Saudi charities have been stifled by a clampdown since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and donors are resorting to unregulated channels to give money, the head of a leading charity said. Saleh Wohaibi, Secretary General of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), said calls from Washington for greater scrutiny on money it says might be diverted to militants have actually driven the process underground. Under pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia has shut down one of its largest charities, Al-Haramain Foundation, and stopped others from sending money abroad. The kingdom said last year it will replace them with a single state organisation.
It has also stopped charities collecting in mosques, shopping malls and schools and said donations should be made through bank transfers, which are more easily traced. Saudi charities' activities include funding for orphanages, schools, grants and disaster relief.
Wohaibi said the moves, part of what he called a U.S. campaign to suppress charitable work in the Gulf, has cut contributions to WAMY by around 30 percent and left it powerless to respond to recent humanitarian crises in Niger and Pakistan. "We cannot make any international transactions," Wohaibi told Reuters in an interview this week. "We were the first organisation in the Gulf region to attract attention to the famine in Niger, but we were the last people to move. (Donors) will come to WAMY and find it is too slow. So the only solution for them is to find a young man to go there and buy tents for people. I'm sure that is taking place in Niger and it will take place in Pakistan and Kashmir".
He said Saudis who wanted to give money would do the same as they did during the 1980s war in Afghanistan "when people were going to Peshawar and giving aid directly to the mujahideen". Wohaibi said WAMY, which has representatives across Saudi Arabia and in countries such as the United States, Bosnia, Chad and Indonesia, had no objection to supervision and scrutiny. Its latest annual report, for the Islamic year which ended February 2004, says WAMY spent just over 105 million riyals ($28 million), much of it on programmes to bring up orphans, build schools and provide grants for students. It has had to cut some programmes as donations dropped and says some host countries have faced pressure from Washington to shut down WAMY offices. "We are not against regulating, but in the end this regulation will suffocate the whole thing," Wohaibi said.
He said WAMY has "no links at all with any terrorist organisation or activities" and said the only charges against it had come through the U.S. media and through lawsuits filed in Washington and New York against the charity. "We have been asking the Americans ... to show their proof against WAMY and Islamic charities. They never come to discuss this. They lack evidence."
"The witnesses are all dead!"
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:43 ||
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#1
A consensus is brewing at Rantburg - which was once the refuge for Bushie holy rollers, with undying love for Muslims - for the piecemeal destruction of Islam, beginning with the nuking of the unholy sites of those savage terrorist pigs. Scroll down on the attached page, for you enlightenment.
#6
Actually, this is a great sucess on our part. Shutting down orgs like WAMY which give out large sums without a clue is indeed choking off the al Qaeda funding. Thanks, KSA. Now if we can get EXXON to support the good charities....
#7
The funding of terrorism still occurs officially in Saudi Arabia but it is indirect.
The Saudi govt funds 'aid to other countries' which in turn goes to special purpose councils which in turn goes to special administrative organizations which in turn funds mosques and madrassas and hires terrorist preachers to staff them.
#8
Am I wrong or is Islam an imperial religion that seeks to acquire territory and enslave people, so say Allah. They're not using missionaries and toilets. Free people have fought imperialism by any means necessary throughtout the aeons of history by any means necessary. How do you a fight a religion?
In a passionate plea to the American people, the family of a Saudi detainee in Guantanamo Bay, allegedly in Afghanistan on a charitable mission when the US invaded, sought assurances about his health and the amputations of both legs and pleaded for him to be returned home. Abdullah al Anzi, aged 26, was transferred to Cuba in 2002 after being arrested in Afghanistan.
Oh, my heart strings! [Burp!] Or maybe it's the chili...
In a letter distributed to lawyers and members of the press, the family pleaded with the authorities to release information on âthe state of our beloved sonâ and questioned why he has been detained for so long. Seen by Asharq al Awsat, the letter said, âThe father has lost his son and protector; he contemplates his sonâs picture and kisses it every day. The mother has lost her spirit and her life is changed forever. She has seen one doctor after another and become a subject for experimental drugs. All those close to her know the cure: the return of Abdullahâ, but who can save her? Every time the mother moves around her house, she starts crying when she sees her sonâs drawings and sports clothes. She is attached to his picture and gazes at it, as if waiting for him to talk back: Where is your humanity? Let all women read these words.â
Mybe they should have kept poor Sonny home? Found him a job?
Abdullahâs 27 siblings urged all those involved to act to free their brother.
Wait a minute! 27 siblings? How long did it take them to realize one was missing?
âWhy is he [in Guantanamo Bay ]? Where [were] his legs amputated? Is charitable work wrong? If so, we apologize on his behalf. His younger brothers and sisters keep asking, âWho will take us to school?ââ
Gotta have a pretty big car to take 27 siblings to school...
âEveryone in our village can testify that Abdullah is a human and responsible person.
They may have meant that he was "humane," rather than "human." Then again, they could just be reassuring themselves.
"He is a well-behaved and sensitive young man. Everyone awaits his return and the dream remains aliveâ, the letter said.
"We just can't wait until he's home again, fulminating down at the mosque!"
Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights has revealed Abdullahâs lawyer complained to the US government that his client was not receiving the appropriate medical care after he visited Camp Delta in Cuba in August 2005. The New York City based Center confirmed that Abdullah had lost both legs and was currently relying on two artificial limbs âthat did not fit properly and were provided by the US militaryâ, causing him constant pain and septicemia caused by the metal rings joining the artificial limbs to his body.
"They just walked in one day, said 'Here ya go, Stumpy,' and nailed 'em on!"
Abdullah was injured in Afghanistan were he was working for charity around the time the US assault on Afghanistan began, in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
"He was delivering arms and ammunition to poor widow ladies and orphans!"
In hospital being treated for his wounds, Abdullah was kidnapped by mercenaries and sold to the US military.
"They just grabbed him, for no reason at all!"
"Lady, we're infidels. It's what we do."
Recalling his ordeal, Abdullah said, âI was pounced upon like a hawk would capture [a mouse], and sold like a fat sheep.â Between the start of the bombings and his arrival in Guantanamo, both of Mr. Al Anazi's legs were amputated below the knee
"Yeah! And there wudn't nothin' wrong with 'em!"
Anant Raut, a lawyer at Weil & Gotshar, who represents Abdullah, commenting on his clientâs condition, said, â"There was a time when we had the moral high ground in the war on terror. Now the government is withholding medical treatment from a double amputee in the name of intelligence gathering. The only reliable thing about information intelligence gained from torture is that it is 100 percent unreliable."
Gotta get this sympathy meter checked out...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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Good God, people, these wily dastardly brutal Americans are making these Boyz read books at Gitmo!?
The remains of one of the London suicide bombers were buried in a remote village in Pakistan yesterday. Shehzad Tanweer blew himself up on 7 July as part of attacks on Western Civilization the transport system that left 52 people dead.
#1
Not sure they could really have buried him in Britain - I think a few of us would have been queueing up with a lump hammer after the service was over. I'm rather surprised the families were given anything back to bury and that his remains weren't just binned.
Let's hope his family decide to stay there.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
10/28/2005 4:43 Comments ||
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#2
This sack-of-sh!t's remains should have been held as "evidence" for an indefinite period of time, for instance, at least until our sun explodes. Cat turds are more deserving of proper burial than this human cockroach ever will be. I can only suppose this murderer's grave will become some sort of latrine pilgrimage site or shrine.
In 1999, the Islamic Republic of Dagestan was declared. Nowadays, the capital of the province is under a virtual state of siege. Torture is rampant and fundamentalists are gaining ever more control. Meanwhile, the Russian government is collapsing under a mountain of corruption.
It is 169 kilometers (105 miles) along highway M 29 from Grozny to Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea. In the past, the drive from Chechnya to Dagestan, the "Land of Mountains," promised a return to safer ground. That has changed.
Dagestan, Russia's largest Caucasus republic and, with its 30 ethnic groups, a Eurasian Babylon, threatens to "spin out of control and fall apart." This is the conclusion reached in a report Dmitry Kozak, the presidential envoy to the south federal district, submitted to President Putin in June.
The report clearly specifies the reasons for the catastrophic scenario: rampant corruption, a widening gap between the elites and the impoverished people and the fact that militant Islamists are taking advantage of the resulting vacuum to expand their influence over the religious and political life of the republic.
The report is especially relevant to a man who lives on Gagarin Street in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. Siradjin Ramazanov was once officially Dagestan's highest-ranking Islamist. A thick steel door opens slightly, revealing a small man in shorts, his hands as big as shovels, his three children standing behind him. He serves tea with honey.
In 1999, Shamil Basayev proclaimed the foundation of the "Islamic Republic of Dagestan" and installed Ramazanov as its prime minister. At the time, entire villages lived by Sharia law, the aim being to establish an Islamic caliphate. When Basayev invaded Dagestan with his supporters, he encountered strong resistance among the population. His move also triggered the second Russian campaign against Chechnya and the enactment of an anti-Wahhabism law for Dagestan. The republic's religious fanatics have been living in hiding ever since. In 2004, Ramazanov returned from five years in exile and called upon Dagestanis fighting the Russian army to lay down their arms. In return, a Dagestani court, in an uncharacteristic display of leniency, freed Ramezanov but barred him from leaving the region.
Since then, Dagestan's former top separatist reports to work each morning in his position as a construction engineer for a natural gas company. Although he claims to have no knowledge of their activities, Ramezanov's former fellow separatists are busily destroying the republic. Since the beginning of the year, at least one police officer is shot or blown up each week.
In early September, the radical underground organization Sharia Jamaat proclaimed itself the "legitimate power" in Dagestan and called upon the country's Muslims to renounce the "laws of the infidels." The interior minister has spoken of a list of 30 terrorists who, should they be captured, he doesn't want to see alive.
Fear has taken hold in Makhachkala. Militia guards are stationed on practically every street corner, and checkpoints have been set up on all roads leading into the city. Makhachkala is under a state of siege, and yet the enemy remains invisible. But the target of the attacks is made abundantly clear. Civilians have become terrified of the police and when driving, have developed the habit of passing police cars at breakneck speed.
The torture chambers maintained by Dagestan's police force are well-known throughout Russia. Attorneys say that they include the application of electroshocks to the tongue, the raping of young men and a method known as "little elephant," in which a gas mask is placed over a prisoner's face and the flow of air cut off periodically. When things get a little out of hand at the headquarters of the militia's 6th division on Aliyev Street in Makhachkala, and the screams of the tortured can be heard outside, the neighbors complain.
Sayid Amirov, known as "the bloody Roosevelt," sits in his office in the Makhachkala city hall. After 15 attempts on his life, the mayor now governs the city from a wheelchair. Amirov is an elegant, silver-haired gentleman who readily concedes that the screams of the tortured on Aliyev Street did present a problem, but then adds that it has since been resolved.
Amirov prefers to talk about something else, namely his goal of creating a "Dagestani CÃŽte d'Azur." He shows brochures that describe how 300 hectares (750 acres) of barren land on the waterfront could become a banner project, drawing tourists instead of fundamentalists to the Caspian Sea.
Whether the mayor will be around to realize his dream remains open. Despite his alleged corruption affairs, recently summarized in a full-page article in Novaya gaseta, Amirov plans to campaign to succeed the republic's aging leader, Magomedali Magomedov.
The possibility that Russia could break apart, because corruption is consuming the government, opening gaps that are quickly filled by traveling clerics from Arab Koran schools inciting their followers to violence, is even felt in Russia's southernmost city, Derbent. The city, 52 kilometers (32 miles) from the border with Azerbaijan, was long considered a shining example of tolerance and respectful coexistence on Russian soil.
The first Christian missionaries passed through Derbent, the "Iron Gate" on the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia, only 10 years after the death of Jesus. Jews have lived here and in the nearby mountains since time immemorial and, numbering 8,500 believers, they still represent Russia's third-largest Jewish community today. The city's Muslims, for their part, proudly point out that their mosque was built in 773 and, as a Friday mosque, to this day remains the spiritual focal point in the home of the northern Caucasian Sufis.
This history makes it all the more unpleasant for Sheikh Hurikski that in April 200 of his followers, using stones, sticks and their bare hands, had to destroy the oldest mosque on Russian soil, allegedly to fight Wahhabites. But the spiritual leader of southern Dagestan swears, squatting on the ground and surrounded by his pupils, that destroying the mosque was necessary to preserve peace. "Wahhabism is a social plague. Without sheikhs like myself, we would have descended into war long ago."
Meanwhile, Dagestan's political elite are requesting audiences with leading sheikhs, and Sheikh Hurikski's admirers stand in line for the privilege of washing his feet. The warnings of Putin's envoy, Kozak -- that Dagestan and, along with it, the Russian Federation, is on the brink of collapse -- could hardly be illustrated more symbolically.
Putin, for his part, decided to pay the Caspian Sea region a surprise visit in July. He visited the domestic security agency's new fortress north of Makhachkala, the well-fortified barracks housing border guards at the border with Azerbaijan and, finally, the fortress of the city of Derbent, whose original structure dates to pre-Roman times.
Putin's helicopter landed directly on the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the president stayed all of 45 minutes.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:37 ||
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Grozny used to be the pearl of the northern Caucasus. Now, it is little more than crumbling apartment buildings amid fields of rubble. Death is a daily occurance in the city and Islamism is rife. But the main problem may be the province's Putin-appointed governor.
Nalchik and Grozny are 205 kilometers (127 miles) apart on the highway that leads to the Caspian Sea and passes through Northern Ossetia. The ruins of School Number 1 in Beslan, the most recent testament to the human cost of the conflict in southern Russia, stand before a panoramic view of Mt. Kazbek, whose cliffs gave rise to the myth of Prometheus. Alexander Pushkin once wrote that, in the Caucasus, "homicide is nothing but a gesture."
