are living today. We were able to deal with some matters in a very short time after the transfer of power while other matters remained pending. Iraq started to head toward the abyss since the elections.
(Q) Is the responsibility of saving Iraq that of the Iraqis alone?
(A) Saving Iraq is today a national, Arab, Islamic, and international mission and all the forces should rally together toward protecting and consolidating the national unity through a clear, specific, and constructive program and by building and entrenching the state's institutions. I personally proudly recall that Arab countries stood with us in an attempt to train Iraqi manpower to build the country, including Jordan, the Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. We started security coordination and action during my visit to Saudi Arabia to serve both Iraq and Saudi Arabia and the atmospheres were very positive. It is now the task of the Iraqis and their national forces as well as that of the Arab, Muslim, and all other countries. This is what is needed. Without it, Iraq will head toward disaster, which if it does happen, its consequences will include the region and the entire world because Iraq is one of the region's most important countries. This is why I remind on every occasion that Iraq's safety means the safety of the region and even that of the world. I therefore say that we need Arab and Islamic backing. It has become in these countries' interest to see stability in Iraq achieved and to back it so as to rise from this fall. This is an important and fundamental demand and if the Arab and Muslim countries do not wake up to this fact, then the tragedy will be great.
(Q) You met Arab leaders during your present tour, as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair. What was the outcome of these meetings?
(A) Their outcome is important. There is full understanding of the role that the Arab, Muslim, and world countries should play. My meeting with the British prime minister was clear and transparent and there were almost total identical views. There is a clear and realistic diagnosis and this is something good. There is a desire for joint action to help Iraq. I have to point here to something important concerning the stand on the recent catastrophe on Al-A'imma bridge. There was an Arab rush to provide assistance. The Emirates launched an airlift to send aid and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, and other Arab countries also contributed. There is really an understanding and a readiness for action on the part of several countries and my hope is that this will be translated into a reality on the ground.
(Q) In whose interest is the attempt to remove Iraq from its Arab and Islamic fold?
(A) I do not know in whose interest is Iraq's isolation from its Arab and Islamic surroundings. This will cause great harm to Iraq and the region. We should not forget that Iraq has two main dimensions, the Arabic and Islamic ones. Iraq played an important role at the Arab level since its establishment and right through the League of Nations and in its stands on the Arab-Israeli conflict that has now turned from conflict to peace attempts. I remember that Iraq was part of the Baghdad Pact, which we opposed. This was evidence of Iraq's importance. I expect the parties trying to push Iraq away from its Arab and Islamic surroundings are ones that are trying to cause damage to Iraq first and to the region second because Iraq's stability and safety are part of the region's stability and safety. Excluding Iraq does not serve the Arabs at all or the Muslim countries.
(Q) There is talk about Iranian interference in Iraq. to what extent?
(A) Yes, there are real Iranian interferences. Let me tell this story to show the extent of this interference. Iranian officials visited Iraq during the last elections as members of a high-level official delegation. They frankly told the leaders of Iraqi parties that Iran had issues with Iyad Allawi and that it did not wish to see him remain prime minister. Iran also interfered and put all its weight in the elections in favor of certain parties. I supported and continue to support the policy of mutual respect between Iraq and its neighbors, a policy based on a network of interests between Iraq and neighboring countries, including Iran, and not interfering in affairs. I received the Iranian ambassador when I was prime minister and told him that their interference would not serve anyone and that we in Iraq respect our neighbors and do not interfere in the neighbor's affairs. This is why we stopped the activities of "Mojahedin-e Khalq" and considered them political refugees. We hoped that Iran would deal with Iraq in the same way. I believe that the Iranian interferences will prove in the end to be futile and will be restricted and unhelpful to stability. They certainly do not serve Iraq's situation. When an Iranian official tells Iraqi political leaders that Iran has issues with Iyad Allawi and will not let him become prime minister again, then this is blatant interference. The important point here is not the prime minister's post but the interference itself. No Iraqi politician will allow himself to interfere in Iranian affairs and say that Iraq has issues with any Iranian politician. We did not interfere in the recent Iranian elections and did not say we had issues with this or that.
(Q) How do you see the regional, Arab, and local media's role in the Iraqi issue?
(A) There are unfortunately stands hostile to Iraq from some media channels. More than 12 satellite channels are broadcasting from a neighboring country or from inside Iraq that have foreign backing and releasing their poisons among the Iraqis and consequently among the Arabs. There are parties that have their own media and the financier is unfortunately a foreigner. This does not serve the Iraqi issue or the Iraqis. We need media support to explain to the Arabs, Muslims, and the world the dangers threatening Iraq and therefore threatening the Arab and Islamic worlds. I am not talking about all the media organs. There are some whose stands are honest and clear and we appreciate them for this attitude. There are media organs that are deliberately helping the destruction of Iraq.
