Never thought I'd see that phrase. Does the word "delusional" exist in Arabic? If I were Allan, I'd be getting me some better followers. These guys are losers. And crasy besides.
Australians are sometimes accused of being direct, even blunt. But this way of going about things seems to have worked well enough when dealing with the threat of radical Islamism Down Under. Its approach is worthy of close examination not least in Britain. And what has been accomplished so far, though controversial, has been done with a high degree of bipartisan co-operation. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
01/15/2007 07:31 ||
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long-ish, but a good read -- summarizes major influences in Europe today that affect more than just their view of Israel. In many ways, Israel is the canary in the coal mine.
The spotlight this past week has been on George W. Bush. Against the tide of public opinion, and to the rage of congressional Democrats, he has ordered an increase of troops in Iraq in order to pacify Baghdad and Anbar province.
No one knows for sure whether this will work -- and the metric by which it will be judged. Bush was careful in his Wednesday night speech to warn Americans that it may mean more casualties for some considerable period of time. Both houses of Congress seem likely to pass resolutions disapproving of Bush's decision, with significant numbers of Republicans voting against their party's leader. It's going to be a difficult time.
For six years now, American politics has revolved around George W. Bush, just as it revolved for eight years before that around Bill Clinton. These two presidents -- both born in 1946, the opening year of the baby boom, both graduates of the high school class of 1964, the peak SAT-scoring class of all time -- both happen to have personal characteristics that people on the other side of the cultural divide absolutely loathe. We are so used to having these divisive central figures that it's difficult to imagine what American politics will be like without them.
Yet we are coming to that time soon. 2008 will be the first presidential election year since 1928 in which neither the incumbent president or vice president will be a candidate at any point in the process.
In 1928, both parties nominated candidates who represented a change in course. Herbert Hoover was far less of a free marketer than Calvin Coolidge (who referred to him privately as "Wonder Boy"). Al Smith, the Catholic governor of New York, was culturally far distant from the Southern and border-state Protestant Democrats who made up most of the party's officeholders.
The general election saw sharp shifts in voting patterns. Hoover ran ahead of Coolidge in the progressive Northwest from the Great Lakes to the Pacific coast. Smith ran ahead of previous Democrats in Catholic and immigrant neighborhoods of the big cities.
Thirteen months from now, we are likely to know who will be the nominees of our two major parties. The current leaders in the polls are in opposition to or in tension with their parties' bases in important respects. Rudolph Giuliani is way out of line with cultural conservatives on issues like abortion, gay rights and gun control. John McCain has been at odds with Republican partisans on issues like campaign reform, detainees' rights and tax cuts. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been out of line with the antiwar left on Iraq and other national security issues. Barack Obama -- if he is to be included on the list -- speaks in a tone far less angry and partisan than the enraged Democratic left.
There is no guarantee that any of these candidates will be nominated. Many Washington insiders think that Mitt Romney, now mostly unknown, and John Edwards, not yet known in depth, will emerge as strong contenders. Both fit more closely the profile of their parties' bases -- but both have records on issues that are inconveniently out of line with them. And dark horses could turn out to be strong horses. Who was giving serious consideration to Howard Dean at this point in the 2003-04 cycle?
Still, the likelihood is that the Republicans will nominate a candidate significantly different from George W. Bush and that the Democrats will nominate a candidate whose stands and style will differ significantly from that of Al Gore and John Kerry.
Current polls suggest there will be more moveable voters than in 2000 or 2004. In polls in the 2003-04 cycle, neither Bush nor various Democrats scored so high as to suggest that either party's candidate would win more than the 51 percent Bush ultimately got. Movement was minimal. But in polls in this cycle we have seen well-known candidates of both parties run far ahead of little-known candidates of other parties -- far enough to suggest that they could get over that 51 percent level in general elections. Voters who wouldn't consider a Republican or Democrat in 2004 seem willing to at least consider one in 2008.
The Karl Rove model of turning out your base may prove obsolete. Some analysts assume that Republicans will be weighed down by low Bush job ratings. But that may not be the case. I think we're entering a period of open-field politics, in which both parties will be defined less by their past leaders than by their new nominees.
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
#1
Jefferson , the first President to recognize that the Muz were and always will be scum. And, the only method of dealing with them is to kill them. The result...the beginnings of the proud heritage of the United States Navy and the glorious Marine Corps. Perhaps it is the destiny of the United States of America to always resist Arab/Muz scum whenever it pops its head back up from the furrow of camel shit. Maybe we have to finally dispense with the Muz cancer once and for all. It seems it took more than a decade of provocation for our ancestors to get riled enough to act. Then they got decisive. Time for us to wake up. Fortunately, we now have a very large flyswatter. All that remains to to use it well.