Hardly a village and not a single city along this stretch of highway M 29 is without the faces and stories that tell of destroyed houses, of a lost homeland and of killed, abducted and tortured sons, of murdered police officers and of widows, orphans and mothers who mourn their adolescent sons who died for Russia.
The M 29 is a road of death. The sense of danger becomes increasingly palpable as the road passes eastward through Ingushetia. At the "Kavkas" border crossing into Chechnya, the Russian state is little more than an idea barricaded behind a wall of concrete blocks, barbed wire and automatic weapons.
Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, was once considered the pearl of the northern Caucasus -- until 1994, when Moscow declared its first war against the Chechen separatists. The local residents breathed a sigh of relief after the 1996 peace treaty, but then experienced the rise of radical, self-declared saviors and fanatical terrorists acting under the protection of the cease-fire, followed by a hail of bombs and rocket attacks brought on by the outbreak of the second Chechen war in 1999 -- instigated by then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Today Grozny is little more than a settlement that looks as though an angry giant had beaten it with his fist. Entire rows of houses and squares have been erased from the face of the devastated city. Grozny's inhabitants live, without water or hope, in the ruins of collapsed buildings, their rafters protruding into space.
There are splashes of color here and there -- the bronze-and-gold monument that stands on the abandoned grounds of the former presidential palace, and the freshly painted, pink university building a few steps down the street. In a recently constructed building on Oil Worker Square, three-room apartments are available for the equivalent of 25 annual salaries of the average white-collar worker in Grozny.
The men who sit at the head table on this Sunday in the garden of Baudi Bachmadov, the dean of the law department at the university in Grozny, are, by local standards, neither winners nor losers. They are considered the elite of the republic, or at least what's left of it after 11 years, two wars and an official death count of 160,000.
The mood around the table, which is decked out with roast chickens, kiwis, bananas, vodka and cognac, is festive. The dean's eldest son is getting married. Professors, prosecutors and high-ranking government officials are there, while a bodyguard shouldering a Kalashnikov stands watch.
At the head of the table sits Professor Sharani Jambekov, a member of the Russian Authors' Society. He is one of those who has publicly warned against the social devastation caused by a war that has claimed victims in every family in Chechnya. "Our young people want to avenge their dead relatives, which is probably why many are now joining the Wahhabites," he says.
The celebration ends a short time later. The family next door is mourning their daughter, who was shot the day before by the militia.
It's a normal Sunday in Grozny, and reports are coming in at the OMON special unit's headquarters building. Twenty-two members from various arms of the elite unit lost their lives in the previous week. On this Sunday, a member of OMON is murdered, and seven militia fighters are killed by a land mine.
But even here the men find reason to celebrate. Sergeant Najud Gudigov, who killed three terrorists with other members of his team on the outskirts of Grozny the day before, has arrived. He keeps replaying a video recorded on a cell phone he took from one of the men killed, the "Emir of Sernovodsk." It shows the men he shot, laughing at a camp in the mountains.
"This was my fourth mission of this type in four weeks," says Sergeant Gudigov of OMON's "Special Marksmen Unit." Gudigov is 38, gaunt, gray-haired and hasn't been promoted in five years. His commanding office, OMON Deputy Commander Buwadi Dachiyev, looks up briefly from his data base, where the movements of rebels in the neighboring republics are stored, and says, "There are now more armed Wahhabites in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkariya than there are here."
Moscow still maintains an armed force of 80,000 in Chechnya. But the Chechen rebels, who have expanded the war to the neighboring republics and in the spring declared the opening of a "Caucasus Front," want that to change. This would play into the hands of the de facto ruler of Chechnya, Ramsan Kadyrov, the son of pro-Russian President Ackmad Kadyrov, who was murdered in 2004. Ramsan, the deputy prime minister of the republic, commands a small army of at least a thousand bodyguards, as well as a several thousand member-strong death squad that terrorizes Chechnya.
Humans rights organizations hold Kadyrov responsible for three out of four crimes committed in the republic. His fighters, clad in black uniforms, control a lucrative business in kidnappings and abductions, demanding ransoms ranging from $40 to more than $10,000. Chechnya's president says that 2,500 people are currently listed as "missing" in his country.
An enormous poster of President Putin naming Ramsan Kadyrov a "Hero of Russia" graces one of the bullet-pocked walls of what remains of the House of the Book in Grozny. Under his knit cap, the honoree beams with the face of a suburban criminal. It's an image that epitomizes the fatal errors of the Putin system.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:35 ||
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#1
"Pearl" is a bit overly generous a tag even when one considers the place prior to 1994.
#2
I think the appropriate response to an article such as this would be "Dur!"
Who has that "Master of the Obvious" image sitting around?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/28/2005 11:15 Comments ||
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#3
A little anti-Motherland propaganda from the Fatherland? I wonder what would be Berlin's reaction if certain religious enclaves (not talking about Mennonites) decided to leave? What was that thingy about the 300 Russian deaths from apartment bombings and the invasion of Dagestan that sparked the second Chechen war?
Under his knit cap, the honoree beams with the face of a suburban criminal.
Put Schroeder in a German officer's peaked hat and let's see what snide comments we can come up with.
Posted by: ed ||
10/28/2005 12:04 Comments ||
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#4
Did Grozny look like the "pearl" after SS Division Viking marched in in September 1942? Iwould have guessed the place was torn up pretty well...by the time they left...
The town of Elbrus in the Caucasus is home to a five-star hotel housing tourists eager to climb to the highest point in Europe. Elbrus also hosts rampant corruption, radicalism, and a fundamentalist training camp.
It is about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Nalchik to Mt. Elbrus. At about the half-way point, at the turn-off to Kendelen -- where eight members of Yarmuk have been buried in the cemetery in this year alone -- an invisible line intersects with the road. The line represents the border between the regions settled by the Kabardinos and the Balkars, and it's where the military and the police usually set up road blocks to close the road into the mountains during purges.
The Kabardinos, together with Georgia's Abkhazians, make up the group known as the Circassians, the oldest ethnic group in the Caucasus region. They boast that they held out against Russian invaders until 1860, longer than any other group. The Balkars, who make their homes in remote mountainous areas, were, for the most part, deported to central Asia by Stalin in 1944, and have allied themselves with the neighboring Karachay people since returning to the region. The myriad ethnic fault lines in the regions have tended to fuel conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Kabardino-Balkariya is a wonderful country, all it needs is to be awakened," rebel Chechen leader Shamil Basayev once said. "And when it wakes up, the entire Caucasus will burn." This goal has since become more tangible, partially because Basayev -- Russia's most-wanted terrorist on whose head authorities have placed a $10 million bounty -- is still at large and active in the conflict. In 2003, he spent a vacation near Nalchik, under the eyes of the authorities, but ultimately escaped a raid unharmed.
At the time, the Emir Mukoshev publicly accused the Russian interior minister of having allowed Basayev to buy his freedom. This is just one of the countless stories on record that have raised suspicions in the region that the government is, in fact, not interested in controlling violence and religious fanaticism. On the contrary, it is widely believed that the Russian authorities' true objective is to make work for themselves. After all, the more terrorism there is, the more jobs are created in government counterterrorism agencies. Indeed, the number of these positions has increased six-fold in Kabardino-Balkariya since 1991.
Along the road that leads to the base of 5,642 meter (18,510 feet) Mr. Elbrus, the unabated decline of the republic is in full evidence. Although Kabardino-Balkariya, with its rolling hills, majestic peaks and rich soil, is often called "Little Switzerland," its unemployment rate is officially estimated at 30 percent and it would be bankrupt without assistance from Moscow.
Abandoned mines line the road, beneath which lie significant deposits of tungsten and molybdenum. The mines have been idle since foreign investors left the valley, unwilling to pay the bribes demanded by local officials. Nowadays, workers with nothing to do stand guard -- beer bottles in hand -- beneath old Soviet stars and walls bearing the faded motto "slava trudu," or Glory of Work.
Not until the town of Elbrus, high up on the mountain, is there any evidence of a recovery. The Oson hotel chain advertises its five-star mountain resort in Elbrus, a place where tourists can enjoy fine dining and helicopter skiing at altitudes of up to 5,300 meters (17,400 feet) at discount prices. The hotel's owner, Chissa Bekayev, is respected in the town as the "locomotive of Elbrus tourism." In return, the townsfolk leave his guests along. After all, they don't want to scare off jet set vacationers, who come to Mt. Elbrus as part of a "Seven Summits Club" package that also includes Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro.
What the tourists don't know is that the radical wing of Jamaat, which is fighting to achieve its goal of installing a caliphate, or Islamic theocracy, throughout the Caucasus region, came into being nearby in the Chegem-2 training camp. The group's original leaders were Ruslan Bekayev, the former mayor of Elbrus, and Aslan Bekayev.
Arrest warrants have been issued for the two brothers of hotel owner Chissa Bekayev, and both have vanished without a trace.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:33 ||
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The town of Elbrus in the Caucasus is home to a five-star hotel housing tourists eager to climb to the highest point in Europe. Elbrus also hosts rampant corruption, radicalism, and a fundamentalist training camp.
The town of Nalchik in the Caucasus region has long been a vacation resort. Since the middle of October, however, it has hosted a war. But it's not alone in the region. The town is just the latest addition to a long list of hot spots in the region including Grozny, Beslan and Dagestan. It has become a breeding ground of terror.
The city of Nalchik in the Caucasus has been a resort city since 1928. It boasts 80 degree Celsius (176 degree Fahrenheit) hot springs, fresh mountain air, boulevards perfect for afternoon strolls, and outdoor restaurants that serve tender, grilled lamb. The snow-covered double peak of Mt. Elbrus, the tallest mountain in Europe, presents a dramatic and majestic backdrop to the city.
Russians, of course, have long known about Nalchik, the capital of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkariya. And for the past two weeks, so too has the rest of the world. But for all the wrong reasons. The walls of buildings along Lenin Boulevard are now perforated by missile fire. Staff at the city's three hospitals tend to the wounded, and the morgue in the Dubki neighborhood is filled to capacity.
At 9 a.m. on Oct. 13, in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Muslim rebels armed with grenade launchers and machine guns, declared war on the Russian state in Nalchik. Some 150 to 200 rebel fighters fanned out across the city to storm the bastions of law and order -- the offices of the local Russian intelligence and counterterrorism units, three police stations and the
The result, say the authorities, was more than 100 dead -- at least three-quarters of them terrorists. They believe that, unlike earlier attacks, this one was not committed by Arab mercenaries. The attackers wore "shiny boots and snow-white socks," say eyewitnesses. The press has reported that they were locals who have turned to armed Jihad -- workers who "leave their homes in the morning, their grenade launchers in hand, then return to their wives -- or mothers -- the same evening."
According to unofficial sources, many of the Nalchik attackers were only 16 or 17 years old. In other words, the armed conflict against the Russian central government in the northern Caucasus region may now have been joined by the next generation of fighters. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the call for independence from Moscow began spreading from Chechnya's mountains to the neighboring republics, today's fighters had just been born.
Their complaints against Russia, however, are fresh. "The Russian state does its best to incite the Muslims here against it," says Ruslan Nachushev. A large, powerful man, Nachushev has a nuanced understanding of societies extremes -- a sense he developed both as a KGB officer in the Soviet era and now as Director of the Islamic Institute in Nalchik.
In Kabardino-Balkariya, Nachushev says, mosques have been closed, pregnant women wearing the Hijab beaten by militias and suspects tortured during interrogations. The authorities have also used humiliation as a tactic, goading Muslims with sentences like "Allah, here we are." According to Nachushev, the government doesn't care about what this means to the proud Muslims in the Caucasus. He says that instead of using experts to fight fundamentalism on Russian soil, the authorities prefer to use former drug enforcement agents. "They probably think this is the most effective approach, since, after all, religion is the opiate of the people," say Nachushev, bitterly.
He himself is the most prominent individual on the interior ministry's black list of 430 suspected religious extremists from Kabardino-Balkariya. Nachushev's method of dealing with his classification as a dangerous fundamentalist is to light up a cigarette, raise a glass and, smiling ironically, push a slip of paper with his e-mail address across the table. It translates as "Elbrus Illegal Terror Commando," he says.
Not everyone is amused. Nachushev's deputy at the Islamic Institute and regional Muslim leader Emir Musa Mukoshev has already gone into hiding. He has done so despite the fact that the so-called "Jamaat of Kabardino-Balkariya -- an organization led by Mukoshev boasting some 10,000 well-organized supporters throughout the republic -- describes itself as the home of moderate orthodox Muslims.
Under no circumstances do Mukoshev and his followers want to be confused with the "Yarmuk" fundamentalist underground organization. Yarmuk, which has been around since 2001 and which claim to be part of the Caucasus Front announced in May of this year -- declared responsibility for the Oct. 13 attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Yarmuk a "wasp's nest of Wahhabism." According to Nachushev, though, the rigid faith of the Wahhabites, spread by fanatic Arabs, finds little support in the northern Caucasus region.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:31 ||
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Japan ruling party proposes having 'real' military
Wow! I'd heard rumors about this, but am still floored by this announcement. I wonder what the Japanese populace thinks about this move?
By George NishiyamaFri Oct 28, 8:39 AM ET
Japan should possess a military not just to defend itself, a role to which it has been restricted for nearly 60 years, but to play a greater role in global security, the main ruling party said on Friday.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party proposed revising the country's pacifist constitution, which has not been changed since it was written by U.S. Occupation authorities just after World War Two.