(Q) What is the truth about the reports we heard of attempts to assassinate you?
(A) There were three attempts to assassinate me recently. The last happened less than a month ago and members of the group responsible for it were arrested. They are being questioned and are from a neighboring country. I hope that this country's official organs did not have a hand in it. Friendly intelligence informed us of it and the multinational forces arrested this group's members. I do not want to comment now until the results of the investigations appear. I hope that the neighboring state's organs from which this group came did not have a finger in this or other attempt.
(Q) What are your preparing for the upcoming elections?
(A) We are preparing whatever can be prepared for the upcoming elections and hoping to come out with a democratic, liberal, and national Iraqi entity that believes in Iraq, Iraq's dignity, and Iraq's unity. We will contest them jointly with other forces.
(Q) Is the conference that you will be holding at the end of this month in Baghdad to form an elections front?
(A) It is not to form an elections front as much as one designed to attract the liberal national Iraqi forces to act jointly. The national forces are not necessarily the democratic ones alone but there are Islamic forces that come under this definition and they will take part in the conference. I am expecting this conference to succeed and this to be a good initiative. This conference's success will certainly create some kind of cohesiveness that will lead to the formation of a joint elections list from the national forces in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:34 ||
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Some days I feel like we should just pack it all in and let them go Paleostinian.
But today is a good day to consider that alternative. To waver is to encourage those who would destroy us.
It's gonna be a long war.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/11/2005 9:05 Comments ||
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The UN Secretary-General's special envoy for Somalia urged members of the split transitional government to exercise restraint on Thursday amid reports of militia movement in the town of Jowhar, where the president and the prime minister are based.
"I am concerned at the escalation of tensions in Jowhar and Mogadishu, and appeal for restraint from all parties whatever their differences," Francois Lonseny Fall, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Somalia, said in a statement.
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi and their supporters decided to set up Transitional Federal Institutions (TFI) in the town of Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital, Mogadishu, in June. They said Mogadishu was not secure enough to be the seat of government.
About 100 members of the 275-strong Transitional Federal Parliament, led by Speaker Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden, opted to stay in Mogadishu, however, saying they would try to restore security in the war-scarred capital.
"I urge all sides to make a serious effort to begin an inclusive dialogue," said Fall. "It's high time that the Transitional Federal Institutions begin to function as intended. Their inability to resolve their differences is undermining the very essence of the agreements they reached after the national reconciliation conference last October."
Thirteen international UN personnel were relocated from Jowhar on Thursday amid a military build-up in the town. Six staff members were flown to Wajid in southwestern Somalia, and seven were relocated temporarily to Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya.
Muhammad Ali, a senior official in the prime minister's office, explained that the armed forces in Jowhar, which had been "recruited from all regions of Somalia", posed no threat to any party. He also confirmed that there were no foreign forces among them.
The troops had been brought in to re-establish a Somali security force capable of "bringing back law and order," he added. "Their aim is not to attack anyone."
Fall asserted that there could be no military solution to the divisions in Somalia. "The suffering of the population has continued at unacceptable cost to all Somalis for more than 14 years," he said.
He said that both parties in the transitional government were obligated to ensure the safety and security of UN international and national staff and respect the sanctity of UN premises.
Matt Bryden, director of the Horn of Africa division of the International Crisis Group (ICG), warned that the tensions within the TFIs could destroy the country's peace process.
"The current crisis is the product of tensions that have paralysed the Transitional Federal Institutions practically since their inception," he said. "The peace process has been in reverse gear since the president prorogued the parliament earlier this year, exceeding his constitutional powers and closing the main venue for dialogue and negotiation within the TFIs.
"Since then, the Jowhar faction of the TFG has embarked on a programme of military mobilisation and unilateral political action in defiance of calls from the UN Security Council for dialogue and a moratorium on military action," he said.
Bryden emphasised that without a functioning legislature the president and prime minister lacked the legal authority to form a national army, appoint regional and local officials and issue other decrees. Their current actions only served to entrench existing divisions, he said.