#2
"negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease"
So they had DemocRats in those days, too?
Plus ça change, plus cest la même chose....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/15/2007 16:29 Comments ||
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#3
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
Methinks Ellison is quite aware of what Jefferson did; using that particular that particular Koran was a subtle form of revenge.
We could begin with the questions, "Do you think President Bush's plan, to send more than 20,000 extra troops to Iraq, to help secure Baghdad and key points surrounding against the terrorist insurgency, while stepping up interdiction around Iraq's frontiers, has a chance of working?"
And, "Do you think it will in fact work, and make it possible for Americans and allies to start going home, within a year or so, leaving a secure Iraqi government behind, still allied with the West?"
My answer to the first question is, of course it has a chance -- first supposing that the plan is not successfully sabotaged, by the new Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress. For it is the product of a remarkably hard-headed analysis of previous allied failures, to secure territory after the enemy had been cleared. It contains implicitly the kind of threats to Iran and Syria, that might well dissuade them from continuing to feed the Iraqi insurgency. And it puts a much-needed fire under the Iraqi government, to deliver on its share of the burden.
My answer to the second question is, I don't know. I am sceptical chiefly of the timeline suggested, of what happens if it can't be met, or if the Iraqi government fails to keep its side of the bargain.
President Bush is at his most Lincolnesque at the moment. Abraham Lincoln made most of the key decisions that ultimately won the American Civil War, over the opposition of Congress, public opinion, and most particularly, his generals. He was depicted in the press of his day much as Mr Bush is depicted in the media of our day: as a simpleton, in over his depth. Which doesn't mean Bush is another Lincoln. But doesn't preclude it, either.
I am immensely impressed by the grit and determination with which the U.S. President has regrouped, learned from mistakes, and is now pushing forward. I am especially impressed by what amounts to his refusal to buy into either the premises or the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton "Iraq Study Group" -- which couldn't contemplate defeat in Iraq, but wouldn't contemplate victory, either.
And something might even be said for the American people, who are very weary of carrying the ball alone, in the face of allies who indulge cheap anti-Americanism to avoid taking their share of the cost in blood and money of defending the West. The popular response to Baker-Hamilton seemed to be an equally weary recognition that there was no alternative to slogging on. Yet there is no love lost for Mr Bush, either.
As there was, incidentally, no love lost for Winston Churchill after what he'd put Britain through for five years. The test of America has been nothing to compare with the World War II test of Britain, but then, the theatre in which America has been tested is located far away. And while it was obvious why Britain must fight Nazi Germany, from the bombs that were dropping on London, it is less obvious why Americans must fight and die on the plains of Mesopotamia. The two factors balance each other.
Within the U.S. itself, a large part of the opposition to any attempt at victory in Iraq, and therefore in favour of catastrophic defeat, is now fuelled by sentimental and deceitful posturing towards the U.S. armed forces. Arguments such as, "Mr Bush hasn't sent his daughters to Iraq," suggest the intelligence level at which critics inside and outside Congress have pitched their case.
But whether we are speaking of U.S. troops in Iraq, or Canadian troops in Afghanistan, it is important for the reader to remember that the overwhelming majority in our voluntary armed forces utterly despise the Barbara Boxers, Jack Laytons, and media flaks who shed crocodile tears for them, and exploit their anxious or grieving families. Our forces in the field are purpose-driven, and do impressive things every day; men and women alike, they face real risk with true manliness. They have a mission, to find and kill mortal enemies of all higher civilization, and it is the moral duty of every decent human being to wish them godspeed in that task.
It is against this background that I am disinclined to carp about this feature or that of the new Iraq proposals. Crucially, they promise to be more aggressive.
Moreover, the deployment of a much-enhanced U.S. naval force in the Persian Gulf, and the raid on the Iranian pseudo-consulate at Irbil (with the rich intelligence harvest it will have provided), suggests that the necessary confrontation with revolutionary Iran will not be funked, either, on President Bush's watch.
The Iraq war has been called unnecessary, mismanaged and now unwinnable.
According to the lead editorial in the New York Times on Sunday, what the country urgently needs is for President George Bush to chart a way out of Iraq that also limits the chaos that will be left behind. But his disconnect goes far to explain the harshly critical reaction of Congress and the public to his plan to further bleed Americas overstretched forces by sending some 20,000 additional troops in an attempt to impose peace on Baghdads vengeful streets. He proposes to do that without any enforceable commitments from the Iraqi government that it will take the necessary political steps that are the only hope for tamping down a spiralling civil war. Of all the options available, the president, the newspaper said, has come out with the worst as he would mortgage thousands more American lives and what remains of Washingtons credibility in the region to a destructively sectarian Shiite government that he seems unwilling or unable to influence or restrain.