The draft may touch nerves in Asia, where bitter memories of Japan's wartime atrocities run deep. Ties with China and South Korea, already strained, deteriorated further after Koizumi last week visited a shrine for war dead seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
Japan abandoned the right to wage war or maintain a military under Article Nine of its postwar constitution, but the article has been interpreted to allow forces for self-defense.
It has also been construed to allow 600 Japanese troops to do humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq, and to let Japan's navy provide rearguard support on the Indian Ocean for U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan.
Under the LDP proposal, the 240,000 member Self-Defense Force (Jiei-tai) would be renamed "Jiei-gun." The phrase translates as the same in English, but the word "gun" makes clear it is a military force.
"We will never wage war again," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters when asked about the proposal. "But we should make it clear that maintaining a force for self-defense is not against the constitution." Also their American allies would love to have another deterrent force for our Asian buddies China and N. Korea
While revising the U.S.-drafted constitution has been one of LDP's founding principles since it was formed 50 years ago, it had not proposed changes in view of public opposition.
A public opinion survey published earlier this month showed that a majority of Japanese favored revising the constitution, but nearly two-thirds opposed changing the pacifist Article Nine.
LONG ROAD AHEAD
Since taking office in 2001, Koizumi has said he favors clarifying the military's ambiguous status, and many in the LDP, frustrated by limits to military cooperation with allies overseas and urged on by Washington, have also pushed for change.
The release of the draft comes on the heels of Wednesday's agreement between Japan and the United States on the relocation of a U.S. military base in Japan, which clears the way for a reorganization of U.S. forces throughout Japan to seek tighter ties with the Japanese military.
Relations with Beijing and Seoul, however, have deteriorated largely due to Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, where convicted war criminals are honored along with Japan's war dead.
In a bid to assure Asian neighbors that there will be no resurgence in Japanese militarism, the draft constitution says any overseas deployment of the military would be for activities conducted as part of "international cooperation."
It also says Japan will remain a "pacifist nation," and it keeps the clause renouncing war as a means of settling international disputes.
But the road to revising the constitution will be a long one.
The LDP plans first to hold talks with its coalition partner, the New Komeito, whose main support group is a lay Buddhist organization with a cautious stance toward expanding the role of the military.
Revising the constitution would require the approval of two-thirds of the members of both houses of parliament and then a majority of the voters in a referendum. One significant attack against Japanese interests will bring public opinion round to the war side again.
The party may seek to hold a national referendum in 2009, but the procedure for such a vote has not been established, so the LDP would first have to enact a law laying out the steps.
#1
I just got 2 books on learning Japanese. I am considering a Japanese foreign exchange student. We need to keep Japan close to us. Our future lays in the Pacific and Ring of Fire not in the Atlantic and Europe.
#5
Japan abandoned the right to wage war or maintain a military under Article Nine of its postwar constitution, but the article has been interpreted to allow forces for self-defense.
A constitution largely written and imposed upon them by the administration of the American [Shogun]MacArthur. They've been doing just what they were told to do. I think that 50 years of honorable behavior and real democratic evolution has established them as a member in high standing in the world's list of the good guys.
#6
The Japanese by all acounts liked and respected MacArthur. Democracy and Americanism gener has been very good to Japan despite seeming defects. Reminds me of Nixon.
The British Home Office has given its first response to a request for a British passport by accused Australian terror suspect David Hicks. The British Home Office has written to his Hicks's English lawyers, saying some public policy considerations may prevent the passport application being approved. Hicks's mother has a British passport and he says he is entitled to one under UK law. He hopes that will allow him to avoid his US military trial in Guantanamo Bay, due to start next month.
Hicks's lawyer Stephen Grosz says he is preparing to take the UK Government to court. "We want the Government to afford to him the same facilities that is afforded to the other British nationals who are detained in Guantanamo Bay, all of whom have now been released," he said. Hicks's legal team has also received public money that could be used in any court challenge against the Government.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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The Baltic Assembly has issued a joint statement opposing Russian-German plans to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to pump Russian natural gas to the West, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported Thursday.
The Baltic Assembly, an inter-parliamentary working group of European Union-newcomers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, said the assembly planned to adopt a resolution by late November condemning the plans, claiming they undermine their energy security.
Environmental concerns and fears for energy security have prompted opposition to the project which is set to bypass their countries.
E.U. member Poland has also condemned the proposed gas pipeline, as Russia could use it to gain greater political leverage in relations with the European Union.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus raised concerns about the project with outgoing German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a meeting in Berlin on October 25. Adamkus was also due to discuss the issue with Schroeder's Christian Democrat successor Angela Merkel. Poland and the Baltic states hope she may reconsider the plans.
After his meeting with Adamkus, Schroeder said it was the private industry's exclusive right to decide how to build the 1,089-kilometre pipeline set to run from Wyborg near Russia's St. Petersburg to Greifswald in Germany.
Routing the pipeline under the Baltic Sea and not through Baltic states including his own country, showed a "total lack of understanding" for the concept of good, neighbourly relations with Germany's fellow E.U. partners, Adamkus said.
In an unusually sharp reply, Schroeder told Deutsche Presse- Agentur that Adamkus' comments were totally unjustified "both in their form and their content".
An article published Thursday in the Moscow-based Rossiiskaya Gazeta expressed concern that Merkel "may bring into question" the pipeline deal it described as "Moscow's main foreign policy victory this year."
The daily, which is close to the Kremlin, noted, "there are extremely powerful companies behind the plans to build the gas pipeline" in Russia and Germany.
"And Berlin will hardly drop the project for the sake of the political ambitions of the 'little states'," Rossiiskaja Gazeta concluded.
watch out, Moscow. those little states may bite back.
The 4 billion-euro (4.8 billion-dollar) pipeline is to be built by Russia's Gazprom, which holds a 51 per cent stake and German companies BASF and E.ON.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder witnessed the signing of the deal in Berlin on September 8.
Gas is due to begin flowing through the pipeline from 2010. Russia already supplies 47 per cent of Germany's natural gas and the pipeline, with an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres, will be capable of meeting the other half of German gas needs.
slow suicide - but unfortunately Belgium isn't the only country where groups are holding out for their own agendas, country-as-a-whole be damned
Belgium's unions have gone out on strike, bringing the nation to an economic standstill as a dispute with the federal government over its social security and pension reforms reaches flashpoint. Workers started downing tool across the nation on Thursday night and strikes will continue until midnight on Friday. An estimated 80,000 protestors also demonstrated in Brussels on Friday.
There are few problems being reported with train traffic, but very few buses from transport authority De Lijn in Flanders were operating. Only a few buses and trams were operating in the capital. All Brussels metro stations were closed. "All trains have departed and are operating as per normal," NMBS-SNCB spokeswoman Leen Uyterhoeven said in Brussels shortly after 7am on Friday. She warned, however, that regional delays cannot be ruled out, newspaper 'De Standaard' reported.
In the province of Antwerp, very few buses and no trams were operating. The same scenario was being reported across Flanders, with trams and buses grinding to a standstill. In Brussels, no metros were operating and every metro station was closed, transport authority MIVB-STIB said. Only one tram was operating on route 44 and several buses were operating on lines 42, 95 and 38 on Friday morning. However, MIVB-STIB said those buses and trams might soon return to the depot and stay there for the day. Zaventem Airport in Brussels was still operational and accessible as per normal. No flight delays were reported early on Friday and fears of union blockades did not materialise. However, passengers were being advised to arrive on time. Due to the fact delays could not be ruled out, SN Brussels Airline offered passengers with a 28 October ticket the possibility to change their flight to another date free of charge.
In other sectors, teachers were on strike and the Belgian postal authority was offering only limited services. Most hospitals worked according to Sunday rosters. Strike action started late on Thursday night when workers refused to start the nightshift at the Opel car manufacturing plant. Workers at the large chemical companies at the Antwerp harbour went out on strike, as did dockworkers, Flemish broadcaster VRT reported.
Belgium's three trade union federations are protesting against the federal government's 'generation pact' aimed at retaining older workers, boosting youth employment and refinancing the social security system. Unions are primarily angered by plans to lift the minimum early retirement age from 58 to 60. Friday's industrial action comes after a national strike was held on 7 October, but Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has refused to amend his generation pact, defiantly declaring the reforms are necessary.
Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev thinks that armaments from Russian stockpiles in Transdniestria might have been shipped to Chechen militants and, probably, Beslan.
"Unfortunately, as far as we know, some armaments from the Russian depots in Transdniestria have been sent to Chechnya and some allegedly went to militants in Beslan," he told the Russian press in Chisinau on Thursday.
"We must finally eliminate this source of arms for separatists and terrorists," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:30 ||
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(CNSNews.com) - A number of Gold Star military families say they are "thoroughly disgusted with Cindy Sheehan and her publicity stunts."
Sheehan was arrested outside the White House this week, during a protest to mark the death of the 2000th soldier in Iraq. Sheehan and other anti-war protesters staged a "die-in," lying head to toe on the sidewalk. Sheehan's shenanigans have offended other Americans who also have lost loved ones in Iraq:
"We, the parents and family members of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have served and given their lives defending America in Operation Iraqi Freedom...are angered that Mrs. Sheehan is once again using our fallen loved ones against our wishes to undermine the cause they voluntarily gave their lives for," Gold Star families said in a press release issued Friday. "Her macabre die-ins in front of the White House do not honor the dead nor do they help the living -- they give encouragement to Al Qaeda to keep killing Americans until we surrender."
The Gold Star families complain that Sheehan and others are handing out souvenir bracelets with their loved ones' names on them as bonuses to protesters who join her anti-war crusade. "Her continued abuse of our loved ones makes our blood boil and we demand that she stop trivializing their sacrifices with her tawdry acts," the families said.
The Gold Star families say Sheehen and her allies are not peace activists. "They are working to bring about the defeat of America in the war on terror," the families said, pointing to Sheehan's description of terrorists fighting in Iraq as "freedom fighters."
"The groups she works with have openly expressed their support for the terrorists and their contempt for this country," the press release said.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 08:39 ||
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#1
As an active reserve officer (who has been mobilized) with a son who will soon be commissioned in the USMC...screw you Cindy and your gold stars.
#3
As a former 11BC2, disgusted doesn't even begin to cover my feelings about her. I hope she dies a horrible, gory, slow, painful death and then gets eaten by a coyote and shit off a cliff.
#6
"The Gold Star families complain that Sheehan and others are handing out souvenir bracelets with their loved ones' names on them as bonuses to protesters who join her anti-war crusade."What an outrage. Using real names without permission of patriot's families. Am I reading this right? American soldiers I love and admire. This total disrespect should be answered. Must be answered. That is not protest that is personal insult. How low can they go?
#7
During the Crawford Campout Sheehan and Comrades put up crosses with the names of dead soldiers. Quite a few families were so angry, they drove down there and took away the crosses with their son's/daughter's/husband's names on them. The next day, the replacement crosses would be be planted with the same names. Of course Sheehan, Code Pink, Social Workers, MoveOn only did this to show their deep respect to the families of the fallen.
Posted by: ed ||
10/28/2005 12:58 Comments ||
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#8
Bardo, while Cindy Shithan and co were in Texas one parent of a soldier had to repeatly go over and remove a cross with their son's name on it which shithan and co. were planting [to celebrate his death at the hands of the 'freedom fighters'...].
There is nothing they won't do. Disgusting doesn't even begin to cover it. Vomiting coyotes don't begin to cover what Shithan and the MSM are doing. There is simply no excuse.
#1
VDH nailed that one square on. GW is extremely disappointing this term. He is playing the lame duck role to its fullest.
He was never good the first term communicating to the public and he won't change this term. I just hope at least 1 person in his inner circle reads and heeds this article.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
10/28/2005 16:09 Comments ||
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#2
Sam, it may seem so. Communicating to public, or the PR part of the administration seems to be somewhat defficient. But then, there may be some factors that do influence that side of things.
In contrast to mad moolahs, GW does not annouce what he plans to do. Beside them, there is another enemy camp, MSM. They may screw things haplessly if they got some bearings what's in store.
There is another consideration... GW administration may be trying to entrench some form of legacy doctrine, so that even if the politically the administration would change to--god forbid--donkeys, there would be enough constrictions and precedents in place that would not offer much room to maneuver and reverse the course. Once again, in such a case there would be no need to go public, rather the opposite.
GW has been always a poker player. Thus I don't see any reason to be concerned much, as he is not stepping out of his standard modus operandi. Perhaps, the WH PR should generate enough platitudes to feed the public, rather than be mostly muted. Perhaps. It may have, OTOH, very limited impact and be a waste of resources and time, while the effort may be better utilized elsewhere. I don't have enough info to presume anything in that regard.
#3
Let's see, the administration is preparing for a war with Iran, and like every government on the planet is terrified of avian flu. I doubt they are particularly unnerved by the small stuff.
#4
the PR part of the administration seems to be somewhat defficient.
Give Sobieski the understatement of the year award.
Politics is as much an inspiring entertainment as it is poker. What's being talked about here is not so much PR as leadership. Bush showed it after 9/11 but after moving on to Iraq he lost it. He cannot have been said to have won in 2004 nearly so much as Kerry lost. A fighter pilot, not a platoon leader. He doesn't understand how much others would do for him if only he would lead them to do it. Bush doesn't understand the stage nearly as well as Clinton. If only they had each other's strengths.
#5
My view of the events of the last month or two rather sticks in my craw, but that's because being honest with yourself often does.
In that time, the MSM brought the frenzy of the moronic Plame Affair, the faux story of FEMA failures regards Hurricane Katrina, and other equally politically trivial paper cuts, to a frantic boil, pandering all of these minor (politically) issues to the same level as the incredibly banal Abu Ghraib which they portrayed as some broad-brush indictment of the entire US Military.