"There is an urgent need for military preparations on both sides to cease and for the revival of political dialogue within the TFIs - namely by reconvening the full parliament at the earliest possible date. The diplomatic initiative of Ambassador Fall needs to be strengthened and accelerated with the full and unambiguous backing of the international community," Bryden added.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:27 ||
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#1
One chuckles at the ineptitude of the UN.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 2:47 Comments ||
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#2
One would chuckle if it weren't that My tax money is going to this. It comes out of My pay, of My working ours. Little pieces of My life go there to be squandered.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Special Civilian Representative to Afghanistan Hikmet Cetin said security conditions in Afghanistan are getting better everday since the overthrown Taliban regime.
Taliban and Al-Qaeda lost their powers in recent months Cetin told Cihan News Agency during his assessments over the latest situation in Afghanistan and the parliamentary elections on September 18. Fifty thousand militants in Afghanistan were disarmed since 2001 and they returned to their normal daily lives.
NATO forces have intelligence that Al-Qaeda and Taliban are preparing to sabotage the elections; however, national security teams and NATO continue their mission to provide security in the country.
The elections have great importance for the future of Afghanistan, therefore security and other studies will continue during the election period in order to maintain peace and quite during the elections, Cetin said.
Cetin expressing no expectation of large scale events and raids, said according to the intelligence they acquired, al-Qaeda and Taliban will, however, commit kidnapping, pressure people, and frighten deputies.
The administration trains the national army and the police tactics and operational aspects, the intelligence service increased the number of its sources in rural areas, Cetin said.
NATO powers also are making great efforts to provide security during the elections.
"Romania sent a battalion for the elections; Spain sent a battalion for Heart and Netherlands sent an extra battalion for Mezar-i Sharif. We have placed these soldiers in strategic points in these areas."
Cetin emphasized NATO does everything that is required for security without considering its cost, and added the US and France sent fighter jets to Afghanistan for emergency situations.
Cetin said democratization steps in Afghanistan will speed up after the elections.
With the newly appended constitutional article, two women deputies can be elected from each of the provinces he informed.
"May be there will be more women in Afghanistan Parliament than any other parliament in the world. According to the constitution two women deputies will come to the parliament from all cities. The number of women deputies will be 68, which is not seen in any parliament so far."
The women, who are taking an active part in the society and getting educated, have key roles in the development of Afghanistan, Cetin added.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:17 ||
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Nice, but the serious heavy lifting is being done by US forces. The other countries are generally geared towards force protection.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 0:24 Comments ||
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#2
Agreed, but their contribution was still appreciated, especially since given the emasculation debellicization of Europe it was probably all they could afford to send.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 0:40 Comments ||
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"The International Criminal Mastermind sat in his impregnable mountain redoubt, biding his time..."
Times change, but one thing that does not change is the modus operandi for clandestine and daring plans and the venues where they are made. If Adolf Hitler had his Wolfschanze, Alderhorst and lastly, the Fuhrer Bunker, terror mastermind and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden also had his own lair in the rocky and dusty Afghan Mountains where he made plans that shook the very foundations of the US.
In his hidden retreat so far from the galaxy's crowded suns and worlds, Helmuth was in no enviable or easy frame of mind...
A casual look at the simple cluster of crude mud buildings slowly disintegrating in the scorching Afghan heat, might give one the impression of the place being a remnant of some tribal habitation in the mountains. Intelligence officials think otherwise. This, they say is the place where 9/11 was born. For beneath the dusty courtyards and exercise grounds is a lethal warren of booby-trapped tunnels and caves, in other words, Osama bin Laden's lair during his stay in Afghanistan under the protection and patronage of the Taliban. Officials have said that sometime in the mid 1990's Osama bin Laden and his henchmen came here to Tarnak Farm, near Kandahar on the Pakistan border, adding that the complex might as well have been the "the base" - which in Arabic means "Al-Qaeda" for the organization, reports The Daily Mirror.
Every alarm in Helmuth's dome had burst into frantic warning as the massed might of the Galactic Patrol was hurled against the twenty-six vital points of Grand Base...
Officials said that this was also the place where thousands of jihadis learned their tricks of the trade before going out on their deadly missions all over the world. Bin Laden, officials said also meetings in 1998 with his operatives for planning "spectacular", in other words the day, which changed the world for the US-9/11. The CIA, soon after the meeting persuaded the Pentagon to sanction a Cruise missile strike on Tarnak Farm, which intelligence said, was a vipers' nest of fundamentalist terrorism, but by the time the missiles struck, bin Laden and his inner coterie has disappeared.
"Helmuth, speaking for Boskone — out!"