The editorial notes that Nouri al-Maliki gave the latest White House plan an even chillier reception than it received in the United States Congress. He apparently would have preferred to see American forces sent to fight Sunni insurgents in western Anbar province, leaving Baghdad as a free-fire zone for his Shiite militia partners. However, the US cannot simply wash its hands of Iraq, which is in imminent danger of violently breaking apart, driving millions of refugees across its borders and potentially unleashing a chain reaction of regional conflicts that could draw in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and perhaps others as well. Iran has already become more formidable and dangerous, with a friendly Shiite fundamentalist government in Baghdad. If the United States is to recoup any of its standing and influence there, it will have to find a way to contain the chaos in Iraq. And it will have to do a lot more to address other concerns of these governments and their people, starting with a genuine and sustained effort to mediate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
"However, the US cannot simply wash its hands of Iraq, which is in imminent danger of violently breaking apart, driving millions of refugees across its borders and potentially unleashing a chain reaction of regional conflicts that could draw in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and perhaps others as well."
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
01/15/2007 1:04 Comments ||
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#3
Leftism = Governmentism, among other precepts. It does NOT matter to dedicated Anti-US agendists, to include Anti-Amer Americans, whether SOCIALISM + OWG = GLOBALISM is empowered voluntarily by America, and or externally forced upon America.
By this context, AMERICA LOSING = AMERICA WINNING, America being militarily defeated or unilater falling back into isolationism is no different than AMERICA WINNING NEW GLOBAL EMPIRE. IN LONG TERM/STRATEGICALLY, AMER MUST "LOSE" TO ANTi-US COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM + OWG NO MATTER WHAT IT DOES. Remember, WOT > IN YOUR FACE vz THEY WHOM MUST BE NAMED/SEEN/HEARD BUT MUST BE OBEYED. Lefty DIALECTICISM = Politicism = Waffle-ism = PCorrectness = the Blameless Left stays Blameless no matter what happens > ANY EACH ALL EVERY SIDE = NO SIDE. Laissez Faire/Libertarianism = the Gubmint/Regulatory Gubmint. Gubmint must be charge and the Left must be in charge of Gubmint, the STARVING FAILED LEFT MUST GOVERN/CONROL THE WELL-FED WORKING RIGHT.
#4
TW2228, the NYT is working from the Tranzi Kumbaya phantasy worldview. In reality, stable prosperous states result geographic entities where the overwhelming majority are happy or at least content to be a citizen of that entity and subject to its government.
Iraq is on it's way there. If it draws Iran, Syria and Turkey down the same road then that's a feature.
And BTW, the Iraq war is unloseable, with the single proviso the US gaurantees Iraq's external borders.
#5
Iraq, which is in imminent danger of violently breaking apart, driving millions of refugees across its borders and potentially unleashing a chain reaction of regional conflicts that could draw in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and perhaps others as well."
#6
There was I thinking we had already won. The so-called "civil war" between Sunnis and Shiites, well that's a different matter.
Whether it is unnecessary, mismanaged and now unwinnable depends on which side you want to win.
#7
More equestrian droppings from the NYT and the left. For the civilized world, the 'rule of law' is adhered to through a common understanding of the written word and an appreciatin for peace and civility. For everyone else, it means the application of force. These squabbling tribal, fanatical bastards will settle down and play nice only with the appliction of sufficient STEEL ON TARGET! Always been that'a way, probably allways will.
#8
I said it here a couple of days ago: No war is unwinnable, but only our enemies seem to understand that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/15/2007 6:42 Comments ||
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#9
"unwinnable"! They said that about Ulster: It just takes longer than you can fit in a Hollywood movie, which is about the limit of NYT's attention span
#10
First, I think the terminology is all wrong. Every time some one says the Iraq war is "unwinnable" I want to puke. It took us what, like 4 weeks to whip the Iraqis. Not to mention we toppled the sitting dictator, deposed his family, broke his party. Within two years of that there were free elections and a turn out that absolutely embarrasses any U.S. election over the past 50 yrs (I know because unlike 95% of these douchebag journalists plus the rediculous ISG, I was actually on the ground there). A constitution has been written and countless Iraqis have been vaccinated, clothed, and sent back to school (to include young girls). If that's not victory, I don't know what is. 80% of the real estate is pacified and now we have issues mainly in Baghdad & Al Anbar -as to be expected. It's like saying since s.central L.A. is a pigsty that all of California is in chaos and "unwinnable) - f*cking stupid logic. Oh, and BTW we didn't even steal their oil as predicted by the far left p*ssies.