And, to my utter surprise and dismay, the Bush admin floundered. They actually fell for the MSM game and became not only distracted, but blunted and ineffectual. The slew of OpEd articles saying the Pubs were in deep shit, against any rational analysis, became self-fulfilling. To say that I found it outrageous is probably unnecessary.
But it certainly brought home to me one fact: Rove is the key, if not essential, strategist his legend describes. Bush has stones and guts and the will, but without his team, and particularly Rove, focused and functioning on all cylinders, his administration's agenda grinds to a halt.
I think VDH hit some very important points. I do believe the answer to the Dhimmifuckdonks' scorched earth approach is total defiance, damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead. If he stays in the current stalemate for long, and that means getting Rove & Co back on-track, it will become amber and his time as the man who leads us out of the defensive and to the offensive will be over and done.
Those of you who missed it, should take a peek at the Peggy Noonan piece I posted yesterday. It doesn't matter one whit if you like it, there's truth in there. It is the first opinion piece I've seen which adequately describes the "I've got mine" attitude that leads to the Dhimmifuckdonk attitude, to the asstard Gowadia in Hawaii selling B-2 tech, to the acceptance of the coming dhimmitude we see in academia, etc.
It boggles, IMHO, but there it is. We have to get pissed and do what needs to be done. The Minutemen are an excellent example of that basic American trait - self-reliance. I fully expect the "malaise" (which I violently reject, myself) to become something very dark, very unhealthy for those dhimmis-in-waiting, and very necessary: Watering the Tree of Liberty with the blood of those who seek to drag us down with them into oblivion.
#6
I was waiting for someone to mention the Noonan piece. I suppose that we've all been feeling like Peggy. That's what keeps bringing us back to Rantburg, right?
The design tools keep on getting more accessible and easier to use. The means of production keep getting more accessible and easier to use. It's now about as hard to design a digital signal processing ASIC today as it was to design a discrete circuit 25 years ago. I don't have as much time to read the 'Burg as I used to, but I imagine that the Blue Heron story* was posted here. Blue Heron can synthesize DNA base pairs for $2 a pair. Some asshole in Saudi tried to get them to synthesize a killer virus. Why they haven't been overrun by federal agents, I don't know, but their website is still up if you want to find out more.
Unlike Noonan, I don't think that the elites have in some way sold out or cut their own deals. I just think that they are fools. They simply have been too long divorced from reality: wars, famine, plague. They have begun to think that it's really the end of history and that they can go on playing these silly little games until Sol burns out, I suppose. The laws of life are iron clad. Weakness will be exploited by an opportunist. Sexual selection (which is what politics is, really) is always trumped in the end by natural selection. Stasis will be overcome by change. It's programmed into our DNA at so many levels, I suspect that when we really do begin to unravel the code in our genes, we will be dumbstruck by how deeply coded those laws are. Our elites are weak. They will be destroyed. The problem for the rest of us is to find the opportunities in all of the coming chaos so we can protect ourselves and our loved ones.
* I read the Blue Heron story originally somewhere else. Strategy Page has this annoying habit of not citing its sources.
#7
I needed the VDH post to get my mind right. The elites are always the first to sell out. Higher levels of mediocrity. "Dhimmies-in waiting," beautiful; England's intellectual elite-the frenzied Guardian. The elites found opportunity in Nazi Germany. In the end they or their civilization will be destroyed. And those with the kernel of timeless truth will survive no matter how few their numbers. #6 Thanks for the brilliant post. Mostly VDH drives home how much we are in a historical flux, change that is monumental and not in any reflected in the popular culture.
#8
I first attacked GWB's counter-terror credentials on Sept. 17,2001. He has long been a write-off, just like his self-appointed, dime-store, farmer-"prophet": VDH. As if he is undeflated, America's gas-bag #1 continues to wrap Bush folly in classicist jargon. VDH: Bush blew it. The only Aristotle that that quarter-wit has heard of, is a waitor back in Dallas. Get back to your farm you slavish ass-kisser.
Anti-Religious note: if the light from some visible stars was generated 3-10,000,000,000 light years ago, then how can the universe be only a few thousand Bush-Falwell years? "God" was s a creation of a warped mind, and is a figment of depraved imagination. I only go to church to steal from the collection plate.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
10/28/2005 20:47 Comments ||
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#9
Haven't you killed yourself, yet?
You deserve banning. You offer nothing except your excess bile and the delusion that you are relevant and substantial - demonstrably false, as has been pointed out numerous times. Stew in your hate, privately. People here are honestly discussing, advocating, lamenting - the panoply of reactions to life's events.
#10
VtMI, Smegma repository, that you are; so faith in a loving God pushes a few of your hot buttons, huh? Tough toenails, sand-bitch. Tell yer buds not to run, they'll only die tired. [can vapor become tired? sure would like to validate that!]
#11
A pity, Vlad....Several months ago, I listened yo you.
Now you have become irrelevant. Quell Domage.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/28/2005 22:59 Comments ||
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#12
Mier's withdrawal is just one temporeal defeat amongst a legacy full of successes - the withdrawal only allows Dubya to make sure he nominates a Conservative or Centrist of unquestioned [Rightist]credentials. I don't see any LT victory for the Left or for Hillary iff Dubya names a de facto Conservative-Rightist in her place - the DemoLefties STILL have got nothing and no one for either 2006 or 2008. This brouhaha amounts to nothing more than the Left getting the Right to justify the Left, as the Lefties all but officially xpect the GOP-Conservatives to pretend Jefferson-Jackson = Marx and Stalin, AND ALWAYS DID!?
#13
.com, I'll ask that you reconsider irrigating our Tree of Liberty with such aenemic sustenance. Stunting might just as easily result from such horrible malnutrition.
A Utah Special Forces soldier partially blinded in a firefight in Afghanistan and his dead comrade's widow have won a default judgment against the estate of a Canadian family accused of ties to al-Qaida terrorists.Message to the lefty Canuks: Clean up your islamic cesspool or we'll make you take care of your OWN national defense. Then you would would not have the dollars to give to the cradle to grave health care we are indirectly subsidizing.
Sgt. 1st Class Layne Morris said after the 2002 firefight in which his right eye was blinded that Omar Khadr hid inside a compound waiting for U.S. troops to come inside. Khadr, then 15, is accused of tossing a grenade that killed medic Christopher James Speer.Send the little sweetheart to Utah.
Morris and Speer's widow, Tabitha, sued for damages last year after Morris saw the American public television show "Frontline" in which a family member defended Khadr's actions and said the death of a U.S. soldier was "no big deal."Hey "family member": I hope your right eye runs into a sharp stick some dark night...accidently...with a Green Beret on the other end of the stick. A**hole.
This week, U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell in Salt Lake City told the plaintiffs to submit evidence that establishes the amount of damages they expect.
"This is my way of continuing the war against terrorism," said Morris, the housing director for West Valley City. "And hopefully there will be money for Christopher Speer's widow and their two young children."Doubtful. The Canadians by and large don't recognize they have a problem.
Omar Khadr is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, over protests of the Canadian government that he is a juvenile.You drop a grenade in a combat zone...your lucky your body's not burning outside some village. What a waste of gitmo cell space.
Morris' lawsuit sought damages from the accused boy's father, Ahmad Sa'id Khadr, who purportedly collected from an Islamic front charity to run an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. There's no "purportedly" about it. The Canuks are in denial. The legal action was based on the argument that a parent has a duty to control a minor child to prevent him from intentionally harming others.
Morris' attorney, Donald Winder, said he will seek money from funds frozen by the U.S. and Canadian governments and the United Nations. The elder Khadr is believed to have been killed in a gunbattle in Pakistan.Boo. Hoo. Rot in Hell with the rest of your islamo-cockroach buddies, Ahmad.
His widow returned to Canada to seek treatment for their youngest son, Karim Khadr, for wounds he received fighting with al-Qaida in the same firefight that killed his father.How about six 9MM incisions behind the ear?
In April, Cassell issued an order allowing Morris to publicize the legal action in Toronto, where the Khadr family lives, after their attorney refused to accept a copy of the lawsuit. I have some ideas about how I would like to deliever the papers.
Any Canadians out there who can explain the reluctance of your government, and society (generally) to accept the reality you have a islamo-terrorist problem?
#1
Ah, the Khadr's. Toronto's favorite terrorist family. They've been featured here many times.
I wonder if they'll have to pool all their welfare checks to pay this off?
#2
Jesus Christ, do you honestly think that all of us Canucks (BTW - you spelled it wrong) are as stupid as the do-nothing liberal dweebs in Ottawa ? Many of us would love nothing more than to send the Khadre family to you in sealed body bags (feel free to bury their remains in pork rinds). The thought of that ninja-suited slah and her whelps scavenging off of our Medicare is slightly more than most of us can stomach. Since she's such a fan of Osama, we figure she and her unholy brood should be airlifted to the Pashtun and dropped without a parachute. (Heh heh.... say "Hi" when you land, bi-atch.)
Get off your high horses guys. Last time I checked, Cindy Sheehan was from the USA, not Canuck-land. You have your leftie a**holes urging your government to 'open a dialogue' with al Qaida, and so do we. You have Islamo-douchebag preachers plotting the downfall of your society, and so do we. Our federal government has been slower than your to wake the hell up, but I believe that it is happening, just as in Eurabia. Hopefully, it won't take mass casualties to accelerate the process, but I'm not that hopeful in light of our current government.
In all seriousness, Canada still hasn't gotten over the spectacle of having our PM Brian Mulrooney's head lodged up the backside of two consectutive American Republican presidents. It was simply too much for our fragile egos to take - his party was absolutely destroyed in the next election and it has never recovered. Hence, there hasn't been an effective opposition up here for years (sound familiar ?) The liberal government which followed took global terrorism just as seriously as did the US under two Clinton administrations - which is to say, not seriously enough.
The proportion of people up here who actually have a brain and support Israel is probably comparable to your own population. We also (unfortunately) have lots of people who injest their news in little sound-bites between episodes of 'American Idol' (gag) or 'Canadian Idol' (mega-gag), and are thus basically ignorant of the world around them. Our societies are remarkably similar that way.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/28/2005 10:51 Comments ||
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#3
Go Mikey.
One of the nasty little issues that our corrupt Liberal government uses to cling to power is a vicious and open anti-american attitude delivered over their morally superior multicultural noses. To which the communist educated and government funded media suck right up. The only reason this crappy nation exists is to demostrate how much better we are than America.
These same holier than thou clowns then spend their winter vacations in Florida. 'nuff said.
Go Mikey. Enjoy Disneyworld.
Posted by: john ||
10/28/2005 12:50 Comments ||
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#5
I have the utmost respect for the courageous men and women in the military service. And I offer my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the fallen and injured in action. But I question the wisdom of litigation as a result of injury or death on the battlefield. It seems like a slippery slope we shouldnât venture towards.
#6
agree with you, Depotguy. It proves that we have not yet begun to fight. We haven't unleashed real war yet. When we pretend that lawyers are part of war, it's not real war. Real war means total destruction of the enemy at any cost. AQ and their terrorist friends are fighting a real wary, giving it all they have got. Woe to them when we get around to doing the same.
#7
For too long when victims' families want justice or retribution, they sue for $$$ either American manufacturers andor public entities whom as a class were as much victims as they were. WHY, because they know in part they are NOT going to get anything from those Personages or Govts that support or aid these terrorists, let alone from the terrorists themselves, ergo USA and only the USA foots the bill of suit and the blame. SO WHY SHOULD THE USG, US INSTITUTIONS AND US TAXPAYERS BEING THE ONLY ONES TO PAY, AND TO PAY WHETHER ITS AMERICA'S OR AMERICAS FAULT OR NOT - you know, Left-beloved "UNIVERSAL/INTERNATIONAL" EQUALISM and PROGRESSIVENESS!? The USA has been paying out since the 1940's - present, from 1972 MUNICH and anti-Israeli Pales. terrorists blowing up US-made Airliners on African deserts, to the first attack on the WTC and 9-11. Meanwhile the Commies, both Stalin's USSR and Mao's boyz, and aligned have been shooting at US units, and killing andor wounding US soldiers, since during WW2, even while we're helping them fight Hitler and Tojo, and to survive against Hitler and Tojo.
October 28, 2005: Yesterday, fifteen people were killed when a common "hostage retrieval operation" turned violent. It all began when a Sunni Arab gang kidnapped a Shia Arab belonging to Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. As is typical in such kidnappings, the victims family went to militia leaders and asked for help in getting the man freed. Several dozen armed militiamen then went to the nearby Sunni Arab town where the kidnappers came from. The victim was freed, but while the Shia Arab gang was driving out of the Sunni Arab town, they were ambushed by Sunni Arab militiamen. As a result, 14 Shia Arabs were killed, and over a dozen wounded. A policemen was also killed.
Normally, these incidents, which are frequent, do not end in bloodshed. The main form of "combat" is to gather a larger number of gunmen, and force the other side to do your will simply because you have superior numbers. Kill someone, and you have a long term feud on your hands. If the hostages are taken openly (with the captors identifiable), the hostage become a bargaining chip in negotiations over some other issue (often between tribes). The tribal chiefs play a large role in the negotiations, but it is gangster chiefs and warlords (for want of a better name) who initiate the violence in the first place. Most of these disputes are over money, even if the groups involved are nominally religious or political. There are a lot of murders, but these are usually done by men in masks, or late at night. If the culprit is anonymous, there is much less chance of a blood feud getting started. Kidnapping someone is just a way to open negotiations over some issue.