Officials say, that though the structure is slowly disintegrating, some of it still remains. According to the paper, quoting intelligence officials, at the centre of the compound is the building that was once Bin Laden's modest home, where he ate and prayed with his lieutenants. Within the perimeter walls are exercise bars and a barracks-style accommodation block for trainees. The now-rusting bars, the report said, were once part of an assault course used to force discipline and fitness into recruits and to provide them with some military training. There are also pits, several feet deep, where Al-Qaeda and Taliban recruits were brutally punished, with those trying to leave the harsh training regime, being executed. Beneath the camp, officials said was the complicated maze of tunnels, all heavily mined and booby-trapped, which have not yet been totally de-mined by the US bomb disposal squad.
Kinnison approached star cluster AC 257-4736 warily, as before; and as before he insinuated his speedster through the loose outer cordon of gardian fortresses...
"These tunnels are almost impenetrable. So far the Americans have only managed to get as far as the first two metres- and one man has died doing this," the paper quoted an intelligence official as saying.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:16 ||
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#1
Is this the complex that the famous illustration (link) was based on?
#3
Same here raptor - I call it 'disinformation'. Why give them any hints at all as to what's going on. I would imagine there are quite a few robot devices being used there.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/11/2005 6:27 Comments ||
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#4
Now I need to dig out my Lensmen books for a re-read. I wonder if Peter Jackson would be interested in filming another series?
Fears that Al-Qaeda terrorists have reached Israel were confirmed with the arrest of a gang member north of Be'er Sheva, despite government denials that Bin Laden has created cells in Israel.
Security officials arrested the 26-year-old man in the village of Dahariya, between Be'er Sheva and Hevron. A new book, published in the London-based Al-Quds newspaper, states that the terrorist organization is on the eve of a new phase in a campaign that will end with "a frontal attack on Israel."
Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said in March 2002 that the Al Qaeda terrorist group was giving orders to Arab terrorists in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He told reporters that Israel had prevented several attempts by Al Qaeda terrorists to enter Israel.
Israeli intelligence and military officials have played down the possibility that terrorist operatives of the Osama Bin-Laden gang are in Israel, but the arrest of the Dahariya operative, Mahmoud Waridat, reveals there are contacts with terrorists in Israel.
Army prosecutors said Waridat was trained at an Al Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan but declined an invitation to join Bin Laden's terror network. He learned to make small arms and bombs at the training camp.
Speculation on Al-Qaeda's infiltration into Israel was sparked in the 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned hotel and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli airline in Kenya.
Last month, Al Qaeda claimed it was behind a "debut operation in Jordan" when terrorists attacked Eilat with a Katusha rocket. Other claims of terrorist gangs linked to Al Qaeda have appeared in Gaza.
A new book entitled "Al-Zarqawi--Al Qaeda's Second Generation" details the world-wide terrorist organization's master plan. The author, Fuad Hussein, states that Al Qaeda has completed its first "awakening" phase that was highlighted by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The second phase, which began in 2003 and is to end next year, is aimed at showing Moslems that the United States is abusing Arab countries. The third phase of "rebirth" is projected to last from 2007-2010 and will concentrate on Syria, Jordan and Israel.
''This phase takes into account the current attacks led by Americans, Europeans and Jews against Syria. The battle will shift to Syria as al-Qaeda will start a frontal attack on Israel'," Hussein wrote.
The "final victory" will follow with a war against Arab leaders, the creation of a new Arab country and all-out war, concluding with the destruction of Israel.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/11/2005 00:05 ||
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After Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and All of Palestine Will Be Liberated
"Our brothers in Jerusalem and the West Bank, I am sure that Gaza is just the beginning of the process⊠In the next phase, we will defeat the occupation [in your area]⊠Residents of Occupied Palestine of 1948, in my name and in the name of all Gaza Strip residents, I ask you for your assistance to us and to our Jihad⊠We shall not rest until our entire holy land is liberatedâŠ" Islam cannot be bargained with. Islam cannot be reasoned with. Islam will not ever compromise. The only way to win concessions from Islam is with the bullet.
William, do NOT put the source link in a line in the text. It goes in the 'source' box in the Poster. AoS.
Posted by: William Thrash ||
09/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Gee, isn't this just what the anti-pullout people said would happen? Embolden hamas and escalate fighting?
ISLAMABAD - An Indian prisoner facing the death sentence on Saturday admitted he was responsible for a series of bomb attacks that killed several people across eastern Pakistan.
"Anything! I'll tell you anything! Please stop!!"