The discussion should be the proposition of a viable lasting stability for the Iraqi Gov't & how best to get there from here. Not, if we won the war. We already won the war. Bush needs to emphatically spell this out to the obvious plethora of willfully ignorant morons in our own country how we are going to help the Iraqis sustain a tolerable lasting peace. I think sometimes he is just too patient and nice a guy in front of the camera. Time to get dry and sarcastic w/the idiots asking the loaded questions. Tactically IMO, if we start blacking out the media (who seem to be recalcitrant to print any success stories although there are many) and loosen the ROE - we could drain the nut-swamp in iraq in about 9 months. I'd also wetwork Tater and pit tribe vs tribe if need be.
#12
I think sometimes he is just too patient and nice a guy in front of the camera. Time to get dry and sarcastic w/the idiots asking the loaded questions.
God yes! He should have stopped playing Mr. Nice Guy 5 years ago. He probably wouldn't have lost Congress.
WASHINGTON - President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration's statements about Iraq.
President Bush unveiled the new version on Wednesday during his nationally televised speech announcing his new Iraq policy. "When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation," he said. "We thought that these elections would bring Iraqis together - and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.
"But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq - particularly in Baghdad - overwhelmed the political gains Iraqis had made. Al-Qaida terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's election posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis.
"They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam - the Golden Mosque of Samarra - in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate," Bush said. "Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today."
That version of events helps to justify Bush's "new way forward" in Iraq, in which U.S. forces will largely target Sunni insurgents and leave it to Iraq's U.S.-backed Shiite government to - perhaps - disarm its allies in Shiite militias and death squads. What? US troops made 2 major attacks on Mahdi Army Shiites in the past 2 weeks. While Sunnis did start the sectarian strife, they are not the only target. The Bush Plan - cleansing Baghdad of terrorists, sector by sector of each of the 9 divisions - will probably begin with attacks on al-Sadrite occupiers between Baghdad Airport and the Green Zone. When that is done, Al-Qaeda in Iraq will be attacked in their West Tigris River strongholds. Eventually, the Mahdi Army will be pushed out of their east Tigris turf.
But the president's account understates by at least 15 months when Shiite death squads began targeting Sunni politicians and clerics. It also ignores the role that Iranian-backed Shiite groups had in death squad activities prior to the Samarra bombing.
Blaming the start of sectarian violence in Iraq on the Golden Dome bombing risks policy errors because it underestimates the depth of sectarian hatred in Iraq and overlooks the conflict's root causes. The Bush account also fails to acknowledge that Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite groups stoked the conflict.
President Bush met at the White House in November with the head of one of those groups: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI's Badr Organization militia is widely reported to have infiltrated Iraq's security forces and to be involved in death squad activities. "Infiltrated Iraq's security forces"? Al-Sadrites are in the Iraq government, for now.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recited Bush's history of events on Thursday in fending off angry questioning from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., about why Rice had offered optimistic testimony about Iraq during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in October 2005.
"The president has talked repeatedly now about the changed circumstances that we faced after the Samarra bombing of February `06, because that bombing did in fact change the character of the conflict in Iraq," Rice said. "Before that, we were fighting al-Qaida; before that, we were fighting some insurgents, some Saddamists." (more at link) Note: at this juncture, the writer stops trying to deny the post Samarra context, and spews the Bush-lied refrain.
#1
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell urged a U.S. offensive against radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in 2004. But he was overruled by then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. They argued against fighting a two-front war against Sunni insurgents and Shiite militants.
As I recall, the Iraqi government was against it, too. The soverign, freely-elected government. But that's of no consequence, when you can blame Bush.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/15/2007 6:50 Comments ||
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The explosively formed projectiles ...said to have been supplied from Iran to Shi'ite militias are specially designed to attack armored vehicles. Essentially, these devices consist of an explosive designed to deform a block of metal and shoot it forward, still molten, in the direction of the target vehicle.
It is like firing incandescent shot at extremely high velocity toward a target. This technology has been used by the US to create top-attack warheads against tanks. The principle has been adapted by the Iranians to attack the vulnerable aspects of armored vehicles.