However, with all those dead Shia Arabs, al Sadr is under a lot of pressure to take some kind of public revenge. Just killing a bunch of Sunni Arabs in the middle of the night won't do. The government is also under a lot of pressure to show that they can prevent these kind of battles. Something interesting is liable to happen, or else the tribal elders will just negotiate another compromise deal. These tribal battles have been going on for thousands of years. Even Saddam tolerated a certain amount of it, especially after the Shia Arab rebellion in 1991, when Saddam needed additional muscle from the Sunni Arab tribal militias.
Kurds are increasing their security after three terrorist bombs went off in the northern town of Sulaymanyah on October 25th. This has been the first terrorist attack up there in over two years. It is believed that the Kurds got complacent, and terrorists took advantage of it. The Sunni Arabs are very angry about what's going on in the Kurdish controlled areas. The main gripes have to do with the economic growth, and rule of law. The Sunni Arabs have neither, and they have become angrier still as the Kurdish areas have become a vacation resort area for Iraqis from the rest of the country. The mountains in the north are cooler, and rather picturesque. The bombing shows that, as long as their are homicidal maniacs in the area, you can never let down your guard.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 09:03 ||
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#1
The Sunni Arabs are very angry about what's going on in the Kurdish controlled areas.
Shortly after OIF Sunni Arabs warned the Kurds than they would begin a campaign of suicide bombings in case the Kurds tried to recover the lands stolen under Saddam. Apprantly for Sunni Arabs it is not merely that once Muslim a land must remain for ever Muslim but that once (Sunni) Arab it must remain for ever (Sunni) Arab.
New York (dpa) - Russian, French and Chinese companies that did business with the U.N. oil-for-food programme paid the bulk of some 1.8 billion dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, who also received billions more from oil smugglers, independent investigators said in their final report Thursday.
Governments approved private-sector contracts with the United Nations and Baghdad during the 1996-2003 programme with the former Iraqi regime - an involvement that has led to charges of corruption at the highest levels.
When the oil-for-food began, companies from all countries signed on. But by 2000, the report said, Saddam's regime gave preference to companies in Russia, France and China because those three countries favoured lifting U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 after it invaded Kuwait.
Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman who led the two-year inquiry, concluded the probe by saying reform of the United Nations was urgent.
Already, the fallout has included the jailing in France two weeks ago of former U.N. ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee, 68, accused of taking bribes from Saddam. Other governments have been less conspicuous in tracking down corrupted officials.
All revenues from the seven-year programme were deposited in escrow at France's Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP), for use in a humanitarian programme that distributed daily food rations to up to 60 per cent of ordinary Iraqis, who were suffering under U.N. sanctions.
Volcker's final report found that a total of 4,500 companies from 66 countries signed contracts under the former programme to buy Iraqi oil and sell everything from food and medicine to machines and farm products to Iraq.
Companies and individuals were involved in illicit kickbacks, including 40 countries that paid the illicit surcharges on oil purchases imposed by the Saddam Hussein government beginning in 2000. The surcharge was 50 U.S. cents on top of the price for each barrel of oil.
It said the former dictator received at 1.8 billion dollars in kickbacks, an amount dwarfed by payments from oil smuggling by neighbouring countries, which was estimated at about 11 billion dollars. The oil smuggling was carried out outside the oil-for-food. U.N. headquarters received warnings it was going on, but nothing was done, the report said.
Saddam's regime had authority to choose customers and the amount to be sold to each customer, the report said. The programme ended after U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Volcker said the U.N. was responsible for mismanagement in the oil-for-food scheme and had been "weakened" by the scandal.
"That is why reform is so urgent," Volcker said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Financial transactions from 1996 to 2003 for the oil-for-food stood at more than 100 billion dollars, including 64.2 billion dollars deriving from purchases of Iraqi oil which were deposited into BNP, directly or through one of the bank's affiliates. The rest of about 39 billion dollars were for the purchases of food supplies for the Iraqis.
Posted by: DanNY ||
10/28/2005 02:09 ||
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#1
"That is why reform is so urgent"
Reform starts at the top - Sack Koffi!
Vaclav Havel for UNSG.
#3
I don't want to sound like a nihilist, but more than reform is needed, a total overhaul is what is needed. When one country like russia or china has the authority to veto a resolution, nothing will get done. China says it will veto a security council resolution against N.Kor, and Russia says it will veto a
s.c. resolution against Iran. Same for Zimbabwe, same for anything else that needs to be done.
What good are these ass clowns to us?
Name one benefit we get from being in the U.N., go ahead, I challenge any of you.
#4
Condemn that old, delapidated UN building. The East Side of Manhatten could use a new nature park. Birds and squirrels will accomplish a great deal more anyway, and they would be considerably more exciting to watch. Move the entire worthless tit of an operation to Harare. Just think of money that could be saved on lodging and meals alone. What is it, 4 hours flight time from Kumasi to Harare via Aroflot or Air France? No direct flights you say? Well there it is, another commercial marketing opportunity. Grace Mugabe is said to fed up with Air Zim anyway. The Chinese can run the food concessions. Koffi can work from home! Whats not to like?
Summary: During Richard Nixon's first term, when I served as secretary of defense, we withdrew most U.S. forces from Vietnam while building up the South's ability to defend itself. The result was a success -- until Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally in 1975. Washington should follow a similar strategy now, but this time finish the job properly.
MELVIN R. LAIRD was Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973, Counselor to the President for Domestic Affairs from 1973 to 1974, and a member of the House of Representatives from 1952 to 1969. He currently serves as Senior Counselor for National and International Affairs at the Reader's Digest Association.
Interesting perspective on the Vietnam comparison. RTHT
Iraq's ruling Shia Muslim-led coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, will contest December's parliamentary election as a single electoral list. Foreign officials said on Thursday that talks late into the night had resolved arguments that had threatened to break-up the coalition. Among changes agreed, the movement of nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would have a more formal role in the alliance, Abbas al-Bayati, an Alliance member of parliament, told Reuters.
That should certainly introduce the voice of sweet reason into the governing process...
A formal announcement would be made later in the day, he added. Three principle Shia movements are involved in the alliance - the powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) formed in exile in Iran to oppose Saddam Hussein and led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Dawa party of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, and al-Sadr's movement. Although al-Sadr has three allies in the present interim cabinet, he has been ambivalent in public about the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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notes
1. Chalabi has broken with the UIA and is running on his own
2. Sistani is NOT endorsing the UIA list this time
#3
when you're as holy as Sistani is, you dont have to give reasons for what you do :) And thats only have facetious = I havent seen an explanation, and I dont expect to see one. I would suspect hes trying to distance himself and the Margiya (sp?) from the UIA, which seems to have been less successful in governance than many hoped.
Chalabi pushed out of UIA? First ive heard of that.
Iran's ultraconservative just like them eeeeeevil Republicans president - spurning international outrage over his remarks about Israel - joined more than a million demonstrators who flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities Friday to back his call for the destruction of the Jewish state. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood fast behind his assertion that Israel should be wiped off the map and repeated the call during the nationwide protests Friday, the Muslim day of rioting prayer.
But in an apparent attempt to blunt international outrage over Ahmadinejad's comments, the Iranian Embassy in Moscow issued a statement saying the Iranian leader did not want to "engage in a conflict." Marching alongside the protesters, the 47-year-old former mayor of Tehran and one-time Republican Told ya. Guard commander renewed his criticism of the West. "They become upset when they hear any voice of truth-seeking. They think they are the absolute rulers of the world," he said during the al-Quds - or Jerusalem - Day protest, which was among the largest since they were first held in 1979 after Shiite Muslim clerics took power in Iran.
His fellow marchers carried placards reading "Death to Israel, death to America." It is not uncommon for an Iraqi president to join marches in the capital. Ahmadinejad was accompanied by five bodyguards, but otherwise security was not out of the ordinary for such an event.
Despite Ahmadinejad's continued harsh attacks on the West, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to dial back the rhetoric, suggesting that Israelis and Palestinians hold a referendum to decide the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. "If Muslims and Palestinians agree (to a referendum), it will be a retreat but let's still hold a referendum," Rafsanjani said in his Friday prayer sermon.
The Iranian Embassy statement in Moscow said Ahmadinejad "did not have any intention to speak in sharp terms and engage in a conflict."
But that was not the message carried by the at least 200,000 Iranians who massed in Tehran to unleashed virulent condemnation against Israel, the United States and the West in general, accusing them of oppressing Palestinians and Iran. Some demonstrators chanted "Israel is approaching its death" and wore white shrouds in a symbolic gesture expressing readiness to die for their cause.
A resolution was read at the end of the rallies backing "the position declared by the president that the Zionist regime must be wiped out."
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki defended his president's comments, saying they represented Iran's long-held policy of not recognizing Israel. "Unfortunately the Western countries have remained silent on the increasing inhuman activities of Israel," Mottaki said at the Tehran march.
Jerusalem Day protests attracted at least 100,000 in each of Iran's major cities and a total of more than a million nationwide, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. Major rallies also were held in other Middle Eastern countries. In Beirut, the terrorist militant Hezbollah group marked the day by staging a parade that saw more than 6,000 terrorists guerrillas march in uniform through the streets of the Lebanese capital.
The Shiite group, which supports its Iranian mentors, has sought to strengthen its position in Lebanon after the withdrawal of Syrian troops.
At least 30,000 Bahrainis marched in their capital, Manama, burning Israeli and American flags and demanding to be strafed their government rescind its recent decision to end its economic embargo of the Jewish state.
Iran's seven state-run TV stations devoted coverage Friday to programs condemning the Jewish state and praising the Palestinian terrorists resistance since the 1948 creation of Israel. Three stations also showed live coverage of crowds of people gathering Friday in streets throughout Tehran.
After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the pro-Western Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979, he declared the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as an international day of struggle against Israel and for the liberation of Jerusalem. The founder of the Islamic regime had also called for Israel's destruction.
#2
Wow. I've been randomized, but htis was specific! Oops.... I rememberr now!
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/28/2005 22:41 Comments ||
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#3
Just more evidencia JERUSLAEM may end up being destroyed by the very Muslims allegedly trying to "save" it. They want concession(s), NOT compromise or diplomacy.
AlMur BEIRUT, Oct 28 (KUNA) -- The army is for protection of the country and it would not be used against anyone inside the country, said Lebanon's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Elias AlMur on Friday.
I guess he's a Syrian appointment as well
This came in a statement to reporters following a security meeting chairded by Prime Minister Fuad Al-Siniora and attended by Lebanese security officials designated for discussing steps taken by the army in Bekaa.
"The army is for the protection of the country and to counter rioters and those disturbing national security, and not to be used against any group inside the country," he stressed. AlMur went on to say, "Palestinians living in camps were invited by Lebanon years ago, and this policy will continue and greater activities on the social and humanitarian levels will take place so as to improve their living conditions." He ruled out the possibility of eruptioon of any conflict between army forces and any Palestinian organization, adding that Palestinians in these camps are regarded as brothers.
Well, by Syria, at least
Lebanese army had set up a military siege around a location used by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other sites in western Bekaa after a civilian army employee was shot dead three days ago.
Perhaps the Army has different ideas about brotherhood than the government
A Lebanese-Palestinian committee is expected to launch deliberations to regulate armament in Lebanon.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 10:30 ||
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It's like Naz said. Once bought, we stay bought.
Posted by: Elias AlMur ||
10/28/2005 11:44 Comments ||
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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group said on Friday it would stand by Syria, blasting the United Nations for what it said was political incitement against Damascus over the killing of a Lebanese ex-premier. Tens of thousands of Lebanese attended an anti-Israel Hizbollah parade in Beirut's southern suburb in a show of force by the guerrilla group facing U.S.-led pressure to disarm in line with a 14-month-old U.N. resolution.
"We say clearly that we stand by Syria, leadership and people, in the face of its targeting by the Americans and Zionists and attempts to punish it politically for standing by Lebanon and its resistance," Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told the rally.
A U.N. inquiry led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis named senior Syrian officials as suspects in the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. The report prompted the United States and France to put forward a draft resolution, set to be passed next week, at the Security Council demanding Syria cooperate fully with the probe and threatening economic sanctions. "What we are witnessing today is the using of the Mehlis report to punish Syria for a crime that it has not been convicted of as a punishment for its political and strategic options," Nasrallah said.
The parade, an annual event to mark Jerusalem Day in support of Palestinians, was the first major gathering organized by the Shi'ite Muslim group since its backer and ally Syria pulled out its troops from Lebanon in April. It also came days after a U.N. envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said in a report the Lebanese government had not disarmed Hizbollah and Palestinian fighters in line with Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disbanding of all militias.
"We frankly feel that there is incitement⊠from more than one international report to sabotage the relations between the Lebanese themselves, the Lebanese and the Palestinians and Lebanon-Syria ties," Nasrallah said.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 10:06 ||
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#1
Once bought we stay bought. At least give us credit for that...
#3
Thank you Hizbollah, for confirming the report.
"for what it said was political incitement against Damascus over the killing of a Lebanese ex-premier"
This says to me, just cause Damascus had to kill the premier, dos'nt mean you should be mad. So we are defending the killer, because you should'nt be mad.
Fucking destroy their asses, take their philanthropic network apart at the seams; fill the vacuum with intl aid to draw public support away from them.
I'm sure the Massad would be happy to let us have a peak at their address book of Hizbollah goons.
We can make some friendly housecalls.Then drag these fucks into the street and kill them.
No fucking joke, just off their asses, they are a terrorist network and regardless of how legitimate their rule may now be in Lebanon they should all be killed like dogs.