The confession by Sarabjit Singh came weeks after Pakistanâs Supreme Court upheld the death sentence handed to him in 1991 on charges of spying for Indiaâs intelligence agency and carrying out the attacks. Singhâs family, however, has said he was not a spy and that he strayed accidentally into Pakistani territory in August 1990 while farming his land near a border town of eastern Pakistan. Singhâs wife and two daughters have threatened to commit suicide unless his life is spared. âYes, I carried out bomb attacks,â Singh told state-run Pakistan Television.
"Now will you put those pliers down!"
It was not clear when and where Singhâs statement was recorded, but it came a day after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told The Associated Press that the man had âcarried out terrorist attacks and killed people here.â Musharraf also said he would look into the legal aspects of the case. âOne has to take the decision in a deliberate manner,â he said. âIt needs to come to me with all its legal implications, then only will I take a decision. But I am basically a person who shows compassion and mercy.â
Ah, that explains why the Bugtis are still around.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Osama bin Laden's sister-in-law wants the terror chief brought to justice, she said.
Carmen bin Laden, who is locked in a divorce battle with Osama's brother Yeslam, said she did not know where the al Qaida leader was hiding but is convinced he will never be caught.
"I, too, want to see Osama bin Laden stand trial for his crimes," she told New York Post columnist Cindy Adams. "I don't know where Osama is, but I wish they would get him. However, I think never will they get him alive. To live a prisoner in the hands of non-Muslims would be his worst tragedy imaginable. He would kill himself."
Carmen, who lives in Switzerland, said he should be caught and "face what he did to America."
As the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks approaches, she said she had sensed something terrible was about to two happen two days before the atrocity, when Afghanistan's resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was killed.
"From September 9 on, I felt edgy," she said. "In my mind I thought something could happen. And then, after... right away I knew. I quickly took my younger daughters out of school. I told them, 'We have to go home. Prepare yourselves. You must be ready to hear your name on the news.'
"Osama bin Laden continues to operate. I am desperately pessimistic and apprehensive about the future." Swiss-born Carmen met Yeslam bin Laden in Geneva in 1973. She has written a book chronicling life with the family and within a Saudi community.
#1
Sorry, dear, cops and robbers went away with the Clinton administration.
Now its kill or be killed.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/11/2005 2:54 Comments ||
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#2
Tried after or before allthe following?:
Keelhauling
Staked over a fireant hill and covered in honey
rolled in wet leather and left out in the Death Valley sun in the .... (not printable)
Drawn and quarter with real slow oxen
Remaining body parts fed to Ark. Razorback hogzillas.
WND. Salt as needed. The U.S. had information indicating late PLO leader Yasser Arafat may have been a homosexual who preyed on teenage boys, the National Security Agency's former Palestinian analyst told WorldNetDaily. James J. Welsh, who in the early 1970s monitored communications for the NSA related to Arafat's Fatah movement, said, "One of the things we looked for when we were intercepting Fatah communications were messages about Ashbal [Lion cub] Raaaawr!
members who would be called to Beirut from bases outside of Beirut. The Ashbal were often orphaned or abandoned boys who were brought into the organization, ostensibly to train for later entry into Fedayeen fighter units. They formed the "hyenas club."
"Arafat always had several of these 13-15 year old boys in his entourage. We figured out that he would often recall several of these boys to Beirut just before he would leave for a trip outside Lebanon. It proved to be a good indicator of Arafat's travel plans. While Arafat did have a regular security detail, many of those thought to be security personnel â the teenage boys â were actually there for other purposes."
Various Israeli security sources have in the past suggested publicly Arafat might be homosexual. They've claimed Arafat's former personal driver â a Mossad double agent â used to find teenage boys to bring back to the PLO leader. All Zionist lies!
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.
An American peace activist 
A Palestinian official said the Palestinian Authority wouldn't take part in a ceremony on Sunday marking the handover [of Gaza to PA], in part to protest Israel's failure to conclude a critical agreement on the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which Israel shut down temporarily this week. "The Palestinians have decided not to participate in the so-called handover ceremony," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the matter with the media.
After Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and All of Palestine Will Be Liberated
ISLAMABAD - An Indian prisoner facing the death sentence on Saturday admitted he was responsible for a series of bomb attacks that killed several people across eastern Pakistan.
The U.S. had information indicating late PLO leader Yasser Arafat may have been a homosexual who preyed on teenage boys, the National Security Agency's former Palestinian analyst told WorldNetDaily. James J. Welsh, who in the early 1970s monitored communications for the NSA related to Arafat's Fatah movement, said, "One of the things we looked for when we were intercepting Fatah communications were messages about Ashbal [Lion cub] 