But it is not simply the weapons themselves, which are profitably employed only against armored vehicles, which betrays their anti-American intent. The explosively formed projectile weapons supplied by Iran are, from what I can gather, also matched to tactical doctrines and methods explicitly designed to counter American countermeasures. The triggering devices are too complex and expensive to be sensibly used against civilian targets. These weapons have only one logical target. Americans.
If detonated correctly these Iranian-supplied weapons will definitely kill or maim Americans as they were designed to do. Passive defenses, like adding armor, are of limited utility...what must happen to IED threats like the explosively formed projectiles and their associated targeting systems[?]. You can't keep bailing the water. You have to turn off the faucet.
If Iran insists upon sending U-Boats -- pardon, explosively formed projectiles -- to attack Americans, it is effectively opening hostilities on the US. That politicians in Washington choose not to regard it as such is not really Teheran's fault. One can accuse the Ayatollahs of many things, but creating American indecision cannot be blamed on them. That is the result of politics along the Potomac.
#1
Of the mistakes credited to the Bush administration, the weak to non-existent response to this Iranian act of war should be at the top of the list. The first of these devices to appear in Iraq should have precipitated an immediate, crippling response on the Iranian military. Small wonder our enemies attack when they have been made to pay no price.
#2
Let's wait and see if they really have the intend to injure American soldiers. Can't we send someone over to Iran to talk to them. Not. Take measures now to pre-empt those scumbags.
Posted by: Art ||
01/15/2007 23:10 Comments ||
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Where is my sceptre of the blindingly obvious? Kinda hard to ever get ahead when you spend your entire life following the dictates and example of an ancient tribal arab 'profit'.
The percentage of Israeli Arabs living in poverty is more than twice that of Jews, according to a new report set to be released Monday by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, a capital-based center aiming to advance the study of regional cultures. The Pope is Catholic and Bears crap in the woods.
Authored by Dr. Suleiman Abubader, a professor of economics at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and Daniel Gottlieb, an affiliated senior lecturer from the same institution, the report will officially be presented at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute's second annual conference examining Israeli society and economy.
Based on an official study conducted by the Galilee Society for Research and Services, a national organization committed to developing opportunities for the Arab population, the two researchers found that the poverty gap between Arab and Jewish citizens is not getting better. While 17.7 percent of the Jewish population lived under the poverty line in 2005, more than half of the Arab community (54.2%) was officially considered poor in the same time period. Truly a sad state of affairs. The problem is, it is self-inflicted.
By comparison, in 1997 13.9% of the Jewish population and 35.9% of the Arab population lived in poverty. Moreover, the researchers stressed that despite the country's recent economic recovery, poverty among the Arab population has not eased.
"There is a high rate of unemployment among Arab men, and especially among the women," explained Abubader, adding that this is one of the first studies of the Arab sector that includes Christians, Muslims, Druse, as well as Beduin populations in both legal and illegal villages. It is tough to get a job when women can't get an education or considered lower than a camel, Christians and Druse excepted.
The researchers noted that poverty in the Beduin community in the South is especially severe, with 66.4% of those living in legal villages living under the poverty line, which is 13% higher than in other Israeli Arab communities and four times more than in the Jewish population. Among Beduin residing in non-legal villages the figure was even higher, with 79.2% living below the poverty line. That probably because they want to live like traditional Bedouin, no matter how bad it is.
Abubader explained that the unemployment in that sector is exacerbated by little information on how to obtain rights and benefits, large families and a lack of educational opportunities. LOL. Hoser. The problems are all self-inflicted.
"Many are not really sure how to access their benefits or do not know their rights," he said. "In some villages, even the ones that are recognized, there is no transportation and they cannot reach the main center in Beersheba."
"Education is the key to breaking out of the poverty cycle," continued Abubader. "It allows almost 100% opportunities for men and especially women to find work." The problem is that the education needed to get a good job would require them to face facts, not what the ko-ran says are the facts.
#2
Someone should have hit the delete button on the NRO, DIA, CIA, Dept of Ag, US State Dept a long, long time ago and started over. The term "re-invent" when used within agencies if proof positive that the need for drastic change has been identified. Keeping them on the ventilator is shameful disservice.
#3
I submit that this is just one more example of private industry doing a more efficient job than government. Over time, any bureaucracy becomes self-serving and more concerned with its turf and budget than its customers. Businesses get paid directly by their customers. Lose you customers and you die. Bureaucracies have captive markets so they don't have to care.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The explosively formed projectiles ...said to have been supplied from Iran to Shi'ite militias are specially designed to attack armored vehicles. Essentially, these devices consist of an explosive designed to deform a block of metal and shoot it forward, still molten, in the direction of the target vehicle. 