#5
Outside of leaking US $$$ like a sewer, or scoring diplomatic-ideo points ags America and the Western Democracies, the UNO is and always was irrelevant to the Commies as it now is to the Radic Spetzlamists.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad on Friday rejected widespread condemnation of his remarks Wednesday calling to "wipe Israel off the map".
According to Ahmandinejad, the comments were both justified and correct, Israel Radio reported. "They reflect the words of the Iranian people," he said.
The hard-line leader added, "Israel and the United States believe that the entire world must abide by their rules although they are the ones that are responsible for destroying Palestinian families."
The Iranian embassy in Moscow, however, tried Friday to soften the impact of Ahmadinejad's remarks.
"Mr. Ahmadinejad did not have any intention to speak in sharp terms and engage in a conflict," the Iranian embassy in Moscow said in a statement following a wave of international criticism.
It added that Ahmadinejad "underlined the key position of Iran, based on the necessity to hold free elections on the occupied territories."
Israel's Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman, meanwhile, began trying to build a coalition Thursday in favor of expelling Iran from the UN, as governments around the globe condemned Iran for Ahmadinejad's comments.
UN mathematics indicate that no such coalition could possibly prevail, but Israel is understood to be pursuing the effort nonetheless - both out of a sense of obligation and in the faint hope that the almost impossible might somehow happen.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/28/2005 08:15 ||
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keep digging, asshole
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/28/2005 8:29 Comments ||
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The hard-line leader added, "Israel and the United States believe that the entire world must abide by their rules although they are the ones that are responsible for destroying Palestinian families."
This guy cares about Palestinians about as much as I do, which ain't much.
#5
Well his words could not have been clearer. I don'think it's possible to wiggle out of it either. Now that they really want nukes of their own what might the future hold for Iran? They already wage war against Israel through proxies and crude attacks on civilians. Methinks they'll beget a whole lot of martyrs at home if they seek to follow through in the grand sense.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud five years ago accepted controversial U.N.-drawn boundaries between his country and Syria but has disputed them ever since, a new U.N. report disclosed on Wednesday.
Then he didn't accept them, did he?
At issue are the Shebaa Farms, a largely uninhabited border area of some 10 square miles (25 sq km), occupied by Israel, and shelled regularly by Lebanon's Hizbollah militia, who say they must liberate Lebanese territory. The United Nations says the Shebaa farms are Syrian soil, unless Beirut and Damascus decide to change their borders.
"Well, then, we'll liberate Syrian territory!"
But Lahoud and other officials in Beirut have argued that the area belongs to Lebanon and that Israel had not really withdrawn all its troops from southern Lebanon in May 2000 after 22 years of occupation.
"Yeah! There're all over the place! Can't walk 20 feet without steppin' on a Zionist!"
A report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on arms flows from Syria to Palestinian groups in Lebanon on Wednesday quoted for the first time a letter Lahoud had written to the United Nations in June 2000 on the U.N.-drawn boundary, known as the "blue line." "In connection with the Shebaa farmlands, it is clear from the report of the secretary-general that a de facto line has been adopted for the area in light of the fact that there are no old maps that can confirm the boundary between Lebanon and Syria," Lahoud wrote. He said that "while the United Nations notes that this line can in no way be regarded as affecting the rights of the parties concerned with respect to their international boundaries, Lebanon has accepted this assessment until such time as a joint formula for the farmlands area can be agreed by Lebanon and Syria for submission to the United Nations."
But then, a day or two later, somebody told him to change his mind, so he did.
As late as last May, on the fifth anniversary of Israel's troop withdrawal, Lahoud said he was "determined to liberate the remaining occupied Shebaa Farms from Israeli occupation."
"Don't make me come down there!"
Annan's report says that a slew of maps issued by Lebanon and Syria after 1966 placed the farmlands inside Syrian territory, except for one 1966 Lebanese map "of questionable authenticity."
"We can make more of them, if you like..."
"Any Lebanese 'resistance' to 'liberate' the area from continued Israeli occupation cannot be considered legitimate," said the report, prepared by U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. "In addition, even if the Lebanese claim to the Shebaa Farms area were legitimate, it would be the responsibility of the government of Lebanon only to address this claim in conformity with international law and relevant Security Council resolutions," the report said.
Terje actually said that? Wow. That's startling.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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why this matters
1. The UN, the west, and the anti-syrian forces in Lebanon want Hezbollah to disarm - a necessity for the Lebanese state to assert real control over all its territory
2. Hezb says its staying armed to fight the "occupation"
3. In fact Israel withdrew 5 years ago.
4. The argument is made that Shebaa is Leb terr, so there is still an occupation. (Israel, claiming its syrian, wont withdraw till Syria makes peace, which hasnt been going to well lately)
5. So the question of whether Shebaa is Syrian or Leb, determines if Leb is still "occupied by Israel" and thus if Hezb has any excuse for staying armed, and thus can actually use their force as the main Syrian/Iranian proxy in Lebanon.
IRAN may be only six months from having the necessary means to make an atomic bomb, Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom said today, urging quick international action on Tehran's nuclear program. "The next meeting of the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) is a crucial meeting, because there is a limit of time until (Iran) will have a full knowledge of how to develop a nuclear bomb," Mr Shalom said after meeting with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy. "It may only be six months from today," he said.
Mr Shalom spoke a day after the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be "wiped from the map", drawing international condemnation.
The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors in September found Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, paving the way for the matter to be referred to the UN Security Council if Iran does not halt nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with an IAEA investigation. The matter is to be taken up at the next IAEA board meeting in Vienna on November 24.
The vote followed a collapse in talks led by Britain, France and Germany to get Iran to voluntarily limit its nuclear fuel work in exchange for trade benefits after Tehran broke a pledge and resumed fuel activities. "The French determination is very important because France is a key player," Mr Shalom said today, calling for "the whole international community" to unite "to stop the Iranians".
"The Iranians are developing now missiles with much longer range than Israel," Mr Shalom said. The new missiles would have "a range of 3000 kilometres that will include all the capitals of Europe within that range: Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, Madrid... It's a tyranny that should be stopped immediately".
Israel has repeatedly warned Iran may be close to developing a nuclear weapon.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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Will argue it again that iff the LT, stregic, geopol focii is forcing and espec "justifying" Socialism and Communism upon America, then Amers should err on the side of caution and de facto presume that IRAN = NORTH KOREA, etc. = have Nukes already, that pre-planned nuclearized asymmetric PC "people's war" will be waged ags US milfors and Allies, and that America will be PC blamed no matter what or whom, for everything and anything, everyone and anyone, by both its enemies and the DemoLeft!?
#2
OOOPPPSSSS, fergit to a'sez that the Commie Airborne will be > SAVING AMERIKA FROM ITSELF = DESTROYING AMERICA, for the good of Amerikans and the world.
#5
As always, watch for the 'tripline indicators' for Israel's settling offensive...1) movement of US battle groups to the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea 2)A quiet recalling of Israeli citizens out of Arab lands and 3)A sudden mysterious media info 'blackout' lasting 2 weeks prior coming out of Tel-Aviv!
A night operation with eastward trade winds, during rain preferably,
The Israelis will use nuclear tipped bunker busters, and unveil a secret that will shock the world...Israeli kamikazi pilots!!
#6
It is almost certain now. With the lunatic president of Iran calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, and the means nearly at hand to do this, events are proceeding inexorably toward what could well be the greatest and most sudden disaster in human response.
The impotence of the global community in the face of this threat is largely attributable to the greed of multi-national corporations and the depravity of the institutional media, a tacit conspiracy to prevent effective action against the mullahs before they acquire nuclear weapons.
When this is over, and a shocked world seeks expiation, a special tribunal should be convened, on the pattern of the post-World War 2 Nuremberg Tribunal. It should have the authority to try and punish all who have had a significant role in allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. This includes direct providers, like Putin and his ilk, politicians like George Galloway who have advocated the Iranian cause, business leaders who did not want to endanger their Iranian profits, and propagandists who have made effective action nearly impossible. The tribunal should have the death penalty within its power and it should act without mercy or compassion for those who will have caused the deaths of tens of millions.
Arab governments have maintained silence over the call by Iran's new president for Israel to be wiped off the map. Newspapers across the Middle East reported Wednesday's speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without comment, many of them on their front pages.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry and cabinet officials said Cairo would have nothing to say on the address. Egyptian government officials played down the importance of the speech, saying it was intended for a conservative Iranian audience which remained faithful to the thinking behind the 1979 revolution.
With so many conflicts in the Middle East, "the region is in a mess. We really don't need one more", said one official on condition of anonymity, hoping the issue would go away.
Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher also declined comment, apparently to avoid further aggravating relations with Iran, which the kingdom has accused of interfering in Iraq to strengthen Shia influence in the Middle East.
Analysts said Amadinejad's uncompromising line highlighted Iran's differences with other Middle East governments and will make it easier for the US and its allies to take a tough line against Iran for its defiant nuclear policy. However, Mohamed Wahby, a former diplomat and member of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Affairs, said it was a mistake to remain quiet about the speech, which he said undermined Middle East peace prospects. "Recognisng Israel as an integral part of the Middle East is no longer in doubt," he said, saying Iran was only encouraging hardliners on both sides.
Mustafa Hamarneh, head of the Strategic Studies Centre at the University of Jordan, agreed that Amadinejad was out of step, especially with the Palestinians. "He's an ideologue who shot from the cuff; it was not a studied statement," Hamarneh said.
Iran's threatening stance also was counterproductive to its own interests, said Wahby, reinforcing the notion that its nuclear programme is aimed at developing weapons despite claims that it is meant exclusively for peaceful power generation. "Such statement by Tehran will encourage Israel to cling to its nuclear arsenal," Wahby said.
Mustafa Alani, an analyst from the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai, said Arab states will see Ahmadinejad's speech as showing up the Iranian government to be "illogical, irrational". "The Arab countries have benefited," Alani said. "They will never issue a statement, but they are happy that he proved the Iranians, on the regional level, are not rational."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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Dang nab it all! Don't those Iranians know better than to talk about the rhinocerous in our living room?
#2
In a way, it is good for Israel to have had the asshole said such an atrocity. Maybe now, the Western world will start taking the muslim threat to Israel seriously.
Prime Minister John Howard has condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
Mr Ahmadinejad's comments came at a conference in Tehran entitled The World Without Zionism, where he says in a reference to Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: "As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map".
Mr Howard, whose Government is a strong supporter of Israel, says he is concerned at Mr Ahmadinejad's comments and believed the United Nations should take action. "It's a very dangerous, serious speech," Mr Howard told reporters in Papua New Guinea, where he is attending the Pacific Leaders Forum. "I think it does represent grounds for very great concern. To have the president of any country saying another should be wiped off the face of the earth is a reminder of the psychological pressure, quite apart from the actual pressure, that the state of Israel is under, and this obviously is an issue that the United Nations has to address."
Mr Howard did not specify how he believed the UN should deal with the issue, although Israel has called for Iran to be ousted from the world body over the remarks.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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John Howard is the second greatest leader of the free world after President George Bush.
Speaker of the Brazilian Parliament Aldo Ribillo stressed his country's solidarity with the Syrian national and pan-Arab firm stances in facing the campaigns of pressures and lies against it, pointing out to the deeply-rooted Syrian-Brazilian relations.
Oh, shuddup. Go do a samba or a lambada or something...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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Think there's any connection between statements of the government and the people's recent rejection of gun control? In that the people don't trust those in power? So just whom is the man speaking for?
Havana, Oct 27 (Prensa Latina) Cuban President Fidel Castro sent a message of solidarity to Syrian counterpart Bashar al Assad, amid US threats against that Arab nation. Jaime Crombet, vice president of the Cuban National Assembly, delivered the message to al Assad at the Damascus palace, according to Granma newspaper.
Al Assad reciprocated the Cuban president´s message in a meeting he called fraternal, as it contributed to reenergizing historic bilateral relations and mutual solidarity. The Syrian leader and Jaime Crombet reviewed issues of common concern and the current international situation.
Crombet thanked Syrian for its support of Cuba´s cause, chiefly its condemnation of the over four-decade US economic, financial and commercial blockade. Officials included in the Cuban delegation held talks with Syrian National Assembly president and vice president, Mahmoud al Abrach and Mohamed Qadoura, respectively.
They also met with Foreign Affairs Commission Chairman Noumer Ghanne and Fouadh Battah, member of the parliamentary group of friendship. Both legislative bodies agreed to strengthen friendship and cooperation relations and exchange visits between officials from the two countries.
Is it too late to call back that hurricane assistance team?
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 10:30 Comments ||
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The Arab League on Wednesday joined Russia in opposing a Franco-American threat to impose sanctions on Syria if it did not cooperate fully with a U.N. probe into the killing of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri.
That's also expected. The Arab League stands for nothing but existing Arab regimes. It'll defend Assad, but only with words.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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We expected it, of course. The big question is: what happens when that occurs? Assad is expecting that in six months things'll be back to business as usual. It's entirely likely he's correct. I'm still expecting him to be out of power by 9-11-2006.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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At the risk of feeling the wrath of .com, I say itâs high time we play ball with these KGB phuqs. The last ten years of negotiations with the Russkies has been nothing more then diplomatic belly-bucking. Should we get all Frenchy nice with Gucci suitcases full of Benjamins and promises not to talk about their penchant for Piss-Bars in public? No Clairiseâ¦they covet. And what do they covet? They covet what they see everyday.
#3
I'll only commit the egregious act of quoting myself:
"This is where I get worked up about State and all of the others who put their 'pragmatism' and 'realpolitik' and 'situational / momentary convenience' ahead of our principles."
...
"But who thinks we don't pay far more dearly later for those choices than if we had made the hard choice up front and shunned them for the assholes and brutal despots they are? It's an offense to our principles and gives credence to our detractors. May the accommodaters burn forever for saddling all of us with such asinine and compromising decisions. They are party to 9/11 and Beslan and the cynicism that led to our Moonbat Professors and Tranzi MSM and the traction they bestow on Muzzy insanity.
This gap between what Americans stand for and what we sometimes do demands correction. If I can make the hard choices, the inconvenient choices, the painful choices, because I know they're the right thing to do, and know that nothing less will do, so can my government."
Obviously, I'm not a fan of accommodation and convenience. It always comes back to haunt us. Always. So sue me. Just my opinion.
#4
Good, first we vaporize Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc. Then call Putzin give him first dibs on Walmartsky, Best Buyovich, etc. Things did not work for Neville Chamberlain either.
He's basically just singing sweet harmony to Terje here...
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged Syria and Lebanon to step up efforts in establishing normal diplomatic relations and demarcate their borders in order to fully restore Lebanon's sovereignty and independence. Annan issued the call in a report to the Security Council on the implementation of a resolution adopted in September last year. The resolution demands Syria withdraw troops from Lebanon and militia groups in Lebanon be disarmed and disbanded, in order to restore Lebanon's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
Annan said a number of requirements of the resolution had been met over the past six months, among them the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and the conduct of free and fair legislative elections in Lebanon. But he pointed out that "tangible results are yet to be achieved" in the areas of disarming and disbanding militia groups in Lebanon, including those created by Palestinian refugees, and the extension of effective control of Lebanon's government over all of Lebanon's territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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Lebanon has yet to achieve "tangible results" in meeting U.N. demands to disarm Palestinian and Lebanese militias â a reference to the Hezbollah guerrilla group, a top envoy said in a report Wednesday. The envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said Lebanon's inability to exert control over some areas or rein in the militias was stalling its progress toward achieving full sovereignty after emerging from nearly three decades of dominance by Syria. "Tangible results are yet to be achieved in these two fields, and I will continue my efforts in this regard," he wrote.
Roed-Larsen's report said considerable progress had been made toward meeting other parts of Resolution 1559, which called for Syria to withdraw all military forces and intelligence operatives as well as the disarmament of all Lebanese militias. The report is likely to increase pressure on Syria as the United States, France and Britain challenged the rest of the U.N. Security Council to adopt a tough new resolution threatening sanctions if Damascus doesn't cooperate fully with a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
There are allegations Syria is continuing to smuggle arms to Palestinian militia groups in Lebanese refugee camps, in violation of the September 2004 council resolution. Roed-Larsen is U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for implementation of the resolution. Syria withdrew its troops and intelligence officials last April, ending the country's 29-year presence in its smaller neighbor which began when Damascus sent troops to help quell what was then a year-old civil war. While resolution 1559 was adopted a year ago, it was Hariri's assassination, and the massive anti-Syrian protests it sparked, that spurred the Syrians to leave. While that step has been encouraging, the requirement to disarm â a clear reference to the Syrian- and Iranian-backed guerrilla group Hezbollah â has not been met, Roed-Larsen said. There also has been little significant change in Lebanon's ability to gain control over all its territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
"Tangible results are yet to be achieved in these two fields, and I will continue my efforts in this regard,"
Translation: "If this report doesn't succeed, I'll send a very firm memorandum! In triplicate! With a copy for Mr. Annan's official files!"
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
10/28/2005 1:51 Comments ||
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NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Somalia's government ordered two warlord-owned airports closed on Friday in an effort to boost its tax revenues, prompting an ally of the airstrips' owners to threaten to shoot down any plane diverting to obey the order. A government statement said it had informed trading partners Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates that the private airstrips at Daynile, outside Mogadishu, and at Merca, south of the capital, would shut from November 1.
"We are closing these airstrips for security reasons, and some other airstrips in southern Somalia will follow as soon as possible," Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayr quoted the statement as saying.
"We contacted the (foreign) governments ... to discuss the support of Somalia's new government and resume the taxation system of the country, which collapsed during the civil war."
The two airstrips are lucrative ventures run by militia bosses who have campaigned for months to persuade Ethiopian-backed President Abdullahi Yusuf to base his year-old transitional federal government in the capital, Mogadishu. Yusuf instead works from Jowhar, a town 90 kilometers (55 miles) to the north of the capital, arguing Mogadishu is too dangerous and that it is the base of many of his political opponents -- among them dissident ministers in his own government.
The airport order prompted Mogadishu-based warlord and Commerce Minister Muse Sudi Yalahow to threaten to down any plane known to have diverted to other airports in compliance with the order. "We will shoot the planes trying to accept the new rules of airplanes," Muse Sudi said on Somali radio monitored in Nairobi. "If an airplane changes its usual flight, we will use the anti-aircraft missiles which we have," he said.
Somali businessmen normally have the pick of about 240 bush airstrips to trade an array of produce -- including contraband and hard drugs -- without hindrance from any central authority. Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority official Anthony Mwandikwa confirmed that Kenya had received the Somali notification.
Daynile and Merca's el-Ahmed airstrip are among the busiest and have proved lucrative for their owners, respectively Mogadishu militia boss and Internal Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare, and Islamist warlord Sheikh Yusuf Inda'adde. Qanyare declined comment. Inda'adde was not available for comment.
Experts say both factions of the government are gearing up for a military showdown, and a U.N. report by a panel of experts said government ministers on both sides had bought large amounts of weapons in recent months.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 14:44 ||
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#1
Somalia's got a government? When did that happen?
October 28, 2005: Thereâs a vicious Information War taking place in northern Pakistan, as Islamic terrorists try to undo the damage done to their image by all the Western aid pouring into the earthquake ravaged region. The Pakistani Army has apparently done a poor job of coordinating relief efforts following the October 8th earthquake, and many remote areas have received little or no government assistance, though many NGOs have managed to provide some aid. This is fueling anti-government sentiment, but apparently not playing into the hands of the various Islamist groups who have been holding out in these areas. Although the radicals have actually issued calls for the local people to reject aid from non-Moslems, the destitute inhabitants are happy to receive anything they can, regardless of its origin.
Local opinions of the U.S. have been favorably influenced by American relief efforts. Although the area is religiously very conservative, with strong Islamist sympathies, many people reporters spoke with expressed positive comments about the U.S., including a willingness to consider the possibility that American intentions in the Middle East are not anti-Moslem. This is an extremely important development, as the U.S. has not been doing well in the âInfo Opsâ side of the war.
Naturally, some of the people interviewed expressed very hostile opinions, ranging from the belief that the U.S. was using relief flights to cover the establishment of secret bases on Pakistani soil, to a conviction that relief supplies are tainted with âun-Islamic substancesâ (i.e., pork). The charge that the U.S. is seeking secret bases is often made by anti-Americans, and not just in the Middle East. On the other hand, the charge that the U.S. is trying to taint relief supplies with unclean substances is unique to the Moslem world, and often repeated in Islamist propaganda. While the charge is untrue, the Islamists can point to âevidenceâ that suggests the opposite.
U.S. relief supplies in the past occasionally were inappropriate for Moslems â and, indeed, persons of some other religions as well. For example, MREs often contain pork, prohibited to Moslems and Jews, or, beef, forbidden to Hindus. As a result, thereâs been a tendency for MREs procured for use in humanitarian relief are increasingly vegetarian. Even then, care has to be taken to insure that no seasonings or additive contain âuncleanâ substances (in this regard, itâs worth recalling the uproar in India some years ago when it was revealed that McDonaldâs French fries were processed with a seasoning derived from beef). In addition, the Islamists are able to quote wild statements made by some American extremists urging the U.S. to do things like spray Moslem villages with pork fat as part of the war effort.
Hey, watch who you're calling an "extremist"! We prefer "commentator".
While statements like this get little circulation in the U.S., they provide valuable ammunition for the Islamists.
In an effort to counter the favorable impressions being created by earthquake relief aid being delivered by the U.S. and other âinfidelâ nations, Islamist radicals have undertaken a major propaganda effort. In recent days rumors and ânews storiesâ throughout Pakistan and in some other parts of the Moslem world have been charging that in the guise of delivering relief assistance, women and children are being kidnapped by human traffickers for sexual exploitation, their body parts, or adoption by non-Moslems. This follows charges by Al-Qaeda leaders that the U.S. and other infidels are blocking relief efforts by Moslems, a thinly disguised attempt to cover up the fact that most Moslem countries have not been overly generous.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/28/2005 09:09 ||
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Despite its name figuring in Pakistan government's ''watchlist'', several international organisations like WHO and UNICEF have closely worked with Jamat-ud-Dawa, an outfit linked with banned terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in providing relief to quake victims in PoK. Various international relief organisations, including Red Cross, World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, World Food Programme, UN Organisation for Refugees, Sikh welfare organisation Khalsa Aid and Singapore-based MCTH Association had been working with Dawa in quake-hit areas of PoK, Pakistani daily Nawai Waqt reported on Wednesday. These international agencies were "very impressed" with the "strong, well-linked and organised" network of Dawa and provided "huge relief goods" to it, the report said. Turkish and Indonesian doctors also presented their services to medical camps run by Dawa, it said, adding that World Food Programme (WFP) handed over two additional containers of relief goods to it. A WFP official told the in-charge of Dawa relief operation, Haji Javedul Hasan, that since his distribution method was better than others, the relief goods were handed over to him, the newspaper claimed. Jamat-ud-Dawa was the new organisation floated by its founder Hafeez Sayed after dissolving Markaz Dawa, the parent outfit of LeT in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the US and the terrorist attack on Parliament House in December 2001.
#2
Ooooh, good move there, Unicef and WHO. Further legitimize and enhance the reputation of some murderous thugs. Way to go. I hope they take your workers hostage after the aid dries up. When that happens, please remind me to laugh and point.
A new proposed anti-terror law in the US, presented on Wednesday, aims to clamp down on terrorist activity carried out via the internet as the al-Qaeda network develops increasingly dangerous online activities.
The proposed law would introduce measures such as extending the period for which cybercafes have to keep records of internet connection data, but faces a tough battle against "cyber-jihadists" who avoid being tracked through cunning and the fluid nature of the internet, according to experts.
Terrorists use the internet for "communication, recruitment, planning" and, importantly, for military instruction, said Rita Katz, head of the Washington-based institute Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), which monitors Islamist websites.
"Everything is there, it replaces the training camps," she said.
One method attributed to the suspected head of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, is the "dead letter box" system: someone creates an e-mail account, gives the password to several members of a group and communicates by saving messages in a draft messages folder without sending them.
Communication by this method cannot be monitored because government systems for tracking e-mails work only if someone sends an e-mail, said Rohan Gunaratna, head of terrorism research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.
The people behind some sites promoting terrorism "are more savvy than a lot of us normal typical internet users",, said Rebecca Givner-Forbes, an intelligence analyst who monitors the internet for the Terrorism Research Centre, a company employed by the US government.
"They often use Japanese and Chinese upload web pages because they don't ask for an e-mail address or any information from the person uploading a file," she said.
"They've become very savvy about how they evade detection on the web."
According to Givner-Forbes, the most common method used by serious Islamist websites is password-protected online message boards that only members can use.
"Most recently they have been leveraging the net more and more to circulate terrorist tactical instructions, training manuals, explosives recipes," Givner-Forbes said.
"We've seen recently more sophisticated material such as instructional videos where you see someone going through all the steps needed to make a device or an explosive and instructions are printed very clearly on the screen," she added.
If terrorist sites are attacked, the people running them can republish copies.
Many internet trackers are disadvantaged by not speaking Arabic and people running terrorist sites "may just change the colour of their site and change the writing at the top, call it something else and change the format. It's the same material," she said.
Cyber-jihadists also have techniques to hide their identity and hack into sites, like the germ weapons expert Mustapha Setmariam Nassar who circulated a manual via an American commercial server.
"When you take down a website, from my own experience, the next day it's up again from a new server and not only that, it's not from the US any more but it turns itself to a password-protected website," said Katz.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:19 ||
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#1
Hack the site. In the "How to make an IED" instructions, switch the black and red wires.
#3
"Internet replacing training camps for hard boyz"
Then, based on my performance in Socom 3 (ps2) and Battlefield 2 (PC), I'm the reincarnation of Sgt. York, Audie Murphy and Alexander t. Great, all rolled into one.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
10/28/2005 11:08 Comments ||
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#4
This is worrying, but at the same time I doubt online training is more dangerous than traditional propaganda and psy-ops.
I've got all the firearms manuals pdf, close combat booklets (I was very pleased to see that a russian guy put the great "Get tough!" online in an html format), FM,... you may want, but I'm still a wuss, not even a poser or a wannabe (theses are for informative purpose only).
IMHO You can't effectively train only from a book even in a digital form, you gain only theorical technical know-how and that'll get you so far.
If this new wave of terrs is trained that way, they are less a threat that the Afghanistan-Bosnia-Chechnya-... camps graduates.
And from what I understood even then training was not much different of what you might expect from basic infantry drills, except for a few chosen; jihadists everywhere are not known for their sheer military proefficiency. I mean, Djamel Loiseau, a french jihadist who died in Afghanistan was supposedly welcomed and praised there because he had done his national service military service back in France and was so above-average material... come on!
#5
Djamel Loiseau, a french jihadist who died in Afghanistan was supposedly welcomed and praised there because he had done his national service military service back in France and was so above-average material... come on!
I have checked and Djamel Loiseau was a draftee. In a whole year I fired less than 150 fifty rounds, perhaPs under 100 with thE weapon I was supposed to use in combat. And we never had a refresher course about how to do it right. Clancy tells that Us Marines fire 80 rounds a day. I was a sapper not Infantry but it still shows how little training draftees got in the French Army and if Djame Loiseau was far above average between Jishdists it tells LOTS.
#6
In a shooting war the first thing to go down would be the computer networks. In NYC manhole covers blow and Verizon is down for ten hours. Its still blood, guts and brains.
In the second half of a 15-page presentation of the âJihadi Biography of the Slaughtering Leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,â the author describes not only the evolving Zarqawi following the September 11, 2001 attacks until the start of the War in Iraq, but also elaborates upon al-Qaedaâ strategic goals in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Gulf countries and against the United States. This biography, which was recently distributed amongst jihadist forums by the Global Islamic Media Front, an al-Qaeda mouthpiece, was allegedly written by Saif al-Adl AKA Muhamad Ibrahim Makkaqi, the âchief of security in the global armyâ in al-Qaeda, currently believed to be under house arrest in Iran and listed amongst the FBIâs most wanted terrorists.
Al-Adl indicates the Zarqawi did not receive prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, nor was he educated regarding its intrinsic goals; however, he was soon updated and began ideological and theological lessons about the nature of the battle âbetween truth and falseness.â During the U.S. bombardment of Afghanistan, al-Adl notes that these âcrimesâ perpetrated by America were witnessed first-hand by Zarqawi, and that such acts fomented anger within him to seek vengeance. He states: âThe hatred and hostility harbored by Abu Musab towards the Americans formed new characteristics in the personality of Abu Musab.â Zarqawi was transferred to Iran during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and âAbu Musab and his Jordanian and Palestinian friend chose to go to Iraq after much study and a long discussion.â
Concerning al-Qaedaâs strategies which are intertwined in the biography, al-Adl interestingly explains that one goal of the 9/11 attacks was to drive American to âexit from its burrowâ and cause it to reach in a clumsy and âhaphazardâ manner, making unstudied operations such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, al-Adl explains al-Qaedaâs strategies vis-Ã -vis Afghanistan, Iraq, and âtaking advantage of opportunities.â This latter point means to capitalize on security chaos to spread jihadi activities. Al-Adl points towards Syria and Lebanon to follow Iraq, so as to spread further spread jihad and create a wider basis to maneuver.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/28/2005 00:16 ||
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Over 125 Indian companies are among 2,000 firms worldwide who made illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's regime for contracts in UN's Oil-for-Food programme, an independent inquiry into the controversial deal said in New York on Thursday. The companies supplied diverse products including food, medicines, electrical goods, steel and tea. Most of the other companies involved are American, Russian and Chinese.
In its final report, the Committee headed by former American Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said Saddam Hussein received only about $1.8 billion from "manipulation of transactions" under the oil for food programme, which the panel investigated. But he received much more â an estimated $11 billion from smuggling oil to Jordan and other neighbouring countries, which was known to the Security Council.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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Poll musta been taken of bath house occupants and street bums in SF
Eliminating poverty in America is more important than fighting terrorism, especially to blacks, U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq, and money saved on war should be used to rebuild hurricane-scarred New Orleans, according to a national poll released Thursday.
When asked, "What do you think should be the most important priority for the U.S.?" a majority of blacks, 58 percent, chose "eliminating poverty" over other answer choices "rebuilding our own cities,""fighting terrorism," and "establishing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Pluralities of other ethnic groups â 43 percent of Hispanics, 40 percent of Asians and 36 percent of whites â also chose eliminating poverty as their top priority.
"I don't remember poverty ever finishing as the No. 1 priority on any kind of list," said Sergio Bendixen, whose firm Bendixen & Associates. "The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the images of poverty have clearly made a large impact on many Americans."
The poll was commissioned by New California Media, a nonprofit San Francisco-based umbrella organization for ethnic media.
Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast in September, killing more than 1,000 people and devastating New Orleans. President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were sharply criticized for sluggish response efforts as millions of television viewers watched thousands of New Orleans residents â many black_ struggling to survive amid abject poverty.
The survey was conducted by telephone Oct. 14-21 among 1,035 adults nationwide â 258 whites, 268 Hispanics, 259 blacks and 250 Asians.
Most were sampled using the "random digit dial" technique, to reach people with unlisted and listed phone numbers. Japanese, Asian-Indians and Filipinos â half the Asian subgroup â were sampled based on first and last names from phone listings and other public databases.
Interviews were conducted in six languages. The sampling error for each subgroup was plus or minus 6 percentage points except sampling error cannot be calculated for Asians not sampled using random digit dial.
The poll found that a majority of blacks, Asians and Hispanics, and a plurality of whites believed U.S. troops should be pulled from Iraq to pay for rebuilding in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
When asked "How should the government finance its share of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort?" 77 percent of blacks, 69 percent of Hispanics, 60 percent of Asians and 46 percent of whites chose "By getting our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible."
The findings were similar to an AP-Ipsos poll last month that found 42 percent favored cutting spending on Iraq to pay for relief efforts in the Gulf Coast.
Thursday's poll found a majority in all four ethnic groups would first look to nongovernment groups for help during a future natural disaster.
Interviewees were asked, "If your community was impacted by a natural disaster similar to Hurricane Katrina, whom do you think you could count on the most to help your family?"
Eighty-one percent of blacks, 74 percent of whites, 69 percent of Hispanics and 63 percent of Asians chose community and religious organizations over government and the U.S. Armed Forces.
A point of divergence between whites and blacks centered on interpretations of television images showing people in New Orleans breaking into supermarkets and other stores in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Respondents were asked, "Do you think they were looters and criminals or do you think they were people trying to take care of their families and their needs?"
Fifty-seven percent of blacks answered "trying to take care of their families." Only 31 percent of whites chose that answer, while 46 percent of whites said the people "were looters and criminals."
Hispanics and Asians were almost evenly split on their interpretations.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Once more. While classical or traditional poverty exists in America, the overall number is very small. What gets played is statistical poverty which activist and government bureaucrats play three card monty with to justify the redistrubtion of income [from each according to his means to each as he feels he deserves].
Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.
The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
â Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio.
â Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
â Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
â The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
â Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
â Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions.
â Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
â Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family isn't hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, activists and politicians.
Even better news is that remaining poverty can readily be reduced, especially among children. Child poverty in the U.S. is caused largely by low levels of parental work and by the absence of fathers from the home. While work and two-parent families are the surest ladders out of poverty, the welfare system continues to reward idleness while failing to provide support to keep families in tact.
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin from Poor Richards Almanac - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
#3
If memory serves, a report this past summer or post-summer ascribed US "poor" as the equivalent of the "middle/upper middle class" in most developed international nations, major or minor.
#4
"The survey was conducted by telephone Oct. 14-21 among 1,035 adults nationwide â 258 whites, 268 Hispanics, 259 blacks and 250 Asians."
That's ridiculous! Whites still make up about 70 percent of US pop. while Hispanics are an esitmated 14 percent; African Americans 12.9 percent; Asians, Native Americans, and "ohers"
round out the remaining 3 percent.
In the San Fran Commie Poll, Whites consisted of 25 percent. Thus the idiotic "Poll" is skewed towards the poll-takers' apriori commitment to ideological conclusions they held before the Poll was ever constructed and implemented.
#5
Ugh! "I hate the smell of typos in the morning."
"The survey was conducted by telephone Oct. 14-21 among 1,035 adults nationwide â 258 whites, 268 Hispanics, 259 blacks and 250 Asians."
That's ridiculous! Whites still make up about 70 percent of US pop. while Hispanics are an esitmated 14 percent; African Americans 12.9 percent; Asians, Native Americans, and "others" round out the remaining 3 percent.
In the San Fran Commie Poll, Whites consisted of 25 percent. Thus the idiotic "Poll" is skewed towards the poll-takers' apriori commitment to ideological conclusions they held before the Poll was ever constructed and implemented.
Obviously these "pollsters" consider whites to be 3/5s of a person.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/28/2005 10:19 Comments ||
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#10
Is fighting terrorism optional? Nope, didn't think so.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/28/2005 10:20 Comments ||
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#11
I think we're reading the article wrong. As I read it, hurricane Katrina is responsible for eliminating poverty. Seems to have been fairly effective too.
#13
Yesterday I opened a book over American Civil War and the very first thing I read was: "New Orleans had never been so well administered and the streets so clean of garbage than when adminstered by the Army after its capture by the Union. Typhus who had been endemic, was eradicated"...
#14
How shall we define 'poverty'? How about 'the bottom 15% of the country in income" (or accumulated wealth)? Everything is relative, you know.
Now, how shall we eliminate this poverty? If we give this 15% enough money that they are not in the bottom 15% all we have done is change WHICH 15% is the bottom. There will always be a bottom 15%.
It is not possible to 'win' the war on poverty if poverty is a relative, rather than absolute, condition. In any war situation, if winning is not possible, only a fool would fight.
Whats more important, rescuing people from floods, or educating children? Whatever you answer is an absurdity. If you say rescues, does that mean youre against funding education? If you say education, does that mean you want to leave the flood victims to die?
#16
These types of polls, where the desired answer is suggested by the pollster, is defined as a push poll, and should be ignored.
That being said, poverty is a horrible blight that exists in all societies and we should fight it, with education.
Ignorance breeds poverty and vice versa.
Education is the answer, not handouts.
Welfare dependancy in America's minority communities will not end until education becomes more important than bling bling, and the highest aspirations of an entire generation move beyond being a gangsta rapper.
Two thumbs up to NBA Commissioner Stern for his new dress code enforcement.
Egypt has replaced its military chief amid efforts to modernize the armed forces. Egyptian sources said President Hosni Mubarak has appointed a successor to incumbent Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Hamid Wahba. They said Wahba would be replaced by Lt. Gen. Sami Anan, commander of the Egyptian Air Defense Command. "The changes are not unusual," an Egyptian source said. "Mubarak has periodically reshuffled his military and security command to mark the onset of a political era."
The sources said Mubarak was expected to replace other senior commanders over the next few months. Wahba, a former air force commander, was said to have been a leading confidant of Mubarak, and at one point was believed to have been considered for the post of vice president.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/28/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Saudi charities have been stifled by a clampdown since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and donors are resorting to unregulated channels to give money, the head of a leading charity said. 
In a letter distributed to lawyers and members of the press, the family pleaded with the authorities to release information on âthe state of our beloved sonâ and questioned why he has been detained for so long. Seen by Asharq al Awsat, the letter said, âThe father has lost his son and protector; he contemplates his sonâs picture and kisses it every day. The mother has lost her spirit and her life is changed forever. She has seen one doctor after another and become a subject for experimental drugs. All those close to her know the cure: the return of Abdullahâ, but who can save her? Every time the mother moves around her house, she starts crying when she sees her sonâs drawings and sports clothes. She is attached to his picture and gazes at it, as if waiting for him to talk back: Where is your humanity? Let all women read these words.â 
Meanwhile, the 
The remains of one of the London suicide bombers were buried in a remote village in Pakistan yesterday. 
The British Home Office has given its first response to a request for a British passport by accused Australian terror suspect 
Belgium's unions have gone out on strike, bringing the nation to an economic standstill as a dispute with the federal government over its social security and pension reforms reaches flashpoint. Workers started downing tool across the nation on Thursday night and strikes will continue until midnight on Friday. An estimated 80,000 protestors also demonstrated in Brussels on Friday.
Among changes agreed, the movement of nationalist cleric 
Lebanese President 
Arab governments have maintained silence over the call by Iran's new president for Israel to be wiped off the map. Newspapers across the Middle East reported Wednesday's speech by President 
Mr Ahmadinejad's comments came at a conference in Tehran entitled The World Without Zionism, where he says in a reference to Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah 
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged Syria and Lebanon to step up efforts in establishing normal diplomatic relations and demarcate their borders in order to fully restore Lebanon's sovereignty and independence. Annan issued the call in a report to the Security Council on the implementation of a resolution adopted in September last year. The resolution demands Syria withdraw troops from Lebanon and militia groups in Lebanon be disarmed and disbanded, in order to restore Lebanon's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
Lebanon has yet to achieve "tangible results" in meeting U.N. demands to disarm Palestinian and Lebanese militias â a reference to the 
Despite its name figuring in Pakistan government's ''watchlist'', several international organisations like WHO and UNICEF have closely worked with Jamat-ud-Dawa, an outfit linked with banned terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in providing relief to quake victims in PoK. Various international relief organisations, including Red Cross, World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, World Food Programme, UN Organisation for Refugees, Sikh welfare organisation Khalsa Aid and Singapore-based MCTH Association had been working with Dawa in quake-hit areas of PoK, Pakistani daily Nawai Waqt reported on Wednesday. These international agencies were "very impressed" with the "strong, well-linked and organised" network of Dawa and provided "huge relief goods" to it, the report said. Turkish and Indonesian doctors also presented their services to medical camps run by Dawa, it said, adding that World Food Programme (WFP) handed over two additional containers of relief goods to it. A WFP official told the in-charge of Dawa relief operation, Haji Javedul Hasan, that since his distribution method was better than others, the relief goods were handed over to him, the newspaper claimed. Jamat-ud-Dawa was the new organisation floated by its founder Hafeez Sayed after dissolving Markaz Dawa, the parent outfit of LeT in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the US and the terrorist attack on Parliament House in December 2001.
Over 125 Indian companies are among 2,000 firms worldwide who made illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's regime for contracts in UN's Oil-for-Food programme, an independent inquiry into the controversial deal said in New York on Thursday. The companies supplied diverse products including food, medicines, electrical goods, steel and tea. Most of the other companies involved are American, Russian and Chinese.
Egypt has replaced its military chief amid efforts to modernize the armed forces. Egyptian sources said President 
